SACRAMENTO — It was unprecedented and stunning: California’s governor and top two legislative leaders negotiated a compromise on a big bill — and one house rebelled, refusing to bring it to a vote.
The issue: who gets hit the hardest financially when a for-profit utility’s electrical equipment ignites a blaze. The utility’s investors? Its ratepayers? The insurers? Their premium payers?
At stake, depending on who you talk to, is whether the electricity providers can afford to stay in business and keep our lights on. Will some utility — Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric or San Diego Gas & Election — be forced into bankruptcy when the next powerline-caused wildfire explodes?
Alternatively, there’s another unacceptable potential outcome: Property insurance companies completely stop issuing policies — not just in obvious fire-prone areas, but in tree-lined urban neighborhoods — and basically pull out of California. Or their premiums become flat-out unaffordable.
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Politically, the wildfire legislation’s flameout called into question Gov. Gavin Newsom’s seeming weakness as a lame duck chief executive who will be termed-out of office in January.
Newsom stuck out his neck and took it on the chin from fellow Democrats — showing that even with lopsided one-party rule, unity and success aren’t always guaranteed.
But the episode also raised doubts about Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas’ leadership capability. The Hollister Democrat signed off on the deal with Newsom and Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limon (D-Santa Barbara), but reneged at the last minute under pressure from the Assembly Democratic Caucus. They killed the bill without a floor vote.
I’m in my seventh decade of covering California governors and legislatures and never have seen — or heard of — anything like this: a legislative leader backing out of a deal agreed to with the governor and the other house’s leader.
But in truth, Newsom didn’t really like the agreement much anyway. He was on the utilities’ side, and they were out-lobbied by the insurers and ratepayers.
“I know we all hate utilities, so no one wants to defend a utility. But you’ve got to deal with reality. This thing’s not going to get better on its own,” Newsom told reporters at the Capitol on the night before the deal collapsed, referring to the utilities’ worsening financial liability.
Personally, I think it’s an overreach to conclude that Newsom’s power has been severely weakened — or that Rivas necessarily showed lack of leadership. One can question their reasons for doing what they did, but that doesn’t mean it was because of political debility.
“Newsom’s still a powerful lame duck because he could be a presidential nominee,” Republican consultant Rob Stutzman says.
“One of the better things he has done all year is taking on this issue. It would have been very easy for him to just pass it on to the next governor.”
Leaving aside whether this governor could become a president, there are hundreds of bills piling up on his desk that he must sign or veto by Sept. 30. That gives him tremendous clout. It’s good politics — and human nature — for a governor to lean more favorably toward a measure if it’s authored by a legislator who has voted with him.
Plus, one of the Legislature’s last acts last week was to send Newsom a bloated supplemental budget bill containing more than $3 billion in spending, including countless stacks of pork sought by lawmakers for their districts. Newsom easily and gleefully could discard any or all of it.
So Newsom has awesome power, lame duck or not.
But he’s vulnerable to criticism for his style. He has had an annoying habit of waiting until the very end of a legislative session to spring a hefty proposal on the lawmakers. It’s called “jamming.”
In the past, this pressure tactic mostly worked, although it ticked off lawmakers. This time Assembly members rebelled.
It’s not clear whether his jamming is mainly strategy, or just lack of focus and a tendency to push too many projects at once. Or is he preoccupied with positioning himself to run for president in 2028? Probably all of the above.
“If we had more time, we could have had a different outcome,” Rivas told me.
With only a few days remaining in the legislative session, Newsom initially proposed an ambitious plan that would have shifted more cost for utility-sparked wildfires to property insurers, sharply raising premiums across California. Utilities would have gotten some relief.
It became a titanic fight between two powerful special interests. And insurers — teamed with consumer advocates — triumphed, forcing Newsom to back down.
After hard bargaining, the governor and legislative leaders finally agreed on a post-midnight deal to help wildfire victims receive compensation more quickly — a so-called fast-pay program — and to step up fire preventative efforts.
But utilities’ financial risks weren’t significantly reduced, and they quickly mounted an opposition campaign. That resulted in Assembly Democrats scuttling all of it on the session’s last day.
“It’s unfortunate that [bill] was not given a vote,” Limon said, adding that the Senate was prepared to pass it.
