In the 20th century, an age of print, photography was the primary medium through which we understood the world beyond our personal field of vision. Pictures recorded and sometimes changed history.
Once upon a time, mastering the technology of a camera and the chemistry of a darkroom provided proof of seriousness. A person shooting even with a Polaroid or Instamatic had to reckon with the cost of the film, developing and printing, and so you chose your shots; you composed them carefully. It was a commitment, whereas now, anyone with a phone can take endless pictures, with little thought, it’s a reflex. By dint of sheer numbers — Instagram processes some 500 million uploads a day — the practice has been devalued.
That isn’t to say you can’t take a good picture with a phone, or that there aren’t plenty of serious artists working today, in old or new formats. But we have passed the age of the culture-shaping superstar photographer (and the culture-shaping magazines that gave them work). Richard Avedon, who is the subject of an exhilarating new documentary, “Avedon,” directed by Ron Howard and streaming Wednesday on Netflix, was among the greatest of them, with a career stretching from 1947 — when, in his early twenties, he was sent by Harper’s Bazaar to Paris — almost until the day he died in 2004 while working in San Antonio, on a photo essay for the New Yorker titled “Democracy.” (He was the magazine’s first staff photographer; “Dick was a great magazine man,” says Tina Brown, the editor who hired him.) James Martin, executive director of the Richard Avedon Foundation, reckons it amounted to “about 16,000 sittings.”
Even if you don’t know the name Avedon, it’s a good bet you’ve encountered his much reproduced 1955 “Dovima with Elephants” — “I think we sold one for $2 million,” says the gallerist Larry Gagosian — or his psychedelic Beatles portraits. Many of his celebrity portraits, from Samuel Beckett to Buster Keaton to Judy Garland to Nastassja Kinski (naked, wrapped in a snake) to Marian Anderson to Malcolm X, and the enormous murals of Andy Warhol’s Factory gang and the Chicago Seven defendants, will be the images we remember them by. None are pretty; most are striking; many are beautiful; some are disturbing.
“I’ve been called a cruel manipulator, existential hero and to top it off, agent of death,” says the photographer, whose suite of pictures of his dying father is explored here.
Avedon began in fashion photography, which he revolutionized, bringing motion and implied narrative into a previously static form; he moved to portraiture, which he remade by removing any vestige of flattery. As a commercial photographer — with Doon Arbus, daughter of Diane, he also created television commercials for Calvin Klein and Chanel — who would come to insist that he was an artist, he was not always well received, reviewed or understood. But he approached everything with the same democratic curiosity, and many museum shows later, it’s hard to argue against his claim.
Although in earlier years, he shot on location, either for magazine spreads or personal work — he photographed in the psychiatric ward at New York’s Bellevue hospital — he came to be known for placing his subjects against a white background, stripping out everything that would distract from the “geography” of the face, and settling finally on using an 8×10 camera, which would allow him to come out from behind the lens. He took the white paper from the studio out into the field — to Saigon in 1971 and for the controversial project that was displayed and published as “In the American West.”
His goal was to eliminate the distance between the sitter and himself, and he was not interested in merely recording surfaces, though many of the surfaces he recorded were interesting, but of finding a way past the skin to the person inside. (“I had to go within to who I really am and that’s when I saw him come alive,” says model Beverly Johnson.) He viewed a portrait session as an “exchange of energy,” a collaboration with the sitter in which he had the final say. “Photography is the marriage of the imagination and reality of a situation,” he said. “Every photograph is accurate and none of them is the truth.” He was interested in photographing what frightened him, in vulnerability, tension and (a favorite word) contradiction.
Confident and insecure, fun-loving and haunted, he was a contradiction himself: “I’ve lived in a state of anxiety my whole life. [I’m]as addicted to that as I am to coffee.” “His whole life was an existential crisis,” says curator Jane Livingston. “That’s a hard way to live.” Like many successful artists, he prioritized work (“the one thing that doesn’t turn on you”) over family; his studio, instead, was familial. The troubled family he grew up in edited their photo albums to suggest all was well, but his younger sister, Louise, Avedon’s first model and the model for later models, died in an institution. (“Beauty of that kind is isolating.”)
Howard’s interview subjects include Avedon’s son John, photographer Joel Meyerowitz; Isabella Rossellini; models Lauren Hutton, Penelope Tree and Twiggy Lawson; Twyla Tharp; and New Yorker writers Hilton Als, Adam Gopnik and John Lahr, whose father Bert was one of Avedon’s celebrated subjects, seen in a pose of pain (as Estragon from “Waiting for Godot”).
The film is sleek and energetic and looks fantastic, offering a bounty of images, including many of the most famous ones; it has something of the feel of a magazine layout without ever trying to look like a magazine. (Many of the same images, and some of the interview subjects, are present in the 1996 documentary, “Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light,” which makes a great companion piece to “Avedon” and can be found online.) Working with the cooperation of the Richard Avedon Foundation, Howard has had access to a many shots of Avedon at work — he’s a dancing, leaping sprite. Fun was important to him; on a fashion shoot, they might socialize for most of a session “and five minutes before the hour is over we go on to the paper and — bam!”
That Avedon was very good looking, with a great crest of hair he brushes back off his forehead almost as a signature, a cleft chin and bright, piercing eyes, is a visual plus, and possibly contributed to his celebrity, if not to his actual career, which was, after all, all about talent and vision. As the character Dick Avery — Dick was what friends called Avedon — Fred Astaire played an echo of him in the fashion-world musical film “Funny Face”; Avedon’s own screen credit reads “Special visual consultant and main title backgrounds.”
“It’s almost as if I’m writing my autobiography with the faces of people I photograph,” Avedon said, and indeed, his big 1993 monograph is titled “Autobiography.” There’s a copy of it on the shelf behind me.
Press Forward, the nonprofit launched in 2023 to strengthen local news as outlets struggle with economic and technological changes, announced Tuesday that it has completed investing nearly $600 million in journalism organizations, about two years ahead of schedule.
However, Press Forward Executive Director Dale Anglin said the organization’s work is far from complete. Not only will the group continue raising and investing money, it will also expand its range of initiatives to support journalism.
“The industry is going through an incredible transformation,” Anglin told the Associated Press in an interview. “It took 20 years to get to this point — if not longer. It’s going to take us a while to get out of it.”
According to “ The State of Local News 2026 ” from Northwestern University, the number of news deserts – counties that have no locally based professional sources of news – grew by 12% this year to 238, as advertising and audiences continued to decline. Though there were dozens of newsrooms started this year, more than two newspapers closed for each outlet launched.
Anglin said she has had success convincing more funders to support Press Forward, which launched in 2023 through donations from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Democracy Fund and 19 other funders. The nonprofit now has 144 funders and has explained how longer-term support for journalism is necessary, similar to arts or education funding in a community.
Press Forward has established a $21-million impact investing fund to support outlets with small loans they would likely not get elsewhere. It already has 50 local Press Forward chapters that have invested $87 million to strengthen journalism in their communities, including $53 million in the past year.
“The challenges in local news were really kind of universal,” Anglin said. “But it turns out, as we have learned over the last three years, that a lot of the solutions are local.”
Press Forward Chicago sees promise in pooled funds
Tracy Baim, executive director of Press Forward Chicago, said her chapter believes it has developed part of the solution to journalism’s funding problems.
In addition to accepting traditional donations, Press Forward Chicago has established a pooled fund, which uses donations from multiple organizations to support specific initiatives.
“It is a way to tiptoe into journalism funding,” said Baim, adding that many foundations, especially smaller ones, saw supporting individual news outlets as too intimidating. She said the potential pitfalls of being associated with a controversial project or being accused of influencing coverage because of their donations kept some foundations from getting involved.
“A pooled fund mitigates those risks,” Baim said. Chicago’s fund further minimizes risk for donors by distributing the donations to multiple outlets.
Its first pooled fund was used last year to fund increased immigration reporting. Nearly $1 million was collected from 12 donors and distributed to 12 organizations, ranging from national outlets like ProPublica and major local outlets like Chicago Public Media and Block Club Chicago to smaller outlets serving Latino and Chinese communities. The donations allowed the outlets to add reporting, editing and presentation capacity right before the Department of Homeland Security launched the immigration operation “Midway Blitz” in Chicago.
A second pooled fund focused on education and allowed outlets to increase coverage of the Chicago Board of Education elections.
“We are making these outlets stronger,” Baim said. “We’re not just giving an organization a grant to cover stuff. We are amplifying their work so that they can get new subscribers and that’s a pipeline of potential donors.”
Knight Foundation looks to local funding
Supporting that sort of sustainable growth is the next phase of Press Forward’s work. And Knight Foundation President and Chief ExecutiveMaribel Perez Wadsworth said that is more significant than co-founding the organization.
“Announcing half a billion dollars in national funding toward journalism was important in terms of demonstrating the urgency and the importance of supporting local journalism,” Wadsworth said. “But the more important thing, ultimately, is to really catalyze and create deeper awareness at the local level about the essential nature of access to reliable news and information as a public good.”
There are signs that donors, both big and small, are making journalism a priority because it provides an information base that supports other initiatives. Last month, the Ford Foundation, one of the world’s largest grantmakers, said that supporting journalism would become one of its priorities as it overhauls its giving to focus on the building blocks of democracy. The much smaller nonprofit Public Media Co. has made providing trustworthy local information a cornerstone of its work to keep public radio stations operating following ongoing federal funding cuts.
Perez Wadsworth said that having local and regional funders work together to keep local news outlets open in their communities is a more sustainable solution to many journalism outlets’ budgetary problems.
“Philanthropy writ large is not a business model,” she said. “And it’s not sustainable to believe that philanthropy is just going to always support whatever the thing is, no matter how important.”
‘No silver bullet’ for economic woes
Press Forward’s Anglin said there is “no silver bullet” to solve journalism’s economic problems. But philanthropy can help strengthen news outlets until they figure out a new business model that will make them sustainable.
Press Forward plans to promote solutions through public policy changes, encouraging cooperation and resource-sharing between outlets and supplying infrastructure and capacity-building grants. Its chapters, which operate independently, have met a wide spectrum of needs — from helping defray some Minnesota outlets’ cost of covering the surge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minneapolis earlier this year to training local residents in Kentucky to become reporters.
“You can’t nonprofit your way out of this problem,” Anglin said. “We understand that some things will still close. But we are building for the long term.”
When it comes to what rifles, sidearms and optics work best in war, there is perhaps no better place to find out than Ukraine. During more than four years of intense defense of their homeland, Ukrainian troops have used an assortment of small arms and accessories, many foreign-made, others domestically produced, to fight the Russians.
To get a better sense of what Ukrainians are currently using on the front lines, what they like, and what they don’t, we reached out to the First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine. The unit is stationed in the bloody Dobropillia sector in the eastern Donetsk region and is in the middle of one of the toughest fights in Ukraine.
Five soldiers from different Azov units with a range of specialties offered their unique insights into the weapons, sights and scopes they like and the ones they don’t.
The soldiers are issued all their weapons exclusively through the brigade’s armament service, which obtains them from the Ukrainian Defense Ministry (MoD). Individuals, however, told us they sometimes purchase their own sights and scopes and other accessories, depending on the models.
Some of the questions and answers have been slightly edited for clarity.
Specifically, what rifles are the most coveted? And if they are AR-15s and AKs, which specific ones?
Tarantino, Chief Armorer, 12th Special Forces Brigade Azov, First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine.
When it comes to light weapon systems, the most common is an assault rifle based on the AR-15 [chambered 5.56mm], either domestic production or the one given to us by partner countries.
Chill, Chief Tactical Training Instructor, 41st Unmanned Systems Regiment Pilum, First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine.
So, in my personal opinion, the UAR-15 system is better for me because it’s lighter and it’s more reliable. I have worked with both platforms, both systems, and I can compare them based on my experience. And from my personal experience, the AR system is better.
The caliber is 5.56, and it’s also really convenient in terms of its modification and modernization because with the AK platform, you need to adapt it for further adjustments individually. But in the case of the UAR system, it’s really adaptable and you do not basically need anything in order to modernize it or modify it.
Made In Ukraine – The New Game-Changing UAR-15 Rifle
Khalepa, Anti-Aircraft Artillery Battery Commander, Air Defense Battalion Strazh, First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine.
Well, in our case, we are using larger calibers starting from 12.7mm up to 35mm. So we do not actually use the standard rifles.
Chewie, Deputy Commander for Logistics, Separate Special Operations Detachment Tuman, First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine.
When it comes to close combat, usually this is the UAR-15S of Ukrainian manufacturer called Zbroyar.
Barman, Tactical Training Instructor, Personnel Training Battalion, First Corps Azov of the National Guard of Ukraine.
So currently our key weapon platform is the UAR-15, but previously we also used the AK-74 and other modifications. The AK-74 fires 5.45mm rounds.
What is most conducive to fighting?
Tarantino
Well, the best weapon to work with is not the weapon itself, but the people we are working with. The weapon is only the instrument. But personally, the most reliable weapon is the one that has as few stoppages as possible because the last thing you want is to have a stoppage in the situation where you need to fire.
For me, that is the Heckler & Koch 416. But I am talking about my preferences and experience. That gun has a gas piston system that has proven itself the most efficient due to the fact that the movement of the piston back and forth is relatively short. That makes the weapon itself much more reliable.
Heckler & Koch 416. (Heckler & Koch)
Another system, called DI [direct impingement used in standard AR-15 pattern rifles], requires much more attention from the gunner who is shooting the rifle. Because in the conditions where the operator, the marksman, is sitting in the trench or in a bunker — especially now in autumn when the humidity is high — this DI system requires much more attention due to the wet weather around. The gas piston system has proven itself much more reliable and it doesn’t need that much attention.
Chill
We are using the Ukrainian-manufactured UAR-15 rifle, and you know, as they say, the best rifle is the one that you have.
Ukrainian-built UAR-15. Photo credits: (National Guard of Ukraine)
Chewie
So the weapon system that I told you about, UAR-15, is indeed the most loved because, in addition to this weapon, we do possess small numbers of Beretta, Bren, and several other weapon systems.
The reason why we prefer the UAR-15 is, first of all, it is much lighter. Second, it’s shorter. Another reason is that, taking into account the combat warfare that we have right now, we have the manufacturer on the premises of our country. It means if something happens to the weapon, it doesn’t take much time to either send the request to the manufacturer for them to send us the spare details, or for us to send the weapon system to them for maintenance.
Barman
Our preference is of course the UAR-15, and we’re using the 5.56 UAR platforms because it’s more convenient to use, it’s easier to maintain, and it’s also more reliable. But we also need to understand that our enemy is using the AK platforms, the AK-12, the AK-74, and while of course we are carrying the 5.56 rounds, usually during the assault actions, we can take the AK rifles and the 5.45 rounds to be able to use our rifles in compatibly with the enemy’s rifles. We can use the AKs for the element of surprise and for deception. The way they look compared to the UAR rifles makes it easier to deceive the enemy.
Kalashnikov AK-74. (Kalashnikov)
Have you noticed any performance differences between the AR-15 piston and direct impingement (DI) versions?
Tarantino
Well, again, the biggest difference between this gas piston system and the DI system is that the gas piston system has a very short movement back and forth of the piston. It means that the chances of stoppage in this weapon are quite low, while the DI system is much more demanding because these exhaust gases go back into this tube that pushes the bolt carrier back. That means these gases make this tunnel much more dirty. And in a situation when the rotation of the soldier to the battlefield is for two weeks, and these are the two weeks of a very intensive fight, a soldier doesn’t always have the chance to disassemble a weapon and pull the bolt carrier out and clean it.
Compared to the DI system, the Heckler & Koch quality of the barrel itself is exceptionally phenomenal. So the quality of the metal is good, and it allows you to shoot even four or five or even six magazines in a row without the barrel getting overheated.
Chill
Well, talking about the piston system, the only AR-15-based rifle which I know has the piston system is the Heckler & Koch 416. So I have some experience in using it, but unfortunately I do not have this rifle. But I would like to. It’s quite reliable based on my communication with other operators and service members. I also get really good feedback about that weapon. But that’s the only weapon system with this piston system that I know of, and yeah, it presents some advantages.
The UAR-15 system that we are currently using within our unit is the DI-based weapon system, and the key difference is that they become contaminated quicker, and they require better and more frequent maintenance, which is not always possible to ensure in combat conditions.
