On a game night in Los Angeles, 10-year-old Boomtown Brewery in the Arts District can host 500 fans just five minutes walking distance from the Dodger Stadium shuttle at Union Station.
With the Dodgers hosting its archrival San Francisco Giants over the weekend, one might expect the cavernous brew hall with giant projection screens to be packed with revelers.
But ever since Tuesday, the only long line was the stretch of unused parking meters that formed a perimeter around the brewery.
Now, instead of customers belting out their favorite songs at Friday karaoke, the establishment is shuttered while city officials prepare for a day of widespread protests against Trump administration policies Saturday.
The curfew covers most of Chinatown, Skid Row and the Fashion and Arts districts from the 5 Freeway to the 110 Freeway, and from the 10 Freeway to where the 110 and 5 freeways merge.
Along with area bars and restaurants, civic institutions and art organizations have also been affected. The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s Seoul Festival canceled its final performance on Tuesday and the Mark Taper Forum canceled productions of Hamlet on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Chris Dombos, left, and Sarah Carmean enjoy a beer and a bit of solitude at Boomtown Brewery in the Arts District on Wednesday. The brewery is located inside the curfew zone established by the city of Los Angeles.
Iconic Angels Flight, the over 100-year-old funicular cable car, is moving its final service from 10 p.m. to 8 p.m. until the curfew ends.
Inside Boomtown, marketing manager Nick Gingold was pleased to see a gathering of about 20 regulars who stopped by Wednesday at 6 p.m.
The brewery became aware of the curfew via social media and Mayor Bass’ televised announcement Tuesday, shortly after 4 p.m.
“I don’t think we actually received an official notice from the city, as far as I know,” Gingold said.
The mayor’s office did not respond to questions about whether it provided curfew notices.
The brewery amended its closing time to 7:30 p.m., meaning it shuttered two and a half hours early on Tuesday and Wednesday. That same early closing bell will cut the brewery operating time in half on Thursdays and leave only four and a half of the regularly-scheduled 11 hours for business on Fridays.
Gingold said the closure would sting Boomtown but didn’t want to speculate on revenue losses.
Boomtown is not alone in changing its hours.
Angel City Brewery, also located in the Arts District, has amended its normal 4 p.m. to midnight weeknight schedule. The brewery posted on Instagram that it was closing Wednesday and Thursday at 7 p.m. though it opened at 1 p.m. on Thursday.
Chinatown’s Melody Lounge went one step further, announcing on Instagram that it was temporarily closing its doors throughout the curfew’s duration.
“It’s been a rough few years for Los Angeles with the pandemic, the shutdown, film industry strikes and now this,” Gingold said. “Let me be clear, we support our Latino community throughout this time and stand with them.”
Boomtown posted on Instagram on Tuesday that the store promised to stay open “as long as it’s safe to do so” to serve as a meeting place for the community.
“We celebrate diversity and reject divisiveness. We celebrate immigrants and reject hate and we support our neighbors,” one post noted.
Chris Dombos, a special effects artist who lives in the Arts District, found his way into Boomtown, appreciative of the brewery’s solidarity.
“This is a time of rising fascism where a city like Los Angeles, built by immigrants, is under attack and needs allies,” said Dombos, 44, who has observed some of the protests.
Dombos, 44, described the curfew as a political stunt and called on the mayor’s office to investigate the “brutal tactics” by Los Angeles police officers. He said constant flyovers by authorities have been “terrorizing” the neighborhood.
Sarah Carmean, who enjoyed a light draft at Boomtown, lamented with service-industry employees missing tips or hours.
“These are the people who really lose out with the curfews,” she said. “They are dependent on that money to pay bills.”
Chef Genevieve Gergis, owner of acclaimed restaurants Bestia and Bavel in the Arts District, called the curfew “a broad and vague overreach” and criticized city leadership.
She said neither of her restaurants were anywhere near protests and she only heard of the curfew from television.
“The lack of guidance for small businesses and those who work in the area are being swept up in this blanket policy with no explanation or details,” she wrote in an email. “This sudden, unexplained action feels like it was enacted without any care or consideration.”
Mina Park, co-owner and chef at Baroo, the Los Angeles Times 2024 Restaurant of the Year, said she closed her modern Korean eatery on Wednesday in the wake of the curfew and was still trying to plan out what to do.
“We have a lot of cancellations and concerns because of the protests and the curfew,” she said. “It’s hard to run a business with this uncertainty.”
Park said she’ll likely have to throw out some fresh food, but also didn’t feel she could complain much.
“Having to close for a couple of days is nothing compared to what so many families are going through,” she said of the ICE raids. “It’s really hard to see what’s happening with the community.”
The social media user claimed to have found the most underrated city in Europe, sharing a short video of the destination, which is known for its incredible architecture
Graslei Quay on the banks of the Leie river in the historic centre of Ghent(Image: alxpin via Getty Images)
Praise has been lavished on an historic city dating back to the Middle Ages with a population of just 560,000 people and the largest designated cyclist area in Europe. In a short video on YouTube, @MarkEarthExplored shared a video of “a true hidden gem”.
With just 60 followers to his name, the intrepid explorer exclaimed in his latest offering: “I found the most underrated city in Europe.” Clocking in over 130 likes, the footage takes viewers on a visual jaunt through Ghent, the jewel of Belgium’s East Flanders province and its third-largest urban sprawl.
Steeped in antiquity as one of the nation’s eldest cities, Ghent boasts a tapestry of historical richness and awe-inspiring architecture epitomised by the towering Saint Bavo’s Cathedral, peaking at 292 feet.
Ghent’s treasure trove of landmarks features The Groot Vleeshuis, a grandiose former market hall, the ancient Gravensteen castle harking back to 1180, and the sacred walls of St Elisabeth Church, nestled within one of the city’s three beguinages.
If bricks and mortar history isn’t your cup of tea, Ghent has a smorgasbord of museums to tickle your fancy, reports the Express.
The prestigious Museum voor Schone Kunsten houses a staggering array of artwork amounting to 9,000 pieces dating as far back as the Middle Ages, majorly spotlighting Flemish masterpieces beside those of other European virtuosos.
The arched St Michael’s Bridge in the centre of Ghent(Image: alxpin via Getty Images)
Meanwhile, the Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (SMAK), or City Museum for Contemporary Art in layman’s terms, parades a dazzling permanent exhibit featuring scene-stealing pieces from icons like Andy Warhol and Francis Bacon.
Alternatively, food enthusiasts can indulge in some of Ghent’s mouth-watering specialties, such as the sweet, cinnamon-spiced “mastellen” or “Saint Hubert bread” bagels.
A mastel is a soft, bagel-like treat flavoured with cinnamon and sugar, offering a delightful taste experience.
Another local delight is the praline chocolates, also known as cuberdons or “neuzekes” (little noses), which are cone-shaped and filled with a sweet raspberry-flavoured filling.
Visitors can easily reach Ghent by plane, train, or car. By train, the journey from London takes approximately three hours, while a flight takes around one hour.
Driving from London to Ghent takes roughly 4.5 hours, although the duration may vary depending on the specific starting location.
After running — or more like barely surviving — my first half-marathon about a decade ago in Las Vegas, I had no desire to participate in a long-distance run ever again.
That was until I learned that Nike was hosting the Nike After Dark tour, a women’s race series designed to celebrate women and encourage them to get into the sport. The L.A. half-marathon — the tour’s only stop in the U.S. — was slated to include a concert with Grammy-winning rapper Doechii at the end of the 13.1 mile race. Given that Nike has built a reputation for curating cool, culture-forward experiences, I figured this would be the perfect way for me to get out of my years-long retirement from running. Plus, several of my friends were participating so it was bound to be a good time.
After training for several weeks at parks and tracks around L.A., I hit the pavement alongside nearly 15,000 participants — 43% of whom were first-time half-marathoners — on Saturday evening at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The event sparked a lot of online chatter — not all positive — with some runners calling the race disorganized and a marketing event catered to influencers. As for me, I experienced several highs during the energetic event, but also some moments of frustration and confusion. Here’s how the night went down, from the starting line (and the journey in getting there) to the high-octane concert finale.
