Nneka Ogwumike answered the same question she’s been facing for almost two months.
Why now? Why leave the WNBA when she still leads the Sparks in scoring and rebounding, has played a central role in helping the league negotiate a transformative new collective bargaining agreement and returned to the city where her pro career began?
Ogwumike is at peace with her decision. And when she steps onto the court in a Sparks jersey for the last time Thursday, she will do it without regrets.
“I’m mostly grateful,” Ogwumike said. “I haven’t really been thinking much else besides just being grateful for the opportunity to have had a 15-year career in the WNBA and also to finish in a Sparks jersey.”
There is a lot for which to be grateful.
Ogwumike entered the WNBA as the No. 1 overall pick of the Sparks in 2012. Now, 15 seasons later, she is leaving the league as one of its most accomplished players — and as the most prolific scorer in Sparks history.
Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike, left, tries to drive past Lynx forward Napheesa Collier during a game in Minneapolis.
(Matt Krohn / Getty Images)
“It feels freeing,” Ogwumike said of her decision to retire. “It feels like there’s a level of autonomy that I’m able to have, and I’m very happy about that.”
The numbers only begin to tell the story.
Ogwumike was rookie of the year after averaging 14 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. Four years later, she produced the best season of her career, averaging 19.7 points per game, winning MVP and leading the Sparks to their third WNBA championship.
She spent 12 seasons with the Sparks before leaving for Seattle, then returned to Los Angeles this season to finish her career.
Along the way, she established herself among the most productive players in league history. Ogwumike will finish her career fourth all-time in scoring with 8,013 points, behind Diana Taurasi, Tina Charles and DeWanna Bonner. She is third all-time in rebounds with 3,571 and third in steals with 716.
And on July 17, she added one more piece of history to the résumé, passing Lisa Leslie to become the Sparks’ all-time leading scorer.
Sisters Chiney, left, and Nneka Ogwumike pose for a photo at the Bird’s Eye View After Party during WNBA All-Star weekend.
(Daniel Boczarski / Getty Images for Vox Media)
“This is where it all started [for me],” Ogwumike said. “So very happy to be able to share this time, both the beginning and the end of my career in L.A., and I had a majority of my career playing for this organization, so it really does mean a lot to be able to finish in it as well.”
The return, however, did not unfold quite the way Ogwumike or the Sparks had envisioned.
Los Angeles entered the season with playoff expectations after bringing Ogwumike back, signing Erica Wheeler and trading for Ariel Atkins. The Sparks had not made the postseason since 2020, and the hope was that Ogwumike’s return could help change that.
Instead, the season became a struggle. The Sparks will finish 10 games out of a playoff spot, leaving Ogwumike’s final games less about a postseason push and more about what she could leave behind.
“The season is not at all what I expected, but it doesn’t mean that I can’t come out here to do my job and try and be great, and be great as a result,” Ogwumike said. “And as always, playing with my teammates as well.”
That has meant spending time with the young players who will carry the Sparks forward after she is gone.
Sparks coach Lynne Roberts and Nneka Ogwumike talk on the sideline during a win over the Indiana Fever in July.
(Katelyn Mulcahy / Getty Images)
Ogwumike has particularly focused on Cameron Brink, the young forward who represents a significant part of the organization’s future.
“I think right now I’m really spending a lot of my time trying to pour into Cam as well,” Ogwumike told reporters this week. “I really do think that she’s the future of the league. … I’m happy to be able to leave whatever I can before I throw my feet up.”
It is a fitting final role for a player whose career has stretched across generations of the WNBA.
“She’s poured into me since I got into the league,” Dream forward Angel Reese said in August. “Kind of like one of my first vets, always being there for me, always texting me, and also really like educating me on the things that were going on, knowing that it was a big CBA coming up.”
Her final contribution might not be something that appears in a box score. It might be what she passes on.
“She’ll be missed,” said Valkyries forward Gabby Williams, who played with Ogwumike in Seattle the previous two seasons. “As a friend, but also as a fan. I’ll miss watching her in the W.”
Williams knows what Ogwumike’s career has meant to the league, but she also understands what comes next.
“I’m really happy for her,” Williams said. “Happy she gets to take that next step. I know what it means to her. I’m glad her last year was pivotal for the CBA and she’ll always have her name written on that.”
Ogwumike, though, isn’t spending much time looking backward.
She hasn’t thought about what her final moments in the WNBA will feel like, only the gratefulness she feels to have had her 15-year career.
“I haven’t,” Ogwumike said when asked if she has thought about her last moments in the league. “Still just focused on playing.”
From Sam Farmer: Aaron Donald made his triumphant return to NFL relevance on Monday night, and notably so did the Rams.
The team that looked lost in its Down Under debut returned to form against the New York Giants, even with star receiver Puka Nacua watching in street clothes because of hip pain.
Matthew Stafford was surgical with his passing, throwing four touchdown passes in a 28-6 victory. Receiver Davante Adams made several acrobatic catches befitting of the retina-burning yellow “Classic Sol” jerseys that turned the Rams into human highlighter pens.
“Played with a bunch of passion, energy, excited to be back home,” Stafford said, speaking about the team as a whole and especially the defense.
“We did enough offensively, but we still left some plays out there. I wasn’t as efficient as I would have liked in certain areas. Some plays that we can make that we didn’t make. We’ll keep working on that. But it was nice to get a win as we’re finding a way to get better.”
Adams had eight catches for 195 yards and two touchdowns.
“To be here with Matthew, just to be able to bond a little bit, be a part of his deal…,” Adams said. “It’s just a blessing.”
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Chargers’ offense is a disaster
From Mirjam Swanson: Be careful what you wish for when you’re wishing for a new offensive coordinator.
Chargers fans were so over Greg Roman. Anything would be better than his run-heavy scheme stunting quarterback Justin Herbert’s anticipated ascension. Anyone would be preferable to the man holding the reins while the Chargers scored just three points in last season’s wild-card loss to the New England Patriots, after which Roman was fired.
Somehow, after just two games, the Chargers’ offense under McDaniel has Bolts fans wishing anyone else was running the show. Roman included.
Because Roman wouldn’t have overcomplicated a third-and-inches play-call. He wouldn’t have had the 6-foot-6, 240-pound Herbert line up in shotgun and call for motion.
And the subsequent snap wouldn’t have hit receiver Tre’ Harris before it got to Herbert. And instead of losing five yards and having Herbert, in a rare show of emotion, slapping the turf in frustration, the Chargers probably would have gotten a fresh set of downs.
So far, McDaniel’s brief Chargers’ tenure hasn’t just been a disappointment. It has, through two games, been a disaster. Because the Chargers really needed these first two wins against opponents who both won only three games last season.
Instead, the Chargers’ offense looked as disjointed and discombobulated in Sunday’s 26-14 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders as it did the previous week in their 26-14 loss to the Arizona Cardinals.
Times sports reporter Kevin Baxter wants to talk to a few Dodgers fans for an upcoming story. If you are interested in speaking with him, please email him at kevin.baxter@latimes.com
Clippers hire interim CEO
The Clippers hired John S. Gibson as interim chief executive and governor on Monday, taking over the roles previously held by team owner Steve Ballmer, who is serving a one-year ban by the NBA.
Ballmer recently said he won’t fight the league’s salary-cap circumvention punishment in a reversal of the team’s initial defiance and vow to fight against what it called “a heavily biased investigation.”
The league suspended Ballmer for one year, fined the team $30 million and forced it to forfeit five first-round draft picks. Ballmer said the team has paid the fine.
1905 — Willie Anderson wins the U.S. Open for the fourth time in five years, beating Alex Smith with a 314-total at the Myopia Hunt Club in South Hamilton, Mass.
1927 — Gene Tunney wins a unanimous 10-round decision over Jack Dempsey at Soldier Field in Chicago to retain his world heavyweight title. The fight is marred by a long 10-count in the seventh round. Dempsey knocks Tunney to the mat, but Dempsey doesn’t go to a neutral corner. The referee doesn’t start counting until four or five seconds after Tunney is down. Tunney regains his feet and goes on to win.
1974 — The Pittsburgh Steelers and the Denver Broncos are the first teams to play to a tie, 35-35, with the new overtime rule in effect.
1984 — Mississippi Valley State’s Willie Totten passes for 526 yards in a 49-32 victory over Jackson State. Wide receiver Jerry Rice has 285 yards receiving.
1987 — The 1,585-member NFL Players Assn. goes on strike after the New England-New York Jets Monday night game. The strike lasts 24 days.
1990 — Illinois’ Howard Griffith sets an NCAA record when he scores eight rushing touchdowns in a 56-21 rout of Southern Illinois. Griffith gets touchdowns in three consecutive carries in the second quarter and ties an NCAA record with four touchdowns in the third quarter. Griffith doesn’t play in the fourth quarter. It’s the most points scored in an NCAA game by a player other than a kicker.
1991 — Miami coach Don Shula gets his 300th career victory in the Dolphins’ 16-13 win over Green Bay.
2002 — New England’s Tom Brady completes 39 of 54 passes for 410 yards and throws touchdown passes to four different receivers, leading the Patriots to a 41-38 overtime victory over the Kansas City Chiefs.
2007 — Graham Harrell of Texas Tech completes 46 of 67 passes for 646 yards, the fourth-best total in major college history, in a 49-45 loss to Oklahoma State.
2007 — Kentucky’s Andre Woodson sets a major college record for consecutive passes without an interception, breaking the mark of 271 held by Fresno State’s Trent Dilfer.
2012 — Cobi Hamilton of Arkansas has 10 catches for a Southeastern Conference record 303 yards and three touchdowns in a 35-26 to Rutgers.
2012 — Old Dominion’s Taylor Heinicke smashes NCAA Division I records by throwing for 730 yards. He completes 55 of 79 attempts without being intercepted and leads the Monarchs back from a 23-point, third-quarter deficit to a 64-61 victory against New Hampshire.
2018 — Anthony Joshua retains his IBF, WBO and WBA heavyweight titles by stopping Alexander Povetkin in the seventh round at Wembley Stadium.
2018 — Jess McDonald scores two goals and the North Carolina Courage win the National Women’s Soccer League championship with a 3-0 victory over the Portland Thorns.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1911 — Cy Young, 44, beat the Pittsburgh Pirates 1-0 for his 511th and final major league victory.
1936 — The Detroit Tigers swept the St. Louis Browns 12-0 and 14-0 to record the biggest double shutout in major league history.
1954 — Karl Spooner of Brooklyn became the first pitcher in the majors to strike out 15 in his first game as the Dodgers beat the New York Giants 3-0.
1966 — The Baltimore Orioles clinched their first AL pennant in 22 years with a 6-1 victory over the Kansas City A’s. Their last pennant came in 1944 when they were the St. Louis Browns.
1968 — Cesar Tovar played one inning at each position for the Minnesota Twins, becoming the second major leaguer in history to do it. Bert Campaneris of the Oakland A’s was the other.
1969 — Willie Mays of the San Francisco Giants became the second player to hit 600 home runs, joining Babe Ruth. The two-run shot off San Diego’s Mike Corkins in the seventh inning, gave the Giants a 4-2 win.
1973 — Baltimore’s Al Bumbry tied the major-league record with three triples as the Orioles beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-1 and clinched the American League East title.
1977 — Bert Blyleven tossed a 6-0 no-hitter for Texas against the Angels at Anaheim Stadium.
1986 — Fernando Valenzuela of the Dodgers became the first Mexican to win 20 games, beating the Houston Astros 9-2 while giving up two hits.
1990 — Andre Dawson of the Chicago Cubs stole his 300th base in an 11-5 loss to the New York Mets, to become the second player with 300 homers, 300 steals and 2,000 hits. Willie Mays was the other.
