Egypt has reopened its embassy in Libya’s capital, Tripoli, after a 12-year closure. The step signals a shift in Cairo’s stance, following years of strongly backing eastern-based military commander Khalifa Haftar.
Published On 8 Nov 20268 Nov 2026
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When I recall the great restaurants, culture and art found in Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo, one story that comes to mind is the tranquility and resilience of Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple.
The roughly 1½-acre parcel at the corner of 3rd Street and Central Avenue offers peace amid the noise and bustle of downtown. It’s an oasis I first learned about five years ago when an unknown vandal broke into the sanctuary and stole some lanterns while burning others and vandalizing the facility.
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The community ultimately rallied around its shrine, helping raise tens of thousands of dollars for repairs in time for the temple to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its Nov. 7, 1976 founding.
That sense of shared community and mission can be found throughout Little Tokyo, a theme easy to recognize in a feature written by my colleague Betty Hallock entitled “This must be Little Tokyo.”
Hallock jumps into the history of one of L.A.’s most vibrant neighborhoods and picks a few of the many places and experiences that make Little Tokyo unique. Let’s jump into a few of them.
(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)
Azay, a restaurant founded by the late chef Akira Hirose and run by his son Philip and wife, JoAnn, is one of the few places in Los Angeles serving traditional Japanese breakfast, and this one is stellar.
Composed of several small dishes, it feels like a celebration and draws a weekend crowd (reservations recommended). A wooden tray arrives at the table laden with jewel-like dishes such as grilled black cod and rolled omelet. Or order the daily bento or à la carte items, including custardy, savory chawanmushi or curry potato croquettes with shiso aioli.
Visit the family’s legacy shop next door, Anzen Hardware, for Japanese kitchen goods, knives and housewares. Philip Hirose also regularly programs community workshops and pop-ups.
Pro tip: Park all day in the Aiso Parking Garage across the street at 101 N. Judge John Aiso St., named after the first Japanese American to hold a judicial position in the continental U.S.
(Gary Coronado/For The Times)
Mexican American muralist Robert Vargas, who was born near Little Tokyo in Boyle Heights, painted a 150-foot image of baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani on the side of the 11-story Miyako Hotel, unveiled in the spring of 2024.
The painting, titled “L.A. Rising,” is meant to promote a cultural bridge between communities celebrating Dodgers pride. Vargas painted two versions of Ohtani, the best two-way player in Major League Baseball history (he’s the first to hit at least 50 home runs and steal at least 50 bases in a single season).
The mural shows Ohtani both pitching and hitting, and you can see him come to life by using an augmented reality feature. Scan a QR code located beneath the mural and point your phone camera at the image to see Ohtani swing the bat and pitch.
(Jeni Afuso/For The Times)
Gift shop Bunkado stands at the location of Little Tokyo’s beginning, where Hamanosuke Sugita opened a restaurant called Kame (which means “turtle,” a symbol of longevity) in 1884, the first Japanese-owned business in Los Angeles.
In 2022, the L.A. City Council commemorated the site and “the birth of Little Tokyo” with a plaque and street sign. Bunkado was founded in the same location in the mid-1940s by renowned Japanese American oil painter Tokio Ueyama and his wife, Suye, after they returned from incarceration in the World World II internment camps.
The name means “house of culture,” and the Ueyamas built an artists’ hub and eventually became important sellers and importers of recorded Japanese music. The store is now owned by their niece, Irene Tsukada Simonian, and sells Japanese ceramics, art tools, incense, toys, T-shirts and postcards.
Check out Hallock’s entire list.
(Jonathan Alcorn/For The Times)
(Illustrations by Lindsey Made This; photograph by Monica Schipper / Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)
Los Angeles food writer Carolynn Carreño believes the shift in the season marks an opportunity to embrace pumpkins this fall. Carreño’s twist, however, is telling her readers, who love fresh and organic ingredients, that it’s OK to use canned pumpkins. In fact, the canned product beats fresh when baking loaves, cookies and pancakes. She included several recipes here. Take a deep breath and try it out.
Construction platforms are visible beneath and on the sides of the Vincent Thomas Bridge as vehicles travel across the span above the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro. Caltrans is preparing for a 16-month closure of the bridge.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
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It wasn’t that long ago that campaign strategist Estevan Montemayor was an enthusiastic booster for Karen Bass.
During her first run for mayor in 2022, Montemayor was working with Communities United for Bass, a campaign committee that spent $6 million on television ads, text messages and other voter outreach efforts.
The 35-year-old political consultant took on another expensive outside campaign this year — this one to support Councilmember Nithya Raman and oppose Bass. Asked about the change in allegiances, he said he became disenchanted with the mayor over her handling of homelessness, the city budget and finally, the Palisades fire.
“That’s when I came to realize on a personal level that she was not capable of serving in an executive role,” Montemayor said.
Bass, a 22-year political veteran, spent much of her failed reelection campaign touting her ability to work with others. She locked down support from labor unions, business groups and immigration advocates. She frequently pointed out 14 members of the City Council lined up behind her and not for Raman, who won Tuesday’s election and will be sworn in next month.
Yet some of Bass’ political relationships disintegrated during her four-year term, at times in dramatic ways. Those key colleagues and supporters turned against her, then went on to help orchestrate her political demise.
Early on in Bass’ term, Los Angeles County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath supported the mayor’s work on homelessness and even introduced her at her State of the City address. But she eventually became one of Bass’ fiercest critics and, behind the scenes, encouraged Raman to run. Horvath publicly endorsed Raman two weeks before the election.
The Western States Regional Council of Carpenters put nearly $2.3 million into efforts to elect Bass four years ago, producing TV ads and campaign signs promoting her. This time around, the group sponsored a committee that spent five times that amount in support of Raman, posting content on the website “Burned by Bass.”
Then there’s Raman herself. The councilmember supported many of the mayor’s initiatives and campaigned with her while running for reelection in 2024. Even though she had endorsed Bass for mayor, she later launched her own last-minute mayoral bid, saying the city “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
Bass said she was blindsided.
“I didn’t have any reason to see it coming,” Bass replied when The Times asked about Raman’s decision to challenge her. “Why would I see it coming if somebody has publicly endorsed me?”
Supporters of Bass say that in some ways, she actually broadened her coalition this time around, drawing support from individuals and organizations who opposed her in 2022, including real estate developer Rick Caruso, her onetime opponent, and the Los Angeles Police Protective League.
Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez (D-Los Angeles), who endorsed Bass and campaigned with her, said it’s unfair to say that “because she lost a few friends, that that’s why she lost the race.”
“Losing the trust of her voters, that was the bigger loss,” Gonzalez said. “Voters basically did not feel that they were better off than they could have been or should have been.”
The opposition from Montemayor, the carpenters and other former supporters was just part of the struggle facing Bass as she waged her campaign. She had consistently high disapproval numbers that stemmed from key events during her administration.
The mayor faced voter outrage over the Palisades fire, which broke out in January 2025, destroying thousands of homes and leaving 12 people dead. Residents in Pacific Palisades voiced special fury that Bass left the country days earlier, as weather forecasts predicted dangerous winds and elevated fire conditions. But she also drew the ire of Boyle Heights residents exasperated over the noxious smells that lingered in the wake of a massive fire at a cold-storage warehouse.
Bass also attracted criticism over her handling of city spending — giving a series of raises to the workforce and then encountering a $1-billion shortfall, which led to the elimination of more than 1,500 vacant city jobs. One of those pay packages gave thousands of civilian city workers raises of about 24% over five years.
Then there was the mayor’s fight against homelessness. Bass made it a top priority from the outset, launching an expensive program to bring people indoors. By August, 42% of the program’s participants had returned to the street.
Bass declared a citywide emergency on homelessness on the day she took office, promising she would lock arms with the region’s political leaders, including the L.A. County Board of Supervisors.
Two years later, over Bass’ protest, the supervisors voted to pull nearly all of their money out of a joint city-county agency created to address the crisis.
Bass told The Times she was initially caught off guard by the supervisors’ proposal to remove the money and funnel it into a new county homelessness department.
Leading the charge was Horvath, who had served alongside Bass on regional homelessness boards. Horvath, appearing with Raman last month, dismissed the mayor’s messaging about relationship building, saying she “promised to lock arms but only demanded loyalty.”
On election night, Horvath said there wasn’t one specific moment when she turned against the mayor.
“I did put forward my best effort to build a relationship with the mayor. It wasn’t one issue,” she told The Times. “I mean, the truth is, this mayor has made clear she doesn’t respect the voices and perspectives of young people.”
Stuart Waldman, who heads the Los Angeles County Business Federation, offered a different take. He said Bass was good at cultivating relationships, meeting with business leaders and taking their calls. But in many instances, Bass would embrace a proposal only to have it languish in her office, he said.
“Bass would say she wanted to do something, and then it would end up in her staff’s hands and never see the light of day,” said Waldman, whose group supported Bass on Tuesday.
