history

Gary Fenton and Billy Koch have been sports fans long enough to know the cliché about Father Time being undefeated.

“I can say that about me for sure,” joked Koch, who is 56.

But the two men also know some individuals can delay the inevitable for years far beyond the norm. Someone like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. Or Tom Brady. Or LeBron James. Or Gold Phoenix.

Wait, who?

Gold Phoenix is an 8-year-old gelding Fenton and Koch — managing partners of the Little Red Feather Racing Stable — purchased five years ago in his native Ireland. Since making his U.S. debut in January 2022, he has won a dozen races, all but one in a graded stakes, and earned more than $2.5 million. All of which puts him in great, though not exclusive company.

At about 6:40 p.m. Saturday, however, Gold Phoenix has a chance to separate himself from all but one other thoroughbred who has competed in North America. Should he win the $300,000 Del Mar Handicap, Gold Phoenix will join the legendary Kelso as the only horses to win the same major stakes race on this continent in five straight years. (Kelso, a five-time Horse of the Year, won the Jockey Club Gold Cup from 1960-64 at Aqueduct.)

“I got the chills when you said it,” Koch said. “To be even mentioned in the same breath as a horse like Kelso … that’s something that only happens once in a lifetime.”

Gold Phoenix is the 5-2 morning-line favorite, but the Grade 2 race is hardly a walkover. There are multiple stakes winners in the field, led by Test Score, the early second choice at 3-1. The 4-year-old is trained by Graham Motion, who has his own impressive streak: Seven straight summer stakes wins at Del Mar dating to 2022 — which is also the year Gold Phoenix won this 1 3/8-mile race for the first time.

Another victory would be the gelding’s seventh stakes win here, extending the record he set last month in the Eddie Read Stakes, which Koch and Fenton, in separate interviews, ranked among their favorite performances. At 1 1/8 miles, the race was shorter than Gold Phoenix prefers, and he had to beat a field that included another Del Mar specialist, Formidable Man.

“To see him come charging home just brought out all the emotions of what we’ve seen, not just from him [anywhere], but on this racetrack here at Del Mar that he absolutely loves,” Fenton said.

The victory was a close one, but that’s typical for Gold Phoenix, who has seven wins by a nose, head or neck and only one by more than 1¼ lengths. His competitiveness is apparent at any distance and under any jockey: He’s won races as short as 7 furlongs and as long as 1¾ miles, and all seven men to ride him earned at least one victory (his current rider, Hector Berrios, is four for five).

“He’s just such a cool horse,” Koch said, noting the gelding is known around the barn as “Clifford the Big Red Dog” because of his chestnut coat and a temperament Fenton describes as “sweet.”

But other horses like that, or those that are completely the opposite, don’t have Gold Phoenix’s success rate or longevity. That’s where Fenton made a human comparison.

“I’m going to say he’s like LeBron,” Fenton said, “in that as he’s been able to age, his body, his athleticism, have maintained at a very, very top level with very [few] issues. He’s been relatively sound all this time.”

Fenton and Koch are quick to credit trainer Phil D’Amato and his barn staff for their overall management, spacing out his races and giving Gold Phoenix time off each year after the Breeders’ Cup. He had a shorter break this winter — just three months until his first start of 2026 — because, Fenton said, “I think [D’Amato] just thought being at that age, to give him a break and then try to ramp him up, might be a little bit too much. So I think he rolled the dice and kept him in training for as long as he could. And, I mean, here we still are.”

For how much longer? There’s no reason to stop yet. Gold Phoenix already has three victories in 2026, matching his high for any year. And he hasn’t even run in the race he always wins.

“I just want to watch him and see him thrive at this level,” Fenton said, “and the moment he’s not at this level is where it’ll probably be time to wrap it up. But he’s showing no signs of it.”

Said Koch: “People always say, ‘Why are you still running? He’s 8.’ I’m like, what are we supposed to do? The horse might be better now than he was at 7 or he was at 6.”

Koch noted that in his role as board president for CARMA, a nonprofit that provides funding and care of retired California racehorses, he hears from many facilities offering to house Gold Phoenix.

“I tell them he’s not ready,” Koch said. “He’ll tell us. They keep asking, [but] somehow he’s managed to dodge Father Time. I don’t know how, but he has.

“We’ll figure it out. He’s going to go to a very special home. I promise you that he is going to have a great life. He deserves it.”

I lay on my back and stared at a bright blue painted sky, dappled with puffy clouds. As my mind drifted, the sound of a breeze, created by handheld fans, filled the room. Then came a symphony of chimes, crystal bowls, wave drums and rain sticks. To my right, a black bear cub eyed me curiously.

Soon a thunderous crescendo of gongs arose. I looked to my left, where two endangered polar bears stood on a sheet of ice, ocean looming behind them.

The noises softened and went still. With a resounding clap from participants around the room, I came back to reality.

I wasn’t in a forest, nor the Arctic. And no, I had not recently taken any psychedelic substances. I was at a sound bath in the North American Mammal Hall at L.A.’s Natural History Museum, surrounded by dioramas of taxidermy, meditative instruments and sound healers from the Oso Sound Healing Studio.

Avery Whitmore leads participants in a sound bath.

Hosted earlier this month, the sound bath was the first of two events in the museum’s new Mindfulness Mornings at the Museum series, where guests can experience a meditative practice in the iconic gallery before opening hours. A nearly sold-out yoga session led by SoulPlay Yoga will take place on Sept. 13, and museum organizers hope to host more events after that, said Joel Quizon, the manager of public programs.

The Natural History Museum always looks for ways to “activate the museum space,” Quizon said. Ahead of the sound bath, Oso Sound Healing Studio founder Avery Whitmore said the unconventional space would invite a childlike energy, a deeper connection to animals and introspection.

“Just seeing these older animals, it takes you into another place,” Whitmore said. “It could invite you into a deeper meditation about where we are, where we come from. In that mind state, you might be a little bit more receptive to exploring the same questions about yourself.”

The museum introduced Mindfulness Mornings following the success of its past wellness events — including sound baths that were part of its First Fridays after-hours series. With those events, the lines went “down to the basement,” Quizon said.

The Natural History Museum is an apt venue for mindfulness events as people already see it as an “oasis [in] the city,” said Joel Quizon, the museum’s manager of public programs.

Participants Kenny Mayo of Culver City, left, and Verseilla McCloskey of Long Beach are immersed in sound.

Whitmore, who previously collaborated with the museum during First Fridays in 2025, founded Oso Sound Healing Studio in 2023. He played piano and percussion as a child and later guitar as an adult, but “put all of that away for many years,” he said.

About a decade ago, personal struggle led him to seek out spiritual practices, and that healing guided him toward being of service to others. That led him to attend massage school — not to start a career as a massage therapist, he said, but to learn how to give back to others.

The experience inspired him to learn other healing modalities, including breath work and sound meditation: the latter of which reignited his musical appreciation. “ It helped to revisit that, or reawaken it from another perspective,” Whitmore said.

When I attended the sound bath, about 100 people filled the hall and Whitmore opened the meditation by asking how many new sound bathers were here. More than half of the attendees, including me, raised their hands.

During the practice, participants can peek and see the varied habitats of North America beside them.

Avery Whitmore created a sound bath experience inspired by the unique museum space.

With the overhead lights dimmed and soft light spilling from the dioramas, the displays looked like windows to other worlds. I took a mat next to the American black bears and American badgers, only slightly jealous that the mats next to the large-scale walrus diorama were taken.

The meditation lasted about an hour. In addition to the variety of instruments evoking the sounds of nature, it incorporated breathwork, vocal exercises and a small amount of physical sensation: a refreshing spritz of rose water. Sets of instruments were stationed along every wall of the room, fully encompassing us in sound. Peeking at the animals around me, I couldn’t help but think of them as characters whenever new instruments joined the symphony.

“Definitely the coolest sound healing experience I’ve been to,” said Kenny Mayo, 35, after the sound bath.

“The different stations felt like an orchestra. It was put together in such a beautiful, methodical way, and all of the instruments were harmonizing perfectly.  It felt like no matter where you were, there was something close to you,” Mayo said.

Toward the end of the meditation, Whitmore asked participants to envision an animal and invited them to receive its message. Mayo said she thought of a hawk, and found meaning in connecting with the spirits of animals that “don’t exist anymore.”

“It’s a magical thing, to be able to see the history of all the animals, our ancestors,” she said. “We can still connect to the essence.”

I looked at the taxidermy black bear cub, standing energetically on its hind legs, and imagined the future ahead of it; then across the room to the adult polar bears, traversing an icy surface that, beyond the diorama, continues to melt away.

As part of the meditation, participants were invited to think about where they were, and where they’ve come from.

Famous for its walls bearing scribbles and sketches left behind by patrons for over 60 years, El Batey, a bar in Old San Juan, is a Puerto Rican institution serving locals and tourists alike.

It was inside this famed establishment that filmmakers Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero first met one night back in 2008. Since then, the two have joined forces in both life and art; they are a married couple, as well as parents and close collaborators on film projects.

Their first feature, “Esta Isla,” which is now available on VOD, made history as the first Puerto Rican film to win at the Independent Spirit Awards in February, taking home the John Cassavetes Award honoring a production made for under $1 million. At the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, it received three prizes, including best new narrative director.

A politically charged, coming-of-age road-trip movie, “Esta Isla” follows Bebo (Zion Ortiz), a young man from the “caserios,” or projects, and Lola (Fabiola Victoria Brown), a well-off girl unhappy in her bubble of privilege. Violence forces Bebo to run away to the mountains. Lola tags along and together they come across a series of people who expand their worldview.

