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SACRAMENTO — The team that can’t stop dancing won’t stop dancing.

The top-seeded UCLA women’s basketball team beat Duke 70-58 in the Elite Eight. It wasn’t balletic, but beautiful.

Sunday’s game at Golden 1 Center in Sacramento wasn’t a fun, free-flowing joy ride that so many of the Bruins’ wins have been this season.

It was a rattling, teeth-gritting, heart-thumping roller-coaster ride — weeeeee!

The Bruins weren’t having fun, exactly. They were having the time of their lives.

And in the end, they shoved their way to the front of the stage — and back to the Final Four.

Now the TikTok countdown is on before final exams in Phoenix, where redemption and legacy and a rematch await with either winner of the No. 1 Texas vs. No. 2 Michigan tussle in the Fort Worth Regional final.

And any questions — ahem, mine — about how the barely-battled-tested boogie-down Bruins respond to a significant stress test were answered.

The Bruins are built for this.

They’re not just talented. And they’re not just talented dancers (and postgame, Lauren Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Gabriela Jaquez reprised the routine that went viral when they did it with the UCLA Dance Team during halftime of a men’s game this season).

They’re tough. And they’re locked in.

And unlike last season, when their program’s Final Four debut ended in a 85-51 national semifinal blowout loss to eventual champion Connecticut, they’re ready for what comes next.

They let us know in the second half Sunday.

Duke came floating in, still buzzing from Friday’s buzzer-beater in the Sweet 16. That slow-motion-in-real-time three-pointer by Ashlon Jackson that rolled around and around the rim as though the basketball gods needed just a little more time to determine UCLA’s opponent Sunday.

UCLA’s Lauren Betts, left, Gabriela Jaquez celebrate after the Bruins defeated Duke on Sunday to advance to the Final Four.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

It was to be Duke, who proved a dangerous No. 3 seed. The Bruins weren’t prepared for the Blue Devils to be so prepared for them, trailing at the break for just the second time this season. The first time was in November against Texas, when the Bruins — now a program-record 35-1 — suffered their only loss this season.

Still their only loss.

Even a fool could read the determination on the Bruins’ faces as they roared back from a 39-31 halftime deficit; they’d come so far together, but they so badly wanted to go further.

No one was ready to get off the ride, not least the six seniors who played the entirety of the second half, seizing momentum and the moment and hitting the Blue Devils (27-9) with a white-knuckled flurry of activity.

“Compliment them,” Duke coach Kara Lawson said, “for turning up their defensive intensity.”

There were 50-50 balls in name only, because UCLA seemed to be winning 100% of them.

UCLA players were ripping away passes. They were diving all over the floor and were all over the boards. They ratcheted up the intensity so much it spread into the stands, where the largely pro-Bruins crowd of 9,627 cheered deliriously.

Shots started falling. Turnovers stopped cascading. UCLA found its rhythm.

And UCLA’s 6-foot-7 star center Betts did what she does, with 15 points, eight rebounds and two blocks in the second half, of which she played all 20 minutes.

“I was just pretty mad,” she said. “You know, my senior season is on the line, so I kind of got to wake up a little bit.”

Angela Dugalic continued to be the matchup nightmare she has been all March; the 6-4 sixth woman scored 15 timely points to take some pressure off Betts.

UCLA coach Cori Close watches play during the Bruins’ win over Duke on Sunday.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“I’m just so proud of her,” Betts said. “The confidence and her poise … you could get in your head in moments when we’re down … but she did all the right things and what we needed at the time.”

It was an entertaining Elite Eight clash that was brought to you by two coaches who staged, like up-and-coming chefs, under two of the greatest leaders the sports world has known.

UCLA coach Cori Close and Lawson committed to making sure we won’t lose John Wooden’s and Pat Summitt’s recipes — never mind all the seismic, disorienting shifts happening in college sports.

A former Tennessee star, Lawson brings Summitt’s brand crackling intensity to Duke, a mindset that she’s said calls for supreme confidence, chasing excellence and holding oneself to an all-around standard of success.

