With the ongoing fracas over President Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing, a number of other Trump administration-led attempts to remake the architectural landscape of Washington, D.C., have flown largely under the radar. This includes the sale and possible demolition of the Wilbur J. Cohen Building, which was completed in 1940 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2007.
Part of what makes the building so beloved is a series of 1942 frescoes by Ben Shahn titled “The Meaning of Social Security,” commissioned as part of the Roosevelt administration’s robust New Deal art program. In a recent article in the New Republic, architectural historian Gray Brechin is quoted as calling the Cohen building, “a kind of Sistine Chapel of the New Deal.”
The structure, originally known as the Social Security Administration Building, has served as the headquarters for Voice of America since 1954. In March, Trump signed an executive order cutting funding for the agency that oversees VOA, and most of its staff was placed on administrative leave. In June, more than 600 VOA employees received layoff notices, and the service basically shut down.
At the beginning of this year, Congress agreed to sell the Cohen building, which had been suffering from major maintenance issues. The scope of the threat to the building became clear earlier this month when Bloomberg reported that “The White House is independently soliciting bids to recommend the demolition of the historic buildings [including the Cohen building], without the input of the General Services Administration, which maintains government buildings.”
“Federal properties can be sold quickly with limited public input. As powerful interests move in haste to sell this historic building, we call for the process to be paused and conducted with transparency, respect, and public participation,” the petition, which has garnered more than 4,700 signatures, states.
The Shahn frescoes aren’t the only precious New Deal artworks in danger. Other art housed in the Cohen building include murals by Seymour Fogel and Philip Guston.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt wondering when enough is enough. Here’s your arts news for the week.
On our radar
Grant Gershon conducts the Los Angeles Master Chorale at Walt Disney Concert Hall.
(Jamie Phan / Los Angeles Master Chorale)
Disney Hall-e-lu-jah It’s hard to imagine the holidays without music, and the Los Angeles Master Chorale has three days of caroling and chorusing that should lift anyone’s seasonal spirits. A new addition to the choir’s traditional offerings is the family-friendly “Carols for Kids” (11 a.m. Saturday. Walt Disney Concert Hall), featuring Youth Chorus LA and designed for even the squirmiest children, 6 and under. That will be followed by the “Festival of Carols” (2 p.m. Saturday. Disney Hall), a program of global holiday music. The group’s performance of “Handel’s Messiah” (7 p.m. Sunday. Disney Hall) is a worthy centerpiece of any celebration. If you’re ready to have your own voice be heard, “Carols on the Plaza” (6 p.m. Monday, across the street at the Music Center’s Jerry Moss Plaza), is your chance to join in on free outdoor caroling with family, friends and fellow Angelenos. Festivities conclude with the Master Chorale’s “Messiah Sing-Along” (7:30 p.m. Monday) back at Disney Hall where 2,000 voices will unite for the “Hallelujah Chorus.” — Kevin Crust Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave.; Music Center, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY The Fruit Cake Follies In its 27th year, this madcap holiday variety show promises “music, mirth and merriment.” 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, with dinner at 6:30 p.m.; 1 p.m Sunday, with brunch at 11 a.m. Catalina Jazz Club, 6725 Sunset Blvd. Hollywood. catalinajazzclub.com
Guadalupe Maravilla: A Performance Expanding on his solo exhibition “Les soñadores,” the transdisciplinary artist creates a collective ritual combining sound, vibration and healers from around the world alongside L.A.-based artists. 8 p.m. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Piotr Beczala The Polish-born tenor, known for his work in opera and the classical vocal canon, performs, accompanied by conductor and pianist Kamal Khan. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica broadstage.org
“Wet” by Sahar Khoury at Parker Gallery, 2025
(Sahar Khoury / Parker Gallery)
Sahar Khoury The interdependence of materials and their social and cultural environments inspired the sculptor’s newest solo exhibition, “Wet,” a series of pieces created from ceramic, steel, iron, brass and aluminum. 11 a.m.–6 p.m. Tuesday–Saturday, through Jan. 17. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
SATURDAY Christmas Joy Concert The free Third@First concert series continues with a program of carols, classic and new. 4 p.m. First United Methodist Church of Pasadena, 500. E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena. thirdatfirst.org
Sanaa Lathan and Omar Epps in the romantic drama “Love & Basketball.”
(New Line Cinema)
Love & Basketball Writer-director Gina Prince-Bythewood marks the 25th anniversary of her modern romance classic, starring Sanaa Lathan, Omar Epps, Alfre Woodard and Dennis Haysbert. 7 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
The cast of “Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet.”
Nutcracker! Magical Christmas Ballet This 80-plus city tour offers a distinct blend of classical ballet with avant-garde circus techniques and global influences, complete with 10-foot-tall animal puppets constructed by Roger Titley. For its 33rd year on the road, the production adds a new character: Sweets the Dog, created by Barry Gordemer of the award-winning puppeteer studio Handemonium. — Ashley Lee Noon, 4 and 8 p.m. Saturday. Wiltern Theatre, 3790 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles; and 1:30 and 6:30 p.m. Sunday. La Mirada Theatre for the Performing Arts, 14900 La Mirada Blvd. nutcracker.com
SUNDAY Collecting Impressionism at LACMA This new exhibition traces how the museum built its collection and its pursuit of legitimacy through early acquisitions of American and California Impressionism and donations of paintings by Edgar Degas and Camille Pissarro from major Hollywood collectors. Through Jan. 3, 2027. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Resnick Pavilion, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Actor Taylor Nichols, left, and director Whit Stillman at a 20th anniversary screening of “Metropolitan” at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival.
(Jemal Countess / Getty Images)
Metropolitan It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since the young socialites of the “urban haute bourgeoisie” entered our consciousness via filmmaker Whit Stillman’s delightfully droll film and its banter-driven, Oscar-nominated screenplay. Stillman and actor Taylor Nichols will be on hand for a Q&A with the screening. 2 p.m. Aero Theatre, 1328 Montana Ave., Santa Monica. americancinematheque.com
WEDNESDAY
Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter host the 2025 L.A. County Holiday Celebration.
(Music Center)
L.A. County Holiday Celebration The Music Center’s annual spectacular features more than 20 local music ensembles, choirs and dance companies. The free, ticketed event will also be broadcast on PBS SoCal. Aloe Blacc and Maya Jupiter are this year’s hosts. 3-6 p.m. Dec. 24. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
— Kevin Crust
Dispatch: A director with a human touch
Cameron Watson is the new artistic director of Skylight Theatre Company.
(David Zaugh)
Stage director Cameron Watson has one of the best batting averages in town.
His productions of “The Sound Inside” at Pasadena Playhouse, “On the Other Hand, We’re Happy” for Rogue Machine Theatre at the Matrix and “Top Girls” at Antaeus Theatre Company were morale-boosting for a critic in the trenches, offering proof that serious, humane, highly intelligent and happily unorthodox drama was alive and well in Los Angeles.
Watson’s appointment as artistic director of Los Feliz’s Skylight Theatre Company starting Jan. 1 is good news for the city’s theater ecology. Producing artistic director Gary Grossman, who led the company for 40 years with enormous integrity, built the small but ambitious Skylight into an incubator of new work that embraces diversity and the local community.
Developing new plays is fraught with risk. Watson has the both the artistic acumen and audience sensitivity needed to usher Skylight through this perilous moment in the American theater when so many companies seem to be holding on by a thread.
Watson, like Peter Brook before him, knows how to convert an empty space into a realm of magic and meaning. For Watson, the play’s the thing. But for the spark to happen, actors and audience members need a director as intuitively attuned to the uncertain human drama as Skylight Theatre Company’s new leader. (The director’s current production of “Heisenberg” at Skylight ends Sunday.)
— Charles McNulty
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Moving in stereo The most Tony-nominated play in Broadway history, “Stereophonic,” is playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through Jan. 2. Times theater critic Charles McNulty caught opening night and wrote that the first touring production fails to capture the high notes of the Broadway original. A few days later, I sat down for an interview at Amoeba Records with Will Butler, the former Arcade Fire multi-instrumentalist who wrote the music for the show. Our interview took place before Butler got onstage with the cast of the show for a short live in-store performance.
Boiling in Brooklyn Brooklyn was also on McNulty’s itinerary, where he saw Michelle Williams in the new revival of Eugene O’Neill’s “Anna Christie” at St. Ann’s Warehouse. “Michelle Williams seems to have unlimited emotional access. Her inner intensity expresses itself in a frenzy of volcanic feeling that can never be tamped down once it reaches its boiling point,” McNulty writes.
The name game The Kennedy Center continued its Trump-era transformation Thursday after the board voted unanimously to rename the world-famous performing arts venue The Donald J. Trump and the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. It remains unclear if the move is legal, or if the name change will need to be made official via an act of Congress.
Viva Las Vegas I got a look at newly revealed architectural plans for the Las Vegas Museum of Art, which is expected to break ground in 2027. Pritzker Prize-winning architect Diébédo Francis Kéré is designing the city’s first freestanding museum and says his ideas were inspired by the red rocks and canyons of the desert surrounding Sin City.
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LACMA United Workers at Los Angeles County Museum of art voted to unionize Wednesday. The vote in favor was 96%, and came after LACMA rejected workers’ requests for voluntary recognition. Staffers have expressed disappointment in management over what they are calling its anti-union campaign.
La malchance The Louvre is down on its luck. Maintenance issues have lately plagued the famous Paris museum, and then there was that infamous heist. Now workers have voted to strike over working conditions among other complaints.
For months after the Palisades fire, many who had lost their homes eagerly awaited the Los Angeles Fire Department’s after-action report, which was expected to provide a frank evaluation of the agency’s handling of the disaster.
