Kennedy

Stability is a thing of the past at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which this past week fired its director of dance programming, Jane Raleigh, as well as two other full-time dance programmers, Mallory Miller and Malik Burnett.

A few days later, the center announced its new dance director — a young Washington Ballet dancer named Stephen Nakagawa, who, according to the New York Times, sent a letter to the center’s president, Richard Grenell, lamenting “radical leftist ideologies in ballet.”

Nakagawa also wrote that he was “concerned about the direction the ballet world is taking in America,” that he was upset by the “rise of ‘woke’ culture,” at various dance companies and that he “would love to be part of a movement to end the dominance of leftist ideologies in the arts and return to classical ballet’s purity and timeless beauty.”

If “woke” is a MAGA dog whistle for diversity, equity and inclusion, then restoring “purity” to classical ballet could lead to a regressive whitewashing of the art form.

“With God, all things are possible,” Nakagawa wrote in a social media post announcing his appointment. “I am excited and honored to begin working with the incredible Kennedy Center and this amazing administration.”

The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment about how its dance programming might change now that Nakagawa has taken over, but a person close to the situation, who declined to be identified said, “The [terminated] individuals were given multiple opportunities to come up with new ideas and failed to offer any.”

In interviews following their dismissal, Miller and Burnett said they had attended a meeting with Grenell in which he told them that they needed to prioritize “broadly appealing” programming in order to attract corporate sponsorship. Grenell reportedly used the reality TV competition “So You Think You Can Dance” as an example of what he had in mind.

What Grenell seems to be missing is that, under Raleigh, dance programming at the Kennedy Center was among the best in the nation — with broad appeal. The current season, which had been programmed before Raleigh and the others were fired, included some of the country’s most vaunted and popular companies including Martha Graham Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet.

The Kennedy Center also commissioned great work, including Mark Morris’ “Moon,” which staged its world premiere at the center in April. Times classical music critic Mark Swed caught the show at an “unusually quiet” venue shortly after President Trump staged his February takeover of the center.

“‘Moon,’” Swed told me, “served as a marvelous example of how [the] dance series already provides what both its audiences and new administration want. It celebrates American greatness, representing the historic Moonshot and Voyager space missions through wondrous dance, sanguine 1930s swing music and cavorting spacemen. There is even bit of cheerful conspiracy theory with the help of a cuddly alien or two.”

It doesn’t take a MAGA apparatchik to know that’s a winning formula.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, dancing my way to a better tomorrow. Here’s your arts news for the week.

Best bets: On our radar this week

Prince on his 1987 Sign O’ The Times tour at the Palais Omnisports in Paris.

(FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images)

Prince – Sign O’ The Times
The purple one’s 1987 film featuring live performances of songs from his ninth studio album gets the Imax treatment this weekend. Neither a commercial nor critical success upon its original release, interest in the project has only increased as the artist’s stature continued to rise, even after his death from an accidental overdose in 2016. Ranking Prince’s singles in 2021, Times pop music critic Mikael Wood wrote, “Inspired in part by the bad news he saw splashed across the front page of the Los Angeles Times one summer day in 1986, the title track of Prince’s magnum opus addresses AIDS and the crack epidemic in language as haunted and unsparing as the song’s rigorously pared-down groove.” The movie opens Thursday in limited theatrical release; check theaters for showtimes. www.imax.com/prince

“Villagers on Their Way to Church from Book of Hours,” c 1550, by Simon Bening (Flemish, about 1483 – 1561) Tempera colors and gold paint Getty Museum Ms. 50 (93.MS.19), recto

(J. Paul Getty Museum)

Going Places: Travel in the Middle Ages
As we wrap up our own summer excursions, what better time to vicariously explore how it was done in medieval times through this exhibition of Getty Museum manuscripts illustrating the subject, augmented by an interactive component inspired by early 8-bit arcade video games. Times art critic Christopher Knight has described Northern European manuscripts as “one unmistakable strength of the Getty’s collection.” The show opens Tuesday. 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesday–Friday and Sunday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday; closed Monday, through Nov. 30. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive. getty.edu

Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers performs Arturo Márquez’s concerto “Fandango” with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl in 2021.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Márquez’s Fandango & Shostakovich’s Fifth
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers performs Arturo Márquez’s Latin Grammy-winning composition with the L.A. Phil, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl. The orchestra will also perform the Mexican composer’s “Danzon No. 2” and Shostakovich’s popular “Symphony No. 5.” When “Fandango,” commissioned by the L.A. Phil and written for Meyers, had its world premiere in 2021, Times classical music critic Mark Swed called it “substantial. It is based on the Mexican fandango Márquez grew up with in Sonora. His instrument is the violin, and his father was a mariachi violinist. But Márquez’s goal in the concerto was to use his folk and dance roots in a formal classical way, taking as his example such European composers as Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albéniz. In Márquez’s concerto, he allows Meyers to revel in her virtuosity. He writes melodies that sound old and worth keeping. Dance rhythms do what they’re supposed to, making feet tap and nerves tingle.” The gates open at 6 p.m. with the music scheduled to start at 8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY
🎭 Masala Dabba
Food, cooking and the titular spice box are central to playwright Wendy Graf’s world-premiere drama about an Indian/African American family directed by Marya Mazor.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sept. 14. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. InternationalCityTheatre.org.

🎭 NOIR!
A Hollywood thriller is the milieu for a new immersive theatrical experience from the creators of “It’s Alive” and “The Assassination of Edgar Allan Poe.”
7:50 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Sept. 6, 13 and 20. Heritage Square Museum, 3800 Homer St. downtownrep.com

SATURDAY
🎥 Barry Lyndon
The American Cinematheque marks the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s visually sublime adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about an 18th century English rogue, starring Ryan O’Neal and Marisa Berenson, with the L.A. premiere of a new 4K restoration.
7 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com

🎥 Drop Dead Gorgeous
Actor Denise Richards will be in person for a 35 mm screening of the 1999 small-town beauty pageant mockumentary, a darkly comedic cult favorite written by Lona Williams, directed by the State’s Michael Patrick Jann and co-starring Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin and Kirsten Dunst.
7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org

🎭 Just Another Day
“Wonder Years” dad Dan Lauria wrote this romantic comedy on the enduring nature of love and stars with Academy Award nominee Patty McCormack (“The Bad Seed”) as a septuagenarian couple who meet every day on a park bench to verbally spar and reminisce.
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sept. 28, with 8 p.m. Wednesday shows on Sept. 17 and 24. Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com

🎨 Rising Sun, Falling Rain: Japanese Woodblock Prints
An exhibition exploring the growth of Edo-period ukiyo-e printmaking and the later shin-hanga movement through more than 80 works from the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts features work by Katsukawa Shunshō, Utagawa Toyokuni, Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Kawase Hasui.
11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday–Sunday and Tuesday–Thursday, closed Monday, through Nov. 30. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

🎨 Martin Wittfooth: Deus ex Terra
The Canadian artist examines the repeating patterns of nature and the ways it serves as both muse and a mirror of the human soul in this solo exhibition.
Opening reception, 7 p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St., Los Angeles. coreyhelfordgallery.com/

SUNDAY

The cast of “One Man, Two Guvnors” at a Noise Within: Trisha Miller, from left, Kasey Mahaffy, Ty Aldridge and Cassandra Marie Murphy.

(Daniel Reichert)

🎭 One Man, Two Guvnors
Richard Bean’s swinging ’60s British farce won James Corden a Tony Award and largely introduced him to American audiences. The show, based on “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni, is directed by A Noise Within producing Artistic Directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, with songs by Grant Olding.
Previews: 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sept. 5; opening night: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 6; 2 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, through Sept. 28. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org

TUESDAY
🎥 Who Killed Teddy Bear?
The Los Angeles premiere of a newly struck 35 mm print presents Joseph Cates’ uncensored director’s cut of his 1965 neo-noir thriller starring Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Jan Murray and Elaine Stritch with footage seen for the first time in six decades.
7 p.m. Los Feliz Theatre, 1822 N. Vermont Ave. americancinematheque.com

WEDNESDAY
🎭 Am I Roxie?
Written-actor Roxana Ortega’s one-woman comedy is a wild ride through her mother’s mental decline. Directed by Bernardo Cubría.
7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 5. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org

THURSDAY
🎭 Oedipus the King, Mama!
Troubadour Theater, a.k.a. the Troubies, applies its brand of commedia dell’arte-inflected slapstick to Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, infused with the music of Elvis Presley.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, through Sept. 27. The Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades. getty.edu

🎼 Mozart’s Requiem
Conductor James Gaffigan leads the L.A. Phil in the composer’s final, uncompleted Mass, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, preceded by Ellen Reid’s “Body Cosmic” and Brahms’ “Song of Destiny.”
8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Danielle Wade as Maizy, left, and Miki Abraham as Lulu in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

If you’re a sucker for puns, you’ll love “Shucked,” the musical comedy running through Sept. 7 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The show, writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “never met a pun it didn’t like.” But there’s more to the folksy tale of mixed-up love in a place called Cob County — “Shucked” is a “folksy farcical riot, wholesome enough for widespread appeal but with just enough flamboyant oddity to tickle the funny bone of urban sophisticates.” The actors are also top-notch, including Danielle Wade, who plays the female lead Maizy. Wade, writes McNulty, “sounds like an ingenue Dolly Parton, exquisite to listen to, especially when her heart is in play.”