UCLA’s bench was uplifted all season by Close’s warm intentionality, learned from years of mentorship from Wooden. The main ingredients, she’ll tell you, requiring a dollop of growth, gratitude, of giving and not taking.

“[Our] team culture is not this nebulous thing or phrases on a wall,” Close said. “It’s a group of people that are willing to be committed to the hard, right behaviors over and over again. I cannot tell you how many times throughout that game we referred to our values, who we are, what our identity was, what we had to get back to.

“… I’m just really humbled and thankful to be a part of a team and staff that cares about things from the inside out. What you saw on the court is a reflection and a byproduct of what’s happened on the inside.”

Three deals across three key regions : Mercosur, India and Australia.

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While the Commission hailed the Australia agreement as a new geostrategic win, EU farmers continue to express deep discontent stemming from the Mercosur deal.

In practice, the backlash around the agreement with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay has done little to shift the Commission’s dual approach in its negotiating line. On the one hand, the commission kept making concessions on entry-level or mid-range farm goods such as beef, while on the other hand, it pushed for market access for high value-added exports —like wine, Geographical Indications (GI) and cars— with mixed results.

“The EU has all the assets to be an agri-food power,” Luc Vernet, from the export-focused brussels think tank Farm Europe, told Euronews, adding: “We should develop a broader strategy beyond high value-added products, covering all sectors and all levels of quality, because the European model delivers exceptional quality not just in luxury products.”

Yet the opposition to the Latin America deal — which triggered a legal challenge suspending its ratification — crystallised among EU farmers over fears of unfair competition from meat imports.

The Mercosur agreement granted quotas of 99,000 tonnes of beef per year, 25,000 tonnes of pork and 188,000 tonnes of poultry. Despite conditions added to new quotas in the Australia deal, EU farmers complain of imports piling up across successive agreements.

Concessions made on beef

Over eight years of talks with Canberra—the world’s second-largest beef exporter—Australia pushed hard for greater access for beef and sheep meat. Tensions intensified in 2023, when negotiations broke down after the EU rejected Australia’s demand for 40,000 tonnes of beef per year, offering no more than 30,000 tonnes instead.

The final deal agreed Tuesday allows 30,600 tonnes of beef annually into the EU. For sheep and goat meat, Brussels accepted a 25,000-tonne duty-free quota, while sugar was limited to 35,000 tonnes of raw cane for refining and rice to 8,500 tonnes a year.

However, perhaps drawing lessons from Mercosur, Brussels imposed multiple conditions on the quotas. Beef imports, which will have to be from grass-fed cattle, will be phased in over 10 years, sheep meat over 7 years, and rice over 5 years. Sugar will also be subject to certification under a private sustainability scheme.

Safeguard clauses, allowing both sides to react to market disruption, will apply for seven years – but are extended for sensitive farm goods : 15 years for beef, 12 for sheep and 10 for rice.

But a farmers’ representative told Euronews there were serious doubts about the effectiveness of the safeguard mechanisms: “Our experience in general with safeguards is that they are extremely difficult to activate because the burden of the proof is on us, farmers.”

The offensive agenda of the Commission

By contrast, agriculture was far less contentious in the India negotiations, where New Delhi itself resisted opening its market due to domestic farm sensitivities, particularly in dairy. EU sensitive products were largely excluded.

But wine featured prominently on Brussels’ offensive agenda, with Indian tariffs cut from 150% to 20% for premium wines and 30% for mid-range products over seven years. Tariffs for cars will also fall from 110% to 10% but under a quota of 250,000 vehicles a year after a decade – by which point Chinese manufacturers have great chances to have strengthened their position.

In negotiations with Australia, the EU again sought greater access for its wine but encountered strong opposition from domestic producers. In the end, the deal protects more than 1,600 EU wine GIs, plus over 50 new ones from 12 member states.