A first draft was completed by August, possibly earlier.
In one instance, LAFD officials removed language saying that the decision not to fully staff up and pre-deploy all available crews and engines ahead of the extreme wind forecast “did not align” with the department’s policy and procedures during red flag days.
Instead, the final report said that the number of engine companies rolled out ahead of the fire “went above and beyond the standard LAFD pre-deployment matrix.”
Another deleted passage in the report said that some crews waited more than an hour for an assignment the day of the fire. A section on “failures” was renamed “primary challenges,” and an item saying that crews and leaders had violated national guidelines on how to avoid firefighter deaths and injuries was scratched.
Other changes in the report, which was overseen by then-interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva, seemed similarly intended to soften its impact and burnish the Fire Department’s image. Two drafts contain notes written in the margins, including a suggestion to replace the image on the cover page — which showed palm trees on fire against an orange sky — with a “positive” one, such as “firefighters on the frontline,” the note said. The final report’s cover displays the LAFD seal.
The Times obtained seven drafts of the report through the state Public Records Act. Only three of those drafts are marked with dates: Two versions are dated Aug. 25, and there is a draft from Oct. 6, two days before the LAFD released the final report to the public.
No names are attached to the edits. It is unclear if names were in the original documents and had been removed in the drafts given to The Times.
The deletions and revisions are likely to deepen concerns over the LAFD’s ability to acknowledge its mistakes before and during the blaze — and to avoid repeating them in the future. Already, Palisades fire victims have expressed outrage over unanswered questions and contradictory information about the LAFD’s preparations after the dangerous weather forecast, including how fire officials handled a smaller New Year’s Day blaze, called the Lachman fire, that rekindled into the massive Palisades fire six days later.
Some drafts described an on-duty LAFD captain calling Fire Station 23 in the Palisades on Jan. 7 to report that “the Lachman fire started up again,” indicating the captain’s belief that the Palisades fire was caused by a reignition of the earlier blaze.
The reference was deleted in one draft, then restored in the public version, which otherwise contains only a brief mention of the previous fire. Some have said that the after-action report’s failure to thoroughly examine the Lachman fire reignition was designed to shield LAFD leadership and Mayor Karen Bass’ administration from criticism and accountability.
Weeks after the report’s release, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. Another battalion chief assigned to the LAFD’s risk management section knew about the complaints for months, but the department kept that information out of the after-action report.
“A full understanding of the Lachman fire response is essential to an accurate accounting of what occurred during the January wildfires,” Bass wrote.
Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who started in the job last month, has been tasked with commissioning the independent investigation that Bass requested.
The LAFD did not answer detailed questions from The Times about the altered drafts, including queries about why the material about the reignition was removed, then brought back. Villanueva did not respond to a request for comment.
A spokesperson for Bass said her office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.
“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report. We did not discuss the Lachman Fire because it was not part of the report.”
Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, told The Times that she reviewed a paper copy of a “working document” about a week before the final report was made public. She said she raised concerns with Villanueva and the city attorney’s office over the possibility that “material findings” were or would be changed. She also said she consulted a private attorney about her “obligations” as a commissioner overseeing the LAFD’s operations, though that conversation “had nothing to do with the after-action” report.
Hudley Hayes said she noticed only small differences between the final report and the draft she reviewed. For example, she said, “mistakes” had been changed to “challenges,” and names of firefighters had been removed.
“I was completely OK with it,” she said. “All the things I read in the final report did not in any way obfuscate anything, as far as I’m concerned.”
She reiterated her position that an examination of missteps during the Lachman fire did not belong in the after-action report, a view not shared by former LAFD chief officers interviewed by The Times.
“The after-action report should have gone back all the way to Dec. 31,” said former LAFD Battalion Chief Rick Crawford, who retired from the agency last year and is now emergency and crisis management coordinator for the U.S. Capitol. “There are major gaps in this after-action report.”
Former LAFD Asst. Chief Patrick Butler, who is now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, agreed that the Lachman fire should have been addressed in the report and said the deletions were “a deliberate effort to hide the truth and cover up the facts.”
He said the removal of the reference to the LAFD’s violations of the national Standard Firefighting Orders and Watchouts was a “serious issue” because they were “written in the blood” of firefighters killed in the line of duty. Without citing the national guidelines, the final report said that the Palisades fire’s extraordinary nature “occasionally caused officers and firefighters to think and operate beyond standard safety protocols.”
The final after-action report does not mention that a person called authorities to report seeing smoke in the area on Jan. 3. The LAFD has since provided conflicting information about how it responded to that call.
Villanueva told The Times in October that firefighters returned to the burn area and “cold-trailed” an additional time, meaning they used their hands to feel for heat and dug out hot spots. But records showed they cleared the call within 34 minutes.
Fire officials did not answer questions from The Times about the discrepancy. In an emailed statement this week, the LAFD said crews had used remote cameras, walked around the burn site and used a 20-foot extension ladder to access a fenced-off area but did not see any smoke or fire.
“After an extensive investigation, the incident was determined to be a false alarm,” the statement said.
The most significant changes in the various iterations of the after-action report involved the LAFD’s deployment decisions before the fire, as the wind warnings became increasingly dire.
In a series of reports earlier this year, The Times found that top LAFD officials decided not to staff dozens of available engines that could have been pre-deployed to the Palisades and other areas flagged as high risk, as it had done in the past.
One draft contained a passage in the “failures” section on what the LAFD could have done: “If the Department had adequately augmented all available resources as done in years past in preparation for the weather event, the Department would have been required to recall members for all available positions unfilled by voluntary overtime, which would have allowed for all remaining resources to be staffed and available for augmentation, pre-deployment, and pre-positioning.” The draft said the decision was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.
That language was absent in the final report, which said that the LAFD “balanced fiscal responsibility with proper preparation for predicted weather and fire behavior by following the LAFD predeployment matrix.”
Even with the deletions, the published report delivered a harsh critique of the LAFD’s performance during the Palisades fire, pointing to a disorganized response, failures in communication and chiefs who didn’t understand their roles. The report found that top commanders lacked a fundamental knowledge of wildland firefighting tactics, including “basic suppression techniques.”
A paperwork error resulted in the use of only a third of the state-funded resources that were available for pre-positioning in high-risk areas, the report said. And when the fire broke out on the morning of Jan. 7, the initial dispatch called for only seven engine companies, when the weather conditions required 27.
There was confusion among firefighters over which radio channel to use. The report said that three L.A. County engines showed up within the first hour, requesting an assignment and receiving no reply. Four other LAFD engines waited 20 minutes without an assignment.
In the early afternoon, the staging area — where engines were checking in — was overrun by fire.
The report made 42 recommendations, ranging from establishing better communication channels to more training. In a television interview this month, Moore said the LAFD has adopted about three-quarters of them.
Bowen Yang, a fan-favorite cast member of “Saturday Night Live,” is leaving the series after this week’s episode.
Representatives for Yang and “Saturday Night Live” did not comment on the move Friday. However, on Saturday, he confirmed his upcoming departure via a post on his Instagram account. “i loved working at SNL, and most of all i loved the people. i was there at a time when many things in the world started to seem futile, but working at 30 rock taught me the value in showing up anyway when people make it worthwile,” he wrote. “i’m grateful for every minute of my time there.”
Yang also thanked Ariana Grande, this week’s host and his “Wicked” co-star,” for “sending me off in the dreamiest way I could imagine.” The pair, alongside musical guest Cher, were seen in promos for Saturday’s episode.
There has been recent speculation about whether Yang would finish the current season of the show. He has appeared on “SNL” since Season 45 after a year of working on the writing staff.
Yang took on a variety of roles in the NBC sketch comedy series, including impersonating Vice President J.D. Vance, Fran Lebowitz and pygmy hippopotamus Moo Deng. Yang received his fifth Emmy nomination for his work on “SNL’s” historic 50th season.
Outside of “SNL,” Yang has appeared in several other projects recently. He co-hosts the popular podcast “Las Culturistas,” with fellow comedian Matt Rogers, and their seminal Las Culturistas Culture Awards was televised for the first time this year, airing on Bravo and streaming on Peacock. Yang also appeared in the “Wicked” film and its recent sequel, “Wicked: For Good,” and has starred in several other feature films, including “The Wedding Banquet,” “Fire Island” and “Dicks the Musical.”
In early December, Yang confirmed he and Rogers would be co-writing and starring in an untitled comedy for Searchlight Pictures. The movie will reportedly follow two Americans who fly across the world to try to get into the exclusive Berghain nightclub in Berlin.
Yang is not the first “Saturday Night Live” cast member to leave midseason — he joins the company of past “SNL” greats like Cecily Strong, Molly Shannon, Amy Poehler and a handful of others who exited the show outside of the traditional period for departures while the show is on summer hiatus.
Prior to the start of Season 51, NBC and executive producer Lorne Michaels made some major cast changes, adding five featured players after a series of departures. Ego Nwodim, Heidi Gardner, Michael Longfellow, Devon Walker and Emil Wakim exited the series before the season premiere in October.
Tommy Brennan, Jeremy Culhane, Ben Marshall, Kam Patterson and Veronika Slowikowska joined the cast for the current season. Marshall was previously on the “SNL” writing staff and is known for his on-camera appearances as a part of the Please Don’t Destroy comedy trio.
The 51st season of “Saturday Night Live” will continue in early 2026 and run through the end of the television season in May.
Dec. 19 (UPI) — Sales of previously owned homes rose 0.5% in November from October, reflecting a slowdown, due to high mortgage rates, high prices and less supply.
Home sales were 1% lower than November 2024, according to the National Association of Realtors. Sales came in at an annualized rate of 4.13 million units.
