last year

NEW YORK — Fresh off winning New York City’s mayoral election, Zohran Mamdani announced Wednesday that a team including former city and federal officials — all women — would steer his transition to City Hall, and that he would “work every day to honor the trust that I now hold.”

“I and my team will build a City Hall capable of delivering on the promises of this campaign,” the mayor-elect said at a news conference, vowing that his administration would be both compassionate and capable.

He named political strategist Elana Leopold as executive director of the transition team. She will work with United Way of New York City President Grace Bonilla; former Deputy Mayor Melanie Hartzog, who was also a city budget official; former Federal Trade Commission chair Lina Khan; and former First Deputy Mayor Maria Torres-Springer.

With his win over former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa, the 34-year-old democratic socialist will soon become the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage, the first born in Africa and the youngest mayor in more than a century.

He now faces the task of following through on his ambitious affordability agenda while navigating the bureaucratic challenges of City Hall and a hostile Trump administration.

“I’m confident in delivering these same policies that we ran on for the last year,” he said in an interview earlier Wednesday on cable news channel NY1.

More than 2 million New Yorkers cast ballots in the contest, the largest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, according to the city’s Board of Elections. With roughly 90% of the votes counted, Mamdani held an approximately 9 percentage point lead over Cuomo.

Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration and planning how to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.

Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would expand on an existing city initiative that sends mental health care workers, rather than police, to handle certain emergency calls. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.

On Wednesday, he touted his support from Hochul and other state leaders as “endorsements of an agenda of affordability.”

His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.

Mamdani has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including President Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of a more radical Democratic Party that is out of step with mainstream America. Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funding to the city — and even take it over — if Mamdani won.

”…AND SO IT BEGINS!” the president posted late Tuesday to his Truth Social site.

Mamdani, for his part, said at his news conference that “New Yorkers are facing twin crises in this moment: an authoritarian administration and an affordability crisis,” and that he would tackle both.

While saying he was committed to “Trump-proofing” the city — to protect poor residents against “the man who has the most power in this country,” as he explained — the mayor-elect also reiterated that he was interested in talking to the president about ”ways that we can work together to serve New Yorkers.” That could mean discussing the cost of living or the effect of cuts to the SNAP food aid program amid the federal government shutdown, Mamdani suggested.

“I will not mince my words when it comes to President Trump … and I will also always do so while leaving a door open to have that conversation,” Mamdani added.

Mamdani also said during his news conference and interviews that he had not heard from Cuomo or the city’s outgoing mayor, Eric Adams. He did speak with Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa.

A spokesperson for Cuomo, Rich Azzopardi, said he would “let their respective speeches be the measuring stick for grace and leave it at that.”

In his victory speech to supporters, Mamdani wished Cuomo the best in private life, before adding: “Let tonight be the final time I utter his name, as we turn the page on a politics that abandons the many and answers only to the few.”

Asked about the comments Wednesday on NY1, Mamdani said he was “quite disappointed in the nature of the bigotry and the racism we saw in the final weeks.” He noted the millions of dollars in attack ads that were spent against him, some of which played into Islamophobic tropes.

Izaguirre and Colvin write for the Associated Press. AP writers Jake Offenhartz and Jennifer Peltz contributed to this report.

The celebration had hardly begun, when Shohei Ohtani first voiced the theme of the day.

“I’m already thinking about the third time,” he said in Japanese, standing atop a double-decker bus in downtown Los Angeles with of thousands of blue-clad, flag-waving, championship-celebrating Dodgers fans lining the streets around him for the team’s 2025 World Series parade.

Turns out, he wasn’t alone.

Two days removed from a dramatic Game 7 victory that made the Dodgers baseball’s first repeat champion in 25 years, the team rolled through the streets of downtown and into a sold-out rally at Dodger Stadium on Monday already thinking about what lies ahead in 2026.

With three titles in the last six seasons, their modern-day dynasty might now be cemented.

But their goal of adding to this “golden era of Dodger baseball,” as top executive Andrew Friedman has repeatedly called it, is far from over.

“All I have to say to you,” owner and chairman Mark Walter told the 52,703 fans at the team’s stadium rally, “is we’ll be back next year.”

“I have a crazy idea for you,” Friedman echoed. “How about we do it again?”

When manager Dave Roberts took the mic, he tripled down on that objective: “What’s better than two? Three! Three-peat! Three-peat! Let’s go.”

When shortstop Mookie Betts, the only active player with four World Series rings, followed him, he quadrupled the expectation: “I got four. Now it’s time to fill the hand all the way up, baby. ‘Three-peat’ ain’t never sounded so sweet. Somebody make that a T-shirt.”

For these history-achieving, legacy-sealing Dodgers, Monday was a reminder of the ultimate end goal — the kind of scene that, as they embark on another short winter, will soon fuel their motivations for another confetti-filled parade this time next year.

“For me, winning a championship, the seminal moment of that is the parade,” Friedman said. “The jubilation of doing it, when you get the final out, whatever game you win it in, is special. That night is special. But to be able to take a breath and then experience a parade, in my mind, that is what has always driven me to want to win.”

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“[To] do this for the city, that’s what it’s all about,” first baseman Freddie Freeman added. “There’s nothing that feels as important as winning a championship. And if so happens to be three in a row, that’s what it is. But that’s what’s gonna drive us to keep going.”

Last November, the Dodgers’ first parade in 36 years was a novelty.

Much of the group had been part of the 2020 title team that was denied such a serenade following that pandemic-altered campaign. They had waited four long years to experience a city-wide celebration. The reception they received was sentimental and unique.

Now, as third baseman Max Muncy said with a devious grin from atop a makeshift stage in the Dodger Stadium outfield, “it’s starting to get a little bit comfortable up here. Let’s keep it going.”

“Losing,” star pitcher and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto added, in English, in a callback to one of his memorable quotes from this past October, “isn’t an option.”

Doing it won’t be easy.

This year, the Dodgers’ win total went down to 93 in an inconsistent regular season. They had to play in the wild-card round for the first time since the playoffs expanded in 2022. And in the World Series, they faced elimination in Games 6 and 7, narrowly winning both to complete their quest to repeat.

“I borderline still can’t believe we won Game 7,” fan favorite Kiké Hernández said in a bus-top interview.

But, he quickly added, “We’re all winners. Winners win.”

Thus, they also get celebrations like Monday’s.

As it was 367 days earlier, the Dodgers winded down a parade route in front of tens of thousands of fans from Temple Street to Grand Avenue to 7th Street to Figueroa. Both on board the double-decker buses and in the frenzied masses below, elation swirled and beverages flowed.

Once the team arrived at Dodger Stadium, it climbed atop a blue circular riser in the middle of the field — the final symbolic steps of their ascent back to the mountaintop of the sport.

Anthony Anderson introduced them to the crowd, while Ice Cube delivered the trophy in a blue 1957 Chevy Bel-Air.

Familiar scenes, they are hoping become an annual tradition.

“Job in 2024, done. Job in 2025, done,” Freeman said. “Job in 2026? Starts now.”

The Dodgers did take time to recognize their newfound place in baseball history, having become just the sixth MLB franchise to win three titles in the span of six years and the first since the New York Yankees of 1998 to 2000 to win in consecutive years.

Where last year’s parade day felt more like an overdue coronation, this one served to crystallize their legacy.

“Everybody’s been asking questions about a dynasty,” Hernández said. “How about three in six years? How about a back-to-back?”

And, on Monday, all the main characters of this storybook accomplishment got their moment in the sun.

There was, as team broadcaster and rally emcee Joe Davis described him, “the Hall of Fame-bound” Roberts, who now only trails Walter Alston in team history with three World Series rings.

“We talked about last year, wanting to run it back,” he said. “And I’ll tell you right now, this group of guys was never gonna be denied to bring this city another championship.”

There was Game 7 hero Miguel Rojas calling up surprise October closer Roki Sasaki, on his birthday, to dance to his “Bailalo Rocky” entrance song; a request Sasaki sheepishly obliged by pumping his fist to the beat.

Yamamoto, coming off his heroic pitching victories in Games 6 and 7, received some of the day’s loudest ovations.

“We did it together,” he said. “I love the Dodgers. I love Los Angeles.”

Muncy, Ohtani and Blake Snell also all addressed the crowd.

“I’m trying to get used to this,” Snell said.

“I’m ready to get another ring next year,” Ohtani reiterated.

One franchise face who won’t be back for that chase: Clayton Kershaw, who rode into the sunset of retirement by getting one last day at Dodger Stadium, fighting back tears as he thanked the crowd at the end of his illustrious (and also Hall of Fame-bound) 18-year career.

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“Last year, I said I was a Dodger for life. And today, that’s true,” Kershaw said. “And today, I get to say that I’m a champion for life. And that’s never going away.”

Kershaw, of course, is one of the few still around from the club’s dark days of the early 2010s, when money was scarce and playoff appearances were uncertain and parades were only things to dream about — not expect.

As he walks away, however, the team has been totally transformed.

Now, the Dodgers have been to 13 straight postseasons. They’ve set payroll records and bolstered their roster with a wave of star signings. They’ve turned the pursuit of championships into a yearly expectation, proud but unsatisfied with what they’ve achieved to this point.

“I think, definitionally, it’s a dynasty,” said Friedman, the architect of this run with the help of Walter’s deep-pocketed Guggenheim ownership group. “But that to me, in a lot of ways, that kind of caps it if you say, ‘OK, this is what it is.’ For me, it’s still evolving and growing. We want to add to it. We want to continue it, and do everything we can to put it at a level where people after us have a hard time reaching.”

On Monday, they raised that bar another notch higher.

“This parade was the most insane thing I’ve ever witnessed, been a part of,” Kershaw said. “It truly is the most incredible day ever to be able to end your career on.”

On Tuesday, the Dodgers’ long road toward holding another one begins.

“I know they’re gonna get one more next year,” Kershaw told the crowd. “And I’m gonna watch, just like all of you.”

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits into the country to 7,500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the U.S. previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000. The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

Disneyland Resort has laid off about 100 people in Anaheim, as Walt Disney Co. becomes the latest media and entertainment company to cut jobs.