1993 — Nolan Ryan of the Texas Rangers faced three Seattle batters before hurting his right elbow. He never pitched again. Ryan finished his career with 324 wins, 5,714 strikeouts and seven no-hitters.
2000 — Houston’s Jose Lima set an NL single-season record by giving up his 47th homer in the Astros’ 12-5 loss to Cincinnati. The major league record for home runs allowed in a season is 50, set by Minnesota’s Bert Blyleven in 1986.
2003 — Detroit set an AL record with its 118th loss, falling 12-6 to Kansas City. The 1916 Philadelphia Athletics (36-117) set the record.
2003 — Second baseman Alfonso Soriano broke a major league record by hitting his 13th leadoff homer of the year in the New York Yankees’ 10-inning loss to the Chicago White Sox.
2006 — Alfonso Soriano became baseball’s first 40-40-40 player in Washington’s 3-2 win over the New York Mets. Soriano hit his 40th double and stole his 41st base. With 45 homers, he already was only the fourth major league player with 40 homers and 40 steals in a season.
2018 — The Atlanta Braves capped a most surprising season by clinching their first NL East crown since 2013, with Mike Foltynewicz taking a no-hitter into the seventh inning in a 5-3 win over the Philadelphia Phillies. A year after going 70-92, manager Brian Snitker and his Baby Braves surged back into the playoffs.
2023 — By hitting his 40th homer of the season, Ronald Acuña Jr. becomes just the fifth member of the exclusive 40-40 club consisting pf players who have hit 40 homers and stolen 40 bases in the same season. He already has over 60 steals, the first player to ever combine the two totals, and has a chance to reach 70. The Braves defeat the Nationals, 9-6. For the second time in a month, Aaron Judge hits three homers in a game to lead the Yankees to a 7-1 lead over the Diamondbacks. Judge had never had such a game before this year, and becomes the first player in Yankees history to have two in one season.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Versatile forward Nicolas Batum is retiring following an 18-year NBA career and a long stint with the French national team.
The 37-year-old Batum announced his retirement in a social media video with his son on Monday.
“I decided to retire from basketball for several reasons,” Batum told 10-year-old son, Ayden, in the video. “I want to come home and be with you. I’m going to take care of you and make room for others. I think I’ve done my time. My time with France ended two years ago. And the NBA is over too. You know, when you’ve played as much basketball as I have, at some point, you have to know when to stop. … I’ve done everything I needed to do.”
Batum played two seasons in the French league before being selected in the first round of the NBA draft by the Portland Trail Blazers. The 6-foot-7 forward spent seven seasons in Portland before playing the next six with Charlotte.
Batum spent most of his final six seasons with the Clippers, with a short stint in Philadelphia in 2023-24. He also was a stalwart on French national teams that won silver medals in the 2020 and 2024 Olympics.
Batum averaged 9.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists while shooting 37% from three-point range during his NBA career.
The Clippers hired John S. Gibson as interim CEO and governor on Monday, taking over the roles previously held by team owner Steve Ballmer, who is serving a one-year ban by the NBA.
Ballmer recently said he won’t fight the league’s salary-cap circumvention punishment in a reversal of the team’s initial defiance and vow to fight against what it called “a heavily biased investigation.”
The league suspended Ballmer for one year, fined the team $30 million and forced it to forfeit five first-round draft picks. Ballmer said the team has paid the fine.
Gibson will immediately oversee the team’s basketball and business operations and represent the Clippers in league voting matters. He’s a long-time Clippers season ticketholder.
“I am honored to take on this responsibility and grateful for the opportunity to serve an organization I have supported for many years,” Gibson said in a statement. “My focus will be on supporting our people, providing steady leadership, and helping the organization continue moving forward.”
Gibson spent the last six years as a trial lawyer and litigation partner at DLA Piper in Los Angeles, where he co-chaired the firm’s U.S. Business & Commercial Litigation practice. He previously advised and represented major corporations, technology and health care companies, pro sports organizations and business leaders.
Maybe this is what the Chargers are — lurching, sputtering and unable to consistently move the football, despite an offensive overhaul packed with lofty expectations.
Just as they did in their abysmal season opener, the Chargers struggled at home Sunday and failed to establish a rhythm on their way to a 26-14 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders.
The Chargers lost to the Las Vegas Raiders 26-14 on Sunday, and the schedule doesn’t get any easier for them moving forward.
In another bit of sad synchronicity, both the Raiders and Cardinals won just three games and fired their coaches last season.
“Not deterred,” said Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh, off to his first 0-2 coaching start in college or the pros. “No one in that locker room is deterred.”
If so, the Chargers are showing far more determination off the field than on it. Because their play Sunday could buckle the resolve of even true believers.
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Dodgers sweep the Giants
From Kevin Baxter: Only the Pirates and Cubs have met more often than the Dodgers and Giants, who faced off for the first time in 1889. And over all that time, the Dodgers are just two games better, with 1,294 wins to the Giants’ 1,292.
The Dodgers and Giants have also won more pennants, made more World Series appearances and have more players wearing their caps in the Hall of Fame than any other National League teams, all of which fueled a rivalry that was once among the most visceral and passionate in American sports.
But that was then and this is now.
After Sunday’s 3-1 victory over the Giants, the Dodgers’ 14th win in their last 17 games, the team could finish a season with 100 wins for the fourth time in six years. The Giants have had just one winning record in that time.
The Dodgers (96-60), who have won five straight division titles, are headed to the postseason for a record-tying 14th consecutive year. The Giants will miss the playoffs for a fifth straight season.
So is the rivalry dead? That depends on who you ask.
“It’s always a rivalry,” Giants pitcher Logan Webb. “We’d like to make it a little closer when it comes to the standings. But I definitely feel it when I throw against them.”
But then Webb, who is from Northern California, grew up with the rivalry and, as the longest-tenured Giant, pitched against the Dodgers in games that mattered. Giants coach Ron Washington, who made his major league debut with the Dodgers when the rivalry was still a thing, said many players on San Francisco’s roster don’t know that background.
Times sports reporter Kevin Baxter wants to talk to a few Dodgers fans for an upcoming story. If you are interested in speaking with him, please email him at kevin.baxter@latimes.com
Angels shut out by Twins
Alan Roden hit a three-run homer and drove in a career-high four runs, and Dean Kremer yielded one hit over six stellar innings in the Minnesota Twins’ 8-0 victory over the Angels on Sunday.
Josh Bell had three hits and two RBIs for the Twins (73-83), who have won three of five overall after splitting four games at Angel Stadium with two shutout victories. Brooks Lee added three hits and scored three runs.
Roden had three hits in his first major league game this month, punctuated by a shot to right in the seventh for his third career homer, his first since Aug. 6, 2025.
Angel City cruised to a 3-0 road victory over a shorthanded Utah team that received two red cards in the first half.
Defender Paige Cronin and midfielder Ana Tejada were ejected by the 24th minute. Two minutes later, Ally Sentnor converted the resulting penalty kick past goalkeeper Mandy McGlynn to put Angel City (11-8-6) ahead in Sandy, Utah.
Two minutes after coming off the bench for the second half, Taylor Suarez made it 2-0 with a one-touch finish off a pass from Gisele Thompson.
Leslie, a two-time WNBA champion and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, became the first female professional athlete to receive a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. After the ceremony, the Sparks earned a 105-84 win over the Portland Fire.
Leslie’s friends and family gathered outside the arena for the unveiling of the statue Leslie dubbed “The First Lady,” celebrating her 12-year pro basketball career in Los Angeles. Many speakers, including former Sparks coach Michael Cooper and Lakers legend Magic Johnson, noted Leslie’s accomplishments while also saluting her as a kind person.
Leslie became the second WNBA player to be honored with a bronze statue outside of a U.S. pro basketball arena, joining the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird.
1940 — For the first time in the history of photo finishes a triple dead heat for first place is recorded, at Willow’s Park, Victoria, British Columbia.
1955 — Rocky Marciano knocks out Archie Moore in the ninth round at Yankee Stadium in New York to retain the world heavyweight title.
1980 — Richard Todd of the New York Jets completes an NFL record 42 passes and throws for 447 yards and three touchdowns in a 37-27 loss to San Francisco.
1982 — NFL players begin a 57-day strike.
1985 — Michael Spinks wins a 15-round unanimous decision over Larry Holmes Las Vegas to win the world heavyweight title.
1985 — Montana State’s David Pandt catches 21 passes for 169 yards against Eastern Washington to set an NCAA record.
1986 — Ken O’Brien’s 43-yard touchdown pass to Wesley Walker at 2:35 in overtime ends one of the highest scoring games in NFL history as the New York Jets defeat the Miami Dolphins 51-45. O’Brien passes for 479 yards and four touchdowns, all to Walker. Miami’s Dan Marino passes for 448 yards and three touchdowns as both quarterbacks set a record with 884 combined yards passing.
1991 — U.S. Basketball announces “Dream Team” for the 1992 Olympics.
1994 — The North Carolina women’s soccer team wins its 89th straight game, setting the unofficial record for the longest winning streak in college sports. The 5-1 victory over rival N.C. State broke the mark of 88 in a row set by the UCLA men’s basketball team during the early 1970s.
1997 — The Buffalo Bills stage the third-biggest comeback in NFL history, overcoming a 26-0 deficit to beat the Indianapolis Colts 37-35. The Bills made the greatest comeback in the 1992 AFC playoffs, wiping out a 35-3 deficit to beat the Houston Oilers 41-38 in overtime.
2003 — Sam Hornish Jr. wins the fastest open-wheel race in history at California Speedway. Hornish’s Chevrolet-powered Dallara averages 207.151 mph in the Toyota Indy 400 — breaking the previous closed course race record of 197.995, set here last year by Jimmy Vasser in a CART Champ Car event.
2008 — The United States take back the Ryder Cup with a 16 1/2-11 1/2 victory over Europe. It’s the largest margin of victory for the Americans since 1981.
2008 — Miami wins for just the second time in 22 games, ending New England’s NFL record 21 straight regular-season wins with a 38-13 win over the Patriots. Ronnie Brown scores a Miami-record four rushing touchdowns and passes for another. The 25-point loss is New England’s biggest in seven seasons at Gillette Stadium.
2014 — Tom Brady passes for 234 yards and a touchdown in the Patriots’ 16-9 win over Oakland. The win is Brady’s 150th career victory as a starting quarterback, joining Brett Favre (186) and Peyton Manning (169) as the only quarterbacks to accomplish the feat.
2018 — English golfer Oliver Fisher shoots the first round of 59 in the 46-year history of the European Tour. Fisher makes an eagle and 10 birdies on a par-71 course in the second round of the Portugal Masters held at the Dom Pedro Victoria Golf Club in Vilamoura.
Compiled by the Associated Press
This day in baseball history
1934 — Daffy Dean of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched a no-hitter against the Brooklyn Dodgers for 3-0 victory in the second game of an Ebbets Field doubleheader. Daffy’s brother Dizzy, held Brooklyn hitless until the eighth inning in the opener and won 13-0.
1947 — Boston’s Johnny Pesky had two hits in each game of a doubleheader and finished the day with 202 hits. Pesky surpassed the 200-hit mark for the third time in as many major league seasons. He is the only player to lead a league in hits in his first three seasons in the game.
1964 — Manager Gene Mauch’s first-place Phillies lost 1-0 to the Cincinnati Reds on Chico Ruiz’s steal of home in the sixth inning. It was Philadelphia’s first of 10 straight losses, a streak that cost them the NL pennant.
1970 — Oakland’s Vida Blue pitched a no-hitter in his eighth major league start, beating Minnesota 6-0.
1995 — Colorado’s John Vander Wal set a major league record with his 26th pinch-hit of the season with a home run in the seventh inning against San Francisco.
2000 — Colorado’s Jeff Cirillo doubled twice in a 13-4 win over San Diego, giving him 51 doubles for the year. Cirillo and Todd Helton (57) became the seventh pair of teammates in major league history to reach 50 doubles in the same season.