Pre-race: Getting to the starting line was a marathon in itself
Knowing that thousands of people were expected to participate in the event, I opted to get to the SoFi Stadium about an hour and a half early to avoid traffic. In hindsight, I should’ve arrived even earlier. Several streets were blocked off due to the race, but once I found the parking lot, it was easy for me to find a spot — much easier than it was at the recent Kendrick Lamar and SZA concert a few weeks prior. (While registration for the race started at $150, parking was thankfully free for those who secured a spot ahead of time.)
After experiencing long lines and a delayed start time, runners gather in their assigned corrals to prepare for the 13.1-mile race.
I followed a herd of people toward the entrance where we went through a security checkpoint, then a bag check line, which took about 30 minutes to get through. Afterward, I rushed outside to find my friends and waited in yet another line — this time for the porta-potties — which took about 40 minutes.
The starting line, at last
By this time, there were only about 10 minutes until race time and I still needed to stretch, so my group ran over to the starting corrals. The race was initially scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m., but an emcee announced that it was being pushed back to 6:45 p.m. This made me nervous because the concert was set for 9:30 p.m., so this meant that I’d have less than three hours to finish if I wanted to catch the show.
In the weeks leading up to the marathon, some participants took to social media to voice their concerns about Nike changing its course time from four hours — as it stated on the registration form — to three hours. In one Threads post, a runner said: “If the whole purpose of this event was to reclaim running by giving women a space to feel safe running at night, then why wouldn’t you be inclusive to runners of all paces?”
In response to the feedback, Nike ultimately set the course time to three hours and 17 minutes, allowing for an average mile of 15 minutes per mile, according to a Nike spokesperson. The brand added a shorter course option, which was nine miles, so participants could still cross the finish line, receive a medal (a silver necklace with a giant Nike swoosh) and enjoy the concert.
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Despite the confusion, people were amped. “I’m at this phase in my life where I really want to prove to myself that I can do hard things,” said Ayanna Fox, 29, of Chino Hills, on why she wanted to participate.
Misty Garcia, 17, a Venice High School student, said: “I felt like this race in particular was so interesting because it was going to be mostly women and it’s about women empowerment, so I love it.”
As Charli xcx’s “360” played over the speakers, Nike trainers along with Olympic gymnast Jordan Chiles and Olympic hurdler Anna Cockrell, hyped up the crowd as each corral took off. This was the point when my nerves started to kick in because I was eager to get started. About 7:05 p.m., a burst of smoke popped. I was finally off and running.
Host Elisa Hernandez, from left, Diljeet Taylor, Anna Cockrell and Jordan Chiles at the Nike After Dark Tour in L.A.
Miles 1-7: The excitement of activations, DJs and cheering fans
The first seven miles were the most exhilarating for me. I felt strong and confident about my pace. And for my legs, this stretch was smooth sailing. Hundreds of people were cheering from the sidelines and holding up signs with statements like “You run better than our government,” “Hot girls run half marathons” and “Hurry up so we can drink.” Drivers along the freeway were honking for us. DJs played upbeat house and hip-hop music. USC’s band performed. Between the six- and seven-mile marker, we ran through a tunnel that was filled with flashing red lights and bubble machines. The energy was electric.
Supporters cheer and hold signs as runners embark on the Nike After Dark half marathon in L.A.
Several brands including Flamingo, Honey Stinger (which gave out free energy gels and snacks) and Beats by Dre had activations along the course. There was even a recovery station with couches, restroom trailers and snacks.
Miles 8-10: The pain sets in
Just before Mile 8, my headphones died and that’s when the hills started to get to me. I felt like I was running up and down a sharp roller coaster. Without music, I was forced to talk myself through the final stretch. But it was in these trenches that I noticed several sweet moments of community care: a volunteer passing out Bengay cream, a group of friends holding up a woman as she limped, runners shouting out their home countries and waving their flags in the wake of the ICE raids that were happening in our city at this very moment. It was a beautiful reminder of how much better we are as people when we support one another.
Supporters record and cheer as runners embark on the Nike women’s half-marathon at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Around Mile 10, I spotted Chris Bennett, Nike’s running global head coach, giving out high-fives and encouraging people to push forward. (He even ran with the last bunch of runners and helped them across the finish line.)
The final mile — or was it?
As I neared the end, I felt bamboozled because there were at least two massive archways that looked like the finish line, but actually weren’t. I still had a ways to go. I could’ve cried tears of joy when I finally reached the end. I clocked in at three hours and three minutes, which I was pleased with because my only goals were to finish, have fun and make it to the concert. The winner was Sofia Camacho, a drag artist and Nike run coach based in New York, who clocked in at one hour, 15 minutes and 25 seconds.
Hundreds of supporters line the course as runners embark on the Nike After Dark Tour in Los Angeles.
After grabbing my medal, I walked as fast as my sore limbs would allow back inside the stadium. The trek felt tortuous because we had to climb up multiple sets of stairs, then journey down a walkway that was roughly 10 levels that felt never-ending until we reached the bottom where the stage was. Some people gave up on watching the show simply because they didn’t have the energy to make it down.
The grand finale: Doechii brings the energy
By the time I got there, I was disappointed to see that Doechii was already on her final two songs of her 30-minute set, but the energy was so high that I quickly forgot and just enjoyed the moment while I could. The show ended just before 10:40 p.m. while some folks were still running including one of my friends who missed the show and wasn’t able to get a pair of Barbie pink Nike slides and socks they were passing out.
The night ends and yet the trek continues
After the show, we were instructed to exit the stadium — thankfully there was an escalator — but I still had to muster up the energy to go back to the entrance at the other side of the stadium so I could retrieve my belongings from the bag check area. My legs were finished by the time I got to my car.
Aside from some logistical issues and long wait times, I enjoyed participating in the Nike After Dark Tour. The course was challenging but doable, and running alongside thousands of women and allies of various ages and backgrounds at night felt empowering. Runners received a ton of freebies, particularly at the bib pickup at the Grove, which included a dri-fit T-shirt and makeup from Milk.
As someone who typically avoids cardio in my workout sessions, this race has inspired me to continue hitting the pavement and exploring this beautiful city on foot. And who knows, I just might sign up for another race.
Runners take off for the women’s half-marathon, which started at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Trinity Lake, at its fullest, has 145 miles of shoreline and is 2.5 million acre-feet of water. It is an artificial lake formed by the creation of the Trinity Dam, a massive earth-filled dam, in the 1960s.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
The Trinity Alps is home to several campgrounds, resorts and limitless backcountry camping spots. There are several campgrounds around Trinity Lake, including Hayward Flat, Jackass Springs and Bushytail, which has showers. Rental cabins and resorts (and also a Buddhist retreat center where you can rent various accommodations) are scattered throughout the Trinity Alps for those wanting to sleep in something beyond a nylon-walled tent.
Here are some of the campgrounds that hikers should consider when planning a trip to the Trinities.
Big Flat Campground
Remote and deeper in the Trinities than others on this list, the Big Flat campground in Klamath National Forest has nine first-come, first-served campsites just off the South Fork of the Salmon River. It is farther north than other sites on this list, nearest to the Coffee Creek community where there’s a general store that sells cold beer and sandwiches.
Hikers camping here will have several trails to choose from, including arduous but rewarding treks to Caribou Lakes, the Yellow Rose Mine or Ward Lake. The site sits at about 5,000 feet and is typically closed until later in the summer when snow in the area has melted enough for the campground to be safely accessed. It is best to call or check in person at the ranger station to ensure your vehicle is suitable to make the drive on Coffee Creek Road.
Bridge Camp Campground
Bridge Camp has 10 campsites, each with picnic tables and fire rings.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Bridge Camp is a 10-site first-come, first-served campground situated along the Stuart Fork, a tributary of the Trinity River, in Shasta-Trinity National Forest. Situated about 17 miles north of Weaverville, the campground has potable water available from Memorial Day to Oct. 31.
To reach the campground, you’ll drive through the charming Trinity Alps Resort, which rents out rustic red cabins named after California counties, and onto a narrow gravel road. Use extreme caution on this final stretch of your journey as the southern edge of the roadway has a steep drop-off that plunges down to the Stuart Fork.
The campground is an arboreous escape shaded by massive old trees and, under safe conditions, guests can enjoy a cool dip in Stuart Fork’s clear waters.
Backpackers will often stay a night here because it shares its location with the Stuart Fork Trailhead, where they can start a multi-day trip to Emerald and Sapphire Lakes, which are 14 and 15 miles away, respectively. This trip to reach the 21-acre Emerald Lake (at a depth of 68 feet) and 43-acre Sapphire Lake (at 200 feet deep) is one of the most popular among backpackers in the Trinities. The Stuart Fork trail also makes for great day hiking regardless of how far you go.
