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Andoni Iraola left his role at Bournemouth at the end of the season and takes over at Liverpool in place of Arne Slot.

Liverpool has named Andoni Iraola as their new manager after sacking Arne Slot following a calamitous Premier League title defence.

Iraola quickly emerged as Liverpool’s top target to replace Slot, whose two-year reign came to a shock end when he was dismissed last Saturday.

Liverpool gave no indication as to the length of the 43-year-old Spaniard’s contract, but British media have reported that he has signed a two-year deal.

“Really excited, really excited, because obviously you know about Liverpool, you know that it’s a big club, a massive club, one of the biggest in the world,” Iraola, who called time on his impressive spell with Bournemouth at the end of this season, said on Liverpool’s official website on Thursday.

“But feeling inside and understanding a little bit more of this club, I always thought it’s a special club.

“You don’t need a lot of things to get attracted by Liverpool. Liverpool is Liverpool.”

After criticism of Liverpool’s lacklustre performances in Slot’s second season at Anfield, Iraola is expected to deliver a more urgent, aggressive style of football, which characterised the team under beloved former manager Jurgen Klopp.

Iraola earned rave reviews for Bournemouth’s sixth-place finish in England’s Premier League this season, which secured the club’s first qualification for Europe, in the Europa League.

He arrived at the south coast club from Raya Vallecano in 2023, having previously managed Mirandes and AEK Larnaca in Cyprus.

Bournemouth improved each year under Iraola, finishing 12th, ninth and sixth.

The former defender was praised for his astute tactics and development of youngsters including Eli Junior Kroupi and Alex Scott.

Prior to leaving Liverpool at the end of the season, Egypt star Mohamed Salah recently called for a return to the “heavy metal football” that led to so much success under Klopp, heaping pressure on the beleaguered Slot.

Iraola has previously talked about his desire for his teams to play with an attacking, high-pressing style, in contrast to Slot’s more controlled approach.

Born in Spain’s Basque Country, Iraola played more than 500 games for Athletic Bilbao before a stint in Major League Soccer with New York City, where he teamed up with Frank Lampard and Andrea Pirlo.

He will arrive on Merseyside with Liverpool at a crossroads after Slot’s failure to maintain the club’s position at the summit of English football.

Slot had the tough task of replacing Klopp, who left in 2024 after winning the Premier League and Champions League during a golden nine-year spell at Anfield.

The former Feyenoord boss made a strong start, leading Liverpool to a record-equalling 20th English league title in his debut season, spearheaded by Salah’s 29 goals.

But Slot was unable to halt Liverpool’s slide in the 2025-26 season as the Reds collapsed from late September onward, finishing a turbulent season without a trophy.

The death of Liverpool forward Diogo Jota in a car crash last July had an immeasurable impact on the squad, while the club’s  450-million-pound ($605m) splurge on new signings failed to pay off.

Slot’s relationship with Salah also deteriorated, while Liverpool fans turned on the manager due to his team’s lifeless displays and poor results.

The club limped to a fifth-place finish, 25 points behind champions Arsenal, which at least guaranteed qualification for next season’s Champions League.

Charlotte Edwards says there was never any doubt around Heather Knight’s place in England’s World Cup side as the former captain returned to form in a series-clinching win in the third T20 against India.

Knight, 35, made a magnificent unbeaten 70 as England emphatically chased 181 to win the series 2-1, after she had endured a lean start to the summer.

In the five preceding T20s against New Zealand and India, Knight’s strike-rate had been the main cause for concern as she made scores of 19 (17), 25 (23), 18 (22), 21 (24) and 18 (14).

But under pressure in the series decider, Knight, who became England women’s most-capped cricketer last month, was at her fluent best with 10 fours in a 42-ball knock.

“It’s been quite interesting listening to some of the press this week,” head coach Edwards told BBC Sport.

“I think the more that people have been writing her off, the more I just knew she was going to put in a performance like this.

“I spoke to her after her record game [at Chelmsford] about her character and how that is one of her biggest attributes, and we saw that in abundance tonight.

“It was really lovely for her to have that performance going into the World Cup, but there were no doubts in our dressing room about Heather.”

Knight added 137 for the fourth wicket in a flawless stand with Alice Capsey, who made 81 off 43. The pair toyed with India’s wilting bowlers throughout, with Knight reverse-sweeping and scoring cannily behind square while Capsey struck beautifully straight down the ground.

It is easy to forget Capsey is still only 21 years old, having burst on to the English cricket scene as a teenager, and it was a knock that has surely cemented her place in Edwards’ starting XI for the World Cup opener against Sri Lanka on 12 June.

Edwards said it was the best she had seen Capsey play, and praised her work ethic over the winter.

“To play the way she did from that position [38-3], I couldn’t be prouder,” Edwards added.

“We spoke to her at the start of the winter about the areas we wanted her to work on and she has worked so, so hard. Now she’s bearing the fruits of that and there’s nothing more satisfying than to win a game of cricket for England in that manner.”

After the polls close in California on Tuesday, NBC News data analyst Steve Kornacki will just be getting started.

Since December, the khacki-clad vote-counting guru has been going live and uninterrupted on streaming platforms to provide results and analysis of every special election and even some state Senate contests.

The stream — called the Kornacki Cam — provides unadulterated number-crunching without any pundits weighing in. Rather than getting updates that last a few minutes, Kornacki provides continuous real time results until the last available total is counted.

“This all happens in full view,” Kornacki said Monday in a phone interview. “The audience gets to see the whole thing. They get to see the buildup, the anticipation, the payoff.”

In the 10 Kornacki Cam sessions streamed by NBC News so far, 20 million viewers have sampled on YouTube alone. The coverage — consisting of Kornacki, his Big Board, his producer and a Stedicam operator — is also available on NBCNews.com, the NBC News app and the division’s social media accounts on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok.

The Kornacki Cam will focus on the primaries for Los Angeles mayor, California and several Congressional districts, shortly after the state’s polls close at 8 p.m. Pacific.

In a Monday chat with The Times, here are the trends Kornacki says he’ll be looking for on the night.

Polling in mayoral races is typically pretty unreliable. What do you make of the contest based on what you’ve seen?

You don’t always have super-competitive mayoral elections and they’re not all created equal. It’s not quite like a presidential election so you just don’t have a wealth of data to draw on for expectations either.

I’ve seen the polling you’ve seen. It suggests that of the three candidates, (Mayor Karen Bass, reality TV star Spencer Pratt and City Council member Nithya Raman) Bass is in the best position to get into the runoff. It also suggests that Spencer Pratt has had the most positive movement in the last month or so of the campaign. But we go in knowing there will be volatility and I’m open to any and all possibilities.

Spencer Pratt is an unusual candidate who has been able to take up a lot of oxygen in the race. Is there a hidden vote for him that people might not be eager to admit to pollsters?

You can look at the city and know where to look for whether Pratt is having a big night. The San Fernando Valley is gonna be more than a third of the vote, probably close to 40%. If he gets in the general election, he wants to be winning there by a big margin. 
If it’s not happening there for Pratt, I don’t think it’s happening anywhere else. Karen Bass is going to rely on central and south L.A., with probably a third of the vote coming out of those two places. Those should be her bulwarks. The Westside, I think could be more of a toss-up. There’s a fair chunk of the vote there.

We don’t do a ton of mayoral races around the country. So we’re still trying to figure out exactly how detailed we’re going to be able to zoom in, at the neighborhood level and the precinct level.

Turnouts usually are low for Los Angeles mayoral races. Will this year be different?

This mayoral race has received a lot more national attention than 2022. 
So my thought is that the turnout would be higher, just based on that. But this is something that is resonating nationally because Pratt has that celebrity factor. The number was 646,000 (total votes) for 2022. So that’s something we’ll be following — are we trending over or under that?

And what will be the best indicators for the gubernatorial race?

The place that I kind of got circled here is Orange County. In the last two sort of major statewide elections, it was the first to report out vote. 
At 8:06 p.m local time in California, in 2024, Orange County reported out half of its vote, right? So you’re getting, you know, you’re getting hundreds of thousands of votes, potentially, from this enormous county within, potentially within 10 minutes of polls closing. 
There were a couple others — the Central Valley, and we got a we got a good chunk of Merced and Fresno quickly.

So how long are we going to have to wait for a result on Tuesday night?

One of the other things that just surrounds everything in California, whether it’s the mayor’s race, or governor’s race, or anything else, is nothing is definitive in the first hour or so after the polls close. We’re probably realistically looking at a days or even weeks-long process of getting all the vote counted.

I know it drives many people nuts. Without editorializing on that, it’s just a fact that they can get out of about two-thirds of their vote on election night, and if the races aren’t clear and definitive, then you’re generally in for a pretty long haul.

We do know in California that they’re not going (to count) nonstop until they get a result. They’re going to then start doing updates as they process and count the remaining vote by mail, which is usually a considerable pile in a lot of these places. The vote by mail in California can continue coming in for seven days after the election.

So do you think your coverage reflects a shift in what the consumer wants? We already know how fragmented the audience is. Are there now enough political junkies who want the pure uncut stuff?

I’ve been doing this about 20 years, and when I would tell people that I reported on politics for a living, they either moved away from me or changed the subject. And now, you know, I found the last, you know, 10 years or something, has just totally changed. People come up to me, even if they don’t know I work in politics, and they want to talk politics. Everybody seems into it whatever side they’re on.

As Californians dawdle about casting ballots before Tuesday’s primary, the leading candidates hoping to succeed Gov. Gavin Newsom crisscrossed the state making their closing arguments to voters.

With former Biden Cabinet secretary Xavier Becerra surging in recent polls, the two candidates battling to win the second spot in this week’s primary and advance to the November election highlighted the strategic reasons why they believe voters ought to support them.

Republican Steve Hilton — a former conservative commentator who rocketed past his main GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, after President Trump endorsed him in April — urged voters to back him to avoid the possibility of two Democrats facing off in November.

“I want us to fight like we are third. We aren’t going to let this slip away,” Hilton told a few hundred people at the Santa Monica Hilton Hotel & Suites on Sunday morning.

Steve Hilton surged ahead of his GOP rival, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, after receiving an endorsement from the president.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

The former British political strategist once led the polls, but has slipped slightly behind Becerra. Not too far behind Hilton is billionaire hedge fund founder turned climate change activist Tom Steyer, a Democrat.

During his hour and a half appearance, Hilton veered between his oft-repeated criticisms about 16 years of Democrat-led rule in California to jabs at the top Democrats in the race.

Steyer’s nonstop advertising blitz is “one reason alone to defeat him,” while Becerra is the “living embodiment of more of the same.”

“Our secret weapon? The Democrat candidates,” Hilton said to chuckles.

Asked why voters shouldn’t back Bianco, Hilton said it was simple math. Only the first- and second-place finishers in the June 2 primary will advance to the general election, regardless of party affiliation.

“Every vote for Chad Bianco is a vote for two Democrats in the top two,” he said.

If a GOP gubernatorial candidate fails to make the November ballot, it would depress the Republican vote, harming the party’s down-ballot candidates, as well as handicap a Republican-led ballot initiative that would require voters to show government-issued ID to cast ballots.

California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer takes a picture with a volunteer during a Get Out the Vote rally at Los Angeles Trade Technical College on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Steyer, who has spent a record-breaking $216 million of his wealth on his gubernatorial bid, argued that he is the only candidate in the race who is not beholden to special interests. He hammered Becerra for the support he has received from corporations including Meta, Airbnb, Uber and Chevron. Steyer argued that Becerra, if elected governor, would be more responsive to special interests than financially strapped Californians.

