WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to limit the number of refugees admitted to the country to 17,500 mostly white South Africans, the administration told Congress on Tuesday, as it continues to transform a program that at one point served as a pathway to safety for people fleeing war and strife from countries around the world.
In a notice to Congress obtained by the Associated Press, the administration said the white South Africans faced seizures of their land and other forms of persecution and would be likely to assimilate when they come to America. The South African government has repeatedly rejected the idea that the white South Africans, who are Afrikaners, are a persecuted minority in the home country.
The Trump administration has dramatically altered a refugee program that historically enjoyed strong bipartisan support as it welcomed tens of thousands of refugees from countries around the world to new lives in America, and instead the administration has transformed it into a vehicle to resettle white South Africans in America.
The administration told Congress in the announcement that it intended to spend about $500 million to resettle the new arrivals to the U.S.
Presidents set the cap on how many refugees the U.S. will approve through the program each year, and historically, they’ve allocated those numbers across various geographic regions while factoring in wars or conflicts that spark humanitarian needs around the globe.
The new incentive is aimed at bringing back jobs for the industry’s editors, sound mixers, composers and visual effects artists. It will allow a 35% to 50% credit on qualified expenses related specifically to post-production work done in California, and unlike the state’s existing film and TV credit, it doesn’t require productions to shoot here.
“This legislation protects the extraordinary people who make this industry possible and makes it unmistakably clear: California is still the future of film and television,” said Gov. Newsom in a statement. “We have the talent. We have the infrastructure.”
The bill, AB 2319, was authored by Assemblymember Nick Schultz (D-Burbank) and introduced earlier this year. It cleared the state Senate 33 to 5 on Aug. 30, and the Assembly approved the final version 72 to 2 the same day. Schultz originally sought $100 million for the program. It is expected to start in January with $10 million, according to the Assemblymember Schulz’s office.
“It’s a historic moment for California’s post-production community. But it’s also just the beginning of what we really need to do to to fight for our industry,” said Marielle Abaunza, president of the California Post Alliance, a group advocating for the bill. She said the group is readying its strategy to get more funding for the program next year.
As Hollywood productions continue chase tax credits to other states and countries, much of the post-production work is going with them. California’s share of U.S. post-production employment has fallen from 53% to 42% over the last 13 years, according to CVL Economics, an economic consulting firm tied to California Post Alliance. The state had about 12,000 post-production jobs last year, per CVL Economics.
Ben Urquhart, 51, spent 18 years as a post-production executive at NBCUniversal. The Culver City resident hasn’t been able to find work in the two and a half years since he was laid off.
“It’s grim and it’s hard. There are jobs, but we have a large amount of extremely qualified people competing for every level of job,” Urquhart said. “When I was a kid, I was a [production assistant] in the 90s, and you could get a job within a couple of weeks. But when I got laid off a couple of years ago, I realized that is certainly not the case at all anymore. It’s been a large-scale transformation.”
Urquhart said the new incentive would help California compete with jurisdictions that already offer these credits and “level the playing field.”
Last year, California expanded its film and TV tax credit program, more than doubling the old $330-million cap to $750 million through June 30, 2030. The existing program already covers post-production, but only if 75% of filming or the overall budget is spent in the state.
Newsom also signed a bill that would strengthen the current tax incentive program overall. In June he revealed a state budget measure that capped how much in tax credits a business can claim each year, a limit industry groups warned would undercut the expanded program. But the new Senate Bill 186 enhances refundability for the industry and exempts independent productions from the credit limits, starting next year.
Known as MEHKOs, microenterprise home kitchen operations come in many shapes and sizes. They are coffee shops, barbecue joints, supper clubs, backyard tea parties, pickup-only pizzerias and everything in between. For some of these operators, it’s a passion project, and for others, it’s their only source of income.
MEHKOs were first legalized by state lawmakers in 2019, spurred by advocacy from nonprofit organization the COOK Alliance. Riverside County was the first in the state to adopt the program in 2019. MEHKOs were greenlighted in L.A. County in May 2024, and since then over 400 licenses have been approved. While informal backyard restaurants are nothing new in L.A., the program offers a legal, health-department-approved pathway for many existing home kitchens to thrive.
MEHKOs can only sell up to 30 meals per day and no more than 90 meals per week. They’re also not allowed to advertise with signs on their homes or front lawns. And unlike commercial restaurants, where line cooks will often prep ingredients for the rest of the week, MEHKOs can only serve food that was prepared the same day.
“A home kitchen is not designed or required to have the same commercial infrastructure, such as ventilation systems, grease interceptors, specialized wastewater systems,” said James Dragan, who oversees initiatives including the MEHKO program at the L.A. County Department of Public Health. “The limits are important because of the food safety perspective.”
When dining at a MEHKO, be flexible. It might not be as easy as just placing an order. These home businesses are often open just a few days per week with limited hours, and might only accept orders placed in advance. For example, Palestinian home kitchen Mid East Eats — one of L.A.’s first MEHKOs — currently only offers private dinners and monthly supper clubs. It was previously open for walk-ins with a larger menu, but the format was difficult to sustain and would often create food waste.
“I want to continue doing my private dinners because that’s my favorite thing to do,” said Mid East Eats founder Sumer Durkee. “It’s satisfying to me and feels like home, and people leave feeling so happy.”
MEHKOs can serve as a relatively low-cost stepping stone toward opening a brick-and-mortar and offer one-of-a-kind food experiences, even in a city with as rich a culinary vocabulary as L.A. These eight home kitchens, all of which offer dine-in service, are a great starting place to discover the city’s burgeoning MEHKO scene.
It is stunning to see the impact the USAF’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program has made on discourse surrounding the future of the Air Force since it was officially announced. There is still much to prove regarding the concept, but testing is accelerating and the USAF now plans on buying 500 CCAs by 2032. At the same time, the USAF is now hunting for a successor to the MQ-9 Reaper, with plans on procuring hundreds of those drones, as well, by early in the next decade.
With all this in mind, TWZ’s Jamie Hunter talked to Mike Shortsleeve from General Atomics on the show floor at Air, Space & Cyber 2026. The two discussed the latest progress for the company’s newly-named FQ-42 Vengeance Collaborative Combat Aircraft, as well as General Atomics’ new Wildfire platform designed to address the lower-cost Massed Modular Aircraft program that could replace the company’s iconic MQ-9 Reaper.
Check out the interview below or at the top of this post.
FQ-42 Vengeance fighter drone update from General Atomics
“American Idol” is packing up its stars after 25 years in Hollywood.
In the latest blow to Los Angeles film production, ABC’s long-running program will move its upcoming season to the Atlanta area, according to Fremantle, which produces the show with 19 Entertainment, owned by Sony Pictures Television.
Fremantle declined to comment further.
The move comes as Los Angeles’ production levels have tumbled, prompting concern from film workers, union leaders and elected officials who are scrambling to address the crisis. California, despite boosting its tax incentive program, has been struggling to compete against other states that offer more lucrative credits.
TV production activity in the L.A. region was down 27% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, largely because of fewer reality TV shoots, according to the nonprofit FilmLA.
Earlier this year, another broadcast TV stalwart, Fox’s “The Masked Singer,” made plans to vacate its space on the Fox lot on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles and head to New Jersey, also in search of more lucrative tax credits. Another ABC hit, “Shark Tank,” also is relocating to Atlanta from its longtime home base on Sony’s Culver City lot.
“American Idol” has been a local economic engine since launching on Fox in 2002. For years, the show ranked as the No. 1 show on TV and employed hundreds of workers each season as aspiring singers hoped for their big break.
The most recent season originated from Red Studios in Hollywood.
Georgia offers generous tax incentives, including up to a 30% tax credit for reality television productions that spend at least $500,000 in the state. Unlike California, Georgia’s tax program allows compensation for actors and other so-called above-the-line workers to be included.
Like California, Georgia has been grappling with lower production levels. For more than a decade, its soundstages attracted colossal movie productions, but the region was dealt a blow when the Walt Disney Co. recently shifted production of its Marvel superhero films to facilities near London.
