WASHINGTON — Louisiana’s state attorneys on Thursday urged the Supreme Court to stand aside for now and to uphold an appeals court ruling that would stop the mailing of abortion pills nationwide.
They blamed former President Biden for undermining the state’s strict bans on abortion and the Trump administration for slow-walking a study on the federal regulations that permit sending the pills through the mail.
The justices are likely to act soon on emergency appeals filed by two makers of mifepristone. They argued the pills have been shown to be safe and effective for ending an early pregnancy.
But last week, the conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans ruled for Louisiana and revived an earlier regulation that would require women to obtain the pills in person from a doctor.
The three-judge panel also took the unusual step for putting its order into effect immediately. On Monday, Justice Samuel A. Alito, who oversees the 5th Circuit, issued an administrative stay that will keep the case on hold through Monday.
The justices have to decide whether Louisiana had standing to sue over the federal drug regulations, and if so, whether judges have the authority to overrule the Food and Drug Administration.
Two years ago, the Supreme Court by a 9-0 vote dismissed a similar challenge to the abortion pills that came from the 5th Circuit. And Chief Justice John G. Roberts has said in the past that judges should usually defer to the federal agency that is responsible fo regulating drugs.
In response to anti-abortion advocates, Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. agreed to have the FDA review the safety record of mifepristone.
It was approved in 2000 as safe and effective for ending early pregnancies. And in the past decade, the agency had relaxed earlier restrictions, including a requirement that pregnant women visit a doctor’s office to obtain the pills.
But the FDA said last month its review is far from complete.
In October, Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill decided to bypass the FDA review and went to federal court seeking a ruling that would prevent the pills being sent by mail.
A federal judge refused to decide on the issue while the FDA was undertaking its review. But the 5th Circuit chose to act now. The Louisiana state attorney put the focus on the Biden administration.
When the Supreme Court was considering the Dobbs case, which overruled Roe vs. Wade and the right to abortion, “the Biden Administration was preparing a plan that predictably would undermine that decision,” she wrote in Thursday’s response.
“Although Louisiana law generally prohibits abortion and the dispensing of mifepristone to pregnant women, out-of-state prescribers—freed from the in-person dispensing requirement — are causing approximately 1,000 illegal abortions in Louisiana each month by mailing FDA-approved mifepristone into the state,” she said.
The Trump administration has yet to tell the court of its views on this case.
The NCAA announced Thursday that it will expand its two March Madness tournaments by eight teams each next season, a long-expected move that will drop more games into the first week of the highly popular and lucrative showcase without substantially changing its overall form.
The new, 76-team brackets will jam eight extra games — for a total of 12 involving 24 teams — into the front half of the first week of the men’s and the women’s tournaments. It will turn what’s now known as the First Four into a bigger affair that will now be called the “March Madness Opening Round.”
The 12 winners will move into the main 64-team bracket that will begin, as usual, on Thursday for the men and Friday for the women.
It is the first expansion of the tournaments in 15 years, when they were bumped to 68 teams each.
The NCAA said it will distribute more than $131 million in new revenue to schools that make the tournament. That money will come via expanded TV advertising opportunities for alcohol, the likes of which were previously restricted. It said the value of the rights agreement will increase $50 million each year on average over the course of the six years.
Most of the eight new slots are expected to go to teams from the power conferences that were already commanding the lion’s share of entries in the bracket. Two years ago, the Southeastern Conference placed a record 14 teams in the men’s bracket. Last season, the Big Ten had nine.
Keith Gill, the chairman of the Division I men’s basketball committee, called the expansion “a nice way to create some access but make sure we have the bracket we all love when we start Thursday at noon.”
The move is a product of the times, which includes massive expansion — the Atlantic Coast Conference, for instance, has grown from nine to 17 teams since 1996 — and the reality that mid-major schools with top-notch players will often see them plucked away by programs with bigger budgets and the ability to pay them through revenue sharing.
Cinderella? There will still be room for those stirring runs in the tournaments, though not a single mid-major advanced past the first weekend of either tournament the last two seasons.
This is hardly a concern of the decision-makers anymore, who will point to TV ratings that traditionally spell out fans’ preference for the likes of Duke and North Carolina over St. Peter’s and San Diego State, especially once the Sweet 16 starts.
What matters more to the biggest schools is that their teams have a chance to compete in what remains the best postseason in college sports and that they aren’t iced out by lower conference champions who earn automatic bids.
“You’ve got some really, really good teams who are going to end up in that 9, 10, 11 [seed] category that I think should be moved into the” 64-team bracket, SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said last year in discussing how he favored expansion.
Also, the money. The new beer and wine money will add to what the NCAA can distribute in “units” that are earned for placing teams in the bracket and then for every round those teams advance. Last year, that amounted to about $350,000 per unit for the men’s tournament. The Big Ten made nearly $70 million from both tournaments, won by conference members Michigan [men] and UCLA [women].
Leaders in the SEC, Big Ten, Big 12 and ACC have all acknowledged that smaller programs help make March Madness what it is, all the while steadily expanding their own power in NCAA decision-making. That brings with it the tacit threat of fracturing the single thing the NCAA does best — the basketball tournament.
This move might forestall that. What it isn’t expected to do is drastically change the TV deal beyond the advertising.
The current deal for the men’s tournament is worth $8.8 billion and runs through 2032. Adding a few extra games between mid-level Power Four teams on Tuesday and Wednesday won’t change that much.
One reason this took as long as it did was the NCAA negotiations with CBS and TNT, which themselves have been in negotiations over their own ownership.
The more drastic option of expanding the tournament to 96 teams or beyond would involve adding an extra week to a tournament that has thrived in part because of the symmetry of a six-round bracket that gets whittled down over three weeks.
That basic shell began in 1985, with only slight tweaks, the latest of which came in 2011 when it was upped to 68.
Events: Men’s baseball gold medal finals, women’s basketball gold medal finals, men’s soccer gold medal finals, swimming preliminary and tennis quarter final mixed doubles
Thoughts: ”My uncle made a spreadsheet. The tickets are for me, my uncle, friends and I’m hoping to take my nephew as well. I was 10 years old at the 1984 Olympics and got to go to gymnastics, swimming and closing ceremonies, and my nephew will be 10 in 2028. I know L.A. is going to have an amazing Olympics, we are Los Angeles! Ten million creative, beautiful people, always dreaming and we know how to wow people. I can’t wait and hopefully traffic is smooth, a glamorous sequel to ’84.”
The U.S. Department of Education opened an investigation Monday into Smith College, an all-women’s institution in Massachusetts, for admitting transgender women.
The probe by the department’s Office of Civil Rights will look at whether the college violated Title IX, a 1972 law forbidding discrimination based on sex in education.
The move is the latest by the Trump administration — whose rhetoric has frequently included attacks on trans people — to limit transgender rights in the U.S. The administration has said that Title IX prevents trans women from participating in women’s sports, suing several states and launching investigations into schools for not complying.
Smith College, a private liberal arts school founded in 1871, has admitted trans women since 2015, along with many other elite women’s colleges.
The school’s admission policies drew attention and sparked on-campus activism in 2013, when a trans high school senior was denied acceptance because her gender identity did not match the one on her financial aid forms.
Its website now says that “any applicants who self-identify as women; cis, trans, and nonbinary women” are eligible to apply to the school. Advocates have supported the shift over the years, saying that women’s colleges were founded to educate those marginalized because of their gender.
The number of women’s colleges in the U.S. has declined from more than 200 to just 30 as of fall of 2023, according to the Women’s College Coalition.
A college spokesperson did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.
According to the Department of Education in a news release, Title IX contains an exception that allows colleges to be all-male or all-female, but it only applies “on the basis of biological sex difference, not subjective gender identity.”
The investigation into Smith College stems from a complaint filed with the Office of Civil Rights in June 2025 by the conservative legal group Defending Education.
“DE and its members oppose, among other things, discrimination on the basis of sex in America’s K-12 schools and institutions of higher education,” the organization said in a news release.
During the Biden administration, new Title IX regulations were issued to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity. However, those were struck down by a federal judge in January 2025 who decided the rules had legal shortcomings.
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court took a first step on Monday to consider anti-abortion challenges to medication that has been commonly used to end early pregnancies for 25 years.
The justices moved quickly to put on hold an appeals court ruling that would block the mailing of abortion pills nationwide. Justice Samuel A. Alito issued a temporary “administrative stay” until May 11.
