The writer of the Witcher books answered fan questions on the hit adaptations
The Witcher season 4 official Netflix trailer
The author behind the books which are the basis of Netflix series The Witcher has shared what he really thinks of the adaptation.
The fourth season is set to be released on the streaming platform, with eight new episodes available to binge from October 30. According to the synopsis, after the Continent-altering events of season three, Geralt, Yennefer, and Ciri find themselves separated by a raging war and countless enemies.
As their paths diverge, and their goals sharpen, they stumble on unexpected allies eager to join their journeys. And if they can accept these found families, they just might have a chance at reuniting for good. The series is based on the works of Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski.
Sapkowski’s Witcher books include two collections of short stories, five novels making up the main Witcher saga and two standalone novels. Season four is believed to be largely based on the publications Baptism of Fire and The Tower of Swallows.
The writer took part in a special AMA session on Reddit where fans were invited to ask him any question they liked. It took place in celebration of the latest English translation release of Crossroads of Ravens. The new book is a standalone novel that serves as a prequel for Geralt’s story.
Many fans have been welcomed to the world of the Witcher thanks to its adaptations. These include the live-action series on Netflix as well as the video game series developed by CD Projekt Red.
The third game, subtitled Wild Hunt, in particular was a runaway critical and commercial success. Its story served as a follow-up to the saga told in the original books.
It wasn’t long before one fan asked about Sapkowski’s current views on the adaptations. The writer previously admitted he allowed his work to be translated into a game because of the money offered to him.
Netflix have also released an original prequel series as well as an animated feature film Sirens of the Deep, which was based on one of Sapkowski’s short stories.
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Now, he has expressed his blunt view on all these adaptations. He explained: “I’ll put it this way: there’s the original and then there are adaptations. Regardless of the quality of these adaptations, there are no dependencies or points of convergence between the literary original and its adaptation.
“The original stands alone, and every adaptation stands alone; you can’t translate words into images without losing something, and there can’t be any connections here.”
He continued: “Moreover, adaptations are mostly visualisations, which means transforming written words into images, and there is no need to prove the superiority of the written word over images, it is obvious. The written word always and decidedly triumphs over images, and no picture – animated or otherwise – can match the power of the written word.”
Costco is exceptional at delivering value for customers and shareholders.
Following a monstrous run over the last five years that saw the share price outperform the S&P 500, shares of Costco Wholesale(COST -0.89%) have cooled off in 2025. The stock is roughly flat year to date after surging to a 52-week high of $1,078 earlier this year.
Costco shares have trailed the bull market rally in recent months. The only thing investors can blame is the stock’s high valuation. At a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 50, the stock is the most expensive it’s been in 25 years. But sometimes stocks can trade for years at extended valuation levels. Costco’s exceptional operating performance and superb leadership certainly are deserving of a premium valuation.
While the stock could be in the process of settling at a lower P/E, there are two things about Costco’s business that make me interested in the stock even if it’s historically expensive.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. World-class operating efficiency
Costco has 81 million paying warehouse club members because it sells stuff in bulk cheaper than anyone else. Some investors might assume Costco prioritizes keeping its margins at a fixed level and reinvesting any cost savings in lower prices. While this is the basic strategy, Costco is still seeing its margins gradually rise.
Over the past 10 years, the company’s operating margin has improved from 3.1% to 3.8%. It has ticked up about 0.1% almost every year. This reflects several initiatives to improve operating efficiency, including automation, streamlining the checkout process, and continued growth in its private label brand Kirkland Signature, where sales continue to outpace Costco’s overall sales growth.
Costco capped off another solid year in terms of margin and operating profit growth. For fiscal 2025 (which ended in August), operating income grew 12% year over year, slightly above its past 10-year average annual increase of 11%. Earnings per share (EPS) grew 14% year over year excluding a tax benefit last year.
Consistency is a key element that can cause investors to award a premium valuation to a company. Next year, analysts expect Costco’s sales and adjusted earnings to grow 8% and 16%, respectively. The continued growth of Kirkland, which generates higher margins than other brands, and Costco’s culture of relentlessly squeezing every last ounce of inefficiency out of operations should maintain its recent trend of improving operating margin and earnings growth.
2. International opportunity
Perhaps the biggest factor that may cause the market to continue valuing Costco at a higher-than-average P/E is global expansion. Only 31% of Costco’s warehouse stores are outside the U.S., yet its discount operating model and global sourcing capabilities could pave the way for profitable international growth.
Costco currently has 914 warehouses worldwide, with 629 in the U.S. It plans to increase this base to 944 in fiscal 2026. Opening warehouses in foreign markets requires longer planning than in the U.S., but the company has a pipeline of openings it is pursuing internationally.
Current international stores are performing well. In the most recent quarter, its adjusted comparable-store sales in Canada grew 8.3% year over year, with other international markets up 7.2%. This was marginally higher than its U.S. comp-sales growth of 6%. Strong international growth prospects extend Costco’s ability to maintain consistent performance for many years.
