last year

For 10 days, the center of the cinematic universe is the Toronto International Film Festival, whose closest geographical landmark is currently a ludicrous controversy.

“Welcome to TIFF and welcome to the beautiful shore of — say it with me — Lake Ontario,” festival CEO Cameron Bailey said on opening night as he introduced “Being Heumann,” director Sian Heder’s crowd-pleasing follow-up to her best picture Oscar-winner “CODA.”

The crowd said it back. Google Maps, however, insists that the festival is actually a 15-minute stroll to Lake America. I’ve yet to hear a single person call it that without an eyeroll.

What’s in a name? Last year in the spirit of patriotism, my favorite Toronto coffee shop taped over the menu listing for its Americano to re-dub it a Canadiano. This fall, the sign has returned to Americano. Taking a pause from politics, I ordered a flat white.

Yet, the festival’s programmers seem to be decentralizing their attention-hogging neighbors to the south. Typically, TIFF is a launch pad for awards contenders. But there are fewer high profile Hollywood filmmakers this year than usual — which was also the case in Cannes. Perhaps these international festivals are testing their own waters to see if they’re obliged to invite Americans to their party.

Instead, the Toronto line-up boasts pointed films about fascism. On its surface, Michaël R. Roskam’s “Le Faux Soir” is a procedural account of how a network of rebels in occupied Belgium published its own parody issue of a pro-Nazi newspaper on the 25th anniversary of Armistice Day in 1943. Most of the script’s energy goes to talking about typesetting and rotary press flongs, but right before the end credits roll, “Le Faux Soir” blurts out its timeliness about combating Le Fox News with comedy. Metaphorically alluding to the satirical newspaper “The Onion,” the narrator says that to pull off this operation, the team had to stick together like layers of an onion: “Never forget, onion is strength.”

Plenty of local comedies abound, including “The Stunt Driver” by Michael Dowse (“Goon”), an energetic biopic about Ken “The Mad Canadian” Carter, the ’70s speedster who vowed to vault across the mile-wide river between Ottawa and New York in a rocket-powered Lincoln Continental. The site of Carter’s jump is four hours away from the fest, although at his car’s top speed of 280 mph, you could get there in less than one. Safer just to enjoy Jay Baruchel’s funny and endearing portrait of a reckless risk-taker who hates being called a daredevil as much as he resents Ben Foster’s Evel Knievel attempting to give him some advice. “Canadians are God’s chosen people,” Carter growls defiantly. “The last thing we need is a Yankee doodle dandy telling us how to do our jobs.”

It’s also possible that this year’s lack of big films — unlike 2025’s “Frankenstein,” “The Smashing Machine” and “Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery” — is just a reflection of the industry’s changing tides. Two of the buzziest guests at this year’s fest have been Inde Navarrette of the micro-budget horror hit “Obsession,” which premiered at last year’s TIFF, and British Columbia-born Hudson Williams of the TV hockey romance “Heated Rivalry.” Twelve months ago, both actors were anonymous Gen Z-ers who could have easily popped into Tim Hortons for a maple-glazed donut without causing a stir. Now they’re stars.

Personally, I’m all for fresh talent. Audiences and critics alike are bored of film executives clinging to the same proven names and proven plots as tightly as worry beads. Yes, I’m hoping to see some Oscar contenders while I’m here and have my fingers crossed for a few movies I’ll be seeing shortly. But for the sake of filmgoing at large, I’d be more thrilled to spot another under-the-radar “Obsession.”

So far, I haven’t found one. However, I have seen ingenuity made for peanuts, like Jenna Cato Bass’ “Future Tense,” a South African sci-fi drama about a travel service that allows the wealthy to blip back to the 1600s to hot tub under the clear skies before the land was ruined by centuries of trash, trade and colonization. Mismatched new couple Tara and Lwando (Kristen Raath and Lawrence Maleka) — she’s white and sunny, he’s Black and snide — take a blistering vacation that their relationship might not survive.

The script gets screwy in the last act, but Bass proves she can pull off a bold time travel premise using only tastefully bland décor, gorgeous nature footage and a couple of menacing brutes with guns. As a bonus, Raath, her lead, has the spunk, charm and smile of Karen Allen, giving a breakout performance that’s such a delight that you could almost swear the “Raiders of the Lost Ark” ingenue had leapt back four decades to star in the film.

An image from “Voices,” a musical drama set in the 1960s.

(TIFF)

While we’re talking about pivotal moments in personal histories, nine years ago Deanté Gray was a rookie wide receiver for the Houston Texans. He tore his ACL in practice and, after muscling through that disappointment, is now a first-time feature director with “Voices,” a lean and loud musical-thriller about thwarted dreams. Set in one tatty motel room in 1967 Detroit, “Voices” is a vicious flick about rising two soul acts hellbent on getting on stage that night to impress Motown Records’ Barry Gordy.

Technically, only the Harmony Brothers, Bubbles and Melvin (Joe Maye and Jamal R. Averett), are booked to play the gig. But a fame-hungry bellboy, Jordan (Francis C. Edemobi), and his cousin Derrick (Ezekiel Ajeigbe) hatch an impulsive, half-baked plan to perform in their rivals’ place. Egged on by Derrick’s ambitious girlfriend Mia (Raél Ba), who’s angling to be the duo’s opening act, this bad idea crescendos with a half-dozen original songs — and a body count.

The sound design of “Voices” is raw and the rumored $50,000 budget so strapped that minor period piece inconsistencies like cheap plastic trash cans sneak into the frame. Who cares? Sam Buckner III and Charlie T. Savage’s smart and surprising screenplay is crowded with scenes that let its cast shine. Someone — ideally, several people — in here will wind up getting their own major break.

Admittedly, I’m biased. Morbid musicals are one of my favorite micro-genres, from “Little Shop of Horrors” and “All That Jazz” to “A Star Is Born” and “Cabaret.” (If you haven’t seen Steve Martin’s 1981 Depression-era hoofer “Pennies From Heaven,” do that this week.)

Add Theo Rhys’ “Stuffed” to that list. Jodie Comer (“Killing Eve”) plays a goth taxidermist; Harry Melling (“Pillion”) is a lonely man terrified of dying, buried and forgotten. Can she convince the sad sack to kill himself now to become a piece of her permanent collection?

The plot alone gives you the shivers, nodding to predatory internet meet-ups and that volatile mix of victimization and egomania that causes people to hurt themselves and/or others. Dark as the story is, though, co-writer Joss Holden-Rea’s tunes are stunners with limber melodies and creatively off-kilter lyrics. “My past is still before me,” Melling belts, picturing himself proudly mounted in a velvet suit and bronze plaque.

“Stuffed” isn’t for everyone. But my fellow sickos are going to love this bleak and lovely tragicomedy once it sets sail from these shores (whatever they’re called by then) to a theater near you.

Imagine Paris in the 1920s, only it’s Los Feliz today — the Figaro Bistro patio humming with literary gossip from mercurial poets through clouds of cigarette smoke. It’s a proposition that Sammy Ginsberg is willing to explore.

A longtime writer and former high school English teacher, Ginsberg found writer gatherings to be inaccessible — either too large in scope or too exclusive. Luckily, Vermont and Hillhurst avenues are just right. The Los Feliz Writer Festival was born.

“Los Feliz is super artsy and filled with writers. It’s fun to organize one in the neighborhood,” says Ginsberg.

Ginsberg is weary of the well-trodden conversations about the New York literary scene, steeped in endless mythology. We may not have the New Yorker or the Paris Review, but we have each other: “There are 40 million people who live in L.A. County. I’m like, ‘We don’t need New York. We have people.’ ”

Willa Lane writes in a notebook at the closing Los Feliz Writers Festival event that featured journaling and meditation in Barnsdall Art Park.

(Samahra Litte )

That scrappy DIY quality can make Los Angeles’ literary community feel mysterious, even to the people living in it. A San Fernando Valley native, Ginsberg knows there’s plenty happening around the city — you just have to know where to look.

“There’s a lot of things going on, but you have to be in the know,” she says. “It’s happening in someone’s living room because it costs so much money to book a venue.”

In late August, Ginsberg organized the second annual Los Feliz Writer Festival, a sprawling collection of readings, workshops, parties and other literary miscellany. “Last year we did it, and it went really well,” she says. “This year, it’s even bigger and crazier and magical.”

The festival is, in some ways, an extension of the community Ginsberg has been quietly building all year. Since October, she’s hosted a weekly “Shut Up & Write” at Los Feliz watering hole the Big Bar at Alcove. “We have dinner and then write next to each other quietly,” says Ginsberg. “You can see each other every week, and it’s a natural, slow way to get to know people.”

The Los Feliz Writer Festival kicked off with Poets Are the New Popstars, a reading-meets-house-party at a private home in Los Feliz. Over the course of the festival’s 13 events, writers could attend personal essay workshops, receive tarot readings, and celebrate the 100th birthdays of Frank O’Hara, Allen Ginsberg and Harper Lee at East Hollywood bar Tabula Rasa. “I made these limited-edition official after-party zines with a poem and quote from the authors,” says Ginsberg.

Alex Moreno reads from her poetry collection “Sticky Time” at Poets Are the New Popstars.

(Toby Shapiro)

Ginsberg imagines the literary scene as a collaborative project. “For me, this is kind of like hipster ‘Dungeons & Dragons.’ I’m playing with my friends,” she says of the festival, which she plans to organize annually. In the future, the festival hopes to include more diverse voices. “In the second year, we’re trying to open up the conversation,” she says. “We, too, believe that L.A. is for everyone and want it to be a writers festival for everyone.”

Christina Catherine Martinez, a critic, writer and comedian, has a more pointed take on the Los Angeles literary world.

“A lot of parties and readings, but not a lot of bylines,” she muses. “Substack IRL but still gunning for the traditional publishing deal — kind of an old world is dying, a new world is not yet born.”

Yet, Martinez welcomes the proliferation of readings that have emerged throughout the city. “I love that there are so many readings,” she says. “Fifteen years ago the only time I mingled with other writers was at the yearly Artforum dinner, when the lit scene was barnacled to the art scene.”

This fall, Los Angeles will host an eclectic mix of literary events, from readings by acclaimed novelists to intimate gatherings for emerging writers and readers. For those looking to immerse themselves in the city’s burgeoning literary scene, here are 16 readings and literary events taking place across Los Angeles.

MEXICO CITY — When the Trump administration announced this summer that illegal crossings into the U.S. from Mexico had reached historical lows, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared, “Our border is CLOSED to lawbreakers.”

Even so, the administration continues to pressure both Mexico and U.S. officials serving there — publicly and behind the scenes — to curb illegal immigration further. The crackdown has prompted smugglers to become more creative, turning more often to tunnels once reserved for transporting drugs.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, in the White House on Sept. 4, has been the main architect of the Trump administration’s immigration policies.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

Stephen Miller, the main architect of President Trump’s immigration policies, has been in near-daily communication with senior U.S. law enforcement officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ronald Johnson, looking for new ways to stop migrants from entering the United States, according to people familiar with the conversations.

