industry

Gas prices are high. Diesel prices are higher — about $8 a gallon in California, $2 more than the national average.

For truckers, that’s a crisis. Their big rigs get about a paltry six miles to the gallon and filling their tanks in the Golden State now costs up to $2,500 a pop. For the guys who own a single truck or the small companies (which is the majority of trucking businesses), it can be hard to pass along those extra fuel costs to customers — which, as my colleague Nilesh Christoper wrote about, is causing a lot of pain in the industry.

Truckers everywhere are stomping mad, and it’s a problem for President Trump and Republicans heading into the midterms. Eventually, higher diesel prices are going to mean higher prices on the goods those trucks are transporting, and that’s an even bigger problem.

Trump has been throwing spaghetti at the wall trying out one limp solution after another to bring prices down — cutting taxes, brokering deals with Russia, telling us it’s just not a problem. But of course, it is.

Truck drivers fill they diesel tanks at United Oil in Long Beach on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

One Southern California energy expert has spent recent days in Washington, D.C., trying to convince the administration that the solution lies in California, in the vast oil reserves under our cities and farms that we largely leave untapped for environmental reasons. Environment aside, it’s a long-running and compelling (to some, anyway) argument that may have found its moment, meaning California might become Trump’s next solution — or at least scapegoat — to a costly problem.

More on that, but first, a recap of where we are.

The red dye ploy

Three thousand years ago in Trump time, but which I mean earlier this month, the president signed an executive order that allowed truckers to use red dye diesel as a way to lower costs.

Red dye diesel is, you guessed it, my genius readers, diesel that has been dyed red — to differentiate it from the stuff at truck stops. Farmers and other agricultural types are allowed to buy red dye diesel without certain taxes to use in tractors and other equipment that doesn’t run on our roads.

The Trump order allows truckers to buy red dye and defer paying the roughly 25-cent-per-gallon federal tax on it. So it’s not really saving them money, just delaying payment.

“It’s a small step, but nonetheless, it’s a positive step,” said Michael Mische, a professor at the USC Marshall School of Business whose conservative-leaning take on energy policy has often raised the ire of the Newsom administration.

President Trump signs an executive order to lower the cost of diesel fuel during a campaign rally on Oct. 5, 2026, in Grand Island, Neb.

(Win McNamee / Getty Images)

But there’s a problem with Trump’s red dye plan. States have their own laws about red dye diesel, and the feds can’t change them. So even if truckers could find a place to buy red dye diesel (again, not sold at regular gas stations), and even if the incentive of paying taxes later made the search seem worthwhile, they would often be breaking state laws.

Eric Sauer, chief executive of the California Trucking Assn., a trade group that advocates for the industry, said his group has been advising members not to use the crimson fuel until it’s clear that states are going to change their rules. Some, like Missouri, have. California has not.

Either way, Sauer said, allowing truckers to use diesel dyed red really doesn’t increase the overall supply, just shifts it around — which is unlikely to bring prices down.

“It’s still the same supply of diesel fuel out there,” Sauer said.

Global supply

The global supply of crude oil, has been, shall we say, negatively affected by our war with Iran. Despite Trump’s assurances that the conflict is winding down, two container ships in the Strait of Hormuz were attacked this week, highlighting that perhaps Iran is unaware the war is over. Fears of that conflict and others sent energy prices soaring even higher.

Faced with that unpleasant reality, Trump this week also announced he was lifting sanctions on diesel exports from Russia, a move that shocked his own party and most of the world.

The PCK petroleum refinery stands illuminated at twilight on April 28, 2026, in Schwedt, Germany. The refinery, which produces gasoline, diesel, kerosene and bitumen, receives 20% of its oil from Kazakhstan through the Russian Druzhba pipeline.

(Sean Gallup / Getty Images)

That deal could bring 36 million barrels of Russian diesel, at most, to American shores, which sounds like a lot until you realize we use about 4 million barrels of the stuff every day. So Trump essentially sold out Ukraine and demolished what was left of our European standing for nine days of diesel — an amount unlikely to lower prices.

In California, that’s especially true because, as UC Berkeley professor Aaron Smith points out, about 70% of our diesel “is actually not made from crude oil and coming from oil refineries. It’s made from vegetable oils and animal fats.”

Yes, the Golden State relies heavily on so-called renewable diesel that, Smith says, “introduces, I think, another wrinkle” when trying to lower costs.

California’s fault

But let’s get back to Mische, the USC professor. For years, he’s been arguing that California’s refusal to pump more oil should be viewed as a national security concern.

California actually imports the majority of its crude oil, more than 60% from other countries, and our refineries for a number of debated reasons have been closing. Our imports have been growing in recent years. We also have no pipelines connecting us to the rest of the U.S., unlike many other states. That means we can’t easily get oil except what’s shipped in through our ports.

At the same time, the West Coast with its many military installations is undeniably pivotal to national security. Mische argues that without adequate fuel reserves for a shortage — like during a war — our military readiness could be jeopardized. He wants to see California not only pump more, but for the federal government to store more of that California crude.

A train of tank cars enters the Chevron EL Segundo refinery, one of the largest petroleum processing facilities in California, on April 8, 2026. California imports approximately 75% of its crude oil, with nearly one-third of the crude supplied from the Middle East. Prices at the pump in the state are averaging $5.93 per gallon today amid the war in Iran.

(Mario Tama / Getty Images)

These arguments haven’t gained much traction in our heavily Democratic state, which has moved forcefully away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources in recent years and which has little interest in increasing drilling. But Mische and his colleagues may have found their moment.

Earlier this year, they wrote draft executive orders about California’s oil industry that he says the Trump administration is considering — one would attempt to force California to pump more oil using the authority of the Defense Production Act of 1950.

Trump has used that wartime act several times in the last few months, and Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance announced it would be used to expand production at a Texas oil refinery.

Mische said he spent last week in conversations with the administration on the proposed orders and is “confident” Trump will “issue additional executive orders under the Defense Production Act for California” by the end of the year.

Beyond the national security argument, such orders could please Trump because they do two things. First, if California pumps its own oil, it could free up some imported oil for other states, which could lower prices — though it would certainly take time and require more refinery capacity.

Second, and likely of more interest to the White House, it makes California — and Newsom — the villain for this sticky Republican problem. California will sue, of course, which would just help the Trump political narrative.

Kevin de León, a California Senate president emeritus and author of SB 100, California’s landmark 100% clean energy law, said he can easily envision Trump claiming that “we have lots of cheap oil in the United States that can lower your gas prices — but crazy lefty California is blocking us.”

Actually, it’s hard to imagine Trump not grabbing the chance to blame gas prices on the Golden State — or Newsom.

What else you should be reading:

The must-read: ‘Very few people out in the streets’: ICE surge rattles California’s Central Valley

The California angle: Justice Dept. demands California prove citizenship for lists of voters or withhold ballots

The L.A. Times Special: The U.S is in the death business. Newsom can change that, and win votes
Stay Golden,

Anita Chabria

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Josh Hartnett and Charlie Heaton know how to brood.

The actors both found fame in their early 20s playing characters prone to pining and sulking: Hartnett became a heartthrob in the late ’90s and early 2000s with mellow roles in films including “The Virgin Suicides,” “Pearl Harbor” and “Black Hawk Down.” Heaton, meanwhile, spent most of the last decade embodying the introverted Jonathan Byers on “Stranger Things.”

But now, the duo are wearing their hearts on their sleeves in “Below,” a six-episode Netflix miniseries now streaming, in which they play a father and son living in a misty Newfoundland fishing village that is increasingly terrorized by something mysterious in the iceberg-filled waters.