But Costco is still finding plenty of room to expand on its home turf. Over the next year, two-thirds of its planned warehouse increase will be in the U.S. The combination of improving margins and growth opportunities at home and abroad justifies a high valuation.
Beyond numbers and growth opportunities, Costco’s corporate culture is just something you cannot pin to a specific P/E. The company’s consistent performance reflects a management team that is focused on one thing: delivering more value to customers. The fact it is succeeding on that mission while still improving margins makes Costco a highly valuable business.
Costco is one of a kind, and that’s why the stock still looks like a tempting buy even if it’s expensive.
John Ballard has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Costco Wholesale. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This company has two dominant businesses in high-growth industries with potential for massive profits.
Billionaire Bill Ackman is one of the most widely followed investment managers on Wall Street. His Pershing Square Capital Management hedge fund has outperformed the S&P 500 in 2025. It’s up 22.9% as of the end of August, compared to a 10.8% gain in the benchmark index during that period.
Ackman’s outperformance stems from taking advantage of opportunities when the market temporarily undervalues certain stocks. He holds only a handful of positions in the fund, and he typically buys and holds them for a long time. Even better, he and his team are happy to share the details on social media and investor calls, making it relatively easy for average investors to follow along.
In May, Pershing Square disclosed that it had bought another member of the “Magnificent Seven” stocks. Its first Magnificent Seven stock, Alphabet(GOOG -0.72%)(GOOGL -0.73%), has been a longtime holding for the hedge fund, and represents one of its biggest holdings. While the new addition isn’t quite as large as its stake in Alphabet, it presents another great opportunity for those following Ackman’s investing style.
Image source: Getty Images.
A magnificent new position
The stock market saw some very big swings at the start of the year, which were exacerbated in early April by President Donald Trump’s tariff announcements. While the stock market was moving wildly, it presented several great opportunities for investors that could follow Warren Buffett’s timeless advice: “Be greedy when others are fearful.”
To that point, Ackman saw the chance to pick up one stock he’s been studying and has long admired. Amazon(AMZN -1.20%) shares fell on fears that tariffs would negatively affect its retail business, and that a slowing economy would produce less demand for its cloud computing services. Ackman and his team freed up capital by selling Pershing Square’s entire position in Canadian Pacific Kansas City to buy the stock.
Ackman got a steal of a deal. He said he bought shares at 25 times forward earnings estimates. While there was a lot of uncertainty at the time about whether those earnings estimates would need to be revised downward, Ackman had confidence that Amazon was well worth the price. In fact, he thinks the stock is still undervalued. “Although the company’s share price has appreciated meaningfully from our initial purchase, we believe substantial upside remains given its ability to drive a high level of earnings growth for a very long time,” he wrote in his letter to shareholders last month.
Here’s why Ackman may continue to hold Amazon shares for a very long time.
Two great category-defining businesses
Amazon essentially has two businesses: Its retail operations and its cloud computing platform. Ackman believes both still have room to benefit from long-term growth trends and opportunities for margin expansion.
On the cloud computing side, Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest public cloud provider in the world. It now sports a $120 billion run rate, and it’s about 50% bigger than its next-closest rival. It’s also tremendously profitable already. The segment sports a 37% operating margin over the past 12 months. To put that in perspective, Alphabet’s Google Cloud has an operating margin of less than half that (although it’s gaining leverage as it scales).
Despite Amazon’s large run rate, there’s still ample room for growth in both the near term and long term, according to Ackman. Amazon’s management has struggled to build out capacity fast enough to meet the surging demand from artificial intelligence customers. It’s spending over $100 billion on capital expenditures this year (some of that related to its logistics network), and management says that demand continues to outstrip supply growth. That situation is echoed by Alphabet’s management and other hyperscale cloud providers.
In the long run, Ackman expects more enterprises to move from on-premise computing to the cloud. He points out that just 20% of IT workloads are currently using cloud computing, but he expects that to invert over time, to 80% of workloads being in the cloud.
On the retail side of the business, Ackman points out that Amazon isn’t the only retailer affected by tariffs. In fact, it may be better suited to navigate the environment, as it sports a wide selection of goods. Amazon’s ability to offer reliable and convenient delivery on a growing number of items gives it an advantage over competitors.
That advantage is only improving as it continues to build out its logistics network and warehouse technology, and reduce costs. That allows it to get more items to more customers faster, all while decreasing its fulfillment expenses. Ackman points out that Amazon’s logistics improvements led to a 5% reduction in per-unit shipping costs last quarter. He thinks further improvements could lead it to double its retail profit margin from 5%. That’s a huge profit on a $550 billion business.
While Amazon shares have climbed significantly since Ackman established Pershing Square’s position, investors shouldn’t shy away from the stock at this higher price. The long-term trends favor Amazon’s businesses, and it’s a leading player in both.
Adam Levy has positions in Alphabet and Amazon. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, and Canadian Pacific Kansas City. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
This is one price target that’s worth understanding in detail.