The numbers are based on closings, so contracts may have been signed in the preceding months when rates dipped slightly.
Supply fell in November after rising most of the year. The association said there were 1.43 million homes for sale at the end of the month, which is down 5.9% from October, but up 7.5 percent year-over-year.
That’s a 4.2-month supply. A six-month supply is considered balanced between buyer and seller.
The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was 6.24%, down from 6.25% in October and 6.81% from a year ago, showing slow change in rates.
The median existing-home price for all housing types was $409,200, up 1.2% from a year ago.
The median time on the market for properties was 36 days, up from 34 days last month and 32 in November 2024.
“Existing-home sales increased for the third straight month due to lower mortgage rates this autumn,” said the Association of Realtors’ Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a statement. “However, inventory growth is beginning to stall. With distressed property sales at historic lows and housing wealth at an all-time high, homeowners are in no rush to list their properties during the winter months.”
Month-over-month sales increased in the Northeast and South, showed no change in the West, and fell in the Midwest. Year-over-year sales showed no change in the Northeast and South, and decreased in the Midwest and West.
“Wage growth is outpacing home price gains, which improves housing affordability. Still, future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to keep pace with demand,” Yun said. “As has been the case throughout the year, single-family home sales outperformed condominium sales in November. The typical price of a sold condo was 13.5% lower than the typical price of a single-family home. However, the purchase price does not include the condominium association fees, which are rising and making these purchases more expensive.”
Former President Joe Biden presents the Presidential Citizens Medal to Liz Cheney during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House in Washington, on January 2, 2025. The Presidential Citizens Medal is bestowed to individuals who have performed exemplary deeds or services. Photo by Will Oliver/UPI | License Photo
My name is Jon Halperin. I booked and managed Chain Reaction from 2000 to 2006. It started by accident while I was running a one-person record label. I went to the club to see the band Melee perform and the prior talent buyer for the club had just quit that day. I told owner Tim Hill I’d do it (having only booked three shows ever at a coffee shop). We slept on it, and I was hired the next day.
I joined Ron Martinez (of Final Conflict). He was booking the punk and hardcore shows. I booked the indie, ska, emo, screamo and pop punk stuff. We made a great team. Best work-wife ever.
Story time. My friend Ikey Owens (RIP) hit me up and told me that he and the guys from At the Drive In were going to be starting a new band. I’d booked Defacto (their dub project) before, and we agreed to throw them on a show and just bill it as “Defacto.” There were maybe 200 people there to see the first show for a band that would soon be known as the Mars Volta.
That wasn’t out of the ordinary. Chain Reaction had many artists grace that stage that went on to bigger things: Death Cab for Cutie, Avenged Sevenfold, Maroon 5, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco, Taking Back Sunday, Pierce the Veil, My Morning Jacket. The list goes on and on.
Jon Halperin, who booked Chain Reaction from 2000 to 2006, stands in front of the club during its heyday.
(From Jon Halperin)
I used to make a deal with the kids. Buy a ticket to “X” show, and if you didn’t like the band, I’d refund you. I never had to. I knew my audience and they trusted my curation of the room. … It was by the kids, for the kids, except I was 30 at the time. I had to think like a teenager. My friend Brian once called me “Peter Pan.”
Halfway through my reign, social media became a thing. There was Friendster and a bit later MySpace. YouTube stated just a few years after. But those first few years of me at the venue, it was word of mouth. It was paper fliers dropped off at coffee shops and record stores. It was the flier in the venue window. It was Mean Street Magazine and Skratch Magazine.
I’d tease the press when they wanted to review a show. If you don’t show up with a pen and paper, you aren’t getting in (sorry, Kelli).
Most music industry went to the Los Angeles show, but smart industry came to us. Countless acts got signed following their shows. You’d often see the band meeting with a label in the parking lot near their tour van.
It was a dry room when I was there. No booze or weed whatsoever. We made only one exception to the weed rule. An artist in a band with Crohn’s disease who traveled with a nurse. Not saying bands didn’t drink backstage, on stage, in their vans (we rarely had buses), but what we didn’t see didn’t happen.
Touche Amoré performing at Chain Reaction in 2010.
(Joe Calixto)
We were often referred to as the “CBGB’s of the West,” and for a lot of bands, locals and touring acts alike, we were just that. We were the epicenter. There were other venues of course, but for some reason, we were the venue to play. Showcase Theater in Corona was edging toward its demise. Koo’s Cafe in Santa Ana was done. Back Alley in Fullerton wasn’t active. Galaxy Theater [in Santa Ana] was still, well, the Galaxy. There was no House of Blues Anaheim. Bands would drive a thousand miles to play one show at Chain Reaction. We were where the local bands started as first of four on a bill and would be headlining us within a year. We were their jumping-off point. We were where the kids came out. The real fans, many of whom started bands themselves.
Thankfully, there are other smaller venues out there today fostering the all-ages scene: Programme Skate in Fullerton, the Locker Room at Garden AMP [in Garden Grove], Toxic Toast in Long Beach, the Haven Pomona, but it’s just not the same. It was a moment in time. A time that will be forgotten in a few decades, but for today, my social media is being inundated with memories of a room that was a second home for thousands of kids.
Zero regrets. It was the best and worst times of my life. Working a day gig and then heading to the venue nearly every day of the week was rough. Relationships and friendships were hard, being that I couldn’t go out at night. I couldn’t get a pet. I was constantly tired. But I wouldn’t trade those six years for the world.
Advertising on streaming services is a big new growth business for marketing and media companies, but consumers are increasingly frustrated by what they see and hear on their screens.
Ads might be too loud, of poor quality or irrelevant, and repeat too often. Sometimes, there’s an ad in a foreign language or a blank screen. As more streaming services launch ad-supported plans, viewers are experiencing these issues in greater numbers, which could come at a cost to the media companies.
“It can lead to them losing subscribers,” said Ruben Schreurs, chief executive officer of Ebiquity Plc, a London-based consultancy that says 75 of the world’s top 100 advertisers are clients.
Better, more-relevant advertising has been one of the recurring mantras of the connected-TV world. As online platforms gathered more data on their users, they were supposed to provide sponsors with targeted opportunities. Consumers would see spots for products they were more likely to want. Instead, those advances have become the source of viewer frustration.
National ad spending on streaming is expected to climb 13% to $12.3 billion this year, while such spots on traditional TV networks fall 4.9% to $33.8 billion, researcher Magna Global estimated in June. Streaming now reaches 96% of U.S. households, according to another researcher, Kantar Group & Affiliates, making the services a big opportunity for advertisers.
“We’ve seen more budget and spend move over,” said Joe Nowak, senior vice president of growth and strategy at Kantar.
Walt Disney Co. and Netflix Inc. have launched advertising-supported plans for their streaming services. At Netflix, ad-supported plans account for more than half of new subscriptions in markets where those plans are offered. They are usually offered at a discount. Disney+ with commercials is $12 a month, for example, while the ad-free version is $19.
Streaming offers advertisers distinct advantages over other media, according to Nowak, including interactive capabilities. On Amazon.com Inc.’s Prime Video service viewers can click into ads to buy the products shown.
In theory, advertisers can also target consumers more closely on streaming services. In traditional TV, all viewers typically see the same ads during a given broadcast. With streaming, commercials can become more personalized through a process called “dynamic ad insertion.” Audiences see commercials tailored to attributes like their location or viewing history.
It’s also easier and cheaper for advertisers, including smaller ones, to purchase streaming spots than it is on broadcast or cable.
Streaming ads are typically sold in online auctions, where spots for shows, sporting events and movies go to the highest bidder. That’s led to “democratization of access,” according to Ebiquity’s Schreurs.
“Instead of actual salespeople from the network negotiating directly with media agencies for big activations, big deals for well-known brands where they can vet the creatives, the process has become real-time,” he said.
Without that vetting, streaming platforms have less control over the ads that appear on their platforms. The smaller brands winning auctions may not have the same resources to produce high-quality commercials, according to Sean Muller, chief executive officer of the ad measurement platform iSpotTV Inc. These businesses sometimes rely on artificial intelligence to produce their ads, he said.
“You absolutely get a lot of that, and they do tend to be lower-quality,” Muller said.
Another common issue centers on ad frequency. With brands able to snap up ad blocks at auction, they sometimes get overzealous, feeding viewers the same spot over and over in a single show.
That’s particularly frustrating for streaming viewers, who are “more of a captive audience” than traditional TV audiences, who can easily change channels.
“Switching apps is a little bit of a pain in the butt,” Muller said.
And unlike the old days when consumers recorded programs to watch later, in the streaming era you can’t skip the commercials.
While streaming ads can pinpoint audiences based on their ZIP code, they sometimes miss wildly. For instance, viewers in a neighborhood with a large Latino audience may get an ad in Spanish even while watching a show in English.
“If it was done the right way, it would be running in Spanish-language content,” said Jim Wilson, CEO of Madhive, an ad platform designed for local advertisers.
There are other problems with streaming ads that seldom pop up on regular TV. For example, a blank screen sometimes appears during commercial breaks.
“They’re either not sold out on their inventory or there’s some sort of technical issue,” Wilson said.
But perhaps the biggest annoyance for streaming viewers happens when ads are ear-splittingly loud — a problem that used to crop up on conventional TV. That happens when streaming services fail to “normalize” the volume on ads before they are inserted.
In October, California passed a law requiring the services to keep the sound level of ads the same as the programming they accompany. It was inspired, according to state Sen. Tom Umberg (D-Orange), by one of his staffers whose sleeping baby was awakened by a loud streaming ad.
“This is a quality-of-life issue,” he said in an interview.
