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Bravado, insecurity, deceit. These are the bitter ingredients that seasoned the chef Anthony Bourdain inside the pressure cooker of the restaurant industry. Set over one formative summer in 1975, Matt Johnson’s affectionately sleazy biopic “Tony” is a portrait of the culinary adventurer (who died by suicide in 2018 at the age of 61) as a snotty 19-year-old Vassar student who doesn’t know an oyster knife from his ego. “I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, badly in need of a good ass-kicking,” Bourdain confessed in his 2000 bestseller “Kitchen Confidential,” a scorching memoir that elevated him from obscurity to damaged saint. “Tony” opens with that quote and proves it with scenes of boozing, puking and petty crime. Miraculously, it’s the most heartwarming comedy of the year.

Teenage Tony (a feral Dominic Sessa of “The Holdovers”) claims he’s already writing the next great American book, a navel-gazing bildungsroman — his word, not mine — in the key of Kerouac. Really, he’s just a middle-class kid from New Jersey who doesn’t expect to work for a living. Stalking his high school crush Nancy (a grounded Emilia Jones) to Provincetown, Mass., he begrudgingly supports himself with a dishwashing gig at the Flagship, a humble seafood joint. The kid is ashamed of blue-collar labor. That his rowdy co-workers think he sucks at it is worse. This taste of humiliation would change his destiny.

Under the tutelage of the Flagship’s idiosyncratic unnamed chef (Antonio Banderas), Tony will discover the importance of punctuality. A devilish shellfish-shucker (Leo Woodall, an intoxicating scamp) will also introduce him to cocaine. That first bump hits Tony with such a rush that the soundtrack explodes with boogielicious disco.

Sessa was born to prowl around wild-eyed in retro polyester. He relishes the fast and funny dialogue, flinging around fancy words that don’t mean a thing. At low emotional tide, Sessa’s Tony can also be watchful and quiet. He makes us hear the character’s silent inner schemes as loudly as when he’s actually blabbering.

Director Johnson (“BlackBerry” and the maniacally brilliant “Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie”) and his co-screenwriters Matthew Miller, Todd Bartels and Lou Howe have blended every hard-knock lesson that Bourdain learned across decades of job-hopping into one month of blood and sweat. Spiritually, it’s fantastic. Factually, it’s baloney, although “Tony” does restore the restaurant’s actual name — the Flagship — from Bourdain’s Dreadnaught, the pseudonym he gave it before he ever imagined future fans following him around the world. Mild spoiler alert: Readers of “Kitchen Confidential” will also know it’s dedicated to Nancy, who became his first wife.

The kitchen scenes are a combo platter of boot camp, frat house hazing ritual and kung fu movie. As Bourdain would later explain, he thrived in a setting where actions have instant consequences: a sore back, a sliced hand, a good meal. Burn the sandwich, toast it again; scrub every plate and punch out with pride. You can’t help but grin at Sessa’s hoot when his scrawny Tony finally manages to muscle a raw potato through a french-fry slicer. And at the end of a shift, he and his dysfunctional workplace family gather to share bowls of squid stew and taste the results of their work. Back in New Jersey, dinnertime with his biological family feels as cold and stale as their meal of frozen peas and store-bought white bread.

Banderas’ chef is the kind of mentor you’d expect to find on a mountaintop mediation retreat, starting over a half-dozen scenes coldly waking up the sleeping whippersnapper with a cold bucket of morning seawater to the face. As Banderas plays him, he’s a bearish marvel of a man with the kind of earthy soul that would have had Ernest Hemingway chugging salty dogs on his barstool all night. There’s a shot of Banderas biting into a tomato that’s pure bliss for him and us.

Whereas Tony talks a big game, squeezing Japanese words like boketto — the art of doing nothing — into conversation, Banderas shows us how to simply do it. (Likewise, a centerpiece montage makes penning a coming-of-age book look way lamer than than just living a full life.) Watching Banderas’ chef stare at the Atlantic, it may occur to you that a cook can no longer afford a waterfront shack on the sand. The film is too breezy to say so directly, but its emphasis on the value of honest work wants you to think it.

Watching Banderas spend a day simmering his own handcrafted ketchup simply to store it in repurposed Heinz bottles says everything about the guy’s devotion to food and his indifference toward marketing. It’s a little grating to see boorish Tony offer him business tips. It helps that some of his advice isn’t great.

“Tony” stays planted in its own immediate present, rarely hinting at the veers Bourdain’s biography will take. “Kitchen Confidential” won’t be published for another 25 years; his globe-trotting celebrity comes after that. Johnson keeps the tone so zingy and loose that you don’t have to know Bourdain at all to enjoy the movie. The ending even tacks on a let’s-save-our-hangout rally that could be Velcroed onto any ’80s comedy.