Last year, business leaders reached out to the mayor’s team to express their fears that the City Council’s plan to raise the minimum wage for hotel and airport workers to $30 per hour would wreak financial havoc on the city’s hospitality industry.
After the council approved the increases, those business leaders responded with a ballot proposal that sought to repeal the city’s business tax, which generates more than $800 million per year for city services. They used the measure as leverage to persuade the mayor and council to roll back the wage hike.
When Bass learned about the business tax repeal, she was “genuinely shocked at the depth of our frustration,” said Areen Ibranossian, a political strategist who represented hotels and airlines during the talks.
“It didn’t seem like she was aware of continued pleas from the business community on that issue,” he said.
Worried about losing the business tax and having to make huge cuts to city services, Bass and the council struck a deal to postpone the $30 wage hike by 18 months. Although business groups were pleased with the compromise, leaders of Unite Here Local 11, the hotel workers union, were furious.
The union, which supported Bass in 2022, endorsed Raman in August.
Kurt Petersen, co-president of Unite Here Local 11, cited the minimum wage rollback as one of the reasons his union abandoned Bass.
“She signed the law that took money out of people’s paychecks,” he said.
Petersen said his union knocked on 20,000 doors as part of Estamos Con Nithya, a pro-Raman campaign committee set up by the carpenters union. That group was also frustrated with Bass, saying she failed to require certain labor standards for construction workers in Executive Directive 1, her initiative to fast-track the construction of affordable housing.
“There were no labor standard requirements or worker protections in Karen Bass’s ED1, resulting in worker exploitation, including unpaid wages, cash pay, the use of unlicensed contractors, labor brokers and nonpayment of the LA city minimum wage,” said Pete Rodriguez, second general vice president with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, in a statement.
Alex Stack, a Bass spokesperson, said the requests being made by the carpenters would have driven up the cost of affordable housing production, while also slowing down approval at City Hall. A mayor’s job, he said, is to “do what’s right for all of Los Angeles, not just what group backs her.”
“She sat down with the Carpenters and Unite Here, listened, and made decisions that benefited L.A. — not just one particular group,” Stack said. “Nobody got everything they wanted. That’s what governing looks like.”
Montemayor, who had worked on the pro-Bass committee in 2022, supervised the carpenters’ campaign, spending nearly $12 million on efforts to promote Raman and tear down Bass. Prior to that, he had been Horvath’s chief of staff, overseeing the supervisor’s office during and after the Palisades fire.
In the wake of the disaster, tensions erupted between Horvath’s office and the mayor’s team. In a series of text messages, Horvath and Montemayor expressed frustration with Bass’ office over what they viewed as a lack of coordination and communication on the wildfire recovery efforts from City Hall.
At one point, Montemayor voiced irritation after the mayor’s team announced the removal of security checkpoints on Pacific Coast Highway, then reversed course amid an outcry. “What you have done is create more chaos not less,” Montemayor wrote.
Earlier this year, hours after Raman announced her surprise campaign to unseat Bass, Montemayor posted an image from “Game of Thrones” on Instagram, one that serves as a shorthand for icy revenge: “Tell Cersei .. I want her to know it was me.”
On election night, when Bass was starting to trail Raman in the vote count, Montemayor posted the meme again.
Richard Lloyd, the fiery guitarist of the influential New York rock band Television, has died. He was 75.
Lloyd died on Saturday in Chattanooga, Tenn., from cholangiocarcinoma, a bile duct cancer, according to a statement from Lloyd’s family to the New York Times.
Lloyd’s contributions to Television — a proto-punk band with intricate hailstorms of guitar — helped make them one of the city’s most important if briefly tenured bands. In a time when peers such as the New York Dolls and Velvet Underground were upending rock and roll with glamour and arty disaffection, Television fulfilled the genre’s promises of both swaggering virtuosity and restless reinvention.
Lloyd, born Richard John Alt in Pittsburgh, moved to New York City with his mother and grew up in Greenwich Village. He attended Manhattan’s acclaimed Stuyvesant High School, but dropped out to pursue music.
Television formed in 1973 after Lloyd met front man Tom Verlaine, then-bassist Richard Hell and drummer Billy Ficca through Terry Ork, an Andy Warhol scenester who managed the legendary film bookstore and memorabilia shop Cinemabilia, where Verlaine and Hell worked. The band was an outlier at the grimy local country and bluegrass dive bar CBGB (the members had to convince owner Hilly Kristal to book them). Yet the group would help transform that club and Max’s Kansas City into hubs for punk bands and the avant-garde such as Blondie, the Ramones and Talking Heads.
While sharing little in common with dueling-guitar acts such as the Allman Brothers Band or ’70s contemporaries the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, Television also drew its power from the preternatural rapport between Verlaine and Lloyd’s instruments. With its oblique lyricism and jazz-infused chords, layered over a twitchy rhythm section and 10-minute-long jams, Television was unlikely to be a commercial hit.
Yet the band impressed peers such as Lou Reed and David Bowie, and signed to the major label Elektra. Its 1977 debut LP “Marquee Moon” is universally considered a rock masterpiece, landing at No. 107 on Rolling Stone’s ranking of the top albums of all time. The dramatic trills of “Venus” and moaning peals of “Torn Curtain” showcased Lloyd’s natural guitar language with Verlaine, adding up to an unmistakable and irreplaceable sound.
The band released one follow-up, 1978’s “Adventure.” But Lloyd, who had long struggled with mental health issues, was also suffering from drug addiction, and conflicts with Verlaine led to the band’s breakup.
Lloyd would go on to have a robust solo career, with nine albums under his own name, and performances on records by Matthew Sweet and John Doe of the punk band X. Television briefly reunited to perform at the 1992 Glastonbury Festival, and released a new self-titled album the same year.
Beyond its own career, Television became a key inspiration for Sonic Youth and Geese, which shared Television’s downtown panache and coils of guitar noise.
Lloyd’s survivors include his wife, Sheila, his brother, Eric and his son, Dylan.
From the time I met a guy playing a violin near Pershing Square in 2005, and followed him to the Skid Row slab of pavement where he spent his nights, I’ve listened closely to what mayors promised to do about homelessness in Los Angeles.
All of them were going to fix the problem.
Antonio Villaraigosa.
Eric Garcetti.
Karen Bass.
None of them came close.
Each of those mayors invested vast sums of money and manpower and each of them made inroads. To be fair, they collectively helped thousands of people turn their lives around. But the problem is not finite, the waves keep coming, and more than 40,000 people are currently homeless in the city.
That’s one of the primary reasons Mayor-elect Nithya Raman will get a chance to do what her predecessors could not. In the most recent year of accounting, homelessness increased slightly in the city but declined significantly in Raman’s council district.
So Bass is out, and Raman is in after a contentious campaign in which Raman attacked the Bass strategy (which she helped implement) as too costly and ineffective.
“Here’s my promise,” Raman said in a video on her campaign website. “When I’m mayor, we’ll cut tents and encampments in half by the Olympics, and bring everyone in tents and encampments indoors by the end of my first term.”
Really?
Bear with me, because I’m about to explain why I have some hope that Raman might do a better job on homelessness than her predecessors. But I cringe when I hear such grandiose proclamations.
Why?
In 2006, I attended a Skid Row news conference where a gaggle of politicians including Villaraigosa touted a 10-year plan to end homelessness in L.A. County.
In 2013, Garcetti vowed to end chronic homeless, and in 2018, he said: “We can cut this problem in half in five years. And in 10 years … we can end life on the street.”
In 2023, Bass told a CNN audience that by the end of her term as mayor: “My goal would be, really, to end street homelessness. … There’ll still be people in shelters and interim housing, but to at least not have people dying on our streets.”
Have you noticed how these kinds of amped-up promises have played out?
I don’t mean to discourage lofty goals, but we’ve been let down time after time, feeding cynicism. We’re just looking for significant progress, not a miracle.
The hard truth is that homelessness is the result of a raft of problems beyond any mayor’s full control. It begins with an economy built for stark disparity, with the crippling cost of housing, and with untreated mental illness and drug addiction. A mayor can’t magically clear the decks without help from federal, state and county allies, and from strong partnerships on the City Council.
But none of that excuses the paltry returns on big investments. Mayor Bass’ Inside Safe program moved about 6,000 people into motels and other forms of interim housing as of this past spring at a cost of $300 million, and 41% of them had returned to homelessness by the end of May.
Raman wants to mothball that program and use short-term rental vouchers she claims will be far less expensive and more effective. She wants to open doors for City Controller Kenneth Mejia to audit every dollar spent on homelessness. She says she’ll demand a full accounting of county services, use Medi-Cal funds for more street medicine teams, invest in shared housing and case management.
“City Hall has put together a patchwork of programs, agencies, and dollars that were never required to prove they work together, or work at all,” Raman says on her homelessness strategy page. “No agency or program has been required to demonstrate results. No department or office has been put in charge of monitoring the spending.”
Putting a plan on paper is one thing. Pushing it through the teeth of the City Hall grinder without the wholesale shredding of good intentions is a tougher trick. And it remains to be seen whether Raman can wrangle the support of council members who shunned her and unanimously endorsed Bass.