The legislation, which takes effect on July 1, 2026, could inspire changes on a national level and is one of the most well-known bills he’s worked on.
“This struck a chord with anyone who watches any entertainment on a streaming service,” Umberg said.
This little village sits within the stunning North York Moors National Park and is the real-life set for a number of popular TV and film productions – but there’s more than meets the eye
Its railway station has famous ties to a major movie(Image: Edwin Remsberg via Getty Images)
Nestled within the stunning landscape of the North York Moors National Park, this charming village brims with character and boasts surprising connections to the entertainment world.
Goathland sits amid the Yorkshire Moors, crafted as a perfectly English settlement with abundant discoveries awaiting visitors. Most will instantly recognise it from its starring role in the beloved television series Heartbeat, where it’s known as Aidensfield. Debuting in 1992, Heartbeat was a British police drama set in this Yorkshire village during the 1960s. The show proved enormously popular with audiences and enjoyed an impressive television run until its concluding episode in 2010. Yet Heartbeat’s finale wasn’t Goathland’s last moment in the spotlight, as it became a key filming location for the Harry Potter movie series.
Indeed, the picturesque railway station served as Hogsmeade Station throughout the films and boasts a fascinating heritage of its own. It stands as a treasured piece of history along the North Yorkshire Moors Railway (NYMR) heritage route, celebrated for its authentic Victorian architecture from the 1800s, drawing countless visitors eager to witness these features.
The location serves as a paradise for train enthusiasts, with the railway operator providing various steam journeys featuring breathtaking trips across the moorland. A recent visitor to the station shared on TripAdvisor: “We enjoyed travelling on the steam trains and made some very special memories. We found all the staff (many of which are volunteers) to be very friendly and more than willing to chat and share stories of the railway. We thoroughly enjoyed our time visiting and would recommend.”
Beyond the station, this charming village boasts an enviable location, nestled near Whitby whilst bordering tranquil countryside. This makes it the perfect retreat for those eager to discover the great outdoors, particularly within Dalby Forest. The park encompasses a staggering 8,500 acres of terrain that provides breathtaking vistas, countless hiking paths and cycling routes for those wanting to explore the region. Part of this includes the Dalby Activity Centre, which boasts an array of adrenaline-fuelled pursuits and several Go Ape courses to challenge your adventurous spirit.
Other delightful features of this concealed village treasure include its nearness to Thomason Foss, a charming small waterfall providing a peaceful stroll and spot for a wild dip during summer.Afterwards, when keen ramblers seek somewhere to pause for a swift drink, they’ll frequently end up at The Goathland Hotel Bar.
Alternatively, guests can unwind with a brew at the traditional village tea rooms, which one recent guest described as a “great find”. They commented: “Excellent food and service, Would thoroughly recommend to anyone visiting Goathland. Plenty of tables to accommodate all sized parties and allowing well behaved dogs is a bonus.”
The former This Morning guest shared how Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan treated her off-camera, following a “disastrous” moment on the show
Richard Madeley remains a familiar face on ITV (Image: ITV)
A former This Morning guest has revealed how her appearance on the show ended in disaster. Hosted by Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan at the time, podcast host Louise Boyce said she was invited onto the show as a teenager for a live haircut, though was mortified by the outcome.
Joined by Richard and Judy’s daughter Chloe Madeley on her podcast, she told her: “Your mum and dad, it [This Morning] was the first TV show that I went on when I was 15. And, I really want to find the footage, it must be in the archives somewhere, but I went on there to have my haircut, a live haircut.
“I was 15 years old, I was still at school and very aware of how I looked and the haircut was disastrous.”
Recalling her immediate reaction, she said she instantly knew it was “horrendous” but politely told the hairdresser she “really liked it” with a shaky voice.
“But, your mum and dad were so kind to me because they must’ve seen or felt that I was just like, ‘I hate what you’ve just [done to me’]’,” she continued on the No Parental Guidance podcast.
“‘You have just violated my hair live on TV, my first ever TV [experience]’. And they were so, your mum and dad, even off-camera they were like, ‘Hair grows, it’s okay’.”
In response, Chloe gushed: “I can’t say it enough how kind he is and how fair of a man he is and how unbelievably good his values and [morals] are. I get really angry when people go for him because I’m like, ‘You don’t know how good this person is’.”
The fitness guru continued by revealing she’d also picked up valuable lessons from her mum, especially regarding being “a calm” and “well adjusted” parent.
Richard and Judy presented the ITV programme from 1998 to 2001. When previously asked about their decision to leave the show, they said it felt like the right moment to move on and explore new ventures.
The duo went on to front their own programme, Richard and Judy, which was broadcast during early evening slots on Channel 4.
Richard remains a familiar presence on ITV as a presenter on Good Morning Britain, while Judy has stepped away from the public eye.
The former broadcaster was most recently spotted on television during their daughter’s ITV documentary, Chloe Madeley: A Family Affair.
However, after running for just one series, it didn’t return following Chloe’s split from rugby player James Haskell.
The pair, who are parents to two-year-old daughter Bodhi, announced their separation in 2023 after five years of marriage.
During her recent podcast chat, Chloe revealed that the former couple are still navigating a “stressful” divorce.
Providing an insight into her love life situation, she said she’s content with being single after having a disliking her experience on dating apps.
Released Tuesday, the report examined the top 250 series available on streaming, including both library offerings and current titles. Overall, it revealed a steep fall in cultural diversity among 2024’s top comedies and dramas, as well as fewer projects created by people of color and women.
For Latinos, representation on screen and behind the camera is scarce. Only 1.1% of the top streaming scripted shows were created by Latinos. Of the top streaming comedies and dramas, 3.3% had Latino lead actors and 5.2% were co-led by Latino actors. When looking exclusively at current streaming shows (excluding library titles), 1.1% were created by Latinos and 6.2% were led by Latino actors.
UCLA’s Hollywood Diversity Report dates back to 2014. The first iteration of the study used data that had been collected since 2011. Ana-Christina Ramón, UCLA’s director of the Entertainment and Media Research Initiative, says that this level of underrepresentation across all kinds of media is nothing new.
“It’s a consistent finding in our reports. But the numbers are such a stark level of underrepresentation because of the fact that we’re almost 20% of the population,” said Ramón. “Even when the numbers are a little bit better, they’re never close to where they should be.”
This lack of representation isn’t exclusive to the Latino population. The report found that four out of five leads in the most-watched streaming comedies and dramas were white actors, and white men account for nearly 79% of all show creators — leaving nearly every other race and ethnicity severely marginalized.
The downward trend comes at a time when President Trump has consistently targeted and called to end all diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. As a result, much of Hollywood has followed his lead. Paramount Global changed its staffing goals related to gender, race, ethnicity and sex; Warner Bros. Discovery restated its DEI activities as “inclusion”; and Walt Disney Co. got rid of its “diversity and inclusion” performance standard used to calculate executive compensation.
These findings generally defy American audiences’ preference for diverse content. The research shows that “a relatively diverse cast and diverse credited writers often resulted in higher ratings,” especially when these stories from diverse communities are live-action and scripted.
This trend isn’t isolated to television — eight of 2024’s top 10 streaming films and 14 of the top 20 streaming films featured casts with more than 30% people of color, according to previous UCLA research.
Despite the lack of Latino representation, Netflix’s narco-drama starring Sofia Vergara, “Griselda,” was the fifth-most-streamed television of 2024. In Latino households specifically, it reached third place, behind children’s TV shows “Bluey” and “Bebefinn.”
“The silver lining is that [‘Griselda’] was very popular, and though it’s a stereotypical topic, because it was made by the same people that made ‘Narcos,’ it had a prestige factor that gets passed along,” said Ramón.
She finds that the shows that tend to do well have to have a well-known lead actor, be of an interesting topic and be attached to something that is already established or popular. In 2023, the report included Netflix’s “Wednesday” at the fourth-most-streamed show and “The Last of Us” at No. 7, both shows featuring Latino lead actors.
All three titles “have a high production value and are familiar stories” — as “Griselda” was based on a true story, “Wednesday” builds off the IP of “The Addams Family” and “The Last of Us” is based on a video game.
“Regardless of which [ethnic] group you’re talking about, it really has to do with these very specific pieces,” said Ramón. “The very promising finding is the fact that underrepresented stories, which include Latinx stories and other BIPOC stories, tend to do better than shows that don’t, in terms of reviews and ratings.”
The singer of the band lights up a cigarette and smoke drifts into the theater. Ditto for the pungent aroma of marijuana when a few band members share a joint. “Stereophonic,” which is playing at the Hollywood Pantages through Jan. 2, isn’t biographical, but it sure feels close.
The authenticity springs in part from the quality of the songs being recorded by the fictional band on stage, which were written by Will Butler, a multi-instrumentalist and former member of the Grammy Award-winning band Arcade Fire.
“Stereophonic,” which holds the record for the most Tony nominations of all time for a play, unfolds over the course of a single year as a rock band on the cusp of megastardom struggles to record its second album as the first reaches No. 1 on the charts. While the pressure to produce a hit builds, the band falls apart. For proof of the formula’s resilience, look no further than the success of VH1’s “Behind the Music” series, which plumbed the depths of dozens of rock ’n’ roll train wrecks.
“We really tried to just make something real,” Butler said during an interview in the small, cluttered green room at Amoeba Music before he joined the cast of the show for a brief in-store performance. “This is three hours of what it’s like to make a record.”
