pandemic

Out of sheer darkness, the Batman logo was emblazoned across the 86-foot-wide screen and dazzled my young eyes.

From Hollywood, I was instantly whisked away to Gotham City. The iconic DC comic book came to life and the booming thuds of the Caped Crusader smashing a pair of common thieves was real.

These were my first vivid memories of watching a movie in the larger-than-life Cinerama Dome on Sunset Boulevard, and being amazed by the screen’s size and the sense of being transported into another galaxy.

But the dome is magical on the outside, as well as the inside. The concrete geodesic dome is made up of 316 individual hexagonal and pentagonal shapes in 16 sizes. Like Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, it’s a structure that has become a Hollywood landmark.

The Dome represented a special place for me, until it became just another of the dozens of businesses in L.A. that never returned after pandemic closures in 2020.

Ever since, there have been rumblings that the Dome would eventually reopen. Although nothing is definitive, my colleague Tracy Brown offered a bit of hope in a recent article.

What’s the latest

Dome Center LLC, the company that owns the property along Sunset Boulevard near Vine Street, filed an application Oct. 28 for a conditional-use permit to sell alcohol for on-site consumption at the Cinerama Dome Theater and adjoining multiplex. The application doesn’t mention an reopening date or any details about movie screenings returning to the dome but suggests that a reopening may be in the works.

Elizabeth Peterson-Gower of Place Weavers Inc., said Dome Center is seeking a new permit that would “allow for the continued sale and dispensing of a full line of alcoholic beverages for on-site consumption in conjunction with the existing Cinerama Dome Theater, 14 auditoriums within the Arclight Cinemas Theater Complex, and restaurant/cafe with two outdoor dining terraces from 7:00 am – 4:00 am, daily,” according to the application filed by the company’s representative.

This would would be a renewal of the current 10-year permit, which expires Nov. 5.

The findings document filed with the City Planning Department also mentions that “when the theater reopens, it will bring additional jobs to Hollywood and reactivate the adjacent streets, increasing safety and once again bringing vibrancy to the surrounding area.”

A representative for Dome Center LLC did not respond immediately Friday to a request for comment.

What happened to the Dome?

The Cinerama Dome opened in 1963 and had been closed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Since the closing, the news about the future of the theater has been ambiguous.

In April, 2021, the owner of Pacific Theatres and ArcLight Cinemas announced they would not reopen the beloved theater even after the pandemic ended. But then, in December, sources told The Times that plans were in the works to reopen the Cinerama Dome and the attached theater complex.

In 2022, news that the property owners obtained a liquor license for the renamed “Cinerama Hollywood” fueled hope among the L.A. film-loving community’s that the venue was still on track to return.

But the Cinerama Dome’s doors have remained closed.

Signs of life

At a public hearing regarding the adjacent Blue Note Jazz Club in June, Peterson-Gower reportedly indicated that although there were not yet any definitive plans, the property owners had reached out to her to next discuss the future of the Cinerama Dome.

Perhaps this new permit application is a sign plans are finally coming together.

After the kind of year Los Angeles has endured — with devastating fires and demoralizing immigration raids — it would certainly bolster the spirits of all Angelenos to have another local landmark reopen its doors to welcome movie-loving patrons like me.

Today’s top stories

California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks as he stands with First Partner Jennifer Siebel Newsom during an election night news conference at a Democratic Party office in Sacramento on Nov. 4, 2025.

(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)

Voters approve Prop. 50

After World Series celebration, ICE and Border Patrol gather at Dodger Stadium once again

• Dozens of federal immigration agents were seen staging in a Dodger Stadium parking lot Tuesday morning, a day after the team returned home to celebrate its back-to-back championships with thousands of Angelenos.
• Videos shared with The Times and on TikTok show agents in unmarked vehicles, donning green vests and equipped with white zip ties in parking lot 13.
• Five months ago, protests erupted outside the stadium gates when federal immigration used the parking lot as a processing site for people who had been arrested in a nearby immigration raid.

Sen. Alex Padilla says he won’t run for California governor

• “It is with a full heart and even more commitment than ever that I am choosing to not run for governor of California next year,” Padilla told reporters outside his Senate office in Washington.
• Padilla instead said he will focus on countering President Trump’s agenda in Congress, where Democrats are currently in the minority in both the House and Senate, but hope to regain some political clout after the 2026 midterm elections.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must-read

For your downtime

A view of landscaping at the home of Susan Gottleib and her Gottleib Native Garden in Beverly Hills.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s the best hiking trail in SoCal?

Alexandra writes: “Sullivan Canyon, for sure.”

Rochelle writes: “Can’t ever go wrong in Griffith Park, but for overall exercise, killer views, artifacts, and entertainment without wearing yourself out, my hiking partner and I like the Solstice Canyon Loop in Malibu, 3.4 miles. The most popular hike in the canyon, for good reason!”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Joe Rinaudo hopes to host tours and educational opportunities at his home theater and museum through a nonprofit group dedicated to preserving photoplayers.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Jason Armond at the home of Joe Rinaudo, the foremost expert on photoplayers, who is preserving the soundtrack to a bygone movie era.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor, fast break desk
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew Campa, Sunday writer
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

The cuts in Hollywood just keep coming, following a sadly familiar script.

Last week it was Paramount, which laid off about 1,000 workers in the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media took over the storied media and entertainment company.

The cuts affected a wide swath of the company, from CBS and CBS News to Comedy Central, MTV and the historic Melrose Avenue film studio, my colleague Meg James and I reported. Another 1,000 layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.

But Paramount isn’t the only one in the media business that’s shedding jobs and payrolls.

Earlier, cable giant Charter Communications said it would lay off 1,200 people nationwide, as the company faces increased competition for its broadband internet packages. NBC News, too, laid off 150 employees last month amid declining TV ratings and lessening ad revenue.

Other recent media-adjacent layoffs included 100 cuts to Disneyland Resort’s Anaheim-based workforce and the massive 14,000 worker reduction at Amazon, including at the company’s gaming and film and TV studios.

And that doesn’t even include widespread job losses that happened earlier this year at companies such as Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.

It all adds up to a grim picture for Hollywood’s workers, who have faced a near endless marathon of economic hurdles for the last five years.

First it was the pandemic, followed by the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, cutbacks in spending after studios splurged on streaming productions, and the outflow of production to the U.K. and other countries with lower costs than California.

Then, in January, nature struck a blow, with the fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades destroying many industry workers’ homes.

Topping it off, Saturday marked the first day that millions of low-income Americans lost federal food assistance due to the government shutdown that began Oct. 1. That has affected some 5.5 million Californians and probably some who work in the entertainment industry.

“It’s been one crisis after another, without enough time in between,” said Keith McNutt, western regional executive director of the Entertainment Community Fund, which provides social services for arts and entertainment professionals. “People are concerned and very worried and really trying very hard to figure out where they go from here.”

McNutt reports that the nonprofit group has already heard from some people who were recently laid off, and has experienced a sharp increase in demand for its services, particularly from those in the film and TV industry. The fund offers healthcare and financial counseling and operates a career center. It also provides emergency grants for those who qualify.

Clients include not only low-income people who are always hit hardest in downturns, but also veteran entertainment industry professionals who’ve worked in the business for 20 to 30 years.

Those who were lucky enough to have savings saw those wiped out by the pandemic, and then were unable to replenish their rainy-day funds after the strikes and industry contraction, said David Rambo, chair of the fund’s western council.

“It has been snowballing very slowly for about five years,” Rambo said.

Many in the industry are hopeful that California’s newly expanded film and television tax credit program will bring some production — and jobs — back to the Golden State. That’s what backers campaigned on when they lobbied Sacramento legislators to bolster the program. Dozens of TV shows and films have received credits so far under the revamped program, but it’ll take some time to see the results in filming data and employment numbers.

And that doesn’t help the workers who were just laid off last month. For those folks, McNutt suggests calling the fund’s health insurance team to make sure they understand their options and also to spend some time with career counselors to understand how Hollywood skills can be transferable to other employers, whether that’s on a short- or long-term basis. Most importantly, don’t isolate yourself.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Nobody’s alone in this situation that the industry is finding itself in right now, and so reach out to your friends, reach out to your colleagues. If you’re not comfortable with that, reach out to the Entertainment Community Fund.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ wild 11-inning win on Saturday over the Toronto Blue Jays notched nearly 26 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game since 2017, according to Nielsen data.

The 2017 Game 7 win by the Houston Astros over the Dodgers had an audience of 28.3 million.

The Dodgers are now the first Major League Baseball team to win back-to-back championships in 25 years. On Monday, thousands of Dodgers faithful turned out for the team’s victory parade through downtown L.A.

Finally …

You’ve no doubt heard of L.A.’s famous star tours. But what about a tour of a historic cemetery?

My colleague, Cerys Davies, wrote about local historian and guide Shmuel Gonzales — or as he calls himself, “Barrio Boychik” — and his walking tour of Boyle Heights’ Evergreen Cemetery.

The cemetery is the final resting place for many of L.A.’s early movers and shakers, including the Lankershims and the Hollenbecks, and it’s also a prime example of L.A.’s multicultural history.

Welcome back to the Lakers newsletter, where we’re likely standing at an airport as you read this.

The NBA schedule is in full swing. The chaos JJ Redick mentioned at the beginning of the season has arrived. The Lakers played a game with seven standard contract players. Austin Reaves went on a heater for the ages, scoring 51 points in a game, 41 in the next, then hitting the game-winner in the one after that. Nick Smith Jr. threw up in the hallway at Moda Center then dropped 25 on the Portland Trail Blazers.

But through it all, the Lakers are crediting their 6-2 start to something that can’t be measured in the box score.

‘Play Laker basketball’

There seems to be an advanced statistic for everything now. As a math person, I wholeheartedly embrace the nerdification of sports. But the thing Redick preaches most to his team is something that can’t be quantified.

Just “playing hard.”

It sounds simple, but, in fact, there is a way to do it wrong.

“That’s what we call ‘fake hustle,’” guard Marcus Smart said. “It’s all for the cameras. It’s all just to look good so you don’t get in trouble in the film room. But when you’re playing hard, you can feel it. You can feel the way you’re playing, you can feel the way the energy. Your body can feel it. Your mind can feel it. And you’d be surprised how the game turns out because of that.”

The Lakers’ early season commitment to simply playing hard has helped them weather injury storms and roster uncertainty. They’ve gone 3-1 in games without Luka Doncic. One of those victories was without Doncic and Austin Reaves, and all have been on the road. LeBron James hasn’t even played a minute this season.

“There’s certain things that we are doing right now that we did not do until mid-to-late January of last year,” Redick said before the Lakers’ game against Memphis.

Naturally, only hours after praising his team’s consistent competitiveness, Redick was frustrated with the effort in the second quarter against the Grizzlies. He called his players “zombies” as they let Memphis score 19 unanswered points in the second quarter.

So, no, things aren’t perfect yet.