The script allows itself just two beats to squeeze out a knowing tear. The first comes when Tony describes his approach to writing: “I try to imagine interesting places I’ll probably never go, people I’ll never get to meet,” he says, unaware how much his horizons will one day expand. The second trickier and clumsier aside happens when Banderas’ chef tells Tony the tragedy of 17th century French cook François Vatel, who literally fell on his sword before serving a banquet to Louis XIV. Lore has it that Vatel didn’t have enough fish. The teenager doesn’t understand. “He killed himself? Why?” Tony repeatedly asks. That question will never have a satisfying answer.

Like a lazy Susan, today’s youth seem to be coming full circle to young Tony’s dilemma. He’s got one foot on the so-called safe path — college, white-collar isolation — and the other on a career that’s already covering him in well-earned scars. As employees are feeling insecure and replaceable, there are rumblings that the current crop of kids is gravitating back toward physical jobs and finding, as Tony did, that one can find fulfillment working with your hands. The stress of the kitchen didn’t make Tony a better man overnight. But it was the grit that grew a pearl.

New Jersey is launching a new fee on companies whose workers have Medicaid health coverage instead of being covered by their employers. Other states are considering it, too.

Democratic lawmakers and governors see it as a way to help pay for the joint federal and state insurance program that covers low-income residents as federal policy changes are expected to make the program more expensive for states and may lead to a reduction in the number of people with coverage.

Proponents also say it’s about fairness because employers benefit from having some lower-income workers with taxpayer-funded health coverage.

Business groups object. So do some liberal policy organizations.

New Jersey is putting the fee in place

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill signed a measure Tuesday night to charge employers that have at least 50 workers covered by Medicaid, and the state budget she approved earlier in the week counts on raising $145 million this year from the program.

Under the plan, companies will be billed for each employee and employees’ dependent receiving Medicaid, the joint state-federal insurance program.

The fees per person would start at $325 a year for companies with 50 to 249 Medicaid beneficiaries and top out at $725 annually for employers with at least 500 recipients.

A bill passed this week in California doesn’t impose a charge now, but it does direct the state administration to present lawmakers options for doing so next year.

Finishing the job would fall to the successor of Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat who is leaving office in January. Democratic gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra has made an employer charge part of his election platform.

State Sen. John Laird, a Democrat who sponsored the California proposal, said the big tax and policy law President Trump signed a year ago was a major factor in the need for action because it could prompt the state to spend more on Medicaid to plug holes left by federal changes.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office expects more than 10 million people will be uninsured because of the law by 2034. It requires some beneficiaries to work, be in school or volunteer — and requires even more to document whether they meet the requirements.

Most employees at the bigger companies would not be at risk of losing Medicaid coverage as long as they’re working at least 20 hours a week.

Laird also said there’s an equity issue involved.

“If you’re a small business person in California, you are quite likely paying for health insurance for your employees. And through your taxes, you’re paying for health insurance for some of the biggest employers in California,” he said. “And that’s not fair.”

Legislation with similar intents passed one legislative chamber in both Colorado and Oregon this year, but neither made it to law. A measure was also introduced in Washington.

Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont, a Democrat who is seeking a third term in November’s election, has called for the same move there with the idea of making it a part of the state budget that would kick in two years from now.

Opposition comes from business and some liberal groups

It’s no surprise that business organizations have criticized the approach, which would add to their expenses.

“The fact remains that many job-creators are still going to be penalized for something they have no control over,” Christopher Emigholz, the chief government affairs officer at the New Jersey Business and Industry Assn., said in a statement. “If an employee declines an employer-provided health plan because they’d rather be on Medicaid, it is unfair to penalize the employer for that employee’s decision.”

Some left-leaning policy organizations also oppose the charges.

Gideon Lukens, who analyzes health policy at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said that while the idea may be well-intentioned, it could lead companies to employ fewer people from low-income household or single parents. He said companies could also consider the policy in decisions about whom to hire or lay off — and also on where to locate or how many workers to employ.

And, he said, it could make employees — or potential employees — less likely to enroll in Medicaid knowing it would make them less attractive to employers.

“Usually, when I see a tax on something it’s going to discourage whatever being taxed,” he said in an interview.

New Jersey’s legislation tries to address some of the concerns. It would exempt temporary, seasonal and part-time employees. It would also bar employment decisions based on a workers’ Medicaid status.

Charging companies whose workers are covered by Medicaid isn’t a new idea. At least two states have previously enacted it, and it’s been proposed in Congress.

Massachusetts lawmakers in 2017 adopted a charge on employers up to $750 per nondisabled worker who was covered through Medicaid or a state-subsidized health exchange plan. The program began in 2018 was not renewed when it expired the next year.

An even earlier policy in Maryland, in 2006, immediately affected only Walmart. An industry group challenged it in court and won, stopping the fees.

