process

Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese is joining the ranks of entertainment industry power players embracing generative AI.

Black Forest Labs, the German AI startup behind the text-to-image model Flux, announced Tuesday that Scorsese is joining the company as an advisor.

The company unveiled the collaboration on its website with a video of the auteur using Flux to storyboard scenes, which involves mocking up shots before filming.

“This conveys a cinematic intelligence,” he said in the video, discussing the program’s uses with Black Forest Labs co-founder and Chief Executive Robin Rombach and Creative Artists Agency co-founder Michael Ovitz. According to the New York Times, Ovitz, an investor in Black Forest Labs, helped bring Scorsese aboard, along with Rick Yorn, Scorsese’s talent manager, whose investment firm BroadLight Capital is also an investor.

In a statement, Scorsese emphasized the potential for AI to transform the storyboarding process.

“For 70 years, I’ve been creating my own storyboards. There’s always been this problem of how do you communicate what you see in your head to your cast and crew. There are some things you have to see and feel,” he said. “I’m interested in the intersection of technology and storytelling, and seeing how that can push the bounds of creativity to create deeper and richer experiences for audiences.”

Traditionally, storyboarding is done by hand or digital illustration through a collaboration between directors and storyboard artists.

Scorsese’s public espousal of this technology marks the latest shift in attitude about AI from powerful Hollywood creatives. Since generative AI became widely accessible in 2022, Hollywood has struggled to navigate its power to rapidly upend industry norms.

Scorsese is not the first decorated filmmaker to embrace AI. James Cameron, the Oscar-winning “Avatar” director, is on the board of directors for Stability AI, where Rombach worked before launching Black Forest Labs. In his keynote address at the AI on the Lot conference last week, director and screenwriter Paul Schrader expressed a mixture of admiration and caution toward the technology.

“AI does not create — it combines,” Shrader said. “If AI wants an idea, it has to go to where that idea already exists. Of course, you can make the argument that that’s all artists do anyway, and to a degree that’s a valid argument. But you still have to come up with something.”

Not everybody is on board with generative AI’s potential transformations. Guillermo del Toro and Seth Rogen spoke out against the technology at Cannes last month, and below-the-line wokers, screenwriters and actors have continued to express apprehension and even horror at the prospect of being replaced by generative AI.

Scorsese’s entry into the AI field might especially shock fans given his traditionalist approach to filmmaking. In 2019, he famously criticized Marvel movies, calling them “theme parks” and “not cinema.”

“It isn’t the cinema of human beings trying to convey emotional, psychological experiences to another human being,” he said in a 2019 interview with Empire Magazine.

Even if his filmmaking centers humanity, Scorsese’s partnership with Black Forest Labs demonstrates his willingness to incorporate non-human assistance.

“Remember, cinema is a young medium, only around 125 years old, so we have to be open to how it can evolve,” he said in the statement on Black Forest Labs’ website.

Ten years after Colombia’s landmark peace agreement, former president Juan Manuel Santos assesses its legacy. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate discusses renewed violence, political divisions and what Colombia’s experience can teach a world facing growing conflict.

NEW YORK — American businesses big and small have started receiving tariff refunds after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that President Trump lacked the constitutional authority to impose higher import taxes on goods from nearly every other country.

The process could grind to a halt, however, after the Trump administration said Friday that it intended to appeal a federal judge’s order to allow all companies that paid the illegal import taxes to seek refunds, not just the ones that filed lawsuits.

Until the Department of Justice informed the judge of its planned appeal, the refund system overseen by U.S. Customs and Border Protection had been working fairly smoothly. Refunds reached the bank accounts of the first successful applicants on May 12, about three weeks after American importers and their customs brokers could start submitting claims through an online system, according to CBP.

Applications for refunds totaling $85 billion — more than half of the $166 billion the agency estimated the government owes to companies that paid the illegal tariffs on imported goods — were accepted for processing as of May 22, CBP reported in a legal filing earlier in the week. It said it had so far directed the Treasury Department to issue $20.6 billion in refunds.

The administration revealed its appeal preparations while objecting to a demand by Judge Richard K. Eaton for CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott to appear in the U.S. Court of International Trade to answer questions about how long it would take to repay all 330,000 importers that might be eligible for refunds. The judge has scheduled a June 9 hearing on why he shouldn’t require the government do whatever it takes to speed up the process.

Justice Department lawyers asked Eaton to allow one or two of Scott’s deputies to appear in his place, arguing that as a high-ranking presidential appointee, the CBP chief could not be compelled to testify in court. They also argued that Eaton exceeded his own authority when he determined in March that the Supreme Court’s ruling entitled “all importers of record’’ to refunds.

“For that reason, defendants intend to appeal the court’s universal injunction,” the lawyers wrote, adding that CBP would continue to move “as quickly as it can to process refunds in a phased approach” for businesses that filed some 485 pending trade court complaints to assert their rights to refunds.

In a terse reply Friday, Eaton said he needed to hear directly from Scott whether the government would return all of the money it collected between when Trump imposed what he called “reciprocal” tariffs on goods from most countries in April 2025 and when the Supreme Court struck them down in late February.

“This case involves $166 billion,” the judge wrote. “It is undisputed that the remedy for this unlawful collection is for the United States government to refund the unlawfully collected duties.”

Some national retail chains said they planned to use their tariff refunds to lower customer prices on some items. Walmart Chief Financial Officer John David Rainey told analysts last week that the company would implement price cuts even though the maximum refund it might be eligible for represented less than half of 1% of Walmart’s $483 billion in annual U.S. sales.

Some smaller companies told the Associated Press that the partial refunds they’ve received so far would go toward paying remaining or future tariffs, reducing debt or just keeping the lights on after more than a year of uncertainty and additional import costs.

Jay Foreman, chief executive of toy company Basic Fun, said he received about $450,000, or 7% of his total claim, over two consecutive days this month. He took the initial repayment as a positive sign but said that after having less than $10,000 refunded since then, the process seemed like a “total slow roll.”