As a bonus, Trinity Alps Resort, only two miles from the campground, has a general store that’s open to the public and features an ice cream counter and a restaurant, Bear’s Breath Bar & Grill, that advertises a “world famous” spaghetti buffet — just in case you forget your can opener and need an easy spot for dinner.
Mary Smith Campground
Mary Smith, a 17-site campground on Lewiston Lake shoreline, treats guests with one thing none of the other sites on this list provide: glamping. Six of its campsites, each available to reserve through recreation.gov, offer yurts including queen beds with linens, down comforters and pillows, along with two nightstands and an oversized rug. Outside the yurts, guests will find armchairs, a coffee table, fire pit and picnic table. Not a bad place to rest after hiking and swimming all day!
The campground, shaded by large pine and other trees, has flush and vault toilets and drinking water. Guests can marvel at great views of the lakes and wildflowers that blanket the area through the summer. It’s a great spot to camp for anyone wanting to kayak or canoe, as the lake has a 10-mph speed limit for watercraft.
Ripstein Campground
The Ripstein campground has 10 sites for tent camping near the popular Canyon Creek trailhead.
(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)
Ripstein is a 10-site first-come, first-served campground in Shasta-Trinity National Forest that’s shaded by tall trees with a natural soundscape of nearby Canyon Creek. It has multiple roomy campsites, including a few next to the river that deliver pristine views and privacy.
The popular Canyon Creek Trailhead is just under a mile away, and a popular swim area is close too. Nearby parking areas can fill up on weekends so it’s best to arrive early to the trailhead or walk from your campground. Backpackers use this campground as a quick stopover before heading out.
Although Ripstein doesn’t have potable water or flush toilets, it boasts a landscape so vibrant and green, it feels like walking into a fairy tale. For those campers willing to rough it a bit, it’s an A-plus choice.
WASHINGTON — The governor and the president are talking past each other.
The two men, despite their politics and ambition, have worked together before, through devastating fires and a pandemic. But as immigration raids roil Los Angeles, President Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom cannot even agree on how they left their last conversation, late on Friday evening on the East Coast, as protests picked up around the city.
Aides to Trump told The Times he issued a clear warning: “Get the police in gear.” His patience would last less than 24 hours before he chose a historic path, federalizing the National Guard against the wishes of state and local officials.
The governor, on the other hand, told MSNBC the account is a lie. In their 40-minute call, not once did the president raise the prospect of wresting control over the National Guard from state and local officials.
They have not spoken since, a White House official said.
Trump went even further on Monday, raising the specter of Newsom’s arrest and supplementing the National Guard operation with a historic deployment of active-duty U.S. Marines.
The troop deployment is yet another extraordinary effort to quell simmering demonstrations across Los Angeles, some of which have turned violent, in protest of flash raids conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers in recent days.
‘Subjecting himself to arrest’
Newsom’s government said Monday it would sue the Trump administration over the deployment and issued scathing criticism of Trump’s leadership, calling his Defense secretary a “joke” and the president “unhinged.” But the president and his top advisers responded with an especially pointed threat, suggesting the governor could be arrested for obstruction.
“It is a basic principle in this country that if you break the law, you will face a consequence for that,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Times in an interview. “So if the governor obstructs federal enforcement, or breaks federal laws, then he is subjecting himself to arrest.”
Earlier in the day, Tom Homan, the president’s so-called border czar, said that no one is above the law and that anyone — including the governor — who obstructs immigration enforcement would be subject to charges.
“I would do it if I were Tom,” Trump said, pursing his lips as he appeared to consider the question as he was speaking to reporters on Monday. “I think it’s great.”
“He’s done a terrible job,” Trump continued. “I like Gavin Newsom. He’s a nice guy. But he’s grossly incompetent. Everybody knows.”
The White House is not actively discussing or planning Newsom’s arrest. But Newsom took the threat seriously, vehemently decrying Trump’s remarks as the mark of an authoritarian.
“The President of the United States just called for the arrest of a sitting Governor. This is a day I hoped I would never see in America. I don’t care if you’re a Democrat or a Republican this is a line we cannot cross as a nation — this is an unmistakable step toward authoritarianism,” Newsom wrote on X.
“It would truly be unprecedented to arrest a governor over a difference in policy between the federal government and a state,” UC Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky said Monday. “Even when Southern governors were obstructing desegregation orders, presidents did not try to have them arrested.”
A backfiring effort at deterrence
Leavitt said that Trump’s initial decision to deploy the Guard was “with the expectation that the deployment of the National Guard would hopefully prevent and deter some of this violence.”
“He told the governor to get it under control and watched again for another full day, 24 hours, where it got worse,” Leavitt said. “The assaults against federal law enforcement upticked, the violence grew, and the president took bold action on Saturday evening to protect federal detention spaces and federal buildings and federal personnel.”
The opposite occurred. The worst violence yet took place on Sunday, with some rioters torching and hurling concrete at police cars, hours after National Guard troops had arrived in L.A. County.
The protests had been largely peaceful throughout Friday and Saturday, with isolated instances of violent activity. Leavitt said that Newsom and Karen Bass, the mayor of Los Angeles, have “handicapped” the Los Angeles Police Department, “who are trying to do their jobs.”
Local leaders “have refused to allow the local police department to work alongside the feds to enforce our nation’s immigration laws, and to detain and arrest violent criminals who are on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said.
“As for the local law enforcement,” she added, “the president has the utmost respect for the Los Angeles Police Department.”
‘All options on the table’
Leavitt, in a phone call on Monday afternoon, said she would not get ahead of Trump on whether he will invoke the Insurrection Act, a law that allows the president to suspend Posse Comitatus, which prohibits the military from engaging in local law enforcement.
But she took note that, on Monday, the president referred to some of the rioters as insurrectionists, potentially laying the groundwork for an invocation of the law.
“The president is wisely keeping all options on the table, and will do what is necessary to restore law and order in California,” she said. “Federal immigration enforcement operations will continue in the city of Los Angeles, which has been completely overrun by illegal alien criminals that pose a public safety risk and need to be removed from the city.”
The president’s order, directing 2,000 National Guard troops to protect federal buildings in the city, allows for a 60-day deployment. Leavitt would not say how long the operation might last, but suggested it would continue until violence at the protests ends.
“I don’t want to get ahead of the president on any decisions or timelines,” she said. “I can tell you the White House is 100% focused on this. The president wants to solve the problem. And that means creating an environment where citizens, if they wish, are given the space and the right to peacefully protest.”
“And these violent disruptors and insurrectionists, as the president has called them, are not only doing a disservice to law-abiding citizens, but to those who wish to peacefully protest. That’s a fundamental right this administration will always support and protect.”
Wilner reported from Washington, Wick from Los Angeles.
In a huge blow to Brits, EU countries have green-lighted controversial plans to lengthen the wait time before delayed passengers can claim compensation for both short and long-haul journeys
Brits could soon be stung by new compensation rules when flying(Image: undefined via Getty Images)
Customers flying with some big name air operators on short-haul flights have been hit with a brutal four-hour warning over a controversial shakeup.
After 12 years of wrangling, EU countries have green-lighted plans to lengthen the wait time before flyers can lodge claims for delayed flights. Currently, passengers have to be delayed by more than three hours before qualifying for compensation.
However, under the new stipulations – which still have to be negotiated with the European Parliament before they become law – short-haul travellers will only be eligible to claim compensation after being delayed by four hours or more, while those on longer journeys will have to sit tight for a six-hour hold-up before they can lodge a compensation claim.
The huge changes could have a negative impact of delayed travellers(Image: undefined via Getty Images)
It’s not all bad news though, as EU nations have also agreed to increase the amount of compensation for those delayed on short-haul journeys from €250 (approx £210.47) to €300 (£252.56). But, passengers hit with delays on long-haul flights could see their compensation reduce from €600 (£505) to €500 (£420).
The trade body Airlines for Europe (A4E), which represents companies such as Ryanair, easyJet and Lufthansa, and The European Consumer Organisation, the BEUC, both slammed the rules – arguing it would deprive the majority of passengers from being able to claim compensation. This is because most delays are only between two and four hours.
