track

Universal Studios Hollywood appears to be taking steps to address noise complaints regarding its new high-speed, outdoor roller coaster. The office of L.A. City Councilmember Adrin Nazarian stated the theme park will install two additional sound barriers to mitigate the sound of rider screams on its new ride Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, which have been described by nearby residents as “disturbing” and “untenable.”

Nazarian’s office made the announcement Monday evening on social media. A Universal Studios Hollywood spokesperson has not yet responded to a request for comment.

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, which is currently in a soft open phase, has come under attack from residents in the nearby Toluca Lake neighborhood.

“You think something is happening,” said Toluca Lake’s Patrick Nazari. “Like someone is getting murdered out there.”

Nazarian’s Instagram post stated that construction of the new sound barriers would be completed by early September. It also insinuated that recent testing of the coaster has met Universal’s sound requirements with the county. A community meeting is being planned by Universal and the Toluca Lake Homeowners Assn., stated the post.

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift does not yet have an official opening date. The ride is operating in what Universal refers to “technical rehearsals,” which is essentially still a testing phase. It is not guaranteed to be operational on any given day, but has been cycling guests in recent days.

Universal Studios Hollywood has been proactive with Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, devoting a website to just how silent and unobtrusive its groundbreaking coaster would be. Multiple noise mitigation efforts were undertaken — sound walls, scream shields and even pea gravel in the coaster’s tracks.

Residents have stated the coaster runs relatively quiet, noting that there were no complaints until it began testing with guests. At that point, say many Toluca Lake residents, the screams became untenable.

“I heard it, and I thought to myself, ‘There are going to be problems with this,’” said Toluca Lake’s Leonard R. Garner Jr.

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift has been about a decade in the making. It’s a feat of engineering, situated on a hill between the park’s upper and lower lots, extending out toward Lankershim Boulevard. Universal has its own interest in limiting noise from the ride, beyond being a polite neighbor, as it is still a working studio.

The theme park has made outreach into the neighborhood over the years in an attempt to assuage concerns, be it distributing fliers or attending community meetings. And many a Toluca Lake resident enjoys some theme park perks courtesy of Universal, such as free parking, and invites to preopening events at the park.

In its latest effort to protect human creators from the flood of synthetic music, Spotify will soon require AI-generated identities to carry an “AI Persona” label while barring their tracks from users’ algorithmic mixes.

The change will take effect in mid-September. It follows Spotify’s earlier moves to help subscribers understand the difference between genuine and artificial creators. The platform announced a verification badge in April designed to highlight human artists. In a statement Tuesday, Spotify said the new AI Persona label is meant to make the streamer “the most transparent and trustworthy place to listen to music.” Music from labeled AI Personas will also be excluded from the Swedish company’s personalized recommendations by default.

“While we believe all artists have creative choice in determining how they present themselves, Spotify’s programming is focused on elevating music from authentic artists building careers in music,” the company said .

The AI persona badge will soon appear on an artist’s profile, in the search feature and in playlists.

This is a step in the right direction, said Tiffany Naiman, the director of Music Industry Programs at UCLA. But, she said, she’s more interested in how the company will be identifying AI personas.

“I want to know the process. How [will they] know the difference? Are there going to be [real] artists that get tied up in it?” Naiman said. “It feels very ‘Blade Runner,’ right? Like you’re human, you’re not human.”

Starting Tuesday, Spotify users will be able to identify themselves as AI personas, if applicable. But the company said it “won’t rely on self-disclosure alone” and will use “human review alongside AI investigative tools to apply the label.”

Artists who get labeled as AI personas by Spotify will be allowed to appeal the label. In the coming months, users will also have the ability to report artist profiles as potential AI personas.

The label is the latest feature from the streaming platform that builds on transparency between the artist and their listeners. Recently, Spotify has also introduced SongDNA, an interactive feature that shows the creative team behind the track; AI Credits, a disclaimer where artists can reveal how much AI was used in their creative process and Artist Profile Protection, which allows artists to review and approve all releases on Spotify.

Artificial intelligence is becoming an essential part of Spotify’s business. The company announced a new AI deal last week with the digital music licensing company Merlin. The partnership will enable artists across the more than 30,000 labels and distributors in Merlin’s network to participate in Spotify’s upcoming AI tool. It hasn’t launched yet, but the goal is to let fans create AI-generated remixes and covers of existing songs on the platform.

Spotify is following in the steps of other streaming platforms that have taken more aggressive approaches to the new technology. Deezer, a French streamer, was the first to detect, tag and exclude AI-generated music from algorithmic recommendations. The company recently disclosed that up to 90,000 AI tracks are being uploaded to the platform daily, representing more than 50% of its new music uploads. Tidal has banned AI-generated music from receiving royalties on its platform.

“We know the music ecosystem is evolving, and so will our approach,” said Spotify in a statement. “We’ll continue to adapt as the landscape changes and as we learn from artists, listeners, and industry partners.”

The U.S. Air Force’s X-62A test jet was able to use its artificial intelligence (AI) driven ‘brain’ to autonomously spot and track other aircraft in flight, and then move to intercept them, in recent testing. On top of this, the AI ‘agent’ on the X-62A performed these tasks by leveraging data from an infrared sensor pod slung underneath the aircraft. The tests demonstrate exactly the kind of autonomous air-to-air combat capabilities the Air Force is hoping to gain from its first batch of operational Collaborative Combat Air (CCA) drones.

The Air Force and Lockheed Martin shared details about the new testing involving the X-62A, which is a uniquely modified F-16, today. The U.S. Air Force Test Pilot School (USAF TPS), Lockheed Martin’s famed Skunk Works advanced projects division, and other unmanned “industry partners” supported what is described variously as a “closed‑loop AI combat test” and a demonstration of “autonomous AI sensor-to-vehicle control.” The X-62A, which started life as a two-seat F-16D Viper and is also known as the Variable Stability In-flight Simulator Test Aircraft (VISTA), is assigned to the USAF TPS. The Air Force also nicknamed this particular test effort Have Heat.

“Leveraging Lockheed Martin’s Infrared Search and Track Legion Pod, during the HAVE HEAT program, the X-62 VISTA platform demonstrated the ability of AI agents to ingest live infrared sensor data, directing the X-62 to autonomously intercept an airborne target in real time,” according to a release from the Air Force’s 412th Test Wing at Edwards Air Force Base in California.

“An artificial intelligence (AI) agent used targeting information from an operational sensor to execute successful air intercepts against a live target,” a separate release from Lockheed Martin also explained. “Across eight flights, the X-62 Variable In-flight Simulation Test Aircraft (VISTA) executed 27 AI-controlled intercepts.”

A T‑38 jet trainer was used as the live target during the tests, per Lockheed Martin.

The Air Force has clearly been building up to tests like Have Heat for years now. The service, together with General Atomics, has notably used the latter company’s MQ-20 Avenger drone equipped with this same pod to demonstrate autonomous target detection and tracking capabilities in the past.

As an aside, it is also worth noting here that Legion Pod has been in active operational use on crewed Air Force fighters for some time now. This reflects a separate renaissance that infrared search and track (IRST) capabilities have been seeing across the U.S. military. IRSTs are especially valuable for helping spot stealthy targets with features designed to reduce their radar cross-sections since they detect and track infrared emissions. By extension, IRSTs are also immune to radio frequency electronic warfare jamming. As passive sensors, they do not emit their own signals that could alert a target to the fact they are being tracked, either. IRSTs can still be used to cue or otherwise be linked to other sensors, including active electronically-scanned array radars. Fusing data from multiple sources can provide higher fidelity tracks of multiple targets, as well as improved situational awareness overall.

Legion Pod Flies on F-16

The Air Force, together with various industry partners, including Lockheed Martin, General Atomics, Shield AI, Anduril, and others, have also made other important strides in autonomous air combat capabilities in recent years. This includes a ground-breaking mock dogfight between the X-62A and a crewed F-16 back in 2024.

What Have Heat has now demonstrated is the ability of an autonomous platform to use its own closed data loop to directly prosecute an aerial intercept of a physical aircraft. It also showed that the parties involved could move “AI testing from simulated target data to real-time, on‑board sensor streams, mirroring the data environment pilots will face in future high-stakes engagements,” Lockheed Martin’s press release notes.

This all speaks to a core challenge in the development of advanced autonomous aircraft: situational awareness limitations. While the aforementioned simulated dogfight in 2024 was a breakthrough event, the Air Force subsequently disclosed that the X-62A and the F-16 had been directly exchanging data the entire time. This, in turn, underscored the difficulties of ensuring an autonomous platform can safely operate closely together with friendly aircraft, let alone engage a non-cooperative hostile threat, as TWZ explored in detail at the time. The Air Force, as well as other branches of the U.S. military, have been open about the need to overcome these hurdles and the difficulties of doing so.

It is also important to note that the commercial and military aviation sectors have been developing and fielding ever-more advanced automated ‘sense and avoid’ systems for crewed aircraft for decades now. This technology has already been working its way into the uncrewed aviation realm. However, at least so far, the main focus has been on flight safety in controlled airspace rather than dynamic air combat operations over hostile territory where threats and other hazards could emerge unexpectedly.

“Our autonomous agents consumed classified infrared search and track feeds and executed combat‑critical maneuvers in real time. This achievement marks a decisive advance toward delivering AI‑augmented air dominance for the United States,” Ron Fehlen, Vice President and General Manager of Lockheed Martin Skunk Works, stressed in a statement today about Have Heat.

