layoffs

The cuts in Hollywood just keep coming, following a sadly familiar script.

Last week it was Paramount, which laid off about 1,000 workers in the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media took over the storied media and entertainment company.

The cuts affected a wide swath of the company, from CBS and CBS News to Comedy Central, MTV and the historic Melrose Avenue film studio, my colleague Meg James and I reported. Another 1,000 layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.

But Paramount isn’t the only one in the media business that’s shedding jobs and payrolls.

Earlier, cable giant Charter Communications said it would lay off 1,200 people nationwide, as the company faces increased competition for its broadband internet packages. NBC News, too, laid off 150 employees last month amid declining TV ratings and lessening ad revenue.

Other recent media-adjacent layoffs included 100 cuts to Disneyland Resort’s Anaheim-based workforce and the massive 14,000 worker reduction at Amazon, including at the company’s gaming and film and TV studios.

And that doesn’t even include widespread job losses that happened earlier this year at companies such as Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.

It all adds up to a grim picture for Hollywood’s workers, who have faced a near endless marathon of economic hurdles for the last five years.

First it was the pandemic, followed by the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, cutbacks in spending after studios splurged on streaming productions, and the outflow of production to the U.K. and other countries with lower costs than California.

Then, in January, nature struck a blow, with the fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades destroying many industry workers’ homes.

Topping it off, Saturday marked the first day that millions of low-income Americans lost federal food assistance due to the government shutdown that began Oct. 1. That has affected some 5.5 million Californians and probably some who work in the entertainment industry.

“It’s been one crisis after another, without enough time in between,” said Keith McNutt, western regional executive director of the Entertainment Community Fund, which provides social services for arts and entertainment professionals. “People are concerned and very worried and really trying very hard to figure out where they go from here.”

McNutt reports that the nonprofit group has already heard from some people who were recently laid off, and has experienced a sharp increase in demand for its services, particularly from those in the film and TV industry. The fund offers healthcare and financial counseling and operates a career center. It also provides emergency grants for those who qualify.

Clients include not only low-income people who are always hit hardest in downturns, but also veteran entertainment industry professionals who’ve worked in the business for 20 to 30 years.

Those who were lucky enough to have savings saw those wiped out by the pandemic, and then were unable to replenish their rainy-day funds after the strikes and industry contraction, said David Rambo, chair of the fund’s western council.

“It has been snowballing very slowly for about five years,” Rambo said.

Many in the industry are hopeful that California’s newly expanded film and television tax credit program will bring some production — and jobs — back to the Golden State. That’s what backers campaigned on when they lobbied Sacramento legislators to bolster the program. Dozens of TV shows and films have received credits so far under the revamped program, but it’ll take some time to see the results in filming data and employment numbers.

And that doesn’t help the workers who were just laid off last month. For those folks, McNutt suggests calling the fund’s health insurance team to make sure they understand their options and also to spend some time with career counselors to understand how Hollywood skills can be transferable to other employers, whether that’s on a short- or long-term basis. Most importantly, don’t isolate yourself.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Nobody’s alone in this situation that the industry is finding itself in right now, and so reach out to your friends, reach out to your colleagues. If you’re not comfortable with that, reach out to the Entertainment Community Fund.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ wild 11-inning win on Saturday over the Toronto Blue Jays notched nearly 26 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game since 2017, according to Nielsen data.

The 2017 Game 7 win by the Houston Astros over the Dodgers had an audience of 28.3 million.

The Dodgers are now the first Major League Baseball team to win back-to-back championships in 25 years. On Monday, thousands of Dodgers faithful turned out for the team’s victory parade through downtown L.A.

Finally …

You’ve no doubt heard of L.A.’s famous star tours. But what about a tour of a historic cemetery?

My colleague, Cerys Davies, wrote about local historian and guide Shmuel Gonzales — or as he calls himself, “Barrio Boychik” — and his walking tour of Boyle Heights’ Evergreen Cemetery.

The cemetery is the final resting place for many of L.A.’s early movers and shakers, including the Lankershims and the Hollenbecks, and it’s also a prime example of L.A.’s multicultural history.

“CBS Saturday Morning” co-hosts Michelle Miller and Dana Jacobson are among the nearly 100 news division employees cut as part of a massive round of layoffs at parent company Paramount.

The program is getting a new format that will align it closer to the weekday show “CBS Mornings,” according to people familiar with the plans who were not authorized to comment publicly. Brian Applegate, the executive producer of the Saturday program, is out as well.

CBS has also canceled “CBS Mornings Plus,” an extension of its morning program that ran in several markets including Los Angeles. “CBS Evening News Plus,” a streaming program anchored by John Dickerson is also being shuttered. Dickerson announced Monday he is leaving the network.

Several correspondents have already been laid off, including Debora Patta, who covered the Gaza war for the network; Janet Shamlian; and Nikki Battiste. A CBS News representative declined comment.

The cuts are part of parent company Paramount’s reduction of 1,000 employees across all of its divisions. New owners Skydance Media are looking to reduce cots by $2 billion across the company, with a second round of cuts expected later this year.

Miller was a prolific correspondent for CBS News in addition to her Saturday co-host duties, contributing pieces to “CBS Sunday Morning” and “48 Hours.” She also was a frequent fill-in for Gayle King on the weekday morning program.

Miller, 52, is a Los Angeles native and the daughter of Dr. Ross Miller, a trauma surgeon who served on the city council in Compton. She worked at the Los Angeles Times in the early 1990s.

Miller covered a wide range of stories at CBS News, and paid special attention to issues or racism and social injustice. She is married to Marc Morial, the former mayor of New Orleans who is currently head of the National Urban League.

Jacobson, 52 has been with CBS News since 2015. She previously spent a decade at ESPN, where she appeared on “First Take” and “SportsCenter.”

Miller and Jacobson have served as co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning” since 2018 when it was called “CBS This Morning Saturday.”

