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COLUMBIA, S.C. — When you look at the USC Trojans, one might think they’re setting the table for next year.

Buying time until JuJu Watkins returns. Keeping the ship afloat until the talented recruiting class that includes Saniyah Hall makes its way to campus.

But the Trojans showed Saturday that’s not the case. They’re making a plate and eating now.

The No. 9 seed Trojans gutted out a 71-67 overtime win over No. 8 seed Clemson in what USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb described as “a culture win.”

That game featured many tests for a young team in March and the Trojans responded well to the challenges. They are advancing on the back of freshman Jazzy Davidson’s 31 points and senior Kara Dunn’s 22.

Davidson, who appeared to be on the verge of tears as the referees reviewed the final play of regulation to determine whether she had committed a foul that would have set Clemson up for game-winning free throws, said on Sunday there’s a standard that this year’s Trojans feel they are responsible for meeting.

“I think our expectations, you know nobody wanted to lose JuJu, we all love her, but we have to keep going as you said and just holding that same expectation that they had last season. Just the program standard,” Davidson said. “And just resiliency and making sure that we’re doing our best every game.”

Dunn said the deck has been stacked against the Trojans all season and it’s forced them to grow stronger as a unit.

USC guard Kara Dunn drives to the basket in front of Clemson guard Taylor Johnson-Matthews during the first round of the NCAA tournament on Saturday in Columbia, S.C.

(Nell Redmond / Associated Press)

“I think this year has just been about focusing on going against all odds,” Dunn said. “A lot of people didn’t expect much from this team and they might have turned away at certain times when we had lower moments this season and I think that it built our own culture for this season specifically. I feel like we had to come together, we had to support each other when it didn’t feel like we had much support and I think that that’s been really important.”

She added that moving through the season with just the support of each other and their die-hard fans works in their favor as they prepare to take on powerhouse South Carolina on the Gamecocks’ formidable home floor.

“We have everything to gain, nothing to lose going into this game, so I feel like this has really helped us,” Dunn said.

The NCAA tournament game against the No. 1 seed on the Trojans’ side of the bracket will be a rematch of the unofficial “Battle of the Real USC” in November. The Gamecocks claimed a 69-52 win during that meeting.

USC guard Jazzy Davidson drives under pressure from Clemson guard Rachael Rose Saturday in Columbia, S.C.

(Nell Redmond / Associated Press)

Gottlieb said Sunday she scheduled that game to prepare her team for moments like Monday’s tough matchup.

“Maybe if we hadn’t played Notre Dame, UConn and South Carolina, maybe our record would be a little better coming in, but it doesn’t make you a better program,” she said. “Our goals remain the same; which is to win a national championship. So if you’re skipping those people in nonconference hoping to manipulate it, it doesn’t work that way. You have to see the best. You have to elevate your program to be the best, then ultimately, you have to beat the best to get to where you want to be.”

South Carolina is trying to avenge last season’s championship loss to UConn and secure its fourth national championship in program history and the third in five years. USC, meanwhile, is trying to match the Cheryl Miller era when she led the Trojans to back-to-back national titles in 1983 and 1984.

Trojan culture will be tested more than ever, but Dunn feels good about where the team is heading.

“Obviously that was the beginning of the season, now it’s towards the end and we’re two very different teams,” she said of the previous loss to South Carolina. “We’ve grown in a lot of ways, but we’re using that scout just to see what we did well and what we could’ve done better. We just want to make sure that we control those things first and then adjust.”

Davidson will have the chance to play in another legacy defining game during her second NCAA tournament appearance.

“I feel like I have nerves a little bit before every game, [Monday] especially because it’s a big game,” she said. “My teammates are always just making sure I’m calm and in the moment. The confidence that they instill in me every day really helps.”

They’re so darn cute together, these two. Neal Allen, father of four, newspaper reporter turned corporate executive turned spiritual coach turned author of two spiritual guidebooks, stands a full head of hair taller than his dread-headed wife, who calls him her “current husband.” He calls her his “remarkable and beautiful partner” and himself “Mr. Anne Lamott.”

And no wonder. Author Anne Lamott has published 21 books, with worldwide sales in the millions. “Bird by Bird,” her 1994 writing handbook, which has sold more than 1 million copies and continues to sell approximately 40,000 copies each year, became a meme before there were memes. Thirty-two years later, the titular phrase has made appearances everywhere from “Ted Lasso” (Coach Beard: “I hate losing.” Coach Lasso: “Bird by bird, Coach.”) to a Gloria Steinem interview in Cosmopolitan (“Every writer, truth-seeker, parent, and activist I know is in love with one or more books by Anne Lamott”).

Ask a famous writer how they do what they do, and “Bird by Bird” will likely get honorable mention. Harlan Coben, whose 35 novels have sold roughly 90 million copies, calls “Bird by Bird” his “favorite writing manual.” “I use it like a coach’s halftime speech to get me fired up to write.”

In a 2007 interview, “Eat Pray Love” author Elizabeth Gilbert called herself Lamott’s “literary offspring.” Paula McLain, who wrote the 2011 blockbuster “The Paris Wife,” told me: “I return to ‘Bird by Bird’ again and again because Anne Lamott tells the truth about how hard this work is — and then somehow makes you laugh about it.”

I reached out to best-selling memoirist and novelist Dani Shapiro to ask if she had her own experience with the book. “A writer is always a beginner,” she said. “And there is no better companion than ‘Bird by Bird.’”

Lamott and Allen partnered to write “Good Writing.”

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

Lamott, 71, and Allen, 69, met in 2016 on the 50-plus dating site OurTime.com. Nine months later, they bought a woodsy Marin County home with room for Lamott’s son and grandson. Sam, when he was 1 year old, was the subject of his mom’s first bestseller, the 1993 memoir “Operating Instructions.” His son Jax was the subject, at age 1, of his grandmother’s 2012 memoir, “Some Assembly Required.”

“We were watching U.S. Open tennis one night and Neal said, ‘Can I ask you something?’” Lamott told me via email. “I barely looked away from the TV, and he asked me to marry him. I said, ‘Yes, if we can get a cat.’”

After a decade of marriage, Lamott and Allen have undertaken a professional collaboration whose outcome, like their union, is greater than the sum of its parts. “Good Writing: 36 Ways to Improve Your Sentences” is as sharply specific as “Bird by Bird” is wanderingly wonderful: as winning a companion piece as two winning companions could create. The table of contents is itself a mini-manual of writerly tips: “Use Strong Verbs.” “Sound Natural.” “Keep it Active.” “Stick with Said.” “Don’t Show Off.”

Lamott and Allen.

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

I spoke to the late-life lovebirds about their process of marital manuscript-making: the good, the not so good and the blackmailing.

Meredith Maran: How did writing “Bird by Bird” compare to co-authoring “Good Writing”?

Anne Lamott: “Bird by Bird” was literally everything I knew about writing, everything I had been teaching my students for years. It was definitely my book. “Good Writing” was definitely Neal’s book. I just foisted my attention on him and threatened to undermine the marriage if he did not let me contribute.

MM: Neal, what on earth convinced you that you could add something to one of the world’s most popular writing books —written by your wife, no less?

Neal Allen: Oh, I’m not adding anything to “Bird by Bird,” which is a complete classic. It’s everything you need to know about becoming a writer. “Good Writing” is about what comes next: a second draft. And while it’s not fair to call “Bird by Bird” a craft book — it’s much more — it’s fine to define “Good Writing” that way.

“Helping each other with our work is one of the richest aspects of our life as a married couple,” Lamott said.

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

MM: In producing this joint project, how did you two negotiate the differences between your writing styles and personalities?

AL: We didn’t need to negotiate. Neal somehow manages to be both elegant and welcoming, whereas I think I am more like the class den mother, with a plate of cupcakes, exhorting people not to give up, trying to convince them that they can only share their truth in their own voice, that their voice is plenty good, and that when they get stuck, as we all do, I know some tricks that will help them get back to work.

NA: I once asked AI to describe the difference between my writing and Annie’s. AI answered that I explain things to readers; Annie helps readers reach catharsis. I think that’s absolutely right.

MM: How did you come up with the book’s fab format, whereby each of you writes your own introduction, and then each chapter starts with Neal’s thoughts about one of the 36 rules and ends with Annie’s?

NA: Annie first asked if she could annotate what I had written. That scared the bejesus out of me. When she started writing her own essays in her own voice, I was quite relieved. One of the format’s surprising strengths is that Annie always gets the last word. I explain the rule; then she helps the reader find their way and resolve their issues with the rule. There’s a downside: I don’t get to respond when she tells the reader to ignore me.

“I’m not adding anything to ‘Bird by Bird,’” Allen said. “It’s everything you need to know about becoming a writer. ‘Good Writing’ is about what comes next: a second draft.”

(Christie Hemm Klok / For The Times)

MM: In your intro, Anne, you recall Neal telling you he was working on a writing book. “Well. Hmmmph,” you replied. “I had written a book on writing once …” How did professional jealousy, competitiveness, possessiveness, or, on the brighter side, tenderness, collaborative spirit and generosity play out as you wrote a writing book together?

AL: We have no competitiveness or jealousy when it comes to each other’s writing. We just want the other person to write the most beautiful work they can. We are each other’s first reader, and editor, and while of course I feel attacked if Neal suggests even the tiniest change to my deathless prose, I have come to understand that his suggested cuts and additions save me from myself. Helping each other with our work is one of the richest aspects of our life as a married couple.

NA: There’s no way around “Bird by Bird,” and I just have to deal with that. My worry was whether Annie really wanted to be associated with my little book. I’m envious of Annie’s brilliance, of course, but we speak the same writing language and we love it equally.

MM: What are each of you proudest of, “Good Writing”-wise?

AL: We just recorded the audio version, and I was surprised by how much practical help the book offers. Also, I love the tone, which is so conversational and sometimes, I hope, pretty funny.

NA: I had the opposite reaction to recording the audio version. I saw all the opportunities for readers to mock me. In the 18 months between writing a final draft and the book showing up in stores, we’ve both flipped from believing it reflects well on us to thinking it’s a disaster. Luckily, both of us haven’t ever thought it sucks at the same time.

MM: That is fortunate. Also, Neal, I’m not sure you answered my question.

NA: What am I proudest of? That the book exists. I carried around these rules for improving sentences for years. I think a lot of writers do a book because they notice it’s not out there, and why isn’t it? And then they shrug, ‘Well, I guess it’s up to me.’ That’s how I came into all three of my books.

AL: May I just add that I’m proud to introduce my seriously charming and breathtakingly wise husband to a wider audience.

SACRAMENTO — Every two years, elite athletes compete in the Olympics, biennial plants — like carrots and onions — produce seeds and people across America look on with consternation and mounting impatience as California counts its election ballots.

The prolonged tally has become as much a part of electioneering in the Golden State as wall-to-wall advertising, high-flown promises and overstuffed mailboxes groaning beneath the weight of endless campaign fliers.

The tabulation — which can last weeks past election day — is the product, in large part, of a commendable objective: Encouraging as many people as possible to vote.

California, which mails a ballot to every eligible voter, ranks near the top of states in the ease of its elections. That’s something to be celebrated. Voting is a way to help steer the direction of our state and nation and invest, as an active participant, in its future.

Yay, participatory democracy!

Unfortunately, the lag time between election day and the final results has led to all sorts of wild, unfounded claims, peddled mainly by Republicans seeking to curry favor with the sore-losing President Trump by parroting his conspiratorial gabbling.

“They hold the elections open for weeks after election day,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said recently, falsely suggesting that chicanery cost the GOP three House seats in California in 2024. “It looks on its face to be fraudulent.”

That’s a lot of, um, hooey.

There is no rampant cheating or election fraud in California. Period. Full stop.

Still, those sorts of phony statements have deeply diminished faith in our elections and our increasingly rickety democracy.

So — what if it were possible to preserve California’s friendly voting system while, at the same time, speeding up the tabulation of its many millions of ballots?

Kim Alexander believes it’s possible to do both.

“We need to stop explaining why it’s taking so long and start figuring out how to [produce election results] in a more satisfying way,” she said. “There are a lot of things that we could do better and do differently. It just takes some creative thinking and some will.”

Simply put, “The longer it takes to count ballots, the more voter confidence erodes.”

Alexander, head of the nonpartisan California Voter Foundation, has spent more than three decades working to make the state’s elections more efficient, more transparent and more accountable.

Her interest in politics and election mechanics came about while growing up in Culver City, where her father served as a councilman and mayor.

As a 7-year-old, stationed in the garage, it was Alexander’s job to track the returns in her dad’s first campaign, toting up the numbers at an election night party while her mom, posted in the kitchen, called the city clerk for updates. Even at that young age, Alexander learned the importance of a fair and efficient tabulation process.

Over the years, she watched as her father’s political career was stymied by a Democratic gerrymander, which blocked any hopes he had of being elected to Congress or the Legislature as a moderate Republican. She saw firsthand the influence of money in politics. (Her father told her of turning away donations that came with strings attached.) That helped turn her into a political reformer.

After working as a legislative staffer and serving a stint at Common Cause, the good-government lobbying group, Alexander took over the California Voter Foundation in 1994.

As a political noncombatant, Alexander won’t say how it feels, and whether these days she’s more or less optimistic, watching as reckless attacks on our elections come from inside the White House. “I like to describe myself as a realist with high goals,” is all she’d allow.

There are good reasons why it takes California so long to count its ballots.

First off, there are a lot of them; more than 16 million residents voted in the last presidential election, more than the population of all but 10 states. Voting by mail has exploded in popularity and it takes longer to count those ballots, as many don’t arrive until after election day. Also, there are a number of safeguards to prevent fraud and ensure an accurate count. “We’re checking all the signatures,” Alexander said. “We’re making sure nobody votes twice.”