Three years ago, the court blocked a similar challenge to abortion pills, ruling that anti-abortion doctors had no grounds to sue over medication they did not use or prescribe.
Last year, Louisiana’s state lawyers sued and argued their state ban on abortions is thwarted if women can receive abortion pills through the mail after consulting a doctor online.
They questioned the federal regulation that permits doctors to prescribe the medication without seeing patients in person.
On Friday evening, the conservative U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans jolted abortion rights advocates, first by ruling this claim is likely to succeed and then by putting their order into effect immediately.
Judge Kyle Duncan, a President Trump appointee, said the Food and Drug Administration had “failed to adequately study whether remotely prescribing mifepristone is safe.”
Moreover, women may suffer “irreparable harm” if these mail-order prescriptions are allowed to continue, he said.
If upheld, the order would go far beyond Louisiana and make it illegal for women in California and other states to obtain the pills through a pharmacy or by mail if they did not see a doctor first.
The legal dispute may put the Trump administration in an uncomfortable spot. In response to the abortion critics, the FDA agreed to review the safety of prescribing these commonly used pills without a required trip to a doctor’s office.
Its review is not likely to be completed until after the November elections.
The 5th Circuit judges said they were not prepared to wait for the outcome of that review.
On Saturday, two makers of mifepristone — Danco Laboratories and GenBioPro — filed emergency appeals asking the justices to block the 5th Circuit’s order.
“Never before has a federal court” rejected a long-standing drug approval by the FDA, they said, and restricted its distribution based on claims the agency had rejected.
The justices asked for a response from Louisiana by Thursday.
Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to an early pregnancy. It is typically used in combination with a second drug — misoprostol — which is not affected by the court’s decision.
If mifepristone becomes unavailable, women may use misoprostol alone, abortion rights advocates say.
In recent years, the majority of abortions in this country result from the use of medication.
Alito is responsible for emergency appeals from the 5th Circuit, and Monday’s order does not signal what the court will decide.
“This ruling is not final — keep watching,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights. “Getting abortion pills through telehealth has been a lifeline for women since Roe v. Wade was overturned. Louisiana’s attempt to restrict access is political and not based in science or medicine. Americans deserve access to this critical drug that has been FDA approved for 25 years.”
Carol Tobias, president of National Right to Life, agreed the court’s order did not resolve anything.
“It is a temporary procedural step that leaves unresolved the very real concerns about the safety of these drugs and the decision under the Biden administration’s FDA to recklessly remove longstanding safeguards,” she said.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta joined with 21 other state attorneys in urging the court to block the 5th Circuit’s decision.
“Telehealth has made it easier for women — especially in rural, low-income, and underserved communities — to access mifepristone and obtain reproductive health care,” he said. “We should be guided by science, not politics. The in-person dispensing requirement was eliminated because it was medically unnecessary, and there is still no basis for reinstating it.”
It’s 11:30 a.m. on a beautiful and unseasonably warm day in Marina del Rey, half an hour before the starting time for the Yacht Girls Book Club meeting, but several women are already standing at the gate leading to a vintage yacht docked at the California Yacht Club.
Nicole Vaughn, a first-time attendee who has driven from Woodland Hills with her friend Cani Gonzalez for the meeting, had been looking for author events on Eventbrite when she found the Yacht Girls Book Club’s “Brunch and Sound Bath,” which also includes a signed copy of the featured author’s book, a boat ride and swag bag for $65. “I read ‘sound bath, poetry and manifesting,’ which sounded intriguing, so I said, ‘Why not?’” Vaughn says.
Once the gate opens, Vaughn, Gonzalez and the others stream in, alone or in pairs. The mostly female attendees range from 30 years old to over 70 and are attired in outfits including cutoffs, tank tops, straw fedoras and glamorous full-length dresses. There are approximately 60 first-timers and returning members.
Brittany Goodwin, another first-timer and Mid-City resident who does social marketing and media for HBO Max, also heard about the meeting on Eventbrite. “I saw the word manifestation [in the ad] and I was there!” she enthuses, taking in the colorful array of arriving women. “And today is the full moon, so it’s very appropriate.”
That’s because the speaker is local poet and author Melody Godfred, whose latest book, “Moon Garden,” attracted the attention of Aloni Ford, Yacht Girls founder and organizer of the meeting.
“I thought Melody would be perfect for the official relaunch of the Yacht Girls,” Ford said in an earlier phone conversation. “Her message of self-love and living more authentically is the reason I started the book club in the first place.”
That was in 2018, when Ford, an Altadena-born manager of professional athletes and boating enthusiast who has lived in Marina del Rey for the last decade, was tired of conversations with women that only focused on relationships. “I wanted conversations with like-minded women that were intellectual but fun. And talking about books seemed to be the ideal way to achieve that.”
Erin Nelson, left, and Lisa Nelson make a brunch plate at the Yacht Girls Book Club.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
For that first meeting, Ford gathered six women — female friends, her masseuse, a favorite aunt. “We discussed Ruth Ware’s ‘The Woman in Cabin 10,’ so I held that first meeting on a local yacht cruise.” After the discussion, the women agreed they wanted to continue meeting, and brainstormed names until Ford suggested Yacht Girls, and the book club was launched.
Some of those “OGs” — Ford’s term for the original Yacht Girls who attended those first few meetings — now embrace each other, introduce the friends they’ve brought, and recount previous discussions of memoirs and books on self-care, building self-confidence and financial literacy. Tarzana resident and OG Felicia Smith still remembers her favorite book discussion. “It was ‘Let Your Fears Make You Fierce’,” she says, reaching for her phone to show the book is still in her audiobook library. Ford recalls that a highlight of those early years was a discussion of Gabrielle Union’s memoir, “We’re Going to Need More Wine,” which was held at Malibu Wines & Beer Garden and attracted more than 300 participants. “I tried to match the venue with the author whenever I could,” Ford says of those early meetings.
But then COVID-19 struck and, although she wanted to continue the book club via Zoom, Ford admits, “I’m not a Zoom kind of girl. I need the interaction, the face-to-face connection with women.” In the interim, Ford pursued other interests, including yachting, a hobby she picked in 2023 that birthed ideas for Yacht Yoga and other female empowerment gatherings of the Yacht Girls.
Ford’s chosen venue for Yacht Girls Book Club meetings is the “Northwind,” a 100-year-old, lovingly restored 130-foot vessel that once hosted Jacqueline Kennedy in 1961 and is open to the California Yacht Club’s members, of which Ford is one. After check-in, attendees are invited to take a ride on a smaller vessel docked nearby, enjoy the buffet luncheon on the main deck, get a tarot card reading from Ruby Sheng Nichols or take in the sun, ocean breeze and marina views from the upper deck, which is outfitted with umbrellas, tables for four and comfortable lounge seating, all arranged with a view of the ship’s stern, where Godfred is preparing to read and where Amber Melvisha is setting up a sound bath, which will accompany the reading.
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1.Felicia Smith listens to Melody Godfred recite poems from her book “Moon Garden.”2.Members of the Yacht Girls Book Club enjoy brunch.(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
Godfred, 43, is delighted to be with such a diverse group of kindred spirits. “I’ve been craving in-person experiences lately,” she says, “especially with people outside my bubble. This absolutely fulfills that desire.”
Olympia Auset, a book club OG and founder of a nonprofit South Central organic grocery store, is pleased with the turnout. “There is a real spirit of community in this book club,” she says, after quietly taking in the scene.
That spirit is exemplified by Ford, a gregarious hostess who moves through the various groupings of women in a diaphanous full-length blue dress, introducing Godfred to a group of attendees and hugging both first-timers and her OGs enthusiastically. It feels a little like a reunion, with everyone a part of the extended family. “I come for the networking, to meet women of all different levels,” observes View Park resident Alicia Sutton, an OG who proudly displays her original Yacht Girls badge. “We have more in common than we think. We are a group of women of all colors.”
As the women — plus Ty Jessick of Santa Monica, a friend of Ford’s and the lone man at the event — settle into their seats, Ford greets them again, recounts the Yacht Girls’ early days and her vision for the book club’s next chapter. “This is an opportunity to unplug from our daily lives,” she tells the assembled group, amid nods and murmurs of agreement. “We schedule so much but we must not forget to schedule joy. Today you may meet your new best friend, a business partner, or just someone who loves books. After our first post-pandemic meeting last fall, we wanted to relaunch the Yacht Girls Book Club in a big way. And after today, I’m definitely back in those book streets again!”