There’s a grounded, earthy lyricism to the images captured in “Esta Isla” that show a Puerto Rico that’s at once lush and entrancing but also undiscovered and unseen in cinema.

Fabiola Brown, pictured above, plays “Lola” in the new Puerto Rican film “Esta Isla.”

(Experimento Ludico)

Key to their professional success thus far, the filmmakers believe, is their loving personal bond. “We’re always together and talking about ideas. When we were working on ‘Esta Isla,’ it helped a lot to really dig deep and have long conversations about certain details and topics,” Carretero says during a recent video call. “We do mostly everything ourselves, just me and Lorrie. Sometimes I do camera, Lorrie does sound. We keep it pretty small.”

In 2010, Carretero and Jones Molina founded the production company called Experimento Lúdico in the western town of Mayagüez with the intent of decentralizing production on the island. Most opportunities for filmmaking are still based in the San Juan metropolitan area.

“I’m from Arecibo, from the north, and Cristian is from here, from Mayagüez. That’s part of who we are, and we want to tell these stories from here. It’s part of resisting. It feels like somebody has to do this,” Jones Molina says with a laugh, while sitting next to Carretero.

Lorraine Jones Molina and Cristian Carretero are the filmmakers behind the Puerto Rican road trip movie “Esta Isla.”

(Experimento Ludico)

When Carretero and Jones Molina first met, it was the documentary scene that sustained Puerto Rican cinema because those stories could be told with fewer resources. Karen Rossi’s 2007 environmentalist doc “Isla Chatarra,” for example, inspired Jones Molina.

She and Carretero later directed the 2016 medium-length doc “Seeds, Chronicles of the Earth,” about GMO experimentation on the island.

Most of the fiction production on the island then pertained to Hollywood films, such as “Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides” (2011). In the 2010s, however, a string of fiction films, including Ari Maniel Cruz’s “Under My Nails” (2012) and “Before a Rooster Crows” (2016) and Ángel Manuel Soto’s “La Granja” (2015), pushed local storytelling forward.

And while those movies, just like “Esta Isla,” don’t address the socioeconomic issues facing Puerto Ricans didactically, their mere existence is in itself a statement. “Making Puerto Rican films in Puerto Rico is political,” says Jones Molina. “Talking about who we are, our identity, our culture, our history and saying that we are here and we exist is political.”

Residents in San Juan are currently experiencing a water crisis, and while the scarcity hasn’t directly affected Jones Molina and Carretero in Mayagüez, this problem is not new and has only turned more urgent in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria.

That’s why they deliberately wrote a scene in “Esta Isla” showing people getting water from a water truck.

“It’s crazy that we filmed that a couple of years ago to talk about that issue, and it’s just gotten worse,” says Carretero. “Now we have a drought, and you have to have water rationing. It’s something that is reflective of a bigger problem in the island: the neglect of the most important needs of the citizens.”

Puerto Rico’s status as a colony of the U.S., where the interests of corporations supersede the well-being of the local population, is the source of many of its challenges. And for a long time, even referring to Puerto Rico as a colony was taboo. A history of persecution on behalf of the U.S. government ingrained fear in Puerto Ricans.

“The FBI would keep ‘carpetas,’ or files with information on regular people, who were suspected of organizing or fighting for independence,” Carretero says. “People were being surveilled by the FBI, and they’d pay family members or people they knew to survey them.”

“Esta Isla” touches on the troubled relationship between Puerto Rico and the U.S. via Lola’s deceased father, who is a stand-in for Filiberto Ojeda Ríos, a Puerto Rican revolutionary and leader of the pro-independence militant group Los Macheteros. After years on the run, the FBI assassinated him in 2005. In the film, the character Cora (Teofilo Torres) lives in the mountains and works the land. The location used for his house carries great significance.

“The inside shots, with the bullet holes, and the windows, and the books, all of that is from Filiberto’s actual house where he was assassinated,” says Jones Molina. “When you go there, you see all those bullet holes; it’s heavy.”

To that, Carretero adds: “There’s an inferiority complex that the colony perpetuates, which has to do with not knowing where you come from. Once you know all these names and all the stories of women and men who’ve worked for the good of Puerto Rican people, here and in the States, it opens up this whole other space for inspiration that’s from our ancestors”

Carretero and Jones Molina found the core concept for “Esta Isla” on the first page of Octavio Paz’s seminal novel “The Labyrinth of Solitude,” where the Mexican author discusses adolescence as a moment in a person’s life where they open up to the world, while at the same time noting that societies themselves also go through a coming-of-age.

Zion Ortiz, pictured above, plays “Bebo” in the new Puerto Rican film “Esta Isla.”

(Experimento Ludico)

“Puerto Rico is still an evolving organism. It’s a country, a people and a culture still evolving,” Carretero explains. “We’re still trying to understand who we are and where we’re going. Are we a country? Are we not? Are we part of the U.S., or not? Are we Americanos, or somos latinoamericanos? Tantas preguntas that are still unresolved.”

Jones Molina continues: “There’s this idea that you have to just be grateful that you’re a part of the United States and don’t complain. But when you question that, and when you want to really look at why you love and care about your country and your culture and want to educate yourself, then you’re definitely going through this kind of coming-of-age.”

For this filmmaking couple, reaching maturity as artists forged in the complex context of a modern colony hinges on acknowledging their limitations and still persevering.

“We also wanted to show that you can make films with very little; you don’t have to wait for the perfect moment or all the different resources. That’s what we call tropical realism. Not only the style of the filmmaking, but it’s also the means, and how that matches your reality,” explains Carretero. “We cannot pretend to be something that we are not. We have to develop our own language, our own way of filming, our way of telling our stories.”

Mark Walter doesn’t need to sell the Sparks. It said so in a release from his company Wednesday: “TWG is not looking to sell its sports assets at ‘fire sale’ prices to raise capital for its insurance operations.”

He should sell the Sparks anyway.

Not because of the investigations into allegations that insurance companies under Walter’s umbrella failed to properly disclose and conduct transactions between other companies he controls.

But for the sake of the storied WNBA franchise, which hasn’t won a championship in a decade and is about to miss the playoffs for the sixth consecutive season — something that would have been unthinkable six seasons ago.

Sell for the sake of the Sparks, who have long deserved an owner who wants seriously to run the team like Walter’s group runs, well, the Dodgers.

With passion and pride, foresight and smarts.

A steel beam is raised as the final structuarl piece of the Sparks’ $150-million training facility in El Segundo on Wednesday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

And, yes, the new $150-million training facility that’s going to open in El Segundo next year is a better-late-than-never step in that direction.

It’s not too little; the 64,000-square-foot space, which will be tremendous in a prime location near the beach and shopping.

But it’s very late. Wednesday’s topping-out ceremony, when a construction crew lifted the final structural beam into place, doesn’t change that.

While so many of the Sparks’ rivals have had the upper hand in recruiting and retaining talent with state-of-the-art private practice spaces for the past few years, the Sparks have been — to use star forward Nneka Ogwumike’s word — “nomads.”

The Sparks have always offered fans a famously fun game-day experience, but their players had to continually get familiar with facilities all over Southern California, from L.A. Southwest and El Camino College to Academy USA in Glendale to Jump Beyond Sports in Torrance, from Windward School and Galen Center to JR286, the gym in Torrance where they practice now.

Starting next season, they’ll have a home.

A rendering of the Sparks’ new training facility in El Segundo.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

But it’s not because the Sparks’ ownership wanted to do what Mark Davis did with the Las Vegas Aces when he was the first owner to provide fancy new digs in 2023.

Not because they were resolute about giving the Sparks a first-class experience, like Joe Tsai did when he chartered flights for New York Liberty before the league said it was legal, getting himself fined $500,000.

But because the Sparks would fall further behind if they didn’t.

Because now “it’s the bare minimum,” said forward Dearica Hamby, whose input — dedicated spaces for family and naps — was incorporated into the building’s design.

It also will include two regulation basketball courts, a performance and training environment, hydrotherapy and recovery rooms and a player sanctuary.

“It represents a belief in our players,” said Stacy Johns, the team’s president. “It represents a belief in the future of the Sparks. And it represents a belief in where women’s basketball and women’s sports are going.”

Members of the media and guests gather with the Sparks’ front-office staff for the topping-out ceremony in El Segundo on Wednesday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

Where’s that? Up.

Valuations are growing. In May, CNBC reported that the WNBA’s current teams were worth an average of $460 million — 84% more than the league’s most recent expansion fee of $250 million.

The Sparks — without taking the new facility, the largest investment to date in the history of women’s sports, into account — were valued at $415 million, seventh among the WNBA’s 15 teams.

The Golden State Valkyries, an expansion team in 2025, were valued at a record $1 billion, more than any women’s sports team in history.

That’s because the Valkyries — who are owned by the Golden State Warriors’ Joe Lacob and Peter Guber — have been innovative and imaginative, run more like the Dodgers than the Sparks, who are owned mostly by the same folks as the Dodgers.

The Dodgers instituted a private player-only plane and added Japanese-style toilets after then-recruit Roki Sasaki asked. The Valkyries established a 30-plus network of area bars for fans to gather to watch games and they helped a player with sleeping problems by offering everything from a different comforter to a sleep study.

Rendering of the inside the contrition of the Sparks’ new training facility, including a dining area.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

The Dodgers gave the keys to Andrew Friedman and Dave Roberts. The Valkyries’ GM is Ohemaa Nyanin, formerly an assistant GM with the WNBA champion New York Liberty, and their coach is former UCLA Bruin Natalie Nakase, before an assistant on Aces championship teams and an NBA assistant for years with the Clippers.