Simply explaining those facts can help build trust, she said. However, that won’t speed up the state’s vote counting. Here, Alexander suggested, are some things that can:

— Increase funding for California’s 58 counties to expand equipment, staff and the space needed to process ballots. In recent years, the state has been asking local election officials to do more and more without reimbursing their costs.

— Educate voters and encourage them to turn their ballots in earlier. Along those lines, a system called “sign, scan and go” allows voters to return their mail ballots in person at a designated polling place. A pilot program in Placer County found that that shaved three to four days off processing time. The system could be implemented statewide.

— Better manage California’s voter database, doing so from the top down in Sacramento, rather than having counties oversee their data and feed it into the system. That bottom-up approach creates delays and a lag time in processing ballots.

— Create “ballot swap” days to speed delivery of out-of-county ballots where they belong, also saving time. (Under California law, voters can return their ballot anywhere in the state, but it must be routed to their home county to be tabulated. That process can now take more than a week.)

The problem, apart from perennial budget pressures, is that interest in election mechanics — a technical and arcane subject if ever there was one — is episodic and fleeting. It’s like worrying about a leaky roof when the temperature is 95 degrees outside and the sun is blazing.

But even without voters clamoring to address California’s slow-poke vote count, lawmakers should act.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently rose to defend the state’s “safe and secure elections” against one of Trump’s many unwarranted attacks. If he wants to burnish his credentials for a 2028 presidential run — which Newsom very much does — one way would be to speed up delivery of its election results.

That way the rest of the country won’t be asking again in November: What the heck’s with California?

On a night when my family watched Austin Reaves pull off the miraculous intentional missed free throw put-back basket on the way to a thrilling Laker overtime win against the Denver Nuggets, we talked more about the newest Lakers super fan on the way home. Kudos to Bill Plaschke for recognizing and capturing the power of 6-year-old Jackson Tuyay’s passionate cheering that helped ignite the laid-back crowd and inspire the Lakers to a huge comeback win. As a lifelong Laker fan since the same age as Jackson it was so awesome to see such innocent and authentic passion for the Lakers. In an arena full of stars in the stands and on the court it was the voice of a 6-year-old that reminded us how awesome it is to be a Lakers fan for life!

Paul Stapleton
Los Angeles

To quote Jackson Tuyay, “Yeaaaaah!” It looks like the Lakers can play some defense and beat the better teams after all.

Vaughn Hardenberg
Westwood

The Los Angeles Times welcomes expressions of all views. Letters should be brief and become the property of The Times. They may be edited and republished in any format. Each must include a valid mailing address and telephone number. Pseudonyms will not be used.

Email: sports@latimes.com

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta is asking a judge to unravel Nexstar Media Group’s $6.2-billion acquisition of rival TV station owner Tegna — the latest in a flurry of merger twists.

Nexstar announced late Thursday that it had consummated the Tegna takeover — despite a lawsuit that Bonta and seven other Democratic state attorneys general had filed in federal court the previous day.

The state officials sued to block the union of the station groups, alleging the new colossus would violate antitrust rules and a federal law limiting broadcast station ownership.

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.

Hours after that filing, the Federal Communications Commission’s Media Bureau in Washington approved Nexstar’s deal — clearing the way for the nation’s largest TV station group owner to swallow the third-largest station group.

The purchase gives Nexstar, which owns KTLA-TV Channel 5 in Los Angeles, 265 television stations.

On Friday, Bonta and the other attorneys general asked a judge for a temporary restraining order to freeze the takeover until a hearing on the matter.

“Nexstar/Tegna is not a done deal,” Bonta said Friday in a statement. “I will not let these corporate behemoths merge without a fight.”

It was not immediately clear when a judge might rule on the request for a restraining order.

Bonta appeared at a lawmakers’ hearing in Burbank on Friday to explore the impacts of another huge merger: Paramount Skydance’s proposed $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery. Bonta’s office has opened an investigation into the Paramount-Warner merger, but Bonta said Friday that no decision has been made on whether he or other attorneys general will seek to block it.

For now, he is focused on derailing the Nexstar-Tegna deal.

“We filed a suit before that deal closed,” Bonta told The Times. “We think our case is extremely strong. There is no way this should be approved.”

At issue is whether the FCC had the power to grant a waiver that would allow Nexstar to control TV stations that reach nearly 80% of U.S. households. In 2003, Congress set the station ownership cap at 39% of the country.

The Department of Justice also gave its blessing to close the deal.

The three FCC commissioners did not vote on the matter — despite pleas from the lone Democrat on the panel who advocated for an open process.

Approval of the merger was rapid after President Trump endorsed the consolidation on Feb. 7.

“We need more competition against THE ENEMY, the Fake News National TV Networks,” Trump wrote in his social media post.

“Letting Good Deals get done like Nexstar – Tegna will help knock out the Fake News because there will be more competition, and at a higher and more sophisticated level,” Trump wrote. “GET THAT DEAL DONE!”

In a statement Thursday, Nexstar founder and chief executive Perry Sook thanked Trump and FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, saying Nexstar was “grateful” they recognized the “dynamic forces shaping the media landscape” and allowed the transaction to move forward.

The WNBA will likely get an injection of UCLA talent. One of the players most equipped to make an impact right away, it turns out, might be Kiki Rice.

Some mock drafts have the senior guard as high as being picked No. 5 overall after concerns she might fall out of the first round entirely before this season.

After a career-best season, though, Rice is one of the top prospects in a loaded class. That wasn’t a given after taking a step back in all statistics other than shooting last season.

The No. 1 seed Bruins are hoping to ride that to a national title, with the next step coming Saturday against No. 16 seed California Baptist in the first round of the NCAA tournament. Tipoff is at 7 p.m. at Pauley Pavilion.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice shoots over Ohio State guard Jaloni Cambridge during the semifinals of the Big Ten tournament on March 7 in Indianapolis.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

WNBA scouts are hoping Rice proves she can be one of the best early first-round investments in the league.

“The work she did on her mentality, film study, with leadership, using her voice, working on her handles, I just think it’s her commitment to the details,” UCLA coach Cori Close said. “I’m not surprised that she’s playing this way because of the intentional work that she puts in.”

A Big Ten All-Defensive Team and unanimous All-Big Ten First Team selection this season, Rice is averaging career highs in points (15.3), rebounds (6.0) and shooting percentage (50.4%). Her assist numbers have dropped since the addition of Charlisse Leger-Walker, but that’s allowed Rice to create her own offense.

“I think one of the things that Kiki’s been able to do is have different kinds of scoring catches this year because of Charlisse’s presence on our team,” Close said. “But I do think the biggest thing has probably been her passing, her facilitation, as well as her ability to shoot.”

WNBA scouts have taken notice, too. One evaluator said her ability to play with a “group of weapons” has set herself up to be taken seriously for a larger role even as a rookie. For a long time, among those scouting in the league, she was viewed as a potential backup point guard, but her shooting ability and defensive consistency has made her a more complete prospect.

Her 2.2 defensive win shares are third in the Big Ten and her 83.0 defensive rating is seventh.

“I worked a ton of [defense] in the offseason and really stepped up to the challenge of guarding the other team’s best perimeter player,” Rice said. “I think me being challenged in that way, it’s been a really great area of growth, and that’s probably the area that I’m most proud of.”

Rice’s improvement from the three-point line is a big one for WNBA scouts. She improved her deep shot from 21.7% to 38.1% across four seasons.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice steals the ball from Washington guard Chloe Briggs at Pauley Pavilion on Feb. 19.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

That, plus her defensive prowess and ability to play point guard and more of a loose guard role, have helped her WNBA stock rise tremendously.

“Defensively has been probably the most impactful growth thing that she’s had,” Close said. “But Kiki — people don’t realize she was out for six months. She had surgery on April 15th last year and was out for six months.”

Rice was injured at the start of last season and then underwent right shoulder surgery right after the Final Four. Despite the injury, she played in 34 games last season, averaging 12.8 points and 5.0 assists per game.

Rice won the Big Ten tournament’s most outstanding player award after UCLA thrashed Iowa by 51 points in the championship. She averaged 16.6 points and 5.3 assists during three Big Ten tournament games.

Her numbers might be even better if she were the team’s top offensive option, like Hannah Hidalgo with Notre Dame. Instead, she is sharing time with other top WNBA prospects such as Lauren Betts, Gianna Kneepkens and Leger-Walker.

“What I love most is she’s one of the most selfless people I’ve ever played with,” Betts said of Rice. “She really could [not] care less about all of the attention. She just wants to win games. She’s always there for her teammates. I’m so grateful I get to be her teammate and her friend. She’s amazing.”

In addition to her three-point shot improvement, around 60% of her points still come in the paint from driving to the basket, making her a threat all over the floor.

“There were lots of times in previous years where Kiki could get downhill, but we didn’t have the court spacing because we didn’t have the quality of shooting that allowed those driving lanes to take place,” Close said.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice shoots over USC guard Malia Samuels at Pauley Pavilion on Jan. 3.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

The biggest question with Rice is whether her three-point shooting can scale to a higher volume in the WNBA, where guards are more likely to shoot from deep than be relied on in the post. She has never taken more than 2.7 attempts per game.

Part of that is because there are so many options from three-point range that Rice doesn’t have to be the primary shooter. Kneepkens is making 44.2% of her three-pointers and Gabriela Jaquez has hit 41.1% while Leger-Walker is shooting 36.4% from range.

That hasn’t affected Rice’s efficiency, though.

“I think this year the way that we moved the ball and everyone gets touches is so important for everyone and allows me to be successful,” Rice said.

UCLA guard Kiki Rice celebrates with teammates as she’s handed the Big Ten tournament most outstanding player trophy on March 8 in Indianapolis.

(Michael Conroy / Associated Press)

With the way the draft order falls, Rice is likely to end up with either an expansion team or a team that struggled last season, such as Washington or Chicago. That might mean she’ll need to step in and produce in her first season as a pro.

That is why her stock has risen so much this season — she’s shown she has the versatility to do what is needed.

“Kiki has been playing the best basketball of her career,” Close said. “I think she has put in the work. She knows what she’s earned, and she’s sort of ‘that girl’ for us.”

There is no such thing as a day of rest for artist Kenny Scharf, not even Sunday. “I wake up super early. It’s still dark outside,” the Los Angeles native says.

Rising before the sun anchors his active day. “I always have to keep moving,” Scharf says. “Otherwise, I’ll get very depressed.”

An avid hiker and swimmer, Scharf, 67, also maintains a disciplined yoga practice and cycles daily from his Culver City home to his Inglewood studio. There almost everything serves as a canvas, including painted trash doubling as decor and the silkscreened couch on which he’s seated.

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

“I don’t like to waste good paint and silkscreen ink. Why wash it? We apply it everywhere until we use it up,” Scharf says.

Scharf, who grew up in the Valley before making his way to New York City, first gained acclaim in the ‘80s East Village art scene alongside his friends and contemporaries Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring, his former roommate. The trio also befriended Andy Warhol, who predicted Scharf’s fame.

Renowned for his self-coined “pop surrealism,” Scharf often populates his bold, colorful work with grinning cartoon faces, elastic blobs, and sci-fi creatures floating through cosmic landscapes. Anxieties about overconsumption and environmental degradation lie beneath the playfulness.

Like their creator, Scharf’s works are always on the move, either rolling down the street on the cars he’s painted — featured in his recently published book “Karbombz!” — or traveling to forthcoming exhibitions in Wuhan, Tokyo and Paris.

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

5:30 a.m.: Wake up and feed the cats.

My cats, Cutie and Socks — one’s a tabby and the other is a tuxedo cat — wake me up by mewing and walking on me. They’re like, “Hey, I’m hungry.” So I get up and crack open the cans. They like that disgusting, smelly canned food. And then they go out into the yard.

I got the cats because I went to New York for a show. I was gone for five days and I live next to a park, so there are a lot of animals. I came back and my entire house was overrun by mice. I was like, “What the hell am I gonna do? I need cats.” The mice are gone and now I have these cats. They’re so cute and so much fun. They take over my life.

6 a.m.: Detox

I make lemon and hot water. It’s a good way to start the day and clear out the toxins. Right now, I have a lot of citrus because Ed Ruscha’s studio is across the street from my house, and in the back of the studio he has a citrus farm. I go there, especially during this time of year, and get bags of citrus. It’s like a farm community in the middle of L.A. I love L.A. because you can surround yourself with trees and gardens and kind of pretend that you’re not living in a giant metropolitan area.

8:30 a.m.: Iyengar yoga

An Iyengar yoga instructor comes to my house. I find Iyengar is great for aging. You use ropes and gravity to hang and do different things, using your body weight so you can relax into the positions. I also have a swing to go upside down on. When people walk into my living room, they go, “What’s going on here?” because of the ropes on the wall.

In the summer, I’ll go to the beach in Venice and swim in the ocean. It’s wonderful when I’m out in the water. It’s cathartic and cleansing, and sometimes I see dolphins. I’ll go early in the morning before the crowds come.

11:30 a.m.: Mar Vista Farmers’ Market

It’s fun to go there with my daughter Zena, who’s a chef, and my grandkids. We stroll around and get food. All the food stands are delicious. I grew up here in L.A., so I’m into Mexican food. I don’t really want to eat American food. I’m not into hamburgers. I want all the stuff with the culture. I like hot and spicy.

I also buy apples and berries, whatever I can’t grow, because I grow my own food at home.

And I buy stuff from an Indian man who sells Chyawanprash, which is kind of a jam. It’s really concentrated and like an elixir. He also sells Shilajit, which almost looks like tar. You put a little bit under your tongue and it dissolves, and it’s got like every single mineral in it.

