Root

While Brook has had two weeks in New Zealand, Root, Smith and fellow opener Ben Duckett were in the middle for the first time in more than six weeks.

The two remaining matches in this series, plus the one warm-up in Australia, will be their only further opportunities to find form before the first Test on 21 November.

Four runs combined for three players so crucial to England’s hopes is clearly not ideal but significant credit must be given to New Zealand’s new-ball bowlers.

Henry began the match with a delivery that jagged back significantly to bowl Smith through the gate and barely relented with his accuracy throughout his opening spell of eight overs.

Playing only his second ODI, Zak Foulkes was highly impressive and found 0.96 degrees of seam movement plus 1.99 degrees of swing in the first 10 overs – a significant jump from the recent average of 0.89 and 1.41 respectively at this ground.

Duckett nicked a Foulkes ball from round the wicket that angled in before moving away and Root was bowled by a hooping inswinger, albeit one not full enough for his booming drive.

Perhaps the 23-year-old’s best delivery was saved for Jacob Bethell.

The left-hander looked to play another from Foulkes straight down the pitch but was bowled when the ball swung away late to beat his outside edge.

It left Bethell helpless as he tried to apply more pressure to Ollie Pope’s position as Test number three.

There was probably no Dodgers fan more grateful to see the Blue Crew lose badly in the opening game of the World Series than Conrado Contreras. See, the 75-year-old was happy to enjoy any Fall Classic at all.

A year ago tomorrow , the Zacatecas native suffered a heart attack and mild stroke in the moments after seeing his Dodgers win Game 2 of the World Series against the New York Yankees. He spent three days in a medically induced coma at St. Francis Medical Center in Lynwood and regained consciousness to news from jubilant nurses that the Dodgers had won the championship.

The lifelong baseball fan had no idea what they were talking about. His passion for the sport was lost along with his memory.

When family members put on highlights from the 2024 championship during his rehabilitation at a clinic in Gardena throughout the end of the year, the former carpenter would shrug and change the channel. When someone told him that legendary Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela had died, Contreras swore that he had just seen his fellow Mexican pitch at the stadium.

It wasn’t until the 2025 baseball season came along that Contreras’ mind began to truly rebound. He watched games from his longtime home in the unincorporated Florence-Graham neighborhood and learned to love the Dodgers anew. But he didn’t cheer like before. Contreras followed doctor’s orders to stay calm when the Dodgers were losing instead of cursing like the past and quietly applaud when the team was winning when he would’ve previously roared.

He’s the father-in-law of my sister Alejandrina. And I wanted to hang out with Don Conrado for Game 1 of this year’s World Series to experience fandom in all its mortality.

Wearing a flat-brimmed fedora and a blue Dodgers 2024 World Series champion, I caught Contreras just as he was entering my sister’s Norwalk home holding on to his walker with the help of Alejandrina’s husband, Conrad. His father talks slower than he used to and can’t drive anymore, but Contreras is once again the same man his family knows: witty, observant and baseball-crazy.

A schoolyard pitcher in his hometown of Monte Escobedo, Contreras fell in with the Dodgers almost as soon as he migrated to the United States in 1970 to join a brother in Highland Park. He used to attend games every week “when $10 got two people into the stadium and you could also eat a hot dog,” Contreras told me in Spanish before Game 1 began.

His stories from those years were immaculate. Don Sutton throwing a shutout. The Cincinnati Reds always “ready to play to the death.” Pittsburgh Pirates slugger Willie Stargell hitting a home run out of Dodger Stadium in 1973 “and all of us just staring above our heads in awe.”

Contreras was such a fan that he took his pregnant wife Mary to watch Valenzuela pitch on the day in 1983 that Conrad was due because they were giving out “I (Heart) Fernando” T-shirts, an anecdote that left their son flabbergasted.

“What happened to the shirt?” Conrad asked his mom in Spanish.

“I threw it away,” replied the 61-year-old Mary.

“They’d cost a lot of money now!” he groaned.

“They were cheap! The color really faded fast.”

Los Angeles Dodgers two-way player Shohei Ohtani hits a two-run home run during the seventh inning of Game 1 of the World Series between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays at Roger Centre on Friday in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The Blue Jays won, 11-4.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

The family continued to attend games through Conrad’s teenage years but stopped “when even the birds couldn’t afford to attend,” Mary said. Conrad, 42, thinks the last time he went to a game with his dad was “at least” 20 years ago. But they regularly watched games on television. It was he who administered the CPR a year ago that saved his dad’s life.

“He was walking around the house angry all that game,” Conrad said.

“No, well, Roberto was making me mad,” Conrado replied, his nickname for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts. “But I can’t get mad anymore.”

I asked how he thought this year’s series would go. He mentioned Shohei Ohtani, whom he kept calling el japonés in a respectful tone because, well, his memory can be fuzzy.

“He strikes out too much, but when he hits it, he hits it. If he plays like that, they win the series. But if Toronto hits, forget it.”

One more question before game time, the one too many liberal Latino Dodgers fans are belly-aching over right now: is it ethical to root for the team considering they haven’t been too vocal in opposing Donald Trump’s deportation campaign and owner Mark Walter has investments in companies that are profiting from it?

“Sports shouldn’t get into politics, but all sports owners are with Trompas,” he said, using a nickname I’ve heard more than a few rancho libertarians use for Trump. He shrugged.

“So what’s one to do? They kept la migra out of the stadium,” referring to an unsuccessful June attempt by federal agents to enter the stadium parking lot. “If the team had allowed that, then there’d be a huge problem.”

Mary wasn’t as sympathetic. “Latinos shouldn’t let the Dodgers off so easy. But when Latinos surrender, they surrender.”

It was game time.

Conrad slipped into a gray Dodgers away jersey to match his black team cap. My sister, an Angels follower for some reason, wore a Kiké Hernández T-shirt “because he stands with immigrants.”