The layoffs occurred Tuesday and came from multiple teams, Disney confirmed.

“With our business in a period of steady, sustained operation, we are recalibrating our organization to ensure we continue to deliver exceptional experiences for our guests, while positioning Disneyland Resort for the future,” a Disneyland spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a limited number of salaried positions.”

A person close to the company who was not authorized to comment attributed the cuts to an increase in hiring after the parks reopened once the COVID-19 pandemic waned.

Disney’s theme parks are a major economic engine for the Burbank media and entertainment giant.

Last year, the company’s experiences division — which includes its theme parks, cruise line and Aulani resort and spa in Hawaii — brought in nearly 60% of Disney’s operating income.

Earlier this month, the company announced price hikes on most of its single-day, one-park tickets.

The Disneyland Resort layoffs come as entertainment and tech companies have recently shed thousands of jobs.

On Wednesday, Paramount laid off 1,000 employees in a first round of cuts after the company’s takeover by tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Amazon, Meta, Charter Corp. and NBC News also have announced cuts.

The strange political bedfellows created by efforts to save spotted owls in the Pacific Northwest just got even stranger.

Already Republican members of Congress were allied with animal rights activists.
They don’t want trained shooters to kill up to 450,000 barred owls, which are outcompeting northern spotted owls, under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan approved last year that would unfold over three decades.

Now, timber interests are aligning with environmentalists in favor of culling the owls.

Some logging advocates are afraid nixing the plan will slow down timber harvesting. Roughly 2.6 million acres of timberlands in western Oregon managed by the Bureau of Land Management are governed by resource management plans contingent on the barred owl cull going forward, according to Travis Joseph, president and chief executive of the American Forest Resource Council, a trade association representing mills, loggers, lumber buyers and other stakeholders in the region.

The area can produce at least 278 million board feet per year under current plans, “with the potential for significantly more,” Joseph said in a mid-October letter to Congress.

If the cull is scrapped, he said, the federal agency likely will need to restart Endangered Species Act consultation for the northern spotted owl, which is listed as threatened. It’s a process that could take years. According to the letter, it would create “unacceptable risks and delays to current and future timber sales.”

Timber production goals laid out by the Trump administration also could be jeopardized.

Momentum to stop the cull gained ground this summer when Sen. John Kennedy, a conservative from Louisiana, introduced a resolution to reverse the Biden-era plan.
That move reflected an unlikely alliance between some right-wing politicians and animal rights advocates who say it’s too expensive and inhumane. Some Democrats have also opposed the cull, and companion legislation in the House has bipartisan backers.

The stakes are high. Many environmentalists and scientists maintain that northern spotted owls will go extinct if their competitors aren’t kept in check. Barred owls — which originally hail from eastern North America — are larger, more aggressive and less picky when it comes to habitat and food, giving them an edge when vying for resources.

Last week, Politico’s E&E News reported that Kennedy said Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asked him to stand down from his effort to stop the owl-killing plan. The legislator told the outlet he would charge ahead anyway.

“I don’t think the federal government ought to be telling God, nature — whatever you believe in — this one can exist, this one can’t,” Kennedy told E&E. “The barred owl is not the first species that has ever moved its territory and it won’t be the last.”

Kennedy did not respond to The Times’ request for comment. A spokesperson for the Department of the Interior said they could not respond to the inquiry because of the government shutdown.

“It’s strange that a Republican in the south is taking on the owl issue, specifically, when its consequences will impact western Oregon BLM timber sales,” Joseph said in an interview. “It will lead to lower revenues for counties, it will impact jobs and it will put the spotted owl on a trajectory towards extinction.”

The stance aligns in part with that of environmental groups like the Environmental Protection Information Center and Center for Biological Diversity, which have supported culling barred owls to help the beleaguered spotted owls in their native territory. It’s an unexpected overlap, given environmentalists’ long history of fighting to protect old-growth forests in the region the owls call home.

Tom Wheeler, chief executive of EPIC, said it’s possible that culling barred owls could lead to a bump in timber harvest on the BLM land in western Oregon but overall it would lead to more habitat being protected throughout the spotted owls’ expansive range. The presence of spotted owls triggers protections under the Endangered Species Act. If the cull boosts the spotted owl population as intended, it means more guardrails.

“It puts us in admittedly an awkward place,” Wheeler said. “But our advocacy for barred owl removal is predicated not on treating the northern spotted owl as a tool against the timber industry and against timber harvest. What we’re trying to do is provide for the continued existence of the species.”

Many Native American tribes support controlling barred owls in the region. In a letter to Congress last week, the nonprofit Intertribal Timber Council said barred owls threaten more than the spotted owl.

“As a generalist predator, it poses risks to a wide range of forest and aquatic species that hold varying degrees of social and ecological importance to tribes, including species integral to traditional food systems and watershed health,” wrote the council, which aims to improve the management of natural resources important to Native American communities.

Since 2013, the Hoopa Valley tribe in Northern California has been involved with sanctioned hunting of the owls and has observed the spotted owl population stabilizing over time, according to the letter.

However, groups like Animal Wellness Action and Center for a Human Economy argue that the plan to take out so many barred owls over a vast landscape won’t work, aside from the high owl death toll. More barred owls simply will fly into where others were removed, said Wayne Pacelle, president of both groups.

That makes habitat key — and the prospect of losing more to logging in western Oregon devastating, according to Pacelle.

To stop the owl-culling plan, both chambers of Congress would need to pass a joint resolution and President Trump would need to sign it. If successful, the resolution would preclude the agency from pursuing a similar rule, unless explicitly authorized by Congress.

The plan already faced setbacks. In May, federal officials canceled three related grants totaling more than $1.1 million, including one study that would have removed barred owls from over 192,000 acres in Mendocino and Sonoma counties

What’s different in the World Series this year? The New York Yankees are not here, and the Toronto Blue Jays are.

For Major League Baseball, that represents an opportunity.

On the eve of the World Baseball Classic, as the league attempts to grow its popularity around the world and considers sending its star players to the 2028 Olympics, the World Series ratings are encouraging.

For the first two games of the World Series, the average viewership in Japan was almost as high as in the United States, despite a population one-third that of the U.S., and the average viewership in Canada was 10 times greater than it was last year.

The average in the three countries, through two games: 30.5 million, MLB said Tuesday. The average for the World Series last year: 28.6 million.

The Game 1 audience for those three countries: 32.6 million, the highest for an MLB game in the U.S., Canada and Japan combined since Game 7 of the 2016 World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Guardians.

When the Dodgers and Yankees played in last year’s World Series — a clash of the two biggest markets in the United States — the average game attracted 15.8 million viewers in the U.S. For the first two games of this year’s World Series, the average game attracted 12.5 million viewers on Fox platforms, so Canadian markets are not included.

However, even without a U.S. team to oppose the Dodgers, Fox said this year’s ratings are better than any other World Series since the pandemic, besides last year’s.

This year’s NBA Finals — a small-market matchup between Oklahoma City and Indiana — attracted a U.S. average of 10.3 million viewers.

This year’s World Series features Japan’s team — the team of Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki — against Canada’s lone major league team. The average viewership in Japan: 10.7 million, despite the games starting there at 9 a.m.

The average viewership of last year’s World Series in Canada: 720,000. That number through two games this year: 7.2 million. The U.S. population is 10 times greater than that of Canada.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — A yearlong investigation into suspected fraudulent voter registration forms submitted ahead of last year’s presidential election produced criminal charges Friday against six street canvassers and the man who led their work in Pennsylvania.

The allegations of fraud appeared to be motivated by the defendants’ desire to make money and keep their jobs and was not an effort to influence the election results, said Pennsylvania Atty Gen. Dave Sunday.

Guillermo Sainz, 33, described by prosecutors as the director of a company’s registration drives in Pennsylvania, was charged with three counts of solicitation of registration, a state law that prohibits offering money to reach registration quotas. A message seeking comment was left on a number associated with Sainz, who lives in Arizona. He did not have a lawyer listed in court records.

The six canvassers are charged with unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, forgery and violations of Pennsylvania election law. The charges relate to activities in three Republican-leaning Pennsylvania counties: York, Lancaster and Berks.

“We are confident that the motive behind these crimes was personal financial gain, and not a conspiracy or organized effort to tip any election for any one candidate or party,” Sunday said in a news release. Prosecutors said the forms included all party affiliations.

In a court affidavit filed with the criminal charges on Friday, investigators said Sainz, an employee of Field+Media Corps, “instituted unlawful financial incentives and pressures in his push to meet company goals to maintain funding which in turn spurred some canvassers to create and submit fake forms to earn more money.”

The chief executive of Field+Media Corps, based in Mesa, Ariz., said last year the company was proud of its work to expand voting but had no information about problematic registration forms. A message seeking comment was left Friday for the CEO, Francisco Heredia. The Field+Media Corps website did not appear to be operative.

Field+Media was funded by Everybody Votes, an effort to improve voter registration rates in communities of color. The affidavit said Everybody Votes “fully cooperated” with the investigation and noted its contract with Field+Media prohibited payments on a per-registration basis.

“The investigation confirmed that we hold our partners to the highest standards of quality control when collecting, handling and delivering voter registration applications,” Everybody Votes said in a statement emailed by a spokesperson.

Sainz, who managed Pennsylvania operations from May to October 2024, is accused of paying canvassers based on how many signatures they collected. The police affidavit said Sainz told agents with the attorney general’s office earlier this month he was unaware of any canvassers paid extra hours if they reached a target number of forms.

“Sainz had to be asked the question multiple times before he stated he was not aware of this and that ‘everyone was an hourly worker,’ ” investigators wrote.

One canvasser said she created fake forms to boost her pay and believed others did, too, according to the police affidavit. Another told investigators that most of the registration forms he collected were “not real.” A third reported that when she realized she was not going to reach a daily quota, “she would make up names and information,” police wrote, “due to fear of losing her job.”

The investigation began in late October 2024, when election workers in Lancaster flagged about 2,500 voter registration forms for potential fraud. Authorities said they appeared to contain false names, suspicious handwriting, questionable signatures, incorrect addresses and other problematic details.