WASHINGTON — A new round of layoffs at the Education Department is depleting an agency that was hit hard in the Trump administration’s previous mass firings, threatening new disruption to the nation’s students and schools in areas including special education, civil rights enforcement and after-school programs.

The Trump administration started laying off 466 Education Department staffers on Friday amid mass firings across the government meant to pressure Democratic lawmakers over the federal shutdown. The layoffs would cut the agency’s workforce by nearly a fifth and leave it reduced by more than half its size when President Trump took office Jan. 20.

The cuts play into Trump’s broader plan to shut down the Education Department and parcel its operations to other agencies. Over the summer, the department started handing off its adult education and workforce programs to the Department of Labor, and it previously said it was negotiating an agreement to pass its $1.6-trillion student loan portfolio to the Treasury Department.

Department officials have not released details on the layoffs and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. AFGE Local 252, a union that represents more than 2,700 department workers, said information from employees indicates cuts will decimate several offices within the agency.

All workers except a small number of top officials are being fired at the office that implements the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that ensures millions of students with disabilities get support from their schools, the union said. Unknown numbers are being fired at the Office for Civil Rights, which investigates complaints of discrimination at the nation’s schools and universities.

The layoffs would eliminate or heavily deplete teams that oversee the flow of grant funding to schools across the nation, the union said. They affect the office that oversees Title I funding for the country’s low-income schools, along with the team that manages 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the primary federal funding source for after-school and summer learning programs.

It will also hit an office that oversees TRIO, a set of programs that help low-income students pursue college, and another that oversees federal funding for historically Black colleges and universities.

In a statement, union President Rachel Gittleman said the new reductions, on top of previous layoffs, will “double down on the harm to K-12 students, students with disabilities, first generation college students, low-income students, teachers and local education boards.”

The Education Department had about 4,100 employees when Trump took office. After the new layoffs, it would be down to fewer than 2,000. Earlier layoffs in March had roughly halved the department, but some employees were hired back after officials decided they had cut too deep.

The new layoffs drew condemnation from various education organizations.

Although states design their own competitions to distribute federal funding for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, the small team of federal officials provided guidance and support “that is absolutely essential,” said Jodi Grant, executive director of the Afterschool Alliance.

“Firing that team is shocking, devastating, utterly without any basis, and it threatens to cause lasting harm,” Grant said in a statement.

The government’s latest layoffs are being challenged in court by the American Federation of Government Employees and other national labor unions. Their suit, filed in San Francisco, said the government’s budgeting and personnel offices overstepped their authority by ordering agencies to carry out layoffs in response to the shutdown.

In a court filing, the Trump administration said the executive branch has wide discretion to reduce the federal workforce. It said the unions could not prove they were harmed by the layoffs because employees would not actually be separated for an additional 30 to 60 days after receiving notice.

Binkley writes for the Associated Press.

Oct. 10 (UPI) — Federal employee layoffs have begun as the government shutdown continues at least into next week after Senate members left Washington on Friday.

Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought announced the layoffs in a social media post that simply says, “the RIFs have begun.”

“RIFs” is an acronym for “reductions in force,” but Vought did not say how many federal workers or agencies are affected, The Hill reported.

An OMB spokesperson confirmed Vought’s statement is correct.

A Trump administration official told Politico the layoffs affect the Commerce, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior and Treasury departments.

President Donald Trump on Thursday told his Cabinet the layoffs would affect what he called “Democrat programs that aren’t popular with Republicans,” Politico reported.

The OMB earlier notified federal agencies to prepare for a potential reduction in force if the shutdown were extended beyond a few days.

The agencies were to lay off non-essential workers and those who oppose the president’s policies, the OMB memo said.

Monday is a bank holiday — the observance of Columbus Day — in the United States, and the Senate had no votes on a continuing resolution to fund the government on Friday.

The Senate is scheduled to resume session on Tuesday, while the House is scheduled to return on Oct. 20.

Friday marked 10 days since the government shut down after the Senate failed to pass a continuing resolution to fund the government.

Thursday night marked the seventh attempt to pass a stopgap funding bill, but the upper chamber was 6 votes short of the 60 needed for a supermajority for the Republican bill and 13 votes short of the Democrats’ bill.

At issue are subsidies for Affordable Care Act tax credits set to expire in the new year and expansion of Medicare, while adding an estimated $1.5 trillion in costs over the next 10 years.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said his party wouldn’t support the stopgap legislation unless Republicans back extending the ACA tax credits and Medicare expansion.

President Donald Trump again threatened to cut federal programs if Democrats don’t support the Republican bill.

House and Senate Republicans say Senate Democrats want to provide healthcare funding for migrants who are not legal residents, which Senate Democrats have denied.

Some of the 750,000 federal workers furloughed as a result of the shutdown will begin missing their first paychecks Friday.

About 1.3 million members of the military are next set to receive pay on Wednesday, but they might have to wait until the federal government is funded to receive retroactive pay.

US President Donald Trump blames Democrats for looming federal layoffs as shutdown enters fifth day.

The White House has warned that mass layoffs of federal workers could begin if US President Donald Trump concludes that negotiations with congressional Democrats to end a partial government shutdown have reached a dead end.

As the shutdown entered its fifth day on Sunday, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNN’s programme State of the Union that he believed there was still a chance Democrats would yield and avoid what could become a costly political and economic crisis.

“President Trump and Russ Vought are lining things up and getting ready to act if they have to, but hoping that they don’t,” Hassett said, referring to the White House budget director. “If the president decides that the negotiations are absolutely going nowhere, then there will start to be layoffs.”

Trump, speaking to reporters on Sunday, described the potential job cuts as “Democrat layoffs”, saying, “Anybody laid off, that’s because of the Democrats.”

Talks remain frozen

There have been no meaningful negotiations since Trump last met congressional leaders, with the impasse beginning on October 1 — the start of the federal fiscal year — after Senate Democrats rejected a short-term funding bill to keep government agencies open through November 21.

“They’ve refused to talk with us,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer told the CBS programme Face the Nation, insisting that only renewed talks between Trump and congressional leaders could end the standoff.