With that, Ford hands the mic to Godfred, who shares her own story of immigrating to Los Angeles with her parents from Iran when she was three months old, of being a “recovering attorney” who was managing two businesses and raising three children with her husband but not taking time for herself. That self-neglect resulted in a health challenge, which eventually led to Godfred reconnecting with her passion for poetry and self-exploration. “It was a signal to start honoring my truth more fully,” she explains.
After introducing the inspiration behind “Moon Garden,” which contains 12 sections of spiritual poems, insights and affirmations tied to Earth’s lunar cycles, Godfred answers questions posed by Ford and the audience. Then, she invites participants to get comfortable in their seats while she reads selections from the book that encourage surrender, rest and contemplation during the winter months. The sound bath and a chiming bell provide a resonant echo in which attendees visibly relax, most with their eyes closed.
Members of the Yacht Girls Book Club enjoy drinks on the upper deck of the “Northwind.”
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The meeting breaks up around 2 p.m. and is followed by music-filled, informal mingling, where the participants discuss the book and the afternoon. From their tables in the “Northwind’s” aft section, Vaughn, seated with Gonzalez and a group of new acquaintances, says she definitely will return.
“This book club may attract women who are high achievers,” Auset says as she gathers with other regular members for a photo, “but we all need to make time for self-care and community.”
They call themselves the Booked Babes. Tonight, the women are gathered in Anna Sokol’s kitchen, surrounding an oven-roasted duck stuffed with apples. The dish is a Ukrainian delicacy from Sokol’s home country, where she was once a fashion designer and influencer. Now, she’s in Venice Beach. Sunlight bleeds in from the window where the sun is setting over the Venice Canals. At the women’s feet, a mini Bernedoodle, Zipper, paces nervously, barking at arriving guests. Screams echo from the upstairs bedrooms, where two husbands are in exile, watching a Green Bay Packers game with a newborn baby.
Tonight’s book club is Eastern European-themed, prompting the women to wear red cardigans and dresses. The book under discussion is “The New Rules” by Russian-born TikTok influencer Margarita Nazarenko, who prescribes gender roles that Sokol recognizes as distinctly Eastern European. Nazarenko is a best-selling author with more than 600,000 followers on Instagram, known for offering practical, blunt dating advice to women. “Her methodology feels very Eastern European in male and female relationships and dynamics,” Sokol explains as her guests pick at deviled eggs and brie cheese with manicured nails.
The guest list for the Booked Babes is small — only six women, with one of them commuting remotely from Miami; this time, she joins over FaceTime. The Booked Babes was founded more than two years ago at a holiday party as a New Year’s resolution to read more and forge new friendships. Since then, the women have become best friends, and the book club meetings they host have taken on a life of their own —becoming more spectacular and competitive with each meeting.
The Booked Babes journeyed to a gothic mansion in La Jolla and dressed as Marie Antoinette in extravagant rococo dresses.
(Anna Sokol)
“It started off very normal in the beginning, very casual,” book club member Cassandra Leisz explains. “I don’t really know when the switch happened.”
With each passing month, the book club became more elaborate and more involved — including vacations in coastal towns, costuming, pickleball tournaments and monogrammed custom merch.
Take the historical literary fiction novel “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” by Patrick Süskind, for example, set in the 18th century. The group journeyed to a gothic mansion in La Jolla and dressed as Marie Antoinette in extravagant rococo dresses. Eighteenth century activities included croquet and designing a custom perfume, all accompanied by fashion photography. Sokol chose the novel for its cult status in Ukraine: “Everyone read it, even though it’s a really weird book.”
For the book club members, the spectacle is part of the fun. “It gives us all a chance to be creative and come together. You get to make it whatever you want it to be. There’s the element of: how do I want to express myself in this time period?” says Leisz.
For the book club pick “Flawless” by Elsie Silver, Ashley Goldsmith planned a cowboy picnic in Franklin Canyon, complete with her mother’s vintage Chevy pickup truck.
(Anna Sokol)
For her turn hosting, Leisz rented a boat — not quite a yacht, she clarifies — in Marina del Rey, paired with lobster rolls and champagne. The novel was “The Wedding People” by Alison Espach, set in a hotel in Newport, R.I. Leisz leaned into the snobby, blue-blood aesthetic described in the book for her outing.
“It is a financial commitment. We put a lot of money into it between the decor, the gifts and the activity,” says Leisz.
Opinions and literary taste often vary among the women. The book club enjoys sparring over polarizing books, but the point is always friendship. “There are a lot of times I don’t like the book, but I love having an opportunity to spend time with girlfriends,” says Ashley Goldsmith.
Custom merch like personalized sweatshirts, elaborate gifting and travel have become a tradition for this book club.
(Anna Sokol)
For her book club on “Flawless” by Elsie Silver, Goldsmith planned a cowboy picnic in Franklin Canyon, complete with her mother’s vintage Chevy pickup truck for photo ops. The meal was followed by a mechanical bull-riding competition at Saddle Ranch. Goldsmith even hired a security guard to secure the public picnic bench beginning at 7 a.m.
The Booked Babes have attracted attention on the members’ social media with eager requests to join. The book club always politely declines, given its specific chemistry. “The second we started posting about this and talking about it, people were like, ‘Oh my God, how do I join?’” says Leisz. Since schedules are already tricky to maneuver, the club does not accept new members.
The Booked Babes raise their glasses.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
In curating a book club, the members insist that diversity of opinion is key. “We’re all quite different from each other. We have very different backgrounds. Some of us come from different countries,” says Leisz. Illana O’Reiley, who joined over Facetime, immigrated from Dublin and is currently living in Miami.
At dinner, the book club sits down for the Ukrainian meal to discuss “The New Rules.” On the table are elaborate rose arrangements and settings draped in red ribbon. Amanda Ghaffari slyly streams the Green Bay Packers game on her iPhone. O’Reiley jokes via Facetime she is eating popcorn and watching the hit gay drama “Heated Rivalry.”
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1.A flower arrangement is set for a themed book club.2.A cheese plate.3.Book club members wear red and pink dresses for their meeting.(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
The conversation includes some light teasing about each other’s attachment styles — the intimate banter of close friends. Victoria Frenner, who is a therapist, expresses skepticism about the book’s punchy tone. “When someone is speaking on something with a lot of conviction, like, there always has to be some kind of caveat,” Frenner says.
“This is why I wanted you to read it. It’s very Eastern European-focused.” Sokol says. “American girls are a little more on the independent side. She doesn’t say ‘don’t be independent,’ but she talks a lot about femininity.” Sokol recounts the dizzying story of meeting her husband at a wedding in Moscow, which begins with her husband attending a nightclub in Dubai.
Ashley Goldsmith reads her individualized star chart.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
For the activity planned, Sokol, who is eight months pregnant and wearing a dazzling candy-pink dress that matches the chosen book’s cover, presents the members with their own custom Slavic astrology reading, one she procured from a Ukrainian astrologer she visited when she was 19. Fortune telling and mysticism are common in Eastern Europe, she explains. The custom readings are bound in booklets, each featuring a spirit animal, such as a panda, and suggested habits.
“Avoid fast cars and motorcycles. Avoid countries with active war,” one of the booklets read.
Ghaffari explains that ever since she was 3 years old in Milwaukee, her mother has been in a decades-long book club. “She flies back for it, and she’ll recommend books that they just read,” Ghaffari says. Three weeks ago, Ghaffari had her first baby, who is in attendance, whom she jokes is the “book club heir.”
The Booked Babes fall quiet as they thumb through their astrology booklets, reading about destiny, transfixed by the mesmerizing promise of inevitable fate.
Connors is a writer living in Los Angeles. She hosts the literary reading event Unreliable Narrators at Nico’s Wines in Atwater Village every month.
If you were to go by “Saturday Night Live” hosting performance alone, you might think that the best way to ensure a memorable, well rounded and surprisingly funny show is to book a female pop star — preferably one with some child-acting experience.
With apologies to Harry Styles, it’s been pop stars including Ariana Grande, Sabrina Carpenter, Dua Lipa and now Olivia Rodrigo who’ve shown themselves to be naturals at adapting their on-stage talents to the Studio 8H stage for “SNL.”
