time

A woman has shared a video of her trip to a charming seaside town, where she said ‘time slowed down’ and visitors feel like they’ve stepped back in time

One Norfolk spot is one of those classic British seaside towns that has managed to hold on to its old-school charm. Set on the North Norfolk coast, it offers far more than just a day at the beach, with historic attractions, independent shops, local food and plenty of scenic walks.

A surprising attraction in Sheringham is hidden beneath the waves. The Cromer Shoal Chalk Reef, which runs along the coast just offshore, is described by North Norfolk tourism authorities as the longest chalk reef in the world, stretching for around 20 miles.

Sheringham sits along the coastline, just an hour’s drive north of Norwich.

At first glance, it might seem fairly ordinary, with a population of just 7,100 residents, according to the 2021 census. But most visitors quickly change their minds, with countless tourists claiming they feel as though they’ve stepped back in time upon arriving in this delightful town.

There’s no shortage of things to do, with an award-winning beach, breathtaking nature and parks to explore, as well as local and military museums to visit, reports the Express.

A traditional seaside beach

Sheringham’s Blue Flag beach is a big draw, with a long promenade, colourful beach huts and plenty of space to enjoy the coastline.

At low tide, patches of sand appear between the pebbles, while the rocky shoreline is ideal for rock pooling. The town has a much more traditional seaside feel than some of Britain’s busier resorts, with fishing boats, cafés and independent shops lining the streets rather than rows of large amusement attractions.

Ride a steam train

One of Sheringham’s best-known attractions is the North Norfolk Railway, also known as the Poppy Line.

The heritage railway runs between Sheringham and Holt, taking passengers through the Norfolk countryside on restored historic trains. With its old-fashioned stations and steam locomotives, it’s a particularly appealing way to see the surrounding area and adds to the town’s nostalgic charm.

A fishing town at heart

Sheringham’s roots can be traced back to its days as a fishing village, and that heritage is still visible today. Small fishing boats continue to operate from the town’s slopes, with crab and lobster among the catches associated with the area.

For anyone wanting to find out more about the town’s past, Sheringham Museum is well worth a visit. Its collections explore everything from fishing and farming to local life and the lifeboat service, alongside fossils and prehistoric discoveries from the surrounding coastline.

Taking to TikTok, one woman decided to share her experience of visiting the charming coastal town, describing it as a place ‘where time slowed down’.

“Sheringham – a cosy seaside town where time slows down. Colourful cottages, fresh sea breeze, and the sound of waves – it’s the kind of place that makes you want to stay a little longer,” she wrote in the caption of the video.

She went on to post her clip, which opened with a woman, dressed in a blue dress and wearing a sunhat, strolling along the platform at the train station. The footage was filmed from inside a vintage train, which immediately created the sensation of having stepped back in time.

The TikTok creator went on to share brief clips from their visit to Sheringham, highlighting the delightful high street decorated with colourful bunting strung above, before capturing a procession of older women dancing and parading through the town centre.

They then shifted their focus to the beach, where visitors were enjoying the scenery and taking part in various activities in the blue waters, despite the grey skies above.

Viewers were quick to rush to the comments section to share their thoughts, with many expressing their joy at how peaceful and beautiful the Norfolk town looked.

“I love Britain one of my favourite countries,” one person wrote.

Another viewer said: “This is not just a video. It’s like opening up to a brand new dimension of extraordinary power!”

If anyone wants to know what “big-boy” football in Southern California looks like, Santa Margarita’s 21-20 road win over Corona Centennial on Friday night gave fans everything they expected from two powerhouse programs.

“There was greatness on that field,” Santa Margarita coach Carson Palmer told his players afterward.

From cornerback Caron Williams producing a pick six on the final play of the third quarter to Mighty Mouse 5-foot-4 running back Adrian Petero rushing for 108 hard-earned yards in 23 carries to run out the clock, the Eagles (2-0) are proving they are no one-hit wonder after winning last year’s Southern Section Division 1 championship over Centennial.

“Even if I can’t find a hole, I’ll make one,” Petero said.

Unlike that 42-7 loss at the Rose Bowl, Centennial rallied from a 14-0 deficit. An 11-yard touchdown run by Braylin Drake with 7:33 left put the Huskies within 21-20. But Santa Margarita’s Jake Martin deflected the PAT attempt, and the Huskies (1-1) never got another opportunity to score against a defense with top linemen, young and sensational linebackers and defensive backs who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with one of the best receivers in the nation in Quentin Hale.

Santa Margarita’s defense celebrates a pick six by Caron Williams (21) at the end of the third quarter from 30 yards.

(Craig Weston / For The Times)

Centennial was at a severe disadvantage by not having two potential starters available on its offensive line because of injuries. Then the Huskies lost a third lineman in the third quarter. Quarterback Jaden Jefferson was left having to run for his life from the outset but used his instincts and intelligence to find ways to succeed. He passed for 192 yards with touchdowns of seven yards to Hale and 24 yards to Kennie Leggett. He adjusted to the pass rush by scrambling up the middle for gains of 11 and 15 yards. Hale caught seven passes for 105 yards.

For some unknown reason, Williams, a junior, now has five of his six career interceptions against Centennial. He said the pick six was no surprise.

“I saw it coming,” he said. “I saw the quarterback’s eyes.”

“Defense suffocating,” is what Palmer told his players in his postgame talk, and he was right.

Santa Margarita’s defense controlled much of the first half because of its ability to put pressure on Jefferson. It wasn’t until Centennial’s final possession of the first half, when trailing 14-0, that Jefferson finally started to connect with Hale. Jefferson got the ball to Hale for a touchdown, rolling left and throwing off his back foot to find Jefferson in the back of the end zone.

Santa Margarita’s defense lost nine of its 11 starters to graduation and was supposed to need time this season to develop, but the guy who wears No. 99 for the Eagles, Kingston Jimmerson, had two sacks in the first half. He’s 6-foot-2, 270 pounds, only.a sophomore and likes to manhandle ballcarriers.

“When he’s a senior, he’s going to be an All-American,’’ Williams said.

Also contributing was 6-5, 225-pound freshman lineman Kaleb Herndon and linebacker Cruz Nunez, a transfer from JSerra. Then there’s freshman linebacker Aydan Steen, who contributed two huge tackles in the second half in critical situations.

Short touchdown runs by Petero and Jaion Smith accounted for Santa Margarita’s first-half touchdowns. Centennial fumbled on its first possession to set up Petero’s two-yard TD run.

The last time Centennial coach Matt Logan was on the same field with Santa Margarita, his face with bright red at the Rose Bowl. He blamed himself for his team’s poor performance. “We weren’t prepared to play football that night,” he said.

This time, the Huskies were able to stay close with the help of a defense that sacked Santa Margarita quarterback Fletch Palmer three times. Cal-bound Miles Schirmer was effective on the defensive line.

“The defense played phenomenal,” Logan said. “We were not on the same page on offense. The kids didn’t waver and kept fighting.”

From behind his new desk, on the top floor of USC’s shining, new Bloom Football Performance Center, Lincoln Riley can gaze out upon a stunning view of the downtown L.A. skyline. It’s a nice perk when rounding out a $200-million facility.

And especially welcomed given that three-quarters of USC’s previous football home, the John McKay Center, could be classified as “subterranean.” But as Riley considers how far he’s come these past five years and how far USC has come in the meantime, the metaphor is just as meaningful to USC’s coach as the cityscape.

This view, this office, this program, really — it was all just a hypothetical when Riley accepted the USC job in November 2021. The wunderkind coach knew he was inheriting a football program in a years-long slump. What he couldn’t grasp was how far it actually fell. And what it would take to drag it back. He’d never even been on USC’s campus.

He admits he didn’t understand quite what USC needed then, in the beginning. Not like he does now, on the doorstep of his fifth season as the Trojans coach.

“There’s no other job like this, not in our sport,” Riley said Thursday. “There are some unique things that make this place really special, but also you have to understand how it works and how to harness it and how to use it, and I think that has probably been the biggest thing.”

“I know what direction we’re heading now. I know so much more about this place and how it works, and that’s been more helpful than just starting over at kind of your normal run-of-the-mill job in college football. … This one is just so unique and different. That’s what attracted me to it. And that’s what’s going to help make it great again.”

Riley certainly knows USC well enough now to understand his time to deliver on that promise is running out. The Trojans are 35-18 through four seasons under Riley, precisely the same record they were under his predecessor, Clay Helton, through 53 games. In that time, USC has yet to reach the College Football Playoff and only once played for a conference title, in Riley’s first season. And it hasn’t beat a ranked team in a true road game outside of L.A.

Meanwhile, the school has gone to great lengths to close the gap that existed between USC and its blueblood counterparts, revamping the whole front-office operation, hiring a Hall of Famer in Gary Patterson to coordinate the defense and investing millions in NIL in the nation’s top recruiting class in 2026.

Riley said multiple times this summer that he is now more “well-equipped” to win. And around USC, everyone seems inclined to agree. Meaning any excuse for why the Trojans aren’t breaking through will no longer suffice.

“It’s black and white,” USC general manager Chad Bowden said after last season. “You’re either in the Playoff or you’re not. You either win a championship or you don’t. … I’m sick to my stomach, you know, for people that might be unhappy with winning nine games. They should be unhappy, right?”

Whether nine wins in 2026 would be enough to ensure Riley sees a sixth season at USC in 2027 remains to be seen. Though, just getting back to that mark, with a schedule that includes Oregon and Ohio State at home and Indiana and Penn State on the road, might be more of an uphill climb than it was a season ago.

It would also probably mean falling short of the Playoff. When asked if Riley needed a Playoff berth this season, athletic director Jennifer Cohen told The Times in May she “tries not to think in hypotheticals” but added:

“The expectation has always been the same. I mean, that’s the thing, that’s the reason why I came here, is that the standard is high, that we do expect to make the Playoff. We do expect to have a championship run. We do expect to be competing for championships every single year.

“The expectation, I mean, we haven’t been shy about that. We expect to win, and I feel confident that we’re going to.”

So confident, in fact, that USC pasted its season mantra on billboards across the Southland, each of them not-so-subtly declaring that the “THE TIME IS : NOW”.

The message feels, in many ways, meant for Riley. And he isn’t shying away from it.

“Hell, that’s why I came here,” Riley told The Times this summer. “It’s progressively gotten better and better, I think to a point where everybody should be excited and the expectations should be through the roof.”

It’s hard to argue with the positive signs so far. The No. 1 recruiting class is already making a major impression, with five true freshmen earning starting spots and over a dozen appearing on the initial two-deep. With a top returning quarterback in Jayden Maiava, real depth along the offensive line and one of the Big Ten’s best backfield tandems in Waymond Jordan and King Miller, USC should once again have one of the nation’s top offenses.

The questions, as always, are on the other side of the ball. But in Patterson, Riley appears so far to have found someone he considers an equal on defense, the yin to his yang.

“You feel his presence in terms of the mentality of the group and how he pushes and pushes and pushes,” Riley said. “He’s very aggressive, and you never have to wonder about how he’s feeling or where he stands. For a little bit, I think it took our players some getting used to. It was a little different of an approach than what they had out of that position. But I think they’ve come to understand and respect the intensity that he brings every day and the demand for greatness. There’s no question on the practice field that you feel that from him.”

Riley, meanwhile, has not seemed like a head coach who’s feeling the heat heading into a make-or-break season at USC. In fact, with everything hanging on this season, he seems more at ease than ever.

“It’s taken a lot to come from where it was four years ago to now, a lot of people,” Riley said. “And so, I don’t want us to be bashful about it now. We’ve gotta go do it. And that’s the fun part of this. And it’s fun feeling like that you got the opportunity to do anything and everything that you want to do.

“I think this year will be the start of a run where USC football, we’re gonna feel like that for a while. That’s what we came here to do.”

L.A.’s annual summer heat wave is upon us, with triple-digit temperatures breaking records across the region. During this time of year, ovens and stoves go dormant as Southern Californians seek to sate their thirst and hunger with chilled and frozen options, from refreshing poke bowls and ceviches to shaved ice and soft serve.

Our restaurant scene is responding in kind by adding a slew of frozen beverages to their menus. That means you can get your daily coffee or matcha blended for a cool start to the day, or venture outside of your usual and perk up with a Thai tea slushie or hojicha blockshake. And for kids or those avoiding caffeine, a zesty ginger lemonade and nostalgic Dole Whip are at the ready.

Prefer a more adult take? Some of the city’s best bars are reimagining classic cocktails in blended form, from frozen negronis to piña coladas and margaritas. Far from basic, these frozen concoctions are layered and intentional, featuring small-batch mezcal, locally made cider and Belizean rum. Some are served in popsicle or snow cone form, and you can even enjoy your Dole Whip spiked.

