lead

Not even Shinnecock Hills and its strongest test of the week in the U.S. Open could match the toughness of Wyndham Clark on Saturday.

Clark had a collection of par saves around the turn as Scottie Scheffler was making a move and poured it on with a fairway metal to get within four feet for eagle on the par-five 16th for an even-par 70 that gave him a six-shot lead.

No one has lost more than a five-shot lead in 125 previous editions of golf’s toughest test. Greg Norman in the 1996 Masters is the only player to lose a six-shot lead in any major.

Shinnecock Hills did its part, even after the strongest wind subsided. Only two players broke par in the third round — Emiliano Grillo in 30 mph wind before the leaders teed off, and Scheffler with a 69.

Clark nearly joined them. After all his great saves, he missed a five-foot par putt on the final hole and finished at seven-under 203, the lowest 54-hole score ever at Shinnecock Hills.

Now he has one more round to add another U.S. Open title to the one he captured at Los Angeles Country Club in 2023. At his side will be Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world, trying to turn Sunday into a most magical day.

Scottie Scheffler watches his shot on the first hole during the third round of the U.S. Open on Saturday at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

At stake for Scheffler is a chance — a long shot at that — to complete the career Grand Slam, on Father’s Day, which happens to be his 30th birthday.

“There’s a lot of stuff going on,” Scheffler said with a smile in his interview with NBC. “A special day. The tournament means a lot to me. Going to go out there and try to do my best and execute. I’ve been fighting like heck all week to stay in this tournament.”

Scheffler, who fell nine shots behind with a pair of bogeys at the start, shot 32 on the back nine by chipping in from 65 feet on the 14th for the start of three straight birdies. His one big lament was missing a 4-foot birdie putt on the final hole.

He moved into the last group when Shinnecock Hills did a number on everyone else.

Sam Stevens, who closed within two shots of Clark on the front, started the back nine with three straight bogeys and closed with six straight pars for a 72. Tom Kim dropped two shots at the wrong time and shot 72. Sahith Theegala had one birdie, one bogey and 16 pars for a 70. That usually works at any U.S. Open, particularly this one.

All of them were at one-under 209, leaving only five players under par.

SACRAMENTO — Pinch-hitter Jonah Heim launched a tying homer with two outs in the ninth and the Athletics surrendered 11 straight runs before rallying from seven down to defeat the Angels 12-11 in 10 innings Friday night.

Zack Gelof started the comeback with an RBI single in the sixth, and the A’s got two-run homers from Jacob Wilson in the seventh, Max Muncy in the eighth and Heim in the ninth to tie it 11-11.

Nick Kurtz walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th to force home the winning run. It was the largest comeback win for the A’s (38-38) this season.

Gelof extended his hitting streak to 23 games — the longest active run in the majors.

Denzer Guzman, Jose Siri, Zach Neto, Logan O’Hoppe and Nolan Schanuel all went deep for the Angels (30-47), matching their season high for homers in a game.

Tyler Soderstrom hit a one-out double in the ninth before Heim connected for his second career-tying pinch-hit homer. The first came earlier this month in a 15-14 loss to Milwaukee in Las Vegas.

Henry Bolte drew a leadoff walk from Kirby Yates (0-3) in the 10th. Following a double steal, Muncy flied out and Gelof was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Samy Natera Jr. entered and walked Kurtz on five pitches, scoring automatic runner Lawrence Butler.

A’s starter Jeffrey Springs gave up six runs on four hits and four walks in 3 2/3 innings. Elvis Alvarado (3-1) pitched two scoreless innings to earn the win.

José Soriano struck out six in five innings. He permitted six hits, four runs and four walks.

Up next: RHP J.T. Ginn (5-3, 2.91 ERA) pitches Saturday for the A’s in the third game of the four-game series. The Angels had not announced their starter.

WASHINGTON — Cameron Hamilton, President Trump’s nominee to lead the Federal Emergency Management Agency, pledged to senators Wednesday to be “fair and reasonable” in assessing requests for disaster aid as he seeks to run an agency roiled by the administration’s threats to dismantle it.

Hamilton appeared before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs at a hearing where lawmakers assessed a group of 10 nominees for administration posts.

“My focus will be to ensure that FEMA is objective, is fair and reasonable, follows the law, and is consistent” in how it reviews disaster declaration requests, Hamilton told Michigan Sen. Gary Peters, the top Democrat on the committee. Peters had asked about partisanship in granting major disaster declarations.

Hamilton had a brief tenure as FEMA’s temporary leader early last year but was ousted after defending the agency’s existence. At a House hearing in May 2025, he said he did not “believe it is in the best interest of the American people to eliminate” FEMA. He was fired the next day.

His nomination comes as the Republican administration has increasingly signaled it is backing away from promises to dismantle an agency that the president has heavily criticized.

If confirmed, he would be FEMA’s first permanent administrator in Trump’s second term. He will need to lead FEMA through what is expected to be a busy summer disaster season, while answering to Trump, who is likely to expect major changes after a council he appointed recommended sweeping moves at the agency that is part of the Department of Homeland Security.

Hamilton distanced himself from some FEMA controversies

Nominees did not give opening statements, but Hamilton received the bulk of lawmakers’ questions while appearing with four others in the first half of the hearing.

His answers suggested a departure from some of the more aggressive policies considered and enacted during Kristi Noem’s turbulent leadership at DHS. FEMA’s workforce has been worn down by mass staff departures, policies that hamstrung operations and a protracted DHS shutdown.

Hamilton expressed faith in the FEMA staff and praised the recent opening of 350 positions to counteract some of the cuts. He said that if confirmed by the Senate, he would do what he could to speed up disaster declaration decisions and reimbursements to states, tribes and territories.

“We owe you answers, I think, much faster,” he told Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo), adding that many FEMA processes needed to be simplified.

Hamilton disavowed a recommendation he included in an April 2025 memo to quadruple the threshold of financial damages a state needed to prove to receive FEMA public assistance. He also noted the importance of resilience funding, despite halting billions in resilience grants during his previous tenure.

Republican and Democratic senators at the hearing expressed support for FEMA’s mission, despite Trump’s early threats to eliminate it. “I think what your agency does is hugely important,” Hawley told Hamilton.

But multiple Democrats echoed Peters’ concern that Trump was approving far more disaster declaration requests from Republican states than Democratic ones.

Of the state disaster declaration requests Trump answered through the end of May, he approved about 82% from states that voted for him in the last election and 44% from states that voted for Democrat Kamala Harris, according to an analysis of public FEMA data by Andrew Rumbach, senior fellow at the nonpartisan think tank Urban Institute.

Hamilton, a former Navy SEAL, has never worked as a state or local emergency manager and has publicly criticized FEMA in the past. He has held positions at DHS and the State Department related to emergency response.

No senator questioned Hamilton’s suitability for the position.

Federal law requires the FEMA administrator to have “a demonstrated ability in and knowledge of emergency management and homeland security” and at least five years of “executive leadership and management experience.”

Criticism over hearing format

Peters criticized the committee chairman, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), for scheduling so many nominees at once, saying that made it more difficult for senators to properly screen them.

“The lineup today severely limits our ability to have transparency for the American public,” Peters said. He noted that Hamilton was among two nominees whose FBI background investigations were not yet complete, and that two others had not submitted their financial disclosure reports.

Others who appeared included Trump’s pick for deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, Hal Duncan, and administrator of the Transportation Security Administration, David Cummins.

Paul said the committee would only vote on the nominees when their financial and background checks were complete.

Whenever Shohei Ohtani is questioned, it seems, he does something spectacular.

On Tuesday, with discussion still swirling over whether his knee problem from the week before would influence his two-way availability when he took the mound Wednesday, Ohtani broke open a scoreless standoff with a sixth-inning solo home run.

It held as the winning run, and the Dodgers went on to beat the Tampa Bay Rays 1-0.

