The Los Angeles City Council has again increased what it will pay Gibson Dunn to represent it in a contentious homelessness case, bringing the law firm’s contract to nearly $7.5 million.
In mid-May, the council approved a three-year contract capped at $900,000. The law firm then billed the city $1.8 million for two weeks of legal work, with 15 of its attorneys charging nearly $1,300 per hour.
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the council voted 9-4 to approve an increase of about $1.8 million from the current $5.7 million, with Councilmembers John Lee, Tim McOsker, Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez opposed. It was not clear why the additional money was needed.
Rodriguez said that spending resources on outside lawyers instead of complying with the settlement terms in the case is “simply a waste of public funds.”
“In the face of a mounting homelessness crisis, it’s misguided for the City to continue pouring our scarce resources into outside counsel instead of housing the most vulnerable Angelenos,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
The contract “has expanded significantly beyond its original scope,” Lee said in a statement, later adding, “I believe the Council has a duty to demand transparency and closely scrutinize costs.”
The L.A. city attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The city reached a settlement with the nonprofit LA Alliance in 2022, agreeing to create 12,915 homeless shelter beds or other housing opportunities, while also clearing thousands of encampments.
Since then, the LA Alliance has repeatedly accused the city of failing to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.
Gibson Dunn was retained by the city a week before a federal judge called a seven-day hearing to determine whether he should take authority over the city’s homelessness programs from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council. Alliance lawyers said during those proceedings that they wanted Bass and two council members to testify.
The judge later declined to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, even as he concluded that the city failed to adhere to the settlement.
Theane Evangelis, a Gibson Dunn attorney who led the firm’s LA Alliance team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has praised Gibson Dunn’s work in the LA Alliance case, saying the firm helped the city retain control over its homelessness programs while also keeping Bass and the two council members off the stand.
She commended the firm — which secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws prohibiting homeless people from camping in public spaces — for getting up to speed on the settlement, mastering a complex set of policy matters within a week.
Faced with lingering criticism from council members, Feldstein Soto agreed to help with the cost of the Gibson Dunn contract, committing $1 million from her office’s budget. The council has also tapped $4 million from the city’s “unappropriated balance,” an account for funds that have not yet been allocated.
On Thursday, Matthew D. Umhofer, an attorney who represents LA Alliance, called the Gibson Dunn contract increase “predictable.”
“It’s a taxpayer-funded debacle designed to help city officials avoid being held accountable for their failures on homelessness,” Umhofer said in a statement. “The amount will keep going up as long as the City is more interested in ending oversight than ending homelessness.”
Ray J is under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest, take all his prescribed medications and avoid drinking alcohol or smoking because of his damaged heart.
The R&B singer, who revealed this week that his heart is pumping at far below capacity because of damage from his heavy use of alcohol and other substances, shared those directives with TMZ in an interview published Thursday. Doctors told him he likely has only months to live, with the former “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star predicting that he would die by 2027.
Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expects to get an update when he goes back in two weeks for a check-up.
The brother of actor-singer Brandy said that if he manages to survive his current health crisis, he expects to emerge a “stronger and a better person.”
Ray J told followers in a video posted Sunday that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”
“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.”
He said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to Ray J’s heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.
The man who was with Kim Kardashian in her career-launching sex tape said in other video livestreams that the right side of his heart was “black. It’s like done.”
“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said. Now, he told TMZ, he’s been taking eight different drugs, including Lipitor, Jardiance and Entresto, and physicians’ warnings for him to avoid smoking and drinking are a challenge.
Doctors have told him he has only months to live, Ray J said in his recent livestreams, and he believes he won’t last past this calendar year.
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House late Thursday to prevent a partial government shutdown by moving to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, providing more time to negotiate new restrictions for federal immigration agents carrying out President Trump’s deportation campaign.
The deal follows widespread outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — by federal agents in Minneapolis amid an aggressive immigration crackdown led by the Trump administration.
Under the agreement, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will be extended for two weeks, while the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as the health, education, labor and transportation departments, will be funded through Sept. 30, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office confirmed to The Times.
While the Senate could approve the deal as early as Thursday night, it is unclear when the House will vote for the package. To avert a government shutdown, both chambers need to approve the deal by midnight EST Friday.
After the agreement was reached, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was “working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government without delay.”
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” Trump said.
He added: “Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote.”
The move to temporarily fund DHS is meant to give lawmakers more time to negotiate Democratic demands that include a requirement that federal immigration agents use body cameras, stop using masks during operations and a push to tighten rules around arrests and searches without judicial warrants.
The breakthrough comes after Senate Democrats — and seven Senate Republicans — blocked passage of a spending package that included additional funding for DHS through Sept. 30 but not enough guardrails to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the chamber.
“Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the vote. “We’re ready to fund 96% of the federal government today, but the DHS bill still needs a lot of work.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) condemned Democrats for jeopardizing funding for other agencies as they pushed for their demands.
“It would be disastrous to shut down FEMA in the middle of a major winter storm. It’s affecting half the country, and it appears that another storm is along the way,” he said. “A shutdown would mean no paychecks for our troops once again, no money for TSA agents or air traffic controllers.”
The standoff comes after federal ICE agents shot and killed Pretti, an American citizen and nurse who attempted to help a fallen woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Pretti’s death was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents in the city in less than two weeks, following the killing of Good earlier this month.
California Democrats have assumed leading roles in their party’s counter-offensive to the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown — seizing on a growing sense, shared by some Republicans, that the campaign has gotten so out of hand that the political winds have shifted heavily in their favor.
They stalled Department of Homeland Security funding in the Senate and pushed the impeachment of Secretary Kristi Noem in the House. They strategized against a threatened move by President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and challenged administration policies and street tactics in federal court. And they have shown up in Minneapolis to express outrage and demanded Department of Justice records following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens there.
The push comes at an extremely tense moment, as Minneapolis and the nation reel from the fatal weekend shooting of Alex Pretti, and served as an impetus for a spending deal reached late Thursday between Senate Democrats and the White House to avert another partial government shutdown. The compromise would allow lawmakers to fund large parts of the federal government while giving them more time to negotiate new restrictions for immigration agents.
“This is probably one of the few windows on immigration specifically where Democrats find themselves on offense,” said Mike Madrid, a California Republican political consultant. “It is a rare and extraordinary moment.”
Both of the state’s Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, came out in staunch opposition to the latest Homeland Security funding measure in Congress, vowing to block it unless the administration scales back its street operations and reins in masked agents who have killed Americans in multiple shootings, clashed with protestors and provoked communities with aggressive tactics.
Under the agreement reached Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security will be funded for two weeks — a period of time that in theory will allow lawmakers to negotiate guardrails for the federal agency. The measure still will need to be approved by the House, though it is not clear when they will hold a vote — meaning a short shutdown still could occur even if the Senate deal is accepted.
Padilla negotiated with the White House to separate the controversial measures in question — to provide $64.4 billion for Homeland Security and $10 billion specifically for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — from a broader spending package that also funds the Pentagon, the State Department and health, education and transportation agencies.
Senate Democrats vowed to not give more money to federal immigration agencies, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection, unless Republicans agree to require agents to wear body cameras, take off masks during operations and stop making arrests and searching homes without judicial warrants. All Senate Democrats and seven Senate Republicans blocked passage of the broader spending package earlier Thursday.
“Anything short of meaningful, enforceable reforms for Trump’s out-of-control ICE and CBP is a non-starter,” Padilla said in a statement after the earlier vote. “We need real oversight, accountability and enforcement for both the agents on the ground and the leaders giving them their orders. I will not vote for anything less.”
Neither Padilla nor Schiff immediately responded to requests for comment on the deal late Thursday.
Even if Democrats block Homeland Security funding after the two-week deal expires, immigration operations would not stop. That’s because ICE received $75 billion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year — part of an unprecedented $178 billion provided to Homeland Security through the mega-bill.
Trump said Thursday he was working “in a very bipartisan way” to reach a compromise on the funding package. “Hopefully we won’t have a shutdown, we are working on that right now,” he said. “I think we are getting close. I don’t think Democrats want to see it either.”
The administration has eased its tone and admitted mistakes in its immigration enforcement campaign since Pretti’s killing, but hasn’t backed down completely or paused operations in Minneapolis, as critics demanded.
This week Padilla and Schiff joined other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in calling on the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by immigration agents in Minneapolis. In a letter addressed to Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, they questioned her office’s decision to forgo an investigation, saying it reflected a trend of “ignoring the enforcement of civil rights laws in favor of carrying out President Trump’s political agenda.”
Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said there is “currently no basis” for such an investigation.
Schiff also has been busy preparing his party for any move by Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give the president broad authority to deploy military troops into American cities. Trump has threatened to take that move, which would mark a dramatic escalation of his immigration campaign.
A spokesperson confirmed to The Times that Schiff briefed fellow Democrats during a caucus lunch Wednesday on potential strategies for combating such a move.
“President Trump and his allies have been clear and intentional in laying the groundwork to invoke the Insurrection Act without justification and could exploit the very chaos that he has fueled in places like Minneapolis as the pretext to do so,” Schiff said in a statement. “Whether he does so in connection with immigration enforcement or to intimidate voters during the midterm elections, we must not be caught flat-footed if he takes such an extreme step to deploy troops to police our streets.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, announced he will serve as one of three Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry into Noem, whom Democrats have blasted for allowing and excusing violence by agents in Minneapolis and other cities.
Garcia called the shootings of Good and Pretti “horrific and shocking,” so much so that even some Republicans are acknowledging the “severity of what happened” — creating an opening for Noem’s impeachment.
“It’s unacceptable what’s happening right now, and Noem is at the top of this agency that’s completely rogue,” he said Thursday. “People are being killed on the streets.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) went to Minneapolis this week to talk to residents and protesters about the administration’s presence in their city, which he denounced as unconstitutional and violent.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has gone after a slew of Trump immigration policies both in California and across the country — including by backing a lawsuit challenging immigration deployments in the Twin Cities, and joining in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi denouncing the administration’s attempts to “exploit the situation in Minnesota” by demanding local leaders turn over state voter data in exchange for federal agents leaving.