Democrats are demanding a permanent extension of enhanced premium tax credits under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and assurances that the White House will not unilaterally cut spending agreed to in any deal.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he was open to addressing the Democrats’ concerns, but urged them to first back reopening the government. “It’s open up the government or else,” Thune told Fox News. “That’s really the choice that’s in front of them right now.”

Trump said Republicans were also willing to discuss healthcare reform. “We want to fix it so it works. Obamacare has been a disaster for the people, so we want to have it fixed so it works,” Trump said.

No deal in sight

Rank-and-file senators from both parties have held informal talks on healthcare and spending to break the deadlock, but progress has been minimal. “At this point, no,” Democratic Senator Ruben Gallego told CNN when asked if lawmakers were closer to a deal.

The Senate is set to vote again on Monday on competing funding bills — one backed by the Republican-controlled House and one proposed by Democrats — though neither is expected to win the 60 votes required to advance.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly 750,000 federal employees face being furloughed as long as the shutdown continues, with total lost compensation estimated at $400m per day. While federal workers are guaranteed back pay under the 2019 Government Employee Fair Treatment Act, payments will only resume once the shutdown ends.

WASHINGTON — Hopes for a quick end to the government shutdown faded Friday as Republicans and Democrats dug in for a prolonged fight and President Trump readied plans to unleash layoffs and cuts across the federal government.

Senators were headed back to the Capitol for another vote on government funding on the third day of the shutdown, but there has been no sign of any real progress toward ending their standoff. Democrats are demanding that Congress extend healthcare benefits, while Republicans are trying to wear them down with day after day of voting on a House-passed bill that would reopen the government temporarily, mostly at current spending levels.

“I don’t know how many times you’re going to give them a chance to vote no,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune said at a news conference Friday. He added that he would give Democratic senators the weekend to think it over.

Although Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress, the Senate’s filibuster rules make it necessary for the government funding legislation to gain support from at least 60 of the 100 senators. That’s given Democrats a rare opportunity to use their 47 Senate seats to hold out in exchange for policy concessions. The party has chosen to rally on the issue of healthcare, believing it could be key to their path back to power in Washington.

Their primary demand is that Congress extend tax credits that were boosted during the COVID-19 pandemic for healthcare plans offered under the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Standing on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries said, “Understand this, over the last few days and over the next few days, what you’re going to see is more than 20 million Americans experience dramatically increased healthcare premiums, co-pays and deductibles because of the Republican unwillingness to extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits.”

The shutdown gamble

Democrats are running the high-risk strategy of effectively voting for a government shutdown to make their stand. Trump has vowed to make it as painful as possible for them.

The Republican president has called the government funding lapse an “unprecedented opportunity” to make vast cuts to federal agencies and potentially lay off federal workers, rather than the typical practice of furloughing them. White House budget director Russ Vought has already announced that he is withholding billions of dollars for infrastructure projects in states with Democratic senators.

On Friday morning, Vought said he would withhold $2.1 billion for Chicago infrastructure projects to extend its train system to the city’s South Side.

Jeffries has displayed no signs of budging under those threats.

“The cruelty that they might unleash on everyday Americans using the pretense of a shutdown is only going to backfire against them,” he said during an interview with the Associated Press and other outlets at the Capitol.

Still, the shutdown, no matter how long it lasts, could have far-reaching effects on the economy. Roughly 750,000 federal employees could be furloughed, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, and they could lose out on $400 million in daily wages. That loss in wages until after the government reopens could drive down wider demand for goods and services.

“All around the country right now, real pain is being endured by real people because the Democrats have decided to play politics,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson on Friday.

Who will take the blame?

The American public usually spreads the blame around to both major political parties when it comes to a government shutdown. While Trump took a significant portion of the blame during the last partial government shutdown in 2018 as he demanded funding for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, this standoff could end differently because now it is Democrats making the policy demands.

Still, lawmakers were relentlessly trying to make their case to the American public with a constant beat of news conferences, social media videos and livestreams. Congressional leaders have been especially active.

Both sides expressed confidence that the other would ultimately be found at fault. And in the House, party leaders seemed to be moving further apart rather than closer to making a deal to end the shutdown.

Jeffries on Thursday called for a permanent extension to the ACA tax credits. Meanwhile, Johnson and Thune told reporters that they would not negotiate on the tax credits until the government is reopened.

Talks in the Senate

A few senators have engaged in bipartisan talks about launching negotiations on extending the ACA tax credits for one year while the Senate votes to reopen the government for several weeks. But those discussions are in their early stages and appear to have little involvement from leadership.

As senators prepared for their last scheduled vote for the week on Friday, they appeared resigned to allow the shutdown to continue at least into next week. Thune said that if the vote failed, he would “give them the weekend to think about it” before holding more votes.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), in a floor speech, called for Republicans to work with her and fellow Democrats to find “common ground” on the ACA subsidies, saying their expiration would affect plenty of people in states with GOP senators — especially in rural areas where farmers, ranchers and small business owners purchase their own health insurance.

“Unfortunately, right now our Republican colleagues are not working with us to find a bipartisan agreement to prevent the government shutdown and address the healthcare crisis,” she said. “We know that even when they float ideas — which we surely do appreciate — in the end the president appears to make the call.”

Groves and Brown write for the Associated Press. Associated Press writers Lisa Mascaro, Kevin Freking and Joey Cappelletti contributed to this report.

The shutdown comes as Republicans failed to reach deal with Democrats concerned by steep hikes in health insurance costs.

The Trump administration has moved to lay off more than 500 employees who work for the federally funded network Voice of America, which provides global reporting in places with restricted press freedom.

In March, Trump officials first attempted to close down some of the organization’s newsrooms. But Judge Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia called for the network’s restoration last April, citing a law that requires the Voice of America broadcast to be continued.

Despite the ruling, Kari Lake, the acting chief executive of Voice of America’s oversight agency, posted on social media on Friday evening that 532 government positions were eliminated.