2001 — Albert Pujols hit a grand slam and doubled in a run in St. Louis’ 9-5 win over Pittsburgh. The slam gave him the major league record for extra base hits by a rookie (83), one more than Johnny Frederick’s total for Brooklyn in 1929.
2001 — Ranger infielder Alex Rodriguez hits his 47th home run tying the major league record for home runs in a season by a shortstop. Cubs legend Ernie Banks established the record in 1958.
2006 — David Ortiz hit his 51st and 52nd homers, breaking the Red Sox record for most homers in a season of 50 set in 1938 by Jimmie Foxx. The homers also set the major league record by a designated hitter at 45, two more than he hit when he set the record last season.
2008 — Baseball said farewell to Yankee Stadium, the home of baseball’s most famous team. What began with a Babe Ruth home run on an April afternoon in 1923 ended with Mariano Rivera retiring Brian Roberts on a grounder to first baseman Cody Ransom, completing a 7-3 victory over Baltimore.
2013 — Matt Carpenter broke Stan Musial’s team record for doubles by a left-handed batter in a season and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Milwaukee Brewers 7-2. Carpenter’s fifth-inning double was his 54th of the season, one more than Musial’s total in 1953.
2016 — Rookie Gary Sanchez hit two more homers and drove in five runs to lead the New York Yankees to an 11-5 rout of the Tampa Bay Rays. Sanchez homered in his fourth straight game. The catcher hit a three-run shot in a four-run second off Alex Cobb and added his 19th homer in 43 games this season on a solo drive in the sixth against Justin Marks. Including two games last season, Sanchez became the first player in major league history to hit 19 homers in his first 45 games. Wally Berger, with the Boston Braves in 1930, went deep 19 times in his first 51 games.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
California Atty. General Rob Bonta and Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison have reached an agreement to end the state’s antitrust fight, paving the way for Ellison to complete his $111-billion purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery, said a person familiar with the matter.
The two sides have agreed to resolve antitrust claims that Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general brought in late July, said the source, who was not authorized to comment publicly on the settlement.
As part of the deal, Paramount agreed to pay a penalty if the company fails to make good on a promise to distribute 30 films per year in theaters and to spend $1.5 billion on film production in Hollywood over the next five years, said the source who was not authorized to comment.
Representatives of Paramount and Bonta did not respond to a request for comment.
A federal judge must approve the agreement. Paramount would then be poised to quickly finalize its purchase of Warner Bros. Discovery — a blockbuster combination that will reshape Hollywood by collapsing two historic film studios with rights to Batman, Harry Potter, “Top Gun,” and Bugs Bunny and by combining the HBO Max and Paramount+ streaming services.
In addition to CBS, Paramount would own dozens of cable television channels, including CNN, TBS, HGTV, Food Network and Comedy Central.
The road to a resolution was fraught. Bonta abruptly canceled a negotiation session with Paramount in late August after potential deal terms leaked. Then, after talks restarted and the settlement began taking shape, several powerful Bonta allies, including New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James and Connecticut Atty. Gen. William Tong, signaled their displeasure with proposed deal terms.
They felt the deal points didn’t go far enough to mitigate the potential clout Paramount would wield over the film and television industries if it was allowed to swallow its larger industry rival, according to three people familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment.
Ellison’s goal had long been to complete the Warner takeover by the end of September — before midterm Congressional elections and prior to a key deadline for Paramount to increase its payout to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders. Ellison received a boost from California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Xavier Becerra, the Democratic nominee for California governor, who pressed Bonta to end the dispute rather than take the case to trial in Oakland in March.
Newsom said he took “seriously” Paramount’s threat to leave the state. He advocated for a settlement behind the scenes, according to two people close to the matter who were not authorized to comment.
State Attorney General Rob Bonta in 2025. (Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Ellison was highly motivated to strike a deal because his company’s expenses will soon accelerate. Beginning Oct. 1, Paramount is on the hook to pay Warner investors a “ticking fee” of 25 cents per quarter, per share until the deal closed. That obligation is expected to add $7 million a day to the cost of the $31 a share that Paramount agreed to pay Warner shareholders when it won the bidding war back in February.
Paramount’s takeover will be heavily leveraged. The company’s bankers have lined up nearly $80 billion in debt to finance the merger. Ellison’s father, billionaire Larry Ellison, late last year agreed to backstop the $47-billion in equity needed to complete the acquisition. Royal families from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi have agreed to chip in $24 billion for an equity stake by assuming some of Ellison’s financial commitments.
Late last week, the Federal Communications Commission approved Paramount’s request to allow the foreign investors to own nearly 50% of the merged company. The Ellison family, however, will retain its voting control.
Paramount has promised Wall Street that it would make more than $6 billion in cost cuts. A recent Los Angeles County economic report predicted the merger could lead to an estimated 4,500 workers in the Los Angeles region losing their jobs as Ellison works to combine the two companies.
The truce comes after Paramount received clearances from regulators around the world, including the European Commission, Canada and the U.S. Justice Department.
Larry Ellison separately announced plans to switch the headquarters of his software behemoth Oracle to Nashville from Austin, Texas (after Oracle relocated from Silicon Valley six years ago).
Paramount also enlisted major Hollywood unions, the Directors Guild of America and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, and prominent cinema chains to drop their opposition to the deal.
Bonta’s suit had leaned heavily into potential harms to theatrical distribution and lawyers for the states had been banking on theater executives’ testimony at trial.
The parties also were facing a key court hearing Thursday. Paramount was poised to ask U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín in Oakland to make the states and the Writers Guild of America post a $1.88-billion bond that would cover some of Paramount’s delay-related deal costs should the company eventually prevail.
The states and the WGA, which also sued to block the merger, have balked at the request, which was designed by Paramount to create fissures within the coalition of states by raising doubts about the strength of their case.
Paramount’s high-profile lobbying campaign reached a crescendo in late August after Paramount called out activist-actor Mark Ruffalo, accusing him of resorting to “antisemitic tropes” to argue against the merger.
Prominent Jewish groups rushed to Paramount’s aid. Ruffalo, who frequently works with HBO, denied the allegation, saying he had a 1st Amendment right to speak against the deal as well as Oracle’s business ties to Israel. Numerous Jewish artists came to Ruffalo’s defense, saying his free speech rights were being squelched.
Bonta abruptly canceled a settlement conference, accusing Paramount of leaking confidential information.
“If you want to have an adult, legitimate, serious settlement discussion — no problem,” Bonta said during an Aug. 25 appearance in Los Angeles. “But if you want to play games, we’ve got better things to do.”
The states’ 37-page lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for Northern California, claimed the Paramount-Warner combination would violate the U.S. Clayton Act, a century-old antitrust law to prevent mergers that weaken competition and raise costs for consumers.
The states, which also included Nevada, Colorado, Oregon, Washington, New Jersey and New Mexico, had argued the tie-up of two legacy movie studios would give Paramount-Warner too much marketshare in two categories — wide-release movies and potential blockbusters.
Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison has pressed to get his blockbuster deal done before his company must make higher payouts to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders and before the mid-term elections, which could change the makeup in Congress.
(Mark Schiefelbein / Associated Press)
The states also said Paramount-Warner would control nearly 30% of the cable television channel space with more than 50 networks.
Paramount has been facing a June 4 deadline to complete the deal — or owe Warner Bros. Discovery a $7-billion breakup fee. Paramount has already paid $2.8-billion to cover a termination fee paid to Netflix after the streamer withdrew from the auction in February.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. Teacher/coaches are always teaching lessons, but what lessons do they learn from players?
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Coaches learning lessons
Tom Harp, the longtime girls’ volleyball coach at Granada Hills.
(Craig Weston / For The Times)
Coaches are trained to be good teachers, which means offering life lessons and sports lessons. But what do they learn from their players?
For months, a simple questions has been asked: What’s the best lesson a player taught you?
Very few coaches asked could immediately answer. They needed to think long and hard, which meant the question was good.
It was the battle in the trenches between Orange Lutheran and Sierra Canyon, which won 28-10.
(Craig Weston / For The Times)
Sierra Canyon and Orange Lutheran engaged in a penalty-filled nonleague game that should get both teams ready for league play. Thanks to running back Jaxsen Stokes, Sierra Canyon won 28-10. Here’s the report.
Bishop Amat made JSerra pull out every trick before the Lions prevailed 37-28 behind quarterback Hayes Cloutier. Here’s the report.
One of the best games of the week was Corona del Mar holding off La Serna 30-24. Here’s the report.
The Long brothers growing up, with the youngest, Grady, now the quarterback at La Serna.
(Long family)
The quarterbacks in the game are youngest brothers from families that combined to produce six quarterbacks. Here’s the report.
Receiver Paul Turner had five catches for 134 yards and two touchdowns to help Birmingham win its first game against a Southern Section opponent, beating Burbank 23-18. The Patriots play unbeaten Harvard-Westlake on Friday before switching to City Section action.
Marshall improved to 5-0 with a 28-27 win over Marquez, stopping a two-point conversion try in the final minute.
Marshall quarterback Nathaniel Cadet started work for his senior season on New Year’s Eve.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
At midnight on New Year’s Eve, Marshall quarterback Nathaniel Cadet was jump roping. He practices morning, afternoon and night trying to put himself in position to play college football. He has led his team to a 5-0 start.
JSerra is 17-0 and keeps beating one challenger after another. The Lions will face Trinity League rival Orange Lutheran at home Tuesday. The Lancers’ only loss was to Orange Lutheran.
El Camino Real, which looked competitive with top City Section teams during the summer, will make its debut this week.
The No. 1 and No. 2 teams in Southern California, Sierra Canyon and Mater Dei, played in the championship of the Durango tournaent in Las Vegas. Mater Dei handed the Trailblazers their first defeat by sweeping both sets.
Girls Volleyball: The 13th Annual Chatsworth Invitational Is In The Books! Oak Park Claims Gold, ECR Takes Silver, GHC Captures Bronze & Roosevelt Brings Home Copper. Full Tournament Results From A Packed Weekend Of Volleyball! @CIFLACS#RepTheCitypic.twitter.com/PVnJjdWy3R
This was supposed to be the year another team in boys water polo was supposed to rise up and end Newport Harbor’s domination.
Last week’s South Coast tournament showed Newport Harbor isn’t going away without a fight.
The Sailors won the tournament title with lots of drama, beating Cathedral Catholic 16-15 in the semifinals, then winning the championship in three overtimes over Miramonte 11-10.
The DeShaun Jackson Story
A documentary on former Long Beach Poly and NFL receiver DeShaun Jackson debuts Sept. 24 on Prime Video.
(Amazon MGM Studios.)
Former Long Beach Poly and NFL receiver DeShaun Jackson gets the documentary treatment beginning Thursday when Amazon Video runs, “Going deep: The DeShaun Jackson Story.”
The story is told from his Pop Warner days through the NFL.
Notes . . .
The PE teachers at El Camino Real welcomed back Josh Lienhard and Jason Grider. Eric Choi also will be back. His mother recently passed. RIP. pic.twitter.com/PB7PQKIbrp
Baseball coach Josh Lienhard was reinstated as a teacher and coach at El Camino Real and returned Wednesday. He was one of three coaches placed on administrative leave last month after school officials had questions why his CPR and first-aid courses he said he completed were not in the Red Cross database. The school spent thousands of dollars on an investigation that remains uncompleted. Two other coaches, tennis coach Jason Grider and girls soccer coach Eric Choi, also were allowed to return….
Junior Karl Robinson from Santa Margarita has committed to Notre Dame for lacrosse….
Catcher Logan Miller of Mater Dei has committed to San Diego State….
Shortstop Zion Avina of Orange Lutheran has committed to USC….
Junior pitcher Jax Janeski of JSerra has committed to USC….