“Our ability to provide reliable sensor data is critical, but the real advantage comes when that data can connect seamlessly with AI to take action,” Stacy Kubicek, Vice President and General Manager at Lockheed Martin Sensors and Global Sustainment, also said in a statement. “This project demonstrates how sensing and autonomous AI can come together as a force multiplier to make faster, more informed action in complex environments.”

“HAVE HEAT represents a meaningful expansion of avionics capability towards integrated, AI-driven control of multiple sensors and air vehicles for mission autonomy,” Air Force Lt. Col. Joshua Strafaccia, Dean of Faculty for Research at the USAF TPS, said in his own statement. “This bridges a capability gap and positions us to test advanced autonomy faster.”

As mentioned at the start, for the Air Force more specifically, Have Heat is another important stepping stone toward the air combat capabilities the service wants at least from its initial tranche of CCA drones. Using CCAs as forward IRST nodes is clearly a top priority. Putting the passive sensors out ahead of manned platforms, especially in groups, will generate high-quality target data independent of radars that even stealth aircraft cannot hide from. It will also help with survivability of the drones compared to equipping them with radars, but some will likely be equipped that way, as well. With all this in mind, IRST has already been emerging as a key capability for CCA-type programs more broadly, and not just in the United States.

The service’s initial CCA fleet is set to be made up of a mix of General Atomics FQ-42 Dark Merlin and Anduril FQ-44 Fury types. The Air Force is already using pre-production versions of those drones to help develop new concepts of operations and tactics, techniques, and procedures to go with them. This includes an operational test at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada just last month, which TWZ was first to report.

The Air Force does still see human operators at least being on the loop for the foreseeable future, especially to authorize lethal attacks. The service’s F-22 Raptors are in line to be the first airborne controllers for operational CCA drones. At the same time, the exact command and control schema can be expected to evolve as autonomous capabilities continue to advance, and human operators gain more trust in those platforms to perform their assigned tasks.

All of this is directly intertwined with tests like Have Heat to expand what the autonomous packages for those uncrewed aircraft are capable of doing. The X-62A has been especially deeply involved in this work for years now. The aircraft itself has been receiving new upgrades specifically to expand its own autonomous and other capabilities. The Air Force’s press release on Have Heat today also touched on another recent effort called Have Holidays, which focused on rapid testing of new software and hardware. Have Heat and Have Holidays were conducted in parallel.

“HAVE HOLIDAYS saw simultaneous integration and evaluation of a wide suite of modular technologies into the X-62’s Enterprise Open Mission System Architecture computer,” according to the Air Force’s release. “This included the integration of a non-prime, third-party autonomous agent onto the X-62, testing of enhanced safety rules to prevent autonomous vehicles from violating user-established operational limits, and further chip integration for advanced sensor exploitation.”

TWZ has previously explored in detail the importance of rapid, iterative testing in the development of new AI-driven autonomous capabilities, including in the virtual realm. Lockheed Martin says that it was able to complete “full integration and ground test of the agents” used in Have Heat in just three months using its “‘Supermassive’ AI agent generation capability.”

“This system-of-systems test served as critical technical risk mitigation on the design and development of logistics and integration frameworks required to maximize flight opportunities post-MSU, paving the way for broader government, academic, and industry partnerships,” the Air Force’s release today also added.

MSU here is the larger Mission Systems Upgrades plan for the X-62A. The MSU effort is currently working toward the integration of Raytheon’s PhantomStrike radar onto the aircraft, as well as other new “sensor and computing capacity” and “modern network data communications” capabilities, per the Air Force. The addition of PhantomStrike, a lower-cost lightweight active electronically-scanned array radar, is particularly significant and will give the test jet another important boost in situational awareness, as you can read more about here.

PhantomStrike: Next generation radar superiority

“X-62 is continued proof that an agile, dedicated team can rapidly advance Department of War initiatives through intentional collaboration,” Air Force Col. Maryann Karlen, Commandant of the USAF TPS, said in a statement today. “Accomplishing these significant milestones is a direct reflection of the adaptability and warfighter focus personified by all members of the school.”

Beyond the unique VISTA aircraft, the Air Force has also been modifying six other F-16s to help support advanced autonomy work as part of Project Viper Experimentation and Next-Gen Operations Mode (VENOM). The service announced the start of actual flight testing involving Project VENOM jets last month.

The Air Force has also been making use of a variety of other crewed and uncrewed aircraft, including the aforementioned MQ-20 Avenger, to support autonomy testing and otherwise help lay the groundwork for its future CCA fleets, as well. The service has been closely coordinating with the U.S. Marine Corps and the U.S. Navy on this work, and all three services have a formal agreement to develop a common command and control architecture for future CCA-type drones. The Air Force has also been working to bring in foreign allies and partners into its CCA program, starting with the Netherlands.

The Air Force is now hoping to begin fielding its first operational CCAs by 2030. In the meantime, tests like Have Heat utilizing the X-62A and other platforms will only become more important to help build the foundation for the air combat capabilities those drones will provide on day one.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

Rodrick Pleasant grew up with built-in role models.

His two older brothers were both Division I athletes with Dominic Davis playing football and running track at USC and Diab Davis running track at California.

For a dual-sport athlete with big dreams like Pleasant, having mentors in his two brothers to lean on and gain advice from was everything he ever needed.

But once the four-star Gardena Serra product made it to Oregon for his first year of college football, he struggled to adapt and get situated in Eugene, Ore., — he needed another older brother.

Defensive back Rodrick Pleasant signals downfield during a UCLA football preseason practice.

(Isabella Serafini/UCLA Athletics)

And it was former Oregon and Chargers cornerback Nikko Reed who stepped up to the plate and guided Pleasant through his first two years of Power Four football.

Reed’s impact on Pleasant was so profound that the UCLA cornerback promised himself that he would be the Reed to other younger players.

And now it is the senior’s time to pay it forward.

“That’s what I’ve taken pride in in the spring, being a leader, being a guy that can talk too, being the guy that I needed when I was a young kid,” Pleasant said on the second day of UCLA preseason camp. “I’ve had great leaders for me when I was at another place, and that’s what I’ve been trying to work on and be there for the guys because I know I’ve dealt with stuff that they’re going through, so that’s what’s been the biggest thing for me.”

Pleasant got his first taste of leadership throughout spring practices. He was recovering from a shoulder injury suffered at the tail end of the 2025 season and had to sit out of team and contact drills.

On the sideline, Pleasant had to learn to impact the game and the players around him without stepping onto the field.

The 2025 All-Big Ten honorable mention honoree quickly found out that by coaching others, he could also help himself.

“Being out there and being able to coach the guys and help the guys. If you can coach it, you can play it,” Pleasant said. “It wasn’t a frustration. I believe in the staff. I believe in what we’re doing here and they had me limited … for a certain reason. I trust the process.”

Pleasant’s belief in the process stemmed from his confidence in the culture head coach Bob Chesney is creating.

The Gardena native could have entered the transfer portal after head coach DeShaun Foster was fired three games into the 2025 season. And he had another chance after the season ended with his position coach Demetrice Martin left for Arizona State.

But the Bruins new coaching staff left a lasting impression on Pleasant.

“It’s a family-oriented place. You see, their families running around here, their kids. They’re people at the end of the day, and being around them is special,” Pleasant said. “So knowing that they treat their families like that, and have their families around us, I appreciate it.”

And no one left a stronger imprint then Chesney, who Pleasant said has been the same guy ever since their meeting.

Despite five new cornerbacks joining the team through the transfer portal and 2026 recruiting class, the comfort induced by the family-oriented coaching staff has allowed Pleasant’s leadership to flourish, supporting one of the deepest position groups on the team.

“We’ve been jelling. . We’ve been practicing for a very long time together and the chemistry is there,” Pleasant said. “It’s exciting. A lot of dudes are on the same page together, so that’s what I’m really excited about.”

Pleasant is determined to be a leader among the defensive back group and in the locker room, being the person Reed was to him.

And one of the first players he took under his wing was sophomore cornerback Osiris Gilbert, a UConn transfer.

“That’s my guy. He’s a young guy. He’s going to be special,” Pleasant said of Gilbert. “He has talent. He’s a competitor, and I’m excited about this season for him. He has a lot to give out to us, and he’s going to bring a lot out of us.”

Rodrick Pleasant, center, of Gardena Serra wins the 100 meters state championship in 10.20 seconds in 2023. Jaelon Barbarin, left, of Simi Valley finished sixth and Anthony Flowers of South Torrance was fourth.

(Nick Koza)

While Pleasant’s leadership is centered around UCLA football, it does not end there.

The defensive back and former 100-meter sprinter who broke the California state record in the 100-meter dash with a time of 10.14 at the CIF Southern Section Masters Meet in 2023 is also supporting the Los Angeles Jets Track Club.

“I went to the [USA Track and Field] Junior Olympics this past weekend and it’s just great seeing the young kids,” Pleasant said. “I’m a Jet at heart, and being out there and watching them run, it brings back memories. I’ve done it and the youth is a special place. Being somebody that they can see has done it before is like no other. So that’s why I wanted to get back. I like to be there because I know I needed somebody.”