“It’s time to release the funds back into the economy, especially given how much we and others need these funds to support our businesses and fund our operations,” Foreman said.

Anderson writes for the Associated Press.

Dodgers defeat the Brewers

From Maddie Lee: Looking back, Alex Vesia can say that when was traded from the Miami Marlins to the Dodgers with fellow pitching prospect Kyle Hurt in 2021, he had “no idea” what it actually meant to trust the process.

Sure, it’s a cliche, and one most strongly associated with the Philadelphia 76ers’ rebuild in the NBA a decade ago. But it’s had staying power in the sports lexicon for a reason.

The mantra clicked for Vesia in his first season with the Dodgers.

“When I first heard of it, it was just like, OK, I know what a process is,” he said before the Dodgers’ 5-1 win against the Milwaukee Brewers on Sunday. “But then watching it over the course of the year — where fastballs need to be placed, where sliders need to go, just trusting the information. That when a guy swings a lot at sliders and misses them, trusting that when you throw yours, he will miss it.

“And then over the course of a few outings, when you see those results, it’s like, ‘OK, I can do this’ more and more and more.”

Vesia is now one of the veteran leaders in a Dodgers bullpen that set a franchise record Saturday with 36 consecutive scoreless innings, surpassing the mark of 33 set in 1998. The Dodgers extended the streak to 38 on Sunday.

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Dodgers box score

MLB standings

Some Angels fans are fed up with Arte

From Joaquin Ruiz: Lifelong Angels fan Johnny Gonzalez has reached his boiling point as the team sits at the bottom of the standings, but he’s not giving up. And he’s not alone.

The Angels completed a surprise sweep of the Rangers Sunday, but the team still is tied for the worst record in Major League Baseball with a 20-34. Their fans spent the holiday weekend pushing back against the idea that the franchise would never be more than a bargain option amid rising prices all around them.

Frustrated fans have gone shirtless during the Angels’ homestand and chanted for owner Arte Moreno to “sell the team.” And about 75 fans heeded Gonzalez’s call for a protest, gathering in front of the Angel Stadium State College Boulevard entrance on Saturday chanting “sell the team,” “we want playoffs” and “winning matters.” Drivers passing the spectacle honked their horns in support.

“They’re not doing much for us fans,” said Gonzalez, who organized the protest using the Instagram account @AngelsBoycott. “It seems like every other team is just doing a lot more than us, despite us having a huge following [and] having some of the best players to ever play the game. I mean, it’s just like a lack of commitment, to say the least, and that’s why we’re here today.”

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Angels sweep the Rangers

From Joaquin Ruiz: Reid Detmers had a career-high 14 strikeouts and pinch runner Donovan Walton touched home on an errant throw in the ninth to give the Angels a walk-off 2-1 win at Angel Stadium and their first three-game sweep of the season.

With one out and runners on first and second in the ninth, third baseman Oswald Peraza grounded into a fielder’s choice at second. Rangers second baseman Justin Foscue bobbled the ball and first baseman Jake Burger couldn’t cleanly field his throw, allowing Walton to advance from second to score the game-winning run.

The Angels’ dugout erupted as Walton scored.

“That was amazing,” Peraza said. “I went up there and just put the ball in play, and not trying too much. I’m happy for the sweep. And yeah, amazing.”

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Angels box score

MLB standings

Big win for UCLA baseball

The UCLA comeback kings are Big Ten tournament champions.

A clutch hit by Aidan Espinoza and two reviews fueled the No. 1 Bruins’ rally for a dramatic 3-2 win over Oregon in 11 innings in the Big Ten tournament title game Sunday in Omaha, Neb.

UCLA rallied for wins during all three of its Big Ten tournament games and has earned 28 comeback wins this season.

“I’m just glad we won,” UCLA junior Mulivai Levu said during a postgame interview on the Big Ten Network. “It was a team effort today. Everyone did their job. Once again, we came from behind and did it.”

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UCLA’s Megan Grant is making history

From Mirjam Swanson: The power of power, you know?

The power of friendship, the power of persuasion. Power of positive thinking, power at the plate.

Megan Grant’s power.

If there’s one thing in American sports that’s going to get people to sit up, lean forward and engage, it’s the home run. We all dig the long ball.

If anything can get someone to run home and turn on a softball game, it’s a big-time slugger from a big-time school mashing homers like nobody before.

Heard about Grant? She’s the UCLA softball player who’s hit an NCAA-record 40 home runs (so far) this season.

Forty! In 147 at-bats! That’s a home run every 3.68 at-bats!

If you’re wondering, Mark McGwire hit a home run every 7.3 at-bats in 1998, the year he finished with 70. And Barry Bonds went deep every 6.52 at-bats in 2001, when he hit his MLB-record 73 home runs.

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LAFC shuts out Seattle

Timothy Tillman scored in the 86th minute, his first goal in more than two years, Thomas Hasal had five saves, and LAFC beat the Seattle Sounders 1-0 on Sunday night in the final MLS match before the 2026 World Cup break.

LAFC (7-5-3) ended a three-game losing streak and a four-game winless stretch.

LAFC has won six straight and is 9-0-1 at home against the Sounders in the regular season. Seattle has two wins at BMO Stadium in the MLS Cup playoffs, most recently a 2-1 victory in extra time to advance to the 2024 Western Conference final.

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LAFC coach Marc Dos Santos hopes to restore attacking identity after World Cup

LAFC summary

MLS standings

This day in sports history

1935 — Legendary American athlete Jesse Owens equals or breaks four world records in 45 minutes at a Big Ten meet at Ferry Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan; remembered as “the greatest 45 minutes ever in sport”.

1948 — Ben Hogan wins the PGA championship, beating Mike Turnesa in the final round, 7 and 6.

1965 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Sonny Liston a minute into the first round in the controversial rematch for Ali’s heavyweight title. Listed as the fastest knockout in a heavyweight title bout, Liston goes down on a short right-hand punch.