“We’ve seen it in this race. Chevron cuts you a check and you look the other way when they hike prices at the pump. Meta gives you money and your AI plan starts sounding like ChatGPT,” Steyer, sporting a ball cap labeling himself a “class traitor,” told more than 500 supporters at a community college near downtown Los Angeles on Sunday afternoon. “That’s the story of Xavier Becerra.”

Corporations, along with labor unions and interest groups including the California Assn. of Realtors, have spent more than $18.7 million to boost Becerra as of Sunday, according to the election spending tracker California Target Book.

“These companies may be selfish, but they’re not stupid. They don’t give hundreds of thousands of dollars to get someone elected unless they know he’s going to be on their side,” Steyer said.

Though Steyer earned his fortune in part through past investments in private prisons, fossil fuels and private equity, his supporters described him as a reformed billionaire who stepped away from those industries more than a decade ago.

Francesca Fiorentini, a comedian and podcaster, compared Steyer to Charles Dickens’ fictional miser Ebenezer Scrooge.

“At the end of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ nobody turns to Ebenezer and is like, ‘No, I’m not gonna accept your gifts.’ No, they welcome him. They might clown him a little bit, but we need to welcome someone like Tom Steyer,” Fiorentini said. “Tom Steyer is actually listening, he actually cares, he’s actually changing his belief system and he’s acting accordingly.”

Though he mainly went after Becerra, Steyer also made sure to criticize Hilton.

“You are not voting for who’s on the ballot, you’re voting for the California that comes after,” Steyer said. “The California that Steve Hilton is running on sounds exactly like what Trump wants: higher prices, lower wages, and less freedom.”

His campaign underscored his attacks against Becerra by having a handful of supporters dressed as zombies speak outside of Becerra’s Sunday evening rally in Long Beach. Waving signs naming businesses that have supported Becerra, they wore lanyards describing “Big Oil,” “Big Tech” and other corporate sectors as Becerra’s “bestie.”

At a raucous rally, elected officials, labor leaders and reproductive rights advocates were among the speakers who introduced Becerra, who attacked Steyer and Hilton, though not by name.

“We are not going to let a billionaire or Trump’s handpicked candidate take over this state,” he told more than 1,000 people at the city’s convention center. “We are not going to let them gut Medicaid while Californians work hard to build a future. We are not going to let them buy an election…. Not here, not in this state, not on our watch.”

Becerra seemed in awe as he stood in front of the packed room.

“Look around this room. One of our opponents has a billion dollars in a checkbook,” he said. “We have something better… We don’t have the money, but we have the movement. We don’t have the money, but we’ve got the momentum. And in this state, if you’ve got the momentum, you run across the finish line, and you win, baby, you win.”

Becerra also released a new video that ostensibly attacks Hilton as “Trump’s favorite” — a thinly veiled effort to prop up Hilton among Republicans to ensure he finished ahead of Steyer in the primary. Given that Democratic voters outnumber Republicans by almost 2 to 1, Becerra would much rather face Hilton than Steyer in the general election.

Newsom’s campaign employed this strategy to boost GOP businessman John Cox in the 2018 gubernatorial election, as did then-Rep. Adam Schiff against Republican Steve Garvey in Schiff’s successful 2024 U.S. Senate race.

Billionaire Tom Steyer has argued that he is the only candidate not beholden to special interests.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

Steyer launched an ad this weekend titled “Risky” that implies Becerra could face criminal charges related to the acts of two former advisors who have plead guilty to federal charges related to stealing campaign funds from a dormant Becerra campaign account.

Becerra’s campaign called the ad defamatory in a cease and desist letter sent to the Steyer campaign on Saturday.

Becerra, Hilton and Steyer, the front-runners in the race, barnstormed the state in the final days before the June 2 primary. They devoted much of their attention to voters in Southern California, which is home to many of the state’s 23.2 million registered voters. Lower-polling candidates also stumped in the Southland — San José Mayor Matt Mahan greeted diners at Grand Central Market in downtown Los Angeles, and former Orange County Rep. Katie Porter kicked off a union canvassing event in Orange on Saturday.

Unlike recent contests to lead the nation’s most populous state, this year’s gubernatorial contest failed to energize the electorate. Despite a crowded field of candidates with notable resumes, as well as record-breaking spending by Steyer and independent-expenditure committees. Californians only recently tuned in.

Political experts of both parties believe voters malaise was due to fatigue about the nation’s political polarization, as well as Trump administration policies such as federal tariffs that drove up prices everywhere and some that disproportionately affected California, such as immigration raids. Southern Californians were also reeling from the devastating wildfires in the Pacific Palisades and Altadena and last year’s special election to redraw the state’s congressional boundaries.

Earlier this year, Democratic leaders worried that their voters would splinter among their candidates, creating a scenario where two Republicans advanced to the general election. They controversially urged their party’s candidates to assess their viability, effectively urging several low-polling candidates to drop out of the race.

Democratic turnout also prompted concerns. As of May 22, mail ballots returned by Democrats were 9.2% lower compared with the 2022 gubernatorial primary, while ballots returned by Republicans were 11.6% higher, according to Political Data Intelligence. But the return rates are shifting — as of Friday, Democrats were 7% behind their 2022 return rate, while Republicans were 6.8% higher.

The most recent polls suggest that the prospect of two Republicans advancing to the general election is nonexistent, and there is now a slim chance that two Democrats win the top two spots in the June 2 primary.

When Craig Ferguson left CBS’ “The Late Late Show” in December 2014, fulfilling a pledge made public the previous April, it was assumed by some that it had something to do with not being offered the chair being vacated by his illustrious lead-in, David Letterman. (Stephen Colbert, you may be aware, was named the new “Late Show” host.) Others simply couldn’t believe anyone would just walk away from such a job, which Ferguson had held for two weeks shy of 10 years, because, even in the less prestigious 12:30 time slot it seemed like a prize — but mostly because he was so good at it.

“That’s one of the odd things about that particular genre of television,” he told me in 2016. “The minute I started at 12:30, the question became when and do you want and how are you going to get 11:30? But I never wanted 12:30, never mind 11:30. Why is that a thing?”

Ferguson went on to other things. He’s hosted game shows (currently the CW’s “Scrabble,” with puckish energy); toured as a stand-up (he’s on the road into June); hosted a history-themed panel show, “Craig Ferguson: Join or Die”; launched “Joy, a Podcast,” which is as close as he’s come to the confessional freestyling of “The Late Late Show”; and published “Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations & Observations.”

His latest show, premiering Saturday on CNN, is “American on Purpose,” which shares a title with his first memoir, a reference to the Scottish-born Ferguson becoming an American citizen. Timed generally to the 250th anniversary of the United States, it finds Ferguson in a five-episode crazy quilt of observations, interviews, inquiries, stunts, games and documentary vignettes forming a comical, but not unserious, somewhat wayward look at American ideas and ideals — freedom of speech, capitalism, patriotism, individualism and immigration. It’s a vision wide enough to include monster trucks, lowriders, underground comedy, Miami street art, Texas barbecue and haggis tacos, dreamed up by Ferguson and executed by celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Ferguson, a Scotsman, having haggis tacos on “American on Purpose.”

(CNN)

“You know me,” Ferguson said when we spoke over video call recently. “Less format is better for me always.”

His caveat to the producers was that he wouldn’t “make an anti-American show. I wouldn’t make a show pointing out everything that’s wrong. I feel that’s a market that’s heavily catered to. I’m not a f—ing idiot, I’m not making propaganda, I won’t make a jingoistic show. But I want to make a show which is celebratory,” Ferguson says. “And I want to be clear that the show I make for CNN will be the same as if I was making it for Fox News. It has to be my point of view, which is upbeat without being dumb — I hope. I feel like we got pretty close.” This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

A good friend of mine, an Englishman, recently became an American citizen and had only wonderful things to say about the naturalization ceremony, the diversity of his fellow new Americans, and the graciousness of the people conducting it. What was your experience?

My ceremony was in Pomona fairgrounds in 2008. And I think it was 2,000 of us; I think it was 1,999 new Mexican Americans and one new Scottish American. And it was f—ing wonderful. And it is moving. I kind of wish it for my friends who are born here, American citizens, because you have to remove your everyday, “Oh my God, did you see the news today” cynicism, and remember what this place is about — freedom, second chances, third chances, escape, representation, individualism, different ideas coexisting in one country, wildly different points of view somehow managing to get along. That is f—ing beautiful. What I still feel as an immigrant American is a certain gratitude that doesn’t leave you. I’m not blind to the faults of the United States. Show me a country that doesn’t have faults. We talk about the bloody past. Show me a country that doesn’t have a bloody past. Humans have a bloody past. I’m not saying there’s nothing wrong, but I’m not looking at that in this show. I’m looking at what makes me feel great about this place, and it is a great place, an aspirational place. To my mind, we are still the big foam finger number one. I don’t think there’s anyone can touch us for … unusualness. We’re really unusual.

It’s a very optimistic show. Is that how you feel personally about the future of the country, and humanity?

Like most people, I have my moods. I got a real boost of optimism [hanging out] with very clever academics who kind of guard the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. And you say to them, “People say the country’s never been this divided.” They always laugh. They laugh at the idea it’s never been as bad as this, the rhetoric has never been this hateful. They’re like, “It’s always been like this. It’s always been an argument. The whole point of this place is that it is an argument.” The guys who started this country, some of them hated each other with just as much venom and outrage and indignance as political players hate each other today. I find that quite encouraging. Like I said, I’m not blind to the fact that there are issues and faults and deep things to worry about. But that’s not what this show’s about. It’s as if I was a musician, and I decided to write a happy song. People say, “Why aren’t you sad?” I’m like, “Well, I get that sometimes, but this song is a happy song, this is a rock song. I’ll do a power ballad later on.” It’s not terrible to to do something upbeat every now and again.

What did you discover in the course of making the show?

There were many things, actually. In L.A., I did a kind of run around with the guys who make the lowrider cars, and the community and the story of how that came about are really fascinating, a kind of parallel run of the rise of the automobile in America, but how it was taken on by the Mexican culture. Another that really stuck with me was in the Everglades, when I was with the Gladesman there, finding out that a large percentage of them [were descended from] displaced Scottish peasants, cleared out of the Highlands to make room for sheep for the landowners; they went to Canada, and they drifted all the way down to the southern tip of the United States. These guys there could trace their ancestry back to 100 miles from where I grew up. Americans would be kicked out of most of the countries of the world. So it makes us awesome. I mean, 40% of this country can trace themselves through Ellis Island, through that administration building in New York. That’s insane.

Ferguson at Venice Beach in a segment on the show.

(CNN)

When did you get interested in history?

In Scotland, we’re surrounded by it all the time. There’s a lot of stuff still lying around from a long time ago. American history became interesting to me because it was so attached to Scotland. The Scottish Enlightenment is really kind of the origin story of the Declaration of Independence. Knowing that the philosophy that was coming out of Edinburgh in the 1700s was directly feeding into what these guys were doing, it felt like the continuation of a certain strain of Scottish history. It didn’t end with “Highlander” or “Shrek.”

There’s a road movie element to the series. Do you take trips around the country on your own time?