Piston driven AR15 VS gas impingement
Khalepa
Well, I have served in the infantry since 2022, and I have had some experience with the piston systems, for instance, with the AK system, and I did not really notice any major differences.
Chewie
We use only the DI system.
Barman
Well, from my experience, the gas piston systems like the one that we can find on the HK 416, they are simpler to maintain. They are more efficient in terms of their principle of operation, and also they are more reliable, I would say.
Ukrainian special operations forces (SOF) with HK 416 rifles. (Ukrainian MoD/Spectre 33)
But the key difference in the DI system is that, of course, it’s a little bit more difficult to maintain them. But at the same time, you can regulate the amount of gas that goes back into the receiver. So, both of these systems have their own advantages and disadvantages.
If I were asked to choose between the two, I would use the gas piston system. It also has fewer parts that can be broken during intensive use.
Any bullpups, where the grip is forward of the breech, that have performed well?
Tarantino
I will tell you this: we have never received a foreign-made bullpup weapon. We have several domestic-made ones. One of them is called the Fort 221.
So for the short-term operations, when you have to fulfill a mission within a small and limited amount of time, and especially when you have to move around a lot, this forward bullpup configuration has proven itself quite good. But when it comes to long-term operations, when you have to, in addition to moving a lot, have to be out there in the field for quite a long time, this one is not the best option for this.
A Ukrainian Fort 221 bullpup rifle. (Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs)
Chill
Well, I wouldn’t say that I would recommend any of the bullpups that I have used. So I have used the Fort 224, and my impressions of this weapon system are like 50-50.
I would say that the primary issue with these rifles is their ergonomic characteristics. So, especially while shooting from a prone position, it’s pretty difficult to handle these rifles. So maybe during some kind of assault actions, active offensive actions, these rifles could be usable. But in terms of ergonomics, the standard rifles are much more convenient to use.
Khalepa
We don’t use bullpups.
Chewie
We do not use any bullpups. One of the reasons is that a Ukrainian manufacturer used to produce these weapon systems with a 5.45mm, and that’s definitely not a reliable weapon at all.
Barman
I had some experience in using bullpup rifles, namely the Tavor, also the Ukrainian-manufactured Malyuk, and I think that’s it with bullpup assault rifles. But also I have used Turkish-manufactured bullpup type shotguns.
In my experience, the bullpup systems function seamlessly, but I’m just more used to the classic configuration of the assault rifles.
But the bullpup rifles have their own advantages. For example, they are more compact, so they can have the same length of the barrel. The ballistics will be the same, but the rifle will be more compact. At the same time, the bullpup configurations require more practice at the shooting range. So you just need to get used to reloading the bullpup rifle because the magazine is located in the rear part of the weapon. I wouldn’t say that this is much more difficult than reloading a weapon with the classical configuration, but it just feels unusual. This is why you just need more practice to get used to it.
Are you using suppressors and, if so, what kind?
Tarantino
When it comes to silencers and these suppressors, this very gap is not yet filled, so there is still a lot of room for maneuver and for somebody to enter this field. We do use them. We use several of them. One of them is called Ase Utra, but this one has the option of what’s called a gas release function.
Ase Utra supressor. (Ase Utra)
Another one we have is called Ukrop FAST (Fast-Attach Suppressor Tactical) suppressor. This can be easily attached and detached. But when it comes to active combat and when it comes to automatic mode of firing, these very suppressors lose their resources quite fast, so the wear and tear comes quite fast.
Chill
Personally, I do not use any suppressors, any sound moderators, because I do not have the tasks that require such equipment. But of course, the other service members who have the appropriate tasks, they use those.
Khalepa
No, we do not use any kind of those because we are located far from settlements and towns, which is why we do not need any kind of suppressors.
Chewie
So when it comes to the UAR system, they go in a set with the manufacturer-issued suppressors. So we do use them because they go in a set. And another one that we use is the one called Ase Utra.
The reason why we prefer this suppressor that goes in a set with UAR-15 is that it has a function of quick removal. It means that to install it on the gun and to take it out from the gun, it doesn’t need much time and it doesn’t require any additional fixing of the aiming point. It means that a person can shoot if at some point he or she needs to put on the suppressor, they put on the suppressor and keeps shooting, so there is no need to do another kind of manipulations with the aiming device.
Ase Ultra doesn’t have this function. It means that after putting on the suppressor, you still have to adjust the aiming point a little bit. There is only one exception with Ase Ultra suppressors, for the caliber .308, which is the UAR-10. This one has shown its efficiency quite well, and the preciseness of shooting for the distance of approximately 900 yards remains the same with the suppressor and without the suppressor. But that’s the only exception. In the past we used to use the UAR-10 much more often, both modifications, the short barrel and long barrel. But right now it’s more and more rare to use it.
UAR-10 semi-auto sniper rifle chambered for 7.62х51mm NATO round. (National Guard of Ukraine)
Barman
I have used some of the sound moderators, mostly manufactured by the Ukrainian company Zbroyar. Also, some of the American manufactured sound moderators, SureFire RC2, and also the Ukrainian manufactured Mystic Medusa sound moderators. So all of them were used in the automatic fire mode, and they have demonstrated quite a high level of efficiency.
Surefire SOCOM556 RC2 Suppressor. (Surefire)
But I would say that the Zbroyar-manufactured sound moderators have a slight disadvantage in terms of how the gases are channeled. So, if you fire a weapon like the Heckler & Koch, sometimes while shooting automatic fire bursts, you can have some problems with the gas from firing.
It all depends on whether you can regulate the gas block in the weapon system or not. So, for instance, in the UAR systems, there is a possibility to regulate the gas block, and this is why you can adjust your shooting depending on what you’re using. But with some of the weapons, you cannot adjust this, and part of the gas just returns to the receiver, causing problems.
What about personal defense weapons and submachine guns?
Tarantino
Yes, we do use some submachineguns. One of them is Heckler & Koch MP5, which has proven itself quite good because this one is quite comfortable to work with, and this one is quite a mobile weapon system and easy to operate.
The only drawback of such a weapon is that you can only use it in a few situations. So the variety of usage of this weapon is too narrow. So it’s quite irrational to use this weapon system in modern combat warfare. The best example where it definitely will serve you well? I’d say the drivers of the vehicles use them, or the tank drivers use them, due to the fact that they have to fulfill other missions. The weapon itself is relatively small, so this comes handy for drivers and the tank drivers.
Heckler & Koch MP5. (Heckler & Koch)
Chill
Well, usually the only self-defense gun which has been used is the handgun, so the pistol. As for the submachine guns, we almost do not use them at all because of their form factors. So the most standard self-defense weapon is either the rifle for every service member, or when there is an opportunity to use a pistol. But submachine guns are not widely used.
Khalepa
The Fort 20 is the model of the pistol that we are using for personal defense weapons in our unit. And as for the personal weapons, we also use the UAR-15 rifles.
Chewie
We do not use submachine guns. What our soldiers do use, because they are issued out, are sidearms. It’s either Glock 17 or the Fort 20.
Barman
In terms of submachine guns, I have only used those at shooting ranges, so I do not have any real experience with them. But our sidearms are usually Glock 17 or Fort 20, and also we had some experience with Berettas.
What about optics? What red dots and scopes are most used? What works best and what do soldiers see as the positives and negatives of different brands and types, like EOTECH holographic sights versus Holosun or Aimpoint red dots?
Tarantino
There is one optic that’s called Aimpoint, third generation. When it comes to red dot sights, we take what is available commercially. So what has proven its efficiency is the one red dot called Holosun. This one out of everything that is on the market has also proved its efficiency. But we are talking about relatively cheap options right now. Other brands that are quite popular are the EOTECH, Vortex, and Vector Optics.
A view of the sight of a rifle, at an undisclosed location next to the Vuhledar frontline, Ukraine March 7, 2023. The frontline around the city of Vuhledar, a strategic rail and road hub south of Bakhmut, resembles an apocalyptic scenario. (Photo by Ignacio Marin Fernandez/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images) Anadolu
Chill
I have been using the Holosun red dot scope for over three years, and I cannot say that I have any complaints regarding that. It performs its function, and the rest of the possible manufacturers of these devices depend on the unit and depend on their personal budgets as well. So, of course, there are some differences between them. For instance, the Aimpoint has proven itself really reliable. The EOTECH as well. There are some drawbacks related to its dimension. It’s pretty large, and it is not appropriate for all the operators.
Holosun, I would say that this is the device that shows the best cost-to-quality ratio. So it all depends on the unit. For instance, when we are talking about the service members that are involved in some direct action, for instance, in assault actions, then they might use the EOTECH or the Aimpoint devices. But other service members might as well use the Holosun devices and other brands that are also available on the market. So, as usual, everything is operator-dependent. I wouldn’t say that there are any particular problems with them, but maybe the price, the high price, can be called just one of the problems.
#Ukraine: Destroyed and captured Russian equipment in Kupiansk-Vuzlovyi, #Kharkiv Oblast – a BTR-80-based vehicle and a Tigr-M IMV. Note the prevalence of US-donated 🇺🇸 M4A1 assault rifles with Aimpoint M68 CCO red dot sights. pic.twitter.com/g0Qx1ypeQ8
The baseline is that everyone is using the rifles with iron sights. But then, if, for instance, the additional optical devices are not provided for by the unit, then the fighters can choose to buy their own optics. It all depends on the unit and the operator.
Khalepa
In the unit that I’m currently serving in, we do not use any kind of these optical devices because we are located very far from the front line. Basically, our positions are in the rear, and since we are concerned with shooting down aerial targets, we do not need to use any of these devices.
Chewie
So we do use Aimpoint. We use the modifications M5, M4, and also we use the EOTECH.
An Azov soldier using an Aimpoint red dot sight on a Heckler & Koch HK416 rifle. (Azov)
So when it comes to EOTECH, it has one big advantage. It has quite a big screen or quite a big window that allows the operator to see a much wider spectrum, and this allows him to make much more precise aim. But the drawback of this one is that it doesn’t have this kind of underbarrel option of having the grenade launcher under the barrel. When it comes to Aimpoint, the aim itself is quite small, but this one is capable of withstanding the launching of the underbarrel grenade launcher. When the grenade is leaving the barrel, the Aimpoint still can remain on the barrel and not be lost.
The peculiarity of this EOTECH is the following: when you shoot two or three grenades from the underbarrel grenade launcher, after two or three shots, the aiming stops working correctly. The recoil from the grenade launcher impacts the work of this aiming device, and it’s no longer correct.
Barman
I have worked both with red dot sights and optical scopes. In terms of the red dot sights, I have experience in using the EOTECH 553 and the EOTECH XPS3. I’ve used them with the 3x magnifier, also manufactured by the EOTECH company, and also I have some experience in using the Aimpoint T2 red dot sights, also in combination with the EOTech magnifier. Also, I have used the Vortex Crossfire red dot sight. It’s similar to the Aimpoint T2, but it’s a little bit cheaper and it is intended to be used by sportsmen.
EOTECH XPS3 sight. (EOTECH)
All of these models have their own advantages. In terms of the EOTECH and Aimpoint, they have the mil-spec certification, which is why they can be more resilient than the other brands. If I were to choose, then I would definitely choose the Aimpoint T2 red dot sight because this is like the classical red dot sight, not the holographic sight, like the EOTECH XPS3. So this means that even with the partial damage of the sight, with the partial damage of the lens, it still gives you the red dot, and you are still able to efficiently shoot with it.
Partially we buy them ourselves. Partially we are issued those sights by the state. For instance, in this unit, I was issued the Aimpoint T2 micro kit. So in another unit that we have served before joining this unit, we were issued ACOG sights for the M4A1 rifles, so it really depends.
What about scopes?
Tarantino
When it comes to the scopes, the ones that we use are the ones that zoom in at the 3x or 5x magnification, no more, because 3X and 5x are exactly the ranges that are good enough for you to operate your weapon in an efficient way and to cover that area of responsibility each marksman has.
Chill
We do not have any organic standard-issue scopes within our unit, but from what I have seen among the operators in our subunits, I have seen the Vortex scopes. So these are the ones that can be used with the AR systems.
As for magnification, it’s either 1-8x or 1-16x. Usually, our operators are using the scopes with variable magnification, and it all depends on the task. But mostly, these scopes are not used for firing, but rather for observation.
Khalepa
We don’t use scopes.
Chewie
We do use them. We use mostly four different modification brands. One of them is called Nightforce. Another one is called Schmidt & Bender. Another one is called Kahles, and the last one that we use is called Leupold.
So roughly speaking, Kahles and Leupold are equals and they work quite similar. The differences are that in the Kahles, the aiming matrix is different, but when it comes to Leupold, I would say that the lens is quite clean, so that makes this one very, very much loved. So I do possess the Leupold scopes. This is my main scope I use. It has been through a lot, and it has withstood a lot of explosions, and it’s still up and running. It’s still functioning.
A Ukrainian Special Operations Forces soldier with a Leupold scope. (Ukrainian Special Forces)
When it comes to this Kahles, again, roughly speaking, it has shown its efficiency quite well. Some modifications to these Kahles scopes allow it to provide a view called parallax. That’s one of the settings. So if a soldier doesn’t know how to properly use it, it’s not possible to set this scope correctly.
We do buy a lot of those scopes. Back in the past, volunteers used to help us a lot, and other companies used to buy them for us and simply deliver them to us, but right now the system is such that we do receive from the government from the official line of sustainment very efficient scopes.
Barman
So currently I’m using the Sig Sauer scope. I need to look up the exact model, but its magnification is one to six. Its ballistics are honed for the 5.56 caliber exactly for the M855 cartridge. This is the scope which is most optimal for the usage with the assault rifle. But previously, I also used the Elcan Specter scope and also the EOTECH Vudu.
I cannot just select only one scope. One of my favorites is the Elcan Specter. It’s quite compact, and its magnification is one to four. At the level of one, it can be used as a red dot sight, and then it can also be used as the classical optical sight to magnify the image. And for shooting at longer ranges, well, I would say that the Sig Sauer is my favorite. So it’s pretty convenient to be used for shooting at ranges of several hundred meters.
Sig Sauer TANGO-MSR COMPACT 1-8x24MM (SFP) rifle scope. (Sig Sauer)
How prevalent are thermal scopes? Is there a difference in quality between those used by the Russians and Ukrainians that gives an upper hand?
Tarantino
When it comes to thermal optics, the one that we use quite often is called Archer. That’s a Ukrainian domestic production thermal vision device, and this one is quite efficient and quite comfortable to use. And when it comes to the night operations, that’s definitely a must-have that each soldier is supposed to have. But when it comes to what the enemy is using, what kind of thermals the enemy is using, I cannot give you the clear answer because, in all honesty, I do not know.
Chill
Within our unit, we do not use thermal scopes, but I know guys who do, and well, it’s quite a useful thing if your tasks and if your unit imply using the thermal vision scopes. Since we are an unmanned systems regiment, we do not have the kind of tasks that require the use of the thermal scopes.
Chewie
We do use the thermal scopes and additional adapters to them. But when it comes to Russian thermals and what kind of thermals they use, I will be honest with you. I have never had any chance to get a hold of them and hold them in my hands, so I cannot compare them.
I can only tell you about Ukrainian manufacturers. But when it comes to long-range guns, we use the Archer 7 for this very purpose. When it comes to the .338 caliber, we use guns by Accuracy International, and Sako TRG 42. When it comes to the .375 caliber, we use the Cadex 40 Shadow.
When it comes to UAR-15 5.56, usually we use the Archer 10 for this very purpose. When it comes to simply observational functions, we use either Archer 55 or Archer 8. And I also know about some other units that use thermals called Safran because they have the peculiarity of having coolant inside.
Archer TMA 55M thermal scope. (Archer)
Barman
I’ve used thermal vision scopes. First of all, in terms of the Russian thermal vision scopes, unfortunately, I haven’t had any experience of using those, but I have some experience with the Archer manufacturer with the Archer thermal vision scopes. Usually, the TSA-7 models have proven to be quite good, and also I had some experience with the Chinese-manufactured AGM thermal vision scopes, and they are also quite good.
Archer TSA-7 thermal scope. (Archer)
My favorite is Archer, the TSA-7. We have used it for the longest periods of time, and we are really used to operating with it. So it has the ballistic suggested for every type of ammunition. It has a laser rangefinder. It has a ballistic calculator. So it’s quite a useful thing, and it’s easy and convenient to use.
What about night vision? Are most troops using night vision goggles and need to set their rifles up for that?