1967 — European Cup Final, Estádio Nacional, Lisbon: Glasgow Celtic beats Internazionale, 2-1; first British team to win the Cup.

1972 — Heavyweight Joe Frazier KOs Ron Stander.

1975 — The Golden State Warriors become the third team to sweep the NBA finals, beating the Washington Bullets 96-95 on Butch Beard’s foul shot with 9 seconds remaining.

1977 — 21st European Cup: Liverpool beats Borussia Monchengladbach 3-1 at Rome.

1978 — The Montreal Canadiens defeat the Boston Bruins 4-1 in Game 6 for their third straight Stanley Cup.

1980 — Johnny Rutherford wins his third Indianapolis 500 in seven years and becomes the first driver to win twice from the pole position.

1983 — 27th European Cup: Hamburg beats Juventus 1-0 at Athens.

1987 — Herve Filion becomes the first harness racing driver to win 10,000 races. Filion reaches the milestone driving Commander Bond to victory in the third race at Yonkers Raceway.

1988 — 32nd European Cup: PSV Eindhoven beats Benfica (0-0, 6-5 on penalties) at Stuttgart.

1989 — Stanley Cup Final, Montreal Forum, Montreal, Quebec: Calgary Flames beat Montreal Canadiens, 4-2 to win series 4 games to 2; Flames’ first SC title.

1991 — The Pittsburgh Penguins, led by Mario Lemieux, win the Stanley Cup for the first time with an 8-0 rout of the Minnesota North Stars.

1998 — Princeton punctuates its claim as one of college lacrosse’s great programs by beating Maryland 15-5 for its third straight NCAA Division I title and fifth in seven years.

2002 — Boston sets an NBA record, overcoming a 21-point fourth-quarter deficit in a 94-90 win over New Jersey. The Celtics outscore the Nets 41-16 in the quarter.

2003 — Juli Inkster shoots a 10-under 62 — tying the lowest final-round score by a winner in LPGA Tour history — to beat Lorie Kane by four strokes in the LPGA Corning Classic.

2005 — 13th UEFA Champions League Final: Liverpool beats Milan (3-3, 3-2 on penalties).

2007 — Bjarne Riis is the first Tour de France winner to admit using performance-enhancing drugs to win the sport’s premier race, further eroding cycling’s credibility after a series of doping confessions. His admission means the top three finishers in the 1996 Tour are linked to doping — with two admitting to cheating.

2008 — Seven crashes and spinouts mar the first Indianapolis 500 since the two warring open-wheel series (CART and IRL) came together under the IndyCar banner. Scott Dixon stays ahead of the trouble to win the race.

2008 — Senior PGA Championship, Oak Hill CC: Jay Haas wins his second title in the event by 1 stroke from Germany’s Bernhard Langer.

2009 — Syracuse rallies from a three-goal deficit in the final 3:37 of regulation to beat Cornell 10-9 and win its second straight and unprecedented 11th NCAA lacrosse title.

2013 — UEFA Champions League Final, London: Arjen Robben scores twice as Bayern Munich beats Borussia Dortmund, 2-1 in first all-German final.

2014 — Senior PGA Championship, GC at Shore Harbor: Colin Montgomerie of Scotland wins first of 3 Champions Tour majors by 4 strokes from Tom Watson.

Compiled by the Associated Press

This day in baseball history

1906 — Jesse Tannehill’s 3-0 victory over the Chicago White Sox snapped a 20-game losing streak — 19 at home — for the Boston Red Sox.

1935 — Babe Ruth, winding up his career with the Boston Braves, hit three homers and a single at Pittsburgh, but the Pirates won 11-7. Ruth connected once off Red Lucas and twice off Guy Bush.

1941 — Boston’s Ted Williams raised his batting average over .400 for the first time during the season. Williams finished the season batting. 406.

1951 — Willie Mays, a highly touted rookie for the Giants, went 0-for-5 in his debut against the Philadelphia Phillies.

1982 — Ferguson Jenkins became the seventh pitcher to strike out 3,000 batters in the Chicago Cubs’ 2-1 loss at San Diego. Jenkins reached the milestone by striking out Garry Templeton in the third inning.

2001 — Kerry Wood of the Chicago Cubs gave up one hit and struck out 14 in a 1-0 win over the Brewers. Wood took a no-hit bid into the seventh before giving up a leadoff single to Mark Loretta.

2001 — Hideo Nomo of the Boston Red Sox tossed a one-hitter and struck out 14 in a 4-0 win over Toronto. Nomo faced one batter over the minimum of 27, giving up a leadoff double in the fourth to Shannon Stewart.

2002 — Shawn Green of the Dodgers homered twice in a 10-5 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, setting a major league record with seven homers in his last three games.

2005 — The St. Louis Cardinals beat the Pittsburgh Pirates, 2-1, in 12 innings, as manager Tony La Russa wins his 823rd game with the Cardinals, passing Whitey Herzog for second place on the franchise list. La Russa is 218 victories behind Cardinals leader Red Schoendienst.

2009 — Jim Thome passes Mike Schmidt for 13th on the all-time home run list, as the White Sox thump the Angels, 17-3.

2009 — Cleveland rallied from a 10-0 deficit in the fourth as Victor Martinez’s two-out, two-run single in the ninth capped a seven-run inning and lifted the Indians to an 11-10 victory over Tampa Bay. The Indians became the first team in the majors to win after trailing by 10 runs since the Texas Rangers rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 16-15 on May 8, 2004.

2011 — Andruw Jones hit a pair of two-run homers, Mark Teixeira also hit a two-run shot and Mariano Rivera made a milestone appearance in New York’s 7-3 victory over Toronto. Rivera pitched the ninth inning in a non-save situation, the 1,000th game he’s played for the Yankees. The 11-time All-Star closer became the first player in major league history to reach the plateau for one team and the 15th to make it overall. Jones homered in the second inning and Teixeira in the third off Jo-Jo Reyes, who matched a major league record by making his 28th consecutive start without a win.