All the time. I don’t think you can know the United States unless you’ve driven across it at least a couple of times. If you can take a car from New Orleans to Northeastern Maine, Florida to Washington state, it’s worth doing. One of the things that was in the engine for me when I started this [series] was, I’ve seen over the years a lot of — probably more in Britain than in America — lazy kind of pseudo-intellectual documentaries where somebody will say, “Well, you know, the thing about America is…” Well, which America are you talking about? And they will go and get some guy that lives on his boat in Fort Lauderdale with a hat that’s got “Who Farted?” written on it and tell you that’s America. That guy’s there and he’s awesome, but it’s not the whole story. You know what I mean? It’s like saying “Well, you know, Hitler was a vegetarian.” That’s true, he was. But it’s not really the whole f—ing story, is it?

At this year’s Sundance Film Festival, filmmaker William D. Caballero won the NEXT Special Jury Award for Creative Expression for his intensely personal, multimedia feature debut, “TheyDream.” During his acceptance speech, he made a powerful statement.

“In case ICE were ever to harm me or kill me, this film will serve as the truth of who I am, and who my family is, before Fox News or this administration ever makes us out to be the villain[s],” he recalls paraphrasing during a recent interview.

Blending live action footage with different animation techniques — as well as the 3-D-printed miniatures that have been a fixture of Caballero’s work for more than a decade — “TheyDream” honors the filmmaker’s Puerto Rican loved ones, particularly his mother, Milly.

She collaborated with him in the making of this one-of-a-kind portrait of loss, resilience and shared healing. Their heartfelt exchanges throughout this process are also shared on-screen.

“Seeing her light up and become transformed throughout was just invigorating, because it allowed us to talk about heavy things and bond throughout the process of creating a story that’s personal [for us] both,” Caballero says. “It’s like, ‘Let’s guide each other and instead of me taking your stories and making magic with them, let’s make this magic together.’”

The brilliantly unconventional piece of autobiographical storytelling will screen as the closing night film of the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF) on Sunday. Recently, John Leguizamo and Ben DeJesus joined the film as executive producers.

Starting with his 2013 short film “How You Doin,’ Boy? Voicemails From Gran’pa,” Caballero has used miniatures to immortalize his loved ones. That bite-sized introduction to his Boricua grandfather’s humorous wisdom evolved into the HBO Latino show, “Gran’pa Knows Best.”

“When I started working on ‘Gran’pa Knows Best,’ I knew that 3-D printing was this new technique,” he says. “But I’d never seen anyone that looked or sounded like my grandfather in it. I realized that it could be a really creative method to preserve his voice and his story. “

Then came the 2017 short “Victor & Isolina” about his grandparents’ relationship, and more recently in 2022, he debuted “Chilly and Milly,” which focused on his parents. Some of the sets from these shorts, tiny replicas of places familiar to Caballero, and a few of the miniature characters were reused in “TheyDream.”

“Being able to create these things in miniature is almost like getting back in touch with the idea of play,” Caballero explains. “As a child, you invent lots of stories all the time. But now as an artist, I’m able to tell stories that touch upon reality and painful memories, but also hopes and dreams in a way that hearkens back to the innocence of childhood.”

Filmmaker William D. Caballero will screen “TheyDream” on Sunday at the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival (LALIFF).

(William D. Caballero)

“TheyDream” is a culmination of the eclectic and nimble artistic practice that Caballero has developed since he studied digital art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

“I’d always just been attracted to new ways of expressing myself and expressing stories. And I say this both in a way that brings me pride, but also brings me a bit of a headache, because I don’t think I’ll ever be a conventional filmmaker,” he says, laughing.

Still, working outside the margins of traditional moviemaking requires great adaptability.

When Caballero received funding for “TheyDream” in 2021, the money wasn’t enough to conceive it as he had originally envisioned it: entirely told with 3-D-printed figures in physical sets. The lack of resources forced him to rethink his approach, and he opted for hiring two Puerto Rican animators, Julisse Tinoco and Frank Martinez, each of whom animate in distinct styles, to help him create some of the sequences needed.

“This all goes back to the resourcefulness that I learned when I was young,” Caballero says. “When you’re born Latino and low-income in this society, you can’t let yourself be written off or you’re already defeated before you even begin.”

Caballero grew up in housing projects in New York City, and later in a trailer in his grandmother’s backyard in Fayetteville, N.C. Both of his parents were disabled.

Filmmaker William D. Caballero poses as his father for a reference shot in the making of his 2026 film “TheyDream.”

For Caballero, he says the arts have provided an escape that he “needed in order to survive and not feel weighed down by American consumerism, by poverty and by feeling trapped.” Whenever grief has perturbed him, Caballero has processed it through creativity.

With “TheyDream,” he wished to extend that vehicle for self-reflection to his mother. The film addresses complicated familial bonds and his mother’s experience caring for others.

“Throughout the years, we’ve lost several of my family members that we were both close to, but my mother especially,” he says. “She feels their absence much stronger than I do. I live in Los Angeles, my mother still lives in North Carolina. Knowing that she was alone in the mobile home, it just made me feel like, ‘That can’t be good for her.’”

His mother, he says, deals with self-esteem issues because her identity has for so long been reduced to being a caretaker for elderly relatives, who, inevitably, pass away — leaving her feeling like a failure. In reality, it was thanks to her devotion that they added years of life.

Caballero’s mother was at the Sundance premiere of “TheyDream,” where she witnessed how others saw her through the film she helped her son craft.

“I wanted her to feel like, ‘Mom, look at all these people that are clapping for you. They’re clapping for you because you are a hero. You deserve to hold yourself high and be strong and know that there’s something incredible in your story that’s indicative of the stories of many low-income Americans, regardless of race,’” Caballero says, visibly moved.

A prolific and highly regarded artist (he is a 2018 Guggenheim Fellow), Caballero has several other projects in the works that he’s trying to shop around. One of them is an episodic series titled “Second Fiddle,” about a 15-year-old Latino boy who gets accepted to a prestigious summer youth orchestra camp — and whose overbearing mother decides she’s going to stay in the camp with him.

Caballero’s mother, Milly, got the animated treatment in “TheyDream.”

“I never saw a Latino playing violin on TV or the big screen. I didn’t see any quirky, nerdy, artsy Latino kids like I was,” he says. “And I felt in my core that [it] was just wrong and something that I could change.”

Another project, “Raúl Playing Game,” is “an adult version of Pixar’s ‘Inside Out,’ ” that takes place in the mind of a closeted bisexual man. Caballero himself is bisexual. In 2022, “Raúl Playing Game” was selected for the LALIFF Inclusion Fellowship, which provided support for a short film version that serves as proof of concept for a potential TV show.

“I always wanted to make sure that I was telling authentic stories even if not necessarily always positive stories,” he says. “I’m very happy that I never lost track of that. Because I do believe that we need to tell our own stories, in our own unique voices, before someone else does it for us.”

Just one of the nine Supreme Court justices thought it was appropriate for Roger Goodell — whose primary job as NFL commissioner is to protect the league — to decide whether the NFL’s hiring practices are still racist.

And it happens to be the same justice whose close friend is an NFL owner.

In fact, the friendship between Justice Brett Kavanaugh and Arizona Cardinals owner Michael Bidwill dates back decades, to high school. So when President Trump nominated Kavanaugh for the highest court in the land, Bidwill used the team’s official website to advocate for his confirmation. Not sure how the “stick to sports” crowd feels about it, considering how they react when players express opinions, but it felt like an overreach to me.

Obviously when a decision related to NFL owners came before the court, Kavanaugh should have recused himself. But by now we’re used to justices ignoring their own ethics rules. What I find most disturbing in this instance is Kavanaugh’s dissent.

Here’s how the hiring discrimination case came to be: Former New England Patriots head coach Bill Belichick texted the wrong Brian with congratulations for getting the New York Giants’ head coaching job, according to a lawsuit filed by former Dolphins head coach and former Patriots assistant coach Brian Flores, who is Black. In the 2022 suit, Flores said the Giants interviewed him for their vacant head coaching job under disingenuous circumstances. How can we tell? Because Belichick’s congratulations came three days before Flores’ interview with the Giants. The team had apparently already decided to hire Brian Daboll, who is white.

The NFL has spent the last three-plus years attempting to settle the dispute through NFL-controlled arbitration and fought to keep it out of court. The league lifted its appeal to the Supreme Court after failing to get Goodell in position to handle it via the lower courts.

In addition to the damning text exchange, Flores also has history on his side.

During one 60-season stretch, the NFL had no Black head coaches. To address the glaring discrepancy, the league established the “Rooney rule” in 2003, requiring teams to interview at least two minority candidates for head coach and other senior management vacancies.

Prior to that, most teams interviewed only white men.

The results have been mixed.

Yes, more minority candidates get interviewed now — perhaps after a white man has quietly been chosen for the job, but still … they get interviewed.

And yes, Tony Dungy and Mike Tomlin, both of whom are Black, not only got hired but also led their franchises to Super Bowl victories after the rule was put into place.

Still, two decades into the Rooney-rule era, roughly a third of the league’s owners had never hired a minority to lead their team. This includes the century-old New York Giants, who after firing Daboll at the end of the season, hired another white man to take his place. This is the backdrop of the discrimination lawsuit filed by Flores.

And still Kavanaugh felt this case could be handled internally by the organization that allowed it to happen.

Even Clarence Thomas, a judge known for ruling against anything that helps Black people, thought the NFL should have to defend itself in court.

Consider this: The year before Flores filed his suit, the NFL settled a different discrimination lawsuit for $1 billion. That case arose because for decades, to help determine the payout from a concussion settlement between retired players and the league, the NFL used “race norming” — a methodology that assumes Black players are less intelligent than white players, making it more difficult for Black men to prove brain damage than white men. In a league that is roughly 70% nonwhite, the racist practice saved the billionaire owners millions.

Or how about this: After the Supreme Court ruled that Duke Power Co. used a controversial cognitive test to prevent Black employees from getting higher-paying jobs back in the 1970s, the NFL began using it. The league kept it in place until 2022.

And still Kavanaugh felt the league should handle Flores’ case.

I’m not sure what factors the justice was considering before his dissent, but it could not have been league history.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

WASHINGTON — Yet another White House construction project is underway, though this one is meant to be only temporary.

Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month’s UFC bout, helping mark the nation’s 250th anniversary — and President Trump ‘s 80th birthday.

Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like ahead of the June 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.

The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music.

The project is part of a series of events celebrating the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence’s signing on July 4, 1776. Other planned functions include an IndyCar race that will pass by the White House and the Great American State Fair taking place on the National Mall.

Trump has said that the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House.” Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.

“I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets,” Trump said recently of demand to attend the UFC fight, adding, “That’s gonna be something.”

The card has been panned by fans online as underwhelming, featuring just two championship fights. Brazil’s Alex Pereira will meet France’s Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title. Then Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje, one of just two Americans who currently hold even a share of the UFC’s 11 championship belts.

The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.

The president’s other efforts to leave his mark include tearing up part of the Rose Garden to make room for a patio space reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, affixing partisan plaques to the wall of the colonnade for a Presidential Walk of Fame, redoing the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom and renovating the Palm Room, placing new flag poles on the north and south lawns and demolishing the entire East Wing for a sprawling ballroom.

The president also wants to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the White House and build a 250-foot arch at the nearby Lincoln Memorial — the same monument where weigh-ins for the upcoming UFC fight are scheduled to take place, bout organizers say.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

NEW ORLEANS — At least four states have adopted laws this year making it a crime to disrupt worship services, a reaction to a high-profile protest inside a Minnesota church that prompted outrage from faith leaders.

