message

Casey Wasserman’s name has been scrubbed from the agency he founded decades ago, replaced with an amorphous moniker: “The Team.”

Monday’s move comes amid the lingering controversy over the sports mogul’s decades-old association with Ghislaine Maxwell, accomplice of the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Following revelations of Wasserman’s salacious 2003 emails with Maxwell, several musicians and athletes — led by pop artist Chappell Roan and soccer star Abby Wambach — said that, to stay true to their values, they would leave the agency then known as Wasserman.

Fears of a broad flight of artists and agents prompted Wasserman to announce that he was selling his talent representation and sports marketing firm. Talks with prospective buyers have been ongoing, according to a person close to the agency but not authorized to speak publicly.

For now, the agency is still owned by Wasserman and private equity firm Providence Equity Partners.

Wasserman continues to lead LA28, the nonprofit group that will be staging the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in two years. The LA28 board’s executive committee unanimously voted to keep Wasserman as chairman, after reviewing known details surrounding his more than 20-year-old flirtations with Maxwell and his “strong leadership” of the Games.

Visitors to the Wasserman agency website were greeted with a message saying the firm, as of Monday, was rebranding as the Team.

“For 24 years, this company has been shaped by our work, our people and our unifying belief in the power of Sports, Music and Entertainment,” the message read. “That philosophy remains the foundation of who we are — and where we are going.”

Wasserman was not mentioned in the website messaging. Nor was he pictured in its photos depicting smiling agents. Old press releases have been changed to refer to the company as the Team, not Wasserman.

The website’s background is now adorned with a grid of T’s.

In a Feb. 13 memo to his staff, Wasserman acknowledged his appearance in a recent batch of documents released by the Department of Justice related to the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and Maxwell had “become a distraction.”

Wasserman said he was “heartbroken that my brief contact with them 23 years ago” had brought hardship to the agency he created in 2002.

“I’m deeply sorry that my past personal mistakes have caused you so much discomfort,” Wasserman wrote to his staff. “It’s not fair to you, and it’s not fair to the clients and partners we represent so vigorously and care so deeply about.”

Wasserman appears to have met Maxwell on a September 2002 humanitarian trip through Africa, sponsored by former President Clinton.

Wasserman, a prolific Clinton fundraiser whose famous grandfather helped the Democrat win the 1992 presidential election, was joined on Epstein’s jet by his then-wife, Laura, actor Kevin Spacey, Epstein and his longtime companion Ghislaine Maxwell and others, including security agents.

It’s not clear when Wasserman and Maxwell began corresponding via email. The messages contained in the Justice Department files are from March and April of 2003. In them, Wasserman writes about wanting to see Maxwell in a tight leather outfit and she offered to give him a massage that can “drive a man wild.”

Maxwell was convicted of sexual abuse in 2021.

Wasserman has worked nearly a decade to bring the Olympics to Los Angeles.

Former Mayor Eric Garcetti recruited him to help L.A. win its host bid and the International Olympic Committee reportedly were impressed with Wasserman’s “network of contacts.”

Behind the scenes, there have been tensions with Los Angeles political leaders. Mayor Karen Bass has said that Wasserman should step down from the high-profile role overseeing the Games. Bass said that “we need to look at the leadership” of LA28 and that her job is to make sure that the city is “completely prepared” for the Games.

The U.S. war effort against Iran was “accelerating” as American and Israeli forces fought for control of Iranian airspace and pressed farther inland to seek and destroy Iranian missile capabilities, top U.S. officials said Wednesday.

“Four days in, we have only just begun to fight,” said U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

“The throttle is coming up,” said Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

However, a reported Iranian missile strike at NATO member Turkey — intercepted by NATO defense systems — was not expected to immediately broaden the war theater by triggering a NATO clause requiring other member nations to get involved, Hegseth said.

Hegseth, striking an unapologetic tone, said Iran’s surviving leadership “don’t know what plays to call” after exhausting initial retaliatory strategies devised prior to the U.S. assault, while the U.S. is firing on all fronts and stacking up wins — including an American submarine recently sinking an Iranian warship with a torpedo in international waters, which Hegseth called the first such sinking since World War II.