“Europe has been waiting for transparent and workable passenger rights for 12 years and member states have fallen at the final hurdle to deliver,” A4E said. “Member states have diluted the European Commission’s original proposal and introduced even more complexity.”
According to Yorkshire Live, German members of the European People’s Party have also expressed their disapproval, stating that ‘decreasing the rights to compensation for air passengers would be a step in the wrong direction’. “Reimbursement after a three-hour delay has been standard for many years and should remain so,” they added.
A senior EU diplomat is believed to have said that ‘no politician wants to say more than four hours’ at risk of dampening Europeans’ holiday plans. The news comes amidst accusations by 16 consumer protection associations from 12 Member States against seven budget airlines for imposing unfair charges on passengers’ hand luggage.
“The European Court of Justice has made it very clear that hand baggage is an integral part of the basic ticket price. Normally, there is no surcharge on the price as long as the hand luggage is of a reasonable size,” explained Steven Berger, a solicitor with the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC).
“All we’re seeing is a proliferation of airlines charging for this baggage… We’re calling for very clear rules. Passengers must be able to take one piece of luggage, a small suitcase or a rucksack.”
He added: “At the moment, there are two different opposing positions among the member states in the Council. On the whole, you have the camp of the member states that are going to defend the three hours to be able to benefit from the right to compensation and others that are going to ask for five hours and nine hours based on distance. So right now this is really the big source of conflict.”
*Prices based on EUR to GBP conversions at the time of writing.
What do you think of the proposed rules? Let us know in the comments section below
Avon and Somerset police are said to have turned up on set to arrest the bricklayer-turned-actor soon after filming scenes
10:36, 08 Jun 2025Updated 10:47, 08 Jun 2025
The actor was filming with Danny Dyer (pictured) when he was arrested on set(Image: Disney+)
An actor was arrested on the set of Disney’s Rivals in front of cast and crew just an hour after filming with Danny Dyer, it has been reported. Police are said to have arrived on set to arrest Nigel Adams who was working as an extra on the hit show.
The incident allegedly took place in front of shocked cast members and while Adams was still in costume due to filming scenes just moment beforehand. The 45-year-old was filming a polo scene alongside acting legend Danny Dyer for the second series of the programme.
However, it was reportedly just an hour later that police cars turned up and Adams was driven away before spending two nights in police custody. He then appeared in court on Friday as he was accused of assaulting an ex-girlfriend.
Adams was arrested on set(Image: Nigel Adams/Instagram)
The Sun reported that a source said: “It was very dramatic. Everyone was in their costumes and Danny was filming this polo scene when an hour later police suddenly turned up to arrest one of the extras. It was shocking.”
The assault is reported to have happened at a house in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset. Police were allegedly called to the address at 2am on May 31 of this year.
Adams was said to be questioned about the assault once he was arrested. Avon and Someset police are thought to have been tipped off that the bricklayer-turned-actor was working on the Rivals set at the time.
A friend said that he will be “gutted” as the arrest could mark the end of his acting career. They said: “He’ll be gutted because it could end his TV career, something he really loves doing.
“He’s a bricklayer by trade but he’s been doing more and more TV work, he’s been in loads of stuff. Whenever he’s in the background of a show he gets all his family and friends to watch it.”
Adams has quite a few acting roles under his belt already which include House of the Dragon, The Forsyte Saga and 2022 movie Prizefighter: The Life of Jem Belcher. Adams appeared at Bristol magistrates’ court on Friday charged with assault causing actual bodily harm.
No plea was made by him and he was given conditional bail until he returns to the city’s crown court on July 7. Production company Happy Prince, which makes the drama Rivals, told The Sun: “On the 4th June, the police visited the set regarding an unrelated matter involving a supporting artist.
“Production co-operated with the police. We do not have any further information as it is not connected to Rivals or to our production.”
The Mirror have contacted Happy Prince, Disney and Avon and Someset police for comment.
He won £275,000 for winning the title to add to three nightly wins of £30k in total and picking up gold darts worth £30k for a nine-darter.
Bet UK revealed that this meant the Leeds fan earned a mind-blowing £19,706 per week. That worked out at £1,006 per leg, £9,306 per match and £4,926 per hour.
Teen sensation Littler didn’t do so bad either as runner-up.
He earned an astonishing £12,647 per week on average in the BetMGM Premier League season.
With each night taking around four hours to complete, Littler earned a jaw-dropping £3.1k per hour from the competition.
He played the most matches in the Premier League, racking up 37 matches in 16 weeks, during the regular season, earning £90,000 in the process.
He then played two matches on Finals Night, where he finished second after his 11-8 defeat in the final to Humphries, claiming a further £125,000 as a consolation prize and taking his prize money total to £215,000.
Research by BetUK reveals Littler earned £5,513 per match and £556 per leg this season.
Luke Littler and Luke Humphries play out ‘best darts match ever’ as Wayne Mardle says ‘even they’re finding it funny’
Gerwyn Price also had a really successful season, earning a total of £175,000 in prize money.
That breaks down to £10,294 per week, £665 per leg and £6,250 per match.
Price’s average earnings also work out to be higher than Littler’s, despite earning less prize money, as the Welshman played 11 fewer games and more than 100 fewer legs than the superstar.
A coalition of airlines, hotels and concession companies at Los Angeles International Airport filed paperwork Thursday to force a citywide vote on a new ordinance hiking the minimum wage of hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour by 2028.
The group, known as the L.A. Alliance for Tourism, Jobs and Progress, is hoping to persuade voters to repeal the ordinance. But first, the alliance would need to gather about 93,000 signatures within 30 days to qualify the measure for the ballot in an upcoming election.
Phil Singer, a spokesperson for the alliance, said the wage increase “threatens revenue Los Angeles urgently needs” — and its standing as the host of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“Small businesses will be forced to shut down, workers will lose their jobs, and the economic fallout will stretch across the city,” Singer said in an email. “We’re fighting for all of it: the city’s future, the jobs that sustain our communities, and the millions of guests the tourism industry proudly serves year after year.”
The new ballot measure campaign comes just two days after Mayor Karen Bass signed the minimum wage legislation into law.
The wage ordinance has been hotly opposed by an array of L.A. business organizations, which argue that it increases wages in the tourism industry too much and too quickly. However, it was welcomed by unions representing hotel and airport employees, which have supported many of the politicians who backed the measure.
The alliance’s campaign committee has received major funding from Delta Airlines, United Airlines and the American Hotel & Lodging Assn., Singer said. The group’s petition, submitted to the city clerk’s office, was signed by five businesspeople, including Greg Plummer, operator of an LAX concession company; Mark Beccaria, a partner with the Hotel Angeleno on L.A.’s Westside; and Alec Mesropian, advocacy manager with the organization known as BizFed.
The alliance is targeting a law that’s slated to push the hourly minimum wage to $22.50 on July 1 for housekeepers, parking attendants and hotel restaurant workers, as well as LAX skycaps, baggage handlers and concession employees. The wage would jump to $25 in 2026 and $27.50 in 2027.
The wage increase was spearheaded by Unite Here Local 11, the hotel and restaurant worker union, and by Service Employees International Union United Service Workers West, which represents private-sector airport workers.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, called the business group’s proposal “shameful” and promised his union’s members would go “toe to toe out on the streets” with the alliance’s signature gatherers.
“The hotel industry’s greed is limitless,” Petersen said. “They would rather spend millions getting them to sign this petition than pay their workers enough to live in Los Angeles. It’s shameful, but we’re confident that Angelenos will see through their deceptions and stand with workers.”
Under the city’s laws, hotel and airport workers have minimum wages that are higher than those who are employed by other industries.
For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 cents higher than the state’s. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 per hour.
Backers of the airport and hotel minimum wage hikes say they will help some of the region’s lowest paid workers cover the rising cost of rent and food, while also giving them more disposable income to spend locally, delivering a boost to the region’s economy.
Detractors say it will undermine efforts by L.A.’s tourism industry to recover from the decline in business that was sparked by the outbreak of COVID-19 five years ago. They contend the ordinance will lead to layoffs, while also chilling development of new hotels.
The ordinance also requires airport and hotel businesses to provide an hourly healthcare payment — on top of the minimum wage — that starts at $7.65 in July and is expected to go up each year. (Hotels will be exempted from that requirement until 2026.)
Once the healthcare requirement is included, some businesses will be required to pay their workers an additional 60% over a three-year period, opponents of the wage increase say.