And while she might not have crushed it to the degree of Grande (something about the Bowen Yang era of the show and Grande seemed in perfect lockstep with each other), Rodrigo was a very good host. Whatever she lacked in sketch comedy chops, she more than made up for as musical guest, world-premiering a new song called “begged,” and singing in several sketches, including a memorable one about a girl in a zoo on a planet of bug people (we’ll get to that).
After a charming monologue in which she also sang, Rodrigo played a scheming woman in a “Dynasty”-like nighttime soap opera from the 1980s, “Edge of Destiny,” where people kept falling down the stairs. The mix of physical comedy, distant cue cards and having to keep from breaking character as cast members flopped down a set of fake stairs seemed almost too much for the guest host. But she recovered nicely in another solid (and hilariously gross) “Shop TV” sketch about a baker (Rodrigo) who makes lava cakes that look a lot like anuses.
She also played a woman competing with her ex-boyfriend (Ben Marshall) at a birthday party by pretending to have a date (he does the same with a wacky Ashley Padilla). She also played a cheating romantic partner in a musical sketch about getting busted, a rideshare passenger whose driver (Andrew Dismukes) discovers he has a talent for Jamaican dancehall rapping, and a TikToker employed by a home security company to take viral videos of burglars.
Rodrigo’s songs were tremendous, especially “begged,” but it was hard for any of the sketches to top Aziz Ansari’s appearance as FBI Director Kash Patel, which drew the biggest non-musical audience reaction of the show when he appeared in the cold open.
As musical guest, Rodrigo performed her latest single “drop dead,” introduced by Debbie Harry, and a new song, “begged,” introduced by recent host and “Heated Rivalry” star Connor Storrie.
It was the rare cold open without a rambling James Austin Johnson performance as President Trump. Instead, after a clever opening title card (“You’re watching A-Span. Of your life disappear. Watching C-SPAN.”), White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt (Padilla) talked about her upcoming maternity leave before introducing “The man, the myth, the liability,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (Colin Jost). Hegseth talked about the war in Iran with its “sick air raids. This war has been a movie … specifically ‘The Neverending Story.’ ” Hegseth fielded a few questions, belittling reporters as he’s done before, answering the question of when the war will end: “That’s like asking when is sex gonna be over,” he replied, “Answer: when the man is done.” Hegseth introduced Patel (Ansari), who fast-talked his way through a defense of his alleged drinking and spending. From low hanging fruit (“We dotted every T and bulged every I”) to a much sharper takedown of Patel (“I’m the first Indian person to suck at their job”), Ansari brought his Tom Haverford from “Parks and Recreation” energy, particularly when describing jumping on the couch at a night club screaming, “Who wants the nuclear codes? J/K, I ain’t got ‘em!”
Rodrigo’s monologue began by acknowledging how young the 23-year-old pop star really is: they say your favorite “SNL” cast is the one you saw when you were a teenager and hers, she said, was the current cast. After teasing her new album out next month, she showed a clip of a commercial she did for Old Navy and mentioned working with Jake Paul on the Disney Channel show “Bizaardvark.” Paul, she said, once told her, “I really want to beat up old guys on Netflix!” and they both achieved their dreams. Rodrigo then played at a piano a take of her first hit single “drivers license,” focused on getting a Real ID at the DMV and all that it requires. “Passport, W2, first-born son / Gas bill, body count, bra size, how long will this be? I’ll just use my old fake ID,” she sang.
Best sketch of the night: They even have Olivia-shaped popsicles!
Unsurprisingly, the best of the night was one of Rodrigo’s musical performances, this time a pre-taped music video about a girl who loves her perfect bedroom. It’s got a purple corded phone, a lava lamp, a beanbag chair … and it happens to be a habitat at a zoo on a planet of bug people. The wistful, lovely song is accompanied by weird visuals of the aliens, who look like praying mantises, admiring the human specimen through the room’s windows, applauding when she goes to the bathroom and taking pictures. There are enough bizarre touches, such as a VHS version of “A League of Their Own” with aliens in human skin suits, a bug protester and an unsuccessful male mate (Johnson), that quite a bit of world building happens in the short span of the very catchy tune. Can we get this song on Apple Music and Spotify, please?
Also good: Cute — cake frosting on the nose. Sexy — mashed potatoes all over the face.
Former “SNL” cast member Kristen Wiig had a talent for introducing characters whose one bizarre trait, expertly performed, could drive a whole sketch. These days, it’s Ashley Padilla (maddeningly, she’s still billed as a “Featured Player”) who is able to elevate a potentially annoying character with a collection of hilarious tics and a lot of boundary overstepping. In a sketch about a broken-up couple (Rodrigo and Marshall) who try to make each other jealous by glomming on to fake new dates, Padilla laughs too loudly, smears mashed potatoes all over Marshall’s face, gives an unhinged speech that includes, “We are to be married at midnight! Now let us pray.” It seems like every episode of late has had one sketch reserved for Padilla to show her way with these types of self-unaware characters, and this was another great showcase for her.
‘Weekend Update’ winner: Podcasters are at war and it’s hard to understand why
If you don’t know why “Call Her Daddy” podcaster Alex Cooper (Chloe Fineman) and TikToker and “Hot Mess” podcaster Alix Earle (Veronika Slowikowska) are feuding, trust us, you are not alone. Their apparent beef, which has been speculated about by very online people and, weirdly, business reporters, is now “Weekend Update” fodder, with the women comparing their fight to a “literal Chernobyl for white women.” Perhaps the best part was Michael Che’s complete bafflement as to who these women are and why they’re mad at each other. Elsewhere, Kam Patterson continued his streak of clunky “Update” segments, this time vying for a date with Megan Thee Stallion after her breakup with NBA player Klay Thompson. In describing himself, Patterson said, “Some say he’s finding his voice more every week.” Unfortunately for Patterson, there’s only two episodes left in the season.
NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court has restricted access to one of the most common means of abortion in the U.S. by blocking mailing of mifepristone prescriptions.
Friday’s unanimous ruling from a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is requiring that the abortion pill be distributed only in person and at clinics, overruling regulations set by the federal Food and Drug Administration.
The ruling, which is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, is the biggest jolt to abortion policy in the U.S. since the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that overturned Roe vs. Wade and allowed states to enforce abortion bans.
In the ruling, Judge Kyle Duncan, who was appointed by President Trump, agreed with the state of Louisiana’s contention that allowing the drug to be mailed there makes moot the state’s ban on abortion at all stages of pregnancy.
“Every abortion facilitated by FDA’s action cancels Louisiana’s ban on medical abortions and undermines its policy that ‘every unborn child is a human being from the moment of conception and is, therefore, a legal person,’” the ruling states.
Commonplace treatment
Mifepristone was approved in 2000 as a safe and effective way to end early pregnancies. It is typically used in combination with a second drug, misoprostol.
Surveys have found that the majority of abortions in the U.S. are provided via pills and that about 1 in 4 abortions nationally are prescribed via telehealth.
One survey of abortion providers last year estimated that more women in states where abortion is banned obtained abortions that way than by traveling to other states.
Some Democratic-led states have laws that seek to protect providers who prescribe via telehealth to patients in places with bans.
That rise in prominence is why abortion opponents have targeted the pills in legislation and litigation.
Little precedent
There is little precedent for a federal court overruling the scientific regulations of the FDA, and it wasn’t immediately clear how quickly or completely the decision would affect mailing of the drug throughout the country.
Judges have long deferred to the agency’s judgments on the safety and appropriate regulation of drugs.
FDA officials under Trump have repeatedly stated that the agency is conducting a new review of mifepristone’s safety, at the direction of the president.
The judges, all nominated by Republican presidents, noted in their ruling that the FDA “could not say when that review might be complete and admitted it was still collecting data.”
Because of rare cases of excessive bleeding, the FDA initially imposed strict limits on who could prescribe and distribute the pill — only specially certified physicians and only after an in-person appointment where the person would receive the pill.
Both requirements were dropped during the COVID-19 emergency. At the time, FDA officials under President Biden said that after more than 20 years of monitoring mifepristone use, and reviewing dozens of studies involving thousands of women, it was clear that women could safely use the pill without direct supervision.
GenBioPro, which makes generic mifepristone, said in a statement that the court’s decision “ignores the FDA’s rigorous science and decades of safe use of mifepristone in a case pursued by extremist abortion opponents.”
Broader impact
In a court filing, Louisiana’s attorney general and a woman who said she was coerced into taking abortion pills requested that the FDA rules be rolled back to when the pills were allowed to be prescribed and dispensed only in person.