In a separate but related investigation, authorities in Monroe County late Friday filed voter registration fraud charges against three canvassers who worked for Field+Media Corps last year. All three defendants were charged with forgery, perjury, unsworn falsification, tampering with public records, identity theft and election law violations.

The suggestion of criminal activity related to the election came as the battleground state was considered pivotal to the presidential election, and then-candidate Donald Trump seized on the news. At a campaign event, he declared there was “cheating” involving “2,600” votes. The actual issue in Lancaster was about 2,500 suspected fraudulent voter registration forms, not ballots or votes.

Scolforo writes for the Associated Press.

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — A young woman is desperate to raise $50,000 for her mom’s life-saving medical treatment. She will get the money, but only if she agrees to her stepsister’s unusual proposal: to marry her wayward fiance, who comes from a wealthy family but also has a rap sheet.

That’s the plot line for an episode of “The Double Life of My Billionaire Husband.”

That may sound like a telenovela. In fact, it’s a popular series that appears on ReelShort, an app where audiences can view on their smartphones over-the-top, dramatic tales reminiscent of soap operas called micro dramas.

Unlike a regular TV show, this drama unfolds over 60 episodes, each lasting one to three minutes. After six episodes, viewers hit the paywall, where they could continue watching ad-free with a $20 weekly subscription, watch ads or pay as they go.

Already, the series has garnered more than 494 million views since it launched in 2022 and ReelShort says it has made more than $4 million from the show.

With titles like “The Billionaire Sex Addict and His Therapist,” “How to Tame a Silver Fox” and “Pregnant by My Ex’s Dad,” micro dramas lean heavily into sensationalism and light on budgets, which are typically less than $300,000 per series. And many of them are filmed in Los Angeles.

Director and co-writer Cate Fogarty watches actor Diego Escobar on dual vertical monitors. The film, by platform DramaShorts, is shot vertically to be adapted for viewing on a phone screen.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Short serialized dramas first took off in China, where they are hugely popular and generated revenues of $6.9 billion last year, even surpassing domestic box office sales, according to DataEye, a Shenzhen-based digital research firm.

Now, Hollywood is starting to take note of the bite-sized format.

In August, the venture arm for Lloyd Braun — the former ABC executive and chairman of talent agency WME — and L.A.-based entertainment studio Cineverse formed a joint venture called MicroCo to build a platform for micro dramas.

“Traditional Hollywood moved away from a whole genre and storytelling that fans love, and I think micro dramas really took advantage of that and really leaned into that fandom,” said Susan Rovner, chief content officer of MicroCo.

Studio interest

Major studios are investing in micro dramas in an attempt to replicate China’s success and find new ways to appeal to younger audiences that are accustomed to watching short-form videos on TikTok, YouTube, Instagram and other platforms while on the go.

Fox Entertainment recently announced an equity stake in Ukraine-based Holywater, a producer of micro dramas. Under the deal, Fox Entertainment Studios (a division of Fox Entertainment) will produce more than 200 vertical video titles over the next two years for Holywater.

And Walt Disney Co.’s accelerator program, which invests in startups, recently named micro drama business DramaBox, whose parent company is based in Singapore, as part of its 2025 class.

David Min, Walt Disney Co.’s vice president of innovation, said he believes micro dramas will continue to do well, especially with younger audiences accustomed to watching entertainment on their phones.

“We have to be where everyone is consuming their content, so that’s an opportunity for us,” Min said in an interview. “…This is just another new platform to experiment with and explore and see if it’s right for the company.”

First assistant director Chakameh Marandi, left, and actress Leah Eckardt wait during filming at Heritage Props last month in Burbank.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

This year, ReelShort, which is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., says it will produce more than 400 shows, up from 150 last year.

All of the productions are filmed in the U.S. and mostly in Los Angeles, said ReelShort CEO Joey Jia in an interview. The company plans to build a studio in Culver City that will adapt its most popular micro dramas into films.

“We offer a lot of opportunity,” Jia said.

Warsaw-based DramaShorts said in 2026 it aims to shoot 120 micro drama projects in the U.S., up from 45 to 50 this year. About 25% of those will be in the L.A. area.

DramaShorts co-founder Leo Ovdiienko says, “People are so used to consume content through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook and to share information.” .

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

“People are so used to consume content through social media, through TikTok, through Instagram, through Facebook and to share information,” said DramaShorts co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Leo Ovdiienko, 29, in an interview. “I believe it’s only a matter of time before the big players will also come to this stage.”

The company works with production partners in L.A. who employ actors, writers and crew members who work on the quick-turn projects, a bright spot in a struggling job market.

“The plus side of filming in L.A. is it is the epicenter of Hollywood,” said executive producer, writer and director Chrissie De Guzman, who has worked on DramaShorts projects. “We know how the state of our industry is doing right now, so a lot of talent have moved into the vertical space.”

Though vertical dramas are the length of a movie, they are spliced up into small chapters and produced quickly. A 100-page script might be shot in just one week as opposed to a month for a feature film.

Each chapter usually features a cliffhanger or dramatic moment — whether that’s a slap or a character in danger.

“It just hits every little emotional point,” said Caroline Ingeborn, chief operating officer at Palo Alto-based Luma AI, which provides micro drama companies with AI tools. “It hooks you in like this and because it’s so easy to press [Play]. You just need to see the next episode.”

The crew of vertical film “Sleeping Princess” break between scenes.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Labor tensions

With ultra-low budgets, many of the productions are non-union, prompting some writers and actors to work under pseudonyms to avoid facing sanctions from their unions, said several people who work on the shows.

In an effort to address the issue, performers union SAG-AFTRA recently announced it has created agreements that cover low-budget vertical dramas.

Writers Guild of America West President Michele Mulroney said in an interview the union is aware that “there are companies that are trying to do this work non-union, so the guild wants to help our members … in ways that they can work on verticals and make sure they get that work covered.”

Micro drama producers said they welcome talking with the unions, but questioned whether their business models could support union contracts.

“We’re not anti-union at all,” said Erik Heintz, executive producer at Snow Story Productions, which makes vertical dramas for platforms including DramaShorts.

Despite labor tensions, these short-form dramas have provided a key source of employment for Hollywood workers who’ve struggled to find jobs as production has moved out of California.

Corey Gibbons, 44, a director of photography, said vertical dramas kept him in the business when other work dried up.

“I have a feeling that we’re on the brink of something that’s really going to change,” Gibbons said. “I’m just excited to be a part of it.”

So was 27-year-old actor Sam Nejad, a former contestant on “The Bachelorette” who started acting in vertical dramas in January. He said he’s landed one or two lead roles a month since then and can earn $10,000 a week.

“It’s a new art,” Nejad said. “The new Tarantinos, the new Scorseses are all coming through this.”

ReelShort’s office in Sunnyvale looks more like a typical Silicon Valley startup than a Hollywood studio.

Jia, the chief executive, sits at a desk in an open floor seating area with his staff. Along the office walls are framed posters with titles like “Prince With Benefits,” “Never Divorce a Secret Billionaire Heiress” and “All the Wrong Reasons.” Jia proudly points out why each program was notable on a recent tour of the space.

“I don’t have money to hire celebrities,” Jia said. “I have 100% rely on story.”

The 46-year-old entrepreneur, who has an electrical engineering background, launched his business in 2022. At the time, there wasn’t much interest from Hollywood studios.

The skepticism followed the high-profile collapse of Quibi, the startup led by studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg and tech executive Meg Whitman, that worked with A-list movie stars on series that would appear on an app in short chapters. Quibi raised $1.75 billion, only to shut down roughly six months after launching.

Jia took a different approach. Rather than signing expensive deals with celebrities, he hired students or recent graduates from colleges like USC to work at his company.

Jia approves all of the micro drama stories at ReelShort, which he says is expected to generate $1 billion in revenue this year.

A ReelShort representative declined to disclose the company’s earnings but said the business is profitable.

Jia said ReelShort has 70 million monthly active users, with 10% of them paid users.

The churn — the rate at which customers drop weekly subscriptions — can be more than 50% at ReelShort, Jia said. That makes it paramount for the company to have a steady stream of content that entices customers to keep paying. Currently it has more than 400 in-house titles and roughly 1,000 licensed titles.

Like others in the genre, ReelShort and DramaShorts rely heavily on data metrics like customer retention and paid subscribers to make their content decisions.

“A lot of directors are thinking, when I shoot the film, ‘I don’t care how people think, this is my creation, it’s my story,’” Jia said. “No, it’s not your story. Your success… should be determined by the people.”

Pregnancy centers in the U.S. that discourage women from getting abortions have been adding more medical services — and could be poised to expand further.

The expansion — including testing and treatment for sexually transmitted infections (STIs) and even providing primary medical care — has been unfolding for years. It gained steam after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade three years ago, clearing the way for states to ban abortion.

The push could get more momentum with Planned Parenthood closing some clinics and considering shutting others after changes to Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is not just the nation’s largest abortion provider, but also offers cancer screenings, sexually transmitted infection testing and treatment, and other reproductive health services.

“We ultimately want to replace Planned Parenthood with the services we offer,” said Heather Lawless, founder and director of Reliance Center in Lewiston, Idaho. She said about 40% of patients at the antiabortion center are there for reasons unrelated to pregnancy, including some who use the nurse practitioner as a primary caregiver.

The changes have frustrated abortion rights groups, who, in addition to opposing the centers’ antiabortion messaging, say they lack accountability; refuse to provide birth control; and offer only limited ultrasounds that cannot be used for diagnosing fetal anomalies because the people conducting them don’t have that training. A growing number also offer unproven abortion-pill reversal treatments.

Because most of the centers don’t accept insurance, the federal law restricting release of medical information doesn’t apply to them, though some say they follow it anyway. They also don’t have to follow standards required by Medicaid or private insurers, though those offering certain services generally must have medical directors who comply with state licensing requirements.

“There are really bedrock questions about whether this industry has the clinical infrastructure to provide the medical services it’s currently advertising,” said Jennifer McKenna, a senior advisor for Reproductive Health and Freedom Watch, a project funded by liberal policy organizations that researches the pregnancy centers.