The Republican lawmakers sponsoring most of the legislation say those gathering at sacred sanctuaries deserve protection beyond what existing trespassing laws provide. They also say these new laws will prevent escalating clashes between congregants and protestors as many churches, mosques and synagogues remain on edge over recent mass shootings and acts of violence targeting religious groups.

“People should go to church to be able to sit in peace, worship as they please, without having to worry about people coming in and harassing them,” said Idaho Sen. Mark Harris, a Republican who co-sponsored legislation criminalizing protests inside places of worship. “I think the thing that happened in Minnesota was kind of a shock to some of us, that churches would be used as a place to berate people.”

Critics in both parties have warned that the laws infringe on free speech rights.

Here’s a look at the situation.

The laws make it a crime to interfere with worship

Bills have been signed into law in Republican-dominated Idaho, Louisiana and Oklahoma. In Kansas, a bill is becoming law without the signature of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

Similar bills have been introduced for this year’s legislative sessions in at least seven other states and in Congress. Nassau County, New York, passed a similar measure this year. In 1994, President Bill Clinton signed a law making it a federal crime to intentionally injure or interfere with or intimidate someone entering a place of worship or a reproductive health facility.

The details in the bills differ, but they all make it a crime to interfere with religious assemblies.

Laws against trespassing already apply to disruptions on the grounds of churches or other private property. But legislators say the new laws would boost penalties and bar other protest activity like holding signs near places of worship.

The penalties could be harsher than for trespassing. In some states, people could face up to a year in prison and fines as high as $10,000 for first offenses. The laws also give the states a way to prosecute cases if local authorities decline to do so.

A protest in Minnesota touched off the call for action

Thirty-nine people, including two journalists, were charged in February for roles in a protest during a St. Paul, Minnesota, church service. The protesters had learned that one of the church pastors was also an official at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement who had been overseeing an intensive Minnesota operation.

The U.S. Department of Justice charged the protesters with conspiracy against religious freedom and interfering with the right of religious freedom. The protesters and journalists have pleaded not guilty and the cases are pending in federal court.

Louisiana Rep. Gabe Firment, a Republican, said he was inspired to introduce legislation that allows protestors to be forcibly removed from churches and other places of worship after seeing videos showing the fearful expressions of children at the Minnesota church.

“The first thought that came to my mind was those poor kids,” Firment said. “You certainly have a right to protest, but just like you don’t have the right to come into someone’s home and act like that, you don’t have the right to come into private church property to do that.”

Oklahoma Sen. Todd Gollihare, a Republican, wrote his bill after anti-abortion protestors disrupted his church service last year. His law bars blocking highways within one mile of a service or approaching someone to hand them a flyer within 100 feet of a place of worship.

His Republican colleague, Sen. Kendal Sacchieri, described the law as extreme and said she was afraid of the precedent it would set.

Court challenges could await the laws

The Nassau County ordinance is already facing a court challenge from the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says there’s no history of residents facing intimidation, harassment or violence outside places of worship — and that the statute denies people their constitutionally protected rights of expression in public places.

Kevin Goldberg, vice president at Freedom Forum, which advocates for First Amendment rights, said that if the laws are challenged in courts, governments would have to show there’s a need for them. “You can’t be guessing, you can’t be speculating,” he said. “There has to be some evidence that there’s an actual threat going on — that there’s been a problem there, that you can reasonably forecast there will be a problem.”

In Louisiana, Democrats raised concerns about mandatory jail time for disrupting services and warned that the laws were too arbitrary, suggesting that they could be applied against a congregant for singing out of turn as a pastor delivers a homily.

“If the spirit just hits me and I start singing during the middle of his homily, and it disrupts his homily in a way where he’s got to say ‘Hey, take a seat’, I mean that would materially disrupt his service and now I’m going to jail for 30 days,” Rep. Edmond Jordan said during a March hearing in the Louisiana Legislature.

The law’s proponents said police officers and judges would have discretion about how to apply the law.

Brook and Mulvihill write for the Associated Press. Mulvihill reported from Haddonfield, N.J.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. The greatest day in high school baseball for City Section players is when you make it to the Open Division or Division I championship game and get to play on Dodger Stadium. Another memorable day happened on Saturday.

The Field of Dreams

Verdugo Hills players celebrate a 3-1 win over Taft in the City Section Division I final on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

(Craig Weston / For The Times)

For Birmingham and Verdugo Hills, there was a celebration at Dodger Stadium after winning the City Open Division and Division I championships, respectively. But runner-ups Taft and El Camino Real got their moment of appreciation and memories, too.

It’s become clear to win the Open Division, the key requirement is having three pitchers. Birmingham’s two starters, Carlos Acuna and Nathan Soto, did their job. Acuna (11-0) had complete games in the first round and semifinals. Closer Aidan Martinez was waiting to be called upon and delivered at Dodger Stadium in support of Soto with four strikeouts in two innings.

Even with its pitching, Birmingham still needed someone to deliver a clutch hit in a 4-2 win. It was the improbable that happened. Masen Ruiz, who hadn’t come to the plate since May 7 while stuck on the bench, hit a three-run triple to break open the game after being put in as a defensive replacement. Here’s the report.

Verdugo Hills was the biggest surprise. The Dons entered the playoffs at 10-18 after finishing fourth in the Valley Mission League and defeated Taft 3-1. Anthony Velasquez threw a complete game, but the story was the Dons’ defense, from the infielders to the outfielders. Here’s the report.

Baseball

Lachlan Clark of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame will be on the mound against Norco. He threw a shutout the last time he faced the Cougars.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

The Southern Section Division 1 semifinals are set for Tuesday, and no one knows who’s going to make it to Cal State Fullerton. The games could go either way, with Harvard-Westlake at St. John Bosco and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Norco.

The last time Lachlan Clark faced Norco two weeks ago, he threw a shutout. He’s expected to face left-hander Landon Hovermale. It’s Notre Dame’’s first road game of the playoffs. Harvard-Westlake is also facing its first road game against the defending Division 1 champions.

Norco received a tremendous performance from Jordan Ayala in a 3-0 win over Orange Lutheran. He struck out 10 with no walks and also hit a home run. James Clark hit two home runs and Julian Garcia struck out 14 in St. John Bosco’s 5-2 win over La Mirada.

Here’s a report from Friday’s semifinals.

Newport Harbor and Laguna Beach are surging in the playoffs. Here’s a report.

Birmingham and El Camino Real have chosen to opt out of the state baseball playoffs. Pairings will be announced Sunday. It’s likely the final time that teams decide they don’t want to play in state playoffs because next season the first state championship games will take place, motivating schools to participate.

Softball

Liliana Escobar of JSerra threw a shutout in 1-0 win over Garden Grove Pacifica.

(Dylan Stewart)

The Southern Section Division 1 final in softball will take place probably Saturday with JSerra facing La Mirada at Bill Barber Park in Irvine.

The playoffs have been about the dominant performances of JSerra pitcher Liliana Escobar, who struck out 14 in eliminating defending champion Norco 2-0 last week.

The Southern Section will release final dates and times for its championships Monday.

In the City Section, Carson and Granada Hills could be headed for fourth straight final. First they each have to win their Wednesday semifinal games. Granada Hills hosts San Pedro and Carson hosts Birmingham. The championship game is expected to be Saturday in Long Beach.

Track

The moment Lawrence Kensinger of Venice broke a 53-year-old City Section record in the shotput with a mark of 65-11.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Things couldn’t have been more exciting at the City Section track and field finals when Lawrence Kensinger of Venice broke the second-longest held record in the shotput. It was set in 1973 and he obliterated it with a staggering mark of 65-11 putting him squarely in the competetion for a state title at the CIF state championships Friday and Saturday at Buchanan High School in Clovis.

Here’s a story on Kensinger’s massive accomplishment.

At the Southern Section Masters Meet, there were plenty of outstanding marks in the girls’ competition, and sprinter Benjamin Harris of Servite set himself up to win multiple state titles. Here’s a look at top qualifiers.

Volleyball

Mira Costa has proven itself to be the No. 1 boys volleyball team in the state and the Mustangs are one win away from a Division I title. They face Northern California champion Northgate on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Fresno City College.

They’ve already accomplished what few teams have done — beat rival Loyola in three matches this season. They won the Southern California regional title with a five-set win over the Cubs.

Golf

The Southern California Regional championships are set for Thursday.

Austin Downing of San Marcos won the individual championship.

Notes . . .

Richard Simms has resigned after 21 years as girls’ soccer coach at Harvard-Westlake. His teams won four CIF championships and 18 Mission League titles. He coached the Thompson sisters, Alyssa and Gisele. Another Thompson sister is arriving in the fall….

In tennis, Harvard-Westlake continued its success by winning the Southern California Regional championship….

Steve Kennedy has resigned as softball coach at Newbury Park….

Loyola track star Ejam Yohannes has committed to Stanford….

Ernest Baskerville has resigned after seven years as basketball coach at South Pasadena….

Hurdler Peyton Brown from Trabuco Hills has committed to Cal Poly….

Terrence Worthy is the new basketball coach at West Covina….

Orange Lutheran announced that the Orange Police Department is investigating “a serious allegation” made against a former staff member believed to have worked with the football program….

Sage Hill has promoted Jethro Julian to girls basketball coach after being the interim coach last season….

Dezi Delgado, who was all-Mission League as a sophomore baseball player at Sierra Canyon, said he is transferring to Sherman Oaks Notre Dame for his senior year….

From the archives: Trent Grindlinger

Former Huntington Beach catcher Trent Grindlinger.

(Nick Koza)

After a terrific high school career playing catcher for Huntington Beach, Trent Grindlinger has been equally impressive as a freshman for Tennessee.

He led the team going into last week’s SEC tournament action with a .357 batting average, eight home runs and 28 RBIs.

His younger brother, Jared, is expected to be a first-round pick in this summer’s amateur draft.

Here’s a story from 2024 on the Grindlinger family of baseball players.

Recommendations

From the Los Angeles Times, a look at former Gardena Serra receiver Marqise Lee going back to earn his degree at USC.

From Philadelphiabaseballreview, a story on a youth pitcher throwing 160 pitches.

From the Los Angeles Times, a story on three-year JV player JJ Saffie of El Camino Real taking advantage of his opportunity to finally play varsity. He had two hits at Dodger Stadium.

Tweets you might have missed

Until next time….

Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.

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FORMER Coronation Street star Helen Flanagan has shared an emotional post with fans saying she’s returned to a “special place” after moving out of her ex Scott Sinclair’s home.

Helen parted ways from her long-term fiancé in 2022 after 13 years together – and she’s been open about how it isn’t always plain sailing.

The model shares three children with footballer Scott – Matilda, 10, and Delilah, seven, and five-year-old son Charlie.

Earlier this year, Helen was forced out of her £1million family home by Scott as they never married and the house near Bolton is solely in his name.

But now, Helen has taken to Instagram to share with fans the behind-the-scenes of her “special place.”

The telly star is currently visiting Scotland with her kids.

Read more on Helen Flanagan

forgotten role

Corrie’s new hunk was in soap 18 yrs ago & had romance with Helen Flanagan

HITTING HOME

Helen Flanagan takes swipe at ex Scott as she says goodbye to £1m home

She posted a slew of selfies with her little loves at the lake and clips of the peaceful mountainous views.

Helen captioned the post: “No weapon used against me shall prosper.

“Love wins.

“I found this spot at Loch Lomond in lockdown and it’s just special to me, I don’t know why but I suppose we all take comfort in things and if it makes sense to us then that’s enough and every time I go to Scotland I go there.”

It seemed Helen was taking a swipe at Scott over the house drama as she recounted her trip away.