2011 — Infielder Wilson Valdez wound up as the winning pitcher when the Philadelphia Phillies needed 19 innings to outlast the Cincinnati Reds 5-4. Valdez threw a hitless 19th inning in his first pro pitching appearance. He became the first position player to become a winning pitcher since Colorado catcher Brent Mayne on Aug. 22, 2000.

2012 — Nelson Cruz hit a grand slam and tied his career high with eight RBIs, Josh Hamilton hit his 19th home run of the season and the Texas Rangers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 14-3. Cruz’s grand slam came in the seventh inning and gave Texas a 14-1 lead. He also had a three-run double in the first and an RBI single in the sixth.

2013 — Angel Pagan became the first San Francisco player to end a game with an inside-the-park homer, connecting with a runner aboard in the bottom of the 10th inning to give the Giants a 6-5 victory over Colorado. The last major leaguer to hit an inside-the-park home run that ended a game was Rey Sanchez for Tampa Bay on June 11, 2004 — also in a 10-inning victory over Colorado.

2014 — Josh Beckett of the Dodgers records the first no-hitter of the year by blanking the Phillies, 6-0. It is the first no-hitter by a Dodgers pitcher since Hideo Nomo pitched one in 1996, and the first nine-inning no-hitter by an opposing pitcher in Philadelphia since Bill Stoneman of the Montreal Expos back in 1969.

2019 — The Padres set a franchise record with seven homers in a 19-4 win over the Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre. Wil Myers and Hunter Renfroe hit two each while Austin Hedges blasts a grand slam off Edwin Jackson. Cal Quantrill is the beneficiary of this power display as he records his first career victory a short distance from his hometown of Port Hope, Canada, while another local boy, Josh Naylor from Mississauga, Canada, collects his first three big league hits for the Padres in the game.

2021 — By working home plate in a game between the Cardinals and White Sox, Joe West sets a new career record with 5,376 games as an umpire, passing Bill Klem, whose last game was in 1941.

2022 — Anaheim City Council votes unanimously to cancel the sale of Angel Stadium and surrounding land to Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno, after the resignation of Mayor Bill Sidhu on corruption charges a few days earlier. The $350-million sale had been agreed in December 2019 but not yet finalized, and was at the center of an FBI investigation that led to accusations that Sidhu had provided insider information to the team and in return demanded kickbacks in the form of campaign contributions. The city council members are now no longer convinced that the proposed deal reflects the city’s best interests, and are willing to risk a breach of contract lawsuit from Moreno in order to examine a potential deal again, starting from scratch.

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.

The power of power, you know?

The power of friendship, the power of persuasion. Power of positive thinking, power at the plate.

Megan Grant’s power.

If there’s one thing in American sports that’s going to get people to sit up, lean forward and engage, it’s the home run. We all dig the long ball.

If anything can get someone to run home and turn on a softball game, it’s a big-time slugger from a big-time school mashing homers like nobody before.

Heard about Grant? She’s the UCLA softball player who’s hit an NCAA-record 40 home runs (so far) this season.

UCLA senior Megan Grant leans over and holds her helmet between pitches during a super regional game against UCF on Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Forty! In 147 at-bats! That’s a home run every 3.68 at-bats!

If you’re wondering, Mark McGwire hit a home run every 7.3 at-bats in 1998, the year he finished with 70. And Barry Bonds went deep every 6.52 at-bats in 2001, when he hit his MLB-record 73 home runs.

Whenever she gets asked about her historic home runs, the red-hot, red-haired hitter is like, shucks: “I mean, it’s incredible,” she said. “I’m just honestly blessed to be able to say the number 40. But, yeah, that’s all I can say.”

She just wants to be thought of as a hard worker and a good teammate. But what Grant is going to be remembered for most is as the founding member of softball’s 40-home run club.

Her 40th home run came in her 58th game this season and on her seventh career grand slam — Grant Slam? — in the Bruins’ NCAA regional final victory over South Carolina last weekend.

Forty, a round number of round-trippers with a ring to it. And a sweet echo coming so soon after the Bruins women’s basketball team won its first NCAA championship, history to which Grant also contributed as a reserve before softball beckoned.

Side quest completed, the left-handed-hitting senior stepped back into the box to help the Bruins chase a 13th championship on the softball field.

Grant is soaking up the experience, and encouraging her younger teammates to, too: “‘Enjoy this, it’s so rare to be here’ … and, ‘Hey, we can do this, we can do it together.’”

A .469 hitter, she leads the nation in slugging percentage (1.333), on-base percentage (.650) and OPS (1.983). She bats second in UCLA’s NCAA record-breaking lineup that shattered Oklahoma’s 25-year-old previous record of 160 home runs. UCLA hit seven home runs during two super regional wins against Central Florida this weekend to push that record to 200.

With a 9-1 win Friday and a 14-4 victory Saturday, the Bruins advanced to the Women’s College World Series for the 34th time and for the third time in Grant’s astounding tenure.

UCLA senior Megan Grant (43) high-fives teammates during a win over UCF Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Tip your helmet and toss Grant her bouquets — flower power — because there she is popping up on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and on the MLB Network. One of three finalists for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, she’s got guys discussing her exploits on a dad pod otherwise dedicated to NBA takes. Fans dressed up as chefs as a tribute to her nickname, “Chef Megan.”

Star power, power broker. Grant is a lift-all-boats attraction for a sport that’s been steadily carving out space in the public consciousness.

All over the country, college softball teams have been breaking attendance records. And ratings are up, up, up; ESPN said this has been its most-watched college softball regular season since 2009, with games averaging 292,000 viewers. The MLB-backed Athletes Unlimited Softball League is entering Season 2; Grant was drafted No. 4 overall by the Portland Cascade.

“People will pay to see her play,” said Lisa Fernandez, UCLA softball legend and associate head coach.