Post-Roe world opened new opportunities

Perhaps best known as “crisis pregnancy centers,” these mostly privately funded and religiously affiliated centers were expanding services such as diaper banks ahead of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling, which overturned Roe.

As abortion bans kicked in, the centers expanded medical, educational and other programs, said Moira Gaul, a scholar at the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the research arm of SBA Pro-Life America. “They are prepared to serve their communities for the long term,” she said in a statement.

In Sacramento, for instance, Alternatives Pregnancy Center in the last two years has added family practice doctors, a radiologist and a specialist in high-risk pregnancies, along with nurses and medical assistants. Alternatives — an affiliate of Heartbeat International, one of the largest associations of pregnancy centers in the U.S. — is some patients’ only health provider.

When the Associated Press asked to interview a patient who had received only non-pregnancy services, the clinic provided Jessica Rose, a 31-year-old woman who took the rare step of detransitioning after spending seven years living as a man, during which she received hormone therapy and a double mastectomy.

For the last two years, she’s received all her medical care at Alternatives, which has an OB-GYN who specializes in hormone therapy. Few, if any, pregnancy centers advertise that they provide help with detransitioning. Alternatives has treated four similar patients over the last year, though that’s not its main mission, director Heidi Matzke said.

“APC provided me a space that aligned with my beliefs as well as seeing me as a woman,” Rose said. She said other clinics “were trying to make me think that detransitioning wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Pregnancy centers expand as health clinics decline

As of 2024, more than 2,600 antiabortion pregnancy centers operated in the U.S., up 87 from 2023, according to the Crisis Pregnancy Center Map, a project led by University of Georgia public health researchers who are concerned about aspects of the centers. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 765 clinics offered abortions last year, down more than 40 from 2023.

Over the years, pregnancy centers have received a boost in taxpayer funds. Nearly 20 states, largely Republican-led, now funnel millions of public dollars to these organizations. Texas alone sent $70 million to pregnancy centers this fiscal year, while Florida dedicated more than $29 million for its “Pregnancy Support Services Program.”

This boost in resources is unfolding as Republicans have barred Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funds under the tax and spending law President Trump signed in July. While federal law already blocked the use of taxpayer funds for most abortions, Medicaid reimbursements for other health services were a big part of Planned Parenthood’s revenue.

Planned Parenthood said its affiliates could be forced to close up to 200 clinics.

Some already had closed or reorganized. They have cut abortion in Wisconsin and eliminated Medicaid services in Arizona. An independent group of clinics in Maine stopped primary care for the same reason. The uncertainty is compounded by pending Medicaid changes expected to result in more uninsured Americans.

Some abortion rights advocates worry that will mean more healthcare “deserts” where the pregnancy centers are the only option for more women.

Kaitlyn Joshua, a founder of abortion rights group Abortion in America, lives in Louisiana, where Planned Parenthood closed its clinics in September.

She’s concerned that women seeking health services at pregnancy centers as a result of those closures won’t get what they need. “Those centers should be regulated,” she said. “They should be providing information which is accurate, rather than just getting a sermon that they didn’t ask for.”

Thomas Glessner, founder and president of the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates, a network of 1,800 centers, said the centers do have government oversight through their medical directors. “Their criticism,” he said, “comes from a political agenda.”

In recent years, five Democratic state attorneys general have issued warnings that the centers, which advertise to people seeking abortions, don’t provide them and don’t refer patients to clinics that do. And the Supreme Court has agreed to consider whether a state investigation of an organization that runs centers in New Jersey stifles its free speech.

Different services than Planned Parenthood

Choices Medical Services in Joplin, Mo., where the Planned Parenthood clinic closed last year, moved from focusing solely on discouraging abortion to a broader sexual health mission about 20 years ago when it began offering STI treatment, said its executive director, Karolyn Schrage.

The center, funded by donors, works with law enforcement in places where authorities may find pregnant adults, according to Schrage and Arkansas State Police.

Schrage estimates that more than two-thirds of its work isn’t related to pregnancy.

Hayley Kelly first encountered Choices volunteers in 2019 at a regular weekly dinner they brought to dancers at the strip club where she worked. Over the years, she went to the center for STI testing. Then in 2023, when she was uninsured and struggling with drugs, she wanted to confirm a pregnancy.

She anticipated the staff wouldn’t like that she was leaning toward an abortion, but she says they just answered questions. She ended up having that baby and, later, another.

“It’s amazing place,” Kelly said. “I tell everybody I know, ‘You can go there.’”

The center, like others, does not provide contraceptives — standard offerings at sexual health clinics that experts say are best practices for public health.

“Our focus is on sexual risk elimination,” Schrage said, “not just reduction.”

Mulvihill and Kruesi write for the Associated Press.

Francis Ford Coppola wants an offer he can’t refuse — on his timepieces.

The Academy Award-winning director is selling seven watches from his personal collection, including his custom F.P. Journe FFC Prototype, estimated to sell for more than $1 million, according to a statement from Phillips, the New York City-based auction house. Phillips will hold the auction on Dec. 6 and 7.

The sale could help stanch losses from last year’s box-office flop “Megalopolis,” which cost over $120 million to make and was largely financed by the 86-year-old director. The movie grossed only $14.3 million worldwide.

The film, Coppola’s first since his 2011 horror movie “Twixt,” premiered at Cannes last year to largely negative reviews. The Times’ Joshua Rothkopf called it a “wildly ambitious, overstuffed city epic.”

At a news conference at Cannes, Coppola discussed the tremendous amount of his own money that he had sunk into the film, saying that he “never cared about money” and that his children “don’t need a fortune.”

Among the Coppola timepieces also going under the hammer are examples from Patek Philippe, Blancpain and IWC.

But the headlining piece is the F.P. Journe FFC Prototype that features a black titanium, human-like hand that resembles a steampunk gauntlet that articulates the hours when the fingers extend or retract.

Francis Ford Coppola’s custom F.P. Journe FFC timepiece uses a single hand to indicate all 12 hours.

(Phillips)

The watch was a collaboration between Coppola and master watchmaker François-Paul Journe that began following a conversation the pair had during a visit he made to the filmmaker’s Inglenook winery in Napa Valley in 2012.

Coppola asked Journe if a human hand had ever been used to mark time. That question sparked a years-long conversation during which the watchmaker grappled with how to indicate the 12 hours of the dial using just five fingers.

Journe found his inspiration in Ambroise Paré, a 16th century French barber surgeon and an innovator of prosthetic limbs in particular, including Le Petit Lorrain, a prosthetic hand made of iron and leather that featured hidden gears and springs enabling the fingers to move, not dissimilar to a watch mechanism.

“Speaking with Francis in 2012 and hearing his idea on the use of a human hand to indicate time inspired me to create a watch I never could have imagined myself. The challenge was formidable — exactly the type of watchmaking project I adore,” said Journe in a statement.

Journe eventually created six prototypes and delivered Coppola’s watch to him in 2021.

“I’m proud to fully support the sale of this watch through Phillips to fund the creation of his artistic masterpieces in filmmaking,” he said.

Coppola first became interested in the watchmaker when he gifted his wife Eleanor an F.P. Journe Chronomètre à Résonance in platinum with a white gold dial for Christmas in 2009, prompting the director to extend an invitation to Journe to visit him at his Napa winery.

Eleanor Coppola, a documentary filmmaker and writer, died in 2024 after 61 years of marriage. Her F.P. Journe timepiece is also part of the auction and is estimated to fetch between $120,000 to $240,000.

Los Angeles County prosecutors unsealed an indictment Friday against a former LAPD officer responsible for the 2015 on-duty shooting of an unarmed man in Venice.

The ex-cop, Clifford Proctor, pleaded not guilty to the charges during a brief hearing in a downtown courtroom.

Wearing an orange jumpsuit, Proctor, 60, leaned over several times to whisper to his attorney but otherwise said little during the hearing, a portion of which was held behind closed doors. He waived a reading of the indictment. He will remain in custody with no bail, and is expected to return to court for a hearing early next month.

Proctor’s lawyer, Anthony “Tony” Garcia, said he would reserve comment until he’d had a chance to review the case.

But he questioned the timing of the charges, which came more than a decade after the incident in question.

The L.A. County District Attorney’s office reviewed the case when it was fresh and “determined there was nothing to proceed,” Garcia said.

Proctor was arrested at Los Angeles International Airport last week when U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents noticed he had an active warrant. Proctor has been living abroad for several years, according to sources who were not authorized to speak publicly about the pending case.

Proctor resigned from the LAPD in 2017. While still with the department, he shot and killed Brendon Glenn, a 29-year-old homeless man, after a dispute outside of a Venice bar in 2015. Glenn and his dog had been kicked out of the Bank of Venice restaurant for causing a disturbance.

Proctor and Glenn got into an argument and the officer ordered Glenn to leave the area. Glenn responded by hurling several racial epithets at Proctor. Both men are Black, according to court records.

Glenn then got into an argument with a bouncer outside of a different bar, and Proctor and his partner moved to make an arrest. During the ensuing struggle, Proctor shot Glenn twice in the back. Proctor alleged Glenn reached for his partner’s gun, but footage from the scene appeared to contradict that claim.

Glenn’s hand was never seen “on or near any portion” of the holster, according to a report made by the city’s Police Commission in 2016, and Proctor’s partner never made “any statements or actions” suggesting Glenn was trying to take the gun.

Former LAPD Chief Charlie Beck called for Proctor to be charged with manslaughter in the wake of public outrage over the killing, but ex-Dist. Atty. Jackie Lacey declined to prosecute. After being elected on a police accountability platform in 2020, her successor, George Gascón hired a special prosecutor to reexamine charges against several L.A. County law enforcement officers in on-duty killings, including Glenn’s death.

Last year, sources told The Times that a warrant had been issued for Proctor’s arrest. Gascón and his chosen special prosecutor, Lawrence Middleton, repeatedly declined to comment on the case.

Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, who fired Middleton shortly after taking office last year, has not given updates on the case. Hochman hired another special prosecutor, Michael Gennaco, to oversee Middleton’s pending cases.