California’s leaders are far from alone in pressing hard for big changes.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the head of the Archdiocese of Newark (N.J.) and a top ally of Pope Leo XIV, sharply criticized immigration enforcement this week, calling ICE a “lawless organization” and backing the interruption of funding to the agency. On Thursday the NAACP and other prominent civil rights organizations sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) arguing that ICE should be “fully dissolved” and that Homeland Security funding should be blocked until a slate of “immediate and enforceable restrictions” are placed on its operations.
Madrid, the Republican consultant, said California’s leaders have a clear reason to push for policies that protect immigrants, given the state is home to 1 in 4 foreign-born Americans and immigration is “tied into the fabric of California.”
And at a moment when Trump and other administration officials clearly realize “how far out of touch and how damaging” their immigration policies have become politically, he said, California’s leaders have a real opportunity to push their own agenda forward — especially if it includes clear, concrete solutions to end the recent “egregious, extra-constitutional violation of rights” that many Americans find so objectionable.
However, Madrid warned that Democrats wasted a similar opportunity after the unrest around the killing of George Floyd by calling to “defund the police,” which was politically unpopular, and could fall into a similar pitfall if they push for abolishing ICE.
“You’ve got a moment here where you can either fix [ICE], or lean into the political moment and say ‘abolish it,’” he said. “The question becomes, can Democrats run offense? Or will they do what they too often have done with this issue, which is snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?”
As the Sundance Film Festival winds down its final edition in Park City, Utah, this week, ahead of its move to Boulder, Colo., next year, its sway over the nonfiction field at the Oscars remains as steady as ever. All five current Academy Award nominees for documentary feature premiered at last year’s festival, with Sundance films winning the category six times over the last decade.
“Sundance has been a kick-starter for my entire career,” says Ryan White, director of “Come See Me in the Good Light,” his fourth film to premiere at the festival. The intimate portrait of Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson, who faces a terminal diagnosis with a spirit of resilience, needed the boost. “The lead words are poetry and cancer, and it’s a character-driven film about a non-binary person,” White says. “It wasn’t the easiest film to get off the ground.” A similar challenge could apply to other nominees, including “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” and “Cutting Through Rocks,” which focus on everyday individuals taking on oppressive systems in Russia and Iran, respectively. “There are the types of films that can get lost because they’re not about a celebrity, and they don’t have these marquee descriptors. Sundance does such an amazing job of discovering these diamonds.”
Andrea Gibson, left, and Megan Falley in “Come See Me in the Good Light.”
The exposure at the start of the film festival season “gives you that one-year runway that allows you to play festivals all year long,” says White, who was back at Sundance to celebrate the end of an era. He also knows the pain of not making the cut. “My first two films didn’t get into Sundance, and then my third one did. I’m always telling young filmmakers to use the Sundance rejection as fuel.”
A festival berth was strong motivation for “Mr. Nobody” filmmaker David Borenstein, who collaborated with his subject, a schoolteacher near the Ural Mountains named Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin, as he quietly documented Russian propaganda efforts to rally his young students around the war in Ukraine. “That was the goal the entire time making this film,” says the director, an American based in Copenhagen. “I never thought once about anything after Sundance.” When the Danish Film Institute submitted his film as the country’s entry for the international feature Oscar, he had a new goal. “We were the last to start campaigning because we didn’t have a streamer behind us.”
Borenstein interrupted a family vacation in the Dominican Republic to return to Sundance for meetings and figure out next steps. “Forget winning or losing,” he says. “You have six weeks where you have a voice, where Pasha has a voice. How do you use it?” Talankin, who fled his home — first for Turkey, then the Czech Republic — is, for the moment, no longer “Mr. Nobody,” but as Borenstein notes, “He sacrificed his whole life to do this.”
Iranian American filmmakers Mohammadreza Eyni and Sara Khaki were well into the eight-year production of “Cutting Through Rocks” when they became recipients of a 2020 Sundance Documentary Fund grant. “The timing was perfect and we really, really, really needed that support,” says Khaki, joining Eyni on a video conversation from Park City, where their film won the Grand Jury Prize in the world cinema category last year. “Sundance is something beyond only the festival for us,” Eyni says. “It’s more about persistence as a filmmaker and the cinematic approach to the stories and sense of community.”
“Cutting Through Rocks” follows Sara Shahverdi, the first woman elected to the council of her northwestern Iranian village, as she challenges the practice of child marriage and other patriarchal norms and empowers young women by showing them how to ride motorbikes, as she does herself. The message of resistance feels relevant worldwide, but most urgently in Iran, where estimates of deaths during recent protests top 30,000 people. “We want small stories and anecdotes to remind us that we can bring change,” Eyni says, “even when it’s tough, even when it seems impossible.” Although the film is the first documentary from Iran to be nominated for an Oscar, the news has been hard to share there because of the government’s weeks-long internet blackout.
“We are experiencing a lot of complex emotions,” Eyni says.
Sara Shahverdi, the subject of Oscar-nominated documentary feature “Cutting Through Rocks.”
(Gandom Films)
Sundance thrives on exactly those kinds of feelings. The dramatic premiere of “Come See Me in the Good Light” was, for its filmmaker, “The best night of my entire career.” What began as a film about the end of Gibson’s life quickly became a story about the joy of a life well-lived, experienced alongside the charismatic subject’s wife, poet Megan Falley. When White broke the news about the film’s acceptance, “Andrea was so emotional saying, ‘You’re telling me if I survive for six more weeks, I might see this movie?’” he recalls. And they did.
“I think people fell in love with Andrea during the course of that film, but they probably assumed that Andrea had passed away, and they were about to see a card at the end of the film,” White continues. Then Gibson walked up. “It was like a rock star rising from the ashes. You could literally feel the theater vibrating.”
The car has now passed all its impact tests, Vowles added, and drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon “stand shoulder to shoulder with me”.
“They’re clearly, as I am, disappointed,” said Vowles.
“They want to be out there testing the car, and whilst they’re in our driver and loop simulator in tandem now, to increase that programme, it isn’t the same.”
Vowles said the main problem was the factory was unable to cope with the demand put on it by the car build process.
“It’s more of an output than anything else, of pushing not just the boundaries of design but the boundaries of just simply how many components can be pushed through the factory in a very short space of time,” said Vowles.
“The car we’ve built is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand.
“So, to put that in perspective, it means the amount of load going through our system is about three times what it used to be.
“And we started falling a little bit behind and late on parts. There are compromises you can make as a result of it.
“In addition to that, we have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what we’re doing in certain areas. And one of those is in certain corresponding tests that go with it.”
However, he said the team were on target to make it to the second pre-season test, which takes place in Bahrain on 11-13 February.
Vowles added: “We could have made Barcelona testing. Simple as that. But in doing so, I would have to turn upside down the impact on spares, components, and updates across Bahrain, [the first race in] Melbourne, and beyond.
“And the evaluation of it was that for running in a cold, damp Barcelona, against doing a (rig) test, against the spare situation, and frankly, there was zero points for running in a shakedown test, we made the decision, and I stand by it, that the right thing to do is to make sure we’re turning up at Bahrain, correctly prepared, and prepared in Melbourne as well.”
Vowles did not directly answer a question as to whether the car was significantly over the minimum weight limit, saying it was impossible to respond to “murmurings in the media” because it was not possible to know the answer until the car was assembled.
He also said he had “experts and specialists” working with Williams to try to improve their factory operations.
Entering a particularly consequential season for coach Lincoln Riley at USC, a brutal Big Ten slate won’t cut the Trojans or their coach any slack in 2026.
That much was clear long before the Big Ten officially released its schedule for next season Tuesday. USC already knew it would face the conference’s top three teams from a season ago (Indiana, Ohio State and Oregon). But the official unveiling of the slate would further solidify just how grueling the climb could be for USC next season.
Oregon will face Portland State, an FCS team, a week before coming to USC on Sept. 26. Ohio State will have a bye week before its Halloween meeting with USC at the Coliseum, and so will the defending champ, Indiana, which USC will face in Bloomington on Nov. 14.
The Trojans will assuredly have to win at least one of those games to maintain their hopes of making the College Football Playoff in Riley’s fifth season. The rest of the schedule is hardly a cakewalk too, with trips to Rutgers (Sept. 19), Penn State (Oct. 10) and Wisconsin (Oct. 24).
The nonconference schedule is still being finalized, after talks broke down between USC and Notre Dame over the future of their rivalry series. But with two byes already baked into the Trojans’ schedule, a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that USC plans to schedule its season opener during Week Zero, with a home game on Aug. 29.
That timing drastically cuts down USC’s options for finding a fill-in opponent to open the season against at the Coliseum.
In order to play in Week Zero in its home stadium and not internationally or at a neutral site, USC must secure an exemption from the NCAA. That probably limits the Trojans to a team that faces Hawaii in 2026 — and thus gets an exemption from the NCAA to play an additional game — or means playing a Football Championship Series team, which USC has notably never done.
Starting the season early will allow for USC to add an extra bye week, while most Big Ten schools are working with just one during their 2026 slates. It’ll need that break considering what the latter half of the season holds.
After kicking off in late August, USC opens the season with home games in five of its first six weeks. But after that, the Trojans return home just twice the rest of the season, for matchups against Ohio State on Oct. 31 and Maryland on Nov. 21.
Welcome back to The Times’ Lakers newsletter, where we are all packing our bags.
The team is in the midst of the eight-game Grammy trip. I am getting ready to jet off to Milan to cover my second Winter Olympics. While we call Brad Turner off the bench to pilot the newsletter for the next month, the Lakers are facing their own lineup decisions:
All things Lakers, all the time.
Bench boost
Rarely would JJ Redick tolerate a player taking a midrange shot out of a particular out-of-bounds play. But when Rui Hachimura is playing this way, the Lakers coach will make an exception.
Hachimura is coming off his two best games since returning from a calf injury that sidelined him for two weeks. Against Dallas, he had a block, a season-high eight rebounds and 17 points while drilling two clutch three-pointers in the fourth quarter. Two days later in Chicago, he was one point shy of his season high with 23 points, hitting nine of 11 shots from the field and four of five from three.
Hachimura is rediscovering his early season form that had Redick comparing parts of the Japanese forward’s game to “prime Michael Jordan.” But Hachimura may not be in line to immediately reprise his starting role.
