WASHINGTON — A Democratic lawmaker is launching a renegade effort to impeach President Trump, pushing past party leaders on Wednesday with an attempt to force a procedural vote in the U.S. House that is expected to fail.
Rep. Shri Thanedar of Michigan announced his intention to charge ahead, saying that as an immigrant to America he wants to do all he can to protect its Constitution and institutions from Trump’s lawlessness. His resolution contains seven articles of impeachment against the Republican president.
“Donald J. Trump has been committing crimes since day one — bribery, corruption, taking power from Congress, creating an unlawful office in DOGE, violating 1st Amendment rights, ignoring due process,” the congressman said earlier from the House floor.
It would be the historic third time Trump has faced impeachment efforts after being twice impeached during his first term as president — first in 2019 on charges related to withholding military aid to Ukraine as it confronted Russia and later on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol by a mob of his supporters. Trump was acquitted both times by the Senate.
Thanedar is not the only Democrat who has signaled impeachment efforts against Trump. But his decision to go it almost alone, without backing from party leadership, comes as he faces his own political challenges at home, with several primary opponents looking to unseat him in his Detroit-area congressional district.
Timing is also key. His resolution claiming Trump committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” comes as Trump is traveling in the Middle East in his first major trip abroad of his second term, violating a norm in American politics of not criticizing the president once he leaves the U.S.
But Thanedar said he was pressing ahead in part because of Trump’s trip abroad and the potential conflicts of interest as the president appears to be mixing his personal business dealings with his presidential duties and is considering accepting a lavish gift of an airplane from the Qatari government.
“My constituents want me to act,” Thanedar told the Associated Press late Tuesday.
“It’s time for us to stand up and speak. We can’t worry about, ‘Is this the right time?’ We can’t worry about, ‘Are we going to win this battle?’ It’s more about doing the right thing,” he said. “I took an oath to protect and defend the Constitution. So did Mr. Trump. He has violated his oath, and he’s doing unconstitutional activities. It’s time for someone to stand up and say that, and if that’s just me, then so be it.”
Thanedar is using a procedural tool to force a vote Wednesday on whether to proceed to the issue or shelve the matter.
One top Trump ally, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, criticized Thanedar and dismissed the impeachment effort.
“It’s DOA,” she posted on social media.
Impeachment of a president or other U.S. officials, once rare, has become an increasingly common in Congress.
Republicans in the House opened an impeachment inquiry into then-President Biden, a Democrat, but stopped short of action. The Republicans in Congress did, however, impeach Biden’s Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The Senate dismissed two articles of impeachment against Mayorkas, ending his trial.
Thanedar, who’s from India, has said he came to the United States without many resources. He said he loves the U.S. and wants to defend its Constitution and institutions.
When he took over the Detroit congressional district, it was the first time in decades the city was left without a Black lawmaker in Congress.
Mascaro, Brown and Askarinam write for the Associated Press.
“What the f— is going on?” Bernard Sumner says jokingly.
After crashing on both Zoom and WhatsApp, the founding member of New Order decided to give FaceTime a shot. He materializes, sitting on a couch with a white wall behind him. Mild, inviting eyes hide behind his glasses.
It’s been 45 years since he, now “below 70 and above 20,” founded the group alongside bassist Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert. But it’s impossible not to mention New Order in the same breath as its previous ensemble in Joy Division. The story is all too familiar, with the band springing up after a Sex Pistols gig in Manchester.
“Famously, loads of people went … Morrissey was there, and the Buzzcocks were there … and everyone went out and formed a band,” Sumner quips.
And to anyone who has ever heard Joy Division, it makes complete sense. The band’s debut album “Unknown Pleasures” is imbued with the Pistols’ signature sense of “anarchistic rebellion, aggression and energy,” from the very first track. Sumner describes the gig as a pivotal moment in the history of music as it, sonically, gave everything the “kick in the balls” it needed.
“It was really ‘f— the establishment’ … we’d all had a pretty s— time at school and the rebelliousness and didn’t like the establishment,” Sumner says. “It was giving those teachers a kick! F— you and f— your lessons and f— all the s— you’re trying to teach us, because we’re not f— interested.”
“Punk gave us the excuse we really needed,” he adds.
But just a few years after Joy Division graced the music scene, the group came to an untimely demise following the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. And a year after that, New Order appeared with Sumner, Hook, Morris and Gilbert at the helm, and an entirely different sound to back them.
The band began to mix in synthesizers with the typical instrumentation, creating an unforgettable, hypnotic sound — every thump and woosh calls listeners to the dance floor and begs them to move. Sumner says it came from nothing, with no conscious effort being put into the familiar noise that would go on to define decades to come.
New Order performs in front of a buzzing crowd in Sydney, Australia.
(Warren Jackson)
“Four people came together and that’s what we did,” Sumner says. “We got rehearsals, but we had no great plan, we didn’t give a s— about earning loads of money, we didn’t give a s— about being famous.”
In fact, their creative process boiled down to going to rehearsals, talking about what they saw on TV the night before and going to grab a baked potato from Spudulike near the studio.
“Then we’d go, ‘Should we try to write something?’” he recalls. “We go, ‘Yeah, okay,’ and then we switch the amps on, and just see what happened.”
He even tells a story of the first time they worked in New York, and met up with famous producer Arthur Baker. The latter was used to working with session musicians, and while doing so, decided to throw New Order into a studio while he finished up.
“He said, ‘Come up with some ideas,’” Sumner says. “We just couldn’t, because we’d been put on the spot and told to do it, and that had never happened before … the trick was not to think about it.”
However, even with its original and revolutionary style, New Order struggled to etch its name in the charts outside of the indie and indie alternative categories. In the ’80s, they were reliant on radio play and didn’t get much outside of college campuses in America.
Instead, groups like Sumner’s, such as the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, ignored what was going on in the mainstream altogether, leaving the numbers game to pop music.
“We just ignored what was going on in the mainstream,” he says. “We didn’t really like what we were hearing on the radio, so we made our own radio.”
Of course, when the internet came around, it bypassed mainstream radio and absolved the band’s issues with getting airtime. This led to its undoubted success in bridging the gap between generations, with parents sharing the group’s records with their kids.
“Good music is good music, isn’t it? It always floats to the top,” he says. “Buy a New Order record, it’s a good investment for the rest of your life.”
Sumner claims the group is now “more successful” than they’ve ever been and says it comes down to a couple of factors, including cohesion.
“In the early days, we used to get f— up quite a lot and that f— up the shows,” Sumner says. “We used to play a really good one, celebrate how great it was, and then the next one would be terrible because we celebrated too much.”
Bernard Sumner of New Order bows out to fans.
(Warren Jackson)
“Our popularity has increased, really, rather than decreasing, and it usually decreases, doesn’t it?” he jokes.
This relationship between generations that grew up listening to the group and those now is all too apparent when it comes to festivals like Cruel World, which celebrates post-punk, new wave, goth and alt-rock. The event, first hosted in 2022, has brought the likes of Iggy Pop, Duran Duran and Morrissey back to the main stage.
Now, New Order is set to headline the festival on May 17 alongside Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s an unexpected ’80s revival that has maintained steady enough attendance to point toward becoming a staple, much like many of Goldenvoice’s other feats.
“There must be an appetite for this [era of] music, otherwise they wouldn’t be putting it on,” Sumner jokes. “It’s got soul, it really has got soul.”
As for what’s next in terms of new releases, the group recently had to shut down rumors of an album on the way. It’s been 10 years since its critically-acclaimed album, “Music Complete,” was delivered to fans, who are understandably craving a new project. Sumner says the delay comes down to general motivation to write again, with some members wanting to do so and others not being “too keen.”
“I’m one of the ones that does,” Sumner assures. “That’s all I can say, really.”
The Mexico City native came to Los Angeles as a 13-year-old and enrolled at St. Turibius School near the Fashion District, working at Magee’s Kitchen in the Farmers Market to pay his tuition, room and board. “I had this dream to come to the United States for education,” Toscano told The Times in May 1953. “Not for the dollars, not to work in the camps for 65 cents an hour.”
