other

A controversial wealth tax won backing from the California Democratic Party on Sunday, the latest episode in the measure roiling the left and its allies.

The party’s executive board voted Sunday to endorse Proposition 40, which, if approved by voters this November, would impose a 5% one-time tax on billionaires’ assets to pay for healthcare.

The measure has proved divisive. While it has support from progressives including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), others including Gov. Gavin Newsom, gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra, and a growing list of labor unions have come out against it, arguing the one-time nature of the tax and billionaire flight could cause more harm than good to California’s state budget.

“This endorsement puts to rest the idea that California Democrats are not united by the billionaire tax — they are,” said Dave Regan, President of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West, the labor union that gathered enough signatures to put Proposition 40 on the ballot.

Regan cited an internal poll which found more than 80% of registered Democrats support the tax, “and now the Democratic Party of California has officially embraced that strong support through this endorsement.”

Public opinion polls have shown the measure with slim majority support. According to a May poll from the Public Policy Institute of California, 54% of likely voters and 76% of Democrats said they would vote for the tax.

Proposition 40 seeks to raise $100 billion over a five-year span to backfill cuts to Medicaid and food assistance programs included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed by President Trump last year. Its supporters argue that the federal tax cuts benefit the wealthy at the expense of low-income people and that Proposition 40 would reverse the damage.

Its opponents, which include the California Teachers Assn. and tech founders spending millions to defeat the measure, argue it could destabilize the state budget — which already taxes wealthy earners at higher rates — by pushing billionaires to leave California for other states.

In a statement, the No on Prop. 40 campaign said Newsom, Becerra, and organizations including the California Professional Firefighters union and Planned Parenthood Affiliates of California oppose the tax “because it’s bad for our budget, bad for our economy, and bad for our future. We need smart, durable solutions to our biggest challenges, not unreliable, untested schemes that shortchange healthcare, education, and public safety.”

Democratic executive board members endorsed the measure Sunday during a meeting in San Diego. The party also voted to oppose two competing ballot measures that seek to undercut the billionaire’s tax, along with a voter ID measure and a proposal to weaken the California Environmental Quality Act for housing and infrastructure projects.

Democrats voted to endorse two housing bonds — a $11.25-billion bond to build affordable housing and a $25-billion down payment assistance program — and an $8.4-billion immunology research bond.

The party is also supporting a measure to make permanent an existing tax on high-income earners which funds education and health care.

“Every endorsement we make is earned, not given,” California Democratic Party chair Rusty Hicks said in a statement. “California Democrats take a deliberative approach to our endorsement process that puts our values first and ensures our members have a meaningful voice in shaping the future of our state.”

INDIANAPOLIS — The Republican leader of the Indiana Senate announced Friday that he would give up his position after six GOP incumbents who opposed President Trump on his congressional redistricting push in the state lost their primaries.

Indiana Senate President Pro Tem Rodric Bray drew the ire of Trump in December when he voted against the redistricting plan after saying for weeks that it didn’t have enough support to pass. The rejection came after intense lobbying from Trump, Vice President JD Vance, national conservative groups and others.

Bray, who has held his leadership position since 2018, said in a statement Friday that he would not seek reelection to the post when Senate Republicans choose their leaders in November. His current Senate term runs through 2028 and he will remain in office, albeit not as the Republican Senate leader.

Trump reacted to the news in a social media post by saying Bray had “foolishly led” the state Senate, noting the May primary defeats of those who defied him on the redistricting plan.

Bray did not mention Trump or the redistricting fight in his statement announcing his position to step down from the leadership position. Bray said holding the job “has been among the most significant honors of my life, but it’s time for the Senate to choose another leader.”

SiriusXM is leaning into its sporty side.

The satellite radio company is launching a new subscription plan built specifically for sports fans, called the Sports Pass. For $5 a month, listeners will be able to follow live game broadcasts for every home and away game for nearly every major sporting event.

Launching Sept. 1, SiriusXM will offer one of sports media’s most comprehensive packages, including everything from the latest Formula One race to international soccer.

“SiriusXM Sports Pass brings that vision to life for sports fans by putting every game and event we carry, hometown voices, national personalities and the daily sports conversation into one simple, affordable subscription,” said Jennifer Witz, SiriusXM’s chief executive, in a statement. “No matter who you cheer for or where you listen, it brings you closer to the teams and voices that matter most to you.”

The subscription includes coverage of the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL; every NASCAR, IndyCar and Formula One race; the PGA Tour; WWE events among others. In addition to the live broadcasts, the Sports Pass will also include expert analysis, podcasts and 24 local sports stations, including ESPN LA 710.

The introduction of the subscription package emphasizes sports as an essential part of SiriusXM’s business. The company said in a statement that sports is one of its biggest engagement drivers and that more subscribers than ever are tuning in to sports. Other subscriptions include its All Music tier for $11.99 a month or its All Access tier for $25.99 monthly, which includes music, sports and news.

By having these sports available through a single subscription, SiriusXM is “creating a one-stop shop for any sports fan who’s listening to the radio,” said sports media analyst Lee Berke. This kind of convenience often increases the time listeners are willing to spend on a platform, he added.

“If all sports and all major coverage is available throughout one service, then there’s no reason to go anywhere else,” Berke said. “If you want to maintain subscribership 24/7, 365, you have to have all these things. You don’t want to just appeal to one type of sports fan.”

Outside of sports, SiriusXM is well known for its curated music channels, like Pitbull’s Globalization and The Kelly Clarkson Connection, and talk shows hosted by on-air personalities Howard Stern and Andy Cohen. The radio company, headquartered in New York, reaches roughly 255 million listeners and has 33 million subscribers, making it one of North America’s leading audio companies. SiriusXM also owns the streaming service Pandora, which it acquired for $3.5 billion in 2019.

“Every new channel, artist performance, live event, and creator collaboration advances our vision for the future of audio,” Witz said.

COLUMBIA, S.C. — The Washington powerbroker Sen. Lindsey Graham returned home to South Carolina for the last time Wednesday for his funeral and burial.

After Graham was eulogized Tuesday in the nation’s capital as an indefatigable dealmaker by the president, vice president and others, mourners in Columbia prepared to remember him Wednesday as the son of pool hall owners who never forgot his roots.

Graham seemed to know every small-town mayor and police chief and the location of every Chick-fil-A across South Carolina. His PAC made sure Republicans had money to run in legislative and local elections across the state.

Graham died suddenly on July 11 at his home in Washington, likely of an aortic tear, according to preliminary findings. He had just returned from a whirlwind trip to a NATO summit in Turkey, where he celebrated his 71st birthday, and a visit to Ukraine as he negotiated punishing sanctions against Russia. Senators voted late Tuesday to advance the package as a final gesture for their colleague.

Wednesday’s funeral was at First Baptist, the giant downtown church where his predecessor Republican Sen. Strom Thurmond was honored 23 years ago.

Graham’s body was first brought to the South Carolina Statehouse, where he started his political career in 1993, for a law enforcement ceremony and a flyover by military jets. A horse-drawn caisson then carried his casket to the church, where his family followed members of his family carrying it inside.

Graham’s burial Wednesday near his home in Pickens County was planned as a private ceremony.

On Tuesday, Graham’s flag-draped casket was at the U.S. Capitol, where the Republican spent more than 30 years talking and laughing and badgering his colleagues into action.

President Trump then joined foreign leaders at the Washington National Cathedral, a testament to Graham’s stature on the global stage.

Trump called Graham “a giant of the United States Senate, a true American original who left us much too soon.”

Graham’s death has created opportunities for change in South Carolina. Graham had already won the Republican nomination as he ran for a fifth term. Gov. Henry McMaster named his younger sister Darline to hold his seat until January. Darline Graham then surprised many by deciding to run for the full six-year term herself.

State law has Republicans holding a special primary in two weeks to decide the new nominee. Eight others are competing, including former Gov. Mark Sanford and U.S. Reps. Ralph Norman and Russell Fry.

Kinnard and Collins write for the Associated Press.

AMMAN, Jordan — When Iranian ballistic missiles repeatedly struck Jordan last week, killing three American service members and wounding dozens of others, it brought the spotlight on a U.S. military presence the government of this desert kingdom has long worked to downplay.

Jordan has been a decades-long military and counterterrorism partner with the United States, opening its territory over the years to U.S. and other Western troops in their engagements throughout the region. But faced with a population that is overwhelmingly pro-Palestinian and suspicious of the U.S. for its all-out support of Israel, the government had kept those relationships at a low profile.

But now, Jordan’s growing role in the United States’ war with Iran — and the intensifying Iranian retaliation that role invites — is spurring uncomfortable conversations for the government.

“Jordanians are trapped in a dilemma: They’re being dragged into a war they didn’t want, but the cause of that war is ironically the ally they bargained with to protect them in the first place,” said Sean Yom, a professor of political science and Jordan expert at Temple University who wrote the book “Jordan: Politics in an Accidental Crucible.”

“So they’re asking what’s the wisdom of having this geopolitical bargain with a patron like the U.S. when one of the sources of our instability is the relationship that’s supposed to guarantee our security.”

Since the ceasefire broke down July 8 and the U.S. began launching near-daily waves of strikes on Iran, Jordan has been targeted on nine occasions, with ballistic missiles and drones hitting U.S. assets and facilities and endangering some 4,000 service members at a number of Jordanian military bases across the country.

One of those salvos, on July 17, hit a housing unit in Muwaffaq Al-Salti, a Jordanian base in the country’s east, killing three U.S. service members and wounding at least four others. Also attacked were King Faisal Airbase, Prince Hassan Airbase and the airport in Aqaba.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed the strikes not only killed and wounded dozens of U.S. military personnel, but also damaged drones, helicopters, F-15 preparation hangars, radar sites, missile defense systems and munitions depots.

More worryingly for Jordan, the IRGC issued statements thanking “honorable people” in Jordan for providing “sincere cooperation and precise information,” which it said enabled it to target and kill “dozens of American terrorist forces.”

“Seize every opportunity to dismantle American institutions and expel the American occupation army from Jordan,” one of the statements said.

As word of the attacks spread, Jordan’s government, normally reticent about foreign military deployments in the country, embarked on damage control.

Officials and members of parliament swiftly condemned Tehran for violating the country’s sovereignty, while the foreign ministry summoned Iran’s charge d’affaires in Amman, the Jordanian capital, and demanded Iran cease attacks on the kingdom. Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi, meanwhile, rejected Iran’s claim that the U.S. has bases in the country.

“There are no American bases in Jordan. We have American troops that are in Jordan as part of our long-standing military cooperation,” he said at the Aspen Security Forum earlier this month. Safadi was referring to the 2021 defense agreement that allows U.S. forces unfettered access to 12 facilities in Jordan, including five air bases; the agreement was approved via royal decree and bypassed parliament.

“Their presence is governed by a defense agreement that fully respects our sovereignty,” he said.

Yet government statements didn’t do much to allay concerns. Though many Jordanians have little love for Iran, more than 300 politicians, academics, lawyers, retired military officers and tribal leaders signed an open letter last week calling on the government to withdraw from the defense agreement and keep Jordanian installations neutral — a bold move in a country where opposition to government policies (especially in security matters) can be a red line.

“Jordan is not a party to this war. Its people should not have to bear the consequences or pay the price for policies that do not serve the nation’s supreme interests,” the letter said.