A Louisiana-based federal judge last month ruled that those allowances undermined the state’s abortion ban but stopped short of undoing the regulations immediately.
Friday’s ruling is in effect as the case works its way through the courts and extends beyond Louisiana and other states with abortion bans.
Telehealth prescriptions have become common even in states where abortion is allowed — and the ruling blocks them there, too.
“This is going to affect patients’ access to abortion and miscarriage care in every state in the nation,” said Julia Kaye, an ACLU lawyer. “When telemedicine is restricted, rural communities, people with low incomes, people with disabilities, survivors of intimate partner violence and communities of color suffer the most.”
The National Right to Life Committee said the ruling “restores a critical layer of oversight” in women’s health.
“Women deserve better than an abortion-by-mail system that prioritizes ideology over safety,” said Carol Tobias, the group’s president.
Next step
Friday’s ruling sets up a likely appeal to the Supreme Court.
“I look forward to continuing to defend women and babies as this case continues,” Louisiana Atty. Gen. Liz Murrill, a Republican, said in a statement.
The conservative-majority high court overturned abortion as a nationwide right in 2022 but unanimously preserved access to mifepristone two years later.
That 2024 decision sidestepped the core issues, however, by ruling that the antiabortion doctors behind the case didn’t have legal standing to sue.
Representatives for the FDA and the U.S. Department of Justice did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday evening.
In the meantime, antiabortion groups are celebrating Friday’s ruling. Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, applauded the ruling as “a huge victory for victims and survivors of Biden’s reckless mail-order abortion drug regime.” She also criticized the Trump administration for taking time to conduct its own review of mifepristone, saying its slow movement has forced states to take action.
“Women and children suffer and state sovereignty is violated every day the FDA allows abortion drugs to flood the mail,” Dannenfelser said.
Mulvihill and Schoenbaum write for the Associated Press. AP writers John Hanna, Matthew Perrone and Lindsay Whitehurst contributed to this report.
Ever-growing power conferences are the driving force behind an impending expansion of the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, which ESPN reported could be formalized within weeks and begin next season.
The field would grow from 68 teams to 76 that would include eight additional at-large teams in each tournament. The current First Four — eight teams playing four games — would expand to 12 games played by 24 teams at two sites on the first Tuesday and Wednesday of the tournament. The traditional 64-team bracket would begin Thursday as usual.
Mid-majors likely are tempering any celebration. The change might not mean more invitations to the Big Dance for underdogs because the NCAA and its media partners favor large, established schools with large, established fan bases for viewership and revenue.
The Power Four — the Big Ten, SEC, Big 12 and ACC — plus the Big East comprise 79 schools and continue to add rather than subtract. Even teams with conference records under .500 are usually considered more desirable additions to March Madness than mid-major potential Cinderellas.
Power conference teams play more highly regarded opponents than do mid-majors, who often struggle to schedule top opponents. That’s called strength of schedule, and advanced metrics such as KenPom, NET and Wins Above Bubble usually favor power conference schools.
It’s a bit too soon to start listing schools that likely would make the cut next March after missing out in recent years. The NCAA cautioned that the expansion is not official — yet.
“Expanding the basketball tournaments would require approval from multiple NCAA committees, including the men’s and women’s basketball committees, and no final recommendation or decisions have been made at this time,” the NCAA said in a statement.
Those final steps have been initiated, and one anonymous source told ESPN that approval by those committees “are just formalities.”
The women’s tournament would include the same expansion — and likely also favor the addition of teams from the power conferences.
Beau Greaves became the first woman to win a PDC ranking title by defeating Michael Smith 8-7 in the Players Championship 11 final in Milton Keynes.
The 22-year-old checked out with 142 in the deciding leg to seal victory against the former world champion, closing with a double 11.
Greaves enjoyed a strong run to her encounter with Smith, defeating Rob Cross 6-5 and Gary Anderson 7-1 on the way to the final.
It is the latest step in Greaves’ ascendant career, after she recorded a 114-match winning run in the PDC Women’s Series and became the first woman to hit a nine-dart finish on the PDC ProTour.
Elsewhere in the tournament, world number two Luke Humphries exited in the third round 6-5 to Max Hopp, while Premier League Darts players Stephen Bunting and Josh Rock fell in the first round.
The event did not feature world champion Luke Littler, who is yet to play in a Players Championship event this year, while Michael van Gerwen, Jonny Clayton, Gerwyn Price and Nathan Aspinall were also not in the field.
Five years ago, longtime baseball coach Joe Cascione left coaching the sport to start a women’s tennis team at Mission College.
On Wednesday, Mission College won the state women’s tennis championship armed with local players from Kennedy, Granada Hills, Sylmar and Birmingham high schools, among others.
It’s quite an achievement to win it all with local athletes.
Key contributors included Amy Nghiem, Priscilla Grinner and America Fragoso from Granada Hills; Jaelyn Rivera from Birmingham; Josilyn Rivera and Natalia Ponce from Kennedy; Alitzel Ortega Partida from Golden Valley; Genesis Nochez from West Ranch and Kristen Bonzon from Sylmar.
Cascione singled out his players for their passion and commitment.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
WASHINGTON — The Republican chair of the House Oversight Committee said some of its members would support a presidential pardon for convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for her assistance in the committee’s investigation into Jeffrey Epstein.
But good luck getting any of them to admit it.
Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.) told Politico Wednesday that “a lot of people” support the idea of Maxwell receiving a pardon from President Trump in exchange for her cooperation in the committee’s investigation.
Although Comer said he opposed a pardon himself — “other than Epstein, the worst person in this whole investigation is Maxwell” — he offered that his committee was “split” on the issue.
Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach, the top Democrat on his committee, condemned the idea of a Maxwell pardon and said Democrats on the committee uniformly oppose it.
“It’s outrageous that Republicans on the Oversight Committee are considering a pardon for Ghislaine Maxwell,” Garcia said in a statement. “She is a sexual abuser who facilitated the rape of women and children.”
The Times reached out to all 26 Republicans on the committee to see who, if anyone, supported the idea of a pardon.
Although most didn’t respond, the few who did expressed outrage at the idea.
“I am absolutely not supporting a pardon for her nor have I heard that from anyone else,” said Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.).
“Never in a thousand years,” said Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.).
Maxwell declined to answer the committee’s questions during a video deposition in February from the Texas federal prison where she is serving her 20-year prison sentence.
She is still challenging her 2021 conviction on five counts related to the sex trafficking of minors for her role in recruiting and grooming girls for Epstein to abuse. She was accused at trial of also participating in the abuse of one victim.
At the time of her February deposition, Maxwell’s attorney David Oscar Markus said she would offer the “unfiltered truth” if granted clemency by Trump.
Attorneys who have represented victims abused by Epstein and Maxwell strongly opposed the idea of a pardon.
“This is a woman who belongs behind bars for the rest of her life for what she did to women,” said Spencer Kuvin, who has represented numerous Epstein victims.
Sigrid McCawley, a managing partner at Boies Schiller Flexner, questioned the value of information Maxwell could provide.
“Ghislaine Maxwell is a proven self-serving liar,” McCawley said in a statement. “There is nothing credible that she will offer the government, and the assertion that she would provide information is simply a smoke screen.”
Trump has not said he is considering a pardon but when asked by reporters he has declined to rule it out.
Epstein abused more than 1,000 girls and young women over the span of decades. He negotiated a lenient deal nearly two decades ago with federal prosecutors in south Florida that allowed him to serve 13 months in a Palm Beach County jail where he was allowed to come and go freely to settle claims that he had abused dozens of high school girls.
Following investigative reporting on that deal by the Miami Herald, federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York brought new sex charges against Epstein in July 2019. He died in federal custody one month later.
Epstein and Maxwell counted members of the British royal family, multiple presidents and business titans among their friends.
They have been accused of forcing some of their victims to have sex with some of those men. But Maxwell is the only other person who has ever been charged in connection with Epstein’s crimes.
The committee has deposed numerous people who knew Epstein, including Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who hired Epstein to manage his finances, and former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The committee has not, however, deposed Trump, who once famously called Epstein a “terrific guy” and said, “I just wish her well,” when told of Maxwell’s arrest in 2020.
The Department of Justice has also released millions of pages of documents from its investigations into the deceased sex offender in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act, which was signed into law last year.
The release of the files has led to criminal inquiries in the United Kingdom into Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the former prince, and Peter Mandelson, the former British ambassador to the United States, over allegations that they provided secret government information to Epstein.