Before the downsizing, Voice of America was responsible for broadcasting news in 49 languages to 360 million people every week, including in Russia and China. Now, the network only airs programming in four languages: Persian, Mandarin, Dari and Pashto.

The layoffs “will likely improve [the agency’s] ability to function and provide the truth to people across the world who live under murderous Communist governments and other tyrannical regimes,” wrote Lake on X.

Most of the 1,300 Voice of America journalists had already been fired or remained on paid leave prior to these layoffs. Only 100 journalists and other staff members remain employed by the organization.

After being asked by the remaining employees to ensure the administration was in line with his April ruling, Lamberth found that they appeared to be noncompliant.

Earlier this week, he ordered Lake to provide sworn testimony at a deposition and threatened to hold her in contempt for going against court orders. He also blocked the administration from firing Voice of America’s Director Michael Abramowitz, the day before these layoffs were announced.

Nearly 300 Los Angeles city employees were saved from being laid off after two major unions signed off on cost-cutting measures.

The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents more than 8,700 rank-and-file officers, agreed to create a voluntary program in which its members can take days off in exchange for some of the overtime hours they previously worked.

The layoffs would have affected 222 civilian LAPD employees, such as clerks and administrative support workers. No sworn LAPD officers were slated to be laid off, but some would have had to do the work of the civilians who departed.

“We are continuing to do everything we can to bring layoff numbers down and I want everyone to know that we are still working and anticipate this number to get even lower,” Mayor Karen Bass said in a statement. “These numbers are not final.”

Meanwhile, the Engineers and Architects Assn. authorized a deal for its 6,000 members to take as many as five unpaid vacation days — in effect furloughs — between Jan. 1 and June 30, which could amount to about a 2% pay cut.

The deal saved the jobs of 63 members who do not work for the Los Angeles Police Department, in roles such as city planner, analyst and civilian investigator.

Some of the LAPD civilian employees who had been in danger of being laid off are represented by the Engineers and Architects Assn., and others are represented by other unions. The Police Protective League represents only sworn officers.

City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo, who oversees labor negotiations at City Hall, said the money freed up by the agreements whittled the number of remaining layoffs to 75. He sent a memorandum to the city’s personnel department on Wednesday to “immediately hold in abeyance the layoff process” for employees represented by the Engineers and Architects Assn., as well as all LAPD employees.

In her proposed budget released in April, Bass called for about 1,600 layoffs as part of a strategy to eradicate a $1-billion shortfall. Weeks later, the City Council made a series of other cost-cutting moves, reducing the number of layoffs by half.

To close the budget shortfall, the council also decided to slow down police hiring — though the mayor and council president later announced that they are looking for money to avoid that outcome.

Since the budget was finalized, hundreds of workers have either left city employment or transferred to positions that are safe from the budget ax, leaving 360 positions targeted for layoff before this week’s agreements, according to a memorandum by Szabo on Aug. 15.

The Police Protective League’s Board of Directors called its agreement with the city a “win-win for all parties.”

“Officer safety is always top of mind for our union and the thought that any additional officers would be pulled away from enforcement duties and moved to non-enforcement duties compelled our union to act,” the board said in a statement. “We worked with the city to create a program that will save money to preserve civilian LAPD jobs while also providing a benefit to our members.”

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who chairs the city’s budget committee, said that
“even in a tough budget year, we’ve ensured there will not be a single LAPD civilian layoff.”

“That was always our goal, but it was never guaranteed,” she said. “It was only possible because the Engineers and Architects Assn., the Police Department and City leadership worked in partnership to keep officers on the street and protect public safety.”

Roy Samaan, president of the Engineers and Architects Assn., said his union’s members authorized the agreement with the city in an online vote Sunday.

“We don’t want anyone to lose their jobs,” he said.

Aug. 18 (UPI) — An Australian court on Monday fined national flag carrier Qantas nearly $60 million for illegally firing more than 1,800 ground workers and then outsourcing their jobs during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Australia’s Transport Workers Union said in a statement that it was the largest employer penalty in Australian corporate history.

“Against all odds, TWU members have sent a $90 million warning to corporate Australia: you can’t break the law and get away with it,” the union said, referring to the amount Qantas was fined in Australian dollars.

Federal Court Justice Michael Lee said a little more than half of the penalty should be paid to the TWU, while the recipients of the remaining sum will be decided at a later hearing, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported.

Lee said that while Qantas has expressed “genuine regrets” about the situation, he believes that “this more likely reflects the damage this case has done at the company rather than unique remorse for the damage done to the affected workers.”

He said that the airline “resisted until it could resist no more.”

Qantas said the Monday judgement holds the company “accountable for our actions.”

“We sincerely apologize to each and every one of the 1,820 ground handling employees and to their families who suffered as a result,” Qantas Group Chief Executive Officer Vanessa Hudson said in a statement.

“The decision to outsource five years ago, particularly during such an uncertain time, caused genuine hardship for many of our former team and their families. The impact was felt not only by those who lost their jobs, but our entire workforce.”

The ruling brings an end to a five-year fight by the TWU over Qantas’s firing of some 1,800 workers and then outsourcing their jobs in 2020.

Qantas appealed through the Australian court system, with the High Court affirming that the airline had acted illegally by outsourcing the employment.

The Monday fine is on top of the roughly $78 million that Qantas agreed to pay eligible workers in December, after its failed bid arguing that it should not have to offer workers compensation.

“Qantas was not sorry to workers when it illegally outsourced these workers, many finding out they’d lost their jobs over loudspeaker in the lunch room. It was not sorry when it dragged them all the way to the High Court, or when it argued it should have to pay them no compensation at all,” TWU National Secretary Michael Kaine said in a statement.

“Qantas is only sorrow now that it has to pay the larges penalty fine of any employer in Australian corporate history.”

The announcement comes about 14 months after Qantas reached a settlement with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to pay a multi-million-dollar fine for booking flights that had previously been canceled.

I stepped on my bathroom scale the other morning and could not believe the three digits staring up at me.