A gritty, rock-inflected comedy using the nocturnal peculiarities of Mumbai slum life as a fertile (if at times fetid) palette, British-raised Karan Kandhari’s “Sister Midnight,” about a restless young housewife’s urban malaise, easily holds your attention for long stretches when seemingly little happens, but everything feels charged.
Don’t mistake this stylish feature debut for a misery wallow, however, or some poetic character study. It’s tantalizingly oddball and indelicate: a combined daymare and night odyssey that scratches until a feral hidden strength is revealed in the misfit main character, captivatingly played by Indian star Radhika Apte.
Though the movie ultimately can’t square its episodic unpredictability with the bubbling feminist-outlaw energy at its core — not to mention the comic-book twist that shakes it all up halfway through — that’s less a bug than a feature. Like a movie DJ, Kandhari is flexing a pulpy mood of big-city dislocation, building a trippy, jarring and blackly funny experience out of a city’s stray colors, sounds and personalities.
Arriving at their one-room hovel in the dead of night, arranged-marriage newlyweds and rural transplants Uma (Apte) and Gopal (Ashok Pathak) look more like thrown-together prison cellmates adjusting to a warden’s rules than a romantic couple embracing a future together. We glean that this was a match of undesirables: the timid, sexless guy no girl wanted and the girl too outspoken to be paired.
But here they are, having to make do. Gopal at least has a job to go to, from which he often comes home hammered after drinks with colleagues. Uma, left behind in the solitude of a shack that only allows one shaft of window light, is quick to profanely protest the joyless, intimacy-challenged rut they’ve entered. Alternating between angry and exhausted, she bristles at acclimating to the domesticity that her prickly neighbor wives treat like a club handshake.
Before long, Uma’s taste for cigarettes under the moonlight turns into regular solo walks at all hours. An impulsive journey to a coastal part of town hours away leads to her taking a cleaning job in an office building (and a friendship with a glumly simpatico elevator operator). Suddenly, she’s brandishing a mop and pail everywhere like a rootless knight without a quest or a horse. Then there’s a cryptic street encounter with a goat and things get even weirder. But also, somehow, more validating.
Kandhari, with his hypnotic Wes Anderson-by-way-of-David Lynch widescreen framing and deliberate tracking shots, seems more concerned with capturing something liminal in Uma’s alternative existence, as if the city were just weird and oppressive enough to tease out any transformation that was already lying dormant. (By the time the movie introduces stop-motion creatures roaming the streets, you’ve been primed to think, “Sure, why not?”)
A mischievously off-the-wall exercise like “Sister Midnight” (which eventually embraces some gnarlier elements) needs a certain steam to keep up its deadpan wildness. Kandhari is blessed in that regard with an active visual curiosity about his cracked fable’s punk potential, helped by Sverre Sørdal’s humid cinematography and a game lead in Apte, whose middle-finger energy is sometimes hilariously offset by a wonderful silent-film-star haplessness.
One wishes it all held together a little more, instead of laying seeds that tend to sprout vibes and distractions instead of an illuminating cohesiveness. Kandhari will too often keep Uma in cartoon rebel-goddess mode, needle-dropping another classic rock cut as if daring us to accept Motorhead or Buddy Holly as the only viable soundtrack for what’s going on. But those elements are a kick, too.
Of course, the title “Sister Midnight” is an Iggy Pop staple. “What can I do about my dreams?” it growls, an apt lyric for the singularly inventive and unmanageable fever of a movie that shares its name.
I am a photo fellow at the L.A. Times, and recently spent three days photographing for the Motel California project at the Skyview Los Alamos. What immediately struck me was how tucked away in the hills the motel was, even with its close proximity to the freeway. While only two hours away from L.A., I felt like I was in a totally different place.
The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.
I captured the iconic yellow “Motel” sign by the pool, the turquoise Moke shuttle, and lots of unique fixtures. Having three days to photograph an assignment is rare in daily news, so I felt lucky to be able to spend more time in certain spots of the property and reshoot in different lighting situations. Good light is critical to making a good photo, so I made the most of golden hour during my visit. All of the pops of orange, yellow and teal around the property complemented warm light well. I loved that most of the plants were succulents and cactuses, giving the place a desert feel on the Central Coast. When I look at all the photos as a whole, I feel the sense of calm and warmth I experienced while I was there.
— Juliana Yamada, photography fellow
Ramsey 29 motel in Twentynine Palms. Owner Ashton Ramsey took over a motor lodge that dates to the 1940s.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Rocky details at the Pearl. (Megan Morello / For The Times)
Decorative brick from the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)
The Atomic Bombshell Room at the Trixie Motel.
(David Fouts / For The Times)
Rooms 13 and 14 at the Skyview Motel.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
The Skylark Hotel sign in Palm Springs.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Alamo Motel sign in Los Alamos, from left.Peach Tree Inn sign in San Luis Obispo.Motel Capri sign in San Francisco.(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Skyview Motel sign, from left.The River Lodge sign in Paso Robles.The Pacific Motel sign in Cayucos.(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times; Jacob Tovar / For The Times)
The Mojave Sands Motel sign.
(David Fouts / For The Times)
The Sea & Sand Inn’s no vacancy/vacancy sign in Santa Cruz.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Surfrider Malibu as seen from the Pacific Coast Highway.
(Al Seib / For The Times)
The entrance to the Norman restaurant at the Skyview Motel.
The pool viewed through decorative pool-side furnishings at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Wallpaper inside the Trixie Motel.
(David Fouts / For The Times)
The toilet paper at the Hotel Wren is marked with its initials. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Folded toilet paper at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
A view of a room inside the Ramsey 29 motel in Twentynine Palms.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A detail of a patio pillow at The Pearl Hotel. (Megan Morello / For The Times)
A detail of the shower handle in a room at the River Lodge. (Jacob Tovar / For The Times)
A room inside the Crystal Pier Hotel in Pacific Beach, San Diego.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Wigwam Motel buildings in San Bernardino.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A room at the Skylark Hotel.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
The Hotel del Sol is a boutique hotel in San Francisco aiming to rise above its roots as a budget motel.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A room at Glen Oaks Hotel in Big Sur.
(Nic Coury / For The Times)
Situated on Market Street, Beck’s has a front-row seat to the main artery of San Francisco. The motel still offers free on-site parking, with a walkable location that provides ample access to public transportation, including the historic F-Market line.
(Megan Bayley / For The Times)
A decorative room at the Madonna Inn.
(Nic Coury / For The Times)
Old-school keys from the Hacienda del Sol, from left, in Borrego Springs, the Skylark Hotel in Riverside and Glen Oaks Resort Adobe Motor Lodge.(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A gathering space at the Haley Hotel in Santa Barbara.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
A view of an outdoor space connected to a room at the Pearl Hotel.
(Megan Morello / For The Times)
A detail of a bedroom door at the Mojave Sands Motel. (David Fouts / For The Times)
Two robes hang in a room at the Surfrider Malibu. (Al Seib / For The Times)
Happy guests at restaurant-bar Ponyboy at the Pearl Hotel in San Diego.
(Megan Morello / For The Times)
Cocktails served at the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs. (David Fouts / For The Times)
The cocktails at Ponyboy at the Pearl Hotel in San Diego. (Megan Morello / For The Times)
A guest’s dog wanders near the pool area of the Pearl in San Diego. (Megan Morello / For The Times)
A rabbit hops away at the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)
The outdoor shower at the Skyview Motel. (Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
A wooden outdoor patio chair at the Mojave Sands Motel in Joshua Tree. (David Fouts / For The Times)
The Surfrider Malibu is located across Pacific Coast Highway from the Malibu Pier and Surfrider Beach, famous for its surfing, and is close to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area.
(Al Seib / For The Times)
A view of the pool from inside the property at the Trixie Motel in Palm Springs.
(David Fouts / For The Times)
The pool at the Skyview Motel is seen through a window at the Norman restaurant.
(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)
Pool-side textures on the grounds of the Pearl Hotel. (Megan Morello / For The Times)
The pool steps at the Trixie Motel. (David Fouts / For The Times)
CANNES, France — You see and hear the films of Scottish-born Lynne Ramsay long after you first take them in. They have a way of burning into your brain. Sometimes it’s a question of immersive soundscapes or settings, as with her brutal 1999 debut “Ratcatcher” or the euphoric post-boyfriend girls’ trip “Morvern Callar.” Elsewhere Ramsay makes violence grippingly personal, as with 2011’s “We Need to Talk About Kevin,” about the dissociating mother of a school shooter, or 2017’s “You Were Never Really Here,” a coiled revenge tale spurred by a kidnapping.
