producer

Within days of California’s long-anticipated single-use plastic law going into effect, environmentalists, anti-waste activists and the packaging industry reacted with anger and frustration.

Anti-plastic activists say Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and CalRecycle inserted exemptions favoring the plastic industry into the law’s regulations that weaken it and undermine legislative intent.

“These new rules create huge loopholes for plastic packaging that violate the law,” said Avinash Kar, senior director of the toxics program at the Natural Resources Defense Council.

On the other side, the packaging industry has sued over similar laws in other states. “Our members have real concerns about cost, compliance, and constitutionality,” said Matt Clarke, spokesman for the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors, which sued Oregon earlier this year over a similar waste law.

CalRecycle, the state’s waste agency, did not respond in time for publication. The final regulations putting the law into effect were released May 1 and posted for review Tuesday.

The environmental organizations say the law’s new final regulations open the door to what is known as “chemical recycling,” which produces large amounts of hazardous waste. The law also contains problematic exemptions for certain categories of plastic foodware, they say.

The language of the law forbids any kind of recycling that would produce significant amounts of hazardous waste. The new regulations allow for these recycling methods if the facilities are properly permitted.

The new regulations also exempt certain products if they are already covered by federal law. For instance, a packaging company, retailer or distributor can claim that they have such a preemption, Kar said, and CalRecycle might not immediately review that claim. “And as long as they don’t review it, they’ll get the exemption for as long as CalRecycle doesn’t review it,” creating a potential “forever loophole.”

“Californians were promised a system where producers take real responsibility for the waste they create,” said Nick Lapis, advocacy director for Californians Against Waste. “When regulations introduce broad exemptions and redefine key terms, that promise starts to erode. The details matter here, and right now they don’t line up with the intent of the law.”

Senate Bill 54, the Plastic Pollution Prevention and Packaging Producer Responsibility Act, was signed by Newsom in 2022. It was considered landmark legislation because it addressed the scourge of single-use plastics, requiring plastic and packaging companies to use less of them and ensuring that by 2032, all food packaging is either recyclable or compostable.

Accumulating plastic waste is overwhelming waterways and oceans, sickening marine life and threatening human health.

The law’s intent was not only to reduce it, but also to put the onus and cost of dealing with it on packaging producers and manufacturers, not consumers and local governments. It was supposed to incentivize companies to consider the fate of their products and spur innovation in material redesign.

According to one state analysis, 2.9 million tons of single-use plastic and 171.4 billion single-use plastic components were sold, offered for sale, or distributed during 2023 in California.

Similar laws have been passed in Maine, Oregon, Colorado, Minnesota, Maryland and Washington. Oregon’s law, however, is on hold while a lawsuit by the National Assn. of Wholesaler-Distributors works its way through the courts.

“We see a lot of the same problems in California that we flagged in Oregon,” said Clarke, the trade group spokesman. “Given California’s scale, the cost implications are going to be even larger. Our legal counsel has noted that California’s proposed fees are already higher than what other states have put forward.”

Jan Dell of Last Beach Cleanup, an anti-plastic waste group based in Laguna Beach, doesn’t believe the law will work — irrespective of the final regulations — and said the “exorbitant” cost of its implementation will either spur producers to sue, or they’ll end up passing the higher costs onto consumers.

She referred to a report from the Circular Action Alliance, the state-sanctioned group established to represent and oversee the implementation of the law on behalf of the plastic and packaging industry. It finds the law will increase the cost of disposal between six and 14 times for common products, such as Windex bottles, made of polyethylene terephthalate.

“If the producers don’t successfully sue to stop the fees, this will certainly add to product inflation for CA consumers,” she said in an email. “Californians already have to pay exorbitantly high curbside collection fees for trash, recycling, and organics … so, starting in 2027, our groceries will cost a LOT more but we won’t see a reduction in our waste bills.”

Christopher “Smitty” Smith, a partner at law firm Saul Ewing in Los Angeles, who councils companies and interest groups on SB 54 and other Extended Producer Liability laws, said that although he could see areas of the law that “could be sharper and avoid the legal challenges … you can’t stop people from suing.” Environmentalists and anti-waste activists say they are preparing a lawsuit.

Smith said the law already has sparked changes in how companies think and respond to concerns about waste.

One of his national fast-food chain clients has realized that if its brand name is on plastic packaging, it’s that company’s responsibility, he said, so “they’ve spent the past year mapping out their franchise agreements, their supply chain agreements, their producer agreements, to figure out” what it needs to do to comply.