But Raman has a few things going for her, including a penchant for defying expectations. She blitzed two incumbents, first to win a council seat and then to bounce Bass. Then there’s her urban planning education and her work as one of the co-founders of the SELAH Neighborhood Homeless Coalition. That gave her a street-level study of the challenge as well as the disjointed government response, and she then led the City Council’s homelessness committee.
“I think that situational awareness” will serve her well, said Louis Abramson, a Hollywood resident and Rand researcher who serves as chair of the SELAH board. “She’ll be able to argue from a perspective of expertise.”
Abramson is also hoping Raman will be able to deliver more affordable housing.
“She’s … proven to be uniquely tolerant of the political risks of being a YIMBY, of making Los Angeles a place that can fit everybody who wants to live here,” Abramson said.
At SELAH, and in Raman’s council district, building meaningful relationships with clients has been a central mission. That’s not always fast or easy. Some people are ready to reach for a helping hand; others are severely damaged in multiple ways, and it takes time.
I learned long ago that recovery is not linear. Sometimes it’s one step forward and two steps back. And as one social worker suggested to me, we’re so preoccupied with getting people in the front door, we barely notice when they slip out the back door.
Reversing homelessness does not end with a temporary address. Long-term case management is critical, and so is a sense of purpose and belonging. The formerly homeless people I recently met at Chrysalis, all of them working now, and all of them housed, were a testament to this idea.
I’d love to see Raman find more ways to turn able-bodied homeless people into a workforce that can help address the city’s many needs. I’d love to see her encourage more people to contribute by volunteering for organizations like SELAH, or for faith-based groups and non-profits.
Nathaniel Ayers works on music in his nursing home quarters, inspired by fellow Cleveland native Halle Berry.
(Steve Lopez / Los Angeles Times)
In the case of my friend Nathaniel, the musician, it took me, his friends in the L.A. Phil and various outreach workers a year to convince him to move indoors 21 years ago. He is in a nursing home now, where he listens to music for hours every day and has kept a gallery of photos on his wall, including Beethoven, Bach, and another person with a “B” last name.
Actress Halle Berry.
“She’s beautiful,” Nathaniel said one day when we were going over a list of famous people from Cleveland, his hometown, and he decided that Berry deserved a prominent place on his wall of fame.
My relationship with Nathaniel, Abramson said, “is not an ancillary thing. It is THEE thing. I have come to believe that the human relationship is the necessary pre-condition to this working out.”
True enough, we are too predisposed to think of the ongoing human catastrophe in purely statistical terms. But there’s more truth in people’s stories than in their status, and more community buy-in when we recognize ourselves in each other.
For the 40,000 Nathaniels of Los Angeles, and nearly 4 million of their neighbors, here’s hoping the next mayor of Los Angeles can make a difference.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
PHOENIX — Democrats in Arizona won control of both legislative chambers and retained the governor’s office, giving the party its first trifecta in the state since 1966 as Democrats made major gains nationwide in this week’s elections and took control of both chambers of Congress.
In her first term, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs had vetoed more than 540 measures passed by the Republican-led Legislature on policies including taxes, immigration and voting laws. Hobbs has said she’s looking to address water issues and affordability, and take on fraud and abuse in the state’s school voucher program.
The Associated Press called enough legislative races to confirm that both chambers flipped on Friday. The news organization calls races individually and it can take several days after voting, depending on when election officials tally the votes and how close the elections are. There have not been major disputes or disruptions this year.
In Arizona, Republicans have held the House for 60 years and the Senate since the early 1990s.
Attendees during the Arizona Democratic Party election night event in Phoenix on Tuesday.
(Cassidy Araiza / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Overall, Democrats took full control — both statehouse chambers and governors’ offices — in at least six states where they previously shared power with Republicans. Besides Arizona, those wins were in the battleground states of Michigan, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin.
The flips weren’t just in states that are normally competitive. Democrats won control of the Texas House, which Republicans have held since 2003, and elected Gina Hinojosa as the state’s first Democratic governor since Ann Richards in the 1990s. Republicans held on to the state Senate.
Democrats also flipped the lower chambers of the legislatures in Maine and North Carolina and both chambers in New Hampshire, where Republican Kelly Ayotte was reelected. The count could grow as results are tallied in additional states.
The National Council of State Legislatures says it’s likely to end up as the election with the most legislative seats and chambers changing parties since the 2010 election, when Republicans took over governments across the country amid the Great Recession.
Democrats will also hold the governor’s office in at least 28 states. Results are still pending in Alaska and Kansas.
As the clock ticks down for the Senate to pass the so-called Sunshine Protection Act to mandate year-round daylight saving time in most of the United States, President Trump on Wednesday said he planned to “keep fighting” for the change.
In July, the House, in a lopsided bipartisan vote, approved a measure to make year-round daylight saving time the default for most of the United States. But its companion bill remains stalled in the Senate.
“Too bad the Senate has not yet approved the Sunshine Protection Act or, the I Don’t Want to Change My Clocks Anymore Act,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Daylight saving time ended on Sunday, Nov. 1, meaning clocks in most of the United States fell back one hour at 2 a.m. Daylight saving time will begin again on March 14, 2027, unless the bill passes both chambers and is signed by Trump before then.
In his post, Trump lamented that it was dark by 5:31 p.m. “Just a few days ago it was so nice and sunny at this same time,” he said.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this prior to the Election because I didn’t want to have certain Senators lose their Race, in a landslide, but it is too bad they can’t get it done,” Trump said.
Trump continued: “We have far bigger priorities, but I will keep fighting for this!”
Although permanent daylight saving time would mean brighter winter evenings, it would also mean darker winter mornings.
If the legislation were to pass, Los Angeles would see its latest sunrise of the year at 8 a.m. Sacramento would see sunrise as late as 8:24 a.m., and San Francisco as late as 8:25 a.m.
The debate over timekeeping has pitted some golf course owners — who argue that later sunsets are good for business as it gives people more daylight to play golf after work — against doctors, who say the darker mornings and brighter evenings of permanent daylight saving time weaken the circadian clock for many people.
Trump owns golf courses across the United States, including in New Jersey, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
At times, the debate has turned ugly. In October, Trump appeared to share the cellphone number of a vocal critic of the legislation, Sen. Tom Cotton telling his supporters to contact the Arkansas Republican.
Cotton has long argued that the late sunrises in the winter would mean students would need to walk to school in the dark and risk being struck by drivers — as was the case in 1974 when the U.S. briefly adopted year-round daylight saving time to combat an energy crisis.
Arizona resident Jay Pea, a former software engineer and the founder of the nonprofit Save Standard Time, also wants to put an end to the twice-annual clock adjustments.
But he’s not a fan of permanent daylight saving time, which he said would particularly burden outdoor workers, such as construction crews, farmers and groundskeepers, who would probably have to start their days in the dark.
“It makes you get up one hour earlier. It makes you start work in school one hour earlier,” Pea told The Times on Thursday. “Nobody’s calling up his congressman and saying, ‘Hey, can you make me go to work an hour earlier? Can you make me set my alarm an hour earlier?’ But that’s what DST [daylight saving time] does.”
Pea favors year-round standard time. It keeps clocks aligned with the sun, he said. He supports an alternative proposal, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act, which was introduced in July by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.).
The proposal would make standard time the default year-round but give states the ability to opt out. That legislation remains stalled in the House, according to Pea.
Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II contributed reporting.
Matt Damon revealed that his wife of more than 20 years, Luciana “Lucy” Barroso, suffered a brain aneurysm.
The revelation came during an interview with GQ, when “The Odyssey” star opened up about a time he felt a tinge of FOMO watching the Oscars from bed with his wife and then-newborn baby.
It was the 79th Academy Awards in 2007 and Martin Scorsese was nominated for best director for “The Departed,” which was also up for best picture. Damon portrays a corrupt police officer in the film.
“Lucy and I were laying in bed watching it and so nervous for Marty,” he told the magazine. “And then when he won, I was jumping up and down in the bedroom and I remember being really excited. And then the next category was best picture, and The Departed won. And I realized in that moment I hadn’t even considered that that could happen. And I turned to Lucy and I was like, ‘S—, we should be there!’ … I totally blew it.”
After the experience, Damon said his wife wouldn’t let him miss out again, even in the wake of serious medical trauma.
In 2024, “Oppenheimer” was up for best picture. In the movie, Damon plays Col. Leslie R. Groves, head of the Manhattan Project. The film won the award, and this time, Barroso had a surprise in store, an Oscar-worthy dress ready to go for the big night even though she’d just had surgery after suffering a brain aneurysm.
“She’s totally fine, thank God,” he said. “But [she] had this brain surgery the week before the Oscars. But it was the first night she felt good enough to get up and had her energy back. And she surprised me and got a dress and we went out to the after-party, because she remembered that the last time it happened, I didn’t do it. And she was like, ‘This time we’re going out.’ And it was pretty f— heroic of her to do that and really meaningful.”
