public

What does it mean when a Sunset Strip hotel installs a white pool table with gold balls and puts a swing set on the roof?

It means that Ian Schrager, the New York lifestyle entrepreneur who co-founded Studio 54, is again reaching west to try some new ideas.

Ian Schrager shows off the rooftop of the Public West Hollywood.

This time, his new hotel property is known as the Public West Hollywood. It opened Oct. 30, occupying the same 1962 building that was home to the Standard Hotel from 1999 to 2021.

Though rates start at about $450, Schrager said he is guided by the idea of “luxury for all.” The hotel, which also goes by PUBLIC, includes 137 guest rooms and suites and plenty of cultural and health-and-wellness programming, including Pilates, sound baths and DJs. There’s a bakery/coffee shop, a lobby bar and restaurant, a poolside scene festooned with greenery. There’s a small club called Studio with black velvet walls and six Renaissance portrait “paintings” in ornate frames. (If you watch those portraits carefully, you may see their expressions change.)

And then there’s the roof.

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1. The hotel’s rooftop pool. 2. Schrager opened the hotel’s roof up as a 14,000-square-foot park-like area. 3. A swing set on the rooftop terrace, which non-hotel guests can access with a $35 day pass.

Faced with a snug property that has already been declared a protected local cultural resource, Schrager persuaded West Hollywood officials to let him reinforce some walls and open the hotel’s roof up as a 14,000-square-foot park-like area for up to 400 guests. Surfaced with artificial turf and pebbles, it has a swing set, firepits, picnic tables, a running track, a bar, a 30-foot-wide screen for movies and panoramic views of the Hollywood Hills and city skyline. (Non-hotel guests can access the area until 5 p.m. by buying a $35 day pass.)

“Approximately 75% of the public space in the hotel is outdoors,” Schrager said. “We feel that’s just the right thing to do when you’re in Southern California. It brought another dimension to the hotel.”

Yet Schrager confessed that he’s still not exactly sure how that will work.

“We never know how people are going to use the space,” Schrager said. “We do the best we can … and then we make adjustments.”

The hotel’s lobby bar and restaurant.

There’s luminous LED lighting in public rooms.

The Public’s building, a three-story structure by Midcentury Modernist architect Herbert R. Kameon, opened as the Thunderbird Inn and featured wave-shaped balcony walls, which remain. Later it became the Hollywood Sunset Hotel, then the Golden Crest retirement home. Its profile grew when the Standard Hotel, a venture by André Balazs, opened in 1999 and raised eyebrows with its upside-down sign, a DJ booth next to the front desk, a poolside deck covered in blue artificial turf and (as shown in a 2000 episode of “Sex and the City”) a glass box in its lobby, which often contained models and actors in provocative poses. After the Standard shut down, the building fell idle for years.

Its new incarnation features design contributions from Schrager and British minimalist designer John Pawson and departs from upscale boutique hotel tradition in several ways.

The lobby floor is white, the furniture supplying pops of blue, green and red. The front desk is a trio of pink podiums (one for self-check-in, two to be staffed). The luminous LED lighting in public rooms and corridors hints at a UFO arrival and pays homage to artists James Turrell and Dan Flavin. Room service is limited because, Schrager said, the cost of delivering a soft-boiled egg to someone’s room makes no sense for anyone anymore.

“I think really what’s important is that everybody who is working at the hotel is personable, is friendly, is charming and genuinely interested in being helpful,” Schrager said. “I think that’s more important than the gold buttons, gold epaulets and all the other accoutrements.”

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1. Gold pool table balls. 2. Plants fill the restaurant.

As much as he loves coming up with design ideas, Schrager said, most are “a little bit like the special effects in a movie. They can make a good movie better, but they can’t make a bad movie good.”

In the Public Hotel’s guest rooms, almost everything is white and there are no visible TVs. Instead, each room has a bench housing an angled projector. Click your remote control and you have an 11-foot-wide image on a white wall — a sort of private screening room.

“I couldn’t bear to have a big, black ugly TV on the wall in my pristine hotel room,” Schrager said, adding that “it’s going to change the industry. Everyone’s going to do that and get rid of the television because it just makes sense.”

Schrager, 80, speaks with a thick Brooklyn accent. He won wide attention as co-owner of the New York night club Studio 54, which opened in April 1977, nearly 50 years ago. Though it lasted just under three years, that scene became an emblem of its era, but it ended poorly for Schrager. In 1980, he was convicted of tax evasion and served about a year in federal prison. In 2017 — after reinventing himself as a hotelier, achieving sustained success and expressing remorse — he was pardoned in 2017 by President Obama.

“I wanted it for my family,” Schrager told the New York Times. “It’s hard to be a good example for your kids when you did something like what I did, and you try to teach your kids to live by the rules and be an upstanding person.”