Junior infielder/pitcher Griffin Doane of Santa Margarita has committed to UC Santa Barbara….
Junior Theo Swafford of Sierra Canyon has committed to Texas….
Standout guard Maxwell Scott of Corona del Mar has committed to Harvard….
Tess Oldenburg from Etiwanda has committed to Nevada for women’s basketball….
Former Crenshaw football coach Robert Garrett said he’s a volunteer at Lawndale, where he “coaches the coaches.”…
Offensive lineman Dylan Felli of Mission Viejo has committed to the University of San Diego….
Eliana Corona from La Habra has committed to Cal Baptist for softball….
Longtime basketball coach Joe Reed has been reinstated as the head coach at Huntington Park. He had been coach since 1991, then lost his position when placed on administrative leave for 14 months because of an investigation. After being cleared to return, he was not given his coaching position back….
Evan Guadalupe from Summit has committed to Loyola Marymount for baseball….
Cody MacArthur has been promoted to interim football coach at Royal. He took over after the head coach was dismissed following an incident when he angrily kicked a football that struck a Royal player and was dismissed….
The Woodbridge Classic in cross country featured lots of race winner from outside Southern California. Here’s the results. …
Servite’s baseball team has one player signing with USC next month and another with UCLA. Let the rivalry begin.
From the archives: Cody Decker
Once a baseball player at Santa Monica High and UCLA, Cody Decker has taken his personality and ability to talk about anything to sports talk radio as a morning co-host for 97.1 with Crespi basketball coach Derek Fisher.
He had 11 at-bats in major league baseball with the San Diego Padres.
He showed off his entertainment and singing skills by getting the top role in the school production of “The Music Man.” He had 18 home runs when he was playing catcher, then singing, so he knows how to multi-task.
From the Star-Telegram, a story on a top high school baseball pitcher being ruled ineligible in Texas for transferring for athletic reasons.
From the Daily Bulletin, a story on a 6-7 tight end who’s overcome the death of his father when he was 4 to become a top athlete at Webb School.
From Wyomingnews, a story on former Banning football standout Steve Perez.
Tweets you might have missed
I have never seen a photo where one 7-footer towers over another 7-footer. St. Francis’ twin towers 7-1 Yann Kamagate and 7-5 Cherif Millogo (he’s clearly grown). The high-low pass will be something to see. Please keep track of dunks. pic.twitter.com/DLJLXqchei
🧵Last week was a big week for Oaks Christian graduates. Max Emberson, Class of 2026, earned Folds of Honor medalist honors (-11) while leading Georgia Tech to the tournament title in his collegiate debut. Emberson outpaced junior Daniel Bennett (Texas) by two strokes. pic.twitter.com/IdM2xPN10L
Santa Margarita girls golf are champions of the prestigious Lady Tritons Invitational (6th time in a row) at San Clemente Municipal GC (Par 73), hosted by San Clemente High School. 1st: Santa Margarita / 357 2nd: Peninsula HS / 380 3rd: Huntington Beach HS / 390 SMCHS Junior,… pic.twitter.com/pY4S7QRraA
— SANTA MARGARITA Catholic High School (@SMCHSEagles) September 15, 2026
Tatianna Griffin, one of the top girls basketball players in the nation, is listed in the Southern Section transfer portal “under review.” She left Ontario Christian for Mater Dei. There’s questions whether Mater Dei’s head coach coached her in club basketball. That needs to be…
L.A. Jordan has dropped flag football. Not enough players. The boys 11-man team also has forfeited this week’s game against Santee. Not enough players.
Paul Sutton was the athletic director, basketball coach, track coach and cross-country coach at Providence in Burbank. He died in 1999 at the age of 41 of cancer. The school created a memorial in the gym foyer with his photo and a plaque. Now it’s been taken down. His widow,…
They’ve been best friends since kindergarten. La Serna raised in Whittier. What a game tonight for Landon Armenta and Grady Long in loss to Corona del Mar. pic.twitter.com/aZ4nmN5gUG
Mil’Von James did not coach Inglewood on Friday against Long Beach Poly at SoFi Stadium. His absence comes as Inglewood looks into an ineligible player who allegedly played in a game in Texas.
I did not know this was happening in high school football but a coach confirmed: He’s now hearing from agents about players wanting to transfer to his school. AGENTS. Welcome to 2026.
#60 (2030) Noah Austin 6’0” (Fairfax High) Austin put on a show at Pangs this past weekend recording two 30 point games. His ability to get down hill and put pressure on the defense was extremely impressive. He’s definitely a freshman to keep an eye on. Crafty with the ball. pic.twitter.com/dR0ZRUfOQa
Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.
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UCLA head coach Bob Chesney, offensive coordinator Dean Kennedy and starting quarterback Nico Iamaleava were all in alignment after UCLA’s Week 2 win over San Diego State.
The Bruins’ offense had to get better.
UCLA wasted no time following through on their promises, scoring 21 first-quarter points against Purdue — the most UCLA has scored in the inaugural quarter against a conference opponent since 2016 against Oregon State.
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While the Bruins’ offense exploded, their defense imploded, giving up 38 points and 488 yards to the Boilermakers.
But in a homage to “Pac-12 After Dark,” it was only natural that UCLA outpaced Purdue, rumbling to a 52-38 win over the Boilermakers on Saturday night at the Rose Bowl in the Bruins Big Ten opener.
Here are three key takeaways from UCLA’s third win of the season, matching its victory total from last season in just three games.
Running backs are elite
UCLA running back Anthony Woods is hoisted up by offensive lineman Julian Armella after scoring against Purdue at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
UCLA has returned to its roots.
With a rich history of churning out premier tailbacks, including Maurice Jones-Drew, DeShaun Foster and Zach Charbonnet, the Bruin offense has lacked a formidable rushing attack the last few years and finished as the nation’s third-worst ground unit in 2024.
But the Bruins may have struck gold in 2026.
UCLA ranks third in the country in rushing yards, first in rushing scores and fourth in yards per carry. Leading the charge is fifth-year tailback Wayne Knight who has 345 rushing yards and eight touchdowns in just three games — matching the Bruins’ total rushing touchdown mark from last season. Knight finished with his third multi-touchdown game of the season against Purdue, reaching the end zone twice to go alongside 200 all-purpose yards.
Through three games, Knight is exceeding the yardage and touchdown output from Reggie Bush’s 2005 season and Mark Ingram’s 2009 campaign — both of which featured Heisman Trophy wins.
But what makes UCLA’s ground attack so special is that it is a four-headed monster. And the Bruins proved it for the third straight week against the Boilermakers.
All three starting running backs — Knight, fifth-year Anthony Woods and senior Jaivian Thomas — reached the end zone and averaged more than six yards per carry in at least nine rush attempts. And Iamaleava added 55 rushing yards of his own to the 369 total the offense tallied.
After three games of consistent rushing dominance, it is becoming less of a coincidence and more of a pattern — UCLA may have one of the most potent rushing attacks in the country.
And one of its most valuable assets is the ground game’s ability to open up the passing offense.
Iamaleava answers the call
UCLA quarterback Nico Iamaleava hurdles over Purdue defensive back Hudauri Hines during the fourth quarter at the Rose Bowl Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Iamaleava challenged himself to play better after a shaky start to the 2026 season.
After failing to complete a touchdown pass while throwing two red zone interceptions during the first two games, Iamaleava and Chesney knew that the signal caller left plays on the table.
“It’s not his best game, he knows it’s not his best game,” Chesney said after beating San Diego State. “I just think that the grit and the toughness that he played with though when he needed to get a couple first downs that really, really mattered to keep drives alive and put his body on the line and you know peeled himself off that ground and just kept fighting for his teammates, that’s special. But there’s a whole lot we got to do there.”
Iamaleava responded Saturday night, going 19-for-31 through the air for 276 yards and three touchdowns.
Not only did Iamaleava light up the stat sheet, but more important, he also passed the eye test. After looking impatient against San Diego State, consistently leaving the pocket early and failing to let plays develop downfield, he looked like a totally different player Saturday night.
Iamaleava looked poised in the pocket, going through multiple reads and hitting pass catchers across the field in an array of spots and formations. He also protected the ball against a solid Purdue defense.
But what was most impressive from the Bruin signal caller was his resilience and toughness on the field. After taking some bruising hits during the Bruins’ first two games, Iamaleava was fearless on scrambles and designed quarterback runs against Purdue, taking big hits downfield to gain extra yards. He also looked willing to take hits in the pocket to make deep or layered throws.
Although some of the hits led to time off the field — he cut a finger on his throwing hand and later took a crushing hit to his throwing shoulder that left him lying on the turf for some time — he always returned to the game. Chesney said he repeatedly asked Iamaleava whether he was sure he could continue playing and the senior kept insisting on returning to the game once he was cleared by the UCLA medical staff.
“He’s just a straight dog, there really isn’t much to say about that,” Knight said. “He’s battling. He gets hurt and he gets back up. He plays the next play. He’s doing this for his brothers.”
Same defense, different opponent
Purdue quarterback Ryan Browne scrambles out of the pocket while being chased by UCLA players Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Purdue’s offense revealed glaring holes the San Diego State offense could not expose.
Aztec quarterback Jayden Denegal only threw for 45 passing yards against UCLA, consistently missing open receivers downfield that had gained considerable separation on the Bruins’ cornerbacks. And even when he did find them, the receivers were not able to haul in catches.
Boilermakers quarterback Ryan Browne, on the other hand, had no problem picking apart the UCLA secondary. Browne went 19-for-30 for 378 yards and three scores, and while he did throw an interception to cornerback Rodrick Pleasant, it came with less than six minutes remaining when the Bruins were already up two scores.
Purdue’s slot receivers tore through the UCLA secondary, running through multiple layers of coverage. Receivers Asaad Waseem and Xavier Townsend combined for 14 receptions, 311 yards and two touchdowns.
Not only did the Purdue offense score five touchdowns, but the pace at which the team scored illustrated the lack of resistance the Bruins’ secondary gave the Boilermakers. Three of the five touchdown drives took less than two and a half minutes, with the first touchdown coming on one play — courtesy of completely broken coverage.
When asked about the impact of Purdue’s receivers Wednesday, defensive coordinator Colin Hitschler said he would have to wait for the game to answer certain questions.
“When you have 10 personnel and that many receivers that can catch the ball, it can create mismatches, and we play a lot of man, so who’s going to fold first?” Hitschler said. “Are we going to be able to man them up or are we having to play more zone? Those are questions that will play out as the game dictates by who’s winning the one-on-one matchups. It’s the chess match that always happens in any game.”
It was obvious who won the chess match.
Two forced fumbles from linebacker Sammy Omosigho and a formidable run defense that held tailback Fame Ijeboi to 2.8 yards per carry helped mitigate the defense’s problems.
How many games UCLA can win the rest of Big Ten play may rest on the defense’s ability to rebound from a brutal win over Purdue the way the Bruins’ offense did after an ugly win over San Diego State.
Few have felt the transformation quite as deeply as Iamaleava, who was the face of both teams.
“Shoot, it means everything,” Iamaleava said of the team’s 3-0 start. “I think that just speaks to the growth of the team and speaks to Coach Ches, of how he got us to buy into this process and his winning, his winning ways. It feels good to be 3-0, and we’ve got to keep going.”
Women’s soccer scores signature win
The UCLA women’s soccer team has take on grueling schedule, facing off with four teams ranked in the top 25 so far this season.
The No. 21 Bruins (5-3-1, 2-1-0 Big Ten) made the most of their fourth opportunity for a signature win, earning a 1-0 win at No. 5 Ohio State (6-1-1, 2-1-0) on Thursday night. It was the Buckeyes’ first loss this season.
Kara Croone set up Leena Powell for the game winner fired from just outside the box in the 25th minute. UCLA goalkeeper Daphne Nakfoor recorded five saves to maintain the shutout victory.