Is it ever. There is something inherently combustible about being in a band. (Full disclosure: I played in a semi-popular indie band for a decade, which imploded with huge amounts of drama right on cue. I know at least a dozen other groups that have unraveled in similar fashion.) Despite, or rather because of, Arcade Fire’s massive popularity, Butler knows the crash-and-burn nature of being in a band. He joined Arcade Fire after one of its original members quit in the middle of an encore following a fight with the lead singer — Butler’s older brother, Win Butler.
Will Butler left Arcade Fire at the end of 2021, saying at the time that the decision came about organically. “There was no acute reason beyond that I’ve changed — and the band has changed — over the last almost 20 years. Time for new things,” he wrote on social media.
Will Butler performs at Amoeba Music with Claire DeJean and the stars of the Broadway tour of “Stereophonic,” which follows the rise of a struggling 1970s rock band.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“Stereophonic” was one of those new things, and Butler has brought his understanding of volatile band dynamics to bear in his work on the show, as well as his thoughts on the fragile, ephemeral nature of recording in a studio.
“There’s a little booth, and you go into the booth and you lose your mind,” Butler said of the experience of laying down a track. “And you exit the booth and you’re just a boring human.”
The boring — and boorish — parts of that humanity are on display in “Stereophonic,” where there is more control room conflict than actual music making. This also feels true to form. Romances blossom and bottom out in spectacular fashion. Drugs are consumed in copious amounts — particularly cocaine. This is 1976, after all. The long-suffering recording engineer reaches his breaking point after becoming totally fed up with the band’s self-absorbed, self-destructive behavior.
Human beings weren’t meant to create art in this particular kind of pressure cooker. Until they do. There is a moment in the making of every great song when each musician becomes part of the whole during the act of recording, and the band’s genius is temporarily realized. The song can’t be made by any one member — it can only come from the spontaneous transcendence of the group.
This moment happens in “Stereophonic” after a truly frustrating number of stops and starts, when the group plays a song so beautifully that the theater erupts in effusive applause. This is why the band stays together despite its constant feuding — and why the audience has come.
“We really tried to just make something real,” Will Butler said of “Stereophonic.” “This is three hours of what it’s like to make a record.”
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“The music in this show has to crack open the world because it’s so much talking and it’s so much sitting around,” Butler said. “And then when they play music, you have to instantly realize why they’re together.”
Butler first met playwright David Adjmi and heard his idea for the show in 2014. Butler was intrigued, but had to wait for the script before he could work on the music in earnest. The songs needed to fit into the script like puzzle pieces, Butler said. Sometimes he needed to write a whole song and other times he needed to focus on composing the first 30 seconds of a song — which would be heard on repeat.
“And then we cast it, and now the music exists in a different way,” Butler said, noting that the music changes with every new cast. A cast — like a band — has its own particular strengths and weaknesses. No rhythm section is ever the same. You know John Bonham’s tom fills when you hear them, just as you can immediately recognize the sound of Ringo Starr’s hi-hats.
None of the actors in the national tour cast of “Stereophonic” — except for the drummer — are trained musicians.
(Julieta Cervantes)
The whole process of constructing “Stereophonic” as a play is very meta — with Butler producing the band that is in turn producing itself onstage in the studio. During the course of the show, one of the songs is actually recorded live and played back from the control room. It is slightly different each time, in ways both meaningful and incidental. Just like in real life.
The in-store performance at Amoeba, however, is wildly different from what happens onstage at the Pantages. The cast members are not — with the exception of the drummer — trained musicians, and stripped of the confidence that comes with costumes and a set, they appear somewhat vulnerable in the process.
This is in stark contrast to Butler, who displays all the verve and conviction of a bona fide rock star. The cast will do the same across the street later that night. For the moment, however, Butler is showing them just how it’s done.
Netflix and iHeartMedia announced Tuesday they have an exclusive video partnership deal to bring more than 15 original podcasts, including “The Breakfast Club,” true crime podcast “My Favorite Murder” and Chelsea Handler’s “Dear Chelsea” to the subscription streaming service.
The multi-year deal, which launches in early 2026, includes new episodes from the podcasts and some library episodes. The video podcasts will first roll out on Netflix in the U.S. and later to other markets. Netflix declined to disclose the financial terms of the deal.
The announcement comes as Netflix is adding more video podcasts to its lineup to diversify the content on its streaming service and better compete with YouTube. Several of the iHeart podcasts involved in the deal, including “My Favorite Murder,” have posted videos of their podcasts on Google’s video platform prior to the deal’s announcement.
“With this partnership we are incredibly excited to offer our members such unmatched variety, and to deliver highly entertaining podcasts featuring some of the world’s most dynamic personalities,” said Lauren Smith, Netflix’s vice president of content licensing and programming strategy in a statement.
In October, Netflix announced next year it would stream 16 Spotify video podcasts, including sports audio programs like “The Bill Simmons Podcast” and “The Ringer Fantasy Football Show.”
Video podcasts have become more popular among audio listeners. Roughly 70% of podcast listeners prefer their shows with video, according to a Cumulus Media study. Some of the programs also have huge followings — for example, “My Favorite Murder,” with hosts Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark, has generated about 2 billion lifetime downloads according to iHeart and Netflix in a press release.
Other video podcasts coming to Netflix include comedy podcast “This is Important,” mental health podcast “The Psychology of your 20s” and history podcast “Behind the Bastards.”
iHeart will keep its audio-only rights and distribution as part of the deal, with its podcasts continuing to be on iHeartRadio and “everywhere podcasts are heard,” the companies said. iHeart did not immediately return a request for comment on the financial terms of the Netflix deal.
“Netflix has a leading video-first service, and this partnership perfectly complements our strong audio foundation,” Bob Pittman, iHeartMedia CEO in a statement. “Working with Netflix—an important leader in entertainment— gives fans one more way to connect with the personalities they love and opens the door to new audiences, including viewers discovering these shows for the first time.”
Gogglebox’s Helena Worthington has been a fan favourite since joining the Channel 4 show eight years ago and now her family is expanding
Helena Worthington with her mum Alison and her mum’s partner George(Image: PA)
Everything you need to know about pregnant Gogglebox star Helena Worthington
Helena Worthington joined Channel 4 show Gogglebox back in 2017 for series 10 with the rest of the Worthington family: her mum Alison and Alison’s partner George. And it didn’t take them long to become firm favourites with fans. Over the years, the family – who live in Manchester – have had fans in stitches thanks to their hilarious one-liners and comical takes on the telly highlights.
Away from the programme, Helena is in a relationship with partner Dan. She is also a proud mum to six-year-old son Erwin. Recently, Helena confirmed she was pregnant as she reflected on welcoming another child into the family. Taking to her Instagram, Helena shared several snaps from a recent day out.
In the caption she penned: “Pregnant. Tired. Raging indigestion. Still crouching down to explain why we don’t dig up all the bullbs. 33 weeks pregnant at RHS Bridgwater with my first baby, while waiting for my next one. We took Erwin here often when he was a new bean. These in-between moments feel really precious lately — messy, slow, and very real. I’m excited but I feel weird that Erwin will seem so big all of a sudden.”
While the Worthington family films their segments for Gogglebox at Alison and George’s abode, Helena has made a cosy nest of her own in Salford with Dan and Erwin. Her Instagram is a gallery of domestic bliss, featuring everything from handmade crochet blankets to walls adorned with artwork, all set against a palette of vibrant colours.
When she’s not on Gogglebox, Helena is an accomplished artist and focuses on sculpting and painting. Her artwork has been displayed in prestigious venues such as The Whitworth Art Gallery and The Manchester Open at Home, and her paintings have found homes in various private collections. In a candid chat with ilovemanchester.com, Helena opened up about her personal life. Reflecting on what sparked her artistic journey, she shared: “When I was very little I used to draw on the walls and in my mum’s cook books and then blame it on my brother… so I guess that was the start of things.”
Anthony Geary, the Daytime Emmy winner who played half of “General Hospital’s” supercouple Luke Spencer and Laura Baldwin, died Sunday. He was 78.
“The entire #GeneralHospital family is heartbroken over the news of Tony Geary’s passing. Tony was a brilliant actor and set the bar that we continue to strive for,” “GH” executive producer Frank Valentini wrote on Monday in two posts on X. “His legacy, and that of Luke Spencer’s, will live on through the generations of #GH cast members who have followed in his footsteps. We send our sincerest sympathies to his husband, Claudio, family, and friends. May he rest in peace.”
The actor died of complications a few days after having planned surgery in Amsterdam, the city he and spouse Claudio Gama called home, Soap Opera Digest reported.
“It was a shock for me and our families and our friends,” Gama told TV Insider exclusively Monday, saying that for more than three decades Geary had been his friend, companion and — for the past six years — his husband.
Geary notched almost 2,000 episodes on “General Hospital,” where he started as a cast member in 1978. Along the way he took a number of breaks from the show before wrapping up his “GH” career in 2015.
Even with those breaks, Daytime Emmys voters nominated Geary 17 times in the lead actor category. He took home the trophy eight times, in 1982, 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2012 and 2015.
Despite their plot line beginning with Luke drunkenly raping Laura — played by Genie Francis — only to have her fall in love with her rapist, their love story became insanely popular in the early 1980s, appealing to a younger audience and saving the series from cancellation. The characters got married in November 1981. The audience for the wedding, which aired over two days, was around 30 million viewers and remains the highest-rated soap opera event in history.
Tony Dean Geary was born on May 29, 1947, in the town of Coalville, Utah, and raised in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. After studying theater at the University of Utah, he began his acting career with roles on shows including “Room 222,” “All in the Family,” “The Partridge Family” and “Mod Squad” in the early 1970s. “General Hospital” cast him in 1978, but not before he added shows including “Barnaby Jones,” “The Streets of San Francisco” and “Marcus Welby, M.D.” to his resume. He racked up dozens more credits in his career, but nothing that brought him the fame that “GH” did.