Schrager’s rise in the hotel business was steep. In 1984, he and business partner Steve Rubell opened Morgans Hotel, a pioneer in the “boutique hotel” category. Soon Schrager and Rubell expanded Morgans Hotel Group to include the Royalton and Paramount hotels in Manhattan and the redesigned Mondrian (now known as the Valorian) in Los Angeles. After selling his interest in Morgans Hotel Group, Schrager teamed with Marriott International to build that company’s Edition brand, including the Edition hotel that has been in business on Sunset in West Hollywood since 2019.

Lobby pool table, the Public West Hollywood hotel.

With the Public in WeHo, Schrager is building yet another brand, one which already includes New York’s Public Hotel (opened in 2017). Schrager’s partner in Public Hotels is Highgate Hotels, a New York-based global hotel that is handling financing and management while Schrager focuses on “branding, marketing and creating the vibe.” If all goes to plan, Schrager said, Public will soon open three more hotels in Manhattan, the first within 18 months.

But first, he needs to help introduce the Public to West Hollywood. In the run-up to opening, the New York-based Schrager said, he’s been visiting L.A. weekly for the last few months.

And since his own hotel was unfinished, where has he been sleeping?

“I hate to say this. The Four Seasons.”

When Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman was asked recently about the ways the LAPD was falling short, she pointed out that the agency had stopped posting neighborhood-level crime statistics. The lack of data, she said, gives an incomplete picture of how safe the city is — and also undermines the public’s already shaky trust in police.

Her comments during a recent mayoral debate thrust the issue of police secrecy into the spotlight, while giving voice to a growing number of critics of LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell who argue that his department is moving in the wrong direction when it comes to transparency.

Frustration by neighborhood groups over the missing crime data has boiled over in recent weeks, thanks in part to Raman’s comments. But it also comes as free press advocates complain that the department’s responsiveness to public records requests has slowed, and as officers increasingly face accusations of targeting journalists in the field during protests.

When Mayor Karen Bass and LAPD officials were asked about the disappearing crime data at a news conference last week, a senior department official fielded the question and chalked it up to a “software issue,” which the department was working on and hoped to have resolved soon. A Bass spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday afternoon.

In an interview with KNX radio this week, McDonnell claimed that changes to internal policies and state law had made the LAPD more transparent today about its operations and functions than ever before.

McDonnell declined an interview request through a spokesperson on Friday.

“The Department remains committed to transparency and to keeping the public informed,” the spokesperson, Officer Jeff Lee, wrote in an email. “That includes public access to crime data, timely handling of California Public Records Act requests within available resources, and respect for the rights of members of the media covering public events.”

In the spring of 2025, roughly a year after the LAPD released thousands of police officer photos that it later tried to claw back, the department quietly stopped posting files released in response to public records requests, cutting off access to a trove of documents that were once available through the the city’s data portal. Department watchdogs have long argued that such records allow residents to evaluate how the LAPD and other agencies are performing.

Reports based on the investigations of police shootings and other serious uses of force that used to be released shortly after they were presented to the Police Commission, the LAPD’s civilian oversight body, now take months to be produced.

The department’s inability to respond to records requests in a timely fashion seems designed to defuse public outrage, critics argue; dragging out the time it takes to release records means that information becomes available long after most citizens have moved on, they contend. Activists routinely pack the Police Commission’s Tuesday meetings to decry what many refer to as “secret police.”

McDonnell has acknowledged delays in producing records, saying that the unit tasked with reviewing and releasing the information is “grossly understaffed.” But progress on filling some of these vacancies has been slow.

LAPD officials have said that a recent change to state law that now requires police departments to release more information about officer misconduct and cases that involve serious uses of force has placed additional burden on the unit. Adding to the backlog are prolific requesters who flood the department with complex and time-consuming inquiries, all of which have to undergo several levels of review to avoid the release of private data, they argue.

McDonnell has also come under fire for his officers’ behavior toward journalists during protests last year against President Trump’s immigration crackdown. In July 2025, a federal judge issued an order prohibiting LAPD officers from targeting media members with crowd-control weapons.

In the months since, media groups have denounced the department for continuing to violate the order, which has deepened the tensions between police leaders and the press. Since June 2025, the city has been hit with dozens of legal claims from protesters and journalists who claim that LAPD officers used excessive force against them.

Police officials have accused some independent journalists of behaving more like demonstrators than reporters, and argued that the use of less-lethal weapons was justified after officers were provoked or had their commands disobeyed in chaotic situations.

Press freedom advocates say that under McDonnell, the department’s relationship with the local news media has gotten increasingly strained.

McDonnell, some argue, has made himself available only to news outlets that provide favorable coverage of the department.

In more ways than one, McDonnell seems out of step with modern expectations around government transparency by a public that is increasingly wary of public institutions, said Adam Rose, a deputy director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation.