On Tuesday, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, the Motion Picture Assn., industry unions, Hollywood special ambassador Jon Voight and filmmaker Steven Paul made a pitch for a federal film and television tax credit to keep jobs in Hollywood and in the U.S. broadly.
Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) plans to introduce a bill into Congress as early as this month in collaboration with Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.), who represents a district southwest of Atlanta. The MPA released a study estimating a federal tax credit could add 143,000 film and TV jobs.
This year, in particular, has seen big swings as the California Film and TV Tax Credit Program expanded eligibility to include competition shows.
Large-scale competition shows are eligible under the state’s incentive program if they have a minimum budget of $1 million per episode. The credit, however, does not include traditional reality shows, game shows, talk shows or docu-follow television programs.
Changes in California’s formula resulted in a jump to 676 shoot days in the second quarter, compared with 463 shoot days during the first three months of the year. Nonetheless, this year’s April-June quarter still reflected an almost 40% decline when compared with the same time last year.
FilmLA said that over the last five years, reality productions have plummeted nearly 63%.
ABC in late July announced “American Idol” was returning, marking its 10th season on the Walt Disney Co. network. Producers are auditioning potential contestants this week during stops in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.
ABC declined to comment on the move.
Ryan Seacrest has long hosted the show, which last season featured Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood, a previous “American Idol” champion, as the celebrity judges.
Deadline first reported the planned move to Georgia.
Game shows are also leaving L.A.
A growing number of programs long based around Hollywood and New York have headed across the ocean to Ireland and Britain to take advantage of tax credits that bring down the cost of production as broadcast network executives contend with shrinking audiences and lower profit margins.
Fox currently has several prime-time game shows produced overseas, including “The Floor,” “Celebrity Name That Tune” and “Beat Shazam.
Staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
Sunday’s highly anticipated premiere of “60 Minutes” scored 7.9 million viewers according to Nielsen, the lowest for a season opener since 2000.
Nielsen data showed the news magazine was down 21% compared to last year’s opener, which averaged 10.3 million viewers. The premiere was the first ratings report card for the program since a major upheaval that occurred behind the scenes under CBS News Editor-in-chief Bari Weiss.
The number — which was also below the 2025-26 season average of 9.1 million viewers — has to be a disappointment to CBS News. The episode received a major promotional push in the weeks leading up to the premiere, which featured an exclusive interview with an Air Force officer who was shot down over Iraq.
The story of the pilot’s heroism may not have been enough to overcome the public’s antipathy toward the U.S. military operation which has gone on much longer than President Trump predicted.
The program did suffer from some comparisons to 2025.
The ratings for “60 Minutes” are often tied to the lead-in from the late afternoon NFL game on CBS, which was also off from 2026. Most of the country saw the Minnesota Vikings top the Green Bay Packers by a score of 39-22 which, with 18.4 million viewers, was down 22% compared to a comparable broadcast window last year.
Broadcasters tend to blame Nielsen when there are significant ratings declines. The NFL has already raised concerns to the research company about changes to its methodology in counting viewers, as the first week of games are down significantly compared to a year ago.
This year, CBS did not have the exclusive late Sunday window with its NFL game. Fox carried the Philadelphia Eagles-Washington Redskins contest in the time period. Last year’s “60 Minutes” opener was on Sept. 28, when CBS had the sole game with a Kansas City Chiefs-Baltimore Ravens contest.
CBS News did see “60 Minutes” retain a larger portion of its audience lead-in compared to last year, despite a later start time of 7:48 p.m. Eastern. The delay meant half of “60 Minutes” competed with NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” the most-watched TV program of the week. It dropped to 6 million viewers by the final quarter hour.
While there are plenty of rationales, CBS News will have to be patient and hope that viewers will sample the program, which largely had the same look as last year despite Weiss’ changes.
But personalities matter to TV viewers, and the new “60 Minutes” is without four of its longtime correspondents — Anderson Cooper, Scott Pelley, Cecilia Vega and Sharyn Alfonsi. The latter three were fired by Weiss after clashing with her over their belief she is pushing the show to the political right. Weiss — who took over editorial control of CBS News after parent company Paramount acquired her heterodox digital news site the Free Press — also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.
Viewers on Sunday briefly saw one of Weiss’ new hires, former conservative New York Times opinion writer Ross Douthat, who has no previous experience as a TV presenter.
The first edition of “60 Minutes” since CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss initiated drastic changes to the venerable program made it to air Sunday. But the changes weren’t all that apparent on screen.
The 59th season premiere was highly anticipated following months of turbulence behind the scenes. Weiss fired “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, both of whom complained the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories. Longtime correspondent Scott Pelley was ousted after he angrily questioned the firings at a staff meeting.
Weiss — who took over editorial control of CBS News after parent company Paramount acquired her heterodox digital news site the Free Press — also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.
Weiss restocked the program’s correspondent corps with one new full-timer — Ross Douthat, the longtime conservative opinion writer for the New York Times — and several new contributors, none of whom showed up in the premiere.
Douthat is the only newcomer added to the opening credits where the correspondents introduce themselves on camera. He also did the closing segment called “The Last Minute,” talking about the dangers of AI and the need for “journalism you can trust.”
But the look and tone of “60 Minutes” remained intact, with only a few minor tweaks to the graphics.
The episode was heavily promoted, with one on-air spot drawing on clips with from the program’s storied past. Correspondents throughout CBS News touted the premiere on their social media accounts.
The program opened with Norah O’Donnell’s exclusive interview with the Air Force officer who was shot down over Iran and rescued by special forces. The U.S. fighter jet was the first to be lost over enemy territory in more than 20 years.
The interview gave a detailed account of the rescue mission and steered clear of any political discussion about the Iran war, which O’Donnell described as “costly and unpopular.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sat for an interview, focusing solely on the rescue mission.
The second segment was a hidden-camera investigation showing how self-styled lobbyists are shopping access to President Trump to felons looking for a pardon. Video captured pardon brokers Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, who were seen asking for $300,000 for their help, saying they worked with influencers close to Trump who would advocate for their cases. (The White House told “60 Minutes”: “Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money … President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner, and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”)
Some on social media expressed surprise that “60 Minutes” would do a tough story on the Trump administration under Weiss after repeated reports that she is attempting to make the program more amenable to conservatives. “So I guess Bari Weiss didn’t totally destroy “60 Minutes” after all?” political analyst Chris Cillizza wrote on X.
The Los Angeles Rams made up the third segment in the program, which typically includes sports stories when CBS has a late afternoon football game leading into prime time. The package mostly focused on Rams head coach Sean McVay.
The ratings for “60 Minutes” will be issued by Nielsen later this week. Last year the program averaged 9.1 million weekly viewers, making it the most watched non-sports program in prime time.
The reporter may have misheard the comment, or maybe the person being quoted actually said it, or something odd happened in the editing process.
For the record:
4:45 p.m. Sept. 9, 2026A previous version of the story misspelled the name of the curator of a new exhibit at the California Museum in Sacramento. His name is Sean Manwaring.
Whatever: This is what appeared in the Feb. 20, 1985 edition of the Oakland Tribune, quoting a UC Berkeley professor about a protest against immigration sweeps in the Bay Area.
“This probably won’t stop the Iron Ass [federal government] from making raids in the Eastbay.”
“Iron Ass” is how someone might hear the acronym INS, the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the forerunner to ICE.
And now, 40 years on, it fits right into the kind of angry, derisory language many Americans use for the present-day hammer-handed operations of federal immigration officers, around the country, especially here in California.
California has always been — and that’s a couple of centuries of “always” — at the fulcrum of the immigration-deportation seesaw in the U.S., with national policies yo-yoing between kicking workers out and inviting them in. Consider the foreign-born who joined the Gold Rush, the Chinese railroad workers, and still and always the Latino population along the long, wide international border.
Get the latest from Patt Morrison
Los Angeles is a complex place. Luckily, there’s someone who can provide context, history and culture.
By continuing, you agree to our Terms of Service, which include arbitration and a class action waiver. You agree that we and our third-party vendors may collect and use your information, including through cookies, pixels and similar technologies, for the purposes set forth in our Privacy Policy such as personalizing your experience and ads.
