recapture

Well, it was fun while it lasted … wait, it’s not over?

There’s somehow at least four games left in a UCLA football season that feels like it’s already exhausted its story arc and run out of acts.

Act I: The fall of a proud Bruin.

Act II: The rise of a proud (Fresno State) Bulldog-turned-Bruin.

Act III: A 50-point implosion that sucked the air out of the season and didn’t please any Bruin.

What’s left after an 0-4 start that included the firing of a coach followed by a three-game winning streak and a 56-6 loss to one of the nation’s top teams? Somehow, there’s still at least a third of a season to go.

A victory over Nebraska on Saturday evening at the Rose Bowl could essentially put the Bruins right back where they were a few weeks ago, giving interim coach Tim Skipper another chance to reclaim the hearts of the college football world with an upset of top-ranked Ohio State the following weekend.

But first they have to get past a Cornhusker team missing its biggest kernel. Nebraska quarterback Dylan Raiola is out for the season with a broken leg, forcing the team to turn to a true freshman who was throwing passes for Orange Lutheran High this time last year.

Don’t expect TJ Lateef or any of his teammates to walk into the Rose Bowl waving a white flag.

“It would just be so average to go out there and be like, well, we’ve got a freshman quarterback and it is what it is,” Nebraska coach Matt Rhule told reporters this week. “Like, no, we’re not doing that. We’ve got TJ Lateef and we’re going to rally around him.”

Here are five things to watch when the Bruins (3-5 overall, 3-2 Big Ten) face the Cornhuskers (6-3, 3-3) in a game that starts at 6 p.m. PST and will be televised by Fox:

Quarterback quandary

Nebraska quarterback TJ Lateef hands off the ball to running back Emmett Johnson during the second half against USC.

(Bonnie Ryan / Associated Press)

Lateef is about to become just the fourth true freshman quarterback to start a game for Nebraska since 1950.

Will it be a performance for the ages?

Lateef didn’t wow in relief of Raiola last weekend against USC. He completed five of seven passes as the Trojans rallied for a 21-17 victory, those completions going for a grand total of seven yards — 1.4 yards per completion. Lateef might be more dangerous as a runner than a passer, having averaged 4.5 yards and scored two touchdowns in his 11 carries.

Skipper said the Bruins would watch Lateef’s high school game footage to get a fuller understanding of his potential.

“We know we’re going to get some unscouted looks, unscouted plays,” Skipper said. “I’m sure there’s things that he does well that they’re gonna want to do that they haven’t really shown. He kind of had to do the game plan and scheming that they had up for Dylan and his reps [against USC], so we’ll have to adjust as the game goes.”

On the other hand . . .

Nebraska’s uncertainty at quarterback likely means more opportunity for its running game.

And the Cornhuskers have a good one.

Emmett Johnson has already topped 100 yards rushing in five games this season, totaling 1,002 yards and 10 touchdowns on the ground. Against USC, he ran for 165 yards and a touchdown while averaging 5.7 yards per carry.

“We’re going to need to know where he is at all times,” Skipper said. “He does a great job of just making people miss, I’m really impressed by how he plays. You know, I come from a family of running back coaches, and I’ve watched a lot of backs, and he’s one of the top guys I’ve ever seen.”

Another mantra

Skipper could keep a custom T-shirt shop busy with all his slogans.

He’s told his players to strain. He’s asked them whether they were one-hit wonders. He’s implored them to uphold the standard they had established.

Over the two weeks that followed his team’s 56-6 loss to Indiana, he’s delivered a new message.

“We’re just getting back to the basics,” Skipper said. “It’s about fundamentals and little details. That’s kind of been what we’ve been really preaching.”

Linebacker Jalen Woods said plenty of time has been spent on tackling after the team experienced significant slippage in that area against the Hoosiers. Offensive tackle Garrett DiGiorgio said players ran between drills to quicken the tempo of everything they were doing.

With an extra week to prepare for the Cornhuskers after a bye, the Bruins have tried not to let the disappointment they experienced in their last game linger.

“Don’t let it carry over into the next game,” Woods said of the team’s collective mindset.

A line redrawn

Eugene Brooks celebrates a UCLA touchdown against Penn State.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

UCLA guard Eugene Brooks was back at practice this week, a significant development for an offensive line that had struggled in his absence.

The Bruins ran for just 88 yards — 60 by running backs — and allowed three sacks with Brooks sidelined against Indiana.

It appears they’ll be back at full strength against a Nebraska defense that’s allowing only 289.9 yards per game, ranking No. 13 nationally.

Skipper said the Cornhuskers create confusion using multiple defensive fronts with hybrid players who either rush the quarterback or drop into coverage.