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Why was The Times profiling a 16-year-old Mexican immigrant? Because he was about to get deported. Politicians, the press and private citizens had been railing against “illegal immigration” and pushing President Eisenhower for mass deportations. Officers received a tip that Toscano was in the country illegally.
This young migrant’s story struck a chord in Southern California in a way that’s unimaginable today
Newspaper accounts noted that immigration authorities — struck by Toscano’s pluck and drive — made sure that his deportation didn’t go on his record so he could legally return one day. A Van Nuys News and Valley Green Sheet columnist wrote, “We must have immigration laws — but they’re not designed for folks like Joe.”
Meanwhile, The Times’ editorial board — not exactly known back then for its kind attitude toward Mexican Americans — argued that Toscano shouldn’t be deported, making the case that laws “should perhaps be tempered a trifle in the face of principles and actions which are of such sterling worth as to be beyond the object of the law itself.”
Toscano legally returned to Los Angeles three months later, living with a white family in Whittier that sponsored him and enrolling at Cathedral High. “As I continue to study the history of your country in school,” he wrote to The Times that September, “I shall remember that what you did for me is one of the things that makes this country of yours so great.”
His story was such a feel-good tale that it appeared in Reader’s Digest and the local press checked in on Toscano for years. The Mirror, The Times’ afternoon sister paper, reported on his 1954 wedding, the same year that immigration officials deported over a million Mexican nationals under Operation Wetback, a program that President Trump and his supporters say they want to emulate today.
Two years later, The Times covered Toscano’s graduation from Fairfax High, where he told the crowd as the commencement speaker that he wanted to become an American citizen “so that I, too, can help build a greater America.”
After a three-year stint in the Marines, Toscano did just that in 1959, changing his legal name from Jose to Joseph because he felt “it’s more American that way,” he told the Mirror. He told the paper he had dreams of attending UCLA Law School, but life didn’t work out that way.
Lessons for today
The last clipping I found of Toscano in The Times is a 1980 Farmers Market ad, which noted that he was a widower with two daughters still working at Magee’s but had advanced from washing dishes to chief carver.
“He’s a happy man who likes his work,” the ad said, “and it shows.”
Rereading the clips about Toscano, I’m reminded of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran national who established a life for himself in this country before he was deported in March despite a judge’s order that he be allowed to remain in the United States.
This time around, immigration officials and the Trump White House have insisted Abrego Garcia deserved his fate, sliming him as a terrorist and MS-13 member despite no evidence to back up their assertions.
Toscano’s story shows that the story can have a different ending — if only immigration officials have a heart.
Today’s top stories
People enjoy pleasant spring weather while sailing in Newport Harbor. Orange County is one of three SoCal counties where single earners with six-figure salaries could soon be considered “low income.”
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
‘Low income’ but making $100,000 per year
Newsom walks back free healthcare for eligible undocumented immigrants
The governor’s office said his spending plan, which will be released later this morning, calls for requiring all undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal coverage and for blocking all new adult applications to the program as of Jan. 1.
The cost of coverage for immigrants has exceeded state estimates by billions of dollars.
California joins another lawsuit against Trump
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed two lawsuits Tuesday challenging a Trump administration policy that would deny the state billions of dollars in transportation grants unless it follows the administration’s lead on immigration enforcement.
MCDONALD’S has opened its biggest site in Europe in a major Brit holiday hotspot – and it’s come just in time for the summer holidays.
The fast-food giant has launched a huge location in the airport of sun-drenched Majorca – and it measures up at over 10,000 square feet.
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Europe’s biggest McDonald’s has opened in MajorcaCredit: Jam Press/McDonalds
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It measures up at a whopping 10,765 square feetCredit: Jam Press/McDonalds
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It is part of a new renovation in Module A or Palma de Mallorca Airport in SpainCredit: Jam Press/McDonalds
The big Maccies includes eight digital kiosks, eight production lines as well as table service and McCafé products.
The launch of the massive site marks the company’s largest on the entire continent.
Around 750,000 Brits travel to Majorca every summer, so the chain will be sure to endure its fair share of hungry Brit holidaymakers.
The enormous branch is located at Level P30, Module A Airside of Palma de Mallorca Airport in the Spanish island.
It measures up at a whopping 10,765 square feet.
The terminal has also recently undergone refurbishment work to improve passenger comfort and security, and retail space.
The new site is part of this extraordinary renovation in Module A.
And it is seemingly very exclusive to Brits – as the McDonald’s will only be available to non-Schengen countries, according to What’s The Jam.
This means most European countries won’t be able to access it – paving the way for Brits and other international visitors to raid the kiosks.
The incredible new branch has reportedly created 200 new jobs, on top of the 1,000 workers already employed in the Balearic Islands.
Chief Restaurant Officer of McDonald’s Spain Ángel Castillo said: “This opening represents a new milestone and another example of our commitment to the Balearic Islands.”
He called the region “an area of strategic interest for the company where we already have over 20 restaurants“.
The spokesperson continued: “We are thereby contributing to the Spanish economy and the creation of quality employment, fulfilling our mission of supporting the communities where we operate.”
There are already 43,500 McDonald’s locations in over 100 countries worldwide.
And the biggest McDonald’s on the entire planet is located in Orlando, Florida.
Known as the Epic McD, this behemoth fast-food chain measures in at a whopping 19,000 square feet.
Emmerdale and Coronation Street boss John Whiston has announced that he will be retiring from the role after nearly 30 years at ITV, revealing: ‘It’s the right time to leave’
The month before Sampdoria’s play-off exit Pirlo was called “a key part of the project” by the club’s owners, but three games into the current campaign he was dismissed following two defeats and a draw.
Andrea Sottil replaced him and oversaw a Coppa Italia penalty-shootout victory against Genoa in the first Derby della Lanterna in two years.
However, he too was jettisoned in October 2024 after just four wins in 14 games and replaced by Leonardo Semplici.
With the club in the drop zone, a 3-0 home defeat by Frosinone at the end of March was the tipping point for the fans as patience with Semplici ran out.
The team bus carrying Semplici and his Sampdoria players was pelted by stones and flares by angry supporters after the match at the Luigi Ferraris Stadium.
Semplici was relieved of his duties in April with Alberico Evani – the club’s fourth coach of the season – tasked with keeping them up.
Things began promisingly for Evani with club legend Attilio Lombardo in as assistant and another Sampdoria icon in Roberto Mancini helping in an unofficial capacity.
Evani began with a 1-0 win over fellow strugglers Cittadella, but three draws, a defeat and just one win since then have not been enough to keep them up.
Rose had been exiled from the sport since 1989, after he was found by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti (yes, the father of actor Paul Giamatti) to have been betting on his team’s games while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose died Sept. 30, 2024, at age 83.
Rose’s daughter, Fawn Rose, filed a petition for reinstatement Jan. 8 and met with current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. In February, President Trump advocated for the lifetime ban to be lifted in a social media post, then met with Manfred in April to discuss the matter.
Jeffrey Lenkov, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Rose at the time of his death and prepared the petition pro bono, told The Times the decision was the result of several years of working with Manfred and his executive team.
“The Rose family and I are extremely overjoyed at the wisdom, courage and compassion exhibited by the commissioner,” Lenkov said. “The reinstatement in and of itself is a historic moment because many people, including Pete at times, thought the ban would never be lifted.
“Getting into the Hall of Fame on his merits is an opportunity he wanted and should be able to receive now.”
Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose hits a line drive single to break Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record in 1985.
(Associated Press)
From his 24-year career that resulted in more MLB hits — 4,256 — than any other player in history to his lifetime ban, Rose’s saga was as complex and sad as it was triumphant. Pete Rose Night will take place Wednesday at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, and the decision to lift the ban undoubtedly will elevate the mood.
Here is a look at key elements of his rise, fall and potential inclusion in the Hall of Fame.
Will Rose immediately be inducted into the Hall of Fame?
No. Barring an unforeseen exception, a three-year waiting period will apply before Rose can be put on the ballot because the committee that could vote him in doesn’t convene until December 2027 to consider candidates for induction in the summer of 2028.