The Argentine-born Barroso and Damon tied the knot back in 2005. They had met two years earlier, and during a 2011 appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” Damon said that meeting his wife was a complete stroke of luck.
He was filming “Stuck on You” in 2002, with the Farrelly brothers at the helm. “We were supposed to shoot in Hawaii, and then the movie got moved to Miami . . . and I’d never really hung out in Miami,” he told DeGeneres, adding that in the middle of the shoot a couple of the guys from the crew invited him to grab a beer at a local watering hole. “They kind of dragged me along, and we ended up at a bar where my wife was the bartender, and I literally saw her across a crowded room, literally.
“And eight years and four kids later, that’s my life,” he joked. “I don’t know how else our paths would have crossed if that didn’t happen.”
NEW YORK — New York appeals judges grilled President Trump’s lawyers and prosecutors Thursday about his bid to erase his historic hush money conviction, but the court didn’t signal how or when it would rule.
The judges delved into legal theory, presidential immunity and some evidence in Trump’s 2024 trial. Convicted of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records to obscure a $130,000 payment to adult film performer Stormy Daniels, Trump denies any wrongdoing. He has turned to state and federal courts in hopes of unwinding the verdict.
Trump, who denounced the case on social media as recently as September, didn’t attend Thursday’s court session.
Much of the back-and-forth focused on prosecutors’ theory that the hush money was meant to keep unflattering information about Trump away from the electorate before the 2016 vote, and that it amounted to an illegal campaign contribution under the Federal Election Campaign Act.
Trump lawyer Robert Giuffra Jr. told the judges that Manhattan Dist. Atty. Alvin Bragg’s office has no place tying a case to a federal election law.
“We think it’s the most obvious ground for reversal,” he said.
Prosecutors argued that they weren’t prosecuting an alleged federal campaign finance offense, but rather presenting it as a factor underlying what they claim was a Trump-orchestrated conspiracy.
“So are you relying upon FECA in order to prove your falsifying business records [charge]?” Justice Troy Webber asked.
“Only partially,” replied Bragg’s appeals chief, Steven Wu, adding that it was “important only to show that the purpose for the falsifying business records here was to conceal that conspiracy.”
Judges drill down on question about White House conversations
The appeal also concerns whether jurors should have been allowed to hear testimony about supposed White House workflow and conversations — some with then-Communications Director Hope Hicks — and even Trump social media posts during his first term. His lawyers cite presidential immunity for official acts, and they argue his official conduct included responding to the Daniels drama once it became public in 2018.
“Ms. Hicks was serving as a White House official,” talking with the president about how to respond to press inquiries that implicitly concerned his fitness for office, Giuffra told the appeals judges.
Wu countered later: “In this conversation, they were not speaking about a press response. … The president was talking to her about his private opinion.”
The appeals judges pressed both sides about the matter and the specifics of Hicks’ testimony. She told jurors that she asked Trump how he wanted to respond, but as for what he said, she testified only that he expressed relief that the Daniels story hadn’t emerged during the campaign.
Bragg’s office contends that all the White House-related evidence was fair game. The conversations were “unofficial conduct,” some of the other evidence was public record, and some was a general description of office practices, prosecutors say. They maintain that even if some of the evidence should have been excluded, its admission was a “harmless error” that doesn’t warrant overturning a conviction that rested on “a mountain” of other proof against Trump.
Justice Bahaati E. Pitt-Burke wondered aloud about that.
“If you take all of those things cumulatively, right, and there’s a problem with this evidence, there’s a problem with this evidence, at what point … does it stop being harmless error and turn into something else?” she asked.
“It would have to be a lot more than there was in this case,” Wu responded.
Trump’s lawyers also have argued the case was political
While the appeal turns on complex legal disputes, political overtones aren’t hard to find. The very first paragraph of one of the Trump team’s court filings contended that the case was the flimsy product of “immense political pressure” on a Democratic prosecutor to go after Trump — rhetoric that echoes the Republican president’s own oft-repeated claims in the court of public opinion.
The May 2024 verdict made Trump the first former — and now current — U.S. president with a criminal conviction. Though historic, it didn’t impede his return to the White House or subject him to any punishment.
The trial involved $130,000 that Daniels got from Trump’s then-fixer and lawyer, Michael Cohen, weeks before the 2016 election. The money bought, for a time, her silence about an alleged sexual encounter with the married Trump a decade earlier. He says that nothing sexual happened between them.
Trump’s company reimbursed Cohen in 2017, logging those payments as legal expenses.
Trump’s lawyers argue there’s only “weak” evidence that he even knew about Cohen’s dealings at the time. His trial attorneys also said that payments to Cohen were indeed legal expenses, and that any hush money expended on Trump’s behalf wasn’t hidden campaign spending, just an effort to avoid embarrassing his family.
The distinction matters because, under New York law, falsifying business records isn’t a felony unless it’s done with an intent to commit or conceal a separate crime.
While pursuing his state appeal, Trump also has been trying to shift the case to federal court and have it dismissed on immunity grounds. A federal judge said no — for the third time — in August. Trump’s attorneys are appealing that decision, with arguments set for Nov. 16.
Peltz and Sisak write for the Associated Press.
Carmelo Anthony and La La Anthony (née Vázquez) reportedly have reached a settlement agreement after almost a decade-long split.
Although terms of the separation are confidential, there was a pending judgment of divorce that needed approval from the New York County Supreme Court as of Wednesday, according to People.
Once the former MTV VJ and the NBA star receive the official imprint from a judge, they’ll be newly minted singles.
La La filed for divorce from the NBA star back in 2021, citing irreconcilable differences, according to TMZ, which first reported on the settlement Wednesday.
The couple began dating in 2003 after being introduced through a mutual friend, DJ Clue. They became engaged on Christmas Day 2004 and three years later welcomed their son, Kiyan Anthony, now a 19-year-old sophomore at Syracuse University, where he is playing college basketball.
The two tied the knot in July 2010 in a New York ceremony with hundreds of guests, among them sports and entertainment stars including LeBron James, Spike Lee, Serena Williams, Ciara, Kim Kardashian and Ludacris, The Times reported.
Reports of their separation surfaced in April 2017, and by August of that year, Carmelo had welcomed a daughter with ex Mia Burks.
Although the Anthonys reconciled in late 2018, they ultimately called it quits in July 2019, according to People.
La La was already using a divorce label despite it not yet being official.
In a 2022 episode of Alex Cooper’s “Call Her Daddy” podcast, La La opened up about her split from Carmelo, saying that there were still difficult moments, especially regarding the co-parenting of Kiyan.
“I learned how strong I am,” she said when asked about what she’d learned from the divorce. “You just find yourself getting stronger and stronger. What do they say? Like you don’t know how strong you are until being strong is your only option.”
La La also shared that the demise of their marriage began around the time that Carmelo was traded from the Denver Nuggets to the New York Knicks in 2011.
At the time of the 2022 interview, she shared that her perspective on love had changed. “I just don’t know if it’s in the cards for me,” she said on the podcast.
However, in a more recent October interview on “The Jennifer Hudson Show,” she revealed she was “open” to dating and that this was her “season of being open” for someone who is confident and adventurous.
As for the NBA Hall of Famer, he was rumored to be dating Racquel Smith, the widow of former NFL defensive end Will Smith. The two were seen together in June.
For Democrats, one of the most delicious ironies of their historic victory in Tuesday’s midterms is that they won many of the congressional districts President Trump and his allies had recently redrawn to favor Republicans.
As the results rolled in on Tuesday evening, one after another of those gerrymandered Republican “safe” districts in Texas, Florida, North Carolina and Alabama got swamped by the overwhelming blue wave.
Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom led the charge to push back against Trump’s initiative and redraw as many districts as possible in favor of Democrats. On Wednesday, he bragged on X, “We fought fire with fire. And won.”
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While it’s all laughter and high-fives for Democrats now, it’s worth remembering that in the summer of 2025 they were in utter despair.
It seemed they had no hope of winning the Senate in 2026. Their razor-thin chances of retaking the House appeared to be dissolving as Republicans simply broke out their Sharpies and started doodling on maps.
Congressional districts are typically adjusted once a decade, after each census. The idea is to reflect where people actually live and distribute representation accordingly.
Redrawing the maps mid-decade was a norm-busting move by Trump and his allies who made little effort to hide that it was a naked bid to tighten the president’s grip on power. He seemed to revel in Democrats’ shock and dismay.
While others were wringing their hands and writing think pieces about the fate of democracy — as Democrats tend to do — Newsom made what felt to many like an indecent proposal.
What if California, the country’s most populous state with the most congressional districts, just as cynically redrew its maps to favor Democrats?
But there was a catch: Californians had voted for a ballot proposition in 2008 to take such gamesmanship out of politicians’ hands and entrust the drawing of the maps to a (hopefully) independent, nonpartisan citizens commission. Newsom would need to get voters to approve a new proposition to change the rules.
Local conservatives were outraged.