He said in the past, companies have paid little attention to these details and just let their franchisees figure this kind of thing out. Now, they’re spending a lot of time and money “to wrap their arms around what their supply chain looks like and like, what post consumer use of their plastic products looks like and what their regulatory obligations are.”

It’s bringing a new dialogue within companies. And that, Smith said, is what could make this law so powerful.

Times staff writer Meg Tanaka contributed to this report.

The DC universe is going full on body horror.

DC Studios released its first trailer for “Clayface” on Wednesday, giving audiences a glimpse of the gruesome origins of the shape-shifting Batman villain.

Set to an eerie rendition of the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize??,” the teaser flashes among various images of up-and-coming Hollywood actor Matt Hagen (portrayed by Tom Rhys Harries) before and after a violent encounter as the camera slowly zooms toward his haunted eyes and bloody, bandaged face as he is recovering on a hospital bed.

The clip also includes footage of Hagen’s clay-like, malleable face, which he appears to gain after some sort of scientific procedure.

According to the DC description, “Clayface” will see Hagen transformed into a “revenge-filled monster” and explore “the loss of one’s identity and humanity, corrosive love, and the dark underbelly of scientific ambition.”

“Clayface,” set for an Oct. 23 release, will be the third DCU film to hit theaters since James Gunn and Peter Safran took over DC Studios and reset (most of) its comic book superhero franchise. The studio’s upcoming slate also includes “Supergirl,” which will hit theaters June 26, as well as “Man of Tomorrow,” the sequel to Gunn’s 2025 blockbuster “Superman,” announced for 2027.

Who is Clayface?

Clayface is a DC Comics villain usually affiliated with Batman. The alias has been used by a number of different characters over the years, but they all usually possess shape-shifting abilities due to their clay-like bodies. Created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, the original Clayface was a washed-up actor turned criminal who first appeared in a 1940 issue of “Detective Comics.”

Matt Hagen was the name of the second Clayface, who first appeared in an issue of “Detective Comics” in the 1960s. He was the first to have shape-shifting powers, which he gained after encountering a mysterious radioactive pool of protoplasm.

Other versions of Clayface have been introduced in various media since.

Who is in ‘Clayface’?

The upcoming film stars Tom Rhys Harries as rising Hollywood actor Hagen. The cast also includes Naomi Ackie, who is seen in the trailer, reportedly as the scientist Hagen turns to for help following his disfigurement. Also set to appear are David Dencik, Max Minghella and Eddie Marsan, as well as Nancy Carroll and Joshua James.

Who are the ‘Clayface’ filmmakers?

Director James Watkins, known for horror films including “Speak No Evil” (2024), is helming “Clayface.” The script was written by prolific horror scribe Mike Flanagan (“The Haunting of Hill House,” “Doctor Sleep”) and Hossein Amini (“The Snowman”).

The producers are Matt Reeves, Lynn Harris, James Gunn and Peter Safran. Exective producers include Michael E. Uslan, Rafi Crohn, Paul Ritchie, Chantal Nong Vo and Lars P. Winther.

Shawna Thomas, who exited CBS News earlier this year, has joined MS NOW as political director.

The cable network formerly known as MSNBC announced Wednesday that Thomas will lead the organization’s political unit and direct coverage of campaigns and elections. She will also appear as an on-air analyst.

Thomas lands at the progressive-leaning MS NOW after five years as executive producer for “CBS Mornings.” She announced her departure from the program last month, just as co-host Gayle King was signed to a new deal.

Thomas is among a number of executives and on-air talent who have left CBS News since the arrival of editor-in-chief Bari Weiss, although she told colleagues her decision was about getting away from the grind of early morning television.

MS NOW is owned by Versant, a company created out of the cable assets spun off by Comcast. The new company chose not to rely on the news-gathering resources of NBC News, which oversaw MSNBC, and is building its own editorial operation.

Last month, MS NOW poached long time NBC News White House correspondent Peter Alexander, who will have a daily program on MS NOW and handle extended breaking news coverage starting later this year.

Thomas is a veteran of political coverage. She is a former Washington bureau chief for the news division at Vice Media, overseeing politics and policy stories for the HBO series “Vice News Tonight.”

Thomas spent a decade working for NBC News in various production roles, including planning its election coverage. She also had a stint as an executive at Quibi, the short-form streaming video platform.