Rose remains ineligible to be voted in by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America because its ballot includes only candidates whose playing careers ended no more than 15 years prior to the election. Players are eligible to be voted into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers five years after they retire. However in 1991, two years after Rose was banned from baseball and months before he was set to make the ballot, the Hall’s board of directors passed a rule prohibiting anybody on the ineligible list from being a candidate for induction.
Now that he is eligible, his case will be reviewed by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era Committee that evaluates players who made their greatest impact before 1980. Rose would qualify for consideration because his 24-year career began in 1963.
The committee voted in Dick Allen and Dave Parker this year. When it convenes again to vote for 2028 induction, Rose would need an aye from a 75% majority — 12 of the 16 members.
What did Rose do to deserve a lifetime ban?
Since before the 1919 Black Sox Scandal resulted in Shoeless Joe Jackson and other players being banned for life for taking money from gamblers and throwing games, Major League Baseball has had a rule against gambling to protect the integrity of the game. Rule 21(d) is posted in every clubhouse and states: “Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”
Rose bet on the Cincinnati Reds when he was the team’s player-manager in 1985 and ‘86, and the manager in ’87. An MLB investigation headed by lawyer John Dowd resulted in a 225-page report released in 1989 that named men that Rose allegedly placed bets with and cited evidence that Rose bet on Reds games.
Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose before a spring-training game March 22, 1989, after the Commissioner’s Office investigation into his gambling was released.
(John Swart / Associated Press)
After denying for nearly 15 years that he bet on baseball, Rose admitted it in his 2004 book, “My Prison Without Bars,” written with Rick Hill. Later, he would sign and sell baseballs with the inscription, “Sorry I bet on baseball.” The balls currently go for $200 to $400 apiece online.
Born and raised in Cincinnati, Rose began gambling as a youngster when his dad took him to a local racetrack. By the time he reached the big leagues, he bet on college and pro basketball and pro football in addition to the horses.
“On Feb. 5, 1986, I wrote three checks for eight grand each to cover my losses on the NFL playoffs,” Rose wrote. “The NFL turned into March Madness, which turned into the NBA playoffs, which always turned into the skids.
“I always lived by one hard and fast rule: You don’t bet on baseball. But for the first time in my life, I was no longer playing baseball, just managing. A part of me was still looking for ways to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and World Series. If I couldn’t get the high from playing baseball, then I needed a substitute.
“I can’t honestly remember the first time I bet on baseball. But I remember the first time I spoke openly about it. I was sitting in my living room, watching the 1986 playoffs between the Mets and the Astros. I had a group of friends over for the game. Without even thinking of the consequences, I said, ‘Betting on the playoffs makes the games more exciting to watch.’ ”
Rose’s immense popularity in his hometown began to erode when the Dowd Report was made public on June 27, 1989.
“Forever and ever and ever, the people here have been solidly behind Pete,” Marty Brennaman, longtime broadcaster for the Reds, told The Times’ Bill Plaschke. “This is the most provincial city I’ve lived in. I can’t imagine a more provincial city.
“But now, there is a segment of the population where, if they haven’t completely gone the other way against Pete, there is at least an element of doubt in their minds. People are becoming divided.”
Longtime Cincinnati historian Dan Hurley insisted the public reaction was even harsher.
“I think the reaction finally is, ‘Hey, they got him,’ ” Hurley said of Rose. “And for us, that’s not very pleasant.”
Rose does have his supporters within baseball. Terry Francona, his former teammate who is in his first season as Reds manager, recently said, “If he’s not in the Hall of Fame, there isn’t one.”
Why the change of heart by MLB?
Pete Rose speaks at a news conference in Las Vegas after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he has no intention of altering Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball.
(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)
Rose first petitioned for reinstatement in 1997 when Bud Selig was commissioner. Selig didn’t meet with Rose until 2002 and did not rule on the issue before he retired in 2006. Manfred rejected a second petition by Rose in 2015, saying, “Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of the circumstances that led to his permanent eligibility in 1989.
“Absent such credible evidence, allowing him to work in the game presents an unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport. I, therefore, must reject Mr. Rose’s application for reinstatement.”
The fact that Rose died in September created an opportunity to revisit his status. If the permanently ineligible list exists to prevent a person who poses a threat to the integrity of the game from working in baseball, could that status change when the person is no longer living?
Roses adorn the statue of Pete Rose at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati after the all-time hits leader died.
(Kareem Elgazzar / Associated Press)
That argument was made in the December petition by Rose’s family, and Manfred took it into consideration.
“The decision was very complex and it’s not easily said that it could have been done during his lifetime,” Lenkov said. “MLB had a lot of factors to work through. They had to be receptive to listening for a number of years on this issue, and they did.
“Pete in his lifetime felt he had done his time, paid the price. I believe he lived with a scarlet letter on him because of it. His punishment was substantial.”
The relationship between gambling and professional sports — including MLB — has evolved dramatically in recent years. Sports betting is legal in 40 states, and the American Gaming Assn. estimates that its total economic impact is $328 billion a year and revenue from it exceeded $115 billion in 2024.
Yet restrictions still apply, again to protect the integrity of the game. Can a baseball player, coach or umpire bet on March Madness brackets, the Super Bowl or participate in a fantasy football league? Yes. Can they bet on anything — baseball or otherwise — through illegal or offshore bookmakers? No.
What was President Trump’s role in the reinstatement?
Seemingly out of nowhere, the president injected himself into the conversation. Even before the family’s petition for reinstatement had become public, Trump posted a bombastic message on Truth Social on Feb. 28 that read:
“Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as ‘Charlie Hustle,’ into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME!
“Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING. He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history. Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!”
No evidence has surfaced of Rose betting on the Reds to lose. After confessing in his book that he bet on baseball, he emphasized that point.
“I bet on my own team to win,” Rose told NJ.com. “That’s what I did in a nutshell. I was wrong, but I didn’t taint the game. I bet on my team every night because that’s the confidence that I had in my players. And I was wrong.”
A pardon wasn’t necessary for Manfred to reinstate Rose, although in 1990 Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion.
Trump met with Manfred at the White House on April 16, but neither man spoke publicly about what they discussed. MLB issued a statement that said, “President Trump is a longtime fan of baseball. As he has done in the past, Commissioner Manfred was pleased to visit the White House again to discuss issues pertaining to baseball with the president.”
What are Pete Rose’s Hall of Fame credentials?
Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose is congratulated by his teammates after he broke Ty Cobb’s hitting record in Cincinnati on Sept. 11, 1985.
(Associated Press)
Rose broke Ty Cobb’s career hits total of 4,189 in 1985 and finished with 4,256. That alone would be enough for entry into the Hall of Fame, but Rose also was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1963 and the NL Most Valuable Player in 1973. He won three batting titles and three World Series titles — two with the Reds in 1975 and ’76 and one with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.
Rose batted .303 with an on-base percentage of .375, earning the nickname Charlie Hustle because he sprinted to first base even on a walk. He led the NL in hits seven times, doubles five times, and in 1978 put together a 44-game hitting streak, second in baseball history to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game streak.
Rose played in more games (3,562), had more plate appearances (15,890) and more at-bats (14,053) than any other player.
Good morning. I’m Gustavo Arellano, columnista, writing from Orange County and watching my tomato seedlings grow. Here’s what you need to know to start your day.
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Montebello’s ex-mayor turns to Orange County
Frank Gomez was born to be an L.A. County politician.
That’s why people were surprised in 2013 when Gomez — by then a Montebello council member who had served a year as mayor — announced he was leaving L.A. County altogether to marry his current wife.
“I had the choice between politics and love,” said the 61-year-old during a recent breakfast in Santa Ana. “It was an easy choice.”
Gomez couldn’t stay away from politics for long
Today, Gomez leads STEM initiatives for the Cal State system and is also the chair of the Central Orange County Democratic Club, which covers Orange, Tustin, parts of unincorporated Orange County “and a few voters in Villa Park,” Gomez told me with a chuckle.