That underlies the name of a new exhibition at the California Museum in Sacramento, “Help Wanted/Leave Now!” about the “revolving door” of programs and practices that have alternately enticed and expelled workers, legal and undocumented.
The U.S. border with Mexico represents a political borderline but it cannot sever many decades of complicated history and culture. And it’s left us with endless paradoxes and contradictions of who belongs where, with the U.S. government shifting to and fro on deciding and enforcing that, depending on the American economy, and American politics.
Sean Manwaring is curator of the exhibit. “We have historically recruited foreign workers who set down roots, become members of the community, and then, when there’s an economic downturn or it becomes politically expedient, it’s kind of a revolving door.”
The endless argument is that undocumented immigrants, who work for less because of their needs and their vulnerability, take jobs that Americans will, or that Americans won’t do. Something else Americans won’t do: pay higher prices for food, 90 years ago or now.
Last year, the Kansas City Federal Reserve bank, one of 12 regional Feds, noted on its website, “Historically, the supply of U.S.-born farm workers has not been sufficient to meet demand for farm jobs at the going wage rate, contributing to a largely foreign-born workforce.” Even the H-2A legal process for hiring seasonal foreign workers “would likely be more expensive than employing undocumented workers.”
A 1924 immigration law that created the Border Patrol also revealingly put it under the control of the federal labor department. Cheaper Mexican workers had been welcomed during World War I, and were still coming north more casually back then, even as a U.S. labor group was beginning to agitate for organizing American migrant farmworkers.
But when the 1929 market crash and the Depression knifed the American economy, the blame for unemployment in the southwest and California in particular fell on these Mexicans, and the government’s “Mexican Repatriation” program sent hundreds of thousands back to Mexico, some voluntarily, some not, and some numbers of them American citizens.
Once, border migration patterns resembled a loop: thousands of laborers, mostly men, commuted here once or twice a year from Mexico to jobs in the fields, then on to other jobs once harvests were over. Then they’d take their earnings home to Mexico as breadwinners and comparatively rich men, and stay until the next year’s season.
But as U.S. policies over decades squeezed the border shut on this back-and-forth commuting, some workers chose to stay on the side of the border where they could find work, and a number brought their families north to settle, legally or otherwise.
Oct. 15, 1963: Mexican workers in the bracero program work in pepper fields in the Firebaugh area in Fresno County. This image is from the Los Angeles Times Archive at UCLA.
(Bill Murphy / Los Angeles Times)
And then that pendulum swung again. In 1942, Americans by the millions left their peacetime jobs for the war and wartime industries, and the “Bracero” program — from “brazo,” the Spanish word for “arm” — filled in the gaps in the domestic workforce with contracts for employers of Mexican workers, usually in agriculture or on railroads.
Under the program, the U.S. screened Mexicans for aptitude for the work, and for attitude. Manwaring shared with me the notes of Henry P. Anderson, a historian and farm labor organizer, who took a guided tour of a Calexico bracero processing center in 1958:
“Those deemed expendable were described one at a time: this one is too tall, he is too ‘cocky,’ that one a ‘loafer,’ another ‘lazy and irresponsible,’ he’s a ‘smart aleck,’ this one a ‘ladykiller’ and not ‘peon’ enough. On the other hand the ‘right man,’ according to the guide, was ‘built right. He’s a farm worker, you can tell that … he hasn’t got any big ideas. He’s got the right attitude. He’s humble, not fresh and cocky. He’s an Indian type, probably from Jalisco or Guanajuato.’”
Feb. 1, 1954: Unpublished photo from the Mexicali border crossing during the bracero program. Not known if these men are entering or leaving United States.
(Frank Q. Brown / Los Angeles Times)
Through the bracero program’s 22-year span, as many as 4 million workers came in and presumably went home — though not always; a generation of families came here, or were born here, and stayed. About 15 years after it ended, a former Texas labor commissioner and ranking Labor Department official overseeing the program went public. He characterized wages for braceros as unconscionably low, the food substandard and the housing prison-like. “It was not altruistic at all. The bracero program was definitely created by the farmer who needed to make a dollar.”
And then America’s policy yo-yoed again: in 1953, even as the bracero program was still operating, the federal government launched “Operation Wetback,” to rid the country of undocumented immigrants.
With its heavy-handed “sweeps” of labor camps and factories, American citizens were indiscriminately caught up in the operations, just as ICE is doing now.
Consider the breezy tone of a 1931 story in the Los Angeles Evening Citizen News, reporting on 1,200 Mexicans deported from L.A. County in a day, with the casual note that “virtually none of them” was “an undesirable alien — many are American citizens.”
“L.A. was really ground zero for these raids during Operation Wetback and the Mexican deportation,” said Manwaring. Those 1,200 deportees were among at least 50,000 deported from LA County in five months of 1931 — as much as a third of the county’s Mexican and Mexican American population.
Emilia Castaneda was no more than 10 years old when her Boyle Heights family was deported in the 1930s. In an archival videotaped interview made when she was in her late 70s or 80s, and now part of the exhibition, she remembered being teased by the girls in the parochial school she ended up attending in Mexico. “You’re not one of us,” they mocked her. “Go home.”
Just like today, as agriculture and other food chain businesses were hard-hit by Trump’s aggressive deportations, some industries and regions in earlier “sweeps” also asked for carve-outs and exemptions.
“I wouldn’t say there was a backlash but it really impacted agricultural networks across California and Arizona,” said Manwaring. “We came across specific requests from county officials like in Yuma, Arizona, asking for exceptions because they needed these workers, they didn’t have enough help.”
What’s called the Texas Proviso was a wink-and-nudge agribusiness-friendly federal loophole crafted in the early 1950s that for more than 30 years made it a crime to harbor or transport undocumented immigrants — but not a crime to hire them. (Federal law criminalized that in 1986.)
From the Los Angeles Times, June 18, 1954 front page headline: 500 Nabbed by L.A. Wetback Raiders.
(Los Angeles Times)
The 1950s enforcement drive also put the word “wetback” into casual use. Official statements and news stories used it to mean anyone here without documentation. It was derived from the people who waded across Texas’ Rio Grande into the U.S., but it was sometimes used interchangeably with any Latino workers. Sometimes it just got clipped to “wets.”
In 1961, as astronaut Alan Shepard sat aboard his Redstone rocket waiting to become the first American launched in space, hours of delays forced him to urinate in his space suit. “Well,” he remarked nonchalantly, “I’m a wetback now.”
Not much has changed. Court records released this July confirmed that ICE agents had been referring to immigrants during raids with such slurs as “wet” and “tonk,” the last term reportedly derived from the sound an agent’s utility flashlight makes when hitting a migrant’s head.
A 1956 crime drama called “Wetbacks” was a B picture about a human smuggling ring victimizing the undocumented. The Los Angeles Examiner’s movie reviewer called it a “tedious, amateurishly made picture [that] supposedly deals with how illegal Mexican immigrants are smuggled into this country.”
One of the paradoxes of these periodic anti-undocumented worker campaigns is how they divided Latino communities: the “I did it the right way” people who managed to get visas, the people whose forebears may have come illegally but are now themselves established, and the paperless people who have just arrived, or who have lived here for years under the radar.
Cesar Chavez with Richard Ybarra during the 1973 Coachella Grape Strike.
(Richard Ybarra)
César Chávez lived that paradox. The co-founder of the United Farm Workers — along with Dolores Huerta, an advisor on this exhibition — was a U.S. citizen. In the 1960s and into the 1970s, he wanted immigration officials to keep out undocumented workers, believing they’d be exploited as strikebreakers for growers and erode his union’s bargaining power. By the 1980s, though, he was endorsing immigration reform and protections, especially in the face of President Reagan’s recession-era 1982 “Operation Jobs” sweeps.
A Los Angeles Times survey that same year found that within three months of those raids, 80% of the booted-out workers were back on the job. Many of the Americans hired to replace them soon quit. They didn’t like the wages or the working conditions.
The employment manager of B.P. John furniture maker, in Santa Ana, told The Times, 75 of the American-born workers soon quit on him. “They told me they found another job, that the work was too hard, that there wasn’t enough pay.”