Tarantino
We use a classical one called the PVS-7. We attach it to our helmets.
Chill
Night vision devices on assault rifles and other weapons are primarily used by reconnaissance and assault units — particularly during clearing operations. As for the drone component, NVDs are used by drivers for safe and concealed delivery of crews to the positions during the night, as well as the operators themselvs for nighttime work and launches.
Khalepa
We have some night vision devices, namely Archer 10, but these devices were just issued to the guys to monitor their perimeter during nighttime. We have no need for that because we are located in the rear and we are more concerned with the sky than with what’s on the ground.
Chewie
We do not use the night vision devices installed on the weapon system. We do use them installed on the soldiers’ helmets, but not on the weapon system. Sometimes our soldiers do use the laser point night vision devices, but they use it only when they use the infrared spectrum. When it comes to installing the aim on the gun, usually the soldier does a zeroing, and if the zeroing is done properly, the efficient range of such a weapon to operate in this infrared spectrum is up to 200 meters.
Barman
We don’t use the night vision devices on the weapons systems themselves. We use them attached to the camera, to the helmets, and out of those we use the PVS-14 L3Harris. That’s a monocular. Also, we use the PVS-32. That’s a binocular. The most widely used is the PVS-14.
PVS-14 L3Harris night vision monocular. (L3Harris)
In my personal opinion, the PVS-14 is simply much more comfortable. I love this one simply because this is a monocular and I use it with my left eye because the right eye I mostly use for the red dot or with the laser beam aiming device. But that’s very much an individual opinion because a lot of people in my unit prefer the PVS-32.
How much leeway do troops have for customizing their rifles?
Tarantino
Well, before using any kind of modifiers on any weapon system, the way we deal with that is the following: Before doing that, each soldier is supposed to master how to handle a weapon without any additional modifiers, meaning the default setting of the weapon that he or she receives.
He or she is supposed to first get a feel for this and receive some kind of qualification with this one without any additional modifier. Only after a soldier gets used to, and is quite good at, handling the weapon with the mechanical optics that the weapon goes with, can a soldier go to another level. But this is done only if sergeants and commanders see that the soldier has reached some kind of efficiency level, and only after that, the commander or sergeant can give permission to install any kind of additional modifiers on the weapon.
Chill
The first thing that we always emphasize and that we try to popularize among our personnel is the installment of the red dot sights. We try to explain the advantages of using red dot sights on the weapons.
Then, if the weapon does not have the ambidextrous safety, we try to persuade people to install those safety levers that can be switched from both sides ambidextrously, and then the third thing is the buttstock, the pistol grip. So these things are usually not convenient due to the specificities of every person’s ergonomics.
Ukrainian soldiers of the 47th Separate Mechanized Brigade, operating under the call signs “Hrek” and “Mahura”, inspect forward infantry positions near the border with Russia on August 28, 2026 in Sumy Region, Ukraine. The two officers arrived at the frontline on quad bikes to evaluate the defensive lines and meet with infantrymen who had held their ground for 59 days before escorting them to an evacuation point. (Photo by Kostiantyn Liberov/Libkos/Getty Images) Libkos
Khalepa
Apart from just standard procedures like zeroing with the weapon, adjusting the iron sight and so on, we do not customize our weapon. We do not conduct any additional modifications.
Chewie
We do have some additional modifications when it comes to magazines, when it comes to magnifiers, when it comes to the grasp handles. Some of the soldiers do use the forward grasp handle. Some of the soldiers do use the flashlights that they put underneath the barrel. But it’s not about sport modification. The primary reason is to make the weapon more comfortable for you, and to make you a much better operator of this weapon.
Barman
I need to separate it into two parts. The first part is about the insides of the weapon systems. Mostly, we do not change the insides of the weapon systems. There might be some changes with a bolt carriage, but that’s mostly the exception. We can work with the suppressors, with the heavy buffer suppressors and optics, red dots, and handles for a better grip.
What about sidearms? What sidearms are most prevalent and in what caliber?
Tarantino
When it comes to the pistols, the most used one is the Fort 20. That’s domestic production. Also Glock. Also the one called Sig Sauer, and the last one that is the CZ. These are all 9mm weapons.
🇺🇦Ukrainian soldier with modern 🇨🇿CZ P-10 F pistol made by ČZUB.
ČZUB supplied Ukraine with a large number of weapons from its stocks, in addition to the CZ P-10 C/F, also CZ Bren 807 or CZ Bren BR. Whether these were a gift from ČZUB or the weapons were donated by the Czech… pic.twitter.com/U8nsFSN92d
Well, previously we used to use Makarov pistols, but now we’re using the Fort 20 Ukrainian manufactured sidearms, and also I have previously used the Glock pistols. So basically, these are the most common, most widespread pistols that you can come across in Ukraine.
Khalepa
Currently the Fort 20 and the Glock 17 are the most commonly used pistols.
Chewie
So as I have already mentioned, the sidearms that we are using are the Glock 17 and the Fort 20.
Barman
So the main caliber is 9x19mm. That’s the most widely used caliber. When it comes to sidearm brands, the most widely used ones are Fort 20, Glock 17, and this Czech CZ.
A Ukrainian soldier firing a Glock 9mm pistol. (Azov)
What are considered the best and most reliable and what has been disappointing or considered not as reliable?
Tarantino
When it comes to these small arms and guns, a lot depends on the anthropometric characteristics of each individual – the size of the palm, the grasp that each individual has. But when it comes to reliability, in my experience, the Fort 20 is number one, and when it comes to comfort and efficiency, I would say that Sig Sauer is the best one.
I cannot give you a very clear answer about which is the most disappointing, because all of these four weapon systems will be able to fulfill their mission in the hands of a very skilled operator. So those small differences, these are the differences that each individual has as preferences only. But when it comes to functions and functionality, they all will do a good job.
When it comes to my favorite weapon systems, it’s definitely gonna be the Sig Sauer, but I really struggle with the idea of finding the most disappointing one.
At some point, Glock might be called one, but Glock is also quite a reliable weapon, and I cannot even tell you assuredly that Glock is the worst.
Chill
As for my favorite type of pistol, it’s the Glock, of course. But as for those that do not live up to my expectations, I do not think that I can choose one. Previously, we had some Soviet manufactured sidearm models. For instance, we used the TT Soviet manufactured pistol, so I would say that it was pretty bad. So those were the old Soviet pistols, and they do not live up to the requirements of modern warfare.
I like the Glock because, first of all, it’s convenient. Second, accessibility. Then the shooting precision, and of course their dimensions. Their dimensions are also pretty convenient.
Khalepa
I would just say that every weapon needs its own approach. So you just need to find the right approach to every weapon. But no, there are no weapons that I wouldn’t use.
I like the Glock 17 and the Fort 20 because both of these pistols are easy to maintain, especially the Fort 20. It’s lightweight. It’s not really large, so it’s quite convenient to use. And as for the Glock pistol, it’s just the golden classic, the classical example of a handgun.
Chewie
Well, in terms of Glock 17, from my own combat experience, I would like to say that this is a really good weapon that works pretty well even in mud conditions, even when it’s dirty. So in 90% of cases, it didn’t show any malfunctions, any stoppages, etc. Even in really bad operational conditions. In terms of the Fort 20, it’s also quite a good weapon. But well, unfortunately, we cannot provide the Glock pistols for all of our service members. But if we had this opportunity, of course, we would provide the Glocks for 100% of our personnel.
The primary reason why we cannot provide Glocks for all of our personnel is that currently our unit is not purchasing Glocks because there are no funds for this procurement. And as for the key differences between the Glock and the Fort systems, the Fort is really sensitive to humidity and it gets rusty quite soon. So basically, this can also lead to some malfunctions.
I have worked with many pistols, and talking about those that I would never use, these are some of the models manufactured by Beretta. I really didn’t like those, both in terms of maintenance, in terms of the recoil of this weapon. They were hard to maintain, and they had too much recoil. It’s also not really controllable, especially in field conditions. But of course, this is also a matter of habit.
Beretta M9A4 pistol. (Beretta)
So you just need to get used to this weapon. I’m already used to the weapons that we use, and we can just easily maintain them, even in field conditions. And also, we’re quite good at operating the weapons.
Barman
The one that we use in my unit is the Fort 20. But the drawback of this one is that the barrel is very fragile and very much open for any kind of corrosion and rust. So if I could choose one, according to my preferences, I would definitely choose the CZ P-07.
CZ P-07
Right now we are in the process of rearming the soldiers, meaning that some of the soldiers have already received this weapon system, the rest of us will receive it, I guess, by the end of next year. This is being provided by MoD.
Out of those that I had a chance to put my hands on, I didn’t like the Beretta much because the way it sits in the hand is not comfortable. It has a pretty strong recoil, and this one is very sensitive and requires much more attention.
Do you run red dots on your pistols? If so, what kinds have worked well? What hasn’t? Same for pistol lights.
Tarantino
I have never worked with a pistol with a red dot. I do know that some of the soldiers use it, but for me, it seems mostly like something for the sport world, not the war world.
It goes without saying, but there are some pitfalls and drawbacks of this because when it comes to the red dot on your main gun, it’s always in your hands. It’s always in front of you, so you can control it. But the pistol that the soldiers do have usually is in such a place where you do not completely have control every time you move.
That means that, if at some point you fall, or if at some point you are in the dense wood and it might simply knock this red dot off. So a pistol usually is in the holster, and don’t always have your eye on the holster or the pistol. While the red dot is on your rifle, you always keep an eye on it. So it simply can fall apart. And that’s a bad story when a soldier can only operate the pistol with a red dot, it means that you take the red dot out, and you cannot work with mechanical optics, it will be a very dire situation.
I don’t have much expertise in this field when it comes to the flashlights under the barrel of the pistol, and when it comes to any kind of modifications on the pistols. I do know that some reconnaissance soldiers do use the flashlights on the pistols, but that’s mostly on very rare occasions.
Chill
Personally, I have not used any red dot sights with my handguns. The only personnel that I have seen using red dot sights on their pistols are close protection service members, and for them this is justifiable because the pistol is their primary weapon, but for us the pistol is just a sidearm. So this is why we do not concentrate on using red dot sights on our pistols.
Glock 19 with a Holosun 507C red dot. (Photo by Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP) VALENTINE CHAPUIS
Khalepa
No, the effective range of these handguns is 20 to 30 meters, so there is no need, no sense using red dot sights on them. We don’t use pistol lights.
Chewie
In combat, we do not really use red dot sights on our pistols. Some of our guys can just install red dot sights on their pistols for sports reasons, just for training, for some personal use, etc. But not in combat.
In terms of the closed-type [fully enclosed emitter] red dot sights, first of all they are quite pricey, and secondly they can be easily broken. Again, they are susceptible to mud, to humidity, etc. And in terms of the open-type red dot sights, a bit of mud and it doesn’t work anymore. At the same time, in terms of the use of the iron sights on the pistol, they are basically fail-proof. And even if they are dirty, even if there is some contamination, some mud, you can just clean them off with your glove and keep on shooting. So they are just fail-proof on the battlefield. And it’s easier. You don’t have to put in and out of your holster without the red dot.
My issued weapon doesn’t have a red dot sight, and I feel pretty confident in getting it out of the holster and putting it back in the holster. And my personal sidearm – a Glock 34 – I have a red dot sight on it, and once again, no problems in using the holster. The Glock 34 is a sports weapon I purchased to participate in sports. This is not a self-defense weapon.
Barman
When it comes to combat and real combat warfare, we do not use the red dots on the pistols. So the war is about the dust and it’s about being dirty and there is a pretty big and high chance that you might hit your weapon either with a stick or something and simply destroy or break the red dot. That is the reason why most of us stick to mechanical sights.
What about shotguns? Do you use them for trench warfare? What about for shooting down drones?
Tarantino
When it comes to military shotguns, unfortunately, I cannot give you a lot of information because we don’t have many chances to work with them.
Chill
Usually they just use shotguns to shoot down drones. I haven’t really heard anything about using shotguns while conducting any actions in the trenches.
Khalepa
Well, as of today, we do not use shotguns, because they can be used against FPV drones or other types of small drones, but our unit does not use shotguns to shoot down Shahed drones.
Chewie
Well, usually we use shotguns for the crews of armored fighting vehicles, but we use shotguns in really rare cases. Mostly, all the personnel are trained to shoot down drones with their primary weapon without using the shotguns.
Barman
We do not use shotguns at all. The weapon that we operate is our authorized UAR-15 with the very standard M855 round.
What shotguns work best for shooting down drones?
Tarantino
So out of those that I had a chance to get my hands on, is one called Benelli. That’s an Italian production shotgun. I have it in my hands. That’s a very qualitative weapon system, and definitely is a reliable one. Another one that I used in my career is the Winchester, and it also looks and works quite and is quite an efficient weapon system.
Benelli 828 U SUPERSPORT A.I. OVER AND UNDER SHOTGUNS. (Benelli)
The one that we know that we use is the one from the Turkish production, and these are the smoothbore weapons. The drawback of all of them is the following: the weapon is the same, but the manufacturers of the same weapon are different. It means that a brand new weapon from one manufacturer can be up and running and working well, but another weapon system from another manufacturer cannot work so smoothly, and it requires additional fixing of some things. The explanation for all this in my mind is quite easy because these all are not military weapons. These are the weapons designed for hunting and for hunters.
Chill
We do not really have any kind of standardization in this matter. It’s either the Turkish manufactured platforms or any platforms that we can get.
As a hunter, I prefer the classical platforms, but now we have a lot of different types of shotguns in Ukraine, different form factors, a lot of Turkish-manufactured Hatsan shotguns, both pump-actions and other models, and I would say that the pump-action guns are the most effective that can be used in our conditions of Ukrainian warfare.
Chewie
Currently we are using the Turkish manufactured copy of Benelli and also the Safari [HG-150M]. This is a Ukrainian manufacturer.
Do you use a 5.56 fragmentation round for shooting down drones?
Tarantino
Yes, 5.56 shot rounds are occasionally used. However, the firing effectiveness depends exclusively on the operator’s skills.
Chill
No, we do not usually use specialized anti-drone cartridges. It’s usually just simple shot cartridges.
Khalepa
Well, the UAR-15 rifles have the special type of anti-drone ammunition that doesn’t have a single bullet, but it has something more similar to the shotgun, which just acts as the fragmentary ammunition that you have described. We have them and we practice using them at the training sites at the shooting ranges, but we haven’t had any need to use them in the real combat scenario yet.
If we’re looking at the extreme situations and if we imagine that a rifle with the anti-drone munitions is the only thing that you have against the drones, yes, I would say that these anti-drone munitions are better than just simple bullets. They contain small gauge shot, and in comparison with the bullet, they are much more effective in damaging the drones because they can cover a larger area, and the dispersion is larger and better than in just simple cartridges with bullets.
Drone Round: The Next Evolution of Counter-UAS
Chewie
No special cartridges. We just train them to shoot down the drones with what we have, with what they fight. Because when our personnel are somewhere in the tree line and they have contact with the enemy, and they quickly need to shoot down a drone, they will not have time to change the magazine for the one with the anti-drone cartridges, and basically shooting down drones with standard munitions has proven quite efficient. So we train our people to do this. We have quite high results, and we even had cases when our fighters shot down drones with their pistols.
Barman
The only scenario where we use them is during training on the ranges. But when it comes to combat warfare, usually we do stick to our standard rounds because when it comes to warfare right now, a lot of those attacks happen suddenly, unexpectedly. It means that a soldier simply doesn’t have time to change the magazine for the magazine that has those rounds that have these fragments in it.
The peculiarity of the fragmentation round is that its range of efficiency is approximately from 40 to 60 meters, while a usual standard round can hit a drone at a distance of 100 to 150 meters, so we simply made our own conclusion and stuck to this. That using a regular round is much better than this fragment round.
Édouard Manet’s “Execution of Maximilian” will go on view at Pasadena’s Norton Simon Museum next week, marking the first time the painting has been exhibited on the West Coast. The historic canvas, on loan from London’s National Gallery, has a fascinating backstory and represents a key moment in French political history, making its arrival shortly after this country’s stunning midterm election particularly auspicious.
The painting is the second of five versions Manet created (circa 1867-68) shortly after the shocking execution of Austrian archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who briefly served as the emperor of Mexico after being encouraged to do so by the French emperor Napoleon III. In 1867, Maximilian — along with his generals Tomás Mejía and Miguel Miramón — faced a firing squad made up of soldiers loyal to former Mexican President Benito Juárez, who had been forced out of Mexico City in 1863 when French forces descended on the capital. Maximilian’s ouster and death stunned many Europeans, who blamed Napoleon III for the bloodshed.