An average of 400 migrants were apprehended while crossing into the U.S. every day in July, according to data by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. It’s a precipitous drop from the thousands who crossed daily at the peak of a migrant surge in 2022.

Sometimes the number of crossings has dropped to 200 a day. But for Miller, that reduction is still not enough, said sources not authorized to speak publicly about internal matters. Miller’s goal, they said, is to have zero migrants entering the U.S.

Miller has directed officials to increase investigations into migrant smuggling networks, people familiar with his directives said.

Mexican Foreign Minister Roberto Velasco Álvarez, left, and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington, where they met Aug. 26 to discuss what the minister called “priority issues on the bilateral agenda.”

(Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)

Since returning to the White House in 2025, Trump has often asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum to crack down on immigration. On Aug. 26, Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Mexico’s foreign minister, Roberto Velasco Álvarez, and urged him to take “decisive action on illegal immigration,” according to a statement from the State Department.

The Trump administration’s border crackdown has been so effective it’s forced some smugglers literally underground.

Mexican drug cartels are increasingly turning to tunnels built for drug smuggling to ferry migrants into the United States. They are linking into sewer drains, according to people familiar with the trend.

Though the number of migrants apprehended while using tunnels appears to be relatively small — there are no hard statistics — authorities believe it is increasing, given the crackdown on the border and financial incentive for the cartels to smuggle people and not just drugs.

“Enforcement along the border has become more robust and that has increased the demand for alternative methods of passage,” said David Shirk, director of the Justice in Mexico program at the University of San Diego.

The Trump administration has added extra miles of razor wire to border fences, has increased surveillance technology and uses autonomous Predator drones with surveillance and infrared technology to monitor swaths of the border for migrants crossing into the U.S.

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1. A bulldozer sits near Santa Elena Canyon on Aug. 14 in Big Bend National Park, Texas, where contractors have begun construction of a border wall. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images) 2. Protesters gather in San Antonio, Texas, on Aug. 28 to demonstrate against construction of a border wall in Big Bend National Park. (Alma E. Hernandez/San Antonio Express-News via Getty Images)

And, picking up on Trump’s “build the wall” pledge from his initial run for president, more border barriers are being built.

Trafficking through cross-border tunnels is not new. In 2023, Ken Salazar, then the U.S. ambassador to Mexico, said there were at least 200 tunnels that spanned the border. Many of them were found linking Tijuana and San Diego.

But in a twist, some tunnels now connect to drainage and sewer systems. This May, authorities captured 19 migrants, including three unaccompanied minors, in the San Diego storm water drainage system. A remote surveillance camera spotted the migrants emerging from the system.

The smugglers were two brothers who had previously been charged with methamphetamine trafficking in the Northern California town of Yreka in 2017.

Smugglers employ tunneling specialists whose work is getting more sophisticated, outfitting the tunnels with lights, ventilation systems and sometimes mini rail lines. Many tunnels are faster, safer and much more expensive for migrants who would otherwise face increasingly dangerous mountain and desert routes, experts said.

Last year, Customs and Border Protection and Homeland Security Investigations agents also found a tunnel that ran under the Rio Grande from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico into El Paso.

The passage tapped into the El Paso sewer system, where, according to U.S. authorities, migrants surfaced from a manhole. They climbed into a box truck outfitted with a trap door that was parked over the manhole.

Cartels charge migrants from Latin America up to $15,000 dollars each to use tunnels to El Paso, an official familiar with the dynamics said. For people from the Middle East or Southeast Asia, the price can be as high as $25,000.

The tunnel traffic continues to vex U.S. officials.

A Homeland Security Task Force drug investigation of a supposed retail store in Otay Mesa, Calif., resulted in the discovery of a sophisticated cross-border tunnel leading to Tijuana.

(U.S. attorney’s office)

In Tijuana, one tunnel discovered last year stretched from Tijuana to what appeared to be a Buy 4 Less store near the Otay Mesa port of entry. The store never had customer traffic, so U.S. law enforcement suspected it hid a tunnel and began monitoring the business.

Authorities raided the building and found the entrance to a tunnel controlled by the ruthless Jalisco New Generation Cartel. It was 55 feet deep and nearly half a mile long. It featured a hydraulic lift, ventilation and a rail and cart system. Authorities stopped a freezer truck after it left the location and seized more than a ton of cocaine, worth roughly $45 million.

In 2024, U.S. law enforcement found a tunnel in the border town of San Luis, Ariz. Authorities said it was used to smuggle migrants and drugs. Its exit was hidden in an abandoned KFC restaurant.

This article was co-published with Puente News Collaborative. Fisher is a special correspondent.

Billionaire comedy duo Trey Parker and Matt Stone are unveiling a new name for “South Park” ahead of the show’s 29th season: “South America.”

The satirical series’ name change follows President Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario to Lake America amid the escalating U.S.-Canada trade war. Last week, tech behemoths Apple and Google honored Trump’s executive order and renamed the Great Lake on their maps for U.S. users.

Parker and Stone made the announcement on social media on Tuesday, writing, “Inspired by the bravery and patriotism of Apple and Google, we are changing the name of South Park to SOUTH AMERICA. We especially want to thank our parent company Paramount — a Skydance Capitulation.”

The duo also jabbed at their parent company and its new owner, Skydance Media, for what media critics have characterized as caving to the Trump administration’s Federal Communications Commission. The “capitulation” involved controversial corporate and programming adjustments as well as agreeing to a $16-million settlement over a lawsuit brought by Trump involving a “60 Minutes” segment to get Paramount’s $8-billion merger with Skydance approved.

Last year, following a particularly incendiary episode of the show — in which a parody of Trump has an X-rated fling with Satan, and the president is portrayed as having an animated micropenis — the White House issued a statement to Variety slamming the series.

“The Left’s hypocrisy truly has no end — for years they have come after ‘South Park’ for what they labeled as ‘offense’ [sic] content, but suddenly they are praising the show,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers said in a statement to the outlet. “Just like the creators of ‘South Park,’ the Left has no authentic or original content, which is why their popularity continues to hit record lows.”

Last week, “South Park,” won an Emmy Award for outstanding animated program. And last summer, Parker and Stone reached a five-year, $1.5-billion deal with Paramount to secure exclusive global streaming rights on Paramount+, making the series one of television’s most valuable shows and its creators two of the highest-paid comedy writers in the biz.

The 29th season of “South America” premieres Sept. 16 at 10 p.m. on Comedy Central.

Sept. 8, 2026 3:02 PM PT

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed an appeal from Missouri officials who wanted to use new congressional districts backed by President Trump in the November election, a defeat for Republicans who had hoped the new map could help them hold onto their slim House majority.

The justices let stand a decision by Missouri’s top court, which said the new districts were automatically suspended by a citizen petition demanding a statewide vote.

The ruling marks a rare setback for Republicans in a nationwide redistricting battle that Trump urged Republicans to launch last year.

Missouri’s new districts were used in the August primaries. But the Missouri Supreme Court ruled in September that the state must revert to districts adopted after the last census.

Republican state Atty. Gen. Catherine Hanaway, who appealed, had argued it would violate federal rights to switch districts for voters between the primary and general elections. She also said it would cause confusion.

Missouri currently is represented in the U.S. House by six Republicans and two Democrats who were elected under districts that Republican state officials approved in 2022.

But at Trump’s urging, Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe called the Legislature into a special session last year to redraw congressional boundaries to their advantage ahead of the midterms.

The revised map targeted the 5th Congressional District, held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Kansas City. It reassigned portions of Kansas City to two neighboring districts represented by Republicans and stretched the remainder of Cleaver’s district far eastward into rural Republican areas.

Cleaver was unopposed in the Democratic primary. State Sen. Rick Brattin won the Republican primary in the reshaped district.

On the same day as the primary, Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins rejected a petition with thousands of signatures seeking to force a November referendum on the map. Hoskins asserted that Missouri’s Constitution doesn’t allow a referendum on congressional redistricting. A lower court agreed, but the state Supreme Court reversed Hoskins’ decision.

The state’s top court said the new districts were retroactively frozen in December, when the petition signatures were submitted, and thus never became law. Hoskins on Tuesday assigned the redistricting referendum as Proposition A on the November ballot, in compliance with the state court order.

The Missouri Constitution does not specifically say that a referendum can be used for congressional redistricting. But the state Supreme Court said a constitutional provision allowing a referendum on “any act” of the Legislature encompasses congressional redistricting legislation.

Missouri was the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to respond to Trump’s call last year to redraw congressional districts. Several other states followed. All told, Republicans had hoped to win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

It remains to be seen whether the redistricting works as intended for Republicans. The president’s party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

Whitehurst and Lieb write for the Associated Press.

DES MOINES — Alongside the familiar sounds of roosters crowing and thrill seekers screaming on rides at the recent Iowa State Fair, there was a chorus of boos from Turning Point Action activists who were heckling Democratic politicians making their way through the crowds.

Videos of the confrontations got hundreds of thousands of views on social media, a burst of attention for a conservative youth organization that is charting its next chapter after last year’s fatal shooting of its leader Charlie Kirk. But the true test of Turning Point Action’s clout was unfolding inside the exhibition center, where staff members were registering voters, handing out buttons and signing people up for social events.

“Building the foundation for 2028,” said one of the fliers.

While Democrats have punted Iowa from the top of its presidential primary calendar, the state’s caucuses will still kick off Republicans’ next nominating process. Turning Point Action is positioning itself to shape that contest, a reminder that preparations for the next White House campaign are already in motion even though no candidates have announced and the midterm elections are still two months away.

Turning Point Action wants at least one staffer in each of Iowa’s 99 counties to mobilize the conservative grassroots.

“It is important to us to see high voter participation in the caucuses,” said Tyler Bowyer, the organization’s chief operating officer. “That’s your measuring stick.”

In addition to Iowa, Turning Point Action grew its footprint in New Hampshire and Nevada for this year’s midterms, which could also help in 2028.

The likely beneficiary of this initiative would be Vice President JD Vance, who is widely expected to launch a presidential campaign. Turning Point leaders including Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, have been clear they’re ready to throw their support behind Vance if he jumps in.

More than a dozen Republican officials, activists, lawmakers and strategists in Iowa said Turning Point’s imprint in the state was visible but still something of a mystery, and some privately question whether the organization’s impact will match the buzz it generates online.

But others have eagerly welcomed the organization to the state.

“A year ago, Iowa was virgin — no Turning Point. And many of us complained,” said Kelley Koch, a former Dallas County Republican chair, to a gathering of MAGA Nation Iowa, the grassroots organization she founded. “Finally, Turning Point Action listened to us.”