Despite the end of his minutes restriction, Hachimura has remained on the bench to begin games. With the Lakers winning four of their last five games, Hachimura is learning to thrive in any situation.
“Coming off the bench, the game is already going,” Hachimura said. “… So I kind of know how important [it is] to kind of be extra aggressive [more] than usual.”
Because of injuries to their stars, the Lakers’ first-choice starting lineup of Hachimura, LeBron James, Deandre Ayton, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves has only played 85 minutes together in seven games. It’s minus-29 in that small sample size. The lineup with Reaves sidelined and Hachimura limited — James, Ayton and Doncic with Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia — was, before Monday’s game, already the team’s most-used group with 165 minutes together. It’s minus-1.
The starting group will change again no matter Hachimura’s role as Reaves is inching closer to his return. The team expects him to be back during this trip. It could be as soon as Thursday’s game in Cleveland. Keeping defense-minded players such as Smart and LaRavia with the starters has helped balance the lineups. The Lakers bench was never going to be particularly explosive, giving Hachimura potentially more offensive value with the second group.
Coaches were lauding Hachimura for his ability to stay engaged and hit big shots earlier this season even if he went long stretches without touching the ball. Now Hachimura has had 10 or more shot attempts in five consecutive games for the first time since March 2024. Redick said the team is making sure to get Hachimura involved with specific plays coming out of timeouts. Hachimura said that hasn’t happened for him during his tenure with the Lakers before.
“I think it’s working,” Hachimura said.
Onlookers tend to fixate on starting lineups. Players and coaches like to stress who closes games more. Hachimura is delivering in the clutch moments: He played 42 minutes and six seconds in the fourth quarters against the Nuggets, Clippers, Mavericks and Bulls, the third-most fourth-quarter minutes on the team during that stretch behind Smart (42 minutes, 37 seconds) and James (42 minutes, 15 seconds).
“Nobody’s going to care if you were a starter or came off the bench at the end of the season or at the end of your career,” Redick said. “Just be a good basketball player. He’s a good basketball player.”
Every metric of Hachimura’s production will be scrutinized this offseason as he becomes a free agent. Despite what moving to the bench could mean for Hachimura’s next contract, he doesn’t appear fazed as long as the Lakers can keep counting wins: four in their last five.
“Winning is gonna help,” Hachimura said after the loss to the Clippers. “I think we focus on ourselves sometimes. But I think at the end of the day, it is just winning. That’s gonna help us, everybody. So we gotta focus on that and everything’s gonna come.”
Charged up
Luka Doncic points after taking a charge from Dallas’ Cooper Flagg earlier this season.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Luka Doncic’s balletic step-through to beat a double team and layup a soft finger roll was the offensive dagger that slayed his former team. But the NBA’s leading scorer got the biggest reaction from his defense nine seconds later when he stepped in front of Naji Marshall and ended up flat on his back in the key.
“I enjoyed the charge more,” Doncic told reporters in Dallas with a satisfied smirk.
Still laying flat on his back under the basket, Doncic’s eyes widened as he screamed toward the Lakers’ bench. His teammates pumped their fists and signaled for an offensive foul.
Consistently attacked by opponents on defense, Doncic delivered six consecutive stops in the fourth quarter against the Mavericks when he was the primary defender, coach JJ Redick said, including the energy-boosting charge. Doncic’s 10 charges drawn are already the most of his career, eclipsing the eight he recorded during his rookie season with the Mavericks.
Doncic’s selfless defense has helped put the Lakers on top of the league in charges drawn with 41 (0.93 per game). The next closest team, the Golden State Warriors, has 29.
The Lakers were also among the league’s best last year in drawing charges, ranking second with 0.62 charges per game, but the addition of Marcus Smart has brought a significant boost. The former defensive player of the year has an NBA-high 14 charges drawn.
“Anticipation,” Smart said of how he puts himself in position to get the timely calls. “Timing is everything. … And just making sure [you have] the confidence being there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t. You’d rather be there and get a foul call and not be there and not get anything. It definitely takes some timing, but my teammates do a good job of funneling their guys to the right spot that I’m gonna be in and they know where I’m gonna be. Just make sure I’m in my spot.”
Austin Reaves and Doncic each have 10, tied for the second-most on the Lakers. Even Dalton Knecht stepped in front of Zion Williamson this season to draw the first charge of his career. He followed it with another charge the very next night against San Antonio.
On tap
Wednesday at Cavaliers (28-20), 4 p.m. PST
Cleveland has won five of its last six games after an underwhelming start to the season amid injury concerns for star guard Darius Garland. Garland, averaging 18 points in just 26 game appearances, could miss Wednesday’s game with a right big toe sprain.
Friday at Wizards (10-34), 4 p.m. PST
The Wizards have lost nine in a row. Trae Young (quad) hasn’t played since he was traded to Washington last month. Second-year center Alex Sarr is oen of the bright spots for the team as he leads the league in blocks with 2.1 per game.
Sunday at Knicks (27-18), 4 p.m. PST
The NBA Cup champions were spiraling with nine losses in 11 games between Dec. 31 and Jan. 19, but stabilized themselves with a 54-point win over Brooklyn and a gritty road win against Philadelphia. Jalen Brunson leads with 28 points and 6.1 assists per game while Karl-Anthony Towns leads the league in rebounding with 11.4 per game.
Status report
Austin Reaves: left calf strain
Reaves is progressing back to on-court work now that he’s passed the four-week mark. After beginning with three-on-three games and stay-ready games against coaches and staff members, Reaves is expected to return fully on this trip that ends Feb. 3 in Brooklyn.
Adou Thiero: right knee sprain
The rookie forward is in the final week of his initial four-week timeline since his injury was announced on New Year’s Eve.
Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Olympics
This 5-foot-2 reporter will be sidelined from Lakers coverage for four weeks while on assignment at the Milan Cortina Olympics. My colleague Brad Turner will take over the starting newsletter writer spot.
Favorite thing I ate this week
Plov: Seasoned rice with lamb.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
This meal goes out to Saprarmurat, the Uber driver who picked me up at O’Hare in the midnight hours of Monday morning and the first person I’ve ever met from Kyrgyzstan. The cuisine is a combination of Eastern European and Central Asian and wholly delicious. The first two dishes he suggested were plov and manty, so I followed his lead when I found Euro Asia Restaurant near downtown Chicago. Plov is a seasoned rice dish with lamb and manty are steamed dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onions. I walked a mile in single-degree weather for this meal and would do it many times over.
Manty: Steamed dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onions
NEW city break packages have been launched by TUI – to a destination set to be even bigger this year.
The new packages, on sale now, will connect Brits to the city of Cairo in Egypt.
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TUI has launched city break packages to CairoCredit: Alamy
The latest in its city break packages, flights will operate from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Manchester.
Passengers will travel on British Airways, easyJet or Egyptair flights.
Five night holidays start from £696pp, which includes return flights, transfers, luggage and stays at Nile Sky Suites Hotel with breakfast.
TUI’s Commercial Director Chris Logan said: “With winter sun, world-famous sights and great value all in one trip, it’s ideal for customers who are after sunshine but want more than a beach holiday.
“Egypt is one of the best-value winter sun destinations. You get brilliant hotels, unforgettable experiences and fantastic value for money, especially during the winter months” added Logan.”
The city of Cairo’s nickname, especially by locals, is ‘mother of the world’ for many believing it is the centre of civilisation.
Its main attraction is the Pyramids of Giza – the only remaining ancient wonder of the world – as well as the Great Sphinx.
The Sun’s Dean Agius visited soon after it opened.
He explained: “The enormous building, covering an area of 470,000 square metres, houses more than 50,000 artefacts — and the centrepiece of its collection will bring all 5,000-plus treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb together for the first time.
“Stepping through its pyramid-shaped entrance, the 3,200-year-old, 83-ton statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II sits in GEM’s soaring central atrium.”
TUI also said there are “lesser-known hidden gems” in Cairo too, including the green oasis Al-Azhar Park, which has amazing city views.
Cairo remains around 20C in winter, although is hitting highs of 26c this week – making it an ideal winter sun holiday destination around five hours from the UK.
Summer temperatures can hit around 36C.
A popular attraction is the Pyramids of GizaCredit: AlamyThe Grand Egyptian Museum also recently openedCredit: Alamy
PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
Good evening — it’s Monday, Jan. 26, and you’re reading the last of our Sundance dispatches. Today we’ve seen a high of 36 degrees on a notably sunny day. We waited and waited for deal news, but it hasn’t quite arrived yet.
We’re hearing about distributors circling both Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” and the provocative “Josephine,” the latter of which is coalescing into a critical favorite at the fest.
We’ve been speaking the last few days with a parade of fascinating stars and directors: Ethan Hawke, Salman Rushdie, the legendary Billie Jean King, Brittney Griner, many more. Check out our videos right here as we make them live.
Mark Olsen spoke with director NB Mager about her debut feature “Run Amok,” which premiered at the festival today. Here are some recommendations for you.
What we’re watching today
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass”
Miles Gutierrez-Riley, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Zoey Deutch and Ben Wang in the movie “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.”
(Sundance Institute)
Twenty-five years ago, the Sundance premiere of David Wain’s “Wet Hot American Summer” reignited the ’80s-style sex romp. Now he’s returned to Park City to see if he can rescue the comedy again.
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” stars Zoey Deutch as a Kansas hairdresser whose fiancé cheats on her with his “hall pass”: a get-out-of-the-doghouse-free exemption for canoodling with his movie-star crush. (I’ll let you discover that cameo yourself.)
To even the score, Gail travels to Los Angeles to sleep with her own idol, Jon Hamm, and is soon skipping down Hollywood Boulevard with a ragtag group of new friends, including “Mad Men’s” John Slattery as himself. There’s a sensitive indie way to tell this story — and then there’s Wain’s giddy lampoon of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Too many modern comedies are jokeless anxiety attacks. I just wanna laugh. I need to laugh. If you need to laugh, this is your hall pass to get slap-happy. — Amy Nicholson
“Chasing Summer”
Iliza Shlesinger stars in the movie “Chasing Summer.”
Comedian Iliza Shlesinger writes and stars in “Chasing Summer,” directed by Josephine Decker. Having recently lost her job and her boyfriend at the same time, Jamie (Shlesinger) returns to her parents’ house in the small Texas town where she grew up.