Patrick Muldoon, known for his roles on “Days of Our Lives,” “Melrose Place” and “Starship Troopers,” has died. He was 57.

The actor and producer reportedly died Sunday, his manager confirmed to Variety. According to Deadline, Muldoon died suddenly after a heart attack. The Times has reached out to Muldoon’s reps for comment.

Muldoon originated the role of Austin Reed on the daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives.” He first portrayed the aspiring boxer and brother of Lisa Rinna‘s Billie Reed from 1992 to 1995, and returned to reprise the role from 2011 to 2012 (the character had since become a forensic accountant).

“Austin is a wonderful role,” Muldoon told The Times in 1995. The actor explained he took his “sweet time” mulling over whether to leave the show because “it was one hell of a decision to make.”

“I’m leaving for no other reason than why other people leave soaps,” Muldoon said at the time. “To take a shot at doing other things like nighttime, movies and other things. … I feel confident right now so I figured I better take the shot sooner than later. If I don’t, I’ll always wonder ‘what if.’ ”

He played the recurring villain Richard Hart on the primetime soap “Melrose Place” for three seasons beginning in 1995. Muldoon’s big-screen roles include Zander Barcalow, a pilot and rival of Casper Van Dien’s Johnny Rico, in Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 movie “Starship Troopers.”

Born September 27, 1968, in San Pedro, Muldoon’s early passions included football. He started playing at the age of 6 and would go on to play at Loyola High School and then at USC.

“I did fairly well for being a smaller tight end,” Muldoon told The Times in 2012, adding that getting run over during practice by USC teammate Junior Seau — the late linebacker who had a 20-year NFL career — was among the factors that led him to pursue acting instead. Muldoon began his acting career during the sport’s offseason, and his earliest roles were on shows such as “Who’s the Boss?” and “Saved by the Bell.”

In addition to acting, Muldoon was a producer with credits on films such as “Riff Raff” (2024), “Marlowe” (2022), “The Card Counter” (2021) and “The Comeback Trail” (2020). Most recently, he shared on Instagram his excitement of being among the executive producers for the upcoming film “Kockroach.”

Some of our finest contemporary writers got their laurels Friday night at the 46th Los Angeles Times Book Prizes ceremony at USC’s Bovard Auditorium.

At the awards ceremony, which opens the annual L.A. Times Festival of Books weekend, Oakland-born writer Amy Tan and literary nonprofit We Need Diverse Books received achievement honors, and finalists in 13 other categories became prize winners.

The presenters and awardees who took the stage balanced a spirit of playfulness — Times senior editor Sophia Kercher called the weekend’s festival “my personal Coachella” and Times columnist LZ Granderson saluted his fellow “booktroverts” — and one of reverence as they celebrated writing as an instrument for advocacy, imagination and history-keeping.

As Bench Ansfield virtually accepted his award in the history category for “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City,” which exposes a pattern of landlords setting residential fires to collect insurance payouts, he said, “It’s a scary time to be a historian in the United States.”

“Our field, like so many other fields, is under attack,” Ansfield said. “To understand the crises in front of us, we have to understand our history.”

Among the crises highlighted was AI encroachment, the subject of science and technology category winner Karen Hao’s “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI.” The AI expert and investigative journalist’s book is a critical investigation into the rise of OpenAI and its impact on society.

In Hao’s acceptance speech, read by presenter Jia-Rui Cook in her absence, the author said she “can’t help but be disturbed by how the themes of this book have grown more relevant by the day.”

“That said, I have never been more hopeful of our chance to advance a different future,” the author said, adding that L.A.’s history of resistance movements — including the recent Hollywood strikes — made it an apt place to accept her award.

“Gatherings like this are one of many radical acts of resistance against the imperial project that seeks to strip us of our meaning and our humanity,” Hao said. “Let us continue to resist defiantly together and let us remember lessons in history: When people rise, empires always fall.”

Tan echoed Hao’s sentiments as she accepted the Robert Kirsch Award, which celebrates literature with regional and thematic connections to the Western United States, for her acclaimed portfolio of writing exploring identity and cultural inheritance — often through the lens of the immigrant experience.

In her speech, “The Joy Luck Club” writer said that while she never particularly considered herself a “political writer,” her stance on that has changed as government actions have made her think critically about her own identities.

“My birthright and that of millions of others is now being argued before the Supreme Court, and no matter what the outcome is, it’s been a kick in the gut to know that those in the highest echelons of government and those who support them believe that we don’t belong.”