Early state investments could benefit Vance

When asked about his 2028 ambitions, Vance demurs and says he’s focused on his current job, but he’s expected to be an immediate Republican front-runner if he decides to seek the presidency. Bowyer said Turning Point Action wants to be supportive without “being pushy.”

“We haven’t officially endorsed as an organization yet because no one’s announced, right? But, you know, depending on who announces and when we endorse — yeah, of course we’ll be out campaigning on behalf of who we endorse,” he said.

Bowyer said Vance can bridge the gap between the Make America Great Again movement, which President Trump launched more than a decade ago, and younger voters who were attracted to Charlie Kirk’s brand of conservatism.

“It’s a natural fit,” he said.

Bowyer acknowledged that Turning Point Action’s growing infrastructure in early primary states could cause some agitation on the right if it is seen as throwing its weight behind one candidate. But, he said, “that’s not why we do it,” describing the goal as boosting turnout in the Iowa caucuses to send a strong signal heading into the general election.

Other potential candidates include Marco Rubio, Trump’s secretary of State. Rubio, however, has said he wouldn’t run against Vance.

Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas has not announced a campaign, but he has already made several visits to Iowa this year and said in a recent podcast hosted by Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that “it’s no secret that I want to be president.”

Looking to grow the grassroots

Although Iowa has shifted rightward over the last decade, it’s considered a political battleground in this year’s midterm elections because of Trump’s sagging approval ratings, declining access to healthcare and tariff-driven turmoil in the agricultural industry.

Sen. Joni Ernst and Gov. Kim Reynolds, both Republicans, are retiring, and there are fiercely contested races to replace them. Democrat Josh Turek and Republican Ashley Hinson are seeking the Senate seat, while Democrat Rob Sand and Republican Zach Lahn want to be governor. Two battleground congressional districts will help determine control of the House as well.

The spotlight on Iowa this year is an opportunity for Turning Point Action to demonstrate its clout.

The organization said it hired four staffers on the ground last year. After Lahn’s surprise win over Trump-endorsed Rep. Randy Feenstra, Turning Point Action said it would double its staffing in the state before the midterms.

Young activists regularly post on social media from county fairs and Republican committee meetings. They upload selfies on sidewalks or stoops to show days spent knocking on doors.

“We’re newer in Iowa,” a Des Moines-based senior field staffer, Kylie Kloewer, told a visitor who stopped by Turning Point Action’s booth at the state fair.

The booth featured signs declaring that there are only two genders and one that said “men can’t get pregnant,” the kind of confrontational culture war messaging that Charlie Kirk practiced on college campuses. Some people nodded and chuckled, while others raised their eyebrows as they wandered by.

Those who walked up to the table could sign up for social clubs that host events, including barbecues and volleyball games.

“Any involvement is success,” said Kelsey Newberry, who is based in the organization’s Phoenix headquarters and was helping at the Iowa State Fair. “You’re bringing people together as a community. The more you talk to your neighbors, the better.

“And even if they’re not ready to get activated now,” Newberry added, “being around like-minded people might encourage them in the future.”

Fingerhut and Price write for the Associated Press. Price reported from Washington.

Thousands of low-income patients, some seriously ill, are scrambling to find new doctors as they lose access to UCLA Health physicians after a longtime Medi-Cal contract was not renewed.

Under the contract that expired June 30, UCLA had been providing specialty care to 9,000 medically frail patients from Health Care LA, an association of nonprofit clinics that serve patients covered by Medi-Cal, the state program for the poor.

“Many of these patients have been waiting for months to be seen by UCLA specialty medicine providers and are now being told they cannot receive the care they desperately need,” Health Care LA said in a Thursday news release.

The patients had gone to UCLA for cancer and infectious-disease treatments, high-risk women’s services, major organ transplants and other specialty medicine care, the association said.

A Friday news conference that Health Care LA had scheduled to detail the problems patients faced in getting care was abruptly canceled when the two sides said they had reached a tentative agreement on how to transition the patients to other doctors over the next year.

“To help ensure a smooth transition for patients, both organizations have agreed that established UCLA Health patients, individuals with existing appointments, and patients requiring other agreed-upon services will continue to be cared for at UCLA Health facilities,” Phil Hampton, a university spokesman, said in a statement.

Although some patients will continue to be seen by UCLA doctors, he said, “accepting an unlimited number of new referrals presents challenges given existing capacity constraints and the need to preserve timely access for existing patients.”

Sabra Matovsky, chief executive of Health Care LA, said in an interview on Thursday that UCLA had declined to renegotiate the contract.

“They never even asked us for a raise,” she said, “They just want us out.”

She said that university officials had pointed to “capacity issues” at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Westwood, including in the emergency room and dozens of specialty clinics.

“To solve this by pushing out Medi-Cal patients while you continue to expand and market and take on other patients is not a solution,” Matovsky said.

Hampton said UCLA had offered to extend the contract, but Health Care LA rejected the offer.

The end of the Medi-Cal contract disappointed some UCLA medical professionals who have been urging the public university to provide care to more of L.A. County’s low-income residents.

“It feels like this is profits over patients,” said Dr. Patrick Samones, a fellow at UCLA Health, who trained at the university in family medicine.

“UCLA is one of L.A.’s most important healthcare institutions,” said Samones, who represents members of the Committee of Interns and Residents, which is part of Service Employees International Union. “We feel it has a duty to serve all Californians.”

In recent years, UCLA Health has been expanding fast and now has almost 300 locations throughout Southern California, including in wealthier places such as Montecito, Malibu and Westlake Village.

At the same time, it provides less care to Medi-Cal patients than its sister university health systems: UC Irvine, UC San Diego, UC San Francisco and UC Davis, according to university statistics.

Last year, about 15% of UCLA Health’s net patient service revenue came from Medi-Cal, according to the university health systems’ annual report. The four other UC health systems each received about 22% of that revenue from Medi-Cal.

About 40% of L.A. County residents are insured by Medi-Cal, according to a recent report by the California Health Care Foundation.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data from the annual report doesn’t capture UCLA’s “extensive contributions to caring for Medi-Cal patients” and isn’t “a fair basis for comparing academic health systems.”

He added that with the university’s expansion of clinics, “we are providing substantial specialty care to Medi-Cal and Medicare patients” throughout L.A. County.

“Unlike county-owned hospitals, UCLA Health relies almost exclusively on patient care revenue to fund operations, expand access, recruit clinicians and invest in facilities and technology,” he said.

Hampton said UCLA has other contracts to serve Medi-Cal patients, which will continue. The health system also provides more than $270 million in unreimbursed care for low-income patients each year, he said, as well as primary and urgent care for people experiencing homelessness.

In addition, UCLA is spending $500 million to create a new neuropsychiatric hospital in Los Angeles’ Mid-Wilshire neighborhood, he said.

“We continue to fortify our region’s safety net despite growing access demands and challenges,” Hampton said.

In the most recent fiscal year, he said, Medi-Cal patients comprised 26% of 336,600 inpatient days and 34% of 156,000 emergency department visits.

“UCLA Health’s long-standing commitment to serving vulnerable populations in Southern California is well-established,” he said.

Hampton said the net patient service revenue data doesn’t reflect the complexity of care delivered by UCLA and is affected by Medi-Cal reimbursement rates and payment policies, which vary by region and health plan.

“Over time, Medi-Cal reimbursement has not kept pace with the cost of providing care, and UCLA Health has experienced increasing payment denials and delays,” he said.

UCLA specialists had been caring for Health Care LA’s seriously ill patients under the contract since 2009.

“They were the provider that did all the complicated care,” Matovsky said. “UCLA was our go-to.”

The first edition of the remade “60 Minutes” under CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss debuts Sept. 13 with a reliable formula from the venerable newsmagazine’s playbook.

Correspondent Jon Wertheim will lead off the 59th season with an in-depth look at the Los Angeles Rams, the favorite of oddsmakers to win the Super Bowl this season. Wertheim sits down with Rams general manager Les Snead, head coach Sean McVay and veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. The segment will also explore team owner Stan Kroenke’s investment in technology, including artificial intelligence, to help the team gain an edge on the field.

Jon Wertheim interviews Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.

(CBS News)

“60 Minutes” has often turned to sports-related segments when a season premiere follows a late afternoon NFL game. Last year, Wertheim profiled Ultimate Fighting Championship Chief Executive Dana White for the 58th season premiere. The program scored more than 10 million viewers and was the most-watched non-sports program of the week. In 2023, Wertheim interviewed University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders for the 56th season opener.

CBS News will be under pressure to have “60 Minutes” get off to a strong start in the ratings following the major upheaval at the program earlier this year.

After the completion of a successful season where ratings were up 9% over the previous year, Weiss fired “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega — both of whom complained that the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories. Weiss also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.

In response to the firings, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the program and claimed she was putting “her thumb on the scale” for more favorable coverage of President Trump’s administration. Pelley was shown the door with cause after confronting management at a June 1 meeting. CBS denied the claims.

The discord meant the program spent much of the summer hiring replacement correspondents, including Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times opinion writer with no experience as a TV journalist.

Weiss, founder of the heterodox digital news site the Free Press, was hired by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison with a mandate to pull the news division to the political center. The stated goal has put every move by Weiss under heavy scrutiny, as many critics have suggested she is at the network to placate the Trump White House while Paramount pursues its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.

Other new “60 Minutes” contributors include author and journalist Sebastian Junger, former CNN and Vice News correspondent Gianna Toboni, and Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS News earlier this year as a senior global affairs correspondent. They will join correspondents Wertheim, Norah O’Donnell, Bill Whitaker and Lesley Stahl.

The program will also feature stories with CBS News correspondents outside of the core group at “60 Minutes,” such as Seth Doane and Matt Gutman.

The other two segments on the “60 Minutes” premiere, — which could include a significant newsmaker interview, — will be announced sometime next week.

This year’s premiere should get a strong boost, as most of the country will get CBS coverage of a late afternoon match-up between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, two contenders in the highly competitive NFC North. The network’s pregame show “The NFL Today” is traveling to Green Bay for the telecast.

When the 53rd Telluride Film Festival kicks off Friday high in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains, its lineup will span family rupture and sumo wrestling, AIDS and rock stardom, with films touching on astronomy, Rupert Murdoch and extraterrestrial biker gangs — a typically wide-ranging mix for a festival that likes to keep audiences guessing.

For festival director Julie Huntsinger, the films share less a theme than a feeling. “Tenderness is something that I see in a lot of the movies,” she says. “This is a very heartbreaking, tender year.”

Telluride’s intimacy is part of its peculiar power. Smaller and scruffier than the annual film events of Venice, Toronto or New York, the four-day festival has no competition or juried prizes and keeps its lineup secret until the last minute. Celebrities trade red-carpet formality for jeans and flannel, while audiences crisscross town between screenings in a high school auditorium, a Masonic lodge, the county courthouse and half a dozen other spaces pressed into service for the week.

