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MILAN — Mike Tirico was baptized on the day of Super Bowl I.

Sunday, the NBC play-by-play announcer will be baptized by fire.

Not only will Tirico call the Super Bowl for the first time, but he will stay on the Levi’s Stadium field after the game to remotely host Sunday night’s coverage of the Winter Olympics.

From football’s mountaintop to the majestic peaks of Northern Italy, it’s an unprecedented double play in the broadcasting business.

“We’ll keep the Super Bowl celebration threaded into the Olympic show — confetti, family moments, that sort of thing,” said Tirico, 59, who worked both events four years ago but didn’t call that Super Bowl at SoFi Stadium, instead hosting the pregame show.

“What I learned from Super Bowl LVI is that it’s possible to do this without cheating either job.”

Maybe so, but it requires the extraordinary organization and preparation for which Tirico is famous within the network. Each year, he distributes to colleagues a color-coded calendar — a different color for every sport he’s covering that day — and the patchwork on every page looks like the Partridge family bus.

“Mike is the world’s best multitasker,” said Rob Hyland, coordinating producer of “Sunday Night Football.”

“This is in his DNA. It’s how he’s wired.”

Even for Tirico, however, the task is ambitious. The day after calling the Rams’ divisional playoff game at Chicago, he boarded a flight for Italy to check out the NBC studios in Milan. It was all part of getting comfortable with the setup.

On Super Bowl Sunday, hours before the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots take the field, Tirico will be up at 4:30 on the West Coast to watch Lindsey Vonn in the women’s downhill. He then will try to get back to sleep to prepare for his long day of football, knowing he will be running on adrenaline deep into the night. At halftime, he’ll carve out a few minutes to get up to speed on what’s happening in Italy.

On Monday, he and others from NBC will fly to Milan, with Tirico beginning his in-studio Olympics coverage Tuesday.

Tirico is just the 13th play-by-play announcer to call a national Super Bowl broadcast. He said Sunday will be like being back at Syracuse and taking three final exams in one day. He figures he will graze his way through the day but doesn’t plan to sit down for a meal, per se.

“They always say you should be slightly hungry when you take a test,” he said. “I subscribe to that theory on game day.”

Whereas preparation for the Super Bowl begins the moment the participating teams are determined, Tirico said his work on the Olympics has been years in the making.

“You want to be prepared but not over-prepared,” he said, referring to both events. “You want to know the important things you can get to during the game.”

The key is to use the information judiciously without overloading the audience with facts and statistics.

“With all that detail and information as granular as he can get, he never loses sight of what’s important for a mass audience,” Hyland said. “Mike is a unicorn. He’s one of one.”

As for Hyland, he’s one and done. After the Super Bowl, he will head home to Connecticut and become part of said audience.

“I’ll be playing the role of dad back on my couch in Southport with our six-month-old baby boy,” he said. “I’ll be watching the Olympics as a fan.”

In a sense, Tirico is a fan, too. There’s still a kernel of disbelief that this is his job.

“This is the thing that happens after you stop dreaming,” he said. “Because your dreams never let you get this far.”

It was a war fueled by colonialism, launched with the intent of humiliating a weaker country, fought in the name of revenge and waged by a racist president.

So leave it to President Trump to spike the proverbial football over the U.S. victory 178 years ago in the Mexican-American War.

Abraham Lincoln first earned national attention by calling out President James K. Polk’s lies about the lead-up to the conflict, which lasted from April 1846 to February 1848, on the floor of Congress. Ulysses S. Grant called the war “one of the most unjust ever waged.” Henry David Thoreau’s famous essay “Resistance to Civil Government” was written partly in response to the Mexican-American War, which he decried as “the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool.”

Other American paragons of virtue who were publicly opposed at the time: William Lloyd Garrison, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Frederick Douglass. Yet on Feb. 2, the anniversary of what Mexico calls the American Intervention, Trump declared that a war in which the United States conquered more than half of its southern neighbor for no reason other than it wanted to was a testament to “the unmatched power of the American spirit” and guided by “divine providence.”

And in case anyone was still wondering why Trump would feel fit to commemorate events that happened almost 200 years ago, he argued the job wasn’t done.

“I have spared no effort,” he blared, “in defending our southern border against invasion, upholding the rule of law, and protecting our homeland from forces of evil, violence, and destruction.”

No president since the Civil War has ever publicly bragged about the Mexican-American War in official proclamations. To do so would be rude, politically perilous, insulting to our biggest trade partner and just plain weird.

So of course Trump did it.

As I’ve repeatedly pointed out in my columnas, history is one of Trumpworld’s most important battlefronts. Like the pharaohs and emperors of antiquity, the president weaponizes the past to justify his present actions and future plans, omitting and embellishing events of yesteryear to fit a bellicose agenda. This is the guy, after all, who renamed the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America with one of his first executive orders in his second term and has punished news agencies that refuse to comply.

Trump has shown a special obsession with the Mexican-American War and its architect, Polk. The Wall Street Journal reported last year that the president saw his predecessor as a “real-estate guy,” which is like calling Josef Stalin an aficionado of big coats and bushy mustaches.

A former Tennessee governor and speaker of the House, Polk won the presidency in 1844 by promising to expand the United States by any means necessary. He annexed Texas despite the objections of the Mexican government, tried to buy Cuba from Spain and signed a treaty with Britain that secured for the U.S. what’s now Oregon, Washington, Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming.

But the grand prize for Polk was the modern-day American Southwest, which he and his allies viewed as untapped land wasted on mixed-race Mexicans and necessary for the U.S. to fulfill its Manifest Destiny.

President Trump speaks as Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador listens during an event in the White House Rose Garden on July 8, 2020.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

He tried at first to buy the territory from Mexico; when the country refused, Polk sent troops to the Rio Grande and dared the Mexicans to attack. When they did, Polk went before Congress to seek a declaration of war, claiming Mexico had long inflicted “grievous wrongs” on Americans up to and including ripoffs and deaths and thus needed to be dealt with.

“We are called upon by every consideration of duty and patriotism,” the president said, “to vindicate with decision the honor, the rights, and the interests of our country.”

No wonder Trump’s recent proclamation called the Mexican-American War “legendary.”

Polk brushed aside the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War and secured land rights and American citizenship for Mexicans who decided to stay in their new country. Many of those Mexicans saw their property squatted on or seized by the courts of their new nation. Indigenous people saw their numbers plummet and their way of life obliterated. White settlers and corporations quickly swooped in to tap into the vast natural riches of these new territories, relegating the original inhabitants to being strangers in their own land.

No wonder Trump replaced a portrait of Thomas Jefferson in the Oval Office with one of Polk shortly after the start of his second term.

Trump has made expansionism a hallmark of his second presidential term, including trying to wrest Greenland from Denmark and constantly referring to Canada as the “51st state.” Critics accuse him of trying to usher in a new era of imperialism. But all he’s doing is continuing the Mexican-American War, which never really ended.

Americans have been skeptical of brown-skinned people since the days of the Alamo, always fearful Latinos are one step away from insurrection and thus must always be subjugated. My ethnic group has suffered lynchings, legal segregation and stereotypes that continue to the present day. This is the mindset and legacy Trump relies on for his deportation deluge, the playbook he uses to persecute undocumented people with demonizing language and wholesale lies.

Relations between the United States and Mexico will always be fraught — our relationship is just too complicated. But when another American president marked the hundredth anniversary of the Mexican-American War, his approach was far different.

In 1947, Harry S. Truman became the first U.S. commander in chief to visit Mexico City. At a state dinner at the National Palace, he acknowledged that “it would be foolish to pretend that fundamental differences in political philosophies do not exist” and euphemistically referred to the Mexican-American War as a “terrible quarrel between our own states.”

People visit the monument to the Niños Héroes (the Boy Heroes) at Chapultepec Park in Mexico City on Aug. 14, 2019.

(Rodrigo Arangua / AFP/Getty Images)

But Truman spent the rest of the speech preaching allyship in a new world where Mexico and the United States should see each other not as enemies but friends.

“Though the road be long and wearisome that leads to a good neighborhood as wide as the world, we shall travel it together,” Truman told the appreciative audience. “Our two countries will not fail each other.”

The following day, the president visited a shrine to the Niños Héroes — the Boy Heroes, six teenage military cadets who died in one of the last battles of the Mexican-American War and thus hold an exalted place in the Mexican psyche. Truman, to the surprise of his hosts, placed a wreath on the monument.

“Throughout the day,” the New York Times reported, “people shouted his name, with the inevitable ‘viva,’ wherever United States citizens appeared on the streets or in cafes.”

Today, “Viva” sure isn’t going to be a word Mexicans use if they utter Trump’s name.

The adage that records are made to be broken definitely applies to the TV ratings for the Super Bowl.

For three straight years, the game deciding the champion for the NFL season has set new viewing records, including last year’s Philadelphia Eagles crushing victory over the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 that scored an average audience of 127.7 million viewers on Fox.

Both the 2024 and 2025 games had the benefit of the pop culture sizzle generated by Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce’s romance with pop superstar Taylor Swift, bringing in more casual fans.

This season, the Chiefs won’t be in the game for the first time in three years as NBC will have the Seattle Seahawks facing off Sunday against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LX, not the match-up experts predicted for this year.

But that doesn’t mean it can’t set another ratings record.

Kansas City tight end Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift celebrate the Chiefs’ victory over the Buffalo Bills in the AFC Championship on Jan. 26, 2025, in Kansas City, Mo.