And I mean that literally — the scale was rigged.

I know this because I’ve been dieting my butt off, and I swear I’ve dropped 20 pounds. So the first thing I did was ask my wife whether she messed with the scale as some kind of prank.

She said no, adding, “Maybe you’re retaining liquids.”

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

I threw the scale out immediately. Then I went back into the bathroom, took one look in the mirror, and got another shock.

That couldn’t be me in the reflection. No way.

I’ve got more hair than that. Everybody knows it, and people comment on it. I go onto social media and people are asking one another, almost every day: “How does he maintain such a full mane and youthful glow?”

I called my barber and fired him.

It’s not the barber, my wife said. You should take another look in the mirror.

Our columnist was dismayed when he discovered the Bible ranks higher in book sales than his own works. “That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes,” he writes.

(Marta Lavandier / Associated Press)

She’s been somewhat out of sorts lately, ever since I went on Nextdoor to wish all my neighbors a happy Independence Day, including “all you scum I wouldn’t speak to IF YOU WERE THE LAST ONES at the picnic.”

Half the time, my wife doesn’t even live with me, and I don’t know where she is. It’s odd, because the marriage is perfect. People ask us what the secret is, and I say it’s hospitality. We open our hearts and our home to others, and we were planning on building a backyard ballroom until our financial advisor told us we were already running up massive debt.

I sued him for negligence and financial fraud.

My wife brought home a couple of refugees sponsored by her church, and I went along with it, even though I think it’s wrong to blame coyotes every time a neighborhood pet disappears. We were having a cup of coffee and a few pastries, and one of them took a second almond croissant. And then, even before he finished it, he reached out and grabbed a bear claw.

There I am, watching it disappear, and between bites, this freeloader starts telling us our country has to offer more help to his country.

I couldn’t take it anymore.

“I wanted the bear claw!” I said. “You didn’t even say thanks for the croissant, and now you want a third pastry? Get out of my house!”

To calm myself, I slipped into the living room to relax with a book. I picked one that was on a shelf next to three books I’ve written, which made me curious about how sales have been going lately.

So I went to Amazon to check the rankings.

The first book I checked was ranked 3,907,369. I swear on the Bible, which, by the way, was ranked 206 on the bestsellers list.

Really?

Matthew, Mark, Luke and John have been in the ground for what, a couple of thousand years? Nobody can tell you whether any of them knew a Magi from a Musketeer, not to mention that the Roman Empire they worked under was a failed administration. And their book is selling better than mine by a mile?

That should be on the list of fake miracles, right up there with the loaves and fishes.

A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”

(A dispute with a neighbor over a property line ? “The boundaries are rigged.”)

My book is a great book. It’s already listed up there with the all-time classics, and it got starred reviews everywhere. At Barnes & Noble, they keep it in the Beautiful Books section. When I was on a book tour, I had the biggest crowds ever. Way bigger than Hemingway. People are still talking about it.

So to cut to the chase, I gave my sales rank a Triple F rating.

Fake.

False.

Fony.

And I fired my book agent.

I checked out some of the books ranked higher than mine — other than the “holy” Bible — and it didn’t take long to figure out what’s going on.

First of all, a lot of the people allegedly “buying” books don’t exist. Somewhere between 30% and 40% of the people who go onto the review section and claim they love Stephen King books are actually dead.

And then you have a lot of people coming into this country illegally, ghastly people, and they are voting in elections and they are voting on books, too, because they’re being put up to it, and being well-compensated, I might add.

Little-known fact:

The vote-counting machines and the book-counting machines are made by the same company.

You know what they should call that company?

RIGGED!

Not to be obsessive, but I’ve heard it said that Stephen King doesn’t care for me much, and that’s fine. Water off a duck’s back. My dog has more talent than that guy. All he does is write stories about killers and horrible, sick people.

He should write a book about my neighbor, if he likes deranged people so much. Most neighbors love me; they’re kissing my you-know-what. But then there’s this guy, whom I’m having investigated. I went out to the curb to throw the bathroom scale away, and what do I see? That jackalope is putting his trash can on my property. I’m the one who’s encroaching, he tells me, and I should go to the county offices and check the property records.

Well, it just so happens that I already checked the records, and they’re inaccurate. It figures, because that last county administration was the worst in history. A bunch of corrupt, evil people. Who should have been impeached. They hired incompetents as surveyors, so don’t stand on the street and tell me where I can and can’t put my trash can, because the boundaries are rigged and I’m having them rewritten.

My lawyers are on it, and we will win this case on Day One, guaranteed, with time left over for a round of golf.

Note to self:

On the way home, pick up a bathroom scale.

[email protected]

Novo Nordisk’s outgoing CEO, Lars Fruergaard Jorgensen, has warned that layoffs at the Danish pharmaceutical giant could be unavoidable as competition heats up against its blockbuster obesity drug Wegovy amid rising pressure from rival Eli Lilly.

Novo Nordisk – which became Europe’s most valuable company, worth $650bn, last year on booming sales of Wegovy – is facing a pivotal moment as the medicine loses market share and sees sales growth slow, especially in the United States.

It has warned of far slower growth this year, in part due to compounders who have been allowed to make copycat drugs based on the same ingredients as Wegovy due to shortages. Novo Nordisk, which according to its website has 77,000 employees, cut its full-year sales and profit forecasts last week, wiping $95bn off its market value since.

The slide is a vast and abrupt turnaround for the firm that has been one of the world’s hottest investment stories, which led to a rapid expansion of manufacturing and sales capacity. Now the company is eyeing potential cost-cutting measures.

Layoffs loom

“We probably won’t be able to avoid layoffs,” Jorgensen told Danish broadcaster DR. “When you have to adjust a company, there are some areas where you have to have fewer people, some [areas] where you have to be smaller.”

He added, though, that any decision on layoffs would be in the hands of the incoming CEO, company veteran Maziar Mike Doustdar, who takes over on Thursday.