“They’re going to create a lot of havoc that way with the people that they use,” Skipper said. “They create a lot of turnovers. They’re very good on third down. They don’t give up big plays in the passing game. They’re really good at keeping people in front of them.”

Another boost

Running back Anthony Woods also returned to practice after missing the Indiana game.

His ability to run the ball and catch passes out of the backfield could help an offense that did not score a touchdown for the first time this season when it faced the Hoosiers.

Running back Jalen Berger said the success UCLA had on the ground during its three-game winning streak, when it averaged 236.7 yards rushing per game, was largely a result of an increased emphasis on its ballcarriers.

“I’d say it’s more of a commitment,” Berger said of an approach the Bruins had to abandon after falling behind big against Indiana. “Just being run-first, you know?”

The Dodgers, it turns out, chose the perfect costume in which to parade on this scariest of Halloween nights.

They were dressed as the Dodgers.

The Yoshinobu-Yamamoto-firing Dodgers. The Mookie-Betts-blasting Dodgers. The energetic-and-inspired Dodgers.

The listless team of the previous two games was gone. The inspired team of the previous month was back.

Earlier this week fans were asking, who are those guys? On Friday they emphatically answered that question by finally, forcefully, being themselves.

Faced with elimination in Game 6 of the World Series, the Dodgers rose from the presumed dead to haunt the Toronto Blue Jays at the Rogers Centre with a 3-1 victory to knot the duel at three games apiece.

And they did with the most unlikely of saves, a game-ending double play on a lineout that Kiké Hernández caught in left field and threw to Miguel Rojas at second base.

How do the Blue Jays come back from that? How can the Dodgers not gain all the momentum from that?

The quest to become the first team in 25 years to win consecutive World Series championships lives.

Game 7, Saturday night in Toronto, awaits.

And Shohei Ohtani Pitching Somewhere is up.

The stage is set for all sorts of dramatics after a night when the Dodgers took an early three-run lead on the back of slump-busting Betts and then cruised to victory on the back of another brilliant pitching performance by Yamamoto and a surprising three-inning shutdown from the Dodger bullpen.

It didn’t end smoothly, but it ended splendidly, after reliever Roki Sasaki began the ninth by hitting Alejandro Kirk in the hand with a two-strike pitch, then Addison Barger hit a ball to center field that lodged under the outfield tarp for a ground-rule double.

With runners on second and third and no out, Tyler Glasnow made an emergency appearance and recorded that memorable save, retiring Ernie Clement on a first pitch popout and ending the game by inducing Andrés Giménez into a lineout that Hernandez perfectly threw to Rojas.

The Dodgers have been here before. It was just last year, in fact, when they needed consecutive wins against the San Diego Padres in the division series to save their season.

They calmly won both and rolled to a championship. A similar path could end in a similar destination this weekend after the Dodgers rebounded from two lifeless losses at Dodger Stadium to weather the loud Game 6 storm with calm and cohesion.

“Yeah, I mean, we all know that everything has to go perfect for us to be able to pull this off,” said Teoscar Hernández before the game.

So far, so good, beginning Friday with the much-maligned Betts, who smacked a two-out, two-run single in the third inning to give the Dodgers a lead they never lost. Next up, Yamamoto, who followed consecutive complete games by giving up one run on five hits in six innings.

Enter the bullpen, which had given up nine runs in the Dodgers three losses in this series. But the sense of dread lightened when Justin Wrobleski worked around a two-out double by Clement to end the seventh with a strikeout of Giménez.

On came Sasaki, who immediately found trouble in the eighth inning by yielding a single to George Springer and walking Vladimir Guerrero Jr. But the rookie remained calm, and retired Bo Bichette on a foul popout and Daulton Varsho on a grounder.

This set up the breathtaking ninth, the inspired Dodger tone actually set by manager Dave Roberts a day earlier. Roberts did his best Tommy Lasorda imitation by literally leaving it all on the field during Thursday’s day off when he challenged speedster Hyeseong Kim to a race around the bases. Roberts gave himself a generous head start, but as Kim was passing him up around second base, Roberts tripped and fell flat on his face.

The moment was caught on a video that quickly spread over social media and actually led the FOX broadcast before Friday’s game.

Roberts looked silly. But Roberts also looked brilliant, as his pratfall injected some necessary lightness into the darkening team mood.

“I clearly wasn’t thinking,” said Roberts. “I was trying to add a little levity, that’s for sure. I wasn’t trying to do a face-plant at shortstop, and yeah, the legs just gave way. That will be the last full sprint I ever do in my life.”