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s annual Art+Film Gala returns for its 14th year. This year’s honorees are filmmaker Ryan Coogler and Light and Space artist Mary Corse. The elaborate dinner — which always attracts a high-powered Hollywood crowd — is co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s scheduled to take place on Nov. 1 and will be the last such event to occur before the museum opens its new Peter Zumthor-designed building next spring.

Tyrone Huntley, an usher at the Hollywood Bowl.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Remember the fabulous actor who played Simon in the Hollywood Bowl’s unforgettable “Jesus Christ Superstar”? The one who also served as an understudy for Cynthia Erivo’s Jesus? His name is Tyrone Huntley, and his story is similar to those of countless working actors in L.A. Namely that he also has a day job. Only in Huntley’s case, his day job is working as an usher at the Hollywood Bowl. One day he was onstage in one of the season’s hottest shows, and the next he was showing people to their seats at the very same venue. Read all about it here.

A scene from the 2022 documentary “¡Viva Maestro!”: Gustavo Dudamel smiles as he wraps up Encuentros performance in Palacio de Bellas Artes.

(Gerardo Nava / The Gustavo Dudamel Foundation)

Gustavo Dudamel is still the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but he’s already got one foot in New York City, where he is scheduled to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2026. This week the N.Y. Phil issued a news release highlighting Dudamel’s presence in its 2025-26 season. As the orchestra’s music and artistic director designate, Dudamel will lead six weeks of subscription programs, as well as the season-opening concerts. Next month he will conduct the world premiere of Leilehua Lanzilotti’s “of light and stone.”

Almost two years ago, Holocaust Museum LA broke ground on a $65-million expansion. It is now a less than a year out from opening at its new Jona Goldrich campus, which includes a 200-seat multipurpose theater, a 3,000-square-foot gallery, two classrooms, an interactive theater featuring a virtual Holocaust survivor, a pavilion with an authentic boxcar, a gift shop and a coffee shop, as well as a variety of outdoor community spaces. Designed by architect Hagy Belzberg, it will double the museum’s footprint in Pan Pacific Park.

The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists issued a news release voicing concern “over the recent and evolving casting decisions in the Broadway production of ‘Maybe Happy Ending’,” created and written by Hue Park, with music by Will Aronson. The Michael Arden-directed Broadway adaptation won six Tony Awards this year, including for best musical, direction of a musical and lead actor in a musical (Darren Criss). However, after the award wins, Criss, who is of Filipino descent, took a leave of absence from the show and was replaced by a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman. “This is not just about one casting decision, even if only momentary. It reflects a longstanding pattern of exclusion, whitewashing, and inequity that AAPINH and global majority artists have confronted for decades in U.S. theater,” the news release said.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Ojai’s Hotel El Roblar, which first welcomed guests in 1919, has officially reopened. The newest hotel in Ojai is now also its oldest, writes Times Travel writer Christopher Reynolds. See you there!

The administration of United States President Donald Trump is expected to install Jim O’Neill as acting head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), replacing a director who clashed with the White House over policies that defy scientific evidence.

News outlets, including The Washington Post and The Associated Press, reported O’Neill’s selection after Trump officials said they removed CDC Director Susan Monarez.

O’Neill is currently deputy to Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Sources close to Monarez have told news agencies that she butted heads with Kennedy over questions of misinformation and vaccine policy.

“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job. One was anything that was deemed illegal, and the second was anything that she felt flew in the face of science, and she said she was asked to do both of those,” Richard Besser, former acting director of the CDC, told reporters.

Several high-level CDC officials resigned from their positions in solidarity with Monarez and in defiance of what they depicted as the undermining of scientific expertise as a basis of public health policy.

Monarez said that she refused to “rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts”. She had been in her job for less than a month.

Kennedy, a prominent anti-vaccination activist before joining the Trump administration, has moved to reshape the agency and expel advisers who do not align with his views.

He purged a vaccine advisory board of its members in June, moving to replace them with individuals who share views closer to his own.

Speaking on the TV programme Fox and Friends on Thursday, Kennedy portrayed the CDC as an institute in dire need of reform.

“The  CDC has problems,” Kennedy said, accusing the centres of spreading COVID-19 “misinformation” after it advised mask wearing and social distancing.

While he did not mention Monarez by name, he argued the CDC’s culture was due for a change.

“ I cannot comment on personnel issues, but the agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it, and we are fixing it. And it may be that some people should not be working there any more,” he said.

“We need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions.”

At Thursday’s White House news briefing, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt echoed the sentiment that the CDC director had to be loyal to Trump’s agenda.

“Her lawyer’s statement made it abundantly clear themselves that she was not aligned with the president’s mission to make America healthy again,” Leavitt said.

She also offered a White House account of how Monarez was allegedly fired.

“The secretary [Kennedy] asked her to resign. She said she would, and then she said she wouldn’t. So the president fired her, which he has every right to do,” Leavitt said. “It was President Trump who was overwhelmingly re-elected on November 5th. This woman has never received a vote in her life.”

But scientists and doctors who worked closely with Monarez said recent changes at the CDC undermined the agency’s mission to protect the public from health threats.

One top CDC leader who resigned this week, Demetre Daskalakis, warned that the agency’s new direction under Trump portended real risks to public health.

“I’m a doctor. I took the Hippocratic oath that said, ‘First, do no harm.’ I believe harm is going to happen, and so I can’t be a part of it,” said Daskalakis, the former director for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Tensions had been especially high within the agency over the last several weeks, after a gunman who blamed COVID-19 vaccines for his health issues attacked the CDC headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia.

That shooting left one police officer dead, and the suspect took his own life.

Kennedy himself has baselessly called the COVID-19 vaccine the “deadliest vaccine ever made”.

After the shooting, representatives for the CDC’s workers denounced Kennedy for contributing to public distrust of the health agency.

“This tragedy was not random, and it compounds months of mistreatment, neglect, and vilification that CDC staff have endured,” a union representing CDC employees, AFGE Local 2883, said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the group Fired But Fighting, composed of laid-off employees, condemned Kennedy for “his continuous lies about science and vaccine safety, which have fueled a climate of hostility and mistrust”.

As the CDC continues to winnow down its workforce, employees also issued an open letter to Kennedy, accusing him of “terminating critical CDC workers in a destroy-first-and-ask-questions-later manner”.

NEW YORK — When the White House fired Susan Monarez as director of the premier U.S. public health agency, it was clear to two of the scientific leaders at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that the political meddling would not end and it was time to quit.

“We knew … if she leaves, we don’t have scientific leadership anymore,” one of the officials, Dr. Debra Houry, told the Associated Press on Thursday.

“We were going to see if she was able to weather the storm. And when she was not, we were done,” said Houry, one of at least four CDC leaders who resigned this week. She was the agency’s deputy director and chief medical officer.

The White House confirmed late Wednesday that Monarez was fired because she was not “aligned with” President Trump’s agenda and had refused to resign. She had been sworn in less than a month ago.

Trump’s health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., declined during an appearance on “Fox & Friends” to directly comment on the CDC shake-up. But he said he continues to have concerns about CDC officials hewing to the administration’s health policies.

“So we need to look at the priorities of the agency, if there’s really a deeply, deeply embedded, I would say, malaise at the agency,” Kennedy said. “And we need strong leadership that will go in there and that will be able to execute on President Trump’s broad ambitions.”

A lawyer for Monarez said the termination was not legal — and that she would not step down — because she was informed of her dismissal by staff in the presidential personnel office and that only Trump himself could fire her. Monarez has not commented.

Dr. Richard Besser, a former CDC acting director, said that when he spoke with Monarez on Wednesday, she vowed not to do anything that was illegal or that flew in the face of science. She had refused directives from the Department of Health and Human Services to fire her management team.

She also would not automatically sign off on any recommendations from a vaccines advisory committee handpicked by Kennedy, according to Besser, now president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which helps support the Associated Press Health and Science Department.

Houry and Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned as head of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Monarez had tried to make sure scientific safeguards were in place.

Some concerned the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a group of outside experts who make recommendations to the CDC director on how to use vaccines. The recommendations are then adopted by doctors, school systems, health insurers and others.

Kennedy is a longtime leader in the antivaccine movement, and in June, he abruptly dismissed the entire panel, accusing members of being too closely aligned with manufacturers. He replaced them with a group that included several vaccine skeptics and then he shut the door to several doctors organizations that had long helped form vaccine recommendations.

Recently, Monarez tried to replace the official who coordinated the panel’s meetings with someone who had more policy experience. Monarez also pushed to have slides and evidence reviews posted weeks before the committee’s meetings and have the sessions open to public comment, Houry said.

Department of Health officials nixed that and called her to a meeting in Washington on Monday, Houry said.

When it became clear that Monarez was out, other top CDC officials decided they had to leave, too, Houry and Daskalakis said.

“I came to the point personally where I think our science will be compromised, and that’s my line in the sand,” Daskalakis said.

Monarez’s lawyers, Mark Zaid and Abbe David Lowell, said in a statement that when she refused “to rubber-stamp unscientific, reckless directives and fire dedicated health experts, she chose protecting the public over serving a political agenda. For that, she has been targeted.”