“We are just getting started. We are accelerating, not decelerating,” he said. “We can sustain this fight easily for as long as we need to.”

Caine, striking a far more measured tone at the Pentagon briefing, spoke of the “sacrifice” of the six U.S. service members who have been killed in the conflict to date and the “clear military objectives” of the operation, which include dismantling “Iran’s ability to project power outside of its borders, both today and into the future.”

And he said the U.S. has made “steady progress” toward those goals in recent hours. He said Iran’s “ballistic missile shots” were down 86% from the first day of fighting, and down 23% “just in the last 24 hours.” He said their “one-way attack drone shots” are down 73% from the “opening days” of the war.

That has allowed the U.S. to establish “localized air superiority across the southern flank of the Iranian coast and penetrate their defenses with overwhelming precision and firepower,” Caine said. “We will now begin to expand inland, striking progressively deeper into Iranian territory and creating additional freedom of maneuver for U.S. forces.”

Hegseth and Caine spoke against a backdrop of escalating destruction across the Persian Gulf region, as Iran — which Hegseth acknowledged is a “formidable” enemy — continued to unleash a wave of retaliatory strikes and Israel pushed into Lebanon and against Iran-allied Hezbollah fighters there.

Their message of U.S. control in the region belied chaos in many parts of it — as sirens blared in Bahrain, U.S. and other foreign citizens scrambled to flee the area, global air traffic was in disarray and tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key artery for the flow of global energy, was down by about 90%, according to the Associated Press.

Turkey’s defense ministry announced Wednesday that NATO air defenses had shot down a ballistic missile fired toward Turkish airspace from Iran, which raised additional questions about a rapidly expanding footprint of the war given that Turkey is a NATO member and protected by a treaty clause — Article 5 — stating that an attack on one member is an attack on all.

Hegseth said the U.S. was aware of the strike, but that he did not believe it would trigger Article 5 or force all of NATO into the conflict — which has already drawn in nations throughout the Gulf region as Iran has targeted U.S. allies and military facilities.

Hegseth jettisoned any pretense of constraint or measured force by the U.S., instead casting its operations as an all-out assault on “radical Islamist Iranian adversaries” that he suggested both Democrats and the U.S. media were badly misrepresenting to make President Trump look bad.

He suggested the U.S. media was overly focused on losses, such as the deaths of U.S. military personnel, and not nearly focused enough on the progress the U.S. has made toward destroying Iran’s military capabilities in a matter of days.

“They are toast, and they know it — or at least soon enough they will know it,” he said of Iran. “And we’ve only just begun to hunt, dismantle, demoralize, destroy and defeat their capabilities, just four days in.”

He said that the U.S. and Israel in “under a week” will “have complete control of Iranian skies — uncontested air space,” which he said will mean that “we will fly all day, all night, day and night, finding, fixing and finishing the missiles and defense industrial base of the Iranian military, finding and fixing their leaders and their military leaders.”

“Death and destruction from the sky, all day long,” he said. “We’re playing for keeps.”

It was unclear what exactly Hegseth meant by that, given the Trump administration’s constant messaging that the war on Iran will not be another “endless” engagement for the U.S. in the Middle East.

The U.S. was using rules of engagement that are “bold, precise and designed to unleash American power, not shackle it,” Hegseth said. “This was never meant to be a fair fight, and it is not a fair fight. We are punching them while they’re down, which is exactly how it should be.”

Disruptions to tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, and their potential effect on global and U.S. gas prices, were clearly on Trump’s mind. On Tuesday, he posted to his Truth Social platform that the U.S. would be providing wartime insurance for “ALL Maritime Trade” through Gulf shipping lanes — as other insurers began canceling coverage — and that the U.S. Navy would begin escorting tankers if necessary.

“No matter what, the United States will ensure the FREE FLOW of ENERGY to the WORLD,” he wrote.

The message drew immediate concern from some of Trump’s political opponents, who questioned the cost to the U.S. of securing energy shipments for the entire world, including rivals such as China, one of the largest purchasers of crude oil from the region.

“Very few, if any, of these tankers are coming to the United States,” Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) wrote on X. “This certainly looks like the United States will be subsidizing and protecting oil shipments to China.”