It’s good that we remember these movies so well because Ramsay’s output has never been steady. She’s had some bad luck with turnarounds and fickle producers (notoriously on the projects “The Lovely Bones” and “Jane Got a Gun,” which swallowed up years).
But today, sitting in the sunlight garden of a quiet Cannes hotel blocks from the action, Ramsay smokes and sips coffee contentedly. Her latest movie, “Die, My Love,” a marital psychodrama starring an impressively unhinged Jennifer Lawrence, has just hours earlier been acquired by Mubi, the upstart distributor that released last year’s “The Substance,” in a deal reported at $24 million.
It’s a cheering turn of events for a director who inspires devotion not only from critics and A-listers such as Tilda Swinton and Joaquin Phoenix, but from a generation of young filmmakers who see in her work a defiant, punkish way forward, especially for women in artistic control. We spoke to the 55-year-old Ramsay about her process and making “Die, My Love.”
I was very happy to hear you had a film at Cannes. It’s such a rare thing.
Hopefully less rare now.
So let me ask you directly about that and I hope you take this in the right spirit: Do you wish you’d made more films by now?
Oh, yeah. There was one I was just about to shoot called “Stone Mattress,” based on Margaret Atwood’s novel, a little short story in a novella. We were just about to do that. But the producers were pushing for Iceland as a location — it’s meant to be in the Arctic. I wanted Greenland. It just felt like we were cutting the lines down. The actor, Julianne Moore, would do a couple of lines in one location, fly four hours and do the rest of the scene.
And I just don’t work like that. I can’t do it all broken up in pieces and it’s not good for the actors either. So I was like, I don’t think this is the right thing. And then I was like, maybe I should have just done it. But I’ve written a lot. I’ve got three scripts, one that’s totally ready, one that’s almost ready and then another that’s in development.
I think people really want to know from your point of view: Are you just uncompromising or especially picky?
I don’t know. I was speaking to my friend Jonathan Glazer about that. Everyone says to him, “Why don’t you make many films?”
It was basically 10 years between “Under the Skin” and “The Zone of Interest.” He’s going to disappear now for another 10 years.
I don’t know if he will. We were both talking, like, We’re not getting any younger. We’ve got to hurry up. [Laughs.] But yeah, no, it’s not by design. It’s just life takes over. I have a daughter, there was COVID, stuff nearly gets there and falls through. It’s just a tough industry. I am picky in the sense that if you’re going to stick with a project for two or three years, then you want to know that you’re doing the right one. You don’t want to be down the line with it and think, God, I wish I hadn’t started this.
Jennifer Lawrence in the movie “Die, My Love.”
(Festival de Cannes)
Meanwhile, it must be exciting when a star like Jennifer Lawrence reaches out to you about a film you made 25 years ago, as she did about “Ratcatcher.”
Well, it was funny. She said she wanted to work with me. That was nice. She was talking about this particular book [“Die My Love” by Ariana Harwicz] and I was like: Look, I’ve just done “Kevin.” I don’t want to do more postpartum things and I won’t do that. And then I think I was doing “Stone Mattress” for a while and I probably was just being terrible and didn’t get back for ages.
But then I was like, OK, I have an idea. If it’s a love story — a bonkers, crazy love story — if it’s got many layers to it, I’ll do it as an experiment. We’ll see how it goes. And then it kind of worked.
A postpartum story isn’t the whole picture. Neither is a love story.
Right. I suppose it’s a bit of a lot of things.
I know that you like mashing up genres. Do you still want to make a horror film, like you’ve said in the past?
I’m making a vampire movie.
Really?
Yeah. I can’t tell you much. It’s with Ezra Miller who was in “Kevin.” He’s the main character. That’s in development.
I feel like I may be waiting a while to see that one.
[Laughs] You won’t wait for 10 years. I don’t have 10 years. I’ve got to do it quicker than that. That’s what Jon [Glazer] said. We need to speed up. He’s one of my favorite filmmakers. And PTA as well.
How does it feel being at Cannes again?
Actually, this time I feel quite relaxed. I think the first time I came, I got quite nervous. You get really wound up. My husband was a musician and I remember squeezing his hand so hard at “Kevin,” he said, “You’re going to break my guitar hand.” People were coughing. It was a real Cannes audience — they’re pretty hardcore.
But now I feel quite relaxed because I like the film myself. Sometimes you’re super self-critical. I was watching it in that big theater and I’m going: Change that, change that. We’ve only been editing for four or five months and that’s not long. So we’re still tweaking it. I did a mix in five days.
When you’re working with actors such as Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence, they bring so much iconography. How do you strip that away and be like, I’ve got this piece of work that I want to do here?
I think they were very willing participants. There was a lot of trust. I try and create an atmosphere of trust and I just threw them into the fire. I did the sex scene on the first day. I thought it’s a risk. It’s either going to work or it’s going to be a disaster. But I could see there was chemistry. And when they arrived, I was getting them dancing. They were dancing together, synchronized. And it was fun. And then I think Robert was a little nervous, but then something just kind of broke the ice.
Doing a sex scene on the first day will break the ice, I imagine.
The first day I was scared. I was like, oh, my God, was this a good idea? But it actually was a good idea. Sometimes I’ve left those scenes for later and then it builds up so everyone’s gotten all nervous. You start this scene and they’re all thinking about it and overthinking it. So I just chucked them in the deep end.
Then there was a different scene, a longer one, and there was loads of dialogue and we only had a few hours — the light was going, maybe an hour-and-a-half left. And I saw the DP lying in the grass, Seamus McGarvey. And we both looked at each other and were like: There’s no way we’re going to finish this scene. There’s no way we can do it.
And we’re both lying in the grass and we look down at the grass and I look at him and I go, “Well, what if they’re like cats in the grass? Why don’t we just do it here?” So I’m running back to the bloody actors and I’m going, “Right, OK, we’re changing the whole scene, taking all the dialogue out. And you’re both cats. You’re both like cats.” And they’re both like, what the f—?
You just discovered that in the moment?
Yeah. Because we didn’t have the time and I’m really glad I did. And they were so trusting. Robert was like, “That was a good scene.” Then Jen went, “Yeah, I can see it.” It was all at breakneck speed. We shot it in an hour or something.
Lynne Ramsay on the set of “Die, My Love.”
(Kimberly French)
And you’re giving them an experience they will never have with a director who follows a plan to the letter.
Yeah. A film’s a film but a script is a script. I mean, it’s a different beast. You’ve got be able to throw things out if they don’t work or you don’t have time. So you go to think of something and often that’s better. But after that first day, I knew they thought, oh, God, what are we in for?
I’ve heard that Jennifer Lawrence was pregnant in real life at the time.
Yeah. I didn’t know that until about four weeks before [the shoot]. I think she was a bit nervous about telling me. I was like, “You OK about this?” I was worried. But she was glowing and was so happy to play crazy. And she was excited by the ideas. She was like, “Yeah, let’s do it.” She’s a punk, man.
Your vision of America is very interesting to me. It’s never super realistic so much as an amplified America from the point of view of someone outside it. What do you think about America these days?
Well, I wouldn’t want to live there right now, but I always loved America. I lived in New York for quite a long time when I was making “You Were Never Really Here,” when I was making “Kevin.” I’ve always loved New York. It’s got a crazy, wild energy. L.A. I find a bit more difficult. I feel it’s like “Mulholland Drive.” But there’s a beauty to it as well. The light is amazing.
Your Montana of “Die, My Love” is also unique, filled with local color but almost an abstract place where a marital unraveling can take center stage. What was important to you to emphasize, setting-wise?
We actually shot in Calgary but Montana’s just down. My backstory was that they lived in New York — he was trying to get in a band, it didn’t really happen for him, he was kind of a slacker. And she’s written a couple of things that got published. Now there’s this idea that they’ll have a new life, because the house is free and a lot of young couples, if they get something like that, they’re like: I moved because New York’s expensive. And then the house becomes its own entity, in a way. We shot the beginning already inside the house, not from the outside [going in], and for a reason: The house is looking at them. There were elements of “The Shining.”