Back in January, a friend of Helen’s said: “Scott pays for the house and all the bills and he’s decided a six-bedroom place is way too big for Helen on her own with the kids.

“But Helen doesn’t want to move and is digging her heels in.

“She loves the place, the kids are settled at the local school and her mum and dad live around the corner.”

“Scott wants to buy Helen a four-bedroom home. He’s even offered to put it in her name but wants to stop the maintenance payments.

“The relationship has completely broken down. They no longer communicate — everything goes through her parents.”

Her celeb pals and fans rushed to the comments to share their support.

Christine McGuiness wrote: “Love you angel. The best mummy.”

One fan said: “Nothing like nature to make you feel better.”

Another fan added: “Scot gal here… Hope you had a nice time. Stay strong you are enough.”

On a Tuesday evening in Eagle Rock, used-bookstore owners Jeremy and Debbie Kaplan were closing up for the day when a stranger rushed through the entrance. He tossed an envelope onto the counter, said something like: “Building’s been sold,” and slipped out.

Inside the envelope, the Kaplans found a 30-day notice: The shop’s $1,200 monthly rent would be increasing to $2,805 on April 1, they were required to decide whether they would accept the more than 133% price hike a month in advance, and they’d need to agree to a three- to five-year lease if so. The letter arrived Feb. 17, which meant the Kaplans had 11 days to accept the new landlord’s terms or leave.

“We couldn’t even consider it,” Jeremy Kaplan said. “It would be suicide.” The couple looked around the 680-square-foot shop. From the floor to ceiling, more than 20,000 books were crammed every which way into shelves they’d built and stained themselves nearly 20 years before. “My first reaction was panic,” he said. “How are we going to move out of this place?”

Their children had grown up at Read Books (pronounced like the color, as in: “These aren’t new books, they’re previously read books.”) The realization began to set in, Jeremy said, that they were being pushed out with intimidation tactics. “We started getting angry. So the next day, we started looking into our legal rights.”

After searching the internet, the Kaplans found California’s Senate Bill 1103, the Commercial Tenant Protection Act that passed last year. The law offers protections for “qualified commercial tenants” and requires landlords to give a 90-day notice for rent increases surpassing 10%.

When the Kaplans tried to contact the new property management company, Jeremy said, Systems Real Estate was evasive.

“It’s the one bill that protects commercial tenants, and it’s a fairly toothless bill because they don’t have to acknowledge it, unless you make them acknowledge it,” he said. The Kaplans, along with Sharon Kroner, whose neighboring vintage boutique Owl Talk is facing the same fate, wrote to Systems Real Estate, citing SB 1103. They had the letter certified and attached their rent checks for the next month.

In response, the 30-day notice was amended to 90 days. Systems Real Estate did not respond to a request from The Times for comment.

The Kaplans had more time to search for a new location, but Jeremy quickly saw a trend in Northeast Los Angeles. “Vacant spaces all over the place,” he said. “When we inquired, they were ludicrously expensive, most over $5 per square foot. The second thing we started noticing was small stores like ours going out of business or being priced out in the exact same way we were.”

Jeremy Kaplan stands inside his bookstore on the last day Read Books is open for business.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

Building a coalition

When Jeremy started posting about Read Books’ plight, the response was immediate and overwhelming. Many customers who reached out said they wanted to help — the bookstore had been in Eagle Rock for as long as they had.

“Not mere condolences but calls to action from people I barely knew,” he said. “Lawyers, journalists, activists, parents, children.”

Two days after the rent-increase notice was delivered, the Kaplans and their supporters were devising a plan to fight back — if not to save Read Books, then to save other small businesses.

Save North East Los Angeles Shops was born.

Chris Newman, an immigrant rights lawyer whose son learned to read with books bought at the Eagle Rock shop, told The Times he showed up to the group’s first official meeting with the intention of trying to save the bookstore.

“I was surprised to see so many people talking not just about the situation that Jeremy’s in, but an epidemic that small businesses are facing,” Newman said.

At one coalition meeting in April, Jeremy rushed in late.

He’d just come from an event where he’d been able to talk with Mayor Karen Bass about the plight small businesses are facing and asked about the possibility of imposing a commercial vacancy tax on property owners who leave storefronts vacant for extended periods.

Although sympathetic, the mayor shot him down pretty swiftly, Jeremy said, saying nobody in L.A. wants more taxes.

A representative for Bass told The Times that under her leadership, “the City is focused on cutting red tape, expanding support for local businesses, and advancing solutions that address the broader affordability crisis.”

Signs against rent increases are posted outside Read Books.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The precedent

In March 2020, before the COVID-19 pandemic shut the world down, small businesses in San Francisco had been grappling with rising rents that increasingly led to empty storefronts. Then North Beach’s beloved corner gem, Caffe Sapore, got its notice. Like Eagle Rockers, San Franciscans were done merely lamenting the community’s loss. They started organizing.

Aaron Peskin, who at the time served on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors, said that while there are a variety of factors contributing to the vacancy issue, impractical property owners were the most common thread.

“Commercial landlords had unbelievably unrealistic expectations of rent, and a small business can only sell a T-shirt or a hamburger or a service for what the market will bear, and none of them could swing the rent,” Peskin said.

That year he authored Proposition D, a commercial vacancy tax ordinance that applies to street-facing, ground-floor properties that sit vacant for more than 182 days a year. It passed with nearly 70% of the vote.

“I served on that Board of Supervisors for 17 years, and it’s one of my proudest pieces of public policy,” Peskin said. “In the years since it passed, it has been working and has really helped in the post-pandemic recovery in our neighborhood commercial corridors. It’s been a rare instant success story.”

Demonstrators march toward Eagle Rock City Hall carrying protest signs against rent hikes for small businesses.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The landlords

The question as to why someone would purchase a commercial property, raise the rent so current tenants are displaced and prospective tenants look elsewhere, only to have a onetime community hub collecting cobwebs, has inspired myriad theories.

Peskin pointed to an impractical landlord mentality; an L.A. council member suspected landlords were after tax breaks; a professor of economics said that his sense is that there’s more going on and tax benefits are likely not the driving factor; and a commercial real estate expert said landlords are likely pricing tenants out so they can tear the buildings down.

The Times reached out to Dr. Ari Ucar, the new owner of the Eagle Rock Boulevard building, who did not respond.

Los Angeles City Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, a former tenant rights attorney, told The Times that landlords can benefit by claiming the vacancy as a loss on their taxes. “For landlords who own multiple commercial properties in a wide portfolio, a vacancy can be marked as a loss. In essence, when you file taxes and mark this as a loss, it reduces the total income generated. That’s the perverse incentive of having a vacancy.”

But a tax attorney in Los Angeles, Andrew Gradman, wasn’t convinced the tax incentive was enough to curb a landlord’s appetite for the passive income of steady rent payments. “You have to consider the most reasonable premise, which is that these landlords think they can get a better tenant, or they think that the lease would stand in the way of their getting some other better deal, in the form of, say, selling the whole building.”

A commercial real estate broker, Nick Quackenbos, said the likely motive for such a price hike is plans to scrape the building and build apartments in its place. He pointed to a recent landmark bill, State Senate Bill 79, which overrides local zoning laws to allow for taller, denser buildings near major transit stops. The bill will take effect statewide July 1, but L.A. plans to delay citywide upzoning until 2030 by carving out bespoke plans that target 55 single-family and low-density areas, allowing for 4-16 unit buildings up to four stories tall.

The 55 areas are mostly in Central L.A., West L.A., the Eastside and the San Fernando Valley. While Eagle Rock isn’t what L.A. city planners are designating an “opportunity hub” right now, Read Books is located a stone’s throw from the upcoming Colorado/Eagle Rock station, a stop on the North Hollywood to Pasadena BRT (Bus Rapid Transit) line slated to launch ahead of the 2028 Summer Olympics.

“The bill is allowing things to take place which could disfigure a city like Eagle Rock,” said Quackenbos. “I bet that’s what you’re going to find down the road: These places will become vacant, and suddenly there’s groundbreaking for a new apartment building going up.”

Jeremy Kaplan speaks to community members outside his store, Read Books, about the issues small business owners face.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

The rally

Read Books was set to close last weekend, and the Kaplans wanted to go out with a bang. In the shop’s front window was a single book: “The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto” by Tavis Smiley and Cornel West, surrounded by signs that read “Forced Out!,” “Shame on Greedy Landlords,” and “Our Family Loves Read Books.”

As Debbie sat at the register inside, helping a steady flow of the shop’s final patrons, protesters gathered behind the building, clutching homemade posters and waiting for Jeremy to speak. Choking up, he addressed the crowd.

Debbie Kaplan, who co-owns Read Books, hands a customer books.

(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)

“Three months ago, when this all began, my initial action was to fight back, because fighting is my default setting. But I also felt … fear of insignificance, of disappearing, as if everything we built in the last 19 years, often working seven days a week, might soon be dismantled and forgotten. The support you’ve gifted us with these last few months has been a constant reminder that we’re all in this together.

“The real estate lobby is rich and powerful. They have more lobbyists than our representatives have staff, but we are building a coalition to fight them.

“What’s at stake? The soul of Los Angeles.”

Former Biden Cabinet member Xavier Becerra remains the top Democrat in the California governor’s race despite being targeted by a barrage of negative political ads and enduring sharp attacks from his rival candidates during recent debates, according to a new poll released Tuesday by the state Democratic Party.

Billionaire Tom Steyer, a Democrat who is shattering self-funding records for statewide office, has been flooding the television airwaves, internet and social media with ads ripping Becerra’s long record in public office, as well as for accepting campaign donations from oil giant Chevron. But, thus far, that has not been enough for Steyer to overtake Becerra.

The survey found that 21% of likely voters backed Becerra, who also served in Congress and as California’s attorney general, while 15% backed Steyer. Among the other top Democrats: Former Orange County congresswoman Katie Porter received 7%; San José Mayor Matt Mahan came in at 4%; and state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond and former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa registered at 1%.

Becerra on Tuesday said he believes he has climbed in the polls because voters are now paying attention to the race.

“They’re really looking closely at who’s out there, and I think I’ve been one of the beneficiaries of folks looking for a place that they can feel comfortable, where they can trust,” Becerra told reporters after a campaign event in South Los Angeles. “I think more and more as people look at the candidates, they’re going to start to crystallize behind somebody who won’t need training wheels, as I say, when they get into the governor’s office and can hit the ground running, day one.”

He said he thinks Steyer’s attacks aren’t working because Californians are skeptical of the billionaire.

“He’s spending like no one before, and he’s hitting like no one before, and so far, it hasn’t made a difference,” Becerra said. “We continue to surge, even after weeks of his barrage of lies and attacks…. California voters are not anxious to have someone who wants to buy the office.”

Leading all candidates in the race was Republican Steve Hilton, a former Fox News host, who was supported by 22% of likely voters. His top GOP challenger, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, was backed by 10%, the poll showed.

While Hilton and Becerra right now appear to be the likeliest candidates to finish in the top two in California’s June 2 primary, which is required to advance to the November general election, there still remains plenty of time for political fortunes and voter support to rise or fall. Ballots were mailed to the state’s 23.1 million registered voters and early voting sites opened earlier this month, but most Californians have not sent them in thus far.

For Becerra, the strong poll results indicate an astounding turnaround for a campaign that appeared all but dead just weeks ago. In early April, the California Democratic Party tracking poll showed Becerra with support from just 4% of likely voters. That changed after then-Northern California Rep. Eric Swalwell, who had been the front-running Democrat in the race, withdrew from the campaign and resigned from Congress after he was accused of sexual assault and misconduct.