Nylah Moore has been a standout flag football and girls’ basketball player at Eagle Rock High. Now comes the arrival of her freshman sister, Cinzia, which means fans in the bleachers might want to start designing and creating signs to wave each time one or the other scores a touchdown or makes a basket. It will be great exercise for the arms considering how many times the two figure to come through this season.

Nylah, who is 5-foot-11, is Eagle Rock’s versatile quarterback and scoring guard. She helped Eagle Rock to a 20-2 record last season, passing for 51 touchdowns as a junior. The basketball team went 10-0 in the Northern League. She averaged 15 points.

With the Moore sisters, Eagle Rock deserves the favorite’s role to win the City Section Open Division flag football title and compete with Birmingham and Westchester for an Open Division girls’ basketball title. Cinzia, who is 5-9, also excels in both sports.

Their mother, Christine Moore, was principal of the year at Luther Burbank Middle School in 2023 for Region 16. Coaches remember her bringing a young Nylah to sporting events years ago. Her biggest challenge will be finding time to watch her two daughters perform in two sports in her new job serving as region director for the Eagle Rock/Highland Park Network.

Eagle Rock’s rise in flag football is no surprise. The school has been able to attract multisport athletes with speed and versatility. Basketball is where this season a surprise could happen. Coach Julie Wilkins has her biggest team ever after the arrival of 5-10 Marlborough transfer Amelie Cash. She also has a 6-1 player. Since Wilkins coaches both flag football and girls’ basketball, she’s always looking for “volunteers” to play both sports (wink, wink).

That’s how the successful teams in flag football have emerged — getting players from softball, soccer, track and field, and volleyball to join the sport. And it’s working.

Monroe had 20 players come out last season. This year, at least 36 have been practicing. Coach Jose Ruiz always asks Leo Hernandez, the track and field and cross country coach, for recommendations on his athletes as potential flag football players. Now that middle schools feeding Monroe have flag football programs, the numbers are expected to continue to rise.

As the threat of artificial intelligence continues to creep into the music industry, major record labels are proposing new guidelines for how music generated by artificial intelligence should be treated on the charts.

The coalition of labels, which includes the industry’s biggest players like Sony Music, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, as well as some smaller independent labels like BMG and Concord, is trying to establish a new framework for official charts that better separates human creativity from purely synthetic and unauthorized AI creations.

The proposed guidelines unveiled Wednesday say that AI music would qualify for the charts if the AI service used to create it is “properly authorized and lawful” and if it doesn’t violate any copyright laws. The track also has to be “substantially human-made,” and it shouldn’t raise concerns about stream or chart manipulation.

“The principles are intended to provide a unified roadmap for the consideration of official chart compilers, industry bodies and affiliated stakeholders worldwide,” wrote the coalition. “Together, the organizations proposing these principles stand ready to work with charts and industry bodies around the world to discuss these principles and support implementation of these important safeguards for human creativity by charts and industry bodies.”

The labels are hoping that official charts can both “accommodate appropriate use of AI” and maintain “an authentic celebration of human artistry.”

AI-generated tracks are becoming increasingly prevalent on streaming platforms.

Recently, Spotify added a verification badge to distinguish human artists from AI, and Tidal banned AI-generated music from receiving royalties on its platform. Deezer, a French streaming platform, was the first to detect, tag and exclude AI-generated music from algorithmic recommendations.

The company recently disclosed that up to 90,000 AI tracks are being uploaded to the platform daily, representing more than 50% of its new music uploads.

Despite the coalition’s effort to introduce AI guardrails, some labels involved have already inked partnerships with AI companies such as Suno, Udio and Nvidia. Several music advocacy groups have previously raised concerns about artists facing “non-negotiable AI usage clauses.”

Paramount Skydance Chief Executive David Ellison isn’t waving a white flag.

After Paramount agreed Friday to delay its proposed merger with Warner Bros. Discovery to battle a stiffer-than-anticipated antitrust challenge from California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and 11 other state attorneys general, Ellison is resetting expectations. In a Monday memo to employees, Ellison wrote that he still believes his mammoth merger will be consummated in the coming months.

Paramount stock has lost about 20% of its value since the beginning of July amid concerns that the company will have to shoulder higher costs to get its $111-billion Warner Bros. acquisition across the finish line. Friday’s agreement with the state attorneys general to delay the merger’s close until after an antitrust trial, which will likely be held in 2027, also was unsettling to shareholders and some employees.

Paramount Skydance shares closed at $8.03, down 2.19% Monday afternoon.

“Let me be clear: we remain highly confident that this transaction does not pose any legal issues, and we will complete it and bring these two companies together,” Ellison wrote in the memo shared with media outlets.

Paramount’s internal teams and Warner Bros. have been diligently working to lay the groundwork for the two rival companies to integrate their operations. The rush had been on because Ellison wanted to close the deal this week — or at least by the end of September — to avoid a higher payout to Warner shareholders.

However, Paramount suspended such ambitions on Friday, agreeing to delay the merger until after a trial to litigate the merits of the antitrust case brought by Bonta and the other Democrats. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York are among the states joining California in the fight.

The Writers Guild of America separately sued this month, alleging the merger would harm writers. Over the weekend, SAG-AFTRA announced that it supports the state attorneys general as they try to beat back the merger.

“Our members have every right to expect that the government will do thorough regulatory oversight when a deal of this magnitude takes place,” SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin said in a statement.

“The workers in this industry should not have to rely on promises and aspirational statements,” he added. “This isn’t a conversation about shareholder value, it’s about the survival of the entertainment business in America.”

Teamsters already have spoken out against the deal.

Bonta and fellow attorneys general from Democrat-led states have argued the deal would violate the century-old Clayton Antitrust Act in three markets: wide-release theatrical films, potential blockbuster movies and cable television channel concentration.

U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín, who is overseeing the antitrust suit filed by Bonta two weeks ago, wrote in an order last week that the plaintiff states had presented “compelling evidence” that the proposed merger may violate U.S. antitrust law.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is leading an effort of 12 state attorneys general attempting to block Paramount Skydance’s $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Paramount disputes that. The firm, controlled by the Larry Ellison family, has pointed to regulatory approvals it has already garnered, including from the U.S. Department of Justice, which found its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery would not harm competition.

The deal also won clearances from regulators representing 65 jurisdictions, including Australia, China, the European Commission, Germany, France, Spain and Canada. Paramount has pointed to those approvals as proof that the law is on its side.

In his memo, Ellison said delaying the deal until after a trial before Martínez-Olguín made sense.

“We believe this is the right path because the facts and the law are on our side, and a full hearing will demonstrate why the plaintiffs’ arguments should not prevail,” Ellison wrote.

A MUCH-LOVED family ride has been forced to close after it appears it derailed and the track split.

The Big Dipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach is one of the oldest operating rollercoasters in the world.

Yesterday afternoon, the wooden rollercoaster was forced to close and is still closed today, following some of the carriages of the ride derailing, with a video shared on social media also showing the track split down the middle.

Several videos shared on social media show the ride at a halt on a low part of the track.

The track in front, which rises before a drop, appears to be broken in several places – though, reportedly, no one was hurt.

One rider, Reanna Harrison-Berry, 20, who was riding with her boyfriend, said they heard a “crunch” sound as they went uphill.

Read more on travel inspo

ALL IN

I found the best value all inclusive London hotel… just £55pp with free food & booze

SHORE THING

Our best seaside towns that feel like stepping back in time – with £3pp stays

Just moments later, the cart then rolled backwards, with some claiming that the carriages had ‘derailed’.

Reanna added: “As we went three-quarters of the way up the big hill, it just completely smashed backwards really quickly.

“The next thing we realised we were tilted to the left and the back carriage was completely to the right – it was quite scary.”

Another rider said: “We went pretty quick upwards, but then it juddered and rolled back really quickly.

“I was terrified, I’m not going to lie. I’ve never had that happen on a rollercoaster before. We didn’t really know what to do.”

Once the riders deboarded, they gave statements and were offered a free Burger King.

Reanna said: “I couldn’t eat because I was so shaken up, but my boyfriend got a free meal and a couple of other people ate.”

The Big Dipper features five drops and a number of twists and turns.

It was first built in 1923, making it over 100 years old but was later extended in 1934.

The track stretches over a kilometre long and travels up to 34.8mph.

The ride was closed on July 20, 21 and 22 for routine maintenance and then reopened yesterday before the incident in the afternoon.

A spokesperson from Pleasure Beach Resort said: “The Big Dipper came to a stop on Thursday, July 23, around 2pm, at a very low point in the ride.

“Following this, a manual deboarding took place with guests guided safely by trained operators.

“All riders were checked by first aid trained staff, with no injuries reported.

“An internal investigation is taking place to determine the root cause.”

When Sun Travel asked if the ride will be closed for the foreseeable future, Blackpool Pleasure Beach Resort declined to comment.

LONDON — British runner Josh Kerr ran the mile in 3 minutes and 42.66 seconds to break the longstanding men’s world record at a Diamond League meet in London on Saturday.

Kerr broke Moroccan Hicham El Guerrouj’s mark of 3 minutes and 43.13 seconds, set in Rome in 1999, and the Edinburgh native then set off on a lap of honor at London Stadium.

Kerr was so dominant on Saturday that he finished more than three seconds clear of American Yared Nuguse in 3:45.69.