“I don’t want us to do the easy stuff and call it a day,” Rivas told me. “I wanted to see real utility accountability. This bill did not go nearly far enough.”
It went a fair distance, however, in helping future fire victims get their insurance payouts faster. And it probably should have been passed.
Half a loaf. Bird in hand. Incremental change. Next year more incrementalism. Ultimately it can add to massive reform.
Some problems are just too tough to resolve in one sitting.
Andrew Scott considers the question and looks at me with a mischievous grin, retreating to a corner of the restaurant booth where we’re catching up a few hours before his new movie, “Elsinore,” the most personal film he has ever made, premieres at the Telluride Film Festival.
Scott turns over the question again. “Do I believe in ghosts?”
It feels like a reasonable thing to ask. Three years ago at Telluride, the yearning romantic fantasy “All of Us Strangers” memorably premiered, featuring Scott playing a character who worked through unresolved trauma by talking to the dead. Ghosts are elsewhere in his work, metaphorical (“Vanya”) and literal (“Hamlet”).
“If I had a gun put to my head — which you don’t have to — I would say that I don’t believe in them,” Scott says. “But the idea of the afterlife and where we will go is still really fascinating to me. Dreams and the subconscious, too. I don’t know what went on consciously in the world outside my hotel room here last night. I was perfectly content to be asleep. And I like the idea of thinking about death that way. I’ll just be asleep. It’ll be OK. It’s the undiscovered country.”
“The movie for me is about time,” says Andrew Scott. “What are you going to do with your time? Ian decided to to live and to be a light and to be around people for the glory of the theater.”
(Anthony Dickenson / Focus Features)
Dropping a line from Hamlet’s “to be or not to be” soliloquy in this context feels unavoidable. In the powerfully moving “Elsinore,” Scott plays the real-life actor Ian Charleson, who, as he was secretly dying from AIDS, played Hamlet in a 1989 Royal National Theatre production, still considered one of the great performances in London theater history. Charleson was 40 at the time, known for playing Scottish Olympic athlete and missionary Eric Liddell in “Chariots of Fire.” He died eight weeks after leaving the National Theatre stage. “Elsinore” captures that journey in all of its glories and taxing challenges.
“That he would go for treatment in the morning and then play this Olympian role is just endlessly moving,” Scott says. “I don’t know how he did it.”
With our pint glasses filled with water as we adjust to Telluride’s altitude, we try to figure it out.
Charleson playing Hamlet, scaling the Everest for actors, reminded me of David Bowie making “Blackstar” as he was dying. As an artist, you’re not often given the chance to shape the narrative of your own end.
Being offered Hamlet doesn’t happen to every actor. To take it and turn it into something generous and useful — useful is a word I love about acting, that it’s useful to people.
When people are feeling down, they can watch a movie they love.
And see themselves. That can’t be underestimated.
What’s your go-to movie?
I will always watch “Bridesmaids” when it comes on TV. Comedy is precious to me. Laughing is precious to me. I don’t see it as the antithesis of tragedy. I think they’re one and the same.
The last time we talked, around the time of “Ripley,” you wanted to put out into the universe the idea of starring in a musical or a comedy. That hasn’t happened by the strictest definition. But you seem to be saying that genre labels don’t matter.
The reason, hopefully, that “Elsinore” is moving is that we approach some of the stuff with quite a bit of lightness. The effect is tragic and there are some heavy things in it. But my job, what I prioritized, is keeping it light.
My favorite actors are the ones that are funny. I worked with Lisa Kudrow last year on “The Comeback,” and yes, of course, she’s very funny. But if you look at that performance she gives toward the end, it’s so moving. People come away from things that are labeled comedies and go, “I just laughed at that.” Or people come away from things that maybe were really sad and say, “I was just devastated by that.” I think the job is to get rid of categorizing and make it more fluid.
Like life. Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes, the bear, he eats you.
Exactly! I don’t love things that are overly serious. One of my big dreams for this film — and I do wish so much for this film because it’s so personal — is that people don’t feel like that they’re going to see something that’s depressing. I didn’t want to fetishize Ian’s death.
What do you hope audiences take away from watching it?