So far, the files have not led to any publicly known criminal investigations in the United States.
Kenyan runner John Korir has won the Boston Marathon for the second year in a row — and this time he did it in record-setting fashion.
Korir crossed the finish line Monday morning with a time of 2 hours, 1 minute, 52 seconds, shattering the previous course record of of 2:03:02 set by Geoffrey Mutai in 2011. It’s the fifth fastest marathon of all time.
Mutai was actually bumped down to fourth on the all-time list as all of the top three finishers from the 2026 men’s race beat his previous record time. Tanzania’s Alphonce Felix Simbu came in second (2:02:47) and Kenya’s Benson Kipruto was third (2:02:50).
Korir pulled away from the pack as the group was approaching the Heartbreak Hill area between miles 20 and 21. After the race, he told reporters that he had no idea he had set a new course record until after he crossed the finish line.
“I knew I would defend my title, but I didn’t know I could run my fastest,” Korir said. “So for me, it was just go and defend my title, but the time came, so I’m happy.”
Korir receives $150,000 for winning the race and another $50,000 for setting a new course record.
Kenya’s Sharon Lokedi celebrates after winning the women’s division of the Boston Marathon on April 20.
(Charles Krupa / Associated Press)
Fellow Kenyan Sharon Lokedi also was a repeat winner in the women’s race. Her time of 2:18:51 is the second-fastest in race history, behind her 2025 time of 2:17:22. She was followed across the finish line by three countrywomen. Loice Chemnung stayed close to Lokedi before fading late to finish in second place (2:19:35). Mary Ngugi-Cooper was third (2:20:07) and Mercy Chelangat fourth (2:20:30).
“It feels great,” Lokedi said of defending her title. “I ‘m really happy with it. I feel like this course challenges you so much, and with the help of people and all the cheers of the course, it makes it special, so I’m really grateful.”
Like Korir, Lokedi receives $150,000 for winning the race.
New course records for U.S. runners also were set, as Zouhair Talbi finished the men’s race in 2:03:45 and Jess McClain finished the women’s race in 2:20:49. Both runners placed fifth in their respective races.
“I knew it was going to be tailwind, which is an advantage for us to run a fast time,” Talbi told reporters after the race,” but the pace is determined by the leaders, and at this point you just want to follow the pace. A lot of athletes were pushing the pace early on, and … I was like, ‘Yeah, today’s going to be a fast time.’”
Switzerland’s Marcel Hug won the men’s wheelchair division with a time of 1:16:06. It’s his fourth straight Boston Marathon victory and ninth time overall, bringing him within one victory of tying South African great Ernst van Dyk for most wheelchair division wins in race history.
Britain’s Eden Rainbow-Cooper won the women’s wheelchair division in 1:30:51, two years after winning the race for the first time. She and Hug each receive $50,000 for winning their races.
Russia’s FSB accused the woman, found with a bomb in her backpack, of taking part in a plot hatched by Ukraine.
Published On 20 Apr 202620 Apr 2026
Russian authorities say they have thwarted a Ukraine-linked bomb plot against security services and arrested a German woman found with a makeshift bomb in her backpack.
Russia’s FSB security agency said the unnamed woman was detained on Monday in the southern city of Pyatigorsk.
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In a statement cited by Russia’s state-run TASS news agency, the FSB said it had “prevented a terrorist attack planned by the Kyiv regime against a law enforcement facility in the Stavropol region, involving a German citizen born in 1969”.
It said the woman had been recruited by a citizen from a Central Asian country, who was working on orders from Ukraine. That man was found and arrested near the targeted site.
According to the FSB, the device contained an explosive charge equivalent to 1.5kg (3 pounds) of TNT and was intended to be detonated remotely. The agency said the blast was ultimately prevented by electronic jamming.
Video of the purported arrest published by Russia’s state RIA Novosti news agency showed armed Russian security agents approach the woman as she was face down in a car park.
Another video showed masked plainclothes agents pulling a man into a station, followed by a controlled explosion of the backpack.
Russia’s previous allegations
Russia has arrested dozens of people throughout the four-year war, mostly its own citizens, on allegations of working for Ukraine to carry out sabotage attacks.
Russia has previously accused Ukraine of working with Islamic fundamentalists to carry out attacks inside Russia, without providing evidence.
Officials initially alleged that the perpetrators of a 2024 massacre at a concert hall on the outskirts of Moscow that killed 150 people were ISIL (ISIS) members in coordination with Ukraine.
ISIL claimed responsibility for that attack, making no reference of any Ukrainian involvement, for which no evidence was presented by Moscow and which Kyiv denies.
The question — as misguided as it is inevitable — of why his accusers hadn’t come forward sooner. (My columnizing colleague, Anita Chabria, incisively addressed that one, discussing the nature of suppressed trauma and the believability hurdle that many victims of sexual assault unduly face.)
Swalwell, 45 and married, had a widely whispered about reputation for showering inappropriate and unwelcome attention on younger women. Rumors — vague, unsubstantiated — were a source of incessant dirt-dishing among political insiders and also circulated extensively online. (Not, however, the more serious allegations of sexual assault.)
The veil was finally pierced last week when the San Francisco Chronicle published a graphic account of a woman alleging sexual encounters with Swalwell while the Democratic lawmaker was her boss. She said he sexually assaulted her twice when she was too intoxicated to consent.
The former congressman has flatly and vigorously denied criminal wrongdoing while acknowledging and apologizing for unspecific “mistakes.”
Those vociferous, flat-out denials had been enough to sway the politicians and union leaders who endorsed Swalwell’s gubernatorial bid, until the weight of evidence made Swalwell’s assertions untenable.
If the allegations are true and Swalwell is, in fact, a liar, lecher and sexual assailant, why wasn’t that widely reported up until now? Was it negligence, or gullibility on the part of the political press corps? The short answer is that a wide gulf exists between rumor and fact and Swalwell lurked in that gray space, living and thriving in the shadows between provability and denial.
It’s not unusual for rumors about financial, sexual or other peccadilloes to attend a campaign. They’re often trafficked by political rivals, which automatically raises suspicion and invites particular skepticism.
Much of the chatter never moves past a relatively small, dishy circle of political gossips because the supposed misdeeds, while titillating, can’t stand up to rigorous scrutiny. Or a legal challenge. That’s the baseline for many news outlets to broadcast or publish a story. Call them what you will — legacy, corporate, mainstream, lamestream — many of the largest, most influential sources of news and information won’t pass along allegations they can’t independently verify and, if necessary, defend in court.
The challenge is verifying all that loose talk.
Politicians don’t wear body cams, or broadcast their lives 24/7. (OK, Beto O’Rourke did livestream from a Texas laundromat during his 2018 Senate bid, holding up a soggy pair of underwear when he addressed the “boxers or briefs” question. But he’s an exception.)
Journalists don’t have subpoena power and can’t force people to tell them what they know. A reporter is only as good as his or her sources, their knowledge, truthfulness and credibility.
Reporting on misdeeds of an intimate nature can be especially difficult and complex. There’s rarely black-and-white documentation, such as a money trail leading to a hotel bedroom. It’s hard to find an eyewitness or reliable third party who can vouch for what took place between people behind closed doors. It takes time and trust to develop sources who can substantiate incidents of sexual misconduct, assault or abuse.
Swalwell apparently did an excellent job deceiving those around him, including some congressional and campaign staffers who’d known him for years and worked closely with the seven-term lawmaker, day in, day out. They were shocked by the statements of his alleged victims; the words “double life” have come up many times.
If Swalwell managed to hoodwink those closest to him, it’s easy to see why journalists had a hard time wrangling the firsthand accounts and other facts they needed to make their findings public.
When it comes to reporting on scandal, there is often the question of timing.
In 2003, The Times was widely criticized for publishing an account of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s misconduct — touching women in a sexual manner without their consent — just days before California’s gubernatorial recall election. Despite the report, which Schwarzenegger did not contest, voters kicked Gray Davis out and replaced him with the Hollywood super-duper star.
In 1992, the Washington Post and Portland Oregonian were widely criticized for their failure to publish accounts of Sen. Bob Packwood’s misconduct — unwanted sexual advances and touching women without their consent — until weeks after he was elected to his fifth term. Packwood resigned in 1995 after the Senate Ethics Commission voted unanimously to expel him.