Stobbe writes for the Associated Press.

During an interview that will be aired on Thursday for “Friday Night Live” on The Times’ X account, Kennedy All-City quarterback Diego Montes was asked about players in the City Section being overlooked.

That produced a response, “Do not sleep on the City Section.”

“I can’t afford to play for a private school,” he said. “I don’t think where you play should matter that great. You’re telling me if I play for a private school, that makes me any better than I am now? No. There’s talent in the City Section.”

The complete interview can be seen at 5 p.m. Thursday via X at LATSondheimer.

Montes accounted for seven touchdowns (four running) in a 56-51 win over Eagle Rock last week.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].

Drenched in sweat and tears, Diego Montes could finally gasp for air in the sweltering heat of the San Fernando Valley summer.

It wasn’t the high-90s heat that lingered through the three-plus hour City Section showdown Friday night that left the five-foot-11 senior quarterback of Granada Hills Kennedy emotional, burrowed into family members’ arms after the game ended. Montes had just surged into the end zone for a winning five-yard rushing touchdown — the last of a career-best seven-touchdown performance — in a 59-56 triumph over Eagle Rock and quarterback Liam Pasten.

If Friday served as a litmus test for the City Section squads, both vying for league titles (Eagle Rock in the Northern League and Kennedy in the Mission League), their quarterbacks more than met the challenge.

An hour before kickoff, three Kennedy students called Montes over to the football field’s side gate.

“How many touchdowns are you going to score tonight?” one student asked.

Montes replied: “I got five.”

He didn’t just secure five. His seven scores — three passing and four rushing — combined with his 280 passing yards and 164 rushing yards helped Kennedy rally, even when the Golden Cougars trailed by two scores at two points in the game.

“That’s the most tired I’ve ever been in a game,” said Montes, who scored the winning touchdown with just 11 seconds remaining. “My last first game. It means so much to me.”

Montes connected with Jay Saucillo three times — the last of which placed Kennedy ahead 51-50 with 4:11 left.

Pasten, who tallied 389 passing yards, seven passing touchdowns and one rushing touchdown against the Golden Cougars, had more than enough time to strike back. Battling blow for blow with Montes — who earned All-City honors alongside Pasten a year ago — the Eagles senior tossed a 15-yard touchdown to Aidan Sierra to give Eagle Rock a 56-51 lead with 1:11 left.

“I was in the twilight zone for a little bit,” Kennedy coach Troy Cassidy said about the back-and-forth battle. “It was such a hot day today and just draining. And there were so many plays run between two no-huddle offenses.”

While Pasten is well on his way of surpassing the 36 passing touchdowns he had last season ultimately couldn’t lead Eagle Rock to victory, he embraced Montes after the game and complimented him on his standout performance.

Montes jogged to Eagle Rock’s sideline as the team prepared for the bus ride home, making a beeline for Eagles coach Andy Moran to shake his hand.

For Pasten and Montes, this is what the City Section is all about.

“Don’t underestimate us,” Pasten said. “A lot of people look towards that Southern Section, but I mean, City Section players got heart. They battle every game. So just don’t, don’t underestimate the talent.”

Regulation of psilocybin — the “magic” substance in psychedelic mushrooms — has been a hot-button issue for Californians in recent years, but repeated attempts by state lawmakers to allow medical use of the substance have floundered.

Now it seems change may come at the federal level.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is weighing a petition sent earlier this month by the Drug Enforcement Administration to review the scientific evidence and consider easing restrictions.

Psilocybin is currently classified as a Schedule I narcotic, the most restrictive category under federal law, reserved for drugs “with a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use.” The DEA is considering moving psilocybin into the less restrictive Schedule II tier, which includes drugs that are considered addictive or dangerous — including fentanyl and cocaine — but also have medical value.

Past efforts to allow for therapeutic use of psilocybin have largely stalled in the face of official intransigence and lack of political will, including in California, where state lawmakers’ efforts to decriminalize psilocybin and other psychedelic substances have failed multiple times.

Despite strict prohibition under both state and federal law, psilocybin is widely available and growing in popularity for both recreational and therapeutic purposes.

Illegal cannabis dispensaries across Southern California openly sell actual psilocybin mushrooms, as well as dodgy chocolates and gummies that often purport to contain the substance but instead contain only synthetic versions. In recent decades, a growing body of research has found that psilocybin can be beneficial in treating mental health conditions including depression, anxiety and substance use disorder.

The issue of psychedelic access is high on the agenda of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s controversial and conspiracy-minded secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy has signaled support in the past for expanding access to some hallucinogens in medical settings for treatment of mental health disorders.

Kennedy’s agency directed all inquiries to the DEA, which said in an email that it is “unable to comment on or confirm scheduling actions.”

The DEA sent the psilocybin petition after a drawn-out legal battle led by Dr. Sunil Aggarwal. For about five years, Aggarwal, co-director of the Advanced Integrative Medical Science Institute in Seattle, has been seeking a means to legally obtain and administer psilocybin to ailing and aging patients for care during the final phases of their lives.

Kathryn L. Tucker, a lawyer for Aggarwal, wrote a letter to the DEA this month that said he “continues to provide care to patients with advanced and terminal cancer who could benefit greatly from psilocybin assisted therapy, enabling them to experience a more peaceful dying process.”

“The science supports movement to schedule II; such placement will enable access under Right to Try laws, which contemplate early access to promising new drugs for those with life-threatening conditions,” Tucker wrote.

Aggarwal filed a lawsuit after his 2020 petition to reschedule psilocybin was denied. A federal panel dismissed the suit, but the move toward rescheduling continues now that the DEA has officially forwarded his petition to the Department of Health and Human Services.

But some researchers and other experts caution against moving too fast to expand access.

Dr. Steven Locke, a former Harvard Medical School psychiatry professor, wrote in an email that the question of whether psilocybin has any medical applications “remains controversial.” A past president of the American Psychosomatic Society, Locke has studied rare conditions such as Hallucinogen Persisting Perception Disorder, which cause symptoms akin to long-lasting “bad trips” in a small percentage of people who use psilocybin mushrooms and other psychedelics.

“There is little evidence from good-quality studies to support claims for the efficacy of the use of psilocybin for the treatment of any medical disorders,” said Locke. “The reclassification should be contingent on a careful review.”

Aug. 20 (UPI) — Hundreds of staff from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services told Congress that HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is sharing false health info with the public and called on him to step up protection of public health professionals.

They accused Kennedy of complicity in “dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health.”

More than 750 current and former HHS employees on Wednesday called on Kennedy to stop “spreading inaccurate health information” and prioritize the safety of public servants in the health sector in the wake of this month’s fatal shooting at the Atlanta headquarters of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization,” the letter to members of Congress read in part.

“And now, violence,” it added.

The “Save HHS” crew accused Kennedy, 71, of endangering the lives of his HHS employees with his own words and rhetoric, and pointed to multiple specific accusations in the letter of Kennedy doing so in the public square.

According to law enforcement, the alleged shooter was skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine and assumed he was harmed by it. He fired hundreds of rounds with about 200 striking six different CDC facilities across its Atlanta campus.

CDC Director Susan Monarez told HHS staffers during a 10,000-person virtual call the danger of misinformation had “now led to deadly consequences.”

Kennedy met with Monarez two days after the shooting.

The HHS crew noted the recent CDC attack on Aug. 8, where DeKalb County police officer David Rose was fatally shot was “not random.”

“If the very people that are supposed to be protecting Americans are not safe, then no American is safe,” Dr. Anne Schuchat, former principal deputy director of the CDC, said in a statement.

The letter also noted the HHS workforce wanted to honor Rose and his memory.

But it also pointed to fears of “retaliation” and issues of “personal safety.”

“We sign this declaration in our own personal capacities, on our personal time, and without the use of government equipment, as protected by our First Amendment rights,” they stated.

Health experts and other officials have rung alarm bells over Kennedy’s deployment of health data universally known as false for years, even before U.S. President Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to be the nation’s health chief.

Wednesday’s letter follows a similar letter to Congress in January signed by more than 17,000 U.S. doctors via the Chicago-based Committee to Protect Health Care, which stated Kennedy was a danger to America’s national healthcare system.

There was much ado Wednesday about President Trump’s picks to receive the coveted Kennedy Center Honors in December. Journalists and culture watchers combed through the histories of the president’s nominees — including actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone, glam-rock band KISS, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, country music star George Strait and English actor Michael Crawford — in order to better understand his choices.

Gaynor left some scratching their heads, especially because the disco queen’s most iconic song, “I Will Survive,” is an established anthem on dance floors at LGBTQ+ clubs. But Stallone — fondly known as Sly Stallone — seemed an obvious option. He was part of a cohort of tough-guy performers, including Jon Voight and Mel Gibson, named by Trump as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, and he once called Trump the “second George Washington” while introducing at a gala in Palm Beach, Fla.

But the heart of an artist apparently beats beneath the “Rocky” star’s hardened pectorals. His Instagram is littered with abstract paintings featuring thick, brash strokes with obvious nods to the work of Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He is exclusively represented by Provident Fine Art in Palm Beach, and regularly posts his canvases to social media with captions like, “No hesitation. No overthinking. Just color, motion, guts. Sometimes you don’t wait for the perfect moment—you throw the punch and make it count.”