Manet’s monumental canvas is cold and unyielding in its impersonal depiction of the violent episode, and in many ways helped birth the modern historical political painting. Through Manet’s eyes, political violence is not heroic, but pedestrian, benign even. It contains echoes of another famous political painting: Francisco de Goya’s “The Third of May, 1808,” which also depicts death by firing squad — this time the execution of civilians by French troops during Napoleon’s notorious occupation of Spain.
The canvas coming to the Norton Simon was long neglected and is thought to have been discarded by Manet when he became dissatisfied by discrepancies in the size of the figures he painted. His family cut the canvas into four pieces after his death and sold them separately. It was saved from oblivion by Manet’s friend Edgar Degas, who managed to get a hold of all the fragments. The painting was acquired by the National Gallery in 1918 at Degas’ studio sale, and the painting was pieced together again in the late 1970s.
“Manet’s Execution of Maximilian is not only an icon within the history of nineteenth-century art, but also a profound reflection on the ways in which images shape our understanding of political events and collective memory,” said Emily Talbot, vice president of collections and chief curator at the Norton Simon in a news release. “By bringing this extraordinary painting together with historical materials that document the French intervention in Mexico, we invite visitors to consider how history is constructed in visual form.”
The painting will be on view at the Norton Simon from Nov. 14 to March 1, 2027.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt ready for a jubilant walk through a museum on the heels of a roller coaster of an election. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
[Update: A previous version of this story said Manet’s “Execution of Maximilian”had not been shown in the U.S. for 20 years. It has not been shown on the West Coast before, but was shown in New York in 2024.]
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
LA Phil’s incoming music director Daniel Harding conducting at the Hollywood Bowl in 2025.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
Daniel Harding Leads Bernstein & Brahms The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s incoming music director leads the orchestra for Leonard Bernstein’s “Symphony No. 1,” with mezzo-soprano Avery Amereau, and is joined by Norwegian pianist Leif Ove Andsnes for Johannes Brahms’ “Second Piano Concerto.” 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Idina Menzel The Broadway star joins with the Pacific Symphony, led by conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez, for a night of hits. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 300 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
NOW 2026 REDCAT’s New Original Works Festival features a different program each week over three weekends. First up, Alfonso Abraham Cervera and Irvin Manuel Gonzalez’s “las cosas que enter(r)amos,” a mix of Latinx American social and folk dance, storytelling, and contemporary dance; Scottie Harvey’s “Hole Gazers,” a comedic satire about fantasy, surveillance and life online; and Jeonghyeon Joo’s “how to bathe properly,” a solo work for haegeum, a two-string instrument, performed in a staged Korean sauna. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, through Nov. 21. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
Radio Galaxy Joey McIntyre, Lesli Margherita, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Meera Simhan, Rishi Golani and Jordyn Rahman star in a new play by Michèle Aldin Kushner about a New Jersey teen who dreams of becoming an astronomer. Directed by Kimberly Senior. Through Nov. 22. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Sable Elyse Smith “Sky Fence Ground” features new woven works on paper, a recent video work and a monumental kinetic sculpture by the multimedia artist. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday, exhibit runs through Dec. 19. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com
SATURDAY
Angela Anh Nguyen Los Angeles Nomadic Division (LAND) presents the artist’s “Entropy,” a site-specific installation that addresses the collective experience of the 2025 Eaton and Palisades fires through social media, monitoring apps, and other forms of digital communication. Opening reception, 1-4 p.m., exhibit runs through Dec. 13. Old Fire Station No. 6, 534 E. Edgeware Road, Angelino Heights. nomadicdivision.org
Takes Care of Them Four large-scale prints by artist Dyani White Hawk (Sicangu Lakota) each depict a dress adorned differently to reflect on the roles of Lakota women in four areas: Wówahokuŋkiya (Lead); Wókaǧe (Create); Nakíčižiŋ (Protect); and Wačháŋtognaka (Nurture). Autry Museum of the American West, 4700 Western Heritage Way, Griffith Park. theautry.org
SUNDAY
Billie Holiday and The Blues L.A.’s Marlonius Jazz Orchestra, led by virtuoso bassist and composer Marlon Martinez, is joined by Brooklyn vocalist Mara Kaye for this tribute to Holiday and deep blues cuts. 8 p.m. Sierra Madre Playhouse, 87 W. Sierra Madre Blvd. sierramadreplayhouse.org
Camerata Pacifica The November program includes a world premiere by Niloufar Nourbakhsh, Mozart’s “Quintet for Piano and Winds in E-flat Major,” alongside contemporary chamber works by Michael Daugherty, Missy Mazzoli and the late Sarah Gibson. 3 p.m. Sunday. Bank of America Performing Arts Center, Janet & Ray Scherr Forum Theatre, 2100 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks; 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino; 8 p.m. Thursday. The Colburn School, Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; and 7 p.m. Friday. Music Academy of the West, Hahn Hall, 1070 Fairway Road, Santa Barbara. cameratapacifica.org
Romeo and Juliet: Time Enough for Love Open Fist Theatre Company presents a new age-reversed adaptation conceived and directed by Christian Lebano. Previews, 7:30 Sunday, Wednesday and Thursday, play runs Nov. 13-Dec. 19. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. openfist.org
Sage Ni’Ja Whitson: Revival_ _Revival A free processional performance across the once predominantly Black community of Santa Monica, visiting sacred historic sites lost to time and gentrification, with a live score of gospel, house, hip hop, and voice. Audience members are invited to wear white clothing and white masks, and the procession closes with a fellowship meal at Ocean Bay Beach. 2 p.m. First AME Church, 1823 Michigan Ave., Santa Monica. 18thstreet.org
WEDNESDAY
Destiny of Desire Karen Zacarías’ smart and fearless homage to telenovelas yields an epic, twisting yarn, full of coincidences and cliff-hangers, mistaken identities and gobsmacking revelations. It’s invigorating fun but also radiant with insight into the age-old debate between nature and nurture. When I first saw the play at South Coast Repertory in 2016, I was seduced by the production’s Brechtian energy. And I’m eager to see what fresh light director Marcela Lorca sheds on a play that my students at CalArts one year claimed as their favorite of the semester — and they have excellent taste. (Charles McNulty) Through Dec. 20. Mark Taper Forum, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
LaTanya Richardson Jackson, from left, Kara Young, Glenn Davis and Jon Michael Hill in the Broadway/Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of “Purpose.”
(Marc J. Franklin)
Purpose The original Steppenwolf Theatre Company cast of the Broadway production of Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning drama reassembles at the Geffen Playhouse for the most anticipated dramatic event of the season. The play, about a prominent Black Chicago family headed by a civil rights icon with skeletons in his closet, has the scope, heft and flamboyant idiosyncrasy of the landmark American domestic dramas of the past. Under the assured direction of Phylicia Rashad, the actors brought the characters so richly to life in New York that I can’t wait to experience their ensemble alchemy in L.A. (Charles McNulty) Through Dec. 13. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org
THURSDAY The Heiress Theater 40 presents the classic American romantic drama, adapted by Ruth Goetz and Augustus Goetz from Henry James’ novel “Washington Square.” Directed by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky. Through Dec. 13. Beverly Hills High School, Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive. theatre40.org
Kafka’s Letter to His Father Keeping things in weird perspective, CAP UCLA, in collaboration with Brightwork Ensemble, presents a production of Czech composer Jiri Trtik’s opera “Letter to His Father.” About Kafka’s artistic liberation from paternal authority, it is produced by and stars the most transformative tenor of our time, Timur. (Mark Swed) 8 p.m. Thursday-Nov. 14. UCLA Nimoy 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Las Migas The Spanish Latin Grammy-winning all-women quartet melds traditional flamenco with contemporary stylings to reimagine the classic art form. 7:30 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with Isata Kanneh-Mason The New York-based classical ensemble is joined by the British pianist for a program featuring Mozart, Handel, Haydn and Welsh composer (and New York transplant) Katie Jenkins. 7:30 p.m. Broad Stage at Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica. broadstage.org
Dispatch: A harrowing exhibition of Iranian art in Chinatown
“Lunch,” by BSisters (Behnaz and Baharak Khaleghi), on view at the Fellows of Contemporary Art gallery in Chinatown.
(Fellows of Contemporary Art)
“Lunch,” a centerpiece installation at Fellows of Contemporary Art’s new exhibition centered on the works of Iranian-born women artists in California, is an upsetting sculpture that’s as soft and intimate as a pillow.
The piece, by the Bay Area duo BSisters (Behnaz and Baharak Khaleghi), riffs on the myth of Zahāk — a vain tyrant with snakes around his head that eat human brains to keep him alive. It’s a tale from the Shahnameh, a 1,000-year-old Persian epic poem. BSisters have rendered it here in cozy pastel fabrics and gauzy spilled cotton, materials that speak to how women activists in Iran have been brutalized and consumed by the fundamentalist regime there. The sculpture — very funny and unnerving at once — also evokes the strange mix of distance and intimacy of Iranian immigrants to the U.S., watching the current conflict curdle their hopes for change into deeper worry.
It’s one of several affecting pieces on display at FOCA’s Chinatown gallery as part of “I Saw a Woman, Pounding Light into Mortar,” an exhibition in which six California-based Iranian women artists grapple with distance and helplessness, amid a conflict where both governments seem driven by an almost cannibalistic consumption of people and resources.
“Growing up in Iran, political repression was never something distant from our everyday lives. It shaped our childhood, our experiences as women, and the ways we learned to express ourselves,” said Katayoun Bahrami, the exhibit’s curator. “Living in the United States now, I feel a constant tension between building a life here and remaining deeply connected to what is happening back home. This past year has been especially painful. After the deadly crackdown on protesters in January and the war that followed, hope and anger have been hard to separate. Watching from thousands of miles away, unable to do much, has brought a sense of helplessness that is difficult to describe.”
Much of the work here is quietly devastating in evoking absence, fear and exile. Shaghayegh Cyrous’s video installation “Reenacting the Future” is a mirror image of a mother and daughter, filmed over 12 years in the U.S. and Iran, a visual echo cleaved by exile. Narges Poursadeqi’s sculpture “Between Dots of Blindness” could fit in a desk drawer, but the braille poem it spools through a music box feels like the last thing you would shove in a suitcase, fleeing for a new country.
“This exhibition was born during the internet and phone shutdowns in Iran, when we had no way to reach our families or know whether they were safe. That silence was terrifying,” Bahrami said. “Bringing these artists together became deeply personal for me. I recognize parts of my own fears, memories, and longing in their work. Through their art and our conversations, I’ve found ways to process feelings that are difficult to carry alone. Curating this exhibition has helped me turn some of that helplessness into something meaningful. It has also reminded me how much we need one another, especially when we feel powerless to change what is happening.”
“I Saw a Woman, Pounding Light into Mortar” at FOCA-LA through Nov. 28; 970 N. Broadway, Suite 208, Los Angeles 90012.
— August Brown
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Director Zhailon Levingston sits outside before the rehersal of “Passing Strange” at the Pasadena Playhouse.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“Passing Strange,” a 20-year-old musical that takes place in downtown L.A. and went to Broadway, has never been performed here — until now. Pasadena Playhouse hosts its SoCal premiere.
The Los Angeles Philharmonic is shaking things up. This week it announced a slew of new leadership positions that will go into effect alongside incoming music director Daniel Harding. The orchestra’s post-Dudamel future is shaping up to be quite interesting.
The most anticipated play of the season is about to open as “Oh Mary!” heads for the Ahmanson. Ticket sales have been so brisk that Center Theatre Group has already booked the show again for next season.
A “Do Not Enter” sign hangs on the fence at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on Sept. 25 in Washington.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP photo)
The Kennedy Center may be closed indefinitely for renovations, but that did not stop its Trump-anointed leaders from announcing who would be recognized at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors — to be held by necessity at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 7. Honorees include singer-songwriter Paul Anka, music producer David Foster, actor Andy Garcia, playwright David Mamet and country singer Barbara Mandrell.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Thursday blocked the Trump administration from breaking ground on a towering memorial arch for 14 days.
The temporary restraining order by U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan halting the work represents a major setback for one of President Trump’s most prominent projects in his vision to remake Washington.
The decision followed a series of steps taken earlier Thursday by the government, including the final approval of the arch by the National Capital Planning Commission in an 8-4 vote after a 9 ½ hour hearing where scores of witnesses opposed the construction.
The administration said the work could begin as soon as the approval and the Interior Department issued a final decision authorizing construction and the proper notification was published by the National Park Service.
In approving the temporary stop, Chutkan said Virginia and the District of Columbia had shown that the immediacy of the construction would cause real harm to the plaintiffs.
“The harm is certain,” she wrote. “Defendants initially notified the court that construction could begin as early as November 5, 2026, if the NCPC approves the project at its meeting that day and the Department of the Interior authorizes construction.” In their filing, Virginia and D.C. warned of traffic pattern distortions as well as concerns about the impact on mutual aid emergency calls if the arch were to proceed.
“Second, the District and Virginia will incur significant unrecoverable costs. As soon as construction begins, DDOT will need to expend staff time and operating resources to affirmatively and proactively manage temporary detours, crashes or disabled vehicles,” Chutkan wrote.
The judge ordered the government to provide a status report next Monday to ensure they are complying with the order.
The judge’s decision came just over an hour after the National Capital Planning Commission hearing ended. The vote by the commission broke along federal and local lines. Those in favor work for the administration or are connected to the president, who was pushing for the immediate construction. Opponents represented the city of Washington.
The remote, call-in hearing — which crashed repeatedly in the first few hours and was accompanied by a nearly universally negative comment section — drew witnesses who gave impassioned comments opposing an arch they said will destroy the solemnity of the nearby Arlington National Cemetery, where hundreds of thousands of fallen service members and military veterans are buried.
The panel’s Trump-appointed chairman launched the meeting with a gushing appraisal of the towering monument and lauded Trump for wanting to build it.
“President Trump understands as president and a superb builder that it’s important to our national identity to display who we are through grand monuments,” said Mark Paoletta, the commission’s chairman.
As Trump has often remarked, “the great cities around the world have arches: Paris, Rome, London,” said Paoletta, who also serves as general counsel for the White House Office of Management and Budget.
Commissioner Paul Ingrassia, a lawyer for the General Services Administration, said the arch was “not about politics. It’s about remembrance. It’s about celebrating our history. It’s about commemorating veterans. And it’s really something that’s a noble tribute to our nation and something that we can all rally behind.”
But D.C. City Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, who also serves on the planning panel, said the project has not received required approval from Congress, nor has Congress appropriated any money for it. The plan submitted to the commission does not include a reference to military use cited by Trump and other administration officials, Mendelson said.
“We cannot approve final site and building plans until we have the final site and building plans,” he said.
The commission oversees construction on federal land in the city and began reviewing the arch plan in June.
The arch is one of several projects around Washington that the Republican president has undertaken as he alters the capital to his tastes — from renovating one of its storied public golf courses to threatening to demolish the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Those projects could soon face intense scrutiny after Democrats gained control of Congress in the midterm elections this week.
Rep. Jared Huffman, a California Democrat who is set to chair the House Natural Resources Committee, called the project ill-advised and illegal.
“This arch would dishonor America,” Huffman told the commission. He called the proposed arch “a tribute to Donald Trump,” not veterans as Trump administration officials claim. The monument is similar to those built for emperors or kings, Huffman said, adding that Trump was using veterans as a pretext to build a memorial to himself.
Other critics, including the plaintiffs, argue that the Trump administration must seek congressional approval. The administration maintains that Congress cleared the way for a monument at Memorial Circle decades ago.
Several members of the Planning Commission used that logic in approving the project. Paoletta said it was a “national disgrace” that a memorial arch had not been placed there, despite a 1925 law that designated such a memorial, he said.
Chutkan rejected that argument in her ruling: “The sheer improbability that a 100-year-old statute would contain authority, unknown to every previous administration, to erect a 250-foot arch at a principal location in the Nation’s capital indicates how far defendants must stretch to justify this project.”
Daly and Fields write for the Associated Press. AP videographer Nathan Ellgren contributed to this report.
As the United States midterm election results landed late on Tuesday night, United States President Donald Trump took a phone call from the news outlet Politico.