Here are 25 of our favorite frozen cocktails and non-alcoholic slushies to cool off with in L.A.:

Saab’s first Gripen F two-seat fighter has taken to the air, marking the beginning of the flight-test campaign for a variant being developed in close cooperation with Brazil.

The aircraft departed Saab’s airfield at Linköping, Sweden, at 9:40 a.m. local time today and remained airborne for approximately 40 minutes. Saab chief test pilot Jakob Högberg and Brazilian Air Force test pilot Lt. Col. Aviator Abdon de Rezende Vasconcelos were in the cockpit for the inaugural sortie.

According to Saab, the flight was intended primarily to verify the aircraft’s core systems and initial flying characteristics. The company says the aircraft will now enter a more extensive test program, including progressive expansion of its permitted flight envelope.

That work will eventually cover the aircraft’s speed, altitude, G-loading, and angle-of-attack limits, as well as the tactical capabilities and systems associated specifically with the rear cockpit.

“This first flight represents an important step forward for both Saab and the Brazilian Air Force,” said Lars Tossman, head of Saab business area Aeronautics.  “Seeing Gripen F take to the skies is particularly significant for all the Swedish and Brazilian teams whose years of engineering work have helped turn this aircraft into a reality. It is designed to accelerate pilot training while and enhancing operational performance in advanced combat missions.”

The Gripen F is the two-seat derivative of the Gripen E, but it is not simply a conventional trainer version of the single-seat fighter. Saab has designed the rear cockpit to be independently functional, allowing the aircraft to retain an operational combat role while carrying a second crew member.

The configuration is therfefore intended to support conversion training and mission preparation while also offering potential advantages during complex combat missions through the division of cockpit workload. This could also include as a ‘drone controller,’ a growing area of interest for many air forces and something that Saab is also working toward with its uncrewed aircraft plans.

Combining the Gripen F, in particular, with a high-end drone of the kind that Saab envisages, would make a good deal of sense.

Saab has already pitched its stealthy, supersonic Autonomous Collaborative Platform (ACP) ‘fighter drone’ as an adjunct for the single-seater, describing it as “a great asset to the Gripen E.” Saab envisages the Gripen E serving as a tactical mission commander for one or more ACPs, working in conjunction with the company’s GlobalEye airborne early warning and control (AEW&C) aircraft.

The dual-crew benefits of the Gripen F, combined with the ACP, could give Saab an even more compelling route into the CCA market. After all, a fourth-generation fighter like the Gripen (Saab, it should be noted, rigorosly avoids using this generational terminology), can remain highly relevant when teamed with CCAs, and a high-performance, stealthy drone like the ACP could make that combination even more potent. It could, at least possibly in some cases, allow air forces to skip the sixth-generation crewed combat air platforms altogether, or at least greatly reduce the need for them.

Brazil is central to the Gripen F program. The country was the launch customer for the two-seat variant and participated directly in its development as part of the broader technology-transfer arrangement underpinning its Gripen acquisition.

The first Gripen F was formally rolled out at Saab’s Linköping facility in June. Brazil’s original 2014 agreement with Saab covers 36 aircraft, in the form of 28 single-seat Gripen E fighters and eight Gripen F two-seaters. Deliveries of Brazilian Gripens began in 2020.

The F-model has also attracted interest beyond Brazil. Saab has subsequently received Gripen F orders from Thailand and Colombia. The South American nation will get two Gripen Fs, while the breakdown of Thailand’s Gripen E/F order has not been revealed. According to Saab, the 16 new-build Gripens ordered for Ukraine will all be single-seaters.

As for the Swedish Air Force, this plans to buy 60 single-seat Gripen Es, but bearing in mind the changing security situation in Europe, and the increasing focus on uncrewed aircraft, a future Gripen F order should not be ruled out. In particular, Saab has said it expects the Swedish government to acquire new Gripen E/Fs to backfill the 12 earlier Gripen C/D variants it has donated to Kyiv, and which are expected to arrive in Ukraine early next year.

Saab also remains upbeat about the prospect of a Canadian order for the Gripen E/F.

Sweden has made a strong push to sell Gripen to Ottawa, and Saab offered to build the jet in Canada, in an effort to secure support for its previous bid, which it lost to Lockheed Martin and the F-35. Since then, Saab has also emerged as the preferred candidate to supply Canada with its future AEW&C capabilities via its GlobalEye.

Days after trade talks between Ottawa and Washington collapsed this month, further straining the Canada-United States relationship, Saab chief executive Micael Johansson told TWZ and other journalists that Gripen would be the “perfect” option if Canada moves ahead with a joint fighter purchase. The Swedish jet would add “combat mass” alongside the F-35, according to Johansson.

“I don’t think Canada will give up the F-35 completely; they will go forward with that to some extent,” Johansson said.

Johansson also pointed to the Gripen’s ability to operate from highway strips as well as conventional runways: “You get to use all kinds of airstrips that you cannot use with the F-35,” he added.

Gripen practicing landing and take off from a road base

Part of the Saab pitch to Canada is the establishment of a new domestic final assembly line for the Gripen E/F, which woud be the third such facility after Sweden and Brazil.

As for the Brazilian connection, this extends well beyond aircraft procurement. Saab says more than 350 Brazilian engineers, technicians, and pilots have participated in activities covering Gripen development, production, flight testing, and maintenance. Brazilian industry, including Embraer, has consequently become deeply involved in the program.

Meanwhile, Saab is continuing to expand what the fighter can actually do once it leaves the factory.

Recent work has included a test launch of the Taurus KEPD 350 cruise missile, as well as last year’s integration of Helsing’s Centaur AI agent, which was tested in a beyond-visual-range combat scenario.

Speaking last week, Johan Segertoft, head of Saab’s Gripen business unit, points to the fighter’s digital architecture as a key enabler of the rapid integration of new capabilities. The company says the Centaur integration took just 10 weeks.

“We chose BVR because it’s one of the most complex things to prove that we could take third-party software and do it, but there’s a lot of things in an aircraft and outside an aircraft that benefit from the advancement of software,” Segertoft said.

Since the Gripen E first flew in 2017, Saab has implemented around 300 capability upgrades, according to Segertoft. He contrasts that with what he describes as a theoretical maximum of around five upgrades for competing aircraft.

That approach is summed up by Saab’s internal mantra, Segertoft says: “code in the evening, deploy in the morning, learn by lunch.”

The Gripen F test campaign will now move beyond basic systems checks toward progressively more demanding flight conditions. Saab’s Flight Test Center in Sweden will conduct the campaign before the aircraft undergoes the remaining acceptance procedures and is eventually handed over to the Brazilian Air Force.

The first flight therefore represents a milestone not only for Saab’s new two-seat fighter but also for the industrial partnership that produced it. Potentially, that model could be repeated in Canada in the future.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

In reality, Dave Franco has a strict routine for Sundays, one he takes very seriously. He and his wife, actor Alison Brie, stay in bed all day, watch four movies and Postmate every single meal. But for the sake of Sunday Funday, the actor, director and screenwriter gave us a hypothetical Sunday where they actually leave their house.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

The couple have lived in Los Feliz since 2012 and have bounced around to a few different spots in the neighborhood during that time. “We love that there are certain pockets that feel tucked away in nature where you don’t feel the buzz of the city,” Franco says, “but when you’re in the mood for a great meal or a night out, you’re still only a five-minute drive from all the action.”

Franco and Brie have collaborated on multiple projects, including the horror film “Together” (where they were the two leads) and the rom-com “Somebody That I Used to Know” (which he directed, she starred in and they co-wrote). Up next, Franco will roll solo as an actor and producer of the dark action comedy “Idiots,” out in theaters on Friday.

Sunday remains a day that he and Brie dedicate to being with each other. “No matter what else is happening in our lives or what we have coming up for that following week, we know we’re going to be together on Sunday,” Franco says. “Let’s spend the whole day together, let’s be connected, and it just resets us in a nice way for the week.”

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

7:30 a.m.: Coffee and doughnuts

I’ll set my alarm so I can roll out of bed and get to Maru Coffee right as it opens in an attempt to avoid the insane line that will inevitably snake down the entirety of Hillhurst Avenue. If I don’t want to wait in line, I’ll head to Dayglow in Silver Lake where some of my favorite baristas are generous enough to let me try whatever new concoction they’re experimenting with. But no matter where I end up, I’ll typically grab a cold brew for myself and an iced oat cappuccino for my wife.

If I’m feeling extra magnanimous, I’ll then drive to Proof Bakery in Atwater Village for our favorite croissants, or I’ll go all the way to Bob’s Donuts at the Farmers Market at the Grove and grab a couple of old-fashioned glazed.

Doughnuts on Sunday is a very important ritual for us. I legitimately think it’s a big reason our marriage has been so successful. We work hard and then we get to look forward to sharing something decadent at the end of each week.

11 a.m.: First movie of the day

After digesting our pastries, we will catch a late-morning movie at the Los Feliz 3, the Vista or the Landmark Sunset. When we get to the movie theater, Alison will ask whether we should get a small or large popcorn. I always reply, ‘Get the small. I don’t want any. I’m just going to have Red Vines.’ Inevitably, I’ll finish my Red Vines before the movie has even started and then Alison will begrudgingly allow me to have a few handfuls of her popcorn, but she is not happy about it. I’m not exaggerating when I say this happens every single time we go to the movies.

1:30 p.m.: Strictly vintage

After the movie, we might pop by Denim Revival in West Hollywood, which has the best vintage shopping in town. It’s a small curated collection, but if you’re into vintage Levi’s and old band T-shirts, this is your spot. My wife typically gets bored quickly in a vintage clothing store, but when I find her the perfect-fitting Tom Petty or John Lennon shirt, she perks right up.

Most of what’s in my closet is vintage. I can’t think of a T-shirt that I’ve worn in the past handful of years that wasn’t a vintage T-shirt. I have a pretty good collection at this point. I’m hitting all the different angles where I have anything from Beastie Boys to Jimi Hendrix to Britney Spears to Hansen.

I will definitely scour eBay or Grailed to find the perfect white T-shirt, which I have 10 of already, but it’s an endless search to expand that collection.

3 p.m.: Big Sur in L.A.

If we are in the mood for a pre-dinner snack, we’ll pop by the Trails cafe [in Griffith Park] for their famous egg in a basket, which is their take on the classic breakfast dish, toad in a hole. We’ll sit at Trails’ wooden benches surrounded by nature where it almost feels like we’re not in LA. It’s the closest we can get to Big Sur in Los Angeles.

We could sneak in a hike. We’ll sometimes start at an entrance across from the Greek Theatre, which will loop us all the way around past the [Griffith] Observatory and back to the Greek. We feel very fortunate that we live close to some very nice hikes in L.A., and so we definitely try to take advantage of that.

5 p.m.: Oysters, always

Even though we just ate, we are already thinking about where we should go for dinner. We like a very early dinner that verges on being a very late lunch. We’ll likely end up at Found Oyster. We’ll order a dozen oysters, a scallop tostada and a little steak frites if we’re feeling cheeky.

I’ve been an oyster person for as long as I can remember. I’m such an oyster person that I’ve actually gotten food poisoning twice in the past two years from oysters and I will not let that stop me. In both of those instances, I was begging for death — death would be better than whatever I was going through — and then a week and a half later I’m back fiending for more. But I’m not saying I got food poisoning from Found. I just want to make that clear.

7:30 p.m.: Time for another movie

The good thing about an early dinner is that you can be home and in bed by 7:30 p.m., where there’s still enough time to sneak in at least one more movie and some dessert.

We always try to have a pint of ice cream in our freezer from Henry’s Secret, which you can only order online for the time being. This is the guy who was making ice cream at Antico Nuovo for many years, which was always our favorite ice cream in L.A. And now he’s got his own little underground operation.

My wife is a massive [movie] re-watcher. She has seen “The American President” and “The Prestige” 150 times each, but I’ll always push to watch some hidden gem that’s been on our list for the past decade. She’s sometimes hesitant, then almost every time the movie finishes and she says, “I loved it.”

I’m not on Letterboxd. I have lists of movies that we want to watch in my Notes app on my phone. There are certain times where the list really grows, but we’ll knock them off pretty quickly because we really do try to watch one movie a night. When you’re doing that, you’re watching seven plus movies [a week] because on Sunday we’re watching multiple movies.

10 p.m.: Early bedtime

We go to bed relatively early. We’ll eventually fall asleep from food coma exhaustion and then we’ll wake up early the next morning to hit the gym and get back to a somewhat healthy routine, until the following weekend of more gluttonous excess.

ATLANTA — Lefty Tarik Skubal hasn’t had time to fully reflect on his time in Detroit. When he learned at the beginning of the month that he was being traded to the Dodgers, he had one night of emotional goodbyes, before shifting his focus the next morning to preparing to face the Cubs in a few days.