As Calvin and Wade Penney in “Below,” the actors are passionate and emotional. They get into animated family arguments and gleefully celebrate when things (occasionally) go their way.

“It’s all on the page,” Hartnett said. “All I had to do was show up and feel those things toward Charlie.”

Filmed on location in Newfoundland, Canada, “Below” is the latest unexpected project for Hartnett, 48, who has been cultivating a career renaissance in recent years with roles in “Black Mirror,” “Oppenheimer,” “Trap” and this month’s “Verity.”

Charlie Heaton as Wade, left, and Josh Hartnett as Calvin in Netflix’s “Below.”

(Netflix)

Heaton, 32, has likewise been diversifying his post- “Stranger Things” portfolio. He played an ill-fated financial journalist in the fourth season of “Industry” and will next star in a “Peaky Blinders” sequel series.

“I like trying to surprise people, and maybe surprise myself too,” Heaton said.

When they convened for a joint video interview in late September, Heaton had recently returned to his London home from a music video shoot. Hartnett had just finished putting his four children (with wife, the actor Tamsin Egerton) to bed at their countryside home in Hampshire, England. These are edited excerpts from the conversation.

What attracted you both to this project?

Hartnett: I was in “Black Mirror” a couple of years ago, and Jessica Rhoades, who produced “Black Mirror,” sent me the [“Below”] script probably about two months before production was supposed to start. I loved the script but I had some questions, so I had to speak to [creator] Jesse [McKeown] and a couple of the other EPs, just to get the lay of the land. After that conversation, I was like, this sounds really fresh and nuanced and organic.

Heaton: It seemed to have so much warmth and mystery. I do remember having a conversation with my agent because, obviously, I’d come off “Stranger Things,” and there was a little concern of, “Is it too similar?” But Wade is such a fun character. I’m from a working-class fishing town [Bridlington, England]. He’s also working class. Everyone knows somebody like Wade.

Hartnett: Willow Kean, who plays my sister, his aunt, saw Charlie on set when he first arrived. He was in his outfit and smoking a cigarette, and she was like, “I think somebody’s on set who shouldn’t be” — because he looked like a local. He fully embodied the mood of this character immediately.

How did the two of you meet? Had you crossed paths in the industry before?

Hartnett: We hadn’t. We met on Zoom. We did a bunch of stuff with the full cast, and it was more to learn the accent than anything else. Once we started to get into the accent work together, just shooting the s— online, it was great.

Heaton: We wanted the family to all sound like they were from the same place. But the accent is so hard to hear in the beginning. So, we were all getting it wrong together.

Heaton and Hartnett hadn’t crossed paths before being cast in “Below,” but they created a rapport by trying to learn the show’s Newfoundland accent together.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

What was the biggest obstacle with the Newfoundland accent?

Heaton: I’ve done a fair amount of accents, but it’s hard to understand the rules of this one. It’s like, well, that word’s Irish, that word’s kind of American. It took me a while to be able to hear it. We had Ali [Alison Kelly], who was our voice coach, and a lot of the extras that we had on set also were local artists, so you could really lean on them.

Hartnett: Everybody was so welcoming. The most difficult part for me was hearing the rhythm of it. So, I listened to this thing called “The Broadcast,” which used to be called “The Fisheries Broadcast.” It’s a radio show that’s been on since 1951. Every day they’re talking to someone about something that’s happening on the island, so you’re getting all these different versions of the accent, but you’re also getting an overall perspective of how people speak in Newfoundland. It was really revealing.

How familiar were you with Newfoundland before doing “Below”?

Hartnett: I knew very little. I knew the “Come From Away” story about all the people stranded in Gander after 9/11. I knew that it was where Leif Erikson landed a long time ago. I knew that it was the closest place in North America to Europe, so when people would do transatlantic flights up until relatively recently, they would stop in Newfoundland. I knew there were puffins.

Heaton: I’m going to be very honest. I hadn’t even ever heard of it. But I learned a lot. We were there for a long time, and Newfoundlanders are extremely proud of their history and their culture, and they love talking.

What was it like shooting on location and out in nature?

Heaton: It was powerful and beautiful. Where we shot, Snook’s Arm, was this bay called Brigus South. You’d come down in the morning, and just that sheer amount of nature every day I found really moving.

Hartnett: One of the first days we were there, they took me out on a whale-watching tour. I was like, “Oh, cool. That sounds touristy but fun.” It was a spiritual experience. I’ve never been anywhere where I felt so small and insignificant next to another animal. These humpback whales, they’re right underneath these tiny little boats, and if they wanted to, they could just flick their tail, and you’d be off in the sea. I had never experienced nature in the sea the way that I experienced it there.

You play father and son, but you’re not that far apart in age.

Hartnett: Fifteen-and-a-half years! I did the math.

Heaton and Hartnett play father and son in “Below,” but in reality they’re just shy of 16 years apart. (Netflix)

How did you develop your onscreen dynamic?

Hartnett: Charlie was so in character as Wade, it was very easy to feel a real sense of protectiveness and an incredible amount of love.

Heaton: What I really admired about working with Josh [is] he is such a leader. You really care, and you’re so generous with everyone, and I got to see your family, and I got to see how you are as a dad. So, those projections weren’t that difficult to come up with in my head, honestly. It’s cool that I get to be your son.

Hartnett: So sweet, man. Thank you.

Charlie, do you remember any of Josh’s past work that stood out to you?

Hartnett: [Pretends to cover his camera] I’m just going to turn this off.

Heaton: One of my favorite films for a while was “Lucky Number Slevin.” When I was younger, I used to watch that quite a lot. I might rewatch that, Josh. It’s been a while.

Hartnett: Well, tell me if it holds up.

Josh, were you familiar with Charlie’s work?

Hartnett: I was a big fan of “Stranger Things,” and I saw “Industry.” Then, when he came on the first Zoom as Wade and was so already intact as a character, I was like, “He’s a star, man. This guy’s a star.”

Charlie Heaton as Jonathan Byers in “Stranger Things.” Hartnett says he was a fan of his work.

(Netflix)

You both found fame in your early 20s, but at very different points in the industry. What are your memories of first realizing, “Oh, people know who I am offscreen and something has shifted?”

Heaton: I remember the exact moment. I was shooting a movie in a small town in Asturias in the north of Spain. “Stranger Things” had been out for only a couple of days. I was in this little town, and a family came up to me that could barely speak English, but they recognized me. Then, I walked down the street a little further and another kid came running up to me.

The show blew up overnight, and before you knew it, you’re going to the Emmys and the BAFTAs with all these people who you have admired. I think we all felt impostor syndrome. Like, what am I doing on a carpet where Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren are? If I think back to it now, it’s very overwhelming. I don’t really know if I processed how that changed so fast and how you are expected to know how to deal with it.

Hartnett: It was a long time ago for me. There was no social media, obviously, but we did have a pretty intense paparazzi problem. So, the initial success of films like “The Faculty,” “Halloween: H20” and “The Virgin Suicides” was a nice level of, like, people knew who I was and I was able to get more work, but there wasn’t a crush of paparazzi waiting outside the hotel.

When “Pearl Harbor” came out, that changed. I was in Morocco shooting “Black Hawk Down,” and I had to come back to do press for “Pearl Harbor.” Suddenly, that’s when I couldn’t go anywhere. That was an odd thing to encounter because I was 22, and I was not ready for it. Right after I finished “Black Hawk Down,” I decided to get back to Minnesota, where I grew up … There’s no paparazzi in Minnesota. That’s where I stayed for about two years.