“We urge the avoidance of the dangers associated with aligning ourselves under the American umbrella; this requires adopting a policy of genuine neutrality, based on refraining from any military or logistical involvement that serves any party to the conflict.”

Another sign of popular anger came Sunday: When one member of parliament exhorted the body to send condolences to Congress for the killing of the U.S. service members, others shouted him down, saying the legislature wasn’t a funeral parlor to console “criminals” and “child killers,” in reference to the United States’ support for Israel in Gaza.

Jordan grapples with questions similar to those facing its gulf neighbors, all of which rely on the U.S. security umbrella that has exposed their nations to Iranian attack. But those countries’ oil riches afford them leverage to push back on the U.S. presence, while Jordan — a resource-poor nation of some 11 million people — cannot.

The conflict, meanwhile, has only compounded Jordan’s economic woes. Tourism, which official figures say accounts for almost 15% of the country’s GDP and had just begun to recover from the 2023 Gaza war, has cratered since the start of military operations against Iran. One month after the war, gas prices rose by 11%, a body blow for Jordan’s perpetually anemic economy.

All that has made the kingdom ever more reliant on U.S. largesse. Washington gives Amman roughly $1.45 billion annually, including around $800 million that go straight to government coffers for budgetary support. It would be hard pressed to substitute that level of support from Europe or elsewhere, experts say.

At the same time, Jordan has become a vital nerve center for U.S. forces. The U.S. military has since 2019 spent hundreds of millions of dollars on upgrades for Muwaffaq Al-Salti and other facilities, according to U.S. federal contracting documents, laying aircraft aprons, taxiways, munitions depots and other infrastructure.

Satellite imagery of those bases from 2019 onward show significant construction and an increasing presence of U.S. assets, including F-16s, F-18s, drones and helicopters.

Now, with U.S. troops deployed in gulf nations proving vulnerable to Iranian barrages, Pentagon planners have transferred assets to locations farther away from Iran, especially Jordan.

In recent days, despite a pause in operations against Iran, flight tracking sites showed brisk U.S. military traffic, with logistical aircraft — including the massive C-17 Globemaster and KC-35 fueling tankers — making repeated trips between Jordan and U.S. military hubs in Europe.

Estuardo Mazariegos and Jose Ugarte, running against each other for a city council seat representing part of South Los Angeles, are immigrants from Latin America who arrived undocumented as children.

Both 40 years old, they grew up in the area and established themselves as community organizers.

And no matter which of them wins election on Nov. 3, it will be a historic change for Council District 9, which has been represented by a Black council member since 1963, even as its demographics shifted to a Latino majority.

Mazariegos and Ugarte both said they are committed to representing all their constituents equally, including Black residents who have expressed concerns about the change.

Jose Ugarte is the front-runner for City Council District 9 after getting 39% of the vote in the June primary.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Ugarte, who was until recently a deputy chief of staff to the current council member, Curren Price, got about 39% of the vote in the June primary to 26% for Mazariegos, in a six-candidate field.

Ugarte was born in Oaxaca and is Mazateco — an Indigenous group native to the Mexican state. He has spent most of his life in South L.A., where he was embraced by his Black neighbors and schoolmates. He wants to model himself after Price, who he said is known in the community as the most “pro-Latino Black councilman.”

“I want to be a voice for Black residents in my district,” Ugarte said at his campaign headquarters on Avalon Boulevard. “I want to be called the most pro-Black Latino council member that the city really has.”

Last year, Ugarte agreed to pay a $17,500 fine to the city’s Ethics Commission, later increased to $25,000, for repeatedly failing to disclose outside income he made from his lobbying and consulting firm while also working as a council staffer. He said the issue stemmed from “an unintentional clerical reporting error on my part.”

Mazariegos is the L.A. co-director of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, a statewide nonprofit that organizes lower-income Black and brown communities for progressive change. Born in Guatemala and brought to the U.S. by his parents, he also was shaped by growing up in racially diverse parts of South L.A. He said he’s reaching out to different sectors of the community, including Black organizations and churches.

Organizing is about “always having open ears to the community,” Mazariegos said while sitting outside Mercado La Paloma, a food hall in the district. “It’s fighting for, honoring the Black legacy and fighting for a Black future, and you do that by building together.”

In his early 20s, Mazariegos pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle. He said he was holding on to the gun for a friend and that the conviction makes him a better candidate because he can relate to people in the district who have had run-ins with law enforcement.

Council District 9 encompasses the Convention Center, USC and neighborhoods along the Harbor Freeway, including Vermont Square, South Park and Florence-Graham. In a district with the highest poverty rate in the city, residents are concerned about issues including illegal dumping, public safety, a dearth of grocery stores and a sense of being neglected by City Hall.

Price, who has represented the district since 2013, is terming out. He has been fighting corruption charges, with a judge deciding in January that there was enough evidence to move to trial on four counts of voting on matters in which Price had a conflict of interest, five counts of embezzlement and three counts of perjury.

Price said he never intended to do anything wrong and questioned the fairness of a prosecution over what he said was essentially a paperwork error.

The growth of the Latino population in a district that is now nearly 80% Latino has created political tensions for decades, said Manuel Pastor, a USC professor and author of “South Central Dreams: Finding Home and Building Community in South L.A.”

Four years ago, those tensions resurfaced after a recording emerged of a conversation among three Latino city council members and a labor leader that featured racist and disparaging remarks about Black people, Oaxacans and others. The revelations tested a fragile alliance of Black and Latino coalitions that organizers have sought to maintain.

More recently, some Black community leaders expressed concern that a proposal to allow noncitizens to vote in local elections would diminish Black political power. The City Council ended up sending the proposal to a committee for more study.

Pastor noted that Price made an effort to focus on Latino residents, who have grown up alongside Black residents and suffered the same disinvestment in their neighborhoods.

This election, Pastor said, will pit the strength of L.A.’s political establishment against the rising power of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Ugarte’s endorsements include Price and the L.A. County Democratic Party, while Mazariegos has been endorsed by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, City Controller Kenneth Mejia and the Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter, among others.

Through May 27, Ugarte had raised $510,000 in campaign contributions and Mazariegos had raised $254,000.

Ugarte has benefited from nearly $1 million in independent expenditures, which differ from campaign contributions, with Airbnb contributing $302,000 to support his candidacy and the California Apartment Assn. Housing Solutions Committee spending $230,000.

Mazariegos has received support from the political arms of United Teachers Los Angeles as well as his employer, the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment Action, which together spent about $118,000.

Jose Ugarte says, “I want to be called the most pro-Black Latino council member that the city really has.”

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

On a recent Sunday morning, Ugarte stopped by services at two predominantly Black churches. At McCoy Memorial Baptist Church in South Park, he accepted a warm hug from longtime Pastor R.A. Williams Jr., who endorsed his candidacy. Ugarte then traveled a few blocks to Experience Christian Ministries, where Pastor Shep Crawford also has endorsed him.

“I met him years ago, boots on the ground, in the streets making changes,” Crawford told the congregation.

That same day, about three miles north at Audio Graph Beer Co., Mazariegos was cheering at a World Cup final watch party that doubled as a fundraiser. He posed for photos with supporters, who wore buttons declaring him “the people’s candidate.” He credited making the runoff election to his years in the community advocating for anti-displacement measures for tenants and lowering the rent cap.

Angie Gonzalez, 22, said Mazariegos earned her support because of his work advocating for tenant rights.

“I like how Estuardo is trying to empower us,” she said.

Odilia Romero, a resident of District 9 and executive director of CIELO, an advocacy group for Indigenous people, said she is not endorsing in the race. But she acknowledged the importance of an Indigenous candidate, four years after the audio leak scandal.

After The Times broke that story, Ugarte said, he secured permits for a march from L.A. Trade Tech to City Hall, where Oaxacans and others rallied.

Ugarte said if he is elected, he’d become the first Indigenous Oaxacan council member. He wants to show anyone critical of immigration — including the Trump administration — that “immigrants are here to build things to make the country better.”

“I want to be a council member that came from another country, that came as an immigrant, that came from an Indigenous state, and that made a name for himself, that [improved] his community,” he said.

Organizing is about “always having open ears to the community,” Estuardo Mazariegos says. “It’s fighting for, honoring the Black legacy and fighting for a Black future, and you do that by building together.”

(Arwen Clemans / Los Angeles Times)

Mazariegos said that while he may not be a political insider, he makes up for it as a “community insider.”

“There’s a lot of mistrust for the status quo right now,” he said. His goal is “making sure that the 9th district has representation that actually fights for it.”

These days, he said, campaigning has turned into an all-day affair, meeting people as he walks with his family around the district.

Mazariegos has in recent months appeared at City Hall to advocate for charter reform, including increasing police accountability, expanding the size of the City Council and advocating for noncitizen voting. None of those measures made the November ballot.

Organizers in the district said that no matter who wins, they intend to hold the new council member accountable.

“We hope that whoever wins this race keeps working-class people and their issues on the forefront,” said Ron Gochez, a longtime district resident and organizer with Union del Barrio, which advocates for immigrants. “We will pressure whoever wins to do the right thing.”

AMARILLO, Texas — When Gina Hinojosa, the Democratic nominee for Texas governor, began her campaign last year, candidates weren’t talking about — or hearing about — data centers that power artificial intelligence.

But with barely three months until November’s contest, the perceived threat to rural life, ranchland and dwindling water supplies could become a defining issue for her long-shot challenge to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, dividing conservative rural areas that have traditionally served as a counterweight to Democrats’ urban strongholds.

The backlash to energy-guzzling server warehouses is also shaping other statewide campaigns from Arizona to Ohio to New York, and even giving Democrats a glimmer of hope in Texas, where Republicans have dominated for three decades.

“There is this little issue that I recently started hearing about that I wanted to tell you about, in case you don’t know,” Hinojosa quipped to a Democratic Party-organized crowd of about 160 seated on fold-out chairs at an Amarillo social club in Texas’ panhandle. “It’s this issue of data centers.”

The crowd booed, and she went on: “They are owned by the richest men in the world. We’re all footing the bill. There are no rules. It is the wild west of data centers.”

The fast growth of massive data centers has already upended races for local offices across the country, often uniting conservatives and liberals in revolting against projects in their midst.

People don’t like the secrecy surrounding the projects or the prospect of air, noise, water and light pollution. They fear electric bills going up, wells going dry and losing open space, farmland or forest.

Now the ripple effects have spread to top-of-the-ticket races, where incumbents and challengers are trying to show that they hear an angry electorate.

In Ohio, Democratic nominee Sherrod Brown aired a television advertisement attacking Republican U.S. Sen. Jon Husted as the “face of data centers in Ohio” as people gather signatures for a statewide referendum to outright ban their construction.

In Wisconsin, a Democratic candidate for governor, Francesca Hong, is pledging to “tax the rich, fund our schools and stop AI data centers” as she campaigns for her party’s nomination in a crowded primary.

In Pennsylvania, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro is facing heat from some voters who feel like he’s been too welcoming to tech behemoths. Sam Burleigh, a Democrat whose rural community is fighting off data center projects, accused Shapiro of “allowing these data centers to come in and take over acres and acres of prime farmland.”

Texas is fertile ground for data centers

Any political unrest may be felt most acutely in Texas.

The state is poised to overtake northern Virginia as the largest global data center market by 2030, according to a report by commercial real estate giant JLL. It has lots of land, lots of energy and a friendly regulatory environment under Republican leadership.