That they see themselves in it. You know, it doesn’t end well for any of us. The movie for me is about time. What are you going to do with your time? Ian decided to to live and to be a light and to be around people for the glory of the theater.
Speaking of time, next month you’re going to be celebrating a milestone, turning 50. Or not celebrating. I don’t know how you feel about birthdays.
I don’t love my birthday.
Any year?
My friends have said to me, “You gotta make some plans.” I love a party. Which is to say, I love other people’s parties. What I usually do is I leave it to the last minute and send texts around, saying, “I understand if you don’t want to come, but I might do this.” And then you do something small. I read something yesterday where you should go to your own parties like you’re a guest. I think that’s a very good way to to do it.
What about just being around for half a century? Is that in your head? You’re the one who just said it doesn’t end well for any of us.
I’ve definitely thought about it more. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I’ve thought, “Jesus, what?” I’m sure that’s because of my mom dying and that I’m approaching my mortality. Again, how am I going to use my time? One of the reasons I was so ferocious about getting “Elsinore” made was that I would put all of myself into this and then maybe I can chill out a bit more.
Andrew Scott in the movie “Elsinore.”
(Anthony Dickenson / Focus Features)
The personal aspects of this movie are striking. In addition to producing “Elsinore,” you yourself have played Hamlet on stage. You’re also a gay actor portraying someone who, at the time, would have torpedoed his career by coming out.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the movies and would read Premiere and Empire magazine. Around 16 or 17, I started to realize that maybe if you’re gay, you wouldn’t be invited to movies. And I wasn’t wrong in thinking that, because there weren’t many examples. So I would omit things in interviews. I wouldn’t lie, but I really understood that about Ian’s generation.
There’s a melancholy moment in the movie where he says, “I wanted to be in the movies. I didn’t scale the heights.”
What a gorgeous little dream. A young boy goes, “I want to be in the movies.” And then to have that knocked out of you bit by bit. You’re not even going to be seen for the audition. Or, “Are you being a little fruity there?”
Did people tell you not to talk about being gay?
Very well-meaning people said to me, “Just keep that [private] because you’re not obviously gay,” which I often think is such an insult to say to people. “So maybe you can get away with it.” And I was like, OK. And I did that for awhile. But it was so insidious. When audiences think of acting, they think of actors pretending, like you’re putting yourself in somebody else’s shoes. So the fact that there was this whole section of gay actors who weren’t allowed to do that is awful. I’m so grateful that I get to do that.
What do you remember about the late ’80s and early ’90s in terms of navigating the AIDS epidemic?
It makes me emotional. It was extraordinary just to to have lived through that time and to be completely abandoned by your government, who wouldn’t even say the name of the illness. When I was a young adult, that’s what I was scared of. If you go for a sexual health screening, you go, “My God, am I going to die?” I remember going into those situations, and with no cause for such concern, feeling like I’m going to be punished for expressing myself in that way, because that’s the way the world was set up.
Let’s get back to Ethel Merman.
Please! [Laughs]
There’s that stanza in “There’s No Business Like Show Business” that goes: “There’s no people like show people / They smile when they are low.” Would you say that sums up the spirit of “Elsinore” about as well as any couplet could?
Yes, it’s so much about the power of community and show people. It’s about show people and smiling and getting on with the show.
When did you first feel that power of community?
Putting on “The Wizard of Oz” in a school play when I was about 10.
What part did you play?
Guess.
Dorothy?
[Laughs] No, a friend of Dorothy. Oh, come on. One more guess.
The Cowardly Lion?
No. The Tin Man. My mom sprayed me silver, in my hair and everything. We had a probably bit of aluminum foil and I had a funnel. I loved it so much. And I remember having a really extraordinary feeling of surprise, knowing the audience was there. For such a shy boy, when I had to do the big number, “If I Only Had a Heart,” it went to another level, better than rehearsal. I suppose the little showman, the little 10-year-old silver showman, came out.
The sad news was announced by her family on Tuesday night, 25 August. The legendary musician was best known for her genre-defining hits including 9 To 5, I Will Always Love You and Jolene.
On Tuesday’s The One Show, which aired just as the devastating news was announced, hosts JB Gill and Angellica Bell paid an emotional tribute to ‘big friend of the show’ Dolly at the end of the episode.