Fernandez also is the general manager of the AUSL’s Utah Talons, for whom UCLA’s other senior slugger Jordan Woolery will play this summer.

The Bruins imported the latest in a lineage of Bay Area dynamic duos. The Oakland Athletics had the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire; the Golden State Warriors gave us the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. And now UCLA has Walnut Creek’s Woolery and Grant, of San Bruno — the Bruin Bombers.

They’re the first teammates in NCAA history to each hit 30-plus homers in the same season, with 74 between them.

And, yes, chefs! Like Curry before her, Grant is cookin’ the competition, breaking the 31-year-old NCAA single-season home run record with No. 38 on May 9 against Nebraska.

Included among the record wreckage she’s leaving in her wake: Stacey Nuveman’s UCLA single-season record of 31 homers. For her career, Grant needs only one more to tie Nuveman’s Bruins record of 90.

But Grant’s got to get a pitch to hit first. After UCF walked her six times in two games, she has 74 walks this season and 69 base hits. She also has 13 hit by pitches.

“It’s very similar to Barry Bonds, right?” Fernandez said. “It’s either a walk or a home run. Like, you pick.”

The tale of the tape measure behind Grant’s greatness is the down-to-the inch precision of her preparation. The Mamba-esque magic is in the embracing behind-the-scenes monotony, powering through it.

“She was the hardest worker, always working. Never enough,” said Ray McDonald, Grant’s coach at the San Mateo-based Warrior Softball Academy since she was that kid with an electric, bat-busting swing. “It was eating and sleeping, hitting, and you know, shower. The essentials.”

“When we recruited her, Ray, he was like, ‘Coach, you better be ready to work,’” said Fernandez. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I know how to work.’ And [then] I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I understand how people must have felt when I played.’

“There is an aspect of this game that people don’t realize unless you are in it. To be great, there’s a — for lack of a better word — monotony to the process. Can you master the same move over and over again? And she’s committed to it. To her drills, to the process, to her routine, all of it. There’s a lot of people who are committed to it when they’re not doing well: ‘Oh, got to get back to my drills.’ She has been committed to that process from the day she stepped on campus.”

The process includes working on her mind. That deep, deep breath before every deep, deep home run is a way to stay centered. To stay in the moment — and it is a moment.

For softball. For UCLA. For Grant, who, with all this power and responsibility, is hitting it out of the park.

It’s entirely possible — as hard as it may be to conceive in these deeply tribal, us-vs.-them times — for two competing notions to be true.

Tina Peters personally enriched herself and betrayed the public trust by perpetrating a harebrained scheme to “prove” the 2020 election in Mesa County, Colo., was rigged against President Trump. The former county clerk and MAGA warrior deserved to go to jail.

But the nine-year sentence she received was unduly harsh and, according to an appeals court decision, improperly meted out as punishment for the false and reckless public statements Peters made, a clear violation of her 1st Amendment rights. The court kicked the case back for resentencing.

That’s when Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis, stepped in.

And stepped in it.

Over the strenuous objection of fellow Democrats and many Republicans — including Peters’ prosecutor and a majority of Colorado’s election clerks — Polis commuted her sentence, clearing the way for Peters’ parole on June 1 after less than two years in prison.

Which just goes to show three wrongs don’t make a right.

Peters, 70, was convicted on multiple criminal counts, four of them felonies, for conspiring to let an unauthorized person access supposedly compromised voting equipment. She then lied to cover up her actions.

Trump carried Mesa County, a conservative stronghold, by nearly 30 percentage points, making Peters’ actions — apart from illegal — unaccountably stupid. But her conniving made her a belle of Mar-a-Lago and a celebrity on the election-denial circuit, jetting around the country and spewing cockamamie conspiracy theories.

Trump loudly agitated for her release.

His corrupted Justice Department sought to get Peters sprung from Colorado prison, presumably to set her loose from a federal facility. The president issued a symbolic “pardon,” though Peters’ conviction on state charges put her beyond his crooked reach. Trump insulted and belittled Polis, suggesting, among other things, he “rot in hell.” More significantly, the vengeful president waged economic war against Colorado.

Among the retributive acts, Trump slashed federal funds earmarked for the state, closed a climate research center in Boulder and moved the U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado Springs to Alabama.

Polis, who has a broad libertarian streak, insisted his freeing of Peters was not a capitulation to Trump, but rather a matter of principle, which seems plausible to the extent the governor could have anticipated the unshirted hell he’s gotten from fellow Democrats.

Among the great many infuriated by Polis’ decision are Colorado’s two U.S. senators, as well as other vocal critics up and down the ballot. (One of those indignant senators is Michael Bennet, who is running to replace Polis.) There have been calls, within his own party, to investigate and impeach the governor, who had been spoken of as a potential presidential candidate in 2028.

“He was aiming for a national profile,” said Floyd Ciruli, a pollster who’s been taking soundings of Colorado voters for decades. “This makes it much more difficult.”

Given Democrats’ molten outrage, that seems like an understatement.

The judge who sentenced Peters in October 2024 was unsparing.

“You’re as defiant … a defendant as this court has ever seen,” District Judge Matthew Barrett scolded her. “You are as privileged as they come and you used that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame. You are no hero…. You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”

Amen.

The problem, according to the Colorado Court of Appeals, was that Barrett wrongly punished Peters not just for her illegal actions but for speaking out about alleged election fraud.

“Her offense was not her belief, however misguided the trial court deemed it to be, in the existence of such election fraud,” the three-judge panel wrote in a unanimous April decision. “It was her deceitful actions in her attempt to gather evidence of such fraud.”

The judges — all Democratic appointees — upheld Peters’ conviction and denied her request to transfer the case from Barrett. They ordered him to come up with a new sentence.

And that’s where Polis, who placed Barrett on the bench, should have let things alone.

Instead, the governor interceded and essentially cut Peters’ sentence in half.