“Amazing performance for the girls,” UCLA women’s soccer coach Gof Boyoko said. “We needed a solid performance, and they did it. We scored a good goal, we didn’t concede, and we were strong defensively.”
UCLA alum Jordin Canada, who has dealt the ball with expert precision this season, had 11 points and 10 assists for the WNBA-playoff bound Dream.
UCLA alum Gabriela Jaquez, who has enjoyed a strong rookie season with a rebuilding Sky team, finished with 14 points, three rebounds, two steals and one assist. Chicago was eliminated from playoff contention, but Jaquez has been a bright spot for the team all season.
Bruins on deck
Here are all UCLA games scheduled to be played this week across all sports, with all times Pacific:
Monday, Sept. 21
Women’s golf at Canadian Collegiate Invitational, All day
Tuesday, Sept. 22
Women’s golf at Canadian Collegiate Invitational, All day
Do you have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future UCLA newsletter? Email newsletters editor Houston Mitchell at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
Sports editor Iliana Limón Romero contributed to this report.
Every so often, an aspiring screenwriter wanders into the dim red glow of Jumbo’s Clown Room hoping to interview one of the dancers. “They’re like: ‘I’m writing a screenplay. Can I interview you?” says Cecilia Fairchild, one of the longtime dancers at the renowned East Hollywood bikini bar.
Her response is usually some version of this: “I’m like, ‘Why are you writing about that? Don’t you know we are all writing that too? Leave us alone,’” Fairchild says with a mischievous laugh. What bothers Fairchild is the assumption behind it — that the dancers are voiceless and helpless. Worst of all, they’re presumed to have stories worth mining but not the ability to produce literature themselves.
Jumbo’s has a longstanding reputation of being part of L.A.’s literary lore.
In the 1970s and 1980s, Charles Bukowski — L.A. nightlife’s debaucherous poet laureate — was rumored to haunt the bikini bar in its early days. David Lynch wrote his classic screenplay “Blue Velvet” at the bar. (According to local legends, the iconic opening shot of “Blue Velvet” came to Lynch when he spotted a dancer with only one ear.) Writer and director Quentin Tarantino reputedly wrote at the bar. But while Jumbo’s has garnered a mythology as a magnet for filmmakers, writers and musicians who collect impressions, the dive’s dancers have shifted from being the subject to the artists.
Many of Jumbo’s dancers write fiction and memoir, host literary salons across Los Angeles and find ways to tell their own stories rather than serve as muses. “It’s funny because I wish that male auteurs would tell the story of customers. I want a sniffer’s memoir. I think that’s a real point of view,” Fairchild says. (Speaking of alienation and horniness, the dancer has been meaning to crack the Marcel Proust canon.)
Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul) types on the bar inside Jumbo’s Clown Room.(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Fairchild is a playwright, poet and memoirist. Her recently completed memoir, “The Poison + The Spit,” traces a life of tumultuous love affairs and a stint dancing in New Orleans, rendered in prose that is whimsical, surreal and deeply emotional. The dancer also hosts the Downpour, a popular monthly literary salon at Bar Covell, and recently directed “Fool in the Pool,” a play that premiered at El Condor in Silver Lake this summer.
Her writing style mirrors her dancing: kinetic, wild and unpredictable. She sometimes takes the stage in roller skates, dancing to David Bowie. Her memoir achieves that same sense of hypnotic motion. “The memoir is so heavy,” she says. “Everything was so sad that I needed some lens to look at it that was fun, zippy and crazy.”
For Fairchild, dancing and writing possess the same need to expose oneself. “Vulnerability is one of the most interesting things about dancing,” she says. “There really is the potential to look into people, and they look into you, and you wordlessly share something with them that is half sexual and half this other thing.”
Meanwhile, Danielle Henderson — another dancer and aspiring novelist at Jumbo’s who writes under the pen name D.M. Faulk — has been working on a science-fiction novel titled “Meridian.” The book imagines a dystopian American wasteland where pregnant women are surveilled and controlled. She has been a longtime science-fiction fan since she and her father watched “Jurassic Park” and “Planet of the Apes” when she was a child.
Long treated as passive muses by visiting writers, Jumbo’s dancers — from left, Caroline Blaike (Caroline Moyer), Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul), and Cecilia Fairchild — are reclaiming the narrative as active poets, memoirists and screenwriters.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Unexpectedly, the Jumbo’s comically tiny dressing room became the inspiration for her novel. In 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned, conversations between dancers about reproductive rights ignited in the dressing room, which in turn informed her novel.
“A lot of those conversations happen in the dressing room. I’m incredibly inspired by the women I’m with who are incredibly sex positive and strong.” That ethos informed Henderson’s protagonist, Zayla.
In recent years, the bar has become a local author hangout. Allie Rowbottom, the author of the recent buzzy adult film novel “Lovers XXX,” discovered the bar in 2011 on the occasion of writer Elizabeth Hall’s birthday party. “I recall sitting front row on novelist Jon Lindsey’s lap, raining dollar bills on dancers performing intricate, beautiful athletic feats,” Rowbottom says. “I spent more than I could afford that night and have been back often since.”
Increasingly, Jumbo’s has cemented itself as a watering hole to the local writing scene. “Two years ago, I rented out a few tables for Jon Lindsey’s birthday, attended by Los Angeles literati like Tea Hacic-Vlahovic, Sammy Loren, Morgan Krantz, Tex Gresham and Nada Alic,” she adds.
According to Rowbottom, Jumbo’s is rife for literary inspiration. “To me, Jumbo’s feels uniquely dedicated, as a venue, to intersecting sex and art, despite the obvious dissonance of selling either,” she says. “I suspect such is what has historically made it a rich spot for writers, dissonance and tension being of utmost importance to good literary work.”
From left, Caroline Blaike (Caroline Moyer), Honey Ryder (Claudia Musikul), Cecilia Fairchild and Stephen (Aaron Laughton) inside Jumbo’s Clown Room.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
A charged scene in L.A. writer Aiden Arata’s critically-acclaimed 2025 essay collection, “You Have a New Memory,” features a night out at Jumbo’s Clown Room. “The dancers are starlets, athletes, artists; the theme is clown, and also longing — longing is a high form of physical comedy,” says Arata. “It possesses that heady mix of scuzz and glamour that can trick you into thinking your life is about to change.”
Jumbo’s burgeoning literary interest revives a hotly debated question: Who gets to tell the stories of sex work? For decades, the club has inspired celebrated writers and filmmakers, but Claudia Musikul — a dancer at Jumbo’s and a screenwriter herself — hopes its literary legacy will increasingly belong to the people at its core: the dancers.
“I hope that everybody can actually get their work out there because I feel it’s much deserved,” says Musikul. “You’ve probably heard about Bukowski, David Lynch doing ‘Blue Velvet’, or Anthony Bourdain. That’s all really cool, but in a way, it’s the actual dancers’ turn to have that kind of recognition.”
Musikul primarily writes screenplays about strippers, a subject she believes is seldom represented authentically. She has been in writing partnerships and workshops while developing scripts centered on dancers. In a sea of films depicting sex work, she cites Paul Verhoeven’s “Showgirls” as a film that resonates with her experience.
“‘Showgirls’ is my very favorite movie,” she says. “It’s my very special place in my heart movie.”
For Caroline Blaike, a poet and dancer at Jumbo’s, the connection between dancing and writing lies in observation. Years of performing have made her acutely attentive to the people who pass through the club, a voyeuristic habit that carries over into her poetry.
“When you’re a dancer, you’re very observant. You watch every person that walks in,” she says. “I feel like the way dancing makes you observe people helps you write from a perspective that other people can then relate to.”
Blaike has been working on a poetry collection that explores love, queerness, desire and personhood. “It’s gotten a little sexier over time, which is kind of fun,” she says. “I also just write about love, being gay, just existing. It can be a little aggressive, but people seem to like it, so that’s good.” She writes these poems from her prized typewriter — a “1951 Olympia typewriter that is my child.”
Among Blaike’s earliest literary touchstones was Maya Angelou. She still remembers encountering Angelou’s line in her poem “Still I Rise,” “I dance like I have diamonds at the meeting of my thighs,” and being stunned by it.
“I was like, ‘Oh, you can write that? That’s amazing,’” she says.
The literary ambitions at Jumbo’s extend well beyond the stage. Stephen Laughton, one of the club’s security guards, jokes that he leads a double life. By night, he keeps watch at the door; by day, he is an award-winning playwright. He’s recently been named the new associate artistic director of the Echo Theater in Atwater Village, and Laughton’s served as the writer-in-residence in the astrophysics department at the Natural History Museum in New York. Last November, his latest play became the first in the world to be staged in a planetarium.
“It’s this crazy, beautiful science play about two guys who meet in a club that explores mental health in the LGBT community, human interaction, time and astrophysics,” Laughton says.
Like many of his co-workers, Laughton has found himself turning Jumbo’s into copy. The club, he suggests, has a way of compelling everyone who works there to write about it.
“I think that probably what we’re all going to realize is that we’re all writing a version of the exact same story,” Laughton jokes.
Blaike argues that the dancers’ diverse talents are a key reason why Jumbo’s Clown Room has become such a beloved institution in the city. “It attracts confident, creative women who work there,” says Blaike. “Our community of women is supportive of each other and each other’s endeavors. … It really does facilitate that.”
Is President Trump holding the Kennedy Center hostage? The allegation has been made at least twice, most recently by John F. Kennedy’s niece Kerry Kennedy, and earlier by Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), an ex-officio member of the board, who has sued to keep Trump’s name off the building.
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “hostage” as, “a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands.” Swap, “person” for the “Kennedy Center” and “taker” for “Trump,” and you have a pretty straightforward “yes.”
The ongoing Kennedy Center dumpster fire points to an unusual presidential obsession with the nation’s premier performing arts venue that dates back to Trump’s first term when he became the first sitting president in history to twice miss the annual Kennedy Center Honors.
In his second term, Trump turned that snub upside down by firing the board and strong-arming his way into being named chairman. If he expected to be welcomed into the arts community with open arms, he was gravely mistaken. His takeover resulted in a wave of high-profile cancellations that ultimately led to a massive dip in ticket sales. The exodus became even worse when the Trump-appointed board voted to add Trump’s name to the building late last year. The reaction, it seems, injured the president’s fragile ego and incurred his wrath.
By early February the president announced he would close the center for a two-year, $257-million renovation. Calling the historic venue “dilapidated,” Trump said he would be the one to restore it to glory. Behind the scenes another story was unfolding, and six months later the Washington Post reported that “ticket sales and fundraising collapsed” after Trump’s name was added to the building, “even as the center’s leaders publicly touted a financial turnaround.”
This week saw chaos at the venue that even the most seasoned journalists struggled to keep up with as the board voted to close the building on the same day that a federal judge upheld an order that Trump’s name could not be restored to its facade after he ordered it removed in late May.
Trump took to social media to decry the decision, threatening to withhold his support for the renovation and noting that the center could be “ripped down” if he wasn’t formally honored with his name on the building. Despite a preliminary injunction barring the venue from closing, people were kicked out of the building and barricades erected in the name of public safety that same day.
Those prone to hyperbole might be tempted to call this presidential tantrum disguised in procedural clothes a constitutional crisis. Or you could just say that Trump has taken the Kennedy Center hostage. The taker wants his name on the building, and the center will not be released for renovation or reopening if that doesn’t happen.
In the meantime an image of Trump on Air Force One was captured that shows him holding a large placard that reads, “Kennedy Center DEMO[LISHED],” leaving concerned parties to wonder just what exactly the chairman of the board has in mind. Is he using a Sharpie at this very moment to slash a line through the image at the center on that board, or is it just a prop to be trotted out in a cruel bit of future social media hazing?