A wave for the Democratic Party had sunk Trump’s Republican Party. For the first time in his two stints as president, Trump’s Republican Party no longer controlled either chamber of Congress.
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But in the phone interview, Trump put on a brave face — and offered an olive branch: He said that he would be willing to work with Democrats.
“They’ve already called, and they want to work with me. I have the right to veto everything, but I don’t want to be just sitting there for two years just vetoing everything,” he said.
While a handful of seats remain to be counted, the Democrats have won comfortable majorities in both the House of Representatives, where they have secured at least 253 seats out of 435, and in the Senate, where they have won at least 54 out of 100.
Trump has since posted a picture on his Truth Social account using the Make America Great Again red baseball hat to read “VETO”. Despite the Democrats’ success, as president, Trump holds broad executive authority, with Article 1, Section 7 of the US Constitution stipulating that the president has the power to reject legislation passed by Congress through a veto.
Congress can override the veto, but would need to have a two-thirds majority, something that the Democrats do not have in either chamber.
But Trump’s comments to Politico underscore an alternate possibility — the president may pick and choose when to veto, and when to work with Democrats.
Bipartisan negotiations
As it stands, Trump has three options: veto legislation, enforce executive orders or make deals.
Since Trump was inaugurated in January 2025, he has passed 292 executive orders: 67 this year and 225 last year, according to the Federal Register.
But now, according to Andrew Proctor, a lecturer in US politics at University College London, Trump has even less leverage than before with Congress.
“I think the biggest thing is we’re probably going to see a decent amount of gridlock. The Democrats are going to try to pass policies, but he’s got the power to veto them, and Democrats don’t have enough seats in either chamber to overcome any vetoes that he has,” Proctor said.
“So that raises questions about, will he try to work with the Democrats at all on passing legislation? I think recent history says that’s unlikely.”
Still, some Democrats have said that they would work with the president to advance programmes central to their campaign promises.
Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, the first Muslim elected to the US Senate, has already said he could work with Trump — even though the US president had used racist and Islamophobic rhetoric to target El-Sayed during the campaign.
El-Sayed told MSNOW on Thursday that if Trump was interested in “getting money out of politics, putting money in pockets and passing Medicare for All, that’s what I ran to do, and I’m looking forward to working with anyone who is willing to do that”.
“He is the president of the United States,” he said. “I’m going to be one United States senator, and if he’s interested in working on issues that I want to work on – getting more people healthcare, ending the Medicare cuts, ending the stupid war, stopping these stupid tariffs with Canada – then let’s talk about doing that and go and deliver for the public.”
Progressive Senator Bernie Sanders has also said, in recent interviews, that he would not rule out Trump signing onto a Medicare for All bill if Democrats pass it in both chambers of Congress. He described Trump as a “politician” who was not “too ideological”.
Proctor argued that Trump could indeed make a deal with the Democrats based on how good it could make him look, but that getting Medicare for All passed in the next two years appeared unlikely.
“I do think that a place where common ground could emerge on healthcare is rolling back, specifically the sort of subsidies that were cut” under Trump’s earlier legislation, he said. “So that would make healthcare more affordable for millions of Americans.”
Proctor pointed out that some Republicans in 2025 had said they were willing to negotiate with Democrats on healthcare reforms.
“That didn’t end up happening, but I could imagine that might be a place for healthcare-specific policy where we could see something emerge,” he said. “I don’t think that a broader healthcare debate on passing Medicare for All, though, is really in the cards.”
Veto or filibuster
Though Trump has said he would be willing to use veto, he has historically not been among the most avid proponents of the practice.
He has so far used the veto twice in this term, and used it 10 times during his first term. Joe Biden used it 12 times in his single term, while Barack Obama used the veto a dozen times over two terms.
Overall, the presidential use of the veto has declined with time: Bill Clinton vetoed legislation 37 times between 1993 and 2001. His predecessor, George HW Bush, used it 44 times in his single term — almost once a month. Ronald Reagan used it 78 times over his two terms.
But Proctor said that Republicans also have a different tool to try and block legislation. That is the filibuster, a tactic that delays a vote on a specific piece of legislation by using an extended debate, which would impact the Democrats’ ability to get something passed.
“This is what they did to [former President Barack] Obama,” Proctor told Al Jazeera. “Senate Republicans will probably try to do the same thing, and it also means that we don’t even get to the point of Trump having the power to veto because the legislation never reaches him in the first place.”
Impeachment
Since the Democrats swept the midterms on Tuesday, calls for investigations against the administration have already emerged.
In his first term, Trump was impeached twice — first for the abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, and the second time for “inciting” the US Capitol riots.
On Tuesday night, US Representative Robert Garcia, who is set to become chairman of the House Oversight Committee, wrote on X: “LAWYER UP.” Senator Ron Wyden, who is expected to lead the Senate Finance Committee, wrote in a post on X: “Subpoenas.”
However, the Trump administration has already denied any wrongdoing.
“If Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people,” said White House spokesperson Lauren Bis on Wednesday.
Reports also suggest that impeachment proceedings against Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth might be imminent, over the Iran war that Trump and other Republicans have blamed for the party’s losses.
As the clock ticks down for the Senate to pass the so-called Sunshine Protection Act to mandate year-round daylight saving time in most of the United States, President Trump on Wednesday said he planned to “keep fighting” for the change.
“Too bad the Senate has not yet approved the Sunshine Protection Act or, the I Don’t Want to Change My Clocks Anymore Act,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post.
Daylight saving time ended on Sunday, Nov. 1, meaning clocks in most of the United States fell back one hour at 2 a.m. Daylight saving time will begin again on March 14, 2027, unless the bill passes both chambers and is signed by Trump before then.
In his post, Trump lamented that it was dark by 5:31 p.m. “Just a few days ago it was so nice and sunny at this same time,” he said.
“I didn’t want to make a big deal out of this prior to the Election because I didn’t want to have certain Senators lose their Race, in a landslide, but it is too bad they can’t get it done,” Trump said.
Trump continued: “We have far bigger priorities, but I will keep fighting for this!”
Although permanent daylight saving time would mean brighter winter evenings, it would also mean darker winter mornings.
If the legislation were to pass, Los Angeles would see its latest sunrise of the year at 8 a.m. Sacramento would see sunrise as late as 8:24 a.m., and San Francisco as late as 8:25 a.m.
The debate over timekeeping has pitted some golf course owners — who argue that later sunsets are good for business as it gives people more daylight to play golf after work — against doctors, who say the darker mornings and brighter evenings of permanent daylight saving time weaken the circadian clock for many people.
Trump owns golf courses across the United States, including in New Jersey, North Carolina, Washington, D.C., and on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.
At times, the debate has turned ugly. In October, Trump appeared to share the cellphone number of a vocal critic of the legislation, Sen. Tom Cotton telling his supporters to contact the Arkansas Republican.
Cotton has long argued that the late sunrises in the winter would mean students would need to walk to school in the dark and risk being struck by drivers — as was the case in 1974 when the U.S. briefly adopted year-round daylight saving time to combat an energy crisis.
Arizona resident Jay Pea, a former software engineer and the founder of the nonprofit Save Standard Time, also wants to put an end to the twice-annual clock adjustments.
But he’s not a fan of permanent daylight saving time, which he said would particularly burden outdoor workers, such as construction crews, farmers and groundskeepers, who would probably have to start their days in the dark.
“It makes you get up one hour earlier. It makes you start work in school one hour earlier,” Pea told The Times on Thursday. “Nobody’s calling up his congressman and saying, ‘Hey, can you make me go to work an hour earlier? Can you make me set my alarm an hour earlier?’ But that’s what DST [daylight saving time] does.”
Pea favors year-round standard time. It keeps clocks aligned with the sun, he said. He supports an alternative proposal, the Sunshine for Our Kids Act, which was introduced in July by Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon (D-Pa.).
The proposal would make standard time the default year-round but give states the ability to opt out. That legislation remains stalled in the House, according to Pea.
Times staff writer Rong-Gong Lin II contributed reporting.
The scene at Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna’s election night party was mostly buzz cuts, dark suits and high-gloss black shoes. Deputies and politicos chatted over festive music while the local news played silently on a big screen at El Pescador Bar and Grill in Carson, which served as Luna’s campaign headquarters on Tuesday.
When the newscast declared around 9:50 p.m. that the sheriff had won a second term, dozens of friends, family members and colleagues nursing margaritas and tacos burst into a rousing round of applause. After one of the sleepiest sheriff’s races in recent memory, Luna had again cruised to victory over his predecessor, Alex Villanueva.
The vibe Tuesday night was very different than it was at the intimate gathering at his home in Long Beach in June 2022, when Luna learned that his relentless retail politics had fueled a convincing win over the rest of the field in that year’s primary.
Luna has risen far from the low-income neighborhoods on L.A.’s Eastside where he was raised in the 1970s and 1980s, when gangs and violence were rampant. His parents left behind their lives in the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Michoacán, immigrating to the U.S., where he was born in an East Los Angeles hospital.
Luna’s wife Celines said Tuesday she didn’t believe he was going to win when he sat her and their two adult children down in summer 2021 and told them he wanted to come out of his brief retirement to run for sheriff. But “he worked 110% and he never gave up” during both the 2022 and 2026 campaigns, said Celines, who brought cheerleading pom-poms to shake for her husband Tuesday evening.
“He got home after 10 o’clock most nights. He basically worked two jobs,” she said.
All that work paid off Tuesday, when Luna became the first sheriff to secure a second term in L.A. County since Lee Baca, who held the office from 1998 to 2014.
Villanueva, on the other hand, has now lost three consecutive elections, including his last two sheriff bids and his failed 2024 campaign for L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s seat, which Hahn won outright in the primary with nearly three-fifths of the vote. The former sheriff’s brand of sharp-elbowed politics plagued by scandal and vitriol has left him effectively radioactive in county politics, according to some political observers.
Luna, meanwhile, has presided over a period of relative calm at the Hall of Justice. “There are, unfortunately, fractured relationships that need to be fixed,” Luna told The Times four days before he began his first term in 2022. “Sometimes,” he added, “the way you approach governing makes a huge difference.”
Luna has made good on that promise to improve relationships. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors took drastic measures to try to rein in Villanueva’s behavior while he was sheriff, including voting to investigate the department’s activities and freezing millions of dollars in funding. Luna, on the other hand, was endorsed by all five supervisors during this year’s campaign.
“Sheriff Robert Luna has earned the trust and support of voters, and this election is an overwhelming show of confidence in his leadership,” Hahn said in a statement. “Crime is down, he is bringing transparency and accountability back to the department, and he is working closely with me and my colleagues on the Board of Supervisors to make our communities safer.”
A vague sense that the sheriff is “always in the news” for something good was part of what drove Rafael Nolasco to support his candidacy for a second term. The 49-year-old East L.A. native said last month that he planned to vote for Luna, whom he views as a role model for his children.
“Seeing somebody from your background having a position like that, to me it’s amazing,” Nolasco said after talking with Luna outside a taqueria in the neighborhood.
For Luna, campaigning has meant long hours away from his loved ones, so he’s excited to be able to focus solely on his work as sheriff.
“I want to get back to just doing my one full-time job and get reacquainted with my wife and my family. They sacrifice so much,” he said minutes after the sheriff’s race was called Tuesday night. “You’re working so hard, and at one point you take a deep breath and go, my God, how much have I sacrificed? And is it worth it? But tonight it was.”
Luna’s tenure as sheriff will now stretch from the late COVID-19 era through the 2028 Summer Olympics and beyond. He said late Tuesday that he’s got some priorities for his second term, including making more progress on deputy gangs and determining “what are we going to do with Men’s Central Jail.”
The U.S. Department of Justice announced in September that it is investigating conditions at Men’s Central Jail, which has been plagued for years by overcrowding, violence and other issues. Luna has said in the past that he would like to see the aging jail shut down if it is first replaced with a modern facility providing clinical care to inmates.
The sheriff also said he plans to track and adapt to how the broader political changes ushered in by the Democratic wave in the midterm elections Tuesday could impact approaches on immigration enforcement and other federal initiatives with local implications.
But first he said he’s going to take some time to determine the best way forward for his department.
“I’m going to bring my team back together, and we’re going to revisit all of our priorities … We’re going to continue the things that worked, reexamine things that may not have worked,” he said. “There’s a lot of work to do. This is not a finished product.”
Champions League analyst Stephen Warnock and Guillem Balague believe Liverpool’s defensive weaknesses combined with the experimentation of playing Bradley Barcola up front, highlight Andoni Iraola’s team are still trying to find their identity following a 3-2 defeat to Fenerbahce in the Champions League.
However, it appears that viewers will still have to wait and see just who it was that fell at the last hurdle. Fans were already warned that voting for who they wanted to win the series would be paused. The process was put on hold from Tuesday (November 3) morning at 9am.
According to the ITV voting website, it would open again after Wednesday night’s episode is aired. Afterwards, fans will be allowed to vote another five times for their favourite.
Last weekend, Philip and Rochelle were the last housemates evicted during a live show. It was the only double eviction during the current ITV series. Following their exit, it was reported that Philip would not be attending the planned reunion episode on Friday.
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The final line-up will be made up from seven of the following: Twinks, Samuel, Lynx, Rochelle, Frankie, Catrin, Omar and Yasmin. Fans think they have already worked out the order in which the remainder of the housemates will place, along with the eventual winner.
According to the results of polls shared on the Big Brother UK subreddit, Twinks is the overwhelming favourite. Across several polls for who people were apparently going to vote to win, she gained 47% of the vote.
The results claim that Lynx is most likely have been booted out in the backdoor eviction. Meanwhile, it states Samuel and Rochelle make up the rest of the top three.
Others have speculated on social media someone else will be the housemate to go. One person posted: “The fact someone is being evicted right now and we have to wait until tomorrow to find out. Feel cheated that we won’t get to hear any crowd reaction for Omar though.”
However, Frankie’s name has also been suggested a number of times. Some viewers shared their frustrations during companion show The Group Chat, awaiting confirmation of the eviction. One person said: “The fact we’re doing this group chat knowing someone (people??) been evicted right now and can’t see who really winds me up.”
One fan was confused that hosts GK Barry and Kate Lawler discussed bodily functions of housemates. They asked: “If this made the edit, can’t wait for part two.”
Big Brother continues tomorrow at 9pm on ITV2 and ITVX.
US air accident investigators said there was ‘a lot of work to do’ following Sunday’s Learjet crash in Florida, which killed all nine people on board. Officials said determining the cause could take time, as the impact crater is complicating wreckage recovery.
A Strictly Come Dancing legend has aired viewers’ complaints about a major shake-up, revealing a jaw-dropping amount of fans said the show’s attempts at comedy did not work for them
12:48, 02 Nov 2026Updated 12:54, 02 Nov 2026
The majority of Strictly fans told Oti and Marius that the show’s skits aren’t working(Image: BBC)
Former Strictly Come Dancing professional Oti Mabuse, 36, who won the Glitterball trophy twice with Kelvin Fletcher and Bill Bailey before leaving the BBC show in 2022, has pointed out an issue she has with the 2026 series, which many viewers have picked up on too.
Oti, whose older sister is judge Motsi Mabuse, discusses Strictly every weekend on her vodcast, The Fifth Judge, alongside husband Marius Iepure, who is also a professional dancer. The pair regularly invite their viewers to get involved in polls to share their thoughts on the latest episode.
On Saturday’s livestream, Oti and Marius asked their YouTube audience about the introduction of comedic skits between the dances. Oti wondered: “Do all the skits work for you? Do you like the jokes? Do you like when the judges are involved? Do you like when the pros are reading the social stuff, and they’re doing the ‘Emma and Joshy’ thing? Are you laughing?”.
The topic was brought up in response to last weekend’s Halloween Special, during which hosts Josh Widdicombe, 43, Emma Willis, 50, and Johannes Radebe, 39, featured in multiple comedy sketches throughout the programme.
These segments saw Josh and Emma attempting to frighten famously stern judge Craig Revel Horwood, 61, before the comedian let down his co-presenters by declining to wear fancy dress for trick-or-treating, while the contestants mimicked Johannes’ distinctive “Emma and Joshy” handover to his fellow hosts.
Following the chat vote, Oti disclosed that an overwhelming 75 per cent responded “no, they do not work, they do not find them funny”, while just 25 per cent answered “yes, they are hilarious”.
Oti observed in response: “Well, that’s very telling! It says that people, at this point, just want to get on with the dancing.”