On Aug. 30, Jan van Eck, the chief executive officer of VanEck, a major investment management company, said that if Bitcoin(BTC 0.68%) gets to be priced at just half the total value of gold, it would reach $400,000. At the same time, he made it clear that he considers the coin a scarce asset that’s essentially digital gold, and that he thinks there’s going to be a consistent demand for it, making that outcome highly plausible.
In other words, if supply keeps tightening while larger and steadier buyers keep showing up, the path of least resistance is up. Here’s what else you need to know about van Eck’s perspective and why you should take his opinion on this topic (very) seriously.
Image source: Getty Images.
Why this call matters
When a mainstream asset manager with more than $100 billion in assets under management (AUM) floats a price like $400,000 for Bitcoin, you should ask two questions: Is the speaker credible? and Is the idea anchored in data? It’s easy to answer yes to both.
On credibility, VanEck manages about $135.8 billion in assets as of July 31, and it has been quick to get exposure to crypto compared with its peers. VanEck filed for a Bitcoin futures exchange-traded fund (ETF) as far back as August 2017, years before today’s spot products.
Another important fact is that VanEck pledged to donate 5% of its spot Bitcoin ETF profits to fund the Bitcoin Core team of developers, putting tangible support behind the network’s resilience. That combination of AUM heft, crypto first-mover history, ETF product footprint, and direct developer funding gives van Eck’s call a lot more weight than a random internet forecast, particularly because his assets are sizable enough and deployed such that it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Now let’s examine the quality of the data used in van Eck’s argument.
After the April 2024 halving, mining activity produces just 450 bitcoins per day. Corporate buyers alone are absorbing about 1,755 coins per day on average, roughly four times the daily issuance, with funds and ETFs adding significant inflows on top. Against a mechanically tightening float — coins available for public trading — that absorption rate is exactly the kind of imbalance long-term investors look for.
So the idea that Bitcoin is digital gold is supported by the numbers right now, at least in terms of its scarcity versus incoming supply to the market.
If you want a near-term napkin math check on van Eck’s price target specifically, consider first that Bitcoin recently traded at about $111,000. The gap between today and $400,000 is large, but the mechanism to get there, scarcity, is the exact same one that took the coin from $1 to more than $100,000.
How investors should use this view
Let’s step back for a moment and introduce some skepticism.
Price targets can excite or mislead, even when they’re issued by business leaders or investors at the very apex of their craft. The real utility of a $400,000 call is that it sets a benchmark for the coin’s long-term investment thesis. The thesis is that Bitcoin’s engineered supply constriction and the consolidation of ownership into price-insensitive hands will raise the clearing price for the marginal coin. If that continues, the destination becomes a function of patience and liquidity cycles.
There is another practical takeaway about who is making the call. VanEck does not need Bitcoin to reinvent itself to capture value. It needs the rules to remain clear enough for institutions to keep allocating. The company’s own history shows it can help shape that clarity and sustain the ecosystem, from being an early filer to supporting developers, and over time, its influence could push prices higher than they would have been otherwise.
Investors should also weigh the risks with clear eyes. Macro liquidity tightening, policy surprises, or adverse regulation could interrupt flows into ETFs and corporate treasuries for a time, pressuring prices. It might also be the case that the migration of coins into deep cold storage reduces on-chain activity in ways that occasionally spook investors.
Still, now is a favorable time to dollar-cost average (DCA) into Bitcoin, and van Eck’s price target signifies that capital is increasingly considering the coin a worthy asset to hold forever. Don’t get too fixated on arbitrary forecasts, just keep accumulating.
The US president’s words come on the eve of his closely watched Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
One day before the leaders of Russia and the United States are set to meet in the US state of Alaska to discuss ending the Russia-Ukraine war, US President Donald Trump said he believes his Russian counterpart is ready “to make a deal”.
In an interview on Fox News Radio on Thursday, Trump said he believed Russian President Vladimir Putin “wanted the whole thing” – in an apparent reference to his territorial aspirations in Ukraine – but was willing to come to the table and make a deal due to the relationship between the two men.
“I think he wants to get it done. I really feel he wanted the whole thing. I think if it weren’t me, if it were somebody else, he would not be talking to anybody,” Trump told interviewer Brian Kilmeade.
Trump and Putin will meet in Alaska on Friday for talks on the more than three-year conflict. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will not be present at the talks, though Trump has said that should Putin signal a willingness to end the war, another meeting between the two leaders would follow.
“I don’t know that we’re going to get an immediate ceasefire, but I think it’s going to come. See, I’m more interested in an immediate peace deal – getting peace fast. And depending on what happens with my meeting, I’m going to be calling up President Zelenskyy and [saying] let’s get him over to wherever we’re going to meet,” Trump said.
He added that there was the possibility they could simply “stay in Alaska”, but also stressed that if the meeting went poorly, “I’m not calling anyone. I’m going home.”
That hedging represents a seeming cautiousness by Trump, who has spoken about being frustrated by Putin’s broken promises in the past.