The crowd support as he closed in on the record was “just incredible,” Kerr told the BBC.

“It was just me, my shoes and the track,” he said. “I was absolutely deaf in that last 110 meters.

“I didn’t take my foot off the gas,” he continued, “but … I started to glide and I was like ‘oh wow this feels incredible.’ It’s incredible because I’m slowing down. So, I was like ‘I better get to the line.’ So, crossing the finish line, seeing 42-something — anything — was my goal, so it was great.”

The 28-year-old Kerr’s previous best time was 3:45.34 in 2024.

He had targeted the mile race at the Diamond League meet as a main goal in a track season with neither Olympics nor world championships.

The mile is not a championships event yet has iconic status in track history, with the four-minute barrier broken in 1954 by another British runner, Roger Bannister.

Kerr was a silver medalist in the 1,500 meters at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Universal Studios Hollywood has long been slated to have the biggest theme park opening of 2026 with its new high-speed coaster, Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift. But with no officially announced opening date, questions have started to intensify and rumors have begun to swirl as to what may be causing the park to go radio silent on what is expected to be its centerpiece attraction.

According to Universal, there is no need for concern.

Yet speculation has zeroed in on the potential noise of the coaster as being a problem for residents of the nearby of Toluca Lake. Rumors were fueled Friday by Fox 11 Los Angeles reporting, via a since-deleted post on social media network X that Hollywood Drift’s opening had been delayed at least until the end of year due to neighborhood complaints. Videos of audible screams of riders on the coaster have gone viral in recent weeks.

A spokesperson for Universal said reports that the coaster’s opening is postponed until the end of 2026 are “not accurate” and disputed the notion that the coaster has been delayed. Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift, the spokesperson said, is still on target to open before the end of summer.

“We expect to announce an opening date soon,” read an official statement from the company. “The information online is incorrect.”

The summer season lasts through the end of September. The park begins its popular fall Halloween Horror Nights on Sept. 3. Tickets for the latter are currently on sale, and Universal is promising access to Hollywood Drift for those who purchase its line-skipping express pass, which starts at $259.

Sources familiar with the coaster’s operations have also disputed the notion that noise is a cause for the coaster having not yet opened, instead pointing to more routine mechanical issues that have arisen during its test and adjustment phase. One theme park insider, however, stressed that when Hollywood Drift does open, it will likely be considered a “top-5, or top-10 coaster, in the world.”

The view of Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift from Universal Studios Hollywood’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

(Todd Martens / Los Angeles Times)

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift is unique in that it is a 72 mph ride with vehicles created to rotate 360 degrees through multiple inversions. Designed to mimic the feel of stunt cars, its four-seated vehicles will twist and turn through banks in the track in an effort to create a drifting sensation.

Universal’s own website earlier this summer posted June 26 as an opening date, and while that was once the targeted launch, the date was quickly removed from the site. Universal began hosting media for walkthroughs of the coaster in May.

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift has been in the works for than a decade. Built essentially on a cliff between the park’s upper and lower lots, the ride’s existence is a feat of engineering, and Universal has described it as among the most intense attractions in its global park portfolio.

Before land was moved, Universal began a series of tests to track how noise would travel through the surrounding neighborhood. Universal placed speakers on the old special effects and stunt buildings to see how ride screams traveled down the hill.

Ultimately, the tracks would be complemented with multiple sound walls and shields, the latter clear structures designed to block coaster rumbles and audience screams. And because the cars can rotate 360 degrees, Universal can in theory direct rider yells away from the studio below and the neighborhood nearby. The actual track has been filled with pea gravel, designed to minimize noise from any reverberations.

“It’s incredibly quiet,” said Jon Corfino, the lead creative at Universal Studios Hollywood. “We were able to do that by putting materials inside portions of the track to deaden the sound. I’m not sure we would have needed it, but it was important to do the right thing. It’s pea gravel and rocks. It’s quieter than I ever thought it was going to be.”

Fast & Furious: Hollywood Drift isn’t the only notable coaster slated to open in Southern California this year. Buena Park’s Knott’s Berry Farm initially intended to launch its reimagined Montezooma’s Revenge, now known as Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress, on Monday. Late last night, the park indefinitely delayed its public unveiling, with a spokesperson citing additional fine-tuning that surfaced during its final days of testing.

The delay is not expected to be a prolonged one.

“We appreciate everyone’s understanding and look forward to welcoming media and guests in the coming days when we can showcase the attraction exactly as intended,” read a statement from the park. Montezooma: The Forbidden Fortress has been in development for the past four years.

Last March, the L.A. Times had proclaimed that Nathy Peluso had found her musical language. Later that year, the Argentine singer decided to mix things up by releasing her 2025 EP, “Malportada.”

In a departure from her urbano and alternative leanings blended with notes of R&B, the six-song EP was a straightforward, traditional salsa offering that featured a collaboration with Venezuelan salsa hybrid band Rawayana on the title track.

“My experience being a woman and making music has always been to talk about my freedom [and] how I feel,” she told The Times in a recent interview inside the famous Amoeba Music record store in Hollywood. “Salsa seems to me like a stage that invites one to express themselves fully, speak loudly, dance freely and feel powerful.”

Peluso had previously dabbled in the salsa genre with tracks like 2020’s “Puro Veneno,” 2021’s “Mafiosa” and the 2025 salsa erótica tune “Erotika,” but had never dedicated an entire project to the Caribbean musical styling.

The pivot by the 31-year-old artist was especially bold as she had previously been accused of cultural appropriation for recording salsa tunes.

“It’s [my] function in society,” Peluso previously told The Times in a 2025 interview when asked about the criticism of her salsa jams. “I’m not the kind of artist who’s complacent or politically correct. I don’t do anything with the intention of pleasing others. I chose the mission of bringing salsa back to the present because I’m passionate about it. If a genre gives me so many wonderful sensations, I want everybody else to feel them as well. As long as people argue, they will have to listen to the songs — and as a result, they will listen to salsa.”

Peluso’s gamble paid off — as “Malportada” was so well-received by critics, fans and the wider salsa community that she managed to get herself booked as the co-headliner for the Hollywood Bowl’s upcoming Salsa Spectacular on Wednesday.

Over the last few years, salsa music has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance — thanks in part to the success of Bad Bunny’s universally acclaimed album “Debí Tirar Más Fotos” — which featured the salsa fusion hits “Baile Inolvidable” and “Nuevayol” — and Rauw Alejandro’s 2024 LP “Cosa Nuestra.”

But for Peluso, her integration into the salsa world was a long time coming.

“I grew up listening to Gloria Estefan, I fell in love with [the 2000 album] ‘Alma Caribeña,’ I fell in love with the richness of that music,” said Peluso. “I’ve had a strong relationship with salsa music since I was young, even though I didn’t grew up in a place that was a cradle for that genre.”

Peluso was born in the Argentine city of Luján and lived there until she was 9, when her family moved to Spain, eventually settling in the southeastern city of Alicante.

In addition to Estefan, she cited inspiration from Nuyorican percussionist Ray Barretto, Puerto Rican salsa orchestra El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico and genre icons Héctor Lavoe and Willie Colón.

(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)

“Throughout my career, I’ve always flirted with the genre,” Peluso said. “After doing the press for [the 2024 album] ‘Grasa’ there reached a point where I realized I was ready to make my salsa record, and it just happened to coincide with the current salsa boom.”

While paying respect to the musical tradition, Peluso also imbued her spin on the genre with some of the swaggering feminine energy often found in urbano music — as is evidenced in the “Malportada” track “A Caballo.”

“I grew up listening to a lot of masculine salsa and I thought it would be interesting to approach that type of energy from a woman’s perspective,” she explained. “[To take] all these stories of danger and sex and desire that the genre is known for, but give them a feminine spin.”

Peluso further bolstered her salsa bona fides when she teamed up with a pair of Caribbean music legends over the last year.

In September, she collaborated with her idol Estefan for a remix of the 1993 track “Chirriqui Chirri.” The duo performed the explosive song at the 2025 Latin Grammy Awards show. In February, Peluso jumped in the studio with Puerto Rican salsero Marc Anthony to record the original track “Como en el Idilio.”

“It was so awesome to sing with [Anthony] because he is one of the all-time legends we have in salsa who expanded the genre worldwide,” Peluso said. “It was a blessing to sing with Marc and Gloria in this moment of my career in which I’ve decided to represent salsa from my point of view.”

For her Hollywood Bowl gig, Peluso will be accompanied by the Colombian salsa collective Grupo Niche, a Grammy- and Latin Grammy-winning group that has been around since the late ’70s.

“I’ve admired Grupo Niche for years,” Peluso said. “We met at the Latin Grammys a few years ago and really hit it off. A little while back, when I was offered to do the Hollywood Bowl show alongside them, it was a no-brainer.”

But the biggest honor that Peluso is looking forward to is playing the hallowed stage of the Hollywood Bowl.

“It’s like playing in a palace for me,” she said of the historic venue. “The last time I was in L.A. for the ‘Grasa’ tour, I left wanting more. I knew I’d have to waiting until my next tour to try it, but I didn’t expect my next tour to come so quickly. It’s such a mythical place, it’s such a luxury.”

EUROSTAR is warning of delays across Europe due to an incident on a track, with some services already cancelled.

Trains heading to and from Europe are experiencing delays and cancellations “due to emergency services attending an incident near the tracks in Lille Europe”.