In June 1954, The Times covered the Border Patrol’s plans for L.A. Herman Landon, the local immigration chief, described a “stockade” being built in Elysian Park to “imprison illegal Mexicans flushed out” of factories, hotels, and “skid row saloons” at the rate of a thousand or two per day.
Farmers had once requested immigrant workers from smugglers by the truckload, and counted by “the head,” like livestock. When the feds moved in, workers were deported south of the border, sometimes far south, by bus, by ship, by plane. The feds briefly charged each worker $10 each for the cost of being deported.
The caption of a June 1952 photo in the McAllen, Texas, Evening Monitor that showed men boarding a deportation plane read, “It’s a quick bite to eat then off into the wild blue yonder for these wetbacks.” The newspaper offered a $5 prize in a contest to name the airborne deportations. Not all readers were cheering. One acidly suggested calling it “Truman’s Gestapo Airlift.”
The human numbers for any of these programs, coming in or kicking out, are hardly ever confirmed, but over all this time we are talking about the movement of millions — and the deaths, still uncounted.
Trump said he always planned to model his deportations on the Eisenhower-era operation.
“We’re rounding them up in a very humane way, a very nice way,” Trump told “60 Minutes.”
In July 1954, under Eisenhower, 88 workers died of sunstroke in the desert below Calexico, where they’d been deported.
A poster size photo in San Pedro of Alex Pretti, a registered nurse who was fatally shot by ICE agents in Minneapolis.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
In the first 17 months of the second Trump administration, at least 52 people died in ICE custody. ICE agents have shot and killed at least six more people, some in their cars, and some right out in public, like Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, and Keith Porter Jr., shot last New Year’s Eve in front of his L.A. apartment building by an off-duty ICE agent.
The deaths recall a deportation sweep in 1948, when a plane carrying 28 workers back to Mexico, with a crew of four, caught fire and crashed near Coalinga. The press coverage then identified the crew but not the dead Mexican workers, whose individual stories were finally told 70 years later in Tim Z. Hernandez’s book “All They Will Call You.”
The grave marker for the Mexican nationals killed in a 1948 plane crash did not include their names.
(Michael Robinson Chavez / Los Angeles Times)
The title is a line from Woody Guthrie’s celebrated song “Deportees,” about the crash, and what it signified in a nation that used and used up its foreign workers, and it ends like this:
“Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?/Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?/To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil/And be called by no name except ‘deportees’?”
Explaining L.A. With Patt Morrison
Los Angeles is a complex place. In this weekly feature, Patt Morrison is explaining how it works, its history and its culture.
ABC comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico won’t air on broadcast television amid the network’s high-stakes skirmish with the Federal Communications Commission.
Kimmel, during his Wednesday night monologue, said his talk with the 37-year-old Texas Democrat would instead stream on his show’s YouTube channel — depriving ABC viewers and TV stations of a potentially newsworthy interview with Talarico, who has been surging in the polls.
The Texas race is shaping up as a key contest in what could help decide control of the U.S. Senate in the mid-term elections.
Kimmel alluded to the Walt Disney Co. network’s ongoing dispute with FCC Chairman Brendan Carr as the reason for the switch. This spring, Carr’s Media Bureau ordered ABC to submit to an early review of its TV station licenses for Disney’s eight owned stations. The FCC launched the review a day after President Trump demanded Kimmel be fired after First Lady Melania Trump became upset over a joke the comedian told on his program, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
ABC has since sued the FCC, alleging Trump’s disdain for Kimmel and other ABC programs has fueled the FCC’s heavy-handed approach to the network, in violation of its 1st Amendment rights.
Kimmel pointed to the “unusual circumstances” in his monologue.
“For the whole 20-plus years of our show, in fact, I’ve been interviewing Americans who are running for office with no problem at all, just like [David] Letterman did, [Jay] Leno did, Arsenio [Hall], etc. etc.,” Kimmel said. “I’ve interviewed a lot of political candidates — from Hilary Clinton to Ted Cruz to Donald Trump.”
But, Kimmel said that in the current climate, airing the Talarico interview on the public airwaves carried too much risk.
“Out of consideration for our local stations, especially our ABC affiliates in Texas who would have to deal with this nonsense,” the ABC interview, which was scheduled for Thursday, would instead play on YouTube, he said.
ABC declined to comment. An FCC spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The issue surfaced nearly one year after a major dust-up when ABC temporarily benched Kimmel after comments he made on his show over the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. During that episode, Carr seemed to threaten Disney by saying that Kimmel should be punished.
“We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” Carr said. “These companies can find ways … to take action … on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC.”
Two station groups removed Kimmel’s show, but ABC eventually stood by the comedian returning him to his perch the following week.
The Disney-owned station licenses were not set to expire for several years when the FCC demanded that Disney defend its stewardship of the outlets. The license for Disney’s KABC-TV Channel 7 in Los Angeles extends to 2030 but it is now being challenged.
The Burbank giant has asked a federal judge to issue a temporary restraining order and injunction to halt the FCC’s early station review.
ABC also is defending against an FCC probe into whether its daytime talk show, “The View,” should be entitled to an exemption from the so-called equal-time rule for political candidates who appear as guests.
Carr has challenged the status of “The View,” arguing that the topical chat show is not a bona fide news program and, thus, should not be entitled to the exemption.
The same issue tripped up former CBS late night comedian Stephen Colbert who interviewed Talarico in February — before his program, “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, was canceled.
At the time, Colbert told viewers CBS lawyers forbid him from airing a Talarico interview on his program due to the FCC’s increased scrutiny of exemptions to the equal-time rule, an allegation that CBS disputed.
But Colbert’s interview played on the program’s YouTube channel — not the CBS network.
The FCC has said it was investigating ABC stations over whether the company’s diversity and inclusion policies are in violation of the Communications Act of 1934 and the agency’s rules, including its “prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”
Last week, the FCC asked a federal judge in Washington to dismiss ABC’s 1st Amendment lawsuit, calling Disney’s challenge to the early review “meritless” because the commission hasn’t made a decision on whether to escalate the matter or rescind Disney’s station licenses.
Kimmel ended his monologue, saying he was grateful for the YouTube channel “because in the America we live in right now, that is the best that we can do until November.”
Thousands of longtime immigrants from El Salvador and their loved ones are anxiously awaiting word from the Trump administration about whether they will face the possibility of deportation if their temporary legal protections expire as scheduled Wednesday.
The Department of Homeland Security has not yet announced whether it will end or extend Temporary Protected Status for some 170,000 Salvadorans, including 36,000 in California. But federal officials have targeted for arrest other immigrant groups whose TPS expired.
Since their status ended in July, many Haitians have been outfitted with ankle monitors and some have already been sent back to the politically unstable country plagued by gang violence.
As federal officials have whittled down the countries that still qualify for Temporary Protected Status, Salvadorans make up the largest population of remaining beneficiaries.
Just over 100,000 people from Sudan, Ukraine and Lebanon still have TPS protections until later this year, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.
Under TPS, recipients are able to obtain permits allowing them to work legally in the country. More than 150,000 U.S. citizen children nationwide have Salvadoran parents with TPS.
Asked by The Times on Tuesday about the administration’s plans regarding TPS for Salvadorans, border advisor Tom Homan said he does not know and that the decision is up to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin.
Later Tuesday, Homeland Security released a statement that left the long-term outlook for Salvadorans with TPS uncertain: “An announcement on El Salvador’s TPS will be made at the appropriate time. Until such announcement is made, Salvadoran individuals present in the U.S. under TPS retain protection.”
Homan, for his part, noted that El Salvador is a “much safer country” now, perhaps suggesting the conditions that prompted people to leave El Salvador had improved.
Addressing the administration’s handling of TPS in general, he said, “I’m glad they’re finally sticking to what the statute says — temporary means temporary.”
The looming deadline set off a wave of alarm among communities in Los Angeles and beyond.
Lorena Zepeda of Los Angeles spent most of Friday with tears in her eyes as she waited for news about the fate of the program that has spared her, for nearly half her lifetime, from being deported back to El Salvador.
“Even though my work permit has been temporary, my life here is not temporary,” said Zepeda, 57. “From the second I stepped foot in the U.S., I have lived. And, I want to continue to live here. I’ve set down my roots here.”