He’s headed the Central O.C. Dems since last year, and has grown them from about 60 members to over 300. Soft-spoken but forceful, Gomez likes to apply his background as a chemistry professor — “We need to be strategic and analytical” — in helping to build a Democratic bench of elected officials in a region that was a long a GOP stronghold before becoming as purple as Barney the Dinosaur.
I knew Gomez’s name but didn’t realize his L.A. political background until we met last month. That makes him a rare one: someone who has dabbled in both L.A. and Orange county politics, two worlds that rarely collide because each considers the other a wasteland.
As someone who has covered O.C. politics for a quarter century but has only paid attention to L.A. politics in earnest since I started with The Times in 2019, I have my thoughts about each scene’s differences and similarities. But what about Gomez?
From one cutthroat political scene to another
“In L.A., it’s Democrats against Democrats,” he replied. “It’s not like I didn’t know” what to expect when moving to O.C., he said. “But it’s the difference between Fashion Island and the Citadel.”
He thought his days in politics were over until 2022, when his stepson — who had interned with longtime Irvine politico Larry Agran — urged him to run for a seat on the Tustin City Council.
Opponents sent out mailers with photos of garbage cans and graffiti and the message, “Do not bring L.A. to Tustin,” a political insult introduced to Orange County politics that year by Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer.
“Those gated communities still try to keep their unsaid redlining,” Gomez said. “It wasn’t like that in L.A. politics because there was no place for it.”
Racist L.A. City Hall audio leak notwithstanding, of course.
Trying to topple O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember
Gomez unsuccessfully ran last year for a seat on the Municipal Water District of Orange County. He now plans to focus his political energies on growing the Central O.C. Dems and figuring out how to topple Rep. Young Kim, O.C.’s last remaining GOP congressmember. In the meanwhile, he will continue his political salons at the Central O.C. Dems’ monthly meetings at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Tustin — I was on the hot seat in April, and upcoming guests include coastal O.C. Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, O.C. supervisorial candidate Connor Traut and former congressmember and current California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter.
“It’s like being in the classroom,” Gomez said as he packed up his leftovers. “All I do is ask the questions and keep it flowing.”
He smiled. “Johnny Carson on intellectual steroids.”
Today’s top stories
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem arrives for a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security oversight hearing on Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington.
(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)
The Trump administration will investigate L.A. County
The administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants.
The state program provides monthly cash benefits to elderly, blind and disabled noncitizens who are ineligible for Social Security benefits because of their immigration status.
Newsom urges cities to ban homeless camps
The governor’s plan asks localities to prohibit persistent camping and encampments that block sidewalks.
This is an escalation from last year, when Newsom ordered California agencies to clear homeless camps from state lands.
How to understand the recent trade deals
Inside the investigation into faulty evacuation alerts during the wildfires in January
On Jan. 9, residents across the region received a wireless emergency alert urging them to prepare to evacuate.
Meanwhile, western Altadena, where 17 people died, got its evacuation order many hours after the Eaton fire exploded.
What else is going on
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This morning’s must reads
Black nationalist leader Malcolm X, left, and Louis Farrakhan, chief minister of the Nation of Islam’s Boston mosque, right, attend a rally at Lennox Avenue and 115th Street in the Harlem section of New York in 1963.
How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected].
For your downtime
The Pasadena Playhouse
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Going out
Staying in
A question for you: What’s your favorite karaoke song?
Peg says: “David Bowie’s Life on Mars!” Paul says “My Way.” (We’re assuming he means by Frank Sinatra)
Keep the suggestions coming. Email us at [email protected], and your response might appear in the newsletter this week.
And finally … your photo of the day
Wet Magazine Issue 3 from October/November 1976
(Photography and design by Leonard Koren)
Today’s great photo is from the archives: Leonard Koren began documenting L.A. bathing culture back in 1976 with Wet magazine, which featured contributions from David Lynch, Debbie Harry and Ed Ruscha.
Have a great day, from the Essential California team
Gustavo Arellano, California columnist Karim Doumar, head of newsletters
Homeless encampments are dirty. And ugly. And seem, to those who venture near them and even to some who live there, unsafe.
They are also — sadly, wrongly — places of last resort for those whose second, third and even fourth chances haven’t panned out, sometimes through their own mistakes, sometimes because they’re so far down just staying alive is a battle. Though we tend to toss homelessness in the soup pot along with mental illness and drug use, the terrifying fact is that nearly half of the folks living on our streets are over the age of 50 and wound up there because a bit of bad luck left them unable to pay the rent.
“At the end of the day, we have a homelessness crisis because we don’t have enough housing,” Margot Kushel said. She’s a professor of medicine at UC San Francisco and director of the UCSF Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative. There’s really no one in the state who understands encampments and their residents better.
Which is why I am deeply disheartened by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s push Monday to encourage cities and counties to outlaw encampments — even providing a handy-dandy boilerplate ordinance for local governments to pass. It moves California one step closer to criminalizing homelessness, no matter how softly or deftly he packages that truth.
Or how politically expedient it may be.
“It is time to take back the streets. It’s time to take back the sidewalks. It’s time to take these encampments and provide alternatives,” Newsom said. “It simply cannot continue. It cannot be a way of life living out on the streets, in sidewalks, in what almost become permanent structures, impeding foot traffic, impeding our ability for our kids to walk the streets and strollers, or seniors with disabilities and wheelchairs, even navigating their sidewalks. We cannot allow that to continue.”
From a political perspective, that tirade is spot on. The clock is already ticking on the 2026 midterms, which coincide with the end of his tenure as California’s leader. Not only is Newsom eyeing the horizon for his next move, presidential or not, but Democrats are eyeing the condition of California and whether Trump and his supporters will be able to once again use it as the example of everything that’s wrong with America, as they did in both 2020 and 2024.
Even Kushel, who near daily hears the heartbreaking reasons people are homeless, knows encampments aren’t the answer.
“I do think the encampments are a disaster,” she said. “I want them gone too.”
But, not at the cost of making things worse, which is what breaking them down without a place to put people does. Newsom’s draft ordinance makes nice talk about not criminalizing folks, but also doesn’t require more than “every reasonable effort” to provide shelter to those being displaced — knowing full well that we don’t have enough shelter beds.
It also talks nice about not throwing out people’s belongings, unless maybe they have bugs or feces on them — which, let’s be real, they might — in which case, the dumpster it is, even if that bundle may contain your identification or medications.
That constant loss, constant movement, not only sets people back even more, it also breaks trust and pushes people further out of sight and out of society. So by the time there are shelter beds or treatment centers, you’ve lost cooperation from the people you want to help. Homelessness becomes even more dystopian, if more invisible.
“I actually worry that making people move every day, threatening them with arrest, all of those things make the problem worse and not better,” Kushel said.
Some might recall that this new age of compassionate crackdowns began last year after the Supreme Court ruled in Grants Pass vs. Johnson that it wasn’t cruel or unusual punishment to outlaw camping in public spaces — allowing municipalities to cite or arrest those who did. Newsom’s office took the side of the city of Grants Pass, Ore., filing a brief in support of more enforcement powers. Since then, Newsom — sometimes personally with camera crews in tow — has cleared more than 16,000 encampments on state lands.
Some cities have followed suit with tough laws of their own, including San José. But other cities have resisted, much to Newsom’s dismay.
In Grants Pass, things didn’t go exactly as planned. There’s currently an injunction against its enforcement on camping laws after Disability Rights Oregon sued the city. Tom Stenson, the group’s deputy legal director, told me that the organization has seen how the anti-camping laws have been hard on folks with physical or mental impairments, many of whom are older.
As the housing crunch hit that state, the low-rent places where his plaintiffs lived “disappeared, and then there is just nowhere for them to go, and it just forces them right into homelessness,” he said.
California’s struggle around homelessness has been a black eye and a contentious soft spot for years, and even the most sympathetic of Californians are tired of the squalor and pain. A recent poll by Politico and the Citrin Center for Public Opinion Research at UC Berkeley found that about 37% of voters support arresting folks if they refuse to accept shelter, and that number jumped for male voters and Republicans.