Cancelled trains include:

• 3:31pm service from London to Paris
• 5:56pm service from Brussels to London, via Lille
• 6:04pm service from London to Amsterdam, stopping at Brussels, Rotterdam and Lille
• 6:40pm service from Amsterdam to London, stopping at Brussels, Rotterdam and Lille
• 7:01pm service from London to Paris
• 8:02pm service from Paris to London

There are also a number of delays to services including the 2:42pm, 3:12pm, 4:12pm, 4:40pm and 5:12pm services from Paris Gare du Nord to London St Pancras.

A service from London St Pancras to Paris at 2:31pm was also delayed.

Read more on travel inspo

GO ON

All the little-known websites for cheap or FREE tickets to gigs, theatre & festivals

CHEAP BREAKS

UK’s best 100 cheap stays – our pick of the top hotels, holiday parks and pubs

Services from Brussels to London have also been impacted including the 2:52pm and 3:52pm services.

The Eurostar website currently states: “We expect our trains between London and Lille/Brussels/Rotterdam/Amsterdam to be subject to severe delays on 07/07/2026 due to emergency services attending an incident near the tracks in Lille Europe.”

The operator is advising that if passengers would prefer to rearrange their plans, then you can change your ticket for free.

It comes as services still face disruptions following from an incident in the Netherlands last week where there was a major fire at Rotterdam Centraal.

At the time, Eurostar commented: “We’re very sorry that, due to a fire near station Rotterdam Centraal, train services across the Netherlands are currently severely disrupted and extremely limited.

“As a result, our trains are subject to significant delays and cancellations, and we’re unfortunately unable to offer alternative travel options.

“This situation will continue until 3rd July 2026. We recommend that you do not attempt to travel to or from the Netherlands until 3rd July. Instead, please cancel your journey or postpone it to a later date.”

Sun Travel has contacted Eurostar for further comment.

YOU could soon have a staycation at a racetrack that has hosted Formula 1 stars.

Clay Pigeon Raceway near Dorchester is soon being demolished to make way for 226 chalets for a holiday park.

The karting track was once used by F1 drivers Lando Norris, Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button at the start of their careers.

The racetrack is also home to a disused clay pigeon shooting ground, hence the name and a caravan park.

Little details have been revealed about what the holiday park would be like and if the racetrack would be kept, though in addition to the 226 chalets, the George Albert hotel will also be expanded.

The racetrack has been open since the 1950s and was built on the grounds of a disused World War II military hospital.

STAYCAY

Our travel experts’ best-kept-secret UK holiday spots for summer – from £37 a night

CHEAP BREAKS

UK’s best 100 cheap stays – our pick of the top hotels, holiday parks and pubs

It stretches 815 metres in total and, according to its website, has hosted nearly every major championship to tour the UK.

There is also an onsite cafe.

Visitors could head to the track and try out karting, with different options for adults and juniors.

The track is also home to Motorsport Hub, with a pit area, professional timing systems for races and even a spares shop.

Events planned for this year will go ahead as planned including the Daniel Ricciardo Series which is a UK-based karting championship that the former F1 driver launched back in 2019.

Dan Parker, head of Karting Motorsport UK, told councillors: “The venue has played an important part in British karting for decades and has supported the development of competitors, officials and volunteers, clubs and all their families throughout the south west and far beyond.”

Instead of the usual phalanx of cars and buses, Saturday evening traffic on Wilshire Boulevard was replaced by massive balloons, mobile sculptures, gaggles of gallerists and an endless array of elaborate costumes.

The first-ever Los Angeles Art Parade, a collaboration between the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and famed gallerist Jeffrey Deitch, transformed the stretch of Wilshire known as Museum Row into a human-powered exhibition of the city’s dynamic art scene.

About 146 groups, made up of more than 1,400 participants, marched in the parade, with projects ranging from larger-than-life marionette dolls to squads of children in do-it-yourself costumes to mobile re-creations of LACMA’s most iconic art pieces.

The parade followed an all-day block party thrown by LACMA as part of its Grand Opening Weekend, celebrating the new David Geffen Galleries and the completion of the 20-year-long, $724-million campus construction project. Together, the block party and art parade attracted an estimated 60,000 attendees, who swarmed the galleries, danced to explosive DJ sets, and lined the streets to watch the eclectic procession of artists.

People dance during Flying Lotus’ DJ set at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) in Los Angeles.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

According to LACMA Director and Chief Executive Michael Govan, the event was a long time coming and “just the beginning” of how his team plans to use the campus space, which he previously called the city’s “living room.”

“We’re not gonna close Wilshire every weekend, but it’s an example of what we can do,” Govan said. “It’s really exciting to see the building work.”

Following a crowd-drawing DJ set from electronic low-fi hip-hop artist Flying Lotus, Govan introduced L.A. County District 2 Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell. She said the event made her “proud to represent LACMA” and to be a Metro board member, referencing the recently-opened Metro D-line extension, which dropped attendees off a quick stroll from LACMA’s entrance.

“Just seeing you all at this amazing public facility does my heart good,” she said. “This is your local government at work.”

1

2

3

1. Silhouettes of people watching the parade. 2. A man and woman wearing tulle over them walk in the parade. 3. The crowd at the Los Angeles County Museum of History, Science, and Art (LACMA) Block Party. (Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

As the party raged on LACMA’s campus, hundreds of parade participants hurriedly prepared for their debuts in the corners of nearby streets and parking lots. One group inflated a giant disco ball, while another smeared themselves with body paint next to a line of rehearsing dancers. Elsewhere, a megaphone-wielding leader herded dozens of black cats in the style of artist Gary Baseman into some semblance of order.

Deitch originally staged the first Art Parades in New York City’s SoHo neighborhood between 2005 and 2008. While those took a more art-world-exclusive approach, Deitch said the Los Angeles version was designed with inclusion in mind. The call for parade proposals was open to “emerging and established artists and creatives of all ages and backgrounds,” according to guidelines, as long as the work was appropriate for all ages and didn’t require a motorized element.

“The New York one was much more oriented toward people in the art community. We didn’t put out this kind of open call,” Deitch explained. “This is very different in its openness and its diversity. There are some famous artists and famous choreographers, L.A. legends. But there are also mothers from the San Fernando Valley with their children. I really love that.”

Artist Jordan Rountree’s rolling woodcut-sculpture called the Devil Jack in a Box with Crocodile appeared in Saturday’s Block Party and Art Parade hosted by the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s (LACMA).

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

“It’s just a very open platform, so you don’t have to have an M.F.A. to express yourself as an artist,” he added.

The procession was dizzying in its variety and scale. While many projects leaned into beauty and whimsy, others took a more overtly political approach, displaying anti-ICE messages on T-shirts and signs, sporting trans pride flags, or, in the case of performance artist Amy Kaps, wearing an unraveling U.S. constitution.

Some even referenced local causes, such as the “Boo Boo Bandage Brigade for Safe Streets,” which advocated for fixing sidewalks and increasing accessibility downtown. One particularly moving display by the Pali-Altadena Collective featured participants carrying miniature models of buildings and landmarks lost in the 2025 fires.

Chicana artist Nao Bustamante and Track 16 Gallery brought “Brown Disco” to the streets, which featured a giant gold disco ball and figures from decades of L.A. queer nightlife.

The crowd at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) Art Parade.

(Ariana Drehsler/For The Times)

“As a brown, queer person, I think that this really brought a light into our community, and now its presence [creates] an intergenerational conversation,” said Track 16 Assistant Director Steve Galindo. “The nightlife scene is how we come out as queer people, so it’s really special to be in the parade.”

For Joie Mitchell, volunteer coordinator for the Bob Baker Marionette Theater, which recently purchased its permanent Highland Park home, the parade was an opportunity to “show up for L.A. and be involved in the art history of this city.”

“Puppetry has been part of the arts for so many years,” added Daisy Hernandez, the theater’s production manager. “It’s a way that people express themselves, just like every other art form. So that’s what we’re here to do: express ourselves through puppetry.”

The Democratic Socialist has vowed aggressive response to Trump, who has said he could ‘take back’ DC if she wins.

Washington, DC – Janeese Lewis George, a Democratic Socialist who has promised an aggressive approach to United States President Donald Trump, is on track to become the next mayor of Washington, DC.

Lewis George already had a commanding lead after Tuesday’s Democratic primary. Her top competitor, Kenyan McDuffie, conceded on Thursday, all but assuring her victory.

Washington, DC, trends heavily Democratic, with the primary winner likely to win the general election in November. There is no Republican challenger for the post, although independent and third-party candidates can mount challenges.

Lewis George, a council member and former prosecutor, had garnered labour groups’ support as she vowed to set clear boundaries with the Trump administration, including ending cooperation between local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Her victory would make her the first member of the Democratic Socialists of America, to which NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Congressmember Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also belong, to lead Washington, DC.

Her competitor, McDuffie, a former councilmember, had gained support among DC’s business community and pitched himself as a moderate. His style hewed close to that of current Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has walked a careful line between criticism and cooperation with Trump.

For his part, the US president has made his preference clear, floating that he might “take back Washington and run it on the federal basis” if Lewis George became mayor.

Washington, DC, is a federal district, giving the White House and Congress outsized influence. However, under a 1973 law, the district has so-called “home-rule”, allowing residents to elect the mayor, council members and neighbourhood commissioners to run daily affairs.