(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

“I believe it can,” said Lee Berke, president of LHB Sports, Entertainment & Media, noting the lift the NFL ratings have seen this season as viewing information from set-top devices and internet connected televisions in 45 million households are now included in Nielsen’s audience measurement.

“It’s definitely showing up and bumping up ratings throughout the year for the NFL,” Berke said.

A recent report from the Video Advertising Bureau found that the new measurement from Nielsen has boosted ratings for prime time NFL games in the mid-to-high single digit percentages.

Other changes to Nielsen’s measurement in recent years have given the Super Bowl a boost. While surpassing 100 million was once a reasonable goal, the numbers started climbing above that threshold since out-of-home viewing was added in 2021.

History is on the side of a robust audience number this year. The last time the Patriots faced the Seahawks in 2015, the NBC telecast set a viewership record at the time of 114.4 million. Fans watching Sunday can expect to see clips of Malcolm Butler’s interception at the goal line that helped give Tom Brady’s Patriots the win that year.

But NBC doesn’t need a record audience number for the Super Bowl to be a financial success. A robust TV advertising marketplace helped the network sell out the game at a record average of $8 million per 30-second spot, with some going for $10 million.

NBC has also sold spots that will air only on its Peacock streaming platform. The network pulled in the range of $3 million a spot, significantly above the $2 million Fox took in for ads last year when the game was streamed on its Tubi service.

This year NBC was able to use Super Bowl LX to drive ad sales for its coverage of the Winter Olympic Games in Milan that begin Friday and run through Feb. 22, (which is also sold out). The network also has the NBA All-Star Game at the Intuit Dome in Inglewood on Feb. 14, which is why Mike Cavanaugh, co-chief executive of NBCU parent Comcast, recently described February as “the most consequential month in live sports history.”

In 2022, NBC’s combination of both the Winter Olympics and the Super Bowl, accounted for $1.5 billion in revenue according to Comcast’s earnings report, a number the company will likely surpass this year. The company isn’t commenting on revenue but has said it expects to set a record for Super Bowl ad revenue.

Mark Marshall, chairman of global advertising sales and partnerships for NBCUniversal, said 70% of the companies in the Super Bowl are also running commercials in the Olympics.

In previous decades, a Super Bowl commercial was an event in itself with the reveal happening on the telecast. But Marshall noted that, as part of a larger marketing effort, advertising campaigns are now introduced with teasers ahead of the telecast and many get a full preview online.

This year, NBCU was able to offer the Olympics to help marketers connect with more consumers.

“We told advertisers ‘you’re going to spend eight figures (on producing a commercial) — extend the reach of that,” Marshall said.

Technology companies make up the largest share of advertisers. Several AI companies, including Anthropic and Genspark, will be first-time Super Bowl ad buyers. Viewers will also see returning entries from Google, Meta, Wix and Amazon, which will air a spot for its Alexa device.

While there are the usual array of snack food and soft drink companies that will appearin the commercial breaks, viewers will also see a spurt in pharmaceutical ads. Marshall said the category has increased its presence on NFL games. The Super Bowl spots will focus on a message of “wellness,” rather than straight ahead product spots with disclaimers listing unpleasant drug side effects.

Marshall said NBCU does not expect the announced alternative halftime show presented by Turning Point USA to have an impact on the ratings. A concert featuring Kid Rock and lesser known country artists Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice and Gabby Barrett, will stream on YouTube, X, Rumble and several right-wing TV channels.

The concert promoted by the right-wing group founded by the late Charlie Kirk and now run by his widow Erika is in response to conservatives outraged over the NFL’s selection of Grammy-winning music superstar Bad Bunny, who sings primarily in Spanish, as the halftime act. (President Trump called the decision “terrible” and is skipping the game.)

But the league has not wavered for a moment amid the blowback, as it seeks to expand its global reach by having the most streamed artist in the world on the stage of its marquee event.

The only effective counter-programming gimmick against the Super Bowl halftime show came in 1992. Fox, still an upstart network, ran a live edition of its sketch comedy show “In Living Color” against the halftime of the CBS telecast of Super Bowl XXVI, which featured ice skaters Dorothy Hamill and Brian Boitano.

The pronounced dip in viewership prompted the NFL to sign Michael Jackson as the halftime act in 1993. The game saw a significant ratings boost and the league has booked contemporary music acts for the game ever since.

Tariff turmoil. Threats against Iran. An anti-immigration surge that has taken two innocent lives.

And there’s a sizable slump hitting the stock, bond, precious metals and cryptocurrency markets.

What’s the connection?

The answer is: Not much.

When it comes to Trump policies, investors have come to realize that Trump is often all talk, little action—that’s the underpinning of the “TACO” trade, for “Trump Always Chickens Out,” which I described in May.

As recently as Jan. 20, for example, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell by more than 2% in a possible reaction to Trump’s saber-rattling over Greenland and threat to hike tariffs on European countries he felt were thwarting his imperial ambitions.

The next day, the index began a comeback, rising nearly 1.2%. By three sessions later, it had recovered all that first day’s loss. The index went on to set an all-time record on Jan. 27, one week after the Greenland sell-off.

The latest sell-off in the investment markets doesn’t appear to be connected to Trump’s policymaking. The current narrative blames artificial intelligence. There’s an inchoate expectation that AI will have a great economic impact, though little of that has emerged thus far, and no one is very clear on what form it will take or even whether it will happen at all.

Investors and investment analysts don’t really know what to make of AI. From reading the most recent market commentaries, one might conclude that investors are unnerved by the potential of AI to upend industries across the spectrum.

“For two years, we have been talking about how AI is going to change the world,” Michael O’Rourke, chief investment strategist at Jonestrading, told Bloomberg. “In the past two weeks, we have seen signs of it in practice.”

The evidence that most Wall Street pundits cite is the downdraft in technology stocks, including software companies that (according to the narrative) may lose their franchise to AI bots. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite index has lost a cumulative 5.6% since notching a high on Jan. 28 and has lost 6.2% since its all-time intraday high, reached on Oct. 29.

Yet companies that are seen as winners in the AI derby, such as Google parent Alphabet (down 5.4% this week) and chipmakers AMD (down about 26% since its recent peak in late January) and Nvidia (down 7.5% in the last week), also have been caught in the downdraft.

Leaving the hard numbers aside, conjectures about the effects of AI on individual companies are exactly that — conjectures. The specific trigger of the current downdraft, it’s said, was the release by AI company Anthropic of a tool with which law firms can use the company’s Claude AI bot for tasks including document reviews and research.

Anthropic’s announcement this week sent shares of legal publishing and legal technology companies plummeting. Thomson Reuters, the publisher of Westlaw, was among those most severely hit — down nearly 20% since the announcement.

Yet Anthropic’s real impact on the legal publishing and tech businesses is, at this moment, the subject of sheer speculation. No one can say whether the AI firm will actually dislodge the incumbent providers, several of which already claim to be powering their services with AI.

The sell-off was driven by “a lot of unsophisticated investors just really thinking that AI is going to immediately overnight take away the business of these legacy players,” Ryan O’Leary, a research director at International Data Corp., told Law.com. “A lot of this stuff has been offered for years from the legacy legal technology providers.”

Much of the recent commentary is produced by investment mavens searching for explanations for market moves in recent news nuggets. That’s always a mug’s game. Investors are looking in the wrong place when they try to tie market swings to current events.

(I know whereof I speak, for I used to have the job of conjuring up just such explanations for a market story on a daily basis.)

My favorite investment guru, Barry Ritholtz, author of the 2025 primer “How Not to Invest,” points out that the markets typically give back some portion of their gains after steep run-ups.

“Markets,” Ritholtz wrote, “go up and down; it is easier to ride out a downturn when you realize the giveback is but a small percentage of the recent gains.”

That may be what’s happening now. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has lost about 43 points this year. But that’s less than two-thirds of a percentage point, and it comes after the index turned in average annual gains of more than 23% from the start of 2023 through the end of last year. The Nasdaq composite has lost about 700 points this year, but that’s about 3% of its value, and it comes after gaining 43.4% in 2023, 28.6% in 2024 and 20.4% in 2025.

This record evokes the classic remark of physicist I.I. Rabi at the 1954 hearing convened to consider stripping J. Robert Oppenheimer of his security clearance because of his opposition to developing the hydrogen bomb. After listing Oppenheimer’s wartime accomplishments, including overseeing the invention of the plutonium bomb, Rabi asked the inquisitors, “What more do you want, mermaids?”

Stocks and bonds aren’t the only investment showing signs of exhaustion after a period of sizable gains. Bitcoin traded as high as $97,916 on Jan. 13; on Thursday it traded at about $63,426. That’s a loss of more than 35% — but then, bitcoin is notoriously volatile.

None of this means that the investment markets’ performance is always driven by animal spirits. Real-world events can have significant and sometimes lasting effects. But those events tend to be intrinsic to business rather than externalities such as White House maneuvers or geopolitics.

Consider what happened to the Dow Jones industrial average on Jan. 27. That day, shares of the giant healthcare company UnitedHealth lost nearly 20% of their value due to as a weak earnings report, along with the Trump administration’s plan to limit rate increases for Medicare Advantage plans, an important component of UnitedHealth’s business, next year. The company’s plunge brought down the Dow by more than 400 points, or 0.8%.

But the Dow comprises only 30 companies, weighted by share prices, so a sharp change in an expensive stock can exert strong pressure on the average. But the rest of the market took the news in stride, with the S&P 500 riding a gain of about 0.4% to an all-time high.