The California Democratic Party launched a series of tracking polls in March after leaders and allies grew increasingly concerned that Republicans would win the top two spots in the primary, shutting the party out of the November general election. This prospect, while statistically possible given the crowded field of candidates running for governor, has grown increasingly less likely as California voters finally focused on the contest to lead the nation’s most populous state and the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Under California’s top-two primary system, only the candidates who finish in first and second place in the primary advance to the general election, regardless of their political party or affiliation.

The poll of 1,200 likely voters took place between May 14 and 16 and has a margin of error of 2.83% in either direction.

Nearly 50 years on from “Star Wars” and the launch of a media empire (large or small “e”? You decide), the fandom has become its own galaxy of warring planets. But based on the success of the streaming series “The Mandalorian,” set around the title bounty hunter, we can all agree that his charge Grogu — green, wrinkled, big-eyed Baby You-Know-Who — is still adorable. Of the many “Star Wars” offshoots, this seems to be the sturdiest.

The brand is back together for “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” which is a movie, a hoped-for franchise revival, a fourth season of sorts and an affable throwback. But it’s never quite riveting enough as canon or fodder to supplant anyone’s memories of [insert favorite “Star Wars” film here].

The expectations game was never going to help series creator Jon Favreau’s big-screen version, written with Dave Filoni and Noah Kloor. Granted, this upscaled, agreeably rangy treatment of an adventure storyline that wouldn’t have been out of place on the show could have attempted more. Especially when it puts sci-fi icon Sigourney Weaver in an X-wing pilot uniform as a veteran of the Rebellion, but barely gives her anything to do besides secure Mando a job and keep tabs on his progress. (Gang, try harder. It’s Sigourney Weaver.)

Aimed squarely at kids of all sizes, “Star Wars” has become a glorified tour of a billionaire’s expanding playworld and “The Mandalorian and Grogu” wants the track well-oiled, not bumpy. The simple pleasures here of good vs evil, IMAX hugeness and composer Ludwig Göransson’s space-opera-hits-the-club score, go down easy enough to not be aggravating. It’s a lot.

But it’s not this reviewer’s position to tell you what “a lot” is — loose lips spoil scripts. When the moment comes at an appropriately dangerous time for our heroes, we sense the kind of thing that only movies can do well when they’re myths writ large: slow things down, shift momentum away from the tyranny of exposition and let emotion, humor, wonder and character co-exist. “The Mandalorian and Grogu” takes the series’ thematic underpinnings — what parenting looks like between a masked human loner and an otherworldly toddler — and deepens them.

The movie takes place in wonderfully detailed environments that evoke the earlier, beloved films. You’re not being pandered to, however; the payoff is a lovely echo. Elsewhere, the action set pieces are serviceably handled by Favreau. (One of them plays like, of all things, an homage to “The French Connection.”)

Otherwise, this is another hunt-and-retrieve narrative for the bounty hunter voiced by Pedro Pascal, physically embodied in armor by Brendan Wayne and, in combat, by fight choreographer Lateef Crowder. Still independent but New Republic-curious, Mando is tasked by Weaver’s Col. Ward to find a wayward scion of the slimy gangster Hutt clan, Rotta (voiced by Jeremy Allen White), whose return will unlock some important information. Of course, things don’t go as planned, which for a while is interesting — are the Hutts like the Corleones, perhaps? — until it’s not, because then the dialogue would need to rise above the level of a middle-school play.

That being said, one of the movie’s strong points, absent its story deficiencies, is that, across its many wordless scenes, it’s at heart a solidly rousing, delightfully icky creature feature, in the vein of a supercharged Ray Harryhausen-meets-Guillermo del Toro joint. “It’s a hard world for little things,” Lillian Gish famously says in “The Night of the Hunter,” a movie nobody will ever confuse with “The Mandalorian and Grogu.” But we all know summer fare like this is only ever as enjoyable as the monsters conjured up for conquering.

Dodgers lose to the Padres

From Maddie Lee: The Dodgers entered the late innings Monday in an unenviable position: trailing the Padres, whose biggest strength is their bullpen.

“When they have a lead they don’t relinquish it too often,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 1-0 loss Monday. “You know the numbers — when they’re ahead in the seventh inning they don’t lose. You do have to be a little more aggressive and capitalize when you do get those chances.”

Including Monday, the Padres are 20-2 when leading after six innings, 21-1 when leading after seven, and they have a perfect 22-0 record when leading after eight.

Even when Padres closer Mason Miller got off to an uncharacteristically wild start in the ninth inning Monday, the Dodgers failed to capitalize.

He walked Freddie Freeman and Kyle Tucker on nine pitches. And the next three batters — Will Smith, Max Muncy and Andy Pages — all have proven their ability to do damage in clutch moments.

But it was Miller on the mound, a rare reliever who could actually challenge for the Cy Young Award.

“In this kind of series, you know you’re going to have close games,” Freeman said after the game. “And we just couldn’t get it done.”

Continue reading here

Dodgers give injury updates on Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Brusdar Graterol

Why Dodgers’ 2017 pitch to Shohei Ohtani remains relevant: ‘Acquiesce and accommodate’

Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Justin Turner finds new life with the Tijuana Toros

From Bill Shaikin: Justin Turner did not wear the correct jersey one day, and now he would pay for his sin.

His teammates formed two lines, one facing the other. Turner snaked through the gauntlet, as his teammates playfully slapped and shoved him around.

Turner is 41, an All-Star and World Series champion, one of the most beloved players in Dodgers history. Yet there he was on a gloomy Saturday afternoon in a 50-year-old stadium in Tijuana, subjecting himself to a mashup of a kangaroo court and a hazing ritual, three hours before he would play in a uniform with six advertisements on the jersey and four more on the pants.

“Justin doesn’t have to be here,” said former major leaguer Roberto Kelly, the manager of the Tijuana Toros. “He doesn’t need this to continue his life.”

For the first time in 17 years, Turner is not playing in the major leagues. No team wanted him.

In Tijuana, whether he decides to end his career here or elsewhere, he has nurtured a special bond with his son and emerged as an improbable tourist attraction for Dodgers fans.

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Angels spoil no-hitter, get walk-off win

Adam Frazier singled, leading off the ninth inning for the first hit against Athletics starter J.T. Ginn, and Zach Neto followed with a two-run homer that gave the Angels a 2-1 victory Monday night.

Neto drove a 2-0 sinker 413 feet to center field, stunning Ginn and the A’s while ending a six-game losing streak for the Angels. It was their third walk-off win this season.

Ginn (2-2) struck out 10 and issued one walk on 105 pitches. He also hit Neto with a pitch in the sixth.

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Angels box score

MLB standings

This day in sports history

1909 — In his first title defense Jack Johnson fights ‘Philadelphia’ Jack O’Brien to a no decision in 6 rounds in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to retain his world heavyweight crown.

1923 — Zev, a 19-1 long shot ridden by Earl Sande, wins the Kentucky Derby by 1½ lengths over Martingale.

1935 — NFL adopts an annual college draft to begin in 1936.

1965 — West Ham United of England win 5th European Cup Winner’s Cup against 1860 München of West Germany 2-0 in London.

1973 — Secretariat, ridden by Ron Turcotte, rallies from last with a powerful move on the clubhouse turn to win the Preakness Stakes by 2½ lengths over Sham. There is controversy over the timing of the race as original teletimer time was 1:55 for the 1 3/16-mile race. Pimlico amends it to 1:54 2/5, two days later.

1974 — The Philadelphia Flyers beat the Boston Bruins 1-0 to win the Stanley Cup in six games.

1979 — Spectacular Bid, ridden by Ron Franklin, wins the Preakness Stakes by an easy 5½ lengths over Golden Act.

1984 — Stanley Cup Final, Northlands Coliseum, Edmonton, AL: Wayne Gretzky scores twice as Edmonton Oilers beat NY Islanders, 5-2 for a 4-1 series win; Oilers first SC title.

1990 — Hobart wins its 11th straight NCAA Division III lacrosse championship, beating Washington College of Maryland 18-6. The Statesmen, winners of every final since the tournament’s inception in 1980, are 100-3 in Division III in that time.

1991 — Willy T. Ribbs becomes the first Black driver to make the lineup for the Indianapolis 500.

2001 — Manchester United lose 3-1 to Tottenham at White Hart Lane but win English Premier League title for the 3rd consecutive season.

2004 — NHL Western Conference Final: Calgary Flames beat San Jose Sharks, 4 games to 2.

2007 — Curlin, ridden by Robby Albarado, nips Kentucky Derby winner Street Sense by putting his head in front on the final stride, winning the Preakness Stakes in a riveting finish. The winning time was a blazing 1:53.46, equaling the stakes record of 1:53 2/5.

2007 — English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London (89,826): Chelsea beats Manchester United, 1 – 0 (a.e.t.); Didier Drogba scores 116′ winner for Blues’ 4th title.

2007 — NHL Eastern Conference Final: Ottawa Senators beat Buffalo Sabres, 4 games to 1.

2008 — NHL Western Conference Final: Detroit Red Wings beat Dallas Stars, 4 games to 2.

2012 — I’ll Have Another overtakes Bodemeister down the stretch to win the Preakness. Like the Kentucky Derby, I’ll Have Another races from behind to beat pacesetter Bodemeister, who also finished second in the Derby. I’ll Have Another, ridden by Mario Gutierrez, covers the 1 3/16 miles in 1:55.94.

2012 — UEFA Champions League Final, Munich: Chelsea beats Bayern Munich, 4-3 on penalties after a 1–1 draw at the end of extra time; Blues’ first title.

2014 — Lucy Li becomes the youngest player to qualify for the U.S. Women’s Open by winning the sectional qualifier at Half Moon Bay in California. The 11-year-old Li shoots rounds of 74 and 68 on the par-72 Old Course and surpasses Lexi Thompson as the youngest competitor in a U.S. Women’s Open when she tees off at Pinehurst on June 19. Thompson was 12 when she qualified for the 2007 Open.

2015 — The NFL announces it is moving back extra-point kicks and allowing defenses to score on conversion turnovers. The owners approve the proposal to snap the ball from the 15-yard line on PATs to make them more challenging.

2017 — LeBron James scores 30 points, Kevin Love had 21 points and 12 rebounds, and the Cleveland Cavaliers steamroll the Boston Celtics 130-86 to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals and tie an NBA record with their 13th straight playoff victory.

2018 — Justify holds off several hard-charging challengers and win the Preakness Stakes on a sloppy, slippery track. Ridden by Mike Smith, the 2-5 favorite wins by a half-length after completing the race in 1:55.93. Bravazo edges Tenfold for second. Trainer Bob Baffert ties D. Wayne Lukas’ record with his 14th Triple Crown victory and matches 19th-century trainer R.W. Walden with his seventh Preakness title.

2018 — English FA Cup Final, Wembley Stadium, London: Chelsea beats Manchester United, 1-0; Belgian international Eden Hazard scores 22′ penalty.

2019 — PGA Championship Men’s Golf, Bethpage State Park: Defending champion Brooks Koepka leads wire-to-wire; wins despite 5 bogeys on last 8 holes by 2 strokes from world #1 Dustin Johnson.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1910 — Cy Young won the 500th game of his career as the Cleveland Indians beat the Washington Senators, 5-4, in 11 innings.

1910 — Boston beat the Pirates 6-3 for the first time in 26 tries.