“That’s just him,” Dodgers starting pitcher Justin Wrobleski said of Ohtani. “He’s obviously the best player of all time. I’m super lucky and blessed to be his teammate and watch him play. It’s been super cool.”

Up to that point, neither team’s starting pitcher had flinched.

Wrobleski had given up just three hits in six scoreless innings. And, along with five strikeouts, he hadn’t had more than one baserunner in any inning, squashing the scrappy Rays’ ability to manufacture a run.

Though the Dodgers had made more viable scoring threats against Rays starter Drew Rasmussen, they’d come up short for five innings.

They came within a couple of feet of scoring in the second inning, but the Rays pulled off a trick play to throw out Kyle Tucker at home.

Rays catcher Nick Fortes tags out Kyle Tucker trying to score in the second inning.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

With runners on first and third, Alex Freeland laid down a bunt to Rasmussen. When he fielded it cleanly, Tucker shuffled back toward third base. But then Rasmussen turned and fired toward second base, and Tucker took off. Rays shortstop Taylor Ward cut off the throw in front of the base and cut down Tucker as he slid headfirst for the plate.

For the next three innings, the Dodgers (47-27) failed to reach base.

Then Ohtani happened.

Leading off the sixth inning, Ohtani pounced on a cutter that drifted toward the heart of the plate.

He launched it to straightaway center field, where it bounced on the netting beyond the fence.

Rasmussen lasted through the seventh inning, leaving that home run as the only blemish on his outing. Then the two bullpens duked it out to a draw in the late innings.

Justin Wrobleski pitched six scoreless innings.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Ohtani’s home run stood alone.

It was his fifth home run in nine games, bringing his season total to 14.

After a slow start, by his standards, Ohtani lamented his lack of power. Now, with the second-highest on-base-plus-slugging percentage in the National League (.966), just barely trailing the Washington Nationals’ James Wood (.967), Ohtani has that going for him too.

“He was hitting the ball hard, some doubles, singles,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And if he was just missing a little bit [before], there was going to be slug. So that’s what’s happening. Seeing the baseball well. Swinging at good pitches. And when he uses the big part of the field, there’s just no one better.”

The home run Tuesday, however, was not enough to claim a spot in the batting order Wednesday. Not in an extra-early 12:10 p.m. game. Not just days removed from a bout of inflammation in his left knee.

Before the game, Ohtani threw off a mound to test his knee before his scheduled pitching start the next day. It went well enough that he’ll be taking the mound, Roberts confirmed Tuesday night. But he will not be hitting.

Roberts will keep a close eye on Ohtani, who left the game last Thursday with a swollen knee and then sat out Friday. Ohtani theorized over the weekend that issues with his pitching mechanics may have aggravated his knee.

Said Roberts: “He wouldn’t start if we felt that we were going to put him in harm’s way.”

Glasnow hopes to begin throwing soon

In retrospect, it’s clear to right-hander Tyler Glasnow that he tried to start throwing a little too quickly after back spasms pulled him out of his start against the Houston Astros on May 6. But at the time of the injury, Glasnow, who is no stranger to back problems, was encouraged.

“It didn’t feel as bad when I first did it,” Glasnow told The Times on Tuesday.

Nearly a month and a half later, Glasnow has twice tried to restart throwing, and twice he’s had to shut it down.

“Frustrating, for sure,” Glasnow said. “Just because it happens so frequently. A lot of times I just want to find a way to address the underlying issues of why it happens.”

He has yet to find that long-term solution, but he does not expect to have surgery.

Glasnow, encouraged by his recent improvement, expects to start throwing again “soon.”

“We’re just waiting for it to be fully, fully healed,” he said.

Edman activated

As expected, the Dodgers activated Tommy Edman (right ankle surgery) off the injured list Tuesday and designated utility man Santiago Espinal for assignment.

Edman didn’t make his season debut, but Roberts said he’ll play a mixture of second base, third and left field, with his playing time dictated by factors such as pitcher matchups and the availability of left fielder Teoscar Hernández’s (strained left hamstring), who’s still on the IL.

LAS VEGAS — Carolina spent the first part of the Stanley Cup Final surviving, finding ways to overcome deficits and play a high-scoring game that didn’t fit the Hurricanes’ typical style.

But when it came down to doing what it takes to win the Cup, the Hurricanes’ defense put its stamp on this series, shutting down the Vegas Golden Knights and not letting up.

The Hurricanes held Vegas to five total goals in Games 4 and 5 and used a suffocating defense in a 3-0 shutout in Sunday night’s clinching Game 6 to win their first championship in 20 years.

“That’s a lot of years,” said Carolina center Jordan Staal, who received the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since we got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. What a feeling, what a battle. The boys were grinding today, my goodness. So many individual efforts just to keep the puck out of our net. It was an amazing ride. I’m just so proud of these guys.”

Carolina Hurricanes players celebrate after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup on Sunday.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

Brandon Bussi, whose entrance late into Game 3 helped turn around the series for Carolina, recorded his first career playoff shutout in stopping 22 shots. Jackson Blake had a goal and assist, and Taylor Hall scored just 3:47 into the game to set the tone. Nikolaj Ehlers added an empty-net goal.

“Your mind wanders the last couple of days and wonder what it may be like out here (on ice after winning) and it’s better than I could have expected,” Hall said. “My career has taken a lot of different turns, but to end up here with this group of guys and to do this is amazing.”

The Golden Knights, who made an unlikely run just to reach the final, struggled badly to muster any kind of offense in Game 6 and went 18:37 between shots on goal in the second and third periods. Playing in their third Cup final, this is the first time they have been shut out.

This clinching game was what many observers expected the series to be like between the defensive-minded teams, but each side watched leads of two-plus goals disappear in the first three games.

Now, the Cup belongs to the Hurricanes, led by coach Rod Brind’Amour, who also captained Carolina to its 2006 title.

This was the first game of the series that Vegas goalie Carter Hart didn’t allow four goals in a game. He finished with 20 saves.

Carolina Hurricanes forward Nikolaj Ehlers celebrates after scoring an empty-net goal in the third period against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

The Hurricanes began to assume control of the series after falling behind by the score of 4-0 in Game 3. They came back force overtime, and though the Hurricanes lost, they outplayed the Golden Knights from there on out.

Reflecting the do-or-die situation for the Golden Knights, they made several lineup changes, with Brett Howden replacing the injured William Karlsson at second-line center. Mitch Marner could have moved there, but remained at right wing.

Original Golden Knight Reilly Smith made his Cup final debut at third-line right wing, and Braeden Bowman made his playoff debut at fourth-line right wing. Kaedan Korczak replaced Dylan Coghlan on the third defensive pairing.

This title is a testament to Carolina’s resilience as a franchise that kept coming close to winning the Eastern Conference, but couldn’t quite get through until now.

Brind’Amour made sure the Hurricanes kept getting back up after losing in the conference final twice in the past three years and three times in their current eight-year playoff run. The talent was clearly there, but there was always a stumbling block.

Not anymore.

After dispatching Montreal in five games to make the final, the Brind’Amour-led Hurricanes then faced perennial power Vegas and took care of business there too. Now, he will get his name on the Cup for the second time.

So will 37-year-old Staal, who also won the title in 2009 with Pittsburgh. He planted himself in front of Hart and dared the Golden Knights to knock him out of the way. Staal scored in each of the first five Cup final games, the first time that has happened.

The Hurricanes got off to a fast start with a goal just 25 seconds into Game 1, only to lose 5-4 on a late goal from Tomas Hertl. And the Golden Knights were on the verge of taking complete control as minutes ticked down in Game 2 while holding a 2-0 lead and appearing as if they would take a two-game advantage back home.

Then, it all changed. Carolina showed a fight that not only brought the Hurricanes back into the series by rallying to win 4-3 in overtime on Seth Jarvis’ one-timer, but would serve as their signature throughout the series.

That was especially true the following game when the Golden Knights took a 4-0 lead into the third period and the Hurricanes seemed to have no answers. Brind’Amour even appeared to wave the white flag by removing goalie Frederik Andersen and replacing him with Bussi.

Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour hugs Jordan Staal after the team’s Stanley Cup win on Sunday.

(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)

But the Hurricanes weren’t simply trying to get to Game 4. They sent a message, going on a remarkable rally to force overtime. Though Carolina lost, it was inflection point, with Bussi backstopping a team that was only growing stronger. Carolina then went on to win the next two games and moved within a victory of the championship.

The Hurricanes got it done against the Golden Knights team that was on a heater after John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season. Vegas then went from third in the Pacific Division to first, knocked off Utah and Anaheim in six games apiece in the playoffs and shockingly swept Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado to win the West.

Now, the Golden Knights have some notable questions to ask, including at the top of the list whether to make Tortorella a full-time coach. He didn’t have any guarantees of coaching in Vegas beyond this season, but getting to the Cup final is a good argument to run it back.

Golden Knights management will make the final call on that, and they don’t always follow league norms.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

RALEIGH, N.C. — Andrei Svechnikov scored twice and Sebastian Aho added a second-period goal in a breakout game for Carolina’s top-line performers, helping the Hurricanes beat the Vegas Golden Knights 4-2 on Thursday night to move one victory away from the Stanley Cup.

Captain Jordan Staal added his fifth goal in the series on a night when Carolina overcame multiple hiccups from these playoffs, from a shaky power play to being outplayed in the second period of this series.

And there had been the waiting game for Aho and Svechnikov — two roster mainstays in an eight-year postseason run — to find a better offensive groove.

It all came together in Game 5, with Svechnikov’s short putaway at the post on the power play giving Carolina a 4-1 lead midway through the third period. And unlike most multi-goal leads in what has been a wild and thrilling series, this one held up, with Brandon Bussi finishing with 22 saves in his second career postseason start.

That gave the Hurricanes a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven series. Game 6 is Sunday night in Las Vegas, with the Hurricanes playing for the chance to hoist the Stanley Cup for the first time since coach Rod Brind’Amour captained them to the title in 2006.

It has been a tough series for Vegas goaltender Carter Hart.

(Karl B DeBlaker / AP)

Pavel Dorofeyev scored twice for Vegas, finding the net for the first time since Game 1 of the Western Conference Final sweep of Presidents’ Trophy winner Colorado. Carter Hart entered this one as the first goaltender in Stanley Cup Final history to give up at least four goals in each of the first four games, then did it again to continue a difficult series while finishing with 20 saves.

Vegas had twice before been in a 2-2 series in these playoffs, in the first round against Utah and the second round against the Ducks. Both times, the Golden Knights won Game 5 and then closed out the series in Game 6.

This time, they’ll have to win on home ice to force the series back to Carolina for a Game 7 on Wednesday night. And they’ll have to take two in a row against a Hurricanes team that hasn’t suffered consecutive losses since mid-January.

Vegas played much of the night without center William Karlsson, who was being checked out on the bench for an apparent upper-body injury. Karlsson skated to the tunnel midway through the second period and didn’t return.

Wade Meckler and Jo Adell keyed a five-run second inning with two-run doubles, and Walbert Ureña navigated heavy traffic through five shutout innings to lead the Angels to a 10-1 victory over the Houston Astros on Tuesday night.

Houston put two runners on in the first, second and fifth and loaded the bases in the third, but Ureña (4-4) pitched out of each jam to lower his ERA to 2.44 on the season and 1.84 in eight starts since early May.

The 22-year-old right-hander gave up three hits, struck out seven and walked five in his 107-pitch effort, which included a 97-mph fastball to whiff Joey Loperfido with the bases loaded to end the third.

The Angels scored two unearned runs off starter Kai-Wei Teng (3-5) in the first, one when Nolan Schanuel was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded and the other on Oswald Peraza’s RBI grounder.

Backup catcher Sebastián Rivero sparked the Angels’ second-inning rally with a one-out single. Zach Neto was hit by a pitch and Mike Trout ended an 0-for-22 slump with a single to load the bases.

Meckler doubled to left-center for two runs and a 4-0 lead. Adell doubled to left to make it 6-0, and Peraza’s RBI groundout extended it to 7-0.

The Angels added three insurance runs in the eighth on Trey Mancini’s sacrifice fly and RBI groundouts by Peraza and Denzer Guzman. Relievers Brent Suter, Drew Pomeranz and Kirby Yates covered the final four innings.

Schanuel, who has been slowed by a left ankle injury, exited after three innings because of left calf tightness.

Rivero, who also singled in the third and has seven hits in his last seven at-bats, was removed in the fifth because of a left wrist injury.

Jack Kochanowicz to have Tommy John surgery

Angels pitcher Jack Kochanowicz needs Tommy John surgery, the team said Tuesday, and the 25-year-old right-hander is expected to be sidelined through the 2027 season.

The Angels also said that third baseman Yoán Moncada will have surgery on his balky right-knee. But, the specifics of the procedure and a timetable for the switch-hitter’s return were not known.

Kochanowicz went 2-5 with a 6.19 ERA in 13 starts this season, striking out 47 and walking 36 in 64 innings.

The hard-throwing sinker-ball specialist went 2-1 with a 3.05 ERA in his first seven starts, but was ineffective during his next six starts, going 0-4 with an 11.91 ERA, striking out 17 and walking 15 in 22 2/3 innings.

Kochanowicz’s fastball averaged 97 mph and touched 99 mph against the Dodgers, but he said after the game that his arm bothered him when he threw his changeup.

“Honestly, I didn’t think this was in the cards,” Kochanowicz said before Tuesday’s game against Houston. “I really thought it was just a little angry.

“I mean, my velo was fine, the fastballs, everything was fine. It really was just the changeup.

“I thought it was just kind of general soreness. … I thought I was going to hear back today that it was all right, but man, it is what it is.”

Manager Kurt Suzuki said the Angels are “still evaluating” their options for Kochanowicz’s replacement in the rotation. Among the candidates are left-hander Sam Aldegheri and triple-A right-handers Caden Dana and George Klassen.

Moncada, 31, who signed a one-year, $4-million deal with the Angels in February, was placed on the injured list because of right-knee inflammation on May 22 and transferred to the 60-day injured list on Monday.

He hit .189 with a .605 OPS, three homers and 10 RBIs in 41 games.

PARIS — Alexander Zverev is no longer one of the best players never to win a major title.

He’s finally a Grand Slam champion.

In his fourth major final, Zverev beat Flavio Cobolli 6-1, 4-6, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-1 for the French Open title on Sunday.

It was a unique opportunity for Zverev without Jannik Sinner or Carlos Alcaraz across the net and the third-ranked German took full advantage on the red clay of Roland Garros.

When Cobolli missed an overhead on the second championship point after more than four hours of the five-set encounter, Zverev dropped on his back to the clay and covered his face with his hands as he began sobbing. When he got up, with his shirt and arms covered in clay, Zverev put his hands back on his face before he lifted both arms in celebration.

When Zverev was handed the Coupe des Mousquetaires trophy, he lifted it with both hands and let out a liberating roar.

“This court is so special to me in so many ways. I’ve had the best moments of my life on this court; I had the worst moment of my life on these courts,” Zverev said, referring to when he was injured and pushed off on a wheelchair during a semifinal against Rafael Nadal in 2022.

“I was laying in that corner over there four years ago with seven broken ligaments and two fractured bones,” Zverev said. “I lost a Grand Slam final here two years ago but now finally it’s a happy end.”

Zverev has now joined an elite group of players that captured their first major in their fourth final: Eight-time major champion Andre Agassi, 2001 Wimbledon winner Goran Ivanisevic and 2020 U.S. Open champion Dominic Thiem.

No Sinner or Alcaraz

Zverev had been an overwhelming favorite for the title ever since the top-ranked Sinner struggled in the first week’s heat wave and wasted a two set and 5-1 lead against Juan Manuel Cerundolo in the second round. A day later, 24-time Grand Slam champion Novak Djokovic was also eliminated.