Homelessness is, without a doubt, “the issue that defines more anger and frustration of Californians than any other,” as Newsom put it.
On the same day Newsom put out his legal template for clearing encampments, he also announced $3.3 billion in funding for 124 mental health facilities around the state. It’s money from last year’s Proposition 1, passed by voters, that will add 5,000 residential treatment beds and more than 21,000 outpatient slots to our struggling system of mental health and substance abuse treatment.
The grants include $65 million for Los Angeles to refurbish the Metropolitan State Hospital campus in Norwalk into a psychiatric subacute facility for transitional-age youths, a big and glaring need for the region.
To steal from the history lesson Newsom gave, in 1959 this state had 37,000 mental health beds in locked facilities, the kind that inspired “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.” Not ideal.
So the state did away with them, through a series of necessary reforms. But it never built the community-based system that was promised. California is now down to 5,500 locked beds and a bunch of overcrowded, understaffed, outdated jails and prisons that have become our de facto mental health treatment centers, along with the streets. Not ideal.
This investment in a robust community care system that provides both substance abuse and mental health treatment in one place is a huge win for all Californians, and will be a game changer — in about 10 years. Newsom optimistically showed pretty renderings of facilities that will be built with the funds, one even expected to open next year. But folks, building takes time.
Still, Newsom should receive all credit due for taking on a problem ignored for decades and doing something meaningful around it. I’ve seen him act thoughtfully, carefully and forcefully on the issue of homelessness.
Which makes this encampment right-wing swing all the more obviously political, and unworthy of our policy.
Despite those encampments, homelessness in California is actually getting better, though you have to wade through the numbers to see it. There were 187,000 people living without homes in the state last year, according to federal data, a record. About 70% of those people were living unsheltered, more than 45,000 in the city of Los Angeles.
Although the sheer number of people living without homes is overwhelming, it represented an increase of about 3% — compared with an increase of about 18% nationally. Across the country, but not in California, families were the group with the largest single-year increase.
So what we are doing, with policies that prioritize housing and meeting people where they are, is working. What Newsom has done to build a community care system is overdue and revolutionary.
But the fact remains that California does not have enough housing. Clearing encampments may be a political solution to an ugly problem.
But without a place to move people, it’s just optics.
Several newspapers moved quickly late last night to get the news of counter-terrorism officers investigating a fire at the home of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on their front pages. Among them, on a rare day with hard news on its front page, is the Daily Star – which pictures the scene behind the police barriers during the day as the inquiry got under way.
The same terror probe into the blaze at Starmer’s north London home also leads The Daily Telegraph, which has close-up photographs of the damage to the front door. The paper reports that police are investigating whether an arson attack at a second home in London linked to Starmer is related. Downing Street said they won’t comment further on a “live investigation”.
The Daily Mirror describes the fire as “a mystery blaze” in its front-page coverage and interviews neighbours who were “woken by loud noises in the early hours”.
Even before news of the fire, the PM was destined to be featuring on most front pages after a day in which he outlined his government’s new policy on immigration. The Daily Express, which often highlights the issue in its political coverage, shows it is yet to be convinced with the headline “We have it all before but now it is time to deliver”.
Care homes are “in despair”, reports the i Paper, as it highlights one of the new policy plans to stop recruiting workers from abroad. The paper reports pharmacies and the wider care industry are warning of “crippling effects” to services if visas for migrant care workers are scrapped.
The Daily Mail leads with the Conservative reaction as Tory politicians describe the prime minister as “Starmer Chameleon” for his plans. The paper’s sub-headline says the policy “goes against everything he’s ever believed in”, despite Starmer’s insistence to the contrary in his speech introducing the policy.
Starmer’s description of Britain as an “island of strangers” leads The Guardian, which reports his announcement has triggered a backlash from MPs that say his comments echo far-right rhetoric. Responding to The Guardian, the prime minister said he wouldn’t “denigrate” the contribution of migrants, but that they must “learn the language and integrate” once in the UK.
The Times is the only paper that covers the story with a picture of migrants, although it chooses three young men who have just been picked up in Dover after crossing the Channel rather than the legal migration that the PM ‘s policy is tackling. It also finds room to report for the latest in the US-China trade talks, saying that President Trump want to re-establish a “very, very good relationship” with China.
The US and China “have agreed a ceasefire in their trade war”, according to the Financial Times. It leads on the two superpowers slashing tariffs on each other’s goods for 90 days. US tariffs on Chinese imports will be cut from 145% to 30%. Chinese tariffs on US imports will be cut from 125% to 10%. “Markets are defaulting to assuming we’re now in a 10-30 world: 10% [tariffs] on most of the world, 30% on China,” says Ajay Rajadhyaksha of Barclays.
Meanwhile, Metro leads with the sentencing of a Bulgarian spy ring to a total of 50 years in jail. The six members, which the headline dubs ‘Putin’s Minions’, were “paid to plot the kidnap, murder of smearing of Vladimir Putins enemies in the UK”. For three years, the group passed intel to Russian agents from a home in Great Yarmouth.
The decades-long controversy over the Los Angeles Zoo’s elephants is intensifying, even after officials announced that Billy and Tina will be moved to a zoo in Oklahoma where they will have more room to roam.
On Friday, an L.A. resident sued to halt the transfer of Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo, arguing that they should instead be sent to an animal sanctuary.
The lawsuit, which seeks an injunction from the L.A. County Superior Court, includes a declaration from the singer Cher, who has been advocating on behalf of Billy and Tina for years.
“Billy and Tina have served their time in confinement,” Cher said in the declaration. “They deserve the chance to live out their lives in peace and dignity.”
Animal rights advocates have criticized the L.A. Zoo for decades for holding elephants in a relatively small enclosure, which they say causes serious health issues. Other celebrities who have rallied to the elephants’ cause include Lily Tomlin and the late Bob Barker.
Jewel, 61, and Shaunzi, 53, were euthanized in the last few years because of health issues that the zoo said were age-related, leaving only Billy and Tina, who live in separate enclosures in an elephant habitat of about 6.5 acres.
Zoo officials have long defended the care they provide to the elephants and did not cite any health issues in late April when they announced the transfer to the Tulsa Zoo, which recently expanded its elephant complex to include a 36,650-square-foot barn and a 10-acre wooded preserve. Billy and Tina will join five other Asian elephants there.
On Thursday before the City Council’s budget committee, L.A. Zoo Director and Chief Executive Denise Verret said she believed that Tulsa would provide “an environment where they can thrive,” citing the social benefits of living with other elephants.
The lawsuit, filed by John Kelly, an animal lover and longtime L.A. resident, names Verret as a defendant and outlines the health issues that can afflict elephants in captivity, including “zoochosis,” a mental illness caused by confinement.
Billy and Tina’s living conditions are “abysmal,” with little shade and hard-packed sand that has allegedly caused severe damage to their feet, according to the lawsuit.
“It doesn’t matter how big the zoo enclosure is, if it’s expanded or not, whether you call it a preserve or you call it an exhibit. It’s incredibly inhumane for them,” Melissa Lerner, an attorney representing Kelly, said in an interview after a news conference at the zoo’s entrance Sunday.
As far back as 2008, advocates have expressed anguish about Billy’s repetitive head-bobbing, which is a sign of brain damage, according to In Defense of Animals, which this year ranked the L.A. Zoo as No. 1 on its “10 Worst Zoos for Elephants” list for the second year in a row.
Billy is 40 years old, and Tina is 59. Billy came the L.A. Zoo when he was 4, in 1989, and Tina arrived at 44 in 2010, according to the zoo’s website. Asian elephants have a lifespan of roughly 60 years in the wild.
A spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did not immediately provide a comment Sunday. A zoo representative , referred questions to the city attorney’s office; a spokesperson for that office said he could not comment on pending legislation.
L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, a longtime advocate for the elephants, filed a motion last month seeking to pause their relocation until the City Council could review the possibility of sending them to a sanctuary.