California has the highest concentration of Salvadoran TPS holders in the nation, with smaller concentrations in Texas, Maryland and New York, according to the immigrant advocacy organization FWD.us. Most work in construction, groundskeeping and in transportation, the organization said, and they pay an estimated $1.5 billion in combined taxes.
About 1.3 million people from 17 countries were enrolled in the program when President Trump returned to office last year. The Supreme Court ruled in June that Trump can, without judicial review, end temporary legal protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from Haiti and Syria, a decision that also cleared the way for further TPS terminations.
The administration has now ended TPS for more than 1 million immigrants from 13 countries.
Some terminations were announced at or after the expiration date. For instance, the administration announced the terminations for Nicaragua and Honduras three days after they were set to expire on July 8, 2025, but provided a 60-day extension.
A termination for citizens of El Salvador in particular stands to upend the lives of people with deep roots in the U.S. because they have had TPS for 25 years — the longest of any country. Trump administration officials and other conservatives have argued that the program has gone far beyond its original intent as a temporary means of reprieve.
Originally established in 1990 under the George H.W. Bush administration, TPS has been used in the years since under Democratic and Republican administrations alike. Congress authorized the emergency relief for immigrants whose countries had been racked by armed conflict or natural disasters and who could not safely return home.
Trump tried to terminate TPS for Salvadorans during his first term, but an appeal kept the protections in place until President Biden took office and reversed the decision. Biden then substantially expanded the number of immigrants who qualified for protections under the program.
For Zepeda, who came to the U.S. in the early 1990s, saving TPS has been a years-long pursuit.
Zepeda works as a community coordinator for the Los Angeles-based Central American Resource Center, or CARECEN, the largest Central American organization in the country that provides low-cost immigration legal services and policy advocacy. She has gone to Sacramento and Washington to persuade lawmakers to keep the program alive.
She began receiving calls Tuesday morning from frantic TPS holders asking whether they should still attend medical appointments or how they will pay their rent without work permits. Aging Salvadorans fear losing their retirement benefits, she said.
“We’ve marched. We’ve led hunger strikes. We’ve done it all…No matter what happens, the fight does not end,” Zepeda said. “We will continue pushing to find legal stability in this country.”
Castillo reported from Washington and Luna from Los Angeles. Staff writer Ana Ceballos contributed to this report.
MS NOW wants to offer news viewers a break when they feel overwhelmed.
The Versant-owned progressive-leaning news outlet announced Tuesday that it has entered a partnership with Calm, the San Francisco company that develops apps that help with sleep and relaxation.
The digital platform, called MS NOW Membership, will make the cable channel available without a pay TV subscription for the first time, along with other offerings for those who sign up to pay $7.99 a month.
Among those features will be meditation exercises created by Calm to help users process the day’s events.
“They are designed not as an invitation to tune out, but as a way to reset, regain perspective, and return to the news with renewed focus and intention,” according to a staff memo from Marcus Mabry, senior vice president for content strategy at MS NOW.
MS NOW has also enlisted a group of mental health experts who will front programs only available on the MS NOW Membership platform, including former ABC News correspondent and “Nightline” co-anchor Dan Harris. Harris is the author of “10% Happier,” and host of the podcast of the same name. He will host two weekly streaming programs to help viewers absorb the news while managing their anxiety about it.
Harris had a panic attack while delivering a newscast on ABC’s “Good Morning America” in 2004. The experience led him to become a wellness guru. Therapist Nedra Glover Tawwab, pediatric psychologist Dr. Ann-Louise Lockhart, and Dr. Joel Bervell, a physician, will also have regular programs on the site, along with MS NOW breaking news anchor Richard Lui.
The Calm partnership is part of MS NOW’s overall plan to have MS NOW Membership offer more than just streaming programming. The channel’s executives are touting the venture as a gathering place for like-minded individuals who are engaged in politics.
MS NOW Membership is also giving subscribers a chance to join live discussions with the network’s anchors and reporters. There will be a midday online forumwhere they can ask questions of Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Jen Psaki, Stephanie Ruhle and other on-air talent. MS NOW correspondents will take questions in the evenings.
“We have always understood that MS NOW audiences want more than just headlines,” said MS NOW President Rebecca Kutler in a statement. “They have follow-up questions. They want to understand not only what’s happening, but why it matters. These daily conversations are designed to deepen that relationship and make our journalism even more accessible.”
Kutler has said the company is committed to providing more experiences for its audience of “super fans.” On average, MS NOW viewers watch the channel nine hours per week, second only to Fox News.
JAKARTA, Indonesia: Nearly 2,000 people, most of them students, fell ill in suspected food poisoning outbreaks linked to President Prabowo Subianto ‘s flagship Free Nutritious Meals program this week, raising fresh concerns about food safety as the government rapidly expands the multibillion-dollar initiative nationwide, officials said Saturday.
The incidents, reported between Tuesday and Thursday in East Java, Central Java, West Sumatra, Aceh and South Sulawesi, affected about 1,950 students, teachers and Islamic boarding school pupils who became sick after consuming meals distributed under the government program, known by its Indonesian acronym MBG.
The outbreaks are the latest setback for Prabowo’s signature free meals program, which has been rolled out across the archipelago despite repeated food poisoning incidents and corruption allegations.
The largest outbreak was reported in Central Java’s Rembang regency, where 752 students and 25 teachers at State Senior High School 1 Lasem, suffered diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and stomach pain after eating meals provided through the program, according to Rembang Health Office head Ali Syofi’i.
In Sidoarjo, East Java, 730 people, most of them students at the Manbaul Hikam Islamic boarding school, were affected in another suspected food poisoning incident linked to the program. Sidoarjo health office chief Lakhsmie Herawati Yuwantina said 706 victims had been discharged and were recovering at home.
Authorities also reported 276 suspected cases involving students and teachers in Agam regency, West Sumatra, where food distribution from the local nutrition service center was suspended pending an investigation. In Aceh’s Bener Meriah regency, 15 elementary school students and a school principal were treated after experiencing dizziness, nausea and other symptoms following a school meal.
Another 152 students from two junior high schools in Tana Toraja, South Sulawesi, were treated at three hospitals after developing symptoms consistent with food poisoning. Regent Zadrak Tombeq ordered hospitals and health centers to prioritize treatment for the victims.
No deaths have been reported, and authorities are investigating the causes of the outbreaks.
The latest incidents add to a growing number of food poisoning cases linked to the program since its launch in January 2025. According to Health Ministry surveillance data as of Sept. 2, food poisoning incidents associated with MBG have affected 50,059 people in 560 cases across 245 districts and cities in 36 provinces.
In a hearing with the House’s Commission IX overseeing health issues, National Nutrition Agency chief Sudaryono said internal reviews found that roughly 80 percent to 90 percent of previous food poisoning incidents were linked to failures to follow food safety procedures, including rules governing food storage, receipt of ingredients, temperature control and consumption deadlines.
“The recent incidents in Sidoarjo, Agam, Rembang and other areas have been a major blow for us,” said Sudaryono, who like many Indonesians uses a single name.
He said the agency was tightening oversight of meal providers and reviewing about 27,000 meal distribution centers nationwide. Inspectors have found hundreds of allegedly fictitious facilities, while at least 833 kitchens have been shut down for failing to meet hygiene and sanitation standards.
The free meals program aims to combat malnutrition and reduce childhood stunting by providing meals to nearly 90 million students, toddlers and pregnant women. The initiative, expected to cost about $28 billion through 2029, is a cornerstone of Prabowo’s administration and one of his key campaign promises.
The first edition of the remade “60 Minutes” under CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss debuts Sept. 13 with a reliable formula from the venerable newsmagazine’s playbook.
Correspondent Jon Wertheim will lead off the 59th season with an in-depth look at the Los Angeles Rams, the favorite of oddsmakers to win the Super Bowl this season. Wertheim sits down with Rams general manager Les Snead, head coach Sean McVay and veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford. The segment will also explore team owner Stan Kroenke’s investment in technology, including artificial intelligence, to help the team gain an edge on the field.
Jon Wertheim interviews Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.