Wait, Zendaya and Tom Holland got married and we missed it? That’s what the “Euphoria” star’s longtime stylist said on the red carpet Sunday.

“The wedding’s already happened, you missed it,” Law Roach told “Access Hollywood” in a singsong voice at the Actor Awards, adding, “It’s very true,” after the shocked reporter asked if he was being truthful.

He said the same thing almost word for word to an “Entertainment Tonight” correspondent who took the news completely — almost dismissively? — in stride.

The news came from the same “Project Runway” judge who told E! News last July that Zendaya was so busy that there was simply no time for wedding planning, saying at the time that the “process hasn’t even started yet.” That’s the same self-proclaimed “world’s only image architect,” who for years has also styled Holland.

Holland and Zendaya, who co-starred as Peter Parker and MJ in three “Spider-Man” movies, have known each other since 2016 and confirmed in 2021 that they were romantically involved as well.

Eagle-eyed fans may have suspected the two had tied the knot a few weeks back after Zendaya stepped out Feb. 18 with a plain gold band on her left ring finger in place of her engagement diamond. That big ol’ sparkler had been on the scene since early last year, debuting publicly at the 2025 Golden Globe Awards a year ago January.

At that awards show, when former Times columnist Amy Kaufman — then recently engaged herself — asked the “Dune” actor flat-out if she was engaged, Zendaya flashed her ring, smiled coyly and shrugged her shoulders. That was way more of a “yes” than in 2023 when she shut down engagement rumors after posting a selfie wearing a pearl ring on her left hand and a black Golden State Warriors hat on her head.

“I posted it for my hat. Not for the ring on my right finger, you guys,” she said and laughed in the video that circulated on X and Instagram. “Seriously, you think that’s how I would drop the news? What?”

We didn’t think any wedding news would come via her stylist either, no matter how long the two friends have been working together. Though Zendaya might have been chuckling a bit when she posted a “Save the Date” message on social media three weeks ago to promote her upcoming movie “The Drama.”

Zendaya explained her approach to privacy in a 2023 Elle interview, saying she “can’t not be a person and live my life and love the person I love.”

“But also, I do have control over what I choose to share. It’s about protecting the peace and letting things be your own but also not being afraid to exist. You can’t hide. That’s not fun, either. I am navigating it more than ever now.”

Yes, we reached out to the notoriously private couple’s representatives. No, they did not get back to us immediately to confirm the news or offer any details. Are you surprised? We are not.

Newcastle are certainly enjoying life back at Europe’s top table.

Howe’s side are the top scorers in the Champions League with 26 goals, and have won six games in a single campaign in the competition for the first time.

It has been quite a turnaround in the last two-and-a-half weeks.

Howe was the first to admit he was not doing his job “well enough” after his side were booed off by a section of supporters following a 3-2 defeat against Brentford in the Premier League in their previous game at St James’ Park earlier this month.

The Newcastle head coach embarked on some soul searching in the aftermath of the loss, while his players set out to “fight for the manager”.

Newcastle have won four of their last five games in all competitions since, and secured a place in the knockout stage proper.

Given the revenue gap between the Premier League and a number of clubs on the continent, and the competitiveness of the top-flight, outsiders may question whether that should necessarily come as a huge surprise.

Even beleaguered Tottenham Hotspur, who are hovering above the relegation zone in the Premier League, finished in the top eight of the league phase.

Yet the manner of Newcastle‘s six Champions League victories against Qarabag, Benfica, PSV Eindhoven, Athletic Club and Union Saint-Gilloise were far from foregone conclusions.

Qarabag, for instance, had drawn against Chelsea and defeated Benfica, Eintracht Frankfurt and Copenhagen. Newcastle hammered the Azerbaijan Premier League champions.

Although Howe wanted more from his much-changed side in the 3-2 second-leg win on Tuesday night, Newcastle have shown they can battle the continent’s elite on their day.

Newcastle drew 1-1 against holders Paris St-Germain in the French capital last month and suffered a narrow 2-1 defeat at the hands of Barcelona in their opening game of the competition.

No wonder, then, defender Dan Burn feels Newcastle can “compete with anybody” at their best.