As she falls back into some of the same social dynamics from when she was a teenager, possibly rekindling an old flame (Tom Welling), Jamie also enjoys an affair with a much-younger man (Garrett Wareing).
Though Schlesinger’s bawdy humor and Decker’s explorations of female interiority in films such as “Shirley” and “Madeline’s Madeline” (both played at Sundance) might make for an unexpected collaboration, it’s a surprisingly good match. Funny and insightful, the movie shows that sometimes you can in fact go home again. — Mark Olsen
The sexy ‘Sundance tribute’ in ‘Gail Daughtry’
Having the world premiere of “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” at Sundance was a full-circle moment of sorts for director and co-writer David Wain. His first introduction to the festival was Steven Soderbergh’s hall of famer “sex, lies and videotape,” and Wain noted after the well-received premiere of his new film that he “overtly stole” two sex scenes from that indie classic as “a tribute to Sundance.”
Of course, “Gail Daughtry” is about as opposite as you can get from Soderbergh. It’s an absurdist, cameo-filled comedy proudly shot on location in L.A. that co-writer Ken Marino described before the screening as a “silly, fun romp.”
Even before its theatrical release, it already has the hallmarks of a cult classic à la another Wain and Co. film, “Wet Hot American Summer,” and features many faces from that movie as well as the State, the comedy troupe that cast member Kerri Kenney-Silver explained started in a supply closet at New York University because they couldn’t get any other rehearsal space.
“Making movies with your friends is a privilege,” cast member Joe Lo Truglio said. And with their ever-expanding circle of friends, we’re the ones who benefit. — Vanessa Franko
Some deal news
Neon has acquired the worldwide rights to horror film “4 X 4: The Event” from filmmaker Alex Ullom, the indie studio said Sunday afternoon.
The deal is the first to be made in Park City so far, though the film was not shown at Sundance and will begin production later this year. The value of the deal was not disclosed.
The film follows eight contestants who join an illegal “sensory assault” livestream in which they can only harm each other with items they can buy online, Neon said in a statement.
The studio previously bought global rights to Ullom’s first horror film, “It Ends,” after it premiered at SXSW last year. — Samantha Masunaga
You’re reading the Wide Shot
Samantha Masunaga delivers the latest news, analysis and insights on everything from streaming wars to production — and what it all means for the future.
Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa): He was the best player on the pitch by a country mile. He’s slowly become Villa’s most important player. He dictates the play, breaks it up, and does everything right. Very, very good player and that pains me to say as a Birmingham City fan.
Ibrahim Sangare (Nottingham Forest): Lost him during Afcon and it wasn’t the same midfield. He is a pitbull next to Elliot Anderson; he does all of the ugly stuff and breaks it up. A fantastic footballer and part of a solid defensive unit, which obviously Forest needed.
Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa): Scored unbelievable goals, all vital for their team’s attacking outlet. Buendia, for me, just showed that little bit of class and magic. I love to see players taking a risk.
Patrick Dorgu (Manchester United): Dorgu could never play a game like that in his life. He’s been unbelievable since Michael Carrick came in. That goal in the win at Arsenal was unbelievable and worthy of winning any football match in the world.
Estevao Willian (Chelsea): Young, exciting player and got a goal and assist, but it was against Crystal Palace, so he doesn’t get as much chat as the others.
Fired by the Dolphins on Jan. 8 after a 7-10 season, McDaniel went 35-33 over four seasons in South Beach. His hiring comes less than two weeks after Herbert fell to 0-3 in the playoffs following a 16-3 AFC wild-card loss to the New England Patriots, resulting in offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s firing.
With defensive coordinator Jesse Minter leaving to become coach of the Baltimore Ravens, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh will have two new coordinators in 2026.
Considered one of the NFL’s leading offensive innovators when he was hired by the Dolphins after a one-year stint as offensive coordinator in San Francisco, McDaniel guided Miami to back-to-back playoff berths in 2022 and ’23. In McDaniel’s first season, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa passed for 3,548 yards and 25 touchdowns in 13 games. He then passed for a league-leading 4,624 yards with 29 touchdowns in 2023 at the front of the league’s top offense (401 net yards per game).
The Dolphins, however, were winless in the playoffs under McDaniel. And Tagovailoa’s injury-limited 2024 season, coupled with his deteriorating performances this season, factored into McDaniel’s firing.
Still, McDaniel’s reputation as an offensive guru made him a prime candidate not just for coordinator positions, but for head coaching vacancies too. He reportedly interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans before deciding to join Harbaugh’s staff. He also reportedly withdrew from consideration for the Cleveland Browns’ head coaching job and canceled an interview for the Buffalo Bills head coaching vacancy before formalizing his deal with the Chargers.
Harbaugh said last week he wanted “a head coach of the offense,” someone who “teaches, installs and puts the players in the best position to be successful.”
Much of that wish list will center on McDaniel establishing a run game to complement Herbert — something that never fully materialized under Roman and Harbaugh.
The Chargers clearly prioritized the rush last offseason when they signed Najee Harris and drafted Omarion Hampton in the first round. But season-ending injuries to Rashawn Slater, Joe Alt and Harris, coupled with Hampton being undermined by ankle injuries, thwarted meaningful year-over-year gains (122 yards per game in 2025; 111 in 2024).
With the offensive line set to return to full strength and general manager Joe Hortiz saying he’s willing to spend some of the team’s estimated $103 million in salary-cap space, the Chargers are well-positioned for another postseason run in 2026.
Whether McDaniel can help Herbert end his playoff winless streak remains to be seen.
A decision on whether Pakistan will boycott next month’s men’s T20 World Cup is set to be made by early next week.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chair Mohsin Naqvi held talks with the country’s prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, on Monday to discuss their participation in light of Bangladesh’s withdrawal.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) replaced Bangladesh with Scotland on Saturday for the tournament which is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka between 7 February and 8 March.
Naqvi said in a post on X, external he had “a productive meeting” with Sharif where he “briefed him on the ICC matter”.
“He [Sharif] directed that we resolve it while keeping all options on the table,” Naqvi said.
“It was agreed that the final decision will be taken either on Friday or next Monday.”
BBC Sport understands that in addition to a full boycott of the tournament Pakistan officials are considering just boycotting their match against India.
Pakistan are due to play India at the T20 World Cup in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 15 February in accordance with an agreement signed last year saying the two countries will play at neutral venues whenever one of them hosts an ICC event.
Political tensions mean the two countries have not faced each other outside men’s major tournaments since 2013, while India have not played in Pakistan since 2008.
The ICC has been approached for comment.
Pakistan’s response comes after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had asked for their World Cup fixtures to be switched from India citing safety concerns.
There has been growing tensions between the countries and Bangladesh requested their games were played in Sri Lanka, which is co-hosting the tournament, instead.
The ICC rejected Bangladesh’s request, saying there was an “absence of any credible security threat” before the BCB reaffirmed its position.
BBC Sport understands Pakistan supported Bangladesh’s position in an emergency ICC board meeting held last Wednesday.
In a statement released last Saturday, in which they announced the decision to replace Bangladesh with Scotland, the ICC said it had “engaged with the BCB through multiple rounds of dialogue conducted in a transparent and constructive manner”.
“In light of these findings, and after careful consideration of the broader implications, the ICC determined that it was not appropriate to amend the published event schedule,” the ICC statement added.
The ICC also said it was keen not to establish “precedents that could undermine the neutrality and fairness of ICC events”.
This month, the Board of Control for Cricket in India told Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman because of political tensions.
Law firm’s contract hiked to nearly $7.5 million in L.A. homelessness case
The Los Angeles City Council has again increased what it will pay Gibson Dunn to represent it in a contentious homelessness case, bringing the law firm’s contract to nearly $7.5 million.
In mid-May, the council approved a three-year contract capped at $900,000. The law firm then billed the city $1.8 million for two weeks of legal work, with 15 of its attorneys charging nearly $1,300 per hour.
In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, the council voted 9-4 to approve an increase of about $1.8 million from the current $5.7 million, with Councilmembers John Lee, Tim McOsker, Imelda Padilla and Monica Rodriguez opposed. It was not clear why the additional money was needed.
Rodriguez said that spending resources on outside lawyers instead of complying with the settlement terms in the case is “simply a waste of public funds.”
“In the face of a mounting homelessness crisis, it’s misguided for the City to continue pouring our scarce resources into outside counsel instead of housing the most vulnerable Angelenos,” Rodriguez said in a statement.
The contract “has expanded significantly beyond its original scope,” Lee said in a statement, later adding, “I believe the Council has a duty to demand transparency and closely scrutinize costs.”
The L.A. city attorney’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The city reached a settlement with the nonprofit LA Alliance in 2022, agreeing to create 12,915 homeless shelter beds or other housing opportunities, while also clearing thousands of encampments.
Since then, the LA Alliance has repeatedly accused the city of failing to comply with the terms of the settlement agreement.
Gibson Dunn was retained by the city a week before a federal judge called a seven-day hearing to determine whether he should take authority over the city’s homelessness programs from Mayor Karen Bass and the City Council. Alliance lawyers said during those proceedings that they wanted Bass and two council members to testify.
The judge later declined to put Los Angeles’ homelessness programs into receivership, even as he concluded that the city failed to adhere to the settlement.
Theane Evangelis, a Gibson Dunn attorney who led the firm’s LA Alliance team, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto has praised Gibson Dunn’s work in the LA Alliance case, saying the firm helped the city retain control over its homelessness programs while also keeping Bass and the two council members off the stand.
She commended the firm — which secured a landmark Supreme Court ruling that upheld laws prohibiting homeless people from camping in public spaces — for getting up to speed on the settlement, mastering a complex set of policy matters within a week.
Faced with lingering criticism from council members, Feldstein Soto agreed to help with the cost of the Gibson Dunn contract, committing $1 million from her office’s budget. The council has also tapped $4 million from the city’s “unappropriated balance,” an account for funds that have not yet been allocated.
On Thursday, Matthew D. Umhofer, an attorney who represents LA Alliance, called the Gibson Dunn contract increase “predictable.”