(CBS News)
“60 Minutes” has often turned to sports-related segments when a season premiere follows a late afternoon NFL game. Last year, Wertheim profiled Ultimate Fighting Championship Chief Executive Dana White for the 58th season premiere. The program scored more than 10 million viewers and was the most-watched non-sports program of the week. In 2023, Wertheim interviewed University of Colorado head football coach Deion Sanders for the 56th season opener.
CBS News will be under pressure to have “60 Minutes” get off to a strong start in the ratings following the major upheaval at the program earlier this year.
After the completion of a successful season where ratings were up 9% over the previous year, Weiss fired “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega — both of whom complained that the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories. Weiss also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.
In response to the firings, longtime correspondent Scott Pelley accused Weiss of “murdering” the program and claimed she was putting “her thumb on the scale” for more favorable coverage of President Trump’s administration. Pelley was shown the door with cause after confronting management at a June 1 meeting. CBS denied the claims.
The discord meant the program spent much of the summer hiring replacement correspondents, including Ross Douthat, a conservative New York Times opinion writer with no experience as a TV journalist.
Weiss, founder of the heterodox digital news site the Free Press, was hired by Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison with a mandate to pull the news division to the political center. The stated goal has put every move by Weiss under heavy scrutiny, as many critics have suggested she is at the network to placate the Trump White House while Paramount pursues its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery.
Other new “60 Minutes” contributors include author and journalist Sebastian Junger, former CNN and Vice News correspondent Gianna Toboni, and Trevor Phillips, a British journalist who joined CBS News earlier this year as a senior global affairs correspondent. They will join correspondents Wertheim, Norah O’Donnell, Bill Whitaker and Lesley Stahl.
The program will also feature stories with CBS News correspondents outside of the core group at “60 Minutes,” such as Seth Doane and Matt Gutman.
The other two segments on the “60 Minutes” premiere, — which could include a significant newsmaker interview, — will be announced sometime next week.
This year’s premiere should get a strong boost, as most of the country will get CBS coverage of a late afternoon match-up between the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings, two contenders in the highly competitive NFC North. The network’s pregame show “The NFL Today” is traveling to Green Bay for the telecast.
“I’m very confident. I think we have the opportunity to go out and be successful,” said Ron Rivera, California’s athletic director and football general manager. “If we can be successful early on, we can most certainly build faster than anticipated as well.”
The Golden Bears haven’t delivered an eight-win season since 2009, an outright conference title since 1958 or a national championship since 1937.
Led by a tenacious new head coach and a left-handed prodigy under center, with a loaded offense and an aligned administration to match, the Golden Bears are earnest as ever entering Saturday night’s home opener against UCLA.
“You can feel the anticipation in the locker room,” Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele said. “Everyone’s excited to go out there and play for each other and represent the Bears.”
Lupoi returns
Cal coach Tosh Lupoi waves to fans before throwing out the first pitch before a Giants-Marlins game on April 24.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
California’s renewed belief largely stems from first-time skipper Tosh Lupoi, who has instilled enthusiasm at his alma mater since taking over for the fired Justin Wilcox in December.
“He’s not scared to get … too hyped,” Golden Bears linebacker AJ Tuitele said of Lupoi said. “The players just match his energy. It’s a big deal for us.”
A Bay Area native, Lupoi was a defensive lineman for the Golden Bears from 2000-05 and became the youngest full-time coach in program history at 26, emerging as an elite recruiter as California’s defensive line coach on Jeff Tedford’s staff from 2008-11.
Lupoi later gained experience at Washington, Alabama, in the NFL and, most recently, as Oregon’s defensive coordinator for the past four seasons. But leading the Cal has always been his dream.
“Every waking second of my life will be dedicated to the success of this program,” Lupoi said during his introductory news conference. “No matter what I say, it’s going to be based off of my actions. And I’m a man of action.”
Nine months in, Lupoi has worked to mold a program that lives by three pillars: relentless effort, ball excellence and power of unit.
The confidence is contagious, prompting Lupoi to take the tarps off at Memorial Stadium for the first time in several years and allow thousands more tickets to be sold for the highly anticipated opener against UCLA.
“Butts in the seats and eyes on the television,” Rivera said. “That engagement is so important.”
A rising star at quarterback
Cal quarterback Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele looks to throw a pass against Hawaii during the Hawai’i Bowl on Dec. 24 in Honolulu.
(Darryl Oumi / Getty Images)
The Golden Bears also have a proven leader in Sagapolutele, also known as JKS, on their side.
Sagapolutele threw for 3,454 yards and 18 touchdowns as a true freshman with a limited supporting cast and suspect offensive line. A folk hero in his home state of Hawaii, Sagapolutele is projected to be a first-round prospect in the 2028 NFL draft.
The 20-year-old has shown poise in the pocket, patience when going through progressions and ability to throw receivers open anywhere on the field.
“Even if you’re covered, he finds back shoulders and back hips,” UCLA coach Bob Chesney said of Sagapolutele. “Even when under duress … [the football] seems to still be put right on the money. … A kid that’s very hard to fluster.”
He’ll be manning a pro-style scheme in 2026 constructed by first-time offensive coordinator Jordan Somerville, who comes to Berkeley after three years as Baker Mayfield’s assistant quarterbacks coach with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
“[Sagapolutele] is everything that is said about him,” Somerville said. “He is awesome to be around.”
Reeling in top talent
Washington running back Adam Mohammed is tackled by UCLA linebacker Jonjon Vaughns at the Rose Bowl on Nov. 22. Mohammed has transferred to Cal, calling it “a great place to be.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The Golden Bears assembled what recruiting network 247Sports called the ACC’s second-best transfer portal class this spring, rebuilding its defense with younger, high-ceiling players and stocking its offense with more proven talent.
“Cal is a great place to be,” said running back Adam Mohammed, who transferred in from Washington. “You get a good degree and a great education [and an] NFL coaching staff. That basically sums it up.”
It’ll be on first-time coordinator Michael Hutchings, who was the Minnesota Vikings’ safety coach for the last three years, to put together a competent defense. He has solid returning options to work with as well as an influx of transfers.
“Control what we can control [and] focus on us,” Hutchings said of his approach.
The offense’s personnel is much simpler. In Somerville’s system, Sagapolutele will work alongside seasoned transfers, including running backs Mohammed and Carter Vargas (UC Davis), wideouts Chase Hendricks (Ohio), Ian Strong (Rutgers) and Cooper Perry (Oregon), tight end Dorian Thomas (New Mexico) and right tackle Jimothy Lewis (Mississippi State).
California beat several bluebloods in the transfer portal and continues to win high school recruiting battles, with an elite 2027 class on the horizon led by Westlake wideout Charles Davis and Chaparral quarterback Dane Weber.
Assistant general manager Marshall Cherrington, who has largely led the Golden Bears’ roster-building efforts for nearly eight years, remembers when major recruiting wins weren’t realistic.
“The access we have now is unparalleled to what we’ve had here in my time,” Cherrington said. “The positive trajectory only improves the opportunities to do more selecting rather than recruiting.
“It’s not like, ‘Oh, we can’t go after a kid because he’s in Florida or Mississippi or wherever.’ It’s like, ‘Oh, we got access.’”
Claw or nothing
Cal football general manager Ron Rivera, right, and new football coach Tosh Lupoi hold up a jersey during Lupoi’s introductory news conference on Dec. 5.
(Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)
Lupoi was the missing piece alongside Rivera and Chancellor Rich Lyons, forming a trio of Berkeley graduates who understand the importance of elevating the university’s profile with a contending football program.
“It’s hard to overstate the importance and benefit of the fact that Tosh, Ron Rivera and I are all Cal alumni who share profound respect for Berkeley’s values, traditions, and persistent pursuit of excellence in all that we do,” Lyons said.
The trio has worked to tap into Berkeley’s alumni network, from Silicon Valley to the NFL — and it’s paying off.
California Athletics recently announced it received $88.5 million in “gifts and pledges” from July 2025 to June 2026, in a year when the football team posted a 7-6 record and both basketball programs missed the big dance.
“This is not a normal university in terms of what people expect and don’t expect from you,” Rivera said. “The expectations at Cal are high.”