Another, of a twisted yellow and red face, reads, “A portrait I did of Rambo’s state of mind before he enters a BATTLE, called ‘…SEEING RED’.”

Not all of Sly’s fans are happy about his affiliation with Trump. A comment on his most recent painting read, “Sorry to hear you are taking part in the Kennedy honors. Linking your self to trump is not a good look. I hope you reconsider.”

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, wondering if the “Tulsa King’s” oil paintings might now make it into the Smithsonian. Here’s your arts news for the week.

Best bets: On our radar this week

Antigone
Frederique Michel directs Neil Labute’s adaptation of the Jean Anouilh play exploring the effects of authoritarianism (inspired by Sophocles, it was first produced in 1944 Paris during the Nazi occupation).
Friday through Sept. 21. City Garage Theatre, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave. T1, Santa Monica. citygarage.org

Pirates Wanted
Last Call Theatre presents an immersive adventure experience featuring swashbuckling, knot tying, navigation, liar’s dice, sea shanties and more. Recommended for landlubbers 13 and over. Younger mateys must be accompanied by an adult.
Aug. 16-17, 22-24. Pine Ave. Pier, Long Beach. ticketleap.events/tickets/lastcalltheatre/lastcallpirateswanted

Russian pianist performs with the L.A. Phil Tuesday and Thursday at the Hollywood Bowl.

(L.A. Phil)

Rachmaninoff Under the Stars
Two nights, two different programs of the Russian romanticist’s work featuring Russian pianist Daniil Trifinov and the L.A. Phil conducted by Daniel Harding.
8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

The Broadway production of “Shucked” in 2023; the national tour arrives Tuesday at the Hollywood Pantages.

(Mathew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)

Shucked
The corn and puns are higher than an elephant’s eye in this Tony-winning musical comedy with a book by Robert Horn, music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and directed by Jack O’Brien.
Tuesday through Sept. 7. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com

Multi-instrumentalist Herbie Hancock performs Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl.

(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)

Herbie Hancock
The versatile performed is joined by trumpeter Terence Blanchard, bassist James Genus, guitarist-singer Lionel Loueke and drummer Jaylen Petinaud for a freewheeling night of jazz.
8 p.m. Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com

Culture news

Perry Picasshoe and his father walk through downtown Riverside while looking for a good spot to place another ice block on July 3, 2025.

(Daniel Hernandez)

Riverside artist Perry Picasshoe found a way to address the pain and upheaval of seeing people in his community pursued and deported by ICE. In a symbolic effort, Picasshoe melted 36 ice blocks on sidewalks of the Inland Empire where enforcement raids took place. “I took it as a metaphor of what’s happening,” Picasshoe said in an interview with De Los. “I was also thinking a lot about having these blocks of ice as almost a stand-in for people.”

Times Theater Critic Charles McNulty attended a Black Out matinee performance of the two-character play “Berta, Berta,” by Angelica Chéri. The show is receiving its West Coast premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre directed by Andi Chapman. The action, which takes place in 1923 Mississippi, unfolds as the titular character wakes in the middle of the night to find the love of her life covered in the blood of a man he killed. The play’s themes were enhanced by the unique community environment of the performance, McNulty writes. “I was more alert to the through line of history. Although set in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era, there appeared to be little distance between the characters and the audience,” he notes.

A new museum is set to open in a historic building in Miami, honoring, “the history of Cuban exiles with immersive, state-of-the-art exhibits that explore the meaning of migration, freedom and homeland,” writes Joshua Goodman. The building that houses the new enterprise was once the city’s tallest structure and was known as the “Ellis Island” of Miami.

The SoCal scene

Dancer Michael Tomlin III, with the Lula Washington Dance Company, rehearses in Los Angeles in January 2020.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Lula Washington Dance Theatre is celebrating its 45th anniversary on Aug. 23 at the Ford. Washington has been a seminal figure in the arts world, including in her home base of South L.A. — guiding and shaping hundreds of young community members and dancers at her studio over the years. The company has toured extensively around America and the world, and in 2021 received a nearly $1 million Mellon Grant. “Where there’s a will there’s a way. We are still here! After all of the trials and tribulations, riots, earthquakes, COVID and Project 2025, we are still dancing! Dance has saved us and it will save us all,” Washington told The Times in advance of the anniversary. The tribute at the Ford will include performances of historic Washington pieces alongside new works by Martha Graham, Donald McKayle and more. For tickets and additional information, click here.

The Old Globe announced that actor Katie Holmes will kick off the theater’s 2026 season in a new production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” directed by the Globe’s Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. The classic stage play is being given fresh life in a Globe-commissioned new version by playwright and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson. The show marks Holmes’ return to the Globe after Edelstein directed her in a 2023 production of “The Wanderers.” Performances are scheduled to run from Feb. 7 to March 8, 2026, and tickets are currently available by subscription only at TheOldGlobe.org.

The Broad is back with its summer concert series. On Aug. 16, guests can attend a show called “PAST + FUTURE = PRESENT, Pt. 1.” The after-hours event (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) includes access to the special exhibition, “Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me,” as well as two performance stages on several museum floors. Haisla hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids will rock out upstairs while indie rockers Black Belt Eagle Scout will take to the lobby stage.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Wondering what Trump’s Kennedy Center Honors announcement felt like to watch? Here are the first 13 minutes, although it went on for much (much) longer.

Snoopy is the superstar of the “Peanuts” world, but Ben Folds is loyal to Charlie Brown. “I’m going to have to go with Chuck because he’s so emotionally compressed,” the singer-songwriter said when asked for a favorite.

Folds didn’t grow up poring over the Charles M. Schulz comics or memorizing the TV specials — “I can’t think of anything I really was a fan of outside of music” — but he loved Vince Guaraldi’s music for the animated specials.

He started studying Charlie Brown and the gang when he was hired to write the title song for “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown,” sung by Charlie’s sister Sally in the 2022 Apple TV special. And he recently dove back into the world of these iconic characters when he returned to write the final three songs for “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical.”

“I think it’s good that I came to fully appreciate the world of ‘Peanuts’ as an adult,” says Folds, although he adds that he was still starstruck about writing for Charlie Brown. “It’s a lot of responsibility,” he says. “I was asking the Schulz family, ‘Can I say this?’ and they’d say, ‘Yes, it’s yours.’”

Ben Folds performs in concert during the “Paper Airplane Request Tour” at ACL Live at The Moody Theatre on December 11, 2024 in Austin, Tx.

(Rick Kern / Getty Images)

Folds’ best-known songs, such as “Brick,” “Song for the Dumped,” “Army,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs” and “Zak and Sara,” may seem too sardonic or dark for the sweet world of Snoopy and company. But he sees it differently.

“There’s a lot of deep stuff there. ‘Peanuts,’ like ‘Mister Rogers,’ presents an empathetic and nuanced, not dumbed-down view of the world, and that is rare for kids programming,” he says. “I was able to say stuff in my songs that kids will understand but that will go over the heads of many adults.”

He also knows how to approach the storytelling aspect of musical writing pragmatically.

Within the show’s parameters, Folds is grateful to the creators for giving him his artistic freedom. “They give me carte blanche and don’t push back” Folds says, adding that when he puts in poetic imagery — ”I’m not calling myself f—ing Keats or anything,” he adds as an aside — director Erik Wiese would weave those ideas into the animation. “That’s really cool to see.”

“My ambition is to have them tell me that my lyrics meant they could delete pages of script,” he adds. “That’s what these songs are for.”

Wiese says Folds was the ideal person to “take the mantle” from Guaraldi: “He brings a modern thing and his lyrics are so poetic; on his albums he always touches your heart.”

Writer and executive producer Craig Schulz, who is Charles’ son, was impressed by both Folds’ songwriting and the responsibility the musician felt to the “Peanuts” brand. “He has a unique ability to really get into what each of the gang is thinking and drive the audience in the direction we want to,” says Schulz, adding that there was one day where the writers got on the phone with Folds to explain the emotions they needed a scene to convey “and suddenly he says, ‘I got it, I’m super-excited’ and then he hangs up and runs to the piano and cranks it out.”

The first song Folds wrote for “A Summer Musical” was when Charlie Brown realizes that the camp he holds dear “is going to get mown over in the name of progress. I wanted him to have the wisdom of his 60-year-old self to go back to ‘when we were light as the clouds’ to let him understand the future,” he says. So it’s a poignant song even as he’s writing about Charlie Brown looking through “old pictures of people he met five days ago. That’s the way kids are — they’re taking in a whole world and learning a lot in five days.”

(He did not write the show’s first two songs, though you’ll hear plenty of Folds-esque piano and melody in them because, Wiese says, “We wanted it to sound cohesive.”)

In the final song, Folds’ lyrics celebrate the saving of the camp (yeah, spoiler alert, but it’s “Peanuts,” so you know the ending will be happy), but he laces in the idea that these children are inheriting a lot of bad things from older generations, including climate change. But it’s not cynical, instead adding an understanding that their parents did the best they could (with a “Hello Mother, Hello Father” reference thrown in for the old-timers) and that this new generation will do the best they can and make their own mistakes.

Franklin, Marcie, Peppermint Patty, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and Sally in “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical.”

(Apple TV+)

Folds says it’s important for people in the arts and on the left to bring a realistic view but not to become doomsayers.