2 p.m.: Painting at the studio

I’m painting seven days a week, but I really love coming here on Sundays because nobody’s here and the phone doesn’t ring. Sometimes, my granddaughter, Lua, will come. She paints. Upstairs at the studio I have a little painting area with easels for my grandkids, but my grandson, Jet, isn’t that into painting. I do my work, and Lua’s up there keeping herself busy painting, and it’s great.

Kenny Scharf in his paint-splattered studio he bikes to every day.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

5 p.m.: Hike

The easiest one is right behind my house. It goes up to the top of the Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook where the [Culver City] Stairs go. It’s one of the best views in all of L.A. You can see from the airport to the ocean, downtown, Mount Baldy. You can see almost all the way to Palm Springs, Mount San Gorgonio. The view is amazing.

We also hike a lot in Kenneth Hahn [State Recreation Area].

My grandkids often like to go on a waterfall hike, so there are a couple in Malibu. There are also a couple over in the San Gabriel [Mountains]. We’ll get into the car and drive an hour and hike.

6:30 p.m.: Dinner at a restaurant

Zena, Lua and Jet live close to me, so we have dinner together at least three or four times a week. Because Zena’s a chef, we don’t go out to eat that often, but sometimes we go to a restaurant called Madre that I love. It’s on National [Boulevard]. The food is so good. They often have squash blossoms. They fry them and put a little cheese in them.

I also love Gjelina in Venice. Sometimes I take people from Europe there because it is quintessential California. All the food they make is from the farmers market, so you get a tomato salad with incredible tomatoes.

8 p.m.: Read

I just finished Patti Smith’s latest book, “Bread of Angels.” It’s beautiful. I love her. I saw her perform at Disney Hall recently, and she was selling this book. I actually saw her perform at the Santa Monica Civic [Auditorium] when I was 19. I’d been wanting to move to New York for a lot of reasons, but when I saw her performance, it was, “I’m moving there.” There was so much energy in her.

9 p.m.: Bedtime

Usually I’m in bed by 9 and asleep by 10. When I was young, I was very involved in nightlife. I was working in nightclubs, all of my friends were in nightclubs, so I lived that big time. But now I’m jaded. I don’t want to sound above it all, but I don’t see anything going on that I’m getting excited about the way it was. And I’m not a nostalgic person, so I choose not to go out. I’m happier getting a good night’s sleep.

Most people think you can’t walk without an Achilles tendon. Jo Giese begs to differ, especially since she hikes without one.

The L.A. hiker, journalist and community activist shares her journey of recovery in her new 240-page book, “You’ll Never Walk Alone: A Hiker’s Memoir of Adventure, Tragedy, and Defying the Odds” (Amplify Publishing). Giese outlines how one fall down the stairs led to eight surgeries and a relentless search for answers for how she could return to the trails she loved.

“The reason I wrote the book is to inspire others,” Giese said, “that if you’re given a grim diagnosis — and it certainly doesn’t have to be your left Achilles — you do not have to accept it.”

Like many of us, Giese’s love of the outdoors started early. At age 5, she regularly took walks alone from her family’s home on Lake Washington Boulevard in Seattle. Wearing a frilly pinafore dress and Mary Jane shoes, she’d walk a few blocks to Seward Park, pausing at the playground, where she’d persuade someone to push her on the swing. That wasn’t the main goal of the trip, though.

“There is a path that leads up into the middle of the peninsula in this old growth forest. The canopies of the trees are two and three stories high. You’re just walking in this green wonderland,” Giese said. “And then after I finished walking all the way up as far as I wanted to go, I’d come back, and I’d walk back along [the route] and go home.”

The cover of “You’ll Never Walk Alone”; and a photo of author Jo Giese.

(Amplify Publishing; Dan Fineman)

Giese has been a walker and hiker ever since, falling in love with waterfall hikes in particular. Giese and her husband, Ed, split time between their house near L.A. and a home in Bozeman, Mont. They hike in the Santa Monica Mountains when they are home in Southern California, but Giese isn’t picky.

“I mainly hike anywhere I am,” Giese said.

That includes an epic vacation “jumping out of helicopters in New Zealand … in my late 60s,” she said. But neither that adventure nor any other is how Giese got injured.

It was a rainy night in late November in L.A. Giese was upstairs when her friend Lana arrived, and not wanting her friend to get drenched, Giese raced down the stairs to open the front door.

“I miss the bottom two steps, and I literally go flying horizontally,” Giese said. “My husband heard the crash. He came running, and I said, ‘Go let in Lana. She’s getting wet!’”

The trio immediately rushed to a nearby urgent care, where an X-ray showed a complete rupture of Giese’s left Achilles tendon, a thick band of tissue that attaches a person’s calf muscle to their heel bone.

Giese quickly called an orthopedist whom she’d seen for a simple knee procedure. He told her to come to his office the following day at 8 a.m. At the appointment, the doctor said, “‘I can do this. I did [an]

Hikers dressed in Dodger Blue gather for a group photo midway through a hike at Griffith Park on March 24, 2024.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

Achilles repair 20 or 30 years ago. I can do this,’” Giese recalled.

Giese at Point Dume.

(Jo Giese)

In hindsight, it’s clear she should have found someone who’d done an Achilles repair “20 or 30 minutes ago,” she said. But the relief of not having to wait for surgery mixed with the shock of the moment made Giese and her husband impulsive.

“We were so frightened then — I’m in a wheelchair, and I’m all black and blue and bruised. I cannot walk. And there is someone in front of me who says he can do this,” Giese said. “And that should be a lesson to anybody.”

After the surgery to reattach her Achilles, her doctor left for a two-week vacation while Giese was at home recuperating, studiously following the doctor’s after-care guidelines. At her follow-up appointment, the nurse was unwrapping the bandage when the doctor observed, “That’s necrotic.” At the time, Giese didn’t know that word essentially meant “dead.”

The doctor immediately blamed her, saying it was from an ice burn. Both she and her husband knew that wasn’t true. Another doctor would later suggest that the surgeon introduced the infection during that first surgery.

“I don’t think I’d been so scared since my encounter with a bear,” Giese wrote in her book.

Exactly 49 days from her accident, Giese was scheduled for another surgery (with a different doctor) to debride the wound and reattach her Achilles. It was supposed to take several hours. But less than an hour into surgery, her physician told Ed that Giese’s Achilles had died. Soon, he asked Giese if she wanted to see what was left of the largest and strongest tendon in the body.

It looked like “a nasty little caterpillar that had turned fetal, curled in on itself, and died in a sea of black-and-green muck,” Giese wrote.

Next, Giese needed a skin graft to cover the wound from the previous surgeries. After that, she returned to her doctor’s office — 114 days after her accident — where her doctor removed the bandages from that third surgery and suggested something revelatory: that Giese should put her left foot down, putting her whole weight on it.

“My naked left foot — heel and five toes — made intimate contact with a floor, a cold linoleum floor, for the first time since this medical journey had begun four months earlier,” Giese wrote. From here, she walked her first 20 steps.

But recovery would come in fits and spurts. About a month later, Giese wanted to attend a festival while in Austin, Texas, only to find the 10 blocks of booths and vendors too daunting. She went back to the hotel and screamed, “I cannot walk!”

From here, she demanded better care. Giese was tired of hearing medical professionals say they’d never encountered someone without an Achilles. She wanted to find someone who was experienced with complex muscle injuries.

Her search ended 274 days after her accident when she learned about the Center for Restorative Exercise in Northridge. Giese felt dubious about another physical therapist, though. She’d already been to three physical therapy clinics, and “those had been a waste of time, energy and hope,” she wrote. But here, she was met with science and intentionality.

Taylor-Kevin Isaacs, the clinic’s co-founder, told Giese that she had other muscles still intact that could help her walk again, and she luckily hadn’t suffered any nerve damage, Giese wrote in the book. She spent the next 2½ years working with the center’s staff, which included receiving acupuncture, shockwave therapy and scar tissue massage, which was so painful “you could have heard me screaming from where you are,” Giese said.

After she completed care at the center, Isaacs nominated Giese for an award she won — an Oboz Footwear “Local Hero” award in 2024.

On the photo shoot for the award, Giese hiked with a photographer along a trail to Ousel Falls, a 50-foot waterfall in Big Sky, Mont.

It had been five years since her accident, and Giese thought back to a medical appointment in Montana the first summer after her fall. A physical therapist that Giese had been working with for about a month asked her to walk about 50 feet across the room.

“I hate to be a Debbie Downer,” the therapist said, “but you’re going to be compromised for the rest of your life.”

At that point, Giese told me, all she had was hope — that she’d get better, that she’d walk again.

Here at the waterfall, Giese told the photographer they should take the steps down to the splashdown area for a better shot. She was ready, navigating black ice like she’d done many times before the accident.

“My thought was, ‘If only that person could see me now,’” she said. “This person who said, ‘You’re going to be compromised the rest of your life, and you have to accept it.’ I thought, ‘No, I don’t.’”

3 things to do

Hikers dressed in Dodger Blue gather for a group photo midway through a hike through Griffith Park on March 24, 2024.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

1. Have a home run of a hike in L.A.
The Dodgers Blue Hiking Crew will host an intermediate hike at 6:30 a.m. Sunday at Griffith Park. Participants are required to wear hiking or trail shoes or boots. The group’s hikes are usually six miles and last about three hours. Register at facebook.com.

2. Clear the trail near Ojai
Los Padres Forest Assn. will host a workday from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday along the Potrero John Trail. Volunteers will meet at the Cozy Dell Trailhead before carpooling to the work site. The trail features jagged rock formations, a perennial creek and bigcone Douglas fir. Register at lpforest.salsalabs.org.

3. Wander through nature’s wonders in Whittier
The California Native Plants Society San Gabriel Mountains chapter will host an easy hike from 9 to 11 a.m. Sunday through Sycamore Canyon in the Puente Hills. Cris Sarabia, conservation director for the Palos Verdes Peninsula Land Conservancy, will educate hikers on plants along the trail, both native and nonnative species. Participants should wear long pants to protect against poison oak. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

Sturtevant Falls, a 55-foot waterfall, in Big Santa Anita Canyon in the San Gabriel Mountains.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Perhaps you’re reading this from a dark room, blinds drawn, fan blowing, praying for a return to spring. That’s definitely the scene where I’m writing to you! Whenever L.A. experiences an intense heat wave, I feel a little trapped. That’s why this week I updated our list of the best hikes around L.A. that will offer you shade and, in most cases, streams and rivers where you can cool down.

Please take good care, though. Hike before 11 a.m., stay hydrated and only cross creeks when you feel safe doing so.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Our recent weather pattern — heavy rains followed by intense heat waves — has meant wildflower season came earlier than expected in several regions of Southern California. Times contributor Jessie Schiewe outlines in this guide the hiking areas where you’ll most likely find recent blooms. For example, Towsley Canyon in Newhall, an area I have yet to visit, is likely a spot where you’ll find bright orange poppies. Want to learn a quick hack that I use to better ensure I will see blooms? Search iNaturalist, a citizen science app, for the flower you’d like to see, using the filter option to only view posts from the last two weeks. If users have recently posted, for example, about spotting poppies, your chances are higher that you will too. Keep on reading The Wild, and I promise I will keep giving you my secrets of outdoors reporting!

For the Record: Last week’s edition of The Wild said decentralized seed banks would be built by procuring seeds from L.A. County nature centers. A decentralized seed bank will be developed to procure seeds for and by L.A. County nature centers.

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

PHOENIX — It’s only fitting that the pitcher who recorded the Dodgers’ final eight outs of the World Series will take the mound on opening day, as the club tries to pick up where it left off in 2025 and chase a third straight championship in 2026.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Monday that World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto will toe the rubber for the March 26 opener at Dodger Stadium against the Arizona Diamondbacks — the second straight year he’s had the honor and the first time at home, after pitching last season’s opener in Tokyo against the Chicago Cubs.

Roberts added Yamamoto is expected to return to Camelback Ranch soon, after participating in the World Baseball Classic with Team Japan. The Samurai Warriors, seeking a second straight WBC title, were eliminated by Team Venezuela Saturday night in the quarterfinals.

Yamamoto is expected to make one more start in the Cactus League before opening day, although the date has yet to be scheduled, according to Roberts.

Shohei Ohtani returned to Dodgers camp Monday morning, and Roberts plans to have a conversation with him soon about configuring his throwing plan leading up to regular season play. Per Roberts, Ohtani threw four innings in a simulated game while with Team Japan last Thursday.

“He’s going to get here and throw a bullpen,” Roberts said, adding: “I’m trying to figure out when we can get him into a game, but it should be here in the next day or two, to take some at bats. But as far as his progression, there’s going to be a bullpen soon, and [we’re] trying to figure out what day he’s going to pitch this week. It should be this week, but I’m not sure which day yet.”

Ohtani has not pitched in a Cactus League game and did not pitch in the WBC. Roberts does not expect the four-time MVP to be fully stretched out by the start of the regular season. Still, as Roberts notes, he’s further along than he was at this time a year ago, when he was working his way back from Tommy John surgery.

“I think this year we’re certainly north of that, I don’t see how we won’t be able to get to three or four innings in a major league game, so that’s certainly a better jumping-off point than last year, so we’ll see how it goes,” Roberts said.

Beyond Yamamoto, Ohtani and trusty veteran Tyler Glasnow, the Dodgers’ back end of the rotation is still taking shape. Though Roberts had considered a six-man rotation to begin regular season play, he indicated Monday that he expects the club to use a five-man rotation, noting that things are still “fluid.”

Last week, Roberts said he “didn’t see a world in which Roki Sasaki doesn’t break [camp] as a starter.” That would leave one rotation spot up for the taking, with 25-year-old Justin Wrobleski, 26-year-old Emmet Sheehan and 27-year-old River Ryan among those in the running.