But in a long season, with pieces that are still finding their way together, any early glimpse at some of those intangible, championship team qualities are meaningful. Redick lauded his team’s confidence, belief and connectivity in the win over Portland without Doncic or Reaves. Getting any or all of their stars back will change the complexion of what this team will ultimately achieve in April, May or — they hope — June, but the Lakers don’t want to it to affect what they do any given night.

“I think it all started in training camp, really just going as hard as we can, JJ not giving the crap who’s out there,” center Deandre Ayton said. “He wants to play Laker basketball.”

After the Lakers beat the Grizzlies, Smart gave the team a B+ in how hard it’s playing. But after Monday’s win in Portland in which Smith scored 25 points off the bench, Smart upgraded the rating to a B++.

So there’s still room to grow on this report card.

A new boss in town

New Lakers majority owner Mark Walter.

(Michael Reaves / Getty Images)

The Lakers officially have a new majority owner.

Mark Walter’s acquisition of the Lakers was unanimously approved by the NBA board of governors last Thursday. It was a monumental week for the billionaire. One day after the sale went final, Walter hoisted the Commissioner’s Trophy for the second time in as many years with the Dodgers, who won the World Series in epic Game 7 fashion. Then on Sunday, Walter was sitting courtside at Crypto.com Arena in a royal blue Dodgers jacket to watch the Lakers defeat the Heat. An arena employee shook Walter’s hand, presumably thanking him for bringing L.A. another championship and already dreaming about the next one that could come for the purple and gold.

Redick said he spoke briefly with Walter after the news and came away impressed with Walter’s enthusiasm to learn about a new league.

“Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team sport. It’s a different thing,” Redick said. “Daryl Morey said it best on a podcast a couple years ago. He said the NBA now is the equivalent of the Giants when Barry Bonds was in his prime, basically getting to bat every single time and not only that, getting to pick who pitches to him every single time. That’s what the NBA is. … The impact of star players, a guy like Luka, a guy like LeBron, a guy like AR, it’s just different than any other sport.”

Favorite thing I ate this week

Miso pork katsu sando from Tokyo Sando food cart in Portland.

(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)

As my Uber driver dropped me off at my hotel in Portland, we drove by a collection of food trucks around the corner. He recommended that I make a stop for lunch. Little did he know, I had already scoped out the entire area, and I had my target locked.

The miso pork katsu sando from Tokyo Sando felt like culinary perfection after a chaotic back-to-back turnaround.

In case you missed it

No Big 3, no problem: Nick Smith Jr. helps lead Lakers to fourth consecutive win

Jake LaRavia won’t be unknown to Lakers fans much longer with games like this

Luka Doncic drops triple-double to power Lakers to victory over Heat

Luka Doncic returns and Lakers get a road win at Memphis

NBA approves Buss family sale of Lakers to Dodgers majority owner Mark Walter

Austin Reaves hits game-winner as Lakers hang on to defeat Timberwolves

Until next time…

As always, pass along your thoughts to me at [email protected], and please consider subscribing if you like our work!

In Mexico and parts of Central America, Día de los Muertos is regarded as a day to commemorate and celebrate departed family and friends.

For generations, Greater Southern California has joined the tradition with altars, Aztec dances and displays of marigolds in late October to early November. The day to honor the dead also has served as a day of gathering among the living.

However, some celebrations are being reconsidered because of fears that participants may get caught in deportation raids executed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

This week the Department of Homeland Security announced it had deported more than half a million undocumented people since the Trump Administration took over in January. More than 2 million people have left the nation overall, the department said.

With raids continuing, some organizers of this weekend’s Día de los Muertos events are moving ahead with celebrations, while others have canceled them.

Times reporters spoke with event organizers to learn what they’re doing differently.

Cancellation is the policy

My colleague Suhauna Hussain reported in mid-September that Long Beach was nixing its annual parade, which drew sizable crowds in the past.

The event was canceled at the request of City Councilmember Mary Zendejas “out of an abundance of caution,” according to city spokesperson Kevin Lee, because it’s “a large and very public outdoor event.” Officials were not aware of any targeted federal enforcement activity.

“This decision did not come lightly,” Zendejas and the city said in statements. The decision addresses “genuine fears raised by community members, especially those who may face the possibility of sudden and indiscriminate federal enforcement actions that undermine the sense of security necessary to participate fully in public life.”

Roberto Carlos Lemus, a marketer who brought food trucks and other vendors to the festival last year, called the cancellation “very sad.”

“Everyone’s very sad about the situation. Día de los Muertos has been one of the largest celebrations for a very long time, and the city has done a great job putting it on,” Lemus told The Times. “Unfortunately, with Latinos being kidnapped and attacked by ICE and the current administration, I do understand why they made the decision that they made.”

The action was mirrored in other places. Santa Barbara’s Museum of Contemporary Art canceled its own parade because the “threat to undocumented families remains very real.” In Northern California, organizations in Berkeley and Eureka also canceled celebrations for similar reasons.

Moving ahead

Others are not letting the immigration raids interfere with the celebration.

Last year, tens of thousands of visitors patronized Division 9 Gallery’s Day of the Dead celebration in downtown Riverside. This year’s free two-day event will feature Aztec dancers, a pageant, processions, Lucha Libre wrestlers and altars — the traditional stands along with ofrendras placed inside classic cars — on Saturday and Sunday.

The event, located on Market Street between University Avenue and 14th Street, continues to grow in popularity, organizer Cosmé Cordova said.

Cordova said he’s not sure if there will be 60 altars, as was the case last year, or if 45,000 people will attend Saturday, the most popular of the two days.

“Because of what’s going on, people are afraid,” he said. “But we’re not canceling.”

Cordova said he’s hired security and noted that Riverside police and the mayor will be present.

“We’re working with the city and others to make sure everything is going to be good,” Cordova said. “This is an event that the community comes out for and I’m not concerned about anyone breaking it up.”

The week’s biggest stories

Gladstone’s Malibu, an iconic dining landmark, pictured partially smoking from the Palisades Fire on Jan. 8, 2025.

(Connor Sheets/Los Angeles Times)

Palisades Fire investigation

Dodgers World Series coverage

Trump Administration polices and reactions

Crime, courts and policing

More big stories

This week’s must-read

More great reads

For your weekend

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

A surge in chikungunya cases has hit southern China, fuelled by climate change, urbanisation and global travel. Experts warn the next pandemic is inevitable – but have we learned enough from COVID-19 to be prepared?

Presenter: Stefanie Dekker

Guests:
Carmen Perez Casas – Head of pandemic prevention, Unitaid
Albert Fox Cahn – Founder, Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (STOP)

Welcome back to this week’s Lakers newsletter, where things are going to get weird (in a good way). Lakers basketball is officially back Tuesday as the team begins its regular season with the Golden State Warriors at Crypto.com Arena.

Coach JJ Redick downplayed any suggestion that his emotions entering his second season at the helm were significantly different than last year, but he said something that resonated with me as I’m entering my first full season in the NBA world.

“The fun part about this,” Redick said, “is the chaos.”

Let’s embrace this chaos.

Make Luka joyful again

Redick has a word for what Luka Doncic does. When the star guard skips up the court after a one-footed jump shot. The way Doncic grins slyly at his bench after a particularly bold pass. How he makes even the most unimaginable feats seem possible when the ball is in his hands.

‘He’s a weirdo,” Redick said in the most affectionate way possible.

“He has an ability to do what I would call, like, silly stuff, but still be locked in. It’s important to him that basketball is fun. … He’s at play. And that’s part of what makes him great.”

When he was drafted third overall in 2018, Doncic was 19 years old. People called him “The Wonder Boy.” He played with the joy of a child who was discovering new things each time he stepped on the court.

Now he’s 26. He’s seen that the NBA isn’t always just audacious step-back threes and sky-high lobs. Sometimes business gets in the way. Doncic’s ability to bridge the gap between his inner child and the outward seasoned veteran will be what defines the Lakers’ success this year.

“By being in a clearer headspace, and by that I mean just mentally and emotionally in balance, it allows you the freedom to just be yourself,” Redick said of Doncic. “That gets reflected in his expressions, his interactions with teammates, his interactions with our coaching staff, his desire to toe that line between competition and joy and playfulness that truthfully makes him the special person and player that he is.”

Redick has had a unique view of Doncic’s style. They were teammates in Dallas during Redick’s final year. They were unexpectedly reunited by a late-night trade so monumental that it even dominated the conversation at the Super Bowl.

But the shell-shocked version of Doncic wasn’t exactly the joyful player Redick remembered. Doncic said the basketball court has always been his “peaceful place.” The trade shattered not only the collective NBA mind, but also Doncic’s own spirit.

“The joy wasn’t there,” Doncic said.

Doncic was also struggling with a calf injury that kept him sidelined for a week after the trade. He made his debut on Feb. 10. He has said that, in retrospect, that first game was the highlight of his first season as a Laker because of the way the crowd received him. But it took maybe 10 or 15 games for the joy to truly return, Doncic said.

“At the end of the day, we’re all human,” guard Austin Reaves said. “It’s not like we’re robots out here that don’t have feelings, don’t have emotions, anything like that. … That’s not saying that he wasn’t fun to be around. He was always, still joking, having fun, but you can tell that he’s at peace with it. And he’s excited to go to war with us every night.”

Doncic has been adamant about trying to become more of a vocal leader this season. Time has healed his trade wounds, and Doncic said he’s felt much more comfortable speaking up around his teammates. He treated them to a Porsche driving experience as a team-bonding activity and gifted everyone his newest signature shoe. He traded jerseys with Jarred Vanderbilt at a recent practice just for fun. He and Rui Hachimura trade barbs about each others musical preferences.

In front of reporters, Doncic is not a gregarious interview subject, but he still dutifully plodded in front of a hoard of cameras and reporters Monday after practice. Reaves walked by and said loud enough to make sure everyone could hear that Doncic was his “favorite teammate ever.”

Doncic, laughing, responded that Reaves was his least favorite.

“He’s a big kid,” Doncic said sarcastically. “Very childish.”

But in Doncic’s world, that’s a good thing.

Defense wins championships

Gabe Vincent chases a loose ball during last season’s playoffs.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Gabe Vincent got the starting nod in LeBron James’ place during the preseason finale and will likely hold onto that role as the season begins in earnest. He has surely earned it.

Vincent shot a sizzling 55.6% from three-point range in the preseason and averaged 16.3 points per game. It was a glimpse of the player he showed he could be in Miami when helped lift the Heat to the NBA Finals.

The 29-year-old guard is also a gritty defender and strong communicator. The Lakers need that to improve on their defense that allowed the Sacramento Kings — playing without stars Keegan Murray, Domantas Sabonis and DeMar DeRozan — to shoot 54.7% from the field.

Doncic said a major piece missing from the Lakers’ defensive performance was physicality. Redick said he saw what the defense could be in two- or three-play bursts in each of the games following a flat performance against the Golden State Warriors in the first game. Now the key is to turn those flashes into sustained stretches.

“Building our habits, building our communication, and being in great shape, it’s how you build a great defense,” Redick said, echoing his three mantras of the year. “I could have put ‘championship defense’ up there. What does that mean? Actually what does that mean? Doesn’t mean anything. It literally doesn’t mean anything. How do you have a championship defense? You gotta have great habits. You gotta be able to communicate. That builds trust. And you gotta be in elite shape so you can play harder than the other team every night. It’s pretty simple.”