For a festival that can feel this homespun, its awards-season footprint is remarkably large. Last year, five of the 10 eventual best picture Oscar nominees screened there: “Hamnet,” “Bugonia,” “Sentimental Value,” “The Secret Agent” and “Frankenstein.”

This year there are fewer obvious awards heavyweights in the mix, at a time when prestige and independent films have become harder to finance, distribute and sell to audiences. Then again, Telluride has never depended entirely on known quantities; films such as “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Moonlight” arrived with relatively modest expectations and left as major contenders.

“It’s such a quintessential Telluride lineup,” Huntsinger says of this year’s eclectic program. “They kind of always feel that way because they’re so handmade.”

Among the more than 40 films in Telluride’s main program are new works from major directors such as Martin McDonagh, Werner Herzog, Mike Leigh, Danny Boyle and Paweł Pawlikowski. This year’s Silver Medallion tributes — the festival’s signature career honorees — will go to filmmaker Andrew Haigh and actors Sandra Hüller and John Malkovich, who will make his first trip to Telluride.

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell in Martin McDonagh’s “Wild Horse Nine”

(Diego Araya Corvalan / Searchlight Pictures)

Haigh, whose films include “All of Us Strangers,” “Lean on Pete” and “45 Years,” returns with “A Long Winter,” adapted from a Colm Tóibín novella and relocated from the Pyrenees to the American Rockies in the 1950s. Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Caitríona Balfe, Kit Connor and Fred Hechinger star as members of a struggling family that begins to unravel after the mother disappears.

Huntsinger calls Haigh deeply humanist. “I don’t know how Andrew is so skilled at getting these performances but that is truly his gift,” she says.

Malkovich comes to Telluride with the dark comedy “Wild Horse Nine,” the latest from McDonagh, writer-director of “The Banshees of Inisherin” and “In Bruges.” Malkovich and Sam Rockwell play veteran CIA operatives who, after helping destabilize Salvador Allende’s government in 1973 Chile, head to Easter Island on a more personal assignment.

“It’s my favorite thing that McDonagh has ever done,” Huntsinger says. “He’s quite incisive. It is a timely film. And Malkovich is extraordinary.”

Hüller returns after a breakout 2023 Telluride, where she brought both “Anatomy of a Fall” and “The Zone of Interest.” She has another two films in the lineup this year: Markus Schleinzer’s “Rose,” in which she plays a woman passing as a male soldier during Europe’s Thirty Years’ War, and Pawlikowski’s “Fatherland” as Erika Mann on a journey back to postwar Germany with her father, the author and Hitler critic Thomas Mann.

Huntsinger seems as taken with Hüller herself as with her artistry — “so much intelligence and compassion for human beings,” she says.

Sandra Hüller and Hanns Zischler in the movie “Fatherland.”

(Agata Grzybowska / Mubi)

Elsewhere, Ira Sachs’ “The Man I Love,” starring Rami Malek, Tom Sturridge and this year’s guest director Rebecca Hall, looks back at New York’s queer creative community during the AIDS crisis. In Simon Stone’s “Elsinore,” Andrew Scott plays “Chariots of Fire” star Ian Charleson, who took on the role of Hamlet at the National Theatre while dying of AIDS. Scott’s performance is already generating early awards-season attention.

Huntsinger hopes audiences won’t overlook Arthur Harari’s “The Unknown,” an uncanny body-swapping drama starring Léa Seydoux that uses its genre premise to explore questions of identity and selfhood. “It is really dense and obtuse but I think it is rewarding and I hope people take up the challenge,” she says.

Telluride has long emphasized nonfiction and this year is no exception. Among the higher-profile entries are “Pete Townshend: Behind Blue Eyes,” a portrait of the Who guitarist and songwriter, and Nanette Burstein’s “Carl Sagan: We Are Made of Star Stuff,” about the astronomer and science communicator. The slate also includes Bryan Fogel’s endurance-sports documentary “The Row”; Pegah Ahangarani’s Iran-focused “Rehearsals for a Revolution”; and Mark Cousins’ 16-hour “The Story of Documentary Film.”

“Everest: The Other Side,” from filmmakers Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi, follows mountaineers Hilaree Nelson and Jim Morrison as they prepare to climb Everest’s north face and attempt an unprecedented ski descent. Chin and Vasarhelyi won an Oscar for 2018’s “Free Solo,” their nerve-shredding chronicle of Alex Honnold’s ropeless ascent up El Capitan.

Huntsinger calls the new film “an even more complex, emotional, deep and profound examination of what we call the call of the wild.” After seeing it, she says, she ran into Chin and blurted out, “I’m so glad you’re alive.”

The looming subject of artificial intelligence will also get its own moment in Telluride. A conversation called “The Humanity Dilemma” will examine what the festival calls the “species-level event” of AI’s rise and whether an AI-dominated future is inevitable. “I’m very worried about AI,” Huntsinger says.

For all the films Telluride has announced, the one that might generate the most chatter is still under wraps.

While Telluride routinely reserves “TBA” slots for popular repeat screenings, it has occasionally used them to spring an unannounced title on audiences — as it did last year with “Frankenstein.” This year it has set aside a prime Sunday night slot for just such a surprise: a world premiere involving, Huntsinger says, some “very known names.”

“Do not miss it,” she teases. “You just won’t see this one coming and your jaw will be on the ground for the entire length of the film.” Beyond that, Huntsinger falls back on the festival’s unofficial motto: “Underpromise, overdeliver.”

Inevitably, there will be guessing. One possibility is “The Social Reckoning,” a follow-up to “The Social Network” directed by its Oscar-winning screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. This one’s about Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen and Wall Street Journal reporter Jeff Horwitz and stars Jeremy Strong, Mikey Madison and Jeremy Allen White. It’s due from Sony on Oct. 9. The film was still undergoing reshoots in mid-July.

Huntsinger volunteers one thing: The mystery film is not Alejandro González Iñárritu’s “Digger,” a gonzo satire starring Tom Cruise, Hüller, Riz Ahmed, John Goodman and Jesse Plemons. She says Iñárritu — whose last film, “Bardo,” had a rocky reception on the 2022 festival circuit — was adamant that the decision wasn’t about avoiding festivals.

“As I understand it, there’s a big twist that he would like audiences to discover as close together as possible,” she says of “Digger,” which premieres in London Sept. 22 before opening Oct. 2.

Two of last year’s biggest Oscar contenders, “Sinners” and “One Battle After Another,” also skipped fall festival launches, raising questions about how essential such festivals — Telluride among them — remain to an awards campaign.

Huntsinger understands why a studio might hesitate to expose a film to scrutiny months before release. “The stain can happen if something gets savaged very far ahead of a release,” she says. “There’s a lot at stake.”

But she isn’t convinced the model is broken. She still believes the smaller, more challenging films Telluride tends to champion have “genuine shots” in the Oscar race.

“Getting selected is the prize,” Huntsinger says.

After all the strategizing and prognosticating, what no one can predict is which films will actually connect once audiences arrive.

“I don’t know what people are going to fall in love with,” Huntsinger says. “People have become like cats rather than dogs. You just never know what they’re going to go for.”

A federal judge this week threw out the U.S. Justice Department’s lawsuit challenging California policies that allow transgender athletes to compete on school sports teams that match their gender identity.

The Justice Department alleged that the California Department of Education and the California Interscholastic Federation were in violation of Title IX, a 1972 federal law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in any education program or activity that receives federal funding. It argued the law requires that sports eligibility and facilities access be based on biological sex, not gender identity.

But U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela found that Title IX does no such thing — and that a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing other states to apply such eligibility standards only reinforced her conclusion.

Valenzuela, an appointee of President Biden, wrote that the Supreme Court had “explained that Title IX’s regulations ‘expressly permit schools’ to maintain separate sex-based teams and ultimately held that States ‘may maintain women’s and girls’ sports for biological females’ and ‘may determine eligibility’ for those teams based on biological sex” — and “thus upheld the biological-sex eligibility rules before it without holding that Title IX requires every school to adopt the same rule.”

Valenzuela wrote that the Supreme Court “declined to decide whether Title IX permits transgender girls to participate on girls’ and women’s teams,” and “expressly stated” that nothing in its opinion addressed that “distinct question.”

Valenzuela wrote that she, likewise, did not need to decide that issue, only “whether Title IX and its implementing regulations clearly required California to exclude transgender girls from girls’ teams and sex-separated facilities.” She found “they did not.”

Therefore, Valenzuela wrote that California “lacked clear notice” of such categorical exclusion of transgender athletes as a condition of the federal funding California received, and other court decisions — including the Supreme Court’s in June — did not “supply the missing clarity.”

A Justice Department spokesperson said the agency is “evaluating our options for appeal.”

“We are disappointed by the Court’s order, and remain committed to enforcing President Trump’s agenda preventing boys from playing in girls’ sports,” it said, referring to transgender girls.

The Justice Department suit threatened to cut $44.3 billion in federal funding from the California Department of Education, if the state did not change its policies.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office, which represented the California agencies in court, deferred questions to the agencies.

Rebecca Brutlag, a spokesperson for the CIF, said it does not comment on legal matters. The California Department of Education did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In court, they had made similar arguments as those Valenzuela cited in her ruling — arguing that Title IX does not require excluding transgender girls from girls’ sports, and neither does the recent Supreme Court ruling.

LGBTQ+ rights organizations praised Valenzuela’s ruling Tuesday.

Trevor Norcross, the father of Lily Norcross — a teenage transgender track athlete at Arroyo Grande High School on the Central Coast and one of the athletes whose participation in sports was cited by the Justice Department as a violation of Title IX — said it is “time to get back to supporting and enjoying girls’ and women’s sports instead of trying to tear them down.”

“I’m especially excited that girls in California can now focus on athletic competition without having to worry about manufactured culture wars and the prospect of invasive body inspections if they don’t look feminine enough,” he said.

Rainbow Families Action, a group that advocates for the rights of trans kids, hailed the decision, saying the Trump administration’s “relentless and hateful campaign against transgender children has hit another roadblock.”

The Justice Department’s lawsuit was brought by two longtime critics of California’s policies for transgender students: Harmeet Dhillon, a hard-charging conservative attorney in California before her elevation to head of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division; and Bill Essayli, a conservative state lawmaker before his elevation to lead the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

It was part of a much broader and ongoing effort by the Trump administration to erase trans-inclusive policies nationwide — around youth sports but also public bathrooms, medical care and official government documents.

California’s own policies for transgender athletes have been in flux.

Last year, President Trump took to his social media platform and demanded that state officials ban transgender teenage track star AB Hernandez from competing at the state track and field competition.