“The only good thing about the Dodgers is that they aren’t winning with a gringo,” said Mary, who actually doesn’t care much about baseball because she finds it boring. “It’s someone [Ohtani] who doesn’t want to speak English who’s winning it for them.”

Her husband smiled.

“Let’s see if Mary gets into baseball.”

“That’ll be the real miracle,” she snapped back.

Contreras rubbed his hands in glee as the Dodgers went up 2-0 in the top of the third and merely frowned when the Blue Jays tied it in the bottom of the fourth while we were enjoying takeout from Taco Nazo. “His anger comes in waves, it’s a trip,” Conrad said. “He’s calmer but se enoja.”

“Who?” Conrado deadpanned.

When Dodger starting pitcher Blake Snell left the game with the bases loaded and no one out in the bottom of the sixth, Contreras shook his head in disgust but kept his voice calm.

“This is what gets me mad. They should’ve taken him out long ago, but Roberto didn’t. This is what I was afraid of. When Toronto get on, they get on. They won’t stop until they destroy.”

Sure enough, the Blue Jays erupted for nine runs that inning, including a two-run blast by catcher Alejandro Kirk, who had sparked the Jays’ initial rally a few innings earlier.

Earlier in the game, Alejandrina had told Conrado that Kirk was a Tijuana native. The pride in shared roots, albeit generations apart, took a little bit of sting off his home run, which made the score a humiliating 11-2.

“Thank goodness he’s Mexican,” Conrado told his son, patting his knee. “That’s what’s left for us” to be happy about the game.

An inning later, Contreras began to feel woozy. His sugar level was elevated. Mary took off his jacket to fix his insulin device. My sister’s corgi, Penny, jumped onto the couch and lay on his lap.

“They do know when someone someone’s ill, right?” he said to no one before scratching Penny’s tummy and cooing, “You know I’m ill, right? I’m ill!”

When the “massacre” finally ended, Contreras remained philosophical.

“It’s incredible that I’m able to see this. But I’m still malo. My feet hurt, my memory isn’t what it used to be, my sense of balance isn’t there. But there’s the Dodgers. But they need to win.”

Conrad went to the bedroom to grab his father’s walker.

“Do you want a Toronto shirt now?” he joked.

His dad stared silently. “No, that would give me another heart attack.”

WASHINGTON — The Washington, D.C., police chief stepped up cooperation between her officers and federal immigration officials as President Trump’s law enforcement takeover of the nation’s capital took root Thursday. National Guard troops watched over some of the world’s most renowned landmarks, and Humvees took up position in front of the busy main train station.

The police chief’s order establishes that Metropolitan Police Department officers may now share information with immigration agencies regarding people not in custody — such as someone involved in a traffic stop or checkpoint. MPD officers may also provide “transportation for federal immigration employees and detained subject,” the order states.

The changes, which raise collaboration between the two forces in notable ways, erodes the district’s long-standing policy against cooperating with civil immigration enforcement. They are effective immediately.

Mayor Muriel Bowser, walking a tightrope between the Republican White House and the constituency of her largely Democratic city, was out of town Thursday for a family commitment in Martha’s Vineyard but would be back Friday, her office said.

In a city tense from days of ramp-up toward federal law enforcement intervention, volunteers helped homeless people leave long-standing encampments — to where, exactly, was often unclear. Trump told reporters that he was pleased at how the operation — and, now, its direct link with his immigration-control efforts — was unfolding.

“That’s a very positive thing, I have heard that just happened,” Trump said of Police Chief Pamela Smith’s order. “That’s a great step. That’s a great step if they’re doing that.”

A boost in police activity, federal and otherwise

For an already wary Washington, Thursday marked a notable — and highly visible — uptick in presence from the previous two days. The visibility of federal forces around the city, including in many high-traffic areas, was striking to residents going about their lives. Trump has the power to take over federal law enforcement for 30 days before his actions must be reviewed by Congress, though he has said he’ll reevaluate as that deadline approaches.

The response before Thursday had been gradual and, by all appearances, low key. But on Wednesday night, officers set up a checkpoint in one of D.C.’s popular nightlife areas, drawing protests. The White House said 45 arrests were made Wednesday night, with 29 people arrested for living in the country illegally; other arrests included for distribution or possession of drugs, carrying a concealed weapon and assaulting a federal officer.

Troops were stationed outside the Union Station transportation hub as the 800 Guard members who have been activated by Trump start in on missions that include monument security, community safety patrols and beautification efforts, the Pentagon said.

“They will remain until law and order has been restored in the District as determined by the president, standing as the gatekeepers of our great nation’s capital,” Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson said. “The National Guard is uniquely qualified for this mission as a community-based force with strong local ties and disciplined training.”

Wilson said the troops won’t be armed and declined to give more details on what the safety patrols or beautification efforts would entail or how many Guard members have already been sent out on the streets.

National Guard Major Micah Maxwell said troops will assist law enforcement in a variety of roles, including traffic control posts and crowd control. The Guard members have been trained in de-escalation tactics and crowd control equipment, Maxwell said.

The White House said Thursday that Guard members aren’t making arrests but are “protecting federal assets, providing a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests and deterring violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”

Although the current deployment is taking place under unprecedented circumstances, National Guard troops are a semi-regular presence in D.C., typically being used during mass public events like the annual Fourth of July celebration. They have regularly been used in the past for crowd control in and around Metro stations.

Trump on Thursday denied that the federal law enforcement officials he sent into Washington’s streets to fight crime have been diverted from priority assignments like counterterrorism. Asked if he was concerned about that, Trump said he’s using a “very small force” of soldiers and that city police are now allowed to do their job properly amidst his security lockdown.