Favorite thing I ate this week

Oxtail ragu with pappardelle pasta

(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)

It’s not a bad gig when you get to watch basketball for a living and in between games eat at different restaurants across the country. But after days, and sometimes weeks, on the road, a good home-cooked meal just hits different.

That’s why my culinary highlight came out of my own kitchen this week: Oxtail ragu with pappardelle pasta from Trader Joe’s. And because I like counting on home cooking after road trips, the leftovers will be waiting for me in the freezer for later this season. Nothing says comfort food like a big bowl of noodles.

In case you missed it

Luka Doncic expecting tough test vs. Stephen Curry and Warriors without LeBron

LeBron James is off the hook for $865.66 as fan calls off ‘Second Decision’ lawsuit

Reigning NBA champs Oklahoma City Thunder aim to end NBA parity era

With LeBron James out, Lakers lean on Luka Doncic to open season

Lakers story lines: Five things to watch as the season begins

From oops to aahs, Jaxson Hayes and Lakers work to catch more of Luka Doncic’s passes

Until next time…

As always, pass along your thoughts to me at [email protected], and please consider subscribing if you like our work!

Small screen giant Netflix has once again turned to the big screen, this time with the release of its latest buzzy film, “Frankenstein.”

Written and directed by Guillermo del Toro, the film opened last weekend with a limited release in 10 theaters in Los Angeles, New York and a few other cities, and will expand to more sites for a total theatrical run of three weeks. The film stars Oscar Isaac as the titular egomaniacal scientist and Jacob Elordi as the Creature (who, contrary to popular belief, is not named Frankenstein — you can thank my English major for that tidbit).

The film is getting some awards attention, particularly for the performance of the prosthetics-and-makeup-laden Elordi, and notched a solid 86% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. As of Sunday afternoon, Del Toro posted that the film had sold out at least 57 screenings. “Frankenstein” will debut on the streamer on Nov. 7.

Del Toro’s “Frankenstein” is just the latest in a long line of adaptations of the classic 1818 novel by Mary Shelley. From the first silent film short in 1910 to Boris Karloff’s famed turn as the monster in 1931 and the Kenneth Branagh-directed movie in 1994 that starred Robert De Niro as the creature (Branagh played Frankenstein and Helena Bonham Carter was Elizabeth Lavenza), the classic horror story has proved ripe for filmmakers’ commentary on humanity, science and nature.

In fact, “Frankenstein” has been a lifelong passion project for Del Toro, who has made an award-winning career out of analyzing and depicting monsters, from 2006’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” to 2017’s “The Shape of Water.”

For Netflix, it’s a reminder of why film remains an important, if unlikely, part of the streamer’s strategy.

It’s no secret that Netflix has built its reputation — and its streaming prowess — on the strength of its series, from “Orange Is the New Black” to “Stranger Things” and “Bridgerton.” After all, popular episodic shows keep viewers on the platform, rack up hours of engagement and help draw new subscribers to the service.

The Los Gatos, Calif., company’s embrace of movie theaters may seem surprising given its longstanding testy relationship with movie theater exhibitors and their distribution strategy.

In fact, Netflix has also long said its main goal is to offer subscribers first-run movies on its platform, directly undermining the traditional 90-day “window” between a film’s release in theaters and when it appears in the home.

Earlier this year, Netflix Co-Chief Executive Ted Sarandos poured salt on the wound when he called the theatrical business “outdated,” at a time when many chains are struggling to fill seats to pre-pandemic levels.

Yet, theaters are still important to Netflix, which releases about 30 films annually in cinemas.

One reason: the allure of Oscar glory.

For the last few years, Netflix has submitted dozens of movies for awards-qualifying runs.

It’s typical for those films to be in cinemas for about two to three weeks before showing up on the platform. (Sometimes, those theatrical showings are for marketing purposes, like the recent “KPop Demon Hunters” singalong screenings.)

Netflix has won numerous Academy Awards over the years, ranging from animated feature (Del Toro’s “Pinocchio” in 2023), supporting actress (Laura Dern for “Marriage Story” in 2020 and Zoe Saldaña for “Emilia Pérez” in 2025) and director (Alfonso Cuarón in 2019 for “Roma” and Jane Campion in 2022 for “The Power of the Dog”).

Best picture, however, has continued to elude the company.

Theatrical releases also help the streamer to attract filmmakers and build relations with key talent. For instance, Netflix’s upcoming “Narnia” film from Greta Gerwig will get a two-week Imax run next year. Netflix previously ran Del Toro’s well-received horror anthology series “Cabinet of Curiosities.”

And while serial narratives may reign supreme, to maintain subscribers, you need other kinds of content to keep it fresh. That’s where movies (and live events) come into play.

As consumers decide which streaming services they can’t live without, a platform that has a little bit of everything has an advantage.

“Having a good mix of movies and serial content is really important,” says Alicia Reese, senior vice president of equity research in media and entertainment at Wedbush Securities. “A lot of people use this as their one and only subscription.”

In other fronts, is the fight over OpenAI’s new Sora 2 dying down? Maybe not, but there are signs of easing tensions.

On Monday, United Talent Agency, SAG-AFTRA, Creative Artists Agency, Assn. of Talent Agents, actor Bryan Cranston and OpenAI released a joint statement noting that Cranston’s voice and likeness was able to be generated “in some outputs” without consent or compensation when the tool was launched two weeks ago in a limited release.

“While from the start it was OpenAI’s policy to require opt-in for the use of voice and likeness, OpenAI expressed regret for these unintentional generations,” the statement said. “OpenAI has strengthened guardrails around replication of voice and likeness when individuals do not opt-in.”

Cranston, who brought the issue to SAG-AFTRA’s attention, said he was “grateful” to OpenAI for improving its policies and “hope that they and all of the companies involved in this work, respect our personal and professional right to manage replication of our voice and likeness.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

NBC News sent termination notices to 150 staffers last week, as the network struggles with declining TV ratings and ad revenue. Layoffs have been prevalent throughout the media landscape this year, but have been felt especially hard at broadcast news outlets, as audiences increasingly migrate to streaming platforms and cut the cord.

In addition to these issues, my colleague Stephen Battaglio reported that the NBC News layoffs were also attributed to the spin-off of cable networks MSNBC and CNBC. NBC News now no longer shares resources with those outlets, which will become part of a new company called Versant.

Affected employees were encouraged to apply for 140 open positions throughout the news group.

Finally …

I had to do it. With the Dodgers returning to the World Series, my colleague Jack Harris looks at the team’s season this year and how they fought through multiple injuries on the roster to eventually turn the ship around.

It was one of those performances that will be spoken about for years.

Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani delivered a night for the ages in the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Milwaukee Brewers in the clinching fourth game of the National League Championship Series on Friday night.

After slumping throughout the postseason, the Japanese sensation hit three home runs and pitched six shutout innings with 10 strikeouts at Chavez Ravine to advance the Dodgers to the World Series.

The effort immediately drew praise from baseball writers as the “greatest game ever,” “the performance of a lifetime,” and highlighted the “improbability of his greatness.”

Yes, the Dodgers are advancing to their second-straight World Series, where they’ll face either the Seattle Mariners or Toronto Blue Jays, beginning Friday.

They will attempt to become the first Major League Baseball team to win consecutive crowns since the New York Yankees’ threepeat from 1998 to 2000.

However, the night became a celebration of Ohtani, as documented by my sports colleagues.

Let’s take a look at some of what made Friday such a magical evening.

Trying to understand what Ohtani accomplished

Columnist Bill Plaschke asked Dodgers fans if they realized what they were watching:

Los Angeles, can you understand the singular greatness that plays here? Fall Classic, are you ready for another dose of Sho-time?

Ohtani and the Dodgers are back on baseball’s grandest stage, arguably the best player in baseball history concocting arguably the best single-game performance in postseason history.

The final score was 5-1, but, really, it was over at 1-0, Ohtani’s thunderous leadoff homer after his thundering three strikeouts igniting a dancing Dodger Stadium crowd and squelching the Brewers before the first inning was even 10 minutes old.

How far did that first home-run actually travel? Back, back, back into forever, it was the first leadoff homer by a pitcher in baseball history, regular season or postseason, a feat unmatched by even the legendary Babe Ruth.

The unicorn Ohtani basically created the same wizardry again in the fourth inning and added a third longball in the seventh in carrying the Dodgers to their second consecutive World Series and fifth in nine years while further cementing their status as one of baseball’s historic dynasties.

Why was the effort surprising?

On that off-day between Games 2 and 3 of the National League Championship Series, Ohtani looked like a man on a mission, according to Dodgers beat writer Jack Harris in his game story:

Ohtani took one of the best rounds of batting practice anyone in attendance had seen, getting into the real work of trying to fix a swing that had abandoned him for much of this postseason.

In 32 swings, Ohtani hit 14 home runs. Many of them were moonshots. One even clanged off the roof of the right-field pavilion.

Over his previous seven games, going back to the start of the NL Division Series, he had two hits in 25 at-bats.

He had recorded 12 strikeouts and plenty more puzzling swing decisions. And he seemed, at least in the estimation of some around the team, unusually perturbed as public criticisms of his play started to mount.

Then, two days later, a tour de force performance that will be talked about forever.

“He woke up this morning with people questioning him,” said Andrew Friedman, Dodgers president of baseball operations, during an alcohol-soaked celebration in the clubhouse afterward. “And 12 hours later, he’s standing on the podium as the NLCS MVP.”

Up next for the Dodgers is the World Series and perhaps some more Ohtani magic.

The week’s biggest stories

Crime, courts and policing

More Dodgers National League Championship coverage

Trump administration, policies and reaction

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Jason Frank Rothenberg)

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Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
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How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

A group of Democratic state governors has launched a new alliance aimed at coordinating their public health efforts.

They’re framing it as a way to share data, messages about threats, emergency preparedness and public health policy — and as a rebuke to President Trump’s administration, which they say isn’t doing its job in public health.

“At a time when the federal government is telling the states, ‘you’re on your own,’ governors are banding together,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore said in a statement.

The formation of the group touches off a new chapter in a partisan battle over public health measures that has been heightened by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s advisers declining to recommend COVID-19 vaccinations, instead leaving the choice to the individual.

Andrew Nixon, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, said in an email that Democratic governors who imposed school closures and mask mandates, including for toddlers, at the height of the pandemic, are the ones who “destroyed public trust in public health.”

“The Trump Administration and Secretary Kennedy are rebuilding that trust by grounding every policy in rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science – not the failed politics of the pandemic,” Nixon said.

The initial members are all Democrats

The Governors Public Health Alliance bills itself as a “nonpartisan coordinating hub,” but the initial members are all Democrats — the governors of 14 states plus Guam.

Among them are governors of the most populous blue states, California and New York, and several governors who are considered possible 2028 presidential candidates, including California’s Gavin Newsom, Illinois’ JB Pritzker and Maryland’s Moore.