Heaton: Those seismic changes are such a strange thing to go through. I always felt like, I haven’t changed but everyone else around me has changed — and that’s a weird thing to get used to. But there are great opportunities and great things that come out of it.

Hartnett: One hundred percent. My life is so much better now than it probably would have been had all that not happened.

Josh, you’ve said that you felt celebrity culture was “vacuous” and that you didn’t want to do things like “Cribs” or “Punk’d.” Did you feel like you were being pushed to fit a certain mold as a teen heartthrob?

Hartnett: That stuff wasn’t for me. Being a young celebrity, you’re always going to be pushed toward the cusp of insanity, the stuff that people are going to look back on and cringe not too far into the future. I was lucky enough to avoid that side of it.

In our business, it’s about surviving your 20s to get to the place where you have the respect of the people on set that you’re working with, and they allow you the leeway to create characters the way that you want to create them.

Charlie, how are you approaching your post-“Stranger Things” career?

Heaton: After wrapping the final season, I wanted to do “Industry,” which felt extremely different to me. I got to use my own accent. It’s a much more adult show than I’ve ever been in. And playing a man was important. I’d been playing a perpetually 21-year-old for like 10 years. I keep getting older. [Jonathan] stays the same. He gets further away from me. But I just want to do things that hopefully allow me to show range.

WASHINGTON  — The Supreme Court will open its new term Monday by hearing arguments on whether the oil and gas industry may be forced to pay damages for the scorching heat waves, wildfires and droughts that are blamed on climate change.

It’s a momentous question the justices have put off deciding for nearly a decade — and may do so again.

California joined more than two dozen blue states and municipalities in 2023 when it sued the five largest oil companies, alleging “decades of deception” over the danger of a warming climate.

They have “privately known the truth for decades but have fed us lies and mistruths to further their record-breaking profits at the expense of our environment,” California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said.

Fire and smoke rise at the Chevron Refinery in El Segundo in October 2025.

(Robbin Goddard/Los Angeles Times)

Such climate-change lawsuits were patterned after the mass claims against the tobacco and opioid industries. Both were accused of concealing the dangers of their very profitable products.

But the climate suits have stalled. Judges have been divided over whether these potentially huge claims should be decided in federal or state court, and if so, under what law.

Last year, Boulder County, Colo., won a 5-2 ruling in the state Supreme Court that allowed its 2018 suit to proceed as a claim of a public nuisance, an unjust enrichment or a civil conspiracy. These are referred to as “common law” claims that are long-standing and traditional but do not rely on a measure approved by the Legislature.

The Colorado judges also said the climate-change suits are not “preempted” or blocked by federal anti-pollution laws because the suit for damages did not regulate greenhouse gas emissions.

The dissenters said the state court was giving Boulder a “green light to act as its own republic” to punish the Exxon Mobil Corp. for the impact of “global climate change.”

Appealing to the Supreme Court, the oil companies sounded the same theme.

“Boulder, Colorado cannot make energy policy for the entire country,” they said. A ruling for the county would “authorize all 50 states and tens of thousands of municipalities” to ask their local juries to “impose ruinous liability” on the fossil fuel industry, they told the court.

The Trump administration joined in support of the industry’s appeal.

“Our federal system would disintegrate if each state could tackle inherently national or international problems by forcing its regulatory prescriptions on the other 49,” the administration’s lawyers wrote.

In February, the justices voted to hear the case and decide whether federal law blocks state law claims for the “effects of interstate and international greenhouse-gas emissions.”

The court scheduled the case of Suncor Energy and Exxon Mobil vs. Boulder County as the first of the new term.

Legal experts say the industry’s claim to be shielded by federal law is weak.

UCLA law professor Alejandro Camacho described the “preemption arguments as the latest and perhaps most ambitious effort to weaponize federal law to prevent polluters and fraudsters from paying for the harms they cause.”

Neither the Constitution nor the Clean Air Act provides such a shield, he said.

Legal experts on the other side question the notion that a public nuisance can be defined so broadly to include both the sale of a legal product and the impact on carbon pollution, much of it coming from China and India.

The outcome in the Supreme Court remains in doubt.

Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, left, shown with Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh in 2025, withdrew from involvement in the climate case being argued Monday, when the court term begins.

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Last week, Justice Samuel A. Alito, a reliable conservative, announced he was withdrawing from the case. He did not say why, but he owns stock in other oil companies that could be affected by the court’s decision.

A broad ruling for Boulder would send a shock through the fossil-fuel industry and clear the wave of climate-change suits to proceed in state courts.

The industry may turn to Congress. Republicans in the House and Senate have introduced bills that would shield energy companies from such liability claims.

Similarly, a broad ruling shielding the oil companies probably would block all of the climate change suits, including California’s.

The justices may opt out of ruling, however.

When they granted review of the case, they asked the lawyers on both sides to weigh in on whether the high court had “jurisdiction” to decide the Boulder case.

Usually the U.S. Supreme Court reviews only final judgments handed down by state courts, and the Boulder case did not result in a final ruling.

And without Alito, the court could split 4 to 4.

A decision based on a tie vote would affirm Boulder’s early stage victory but would not set a precedent that would govern other cases.

In its new term, the court also will hear major cases on immigration and guns.

Two of the cases test the Trump administration’s strict deportation policies. One denies bond hearings to people who entered the country illegally and may be deported.

In the past, the government usually offered bond hearings to those who could be held for months or even years while their claims were pending, so long as they could show they were not a flight risk or danger to the public.

But the Trump administration said it plans to detain tens of thousands of such persons indefinitely, even if they have no criminal record and pose no risk.

Government lawyers pointed to a provision of the 1996 immigration law that said people who entered the country illegally “shall be detained.” Previous administrations applied the mandatory-detention rule only to migrants who entered the U.S. illegally and were arrested near the border.

A refinery in Carson in 2024.

(Michael Blackshire/Los Angeles Times)

On Thursday, the court announced it will hear arguments on the mandatory detention policy, likely to be scheduled for January.

The other case involves so-called “third-country removals.”

The administration is determined to deport immigrants who have “final orders of removal,” many of whom have criminal records. But in some cases, they may not be sent back to their country of origin.

The policy of sending them to a third country has been condemned as harsh and cruel. Thousands of these people have been flown to impoverished countries that are dangerous and where they may be subjected to abuse.

The administration says it seeks assurances from those countries that the deported persons will not be not be abused or persecuted, but it refuses hearings for individuals.

U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy in Boston has ruled these deportees are entitled to a “meaningful notice” of where they are being sent and “meaningful opportunity” to contest this if they have a reasonable fear they will face persecution and torture.

Trump administration lawyers filed emergency appeals at the Supreme Court to set aside Murphy’s orders. They argued that the judge had gone beyond his authority, and the court’s conservatives agreed.

In December, however, the court will hear arguments from both sides on what the law calls for in such deportation cases.

Meanwhile, on Dec. 2, the court will hear a potential landmark on gun rights and and decide whether states may prohibit possession and sale of semiautomatic AR-15 rifles.

California and 11 other blue states have adopted such laws, often in response to mass shootings.

Gun rights advocates say these rapid-fire rifles are among the most popular weapons nationwide and should be protected as lawful under the 2nd Amendment’s right “to keep and bear arms.”

After turning away cases for a decade, the justices voted to hear 2nd Amendment challenges to the laws in Cook County, Ill., and the state of Connecticut.