Advocates have long called for the district, with a population of more than 700,000, to become a state. Both Lewis George and McDuffie support DC statehood.

Since taking office in January of last year, Trump has repeatedly threatened to assert more control over the district.

He briefly federalised the city’s police department in August of last year, claiming a crime emergency, surged federal immigration enforcement in the district, and deployed the National Guard as part of a “beautification” project.

Responding to Trump’s threats ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Lewis George said a strong response was needed.

“We are not going to get ICE off our streets or protect Home Rule by fearing this President,” she said.

“Threatening DC because you do not like how our residents vote is an attack on democracy itself. The people of DC elect the Mayor of DC. And they want someone who will stand up to Trump,” she said.

Three-time U.S. Olympian Jenny Simpson collapsed during a community running event Tuesday in Raleigh, N.C., and still is receiving medical treatment a day later.

There are few available details about what happened to the 39-year-old retired athlete who won a bronze medal in the 1,500 meters at the 2016 Rio Olympics, or what her condition is. The incident occurred during a weekly gathering for local running enthusiasts at which Simpson served as the pace runner for a mile group.

At some point during the event, Simpson suffered what organizer Sir Walter Running described as a “medical incident.” She had no pulse for a brief period, according to media outlets, but it was restored with CPR and an automated external defibrillator at the track. Simpson was then taken to a local hospital.

“We are incredibly grateful to the individuals who responded immediately, as well as EMS and the medical professionals who handled the situation with such care, urgency, and professionalism,” Sir Walter Running said in a statement. “Jenny is receiving excellent medical care, and our thoughts are with her and her family.”

No further details have been released.

“We ask that you continue to continue to keep Jenny and her family in your prayers as we all hope for the very best,” the running group said.

An eight-time state champion (five in track and field, three in cross-country) at Oviedo High School in Florida, Simpson went on to star at Colorado as a two-time national steeplechase champion, a two-time national runner-up in cross-country and a three-time outdoor track and field All-American.

In addition to representing the U.S. at the 2008, 2012 and 2016 Summer Olympics, Simpson was the 2011 world champion in the 1,500 and finished second in 2013 and 2017. She also was the 2014 Diamond League champion in the same event.

Upon her retirement in 2024, Simpson and her husband, Jason, spent a year traveling in their 23-foot Winnebago Ekko motorhome and running with community members at events across the country. This year, Simpson was named Fleet Feet’s chief running officer and joined FloTrack’s broadcast team for Diamond League recaps.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The city witnessed Carl Lewis win four Olympic gold medals, cheered Valerie Brisco-Hooks’ historic golden double and watched Edwin Moses extend his 400-meter hurdles unbeaten streak. L.A. has history with track and field.

Now when Ato Boldon, a UCLA Hall of Famer and four-time Olympic medalist for Trinidad and Tobago, looks to this weekend’s L.A. Grand Prix and the city’s future with the sport, he wonders what it holds.

“I’ve always felt like L.A. needs a signature event,” Boldon said, “and with the Olympics coming up in two years, you look at the quality of this event this weekend, and you’re like, yeah, this is the kind of meet they should have all the time.”

At the halfway mark of the Olympic quadrennium, the USA Track & Field event serves as an important checkpoint for the sport’s hope to break out of the four-year popularity cycle.

The two-day event, which begins Saturday with the women’s hammer throw at the South Bay Athletic Club, features 18 Olympic or world champions competing primarily at USC’s Allyson Felix Field. Sunday’s marquee competition beginning at 1 p.m. will be televised on NBC.

With USA Track & Field building toward a home Olympics, L.A. has been a critical but stubborn market to conquer. Last year’s L.A. Grand Prix, which would have been the third edition of the meet, was canceled in April. The decision, USA Track & Field Chief Executive Max Siegel said, came down to another meet scheduled in the same venue within the same month.

But that competing event, part of Michael Johnson’s upstart Grand Slam Track league, was canceled only weeks before it was set to take place at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, leaving L.A. without a major track competition last summer.

“We knew last year when we canceled the meet that we had every intention leading up to the Olympics to be present in the L.A. market,” Siegel said.

The city knows great track. UCLA boasts legends such as Rafer Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Florence Griffith-Joyner. USC, which boasts more Olympians than any other U.S. university, had athletes win nine Olympic medals in track and field at the 2024 Games in Paris, including double gold medals for Rai Benjamin in the 400-meter hurdles and 4×400-meter relay and a 4×100-meter relay championship for TeeTee Terry.

After Terry ran the second leg of the relay, Sha’Carri Richardson’s stare down at the end of her anchor leg became one of the iconic shots of the Paris Games, where 70,000 people packed Stade de France and millions more tuned in for one of the most-watched Olympics.

But the sport is back in the shadows like it always seems to be outside of Olympic years, said Boldon, now NBC Sports’ track and field analyst. There have been several attempts to penetrate the U.S. sports consciousness since the successful Paris Games. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian launched Athlos, a women’s track and field meet that began in New York City in 2024 and added a stop in London to its 2026 schedule. Grand Slam Track, founded by the Olympic legend Johnson and touting major names including Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, filed for bankruptcy last year, after completing only three of four planned events in its first season, and is only now emerging from it.

This year’s inaugural USATF Tour aims to organize the fragmented sport by streamlining the calendar and working with existing event coordinators to provide resources, including prize money and travel for top athletes, marketing and drug testing. The tour, which was in College Station, Texas, last week for the Lone Star Grand Prix, has 17 events in 10 states.

American Tara Davis-Woodhall after winning the women’s long jump at the 2025 world championships in Tokyo.

(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)

“I feel like LA28 gives the country something to organize around,” said Siegel, who hopes track and field can rise to be among the five most popular sports in the United States. “People are paying more attention to athlete stories in anticipation of what’s going to happen on U.S. soil.”

There is no shortage of stories at the L.A. Grand Prix. Almost everyone who matters in American track and field will be there, Boldon said. Kenny Bednarek, the silver medalist in the 200 meters in Paris, will line up in the 100 meters against Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, who took gold in the 200 in 2024.

Tara Davis-Woodhall, the reigning Olympic long jump champion, will compete in her signature event and race in the 100-meter hurdles for just the second time in the last five years. Her husband, Hunter Woodhall, will race in the 400 meters on Saturday, when Para athletes will be among those competing in the L.A. Distance Classic at Allyson Felix Field.

Richardson will run her first 100-meter race of the season. The 2024 Olympic silver medalist could be in line to end a three-decade gold medal drought in 2028. No U.S. woman has stood atop an Olympic podium for the 100 since 1996, when Gail Devers won in Atlanta.

Such a stacked field outside of an Olympic year on U.S. soil could be a sign of a changing tide for track and field, Boldon said. The L.A. Grand Prix is a gold-level event on the World Athletics Continental Tour, the second-highest tier of single-day international competition. As athletes vie for world ranking points, the event could be a true Olympic preview two years before the Games begin at the Coliseum.

“This,” Boldon said, “is not a normal week in our sport.”

After letting another big lead slip with an error-strewn performance at the French Open, top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka felt like getting as far away from the courts as possible.

“Just want to quit tennis right now,” Sabalenka said after wasting a lead of a set and two breaks in a 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 loss to Diana Shnaider in the quarterfinals on Wednesday.

“We’ll see in a few days. Hopefully, I’ll get back on track mentally.”

Sabalenka’s wait for a first French Open title continues despite the four-time major winner leading 4-1 in the second set and being two points from victory while serving for the match at 5-4.

What followed was a complete collapse as she lost 12 of the last 13 games against a player appearing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, looking increasingly frustrated and forlorn in the windy conditions.

Just like her loss to Coco Gauff in last year’s final, when she won the first set before becoming undone with a slew of unforced errors, this one will take some time to get over.

“You know those rooms where you just go in and you smash everything,” Sabalenka said. “Probably I will spend a whole day over there destroying stuff. Maybe it will help, maybe not.”

Shnaider next faces Maja Chwalinska, who extended her remarkable Roland Garros run by beating 22nd seed Anna Kalinskaya 7-6 (3), 6-3.

Sabalenka’s missed opportunities

The world number one stood still and screamed after losing a point to fall 0-30 down in the sixth game of the decider. Although she saved two match points at 0-40 down, she lost when she sent a shot into the net.

“I just think it’s [a] combination of everything,” Sabalenka lamented. “You overthink, then you make easy mistakes, then you miss opportunities.”

Her struggles were reminiscent of the match against Gauff, when she remonstrated loudly, shouting to herself and glaring at her team box.

“I just have to sit back and openly think about what’s going on in my head in those tough moments,” Sabalenka said, recalling that match. “Because I’m quite an experienced player. I have been through so many things, and I [have] overcome so many things.”

Sabalenka had already looked agitated when serving for the first set, but still looked in control as she served for the match in the second, holding a 30-15 lead.

“Of course I saw some moments of her frustration,” Shnaider said. “I know Aryna that she’s a very emotional person.”

Shnaider, who was already on her best run at a major, broke Sabalenka before taking complete control.

“Well, honestly, I am speechless. Super happy,” she said. “I feel like I was trying to focus point by point. Not thinking about the score. She is the world number one, so I [am] just trying to do my best. I just had to fight for every point.”