It’s also true that the markets aren’t entirely immune to Trump’s policies. The problem is that investors and market outsiders often take him at his word, when he’s merely throwing out options, and thus overreact. Investors tend to take Trump’s tariff threats as done deals, when in the final analysis he has chickened out.

Expectations that the tariffs would drive inflation much higher, for instance — an eventuality that might actually have a genuine effect on the economy and therefore on market values — haven’t been borne out. But the reason, notes Paul Krugman, is that “effective tariff rates have risen much less than headline rates.”

That’s because some countries and some businesses have negotiated carve-outs from the official rates. Despite Trump’s blustering, more than 87% of the value of exports from Canada and Mexico still enjoy tariff exemptions under the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement of 2018, which Trump, after all, negotiated and signed.

And Trump does have the power to turn his whims into reality, in ways that could have real-world effects on society and the economy.

All that can be said right now is that hasn’t happened yet. But many of his policy pronouncements remain so nebulous and unrealized that if you’re looking for why the stock market has been in a slump, you would be well advised to look elsewhere.

A college hockey star expected to be one of the top picks in this year’s NHL draft has been charged with felony assault after allegedly striking another man in the face during an altercation last weekend in State College, Pa.

Penn State freshman Gavin McKenna, 18, was arraigned Wednesday and released on $20,000 unsecured bail, according to the State College Police Department.

He is charged with first-degree felony aggravated assault — which in Pennsylvania is punishable by up to 20 years in prison and $25,000 in fines — as well as simple assault, harassment and disorderly conduct.

His preliminary hearing is scheduled for Feb. 11.

According to police, the incident occurred around 8:45 p.m. Saturday near the Penn State campus. The man allegedly struck by McKenna suffered facial injuries that required corrective surgery, police said.

Earlier that day, McKenna had a goal and two assists during the Nittany Lions’ 5-4 overtime loss to Michigan State in an outdoor game played in front of 74,575 fans at Beaver Stadium, home of the Penn State football team.

McKenna is tied for the team lead with 32 points this season. He has 11 goals and a team-high 21 assists. His availability for the Nittany Lions’ next game, Feb. 13 at Michigan, is unclear.

“We are aware that charges have been filed; however, as this is an ongoing legal matter, we will not have any further comment,” Penn State said in a statement emailed to The Times on Thursday morning.

A native of Whitehorse, Yukon, McKenna had four goals and 10 assists to help Canada win the bronze medal at the 2026 World Junior Championships, played from Dec. 26 to Jan. 5 in Minnesota. He is listed as the No. 1 North American skater on NHL.com’s midseason draft prospect rankings and is said to be making around $700,000 in an NIL deal this season at Penn State.

MILAN — Alysa Liu wore a hollow smile on the ice. She had achieved a dream, skating at the Beijing Olympics at just 16, but in a mostly empty arena, few were there to see the moment.

Perhaps that was what Liu secretly wanted.

“It’s not that I didn’t want to be seen,” Liu said. “It’s just I had nothing to show.”

The 20-year-old now proudly presents Alysa Liu 2.0.

Four years after shocking the sport by retiring as a teenage phenom, the Oakland native could win two gold medals at the Milan-Cortina Olympics. She is a title contender in her individual event that begins Jan. 17 as the United States tries to end a 20-year Olympic medal drought in women’s singles figure skating, and she will skate Friday in the women’s short program of a team competition the United States is favored to win.

Armed with a new perspective from her two-year retirement, Liu now smiles genuinely on and off the ice, no matter if there’s a medal around her neck or not.

“I have so much I want to express and show, whether that’s through skating or just through my presence,” said Liu, who placed sixth in Beijing. “It’s exciting to think about that being seen.”

When she made her Olympic debut, Liu didn’t feel like her career belonged to her. Her father, Arthur, was a driving force in her skating career. In a sport where coaches and choreographers often call the shots for young athletes, Liu entered the Olympic stage with programs she didn’t like and clothes she didn’t pick. She was behind a mask and couldn’t express herself. She barely knew how to.

Skating had consumed her entire life. She felt “trapped and stuck” in the sport. So she left.

After retiring following the 2022 world championships — where she won a bronze medal — Liu got her driver’s license. She hiked to Mount Everest base camp with friends. She went shopping for not-skating clothes, played Fortnite until 4 a.m. with her siblings and enrolled at UCLA. She loved studying psychology.

“I found what I like and what I didn’t like,” said Liu, who took time off from UCLA to prepare for the Olympics but hopes to return before her friends graduate. “Really got to know myself, because [when] I had skating, I didn’t really know myself. I couldn’t know myself. I only ever did one thing.”

Alysa Liu practices in Milan on Thursday ahead of the Olympic team competition, which starts Friday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

After a casual ski trip reminded her of the joys of skating, Liu made the decision to return to the sport that shaped, and nearly stole, her childhood. But she would only do it on her terms.

The choreography, the music and the costumes would all be her choice. She doesn’t compete to win. She skates to show her art, she said.

In the process, she’s winning more than ever.

She won the world championship in 2025, becoming the first U.S. woman to win the world title since 2006. She won the Grand Prix final in Japan in December, the last major international competition before the Milan-Cortina Games to announce herself as a potential Olympic champion.

The day before her last performance at the U.S. championships, the final competition that would decide her Olympic bid, Liu ran to a St. Louis salon to dye her hair to match a new skating dress. Unbothered by the pressure of the moment, she debuted a Lady Gaga free skate that brought fans to their feet and earned her a silver medal.

“When you are an Olympic athlete that has a chance in front of the world every four years, it literally is your life’s work that’s on the line,” NBC analyst and two-time Olympian Johnny Weir said. “And she has found a way to compartmentalize that and put it down. … I just think it’s so wonderfully healthy and brave and strong to be doing what she is, because it takes a lot of bravery to put down the pressure that the sport naturally has.”

Liu is just a natural talent in the sport, 2022 Olympian Mariah Bell said. Bell remembered during the Stars on Ice tour in 2022 when the skaters rolled into a new city, tired, groggy and sore from the long bus ride, Liu, dressed in a baggy hoodie and billowing sweatpants, could go on the ice and throw perfect jumps without warning. Bell stood in awe.

U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu practices on Thursday in Milan.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

After Liu’s short program at the U.S. championships last month set a national championship record, Bell was blown away for different reasons.

“She’s so sophisticated and mature and emotional,” Bell said. “When she was younger, she was incredible. But when you’re 13, you don’t skate the way that you do like how she did the short program [at the U.S. championships].”

Skating to Laufey’s “Promise,” a haunting piano ballad, Liu glided through a flawless short program that she said nearly moved her to tears. Fans showered her with stuffed animals.

Liu has always commanded attention in the sport. She was the youngest skater to perform a triple axel in international competition at 12, became the youngest U.S. champion at 13 and followed with another national title at 14. She was the first U.S. woman to complete a quad lutz in competition, doing so in the 2019 Junior Grand Prix in Lake Placid, N.Y.

Six years later, back in that same arena for Skate America in 2025, Liu told her coaches she didn’t remember her historic accomplishment.

“It feels like I’m watching or I got someone else’s memories,” said Liu, who had similar, disconnected, but overall positive memories of her Olympic experience in Beijing. “It feels like a totally different person, but we are definitely the same person.”

U.S. figure skater Alysa Liu practices in Milan on Thursday as she prepares for the team competition, which starts Friday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Exchange the delicate, ballerina-like skating dresses with bold, modern asymmetrical designs. Undo the tight, slicked back bun and bring in halo dyed hair, dark eyeliner and the piercing she did herself on the inside of her upper lip. With three horizontal stripes dyed into her hair, each layer represents a year of the new life Liu is finally happy to put on display.

“I want to be seen more because I like what I have going on,” Liu said. “I like what I’m doing.”

Kristen Stewart fears the death of classic Hollywood cinema.

As the actor-turned-director drove through the streets of Los Angeles and saw beloved local theaters replaced by major retail chains, she decided to help save theatergoing in the city that started it all.

So she bought a historic movie theater in L.A.

Stewart purchased and is restoring the Highland Theatre, a cultural landmark that once hosted vaudeville acts.

“When people are desperate, they start doing desperate things,” Stewart said in an interview with Architectural Digest. “I think buying this theater feels a little desperate in like the most beautiful way.”

The theater shut its doors nearly two years ago — less than a week short of its 100th anniversary. The owner, Dan Akarakian, told The Times in 2024 that the theater was unable to recover economically from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Everything that’s already living here is so beautiful. It just needs to be like taken care of,” Stewart said. “I mean, the place is falling down. We definitely need like a lot of help, but it’s worth it.”

The local film and TV industries in L.A. were struggling long before wildfires that ravaged the city early last year dealt another blow, halting production and threatening the homes of stars and crews alike.

Stewart, who first achieved international success with her role as Bella Swan in the “Twilight” saga, said movie theatergoing is becoming a lost art, as “people are watching movies on their tablets and their TVs and likely watching a couple of things at once.” She and her peers struggled to get movies off the ground.

Stewart hopes the theater can become “a space that families can go and that also filmmakers can go and so we can kind of be in service of each other,” she said. “We can be in actual communication with people and not cut off from each other.”

The three-story building has theater rooms and venue space, ideal to host screenings and public community events, she said.

The theater was designed by architect Lewis Arthur Smith, known for other local theaters like the Vista in Los Feliz and El Portal in North Hollywood.

“It’s an opportunity to make a space to gather and scheme and dream together,” Stewart told AD. “This project is about creating a new school and restructuring our processes, finding a better way forward.”

Stewart’s effort to save local cinema comes on the heels of a coalition of filmmakers, led by “Juno” director Jason Reitman, purchasing the 93-year-old Village Theater in Westwood in 2024.