Friday won’t be the right time either. He’s scheduled to take the mound against the Tigers, the only organization he’d played for up until three and a half weeks ago, in the series opener.

“I play baseball, and I don’t really want to let any noise or anything outside change or take away from my ability to go play baseball and put our team in a position to win,” he said in a recent conversation with The Times. “So that’s where my focus is always at. It doesn’t matter if it’s opening day of the season, it doesn’t matter if it’s spring training, it doesn’t matter if it’s the dog days of July, it doesn’t matter if it’s the postseason. For me, the game is always the same game, and that’s something that I take a ton of pride in.”

Even in his short time with the Dodgers, Skubal has thrown himself into the task at hand, from the way he’s pitched, to his commitment to connecting with his new teammates, to how he’s handled questions about his impending free agency.

Oddly enough, after the World Series favorites traded for the best pitcher available, they lost the next six games as part of a seven-game losing streak.

“Everyone around here was like, ‘Hey, we win games here,’” Skubal said. “And I go, ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s me.’”

Eventually, the Dodgers did win a game with Skubal on the roster. They even swept two series straight — before running into the Braves this week. And as Skubal has settled in, he’s enjoyed the sheer abundance of baseball conversations going on around him all the time, whether it be a pitcher chatting with the pitching coaches about sequencing, or hitters breaking down how an opposing pitcher attacked him.

“No one’s ego is too big to ask a question and try to learn from anybody,” Skubal said. “So I think that’s what makes this team so good. I think that’s why they tick, and I think that’s why they’re so good, especially in September, is they’re just not afraid to fail. They’re going to try and learn as much from each other as possible. I just love being a part of that.”

Likewise, his new teammates have loved him embracing them right away.

“You can’t tell whether he’s pitching or not because his personality never changes,” Kiké Hernández said. “And I appreciate how talkative he is, like even during his starts, like in the middle of the game, which is kind of refreshing.”

Already, Skubal’s joining in on pregame handshake lines and slapping the dugout railing in time to Roki Sasaki’s warm-up music. After Miguel Rojas nicknamed him “Scooby Doo Pa Pa,” Skubal used the song that inspired the name on an Instagram post.

“At the end of my career, if the one thing [all my ex-teammates] say about me is, ‘Yeah, he was talented on the field, but he was an even better teammate,’ that’s what I want to be remembered as,” Skubal said.

Skubal is only under club control for the rest of the season, but he’s consistently said he doesn’t want to address free agency.

“I really am probably not going to get to that until this season’s done,” he said. “Until, hopefully, I’m holding up a trophy and I’m celebrating with these guys for two weeks, and I’m going to [have a headache] for a month after.”

A video clip from Skubal’s appearance on the podcast “Pardon My Take” caused a stir on social media, when he said, “I would love to play my whole career in Detroit” and expresses hope that the Tigers are involved in negotiations in November. But Skubal points out the missing context in that clip.

His response was to a question that described the Tigers trading him as an “unfortunate part of where baseball is.” He understood the premise as, smaller markets can’t retain their stars.

Pitcher Tarik Skubal (29) hugs Jack Flaherty in the dugout after getting pulled from his last start with the Tigers on July 29.

(Paul Sancya / Associated Press)

“Which I don’t agree with,” said Skubal, who has thought a lot about the larger picture as a member of the MLB Players Assn. Executive Subcommittee. “You can retain whoever. Now, the longer you wait, the harder it is to get guys to give away the years to hit free agency. I think that’s just the business of baseball, and that’s not any different than any other sport.”

He backed his point with counterexamples on each side: the Royals signing homegrown star Bobby Witt Jr. to an 11-year extension worth $288.8 million guaranteed, and the Yankees’ Aaron Judge still hitting free agency in 2022 (before ultimately re-signing).

“There’s narratives around the sport that I don’t agree with, and that’s one of them,” Skubal said.

Though Skubal excels at focusing on the present, he also seems to sense how much weight his words carry. Wanting to avoid out-of-context reading between the lines as he praised the Dodgers, Skubal made sure to note that he wasn’t comparing his new situation with his old one.

He’s made clear over and over how special his time in Detroit was to him.

Skubal’s resolve hasn’t been tested in exactly the way it will be on Friday. But he’s performed on that same mound under unique circumstances.

When Skubal took the mound in his last start for the Tigers on July 29, he knew it could be a turning point for him and the club. The Tigers lost in extra innings, but he made a quality start and recorded his 1,000th career strikeout before leaving the game to a standing ovation at Comerica Park.

“You really appreciate that stuff,” Skubal said. “And I went down the tunnel and had some conversations with coaches that were pretty emotional too.

“You appreciate everything because without fans, this game is nothing. If no one showed up, we wouldn’t be able to play baseball for a living.”

He’s sure to have quite the reception on Friday, too. And even though Skubal excels at compartmentalizing, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts had one request for the Tigers.

“I hope they do the festivities the night after we win on Friday,” Roberts said, “so the emotion doesn’t get to him and he can just kind of enjoy the welcome back.”

The Dodgers have struggled at times since the All-Star break, but Will Smith’s return from injury and Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching should help.

Just after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022, ending the nationwide right to legal abortion, Olivia Rodrigo walked onstage at the Glastonbury festival in the United Kingdom, sad and furious but also galvanized. “I’m heartbroken over what happened in America yesterday,” Rodrigo said onstage then. “I’m devastated and terrified that so many women and so many girls are going to die because of this.”

Four years later, Rodrigo has a new festival of her own this weekend, Daisy Chain Fields in Irvine’s Great Park, that’s entirely in service to those causes of women’s rights and reproductive autonomy.

“I remember being at Glastonbury that day with the most exciting opportunity to perform on that stage, but at the same time, being shaken to my core knowing that women’s rights were being stripped away,” Rodrigo told the Times via e-mail just before the festival. “I want people to walk away from here feeling hopeful and feeling like they can effect change. That was the entire thesis of this festival. I do think we can. We’ve seen it happen before, and we’re seeing some change now.”

Daisy Chain Fields is an ambitious escalation of Rodrigo’s activism in this sphere, which has paralleled her chart-topping success after debuting as a teenager with her LP “Sour” in 2021. The festival — with similarly-aligned acts including Chappell Roan, Doechii, Bikini Kill, Katseye and others — will be a globally-prominent cultural event, underlining the urgency for reproductive and women’s rights work amid the current right-wing backlash. It raises funds to benefit 10 like-minded advocacy groups, and intertwines her music career and women’s rights advocacy in ways few pop artists at her scale are attempting.

“We are ecstatic to have Olivia supporting our work, not only financially, but using her voice and reach to shine a light on these urgent issues,” said Nancy Northup, president and chief executive of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenged abortion bans in 11 states, and filed the first lawsuit on behalf of women denied abortions in 50 years. “Women are continuing to suffer under these bans, and that won’t stop until abortion is federally protected once again. Her support will help us continue filing lawsuits and advocating for laws that expand reproductive rights, both in the U.S. and globally.”

Olivia Rodrigo performs during the opening night of her Guts tour at Acrisure Arena on Feb. 23, 2024, in Palm Desert, Calif.

(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)

Rodrigo’s public work in activism began in earnest on the tour for “Guts” in February 2024. That tour coincided with the launch of Rodrigo’s Fund 4 Good, a nonprofit (under the fiscal sponsorship of the 501(c)(3) group Entertainment Industry Foundation) that steered $2.5 million in profits and donations from that tour to a range of global groups working in women’s rights, health and reproductive care. These included Jhpiego — a Johns Hopkins-affiliated global women’s health NGO — along with Women’s Shelters Canada, Women Against Violence Europe, and the Korea Foundation for Women.

“She did something. She could have played it safe, but she acknowledged that she has the power to make stuff happen, and she’s going to use it for good,” said Kathleen Hanna, founder of the legendarily activist punk group Bikini Kill, who will play Daisy Chain Fields on Saturday. While Hanna recalled feeling initially skeptical about the all-women Lilith Fair in the ’90s, she respects how Rodrigo learned about that fest’s communal, radical goals from a recent documentary, and sought to update it for her fans’ generation.

“What’s awesome about that is that it’s not that rare” for artists to be outspoken on these issues now, Hanna said. “Look at Megan Thee Stallion, Hayley Williams — all I see is women who are like ‘This is bull—.’ In a fascist era, we need to be meeting each other and opening friendship circles instead of isolating ourselves.”

Rodrigo’s advocacy hasn’t always gone smoothly. While on tour for “Guts” in 2024, Rodrigo brought abortion rights groups under the National Network of Abortion Funds to canvass at shows, and some groups handed out free condoms and emergency contraceptives to fans. Those efforts upset conservatives in states like Missouri, which had enacted a near-total abortion ban, and where state legislators sought to ban the morning-after pill. Fearing political backlash, Rodrigo’s management team at the time reportedly asked the groups to refrain from passing out contraceptives, but still encouraged them to canvass on-site.

“I don’t think demanding that women and girls be safe and have ownership over their own bodies is a radical idea,” Rodrigo said. “I was raised by parents who encouraged that belief in me.”

At Daisy Chain Fields, Rodrigo will likely face little resistance — but the show arrives in an ever more challenging time for women’s health and rights.

The return of President Trump to office has resulted in legislation like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act that slashed funding for healthcare; decimated funding for groups like USAID; and saw controversial, conspiracy-pushing figures like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. brought into government. Crucial issues in women’s health risked being ignored or exacerbated.

“It is a fraught moment” said Angela Aina, co-founder and executive director of the Black Mamas Matter Alliance, one of the groups supported by Daisy Chain Fields. Aina said that American Black women die in childbirth at three times the rate for white women, and 87% of these deaths were preventable.

“What matters most to us is that the festival is showing people the organizations that are doing this work and pushing solutions,” Aina added. “Black maternal health has too often been treated as a niche concern, something discussed among public health professionals and then set aside.” But when these topics underpin a massive, sold-out festival of music with an audience of young women, it becomes “part of ordinary civic life,” she said.

These organizations said Rodrigo made a real effort to connect personally with their teams and more closely learn about their issues and strategies. Some, like the National Institute for Reproductive Health and Planned Parenthood, focus on reproductive justice. Baby2Baby supports mothers in poverty while Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health focuses on Native and First Nations community healthcare; FreeFrom responds to the epidemic of gender-based violence, while the National Domestic Workers Alliance advocates for care workers, the vast majority of whom are women.

“It’s really extraordinary,” said National Domestic Workers Alliance President Ai-Jen Poo. “[She’s] making the time to come to meetings and learn about each organization directly from us, offering to think through different ways that she can lift up our work even beyond the festival.”

Part of NDWA’s mission is to change the cultural conversation around domestic labor — “We as a culture often refer to it as ‘help,’ as opposed to the profession that it is for millions of workers,” Poo said — an undertaking Poo said Rodrigo understands well.

“I think that she is a great storyteller herself through her music, and she knows that great storytelling is at the heart of what moves people and what creates change for people,” she said.

Olivia Rodrigo speaks at the beginning of the July 14, 2021, daily briefing at the White House in Washington, where she was filming a video to promote vaccines.

(Susan Walsh / Associated Press)

The National Women’s Law Center works across virtually every issue affecting women and girls in the United States. “One of the things I like to say is that our fingerprints are on the lives of women in this country in ways that they’re probably not even aware of,” said Uma Iyer, NWLC’s chief external affairs officer.

Iyer said that the “constant conversation” between law, policy and culture change is at the heart of the NWLC’s work, and Rodrigo’s advocacy keeps that conversation urgent.

“We’ve seen that in how #MeToo played out. That spawned litigation, but it was also a big global cultural moment,” Iyer said. “You’re talking about it at kitchen tables and movie theaters and on talk shows, and that discourse really matters when you’re trying to effect change.”

Each of the nonprofits will have a physical presence at the festival in Irvine’s Great Park. For their station, Poo said the NDWA will set up a space for visitors to learn about care work and pay tribute to the caregivers in their own lives through artwork, which will all knit together “in a big chain of care” by the festival’s end.

“We’re really excited about all the people who will come to our tent and have a conversation with us and stay involved in our movement long afterwards,” she said. “We feel like Daisy Chain is almost like a catalyst for really growing this movement for care in our country.”

Several organizers said the recognition and opportunities for connection that the festival brings are just as meaningful as whatever financial support it generates.

While the festival’s total donation pool is yet unclear, Rodrigo has said that all artists on the lineup are performing for free, though production and staffing costs for a fest this size will be substantial.

What money the nonprofit groups do receive will go right back into “continuing the work,” Iyer said. “The work of gender justice in whatever form it shows up for any of these 10 organizations is really the work of protecting our democracy.”