BERLIN — Juergen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96.

Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said that “Germany and Europe have lost one of the most significant thinkers of our time.”

Merz said that “his sociological and philosophical work had an impact on generations of researchers and thinkers.” He praised “Habermas’ intellectual forcefulness and his liberality” and said in a statement that “his voice will be missed.”

Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume “Theory of Communicative Action.”

Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of a new era in 1945 and his coming to terms with the reality of Nazi crimes as something without which he wouldn’t have found his way into philosophy and social theory. He recalled that “you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived.”

He had an ambivalent relationship with the left-wing student movement of the late 1960s in Germany and beyond, engaging with it but also warning at the time against the danger of what he called “left-wing fascism” — a reaction to a firebrand speech by a student leader that he later said was “slightly out of place.” He would later recognize the movement as having driven a “fundamental liberalization” of German society.

In the 1980s, Habermas was a prominent figure in the so-called Historians’ Dispute, in which Berlin historian Ernst Nolte and others called for a new perspective on the Third Reich and German identity. They tended to compare what happened under Adolf Hitler to atrocities carried out by other governments, such as the deaths of millions in the Soviet Union under Josef Stalin. Habermas and other opponents contended that the conservative historians were trying to lessen the magnitude of Nazi crimes through such comparisons.

Habermas supported the rise to power of center-left Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in 1998. He was critical of the “technocratic” approach and perceived lack of political vision of Schroeder’s conservative successor, Angela Merkel, complaining in 2016 of the paralyzing effects on public opinion of “the foam blanket of Merkel’s policy of sending people to sleep.”

He was particularly critical of the “limited interest” shown by German politicians, business leaders and media in “shaping a politically effective Europe.” In 2017, he praised newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron for laying out of plans for European reform, saying that “the way he speaks about Europe makes a difference.”

Habermas was born on June 18, 1929, in Duesseldorf and grew up in nearby Gummersbach, where his father headed the local chamber of commerce. He became a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, a section of the Hitler Youth for younger boys, at 10.

He was born with a cleft palate that required repeated operations as a child, an experience that helped inform his later thinking about language.

Habermas said he had experienced the importance of spoken language as “a layer of commonality without which we as individuals cannot exist” and recalled struggling to make himself understood. He also spoke of the “superiority of the written word,” and said that “the written form conceals the flaws of the oral.”

His wife, Ute Habermas-Wesselhoeft, died last year. The couple had three children: Tilmann; Rebekka, who died in 2023; and Judith.

Moulson writes for the Associated Press.

“Beast Mode” started as a phrase people used to describe the running style of former NFL running back Marshawn Lynch.

“I think it was just my relentlessness and my no-back-down type of demeanor when it came to running the ball, like, ‘Boy, that boy a beast,’” Lynch said. “And it’s like, yeah, when I get the ball, that’s what type of mode I’m in — I’m in beast mode.”

Lynch played 12 seasons for the Buffalo Bills, Seattle Seahawks and Oakland Raiders, amassing 10,413 in 2,453 carries with 85 touchdowns. Somewhere along the way, he said, the phrase “Beast Mode” evolved into “this persona bigger than myself.”

“The way that I get approached by kids and fans, like the way that they approach me is almost as if I am like a character so to speak, and I don’t think that I was doing it justice because I’m like, ‘Well s—, I’m just only a man,” the Super Bowl XLVIII champion said.

“But I believe in their mind what they had made up as Beast Mode is this larger-than-life, kind of surreal individual.”

An early look at a page from the upcoming “Beast Mode 510” graphic novel, starring Marshawn Lynch as the title character. Text will be added closer to the Oct. 6 publishing date.

(Art by Denys Cowan / Courtesy of AWA)

Lynch is embracing that perception of himself … and Beast Mode is about to become a literal comic book hero.

On Friday, Arists Writers and Artisans announced the graphic novel “Beast Mode 510,” which is scheduled to be released Oct. 6. Written by NAACP Image Award-nominated author Sheldon Allen and illustrated by Eisner Hall of Fame artist Denys Cowan, the book was “inspired and guided by” Lynch and is a “deeply personal love letter” to his hometown Oakland, according to a news release from AWA.

“At its center is Beast Mode: the 510’s legendary fixer and freelance sleuth whose rough exterior hides a code of loyalty and willingness to deal with problems others won’t touch,” the release reads. “If you’ve got a problem the authorities won’t handle, Beast Mode will. No invoices. No contracts. Just results.”

AWA chief creative officer Axel Alonso said when he was approached by Lynch and his team about possibly working on a project together, the idea of turning Beast Mode into an almost superhuman crime fighter quickly came to mind.

“To use a football analogy, when Marshawn and his people came to me and said, ‘Can you do anything with this, Beast Mode?’ it was like they gave me the ball on the one-yard line and I had to just walk it in — and Pete Carroll wasn’t the coach, so I could just go right in,” Alonso said, referring to an infamous play at the end of Seattle’s loss to New England in Super Bowl XLIX.

“It was as easy as that. I was like, come on, ‘Beast Mode’? So automatically I talked with Marshawn and said, ‘What’s important to you?’”

Lynch’s input has been key every step of the way, Alonso said, with the five-time Pro Bowl selection getting final say on every aspect. Lynch said he appreciates having his voice heard and being able to put his stamp on the project.

“From the start, we just sat down and had a conversation about where it was that we wanted to go, what is the kind of feel, the look that we want, the kind of tone that we want to tell the story,” Lynch said.

Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch #24 of the Seattle Seahawks runs for a 67-yard touchdown against the New Orleans Saints during an NFC wild-card playoff game Jan. 8, 2011, at Qwest Field.

(Jonathan Ferrey / Getty Images)

An early look at pages from the upcoming “Beast Mode 510” graphic novel starring Super Bowl champion Marshawn Lynch as an underground crime fighter.

(Art by Denys Cowan / Courtesy of AWA)

“I can’t draw or nothing like that, but any type of update or anything Axel will get over to me and, you know what I mean, yea or nay. And then when it comes to like how certain characters would look, certain names, individuals — I would say I’m involved, but I’m not stepping on their toes.”

For Lynch, one of the top priorities was to bring attention to all the unique aspects of his beloved city.

“We kinda have Oakland being a character of its own,” he said. “The personality of what Oakland stands for is something that I would really like to highlight ‘cause I feel that my city gets overlooked. And then the amount of individuals that we have coming out of area, it’s also an opportunity to show a nod to a lot of the Bay Area cultures and icons that we have.”

Even though the book is fiction, Lynch insisted on authenticity in the depictions of the city and the people who live there, including the way they look, act and speak.

“I think the biggest thing will probably be just the way that I speak in general,” Lynch said. “Mother— from where I’m from, we talk with a certain type of a tone, a type of swag.”

An early look at a page from the upcoming “Beast Mode 510” graphic novel. Marshawn Lynch says his character was inspired by the larger-than-life persona fans sometimes associate with him.

(Art by Denys Cowan / Courtesy of AWA.)

And, judging from Lynch’s signature way of talking, a lot of profanity.

None of Lynch’s ideas has been toned down.

“This is an R-rated book,” Alonso said.

“I want this s— to be turned up to the max,” Lynch added, “so if a mother— do pick this up to read, it’s gonna be like, ‘Oh, this some real s—.’ As well as entertaining, as well as insightful and impactful.”

Lynch is used to keeping people entertained, including as the co-host of the “Get Got Pod” with former Seahawks teammate Mike Robinson and as an actor with numerous roles in TV and film (including a breakout performancein 2023’s “Bottoms”).

He said he’s proud of how the project is turning out.

“When you see work and be like, ‘Damn that s— was nice’ and you start thinking about the thought process and how they got to those points, how they got to those things that drew you in, those things that give you that warm feeling,” Lynch said, “I’m feeling like I’m living that as this s— is going.

“Which is crazy as f— because I played in Super Bowls, I walked the red carpet of f—in’ premieres, and this one feels like, out of a lot of s—, this one is capturing that feeling for me. I’m a [Black man] — you know we don’t feel too much. But when we do, we be like, ‘Oh yeah, you know this s— is special.’”

I couldn’t stop looking at the thick bunches of California brittlebush, their bright yellow daisy-like flowers bursting alongside the sandy trail at Eaton Canyon.

I’d last walked the path a week after the Eaton fire, when I observed that “charred limbs of manzanita and other small trees and shrubs jerked out of the earth like seared skeletal remains. Heaps of leathery brown prickly pear pads sagged into the dirt and ash. Even the rocks were burned.”

Last Saturday, almost 14 months later, I marveled at how healthy Eaton Canyon looked as I attended L.A. County Department of Parks and Recreation’s launch of its Landscape Recovery Center. This is in large part thanks to volunteers who’ve dedicated hundreds of hours to restoring the canyon. I’m excited to tell you how you can be a part of those efforts.

The Department of Parks and Rec’s effort is a major step in repairing the damage wreaked by the Eaton fire that started Jan. 7 of last year.

The center includes a nursery full of native plants that will be used not only in Eaton Canyon but also in six other parks damaged by fire, including five in Altadena, and Castaic Lake State Recreation Area. Workers will also reestablish vital tree canopy lost in the fire, planting coast live oak, Engelmann oak and Western sycamores.

Native plants at the nursery at the Landscape Recovery Center at Eaton Canyon.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

L.A. County is partnering with the Theodore Payne Foundation and the Altadena Seed Library to achieve two key goals: 1) Grow the plants in the recovery center’s nursery from locally sourced seeds. 2) Build decentralized seed banks by procuring seeds from L.A. County nature centers.

The latter involves the “process of conserving plant genetics by dehydrating and securely storing seeds for future potential restoration or research projects,” said ecologist Nina Raj, founder of Altadena Seed Library, who is working with the county to develop the seed bank project.

“By carving out space at existing nature centers for a bit of tabletop equipment and storage space, the seeds from their adjacent natural areas [will] be conserved alongside backup populations from partnering nature centers — like an insurance policy in case of, or rather, in preparation for the next natural disaster,” Raj said.

A path near the parking lot of Eaton Canyon Natural Area, as seen on Jan. 14, 2025, and on Saturday.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

In the coming months, officials estimate that more than 100,000 seeds sourced from Eaton Canyon will be propagated to aid recovery efforts. The county has also purchased more than 1,000 native shrubs and understory plants, chosen not only for their ecological value but also their cultural significance to the San Gabriel Band of Mission Indians Gabrieleno/Tongva, whose leaders have been advising the county on its canyon restoration efforts.

The county also bought 200 native trees whose seeds came from “mother” trees grown in soil “extremely compatible with the organic matter here at Eaton Canyon,” said Norma Edith García-González, director of L.A. County Parks and Recreation.

All of this intentional sowing and planting is a 180-degree turn from previous recovery efforts. After the Kinneloa fire burned through Eaton Canyon in 1993, officials rushed to stabilize the hillsides. An expert team recommended grass seed be dropped from helicopters all over the hillsides, which present-day experts say may have introduced nonnative grasses to the region.

The nursery at L.A. County’s Landscape Recovery Center at Eaton Canyon.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

“The Landscape Recovery Center represents a best-practice model for restoring nature, rebuilding habitat diversity and supporting disaster recovery,” García-González said. “[We are] rebuilding with intention, using climate-resilient native species informed by both ecological science and cultural knowledge.”

Most of Eaton Canyon, including its beloved nature center, burned in the 2025 fire. The recovery center’s modular building and the land around it are among the first built improvements, and the area now has electricity, water access, irrigation systems and restrooms. (The recovery center’s footprint is south of the burned nature center, and no announcement was made Saturday regarding when it might be rebuilt.)

These improvements will allow the Landscape Recovery Center, which will have five full-time and four part-time staff members, to host volunteers interested in caring for habitat, supporting the plant nursery or working in local outreach or on community science.

Volunteer events, including hands-on nursery work, will be scheduled Tuesday through Saturday, with times varying depending on the program. Those age 14 and older can sign up by calling or texting (626) 662-5091. (A quick note: Eaton Canyon remains closed to the public, outside of volunteer opportunities.)

A cultural sign welcomes visitors to Eaton Canyon.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Many volunteers have already been hard at work. Organized by the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Associates, volunteers have donated hundreds of hours to clear out short-pod mustard, castor bean, tree tobacco and fountain grass, which choke out native plants and serve as flashy fuel for wildfires.

All of this work must be done before hikers and other outdoors lovers can return to Eaton Canyon.

Jeremy Munns, a trails planner for L.A. County Parks and Recreation, said rebuilding the Eaton Canyon Trail and other county trails in the Eaton Canyon Natural Area will be part of a future phase.

The fire and subsequent flooding washed out the trail and caused hillsides to collapse into and around the canyon. Contractors, county staff and conservation corps crews will need to install retaining walls, repair drainages and add rock walls (called rock armoring) to stabilize the canyon and protect it from further erosion, Munns said.

A path near the Landscape Recovery Center.

(Jaclyn Cosgrove / Los Angeles Times)

Munns said there isn’t currently a plan to include volunteers in that work because of safety concerns.

“In the future, there will be opportunities for volunteers to help with the maintenance of these trails, but the timing of that has not yet been determined,” he said.

As I walked through the nursery during Saturday’s event, I found myself feeling hopeful. Several rows of California sagebrush, California buckwheat, chaparral beard tongue, sticky monkey flower and more sat in their pots, awaiting their new homes in the nearby ground.

It’s easy to imagine a future in which the entire canyon is healthy once again.

3 things to do

Workers tend to plants growing at the Santa Monica Mountains Fund seed farm.