As an author, Tan said, “I imagine the lives of the people I write about,” and that act of compassion, for writers, inherently “reflects our politics and our beliefs. And so yes, I am a political writer.”

Later, Caroline Richmond, executive director of We Need Diverse Books, celebrated the work of her nonprofit — the recipient of this year’s Innovator’s Award — which has made it so her daughter “has never really had to look that far to find herself on the page.”

Still, she said ongoing book bans are threatening those strides toward a more diverse literary marketplace.

“The work is very much far from over,” Richmond said, “but I have to remind myself that the people banning books are never the good guys in history, and it’s up to us in this room and beyond — as readers, as book lovers — to fight back because diverse books, we really need them now more than ever.”

As the ceremony wore on, the room was as charged with celebration as it was with resistance.

When writer-editor and former child actor Adam Ross accepted the Christopher Isherwood Prize for “Playworld,” a semi-autobiographical novel about a teen growing up in 1980s New York, he gleamed with joy about his second novel being out in the world and finding readers.

“When it became clear to me that I was writing something that was going to be a lot bigger and take a lot longer than I planned, I promised myself I would use all of my ability to capture my experience of a particular era in an enduringly magical city, and to hopefully express it in such a way that any reader willing to embark on a journey with me, but upon finishing close the book and say, ‘Yes, I know exactly what that was like,’” Ross said in his acceptance speech.

“Winning this award makes me feel like I succeeded in that endeavor,” the author said.

Other winners included Ekow Eshun, who topped the biography category for “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them,” which parses Black masculinity as embodied by various civil rights activists, philosophers and other visionaries, and Bryan Washington, who accepted the fiction award for “Palaver,” which details the tense reunion of a Jamaican-born mother and her queer son, who are navigating years of estrangement in Tokyo.

The 31st annual L.A. Times Festival of Books will host 500-plus authors and celebrities and 300-plus exhibitors across more than 200 events including panels, book signings and cooking demonstrations. Top-billed guests include musician-memoirist Lionel Richie, veteran actor and recent Golden Globe Carol Burnett Award honoree Sarah Jessica Parker, and the mastermind behind “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Larry David.

The schedule for the Saturday-Sunday event can be found here.

Here’s the full list of finalists and winners for the Book Prizes.

Robert Kirsch Award

Amy Tan

Innovator’s Award

We Need Diverse Books

The Christopher Isherwood Prize for Autobiographical Prose

Adam Ross, “Playworld: A Novel”

The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction

Andy Anderegg, “Plum”

Krystelle Bamford, “Idle Grounds: A Novel”

Addie E. Citchens, “Dominion: A Novel”

Justin Haynes, “Ibis: A Novel” | WINNER

Saou Ichikawa translated by Polly Barton, “Hunchback: A Novel”

Achievement in Audiobook Production, presented by Audible

Molly Jong-Fast (narrator), Matie Argiropoulos (producer); “How to Lose Your Mother”

Jason Mott, Ronald Peet, and JD Jackson (narrators), Diane McKiernan (producer); “People Like Us: A Novel”

James Aaron Oh (narrator), Linda Korn (producer); “The Emperor of Gladness: A Novel”

Imani Perry (narrator), Suzanne Mitchell (producer); “Black in Blues”

Maggi-Meg Reed, Jane Oppenheimer, Carly Robins, Jeff Ebner, David Pittu, Chris Andrew Ciulla, Mark Bramhall, Petrea Burchard, Robert Petkoff, Kimberly Farr, Cerris Morgan-Moyer, Peter Ganim, Jade Wheeler, Steve West, and Jim Seybert (narrators), Kelly Gildea (producer); “The Correspondent: A Novel” | WINNER

Biography

Joe Dunthorne, “Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance”

Ekow Eshun, “The Strangers: Five Extraordinary Black Men and the Worlds That Made Them” | WINNER

Ruth Franklin, “The Many Lives of Anne Frank”

Beth Macy, “Paper Girl: A Memoir of Home and Family in a Fractured America”

Amanda Vaill, “Pride and Pleasure: The Schuyler Sisters in an Age of Revolution”

Current Interest

Jeanne Carstensen, “A Greek Tragedy: One Day, a Deadly Shipwreck, and the Human Cost of the Refugee Crisis”

Stefan Fatsis, “Unabridged: The Thrill of (and Threat to) the Modern Dictionary”