When Geary left “GH” for good in 2015, some former colleagues talked to The Times about working with him.
Jane Elliot, who played another Spencer love interest, Tracy Quartermaine, recalled in 2015 that she acted with Geary when he first screen-tested for the role that was supposed to be only a 13-week arc.
“It’s always awkward with an actor you don’t know,” she told The Times. “I was walking down this flight of stars, and I pass Tony, who is doodling on a piece of paper. He’s doing tic-tac-toe. I immediately know what kind of actor he is, doing something real in an unreal setting. I went up to him, put an O next to his X, and our relationship was established.”
“Tony’s friendship and guidance has meant the world to me,” said actor Jonathan Jackson, who was only 11 when he started on the soap as Lucky Spencer, Luke’s son. “He was always extremely warm and very present, there was nothing condescending in him. He never treated me like a kid. We clicked right away.”
The “Nashville” actor returned to the show after many years away to help Geary wrap up the Spencers’ story.
”When I found out he was leaving, I knew I had to come back,” Jackson said at the time. “He was great. Having those last scenes with me were everything I hoped it would be.”
Meanwhile, on Monday, co-star Genie Francis, who is still on “GH,” remembered her former on-screen love on social media.
“This morning I woke up and went into my husband’s arms. In my sleep, my life was flashing before me and I was afraid of death.” An hour later, she wrote on Facebook, producer Valentini called to tell her that Geary had died.
“I immediately felt remorse, I hadn’t spoken to him in years, but I felt his life end in my sleep last night, and with it a big part of me, and mine,” Francis continued. “He was a powerhouse as an actor. Shoulder to shoulder with the greats. No star burned brighter than Tony Geary. He was one of a kind. As an artist, he was filled with a passion for the truth, no matter how blunt, or even a little rude it might be, but always hilariously funny. He was the anti-hero, always so irreverent, but even the most conservative had to smile. Working with him was always exciting. You never knew what might happen.
“He spoiled me for leading men for the rest of my life. I am crushed, I will miss him terribly, but I was so lucky to be his partner. Somehow, somewhere, we are connected to each other because I felt him leave last night. Good night sweet prince, good night.”
Katie Pavlich, a longtime contributor to Fox News, is leaving the network to join NewsNation.
Pavlich, a conservative political analyst, will have a nightly 10 p.m ET program starting early next year, the Nexstar-owned cable news channel announced Monday.
Pavlich, 37, will replace Ashleigh Banfield, who held down the time period since 2021. Banfield will partner with the network to create digital true crime content, including a podcast.
Pavlich has spent the last 16 years as news editor of the conservative website Townhall.com. She appeared regularly on cable ratings leader Fox News since 2013, appearing as a guest co-host on “The Five” and a fill-in host on its prime-time programs.
Pavlich becomes the latest Fox News alum to join NewsNation. Leland Vittert, a former correspondent for the network, is NewsNation’s 9 p.m. Eastern host. Chris Stirewalt, who was fired from Fox after the 2020 presidential election, is politics editor for the network.
Veteran cable news host Ashleigh Banfield joined NewsNation in March.
(NewsNation)
NewsNation was launched in 2020 as an alternative to the three major cable news networks at a time when all leaned heavily into opinion programming in prime time. But the network has moved toward political debate since Chris Cuomo became its highest rated host in prime time.
An Arizona native who grew up as an avid hunter, Pavlich is a strong advocate of the 2nd Amendment. She poses with firearms in a number of photos on her Instagram.
Pavlich is the author of several books, including New York Times bestsellers “Fast and Furious: Barack Obama’s Bloodiest Scandal” and “Assault and Flattery: The Truth About the Left and Their War on Women.”
Cazzu made a special announcement Monday: Come 2026, she will be touring in the U.S. for the first time.
The Argentine singer will kick off her seven-show U.S. tour April 30 with a performance at the San Jose Civic in San José. Her jaunt across the country will end May 10 at the 713 Music Hall in Houston.
Along the way, the “Loca” artist will stop at the Cal Coast Credit Union Open Air Theater in San Diego on May 1 before performing at the YouTube Theater in Inglewood on May 2.
Her debut U.S. tour is an extension of her ongoing Latin American tour, which just wrapped up its most recent leg earlier this month with a concert in her native Argentina.
Before landing in the U.S., Cazzu will play a handful of shows in Argentina in January and February, and will also perform at the Isle of Light Music Festival in the Dominican Republic on March 7.
All her previous and upcoming shows are in promotion of her fifth studio album, “Latinaje,” which was released April 24. The project infused a unique blend of the sounds of South America that helped inform Cazzu’s musical tastes, including Argentine chacareras, cumbias santafesinas, tango and Brazilian funk.
Inspired by Puerto Rican and Mexican musicians who have incorporated regionally specific sounds into their music, Cazzu aimed to highlight elements of Argentine folk music in her latest offering. “Perhaps there is a space where us Argentines can showcase our roots to the world,” she told The Times.
Hailing from the environmentally diverse Jujuy region of Argentina, Cazzu said her hometown of Fraile Pintado is a far cry from the metropolitan life of Buenos Aires.
“It’s a region that has a mixture of cultures,” Cazzu noted. “It’s my identity as a person but also as an artist. The folklore is alive there, [as well as] Andean folklore.”
Her homages to several traditional Indigenous and Argentine songs connect the new-age sounds that Cazzu has frequently employed to the lush history of a country with a rich musical background.
“It’s beautiful to give these songs a second life,” Cazzu said. “In 80 years, when I am no longer here, it would be beautiful if someone would revive something of mine.”
AFTER nearly two decades of filling Saturday lunchtimes with her wit and warm charm, Zoe Ball is stepping away from her BBC Radio 2 show.
The beloved presenter will air her final programme on December 20, bringing an end to a chapter that has made her a fixture of British radio.
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Zoe Ball announced she is leaving BBC Radio 2Credit: PAThe 55-year-old teased she has a new manCredit: Getty
Her announcement comes after she was included in the BBC’s “Golden Ten” shortlist of presenters tested for the perfect on-screen partnership to replace Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly.
It comes after Zoe quit the Radio 2 breakfast show at the end of 2024 following the heartbreaking loss of her mum, Julia Peckham, to cancer in April last year.
She left the coveted slot she’d held for six years to “focus on family,” and took a four-and-a-half month break from theradiofollowing her mother’s death.
Zoe has spent nearly two decades at the stationCredit: PAZoe set to be replaced by presenter Emma WillisCredit: Peter Jordan
At the time, Zoe shared a touching tribute to her late mum on social media, saying: “Sleep tight dear Mama.
“Thank you for teaching us how to love unconditionally, to always show courage and empathy, and how, even in the darkest of days, laughter is the greatest of gifts.”
Opening up about her grief, Zoe revealed she found the first birthday of her mum, Julia, since her death especially hard.
She said: “It’s a year and a bit since we lost mum, and I found her birthday this year, the toughest, the toughest, you know, a whole year later.
“That was brutal. It was a week of absolute weeping, I still get quite emotional sort of talking about mum, even now.”
Speaking on her podcast, Zoe choked back tears as she admitted suffering an “emotional breakdown” during a this “brutal” period of her life last year.
The presenter bravely told how she was left unable to move on the kitchen floor after being struck down with grief following her mum’s passing.
It’s been a chaotic time for Zoe and her family with her dad, TV legend Johnny Ball, revealing earlier this year he had been secretly fighting prostate cancer.
The 87-year-old broadcaster endured three brutal months of daily radiation treatment back in 2022, but is now “through it” and feeling”fine”.
She has admitted she occasionally questions whether leaving her flagship BBC Radio 2 Breakfast Show was the right move, after stepping down to spend more time with her teenage daughter.
“Someone had smashed the front window of my car, that’s never happened to me before,” she revealed.
Initially frozen from the shock of the attack, she said: “I got in and I had a massive cry.”
Despite leaving her regular radio show, she promises fans she isn’t disappearing completely, with special broadcasts lined up over the festive season and into the new year.
The 55-year-old broadcasting favourite is set to be replaced by presenter Emma Willis.
She said: “I have loved being betwixt my dear friends Romesh (Ranganathan) and Rylan (Clark), and you know, I love you all to bits, but I’m not disappearing completely.
“Obviously, it’ll be Christmas Crooners and I’m doing an eras show in the new year, more on that later.
“But I am thrilled to tell you that you will be in the safest of hands, because there is a superwoman who is no stranger to you all, but this does mean that she will officially become a member of theRadio 2family.“
The adored host first took to the air as co-host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show nearly thirty years ago, before becoming the first female DJ to host the primetime slot solo.
Zoe was the BBC’s second-highest paid presenter while she was hosting the coveted morning slot, pocketing £950,000 between April 2023 and 2024, just behind Gary Lineker.
Zoe had been one of the contenders to replace the much-loved pair on Strictly, amongst others including Alan Carr and Rylan Clark.
After quitting herradioshow, the mum-of-two is now pipping the rest at the top.
Emma Willis, who is due to replace Ball on her Radio 2 show from next weekend, said:
Willis said: “I’m a huge fan of Radio 2, so I’m absolutely chuffed to be joining the family, and it’s a real honour to follow in the huge footsteps Zoe leaves behind, who’s someone I admire and adore.
“I’m very much looking forward to spending my Saturday lunchtimes with the Radio 2 audience and I’ll happily be the filling to a Romesh and Rylan sandwich!”
LADY Gaga was forced to stop her Sydney gig mid-show after one of her dancers fell off the stage.
The Poker Face hitmaker, 39, halted the action during her Mayhem Ball concert following heavy rain at the Accor Stadium.
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Lady Gaga was forced to stop her Australian tour mid-gig at the Mayhem BallCredit: GettyThe American called a halt to proceedings after a dancer fell off stage in SydneyCredit: GettyHer dancer Michael tumbled over mid way through the track, Garden of EdenCredit: XShe was performing at the open-air Accor Stadium, where the stage was soaked with rainCredit: X
The Sydney venue is open-air and, two hours after the show kicked off, the painful mishap brought a temporary stop to proceedings.
Lady Gaga kick-started her 31-song setlist with tracks Bloody Mary and Abracadabra.
She belted out the likes of Judas, Poker Face and Aura before the issue struck mid-way through Garden of Eden.
The track is from her 2025 album Mayhem on which the tour is named.
With a soaking wet floor, the dancers charged to the front of the stage.
One, named Michael Dameski, fell down during the choreography and A Star Is Born actress Gaga was quick to wave her arms and call a stop to the show at around 9pm.
The singer and her dancers then retreated inside during a temporary pause, to try to find more suitable footwear.
They then resumed the show, with further tracks including Rain On Me, How Bad Do You Want Me and Always Remember Us This Way playing out.
FAN PRAISE
Fans were quick to praise Gaga’s actions in what was her last Aussie show of the tour.
One took to X to write: “Sending love and well wishes to Gaga’s dancer, Michael, who fell off stage during Garden Of Eden.
“So grateful that Gaga paused the show to check on him. True professionalism and compassion.”
Another put: “She’s so special the way she ran straight over, climbed down and made sure he was okay.”
Singles Abracadabra and Disease broke into the Top Ten, while herBruno Marscollaboration Die With A Smile became one of the biggest hits of the year worldwide.
Speaking toBizarreas Mayhem was released, a source explained that Gaga has finally found inner peace after years of struggling with her pop star persona and the real person behind it, Stefani Germanotta.
The insider explained: “Gaga has never hidden her real self from the world.
“But she’s more comfortable now in her ability to associate herself as the creator instead of the product.
“The person she wakes up as is the same person who hits the stage.”
The singer’s energetic routines showed that she has fully recovered from a hip injury and fibromyalgia, a condition which caused musculoskeletal pain, extreme fatigue and deep anxiety — and resulted in the cancellation of part of her Joanne world tour in 2018.
The chart star continued her show after the mishap, with tracks including Rain On Me and How Bad Do You Want MeCredit: GettyShe kicked off the Mayhem Ball extravaganza in Las Vegas back in JulyCredit: GettyIt was her final Aussie show of the tourCredit: Alamy
BBC bosses have reportedly selected their top ten options for replacing Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman as Strictly Come Dancing hosts, and they are set to undergo ‘chemistry tests’
23:10, 12 Dec 2025Updated 23:15, 12 Dec 2025
The BBC is preparing to audition replacement hosts for Strictly Come Dancing(Image: Guy Levy/BBC/PA)
The BBC is ramping up its search for the next faces of Strictly Come Dancing, with insiders revealing that a shortlist of ten high-profile presenters is set to be put through intense on-screen chemistry tests as the corporation prepares for a new era of the hit show.
Now that Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman are stepping down from the series after more than two decades at the helm, bosses are said to be leaving nothing to chance.
According to insider sources, a “Golden Ten” have been assembled to take part in a secret studio session next month where presenters will reportedly be paired up in various combinations to see who has the strongest rapport on camera.
A source told The Sun: “Replacing Claudia and Tess is a mammoth task, but the BBC have whittled down the talent to ten people. They will go to a studio and be put into different pairs to see who works together best.”
Some of the frontrunners are Bradley Walsh, The One Show’s Alex Jones and British comedian Alan Carr, who is understood to be the current favourite among senior BBC figures.
Rylan Clark, Rob Rinder, Zoe Ball, Holly Willoughby, Amanda Holden, Alison Hammond and Angela Scanlon are also taking part. The source added: “It could be two women or two men paired, or a mix. They will ultimately choose whoever has the best chemistry in each partnership.”
Some contenders already have tried and tested on-screen dynamics. Rylan and Rob currently front a BBC travel series together, while Alan and Amanda host a home renovation show.
Meanwhile, Zoe Ball is seen as a safe pair of hands after previously presenting the Strictly spin-off It Takes Two. Alan’s growing appeal at the BBC has reportedly pushed him into first place among the talent being considered.
Given he is fresh off winning the Celebrity Traitors and has just recently landed a new quiz show, insiders believe he could bring a whole new audience to the ballroom.
Meanwhile, Strictly fans are bracing themselves for a sad goodbye to Tess and Claudia. The pair announced their decision to leave the show in October, explaining that it felt like “the right time” to step away after years at the helm.
Tess, who has presented Strictly since its launch in 2004, and Claudia, who joined in 2014, insisted they were always determined to leave together, calling their partnership “an absolute dream”.
The duo hosted Strictly for their penultimate episode tonight, and have already filmed their final Christmas special. Those at the recording studio said emotions were running high, with one insider revealing: “Tess was wiping away tears. The last Strictly episode next week is going to be emotional.”
The presenters were recently honoured with a touching message from the widow of the late Sir Bruce Forsyth, Wilnelia Forsyth, who praised both women for the “laughter, the elegance and the heart” they brought to the show.
Kathy Kanjo, the director and CEO of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, has been named the new director of the UC Irvine Langson Orange County Museum of Art. The news comes a little more than two months after UC Irvine announced it had acquired Orange County Museum of Art in a merger that created the new institution.
At that time, a rep for UCI said the hope was to announce a new director in the new year, so Kanjo’s appointment comes ahead of schedule. Kanjo has been at MCASD since 2016. Prior to that, she served as director of the University Art Museum at UC Santa Barbara.
When I first wrote about the merger, UC Irvine confirmed that it was taking over OCMA’s assets, employees and debt. A rep for UC Irvine declined to comment on a number, writing in an email that the budget for the new museum will come from university operating funds.
Kanjo inherits responsibility for a substantial collection of more than 9,000 artworks, including UC Irvine’s Gerald Buck Collection of more than 3,200 paintings, sculptures and works on paper by some of the state’s most important artists, including David Hockney and Ed Ruscha.
“The newly merged collection is both anticipated and underknown,” wrote Kanjo in an email. “I am eager to unveil and contextualize the artistic legacies of the Irvine, Buck, and OCMA collections from a particularly California point of view. Collected over time and together at last, these objects are an asset to be shared generously and supported by scholarly research. The constellation that is the UC Irvine Langson Museum offers a portrait of our state’s innovative artistic impulses.”
Kanjo also said the new museum would get a significant boost from UC Irvine’s research strength and commitment to public service.
“We will create rigorous and welcoming exhibitions that resonate with our region’s diverse audiences, young and old,” she wrote.
Despite the great fanfare of its opening in 2022, OCMA — with its 53,000-square-foot, $98-million Morphosis-designed building on the eastern edge of the Segerstrom Center for the Arts campus — never seemed fully realized. Problems were hinted at — but never explained — in April when CEO Heidi Zuckerman announced her intention to step down.
Meanwhile UC Irvine had been planning to construct a museum for its collection for quite some time. That, too, never really got off the ground. If there were ever a time to build consensus around a new mandate for the merged organizations, that time is now. Kanjo has a vision for the future that appears to center scholarship.
“I want to clarify the core identity of the collection and find connections back to campus and into the community,” she wrote. “The post is appealing because of its connection to UC Irvine, a leading research university, and the opportunity to work with the students within the Claire Trevor School of the Arts and all of the campus resources. The potential to foster innovation by working in a cross-disciplinary/cross-campus way is strong.”
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, planning a drive to Orange County in the new year. Here’s your arts and culture news for the week.
On our radar
Broadway star Ben Platt will perform 10 shows at the Ahmanson starting Friday.
(Rob Kim / Getty Images)
Ben Platt: Live at the Ahmanson The award-winning star of stage and screen hits town for 10 shows where he’ll sing his greatest hits and Broadway favorites. And where Platt goes, his big-time friends follow, so expect some great surprise guests each night. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday and Dec. 19-20; 3 and 8 p.m. Sunday and Dec. 21; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
“Holiday Legends” is this year’s seasonal performance by the Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles.
(Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles)
Holiday Legends The Gay Men’s Chorus of Los Angeles’ annual celebration pays homage to the greats, including Mariah Carey, Irving Berlin and Johnny Mathis, plus traditional choral classics, pop Christmas anthems and Hanukkah favorites. 8 p.m. Saturday. 3 p.m. Sunday. Saban Theatre, 8440 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills gmcla.org
The Huntington in San Marino.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Stories from the Library: From Brontë to Butler This series highlights the literary side of the Huntington and its world-class library. In the newest exhibition, journals, letters, photographs and personal items provide a behind-the-scenes look at two centuries of women writers bookended by Charlotte Brontë and Octavia E. Butler. Through June 15. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY Holiday Soirée & Cabaret Fountain Theatre celebrates the season with a live announcement of its 2026 season, a cabaret performance from Imani Branch & Friends, plus, a raffle and reception. There will also be two separate performances of the cabaret. Soirée and cabaret: 7 p.m. Friday. Cabaret: 7 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. FountainTheatre.com
Violinist Renaud Capuçon.
(Los Angeles Philharmonic)
Mozart & Sibelius Violinist Renaud Capuçon joins conductor Gustavo Gimeno and the L.A. Phil for a program that combines “Mozartian elegance with brooding Nordic drama.” 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Santasia The long-running holiday spectacle featuring broad comedy, musical parodies and old school claymation returns to L.A. for a 26th year. Through Dec. 27. Whitefire Theatre, 13500 Ventura Blvd., Sherman Oaks. santasia.com
SATURDAY
Laurel Halo performs Saturday at the Nimoy.
(Norrel Blair)
Laurel Halo Currently based in L.A., the musician combines ambient, drone, jazz and modern sensibilities in new works for piano and electronics in a preview of her forthcoming album. 8 p.m. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Sound + Source Art meets music as DJs Novena Carmel, Francesca Harding and KCRW music director Ale Cohen provide a site-specific soundtrack to the exhibition “Corita Kent: The Sorcery of Images.” 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd. marcianoartfoundation.org
Pacific Jazz Orchestra The 40-piece hybrid big band and string ensemble, led by Chris Walden, presents its “Holiday Jazz Spectacular,” featuring vocalists Aloe Blacc, Sy Smith and Brenna Whitacre. 8 p.m. Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. pacificjazz.org
Holiday Family Faire Theatricum Botanicum’s annual daylong winter wonderland featuring performances, food and drink and a marketplace; followed by “It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,” by Joe Landry, and starring Beau Bridges, Wendie Malick, Joe Mantegna and Rory O’Malley. 11 a.m. Family Faire; 5 p.m. “It’s a Wonderful Life.” Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, 1419 Topanga Canyon Blvd, Topanga. theatricum.com
SUNDAY
The band Emily’s Sassy Lime in Olympia, Wash., circa 1995.
(Emily’s Sassy Lime)
Artist Talk Emily Ryan, Amy Yao and Wendy Yao of the ‘90s Orange County riot grrrl band Emily’s Sassy Lime join artist-activist-musician Kathleen Hanna of the band Bikini Kill for a discussion of adolescence, creativity and community. The talk is part of the museum’s “2025 California Biennial: Desperate, Scared, But Social,” which closes Jan. 4. 2 p.m. UC Irvine Langson Museum/Orange County Museum of Art, 3333 Avenue of the Arts, Costa Mesa. ocma.art
English Cathedral Christmas The Los Angeles Master Chorale brings the magic of Canterbury Cathedral downtown, reveling in the grand tradition of British choral works from the 16th century to the present.. 7 p.m Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
TUESDAY Aron Kallay In “Midcentury/Modern,” the pianist performs works from world premieres by Michael Frazier, Zanaida Stewart Robles and Brandon Rolle, along with 20th century works by Grażyna Bacewicz and Sergei Prokofiev in a program presented by Piano Spheres. 8 p.m. Thayer Hall at the Colburn School, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. pianospheres.org
WEDNESDAY BOTH: A Hard Day’s Silent Night Open Fist Theatre Company’s annual holiday charity concert benefiting Heart of Los Angeles, an organization that helps kids in underserved communities, infuses the music of the Beatles with Gospel flair to tell the Christmas story. 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 3:30 and 9 p.m. Saturday; 3:30 and 7 p.m. Sunday. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. openfist.org
Elaine May and Walter Matthau star in “A New Leaf,” which screens at the Academy Museum on Wednesday.
(Film Publicity Archive/United Archives via Getty Images)
A New Leaf Elaine May made Hollywood history with this 1971 screwball noir as the first woman to write, direct and star in her own feature film. Walter Matthau co-stars as a playboy who has burned through his own fortune so plans to marry and murder May’s kooky heiress to get hers. 7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Architect Frank Gehry in his Playa Vista office in 2015.
Swed also wrote a story that came out of a recent trip to Tokyo about Carl Stone, an L.A. based composer from the Japanese capital, who uses his laptop to record environmental sounds and transform them into sonic sculptures. “Stone’s iPad, with its open sonic complexity, created a sense of space, a roomy aural soundscape in which jazz and butoh became elements not egos, not larger than life, just more life, the merrier,” writes Swed.
McNulty wrote an interesting essay about characters breaking the fourth wall and how it can galvanize an audience. “Breaking the fourth wall is a tried-and-true method of calling an audience to attention. But a new breed of dramatist, writing in an age of overlapping calamities — environmental, political, economic, technological and moral — is retooling an old playwriting device to do more than inject urgency and immediacy in the theatrical experience,” McNulty writes.
I spent time in Palm Springs over the Thanksgiving break to cover the grand reopening of the Palm Springs Plaza Theatre, which recently underwent a $34-million restoration. To celebrate, it hosted an intimate show featuring actor, singer, songwriter Cynthia Erivo.
I also had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Broadway actor Ben Platt in advance of his 10-day residency at the Ahmanson Theatre. We bonded over being anxious people, and he shared that he keeps his anxiety in check through live performance.
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Cameron Watson is the new artistic director of Skylight Theatre Company.
(David Zaugh)
Cameron Watson has been named Skylight Theatre Company’s new artistic director, beginning Jan. 1. He will replace Gary Grossman, who is stepping down after four decades at the helm of the Los Feliz-based theater, during which time he turned the company into one of the most respected small theaters in the city. “Cameron’s passion, his theatrical vision and his ability to lead, listen, nurture and mentor make him the perfect fit for Skylight,” Grossman said in a statement.
Earlier this week, philanthropist MacKenzie Scott gave $20 million to the Japanese American National Museum — the largest single gift in the organization’s history. Scott, the former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, also gave the museum $10 million in 2021.
Hamza Walker, the Brick executive director who is behind the critically acclaimed “Monuments” exhibit at the Brick and MOCA, has been honored with the 2026 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence, given by the Bard College Center for Curatorial Studies. “Hamza’s three decades of curatorial practice have brought forward voices and perspectives that challenge dominant narratives, create dialogue, and have left a lasting imprint on the field,” said Tom Eccles, executive director of the Center for Curatorial Studies, in a statement.
The Times this week released its annual list of the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles. I plan to go to every one. Well, maybe, like 20. It could get expensive.
BBC Question Time host Fiona Bruce had some important news to share during tonight’s show – Fiona paused a debate surrounding the lifting of the two-child benefit cap to make the announcement
Fiona Bruce stopped the debate to make the important announcement(Image: BBC)
Question Time host Fiona Bruce made a huge announcement about theBBC show’s future during tonight’s episode.
Thursday evening’s panel consisted of Stephen Flynn, Anas Sarwar, Russell Findlay, Angela Haggerty and Lord Malcolm Offord, who has defected to Reform. The current affairs debate was coming from Paisley inScotland.
After discussing the two child benefit cap Fiona said: “It’s been quite hard work this programme really to get a word in edgeways with you guys but we’re going to try aren’t we.” She then shared some important news about the programme’s future.
She said: “Before we get to the next question, we want to say this is our last show of 2025. We’re back on January 22 in Macclesfield. So if you live in or around Macclesfield and you would like to come and be part of the audience, apply (on) our website, and hopefully we will see you there on the 22nd of January.”
After the brief announcement the panel continued answering questions from audience members. James Sinclair put a question to the panel about the percentage of children in schools who don’t speak English as a first language.
When does the show take breaks throughout the year and why?
This break is just one of the usual breaks which the show takes as they work around Parliament’s schedule. Since the MPs will not be sitting over the festive season the show takes the opportunity to go off air.
They also break for a couple of weeks at Easter, the dates vary depending on when the holiday falls. There is a further and longer break of around 6 weeks during Parliament’s summer recess.
BBC Question Time returns on January 22 in Macclesfield and then on January 29 in King’s Lynn.
Jim Ward, a prolific voice actor whose work spans Nickelodeon shows “Fairly OddParents,” “Danny Phantom” and video games including “Ratchet & Clank,” has died. He was 66.
Ward died Wednesday, his former radio co-host commentator Stephanie Miller announced. “Our Good friend, Jim Ward passed away yesterday,” she tweeted Thursday. “We’re going to spend the morning remembering his brilliance.”
She first broke the news Wednesday, informing her followers on X (formerly Twitter) of “one of saddest messages I have ever received from the amazing Mrs. Jim Ward.” The voice actor co-hosted and often appeared as a guest on Miller’s eponymous syndicated talk radio program from 2004 to 2021.
Ward’s wife, Janice Ward, confirmed to TMZ that he died because of complications from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and was receiving treatment in Los Angeles before his death.
Though Ward often imitated public figures on Miller’s show, he is best known for voicing a wide variety of characters, including real estate tycoon Doug Dimmadome (the famed owner of the Dimmsdale Dimmadome) and dogged news anchor Chet Ubetcha on “The Fairly OddParents.” He also voiced various roles in series “My Life as a Teenage Robot,” “Danny Phantom,” “Ben 10,” “The Replacements” and dozens of other animated shows. In 2009, he earned a Daytime Emmy for his performance in the revival of “Biker Mice From Mars.”
Butch Hartman, the creator and animator for “Fairly OddParents” and “Danny Phantom,” mourned his longtime collaborator on social media. “To say the voice over world has lost a giant is an understatement,” Hartman said on Instagram, hours after Ward’s death.
“Rest in peace, dear friend and thank you for blessing us with your incredible talent and charm,” Hartman added. “Love you, brother.”
In the realm of video games, Ward’s voice acting credits were plentiful and ranged from the adventure classic “Escape From Monkey Island” in 2000 to the anti-Nazi shooter “Wolfenstein” in 2009 to the western-themed “Red Dead Redemption II” in 2018. Most notably, Ward voiced camera-ready space hero Captain Qwark in Insomniac Games’ “Ratchet & Clank” franchise, from the original game’s release in 2002 to its re-release in 2016, and the sequels and various shorts in between.
Ward’s video game voice credits also include the inaugural “Call of Duty,” “Resident Evil 4,” “Final Fantasy XIII,” “BioShock 2,” “Fallout: New Vegas” and numerous gaming tie-ins for TV and film projects.