“I see how bad it could get, but there are two stories you can always tell that might be true — one way to talk about climate change will leave people saying, ‘We’re screwed anyway so I’ll just drink out of plastic bottles and toss them in the garbage,’ but the other way is to motivate people, to tell a story that shows an aspiration towards the future.”

That does not mean, of course, that Folds is blind to the perils of the moment. He stepped down as the National Symphony Orchestra’s artistic advisor at the Kennedy Center to protest Donald Trump’s power play there.

“I couldn’t be a pawn in that,” he says. “Was I supposed to call my homies like Sara Bareilles and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come play here?’” But he’s focusing on the positive, noting that he’s now working with other symphony orchestras with that free time.

Folds has recently also tried countering the turmoil of our current era: Last year he released his first Christmas album, “Sleigher,” and his 2023 album “What Matters Most” opens with “But Wait, There’s More,” which offers political commentary but then talks about believing in the good of humankind, and closes with the uplifting “Moments.”

And obviously, Folds knows that a show that stars a beagle and a small yellow bird that defies classification is not the right place to get bogged down in the issues of the day. Even when the lyrics dip into melancholy waters, they find a positive place to land.

“In this era I don’t want the art that passes through my world to not have some semblance of hope,” he says.

United States President Donald Trump has unveiled his slate of picks for the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual awards show designed to honour actors, musicians, designers and creative professionals who have dedicated their lives to the performing arts.

On Wednesday, Trump appeared on stage at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, one of the premier stages in Washington, DC, in a show of power over the national cultural institution.

“We’ll make it better than it ever was, frankly,” he said of the awards show. “ It’ll be something that people are going to be very proud of.”

This year’s five honourees include disco singer Gloria Gaynor, country music performer George Strait, the rock band Kiss, British comedian Michael Crawford and actor Sylvester Stallone, star of the classic films Rocky and Rambo.

Trump, a former reality TV star, also revealed that he would host the award show himself. In his opening remarks, he suggested his allies strong-armed him into taking the hosting gig.

“I’ve been asked to host. I said, ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’” Trump said. “ So I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do?”

Wednesday’s announcement was Trump’s latest foray into the arts, as he seeks to reshape the US’s cultural institutions to reflect his agenda.

Exerting power over the Kennedy Center

During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, the Republican leader never attended the Kennedy Center Honors, breaking with a longtime presidential tradition.

Since the ceremony’s beginnings in 1978, presidents have been regular attendees, except in rare cases, including Cold War-era negotiations and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.

But since returning to the White House for a second term in January, Trump has not only sought to make his presence known at the Kennedy Center, but he has also sought to wield power over its programming.

On February 7, Trump announced he would purge the Kennedy Center’s governing board and declared his intention to lead the institution as its chair.

“I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote at the time. “We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”

By February 12, the new Kennedy Center board had made good on its promise to elect Trump as chair.

Since then, Trump has expanded his reach into the country’s arts and culture spheres. On Tuesday, for instance, his administration revealed it would undertake an “internal review” of several Smithsonian museums, to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism”.

Trump also teased his new vision for the Kennedy Center Honors — and appeared to troll critics who expressed outrage over Republican proposals to rename the performing arts centre after the Republican leader.

“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote on social media in the lead-up to Wednesday’s announcement.

He pledged the revamped award show would reflect “the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment”.

A crackdown on crime in the capital

The Kennedy Center Honors is expected to air on the TV channel CBS in December, and it broadcasts from its eponymous theatre.

In Wednesday’s speech, Trump tied the upcoming ceremony to his broader campaign to crack down on crime in Washington, DC.

“ In the coming months, we’ll fully renovate the dated and, really, the entire infrastructure of the building and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts and culture once again,” he said.

“ We have the right location, and soon we will be a crime-free area.”

Earlier this week, Trump invoked the capital’s Home Rule Act to take control of the local police force, and he deployed members of the National Guard to patrol the city’s streets, despite the fact that violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low.

Trump, however, has denied the legitimacy of those statistics, a claim he made again at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday.

“ You’re gonna see a big change in Washington crime stats very soon — not the stats that they gave because they turned out to be a total fraud. The real stats,” he said.

Trump also faces legal limitations to his efforts: The capital’s police can only be federalised for a period of 30 days, barring congressional action.

When asked about that limit at Wednesday’s news conference, Trump indicated he would seek to retain control of Washington’s police for the long term.

“ If it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” Trump said, though he added that he would introduce a crime bill that would allow him to extend his control over the local police.

“ We’re going to do this very quickly, but we’re going to want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will, but I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously.”

Trump ‘very involved’ in honouree selection

The Republican leader also hinted at a potential political bent to the reimagined Kennedy Center Honors.

He has previously denounced the Kennedy Center’s programming, pledging to nix artistic productions like drag shows and book classic Broadway hits instead.

In response, over the past year, the touring production of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton cancelled its scheduled stop at the Kennedy Center, as did comedian Issa Rae and the opera Fellow Travelers.

Performers in a touring production of Les Miserables also boycotted performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump’s changes.

Still, Trump doubled down on the programming changes, saying his ratings success on the reality TV show The Apprentice testified to his arts-industry smarts.

“I shouldn’t make this political because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes,” Trump said on Wednesday.

“They’ll say, ‘Trump made it political,’ but I think, if we make it our kind of political, we’ll go up, OK? Let’s see if I’m right about that.”

He also confirmed that he had played a large role in selecting this year’s Kennedy Center honourees.

“I would say I was about 98-percent involved. No, they all went through me,” Trump explained, adding that he turned down “plenty” of candidates, including “a couple of wokesters”.

Looking ahead, Trump said the Kennedy Center would feature heavily in his plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding in 2026.

“I’m going to be president for the Olympics. I’ll be president for the World Cup. And the 250th is going to be maybe more exciting than both,” Trump said. “It’s a great celebration of our country. We’re going to be using this building for a lot of the celebration.”

Alanna Kennedy scored a late equalizer and Angel City tied the San Diego Wave 1-1 on Saturday night in their Southern California rivalry.

Just as the Wave looked to be securing a first home win over Angel City since 2022, Sveindís Jane Jónsdóttir sent in a cross and Kennedy scored on a header to make it 1-1 in the second minute of stoppage time. The goal was Kennedy’s first for Angel City.

San Diego opened the scoring in the 85th minute, when Makenzy Robbe curled in a shot across the goal from the right side of the box. It was Robbe’s first goal of the season, but her 10th career goal for the Wave.

In the first half, after being struck in the head by the ball, Angel City defender Sarah Gorden left the game with a concussion.

The fourth-place Wave (7-4-4) are undefeated in their last four matches, although the last three have been ties.

Angel City (4-7-4) remains 11th in the standings and is winless in its last seven games. The team is winless since coach Alex Straus came aboard in June.

State lawmakers are considering a bill meant to protect access to HIV prevention drugs for insured Californians as threats from the federal government continue.

Assembly Bill 554 would require health plans and insurers to cover all antiretroviral drugs used for PrEP and PEP regimens. The drugs just have to be approved by the Food and Drug Administration, and would not require prior authorization. The bill would also prevent health plans from forcing patients to first try a less expensive drug before choosing a more expensive, specialty option.

The bill requires insurance providers to cover these drugs without cost-sharing with patients, and it limits the ability of insurers and employers to review treatments to determine medical necessity. To streamline reimbursements and expand the range of PrEP medications doctors can pick for their patients, the legislation allows providers to directly bill insured patients’ pharmaceutical benefit plans.

LGBTQ+ public health advocates worry that the Trump administration’s recent attempt to slash $1.5 billion in HIV prevention funding from the federal budget — along with its decisions to stop offering suicide-prevention counseling for LGBTQ+ individuals through the national 988 lifeline and to restrict gender-affirming care for transgender Americans — amounts to an assault on the queer community.

The state bill would act “as a shield against this administration’s cruelty,” said California Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles) who co-sponsored AB 554 with Assemblymember Matt Haney (D-San Francisco).

A recent cause for alarm among LGBTQ+ health advocates, first reported in the Wall Street Journal, is news that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. plans to replace the entire U.S. Preventive Services Task Force because its 16 appointed members are too “woke,” according to unnamed individuals cited by the Journal.

At a news conference Monday, Kennedy confirmed that he is reviewing the makeup of the panel, adding that he hasn’t made a final decision.

The bill was introduced earlier in the year out of fear that Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccines might spill over into HIV/PrEP drug coverage and because of worries that President Trump would dismantle the task force, González said.

The task force wields immense influence, making recommendations about which cancer screenings, tests for chronic diseases and preventive medications are beneficial for Americans and therefore should be covered by insurers — including drugs for HIV/AIDS prevention.

Drugs prescribed in a PrEP regimen — short for pre-exposure prophylaxis — block the virus that causes AIDS from multiplying in a person’s body. They can be taken in either pill or injection form on an ongoing basis. PEP refers to post-exposure prophylaxis and involves taking medication within 72 hours of potential exposure and for a short period of time, in order to prevent infection and transmission of the virus. Both regimens are recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as effective ways to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS when used correctly.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force was created in 1984 by congressional authorization to issue evidence-based advice to physicians on which screenings and preventive medicines are worth considering for their healthy patients. The panel’s recommendations are closely watched by professional societies when adopting guidelines for their clinician members. In many cases, when insurers are on the fence about whether to cover a given screening or diagnostic test, they’ll turn to the panel’s recommendations.