Rose said he often disagreed with McDonnnell’s predecessor, Michel Moore, but that the former chief at least made himself accessible. Moore used to opine on national issues and occasionally tried to get in front of brewing controversies, Rose said, but he was also willing to hear out concerns about the treatment of journalists.

McDonnell, he said, hasn’t even bothered to give out his cellphone number.

“[Moore] had at least the courtesy and dignity to address groups speaking on behalf of journalists who while trying to cover the department were injured,” Rose said.

Last November, McDonnell abruptly ousted the department’s former top civilian spokesperson, Jennifer Forkish. Some of her duties were reportedly absorbed by Robert Port, a veteran documentary filmmaker with no PR experience whose own hiring was shrouded in secrecy. Port’s job proposal suggested that he was sought to use his Hollywood connections to help burnish the department’s battered public image.

Port told the news outlet L.A. Material that he was working on a reality show that promises to take viewers behind the scenes of patrolling the city’s streets. The department has sought $15,000 from the City Council to hire an outside law firm to represent the city with negotiations with a company called 44 Blue Productions LLC.

Forkish, the former spokesperson, told The Times that she has heard from journalists “here in Los Angeles and around the world who say they’re struggling to get responses to media inquiries and public records requests.”

“As an Angeleno, that concerns me,” she wrote in a text message. “Responding to the press is part of being accountable to the public, and transparency is essential to maintaining public trust.”

Attorneys who have sued the department, either on behalf of aggrieved officers or members of the public, argue that maintaining secrecy allows the LAPD to dismiss criticism on the grounds that outsiders don’t understand what’s happening.

“The LAPD has now evolved into an inward-facing organization.” said Jorja Leap, a professor of social welfare at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. “It’s a pivotal moment. I still see people within the department working on community relations — I don’t want this to be a lost opportunity.”

The Los Angeles Board of Public Works has been overseeing work on streets, sidewalks and sewers since 1905. But if voters approve Measure LA on Tuesday’s ballot, it might not be around much longer.

The charter amendment enacts a half-dozen changes, and the most divisive is a provision that would “allow for the elimination of or changes to the Board of Public Works.”

Proponents assert that passage would lead to better city services and quicker repairs of deteriorating infrastructure. They also say the five-member board wouldn’t just disappear, and disbanding it actually would require a two-thirds vote of the 15-member City Council.

Opponents say the board plays a crucial role in managing billions of dollars of infrastructure projects while maintaining public accessibility and handling matters that don’t merit council attention (such as tree removal votes). They fear that eliminating the five-member oversight panel, and putting a single person in charge, would open the door to graft, with some citing San Francisco’s former director of public works being sentenced in 2022 to seven years in federal prison for his role in a kickback and bribery scheme.

“If the Board of Public Works was eliminated and concentrated within the authority of one person, I think that gives way to more corruption than transparency,” Councilmember Monica Rodriguez said.

Storm drains and sidewalk repairs

The board generally convenes Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays in an ornate, high-ceilinged room on the fourth floor of City Hall.

One recent 2½-hour meeting kicked off with a lengthy celebration of Latino Heritage Month, and then the four members present moved through a series of agenda items tied to low-profile infrastructure projects, including:

• A reveal of seven bids for a package of sidewalk repairs, with Acting Executive Officer TJ Knight reading aloud the name of each applicant, and the bid amount, sometimes down to the penny. They ranged from a high of $2.47 million to a low of $1.9 million
• A Bureau of Engineering representative requested authority to boost the budget of a storm drain project in the Pacific Palisades in advance of El Niño storms.
• A Bureau of Street Services staffer broke down a request to remove protected trees (with plans for replacement) on a project on Mulholland Drive.

Each discussion item drew questions from the commissioners. All items were unanimously approved.

Paid positions

The five board members are all full-time city employees who earn slightly less than $200,000 a year. The members, including the board president, are appointed by the mayor and together oversee more than 5,500 people who work for city bureaus and offices that handle sanitation, street lighting, engineering, graffiti removal and more. Each bureau also has its own head.

A Board of Public Works meeting at City Hall.

(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Times)

The board members aren’t commenting on Measure LA. Former members, however, say the five-member board is an effective way to manage and coordinate a wealth of projects.

Rodriguez, who served on the board from 2013-16, said that during her tenure she focused on overhauling the procurement process to allow small, women-owned and minority-owned businesses to better compete for city contracts. She also learned the inner workings of the panel that approves more than 85% of the city’s construction contracts.

Diffusing the workload, former members say, allows for regular interaction with elected officials and the private sector.

Valerie Lynne Shaw, who served on the board from 1996 to 2013, said the board plays an important role in serving as a “coordinating mechanism” for infrastructure projects, and that commissioners regularly assist in solving problems raised by the public. She echoed the benefits of a larger panel.