Alcaraz, the two-time reigning champion, withdrew before the tournament with an injured right wrist.

It was Zverev’s second French Open final, having wasted a lead of two sets to one against Alcaraz in the 2024 championship match.

Zverev had an even bigger advantage — two sets to none — in the 2020 U.S. Open final and lost that one, too, to Thiem. He was also beaten in straight sets by Sinner in the 2025 Australian Open final.

It was the 25th title of Zverev’s career.

Cobolli’s first Slam final

The 14th-ranked Cobolli had never been past a Grand Slam quarterfinal until this week. He was attempting to become the first Italian man to raise the singles trophy at Roland Garros since Adriano Panatta 50 years ago.

Cobolli comes from the same tennis club in Rome as Panatta did and Panatta was asked by tournament organizers to present the trophy to the champion to celebrate the anniversary of his 1976 triumph.

The honors, however, went to Zverev.

Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva won the women’s singles trophy on Saturday.

Zverev took control early on

The match was played in perfect conditions and Zverev’s game was almost flawless at the start.

Zverev broke Cobolli’s serve in a long opening game when Cobolli shanked a forehand into the first row of the stands. The break came after Zverev had a bit of luck when a backhand return hit the net but dribbled over on game point for Cobolli.

A group of women in the stands held up letters to form Zverev’s nickname: “Sascha.”

Cobolli likes to stand way over near the corner of the court and hit big kick serves out wide into the ad court. Zverev knew what was coming and returned one such kick serve early in the first set with a backhand that he wrapped around the outside of the net post. Cobolli ended up winning the point, but it was a message from Zverev that he knew how to handle his opponent’s tactics.

The next time Zverev hit a wrap-around-the-net-post return, Cobolli couldn’t handle it and Zverev won the point.

Cobolli’s supporters in his box were all dressed in blue, the color of Italy’s national teams, and as Cobolli worked his way back into the match, there were chants of “Ole, Ole, Ole; Flavio, Flavio.”

After Zverev held for a 6-5 lead in the fourth, he had his upper right leg treated by a trainer. Then Zverev wasted a 3-1 lead in the tiebreaker, which Cobolli concluded with a forehand winner up the line that produced a roar from the crowd.

But Cobolli appeared to run out of energy in the fifth, running down a drop shot only for Zverev to then pass him up the line for a 3-0 lead and a double break.

Abuse allegations

Moments after Zverev’s previous Grand Slam final in Australia in 2025, a person in the stadium yelled out the names of two of his ex-girlfriends who accused him of physical abuse.

One case was resolved following an agreement between German prosecutors, lawyers for Zverev and his former partner. The ATP Tour investigated another case and concluded there was insufficient evidence.

Dampf writes for the Associated Press. Samuel Petrequin and Jerome Pugmire contributed to this report.

Antonelli takes his fifth Grand Prix win in a row in race interrupted by crashes after asphalt breaks apart.

Formula One championship leader Kimi Antonelli stayed ice-cool to ⁠win a ⁠chaotic Monaco Grand Prix and extend his run of victories this season to five.

The 19-year-old Italian built a ⁠commanding lead on Sunday after starting from pole in his Mercedes but that evaporated after a late red flag to inspect a crumbling ⁠surface at the final corner following a crash that took out Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc.

After a delay of about 40 minutes while repairs were carried out, the race resumed with a standing start but Antonelli remained unfazed ‌as he became the youngest-ever winner of the iconic race.

Ferrari’s Lewis Hamilton was runner-up for the second successive Grand Prix with Red Bull’s Isack Hadjar provisionally third, although he was one of a number of drivers under investigation for a variety of infringements.

Hamilton, who equalled the late Ayrton Senna’s eight Monaco podiums, ⁠moved above Antonelli’s teammate George Russell into ⁠second place in the standings, 66 points behind Antonelli.

“It’s been an incredible weekend and an incredible race,” said Antonelli, who was not even born the last time an ⁠Italian won the Monaco Grand Prix – Jarno Trulli in 2004.

“We had incredible pace and it all ⁠came so natural and that gave me ⁠the confidence to push.”

A year after finishing last on his F1 debut at Monaco, Antonelli showed incredible poise to shrug off the red flag drama that meant he effectively ‌had to win two races.

“I wasn’t super keen on re-starting but once the notification came out I just gathered my emotions and ‌re-focused ‌again. Once I got away and was P1 into the first corner I could enjoy the last few laps.”

Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman cut deeper into the lead of reality television personality Spencer Pratt on Saturday, as his lead slimmed to just a single percentage point.

Pratt fell to just over 27% of the vote while Raman jumped up to slightly over 26%, according to the results from the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder. Pratt now leads Raman by just 7,494 votes.

“We’ve seen Nithya Raman catching up on every update and the last two in particular she’s accelerated,” said Paul Mitchell, vice president of the bipartisan voter data firm Political Data Inc. “She’s continued to gain at a rate that means she will eventually catch up unless Pratt starts getting some ballots coming in that are either geographically or demographically better for him.”

Democratic consultant Michael Trujillo, who doesn’t represent anyone in the mayoral race, said the results suggest Raman will surpass Pratt as more votes are counted.

“I think it’s over,” Trujillo said. “It appears Nithya will be in the runoff. Pratt doesn’t appear to be growing much more.”

The second-place finisher in the mayoral primary will face Mayor Karen Bass in a Nov. 3 runoff. On election night Tuesday, the Associated Press determined that Bass had secured enough votes to qualify for the runoff.

Pratt has been in second place since then, but Raman has gradually eroded his lead as mail-in ballots have been counted. The updated vote tally released Thursday showed Pratt with 29% of the vote and Raman with 23%.

With Friday’s update, Raman’s share had risen to 25% and Pratt’s shrank to 28%, for a 3 percentage point gap.

In the most recent batch of mail-in ballots counted, Raman received 23,514 votes, while Pratt gained 10,336.

Election analysts expected Raman to gain ground as the mail-in ballots were tallied, reasoning that many left-of-center voters — Raman’s base — held onto their mail-in ballots until the last minute as they waited to choose between Democratic gubernatorial candidates. They also say younger, more progressive voters tend to hold onto their ballots longer generally.

Although the mayor’s race is nonpartisan, Pratt is a Republican in a city that is overwhelmingly dominated by Democratic voters and elected officials.

A poll by the UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies, which was co-sponsored by The Times, had Pratt running in third place behind Bass and Raman.

The poll of 1,351 likely voters conducted May 19-24 had Bass with 26% support, Raman with 25% support and Pratt with 22% support, with a 3% margin of error.

Los Angeles voters have become accustomed to seeing election results change as late-arriving ballots are tabulated. In the 2022 mayoral primary, real estate developer Rick Caruso led the pack for about a week before Bass pulled ahead.

Pratt was favored in many of the same neighborhoods that voted for Caruso, according to a Times analysis of precinct-level returns provided by the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder on Wednesday, when an estimated 62% of the projected vote had been counted. Raman, by comparison, made inroads in progressive areas dominated by Bass four years ago.

Pratt, whose Pacific Palisades fire home burned in the January 2025 fire, was strong there and on the Westside, as well as in the San Fernando Valley communities of Encino, Woodland Hills, Chatsworth and Sunland-Tujunga.

Raman dominated precincts known for their progressive politics, particularly those with younger people in renter-heavy neighborhoods stretching from Hollywood to Highland Park, including her home base of Silver Lake.

Mail-in ballots with an election day postmark will continue to be accepted by county election officials through Tuesday.

Jalen Brunson drilled the go-ahead free throw as the New York Knicks held off a furious San Antonio rally to beat the Spurs 105-104 and take a commanding 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.

San Antonio player Victor Wembanyama had a crucial late turnover and missed a potential game-winner with two seconds remaining on Friday, leaving the Spurs in need of an unprecedented comeback when the best-of-seven series shifts to New York for games three and four.

No team has lifted the trophy after dropping the first two games of the Finals at home.