Speaking from Washington, DC, Al Jazeera’s Shihab Rattansi said Trump’s metric for success could be boiled down to what read he had on Putin.
“He very much made it clear that what success means in this context is him being convinced that Vladimir Putin is serious about peace, and then arranging a second meeting that would involve the Ukrainians,” he said.
Earlier on Thursday, Putin praised Trump, saying he was “making quite energetic and sincere efforts to end the fighting”.
The words came shortly after Zelenskyy met with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in London, where they discussed security guarantees for Ukraine that could “make peace truly durable if the United States succeeds in pressing Russia to stop the killings and engage in genuine, substantive diplomacy”, Zelenskyy wrote on X.
The meeting, said Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull, “was about a show of unity ahead of that summit in Alaska”.
Hull noted there was a “sense of some optimism” following the Wednesday call between Trump, Zelenskyy and European leaders.
“[Trump] took a somewhat stronger line against Putin than was expected, saying the Russian president faced severe consequences if he didn’t meaningfully engage in ceasefire talks,” he noted.
WASHINGTON — President Trump welcomed Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday at the White House, as the two countries are seeking closer security and economic ties in the face of shifting geopolitics in the Indo-Pacific region.
Marcos, who met Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Monday, is the first Southeast Asian leader to hold talks with Trump in his second term.
Marcos’ three-day visit shows the importance of the alliance between the treaty partners when China is increasingly assertive in the South China Sea, where Manila and Beijing have clashed over the hotly contested Scarborough Shoal.
As the two leaders sat in the Oval Office in front of reporters on Tuesday, Trump said they would be talking about “war and peace” and trade.
“We’re very close to finishing a trade deal, big trade deal, actually,” Trump said.
Marcos spoke warmly of the relationship between their two nations and said, “This has evolved into as important a relationship as is possible to have.”
Trump, as he does in many of his appearances, veered off topic as he fielded questions from reporters.
In response to a question about his Justice Department’s decision to interview Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend, Trump launched into a long answer repeating falsehoods about his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election and the Russia investigation during his first term, along with comments about targeting his political adversaries, including former President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“After what they did to me, whether it’s right or wrong, it’s time to go after people,” Trump said, with Marcos sitting nearby.
During the two leaders’ meeting before news cameras, they didn’t reveal details or hang-ups of any possible deal, but Trump called Marcos a “tough negotiator.”
When asked by a reporter how he plans to balance his country’s relationships between the U.S. and China, Marcos said there was no need to balance “because our foreign policy is an independent one.”
“Our strongest partner has always been the United States,” he said.
Washington sees Beijing, the world’s No. 2 economy, as its biggest competitor, and consecutive presidential administrations have sought to shift U.S. military and economic focus to the Asia-Pacific in a bid to counter China. Trump, like others before him, has been distracted by efforts to broker peace in a range of conflicts, from Ukraine to Gaza.
On Tuesday, when asked about the U.S. defense commitment to the Philippines, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Guo Jiakun said: “Whatever cooperation the U.S. and the Philippines have, it should not target or harm any third party, still less incite confrontation and heighten tensions in the region.”
Tariffs also are expected to be on the agenda. Trump has threatened to impose 20% tariffs on Filipino goods on Aug. 1 unless the two sides can strike a deal.
On Sunday, before heading to Washington, Marcos said he intended to tell Trump and his administration “that the Philippines is ready to negotiate a bilateral trade deal that will ensure strong, mutually beneficial and future-oriented collaborations that only the United States and the Philippines will be able to take advantage of,” according to his office.
Manila is open to offering zero tariffs on some U.S. goods to strike a deal with Trump, finance chief Ralph Recto told local journalists.
The White House said ahead of the meeting that Trump would discuss with Marcos the shared commitment to upholding a free, open, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific.
Before a meeting with Marcos at the Pentagon, Hegseth reiterated America’s commitment to “achieving peace through strength” in the region.
Marcos, whose country is one of the oldest U.S. treaty allies in the Pacific region, told Hegseth that the assurance to come to each other’s mutual defense “continues to be the cornerstone of that relationship, especially when it comes to defense and security cooperation.”
He said the cooperation has deepened since Hegseth’s March visit to Manila, including joint exercises and U.S. support in modernizing the Philippines’ armed forces. Marcos thanked the U.S. for support “that we need in the face of the threats that we, our country, is facing.”
China, the Philippines, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan have been involved in long-unresolved territorial conflicts in the South China Sea, a busy shipping passage for global trade.
The Chinese coast guard has repeatedly used water cannons to hit Filipino boats in the South China Sea. China accused those vessels of entering the waters illegally or encroaching on its territory.
Hegseth told a security forum in Singapore in May that China poses a threat and the U.S. is “reorienting toward deterring aggression by Communist China.”
During Marcos’ meeting Monday with Rubio, the two reaffirmed the alliance “to maintain peace and stability” in the region and discussed closer economic ties, including boosting supply chains, State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said.