On a media call, Jorgensen said the market for copycat versions of Wegovy’s class of drugs – known as GLP-1 receptor agonists – was of “equal size to our business” and compounded versions of Wegovy were sold at a “much lower price point”.

In May, Novo Nordisk said it expected many of the roughly one million US patients using compounded GLP-1 drugs to switch to branded treatments after a US Food and Drug Administration ban on compounded copies of Wegovy took effect on May 22, and it expected compounding to wind down in the third quarter.

However, finance chief Karsten Munk Knudsen said on Wednesday that more than one million US patients were still using compounded GLP-1s and that the company’s lowered outlook has “not assumed a reduction in compounding” this year.

“The obesity market is volatile,” Knudsen told analysts when asked under what circumstances the company could see negative growth in the last six months of the year. The low end of the firm’s new full-year guidance range would be for “unforeseen events”, such as stronger pricing pressure in the US than forecast, he said.

The lower end of the range would imply sales around 150 billion Danish krone ($23bn) in the second half of 2025, compared with 157 billion krone ($24.5bn) in the same period last year.

Knudsen reiterated that the company was pursuing multiple strategies, including lawsuits against compounding pharmacies, to halt unlawful mass compounding.

Jorgensen said the company was encouraged by the latest US prescription data for Wegovy. While the drug was overtaken earlier this year by rival Eli Lilly’s Zepbound in terms of US prescriptions, that lead has narrowed in the past month.

Second-quarter sales of Wegovy rose by 36 percent in the US and more than quadrupled in markets outside the US compared to a year ago, Novo Nordisk said.

While Wegovy’s US pricing held steady in the quarter, the company expected deeper erosion in the key US market in the second half, due to a greater portion of sales expected from the direct-to-consumer or cash-pay channel, as well as higher rebates and discounts to insurers, Knudsen said.

He said Novo Nordisk was expanding its US direct-to-consumer platform, NovoCare, launched in March, and may need to pursue similar “cash sales” directly to patients, outside of insurance channels, in some markets outside the US.

Cost cuts

Novo Nordisk reiterated its full-year earnings expectations on Wednesday after last week’s profit warning.

Jorgensen said the company was acting to “ensure efficiencies in our cost base” as it announced it would terminate eight research and development projects.

“There seems to be a larger R&D clean-out than usual, but we do not know if this reflects a strategic re-assessment or just a coincidence,” Jefferies analysts said in a note.

Investors have questioned whether the company can stay competitive in the booming weight-loss drug market. Several equity analysts have cut their price targets and recommendations on the stock since last week.

Shares in Novo Nordisk plunged 30 percent last week – their worst weekly performance in over two decades. The stock has continued to tumble since the market opened in New York. As of 12pm local time (16:00 GMT), the pharmaceutical giant was down by more than 3.3 percent.

July 11 (UPI) — Employees of the U.S. State Department could receive a layoff notice via email very soon as part of the Trump administration’s plan to downsize the government, according to an in ternal memo.

The Washington Post reported late Thursday night it had obtained a memo from Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources Michael Rigas that informed State Department employees to be on the lookout for an email “in the coming days” in regard to layoffs. CNN reported Thursday that the email would come from Secretary of State Marco Rubio that will say “Soon, the Department will be communicating to individuals affected by the reduction in force,” and that firings could begin as soon as Friday. A draft reduction-in-force notice acquired by CBS News said the objective is “streamlining domestic operations to focus on diplomatic priorities,” and that the terminations “have been carefully tailored to affect non-core functions.”

The State Department had told Congress in May it planned to fire more than 1,870 people within its domestic workforce of 18,730, and over 1,570 have said they would voluntarily exit.

More than 300 offices and bureaus would be impacted and will include members of the foreign and civil service whose offices are being either retooled or outright eliminated.

Uncertainty over the status of the plan has negatively impacted morale at the department, as workers wait to see if they are to receive the axe, some of which have worked there for years or even decades, The Washington Post reported.

CBS also reported that the department told reporters it intends to conduct the reductions-in-force over a single day.

One State Department employee, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Washington Post last month that the move showed the department’s leadership “either doesn’t appreciate or just doesn’t care” about its workforce.

“We will continue to move forward with our historic reorganization plan at the State Department, as announced earlier this year,” Rubio said in a X post Tuesday.

“When you reorganize the State Department, there were certain bureaus we wanted to empower, the regional bureaus, and there were certain bureaus, these functional bureaus, that were closed,” he told reporters Thursday.

The State Department officially told Congress in May that it planned to eliminate around 3,400 U.S.-based jobs and will either close or merge nearly half of its domestic offices.

However, those working at overseas posts are reportedly safe from termination.

American Foreign Service Association President Thomas Yazdgerdi told CNN Wednesday that the expected layoffs are coming at “a particularly bad time.”

“There are horrible things that are happening in the world that require a tried-and-true diplomatic workforce that’s able to address that,” he continued. “The ability to maintain a presence in the areas of the world that are incredibly important, dealing with issues like Ukraine, like Gaza, like Iran right now that require great diplomatic attention.”

The plan will also integrate the functions of the U.S. Agency for International Development into the State Department.

The State Department had told Congress it planned to complete its reorganization by July 1, but those plans were temporarily paused by rulings from a lower court until earlier this week, when the Supreme Court cleared a path for the Trump administration to begin mass firings and changes at 19 departments and agencies.

The lower court had blocked the layoffs, as the administration did not first consult with Congress.

Mass layoff came days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for US president to gut entire government positions.

More than 1,350 US State Department employees have been fired in a major diplomatic shake-up ordered by President Donald Trump, in a move critics predict would curb the United States’ influence around the world.

Friday’s mass layoff, which affect 1,107 civil service and 246 foreign service officers based in the United States, come at a time when Washington is grappling with multiple crises on the world stage: Russia’s war in Ukraine, the almost two-year-long Gaza conflict, and the Middle East on edge due to high tension between Israel and Iran.

Diplomats and other staff clapped out departing colleagues in emotional scenes at the Washington headquarters of the department, which runs US foreign policy and the global network of embassies.