Money generated by Daisy Chain Fields will be “flexible dollars,” Iyer explained, usable for anything an organization needs to fill in the gaps. “Those are critical dollars for nonprofits to be able to survive and do the work,” she said. Beyond the impact for populations the organization serves, Iyer said the promise of Daisy Chain Fields has boosted morale among NWLC staff during an extremely difficult time in America.

“When you have this big festival with people you love to hear, who bring you joy and bring you comfort and peace and entertainment and laughs and love, and they’re all banding together because this one incredible person asked them to, because she believes it’s the right thing to do — it makes the work a little less hard.”

The work seems to be catching on. Roan, long outspoken on LGBTQ+ rights issues, will throw the Super Graphic Spectacular concert at the Shrine in Los Angeles on Oct. 21-22, benefiting trans youth through Roan’s Midwest Princess Project. Last year, Doechii told the audience at the GLAAD Media Awards in L.A. that as ”hard-won cultural change and rights for transgender people and the LGBTQ+ community have been threatened,” the superstar rapper was “disgusted” by the revanchism.

“Olivia’s involvement is such a gift, because she is reaching and educating young people who may feel checked out or hopeless on these issues,” Northup said. “Olivia is giving us a chance to meet young people where they’re at, and she’s approaching it with positivity. Her message is not about what we’ve lost, it’s about what we can accomplish if we channel our collective power as women and girls.”

Rodrigo just followed up her acclaimed LP “You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love” with a new single, “Serena Joy,” titled after a character in Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” who complies with an oppressive theocracy.

“If they do it to them, they’re gonna do it to you,” Rodrigo sang, with a fury that brooks no room for despair.

“There’s a growing sentiment among young people and women that we have to create change, and hopefully people are inspired, whether it’s by engaging with some of our NPO partners or simply finding whatever way feels right to them,” Rodrigo said. “There is no doubt in my mind that protecting women and girls, and ensuring they have ownership over their own bodies, has to be a priority for all of us.”

Alysa Liu is stepping away from skating again.

The first time, following her bronze medal at the 2022 world championships, Liu considered herself retired at age 16.

This time, six months after becoming the first American woman to win Olympic gold in skating since 2002, the 21-year-old athlete says she’s simply taking a year off from the sport and is already planning her return.

“I will not be competing this season,” Liu wrote Monday on Instagram. “I always want to challenge myself in new ways, so my artistry & skating can evolve. It’s important to me that my sport reflects my personal growth. I’m gonna take the time to recalibrate, fine-tune things & whatnot.

“So fear not, I’ll be back, & in the meantime I’ll be rooting for my teammates near & far. See yall soon!!”

Born in Clovis and raised primarily in Oakland, Liu won back-to-back U.S. championships in 2019 and 2020 at ages 13 and 14. In February 2022, she finished seventh at the 2022 Beijing Olympics.

Less than two months later, Liu announced on Instagram that she was “done with my goals in skating [and] i’m going to be moving on with my life.”

During her two years off, Liu hiked to Mount Everest base camp with friends, enrolled at UCLA and focused on herself.

“I found what I like and what I didn’t like,” Liu said earlier this year. “Really got to know myself, because [when] I had skating, I didn’t really know myself. I couldn’t know myself. I only ever did one thing.”

She returned to skating in 2024 on her own terms, with a new look that included a halo hairstyle and a “smiley” piercing in the tissue connecting her upper lip to her gums. A gold medal at the 2025 world championships set the stage for her triumph at the Milano-Cortina Games.

While her last break was an effort to get away from skating, Liu told NBC Sports that this time she will continue training to improve her “overall artistry, spins, jumps, everything.”

“I really want to improve my skating, and I wanted to take the time to do that for myself and just to evolve, and then I’ll be back after that is done,” Liu said. “But I’ll still be cheering on all my competitors and my teammates, and I’m really excited.”

She added that “logically and emotionally and physically, this just makes the most sense” and “I just felt this was right. So I’m trusting my instincts.”

This is one of the country’s best-preserved medieval towns.

The UK has no shortage of amazing historical towns and villages. One in particular is famous for looking frozen in time after its primary industry collapsed, leaving the homes preserved as they looked in the 16th century.

Lavenham in Suffolk is one of the most important wool towns, and back in the 15th century, it was one of the wealthiest settlements in England thanks to the booming wool trade. Wealthy merchants built large, opulent homes in the town and used their cash to fund the late-Gothic Church of St Peter and St Paul.

However, in the late 16th century, the wool industry was decimated by cheap foreign imports and heavy taxation.

The formerly wealthy people of Lavenham saw their money disappear overnight, and people could no longer afford to rebuild or modernise their homes.

These same timber-framed Tudor homes have stood in place for centuries, untouched and now are an iconic sight on the town’s high street.

More than 300 of them are listed as historic structures, and hundreds lean at odd angles due to the warping of the timber over the years.

On Instagram, a visitor said: “This 1,000 year old village feels frozen in time!”

One of the must-sees of the village, aside from its history-lined streets, is the spectacular Lavenham Guildhall.

This 16th-century building is now managed and maintained by the National Trust.

Throughout the building there are displays you can read and admire which tell the story of the village through the centuries as well as the people who called it home.

As you wander through the town, keep an eye out for the famous Crooked House, thought to be the inspiration behind the nursery rhyme “There was a crooked man, who lived in a crooked house”.

Keen-eyed tourists might recognise the De Vere House on Water Street, which was used as a shooting location for the Harry Potter franchise.

Now, the house is a luxury accommodation where tourists can spend the night in four-poster beds, admiring the wooden beams that are an emblem of the style of architecture.

USC sophomore defensive lineman Jahkeem Stewart, who was spotted over the weekend sporting crutches and a boot on his injured right foot, is expected to miss the Trojans’ season opener against San Jose State, coach Lincoln Riley said.

Losing Stewart for longer than that would be a bitter pill for USC to swallow at the start of a highly anticipated season. But while reports have suggested that Stewart is likely to miss USC’s entire nonconference slate with the injury, Riley suggested Tuesday that he could debut as soon as the following Friday, when USC takes on Fresno State in its second game of the season.

“What he’s dealing with right now is minor,” Riley said. “The plan is to probably hold him and I think he’ll be able from that point forward. But it’s certainly not long term. A little precautionary right now.”

Stewart played through a stress fracture in his foot throughout his freshman season after suffering the injury in August. He missed the season opener then as well, but elected not to have surgery, in order to keep contributing to the team.

“I could have got surgery, but I wouldn’t have felt comfortable,” Stewart said earlier this month. “I wouldn’t have felt complete as a human, knowing that I still had stuff in the tank that I could have gave to my team.”

Stewart ended up getting surgery on his foot in December. But when Stewart spoke to reporters during camp, he said his foot felt “1,000%”

But the concern now, as Stewart continues to deal with a foot issue, is whether this injury could continue to linger beyond just a game or two of his sophomore season.

Riley was not sounding that alarm Tuesday. But he also didn’t rule out the possibility that USC may be managing the situation throughout this season.

“We just gotta watch it,” Riley said. “Everybody is different in terms of their size, their biomechanics in terms of how they run and especially guys like Jahkeem who are pretty violent in the way they move and transfer energy on the ground — like there’s some force going into the ground. So yeah, I think some of these injuries are freak things that happen from time to time in this game, that’s part of it. And then there are things that as guys go, and as their bodies evolve and get bigger and stronger, you have to make adjustments on and they have to make adjustments on.”

USC was especially cautious with Stewart’s injury during the week last season, which led Stewart to sit out a significant number of practices. He still played in 11 games, missing the opener and the bowl game. But on average, Stewart played just 21 snaps per game as a freshman.

He was still named a freshman All-American, in spite of the difficult circumstances. All signs pointed toward him taking a major leap as a sophomore.

This latest injury could throw a wrench in that. But Riley expressed confidence in the depth of USC’s defensive interior, which was not something he could’ve said even this time last year.

“We’ve had some young guys emerge in that room, especially who are going to command some looks and some opportunities to play and go prove themselves on Saturdays here right away, and then you combine it with the experience we have in that room,” Riley said.

“We’ll have a good healthy rotation and be able to withstand any dings along the way.”

ATLANTA — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts could see the kind of inning right-hander Tyler Glasnow had to begin his start Tuesday, plagued by soft contact and bad luck, derailing a younger version of him.

“That’s an outing that a couple years ago I think might have gotten away,” Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss to the Braves, ending a six-game winning streak. “And I don’t think he would’ve been as efficient getting through the fifth like he did. But there’s just a lot of growth with Glas. Just can’t wait to see more. Like I told him after the start, it’s just really good to have him back.”

Glasnow’s return was a major step for the Dodgers as they assemble their postseason pitching staff. The next will be two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani’s return to pitching — which could happen as soon as this weekend.

Ohtani is scheduled to throw a bullpen session Thursday or Friday, pitching coach Mark Prior said. Then Ohtani and the Dodgers will finalize next steps. But Roberts didn’t rule out the possibility of Ohtani making a short start Sunday in Detroit.

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Tuesday marked Glasnow’s first start since May 6 in Houston, when back spasms cut his outing short after one inning. He’d been pitching so well to start the year (2.72 ERA in seven starts) that the Dodgers hoped he could avoid the IL, even for precautionary reasons.

Instead, he did have to go on the IL and had to halt his throwing progression multiple times for flare-ups, prolonging his time on it.

Even so, in Glasnow’s last two weeks on the IL, he seemed “at peace” to Roberts. So, the manager was confident that the growth in mindset that the Dodgers had witnessed over the last year would carry through the down time.

“I felt that he just got to a place — and I don’t know if it was last year’s postseason or what — but the game slowed down,” Roberts said. “Nothing spiked him. I think there was just a maturity in how he went about things. Coming out of the [bullpen], something he’s never done … in the postseason, and performing the way he did. And then coming into this spring training, he just seemed like another level of confident, that I just felt it was palpable.

“So that translated into the season. And I was so bummed, like we all were, to see him go down.”

The Dodgers’ rotation weathered the loss of Glasnow and Blake Snell (arthroscopic elbow surgery) admirably. And both are back in time for the stretch run.

“It felt like a long time,” Glasnow said. “I think any time you’re out that long, just doing rehab the whole time, it definitely sucks. So it’s exciting to be able to get back. But I’m glad, too, my body’s in a spot where I felt like I was before.”

His stuff followed suit.

“Even with all the talent that we have on our roster, [Glasnow] might surpass it with his raw stuff, and the ability to shut down any team at any time,” Prior said before the game. “Do we expect that to be Day 1, today, who knows? We’re facing, obviously, one of the best teams in baseball. But it’s really good to have him back because he changes a lot of things with our personnel.”

Though Glasnow gave up four hits and three runs in the first inning, only one of those hits, Drake Baldwin’s leadoff single, was hit hard. The rest were simply hit where the Dodgers’ defense couldn’t field them.

He finally escaped by striking out Braves No. 7 hitter Mike Yastrzemski, with the help of a successful ABS challenge.

In that 35-pitch first inning, Glasnow threw the kitchen sink at the Braves. But that included a lot of first-pitch four-seam fastballs — and six straight fastballs to Baldwin.

“Coming out in the second, I just felt more in rhythm,” Glasnow said, “and slider was working a lot better, and just felt a lot better.”

Shohei Ohtani slides into third for a triple to lead off the ninth inning Tuesday.

(Erik S. Lesser / AP)

Glasnow leaned on that slider, making sure to throw it at different points in the count — “just trying to not be so predictable,” he said — pairing it with his four-seamer and sinker.

It took him just 13 pitches to strike out the side. He retired three straight batters in the third with roughly the same plan of attack.

In the fourth, he started mixing in his knuckle curve again, even ending the inning on that pitch and Austin Riley failed to check his swing on a curve that broke into the dirt, for strike three.

After that first inning, Glasnow gave up only two more hits. And in five innings, he recorded seven strikeouts.

“I thought all night long, he threw the ball fantastic,” Roberts said. “The stuff, the strikeouts, swing and miss, how he navigated that first inning to not let it spiral, reset. He did everything he could to prevent runs tonight.”

Glasnow left with the score tied. The bottom of the Dodgers’ lineup evened the score, with RBI singles from Alek Thomas, Hunter Feduccia and Alex Call.

The score remained knotted until the eighth inning, when Dodgers left-hander Tanner Scott gave up a leadoff double to Matt Olson — the first extra-base hit of the game — and a two-out RBI single to Ozzie Albies to give the Braves the lead.

“We’ve had to lean on our ‘pen, man, the last two months really,” Roberts said. “The last two months we’ve played a lot of one-, two-run ballgames. There’s no margin. I thought we pitched well enough to win tonight. Unfortunately it just didn’t happen.”