JB, 39, said: “Now just before we go, like many of you, we’ve just heard the very sad news that the legendary Dolly Parton has died at the age of 80.
“She was a big friend of the show, having been on many times, and was loved by people all over the world. So our thoughts are very much with her family, friends and fans. We’ll be paying tribute in tomorrow’s show.”
Taking to Twitter, now X, one emotional viewer wrote: “Poor Dolly Parton. RIP. #TheOneShow” while another account added: “#theoneshow RIP dolly parton” with a different fan responding: “very sad!”
It comes as in a video shared on Dolly’s social media accounts, the singer’s nephew announced her death and said: “My name is Brian Seaver, son of Cassie Parton, and I’m representing the Parton and Owens family today announcing the passing of my aunt, Dolly Rebecca Parton Dean.
“Sister, Sis and Granny to one generation and Gigi to the next.” He added: “This video announcement is something Dolly asked of me years ago, before I fully absorbed it as a future reality.
“As her head of security for more than two decades, a role my father Larry held before me, I have imagined the heaviness of this moment but haven’t truly felt it until now.”
The emotional video announcement continued: “It is an honour, an honour that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness. But sadness lies with us, not with Dolly.
“Dolly has lived in the light and is in the arms of Jesus, surely met by Carl, her parents and countless others who have watched her and longed to meet her in the heavens.”
The documentary had viewers glued to their screens (Image: Sipa/REX/Shutterstock)
A chilling documentary about one of the world’s most infamous serial killers is streaming now.
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer was originally released in 2003 and it is still captivating viewers over 20 years on. The film dives into American murderer Aileen Wuornos’ crimes and trial, which ended in her execution in 2002.
A synopsis teases: “British documentarian Nick Broomfield creates a follow-up piece to his 1992 documentary of the serial killer Aileen Wuornos, a highway prostitute who was convicted of killing six men in Florida between 1989 and 1990.
“Interviewing an increasingly mentally unstable Wuornos, Broomfield captures the distorted mind of a murderer whom the state of Florida deems of sound mind — and therefore fit to execute. Throughout the film, Broomfield includes footage of his testimony at Wuornos’ trial.”
The documentary is now available to watch on Channel 4, along with the director’s original 1992 film, Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer. Those without access to Channel 4 can alternatively stream the movie on STV Player.
Both critics and casual viewers have shared glowing reviews of the film, with Rotten Tomatoes pundits giving it an impressive 85% score.
But fans have confessed they were deeply disturbed by Wuornos’ dark story and execution. One person posted: “Very bizarre and quite chilling documentary. It affected me and disturbed me in equal measure.”
Someone else agreed: “Ultimately this is a sad documentation of one woman’s mental demise on death row and one can’t help but feel empathetic towards Aileen and what her life amounted to.”
A third viewer added: “A deeply disturbing documentary of the iconic serial killer Aileen Wuornos from the most acclaimed documentary film maker in the U.K, Nic Broomfield. The documentary goes much deeper, much further than anybody could have anticipated.”
Yet another fan chimed in: “Chilling really sad story. This is one of those films that make you question your own humanity.”
Others were completely captivated by the film, with one sharing: “Really fantastic I did not regret watching it,” and another adding: “I was completely glued to the screen watching this documentary.”
Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer is available to stream on Channel 4 and STV Player.
Coronation Street fans are worried for Brody Michaelis amid his dodgy dealings with Idris Nazir after a violent scene on Wednesday, with fans predicting a sad fate for the teen
21:01, 19 Aug 2026Updated 21:03, 19 Aug 2026
Coronation Street fans are worried for Brody Michaelis(Image: ITV)
Fans fear a death twist is on the way for one Coronation Street teen, after they crossed baddie Idris Nazir on Wednesday.
After some dodgy dealings with Idris over recent weeks, Brody Michaelis exposed Idris to his love interest Leanne Battersby. Revealing all about the poker night and the fact he’d risked her money in the process, Brody left Idris furious.
Idris had hosted a poker night at Leanne’s restaurant in secret. He then used the £5,000 she leant him, which he claimed was a loan for something, on the poker game. With the help of Ollie Driscoll, Idris fixed the poker game so that Ollie won, and dodgy businesswoman Fiona lost.