The former Strictly champion and her husband echoed the sentiment from their audience, with Oti revealing that Marius believes “it’s a completely different show”.
Expanding on this point, Marius stated that elements of Strictly’s Halloween Special resembled “a comedy show that I didn’t ask for”, acknowledging he “laughed a little bit” at Josh, Emma and Johannes’ trick-or-treating sketch, though he also felt that it “was so long”.
Oti mentioned that one of their viewers, named Kate, had commented: “I don’t tend to laugh, but I think it’s part of the charm.”
The former Strictly pro proceeded to suggest that if BBC bosses have incorporated the sketches to pad out the programme, they could alternatively “cut the show shorter”, or integrate the Results Show into Saturday night’s broadcast, rather than screening it separately on Sundays, with Oti declaring: “That would be a great change.”
Viewers also took to X to have their say on the skits over the weekend, with one typing: “Stop trying to make every link funny! Especially when you involve the judges who fluff their lines. #Strictly.”
“They really, really need to cut these “comedy” sketches from Strictly. They are awful, awkward and really not funny at all,” another viewer complained.
A third fan said the presenters had improved, writing: “I have to be honest Josh, Emma, & Johannes are growing on me! #Strictly.”
A fourth agreed: “@bbc I think Emma, Jojo and Josh are growing into their roles – give them time! We’re loving them #Strictly.”
Strictly 2026 has sparked debate amongst audiences after Emma, Josh and Johannes took over from long-serving presenters Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, who confirmed their departure from the BBC programme last year.
Emma, who formerly presented Big Brother, has earned widespread acclaim from Strictly fans for her professionalism and presenting abilities, while Josh and Johannes have attracted more divided opinions. Not everyone shares those reservations, however.
Radio Times TV and podcast editor Caroline Frost believes the presenting trio have grown into their roles, stating: “I think it’s fair to say there were some bumps in the road in the first couple of episodes, but they do appear to be very slowly relaxing into their new roles.”
By Alexander Maksik Europa Editions: 256 pages, $26
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With its gridlocked terminals, infuriating delays and long lines for everything from security checks to coffee, LAX might be where patience goes to die. It’s a place most dream of escaping; instead L.A.-born novelist Alexander Maksik takes readers inside the airport to witness both the unease and shared humanity of people passing through.
Longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award in fiction, Maksik’s new novel, “Passengers,” unfolds within the airport’s sprawling concourses. The story centers on Ivan and Nina, a distant father and daughter meeting up for a flight to Paris. For 75-year-old Ivan, it’s a chance to show his daughter where he once lived. For 29-year-old Nina, it’s a free trip and an opportunity to finally understand a parent she barely knows. When their flight is delayed, and then delayed again, frustration shifts from the departure boards to the fault lines between them.
Maksik, speaking via video conference from his Parisian apartment, always planned that the book would be about a father-daughter pair. “When my daughter was born, like many new parents, I found I could only think in clichés, and I didn’t try to resist them,” he says. “But as time went by, I started to toy with the idea of writing a novel about a father and daughter in which the battle against cliché would become central, would take on huge, even life-saving, importance.”
The author also plays with the idea of nostalgia. “Nostalgia brings you close to the edge of real feeling without forcing you to confront the weight, power and terror of real feeling. It’s too easy to keep yourself wrapped up in the false ease of the past.” One of the things that airports remind us of, he says, is change. Restaurants and boutiques close and open regularly. In one era, people sought out bookstores; in another, they’re looking for headphones and portable chargers.
“For a long time, airports felt to me like places of civility,” says Maksik. “I remember having real conversations with strangers at a bar or in various waiting areas. There was promise and possibility and warmth in such interactions. Now an airport is just one more place to look at your phone.”
As Ivan and Nina walk, talk, do tequila shots and observe their fellow travelers, those travelers are also observing them. One of the most powerful conceits in the book occurs when the two leave an airport venue and readers get the perspective of a person who served or overheard them. For example, one character, “an elegant woman, long gray hair in a braid” thinks about her dead husband when she notices Ivan and Nina: “It was impossible for the woman to see two people together, really any two people, and not feel his absence.” There’s another man who thinks he can tell that father and daughter “were the kind always looking for a way around the rules, who think waiting is for suckers like him.” Each underscores the fact that strangers affect and can even change one another (like our own offspring do).
Something else Ivan and Nina share is physical labor. Ivan spent decades as a building contractor, while Nina is a masseuse who goes to clients’ homes, not liking “the idea of going to the same place again and again. She wanted to travel, to peer inside different lives.” Maksik himself held service positions for many years, experience that gave him a different outlook than some of his colleagues at the renowned Iowa Writers Workshop, which he entered at the relatively senior age of 38.
“At Iowa, I was drawn to those who were writing about worlds that were far away from literature and academia,” he says. “Maybe that’s because I’ve worked so many different jobs. I washed dishes. I was a bartender. I cooked. I delivered pizza. Those experiences were vivid and interesting and at least as formative to me as a writer as anything I learned in the classroom. To write well about work is something I admire a great deal.”
Of course, Maksik is writing fiction, and can write about any sort of life, including that of a teacher, as he did in his critically acclaimed 2011 novel “You Deserve Nothing,” about an affair between an American teacher and his French high school student. As he knows, there’s a shadow over that book because one of his students alleged that the story was about Maksik’s affair with her when she was 17 years old.
“I will aways have to acknowledge my own history, and how I came to write that novel,” he says. “And there will always exist people to whom this acknowledgment means nothing. Perhaps this is as it should be. I’m certainly not proud of that period of my life, and, frankly, I’m no longer particularly proud of the novel either. Nevertheless, it will always be part and parcel of my history, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.”
As Ivan and Nina wrestle with their own emotional truths, which range from her mother Nora’s departure from their lives to Ivan’s clumsy recitations of Nina’s childhood antics, something alarming is afoot. Nina can’t make or receive calls on her phone. The pair notices that others can’t make calls, either; a restaurant loses its checkout interface; and everyone is snaking cords around to keep devices charged for the moment when service returns.
Something is definitely wrong, and no one seems to know what it is. Soon Nina sees that her father is tired and weak, despite a meal and plenty of water; she becomes convinced that he needs fresh air. When they try to exit the airport, they find barriers set up and armed soldiers who say no one is allowed to leave.
The sense of unease Maksik creates mirrors the sense of disconnection between all of the people stranded, from a brusque young woman in bunny slippers and giant headphones to an older couple huddled beneath racks of merchandise: “We’re trying to sleep … Can’t you see that?” one of them says. This LAX, unlike the island of civility and good manners Maksik remembers from childhood, fosters alienation and dread.
The author laughs ruefully when accused of his own version of nostalgia, admitting that the version of the airport he’s created feels closer to our present-day reality. As it happens, Maksik himself will be taking a flight soon, from France to Florida, taking part in his fellow author Lauren Groff’s First Editions Book Club. How does he feel about that?
“Our daughter was born in late 2019, and then there was the pandemic. Each day since then seems more dangerous than the previous one. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find myself trapped in an airport, whether as a result of climate change, AI, or one of the many petulant maniacs who run the world.”
Patrick is a freelance critic and author of the memoir “Life B.”
Just in time for next week’s midterms, Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler has unveiled another one of his series of public art installations critiquing modern politics on a stretch of chain link fence between a coffee shop and a bar in Bushwick. The 50-foot-long, 10-foot-high piece, “Wall of Crazy,” features 1,516 of President Trump’s social media posts — selected from more than 70,000 — and arranged chronologically, with color-coded statement categories aligning with the American Psychiatric Assn.‘s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fifth edition.
These include: social-emotional incongruity (“Happy Thanksgiving to all including the racist and incompetent Attorney General of New York State”); divine favor/ magical thinking (an AI photo of Trump seated beside Jesus Christ in court); catastrophizing (“This miscarriage of justice will destroy America if they don’t change their absolutely insane decision”); contradictions and reversals (a 2019 post calling Atty. Gen. Bill Barr “fair and reasonable” vs. a 2023 post calling him “dumb, weak, slow moving, lethargic, gutless and lazy”); hostility, humiliation and threats (calling Tucker Carlson a “very low IQ individual. He could barely get out of college and maybe he didn’t.”); grandiosity (“I am far healthier than Clinton, Bush, Obama, Biden, but especially, Kamala”); extraordinary and implausible claims (“The U.S.A. is locked and loaded and ready to go against the Islamic Republic of Iran at levels of military strength and power not seen since World War II”); persecution and victimhood (“Only 25 percent want the president impeached, which is pretty low considering the volume of fake news coverage, but pretty high considering the fact that I did nothing wrong”); and conspiracy thinking (“Wayne County (Detroit) Michigan is one of the most corrupt voting areas in the United States, if not the world”).
In a recent phone interview, Buehler said he made the wall over a period of months beginning in July, using his day-job background in market research and data analysis and statistics to search for patterns in large amounts of data in order to distill it down to something simple. Buehler’s first foray into making a wall of public art came in 2020 with the “Wall of Lies,” which documented more than 20,000 false or misleading claims made by Trump.
A detail shot of the “Wall of Crazy” by Brooklyn-based artist Phil Buehler, featuring 1,516 of Donald Trump’s social media posts.
(Photo from Phil Buehler)
At that time, he said, he was struck by the massive volume of falsehoods. “I wanted to dramatize that in a way that brought the sheer scale of it to life,” he said, noting that the same objective holds true for the “Wall of Crazy.” People have known that Trump tells lies since the 2020 presidential election, Buehler said, adding that it’s a story that is continuously told and has simply become part of the daily news cycle that people move on from.
“Making something into a public artwork brings it back into that cycle because I think it comes into people’s heads in a different way,” Buehler said. Plus, because it’s sandwiched between a coffee shop and a bar, it gets both the thinking morning crowd and the more raucous and celebratory evening crowd. The piece, which is being presented by the independent community radio station Radio Free Brooklyn, has been up for about two days, but will be officially unveiled during a modest neighborhood ceremony today at noon EDT.
“The scale of it is important,” Buehler said. “By attracting your eye and attention and then allowing you to walk up to it and read … Trump’s posts.”
In photos Buehler shared, people are doing just that. Some pass by quickly, others stay immersed for quite some time.
The “Wall of Crazy” is the fifth such collaboration between Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn. After the “Wall of Lies” came the “Wall of Liars and Deniers” (2022), “featuring 381 Republican election-denying candidates”; then the “Wall of Shame” (2025), “documenting 1,575 January 6 defendants pardoned by Trump”; and “Wall of Tears” (2026), “memorializing 18,457 children documented killed in Gaza.”
The “Wall of Lies” was extensively vandalized by Proud Boy protesters, but the others have been mostly left alone, Buehler said.
“The Wall of Crazy shows how Buehler and Radio Free Brooklyn use public art to spotlight our political climate. Calling out the inflammatory, incoherent, divisive and obscene rhetoric under this administration is critical to democracy,” said Orie Givens, president of the Radio Free Brooklyn Board, in a news release. “Like earlier walls, it captures our political culture and urges action before Election Day: voters can change the country’s direction. And it shows why we must support free media — especially independent outlets — that expose this administration’s actions and impact nationwide.”
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing us all a peaceful and sane midterm election and a Happy Halloween. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Singer Lila Downs.
(Berenice Bautista / AP Photo)
Lila Downs The singer blends Mexican tradition with jazz, cumbia, folk and contemporary rhythms in a celebration of Día de Muertos, featuring Ballet Folklórico de Los Ángeles and songs from Downs’ new album “Cambias mi Mundo.” 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Hercules vs. Vampires LA Opera presents a musical reimagining of Mario Bava’s 1961 cult film “Hercules in the Haunted World,” starring Reg Park and Christopher Lee, with an original score by Patrick Morganelli, conducted by Blair Salter. 8 p.m. Friday-Saturday. United Theater on Broadway, 929 S Broadway, downtown L.A. laopera.org
Kiki Smith “Untethered Journey,” the artist’s first solo show in L.A. in 30 years, includes historical and recent works. Opening reception, 6-8 p.m. Friday; exhibit continues through Jan. 23. Jeffrey Deitch, 925 N. Orange Drive. deitch.com
SATURDAY
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Organist Brett Valliant performs the score live with John S. Robertson’s 1920 silent horror film starring John Barrymore. 3 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Día de los Muertos Forest Lawn celebrates the Mexican holiday at four of its locations, with marigolds, handcrafted Catrina and alebrijes (spirit guide) artworks and brightly colored community ofrendas (altars), plus folklorico dance and mariachi music performances, arts & crafts, face painting, food and refreshments. A free family-friendly event. Noon-3 p.m. Sunday. Forest Lawn Covina Hills, 21300 Via Verde Drive, Covina, Forest Lawn Cypress, 4471 Lincoln Ave., and Forest Lawn Glendale, 1712 S. Glendale Ave.; 5-8 p.m. Monday. Forest Lawn Cathedral City, 69855 E. Ramon Road. forestlawn.com
Harriet Sansom Harris in “Werewolf by Night.”
(Marvel Studios)
Werewolf by Night & Headless Michael Giacchino hosts an evening featuring the premiere of “Headless,” a musical by the Academy Award-winning composer and collaborators Elyssa Samsel and Kate Anderson, based on “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” followed by a live-to-picture screening of his 2022 film “Werewolf by Night,” with Sarah Hicks conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
SUNDAY
Building Bridges: The Master Chorale in Concert With the National Chorus of Korea Two world-class choral organizations team up for a cross-cultural program uniting more than 100 singers. 7 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. lamasterchorale.org
Family Fest: Día de los Muertos A free event featuring activities, festive music, dance and foods. 11 a.m.-2 p.m. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd, Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
TUESDAY
Singer Lyle Lovett.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Lyle Lovett and His Small Large Band The four-time Grammy-winning Texan performs his greatest hits. 8 p.m. Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts, 18000 Park Plaza Drive. ccpa.cerritos.gov
WEDNESDAY
Daniel Passer direct “The Farce Awakens: Ferdeau x 2” at Odyssey Theatre Ensemble.
(Odyssey Theatre Ensemble)
The Farce Awakens: Feydeau x 2 Cirque du Soleil clown Daniel Passer directs “Going to Pot” and “Stark Naked,” two one-acts by Georges Feydeau. Through Jan. 17, 2027. Odyssey Theatre, 2055 South Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
The Laugh Track Playwright Wendy MacLeod’s comedy goes behind the scenes of “I Love Lucy,” the groundbreaking 1950s sitcom starring Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. Directed by Brian Shnipper. Through Nov. 22. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org
The SoCal scene
The Endeavour shuttle is on display in launch position at the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center in Exposition Park.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
ICYMI: The best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage.
Artist Barry McGee poses for a portrait at Jeffrey Deitch gallery.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
San Francisco artist Barry McGee is back in L.A. after February’s wild takeover of a 99 Cents Only Store. This time he’s staging a show called “Another Round” at Jeffrey Deitch gallery on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Branden Jacobs-Jenkins poses in the press room with the award for best revival of a play for “Appropriate” during the 77th Tony Awards.
(Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)
London’s Royal Court Theatre announced that playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ 2025 Tony Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning “Purpose,” directed by Phylicia Rashad, will launch its new season in January, marking the hugely successful Broadway show’s first staging outside of the U.S. (“Purpose” opens at Geffen Playhouse next month.)
The theft of $6.3B of assets from Binance, constituting the world’s largest crypto hack, was conducted by a North Korean cybercrime group, according to two crypto analysis firms’ assessment on Friday.
Binance also provided a further update on the amount
Devin Elle Kurtz makes her opinion on generative AI known. For the last few years, the 29-year-old Pasadena artist says she’s been frustrated when strangers tell her that her art style looks AI-generated.
They have it backward, she insists. Kurtz, who has been sharing her art on the internet since she was a teenager, suspects that her viral art may have been used to train AI models. Her Instagram bio reads, “NO AI,” alongside a circle-backslash emoji.
Her feelings on the subject made what she discovered Thursday morning all the more painful, the artist said. Kurtz woke up to multiple emails from fans telling her that the Trump administration’s Department of Education had posted a meme on X that looked eerily similar to one of her works — fan art inspired by one of her favorite scenes from the animated series “Avatar: The Last Airbender.” In the work, Aang and Zuko are shown practicing fire-bending moves as two dragons move around them.
There’s Magic in Learning 🪄 https://t.co/hJdp0Y2qho
The Department of Education’s post includes an image of the two characters in seemingly identical stances, outfits and color scheme. “There’s magic in learning,” reads text added over the image. “Make education great again.”