Amid those threats, the CIF updated its rules for transgender competitors. Under the new rules, transgender athletes can compete, but their qualifying for events cannot take a spot away from any cisgender competitor, and they must share whichever podium position they win with the next best cisgender athlete.

Hernandez went on to compete and win multiple medals, sharing her spots on the medal podiums with the cisgender athletes who otherwise would have claimed them had Hernandez not been competing. Hernandez repeated her success this year, again sharing her wins with cisgender competitors.

Los Angeles Times reporter Howard Blume contributed to this article.

Legislation that would have helped wildfire victims receive compensation more quickly, but that utilities said didn’t do enough to reduce their financial risks, died in Sacramento on Tuesday after the Assembly declined to vote on it.

The failure of Senate Bill 492 disappointed wildfire victims and lawmakers who had negotiated the language in a last-minute deal with Gov. Gavin Newsom.

“It is unfortunate that SB 492 was not given a vote,” said Senate President Pro Tempore Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara). “Thousands of survivors made their voices clear — they needed reform to ensure the next wildfire does not continue to cause the mental and financial stress that recent disasters have placed on Californians.”

The bill’s failure was a win for the state’s three biggest for-profit utilities. Lawmakers say they will now continue working on reforms that Newsom had been pushing for, including limiting how much utilities have to pay for fires sparked by their equipment.

Share prices of Edison International and Pacific Gas & Electric had plummeted Monday after their investors learned that SB 492 did not include transferring more of the cost of utility-sparked fires to property insurers, a measure Newsom had proposed.

Insurers had warned the proposal could raise premiums by as much as 50%.

On Tuesday, with the failure of SB 492, the two companies’ stock recovered. Edison’s share price climbed nearly 9% to close at $58.80. PG&E’s shares rose 6% to $14.06.

The top executives of the two companies had written to legislative leaders Monday, calling on them to do more. The executives said their companies needed additional protection from wildfire costs because utility investors faced higher financial risks from such disasters in California than in other states.

“Faced with those risks, investors demand a higher return or invest elsewhere,” they wrote.

The companies had asked Newsom to strengthen a framework that he and lawmakers created in 2019 to protect utilities from bankruptcy after their equipment ignites a catastrophic fire.

With the help of those protections, even though investigators found Edison’s equipment sparked last year’s deadly Eaton fire, the company’s profit in 2025 soared by more than 200% — from $1.3 billion in 2024 to $4.5 billion

Some wildfire victims and consumer groups said Tuesday they were angry that lawmakers had backed away from the bill.

“If Wall Street does not trust Edison and PG&E to stop causing catastrophic fires, California should not solve that problem with another bailout,” said Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, and Jamie Court, president of Consumer Watchdog, in a statement. “Edison and PG&E should solve it by stopping the fires.”

The three utilities have caused at least seven of California’s 20 most destructive fires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister) told reporters Tuesday that the final proposal had “some half measures” and “Californians expect a lot more than half measures.”

He said that Newsom didn’t ask him to abandon the bill.

“We’re going to tackle this issue in the best interest of our state, of residents, but certainly wildfire victims that expect a lot more from us,” Rivas said.

Newsom’s office declined to say Tuesday whether the governor would call a special session this year to debate the issue.

“The reforms in this bill, while important, did not address the underlying structural problems driving this crisis, as the initial market reaction this week demonstrates,” Newsom said in a statement. “Simply put, this measure did not meet the gravity of this moment. The only solution is to return to fix the entire problem, not part of it.”

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine) said that the Legislature plans to hold a series of hearings this fall on how to deal with wildfire costs.

She acknowledged the rushed process of the last-minute proposal.

“It should come as no surprise to anybody that sometimes when policies get written at 6 a.m. perhaps we can do better,” Petrie-Norris said.

Democratic state Sen. Ben Allen, who represents the Pacific Palisades fire zone, said that he would have voted for the bill if it had cleared the Assembly.

“This bill package had a lot of good in it,” Allen said, adding that he understands “why a lot of colleagues felt as though it didn’t go far enough.”

The three utilities had been lobbying Newsom and lawmakers to further shield them and their shareholders from wildfire liabilities ever since last year’s Eaton fire.

Government fire investigators said the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes in Altadena, was caused by electrical arcing on Edison’s out-of-service transmission line in Eaton Canyon. Edison kept the line in place despite not using it since 1971.

More than 11,000 households have filed suit against the utility, claiming it acted negligently, which the company denies.

Los Angeles County announced Monday that it had filed a lawsuit against State Farm General after hundreds of victims of last year’s devastating wildfires complained that their claims had been delayed, denied or underpaid.

The lawsuit alleges that State Farm engaged in illegal and deceptive business practices that kept victims of the Palisades and Eaton fires from receiving what they were entitled to under their policies.

County officials said their investigation into the complaints found unreasonable delays in processing claims, as well as “systematic underpayments.”

Officials said they also found that State Farm had illegally suppressed smoke damage claims.

“Survivors are just asking for what’s right,” L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, said at a Monday news conference.

Bob Devereux, a State Farm spokesman, said in a statement that the company would respond to the lawsuit through the legal process.

“State Farm General strongly disagrees with Los Angeles County’s characterization of our wildfire claims response,” he said.

Devereux said that State Farm has so far paid more than $6.2 billion on claims related to the two wildfires, including about $1 billion for smoke-related damage. About 78% of the claims have been closed, he said.

“We continue working directly with customers whose claims remain open and evaluating each claim based on the facts of the loss and the coverage provided by the customer’s policy,” he said.

“Our focus remains on helping customers recover,” he said.

Wildfire victims praised county officials for the lawsuit, which was filed in L.A. County Superior Court.

Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said at the news conference that, in the months after the fires, it became apparent in talking to victims that those with State Farm policies were not getting the benefits they had paid for.

She said for those families, insurance had become “a barrier to recovery” rather than a safety net.

“Nineteen months after the fires, families are still suffering,” she said.

The county’s investigation included looking at complaints that Chen’s group and others had collected, as well as hundreds of other documents from State Farm policyholders.

County officials said that State Farm “failed to substantially comply” with their requests for documents and information during their investigation.

With more than 2.8 million residential and commercial policies, State Farm is California’s largest private insurer.

The county’s lawsuit includes dozens of complaints of L.A. County fire victims.

“After six decades of paying thousands a year for insurance, we expect them to honor their agreement,” said one family.

Many families say the insurer refused to test their homes for toxins left by smoke.

The lawsuit claims that State Farm “drastically lowballed” estimates of financial losses for destroyed or partially damaged homes.

“They offered us $11,000 to remediate our five-bedroom house,” complained one family. ”That’s only 13% of the actual cost.”

According to the California Department of Insurance, 11,300 State Farm policyholders filed homeowner claims arising from last year’s L.A. County fires.

The lawsuit asks the court to require State Farm to pay full restitution to policyholders, as well as civil penalties for violating state law.

In a late-night deal with lawmakers, Gov. Gavin Newsom agreed to drop his push for legislation that would have shifted more of the cost of utility-sparked wildfires to property insurers, sharply raising premiums across the state.

After weeks of closed-door negotiations with lawmakers and protests by wildfire survivors, the governor also backed away from a proposal that reduced amounts fire victims could receive and transferred more of the damage costs to local governments.

Wildfire victims and other critics had called the plan a corporate bailout.

According to a 96-page bill, published at 7:26 a.m. Saturday, Newsom and lawmakers agreed on some measures aimed at reducing the costs of future utility-sparked wildfires.

The bill would limit certain fees of attorneys representing insurance companies, while also stopping hedge funds and private equity firms from profiting on wildfire claims.

Last year, hedge funds were offering to buy claims that insurers had against Southern California Edison for the Eaton fire, leading to calls for reform.

The bill would also create a state program to get payments more quickly to wildfire victims.

“This is all real progress for future fire survivors,” Newsom said in a statement.

“Nonetheless, this system needs full structural reform — not a partial one,” he added. “I urge the Legislature to build on this progress next year and finish the work we started to secure the Wildfire Fund’s long-term durability, stabilize electricity rates, and ensure fire victims are never again turned into unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding.”

The complex legislation — added by gutting and amending a bill known as Senate Bill 492 — was introduced less than three days before the legislative session was to end Monday.

The session must now be extended until Tuesday because of a 2016 voter-approved proposition that requires bills or amendments to be in print at least 72 hours before the state Senate or Assembly can vote on them.

Eaton wildfire survivors and other groups had been calling on Newsom for weeks to unveil the legislation so that they could see the details.

More than 50 Eaton fire survivors showed up to protest in front of the governor’s mansion on Monday night in Sacramento, where Newsom was holding an event for legislators.

“Who should pay?” they chanted. “Shareholders should pay!”

On Saturday, wildfire victims praised lawmakers who had stood up to the governor’s push for legislation benefiting the utilities.

“Survivors from across California came to Sacramento and asked our elected representatives to stand with the people whose homes, communities and lives have been devastated,” Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network, said. “They listened. And in the face of extraordinary pressure from some of the most powerful interests in our state, they centered on survivors and California families.”

Edison and the state’s two other big for-profit utilities had been lobbying Newsom and lawmakers to further shield them and their shareholders from wildfire liabilities ever since last year’s Eaton fire caused some investors to flee and the price of their stock to tumble.

Government fire investigators said the fire, which killed 19 people and destroyed thousands of homes, was caused by electrical arcing on Edison’s out-of-service transmission line in Eaton Canyon. Edison kept the line in place despite not using it since 1971.

More than 11,000 households have filed suit against the utility, claiming it acted negligently, which the company denies.

Utilities asked Newsom to strengthen a framework that he and lawmakers created in 2019 to protect utilities from bankruptcy after their equipment ignites a catastrophic fire. The law created a $21-billion wildfire fund, which is now reimbursing Edison for the settlements it is making to victims who agree not to sue.

Last year, also in legislation revealed in the session’s last days, Newsom created a second fund of $18 billion to pay for future fires.

According to a confidential document Newsom’s staff sent to lawmakers, the governor also wanted to cap the amount the fund would reimburse a utility for wildfire damages at $6 billion and require electric customers to pay for costs above that amount. That would have limited utilities’ liability for the fire but increased electric bills.

That measure was not in the legislation published Saturday morning.

Newsom said in his statement Saturday that the bill would strengthen accountability for utilities that spark fires by stopping executives from receiving bonuses after a fire.

The fine print in the bill states that the company must have a plan that prevents top executives from receiving “short-term” bonuses after a fire that results in 500 or more structures damaged.

The governor had touted in 2019 that his legislation had tied utility executive pay to the company’s safety performance. But the language allowed the companies to decide how to do that.

Despite the deadly Eaton fire, bonuses awarded to Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International and other executives soared last year. Pizarro received $16.6 million in cash, stock and other compensation last year, up 20% from 2024.