Some were crying as they walked out with boxes of belongings.

“It’s just heartbreaking to stand outside these doors right now and see people coming out in tears, because all they wanted to do was serve this country,” said US Senator Andy Kim, a New Jersey Democrat who worked as a civilian adviser for the State Department in Afghanistan during the administration of former President Barack Obama.

The layoffs at the department came three days after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the Trump administration to begin carrying out its plan to gut entire government positions.

The conservative-dominated top court lifted a temporary block imposed by a lower court on Trump’s plans to lay off potentially tens of thousands of employees.

The 79-year-old Republican says he wants to dismantle what he calls the “deep state”. Since taking office in January, he has worked quickly to install fierce personal loyalists and to fire swaths of veteran government workers.

Trump’s Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the foreign policy department is too cumbersome and requires thinning out of some 15 percent.

“It’s not a consequence of trying to get rid of people. But if you close the bureau, you don’t need those positions,” Rubio told reporters on the sidelines of his ASEAN meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. “Understand that some of these are positions that are being eliminated, not people.”

The American Foreign Service Association (AFSA) – the union representing State Department employees – condemned the “catastrophic blow to our national interests”.

“We oppose this decision in the strongest terms.”

The State Department employed more than 80,000 people worldwide last year, according to a fact sheet, with about 17,700 in domestic roles.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID), long the primary vehicle to provide US humanitarian assistance around the world, has already been mostly dismantled.

According to The Washington Post, State Department employees were informed of their firings by email.

Foreign Service officers will lose their jobs 120 days after receiving the notice and will be immediately placed on administrative leave, while civil service employees will be separated after 60 days, the newspaper said.

Ned Price, who served as State Department spokesman under former Democratic President Joe Biden, condemned what he called haphazard firings.

“For all the talk about ‘merit-based,’ they’re firing officers based on where they happen to be assigned on this arbitrary day,” Price said on X. “It’s the laziest, most inefficient, and most damaging way to lean the workforce.”

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court cleared the way Tuesday for the Trump administration to lay off tens of thousands of federal employees and downsize their agencies without seeking the approval of Congress.

In an 8-1 vote, the justices lifted an order from a federal judge in San Francisco who blocked mass layoffs at more than 20 departments and agencies.

The court has sided regularly with President Trump and his broad view of executive power on matters involving federal agencies.

In a brief order, the court said “the Government is likely to succeed on its argument that the Executive Order and Memorandum are lawful,” referring to the plans to reduce staffing. But it said it was not ruling on specific layoffs.

Justice Sonia Sotomayor concurred with the decision on the grounds that it was narrow and temporary.

Dissenting alone, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson said the court should not have intervened.

“Under our Constitution, Congress has the power to establish administrative agencies and detail their functions,” she wrote.

Since mid-April, the court has handed down a series of temporary orders that cleared the way for Trump’s planned cutbacks in funding and staffing at federal agencies.

Litigation will continue in the lower courts, but the justices are not likely to reverse course and rule next year that they made a mistake in allowing the staffing cutbacks to proceed.

The layoff case posed the question of whether Congress or the president had the authority to downsize agencies.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco said Congress, not the president, creates federal agencies and decides on their size and their duties.

“Agencies may not conduct large-scale reorganizations and reductions in force in blatant disregard of Congress’s mandates, and a president may not initiate large-scale executive branch reorganization without partnering with Congress,” she said on May 22.

Her order barred more than 20 departments and agencies from carrying out mass layoffs in response to an executive order from Trump.

They included the departments of Commerce, Energy, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Treasury, Transportation and Veterans Affairs as well as the Environmental Protection Agency, the General Services Administration and the National Science Foundation.

She said the planned layoffs are large. The Health and Human Services department plans to cut 8,000 to 10,000 employees and the Energy Department 8,500. The Veterans Administration had planned to lay off 83,000 employees but said recently it will reduce that number to about 30,000.

Labor unions had sued to stop the layoffs as illegal.

Illson agreed that the agencies were not acting on their own to trim their staffs. Rather, Trump’s Office of Management and Budget under Russ Vought was leading the reorganization and restructuring of dozen of agencies. She said only Congress can reorganize agencies.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, by a 2-1 vote, turned down the administration’s appeal of the judge’s order.

Appealing to the Supreme Court, Trump’s lawyers insisted the president had the full authority to fire tens of thousands of employees.

“The Constitution does not erect a presumption against presidential control of agency staffing,” Solicitor Gen. D. John Sauer said in his appeal, “and the President does not need special permission from Congress.”

He said federal law allows agencies to reduce their staffs.

“Neither Congress nor the Executive Branch has ever intended to make federal bureaucrats a class with lifetime employment, whether there was work for them to do or not,” Sauer wrote.

Warner Music Group will lay off an unspecified number of employees as part of a months-long restructuring plan to cut costs, Chief Executive Robert Kyncl said in a memo to staff Tuesday.

Kyncl said in the memo that the plan to “future-proof” the company includes reducing annual costs by roughly $300 million, with $170 million of that coming from “headcount rightsizing for agility and impact.” The additional $130 million in costs will come from administrative and real estate expenses, he said.

The cuts are the “remaining steps” of a period of significant change at the company, Kyncl said, with previous rounds of layoffs and leadership switch-ups happening in the last two years as he worked to “transform” the company.

“I know that this news is tough and unsettling, and you will have many questions. The Executive Leadership Team has spent a lot of time thinking about our future state and how to put us on the best path forward,” Kyncl said in the internal memo that was reviewed by The Times. “These decisions are not being made lightly, it will be difficult to say goodbye to talented people, and we’re committed to acting with empathy and integrity.”

It’s unclear how many employees will be laid off or what departments will see cuts, but Kyncl emphasized the company will be focused on increasing investments in its artists and repertoire department and mergers and acquisitions.

Hours before the news of layoffs, the company announced a $1.2-billion joint venture with Bain Capital to invest in music catalogs. The collaboration will add to the company’s catalog-purchasing power across both recorded music and music publishing, Kyncl said.