At a budget committee hearing Monday, Blumenfield urged Verret to provide a report that includes the costs and benefits of the transfer to the Tulsa Zoo. He asked Verret to promise that the elephants will not be moved until the City Council could review the report and vote on it.
“What I can promise you is that I am always going to make decisions that are for the best interest of the animals at the zoo, including the elephants,” responded Verret, who was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2019.
Blumenfield again questioned Verret at the budget hearing Thursday, noting that the organization Last Chance for Animals has offered to pay to move Billy and Tina to a sanctuary.
Verret said no date has been set for the transfer and noted that the L.A. and Tulsa zoos have not signed a contract.
Kelly’s lawsuit also contends that the public and elected officials have been shut out of the decision-making. At both budget hearings, City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that Verret has the power to move the elephants to Tulsa without the council’s approval.
On Sunday outside the L.A. Zoo, about 35 protesters, many of them from the group Los Angeles for Animals, held “Free Billy” signs and chanted “Mother’s Day is no excuse for animal abuse.” They urged visitors not to enter the zoo.
“Sweeping problems under the rug doesn’t get rid of problems,” said L.A. resident Elvia Sedano, who has been protesting at the zoo on behalf of the elephants nearly every Sunday for two years. “So we’ll be back. We’ll keep coming back until they do the right thing.”
Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.
There are very few recorded interviews with Dame Agatha Christie, the world’s bestselling novelist and generally acknowledged doyenne of crime, for one simple reason: She hated speaking in public.
She often described herself as cripplingly shy — she agonized for days when a celebration for the 10th anniversary of her play “The Mousetrap” required her to give a speech — and she remained morbidly press-adverse after the media swarm that followed her famous 11-day disappearance. (Though in defense of the press, what could one expect when a notable crime writer goes missing for almost two weeks in the midst of a shattering divorce and then, when found, refuses to explain what had happened?)
In her autobiography, and through her literary avatar Ariadne Oliver, Christie often described taking great pains to avoid speaking in front of people and she (and Mrs. Oliver) particularly hated being asked questions about her writing. “I never know what to say,” Mrs. Oliver would wail, echoing sentiments expressed by Christie herself.
So when BBC Maestro announced, at the end of April, that it was launching a digital class in which an AI-resurrected Christie would offer lessons in writing, it was difficult not to be outraged. Never mind the whole “I see dead people”-ness of it all; here was a woman who was on record, multiple times and often at great length, about how much she loathed having to talk about how she did what she did in front of a bunch of people.
The creators of the series clearly anticipated such outrage. The prologue to the course features BBC Maestro Chief Executive Michael Levine and Christie’s great-grandson James Prichard, chairman and CEO of Agatha Christie Ltd., explaining the care put into the series. The script, we are assured, is rigorously based on Christie’s own words; the actor (Vivien Keene) was chosen after a year-and-a-half search; and the set (a library that houses a model of Christie’s own typewriter), the costume (a tweed suit accented by pearls, a brooch and duplicates of Christie’s engagement and wedding rings) and the hair are models of authenticity.
More important, the course has the family’s full support. “At the heart of this project was my father who knew Agatha Christie better than any person living,” Prichard says. “At times he was astounded by how similar to his grandmother this version was. And my view,” he adds with a mildly challenging air, “is that if he can enjoy this project, we can all enjoy it.”
Agatha Christie autographing French editions of her books, circa 1950.
(Hulton Archive / Getty Images)
Challenge accepted.
Keeping in mind Christie’s fascination with disguise and advanced technology, as well as a passage in her autobiography in which she wishes a friend with more confidence could step in as a substitute during author interviews, I put my fears aside and ponied up $89 for the two-and-a-half-hour class.
Which is so respectful I found myself, at more than a few points in the 12 sections, wanting to scream.
We meet Keene’s Christie behind a desk, and there she stays, smiling and nodding as she walks us through her thoughts on her craft (including, in the introduction, her aversion to offering them).
Christie’s autobiography is a doorstop. Thoughts about writing, her characters and her career run through it, but they rarely take up more than two consecutive pages. Christie historian Mark Aldridge has done a remarkable job of mining it, as well as other writings, to create a genuine tutorial with an admirable script.
Yes, Christie offers the typical anodyne advice — write what you know and the type of book you enjoy reading — but she also gets very granular. A murder mystery is best at 50,000 words, the murderer and important clues must be introduced very early on, settings should be described thoroughly but economically (“sometimes a map works best”) and one must never give into an editor who spells cocoa as “coco.”
In portions that include “characters,” “plots,” “settings” and “clues,” Christie assesses some of her work. She came to think that her first book, “The Mysterious Affair at Styles,” was over-stuffed with plot, but remained irritated by those who claimed that the twist in “The Murder of Roger Ackroyd” was a cheat. She wished she had introduced Hercule Poirot as a younger man, and was very happy to ditch Hastings for a while.
She discusses the importance of observation in everyday life, describing, among other things, how an encounter in front of a shop window led to one of her Parker Pyne stories, as well as the usefulness of isolated settings (“snow can also weigh down telephone wires”) and second (or third) murders.
In the opening minutes, it’s kind of neat to see what looks very much like a midlife Christie, smiling and talking in her very British way (the voice is not precise but close enough).
Still, there is no getting away from the fact that this is a two-and-a-half-hour lecture, delivered by a woman sitting behind a desk who, with the exception of a very few hand gestures, never moves. The camera moves, shooting her from this angle and that, and occasionally roving over various covers of Christie’s books. But Christie’s body remains as still as the late Queen Elizabeth II delivering her Christmas address.
I began to feel quite concerned for Keene — just how long were these takes? She delivers a vocally expressive performance and gives the digitally recreated face the necessary intelligence, wit and kindliness. The face itself looked fine — a bit glowy at times and immobile around the eyes — but its novelty quickly wore off. I would have happily traded what is essentially a parlor trick for a Christie who would get up and walk around a bit. Have a cup of tea, flip through a notebook.
Actor Vivien Keene’s voice and face were altered to create Agatha Christie’s likeness.
(BBC Maestro)
I realize that it is a course, and one I did not have to go through in one sitting. But as the first hour slid into the second, I found myself longing for someone, Aldridge perhaps, to mine Christie’s exquisite autobiography more broadly and create an entire one-woman play. An evening with Agatha, free of AI, in which Christie could reminisce about her extraordinary life, from her glorious Victorian childhood to her later years as an archaeologist.
Though known as the creator of the manor-house murder story, Christie was, as her books indicate, a voracious world traveler, learning how to surf before surfing was a thing, and dealing with adventures and misadventures (including a 14-hour honeymoon trek by camel and a hideous case of bed bugs on the Orient Express) that would give even the most intrepid travel influencer pause.
She lived through two world wars, experienced wildly unexpected success and deep personal loss. She endured a heartbreaking divorce and a nervous breakdown, while raising a daughter and writing books, only to rally again and find love again in the most unexpected place.
She wasn’t a saint — her work occasionally includes the racist, antisemitic and classist tropes of its time — but she avowed fascism as often as her more political contemporaries and believed, as she says in the course, that she lived in contract with her readers for whom she had the utmost respect.
She was a celebrity who never behaved as a celebrity, an artist who never admitted to art (and wrote her books on any steady surface, including orange crates and washstands), a novelist like no other who also wrote the longest-running play in history and whose work continues to sell while being adapted in film and television. Her contribution to the culture is literally incalculable.
So surely she deserves more than a course that makes news mainly because of its use of dreaded AI. She’s Agatha-freaking-Christie. Give her a movie, a miniseries, a play. Give her an actor who worries less about the face and more about the words, and the life that inspired them.
Austin Reaves is the Lakers’ breath of fresh air, a sharpshooting respite from all the drama and dirge, a stirring journey from undrafted to indefatigable. My favorite, everybody’s favorite.
But it’s time.
If the Lakers are going to get where they need to be, they’ll have to get there without Austin Reaves. If the Lakers truly value the acquisition of a big man, they’re going to have to get rid of the little fella.
Damn, I hate writing these next three words.
Trade Austin Reaves.