Brian Goldstone, “There Is No Place for Us: Working and Homeless in America” | WINNER

Gardiner Harris, “No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Fiction

Tod Goldberg, “Only Way Out: A Novel”

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Mia McKenzie, “These Heathens: A Novel”

Andrés Felipe Solano translated by Will Vanderhyden, “Gloria: A Novel”

Bryan Washington, “Palaver: A Novel” | WINNER

Graphic Novel/Comics

Eagle Valiant Brosi, “Black Cohosh”

Jaime Hernandez, “Life Drawing: A Love and Rockets Collection” | WINNER

Michael D. Kennedy, “Milk White Steed”

Lee Lai, “Cannon”

Carol Tyler, “The Ephemerata: Shaping the Exquisite Nature of Grief”

History

Char Adams, “Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore”

Bench Ansfield, “Born in Flames: The Business of Arson and the Remaking of the American City” | WINNER

Jennifer Clapp, “Titans of Industrial Agriculture: How a Few Giant Corporations Came to Dominate the Farm Sector and Why It Matters”

Eli Erlick, “Before Gender: Lost Stories from Trans History, 1850-1950”

Aaron G. Fountain Jr., “High School Students Unite!: Teen Activism, Education Reform, and FBI Surveillance in Postwar America”

Mystery/Thriller

Megan Abbott, “El Dorado Drive” | WINNER

Ace Atkins, “Everybody Wants to Rule the World: A Novel”

Lou Berney, “Crooks: A Novel About Crime and Family”

Michael Connelly, “The Proving Ground: A Lincoln Lawyer Novel”

S.A. Cosby, “King of Ashes: A Novel”

Poetry

Gabrielle Calvocoressi, “The New Economy”

Chet’la Sebree, “Blue Opening: Poems”

Richard Siken, “I Do Know Some Things”

Devon Walker-Figueroa, “Lazarus Species: Poems”

Allison Benis White, “A Magnificent Loneliness” | WINNER

Science Fiction, Fantasy & Speculative Fiction

Stephen Graham Jones, “The Buffalo Hunter Hunter”

Jordan Kurella, “The Death of Mountains”

Nnedi Okorafor, “Death of the Author: A Novel”

Adam Oyebanji, “Esperance”

Silvia Park, “Luminous: A Novel” | WINNER

Science & Technology

Mariah Blake, “They Poisoned the World: Life and Death in the Age of Forever Chemicals”

Peter Brannen, “The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything: How Carbon Dioxide Made Our World”

Karen Hao, “Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI” | WINNER

Laura Poppick, “Strata: Stories from Deep Time”

Jordan Thomas, “When It All Burns: Fighting Fire in a Transformed World”

Young Adult Literature

K. Ancrum, “The Corruption of Hollis Brown”

Idris Goodwin, “King of the Neuro Verse”

Jamie Jo Hoang, “My Mother, the Mermaid Chaser”

Trung Le Nguyen, “Angelica and the Bear Prince” | WINNER

Hannah V. Sawyerr, “Truth Is: A Novel in Verse”

A U.S. District Court judge dismissed a wrongful termination suit filed by a Fox News producer who claimed he was fired in retaliation for calling out the network’s reporting on President Trump’s erroneous charges of 2020 election fraud and the riot at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Jason Donner, who worked at the network’s Washington bureau as a reporter and producer was fired on Sept. 28, 2022, two days after calling in sick. He was told he had been terminated for his absence.

In 2023, Donner filed a lawsuit in a Washington, D.C., court that contended his dismissal was linked to several instances in which he challenged the veracity of the network’s coverage.

But U.S. District Judge Amir Ali determined in his ruling issued Monday that Donner failed to meet the company rules and that his conduct was not protected by the District of Columbia’s sick leave law.

Donner’s attorney did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The lawsuit noted that Fox News bosses criticized the network’s journalists for not considering the feelings of its pro-Trump audience following the election that sent Joe Biden to the White House.

Those comments are supported by the depositions and evidence collected for the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against Fox News, which was settled in April for $787.5 million.

But Ali also said Donner was an at-will employee and that his case failed to identify “a public policy that precluded Fox from firing him over his ardent objections to the network’s programming, no matter their validity.”

The same point was raised when U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper dismissed that portion of Donner’s claim in 2024.

“As we have maintained, this lawsuit was entirely without merit, and we are pleased with the court’s ruling on the matter,” a Fox News representative said in a statement.