With Ollie winning thousands of pounds, most of it went to Idris. But the fact he’d chosen Ollie for this task and not Brody, who is keen to impress his boss, left Brody upset, and he got drunk.
As Brody confronted his boss about Ollie, Idris realised he’d had alcohol. Idris called Brody “sloppy” and a “bad liar”, saying this is why he chose Ollie. A rejected Brody then took his revenge.
As Leanne showed up at the restaurant after the clean-up, Brody dropped Idris in it by confirming the poker night. He told Leanne about the winnings too, making it clear that Idris had used her money.
A furious Leanne told Idris not to bother joining her later before storming out. As Brody laughed, Idris went over to him and attacked him. Pinning him against a wall, he grabbed him before slapping and then grabbing his face.
Idris said: “Think you’re a big man, do you? I don’t care who your dad is. If you ever cross me like that again, you’ll regret it.” He then threw Brody over, telling him to get out.
Fans watching the scenes were worried it was a hint of what is to come for the characters. With Brody tipped to take some time away later this year, as actor Ryan Mulvey works on another project, fans are fearing he could be killed off.
While his exit is only thought to be temporary, fans believe Idris’ true colours have been shown, and Brody could get caught up in dark scenes. A fan said: “I think Idris will kill Brody.”
Another viewer theorised: “I think Brodie’s going to end up asking too many questions or double crossing Idris and that’s how he leaves.” Another fan thought he’d live, but still be facing trouble thanks to Idris.
The comment read: “I can see him going to prison for a while, if the actor is leaving.”
If you were once a child dragged to the British coastline, seemingly regardless of the time of year or weather, then you too will know how beautiful but also bleak it can be
The seaside town splits opinions(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Bleak or beautiful? When it comes to the UK coastline, it can be difficult to know what you’re going to get.
Camber Sands, Morecambe and Cromer are all picture-perfect places that belong on a postcard when the sun is shining and the chippy fryers are bubbling away.
But, when the clouds roll in and the temperatures drop, leaving the prom deserted but for the hopeless sound of ignored arcade machines, such beauty is replaced by a bleakness.
If you were once a child dragged to the British coastline, seemingly regardless of the time of year or weather, then you too will feel this particular brand of wist deep within yourself.
Inarguably, the bleak jewel in the Dungeness crown is its twin nuclear power plants, which once whipped a patch of nearby sea into a whirlpool but have lain dormant and decommissioned for the past 19 years.
The unique feel of the place has been best captured by artist, filmmaker, gay rights activist, and gardener Derek Jarman, who turned his home into Prospect Cottage—a point of pilgrimage for his fans and those who love the way he carefully manicured the garden into a concentrated miniature form of Dungeness.
But not everyone is a fan. In fact, many are left cold by Dungeness’ charms.
“Bleak is an understatement,” one detractor of the place recently wrote on Reddit. Another added: “Bleak to Dungeness is like ‘a wee bit cold’ in Antarctica. The missus loved it though…” A third wrote: “I find it dismal down there. Old nuclear power station for a view.”
Others love Dungeness and how different it feels from other parts of the UK.
The science writer Ben Goldacre recalled his experience of riding through Dungeness on the small railway that takes day-trippers down the coastline.
“The Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway has a strange, dreamlike existence, on the border between fantasy and reality. You leave toytown in a cute miniature train, surrounded by excited children. But Disney, this is not. Suddenly, you’re riding through real life: past clothes lines, collapsing breezeblock walls, an abandoned washing machine in a back garden, chuffing along behind a miniature steam train. Finally, you’re ferried across a beautiful, windswept shingle peninsula, spotted with railway carriage houses and abandoned shipping containers. Then you are delivered to the foot of a nuclear power station,” Ben wrote.
“This meeting of toy train sets and grim industrial purpose is what makes the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway so perfect.”
Ben is not alone. Dungeness was named the seventh-best beach town in the UK in Which?’s survey of the British public last year. The consumer organisation surveyed more than 3,800 people about their experiences of UK seaside destinations and their opinions on beaches, scenery, food and drink offerings, accommodation, tourist attractions, and value for money.
The elevation of Dungeness into the top ten is a major scoop for the Kentish settlement, which languished in 35th place the year before.