Oscar-winning writer-director Quentin Tarantino bought the Vista, also designed by Smith, in 2021. The theater reopened its doors over two years later.

Stewart, who was raised in the San Fernando Valley, has been a longstanding advocate of the L.A. community. She works closely with the Downtown Women’s Center, which provides housing to homeless women.

The actor decried the lack of stories by and for women in Hollywood during her keynote speech at the annual Academy Women’s Luncheon in November.

“I absolutely f— love this city,” she said. “I like the spaciousness. You can decide how you want to fill it.”

Win-win might be overstating the outcome. But when the Dodgers emailed their roughly 55 tour guides Wednesday to say they were getting the pay raise they sought during a failed attempt to unionize, there must have been more smiles than frowns.

The Dodgers and the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees reached an agreement in October, but ratification of the pact by the union failed by one vote. A second vote also narrowly failed. Then in January the tour guides voted to decertify the union, meaning the pay raise and increased stadium security on non-game days IATSE and the Dodgers had agreed upon were off the table.

Not for long. The Dodgers bumped up the guides’ pay from $17.87 to $24 an hour — the same increase they would have gotten under the scrapped union contract.

That’s hardly Kyle Tucker money: The Dodgers’ new right fielder signed a contract for $240 million over four years, an average annual value of $60 million. The Dodgers will pay the tour guides a grand total of about $650,000 in 2026 — $170,000 of that reflecting the raise of about $3,000 per person. Tucker will make 92 times the entire tour guide payroll annually.

Dodger Stadium tours have become increasingly popular — generating more than $1 million a year in revenue — because of recent stadium renovations, two consecutive World Series championships and the signings of Japanese stars Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki.

“The tour program has grown so much in the age of Ohtani,” said Ray Lokar, a veteran Dodgers tour guide whose full-time career was as a high school coach and athletic director for nearly 40 years. “The visibility and security responsibilities have been amplified. It’s grown from a mom‐and‐pop operation of a dozen people showing folks around the stadium to a multimillion-dollar asset.”

Tours now take place every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. The burgeoning demand has caused breaches in stadium security, with guides flagging instances of tour participants entering the top deck with backpacks and even rolling suitcases going unchecked.

The union agreement included a promise by the Dodgers to beef up security. Some guides worried that the decertification would mean the team might continue to ignore their safety concerns. However, the letter to tour guides announcing the raise also addressed stadium security without offering specifics.

“I want you to know that we hear you, team, and we see you,” wrote Kayla Rodiger, Dodgers senior manager of tours. “Your concerns are valid, and I’ll be working closely with our front office colleagues to ensure we make a sincere and meaningful effort to address them.

“That being said, we are actively discussing security issues around the stadium, and I hope to have an update for you on your Top Deck concerns soon.”

Nicole Miller, president of IATSE Local B-192, led the union negotiations that fell short of a contract but likely nudged the Dodgers into addressing the pay and security issues on their own.

“Make no mistake, our IATSE Local B-192 bargaining team’s efforts were crucial in the tour guides obtaining a significant wage increase, and we hope they follow up on their promise to increase security,” Miller said.

The letter from Rodiger also said that the Dodgers’ longtime practice of offering tour guides comp tickets would continue. The perk of four reserve-level tickets for each of the 13 homestands in a season is worth $2,600 assuming the tickets are valued at $50 each. Miller said that in 2024 only three tour guides took all 52 tickets; on average, each guide took 32.

The Dodgers refused to mention free tickets in the union agreement because they said other part-time union employees would demand the same perk. Still, the uncertainty surrounding the tickets kept several guides from voting for union representation.

The contentious negotiations and near 50-50 split among the membership prompted veteran tour guide Cary Ginell to retire, sending a letter Jan. 23 to several of the Dodgers’ top executives.

“I’m writing to let you know that the tour program has become a dysfunctional battle between pro and anti-union factions with resentment and animosity on both sides,” wrote Ginell, a Grammy-nominated author of more than a dozen books on American music. “As an executive, you should be concerned about this, because it reflects on the entire Dodger organization.

“Above all, I wanted what was best for the tour guides, especially the younger ones who struggle to earn a living by working multiple jobs, but come to work afraid of who will be reporting on them and what threats might occur due to the absence of building security.”

Less than two weeks later, the Dodgers responded.

“Over the past two years, our department has thrived, earning recognition across the Dodgers organization, the league, and the City of Los Angeles,” Rodiger wrote to the tour guides. “Your ability to stay focused and uphold our standards to continue to give World Champion level tours has not gone unnoticed, and I promise you all that your contributions to this organization are not taken for granted.”

FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A man convicted of trying to assassinate Donald Trump on a Florida golf course in 2024 was sentenced Wednesday to life in prison after a federal prosecutor said his crime was unacceptable “in this country or anywhere.”

U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon pronounced Ryan Routh’s fate in the same Fort Pierce courtroom that erupted into chaos in September when he tried to stab himself shortly after jurors found him guilty on all counts.

“American democracy does not work when individuals take it into their own hands to eliminate candidates. That’s what this individual tried to do” Assistant U.S. Atty. John Shipley told the judge.

Routh’s new defense attorney, Martin L. Roth, argued that “at the moment of truth, he chose not to pull the trigger.”

The judge pushed back, noting Routh’s history of arrests, to which Roth said: “He’s a complex person, I’ll give the court that, but he has a very good core.”

Routh then read from a rambling, 20-page statement. Cannon broke in and said none of what he was saying was relevant, and gave him five more minutes to talk.

“I did everything I could and lived a good life,” Routh said, before the judge cut him off.

“Your plot to kill was deliberate and evil,” she said. “You are not a peaceful man. You are not a good man.”

She then issued his sentence: Life without parole, plus seven years on a gun charge. His sentences for his other three crimes will run concurrently.

Routh’s sentencing had initially been scheduled for December, but Cannon agreed to move the date back after Routh decided to use an attorney during the sentencing phase instead of representing himself as he did for most of the trial.

Routh was convicted of trying to assassinate a major presidential candidate, using a firearm in furtherance of a crime, assaulting a federal officer, possessing a firearm as a felon and using a gun with a defaced serial number.

“Routh remains unrepentant for his crimes, never apologized for the lives he put at risk, and his life demonstrates near-total disregard for law,” the prosecutors’ sentencing memo said.

His defense attorney had asked for 20 years plus the mandatory seven for the gun conviction.

“The defendant is two weeks short of being sixty years old,” Roth wrote in a filing. “A just punishment would provide a sentence long enough to impose sufficient but not excessive punishment, and to allow defendant to experience freedom again as opposed to dying in prison.”

Prosecutors said Routh spent weeks plotting to kill Trump before aiming a rifle through shrubbery as the Republican presidential candidate played golf on Sept. 15, 2024, at his West Palm Beach country club.

At Routh’s trial, a Secret Service agent helping protect Trump on the golf course testified that he spotted Routh before Trump came into view. Routh aimed his rifle at the agent, who opened fire, causing Routh to drop his weapon and run away without firing a shot.

In the motion requesting an attorney, Routh offered to trade his life in a prisoner swap with people unjustly held in other countries, and said an offer still stood for Trump to “take out his frustrations on my face.”

“Just a quarter of an inch further back and we all would not have to deal with all of this mess forwards, but I always fail at everything (par for the course),” Routh wrote.

In her decision granting Routh an attorney, Cannon chastised the “disrespectful charade” of Routh’s motion, saying it made a mockery of the proceedings. But the judge, nominated by Trump in 2020, said she wanted to err on the side of legal representation.

Cannon signed off last summer on Routh’s request to represent himself at trial. The U.S. Supreme Court has held that criminal defendants have the right to represent themselves in court proceedings, as long as they can show a judge they are competent to waive their right to be defended by an attorney.

Routh’s former federal public defenders served as standby counsel and were present during the trial.

Routh had multiple previous felony convictions, including possession of stolen goods, and a large online footprint demonstrating his disdain for Trump. In a self-published book, he encouraged Iran to assassinate him, and at one point wrote that as a Trump voter, he must take part of the blame for electing him.

Fischer writes for the Associated Press.

SANTA CLARA — Drake Maye did not wait long to earn a spot on the NFL’s grandest stage.

In only his second season, the New England Patriots’ quarterback led his team to the Super Bowl.

Now Maye, 23, will try to join four other second-year quarterbacks who won Super Bowl titles.

“I’m not too great at my history,” Maye said when asked if he knew the other second-year winners. “I know there’s been some young ones.”

Kurt Warner of the Rams, Tom Brady of the Patriots, Ben Roethlisberger of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks won titles in their second seasons.

Maye correctly identified the player he called “Big Ben.” Apprised that Brady, who won six of his seven Super Bowl titles with the Patriots, also was part of the group, Maye quipped, “Brady, he wasn’t a bad one either.”

On Sunday, Maye will lead the Patriots against the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

It’s a “full-circle” moment, said Maye, who attended Super Bowl Bowl L at Levi’s Stadium with his father in 2016.

The Patriots are seeking their first title since the 2018 season, when they defeated the Rams in Super Bowl LII in Atlanta.

“The thing that makes it so special for me, at such a young age, is to cherish such a moment,” Maye said.

Maye has been nursing a right shoulder injury but he said he would be “just fine” for Sunday when the Patriots go against the Seahawks’ “Dark Side” defense.

Maye is in the Super Bowl after making a huge leap from his rookie season.