The idea of banding together for public health isn’t new for Democratic governors. They formed regional groups to address the pandemic during Trump’s first term and launched new ones in recent months amid uncertainty on federal vaccine policy. States have also taken steps to preserve access to COVID-19 vaccines.

The new alliance isn’t intended to supplant those efforts, or the coordination already done by the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, its organizers say.

A former CDC director is among the advisers

Dr. Mandy Cohen, who was CDC director under former President Biden and before that the head of the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, is part of a bipartisan group of advisers to the alliance.

“The CDC did provide an important backstop for expertise and support,” she said. “And I think now with some of that gone, it’s important for states to make sure that they are sharing best practices, and that they are coordinating, because the problems have not gone away. The health threats have not gone away.”

Other efforts have also sprung up to try to fill roles that the CDC performed before the ouster of a director, along with other restructuring and downsizing.

The Governors Public Health Alliance has support from GovAct, a nonprofit, nonpartisan donor-funded initiative that also has projects aimed at protecting democracy and another partisan hot-button issue, reproductive freedom.

Mulvihill and Stobbe write for the Associated Press.

Pay TV providers have a new message for consumers: Your ex wants you back.

While the media industry watches the once massive number of subscribers to cable and satellite services diminish like a slow-melting iceberg as audiences move to streaming, the companies are aggressively developing ways to slow the trend and perhaps win some business back.

Spectrum and DirecTV have both recently held fancy press events in New York to tout their efforts to offer a more consumer-friendly experience and services that add value for the still substantial number of customers they serve. Giving consumers more choice and flexibility is their new mantra.

The latest evidence of this emerged last week when Spectrum introduced an app store, where customers can get subscriptions to the streaming platforms such as Disney+, Hulu, AMC+ and ESPN, and access them alongside the broadcast and cable channels that still carry the bulk of high-profile sports and live events.

The Stamford, Conn.-based company’s 31 million subscribers can now get ad-supported streaming apps as part of their TV packages, which would otherwise cost an additional $125 a month. Ad-free versions are also offered at a discounted price.

Over the last year, El Segundo-based DirecTV rolled out smaller packages of channels aimed at consumers who no longer want a big monthly bill for the panoply of networks that have accumulated in the pay TV bundle over the years. The satellite TV service now offers smaller “genre packages” of channels and streaming apps that cater to a particular interest available at a lower price — designed for news junkies, sports fans, kids and Spanish-language speakers. There is one for entertainment channels as well.

There are early indications consumers are responding. In the second quarter of this year, Spectrum reported a loss of 80,000 cable customers due to cord-cutting, a significant decline from the same period in 2024, when 408,000 homes ditched cable.

DirecTV does not disclose its subscriber numbers, but Vincent Torres, the company’s chief marketing officer, said the smaller and more bespoke channel packages are drawing younger consumers who have bypassed pay TV subscriptions up to now.

For Spectrum, the deal to get the Disney apps came out of an ugly carriage dispute in August 2023 that for 12 days left customers without programming, including the U.S. Open tennis tournament and the start of the college football season. The standoff followed comments by Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Bob Iger that taking the company’s program services directly to the consumer and bypassing its traditional pay TV partners was inevitable.

Spectrum CEO Chris Winfrey suggested his company could get out of the video distribution business and stick to selling its far more profitable broadband internet services.

The dispute was a sharp example of the pressure on cable providers that have been asked to pay more to carry the channels from Disney and other media conglomerates as they feel the pressure of rising programming costs and sports rights fees. The costs are passed along to customers who are paying more for content that is available on streaming services. Spectrum insisted on a deal that made Disney’s streaming apps available to its customers at no additional cost.

The tensions subsided and, in June, Spectrum reopened and extended its contract with Disney before it was up — a rarity in the contentious arena of carriage negotiations that lead to channel blackouts.

DirecTV’s slimmer cable packages came after a similarly bruising dispute with Disney last September, with customers losing access to the channels for 13 days.

But there was a new spirit of unity on stage at Spectrum headquarters, where ESPN Chair Jimmy Pitaro, the architect of ESPN’s direct-to-consumer strategy, was among the guest speakers.

Although Pitaro has long hammered away at how ESPN needs to be accessible to sports fans wherever they are, he touted the value of the cable subscription and described the relationship with Spectrum as “the best it has ever been.”

Spectrum customers already get ESPN channels through their cable subscription, but adding the direct-to-consumer app allows them access to its features such as enhanced real-time stats during live games and a personalized “SportsCenter” that uses AI to create a custom highlight show for users.

Spectrum has enlisted the networks it carries to make promotional spots touting its new services. Speaking at the Spectrum event, Winfrey acknowledged it will take some time for consumers to get used to the idea of getting more from their cable provider at no additional cost.

“Our No. 1 issue is — and this may shock you — but customers don’t trust the cable company,” Winfrey said. “Maybe with good reason. For how many decades did the cable industry go out and say HBO is included for free? And it was for three months and then, $10 would show up on your bill. We’ve conditioned people to think it’s a free trial period.”

Torres notes that more consumers are experiencing what he calls “content rage” as the prices of individual streaming services such as Peacock and Disney+ continue to rise. As programming gets sliced and diced for the growing number of services, consumers are finding that more than one subscription is necessary, especially for fans of the NFL or NBA, which have spread their games over several services.

“You see a growing frustration that ‘I can never find what I want to find when I want to watch it,” Torres said. “The fragmentation of the content is creating customer dissatisfaction. They can’t always find what they’re looking for.”

Along with its slimmer channel packages, DirectTV recently introduced a new internet-connected device called Gemini that combines streaming apps with traditional TV channels.

Pay TV companies are also offering voice-controlled remotes to help consumers find what they want to watch, whether on streaming or a traditional channel.

Executives say more enhanced viewing experiences are coming to keep the pay TV customer connected.

Starting this season, Spectrum’s SportsNet channel will be offering its Los Angeles customers several Lakers games in an immersive video format that can be streamed through an Apple Vision Pro device. The technology will give users a courtside view of the game at Crypto.com Arena. All that’s missing is a seat next to Jack Nicholson, but as AI advances, who knows?

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

Disney’s sci-fi sequel “Tron: Ares” got off to a weak start, opening with just $33.5 million in North American theaters.

The results were well below 2010’s “Tron: Legacy,” which opened to $44 million. The production budget for “Tron: Ares” was reportedly $180 million.

Still, Disney does have two potential box office hits later this year with “Avatar: Fire and Ash” and animated sequel “Zootopia 2.”

Finally …

Stacy Perman’s deeply reported piece on fake collectible movie props is a must read. Bonus points for an appearance by notorious movie and TV executive Jim Aubrey, known as “The Smiling Cobra.”

Hi, everyone, welcome back to Lakers newsletter. This is Thuc Nhi Nguyen, The Times’ Lakers beat writer. Thank you for your warm welcome into this space (and your food recommendations). We’re now halfway through the preseason, and let me tell you: I can’t wait until we get real basketball back again.

We are at least one step closer to seeing what this Lakers team really looks like as Luka Doncic is expected to make his preseason debut against the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday. He is expected to play in two of the final three preseason games and, with a back-to-back coming, it’s most likely that Doncic will finish his preseason play on Friday at Crypto.com Arena against the Sacramento Kings instead of in Las Vegas against his former team, the Dallas Mavericks, on Wednesday.

Doncic’s return can help answer some questions about the Lakers, but there is still plenty to address with one week until the season opener.

The LeBron James decision

If you didn’t hear, LeBron James was at the center of a major announcement last week.

No, it’s not that the Lakers star and my dad share an affinity for Hennessy.

It’s that James will be sidelined for three to four weeks as he manages sciatica in his right side. The timeline announced by the team last Thursday means James will miss the regular season opener on Oct. 21 against the Golden State Warriors. As he enters Year 23, James still has room for more firsts: This will be the first time in his NBA career that he doesn’t play in a season opener.

While coach JJ Redick has tried to downplay preseason decisions about the starting lineup, he admitted Monday that James’ prolonged absence “complicates things a little bit.” With every group, Redick said, it’s about finding balance: ensuring there’s enough shooting, facilitating and defense to go around while also managing each player’s own temperament.

“We have a week to figure that out,” Redick said Monday, “and I think it will reveal itself to us.”

The Lakers’ next decision

Marcus Smart

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

So who will be up for the role?

Marcus Smart, who figured to be a potential starting candidate even when James was healthy, will make his preseason debut on Tuesday. He was battling Achilles tendinopathy to begin the preseason.

Smart returned to practice last week, working up to being a full participant during practices Thursday and Saturday, and impressed Redick with the classic Marcus Smart hustle and defense. Even while sidelined, Smart was lauded for his communication and leadership style.

Smart was already considered as a potential starting option over returner Rui Hachimura because the Lakers were looking for a stronger defender at the point of attack. They may have rediscovered another option in Jarred Vanderbilt.

Finally healthy from a lingering foot injury, Vanderbilt has earned rave reviews for his defensive resurgence during training camp. The 6-foot-8 forward has 13 rebounds, four steals and one block in three preseason games. He even turned heads with tweaked shooting mechanics to potentially increase his influence as a potential three-and-D option.

But Vanderbilt is one for 10 from three-point range in three preseason games.

The offensive load during James’ absence will likely fall more toward Hachimura or free agent addition Jake LaRavia.

Second-year guard Dalton Knecht could provide a scoring punch off the bench, especially after Redick said Knecht was the team’s best offensive player in training camp. Knecht, who struggled during summer league because he over-trained during the offseason, was outscoring his teammates by 42 points during live practice periods by Sunday. Redick rewarded him with a starting spot in the home preseason game against the Warriors and he responded with 16 points on four-of-nine shooting from the field and was six of eight from the free throw line.

But the 24-year-old who was briefly traded last year to return only when the deal fell through needs to earn his playing time by showing other skills.

“His ceiling is going to be based on his improvement this season as a defender,” Redick said.

Austin Reaves has already carried the heaviest workload of the preseason, especially as Doncic and James were out. Reaves delivered with 41 points in 44 minutes in two games, but knows any single Herculean effort won’t be enough to replace James long-term.

“It’s a next-man-up mentality,” Reaves said, echoing a similar message from Doncic. “Nobody is going to fill what he does with one person. I can’t go be LeBron. I wish I could. But I think you got to do it as a collective group. And that’s what we’ll do.”

Favorite thing I ate this week

Clockwise from top left: Shrimp shumai, fried shrimp ball, baked BBQ pork bun, steam pork bun and shrimp noodle rolls.

(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)

The Lakers got a valuable week at home, but I stayed on the road for a friend’s wedding in Brooklyn. To me, there’s no better way to celebrate than with dim sum.

We schlepped from Brooklyn to Manhattan’s Golden Unicorn, where I was too impatient to take a picture of everything, but the first wave included baked BBQ pork buns, steamed pork buns, shrimp noodle rolls, shrimp shumai and fried shrimp balls.

My dim sum staples are har gow and the classic pork and shrimp shumai, but my favorite dish this time was mango pudding (unfortunately not pictured). Loaded with chunks of fresh mango, it was the perfect sweet treat before I spent the next few hours in food coma mode.