He lost, but he won.

“Of course it makes you smile and it makes you have a good time,” said Rojas. “When the head of the group is…loose like that, and he’s willing to do anything, that’s what it tells everybody, that he will do anything for the team.”

The spark was lit in the third inning Friday after Blue Jay starter Kevin Gausman had struck out six of the first seven batters.

Tommy Edman, one of last fall’s postseason heroes, ripped a one-out double down the right-field line. One out later, after Ohtani had been intentionally walked, Will Smith ripped an RBI double off the left-field wall.

It was the Dodgers first hit with runners in scoring position since the fifth inning of Game 3, but the surprise was just beginning.

After Freddie Freeman walked, the bases were loaded for Betts, who was the biggest villain of the Dodgers hitting drought with a .130 World Series average while stranding 25 consecutive baserunners. He had been dropped to third in the batting order in Game 5, and then dropped again to fourth for Game 6, and it finally worked, as he knocked a two-strike fastball into left field to drive in two runs and give the Dodgers a 3-0 lead.

The Blue Jays came back with an heroic run in the bottom of the third when, after Addison Barger doubled down the left-field line, wincing George Springer fought off a painful side injury to drive a ball into right-center field to score Barger.

Now it’s down to one game.

The Dodgers are back. Advantage, Dodgers.

Mike Trout is in the final week of a profoundly frustrating season. His numbers at the plate have been shockingly pedestrian amid regular struggles with his swing mechanics, and he misses playing in the outfield.

Yet Trout remains optimistic and engaged — and the 34-year-old slugger says he still believes he can recapture his MVP form with the Los Angeles Angels.

“Yeah, I’m very confident,” Trout said Tuesday. “I think it sounds funny, but I joke about it with all the guys in there – when I see the ball, I’m good. When I don’t see it, man, it’s a battle.”

Trout entered the final homestand of the Angels’ 11th consecutive non-playoff season batting .229 with 22 homers, 59 RBIs and a .772 OPS. Those totals are all the lowest of his career during a season in which he’s played at least 100 games, and the OPS is his lowest since his first major league season in 2011.

Trout reached two big career milestones this season, getting his 1,000th RBI on July 27 and hitting his 400th home run last Saturday.

But after making baseball seem so joyously simple during his first decade in the majors, this 11-time All-Star admits he has been in a weekly fight for consistency at the plate.

“It’s been a grind this year, no doubt,” Trout said. “That’s what sports do to you. You’re not going to go out there and just get a hit every time or feel good every time. I get that. But it’s great to be able to get some confidence going into the offseason.”

At least the three-time AL MVP has stayed largely healthy this season after missing huge chunks of the past four years amid injury struggles that altered the substance of his baseball legacy.

Although Trout missed nearly all of May with a bone bruise in his knee that still bothers him in certain situations, he has stayed in the lineup ever since. He will play more games this season than he has managed since 2019 — even if it’s been mostly as a designated hitter.

Trout said he “definitely” wants to play the field again in 2026.

“I think he wants to put himself in a good spot in the last week to build off what, for him, was probably – I don’t want to use the word disappointing, but a frustrating season,” Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery said. “He fought through some things, (particularly) physically, to remain on the field, because we all know how good he is when he plays defense. He’s not a DH, you know what I mean? He did it out of necessity. Hopefully he gets a healthy offseason, gets ready to come back in the spring and be Mike Trout.”

Before the Angels faced Kansas City, Trout went into extensive detail about what he has meant by “seeing the ball” when he described his 2025 struggles at the plate. It’s not an ophthalmological diagnosis, but rather a measure of his mechanics to make sure he’s tracking pitches with both eyes — a necessity for his timing.

Trout has struck out 173 times this season, the second-most of his career, with six games to play. That’s a function of being unable to put together the series of reactions that used to come so easily to him, he said.

“There was a lot of at-bats this year when I’d go up there and I knew what they were going to throw me, and I just couldn’t pull the trigger,” Trout said. “Something was just a tick off, and as much as I want to go up there and I try to put aside everything I work on in the cage and just go compete, it was tough for me, because the ball was moving. Nothing was slowing it down.”

Trout repeatedly thought he had found a fix this season, only to lose it again. He believes he made another breakthrough in September, hopefully allowing him to finish strong.

“Before, it was just a Band-Aid,” Trout said. “I think it’s more of a solution this time. To be able to confidently know what I’m doing, and to be able to get to a spot and start early and be on time every single time, I think it’s something to build on in the offseason.”