Getting lost in all the drama: a beloved arts venue has gone pointlessly dark, and the people who loved it are heartbroken. If no one is inside to hear the wind whistle, does it make a sound?
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, willing to rustle up a ransom. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Oliver Lee Jackson: Form Follows Feeling The Bay Area painter, sculptor, and printmaker’s work, created over decades, is inspired by the human figure in its composition and structure. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Lisson, 1037 N. Sycamore Ave. lissongallery.com
“Vitruvian Figure (Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum),” 2026, 3D model by Paul Pfeiffer.
(Paul Pfeiffer/Perrotin)
Paul Pfeiffer: Olympia In new work focused on Los Angeles, the artist explores the intersection between media, spectacle, architecture and the body ahead of the city hosting the 2028 Olympic Games. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday; Pfeiffer in conversation with Britt Salvesen, 3 p.m. Saturday; exhibition, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Nov. 7. Perrotin, 5036 W Pico Blvd. perrotin.com
SATURDAY
“Couple walking, Park Avenue,” 1960.
(Estate of Roy DeCarava)
Roy DeCarava: the sound i saw The exhibition presents more than 130 images created between the late 1940s and 1960s, depicting the photographer’s intense interest in the relationship between the visual and the aural. Accompanying the exhibition, in the gallery next door, will be “SIDE B: the sounds,” a listening room featuring DeCarava’s personal playlists and favorite jazz album. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; exhibition runs through Oct. 31. David Zwirner Gallery, 606 and 6166, N. Western Ave. davidzwirner.com
Sutton Foster The two-time Tony winner and TV star performs Broadway hits and standards with Pacific Jazz Orchestra, featuring new arrangements by conductor Chris Walden. 8 p.m. The Soraya, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. thesoraya.org
Mia Middleton: Summoning Cleo New work by the artist explores interpreting familiar forms through a surreal lens. Opening reception, 5-7 p.m. Saturday; exhibition runs through Oct. 24. Roberts Projects, 442 S. La Brea Ave. robertsprojectsla.com
Mrs. Warren’s Profession Real-life mother and daughter Cyndy Fujikawa and Nell Murphy star in this production of George Bernard Shaw’s 1893 play about a Victorian woman coming to terms with how she built a business empire. Directed by Michael Rothaar. Opening night, 8 p.m. Saturday; 8 p.m. Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays (check website for exceptions), through October 25. Pacific Resident Theatre, 707 Venice Blvd, Venice. pacificresidenttheatre.org
Grammy Award-winning composer and bandleader Arturo O’Farrill and Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra open the Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ Jazz series.
(John Abbott)
Arturo O’Farrill & Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra The pianist and composer, a six-time Grammy winner, and his ensemble kick off the Segerstrom Center for the Arts’ 2026-27 Jazz series with Afro-Cuban rhythm, modern jazz harmony and big-band sounds. 8 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
Other Places An alternative art fair devoted to contemporary art spaces and projects, plus workshops, readings, talks and performances. Noon-7 p.m. Angels Gate Cultural Center, 3601 S. Gaffey St., San Pedro. opaf.info
Karma The gallery presents solo exhibitions by painters Randy Wray (“Hothouse”) and Felipe Suzuki, one featuring vivid abstractions, and the other, work created through the lens of memory . Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Oct. 24. Karma, 7351 Santa Monica Blvd. karmakarma.org
SUNDAY
Alexander Apóstol “Regime: Dramatis Personae” (2017), a series of black-and-white portraits of archetypal figures in both populist and authoritarian governments, uses photography to analyze the intertwining of art and political power in Latin America. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday; 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday-Sunday; through Jan 3, 2027. Museum of Contemporary Art, 250 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. moca.org
Textile Alchemy: The Art of Reiko Sudō and NUNO More than 100 limited-edition textiles, along with numerous objects, including drawings, sketches, raw materials, tools, mock-ups, and prototypes, are part of the largest retrospective ever of the Japanese designer’s work created with her textile collective and other collaborators from throughout Japan, Through March 7, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
TUESDAY
The entrance of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles in Exposition Park.
(Ron De Angelis/For The Times)
Lucas Museum Of Narrative Art Where else will you see Luke Skywalker, Vincent Van Gogh, Norman Rockwell, Gordon Parks and Charles Schulz under one roof? The new museum officially opens Tuesday, featuring 100,000 square feet of space spread across more than 30 galleries, exhibiting a mind-bending range of visual storytelling. Check out our full coverage. Public opening, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday; regular hours, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Fridays; 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturdays; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Sundays. Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, Exposition Park, 3800 S. Vermont Ave. lucasmuseum.org
THURSDAY
Bilal The Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter delivers a blend of soul, funk, and jazz. Queens-born R&B musician Yaya Bey is the opening act. 8 p.m. Carpenter Center, 6200 E. Atherton St., Long Beach. carpenterarts.org
Each Other’s Hands: Trans Mutual Aid, 1966—1996 Oxy Arts, Occidental College’s community-based arts hub, presents an exhibition featuring the work of six L.A. artists. curated by Umi Hsu. The opening reception marks the launch of the 2026 CIRCA Queer Histories Festival hosted by One Institute. Opening reception, 7 p.m. Thursday; 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Oxy Arts, 4757 York Blvd. oxyarts.oxy.edu
Arts Anywhere
Robert Wilson and the Civil Wars The newly remastered 4K version of Howard Brookner’s 1987 documentary, the essential yet long elusive film about the 1984 L.A. Olympics Arts Festival, can finally be streamed courtesy of Criterion Channel. It is everything LA28 doesn’t want you know. criterionchannel.com
— Mark Swed
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Christian Barillas, Melinda Page Hamilton and John Lavelle in “The Visit” at Pasadena Playhouse.
(Jeff Lorch)
Pasadena Playhouse opened a new production of Swiss dramatist Friedrich Dürrenmatt’s revenge tragicomedy “The Visit,” and The Times got in on the action. Contributor Jenelle Riley wrote a preview about how the new show features more than a dozen creatives behind the Playhouse’s production of Peter Shaffer’s “Amadeus” earlier this year, including director Darko Tresnjak and actor Jefferson Mays. “Amadeus” was a major hit, so Artistic Director Danny Feldman welcomed the team back with open arms.
Meanwhile, Times theater critic Charles McNulty attended opening night and declared the play a refreshing success (with a few caveats), and expressed “gratitude for the high-level production, gratitude for making the case for why the play still matters, and gratitude for the opportunity of allowing us to make up our own minds about whether the work earns its designation as a modern classic.”
Castulo Guerra as Tlahtoani Klion in a dress rehearsal ahead of its premiere of “Antigone: In the Language of the Kings” by the Latino Theater Company at the Getty Villa.
(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)
McNulty also headed to the Getty Villa for its annual outdoor theater production. This year, the Villa’s outdoor stage marks its 20th anniversary with a co-production with Latino Theater Company of Sophocles’ “Antigone,” reimagined to take place in pre-conquest Tenochtitlan and performed in English, Spanish and Nahuatl. “If the drama is oversimplified, it nonetheless makes for a gripping spectacle,” McNulty writes.
Finally, a very busy McNulty checked out out a revival of José Rivera’s “Marisol” in an Open Fist Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre. The play originally opened in the early 1990s around the same time as Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America,” and McNulty says this new staging is gratifying because it allows a new generation to “embrace the play’s kinetic freedom.”
There are as many acrobats as actors in “Water for Elephants,” which is running at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through Sept. 27 before heading to Segerstrom Center for the Arts (Nov. 10-22, with stops in Portland, Seattle, Reno, Sacramento, Tempe, Fresno and Eugene in between). Contributor Jenelle Riley headed backstage before opening night to watch the high-stakes performers warm up with poles, hoops, ropes and more. When the curtain raises, there’s a real circus onstage.
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Long Beach Opera will perform its 2026-27 season aboard the Queen Mary.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Long Beach Opera announced its 2026-27 season, which is slated to be performed aboard the historic Queen Mary. First up: three works by composer Georges Aperghis, with vocal performances from coloratura soprano Habin Kim. Next: soprano Amanda Forsythe and Opera Prima in a performance of “Tormento Seicento.” Four additional productions include: an Anna Schubert recital, Peter Brook’s “Impressions of Pelleas,” Handel’s “Tolomeo” and Ana Sokolović’s “Svadba.”
The Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles and Daniel Gryczman, the federation’s board chair, sued Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum for the return of the diptych “Adam and Eve,” a pair of 16th century masterpieces by Lucas Cranach the Elder. The suit was one of two filed in the state “since California and Congress passed a pair of laws bolstering U.S.-based claims to Nazi-looted artwork around the world,” reports the Times’ Kevin Rector.
Leslie, a two-time WNBA champion and member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, became the first female professional athlete to receive a statue outside of Crypto.com Arena on Sunday. After the ceremony, the Sparks earned a 105-84 win over the Portland Fire.
Leslie’s friends and family gathered outside the arena for the unveiling of the statue Leslie dubbed “The First Lady,” celebrating her 12-year pro basketball career in Los Angeles. Many speakers, including former Sparks coach Michael Cooper and Lakers legend Magic Johnson, noted Leslie’s accomplishments while also saluting her as a kind person.
Leslie became the second WNBA player to be honored with a bronze statue outside of a U.S. pro basketball arena, joining the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird.
Lisa Leslie celebrates on stage after her statue is unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“We know there is a low percentage of women who have statues in our country,” Leslie said. “I just feel like we are just starting to get our flowers and reap some of the benefits of hard work, blood, sweat and tears that we put into it.”
Leslie sat courtside with her family watching her former team beat the expansion Fire. Rae Burrell led the Sparks with 20 points and added two assists. Nneka Ogwumike finished with a double-double and Ariel Atkins had 14.
Burrell led the team with 13 first-half points. The Sparks led by as many as 20 points in the third quarter, during which several Sparks reached double-figure scoring.
The Sparks kept their foot on the gas in the fourth quarter despite playing without Cameron Brink, Dearica Hamby and Aaliyah Nye.
Many Sparks said they felt blessed to have formed relationships with Leslie. Burrell said Leslie has been a big help during her career. The retired star has responded when players around the WNBA have sought advice.
Ogwumike said the team was happy to attend the pregame statue reveal.
Sparks legend Lisa Leslie takes photos with family and friends at her statue unveiling outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“That’s history, you know? I am very adamant about players coming in and knowing their history,” Ogwumike said. “That’s something you can’t let go of. I think we can see, especially in the NBA, where they are honoring these legends and they are coming back. I think we’re entering an era where there is so much history.”
Leslie grew up in Compton. During the ceremony, she spoke about watching her siblings whenever her mother went to work as a truck driver. She said she pushed to make good things happen for her siblings and didn’t quit or make excuses when life was difficult. She embraced challenges and often challenged herself.
Cooper said Leslie would go head-to-head with some of the Lakers players during practice to give herself a bigger challenge and it was impressive to watch her hold her own. Leslie was determined to be the first player in the WNBA to dunk, which helped redefine what was possible in women’s basketball.
The statue outside of Crypto.com Arena depicts her dunking a basketball.
Lisa Leslie and her family celebrate as her statue is unveiled outside Crypto.com Arena on Sunday.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
“I hope they see themselves out there. I hope you can find a girl that looks like you, whether she has long hair or short hair,” Leslie said. “That’s the key for kids in general. You have to see yourself. If you see it, then you also start to dream and believe that you can be it.”
Leslie recalled walking around Los Angeles as a child. Her affection for the city receiving a statue here more meaningful.
“I also feel a certain level of pride,” she said. “I feel like we are such good people in L.A.”
Leslie’s statue stands next Lakers Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gigi Bryant. Leslie called Kobe her younger brother during the ceremony and is happy to be close to him again.
Leslie’s career will be hard to repeat, but she sees it as a blueprint WNBA players can follow.