The panel, made up of doctors, nurses, health psychologists, epidemiologists and statisticians who are experts in primary care and preventive medicine and who serve four-year terms on a voluntary basis, is meant to be free from conflicts of interest and outside influences.

Some of its past recommendations, however, such as its advice on prostate cancer screenings, have been met with criticism.

When it comes to HIV prevention, the U.S. Supreme Court appeared to back up the task force with its July 11 ruling in Kennedy vs. Braidwood Management, which upheld a key mandate in the Affordable Care Act requiring insurers to cover preventive care, including for HIV.

However, in the same ruling, the court also declared that the Secretary of Health and Human Services has the power to review decisions made by the task force, and to remove members at his or her discretion.

Kennedy abruptly postponed the task force’s July meeting, sparking concern among public health advocates and Democratic leaders.

“The task force has done very little over the past five years,” Kennedy said at Monday’s news conference. “We want to make sure that it is performing, that it is approving interventions that are actually going to prevent the health decline of the American public.”

González said he worries that the Supreme Court gave the administration a new way to meddle in the healthcare decisions of LGBTQ+ people.

“The Braidwood decision was both a relief and a wake-up call,” González said. “While it upheld the Preventive Services Task Force’s existing recommendations — keeping protections for PrEP, cancer screenings, and vaccines intact — it handed unprecedented authority to RFK Jr. to reshape that very task force and place existing protections under direct threat once again.”

González described AB 554 as “a measure to protect LGBTQ+ Californians and ensure we never return to the neglect and devastation of the HIV/AIDS crisis.” The state Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to vote on whether to advance the bill on Aug. 29.

“These attacks aren’t isolated,” the lawmaker said. “They are coordinated, deliberate, and aimed squarely at our most vulnerable communities.”

Aug. 5 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will begin pulling contracts to develop vaccines for respiratory viruses using mRNA technology, which was used for the COVID-19 shot.

Department Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced the move in a video posted to X on Tuesday saying that it will terminate 22 contracts worth $500 million after officials determined the “technology poses more risks than benefits for these respiratory viruses.”

“Let me be absolutely clear,” said Kennedy. “HHS supports safe, effective vaccines for every American who wants them, that’s why we’re moving beyond the limitations of mRNA for respiratory viruses and investing in better solutions.”

The announcement follows other actions by Kennedy, a vocal vaccine critic, to reshape the federal government’s approach to public health in ways that have rankled mainstream health experts. Kennedy has replaced members of a vaccine advisory panel with skeptics and stopped recommending COVID-19 inoculations for healthy children, contradicting the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations.

The use of mRNA technology is credited with hastening the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. But its rapid development and the novelty of the technology have left lingering worries over its safety and effectiveness despite reassurances from experts. Like previous moves, Kennedy’s decision to end the contracts has drawn criticism from medical and public health experts.

“I’ve tried to be objective & non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions — but quite frankly this move is going to cost lives,” Dr. Jerome Adams, who served as Surgeon General in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X. “mRNA technology has uses that go far beyond vaccines… and the vaccine they helped develop in record time is credited with saving millions.”

Most vaccines have worked by using a weakened or dead virus to trigger a response in a patient’s immune system. Vaccines that use messenger RNA, or mRNA, instead use a molecule that causes cells to replicate a part of the virus, triggering an immune response. A new flu vaccine developed by Moderna using the technology has shown promise.

Kennedy said in his announcement that mRNA is ineffective and that vaccines using it encourage new mutations of the virus they are intended to target. He suggested the COVID-19 vaccine prolonged the pandemic and that the department would focus on research on “whole virus vaccines and novel platforms.”

Dr. Jake Scott, a clinical associate professor at Stanford University School of Medicine, said in a post on X that “the claim that mRNA vaccine technology poses more risk than benefits is simply false.”

“What poses risk is abandoning the most adaptable, scalable vaccine platform we’ve ever had,” he wrote. “Halting future development undermines pandemic preparedness at a time when we can least afford it.”

Let’s offer a preseason top-10 rankings in high school football for the City Section:

1. BIRMINGHAM: The Patriots have weaknesses (lack of a passing game), but a big offensive line, two transfer running backs and a big-play weapon in receiver Paul Turner make them the team to beat. They have a 49-game winning streak against City teams thanks to forfeit wins against Narbonne.

2. SAN PEDRO: Junior quarterback Seth Solorio takes over as the starter behind a veteran offensive line. There’s speed and kicker Dylan Moreno starts out as the most accurate in the City Section.

3. CARSON: A new coach but lots of talent. Quarterback Chris Fields will have plenty of weapons. The defense needs to prove itself.

4. GARFIELD: New coach Patrick Vargas learned from the retired Lorenzo Hernandez. Vargas might call a few more passes but has a top running back in Ceasar Reyes.

5. PALISADES: The passing combination of quarterback Jack Thomas throwing to Bishop Alemany transfer Demare Dezeurn is going to be fun to watch. Dezeurn is one of the fastest athletes in California.

Eagle Rock All-City quarterback Liam Pasten is 6 feet 1 and 145 pounds.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

6. EAGLE ROCK: The Northern League favorites return quarterback Liam Pasten, who passed for 3,600 yards as a junior. Their opening game against Kennedy should provide clues whether they are an Open Division team.

7. DORSEY: A new quarterback to team with receiver Deuce Johnson should benefit the Dons, who went 5-0 in the Coliseum League in a breakthrough last season.

8. KENNEDY: Valley Mission League favorites will rely on All-City quarterback Diego Montes.

9. BANNING: Must break in new quarterback but lots of players to build around, including linebacker Keshawn Galloway and defensive back Alonzo Ruiz.

10. VENICE: Quarterback Bennett Dome, defensive back Joshua Aaron and receiver Aaron Minter are standouts on a team capable of winning the Western League.

July 18 (UPI) — The Edward M. Kennedy Institute will give President Joe Biden a Lifetime Achievement Award at its 10th Anniversary Celebration this fall.

Biden plans to attend the event on Oct. 26 at the Institute’s Columbia Point, Mass., building. The award is to recognize Biden’s “more than four decades in public life, beginning with his election to the United States Senate from Delaware in 1972, to his ascent to leadership positions in the Judiciary and Foreign Relations Committees, to the vice presidency and ultimately to the White House,” a press release said.

The Institute, named for Sen. Edward “Ted” Kennedy, will also give out its Award for Inspired Leadership to former secretary of labor and Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh and Retired U.S. Navy Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve on the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

“We believe that we can inspire new generations of leaders by highlighting the example of those who came before them like Senator Ted Kennedy,” said Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Kennedy’s widow and the co-founder of the Kennedy Institute. Biden, Walsh and Franchetti “are all such exemplary and inspiring leaders, dedicated to improving the lives of others in our community and throughout our country.”

The Institute’s fall dinner is its annual fundraiser, supporting its mission to foster bipartisan political leadership, provide a forum for civil discourse about critical issues, and educate the public about the Senate’s role in the American system of democratic government.

“President Biden’s life has been one of honorable service to his country, and like the man for whom the Kennedy Institute is named, fought for the interests, and to better the lives, of all Americans from all socio-economic, cultural, and personal backgrounds,” Kennedy Institute Chair Bruce A. Percelay said. “His tenacity and persistence — again, traits that echo those of Senator Ted Kennedy — are constant reminders to our current political leaders of the dedication and hard work required to do the people’s business in Washington.”

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) is calling on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to explain why the Trump administration has repeatedly ordered cuts to HIV/AIDS programs both at home and abroad.

In a letter to Kennedy dated Thursday, Garcia asserted that the cabinet secretary has a history of peddling misinformation about the virus and disease, and that the planned cuts — which he called “alarming and unprecedented” — would cost lives.

“We are concerned that your motivations for disrupting HIV funding and delaying preventative services and research are grounded not in sound science, but in misinformation and disinformation you have spread previously about HIV and AIDS, including your repeated claim that HIV does not cause AIDS,” wrote Garcia, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee.

A Health and Human Services spokesperson said Kennedy remains committed to science-based public health, that critical HIV/AIDS programs will continue under his leadership, and that ongoing investments in such work demonstrate that commitment.

Both President Trump and Kennedy have previously defended the sweeping cuts to Health and Human Services programs and staff under Kennedy’s leadership. Agency spokespeople have said they would allow for a greater focus on Kennedy’s priorities of “ending America’s epidemic of chronic illness by focusing on safe, wholesome food, clean water, and the elimination of environmental toxins.”

Kennedy has said the department under his watch “will do more — a lot more — at a lower cost to the taxpayer.”

Garcia’s letter — which he co-wrote with Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the ranking Democrat on the Health Care and Financial Services subcommittee — requested that the health department produce a list of all HIV/AIDS-related funding it has cut and an explanation for how those funds were identified for elimination, as well as other documentation and communications around several of the largest cuts.

The letter is the latest attempt by Democrats, in coordination with health experts and LGBTQ+ organizations, to challenge what they see as an inexplicable yet coordinated effort by the Trump administration to dismantle public health initiatives aimed at controlling and ultimately ending one of the most devastating and deadly epidemics in human history.