The Department of Education did not immediately respond to a request for comment late Thursday.
Kurtz soon took to social media to condemn the Trump administration. She wrote on the platform: “I did not and would never consent to this administration running my fanart through AI and posting it. Can’t even believe I’m saying these words.” Her response had 150,000 likes as of late Thursday night.
“It definitely made me angry,” Kurtz told The Times on Thursday. “Seeing something that I made appropriated with a Make America Great Again-adjacent slogan on it made me quite upset. I knew I wanted to make it really clear that this was not something that I co-signed.”
Kurtz said she made the artwork in 2023 to share her love of the series with its creators and with other fans.
“Fandom at its core is supposed to be humans loving something together,” Kurtz said. “I want to live in a world where the things that I see around me are made by people. That is what being a human being is all about. Not just output for the sake of output.”
Kurtz said several tells led her to conclude that AI was likely used to alter her work. In the version shared by the Trump administration, the dragons have been removed, and the platform the duo is standing on has oddly sized bricks.
Since her fan art is based on existing intellectual property, she doesn’t intend to pursue legal action.
“It would be fantastic if the government didn’t take artists’ work and run it through AI and post it,” Kurtz said.
In December, singer Sabrina Carpenter was angered when her song “Juno” was used in the soundtrack for a Department of Homeland Security promotional video featuring clips of officers tackling and handcuffing people.
“[T]his video is evil and disgusting,” Carpenter replied. “Do not ever involve me or my music to benefit your inhumane agenda.” The Department of Homeland Security has since deleted that video.
San Francisco artist Barry McGee, 60, walked through Jeffrey Deitch’s Santa Monica Boulevard gallery on a recent Wednesday, while a small army of friends went about their business — some moving objects, others equipped with power tools. A few stood near a closet-size replica of a 99 Cents Only store, an homage to the weeklong art takeover McGee staged at the shuttered Wilshire Boulevard retailer in February.
Gallery visitors were careful not to step on the sprawling assemblage of photographs, drawings and artifacts scattered across the floor. Many were destined for the large installation McGee’s friends helped to assemble for “Another Round,” his recently opened exhibition, which runs through Jan. 30.
Like “99 CENT,” McGee’s aim is for the Deitch show to serve as a gathering place. A makeshift storefront houses an “anarchist bookstore” with activities organized by Matthew James-Wilson, who operates the Heavy Manners lending library and gallery in Echo Park. Events planned during the show’s three-month run include French beading and papier-mâché workshops, clothed figure drawing, and “music shows.”
Adjacent to the bookstore, the untitled work bends and bulges on a plywood structure. It serves as a portal into McGee’s artistic life: Framed messages, photographs of friends, colorful, textile-inspired imagery and his father’s sketches of cars on napkins are grouped together in a bold display.
An untitled installation piece by Barry McGee at Jeffrey Deitch gallery. McGee is showing at the gallery for the first time in 20 years.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
A related installation is in the collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and has also been shown at the Oakland Museum of California. “It feels like something entirely new this time and definitely unplanned,” McGee said of the work taking shape at the Deitch show.
The exhibition is billed as McGee’s first gallery exhibit with Deitch in more than 20 years, although the artist and dealer have collaborated on projects since the 1990s. McGee came up in San Francisco’s graffiti scene in the 1980s, developing a visual language under the moniker Twist that included faces, liquor bottles and stylized screws. Deitch traces McGee’s primary influences to the city’s punk, skate, surf and graffiti cultures, as well as its hand-painted signs. McGee has exhibited at the Hammer Museum, Fondazione Prada and the 2001 Venice Biennale.
When asked whether he was bringing street art inside for the Deitch show, McGee pushed back. “That’s not my goal at all,” he said.
McGee long ago achieved cult status and comes from a tradition of graffiti that he sees as separate from work made for a gallery. When he began tagging in the 1980s, he said, it wasn’t to create something for the market: “There’s no product at the end.” McGee’s connections across the graffiti scene and the gallery world attract artists and audiences alike for exuberant gatherings, sometimes with complications, as when he transformed the vacant 99 Cents Only Store into a pop-up resembling an indoor flea market during L.A.’s Art Week.
The tagger-turned-blue-chip artist Barry McGee reopened a former 99 Cents Only on Wilshire Boulevard for a one-week art fair event.
(Mariella Rudi)
McGee and Bay Area artist Tom Franco worked with Deitch and the Hole, a gallery that has since closed its Los Angeles location, to stage the exhibition. McGee’s devoted following came out in force: Deitch estimated that about 25,000 people visited. “L.A. really showed up for that,” McGee said.
The event also drew complaints. Several neighboring businesses and apartment buildings were tagged, though McGee said the graffiti was cleaned up. In July, L.A. Taco found that several participating artists had not been paid for work sold during the exhibition. Kathy Grayson, who runs the Hole in New York, wrote in an email that all artists and vendors have since been paid. “It was a gigantic undertaking,” she wrote of staging the exhibit, adding that she had stepped in to help McGee realize his “dream-come-true project.”
Barry McGee is a celebrated street artist who is equally comfortable in a blue-chip world. He brings both sensibilities to bear in his new show, “Another Round,” at Jeffrey Deitch.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
While McGee has no plans to revive the concept, he has created a miniature replica of the 99 Cents Only Store at the gallery, complete with the store’s iconic blue-and-white floor. “The element of surprise is always the best thing,” he said.
Throughout the gallery, McGee’s paintings, drawings and found objects are displayed alongside work by what he estimates will be “around 200” like-minded artists, including C.R. Stecyk III, Chito K.K. and Chris Lux, who mounted two stained-glass works beneath the gallery’s skylights.
“When we do a show with Barry, we get the whole community,” Deitch said. “That’s one of the great things about it.”
Although the exhibition bears his name, McGee is wary of being the center of attention. “In this day and age, a solo anything seems ridiculous,” he said. “The ego of the artist is a tricky thing.” He prefers to bring together different generations and sensibilities: “Some young people, some older people, things that you wouldn’t imagine being next to each other.”
A surfboard installation by Barry McGee is part of his show, “Another Round,” at Jeffrey Deitch gallery on Santa Monica Blvd.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
McGee’s own work is also in dialogue with itself: Geometric patterns, inspired in part by Islamic tile designs, share the canvas with his trademark male faces with drooping, melancholic eyes.
Deitch describes McGee as possessing “a unique kind of charisma.” Though shy, “he’s very accessible and reaches people.”
Franco agrees. He had wanted to meet McGee long before they encountered each other in a San Francisco thrift store last year, and he admires his support for less established artists.
“He nurtures young people,” Franco said. “It’s amazing to see. Somebody at his level, you can easily forget how famous he is, or how accomplished he is, because he’ll hug every single person who comes through the door.”
McGee sees the relationship as reciprocal. “They’re mentoring me also. It’s really mutual,” he said. “Their visual language is so rich.”
Working into the evenings after mornings spent surfing with his crew, McGee is allowing the exhibition to take shape as it goes. His connection to surfing is visible in the gallery, where surfboards are stacked like a wooden fan.
He contrasts his freedom to improvise at Deitch with museums’ lengthy planning schedules: “Their shows are seven years out, sometimes. So there’s no room for spontaneity.”
A week before the Deitch show opened, he was still anticipating what it might become. “I still don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said.
Tony Berlant, a seminal influence in the West Coast Pop Art movement of the 1960s, died Tuesday after a long battle with Alzheimer’s disease. He was 85.
L.A. Louver, his longtime gallery, confirmed his death to The Times.
Berlant, a “painterly collage artist” who called Santa Monica his home for many decades, developed a signature style making collages using shards of printed tin instead of paper and thousands of shiny nails instead of glue. He often worked with vintage metal street signs and ads. In recent years, he printed personal photographs onto the metal, giving the colorful works story structure and an autobiographical bent.
One of his most recentshows, in fall 2018 at Hollywood’s Kohn Gallery, featured cut metal collages that blended elements of assemblage, Pop Art and abstraction. He was also known for his metal cube sculptures, which have been called quilt-like.
Berlant was a collector of both ancient Southwest pottery and Paleolithic stone objects. In fact, he co-curated two museum exhibitions: “First Sculpture: Handaxe to Figure Stone” at the Nasher Sculpture Center in Dallas and “Decoding Mimbres Painting: Ancient Ceramics of the American Southwest” at LACMA. He was also a founding member of the Mimbres Foundation, an archaeological conservancy that studies and preserves ancient Native American pottery.
Berlant was part of L.A.’s famous Ferus Gallery art scene in the 1960s, a group of “Cool School” artists that also included the late Ed Moses and Robert Irwin as well as Ed Ruscha, Larry Bell and others. The Ferus Gallery was a revolving door of experimentation at the time and helped fuse the city’s otherwise sprawling and disparate art scene.
Berlant was part of one of the earliest museum exhibitions of Pop Art in 1963, “Pop Art USA,” at the Oakland Art Museum. He showed his work alongside Robert Rauschenberg, Andy Warhol and Claes Oldenburg.
The L.A. visual art scene may be more established today, but it’s also more commercial and safer in some ways. However Berlant firmly believed that L.A. still retains its defining creative spirit.
“My New York friends tend to think of the ’60s as a kind of golden moment that’s now been erased by commercial focus,” Berlant told The Times in 2018. “But I think L.A. is [still that]. It never left. I just assume that there’s all kinds of fantastic artists working that I’ve never heard of because they pop up here and there, and I see them, and I’m just really excited by that. It’s what makes you feel good about a place.”
Tony Berlant stands in front of his collaged-metal self portrait for his show “Fast Forward” at the Kohn Gallery in Hollywood in 2018.
(Patrick T. Fallon / For The Times)
Berlant’s work is included in the permanent collection of LACMA as well as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington and the Art Institute of Chicago.
He is survived by his wife, Helen Berlant; daughter, comedian Kate Berlant; and brother, Jeff Berlant.
For John and TJ Osborne, work and family have long been intertwined.
Today the siblings are known to country music fans as Brothers Osborne, the rock-leaning twosome that’s put 13 songs on Billboard’s Country Airplay chart and been named vocal duo of the year half a dozen times at the annual CMA Awards. Before they moved to Nashville, though, the brothers grew up helping out with their dad’s plumbing business in the late 1990s in the small fishing town of Deale, Md.
“You know how every country star opens a bar in Nashville?” John asks. “I was thinking it’d be funny to start a Brothers Osborne plumbing company that services all the bars.”
With TJ on lead vocals and John on lead guitar, the brothers look back at those early days in Deale on their nostalgic new album, “Watertown,” which came out last week, 10 years after the release of their first LP. It’s got handsome, well-drawn songs about long-lost loves and teenage indiscretions, not to mention one tune about some of the colorful Osbornes who don’t play in the band.
“We got a mama that you wouldn’t want to take home to mama,” TJ sings in “Family Business,” which rhymes that line with “Got a daddy with a girlfriend who loves marijuana” and “Sister took a swing at her first boy’s father.”
“I always tell people that TJ and I are the most boring people in our family,” John says. “Our sister really did punch her ex-husband in the face.”
TJ, 41, calls the album a tribute to the people who shaped him and his brother, who’s 44. “When you’re a kid, you want to run away from home and spread your wings,” the singer says. “Then at some point, it’s like that place is almost calling you back.”
That the Osbornes are at an age to memorialize the old days puts them on the outskirts, to some extent, of a country scene crowded with ascendant zoomers like Ella Langley, Tucker Wetmore and Megan Moroney. Yet the brothers are hardly fuddy-duddys: In 2021, TJ became the first country artist signed to a major label to come out as gay; musically, he and John consistently make unexpected stylistic choices — take the ringing new wave guitars in “Family Business” — even as they court down-the-middle success, as with the new album’s lead single, “Born and Raised Hell,” which features the country radio kingpin Cody Johnson.
“John and TJ don’t make corporate country music,” says Ashley McBryde, who’s collaborated repeatedly with the brothers. McBryde calls John “a guitar god” and says TJ’s deep voice “could make your kneecaps come unglued”; she adds that she likes to listen to their records “while I’m doing yard work, slinging a chainsaw.”
“Our mission the whole time has been: How do we thread the needle of doing something that’s a little left of center while making it commercial enough that people can hear it?” TJ says over coffee at an outdoor cafe in Griffith Park. The Osbornes are in town on a recent afternoon between tour dates; last night they did dinner at Nobu in West Hollywood — “bougie as f—,” John acknowledges — then “climbed up the La Cienega mountain,” as the guitarist puts it, back to their hotel on Sunset.
“The last 50 yards, I felt like I was gonna puke,” John says.
Does Nashville have good sushi?
“They do now,” John replies. “Back in the day, there was just this place Ken’s — kind of a hole in the wall where you’d get these huge styrofoam containers of rolls. It was really cheap, and we’d all get really stoned and eat tons of sushi.”
The brothers learned to play from their dad in Maryland in a family roots-music combo called Deuce and a Quarter; each went to Nashville to do his own thing but didn’t really gain any traction until they teamed up — a union they say their mother envisioned from the jump.
“I think the second TJ was born, she thought to herself: I have a country band on my hands,” John says. “She’s very — what’s the word I want to use? — goal-driven, in a good way. So when we finally joined forces and things started taking off, there was a bit of ‘I told you so’ about it.” He laughs. “In her defense, she was right.” (The brothers’ sister Natalie also works in Nashville as an A&R exec at the indie label Leo33, where she signed Zach Top.)
Brothers Osborne — nominated again for vocal duo of the year at next month’s CMAs ceremony — came up in a tightknit peer group that also included McBryde, Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves. The duo broke out with a No. 1 showing for “Stay a Little Longer,” a single from their platinum 2016 debut; since then they’ve scored hits with tunes with like “21 Summer,” “Nobody’s Nobody” and “Burning Man,” the last a collab with Dierks Bentley that also went to No. 1.
Asked why they’ve been embraced by the traditional Nashville biz in a way that’s sometimes eluded Musgraves, TJ shakes his head. “There’s so many Kacey songs that I’m just like, How was this not a huge hit for her?” he says. “There is a game you have to play with country radio — doing things for them that we were willing to do that I know Kacey was just like, ‘No thanks.’”
Why does he reckon he and his brother were willing to jump through the hoops?
“I mean, we knew it would help,” he says. “We grew up in a poor family where everyone worked their asses off just to get by paycheck to paycheck. So I think for us it was about the fact that we’re gonna put in the work and get noticed.”
“You have to be willing to compromise — not your art or your dignity but compromise your time,” John says, “in the hopes that you can pursue a career in music because it’s very competitive.”
Over the past few years, some of Nashville’s biggest hits have come from outsiders like Post Malone experimenting with country music. Speaking broadly, TJ says the trendiness of the genre “is a little annoying because people are like, ‘I hate all country music,’ until their career flounders and suddenly they do a country record. Some of these people, they don’t know anything about it.
“At the same time, the genre is the biggest it’s ever been, which probably set the stage for a song like ‘Choosin’ Texas’ to be the song that it was,” he adds of Langley’s pedal-steel-soaked mega-smash, which just logged its 25th week atop Billboard’s Hot 100 — longer than any other song in chart history.
“I was just up in Brooklyn at a gay bar, and I’m like, All the gays are singing along — what the f—?” TJ says. “Also very jealous of that. I want a song all the gays are singing.”
Five years after he came out in a widely publicized Time magazine story, TJ says he doesn’t think much about his position as one of the few openly gay men in country music. As we keep talking, though, some things seem to come to mind.
“There was a moment recently with all the equity and inclusion stuff where [my identity] started to feel political — that was weird,” he says. “It felt like picking sides, even though I’m like, This is just my sexuality. But I feel like we’re kind of getting back out of that a bit.”
Then again, TJ recalls his appearance at May’s ACM Awards, where he presented Langley with the prize for female artist of the year. “I made a joke about my gay ass being up here giving this award, and there were comments from people being like, ‘I don’t understand why you have to talk about it,’” he says. “It’s like, F—, maybe people aren’t as open to it as I thought. It was proof to me that there’s still a lot of ground to cover.”
Is TJ up for doing the work of opening minds?
“I am. And I think it’s important work because there’s so many different types of gay people. There’s also so many different types of rural Americans. We’ll go to some places, and there are people who I perceive to maybe have some sort of bigotry towards me but I read them wrong and they’re actually totally cool.