She said she is pleased with the direction the WNBA is heading, leaps and bounds ahead of her experience joining the league in 1997. She said it’s been great to see sponsors pouring in and helping the game grow.
“I am so proud of where the women’s game is,” Leslie said. “But the dream was always that we hoped that our USA, everybody across the board, could see the beauty in us, could see the strength in us and our resilience. I am so proud of the product that’s on the floor.”
The LA Times/SurveyMonkey poll set out to measure feelings about football and Super Bowl, both in the U.S. as a whole and in the Los Angeles region.
Each day, a huge range of organizations — schools, churches, bowling leagues, companies and more — use SurveyMonkey’s online platform to poll their members, customers or associates.
To conduct surveys on questions of broad public interest, like this one, SurveyMonkey randomly selects some of those people and asks them if they’d be willing to take an additional online poll. Those who say yes get a survey to fill out.
As with traditional telephone surveys, the results then are weighted to match standard Census Bureau measures of the nation’s population — to make sure that the sample mirrors the nation’s distribution of age, race, gender, geography and education levels.
The result is a representative sample of the adult population.
In this case, the poll, which was developed jointly by SurveyMonkey and The Times, was conducted in English and Spanish from Feb. 1-7 among a national sample of 7,590 adults. The sample included 1,659 Californians and 743 people who live in Greater Los Angeles, which encompasses Los Angeles, Orange, Ventura, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
As with all polls, the results are subject to sampling error. For this survey, the modeled error estimates are 2 percentage points in either direction for the national sample, 3.5 percentage points for the statewide California sample and 5 percentage points for the Los Angeles metro area.
Huntington Beach High started the football season 4-0. The Oilers have Ohio State-bound Brady Edmunds at quarterback in his fourth season as a starter, and rapidly developing receiver Dylin Bruce, who has committed to Arizona State.
That alone should get the Oilers attention, but their 29-25 win over unbeaten Yorba Linda on Friday night deserves special attention. Yorba Linda was 4-0 and perhaps the best opponent on the Oilers’ schedule. By winning, Huntington Beach showed it’s ready for top 25 consideration in the Southland. It’s the first time since 1998 that the Oilers started 5-0.
There’s still the new Delta League opponents, including Dana Hills and Laguna Beach to face in the coming weeks, but second-year Huntington Beach coach Matthew Hatchette deserves kudos for the progress being made in the program.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
Days before the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art officially opens, protesters from the Fair Games Coalition — wearing Jedi robes and Jar Jar Binks masks and carrying lightsabers — rallied together outside the new museum.
Dozens of people from the group fighting for better worker protections during major sporting events were loudly blowing horns, banging drums and chanting, “Sí se puede,” directly across from Exposition Park’s newest museum. The group was at the museum’s private opening party Saturday night to take a stance against museum co-founder Mellody Hobson‘s recent resignation from the Los Angeles Olympics organizing committee, LA28.
“We launched the campaign with some real, reasonable demands,” said Jessica Durrum, the director of the Fair Games Coalition, for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy. “If the Olympics are coming to town, we want to make sure there are lasting benefits for our communities.”
The Fair Games Coalition, which is made up of over 80 organizations, formed to fight for better labor deals during major events like the Super Bowl and the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Some of the unions in the coalition include United Teachers Los Angeles, National Union of Healthcare Workers, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, United Farm Workers and various community groups.
Ahead of these events, the group is asking that employers provide union and living wage jobs, funding for 50,000 units of housing for working families, a moratorium on short-term rentals and protections for immigrant workers.
Gladys Avyla marches in a Fair Games Coalition protest outside the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
(Jonathan Alcorn / For The Times)
Gladys Avyla, a member of Unite Here Local 11, has worked as a cleaner at the W Hotel in Hollywood for the last 14 years. Several years ago she had to move to Victorville when her rent in L.A. got too high. Avyla said that with these major sporting events coming through town she’s worried the cost of living will continue to rise as her work gets busier and busier.
“Rent is very high, and everything is expensive. It’s hard living here. We need a wage increase for the Olympics because everything costs so much,” Avyla said in Spanish. “We need help for all workers. We’re human beings, but, honestly, we aren’t treated like human beings.”
Hobson, who co-founded the billion-dollar museum alongside her husband, George Lucas, resigned from LA28 earlier this week. She reportedly stepped down from the position due to the demands of running the Lucas Museum.
But the Fair Games Coalition claims she responded to their requests to meet and discuss their concerns by resigning. The 35-person board led by Casey Wasserman, who was recently under heat for his ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, is meant to help plan and execute the upcoming Olympic Games.
“That’s how you hide your head in the sand. But we’re not giving up. She still has clout and still has a lot of power in the city of Los Angeles with the Olympic Committee,” said the Rev. Gary Bernard Williams from St. Mark United Methodist Church, a member of the coalition. “There’s going to be a lot of money flowing at the top. Very little money will be trickling down to the workers who need it the most.”
Demonstrators at a Fair Games Coalition protest at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art.
(Jonathan Alcorn / For The Times)
LA28 and the Lucas Museum did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During this year’s World Cup, where several games were hosted in L.A., Unite Here Local 11, the union which represents workers including dishwashers, concession workers, bartenders and servers and SoFi Stadium’s food-service operator Legends Global, came to a tentative agreement days before the first match. Pastor Bridie Roberts, who works as the community organizing director at Unite Here Local 11, said having the Fair Games Coalition’s support was helpful during the negotiations.
“Our members face serious, critical decisions every single day about how to make ends meet and they work with some of the biggest tourism companies in the world that will profit in the billions of these games,” said Roberts. “We feel that the games have potential to bring real outcomes for working people, but only if we fight for them.”
Whether it’s a brush fire, a mass shooting, a car chase or the aftermath of a major storm, viewers in Los Angeles are used to getting the news from above.
Television news helicopter coverage has become one of the most important elements of any local newscast, with the high-flying helicopters roaring overhead a common fixture of breaking news scenes.
These images are so ubiquitous, it’s easy to take them for granted, until Tuesday, when an NBC4 helicopter carrying reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw crashed while covering breaking news in Chatsworth. Both died, along with a bystander on the ground.
Pilots describe a high-stakes race in the skies of Los Angeles, with the TV stations battling to get breaking news on the air first. The air space easily becomes crowded and in the case of moving stories like car chases, a bit unpredictable and chaotic. The crews who take to the air in Los Angeles must not only navigate each other, but air traffic to three regional airports and smaller, local air strips across the Southland when doing their job.
They say safety is always the top priority and that everyone in the air works together to avoid problems.
The NBC4 crash marks the most serious incident involving an L.A. news chopper crew since 2000, when a Fox 11 helicopter covering the Academy Awards crashed and burst into flames at Van Nuys Airport.
Nationally, National Transportation Safety Board data show that 16 people have died in eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the United States since 2000. A cause of Tuesday’s crash has not been determined, but some experts have said they believe mechanical failure might be the cause.
“It crushed us all,” said Tim Lynn, a now-retired helicopter pilot and reporter who flew for 16 years for KTLA-TV. Lynn worked with Moreno and knew how much she cherished her job.
“She loved the job so much that she put her all into it,” he said.
Camaraderie, competition in the air
For all the camaraderie in the air, there is also some competition.
Stations want to be first to get to the scene of breaking news.
Kurt Deetz, a former news helicopter pilot who retired five years ago, said it’s a difficult business to be in.
“It’s very competitive, and at what cost?” Deetz said.
News pilots tend to have plenty of experience, former pilots said, and dangerous incidents are rare. But Deetz said pilots are pushed to be out in the air first, get to the scene, and remain on scene for extended periods of time.
“If you can be the first on the scene, you’re a hero,” Deetz said. “I think about that now and think, that is so dumb.”
Deetz started his career with KMEX in 1995, and worked for nearly every station in the area while working with Helinet, he said.
In the sky, reporters and pilots keep an eye out for one another, warning when one is drifting too close to another or if there is something else to keep an eye on.
“We all know each other,” Lynn said. “Maybe we never met, but we’ve all talked on the radio and know the names.”
There are unspoken rules that news helicopter pilots learn once they join, Lynn said.
During a police chase, for example, the first helicopter on the scene immediately takes the front position left of the fleeing vehicle, he said. The next helicopter takes a position behind that helicopter. The third helicopter takes a spot in the front right side of the chase, and the fourth sits behind it. All four maintain those spots throughout the chase, regardless of the turns and twists throughout the area.
And when the pursued begins to circle a residential area — a common occurrence during police pursuits — all news helicopters are expected to stop and hover in place, even if their shots are temporarily blocked by trees and buildings.
That’s because the tight turns and circles could result in a crash if all helicopters remain in pursuit.
“You never move unless you say something,” Lynn said. “It’s a well-coordinated operation.”
Lynn remembers at least once when a new pilot joined in a pursuit.
“We were all stopped and he’s just chasing the guy like he’s the police,” Lynn said.
Lynn got on the radio and, as the other three choppers kept their position, Lynn asked him to stick to “one of the corners.”
“That was a learning curve for that guy,” Lynn said.
But Lynn said there’s respect for new staff and veterans in the field. Regardless of what station they work for, reporters and pilots are constantly helping each other, abiding by unspoken rules to keep each other safe.
‘A dangerous place to be’
There is one maneuver that pilots say brings them particular anxiety.
Jack Cress, a former helicopter pilot for the U.S. Marine Corps and a helicopter accident investigation instructor for USC’s Aviation Safety and Security Program, said news helicopters will often spend time hovering over an incident, sometimes at a low altitude.
“That is a dangerous place to be,” Cress said.
For Deetz, he said he’d often say that he wouldn’t hover low for extended periods of time, especially if he didn’t see a place he could land in case of an emergency.
“You set up, get your shot, and then you move on,” he said. “I made a point of saying, ‘I’m not going to hover here for hours.’ ”
He knows the practice is still popular among current pilots, which he thinks needs to be rethought.
“In this day and age, there’s no need to hover,” he said. “Those cameras are so powerful. There’s no need to be so low.”
Helicopter pilots are trained to stay away from those conditions because, in case of trouble like engine failure, the lack of altitude and forward momentum gives the pilot little recourse. If the engine were to fail, for example, a pilot can sometimes perform an “autorotation” procedure to use altitude and forward momentum to force the rotors to turn, easing their descent.
The procedure is one that Lynn is familiar with. In 2012, Lynn was covering an incident in Hollywood for KTLA when his helicopter started to smoke heavily. He had no idea until one of the other choppers radioed him to tell him.
“As soon as I turn it, he said, ‘You need to put it on the ground now,’ ” Lynn said.
Lynn headed down and started getting the helicopter ready for an autorotation, as heavy smoke started to shoot from the engine. Lynn looked toward the ground and was eyeing Highland or Los Feliz for a makeshift landing spot. He gripped the controls and expected the engine to give out at any second, until he spotted a parking lot. He watched for the wires, watched for the trees and set it down. The motor never gave out.
Pilots will constantly eye one another in the formation.
News helicopter pilots will normally stay around 1,200 to 1,500 feet above the ground, Lynn said. That is to stay above police helicopters, under commercial flights, and still have enough space in case they need to perform an emergency autorotation procedure.
For the record:
1:38 p.m. Sept. 19, 2026An earlier version of this article stated KCAL’s helicopter is owned by Angel City Air. It is owned by Helicopters Inc.
Although news helicopters are touted as a cornerstone of local news broadcasts, the aircraft are owned and operated by third-party companies. KTLA and NBC4’s helicopters, for example, are owned and operated by Angel City Air, part of Welk Aviation. ABC 7’s helicopter is operated by Helinet, and KCAL’s helicopter is owned by Helicopters Inc.
Many of them are flying the same kind of helicopter that crashed Tuesday, the AS350 B2, which aviation experts said is a popular helicopter for news stations and police departments.