“Power in the hands of many better serves the city as opposed to power in the hands of one,” she stated.

One former board member, who asked not to be identified to preserve professional relationships, said the existing system yields frequent public interaction, whether it’s people speaking during meetings or via other channels.

“I regularly went to neighborhood council meetings, homeowners association meetings, town halls, county board of supervisors meetings, to the state legislature,” the former member said. “A director can do some of that, but not all of that.”

Who’s in charge?

Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky begs to differ. From her vantage point, the current system is fragmented with no clear authority.

Yaroslavsky has been frustrated in getting information on a long-running intersection repair project on La Cienega Boulevard in her Fairfax area district.

“I can’t get any information from anybody, and I’m the councilperson,” she says.

Yaroslavsky contrasts the city setup with that of Los Angeles County, which she says has a well-known leader in Director of Public Works Mark Pestrella. She believes the city system of five board members serving as a collective general manager is a vestige of another era that never would be created today.

“When you have one person in charge, you know who you can hold accountable,” she says.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, another Measure LA supporter, agrees that accountability and efficiency could be bolstered under a revamped system. He believes that when certain projects require the participation of multiple bureaus, there can be a silo effect that slows progress.

“For years we’ve talked about, how do we better coordinate the bureaus? There have been advances, but it’s still fundamentally been a challenge,” he says.

In June, when the full council discussed changes to the board, during a marathon meeting about what would go on Tuesday’s ballot, panel President Marqueece Harris-Dawson also indicated that the current setup can cause confusion.

He said that, when discussing a project, “I have someone from Street Lighting saying to me, ‘Well, yeah, I can fix that light, but you also have to talk to Engineering.’ And Engineering says, ‘Well, that isn’t on our list to do.’ So it just feels like it’s bounced around, and there isn’t any one person that can say, ‘Here’s how the problem gets solved.’”

At the meeting, Rodriguez countered that having a single person in charge would not necessarily change that.

“A director isn’t going to be the omnipotent one that knows everything about what’s being coordinated between the different bureaus,” she said. Instead, she added, “If we want to talk about the real problems, we’ve got to talk about the resources and staffing support of each of these bureaus.”

Hiding the poison?

According to a City Ethics Commission database, no money has been spent by groups either supporting or opposing Measure LA. But for some political observers, the measure remains multifaceted and the debate heated.

Opponents of Measure LA question why something so significant and controversial as the potential eradication of a board that has been in existence for more than 150 years is on a ballot measure with more palatable proposals, such as adopting a two-year budget cycle and establishing a capital infrastructure plan.

Some have compared it with city Measure EE, the November charter amendment that includes good-governance elements such as boosting penalties for campaign finance violations and a more consequential proposal to allow the full council to meet at least once a week, rather than the current requirement of three times a week.

The former Board of Public Works member suggested that altering the five-member panel should have been its own item, saying, “The longer the paragraphs are, the fewer words the public will read.”

Rodriguez was even more direct, saying, “I think those are all tethered together to make you swallow the poison.”

Yaroslavsky described some of the board members as “very talented,” including its president, Steve Kang, and she acknowledges that separating aspects in the measure would have allowed a more focused conversation on public works. But she believes putting everything together is part of addressing “common-sense, obvious stuff” that will help the city function better.

Blumenfield also understands the objection but points out that the ballot already is overwhelming, and that everything in Measure LA addresses a change in governance and efficiency.

He also points out that voter approval would only set the stage for a later discussion. If a future council opts to change or eliminate the board, it would require 10 votes — or 12 if the mayor vetoed such a move.

“It’s a question that is worth asking, but nobody wants to take the time to go deep on how could we be better if we can’t even have the authority?” Blumenfield said.

WASHINGTON — An immigrant detainee died Saturday morning at the Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, marking the 61st such death under the Trump administration.

In an emailed statement, an unnamed spokesperson with CoreCivic, the Tennessee-based private prison company that operates the facility, confirmed the death. Per the spokesperson, a staff member at the Otay Mesa facility called in a medical emergency around 11:36 a.m. Saturday after finding an unresponsive person in their assigned living area.

Medical staff arrived quickly, began lifesaving measures and called for emergency medical services, the spokesperson said. EMS arrived and continued those efforts, but the person was pronounced dead at the facility.

“We are deeply saddened by the loss of anyone in our care,” the spokesperson wrote, adding that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was immediately notified.

ICE and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment. CoreCivic did not provide information about the person’s identity.

The death was first reported by Daylight San Diego.

San Diego County Supervisor Paloma Aguirre, in a statement Tuesday, wrote that ICE and CoreCivic must quickly reach the person’s family, cooperate with a thorough investigation and share what they find with the public. Aguirre said she asked the county public health officer to determine what kind of follow-up is possible under a state law that allows local public health authorities to inspect ICE facilities.

“Somewhere, a family is waiting for a phone call, and my heart is with them,” she wrote.