On Prosecco, Australian producers will still be allowed to use the term domestically to designate a grey grape variety, provided it is linked to Australian GI, with Canberra agreeing to stop exporting such wines after 10 years.

The EU also secured protection for 165 agri-food GIs and 231 spirit drink GIs. But it failed to remove Australia’s luxury car tax, securing instead preferential treatment for EU electric vehicles. But Brussels won improved access to critical raw materials – a key EU demand, that may have lead to more concessions on meat.

It has been nearly three years since Hollywood writers went on a historic strike that lasted 148 days and ushered in an extraordinary period of labor unrest that virtually shut down the film and TV business.

Now, writers are poised to commence another round of bargaining with the major studios on a new three-year film and TV contract. Few observers think the union is girding for another showdown, especially at a time when many of its members are struggling to find work amid media consolidation and belt-tightening.

But in advance of negotiations that begin on Monday , union leaders are eager to dispel any perception that they might have scaled back their demands.

“Our members have shown many times that they’re willing to fight for what we need as a collective group,” WGA West President Michele Mulroney said in an interview. “And there’s no exception here.”

With its current contract expiring on May 1, the WGA hopes to improve its members’ healthcare plans, increase streaming residuals and expand AI protections.

Michele Mulroney speaks as the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and Writers Guild of America (WGA) join GLAAD in releasing the 11TH Annual GLAAD Studio Responsibility Index at The Village at Ed Gould Plaza Los Angeles LGBT Center in Los Angeles, California, on September 14, 2023.

(Michael Tran/AFP via Getty Images)

Ellen Stutzman, the union’s executive director, said despite popular belief, the studios have weathered the transition from cable television to streaming “very well,” citing their efforts to maximize revenue with streaming bundling, rising subscription fees and advertising revenue.

“Writers are watching as Netflix and Paramount are fighting it out to acquire Warner Bros… Paramount is spending $81 billion,” said Stutzman. “There’s money for a fair deal for writers.”

The union leaders agree that this year’s negotiations are all focused on the sustainability of a writer’s career.

A spokesperson from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the major studios in negotiations, said in a statement that they look forward “to engaging in a constructive and collaborative bargaining process with the WGA. Through continued good-faith dialogue, we are confident we can reach balanced solutions that support talented writers while sustaining the long-term success and stability of our industry and its workforce.”

A top priority for the WGA is to increase the caps that companies contribute to the union’s healthcare plan. Union officials say the current cap has remain unchanged for two decades as healthcare contributions have steadily declined due to fewer writers working.

AI is also top of mind for the WGA.

In 2023, the guild secured various AI protections by establishing that AI isn’t a writer and nothing it produces is considered literary material.

But as major studios start to make deals with AI companies, like Disney’s $1 billion investment into OpenAI’s Sora platform, many writers are concerned about how their work could be used.

“AI is using [studios’] IP, which is stuff that we wrote to license these models,” said John August, the co-host of the “Scriptnotes” podcast and WGA’s negotiating committee co-chair. “With the Sora deal, it seems clear that the companies intend to monetize this IP for use with AI.”

August says the union will be skeptical toward arguments that it’s still too early to seek more safeguards around such a nascent industry, citing the union’s past history with the rise of DVDs and the internet and how profoundly those technologies changed the compensation for writers.

“If you’re taking the work that we created to generate AI outputs, we are owed money. They’re using our work to do something down the road,” added August.

WGA’s negotiating committee also is looking to boost streaming residuals, expand the minimum number of people allowed in a writers’ room and add protections for scribes working on pilots.

“We very much hope that lessons were learned in 2023 and that the AMPTP will come to the table ready to take our proposal seriously and to make a fair deal, and to do that quickly,” Mulroney said. “It provides stability for the companies and for our membership. It’s better for everybody.”

WGA is entering contract negotiations nearly a month after the actors’ union, SAG-AFTRA, began its bargaining sessions. Last week,
the AMPTP said it was extending negotiations another seven days.