“It’s a taxpayer-funded debacle designed to help city officials avoid being held accountable for their failures on homelessness,” Umhofer said in a statement. “The amount will keep going up as long as the City is more interested in ending oversight than ending homelessness.”
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Ray J says obeying docs’ orders is hard. Heart failure? Harder
Ray J is under doctor’s orders to stay on bed rest, take all his prescribed medications and avoid drinking alcohol or smoking because of his damaged heart.
The R&B singer, who revealed this week that his heart is pumping at far below capacity because of damage from his heavy use of alcohol and other substances, shared those directives with TMZ in an interview published Thursday. Doctors told him he likely has only months to live, with the former “Love & Hip-Hop: Hollywood” star predicting that he would die by 2027.
Doctors told Ray J — real name William Ray Norwood Jr. — that he should prepare for the chance that he might need a pacemaker or defibrillator soon, the singer told the celebrity site. He expects to get an update when he goes back in two weeks for a check-up.
The brother of actor-singer Brandy said that if he manages to survive his current health crisis, he expects to emerge a “stronger and a better person.”
Ray J told followers in a video posted Sunday that he wanted to “thank everyone for praying for me.”
“I was in the hospital,” he said. “My heart is only beating like 25%, but as long as I stay focused and stay on the right path, then everything will be all right.”
He said elsewhere that his heart was beating at 60%. The number likely refers to Ray J’s heart’s ejection fraction, which measures the volume of blood coming out of the heart’s left ventricle or being drawn into the right ventricle when the heart beats. Right-sided heart failure is far less common, according to WebMD.
The man who was with Kim Kardashian in her career-launching sex tape said in other video livestreams that the right side of his heart was “black. It’s like done.”
“I thought I could handle all the alcohol, I could handle all the Adderall,” he said. Now, he told TMZ, he’s been taking eight different drugs, including Lipitor, Jardiance and Entresto, and physicians’ warnings for him to avoid smoking and drinking are a challenge.
Doctors have told him he has only months to live, Ray J said in his recent livestreams, and he believes he won’t last past this calendar year.
He is 45.
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Senate Democrats and White House strike deal to avert shutdown, continue ICE debate
WASHINGTON — Senate Democrats reached a deal with the White House late Thursday to prevent a partial government shutdown by moving to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security for two weeks, providing more time to negotiate new restrictions for federal immigration agents carrying out President Trump’s deportation campaign.
The deal follows widespread outrage over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens — Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti — by federal agents in Minneapolis amid an aggressive immigration crackdown led by the Trump administration.
Under the agreement, funding for the Department of Homeland Security will be extended for two weeks, while the Pentagon, the State Department, as well as the health, education, labor and transportation departments, will be funded through Sept. 30, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s office confirmed to The Times.
While the Senate could approve the deal as early as Thursday night, it is unclear when the House will vote for the package. To avert a government shutdown, both chambers need to approve the deal by midnight EST Friday.
After the agreement was reached, President Trump wrote on Truth Social that he was “working hard with Congress to ensure that we are able to fully fund the Government without delay.”
“Republicans and Democrats in Congress have come together to get the vast majority of the Government funded until September, while at the same time providing an extension to the Department of Homeland Security (including the very important Coast Guard, which we are expanding and rebuilding like never before),” Trump said.
He added: “Hopefully, both Republicans and Democrats will give a very much needed Bipartisan ‘YES’ Vote.”
The move to temporarily fund DHS is meant to give lawmakers more time to negotiate Democratic demands that include a requirement that federal immigration agents use body cameras, stop using masks during operations and a push to tighten rules around arrests and searches without judicial warrants.
The breakthrough comes after Senate Democrats — and seven Senate Republicans — blocked passage of a spending package that included additional funding for DHS through Sept. 30 but not enough guardrails to muster the 60 votes needed to pass the chamber.
“Republicans in Congress cannot allow this violent status quo to continue,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said after the vote. “We’re ready to fund 96% of the federal government today, but the DHS bill still needs a lot of work.”
Speaking on the Senate floor, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) condemned Democrats for jeopardizing funding for other agencies as they pushed for their demands.
“It would be disastrous to shut down FEMA in the middle of a major winter storm. It’s affecting half the country, and it appears that another storm is along the way,” he said. “A shutdown would mean no paychecks for our troops once again, no money for TSA agents or air traffic controllers.”
The standoff comes after federal ICE agents shot and killed Pretti, an American citizen and nurse who attempted to help a fallen woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis. Pretti’s death was the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by federal agents in the city in less than two weeks, following the killing of Good earlier this month.
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California Democrats help lead fight vs. Trump immigration crackdown
California Democrats have assumed leading roles in their party’s counter-offensive to the Trump administration’s massive immigration crackdown — seizing on a growing sense, shared by some Republicans, that the campaign has gotten so out of hand that the political winds have shifted heavily in their favor.
They stalled Department of Homeland Security funding in the Senate and pushed the impeachment of Secretary Kristi Noem in the House. They strategized against a threatened move by President Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act and challenged administration policies and street tactics in federal court. And they have shown up in Minneapolis to express outrage and demanded Department of Justice records following two fatal shootings of U.S. citizens there.
The push comes at an extremely tense moment, as Minneapolis and the nation reel from the fatal weekend shooting of Alex Pretti, and served as an impetus for a spending deal reached late Thursday between Senate Democrats and the White House to avert another partial government shutdown. The compromise would allow lawmakers to fund large parts of the federal government while giving them more time to negotiate new restrictions for immigration agents.
“This is probably one of the few windows on immigration specifically where Democrats find themselves on offense,” said Mike Madrid, a California Republican political consultant. “It is a rare and extraordinary moment.”
Both of the state’s Democratic senators, Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla, came out in staunch opposition to the latest Homeland Security funding measure in Congress, vowing to block it unless the administration scales back its street operations and reins in masked agents who have killed Americans in multiple shootings, clashed with protestors and provoked communities with aggressive tactics.
Under the agreement reached Thursday, the Department of Homeland Security will be funded for two weeks — a period of time that in theory will allow lawmakers to negotiate guardrails for the federal agency. The measure still will need to be approved by the House, though it is not clear when they will hold a vote — meaning a short shutdown still could occur even if the Senate deal is accepted.
Padilla negotiated with the White House to separate the controversial measures in question — to provide $64.4 billion for Homeland Security and $10 billion specifically for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement — from a broader spending package that also funds the Pentagon, the State Department and health, education and transportation agencies.
Senate Democrats vowed to not give more money to federal immigration agencies, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection, unless Republicans agree to require agents to wear body cameras, take off masks during operations and stop making arrests and searching homes without judicial warrants. All Senate Democrats and seven Senate Republicans blocked passage of the broader spending package earlier Thursday.
“Anything short of meaningful, enforceable reforms for Trump’s out-of-control ICE and CBP is a non-starter,” Padilla said in a statement after the earlier vote. “We need real oversight, accountability and enforcement for both the agents on the ground and the leaders giving them their orders. I will not vote for anything less.”
Neither Padilla nor Schiff immediately responded to requests for comment on the deal late Thursday.
Even if Democrats block Homeland Security funding after the two-week deal expires, immigration operations would not stop. That’s because ICE received $75 billion under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last year — part of an unprecedented $178 billion provided to Homeland Security through the mega-bill.
Trump said Thursday he was working “in a very bipartisan way” to reach a compromise on the funding package. “Hopefully we won’t have a shutdown, we are working on that right now,” he said. “I think we are getting close. I don’t think Democrats want to see it either.”
The administration has eased its tone and admitted mistakes in its immigration enforcement campaign since Pretti’s killing, but hasn’t backed down completely or paused operations in Minneapolis, as critics demanded.
This week Padilla and Schiff joined other Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee in calling on the Justice Department to open a civil rights investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by immigration agents in Minneapolis. In a letter addressed to Assistant Atty. Gen. for Civil Rights Harmeet Dhillon, they questioned her office’s decision to forgo an investigation, saying it reflected a trend of “ignoring the enforcement of civil rights laws in favor of carrying out President Trump’s political agenda.”
Dhillon did not respond to a request for comment. Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche said there is “currently no basis” for such an investigation.
Schiff also has been busy preparing his party for any move by Trump to invoke the Insurrection Act, which would give the president broad authority to deploy military troops into American cities. Trump has threatened to take that move, which would mark a dramatic escalation of his immigration campaign.
A spokesperson confirmed to The Times that Schiff briefed fellow Democrats during a caucus lunch Wednesday on potential strategies for combating such a move.
“President Trump and his allies have been clear and intentional in laying the groundwork to invoke the Insurrection Act without justification and could exploit the very chaos that he has fueled in places like Minneapolis as the pretext to do so,” Schiff said in a statement. “Whether he does so in connection with immigration enforcement or to intimidate voters during the midterm elections, we must not be caught flat-footed if he takes such an extreme step to deploy troops to police our streets.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, announced he will serve as one of three Democrats leading an impeachment inquiry into Noem, whom Democrats have blasted for allowing and excusing violence by agents in Minneapolis and other cities.
Garcia called the shootings of Good and Pretti “horrific and shocking,” so much so that even some Republicans are acknowledging the “severity of what happened” — creating an opening for Noem’s impeachment.
“It’s unacceptable what’s happening right now, and Noem is at the top of this agency that’s completely rogue,” he said Thursday. “People are being killed on the streets.”
Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) went to Minneapolis this week to talk to residents and protesters about the administration’s presence in their city, which he denounced as unconstitutional and violent.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has gone after a slew of Trump immigration policies both in California and across the country — including by backing a lawsuit challenging immigration deployments in the Twin Cities, and joining in a letter to U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi denouncing the administration’s attempts to “exploit the situation in Minnesota” by demanding local leaders turn over state voter data in exchange for federal agents leaving.
California’s leaders are far from alone in pressing hard for big changes.
Cardinal Joseph Tobin, the head of the Archdiocese of Newark (N.J.) and a top ally of Pope Leo XIV, sharply criticized immigration enforcement this week, calling ICE a “lawless organization” and backing the interruption of funding to the agency. On Thursday the NAACP and other prominent civil rights organizations sent a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) arguing that ICE should be “fully dissolved” and that Homeland Security funding should be blocked until a slate of “immediate and enforceable restrictions” are placed on its operations.