This is the seventh person to die while in ICE custody in California under this administration, and the first to die at the Otay Mesa facility since 2023.

Deaths have increased as the Trump administration detained record numbers of people, with the population at one point ballooning past 70,000 nationwide.

The most recent death reported by ICE was that of Luis Sandoval, 48, a Salvadoran immigrant who died of apparent suicide Friday. Staff at the Folkston D. Ray ICE Processing Center in Georgia found Sandoval with a ligature around his neck, according to an ICE news release.

ICE policy is to notify the public and Congress within two business days of a detainee’s death. More extensive reports about each death, which were typically three pages, must be released within 90 days, though those have been reduced to a few paragraphs.

WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Monday to extend an order blocking the Trump administration’s renovation plans for a century-old public golf course in the nation’s capital.

U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the East Potomac Golf Course. The administration must give 10 days’ notice in writing before making any “irreparable modification” to any “forms or features” of the course while the lawsuit is active.

“The Court earlier stated, ‘I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees.’ The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law,” Reyes wrote.

Reyes expressed astonishment that the government has asked her to “not to believe the sitting President” and disregard Trump’s statements about his plans for the golf course renovations.

“This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more,” Reyes wrote. “It now forces the Court to reconcile assertions by President Donald J. Trump with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the argument of senior Department of Justice attorneys.”

On Oct. 18, Trump announced plans on social media to close the golf course for 15 months, starting Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers. A day later, Trump posted that the work would start immediately.

Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Biden, previously ordered the administration to suspend work on the project until at least Oct. 26.

Trump was asked about the case late Monday night as he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland following a rally in Mississippi and indicated that work on the golf course will proceed as planned.

“It has the go-ahead. The judge feels that she would like to approve it as it goes along. And I didn’t know she was an architectural critic of golf courses,” Trump said sarcastically.

He added of the judge: “She knows nothing about that, so we’ll appeal that” while also calling his planned overhaul a “beautiful project for Washington, D.C.”

Trump later in a social media post reiterated a statement he made Oct. 18 that the course would close for 15 months. “We are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons,” he wrote.

The plaintiffs challenging the project, DC Preservation League and two golfers, claim the work is inflicting irreversible damage. At a hearing, the judge excoriated the government after workers cut down at least 400 trees over a holiday weekend with little notice to the plaintiffs.

The course renovation project is part of the Republican president’s aggressive campaign to leave his personal imprint on Washington’s historic landscape. Those plans include construction of a huge ballroom at the White House, a massive arch and the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park. DC Preservation League is part of a coalition of organizations, including the Cultural Landscape Foundation and one D.C. resident, who have filed lawsuit challenging those plans.

Reyes rejected the administration’s request for her to recuse herself from the case. The government questioned her impartiality and accused her of engaging in “egregious” behavior from the bench during an emergency hearing in the case.

In Monday’s ruling Reyes stressed that she had hoped the parties could have resolved their dispute without judicial intervention. She noted that she had denied plaintiffs’ previous requests.

“The Court would much prefer not to have to resolve Lorax v. Once‑ler redux. Indeed, for months, the Court declined to intervene,” she wrote.

But she said the government forced her hand by bulldozing hundreds of trees without any notice, doing “what it assured all it would not do.”

Reyes quoted from a golf-related opinion written by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, in stressing the temporary nature of her own decision.

“Here, golf and government have again clashed,” Reyes wrote. “By issuing this preliminary injunction, the Court does not end the round: it simply marks the ball until the parties can fully and fairly litigate this case.

Democracy Forward President & CEO Skye Perryman, whose organization is co-counsel representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a big win that will rightly protect East Potomac Park from further irreparable harm.” She added, in an email, that the move will stop activities “while the case continues, and we are eager to argue the case in court.”

Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Gary Fields and Will Weissert contributed to this report.

Demonstrators allege Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his coalition’s proposed reforms pose a threat to press freedom.

Several thousand people have taken to the streets in Prague to protest against plans to change the funding system for the Czech Republic’s public media, accusing the government of stifling press freedom.

On Sunday, protesters demanded the withdrawal of legislation seeking to abolish household licence fees and replace them with state budget allocations for public radio and television.

The Czech lower house of parliament approved fast-tracking the bill in a rare overnight vote on Saturday after governing coalition lawmakers rushed to open the issue, limiting the opposition’s ability to engage in debate before the vote was held.

The bill, proposed by the governing coalition led by billionaire Prime Minister Andrej Babis, which includes two far-right parties, must still be passed by the upper house before becoming law.

The opposition has pledged to challenge the legislation in the constitutional court. The plan would cut funding for public media by about 15 percent, possibly as early as next year.

At the protest in Prague’s Old Town Square, demonstrators chanted, “We’ve had enough”, “This must not be allowed to pass”, and “4:36”, referencing the early morning hour when the draft was approved by parliament.