The Sparks have for the past several seasons cycled through unproven coaches and GMs, or fired experienced ones. Unable to pick a lane and drive it, they keep ricocheting between preaching patience and acting impatiently. And at the moment, they don’t even have a GM after firing Raegan Pebley in July.

Johns, who was brought on to oversee the team’s business in April, said things are changing. And change takes time.

The Sparks are 13-25, behind the expansion Portland Fire in the standings and having lost twice to the expansion Toronto Tempo. But they’ve tripled their sports staff this year, adding performance and mental health therapists and additional basketball data people — who apparently aided in the construction of an old, uncompetitive roster.

“I couldn’t tell you what happened or who woke up one day and decided,” said Johns, who worked for the MLS champion LAFC and Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts. “But when I was recruited … I was explicitly told like, ‘This is changing,’ and like, ‘We’re hiring you because we want to signal change.’”

The biggest change that could help the Sparks? At the top, with someone who wants to push the envelope instead of compensate and play catchup.

Rendering of the inside the contrition of the Sparks’ new training facility, including a basketball court.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Where, Robert Garcia must consider, does one begin?

Garcia is a two-term Democratic congressman from Long Beach. He’s the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, which makes him the top Democrat on the panel charged with patrolling and policing operations of the federal government — a role congressional Republicans have conspicuously abdicated. If, as seems likely, his party wins control of the House in November, Garcia is poised to take over as chairman.

After two years of reckless abandon, the most obvious target for some badly needed congressional oversight is the crooked occupant of the White House. Like a shoreline strewn with seashells or a meadow bursting with mushrooms, President Trump’s brazen corruption and naked self-dealing offer a field that is ripe for the plucking.

So, given the gavel, where to start?

“First we have to ensure that people understand that this president and the administration, what they’re doing, is unprecedented and the most corrupt administration we’ve ever seen,” Garcia said.

To wit: In just his first year back in the Oval Office, Trump reported earning at least $2.2 billion, which is 5,500 times the president’s $400,000 annual salary. (No wonder he gives away his paycheck.) But it’s not just Trump who’s raking it in hand over fist.

“You have Jared Kushner getting billions from the Saudis and other foreign governments,” Garcia said. “You have [Trump’s sons] doing real estate deals across the country, being on boards that are getting contracts from the federal government. You have the selling of pardons. I mean, the list goes on…. It is just like an endless amount of corruption.”

Before he digs in, however, Garcia has to win reelection in November.

A vote, then a reckoning?

His reconfigured congressional district, which straddles Los Angeles and Orange counties, is somewhat less friendly than it used to be. As part of a redrawing under Proposition 50, the 2025 measure California voters passed to boost Democratic membership in the House, the lines were extended south, to take in the Trump-friendly territory of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach. (The remap gave away a chunk of Garcia’s Democratic voters to bolster other districts.)

Still, the odds are strongly in his favor — especially in a midterm election serving as a referendum on the deeply unpopular incumbent.

Though his district leans left even after modification, Garcia said his pursuit of Trump isn’t some ideological bender. The president’s malfeasance is something constituents raise often, he said. “It’s corruption and it is affordability,” Garcia said this week from his district office in Long Beach. “Those are the two issues I hear constantly about. It’s just nonstop.”

Apart from Trump and his family, Garcia has a long list of administration officials he’d like to hold to account, and an even longer list of questions he’d like answered.

Why, for instance, are “JD Vance and Susie Wiles and Kash Patel having secret meetings in the Situation Room about the Epstein files?” Garcia asked, name-checking, respectively, the vice president, White House chief of staff and FBI director. “Why is [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller out there essentially creating this huge … loss-of-due-process crisis in this country as it relates to what he’s doing with” Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security?

Also, Garcia said, he wonders what businesses have gotten in return for their generous giving to this most avaricious of administrations.

“If you are cutting secret deals with the Trumps, if you are helping to set up these these crypto schemes, if you are paying for this ballroom that no one knows about and you are gaining some sort of favor from the presidency,” he said, “we need to understand exactly what’s going on.”

Of course, any attempt to investigate and prosecute wrongdoing is sure to run into stonewalling from an obstructionist White House. The “Justice” Department, which has been thoroughly tainted and co-opted by Trump, won’t be any help either.

For that reason, Garcia said, “not only does there have to be efforts made by the Congress and the House … we also have to partner with our state partners and attorneys general and governors and outside organizations…. I think the state court process is going to also be really important for us.”

Impeachment in abeyance

Impeachment, which has a visceral appeal to certain of those deeply aggrieved by this lawless president, is not a first resort, Garcia said. Nor, he suggested, is it necessarily the second or third resort.

“Trump commits an impeachable offense every week,” Garcia said, exaggerating somewhat. But, as he noted, Trump was impeached twice in his first term and still won reelection in 2024. (Throw in a conviction on 34 felony counts and you can see the futility of trying to shame Trump into submission.)

“I don’t think you ever take anything off the table, and that includes impeachment,” Garcia said. “But that’s not our focus on Day One…. It’s time for [Democrats] to work on actually passing a forward-looking agenda and making sure that we are taking on this family and these dealings that are clearly the most threatening we’ve ever seen. To me, that has to be the immediate priority in front of us.”

Garcia and fellow Democrats are mindful of what’s driving unhappy voters who face a vexing mix of inflation and weak economic growth. Affordability is, for good reason, the central issue this election season.

But accountability matters, too. Indeed, in Trump’s debauched Washington, it’s long overdue.

That’s something else voters should consider in November.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Supreme Court for now allows Trump to plan new mail ballot rules. California to sue again
The deep dive: Will Trump interfere in the midterms? Democrats and their allies are preparing
The L.A. Times Special: Two good ideas from Republicans dead on arrival in Democratic Legislature

Until next time,
mzb
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1. Sir Alex Ferguson. Title winner 1992-93, 93-94, 95-96, 96-97, 98-99, 99-2000, 2000-01, 02-03, 06-07, 07-08, 08-09, 10-11, 12-13.

The first two decades of the Premier League were dominated by one man.

Sir Alex Ferguson won 13 titles and was able to continuously rebuild his side in order to keep Manchester United at the top of English football – from Eric Cantona to the ’99 Treble winners, and later that front three of Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez.

Even after Ronaldo left for Real Madrid in 2009, and Tevez defected to the other side of Manchester, Ferguson continued winning titles until he retired in 2013.

His record title haul is more than double any manager from any era of men’s English top-flight football, not just the Premier League – Guardiola, Liverpool’s Bob Paisley and George Ramsay for Aston Villa are next on the list on six.

It makes Fergie the undoubted number one.

EastEnders newcomer Jamie Bamber, who plays Ned Hawkins on the BBC soap, has teased all about what’s ahead with Nicola Mitchell, and his thoughts on joining the show

EastEnders fans will recognise new recruit Jamie Bamber from huge shows, including BBC ’s Beyond Paradise and US hit Battlestar Galactica.

But as he joins the soap as newcomer Ned Hawkins, Jamie says Walford is one of the most iconic sets he’s ever stepped on in his whole career, which spans nearly 30 years. “Seeing it in person for the first time was a real thrill,” says Jamie, 53.

“What struck me most is how real it feels. It doesn’t feel like a television set at all. It genuinely feels like a place. Because it’s so lived in and familiar, it does a lot of the work for you as an actor.” One part of the famous set in particular has already won his heart.

Jamie tells us: “I love filming in The Queen Vic because it’s where so many characters and storylines collide. As Ned is new to Walford, a lot of his early scenes involve him observing people and taking everything in. The Vic is perfect for that because you get to watch the entire community interact around you.”

With Jamie’s wealth of experience in TV and film, he was surprised to be given a mentor when he started filming. When new cast members join the show, a current cast member is assigned to them as a chaperone, to look out for them while they settle in.

Jamie’s mentor is Ian Beale actor Adam Woodyatt, something Jamie says was incredibly exciting. He tells us: “I’d never experienced getting a mentor before on a job and wondered whether, at my age, it might be a bit late in life to suddenly get a mentor!

“I was genuinely touched because Adam came in on my very first day, despite it being his day off, just to introduce himself. He even stayed to watch my first take to make sure I was okay.” Jamie is joined by other new cast members including Holby City star Patricia Potter, Marian McLoughlin, Anna Constable and Felix Uff, who make up the Hawkins family.

This isn’t Jamie’s first time working with Patricia, who plays his character Ned’s wife Gemma, who is also the sister of existing character Nicola Mitchell. Jamie tells us: “We first crossed paths around 30 years ago when we briefly overlapped at drama school, and then we worked together on my second professional job, The Scarlet Pimpernel.

“I’ve always admired Patricia’s work and energy, so knowing I was coming into the show with someone whose company I already enjoyed made the whole experience much less daunting.” There are plenty of his new co-stars that Jamie has not worked with before though. Starstruck Jamie says filming alongside some of the soap’s biggest icons has left him pinching himself.

“My first scene featured several EastEnders legends, including Letitia Dean, Michelle Collins and Gillian Taylforth,” Jamie reveals. “I was mostly sitting there watching these incredible actors do what they do best. At one point, I genuinely had an out-of-body experience and thought, ‘What am I doing here?’

“These are characters and actors that have been part of British television history for decades. It felt surreal, but also incredibly special.” Ned makes his debut next week, while some of the family have already been onscreen briefly.

Next week, Ned and his wife Gemma head to Walford, followed by Gemma’s mother Rose, her sister Jodie, and Gemma and Ned’s son, Ryder. Ned’s caught in the middle of his sister-in-law Nicola’s feud with her mother Rose, leaving the Hawkins desperate to heal their rift.