(Jacsen Donohue / Santa Monica Mountains Fund)

1. Nurture yourself and nature in Newbury Park
The Santa Monica Mountains Fund and Second Nature Collective will host a yoga and volunteer day from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday in Newbury Park. Participants will first be led through a 45-minute mindful and meditative yoga session before placing hundreds of native plants in the ground. Register at eventbrite.com.

2. Nosh on nonnative plants in Studio City
Urban forager Nick Mann will lead a 3-mile foraging walk from 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday through Fryman Canyon. He will teach participants how to identify edible nonnative plants commonly found along local trails. Donations requested but not required. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Ride the river near Azusa
Active SGV will host a 12.4-mile bike ride from 9 a.m. to noon Saturday along the West Fork National Scenic Bikeway north of Azusa. Carpooling is encouraged, as the parking lot at the trailhead fills up. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

Condor A1 (a.k.a. Hlow Hoo-let) soars across the sky in far Northern California.

(Matt Mais / Yurok Tribe)

In a potentially historic win for condor conservation, Yurok wildlife officials say there might be a condor pair tending to an egg in the tribe’s Northern California homeland — where condors haven’t nested for more than a century. Times staff writer Lila Seidman wrote that condors vanished from the state’s North Coast because of violence carried out by European settlers. “The pair believed to be nesting in Yurok country were captive born and released in 2022, as part of the first group reintroduced in that region,” Seidman wrote. “The pair, formally known as A1 and A0, are the oldest birds from their release cohort at nearly 7 years old — and the only ones old enough to reproduce.”

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

It’s officially baby season at the San Dimas Raptor Rescue. The L.A. County facility, which rehabilitates birds of prey, took in its first great horned owlet in early February. The center anticipates taking in dozens of great horned owlets who are found starving and need to be nursed back to health before being released. Generally, the center tries to release a bird back to the area where it was found. In this little baby’s case, that would be Venice Beach. The center is run, in part, by volunteers who are trained by the county before working with the birds. If you ever find a raptor that you perceive is in need, you can call the center at (626) 559-5732 before interacting with the animal. A great service to our local wildlife!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Wham, Bam, pfft.

Miami Heat center Bam Adebayo scored 83 points Tuesday night, the second most in an NBA game in history, surpassing Kobe Bryant’s iconic 81 points two decades ago.

Congrats to Adebayo, I guess.

The way it went down was highly questionable. Nothing romantic or real about it. We thought flopping and foul-baiting made for unethical hoops, but those are but basketball misdemeanors; Adebayo’s big night was felonious.

Tuesday’s game featured intentional clock-stopping, game-extending fouls by the Heat. And it was ripe with free-throw-abetting fouls by the Washington Wizards, an actively tanking team that got itself blown out, 150-129.

So, no. Bryant’s necessary, organic 81 this was not. The Lakers trailed that game against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006 at halftime and actually needed Kobe’s 55 second-half points to pull away for the win.

The Heat were up by as many as 28 points in the fourth quarter with Adebayo continuing to play pop-a-shot in the historic farce — which also moved him past LeBron James, whose 61 points in 2014 stood as Miami’s previous franchise record.

Now a Laker, LeBron cheered the effort on X, writing: “BAM BAM BAM” with a bunch of fire emojis.

Lakers fans were not as fired up, but they were hot, booing when news of Adebayo’s 83 points was delivered inside Crypto.com Arena before the Lakers’ 120-106 victory over the Minnesota Timberwolves.

“Honestly, it hurts,” said Los Angeles’ Erik Ortiz, who was 6 years old when Bryant had his 81-point night. “And it’s kind of messed up. All those free throws? No disrespect, but it didn’t feel earned.”

“A disrespect to the game,” said Robert Horry, who played with Bryant in L.A. for seven seasons. “To me, don’t cheat the game. If you’re gonna play like that, that’s cheating the game.”

“But,” Horry added, diplomatically, “scoring 83 points is still hard regardless if you cheat the game or not.”

Lakers star Kobe Bryant scores in front of Toronto’s Matt Bonner on his way to scoring 81 points during the Lakers’ 122-104 victory on Jan. 22, 2006.

(Matt A. Brown / Associated Press)

JJ Redick offered his most diplomatic two cents: “It’s incredible what he was able to do.”

The Lakers’ coach described walking in and seeing the Heat leading with three minutes left, on the verge of winning their sixth consecutive game and Adebayo on the free-throw line (naturally).

“I said to my coaching staff, ‘Ah, the Heat are rolling.’ And they kind of looked at each other and they were like, ‘Are you kidding right now? No, Bam has 77!’ I watched the last three minutes and … that was a different type of basketball.”

Adebayo scored 31 points in the first quarter, 12 in the second and 19 in the third — a legitimately impressive career-high 62 points, and in just three quarters. Precisely the same number of points that Kobe had after three quarters when coach Phil Jackson pulled him from a blowout win against Dallas a few weeks before he dropped 81.

But on Tuesday, Adebayo kept going, for no reason but to pad his points tally in pursuit of Kobe.

If only Adebayo, well respected by peers and fans alike, could’ve taken the baton from his basketball hero while playing regular old basketball. Lakers fans know ball; they wouldn’t have held it against him, they would have saluted.

Heat players celebrate with center Bam Adebayo after he scored 83 points, the second-highest single game total in NBA history, against the Wizards on Tuesday in Miami.

(Rebecca Blackwell / Associated Press)

But Adebayo shot 3 for 8 from the field in the final period, including 1 for 6 from three-point range. And he went 14 for 16 at the line in the final frame, bringing his free-throw shooting total to a historic 36 for 43 from the charity stripe, so aptly named this game.

There’s magic, and then there are magic tricks, manufactured illusions, sleight-of-hand acts of pseudo-sorcery. That’s how we should remember Adebayo’s 83. That’s how we should explain that game to our children and grandchildren.

It isn’t as though Kobe’s 81-point output wasn’t going to be eclipsed. It was only a matter of time, especially considering the offensive emphasis in today’s NBA.

In 2024, then-Maverick Luka Doncic scored 73 points in a 148-143 win against the Atlanta Hawks. But Doncic went just 15 of 16 from the free-throw line that night, and 25 for 33 from the field, including 8 of 13 from behind the arc.

Or imagine, going forward, what 7-foot-4 center Victor Wembanyama could be capable of if the San Antonio Spurs force-feed him offensively for a full game.

But records are made to be broken, not stolen. Heat coach Erik Spoelstra told reporters he was “caught up in the moment like everyone else, and I didn’t want to get in the way.”

Late Lakers owner Jerry Buss once described Kobe’s 81-point “like watching a miracle.”

Adebayo’s output felt more mechanical than ethereal. Artificial and impure, and achieved by doing something only slightly resembling basketball.

Lakers fans were right: Boo.

Travis Kelce is on his way back to the NFL for a 14th season, and it was reported Monday that his destination will be a return to the Kansas City Chiefs, the only team for which he has played.

The Chiefs don’t have as much money to spend in free agency as many other teams, but Kelce, 36, is expected to turn down more lucrative offers to stay with the Chiefs, NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport said.

The Chiefs have $23 million–$25 million in available salary cap space. The team created room after restructuring quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ contract, releasing veteran tackle Jawaan Taylor, and trading elite cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Rams.

Kelce, one of the most popular players in the NFL and a certain Hall of Famer, contemplated retirement after the 2025-26 season. The Chiefs cratered to a 6-11 record, losing their last six games and finishing a distant third in the AFC West behind the Denver Broncos and Chargers. They missed the playoffs for the first time since 2014.

Kelce admits to having lost a step, but he still finished with 76 receptions on 108 targets and 851 receiving yards. He was voted to the Pro Bowl for the 11th year in a row and moved up to eighth on the all-time receiving list. He has more career receptions (1,080) than any tight end besides Tony Gonzalez (1,325) and Jason Witten (1,228).

His decision to return for one more season followed weeks of discussion with Chiefs Coach Andy Reid, teammates, family and close confidantes — including his fiancé and music megastar Taylor Swift. Kelce co-hosts the popular “New Heights” podcast every Wednesday during the NFL season with his brother, former Philadelphia Eagles six-time All-Pro center Jason Kelce.

Kelce, who has made about $112 million in salary, is expected to take a pay cut and play the 2026-27 season for about $10 million. His two-year, $34.25 million contract extension expired after last season, making him a free agent.

“I just love this team,” Kelce said in January after the Chiefs’ last game. “I’m proud of the way we finished this, even though it ended the way it did. The guys still showed up and gave it their all. That’s all you can ask for, man. I’ve got so much love for this team, this organization and the people here.”

A week earlier, he admitted retirement had crossed his mind after the Chiefs’ last home game.

“A whole lot of emotions,” he told reporters. “You’ve got everybody in the world watching you. You get to go out there with the young guys on prime-time television. Young guys getting an opportunity to taste what this NFL life is like.”

Yet he also savored the moment, and hinted that he might enjoy the adulation of Chiefs fans a bit longer.

“You only get a few of those where you get to stand there and appreciate 70,000 Chiefs fans cheering for you,” he said. “I always embrace that moment.

“You feel the generations of happiness and the love [the fans] have. It’s a beautiful thing, man.”

“Pond rules” dictate that if an animal is hungry, the creature that’s about to become a meal should accept its fate. That’s the first lesson that Mabel (voiced by Piper Curda), an idealistic university student whose mind is transferred into the body of a robotic beaver, learns while interacting with wildlife as one of their own in Pixar’s inventive “Hoppers.” In typical human fashion (we love to meddle with nature), Mabel ends up breaking that directive by saving a “fellow” beaver, the slumberous Loaf (Eduardo Franco), attracting unwanted attention that leads her to a wacky group of characters who will transform her rigid young worldview.

For his second feature, Daniel Chong, best known for creating the popular “We Bare Bears” series for Cartoon Network, has unleashed a hilariously unexpected and outrageous crowd-pleaser with “Hoppers.” Recently, I bemoaned that a movie like Sony’s “Goat” stood as further proof that talking-animal animated films had mostly run their course. Chong and screenwriter Jesse Andrews swiftly push back on that read with this environmentalist tale in defense of people who stand up for something, even when it seems no one is willing to stand beside them.

“Hoppers” is Pixar by way of a creator, Chong, whose career isn’t exclusively tied to the studio. That’s likely why his movie is more daring in its humor and tone, bringing a refreshing infusion of mischief to Pixar while maintaining the genuine emotional gravitas that has endeared the company to audiences for over 30 years.

Why is Mabel’s psyche roaming around inside a fake beaver à la “Avatar”? After discovering that this technology has been developed by one of her professors, Mabel thinks it could be the answer to saving the local forest glade where self-aggrandizing mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) wants to build a highway. Mabel’s grandmother instilled in her an appreciation for nature as a reminder that she’s part of something greater than herself. Collecting signatures isn’t yielding results to stop construction, so, to the dismay of the scientists in charge, Mabel hops into the human-made mammal to learn from the creatures themselves why they’ve left the glade, giving Jerry carte blanche to destroy their home.

The poignancy-to-comedy ratio is precisely calibrated. Sharp gags, whether visual or in superbly timed lines of dialogue often laced with irony, work on multiple levels. A few moments like an accidental death or the wild introduction of an aquatic character are so wonderfully out of left field they make one’s head spin. That also goes for instances late in Mabel’s adventure in which “Hoppers” steps into amusingly creepy terrain, paying homage to the horror genre. These impish touches involve a wicked caterpillar (Dave Franco) whose mother, the Insect Queen, is voiced by acting royalty Meryl Streep. Each group of animals has its own ruler.

Since most scenes occur in the forest glade, the artists at Pixar have created strikingly rendered settings which, while aiming for photorealism, also have a fantastical glow to them, highlighting the inherent magic of nature. That such a seemingly commonplace location is elevated to feel mesmerizing speaks to how animation can make the mundane anew. That’s on top of how the rotund beavers in “Hoppers” have been conceived for maximum cuteness. One of them, Mabel’s guide through this ecosystem, is the disarmingly adorable King George (Bobby Moynihan), who wears a tiny crown (Where did he get it? No one knows) and rules over all mammals with a gentle hand.

Mabel’s friendship with King George, who doesn’t know she is human, becomes the movie’s heartstring-pulling core. The jovial royal believes he can persuade Jerry to change course. Mabel, conversely, doesn’t think Jerry will listen. Her cynicism and King George’s sincere faith in others clash. Among Mabel’s non-furry pals, Tom Lizard (Tom Law) becomes a scene-stealer. (The crazy-eyed, eloquent reptile first became an online sensation as part of a post-credits scene in “Elio.”)

Chong and his team include a minuscule but brilliant detail that illustrates how character design can have major narrative impact: When the animals are speaking among themselves, their eyes are large and expressive, full of life. But when the film takes the perspective of a human looking at the forest dwellers, their eyes appear small and dark, almost nondescript. It’s a subtly visual symbol for how we often fail to gaze at others with understanding.

There are many heavy hitters still to come, but “Hoppers” feels like the first great animated movie of the year. At a time when our right to protest is under siege, this sci-fi yarn exalts the way an individual’s conviction can plant seeds of change, leading to a stronger sense of community. Neither simplistically optimistic nor preachy, “Hoppers” smuggles timely ideas inside a rodent body. Pond rules would probably call that a beaver victory.

Many of us go into the mountains to think and practice gratitude.

For the hundreds of thousands of Muslims across Los Angeles County observing Ramadan this month, spending time in nature can offer an opportunity for quiet reflection and growth.

“This sacred month provides an opportunity to merge the spiritual with the physical, finding solace and inspiration in nature,” nonprofit Muslim Outdoor Adventures notes. “Through mindful hiking, we aim to embrace the challenges of staying active during Ramadan, using the trails as a space for reflection and collective growth.”

Ramadan is considered the holiest month of the Islamic calendar. The holiday typically lasts 29 or 30 days, and during that time, Muslims will fast from sunup to sundown, including not drinking water. This excludes those who are exempt from fasting or not observing the holiday.