To open the ninth inning, Ohtani struck back with a triple off the left-field wall. But the Dodgers stranded him there against Braves closer Raisel Iglesias.

Dolly Parton, the singer and songwriter from Locust Ridge, Tenn., who willed herself into being the very symbol of country music stardom, has died in Nashville.

Parton died peacefully Tuesday, her nephew Bryan Seaver announced in a press release shared with The Times. Seaver also announced her death in a video shared to the singer’s Instagram page. She was 80.

The fabled entertainer died after a series of health issues that led her to postpone several performing commitments. In September 2025, she missed the announcement of a Dollywood attraction to recover from a kidney stone. Later that month she delayed her residency at Caesars Palace — her first residency on the Las Vegas Strip in more than 30 years — due to unspecified “health challenges.”

Over the course of a flamboyant 50-plus-year career as a songwriter, recording artist, actor and businesswoman, Parton reinvented the American success story through a combination of grit and wit, faith and sex appeal, virtuosity and plainspokenness, empathy for the human condition and plastic surgery.

She seized on the roles that American culture allowed for women in the spotlight — waif, trollop, fallen woman, country girl in over her head — and played them to the hilt, achieving artistic and financial heights few female performers have ever reached. By the time of her death, she was said to be one of the few things that Americans of most every persuasion could agree on.

One of the most honored musicians in modern history, Parton earned 10 Grammy Awards, two Academy Award nominations, a Primetime Emmy, 10 Country Music Assn. awards, and in 1999 she was enshrined in the Country Music Hall of Fame.

In 2005 President George W. Bush presented Parton with the National Medal of the Arts, and a year later she was given a Kennedy Center for the Arts Award for her lifetime contribution to the arts. Parton logged some 25 gold or platinum records and 25 No. 1 songs on the country chart. Parton also won a Liseberg Applause Award, the biggest prize in the theme park industry, for her fabled tourist attraction Dollywood.

Parton’s rags-to-riches tale reads like a classic country music story-song. But before it became mythical, it was only incredibly hard.

Dolly Rebecca Parton was born in Locust Ridge, Tenn., in the Great Smoky Mountains, on Jan. 19, 1946. Her father was a tobacco sharecropper and she was the fourth of 12 children. In her autobiography, “Dolly: My Life and Other Unfinished Business,” Parton related how her parents were so poor they paid the doctor who delivered her with a sack of cornmeal.

Raised in a one-room cabin with no electricity, she listened to the Grand Ole Opry on a battery-powered radio. When she was 7 she started writing songs; a year later she picked up the guitar. At 10 she was singing on a Knoxville radio and TV program, “Cas Walker Farm & Home Hour.”

The Parton family was musical, and there were always banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars around the cabin. Her voice, a birdlike soprano with an animated trill, hadn’t changed much from her youth: “I sound like a little girl singing all these Lord-awful songs,” she told “Fresh Air’s” Terry Gross in 2001.

On a Friday night in 1964, Parton became the first in her family to graduate from high school. The next afternoon she was on a bus heading for Nashville, targeting a career in country music.

Bob Hope gets an adjustment to his reindeer costume as he and Dolly Parton prepare to tape a 1988 Christmas special on a cruise ship docked in Miami.

(Kathy Willens / Associated Press)

Women had little real power in Nashville at the time, and though rural women were a growing part of the country music audience, they were marginalized as artists. Parton signed to the Monument label, but felt that they wanted a pop singer more than they wanted her. An early breakthrough came when singer Bill Phillips heard a demo version of her “Put It Off Until Tomorrow”; not only did he want to record the song, but he recorded it with Parton singing harmony on it. The song went to No. 6 on the country chart in 1966.

In 1967 she recorded Curly Putman’s “Dumb Blonde,” her first charting song as a singer and a savvy choice that spoke to her as both an image and as flesh and blood, as she sang:

Just because I’m blond
Don’t think I’m dumb
‘Cause this dumb blond ain’t nobody’s fool

Nashville noticed. That year, country music star Porter Wagoner was looking for a new “girl singer” for his popular TV show, after Norma Jean left. Parton got the gig, and for weeks, legend has it, was greeted by the studio audience shouting “Norma Jean” when Parton opened her mouth. It was the kind of challenge she lived for. Carefully deferential to the star, Parton carved out a foothold for herself.

They were a complicated team. Tall, gaunt and calculating, Wagoner’s angles had angles, but somehow standing next to her, his pompadour dwarfing her considerable bouffant, it worked. At their peak, they had a weekly TV viewership of over 3.5 million, and recorded numerous hit duets, “Holding on to Nothin” (1968), “If Teardrops Were Pennies” (1973) and “Please Don’t Stop Loving Me” (1974) among them.

On her solo recordings at the time, Parton included a raft of songs about poor children in trouble. These gothic, occasionally autobiographical compositions, including “Coat of Many Colors,” “My Blue Ridge Mountain Boy,” “Evening Shade,” “Daddy Come and Get Me” and “Down From Dover,” would have been more than enough to make her, if not a star, at least a country music legend. But the kind of attention even her lesser work with Wagoner enjoyed continued to elude her own material.

Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers laugh together backstage at an April 2010 show honoring her “Islands in the Stream” singing partner.

(Rick Diamond / Getty Images)

By 1973, Parton realized that if she was going to be her own star she would have to be on her own. Wagoner fought and threatened, and finally, Parton wrote a song as a way to help him understand both her gratitude and her need for independence, “I Will Always Love You.” He liked the song, but it didn’t convince him. Wagoner sued her for $20 million over breach of contract and settled for $1 million.

But Parton had won her freedom, and she made the most of it. Her album from that year, “My Tennessee Mountain Home,” was a reintroduction to her audience, an autobiographical cycle of songs telling the story of a singer leaving home to make it on Music Row. And in 1974, “Jolene” became her chart-topping breakthrough.

The title was the name of a red-haired, green-eyed young fan Parton met signing autographs, and the story of a woman begging a rival to leave her man alone. Parton said she made it up after discovering a bank teller had a crush on her husband. With a beveled chord progression and a haunting repetition of the name, it became perhaps her most requested song, and was covered by many, including the White Stripes, Candi Staton, Reba McEntire and Olivia Newton-John.

“I wanted to be seen, I wanted to be recognized, I wanted to be a star,” she explained. The last part was now coming into focus.

In 1976 she hosted a short-lived variety TV series, “Dolly!” Her name was her brand, and so, too, was her profile: the full bosom and tiny waist, platinum wig and baubles like sprinkles on an ice cream cone, 5 feet tall standing in five-inch heels. She was a disarming contradiction: manufactured and utterly sincere.

“A country girl’s idea of what glamour was,” she explained.

“I didn’t have any money to have stuff and I’ve often joked about it, but it’s the real truth that I patterned myself after what they considered the trash in our hometown.” She took shame and made it a flag, one big enough for all sorts of Americans to settle beneath.

Dolly Parton checks out an exhibit honoring her life and career at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in May 2025.

(Jason Kempin / Getty Images)

Building on her fame, in the mid-’70s Parton decided to reinvent herself by reaching beyond the confines of country music. She signed with L.A.-based talent manager Sandy Gallin, who had made Mac Davis a country crossover star and would soon work with Cher and Michael Jackson.

Parton laid off her longtime Traveling Family Band and sought out musicians and songs that were more purely pop. Hits that followed included “Here You Come Again” (No. 20 on the pop chart, 1977), “Heartbreaker” (No. 37, 1978) and duets with Kenny Rogers like “Islands in the Stream” (No. 1, 1983).

The pop move was muttered over and seen by gatekeepers as a rejection of Southern-based authenticity. It was the era of “Urban Cowboy” and purity was being policed. “I love country music. It’s my first love,” she told the SoHo News. “But it was confining. You can only go so far in a circle.”

The movie “9 to 5” from 1980 settled her broadening stardom; acting alongside Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin in a comedy about three office workers who get even with an abusive boss, Parton charmed viewers. It was her first acting role, and Roger Ebert called her “a natural born movie star.” She wrote and sang the movie’s theme song, which topped Billboard’s pop and country charts.

Dolly Parton and her “9 to 5” castmates Jane Fonda, left, and Lily Tomlin assemble at a 1980 news conference to promote the movie.

(Wally Fong / Associated Press)

Parton would go on to act in “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), “Rhinestone” (1984), “Steel Magnolias” (1989), the “Hannah Montana” TV series (she was Miley Cyrus’ godmother in real life too), and in many more films and TV shows. But her biggest cinematic moment came with a song she’d written years before; “I Will Always Love You” was sung by Whitney Houston in the 1992 film “The Bodyguard,” turning her air kiss to Porter Wagoner into a No. 1 hit for 14 weeks.

In the mid-1980s, Parton suffered a number of setbacks. She experienced depression. “I was just broken down,” she said later. In 1982, abdominal pain and bleeding forced her to cancel a tour, and in 1984 she had a partial hysterectomy. There were bouts of binge eating, and when she hit bottom she considered suicide. A series of conversations with God were instrumental in her recovery, Parton said.

Underscoring her connection to her origins while also illustrating how far she had gone, in 1986 she bought an old amusement park in Pigeon Forge, Tenn., and reinvented it as Dollywood, a booming theme park, resort and theater. Other businesses included Sandollar Productions, a film and TV company. In the 1990s Parton formed her own label, Blue Eye Records.

Success meant she could settle into being Dolly. A trio of beloved bluegrass albums, “The Grass Is Blue,” “Little Sparrow” and “Halos & Horns,” around the turn of the millennium reestablished her as a performer with extensive roots in rural America. She recorded with everyone from Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris to Ladysmith Black Mambazo. Her 2019 cover of John Hiatt’s “Faith,” made with Swedish duo Galantis, topped the EDM charts.

She embraced her Christian and LGBTQ+ fans, and perhaps no American artist had more of each. Inclusivity mattered to Parton. She was an icon to the LGBTQ+ community. In 2002 at the House of Blues in Los Angeles, Parton replaced the name Jolene with “drag queen” and sang her famous song as a roster of drag performers looked on.

Dolly Parton at the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards in 2022.

(John Locher / Associated Press)

Just two years later, in 2004, the Library of Congress presented Parton with the since-retired “Living Legend Medal,” which sought to recognize those that made significant creative contributions to American life.

Singer and songwriter Brandi Carlile called Parton “an angel on my shoulder and also the devil on my other shoulder.”

“When I was 15 years old I read the back of Dolly Parton’s book when she became the first country artist ever to speak out in support of LGBTQ people. And I can tell you that as a queer kid from a small town, getting love from Dolly is second only to God.”

Parton has been honored in musical tributes by Carrie Underwood, Alison Krauss and Shania Twain. “Jolene” became the subject of the short story “Jolene: A Life,” by E.L. Doctorow. In 2019 WNYC and Jad Abumrad presented “Dolly Parton’s America,” a nine-segment podcast devoted to, and with the cooperation of, Parton; it examined her persona and impact on American life.

That same year Netflix presented “Dolly Parton’s Heartstrings,” an anthology series in which each episode presents a fictional narrative built around a Parton song; the series features appearances by Kathleen Turner, Delta Burke and Melissa Leo.

Dolly Parton and President Carter embrace as First Lady Rosalynn Carter looks on before a White House luncheon in October 1979.

(Georges / Associated Press)

Her influence was so vast she has even been proposed as a field of academic study, and scrutinized in the 2018 academic study from Leigh H. Edwards, “Dolly Parton, Gender, and Country Music.”

She was married to the same man, Carl Thomas Dean, for over 50 years. They met on the day she arrived in Nashville in 1964, as she stood outside a laundromat. Parton and Dean were rarely seen in public together, and renewed vows in 2016. Dean died at age 82 in March 2025.

“Carl and I spent many wonderful years together,” Parton said in a statement at the time. “Words can’t do justice to the love we shared for over 60 years. Thank you for your prayers and sympathy.”

Parton remained a source of interest and fascination, and though few if anyone could really claim to know her, many thought they did. As she once put it: “I look one way and am another. It makes for a good combination.”

Rachel Cusk is not a people pleaser. The prolific, award-winning British author’s novels are often plotless, discursive and frustratingly obtuse. Yet Cusk has found a large fan base for her work, mainly because she is a deft excavator of the human psyche, a writer who can articulate emotional states with uncanny precision and insight.

On a formal level, Cusk’s new book, “Life Of M,” closely adheres to the rigorously calibrated approach that has been so successful for her across 11 novels. In classic Cusk fashion, “Life of M” unfolds from the inside out. It is resolutely internal and hermetic, told from the point of view of a highly observant and self-conscious narrator. When Cusk writes that a character’s smile “had a sweetness that almost seemed to reproach those who looked at it for their dim and suspicious view of life,” it’s that “almost” which saves the line from sinking of its own weight, one of Cusk’s nuanced brushstrokes that give her prose lift and bounce.