These protest-laden times couldn’t be more receptive to the stirring “Everybody to Kenmure Street,” which speaks to a moment when the machinery of institutional cruelty was ground to a halt by righteous neighborliness. Felipe Bustos Sierra’s immersive documentary about a consequential block party — one that happened in Glasgow, Scotland, in May 2021 — is not simply one of the year’s best films, but a potent reminder of where meaningful change begins.

On the morning in question, a dawn immigration raid initiated by the U.K. Home Office snatched two men from the diverse, tight-knit community of Kenmure Street, and the timing couldn’t have been more hostile: in front of a mosque on the first day of Eid. And yet, what reaction is more gratifying than residents of all stripes stepping outside to do something about it?

Word spread quickly, and soon a throng of smartphone-wielding citizens had surrounded the immigration enforcement van, which couldn’t move because one enterprising, early-arriving activist had slid underneath it. Soon, the police were there in force, but the dedication of the outraged, chanting crowd demanding the men’s release ensured this would be no ordinary standoff.

Sierra, a Scotland-based filmmaker born to Chilean exiles, whose previous film recounted the solidarity of Scottish factory workers against Chile’s dictatorship, primes us over the credits with an archival montage of his adopted country’s disputatious lineage, from suffragists and trade unionists to independence campaigners and Glaswegian schoolgirls advocating for their asylum-seeking classmates, all set to the serenading lilt of Lee Hazlewood’s classic 1966 ache “Your Sweet Love.”

But the tale of that Thursday’s spontaneous, viral resistance is narrated by its proud participants. Each is interviewed separately, looking directly at us to burnish the intimacy. We aren’t told their names — save human rights lawyer Aamer Anwar, a key public figure that day — because it isn’t the point. Everyone’s observant, humor-filled testimony both individuates and connects them to each other. Over those hours, the many became one. They became witnesses unsatisfied with mere witnessing.

The interviewees who didn’t want to be filmed are played by actors, including executive producer Emma Thompson wedged between an undercarriage and pavement as the unidentified van protester. That this doesn’t play like jokey stunt casting speaks to the spirit of communal, all-hands-on-deck engagement. Who got under the van wasn’t important. That someone did was.

Sierra also contextualizes Kenmure Street within the long shadow of slavery, industry, imperialism and grassroots opposition. It’s a valuable history lesson in echoes and dignity, one of the film’s more moving illustrations of the legacy of demonstrating for what’s right.

As it happens, Sierra himself wasn’t there that day. He chose to stay at home, watch on the news, and — as someone here might, post-Minnesota — assume the worst. “Everybody to Kenmure Street” is the ultimate what-did-I-miss movie, a life-affirming corrective, his respectful curiosity and everyone’s cherished memories in singular harmony. Like Sierra, you’ll wish you’d been there, to experience the world made better by those who show up. This is the next best thing.

Last week’s settlement of the antitrust lawsuit between state attorneys general and Paramount Skydance over its planned merger with Warner Bros. Discovery marked a clear victory for David Ellison.

If approved by a judge, the settlement would clear the way for the emerging Hollywood mogul to complete the blockbuster $111-billion purchase after months of uncertainty over whether the deal would overcome intense opposition in Hollywood.

What’s more, Ellison achieved the settlement without having to agree to any so-called structural remedies that California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had been seeking.

But Ellison can hardly rest on his laurels. The Paramount Skydance chief executive will have to work hard to repair badly frayed relations with Hollywood talent who fiercely opposed the consolidation of two historic studios as a bad deal for workers. And the 43-year-old tech scion will be constrained by some of the terms that were imposed in the consent decree negotiated with Bonta and other attorneys general.

“I don’t envy David Ellison. You bought this ship, now you’ve got to sail it. And you’re facing threats on all fronts: bad will, everybody rooting for you to fail and operating a business in an incredibly uncertain, challenging time,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. “At the same time, you are going to have to mortgage everything to make these debt payments.”

As part of the deal, Paramount agreed to a slate of requirements that, if it fails to deliver, could induce financial penalties, litigation and other costs.

For one thing, Paramount would have to pay a penalty and divest the Miramax film studio if it does not distribute 30 or more films a year in theaters.

The studio also pledged to spend $300 million more each year on film production in the U.S. and further boost its film spending if the federal government adopts a film tax credit of at least 20%; it agreed not to sell or close its lot on Melrose or the Warner Bros lot in Burbank and to operate them “in a manner consistent with past practices,” until 2031.

Additionally, Paramount is required to establish a board to ensure editorial independence for CNN and CBS News, though it will be appointed by Paramount directors with the authority to remove its members.

Beyond attempting to smooth the industry’s many ruffled feathers, Hollywood’s newest mogul must now also wrestle down an astonishing $80 billion in debt accrued as a result of this highly leveraged merger.

Ellison’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, late last year agreed to backstop the $47 billion in equity needed to complete the acquisition. Royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi have agreed to contribute another $24 billion for an equity stake by assuming some of Ellison’s financial commitments.

The months-long battle was bitter and hard fought and enmity within the industry has yet to subside.

On Tuesday, the morning after Bonta announced the settlement agreement, protesters converged outside of Paramount Skydance’s Melrose Avenue gate criticizing the deal. Some held fake gravestones that read: “RIP local business,” “RIP crew call” and “RIP creativity.”

Two days later, a coalition of several groups including the Committee for the First Amendment, filed an amicus brief asking the court to reject the consent decree, saying that it failed to address the anti-competitive concerns of the state attorneys general and would not protect jobs or consumers.

The sense of betrayal was acute.

“Hate to say it but we all got played,” wrote actor Mark Ruffalo, a leading organizer in Block the Merger, a grassroots organization made up of 1st Amendment advocates and Hollywood celebrities who aggressively opposed it, in a post on X.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) repudiated the deal, saying in a statement. that it “enables a handful of billionaires to call the shots in the media.”

The entertainment unions struck more cautionary notes.

SAG-AFTRA, the actors union, wrote in a statement that the deal “addresses some of our deep concerns,” but added, “We hope that the process of engaging with the attorneys general has impressed upon them the fact that in addition to collective bargaining, our members rely on the law to help protect our interests. These are the lowest standards that our employers must meet.”

Bonta, who had spearheaded the antitrust suit, gave a tepid endorsement of the consent decree.

“I want to be clear about something right up front: This settlement is not a vote of support for this merger. It is not a blessing,” he said.

During Paramount’s heated and often contentious legal and political wrangling to wrest control of Warner Bros., many in Hollywood became increasingly apprehensive. Combining two legacy studios, opponents feared, would bring even more job losses to an industry already battered by runaway production.

The skepticism hardened as the Ellisons made several controversial moves after Skydance acquired Paramount last summer. They included agreeing to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit filed by President Trump over a “60 Minutes” interview segment, canceling the “Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” ending diversity, equity and inclusion programs and appointing Bari Weiss as editor in chief of CBS News, who engaged in a wholesale overhaul that led to a revolt at the esteemed “60 Minutes.”

When the newly formed Paramount Skydance announced its intention to swallow up Warner Bros. Discovery just months later, a massive wave of political pressure and public backlash began.

But the Ellisons dug in.

In January — after Netflix threw a surprise wrench into the Ellisons’ designs on Warner Bros. by offering $72 billion, which the studio accepted — Paramount took Warner Bros. to court and launched a hostile takeover bid.

A month later, Netflix walked away from the deal and collected a $2.8-billion termination fee after the Warners’ board agreed to Paramount’s higher all-cash bid.

But many in Hollywood began agitating against the planned merger and pushing for guardrails and protections.

In April, Block the Merger released an open letter declaring their opposition; its list of professionals across the film and television industry eventually swelled to nearly 6,000 names, including Ruffalo, Jane Fonda, Ben Stiller, Sofia Coppola, Trey Parker and Denis Villeneuve.