“Gov. Gavin Newsom’s political ambitions have reached a new low. In his efforts to look like a ‘fighter’ ahead of a potential run for the presidency in 2028, he’s willing to ignore democratic rules in pursuit of political aims,” wrote Lanhee J. Chen, a former Republican candidate for state controller, in the Los Angeles Times.
Even fellow Democrats had serious misgivings, calling Newsom’s plan obviously “retaliatory,” “misguided” and a “moral conflict.”
They were right, of course — it was all of those things. But voters approved the new maps, and it worked.
Californians elected Democrats in all five of the state’s redrawn districts, after Democrat Marni von Wilpert won in what had been the lone holdout, Republican Darrell Issa’s old haunt in San Diego and Riverside counties.
From the start, Newsom understood the moral murkiness of his maneuver and included a provision returning map-drawing to the independent commission after the 2030 census.
Will that actually happen? Time will tell.
But as his party’s victory became obvious on Tuesday night, he didn’t exactly take the high road and start talking about mending fences.
In response to a post on X about Republican losses in districts reworked by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Newsom replied simply: “RON CAN’T DRAW!”
Los Angeles mayoral candidate Nithya Raman embraces her brother, Akash Raman, during her election night bash at the Greek Theatre plaza.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
(Joao Fazenda / For The Times)
(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)
With Thanksgiving only weeks away, now is a good time to perfect your favorite recipes that feature sweet potatoes. This sweet potato bread recipe is a good place to start. You can use any leftover sweet potato you have on hand, whether roasted or steamed, or you can microwave until tender a whole one that’s been pricked with a fork, about five minutes on high. Canned sweet potato works, though the bread will be a touch less flavorful.
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Los Angeles resident Aline Argueta, 18, celebrates after casting her vote for the first time at the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights (CIHRLA) Flex Voting Center in Los Angeles.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
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The only grandchild of celebrated civil rights leaders Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King just voted for the first time, and she says she wants to lead the way her grandparents did.
Yolanda Renee King took a break from her social justice studies at Columbia University in New York City to return to her hometown of Atlanta to vote in the 2026 midterm elections alongside her parents, Martin Luther King III and Arndrea Waters King. The occasion was a momentous one for Yolanda, who turned 18 in May. “It’s such a full-circle moment,” she told ABC. “Finally, I can actually go.
“For such a long time, I would always tell people the importance of voting, but I could never participate myself as a voter firsthand,” she said. “But now I think it’s so special that I have a say.”
Yolanda King, who penned the children’s book “We Dream a World: Carrying the Light From My Grandparents” back in 2024, has been especially busy this year, putting out calls to action for fellow teens who are now eligible to vote — in the media, on Instagram, and even at the Lincoln Memorial in August, for the 63rd anniversary of the March on Washington, where she spoke during the “Defend the Vote” rally.
According to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, close to 50 million youth ages 18 to 29 are eligible to cast ballots, including more than 8 million newly eligible voters since the 2024 election. Although data are still being collected, at the time this article was published, 66% of that group of voters cast their ballot for a Democratic candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives, compared with 31% for a Republican candidate. And 11% of all votes in the 2026 midterms were cast by young voters.
In an op-ed published by Teen Vogue on Monday, King wrote of the unique challenges she sees her generation facing including inflation, immigration enforcement, climate change, the rising cost of education paired with dwindling hopes for homeownership, restrictive voting policies and more. “The cost of living is reaching a breaking point, as a war in Iran continues with seemingly no solution in sight,” she wrote. “And the rise of AI brings a kind of uncertainty to jobs and the environment that no one has known before.
“This doesn’t take anything away from what came before us,” she continued. “My grandparents’ generation faced segregation, violence, and jail cells, and their challenges were staggering. But our time is ours, and so is what we feel living through it.”
King said that she felt the weight of those challenges in August, when she spoke at the same place, on the same day, where Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963. “It wasn’t just about using my voice; it was about my first vote,” she wrote. “And it felt like my grandparents were right there with me, whispering: ‘It’s your turn.’
“I want to lead the way they did. But know I am still learning.”
King’s mother posted CNN coverage of her daughter’s first vote on Instagram, writing alongside the clip that the election day was a personal one for the family. “The little girl whose hand we held is stepping into a responsibility her grandparents — and so many others — sacrificed so much to secure. … There is something deeply moving about watching your child take her place in a story that began long before her.”
King’s father commented on the post as well, sharing words from his own dad: “My father said, ‘A voteless people is a powerless people.’ When [Yolanda] was little, we took her to the polls with us, and she’d wear our ‘I voted’ stickers and pretend she’d voted too. This morning on CNN, she shared why she’s finally ready to use her own voice, especially now that the Voting Rights Act has been hollowed out. There is nothing more powerful than our vote.”
Melissa Rycroft has broken her silence following her Halloween arrest.
The “Bachelor” and “Dancing With the Stars” reality television star wants fans to know “how deeply ashamed and embarrassed” she is after Southlake, Texas, police arrested her for allegedly driving while intoxicated, colliding with an ambulance and fleeing the scene on Saturday. The incident comes just months after the mom of three pleaded guilty to a separate DWI charge and agreed to serve 20 months of probation.
The former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader issued a mea culpa on Instagram on Tuesday, writing, “I want to share something personal, and to be honest, I am very ashamed to share it, but I can’t hide it anymore. I’ve been struggling with my mental health for quite some time now. It has completely overwhelmed me. I’ve tried to hide what I’ve been going through by putting on a smile, but behind the scenes, things have been much harder than anyone realized or that I have let on, even to my family.”
According to the Southlake Police Department, Rycroft allegedly collided with a Southlake Fire Department ambulance that was sitting at a stop sign just before 6 p.m. A short time later, officers tracked down the “hit-and-run vehicle” and identified the driver as Rycroft. While no injuries were reported, she was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, second offense; an accident involving damage of more than $200; and driving with an invalid license.
In Rycroft’s statement, she said that she was pursuing professional help. “No excuses at all, but I’m finally admitting that I need help. I’ve fought this for a long time on my own, and it’s time to admit that I can’t do it anymore,” she wrote. “I’m getting professional care. This is so hard to say and the shame is still very much there, but I’m ready to feel like myself again, for me and for my family. They have stood by me through all of this, and they deserve honesty. They deserve me at my best. That’s what I’m working toward for all of us.”
The TV personality then asked her followers to give her grace as she tries to get healthy. “And please respect my family’s privacy as they navigate this with me, too,” she added.
California is about to enter the “Becerra era,” though the governor-elect who coined that phrase has dropped few hints about what will define it.
After a decisive Tuesday night victory in the race to succeed termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, Xavier Becerra will take the helm with a slate of potential economic opportunities: luring back Hollywood production, drawing international visitors to the 2028 Olympic Games, implementing voter-approved housing bonds and responsibly growing the artificial intelligence industry.
But a long list of challenges awaits: grappling with worst-in-the-nation unemployment, solving the housing crisis, and preparing for and responding to seemingly endless fires, floods and other natural disasters.
The optimistic 68-year-old told supporters gathered for his campaign party in West Sacramento that his mission is to “deliver a California we can afford and defend a California we can’t afford to lose.”
“Here’s the good news,” Becerra, a Democrat, told the packed and cheering crowd. “Californians don’t expect a miracle from government; they just want government that works. A government that can build things. A government that keeps our streets clean and schools safe. Basic services delivered on time and on budget.”
Easier said than done.
“With billion-dollar deficits on the horizon … he’s going to be limited in his ability to break new ground,” said Steven Maviglio, a Democratic strategist who worked for former Gov. Gray Davis. “He’d be playing catchup on a lot of things.”
Becerra’s victory arrived during a monumental night for Democrats, who won control of the U.S. Senate and House in a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration.
California’s first directly elected Latino governor joined a wave of historic gubernatorial firsts, including Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, who will become the nation’s first Black female governor, and New Mexico Democrat Deb Haaland, the first Native American woman elected to lead a state. Voters in Florida, Nevada and Wisconsin also picked their first Black governors while Texans selected their first Latina.
After a surprising emergence from a brutal top-two primary in June, and with Republican Steve Hilton placing second, Becerra sailed to election as Newsom’s successor. In a state where registered Democrats vastly outnumber Republicans, the matchup nearly guaranteed the former congressman, state attorney general and Biden Cabinet secretary would win.
By the time former Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race following sexual assault allegations (which he has denied), many of California’s liberal kingmakers had already made their picks in the governor’s race — and they weren’t Becerra, who was not even included in a four-way endorsement from the California Federation of Labor Unions.
Newsom won his 2018 gubernatorial primary with the help of the California Nurses Assn. He also secured backing from the powerful California Teachers Assn. after pledging to pause new charter schools and strengthen oversight.
Though Democrats flocked to support Becerra as he rapidly ascended in the primary election polls, he won largely without help from unions or influential organizations such as the California Medical Assn.
“A lot of those constituencies didn’t support him until he looked inevitable,” said Republican strategist Rob Stutzman, an alumnus of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. “So he doesn’t owe a lot of people anything for any role they played in his campaign.”