For homeless residents, an uncertain time is at hand

Meanwhile, about a dozen homeless residents in Washington packed up their belongings with help from volunteers from charitable groups and staffers from some city agencies. Items largely were not forcibly thrown out by law enforcement, but a garbage truck idled nearby.

Several protesters held signs close by, some critical of the Trump administration. Once the residents had left, a construction vehicle from a city agency cleared through the remains of the tents.

The departures were voluntary, but they came in response to a clear threat from the Trump administration. Advocates expect law enforcement officers to fan out across D.C. in the coming days to forcibly take down any remaining homeless encampments. In Washington Circle, which still contains a few tents, city workers put up signs announcing “general cleanup of this public space” starting at 10 a.m. Monday.

For two days, small groups of federal officers have been visible in scattered parts of the city. But more were present in high-profile locations Wednesday night, and troops were expected to start doing more missions Thursday.

Agents from Homeland Security Investigations have patrolled the popular U Street corridor, while Drug Enforcement Administration officers were seen on the National Mall, with Guard members parked nearby. DEA agents also joined MPD officers on patrol in the Navy Yard neighborhood, while FBI agents stood along the heavily trafficked Massachusetts Avenue.

Khalil writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press journalists Jacquelyn Martin, Mike Pesoli, Darlene Superville and David Klepper contributed to this report.

Joe Root is dismissed for 105 after he is caught behind off Prasidh Krishna to leave England six wickets down in their chase of 374 to beat India on day four of the fifth and final Test at the Oval.

FOLLOW LIVE: England v India – Day four

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The Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” announced last week that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.

The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. Its demise ends nearly six decades of supporting the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.

Here’s what to know:

Losing funding

President Trump signed a bill July 24 canceling about $1.1 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense, and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some local public stations in their state. They warned that some stations will have to close.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday reinforced the policy change by excluding funding for the CPB for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.

How it began

Congress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chair Newton Minow described commercial television as a “vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest.

The corporation doesn’t produce programming and it doesn’t own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The CPB, PBS and NPR are independent of one another, as are local public television and radio stations.

Rural stations hit hard

Roughly 70% of the corporation’s money went directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country. The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it’s likely some won’t survive. National Public Radio’s president estimated that as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children’s programming 24 hours a day, including “Caillou” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”

Maine’s public media system is looking at a hit of $2.5 million, or about 12% of its budget, for the next fiscal year. The state’s rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts.

In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22% from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters such as tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

From Big Bird to war documentaries

The first episode of “Sesame Street” aired in 1969. Child viewers, adults and guest stars alike were instantly hooked. Over the decades, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favorites.

Entertainer Carol Burnett appeared on that inaugural episode. She told the Associated Press she was a big fan.

“I would have done anything they wanted me to do,” she said. “I loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.”

“Sesame Street” said in May it would get some help from a Netflix streaming deal.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. started “Finding Your Roots” in 2006 under the title “African American Lives.” He invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which ethnic group they were from in Africa. Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was renamed “Faces of America,” which had to be changed again after the name was taken.

The show is PBS’ most-watched program on linear TV and the most-streamed nondrama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination.

Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country.

Documentarian Ken Burns, celebrated for creating the documentaries “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “The Vietnam War,” told “PBS NewsHour” that the corporation accounted for about 20% of his films’ budgets. He said he would make it up but projects receiving 50% to 75% of their funding from the organization won’t.

Influence of shows

Children’s programming in the 1960s was made up of shows like “Captain Kangaroo,” ’’Romper Room” and the cat-and-mouse skirmishes on “Tom & Jerry.” “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” mostly taught social skills.

“Sesame Street” was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students ages 2 to 5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted white and higher-income kids were often better prepared.

One of the most widely cited studies about the effects of “Sesame Street” compared households that got the show with those that didn’t. It found that the children exposed to “Sesame Street” were 14% more likely to be enrolled in the correct grade level for their age in middle and high school.

Over the years, “Finding Your Roots” showed Natalie Morales discovering she’s related to one of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean, and former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg finding his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that drag queen RuPaul and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker are cousins, as are actors Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria.

“The two subliminal messages of ’Finding Your Roots,’ which are needed more urgently today than ever, is that what has made America great is that we’re a nation of immigrants,” Gates told the AP. “And secondly, at the level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we’re 99.99% the same.”

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

What is it about brothers? So competitive, so determined to outshine the other, so very male. In popular music, there are numerous examples of passionate sibling partnerships that have burned bright only to flame out, leaving recriminatory anger and the occasional lawsuit in their wake.

The Everly brothers were no exception. Foundational pillars of 20th century popular music, they formed the first great harmony vocal duo to bridge country music and pop. Over a five year period from 1957 to 1962, the brothers recorded a series of singles — “Wake Up Little Susie,” “Bye Bye Love” and “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” among them — that imprinted themselves into the pop-music canon, their soaring, wistful, close-interval harmonies gliding straight into our souls.

You don’t have to look too hard to find Phil and Don Everly’s traces. The Beatles regarded them as the harmony group they longed to emulate; you can hear them sing a snatch of “Bye Bye Love” in Peter Jackson’s “Get Back” documentary, and Paul McCartney name-checked them in his 1976 song “Let ‘Em In.” Simon & Garfunkel wanted to be the Everlys and included “Bye Bye Love” on the “Bridge Over Troubled Water” album. In 2013, Billie Joe Armstrong and Norah Jones recorded “Foreverly,” an album of Everly Brothers songs.

And yet, biographies of them are scant. Barry Mazor’s “Blood Harmony” is long overdue, a rigorously researched narrative of the duo’s fascinatingly zig-zaggy 50-plus-year career, as well as a loving valentine to the pair’s enduring musical power.