Send him packing in a deal that brings the Lakers the sort of lob partner and rim protector whose absence knocked you out of the postseason. Use him as the most attractive asset that could lure the sort of behemoth that could help this group bully their way back into contention.
You say you want to build around Luka Doncic? Start with uprooting Reaves.
No. 1 Oklahoma City vs. No. 4 Denver Nuggets Denver 121, at Oklahoma City 119 (box score) at Oklahoma City 149, Denver 106 (box score) at Denver 113, Oklahoma City 104 (OT) (box score) Oklahoma City 92, at Denver 87 (box score) Tuesday at Oklahoma City, 6:30 p.m., TNT Thursday at Denver, TBD, ESPN Sunday at Oklahoma City, TBD*
No. 6 Minnesota Timberwolves vs. No. 7 Golden State Golden State 99, at Minnesota 88 (box score) at Minnesota 117, Golden State 93 (box score) Minnesota 102, at Golden State 97 (box score) Monday at Golden State, 7 p.m., ESPN Wednesday at Minnesota, 6:30 p.m., TNT Sunday at Golden State, TBD* Tuesday, May 20 at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN*
Eastern Conference
No. 1 Cleveland vs. No. 4 Indiana Indiana 121, at Cleveland 112 (box score) Indiana 120, at Cleveland 119 (box score) Cleveland 126, at Indiana 104 (box score) at Indiana 129, Cleveland 109 (box score) Tuesday at Cleveland, 4 p.m., TNT Thursday at Indiana, TBD* Sunday at Cleveland, TBD*
No. 2 Boston vs. No. 3 New York New York 108, at Boston 105 (OT) (box score) New York 91, at Boston 90 (box score) Boston 115, at New York 93 (box score) Monday at New York, 4:30 p.m., ESPN Wednesday at Boston, 4 p.m., TNT Friday at New York, TBD, ESPN* Monday, May 19 at Boston, 5 p.m., TNT*
*if necessary
DODGERS
From Jack Harris: At the end of a grueling 10-game trek around the country, and in search of their first winning trip this season, the Dodgers got exactly what they needed Sunday afternoon.
A strong start from right-hander Tony Gonsolin. A huge performance from the top of their lineup. And a thorough 8-1 rout of the Arizona Diamondbacks, splitting a four-game series at Chase Field this weekend to return home from this week-and-a-half-long trip with a 6-4 record that keeps them in first place in the National League West.
“Really good team win,” manager Dave Roberts said.
In a battle of two former All-Stars on Sunday, Gonsolin outdueled Arizona right-hander Zac Gallen, tossing five scoreless innings to earn his second win in three starts since returning from Tommy John surgery — and a back injury that forced him to miss the first month of the season — this year.
“His delivery looks really good,” Roberts said of Gonsolin, who has a 2.80 ERA in his first three starts this season while looking much closer to the 2022 All-Star version of himself than he did while pitching through his elbow injury in 2023.
Gunnar Henderson hit a two-run homer during Baltimore’s four-run sixth inning, and Maverick Handley got his first two career RBIs in the Orioles’ 7-3 victory over the Angels on Sunday.
Zach Eflin (3-1) pitched five innings of two-run ball in his return from a monthlong injury absence for the Orioles, who took two of three in this weekend series between last-place clubs. Baltimore finished its trip by winning for only the second time in eight games.
Matthew Lugo hit his first career homer as a pinch-hitter in the ninth for the Angels, who went 4-6 on their 10-game homestand.
Tyler Anderson (2-1) yielded one earned run over five innings for the Angels, who committed two errors and several other fielding gaffes.
From Anthony De Leon: Even on Mother’s Day — the day dedicated to relaxation and pampering for moms — the Sparks will take the hardwood in Torrance, sweating through defensive sets, refining footwork and hitting jumpers.
It’ll be a shortened practice, but practice nonetheless. There’s no time to pause. The WNBA season opener is less than a week away. The grind of pro basketball never lets up, and neither does the grind of motherhood.
Odyssey Sims’ latter role often kicks in when she steps off the court. When the final whistle sounds, her 5-year-old son, Jaiden, usually waits nearby — her best friend, “Mama’s baby.” He shares her wide grin. They move as one, even at the Sparks’ training camp.
“I’m used to bringing my son with me all the time,” Sims said. “He loves coming to the gym. … He has his moments where he’s like, ‘Mom, I’m ready to go.’ I’m like, ‘Son, it’s 10 o’clock, we haven’t even started.’”
UCLA earned a No. 9 NCAA softball national seed and will host a regional during its first season as a Big Ten member.
The Bruins (49-10, 17-5 Big Ten) lost to Michigan 2-0 in the Big Ten tournament title game, but still earned the right to host the Los Angeles Regional. UCLA is making a record 40th appearance in the NCAA tournament.
Regional No. 2 seed Arizona State, Regional No. 3 seed San Diego State and Regional No. 4 seed UC Santa Barbara also earn bids in UCLA’s regional, with the Regional No. 1 seed Bruins playing UC Santa Barbara at 4:30 p.m. PDT Friday (ESPN+) and Arizona State playing San Diego State at 7 p.m. Friday (ESPN2).
Texas A&M earned the overall No. 1 seed in the NCAA Division I softball tournament on Sunday, edging four-time defending national champion Oklahoma for the top spot and leading seven Southeastern Conference teams seeded in the top eight.
Brian White scored on a header in the 70th minute and the Vancouver Whitecaps rallied to tie LAFC2-2 on Sunday to extend their unbeaten streak to 11 games across all competitions.
The Whitecaps (8-1-3) lead all MLS teams with 27 points and hold a five-point edge over Minnesota in the Western Conference. They are 6-0-5 during the streak.
On the tying goal, second-half substitution Ali Ahmed headed the ball into the center of the box and White headed it into the net. White also scored in the 26th minute to pull Vancouver within a goal.
From Kevin Baxter: Nareg Dekermenjian had Mother’s Day brunch with the Stanley Cup, which caused more than a little anxiety since no one was sure what hockey’s championship trophy liked to eat.
“I’m thinking all-meat diet for the Stanley Cup,” Dekermenjian said before sliding into a large corner booth at Stanley’s Restaurant (no relation to the Cup) in Sherman Oaks. “Anything less than that, I’m going to be very, very disappointed.”
As it turned out, the Cup was fasting so the plate in front of it remained empty. But then the trophy wasn’t the one being feted Sunday, Dekermenjian was. Last week he was named the winner of the NHL’s Future Goals Most Valuable Teacher Program, chosen from a field of hundreds of candidates from 31 of the league’s 32 cities.
For the fifth-grade teacher, who left a well-paying job as a financial advisor for a classroom four years ago, being honored by a visit from the Stanley Cup was a full-circle moment in several ways. For starters, it was an acknowledgment of the role hockey played in helping him adapt to his new country after his father, Edward, a jeweler in Lebanon who spoke only broken English, wagered everything when he left Beirut for the West Valley so his three children could have a chance at a better life.
Dekermenjian, the youngest, was just 5 and he immediately had trouble fitting in.
“Making friends or having some kind of link with the kids my age, coming from a different country, that was really different,” he said. So one day his mother, Zovig, pushed him out the door to join some neighborhood kids in a street-hockey game.
“I’m glad I did,” Zovig said Sunday. The game, it turned out, would change everything.