Babis has said the plan is not an attack on media independence but a matter of funding transparency.

Critics warn the proposed change would allow the governing coalition to take control of the media. They compare it with the actions of populist governments, such as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico.

Babis and his coalition, whose agenda includes reducing support for Ukraine as it fights off a Russian invasion, have a record of attacks against the media.

Public media staffers announced they would go on strike on November 3. They are backed by labour unions, university rectors, churches, international media organisations and many others.

A rally is also planned at Prague’s Letna park on November 15, two days before the anniversary of the 1989 anti-communist Velvet Revolution that ended more than 40 years of totalitarian government.

The measure aims to tackle the cost of what it takes to run a campaign and to broaden the pool of people who could run for office without being tethered to any individual, group or special interest.

“The increasing costs of political campaigns can force candidates to rely on large contributions from wealthy donors and special interests, which can give those wealthy donors and special interests disproportionate influence over governmental decisions,” the measure states.

There have been several attempts to allow for public campaign financing in California. Five charter cities, including Los Angeles, and at least 14 other states already allow some version of it.

“This bill will restore control to local governments and the state by giving counties, districts, general law cities, and the state the same option that charter cities currently have to enact public financing of campaigns,” a Senate rules committee analysis states.

While Republican Steve Hilton has spent months jackrabbiting around California during his long-shot bid for governor, Democratic front runner Xavier Becerra just recently emerged from quasi hibernation and stepped into political daylight.

Hilton has blasted Becerra as taking the state’s voters for granted, failing to hold public campaign events to explain his detailed plans to address California’s many ills. Despite pledging to participate in multiple debates, Becerra brushed aside several invitations, agreeing to just a solitary one-hour face-off against Hilton on CNN in late September.

That month, Hilton held 14 public events, a dozen more than Becerra, but the Democrat’s spokesperson said he appeared at multiple functions sponsored by other groups. Hilton wasn’t buying it.

“He is a useless nothing, a totally unaccomplished pipsqueak who is so smug, so arrogant, so entitled, that he somehow thinks he’s owed this job just because he was picked as a useful puppet by the Sacramento machine,” Hilton, a former Fox News commentator and British political strategist, said last week in West Sacramento.

On Oct. 10, Becerra, a longtime member of Congress and Biden’s secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, scoffed at his GOP rival.

“Uh, hello?” Becerra said sarcastically to reporters in Sacramento after being asked about his absence from the campaign trail.

“That Steve Hilton doesn’t see me on Fox News is his problem, not mine. I am gonna talk to voters,” Becerra said, rattling off a list of his recent campaign events. “I will talk to them until November the 3rd, and then I’ll be ready to talk to voters and taxpayers and the people of California when I’m the next governor.”

On Thursday, Becerra held a news conference in downtown Los Angeles with Latino leaders and famed Mexican actor Eugenio Derbez urging voters to turn out despite alleged intimidation efforts by the Trump administration.

On Monday, he held get-out-the-vote events in Santa Clarita and Glendale, shortly after he campaigned for former state Sen. Richard Pan, a congressional candidate, in Sacramento, and urged voters to cast their ballots early at an event in Santa Rosa. In September, Becerra promoted Proposition 1, a proposal on the November ballot that would allow the state to sell nearly $11.3 billion in bonds to fund affordable housing.

“We know we can get these men and women who are wearing these orange vests to work and keep them working, so they can afford to buy a house if we pass Proposition 1,” Becerra said, standing alongside union members in front of a chain-link fence encircling a vacant lot in North Long Beach.

Gubernatorial candidate Xavier Becerra held a news conference in Long Beach on Sept. 4 to highlight his housing agenda.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Long Beach Mayor Rex Richardson, who endorsed Becerra in April and appeared at the housing event, pushed back on the notion that Becerra is taking the election for granted after winning a top spot in the primary, positioning him to be the first Mexican American elected governor of California.

“I’ve seen firsthand the work that has taken place under the radar that may not be explicitly, openly political or openly be seen as campaigning, but it is the kind of thing you want to see,” Richardson said in an interview on Thursday, adding that he saw Becerra meeting with elected officials of both parties, the mayors of the state’s largest cities and labor leaders. “I’ve seen a very active candidate that has been making sure that real time was put into building relationships that will ultimately translate to a successful governorship, because that’s the goal. I mean, ultimately, what we want is a leader who has the relationships to lead our state.”

Becerra’s campaign said that the candidate has frequently met with voters since the primary without press coverage to hear from Californians, and that he would be a frequent public presence in the weeks before the election, when “voters really get engaged, when ballots land in their mailbox,” said spokesman Jonathan Underland.

“People have incredibly busy lives. They are worried about affording their healthcare, putting food on the table, paying for gas to fill their tank,” Underland said. “What is at the forefront of Secretary Becerra’s mind is the very real problems that Californians are facing every day.”