We’ll also see Ned reconnect with his old friend Alfie Moon, who owns The Queen Vic with his wife Kat Slater. But while Ned initially appears as the perfect man, Jamie warns upcoming scenes could change this perception for viewers.

“Ned is somebody who appears very put together. He’s enjoyed a great deal of success in life, but when we meet him, everything has fallen apart and he’s having to start again.

“Ned certainly presents himself as the image of the perfect man, and he’s somebody who places a great deal of importance on maintaining appearances. Often, when someone works that hard to keep up appearances, it’s because there’s more going on beneath the surface.

“There’s a real depth to him, and as the weeks go on, we’ll start to peel back those layers and discover that Ned is a far more complex character than he first appears.” Jamie also hints that there is a secret Ned and Nicola are keeping to themselves, that viewers will not be let in on for the time being.

Jamie says: “It’s clear that Ned and Nicola know each other extremely well, but there’s also something unspoken between them. There’s a fascinating push-and-pull dynamic at play. You get the sense that there’s something that binds them together just as strongly as something keeps them apart.

“There are secrets and a history that neither of them is willing to talk about openly. Over time, viewers will discover exactly what lies behind that complicated relationship.”

EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok, Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to revoke the business and tourism visas of up to 200,000 foreigners who have applied for or are currently seeking asylum status in the United States. If it happens, the move would be the largest single mass revocation of visas in U.S. history and would likely face legal challenges.

Unless challenged or revised, the State Department is expected to announce in the coming weeks the revocation of so-called B1 and B2 visas issued between 2016 and 2026 whose holders have sought asylum or are now seeking asylum, according to State Department documents obtained by The Associated Press and two U.S. officials. The action will be taken in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security.

“We are coordinating with DHS to identify and revoke the nonimmigrant visas of foreigners who have come to the United States claiming to be short-term visitors, but then file for asylum to stay here permanently,” said State Department spokesman Tommy Pigott.

He declined to comment on the number of visas that might be revoked, saying “as the process will be ongoing, the number of revocations remains dynamic and will be done on a rolling basis.”

The revocations would not necessarily result in their immediate deportation, the officials said. Most of those with asylum cases currently pending would be recategorized but would lose their status as business or tourism travelers, according to the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the revocations are not final yet.

Since President Donald Trump took office for his second term last year, his administration has steadily ramped up restrictions on visa applicants — demanding more information about their social media histories, requiring the posting of expensive bonds for the processing of visas, and outright banning the issuance of visas to citizens of certain countries.

In a social media post on Monday, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau called out people who he said try to use tourist and business visas to get into the United States and then apply for asylum.

“People in the US and all over the world are fed up with bogus asylum claims,” Landau wrote on X. “Asylum isn’t supposed to be a loophole to circumvent immigration law.” Landau cited the case of a Colombian citizen who came to the U.S. in 2015 on a tourist visa and then applied for asylum.

B1 visas are generally issued for business trips and B2 visas are generally issued for tourism, family visits or medical care. It was not immediately clear from the documents or the officials how many of these visa holders are seeking or have sought asylum in the United States and would be affected by the revocations.

Current applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.

In the past 18 months, the State Department has revoked about 175,000 visas for people who have been convicted or accused of crimes ranging from drunken driving to rape and robbery, as well as for people who have spoken out publicly against U.S. policies, particularly in the Middle East.

The administration has also moved to crack down on so-called birth tourism, a practice the administration claims is used by foreign pregnant women to come to the United States to give birth so that their child will benefit from birthright citizenship. Trump has tried several times to end birthright citizenship, but those challenges have been rejected by courts, including the Supreme Court.

The State Department documents obtained by the AP suggest screening of current B1 and B2 visa holders began after the State Department received information about asylum requests from the Citizen and Immigration Service.

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

SACRAMENTO — Memo to Democrats and independents: Just because an idea emanates from a Republican, doesn’t mean it necessarily stinks. Here are two examples.

Legislators wearing red jerseys have proposed to:

• Make the California secretary of state officially nonpartisan. Rip off the seemingly inevitable blue jersey and replace it with a neutral referee’s garb.
• Similarly, seize the job of writing official ballot proposition titles and summaries from the partisan attorney general and hand it to the nonpartisan, universally trusted Legislative Analyst‘s Office.

Both ideas, of course, were dead on arrival when introduced in the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, which is about to wrap up a two-year session.

But both make good government sense and promote democracy, which the Democratic Party claims it’s fighting for against the President Trump-led GOP.

The secretary of state is the chief overseer of California elections. That office holder, regardless of party, has never favored one side over the other in balloting, although many GOP politicians have been parroting Pied Piper Trump’s nonsense about election rigging.

California Republicans pushing to neutralize the office argue that Democratic incumbent Shirley Weber has taken public policy positions that echo her party’s stands. Shock! This is America. She has a right — a democratic duty — to take any position vocally that she desires.

But it’s logical for the secretary of state to officially operate as a political nonpartisan — as does the state superintendent of public instruction and all county voter registrars, who actually administer the elections and count votes.

“It’s time to take the secretary of state out of the partisan mix,” says former Orange County Assemblyman Don Wagner, who is Weber’s underdog Republican opponent in the November election.

“The secretary should be calling balls and strikes as opposed to being on the red team or a blue team.”

Realistically, no red team member is likely to win any statewide office in California for the foreseeable future, given that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1 and Trump is widely detested in this state.

“Sometimes Trump does make it harder in California for Republicans,” Wagner acknowledges.

The legislation to make the secretary of state nonpartisan was a proposed California constitutional amendment, introduced by Republican Assemblymembers Natasha Johnson of Lake Elsinore and Josh Hoover of Folsom.

But it was submitted so late in the legislative session that there was no chance of it ever receiving a committee hearing. It didn’t really matter anyway. Even if it had been introduced on Jan. 1, Democrats would have instinctively tossed it in the trash.

They’re never going to make it remotely possible for a Republican to win this office any time soon.

The measure’s authors say their proposal would help “restore Californians’ trust in the electoral system.”

Actually, the only Californians who largely distrust the electoral system are Republicans. And the best way to fix that is for Trump to shut up and stop telling lies about stolen elections and hordes of undocumented immigrants voting illegally.

A recent poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies found that 88% of Democrats and 64% of independents have confidence in California’s election system. But 76% of Republicans do not — a sign of our polarized times.

Of the two Republican proposals, the most significant is the one stripping the attorney general of the power to write titles and summaries of ballot measures.

Often, the only thing many voters know about a proposition is what they’re told in the title. They aren’t inclined to wade through neutral details in the official state Voter Information Guide.

The legislative analyst is a political noncombatant appointed by the Legislature and basically agreed to by both sides. The highly respected policy wonk already writes the proposition analyses included in the voter guide. Why not also the measures’ titles?

Increasingly in recent years under Democrats, including projected next governor Xavier Becerra, the attorney general has been dishing out party propaganda in official proposition titles.

State law requires the attorney general to provide an “impartial statement of the purpose of the measure” in language unlikely “to create prejudice for or against” the proposal.

But often on hotly contested measures, the language reads like talking points for the blue side.

The latest example is Proposition 39, a Republican proposal requiring Californians to show identification when voting. Election officials also would have to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens.

I’m no fan of that measure. It overreaches, is unnecessary, could suppress voting and is merely a tool to drive up the GOP vote. Democratic legislative leaders and the party are fiercely opposed.

But Proposition 39’s title is unfairly negative and loaded against the measure. It reads: “Prohibits citizens from voting unless they present government-issued identification.” All some voters will focus on are the first four words.

Proponents sued, but judges are historically reluctant to interfere in election campaigns. A Sacramento judge OKd Democratic Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s biased wording.

The legislation for nonpartisan labeling of propositions cleared the Senate Elections Committee but later was quietly killed behind closed doors in the Senate Appropriations Committee, a notorious graveyard for measures sentenced to execution by legislative leaders.

“The Democratic leadership doesn’t want it passed,” notes the author, Sen. Roger Niello of Sacramento County, who recently was elected the next Senate minority leader. “If they kill it [in appropriations] nobody has to vote on it and it dies without fingerprints.”

That’s common legislative games-playing: Keep potentially popular but politically undesirable bills off chamber floors so majority party members can avoid shamefully voting “no.”

But these are still excellent Republican ideas.

There are times when politics should be taken out of elections.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: California backtracks on good-government policies in divided Trump era
Law & Order & Politics: Eric Swalwell briefly detained as feds seize his phone at San Francisco airport, source says
The L.A. Times Special: It’s beyond debate. California voters deserve a Becerra-Hilton face-off

Until next week,
George Skelton

—
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Pity the period. And the comma and the semicolon too. Punctuation is the sturdy armature of written language, yet it does its job quietly, in the background. We tend to spend far more time analyzing the written words than we do the dots, dashes and ellipses that give those words meaning, nuance and tone.

In her new book “On the Mark: From Periods to Interrobangs, How Punctuation Remade the World,” author Florence Hazrat argues for punctuation as no less than the bricks and mortar of civilization, the deceptively simple and endlessly pliable tools that made humankind. I recently chatted with Hazrat, a Berlin resident, about scare quotes, emojis and the magic of parentheses.

✍️ Author Chat

Florence Hazrat, author of the new book “On The Mark,” writes about the history of punctuation.

(Masoud Ali Shaiwani)

What sparked your interest in punctuation?

It was a long time back, when I was studying for my master’s degree. I was working with Renaissance romances, which have a lot of parentheses. I just asked myself, where does this come from? And why don’t we use parentheses like this anymore? And then I did my post doc on this very topic. So it’s the gift that keeps on giving.