Pacific 1 Vegas vs. Pacific 3 Edmonton Edmonton 4, at Vegas 2 (summary) Edmonton 5, at Vegas 4 (OT) (summary) Vegas 4, at Edmonton 3 (summary) Monday at Edmonton, 6:30 p.m., TNT Wednesday at Vegas, 6:30 p.m., ESPN Friday at Edmonton, TBD, TNT* Sunday at Vegas, TBD, TNT*
C1 Winnipeg vs. C2 Dallas Dallas 3, at Winnipeg 2 (summary) Winnipeg 4, at Dallas 0 (summary) Dallas 5, at Winnipeg 2 (summary) Tuesday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN Thursday at Winnipeg, 6:30 p.m., TNT Saturday at Dallas, TBD* Monday, May 19 at Winnipeg, TBD, ESPN*
Eastern Conference
Atlantic 1 Toronto vs. Atlantic 3 Florida at Toronto 5, Florida 4 (summary) at Toronto 4, Florida 3 (summary) at Florida 5, Toronto 4 (OT) (summary) at Florida 2, Toronto 0 (summary) Wednesday at Toronto, 4 p.m., ESPN* Friday at Florida, TBD, TNT Sunday at Toronto, TBD, TNT*
Metro 1 Washington vs. Metro 2 Carolina Carolina 2, at Washington 1 (OT) (summary) at Washington 3, Carolina 1 (summary) at Carolina 4, Washington 0 (summary) Monday at Carolina, 4 p.m., TNT Thursday at Washington, 4 p.m., TNT Saturday at Carolina, TBD* Monday, May 19 at Washington, TBD, ESPN*
* If necessary
THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1909 — The Preakness Stakes is held in Maryland after 16 runnings in New York. As part of the celebration marking the return of the Preakness, the colors of the race’s winner were painted onto the ornamental weather vane at Pimlico Racecourse for the first time.
1917 — Omar Khayyam, ridden by Charles Borel, becomes the first foreign-bred (England) colt to win the Kentucky Derby with a 2-length victory over Ticket.
1924 — Walter Hagen wins the PGA championship with a 2-up victory over Jim Barnes.
1973 — 6th ABA championship: Indiana Pacers beat Ky Colonels, 4 games to 3.
1974 — The Boston Celtics beat the Milwaukee Bucks 102-87 to win the NBA championship in seven games.
1976 — 20th European Cup: Bayern Munich beats Saint-Etienne 1-0 at Glasgow.
1979 — Chris Evert’s 125-match winning streak on clay comes to an end when she loses to Tracy Austin in the semifinals of the Italian Open.
1980 — West Ham United wins the FA Cup, beating Arsenal 1-0 at Wembley Stadium; midfield playmaker Trevor Brooking scores winner with a rare header.
1982 — FC Barcelona of Spain win 22nd European Cup Winner’s Cup against Standard Liège of Belgium 2-1 in Barcelona.
1993 — Parma of Italy win 33rd European Cup Winner’s Cup against Royal Antwerp of Belgium 3-1 in London.
1995 — Martin Brodeur ties NHL record getting his 3rd playoff shutout in 4 games.
1996 — LPGA Championship Women’s Golf, DuPont CC: England’s Laura Davies wins by 1 stroke ahead of runner-up Julie Piers.
1996 — A three-way dead heat is run at Yakima (Wash.) Meadows, the 20th such finish in thoroughbred racing history there. In the day’s third race, a trio of $8,000 claimers — Fly Like A Angel, Allihaveonztheradio and Terri After Five — hit the wire together after a one-mile race.
2001 — English FA Cup Final, Millennium Stadium, Cardiff (72,500): Liverpool beats Arsenal, 2-1 with Michael Owen scoring twice for the Reds.
2006 — Laure Manaudou of France breaks Janet Evans’ 18-year-old world record in the 400-meter freestyle, finishing in 4:03.03 at the French national swimming championships. Manaudou beats the time of 4:03.85 set by Evans in winning the 400-meter freestyle at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
2006 — Justin Gatlin breaks the 100-meter world record with a time of 9.76 seconds at the Qatar Grand Prix. A week later, the International Association of Athletics Federations announces a timing error gave Gatlin a time of 9.76 seconds. His time of 9.766 seconds, should have been manually rounded up to 9.77, tying Asafa Powell’s world mark of 9.77.
2010 — Montreal follows up a monumental upset by pulling off another. The Canadiens, who eliminated the Washington Capitals, beat the Pittsburgh Penguins 5-2 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Montreal accomplishes what no team had done since the current playoffs format was adopted in 1994. And that is beat the Presidents’ Trophy winner and defending Stanley Cup champion in successive rounds as an eighth-seeded team.
2010 — Kelly Kulick, the first woman to win a PBA Tour title when she beat the men in January in the Tournament of Champions, wins the U.S. Women’s Open for her second women’s major victory in 15 days. Kulick beats Liz Johnson of 233-203 in the final.
2013 — Serena Williams beats Maria Sharapova 6-1, 6-4 in the final of the Madrid Open to retain her No. 1 ranking and collect her 50th career title.
2013 — PGA Players Championship, TPC at Sawgrass: Tiger Woods wins his second PC, 2 strokes ahead of David Lingmerth, Jeff Maggert and Kevin Streelman.
2014 — LeBron James ties his playoff career high with 49 points, Chris Bosh makes the tiebreaking 3-pointer with 57 seconds left, and the Miami Heat beat the Brooklyn Nets 102-96 for a 3-1 lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.
2019 — Manchester City beats Brighton, 4-1 to claim back-to-back English Premier League titles with 98 points, 1 ahead of runners-up, Liverpool.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1910 — Chief Bender of the Philadelphia Athletics pitched a 4-0 no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians.
1926 — Walter Johnson of the Washington Senators records his 400th career win when he defeats the St. Louis Browns, 7-4.
1937 — St. Louis’ Joe Medwick hit two home runs and two doubles to lead the Cardinals to a 15-3 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies.
1955 — Sam “Toothpick” Jones of the Cubs got a no-hitter the hard way. In the ninth inning against Pittsburgh, he walked the bases full and then struck out the next three batters for a 4-0 victory.
1956 — Carl Erskine of the Brooklyn Dodgers pitched a 3-0 no-hitter against the New York Giants.
1958 — Willie Mays hits the first grand slam in the history of the San Francisco Giants.
1966 — Lou Brock’s RBI single in the 12th inning gave the St. Louis Cardinals a 4-3 victory over Atlanta in the opening of Busch Memorial Stadium. Felipe Alou hit two home runs for the Braves.
1969 — Bob Gibson of the St. Louis Cardinals becomes the seventh pitcher in National League history to strike out the side on nine pitches.
1970 — Ernie Banks hit his 500th home run off Pat Jarvis in Chicago’s 4-3 victory over Atlanta at Wrigley Field.
1989 — Rick Reuschel of the San Francisco Giants records his 200th major league win, beating Montreal, 2-1.
1999 — Boston Red Sox pitcher Pedro Martinez strikes out 15 batters for the second consecutive game in a 9-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners.
2000 — Boston’s Pedro Martinez, who had 17 strikeouts in his last start May 6 against Tampa Bay, struck out 15 in a 9-0 win over Baltimore, to tie an AL record set in 1968 by Cleveland’s Luis Tiant for most strikeouts over two games.
2001 — A.J. Burnett pitched an unlikely no-hitter — overcoming a record nine walks — to lead Florida over San Diego 3-0.
2004 — In one of the most remarkable at-bats in major league history, Alex Cora of the Dodgers fouls off 14 consecutive pitches and then hits the 18th pitch over the right field fence for a two-run home run off Cubs pitcher Matt Clement.
2008 — Indians second baseman Asdrubal Cabrera turned the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history, accomplishing the feat in the second game of a doubleheader against Toronto. Cabrera made a diving catch on a line drive by Lyle Overbay, touched second base and then tagged out Marco Scutaro to quickly end the fifth inning of Cleveland’s 3-0 loss in 10 innings.
2009 — Ryan Zimmerman extended his hitting streak to 30 games, getting a first-inning single in the Washington Nationals’ 9-7 loss to San Francisco.
2010 — Homer Bailey became the latest Cincinnati Reds starter to pitch a gem against the Pittsburgh Pirates, tossing his first career complete game in a 5-0 win. The Reds became the first team in the majors in nearly 10 years to pitch back-to-back, complete-game shutouts without a walk — Oakland’s Tim Hudson and Barry Zito did it on Sept. 9-10, 2000, against Tampa Bay.
2015 — The Mariners tie a team record by hitting six homers in an 11-4 win over the Padres at Safeco Field. Nelson Cruz hits his major league-leading 15th home run, while Mike Zunino hits two, and Kyle Seager, Justin Ruggiano and Logan Morrison complete the barrage.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
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