I picked up on those. And when you have actors like Sissy Spacek and Nick Nolte as parents, they create a kind of gravity of their own. Were they familiar with your films like Jennifer Lawrence was?
No, I went to them because they both meant a lot to me growing up. My dad loved Nick. Since “Badlands,” I’ve loved Sissy Spacek, In the book, the mother-in-law’s kind of gone crazy, but she played it much more that she saw exactly what was happening.
When we first meet the main characters, we hear them telling each other the lies they’ve probably been saying for a while: I could really record my album here. You can write your Great American Novel. Do you think that they end up in a place that’s more truthful by the end of the film?
I had writer’s block as well for a while and I was like Jack Torrance in “The Shining” writing the same sentence again. Recutting it. You get stuck in things and then when you’ve got a baby as well, it’s much harder to do anything. Your life completely is turned upside down. So I think they’ve got all these aspirations: It’s going to be great and wow. And then she just feels really isolated and she’s stuck with a baby. And she’s bored and she’s just gone nuts. I suppose I did think about “Repulsion” and, of course “A Women Under the Influence” — that sort of tragedy where they love each other but don’t understand each other.
Do you ever feel trapped by the massive reputation of your early films?
I love when I rewatch them, like, 25 years later. I saw “Morvern Callar” with a young audience a year ago or something. A couple years ago, because the film was 20 years old, and it was really nice. It still played and they were all laughing and they really got it. I think that film was kind of dumped at the time because I think I pissed off the financiers. I wanted a different poster and I made a big deal about it — and I love the poster still. And they wanted something much more conventional.
The poster for that is so perfect, though. I still remember it. It’s flush with a kind of heat, an intimacy.
I kind of fought for that. They wanted something that looked like a Mexican western or something. It was nice. But I’ve still got that poster in my place in Scotland against a black wall, where it really pops. And these kids were really getting it — even though she’s got a Walkman, which is completely, I mean, a million years ago.
It’s a little dated, but it works. You captured something essential about Samantha Morton and now with Jennifer Lawrence too. Do you ever find yourself thinking in terms of awards or Oscars?
No, I gave that up a long time ago. In fact, my mom had all my BAFTAs, so I hadn’t seen those BAFTAs for ages. We were cleaning out her house. I gave all them away.
Were they in her closet or something?
No, she had a little cupboard that she just put them in, but I just kind of forgot about them.
She was proud of you.
Yeah, they were in a little glass cabinet and I forgot all about them. Then I got them back and it was weird.
Where is home? Is it still Scotland?
London, actually. And Scotland. I have a place in Scotland too, but my mom passed away quite recently — it was only a couple of weeks ago. So I had the funeral as well as filming and then it’s been quite a challenge.
Is she the one the film is dedicated to?
Yeah.
“Die, My Love” is very explicitly about motherhood. What do remember about your mother? What did she teach you, in terms of being an artist?
She taught me how to be a filmmaker, to be honest. She taught me to sit. I watched the best films when I was a kid and they thought I was deaf for a long time because I just ignored everybody else. It was a big noisy family. And I think she just showed me these cool films. Her big one was — I mean it sounds so random for me — but she loved “Imitation of Life.” She watched that a million times. “Mildred Pierce.” And “Vertigo.”
She taught you how to give yourself over to a film?
Yeah, she just loved movies and so did my dad. But my dad would be a bit more annoying because he’d tell you the end. He’d be like, “This is going to happen.” You know what I mean? And I’d be like, Dad! I wouldn’t watch it. But I think she was a really interesting smart woman. Not from a film background. They were working-class people, blue-collar people. But they loved images, they loved cinema.
Glasgow is a place of blue-collar intelligentsia. It’s a really good education system there. So my dad was so bright — my mom as well. They used to say, “Let’s go to the movies, the pictures.” Really cute. And my mom had a photographic memory, so she would be like, “This film is from 1940,” blah blah blah. And then this actor’s in it. She’d know all these obscure actors. And it was great. They were excited and it made me excited. She just was a very kind person. Everyone was devastated.
I’m sure you’re still feeling it. I hope you don’t mind me asking about her.
I am. But I’m feeling a bit more at peace. It was quick and it wasn’t expected. And funnily enough, the music supervisor’s mom died one week later. I didn’t know it was coming. So we’re all a bit in shock. My mom, she was 88. She had a life.
When will be the appropriate age for you to show your daughter your movies?
[Laughs] I don’t know, 18?
How old is she now?
She’s 10. Maybe “Ratcatcher.” Maybe about 16 or 15. I don’t know. They’re all kind of hardcore.
You probably made it when you were 25.
I did, somewhere about that or 26. My daughter’s a really bright child. The one thing I’ve shown her that she came in for — I was watching it late at night and she woke up — was “The Shining” and she was glued it. And I said, “I don’t think you should watch this — you’re too young.” But there’s only one killing in “The Shining.” You know what I mean? And there’s not a lot of horror. She loved it. I mean, it was like the best. She said, “I might watch ‘The Shining’ again.” She’s super artistic.
Do I have a promise from you that I’m not going to have to wait 10 years for the next film?
Nah, definitely not. I’m on it. Jon Glazer too. We’re both like, we need to rock and roll, man.
The Los Angeles City Council voted Wednesday to approve a sweeping package of minimum wage increases for workers in the tourism industry, despite objections from business leaders who warned that the region is already facing a slowdown in international travel.
The proposal, billed by labor leaders as the highest minimum wage in the country, would require hotels with more than 60 rooms, as well as companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport, to pay their workers $30 per hour by 2028.
That translates to a 48% hike in the minimum wage for hotel employees over three years. Airport workers would see a 56% increase.
On top of that, hotels and airport businesses would be required to provide $8.35 per hour for their workers’ health care by July 2026.
The package of increases was approved on a 12-3 vote, with Councilmembers John Lee, Traci Park and Monica Rodriguez opposed. Because the tally was not unanimous, a second vote will be required next week.
Rodriguez, who represents the northeast San Fernando Valley, told her colleagues that the proposal would cause hotels and airport businesses to cut back on staffing, resulting in job losses. The same thing is happening at City Hall, with elected officials considering staff cuts to cover the cost of employee raises, she said.
“We are right now facing 1,600 imminent layoffs because the revenue is just not matching our expenditures,” Rodriguez said. “The same will happen in the private sector.”
Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, standing before a crowded of unionized workers after the vote, celebrated their victory.
“It’s been way too long, but finally, today, this building is working for the people, not the corporations,” said Soto-Martínez, a former organizer with the hotel and restaurant union Unite Here Local 11.
Hotel owners, business groups and airport concession companies predicted the wage increases will deal a fresh blow to an industry that never fully recovered from the COVID pandemic. They pointed to the recent drop-off in tourism from Canada and elsewhere that followed President Trump’s trade war and tightening of the U.S. border.
Adam Burke, president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, said Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom — nations that send a large number of visitors to Los Angeles — have issued formal advisories about visiting the U.S.
“The 2025 outlook is not encouraging,” Burke said.
Several hotel owners have warned that the higher wage will spur them to scale back their restaurant operations. A few flatly stated that hotel companies would steer clear of future investments in the city, which has long served as a global tourism destination.
Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Association of Los Angeles, said she believes that hotels will close restaurants or other small businesses on their premises — and in some cases, shut down entirely.
In the short term, she said, some will tear up their “room block” agreements, which set aside rooms for the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
“I don’t think anybody wants to do this,” Filla said. “Hotels are excited to host guests. They’re excited to be participating in the Olympics. But they can’t go into it losing money.”
Jessica Durrum, a policy director with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, a pro-union advocacy group, said business leaders also issued dire warnings about the economy when previous wage increases were approved — only to be proven wrong. Durrum, who is in charge of her group’s Tourism Workers Rising campaign, told the council that a higher wage would only benefit the region.
“People with more money in their pockets — they spend it,” she said.
Wednesday’s vote delivered a huge victory to Unite Here Local 11, a potent political force at City Hall. The union is known for knocking on doors for favored candidates, spending six figures in some cases to get them elected.
Unite Here Local 11 had billed the proposal as an “Olympic wage,” one that would ensure that its members have enough money to keep up with inflation. The union, working with airport workers represented by Service Employees International Union-United Service Workers West, also said that corporations should not be the only ones to benefit from the Olympic Games in 2028.