The new legislation applies only to Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric. Those three for-profit utilities have caused at least seven of California’s 20 most destructive fires, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

Air traffic controllers in Washington and the pilots of President Trump’s helicopter met to discuss communication issues one week before a jet was allowed to take off just as Marine One left the White House, federal investigators said Thursday.

Controllers reported not receiving the standard three-minute warning call ahead of Marine One flights, and both sides agreed to an alternative in those instances — but that plan to relay the radio call through someone else also was unsuccessful on the day of the Aug. 4 incident near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report shows.

Having both the jet and helicopter in the air at the same time seemed to violate safety procedures put in place after last year’s midair collision near the busy airport that killed 67 people, but officials stressed that the president was never in danger. The Pentagon also has a long-standing agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration to provide controllers with a three-minute warning before the president’s helicopter takes off that predates last year’s crash.

The NTSB said recordings from the tower showed that the controllers never heard the calls from Marine One’s pilot that day warning that the helicopter was getting ready to take off, but separate recordings posted by ATC.com show the helicopter did make those calls.

The helicopter pilots tried to relay their three-minute call through the helicopter facility at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, but that also was unsuccessful.

After an airliner collided with an Army Black Hawk helicopter on Jan. 29, 2025, the FAA decided all takeoffs and landings at the airport would be halted anytime a helicopter passes by on a conflicting route. The airspace near the White House and Reagan is heavily congested with military and commercial aircraft.

The FAA acknowledged the helicopter and airliner briefly got too close before the two aircraft started to move away from each other. The airplane quickly climbed above the helicopter after Marine One’s pilots saw the plane and paused until it safely left the area.

The NTSB said preliminary estimates show the helicopter and plane were about eight-tenths of a mile apart laterally and about 700 feet apart vertically at their closest. The crew of the Envoy Air flight told investigators they received a traffic warning from their collision avoidance system right after they took off, but they never saw the helicopter.

The official FAA recordings from the tower at Reagan did not include the warnings that Marine One was getting ready to head to Andrews Air Force Base with the president aboard.

A recording posted by ATC.com showed the Marine One pilot telling the tower that the helicopter was “three minutes to life” just like the 2013 agreement between the FAA and the military calls for. But the controller seemed surprised a few minutes later when the helicopter took off.

“Uh, Marine One, you said, uh, you’re proceeding as briefed?” the controller asked before giving the helicopter directions and commenting, “OK, no three minutes, roger, proceed as briefed.”

After the controller warned the helicopter about the plane taking off, the Marine One pilot said he saw the traffic and declared, “We’ll be doing a momentary delay.”

After last year’s midair collision, it became clear that poor communication between air traffic controllers and the military had been a long-standing issue. During a congressional hearing, it came out that a hotline connecting the Pentagon to the tower at Reagan hadn’t been working for more than three years, and the FAA hadn’t even realized it.

The NTSB said that after this incident involving Marine One, FAA technicians determined there wasn’t an adequate line of sight between the radio receiver at the airport and the location where the helicopter takes off at the White House. So those radios were moved from the neighborhood where they had been located to the top of the tower at Reagan. Subsequent tests showed the radios working well after that change.

Funk writes for the Associated Press.

After Tim Curry finished playing the flamboyant Dr. Frank-N-Furter — first onstage, then in the 1975 film “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” — the actor never returned to the role that made him famous. Not once, over decades of “Rocky Horror” revivals from the West End to Broadway, did he ever put those fishnets back on.

For Curry, who died Tuesday at 80 in Los Angeles, there were too many characters to play, and too much fun to be had, for him to spend much time looking back.

“I’ve always moved on,” Curry told me last year, sitting in the Roxy Theatre on the Sunset Strip, where he’d played Frank to great acclaim in 1974, after originating the role in London. “That was part of the attraction of being an actor. I really didn’t want to come out of the same box every time.”

Last year, as “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” was being celebrated for its 50th anniversary, he agreed to meet at the Roxy, which he called “another home for me.” The stage show there had been a local sensation, and it was clear he still had pride and great affection for his role in the movie adaptation, which remains the longest continuous theatrical release in film history.

A stroke in 2012 left him partially paralyzed, interrupting a busy acting career. But he was quick to laugh and joke as he remembered playing Frank, including his nightly entrance at the Roxy, marching down a catwalk in heels and Dracula cape. The long life that “Rocky Horror” has enjoyed as a midnight movie, with shadow casts of costumed fans lip-syncing along, was a surprise to everyone.

Frank-N-Furter was a vivid invitation to fans to let their own freak flag fly. Even amid the era’s accelerating glam rock movement, “Rocky Horror” pushed the boundaries of mainstream pop culture as an outré musical about a mad scientist with a theme song called “Sweet Transvestite.”

“It was part of the sexual revolution, really,” Curry said of the film and its audience. “Experiment was in the air and it was palpable. I gave them permission to be who they discovered they wanted to be. I’m proud of that.”

He was also pleased with other roles that showed off his gifts, including a 1982 film version of “Annie,” directed by John Huston. Curry was the playfully crooked Rooster Hannigan, and had a standout scene singing and dancing in a pencil mustache and slicked back hair to “Easy Street,” alongside Carol Burnett and Bernadette Peters.

Tim Curry, left, in the 1985 movie “Clue.”

(American Cinematheque)

In 1996’s “Muppet Treasure Island,” Curry was a duplicitous but layered Long John Silver, a wild-eyed pirate motivated by greed but with a hint of humanity, as he sang songs and grappled with the strange, felt-covered puppet heroes.

“I love the Muppets,” he said last year. “One of the things that used to fascinate me was that the Muppeteers, when they had the Muppet on their hand, would only speak to you as the character. If you said, ‘Hello’ or ‘What’s the weather like outside,’ they would tell you as the character.”

Never humorless, Curry played the ruthlessly villainous Cardinal Richelieu in the 1993 adaptation of “The Three Musketeers.” Conceived as a vehicle for several Brat Pack actors of the time including Charlie Sheen and Kiefer Sutherland, the film nonetheless belonged to Curry, who relished every line of villainy. The actor again stole the show with theatrical flair as the Lord of Darkness in Ridley Scott’s bleak 1985 fantasy “Legend,” playing a demonic horned figure opposite Tom Cruise.

Curry brought the same energy to more relatable comedic roles in the beloved ensemble mystery “Clue” as the highly suspect Wadsworth the Butler, and “Home Alone 2,” as a four-star hotel concierge outmatched by a 10-year-old boy hero.

“Rocky Horror” gave him a film career and even led to a music sideline, with the 1979 radio hit “I Do the Rock.”

“When I did ‘Hair’ in London, my first gig, I was not sure whether I wanted to be a singer or an actor,” Curry told me. “And doing that show kind of postponed the decision long enough and I realized that I really wanted to be an actor more than anything, and I took it very seriously. And worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company. I saw myself having the trajectory of a serious English actor.”

The roles turned out wilder and more varied than he might have expected but his seriousness and sense of fun never faded, pushing boundaries and himself. No one was ever bored watching Tim Curry onscreen.

ST. CLOUD, Fla. — Florida chef Elijah Button was chopping onions in June when his knife slipped and sliced his middle finger to the bone.

It was his worst kitchen accident to date. But having given up his Affordable Care Act health insurance plan in January because of a $100 monthly premium hike he couldn’t afford, the 21-year-old in St. Cloud didn’t have the money for emergency care.

“Going to the hospital for it wasn’t even an option,” he said, gesturing toward his finger before preparing a pot roast for his aunt and uncle in their suburban home. “My first thought was, ‘how am I going to fix this?’”

After Republicans in Congress let enhanced federal subsidies for Affordable Care Act health plans expire in January, millions of Americans including Button had to decide whether to keep insurance that often doubled or tripled in cost — or risk going without it.

Months later, with no action from lawmakers to replace the lost funds, they’re facing the consequences. Some are dealing with strained budgets and exorbitant medical bills, while others avoid the doctor in fear of the cost.

Florida, whose large population of gig workers, entrepreneurs and small business owners relies heavily on the federal health insurance marketplace, has become one of the nation’s most visible epicenters of that impact.

Figures first reported by The Associated Press showed that about 440,000 Floridians dropped their Affordable Care Act plans this year — more than in any other state. Thousands more who kept coverage are struggling to get by, as prices of necessities like groceries and gasoline remain steep, and health insurers project another year of double-digit premium hikes.

While Florida had the most affected residents, its struggles are reflective of broader nationwide concerns over rising healthcare costs and a lack of meaningful policy to address them.

In the deep-red state where congressional districts were recently redrawn to strongly favor Republicans, the cost of healthcare is a major campaign issue. Republican midterm candidates have been promoting fraud crackdowns to protect federal health programs, while Democrats have been urging voters to help Congress change hands so they can restore subsidies.

Button, who is estranged from his parents, asked his uncle for help with his bloodied finger. With a butterfly bandage, splint and daily cleanings and dressings, it healed. But the scar still gnaws at Button as a symbol of what else could go wrong.

“It just feels like I’m living in a house of cards,” he said.

Florida’s population and politics make it ground zero for ACA fallout

Last fall, debate over the expiring subsidies consumed Congress, resulting in a record 43-day government shutdown as Democrats insisted on extending the COVID-era assistance and most Republicans refused.

Fast forward almost a year and lawmakers rarely reference the topic anymore. The administration says it is addressing affordability with fraud-busting efforts and deals with drug companies, but Congress hasn’t passed any significant legislation to lower health costs.

In part due to its large number of construction, hospitality and small business workers — and also because its Republican-led legislature never expanded the Medicaid safety-net health program — Florida has the largest Affordable Care Act enrollment in the country. At just over 3.8 million enrollees, it represents about a fifth of the nation’s total enrolled population.

Of the roughly 443,000 Floridians who left the marketplace, most are likely going without insurance, according to Cynthia Cox, a vice president at the healthcare research nonprofit KFF. She said that’s because it is typically a “place of last resort” to get coverage.

The data doesn’t tell the stories of those who kept insurance. Tracy Rand, a licensed mental health counselor in Leesburg, Florida, is one of them.

Ever since getting her ovaries removed last year due to benign but painful tumors, she has had severe menopause symptoms that require medication, including an overactive bladder and hot flashes that cause piercing headaches.

She uses clear plastic containers to organize the more than 30 medicines and supplements she takes daily, their bottles crammed into a living-room drawer and a tray on her kitchen counter.

The 51-year-old’s Affordable Care Act plan was going to surge in price this year from $55 a month to $1,100 a month, so she downgraded. Her new plan, with higher deductibles and copays, costs $160 a month.

To make that work in her budget, Rand quit a doctoral program she was working toward, started buying groceries at cheaper stores, gave up once-monthly dinners out with her husband and stopped meeting friends regularly at a paint-your-own pottery studio.