The U.S. has endeavored to keep communication open with Beijing. Rubio and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met this month on the sidelines of the Assn. of Southeast Asian Nations regional forum in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. They agreed to explore “areas of potential cooperation” and stressed the importance of managing differences.
Tang and Price write for the Associated Press. AP writer Chris Megerian contributed to this report.
Shaquille O’Neal has an issue with a recent ranking of the all-time best NBA players.
On Monday, Bleacher Report released its list of the “top 100 NBA players ever,” based on a compilation of rankings from a “legion of B/R NBA experts, writers and editors.”
O’Neal finished just outside the top five. He didn’t seem to have an issue with that.
Shaq’s beef was with the placement of his former Lakers teammate, the late Kobe Bryant, who landed outside of the top 10.
“Kobe at 11 is criminal,” O’Neal wrote on X in the comments of a Bleacher Report post that revealed the list’s top 20. He left his comment a little more than an hour after the original Bleacher Report post went live.
Bryant is followed on the list by Hakeem Olajuwon, Kevin Durant, Oscar Robertson and Jerry West.
O’Neal has made no secret of his feelings on where Bryant ranks among the league’s all-time greats. In 2023, the Diesel told The Times that his “first team” on such a list would be himself, Bryant, Jordan, Johnson and James.
(Coming off the bench for O’Neal on that hypothetical team were Curry, Allen Iverson, Duncan, Karl Malone, Isiah Thomas and Abdul-Jabbar.)
Last month, in connection with the Netflix docuseries “Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal,” Shaq revealed another personal top 10 list in which he ranked Bryant at No. 2, behind Jordan and just ahead of James.
Bryant ranks fourth in all-time NBA scoring (33,643 points) and his “Mamba Mentality” work ethic is still cited as a major influence on current athletes. He spent the first eight years of his career as Lakers teammates with O’Neal, with L.A. winning three NBA titles during that span.
Those Lakers also lost to the Detroit Pistons in the 2004 NBA Finals. Soon after, O’Neal was traded to the Miami Heat, with tension between the two superstars seen as one of the main reasons for the move. O’Neal won another NBA title with the Heat in 2006. Bryant won two more with the Lakers, in 2009 and 2010.
Over the years, O’Neal and Bryant acknowledged their rocky relationship as teammates but also insisted that they actually were close friends.
“I just want people to know that I don’t hate you, I know you don’t hate me. I call it today a ‘work beef,’ is what we had,” O’Neal told Bryant on “The Big Podcast with Shaq” in 2015.
“We had a lot of disagreements, we had a lot of arguments,” he said later. “But I think it fueled us both.”
Years later, when it appeared their feud might be heating up again, the two NBA greats took to social media to nip that notion in the bud.
“Ain’t nothin but love there,” Bryant wrote of his relationship with O’Neal.
“Kobe and I pushed one another to play some of the greatest basketball of all time and I am proud that no other team has accomplished what the three-peat Lakers have done since the Shaq and Kobe Lakers did it,” O’Neal said. “And sometimes like immature kids, we argued, we fought, we bantered, we assaulted each other with offhand remarks on the field. Make no mistake, even when folks thought we were on bad terms, when the cameras are turned off, he and I would throw a wink at each other and say let’s go whoop some ass.
“We never took it seriously. In truth, Kobe and I always maintained a deep respect and a love for one another.”
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Rick Cole has forgotten more about municipal government than most of us will ever know.
The 72-year-old former mayor (Pasadena), city manager (Ventura, Azusa, Santa Monica) and deputy mayor (Los Angeles) returned for a third stint at Los Angeles City Hall in 2022, bringing a depth of experience to political neophyte and then-newly elected City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office as Mejia’s chief deputy.
After two and a half years in City Hall East, Cole announced last month that he would be leaving his post to focus on the Pasadena City Council, which he joined again last year.
Cole knew that holding down “a more-than-full-time role in LA and a more-than-part-time role in Pasadena” would be difficult to juggle, he wrote in a LinkedIn post, and ultimately decided he couldn’t do both jobs justice.
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We sat down with Cole to discuss that speech and his fears. Here’s some of our conversation, very lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
Tell me about the speech you gave at council. What motivated it?
I’ve never been more alarmed about the future of Los Angeles. I delineated the existential challenges facing the city, which have been decades in the making. Politics needs to be looking out at the future and not just reacting to the crises of the day. And Los Angeles needs bold, systemic reform to meet the moment.
Why are you so alarmed about the future of Los Angeles?
It’s a converging set of crises. You have a homelessness emergency, an affordable housing crisis, a billion-dollar structural financial challenge that’s resulted in the loss of thousands of key city jobs. You had a firestorm that destroyed an entire neighborhood. And you have the federal government at war with the people in the government of Los Angeles.
And you have people feeling that government can’t really fix any of these things, that the money we spend gets wasted, fair or unfair. That’s a challenge.
Do you think the government is wasting taxpayer money?
Every institution has some level of waste. The problem with Los Angeles government and the public sector in California is an aversion to innovation.