“The crimes you were convicted of are very serious and you deserve to spend time in prison,” Polis wrote in his commutation letter. “However, this is an extremely unusual and lengthy sentence for a first time offender who committed nonviolent crimes.”

In response, Peters thanked Polis, apologized and expressed contrition.

“I made mistakes, and for those I am sorry,” Peters wrote in a statement addressed to the governor. “I have learned and grown during my time in prison and going forward I will make sure that my actions always follow the law, and I will avoid the mistakes of the past.”

We’ll see about that. If Peters clambers back aboard Mike Lindell’s crazy plane — he of MyPillow and election denial fame — we’ll know Polis was duped.

It’s easy to see his actions as surrendering to Trump. If so, Polis’ cave-in was pointless. The president is a bully to his core, always demanding more.

But if you take the governor at his word, and his actions weren’t meant as appeasement, what he did was bad nonetheless. He emulated one of Trump’s worst habits, short-circuiting a well-established, independent process by substituting his own headstrong judgment.

Pride, the saying goes, comes before a fall. In Polis’ case, so does arrogance.

Uranium starts as a rock in the ground, but through a series of chemical processes and high-speed centrifuges, it can become either a city’s power source or a weapon of mass destruction.

Al Jazeera’s Basel Ghazoghli (@baselgazi) breaks down how uranium is processed, enriched, and what it takes to turn it into a nuclear weapon.

WASHINGTON — In the span of 10 days, the nation’s capital saw a cascade of ethical scandals that cut across party lines and branches of government, raising fresh doubts about whether Washington is capable of holding itself accountable.

Three members of Congress — two Democrats and a Republican — resigned within days of one another as they faced calls for their expulsion due to their alleged misconduct. A fourth lawmaker is facing the same pressure but has so far refused to step down.

A Cabinet secretary stepped down amid a months-long investigation into allegations that she pursued a romantic relationship with a member of her security detail, while her husband stood accused of sexually assaulting female staffers in her agency.

In a separate case, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed last week that it put a senior counterterrorism official on administrative leave as it investigates an ex-boyfriend’s allegations that she was seeking out wealthy men online to pay for luxury items.

The back-to-back resignations and investigations, spanning both parties and both the legislative and executive branches, have reignited a debate about whether Washington’s rules and institutions for self-oversight can keep pace with the misconduct unfolding within it. Even those charged with policing it say the system is failing.

“Clearly, we have an ethical problem,” Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord), the top Democrat on the House Ethics Committee, said in an interview.

DeSaulnier, who has served on the committee since 2023, said the panel is long overdue for an overhaul. He would like to see the committee speed up investigations and give it more authority to root out misconduct before lawmakers can resign to avoid accountability.

“It takes too long,” he said, drawing an analogy to law enforcement standards for officers facing misconduct allegations. “If you’re a law enforcement officer, there are standards for a suspension with pay or without pay. I think we need to take a look at things like that.”

The committee’s records show that since 1976, it has investigated 28 instances in which a House member was suspected of sexual misconduct. The outcome in 13 of those cases was a loss of jurisdiction, meaning the member resigned, retired or otherwise left the House before the committee could reach a conclusion on the allegations.

“Unfortunately, there likely exist matters never reported to the Committee,” the panel said in a rare statement last week. It added that its “greatest hurdle” in evaluating allegations of sexual misconduct is “convincing the most vulnerable witnesses to share their stories.”

Lonna Drewes, left, and her attorney, Lisa Bloom, arrive at a news conference in which Drewes accused U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) of sexual assault, on April 14 in Beverly Hills.

(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)

The two most recent cases in which the committee lost jurisdiction were the investigations into former California Rep. Eric Swalwell, a Democrat accused of sexual assault who denied the allegations, and Republican former Texas Rep. Tony Gonzales, who last month admitted to a sexual relationship with a staffer who later died by suicide.

The committee is currently investigating Rep. Cory Mills, a Florida Republican, on allegations of “sexual misconduct and/or dating violence.” Mills has denied wrongdoing and declined to step down, telling CNN that House Speaker Mike Johnson told him not to resign and let the process play out.

Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, has defended his stance on ensuring there is due process for House members, telling reporters last week that representatives should not be removed based only on allegations.

“There’s got to be an element of due process,” he said at a news conference, in which he also acknowledged that “sometimes it takes a long time” to achieve that and that he is open to suggestions on how to make the process better.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has also expressed hesitance in ousting members before they receive due process. He said that much in relation to Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick (D-Fla.), who eventually resigned as she faced an ethics investigation and federal criminal charges of stealing $5 million in disaster relief funds. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges.

House Ethics Committee Chairman Michael Guest (R-Miss.) and Ranking Member Mark DeSaulnier (D-Concord) speak to reporters after a hearing with the House Ethics Committee on Capitol Hill on Tuesday in Washington.

(Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

The stance has drawn objections from 14 House Democrats in competitive swing districts, including California Reps. Mike Levin and Derek Tran.

In a letter addressed to Johnson and Jeffries, the lawmakers urged both House leaders to push the Ethics Committee to “expedite their investigation” with more transparency, including public hearings.

“We must demonstrate that no one is above the law and that serious misconduct will result in serious consequences,” the lawmakers wrote.

The calls for reform are not limited to the House.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Congress as a whole needs to increase transparency around how ethics complaints are handled and create a system that better protects junior staffers rather than members and senior aides who oversee them.

“The House of Representatives has an office that provides legal advice and representation to staff, but the Senate doesn’t appear to have such a thing,” Schiff said. “So that is also something I’m looking into.”

Schiff is also looking beyond Capitol Hill. He is pushing to install an inspector general inside the executive office of the President, a watchdog position that has never existed there despite being standard across the rest of the federal government.

Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz, left, chair of the Pandemic Response Accountability Committee, and David Smith, assistant director, Office of Investigations U.S. Secret Service, arrive for the House Oversight and Accountability Committee hearing titled Federal Pandemic Spending: A Prescription for Waste, Fraud and Abuse in Rayburn Building on Feb. 1, 2023.