It comes the same day that Senate Republicans agreed to a Trump administration request to claw back billions of dollars in funding for public media and foreign aid, but declined an earlier White House request to include in those cuts about $400 million in HIV/AIDS funding for the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which is credited with saving millions of lives in some of the poorest nations around the world.

The House had previously voted for an earlier version of the measure that did cut the funding for PEPFAR, which was started by President George W. Bush in 2003. However, senators pushed for the restoration of the funding before agreeing to sign the broader rescission package.

The House must now approve the Senate version of the measure by Friday for it to take effect.

In an interview with The Times, Garcia said he has long viewed Kennedy as a dangerous “conspiracy theorist” who has “peddled in all sorts of lies” about HIV, vaccines and other medical science. Now that Kennedy is Health secretary, he said, the American people deserve to know whether national and international health decisions are being driven by his baseless personal beliefs.

“Folks need to understand what he’s trying to do, and I think that he has to be responsible and be held accountable for his actions,” Garcia said.

In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorthi noted that recent scientific advancements — including the creation of new preventative drugs — are making the eradication of HIV more attainable than ever. And yet Kennedy and the Trump administration are pushing the nation and the world in the opposite direction, they said.

“Since taking office, the Trump Administration has systematically attacked HIV-related funding and blocked critical HIV-related services and care for those who need it most,” Garcia and Krishnamoorthi wrote. “These disruptions would threaten Americans most at risk of contracting HIV, and many people living with HIV will get sicker or infect others without programs they rely on for treatment.”

The letter outlines a number of examples of such cuts, including:

• The elimination of the HIV prevention division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and termination or delay of billions of dollars in HIV prevention grants from that office.
• The termination of a $258-million program within the National Institutes of Health to find a vaccine to prevent new HIV infections.
• The termination of dozens of NIH grants for HIV research, particularly around preventing new infections among Black and Latino gay men who are disproportionately at risk of contracting the virus.
• The targeting of HIV prevention initiatives abroad, including PEPFAR.
• The U.S. drawing back from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

Many in the medical and foreign aid community expressed grave concerns about Kennedy being appointed as Health secretary, in part because of his past remarks about HIV/AIDS. Kennedy told a reporter for New York Magazine as recently as June 2023 that there “are much better candidates than H.I.V. for what causes AIDS.”

In their letter, Garcia and Krishnamoorthi called out a specific theory shared by Kennedy that the recreational drug known as “poppers” may cause AIDS, rather than the HIV virus, writing, “We are deeply concerned that the Trump Administration’s HIV-related funding cuts are indiscriminate, rooted in a political agenda, and not at all in the interest of public health.”

Kennedy’s skepticism about the link between HIV and AIDS conflicts with well established science that has long been accepted by the medical establishment, and by the federal government. Studies around the world have proved the link, and found that HIV is the only common factor in AIDS cases.

In August 2023, about a week before Kennedy threw his support behind Trump, his presidential campaign addressed the controversy surrounding his “poppers” comment, stating that Kennedy did not believe poppers were “the sole cause” of AIDS, but contended they were “a significant factor in the disease progression” of early patients in the 1980s.

Garcia and Krishnamoorthi also noted a successful effort by local officials and advocates in Los Angeles County to get about $20 million in HIV/AIDS funding restored last month, after it and similar funding nationwide was frozen by the Trump administration.

The restoration of those funds followed another letter sent to Kennedy by Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) and other House members, who cited estimates from the Foundation for AIDS Research, known as amfAR, that the nationwide cuts could lead to 127,000 additional deaths from AIDS-related causes within five years.

Garcia and Krishnamoorthi cited the same statistics in their letter.

In his interview with The Times, Garcia, who is gay, also said the LGBTQ+ community “is rightly outraged” at Kennedy’s actions to date and deserves to know if Kennedy “is using his own conspiracy theories and his own warped view of what the facts are” to dismantle public health infrastructure around HIV and AIDS that they fought for decades to build.

WASHINGTON  — Public health advocates won a big case in the Supreme Court on the last day of this year’s term, but the victory came with an asterisk.

The decision ended one threat to the no-cost preventive services — from cancer and diabetes screenings to statin drugs and vaccines — used by more than 150 million Americans who have health insurance.

But it did so by empowering the nation’s foremost vaccine skeptic: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Losing would have been “a terrible result,” said Washington attorney Andrew Pincus. Insurers would have been free to quit paying for the drugs, screenings and other services that were proven effective in saving lives and money.

But winning means that “the secretary has the power to set aside” the recommendations of medical experts and remove approved drugs, he said. “His actions will be subject to review in court,” he added.

The new legal fight has already begun.

Last month, Kennedy cited a “crisis of public trust” when he removed all 17 members of a separate vaccine advisory committee. His replacements included some vaccine skeptics.

The vaccines that are recommended by this committee are included as preventive services that insurers must provide.

On Monday, the American Academy of Pediatrics and other medical groups sued Kennedy for having removed the COVID-19 vaccine as a recommended immunization for pregnant women and healthy children. The suit called this an “arbitrary” and “baseless” decision that violates the Administrative Procedure Act.

“We’re taking legal action because we believe children deserve better,” said Dr. Susan J. Kressly, the academy’s president. “This wasn’t just sidelining science. It’s an attack on the very foundation of how we protect families and children’s health.”

On Wednesday, Kennedy postponed a scheduled meeting of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force that was at the center of the court case.

“Obviously, many screenings that relate to chronic diseases could face changes,” said Richard Hughes IV, a Washington lawyer and law professor. “A major area of concern is coverage of PrEP for HIV,” a preventive drug that was challenged in the Texas lawsuit that came to the Supreme Court.

By one measure, the Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision was a rare win for liberals. The justices overturned a ruling by Texas judges that would have struck down the popular benefit that came with Obamacare. The 2012 law required insurers to provide at no cost the preventive services that were approved as highly effective.

But conservative critics had spotted what they saw was a flaw in the Affordable Care Act. They noted the task force of unpaid medical experts who recommend the best and most cost-effective preventive care was described in the law as “independent.”

That word was enough to drive the five-year legal battle.

Steven Hotze, a Texas employer, had sued in 2020 and said he objected on religious grounds to providing HIV prevention drugs, even if none of his employees were using those drugs.

The suit went before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, who in 2018 had struck down Obamacare as unconstitutional. In 2022, he ruled for the Texas employer and struck down the required preventive services on the grounds that members of the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force made legally binding decisions even though they had not been appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.

The 5th Circuit Court put his decision on hold but upheld his ruling that the work of the preventive services task force was unconstitutional because its members were “free from any supervision” by the president.

Last year, the Biden administration asked the Supreme Court to hear the case of Xavier Becerra vs. Braidwood Management. The appeal said the Texas ruling “jeopardizes health protections that have been in place for 14 years and millions of Americans currently enjoy.”

The court agreed to hear the case, and by the time of the oral argument in April, the Trump administration had a new secretary of HHS. The case was now Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vs. Braidwood Management.

The court’s six conservatives believe the Constitution gives the president full executive power to control the government and to put his officials in charge. But they split on what that meant in this case.

The Constitution says the president can appoint ambassadors, judges and “all other Officers of the United States” with Senate approval. In addition, “Congress may by law vest the appointment of such inferior officers” in the hands of the president or “the heads of departments.”

Option two made more sense, said Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh. He spoke for the court, including Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett, and the court’s three liberal justices.

“The Executive Branch under both President Trump and President Biden has argued that the Preventive Services Task Force members are inferior officers and therefore may be appointed by the Secretary of HHS. We agree,” he wrote.

This “preserves the chain of political accountability. … The Task Force members are removable at will by the Secretary of HHS, and their recommendations are reviewable by the Secretary before they take effect.”

The ruling was a clear win for Kennedy and the Trump administration. It made clear the medical experts are not “independent” and can be readily replaced by RFK Jr.

It did not win over the three justices on the right. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a 37-page dissent.

“Under our Constitution, appointment by the President with Senate confirmation is the rule. Appointment by a department head is an exception that Congress must consciously choose to adopt,” he said, joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito and Neil M. Gorsuch.

July 9 (UPI) — Jason Moran, an acclaimed pianist, composer, educator, bandleader and recording artist, said he has left his position as jazz artistic director at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.

The center, which receives federal funds, has undergone dramatic changes since Donald Trump became president again and he installed himself as chairman. He ousted arts center President Deborah Rutter and Board Chairman David Rubenstein, and replaced board members appointed by former President Biden.

A number of artists have been replaced or have voluntarily quit, including Lin-Manuel Miranda, who canceled a run of his Broadway hit, Hamilton, next year.

The Kennedy Center declined to comment to NPR.

Moran, who accepted the position in 2011, one year after his predecessor, Billy Taylor, died, didn’t mention any disagreements with Trump or others in a post on Tuesday on Instagram.

Moran, 50, described “14 years of inviting thousands of artists to share their work with audiences.” And he was grateful “to an incredible staff that ushered artists from the negotiation to the after party.”

In his role, he developed programming and curated artists for one of the largest jazz programs in the United States.

He hosted performances and education programs that included the National Endowment for the Arts’ “NEA Jazz Masters Tribute Concert” and Betty Carter’s Jazz Ahead, a residency for emerging artists of which Moran is an alum.