Sabalenka looked increasingly frustrated as the third set wore on, and when she missed a volley at the net in the fourth game of the decider, she crouched and rested her head on her racket.

Another French Open upset

It was another big upset in a tournament, with defending champion Gauff (third round) and four-time winner Iga Swiatek (fourth round) already out.

Jannik Sinner, last year’s men’s singles runner-up, served for the match in a second-round defeat, and 24-time major winner Novak Djokovic wasted a two-set lead in a third-round loss.

That opened things up for lesser-known players. According to sports analytics company Opta, this year’s French Open is the first major tournament without a former men’s or women’s singles major champion in the semifinals since the 1977 French Open.

The unseeded Chwalinska came through three qualifying rounds to become only the second Polish woman to reach the semifinals at Roland Garros, along with Swiatek.

Chwalinska said British player Emma Raducanu’s run to the 2021 US Open title as an 18-year-old qualifier had inspired her.

“It was such an impressive run, you know,” Chwalinska recalled. “Also, she was so young.”

When Kalinskaya’s big forehand from the back of the court went out, the 24-year-old had her biggest win, having never been beyond the second round at any major before this tournament.

Chwalinska’s total prize money heading into Roland Garros was $864,030, and reaching the last four here earns her 750,000 euros (about $872,000).

The roof was open on Court Philippe-Chatrier, and there was a lot of wind.

“I don’t know why would they keep the roof open when it was crazy windy,” Sabalenka said. “It was very dirty tennis. I don’t know how people could actually just sit there and watch me play.”

Kalinskaya also struggled.

“I feel like I was fighting against the wind,” she said. “It was cold today, so the ball was going slower. I couldn’t use my speed, my power.”

Men’s singles exits

In the men’s quarterfinals, 10th-seeded Flavio Cobolli beat number four Felix Auger-Aliassime 4-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4 and will face fellow Italian Matteo Arnaldi for a spot in the final.

Arnaldi advanced when Matteo Berrettini, yet another Italian, retired due to a left hip injury, with Arnaldi leading 7-5, 5-2.

Berrettini had his hip treated during a medical timeout earlier in the second set.

The strong Italian showing comes despite top-ranked Sinner getting stunned in the second round.

Second-seeded Alexander Zverev and number 26 Jakub Mensik will meet in the other semifinal.

CLOVIS —  Jurupa Valley senior AB Hernandez placed third in the CIF state championship long jump on Saturday, medaling in the event for the second consecutive year.

Hernandez, who is transgender, has faced harassment and ire from anti-trans protesters and conservative pundits during the past two years. She jumped 20 feet, 2 1/4 inches on Saturday, behind first-place finisher Ellie McCuskey-Hay of St. Ignatius (20-3½) and Gianna Gonzalez of Moorpark (20-3½).

Under CIF policy, transgender athletes who place at the state championships receive medals but do not displace cisgender girls in the final standings. The federation announced last year that the policy would apply specifically to the long jump, triple jump and high jump — the three events Hernandez competed in — and the rule remained in effect for her three events this weekend.

Hernandez shared her third-place podium with St. Mary’s Berkeley jumper Corrine Jones, who reached 19-9 ½.

Hernandez secured her place in Saturday’s finals on her opening long jump attempt Friday, posting a mark strong enough to hold the top qualifying position. She passed on her remaining two attempts after safely locking up advancement.

The atmosphere surrounding the state championships was notably calmer than a year ago, when demonstrations over Hernandez’s participation drew national attention. On Friday, the most visible protest activity came before the meet, when Republican California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton held a news conference outside Veterans Memorial Stadium, noting that the primary election was just four days away.

Standing before signs reading “Hey, CIF: Girls’ Sports Girls Only” on Friday, Hilton criticized the California Interscholastic Federation’s policies governing transgender athletes.

On Saturday, the Rainbow Families Action group hosted a news conference outside in support of Hernandez. Counter-protesters showed up toward the end and shouted toward the Hernandez supporters and the two sides exchanged some words before dispersing.

Inside the stadium, however, the focus largely remained on the competition. Spectators cheered as Hernandez began her long-jump approach, and some fans wore bracelets bearing the message “We Stand With AB.”

Event organizers prohibited signs inside the venue. Unlike last year, when advocacy groups on both sides staged more visible demonstrations, the off-track theatrics were largely absent.

Meanwhile, Democrat Tom Steyer released a video on X on Friday featuring a previous conversation with Hernandez, in which he expressed support for her participation in high school athletics.

The 17-year-old arrived in Clovis after sweeping all three of her events at the Southern Section championships.

Entering the state meet, Hernandez ranked among the nation’s top 10 performers in all three events. She shared California’s best high jump mark, was tied for second in the long jump and ranked second in the triple jump. She will compete in the high jump and triple jump later Saturday.

The U.S. Space Force has awarded SpaceX a $4.16B deal to help accelerate work on what could be a game-changing space-based air moving-target indicator (AMTI) sensor network. The service says it now hopes to have an “early capability” in orbit by 2028, years ahead of the timelines officials have put forward in the past.

Plans for an AMTI satellite constellation were directly tied to an attempt in the past year to axe purchases of E-7 Wedgetail airborne early warning and control aircraft, something the Pentagon has now fully abandoned after Congress intervened. Though the Air Force is moving ahead again with the E-7, which will succeed its aging E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) jets, the end goal remains to eventually push most, if not all, AMTI tasks into space.

“The long-standing method of military airborne platforms to track moving targets faces continued challenges as adversaries develop increasingly sophisticated anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) systems,” the Space Force said in its press release about the new deal with SpaceX today. “To compliment [sic; complement] traditional airborne sensing, the requirement for a layered, highly resilient tracking architecture is evident. SB-AMTI aims to enhance the Space Force’s capabilities to the Joint Force through the establishment of a persistent, global capability to sense and track airborne targets from space.”

The Space Force has described the $4.16 billion deal with SpaceX for the Space-Based Airborne Moving Target Indicator (SB-AMTI) program as a “competitive Other Transaction Authority (OTA) agreement,” rather than a traditional contract. The agreement came via the office of the Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Space-Based Sensing & Targeting (PAE SBST).

“This initial award is projected to field a constellation of satellites by 2028, providing the Joint Force with an early capability to eliminate operational blind spots,” according to the Space Force release.

In the past, U.S. officials have generally talked about space-based AMTI becoming a reality sometime in the 2030s. Work is underway to push ground moving-target indicator (GMTI) tasks into orbit, as well.

Some degree of on-orbit prototype AMTI sensor testing has already been ongoing for at least a year, if not much longer, but this work has been heavily classified. In addition to the U.S. Air Force and Space Force, both of which fall under the Department of the Air Force, the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO). The NRO, the activities of which are shrouded in heavy secrecy, is a U.S. military organization that serves as America’s main remote sensing intelligence arm.

“The capabilities that are happening in space are far exceeding our expectations,” then-Air Force Maj. Gen. Christopher Niemi said at a hearing earlier this year as part of a response to a question about plans for the E-7. He declined to offer more details publicly. Niemi, who has since been promoted to lieutenant general, is currently Deputy Chief of Staff of the Air Force for Force Modernization, and the service’s Chief Modernization Officer

SpaceX has already reportedly been deeply involved in this work, too, as you can read about more in this past TWZ feature. This underscores the company’s ever-growing dominance globally in all aspects of the space industry, which we will come back to later on.

As mentioned, a functional, persistent, and distributed AMTI (and GMTI) sensor network in orbit has the potential to be game-changing. As TWZ wrote back in 2024, talking primarily about the future of space-based GMTI capabilities:

“A larger, distributed constellation would have the ability to monitor huge swathes of the Earth simultaneously, and depending on the size of the constellation, at least far more persistently to seamlessly. This could make it difficult, if not impossible, for an opponent to hide activities of interest. A very low revisit rate, or even eliminating revisit rate altogether, could even open up the possibility of continuous ‘streaming’ coverage of a location from low Earth orbit. This would also be essential for persistent GMTI coverage that tracks ground movements in real time that will actually be high enough in fidelity to guide weapons onto those tracks. It’s possible that aerial tracking could also be a function, as well, even to a more limited degree. The E-3 Sentry Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) will also be replaced at least partially by space-based capabilities, along with the E-7 Wedgetail.”

“There is also a fair chance that this is another type of system, perhaps to execute broad area optical/infrared imaging with some exotic capabilities to provide tracking. We just don’t know.”

“Regardless, yes, we are talking about the possibility of panoptic or near panoptic targeting and surveillance from space.”

“Greater collaborative capabilities, especially ones enabled by the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, could help to find targets of interest and anomalies far faster than ever before. This could also open a door to more autonomous collection, tasking/retasking, and other capabilities, as well. Areas of interest that need seamless coverage could have extra satellites retasked to the necessary orbit in order to do so automatically, without the need for human deconfliction and even direct operator direction.”

It is not hard to imagine how the satellite constellation being described here would fundamentally change the U.S. military’s ability to not just spot and track targets globally, but also close the kill chains to engage them, even at very long ranges. This has massive implications for future net-centric warfare where all sorts of tangential capabilities will increasingly be networked together. It might impact how tactical aircraft are equipped in the future, including the need for their own radars. There could at least be a reduced need for them to use their own radars to guide missiles, even when no supporting sensor network within the Earth’s atmosphere has relevant data to provide.