The latest generation of proposals may avoid that legal pitfall by not referencing those health plans in the legislation.

Mulvihill writes for the Associated Press.

It wasn’t too good to be true, but it was too good to remain true.

World Cup fans still reeling from FIFA’s pricey water policy change have a new gripe: Soccer’s governing body is demanding payment from about 60 people who secured tickets for free because of a glitch on the FIFA website during checkout.

FIFA confirmed the mistake with a swift response, issuing a statement that said pay up or stay home:

“The tickets requested by these fans remain reserved, and the affected fans have been invited to complete payment of the correct amount. FIFA regrets the error and any inconvenience caused.”

What, did anyone think a governing body denying fans free water in the summer heat would allow 60 souls into stadiums without paying admission? Even when FIFA admitted its mistake?

One week before matches begin in 16 North American venues, including SoFi Stadium that will be referred to during the tournament as Los Angeles Stadium, FIFA reversed its policy that allowed refillable plastic bottles when temperatures were high enough to justify it.

Now, no plastic water bottles are allowed except the ones sold in the stadium. Last summer during the Club World Cup, bottled water at FIFA venues fetched $4 to $6.

Coca-Cola products will be sold at all World Cup venues, including Dasani water. In a statement to the Athletic on Thursday night, FIFA skirted questions about whether it was influenced by commercial priorities.

“The decision to prohibit capped water bottles is based on a number of factors related to safety and security, including mitigating risks to players and spectators, ensuring a safe and efficient ingress experience for all attendees, and the presence of additional heat mitigation and alternative hydration strategies at FIFA World Cup 2026 stadiums,” the statement read.

Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow questioned FIFA’s motive.

“Why do you need to buy a water bottle when you can just carry your water in? It is cheaper that way and it is good for the environment,” Chow told CTV News. “It is outrageous. They are just trying to make more money. They are already making billions of dollars. Stop it.”

Chow’s ire likely grew upon learning that the group-stage matches the 60 people who now must pay for tickets FIFA mistakenly provided them are all in Toronto.

Complaints have mushroomed for months about World Cup ticket price fluctuations caused by sophisticated algorithms that can dramatically increase costs based on demand. Prices adjust in real time, increasing when interest surges.

The attorneys general of New Jersey and New York a week ago launched an investigation into World Cup ticket sales following reports that fans were misled about the locations of seats they purchased.

The attorneys general sent subpoenas to FIFA, requesting details about ticketing practices for eight World Cup matches hosted in New Jersey, including the World Cup final.

FIFA has about $6.14 billion in total assets and $3 billion in cash reserves.

The organization has defended its steep ticket prices, saying they reflect standard practices for major global sporting and entertainment events.

Longtime soccer journalist Simon Kuper explained to The Times’ Kevin Baxter that FIFA can maximize profits because it has no competition.

“If you think of McDonald’s or Nike, they’re trying to please consumers because they know the consumers can go someplace else,” Kuper said. “There’s only one World Cup, so FIFA is a monopoly purveyor. It’s more like one man running the cash box.”

Parking will be another opportunity to generate revenue. A spot nearly two miles from SoFi Stadium will cost $300 for the U.S. opener against Paraguay next week.

NEWARK, N.J. — The mayor of Newark imposed a curfew early Sunday around an immigration detention center in New Jersey after a series of intense clashes between protesters and police.

The curfew around Delaney Hall will be in place between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. until further notice, Mayor Ras Baraka said in a statement.

The move came after another night of standoffs between law enforcement and demonstrators at the facility, as protesters could be seen in photographs and videos fighting over barricades as police used riot shields to push them back. A video posted on social media showed police on horseback marching into crowds, attempting to break up groups of demonstrators.

The high-profile demonstrations at Delaney Hall began this month after advocates said detainees launched a hunger strike over poor living conditions at the 1,000-bed facility, the latest focus of opposition over the federal government’s immigration crackdown.

The private company GEO Group operates the lockup under the supervision of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The shuttered facility reopened for immigration detainees in February 2025.

New Jersey state police on Friday replaced federal immigration enforcement agents who had been facing off against protesters at the facility for days.

In a statement Sunday morning, New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill said masked people attacked a barrier in a designated protest area set up by state police and were “throwing projectiles, utilizing the barriers as weapons, and lighting tires on fire in the street.”

“These actions put both peaceful protesters and law enforcement in danger,” Sherrill said, urging calm to focus on advocating for “better conditions for the detainees, for their families, and ultimately, for the closure of Delaney Hall.”

Sherrill also said that the federal government has reopened family visits at Delaney Hall starting Sunday.

Asked about visitations resuming, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said in a statement, “To be clear: Visitation was only suspended because of violent riots. Now that we have a secure perimeter, visitation can resume.”