Hochman’s appetite to prosecute Proctor is unclear. He was often critical of Gascón’s decision to employ a special prosecutor during the 2024 campaign cycle, and Hochman’s close ties to law enforcement have left some skeptical of his willingness to pursue difficult cases involving on-duty misconduct.

What is it about the musical biopic that has inspired so much Oscar love? Is it the genre’s front-row seat on the turbulent, provocative, culture-shifting lives of artists we’ve worshiped from afar? Is it the transformational, go-for-broke acting showcase it affords, and the painstaking period recreation so essential to the journey back in time? Or is it simply the enduring power of popular music and the icons who’ve created and performed it?

With the release of writer-director Scott Cooper’s biographical drama “Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere,” starring kudos magnet Jeremy Allen White in an immersive portrayal of The Boss circa 1982, it feels like the perfect time to flash back on some of the most honored pop-music biopics in Oscars history.

‘A Complete Unknown’ (8 nominations)

Monica Barbaro and Timothée Chalamet in “A Complete Unknown.”

(Searchlight Pictures)

This nostalgic snapshot of the early career of legendary folk singer Bob Dylan racked up eight Oscar nominations, including for picture, director (James Mangold), adapted screenplay (Mangold and Jay Cocks), and actors Timothée Chalamet (Dylan), Edward Norton (Pete Seeger) and Monica Barbaro (Joan Baez). Though it exited the awards ceremony empty-handed (it also earned nods for sound and costume design), the film enjoyed solid awards-season grosses, largely positive reviews and further burnished Chalamet’s cred as a versatile and chameleonic leading man.

‘Elvis’ (8 nominations)

Austin Butler in “Elvis.”

(Warner Bros. Pictures)

Tracking the meteoric rise and fall of the King of Rock ’n’ Roll, this electric, eclectic, midcentury biopic impressed critics, shook up the box office and made a star out of Presley proxy Austin Butler. (Go ahead, say it: “Thank you, thank you very much!”) Though “Elvis” left the building on Oscar night with zero wins from eight nods — including picture, lead actor, cinematography and film editing — the movie brought the hip-swiveling singer back into the zeitgeist and gave director Baz Luhrmann yet another feather in his movie-musical cap.

‘Yankee Doodle Dandy’ (8 nominations)

James Cagney stars as George M. Cohan in the 1942 biographical musical drama “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

(Turner Entertainment)

An oldie but a goodie, this popular — and patriotic — musical drama, starring James Cagney as prolific composer-singer-showman George M. Cohan, was nominated for eight Academy Awards, including for picture, director (Michael Curtiz), lead actor and supporting actor (Walter Huston). Cagney won his only Oscar for the exuberant role. (He also received nominations for 1938’s “Angels With Dirty Faces” and 1955’s “Love Me or Leave Me,” another musical biopic.) “Yankee” took home additional statuettes for sound and, as the category was then called, best scoring of a musical picture.

‘Coal Miner’s Daughter’ (7 nominations)

Levon Helm and Sissy Spacek in “Coal Miner’s Daughter.”

(Universal Pictures)

Country star Loretta Lynn may have been born a coal miner’s daughter, but Sissy Spacek was born to play her, as evidenced by the Oscar she won for her striking portrayal. The film, which spanned Lynn’s humble Kentucky youth and marriage at 15 through her extraordinary rise to chart-topping fame — and the nervous breakdown that nearly derailed her career — scored seven nominations, including for picture and adapted screenplay (by Thomas Rickman). Spacek, the film’s sole Oscar winner, would go on to earn four more lead actress nominations.

‘Bound for Glory’ (6 nominations)

David Carradine, who played folk singer Woody Guthrie in “Bound for Glory,” strums a guitar at the 1977 Cannes Film Festival.

(Keystone / Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

Seminal American folk singer Woody Guthrie, who was a pivotal supporting character in last year’s “A Complete Unknown,” had a biopic all to himself in this lyrical drama directed by the great Hal Ashby. Based on Guthrie’s 1943 autobiography and starring David Carradine as the itinerant, socially conscious musician, the movie was nominated for six Oscars, including picture, adapted screenplay and film editing. It won for Haskell Wexler’s evocative cinematography and Leonard Rosenman’s sweeping score — but remained more of a critical than commercial success.

‘Ray’ (6 nominations)

Jamie Foxx in “Ray.”

(Nicola Goode)

Jamie Foxx took home the Oscar, among many other prizes, for his vibrant embodiment of pioneering singer-songwriter-pianist Ray Charles. The ambitious box-office hit, which followed the influential crossover artist from his childhood in 1930s Georgia (when he went blind) through the late 1970s — and all the successes, detours and struggles in between — garnered six nominations, including best picture and director (Taylor Hackford). Along with the lead actor award, “Ray” won for sound mixing. Foxx also earned a supporting actor nod that same year for his fine dramatic work in Michael Mann’s “Collateral.”

‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (5 nominations)

Rami Malek in “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

(Alex Bailey / Twentieth Century Fox)

Audiences and Academy voters were kinder than many critics to this often dazzling, mega-grossing ($910 million worldwide) portrait of groundbreaking Queen frontman and co-founder Freddie Mercury, who died of complications from AIDS in 1991. Although called out for sanitizing the queer, vocally gifted musician’s private — and not-so-private — life, the movie was nominated for five Oscars, including best picture. With wins for film editing, sound editing, sound mixing and, most notably, lead actor (for Rami Malek’s captivating turn as Mercury), the picture amassed the most statuettes in that year’s race.

‘Lady Sings the Blues’ (5 nominations)

Diana Ross in “Lady Sings the Blues.”

(Paramount Pictures)

Diana Ross made an auspicious feature acting debut in this sprawling biopic about the hardships and triumphs of celebrated jazz singer Billie Holiday. An iconic music star herself — she’d recently left the hit-making Supremes to go solo — Ross earned her first (and only) Oscar nod for her galvanizing recreation. The film received four additional nominations, including for original screenplay and costume design, but won none. Ross, who lost that year to Liza Minnelli in “Cabaret,” would go on to star in just a handful of other films. (“Mahogany,” anyone?)

‘Walk the Line’ (5 nominations)

Joaquin Phoenix in “Walk the Line.”

(Suzanne Tenner / 20th Century Fox)

The life of country-folk-rockabilly star Johnny Cash received a polished, emotionally rich big-screen treatment thanks to fine direction by James Mangold (who co-wrote with Gill Dennis) and powerful star turns by Joaquin Phoenix as the complicated Man in Black and Reese Witherspoon as his resilient wife, singer June Carter Cash. The popular, well-reviewed drama collected five Oscar nominations: lead actor and actress, costume design, film editing and sound mixing. Witherspoon captured Oscar gold — along with a raft of other awards — for her memorable performance.

Lakers center Jaxson Hayes avoided major injury on his right wrist after a hard fall in Friday’s preseason finale as X-rays taken after the game came back negative and an MRI scan revealed what Hayes on Sunday called “a light sprain.”

The 7-footer missed the second half of Friday’s exhibition game with a right wrist contusion after he caught a lob from Luka Doncic and was bumped in the air while jamming a two-handed dunk in the first quarter. He stayed in the game for the second quarter and expects to be ready for Tuesday’s regular-season opener against the Golden State Warriors.

“Being a dummy,” Hayes said after practice Sunday of how he got hurt on the play. “I shouldn’t have tried to catch myself, should’ve just fallen.”

Hayes scored six points in the preseason loss to the Sacramento Kings, all on soaring dunks. He and Doncic connected on Hayes’ first basket of the game as they were playing together in the preseason for the first time.

Doncic’s wizardry in the pick-and-roll makes him an athletic rim-running center’s dream as the crafty point guard drops passes from every imaginable angle. But in Doncic’s first training camp with the Lakers since last year’s midseason trade, players, including new center Deandre Ayton are still adjusting to Doncic’s passes.

While coach JJ Redick said he was happy with the Lakers’ 28 assists to 10 turnovers in the preseason game against the Kings, he estimated the team missed seven assist opportunities because of misfired lobs or overly complicated passes.

“For all bigs and point guards, when you start playing with a new big or a new point guard, it’s a learning period,” Hayes said. “You just learn how they like their screens. You learn how they like you to roll to the hoop. It’s just little things. You learn where they like to pass you the ball. … It’s just those guys [Doncic and Ayton] are figuring each other out, just like me and Luka did last year.”

The chemistry between Hayes and Doncic has gotten so strong that Hayes is being recruited to join the Slovenian national team and said he is working on getting a Slovenian passport. He and Doncic are both clients of agent Bill Duffy, and Doncic and his family have been involved in the process for about a year and half, Hayes said.

Lakers guard Luka Doncic looks up the floor while dribbling during a preseason game against the Phoenix Suns on Oct. 14.

(Kelsey Grant / Getty Images)

Hayes watched Slovenia’s run to the quarterfinals in EuroBasket with a careful eye knowing that joining the team could be a possibility for him in the future. FIBA allows each national team to have one naturalized player, which the international basketball governing body defines as a player who obtains their passport for that country after turning 16.

Hayes said he had hopes of representing the United States, but USA Basketball does not have open tryouts for senior national teams.

“I wanted to just play on that stage,” Hayes said. “So I’m going do whatever it takes to play on that stage.”

Etc.

The Lakers cut down their roster to 14 standard contract players on Saturday, waiving RJ Davis, Augustas Marciulionis, Anton Watson and Nate Williams after training camp officially ended. The team kept center Christian Koloko and guards Chris Manon and Nick Smith Jr. on two-way contracts. … Manon was nursing an ankle injury during training camp but was a full participant in practice on Sunday. Bronny James (ankle) and rookie Adou Thiero (knee) went through a modified workout.

Tension between Indiana University and its student newspaper flared last week with the elimination of the outlet’s print editions and the firing of a faculty advisor who refused an order to keep news stories out of a homecoming edition.

Administrators may have been hoping to minimize distractions during its homecoming weekend as the school prepared to celebrate a Hoosiers football team with its highest-ever national ranking. Instead, the controversy has entangled the school in questions about censorship and student journalists’ 1st Amendment rights.

Advocates for student media, Indiana Daily Student alumni and high-profile supporters including billionaire Mark Cuban have excoriated the university for stepping on the outlet’s independence.