The Patriots selected the 6-foot-4, 225-pound Maye out of North Carolina with the third pick in the 2024 draft. Under first-year coach Jerod Mayo, Maye passed for 15 touchdowns, with 10 interceptions, and rushed for 421 yards and two touchdowns for a team that finished 4-13.

New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye speaks during a news conference on Monday.

(Charlie Riedel / Associated Press)

Patriots owner Robert Kraft fired Mayo after the season and replaced him with Mike Vrabel, a former Patriots linebacker who won three Super Bowls with the team as a player and coached the Tennessee Titans to three playoff appearances in six seasons from 2018 to 2023.

Vrabel brought back Josh McDaniels, the offensive coordinator for three Patriots Super Bowl championship teams, and Maye flourished.

“Give a lot of credit to the people around me,” Maye said. “Coaches, players, new teammates, another year with people I did play with, and just finding confidence in myself.”

Maye completed a league-high and franchise-record 72% of his passes, 31 for touchdowns, with eight interceptions. He also rushed for 450 yards and four touchdowns while leading the Patriots to a 14-3 record and the AFC East title.

Maye is a finalist for NFL most valuable player and for offensive player of the year.

“It all starts with talent,” Vrabel said of Maye, adding, “He plays the position athletically, and that allows him to be accurate with the football, whether that’s in the pocket or extending plays. He … continues to build and develop as a leader, so his success and his performance is a large part of why we’re here.”

Receiver Kayshon Boutte concurred.

“It’s pretty much as simple as that,” he said.

The 2020 season that Cam Newton played for the Patriots provided “useful” material for designing an offense that took advantage of Maye’s mobility, McDaniels said. Maye’s ability to learn quickly and not repeat mistakes has helped him thrive.

“We’ve added a lot this year,” McDaniels said, “and I still think we’re just scratching the surface of where this is going.”

Receiver Stefon Diggs is Maye’s favorite target. The 11th-year pro caught 85 passes for 1,013 yards and four touchdowns.

“To be that young and be that mature and be able to play at a high level is something I always wanted as a young player,” Diggs said. “He’s cool with all his teammates. … If you play football, you know. He has that quarterback mindset, that quarterback energy.

“Yeah, he’s cool.”

Tight end Hunter Henry said Maye embodies consistency as a person and a player.

“He’s got a routine, he works really hard, he wants to be great,” said Henry, a 10th-year pro. “He’s never really satisfied. He just wants to continue to improve.”

Maye helped lead the Patriots to playoff victories over the Chargers and the Houston Texans before defeating the Denver Broncos, 10-7, in the AFC championship game.

Containing Maye in the pocket will be a challenge, Seahawks linebacker Ernest Jones IV said.

“Man, he can flat out run,” Jones said. “Can’t sleep on his speed. … When he gets out of the pocket, he’s running, running, running, and he just throws one.”

Patriots defensive lineman Milton Williams played last season for the Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles. Maye and Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts, he said, are similarly selfless.

“They never take any credit for anything they did even though they’re both special players,” Williams said. “It’s all about the team with those guys, and guys respect that and guys go out there and play hard for ‘em knowing they’re capable of taking games over and winning games in big moments.”

Maye appears ready for the moment. He is not thinking about age or experience going into the biggest game of his life.

“It’s winning the game,” he said, “and enjoying the time with my teammates.”

Not long after Pacific Palisades and Altadena had burned, Gov. Gavin Newsom summoned reporters and television cameras to Dodger Stadium. Newsom stepped behind a podium dropped within a stadium parking lot, with a commanding view of Los Angeles as the backdrop.

He was there to unveil LA Rises, a signature initiative under which the private sector and philanthropists could unite to help Southern California rebuild and recover.

The most valuable player that day: Mark Walter, the Dodgers’ chairman and controlling owner. The big announcement: Walter and two of his associated charities — his family foundation and the Dodgers’ foundation — would contribute up to $100 million as “an initial commitment” to LA Rises.

“We should clap for that,” Dodgers co-owner Magic Johnson told the assembled media. “A hundred million dollars, that’s an outstanding thing.”

One year later, Newsom’s initiative has struggled to distinguish itself amid a panoply of wildfire relief efforts. LA Rises has delivered $20 million to date, including $7.8 million from Walter’s family foundation, according to Newsom’s office.

“If it’s a number of 20 million after one year, after such a severe occurrence, and with Los Angeles having the giving capacity to meet that goal, I would have expected to hear that there had been more commitments, at a minimum,” said Casey Rogers, founder of Santa Barbara-based Telea Insights, which advises philanthropists and leaders of nonprofit organizations.

“Maybe not all of those commitments would have been paid. Maybe they would have been commitments over a number of years. But it would have been closer to the goal.”

Walter stands by his pledge, Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. A representative of Newsom’s office said Walter’s pledge did not come with a timeline.

“I know we haven’t spent the full 100 yet,” Kasten said, “but this is a long-term commitment.”

Rather than solicit large donations up front and determine how to use the money later, LA Rises prefers to identify “impactful opportunities for investment” as they arise and then “coordinate financial support from a variety of private, public and philanthropic donors, including the Walter Family Foundation,” said Dee Dee Myers, director of Newsom’s office of business and economic development.

Of the Walter foundation contributions, $5 million went toward grants for impacted small business, workers and nonprofits, with $2.8 million to Pasadena City College for modernizing and expanding technical education programs to train workers that can help rebuild their own communities.

LA Rises also funded programs that include day camps and mental health intervention to children affected by the fires; streamlined architectural planning and permits for survivors wishing to rebuild; and support for Habitat for Humanity in building new homes and rebuilding damaged ones.

“The administration is incredibly grateful for any philanthropic dollars that have gone towards the rebuilding efforts in Los Angeles,” Myers said.

The competition for those dollars is fierce. The Milken Institute reported that private giving toward wildfire relief — from individuals, corporations and other entities — hit nearly $1 billion last year.

“I know there has been a lot of money that has been paid to various programs,” Kasten said, “and there has also been some rethinking about how LA Rises is deployed and what foundational money from the Dodgers is used for. We continue to work hard with a lot of groups on that tragedy.

“There are talks ongoing about a variety of programs and a variety of ways of funding things. We are still very involved with this, both with LA Rises and other entities.”

Kasten did not rule out Walter shifting some or all of his remaining funding commitment to an organization outside LA Rises.

“I don’t know exactly what entity we will be formally engaged with — or doing it separately — but we’re absolutely committed to helping out those programs that need that kind of help,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of it already, and we can do a lot more.”

After two decades and two stints as Walt Disney Co. boss, Bob Iger finally is hanging up the reins.

Disney this week tapped 54-year-old parks chief Josh D’Amaro to succeed Iger as chief executive. The handoff is set for March 18, at the company’s annual investor meeting, with Iger staying on as a senior advisor and board member until his December retirement.

The changing of the guard atop one of America’s iconic companies marks the end of an era.

History probably will remember Iger as a visionary leader who transformed Disney by reinvigorating its creative engines through a series of blockbuster acquisitions, broadening its international profile and boldly steering into treacherous streaming terrain by launching Disney+ and ESPN+ as audiences drifted from the company’s mainstay TV channels.

Iger, 74, has long been Hollywood’s most respected and inspiring studio chief, known around town simply as “Bob.”

Disney Chairman James Gorman said in an interview that Iger’s nearly 20 years in power is framed by two epochs: “Bob 1” and “Bob 2.”

After becoming CEO in 2005, Iger presided over a period of remarkable growth. Through acquisitions of Pixar Animation, Marvel Entertainment and the “Star Wars” studio, LucasFilm, the company gained blockbuster franchises and popular characters, including Captain Marvel, Baby Yoda and Sheriff Woody from “Toy Story,” to populate movie theaters and theme parks.

“Bob steadied the company and built it out,” Gorman said. “He created an absolute powerhouse.”

Simultaneously, Iger strived to preserve ABC, ESPN and the whimsical charm that spilled from founder Walt Disney’s imagination so many decades ago. Iger has treasured such animated gems as Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Winnie the Pooh, Polynesian princess Moana and more.

“The Iger era has been defined by enormous growth, an unyielding commitment to excellence in creativity and innovation, and exemplary stewardship of this iconic institution,” Gorman said in a statement on behalf of the board, adding: “We extend our deepest gratitude to Bob Iger for his extraordinary leadership and dedication to The Walt Disney Co.”

Former CEO Michael Eisner told The Times that Iger has “succeeded masterfully” at every turn.

“From ABC Sports to ABC Television Network and then at Disney, when we inherited him in the ABC/Capital Cities acquisition, Bob created success upon success,” Eisner said. “It’s why he was picked as the Disney CEO, a role that has been his greatest success … What a record!”

Iger‘s first reign ended when he stepped down as CEO in February 2020, then retired from the company 22 months later.

But that leadership handoff proved disastrous, becoming Iger’s biggest blunder — one he has since worked hard to correct.

Bob Iger passed the CEO torch to Bob Chapek in 2020.

(Business Wire)

Former parks chief Bob Chapek stepped into the big role, but he lacked stature, creative chops and support among key executives. He quickly confronted the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, which shuttered Disney’s revenue machines — theme parks, movie theaters and sporting events that anchor ABC and ESPN.

Wall Street soon soured on multibillion-dollar streaming losses by Disney and traditional entertainment firms that were jumping into streaming to compete with Netflix. The company’s stock fell.

Chapek also stumbled into a political feud with Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who branded Disney as “woke.” The public tussle tarnished the Burbank company’s clean image and undermined its goal of entertaining the masses, no matter their political stripes.

The board beckoned Iger back in November 2022 to quell a revolt by senior Disney executives and allay concerns among investors.