(Tom Williams / CQ Roll Call via Associated Press)

President Trump has fired at least a dozen inspectors general during his second term, according to the New York Times. The dismissals of those independent watchdogs across the executive branch are likely to complicate Schiff’s efforts, which he said will need to “overcome the instinctual opposition of many in the president’s party who may view [the bill] as an indictment of the president’s actions.”

“But if we are ever going to ensure that a president and his administration are not above the law, an inspector general in the executive office is critical,” he said.

Richard Painter, a former White House ethics lawyer under President George W. Bush, said he has long advocated for installing an independent watchdog in the White House but doubts that a Congress operating under its own cloud of scandal would take that step now.

“They are not complying with their own rules,” he said. “It is a big problem.”

Painter also argued that Trump’s own conduct is itself reshaping what members of his own administration and allies in Congress believe they can get away with.

Trump, for example, entered his second term as the first president convicted of a felony — for fraud in a sex scandal involving a hush money payment to adult film actor Stormy Daniels. Separately, he was found liable by a jury for sexually abusing and defaming writer E. Jean Carroll in a decades-old incident.

The president’s past social ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein have also received renewed scrutiny as his administration is criticized for the handling of the files. Trump has denied wrongdoing in all three matters.

“That sends a message to the entire administration and to Congress as to what is acceptable,” Painter said.

Trump, who is known for chiming in on myriad topics on social media, has not talked much about the sex scandals on Capitol Hill. But the president did call Swalwell a “sleazebag” in a recent interview with the Daily Mail.

“I don’t know anything about the charges, but he’s a bad guy,” Trump said. “He’s always been a bad guy, he’s a corrupt politician, and everyone knows it, so it’s happening to him, and we’ll see what happens. Right? Let him go defend himself.”

The president has not been as candid with his administration’s own controversies, but watchdogs in executive agencies have scrutinized some of his members.

Lori Chavez-DeRemer attends the world premiere of Amazon MGM’s “Melania” at The Trump-Kennedy Center on Jan. 29 in Washington.

(Taylor Hill / WireImage via Getty Images)

The White House declined to comment on the allegations against former Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who stepped down last week after multiple allegations of abusing her position’s power, including having an affair with a subordinate and drinking alcohol on the job.

The New York Times reported that Chavez-DeRemer was under investigation by the agency’s inspector general, and that an imminent report was likely to be unfavorable toward her. The investigation had been ongoing for several months before her departure.

In a separate case, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that Julia Varvaro, the agency’s deputy assistance secretary, was put on administrative leave amid an investigation into allegations that she was seeking out so-called sugar daddies online.

The scandals come as recent polling shows Americans are growing more dissatisfied with Trump and Congress.

Congress’ approval rating has plummeted to 10%, according to Gallup polling released last week. Public approval of Trump has dropped to 28%, according to a Marquette University Law School poll released earlier this month. The president’s approval ratings are tightly linked to concerns about the Iran war and the economy.

Some lawmakers, like DeSaulnier, worry the scandals will continue to erode Americans’ confidence in the government and the people who represent them.

“If they don’t have trust in these institutions and the people who are in these positions, that’s a real, serious problem for American democracy,” he said.

Sophy Romvari’s luminous debut feature “Blue Heron” is a loving and studious act of remembrance. Her protagonist and surrogate, Sasha (Amy Zimmer), attempts to understand her family’s past through a reverent process of recreation. While she finds that not everything can be understood, there is beauty and solace in the journey itself — and maybe a kind of catharsis.

“Blue Heron” is an autobiographical project, but it’s more apt to call it a memoir. Sasha admits she doesn’t remember much of her childhood and doesn’t even trust the fragments. But she will try anyway. As Sasha zooms in on her iPhone, standing at the bluff overlooking her hometown, Romvari rolls up the back of a moving truck to deliver a lush slice of ’90s childhood nostalgia, picking up the memory as her Hungarian immigrant family — two parents, three brothers and one sister — arrive at their new home on Canada’s Vancouver Island.

Father (Ádám Tompa) settles into work on the home computer; Mother (Iringó Réti) attempts to amuse the kids with trips to the beach and nature preserves. Snippets of summer filter through the eyes and ears of 8-year-old Sasha (Eylul Guven) and in the photos snapped by their parents.

But a disquieting presence looms: Jeremy (Edik Beddoes), the eldest son. Blond, light-featured and tall, he is visually distinct from the three other children and his silent rebellion permeates the atmosphere.

His misbehavior is minor — irritating but untenable when stacked together — like bouncing a ball against a wall, disappearing for fun or climbing on the roof. He mostly just seems like a moody, unsatisfied teen, drawing elaborate maps and sometimes playing with his siblings sweetly. It all seems like harmless mischief until it escalates.

The movie’s title refers to a key chain from a gift shop that Jeremy, who almost never speaks, presents to his younger sister. Like him, the film is quiet and meditative, bathed in the cool blues and verdant greens of the setting, captured in Maya Bankovic’s saturated cinematography. We are transported to a place of natural beauty and a period of seemingly unlimited time. But Jeremy-related tension simmers beneath the domestic surface, just as it does in Chantal Akerman’s 1975 landmark “Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles,” referenced in a shot of a mother and daughter peeling potatoes.

“Blue Heron,” though, is not just going to simply be a throwback family drama about a troubled boy and his younger sister. The film suddenly zooms out, linearly, to two decades later. Zimmer’s older version of Sasha is grappling with her brother’s void and she does so with her mind, her work, her actions. She conducts a focus group of social workers for a documentary in order to try to understand Jeremy’s behavior and the treatment he got at the time. She scrubs through video and photos and interviews a case worker. She escapes into old movies.