Moran, who scored the films Selma and 13th, tours the world as a performer. In 2010, he was awarded the MacArthur Fellowship.

“Thank you to the composers, comedians, choreographers, performance artists, skateboarders, filmmakers, authors, illustrators, dancers, photographers, sculptors, scientists, crews and on and on,” he wrote. “These young ones are beautifying the stage. And with that, I bowed on Juneteenth.”

Moran, who was born in Houston, began studying the piano at age 6, according to information posted on the Kennedy Center website. He attended Houston’s High School for the Performing and Visual Arts and then Manhattan School of Music in New York City.

At the college, he attended a class by saxophonist Sonny Rollins.

“My first day on the job at The Kennedy Center was when Sonny Rollins was receiving his Kennedy Center Honor,” Moran wrote,

The center, which includes a 2,465-seat Concert Hall, the 2,347-seat Opera House, the 1,161-seat Eisenhower Theater and the 320-seat Family Theater, made its public debut on Sept. 8, 1971.

Trump attended the opening night of Les Miserables on June 11.

During his first term, Trump didn’t attend a performance there, including the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony after several performers honored at the annual gala spoke out against him.

When a top official responsible for oversight of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department announced recently that he is being forced out of his position, it brought to a fever pitch tensions that had been building for months.

On one side are watchdogs who say efforts to bring reforms and transparency to the Sheriff’s Department are being stymied. On the other are county officials who claim fresh perspectives are needed on the Civilian Oversight Commission.

The showdown is playing out as the commission continues fighting the county for access to internal sheriff’s department records on deputy misconduct, including investigations into gang-like cliques said to rule over certain stations and promote a culture of violence.

Robert Bonner, the oversight commission chair, wrote in a letter last month that he was “involuntarily leaving” the body he has been a member of since its founding in 2016. Bonner, 83, said in an interview that he was chairing the commission’s May meeting at the L.A. County Hall of Records when he unexpectedly received a letter from County Supervisor Kathryn Barger stating that she would be appointing someone to replace him.

On Thursday, Bonner gave his first address to the commission since revealing his time as chair will end this month.

Bonner said he was “still surprised” that he had been “dismissed without so much as a phone call from Supervisor Barger.”

And he had choice words for other county operators that he described as thorns in the commission’s side.

“It can be treacherous. The county bureaucrats — and this includes, by the way, the county counsel’s office — they guard their turf and see an independent commission as a threat to that turf,” Bonner said.

“There are forces within the county,” he added later, “that do not want to see real, effective and meaningful oversight over the sheriff’s department.”

Helen Chavez, a spokesperson for Barger, said in an email that Bonner’s claims that the supervisor summarily dismissed him were made “for dramatic effect” and “are not only inaccurate but also mischaracterize the circumstances of his departure” from the commission.

“His assertion that his presence alone was essential to achieving reforms is both self-serving and dismissive of the dedicated Commissioners and staff who are collectively advancing the Civilian Oversight Commission’s mission,” the statement said. “These reforms are bigger than any one individual, and they will continue without interruption.”

Barger, who chairs the county‘s Board of Supervisors, told The Times in a statement last month that she is “committed to broadening the diversity of voices and expertise represented on the Commission.”

Fifth District Supervisor Kathryn Barger attends a Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors meeting in 2023.

(Irfan Khan/Los Angeles Times)

She said her decision to replace Bonner “reflects my desire to continue cultivating public trust in the oversight process by introducing new perspectives that support the Commission’s vital work.”

On Thursday, Patti Giggans, an ally of Bonner’s on the commission, stood up for the departing chairman during what he said would likely be the last of the body’s monthly meetings he’d attend as a commissioner.

“I have a feeling all of us here, all the commissioners, appreciate your leadership, your tenacity, your brilliance and courage to go up against forces that are not necessarily yet in agreement with what effective oversight means,” she said.

The County Counsel’s office said in an email that it “has fully supported the COC, as an advisory body to the Board, in its efforts to seek the information it needs to play a powerful oversight role on behalf of LA County citizens.”

But some observers note that the county counsel is in an awkward position, since the office represents multiple parties involved. That includes the Civilian Oversight Commission, which has been trying to enforce subpoenas, as well as Barger’s office and the sheriff’s department.

Peter Eliasberg, chief counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, said it seems to him that nearly every time such a dispute comes up, the county’s lawyers side with the sheriff’s department.

“It’s either intentional or it’s incredibly short-sighted for Commissioner Bonner to be pushed out at this point, at a time when he’s been spearheading incredibly important reforms,” Eliasberg said. “It feels to me like this is an effort once again to hamstring this commission.”

Bonner, who previously served as a federal judge and was head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, isn’t the only commissioner to acrimoniously leave the oversight body this year.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna, right, talks with former oversight official Sean Kennedy during the annual Baker to Vegas law enforcement relay on April 5 in Baker, Calif.

(William Liang / For The Times)

In February, Loyola Law School professor Sean Kennedy resigned after county lawyers sought to stop him from filing a brief in court in support of Diana Teran, an advisor to former L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón who faced felony charges from the state. Teran was accused of improperly accessing records about sheriff’s deputies, but a state appellate court recently moved to dismiss the case.

Kennedy said in February that he quit because he believed it was “not appropriate for the County Counsel to control the COC’s independent oversight decisions.”

Last month, Kennedy received notification that a law firm had “been engaged by the Office of the County Counsel” to investigate him for allegedly retaliating against a sergeant in the sheriff’s department who had faced oversight scrutiny. Kennedy has denied any wrongdoing, claiming the probe against him is politically motivated.

In an email this week, Kennedy described Bonner’s removal as “the death-knell for meaningful civilian oversight of the LASD.” He claimed that the Board of Supervisors “supports the sheriff in preventing the commissioners from accessing confidential documents to do their job.”

Barger’s office pushed back against the criticism, pointing to correspondence from Bonner earlier this year that the supervisor’s office said suggested he was willing to step down.

In an April 18 email to Barger, Bonner wrote that “if you decide not to reappoint me, please be assured that I am fine with that.”

Chavez, Barger’s spokesperson, questioned the “stark contrast” between “his posture and tone” then compared with Bonner’s recent public remarks.

Bonner told The Times he followed up his April 18 email to express that he “wanted to be extended” to achieve his goals as chair.

“I never wanted to her to think I lusted for the job,” Bonner said in a text message.

The abrupt departures of Bonner and Kennedy have raised concerns about who will fill the void they leave behind.

The Civilian Oversight Commission voted on Thursday for the body’s co-vice chair, Hans Johnson, to fill Bonner’s shoes when his time in the role concludes on July 17.

“The loss of Rob and Sean, who were deeply committed to getting to the bottom of problems in the sheriff’s department, is a blow to the county,” said Bert Deixler, former special counsel to the oversight commission. “These were two special guys who knew what they were talking about. Long, long history.”

Deixler attributed the turmoil to “political machinations” within the county and decried the move to replace Bonner.

“I just can’t understand it,” he said. “There couldn’t be a merits-based reason for making that decision.”

At the commission’s meeting Thursday, Bonner listed several goals he had hoped to accomplish before his time as chair ends. His priorities included bolstering the board’s ability to conduct effective oversight and compelling a commitment by Sheriff Robert Luna to enact a ban on deputy gangs and cliques.

It’s not yet clear how Bonner’s dismissal will affect those plans.

“I’m leaving,” he said. “You guys have got to pick up the ball here after July 17.”

There once was a time the City Section had the best quarterbacks, the days of John Elway (Granada Hills), Tom Ramsey (Kennedy) and Jay Schroeder (Palisades) all playing against each other.

This fall, the City Section has lots of quality returning quarterbacks, making it possible for them to get some attention at a time the talent level has been dwindling overall.

Let’s start with Diego Montes of Kennedy. He’s 5 feet 11, 160 pounds, an A student and certified baller. All he did as a junior was pass for 2,508 yards and 24 touchdowns and rush for 1,400 yards and 25 touchdowns. He had a 91-yard run.

“I have more stamina,” he said after a spring of running track. “We run tempo offense, so being able to get up on the line right after you bust a 20-yard run or chip away at the defense, you’re in better condition. I’m not scared of putting my shoulder down.”

Liam Pasten of Eagle Rock had 3,602 yards passing as a junior and has his own hair-cutting business, so defenders be nice because he can make you look good in other ways.

Chris Fields of Carson, Jack Thomas of Palisades, Seth Solorio of San Pedro and Elijah McDaniel of Dorsey are the rarest of the rare — they left Southern Section schools to join the City Section, coming from Lawndale, Loyola, St. John Bosco and Warren, respectively. Each has a chance to lift and provide big-time contributions this fall.

One of the top freshmen quarterbacks in Southern California should be Thaddeu Breaux of Hamilton. At least he’s expected to have the opportunity to pass and pass. Coach Elijah Asante is projecting 50 pass attempts a game.

There’s returning quarterbacks at Cleveland, Taft, South Gate, Birmingham and elsewhere, so that’s a good sign the offenses in the City Section should be in good position to roll from the opening games on Aug. 22.

They should remember there’s NFL Hall of Famers from the City Section who once wore jerseys they are wearing. The names of Elway, Bob Waterfield (Van Nuys) and Warren Moon (Hamilton) come to mind.

Official practice begins at the end of next month.