“When I came back three years ago, I had a tremendous amount that needed fixing,” Iger acknowledged during a Monday earnings call with analysts. “But anyone who runs a company also knows that it can’t just be about fixing. It has to be preparing a company for its future.”

Succession immediately became the board’s top priority with Iger then in his early 70s. But Disney’s executive bench had thinned through a series of high-level departures and the company’s expenditures had gotten out of control.

Iger restructured the company, which led to thousands of layoffs, and gave division executives financial oversight to, in Iger’s words, give them “skin in the game.”

His successor, D’Amaro, last spring recalled bringing a 250-page binder to Iger for review upon the chief’s 2022 return to the Team Disney building in Burbank. The book was stuffed with detailed updates for each component of D’Amaro’s enormous parks and experiences division.

The following day, Iger showed up at D’Amaro’s office, binder in hand.

“He pulled out one page,” D’Amaro recounted during an investor conference last year, adding that Iger said: “we have plenty of room to grow this business. We’ve got land in all of our locations around the world,” D’Amaro said. “We’ve got the stories [and] we’ve got the fans.”

That laid the seeds for Disney’s current $60-billion, 10-year investment program to expand theme parks and resorts, cruise lines and open a new venture in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. D’Amaro was put in charge of the effort, which is designed to cement Disney’s leading position in leisure entertainment. That mandate has become increasingly important to Disney amid the contraction of linear television and cable programming revenue.

Iger’s second stint as CEO wasn’t nearly as fun as the first.

He was dragged into a bitter proxy fight with two billionaire investors, who challenged his strategy, succession plans and Disney’s 2019 purchase of much of Rupert Murdoch’s 21st Century Fox. The move was controversial, with critics lamenting the $71-billion purchase price. Disney reduced its outlay by selling regional sports networks and other assets, but the deal left the company with significant debt just before COVID-19 hit.

The Fox deal gave Disney rights to hundreds of properties, including “Avatar,” “Deadpool” and “The Simpsons.”

Iger vanquished the proxy challenge, and this week, he again defended the Fox purchase, which gave Disney control of streaming service Hulu, National Geographic channels and FX.

“The deal we did for Fox, in many ways, was ahead of its time,” Iger said on the earnings call, noting the lofty bidding war currently underway for Warner Bros. Discovery.

“We knew that we would need more volume in terms of [intellectual property], and we did that deal,” Iger said, pointing to Disney’s deployment of its franchises beyond the big screen into its money-making theme parks. “When you look at the footprint of the business today, it’s never been more broad or more diverse.”

TD Cowen media analyst Doug Creutz still thinks the Fox deal was a dud, saying in a report: “There were plenty of value-destroying media deals before DIS-FOX, so we disagree with their assertion” despite the multiples being offered for Warner.

From left; James Gorman, chairman of the Walt Disney Co. board of directors; Disney Experiences Chairman Josh D’Amaro; Dana Walden, co-chair of Disney Entertainment; and Bob Iger, chief executive of the Walt Disney Co.

(Walt Disney Co.)

Iger is credited with astutely managing Disney’s image and corporate culture.

He was instrumental in resolving Hollywood’s bitter year of labor strife by negotiating truces with the Writers Guild of America and performers’ union, SAG-AFTRA, in 2023.

He has also sought to distance the company from divisive politics, albeit with limited success.

Disney agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle a dispute over inaccurate statements that ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos made a month after Trump was reelected. But free speech advocates howled, accusing Disney of bending to Trump.

In September, Iger led the company out of political quicksand amid an uprising of conservatives, including the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, a Trump appointee, who were riled by comments by ABC late-night comedian Jimmy Kimmel in the wake of activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.

Iger maintains Disney made the decision to return Kimmel to his late-night perch independent of the political pressure from both sides.

Enormous challenges remain for D’Amaro, the incoming CEO.

He and his team, including Chief Creative Officer Dana Walden, must ensure Disney’s movies and TV shows deliver on the company’s commitment to quality, and that its streaming services — Disney+, Hulu and ESPN — rise above the competition.

In recent years, Disney’svaunted animation studios, including Pixar, have struggled to consistently release hits, though it has found success with sequels. Disney Animation’s “Zootopia 2” is now the highest-grossing U.S. animated film of all time, with worldwide box office revenue of more than $1.7 billion, and the 2024 Pixar film “Inside Out 2” hauled in nearly $1.7 billion globally.

The company also must maintain its pricey sports contracts, including with the NFL, to drive ESPN’s success. This week, Disney and the NFL finalized their deal for the league to take a 10% stake in ESPN.

And, as broadcast TV audiences continue to gray, Disney must evaluate the importance of the ABC network, where Iger got his start more than 50 years ago working behind-the-scenes for $150 a week.

Investors also are looking for D’Amaro to lift Disney’s wobbly stock, which has fallen 9% so far this year.

“The stock price doesn’t fairly reflect what [Iger] has done, but … it will,” Gorman said. “And he should get credit for it.”

In a statement Tuesday, D’Amaro expressed gratitude to Disney’s board “for entrusting me with leading a company that means so much to me and millions around the world.”

“I also want to express my gratitude to Bob Iger for his generous mentorship, his friendship, and the profound impact of his leadership,” D’Amaro said.

Times staff writer Samantha Masunaga contributed to this report.

The official Super Bowl halftime show on Sunday will feature Bad Bunny, the Grammy winner for album of the year, at the height of his powers and influence. Those upset by his onstage comments about the dignity of Latinos and immigrants, however, can turn to a competing bill featuring Kid Rock and Gabby Barrett.

Rock, the perennial MAGA raconteur and country-rock singer, will perform for the far-right activist group Turning Point USA’s counterprogramming event streaming across the conservative mediasphere. Turning Point USA is the activist group founded by the late Charlie Kirk, who was killed last year at a speaking event in Utah.

“We plan to play great songs for folks who love America,” Rock said in a statement announcing the bill. “We’re approaching this show like David and Goliath. Competing with the pro football machine and a global pop superstar is almost impossible … or is it?”

“He’s said he’s having a dance party, wearing a dress and singing in Spanish? Cool. We plan to play great songs for folks who love America,” Rock said, in an overt jab at the actual Super Bowl halftime show headliner.

Veteran country acts Lee Brice and Brantley Gilbert and Barrett, an “American Idol” alum with a 2019 Hot 100 hit in “I Hope,” will also perform.

While Rock’s right-wing politics have largely eclipsed his musical relevance in 2026, he’s recently tried to position himself as a power broker for MAGA-friendly concerts with just enough plausible appeal for more neutral country and rock fans. His planned 2026 touring festival, Rock the Country, is set to feature Blake Shelton, recent Grammy winner Jelly Roll, Creed and Miranda Lambert, but lost Ludacris and Morgan Wade following blowback from fans.

When Bad Bunny was booked for the Super Bowl in October, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said, “I didn’t even know who Bad Bunny was. But it sounds like a terrible decision, in my view, from what I’m hearing. It sounds like he’s not someone who appeals to a broader audience.”

“There are so many eyes on the Super Bowl — a lot of young, impressionable children. And, in my view, you would have Lee Greenwood, or role models, doing that. Not somebody like this, ” he added.

President Trump said a bill featuring the Grammy-winning Puerto Rican superstar — and the famously anti-Trump punk band Green Day — was part of the reason he would not attend the game this year. “I’m anti-them. I think it’s a terrible choice,” he said. “All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

James Harden is headed to the Cleveland Cavaliers, with the Clippers agreeing to send the 11-time All-Star back to the Eastern Conference during his highest-scoring season in six years, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Tuesday night.

The Cavaliers are giving up point guard Darius Garland and a second-round pick, said the person, who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the trade has not yet been approved by the NBA.

That approval could come by Wednesday, when the Cavaliers and Clippers face off at Intuit Dome.

Harden is averaging 25.4 points this season, his most since averaging 34.3 points in 2019-20. He’s been a huge part of the Clippers’ resurgence back into playoff — or, at least, play-in — contention after a dismal 6-21 start.

“He means a lot to our team and we’ve seen it the last three years,” Clippers coach Tyronn Lue said Monday night when stories began breaking indicating such a move was close. “Who wouldn’t want to have James Harden?”

Cleveland will become Harden’s sixth team. He played for Oklahoma City, then Houston, then Brooklyn, then Philadelphia and, since 2023, the Clippers.

For the Cavaliers, it seems to be a move for right now — pairing the 36-year-old Harden with another star guard in Donovan Mitchell. For the Clippers, it seems to be a move with an eye on the future — the 26-year-old Garland is a two-time All-Star, averaging 18 points and 6.9 assists this season for Cleveland.

Harden opted out of the final year of his contract last summer with the Clippers to sign a new deal that would have been worth $81.5 million for this season and the 2026-27 campaign. Next year is at his option, which basically meant he was on a one-year contract.

He got that deal after averaging 22.8 points, 5.8 rebounds and 8.7 assists while returning to the All-NBA team for the first time since 2019-20.

MILAN — A partial knee replacement in her right leg wasn’t enough to stop Lindsey Vonn from pursuing her Olympic comeback. Neither will a recent left torn anterior cruciate ligament.

Vonn revealed Tuesday she suffered a completely ruptured ACL in a crash last week but remains focused on racing in the Milan-Cortina Olympics.

“If my knee is not stable, I can’t compete and at the moment, it is stable and it is strong,” Vonn said during a virtual news conference from Cortina d’Ampezzo. “… So far so good but we have to take it day by day. But if it remains the way it is now, I think I’m pretty solid.”