The Daily Student is routinely honored among the best collegiate publications in the country. It receives about $250,000 annually in subsidies from the university’s Media School to help make up for dwindling ad revenue.

On Tuesday, the university fired the paper’s advisor, Jim Rodenbush, after he refused an order to force student editors to ensure that no news stories ran in the print edition tied to the homecoming celebrations.

“I had to make the decision that was going to allow me to live with myself,” Rodenbush said. “I don’t have any regrets whatsoever. In the current environment we’re in, somebody has to stand up.”

Student journalists still call the shots

A university spokesperson referred an Associated Press reporter to a statement issued Tuesday, which said the campus wants to shift resources from print media to digital platforms both for students’ educational experience and to address the paper’s financial problems.

Chancellor David Reingold issued a separate statement Wednesday saying the school is “firmly committed to the free expression and editorial independence of student media. The university has not and will not interfere with their editorial judgment.”

It was late last year when university officials announced they were scaling back the cash-strapped newspaper’s print edition from a weekly to seven special editions per semester, tied to campus events.

The paper published three print editions this fall, inserting special event sections, Rodenbush said. Last month, Media School officials started asking why the special editions still contained news, he said.

Rodenbush said IU Media School Dean David Tolchinsky told him this month that the expectation was print editions would contain no news. Tolchinsky argued that Rodenbush was essentially the paper’s publisher and could decide what to run, Rodenbush said. He told the dean that publishing decisions were the students’ alone, he said.

Tolchinsky fired him Tuesday, two days before the homecoming print edition was set to be published, and announced the end of all Indiana Daily Student print publications.

“Your lack of leadership and ability to work in alignment with the University’s direction for the Student Media Plan is unacceptable,” Tolchinsky wrote in Rodenbush’s termination letter.

The newspaper was allowed to continue publishing stories on its website.

Student journalists see a ‘scare tactic’

Andrew Miller, the Indiana Daily Student’s co-editor in chief, said in a statement that Rodenbush “did the right thing by refusing to censor our print edition” and called the termination a “deliberate scare tactic toward journalists and faculty.”

“IU has no legal right to dictate what we can and cannot print in our paper,” Miller said.

Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel at the Student Press Law Center, said 1st Amendment case law going back 60 years shows student editors at public universities determine content. Advisors such as Rodenbush can’t interfere, Hiestand said.

“It’s open and shut, and it’s just so bizarre that this is coming out of Indiana University,” Hiestand said. “If this was coming out of a community college that doesn’t know any better, that would be one thing. But this is coming out of a place that absolutely should know better.”

Rodenbush said that he wasn’t aware of any single story the newspaper has published that may have provoked administrators. But he speculated the moves may be part of a “general progression” of administrators trying to protect the university from any negative publicity.

Blocked from publishing a print edition, the paper last week posted a number of sharp-edged stories online, including coverage of the opening of a new film critical of arrests of pro-Palestinian demonstrators last year, a tally of campus sexual assaults and an FBI raid on the home of a former professor suspected of stealing federal funds.

The paper also has covered allegations that IU President Pamela Whitten plagiarized parts of her dissertation, with the most recent story running in September.

Richmond writes for the Associated Press.

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures held its fifth annual star-studded fundraising gala Saturday at its Wilshire Boulevard campus.

An unrecognizable Kim Kardashian, Selena Gomez, Demi Moore and Elle and Dakota Fanning were among the celebrity guests at the event, which debuted in 2021 upon the film museum’s long-awaited opening. The gala raises funds for museum exhibitions, education initiatives and public programming.

The Academy Museum collected more than $11 million in donations at last year’s gala, which honored Quentin Tarantino, Paul Mescal and Rita Moreno.

This year’s gala honorees included actor Penélope Cruz, director Walter Salles, comedian Bowen Yang and musician Bruce Springsteen, who was presented with the inaugural Legacy Award and performed live at the ceremony. A biopic about the rock legend, starring “The Bear’s” Jeremy Allen White, hits theaters Oct. 24.

Springsteen and Cruz, the recipient of this year’s Icon Award, are both Academy Award winners, the former for his original song “Streets of Philadelphia” — which he wrote for Tom Hanks’ 1993 legal drama “Philadelphia” — and the latter for her role in “Vicky Cristina Barcelona” (2008).

Salles, presented with the Luminary Award for innovative filmmaking, last year gave Brazil its first Academy Award for international film with his moving family drama “I’m Still Here.” Fernanda Torres was also nominated for her role as the Paiva family matriarch in the 2024 movie.

Yang received the Vantage Award, “honoring an artist or scholar who has helped to contextualize and challenge dominant narratives around cinema.” The “SNL” darling and “Las Culturistas” podcast host will return as Glinda’s sidekick Pfannee in “Wicked: For Good,” hitting theaters Nov. 21.

Gala attendees spared no expense with their donations or their ensembles, with Jenna Ortega wearing a futuristic Grace Ling halter top, Rachel Zegler channeling Old Hollywood in Tamara Ralph Couture, Olivia Rodrigo sporting vintage Giorgio Armani Privé and Eva Longoria rocking Elie Saab.

Here are the best looks, captured by Times photographer Eric Thayer.

Jeremy Allen White

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jenna Ortega

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Amanda Seyfried

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Zoe Kravitz

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Kendall Jenner and Hailey Bieber

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Penelope Cruz

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

George Clooney

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Kirsten Dunst

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Eddie Redmayne

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Bruce Springsteen and Martin Scorsese

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Zoey Deutch

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Demi Moore

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Charli XCX

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Michelle Monaghan

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Elle Fanning

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Addison Rae

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Channing Tatum

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jon Hamm and Anna Osceola

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times )

Rachel Zegler

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Cara Delevingne

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jeremy Strong

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Dakota Fanning

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Mikey Madison

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Laura Dern

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Sydney Sweeney

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Joey King

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Alison Brie and Dave Franco

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Kate Hudson

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Billy Crudup and Naomi Watts

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Jennifer Hudson

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Leslie Bibb

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Eva Longoria

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

MELBOURNE, Australia — Australia’s highest court on Wednesday rejected U.S. conservative commentator Candace Owens ’ bid to overturn an Australian government decision barring her from visiting the country.

Three High Court judges unanimously rejected Owens’ challenge to Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke’s decision in 2024 to refuse her a visa on character grounds.

Owens had planned to begin a speaking tour in Australia last November and also visit neighboring New Zealand.

Burke used his powers under the Migration Act last October to refuse her a visa because she failed the so-called “character test,” court documents said.

Burke found there was a risk Owens would “incite discord in the Australian community” and that refusing her a visa was in the national interest.

Burke found that as a political commentator, author and activist, Owens was “known for her controversial and conspiratorial views.”

She had made “extremist and inflammatory comments towards Muslim, Black, Jewish and LGBTQIA+ communities which generate controversy and hatred,” Burke said in court documents.

Owens’ lawyers had argued the Migrant Act was unconstitutional because it infringed upon Australia’s implied freedom of political communications.

Australia doesn’t have an equivalent of the U.S. First Amendment that states a right to free speech. But because Australia is a democracy, the High Court has decided that the constitution implies free speech limited to governmental and political matters.

Owens’ lawyers had argued that if the Migration Act was constitutional, then Burke had misconstrued his powers under that law in refusing her a visa.

The judges rejected both arguments and ordered Owens to pay the government’s court costs.

Burke described the ruling as a “win for social cohesion.”

“Inciting discord might be the way some people make money, but it’s not welcome in Australia,” Burke said in statement.

Owens’ spokeswoman told The Associated Press on Wednesday Owens would comment on the court decision later on social media.

Burke had told the court that while Owens already had an ability to incite discord through her 18 million followers across social media platforms, her presence in Australia would amplify that potential.

He noted that when Australia’s terrorism threat level was elevated from “possible” to “probable” last year, the national domestic spy agency reported an “increase in extremism.”

Australia has long used a wide discretion under the character test to refuse foreigners temporary visas.

Burke stripped Ye, the U.S. rapper formerly known as Kanye West, of an Australian visa after he released his single “Heil Hitler” in May this year.

Ye had been traveling for years to Australia, where his wife of three years, Bianca Censori, was born.

Burke’s decision to ban Owens prompted neighboring New Zealand to refuse her a visa in November on the grounds that she had been rejected by Australia.

But a New Zealand immigration official overturned that refusal in December, citing “the importance of free speech.”

Owens’ spokeswoman on Wednesday had no information about plans to visit New Zealand.

McGuirk writes for the Associated Press.

WASHINGTON — The State Department said Wednesday that it has fired a U.S. diplomat over a romantic relationship he admitted having with a Chinese woman alleged to have ties to the Chinese Communist Party.

The dismissal is believed to be the first of its kind for violating a ban on such relationships that was introduced late last year under the Biden administration.

The Associated Press reported earlier this year that in the waning days of President Biden’s presidency, the State Department imposed a ban on all American government personnel in China, as well as family members and contractors with security clearances, from any romantic or sexual relationships with Chinese citizens.

Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement that the diplomat in question was dismissed from the foreign service after President Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio reviewed the case and determined that he had “admitted concealing a romantic relationship with a Chinese national with known ties to the Chinese Communist Party.”

“Under Secretary Rubio’s leadership, we will maintain a zero-tolerance policy for any employee who is caught undermining our country’s national security,” Pigott said.

The statement did not identify the diplomat, but he and his girlfriend had been featured in a surreptitiously filmed video posted online by conservative firebrand James O’Keefe.

In Beijing, a Chinese government spokesperson declined to comment on what he said is a domestic U.S. issue. “But I would like to stress that we oppose drawing lines based on ideological difference and maliciously smearing China,” the Foreign Ministry’s Guo Jiakun said at a daily briefing.

Lee writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Ken Moritsugu in Beijing contributed to this report.

When she was called last year to testify against a top Los Angeles police official, Sgt. Jessica Bell assumed she would be asked about the AirTag.

Bell found the Apple tracking device under her friend’s car while on a weekend getaway in Palm Springs in 2023. The friend suspected her former domestic partner, Alfred “Al” Labrada, who was then an assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, had secretly planted the AirTag to monitor her movements after they broke up. The women contacted San Bernardino County authorities, who opened an investigation.