In his book, Mazor is quick to refute many of the myths that have accreted around the pair, starting with the backstory that the brothers were reared in Kentucky, a cradle of bluegrass, and that their dad, an accomplished guitarist and singer, nurtured them up from rural poverty into spotlight stardom. In fact, Mazor’s book points out that the brothers, who were born two years apart, moved around a lot as kids — Iowa and Chicago, mostly — soaking in the musical folkways of those regions and absorbing it all into their musical bloodstream. Though they were apprenticed by their father to perform as adolescents, they were their own men, with a sophisticated grasp of various musical genres as teenagers.

“They were as much products of the Midwest as they were of Kentucky,” says Mazor from his Nashville home. “The music they learned and the culture they absorbed was in Chicago, where they lived with their parents for a time, and they picked up on the R&B there. All of this eventually adds up to what we now call Americana, which is music that has a sense of place.” The Everlys brought that country-meets-the-city vibe to pop music.

Another misconception that Mazor clears up in “Blood Harmony” is the notion that the Beatles were the first musical group to write and play its own songs. In fact, Phil and Don wrote a clutch of the Everlys’ greatest records, including Phil’s 1960 composition “When Will I Be Loved,” which became a mammoth hit when Linda Ronstadt covered it in 1975. It’s also true that Don is rock’s first great rhythm guitarist, his strident acoustic strum powering ”Wake Up Little Susie” and others. George Harrison was listening, as was Pete Townsend.

The Everlys produced hits, many of them written by one or both of the husband-and-wife team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant: “Bird Dog,” “Love Hurts,” “Poor Jenny” and others. But the Beatles’ global success became a barricade that many of the first-generation rock stars couldn’t breach, including the Everlys. “Even though they were only a couple of years older than the Beatles, they were treated as old hat,” says Mazor.

Complicating matters further: A lawsuit brought by their publishing company Acuff-Rose in 1961 meant that the brothers could no longer tap the Bryants to write songs for them. The same year, they enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserve and found, just as Elvis had discovered a few years prior, that military service did little to help sell records. By the time the lawsuit was settled in 1964, both brothers had descended into amphetamine abuse.

The Everlys had to go back to move forward. Warner Bros. Records, their label since 1960, had become the greatest label for a new era of singer-songwriters taking country-rock to a more introspective place. Future label president Lenny Waronker, an Everlys fan, wanted to make an album that would place the brothers in their proper context, as pioneers who bridged musical worlds to create something entirely new.

Author Barry Mazor is quick to refute many of the myths surrounding the Everlys.

(Courtesy of the author)

The resulting project, called “Roots,” drew from the Everlys’ musical heritage but also featured covers of songs by contemporary writers Randy Newman and Ron Elliott. Released in 1968, the same year as the Byrds’ “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” and the Band’s “Music from Big Pink,” “Roots” sold meekly, but it remains a touchstone of the Everlys’ career, a key progenitor of the Americana genre. “‘The ‘Roots’ album was one last chance to show they mattered,” says Mazor. “And there was suddenly room for them again. It wasn’t a massive seller, but it opened the door.”

If anything, it was their own fraught relationship that tended to snag the Everlys’ progress. Their identities were as intertwined as their harmonies, and it grated on them. Mazor points out that they were in fact vastly different in temperament, Phil’s pragmatic careerism running counter to Don’s more free-spirited approach. This push and pull created tensions that weighed heavily on their friendship and their musical output.

“Phil was more conservative in some ways. He was content to play the supper club circuit well into ‘70s, while Don wanted to explore and was less willing to sell out, as it were,” says Mazor. “And this created a wedge between them.” Perhaps inevitably, from 1973 to roughly 1983, they branched out as solo artists, making records that left little imprint on the public consciousness. They had families and eventually both moved from their L.A. home base to different cities.

But there was time for one final triumph. Having briefly set their differences aside, the brothers played a reunion show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in September 1983, which led to a collaboration on an album with British guitarist Dave Edmunds producing. Edmunds, in turn, asked Paul McCartney whether he would be willing to write something for the “EB 84” album, and the result was “On the Wings of a Nightingale,” their last U.S. hit, albeit a modest one.

“The harmony singing that the Everlys pioneered is still with us,” says Mazor. “If you look back, the Kinks, the Beach Boys, all of these brother acts all loved the Everlys. But there’s also a contemporary act called Larkin Poe, who called one of their albums ‘Blood Harmony.’ They set an example for how two singers can maximize their voices to create something larger than themselves. This kind of harmony still lingers.”

This weekend, Descanso Gardens will unveil a meticulously curated art exhibition titled “Roots of Cool: A Celebration of Trees and Shade in a Warming World.” Co-curated by Edith de Guzman, cooperative extension climate researcher at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and artist Jolly de Guzman — a husband-and-wife duo — the exhibition highlights all-women artists who provoke visitors to contemplate the pressing issue of shade equity, the unequal access to cooling shade across urban neighborhoods, and what a tree and shade filled future can look like for L.A.

The goals of the exhibition are clear from the start, beginning with its title, “Roots of Cool,” which creatively integrates the Fahrenheit symbol in the word “of,” a tree in the letter “t” and the word “cool” as a shadow cast from the word “roots.”

The exhibit begins in the garden’s pathways, strewn with artworks, which lead visitors to the gallery rooms housed in the park’s Sturt Haaga Gallery and historic Boddy House.

A visitor’s proposal for a new type of bus stop that offers more shade, part of the new exhibition “Roots of Cool: A Celebration of Trees and Shade in a Warming World” at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

The first piece of art on the path, located at the gardens entrance, is Leslie K. Gray’s “Bus Stop of the Past,” an outdoor installation that shows the silhouette of a woman standing on an L.A. street, presumably waiting for a bus, with no shade structure nearby, meant to represent the climate-related challenges women bus riders faced while commuting in the past.