Workers from both of those unions testified about their struggles to pay for rising household costs, including rent, food and fuel. Some pleaded for better health care, while others spoke about having to work multiple jobs to support their families.
“We need these wages. Please do what’s right,” said Jovan Houston, a customer service agent at LAX. “Do this for workers. Do this for single families. Do this for parents like myself.”
Sonia Ceron, 38, a dishwasher at airline catering company Flying Food Group, said she has a second job cleaning houses in Beverly Hills for about 32 hours a week. Ceron lives in a small studio apartment in Inglewood, which has been difficult for her 12-year-old daughter.
“My daughter, like every kid, wants to have her own room, to be able to call her friends and have her privacy. Right now, that’s impossible,” Ceron said.
L.A.’s political leaders have enacted a number of wage laws over the last few decades. The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, currently stands at $20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector employees at LAX is $25.23 per hour, once the required $5.95 hourly healthcare payment is included.
For nearly everyone else in L.A., the hourly minimum wage is $17.28, 78 cents higher than the state’s.
Perched high above the Cahuenga Pass, the 24-story Hilton Los Angeles Universal City Hotel is positioned to be a prime gathering spot for visitors arriving for the 2028 Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Sun Hill Properties Inc., which manages the 495-room hotel, has already signed a “room block” agreement with the LA28 organizing committee, reserving hundreds of rooms for Olympics fans. The City Council recently approved a plan to let the Hilton add a second, 18-story tower, which would open just in time for the Olympics.
Now, the future of the $250-million expansion is in doubt. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles City Council is set to vote on a requirement that hotels with 60 or more rooms pay their workers at least $30 per hour by 2028, along with a new $8.35 per hour healthcare payment.
If the council approves the proposal without significant changes, Sun Hill “absolutely will be pulling out of the room block for the Olympics,” said Mark Davis, the company’s president and chief executive. The hotel’s investors will also kill the 395-room expansion, he said.
“Our board was very adamant that if [council members] go forward with this nonsense, that it’s dead,” Davis said. “They’re going to move the project somewhere else.”
The council voted 12-3 last year to instruct City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to draft the package of minimum wage hikes, which would apply not just to hotels but also private companies at Los Angeles International Airport, such as airlines and concessions. The minimum wage would be the highest in the country, according to Unite Here Local 11, the hotel and restaurant workers union, which has championed the proposal.
Mark Davis, president and CEO of Sun Hill Properties, said a proposal to hike L.A.’s minimum wage for hotel workers would kill a plan for a new 18-story hotel tower unless it is reworked.
(Marcus Ubungen / Los Angeles Times)
Backers of the higher wage say L.A.’s tourism workers are struggling to pay for food and rent, and deserve to benefit financially from the Olympics just as much as private corporations. They dismiss the hospitality industry’s dire warnings, including the notion that increased wages will scuttle the development of new hotels.
City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez said the Sheraton Universal Hotel, a nearby competitor of the Hilton, has already been paying a higher wage to its unionized workforce. The real threat to the development of new hotels, he said, is higher interest rates and the economic uncertainty surrounding President Trump’s trade policies.
“So, I just don’t buy it,” said Soto-Martínez, a former hotel union organizer, as he referred to Davis’ warning.
Under the city’s proposal, the hotel and airport minimum wage would reach $22.50 on July 1. It would jump to $25 in July 2026, $27.50 in July 2027 and $30 in July 2028. On top of those increases, the $8.35 per hour healthcare payment would go into effect on Jan. 1.
Business groups point out that two hotels have closed in the past year — Four Points by Sheraton next to LAX and Mama Shelter in Hollywood, for a loss of 270 jobs. They say Trump’s trade wars are driving down tourist activity from other nations, with visitors from Canada especially lagging.
Once the increases are in effect, business leaders say, hotels with on-site dining won’t be able to compete with non-hotel restaurants, which will have a much lower minimum wage.
Jon Bortz, chairman and chief executive of the Pebblebrook Hotel Trust, said his company is already looking at scaling back restaurant operations at two of its Southern California properties — the Kimpton Hotel Palomar and the W Los Angeles West Beverly Hills, both in Westwood near UCLA.
The Palomar will likely offset the cost of the higher minimum wage by converting its restaurant into a self-service breakfast operation, while the W will probably close at least one of its two restaurants, Bortz said. “We have to change the business model of these properties to have any hope of surviving,” he added.
Bortz said the proposed wage hikes, along with other hotel regulations approved by the City Council in recent years, have spurred Pebblebrook to look to other markets for new hotel projects.
“Frankly, the [L.A.] market, from a broad-based buyer perspective, has been crossed off the map by investors,” he said.
Hotels in other parts of L.A. are considering similar reductions. An executive with Lightstone Group, which owns the 727-room Moxy + AC Hotels near the Convention Center, told City Council members last year that the minimum wage proposal would likely result in the closure of Level 8, a collection of restaurants on the hotel’s eighth floor.
Mark Beccaria, a partner with the Hotel Angeleno near the 405 Freeway, said in a separate letter to city leaders that he would have to shutter not just the hotel’s restaurant but also its valet parking, eliminating 39 jobs.
“Common sense says you cannot raise wages over 50% in a year when revenues are down,” he said.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, accused the hotels of fear-mongering, saying they are misrepresenting the potential impact of the planned wage hikes. Hotel owners, he said, “act like the sky is falling every time they have to share profits with their workers.”
“This ‘Chicken Little’ stuff has got to end. Every single time, hotels cry poverty, and then a day later, they’re doing fine. It’s always the same routine,” Petersen said. “What’s not falling is rent and healthcare. What’s not sustainable is workers not earning enough to live in Los Angeles.”
The hospitality industry issued similar warnings a decade ago — when the council approved the current hotel minimum wage — only to see tourism flourish in the years that immediately followed, said Víctor Sánchez, executive director of the L.A. Alliance for a New Economy, a pro-labor advocacy group that produced a report on that phenomenon.
In Long Beach, where residents voted to raise the hotel minimum wage last year, revenue per available room was up 15.7% in March compared with the same month the prior year, said Sánchez, citing data from the real estate group CoStar.
L.A.’s political leaders have enacted a number of wage laws over the last few decades. The hotel minimum wage, approved by the council in 2014, is currently $20.32 per hour. The minimum wage for private-sector employees at LAX is $25.23 per hour, once the required $5.95 hourly healthcare payment is included. Then there’s the minimum wage for nearly everyone else in L.A., which is $17.28 per hour — 78 cents higher than the state’s.
The hourly minimum wage for hotel and airport workers was already slated to go up this year, as part of regularly scheduled increases in the city’s wage laws. Once the council showed interest in the much larger increases, business leaders began warning that hotel developers would take their business elsewhere.
Few were as dramatic as Davis, who told council members that their proposal, as drafted, would “likely kill” the Universal City Hilton’s 395-room expansion.
Davis, whose company has hotels in Simi Valley, Colorado Springs, Colo., and the greater Denver area, said his board instructed him last year to look at acquiring property outside of California, in markets that “make more sense financially for an investment of $250 million.”
“The owners investing this money, they have to look at the numbers,” he said in an interview. “Any project survives only by its numbers.”
The Universal City Hilton already pays most of its workers more than $25 per hour, while also offering healthcare coverage, Davis said. If those health plans have a financial value lower than the $8.35 per hour, the company will need to make up the difference, he said.
Davis said he, too, is looking at scaling back restaurant operations, which would likely require layoffs.
At one point, Davis’ project drew support from the city’s political leaders.
The Universal City Hilton reached an agreement early on with construction trade unions, promising to pay a higher prevailing wage to the estimated 1,000 construction workers who would work on the new tower.
In August, the council voted unanimously to seek an economic analysis that would determine whether the city should provide taxpayer assistance to the project. The analysis, requested by Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Soto-Martínez, would have explored whether to allow the hotel to keep a share of the tax revenues generated by the new tower.
Raman, whose district includes a portion of Universal City, did not respond to questions from The Times about the project — or the potential impact of the higher tourism wage.
In recent days, the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles has been appealing directly to Mayor Karen Bass, purchasing digital ads that ask her to intervene on the minimum wage issue.
Bass, in an interview earlier this year, said she wants hotel workers to “make a decent living” while also ensuring that their employers “are able to survive.”
“We have to make sure that we can address both — that we can address the needs of the workers without crippling the industry,” she said.