Michael Jordan’s 1993 Chicago Bulls and the 1995 Houston Rockets are the only other teams to win the first two games of the championship series on the road, and both went on to win titles.

The Knicks won their 13th straight game of the playoffs – the second-longest streak in postseason history – and will have a chance to close out their first title since 1973 in front of home fans at Madison Square Garden. United States President Donald Trump is scheduled to attend on Monday.

They had to withstand a scintillating fourth-quarter surge from the Spurs, who erased a 14-point deficit with a 14-0 scoring run.

Wembanyama shook off a slow start to score 22 of his 29 points in the second half, his three-point play with 57.3 seconds remaining giving the Spurs their first lead since the second quarter at 104-102.

It was tied at 104-104 with 9.5 seconds left when Wembanyama grabbed the rebound of a Brunson miss but turned it over with a bad pass into the back of teammate Stephon Castle.

Brunson scooped up the ball and was fouled, then made the first of two free throws to put the Knicks back in front.

San Antonio had one last chance, coming out of a time-out with 7.5 seconds left. They got the ball to their superstar, but his jump shot clanged off the rim.

“I threw that one away,” 22-year-old Wembanyama said. “I messed up. We didn’t play great as a team. We needed to win that game.”

Karl-Anthony Towns, who led the Knicks with 21 points and 13 rebounds, admitted he was praying when Wembanyama put the Spurs’ final attempt.

“A great player got a great shot, and it just didn’t go in,” Towns said.

‘What a ballgame’

For the second straight game, Towns delivered a stellar defensive performance that pushed Wembanyama out of his comfort zone.

“He’s a once-in-a-generation player,” Towns said. “You got to make it difficult on him. So, just utilising my experience, utilising my size, my skill, and just trying to make it difficult for him.”

Brunson and Mikal Bridges scored 20 points each, OG Anunoby added 17, and Landry Shamet scored 13 off the bench for the Knicks.

Wembanyama added nine rebounds, four blocked shots and two steals, and De’Aaron Fox scored 20 points for the Spurs.

Desperate not to head back to New York in a 2-0 hole, the Spurs attacked the paint early.

Wembanyama thrilled Spurs fans at the Frost Bank Center – where Knicks supporters were a vocal presence – with his first basket of the night, a left-handed dunk that gave the Spurs a 15-10 lead.

Fox’s alley-oop layup off a feed from Devin Vassell pushed the lead to 10 with less than two minutes to go in the first.

The Spurs pushed their lead to 12 before the Knicks responded in a tense second quarter, taking the lead for the first time, 49-48, on Landry Shamet’s layup with 3:39 left in the first half.

San Antonio regained the lead, but Towns’s three-pointer over Wembanyama gave the Knicks a 56-52 halftime advantage that they pushed to as many as 12 before taking an 84-75 lead into the fourth quarter.

“What a ballgame,” Knicks coach Mike Brown said. “It’s a fantastic ballgame. They made a run. We made a run. They made a run. We made a run.

“We could have folded a few times, but our guys just kept fighting … No matter what run they went on, no matter what time of the game, our guys just kept uplifting one another.”

While Kelsey Plum was out with an ankle injury for the past week, Sparks coach Lynne Roberts called her the “head of the snake” of the team’s offense.

Plum, who entered the night leading the WNBA in scoring, netted 27 points but couldn’t save the Sparks from a fourth-quarter collapse and a 104-96 loss to the Dallas Wings at Crypto.com Arena on Friday night.

The Sparks’ offense looked better, but it had no answers for the three-headed attack of Arike Ogunbowale, Paige Bueckers and Jessica Shepherd, who spearheaded the Wings’ 63% shooting effort in the fourth quarter to seal the win.

The Sparks have lost three consecutive games for the first time since last June. They lost to Connecticut on May 30 before a poor offensive outing against Las Vegas on Tuesday. With Plum, they eclipsed their 69-point total from that game by midway through the third quarter Friday.

But Dallas’ offense was too much for the WNBA’s worst defense.

The Sparks led by as much as nine in the second quarter but surrendered the lead late in the quarter as the Wings shot 55% to cut the lead to one by halftime.

The Sparks led 78-77 going into the fourth after a back-and-forth third quarter, but Dallas went on a 15-5 run to lead by eight. It was the only cold quarter for the Sparks, who scored just 18 points, with more than half of their offense coming from Plum.

It was a two-point game with under two minutes to play when Ogunbowale collected a rebound off her own shot to give the Wings a two-possession lead before Plum missed a three-pointer and a free throw.

Nneka Ogwumike notched a double-double with 13 points and 10 rebounds while Ariel Atkins scored 16 points.

Ogunbowale scored a game-high 30 points while Bueckers posted a career-high 14 assists and Shepherd had 22 points and 15 rebounds.

Wings guard Odyssey Sims left the court in a wheelchair in the second quarter after she twisted her left ankle coming down from a rebound attempt; she didn’t return. In the fourth, Aziaha James had to be carried off by her teammates after she got hit hard by an Ogwumike screen.

The Sparks will host the expansion Portland Fire (6-6) on Sunday, who lost a tight game against Phoenix on Friday night.

SAN ANTONIO — Go crazy, New York. Or, perhaps more accurately, crazier.

The red-hot Knicks are going home, two wins away from an NBA championship that the capital of the world has been waiting to see for generations.

Jalen Brunson hit a go-ahead free throw with 9.5 seconds left after a turnover by Victor Wembanyama moments earlier, then Wembanyama missed a jumper at the end of New York’s 105-104 win over the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night for a 2-0 lead in the NBA Finals.

“What a ballgame,” Knicks coach Mike Brown marveled.

Karl-Anthony Towns had 21 points and 13 rebounds, while Brunson and Mikal Bridges each scored 20 for the Knicks. They have won 13 straight, the second-longest streak by any team in NBA playoff history.

“New York City showed up,” Towns said. “The fans showed up. The energy showed up. And we found a way to get it done.”

The Knicks are just the third team to win the first two games of a finals on the road, joining Michael Jordan and the 1993 Chicago Bulls, and Hakeem Olajuwon and the 1995 Houston Rockets.

Both of those teams won championships, the Bulls needing six games to oust the Phoenix Suns, the Rockets going home after winning those first two games in Orlando and sweeping the Magic. The Knicks, seeking their first championship since 1973, are in position to join them.

Wembanyama, after a very quiet first half, scored 29. De’Aaron Fox had 20 for San Antonio.

“We can’t change the past,” Wembanyama said, “We’re already thinking about Game 3.”

The series shifts to New York. Game 3 is at Madison Square Garden on Monday night.

New York Knicks guard Landry Shamet, left, celebrates with guard Mikal Bridges after making a three-pointer in the second half against the San Antonio Spurs in Game 2 of the NBA Finals on Friday.

(David J. Phillip / Associated Press)

President Donald Trump — a native New Yorker — plans on attending Monday. And ticket prices on the secondary market, for the worst seats at MSG, were approaching $9,000 apiece on Friday night, with Knicks fans evidently willing to pay tippy-top dollar just to be in the building as the team nears what would be its first championship in 53 years.

The Spurs were down 14 midway through the fourth and came all the way back — scoring the next 14 points to tie the game. Wembanyama’s three-point play with 57 seconds left gave the Spurs their first lead in nearly two full quarters, putting San Antonio up 104-102.

“We showed tremendous desperation, urgency and competitive response,” Spurs coach Mitch Johnson said. “Hopefully we can try to bottle that up … and try to play to that same level.”

But the Knicks got the last three, Brunson — the hero of Game 1 for the Knicks — getting them all.

Brunson scored on the next possession, just his seventh basket in 24 shots on the night, and the game was tied. Wembanyama missed a long jumper, OG Anunoby got the rebound for New York with 30 seconds left, the Knicks called time and the stage was set.

The Spurs got a stop, but Wembanyama threw the ball away. Brunson got fouled, the Knicks had the lead back and before long Spurs fans were filing out of the arena — possibly for the final time this season.