The allegations against Swalwell were revealed well before the June 2 primary. Not soon enough for those asking how he managed to get away for so long with his predatory behavior. But plenty of time to inform California voters before they weighed in on his candidacy.
“Well…I’ve decided it’s TIME,” she wrote in the caption of an Instagram reel on Wednesday. “The AI revolution has begun, and I need to learn as much as I possibly can about AI and share it with all of you. Also, FYI: the jobs women hold are 3x more likely to be automated by AI, yet women are using AI at a rate 25% lower than men on average. We don’t want to be left behind. So…do you want to learn with me?”
In the video, which the star shared across social media platforms, Witherspoon said she was with 10 women at a book club this week. “I said to the 10 of them, ‘How many of you guys use AI?’ And only three of them used AI. And then I said, ‘How many of the three of you feel like you really know what you’re doing or using it the right way?’ And there was only one person,” she said.
“So, if three out of 10 women are the only ones using AI, that means 70% of that group is not keeping up. The thing I’ve learned about technology is if you don’t get a little bit of understanding from the very beginning, it just speeds past you. So you have to have little bits of learning just to keep up.”
The “Big Little Lies” star then seemingly put out a feeler for an A.I. learning course saying, “I think we should learn the basics together and learn some really good tools that are going to make our everyday lives easier and better. Do you want me to share what I’m learning with you?”
One group that was especially vocal in their opposition to A.I., was the literary community, and writers and authors across the country didn’t hold back when sharing their two cents.
Bestselling “Bad Feminist” author Roxane Gay chimed in on Threads, writing, “Oh Reese. Absolutely not.”
“This is obviously a scripted ad and it’s genuinely infuriating. Notice how AI’s biggest defenders are the ones cashing checks from it,” wrote screenwriter and director Charlene Bagcal on Threads. “AI isn’t inevitable. Technology follows society. If people stop using it, it dies. We still have agency.”
“Jagged Little Pill” author and literary agent Eric Smith weighed in, “As someone who champions authors and books the way you do, this is so disappointing.”
“AI plagiarized all my books. It seems unlikely that I’ll be ‘left behind’ if I don’t use it, given that it’s trained on work I did years ago,” wrote “Get Well Soon” author Jennifer Wright.
Writer and actor Rati Gupta said, “How am *I* the one being “left behind” by not using AI when *my* cognitive function will remain fully intact and uncompromised?”
And Sophia Benoit posted, “There’s something particularly insidious about seeing that women— the group you have built your brand on— have not adopted something and instead of assuming it’s out of wisdom, infantalizing them with ‘we’re falling behind.’”
In 2021, Witherspoon’s company, Hello Sunshine, partnered with World of Women (WoW), an NFT collective, and the actor similarly caught flak from followers for tweeting “In the (near) future, every person will have a parallel digital identity. Avatars, crypto wallets, digital goods will be the norm. Are you planning for this?”
Representatives for Witherspoon have not responded to the Times request for comment.
When tickets for the 2028 L.A. Olympics dropped earlier this month for locals, emotions around town quickly moved from pure excitement to shock and confusion.
Prices have been all over the place. A seat at the opening ceremony ranges from $329 to $5,519, The Times reported. Tickets for sessions similarly run the gamut. Some prices we’ve seen and heard: $2,460 for the women’s gymnastics team final. $498 for the men’s volleyball preliminary. $1,141 for the mixed track and field final. Women’s handball for $241. And yes, some lucky fans were able to grab $28 tickets for some events, but those opportunities have seemed slim.
We’re asking readers: If you have been lucky enough to snag tickets, how much did you spend and what event(s) will you be attending? Also, what does being at the first Los Angeles Olympics in 44 years mean to you? Share your experience using the form below and we may feature you in an upcoming story.
ATLANTA — An Atlanta man has been charged in a string of attacks over a matter of hours that left two women dead and a man in critical condition, drawing the Trump administration’s attention after one of the victims was identified as a Department of Homeland Security employee who was walking her dog.
The killing of the Homeland Security worker, Lauren Bullis, and shootings of the two other victims on Monday led Homeland Secretary Markwayne Mullin to issue a statement raising concerns that the 26-year-old defendant, U.K.-native Olaolukitan Adon Abel, was granted U.S. citizenship in 2022, when Democrat Joe Biden was president.
“These acts of pure evil have devastated our Department and my prayers are with the families of the victims,” Mullin wrote in a statement posted on social media, cataloging a litany of the defendant’s previous alleged crimes but not specifying whether they happened before he was granted citizenship.
Authorities have said they believe at least one of the victims, the man who was wounded, was targeted at random. They said they were still looking into whether the other two victims were also picked randomly.
A morning of violence
The first victim was found with multiple gunshot wounds near a restaurant in the Decatur area around 1 a.m. Monday. She was taken to a hospital but died, DeKalb County Police Chief Gregory Padrick said at a news conference. Police have not publicly identified her.
About an hour later in Brookhaven, another Atlanta suburb less than 15 miles northwest of the first attack, a 49-year-old homeless man who was sleeping outside a grocery store was shot multiple times, city Police Chief Brandon Gurley said. The man, whose name hasn’t been released, remains hospitalized in critical condition.
“It is apparent to us that it was a completely random attack on a member of our unhoused community,” Gurley said.
Just before 7 a.m. and more than 10 miles away in the suburb of Panthersville, officers responding to a call found a woman with gunshot and stab wounds, Padrick said. The woman, Bullis, died at the scene. Investigators in Brookhaven determined that the three attacks were connected, Gurley said.
Adon Abel was taken into custody later Monday during a traffic stop in Troup County, which borders Alabama. He is charged with two counts of malice murder, aggravated assault and firearms counts, court records show. He waived an initial court appearance Tuesday. Court records don’t list an attorney who might speak on his behalf.
Reached by phone Wednesday, Toyin Adon Abel Jr. said he didn’t want to talk about his brother. But he expressed sympathy for the victims: “I feel terrible for the victims, their families and their connections. It’s a horrible thing,” he said.
Remembered for her warmth and compassion
Bullis served in multiple roles at Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General, including as an auditor in the Office of Audits and as a team leader in the Office of Innovation, the department posted on social media, saying she brought “warmth, kindness, and a genuine sense of care to her colleagues each day.”
In a statement, Bullis’ family remembered her as “selfless, kind and compassionate.”
“She deeply loved her family and found joy in running, reading and traveling,” the family said. “Her warmth and generosity touched everyone surrounding her.”
Fellow Homeland Security auditor Ashley Toillion of Denver said she met Bullis at a work conference last year. The two became fast friends as they bonded over running and quickly made plans for Bullis join Toillion in a race at Walt Disney World.
“You couldn’t meet her and not be her friend,” Toillion said, choking back tears. “She was just the nicest, sweetest, most encouraging person I’ve ever met.”
Mullin, who took over Homeland Security last month after Kristi Noem was fired, said in his statement that Olaolukitan Adon Abel has a criminal record that includes a sexual battery conviction, though he didn’t say which year he was convicted. Online court records show that someone listed as Adon Olaolukitan, who has the same birth date as Adon Abel, pleaded guilty in June in Chatham County, Ga., to four misdemeanor counts of sexual battery.
In his statement, Mullin noted that since President Trump took office, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, which Homeland Security oversees, has worked to ensure that people with criminal histories don’t attain citizenship. But the U.S. has long barred people convicted of most violent felonies from becoming citizens, and it wasn’t immediately clear whether Adon Abel — or Adon Olaolukitan, if it’s the same person — had a criminal record that predated him becoming a citizen in 2022.
In response to a request for further details about the case and the defendant’s criminal history, Homeland Security referred the Associated Press to its post about Bullis and her death.
Brumfield and Rico write for the Associated Press. Brumfield reported from Cockeysville, Md. AP writer Rebecca Boone in Boise, Idaho, contributed to this report.
The Dodgers are too good, and too rich. If the owners of other major league teams ultimately deem that combination so objectionable that they shut down the sport this winter because of it, they will risk a rupture in one of the greatest fan bases in American sports history.
The four million tickets the Dodgers sold last season tells one part of the story. Here is an arguably better one: For decades, the Dodgers and Lakers have dominated Los Angeles sports and left every other team far behind in popularity.
For now, after back-to-back World Series championships, the Dodgers have left even the Lakers far behind in popularity, and every other team in town even further behind.
In a Loyola Marymount survey asking Los Angeles County residents to identify their favorite among the 12 pro sports teams within the local media market, nearly half picked the Dodgers.