In rural west Texas and its panhandle, gargantuan data centers are under construction, including one near Amarillo touted as the world’s largest. Some come with designs for natural gas-fired turbines to power them.

Rumors are flying about others popping up — Google, which is building four data centers in northwest Texas, sponsored moderated conversations with officials and business elite in Lubbock and Amarillo in recent weeks — and it is sowing an outcry across small cities, tiny towns and sprawling ranches where people vote overwhelmingly Republican.

Google says its investments are advancing American innovation, fortifying cybersecurity and boosting energy capacity, while President Trump has made data centers a top priority to help the U.S. compete against China for AI superiority.

But tech giants and developers can be secretive about their plans, making it impossible to know what will be built or what sort of pollution they’ll create, critics say. Some worry that data centers will destroy rural Texas’ low cost of living and sully sunsets and sweeping views that stretch toward the horizon.

Others say construction and an influx of workers are already causing havoc for ranchers and towns, driving up rents, snapping up farmland, illuminating the night sky, clogging roads and turning parts of rural Texas into industrial zones.

Opposition crosses partisan divide

Democrats are prominent among the data center critics, but so are Republicans, including Texas’ sitting agriculture commissioner, Sid Miller. They say there are many more Republicans who are quieter because they fear publicly opposing their governor and party.

“They’re upset with Greg Abbott,” said Suzanne Bellsnyder, a former Republican activist from Spearman who writes a syndicated column that advocates for rural Texas. “Whether that translates into voting against him, I don’t know.”

Abbott has aggressively advocated for big projects in Texas and, in November, he helped make Google’s announcement of a $40-billion investment there, saying, “Texas is the epicenter of AI development.”

Compounding that, Texas counties don’t have zoning authority — precisely the local land planning authority that communities around the country are increasingly using to fight off data centers.

Abbott seems to recognize that data centers are dividing his base. In recent weeks, he ordered regulators to take steps to ensure Texans weren’t paying higher electricity bills because of data centers and promised to push a legislative agenda next year to impose regulations on data centers.

At an East Texas campaign stop, Abbott said that includes taking away the state’s billion-dollar-plus-per-year tax break and preventing data centers from being built in “rural Texas neighborhoods.”

Hinojosa and others derided Abbott’s words about “rural Texas neighborhoods” as meaningless — “doublespeak that makes no sense to anyone,” Hinojosa said — and lacking urgency or seriousness.

“Now we have this gold rush of data centers in our communities,” Hinojosa said in an interview, adding that “people want a say, and I think that’s fair.”

As governor, she said she’d block a permit for a data center if it wasn’t a good deal for Texans or residents hadn’t gotten a say in the matter.

Abbott tries to soothe concerns

Abbott’s campaign season turnabout on data centers doesn’t seem to have soothed many.

Of great concern is the prospect that data centers will consume massive amounts of water and worsen drought conditions for ranchers and farmers in a state where water shortages already crippled the sugar cane industry.

“Oh, I guarantee you, it’s on everybody’s mind,” said Giles Dalby, a cattle rancher and a Republican county commissioner in west Texas.

Dalby, who raises Angus and Brangus cattle on ranchland that’s been in his family for 125 years, pointed to fast-growing cities where water authorities have had to go to greater lengths to procure water, including the “water wars” between San Antonio and ranchers several years ago.

Texas is increasingly steamrolling over landowner rights in the quest for public water, Dalby said, and that could mean that data centers get in line ahead of ranchers when shortages or rationing worsen.

Clayton Tucker, a rancher and the Democratic nominee for state agriculture commissioner, said his campaign events are consumed by talk of data centers. It doesn’t matter whether he’s meeting with Democrats or Republicans.

“This is the most cross-partisan issue I’ve ever seen in my life,” Tucker said.

Meanwhile, protest groups are springing up, including one in Lubbock that is led by Republicans. The founders, Stephen Sanders and Hallie Bertrand, like some other Republican opponents of data centers, say it’s possible or even certain they won’t vote for Abbott, although they may not necessarily vote for Hinojosa.

There is still time for Abbott to push through major legislation before the election and “be a hero,” Sanders said.

The big question is whether enough rural voters will turn against Abbott to give Hinojosa a shot. It’s hard to tell, Bertrand said, especially when some know nothing about the issue.

“They’ll just hit that button, Republican all the way down,” Bertrand said. “But I think it’s a step towards something that we have not seen in Texas in a long time, with people on the right switching to the left. Or scooting a little closer to the middle, maybe.”

Levy writes for the Associated Press.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup has wrapped, but some Angelenos who rented their homes to fans are still tallying up profits from a month of soccer frenzy in the city.

Driven by projections of massive tourism and a $750 first-time host incentive from Airbnb, many local property owners expected a sizable payout. While some savvy owners were able to cash in big during the tournament, others experienced only a moderate bump.

But something they all walked away with was some extra cash in their pockets and a blueprint for the LA28 Olympics.

We spoke with three L.A. Airbnb hosts to find out what they earned through their rentals during the World Cup, the luxurious renovations and amenities that helped their properties stand out and what advice they’d give others to prepare for the next global gold rush.

Wellness retreat-inspired house in Inglewood, 3 bedrooms

Lia Pilla turned one of her Airbnb properties into what she calls the Pink Palms Retreat. The Inglewood home features an infrared sauna, a large hot tub and more.

Rental host: Lia Pilla

How long have you been a host? Since 2021

Pre-World Cup rate: Ranged from $350 to $550

Price during the World Cup: During opening weekend, I got $2,730 for two nights. Of course, I have to pay a cleaning fee, but just in two nights, I’m a few hundred short of paying my mortgage, so that was really cool. For the following games, I maybe got like $400 to $500 a night. Then for the final weekend, I got like $3,400 for four nights, so it went back up.

What updates did you make, if any, to prepare? Last July, I did a full remodel of the house and turned it into what I call Pink Palms Spa Retreat. It’s all pink on the outside. It has an infrared sauna and a huge hot tub that can fit up to like 20 people. It has a large dining table with a firepit on top of the table, lush privacy trees and a custom gym.

Were you surprised with how things played out? I was expecting to make a couple hundred thousand off this World Cup, I’m not gonna lie, but I didn’t so I was like “OK. That kind of sucks.” I think L.A. got a little bit [cheated] with the teams we had. We had Team USA, which was cool, but we didn’t have any of the the big name teams like Argentina or France or Spain, so I think that’s one reason why the prices weren’t as high. I also think the political climate has made a big impact. Some people are scared to come to the U.S. or they aren’t allowed to come. But I’m happy with what I did get.

What’s one thing you’re thinking about doing with the money you made? I always invest back into the business. I want to touch up everything at all of my properties, so it continues to look like the pictures because your reviews are so important. I also have a Europe vacation planned.

Any advice for hosts preparing for the Olympics? Do your research on the market. Think “If I’m traveling to Los Angeles, what would I want?” because it’s also about the experience you create. Know what amenities people like. If you’re starting out or you’re already a host, I highly recommend having software in place for property management, cleaning and pricing.

‘Hillside hideaway’ in Woodland Hills, 2 bedrooms

Matthew Motamedi was surprised to see an influx of bookings on his Woodland Hills hideaway, which is roughly 30 miles away from SoFi Stadium.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Rental host: Matthew Motamedi

How long have you been a host? Since July 2025

Pre-World Cup rate: In late spring, we were charging $250-$280 per night on average.

Price during the World Cup: It was around $300, which is normal during July for us. We undercut the hotels and some of the other listings in our area by $100.

What updates did you make, if any, to prepare? We added a super crazy, comfy couch made of fake fur and people love it. That’s one of the important things about an Airbnb. There needs to be a really good hangout spot, so the couch needs to be super comfortable, and if the couch isn’t comfortable, no one wants to stay there.

Were you surprised with how things played out? Our property was so far away from SoFi Stadium (nearly 30 miles) so I thought it was going to be a non-event for us. It was supposed to be like that, but it definitely affected us because I started getting a lot of European and Spanish-speaking tenants.

What’s one thing you’re thinking about doing with the money you made? We’re definitely putting the extra money back into the property because we’re not there yet. There’s so much we want to do. During the World Cup, I was able to upgrade the AC unit, added a smart thermostat and invested in landscaping, which we want to do more of. We want to invest in the curb appeal and add more outdoor furniture. Maybe a movie room. We also want to get an auto pen so we can write handwritten cards for guests because it’s kind of hard to write perfect handwriting in different languages and in cursive. [Laughs] You can pick a font and it holds a ballpoint pen. To have that would be really cool.

Any advice for hosts preparing for the Olympics? You have to curate the experience and get more involved. If you can’t get involved, you need a co-host. Find a cousin, a sister, a brother, a friend, someone you trust with good taste to help you. Also, don’t just put up random paintings. Make it so that people want to move there. A lot of my guests are like “I wish I could live here.” You need a hotel scent and to provide laundry supplies. Ask your guests about their allergies and snack preferences then put together a snack basket. They freak out when they see that. Have a comfy couch, add plants like the fiddle-leaf fig (it looks bougie and you only have to water it once a week) and get a good cleaner. With that, you’re going to do really well.

Modern suite with luxurious amenities in Westchester, 1 bedroom, 2 guests

Sara Geissler at one of her Airbnb units.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Rental host: Sara Geissler

How long have you been a host? I started my [rental management] business about 10 years ago, but have been a full-time host for roughly eight years.

Pre-World Cup rate: About $195 a night.

Price during the World Cup: $234, which is about a 15% increase so a little bump. It wasn’t anything crazy.

Were you surprised with how things played out? I probably was expecting a little bit more because it was such a huge event. What I was a little surprised by though was how long the stays were. I was thinking that people were going to come in for a few days, but most of my stays were for a week or longer. We were pretty booked. I think we only had a couple days in between bookings.

What updates did you make, if any, to prepare? We bought the home a year ago and we’ve been getting it ready for the last four months. I added a private hot tub and an Eight Sleep Pod, which is a really fancy mattress topper that heats and cools your mattress. I tried to go all out with my amenities. We’ve got all the fancy soaps, deluxe robes and we added a washer and dryer. I always think about what I’d want when I’m traveling. I always put Q-tips, cotton balls and makeup wipes. For the kitchen, just having all the little stuff you need there. A wine bottle opener is No. 1.

What’s one thing you’re thinking about doing with the money you made? Paying my property taxes and my mortgage. [Laughs] Honestly, we’re putting it toward our living expenses and being able to afford our house. It’s been a huge help because everything is so high.

Any advice for hosts preparing for the Olympics? Really think about what you would want and put yourself in the shoes of the traveler. I always recommend people to try out your space before they rent it out. That will help you realize things like this faucet doesn’t get hot water or I forgot to put an ice cream scoop in the kitchen. You don’t want your guest to be a guinea pig.

Aaron Rodgers recently shared photos of himself with his parents and one of his brothers on social media.

While that’s something that a lot of people do, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback is a very private person who has never even posted a photo of his wife online.

Rodgers also has been estranged from his parents and brothers for quite some time now.

Those relationships appear to be on the mend, however, after the 22-year NFL veteran took to Instagram on Monday and posted several seemingly recent family pictures — including one of him with his arm around his father Ed, another with his arm around his mother Darla and others of him interacting with older brother Luke.

“Another bonding week,” Rodgers wrote, adding the hashtag #fam.

It was only his fourth Instagram post in more than two years. Luke Rodgers responded in the comment section with two heart emojis.