In case you missed it

Luka Doncic set to play in first preseason game against Suns Tuesday

JJ Redick isn’t overly concerned about the Lakers’ on-court chemistry

LeBron James to miss Lakers’ opening game because of sciatica issue

Natalia Bryant makes her debut as a creative director with Lakers short film

Until next time…

As always, pass along your thoughts to me at [email protected], and please consider subscribing if you like our work!

In the last few weeks, USC has found itself caught in a political tug-of-war that could potentially change campus life permanently.

Gov. Gavin Newsom threatened on Oct. 2 to cut “billions” in state funding, including the popular Cal Grants that many students rely upon, if California schools bowed to pressure from the Trump administration.

Newsom’s messaging came in response to a White House directive that asked USC and eight other major national universities to commit to President Trump’s views on gender identity, admissions, diversity and free speech in exchange for priority access to federal dollars.

The topic was covered in depth by my colleagues Jaweed Kaleem and Melody Gutierrez.

Let’s jump into their article and see what options lie ahead for USC.

What the White House told USC

USC and other universities were asked to sign a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” which commits them to adopt the White House’s conservative vision for America’s campuses.

The Oct. 1 letter also suggests colleges should align with Trump’s views on student discipline, college affordability and the importance of hard sciences over liberal arts.

The compact asks universities to accept the government’s definition of gender — excluding transgender people — and apply it to campus bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports teams.

But the White House letter to USC and other campuses is more stick than carrot.

The government says it will dole out new federal money and give preference to the universities that accept the deal over those that do not agree to the terms.

Signing on would give universities priority access to some federal grants, but White House officials say the government money would not be limited solely to those schools.

How Trump wants to cut back on international students

The federal compact would also severely restrict international student enrollment to 15% of a college’s entire undergraduate student body. Plus, no more than 5% could come from a single country.

That provision would hit USC hard, where 26% of the fall 2025 freshman class is international. Half of those students hail from either China or India.

Cutting into that rate would be a financial blow to USC, where full-fee tuition from international students is a major source of revenue. The university has already endured hundreds of layoffs this year amid budget troubles.

How Newsom is responding

Newsom wrote that “if any California university signs this radical agreement, they’ll lose billions in state funding — including Cal Grants — instantly.”

He added, “California will not bankroll schools that sell out their students, professors, researchers, and surrender academic freedom.”

Students become eligible for Cal Grants through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid or California Dream Act Application. In 2024-25, $2.5 billion in Cal Grants were doled out to California students.

What is USC doing?

The school’s faculty members strongly denounced Trump’s offer at a meeting Monday, calling it “antithetical to principles of academic freedom.”

But interim President Beong-Soo Kim told the roughly 500 attendees that the university “has not made any kind of final decision.”

One of the nine schools presented with Trump’s deal, MIT, forcefully rejected the White House’s proposal last week. (It is unclear how the White House selected the nine schools that were offered the deal.)

Notes from a reporter’s notepad

Kaleem, one of the Times reporters on this story, noted that universities throughout Southern California, including USC, UCLA and others in the UC or Cal State systems, find themselves under siege from the White House, whether they were offered Trump’s proposal or not.

“Grants for funding and research are being held up because of investigations into antisemitism or diversity or other issues,” he said. “There are very few universities untouched by the push from Trump on higher education.”

Kaleem spoke with several politically active students and professors at USC who see Newsom’s gesture as a blessing in disguise.

“They felt the governor’s threat to take away money actually gives the USC campus cover to resist Trump more forcefully,” Kaleem said.

Now USC administrators could defy the White House under the guise of trying to avoid losing funding from the state, according to those who spoke with Kaleem.

“They could say they can’t be blamed because they’re being forced to resist Trump,” he said. “It’s an interesting potential strategy.”

For more, check out the full article here.

Today’s top stories

Part of the debate over the ongoing federal government shutdown focuses on funding for the treatment of undocumented immigrants at hospital emergency rooms.

(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

Trump claims Democrats want to use federal funds to give undocumented residents healthcare. That’s misleading

• Undocumented immigrants cannot access federal programs, but California law provides state-funded Medi-Cal coverage costing the state $11.2 billion annually.
• President Trump claimed recently that Democrats “want to have illegal aliens come into our country and get massive healthcare at the cost to everybody else.”
• Democrats called Trump’s assertion an absolute lie, accusing Republicans of wanting to slash federal healthcare benefits to Americans in need to pay for tax breaks for the wealthy.

Beutner launches bid for L.A. mayor, vowing to fight ‘injustices’ under Trump

• Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner kicked off his campaign for mayor on Monday with a video message that hits not just Mayor Karen Bass but also President Trump and his immigration crackdown.
• Beutner vowed to counter Trump’s “assault on our values,” while also criticizing City Hall over homelessness, housing costs and rising city fees.

Three more L.A. County deaths tied to synthetic kratom

• The deaths have been linked to kratom, a compound that is being synthetically reproduced and sold over the counter as a cure-all for a host of ailments, the county Department of Public Health announced Friday.
• The compound was found to be a contributing cause of death in three residents who were between the ages of 18 and 40, according to the county health department.
• That brings the total number of recent overdose deaths related to kratom in L.A. County to six.

What else is going on

Commentary and opinions

This morning’s must read

Other must reads

For your downtime

The Griselda’s Revenge cocktail from the Black Lagoon pop-up bar.

(Black Lagoon)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What frustrates you the most about parking in L.A.?

Karen writes: “My frustration is that the city started making people pay to park along the road up to the Griffith Observatory. That was the one free and delightful place to get both some sight-seeing and some good walking in after the hunt for a spot. It felt very unfair and opportunistic of the city to limit access to city parks by charging that fee.”

Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Theatergoers take their seats to see “Les Miserables” on Oct. 8 in Los Angeles.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Today’s great photo is from Times photographer Jason Armond at opening night of “Les Misérables” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.

Have a great week, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

There’s something about Thai cuisine that is warm and welcoming.

Perhaps it’s the fire that bird’s eye chili brings to a dish, or maybe the bold punchiness of tom yum soup.

My colleague and food critic Bill Addison referred to Thai as “a pillar cuisine of Los Angeles.”

And why not?

The city boasts the world’s largest Thai population outside of Thailand. Those who open restaurants open our palates to a diverse range of flavors and sensations from their micro-regional cooking styles.

Addison is wary of using the term “best.” Instead, he crafted a list of his 15 favorite Thai restaurants in Los Angeles. Here, we’ll highlight a handful of those choices, in Addison’s own words.

(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)

Anajak Thai (Sherman Oaks)

If you’ve had any passing interest in Los Angeles dining culture this decade, you probably know the story: Anajak Thai was founded in 1981 by chef Ricky Pichetrungsi, whose recipes merge his Thai upbringing and Cantonese heritage, and his wife Rattikorn.

In 2019, when Pichetrungsi suffered a stroke, the couple’s son Justin left a thriving career as an art director at Walt Disney Imagineering to take over the restaurant.

It changed his life, and it changed Los Angeles, with Justin’s creative individualism — specifically his Thai Taco Tuesday phenomenon.

That’s when the menu crisscrosses fish tacos lit up by chili crisp and limey nam jim with wok-fragrant drunken noodles and Dungeness crab fried rice. Add what has become one of L.A.’s great wine lists, and the restaurant has catapulted into one of the city’s great dining sensations.

The restaurant closed for a couple of months over the summer for a renovation, revealing a brighter, significantly resituated interior — and introducing an open kitchen and a second dining room — in August.

The menu didn’t radically alter: It’s the same multi-generational cooking, tracing the family heritage, leaning ever-further into freshness, perfecting the details in familiar dishes.

Fried chicken sheathed in rice flour batter and scattered with fried shallots, the star of the Justin-era menu, remains, as does the sublime mango sticky rice that Rattikorn makes when she can find fragrant fruit in season and at its ripest.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

Ayara Thai (Westchester)

Owner Andy Asapahu grew up in a Thai-Chinese community in Bangkok.

Anna Asapahu, his wife, was raised in Lampang, a small city in the verdant center of northern Thailand.

They melded their backgrounds into a sprawling multi-regional menu of soups, salads, noodles and curries when they opened Ayara in Westchester in 2004.

Their daughters Vanda and Cathy oversee the restaurant these days, but Anna’s recipe for khao soi endures as the marquee dish.

Khao soi seems to have become nearly as popular in Los Angeles as pad Thai. This one is quintessential: chicken drumsticks braised in silky coconut milk infused with lemongrass and other piercing aromatics, poured over egg noodles, sharpened with shallots and pickled mustard greens and garnished with lime and a thatch of fried noodles.

The counterpoints are all in play: a little sweetness from palm sugar and a lot of complexity from fish sauce, a bump of chile heat to offset the richness.

Pair it with a standout dish that reflects Andy’s upbringing, like pad pong kari, a stir-fry of curried shrimp and egg with Chinese celery and other vegetables, smoothed with a splash of cream and served over rice. The restaurant has a spacious dining room.

Note that lunch is technically carry-out only, though the family sets up the patio space outside the restaurant for those who want to stick around.

(Silvia Razgova / For The Times)

Holy Basil (Atwater Village)

Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat and Tongkamal “Joy” Yuon run two wholly different Holy Basils.

Downtown’s Santee Passage food hall houses the original, a window that does a brisk takeout business cranking out Arpapornnopparat’s visceral, full-throttle interpretations of Bangkok street food.

His pad see ew huffs with smokiness from the wok. The fluffy-crackly skin of moo krob pops and gives way to satiny pork belly underneath. Douse “grandma’s fry fish and rice” with chile vinegar, and in its sudden brightness you’ll understand why the dish was his childhood favorite.

Their sit-down restaurant in Atwater Village is a culmination of their ambitions. The space might be small, with much of the seating against a wall between two buildings, but the cooking is tremendous.

Arpapornnopparat leaps ahead, rendering a short, revolving menu of noodles, curries, chicken wings, fried rice and vegetable dishes that is more experimental, weaving in elements of his father’s Chinese heritage, his time growing up in India and the Mexican and Japanese flavors he loves in Los Angeles.

One creation that shows up in spring but I wait for all year: fried soft-shell crab and shrimp set in a thrilling, confounding sauce centered around salted egg yolk, browned butter, shrimp paste and scallion oil. In its sharp left turns of salt and acid and sultry funk, the brain longs to consult a GPS. But no map exists. These flavor combinations are from an interior land.

If you enjoyed those selections, check out the full list here. Happy dining.

The week’s biggest stories

(Carlin Stiehl/For the Times)

Palisades fire and other blazes

Trump administration policies and reactions

Crime, courts and policing

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Kevin Winter / Getty Images)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

Taylor Swift has already conquered the music world and the concert business, so it’s no surprise that this weekend she reigned supreme over the box office — again.

Swift’s latest venture into theaters came in the form of a listening session/fan party of sorts for her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl.”

The 89-minute movie, titled “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” featured the premiere of the Swift-directed “The Fate of Ophelia” music video, as well as behind-the-scenes footage and commentary from Swift about the inspiration for her new songs.