Still, Becerra, who grew up in a working-class immigrant family, has shown a personal interest in allying with organized labor. He gave shout-outs to union locals at campaign events and has credited his father’s union construction job for giving his family of six access to healthcare while he was growing up in Sacramento.
Governors can’t please everyone, particularly when state funding is limited. Lobbyists, lawmakers and special-interest leaders will watch closely how the affable Becerra prioritizes his first budget proposal — due days after he takes office on Jan. 4 — for hints about his agenda.
California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton concedes the race Tuesday evening to Xavier Becerra at the Hyatt Regency Orange County in Garden Grove.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Though light on specifics, Becerra made his priorities clear during his campaign. He plans to declare a housing emergency and speed up construction. He will take the baton from Newsom on the thorny question of who is financially responsible when megafires burn. And he wants to ensure there are no disruptions to Medi-Cal coverage, a herculean task with as much as $30 billion in federal cuts looming.
Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas (D-Hollister), a Becerra ally, said he has had “ongoing conversations” throughout the campaign about the incoming governor’s agenda, though he declined to elaborate.
“He certainly asked a lot of questions. He’s come to the Assembly Democratic Caucus already, engaged with members to begin that conversation and build those relations,” Rivas said. “We’ve been laser-focused on affordability and we’re going to continue to do more work in that space.”
Becerra said he would look closely at regulatory reform to lower housing and business costs.
It could be a small needle for the governor-elect to thread. Regulatory reform could mean easing some environmental protections.
Environmentalists flex considerable muscle in the state and found an ally in Newsom, though the outgoing governor’s aggressive climate agenda ran into affordability and federal challenges in recent years.
Becerra may also be sympathetic to environmental justice communities — poorer neighborhoods, often of color — that have experienced disproportionately negative effects from extraction industries such as oil drilling and mining.
He vigorously defended the state’s environmental rules as attorney general and has credited them with improving air quality and the coasts. During the only debate of the general election, Becerra criticized Hilton for proposing to unleash new oil drilling in the state.
“He wants to, he said it himself, ‘Drill, baby, drill,’” he said during a September CNN debate. “Steve, you weren’t living here in California at the time. You weren’t living in America at the time. We went through that experience. We don’t want to see our coastline damaged.”
“For it to be meaningful, there would have to be substantial regulatory resets, recalculating — I would say even updating and modernizing — some of the climate policies to make sure that they’re affordable,” said Stutzman. Schwarzenegger, his former boss, ushered in the state’s landmark cap-and-invest program, which aims to reduce planet-warming emissions.
Hilton conceded the race to Becerra but told supporters gathered at his party that he would work to break the Legislature’s Democratic supermajority in 2028. His team issued this statement in advance of a news conference scheduled for Thursday: “The election is over, but the desire for change is not.”
Becerra is expected to bring a much different governing style than Newsom. In an interview with KQED days before his election, Becerra named Govs. Pat and Jerry Brown as inspirations, citing the younger Brown’s fiscal expertise and the elder’s work to build infrastructure and grow the University of California.
“After eight years of showmanship, it will be refreshing to have a governor who actually focuses on the issues facing the state instead of his own ambition,” Maviglio said.
Three days after being carted off the field with a neck injury, Detroit Lions linebacker Jack Campbell provided a health update.
It was good news.
“I’m incredibly encouraged by the progress I’ve made in such a short period of time,” Campbell said in a statement released Wednesday by the Lions. “I have full movement in my lower body, and I’m continuing to make progress with movement in my upper body. I know there’s still work ahead, but I remain very optimistic. I’m taking things one day at a time, staying positive, and focusing on getting better.”
STATEMENT FROM JACK CAMPBELL
My family and I want to sincerely thank everyone for the overwhelming amount of love, prayers, and support we’ve received over the past few days. It means more to us than words can express.
I’m incredibly encouraged by the progress I’ve made in such…
— Detroit Lions (@Lions) November 4, 2026
Speaking to reporters in a previously scheduled news conference, Lions coach Dan Campbell remarked on the injured player’s statement.
“Especially being able to hear it from him, that means a lot,” the coach said. “That’s powerful in itself, more than hearing it from me or anybody else. Those are his and his family’s words, so that’s powerful. And I know that always helps, to know that he’s improving, because at this point that’s all you’re looking for is just to know that he is improving.”
Jack Campbell was lying face down and motionless on the field after tackling Minnesota Vikings tight end T.J. Hockenson early in the fourth quarter of Detroit’s 19-15 victory Sunday at Ford Field. Medical staff tended to the 2025 Pro Bowl selection for almost 10 minutes, then strapped him to a backboard and carted him off the field. Campbell was breathing and alert when he was taken to the hospital.
“I especially want to thank the athletic trainers and medical personnel who responded and cared for me on the field,” Campbell said. “I know those were difficult moments, and I’m incredibly grateful for the professionalism, compassion, and care you showed me. The way you handled everything and looked after me when I needed it most is something I’ll never forget. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.
“I also can’t say enough about the incredible care I’ve received from the medical team at Henry Ford Hospital and the Detroit Lions medical staff. They’ve been amazing to me and my family throughout this process, and I’m truly grateful for everything they’ve done.”
The fourth-year player also expressed his appreciation for the support he has received from the Lions organization and the fans.
“My faith in God has never been stronger. I know He has a plan for me, and I trust in that plan,” Campbell said. “I know there may be challenges ahead, but with my faith, my family, and so many people in my corner, I know we’ll get through this.”
A Democrat from Kansas has been elected to the US Senate for the first time in 94 years. Christian pastor Adam Hamilton beat his Republican opponent Roger Marshall, cementing a Democratic majority in Congress.
Published On 4 Nov 20264 Nov 2026
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Weeks after Sean “Diddy” Combs was hospitalized for a head injury suffered while serving time in federal prison, his release date has moved up.
The disgraced music and alcohol mogul is now set to be released on Feb. 6, 2028, nearly a month sooner than his projected release date last month, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate database. Combs was sentenced in October 2025 to more than four years in prison following his July conviction for transporting prostitutes across state lines for drug-fueled sex parties known as “freak-offs.”
The release date for Combs has changed multiple times since his conviction, and although he was initially projected to be freed in June 2028, the embattled producer’s release date has been moved forward and back, as dates frequently change due to a variety of factors.
Combs, 56, was reportedly placed in solitary confinement in late September following an NBC News report that he allegedly obtained a contraband cellphone, had access to a tablet that had been “jailbroken” to remove various restrictions and was stashing booze, often called pruno or toilet wine. The report also detailed ways in which Combs was allegedly living it up on the inside and receiving massages and special meals.
In October, after his head injury, the circumstances of which are unclear, he was transferred out of Fort Dix, a low-security federal prison in New Jersey, to another low-security prison, FCI Allenwood in Pennsylvania, where he is now an inmate in the general population.
“The continued scrutiny of every mundane detail of Sean Combs’s life in prison has reached the point where the media characterizes ordinary prison life as news,” a spokesperson for Combs said in a statement to NBC News. “The only real news is that Sean continues to serve his sentence while awaiting the court’s decision on his appeal.”
Times staff writers Alexandra Del Rosario and Andrea Flores contributed to this report.
Audiences who saw Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s hit documentary “You Can See Everything” may have left the theater with a few questions about Elizabeth Holmes and her longtime partner Billy Evans. While the former Theranos CEO is serving time in a Texas federal prison, Evans is active on X and fielding burning questions inspired by the documentary.
If you’ve haven’t yet seen the film, spoilers ahead.
Evans, 34, comes from a wealthy family who owns a luxury resort in San Diego. He and Holmes have two children, a 5-year-old son and 3-year-old daughter, and while Holmes serves an 11-year prison sentence, Evans is raising their kids, pursuing a new biotech venture and running the couple’s X accounts.
In “You Can See Everything,” Evans bares it all for the cameras, revealing everything from his nude body in the shower to his intense personality, among other questionable traits that have been widely discussed since the film hit theaters last month.
On Monday afternoon, he participated in an “AMA” (Ask Me Anything), and fans of the film flooded the comments.
Holmes’ parents, Christian Rasmus Holmes IV (a former vice president at Enron’s Clean Energy Solutions Group) and Noel Anne Holmes (née Daoust), both appear in the film, but as Fielder attempts to interview Holmes’ father, Evans becomes increasingly agitated.
On X, @kalmiavtuber asks, “My biggest question is, Billy, why did you stop Nathan from speaking to Liz’s father? Both Nathan and the audience saw it as integral to the documentary to truly ‘see everything.’ It felt like a missed opportunity that could have continued to give Liz more light.”
Evans replied, “She was going to prison. We had 3 days [together] at the time. I wanted to spend that time together. He interviewed her parents after she went in. They chose not to include that in the film. I didn’t control the edit. If there was something the directors wanted from them they had multiple opportunities to get it.”
One question popped up again and again, in various iterations: “Why did you keep sniffing throughout the documentary?”
And according to Evans, it wasn’t drug-induced sinus issues but, rather, germ- and Texas-induced. He said being a single dad to two toddlers makes him sick “approx 75% of days.” And, “Allergies in Austin TX are no joke. I take Claritin daily. Much less sniffling.”