Rodgers spent 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, winning Super Bowl and four league MVP awards before playing two seasons with the New York Jets. The upcoming season will be his second with the Steelers and, he has said, his final one in the NFL.

The rift with his family members was made public in 2016 when younger brother Jordan Rodgers was a contestant on “The Bachlorette.” On one episode, Jordan Rodgers told his now-wife JoJo Fletcher that his famous brother has chosen to live his life in a certain way, “I chose to stay close with my family and my parents and my [other] brother.”

On another episode featuring other members of the Rodgers family (with a conspicuous absence), Luke Rodgers said: “It pains both of us, like, not to have that relationship [with Aaron] — we miss our brother. I trust that God brings things full circle and that everything would just get back to us being a family.”

Weeks later at Packers training camp, Rodgers was asked about the subject.

“I’ve always found that it’s a little inappropriate to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m just —I’m not going to speak on those things,” Rodgers said, “but I wish him well in the competition.”

He added: “I haven’t seen the show, to be honest with you, so it hasn’t really affected me a whole lot.”

Ed Rodgers confirmed to the New York Times in 2017 that Rodgers hadn’t spoken to his family since late 2014, soon after the quarterback started dating actress Olivia Munn (the couple broke up in 2017).

In the 2024 Netflix docuseries “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma,” the 10-time Pro Bowl selection said he had never been “super duper close” with anyone in his family, except for Jordan Rodgers earlier on. He attributed the rift to a number of things, including his parents’ religious beliefs, sibling rivalries and his family’s reaction to his fame.

“I don’t wish any ill will on them at all,” Rodgers said. “It’s more like this, we’re just different steps in the timeline of our own journeys.”

The ice seemed to have started to thaw between the family members in recent years. According to the 2024 biography “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers” by Ian O’Connor, Ed Rodgers bought a ticket to a 2023 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe with the hope of possibly coming face to face with his son, who was a participant in the event, for the first time in nine years.

Rodgers saw his father in the crowd and tracked him down. The two of them embraced and said, “I love you.”

“That was a special moment,” Aaron told O’Connor.

O’Connor wrote Tuesday on X that Rodgers invited his parents to his Pleasant Valley High (Chico) Hall of Fame induction in April, then introduced them to the crowd and thanked them for their support.

NEW YORK — He is baseball’s invisible man.

Remember when the Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker? The prophets of doom wailed. The Dodgers had opened Pandora’s box, and out would fly a lockout, a pall of smoke over their games, and a plague of locusts.

The salary cap proposal was coming anyway. The Dodgers did play through wildfire smoke at Yankee Stadium last Friday. No locusts, at least not yet.

But no one foretold that the star to whom the Dodgers agreed last winter to pay an average of $60 million each year would be, well, average.

Over the first half of the season, Tucker’s OPS+ was 100, making him a player defined by that metric as “league average.”

He is batting .240, 30 points below his career average. He is on pace for full-season career lows in home runs (11) and OPS (.702).

His WAR is 0.9, below the 1.3 of Tyler Glasnow. By that metric, Tucker has contributed less to the Dodgers’ success this season than Glasnow, who has pitched in seven of the team’s first 100 games.

Hardly anyone outside Los Angeles has noticed, and hardly anyone in Los Angeles has gotten all worked up about it.

“I appreciate that our fan base, compared to some others, gives a lot more grace to players,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I know he sees that as well.”

Here is what Tucker’s trials have cost the Dodgers: Absolutely nothing.

He had two hits, both singles, in 13 at-bats as his team won the weekend series against the New York Yankees. The Dodgers remain the owners of the best record in the major leagues.

Tucker’s four-year contract, lucrative as it is, was not accompanied by a withering spotlight. He does not need to lift his team into the postseason, a burden often borne by marquee free agents signed to put their team over the top.

With the Dodgers?

Shohei Ohtani is the face of baseball. Freddie Freeman’s son walked around the All-Star Game in a T-shirt that read “My Dad Has 2,500 Hits.”

Mookie Betts last played here as a World Series-winning, Gold Glove-winning right fielder; he returned as a World Series-winning, Gold Glove-caliber shortstop.

“I think it certainly helps being around a lot of other guys who have high expectations,” Roberts said.

Neither rain nor smoke nor heat can keep the Dodgers from their appointed October rounds. They need Tucker to prosper then.

Dodgers outfielder Kyle Tucker singles during the second inning against the New York Yankees on Friday.

(Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images)

“Obviously, we all want to play well all year,” Betts said. “It’s not like we’re kicking the can and nobody cares. Even then, we’d love to be ready in October.

“It’s really just about playing. You never know. You could have a great October and get one hit, and it could be the biggest hit.”

Said Tucker: “Everyone here is very talented. Everyone is here to help each other out. Everyone here just wants to get back to another World Series, and win it. So I’m trying to do my part and just play baseball.”

He insists he is not weighted down by the external expectations that accompany his contract.

“I think that’s the beauty of it, the thing that’s refreshing,” Betts said. “I don’t think he cares about any of that. He just wants to play well and do his thing and help the boys.

“I don’t think he really cares about the expectations.”

You may think “$60 million” when he comes to the plate. He does not.

“I try, regardless of what my situation is,” Tucker said. “Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve just got to try and do better.”

His strikeouts are up significantly this season. His bat speed is down slightly. His hard contact rate is down significantly.

He’s working on fixing his swing. He’s been working on it. He’ll keep working on it.

Roberts said the quality of Tucker’s at-bats have looked better over the past couple weeks, even if the results may not show it.

“The thing that I’ve appreciated since Day 1 is, he hasn’t run from his struggles,” Roberts said. “He’s owned it.”

Tucker made the All-Star Game in each of the four years preceding this one. The Dodgers are betting his level of performance will at least approach that in the second half.

Betts said he does not see anything specific to worry about with Tucker.

“I don’t see anything at all,” Betts said. “He’s a competitor. He’s already come through a bunch during the year. It’s not like he’s not doing anything.

“He’s not hitting .330 with 30 [home runs], like we all would dream we were doing, right? But, as a team, we’re doing OK.”

For now, the Dodgers are. Their true season starts in a little more than two months.

From Tucker, the accountability is appreciated. Production would be better.

WASHINGTON — President Trump used a rare prime-time address Thursday night to renew his attacks on the security of U.S. elections, telling Americans that the nation’s voting system is “so broken” that “no one can possibly defend it,” an unprecedented effort by a sitting president to undermine public confidence in domestic elections.

Many of the claims he made, which echo those he made after he lost the 2020 election, have been debunked by investigations, audits and court proceedings. Trump did not claim that vote counts were changed or election systems were hacked, and his warnings that the nation’s elections could be vulnerable to foreign influence have long been made by members of both parties.

But the president amplified those claims and others in an effort to cast fresh doubt over what he said was a “stolen” and “rigged” election and renew calls to pass a federal voting law ahead of the November election.

“Addressing this crisis of elections security demands that Congress will pass the SAVE America Act,” Trump said. “How easy is that to do? Unless you want to cheat.”

Trump said he directed the White House to release a tranche of heavily redacted documents that purport to show “vulnerabilities” in the nation’s voting system, with the goal of “correcting them very, very quickly.”

The 26-minute address to the nation — a platform traditionally reserved for rare moments of national importance — was the latest effort by Trump to attempt to assert more federal control over state elections.

Major broadcast networks declined to air Trump’s speech in full, instead reporting on it. Trump complained about NBC and ABC as he spoke, saying they should lose their broadcasting licenses. He falsely claimed that “they and others in the media are part of a plot” to “continue this fraud.”

In his remarks, Trump alleged China carried out what is believed to be the “largest compromise of election data history” starting during the 2020 election cycle and claimed that “members of the deep state” in the American intelligence community covered it up.

He directed the FBI, the director of national intelligence and other agencies led by some of his loyalists to investigate and prosecute the people responsible for the cover up.

Democrats swiftly condemned Trump’s claims as baseless and rehashed ideas that have little to do with actual election administration.

“Donald Trump is releasing unverified, meaningless documents to appease his own delusions about an election he lost resoundingly, all while continuing to withhold 3 million pages of the Epstein files,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said on X.

Multiple reviews of the 2020 election have concluded that Democrat Joe Biden won legitimately, and election experts say there is no evidence that widespread fraud affected the outcome of the election.

“It’s been more than half a decade, with numerous audits, recounts, and more than 60 court cases, each finding no evidence of widespread voter fraud,” Sen. Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) said in a statement. “Clearly, this is no longer about an election Donald Trump lost six years ago. It’s about him laying the groundwork to try to ‘take over the voting’ in the upcoming midterm elections.”

Ahead of the speech, elections and democracy experts had cautioned that the president may attempt to sow doubt in the security of the nation’s election system or bolster debunked fraud claims.

Trump has taken a series of steps since retaking office aimed at exerting control over elections. Some experts said Thursday’s address could be interpreted as a sign that Trump is running out of moves in the lead up to the midterm elections, where Republican control of the House is at stake.

“The fact that they’re throwing everything up on the walls at this point demonstrates panic,” said David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation and Research. “They are not operating from strength right now. They are operating from weakness.”

Trump delivered the address with his approval rating stagnating at 37%, according to a Washington Post-Ipsos poll released Thursday, with weakening enthusiasm among Republicans.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Josh Grisetti, the Broadway actor who charmed audiences with roles in “Something Rotten!” and TV’s “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” has died, a family member confirmed to The Times on Monday. He was 44.

Grisetti died by suicide Friday, his “Something Rotten!” co-star Rob McClure first announced Sunday on Instagram, adding he is heartbroken and “not ready to even attempt to understand.” McClure also expressed his condolences to Grisetti’s wife and family. The Instagram post included photos of Grisetti and McClure over the years, including at Grisetti’s wedding. The actor married Mackenzie Perpich in 2020.

“Communities around the world will never be the same without him. We love you Josh,” McClure wrote in his caption. “Just a cataclysmic loss.”

On Broadway, Grisetti was best known for starring as Bottom brother Nigel alongside McClure’s Nick. The play follows the pair of brothers as they strive for success in the theatrical world amid William Shakespeare’s unstoppable rise. Grisetti portrayed Nigel Bottom from 2017 to 2018 for the show’s national tour. Grisetti also starred in musical comedies “It Shoulda Been You” and “Broadway Bound.” He appeared in award-winning off-Broadway productions including “Rent,” “Peter and the Starcatcher” and “Enter Laughing,” among others.

Grisetti’s regional credits also include “Spamalot” in Las Vegas, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” at the Reprise Theatre, “Beauty & the Beast” and “Peter Pan Goes Wrong” in La Mirada.

“Thank you, Josh, for sharing your beautiful energy and immense talent with us,” the La Mirada Theatre said on Instagram.

The actor, in what would be his final Instagram post, announced he departed a production of “Legally Blonde” at the Trentino Music Festival for “personal reasons” before the show’s opening.

The festival also mourned Grisetti in an Instagram post Monday: “Josh was a loving and caring person who was deeply dedicated to his friends, his students, and his colleagues. He was beloved by all who knew him, and he will be deeply missed by our students, faculty, and staff.”

Grisetti, born in December 1981 in Roanoke, Va., acted throughout childhood and performed in a variety of productions, including a kindergarten production of “Peter Rabbit” and high school productions of “Anything Goes” and “Flowers for Algernon.” He officially earned his Actors’ Equity card in 2004 for a production of “Where’s Charley?” at the Goodspeed Opera House, he told Playbill in 2009.