It all starts with Saturday’s “Pac-12 After Dark” throwback against UCLA, with game kicking off at 7:30 p.m. and airing on ESPN.
“You should be really excited about what you’re going to see,” Sagapolutele added. “You’re going to want to keep coming to our games, for sure.”
Norah O’Donnell is returning to “CBS Mornings” in what is expected to be the start of a significant revamp of the struggling program.
CBS News told staffers Thursday that the former anchor of the “CBS Evening News” will become a co-anchor of the morning show on Tuesday Sept. 8 alongside Gayle King and Nate Burleson. O’Donnell is also a full-time correspondent at “60 Minutes.”
The addition of O’Donnell is the first step in a makeover for “CBS Mornings,” which will be redesigned to have a faster pace and more live interviews, according to people familiar with the plans and were not authorized to discuss them publicly.
There is also talk it will become more of a discussion program similar to MS NOW’s “Morning Joe.” The memo announcing her return was written by Jon Tower, a “CBS Mornings” senior producer who once worked on that program.
O’Donnell, 52, was part of the trio of co-hosts that gave CBS News the highest ratings in three decades, “CBS This Morning,” when she shared the desk with King and Charlie Rose. The program launched in 2012 and saw its ratings increase for five straight years. The audience levels fell off when Rose departed the program after he was hit with sexual harassment allegations in 2017.
“CBS This Morning” was renamed “CBS Mornings” in 2021, and adapted the theme music of the network’s popular weekend program “CBS Sunday Morning.” But the revamp never lived up to a promise to deliver the same in-depth stories as the Sunday program and failed to draw new viewers.
“CBS Mornings” has long been the ratings also-ran in the mornings behind NBC’s “Today” and ABC’s “Good Morning America.” But the program has hit record audience lows this year in part due to the cancellation of “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”
Colbert was replaced by “Comics Unleashed” which is attracting about a third of the “Late Show” audience which was just over 2 million viewers. As a result, far fewer viewers are leaving their sets tuned to CBS after switching off for the night.
O’Donnell left the morning shift in 2019 to become anchor of the “CBS Evening News.” The program remained in third place in the ratings behind “ABC World News Tonight” and “NBC Nightly News,” but performed far better than John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois, the anchors who replaced her in 2025 and only lasted a year before they were replaced by Tony Dokoupil.
O’Donnell was content with a new role as a senior correspondent and contributor to “60 Minutes.” She has steered clear of controversies that have occurred at CBS News since Bari Weiss was installed as editor-in-chief, and showed a willingness to step up for big assignments.
O’Donnell’s put-me-in-coach attitude has turned out to serve her well as she was elevated to a full-time correspondent at “60 Minutes” and will soon be the center of a revamped morning program.
O’Donnell joined CBS News in 2011 as chief White House correspondent after a 12-year run at NBC News.
Expect a rich fall season of ambitious, revelatory shows across Los Angeles museums this fall, including blown glass, taxidermy and landmark retrospectives of work by Doyle Lane, Laura Andreson, Roy DeCarava and Mavis Pusey.
“I think that comes from a lot of people who don’t follow our program, most of those who have never stepped foot in the Coliseum,” Riley said. “The reality is, during my years here, attendance has gone up every single year. As has our play in the Coliseum, including running the table last year in front of a lot of epic atmospheres. And I expect that to happen again this year.”
Average attendance for USC football games at the Coliseum actually dropped from the 2024 to the 2025 season, from an average of 71,571 to 67,783. But the 2025 season also featured fewer marquee home matchups, plus one game soaked by heavy rain (Iowa), and it was still the second-best average attendance of Riley’s four seasons as coach.
Saturday, though, marked the smallest home crowd at USC since late in the 2018 season, when the Trojans had their worst finish for the program in a quarter century, under former coach Clay Helton.
Much of that was due to the scorching heat throughout the Southland, which reached a heat index about 100 at the Coliseum on Saturday. It was so hot and humid that Lee Feaster, a native Texas and the father of freshman wideout Boobie Feaster, said on Tuesday that his wife passed out during the game and still had blisters.
But the attendance announced by USC — 51,144 — admittedly felt generous.
Attendance was that low just once under Helton, for a 38-35 loss to Arizona State, the weekend before Halloween in 2018. But average attendance plummeted after the 2017 season as fan sentiment turned on Helton. For the rest of Helton’s tenure, from 2018 to the start of 2021, USC reached the 60,000-fan mark just four times.
Empty swaths of Coliseum bleachers hadn’t been as much of a concern for Riley, who had never fallen below the 60,000-fan mark at home until Saturday. But as photos of the poor attendance circulated on social media during the weekend, USC chose to release a statement responding to the online derision.
“We understand the factors that impacted Saturday’s attendance,” the statement read. “We have high expectations and a premier home schedule this season, and we know the competitive advantage an electric Coliseum atmosphere can provide our program. We thank our fans who showed up Saturday and look forward to seeing increased attendance the rest of the season.”
The response, though, only poured gasoline on a viral fire.
By Monday, the conversation had crossed over from critical posts on social media to Riley’s coaching peers roasting USC, starting with his alma mater.
“Not to take any shots because I have a lot of respect for USC and Lincoln Riley, but man it’s really awesome to be playing Lubbock, Texas, in front of 60,000,” Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire said. “And it’s going to be warm. It’s going to be every bit as warm as it was Saturday. The great thing is we’ve got some really tough people in West Texas that love their football. They’re gonna show up no matter what the weather’s like. There’s not going to be any excuses of why they’re not here for us.”
A fan covers takes cover under a poster during USC’s season opener against San José State Saturday at the Coliseum.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
New California coach Tosh Lupoi piled on some more Tuesday.
“To turn on the TV, to see that environment in Los Angeles, that’s disheartening to see,” Lupoi said in Berkeley. “I can guarantee you, that’s a completely different environment here.”
USC should have a much more temperate environment to play on Friday, when it kicks off against Fresno State at 6 p.m. at the Coliseum. And Riley knows the world will be watching closely, to see how many seats are filled for the Trojans’ second game.
“This is USC, right?” Riley said. “People are going to pay attention. People are going to have an opinion. It’s part of being a blueblood school.”
The California Legislature just passed two bills that advocates say will greatly improve access to small-scale solar for renters, people in condos and others who don’t have access to their roofs or can’t afford a full rooftop array.
On Sunday night, lawmakers approved Assembly Bill 1813, a third-time effort to force the California Public Utilities Commission to develop a more robust community solar program, in which residents sign up to participate in a small solar array near where they live and pay monthly at a discount on their electrical bills.
“California’s clean energy transition should benefit everyone, not just those who can afford rooftop solar,” said Assemblymember Chris Ward (D-San Diego), the bill’s author.
Last week, with Senate Bill 868, California’s Legislature also became the latest to legalize plug-in solar. Also known as “balcony solar,” these systems allow anyone — renter or owner — to set small panels on their patios or fences and plug them directly into wall outlets to lower bills without having to navigate utility permissions.
“It’s an idea whose time has come,” said bill author Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), who noted the devices can bring down bills by hundreds of dollars a year. “It’ll be very beneficial for people who are looking to lower their cost of living.”
The votes come after some difficult years for rooftop solar in California thanks to strong pushback from utility companies. The state had been a leader nationally on solar energy in the 2000s. But installation rates plummeted in 2022 after Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Public Utilities Commission sharply cut back incentives for customers.
Utilities that lobbied for the change argued that compensating rooftop solar at a higher rate meant that people without solar panels were disproportionately paying the costs of maintaining the overhead lines that everyone uses.
This year, utilities made similar arguments against both the community solar and balcony solar bills.
Pacific Gas & Electric was successful in inserting an end date for Wiener’s SB 868 balcony solar bill, so, if it is signed into law, the Legislature will have to reauthorize it before 2030.
“While the bill establishes additional guardrails, it also creates a period through 2030 during which plug-in solar devices not meeting key safety and certification requirements could be purchased and used in California,” PG&E spokeswoman Lynsey Paulo said. “We believe customers and emergency personnel deserve the protections that come from clear safety standards and established interconnection processes from the outset.”
Both bills now go to the governor’s desk.