“In an ever-changing industry, we must continue to supercharge our capabilities in long-term artist, songwriter, and catalog development,” he wrote. “That’s why this company was created in the first place, it’s what we’ve always been best at, and it’s how we’ll differentiate ourselves in the future.”

In 2024, Warner Music laid off 600 employees, or approximately 10% of its workforce, and in 2023, 270 jobs were cut.

Warner Music Group shares closed at $27.83, up 2.17%, on Tuesday.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s administration on Friday asked the Supreme Court to pause a court order to reinstate Education Department employees who were fired in mass layoffs as part of his plan to dismantle the agency.

The Justice Department’s emergency appeal to the high court said U.S. District Judge Myong Joun in Boston exceeded his authority last month when he issued a preliminary injunction reversing the layoffs of nearly 1,400 people and putting the broader plan on hold.

Joun’s order has blocked one of the Republican president’s biggest campaign promises and effectively stalled the effort to wind down the department. A federal appeals court refused to put the order on hold while the administration appealed.

The judge wrote that the layoffs “will likely cripple the department.”

But Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote Friday that Joun was substituting his policy preferences for those of the Trump administration.

The layoffs help put in the place the “policy of streamlining the department and eliminating discretionary functions that, in the administration’s view, are better left to the states,” Sauer wrote.

He also pointed out that the Supreme Court in April voted 5-4 to block Joun’s earlier order seeking to keep in place Education Department teacher-training grants.

The current case involves two consolidated lawsuits that said Trump’s plan amounted to an illegal closure of the Education Department.

One suit was filed by the Somerville and Easthampton school districts in Massachusetts along with the American Federation of Teachers and other education groups. The other suit was filed by a coalition of 21 Democratic attorneys general.

The suits argued that layoffs left the department unable to carry out responsibilities required by Congress, including duties to support special education, distribute financial aid and enforce civil rights laws.

Education Department employees who were targeted by the layoffs have been on paid leave since March, according to a union that represents some of the agency’s staff. Joun’s order prevents the department from fully terminating them, but none have been allowed to return to work, according to the American Federation of Government Employees Local 252. Without Joun’s order, the workers were scheduled to be terminated Monday.

Trump has made it a priority to shut down the Education Department, though he has acknowledged that only Congress has the authority to do that. In the meantime, Trump issued a March order directing Education Secretary Linda McMahon to wind it down “to the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”

Trump later said the department’s functions will be parceled to other agencies, suggesting that federal student loans should be managed by the Small Business Administration and programs involving students with disabilities would be absorbed by the Department of Health and Human Services. Those changes have not yet happened.

The president argues that the Education Department has been overtaken by liberals and has failed to spur improvements to the nation’s lagging academic scores. He has promised to “return education to the states.”

Opponents note that K-12 education is already mostly overseen by states and cities.

Democrats have blasted the Trump administration’s Education Department budget, which seeks a 15% budget cut including a $4.5 billion cut in K-12 funding as part of the agency’s downsizing.

Sherman writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Collin Binkley contributed to this report.

Warner Bros. Discovery is the latest media company to shed employees from its cable TV channels, with several dozen positions jettisoned Wednesday.

The layoffs, confirmed by an executive not authorized to comment publicly, are aimed at improving efficiency across the company as cable TV revenues sink because of cord-cutting.

The moves at Warner Bros. Discovery come two days after the Walt Disney Co. implemented a bloodletting across its film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate operations.

The cuts at Disney numbered in the hundreds. The figure for Warner Bros. Discovery is much smaller than that, though an exact number was not disclosed.

Warner Bros. Discovery’s movie and TV production studios and streaming operation, soon to go back to its earlier name, HBO Max, will not be hit by the cutbacks.

The cuts come as Warner Bros. Discovery is said to be pondering a possible spinoff of its declining cable TV assets, which include its Turner channels, Discovery Networks, HGTV and Food Network, similar to what Comcast is doing with its NBCUniversal cable outlets (with the exception of Bravo).

Comcast is putting MSNBC, CNBC, the Golf Channel, USA Network and other outlets into a new company called Versant, separating the mature businesses from the rest of the company as it focuses on streaming.

Warner Bros. Discovery recently reorganized into two business units. The entertainment giant last year took a $9.1-billion writedown to reflect the declining value of its TV networks.

The cuts at Warner Bros. Discovery come just a day after a rare shareholder rebuke of its executive pay packages, a sign of growing unhappiness with the company’s financial performance.

A majority of Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders voted against the 2024 compensation package given to Chief Executive David Zaslav and other executives at the company’s recent annual meeting, according to a regulatory filing.

Almost 60% of the votes cast came in against the 2024 executive pay package at the company, according to a regulatory filing Tuesday. The vote is nonbinding, and thus symbolic.

Walt Disney Co. launched another deep round of layoffs on Monday, notifying several hundred Disney employees in the U.S. and abroad that their jobs were being eliminated amid an increasingly difficult economic environment for traditional television.

People close to the Burbank entertainment giant confirmed the cuts, which are hitting film and television marketing teams, television publicity, casting and development as well as corporate financial operations.

The move comes just three months after the company cut 200 workers, including at ABC News in New York and Disney-owned entertainment networks. At the time, the division said it was cutting its staff by 6% amid shrinking TV ratings and revenue for traditional television.

Disney declined to specify how many workers were losing their jobs. The cutbacks come after Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger acknowledged to Wall Street that Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete against Netflix. The programming build-up accelerated as the company prepared to launch Disney+ in late 2019, and it bulked up its staff to handle the more robust pipeline.

But the company since has retrenched, recognizing the need to focus on creating high-quality originals that meet Disney’s once lofty standards.

ABC News shed about 40 employees last October. The company’s TV stations also lost staff members.

The ABC television network and Disney-owned entertainment channels have seen dramatic audience defections as consumers switch to streaming services, including Netflix, Paramount+ and Disney+.

Hollywood trade site Deadline first reported the news.