Going back to the earliest cuneiform texts, we see that they consist of words bunched together like commuters on a rush-hour subway. There is no space between words and no punctuation.

Writing was just a manifestation of speech. Text was meant to be read aloud. It would have been shocking 2,700 years ago to see someone reading silently. There is an anecdote that when Alexander the Great was spotted reading to himself, people were stunned.

It took hundreds of years for punctuation to really bloom. The Renaissance, with its increased literacy rates, elevated punctuation into an art.

During the Renaissance, text needed to do more. Writing moved out of the monastery, into trade and diplomacy, science, education and so on. The humanists of the Renaissance who loved language wanted text to be able to do more than it historically had been doing. They wanted to bring more nuance and tone into writing.

And silent reading became the normal practice.

Silent reading is so interesting because it’s a kind of subversive act. It’s a private act, so you can be reading anything. There was a lot of consternation at the time that women would spend all their time reading romance stories.

You also write about punctuation as a political tool, especially the power of quotation marks to ironize or diminish the meaning of the words in between the quotes.

Quotes in and of themselves are empty signs. Which means they can be used for all kinds of political purposes. We can delegitimize an entire race of people using scare quotes or belittle something like COVID-19 simply by putting it in between quotes. We’re wresting a word used by another group and changing its meaning with quotes.

You discuss the advent of digital communication, and the ways we use and abuse punctuation now. Yet, we are very sensitive to punctuation in the public sphere. I’m thinking of the use of capital letters in words that connote race, for example.

Absolutely. There are two sides of the culture that contradict each other. Texting seems to be such an informal medium and something we dash off very quickly. Nobody really expects proper grammar in a text. Yet a misplaced period or comma in certain texts, like the 2nd Amendment of the Constitution, for example, can set people off into endless arguments.

What is your feeling about emojis? I find them to be a very rich communication tool. They can have literal or figurative meaning, depending on context. And the meaning can shift over time.

I love emojis. I think they’re still quite misunderstood. They are covering so many functions, because we put them after clauses, for example. We just don’t put them anywhere. But they aren’t punctuation, because we can’t actually make them when we write manually.

Are you pessimistic about the future of punctuation with kids on ChatGPT and texting in elementary school?

Not really. Children who are texting at 9, 10 years old are still learning the rules of grammar and punctuation offline at school ideally. They still have to read books. They have to write essays by hand. So I think the human brain knows how to process different inputs and switch accordingly.

This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.

📰 The Week(s) in Books

Paris Hilton performs at the Pussycat Doll Lounge located inside Pure Nightclub in Las Vegas on Feb. 16, 2008.

(Chris Weeks / Associated Press)

“Up All Night,” Imogen Willetts’ new history of urban nightlife, devotes a chapter to the L.A. club scene of the early aughts, when Paris Hilton was a ubiquitous scenester and Perez Hilton was writing about her. “I’m born and raised in London and lived here my whole life and when I was a teenager, it was like the early 2000s era,” Willetts told Lina Lecaro. “I was like, I have to write about L.A. in the 2000s because that was what we were absolutely aspiring to at all times.”

Shortly after the trailer for the movie adaptation of her novel “Children of Blood and Bone” dropped, author Tomi Adeyemi hinted at an on-set ordeal that traumatized her, Emily St. Martin reports. “It’s a reality that I’ve had to live with for about a year and a half, and everyone involved, at least at the highest level, has been made aware of this reality, and they haven’t done anything to make it better,” Adeyemi said in a video posted to social media.

Stand-up comedian Anthony Jeselnik, an avid reader, has started an online book club that is gaining traction. “My goal was to curate and give people their best shot at enjoying reading,” he told Maddie Connors.

Ryan Murphy’s TV adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’ novel “The Shards” is a visually vivid throwback to 1981 Los Angeles. Eloise Rollins-Fife gets the lowdown from the show’s production designer, Cat Smith, an L.A. native. “This is like time travel, but you’re traveling back to your childhood,” said Smith. “I’ve done period before, and you always feel like you’re time traveling to a certain extent, but it’s visceral when it’s yours.”

📖 Bookstore Faves

Hollywood Books is an indie bookshop started by a freelance film researcher.

(Roxanne David)

Hollywood Books is the most indie of indie bookshops. Housed in a nondescript storefront on Melrose Avenue, its only signage is a craft paper sign with bubbly pink letters. Hollywood Books was started by Rebecca Ressler, a freelance film researcher. Blond wood shelves surround the store; a round gingham couch beckons page-grazers to bide their time finding that perfect new or secondhand book before taking a short walk to Ressler’s husband’s restaurant Stir Crazy for a bite and a glass of Malbec.

I chatted with Ressler over email about her store.

What made you want to open a bookstore and how did you land upon your location?

The location, in many ways, inspired me to open the shop! I lived down the street and loved the space when it was Nonaka-Hill’s second gallery. After I had my son, I found it really hard to return to my work as a freelance researcher for filmmakers. I was originally set on figuring out a way to make the space a shared office with my husband and some friends. At some point, I had the idea of making it a bookstore and became determined!

What kind of books do you sell?

We sell both used and new books. We have small curated sections in photography, art, design, fashion, film, literature (novels, poetry, plays), nonfiction, children’s books, and cookbooks! I hope our customers find things at our shop they’ve never read or seen or a great copy of a classic they’re excited to cherish. Our books also make great gifts!

Who is shopping there? Who are your clients?

We are really lucky to be surrounded by great art and furniture galleries that people travel from all over to visit. Those customers are happily surprised when they wander into our store. We also have tons of neighbors and friends who keep coming back and help me determine what I can add to our inventory!

What genres tend to sell?

A little bit of everything! Children’s books are very consistent — even if people don’t read themselves they still want their kids to!

Why a bookstore in 2026 when The Atlantic, among other places, is decrying the end of reading?

Because I love books and think enough other people do too to keep my little store afloat!

Hollywood Books is at 6917 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles, CA.

Netflix documentary Freefall: A Reckoning of Boeing chronicles the deepening corporate crisis, alleged safety failures and tragic death of whistleblower John Barnett

An explosive new Netflix documentary threatens to blow the lid on alleged systemic safety failures at Boeing as well as the tragic death of whistleblower John Barnett.

Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing is a sequel to the 2022 documentary film Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, which examined the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019 that claimed 346 lives.

This new offering, from director Rory Kennedy, takes a closer look at Barnett’s battle against Boeing and his later suicide, as well as investigating the testimony of other whistleblowers, who claim managers told them on occasion to overlook safety problems.

Following Boeing’s 1997 merger with McDonnell Douglas, the company was accused of being governed by Wall Street executives obsessed with profit, rather than an engineer-led organisation.

The company faced allegations of prioritising cost-cutting and outsourcing vital engineering work, and has continued to face production crises, including improperly installed wiring and unsealed door plugs that blew out mid-flight on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in January 2024.

Ahead of the documentary’s release on August 19 , we take a closer look at some of the biggest disasters in Boeing’s history.

Tenerife Airport Disaster (1977) — 583 Fatalities

On March 27, 1977, two Boeing 747 passenger jets (KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736) collided on a foggy runway at Los Rodeos Airport (now Tenerife North Airport) in the Canary Islands, Spain, resulting in 583 fatalities. Known as the ‘Tenerife Airport Disaster’, it remains the deadliest aviation accident in history.

A series of events led to the collision. Neither planes were supposed to be there; earlier that day, a bombing at Gran Canaria Airport forced planes, including the KLM flight and the Pan Am flight, to divert to the smaller airport in Tenerife.

That diversion overwhelmed the small airport, forcing pilots to taxi up and down the active runway because taxiways were blocked.

Then the thick fog came rolling in, impacting visibility. And finally, there was a fatal misunderstanding.

The Pan Am jet was taxiing on the runway but missed its intended exit. At the same time, the KLM pilots mistakenly believed they were cleared for takeoff and accelerated, crashing straight into the hidden Pan Am plane.

The impact and the resulting fire killed all 248 people on board the KLM plane and 335 of the 396 people on board the Pan Am plane, with all 61 survivors being in the front section of the aircraft.

Japan Airlines Flight 123 (1985) — 520 Fatalities

Japan Airlines Flight 123 was a domestic flight travelling from Tokyo to Osaka on the evening of 12 August 1985. But just 12 minutes after takeoff, the Boeing 747 suffered a severe structural failure and explosive decompression. After flying under minimal control for 32 minutes, the plane crashed in the area of Mount Takamagahara.

The aircraft had 524 people on board, and the initial crash killed all 15 crew members along with between 460-490 of the 509 passengers on board. An estimated 20 to 50 passengers survived the initial crash but died from their injuries while awaiting rescue, leaving only four survivors.

The crash, which claimed the lives of 520 people in total, is the deadliest single-aircraft accident in aviation history and remains the deadliest aviation incident in Japan.

Japan’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Commission – assisted by the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board – concluded that the structural failure was caused by a faulty repair by Boeing technicians following a tailstrike seven years earlier. A tailstrike occurs when the rear part of an aircraft’s fuselage hits the runway or ground, and usually happens during takeoff if the nose is lifted too aggressively, or during landing if the pilot raises the nose too high while trying to touch down.

When the faulty repair eventually failed, it resulted in a rapid decompression that ripped off a large portion of the tail and caused the loss of function of all hydraulic systems and flight controls.

Charkhi Dadri Mid-Air Collision (1996) — 349 Fatalities

The catastrophic Charkhi Dadri collision occurred mid-air when Saudia Flight 763 (a Boeing 747) and Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 (an Ilyushin Il-76) collided over Haryana, India.

The crash, which took place on 12 November 1996, killed all 349 people aboard both aircraft, making it the deadliest mid-air collision in aviation history.