In contrast, Hilton has been publicly barnstorming California since the June primary.

Becerra’s schedule is not surprising given Democratic dominance in California, where the party’s registered voters outnumber Republicans nearly 2 to 1. While appearing at parades, pancake breakfasts and in voters’ living rooms can be effective for candidates running in local campaigns, the most effective way for candidates to reach voters in a state as vast as California is through sustained advertising buys, which can cost tens of millions of dollars.

“If you’re the Democrat running in California, the operating theme of your campaign is do no harm and measure the drapes and figure out how you’re going to put an administration together and what is the tone that you’re going to set for that administration,” said Tim Rosales, a veteran GOP consultant who led businessman John Cox’s unsuccessful 2018 gubernatorial campaign and previously worked on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s successful effort to replace Gov. Gray Davis in the 2003 recall campaign.

Newsom was more active in the 2018 general election campaign against Cox than Becerra has been this year, but Rosales argued that could be because Becerra views it as the final chapter of his political career, which also may have been the case with former Gov. Jerry Brown in his 2014 reelection campaign. Newsom, however, is pondering a 2028 run for the White House.

“This is potentially more of a swan song for Xavier Becerra, the icing on the cake for a long and distinguished political career, and for Gavin Newsom, it was a stepping stone,” Rosales said.

Becerra has raised $40.5 million, as of Friday, while Hilton has raised $29 million, according to the fundraising disclosure reports filed with the state. Those figures do not include the exponential advantage that Becerra had in independent expenditure committees’ spending over Hilton in the primary.

Veteran Republican strategist Rob Stutzman, an advisor to Schwarzenegger, said that while Becerra will almost certainly be the state’s next governor, he should be cautious about his approach weeks before the November election.

“What he needs to be careful of is a big Democratic night across the United States that looks muted in California, and if that happens, the analysis will be that it’s his fault,” Stutzman said. “He should want to optimize his political capital as the clear leader of his party now in California. So he has to be a little careful of leaving some political capital on the table by not creating a stronger brand over the next three weeks.”

The last gubernatorial race that was viewed as competitive took place in 2010 between Brown and former eBay chief Meg Whitman, then a Republican who spent $144 million of her personal wealth on her campaign.

That contest drew national attention, but Brown beat Whitman by nearly 13 percentage points. Every gubernatorial election since that race has been sleepy and ignored in national politics, with Democratic candidates coasting to victory. The state has seen contentious gubernatorial primaries, notably in 2018, and this year, when the Democratic field was so crowded that party leaders urged low-polling candidates, including Becerra, to drop out.

He won the top spot in the primary after then-Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) dropped out amid rape and sexual assault allegations.

Mason Harrison, who worked for Republicans Carly Fiorina in a 2010 Senate bid and Neel Kashkari in a 2014 gubernatorial campaign, and worked with Hilton on business ventures but is not affiliated with his campaign, noted that while Brown was well-known by Californians because of decades in the public eye, Becerra is not. However, given Democrats’ edge in the state’s voter registration, as well as current headwinds against the GOP in California and across the nation, it’s unsurprising that Becerra has been less visible than Hilton. Harrison compared Becerra’s campaign to Biden’s in 2024 before the then-president bowed out of the race.

“The calculus seems to be, the more he gets out on the campaign trail, the greater the potential of him having a misstep in an interview or getting some tough question that he’s going to have to answer, and what’s the advantage of that in a year when you’re running against a party that, by historical standards, stands to lose significantly,” Harrison said. “Why make it more competitive by making yourself more vulnerable?”

Indeed, Becerra previously committed to multiple debates, but has participated in one so far and appears unlikely to agree to another. Still, he has repeatedly disputed the notion that he is taking the race for granted.

“If I were trying to coast, I’d be out on the coast right now instead of here with you all,” he told reporters one sweltering August afternoon in Little Tokyo in downtown Los Angeles, an area he represented in Congress.

Xavier Becerra, center, walks with Helen Ota, left, president of the 2026 Nisei Week Foundation, while touring businesses and meeting with business community leaders at Japanese Village Plaza in Little Tokyo in Los Angeles on Aug. 18.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

While there, he met with local business and community leaders. And he bought merchandise and delicacies, including a sweet mango mochi wrapped in a thin, fluffy pancake at a 123-year-old Japanese confectionery.

Times staff writer Nicole Nixon contributed to this report from Sacramento.

Anthropic (ANTHRO) plans to allocate 5% of its equity to a new fund designed to address the societal consequences of artificial intelligence, including potential job losses as businesses increasingly deploy AI-powered automation. The initiative, announced Sunday, comes as the developer of the Claude AI

GRANTCHESTER hunk Tom Brittney has split from his fiancée and moved on with tattooed model Clo Gascoigne.