“Life of M” is a two-hander. The primary driver of the narrative is an unnamed writer who has approached a famous actor — the M of the title — with the proposition of ghosting her autobiography. This is the extent of Cusk’s setup. The novel is about as stark and stripped of biographical details as a Samuel Beckett story. Cusk is far more interested in how the writer’s identity is unmoored by the actor, and how the world bends to M’s will and thus changes its shape in her presence: “Standing in the street, I realized that I could not be myself around M. She was friendly, generous, disarmingly modest, yet everything I did or said in her company was false. It was as if I was acting, while M came across as authentic and real.”

Author Rachel Cusk

(Siemon Scamell-Katz)

Interspersed between these scenes are chapters that shift time and tone. They appear at first to be the writer’s own story, reflections on the past and life apart from M; the “we” in these sections might be referring to siblings or partners. But they are too strange to be memoiristic: “In the evening we flower; like strange nocturnal plants we put out our display.” Then: “Even if we spend the evening at home this feeling of integration, or our interior and our exterior fusing together, occurs.” Are we in M’s head? Is the collective pronoun meant to be a proxy for her private and public selves? These sections are the least effective parts of Cusk’s book, as they are frustratingly indeterminate and hazy.

As the writer and the actor spend time together, and the narrator tries to pry open some small window into M’s psyche, the process of gathering material is constantly being thwarted by M’s casual instructability. It seems M has perfected the art of using candor as a carapace, so that the image of her authentic self recedes the more Cusk’s writer spends time with her. M is not governed by the usual impulses of the civilian; she has no use for love or hate, desire or abnegation. “Acting involved pretending to be other people, whose own emotional states —such as she understood them — could preoccupy her for a time,” writes Cusk. “Once they were completed, she was as locked out of these recordings as the millions of other eyes that watched them.”

M and the writer move through highly mediated spaces that amplify certain features and downgrade others, a kind of edited, hyperreal landscape. M researches a part in a mansion that has been meticulously art-directed to resemble the house of a family who in fact never lived there. Cusk describes these spaces in great detail, as if they were fetish objects. The mansion’s interior is “not heavy or dark,” she writes, “rather it is light and mellow and the panels have finely carved patterns around their edges.” It is the seduction of surfaces Cusk is exploring here, the ways we are taken in by so much that is chimerical: lavish interiors, actors, our own doubled selves.

Cusk has previously explored this gap between truth and signifiers of truth in her “Outline” trilogy. But “Life of M” feels different, perhaps because the world feels far different than it did eight years ago, when “Kudos,” the last book in the trilogy, was published. Now that we have fallen straight through the looking glass of the internet, that gap has narrowed to the extent that we are having far greater difficulty discerning reality from its uncanny simulations. Sadly, we are complicit in this occluding of authentic experience. Millions of us toggle so frequently between our real lives and the well-curated fantasyland of our social media personas that it’s scrambled our neural pathways. We are living the double consciousness of public figures no less readily than a celebrity like M. The notion of a “complete inversion of internal and external that fame brings about” is no longer exclusive to the famous.

According to internet gossip, Cusk’s M is in fact a shadow portrait of Natalie Portman. And there are strong hints in the text that indicate this might be the case. But to think of this novel solely as a journey to the center of Portman’s mind is not only irrelevant; it cheapens Cusk’s project. What the novelist is getting at here resonates far beyond a single celebrity. This is a short, potent book that has much to say about the spiritual rot of our present culture.

Weingarten is the author of “Thirsty: William Mulholland, California Water and the Real Chinatown.”

Welcome back to the Times of Troy newsletter, where I am thrilled to announce that the start of the USC football season is here. And a week before the rest of college football, no less!

We’ve reminded you enough by now that this is a make-or-break season for USC and for its head coach, Lincoln Riley. With a new defensive coordinator who’s in the College Football Hall of Fame, a new, state-of-the-art football facility and the nation’s top recruiting class in tow, USC has given Riley everything he needs to succeed.

So what if … he actually does?

Last week, we walked you through the worst-case scenario for USC’s 2026 slate. So this week, let’s put on our cardinal-and-gold colored glasses and consider what this season might look like if everything actually goes right. Because there’s certainly a world in which USC earns a place in the College Football Playoff. Maybe even wins a game or two (or three?).

That picture-perfect scenario, however, hinges in my mind on how fast USC’s stellar freshman class rounds into form.

Imagine for a minute a Trojans defense with Luke Wafle, the nation’s top prospect in 2026, screaming off the edge a la the Bosa Bros at Ohio State. Or what about “Boobie” Feaster, the Trojans’ 17-year-old stud wideout, taking a tunnel screen to the house through the teeth of Oregon’s defense?

USC hasn’t had this much talent on the roster since I started covering the team in 2019. And while it’s fair to be hesitant about relying on so many freshmen, what if, when push comes to shove, they’re just the best players on the team?

It’s not hard to envision that being the case at wide receiver, at tight end and even along the defensive line. Freshmen could even be starting, at some point, on the offensive line, at linebacker and in the defensive backfield. (OK, this might not sound like a best-case yet, but bear with me here …)

USC has the first three weeks of its season to let the freshmen figure it out, followed by a trip across the country to Rutgers, and with no redshirts to worry about, I’d venture to say we’ll see the full breadth of freshmen Trojan talent over those four games. If USC can emerge from that stretch with the confidence of its young players soaring, then it should have a shot when Oregon comes to town.

If there’s one game that could decide the direction of USC’s season, it’s this one. It’s a critical moment for quarterback Jayden Maiava, who had his worst game of the year a season ago in Eugene. Any world in which USC makes a playoff run must include a major leap from Maiava. This is his time to prove that he’s taken that last step in his game, the one that could truly separate him as a first-round NFL draft pick. He has the talent, and in this case, he’ll have to show every bit of it.

Meanwhile, USC’s defense could cast some doubt on the potential of the Ducks’ own quarterback with a promising performance here. Dante Moore has yet to face a ranked team in a true road environment as Oregon’s starter. And the Coliseum is going to be rocking that night. I could see him slipping up on the road.

If Maiava can play to his potential and the defense can rise to the occasion, USC can beat Oregon for the first time in a decade. And if it does, a world of possibilities open up for USC.

With the confidence of its fabulous freshmen soaring, USC rolls through Washington at home. A trip to Penn State, during what’s sure to be a White Out game, marks the second moment in which the Trojans’ young stars could be seriously tested. But who’s to say that the Nittany Lions, under Matt Campbell, have anywhere close to the talent the Trojans will bring to State College. And without its usual pass rush, I could see Maiava picking Penn State apart.

Wins over Maryland and on the road at Wisconsin are locks in this scenario, as is a stomping of crosstown rival UCLA and new coach Bob Chesney.

So what about Ohio State and Indiana, our last two national title winners? The more winnable of those two, in my opinion, is the Halloween home game with Ohio State, considering the questions on the Buckeyes’ defense. But Ohio State is still the deeper, more talented team, and by that point in the season, injuries will have surely affected USC’s roster.

As for Indiana, well, not only have the Hoosiers not lost at home under Curt Cignetti, but they’ve allowed just 10 points per game over Cignetti’s 15 home games as coach. USC has to slip up somewhere in the schedule, and my bet would be Bloomington.

Ten wins would surely secure USC its first-ever Playoff spot, delivering the statement that Riley so desperately needed in his fifth season. And if by this point, its fleet of freshmen just happen to be peaking, then there’s no telling how far this team could go from there.

Thanos down

Jahkeem Stewart (4) reacts against the Michigan State Spartans last season.

(Luke Hales / Getty Images)

In a brutal twist of fate for USC, just ahead of its Week 0 opener, defensive tackle Jahkeem Stewart is now likely to miss the nonconference slate with a foot injury.

It’s terrible news for the sophomore standout and for USC, which needs all the talent it can get along the defensive line. Stewart’s participation throughout camp had been a bit inconsistent already, presumably in an effort to keep him fresh for the season.

The fact that he’s likely to miss the first three games isn’t so much the main concern here. It’s that foot injuries are notoriously tricky. We don’t have much information on whether this was a aggravation or an entirely new problem, but a source downplayed the current injury’s severity. Still, it’s not a great sign for a player that was expected, at least by me, to be all-conference caliber this season.

Does Riley have any interest in adding old Trojans to the roster?

A court ruling bafflingly cleared the way last week for players who have already signed with NFL teams to gain some added college eligibility. And while no one has been added to the mix yet, USC’s coach said this week he wasn’t against adding under the right circumstances.

“Addition doesn’t always mean necessarily making you better, right?” Riley said. “And we feel very strongly about the group that we’ve put together, we feel very strongly about the kind of culture and attitude and vibe of this team right now, and so first and foremost, we’re going to protect that.”

Other than at linebacker, where USC would have to add someone new from the transfer portal midseason, or because of injuries, I don’t see a scenario in which it would really make sense. Anthony Lucas or Lake McRee just don’t move the needle at this point.

Class of ‘26 power rankings: Week 0

USC signed the top-ranked class last recruiting cycle, so as they finally hit the field, the Times of Troy will keep tabs on their progress by doing what we do best: Ranking their performance! In this case, we’ll rank them based on the freshmen we most expect to make a difference when USC kicks off against San José State.

Trent Mosley at USC spring football practice.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

1. Luke Wafle, DE … the No. 1 overall prospect in 2026 should get plenty of run coming off the edge in these first few games. I wouldn’t be surprised if, over that stretch, he makes it impossible to keep him on the bench.

2. Trent Mosley, WR. Seemingly locked into a starting job since the spring, Mosley is 20 years old and much further along than most freshmen when it comes to football IQ. He could lead the team in targets if all breaks right.

3. Mark Bowman, TE. Bowman was in and out of practice through camp, which might be the only thing keeping him from the No. 1 spot on this list. Don’t be surprised if the breakout doesn’t come right away as he gets into the swing of things.

4. Kayden Dixon-Wyatt, WR. A standout of camp with Tanook Hines sidelined, Dixon-Wyatt should be thrust into a big role right away. He’s a big play waiting to happen, and of all the freshmen position players, he’s the one I’d expect to wow us first.

5. Elbert “Rock” Hill, CB. Another standout of camp, Hill is behind two surefire starters in Jontez Williams and Chasen Johnson. But from what we’ve seen and heard, the freshman cornerback is way ahead of schedule.

6. Boobie Feaster, WR. Feaster is so young — just turned 17 — but his talent is undeniable. He has the potential to be the No. 1 guy on this list by season’s end.

7. Tomuhini “Tom Tom” Topui, DT. Stewart’s injury could open the door for more young guys on the interior, including Topui, who really impressed me in the scrimmage and has been receiving rave reviews from teammates.

8. Talanoa Ili, LB. In a linebacker room with shallow depth, don’t be surprised if Ili emerges early. I like what I’ve seen.

9. Madden Riordan, S. One of the bigger surprises in the class, Riordan added critical weight and now should play a part in the defensive back rotation. Being 20 already helps.

10. Breck Kolojay, OG. Kolojay was a major standout of spring, then cooled in camp while dealing with injuries. He’s likely a next-man-up option on the offensive interior.

11. Tron Baker, WR. Baker has a lot of other freshman wideouts ahead of him on this list, but we’ve heard his name a lot listed among young players who impressed.

12. Deshonne Redeaux, RB/KR. I really like Redeaux’s smooth, effortless running style, and while he’s down the depth chart at running back, he could right away be the kick returner.

Poll results

We asked, “What is the fewest number of wins you’d accept from Riley and USC without calling for a change?”
After 1,507 votes, the results:

Nine wins, 35.6%
10 wins/playoff appearance, 27.9%
Eight wins, 24.6%
Seven wins, 8.8%
Six wins, 3.1%

Olympic sports spotlight

Jane Alukonis was named the Big Ten women’s soccer coach of the year in 2024, but the Trojans trudged their way to a 7-7-3 finish in 2025 and have a lot to prove as their 2026 season begins.

Lucky for Alukonis, she brings in the No. 1-ranked recruiting class in the nation according to Prep Soccer, a class highlighted by forward Jordan Hill, the No. 3 overall prospect, and defender Rhiannon Mahon, the No. 5 overall prospect.

But the Trojans were still picked in the preseason to finish seventh in the Big Ten. And with losses to Duke and Brigham Young already, USC is already facing an uphill climb to start the season.

What I’m Watching This Week

Anne Hathaway as Andy Sachs in “The Devil Wears Prada 2.”

(Macall Polay / 20th Century Studios)

No one told me before I watched “The Devil Wears Prada 2” on a plane last weekend that it was a journalism movie! But even aside from commiserating about the state of journalism through the screen with Anne Hathaway, I enjoyed this second go-round.