The 41-year-old Vonn said she skied Tuesday to test her knee. She is not in any pain and the swelling has gone down, but with bone bruising and additional meniscus damage, she still has to tackle full-speed downhill training runs beginning on Thursday before the downhill competition starts Sunday.

Vonn, who also has hopes to race in the super-G and the team event, said her “intention is to race everything.”

“I am not letting this slip through my fingers,” she said. “I’m going to do it, end of story. I’m not letting myself go down that path. I’m not crying. My head is high, I’m standing tall and I’m going to do my best, whatever the result is.”

Vonn is no stranger to knee injuries. She retired from the sport in 2019 and underwent a partial knee replacement in April 2024. Since announcing her comeback in November 2024, Vonn has already defied expectations by becoming the oldest skier to win a World Cup race when she won at St. Moritz, Switzerland, in December and by making the Olympic team seven years after her retirement.

“I think if anyone can do it, it’s Lindsey,” U.S. teammate Bella Wright said of competing with a torn ACL. “I think we all know how strong of a skier she is, but I think that her mental game is what makes Lindsey Lindsey.”

Vonn was racing at a World Cup event Jan. 30 at Crans-Montana, Switzerland, when she lost control while attempting to land a jump. She slid into the safety netting and was later airlifted to a hospital. While a torn ACL typically sends athletes straight to the operating room, Vonn said surgery was not a discussion.

“The Olympics are the only thing that I’m thinking about,” Vonn said.

Despite the crash occurring so close to the Games, Vonn said her knee feels better now than when she has battled other injuries, including in 2019 when she competed at the world championships without a lateral collateral ligament and three tibial plateau fractures. She still won the bronze medal.

“I know what my chances [at the Olympics] were before the crash, and I know my chances aren’t the same as it stands today,” Vonn said, “but I know there’s still a chance and as long as there’s a chance, I will try.”

Though we’re solidly into 2026, a trend has emerged on social media: Reminiscing on the year 2016.

Through throwback posts, people have been traveling back to the year when dog and flower crown Snapchat filters, Instagram eyebrows, the mannequin challenge and the Chainsmokers were everywhere.

But why, you may ask? On social media, 2016 is remembered as the last carefree era, a time when people posted whatever they wanted without overthinking it, when folks actually danced at parties instead of pointing their phones at the DJ booth to “capture content.”

2016 also brought many cultural milestones to L.A., from Kobe’s final game to the rise of selfie culture to all things Issa Rae. In the spirit of nostalgia, we’ve rounded up 16 moments that bring us back to that time. So let’s crank up Beyoncé’s “Lemonade” album and take a ride down memory lane, shall we?

Bill Belichick isn’t the only key figure from the New England Patriots dynasty who won’t be getting into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this year.

Team owner Robert Kraft also failed to receive enough votes to be included in the Class of 2026, according to multiple media outlets. The inductees will be announced Thursday night at the NFL Honors ceremony in San Francisco.

Kraft was among the many people who expressed disbelief last week when the news surfaced that Belichick, who coached the Patriots to six Super Bowl victories and nine appearances in the NFL’s championship game, would not be entering the Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility.

“Whatever perceptions may exist about any personal differences between Bill and me, I strongly believe Bill Belichick’s record and body of work speak for themselves,” Kraft said in a statement.

“He is the greatest coach of all time,” he added, “and he unequivocally deserves to be a unanimous first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer.”

Belichick and Kraft were part of a pool of candidates separate from that of the modern-era players. Belichick was this year’s finalist in the coaches category, while Kraft was the finalist in the contributors category. Three former players — Ken Anderson, Roger Craig and L.C. Greenwood — were selected as finalists in the seniors category.

The 50 members of the Hall’s selection committee were allowed to vote for up to three of those five finalists. A maximum of three of those finalists can make it into the Hall by receiving at least 80% of the votes. If none of them gets 80%, then the person receiving the most votes makes the cut.

Kraft was first nominated for the Hall of Fame in 2013 and was a finalist for the first time this year. He has made it to the Super Bowl 11 times since buying the Patriots in 1994, more than any team owner in NFL history.

While Kraft may not have his name announced as a Hall of Famer this week, he could be getting a pretty decent consolation prize days later — if coach Mike Vrabel, quarterback Drake Maye and the rest of the current Patriots bring home the Lombardi Trophy by beating the Seattle Seahawks in Super Bowl LX.

Jordan Stolz will be trying to win multiple gold medals in speedskating the Milan Cortina Olympic Games.

(Morry Gash / Associated Press)

Since making his Olympic debut at 17, Stolz has become a star in international speedskating. He was the first man to win three world championships in one year in 2023 and repeated in the 500, 1,000 and 1,500 meters in 2024. He also competes in the team pursuit. U.S. speedskating has several medal contenders, including two-time Olympic bronze medalist Brittany Bowe and gold medalist Erin Jackson, who became the first Black woman to win an individual gold medal at the Winter Olympics in 2022.

In the old days, during the 1980s and 1990s, when the Notre Dame-Crespi basketball rivalry was in peak form, it would get so hot in Notre Dame’s sold-out gym that they’d have to open windows from high above or sweat would be everywhere. Then came the invention of air conditioning, but Friday’s Mission League tournament semifinals were also super hot in terms of intensity and top performances.

Notre Dame (20-6) was able to pull out an 82-78 victory over Crespi on the strength of four consecutive pressure free throws made by standout junior guard NaVorro Bowman Jr. in the final 14 seconds to earn the Knights a championship game appearance against host Sierra Canyon on Wednesday night.

Crespi (19-11), which went on the road to upset Harvard-Westlake on Saturday, gave the Knights plenty to sweat about. The Celts held a 70-67 lead with 4:46 left until a Josiah Nance three tied the score and started a 10-0 Notre Dame run. A three by sophomore Zion Lanier off an assist from Bowman with 1:10 left put the Knights on top 77-70. The Celts were forced to foul and never got closer than two points.

Notre Dame has produced some outstanding high school guards in the past five years, from Dusty Stromer to Mercy Miller to Angelino Mark, who’s a freshman at Rutgers and showed up Monday night to root for his former teammates. But Bowman is headed to rarefied air. From making threes to powering his way through defenders to converting layups to making a seemingly impossible off-balance shot Monday, he has been in a class by himself.

He’s averaging 23 points and finished with 32 points, eight rebounds and six assists.

“He’s a special player,” Notre Dame coach Matt Sargeant said. “He shows up in big moments. He’s super mentally tough.”

His father was an NFL player, and Bowman has the family genes to perform at his best when the team needs him the most. Crespi was trying to cover him closely in the first half. Notre Dame players kept setting him screens, but Bowman was a little bit off, missing six shots. In the second half, he couldn’t be stopped.

“I had to lock in,” Bowman said.

The game was briefly halted early in the second quarter when the officials gave a warning to Sargeant and Crespi coach Derek Fisher to stay in their coaching boxes. Adding to the drama, Fisher’s wife was asked to leave the gym by Notre Dame officials. Both teams plowed through the distractions to put on a terrific second half that went back and forth.

Isaiah Barnes finished with 24 points and Cayman Martin had 20 points. Ilan Nikolov helped out Notre Dame with 19 points.

“This has been a rivalry for years,” Bowman said. “It feels good to win twice.”

Wednesday’s Mission League tournament final will also decide league MVP honors. The league champion gets to pick who the MVP is, so if Notre Dame wins, it surely will be Bowman.

Sierra Canyon 103, Loyola 74: The Trailblazers (22-1) received 30 points from Brandon McCoy and 23 points from Maxi Adams, both of whom were selected for the McDonald’s All-American Game in an announcement on Monday.

Mater Dei 92, Orange Lutheran 65: Luke Barnett scored 31 points to lead Mater Dei in an opening game of the Trinity League tournament.

JSerra 78, Servite 53: Ryan Doane had 16 points for the Lions.

Cleveland 61, Chatsworth 56: Harout Posheyan had 14 points and Charlie Adams 13 for Cleveland, which clinched the West Valley League championship. Aaron Krueger had 13 points for Chatsworth.

Brentwood 71, Viewpoint 56: Ethan Hill had 24 points and 20 rebounds for Brentwood.

Los Alamitos 68, Edison 61: Tyler Lopez led the way with 17 points.

Controversial director Brett Ratner, whose documentary “Melania,” about the first lady, premiered last week, found himself in the headlines once again over his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

A photograph, part of the trove of files released Friday in the Department of Justice’s investigation into Epstein, shows Ratner sitting on a couch with his arms wrapped around a woman, whose identity is concealed. She is sitting next to Epstein and a second woman, who is also redacted in the photo and is sitting at the far end of the couch next to the disgraced financier. It is unclear where the photo was taken or when.

The filmmaker is among several prominent individuals from the worlds of entertainment, technology, politics and business — including L.A. Olympics boss Casey Wasserman — who have turned up among the millions of files that the Justice Department has released.

Epstein died by suicide in 2019 in Manhattan Correctional Center while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

Ratner’s name also surfaces in a number of emails contained in the released files in which Epstein discusses his attempts to connect with the director and descriptions in which their social circles overlap.

It is not the first time Ratner turned up in Epstein’s orbit. In December, his photo appeared in an earlier batch of files the department released.

In the undated photograph, Ratner is seen seated, hugging a shirtless Jean-Luc Brunel, a French modeling agent and an Epstein associate.

Brunel died of an apparent suicide in 2022 in a French prison while awaiting trial on charges that he had raped a minor.

Ratner has not been accused of any wrongdoing in connection with Epstein.