This year’s Ramadan started in mid-February and will end around March 19. (The Islamic calendar is based on lunar events, so Ramadan’s start and end dates vary from year to year.)

For fasting hikers, it’s important to ensure you plan accordingly, given your limited daily water and food intake.

Nadiim Domun, materials engineer at INOV8, said in a blog post that fasting hikers should plan ahead, and if they feel up to it, plan to break their fast at the top of a hill, taking their time to arrive at sunset. “On some days you’ll feel better than others. Be kind to yourself and only go hiking on days when your body feels up to it,” Domun said.

Below you’ll find three hikes and walks in places open after sunset. If observing the holiday, may your fasting be easy. Happy Ramadan!

A view of the Griffith Observatory with downtown Los Angeles in the background.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

1. Crystal Springs – Atwater Park in Griffith Park

Distance: 2.7 miles
Elevation gained: 130 feet
Difficulty: Easy
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Los Angeles River Bike Path

The Crystal Springs – Atwater Park route is a 2.7-mile easy stroll through the southeast side of Griffith Park that includes a quick side trip over the L.A. River.

Griffith Park is open from 5 a.m. to 10:30 p.m., although you’ll want to mind where you park, as some areas are open only until sunset.

To begin, you’ll take the wide dirt Main Trail north for just over half a mile before reaching a tunnel. Congrats! You’ve just completed the hilliest portion of this hike. It’s time to turn on that headlamp as you take the tunnel beneath the 5 Freeway, marveling at the wonders of human ingenuity.

Next, you’ll head over to the North Atwater Bridge, or La Kretz Bridge, an impressive modern design you’ve probably noticed from your car in gridlock traffic.

The North Atwater Bridge, or La Kretz Bridge, over the L.A. River.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

The route next takes you to North Atwater Park. This area was separated from the rest of the park when the 5 Freeway was built in the late 1950s, resulting in 200 “prime acres of parkland” being destroyed, according to Friends of Griffith Park. Perhaps you’ll notice the squawk or chirp of birds settling in for the night.

From here, the path loops around the area for about a third of a mile before taking you back to the bridge. You’ll pass a corral and interpretive signs, among other things.

After crossing back over the bridge and under the tunnel (headlamp!), you’ll have a clear view of Beacon Hill, another great hiking destination in the park that offers stunning views of downtown L.A. You will head north again on the Main Trail, walking parallel to the 5. Hopefully the sound of the freeway is blocked by the lush trees that line the path.

You’ll take the Main Trail for about a third of a mile. At 1½ miles in your hike, you’ll bear left (or west), passing the Anza Trail Native Garden, planted by volunteers using seeds harvested from the park.

You’ll loop southwest around the path, passing the golf course and a baseball field before arriving at the newly renovated Griffith Park Visitor Center, open daily from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. (It also has restrooms!)

From the visitor center, you’ll head east along a dirt path before looping back up with the Main Trail, which you’ll take south back to your car.

If you’d like something a little more challenging, you can peruse the Griffith Park Explorer route options. One of my favorites is the Five Points – Beacon Hill loop.

And if you’d like to go with a group, L.A. City Department of Recreation and Parks’ junior ecologist Ryan Kinzel and Emerson College professor Jacob Lang are hosting a free night hike through Griffith Park this Thursday.

So grab your headlamp, and have a great time!

Louisa McHugh, of San Pedro, jogs at Cabrillo Beach.

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

2. Beach path at Cabrillo Beach

Distance: 1.6 miles
Elevation gained: Minimal
Difficulty: Easy
Dogs allowed? No
Accessible alternative: The route below is a paved flat path.

This 1.6-mile beach walk is a gentle stroll along the mile-long Cabrillo Beach, where during the day you might spot kite surfers, barges and Catalina Island in the near distance.

To begin, start your walk in the northeast corner of the parking lot where the sidewalk begins. Walk south down the sidewalk, unless you’d like to walk on the sandy beach instead. Near the Cabrillo Beach Bath House, the path will curve east. You’ll continue east along the jetty until you reach the Cabrillo Beach Pier, where you might spot people fishing. You can pause to take in the views for as long as you’d like before heading back.

Although there are many beach walk options in Southern California, the reason I’m recommending Cabrillo Beach is because it’s a great place to observe grunion runs. At night, these small silvery fish come completely out of the water to lay their eggs in the wet sand, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Beachgoers witness an unusual fish spawning ritual known as a grunion run on Cabrillo Beach in San Pedro.

(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)

“Grunion make these excursions only on particular nights and with such regularity that the time of their arrival on the beach can be predicted a year in advance,” according to the agency.

Depending on how late you’d like to stay up, you can take a beach walk and stay for the grunions, which are expected to arrive at 10:25 p.m. Thursday and 10:50 p.m. Friday.

Hikers walk down a path at Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

3. Gwen Moore Lake to Western Ridgeline in Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area

Distance: Around 2½ miles
Elevation gained: About 300 feet
Difficulty: Moderate
Dogs allowed? Yes
Accessible alternative: Gwen Moore Lake path

This 2½-mile journey through Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area will take you past a charming lake and will gain just enough elevation to provide you with striking views of the city. It is more challenging than the other two paths, so please plan accordingly. (And pack that headlamp!)

Kenneth Hahn State Recreation Area is open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. The park is around 330 acres and includes the stunning Baldwin Hills Scenic Overlook, which thousands access every year via a straight staircase with 282 steps.

Upon arriving at the park, you’ll pay $10 to park. Ask the staff member at the toll booth whether they have a map, as it’s great to have one on hand as you hike. For this hike, I’d recommend parking near the Gwen Moore Lake if you can.

To begin the hike, you’ll start at Gwen Moore Lake. You can either take the paved path that takes you along the western side of the lake or the straight paved path on the eastern side of the lake. It will take you due south.

About a third of a mile in, you’ll walk east past the Kenneth Hahn Visitor Center before quickly joining with the Park to Playa Regional Trail, a 13-mile path that guides hikers from near Windsor Hills to the ocean (near Ballona Creek). That’s an adventure for another day!

You’ll take Park to Playa, a short jaunt, bearing left (northwest) toward a large green space to join the Bowl Loop Trail, or on some maps, Park to Playa Alternate. Follow this path in the northerly direction until it jags left where you’ll join the Western Ridgeline Trail (or Park to Playa Alternate, depending on your map). From here, say hello to beautiful views of the city!

You will next take Diane’s Trail (who is she?) just over half a mile before heading down via the Forest Trail. Pause along the way to appreciate more gorgeous views of the city, including of downtown L.A.

Head south past the Japanese garden, and then take the paved road from the Japanese garden back to where you parked, hopefully near the lake.

3 things to do

During a previous Dana Point Festival of Whales, guests attend a sacred ceremony given by the Acjachemen Nation and observe the Dana Point Surf Club as their members paddle out to welcome the whales to Dana Point’s shores.

(Dana Point Harbor)

1. Whale-come the cetaceans in Dana Point
The 55th Annual Dana Point Festival of the Whales, which celebrates gray whale migration, is scheduled for Friday through Sunday in Dana Point Harbor. Visitors can attend the “Welcoming of the Whales” ceremony at 4:30 p.m. Friday at the Ocean Institute, or on Saturday, observe the cardboard boat race, learn at the marine mammal lecture series or chow down at the clam chowder cookout. On Sunday, attendees will pick up trash at 9 a.m. near at the Richard Henry Dana Jr. statue before attending a concert from noon to 5 p.m. performed from a floating dock. Learn more at festivalofwhales.com.

2. Stand up for public lands in Ventura
Environmental advocacy groups Los Padres ForestWatch and Climate First: Replacing Oil & Gas will host a hike at 11 a.m. Sunday through the Harmon Canyon Preserve in Ventura. Group leaders will educate hikers on the Trump administration’s proposal to open 850,000 acres, including about 400,000 acres across Central California, to oil and gas drilling. After the hike, participants are invited to make posters to spread awareness of the threat to public lands. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Kick back with a kite in Redondo Beach
The 52nd Annual Redondo Pier Kite Festival will take place from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday at the Redondo Beach Pier (100 Fishermans Wharf). This free community event will feature live music, face painting and a kite flying contest. Kites will be available for purchase on the pier while supplies last. Guests can also bring their own kites. Learn more at redondopier.com.

The must-read

Visitors take the chair lifts at the Mt. Baldy Resort.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

The ski world is becoming increasingly owned by large corporate chains, but small shops like the Mt. Baldy Resort continue to hang on. Times staff writer Jack Dolan wrote about how Mt. Baldy Resort, just over an hour from downtown L.A., works hard to remain competitive. The resort offers a quick escape for Angelenos who want to ski and appreciate “the wide expanse of the Inland Empire stretched to the Pacific Ocean nearly two vertical miles below,” Dolan wrote. Many of its guests find its old-school style more welcoming than the ritzy lodges in Taos and Tahoe. “There’s big conglomerates trying to buy everybody up, and I don’t want that,” said Chris Caron, a 65-year-old retiree who lives 20 minutes down the road from Mt. Baldy Resort. “That’s what I love about here. It’s not so commercialized.”

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

Porkchop is free! A month ago, I featured a story by Times staff writer Lila Seidman, introducing Wild readers to Porkchop, a three-flippered sea turtle who was being rehabilitated by the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. “Many Angelenos don’t know Eastern Pacific green sea turtles are swimming in their proverbial backyard, but they are — and they’re thriving,” Seidman wrote. “It’s estimated that about 100 of the hulking-yet-graceful animals live in the lower stretch of the San Gabriel River, where salt and freshwater commingle.” And thankfully, it’s now about 101, as Porkchop was released back into the wild on Friday. I’m not crying, you’re crying!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

Los Angeles has a secret magic to which you have to earn access, and the way you earn it is by making it, becoming a contributor to the city’s misapprehended culture of spectacle and soul, diversity and monolithic elitism. It’s a get-in-where-you-fit-in or get-edged-all-the-way-out kind of city, wherein a deceptively laissez-faire game of musical chairs can determine your fate. Kahlil Joseph has a private magic to which you have to earn access, and you earn it by resonating with the untapped nerve centers of Black culture that animate this city, and even then you might be denied.

Joseph is like the city (Los Angeles, not Hollywood), and the city enforces confidentiality, drive, wit, style and devotion often mistaken for diva-ism. The filmmaker and video artist moved to Los Angeles from Seattle for university, and was quickly followed by his brother, the painter Noah Davis, who would found the Underground Museum, a venue and near-speakeasy with West Coast casual gravitas and pan-African rigor and breadth, which became as important to the zeitgeist of Black Los Angeles as both brothers have.

Movie still from Kahlil Joseph’s film “Blknws: Terms & Conditions.” Funmilayo Akechukwu (Kaneza Schaal) channels a 93-year-old W.E.B Dubois, 200 years in the past.

(Courtesy Rich Spirit / BLKNWS©)

In somewhat rapid succession, Joseph lost his father, Keven Davis, an accomplished attorney who represented the likes of the Williams sisters and Wynton Marsalis, in 2012, and his brother Noah in 2015. Joseph navigated those years in the wake with unadorned reverence, while starting a family of his own and directing some of the most transcendent music videos of the 2010s. As testament to his resilience and that of the community around him, grief sharpened Joseph’s purpose and became a kind of grace he transmuted into moving images so saturated with feeling, sans easy pathos, they offered new ways of seeing. The stakes were higher and layered with the existential absurdity of abrupt shifts, which he carried with an elegant, slightly seething temperament that has found its expression in the work. It’s relevant that he shares a birthday with Miles Davis — this is Los Angeles, where it’s customary for a person to request your cosmic DNA before asking your name — and it’s relevant that like Miles, Joseph’s vocal tone is whisper-pitched, toward the mode of retreat that begets echo; you lean in and hear him twice. His quiet tone is not shyness or false modesty but circumspection and a sense of boundaries that imply respect and love for real communication. You sense this in his work ethic and what it produces, an intimacy of form that implies an almost ritualistic attentiveness to the world around him on its own terms. In the 2012 Flying Lotus music video “Until the Quiet Comes,” directed by Joseph and set in Los Angeles, death and rebirth are addressed as a duet, companions in the expansion of collective consciousness instead of foils or adversaries, as a fallen child leaves his body and returns more alive than before he was bloodied on screen. And the violent scenes aren’t grotesque or didactic — think of Miles’ muted trumpet sound reconfigured as resurrection visuals, of his ability to play and stage ballads so well that their uptempo momentum moves into territories too macabre to mute. Like Miles, Joseph tests and stretches his range.

With the closure of the family-run Underground Museum, first in 2020 and then officially in 2022, the path uptempo was visited by more obstacles and disappointments, a shift, if temporary, in Joseph’s role in the local community, as he became more private and distant from public elegy. On the phone recently, Joseph and I discussed the trauma economy, how much of a trap it is for Black art and artists, especially in this post-BLM, post-Obama, post-neoliberal dominance, post-nonprofit industrial complex dominance territory we’re all in now, whether we face it or not. As antidote and balm to the market for repackaged abjection, Joseph adapted the sensibility that makes his music video landscapes so lush and transgressive for the art world with “Blknws,” which debuted in 2019 as an imagined syndication or television network, a nonlinear merger of digitized Black archival material pulled from the center to the margins and the radical academic avant-garde — an infinitely looping ensemble wherein Fred Moten enters into conversation with memes of ghetto-fabulous street gymnasts doing backflips into a fried chicken spot, for example, collapsing so-called high and low into an endless woodshed for an impossible concert.