As expected with anything Swift, the film quickly rocketed to the top of a weekend box office that didn’t have a lot of new big-name releases. The one-weekend-only affair hauled in $34 million in the U.S. and Canada, AMC said Monday morning. Globally, it made more than $50 million. Paul Thomas Anderson’s “One Battle After Another” was the runner-up in its second outing this weekend, grossing about $11 million domestically.

But the lack of competition doesn’t dilute the impact Swift had — and has had — on the box office. Her three-day theatrical total beats opening weekend grosses for other recent, studio films such as the Leonardo DiCaprio-led “One Battle After Another” ($22 million), 22-year sequel “Freakier Friday” reuniting Lindsay Lohan and Jamie Lee Curtis ($28.6 million) and my personal favorite, “Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale” ($18.1 million).

I may not be a Swiftie, but I know plenty who made their way to theaters this weekend, with some dressing up for the occasion. My colleague, Malia Mendez, wrote about the Taylormania that took over AMC Century City, which screened the Swift film 21 times over three screens, just on Saturday.

There’s something to be said about harnessing the power of a fan base to drive people to theaters. Look at Swift’s last theatrical appearance — 2023’s “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” made about $180 million domestically and brought in more than $261 million worldwide, making it the highest-grossing concert film of all time.

As she did with the “Eras Tour” film, Swift bypassed the typical Hollywood system and worked directly with AMC Theatres Distribution to release “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.” The film played at all of AMC’s 540 locations and also showed at other theaters such as Cinemark and Regal.

The unconventional release was welcome news for theaters, which have struggled to bring in crowds as they did before the pandemic

“On behalf of AMC Theatres and the entire theatrical exhibition industry, I extend our sincerest appreciation to the iconic Taylor Swift for bringing her brilliance and magic to movie theatres this weekend,” AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron said in a statement. “Her vision to add a cinematic element to her incredible album debut was nothing less than a triumph.”

The film’s success is another reminder of the value of nontraditional, alternative content for theaters at a time when they need to employ fresh strategies to lure younger audiences to the multiplex.

As the number of movies released by studios has decreased, theaters are on the hunt for content to put on their screens. Lately, that’s ranged from episodic streaming series like “The Chosen,” which chronicles the life of Jesus, to concert films, opera performances and anniversary screenings of hits such as “The Sound of Music,” “Jaws” or “Back to the Future.”

It’s a business that really took off after the pandemic. Distributor Fathom Entertainment has specialized in this kind of nontraditional content for more than 20 years, but it is now seeing increased interest in these types of titles, particularly anniversary screenings, which now tend to make up between 20% and 40% of the company’s annual revenue.

Providing these kinds of titles is a way to mitigate the uncertainty of the film business, where there can be highs driven by hotly anticipated releases and lows when there’s little in the lineup.

“Our bread and butter is, and has continued to be, the big studio releases,” said Daniel Fastlicht, chief operating officer of the Lot, a luxury dine-in theater chain based in La Jolla with four locations. “What we want to see more than anybody is more content. But if that doesn’t happen, we still need to fill our auditoriums with people.”

All of the Lot’s theaters had at least one or two screens showing the Swift film, and the atmosphere was light, with people singing and dressing up, including a few in Travis Kelce jerseys, said Marcos Sayd, director of operations. He noted that alternative content helps their theaters fill the less-scheduled holes in their calendar. In addition to the Swift release, the Lot also programs local documentaries and films, as well as one-off events such as the Newport Beach Film Festival to draw audiences in.

And they’re not alone. Other theaters have been looking to position themselves as gathering places for communal experiences, whether that’s to celebrate T-Swift fandom, sing and dance to “KPop Demon Hunters” or collectively scream at a horror movie. Will the post-pandemic zeal for connection repopulate theaters again? Only time will tell, but the popularity of Swift’s latest film is a positive sign.

Stuff we wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

Last week, YouTube agreed to pay $24.5 million to settle a lawsuit President Trump filed after his account was banned by the Google-owned streamer following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol.

San Bruno-based YouTube is the latest tech and media company to settle one of Trump’s lawsuits. Meta, Twitter (now X), Paramount Global and Walt Disney Co.-owned ABC News have all paid multimillion dollar sums in settlements. Most of the YouTube settlement dollars will go to Trump, who plans to contribute it to the Trust for the National Mall, which is “dedicated to restoring, preserving, and elevating the National Mall” and will also fund construction of the White House State Ballroom, according to court documents.

Finally …

My colleagues, Matthew Ormseth and Summer Lin, wrote about how the strange case of an illicit casino-turned-marijuana stash house/psilocybin mushroom-growing location that eventually led police to find an Arcadia mansion filled with 15 children, most of whom were born to surrogates.

Welcome to this week’s Lakers newsletter. It’s been a long time since we’ve been in your inboxes and even longer since I specifically have.

So please allow me to (re)introduce myself: Hi, my name is Thuc Nhi Nguyen.

After spending most of my career covering college sports and, briefly, the Chargers, I’m taking over Lakers beat coverage for The Times. I’m originally from Seattle and divorced from the NBA after 2008, but moving to L.A. for work brought me back in, especially with how the Lakers have such a hold on this city.

Through the twists and turns, I’m smiling through it all and can’t believe this is my life: I get to chronicle what will surely be a (for better or worse) historic Lakers season while joining a legendary legacy of Times beat writers. Let’s make this a fun ride.

First impressions

I am not the only new person around this beat. The Lakers made three key offseason additions that could play major roles this season, and Deandre Ayton and Jake LaRavia made their unofficial debuts as the preseason started.

Ayton was the biggest signing. After the Trail Blazers bought out Ayton’s contract, the Lakers scooped up the 7-foot center to fill their most glaring position of need. The former No. 1 overall pick hoping to reestablish himself at the top of the league believed his third team would be his “last chance.”

The talk of a revenge tour sounded hollow, though, when he scored just one point in the Lakers’ first preseason game. He missed both of his shot attempts from the field in the blowout loss.

Ayton said after the game he was more focused on the defensive end to send a message to his teammates and coaches that he could be the dominant rim protector they need. He had two blocks.

But coach JJ Redick said the team’s three centers — Ayton, Jaxson Hayes and two-way player Christian Koloko — didn’t use their mobility enough in the first preseason game. The trio is as athletic and mobile as any center group in the league, Redick said. But they didn’t get to the level of the screener when required. Redick is confident the Lakers can iron out the defensive details.

“We’re going to ask a lot of [Ayton] defensively,” Redick said. “And he’s been the anchor of the Finals defense, so he can do it.”

Ayton, who helped the Suns to the NBA Finals in 2021, doesn’t mind being the center of attention: “Pressure is a privilege,” he said multiple times at media day.

LaRavia is feeling a new kind of pressure in his first season as a Laker. The 23-year-old, who was born in Pasadena, previously played in Memphis and Sacramento, but acknowledged that putting on the purple and gold felt different.

When LaRavia was asked if he had an early training camp highlight play, he shrugged. “That’s not really my game,” he said. The humble approach makes him an ideal addition to a team that already has plenty of offensive firepower with LeBron James, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves.

Redick values the 6-7 LaRavia for his versatility and energy. When Reaves sat out of the second preseason game, putting all three of the team’s top playmakers on the bench, LaRavia suddenly found himself handling the ball much more than anticipated. Redick thought LaRavia looked “sped up” in the role. He had two turnovers. Redick anticipates that LaRavia will initiate the offense occasionally, but it won’t be his primary responsibility. The brief preseason experience in the unique situation will still serve LaRavia well going forward.

“It’s obviously going to be different when Luka and LeBron and AR are all in the lineup and I’m throwing it to them,” said LaRavia, who had 10 points and three assists Sunday against Golden State. “It’ll be more of me being that spacer rather than being on-ball and being the connecting piece. But either way, I’m comfortable doing both things.”

Guard Marcus Smart, one of the other big-name offseason additions, has yet to appear in the first two preseason games. He is battling Achilles tendinopathy.

Second impressions

Lakers coach JJ Redick.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

In his first time as a head coach, Redick navigated a chaotic year both professionally and personally. Redick lost his home in the devastating wildfires. A month later, the Lakers traded for Doncic. They surged to the No. 3 seed in the West, but lost to Minnesota and Redick was criticized for playing the same five-player lineup for an entire half. He acknowledged after the year that he could “get a lot better.”

How Redick, the long-time player, continues to grow into Redick, an up-and-coming NBA coach, is a storyline I’m interested to follow this year.

Redick has already established good will among the organization. He was awarded a contract extension ahead of training camp, building on the four-year deal he signed last year. Extending a rookie head coach after one year and a first-round playoff exit felt like a surprising move, but for an organization that could be in for major changes soon (read: James in the final year of his contract) locking in a head coach at least gives the impression of stability.

One important person who figures to be a mainstay for years to come approved.

“It was great to work with JJ,” Doncic said at media day. “Hopefully we can work till the end of my career.”

Favorite thing I ate this week

Left: banh beo, steamed rice cakes with shrimp and mung bean. Right: bun bo Hue, spicy beef noodle soup, a specialty from Hue, a city in Central Vietnam.

(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)

There is one thing I like talking about more than sports. Food. Welcome to a sliver of the life of a sports reporter.

Before Sunday’s preseason game in San Francisco, I channeled my Vietnamese roots for lunch at Tuyet Mai. My family is from Hue, Vietnam, which was the former imperial capital of the country and is known for its royal cuisine. The restaurant owners recognized my Hue accent immediately when I ordered two Hue classics: bun bo Hue and banh beo. Of Hue’s regional dishes, my favorite is banh beo: a steamed rice cake topped with shrimp, mung bean and pork. I can almost never pass it up when I see it on a restaurant menu. But my mom’s is still the best.

Got food recs in an NBA city near you? Send them to me as I explore the league for the first time. I don’t eat sliced tomatoes in sandwiches or sushi in land-locked states. Everything else is fair game.

In case you missed it

With their big three out, Lakers work on ‘championship habits’ against Warriors

Why Luka Doncic didn’t play in Lakers’ preseason opener against Suns

Lakers’ Luka Doncic easing into training camp after hectic offseason

Jake LaRavia, at only 23, fits right into Lakers’ future plans

LeBron James looking at slow ramp-up to Lakers season

‘Angry’ Deandre Ayton not taking his ‘last chance’ for granted with Lakers

‘I don’t know’: Lakers’ LeBron James unsure when it comes to future

Plaschke: LeBron James is ‘maybe’ retiring? This is going to be fun

Until next time…

Your basketball takes are welcome! What are you most curious about this Lakers season? What can I find out for you? Slide into the inbox: [email protected], and please consider subscribing if you like our work!

Oct. 5 (UPI) — On this date in history:

In 1918, Germany’s Hindenburg Line was broken as World War I neared an end.

In 1921, the World Series is broadcast on the radio for the first time.

In 1935, Ethiopia asks the League of Nations to act against Italy to halt Italy’s conquest of the country.

In 1947, President Harry Truman delivers the first televised White House address.

In 1955, the doors to the Disneyland Hotel are thrown open to the public.