Trout has five seasons left on his $426.5 million contract extension, and he’s still looking for his first career playoff victory. The Angels weren’t close to postseason contention again this year despite a modest improvement from the worst season in franchise history in 2024, and Trout essentially said that he needs to sort out his own game before he can help to build a winner with shortstop Zach Neto and the team’s young core.

“We saw signs of good stretches,” Trout said. “We’ve just got to put a full season together. I think that’s the key. For me, I think if I can get back to where I felt this last week-and-a-half, two weeks for a full season, it’ll be different.”

Beacham writes for the Associated Press.

Young adult comedies are best when the misery of high school is paired with other extreme types of terror — a plane crash, a supernatural mystery, vampires. “Wednesday,” Netflix’s Addams Family series, did just that and more when it premiered in 2022, combining sardonic wit, smart casting and murder in a beautifully macabre setting influenced by producer and director Tim Burton. Jenna Ortega stars as the Addams’ dark-hearted daughter. Her deadpan delivery and zombie prom dance solidified “Wednesday” as one of the year’s best and liveliest funerary comedies.

The second season of “Wednesday,” Part 1 of which debuts Wednesday followed by Part 2 on Sept. 3, finds the show’s namesake back at Nevermore Academy, where she’s faced with challenges familiar to last season. She must navigate the idiocy of her high school peers while solving a metaphysical murder mystery.

But there’s a new twist that threatens to undermine the unflappable protagonist, and it’s a teenager’s worst nightmare — even for a girl who enjoys night terrors. Wednesday’s weird family is headed to school with her. Brother Pugsley (Isaac Ordonez) is a Nevermore freshman and her parents Morticia (Catherine Zeta-Jones) and Gomez (Luis Guzmán) are helping with fundraising and such. Oh the horror.

Jenna Ortega’s Wednesday Addams “dance dance dances with her hands, hands, hands” in “Wednesday” Season 1.

(Netflix)

Season 2 follows many of the same formulas, replete with eviscerating comebacks from Daddy’s Little Viper. When her new high school principal, Barry Dort (Steve Buscemi), asks if she’d like a Nevermore Academy spirit sticker, she responds, “Only if you have one that says ‘Do Not Resuscitate.’” And when describing her underachieving brother’s shortcomings, she says, “He’s got the brains of a dung beetle and the ambitions of a French bureaucrat.”

But it’s impossible to recapture the magic of the first season, and “Wednesday” Season 2 isn’t quite as crisp or surprising. In the first four episodes made available for review, Wednesday’s zingers aren’t as wickedly sharp as they once were. And because we know she’s going to be annoyed by her classmates, such as perky werewolf roommate Enid (Emma Myers), the dynamic is not as morbidly charming.

The bond between Addams family members, however, is more deeply explored and their dysfunctional interactions add a new layer of contemptuous humor to the mix. The relationship between Wednesday and Morticia is strained, and not just due to the usual disgust teen daughters have toward their mothers. “When do I get to read your novel?” asks Morticia of her daughter’s work in progress, “Viper de la Muerte.” Wednesday’s inner voice answers, “When the sun explodes and the Earth is consumed in a molten apocalypse.” Her outside voice? “Soon, Mother. Soon.”

Morticia is worried about Wednesday’s increasing use of her psychic powers because similar abilities drove another family member mad. Her daughter is showing troubling signs such as black tears streaming from her eyes each time she has a psychic episode — though it’s a good look, especially for those contemplating their next Halloween costume.

We thankfully see a lot more of eccentric Uncle Fester (Fred Armisen owns this role) as he helps Wednesday solve her latest case, sometimes using the benefit of his telekinetic powers. Christina Ricci, who played Wednesday in the 1991 film, is also back. The deranged villain from Season 1 is now a deranged inmate.

Welcome new additions include Grandmama Hester Frump (played by Joanna Lumley of “Absolutely Fabulous”), Morticia’s immaculately coiffed mother and wealthy mogul who owns Frump Mortuaries. She’s cold, conniving and happy to cause a deeper rift between her granddaughter and daughter. And in a perfect casting move, Christopher Lloyd, who played Fester in the film, appears as a disembodied head in a jar who teaches at the academy.

Thing, the lone hand played by Romanian magician Victor Dorobantu, perhaps has the most screen time of anyone. Season 2 opens with the stitched-up appendage beating the hell out of a serial killer. It’s at once satisfying and stupidly hilarious.

As for the plot, it’s much the same as last season. There’s another mystery to solve, but this time it involves killer surveillance crows, a hooded stalker and at least a few visits to an insane asylum. There’s also a walking dead character added to the mix, so expect gore in the form of goo, brains and bugs.