It’s been a difficult adjustment, but a necessary one for her health.

Rand said the prospect of insurers raising rates again fills her with dread.

“I don’t know what else we can get rid of,” she said, covering her face with her hands. “I don’t know if we’re going to have to file bankruptcy.″

Clinics for the uninsured are a saving grace — but they can’t take everyone

In Orlando’s leafy, brick-paved neighborhood of Colonialtown South, Tarsha Watson found her lifeline. A clinic there called Grace Medical Home provides low-income, uninsured Floridians with comprehensive care for a $5 per-visit fee.

Watson, 54, has a master’s degree in business administration, but she hasn’t been able to find work since losing her job two years ago. That means she doesn’t have health insurance. When she explored Affordable Care Act coverage, she was quoted $600 per month, far out of her reach.

At Grace, Watson learned her blood sugar is high and that she needed to lose weight. Now, she walks laps around her backyard pool and does Tai Chi YouTube tutorials to focus on fitness. She said she wishes everyone could have her experience.

“It’s very hard out here,” she said. “It’s not enough.”

At the clinic, patients cycle in and out of a wide hallway lined with appointment rooms as doctors scan supply shelves for complimentary over-the-counter medications. The expansive building has separate areas for dental, mental health, vision and pediatric care.

CEO Stephanie Garris said it’s one of 110 free or charitable clinics in Florida, but that’s not enough to handle demand. To treat more people in response to the Affordable Care Act changes, it recently started hosting a mobile acute care clinic for walk-in patients.

Garris said Grace Medical Home treated about 1,350 people last year. Every year, they take about 350 new patients.

“Would I love to double that, triple that? Of course,” Garris said. “I just think in the reality, with the huge number of uninsured that we have, it’s just not possible.”

Health costs become an issue in midterm campaigns

For U.S. Rep. Darren Soto, a Democrat defending his seat in a sprawling — and now much redder — redrawn district south of Orlando, health costs are a campaign focal point.

He said his district, which is near various theme parks, had the second-largest Affordable Care Act enrollment in the nation, in part because many small tourism businesses can’t offer employees health insurance.

“I just hear it everywhere I go,” he said. His Republican opponent, Navy veteran and former Trump administration official Dan Green, did not answer emailed questions about the subsidies but has emphasized affordability of groceries and property insurance as campaign priorities.

Soto voted with Democrats and some Republicans — including a few from Florida — to save the subsidies last year. The Republican majority declined and suggested other ideas, including funding Americans’ health savings accounts. No law along those lines has passed yet.

Button, a Democrat in Soto’s district, said he is open to different reforms for health costs, but said politicians aren’t acting fast enough.

“They keep trying to make excuse after excuse,” he said. “I don’t have six months to a year to wait for you guys to pass this through the hoops that you need to.”

Swenson and Martin write for the Associated Press.

Fox News co-host Emily Compagno is jumping from the network’s daytime chatfest “Outnumbered” to join “The Five,” the most-watched program on cable news.

The conservative-leaning news network announced Monday that Compagno will fill the seat vacated last year by Jeanine Pirro, who left “The Five” in May to join the Trump administration as interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia before her Senate confirmation three months later.

Compagno will be on daily starting Sept. 8 alongside fellow co-hosts Greg Gutfeld, Dana Perino and Jesse Watters. Jessica Tarlov and Harold Ford Jr. rotate their appearances in the lone liberal seat on the program.

“Emily is a highly accomplished host whose energy and talent have made her a standout across FOX News Media, and we are thrilled to officially welcome her to the show,” Fox News Media Chief Executive Suzanne Scott said in a statement.

Compagno’s chair on “Outnumbered” will have guest co-hosts after she departs the program.

“The Five” has been a ratings juggernaut for Fox News in recent years, scoring audience levels that rival live viewing for hit broadcast network shows. In the second quarter of this year, “The Five” averaged 3.6 million viewers according to Nielsen, capturing more than 64% of the cable news viewing audience in the 5 p.m. Eastern hour.

Before joining Fox News as a contributor in 2018, Compagno practiced law in criminal defense and civil litigation and later served as a federal managing attorney and Acting Director at the Social Security Administration.

She also served as a Senior Judge Judicial Extern for the late Hon. John T. Noonan at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

A native of the San Francisco Bay Area, Compagno served as captain of the cheerleading squad for the NFL’s Raiders when they played in her hometown before moving to Las Vegas. She served as an ambassador for the league overseas, visiting U.S. troops in Iraq and Kuwait on a USO tour.

She is also the author of “Under His Wings: How Faith on the Front Lines Has Protected American Troops,” which was released on the network’s publishing imprint FOX News Books and debuted at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list.

When the Booker Prize longlist was recently announced, it included a book with the memorable title “May We Feed the King.” The debut novel by British author Rebecca Perry isn’t yet available in the U.S., and when it does hit shelves, it will be coming from Transit Books, a small Bay Area publisher run by the husband-and-wife team Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy.

Cited by the Booker committee as “a playful, stirring meditation on history and storytelling” about a curator and a king, the book “has been an early favorite with indie booksellers,” Ashley says.

“May We Feed the King” by Rebecca Perry

(Transit)

“We knew the book was special when we acquired it,” Adam adds. “Ever since, we’ve been crossing our fingers and knocking on wood and sending up flares to the Booker gods, and sent the book to the printer a little earlier than usual just in case.”

Transit, known for publishing intelligent international fiction, began about a decade ago, when Ashley and Adam were convinced that great works of literature were being passed over by New York publishers, and that those books should have a place in America.

There were, Adam says, “really great authors who might have incredible reputations elsewhere not finding publishing houses here that are able to champion them in a way that gets them to access to a broader readership.”

The two were working full-time jobs while talking about their literary dreams over the dining room table. They had met at Columbia in New York and both worked in publishing there before moving to California, where Ashley is from.

Adam Z. Levy and Ashley Nelson Levy, co-publishers of the Bay Area nonprofit publisher Transit Books.

(Jennifer Baquing)

They carefully set out to connect with the international literary community and went through the slow process of launching Transit as a nonprofit. They now have a small staff, an office in Berkeley and count a Nobel Prizewinner, Jon Fosse, among their authors.

At the same time Transit was starting out in Northern California, a pair of not-married friends in Los Angeles saw the same possibilities. Chris Heiser and Olivia Taylor Smith were convinced that they could begin a publishing house, starting with international noir.

Smith, who is now a senior editor at Simon & Schuster and lives in Germany, recalled those early days for me over Zoom. “We launched it at a time when it was almost the golden age of independent, small publishing, a lot of which was translation-focused,” she says.

They jumped right in, came up with a name, Ricochet, and a logo. Then they got a cease-and-desist letter — a small poetry press was also starting as Ricochet. “We had to change names,” Heiser says. “We were literally unnamed.” That’s how they launched Unnamed Press.

“A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea G. Summers

(Unnamed Press)

“I’m very grateful to the litigious poets who forced us to change our name,” Heiser adds. Their original crime-fiction focus rapidly expanded. Science fiction? Nonfiction? Feminist cannibal fiction? Yes, yes, yes.

That last was “A Certain Hunger” by Chelsea Summers, which Smith acquired. “I really loved that it is violent and intense and so visceral,” Smith said. “The prose is incredible and it absolutely was a cut above. Not to use a cannibalistic meat pun.” To date, the 2021 novel has been Unnamed Press’ biggest seller.

Where many literary novels from small presses sell fewer than 2,500 copies, “A Certain Hunger” has sold close to 200,000. “We’re a hits-driven business, you know — you have to have a book that does well enough to keep you going,” Heiser says.

Heiser remains with Unnamed as its publisher, and continues to guide it to unpredictable destinations. In 2022, the press opened North Figueroa Bookshop in Highland Park with fellow L.A. publisher Rare Bird Books — it stocks all publishers’ titles, not just their own.

Guests gather at the North Figueroa gallery for Unnamed Press’ launch of “Four Nose Jobs a Day,” a poetry book with an accompanying vinyl album by Devendra Banhart, center.

(Hoda Mallone)

And next door is the gallery they opened late last year. In June they held a gala launch for Devendra Banhart’s new collection of poems, “Four Nose Jobs a Day” in the North Figueroa gallery, published by Unnamed as both book and record album. The party was a little livelier than your typical book launch: Heiser says it “featured a reading backed by an excellent jazz trio, ceramic noses, a scent-maker, mimes and speed therapy, among many other things.”

Where Unnamed often makes unexpected turns, Transit has stuck close to its original mission: to translate a handful of books a year, often works of translation themselves, with a certain aesthetic.

For readers in sync with Transit’s sensibility — literary, bold and with an edge that feels fresh — they offer subscriptions. Their biggest swerve was adding children’s books. “The quality of the writing is really important, first and foremost,” Ashley said on a Zoom call with Adam and their executive editor, Lizzie Davis.

“We’re really attracted to literature that takes risks on the page,” Adam said. They began publishing acclaimed Norwegian author Jon Fosse’s work three years before he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. Transit is the American home of Fosse’s big and bold “Septology,” translated into English by Damion Searls.

“Septology 1-VII,” by Jon Fosse

(Transit Books)

Despite years of a cohort within the publishing community advocating for international literature, such as the National Book Awards’ translated literature prize being relaunched in 2018, translated works remain only 3% of the U.S. publishing market. Transit has remained committed to publishing works in translation, and has had genuine success.

Small publishers can be caught in a catch-22 when they have a sudden success. They have to pay to print books and get them distributed, then wait months before the profits (or unsold returns) come back. An author winning the Nobel Prize in literature is about as big a bonanza of demand as you can imagine.

When Fosse won the Nobel in 2023, that meant publishing a big run of his almost 700-page masterwork. “It was a bit of a cash crunch for us,” Adam admits, “but I think we were also lucky in a lot of ways.” The year before they had published “I Who Have Never Known Men” by Jacqueline Harpman, a Belgian novelist who died 20 years before — hardly a guaranteed success.

“Stories, Like Illnesses” by James Elkins

(Unnamed Press)

The publishers themselves can’t fully describe what happened — it was well-reviewed, it went viral, it kept selling, it went viral again. Now, the novel has sold more than 450,000 copies. “I feel like for a small press you really need to, not just catch a break, but catch a break every time,” Adam said, “if you want to last.” Those two pillars — the Fosse and Harpman — allowed the Levys to open their office in Oakland in 2024.

Transit recently released another Harpman book, “We Were Forbidden,” a trio of never-before translated novellas. In September, in addition to Perry’s book, they’ll also be publishing two novels by esteemed French writer Marie Darrieussecq.

Unnamed Press’ fall schedule includes James Elkins’ “Stories, Like Illnesses,” the third installment of a multivolume work called “Five Strange Languages.” Unnamed is publishing in five volumes over five years, “an epic publishing project for any publisher,” Heiser says. Luckily, the first volume got a boost when Jacob Elordi was photographed reading it during a marathon Frankenstein makeup session.