We’ve fallen behind the private sector in adapting to the new world of advancing technology and changing demographics. That’s fixable, and that’s what I was advocating for.
What would it look like to fix these problems? Who’s responsible, and who is currently dropping the ball?
The lack of responsibility is built into the City Charter.
Tell me more about what you mean by that.
The people who originally wrote the charter a hundred years ago intentionally designed the system to diffuse authority, which therefore diffused accountability. So it’s really difficult to know who is in charge of any given thing.
A clear example is that the department heads have 16 bosses. They report to the mayor, but in each of the council districts, the council members think that the department heads report to them. That they … have to make the council member happy with what’s going on in their district, whether it’s trimming trees on a particular street or fixing a sidewalk in front of a constituent’s home, the general managers [of city departments] are subject to extreme and constant political pressure.
That distracts them from fixing the system so that we’re doing a better job, so that there are fewer resident complaints, so that a constituent wouldn’t have to go to their council member to get their street fixed. The street would get fixed every 10 years.
But if you are have 16 bosses and and a continually shifting set of priorities, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to put in place systemic solutions.
And in terms of who do you blame: Do you blame the general manager? Do you blame the mayor? Do you blame your council member? Do you blame the lack of resources that the city has to allocate?
The answer is yes.
What needs to change?
What I advocated is designing the city to work in the 21st century, which means a chief operating officer who works for the mayor to make sure the city runs effectively across 44 departments. We don’t have such a person now.
It means a chief financial officer. The responsibilities of a chief financial officer are [currently] divided between four different offices in the city, so it’s difficult, again, to point to one person who’s in charge of keeping the city fiscally sound.
The charter calls for a one-year budget, but we could do a two-year budget and simply update it once a year and be consistent with the City Charter. But then we would have a much broader view of the city’s financial future, and we wouldn’t waste so much time on a budget process that takes 11 of the 12 months and produces very little change.
State of play
— SAFER CITY: L.A. is on pace for its lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years as killings plummet, according to an LAPD tally. The falling murder rate mirrors a national trend in other big cities. As my colleague Libor Jany reports, it also paints a decidedly different picture than the Gotham City image offered by President Trump and other senior U.S. officials as justification for the deployment of military troops in L.A. in recent weeks.
—MORE RAIDS FALLOUT: Mayor Karen Bassannounced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration raids. The money will come from philanthropic partners, not city coffers, and the cash cards will be distributed by immigrant rights groups.
—MOTION TO INTERVENE: The city and county of Los Angeles are among the local governments seeking to join a lawsuit calling on the Trump administration to stop “unlawful detentions” during the ongoing immigration sweeps. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Public Counsel and immigrant rights groups last week.
—IN MEMORIAM: Longtime former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs Jaime Regalado died last month at age 80. Born in Boyle Heights, Regalado served in the U.S. Navy and was the founding editor of California Politics & Policy and the California Policy Issues Annual. He led the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. from 1991 to 2011.
—“SOMEONE GOOFED”: When L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-wrote Measure G, a sprawling overhaul of county government that voters passed last November, they didn’t realize they would also be repealing Measure J, a landmark criminal justice measure that voters had passed four years earlier. Thanks to an administrative screw-up for the ages, that’s exactly what happened. The relevant changes won’t go into effect until 2028, so county leaders have some time to undo their oops.
—DISASTER AVERTED: A potentially tragic situation was averted Wednesday night, after all 31 workers in a partially collapsed Los Angeles County sanitation tunnel were able to make their way to safety. Work on the tunnel has been halted, and the county sanitation district board is looking into what caused the collapse.
—POSTCARD FROM SANTA MONICA: In the long shadow of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller‘s hard-line anti-immigration policies, local and national observers alike are paying renewed attention to Miller’s upbringing in the famously liberal enclave once dubbed “the People’s Republic of Santa Monica.” Join me for a deep dive into Miller’s time at Santa Monica High School and learn why some of his former classmates think he’s getting his revenge on Southern California.
QUICK HITS
On the docket for next week: The city’s charter reform commission will meet Wednesday afternoon. The City Council remains on recess.
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness was in South Los Angeles this week, according to a tweet from Bass’ office.
A political poem to pair with your morning coffee:“I Am Waiting” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
As the Israel-Iran ceasefire staggered into effect on Tuesday, all of the combatants launched a plausible argument for victory.
In the United States, President Donald Trump claimed that both his diplomatic and military interventions had largely been responsible for halting the fighting, while the leaders of Iran and Israel each claimed to have secured a decisive win in a regional contest that dates back decades.
In Israel, however, the emerging narrative is that the end result of the conflict with Iran has solidified the position of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Just two weeks ago, Netanyahu was in real trouble. On the night before he ordered the unilateral strike on regional nemesis Iran, his governing coalition was only able to survive thanks to a last-minute deal with dissenting members. Public and political opinion had also appeared to have turned against his war on Gaza, and internationally, Israel’s allies were beginning to protest the blockade of the Palestinian enclave.