He also pursued a career in TV and film, most notably appearing in the Emmy-winning series “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel.” He appeared as comedy writer Ralph Emerson in the series’ fifth season. He also had roles in shows “The Knights of Prosperity,” “Nurse Jackie” and “The Good Fight.”

He appeared in the film adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake,” “The Immigrant,” “The Revolutionary Road” and “Men in Black 3,” among other movies, according to IMDb.

Grisetti, who also directed various musical productions, notably brought his talent and experience to Cal State Fullerton and Loyola Marymount University, teaching acting, musical theater and business. He also authored “God in My Head” in 2016, an “irreverent spiritual memoir” that details his accidental meeting with God through a “hallucinogenic journey.”

During his time on “Price of Broadway” in 2015, Grisetti reflected on luck and breaking into the industry. “Luck is required to kind of spark some things in this business a lot of the time, but then talent is what keeps you there,” he told Playbill.

“You start making your own luck, you start forging your own connections and making it happen.”

Don Iwerks, an Academy Award-winning special effects pioneer whose innovations transformed film and Disney theme parks, died peacefully Thursday at the age of 96, the Walt Disney Co. announced.

For Disney and his own studio, Iwerks Entertainment, Iwerks helped develop technologies and techniques like Circle-Vision, the 360-degree camera behind “America the Beautiful” and other early Disney attractions, and the 3-D effects used in attractions like Captain EO and the Star Tours ride.

“There was a ‘can-do’ attitude I learned from Walt and my father,” Iwerks said, according to a statement shared by the Disney Co. “Walt gave everyone a feeling that they were creating things that others had never thought of before, of being a part of history.”

Born July 24, 1929, Iwerks received his first camera at age 14 as a gift from his father, animator Ub Iwerks.

The elder Iwerks met fellow artist Walt Disney when both men were teenagers working at a Kansas City, Mo., art studio. They would go on to work together at the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, where Iwerks designed and animated “Plane Crazy,” the first Mickey Mouse cartoon.

After a stint at his own animation studio, Ub returned to Disney as a special effects engineer, pioneering techniques like the 360-degree motion-picture camera.

“He was absolutely my inspiration because he was technically minded. He made my childhood and formative years one of the greatest times of my life,” Don Iwerks told The Times in 1998.

The Iwerks family moved to the San Fernando Valley in 1936, where Don graduated from Van Nuys High School in 1947.

He served as a photographer in Germany during the Korean War and joined his father at Disney following his 1952 discharge from the U.S. Army. An allergic reaction to chemicals used to develop film led to his transfer to the company’s Studio Machine Shop, where he spent the next 34 years.

Don spent three months in the Bahamas manning underwater cameras for the 1954 Disney film “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” He then worked as the camera technician on “A Tour of the West,” an original Tomorrowland attraction at the soon-to-be opened Disneyland. The immersive 360-degree film was shot on the Circarama camera system his father invented.

Together, Don and Ub developed technologies like the “endless loop” system that enabled a single film print to run for up to 10,000 performances with minimal intervention and refinements to the photography processes used in “Mary Poppins” (his favorite of the Disney films) and other movies.

His own hands were used as the model for those of the Abraham Lincoln Audio-Animatronics figure in “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln,” which opened at Disneyland in 1965. The “Iwerks Hands” now appear on similar figures at Disney parks around the world, according to his family.

In 1986, he co-founded Iwerks Entertainment, which soon became a major player in the film and theme park industries. The company specialized in large-format films and created the 3-D projection system used in the Terminator rides at Universal Studios parks in Hollywood and Florida.

His innovations were honored with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ honorary Gordon E. Sawyer Award and an Academy Scientific and Technical Award, among other prizes.

“It’s very obvious that computers are playing a big role in motion pictures today. The digital technology in film is able to put elements of scenes together on a film and have them look lifelike. It’s hard to know where that will go,” Iwerks said in a 1998 interview.

“My view is that technology should support a good story and add to it. Technology for technology’s sake?” he said with a shrug. “You still need good films.”

Iwerks is survived by his wife of 54 years, Betty; his sons, Larry and John; John’s wife, Chris; his daughter Leslie, and great-nephew,Mike, both of whom have also worked for Disney, according to an obituary shared by his family. His daughter Tamara preceded him in death.

“Like his father, he was a humble genius, a consummate problem solver, and delighted in sharing knowledge, encouraging others, and approaching every challenge with confidence and grace,” his family said in the statement from Conejo Mountain Funeral Home in Ventura.

Both Don and Ub Iwerks are commemorated in a storefront window on Main Street U.S.A. in Disney World’s Magic Kingdom. Located above the Main Street Bakery, the window is a lasting tribute to a family who made some of the park’s magic possible.

“Iwerks-Iwerks Stereoscopic Cameras,” the lettering reads. “No Two Exactly Alike.”

WASHINGTON — Shortly before President Trump ended a ceasefire with Iran this week, Israeli officials presented his team with intelligence indicating Tehran was hatching new plots to kill him.

It was not the first such warning. U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have tracked evidence for years of Iranian efforts to target the president, with signals only increasing since the start of the war.

Their desire to target Trump and his top aides began six years ago, just outside Baghdad International Airport, when the president ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s most powerful general. The assassination of Qassem Suleimani brought the two countries to the brink of war.

Yet even as full-scale war was averted, top Iranian officials vowed revenge for the strike, authorizing attempts on the lives not just of the president, but of his secretary of State and national security advisor, among others, even after they had left office.

Now, calls for revenge have reached a sharper pitch in Tehran, after a joint U.S.-Israeli operation killed Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, at the start of the war in February.

At Khamenei’s funeral ceremonies this week, red flags of vengeance flew throughout the capital as protesters explicitly called on their government to “kill Trump.” His son, Mojtaba, the new supreme leader, was absent from the commemorations, fearing assassination himself.

Mourners hold an anti-President Trump banner at the Imam Khomeini Grand Mosque during mass funeral prayers for Iran’s late Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and his family in Tehran on Sunday.

(Morteza Nikoubazl / NurPhoto via Getty Images)

The prospect of foreign assassination plots targeting U.S. leaders puts the United States in dangerous new territory, where its embrace of political killings could ultimately place its own officials at unprecedented risk. And experts fear the existential threat of assassination has pushed peace further out of reach: When both sides believe their survival is at stake, the trust required for diplomacy becomes far harder to achieve.

Israeli news organizations have reported that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, cited Iranian attempts to kill Trump in recent years as part of his case to go to war in the first place.

A U.S. official told The Times that a range of serious threats exist against the president, including from Iran, but that Israel’s intelligence pointed to a more specific plot. The official did not provide further details. Israeli officials did not respond to requests for comment.

Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has said in recent months that the government sees vengeance against U.S. officials as “its legitimate duty and right,” and “will fulfill this great responsibility and duty with all its might.”

“The Suleimani killing accelerated a lifting of restraints on foreign assassinations — and the taboo on targeting and killing foreign leaders, with U.S. military assets, has been more or less lifted,” said Matt Dallek, a political professor at George Washington University.

“If the United States sets the example of how to conduct international relations, and it is using assassination of foreign leaders as a political weapon, it’s only logical that other countries will be more inclined to also engage in assassinations,” Dallek added. “It does seem likely that Trump will have a bigger target on his back.”

Returning from a NATO summit in Turkey on Wednesday, Trump was forced to switch back to an old model of Air Force One — equipped with specialized defensive technologies — from a new plane given as a gift by Qatar, after the Secret Service warned of potential threats to the aircraft from Iran.

“They want to take out the U.S. leader — me,” Trump told reporters aboard the plane. “I’m on whatever list. I saw this morning I’m on every single one of their lists. And so far, I guess I’ve been a bit lucky, but maybe that doesn’t last very long.”

The threat has remained on his mind in the days since. In an interview with the New York Post, Trump told the reporter, “I hope you’ll miss me,” adding that he has “been on their list for a long time.” And in a subsequent social media post Friday night, he warned of a catastrophic response he instructed the administration to pursue in the event Tehran succeeds.

“1000 Missiles are Locked and Loaded and aimed at the Islamic Republic of Iran,” he wrote, “with thousands of more to immediately follow, should the Iranian Government act on its threat, pronounced in many corners of the Globe, to assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, the sitting President of the United States of America, in this case, ME!”

The United States had a decades-old prohibition against assassinating foreign leaders before Trump’s presidency, codified in an executive order signed by President Ford in 1976 over concerns of a CIA plot to kill Fidel Castro.

The policy was only strengthened further by subsequent administrations, fearing a new international standard for targeted killings could result in unintended consequences in the halls of Washington.

Other administrations have been accused of targeting foreign leaders before. Under the Obama administration, an international coalition targeting the Libyan regime of Moammar Kadafi during the country’s 2011 civil war struck his fleeing convoy, leading to his capture and killing by rebel fighters.

But experts say Trump’s explicit targeting of Suleimani and Khamenei — and his public celebration of their deaths — marks a new paradigm.

“Through words and actions, President Trump has done more to normalize political violence than any other U.S. president, certainly in modern times,” said Robert Pape, a professor at the University of Chicago and author of “Our Own Worst Enemies: America in the Age of Violent Populism.”

“On the international front alone, the president routinely brags about killing Iranian leaders and seizing the leader of Venezuela, among others,” he added, “to the point that assassination is becoming the new normal in international politics.”

Comedy saved Teruko Nakajima’s life.

In 2016, Nakajima received psychiatric care at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, diagnosed with depression, PTSD and suicidal ideation. Her doctors searched for ways to manage her stress by exposing her to various activities, including video games, serene Icelandic landscapes and an aerial silks performance. The last brought her anxiety down, revealing that the arts were the answer. Her doctor prescribed the arts, comedy specifically, so she went to the Upright Citizens Brigade for class.

She found a calling and a safe space in comedy.

“I didn’t know I was born a comedian,” Nakajima said. “Finally, I really felt I was accepted as a comedian, validated for who I am.”

Nakajima shares her healing journey to the stage in “Made in America,” which just had an encore performance at UCB on Tuesday after its award-winning run in 2022 (it is also available for streaming on UCB’s website through Tuesday). The one-woman show arrives in time for the United States’ 250th anniversary on Saturday, documenting Nakajima’s search for the American dream as a first-generation Japanese American woman. “Made in America” premiered in 2022 at the Hollywood Fringe Festival during Joe Biden’s presidency and following the Jan. 6 United States Capitol attack. In 2026, its musings on identity and belonging pierce through today’s political landscape shaped by Donald Trump’s second presidency.

“I wanted to let people know this is an American story,” she said.

“Made in America” is about Nakajima’s life. It begins in her mother’s womb. She felt so safe there, she yearned to return. Growing up, she experienced an emotionally and physically abusive life at home, recalling her father breaking furniture and her mother’s alcohol-induced belittling comments. But her name, Teruko, translates to a “shining child.” Thus, she proclaims in the show, “I’m a superstar!”

The beauty in “Made in America” is Nakajima’s ability to find the humor in her trauma. When the show transitions to her life in America, she talks about her life as a dominatrix in New York City and her struggles with romance in Los Angeles. Her comedic jabs at the American economy and humorous reflections juxtapose somber moments of stillness in the midst of her struggles. This balance puts her life into perspective, revealing a positive personality beneath a dark saga.

Nakajima performs “Made in America” at Upright Citizens Brigade Theater.