It comes two years after Tom’s engagement to his long-term girlfriend, whose name he never revealed.

The new couple have now gone Instagram-official as Clo shared a loved-up snap of them on the red carpet at Prime Video’s Carrie launch last week.

Tom, who recently starred in thriller movie Fall 2: Deadpoint, featured in Clo’s TikTok (which she has now deleted) where she filmed him watching himself on telly with the caption: “POV your boyfriend is an actor.”
Congrats.

HOLLY AND FELTZ CLICK

HOLLY WILLOUGHBY has been exchanging tips with Vanessa Feltz on kickstarting their YouTube careers.

The presenters, who worked together regularly on This Morning, shared a snap on Instagram on Friday after watching a performance at the English National Opera in central London.

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Speaking earlier in the week at Best magazine’s Heroes Awards, Vanessa said: “I’ve had a really great voicenote from Holly.

“She is incredibly encouraging and she says she’s thoroughly enjoying it and she can see that I am.

“We’re having dinner this week. We really like each other and support each other and I think she’s doing an absolute bang-up job. I think that women supporting women is always attractive and great.”

The former chat show host started her own YouTube series, At Home With Vanessa, earlier this year.

She added: “It’s quite a big deal to do it. Terrestrial TV seems to feel narrower, smaller, and fewer and fewer opportunities.

“On terrestrial TV, they all seem to be reining themselves in, there seem to be lots of cuts being made, and closures, things are shorter and smaller and less often and all this kind of thing.

“So I think the idea of just waiting for an opportunity there might be a very long wait.

“It’s a question of feeling like you want to try to see if you can make an opportunity for yourself.”

MARK HAMILL is reprising his role as Luke Skywalker . . . in an Old Spice ad.

The actor filmed a top-secret campaign for the vintage aftershave favoured by dads, in which he appeared as his legendary Star Wars character.

The shoot took place in the UK last week.

A mole tells me: “Mark was paid big bucks for the ad – after all, he’s a huge Hollywood star.

“Bosses think he’ll appeal to the Old Spice market as Star Wars is so popular with dads.”

Mark also has a cameo in Amazon Prime’s new series Carrie, where he plays a fraudulent fortune teller.

NICOLE SPOTTED IN CATSUIT

NICOLE SCHERZINGER had a wild night stepping out in a skintight leopard-print catsuit.

The singer was joined by her Pussycat Dolls bandmates Ashley Roberts and Kimberley Wyatt at Nammos Greek restaurant in London’s Mayfair on Friday night, to celebrate their successful reunion tour.

The trio dined on signature dishes and enjoyed cocktails.

An onlooker said: “They were in high spirits. They had an amazing tour and got rave reviews, they deserve to let their hair down.”

TYLA’S HOT FLUFF

TYLA showed her softer side as she donned a fluffy lingerie set for a show on Friday night.

Excited to be performing in the capital, the South African singer painted “London” across her thigh for the O2 Brixton Academy leg of her A*Pop World Tour.

The Water hitmaker, full name Tyla Laura Seethal, revealed that she loves the UK but still sees Johannesburg as her home.

The Grammy Award-winning singer said: “We don’t have paparazzi and you see our superstars at the mall, like every weekend. It’s kind of chill.

“It feels like a movie [in the UK] – the fact that people care about every little thing I do and say.”

Tyla continues her tour tonight in Glasgow then Manchester tomorrow.

ZARA’S GOT SOMETHING ‘SPECIAL’

ZARA LARSSON has confirmed a new album is coming next year and has already recorded the first track.

The star said the “special” song came by accident while she was working on this year’s remix album Girls Trips and she knows it’s going to be a hit.

She explained on Popcast: “I think it’s going to be a really fun journey to write the next album.

“I already have new lyrics, actually I have one song we did just because we couldn’t help ourselves when we weremaking Girls Trips and it sort of gave me the same feeling to when I did (previous album) Midnight Sun.

“When I left that session you just know when something is special and that’s one, and also what it was; for the four of us being fully present.”

EMMERDALE OLIVIA IS NED OVER HEELS

THEY had a sizzling love affair on Emmerdale – but I can reveal that Olivia Bromley and Ned Porteous are a couple off-screen as well.

The ITV soap pair have been secretly dating for months.

Gorgeous Olivia and hunky Ned grew close after their characters, Dawn Taylor and Joe Tate, were involved in one of the show’s biggest-ever love triangles.

But the couple initially kept their romance quiet.

An Emmerdale source said: “Olivia and Ned were a couple off-screen while acting out those sex scenes.

“It was easy for them to get away with it because they were working so closely together.

“A few people clocked what was going on and they both admitted that they were seeing where things go. But it’s been a good few months now and they couldn’t be happier.”

Olivia left the soap over the summer, but now she has a great excuse to keep visiting the set.