The Dodgers’ lead over the Lakers — 43% to 28% — represented the largest gap between the teams in the nine editions of the survey, first conducted in 2014 by the Thomas and Dorothy Leavey Center for the Study of Los Angeles.
The Rams ranked third, at 7%, followed by the Kings at 5% and the Angels at 4%.
The two women’s teams — Angel City FC and the Sparks — tied for last, each with less than 1% of the vote. Even when the study separated votes by gender, the two women’s teams got less than 1% of the vote from women.
As recently as 2018, five teams beyond the Dodgers and Lakers — the Angels, Clippers, Galaxy, Kings and Rams — attracted at least 4% of the vote. In this year’s survey, only the Rams did.
“I’m a big Rams fan,” said Fernando Guerra, the center’s director, “and I still put the Dodgers first.
“I love all these teams. But, when you have to choose one, it’s the Dodgers.”
Dodgers president Stan Kasten pointed to the popularity and excellence of the players, the cherished ballpark and the generational fan support as factors contributing to the top ranking.
“If you have a lot of good elements but you don’t win, you’re not going to be as high,” Kasten said. “And, if you win but you don’t have the other elements, you’re not going to be as high.
“I think, right now, we’re as close as you can be to clicking on all cylinders.”
In 2018, Ohtani’s debut season with the Angels, 8% of fans that identified themselves as Asian picked the Angels as their favorite team and 34% picked the Dodgers — a terrific showing for the Angels, since the study polls residents in L.A. County, not Orange County.
That demographic this year: 4% picked the Angels, 47% picked the Dodgers.
In their 10 years since returning to Los Angeles, the Rams have made seven playoff appearances and two Super Bowl appearances, winning one. All that, and a half-century in their previous run in L.A., and their membership in the most popular sports league in America, and the best they could do was 7%.
“It’s just tough to break the Lakers’ and Dodgers’ hold,” Guerra said. “It’s not like we don’t love the Rams or the others. It’s just not your top priority.”
The Lakers and Dodgers have combined to win 20 championships in Los Angeles. The other 10 teams that call this market home have combined to win 16.
In the 13 seasons since Mark Walter and Co. bought the Dodgers, the team has won 12 division titles, made five World Series appearances, and won three championships. In the same time, the Lakers have won three division titles, advanced past the first round of the playoffs twice, and won one championship.
Walter bought a controlling interest in the Lakers last year. He has installed Lon Rosen, formerly the Dodgers’ executive vice president and chief marketing officer, as the Lakers’ president of business operations.
“When the Lakers are winning a lot of championships, they’re No. 1,” Rosen said. “When the Dodgers are, they’re No. 1.
“It’s a good position to be in, since we control both teams, and both teams are highly successful.”
In this moment, the Dodgers are highly successful.
“The Lakers and Dodgers are going to be neck and neck very soon,” Rosen said. “The Lakers will 100% be champions again soon.”
The Dodgers do not concede the days of neck and neck will return. Kasten, remember, said the Dodgers were as close as they could be to clicking on all cylinders.
“We don’t take that for granted,” he said. “We know we can do even better.”
Another woman came forward Tuesday to describe rape allegations against Rep. Eric Swalwell, who announced his resignation from Congress on Monday amid a torrent of sexual misconduct accusations.
Lonna Drewes said at a news conference called by her attorneys that she was drugged and raped by Swalwell (D-Dublin) in 2018 while she was working as a model in Beverly Hills.
Drewes said she met Swalwell three times as she was growing her fashion software company and toying with the idea of a political career.
On the third occasion, she said, she believed he drugged her glass of wine. She said they were supposed to go to a political event and they stopped by his hotel room to retrieve some paperwork.
She said she found herself incapacitated despite having had only one drink.
“He raped me and he choked me and while he was choking me I lost consciousness and I thought I died,” she said. “I did not consent to any sexual activity.”
Swalwell’s attorney Elias Dabaie did not immediately respond to a call or email requesting comment. Swalwell has previously denied allegations against him, while acknowledging undefined “mistakes.”
Swalwell and his team threatened legal action against several individuals over the claims, Dabaie previously confirmed to The Times.
Lonna Drewes, left, says she met Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin) on three occasions in Beverly Hills in 2018. She says he sexually assaulted her on the third occasion.
(Myung J Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Drewes said she didn’t undergo a rape kit test, but disclosed the assault to people close to her and described it in her calendar. She did not have contact with Swalwell again, one of her attorneys said.
Drewes said she had no interest in Swalwell romantically and was drawn to his friendship, she said, in part because he touted connections that she believed could help her grow her businesses. She was in a relationship at the time, and he had a pregnant wife, she said.
The alleged rape had a severe impact on her mental health, causing her to self-medicate, she said. She said she also went to therapy sessions at a sexual assault center.
“I did not want to live anymore,” she said. “I cried all the time for years.”
She said she’d been considering a run for Beverly Hills City Council at the time. After the incident, she said, she feared a political backlash and felt like she had no choice but to remain silent.
Lonna Drewes walks behind her lawyer Arick Fudali during a news briefing in Beverly Hills on Tuesday.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“My delay in taking action against Eric was driven by fear, not doubt,” she said. “I have never doubted what happened.”
The L.A. County Sheriffs Department said Tuesday that it is investigating the case.
“The investigation remains in its preliminary stages and is ongoing,” the department said. “Investigators are in the process of gathering information, reviewing available evidence and conducting follow-up inquiries as part of a comprehensive investigative process.“
A spokesperson for the L.A. County district attorney’s office said the Sex Crimes Division had been assigned to work with law enforcement partners in an unfolding investigation.
Arick Fudali, one of the attorneys representing Drewes, said he hoped his client’s account would encourage other women to come forward.
“This is not about Democrat versus Republican,” Fudali said. “This is about accountability versus silence.”
“Lonna deserves what all women deserve — autonomy over her own body,” said attorney Lisa Bloom.
Bloom is well-known for representing high-profile victims of sexual misconduct, including women in cases against actor Bill Cosby and commentator Bill O’Reilly. Bloom said they would be providing text messages, journal entries and photographs to the police. Those include a photo of Drewes and Swalwell at the opening of a restaurant called Avra that was displayed Tuesday for reporters.
Bloom said she wanted to assist with an investigation by the Manhattan district attorney, who has opened a case into allegations against Swalwell. She said three other women have reached out to her.
Swalwell, who has served in the House of Representatives since 2013, has said he plans to fight the “serious, false” allegations made against him.
“However, I must take responsibility and ownership of the mistakes I did make,” Swalwell wrote in a statement Monday.
Bloom called Swalwell’s recent statements about the accusations against him “blather and spin” and a “slap in the face” to victims.
“Stop it,” she said. “Own your behavior.”
Swalwell had been a Democratic front-runner in the hotly contested and crowded race to be California’s next governor. Then in two bombshell reports in the San Francisco Chronicle and CNN on Friday, women accused the congressman of sexual assault and misconduct.
Candidates in the California gubernatorial race reacted to the new allegations with horror.
“The level of my disgust and outrage just continues to grow,” former state Controller Betty Yee told The Times after a business forum in Sacramento. “The fact that this is still being uncovered, that it could be bigger than what we already know?”
Swalwell said he would resign from his congressional seat under intense pressure from lawmakers of both parties. The resignation came on the heels of the House Ethics Committee opening an investigation into the sexual misconduct allegations and bipartisan threats to expel him from the House if he did not resign as women continued to come forward.
One woman told CNN that after messaging with Swalwell about her interest in Democratic politics last year, she met him for drinks and tried to deflect his advances without jeopardizing potential job opportunities. She said she began to feel “really fuzzy” and intoxicated and later found herself in his hotel room with no memory of how she got there.
Another woman, a former staff member who accused Swalwell of rape, told CNN she met him for drinks in 2019, blacked out and awoke naked in his hotel bed and could tell she had had intercourse. She said that in a separate encounter years later, he forced himself on her while she was too intoxicated to consent and despite her protests.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday called a special election for Swalwell’s Alameda County seat on June 16, two weeks after the state’s regularly scheduled primary. If no candidate receives 50% of the vote, a second special election will be held on Aug. 18.
The June 2 regular primary and Nov. 3 general election will decide who will represent the recently reconfigured district for the next term, starting in January 2027. The special election decides who will represent the district for the remaining months of Swalwell’s term.
Times staff writers James Queally, Dakota Smith and Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