1933 — For the first time in major league history, brothers on opposite teams hit home runs in the same game. Boston Red Sox catcher Rick Ferrell homers off his brother Wes Ferrell in the 2nd inning, but the Cleveland Indians pitcher returns the favor as he homers in the 3rd on a pitch called by his sibling. It is the only time that the Ferrell brothers homer in the same game.

1942 — Paul Waner of the Boston Braves got his 3,000th career hit off Pittsburgh’s Rip Sewell in a 7-6, 11-inning loss to the Pirates.

1956 — Pittsburgh’s Dale Long hit a ninth-inning homer against the Chicago Cubs. It was Long’s first of eight straight games with a homer.

1962 — Stan Musial of St. Louis became the NL career hits leader. The 41-year-old got a ninth inning single for his 3,431st hit and moved past Honus Wagner. The Cardinals beat the Dodgers, 8-1.

1968 — After hitting 10 home runs in six games, Frank Howard of the Washington Senators was stopped by pitcher Earl Wilson of Detroit, which won the game 5-4.

1976 — Carl Yastrzemski has the only three-homer game of his illustrious career, going deep three times in a 4-for-4 day in a 9-2 Red Sox win over the Tigers. He victimizes three different pitchers: Dave Roberts, Steve Grilli and John Hiller.

1979 — After a bitter six-week strike, the major league umpires return to work. During the work stoppage, the men in blue were replaced by amateur and minor league arbiters.

1981 — Pittsburgh’s Jim Bibby gave up a leadoff single to Terry Harper of the Atlanta Braves, then retired the next 27 batters for a 5-0 one-hitter. Bibby also hit two doubles.

1998 — Mark McGwire hit three two-run homers against Philadelphia. It was the second time this season and fourth time in his career McGwire hit three homers in a game. McGwire became the 12th player to have two three-homer games in a season.

2000 — Jason Kendall hit for the cycle and drove in a career-high five runs, leading Pittsburgh to a 13-1 rout of St. Louis. Kendall had a two-run homer in the first inning, an RBI single in the second, a double in the third and a two-run triple in the eighth.

2004 — Atlanta’s 45-year-old Julio Franco broke his own record for the oldest player to hit a pinch-hit homer. Franco, who had a pinch-hit homer two weeks earlier against San Diego, hit a two-out, two-run homer to tie the score at 4 in the eighth. The Braves lost 6-4 in 11 innings to the Diamondbacks.

2008 — Boston’s Jon Lester shut down Kansas City 7-0 for the first no-hitter in the majors this season. The 24-year-old lefty, who survived cancer to pitch the World Series clincher for the Red Sox last fall, allowed two baserunners, walking Billy Butler in the second inning and Esteban German to open the ninth. Jason Varitek catches his fourth no-hitter, tying Ray Schalk for the major league record; one of Schalk’s no-hitters was later removed from the official records, making Varitek the first backstop to have four official no-hitters to his name.

2009 — Washington became the fourth team in major league history to score at least five runs in each game of a six-game losing streak. The Nationals lost 8-5 in 10 innings to Pittsburgh after they rallied to tie the score with a run in the ninth, but another letdown from a bullpen with a collective 1-14 record allowed them to join the 1929 Pirates, 2004 Cincinnati Reds and 2005 Texas Rangers.

2010 — CF Angel Pagan hits the first inside-the-park homer in the history of Nationals Park.

2011 — After sitting on the bench for most of the season so far, veteran 1B Jason Giambi has the first three-homer game of his career in the Rockies’ 7 – 1 win over Philadelphia. He hits homers in his first three at-bats, driving in all 7 of his team’s runs, but fails in his last two at-bats to become only the 16th player to hit four dingers in one game. Giambi entered the game hitting .115 with 1 homer and 4 RBI; at 40, he is the second-oldest player to hit three home runs in a game, after Stan Musial who was 41 when he accomplished the feat on July 8, 1962.

2018 — The Rays have been experimenting with “bullpen days” all season, when the starting pitcher is not expected to go deep into the game, going all out for 3 or 4 innings before handing the ball over to another reliever, but today they take it even further. Short reliever Sergio Romo starts today’s game against the Angels, his first start in the majors after 588 appearances out of the bullpen, and is only asked to pitch one inning before handing the ball over to Ryan Yarbrough. The plan works perfectly as Romo strikes out the three men he faces — Zack Cozart, Mike Trout and Justin Upton, all righthanders — then hands the ball over to lefty Yarbrough in the 2nd. Yarbrough pitches scoreless ball until allowing a run in the 8th as Tampa Bay wins, 5-3. It is the first time a starting pitcher leaves after a perfect 1st inning since Ernie Shore had done so on October 5, 1915. Manager Kevin Cash is so pleased with how the scheme goes that he picks Romo to start the next day’s game as well.

2021 — Corey Kluber of the Yankees is the latest pitcher to join this season’s no-hitter parade, pulling off the feat with a 2-0 win over the Rangers at Globe Life Field. It is already the 6th 9-inning no-hitter this year, and comes one day after Spencer Turnbull of the Tigers had pitched the previous one.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

A striking UK destination used as a movie set, with 27,000 acres of ancient woodland and a meandering river passing through, has been named one of the ‘best places in the world’

Some of the world’s most spectacular places are right on our doorstep, and there’s one in the heart of an enchanting UK woodland.

Nestled between the Rivers Wye and Severn in Gloucestershire, straddling the Welsh border, lies the ancient Forest of Dean, with 27,000 acres of towering, majestic trees. It’s one of England’s largest ancient woodlands and stands as a celebrated haven of outstanding natural beauty.

It attracts visitors from far and wide to admire and explore its otherworldly woodland, rustic bridges, snowdrops, and spiralling rivers. But there’s one particular spot in the Forest of Dean that has been deemed the ‘best place in the world’.

READ MORE: UK’s ‘best day out’ for families revealed and it’s not Alton Towers or Thorpe ParkREAD MORE: Sun-soaked island 4 hours from UK with turquoise waters is ‘cheapest for Brits’

Speaking to the Mirror, forest ranger for Forest Holidays, Gerry O’Brien, said: “I love the Forest of Dean, it’s obviously an area very close to my heart, it’s rich in history, heritage and wildlife. I know it really well, inside out, I guess, now. There are a lot of hidden gems around the forest that I love to go and explore, but Symonds Yat Rock is one of my favourite places in the world. It’s an incredible place to go, and I love it.”

Symonds Yat Rock offers breathtaking views across the winding River Wye, which is towered over by limestone cliffs and sprawling acres of ancient woodland. It’s a haven for birdwatching, with goshawks, buzzards, and sparrowhawks sweeping over the viewpoint, and it has ample walking trails to soak up the picturesque vistas and explore the nearby forest.

Gerry further shared about Symonds Yat Rock: “It’s incredible, it’s an old Iron Age Hill Fort, it’s almost right on the Hertfordshire border, looking out over the countryside. You could imagine, like 2,500 years ago, people were living on that rock, which is hard to believe.

“There are peregrine falcons that nest in the cliff face along the edge, so you can often see them coming up. There’s also a woodland, and if you’re looking down from Symonds Yat Rock, with the River Wye below you, you can look out over Copper Hill and on the other side, it’s the woodland where Harry Potter was filmed.”

Sharing a closer insight into the area and its renowned connections, Gerry added: “If you go to Symonds Yat East, it’s a little hamlet by the river, it’s beautiful and really picturesque. But you walk right past the house that was used in the Netflix series, Sex Education.

“It’s the red house, so all of that was filmed in and along the Wye Valley. There are a lot of hidden gems around the Forest of Dean. They’ve done alot of movies and TV work around the forest.”

Another highlight in the Forest of Dean’s otherworldly scenes is the beautiful Puzzlewood with 14 acres of twisted, moss-draped trees, ancient wooden bridges and snowdrops scattered across the rugged terrain. Alongside Gerry’s favourite place in the world, Puzzlewood is frequently hailed as one of the region’s most picturesque locations.

It even secured a place on Big 7 Travel’s ’50 Most Beautiful Places in the UK’ list for 2025 and again this year. This fantastical atmosphere has also attracted Hollywood attention, serving as a backdrop for productions such as Star Wars: The Force Awakens, The Secret Garden, The Huntsman: Winter’s War, Doctor Who, Merlin, Netflix’s Our Planet and BBC’s Atlantis.

Elsewhere in the Forest of Dean, Gerry recommended King Arthur’s Cave and the nearby Little Doward Hill Fort, an Iron Age fort situated in the Wye Valley. But one lesser-known landmark he applauded is the Darkhill Ironworks.

“It’s an old industrial ruin, and it’s really atmospheric where nature has reclaimed around it”, Gerry shared. “You can do a little walk around the Ironworks, which is a nice nature walk, and you can see the ruins.”

To explore some of Gerry’s recommendations in the Forest of Dean, you can book a stay with Forest Holidays, which offers a collection of lodges, cabins and treehouses, some with outdoor hot tubs to soak under the towering trees. Meanwhile, the likes of Sykes Holiday Cottages and Holidaycottages.co.uk also offer a range of stays in the region.

Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com

Lake Balboa resident Jose Meraz is looking for a mayor who will turn L.A. around, cleaning up streets that he says are “filled with garbage.”

Schoolteacher Tracey Schroeder, a Republican candidate for state Assembly, is unhappy about crime, open-air drug use and the slow rebuilding effort in the wake of the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes.

Greg Whitley, a resident of Reseda, said he’s frustrated with homelessness and the influx of what he called “criminal illegal aliens.”

“I live with the Spanish community. Great people,” he said. “But these illegals that come here for criminal reasons, they’re making them look bad, and they don’t like it.”

All three showed up outside a five-bedroom home in Sherman Oaks on Saturday, looking to speak with reality TV personality Spencer Pratt, now waging an insurgent campaign for Los Angeles mayor in the June 2 election.

Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, left, poses with a supporter during a community meet-and-greet event Saturday at a home on Longridge Avenue in a residential neighborhood of Sherman Oaks.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

Standing in the entry to the home’s two-car garage, the onetime star of “The Hills” spent more than two hours shaking hands, giving hugs and posing for photos with his admirers, who waited in line under punishing San Fernando Valley sunshine.

Pratt used social media to invite the public to the campaign event, which took place in the district represented by one of his mayoral opponents, City Councilmember Nithya Raman.

He did not deliver any speeches outside the property, which is listed for rent on Zillow for $15,950 per month. He and a member of his security personnel said he was not taking interviews.

Pratt has been running in voter surveys behind Mayor Karen Bass, who is running for reelection, sometimes swapping places with Raman for second and third. He turned in a strong debate performance this month and has been outpacing his rivals in fundraising, according to the most recent disclosure reports.

While running for office, Pratt has blamed Bass for the 2025 wildfire that destroyed much of Pacific Palisades, including his home. He has railed against the city’s handling of homelessness, saying he would pursue a “treatment first” approach toward people with drug addiction who are living on the street.

Mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt, back to the camera, speaks with supporters Saturday during a community meet-and-greet event.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

Pratt said recently that he wants to increase Los Angeles Police Department staffing to 12,500 officers over the next decade, up from about 8,600. Speaking with one supporter on Saturday, he said the city needs to “make sure all the laws are being enforced.”

“Plenty of functioning cities enforce their laws,” he said.

That message resonated with many of the people in line.

“He is advocating for the safety and security of our families — specifically, for mothers to be able to walk their kids to school,” said Saba Lahar, a resident of Sherman Oaks, moments after talking to the candidate.