It’s the first of a three-part installation — the other two parts show up later in the exhibition — that invites visitors “to think temporally about where we’ve been and where we’re going,” Gray said. According to the artist, it is meant to highlight historical urban planning decisions that have left certain communities disproportionately vulnerable to heat, particularly women of color, who are prominent riders of L.A. public transportation, as indicated by statistics displayed on the bus signs accompanying the works.

Another standout of the outdoor part of the exhibition is Chantée Benefield’s “Cool Canopy,” which entails dozens of multicolored umbrellas suspended over visitors’ heads. The piece is particularly resonant given that it is actually a recreation that Benefield made after the original was lost, along with her family home, in the Eaton Fire.

Artist Chantée Benefield’s installation “Cool Canopy” at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“What if the trees in neighborhoods were like graffiti, just ubiquitous everywhere?” Benefield asked. Her installation is both a colorful homage to lost greenery and a powerful statement on urban shade disparities, prompting visitors to contemplate what they would do without the shade being cast by these “trees” as they walk through the sunny patch where the work is located.

The next stop on the pathway is the second piece in Gray’s three-part installation: “Bus Stop of the Present.” It’s a version of the first, but with the addition of a shade structure for the woman bus rider. However, it shows clearly that the added structure is still inadequate, reflecting many of the realities women bus commuters face today. The bus sign here contains scientific facts that make the case for the critical need for systemic urban planning changes. Gray emphasized that these facts were carefully selected from peer-reviewed research and “scientifically vetted.”

Entering the Sturt Haaga Gallery, things change. Each room is meant to elicit a specific experience around urban planning and vegetation, and so each has its own visual and auditory scheme.

Kim Abeles’ piece “Looking for Paradise (Downtown Los Angeles).”

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

It begins with a dreary, urban past: shown against gray walls, works by Kim Abeles and Diana Kohne address historical inequities. Abeles’ installation “Looking for Paradise” visualizes the uneven distribution of trees in Downtown Los Angeles, while Kohne’s painted urban landscapes vividly depict the shade inadequacies she witnessed firsthand through her bus commutes as an L.A. resident, emphasizing how Los Angeles and other cities were built for “efficiency” rather than human comfort. The works are paired with compelling research, including the history of redlining and crucial heat-shade statistics, which visitors can interact with and see how their own communities are affected by these factors.

The next room is the present, with bright yellow walls representing the increasing urban heat of a changing climate. The artworks attempt to do the same. For example, Lisa Tomczeszyn’s installation, “Every Bench Deserves a Tree,” consists of two benches beside each other, one with no shade and only a street sign reading “Asphalt Blvd” while the other is shaded by a large tree — with leaves that are actually cutout photos of trees throughout the Deaconso gardens.

Finally, the third gallery room attempts to project a cooler, more verdant future with walls colored a serene green hue. It features works that imagine a future where technology and city planning better respond to environmental stressors, including Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke’s “Suspended Garden.” Like Tomczeszyn’s work in the previous room, this piece is also comprised primarily of benches set underneath umbrellas. In this case however, those umbrella canopies are made of repurposed plant materials.

Artist Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke’s piece “Suspended Garden” at Descanso Gardens.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

One key goal of the exhibit is to help visitors connect to the importance of heat, shade and urban trees. For example, at the very end of the exhibit in the Boddy House, visitors can contribute to a real-world data collection study about how shade shapes their neighborhoods and what shade-heat related fact they find most striking, and are also invited to draw their imagined shade structures for women waiting at bus stops.

“[We] just don’t want to do science and just don’t want to do art. [We] want to create a good intersection that actually engages people,” said Jolly de Guzman.

Yarn Bombing Los Angeles’ installation inside of Boddy House at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“We want to get them through the heartstrings, visually, aesthetically and actively,” added Edith de Guzman. Reflecting on the broader potential for change, she said, “There’s a lot of reasons to despair right now, but if we change our radio frequency a little bit, we can connect to a whole different feeling. We can actually create the city we want, in the neighborhoods that we deserve.”

The exhibition will run from July 12 to Oct. 12, 2025, with a free opening reception on Friday, July 11, from 5 to 7 p.m.

It takes a little over an hour for “Nobu” to marinate long enough to approach a point of complexity, not exactly bitter but no longer cloyingly sweet. Nobu Matsuhisa, the celebrated sushi master, is running quality-control checks in one of his restaurants. A poor chef is sweating the test so badly, he won’t need soy sauce soon enough. His dish keeps being sent back: Chop the chives finer. Why is this pile of raw crudo smaller? Why did you paint a line of salt instead of a dot? The scene goes on, excruciatingly. A few minutes later, Robert De Niro — an early investor and co-founder — dominates a private board meeting with concerns about too-rapid growth. It’s not quite the ominous Waingro showdowns of “Heat” but in the ballpark.

Fastidiousness, precision and a kind of reputational exclusivity are at the heart of Matsuhisa’s enterprise. These are hard things to make a documentary about. But it’s also why Nobu needed to come to Beverly Hills for his concept to take root — not just any Los Angeles but the ’80s-era boomtown of power lunches and spend-to-impress dining. Spago’s Wolfgang Puck makes an appearance in director Matt Tyrnauer’s half-interesting film, fawning over his longtime friend sitting next to him but not quite articulating the essence of their revolution: high-end branding. You wish more time was spent on that conceptual idea, enabled by celebrities throwing around money on food they barely ate.

The kind of doc that “Nobu” more often resembles (as do most foodie-targeted profiles) is a gentle chronology of a humble genius and everyday guy who just happens to fly private. Matsuhisa bows to euphoric local fishmongers, does a lot of hugs and selfies with his staff, visits his roots in Japan and Peru. There are family interviews and a detour to Alaska, where, years before he had a 300-person nightly waitlist, an early restaurant of his caught fire — in the bad literal way (Tyrnauer cuts to the Anchorage newspaper headline). These false starts are somehow exhausting, lacking in suspense. He contemplated suicide, then came to California.