In 1970, The Public Broadcasting Service, PBS, is founded.

In 1989, the Dalai Lama, who advocated non-violent struggle against Chinese domination of his homeland, Tibet, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1994, authorities said 53 members of a secretive religious cult called the Order of the Solar Temple were found dead — the victims of murder or suicide — over a two-day period in Switzerland and Canada.

In 2001, Barry Bonds hit his 71st home run, most by a player in one season, breaking Mark McGwire’s 1998 Major League Baseball record. The San Francisco Giants slugger finished the season with 73 homers.

File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI

In 2005, scientists announced that for the first time they were able to genetically sequence the strain of avian flu that was behind the 1918 pandemic that killed up to 50 million people worldwide.

In 2010, Faisal Shahzad, who left an explosives-laden vehicle in New York’s Times Square, planning to detonate it on a busy night, was sentenced to life in prison.

In 2023, a Russian strike on a supermarket in the village of Hroza, in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine, killed dozens of people.

About two months ago, my cousin Guillermo happily ventured from picturesque Cuernavaca, Mexico, to 95-degree Southern California.

He took his wife and two young kids to Disneyland, Universal Studios, the zoo, the beach and a Dodger game over a week span and then gleefully returned home. He spent about $6,000 for what he hoped was a lifetime of stories and memories.

His actions were pretty normal for a tourist though his timing was not.

Tourism to Los Angeles and California, in general, has been down this summer, representing a blow to one of the state’s biggest industries.

Theories as to why people aren’t visiting were explored this past week by my colleague Cerys Davis.

Davis spoke with experts and provided the scoop. Let’s take a look at what she wrote.

What the numbers say

International tourist arrivals to the state fell by 8% in the three months through August, according to data released Monday from Visit California. That is more than 170,000 fewer global tourists than last year. This is critical because international tourists spend up to eight times more per visit than domestic tourists.

Of all the state’s international travelers, arrivals from Canada fell the most (32%) in the three summer months.

Empty landmarks

On Hollywood Boulevard, there are fewer tourists, and the ones who show up are spending less, said Salim Osman, who works for Ride Like A Star, an exotic car company that rents to visitors looking to take a luxury vehicle for a spin and snap the quintessential L.A. selfie.

This summer, he said foot traffic dropped by nearly 50%.

“It used to be shoulder to shoulder out here,” he said, looking along the boulevard, normally teeming with tourists.

Business has been slow around the TCL Chinese Theatre, where visitors place their hands into the concrete hand prints of celebrities like Kristen Stewart and Denzel Washington.

There were fewer people to hop onto sightseeing buses, check out Madame Tussauds wax museum and snap impromptu photos with patrolling characters such as Spider-Man and Mickey Mouse. Souvenir shop operators nearby say they have also had to increase the prices of many of their memorabilia because of tariffs and a decline in sales.

Many of the state’s most prominent attractions are also experiencing dry spells. Yosemite National Park reported a decrease of up to 50% in bookings ahead of Memorial Day weekend.

Theories as to what’s keeping tourists away

The region’s economy and image suffered significant setbacks this year.

Shocking images of the destructive Eaton and Palisades fires in January, followed by the immigration crackdown in June, made global news and repelled visitors like friends of Australian tourists Geoffrey and Tennille Mutton, who didn’t accompany the couple to California this summer.

“A lot of people have had a changed view of America,” Geoffrey said as his family enjoyed Ben & Jerry’s ice cream outside of Hollywood’s Dolby Theatre. “They don’t want to come here and support this place.”

Meanwhile, President Trump’s tariff policies and other geopolitical posturing have convinced many international tourists to avoid America, particularly Canadians, said Palm Springs Mayor Ron deHarte.

“We’ve hurt our Canadian friends with actions that the administration has taken. It’s understandable,” he said. “We don’t know how long they won’t want to travel to the states, but we’re hopeful that it is short-term.”

President Trump’s talk of making Canada the 51st state and his decision to hit Canada with tariffs have not endeared him to Canadian travelers. Meanwhile, media overseas have been bombarded with stories of capricious denials and detentions at U.S. border crossings.

Visitors from China, India, Germany and Australia also avoided the state, according to the latest data. That has resulted in a dip in traffic at most Los Angeles area airports. Cynthia Guidry, director of Long Beach Airport, said reduced airline schedules, economic pressures and rising costs also hurt airport traffic.

Viva Mexico (tourists)!

Despite the southern border lockdown and the widespread immigration raids, Mexicans were a surprising exception to the tourism slump. Arrivals from our southern neighbor were up about 5% over the last three months from 2024.

I asked my cousin, Guillermo, about his travel motivations.

He noted his desire to see family but also to visit many of Southern California’s jewels. He added that planning for this trip started a year earlier too.

Asked if he’d reconsider visiting California in the future, he delivered a timeless response.

“If there’s a deal, I’ll go.”

For more, check out the full story here.

The week’s biggest stories

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Explosion at Chevron’s El Segundo Refinery

Crimes, courts and policing

Media and tech news

Entertainment news

Unexpected deaths

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

One of the joys of living in California is that you’re never too far away from a great meal.

And the variety of Mexican and Salvadoran cuisine throughout the Golden State is unsurpassed.

Once again, our friends on the LA Times Food team have released a well-researched and delicious list to confirm California’s status as a national food mecca.

Critic Bill Addison spent more than a year traveling throughout the state, tasting and compiling selections for the 101 Best Restaurants in California guide.

In his latest article, he’s highlighted 15 of the best Mexican and Salvadoran spots throughout the Golden State, highlighting popular haunts and hidden gems.

Look, this doesn’t have to be a tacos-versus-pupusas debate (sorry, Brad Pitt is correct). We can enjoy both and other plates on this list.

Here’s a few recommendations from Addison’s guide.

(Bill Addison/Los Angeles Times)

El Molino Central (Sonoma)

A molino is the specific mill used to grind nixtamalized corn into masa, which has been the focus of Karen Taylor’s businesses for decades.

In 1991, Taylor started Primavera, a Bay Area wholesale operation built around tamales and tortillas, and a name under which she sells life-giving chilaquiles for breakfast on Saturday mornings at San Francisco’s Ferry Plaza farmers market.

Nearly 20 years later, she translated what she’s learned about fresh masa into a tiny restaurant in the Boyes Hot Springs section of Sonoma County.

A portion of the menu flows with the seasons: in the summer, light-handed sopes filled with chicken tinga and chile rellenos filled with epazote-scented creamed corn arrive; winter is for butternut squash and caramelized onion enchiladas; and spring brings lamb barbacoa tacos over thick, fragrant tortillas.

Among perennials, look for the chicken tamale steamed in banana leaves and covered in chef Zoraida Juarez’s mother’s recipe for mole — hers is the color of red clay, hitting the palate sweet before its many toasted spices and chiles slowly reveal their flavors.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

Popoca (Oakland)

At the most visionary Salvadoran restaurant in California, Anthony Salguero refashions his culture’s version of the beverage chicha, fermented with corn and pineapple, into a sticky, intricately sour-sweet glaze for grilled and braised chicken.

He shaves cured, smoked egg yolk over herbed guacamole as a play on the boiled eggs that often accompany Salvadoran-style guac. He serves a half Dungeness crab with tools to extract the meat and a side of alguashte, an earthy seasoning of toasted pepitas, to accentuate the crab’s sweetness.

Nicaraguan chancho con yuca, a slow-cooked pork stew, is the inspiration for a walloping pork chop marinated in achiote, grilled above glowing almond logs and poised at an angle, like a rakishly worn hat, over braised yuca and red cabbage.

Salguero ran the eatery Popoca as a pandemic-era pop-up in Oakland before finding a more permanent home (brick walls, pale wood floors, shadowed lighting) in the city’s downtown. While he focuses on reimagining the traditions and possibilities of Salvadoran cooking, he doesn’t abandon El Salvador’s national dish: The pupusas are exceptional, made from several versions of masa using corn he buys from Mexico City-based Tamoa.

(Ron De Angelis/For The Times)

Barbacoa Ramirez (Arleta)

Lamb barbacoa — when cooked properly for hours to buttery-ropy tenderness — is such a painstaking art that most practitioners in Southern California sell it only on the weekends.

In the Los Angeles area, conversations around sublime lamb barbacoa should start up in the north San Fernando Valley, at the stand that Gonzalo Ramirez sets up on Saturday and Sunday mornings near the Arleta DMV. You’ll see him and his family wearing red T-shirts that say “Atotonilco El Grande Hidalgo” to honor their hometown in central-eastern Mexico.

Ramirez tends and butchers lambs in the Central Valley. The meat slow-cooks in a pit overnight and, cradled in plush made-to-order tortillas, the tacos come in three forms: smoky, molten-textured barbacoa barely hinting of garlic; a pancita variation stained with chiles that goes fast; and incredible moronga, a nubbly, herbaceous sausage made with lamb’s blood.

Join the line (if it’s long, someone usually hands out samples to encourage patience) and then find a place at the communal outdoor table. Worried that options might run out, Addison said he tends to arrive before 9 a.m., an hour when Ramirez’s rare craftsmanship often inspires a mood where people sit quietly, holding their tacos as something sacred.

The week’s biggest stories

(Andrew Harnik / Associated Press)

Trump administration, policies and reactions

Crime, courts and policing

Transportation and infrastructure

More big stories

This week’s must-reads

More great reads

For your weekend

(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by James Anthony)

Going out

Staying in

L.A. Affairs

Get wrapped up in tantalizing stories about dating, relationships and marriage.

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Diamy Wang, homepage intern
Izzy Nunes, audience intern

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. remains mired in a deadly pandemic, the economy is suffering from a bout of inflation and states face challenges from climate to transportation, but with only days left in their close-fought race, the hottest issue dividing Virginia’s candidates for governor this week was the late novelist Toni Morrison.

The Republican candidate, Glenn Youngkin, who has steadily gained ground over the past two months, aired an ad featuring Laura Murphy, a parent who had campaigned years ago against the use of Morrison’s widely acclaimed, Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Beloved” in her son’s high school Advanced Placement English class.

In 2016 and again in 2017, then-Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a Democrat, vetoed a bill aimed at “Beloved” that Murphy helped lobby through the state legislature. It would have required K-12 teachers to give parents advance notice of books with “sexually explicit content” and allow them to take their children out of class. “Beloved,” based on a true story of a woman who killed her child to save her from slavery, includes several graphic descriptions of sexual violence.

Youngkin accused the former governor, now seeking to return to the office, of wanting to “silence parents because he doesn’t believe they should have a say in their child’s education.”

McAuliffe fired back that Youngkin was “focused on banning award-winning books from our schools and silencing the voices of Black authors” such as Morrison. The Republican, he said, was engaged in “Trumpian dog whistles.”

For both candidates, the issue provided a chance to rally key audiences — conservative suburban parents on the one side, Black voters on the other — as the state hurtles toward an election Tuesday that, if polls are correct, could be among its closest in years.

President Biden and former President Trump both have a lot riding on the outcome.