The result was so compelling that the project was commissioned by A24 as a feature film sans script, then purchased from them by Rich Spirit and released last year as “Blknws: Terms & Conditions.” In this longer and more structured form, what began as an intentional scattering of ashes becomes an elegiac letter home mediated by shipwreck. Joseph weaves together an imaginary “Transatlantic Biennial” and W.E.B. Dubois’ “Encyclopedia Africana” — a project that Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Kwame Anthony Appiah transformed into a book, which Joseph’s father had given his brother before they passed. In this way, the film becomes a manifesto for alternate destinies within the Black experience, and a semi-formal goodbye letter to the delusional but politically expedient optimism of the 2010s, wherein the end of the neoliberal order becomes a gateway to renewed self-possession and agency. Since our grief is less of a ready-made commodity lately, we can reorient it around ourselves, a little safer and more sovereign from the gnawing public gaze. And we can be more honest about its paces and paths in that more autonomous landscape. “Blknws” arrives how a successful jazz album does, belligerently inconclusive about the next stylistic leaps the music might make but clearly in the process of launching in that unknown or unspeakable (perhaps secret) direction. The film is agitation made vivid and precise in the dialectic between theorized “Black Study” and practical applications of Black marronage, where we realize that big disembodied ideas are no more sophisticated than what can be danced and gestured at and spoken in our real and virtual conversations. Here, the multiverse becomes one transcendental, transatlantic consciousness where past and present, life and afterlife, blur the way they do in Joseph’s interpretation of “Until The Quiet Comes” to give us a film with a song-like hook and an album’s non-sequitur whimsy.

Movie still from Kahlil Joseph’s film “Blknws: Terms & Conditions.” The underwater study of Funmilayo Akechukwu (Kaneza Schaal) located in the hold of the ship.

(Courtesy Rich Spirit / BLKNWS©)

Over the last several months, I’ve discussed with Joseph what might become of the momentum propelling “Blknws: Terms & Conditions,” after the film’s run, as speculators enclose searching for clues and stake in his next project. He’s considered its potential evolution into a media company, a real paper, a production house, a series of related films, or a hybrid of all of these endeavors. Alongside his experience on all sides of the art world, he has an acute awareness of the wayward state of print and digital culture, writing and production, the constant closure or downsizing of veteran media outlets, the aftermath of diversity fever in the form of shrinking major magazines often starting with those who cover culture explicitly, the mass turn toward brand-name digital platforms that become extractive monopolies and diminish what can be covered and produced as writers and artists are overworked, understaffed and undervalued. Galleries are also closing and downsizing, and films that don’t oblige the content farm aren’t solicited as readily as influencer-helmed or easily digestible projects that can be played as background noise for scrolling.

After a screening last December of “Blknws: Terms & Conditions” at 2220 Arts + Archives, a space I co-curate, the rapt audience of local cinephiles seemed eager for some magic-bullet insight into Joseph’s path to creative breakthrough and relative creative freedom. Rather than hacks and shortcuts, he shouted out collaborators and inspirations — Wales Bonner, who hand-stitched garments for the film’s Ghana-based scenes; British composer Klein, who helped score the film; Joseph’s time in Brazil, where his father was from and where he went to high school. Sensibility and natural eclecticism, rather than unchecked ambition, is what propels Joseph; he has an innate knack for assembling bands and ensembles, good taste and good timing.

Kahlil Joseph with friends at the screening of “Blknws: Terms & Conditions.”

“I found the encyclopedia at the Underground,” he explains, of the DuBois work that became central to “Blknws.” “It seemed no one had looked through it, as if my dad and brother left it for me in the future.” And instead of ruminating on the weight of that inheritance, he integrates it into his film, whose refrain-as-question is do you remember the future? As if his father and brother are awake in some scenes, asking him to remember. Another resurrection. “I just want to make films,” Joseph reaffirms as a personal coda when the questions get too meta or abstract, never conflating the material conditions of the craft with the magical thinking that can unfold in scripts and on screen. Most everyone in attendance at 2220 seemed to be there to meet or support one of their favorite artists, one of the devout purists of our time who manages to remain that without getting smug, lazy or feral, all common pitfalls.

Last October, I gave Joseph a copy of Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast,” which I’d just finished reading myself for the first time. I was impressed to the point of restlessness with the authority of Hemingway’s memory, his recall; it’s one of those books you wanna throw at the wall and absorb word for word at the same time. Hemingway seemed to effortlessly savor and store every detail of his days, while remaining agile and present enough within them to focus on writing one true thing after another, in his daily sessions at the typewriter, as if possessing two coterminal minds and the capacity to access or silence both at will. A juggler too advanced for the circus, language’s great folk hero. Joseph is kind of like this, capable of intense simultaneous focus on both creative and mundane tasks without complaint, and he took to the book as I expected he might, sharing my sense of awe over the writer’s command of time and scene. They are both among the artists who have a polite way of making those around them feel like a team and want to work a little harder and little less aggressively (more communally) at the same time. Editors at his post-production studio have come from all over the country to work with him based on that leadership.

Joseph’s next feature, he suggests, will certainly be more narrative, more of a linear beginning-middle-end story, more Hemingway-esque in its commitments to the blunt daily reality that “Blknws” blurs with Black myth. He and his family have sacrificed unquantifiably in effort to defy stale archetypes and outdated patterns of art practice, and it might be his time or turn to be reciprocated for having endured those risks, time to give his family unequivocal and vivid afterlives on and off screen.

There were tears (and cheers) for Catherine O’Hara. Rhea Seehorn explained “Pluribus,” or at least tried to. Harrison Ford was celebrated at the “half-point of his career.” And, because the show’s on Netflix, there were a few well-placed F-bombs, not including the swears muttered by the actors who didn’t win.

The 32nd Actor Awards — or the very first Actor Awards, since for the previous 31 years this ceremony has been known as the Screen Actors Guild Awards — went off without a hitch Sunday, and ended with a bang, scrambling a best picture race that felt settled after “One Battle After Another” won the top prize at the Producers Guild Awards on Saturday.

There were TV awards presented too. But we pay attention to the Actor Awards because the show takes place while Oscar ballots are out and are, for the most part, a reliable precursor to the Academy Awards. How trustworthy will they be for the acting winners this year? Let’s take a look.

Cast in a motion picture

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Winner: “Sinners”

The past: The winner of this award has gone on to take the best picture Oscar in 15 of 30 years, making it basically a coin flip and easily the Actor Awards’ least trustworthy Oscar precursor. (The ensemble prize wasn’t awarded in 1994, the ceremony’s first year.) Oscar also-ran “Conclave” won last year, ending a three-year streak — “CODA,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Oppenheimer” — where the winner of the cast prize went on to take best picture.

Will history repeat itself? If “Sinners” had simply taken this award and nothing else, I would say “One Battle After Another” would still be the overwhelming favorite to win the best picture Oscar. But snagging this prize and Michael B. Jordan winning lead actor gives one pause, doesn’t it? Again, the cast award is not a reliable best picture precursor. A Ryan Coogler movie (“Black Panther”) won in 2019, but lost the Oscar to “Green Book.” And while “Sinners” did haul in a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations, “One Battle” wasn’t far behind with 13, just one shy of the previous record. It’s easy to get carried away with the way the room exploded when Samuel L. Jackson announced the winner, but “One Battle’s” Producers Guild win carries more weight. I’ll need a couple of days to sit with this.

Female actor in a leading role

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Winner: Jessie Buckley, “Hamnet”

The past: SAG and the academy have matched 21 of 31 years. The last two years have seen the groups split, with Emma Stone (“Poor Things”) winning her second Oscar over SAG winner Lily Gladstone (“Killers of the Flower Moon”) in 2024 and Mikey Madison prevailing for “Anora” over Demi Moore, who won over SAG-AFTRA voters and earned a huge standing ovation when she took the stage for her gonzo comeback turn in the body horror movie “The Substance.”

Will history repeat itself? Buckley has been a lock for the lead actress Oscar since “Hamnet” premiered in September at the Telluride Film Festival, her searching, searing turn as the film’s grieving mother producing the kind of visceral reaction that guts audiences and wins awards. And, boy, has she won awards these last few months, taking pretty much everything save for the major critics groups. The naysayers decried the acting as overripe, sniffing instead of sniffling. Monsters. There’s no denying Buckley goes big with her emotions here, but the magic in her work also can be seen in a much-used still photo from “Hamnet,” the one where she’s resting her elbows on the Old Globe stage, hands clasped, face transfixed, heart opened. You know the shot. And you’re probably getting a little verklempt just thinking about it.

Male actor in a leading role

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Winner: Michael B. Jordan, “Sinners”

The past: This category has been the most reliable indicator of Oscar victory, with SAG and the academy matching 24 of 31 times. There are exceptions, though, such as just last year when Adrien Brody won the Oscar for “The Brutalist,” prevailing over SAG winner Chalamet (“A Complete Unknown”).

Will history repeat itself? Entering the month of February, it looked like Timothée Chalamet was a shoo-in for playing a talented, self-promoting ping-pong player in “Marty Supreme.” In fact, some know-it-all called this race more or less over just a week ago. (That was me.) Chalamet could still win. Maybe SAG-AFTRA voters didn’t want to give him the award again, just a year after they honored him for his lead turn in “A Complete Unknown.” Maybe SAG-AFTRA voters felt he was a bit, shall we say … “brash” in the way he marketed the movie and needed to be taken down a peg.

So now, entering March, it’s looking like “Marty Supreme” could be this year’s version of “The Irishman,” a film that earns a lot of nominations (in this case, nine) and comes away with nothing.

Meanwhile, Jordan’s big swing movie star turn in “Sinners,” playing twin brothers Smoke and Stack, was the best work of his career. That scream that Viola Davis let out when she opened the envelope spoke to the enthusiasm in the room both for the actor and the film. Momentum definitely seems to be on Jordan’s side right now.

Female actor in a supporting role

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Winner: Amy Madigan, “Weapons”

The past: The Actor Award winner has gone on to take an Oscar 23 of 31 times, including last year, when Zoe Saldaña won for “Emilia Pérez,” one of countless prizes she won that season. (Note: One of those 23 winners, “The Reader’s” Kate Winslet, was nominated for — and won — the 2009 Oscar for lead actress for that performance.)

Will history repeat itself? Who knows? This category has been all over the place, but as Madigan said in her speech, she’s been doing this a “long ass time” and there’s a lot of love for this 75-year-old acting great. Teyana Taylor (“One Battle After Another”) took the Golden Globe, and Wunmi Mosaku (“Sinners”) won at the British Academy Film Awards. And the “they’re due” narrative doesn’t always play at the Oscars. (Just ask Demi Moore or Glenn Close.) Will a “One Battle” sweep carry both Taylor and Sean Penn? Or is there room for an outlier? It’s tempting to lean toward Madigan.

Male actor in a supporting role

Winner: Sean Penn, “One Battle After Another”

The past: The SAG winner has gone on to win the Oscar 22 times in 31 years, including the last dozen, the longest streak of any category.

Will history repeat itself? Penn did not attend the Actor Awards, the only thing less surprising than this win. Coming on the heels of taking the supporting actor prize from BAFTA last weekend (Penn didn’t go to that ceremony either), it’s looking likely now that Penn will win his third Oscar. He’s barely campaigned and remains a divisive figure. But his menacing turn as the outrageous Col. Steven J. Lockjaw, a man given to zealotry and tight T-shirts, is the best work he has done in years. Will he go to the Oscars, if only to collect the trophy so he can give another statue to Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky? We’ll soon see.

Donald Trump has never been one to play by the rules.

Whether it’s stiffing contractors as a real estate developer, defying court orders he doesn’t like as president or leveraging the Oval Office to vastly inflate his family’s fortune, Trump’s guiding principle can be distilled to a simple, unswerving calculation: What’s in it for me?

Trump is no student of history. He’s famously allergic to books. But he knows enough to know that midterm elections like the one in November have, with few exceptions, been ugly for the party holding the presidency.

With control of the House — and Trump’s virtually unchecked authority — dangling by a gossamer thread, he reckoned correctly that Republicans were all but certain to lose power this fall unless something unusual happened.

So he effectively broke the rules.

Normally, the redrawing of the country’s congressional districts takes place once every 10 years, following the census and accounting for population changes over the previous decade. Instead, Trump prevailed upon the Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, to throw out the state’s political map and refashion congressional lines to wipe out Democrats and boost GOP chances of winning as many as five additional House seats.

The intention was to create a bit of breathing room, as Democrats need a gain of just three seats to seize control of the House.

In relatively short order, California’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, responded with his own partisan gerrymander. He rallied voters to pass a tit-for-tat ballot measure, Proposition 50, which revised the state’s political map to wipe out Republicans and boost Democratic prospects of winning as many as five additional seats.

Then came the deluge.

In more than a dozen states, lawmakers looked at ways to tinker with their congressional maps to lift their candidates, stick it to the other party and gain House seats in November.

Some of those efforts continue, including in Virginia where, as in California, voters are being asked to amend the state Constitution to let majority Democrats redraw political lines ahead of the midterm. A special election is set for April 21.

But as the first ballots of 2026 are cast on Tuesday — in Arkansas, North Carolina and Texas — the broad contours of the House map have become clearer, along with the result of all those partisan machinations. The likely upshot is a nationwide partisan shift of fewer than a handful of seats.

The independent, nonpartisan Cook Political Report, which has a sterling decades-long record of election forecasting, said the most probable outcome is a wash. “At the end of the day,” said Erin Covey, who analyzes House races for the Cook Report, “this doesn’t really benefit either party in a real way.”

Well.

That was a lot of wasted time and energy.

Let’s take a quick spin through the map and the math, knowing that, of course, there are no election guarantees.

In Texas, for instance, new House districts were drawn assuming Latinos would back Republican candidates by the same large percentage they supported Trump in 2024. But that’s become much less certain, given the backlash against his draconian immigration enforcement policies; numerous polls show a significant falloff in Latino support for the president, which could hurt GOP candidates up and down the ballot.