The Spurs called time with 7.5 seconds remaining. Fox took the inbound pass, then set up Wembanyama for a jumper that would have won it. The shot bounced off the rim, and it was over.

“We had to get a stop. We hadn’t gotten a stop all quarter,” Towns said.

They got their stop. Next stop: New York, where the hottest team in basketball knows an NBA title is just two wins away.

Reynolds writes for the Associated Press.

After the 2022 Los Angeles mayoral primary, developer Rick Caruso looked to have a surprising, and sizable, lead over then-U.S. Rep. Karen Bass.

The morning after the polls closed, Caruso was ahead by 5 percentage points — 42% to Bass’ 37% — and the former Republican called the early results “a victory story.”

But that lead did not last as the vote count continued. By the time all votes were tabulated two weeks after election day, Bass had come out on top, with 43% of the vote compared with Caruso’s 36%.

Welcome to the postelection vote-count slog in California, where tight races are often impossible to call even when the initial results seem clear-cut.

The California governor’s race still has not been called even though Republican Steve Hilton has been the top voter-getter and Democrat Xavier Becerra has been in second place since election night. The same is true in the battle over who will face Bass in the mayoral election: reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, who is now in second place, or L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who is in third place.

At this point in the vote tally, “everybody has an opinion and very few facts” about what the results will be, said Mike Murphy, a Republican strategist.

“Nobody in politics wants to be patient,” Murphy said, adding that California has “adopted a system that’s slow and deliberate.”

It’s not just the L.A. mayor’s race where mail-in ballots have swung election outcomes. Other contests, including those for highly competitive Orange County congressional districts and L.A. City Council seats, have come down to extremely narrow margins that have shifted long after election day.

On election night in November 2024, just over 1,000 votes separated Democrat Dave Min and Republican Scott Baugh in their bid for the 47th Congressional District, with Baugh enjoying a slight lead.

But, ultimately, as more ballots were counted, Min pulled ahead. He ended up winning by about 10,000 votes.

Similarly, in the race between Democrat Derek Tran and then-incumbent Michelle Steel to represent Congressional District 45, it took until Nov. 27 to determine that Tran had won the contest by just over 650 votes.

In 2022, the race between then-incumbent Gil Cedillo and community activist Eunisses Hernandez for L.A. City Council was similarly unsettled. On election day, Cedillo had a comfortable lead with 56% of the vote. But two weeks later, Hernandez ended up in the lead with 54% of the vote to Cedillo’s 46%.

Experts say confirming the final spot in the mayor’s race could still take several more days, depending on how close the contest becomes and how many ballots still need to be counted. Only an estimated 62% of ballots from the city of Los Angeles had been counted as of Thursday morning.

“Of the 40% remaining, or outstanding, there could still be a chance that there would be a significant return of more left-leaning votes, which would certainly benefit Raman,” said Pete Peterson, dean of the School of Public Policy at Pepperdine University.

Late results tend to favor Democrats — as seen in the 2022 Bass-Caruso contest — as Democrats tend to be more likely to vote by mail, a system that accepts ballots up to seven days after election day as long as they are postmarked by that Tuesday. And this year, Democratic voters held on to their ballots longer amid an unsettled governor’s race, which could further boost that phenomenon.

“The major difference between ’26 and ‘22, you had two candidates versus three,” Peterson said. “Mathematically, it’s a different situation.”

Three experts The Times interviewed said Raman still had a chance to pass Pratt, but it seemed more likely at this point that Pratt would survive and challenge Bass in November.

The remaining ballots to count, even if they are overwhelmingly left-leaning, will probably be split between Raman and Bass, which means Raman needs to outperform not just Pratt but Bass to make such a comeback possible, Peterson said.

He called her chances of ousting Pratt “dastardly remote … but it’s not impossible.”

In L.A. County, the registrar of voters reported late Wednesday that officials estimate they still have about 713,000 ballots to process and count, which primarily includes vote-by-mail ballots postmarked by election day but not yet received, as well as ballots returned to drop boxes and vote centers on election day. The registrar only made countywide estimations, which includes a much larger pool than L.A. city voters who will decide the mayor’s race.

Kamy Akhavan, the managing director at the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future, said there’s a theory circulating among pundits that ballots submitted later are going to break more progressive, meaning they’ll be more friendly to Raman.

“Whether there is enough of them to tilt the outcome in favor of Raman taking a second place position, right now, it seems unlikely,” he said.

Pratt is pulling from the same electorate in Los Angeles that voted for President Trump and could snag a few more voters who are angry about the state of the city. But his lead very well could shrink a bit as more Democrats’ ballots are counted, Murphy said.

“Nithya, she’ll probably go up because there’s going to be a fair amount of Democratic votes and she’ll get her chunk, but will she catch Pratt? You can extrapolate it either way,” Murphy said.

A similar left-leaning shift also occurred as more ballots were counted in November 2022 when Bass and Caruso faced off in the general election. Results on election night wavered between the two candidates, but by the following morning Caruso had a thin lead with 51.25% of the counted votes. Bass sat at 48.75%.

Caruso remained in the lead — though it continued to shrink — as the week dragged on, but by Saturday, Bass had pulled ahead with 50.78% of the counted vote. Caruso had fallen to 49.22%.

Her momentum continued to grow as more ballots were processed. Eight days after polls closed the following week, the Associated Press called the race for Bass. At that point, she led Caruso by six points with 53% of the vote.

The final tally would have her winning almost 55% of the vote.

California officials have worked to dispel rumors and falsehoods about slow election results — explaining that it’s part of the process to accurately count and confirm ballots, especially those mailed in — though there has been a growing push to expedite results to build voter trust.

The process has been particularly slow in L.A. County, though experts say that is mostly a result of the county’s massive voter base. Mail-in ballots are also heavily scrutinized with workers verifying signatures and giving voters a chance to remedy the situation if their signature doesn’t match, a process that takes time.

“They’re using that level of care because they’re supposed to — that’s their protocol — and also because it could make a big difference,” Akhavan said. “We’ve seen some elections in Southern California decided by single digits. And that just means this is going to take time. That can be very frustrating, even annoying, to Angelenos.”

June 4 (UPI) — Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra are leading a crowded field in California’s primary for governor on Thursday with millions of ballots left to count.

The two candidates that receive the most votes will advance to the November election, regardless of party. Democrat Tom Steyer has the third most votes so far.

Sixty-one candidates qualified to appear on the primary ballot to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Polls closed on Tuesday night at 8 p.m. PDT. It is common for California to take days if not weeks to tally enough votes to declare a winner.

Despite millions of votes still being counted, President Donald Trump has alleged that Democrats have cheated in California’s primaries.

“There’s BIG cheating by the Dumocrats in California,” Trump posted on social media. “Votes are all tied up. May not be in for weeks. Under investigation by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles. Why the vote counting DELAY?”

Trump also declared Hilton the winner of the primary, even though not enough votes have been counted to make that determination.

“Congratulations to Steve Hilton on coming in first, last night, in the California Vote for Governor,” Trump wrote.

Hilton, a former Fox News host, is the top overall vote-getter as of Thursday morning.

Becerra is the former Biden administration U.S. human services and health secretary. Steyer, a billionaire, is a philanthropist and climate activist.

The Knicks are bidding to win their first Championship since 1973 and Karl-Anthony Towns said the fans have been inspiring their comebacks.

“It’s something that’s in the city, you feel that energy in the city,” said Towns, who posted 18 points and 12 rebounds.

“The grit, the grind, the hard work you’ve got to put in to make it in the city.

“I think we reflect our fans and their lifestyles and what it takes to make it in New York City, when we step on that court with the Knicks jersey.”

It was a quiet night for Victor Wembanyama. He was the top scorer for the Spurs but only scored six of his 21 shots from the field.

“We’ve been down in a series before – never in the Finals – but I’m not kicking myself about anything,” said Wembenyama.

“I was bad, it’s not more complicated than that. I’m not worried in the slightest.”