But it’s really the performances, casting and artistic flourishes that make “Wednesday” a ghoulish delight. A short ghost story about a boy with a clockwork heart buried under the Skull Tree is told via Burton claymation, in black-and-white, in the spirit of “Frankenweenie.” It’s beautiful, sweet and sorrow-filled. “Wednesday” isn’t what it was and that’s OK. It still works as spooky comedy about a girl and her severed hand.

Ta’ang National Liberation Army rebels did not acknowledge the loss of Nawnghkio town to the military, saying they moved to ‘safe locations’.

Myanmar’s military government has claimed to have removed rebel fighters and recaptured a town after a yearlong battle near the country’s main army training academy, marking a rare turnaround for the regime in the northeast region of the country.

The country’s ruling military announced on Thursday that it made the advance in Shan State’s town of Nawnghkio, which had been under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA).

The rebel group, part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, had seized the strategically important town, which sits on a key highway linking central Myanmar to China, in July 2024.

In a statement published in the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar, the military government said it had retaken Nawnghkio after “566 armed engagements within 11 operational months”. A rare one-page spread in the newspaper showed soldiers holding rifles aloft in celebration. It detailed the battle, admitting initial attacks led to officers and enlisted men “sacrificing their lives”.

But “by combining strategic ground and air military tactics”, the military captured “the whole Nawnghkio area” by Wednesday, it said.

Nawnghkio is located about 40km (25 miles) from Pyin Oo Lwin, the town that hosts the country’s main military officer training academy, and some 80km (50 miles) from Myanmar’s second-most populous city, Mandalay.

In a statement, the TNLA did not acknowledge the military government’s claim of victory, saying only that “it has been difficult to continue administrative work in the town due to the heavy offensive”. The TNLA added that it had “moved civil administration services to safe locations”.

While the combined rebel offensive against government forces has inflicted sweeping losses since it was launched in October 2023, analysts say the military government’s control over large population centres is secure as it wields an air force capable of staving off large-scale rebel advances.

Northeastern Lashio city was also captured by the rebels but was handed back to the ruling military in April after a deal brokered by China.

Since a 2021 military coup toppled the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and ignited a civil war in Myanmar, a myriad of pro-democracy armed groups and ethnic rebel armies have joined forces to fight against military rule.

The groups in the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which also include the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Arakan Army, have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. The alliance is also loosely allied with the People’s Defence Force, a pro-democracy resistance group that has emerged to fight the military regime.

May 19 (UPI) — Authorities in New Orleans are expressing confidence they will apprehend the remaining seven of 10 escaped inmates on the loose as they increase the reward for information on the whereabouts of the fugitives.

“We’re confident at this time that we have actionable intelligence on all seven of these fugitives, and we hope in the coming day — if not the coming hours — that we have them all apprehended,” Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Robert Hodges told reporters Sunday in a press conference.

Ten detainees escaped police custody at the Orleans Parish jail early Friday, sparking a manhunt that has so far led to the recapture of three of them.

A reward was offered for information resulting in any of their arrests, which was increased to $20,000 Sunday, with the FBI doubling its reward to $10,000 per inmate, while both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Crime Stoppers were each increasing their rewards to $5,000 an inmate.

“We need the public’s help and we cannot do it alone,” Hodges said. “More importantly, if you are helping and assisting these fugitives, allowing them to remain uncaptured and not brought to justice, there will be consequences and there may be charges for you.”

Hodges emphasized that the recapture of these inmates occurred within the first 24 hours of their escape due to help from the public. Dkenan Dennis, 24, Kendell Myles, 23, and a 15-year-old male, have been relocated to another Louisiana state facility for their safety and the safety of others, Hodges said.

The seven inmates who remain at large have been identified as Corey Boyd, 19, Derrick Groves, 27, Jermaine Donald, 42, Lenton VanBuren, 26, Antoine Massey, 32, Leo Tate, 31, and Gary Price, 21.

“These are violent criminals and they escaped and they have consequences for their actions,” Hodges said.

FBI New Orleans Special Agent in Charge Jonathan Tapp told reporters they “strongly believe” the escaped inmates are receiving help to evade capture.

The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office said jail officials discovered the breakout at 8:30 a.m. local Friday during a routine headcount.

It was learned that the detainees were able to exit Thursday night due to “defective locks and doors,” it said.

They next broke through a locked cell door at about 12:23 a.m. Friday before breaching a wall behind a toilet in their housing unit and then exiting the jail through a door at about 1 a.m., scaled a wall and fled across the interstate.

Three staff members have been suspended without pay amid an internal investigation into facility operations and supervision practices in connection to the escape, the sheriff’s office said.

More than 200 officers with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies are participating in the manhunt.