(Nick Rasmussen)

“I look very happy-go-lucky and cheerful, but actually, I am a very dark person because I have a dark history,” she said. “I always wanted to leave my story behind. I wanted to leave my mark in this world before I died, so I needed to make something.”

The first class Nakajima took at UCB was John Flynn’s storytelling course. There, she started building pieces of the show without realizing it. As they added up, the idea for a show surfaced. After class one day, she asked Flynn to direct it. Flynn, who has been teaching at UCB in New York and L.A. for about 20 years, agreed.

“She disarms people,” Flynn said. “There’s something about her that is just so unique and so delightful that you won’t forget her.”

Flynn first met her at his storytelling open mic. She walked in with her emotional support dog Titi (also known as Tiny Teruko), wearing her signature red heart-framed glasses, without lenses. Soon, these glasses would make him double over in laughter when she performed and cried, dabbing her eyes with tissue through the frame.

“When you start to learn her story and the experiences she’s had, it is amazing that she is so positive,” he said. “She’s such a sort of undeniable positive energy that she just radiates all the time, which is so compelling and why people are so drawn to her.”

Revived at UCB amid Trump’s second term and the nation’s 250th birthday, Nakajima’s show doubles as a defiant immigrant love letter to America — and a refuge for audiences feeling alone.

(Nick Rasmussen)

Nakajima puts all of herself into the show. Aside from comedy, she has been a cheerleader in Japan, a salsa dancer in New York and a sculptor on the side — she loves sculpting MLB players’ butts; Derek Jeter is her favorite. In the show, she folds these aspects of her life into a single story, dancing from section to section. Comedy is more than just laughs; it’s storytelling.

“I am so good at cheering people up, since I was very little,” she said. “I had no competition with others because I’m the one and only. Nobody looks like me.”

Together, Flynn and Teruko parsed through her life stories to give the show an arc. For Flynn, it’s like carving away at what is already there to create something fun and cohesive, like a sculpture. “What’s fun about directing one-person shows like this is that it’s usually just two people in a room putting something together,” Flynn said.

Bringing the show back this year, the work gets sharper and tighter, but the biggest shift is in its conclusion. Once optimistic about the future of life in America, the show now has a stronger desire to make change. There was a sense of hope in 2022 for women like Nakajima, an immigrant who sought safety in a new country and struggled with abuse from her family and strange men. Today, as Trump’s immigration policies lean on deportation and discrimination, she simply wants to be seen.

“America, thank you for not giving up on me,” Nakajima said toward the end of the show. She is proud to be American, not just because she gets to have the same nationality as her dog Titi, but primarily because of the new life it offered her. America promised happiness. Whether it actually comes is another story, but in this one, the promise itself gave her a sense of purpose.

“After the show, people come to me in person and through messages,” she said. “A lot of people said, ‘I felt like I am not alone.’ That gives me so much hope and unity. I feel safe and like I have something to look forward to because I’m not the only one.”

Flynn realized how much he took for granted while working on the show with Nakajima. “I think, even though these are scary times and things seem to be going in directions that aren’t the best, there are still great people, and there’s something that is still there and is not dying and is still fighting,” Flynn said.

When she began her acting journey, Nakajima thought she’d turn to drama, but there’s something more unguarded in comedy.

Nakajima holding up her dog Titi during a performance of “Made in America.”

(Nick Rasmussen)

“I’m very authentic and invincible through comedy,” she said.

By the end of “Made in America,” Nakajima is no longer trying to find her way back to her mother’s womb. She is confident in her place in the world. She remembers that she is a star. She brings out her dog Titi, who was hidden on stage throughout the entire performance, and shares that UCB gave her a new outlook on life. Comedy breaks away her stresses and allows viewers to be vulnerable with her.

“I always wanted to feel safe,” she said. “I never had that. Finally, I found a safe space, and then I realized that I’m actually important. I’m actually worthy. I’m so happy right now to be able to express myself through comedy because it’s the truth.”

Former NFL running back Chris Johnson has issued a challenge to his family, friends and fans — one that could quite literally send a chill down the spine of those who remember a certain viral trend from more than a decade ago.

A quick refresher: A social media sensation went viral in 2014, involving people posting videos of themselves having a bucket of ice water poured over their heads and challenging others, by name, to do the same.

The trend was often referred to as the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge because many folks used the videos to raise awareness for and funding to help fight the degenerative neurological disorder amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease.

Johnson, a three-time Pro Bowl selection who holds the NFL record for most yards from scrimmage in a single season, on Tuesday revealed on “Good Morning America” that he has been diagnosed with ALS. Soon after, former Utah basketball player and sports content creator Hunter Mecum posted a video on Instagram in which he dumped a large bowl of ice water on himself in Johnson’s honor.

That video inspired Johnson to bring the movement back.

“Man… the love y’all have shown me these last few days really [means] more than you know. Me and my family appreciate every prayer, message and every bit of support,” Johnson wrote on Wednesday on Instagram.

“After seeing @huntermecum video, I’m asking y’all to help me with something. Let’s bring back the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. Grab a bucket, challenge 3 people and if you can, donate to help fund ALS research.”

Johnson included a link in his bio to a fundraiser for ALS research set up in his honor. As of Thursday morning, it had raised more than $32,000.

The retired player known as CJ2K also called on three people to accept the ice bucket challenge — ex-Tennessee Titans teammate LenDale White and fellow former NFL greats Marshawn Lynch and Adam “Pacman” Jones.

So far, White and Lynch have accepted Johnson’s challenge. Lynch, the former star running back for the Seattle Seahawks and Oakland Raiders, obliged by getting hailed on by a bucket of ice.

White, who was Johnson’s “Smash and Dash” counterpart in the Titans backfield, took the traditional ice water route and nominated former NFL players Deion Sanders, Vince Young and Michael Sims-Walker, who was on hand at the time and accepted the challenge in a separate video.

Johnson also posted a video of his daughter Honey Love taking the challenge, with White handling the ice-bucket duty. She nominated her brothers and former Lakers superstar LeBron James.

James hasn’t yet responded, but he was one of the many celebrities who took part in the original challenge 12 years ago. Others included Kobe Bryant (who submerged himself in an ice tub), Shaquille O’Neal (who humorously poured one drop of water on his head) and Donald Trump (who joked he was nominated because “they want to see whether or not it’s my real hair, which it is”).

Sony Pictures will invest $100 million and take a minority stake in virtual reality venue operator Cosm, as the studio continues to build a business in communal experiences.

As part of the investment, Sony Pictures Chief Executive Ravi Ahuja will also join Cosm’s board of directors, the studio said Wednesday. The size of Sony’s minority stake was not disclosed.

The El Segundo-based Cosm currently operates three venues — one at Hollywood Park in Inglewood, and the others in Dallas and Atlanta. The company plans to open additional venues in Detroit and Cleveland.

Cosm bills itself as a “shared reality venue,” and its facilities center around a massive, wraparound screen that is intended to envelop viewers with additional digital effects. The company has largely focused on sports, though it has also shown Cirque du Soleil shows and done several collaborations with Warner Bros., including recent screenings of 2001’s “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone” in honor of the film’s 25th anniversary.

“Cosm sits at the intersection of several trends shaping the future of entertainment,” Ahuja said in a statement. “We’ve followed Cosm since before launch and have been impressed with the quality of the experience and the enthusiasm it’s generating with audiences.”

The investment is Sony’s latest venture into experiential entertainment. In 2024, the Culver City-based studio acquired dine-in theater chain Alamo Drafthouse Cinema.

FORT WORTH, Texas — A demonstrator who shot and wounded a police officer outside a Texas immigration center last July 4 was sentenced to 100 years in federal prison Tuesday, while other protesters accused of having links to antifa were given multiple decades in federal prison.

Benjamin Song was convicted of attempted murder last March after prosecutors say he opened fire and wounded a police officer at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado.

The seven other protesters sentenced Tuesday received prison terms ranging from 30 to 70 years.

“Our issue with this case has always been this isn’t a bunch of terrorists. This is a bunch of kids and young adults who really have a really big heart and really wanted their voice to be heard,” Philip Hayes, Song’s attorney, said outside the federal courthouse in Fort Worth. “It was never intended that anybody get hurt. It was never intended that any shots would be fired.”

He said his client would appeal the sentencing.

“Song, aside from this day, has had an impeccable life. A former Marine. A good student,” Hayes said. “He had a lot of good qualities that were just ignored. The judge went ahead and gave as much as he could.”

One of the defendants, Daniel Sanchez Estrada, was convicted of corruptly concealing a document and conspiracy to conceal documents. Others pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists rather than take their case to trial.

Prosecutors say the eight are members of antifa, a decentralized anti-fascist organization that has become a target of the Trump administration. They have denied any affiliation and maintain they attended the demonstration to show support for immigrants inside the detention center.

President Donald Trump last fall signed an executive order designating antifa a domestic terrorist organization, even though there is no domestic equivalent to the State Department’s list of foreign terror organizations.

Critics warn the case could have wide-reaching impact on protests given that organizations operating within the U.S. are supposed to be protected by First Amendment free-speech rights.

Short for “anti-fascists,” antifa is not a single organization but rather an umbrella term for far-left militant groups that confront or resist neo-Nazis and white supremacists at demonstrations.

Last week, federal prosecutors charged 15 people with impeding the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota. They claimed the demonstrators were members of antifa who conspired against the federal government to block arrests and deportations by setting up blockades around government buildings and throwing chunks of ice at federal vehicles, among other actions.

Stengle and Marcelo write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York.

When CBS announced that it planned to outsource the hallowed “Late Show” slot occupied by Stephen Colbert and David Letterman before him to “Comics Unleashed,” the syndicated, low-budget talk show with stand-ups riffing on their routines, many saw politics at play.

But the show’s host and producer, comic-turned-mogul Byron Allen, saw the math. Once a cultural touchstone, late-night television has seen its prominence erode greatly over the years with viewers and advertising dollars shifting away from broadcast TV to streaming.

“I said, ‘Look guys, you’re spending a small fortune on late night,’” recalled Allen, who estimated that the programming was costing the network more than $200 million. He offered it a solution.

His company, the Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group, would pay $15 million for the airtime to run “Comics Unleashed,” which previously aired after “The Late Show,” while keeping most of the advertising time on the program to sell. It was the same time-buy model that propelled his fledgling media empire and made him wealthy many times over.

“Comics Unleashed” drew 1.1 million viewers in its debut in the new time slot last month, down substantially from the 2.7 million Colbert’s show averaged in its final season. Critics chimed in, with one outlet even calling it a “ratings disaster.”

But Allen, typically, was not fazed, saying his show bested the competition in key markets and was more comparable with the same time period last May before Colbert’s post-cancellation victory lap.

“CBS has won big-time because they have zero production costs and now they are saving $55 million a year,” he said in an interview.

Media mogul Byron Allen at his studio on the set of “Comics Unleashed” in Culver City.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

A relentlessly driven, shrewd dealmaker and entrepreneur, Allen is used to defying skeptics and seeing opportunity in assets overlooked by others. He was one of the first entertainers to recognize that there was more money to be made in owning your content, rather than just performing it.

Over the last three decades, he has built a multibillion-dollar business, Allen Media Group, which now has 2,000 employees across various media properties.

In addition to creating a trove of accessible, family-friendly programs, he’s taken a number of big, bold swings, buying up distressed assets that now span broadcast, cable, streaming and film distribution.

At times, he appears like a minnow trying to swallow a whale. Although many deals have landed, others, such as his bids for ABC, BET, Paramount Global and Tegna, have not.