Deetz said he flew that helicopter for his entire career in news, and never once had a dangerous mechanical issue.
‘We all know each other’
It took minutes for word of the NBC4 crash to spread across the world of Los Angeles news chopper pilots and journalists.
“I immediately wondered who. We all know each other,” Lynn said.
One of Lynn’s former colleagues told him they saw a tail rotor on the ground, and Lynn quickly learned it was Moreno and Marciniw who were onboard.
A former police pilot for Huntington Beach and a retired news helicopter pilot after 16 years, Lynn said pilots have established rules in the air to keep each other safe.
He and others have shared several of those rules for new pilots and reporters who joined the business over the years, including Moreno, whom Lynn said he helped train when she first joined Angel City Air as a reporter.
Lynn remembers when she joined the company, he said. She picked up quickly on the equipment she had to use and eagerly sought advice to get better at the job.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash, is expected to release a preliminary report on the incident in the coming days. A complete report on the incident is expected to take up to 18 months to be completed.
The advertising blitzkrieg of L.A.’s mayoral campaign is here.
Mayor Karen Bass and her opponent, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, dropped new campaign commercials over the last week, buying time on television, streaming channels and other platforms. Supporters of both candidates released ads as well.
The two candidates relied heavily on free media for most of the summer, putting videos on Instagram and inviting the news media to cover their appearances.
The dam effectively burst on Monday, with Raman touting her new Hollywood-themed ad “For Your Consideration,” timed to coincide with the Emmy Awards.
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The 30-second spot starts with Raman stepping out on the town, then shifts to some standard L.A. imagery: freeways, palm trees, Echo Park Lake and, of course, the Hollywood sign.
“L.A. shows the world what it means to be a star,” declares the ad’s narrator, actor and screenwriter Bob Odenkirk. “And every Angeleno deserves the chance to reach for their own.”
After Raman has stopped off at a taco stand and hugged a dog, Odenkirk delivers the ad’s final message: “Change. Affordability. An L.A. that loves you back.”
That ad ran on television a few times before being cycled onto social media, per the Raman campaign.
Three days later, Bass went up with a 30-second spot — on digital platforms for now — centered on President Trump’s immigration raids.
The ad offers footage from the day in July 2025 when Bass confronted federal immigration agents in MacArthur Park. The video features images of gun-toting federal agents in military uniforms and Bass hopping out of a car in an aquamarine pant suit to face them.
“When someone comes after your family, you don’t hesitate,” Bass says. “You stand up. You fight.”
One of Bass’ most formidable allies — the Los Angeles Police Protective League — went hard negative with its first ad of the runoff campaign, offering the message that Raman “Doesn’t Get It.”
The commercial, released Friday, follows a young girl as she walks past a homeless encampment, juxtaposed against video of Raman talking about her opposition to a law that prohibits encampments near schools.
“I don’t think a kid’s gonna be safer because a tent is 500 feet away from a school,” Raman said in the clip, which was taken from a 2024 candidate forum in Sherman Oaks.
The backpack-wearing child speaks to the camera and says: “Walking to school shouldn’t be scary.”
“I’m just a kid,” she says. “But even I know I’d be safer if this was 500 feet away.”
The police union says the ad will start running on television this weekend and already is on social media platforms.
Meanwhile, Raman’s backers have an assortment of attack ads running on Facebook and Instagram.
Streets For All, a group that wants to expand the city’s bus and bike lane network, pulled video footage from a different Sherman Oaks candidate forum — this one featuring Bass and Raman last month.
At that event, Bass told the audience that Raman is unresponsive to her constituents, forcing many in Sherman Oaks to contact the mayor’s office directly.
“Many of you have my cellphone, you have called me,” Bass says in the ad. “You called on me specifically for help.”
Streets For All contends those remarks show that Bass gives wealthy homeowners her number while “regular Angelenos get ignored.”
“L.A. deserves a mayor who doesn’t just listen to the rich and powerful,” the ad says.
By Friday, Streets For All had nearly two dozen different video spots opposing Bass over such issues as homelessness, transparency and the Palisades fire, according to Ethics Commission filings.
The biggest backer of the group’s political action committee is hedge fund manager Aaron Sosnick. Of the $1.2 million that the group plans to spend in the mayor’s race, Sosnick has provided $1 million, said Michael Schneider, who heads the group.
Schneider said the committee also has financial support from retired real estate developer Yuval Bar-Zemer — known for his work in the Arts District — and Todd Wexman, chief principal of 4SITE Real Estate, a real estate development company.
Raman pollster says she’s in the lead
The Raman campaign shared the results of a new internal poll that showed their candidate with a five-point lead over Bass.
Of the 600 likely voters who were surveyed, 44% supported Raman and 39% backed Bass, with 17% undecided, according to a memo provided to the campaign and viewed by The Times. The survey, conducted by Hart Research Associates in early September, had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.
“In the initial trial heat for Los Angeles mayor, Councilmember Nithya Raman is in the rare position for a challenger of already LEADING the incumbent,” the polling firm wrote.
Another poll, commissioned by an independent expenditure group supporting Raman, portrayed the race as a statistical tie, at least initially. Estamos con Nithya for Mayor of LA 2026, sponsored by the Western States Regional Council of Carpenters, said its poll showed Bass with 38% and Raman at 37%.
However, when voters received more information on the candidates, Raman took a 7-percentage-point lead, with 41% supporting her and 34% supporting Bass, according to a memo prepared by the group’s pollster.
The margin of error was 3.7 percentage points.
The Bass campaign declined to share its internal polling when contacted by The Times.
However, Neighborhoods for a Better L.A., an independent expenditure group supporting the mayor, said a survey it commissioned in early August showed the mayor with an edge over Raman of 41% to 35%, with 24% of the electorate undecided.
That poll, conducted by Tulchin Research, surveyed 1,200 likely Los Angeles voters and has a 2.8-percentage-point margin of error, the group said.
The poll also found that when given “balanced biographies” about both candidates, Bass’ support grew to 45% while Raman went down to 33%.
“Communications focused on Raman’s record can both reduce her support and consolidate voters behind Bass,” the pollsters wrote.
Giving back El Grito cash
Los Angeles City Councilmember Imelda Padilla locked down sponsorships for the city’s celebration of El Grito, which marks Mexico’s independence.
Tuesday’s event, which featured an evening of musical performances, was sponsored by an assortment of city contractors and government agencies, including waste hauler Athens Services and the Department of Water and Power.
Still, Padilla decided she didn’t want to partner with one particular business, announcing at the last minute that organizers no longer would accept a $5,000 sponsorship from Home Depot.
On the day of the celebration, Padilla issued an apology on Instagram, saying she had heard from community members upset over the event’s affiliation with Home Depot, whose parking lots have been the site of many federal immigration raids.
“We have rescinded their partnership for this event,” Padilla said in her post. “The spirit of El Grito is rooted in celebrating our Latino heritage and creating a space where our families feel welcomed, safe, and celebrated.”
In an email, a Home Depot spokesperson said the company is not involved in immigration enforcement activities and doesn’t coordinate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement or U.S. Border Patrol. The company also doesn’t receive advance warning about enforcement actions, the representative said.
“We cannot legally interfere with federal enforcement agencies, including preventing them from coming into our stores and parking lots,” Home Depot spokesperson Evelyn Fornes said.
State of play
— COZY WITH CARUSO: Billionaire developer Rick Caruso, who was defeated by Bass in 2022, appeared alongside the mayor at a groundbreaking for the Palisades Recreation Center. Caruso praised her for her work on the project but stopped short of endorsing, saying he intends to meet with Raman in the coming weeks.
— LIFE AFTER PRATT: The voters who picked reality TV personality Spencer Pratt in the June 2 primary election are now up for grabs. But will they stay home instead of picking a mayoral candidate?
— BASS BAILS: The mayor skipped a congressional hearing on waste and fraud in homeless spending this week, calling the session politically motivated. Rep. Tim Burchett, the Republican who chaired the subcommittee meeting, accused her of dodging accountability.
— FINDING FRAUD: Federal authorities arrested three people who were working in Los Angeles-area homeless nonprofits this week, accusing one of them of misappropriating more than $7.5 million in taxpayer funds. Scott Turner, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, said the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which provided the funding, had allowed fraud to “run rampant.”
— WE’RE IN THE MONEY: The 2028 Summer Olympic Games in Los Angeles will generate up to $40.6 billion in increased economic output and add as many as 224,000 jobs, according to an upbeat economic forecast released this week. Another, more tempered estimate put the increase at $20.5 billion to $25.4 billion.
— SEETHING OVER SKID ROW: Some activists want dogs taken away from homeless residents living in Skid Row, saying those animals are living in an unsafe environment. A Bass aide responded by cautioning that it is “neither humane nor legal to remove animals from their human companions without appropriate cause.”
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Avalon Boulevard and 64th Street in South L.A., an area represented by Councilmember Curren Price.
On the docket next week: The council’s Public Works Committee meets Tuesday to discuss ways of cleaning, safeguarding or demolishing nuisance properties.
Stay in touch
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Aaron Donald said Friday that he planned to make his season debut for the Rams against the New York Giants on Monday night, but star receiver Puka Nacua’s status is more hazy because of a hip injury.
Donald, 35, rejoined the Rams after ending a two-year retirement. The three-time NFL defensive player of the year did not travel to Australia for the season-opening defeat by the San Francisco 49ers, but he has participated in several 11-on-11 drills this week.
Asked if he would play on Monday, Donald said, “That’s the plan.”
Donald’s plan? Or the Rams’?
“I think that’s all of our plan,” he said. “We have a conversation, we figure it out.”
Donald said he felt as if he had never been away.
“Kind of getting in the groove of things, understanding everything a lot better out there playing a lot more free, a lot more loose and looking more like myself to me,” he said.
Nacua, who was sidelined for a few weeks during the preseason because of a psoas injury, caught five passes for 74 yards against the 49ers and practiced on Thursday. The psoas is involved in hip movement, so it is not clear whether Nacua’s absence was caused by the same injury or a new one.
Nacua was scheduled to speak with reporters on Friday, but did not do so because he did not practice. Coach Sean McVay is scheduled to speak with reporters on Saturday.
Regardless, the Rams are expected to get a boost from Donald, an eight-time All-Pro.
Edge rusher Byron Young played with Donald as a rookie in 2023. Now he will be playing alongside him again.
After a bitter standoff, Paramount Skydance and California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta have made progress in settlement talks that could push Hollywood’s massive merger over the finish line, people familiar with the matter said Friday.
The two sides have quietly been negotiating a truce to end the antitrust lawsuit brought by Bonta and 11 other Democratic state attorneys general — a legal volley that has threatened to derail Paramount’s $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.
It’s not clear how close to a resolution the two sides are, but talks in recent days have been constructive, one of the knowledgeable sources said.
Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison is highly motivated to end the court battle with Bonta before Oct. 1, when his company will be obligated to make a higher payout — an extra $7 million a day — to Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders on top of the $81 billion the company has already agreed to pay.
For weeks, Ellison and his team have been ratcheting up political heat on Bonta to abandon his lawsuit, including threatening to pull Paramount out of Hollywood — a scenario that has rattled state and local lawmakers who desperately want to bring film jobs back to Los Angeles, not lose thousands more.
Paramount declined to comment.
A spokesperson for Bonta’s office said in a statement: “Potential settlement talks are confidential. We cannot confirm or deny whether settlement talks are occurring or their alleged substance.”
Both sides have incentives to settle. Ellison, who has leaned on his family’s connections to President Trump and Washington Republicans, would like to avoid taking on more debt for the already highly leveraged deal. And he is eager to close the transaction and take the reins at Warner Bros. before the midterm elections.
Bonta has been on a winning streak with favorable rulings against the Trump administration and social media giant Meta, and he doesn’t want to overplay his hand or risk having his coalition of state attorneys fall apart.