It was found to have been caused by the flight crew of Kazakhstan Airlines Flight 1907 failing to maintain their assigned altitude. The Kazakh Ilyushin Il-76 descended past its cleared altitude of 15,000 feet right into the path of the ascending Saudi Arabian Airlines Flight 763 at 14,000 feet.

This stemmed from three key factors. The Kazakh flight crew’s English was poor and inside the cockpit, only the flight engineer – not the pilots – spoke English, forcing them to rely on a radio operator for continuous Russian translation of Air Traffic Control (ATC) instructions.

The Kazakh crew also exhibited confusion and poor communication during their descent, struggling to interpret the ATC’s directions as the two planes converged on intersecting flight paths.

There were also equipment limitations to contend with the Air Traffic Control radar at Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport was a primary surveillance radar which meant controllers could see the planes’ distance and bearing but could not independently verify their altitudes.

Furthemore, neither aircraft was equipped with a Traffic Collision Avoidance System (TCAS), which would have alerted the pilots to the impending collision.

The accident led the International Civil Aviation Organization to make it mandatory for commercial aircraft to be equipped with TCAS, establish English as the universal language for aviation communication, and mandate that arrival and departure routes at busy international hubs be separated.

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 (2014) — 298 Fatalities

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 was travelling from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur when it was shot down over eastern Ukraine by a surface-to-air missile on 17 July 2014. All 283 passengers and 15 crew members were killed.

All contact with the aircraft, a Boeing 777-200ER, was lost when it was about 50 kilometres from the Ukraine–Russia border, and wreckage from the aircraft landed near Hrabove in Ukraine, 40 km from the border.

It was said to have been shot down by Russian-backed forces. The Russian government denied involvement in the shooting down of the aircraft, but on 17 November 2022, following a trial in absentia in the Netherlands, two Russians and a Ukrainian separatist were found guilty of murdering all 298 people on board the flight. The Dutch court also ruled that Russia was in control of the separatist forces fighting in eastern Ukraine at the time.

MH17 was Malaysia Airlines’ second aircraft loss during 2014, after the disappearance of Flight 370 four months prior on 8 March. It is also the deadliest aircraft shoot-down incident to date

China Airlines Flight 611 (2002) – 225 Fatalities

China Airlines Flight 611 was travelling from Taiwan to Hong Kong International Airport when it disintegrated midair and crashed into the Taiwan Strait, just 20 minutes after takeoff. It killed all 225 people on board.

The in-flight breakup was caused by metal fatigue cracks from a tail strike at Kai Tak Airport on 7 of February 1980. The aircraft had not been properly repaired according to Boeing policies and manuals. Metal fatigue from over 22 years of service and repeated pressurization cycles caused tiny cracks that led to the aircraft’s breakup.

The crash remains the deadliest in Taiwan, and the second-deadliest accident in China Airlines history, behind China Airlines Flight 140 with 264 fatalities.

Lion Air Flight 610 (2018) – 189 Fatalities

Lion Air Flight 610 was travelling from Soekarno–Hatta International Airport in Tangerang, to Depati Amir Airport in Indonesia on 29 October 2018, when it crashed into the sea 13 minutes after take off.

All 189 passengers – 181 passengers and eight crew – onboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8 were killed.

The Indonesian government’s search and rescue found debris and human remains soon after from a 280-kilometre-wide (150-nautical-mile) area, and the flight data recorder (FDR) was found on 1 November and recovered for analysis.

A subsequent investigation, led by the National Transportation Safety Committee, revealed that a new software function in the flight control system caused the aircraft to nose down.

That function, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), had been intentionally omitted from aircraft documentation for aircrews by Boeing, so the pilots did not know about it, and did not know what it could do.

Investigators concluded that an external device on the aircraft, the angle-of-attack (AoA) sensor, was miscalibrated due to improper maintenance which sent erroneous data to MCAS. In turn, MCAS responded by pushing the nose of the plane down.

The problem had occurred on the same aircraft during its immediately preceding flight, and the pilots had recovered using a standard checklist. But during the fatal flight, the pilots did not properly follow the checklist, with the result that MCAS remained active and repeatedly put the aircraft into an unsafe nose-down position until it crashed into the water.

The United States Federal Aviation Administration and Boeing issued warnings and training advisories to all operators of the Boeing 737 MAX series. But similar issues caused the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on 10 March 2019, leading to a worldwide grounding of all 737 MAX aircraft.

Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (2019) – 157 Fatalities

Just five months after the Lion Air Flight crash, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed near the town of Bishoftu on 10 March 2019. The plane went down just six minutes after takeoff, and all 149 passengers and 8 crew members on board died.

The crash was again caused by a fault in the plane’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the flight stabilizing system developed by Boeing for the MAX 8. Due to a failure in the sensor, the aircraft’s nose was repeatedly pitched down against the pilots’ inputs, eventually leading the plane to crash.

It was the second accident involving a MAX 8, and prompted a two-year worldwide grounding of the jet and an investigation into how the aircraft was approved for passenger service.

The documentary film Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing will be released globally on Netflix on August 19, 2026

The guide was adamant. “I’ve picked human teeth out of there and I’m not doing it again.” The small group of tourists looked suitably aghast, except the boy. He was jiggling the wellington boots on his feet and singing to himself. He looked about 14. I sensed that he was the catalyst, the one to make things happen.

“So, if anyone is planning to leave human remains in this ancient place,” went on the guide, throwing the boy a stern look, “I say, DON’T.”

We had arrived on the visitor centre bus from nearby Knowth, the first stop on our tour of Newgrange Neolithic site, 30 miles (50km) north of Dublin. I was on a circuit of the Irish Sea, a ferry and road trip to see the best ancient sites that ring this salty mere at the heart of these islands. It was here, around 5,100 years ago, that a new people arrived and, capitalising on the sea as a cultural superhighway, constructed a dazzling array of stone monuments. Some of Europe’s finest Neolithic passage tombs are here, notably at Newgrange, the only one you can enter. But as the guide was sternly pointing out, some modern folk are irresistibly drawn to leave the ashes of deceased relatives inside, especially at Newgrange.

The plush visitor centre had been informative but had not conveyed the deep atavistic intensity that drives such tributes. There was magic here. I wanted to feel it. I had a hunch this boy was in touch with it.

“As for pets,” said our guide, “I want no dog or cat ashes either.”

The boy was drumming his hands on his knees, hearing an unheard rhythm. We were about to walk up to the hallowed tumulus with its 19-metre-long passageway that leads to the central chamber, but our guide was determined to get that boy’s attention. “There,” she shouted. The boy’s head shot up. She was pointing at a set of wheelie bins in the corner. “I can promise you,” she went on, grimly, “that if I find your granny’s remains inside my Neolithic chamber, then her last resting place will be that green wheelie bin.”

There was a stunned silence among the tourists. But not the boy. He immediately ran over to the bin, opened the lid and stared inside.

“Nothing,” he reported, slamming it down. “She’s not there.”

The guide looked nonplussed, then marched away towards the hill that is a tomb. “Follow me,” she commanded. “Do not leave the path.”

Everyone obeyed, except the boy. He ran in a great arc off the path, arms flapping like shamanic wings.

We had started our huge circular journey around the Irish Sea at Pentre Ifan, a magnificent tomb from 3500BC, sited on the same Pembrokeshire ridge that provided the bluestone for Stonehenge. I was travelling with my partner, Sophie, and our dog, Stevie, who had gone through complex hoops to prove he was not carrying either rabies or tapeworm into Ireland. He liked the first ferry, from Pembroke Dock to Rosslare; it had an excellent pet lounge, but what fascinated him was the sea. He could not stop staring. His reaction made me pay more attention to him. Could dogs, I wondered, also help connect us with the deep past? After all, their wolf heritage is 30,000 years old, yet they relive it every minute of their lives. If anyone could remember the Neolithic age, it was Stevie.

He had been well cared for initially. We stayed near Wexford, in a dog-friendly hotel, Marlfield House, with superb gardens. Then we toured the ruins of the greatest Irish saint of them all, Kevin. His sixth-century seat at Glendalough, in County Wicklow, is now a busy pilgrimage site. Twelfth-century Trim Castle in County Meath was next, followed by the Hill of Tara with its ancient standing stone, the Lia Fáil. Here all the pagan kings of Ireland were crowned, so the legend goes.

At its base, visitors had laid a collection of apples, flowers and coins. That puzzled me. Were the apples significant? Or had that gang of girls carrying hurling sticks just donated their unwanted snacks? Some people, it was clear, wanted such places to mean something, not simply be dusty artefacts.

I persuaded Stevie to lie down on a nearby grassy mound. Under us was the Mound of the Hostages, a chambered tomb that was already ancient when the Great Pyramid was built. Time slipped away. Those Neolithic people are so distant and mysterious. What we know for certain is almost nothing. They had cows … and dogs. I opened one eye. Stevie had gone. He’d given up communing with the stone age and gone after the hurling sticks.

That night, we stayed in another excellent dog-friendly hotel, Bellinter House, and visited Marcie Regan’s in Trim, a vibrant, dog-loving pub. Not until Newgrange did we meet the dreaded sign, NO DOGS. I’d been forced to leave him in the car, my dæmon, my conduit to the ancient.

Our guide stopped us at the entrance to the great megalithic structure, a turf-topped hill walled with white quartz. Discovered largely intact in 1699, the entrance was guarded by the same five-tonne stone that sits there now, covered in mysterious swirling patterns. Behind was a narrow entrance and a passage that lay under 200,000 tonnes of stone and earth.

“If you get claustrophobic,” said the guide, “you can leave at any time. Do not touch the carvings.”