A close race on Democratic turf

The Virginia election is everything that California’s recall turned out not to be — a test of whether Democrats can hold the allegiance of suburban voters stressed by nearly two years of COVID-19 restrictions and of whether Republicans can win a blue state despite Trump’s unpopularity.

Last year, Biden carried Virginia by 10 points, and Democrats currently control all the statewide elected offices. The party took control of both houses of the state legislature over the last four years, and Republicans haven’t won the governorship since 2009.

In short, while Virginia is not as deeply blue as California or New York, it’s a state Democrats recently have been able to count on.

Right now, they can’t.

Biden’s popularity in the state has tumbled, just as it has nationwide since this summer when the Delta variant of the coronavirus upended his optimistic forecasts about COVID-19. A Monmouth University poll in mid-October found Virginia voters disapproving of Biden’s job performance, 52% to 43%, sharply down from an August poll.

The president’s slumping polls are a big problem for McAuliffe, creating “headwinds” for him, as the candidate told supporters last month.

He faces several other difficulties: With Democrats having run the state for the last eight years, they’re naturally the target of voters seeking a change. And McAuliffe, as a former governor trying to make a comeback — Virginia doesn’t allow governors to run for consecutive terms — wouldn’t be a likely change candidate in any case. As a 64-year-old white, male, longtime political figure, he’s not the type to inspire huge enthusiasm among young voters or progressives.

Youngkin, a first-time candidate, has skillfully positioned himself. He’s seized on discontent over schools to take control of an issue on which Democrats have long had an advantage. The Monmouth poll showed that education had risen on the list of top voter concerns and that Youngkin had pulled even with McAuliffe as the candidate voters thought could best handle the issue.

Overall, Youngkin clearly has momentum on his side. The Monmouth poll was one of several recently that found the two candidates dead even — a big accomplishment for the Republican, who this summer trailed by around seven points. A Fox News poll released Thursday evening showed Youngkin moving into the lead among likely voters.

Democrats have dominated early voting, which the state has greatly expanded, but both parties expect Republicans to show up in large numbers to vote in person on Tuesday.

Youngkin, the former CEO of Carlyle Group, a big private equity firm, has poured at least $20 million of his own money into the race, allowing him to keep pace with McAuliffe, a prolific fundraiser. He’s used that money for a barrage of television ads that depict him in classrooms, pledging to raise teacher pay — stealing a page from the Democratic playbook.

At the same time, he has closely identified himself with parents angry over unresponsive school bureaucracies — a sentiment that has boiled over in many parts of the country.

Youngkin has used education issues to mobilize conservatives, pledging to ban teaching of critical race theory in Virginia. It’s not clear that the academic theory, which analyzes the outcomes of systemic racism, is taught anywhere in the state’s K-12 schools, but the idea that it might be has become a rallying cry on the right. That, plus Trump’s endorsement, has solidified his Republican support.

Education also has given him an entrée to less ideological voters in the state’s large suburban regions. In recent elections, those voters increasingly have turned against the GOP, but many are deeply frustrated over the last year and a half of COVID-related school disruptions.

In the California recall election, Republicans had hoped that tapping into parental anger could give them the boost they needed to defeat Gov. Gavin Newsom. That failed, in large part because the top Republican candidate, Larry Elder, lacked credibility with swing voters.

Youngkin has avoided Elder’s habit of creating controversies. Instead, it was McAuliffe who inadvertently helped his opponent with ill-chosen words. During a candidate debate in September, as he explained why he had vetoed the so-called “Beloved” bill, McAuliffe said “I’m not going to let parents come into schools and actually take books out and make their own decisions.”

Then, he added: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Youngkin has heavily featured that line in his ads.

McAuliffe’s campaign eventually responded with an ad in which the former governor expressed respect for parents, but the damage was done.

On top of the reasons that may cause some swing voters to switch this year, McAuliffe also faces a turnout problem, according to Democratic strategists close to his campaign: After the drama of last year, many Democratic voters are exhausted with politics. Republicans, by contrast, are highly motivated to avenge their recent losses.

To counter apathy, McAuliffe has depended heavily on Democrats’ chief motivator — Trump.

In speeches and advertisements, he constantly links his opponent with the unpopular former president.

So do his surrogates, including Biden.

“I ran against Donald Trump. And Terry is running against an acolyte of Donald Trump,” Biden said Tuesday during a campaign rally with McAuliffe in northern Virginia.

Former President Obama, Georgia’s Stacey Abrams and other leading Democrats who have come into the state to campaign have stressed the same point.

Trump, in his usual way, has not been able to resist the urge to get involved. On Wednesday, his spokesperson put out a statement saying that Trump “and his MAGA movement will be delivering a major victory to Trump-endorsed businessman Glenn Youngkin.”

McAuliffe’s campaign went into overdrive to ensure the statement was widely seen.

With the contest appearing so close — tight enough that the winner might not be known until final ballots are counted late next week — there’s one forecast that’s clear: Whichever candidate wins probably can thank Donald Trump.

A ‘framework’ if not a bill

Biden, before heading to Europe, where he will participate in the G20 economic summit and an international conference on climate change, traveled to Capitol Hill on Thursday to announce that he and party leaders had negotiated the “framework” of a bill to cover his major budget priorities.

As Jennifer Haberkorn and Nolan McCaskill reported, the measure, the subject of negotiations for months, would spend roughly $1.75 trillion over the next 10 years on a host of Democratic priorities, including universal preschool for 3- and 4-year-olds, subsidies for childcare and continuation of the expanded child tax credit.

On healthcare, the bill would expand subsidies under the Affordable Care Act and close the hole in Obamacare that excludes low-income people in the dozen states, mostly in the South, that have refused to expand Medicaid. Both expansions would last through 2025. Medicare would grow to include hearing coverage.

The bill would also include about $500 billion to combat climate change.

McCaskill prepared this summary of what’s in the framework.

Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi hope that agreement on the framework will allow the House to pass the separate $1 trillion infrastructure bill that cleared the Senate in early August. But a large number of progressive House Democrats are continuing to hold out. They want more concrete assurances that Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, who have been the main impediments to Biden’s budget plan in the Senate, will vote for the framework before they’ll vote to approve the infrastructure bill, which the two more-conservative senators support.

Democratic leaders hope to bring both bills to a vote as early as next week.

Several Democratic priorities fell out of the bill as the White House negotiated with Manchin and Sinema to reduce its cost. As Haberkorn reported, a key element that dropped out was a program for paid family leave. Also gone is a plan to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

As Chris Megerian wrote, Biden has been pressing to get agreement on his domestic priorities before heading overseas for the summit meetings.

Friday morning, Biden began his European events with a private meeting with Pope Francis. As Megerian wrote, the meeting comes at a time when some conservative U.S. bishops have talked of denying Biden communion because of his support for abortion rights. The pope’s decision to host Biden “sends a message to the American bishops that denying communion is not something that he approves of,” said John K. White, professor of politics at the Catholic University of America in Washington.

Oil industry on the hot seat

In advance of the climate summit, a House committee has been grilling oil industry leaders about their decades-long record of downplaying the role that fossil fuels play in causing global warming. As Anna Phillips and Erin Logan reported, the hearing marked the first time that members of Congress have directly questioned oil and gas executives under oath about reported efforts to mislead the public about climate change.

The latest from California

Gov. Newsom and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced $5 billion in loans to help modernize California’s seaports. The money probably won’t come in time to help clear out current snarls that have backlogged shipments, but it should help prevent future logistical nightmares, Megerian and Russ Mitchell reported.

In Sacramento, lawmakers called for changes following the oil spill off the coast of Orange County, but, as Phil Willon reported, they largely conceded that the state has little ability to ban offshore drilling, most of which occurs in federal waters.

The field of candidates for mayor of Los Angeles got another entry this week as Ramit Varma, an entrepreneur from Encino, announced his candidacy. As Dakota Smith reported, another businessman waits in the wings. Rick Caruso, the prominent developer, has been discussing a race with strategists, including Bearstar Strategies, the firm whose partners Ace Smith and Sean Clegg devised campaigns for former Gov. Jerry Brown and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Sign up for our California Politics newsletter to get the best of The Times’ state politics reporting.

As someone who’s lived in and visited family throughout the Inland Empire for years, I have seen firsthand the rapid growth that has changed the region.

When I travel to Yucaipa nowadays, the orange groves of my youthful weekend visits have long since been replaced by housing developments as the town has nearly doubled in 30 years.

My colleague Terry Castleman has been analyzing the demographic changes taking place in California but he recently took a deep dive into the explosive growth of income in the Inland Empire, in particular the south desert portion of Riverside County.

Castleman, a data reporter, noted that two of the top three communities that saw the greatest growth in average income in the state between 2017 and 2022 were in the Coachella Valley, perhaps best known for hellish summer temperatures, Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival.

For this analysis, The Times considered only communities with more than 3,000 tax returns. I’ll address the cities with fewer returns shortly.

Thousand Palms saw average incomes rise more than 3.5 times over that span, from $12,700 in 2017 to nearly $45,000 three years later. In nearby Indian Wells, incomes nearly doubled, from $139,000 to $256,000.

Castleman analyzed what was happening in his full article. Let’s look at some of those findings.

The Coachella Valley is experiencing a desert bloom

Income levels in Thousand Palms were far lower than in Indian Wells — but each is getting richer from a regionwide perspective, said Kyle Garman, an agent for Keller Williams who has sold real estate in the Coachella Valley for eight years.

Part of the story is attributable to remote work, he said, but the valley has also undergone a shift from being primarily a tourist destination to a place to settle down.

“It’s not just Palm Springs, it’s not just people coming for the festivals, it’s the whole valley,” Garman said.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, home prices were much lower and only about 35% to 40% of residents stayed for the hottest months of the year, he said. As more attractions and infrastructure have become available to residents, though, “people are sticking around more.”

So, who is moving in?

The average California household has a net worth between three and six times their adjusted gross income, meaning that the average Indian Wells resident probably became a millionaire between 2017 and 2022 as average household income skyrocketed to $256,000 from $139,000.

In the Coachella Valley, “the money’s coming from all over,” Garman observed. When the housing market was most competitive, around 2022 and 2023, cash buyers flooded in.

Now, they’re high earners who have relocated to towns that were formerly less tony. “This is the new norm,” he said.

Garman pointed to a number of new Coachella Valley attractions that were drawing families — the Firebirds professional ice hockey team and Disney’s Cotino housing development.

Thousand Palms is unincorporated, drawing homeowners because, as one businessperson there put it: “Taxes are more reasonable, you have fewer regulations when you want to build.”

Notes that didn’t make Castleman’s cut

When Castleman looked at the income changes in smaller towns, he found some intriguing data.

He discovered staggering income jumps in towns like Helm, an unincorporated Fresno County village that has about 200 residents.

Between the 2017-2022 period, Helm saw incomes grow by 10 times, reaching near $200,000.

Castleman said many smaller towns throughout the state are disproportionately impacted by the moves of one or a handful of “big fish.”

“The experts told me that there was likely a big farm owner who reported huge losses one year and then huge gains the next year,” he said. “So, these towns can have wild fluctuations.”

For more, check out Castleman’s full story.

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