“The future of free media and a strong entertainment industry in America is at stake here,” said Norm Eisen, co-founder and executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund, who also helped lead the Block the Merger campaign.

The Writers Guild of America sued to stop the deal, saying it violated antitrust laws. The union last week settled its lawsuit, citing the costs of continuing the litigation, after Paramount agreed not to lay off writers at CBS Broadcast News for years and to pay $17.5 million to the union’s health fund. Nonetheless, the guild said: “We continue to believe the merger will cause damage to writers and the industry at large.”

Some backed the megadeal, including power broker Ari Emanuel.

The WME executive and chairman and CEO of TKO came out swinging, excoriating the antitrust suit, in an op-ed for the Wall Street Journal in July. “They say they are protecting competition. Their actions threaten to destroy it,” he wrote.

The Ellisons’ ongoing ties with Trump — whose administration has clashed with ABC, CNN and other networks — only deepened the suspicions.

Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison has been a Trump supporter and friend. In addition to political donations, he participated in a Nov. 14, 2020, conference call that discussed ways to challenge Trump’s presidential election defeat.

Both Ellison and his son David reportedly promised the president they would make “sweeping” changes at CNN, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery.

In June, David Ellison attended the “UFC Freedom 250” event hosted by Trump on the South Lawn of the White House, and last week he was a guest at the White House state dinner honoring Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Amid the high-level public-facing Trump engagements, Paramount had been quietly trying to allay fears about the relationship to industry insiders.

Two individuals in the entertainment industry, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation, said that Paramount sent emissaries to extend a kind of olive branch, explaining their commitment to Hollywood and downplaying the relationship as a necessary step to get the deal done.

In August, Ellison published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he extolled his lifelong love of movies and laid out his case that he could be “trusted as a steward” of the media giant he was amassing, that includes two institutional news organizations (CBS and CNN) and the legacy studios he wished to combine.

However, his seemingly conciliatory message was undercut that same month when he threatened to relocate Paramount’s base to Tennessee or Texas. Ellison built his Skydance production in Santa Monica.

Across the industry, workers viewed the mixed messaging with wariness and anger.

“If Ellison truly wants to be a steward and do the things that he said he can do and wants to do in that article, I think people would welcome it,” said Pamala Buzick Kim, a co-founder of Stay in LA, the 23,000-member grassroots campaign aimed at boosting local film and television production. “They just have no evidence of it.”

Aside from the bad blood, Ellison’s biggest challenge may be financial.

At a time of massive industry upheaval, most observers believe that the company will have to lay off droves of workers to bring its costs down.

“I will honestly say that the biggest work that they have cut out for them is servicing this debt, and that’s going to guide every decision,” said Kahn, the USC professor.

“Now they’re going to have to fire lots of people in order to reduce costs to be able to make this deal pencil out, and they’re going to be skating on the razor’s edge to make sure that they have enough revenue coming in going forward to service this debt. They have almost no room to maneuver.”

But Paramount has one thing working in its favor: leverage. David (as in Ellison), for better or worse, is now the industry’s Goliath.

“I think temper tantrums can be easily forgotten if the work is there,” said Buzick Kim. “I think most people would be happy to leave it behind them — if the work is there.”

Times staff writers Meg James, Stephen Battaglio and Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

The US president said he would end a so-called ‘EV mandate’ that steered consumers to electric vehicles.

United States President Donald Trump has announced new fuel economy standards that roll back requirements adopted under his predecessor, arguing they will lower automobile prices and encourage manufacturers to expand production in the US.

In a social media post on Saturday, Trump said the new standards would “TERMINATE” what he called former US President Joe Biden’s “EV (electric vehicle) mandate”, accusing the previous administration of imposing costly requirements on carmakers and steering consumers towards electric vehicles.

“These new Standards will take the waste out of building cars in America. That means LOWER PRICES, saving families thousands on a new, beautiful, and safe car,” Trump wrote.

The changes form part of a broader Trump administration effort to reverse Biden-era policies supporting lower-emission vehicles, increasing the gap between US policy and global trends favouring electric vehicles.

While Trump and US Republicans have used the term “EV mandate” to describe higher fuel efficiency requirements instituted under Biden, a Democrat, there are no federal guidelines or laws that require Americans to buy electric cars or bar the sale of ones powered by petrol.

At the centre are Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards. This system, established by the US Congress in 1975, requires automakers to meet average fuel economy targets across all cars and light trucks they sell, meaning that a brand that sells an inefficient vehicle would also have to sell a more efficient one to help comply with the government’s standards.

Under rules finalised by the Biden administration in 2024, the required fleetwide fuel economy was scheduled to rise from 39.1 miles per gallon (mpg) to about 50.4mpg by 2031. The administration said then the measures would reduce fuel consumption and emissions to combat climate change while helping motorists save money at the pump.

As a result, auto manufacturers have ramped up production of EVs to help meet the Biden-imposed fuel economy requirements. The Republican-controlled US Congress, however, gutted consumer tax incentives last year for electric vehicles as part of Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Trump did not provide details regarding what the new fuel economy standards would be. But in December 2025, he announced a proposal that would set the industry fleetwide average for light-duty vehicles at roughly 34.5mpg by 2031, more than 30 percent lower than the Biden-era rule.

In a reposting of Trump’s announcement, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy said an announcement would be “COMING MONDAY”.

Al Jazeera has reached out to the White House for comment.

The heads of several major AI firms told the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) their industry urgently needed global oversight to avoid dangers that could threaten the whole world.

“If managed poorly, I even believe AI could be a risk to humanity as a whole,” Dario Amodei, the chief executive officer of Anthropic, told members of the body on Wednesday.

Sam Altman, the head of rival company OpenAI, echoed his concerns, telling the 15-member council tasked with tackling major crises globally that humanity could “lose control of the future of AI”.

The meeting, which coincides with the UN General Assembly (UNGA) gathering in New York City, was convened by France and comes at a time when experts are increasingly warning that the rapid development of AI needs more human oversight to ensure it does not slip out of control and cause a global catastrophe.

Altman and Amodei called on world leaders to take action.

“If AI is to be democratic, the most important decisions cannot be made by labs in San Francisco alone,” Altman told members. “They must be shaped through democratic processes and by governments accountable to the people they serve.”

Their concerns were shared by several representatives on the council, including the foreign ministers of France and the United Kingdom, who said the international community needed to step in and create common frameworks for how the technology should be controlled.

Hugging Face CEO Clement Delangue, whose company has come under attack by out-of-control AI models in recent months – incidents used by the other companies as evidence of the need for more safety measures – told the UNSC his company had relied on the technology to defend itself in those same incidents.

Delangue said Hugging Face had relied on a Chinese AI model to help defend against the attack by OpenAI’s AI agents, because it faced fewer restrictions than comparable US tools.

“We were attacked by AI, but more importantly, we defended ourselves with AI,” he told the council.

US and China reluctant to impose restrictions

In the United States, though, where the largest and most influential companies developing AI are based, the administration of US President Donald Trump has baulked at imposing new guardrails on the industry.

The administration’s representative at the UNSC meeting, Michael Kratsios, told members, “We totally reject all efforts by international bodies to assert centralised control and global governance of AI.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping is expected to discuss whether and how to regulate AI during a visit to Washington, DC, this week. The two countries are locked in a technological race to develop more powerful AI tools, a competition that experts say makes it less likely that either country would want to impose any major new restrictions on their efforts right away.