Now, he can argue that he has severely weakened Israel’s most dangerous regional enemy, Iran, and he claims that its nuclear programme has been destroyed and sent “down the drain”.
The Iran threat
Buoyed by rising poll numbers and the sense of having successfully confronted Iran, Netanyahu may, according to reports in Israel, seek to take advantage politically and call snap elections.
Having built up the threat of Iran over three decades, and repeatedly warned that his country’s principal bogeyman was about to build a nuclear weapon despite Tehran’s denials, Netanyahu can now take advantage of being seen as the man who ended that threat.
“Entire generations have grown up in Israel with this fear of Iran,” Israeli political scientist Ori Goldberg said. “There’s a foundational narrative that there’s this crazy state out there that, without any logic or reason, wants to destroy us.”
“My oldest daughter is 22 now, and has never known anything else,” Goldberg said. “Netanyahu is now getting the credit for having confronted that.”
In a video statement released earlier today, Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich framed the conflict in characteristically apocalyptic terms, telling his social media followers, “The State of Israel has defeated in the last twelve days the empire of evil that threatened the entire world and sought the destruction of Israel.”
That argument is supported by much of the Israeli public – which has largely supported right-wing and far-right parties in recent years.
“Netanyahu is stronger than ever,” Mitchell Barak, an Israeli pollster and former political aide to several senior Israeli political figures, including Netanyahu, told Al Jazeera. “No one’s going to bring him down, no one’s going to challenge him, not his opponents, not his detractors, nobody.”
“He showed that Israel can go it alone. He held off, before American help, then continued alone. Bennett, Lapid can’t challenge that,” Barak continued, referring to two former Israeli prime ministers, the right-wing Naftali Bennett and the centrist Yair Lapid, who are both opponents of Netanyahu.
Not so rosy
However, how long the Israeli prime minister’s perceived victory will last is uncertain. The Iranian government and its Islamic Republic form of governance remain in place, even as Netanyahu has repeatedly called for its overthrow. Netanyahu insinuated that regime change was a possible result of the conflict between Israel and Iran, and Trump used the term in a social media post on Sunday, before clarifying on Monday that he was opposed to regime change because it could lead to “chaos”.
And despite Israeli claims, it is too early to have a definitive answer on the condition of Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programmes. The former, despite Israel’s effective air defence systems, led to the deaths of at least 28 Israelis during the conflict, while Iran is likely to shroud its nuclear programme in secrecy going forward. Early intelligence assessments are reported to have determined that Iran’s nuclear timeline has been delayed, but not destroyed.
And analysts have previously suggested to Al Jazeera that Iran is likely to accelerate its nuclear programme, with hardliners within the Iranian regime now even more convinced of the need for a plausible deterrent against Israel.
“There are a lot of unanswered questions out there, such as how much uranium remains enriched, or even where it is, but, in the short term, it doesn’t really matter whether it’s been destroyed or not,” Yossi Mekelberg, a senior consulting fellow with Chatham House’s Middle East and North Africa Programme, told Al Jazeera. “Netanyahu and his allies in the White House will be able to spin it. What matters to them is that Iran has suffered a real physical and psychological blow.”
However, how long Netanyahu may be able to survive on spin alone remains far from certain, Mekelberg added. “Every Houdini eventually comes across a lock they can’t pick,” he said.
US President Donald Trump was unsparing in his criticism of Israel and Iran’s disregard of the ceasefire he brokered in remarks made on June 24 in Washington, DC, the US [Kevin Lamarque/Reuters]
Netanyahu’s actions since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023 have arguably made his country’s position weaker in the long term. Israel’s international isolation has increased, with revulsion worldwide at the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza, where it has killed more than 56,000 Palestinians. Netanyahu himself is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and South Africa has led a number of other countries in taking Israel to the International Court of Justice, accusing it of carrying out genocide in Gaza.
The images of those killed, including thousands of children, and the total destruction of Gaza, have spread on social media in particular, turning many in the West against Israel. This has become particularly noticeable in the US, where even on the right – traditionally a bastion of support for Israel – support for the country has become controversial.
And while Trump has shown himself to be a pro-Israeli president, the perception among many in his “America First” movement that Israel dragged the US into a war against Iran has led to anger and heavy criticism of Israel among many of Trump’s most prominent supporters.
Trump himself publicly reprimanded Israel after the latter planned to launch a large attack on Iran after the ceasefire began on Tuesday. Eventually, Israel conducted only a small and symbolic attack, following what it said was a ceasefire violation by Iran – one that Trump was clear did not warrant a response.
Some indication of the fury that has greeted Netanyahu’s decision to abuse the terms of Trump’s ceasefire was provided by Trump’s former chief strategist and ally Steve Bannon. Speaking on his War Room podcast on Tuesday, Bannon called Netanyahu a “bald-faced liar” and Israel a “protectorate”.