If signed, the balcony solar bill will go into effect once systems have been certified as safe for use in the U.S. by a nationally recognized testing laboratory like UL Solutions. Balcony panels are already certified in Germany, where plug-in solar is popular. Advocates say U.S. certifications will come through soon.
Community solar reform could have a harder time clearing Newsom’s desk, as the Public Utilities Commission, appointed by the governor, has previously opposed this type of program.
All the state’s big investor-owned utilities lobbied against the community solar bill, AB 1813, which would require them to compensate community solar developers and customers at higher rates than those established under the Public Utilities Commission’s current program.
That program, finalized this year, relies on canceled federal funding and incentives that developers say are too low for them to launch new projects.
“We remain opposed to AB 1813 because it would shift significant costs to customers who do not participate in the program,” PG&E’s Paulo said. “This legislation is about profits for solar companies, not customer affordability.”
The Public Advocates Office, the independent consumer advocate at the Public Utilities Commission, said recent amendments to the bill did not address its concerns about shifting costs from one group of ratepayers to another.
“We support expanding community solar so renters and other Californians who cannot install rooftop solar can benefit from clean energy. But the savings for participants should not be financed by raising bills for everyone else,” said Mary Flannelly, a spokesperson for the Public Advocates Office. “Our analysis of AB 1813 estimates that it could shift about $1.5 billion a year onto customers who cannot participate — roughly $12 more per month on average — a sizeable cost.”
Southern California Edison also has opposed the bill. SCE spokesperson David Eisenhauer said it would “expose customers to higher rates and unreasonable costs compared to more cost-effective clean energy sources.”
But Ward disputes that any costs will be shifted to people who don’t have solar. He cited two recent studies that indicate all consumers will benefit from reduced costs when community solar is more available. One found if the state added 5.4 gigawatts of community solar and energy storage, all ratepayers could save $6.5 billion by reducing costs for gas generation, electricity imports and transmission.
Ward and a coalition of environmental groups, solar developers and the Utility Reform Network, a ratepayer advocacy group, have tried for years to get the Public Utilities Commission to adopt their vision for a community solar program that would serve people who don’t own or don’t have access to their roofs. Several other states have them.
The bill would compensate community solar developers and customers at a rate that advocates say more accurately accounts for the savings solar brings to the grid, especially on hot days when the system is stressed.
Wiener said both bills are important for helping individuals and communities “to not be trapped in the monopoly utility model that is so expensive.”
“We should empower people to generate their own electricity and to lower their electric bills,” he said.
The Legislature also passed Senate Bill 913, which would allow batteries, electric vehicles, smart thermostats and other consumer-owned devices to be bundled together and counted as a reliable source of electricity for the state’s grid.
Brandon Garcia, California director for Advanced Energy United, an association representing clean energy businesses, said it would help reduce strain on the grid and keep electricity costs in check while “giving customer-owned resources a fair opportunity to compete and deliver reliable energy at an affordable price.”
State lawmakers have approved a series of modest changes intended to bolster California’s film and TV tax credit program.
Among the key revisions, independent filmmakers would be exempted from the $5 million state corporate tax credit cap that was approved earlier this year as part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s state budget.
Film industry advocates lobbied hard for a carve-out, saying the cap would undercut gains made under the current film and TV tax credit program at a time when Hollywood has been reeling from job losses.
The bill includes other changes intended to help Hollywood, such as allowing companies to carry forward older tax credits for up to 15 years (the old limit was nine) and reducing the discount they are charged when they opt to seek a cash refund on unused credits.
Producers will also be able to collect their refund money more quickly — within two years instead of five.
California offers tax credits of up to 35% on qualified expenses, which can be applied to any tax liabilities the production companies have in the state. The program allocates $750 million annually in film and TV tax breaks.
The budget trailer bill was introduced to the Senate on Friday by Assemblyman Rick Chavez Zbur (D-Los Angeles), chair of the Assembly Democratic Caucus and Senator Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica).
The new cap, issued by Gov. Newsom, would have undermined the “competitiveness” of the current California Film and Television Jobs Program, said the Entertainment Union Coalition, an advocacy group that supports the bill. But with these new modifications, the group — which represents the Directors Guild, SAG-AFTRA, IATSE and more — said the program will be able to continue to “support the fragile recovery of our industry here in California.”
“Most importantly, we want to recognize the major role our members played in today’s success as advocates for their industry in California,” Rebecca Rhine, the coalition’s president, said in a statement. “They sent an unprecedented 450,000 letters to the California legislature, making clear the negative impact that SB 122 [the new cap] would have on their livelihoods, their families, and their communities.”
Over the program’s first full year in its expanded $750-million form, the California Film Commission says it delivered $6.6 billion in direct production spending and $4.3 billion in qualified expenditures, supporting nearly 35,000 cast and crew jobs across 6,630 filming days statewide.
The bill cleared the Assembly floor by a vote of 68-2, with the Senate approving its companion measure by a vote of 32 in favor, 8 against the same day. It now awaits Gov. Newsom’s signature.
“It’s a good day that we took steps to strengthen the program and while we have to do more next year, this was a crucial first step,” Zbur said in an interview.
Zbur said he believes everyone in the state’s film and TV tax credit program should have been exempted from the corporate tax credit cap and he plans to look at that within the context of next year’s budget.
“There were budget implications to doing that, so we really did all the things that are viable to do in this legislative session,” Zbur said.
The Broad museum is launching a new educational initiative, it announced on Saturday. “Our Block, Our Stories” will pair students with contemporary artists to explore how those artists have been inspired by their local neighborhoods, communities and personal experiences.
The program, open to grades 3 through 12, includes off-site activities and field trips to the museum. The Broad is paying for students’ transport to the museum.
Students will then, on the same day, travel to the Broad for guided tours, discussions and writing prompts. They’ll be encouraged to connect their personal experiences to works in the museum’s collection while also considering how they might creatively express their own life stories, from their individual communities, through art. April De Leon, Broad interim school program manager, is overseeing the program.
“It’s so we can bring hundreds of young people [to the museum] so they can be inspired to be creative — and in a way that helps their community, gives back to their community, transforms their community and their city,” said Ed Patuto, Broad director for audience engagement. “We’ll look at how other artists, too — like Mark Bradford, John Ahearn and Rigoberto Torres — deal with their neighborhoods and opportunities in their neighborhoods for inspiration.”
The museum will provide educators with on-site worksheets and background materials on the artists, along with other pre-visit and post-visit resources in English and Spanish.
Field trips to the museum begin Sept. 18, though the Broad is still enrolling schools in the program. It’s giving priority to schools and youth organizations in and around South L.A. The Halsey program runs through Dec. 11.
Lauren Halsey’s South L.A. sculpture garden, “sister dreamer.”
(Allen Chen @_h_studio)
Patuto said that Halsey was the perfect artist to launch the program. Not only is her work represented in the Broad’s collection, but “she’s an artist who’s influenced by her community and, like a Mark Bradford, is actually building something in her community, for her community,” he said. “And that needs to be supported by arts institutions around the city.”
The idea behind the sculpture park, when Halsey first conceived it about 16 years ago, she said in an interview, was a space that represents and pays homage to the neighborhood, both aesthetically and conceptually.
“The heroes, the poetics, the material culture, the everyday,” she said. “But also, that it’s a sculpture park that serves — and for free — the neighborhood and L.A. at large.”
The Broad says it will continue to develop “learning modules” over the next several years.
The next one will launch in conjunction with the upcoming exhibition, “Has the myth been shattered,” opening in November. The show of Broad collection works spanning six decades, as curated by Jen Vanegas Rocha, addresses myths “and the way social media, mass media, can kind of mythologize things that happened to us,” Patuto said.
Free, youth-oriented cultural programming such as “Our Block, Our Stories” is a game-changer, Halsey said, adding that field trips she took to LACMA in middle school helped give her confidence to create and solidify her identity as an artist.
She hopes the Broad’s new educational initiative does the same for other young artists.
“It builds pride in one’s own neighborhood and validates experiences and expands on the possibility of what you can be as a young child and sparks your imagination,” she said. “I didn’t have that growing up in South Central, this access to art. So it’s really cool that the Broad came in and is partnering with me to bring this amazing, free programming to the neighborhood.”