The food sails by: wedges of black cod with miso, delicate plates of thinly sliced fish adorned with tweezer-manipulated herbs. All of it is crazy-making and delicious. Still, apart from former Los Angeles Times food editor Ruth Reichl, who witnessed the rise of Nobu as it happened, there are few on-camera voices who speak directly to Matsuhisa’s gifts and experimentation with form. 2011’s “Jiro Dreams of Sushi” does a better job of delivering the intimate discipline of cutting and shaping. More testimony to the experience of eating at Nobu would have helped this feel less like a commercial.

“Nobu” is a film oddly unconcerned with the communal experience of dining. We hear about the way his sushi workstations are elevated (a “stage,” Matsuhisa calls them) and that’s central to the performance going on here, also the remove. Something clicks when the film heads to Nobu Malibu and visits the table of supermodel Cindy Crawford, whose “Cindy rice,” a dish he invented for her, adorns the menu. There’s a deep mutual gratitude between them that goes back years. An appreciation of the finer things? No doubt. Game recognizing game? Definitely.

Ticking the strike over

Since his debut in ODIs, only two batters have a higher non-boundary strike-rate than Root (minimum of 2,000 non-boundary runs). Off non-boundary balls, Root has a strike-rate of 59.89, England’s Jos Buttler is second with 63.77 and at the top is South Africa’s AB de Villiers (65.70).

High control

Since the start of 2018, Root has a false-shot percentage of only 11.1% in ODIs. In matches between Full Member nations, only one batter in world cricket has a lower false-shot percentage than Root – New Zealand’s Kane Williamson (11%).

Great against spin

Root averages 70.3 against spin in his ODI career – the next highest English batter is Buttler (52). In ODI history, only five batters average higher against spin than Root for a minimum of 1,500 runs – Mike Hussey (Australia), MS Dhoni (India), Michael Bevan (Australia), Shai Hope (West Indies) and Babar Azam (Pakistan). Of these, only Dhoni has scored more runs against spin than Root, while none of them have scored at a higher strike-rate than Root’s 90.

Scores runs off good balls

In his ODI career, Root averages 47.7 against deliveries in the channel outside off stump and scores at a strike-rate of 77 against them. The average right-handed batter averages only 33 on this line. When the ball is wider than that, Root cashes in on the width, scoring at an average of 94.5 and striking at 109.

Master of the middle overs

Between overs 11-40, Root averages 66.6 at a strike rate of 87. Only two batters in world cricket have scored at an average and a strike-rate higher than Root’s for a minimum of 2,000 runs – India’s Virat Kohli (ave 70.7, S/R 93) and De Villiers (ave 68.9, S/R 97).

Always evolving

In ODIs until the end of 2015, Root had seven dismissals playing the reverse sweep at an average of just 7.4. Since the start of 2016, he has averaged 158 with the shot. Previously, he used to reach out well in front while playing the reverse sweep, with an average interception point of 2.10m from the stumps. Since the start of 2016, that has come much closer at 1.77m.

This story contains many spoilers for “The Last of Us” Season 2, Episode 6.

The infected have learned to stalk and sprint. The Cordyceps fungus is now airborne. And Joel (Pedro Pascal) isn’t immortal. The first five episodes of “The Last of Us” offered up several new threats and at least one major death. Deep into its second season, HBO’s series adaptation of the popular video game remains true to its namesake by sending its protagonist Ellie (Bella Ramsey) and her partner Dina (Isabela Merced) on a revenge mission from their fortified compound in Wyoming to the wilds of Seattle. Their aim is to find Joel’s killer, Abby (Kaitlyn Dever). But the Pacific Northwest presents challenges beyond cauliflower-headed flesh eaters and deadly mean girls. The brutal conflict between the Washington Liberation Front and the primitive religious cult the Seraphites makes Ellie’s mission all the more dangerous and complex — and the show’s imagery more gruesome.

Episode 6 brought Joel back from the dead in a series of flashbacks that gave insight into his unique parenting skills, revealed the event that triggered the rift between Joel and Ellie and uncovers what happened to therapist Gail’s (Catherine O’Hara’s) husband, Eugene (Joe Pantoliano). While on patrol, Eugene was bitten by the infected. Ellie made Joel promise he would not kill Eugene until he had the chance to say goodbye to his wife. But when Ellie leaves for a moment to retrieve their horses, Joel breaks the promise.

Like Episode 3 of Season 1, Sunday’s installment of the series was the rare episode that deviated from the game’s narrative to tell a deeper story about the characters. Beginning at Ellie’s 15th birthday and moving through subsequent ones, the episode chronicled the shifting dynamic in the main characters’ father-daughter relationship, from a tight bond between orphan and her adopted protector to near estrangement.

Lorraine Ali, Tracy Brown and Mary McNamara gathered to discuss the latest episode of the spore-filled thriller.

The source of tension between Gail (Catherine O’Hara) and Joel (Pedro Pascal) is revealed in Episode 6.

(Liane Hentscher / HBO)

Ali: “The Last of Us” features flesh-eating zombie-like things and death-worshipping cults, but I love that the true terror at the heart of Season 2 is the prospect of parenting a teen. The theme at the core of Episode 6 was largely centered on the fraught father-daughter dynamic between Joel and Ellie and the dangers of passing down generational trauma. We even get some backstory on Joel’s rough childhood, though I wish there had been more on that front.

What we do get a lot more of is Ellie’s hostility toward Joel, and it’s exhausting in ways that the showrunners probably never intended. Naturally there is plenty of ire in Ellie as she hurtles toward adulthood in a hopeless hellscape with an assassin/guardian who’s repeatedly lied to her. But now that she’s the lead character of the series, I need more from Ellie than just one or two gears of rage and scorn, especially given the complexity of their relationship.