By the time Bell, 44, testified last year, prosecutors had declined to charge Labrada with any crime, but his ascent through the uppermost ranks of the LAPD had already gone sideways. Once considered a leading candidate to become the city’s next police chief, Labrada faced being fired for allegedly lying to LAPD investigators and trying to cover up his actions.

Disciplinary proceedings against LAPD officers play out like mini-trials, held behind closed doors under state laws that shield the privacy of officers. According to her attorney, Bell figured that her role would be limited to describing the AirTag she found — and that anything she said would remain sealed.

Instead, according to her lawyer, she faced a line of questioning that turned personal, with Labrada’s attorney grilling her about problems in her former marriage.

The disciplinary panel found Labrada guilty of planting the tracking device, and he resigned from the department. In the months since, details of Bell’s testimony spread among colleagues, according to a lawsuit she filed against the city of Los Angeles this year.

The suit is one of dozens filed by LAPD employees in recent years alleging they faced blowback after reporting suspected wrongdoing. Bell and others claim testimony that was supposed to remain confidential at so-called board of rights hearings or in internal affairs interviews was later used against them.

In the months that followed Bell’s testimony against Labrada, according to her lawsuit, she was denied a position in the department’s training division. Bell said through her attorney that she has come under department investigation for at least three separate complaints, including one alleging that she hadn’t been truthful at Labrada’s disciplinary hearing.

Her supposed lie? Testifying that her daughter had been traumatized by the ordeal of finding the hidden tracking device.

Bell — known professionally as Jessica Zamorano, according to her lawsuit — declined to comment. She said through her lawyer that internal affairs investigators told her that Labrada made the complaints.

The accusation that she lied triggered a separate investigation by the state Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, the law enforcement accreditation board, putting her at risk of losing her police officer license.

Bell also lodged a complaint with the inspector general’s office, writing that she was “initially scared to come forward because I feared retaliation for reporting and cooperating with the investigation against Labrada.”

Bell’s attorney Nicole Castronovo said she was disgusted that the LAPD was allowing Labrada to “weaponize Internal Affairs to continue waging this campaign of terror on my client.”

Al Labrada, a former Los Angeles Police Department assistant chief, holds a news conference in Beverly Hills on Oct. 17, 2023, to address allegations he used an Apple AirTag to secretly monitor the movements of his former romantic partner.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Labrada confirmed to The Times that he had filed several complaints against Bell and Dawn Silva, his former domestic partner, who is also an LAPD officer.

He said he hoped the department would look into the veracity of statements the two women made during his disciplinary hearing. He said the allegations against Bell were based on his conversations with her ex-husband, who made him question her truthfulness. The disciplinary board wouldn’t let him call the ex-husband or others as witnesses, effectively torpedoing his case, Labrada said.

Labrada acknowledges the AirTag was his, but maintains he did not hide it to track his former girlfriend.

“This is all about financial gain for Ms. Silva and Jessica — that’s all this is,” he said. “In my opinion, she made falsified statements not only in the police report but also in the board of rights.”

He has filed his own a lawsuit against the city of Los Angeles and former Police Chief Michel Moore, alleging Moore conspired to oust a rival for the chief’s job.

Labrada was cleared of wrongdoing in the AirTag affair by the state law enforcement accreditation board, an outcome that allows him to retain his license to carry a badge in the state.

Labrada has been publicly outspoken about what he sees as his mistreatment at the hands of the department, making numerous appearances on law enforcement-friendly podcasts to plug a forthcoming tell-all book about his time as an L.A. cop.

He contends his case was handled differently than those of other senior officials accused of misconduct, who because of their close relationships to past chiefs were allowed to keep their jobs or to retire quietly with their pensions.

Retaliation among officers has been a problem in the LAPD for decades — and past reports have been critical of how the department investigates such cases.

The LAPD has long had a policy that forbids retaliation against officers who report misconduct, and officers who feel they’ve been wronged can report problems to the department’s ombudsman, or file complaints through internal affairs or the inspector general’s office.

Retaliation can take on many forms, including poor job evaluations, harassment, demotions and even termination, according to lawyers and LAPD personnel who have sued.

Fearing consequences, some officers have taken to posting about misconduct anonymously on social media or recruiting surrogates to call in to Police Commission hearings to raise allegations of wrongdoing on their behalf.

Sometimes, witnesses won’t come forward for fear of being disciplined for violating department rules for immediately reporting misconduct.

Others argue that the department’s disciplinary system allows opportunistic officers to take advantage of complaints in order to settle grievances with colleagues, distract from their own problems or earn a big payday.

LAPD Cmdr. Lillian Carranza — who has sued the department for calling out questionably counted crime statistics and misogyny, and also been sued over her supervision of others — declined to discuss Bell’s case, but said that, in general, after 36 years on the job, “I do not see the department doing anything to protect employees who are whistleblowers or report misconduct.”

“What I have seen is that they are shunned to the side, they are [labeled] as problem employees, and pretty soon, they are persona non grata,” Carranza said.

While the department takes all public complaints, supervisors can be selective about what gets investigated, according to Carranza, who alleged the process is often colored by favoritism or fear of being targeted by the police union.

“At the end of the day, the LAPD cannot investigate itself — we cannot investigate ourselves because we have too many competing interests,” she said. “We need an outside agency to investigate us, especially with things that are serious misconduct and they are not caught on body-camera videos.”

Bell alleged that the retaliation against her has stretched on for months.

A 15-year department veteran, Bell has worked in patrol for most of her career, with brief stints in vice and internal affairs. When an opening came up at the training division, where Silva also works, she put in for it and was picked for the spot.

Her former captain at Olympic Division sent out a glowing email just as she was about the leave the station in early 2024, asking her colleagues to join him in congratulating their “beloved” sergeant. Suddenly, her lawsuit said, the offer was rescinded with little explanation.

She alleged in her lawsuit that a close friend of Labrada’s pulled strings to keep her out of the position.

The LAPD higher-up who blocked her transfer, Bell wrote in her claim to the LAPD inspector general, “consistently calls and checks on Labrada and offers his vacation house to him.”

CBS News will learn a lot about its future next week when Bari Weiss, founder of the upstart news site the Free Press, is expected to enter the hallowed halls where Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace once roamed.

Weiss, 41, is joining CBS News in a new role of editor in chief, according to people familiar with the discussions who were not authorized to comment publicly. The appointment could be announced as soon as Monday.

David Ellison, 42, chairman and chief executive of CBS-owner Paramount, approached Weiss months ago, part of his campaign to shake things up. She will report to Ellison and work alongside CBS News President Tom Cibrowski, who joined the network in February.

Under the deal, Paramount has agreed to buy Weiss’ four-year-old digital media business, which offers newsletters, reported pieces, podcasts, and what it calls “sense-making columns,” for around $150 million in cash and stock. For months, her anticipated arrival at CBS News, an aging pillar of the press establishment, has been a hot topic in the news business.

The rapid rise of Weiss — a former newspaper opinion page staff editor — to a major role in shaping the coverage of a TV news organization with no previous experience in the medium is an extraordinary move that is likely to be highly scrutinized.

Will she remold the news division — which has been beset by management turnover and sustained pressure from President Trump — in her image? There will also be questions as to whether the founder of a relatively lean digital operation such as the Free Press will have a leadership role at a legacy TV news organization with more than 1,000 employees.

A shake-up is clearly on the agenda of new Paramount owner Skydance Media. When the company went through regulatory approval to complete its $8-billion merger, Federal Communications Chairman Brendan Carr said he welcomes Skydance’’s “commitment to make significant changes to the once storied CBS broadcast network.”

In order to clear a path for the deal, Paramount paid $16 million to settle Trump’s $20-billion lawsuit — deemed by legal experts to be spurious — over an interview he claimed was edited to help then-Vice President Kamala Harris, his opponent in the 2024 election. He has left the network alone ever since.

Skydance and the Free Press did not comment on the expected appointment of Weiss. When asked in August about her joining the network, Ellison — son of Oracle co-founder and Trump ally Larry Ellison — focused on how he wants the news division to speak to what he views as the 70% of Americans who consider themselves center left or center right politically.

In a crowded sea of political and cultural pundits, Weiss found her own lane as a gay Jewish woman who attacked what she called the excesses of the political left, often saying it was intolerant of opposing viewpoints. She called herself “a diversity hire” at the New York Times’ reliably liberal opinion section and gained a following through her appearances on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher.”

When she quit the New York Times in 2020, she accused her former employer of failing to protect her from internal criticism by her colleagues. Her public resignation letter was shared on social media by Donald Trump Jr. and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who used it to advance their case of institutional liberal bias in the media.

Described as a confident and skilled communicator, Weiss used her notoriety to attract investors for the Free Press, a digital media business offering newsletters, reported stories, opinion pieces and podcasts. Launched in 2021, it now ranks as the No. 1 best-selling politics platform on Substack.

The Free Press has made itself heard in the national conversation. A treatise on the left-wing leanings of NPR, written by a longtime editor at the radio service, generated massive attention and likely helped set the stage for eliminating federal funding to public media.

Last year, the Free Press also broke the story over the internal CBS News controversy surrounding “CBS Mornings” co-host Tony Dokoupil‘s aggressive questioning of author Ta-Nehisi Coates, who compared Israel’s treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank to the Jim Crow era of segregation in the U.S.

Dokoupil said Coates’ book on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “would not be out of place in the backpack of an extremist.” After some staffers complained, Dokoupil was admonished by CBS News leadership on an editorial call that the Free Press posted online.

Weiss is extremely popular among corporate executives disdainful of high taxes and big government. Finance and private equity executives rave about Free Press missives against purportedly “woke” attitudes and DEI initiatives that they believe have made it more difficult to do business.

Weiss has become a celebrity as well, attending the wedding of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez in Italy. She was the star attraction at the annual gathering of media moguls in Sun Valley, Idaho.

Newsrooms are typically suspicious of outsiders and change has never come easy at CBS News, which has a culture steeped in its storied past.