A spokesperson for the director did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

During a Monday appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” Ratner said that the recently released photograph was taken about 20 years ago. He said that the woman he is hugging was his then-fiancée, whom he declined to name, and that she had invited him to an event where the picture was taken.

“I’ve never been in contact with Jeffrey Epstein before that photo and never in contact with him after,” he said on the show.

Among the emails in which Ratner is mentioned, in December 2010, Epstein discusses a dinner he is having at “7:30” in which he says that he has invited Ratner but has not yet heard back.

In December 2010, it was widely reported that Epstein hosted a dinner at his Manhattan townhouse just months after he finished serving a prison sentence and house arrest for soliciting a minor for prostitution. The dinner was attended by a number of boldfaced names including Woody Allen and Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, formerly Prince Andrew.

A year later, Epstein’s assistant appears to email Ratner saying, “Jeffrey would like to speak with you regarding [redacted] could you please give us a call.” It is unclear whether Ratner followed up.

In another heavily redacted email from 2018, Epstein writes to someone saying: “Hi I’m Jeffrey. brett Ratner thought we should meet.” He follows up with a second email asking whether Ratner had spoken to this person yet.

During the Cannes film festival in 2012, celebrity superpublicist and ubiquitous presence on the awards circuit Peggy Siegal emailed Epstein that she was sitting with Ratner about to watch a Roman Polanski documentary, adding that “Brett says ‘hi’ and he loves you!”

In other gossipy emails Siegal sent to Epstein, she cites Ratner in her listing of which power brokers and celebrities are in attendance at various parties and who is staying on whose yacht in St. Barts (Ratner, she wrote, was staying with his business partner, the Australian billionaire James Packer).

Siegal’s relationship with the convicted pedophile came under renewed scrutiny in 2019 after Epstein was arrested on sex trafficking charges, particularly as she helped facilitate his return to society following his prison sentence.

“Had I known that he had been accused of abusing underage girls, I would not have maintained a friendship with him,” she told the Hollywood Reporter.

Siegal could not be immediately reached for comment.

On Nov. 1, 2017 — the day The Times published its investigation in which six women accused Ratner of sexual misconduct — Epstein emailed lawyer Reid Weingarten: “brett ratner now oy.”

Ratner’s career was derailed nine years ago after The Times published detailed allegations against the director made by multiple women who accused him of harassment, groping and forced oral sex. Actor Olivia Munn claimed that Ratner masturbated in front of her when she delivered a meal to his trailer on the set of the 2004 film “After the Sunset.”

At the time, the director’s attorney Martin Singer rejected the women’s claims, saying that his client “vehemently denies the outrageous derogatory allegations that have been reported about him.”

Ratner’s agents at WME dropped him, as did his publicist, and projects were put on hold. Ratner parted ways with Warner Bros.

“I don’t want to have any possible negative impact to the studio until these personal issues are resolved,” he said in a statement.

In 2020, Ratner became embroiled in another Hollywood sex scandal, involving British actor Charlotte Kirk.

In a sworn court declaration, Kirk said she was victimized by then-Warner Bros. Chief Executive Kevin Tsujihara, Ratner, Packer and Millennium Films CEO Avi Lerner, stating that the men “coerced me into engaging in ‘commercial sex’ for them and their business associates.”

Singer, who represented the men, “categorically and vehemently” denied any wrongdoing on the part of his clients.

“Melania” is the first film Ratner has directed since he was largely exiled from Hollywood. The documentary has received harsh reviews from critics, who have also questioned the $75 million Amazon paid to distribute and market the movie. However, during its opening weekend, it grossed a better-than-expected $7.1 million at the box office.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Monday that the federal government should “nationalize” elections, repeating — without evidence — his long-running claim that U.S. elections are beset by widespread fraud.

Speaking on a podcast hosted by former FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino, Trump said Republicans should “take over the voting in at least 15 places,” alleging that voting irregularities in what he called “crooked states” are hurting the GOP.

“The Republican ought to nationalize the voting,” Trump said.

The proposal would clash with the Constitution’s long-standing framework that grants states primary authority over election administration, and underscored Trump’s continued efforts to upend voting rules ahead of this year’s midterm elections.

Trump, for example, lamented that Republicans have not been “tougher” on the issue, again asserting without evidence that he lost the 2020 election because undocumented immigrants voted illegally for Democrats.

“If we don’t get them out, Republicans will never win another election,” Trump said. “These people were brought to our country to vote and they vote illegally, and it is amazing that the Republicans are not tougher on it.”

In his remarks, the president suggested that “some interesting things” may come out of Georgia in the near future. Trump did not divulge more details, but was probably teasing what may come after the FBI served a search warrant at the election headquarters of Fulton County, Ga.

Days after FBI agents descended on the election center, the New York Times reported that Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was with agents at the scene when she called Trump on her cellphone. Trump thanked them for their work, according to the report, an unusual interaction between the president and investigators tied to a politically sensitive inquiry.

In the days leading up to the Georgia search, Trump suggested in a speech during the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland, that criminal charges were imminent in connection to what he called a “rigged” 2020 election.

Georgia has been central to Trump’s 2020 claims. That’s where Trump called Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger on January 2021, asking him to “find” 11,780 votes to overturn the state’s results. Raffensperger refused, affirming that a series of reviews confirmed that Democrat Joe Biden had won the state.

Since returning to office a year ago, Trump has continued to aggressively pushed changes to election rules.

He signed an executive order in March to require proof of U.S. citizenship on election forms, but months later a federal judge barred the Trump administration from doing so, saying the order violated the separation of powers.

“Because our Constitution assigns responsibility for election regulation to the States and to Congress, this Court holds that the President lacks the authority to direct such changes,” Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in October.

In Congress, several Republican lawmakers have backed legislation to require people provide proof of citizenship before they register to vote.

Some conservatives are using the elections bill as bargaining chip amid negotiations over a spending package that would end a partial government shutdown that began early Saturday.

“ONLY AMERICAN CITIZENS SHOULD BE VOTING IN AMERICAN ELECTIONS. This is common sense not rocket science,” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) wrote on X on Monday as negotiations were continuing.

Writer Neil Gaiman denied sexual misconduct allegations first brought forth against him over a year and a half ago in a statement released Monday.

Gaiman, the bestselling fantasy author behind “The Sandman” comic books, and novels and shows “American Gods” and “Good Omens,” called the allegations, which emerged in the summer of 2024, a “smear campaign” that are “simply and completely untrue.”

“These allegations, especially the really salacious ones, have been spread and amplified by people who seemed a lot more interested in outrage and getting clicks on headlines rather than whether things had actually happened or not,” Gaiman wrote.

Five women first accused the 65-year-old British author of sexual misconduct in the summer of 2024, appearing in the Tortoise Media podcast “Master: The Allegations Against Neil Gaiman.” The women claimed Gaiman had them call him “master” during their alleged sexual encounters.

Eight women then accused the author of assault, abuse and coercion in an article published by New York magazine just over a year ago.

Scarlett Pavlovich, Gaiman’s former nanny, filed a lawsuit against the author and his estranged wife Amanda Palmer, almost exactly a year ago, accusing the couple of human trafficking. She alleged that she was brutally and repeatedly raped and sexually assaulted by Gaiman while working for the couple without pay.

“Gaiman repeatedly physically and emotionally abused Scarlett, raping her vaginally and anally, humiliating her, forcing her into sexual conduct in front of Gaiman’s child, and forcing her to touch and lick feces and urine,” the complaint states. Gaiman called Pavlovich “slave” and ordered her to call him “master,” the complaint states.

The abuse took place while Pavlovich was providing babysitting services for the couple in New Zealand in 2022, according to the suit.

All other allegations against the author stemmed from the 1990s to 2022, when he was living in the United States, Britain and New Zealand.

The author has sold more than 50 million copies of his books worldwide, and many have received film and television adaptations over the years. His work drew a large female readership, typically uncommon for comic-book writers. The allegations clashed with the self-proclaimed feminist writer’s public persona.

Gaiman has spent the last year out of the spotlight, after publishing company Dark Horse Comics cut ties with him shortly after the New York magazine article was published. Gaiman was also dropped from various film and TV adaptations of his work, including the final season of Amazon’s “Good Omens” and the streamer’s new “Anansi Boys” TV series.

He was also left out of press for the final season of Netflix’s “The Sandman” last year and Disney halted development of “The Graveyard Book” months after the initial allegations.

The author last publicly addressed the allegations a day after the New York magazine article was released, and wrote he had stayed quiet “both out of respect for the people who were sharing their stories and out of a desire not to draw even more attention to a lot of misinformation.”

At the time, Gaiman wrote that he “could have and should have done so much better,” admitting that he “was obviously careless with people’s hearts and feelings, and that’s something that I really, deeply regret. It was selfish of me. I was caught up in my own story and I ignored other people’s.”

Gaiman’s most recent statement comes just days after an unidentified Substack user who goes by TechnoPathology posted the latest in a series of articles over the last year defending the fantasy author.

Gaiman claimed he hasn’t been in contact with the anonymous poster but would “like to thank them personally for actually looking at the evidence and reporting what they found, which is not what anyone else had done.”

He said “the actual evidence was dismissed or ignored” by most reporting, including “mountains” of “emails, text messages and video evidence that flatly contradict” the claims.

The author also announced in the statement that he’s been working on a book throughout the “strange, turbulent and occasionally nightmarish year and a half.” The project is his longest since the 450-plus-page “American Gods,” he said.

“It’s a rough time for the world,” Gaiman wrote. “I look at what’s happening on the home front and internationally, and I worry; and I am still convinced there are more good people out there than the other kind.”