Joel killed to save her and doomed humanity in the process! A bond forged in such tragedy should inspire a truckload of emotions, even in a defiant teen who’s still clumsy at expressing her feelings. But that depth or nuance just wasn’t there for me, even when the series cued us up for such moments. The flashbacks to Ellie’s birthday celebrations with Joel felt like explainers of how the two grew apart as opposed to emotional snapshots that captured the roots of their estrangement. Maybe I’ve been spoiled by the surprising depth and beauty of Season 1? I miss the terror and joy of that abandoned mall.

Brown: It’s interesting that you mention the abandoned mall, Lorraine, because I think that’s what it all comes back to for Ellie. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve spent many hours playing as Ellie in “The Last of Us” games, or because I understand what it’s like to be an angsty teenager much more than being a parent, but I thought Episode 6 did help shed some light on Ellie and Joel’s behaviors and dynamic.

Back in Episode 4, while trying to explain her immunity to the Cordyceps fungus to Dina, Ellie mentions that there are a lot of the times she wishes she wasn’t immune. In this latest episode, we learn that one of the reasons Ellie is angry with Joel is because he lied to her about what happened back in Salt Lake City with the Fireflies. But she’s also mad at him because he took away the one thing she thought could give her life and immunity purpose. “My life would have mattered, but you took that from me,” she says to him on their porch, in what appears to have been their very last conversation.

We know that Joel’s been shaped by the guilt of not being able to save his daughter Sarah at the start of the outbreak. For Ellie, I think the loss that’s affected her the most is Riley and the guilt of surviving their trip to that abandoned mall. If she wasn’t immune, Ellie would have died that day with her best friend and first love. Because she didn’t, she needed something to help justify why she’s still alive. What greater meaning could someone find for their life in a world ravaged by a pandemic than to be the reason humanity is able to find a cure?

McNamara: I’m grateful for the episode if only because it gave my own teenagers what they wanted most — more Pedro Pascal. (I miss him too but with much less passion.) But as you say, Tracy, survivor’s guilt is real and now Ellie is eyeing another emotional burden — Joel was killed for actions he took to save her life.

Revisiting Ellie’s birthdays was very touching, bridging the changes in both characters. How the hard-edge Joel from Season 1 became the softly anguished therapy patient of Season 2. Why Ellie was so rude and dismissive toward him. She knew all along that he had lied to her about Salt Lake City, and he suspected she knew — the presents, especially the trip to the science and natural history museum, seemed equally motivated by love and penance.

On one of Ellie’s birthday’s, Joel takes her to a science and natural history museum.

(Liane Hentscher / HBO)

I also loved their time in the the space portion of the museum because it underlined the vagaries of human history — this is not the first advanced civilization to fall, leaving ruins behind. Joel remembers when humans traveled to the stars (and had the resources to build museums); for Ellie, a journey from Wyoming to Seattle is just as fraught. They were always essentially time-travelers in each others lives.

But most important for me, this episode resolved just how Ellie had left it with Joel before Abby ruined everything. The truth was finally spoken — both Joel’s and Ellie’s. That she didn’t think she could forgive him but she wanted to try. That he was taken from her before she could find her way to forgiveness must certainly drive some of the rage, no?

Ali: OK, I officially feel hard-hearted, especially since we’re discussing an episode designed to plumb the characters’ and viewers’ emotions. I’m glad Season 2 is connecting with you both, and millions more HBO and Max subscribers. Or is it HBO Max? Or plain old HBO? Regardless, this round of the series is not resonating with my adult, parenting self or my inner sullen teen, i.e. the part of my being that guides many of my rash decisions and dictates my slouchy posture. That said, I do love the chemistry between Ellie and Dina. Their love and fierce loyalty toward one another is a high point of Season 2. And it looks like they’re now going to be parents.

Brown: As Ellie says, she’s going to be a dad! The way Ellie and Dina’s relationship developed over the course of the season has been one of my favorite differences between the show and the game. But speaking of the game, the birthday trip to the museum and the porch conversation where Ellie tells Joel she wants to try to forgive him that Mary mentioned are both big flashback moments directly adapted from “The Last of Us Part II” with some minor changes. In the game, Ellie and Joel spend time checking out a dinosaur exhibit before getting to the space exploration exhibit, which I admit I’m a little sad we did not get to see. And Ellie confronting Joel about the truth of what happened in Salt Lake is a separate moment long before the porch conversation in the game.

Eugene (Joe Pantoliano) is shot by Joel after he is bitten, breaking his promise to Ellie to let him live to say goodbye to his wife, Gail. It’s a change from the video game, where the character dies of natural causes.

(Liane Hentscher / HBO)

One major difference between “The Last of Us Part II” and the show is the storyline involving Eugene and Gail. The Eugene in the game was a resident of Jackson who lived out his life until he died of natural causes in his 70s, which is something the younger generation can only dream of. Gail, on the other hand, is an original character, and my response to her introduction was mostly “hooray Catherine O’Hara, hooray therapy.” Catherine O’Hara is always a delight and it’s clear everybody living in the world of “The Last of Us” could use some therapy. But in Episode 6 we see that Eugene and Gail’s story also serves as a flashpoint in Joel and Ellie’s estrangement.

We already knew Joel had killed Eugene from his therapy session with Gail earlier in the season, but what did you think about that whole sequence, Mary? Did it affect your understanding of Joel or Ellie in any way?

McNamara: Well, I have to say that was an example of bad parenting. The patrol has rules, tough but necessary for the safety of the community. Ellie (who is, hello, freaking immune) wanted to bend them. Classic parent/child face-off. But instead of just saying “no” to her and “any last words?” to Eugene before shooting him, Joel allowed her believe she was getting her way, which was just dumb. Of course he was going to shoot Eugene; he had to shoot Eugene. But it honestly did not make sense to lie about it, especially when the lie would be exposed almost instantly. Sometimes a parent just has to be the bad guy, even if it means making Catherine O’Hara really mad at you.