“A place like CBS News is so rooted in its traditions and in what it believes in,” said Tom Bettag, a veteran network news producer who is a lecturer for the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland. “It’s got its own theology and an outsider has to win the confidence of the people inside.”

Even like-minded conservative commentators such as Megyn Kelly suggested that Weiss might face challenges in navigating such an entrenched institution.

“I’m worried they’re going to eat her alive, because CBS is among the worst when it comes to being insular,” Kelly said on her Sirius XM podcast last month. “Like you have to be raised by CBS to be respected by CBS people.”

A number of veterans inside CBS News who were not authorized to speak publicly said they have a wait-and-see attitude over the pending Weiss appointment, as they are uncertain on what her role will entail. They don’t believe Weiss will want to deal with day-to-day news coverage decisions such as how many correspondents and technical crews to send to cover a natural disaster.

David Ellison, Paramount Skydance chief executive officer

(Paramount/Skydance)

Having an opinion journalist in a leadership role may not sit well among a number of staffers. But with layoffs sweeping through the TV news business, an employee exodus predicted in some reports appears unlikely, according to one former CBS News executive.

One possible source of tension may be in international coverage, primarily the war in Gaza, which has been the subject of internal debate in many newsrooms.

Weiss, who once belonged to the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh that was the site of a shooting massacre in 2018, is a staunch Israel supporter. She’s joining a company that, led by its new management, was the only studio to push back against a campaign gathering steam among Hollywood progressives to boycott Israeli film festivals and organizations.

But ideological newsroom flare-ups that spill into public view are rare. Managing a network TV news division largely consists of keeping an eye on costs, ratings and maintaining a pipeline of stories for dozens of hours of scheduled programming each week.

Despite its well-documented troubles, CBS still has two of the most successful news programs on television in “60 Minutes” and “CBS Sunday Morning.”

Even after the gauntlet “60 Minutes” went through earlier this year, viewers showed up when it returned for its 58th season Sunday with a season premiere that drew 10 million viewers, making it the most-watched non-sports show of the week, according to Nielsen data.

Bettag noted that even though former Paramount majority shareholder Shari Redstone was updated on “60 Minutes” stories amid the legal battle earlier this year, he believes the program retained its editorial rigor and independence.

“If anything, it stiffened spines,” Bettag said.

“CBS Sunday Morning” remains the most watched weekend morning program and increased its share of the TV audience last season, averaging close to 5 million viewers weekly.

While those two programs still attract large, loyal audiences, CBS News is faced with declining ratings and revenue, as viewers continue to move away from traditional TV to digital video offerings. CBS News has long operated a 24-hour streaming channel, but it doesn’t attract the same audience levels or ad rates as the network.

The CBS Broadcast Center in New York City on April 20, 2023.

(Ted Shaffrey / Associated Press)

CBS News also has to regain the trust of the audience that has listened to right-wing pundits pound away at the credibility of mainstream press.

It’s hardly a new development as conservative North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms tried to lead a takeover CBS in the mid-1980s so he could “become Dan Rather’s boss.” But social media have amplified those bias allegations, driving MAGA-supporting viewers to Fox News and other conservative-leaning outlets.

Bettag believes CBS News has to do a better job of getting the public to understand the editorial process and how it strives for accuracy and fairness to counter the right-wing narrative of media bias.

“If Bari Weiss can come in and explain what they’re doing and why they’re doing it then I think she can be successful,” he said.

Veteran TV news executives warn that any overt attempt to woo disaffected conservatives risks alienating the millions of viewers who are still watching CBS News programs. CNN’s attempt to try to cater to right-leaning consumers — at the behest of parent company Warner Bros. Discovery — led to a decline in audience that has not bounced back.

One idea circulating at Paramount is having the Free Press remain as an independent entity within the company, providing contributors and commentators to its special coverage, the Sunday round table program “Face the Nation” and streaming channel.

While the Free Press has been embraced by conservatives, Weiss has been fluid in her political leanings, at least in the voting booth. Her recent votes for president were Mitt Romney in 2012, Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020.

In a video posted last fall, Weiss said the Free Press staff was split three ways between Trump, Harris and undecided in their 2024 vote. She called it a reflection of the nation.

Weiss is pro abortion rights and favors pro-gun control and LGBTQ rights (Weiss is married to Nellie Bowles, a former New York Times journalist who also works at the Free Press).

She has said she was among the many who cried at their desks when Trump was first elected in 2016. But she told Fox News in early 2024 that her view of the president had moderated since, as she approved of his handling of Israel and the economy during his first term.

“I’m the first to admit that I was a sufferer of what conservatives at the time would have called TDS, Trump Derangement Syndrome,” Weiss said.

But the Free Press does not give Trump a free pass as other right-wing outlets have. One of the current lead stories on the site is a highly critical take on Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s speech on warrior ethos given to military leadership on Tuesday.

Staff writer Meg James contributed to this report.

NEW YORK — President Trump is openly embracing the conservative blueprint he desperately tried to distance himself from during the 2024 campaign, as one of its architects works to use the government shutdown to accelerate his goals of slashing the size of the federal workforce and punishing Democratic states.

In a post on his Truth Social site Thursday morning, Trump announced he would be meeting with his budget chief, “Russ Vought, he of PROJECT 2025 Fame, to determine which of the many Democrat Agencies, most of which are a political SCAM, he recommends to be cut, and whether or not those cuts will be temporary or permanent.”

The comments represented a dramatic about-face for Trump, who spent much of last year denouncing Project 2025, The Heritage Foundation’s massive proposed overhaul of the federal government, which was drafted by many of his longtime allies and current and former administration officials.

Both of Trump’s Democratic rivals, Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, made the far-right wish list a centerpiece of their campaigns, and a giant replica of the book featured prominently onstage at the Democratic National Convention.

“Donald Trump and his stooges lied through their teeth about Project 2025, and now he’s running the country straight into it,” said Ammar Moussa, a former spokesperson for both campaigns. “There’s no comfort in being right — just anger that we’re stuck with the consequences of his lies.”

Shalanda Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden, said the administration had clearly been following the project’s blueprint all along.

“I guess Democrats were right, but that doesn’t make me feel better,” she said. “I’m angry that this is happening after being told that this document was not going to be the centerpiece of this administration.”

Asked about Trump’s reversal, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said, “Democrats are desperate to talk about anything aside from their decision to hurt the American people by shutting down the government.”

Project what?

Top Trump campaign leaders spent much of 2024 livid at The Heritage Foundation for publishing a book full of unpopular proposals that Democrats tried to pin on the campaign to warn a second Trump term would be too extreme.

While many of the policies outlined in its 900-plus pages aligned closely with the agenda that Trump was proposing — particularly on curbing immigration and dismantling certain federal agencies — others called for action Trump had never discussed, like banning pornography, or Trump’s team was actively trying to avoid, like withdrawing approval for abortion medication.

Trump repeatedly insisted he knew nothing about the group or who was behind it, despite his close ties with many of its authors. They included John McEntee, his former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, and Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.

“I know nothing about Project 2025,” Trump insisted in July 2024. “I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal. Anything they do, I wish them luck, but I have nothing to do with them.”

Trump’s campaign chiefs were equally critical.

“President Trump’s campaign has been very clear for over a year that Project 2025 had nothing to do with the campaign, did not speak for the campaign, and should not be associated with the campaign or the President in any way,” wrote Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita in a campaign memo. They added, “Reports of Project 2025’s demise would be greatly welcomed and should serve as notice to anyone or any group trying to misrepresent their influence with President Trump and his campaign — it will not end well for you.”

Trump has since gone on to stock his second administration with its authors, including Vought, “border czar” Tom Homan, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, immigration hard-liner Stephen Miller and Brendan Carr, who wrote Project 2025’s chapter on the Federal Communications Commission and now chairs the panel.

Heritage did not respond to a request for comment Thursday. But Dans, the project’s former director, said it’s been “exciting” to see so much of what was laid out in the book put into action.

“It’s gratifying. We’re very proud of the work that was done for this express purpose: to have a doer like President Trump ready to roll on Day One,” said Dans, who is currently running for Senate against Lindsey Graham in South Carolina.

Trump administration uses the shutdown to further its goals

Since his swearing in, Trump has been pursuing plans laid out in Project 2025 to dramatically expand presidential power and reduce the size of the federal workforce. They include efforts like the Department of Government Efficiency and budget rescission packages, which have led to billions of dollars being stalled, scrapped or withheld by the administration so far this year.

They are now using the shutdown to accelerate their progress.

Ahead of the funding deadline, OMB directed agencies to prepare for additional mass firings of federal workers, rather than simply furloughing those who are not deemed essential, as has been the usual practice during past shutdowns. Vought told House GOP lawmakers in a private conference call Wednesday that layoffs would begin in the next day or two.

They have also used the shutdown to target projects championed by Democrats, including canceling $8 billion in green energy projects in states with Democratic senators and withholding $18 billion for transportation projects in New York City that have been championed by Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer and House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries in their home state.

Dreaming of this moment

The moves are part of a broader effort to concentrate federal authority in the presidency, which permeated Project 2025.

In his chapter in the blueprint, Vought made clear he wanted the president and OMB to wield more direct power.

“The Director must view his job as the best, most comprehensive approximation of the President’s mind,” he wrote. Vought described OMB as “a President’s air-traffic control system,” which should be “involved in all aspects of the White House policy process,” becoming “powerful enough to override implementing agencies’ bureaucracies.”

Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Fox News Channel that Vought “has a plan, and that plan is going to succeed in further empowering Trump. This is going to be the Democrats’ worst nightmare.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson echoed that message, insisting the government shutdown gives Trump and his budget director vast power over the federal government and the unilateral power to determine which personnel and policies are essential and which are not.

Schumer has handed “the keys of the kingdom to the president,” Johnson said Thursday. “Because they have decided to vote to shut the government down, they have now effectively turned off the legislative branch … and they’ve turned it over to the executive.”

Young said the Constitution gives the White House no such power and chastised Republicans in Congress for abandoning their duty to serve as a check on the president.

“I don’t want to hear a lecture about handing the keys over,” she said. “The keys are gone. They’re lost. They’re down a drain. This shutdown is not what lost the keys.”

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.