The best-of-seven series continues in San Antonio on Friday before the teams head to Madison Square Garden for Game three on Monday.

Wade Meckler and Nick Madrigal each had four of the Angels’ 16 hits, Walbert Ureña pitched six solid innings and the Angels beat the Colorado Rockies 11-4 on Wednesday night.

Meckler is batting .389 (14 for 36) with two homers and 10 RBIs since he was recalled from double-A on May 22.

Vaughn Grissom added a homer and three RBIs, and Oswald Peraza had two hits and two RBIs to help the Angels — who tied their season high with the 16 hits — avoid a three-game sweep.

Ureña (3-4) gave up three hits and three runs. He struck out seven and walked three, cooling a Colorado lineup that scored 39 runs in its previous five games. The 22-year-old right-hander, who moved from the bullpen to the rotation in mid-April, has a 2.08 ERA in his last seven starts.

The Angels bunched six hits in a six-run second, the rally featuring Jose Siri’s RBI double and RBI singles by Logan O’Hoppe, Grissom and Peraza. Two runs scored on wild pitches by Michael Lorenzen (2-8), who gave up eight runs and 10 hits in 3 1/3 innings.

The Rockies cut it to 6-1 on back-to-back doubles by Hunter Goodman and Troy Johnston in the fourth, but the Angels countered with Grissom’s two-run homer in the bottom of the inning for an 8-1 lead.

Colorado pulled to 8-3 in the fifth on Tyler Freeman’s two-run homer, but the Angels answered again in the bottom half on Jo Adell’s RBI single for a 9-3 lead. Doubles by Meckler and Peraza and Madrigal’s RBI single pushed the lead to 11-3 in the sixth.

Relievers Drew Pomeranz, Ryan Zeferjahn and Kirby Yates covered the final three innings for the Angels.

As election officials continued tallying ballots Wednesday, Republican Steve Hilton and Democrat Xavier Becerra continued to lead in the unsettled race to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, with billionaire Democrat Tom Steyer hoping for a surge in late-arriving votes to push him into one of the top-two spots to advance to the November general election.

Hilton, a British immigrant and former Fox News commentator, told reporters outside the state Capitol in Sacramento Wednesday morning that he was “very encouraged” by the latest results, though he stopped short of declaring victory.

“It does look as if change is coming to California, and that is good news for everyone, every small business, every working family, everyone who wants to see our state set back on track,” he said.

Becerra and Steyer did not hold public events as of Wednesday afternoon.

Election data analyst Paul Mitchell said it would be nearly mathematically impossible for Steyer to close the gap.

“As we start to get more data, the runway is going to get shorter and shorter,” he said.

He said Steyer, to finish in the top two in the primary, would have to get about 30% of the remaining uncounted votes while Becerra would need to be limited to 15%. The self-funded billionaire has “a very high hill to overcome, and the challenge gets steeper and steeper as we get more data from the counties,” Mitchell said.

Once mired near the bottom of a crowded pack of Democrats in opinion polls, Becerra, a former Biden administration cabinet member, rocketed ahead of his rival candidates after former Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race in April amid allegations of sexual assault and misconduct. The scandal triggered an upswing of voter interest in California’s once sluggish governor’s race and in Becerra, who seized the moment.

“Here in Hollywood’s hometown, we love a good underdog story,” Becerra told cheering supporters at his election night party at La Plaza de Cultura y Artes in downtown Los Angeles.

Becerra spoke about his Mexican immigrant parents and becoming the first in his family to attend college. Though a longtime California politician, Becerra said that his campaign for governor was outspent and that he faced calls to drop out of the race.

“The underdog stayed in the fight,” he said. “Like my parents, I never gave up. … Never stopped believing in the beacon-light goodness of California and thankfully, neither did you.”

Steyer, who spent more than $216 million of his wealth on the race, has not conceded defeat.

His campaign manager, Heather Hargreaves, wrote in a letter to supporters Wednesday that “we’re going to give democracy time to work. County election officials are still counting ballots and don’t expect to know how many people voted in total until” Thursday, when officials are required to report the estimated number ballots left to process.

The billionaire former hedge fund owner campaigned against the corporate and special interests that have a powerful presence in Sacramento and often spend heavily in elections, including this year against Steyer.

Billionaires “do everything they can to hoard their wealth and avoid paying taxes, and we see corporations continue to rig the system for themselves — raising your prices to juice their profits. Screw that,” Steyer said at his election watch party at the Regency Ballroom in San Francisco.

Other candidates in the race included Republican Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco and Democrats including former Rep. Katie Porter, San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

Villaraigosa, Mahan and Porter conceded the race Tuesday night.

California’s 2026 race for governor started slow but ended with a flourish, including the demise of a scandal-ridden Democratic favorite, the anointing of a Republican by Trump and Becerra’s unexpected rise from the depths of the candidate field.

Unlike gubernatorial elections in the last quarter of a century, this year’s race lacked a clear crowd-pleasing front-runner able to win over voters, such as movie star Arnold Schwarzenegger or Jerry Brown, a sage of the California electorate and scion of a storied political family. But it unfolded at a time when the state’s residents are overwhelmed by high housing costs, steep gas prices and overall unaffordability that threatens the “California dream” that once drew millions of people to the state.

“Normal people are not living and breathing politics on a daily basis,” said Tim Rosales, a strategist who ran Republican John Cox’s unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign. In today’s information-saturated environment, Rosales said, the race and its roster of “extremely milquetoast candidates” didn’t break through until the Swalwell scandal grabbed voters’ attention.

The 2026 gubernatorial primary has been one of the most unpredictable and expensive in decades and a race that was shaped early on by a number of heavyweight Democrats staying on the sidelines.

Though supporters urged them to run, former Vice President Kamala Harris, Sen. Alex Padilla and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta passed on the race. It was in a state of limbo for months last year as Harris, one of the state’s most high-profile politicians, weighed whether to jump in.

“I don’t ever recall a playing field that looks like this one. Usually there’s a clear front-runner,” said veteran Democratic strategist Darry Sragow. “It’s easy to say that it reflects a lack of talent [but] that’s absolutely not true. Almost any of the candidates running could make a good governor.”

Still, candidates struggled for months to break through to voters.

In February, polls showed the crowded field of Democrats splitting liberal voters and opening a statistical possibility that the party would be boxed out of November under California’s open, top-two primary, which places all candidates on the same ballot. Only the first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their party affiliation.

Just when Swalwell appeared on the cusp of becoming the Democratic front-runner the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN published allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other women. Swalwell suspended his campaign.

It was Becerra who benefited the most. In less than two months, he vaulted from polling in the low single digits to the top of the field of candidates, according to surveys conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that were co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times.

“Becerra caught lightning in a bottle,” Rosales said. “It could have easily gone to any of the other candidates,” but many had baggage. Videos of Porter losing her temper hurt her image, the source of Steyer’s wealth and his unbridled campaign spending weighed on voters’ minds, and Villaraigosa and Mahan were “more centrist than what most Democrats wanted, and so Xavier Becerra was really the safe choice,” Rosales said.

Before Democratic voters began to narrow down their choices, Trump endorsed Hilton in early April. It helped the former Fox News host break away from Bianco, his main GOP rival.

In the days before the primary election, the race solidified into a three-way contest involving Becerra, Steyer and Hilton.

Steyer stepped up his fight in the remaining days, seeking to squeeze into one of the top two spots by battering Becerra in ads and at campaign rallies as a politician propped up by corporate special interests.

“We cannot afford to have a governor who’s been bought off by Big Oil. Period,” he said at a Sunday rally in Los Angeles.

Corporations, along with labor unions and interest groups including the California Assn. of Realtors, had spent more than $18.7 million to boost Becerra, according to the election spending tracker California Target Book. Many of the same groups also gave money to a committee intended to attack Steyer.

As the election neared, Becerra sharpened his attacks against Steyer, calling the billionaire a “liar” and accusing him of trying to buy the election.