And as for the blood testing device that Holmes spread out onto the kitchen table — the one that Theranos whistleblower Tyler Shultz said was not the same device that sent Holmes to prison but, rather, a future version of the Theranos product that was never used and never completed — @insistent_dw asked, “If the Theranos machine really worked as Liz said it did, why did it have to be dug out of storage containers in multiple pieces? I’d expect something like that to be locked in a safe and protected if it’s the prized machine behind a once billion dollar company.”
Evans replied, “Fair question. Theranos had been shut down for years, so naturally the hardware was in storage. We deliberately showed a disassembled device to show its internal components, not because that was all that remained. To my knowledge, 16 complete, functioning devices still exist. And Liz wasn’t reading a script. She was reading directly from the trial transcript. The litigation was still ongoing when we filmed.”
Farther down into the thread, one X user asks, “Have you ever told a lie?” To which Evans replies, “Yes.”
And @alexandraandnyc asked Evans to dispel one misconception from the film: “That I somehow control Liz,” Evans replied. “Anyone who actually knows her would find that idea hilarious.”
“She’s fiercely independent, strongwilled, and my best friend. We are partners in every sense. We challenge each other, disagree, and face the world together. Her closest friends are also some of my closest friends. If I ever mistreated her, they’d have my head.”
While it may have surprised audiences, “You Can See Everything,” landed an R-rating for its graphic nudity. One scene in particular features a full-frontal of Evans, and the dad of two has since said that he wasn’t thrilled with the shower scene making it into the film. When X users pressed him on allowing the cameras into the room, he pointed to a People article that featured anonymous sources saying Evans felt exploited and thought the scene would be kept PG.
“Trust the sources,” he said, alongside a link to the story.
Oppenheim, however, told Vulture last month that Evans seemed to initiate the scene: “It seems like he really had something he wanted to show to us and to the world.”
Welcome back to The Times’ Lakers newsletter, where, no, we did not get a Luka Doncic bobblehead.
Fans and even some Lakers players walked away with the coveted statuettes after the Lakers’ win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday. Sandro Mamukelashvili said he would display his in his office next to bobbleheads of former teammates Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobli.
With Doncic eavesdropping on his postgame interview Sunday, Jarred Vanderbilt said he didn’t need a bobblehead.
“I don’t want to see no more Luka,” Vanderbilt said minutes after Doncic walked out of the locker room.
If the beginning of the season is any indication, we’ll all be seeing more Luka.
Get all the Lakers news you need in Thuc Nhi Nguyen’s weekly newsletter.
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When half-court isn’t hard enough, Luka Doncic goes for the full-court heave. When a traditional three-pointer is a bore, he’ll try a one-handed, underhand three instead. Doncic keeps pushing the ball higher and higher on trick shots that are approaching the rafters before they ultimately drop softly through the net. And with Doncic, they almost always do.
“He’s done it so many times now,” Lakers forward Matisse Thybulle said of Doncic’s array of trick shots, “that [you] just kind of chalk it up to that’s just Luka.”
Doncic is not only just up to his old scoring tricks, he’s made them even better. After leading the league in scoring last year, Doncic is averaging 38.3 points per game through the first two weeks. And that’s despite what he deemed a “terrible” start while he was still trying to find his offensive rhythm.
“We live on a spaceship and we’re going at the speed of light at all times when he’s on the court,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said Sunday after Doncic scored 45 points with six assists in a “supernova” performance that still felt “normal” enough to get overshadowed by his 15 defensive rebounds and five steals.
In his last five games, Doncic is averaging 43.4 points and 8.6 assists on 53.2% shooting from the field and 44.7% from three. His five consecutive games with 35 or more points matches the longest such streak for a Lakers player since Kobe Bryant averaged 53.6 points across a five-game heater in March 2007.
The Lakers (6-2) celebrated the Slovenian superstar’s scoring prowess Sunday with a bobblehead giveaway. The miniature statue showed Doncic shooting a one-legged fadeaway jumper, one of his classic shots.
Doncic’s jump shot has become his calling card while turning into one of the league’s most dangerous scorers. Beginning in the 2023-24 season when Doncic won his first scoring title, at least 35.3% of his field-goal attempts each year have been from three. He never attempted more than 33.2% of his shots from beyond the arc during an NBA season prior to that year. The uptick in attempts has closed the gap between how many points he’s scoring from two compared to points off three-pointers, and this season, the hot-shooting Doncic is scoring more on threes than twos. Through his first six games, Doncic scored 66 points on twos and 105 on threes. His 5.8 made threes and 13.5 three-point attempts per game both lead the league. In the small sample size, he’s shooting a career-best 43.2% from three.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
For those who have known Doncic through different phases of his career, watching this dominant scorer emerge feels like watching a Pokémon evolve.
“He just polished a lot of his offensive weapons, let’s say,” Doncic’s longtime Spanish agent Quique Villalobos said. “If you ask me what is different from Luka in Europe than Luka in the NBA, Luka in the NBA is scoring much more.”
The 18-year-old Doncic won EuroLeague MVP averaging 16 points, 4.3 assists and 4.8 rebounds. Even considering that EuroLeague games are 40 minutes compared to the NBA’s 48, Doncic’s 22.2 points per 36 minutes during his final EuroLeague season is still less than his NBA rookie rate of 23.7 points per 36 minutes.
Different rules also help NBA players stuff box scores. The NBA court is bigger (94 feet by 50 feet compared to 91.86 feet by 49.21 feet in Europe) allowing more space to move. Doncic knows he can take advantage of the NBA’s defensive three-seconds violation by timing his attacks when the center leaves the paint. Doncic’s pacing remains one of his sharpest scoring weapons.
“I would say his patience,” Lakers guard Collin Sexton said of what makes Doncic such a prolific scorer. “And really not be able to be sped up at times. When you’re not able to be sped up, you’re able to control the game at your speed and do what you want to, no matter what the defense is doing.”
Doncic moves at a slow pace, but is creating loud moments. He is becoming ubiquitous around Crypto.com Arena. The full-page ad he bought in The Times for the season opener was blown up to more than six feet tall and displayed on the concourse at a recent game. Lakers girls wore his No. 77 jersey during a performance on his bobblehead night. And the sight of him hitting a contested step-back jumper will live in the nightmares of defenders all season.
As gracefully as a 40-year-old can manage, Al Horford attempted to spin across the lane. The Golden State Warriors’ center stepped on Vanderbilt’s foot and the Lakers’ forward fell backward. Vanderbilt looked at referees in disbelief when he was called for a flop.
The NBA’s new flopping emphasis has been a headache for players and coaches as they struggle to understand how referees will interpret the rules. While offensive players are often chastised for flopping in an attempt to get free throws, every clip in the NBA’s four-minute video about flopping focused on defensive players. During the video shown to players and coaches, the NBA’s head of referee development and training Monty McCutchen emphasizes moments where the defenders’ reactions are “theatrical and excessive” and are “in a manner inconsistent with the contact.”
When asked about the new emphasis from referees, Redick echoed sentiments shared by Minnesota coach Chris Finch last week, saying the NBA’s focus on defensive flopping doesn’t align with what the goal should be.
“We all recognized the fans want the offensive players to stop flopping, and all of our flopping fouls have been defensive,” Redick told reporters in San Francisco. “The reality for the officials [is] each crew is so different and what they interpret is so different.”
Flopping is one of the NBA’s four points of emphasis this season. It may conflict with another area of focus, which involves cracking down on offensive players forcefully using their off-arm to create separation. Offensive players get a win with the emphasis on defensive flopping while the defense is supposed to get the advantage if referees are legislating off-arm push-offs out of the game.
The two sides are then left asking for different things on the same play such as the Warriors’ Brandin Podziemski pleading for the foul while Austin Reaves motioned for a flop with his arms extended and palms up after the two collided on an in-bounds play last Friday.
Neither player got what they asked for.
Wednesday at Kings (1-6), 7 p.m. PST
The Kings finally won a game, taking down Dallas for their first win of the year Monday. Rookie guard Darius Acuff Jr. isn’t shy in his first NBA games: he is second in the NBA in field goal attempts per game with 23.6. He is averaging 26.1 points per game.
Friday vs. Trail Blazers (5-1), 7 p.m. PST
The Lakers lost to the Trail Blazers last week but Portland is already a different team. Ja Morant will be out for at least most of November after he suffered a grade 2 hamstring injury on Oct. 29. The dynamic guard will be out for four to six weeks.
Sunday at Pistons (6-1), 3 p.m. PST
The Pistons have impressive early season wins over Boston and Philadelphia despite an injury to center Jalen Duren. The center who was at the center of an offseason contract feud was sidelined for at least two weeks with a hamstring injury, the team announced Oct. 25.
Monday at Atlanta (4-4), 4 p.m. PST
Forward Jalen Johnson is backing up his first career All-Star selection and a third-team All-NBA honor by leading the Hawks with 18.1 points, nine rebounds and 7.9 assists this season.