In Romvari’s award-winning 2020 short “Still Processing,” a companion piece to “Blue Heron,” she processes the loss of two brothers through photography, sifting through boxes of old photos and film negatives shot by her father, who trained as a cinematographer in Hungary. It seems natural for Romvari to access the emotional through artistic practice, to give her — and Sasha — something to do with their hands. The tactility of the photographs in “Still Processing” provide an access point to the past. Romvari weeps as she spreads them out on a table, saying “hi” softly to her brothers. But there’s a remove in the rigorous focus on the snapshots that perhaps also protects her from the full crushing weight of these emotions.

But in a film like “Blue Heron,” anything is possible, including time travel, and for Romvari, it’s the channel that she offers Sasha to achieve the closure that she needs: a visit to a time she doesn’t really remember, even as she’s building an archive of materials to bolster herself.

If young Sasha watches (and Guven is absolutely terrific at watching), the older Sasha speaks. Zimmer, a New York City comedian, is tasked with a heavy, grief-laden dramatic role, and she’s utterly convincing, entrancing in her stillness. But she also has a way with words, a clarity that rings with a rare kind of honest empathy, especially in a letter that Sasha reads to her parents.

That letter is what “Blue Heron” represents for its filmmaker — an attempt to re-create the past, to bring it back to life. Even if imperfect, the value is in the effort, in the ongoing practice of remembering, as an act of devotion to family and self.

WASHINGTON — President Trump’s acting attorney general on Thursday signed an order reclassifying state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug, a major policy shift long sought by advocates who said cannabis should never have been treated like heroin by the federal government.

The order signed by Todd Blanche does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use under federal law. But it does change the way it’s regulated, shifting licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. It also gives licensed medical marijuana operators a major tax break and eases some barriers to researching cannabis.

The Trump administration also said it was jump-starting the process for reclassifying marijuana more broadly, setting a hearing to begin in late June.

Trump told his administration in December to work as quickly as possible to reclassify marijuana. On Saturday, as the Republican president signed an unrelated executive order about psychedelics, he seemed to express frustration that it was taking so long.

Blanche said Thursday that the Department of Justice was “delivering on President Trump’s promise” to expand Americans’ access to medical treatment options. “This rescheduling action allows for research on the safety and efficacy of this substance, ultimately providing patients with better care and doctors with more reliable information,” he said in a statement.

What the marijuana reclassification order does

Blanche’s action largely legitimizes medical marijuana programs in the 40 states that have adopted them. It sets up an expedited system for state-licensed medical marijuana producers and distributors to register with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

It makes clear that cannabis researchers won’t be penalized for obtaining state-licensed marijuana or marijuana-derived products for use in their work, and it grants state-licensed medical marijuana companies a windfall by allowing them, for the first time, to deduct business expenses on their federal taxes.

Any marijuana-derived medicine approved by the Food and Drug Administration is similarly listed in Schedule III, it said.

Since 2015, Congress has prohibited the Justice Department from using its resources to shut down state-licensed medical marijuana systems. But the order nevertheless represents a major policy shift for the U.S. government, which has continued its long-standing marijuana prohibition — dating to the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 — even as nearly all the states have approved cannabis use in some form.

Two dozen states plus Washington, D.C., have authorized adult recreational use of marijuana, 40 have medical marijuana systems, and eight others allow low-THC cannabis or CBD oil for medical use. Only Idaho and Kansas ban marijuana outright.

The regulation of medical marijuana has come a long way since California became the first state to adopt it in 1996, Blanche wrote.

“Today the vast majority of States maintain comprehensive licensing frameworks governing cultivation, processing, distribution, and dispensing of marijuana for medical purposes,” Blanche wrote. “Taken as a whole, they demonstrate a sustained capacity to achieve the public-interest objectives … including protecting public health and safety and preventing the diversion of controlled substances into illicit channels.”

The president of the American Trade Assn. for Cannabis and Hemp, Michael Bronstein, called it “the most significant federal advancement in cannabis policy in over 50 years.”

“This action recognizes what Americans have long known, cannabis is medicine,” he said in a written statement.

Critic calls the order ‘a tax break to Big Weed’

The Trump administration’s decision drew derision from marijuana legalization opponent Kevin Sabet, the chief executive of Smart Approaches to Marijuana. Sabet said that while marijuana research is necessary, “there are many ways to increase our knowledge without giving a tax break to Big Weed and sending a confusing message about marijuana’s harms to the American public.”

“With this move, we are now confronted with the most pro-drug administration in our history,” Sabet said in a text message. “Policy is now being dictated by marijuana CEOs, psychedelics investors, and podcasters in active addiction.”

Marijuana or marijuana-derived products that are not distributed through a state medical marijuana program will continue to be classified in Schedule I.

Schedule III drugs are defined as having moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence. Some critics of the industry have suggested that legalization in the states has led to stronger and stronger cannabis products, which need to be researched rather than categorized less strictly than before.

The efforts to reclassify marijuana

The Justice Department under President Biden had proposed to reclassify marijuana, eliciting nearly 43,000 formal public comments. The DEA was still in the review process when Trump succeeded Biden, and Trump ordered that process to move along as quickly as legally possible.

Blanche’s order sidestepped the review process by relying on a provision of federal law that allows the attorney general to determine the appropriate classification for drugs that the U.S. must regulate pursuant to an international treaty.

It was unclear how the order might affect operations in states where licensed recreational marijuana shops also sell to medical patients. In Washington state, which in 2012 became one of the first states to legalize the adult use of marijuana, 302 of 460 licensed stores have endorsements allowing them to sell tax-free cannabis products to registered patients.

Many Republicans oppose loosening marijuana restrictions. More than 20 Republican senators, several of them staunch Trump allies, signed a letter last year urging the president to keep the current standards.

Trump has made his crusade against other drugs, especially fentanyl, a feature of his second term, ordering U.S. military attacks on Venezuelan and other boats the administration insists are ferrying drugs. He signed another executive order declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction.

Richer and Johnson write for the Associated Press. Johnson reported from Seattle.