Pratt fans dropped off ballots, picked up lawn signs and stopped to pick up coffee drinks from the Hustle N Dough doughnut truck parked out front.

Some showed up even though they cannot cast ballots in L.A.

Ruben Jr., no last name given takes a picture of his father during mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt’s community meet-and-greet Saturday in Sherman Oaks.

(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)

Brian Rodda, who runs a walking food tour company, described himself as “an unsatisfied Angeleno” even though he lives in West Hollywood, which is not part of the city of L.A.

“Sadly, because I do live in West Hollywood, I cannot vote for him,” he said. “But I certainly think we need a change.”

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa might have heard two-thirds of delegates in the Time Warner Cable Arena approve changes to the Democratic Party platform early in the proceedings Wednesday night. But some delegates who were on the floor weren’t so sure he got the count right.

“I think it failed,” said Don Kershner, a delegate from Boise who said it sounded to him — sitting in the opposite end of the arena from the speaker’s platform — that at least 50% of delegates opposed the changes. Kershner was one of the only delegates from Idaho in the arena when the changes were made — itself a problem, he said. But he said he thought the party should have left well enough alone.

“They shouldn’t have messed with it,” said Kershner, wearing a white cowboy hat supporting the Boise State Broncos. “It’s clearly a dividing subject. We don’t want to drive a wedge into the party.”

PHOTOS: Scenes from the DNC

The drama occurred in the first moments of the convention proceedings Wednesday night, when Democratic officials reinserted language back into the official platform invoking God and affirming the role of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital.

Both passages had been in the 2008 version of the Democratic platform, but were removed in the drafting of this year’s edition.

President Obama personally had a hand in getting the language reinstated.

A Democratic official says the president was unhappy about the platform changes when he heard about them.

He told his staff to convey his opposition right away, which set the wheels in motion to reinstate.

On the “God” part, the official said, his response to hearing it was, “Why was it changed in the first place?”

But putting the passages back in the platform — a move Democratic officials appeared to think would go smoothly — caused loud objections in the convention hall.

Terri Holland was one of the people who voted against the amendments introduced Wednesday night. The New Mexico delegate from Albuquerque said she thought that Democrats had made the changes “to kow-tow to the religious right,” something the party should never do.

“I don’t think it has a business in anybody’s platform,” she said, about the part of the amendment that referred to giving “everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.”

Holland agreed that the first two votes Villaraigosa took did not get two-thirds approval. By the third time around, though, she said that her fellow “no” voters had given up the fight.

PHOTOS: Protests of the DNC

She and fellow delegate Richard Cooley said the proceedings were haphazard, and that the platform should have taken a paper ballot vote. Neither were even aware the changes would be made until Villaraigosa got up on the podium and started speaking.

“We’re Democrats, we love that stuff,” Holland said, about paper ballots.

Cooley added that Democrats had learned the importance of proper vote-taking in the Bush-Gore election in 2000. They shouldn’t take any vote for granted, he said, especially on such a divisive issue.

“We all have our own God,” he said.

Still, some delegates, including Charu Khopkar, a California delegate from Long Beach, said they thought Villaraigosa got the count right. Khopkar said he admired Villaraigosa for taking the time to ask three times for a vote, even if it’s not an issue that he cares deeply about one way or another.

“Myself, I am not a believer,” he said. “But I think it’s a perfectly appropriate part of the platform.”

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Liverpool’s woes deepen as Ollie Watkins scores a brace to help his side to a dominant win at Villa Park.

Ollie Watkins scored twice as Aston Villa eased to a 4-2 Premier League victory over Liverpool to seal Champions League qualification for next ⁠season and leave their visitors looking over their shoulder at the chasing pack.

The win on Friday moves Villa into fourth place with 62 points from their 37 games, leapfrogging their opponents, who have 59 points from ⁠the same number of matches.

Liverpool remain vulnerable to being caught by both Bournemouth and Brighton in the race for a Champions League place as they slipped to a 12th defeat of the season with a single point from the last nine available.

Morgan Rogers gave Villa a first half lead before Virgil van ‌Dijk equalised for Liverpool early in the second period and then got another in added time.

But Watkins’ double and a brilliant late fourth from John McGinn sealed the win for Unai Emery’s side, who head into Wednesday’s Europa League final against Freiburg in buoyant mood.

“We had to get over the line,” McGinn told Sky Sports. It allows us to be excited and enjoy Wednesday properly.

“[Watkins] was obviously disappointed in March [being left out of the England squad] but if it gave him a kick ⁠up the backside, he’s certainly responded in the best way.

“We’re so fortunate to ⁠have him, what he’s done for this club the past few seasons has been incredible. Hopefully he can carry that into next week.”

Villa head to Istanbul to meet Freiburg with one of their major goals this season already achieved, and the chance ⁠to lift silverware to cap their campaign.

The hosts took the lead on 42 minutes against the run of play. Lucas Digne found Rogers in space ⁠on the left-hand side of the box and the forward curled ⁠it into the far corner.

Liverpool levelled on 52 minutes when Van Dijk headed home at the back post from Dominik Szoboszlai’s free-kick, before 17-year-old winger Rio Ngumoha struck the base of the post from the edge of the box.

But a slip from Szoboszlai ‌presented Watkins with a second goal for the home side, and Emiliano Buendia struck the Liverpool post with a curling shot as Villa looked the more likely to score again.

And so it proved as ‌Watkins ‌netted his second via a rebound from close range.

McGinn curled in a beautiful shot to make it 4-1 on 89 minutes, before Van Dijk’s second headed goal brought some respectability to the scoreline.

Liverpool manager ‌Arne Slot said he feels no added pressure after the defeat but admitted ⁠his side are conceding too many soft goals.

“It’s not about me, it’s about us being disappointed with the result,” Slot told the BBC. “I spoke yesterday on it [my future] and that’s enough.

“Our focus is on the Brentford game [next weekend] and making sure we earn the support of the fans by starting the game aggressive and ⁠well.”

Villa scored four times on Friday but might have had several ⁠more goals as they cut apart Liverpool’s defence.

“We have conceded a ⁠lot of goals this season, which you’d find hard to believe unless you live it and that’s what we did today,” he said.

“Villa were the better team and the game ‌went away from us.”

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday turned down an appeal from Virginia Democrats whose new voter-approved state election map was canceled by the state’s Supreme Court.

The justices made no comment, and the legal outcome came as no surprise.

The U.S. Supreme Court has no authority to review or reverse rulings by state judges interpreting their state’s constitution — unless the decision turned on federal law or the U.S. Constitution.

But the Virginia ruling came as a political shock, particularly after 3 million voters had cast ballots and narrowly approved a new election map that would favor Democrats in 10 of its 11 congressional districts.

That would have represented an increase of four seats for Democrats in the House of Representatives.

Even worse for Democrats, the court setback in Virginia came a week after the Supreme Court’s ruling in a Louisiana case had bolstered Republicans.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices reinterpreted the Voting Rights Act and freed Republican-controlled states in the South to dismantle districts that were drawn to favor Black Democrats.

In the two weeks since then, the GOP has flipped seven districts in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana and Florida.

The Virginia Supreme Court decision pointed to a procedural flaw which turned on the definition of an “election.”

To amend the state Constitution, Virginia lawmakers must adopt the proposal twice — once before a “general election” and a second time after the election. It is then submitted to the voters.

Last fall, Democrats proposed to amend the state Constitution to permit a mid-decade redistricting.

However, by a 4-3 vote, the state justices said the General Assembly flubbed the first approval because it took place on Oct. 31 of last year, just five days before the election.

By then, they said, about 40% of the voters had cast early ballots.

In defense of the Legislature, the state’s attorneys said the proposed amendment was approved before election day, which complies with the state Constitution.

But the majority explained “the noun ‘election’ must be distinguished from the noun phrase ‘election day’.”

It reasoned that because early voters had already cast ballots before the constitutional amendment was first adopted, the proposal was not approved before the election.

The dissenters said the election took place on “election day” and the proposal had been adopted prior to that time.

The state’s lawyers adopted that view in their appeal and argued that under federal law, the election takes place on election day.
But the Supreme Court turned away the appeal with no comment.

The result is that a state amendment that won approval twice before both houses of the Legislature and in a statewide vote was judged to have failed.

The state says it will use the current map, which had elected Democrats to the House in six districts and Republicans in five.

Visitors to one Italian destination say it’s “incredible”, but it was once a place shunned by many

Italy is a beautiful country with each province very different from the next – and each Italian area has its own identity and culture. While holidaymakers typically flock to the Amalfi Coast, cities such as Florence or Rome or Lake Garda or Lake Como, there’s a lesser-known spot that has left visitors speechless with delight.

Once famous for being the ‘shame of Italy’, Matera, a city based high on a rocktop in the southern Basilicata is now a luxurious tourist getaway. Here, a collection of old cave dwellings forged into the mountains in an area called Sassi offer a peaceful inland holiday infused with history.

The cave dwellings were evacuated by the Italian government in the 1950s, hailed as slums at the time with poor living conditions. Thousands of residents were transferred into modern housing and Prime Minister Alcide De Gasperi, of the time, described Matera as a “national disgrace”.

It’s likely that not all the locals wanted to leave their Matera homes at the time, but the spot was deemed a health hazard with no ample sewage system or electricity – and it was poverty-stricken.

One former Matera resident once described living conditions as “brutal,” with “families of maybe nine or 10 children, sleeping next to mules and pigs”.

“We were dying of hunger”, said Luigi Plasmati recalling his family’s life in Matera several years ago, when he was 89-years-old.

These days things have really turned around – and several Airbnb cave-style accommodation stays are described as “exceptional” by those who visit.

Sassi di Matera covers two districts, with the city of Matera situated on a mountain top.

One TripAdvisor review by a guest staying in Pietragialla, which looks across to the city of Matera, described their cave stay as an “incredible experience”.

The cave stay reviewer wrote: “I am speechless for how good we felt. It was an incredible experience and everything was unbelievable. The room is fantastic. The bathroom is the best bathroom I’ve ever been and the bath tub is from another planet. But the most incredible thing is the silence.”

The visitor went on to describe “pure sleep” they experienced in the cave due to the peacefulness and darkness as the cave has “no windows”.

Breakfast, they went on, was already prepared the previous night so you “can have it at any time” and it included fresh fruit, juices, marmalades, fresh local bread, almonds and even almond milk.

The TripAdvisor reviewer added: “Once you leave the room you have in front of you the whole city centre, it looks like a fairy tale. Pietragialla is an experience that needs to be done once in life at least.”

The Sassi district boasts museums such as the Cave House in the Sassi of Matera, which show visitors what peasant life was like in the region just a few decades ago.

There are also churches made of rock that date back to the 13th-century, with St. Lucia alle Malve (a Catholic church in Matera) being described as the “most beautiful” with its ancient mosaics dating back centuries.

Gabriel Gudmundsson could return for Leeds after a two-match absence with a thigh injury.

Pascal Struijk is a doubt after hobbling off during Monday’s 1‑1 draw at Spurs.

Full Leeds’ team news will be provided by the manager, Daniel Farke, in his press conference later on Friday.

Kaoru Mitoma is set to miss the final two games for Brighton, as well as the World Cup, after suffering a hamstring injury.

Diego Gomez is back in contention, while Mats Wieffer could also feature.

Players out: Leeds – Okafor, Gruev, Bogle Brighton – Mitoma, Tzimas, Webster

Doubts: Leeds – Gudmundsson, Struijk Brighton – Wieffer

Key FPL notes: