steady

The cuts in Hollywood just keep coming, following a sadly familiar script.

Last week it was Paramount, which laid off about 1,000 workers in the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media took over the storied media and entertainment company.

The cuts affected a wide swath of the company, from CBS and CBS News to Comedy Central, MTV and the historic Melrose Avenue film studio, my colleague Meg James and I reported. Another 1,000 layoffs are expected in the coming weeks.

But Paramount isn’t the only one in the media business that’s shedding jobs and payrolls.

Earlier, cable giant Charter Communications said it would lay off 1,200 people nationwide, as the company faces increased competition for its broadband internet packages. NBC News, too, laid off 150 employees last month amid declining TV ratings and lessening ad revenue.

Other recent media-adjacent layoffs included 100 cuts to Disneyland Resort’s Anaheim-based workforce and the massive 14,000 worker reduction at Amazon, including at the company’s gaming and film and TV studios.

And that doesn’t even include widespread job losses that happened earlier this year at companies such as Walt Disney Co., Warner Bros. Discovery, NBCUniversal and Six Flags Entertainment Corp.

It all adds up to a grim picture for Hollywood’s workers, who have faced a near endless marathon of economic hurdles for the last five years.

First it was the pandemic, followed by the dual writers’ and actors’ strikes in 2023, cutbacks in spending after studios splurged on streaming productions, and the outflow of production to the U.K. and other countries with lower costs than California.

Then, in January, nature struck a blow, with the fires in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades destroying many industry workers’ homes.

Topping it off, Saturday marked the first day that millions of low-income Americans lost federal food assistance due to the government shutdown that began Oct. 1. That has affected some 5.5 million Californians and probably some who work in the entertainment industry.

“It’s been one crisis after another, without enough time in between,” said Keith McNutt, western regional executive director of the Entertainment Community Fund, which provides social services for arts and entertainment professionals. “People are concerned and very worried and really trying very hard to figure out where they go from here.”

McNutt reports that the nonprofit group has already heard from some people who were recently laid off, and has experienced a sharp increase in demand for its services, particularly from those in the film and TV industry. The fund offers healthcare and financial counseling and operates a career center. It also provides emergency grants for those who qualify.

Clients include not only low-income people who are always hit hardest in downturns, but also veteran entertainment industry professionals who’ve worked in the business for 20 to 30 years.

Those who were lucky enough to have savings saw those wiped out by the pandemic, and then were unable to replenish their rainy-day funds after the strikes and industry contraction, said David Rambo, chair of the fund’s western council.

“It has been snowballing very slowly for about five years,” Rambo said.

Many in the industry are hopeful that California’s newly expanded film and television tax credit program will bring some production — and jobs — back to the Golden State. That’s what backers campaigned on when they lobbied Sacramento legislators to bolster the program. Dozens of TV shows and films have received credits so far under the revamped program, but it’ll take some time to see the results in filming data and employment numbers.

And that doesn’t help the workers who were just laid off last month. For those folks, McNutt suggests calling the fund’s health insurance team to make sure they understand their options and also to spend some time with career counselors to understand how Hollywood skills can be transferable to other employers, whether that’s on a short- or long-term basis. Most importantly, don’t isolate yourself.

“You’re not alone,” he said. “Nobody’s alone in this situation that the industry is finding itself in right now, and so reach out to your friends, reach out to your colleagues. If you’re not comfortable with that, reach out to the Entertainment Community Fund.”

Stuff We Wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ wild 11-inning win on Saturday over the Toronto Blue Jays notched nearly 26 million viewers, making it the most-watched World Series game since 2017, according to Nielsen data.

The 2017 Game 7 win by the Houston Astros over the Dodgers had an audience of 28.3 million.

The Dodgers are now the first Major League Baseball team to win back-to-back championships in 25 years. On Monday, thousands of Dodgers faithful turned out for the team’s victory parade through downtown L.A.

Finally …

You’ve no doubt heard of L.A.’s famous star tours. But what about a tour of a historic cemetery?

My colleague, Cerys Davies, wrote about local historian and guide Shmuel Gonzales — or as he calls himself, “Barrio Boychik” — and his walking tour of Boyle Heights’ Evergreen Cemetery.

The cemetery is the final resting place for many of L.A.’s early movers and shakers, including the Lankershims and the Hollenbecks, and it’s also a prime example of L.A.’s multicultural history.

Asian stock markets see big gains amid growing expectations of an interest rate cut by the US Federal Reserve.

Japan’s benchmark stock market index has topped its all-time high for a second straight day amid expectations of an interest rate cut in the United States and easing trade tensions between Washington and Beijing.

The Nikkei 225 rose above 43,421 points on Wednesday after better-than-expected US inflation data bolstered the case for a rate cut by the US Federal Reserve at its next committee meeting in September.

The milestone came after the Nikkei on Tuesday breached the 42,999-point mark for the first time.

In the US, the benchmark S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite also closed at record highs on Tuesday after rising 1.13 percent and 1.39 percent respectively, as investors cheered the latest inflation data release, which showed consumer prices rising a lower-than-expected 2.7 percent in July.

The inflation data added to a positive turn in investor sentiment following US President Donald Trump’s announcement on Monday of a 90-day extension of his pause on crippling tariffs on Chinese goods.

Other Asian stock markets also racked up big gains on Wednesday, with Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index and South Korea’s KOSPI rising about 2.50 percent and 1 percent, respectively.

The Fed and its chair, Jerome Powell, have for months been under intense pressure from Trump to lower interest rates.

A cut in the benchmark rate would deliver a boost to the US economy, the biggest driver of global growth, by lowering borrowing costs for American households and businesses.

But the Fed has been reluctant to cut the rate due to concerns it could stoke inflation at a time when Trump’s sweeping tariffs are already putting pressure on prices.

“Jerome ‘Too Late’ Powell must NOW lower the rate,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday, claiming that the Fed chair had done “incalculable” damage to the economy by not lowering borrowing costs.

On Tuesday, CME Group’s FedWatch tool raised the likelihood of a September rate cut to 96.4 percent, up from 85.9 percent the previous day.

I took a week of vacation to relax, clear my head and stop obsessing over depressing news.

I hear frequently from people who say that, for their peace of mind, they’re tuning out the news altogether, so I tried it for a couple of days. Opened a book. Walked the dog.

Steve Lopez

Steve Lopez is a California native who has been a Los Angeles Times columnist since 2001. He has won more than a dozen national journalism awards and is a four-time Pulitzer finalist.

But I’m in the news business, and I felt like a hypocrite, so I kept sneaking peeks. As it turns out, that wasn’t healthy.

You can’t follow a single 24-hour news cycle without questioning your own sanity.

Do we really live in a country in which the president posts fake videos of a predecessor being arrested?

In which a dead man’s sex trafficking crimes dominate White House news for days on end?

In which the federal government has made it a priority to arrest tamale vendors and fire meteorologists?

President Trump holds a gavel after signing the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” at the White House in Washington, D.C., on July 4.

(Brendan Smialowski / Pool / AFP via Getty Images)

In which the Social Security Administration sends us emails fawning over the president and making false claims, the White House jokes and memes about immigration raids and the Department of Homeland Security triggers a trolling war with social media posts about its version of national heritage?

I have a weekly goal of avoiding alcoholic beverages on Mondays, Tuesdays and Thursdays, but in this political culture, what chance do I have?

With lots of time to practice, I picked up my guitar, but events of the last few weeks continued to haunt me.

The “Big Beautiful Bill” that Trump signed into law on July 4 will add trillions to the national debt, heap tax breaks on those who need them least and rip healthcare coverage away from the neediest. As a result, L.A. County’s health services are anticipating federal cutbacks in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

“We can’t survive this big a cut,” Barbara Ferrer, L.A. County’s head of public health, told the Times for a story by Rebecca Ellis and Niamh Ordner. She added: “I’ve been around a long time. I’ve never actually seen this much disdain for public health.”

Dr. Jonathan LoPresti, who worked at County/USC for decades and is an associate professor of clinical medicine at the Keck School of Medicine at USC, is alarmed. He sent me an a copy of an opinion piece he’s writing, which includes a warning that county hospitals could “again be overrun with the poor … and homeless, leading to further hospital and ER overcrowding, delayed discharges and reduction in routine health maintenance … That could lead to an increase in community TB cases and more serious complications of treatable disease, as well as deaths.”

He added this:

“How many public deaths are people willing to accept?”

There is no limit, judging by crystal clear signals from Washington.

I think we can all agree that historic rainstorms, hurricanes and wildfires in the United States and the rest of the world will continue to kill thousands.

Here’s a synopsis of the Trump response:

The U.S. climate change website has been shut down.

Protesters gather on the National Mall for the “Hands Off” protest against the administration of President Trump on April 5.

(Dominic Gwinn / Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Images)

The administration says the Federal Emergency Management Agency should be eliminated, and the urban search and rescue chief has resigned, citing chaos and dangerous disaster response delays.

Layoffs and buyouts have reduced National Weather Service ranks by 14% despite warnings of dire consequences.

So I swam laps, thinking that having my head under might help, but it only made me feeling like I was drowning.

Hundreds of probationary workers at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration have been fired, and the fulltime staff will be trimmed by 2,000.

These cuts, and the elimination of federal support for scientific research, are damaging in obvious ways. But when I asked UCLA professor Alex Hall what’s most disturbing, here’s what the director of the Center for Climate Science had to say:

“I feel like the thing that’s most chilling is the way the word ‘climate’ has become a dirty word.”

In other words, the politicization of the subject — Trump and supporters insist human-caused climate change is either exaggerated or a hoax — has created a form of censorship.

“That’s where we really start to face dangers — when people can’t talk about something,” said Hall, who has been studying the link between climate change and California wildfires.

I may be a little biased on this topic. My daughter just graduated from college with a degree in earth science. What she and thousands like her are being told, essentially, is, “Good for you, but the planet’s health is neither a concern nor a priority. If you’re looking for work, the Border Patrol is hiring, and cryptocurrency might be a good career path.”

So there you have it. That’s how I spent my summer vacation, failing miserably in my attempt to look the other way.

But all was not lost.

I played pickleball a couple of times, in Glendale and Los Feliz, and suffered no major injuries. I took my beagle Philly to Rosie’s Dog Beach in Long Beach and watched him race around like the happiest hound in the world. And, borrowing from Trump’s penchant for cutbacks, I’ve trimmed my list of no-alcohol days from three to two.

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China’s GDP grew 1.1 percent from April to June despite US tariffs, official data shows.

China’s economy grew by more than 5 percent in the second quarter, according to official data, staying on track to meet Beijing’s annual growth target despite United States President Donald Trump’s trade war.

China’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 1.1 percent from April to June, data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics showed on Tuesday.

On an annualised basis, China’s economy grew 5.3 percent in the first half of the year, keeping it in line with Beijing’s full-year target of about 5 percent growth.

“Generally speaking, with the more proactive and effective macro policies taking effects in the first half year, the national economy maintained steady growth with good momentum, showcasing strong resilience and vitality,” the statistics agency said in a statement.

Lynn Song, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said China’s economic performance was “certainly encouraging” compared with the “very downbeat expectations at the start of the year”.

“Trade data benefited from frontloading in the first quarter, but generally held up better than expected in the first half as a whole,” Song said in a note.

“As a result, industrial production has outperformed.”

Still, Song cautioned that the second half of the year could “prove to be more challenging”.

“The tariff uncertainty will remain an overhang, with the next key deadlines coming up soon in August. Though we don’t expect a return to the April peak tariffs, we wouldn’t rule out further escalations,” he said.

Despite Trump’s tariffs, exports rose by 5.8 percent year-on-year in June, customs data released on Monday showed, as shipments to non-US markets and a reprieve from the highest duties boosted trade.

After US tariffs on Chinese goods soared as high as 145 percent earlier this year, the Trump administration in May reached a deal with Beijing to scale back taxes on each other’s exports for at least 90 days.

Under the truce, Chinese imports to the US are subject to a minimum duty of 30 percent, while US exports are subject to a 10 percent rate.

The two sides have until August 12 to renew their deal or forge a new agreement to avoid the tariffs reverting to their higher rates.

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court term that ended Friday will not be remembered for blockbuster rulings like those recent years that struck down the right to abortion and college affirmative action.

The justices scaled back their docket this year and spent much of their energy focused on deciding fast-track appeals from President Trump. His administration’s lawyers complained too many judges were standing in the way of Trump’s agenda.

On Friday, the court’s conservatives agreed to rein in district judges, a procedural victory for Trump.

What’s been missing so far, however, is a clear ruling on whether the president has abided by the law or overstepped his authority under the U.S. Constitution.

On the final two days of the term, the court’s conservative majority provided big wins for Republican-leaning states, religious parents and Trump.

The justices gave states more authority to prohibit medical treatments for transgender teens, to deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood clinics and to enforce age-verification laws for online porn sites.

Each came with the familiar 6-3 split, with the Republican appointees siding with the GOP-led states, while the Democratic appointees dissented.

These rulings, while significant, were something short of nationwide landmark decisions — celebrated victories for the Republican half of the nation but having no direct or immediate effect on Democratic-led states.

California lawmakers are not likely to pass measures to restrict gender-affirming care or to prohibit women on Medicaid from obtaining birth control, pregnancy testing or medical screenings at a Planned Parenthood clinic.

The new decisions echoed the Dobbs ruling three years ago that struck down Roe vs. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

As the conservative justices noted, the decision in Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health did not outlaw abortion nationwide. However, it did allow conservative states to do so. Since then, 17 Republican-led states in the South and Midwest have adopted new laws to prohibit most or all abortions.

On this front, the court’s decisions reflect a “federalism,” or states-rights style of conservatism, that was dominant in decades past under President Reagan and two of the court’s conservative leaders, Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Justice Sandra Day O’Connor.

Both were Arizona Republicans (and in O’Connor’s case, a former state legislator) who came to the court with that view that Washington holds too much power and wields too much control over states and local governments.

With the nation sharply divided along partisan lines, today’s conservative court could be praised or defended for freeing states to make different choices on the “culture wars.”

The other big winner so far this year has been Trump and his broad claims of executive power.

Since returning to the White House in January, Trump has asserted he has total authority to run federal agencies, cut their spending and fire most of their employees, all without the approval of Congress, which created and funded the agencies.

He has also claimed the authority to impose tariffs of any amount on any country and also change his mind a few days later.

He has dispatched National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles against the wishes of the governor and the mayor.

He has asserted he can punish universities and law firms.

He has claimed he can revise by executive order the 14th Amendment and its birthright citizenship clause.

So far, the Supreme Court has not ruled squarely on Trump’s broad assertions of power. But the justices have granted a series of emergency appeals from Trump’s lawyers and set aside lower court orders that blocked his initiatives from taking effect.

The theme has been that judges are out of line, not the president.

Friday’s ruling limiting nationwide injunctions set out that view in a 26-page opinion. The conservatives agreed that some judges have overstepped their authority by ruling broadly based on a single lawsuit.

The justices have yet to rule on whether the president has overstepped his power.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett summed up the dispute in a revealing comment responding to a dissent from Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. “Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary,” she wrote.

Missing from all this is the earlier strain of conservatism that opposed concentrated power in Washington — and in this instance, in one person.

Last year offered a hint of what was to come. A year ago, the court ended its term by declaring the president is immune from being prosecuted for his official acts while in the White House.

That decision, in Trump vs. United States, shielded the former and soon-to-be president from the criminal law.

The Constitution does not mention any such immunity for ex-presidents charged with crimes, but Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. said a shield of immunity was necessary to “enable the the President to carry out his constitutional duties without undue caution.”

Since returning to the White House, Trump has not been accused of exercising “undue caution.”

Instead, he appears to have viewed the court’s opinion as confirming his unchecked power as the nation’s chief executive. Trump advisors say that because the president was elected, he has a mandate and the authority to put his priorities and policies into effect.

But the Supreme Court’s conservatives did not take that view when President Biden took office promising to take action on climate change and to reduce the burden of student loan debt.

In both areas, the Roberts court ruled that the Biden administration had exceeded its authority under the laws passed by Congress.

Away from Washington, the most significant decision from this term may be Friday’s ruling empowering parents.

The six justices on the right ruled parents have a right to remove their children from certain public school classes that offend their religious beliefs. They objected to new storybooks and lessons for young children with LGBTQ+ themes.

In recent years, the court, led by Roberts, has championed the “free exercise” of religion that is protected by the 1st Amendment. In a series of decisions, the court has exempted Catholic schools and charities from laws or regulations on, for example, providing contraceptives to employees.

Friday’s ruling in a Maryland case extended that religious liberty right into the schools and ruled for Muslim and Catholic parents who objected to new LGBTQ+-themed storybooks.

At first, the school board said parents could have their young children “opt out” of those classes. But when too many parents took the offer, the school board rescinded it.

The clash between progressive educators and conservative parents reached the court when the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty appealed on behalf of the parents.

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the parents believed the books and stories offended their religious beliefs, and he ordered school authorities to “to notify them in advance whenever one of the books in question is to be used … and allow them to have their children excused from that instruction.”

This decision may have a broader impact than any from this term because it empowers parents nationwide. But it too has limits. It does not require the schools to change their curriculum and their lessons or remove any books from the shelves.

The conservatives fell one vote short in a case that could have brought about a far-reaching change in American schools. Split 4 to 4, the justices could not rule to uphold the nation’s first publicly funded, church-run charter school.

In the past, Roberts had voted to allow students to use state tuition grants in religious schools, but he appeared uncertain about using tax money to operate a church-run school.

But that question is almost certain to return to the court. Barrett stepped aside from the Oklahoma case heard in April because friends and former colleagues at the Notre Dame Law School had filed the appeal. But in a future case, she could participate and cast a deciding vote.

Walter Scott, who with his twin brother Wallace founded the Los Angeles-based R&B group the Whispers — a hit-making force in the 1970s and ‘80s with songs like “And the Beat Goes On,” “Rock Steady,” “Lady” and “Seems Like I Gotta Do Wrong” — died Thursday, according to multiple media outlets, including Billboard and the Los Angeles Sentinel. He was 81.

The Sentinel reported that Scott’s family said he died in Northridge after a six-month bout with cancer.

With a smooth, danceable sound built on sturdy post-disco rhythms and carefully arranged group vocals, the Whispers put 15 songs inside the Top 10 of Billboard’s R&B chart; “And the Beat Goes On” reached No. 1 in 1980, followed by “Rock Steady,” which topped the tally in 1987. The band’s music was widely sampled in later years, including by 50 Cent, Mobb Deep, J. Cole and Will Smith, the last of whom used “And the Beat Goes On” as the basis for his late-‘90s hit “Miami.”

In a post on Instagram, the musician and filmmaker Questlove described Scott as “one of the most trusted voices in ‘70s soul music” and compared him to “the talented uncle in the family….who btw could DUST you inna min w his dizzying blink & you lost him squiggle gee doo dweedy scatlibs.”

Scott was born in 1944 in Fort Worth, Texas, and later moved to L.A. with his family; he and his brother started singing as students at Jordan High School, according to the Sentinel, and formed the Whispers in the mid-‘60s with Nicholas Caldwell, Marcus Hutson and Gordy Harmon. The group spent time in San Francisco before Scott was drafted to serve in the Vietnam War.

The group recorded for a series of record companies but found its biggest success on Dick Griffey’s Solar label. The Whispers were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the National Rhythm & Blues Hall of Fame.

Billboard said Scott is survived by his wife, Jan; two sons; three grandchildren and his brother.