So what if it was a blatant cash grab? Put Hathaway, Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci in a room, and I’d probably watch whatever they come up. Tucci, in particular, was a standout for me in this sequel.

In case you missed it

How Boobie Feaster became one of the USC playmakers to watch at age 17

Ohio State and Oregon lead AP top 25 preseason college football poll; USC also ranked

Until next time …

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at ryan.kartje@latimes.com, and follow me on X at @Ryan_Kartje. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Actress Shelley Fabares, known for her television roles as Francine Webster on the 1975 sitcom “One Day at a Time,” Mary Stone on “The Donna Reed Show,” and her Billboard Hot 100 song “Johnny Angel,” died Sunday in Los Angeles surrounded by her loved ones. She was 82.

In a statement to The Times, a family friend shared the news of the star’s death.

“To her family and friends, Shelley was a source of love, strength, laughter, and comfort… whose warmth, generosity, humor, and grace made an enduring difference in the lives of everyone who knew her,” the statement read. “She had a remarkable ability to make people feel welcomed, valued, and cared for.”

The family did not disclose the cause of death.

Fabares was born in Santa Monica in 1944. She began her acting career at the age of 3 and became a household name playing teenager Mary Stone on “The Donna Reed Show” from 1958 to 1963. Fabares frequently praised her on-screen mother Donna Reed, calling her a “second mother.”

Fabares went on to star alongside Elvis Presley in three films: “Girl Happy,” “Spinout” and “Clambake.”

By the 1970s, Fabares transitioned back to television, starring in the 1971 TV drama “Brian’s Song” and appearing in “The Little People” and “The Practice.” She ended the decade on Norman Lear’s “One Day at a Time,” starring as Francine Webster opposite Bonnie Franklin.

Fabares later starred as Christine Armstrong on the ABC sitcom “Coach,” earning two Primetime Emmy nominations during the show’s nine-season run.

After her 1980 divorce from music producer Lou Adler, Fabares remarried “MASH” actor Mike Farrell in 1984. The pair eventually sold their Sherman Oaks honeymoon home they bought in 1985. They moved to Studio City to better accommodate Fabares’ mother, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.

Fabares spent her final years taking care of her mother and advocating for more funding for research into the crippling disease.

She is survived by her husband and daughter, Erin.

TOPEKA, Kan. — Nancy Kassebaum Baker, a Kansas governor’s daughter who became the first woman elected to the U.S. Senate without following a spouse into office, has died. She was 94.

Kassebaum Baker died Friday of natural causes, according to her son, Bill Kassebaum.

“She loved Kansas. She loved people from Kansas and representing Kansas for 18 years in the U.S. Senate,” he told the Associated Press. “She was an independent-minded Republican who was willing to stand up for what she thought was right, even if that meant going against the party.”

She was elected to the Senate in 1978 and served three terms. Her modest demeanor endeared her to voters of all political stripes, though she shared the moderate, progressive Republican politics of her father, Gov. Alf Landon, the unsuccessful 1936 GOP nominee for president. Even after leaving the Senate early in 1997, she continued taking on public service roles.

She married former Sen. Howard Baker, a Tennessee Republican, in 1996. He died in 2014.

Kassebaum Baker was widely admired among Kansans generally. She could work with Senate colleagues of all political philosophies, and a 1996 health insurance law bore her name, along with that of liberal Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. “Ted” Kennedy.

Part of a dwindling GOP bloc

Her election to the Senate brought her immediate national attention. When she announced her retirement, she was among eight women senators and the only one to chair a Senate committee, the Labor and Human Resources panel.

She was also in a dwindling bloc of moderate to liberal Republicans, having supported, for example, a ban on assault weapons championed by President Clinton.

Yet she never polarized Kansas conservatives as some GOP moderates did. She connected with voters because she never seemed caught up in the trappings of power, and when she retired, she acknowledged, “I’d rather cuddle up and do needlepoint all day.”

She was born on July 29, 1932, as her father, an oilman from Independence, was running for the first of his two terms as Kansas governor. She earned a political science degree from the University of Kansas and a master’s degree in diplomatic history from the University of Michigan in the mid-1950s.

She was a radio station executive, spent a year in the 1970s on the staff of Sen. James Pearson (R-Kan.) and served on the school board in the Wichita suburb of Maize. She had four children with her first husband, Phil Kassebaum, including Bill, who served a term in the Kansas House of Representatives. The marriage ended in divorce in 1979.

A moderate who sought sensible solutions

When Kassebaum Baker decided to run for the Senate, she figured that “a woman with a background different from a man might be appealing” to people growing weary of politics. Pundits at the time estimated a Senate race would require the then-huge-for-Kansas sum of $1 million. In the first quarter of 1978, she spent less than $12,000 on her campaign, and saw herself “at the bottom of the totem pole.”

But nine candidates crowded the primary field, including three state senators and a prominent Wichita businessman. Kassebaum Baker won the GOP nomination with less than 31% of the vote.

Running as Nancy Landon Kassebaum, she won almost 54% of the vote that November against former two-term Democratic congressman Bill Roy.

Her moderate politics quickly came to the fore, when only months later, she refused to endorse an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to require a balanced budget.

“We should be wary of the seemingly simple solution,” she said.

Her father, who would die at age 100 in 1987, still cast a long political shadow during her first years in office. Though Landon overwhelmingly lost the 1936 presidential race to Democratic incumbent Franklin D. Roosevelt, he later became an elder statesman for the Republican Party. A lecture series named for him at Kansas State University attracted presidents and foreign leaders.

Kassebaum Baker became even more popular in her time. She won reelection in 1984 with 76% of the vote and in 1990 with 74%.

But she frustrated conservative activists, despite her popularity. She said her vote in favor of the assault weapons ban inspired the angriest mail of her career.

A public servant to the end

She’d contemplated not seeking a third term, but Republican leaders had prevailed upon her to run one more time. In 1996, when she decided not to seek reelection, she said she would return to a ranch and 90-year-old farmhouse in Kansas’ scenic Flint Hills and babysit her grandchildren — she had seven, as well as two great-grandchildren.

When there briefly was talk of naming a new highway in Topeka after her, she said, “Oh, goodness. Absolutely not — no.”

She and Baker kept their romance low-key, and speculation about a possible marriage didn’t emerge until mid-1996, in a Washington Post story. They married that December.

It was the first time a man and a woman who had both served in the Senate had wed. Baker was elected to three terms, serving from 1967 to 1985 before becoming President Reagan’s chief of staff. His first wife, Joy, had died in 1993 after a long battle with cancer.

After the marriage, public service still beckoned, including as a member of a bipartisan commission on campaign finance reform under Clinton and on a British commission in Africa in 2004-05.

President George W. Bush named her husband ambassador to Japan in 2001, and she went with him for the four-year posting. Baker said she became an important figure in the Asian nation.

Before she left for Tokyo, she told a reporter she saw her stint in Japan as an adventure, but added, “All I can say is, I will miss the Kansas prairie.”

Not a fan of Trump

Later in life, Kassebaum Baker broke with the Republican Party as it became more conservative, endorsing Democratic candidates for Kansas governor and U.S. senator, including Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly both times — even though Kelly’s 2022 GOP opponent, then-state Atty. Gen. Derek Schmidt, had worked on her Senate staff.

In 2021, she supported the impeachment of President Trump for incitement of insurrection for his role in the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol that sought to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election to Democrat Joe Biden.

“This just has gone too far,” she told Kansas City’s KMBC.

Hanna writes for the Associated Press.

It’s as though Kyle Tucker accidentally became important at work and it ruined his life.

He just so happened to be the best available right fielder on the free agent market at the moment in time that the Dodgers were craving an uptick in right field and another functional bat to further fortify their lineup.

Basically, they wanted just another cog in the machine to help clear a path to a third consecutive World Series championship.

And because money is no object — to the objection of the rest of baseball — instead of offering Tucker a long-term deal with annual pay more in line with his talents, the Dodgers slapped a four-year, $240-million deal on the table.

Dodger Kyle Tucker talks with manager Dave Roberts in the dugout on Aug. 15.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Said, essentially: Hey, guy, how would you like a Major League Baseball record for average annual value — about $57.1 million per year — not to be the man, but to be a guy?

Not to outshine Shohei Ohtani and his starry pals, not to move merch off the field or do huge numbers on it. Just to quietly do what he did the previous season as a Chicago Cub, when he slashed .266/.377/.464 with 22 home runs, 73 RBIs and 25 stolen bases in 136 games.

It must have felt like winning the lottery. All the introverted Tucker had to do was be his normal self with the understanding that no one expected him to live up to that Ohtani-type contract, that Juan Soto-esque dough, that Aaron Judge-level cheddar.

It wasn’t that too much was expected of Tucker, it was that only so much was.

That was a weird place to start. And it obviously didn’t help him find his footing as a Dodger, because he still hasn’t gained traction.

“I mean, it’s been a struggle in the sense that I’d like to help our team win and perform better for the guys in the clubhouse and the fans that come to the games,” Tucker said Friday. “In that aspect, I wish I would’ve done better this year. But like I said, we’ve still got a month and a half left and the playoffs coming up, so it’s not over yet.”

We can’t, of course, say “poor Kyle Tucker” as he strains — less stoically now — to figure it out with the postseason closing in.

But we can wonder if it was a poor decision by the Dodgers, with all of their top-flight minor league outfield prospects, to splurge so steeply?

We can ask whether they should have taken into account the mental makeup of a man who they were asking to carry the weight of a contract so unwieldy he should be embarrassed by it — which is how Tucker looks when he does his inhibited version of the hip-lock, arm wiggle-and-wave dance moves all the Dodgers do when they reach base.

Tucker just hasn’t looked like a true blue Dodger yet; he hasn’t been able to cut loose — especially not here in L.A.

Brandon Gomes, Dodgers executive president and general manager, helps new signee Kyle Tucker put on a Dodgers jersey during a news conference at Dodger Stadium on Jan. 21.

(Ronaldo Bolaños/Los Angeles Times)

After going 0-for-4 in Friday’s 5-4 victory over the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tucker is hitting .186 with a .552 OPS at Dodger Stadium. He went 0-for-19 in the Dodgers’ last homestand, when even a game off did nothing to unscramble his mind.

Overall, he’s had it rough in the outfield too, where Statcast’s Fielding Run Value (FRV) measuring a player’s overall defensive value has him rated 96th of 97 right fielders this season.

At present, it doesn’t help that Tucker is one of two high-profile Dodger free-agent busts-so-far.

All-Star closer Edwin Díaz has blown four saves while saving just seven games this season in between stints on the injured list — Tucker and Díaz, insult to injury. For the high-high price of a combined $309 million.

Still, the Dodgers are 78-51. They have the second-best record in baseball, with two fewer wins than the Milwaukee Brewers.

And on the road, Tucker has given the Dodgers more of their money’s worth, hitting.272 with a .820 OPS.

So after Wednesday’s two-hit game to close out a sweep in Colorado on Wednesday, Tucker came home and tried the slump-busting tactic of taking batting practice outside on the field Friday for the first as a Dodger.

“Just trying to put up good swings tonight, good at-bats,” he said. “Just trying to move guys over, get guys in, do my part to try to win.”

The crowd participated too Friday, giving Tucker ovations more befitting a hitter on a heater than one on ice each time he stepped to the plate, where he put up a fight all night.

He saw 31 pitches, walked and hit into a 10th-inning fielder’s choice that moved Kiké Hernández to third base before he scored on Tommy Edman’s walk-off single.

Moral victories for $240 million, Alex? That’s not what the Dodgers bargained for.

But they’ll take it.

“I loved his at-bats,” said Roberts after Friday’s victory, picking up where the Dodgers’ crowd left off. “That’s one of the things I’m going to make sure I do, is encourage him.”

Because one magic moment in October will make it all worth it.

Omani and Iranian foreign ministers hold a call as Washington prepares economic sanctions amid ongoing shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has called for an end to the months-long war with the United States, stating that Tehran holds a position of strength as diplomatic talks remain stalled.

“It is better that we bring the war to an end now as we are in a position of power and dignity,” Pezeshkian said in a meeting with doctors on Friday. “The whole world acknowledges our victory and emphasises that America has attacked our schools, hospitals and infrastructure in violation of all regulations and is hated around the world.”

Pezeshkian – whose authority as president is ultimately subordinate to Iran’s Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – also defended the June memorandum of understanding agreed with Washington against hardline domestic critics in parliament, who accused his administration of giving concessions to the US.

“They cannot find even a single clause in this agreement that indicates capitulation. All the commitments concern the other side,” he said.