“He’s had misses, but that doesn’t stop him from going to bat,” said Lloyd Greif, president and chief executive of Greif & Co., a Los Angeles-based investment bank.

After a major restructuring that began two years ago during which the company laid off staffers and sold off properties, Allen is back with a slew of ambitious acquisitions. In addition to owning CBS’ late-night block, he also took over the 12:35 a.m. slot with his comic game show, “Funny You Should Ask.” He declined to reveal how much he paid for that airtime.

Allen recently snapped up controlling interest in the digital media company BuzzFeed (including HuffPost) for $120 million and bought a 10.7% stake in cable channel Starz for $25 million.

Although Allen’s programming has been dismissed as low-budget, apolitical comedy, and his finances have been questioned by some, he remains undaunted by doubters.

“I like to say I’m a 65-year-old overnight success.” And he remains focused on his mission, even proclaiming he is “building the world’s biggest media company.”

An entrepreneurial streak

Allen was born in Detroit, where his grandparents owned a roller rink where he worked as a floor guard. Being surrounded by a family of factory workers and the legacy of 20th century American industry set the stage for his entrepreneurship. “I didn’t play sports; I played office,” he said.

At age 7, after his parents’ divorce, Allen moved to Los Angeles with his mother, Carolyn Folks. It was the summer of 1968 and they planned a two-week vacation. But Detroit was in flames following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and they stayed.

Folks put herself through UCLA and eventually worked her way up at NBC from an intern to a publicist, a move Allen credits with changing the trajectory of their lives. His mother couldn’t afford child care, so Allen often accompanied her at the studio, where he soaked up tapings of “Sanford and Son” and “The Tonight Show.” After Johnny Carson finished filming and the studio was empty, Allen would sit at his desk, mimicking the legendary late-night host.

At 14, he convinced his mother to let him do stand-up at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard.

“There were literally four people and 200 chairs. And I said, ‘I have to figure out how to make these chairs laugh.’”

A writer for Jimmie “J.J.” Walker, who was starring on the groundbreaking Norman Lear hit comedy “Good Times,” caught his act. He hired Allen to write jokes for Walker along with a pair of yet-to-be discovered comics: Jay Leno and David Letterman. Allen earned $25 a joke.

Howie Mandel met Byron Allen when they were both starting out at The Comedy Store.

(Allen Media Group)

“Most people in my business wait for other people to give you an opportunity,” said Howie Mandel, the actor and comic who met Allen when they were starting out at the Comedy Store during this period. “Byron and his mom constantly made their own opportunities.”

In 1979, when Allen was 18, he became the youngest comic to appear on “The Tonight Show.” Like a shot out of a cannon, the performance catapulted his career.

While various offers poured in, Allen chose the NBC prime-time series “Real People” as a host and correspondent. It was an embryonic version of reality TV. Allen traveled around the country showcasing quirky, heartwarming stories. The hit show brought Allen to every pocket of America. It also made him a star, delivering him to the country’s living rooms each week.

He continued to tour, doing stand-up and serving as the opening act for such musicians as Lionel Richie and Dolly Parton, and starred in TV movies.

Allen became a hero to young, Black entertainers who were just starting out. Among them was Eddie Murphy, who has called Allen “one of my first inspirations.”

“He just loves comedians,” said Whitney Cummings, co-creator and executive producer of the hit CBS sitcom “2 Broke Girls.” She recalled crucial career and financial advice Allen gave her after she first appeared as a young comic on “Comics Unleashed.” “It gave me like a true north. It changed my life.”

Whitney Cummings says Allen helped her early in her career.

(Troy Conrad)

As Allen’s success swelled, he said, he realized the industry was what he calls “business show, not show business.”

“You need to know the business side and learn the business side and then you can do as many shows as you want. And I knew that I didn’t want to work for anybody,” he said.

While on “Real People,” he sat in on sales meetings and went to the National Assn. of Television Programming Executives, where he introduced himself to Al Masini, the syndication trailblazer who produced “Entertainment Tonight” and “Star Search.”

“I understand you’re the best. I’m here to learn from you,” Allen said.

In 1989 he began hosting the syndicated “The Byron Allen Show.” Two years later, he created BYCA Television Distribution to take over his talk show’s distribution and syndicate other shows.

But Allen and his new company were soon facing legal and financial issues. A group of former employees and an investor sued, claiming they had not been paid. The dispute forced the company into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

Allen pressed on. He had absorbed another key lesson.

Learning from Richard Pryor

When he was still hanging out at the Comedy Store, he watched Richard Pryor trying out new material.

Iconic comedian Richard Pryor.

(Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)

“He would bomb night after night for almost three months,” Allen said. “I’ll never forget, he told me, ‘Byron, you’re only as good as you dare to be bad.’ I learned, OK, take risks. It’s about growing and taking chances.”

In 1993, Allen launched CF Entertainment on his dining room table in Los Angeles. The production company, later Entertainment Studios, became the foundation of his media empire. He focused on producing low-cost, syndicated programming, including interview series and court shows. Allen produced and often served as host.

His first show, “Entertainers With Byron Allen,” packaged the five-minute celebrity interviews during hotel press junkets, a conveyor belt of actors promoting their latest projects set up by the studios into an hourlong talk show.

Allen bartered the show for free to TV stations in exchange for a split of the revenues from selling commercials to advertisers. Success was not immediate. He said he received countless rejections at first.

“My house went in and out of foreclosure probably 14 times,” he said. At one point, he said, his telephone service was turned off, forcing him use a pay phone for calls.

But the format established the template for what became Allen’s highly successful business. Forbes has estimated his net worth in the billions. Allen declined to discuss his personal or business finances.

The mogul now owns multiple homes, including a $91.3-million mansion in Aspen, Colo., that was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal.

“A lot of people didn’t take him seriously and saw him as a comedian,” said Joan Robbins, Allen’s first employee, who has stayed on for 32 years as president of talent relations. “I don’t think anybody realized the extraordinary business sense he had.”

Byron Allen gets final touches at his studio on the set of “Comics Unleashed.”

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

As Allen’s media ambitions have expanded beyond comedy and syndicated talk shows, so has his company. It produces, distributes and sells advertising for 74 television programs (“Mathis Court With Judge Mathis” and “Career Day” among them) as well as owns 13 broadcast stations affiliated with the major networks in 11 markets and several dot-TV cable and digital networks including Cars.TV, Automotive.TV and Comedy.TV.

In 2016, he acquired the Black entertainment platform TheGrio and later purchased the assets of the Black News Channel out of bankruptcy for a reported $11 million, merging its TV assets and carriage deals into TheGrio’s network.

A year earlier, Allen made waves by filing the first of several multibillion-dollar racial discrimination lawsuits to tackle what he called the “trade deficit between Black America and white corporate America.” His case against Comcast for not carrying Allen-owned stations and networks reached the Supreme Court before being settled.

“I feel good about starting that conversation … because we were going in circles and we were definitely suffering from economic genocide,” he said.

In 2018, Allen’s company bought the Weather Channel and the streaming service Local Now for $300 million. His firm also announced it had raised $500 million in credit facilities organized by Deutsche Bank Securities, Jefferies Financial Group, Brightwood Capital Advisors and Comerica Bank to finance production and other acquisitions.

What unites these disparate assets? “We’re directed at where the viewers are,” he said. “That’s where we’ll be.”

But in his tireless push to expand his sprawling company, Allen has made several failed bids for high-profile assets.

In 2023, he offered Disney a reported $10 billion for ABC and some of its cable networks, and the following year bid $30 billion for Paramount Global. He also made plays for Tegna and BET.

None of his offers succeeded, prompting skepticism about his ability to finance such deals. Allen Media Group is wholly owned by the entrepreneur.

Allen dismissed such concerns. “I raised the money to buy the Weather Channel in one day,” he said. “There’s trillions of dollars looking for really good executives and really good deals. I have no problem raising capital.”

The Times viewed multiple letters from private equity firms and banks. Several indicated that Allen had financial backing on the deal to buy BET, and another showed he had $4 billion in funds to back the purchase of Paramount assets.

Over the years, former employees have criticized some of Allen’s employment practices. In 2012 he faced a class-action suit from performers and staffers on “Comics Unleashed” who alleged they were not paid residuals or reimbursed for travel and other expenses. The suit was settled in 2023.

Allen called the suits “frivolous,” saying, “I couldn’t be in business if I actually conducted myself that way.”

Last year, Allen came under fire after announcing sweeping cuts at about two dozen local affiliates that included laying off meteorologists, part of a reorganization to centralize forecasts at the Weather Channel in Atlanta. The move sparked viewer outrage and the plans were reversed.

The controversy came as Allen’s company was retrenching. He sold off about a third of the TV station portfolio for $171 million.

Allen said this was a case of “rightsizing,” paying down debt and investing more in digital. “I sold 10 of my ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates to Gray [Media] at a great price for us and a great price for them.”

Allen confirmed he is negotiating with lenders over substantial debt payments coming due in the next year, but said he is “highly confident they will get refinanced or extended.”

Shortly after he bought a stake in Starz, Allen announced his intentions to own the cable channel. Starz responded by adopting a poison pill.

“Good luck,” he said. “I still plan to take over Starz, and I will eventually get control of Starz.”

“The Listeners,” which premieres Friday on Starz, began unusually as a story written by Jordan Tannahill as the basis of Missy Mazzoli‘s 2022 opera, also called “The Listeners” (libretto by Royce Vavrek), which he turned into a 2021 novel, which became a 2024 BBC television series, also written by Tannahill. Starz has cut its original four episodes into five, which means that they end in odd places, but given its controlled, glacial pace, shorter might be better.

Tannahill’s inspiration is an unexplained phenomenon reported in the real world — though exactly how real it is is open to interpretation — generally called “the hum,” where people experience a low but persistent background noise inaudible to others. (It isn’t tinnitus, or any diagnosable medical condition.) One such sufferer is Claire (Rebecca Hall), a high school literature teacher with a husband, Paul (Prasanna Puwanarajah) and a teenage daughter, Ashley (Mia Tharia), with whom she gets along well. We begin on an up note, Claire and Ashley singing along to Richard and Linda Thompson’s “I Want to See the Bright Lights Tonight” as they drive to school (she also has Nick Drake on her phone). And then the 1970s British folk rock gives way to a less pleasant auditory landscape, as the hum appears, bringing on headaches and nosebleeds and affecting her concentration and mood, her work and family.

Any condition can be isolating from those who don’t share it, and Claire gets some relief when she’s approached by a student, Kyle (Ollie West), who also hears it. They go investigating possible sources of the sound — wind turbines, a radio telescope — and wind up eventually at something like a support group for hum-hearers run by Omar (Amr Waked) and Jo (Gayle Rankin). There is some sketchiness in their past, including a changed identity, and they like to keep the group on a tight rein, but the breathing exercises and visualizations seem pretty standard, and more benign than, say Scientology, and the suggestion that one may tame an affliction by embracing it is pretty reasonable. Claire’s mistake here is not to get a signed parental permission slip, as it were, or enlist a chaperone, and her growing closeness with Kyle (not romantic, not sexual we are assured) will cause them trouble, cost Claire her job and mess up her marriage. She makes some insufficiently careful decisions, but those around her tend to overreact. This is very much a story about listening and not listening.