Madrid, the Republican consultant, said California’s leaders have a clear reason to push for policies that protect immigrants, given the state is home to 1 in 4 foreign-born Americans and immigration is “tied into the fabric of California.”
And at a moment when Trump and other administration officials clearly realize “how far out of touch and how damaging” their immigration policies have become politically, he said, California’s leaders have a real opportunity to push their own agenda forward — especially if it includes clear, concrete solutions to end the recent “egregious, extra-constitutional violation of rights” that many Americans find so objectionable.
However, Madrid warned that Democrats wasted a similar opportunity after the unrest around the killing of George Floyd by calling to “defund the police,” which was politically unpopular, and could fall into a similar pitfall if they push for abolishing ICE.
“You’ve got a moment here where you can either fix [ICE], or lean into the political moment and say ‘abolish it,’” he said. “The question becomes, can Democrats run offense? Or will they do what they too often have done with this issue, which is snatch defeat from the jaws of victory?”
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Why Sundance is the best launchpad for Oscar documentaries
As the Sundance Film Festival winds down its final edition in Park City, Utah, this week, ahead of its move to Boulder, Colo., next year, its sway over the nonfiction field at the Oscars remains as steady as ever. All five current Academy Award nominees for documentary feature premiered at last year’s festival, with Sundance films winning the category six times over the last decade.
“Sundance has been a kick-starter for my entire career,” says Ryan White, director of “Come See Me in the Good Light,” his fourth film to premiere at the festival. The intimate portrait of Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson, who faces a terminal diagnosis with a spirit of resilience, needed the boost. “The lead words are poetry and cancer, and it’s a character-driven film about a non-binary person,” White says. “It wasn’t the easiest film to get off the ground.” A similar challenge could apply to other nominees, including “Mr. Nobody vs. Putin” and “Cutting Through Rocks,” which focus on everyday individuals taking on oppressive systems in Russia and Iran, respectively. “There are the types of films that can get lost because they’re not about a celebrity, and they don’t have these marquee descriptors. Sundance does such an amazing job of discovering these diamonds.”
Andrea Gibson, left, and Megan Falley in “Come See Me in the Good Light.”
The exposure at the start of the film festival season “gives you that one-year runway that allows you to play festivals all year long,” says White, who was back at Sundance to celebrate the end of an era. He also knows the pain of not making the cut. “My first two films didn’t get into Sundance, and then my third one did. I’m always telling young filmmakers to use the Sundance rejection as fuel.”
A festival berth was strong motivation for “Mr. Nobody” filmmaker David Borenstein, who collaborated with his subject, a schoolteacher near the Ural Mountains named Pavel (“Pasha”) Talankin, as he quietly documented Russian propaganda efforts to rally his young students around the war in Ukraine. “That was the goal the entire time making this film,” says the director, an American based in Copenhagen. “I never thought once about anything after Sundance.” When the Danish Film Institute submitted his film as the country’s entry for the international feature Oscar, he had a new goal. “We were the last to start campaigning because we didn’t have a streamer behind us.”
Borenstein interrupted a family vacation in the Dominican Republic to return to Sundance for meetings and figure out next steps. “Forget winning or losing,” he says. “You have six weeks where you have a voice, where Pasha has a voice. How do you use it?” Talankin, who fled his home — first for Turkey, then the Czech Republic — is, for the moment, no longer “Mr. Nobody,” but as Borenstein notes, “He sacrificed his whole life to do this.”
Iranian American filmmakers Mohammadreza Eyni and Sara Khaki were well into the eight-year production of “Cutting Through Rocks” when they became recipients of a 2020 Sundance Documentary Fund grant. “The timing was perfect and we really, really, really needed that support,” says Khaki, joining Eyni on a video conversation from Park City, where their film won the Grand Jury Prize in the world cinema category last year. “Sundance is something beyond only the festival for us,” Eyni says. “It’s more about persistence as a filmmaker and the cinematic approach to the stories and sense of community.”
“Cutting Through Rocks” follows Sara Shahverdi, the first woman elected to the council of her northwestern Iranian village, as she challenges the practice of child marriage and other patriarchal norms and empowers young women by showing them how to ride motorbikes, as she does herself. The message of resistance feels relevant worldwide, but most urgently in Iran, where estimates of deaths during recent protests top 30,000 people. “We want small stories and anecdotes to remind us that we can bring change,” Eyni says, “even when it’s tough, even when it seems impossible.” Although the film is the first documentary from Iran to be nominated for an Oscar, the news has been hard to share there because of the government’s weeks-long internet blackout.
“We are experiencing a lot of complex emotions,” Eyni says.
Sara Shahverdi, the subject of Oscar-nominated documentary feature “Cutting Through Rocks.”
(Gandom Films)
Sundance thrives on exactly those kinds of feelings. The dramatic premiere of “Come See Me in the Good Light” was, for its filmmaker, “The best night of my entire career.” What began as a film about the end of Gibson’s life quickly became a story about the joy of a life well-lived, experienced alongside the charismatic subject’s wife, poet Megan Falley. When White broke the news about the film’s acceptance, “Andrea was so emotional saying, ‘You’re telling me if I survive for six more weeks, I might see this movie?’” he recalls. And they did.
“I think people fell in love with Andrea during the course of that film, but they probably assumed that Andrea had passed away, and they were about to see a card at the end of the film,” White continues. Then Gibson walked up. “It was like a rock star rising from the ashes. You could literally feel the theater vibrating.”
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Williams F1: Team principal James Vowles said it is ‘incredibly painful’ to miss the first week of testing
The car has now passed all its impact tests, Vowles added, and drivers Carlos Sainz and Alex Albon “stand shoulder to shoulder with me”.
“They’re clearly, as I am, disappointed,” said Vowles.
“They want to be out there testing the car, and whilst they’re in our driver and loop simulator in tandem now, to increase that programme, it isn’t the same.”
Vowles said the main problem was the factory was unable to cope with the demand put on it by the car build process.
“It’s more of an output than anything else, of pushing not just the boundaries of design but the boundaries of just simply how many components can be pushed through the factory in a very short space of time,” said Vowles.
“The car we’ve built is about three times more complicated than anything we have put through our business beforehand.
“So, to put that in perspective, it means the amount of load going through our system is about three times what it used to be.
“And we started falling a little bit behind and late on parts. There are compromises you can make as a result of it.
“In addition to that, we have absolutely pushed the boundaries of what we’re doing in certain areas. And one of those is in certain corresponding tests that go with it.”
However, he said the team were on target to make it to the second pre-season test, which takes place in Bahrain on 11-13 February.
Vowles added: “We could have made Barcelona testing. Simple as that. But in doing so, I would have to turn upside down the impact on spares, components, and updates across Bahrain, [the first race in] Melbourne, and beyond.
“And the evaluation of it was that for running in a cold, damp Barcelona, against doing a (rig) test, against the spare situation, and frankly, there was zero points for running in a shakedown test, we made the decision, and I stand by it, that the right thing to do is to make sure we’re turning up at Bahrain, correctly prepared, and prepared in Melbourne as well.”
Vowles did not directly answer a question as to whether the car was significantly over the minimum weight limit, saying it was impossible to respond to “murmurings in the media” because it was not possible to know the answer until the car was assembled.
He also said he had “experts and specialists” working with Williams to try to improve their factory operations.
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USC faces brutal Big Ten football slate in 2026
Entering a particularly consequential season for coach Lincoln Riley at USC, a brutal Big Ten slate won’t cut the Trojans or their coach any slack in 2026.
That much was clear long before the Big Ten officially released its schedule for next season Tuesday. USC already knew it would face the conference’s top three teams from a season ago (Indiana, Ohio State and Oregon). But the official unveiling of the slate would further solidify just how grueling the climb could be for USC next season.
Oregon will face Portland State, an FCS team, a week before coming to USC on Sept. 26. Ohio State will have a bye week before its Halloween meeting with USC at the Coliseum, and so will the defending champ, Indiana, which USC will face in Bloomington on Nov. 14.
The Trojans will assuredly have to win at least one of those games to maintain their hopes of making the College Football Playoff in Riley’s fifth season. The rest of the schedule is hardly a cakewalk too, with trips to Rutgers (Sept. 19), Penn State (Oct. 10) and Wisconsin (Oct. 24).
The nonconference schedule is still being finalized, after talks broke down between USC and Notre Dame over the future of their rivalry series. But with two byes already baked into the Trojans’ schedule, a person familiar with the situation but not authorized to speak publicly told The Times that USC plans to schedule its season opener during Week Zero, with a home game on Aug. 29.
That timing drastically cuts down USC’s options for finding a fill-in opponent to open the season against at the Coliseum.
In order to play in Week Zero in its home stadium and not internationally or at a neutral site, USC must secure an exemption from the NCAA. That probably limits the Trojans to a team that faces Hawaii in 2026 — and thus gets an exemption from the NCAA to play an additional game — or means playing a Football Championship Series team, which USC has notably never done.
Starting the season early will allow for USC to add an extra bye week, while most Big Ten schools are working with just one during their 2026 slates. It’ll need that break considering what the latter half of the season holds.
After kicking off in late August, USC opens the season with home games in five of its first six weeks. But after that, the Trojans return home just twice the rest of the season, for matchups against Ohio State on Oct. 31 and Maryland on Nov. 21.
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How the Lakers’ Rui Hachimura is thriving off the bench
Welcome back to The Times’ Lakers newsletter, where we are all packing our bags.
The team is in the midst of the eight-game Grammy trip. I am getting ready to jet off to Milan to cover my second Winter Olympics. While we call Brad Turner off the bench to pilot the newsletter for the next month, the Lakers are facing their own lineup decisions:
All things Lakers, all the time.
Bench boost
Rarely would JJ Redick tolerate a player taking a midrange shot out of a particular out-of-bounds play. But when Rui Hachimura is playing this way, the Lakers coach will make an exception.
Hachimura is coming off his two best games since returning from a calf injury that sidelined him for two weeks. Against Dallas, he had a block, a season-high eight rebounds and 17 points while drilling two clutch three-pointers in the fourth quarter. Two days later in Chicago, he was one point shy of his season high with 23 points, hitting nine of 11 shots from the field and four of five from three.