“We are not going to let a billionaire or Trump’s handpicked candidate take over this state,” he said during a Sunday rally in Long Beach.

If Becerra faces off with Hilton in November he’ll have a distinct advantage. Democratic voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1 in left-leaning California.

Winning the general election would make the 68-year-old Becerra the first elected Latino governor of California. At roughly 40% of the state’s population, Latinos are California’s largest ethnic group but have not been represented in the governor’s mansion since 1875, when then-Lt. Gov. Romualdo Pacheco was elevated to fill a 10-month vacancy.

Times staff writers Iris Kwok, Susanne Rust, Andrew Khouri and Christopher Goffard contributed to this report.

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto lagged behind her two well-funded challengers based on early returns Tuesday night. But her incumbent colleague, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, appeared to be faring better in his bid to stay in office, holding a double-digit lead over finance executive Zach Sokoloff.

Progressive Marissa Roy led the field vying to serve as Los Angeles’ top lawyer in the first batch of returns surfacing around 8:20 p.m.

L.A. County Deputy Dist. Atty. John McKinney sat in second, while Feldstein Soto was positioned third. The top two finishers will advance to November’s general election. It could be days before the outcome of the race is clear. Mail-in ballots with a Tuesday postmark will be accepted by county election officials for another week.

With only two candidates running, the controller’s race will be decided this month and will not go to a runoff in November.

The city attorney’s race transformed suddenly this spring after the Los Angeles Police Department’s largest union broke with Feldstein Soto and backed McKinney. Independent expenditure campaigns have thrown $3 million behind McKinney in recent weeks, with much of that money coming from a political action committee controlled by Airbnb.

Feldstein Soto sued the rental giant for violating price gouging laws in the wake of the Palisades fire last year and has openly questioned whether McKinney would shy from aggressive litigation against Airbnb if elected.

“Special interests have gotten really accustomed to special treatment at City Hall. They get special treatment all the time,” Feldstein Soto said in a recent interview, suggesting that both McKinney and Roy had been compromised by outside spending. Independent expenditure campaigns supporting Roy also received roughly $725,000.

McKinney told The Times that if elected, he would “absolutely” sue Airbnb if necessary.

A representative for Feldstein Soto’s campaign declined to comment on the early returns late Tuesday night.

The three leading candidates often sounded like they were campaigning for different jobs.

Roy said she would run the city attorney’s office as L.A.’s “largest public interest law firm,” focusing on tenants’ rights, wage theft and other issues affecting working-class Angelenos. A deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice, she also vowed to sue the Trump administration, linking arms with the attorney general’s office and other city attorneys in aggressive litigation to curb what many Californians see as targeted abuses of power.

McKinney talked more like he was running for city prosecutor, leaning heavily on his experience winning high-profile felony trials in the downtown courthouse. He said he would improve the way the city attorney prosecutes gun crimes and animal abusers. Despite his lack of experience as a civil litigator, McKinney also said he could bring down the city’s litigation costs, which exploded under Feldstein Soto.

“While all votes have not yet been fully counted, we feel optimistic about qualifying for the General Election in November. People want political courage. They want leadership,” McKinney said in a statement Tuesday night. “What is already clear, is that this election has been shaped by the pressing and undeniable concerns of the people of Los Angeles.”

McKinney previously ran for L.A. County district attorney in 2024 but disappeared in a crowded primary field.

While her term has been marked by financial strain, allegations of misconduct and mistreatment of employees and recent questions about her handling of a data breach that led to the leak of a trove of LAPD records, Feldstein Soto maintained that her opponents are far too inexperienced to serve as the city’s top lawyer.

She said she improved public safety by repairing her office’s relationship with the LAPD and filed more misdemeanors than her predecessor. Although legal costs surged, Feldstein Soto said she did her best to mitigate damage on a number of difficult cases she inherited when taking office in 2022. The rise of so-called “nuclear verdicts” in civil claims reflects a nationwide trend rather than a fault of her leadership, she said.

Feldstein Soto was endorsed by Mayor Karen Bass and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). Roy had the support of the L.A. County Democratic Party, the city chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). In addition to the police union, McKinney was backed by his boss, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman.

The city controller’s race, normally a fairly sleepy affair, has turned into the second-highest-spending race in the city.

Mejia, 35, known for his two corgis that he often features on billboards across Los Angeles, sought to retain his seat as the city’s accountant and auditor.

His only challenger was Sokoloff, a senior vice president for asset management at Hackman Capital Partners. Sokoloff, 37, alleged Mejia did not properly utilize the controller’s office to run audits on city departments and failed to keep up the auditing pace of his predecessor.

Sokoloff’s mother, Sheryl, has spent $7.5 million on independent expenditures in the race, mostly on attack ads and mailers against Mejia. Often, the ads point to allegations that Mejia in 2023 fostered a toxic workplace and made inappropriate sexual remarks to female subordinates.

A woman who identified herself as Sheryl Sokoloff hung up on a Times reporter last week when asked about the race expenditures.

Mejia said Sokoloff’s mother — married to Jonathan Sokoloff, managing partner of private equity firm Leonard Green & Partners — was trying to bankroll the seat for her son.

Mejia has long run on accountability and transparency for the city’s budget and made public-facing databases across dozens of topics on the controller’s website in his first term.

A licensed certified public accountant, Mejia is a member of the Green Party and does not accept endorsements from political parties or politicians. He was endorsed by the Los Angeles Daily News and multiple labor unions, including the United Teachers of Los Angeles and United Auto Workers.

Sokoloff, a Democrat, was endorsed by multiple former controllers, notable Democrats — including Schiff — and the L.A. County Democratic Party, along with other business advocacy groups.

TJ Rumfield hit a go-ahead sacrifice fly in the ninth inning and the Colorado Rockies used a five-run eighth to rally past the Angels 9-8 on Monday night.

Hunter Goodman put Colorado ahead 8-6 with a three-run homer in the eighth. Jake McCarthy homered earlier for the Rockies, who have won more games this season (23) than they did before the All-Star break last year.

Jorge Soler’s two-run triple for the Angels tied it 8-8 in the bottom of the eighth.

McCarthy doubled in the ninth to move Kyle Karros to third before Rumfield drove him home with a sac fly to right field for a 9-8 lead. McCarthy finished two for four at the plate, including a solo homer in the third for a 2-0 lead.

Troy Johnston plated Colorado’s first run with an RBI single in the first, and Sterlin Thompson added an RBI single in the fifth to pull the Rockies to 5-3.

Karros’ RBI double in the eighth sparked the five-run rally. Tyler Freeman tacked on an RBI single and Goodman capped the outburst with his 14th homer — a three-run drive over the left-field wall.

Antonio Senzatela (5-0) threw 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win. Kyle Freeland gave up six runs, five earned, and seven hits in 5 2/3 innings.

Kirby Yates (0-1) gave up the go-ahead run in the ninth.

José Soriano pitched the first 4 2/3 innings for the Angels, giving up three runs on three hits and striking out seven. He also hit two batters with pitches and walked seven — a career high. He became the first Angels pitcher to issue seven free passes in a game since Garrett Richards on Sept. 2, 2013.

Jo Adell hit an RBI single in the third before Jose Siri drilled his second career grand slam to put the Angels up 5-2 in the third. Vaughn Grissom scored on a throwing error by Goodman in the fifth for a 6-3 lead.

Manaka Matsukubo finished with a goal and an assist to lead the North Carolina Courage to a 2-1 win over Angel City at BMO Stadium on Sunday.

Matsukubo slipped a ball through to Evelyn Ijeh, who calmly finished to give the Courage a 1-0 lead in the 48th minute. With the goal, Ijeh has landed on the scoresheet in three straight matches.

Three minutes later, Evelyn Shores’ pinpoint cross into the box found the head of Maiara Niehues for the equalizer.

North Carolina retook the lead for good in the 79th with Riley Jackson’s perfectly weighted pass to Matsukubo, who scored her fifth goal of the season.