“Look, you’re not gonna be able to convince everybody,” he adds. “There’s people that just hate on people for the stupidest reasons. Girls have it the worst. Anytime a girl does anything — ‘She looks like a slut,’ ‘She’s fat,’ ‘She’s too skinny.’ There’s just some mean people out there.”
“We’ve heard it all,” John says.
“There was this amazing burn we got one time where we’d taken ‘21 Summer’ out of the set,” TJ says, “and someone commented, ‘I can’t believe Brothers Osborne played 21 guitar solos but not ‘21 Summer.’” He laughs. “See, at least that’s pretty clever.”
If you need permission to watch “The Permission” — a.k.a. Rhyne Howard of the Atlanta Dream — try to keep her team’s WNBA championship dreams alive, Flavor Flav’s got you covered.
The rapper issued signed permission slips Tuesday on social media for everyone to be excused from work on Thursday to watch Game 6 of the WNBA Finals. The next matchup in the best-of-seven championship series between the Dream and the Golden State Valkyries is set to tip off at 9:30 a.m. Pacific that day, when many people would be at work.
“Thursday is a paid holiday. Because Flavor Flav said so,” Flav, whose name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr., declared on Instagram and Threads. “Everyone should be able to watch Women’s Sports.”
The document, which includes a blank space for fans to fill in their own names, urges bosses to “go ahead and approve that day off” for the “very important” Game 6 of the WNBA Finals.
“You support women’s sports, RIGHT?!” the self-proclaimed “World’s Greatest Hype Man” wrote in the note. “Consider it your contribution to gender equality.”
The Valkyries clinched Game 5 at home at the Chase Center on Monday night 64-55 to move within one game of the team’s first-ever WNBA title. The Bay Area expansion team, led by head coach Natalie Nakase and known for its emphasis on defense, is just in its second season.
Flav’s note echoes the message Valkyries stars Veronica Burton and Kiah Stokes sent after Monday’s win to encourage their fans to tune in to Game 6.
“Call in sick,” Burton said. “I recommend it.”
“Y’all know how to fake a cough,” Stokes added.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens also shared a statement Tuesday on Threads asking employers and educators to “show a little love and extend a little grace” to those who may be cheering the Dream on during their school or work hours.
“Lean into the historic moment, embrace the excitement and let Atlanta show up for Atlanta,” he wrote.
The WNBA announced Monday that Game 6 would be played at State Farm Arena in Atlanta with the earlier start time. The game was originally scheduled for 5 p.m. Pacific but was rescheduled so it could be played in the larger arena. Games 3 and 4 of the series were also moved to the larger venue.
The Dream normally play at the 3,500-seat Gateway Center Arena at College Park. State Farm Arena, which can seat around 17,000 for basketball games, will host all Dream home games starting in the 2027 season.
The matinee timing of Game 6 is because of Atlanta’s NBA team, the Hawks, also being scheduled to play at State Farm Arena on Thursday. The team will face the Cleveland Cavaliers for a regular-season matchup at 5 p.m. Pacific.
“Thank you for your cooperation and for doing the right thing,” Flav wrote.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge agreed Monday to extend an order blocking the Trump administration’s renovation plans for a century-old public golf course in the nation’s capital.
U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes issued a preliminary injunction that temporarily bars the government from removing or damaging any additional trees on the East Potomac Golf Course. The administration must give 10 days’ notice in writing before making any “irreparable modification” to any “forms or features” of the course while the lawsuit is active.
“The Court earlier stated, ‘I am not the Lorax. I do not speak for the trees.’ The Court still does not speak for the trees. It speaks only for the rule of law,” Reyes wrote.
Reyes expressed astonishment that the government has asked her to “not to believe the sitting President” and disregard Trump’s statements about his plans for the golf course renovations.
“This started as a case about golf. That good walk spoiled. But it has become much more,” Reyes wrote. “It now forces the Court to reconcile assertions by President Donald J. Trump with the sworn testimony of multiple government employees and the argument of senior Department of Justice attorneys.”
On Oct. 18, Trump announced plans on social media to close the golf course for 15 months, starting Nov. 15, and redevelop the 106-year-old park and course despite a court challenge by the D.C. Preservation League and two golfers. A day later, Trump posted that the work would start immediately.
Reyes, who was nominated to the bench by Democratic President Biden, previously ordered the administration to suspend work on the project until at least Oct. 26.
Trump was asked about the case late Monday night as he arrived back at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland following a rally in Mississippi and indicated that work on the golf course will proceed as planned.
“It has the go-ahead. The judge feels that she would like to approve it as it goes along. And I didn’t know she was an architectural critic of golf courses,” Trump said sarcastically.
He added of the judge: “She knows nothing about that, so we’ll appeal that” while also calling his planned overhaul a “beautiful project for Washington, D.C.”
Trump later in a social media post reiterated a statement he made Oct. 18 that the course would close for 15 months. “We are closing the East Potomac Golf Course Site as scheduled on November 15th in order to renovate and rebuild for Competitive (with other such projects!), Safety, Modernization, and Aesthetic reasons,” he wrote.
The plaintiffs challenging the project, DC Preservation League and two golfers, claim the work is inflicting irreversible damage. At a hearing, the judge excoriated the government after workers cut down at least 400 trees over a holiday weekend with little notice to the plaintiffs.
The course renovation project is part of the Republican president’s aggressive campaign to leave his personal imprint on Washington’s historic landscape. Those plans include construction of a huge ballroom at the White House, a massive arch and the creation of a National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park. DC Preservation League is part of a coalition of organizations, including the Cultural Landscape Foundation and one D.C. resident, who have filed lawsuit challenging those plans.
Reyes rejected the administration’s request for her to recuse herself from the case. The government questioned her impartiality and accused her of engaging in “egregious” behavior from the bench during an emergency hearing in the case.
In Monday’s ruling Reyes stressed that she had hoped the parties could have resolved their dispute without judicial intervention. She noted that she had denied plaintiffs’ previous requests.
“The Court would much prefer not to have to resolve Lorax v. Once‑ler redux. Indeed, for months, the Court declined to intervene,” she wrote.
But she said the government forced her hand by bulldozing hundreds of trees without any notice, doing “what it assured all it would not do.”
Reyes quoted from a golf-related opinion written by the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon, in stressing the temporary nature of her own decision.
“Here, golf and government have again clashed,” Reyes wrote. “By issuing this preliminary injunction, the Court does not end the round: it simply marks the ball until the parties can fully and fairly litigate this case.
Democracy Forward President & CEO Skye Perryman, whose organization is co-counsel representing the plaintiffs, called the ruling “a big win that will rightly protect East Potomac Park from further irreparable harm.” She added, in an email, that the move will stop activities “while the case continues, and we are eager to argue the case in court.”
Kunzelman writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Gary Fields and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
On the same week that a court filing showed that construction on President Trump’s hotly contested triumphal arch could begin as soon as Nov. 5, another less reported development pointed to the possibility that the government might be misrepresenting its plans for Trump’s National Garden of American Heroes in West Potomac Park.
On Monday, the National Park Service held a meeting about a proposed redesign to the park, which is part of the National Mall and also where Trump wants to put his Garden of Heroes featuring more than 250 statues ranging from Humphrey Bogart to Kobe Bryant to Benjamin Franklin. Trump first proposed the idea in 2020, but it wasn’t until his second term — when he began a crusade to remake much of Washington, D.C.’s historic core according to his own predilections — that the plan looked as if it might manifest. The One Big Beautiful Bill Act even appropriated $40 million for the project.
The Garden of Heroes has remained largely in the background while preservationists focused on the demolition of the White House East Wing and the construction of a massive ballroom in its place, as well as the botched painting of the Reflecting Pool, and, of course, the gigantic triumphal arch.
But Monday’s NPS meeting about plans for West Potomac Park rang alarm bells for some when Judy Chesser, chair of the nonprofit conservation and preservation group the Committee of 100 on the Federal City, asked, “How does this relate to the Garden of Heroes that is being discussed in West Potomac?” to which the NPS spokesperson replied, “This is just an update to the tidal basin master plan we started before. This is not the Garden of Heroes.”
However, the Washington, D.C.-based education and advocacy organization Cultural Landscape Foundation noted that the rendering in NPS’ presentation and the illustrated “Pledge Agreement” from the National Garden of American Heroes Foundation contain similarities that “go way beyond coincidental.”
“Each includes a great lawn, a giant oval/circle, an amphitheater, a fountain, and a staircase to the Potomac River,” Charles A. Birnbaum, founding president and chief executive of the foundation, wrote in an email.
“In addition, the new design shown Monday amputates part of the FDR Memorial to accommodate the Oval. This is intentional. Clearly the Oval is meant to host something else or it would be re-scaled so as not to interfere with the FDR Memorial,” the email continued.
In that instance lawyers repeatedly said there were no plans to renovate the golf course (thus preventing U.S. District Judge Ana Reyes from issuing an injunction against said renovations), only to chop down hundreds of trees on the course with no notice over a holiday weekend. Reyes was irate and sources familiar with the feud say that the judge expects the case to go all the way to the Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, as of 2 p.m. PDT, Thursday, opponents of Trump’s arch have filed a motion for an injunction on the possible Nov. 5 construction, arguing that Congress needs to approve any plan moving forward. This head-snapping whirlwind of motions and counter motions is expected by critics to continue to be the norm as Trump tries to push through as many of his D.C.-based renovations as possible before a new Congress is seated in January.
“What better way to celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary than to shut down the legally required review process, ignore some 100,000 negative public comments, and fast track the construction of a bloated and deeply unpopular monument that the president claims is for him,” wrote the Landscape Foundation’s Birnbaum in a statement about the arch.
I’m Arts editor Jessica Gelt pitching preservationists for my personal garden of heroes. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
American Sound Takes Flight MUSE/IQUE explores the nation’s music from Aaron Copland to Paul Simon in a concert setting infused with storytelling and cultural context. Featuring Brandon Victor Dixon, Liv Redpath and the MUSE/IQUE Orchestra, led by Artistic and Music Director Rachael Worby. 7:30 p.m. Friday, 2:30 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
Bach to Broadway The 31st annual concert, featuring Pueri Cantores SGV, the St. Andrew School Choir, Los Angeles Children’s Chorus and members of the L.A. Opera and L.A. Master Chorale benefits the restoration of historic St. Andrew Church. 7:30 p.m. St. Andrew Church, 311 N. Raymond Ave., Pasadena. saintandrewpasadena.org
Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins at the Ahmanson Theatre
(Steven Pisano / The Joyce Theater Foundation)
Ballet Festival: Jerome Robbins Three programs of the choreographer’s masterworks, curated by New York City Ballet principal dancer Tiler Peck, with dancers from New York City Ballet, Paris Opera Ballet and other major companies performing to live chamber music 7:30 p.m. Friday, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
Andrew Bird The acclaimed multi-instrumentalist and songwriter joins with the Los Angeles Philharmonic to mark the 20th anniversary of his album, “The Mysterious Production of Eggs,” with orchestral arrangements, plus popular songs from his catalog. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Aymeric Hainaux and François Chaignaud The musician and choreographer team up for “Mirlitons,” a marathon vocal and dance duet. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. The Nimoy, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
Museum on Haunted Hill: A Celebration of Vincent Price The institution pays homage to its original patron, the noted actor, art collector, advocate and historian, with an evening of after-hours access to exhibitions, casual screenings of classic Price films, drinks and snacks, music, a photo booth and haunted decor. 5-8 p.m. Vincent Price Art Museum, East Los Angeles College, 1301 Avenida Cesar Chavez, Monterey Park. vpam.org
PLAY: A Play EmIly Mast’s unscripted conceptual performance features six players, guided by a coach, working against a clock and an evolving set of rules to examine “the invisible systems that govern power, behavior and care.” With Hugo Armstrong, Gregory Barnett, Chu-Hsuan Chang, Jessica Emmanuel, Jessica Hemingway, Aramazd Stepanian and Maxwell Transue. 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday, 4:30 p.m. Sunday. The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo. moca.org
Sinners: Sounds That Summon This exhibition examines the standout Club Juke scene in Ryan Coogler’s Oscar-winning 2025 film focusing on the guitar played by the character Sammie Moore (Miles Caton), costumes, objects and archival material. Through March 14, 2027. California African American Museum, 600 State Drive, Exposition Park. caamuseum.org
SATURDAY
Grand Ave Arts: All Access Tenth annual celebration of L.A. downtown cultural corridor with free exhibitions, tours, performances, family-friendly activities and more from participating organizations including the Broad, Center Theatre Group, Colburn School, Classical California, Dataland, Gloria Molina Grand Park, Grand Performances, L.A. Opera, L.A. Phil, Los Angeles Central Library, Metro Art, MOCA, the Music Center and REDCAT. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Grand Ave., between Temple and 6th Streets, downtown L.A. grandavearts.org
Kabuki in Motion: The Lion Returns U.S. Kabuki Ken Kyu Kai presents this program of kabuki dance, Nihon buyō (Japanese classical dance), and live koto and shamisen music featuring artists from Japan and California. 4:30 p.m. The Huntington, Rothenberg Hall, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
Picasso Ceramics From the Rosenbaum Collection The exhibition presents 63 original prints and limited-edition ceramics, including vessels, plates, pitchers and sculptural forms created by the artist after 1947. Through Feb. 28, 2027. Bowers Museum, 2002 N. Main St., Santa Ana. bowers.org
SUNDAY
Lucile Dollat The French organist performs music from the 16th century to the present. 7:30 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
TUESDAY
Jason Moran Presents Duke Ellington: My Heart Sings The pianist and composer performs with members of the Pacific Symphony to engage with Ellington’s work through a contemporary frame. 8 p.m. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org
The Music Man Meredith Willson’s Tony Award-winning musical comedy brings smooth-talking con man Harold Hill to River City, where his schemes are curtailed when he falls for Marian, the local librarian. Through Nov. 8. Ahmanson Theatre, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. centertheatregroup.org
Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal with Rafael Payare The Canadian ensemble and its charismatic Venezuelan conductor (who also leads the San Diego Symphony) perform Dmitri Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93,” plus Felix Mendelssohn’s “Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64” with Leonidas Kavakos. 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
The 39 Steps Patrick Barlow’s adaptation of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 spy thriller (itself an adaptation of a novel by John Buchan) about an ordinary man entangled in international intrigue. Directed by Hunter Foster. Through Nov. 22. Laguna Playhouse, 606 Laguna Canyon Road, Laguna Beach. lagunaplayhouse.com
The Who’s Tommy The band’s 1969 rock opera featuring “I’m Free,” “See Me, Feel Me,” “Sensation” and, of course, “Pinball Wizard,” is transformed into a Broadway musical by composer Pete Townshend and original director Des McAnuff. Through Nov. 15. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd. broadwayinhollywood.com
WEDNESDAY
Nedra Ryan Taylor and Sarah Scott Davis in the play “Confederates.”
(Davis Northern)
Confederates Institutional racism, as experienced in two different eras by Black women, is the subject of Dominique Morisseau’s 2022 dramatic comedy. Best known for her three-play cycle “The Detroit Project” as well as the book for the musical about the Temptations “Ain’t Too Proud,” Morisseau juxtaposes the plight of an enslaved rebel and Union spy during the Civil War with that of a contemporary political science professor facing a threatening work environment. Fountain Artistic Director Raymond O. Caldwell directs this sharp-eyed satire examining an unbroken thread of racial and gender bias in American history. (Charles McNulty) Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, play runs through Dec. 13. Fountain Theatre, 5060 Fountain Ave. fountaintheatre.com
THURSDAY
Seasons of America With Teddy Abrams & Ray Chen The world premiere of Abrams’ L.A. Phil commission, written especially for violinist Chen, along with Julia Perry’s “A Short Piece for Orchestra.” Charles Ives’ “Three Places in New England, S. 7” and George Gershwin’s “An American in Paris.” 8 p.m. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.laphil.com
Sasha Velour: Travesty The Season 9 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” performs a new solo work that spans queer history through lip-sync performances embodying various personas including a witch burned in a field, a clown who builds a theater and patrons of an underground gay bar. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Oct. 30. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org
The SoCal scene
Katie Folger gets ready at her home before her performance of “Getting in Bed With the Pizza Man” at the Elysian Theater.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
ICYMI, the best of this week’s L.A. Times arts coverage:
A marble torso sculpted during the early Roman Empire set a new world record for ancient classical sculpture at auction earlier this week when it sold at Sotheby’s New York for $34.3 million. That was almost three times more than its pre-sale estimate of between $8 million and $12 million.