Hachimura is rediscovering his early season form that had Redick comparing parts of the Japanese forward’s game to “prime Michael Jordan.” But Hachimura may not be in line to immediately reprise his starting role.
Despite the end of his minutes restriction, Hachimura has remained on the bench to begin games. With the Lakers winning four of their last five games, Hachimura is learning to thrive in any situation.
“Coming off the bench, the game is already going,” Hachimura said. “… So I kind of know how important [it is] to kind of be extra aggressive [more] than usual.”
Because of injuries to their stars, the Lakers’ first-choice starting lineup of Hachimura, LeBron James, Deandre Ayton, Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves has only played 85 minutes together in seven games. It’s minus-29 in that small sample size. The lineup with Reaves sidelined and Hachimura limited — James, Ayton and Doncic with Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia — was, before Monday’s game, already the team’s most-used group with 165 minutes together. It’s minus-1.
The starting group will change again no matter Hachimura’s role as Reaves is inching closer to his return. The team expects him to be back during this trip. It could be as soon as Thursday’s game in Cleveland. Keeping defense-minded players such as Smart and LaRavia with the starters has helped balance the lineups. The Lakers bench was never going to be particularly explosive, giving Hachimura potentially more offensive value with the second group.
Coaches were lauding Hachimura for his ability to stay engaged and hit big shots earlier this season even if he went long stretches without touching the ball. Now Hachimura has had 10 or more shot attempts in five consecutive games for the first time since March 2024. Redick said the team is making sure to get Hachimura involved with specific plays coming out of timeouts. Hachimura said that hasn’t happened for him during his tenure with the Lakers before.
“I think it’s working,” Hachimura said.
Onlookers tend to fixate on starting lineups. Players and coaches like to stress who closes games more. Hachimura is delivering in the clutch moments: He played 42 minutes and six seconds in the fourth quarters against the Nuggets, Clippers, Mavericks and Bulls, the third-most fourth-quarter minutes on the team during that stretch behind Smart (42 minutes, 37 seconds) and James (42 minutes, 15 seconds).
“Nobody’s going to care if you were a starter or came off the bench at the end of the season or at the end of your career,” Redick said. “Just be a good basketball player. He’s a good basketball player.”
Every metric of Hachimura’s production will be scrutinized this offseason as he becomes a free agent. Despite what moving to the bench could mean for Hachimura’s next contract, he doesn’t appear fazed as long as the Lakers can keep counting wins: four in their last five.
“Winning is gonna help,” Hachimura said after the loss to the Clippers. “I think we focus on ourselves sometimes. But I think at the end of the day, it is just winning. That’s gonna help us, everybody. So we gotta focus on that and everything’s gonna come.”
Charged up
Luka Doncic points after taking a charge from Dallas’ Cooper Flagg earlier this season.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Luka Doncic’s balletic step-through to beat a double team and layup a soft finger roll was the offensive dagger that slayed his former team. But the NBA’s leading scorer got the biggest reaction from his defense nine seconds later when he stepped in front of Naji Marshall and ended up flat on his back in the key.
“I enjoyed the charge more,” Doncic told reporters in Dallas with a satisfied smirk.
Still laying flat on his back under the basket, Doncic’s eyes widened as he screamed toward the Lakers’ bench. His teammates pumped their fists and signaled for an offensive foul.
Consistently attacked by opponents on defense, Doncic delivered six consecutive stops in the fourth quarter against the Mavericks when he was the primary defender, coach JJ Redick said, including the energy-boosting charge. Doncic’s 10 charges drawn are already the most of his career, eclipsing the eight he recorded during his rookie season with the Mavericks.
Doncic’s selfless defense has helped put the Lakers on top of the league in charges drawn with 41 (0.93 per game). The next closest team, the Golden State Warriors, has 29.
The Lakers were also among the league’s best last year in drawing charges, ranking second with 0.62 charges per game, but the addition of Marcus Smart has brought a significant boost. The former defensive player of the year has an NBA-high 14 charges drawn.
“Anticipation,” Smart said of how he puts himself in position to get the timely calls. “Timing is everything. … And just making sure [you have] the confidence being there. Sometimes it works, sometimes it don’t. You’d rather be there and get a foul call and not be there and not get anything. It definitely takes some timing, but my teammates do a good job of funneling their guys to the right spot that I’m gonna be in and they know where I’m gonna be. Just make sure I’m in my spot.”
Austin Reaves and Doncic each have 10, tied for the second-most on the Lakers. Even Dalton Knecht stepped in front of Zion Williamson this season to draw the first charge of his career. He followed it with another charge the very next night against San Antonio.
On tap
Wednesday at Cavaliers (28-20), 4 p.m. PST
Cleveland has won five of its last six games after an underwhelming start to the season amid injury concerns for star guard Darius Garland. Garland, averaging 18 points in just 26 game appearances, could miss Wednesday’s game with a right big toe sprain.
Friday at Wizards (10-34), 4 p.m. PST
The Wizards have lost nine in a row. Trae Young (quad) hasn’t played since he was traded to Washington last month. Second-year center Alex Sarr is oen of the bright spots for the team as he leads the league in blocks with 2.1 per game.
Sunday at Knicks (27-18), 4 p.m. PST
The NBA Cup champions were spiraling with nine losses in 11 games between Dec. 31 and Jan. 19, but stabilized themselves with a 54-point win over Brooklyn and a gritty road win against Philadelphia. Jalen Brunson leads with 28 points and 6.1 assists per game while Karl-Anthony Towns leads the league in rebounding with 11.4 per game.
Status report
Austin Reaves: left calf strain
Reaves is progressing back to on-court work now that he’s passed the four-week mark. After beginning with three-on-three games and stay-ready games against coaches and staff members, Reaves is expected to return fully on this trip that ends Feb. 3 in Brooklyn.
Adou Thiero: right knee sprain
The rookie forward is in the final week of his initial four-week timeline since his injury was announced on New Year’s Eve.
Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Olympics
This 5-foot-2 reporter will be sidelined from Lakers coverage for four weeks while on assignment at the Milan Cortina Olympics. My colleague Brad Turner will take over the starting newsletter writer spot.
Favorite thing I ate this week
Plov: Seasoned rice with lamb.
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
This meal goes out to Saprarmurat, the Uber driver who picked me up at O’Hare in the midnight hours of Monday morning and the first person I’ve ever met from Kyrgyzstan. The cuisine is a combination of Eastern European and Central Asian and wholly delicious. The first two dishes he suggested were plov and manty, so I followed his lead when I found Euro Asia Restaurant near downtown Chicago. Plov is a seasoned rice dish with lamb and manty are steamed dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onions. I walked a mile in single-degree weather for this meal and would do it many times over.
Manty: Steamed dumplings stuffed with diced lamb and onions
(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)
In case you missed it
Luka Doncic scores 33 and remains unbeaten against Mavericks in Lakers comeback
LeBron James downplays reported rift with Jeanie Buss: ‘It’s always been respect’
Lakers admit thinking about contracts, LeBron calls for changes after loss to Clippers
Lakers’ Luka Doncic named NBA All-Star Game starter, LeBron James waits for reserve call
‘He’s a very important guy.’ Deandre Ayton enters exclusive Lakers club during win
Until next time…
As always, pass along your thoughts to me at thucnhi.nguyen@latimes.com, and please consider subscribing if you like our work!
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TUI launches new holidays to stunning winter sun destination nicknamed ‘mother of the world’ and it’s 26C this week
NEW city break packages have been launched by TUI – to a destination set to be even bigger this year.
The new packages, on sale now, will connect Brits to the city of Cairo in Egypt.
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The latest in its city break packages, flights will operate from London Heathrow, London Gatwick and Manchester.
Passengers will travel on British Airways, easyJet or Egyptair flights.
Five night holidays start from £696pp, which includes return flights, transfers, luggage and stays at Nile Sky Suites Hotel with breakfast.
TUI’s Commercial Director Chris Logan said: “With winter sun, world-famous sights and great value all in one trip, it’s ideal for customers who are after sunshine but want more than a beach holiday.
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Safest African country is tropical island with TUI packages and 60p meals
“Egypt is one of the best-value winter sun destinations. You get brilliant hotels, unforgettable experiences and fantastic value for money, especially during the winter months” added Logan.”
The city of Cairo’s nickname, especially by locals, is ‘mother of the world’ for many believing it is the centre of civilisation.
Its main attraction is the Pyramids of Giza – the only remaining ancient wonder of the world – as well as the Great Sphinx.
There is also the newly opened Grand Egyptian Museum, the largest of its kind in the world.
The Sun’s Dean Agius visited soon after it opened.
He explained: “The enormous building, covering an area of 470,000 square metres, houses more than 50,000 artefacts — and the centrepiece of its collection will bring all 5,000-plus treasures from Tutankhamun’s tomb together for the first time.
“Stepping through its pyramid-shaped entrance, the 3,200-year-old, 83-ton statue of Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II sits in GEM’s soaring central atrium.”
TUI also said there are “lesser-known hidden gems” in Cairo too, including the green oasis Al-Azhar Park, which has amazing city views.
Cairo remains around 20C in winter, although is hitting highs of 26c this week – making it an ideal winter sun holiday destination around five hours from the UK.
Summer temperatures can hit around 36C.
Brits can also explore the rest of Egypt, with other popular experiences including Nile River cruises.
There is the city of Luxor, home to Luxor Temple and the famous Valley of the Kings.
Otherwise popular beach resorts include Sharm el Sheikh and Hurghada, including the nearby El Gouna.
TUI has restarted flights to Sharm el Sheikh from East Midlands, taking off later this year.
Egypt has long been a popular, affordable holiday destination for Brits.
However, its affordability is seeing it boom even more this year, according to experts.
Jet2 boss Steve Heapy said earlier this week: “North Africa is performing well, with […] Egypt standing out.”
The airline will restart flights to two destinations in Egypt in 2027.
After scrapping routes back in 2011, the new flights will connect to both Sharm El Sheikh and Hurghada.
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Sundance 2026: ‘The Invite’ and ‘Gail Daughtry’ lure with sex and laughs
PARK CITY, Utah — Welcome to a special Sundance Daily edition of the Wide Shot, a newsletter about the business of entertainment. Sign up here to get it in your inbox.