Out the corner of my eye, I saw the boy come running. He had done a lap of the monument, chanting to himself, his little sister close behind. The guide bowed her head and disappeared inside. The boy ran his fingertips over the carvings and followed. I went in next. My unsatisfied desire for stone age magic was about to be fulfilled.

The tunnel is slightly kinked and rises imperceptibly. You don’t see the final chamber. The mystery grows. There are patterns on some stones. A deep silence descends. I thought of Stevie back in the car. They found the bones of a dog in here, and its DNA showed traces of wolf from both Europe and Asia. Stevie’s Neolithic moment, however, would have to wait.

At the end of the corridor, we arrived in a small chamber. Above, the roof was made of massive stones. In more than 5,000 years, it has not leaked. It looks haphazard, but is perfect, a Rolex assembled by Flintstones. The most impressive thing, however, was not understood until Prof Michael O’Kelly came and stood in this chamber on 21 December 1967. Our guide was now going to recreate that event, and what has happened at dawn on every winter solstice since about 3150BC.

We were in complete darkness. The boy had pressed himself into a niche where a huge stone basin sat. Human remains, ancient ones, had been found there. And then, the guide touched a hidden switch and a golden light came creeping up the passageway towards us, finally illuminating a triple spiral of megalithic art carved into one giant stone. It was like hearing a deep harmonic chord, or the haunting cry of a night bird, something profound and enigmatic. I forgave the bus, the tickets, the gift shop – all the paraphernalia of the tourism business – and saw the genius of this recreation.

Light slowly filled the chamber. We were all dumbstruck, except the boy. He spoke out loud and bold. “Question. Are there aliens here?”

The guide shook her head impatiently. “I won’t have any talk of aliens.”

The boy nodded and turned to his little sister. “That means there are.”

Then he was gone, scurrying down the tunnel in a half crouch, humming to himself.

A huge storm came in that night, downing trees and flooding roads. We drove through it to Belfast and hunkered down in our hotel.

Next day, thankfully in calm weather, we sailed for the Isle of Man. Landing here was like travelling back in time, to around AD1950. Manx ancient monuments do not come with visitor centres and guides, they come only with a cast iron sign, “Ancient Monument”. We climbed the highest peak, Snaefell, visited several fabulous Celtic crosses and spent ages in the wonderful Manx Museum.

Then, one afternoon, we left the car and walked through fields to the island’s most important Neolithic monument, Cashtal yn Ard. It was in a tussocky field behind a kissing gate and a small sign. No ticket required, only some imagination and, if possible, a stone age scent hound. Behind were ranged the dark hills. The monument itself is a collapsed passage tomb that has left the ghostly imprint of its shape in rows of pale stones, marking the entrance, the tunnel, and finally, a low portal into what is left of the central chamber. Nevertheless, Stevie seemed to know the layout. He ran to the entrance, bounded down the tunnel, dodged through the portal and stopped dead. We lay on our backs and watched the skies. After a few minutes, I sneaked a look at the dog. He was curled up asleep at the exact centre of the vanished chamber.

Travel was provided by Discover Ferries, the industry body for 12 ferry companies. Irish Ferries sails Pembroke to Rosslare from £190 for car plus two (pets travel free). Isle of Man Steam Packet Company sails Belfast to Isle of Man from £179.50 for a car plus two (pets in cars free, pet-accessible cabins £75). Taking a dog to Ireland requires micro-chipping, rabies jab and tapeworm treatment (Stevie’s documents were checked at Rosslare).

Further information from Tourism Ireland, Fáilte Ireland, Tourism Northern Ireland and Visit Isle of Man

Hayden Panettiere was candid in her memoir and book tour interviews about the extensive abuse by on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson. Now he’s under the microscope as new details surrounding her death and their relationship emerge.

On Thursday, Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, whom the “Nashville” actor had a strained relationship with, pointed blame for the actor’s death toward an unnamed individual, but earlier this week she outright named Hickerson.

“Although my daughter and I were estranged, it was not for lack of care or love,” she said in a statement to “Entertainment Tonight.” “It was due to the involvement of a toxic individual who I believe led to her death.”⁠

⁠”It leads me to believe there are still questions surrounding what happened,” she said. “And I think we are all looking for answers.”⁠

And earlier this week, she told NBC, “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson.”

Hickerson broke his silence for the first time since Panettiere died Sunday of an apparent overdose as his attorney Sloan Ellis made a statement on his behalf. “Hayden’s death remains under investigation and it is important to allow that investigation to proceed,” Ellis told TMZ. “As has been publicly reported, police confirmed there were no signs of foul play.”

“Out of respect for Hayden’s loved ones and the ongoing investigation, there will be no further comment at this time.”

Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were present when emergency responders found Panettiere in cardiac arrest on Sunday. According to a report from Greenville, S.C., police, Zach was “very emotional” as paramedics attempted to revive Panettiere, and Brian “did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased.”

According to TMZ, Narcan — a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose — was found at the scene, but it’s unclear whether it was used on Panettiere.

Brian and Zach Hickerson did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

In the actor’s memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” which she published in May, she wrote that she and Hickerson met in 2018 at a West Hollywood bar. They fell fast into a whirlwind romance that soured after alcohol-fueled fights turned violent. “It was easy. The easiest happiness that I had come by in a long time,” she wrote in the memoir. “Then, one day, when we were on our second bottle of wine — the bottle that suffocates all the magic and obliterates your defenses — everything changed.”

Hickerson was arrested multiple times on suspicion of domestic violence against Panettiere, beginning in May 2019 in Los Angeles (the charges were later dismissed when prosecutors couldn’t secure a material witness) and again on Valentine’s Day in 2020 in Wyoming (misdemeanor battery charges were eventually dropped). Following an eight-count criminal indictment in July 2020 that covered multiple violent incidents between May 2019 and January 2020, Hickerson pleaded no contest in April 2021 to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend. He was sentenced to 45 days in county jail (but served 13 days due to credit for time served) along with four years of formal probation, mandatory domestic violence classes, and a five-year protective order.

After his 2019 arrest was covered in the press, Panettiere wrote that she and Brian “shut ourselves inside” to avoid paparazzi and that she screened calls from friends and family who phoned and texted “constantly,” worried that she was in a “dangerous situation with Brian.”

“What I never told them was that the abuse I’d endured didn’t feel as bad as the thought of being alone,” she wrote.

In “This Is Me,” she graphically detailed the abuse. She claimed that, during one attack, he punched her in the face repeatedly and secretly recorded himself saying, “Why did you hit yourself?” and “You’re all bruised, why did you do that to yourself?” When he was subsequently booked on charges of felony domestic assault, he pleaded not guilty and claimed that Panettiere had done it to herself.

“I didn’t know the person Brian turned into when he started raging,” she wrote. “This other Brian seemed to be dissociating, like the rational Dr. Jekyll part of his brain shut off while the violent Mr. Hyde took over. I was sure he must have a serious mental illness, like bipolar or borderline personality disorder, that could make him change so quickly.”

She continued: “On July 16, 2020, authorities in LA arrested Brian again, charging him with four domestic assault felonies, one misdemeanor count of battery; two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon (in particular, our garage floor and the stairs, both of which he’d once smashed my body into); and one felony count of dissuading a witness from prosecuting a crime.

“That witness was me. After we’d come back from Wyoming, Brian had called and tried to talk me out of pressing charges against him. As my heart broke into a million pieces, I told him it was too late, and then I told the police.”

Three days before Panettiere’s death, Hickerson attempted to expunge and reduce his past felony charges but was denied by a Los Angeles judge. He made the same request last July, which was denied.

During the press tour for “This Is Me,” Panettiere told podcaster Jay Shetty that she had cut ties with Hickerson but that, historically, he’d always found a way to reconnect just as she thought she was finally free of him. Reportedly, the two reconnected just weeks before her death.

“I thought I had gotten out of it and gotten away from it. … Abusers weave themselves like weeds into your life, and there’s always something that they left behind,” she told Shetty. “There’s always something that they have to come back for. There was always something that they find to keep that connection, keep you on the hook, keep that connection with you, no matter where you you go.”

In May, after Panettiere’s interview with Shetty went live, Hickerson spoke with TMZ and appeared intoxicated and slurred as he spoke about the actor. “Hayden Panettiere is the sweetest thing in the world,” he said. “It’s not about who you spend Saturday night with, it’s who you spend all day Sunday with, and Hayden Panettiere is a Sunday girl.”

“I would be an idiot not to walk away from her and let her flourish in her career,” he continued. “So we probably wouldn’t be good together. I’d like to see what she’s gonna do with the next like 30 years of her career, she’ll always hold a special place in my heart … we’re good buddies.”

History of the Buss family drama

Jerry Buss put together what was then thought to be a wild business deal to purchase the Lakers and related assets for $67.5 million in 1979.

Buss had a degree in chemistry, but his money came from real estate holdings and loans that moved between third parties to help him obtain the Lakers, Kings and the Forum from Jack Kent Cooke, who was going through a costly divorce.

Buss’ vision was to infuse Hollywood glamour into an NBA team few in Los Angeles seemed to care about, win championships and share that glory with his family.

Buss realized his Hollywood dream in more ways than he ever could have imagined, with his death in 2013 from complications from cancer touching off battles among his six children over control of the Lakers.

At least two siblings have tried to oust another from a leadership role. One sibling reportedly said two others never should have been born. And one sibling managed to fire the five others from jobs with the team.

The rifts mirror the HBO hit show “Succession.” Buss’ tenure and the family drama has been direct inspiration for two television shows and was chronicled in a docuseries the Lakers produced.