“We’ve shown that, especially against Paris St-Germain, how good we can be,” he wrote in his programme notes.

“I think we elevate our game going into those games because there are bigger, better teams at this stage of the competition.”

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Friday lashed out at Supreme Court justices who struck down his tariffs agenda, calling them “fools” who made a “terrible, defective decision” that he plans to circumvent by imposing new levies in a different way.

In a defiant appearance at the White House, Trump told reporters that his administration will impose new tariffs by using alternative legal means. He cast the ruling as a technical, not permanent setback, for his trade policy, insisting that the “end result is going to get us more money.”

The president said he would instead impose an across-the-board 10% tariff on imports on global trade partners through an executive order.

The sharp response underscores how central tariffs have been to Trump’s economic and political identity. He portrayed the ruling as another example of institutional resistance to his “America First” agenda and pledged to continue fighting to hold on to his trade authority despite the ruling from the nation’s highest court.

Trump, however, said the ruling was “deeply disappointing” and called the justices who voted against his policy — including Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, whom he nominated to the court — “fools” and “lap dogs.”

“I am ashamed of certain members of the court,” Trump told reporters. “Absolutely ashamed for not having the courage to do what’s right for our country.”

For years, Trump has insisted his tariffs policy is making the United States wealthier and giving his administration leverage to force better trade deals, even though the economic burden has often fallen on U.S. companies and consumers. On the campaign trail, he has turned to them again and again, casting sweeping levies as the economic engine for his administration’s second-term agenda.

Now, in the heat of an election year, the court’s decision scrambles that message.

The ruling from the nation’s highest court is a rude awakening for Trump at a time when his trade policies have already caused fractures among some Republicans and public polling shows a majority of Americans are increasingly concerned with the state of the economy.

Ahead of the November elections, Republicans have urged Trump to stay focused on an economic message to help them keep control of Congress. The president tried to do that on Thursday, telling a crowd in northwest Georgia that “without tariffs, this country would be in so much trouble.”

As Trump attacked the court, Democrats across the country celebrated the ruling — with some arguing there should be a mechanism in place to allow Americans to recoup money lost by the president’s trade policy.

“No Supreme Court decision can undo the massive damage that Trump’s chaotic tariffs have caused,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) wrote in a post on X. “The American people paid for these tariffs and the American people should get their money back.”

California Gov. Gavin Newsom called Trump’s tariffs an “illegal cash grab that drove up prices, hurt working families and wrecked longstanding global alliances.”

“Every dollar your administration unlawfully took needs to be immediately refunded — with interest,” Newsom, who is eyeing a 2028 presidential bid, wrote in a post on X addressed to Trump.

The president’s signature economic policy has long languished in the polls, and by a wide margin. Six in 10 Americans surveyed in a Pew Research poll this month said they do not support the tariff increases. Of that group, about 40% strongly disapproved. Just 37% surveyed said they supported the measures — 13% of whom expressed strong approval.

A majority of voters have opposed the policy since April, when Trump unveiled the far-reaching trade agenda, according to Pew.

The court decision lands as more than a policy setback to Trump’ s economic agenda.

It is also a rebuke of the governing style embraced by the president that has often treated Congress less as a partner and more as a body that can be bypassed by executive authority.

Trump has long tested the bounds of his executive authority, particularly on foreign policies, where he has heavily leaned on emergency and national security powers to impose tariffs and acts of war without congressional approval. In the court ruling, even some of his allies drew a bright line through that approach.

Gorsuch sided with the court’s liberals in striking down the tariffs policy. He wrote that while “it can be tempting to bypass Congress when some pressing problems arise,” the legislative branch should be taken into account with major policies, particularly those involving taxes and tariffs.

“In all, the legislative process helps ensure each of us has a stake in the laws that govern us and in the Nation’s future,” Gorsuch wrote. “For some today, the weight of those virtues is apparent. For others, it may not seem so obvious.”

He added: “But if history is any guide, the tables will turn and the day will come when those disappointed by today’s result will appreciate the legislative process for the bulwark of liberty it is.”

Trump said the court ruling prompted him to use his trade powers in different ways.

In December, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent asserted has the administration can replicate the tariff structure, or a similar structure, through alternative legal methods in the 1974 Trade Act and 1962 Trade Expansion Act.