Good evening — it’s Monday, Jan. 26, and you’re reading the last of our Sundance dispatches. Today we’ve seen a high of 36 degrees on a notably sunny day. We waited and waited for deal news, but it hasn’t quite arrived yet.
We’re hearing about distributors circling both Olivia Wilde’s “The Invite” and the provocative “Josephine,” the latter of which is coalescing into a critical favorite at the fest.
We’ve been speaking the last few days with a parade of fascinating stars and directors: Ethan Hawke, Salman Rushdie, the legendary Billie Jean King, Brittney Griner, many more. Check out our videos right here as we make them live.
Mark Olsen spoke with director NB Mager about her debut feature “Run Amok,” which premiered at the festival today. Here are some recommendations for you.
What we’re watching today
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass”
Miles Gutierrez-Riley, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Zoey Deutch and Ben Wang in the movie “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass.”
(Sundance Institute)
Twenty-five years ago, the Sundance premiere of David Wain’s “Wet Hot American Summer” reignited the ’80s-style sex romp. Now he’s returned to Park City to see if he can rescue the comedy again.
“Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” stars Zoey Deutch as a Kansas hairdresser whose fiancé cheats on her with his “hall pass”: a get-out-of-the-doghouse-free exemption for canoodling with his movie-star crush. (I’ll let you discover that cameo yourself.)
To even the score, Gail travels to Los Angeles to sleep with her own idol, Jon Hamm, and is soon skipping down Hollywood Boulevard with a ragtag group of new friends, including “Mad Men’s” John Slattery as himself. There’s a sensitive indie way to tell this story — and then there’s Wain’s giddy lampoon of “The Wizard of Oz.”
Too many modern comedies are jokeless anxiety attacks. I just wanna laugh. I need to laugh. If you need to laugh, this is your hall pass to get slap-happy. — Amy Nicholson
“Chasing Summer”
Iliza Shlesinger stars in the movie “Chasing Summer.”
(Eric Branco / Summer 2001 LLC / Sundance Institute)
Comedian Iliza Shlesinger writes and stars in “Chasing Summer,” directed by Josephine Decker. Having recently lost her job and her boyfriend at the same time, Jamie (Shlesinger) returns to her parents’ house in the small Texas town where she grew up.
As she falls back into some of the same social dynamics from when she was a teenager, possibly rekindling an old flame (Tom Welling), Jamie also enjoys an affair with a much-younger man (Garrett Wareing).
Though Schlesinger’s bawdy humor and Decker’s explorations of female interiority in films such as “Shirley” and “Madeline’s Madeline” (both played at Sundance) might make for an unexpected collaboration, it’s a surprisingly good match. Funny and insightful, the movie shows that sometimes you can in fact go home again. — Mark Olsen
The sexy ‘Sundance tribute’ in ‘Gail Daughtry’
Having the world premiere of “Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass” at Sundance was a full-circle moment of sorts for director and co-writer David Wain. His first introduction to the festival was Steven Soderbergh’s hall of famer “sex, lies and videotape,” and Wain noted after the well-received premiere of his new film that he “overtly stole” two sex scenes from that indie classic as “a tribute to Sundance.”
Of course, “Gail Daughtry” is about as opposite as you can get from Soderbergh. It’s an absurdist, cameo-filled comedy proudly shot on location in L.A. that co-writer Ken Marino described before the screening as a “silly, fun romp.”
Even before its theatrical release, it already has the hallmarks of a cult classic à la another Wain and Co. film, “Wet Hot American Summer,” and features many faces from that movie as well as the State, the comedy troupe that cast member Kerri Kenney-Silver explained started in a supply closet at New York University because they couldn’t get any other rehearsal space.
“Making movies with your friends is a privilege,” cast member Joe Lo Truglio said. And with their ever-expanding circle of friends, we’re the ones who benefit. — Vanessa Franko
Some deal news
Neon has acquired the worldwide rights to horror film “4 X 4: The Event” from filmmaker Alex Ullom, the indie studio said Sunday afternoon.
The deal is the first to be made in Park City so far, though the film was not shown at Sundance and will begin production later this year. The value of the deal was not disclosed.
The film follows eight contestants who join an illegal “sensory assault” livestream in which they can only harm each other with items they can buy online, Neon said in a statement.
The studio previously bought global rights to Ullom’s first horror film, “It Ends,” after it premiered at SXSW last year. — Samantha Masunaga
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Troy Deeney’s team of the week: Guehi, Martinez, Tielemans, Igor Jesus
Youri Tielemans (Aston Villa): He was the best player on the pitch by a country mile. He’s slowly become Villa’s most important player. He dictates the play, breaks it up, and does everything right. Very, very good player and that pains me to say as a Birmingham City fan.
Ibrahim Sangare (Nottingham Forest): Lost him during Afcon and it wasn’t the same midfield. He is a pitbull next to Elliot Anderson; he does all of the ugly stuff and breaks it up. A fantastic footballer and part of a solid defensive unit, which obviously Forest needed.
Emiliano Buendia (Aston Villa): Scored unbelievable goals, all vital for their team’s attacking outlet. Buendia, for me, just showed that little bit of class and magic. I love to see players taking a risk.
Patrick Dorgu (Manchester United): Dorgu could never play a game like that in his life. He’s been unbelievable since Michael Carrick came in. That goal in the win at Arsenal was unbelievable and worthy of winning any football match in the world.
Estevao Willian (Chelsea): Young, exciting player and got a goal and assist, but it was against Crystal Palace, so he doesn’t get as much chat as the others.
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Chargers hire ex-Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel as offensive coordinator
The Chargers hired former Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel as their new offensive coordinator Monday as they look to maximize quarterback Justin Herbert‘s talents in the wake of another one-and-done playoff exit.
Fired by the Dolphins on Jan. 8 after a 7-10 season, McDaniel went 35-33 over four seasons in South Beach. His hiring comes less than two weeks after Herbert fell to 0-3 in the playoffs following a 16-3 AFC wild-card loss to the New England Patriots, resulting in offensive coordinator Greg Roman’s firing.
With defensive coordinator Jesse Minter leaving to become coach of the Baltimore Ravens, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh will have two new coordinators in 2026.
Considered one of the NFL’s leading offensive innovators when he was hired by the Dolphins after a one-year stint as offensive coordinator in San Francisco, McDaniel guided Miami to back-to-back playoff berths in 2022 and ’23. In McDaniel’s first season, quarterback Tua Tagovailoa passed for 3,548 yards and 25 touchdowns in 13 games. He then passed for a league-leading 4,624 yards with 29 touchdowns in 2023 at the front of the league’s top offense (401 net yards per game).
The Dolphins, however, were winless in the playoffs under McDaniel. And Tagovailoa’s injury-limited 2024 season, coupled with his deteriorating performances this season, factored into McDaniel’s firing.
Still, McDaniel’s reputation as an offensive guru made him a prime candidate not just for coordinator positions, but for head coaching vacancies too. He reportedly interviewed for head coaching jobs with the Atlanta Falcons, Baltimore Ravens, Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans before deciding to join Harbaugh’s staff. He also reportedly withdrew from consideration for the Cleveland Browns’ head coaching job and canceled an interview for the Buffalo Bills head coaching vacancy before formalizing his deal with the Chargers.
Harbaugh said last week he wanted “a head coach of the offense,” someone who “teaches, installs and puts the players in the best position to be successful.”
Much of that wish list will center on McDaniel establishing a run game to complement Herbert — something that never fully materialized under Roman and Harbaugh.
The Chargers clearly prioritized the rush last offseason when they signed Najee Harris and drafted Omarion Hampton in the first round. But season-ending injuries to Rashawn Slater, Joe Alt and Harris, coupled with Hampton being undermined by ankle injuries, thwarted meaningful year-over-year gains (122 yards per game in 2025; 111 in 2024).
With the offensive line set to return to full strength and general manager Joe Hortiz saying he’s willing to spend some of the team’s estimated $103 million in salary-cap space, the Chargers are well-positioned for another postseason run in 2026.
Whether McDaniel can help Herbert end his playoff winless streak remains to be seen.
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2026 T20 World Cup: Pakistan will make decision on boycott by early next week
A decision on whether Pakistan will boycott next month’s men’s T20 World Cup is set to be made by early next week.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chair Mohsin Naqvi held talks with the country’s prime minister, Shahbaz Sharif, on Monday to discuss their participation in light of Bangladesh’s withdrawal.
The International Cricket Council (ICC) replaced Bangladesh with Scotland on Saturday for the tournament which is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka between 7 February and 8 March.
Naqvi said in a post on X, external he had “a productive meeting” with Sharif where he “briefed him on the ICC matter”.
“He [Sharif] directed that we resolve it while keeping all options on the table,” Naqvi said.
“It was agreed that the final decision will be taken either on Friday or next Monday.”
BBC Sport understands that in addition to a full boycott of the tournament Pakistan officials are considering just boycotting their match against India.
Pakistan are due to play India at the T20 World Cup in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on 15 February in accordance with an agreement signed last year saying the two countries will play at neutral venues whenever one of them hosts an ICC event.
Political tensions mean the two countries have not faced each other outside men’s major tournaments since 2013, while India have not played in Pakistan since 2008.
The ICC has been approached for comment.
Pakistan’s response comes after the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) had asked for their World Cup fixtures to be switched from India citing safety concerns.
There has been growing tensions between the countries and Bangladesh requested their games were played in Sri Lanka, which is co-hosting the tournament, instead.
The ICC rejected Bangladesh’s request, saying there was an “absence of any credible security threat” before the BCB reaffirmed its position.
BBC Sport understands Pakistan supported Bangladesh’s position in an emergency ICC board meeting held last Wednesday.
In a statement released last Saturday, in which they announced the decision to replace Bangladesh with Scotland, the ICC said it had “engaged with the BCB through multiple rounds of dialogue conducted in a transparent and constructive manner”.
“In light of these findings, and after careful consideration of the broader implications, the ICC determined that it was not appropriate to amend the published event schedule,” the ICC statement added.
The ICC also said it was keen not to establish “precedents that could undermine the neutrality and fairness of ICC events”.
This month, the Board of Control for Cricket in India told Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders to drop Bangladesh cricketer Mustafizur Rahman because of political tensions.
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