Yet there is a growing recognition at the UN of the danger AI potentially poses to the world, said Daniel Forti, head of UN Affairs at the International Crisis Group. Member states understand that “there will be much more of a need for international cooperation, setting some rules of AI, even if the biggest players are more focused on growth opportunities than on some sort of collaboration,” Forti said.

For several years, the UN has been participating in multilateral meetings to shape everything from protections for workers from AI in emerging economies and ensuring open access to this technology, to following how AI is used in military conflicts. In 2024, the UNGA unanimously passed its first resolution on AI, a nonbinding statement that called on member states to protect personal data, monitor AI for risks and safeguard human rights.

The adoption of AI has taken off dramatically since then, and with it have come dire warnings from environmental groups, human rights advocates, and even the tech moguls whose companies are developing the tech.

The future of AI “cannot be decided by a handful of countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires”, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said at a global summit held earlier this year.

Last year, the UNGA formed two new bodies to deal with AI: the Independent International Scientific Panel on AI that brings together experts to provide governments with independent assessments, and the Global Dialogue on AI Governance, which provides a regular forum for discussing approaches to AI governance.

“The dangers are real and imminent,” Yoshua Bengio, a Canadian expert on AI and co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel, told the UNSC on Wednesday. “This council faces an unprecedented threat, one that none of its members would ⁠choose, that none can contain alone, and that does not respect the borders we defend.”

SACRAMENTO — California’s growing data center industry will have more oversight after Gov. Gavin Newsom signed seven bills to regulate the industry’s electricity costs and track water consumption.

The new laws come amid growing public concerns about environmental and economic impacts of the massive facilities, and are aimed at protecting consumers from growing electricity costs and tracking the centers’ immense energy and water consumption.

Newsom on Monday criticized President Trump for dismissing calls to curtail or regulate the facilities and heralding them as “money machines,” even as states and communities across the nation take action to ban or regulate the centers.

“While the Trump administration moves toward deregulation, communities are left to deal with the consequences — higher electricity demand, grid constraints, water use, and pollution,” Newsom said in a written statement Monday. “With these laws, we are ensuring that Californians remain in the driver’s seat — and that those profiting from data centers aren’t doing so at our expense.”

Senate Bill 886 by Sen. Steve Padilla (D-Chula Vista) and Assembly Bill 2383 by Assemblymember Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles) establish special rules for data centers’ electrical use. The law orders California Public Utilities Commission to create special requirements and rates for data centers’ use of electricity, including the costs for new power and for infrastructure upgrades.

Scores of other states have already passed similar legislation, according to utility groups.

Two bills by Assemblymember Diane Papan (D-San Mateo) will require oversight of data center water consumption. One measure will require data center operators, when applying for a business license or permit, to disclose an estimate of their water use and the expected source of water. Another will bar cities and counties from approving a new or expanded data center unless the developer submits a water assessment and a water scarcity plan, and will require developers to cover the cost of any water system upgrade that is necessary.

Newsom vetoed a similar Papan bill last year that would have required new data centers to disclose their expected water use. The governor said he was “reluctant to impose rigid reporting requirements” on “this critically important digital infrastructure” without understanding the full impact on the businesses.

But over the past year, a wave of data center pushback has swept the nation, including California, where dozens of cities and counties have proposed or adopted moratoriums on the facilities. While California lawmakers have hesitated to pursue outright moratoriums and bans that the public is calling for, the political tide has nevertheless turned against the facilities.

Data centers have existed for decades but are rapidly expanding because of the rise of artificial intelligence, or AI. The centers help power everything from streaming services to videoconferencing calls.

Data centers in California are typically smaller than the mammoth, 500+-megawatt AI facilities making headlines in other parts of the country. Electricity costs and state regulations on gas-powered generators limit the vast majority of them to under 100 megawatts.

But as proposals increase in number, opposition has been fierce and growing. A Public Policy Institute of California poll from July showed that 73% of residents oppose the construction of data centers in their communities.

Two years ago, the biggest record labels took artificial intelligence music generators to court for copyright infringement. Now several of them are licensing their catalogs to those same companies, and the deals are starting to turn into products.

The latest example came earlier this month, when Suno, an AI music company valued at $5.4 billion, released its first models built with licensed music from Warner Music Group, BMG and Believe. Rival Udio has licensing deals with Universal Music Group and Warner.

The companies are pitching AI as a new revenue stream for artists. But so far, none of them have disclosed what artists will be paid, how many artists have opted in, or how much input individual musicians have over whether their work is used. And some musicians and songwriters are fearful of how these AI deals might affect livelihoods.

“It’s sort of a creepy and ominous cloud,” said Matt Evans, a 35-year-old Pasadena resident who’s played brass instruments on shows like “The Late Late Show With James Corden” and Netflix’s “Dr. Seuss’s Red Fish, Blue Fish.” “The fact that I could do something once and then it could be reused, and if that’s not negotiated in a contract, then I never got to make a choice to receive additional compensation. It all comes down to the loss of money.”

The American Federation of Musicians sued Universal and Warner in June, alleging the labels licensed recordings its members played on to Suno and Udio without paying those musicians or telling the union which recordings were involved. The labels have moved to dismiss the case.

In 2024, Universal, Sony Music Entertainment and Warner sued Suno and Udio for copyright infringement, alleging the AI companies trained their models on copyrighted songs spanning many artists, genres and time periods. The settlements began the following year. Universal settled with Udio in October and became its partner, and Warner settled with both Udio and Suno in November, signing licensing deals with each.

“The reason why they would settle this is they think they’re going to profit more from licensing music to them rather than from the outcome of a lawsuit,” said Jane Davidson, an entertainment attorney at Nolan Heimann who specializes in copyright and trademark infringement.

More deals followed. Udio signed with Merlin, which licenses music on behalf of independent labels, and with independent publisher Kobalt. Suno signed with BMG in August and with Believe, owner of the DIY distribution platform TuneCore, this month. Spotify, which wasn’t part of the lawsuits, struck deals with Universal and Merlin.

Not everyone is settling. Sony filed a second lawsuit against Udio over more than 30,000 recordings, and it is still suing Suno alongside Universal, which is licensing its music to Udio and Spotify at the same time. Sony and Universal also filed a new lawsuit last week alleging that Suno’s latest model still infringes on their copyrighted works. In July, a Munich court ruled against Suno in a case brought by GEMA, which collects royalties for German songwriters and publishers.

The deals between labels and AI music platforms — on which consumers can create full songs from text prompts — share a basic promise. Artists signed to the participating labels can opt in and will be credited and paid.

But each company is building something different. Udio operates under a “walled garden” model favored by Universal, in which songs made on the platform can’t be downloaded or distributed elsewhere. Spotify’s tool, a planned paid add-on for Premium subscribers, has no launch date. Suno lets users download what they make and release it elsewhere, with download caps and watermarks meant to curb abuse; songs made with its new models can be distributed through Believe and TuneCore.

Whether an artist opts out depends on who owns the rights. Songs typically carry two copyrights — one for the composition, usually held by songwriters and their publishers, and one for the sound recording, usually owned by the label. Every contract is different, so it’s unclear how AI products will handle music where those rights are split.

Waveforms of audio files from various instruments are displayed on a computer screen during the making of an AI musical piece at Suno.

(Robert F. Bukaty / Associated Press)

“These companies are able to make deals on behalf of their artists, and their control over their music is pretty significant based on what major label contracts typically say,” Davidson said. “But I expect that we will have some artists that push back against this and say that they didn’t authorize the use of their music for this purpose.”