Unlike having to rely on a single plane in a single surveillance place, a space-based sensor network made up of a very large number of individual satellites would also be highly resilient to attacks, as well as other attrition just due to technical breakdowns or other factors.

All this being said, U.S. officials have been open about potential challenges when it comes to making space-based AMTI capabilities a reality, even just compared to establishing GMTI networks in orbit.

“So GMTI [ground moving-target indicator capability] and AMTI [air moving-target indicator capability] sound like they’re really close, just because one little letter that is all you changed, [but it] turns out they’re pretty different,” Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman, U.S. Space Force’s top officer, said during a press briefing on the sidelines of a conference in December 2025, according to Breaking Defense. “What it takes to accomplish AMTI is different than what it takes to accomplish GMTI.”

“Things on the ground move slower than things on [sic] the air, so [they] require different levels of fidelity tracks,” he added.

“The [AMTI] data the Intelligence Community and warfighter need presents a multi-phenomenology challenge that requires automated orchestration of the NRO’s collectors, low-latency data transport, and rapid data fusion by the NRO’s unmatched space communications and ground architecture capabilities,” a spokesperson for NRO also told Breaking Defense earlier this year.

It’s worth noting here that satellites with sensors are only one component of the total equation. Robust, resilient, and secure communications networks will be vital to getting the data collected where it needs to go. This is a separate area where SpaceX is already playing an increasingly central role with its Starlink and Starshield networks, as you can read more about here. Laser-based communications relays are set to be another key supporting capability.

Watch SpaceX deploy Starlink satellites into space

In its announcement today, the Space Force did explicitly stress that SpaceX will not be the only company supporting the SB-AMTI effort going forward, and that it has established a larger “vendor pool.”

“By utilizing this multi-vendor framework, we are capitalizing on established industry capacity and continuously evaluating and onboarding the best tech to field this essential capability at speed and scale,” Space Force Col. Ryan Frazier, the acting PAE SBST, said in a statement. “We will not leverage any one single provider; instead, we are partnering with a highly diversified pool of traditional and non-traditional vendors, each bringing various capabilities to support the SB-AMTI architecture, ensuring the Joint Force has access to a strong, competitive industrial base well into the future.”

At the same time, as TWZ has noted in the past, SpaceX’s dominance in the market gives the company a clear advantage for securing further deals. This extends to the additional demands to put all this architecture in space. At least currently, no other company has the same capacity to provide the U.S. military with the kind of reliable access to space at the required cadence, and within budget constraints. SB-AMTI is already a major budget priority, with the Space Force asking for more than $7 billion in additional funds to procure additional elements of the system in its 2027 Fiscal Year budget request.

These are all factors that are also notably set to play into how the Golden Dome missile defense initiative evolves. There has already been talk about Golden Dome leveraging existing work, including programs under the umbrella of PAE SBST, to help accelerate the fielding of at least an initial layer of capability.

It should also be reiterated that the Air Force is now moving ahead again with the E-7 program, and traditional aerial AMTI capabilities look set to remain an important element of U.S. military operations for the foreseeable future.

That being said, the new $4.16 billion agreement with SpaceX makes clear that the Space Force is pressing ahead with its plans for a space-based AMTI sensor network with hopes that at least an early operational capability could be in place within the next two years.

Contact the author: joe@twz.com

CLOVIS — Cool conditions produced a bunch of fast times Friday at the CIF state track and field championships.

Rosary Academy sprint coach Jon Gilmer was worried 4×100-meter relayers Tra’via Flournoy, Justine Wilson, Pfeiffer Lee and Maliyah Collins might get complacent at prelims, but the Royals were the top qualifiers in 45.13 seconds — nearly a full second faster than Canyon Country Canyon (46.07) — at Buchanan High School.

“It’s different not having Calabasas here,” Gilmer said. “Now we’ve got to push ourselves.”

Rosary set a state record (44.23) at the Arcadia Invitational on April 11, but lost to the Coyotes one week later at the Mt. SAC Relays. However, the anticipated state finals clash was not to be as Calabasas dropped the baton in the Southern Section finals and failed to advance.

Collins had a huge lead by the time she received the stick for the anchor leg Friday.

“This is maybe our fourth- or fifth-fastest time but we just wanted to make finals,” said Wilson, who ran the second leg before handing off to Lee. “We want to run faster tomorrow when we go for a PR, the meet and the state record.”

Calabasas might be out of the relay, but three Coyotes remain in contention in the 100, led by Malia Rainey (the top qualifier in 11.54), Marley Scoggins (11.63) and Olivia Kirk (11.63).

Calabasas sprinter Marley Scoggins, center, wins her 100-meter heat at the CIF state track and field preliminaries on Friday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Collins won her heat in 11.62, the third-fastest time.

Servite won the first heat in the boys 4×100 relay in 40.29 — two hundredths off its winning time at last year’s state finals — and is primed to defend its title in the event. Concord De La Salle (40.81) was the second-fastest qualifier, followed by the other heat winners, Rancho Cucamonga (40.87) and Loyola (40.93).

“We got the stick around pretty good today,” said Jorden Wells, who ran the first leg Friday instead of his customary second leg, which was run by Jaelen Hunter. “Did it feel different? Not really, I’ve done it before.”

Wells said his twin brother Jace will run the first leg Saturday, he will run the second while Kamil Pelovello and Benjamin Harris will stay in the third and fourth positions.

Harris, the favorite to win the 100 meters, won his heat in a wind-legal 10.36, but three others were fractions faster in wind-aided times — Elk Grove’s Cy Lugo (10.20), Will Wood’s Deshawn Seymour (10.34) and De La Salle’s Damari Dean (10.34). Newbury Park’s Jaden Griffin won the last heat in 10.37, setting the stage for an exciting finals sprint as all nine qualifiers ran under 10.48.

Harris put himself in position for a Saturday double by winning his 200 heat in 21.10 but as he did in the 100, Lugo (the Sac-Joaquin Section record holder) had the fastest time (20.73), followed by Seymour (20.88), Camren Hughes (20.93) of Palos Verdes and Jace Wells (21.02). Jordan Wells (21.11) also made the cut.

Newbury Park’s Jaden Griffin, center, shouts after winning his heat in the 100 meters at the CIF state track and field preliminaries on Friday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Servite (3:15.43) had the second-fastest qualifying time in the 4×400-meter relay behind only El Cerrito (3:14.96) of the North Coast Section.

Coming off a state-record 3:33.83 at the Masters Meet in Moorpark, Long Beach Wilson’s 4×400 girls relay had the fourth-fastest qualifying time (3:46.73) without two out of its best runners (Clara Adams and Saniah Varnado), taking second in the first heat behind San Luis Obispo (3:45.85) and safely advancing to the finals along with Heat 2 runner-up Rosary (3:45.08) and Heat 3 winner Canyon Country Canyon (3:46.77).

Having broken the Southern Section record in the 400 meters six days earlier in 51.98, Adams put it in cruise control to win her heat in 53.53, the fastest qualifying mark. Joining her in the final will be her three relay teammates Varnado (54.42), Wilson (54.57) and Fowler (54.62). Adams later won her 200 heat in 23.60, a tenth of a second behind fastest qualifier Naiaja Sizemore of Vanden.

San Jacinto Valley Academy’s Kaahliyah Lacy ran a wind-legal 13.59 for the top qualifying spot in the girls 100 hurdles and Varnado (40.85) was the top qualifier in the 300 hurdles.

Another showdown is brewing in the boys 400, where Loyola’s Ejam Yohannes (47.08) and Hunter (47.21) won their heats in the two fastest times Friday. Hunter clocked 46.32 to set a California freshman record last spring, but lost to Yohannes by 11 hundredths of a second at the Masters Meet.

City Section champion Jayden Rendon showed good form in his bid to defend the state 300 hurdles crown, posting the fastest prelims time (36.80). He also advanced to the finals in the 110 hurdles with a 13.83 effort. Moorpark’s Davis Benson (14.03) nabbed the last spot.

Corona Santiago’s Braelyn Combe, right, wins the first heat of the 800 meters at the CIF state track and field preliminaries on Friday.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

Corona Santiago senior Braelyn Combe won her 1,600 heat in 4:46.88 and is set for a four-lap battle with San Diego Section champion Chiara Dailey of La Jolla, who won the second heat in 4:46.00. Combe is the defending champion, having edged Hanne Thomsen of Santa Rosa Montgomery by five hundredths of a second in the finals last year.

“I just wanted to advance with as little effort as possible,” Combe said. “It was not as hard as I expected. I don’t want to leave any regrets. I’m taking it one race at a time.”

Combe also had the fastest time (2:08:25) of three heats in the 800 meters.

Venice senior Lawrence Kensinger, who set the City Section shot put record with a state-leading throw of 65 feet 11 inches last week, had the third-best mark at prelims (59-6¾) and easily advanced to the finals. Defending state high jump champion JJ Harel of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame tied nine others for the second-best mark (6-6) heading into the second day.

Aliso Niguel senior Jaslene Massey had the top marks in the girls shot put (51-3¾) and discus (175-6) and transgender athlete AB Hernandez from Jurupa Valley was the leading qualifier in the girls long jump (20-5½) and triple jump (41-8½) and was one of 13 qualifiers in the high jump.

AB Hernandez competes at the CIF state track and field preliminaries at Buchanan High School on Friday.

(Tomas Ovalle / For The Times)