Directed by Janicza Bravo and photographed with great intention by Jody Lee Lipes, it has the studied look and tempo of a 20th-century art film. (It is always great to look at.) I was reminded of Antonioni’s “Red Desert” and Bergman’s “Persona,” psychological studies of women going to pieces, but also, thematically, of Spielberg’s “Close Encounters of the Third Kind,” with its characters driven to what looks like madness by private bulletins from the ether, pushing them away from family and toward others who are getting the same message. No aliens here — not a spoiler — though I might have liked that ending more than this, which in its own way seems to drop from space.

You can look for metaphors and social comment here — there are references to conspiracy theories and industrial noise pollution and such — but it seems to me to operate most effectively as a beautifully rendered mood piece and character study, and, certainly in the case of Hall, whose story this is, a platform for some exquisitely subtle acting.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday that a “swift and lethal kinetic” U.S. strike has killed Hector Rusthenford Guerrero Flores, whom he called “the infamous leader” of the Tren de Aragua gang.

Tren de Aragua has been labeled by the United States as a terrorist organization. Guerrero Flores was charged in a New York federal court with racketeering conspiracy and other crimes, including lending support to terrorists in crimes that stretched more than a decade, authorities announced in December.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on X that the strike occurred earlier in the week on a Tren de Aragua compound in Venezuela.

U.S. Atty. Jay Clayton alleged at the time that the gang is responsible for countless acts of violence, extortion and drug trafficking in North America, South America and Europe. Trump nominated Clayton on Thursday to be director of national intelligence.

The U.S. State Department had offered rewards of up to $5 million for information leading to Guerrero Flores’ arrest.

In a post on his social media site, Trump wrote, “Tren de Aragua terrorists no longer have safe haven in Venezuela or anywhere else and, under my leadership, we will find these vicious murderers and drug lords anytime, anyplace, and send them to the depths of hell where they belong.” Trump’s post referred to Guerrero Flores by his alias, Niño Guerrero.

Hegseth said, “The operation underscores the shared U.S. and Venezuelan commitment to take the fight to narco-terrorists and deny them any safe haven in our hemisphere.”

Venezuela’s ministry of communications did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the operation.

Trump has taken a series of extraordinary actions against the gang, including a series of strikes on small boats his administration has accused of smuggling drugs to the U.S.. At least 207 people have been killed in boat strikes by the U.S. military in the eastern Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea since the Trump administration began the campaign in early September.

Independent investigations, by the Associated Press and others, have raised questions about the boat passengers’ alleged connection to drug trafficking. And, in any case, many legal experts say the boat attacks amount to extrajudicial killings in violation of international law.

Trump and administration officials have consistently blamed Tren de Aragua for being at the root of the violence and illicit drug dealing that plague some U.S. cities. The president spent months repeating the claim — contradicted by a declassified U.S. intelligence assessment — that Tren de Aragua had operated under Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s control. The U.S. invaded Venezuela and seized Maduro in January to face U.S. drug charges.

Tren de Aragua originated more than a decade ago at an infamously lawless prison in Venezuela’s central state of Aragua. The gang has expanded in recent years as millions of Venezuelans migrated to other Latin American countries or the U.S. in search of better living conditions.

Guerrero Flores returned to the prison in Aragua on murder and other convictions in 2013, when Venezuela’s crisis began and corruption, mismanagement and a drop in crude prices wrecked the oil-dependent economy. Guerrero Flores and a few other inmates saw a profitable opportunity as the government neglected prisons.

They assumed control and administration of the prison, establishing a system that controlled the entire inmate population through force and extortion. Over time, they transformed the lockup into a sort of city that included a zoo, baseball field, casino and restaurants. Guerrero Flores had his own lavish suite.

The size of the gang is unclear. Countries with large populations of Venezuelan migrants, including Peru and Colombia, have accused the group of being behind a spree of violence in the region. Still, unlike other criminal organizations from Colombia, Brazil and Central America, Tren de Aragua has no large-scale involvement in smuggling cocaine across international borders, according to InSight Crime, a think tank that tracks crime across Latin America.

In Venezuela, gang leaders have long been known to participate in various illegal activities, including illicit gold mining.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Regina Garcia Cano in Mexico City contributed to this report.

Xavier Becerra’s campaign for California governor appeared doomed just two months ago. Every major opinion poll showed the longtime Democratic politician mired near the bottom of the pack, overshadowed by his flashier or wealthier rivals.

Now Becerra tops them all, according to the most recent opinion polls, emerging as a surprise front-runner in a race that has confounded voters and political experts alike.

Both his loyal supporters and well-financed critics have a hard time explaining Becerra’s rapid ascent, with theories ranging from outright luck to a nefarious social media push. Others credit Becerra’s mild temperament, describing him as a steady figure — the Goldilocks candidate in a field of competitors who weren’t just right.

Becerra, when assessing his sudden rise, believes voters wanted experience, not “glitz and sizzle.”

“Folks put their faith in someone who’s done that kind of work and achieved results, someone who’s taken on real crises and been able to pull us out of them,” Becerra said in an interview Friday after a union rally in the Inland Empire. “Now it’s time to get things done. I think they’re looking for someone who could actually do that.”

Becerra’s team also points to the fortuitous timing of their seven-figure political ad campaign that launched shortly before explosive allegations of sexual assault and misconduct against the then-leading Democrat in the race, former Rep. Eric Swalwell. After Swalwell suspended his campaign on April 12, Becerra’s ascent began.

Becerra is backed by 25% of likely California voters, followed by Republican Steve Hilton at 21% and environmental activist Tom Steyer, a fellow Democrat, at 19%, according to a new UC Berkeley Institute for Governmental Studies poll co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Times. Two months ago, before Swalwell dropped out of the race, support for Becerra registered at just 5%.

Whatever the outcome of Tuesday’s primary election, Becerra’s surge over the other Democrats in the final sprint of his campaign will be a defining moment of the 2026 governor’s contest.

“It’s almost too good to be true,” said Carrie Webster, a Becerra supporter and Long Beach hairdresser who interviews political candidates on social media using the name “Crowd Source Carrie.”

“He shot through the roof, but it feels like it’s all organic,” said Webster, 49, who said she isn’t paid for her political work.

A Sacramento resident, Becerra, 68, served one term in the state Legislature, more than two decades as a Los Angeles congressman and then as California attorney general, and most recently worked as the secretary of Health and Human Services in the Biden administration.

His only previous statewide race was his 2018 bid for attorney general. In that contest, which he won handily, he had the major advantage of incumbency after being appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown to fill the vacancy caused by then-Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris’ election to the U.S. Senate.

Running for governor has proved to be much more daunting. His top Democratic challengers not only include Steyer, a free-spending billionaire, but also former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, current San José Mayor Matt Mahan, former Orange County congresswoman Katie Porter and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.

In early March, the chair of the California Democratic Party, Rusty Hicks, urged stuggling candidates to drop out of the race. He feared the crowded field of candidates would splinter the party’s voters and lead to a Republican being elected as the next governor of California.

Under the state’s top-two primary system, only the first- and second-place finishers in the primary advance to the November election, regardless of party. While Hicks did not mention Becerra by name, he was certainly among the struggling candidates at the time.

Until now, Becerra’s splashiest moment was in late March, when he launched a public pressure campaign to boycott a gubernatorial debate hosted by USC after he and other candidates of color were excluded from lineup. University officials based the invites on opinion polls and a controversial campaign fundraising formula. The debate was canceled less than 24 hours before it was scheduled to take place.

Then came the allegations against Swalwell, which prompted nationwide interest in the otherwise sleepy California governor’s race. Political data strategist Paul Mitchell compared the moment to a dramatic scene midway into a “Real Housewives” season.

“Finally, somebody flipped a table, threw wine on somebody else, and all the voters started paying attention,” he said.

Alf LaMont worked for Swalwell’s team as a digital communications expert until his firm quit on April 10 following news reports about the allegations against the East Bay Democratic congressman.

LaMont said he was “doomscrolling” that same night when he saw an “organic, random” push for Becerra on Threads and other social media sites. LaMont said he immediately called Becerra’s campaign team and signed up to work for him.

Webster, the Long Beach content creator, also noticed the online buzz about Becerra.

“People were saying, ‘Let’s print out yard signs, T-shirts,’” Webster said. “Or someone would say, ‘I’m going to start Gen X for Becerra,’ or ‘I’m going to start Millennials for Becerra.’”

The push was so noticeable that Steyer’s campaign hired an intelligence agency with ties to a major Israeli firm to study the trend.

The agency’s report found about 3,000 fake accounts that amplified Becerra across social media platforms X, Facebook and Instagram while also criticizing Steyer, according to Steyer’s team. In all, the fake accounts generated 1.3 million views and 42,000 engagements, the report stated.

Steyer spokesperson Kevin Liao alleged a coordinated network from Becerra’s team or his supporters. Becerra’s campaign denied any role and dismissed the influence of the fake accounts.

Earlier opinion polls also offer a possible explanation for Becerra’s rise.

Even as he remained stuck behind other candidates in support among voters, Becerra’s favorability ratings versus his unfavorability ratings were better than rivals, including Porter and Villaraigosa.

Swalwell also had high favorability ratings, and when he dropped out, Becerra was “seen as the least objectionable of the candidates that were remaining,” Mitchell said.

The UC Berkeley Institute poll released Thursday shows more likely voters viewed Becerra favorably (44%) than unfavorably (38%). By contrast, 39% of voters viewed Steyer favorably and 43% unfavorably.

Becerra’s campaign credits part of his April surge to good fortune. His team unleashed a large advertising buy — a major chunk of his remaining campaign funds — placing spots on cable TV and online beginning in late March.

The timing was opportune given the chaos caused by Swalwell.

Becerra’s ads depicted him as calm and experienced. One showed him speaking to a diverse group of young people about his record of challenging President Trump, suing his administration more than 100 times when he served as attorney general, and his plan to bring down the cost of living for “the next generation.”

At the same time, LaMont’s team — which also is behind Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political communications — created a more “earthy” and “grassroots” look to Becerra’s campaign ads and messaging. Words like “Tio” and “carne asada” emphasized the candidate’s Latino heritage.

Polls done in the wake of Swalwell’s exit showed Becerra gaining ground.

Special interest groups, including California Medical Assn., which had supported Swalwell, switched to Becerra. A well-financed, independent political committee campaigning against Steyer — an effort intended to benefit Swalwell — also moved over to Becerra. Major corporations, including Chevron, Meta and McDonald’s, lined up next.

Becerra appeared unprepared for the speed at which voters and others gravitated toward him. He stammered through hastily filmed videos asking for small-dollar donations as his campaign sought to convert the new interest around him into donors.

He appeared stiff during his first post-Swalwell debate appearance; he mistakenly referred to Trump’s “war in Iraq” instead of Iran during his first answer and fended off the first of many attacks to come during an April 22 debate. During a sit-down interview with a KTLA-TV reporter in Los Angeles in early May, Becerra went immediately on the defensive — questioning whether it was a “gotcha piece.”

Still, people flocked to town halls, including one in Oxnard in May, where he leaned into his “bad dad joke” persona. He greeted the large crowd with his corny, familiar line, “Did you think you were coming to a Bad Bunny concert?”

Oxnard audience member Rose Castren, 68, told The Times she liked Becerra’s “calm and reassuring” style. The retired nurse watched the CNN debate in early May, where the candidates piled on Becerra to try to undercut his momentum.

“The other candidates seemed to be coming unglued,” she said. “And he didn’t.”

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.