Lime and cilantro marinated bean salad.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
I somehow got into the bean evangelist corner of the internet and now I’m a believer. I’ve been on the fibermaxxing routine with meal-prepped bean salads, including this cilantro lime find from Pinterest. The dressing is sweet, savory (from a tablespoon of miso paste), tangy and herby and it all came together in 20 minutes. It would have been even faster if I didn’t accidentally spill an entire bowl of marinated red onions on the floor during assembly.
‘Like a supernova.’ Luka Doncic’s 45 points only eclipsed by his defense in Lakers’ win
Lakers blow 25-point lead in double-digit loss to Warriors
Mark Walter, Josh Kushner agree on outstanding terms linked to $12.5-billion Lakers sale
‘A true professional’: Jarred Vanderbilt leads Lakers’ bench unit against Clippers
Plaschke: LeBron who? Lakers happily shed the burden of departed star
Former Laker Malik Beasley agrees to plead guilty in federal court over gambling ring involvement
High-scoring Lakers stress they need to play championship defense
As always, pass along your thoughts to me at thucnhi.nguyen@latimes.com, and please consider subscribing if you like our work!
Melissa Rycroft has been arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated, again.
The “Bachelor” and “Dancing With the Stars” reality television star was arrested after Southlake, Texas, police say that she crashed into an ambulance and fled the scene on Halloween.
According to a press release published on the Southlake Police Department’s Facebook page, the former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader allegedly collided with a Southlake Fire Department ambulance that was sitting at a stop sign just before 6 p.m. A short time later, officers tracked down the “hit-and-run vehicle” and identified the driver as Rycroft.
No injuries were reported, but the mom of three was arrested and charged with driving while intoxicated, second offense; accident involving damage more than $200; and driving with an invalid license. The TV personality was transported to the Keller Regional Detention Facility for processing, and bond for the combined offenses was set at $9,000.
Rycroft, who appeared on the 13th season of “The Bachelor” and went on to host “Bachelor Pad,” pleaded guilty to a separate DWI charge in August, stemming from a September 2025 incident, and agreed to serve 20 months of probation. Days before her Halloween arrest, she posted photos from a Studio 54‐themed party, where she donned a costume complete with a gold sequined dress and showed off the “Dancing With the Stars” mirror ball trophy she scored when she won Season 15 in 2012 alongside her pro partner Tony Dovolani.
Rycroft’s attorney did not immediately respond on Monday to The Times’ request for comment.
WASHINGTON — After spending a month asking voters to treat the midterms as a vote on him, President Trump closed his monthlong campaign sprint on Monday sounding like a man bracing for defeat.
“For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” Trump said. “But we gave this a very strong shot.”
Still, Trump said he hopes Americans are “ready to do the right thing” and insisted that Republicans could hold on to Congress if voters who buoyed his 2024 victory turn out again. He urged voters to do so, calling this election “the most important midterm, I believe, in our lifetime.” The alternative, he warned, will be a “radical agenda” in Washington as he finishes his last two years in office.
“With your vote, we will decide if these extremists will be given power or not,” Trump said, claiming that the Democratic Party has “nominated the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history.”
The message capped a dizzying campaign push in which Trump made himself the focus of the midterms as he held dozens of rallies in mostly Republican states. In those rallies, he promised $5,000 checks and brighter days ahead to Americans who vote to keep Republicans in control of Congress. But heading into Tuesday, most polls are predicting a Democratic wave amid a voter backlash to Trump’s handling of the economy and a war in Iran.
Democrats are heavily favored to retake power of the House and are leading in all the key states that would be the likeliest to decide which party will control of the Senate, according to a New York Times/Siena University poll released Sunday. But polling can be flawed, as evidenced by forecasts that underestimated Trump’s support in the 2016 and 2020 elections.
Trump’s approval rating is near historic lows this time around, the poll found. A separate NBC News poll released Sunday found nearly two-thirds of voters are seeking a change from the direction Trump is leading the country.
This year, early voting has already seen strong turnout, outpacing the last midterm election cycle, a trend that could mean bad news for Republicans. If a Democratic surge materializes, party leaders have vowed to use their potential congressional powers to investigate Trump and his family’s business dealings, with a focus on alleged corruption and economic harm to the American people.
Trump told Fox News on Sunday that if Democrats win control of both chambers he will “become Mr. Veto” and “make deals” with them, but hopes he won’t have to “worry about that.”
On the eve of the election, Trump’s message once again seemed to acknowledged that possibility, but his focus was largely focused on the numerous beautification projects his administration is leading in the nation’s capital.
President Trump holds up an image of algae in the Reflecting Pool as he delivers remarks Monday.
(Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)
His final pitch to voters was made in front of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, a landmark his administration has spent months trying, and at times failing, to repair. For the first 20 minutes, he did not mention the election at all. Instead, he flipped through photos of the damaged pool, describing in detail how crews resurfaced and re-caulked its granite, and worked to address the “tremendous algae” that covered the pool.
“Look, it is not an easy thing. The algae is brutal. It forms easily and I don’t think you’ll see too much,” Trump said as he showed a picture of the algae layered over the water. “The green, that’s not grass, that’s algae. It took over the entire pool.”
The renovation has not gone as promised. When he took on the project in April, he said contractors he knew would refinish the pool within weeks for about $1.5 million. The work wrapped up behind schedule at more than 10 times that cost, after algae blooms and a peeling blue liner forced crews to drain it again in July. Trump blamed vandals for the issues, but federal prosecutors in Washington attributed the problems to shoddy workmanship.
Trump spent time listing numerous other renovation projects around the capital, arguing that the construction work shows how his presidency is delivering for the American people.
“Our country is strong, respected and prosperous once more and our capital is cleaner and safer and more spectacular than ever,” Trump said.
His focus on renovation projects drew the attention of Democrats, who argued his message was out of touch with what American voters want from leaders now.
“This is just [what] the median voter wants to hear — an update on various capital improvement projects in the District of Columbia,” Ashley Schapitl, a former Biden Treasury official, posted on X.
It was not the first time Democrats had poked fun at the president’s for being too focused on construction projects. At a rally last week, former President Obama said Trump “should be on HGTV,” ridiculing his ballroom project and the changes he has made to the Rose Garden and the Oval Office.
“He has the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory,” Obama said. “There’s just gold everywhere.”
Trump has bristled at such criticism, insisting that renovations relax him and that he gets them done quickly.
His message on Monday struck a similarly dismissive tone as in other campaign events. Even as voters say they are struggling with the cost of living, Trump has insisted the economy is “booming” and brushed off higher gas prices as a “very small price to pay” for the war in Iran.
The contrast was on display over the weekend at a glitzy Halloween party at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private club in Florida. As hundreds gathered in the club’s ballroom, eating Alaskan king crab and caviar, Trump showed off the crowd to reporters.
“Look at all my rich members,” Trump told reporters. “They spent all day getting ready. Look at these guys.”
ESPN personality Michael Wilbon announced he is taking an indefinite leave of absence from “Pardon the Interruption,” the sports debate show he has hosted with Tony Kornheiser for 25 years, and his NBA duties with the network and on ABC.
In a statement posted to social media on Monday, Wilbon cited “struggles with multiple health issues in recent months.”
“This isn’t retirement, but it is a trip to the injured list,” Wilbon, 67, wrote. “Hopefully not an extended one.”
He added: “Probably, I should have listened to medical professionals and people closest to me, yep Kornheiser included, who saw worrisome signs in recent years that suggested I take time away earlier. But I didn’t.
“And as one close friend has said as my issues have become bigger, ‘the bill has come due.’ The struggles are all health related, not to alcohol (I’m not swearing off the now-and-then Kier Royale) and not to gambling (those winds of change I find loathsome).”
Appearing on “The Tony Kornheiser Show” podcast Monday morning, Wilbon said he had taken last week off from “PTI” because “I was just, I mean, exhausted. Beyond exhausted — lifeless. And this has been going on for a while.”
He said that “part of what I have to deal with right now” stems from having diabetes. But, Wilbon added, “that’s not the entirety of it.”
Wilbon and Kornheiser, both former Washington Post sports writers, have hosted “PTI” since it debuted Oct. 22, 2001. The show has won the Sports Emmy Award for daily studio show three times (2009, 2016 and 2019). The hosts signed multi-year contracts in September 2025.
“Michael and his family have ESPN’s full support as he takes time away to focus on his health and well-being,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “He’s an important member of our ESPN team and widely respected by his peers, sports fans and so many others throughout our industry. We are here for Michael every step of the way and look forward to welcoming him back whenever he is ready.”
ESPN likely will have guest hosts fill in for Wilbon on “PTI” while calling on some of its other analysts to handle his NBA duties.
“I have loved sparring and hosting PTI with Tony every single day these past 25 years,” Wilbon wrote. “And I’m incredibly grateful for the support and encouragement of my colleagues as I take this time away to concentrate on me, specifically on my well-being. I have no idea exactly how this part of my journey will wind up. The goal is to come out of it feeling much better than I do now and ready to return to sparring with Tony.”