Appearing to address Netanyahu directly, Bannon continued, “You have the gall – particularly after what [Trump] did for you and the grief he’s taken over here – you have the gall … When he said, ‘This is what I’ve done, and I need you to be a partner, I need you to stand down first’, you lied to him. That’s why he’s furious”.
Gaza deal?
While Israel can put the conflict with Iran behind it – for now – the war on Gaza continues, with no sign of Israel finding an alternative force to Hamas to rule the enclave, and no deal to secure the release of the Israeli captives still held in the Palestinian territory.
That may put a wrench in any plans for Netanyahu to secure another term as prime minister in the short term.
“I’m not so sure about snap elections,” Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of parliament representing the Hadash-Ta’al Party, said.
“The polls are in Netanyahu’s favour, but it’s still not certain. I can’t see Netanyahu going to the polls with Gaza still going on,” she added, suggesting that the prime minister might wait for the summer parliamentary recess on July 26, when he would be freer to negotiate some kind of conclusion to the war on the enclave.
Based on Netanyahu’s attitude towards negotiations over the past 20 months, it is not clear that finding a deal to end the war on Gaza is something he wants. Instead, any deal is likely to require a significant push from Trump – if the US president wants to make one.
“I can’t see how Netanyahu can reach any kind of settlement in Gaza,” Goldberg said. “Everyone’s waiting for Trump to act again … Negotiations with Hamas may start again, but it’ll be Trump that imposes some kind of end to [the war].”
Rumours have been swirling that the YouTube star may replace dancer Bruno after making a great impression on his first series
Bruno Tonioli gives his honest verdict on fellow judge KSI(Image: Variety via Getty Images)
Guest judge KSI makes a return to tomorrow night’s Britain’s Got Talent amid rumours ITV are eyeing him up as a permanent fixture. He took a seat on the talent show panel for the first time this series, standing in for Bruno Tonioli when he was working in the US.
Not that Bruno feels threatened. He says he’s a huge fan of the YouTube star. “Well we’re both young, attractive, multi-talented stars, known the world over!” teased Bruno 69. “Joking aside, I think KSI is fantastic. I met him for the first time at the BGT auditions in Blackpool and he was such a delight.
The former Strictly Come Dancing favourite says show boss Simon, 65, has been keeping him on his toes all series.
“Simon is a very mischievous man,” says Bruno. “He always has been. When he has that glint in his eye, you know he’s about to be very cheeky. I think it’s partly this quality that makes him so watchable.
“It’s particularly exciting when the show is live – no one know what’s going to happen next and Simon loves that unpredictability – we all do!
“I have it easy when it comes to being wound up by Simon as I sit on the other end of the judges’ desk, it’s Amanda (Holden) I feel sorry for as she bears the brunt of his naughtiness the most. But she’s been sat next to him for so many years and she knows exactly how to handle him. She’s a pro!”
All five Britain’s Got Talent judges, and presenters Ant and Dec, will feature in tomorrow’s final(Image: ITV)
“That woman (Amanda) is a vision, as is Alesha,” Bruno enthuses. “Amanda and I share the same love of clothes and we both dare to bare. I’ll be baring it for as long as I’ve got it, darling. Well into my 70’s.
“The public always look forward to seeing what the girls are wearing, and they never disappoint. Sometimes I might look at Amanda’s outfit backstage and if her decolletage is deeper than mine, I’ll undo another button on my shirt!”
It was Manchester United captain Bruno Fernandes who stepped in to tell Ruben Amorim he was under pressure heading into the Europa League final.
The reality is different – even if Amorim can’t explain why.
But he does feel his team may be looked at “in a different way” if they can beat Tottenham in Bilbao on Wednesday.
While many believe it is likely counterpart Ange Postecoglou will lose his job even if Spurs end their 17-year wait for a trophy and claim a place in next season’s Champions League by winning the Europa League title, at Old Trafford faith in Amorim remains high.
This is despite United’s lowly Premier League position and there is no suggestion defeat by Tottenham will alter that view. It will though rob United of around £100m in revenue and leave them without European football for only the second time since English clubs were allowed back into competition by Uefa in 1990.
Asked why he is under no pressure, Amorim was about to answer when his captain and fellow Portuguese spoke instead.
“He is. Who told you he is not?” laughed Fernandes.
This brought an immediate riposte from Amorim: “He wants my job. He’ll be a very good coach but he has to work on his mindset. He doesn’t know how to deal with people.”
The manager added: “It’s strange because you have some coaches here that lose some games and they are sacked… it’s hard to explain.
“I think people see what we are trying to do, I think that people see that sometimes I’m thinking more about the club than myself.
“People understand, especially the board, that we have a lot of issues that in the context, is really hard.”
United may have only beaten Fulham of the non-relegated clubs in the Premier League since December, and taken two points from their last eight games to lie 16th in the table, but the club hierarchy believe Amorim is effecting change behind the scenes.
“There are a lot of things we need to change,” he said.
“They way we do everything during the week at Carrington, the recruitment, the academy. It is hard to point to one thing and it will not be solved by winning the cup.”