“Now the court has given me the unquestioned right to ban all sort of things from coming into our country, to destroy foreign countries,” Trump said, as he lamented the court constraining his ability to “charge a fee.”

“How crazy is that?” Trump said.

The new UCLA football coaching staff has been in touch with one of their top recruits arriving in 2027.

Weston Port, the former San Juan Hills High standout linebacker, is finishing up his second year as a Mormon missionary on assignment in Spain.

New linebacker coach Vic So’oto has been in contact with Port and once tried to recruit him to Cal.

Port exercises when he has time while visiting various cities. His mission ends in December and he’ll be ready to join UCLA for spring practice in 2027 while focusing on getting back into playing shape.

His father said in a message, “Weston remains committed to UCLA and is eager and excited to get back to football once his service is completed.”

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

Jesse Jackson’s overwhelming victory in the recent Michigan Democratic primary may well have “blown the minds of party leaders,” as Dan Rather put it on the evening news. But it clearly didn’t do much for their understanding. Party professionals and political pundits continued to use words like “weird” and “wacky” to describe Jackson’s growing support. In fact, Jesse Jackson represents a vintage American phenomenon consistently overlooked and misunderstood by the experts: He is an authentic populist. His appeal is far broader–and different–than can be summed up in labels like “liberal” or “left wing.”

Put simply, as his message has matured this year, Jackson combines protests against what is happening with a positive and hopeful vision of what America can become. “Populism” is a term that has been much bandied about this election season, used to cover everything from Richard Gephardt’s call to “get tough” with trade competitors to Albert Gore’s declaration that he “stands with working men and women.” Populism as a fashionable label means “us against them,” the little guy against the big shots.

But Jesse Jackson’s populism is far from simple-minded complaint. The first Populists were black and white farmers who made an alliance in the 1880s to save rural communities and their ways of life from the stranglehold of banks, railroads and merchants. Like theirs, Jackson’s protest goes to the heart of what America stands as a society. Drawing on the rich black church tradition that has always had the pathetic prophetic capacity to point to the clash between American ideals and realities, Jackson speaks to people’s anxiety that America has begun to abandon crucial, defining values.

Here, his challenge to the violence of drugs and unemployment is reinforced by his campaign itself, a low-budget “people’s alternative” to politics as the marketing of slickly packaged personalities. When Jackson says his victories represent “flesh and blood” winning out over “money and computers,” he connects not only with people who have been economically left behind in the Reagan years. His message also resonates with millions who worry that local communities and ordinary citizens are endangered by a high-tech culture that idolizes the rich and famous.

Further, Jackson, like the first Populists, does not simply protest. He also issues an empowering call for responsibility. In the face of a good deal of initial resistance from some black groups, Jackson this election season has preached that the preeminent issue today is not racism, but economic justice that calls for corporations to be accountable for actions that affect workers and the community welfare. He calls upon black and white youths to take positive action against drugs and teen-age pregnancy. He challenges his audiences to act to overcome racial hostility. Moreover, Jackson emphasizes not only increased personal responsibility but also the need for a renewed sense of collective economic responsibility as well.

The Populists of the 1880s and 1890s envisioned a “cooperative commonwealth” in which private property would be seen as a civic obligation and where citizens would commonly assume responsibility for the foundations of economic life like basic utilities, transportation and communication systems. This tradition continued in the 20th Century, in the arguments of Presidents like Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, that property is a “public trust” beholden to the commonwealth.

Jackson stands clearly in this tradition. His cause for “economic power-sharing” and “reinvestment in America” are given specific meaning in his proposals to repair America’s basic economic infrastructure. Indeed he has been the only candidate to date to talk about what the National Council on Public Works Improvement recently documented in its report to Congress and the President: Our roads and waste facilities and waterways and other essential foundations have been gravely jeopardized in recent years by a spirit of neglect and careless “privatization”.

Thus Jackson’s populism points out a widespread uneasiness about what’s wrong today and offers some concrete and constructive things to do about it. Whatever the outcome of the nominating process, he has broken fresh ground and revitalized an old vibrant tradition. American politics will never be the same.