However, days after the memorandum of understanding expired, Iran’s military leadership has warned that the country remains ready to strike back against any new threats.

“With preparedness across land, sea, air, air defence and cyberspace, Iran’s armed forces will respond to the enemy’s new threats with crushing, punishing and devastating responses,” Major-General Ali Abdollahi, chief of staff of Iran’s armed forces, was quoted as saying by Iranian media.

Strait of Hormuz

Meanwhile, Omani and Iranian foreign ministers discussed in a phone call on Friday ways to create suitable conditions for resuming dialogue and negotiations, as well as developments affecting navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, according to Oman’s state news agency.

Tehran continues to keep the key waterway partially shut while Washington persists with a naval counterblockade. Reports in US media indicate the US navy has been organising and protecting secret convoys of tankers through the southern sector of the strait, enabling between five and 10 million barrels a day of oil to be exported.

In Washington, President Donald Trump expressed scepticism over Tehran’s willingness to negotiate, telling reporters when asked if US military options with Iran were limited: “It just means that we’re seeing what happens.”

“We have total control of that entire region having to do with the Strait of Hormuz, and that means well into it, the land areas. So, they would love to make a deal, but they’re not ready to make the right deal, in my opinion,” Trump added.

He has also warned of economic consequences against any country that provides “any type of lifeline to Iran”.

The comments came as US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that Washington would “collapse” the Iranian government with a sanctions campaign.

Bessent will hold a news conference at the Department of the Treasury on Monday, where he is expected to outline planned sanctions against Iran, marking a shift by the Trump administration towards economic rather than military pressure as the war nears the six-month mark.

Iran’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has already condemned the US plan, accusing Washington of “economic terrorism” and stating that “the instigators of these sanctions are deserving of trial and punishment”.

China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Lin Jian also criticised the US measures, stating that “sanctions and pressure will not help resolve the issue” and urging all parties to “take responsible measures and resolve the problem through political and diplomatic means”.

Nico Iamaleava became a household name among college football fans.

Not because of his five-star, blue-chip status, leaving Warren High as the second-ranked prospect in the 2023 class and top-ranked recruit out of California.

Not for leading Tennessee to its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance and a 10-3 record — tying for the Volunteers’ second-best finish since 2001.

Instead, Iamaleava is remembered for his tumultuous exit from Knoxville, a parting characterized by head coach Josh Heupel that the program would move on without its starting signal-caller, leading the Long Beach product to UCLA.

More than one year removed after his departure, Iamaleava reflected at preseason media day on his time with the Volunteers, the effect last season had on his mental health and his mindset heading into 2026.

“In Tennessee, I was in a rough mental state as far as being far from home, but that’s what came with me growing and maturing,” Iamaleava said Wednesday. “So coming back home has been a great transition, and I can’t wait to play this year.”

While returning to Southern California brought the Bruins’ starting quarterback closer to his roots and family, the social media ridicule chased him cross-country, targeting not just him, but his parents too.

To combat the animosity centered on his family, Iamaleava focused on his support system, leaning on those around him and strengthening relationships with the people that he loved.

“Mental health is huge, and having a great support system with you definitely helps. I’ve had that with my parents, going to them whenever I need something,” Iamaleava said. “I have brothers that I can go and rely on, and coming back home to my family has been easy. I don’t really focus on the outside noise.”

While the majority of Iamaleava’s criticism stemmed from his departure from Knoxville, it reignited after UCLA started out the season 0-4 and finished the 2025 campaign 3-9 — a program worst since 2018.

Iamaleava could have allowed the disparagement to compound, but the starting signal-caller is using it as fuel for a 2026 season where many have the Bruins painted as a potential dark horse.

“Everybody counted us out. Last year wasn’t a great year for us, so we’re not on anybody’s radar,” Iamaleava said. “That fuels us, and really playing for each other is going to be the main thing.”

Being one of the few returning starters, Iamaleava has embraced a “vet” role, and has subsequently taken the mantle and burden of being the team’s leader.

And despite all of the negative sentiment surrounding Iamaleava and his time at Tennessee, it was with the Volunteers when he learned how to effectively lead and cultivate camaraderie.

“I learned a lot of that in Tennessee. I had a great vet in Joe Milton. He was a great quarterback,” Iamaleava said. “He’s at the Cowboys now, so learning under him, and then my whole O-line from Tennessee, I love them boys, and they helped me a lot too.”

Iamaleava is building on everything — the good and the bad — he learned from his time in Knoxville and his first year in Westwood entering the new season.

And as he enters his senior season with professional football aspirations on the horizon, Iamaleava has learned to not let external voices interfere with his internal confidence.

“I like to let people assume. Not a lot of people know me on a personal level, so it’s kind of hard to really focus on what they have to say,” Iamaleava said. “Those who know me in this locker room, those who know me in the building, those are the people I care about.”

Hayden Panettiere was candid in her memoir and book tour interviews about the extensive abuse by on-again, off-again boyfriend Brian Hickerson. Now he’s under the microscope as new details surrounding her death and their relationship emerge.

On Thursday, Panettiere’s mother, Lesley Vogel, whom the “Nashville” actor had a strained relationship with, pointed blame for the actor’s death toward an unnamed individual, but earlier this week she outright named Hickerson.

“Although my daughter and I were estranged, it was not for lack of care or love,” she said in a statement to “Entertainment Tonight.” “It was due to the involvement of a toxic individual who I believe led to her death.”⁠

⁠”It leads me to believe there are still questions surrounding what happened,” she said. “And I think we are all looking for answers.”⁠

And earlier this week, she told NBC, “This person in her life that we have been trying to get rid of for quite some time was with her at her death, and that was Brian Hickerson.”

Hickerson broke his silence for the first time since Panettiere died Sunday of an apparent overdose as his attorney Sloan Ellis made a statement on his behalf. “Hayden’s death remains under investigation and it is important to allow that investigation to proceed,” Ellis told TMZ. “As has been publicly reported, police confirmed there were no signs of foul play.”

“Out of respect for Hayden’s loved ones and the ongoing investigation, there will be no further comment at this time.”

Hickerson and his brother Zach Hickerson were present when emergency responders found Panettiere in cardiac arrest on Sunday. According to a report from Greenville, S.C., police, Zach was “very emotional” as paramedics attempted to revive Panettiere, and Brian “did not become emotional until EMS declared her officially deceased.”

According to TMZ, Narcan — a drug used to reverse an opioid overdose — was found at the scene, but it’s unclear whether it was used on Panettiere.

Brian and Zach Hickerson did not respond to The Times’ request for comment.

In the actor’s memoir, “This Is Me: A Reckoning,” which she published in May, she wrote that she and Hickerson met in 2018 at a West Hollywood bar. They fell fast into a whirlwind romance that soured after alcohol-fueled fights turned violent. “It was easy. The easiest happiness that I had come by in a long time,” she wrote in the memoir. “Then, one day, when we were on our second bottle of wine — the bottle that suffocates all the magic and obliterates your defenses — everything changed.”

Hickerson was arrested multiple times on suspicion of domestic violence against Panettiere, beginning in May 2019 in Los Angeles (the charges were later dismissed when prosecutors couldn’t secure a material witness) and again on Valentine’s Day in 2020 in Wyoming (misdemeanor battery charges were eventually dropped). Following an eight-count criminal indictment in July 2020 that covered multiple violent incidents between May 2019 and January 2020, Hickerson pleaded no contest in April 2021 to two felony counts of injuring a spouse or girlfriend. He was sentenced to 45 days in county jail (but served 13 days due to credit for time served) along with four years of formal probation, mandatory domestic violence classes, and a five-year protective order.

After his 2019 arrest was covered in the press, Panettiere wrote that she and Brian “shut ourselves inside” to avoid paparazzi and that she screened calls from friends and family who phoned and texted “constantly,” worried that she was in a “dangerous situation with Brian.”

“What I never told them was that the abuse I’d endured didn’t feel as bad as the thought of being alone,” she wrote.

In “This Is Me,” she graphically detailed the abuse. She claimed that, during one attack, he punched her in the face repeatedly and secretly recorded himself saying, “Why did you hit yourself?” and “You’re all bruised, why did you do that to yourself?” When he was subsequently booked on charges of felony domestic assault, he pleaded not guilty and claimed that Panettiere had done it to herself.

“I didn’t know the person Brian turned into when he started raging,” she wrote. “This other Brian seemed to be dissociating, like the rational Dr. Jekyll part of his brain shut off while the violent Mr. Hyde took over. I was sure he must have a serious mental illness, like bipolar or borderline personality disorder, that could make him change so quickly.”

She continued: “On July 16, 2020, authorities in LA arrested Brian again, charging him with four domestic assault felonies, one misdemeanor count of battery; two felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon (in particular, our garage floor and the stairs, both of which he’d once smashed my body into); and one felony count of dissuading a witness from prosecuting a crime.

“That witness was me. After we’d come back from Wyoming, Brian had called and tried to talk me out of pressing charges against him. As my heart broke into a million pieces, I told him it was too late, and then I told the police.”

Three days before Panettiere’s death, Hickerson attempted to expunge and reduce his past felony charges but was denied by a Los Angeles judge. He made the same request last July, which was denied.

During the press tour for “This Is Me,” Panettiere told podcaster Jay Shetty that she had cut ties with Hickerson but that, historically, he’d always found a way to reconnect just as she thought she was finally free of him. Reportedly, the two reconnected just weeks before her death.

“I thought I had gotten out of it and gotten away from it. … Abusers weave themselves like weeds into your life, and there’s always something that they left behind,” she told Shetty. “There’s always something that they have to come back for. There was always something that they find to keep that connection, keep you on the hook, keep that connection with you, no matter where you you go.”

In May, after Panettiere’s interview with Shetty went live, Hickerson spoke with TMZ and appeared intoxicated and slurred as he spoke about the actor. “Hayden Panettiere is the sweetest thing in the world,” he said. “It’s not about who you spend Saturday night with, it’s who you spend all day Sunday with, and Hayden Panettiere is a Sunday girl.”

“I would be an idiot not to walk away from her and let her flourish in her career,” he continued. “So we probably wouldn’t be good together. I’d like to see what she’s gonna do with the next like 30 years of her career, she’ll always hold a special place in my heart … we’re good buddies.”

A federal investigation into former Rep. Eric Swalwell appeared to gain steam this week after agents seized his electronic devices and raided his Washington home over the weekend, even briefly holding the former lawmaker at San Francisco International Airport, a person familiar with the inquiry told The Times.

Swalwell dropped out of the California governor’s race and resigned from Congress in April after allegations that he sexually assaulted a former staffer and acted inappropriately with other young women, which he denied at the time. Before dropping out of the race, polls indicated that Swalwell was the front-runner.

The source said Swalwell was held on Saturday at SFO and released the same day he was detained for search purposes. Federal prosecutors are using civil rights law to pursue a probe of his conduct as a member of Congress. Authorities in New York and Los Angeles County are conducting separate investigations.

His home was searched on Sunday by federal agents, the source added, based on a search warrant in connection with a civil rights investigation concerning the sexual assault allegations.

Swalwell has denied any wrongdoing, but the accusations upended the California governor’s race and shook Capitol Hill, where both parties reckoned with a culture of secrecy and silence around sexual impropriety.

Another accuser, Lonna Drewes, said at a news conference that she was drugged and raped by the one-time politician in 2018 in Beverly Hills. Drewes said she met Swalwell three times as she was growing her fashion software company and toying with the idea of a political career.

On the third occasion, Drewes said she believes that Swalwell drugged her glass of wine. She said they were supposed to go to a political event and stopped by his hotel room to retrieve some paperwork.

She said she found herself incapacitated despite having had only one drink.

“He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died,” she said. “I did not consent to any sexual activity.”

Sara Azari, an attorney for Swalwell, denied Drewes’ characterization of the incident at the time. “Two adults consenting, which is our position, is not against the law,” she said.

The former staffer for Swalwell told the San Francisco Chronicle that Swalwell began sending her nude pictures on Snapchat and messages after she was hired by his office in 2019. She was 21 at the time.

In September of that year, she said she had drinks with the congressman, blacked out and woke up naked in Swalwell’s hotel bed, according to the Chronicle.

In 2024, when she no longer worked for Swalwell, she said she attended a charity event honoring the congressman and met him for drinks afterward. She was intoxicated but recalled Swalwell forcing himself upon her, and pushing him away and saying, “No,” according to the Chronicle.

Azari said in April that he denied all allegations of sexual misconduct and assault and would pursue “every legal remedy” against those making the claims.

“These accusations are false, fabricated and deeply offensive — a calculated and transparent political hit job designed to destroy the reputation of a man who has spent twenty years in public service,” Azari said.

Winton reported from Los Angeles, Smith from Sacramento and Wilner from Washington.