Warner’s agreement with Suno, for example, lets artists opt in to having their names, likenesses, voices and compositions used in AI-generated music. But Jack Brody, Suno’s chief product officer, acknowledged that labels “ultimately have their contracts in place that will have some say in what an artist can and can’t do.” It’s also not always clear whether opting out keeps an artist’s recordings out of AI training, or only out of fan-facing features.

Michelle Lewis, a songwriter and the co-founder and chief executive of the nonprofit Songwriters of North America, said the composition side of that copyright split is often the harder one to defend.

“With AI, it’s so much easier to tell if you’ve infringed on the sound recording. You know what Beyoncé and Drake’s voices sound like,” said Lewis, who wrote Cher’s “A Different Kind of Love Song,” Little Mix’s “Wings” and the music for the Disney Jr. show “Doc McStuffins.” “But songwriting is so much more nebulous, so much harder to sue.”

“From the creator side, nobody asked for this. We like our job,” added Lewis. “The job is the process and what makes it special, interesting and artful.”

Some musicians argue the deals can’t cover rights the labels don’t control. A proposed class action filed last month by Jason Isbell and other musicians alleges Suno lets users generate songs that evoke specific artists’ identities without their consent, a right-of-publicity claim the plaintiffs say belongs to performers no matter who owns their recordings. Suno disputes the claims.

Session musicians like Evans are pushing back through their union.

“By licensing our members’ performances to AI platforms like Suno and Udio without consent, credit, or compensation, companies like Universal, Warner Records, and Atlantic are bypassing the very human creators who made their catalogs valuable in the first place,” AFM International President Tino Gagliardi said in a statement.

The labels have disputed the claims and argue that these deals advance the interests of artists and songwriters.

Jonathan Wyner, head of artistic technology initiatives at Berklee College of Music’s Emerging Artistic Technology Lab, compared the AI deals to the arrival of streaming services. Wyner has advised Suno.

“It’s a good step, and I think it was an inevitable step, especially if you want to stay engaged with musicians and the creative community,” he said.

That comparison cuts both ways. Streaming grew the industry while fueling years of complaints about artist pay.

Damon Krukowski, a musician and the legislative director at United Musicians & Allied Workers, said the deals so far don’t seem to benefit working-class musicians and could be used to cut them out entirely.

“It’s a new technology, but it’s not a new corporate story,” Krukowski said. “But the tools are even more powerful. It seems within their possible reach to destroy the labor market. The major labels are just seeing dollar signs without any regard to the long-term health or sustainability of this industry, because they’re envisioning an industry without artists who can push back.”

Brody disputed that, saying Suno is building ways for independent and unsigned artists to benefit, such as its deal with Believe and TuneCore.

With terms under wraps, it’s too early to know whether any of this will pay off for artists. The tests are still ahead — whether Sony and Universal win or settle, and what the first payouts actually look like.

“A label making a deal and an individual artist having a choice are not necessarily the same thing,” said Drew Silverstein, the senior advisor for AI at music tech company BandLab Technologies. “Our music industry has a long history of new revenue streams coming into existence that benefit certain folks, and create great financial opportunities for rights holders.”

Tehran, Iran – Hossein, a 32-year-old marketing specialist based in Tehran, has been thinking of replacing his 13-year-old Iranian-made car with a newer model.

Even though he earns about four-and-a-half times the minimum wage after a recent pay rise – his salary is now close to 900 million rials (about $390 at the current exchange rate) – imported vehicles are not even remotely affordable for him.

Even finding a locally made car might be out of his budget, with an economic crisis gripping the country since the United States and Israel launched a surprise war on Iran on February 28 and later enacted a crippling siege and sanctions on the country.

“I’m losing hope of ever being able to buy a new domestic production car too, unless the country opens up and becomes a bit more normal again,” Hossein, who asked to keep his full name confidential for security reasons, told Al Jazeera.

His old manual Peugeot 206 model, an originally French-made car but now produced domestically after foreign counterparts left Iran due to sanctions, can fetch up to 10 billion rials ($4,350) if he sells it towards making a new purchase. However, his replacement options are limited.

Upgrading to a slightly improved Peugeot 207 with an automatic gearbox could cost him 28 billion rials ($12,170) now. This means that, after selling his car, he would need more than 20 months of his entire salary.

A domestic sedan Shahin model costs more than 31 billion rials ($13,480), and a crossover Reera is priced at more than 43 billion rials ($18,700).

With these options, he would need to save about 24 months and 37 months of his whole salary, respectively, and that is if prices remain stable and he does not spend a rial on anything else. But the reality of the fast-rising living costs and lagging incomes in Iran means he can barely put aside any money, let alone afford a new car.

Domestic car prices have mostly risen 40 to 80 percent since the start of the war, while some vehicles sell for more than 130 percent of their September 2025 costs.

The costs of maintaining the vehicles are also rising much faster than people’s salaries. Domestically produced tyres, motor oil, brake pads and clutch kits have at least doubled since last year, with some car parts having more than tripled in price.

Domestic vehicles have generally low safety standards, meaning that they contribute to staggering road accident deaths. At least 1,609 Iranians have been killed so far on intercity roads in the current month of Shahrivar of the solar Hijri calendar, which ends on September 22. More than 20,000 people lose their lives on the roads every year. In comparison, fewer people in the whole of the European Union, nearly five times Iran’s population, died on roads last year.

Iran’s fuel-guzzling cars also contribute to smoke-congested city streets, degrade vehicles faster and increase fuel costs, just as petrol prices have risen for users.

How did we get here?

Experts say, due to a combination of protected state-linked businesses, privileged access, economic isolation and a curtailing of imports, Iranian households have no choice but to pay exorbitant prices – compared with their salaries – to buy low-quality cars.

The damage from the war, including the extensive bombing of multiple steel giants by Israel and the US, has only added insult to injury. The naval blockade of Iran’s southern ports has prevented goods coming in from popular neighbouring markets like the United Arab Emirates.

Under such circumstances, domestic vehicle manufacturers have little incentive to improve.

End customers are also beset by government charges, currency and financing costs, margins levied by murky intermediaries – and in numerous documented cases, industry corruption.

“People are forced to buy expensive low-quality cars whose real prices should be a quarter of global prices, and this is a direct harm done to them,” Mohammad Rashidi, a member of the presiding board of Iran’s parliament, told local media on Saturday. “The traces of a mafia system are visible throughout the process.”

His claims echo those of other officials and state-linked media, who have openly described the industry as resembling an organised crime operation.

According to the latest figures released by state media, about 233,000 cars were manufactured or assembled in Iran in the first five months of 2026, compared with 366,000 the year before. Only about 25,000 vehicles were imported in that period.

Only a handful of state-linked companies or intermediaries are allowed to import vehicles, with duties plus value-added tax increasing final prices up to 200 percent.

The government and parliament have discussed lowering import tariffs this year, with no agreement announced so far.

The premiums are more visible for high-end cars, with a 2026 Toyota Land Cruiser VXR going for approximately 660 billion rials ($287,000) in Iran at the moment, while the same model is available for about $86,000 in the UAE. The same story applies to most other models, at different rates depending on the rarity of the vehicle and the availability of parts.

The price of a mid-range Chinese-designed SUV sold as Exeed VX in international markets is listed at about $32,000 in China, while it is priced at about $42,000 in the UAE. The same car, assembled from imported parts by a state-linked company in Iran under a different name, currently costs Iranian customers the equivalent of $53,000.

The bizarre situation was on full display during a three-day “international” car exhibition in Tehran last week that mostly featured Chinese-manufactured vehicles. These remain available in Iran despite the US sanctions, since Tehran exports almost all of its oil to China and barters this for goods, including cars.