The Levys and Heiser all maintain that there was something about being in California that gave them the creative space to launch their publishing houses.

From their similar visions a decade ago, Transit and Unnamed were born separately, and have taken very different paths to sustainability. The Levys were deliberate and focused; Unnamed spontaneous and evolving. Both are flourishing and show what a little freedom can do.

Edwin Díaz said he understands the decision of the Dodgers to use him in lower-stake situations rather than immediately relying on him as a closer. The rationale is that strategy will help him rediscover his confidence.

“I know I haven’t done my job,” said Díaz, speaking to reporters at his locker before Sunday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. “If I had done my job, I would be in the ninth inning.”

He praised Tanner Scott, who has thrived in that role.

“He’s doing a great job,” Díaz said. “I’m really happy for him.”

Díaz, the team’s biggest offseason acquisition, had elbow surgery early in the season and was out from April to late July. His return wasn’t triumphant, as he had three blown saves and two more shaky outings in non-save situations.

After a game against the Colorado Rockies last week, he complained of a neck problem and was placed on the injured list. He has more than a week remaining before he returns.

Díaz said he underwent an MRI scan on his neck and nothing unusual was revealed. He’s working with coaches on making a small adjustment to his delivery.

“They showed me a couple videos from last year — my arm slot’s always a little low,” he said. “We’re working now to get it higher and more consistent in that position.”

The goal, naturally, is to make good on the expectations the Dodgers had for him when they signed him to a three-year, $69-million deal.

“That’s why they signed me here,” he said. “To be the closer.”

Phil McGraw’s longtime publicist has filed a lawsuit against the celebrity therapist, better known as Dr. Phil, on claims of wrongful termination and discrimination.

In a lawsuit filed Thursday in Los Angeles County Superior Court, Jerry Sharell said McGraw recruited him to continue working for him after he left CBS in 2023 and relocated to Dallas, where he planned to start his own television network, Merit Street Media.

But Sharell alleges in his complaint that he was “intentionally excluded” from the group of 20 employees who migrated to Texas because he is openly “homosexual,” and was later singled out before being put on hiatus.

The suit is the latest legal fight for McGraw. Last year his new network Merit Street filed for bankruptcy protection, a little more than a year after he launched the media startup, and then sued its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Last fall, a federal bankruptcy judge ordered the network liquidated, finding evidence that McGraw deleted text messages to conceal plans favoring certain creditors over others.

At the time, a spokesperson for McGraw’s production company vigorously denied the accusation that he destroyed evidence and said he was appealing the ruling.

McGraw later launched Envoy Media, prompting accusations the bankruptcy was filed in bad faith specifically to escape creditors and fund his new venture, which he denied.

Chip Babcock, a lawyer representing Envoy Media, disputed Sharell’s allegations, calling the lawsuit “an effort to avoid a pending arbitration to which Sharell contractually agreed which he has now violated in a number of ways. The company and Dr. Phil will vigorously defend these claims,” in a statement to The Times.

“Jerry Sharell was put on hiatus over the summer as is common in this industry, especially with a media start up. He was not fired for any reason and certainly not because of his sexual orientation. These allegations against Envoy and Dr. Phil are made up out of whole cloth as he has a 25 year history of treating the LGBTQ+ communities with dignity and respect, including standing up for his guests who were attacked because of their sexual preferences.”

In his complaint, Sharell states that McGraw told him he would remain in California, saying, “you’re Hollywood.” However, the publicist said he came to the realization that “McGraw did not want him present in the building or attending meetings with TBN executives.”

Merit Street was a joint venture with the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN), the largest Christian-based network. Sharell said that he was given a copy of the Employee Handbook, and employees “were asked to sign a ‘Statement of Faith’ declaring their devotion to Jesus.”

Although he remained in L.A., starting in spring 2024 Sharell began traveling monthly to the Dallas headquarters of Merit Street, where he said many TBN employees now worked. During his first visit he alleged that a man known as “Pastor D” came weekly to pray with employees, leaving prayer cards on the desks of those who did not participate including that of Sharell’s.

Pastor D also led prayer services at an open house event for advertisers, prospective investors and media, that Sharell found “both disturbing and shocking, given he had never known Defendant McGraw to be overly religious,” according to the complaint.

During another visit, Sharell alleges that an IT employee noticed a photograph of Sharell while working on a staffer’s computer and said, “There’s too many of THEM around here. And it’s evil.”

While traveling on a private plane with McGraw, wife Robin McGraw and other individuals, Sharell claims he was answering emails and did not hear McGraw, who said, “Jeez, he’s gayer than a fruit basket and not listening.”

The publicist said that he worked for McGraw for 10 years until March 2026, “advancing, protecting, publicizing, protecting, and supporting” McGraw and his enterprises.

According to the suit, Sharell worked through the Merit Street bankruptcy and the subsequent establishment of Envoy Media, “receiving assignments and direction” from McGraw, dealing with executives and securing media placements among other duties.

After the company transitioned to Envoy Media, Sharell states in his lawsuit he went from being treated as an employee with benefits to being characterized as an independent contractor, losing his benefits, including health coverage and his compensation was reduced by 30%.

Sharell alleges that although his job remained the same, that he felt “compelled” to accept the new arrangement while under “a great deal of duress and stress,” during which he said he was “reminded” by Envoy Media Chief Executive Ken Solomon that McGraw valued “loyalty.”

Then, in March, Sharell received a call from Solomon informing him that his position was being put on “hiatus” due to “financial considerations,” even though no other employees were put in hiatus or had their salaries reduced.

He said he told Solomon that he felt he was “being singled out or targeted,” according to the lawsuit.

DEL MAR — Bill Mott was nearly 2,500 miles from Del Mar on Saturday night, but if you listened closely as the field raced down the backstretch in the $1 million Pacific Classic, you probably could hear the Hall of Fame trainer scream.

Thirty years ago, Mott brought Cigar to this same track for this same race, hoping his superstar horse would set the modern-day North American record for consecutive victories. But Cigar, at odds of 1-10, got caught up in a speed duel and wound up losing to a 39-1 long shot named Dare and Go.

Now it seemed like it might be happening again.

Knightsbridge went off at odds of 11-10 instead of Cigar’s 1-10 and he wasn’t racing for history, but the race took on an eerie similarity as the favorite dueled head-and-head with Full Serrano for much of the 1¼ miles. And they were going fast — not quite as fast as Cigar but close enough (1 minute, 10.02 seconds to 1:09.29) for some anguish.

“I thought maybe they were going a little too fast down the backside,” Mott told Del Mar publicity by phone from Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

He had no way of knowing, but so did his jockey.

“I was a little worried we were going a little too fast,” Junior Alvarado said.

As it turned out, neither man had reason to worry. Knightsbridge had a short lead as the two horses passed the mile marker, and when they straightened out in the stretch, the race was over. He continued on, Full Serrano weakened, and the others were too far back.

The final time was 2:02.28, with Original Sin 6¼ lengths behind in second and Full Serrano third. Om N Joy, the first filly to try the Pacific Classic in a decade, finished fourth, followed by Hit Show, Malarchuk, Forged Steel, British Isles, Navajo Warrior, Subsanador and Finger, a Japanese 3-year-old.

With the victory, worth $4.20 to his backers and $600,000 to owners Godolphin, Knightsbridge earned an automatic berth in the Breeders’ Cup Classic on Oct. 31 at Keeneland. But whether he runs in that race or the Dirt Mile will be a decision for Mott and Godolphin, who also have Sovereignty, last year’s horse of the year and the top-ranked horse in the Breeders’ Cup’s initial poll for Classic contenders.

“They’re two different horses,” said Alvarado, who rides both. “It’s nearly impossible to [compare]. This horse carries a lot of speed. The other horse has a hell of a turn of foot coming for home … from the half-mile all the way to the wire, very strong at a mile and a quarter. I don’t recall having such a strong finisher like Sovereignty. So it’s going to be interesting. We got time just to decide what we’re going to do next.”

The idea that Knightsbridge would even be under consideration for the 1¼-mile Classic would have been unthinkable until last month; his first 10 career races were all around one turn at either seven furlongs or a mile. But Mott decided to try him at 1⅛ miles in the Monmouth Cup on July 18 at Monmouth Park, and the 5-year-old son of Nyquist won by 10¼ lengths in a time that earned him the fastest Beyer Speed Figure of the year (122).

With the West Coast handicap division weakened, Mott figured it was a good time to try the Pacific Classic again. He had won the race in 2008 with Go Between and enjoyed other successes here, including last year’s Breeders’ Cup Distaff with Scylla, but he also had to scratch Sovereignty from last year’s Breeders’ Cup Classic when the horse got sick.

Now he has another positive memory — his second win in Del Mar’s signature race, which has been won by only two other trainers not based in California, Todd Pletcher (Fierceness last year) and Dale Romans (Dullahan in 2012).

“It was quite impressive,” Mott said. “They went quick, but gosh he had something to finish with.”

The victory completed a Grade 1 sweep Saturday for Alvarado, who one race earlier captured the $300,000 Del Mar Oaks aboard Tam Tam ($7.40) for trainer Philip Bauer.

How did he plan to celebrate?

“We’re going to celebrate it going back to New York tonight on the red-eye flight,” he said, smiling.

In the other Breeders’ Cup Challenge race here Saturday, the 5-year-old gelding Sorrento Sky ($16), ridden by Umberto Rispoli for trainer Phil D’Amato, earned a spot in the Turf Sprint by capturing the $200,000 Green Flash Handicap by a length over No Nay Hudson. D’Amato and Rispoli also won the $300,000 Del Mar Mile with King of Gosford ($12.40).

The crowd of 15,187 was a 13% increase from last year. The mutuel handle of $29.14 million was the second highest in Del Mar history outside of the Breeders’ Cup, surpassed only by $36.02 million in 2021 when there was a Pick 6 carryover and mandatory payout.

Dennis Pitta has a little gray on his beard and has slimmed down to a fit 235 pounds from his days as an All-American tight end at Brigham Young and NFL tight end for the Baltimore Ravens.

Living in Ladera Ranch, he’s entering his fourth season as an assistant coach at San Clemente and has started developing tight ends just like his former high school coach at Moorpark, Tim Lins, used to do.

There’s lots of former NFL players coaching high school football as head coaches but even more as assistant coaches, and Pitta is a great sounding board for those who have dreams of playing beyond high school. San Clemente has produced such tight ends as Isaac Rex and Cole Fotheringham. Last year’s tight end, Shane Kiley, is now at San José State.

Pitta looks in such good shape he could probably demonstrate himself how to catch a pass over the middle. The Tritons are fortunate they have someone with his knowledge and expertise.

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