But suppose Texas Republicans gain five seats as hoped for and California Democrats pick up the five seats they’ve hand-crafted. The result would be no net change.

Elsewhere, under the best case for each party, a gain of four Democratic House seats in Virginia would be offset by a gain of four Republican House seats in Florida.

That leaves a smattering of partisan gains here and there. A combined pickup of four or so Republican seats in Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri could be mostly offset by Democratic gains of a seat apiece in New York, Maryland and Utah.

(The latter is not a result of legislative high jinks, but rather a judge throwing out the gerrymandered map passed by Utah Republicans, who ignored a voter-approved ballot measure intended to prevent such heavy-handed partisanship. A newly created district, contained entirely within Democratic-leaning Salt Lake County, seems certain to go Democrats’ way in November.)

In short, it’s easy to characterize the political exertions of Trump, Abbott, Newsom and others as so much sound and fury producing, at bottom, little to nothing.

But that’s not necessarily so.

The campaign surrounding Proposition 50 delivered a huge political boost to Newsom, shoring up his standing with Democrats, significantly raising his profile across the country and, not least for his 2028 presidential hopes, helping the governor build a significant nationwide fundraising base.

In crimson-colored Indiana, Republicans refused to buckle under tremendous pressure from Trump, Vice President JD Vance and other party leaders, rejecting an effort to redraw the state’s congressional map and give the GOP a hold on all nine House seats. That showed even Trump’s Svengali-like hold on his party has its limits.

But the biggest impact is also the most corrosive.

By redrawing political lines to predetermine the outcome of House races, politicians rendered many of their voters irrelevant and obsolete. Millions of Democrats in Texas, Republicans in California and partisans in other states have been effectively disenfranchised, their voices rendered mute. Their ballots spindled and nullified.

In short, the politicians — starting with Trump — extended a big middle finger to a large portion of the American electorate.

Is it any wonder, then, so many voters hold politicians and our political system in contempt?

Final Oscar voting began yesterday. How many of the nominated movies have you seen? Are you doing your due diligence in all the categories before the March 15 ceremony or, given the summer weather outside your window, might the mountains be calling?

I’m Glenn Whipp, columnist for the Los Angeles Times and host of The Envelope newsletter. It’s never too early for flip-flops, is it?

Testing out a new mandate

To vote for the Oscars, you have to watch all the nominated movies.

This may seem obvious. But until this year, the motion picture academy operated entirely on the honor system, strongly encouraging members to see everything before voting.

Now voters have to show their work — up to a point.

This year, academy members are required to certify through the group’s screening room portal that they have viewed all nominated films in each category to be eligible to vote in that category. Since nominations were announced in January, the academy has been emailing voters with updates on their progress, indicating where they’re cleared to vote and where they still have work to do.

One wrinkle, and it’s not a small one: Members can simply check a box indicating that they’ve watched a movie outside the academy’s platform. Perhaps they saw it at a festival, on a streaming platform other than the portal or the place God intended films to be seen — a movie theater.

Whether they actually did watch the movies is left to the honesty of the voter. It’s still an honor system, and members do not need to show movie stubs, tickets or receipts.

Talking with academy members, there seems to be a little wiggle room when it comes to having a clear conscience.

Take the voter who loved Ethan Hawke‘s lead turn as legendary lyricist Lorenz Hart in “Blue Moon,” but hated “Marty Supreme,” turning it off 20 minutes after starting it. Since the academy’s screening room counts a movie as watched only if it’s viewed in its entirety, this voter told me they planned on restarting “Marty Supreme” one night and running it on mute so he could vote in the lead actor category.

“I’d seen enough,” he said. “Watching [Timothée] Chalamet play another pingpong tournament wouldn’t make me change my mind.”

Other academy members told me they were OK marking the “watched” box next to a movie they hadn’t seen, provided they had viewed four of the category’s other nominees. By and large though, they were the outliers. Most voters said they were happy to abstain from voting in a category in which they hadn’t watched all the nominated work. (As academy members may not publicly state voting decisions or preferences, voters spoke on the condition of anonymity.)

“I don’t need to see another ‘Avatar’ movie,” a producers branch member said. “So I’m fine not voting for visual effects or costume design this year. Life is short.”

“I like the idea that I can abstain from categories without any guilt,” an Oscar-nominated writer noted, adding that she thought the new system has been “helpful, reminding me to watch things.”

To that effect, academy members have been receiving a flurry of emails and texts that would give off Big Brother vibes if it didn’t simply boil down to an admonition to watch “Frankenstein” so they could vote in the nine categories where Guillermo del Toro’s monster movie is nominated.

It really isn’t that big an ask, as in recent years the Oscars have become increasingly dominated by a smaller number of movies vacuuming up a greater share of the nominations. This year, the five movies earning the most recognition — “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another,” “Marty Supreme,” “Frankenstein” and “Hamnet” — hauled in 56 nominations.

If an Oscar voter viewed the 10 best picture nominees, they’d be eligible to mark their ballots in best picture and eight other categories — supporting actor, adapted screenplay, casting, cinematography, film editing, production design and original score. Add Hawke’s “Blue Moon” and that opens up lead actor. Make it a double feature with “It Was Just an Accident” and original screenplay becomes available.

“You don’t really need to be much more than a casual moviegoer to knock out most of your ballot,” an actors branch member told me, “except for things like animation and documentaries and the shorts. I don’t know how many people watch all of those.”

Nobody does, save for the PricewaterhouseCoopers accountants counting the ballots. The question vexing both voters and the awards consultants paid to persuade them is how this new, formalized voting will affect the results. As Oscar winners are sometimes the movies that are the most-watched, might requiring voters to see all the nominated work boost less-publicized efforts?

“If ‘Sirât’ wins sound over ‘F1,’ then I think it’s a new ballgame,” one veteran campaigner said. “Right now, though, nobody knows.”

We will soon. In the meantime, with Oscar voting running through Thursday, some academy members tell me their weekend is booked.

“Three nights, three movies,” one voter said. “And then I’m watching ‘Bridgerton.’”

There’s a new team with plenty of quality young players to get excited about in high school basketball.

Bishop Amat (28-5), led by sophomore Aiden Shaw and freshman Omar Cox-Labomme, put together a near-perfect performance on Saturday at Toyota Arena in a 71-48 victory over Hesperia to win the Southern Section Division 2 championship for coach Brandon Ertle, the team’s first title since 2002.

Shaw made nine of 11 shots, had four assists, three blocks and five steals while finishing with 20 points. Cox-Labomme made three three-pointers and had 16 points. For players 16 and 15 years old, respectively, to deliver with poise and confidence on such a big stage speaks to a bright future.

“They didn’t seem like they are a freshman and sophomore since the first game of the season,” Ertle said. “Not nervous or afraid of the moment. I think these are pretty good players.”

The Lancers also did a good job containing Hesperia’s 6-foot-7 Nolan Newman-Gomez, who finished with 17 points.

Murrieta Mesa 65, Aliso Niguel 58: Jagger Saul scored 18 points to help Murrieta Mesa win the Southern Section Division 3 title. Jayden Mysin had 18 points for Aliso Niguel.

Verdugo Hills 62, RFK 40: The Dons won the City Section Division III championship. Alex Kasumyan scored 13 points and Jordan Vargas added 12 points.

Rialto 59, Salesian 31: Lionel Madrid scored 16 points and Wayne Johnson had 14 points for Rialto in the Division 7 final.

Colton 55, San Bernardino Pacific 42: Andres Elenes scored 23 points for Colton in the Division 9 final.

Girls’ basketball

Sierra Vista 52, Desert Hot Springs 42: Cailei Buna finished with 19 points, making nine of 10 free throws, in the Southern Section Division 9 final.

Bishop Diego 42, Burbank Burroughs 41: Eden Synne finished with 16 points for Bishop Diego in the Division 5 final. Burroughs had a chance to tie in the final second but a free throw was missed.

DENVER — Renee Good loved sparkles and laughter and any excuse for a celebration. She loved pretty much everyone she met, and was late for pretty much everything.

“She had this way of making you feel special and loved that I didn’t even understand … until we lost her,” Donna Ganger said Friday of her daughter, who was shot and killed by an immigration officer during the federal crackdown in Minneapolis.

She was “slow to anger, quick to love, quick to care,” said her father, Tim Ganger. “That’s the essence of who she was.”

Good, a 37-year-old mother of three, was killed Jan. 7 as immigration agents surged through the Minneapolis area, sparking waves of protests. Her death and that of another U.S. citizen, Alex Pretti, weeks later in Minneapolis sparked outrage across the country and calls to rein in immigration enforcement.

In a wide-ranging interview in Colorado, where some of the family lives, Good’s parents and two of her brothers, Brent and Luke Ganger, talked to the AP about the joy Good found in life, their grief and their hopes that her death can bring about change in a deeply polarized nation.

“It’s going to be hard in the future,” Donna Ganger said. “It’s going to be kind of a constant pain.”

Settling in Minneapolis

Good, who graduated from college later in life, was volunteering in a local school district and working as a substitute teacher when she was killed, her parents said.

“She was working so hard to get her education, and then she was finally able to use it, and I could just tell how happy she was and how fulfilled,” Donna Ganger said.

Good, her 6-year-old son and her partner, Becca Good — the women were not legally married, according to a family lawyer, but referred to each other as wives — had only recently relocated to Minneapolis from Kansas City, Mo., settling on a quiet residential street in a tight-knit neighborhood known for its progressive activism.

In social media accounts, Renee Good described herself as a “poet and writer and wife and mom.” On Pinterest, a profile picture shows her smiling and holding a young child, alongside posts about tattoos, hairstyles and home decorating.

The family “settled very quickly into the community in Minneapolis,” said Donna Ganger, describing how the neighborhood had also welcomed the rest of the family when they came after the shooting. They see that as the result of the love that Good had showed her new neighbors.

“It was incredible to receive that back,” Luke Ganger said.

Donna Ganger held a stuffed toy owl as she spoke, a gift from her daughter, who knew how much she loved the birds. It had sparkles on its feet, a reminder of Good’s love for glitter.

At Good’s memorial service, a table of glitter had been set out for guests. Donna Ganger had put a piece on a lens of her glasses and it’s remained there.

“She just kind of sparkled all the way through,” said Donna Ganger. “I think of her and I look down and see my little sparkle.”

‘A very American blend’

The family is “a very American blend,” Luke Ganger said recently in testimony to Congress. “We vote differently, and we rarely completely agree on the finer details of what it means to be a citizen of this country.”

Yet “we have always treated each other with love and respect,” he said.

On Friday, the family didn’t want to discuss the specifics of their differences, but Donna Ganger said she’d long prayed for guidance: “Before all this happened, I said, ‘Make me a wise woman.’”

In the hours after Good’s death, Trump administration officials said she had been shot as she tried to drive her car into an immigration officer. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said Good had committed “an act of domestic terrorism.”

But as video evidence and other details of the confrontation emerged, and criticism of the crackdown began growing, administration comments softened.

President Trump said he’d been told that Tim Ganger had supported him.

“He was all for Trump, loved Trump. And, you know, it’s terrible,” he told reporters. “I hope he still feels that way.”

Tim Ganger declined to talk about his political affiliation or whether it had changed with his daughter’s killing.

“I think I’m just going to leave that go,” he said. “There’s so many other important things” to deal with now, he added.

But family members said they hoped their ability to get along would be an inspiration.

“Our purpose through this whole tragic, difficult, unbelievable time, is to have something good come out of this,” Tim Ganger said. “Otherwise the senselessness of this is overwhelming.”

Sadness echoed in Donna Ganger’s voice as she talked about navigating family differences.

“Sometimes I’m just silly, you know, and I joke with them and I’m goofy,” she said. “But I want to be able to talk about hard things — and that’s hard sometimes with your own family to talk about hard things that maybe you don’t agree on. And I don’t want there to be any hardships between us or hurt.

“But it’s important that we learn to be careful with our words, but share them in a deep way,” she said. “It’s really important.”

Family members spoke only in general ways about the change they’d like to see come from Good’s death.

“I think it’s evident that something is broken, right?” said Brent Ganger. “And when something is broken, you have to take a deep look to see what it is that can be changed and fixed in order for it to not happen again.”

The morning of the shooting

On the morning of the shooting, as immigration raids and protests were flaring across the city, Becca Good has said she and Renee stopped their car in the street to support neighbors during an immigration operation.

Video shows Renee Good in a maroon SUV blocking part of the road and repeatedly honking her horn.

Two immigration officers get out of a truck and one orders Good to open her door. She reverses briefly, then turns the steering wheel as the officer says again, “Get out of the car.” Almost simultaneously, Becca Good, standing in the street shouts, “Drive, baby, drive!”

When Good begins pulling forward, an ICE officer standing in front of the vehicle — later identified as Jonathan Ross — pulls his weapon and fires at least two shots into the car, through the driver’s-side corner of the windshield and the driver’s window, killing Good.

Weeks later, Tim Ganger said he hoped the family’s tragedy would lead to change, though “I’m not even sure what that will look like.”

“But for something good, for people to stop and take a breath and take a look and have a dialog,” he said. “That’s the broader mission of what we want, for people to come together and take care of each other.”

The Justice Department has said it sees no basis to open a federal civil rights investigation into Good’s death, but the family has hired a law firm that is conducting its own investigation and exploring potential legal action.

Family members said no one from the federal government has contacted them about Good’s killing, and they are unsure whether anyone will be held accountable.

“All we can do is speak out and hope that our sincere words are enough to enact some kind of change,” Brent Ganger said.

Slevin and Sullivan write for the Associated Press and reported from Denver and Minneapolis, respectively.