Some domestic manufacturers and importers were absent, either because they had no products to offer or because they had angry customers who registered months ago to get vehicles they never received. Spare parts for some of the vehicles on display are currently either not available in the Iranian market or cost several times their price in international markets.

Even the cheapest vehicles offered at the exhibition were completely unaffordable to the average Iranian. It would take a worker on the minimum wage with standard allowances 50 years to buy an XPENG G9, a Chinese-made electric SUV priced at 120 billion rials ($52,150), on his or her salary, without spending a rial on food, housing or clothing.

Still, there were huge queues outside the exhibition centre each of the three days.

“It was sad because most people just came to take pictures with the cars they knew they could never afford,” a young man who attended the exhibition told Al Jazeera. “The doors of the cars were locked too.”

With a boisterous laugh, Giselle Bonilla recalls her introduction to Hollywood at the age of 12: on the set of “Freedom Writers,” the 2007 drama about at-risk high school students in Long Beach. She played a young version of Eva, one of the film’s main characters.

“I remember the first thing we shot was an initiation scene where I get the s— beat out of me,” she tells De Los, sitting at a coffee shop in Silver Lake on Sept. 11 (more on this date later). “They put this candy blood in my mouth, and I thought it was so fun.”

In retrospect, Bonilla, 31, finds great irony in how that initial foray into professional acting fictionally materialized her Mexican immigrant parents’ worst nightmare.

“We don’t come from money. They hustled all their lives and put my sister and I in private education, because they had this irrational fear that I would join a gang … then the first thing I ended up booking as an actor was getting initiated into a gang,” she says grinning.

Since that unique formative experience, Bonilla has traveled a winding path in and out of the industry, which ultimately led her to direct her first feature: the dark comedy “The Musical,” in theaters Friday.

The movie’s antihero, Doug (Will Brill), is a middle school theater teacher plotting his revenge against his ex-girlfriend Abigail (Gillian Jacobs), also a teacher — and her new boyfriend, the more charming Principal Brady (Rob Lowe).

Doug’s plan? To secretly persuade his young students to put on a musical about the horrors of 9/11 and its aftermath that’s certain to cause controversy and get the principal in trouble.

“I feel like you can be more honest with comedy,” says Bonilla about why this genre appeals to her. “You can get away with everything that you’re angry about and want to yell about. If you make them laugh first, people tend to listen.”

Left to right, back row: Alex Heller (screenwriter), Will Brill (center row) Gillian Jacobs, Giselle Bonilla (director) and Rob Lowe (on the floor) from “The Musical” at the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City, Utah on Jan. 24.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Though the actual show is only a small element of the narrative, it turned off distributors, who argued they wouldn’t be able to market a comedy that involved such a delicate subject.

Still, “The Musical” is making it to the big screen as a self-released title thanks to its executive producers, who believed in the film enough to put in more money for a release.

“I’m going to make sure people watch it regardless,” Bonilla says about being very involved in the marketing. “Even though it didn’t sell at Sundance, we still found a way, which is how we made the whole movie. It was nonstop fighting against the universe just to make a comedy.”

Less than a week before production started, Bonilla lost the actors who were originally playing Principal Brady and Abigail. As her film fell apart, she reached out to the industry contacts she had made after working as an assistant for a few years. Miraculously, the screenplay piqued Lowe’s interest. He came on board, essentially saving the project.

Will Brill and Rob Lowe star in “The Musical.”

(Blue Harbor Entertainment)

As a student at the AFI Conservatory, Bonilla had directed a short film version of “The Musical” that writer Alexander Heller, aware of her affinity for comedy, had conceived for Bonilla to direct. The core group of artists who made the short also worked on the feature.

And though she has always pushed for diversity on screen — including in her short films “Virgencita” and “Bullfighter” — for “The Musical,” Bonilla believed the adults had to be white.

“It would be way more damaging if I had pinned a brown person to be behind the staging of a musical about 9/11,” she explains. “It was very clear to me that this was a comedy about white liberalism and how people weaponize tragedy for their own agenda.”

When it came to the kids in Doug’s class, Bonilla wanted to reflect the multicultural mosaic that is the Los Angeles Unified School District. To be able to see herself in “The Musical,” Bonilla wanted a Latina girl as the child with the most ambition to succeed in the arts. That character became Lata: played in the feature by Melanie Herrera in her first acting credit.

“She’s a dancer. But she’s very precocious and has a really confident, type-A personality,” Bonilla says of the young actor. “Melanie gives Reese Witherspoon in ‘Election,’ like, ‘I will do whatever I have to do for the part,’ and I recognized that in myself as a kid.”

Filmmaker Giselle Bonilla on the set of “The Musical.”

(Peter McCollough)

An L.A. native raised in North Hollywood, Bonilla started doing improv at a young age encouraged by her father, Art Bonilla, who grew up in Tijuana and has worked as an actor in the U.S. for over 40 years.

Her mother, originally from Sinaloa, does workers’ compensation insurance, which provided a stable income and allowed her partner to pursue acting.

“It was tough seeing him struggle and not have any agency over work,” Bonilla says of her father. “He’s such a great actor and he’s really funny, but he’s always getting cast in these very small bit parts as a gardener or an immigrant crossing on the border.”

Unsurprisingly, when Bonilla began auditioning for roles as a teenager, similarly one-dimensional and stereotypical characters from a “troubling perspective” came her way.

“They always make the main character in those stories a white person,” she says. “And then we’re painted as these puppies that just keep getting beat up. I didn’t want to contribute to that.”

Bonilla’s interest in being on the other side of the camera solidified after playing an illiterate South Central high school student in the Byron Allen sitcom “Mr. Box Office.” She attended Pasadena City College, where she studied film production, then used the residuals from the show to help pay for her tuition at NYU Tisch School of the Arts.

Attending film school on the East Coast was, as she puts it, a necessary experience, because she grew up rather sheltered.

“I’m a first-gen Mexican American woman and I was supposed to live at home until I get married,” she explains; but it also exposed her to the concept of impostor syndrome.

“I always had this impostor syndrome at NYU, because that was where I first really confronted wealthy people,” she explains. “I had never been in a predominantly white institution before. And that was really eye-opening.”

It was only when COVID restrictions were lifted that Bonilla decided to apply to the AFI Conservatory, where she regained her confidence and met her now close collaborators.

She has, however, never forgotten her biggest and earliest supporters. Since she started directing, Bonilla has cast her father in many of her short films. And in “The Musical,” you can see both of her parents in the audience during the culminating school show.

“My dad is the one that yells at Rob Lowe at the end in slow motion. He’s pissed that I cut his line, but it was a union film, and we couldn’t afford to give my dad a line,” she says. “But he will be the first one to tell you that he’s not an extra. He did a ‘cameo!’”

“The Musical” director Gisella Bonilla poses at the Los Angeles Times 2026 Sundance Film Festival studio presented by Chase Sapphire in Park City, Utah, on Jan. 24.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Bonilla’s next project takes inspiration from her memories attending a Catholic school run by nuns in Sun Valley, where a teacher was discovered to be a pedophile. She describes it as “an erotic thriller told from the perspective of virgins.”

Once again, she’ll tackle an unsavory topic and figure out how to bring it to fruition; then distribute it come what may, because she refuses to be boxed in by the industry’s expectations.

“Identity stories are very important. If someone wants to do that, they should be able to do that,” Bonilla says. “But I don’t think our opportunity as Latinos should be limited to painting ourselves as victims against the supremacists.”