And though I agree with you both about the energy of Ellie and Dina offering love in place of vengeance during their excursion to Seattle, I wish the writers could have figured out a way to bring O’Hara along.

Good morning. I’m Gustavo Arellano, columnista, writing from Orange County and watching my tomato seedlings grow. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.

Montebello’s ex-mayor turns to Orange County

Frank Gomez was born to be an L.A. County politician.

His grandfather attended Roosevelt High with pioneering Eastside congressmember Ed Roybal and helped to fight off a proposed veteran’s hospital in Hazard Park. His mother went to Belvedere Middle School with longtime L.A. councilmember Richard Alatorre. His father taught Chicano political titans Gil Cedillo and Vickie Castro in high school. When Gomez won a seat on the Montebello Unified School District board of trustees in 1997, Richard Polanco — the Johnny Appleseed-meets-Scrooge McDuck of Latino politics in California — helped out his campaign.

That’s why people were surprised in 2013 when Gomez — by then a Montebello council member who had served a year as mayor — announced he was leaving L.A. County altogether to marry his current wife.

“I had the choice between politics and love,” said the 61-year-old during a recent breakfast in Santa Ana. “It was an easy choice.”

Gomez couldn’t stay away from politics for long

Today, Gomez leads STEM initiatives for the Cal State system and is also the chair of the Central Orange County Democratic Club, which covers Orange, Tustin, parts of unincorporated Orange County “and a few voters in Villa Park,” Gomez told me with a chuckle.

He’s headed the Central O.C. Dems since last year, and has grown them from about 60 members to over 300. Soft-spoken but forceful, Gomez likes to apply his background as a chemistry professor — “We need to be strategic and analytical” — in helping to build a Democratic bench of elected officials in a region that was a long a GOP stronghold before becoming as purple as Barney the Dinosaur.

I knew Gomez’s name but didn’t realize his L.A. political background until we met last month. That makes him a rare one: someone who has dabbled in both L.A. and Orange county politics, two worlds that rarely collide because each considers the other a wasteland.

As someone who has covered O.C. politics for a quarter century but has only paid attention to L.A. politics in earnest since I started with The Times in 2019, I have my thoughts about each scene’s differences and similarities. But what about Gomez?

From one cutthroat political scene to another

“In L.A., it’s Democrats against Democrats,” he replied. “It’s not like I didn’t know” what to expect when moving to O.C., he said. “But it’s the difference between Fashion Island and the Citadel.”

He thought his days in politics were over until 2022, when his stepson — who had interned with longtime Irvine politico Larry Agran — urged him to run for a seat on the Tustin City Council.

Commence Gomez’s true “Welcome to the O.C., bitch” moment.

Opponents sent out mailers with photos of garbage cans and graffiti and the message, “Do not bring L.A. to Tustin,” a political insult introduced to Orange County politics that year by Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer.

“Those gated communities still try to keep their unsaid redlining,” Gomez said. “It wasn’t like that in L.A. politics because there was no place for it.”

Racist L.A. City Hall audio leak notwithstanding, of course.

Trying to topple O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember

Gomez unsuccessfully ran last year for a seat on the Municipal Water District of Orange County. He now plans to focus his political energies on growing the Central O.C. Dems and figuring out how to topple Rep. Young Kim, O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember. In the meanwhile, he will continue his political salons at the Central O.C. Dems’ monthly meetings at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin — I was on the hot seat in April, and upcoming guests include coastal O.C. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, O.C. supervisorial candidate Connor Traut and former congressmember and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter.

“It’s like being in the classroom,” Gomez said as he packed up his leftovers. “All I do is ask the questions and keep it flowing.”

He smiled. “Johnny Carson on intellectual steroids.”

Today’s top stories

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security oversight hearing on Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

The Trump administration will investigate L.A. County

• The administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.
• The state program provides monthly cash benefits to elderly, blind and disabled noncitizens who are ineligible for Social Security benefits because of their immigration status.

Newsom urges cities to ban homeless camps

• The governor’s plan asks localities to prohibit persistent camping and encampments that block sidewalks.
• This is an escalation from last year, when Newsom ordered California agencies to clear homeless camps from state lands.

How to understand the recent trade deals

Inside the investigation into faulty evacuation alerts during the wildfires in January

• Software glitches, cellphone provider mixups and poor wording on the alert itself compounded to stoke confusion.
• On Jan. 9, residents across the region received a wireless emergency alert urging them to prepare to evacuate.
• Meanwhile, western Altadena, where 17 people died, got its evacuation order many hours after the Eaton fire exploded.

What else is going on

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This morning’s must reads

Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, left, and Louis Farrakhan, chief minister of the Nation of Islam’s Boston mosque, right, attend a rally at Lennox Avenue and 115th Street in the Harlem section of New York in 1963.

(Robert Haggins / Associated Press)

Ibram X. Kendi is ready to introduce kids to Malcolm X: ‘Racism is worse in times of tragedy’ Ibram X. Kendi discusses introducing Malcolm X to today’s young readers and the timing of his new book in light of President Trump’s anti-DEI actions.

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].

For your downtime

The Pasadena Playhouse

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

A question for you: What’s your favorite karaoke song?

Peg says: “David Bowie’s Life on Mars!”
Paul says “My Way.” (We’re assuming he means by Frank Sinatra)

Keep the suggestions coming. Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.

And finally … your photo of the day

Wet Magazine Issue 3 from October/November 1976

(Photography and design by Leonard Koren)

Today’s great photo is from the archives: Leonard Koren began documenting L.A. bathing culture back in 1976 with Wet magazine, which featured contributions from David Lynch, Debbie Harry and Ed Ruscha.

Have a great day, from the Essential California team

Gustavo Arellano, California columnist
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

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