The latest daggers were delivered this week, with attorneys representing Buss’ daughter, Jeanie, admonishing her five siblings — Janie, Johnny, Jim, Joey and Jesse — for announcing the Buss Family Trust was selling its 17.8% ownership of the Lakers to new buyers Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner.

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Dodgers sweep the Rockies

From Maddie Lee: As Teoscar Hernández popped up from his slide across home plate, Mookie Betts retreated to first applauding.

While the long ball had been the key to the Dodgers’ earlier offensive success Wednesday, keeping it simple unlocked their 10th-inning push. And in the Dodgers’ 6-4 victory Wednesday, it was Betts’ third hit of the night, a low line drive through the middle of the infield, that widened the Dodgers’ lead to two runs.

“It was huge,” Betts said of completing the three-game sweep in Colorado. “Winning every ball game is important, especially now with the playoff race. Every game is important.”

The trip to hitter-friendly Mile High City, and a matchup against the last-place team in the NL West, came at the perfect time for the Dodgers, ending a collective slump. They’d just dropped three of four to the Brewers at Dodger Stadium, in what had already been a rough start to August.

“Obviously, we haven’t played our best baseball lately,” utility player Kiké Hernández said. “And as a good team, as a team that’s leading the division, … the teams at the bottom of the standings, you need to beat those guys.”

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Angels lose to Astros

Ethan Pecko struck out four in his major-league debut, five Houston relievers pitched shutout ball for five-plus innings and Christian Vázquez homered as the Astros beat the Angels 3-2 on Wednesday night.

Pecko, a 2023 sixth-round selection by Houston, was ranked ninth in the Astros’ system by MLB Pipeline. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up three hits, two runs and two walks in 3 2/3 innings. He was the 17th starter used by the Astros this season, tying a franchise record set in 1965.

Vázquez’s solo homer, his seventh of the year, put the Astros ahead in the third inning.

Denzer Guzman put the Angels ahead in the fourth with what initially appeared to be a three-run homer. But, the call was changed to a two-run double due to fan interference.

Walbert Ureña (8-9) worked five innings for the Angels, giving up three runs and three hits with seven strikeouts.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Sparks star Nneka Ogwumike to retire

From Marisa Ingemi: Nneka Ogwumike’s return to the Sparks this season, it turned out, was a goodbye tour.

The 15-year WNBA veteran announced on Wednesday morning that this would be her last WNBA season.

She made the announcement in an interview with Taylor Rooks at Boardroom Talks.

“I feel very fulfilled with the 15 years that I’ve been able to play and compete at such a high level and I am proud to say that I’m retiring from the WNBA,” Ogwumike said.

Drafted first overall in 2012, Ogwumike was the WNBA rookie of the year and went on to have one of the best careers in. league history. She was the league’s MVP in 2016, when she led the Sparks to their most recent WNBA title. She is also a four-time first-team All-Defensive player.

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Chargers-49ers: Five things to watch for

From Joaquin Ruiz: The Chargers had a pleasant start to preseason play with a 27-7 road win over the Houston Texans last week.

Now, after a physical joint practice with the 49ers on Tuesday in El Segundo, the Chargers will host San Francisco on Thursday night at SoFi Stadium.

Here are five things to watch for during the Chargers’ second preseason game.

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Galaxy defeat the Earthquake

Joseph Paintsil scored a short-handed goal in the 79th minute to lead the Galaxy to a 1-0 victory over the San Jose Earthquakes on Wednesday night.

Paintsil used assists from rookie defender Harbor Miller and Marco Reus to find the net for the fifth time this season. Miller’s helper was his second, while Reus collected his seventh.

The Galaxy (6-8-7) were forced to play a man down from the 45th minute on after midfielder Lucas Sanabria was tagged with a pair of yellow cards in the final nine minutes of the first half.

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Galaxy summary

MLS standings

LAFC falls to Colorado

Nico Hansen finished with one save and had his third consecutive shutout to help the Colorado Rapids beat LAFC 1-0 Wednesday night.

The Rapids (9-10-1) have won three consecutive games, all by shutout, and four of five since the World Cup break.

LAFC (10-7-4) is winless in three straight for the first time this season.

The Rapids took a 1-0 lead in the 22nd minute on an own goal by Jeremy Ebobisse. Youssef Maziz played a free kick from the right side into the area that was redirected by Ebobisse off the back post and into the net.

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LAFC summary

MLS standings

This day in sports history

1921 — Molla Bjurstedt Mallory beats Mary Browne, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to win the U.S. women’s national tennis title at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia.

1931 — Helen Wills Moody beats Eileen Bennett Whitingstall 6-4, 6-1 to capture the women’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship.

1944 — Robert Hamilton upsets Byron Nelson in the final round 1-up to win the PGA Championship.

1960 — Holland’s Hairos II, driven by Willem Geersen, wins the second International Trot at Roosevelt Raceway before a record crowd of 54,861.

1995 — Monica Seles completes a remarkable first week back in tournament tennis, routing Amanda Coetzer 6-0, 6-1 to capture the Canadian Open. Her 74 games sets a tournament record for the fewest played by a champion.

1999 — Seventh Athletics World Championships open at Seville, Spain.

2000 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship in a playoff over Bob May, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. He’s the first player to repeat as PGA champion since Denny Shute in 1937.

2003 — The U.S. wins the women’s overall team gold medal at the gymnastics world championships. It is the first gold for the Americans — men or women — at the biggest international event outside the Olympics.

2004 — Michael Phelps matches Mark Spitz’s record of four individual gold medals in Olympic swimming by winning the 100-meter butterfly. He edges teammate Ian Crocker to win his fifth gold medal. Shortly after winning his seventh medal of these Olympics, Phelps gives up his spot in the medley relay to Crocker.

2006 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship for a five-shot victory over Shaun Micheel and his 12th career major. He becomes the first player to win the PGA twice on the same course, having done so at Medinah in 1999.

2008 — Usain Bolt of Jamaica breaks the 200-meter world record, winning in 19.30 seconds at the Beijing Games. He is the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 at an Olympics.

2012 — Augusta National invites former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first female members since the club was founded in 1932.

2016 — Allyson Felix and LaShawn Merritt anchor the 4×400 relay teams, and the U.S. exits the final night of action at Olympic Stadium with 31 medals — its most in a non-boycotted Olympics since 1956. The U.S. women’s basketball team beats Spain 101-72 for a sixth straight title.

2018 — Alabama becomes the second team to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll for three straight seasons. The preseason AP poll started in 1950 and since then only Oklahoma from 1985-87 had started No. 1 in three straight years.

2023 — FIFA Women’s World Cup Final, Stadium Australia, Sydney: Spanish captain Olga Carmona scores the only goal of the game as La Furia Roja score a 1-0 win over England.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1912 — Walter Johnson won his American League-record 15th straight game, downing Cleveland 4-2 in the opener of a doubleheader. Washington’s Carl Cashion pitched a six-inning no-hitter to give the Senators a 2-0 victory over the Cleveland Indians in the second game, which was called to allow Cleveland to catch a train to Boston.

1938 — New York’s Lou Gehrig hit his 23rd and the final grand slam of his career and drove in six runs to lead the Yankees to an 11-3 win over the Philadelphia Athletics.

1945 — Tommy Brown, 17 years, 8 months, 14 days, of the Brooklyn Dodgers became the youngest major league player to hit a home run when he connected in Ebbets Field against Preacher Roe of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

1957 — Bob Keegan of the Chicago White Sox pitched a 6-0 no-hit victory over the Washington Senators in the second game of a doubleheader.

1958 — Detroit’s Jim Bunning pitched a no-hitter to lead the Tigers to a 3-0 win over the Boston Red Sox in the opening game of a doubleheader at Fenway Park.

1961 — The Philadelphia Phillies beat the Milwaukee Braves 7-4 in the second game of a doubleheader to end a 23-game losing streak, a modern record.

1965 — Milwaukee’s Eddie Mathews hit his 28th home run, and the Braves beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 4-3. With the homer, the duo of Mathews and Hank Aaron passed the Babe Ruth-Lou Gehrig total of 772 home runs to become the top home-run tandem in major league history.

1974 — Nolan Ryan of the Angels struck out 19 Tigers in a 1-0, 11-inning loss to Detroit. It was the third time this season that Ryan struck out 19 batters in a game.

1980 — Pittsburgh’s Omar Moreno stole his 70th base of the season in a 5-1 loss to Houston, to become the first player this century with three consecutive 70-steal seasons. The fleet outfielder swiped 71 in 1978, 77 in 1979.

1989 — New York’s Howard Johnson hit his 30th home run of the season in the Mets’ 5-4 loss to the Dodgers and joined Bobby Bonds and Willie Mays as the only players to achieve 30 home runs and 30 stolen bases in two different seasons.

1995 — Jose Mesa of the Cleveland Indians picked up his 37th save in 37 opportunities to set a major league record, and the Indians beat the Milwaukee Brewers 8-5.

2005 — The Kansas City Royals ended baseball’s longest losing streak in 17 years, defeating the Oakland Athletics 2-1 to end a club-record 19-game skid.

2014 — The San Francisco Giants became the first team since 1986 to win a protest. Rain caused a delay during an Aug. 19 game after the grounds crew couldn’t put the tarp down quickly, and the umpires deemed the field unplayable. The Cubs were declared the winners by a 2-0 score after 4 1/2 innings. MLB ruled to resume the rain-shortened game with the Cubs batting in the bottom of the fifth.

2019 — By defeating the Blue Jays, 16-3, Clayton Kershaw of the Dodgers notches win No. 166 to pass Sandy Koufax for most by a left-hander in franchise history.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.