SARAH Beeny is revamping her failing dating app in a last-ditch attempt to turn around its fortunes.
She’s launching the “world’s first” video dating app – and is looking for singletons to find love in a bold new move.
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Sarah Beeny is hoping to revive the fortunes of her ailing dating siteCredit: InstagramSarah is best known for being a property guruCredit: Channel4
Sarah might have the Midas touch when it comes to flogging houses, but didn’t have quite so much luck wielding Cupid’s bow and arrow.
The telly star and property guru runs a dating website called My Single Friend and it is heavily in debt.
Now she’s revealed that the site will be overhauled.
She said on Instagram: “I have to admit, I’m so excited because I’m going to relaunch My Single Friend as the world’s first video dating app and it’s coming next week and I can’t wait.
“But as we are launching completely empty, I’m looking for the first 50 people who would like to be on the app when we launch, so if you have a single friend you’d like to pop on or are single yourself, send me a DM.”
The most recent figures show it didn’t make a penny in a year, plus singletons looking for love have been less than kind in online reviews of the firm.
Books posted on Companies House showed that for 2023 the firm had zero equity and it didn’t pay a penny in Corporation Tax, meaning it didn’t make enough cash on which to be taxed. It also owed £1.5m.
The firm was founded in 2004.
A review on Trustpilot read: “The matches they offer up have nothing to do with my search criteria, I suspect there aren’t many people signed up on my area. Customer service good though.”
Another person added: “Most profiles are inactive. Some profiles appear twice under different IDS The quality of the individuals is questionable… most guys over 50 look like bald spuds and send d**k pics.”
My Single Friend told would-be members: “Our clever two-way matching system can help you find your perfect match; our highly-rated and super-lovely customer service team is on-hand every day.
“Fall in love with love again. We can’t wait to help you take the first step.”
Household name Sarah — who beatbreast cancer in 2023 — shot to fame fronting Property Ladder in 2001 before going on to front a host of property shows on TV.
Sarah has overcome breast cancer, getting the all-clear in 2023Credit: Getty
Last May, a strange thing happened on the U.S. album charts. Two metal bands (or at least metal-adjacent hard rock acts) scored No. 1 albums in the same month. The genre hadn’t seen multiple bestsellers in the same year since 2019 — and those were from veteran acts. So it was notable when the young U.K. group Sleep Token crushed on streaming and Ghost topped charts with a Taylor Swift-sized vinyl rollout. Meanwhile, avant-garde heavy rockers Deftones became unexpected TikTok darlings and arena stars.
Metal had not-so-quietly reemerged as a commercial force, and not just in the live sphere, where it’s always thrived and continues to grow. Pop culture seemed ready to welcome back a breed of hitmaker thought lost to time — the sleeve-tatted, throat-shredding hard rock star.
So the wider pop world should acquaint itself with the Virginia-born group Bad Omens, whose slam-packed Thursday night show at the Forum in Inglewood reaffirmed that they’re one of the most ambitious and skilled young bands in heavy rock, and have the star wattage and ravenous fan culture to get even bigger.
Bad Omens — with singer Noah Sebastian, bassist Nicholas Ruffilo, guitarist Joakim Karlsson and drummer Nick Folio — are not brand new. They’ve slugged it out on the metalcore and heavy rock circuit for a decade, signed to the small-ish but influential imprint Sumerian Records. But they hit their stride with 2022’s “The Death of Peace of Mind,” which melded a Weeknd-worthy R&B falsetto with rotted, churning guitars and tasteful electronics.
The band became festival headliners and racked up billions of streams, surely aided by Sebastian’s dreamboat-goth-BF good looks and striking range as a vocalist, where he veers from an ear-tickling whisper to an operatic howl and a shriek worthy of Norway in the ‘90s (sometimes on the same song, as he did on “Like a Villain”).
The band has tipped a new album for some time, though for this career-peak arena tour, it had only a handful of new singles in tow. No matter. At the Forum, the band cohered its catalog with an eye-popping stage production, one that made its case as an ultra-modern heavy rock act with the reach to be huge stars, even if they take genuine fame with some ambivalence.
That force-of-gravity was evident in the days leading up to the Forum show, where fans debated how many hours early they needed to be at the Forum to be on the barricades (the consensus — get there by breakfast). Mid-set, Sebastian pointed out one fan whom he recognized from years on the road. “You’ve been coming to see us since we sucked,” he said, laughing.
That commitment wouldn’t be possible if the music didn’t have a preternatural force to speak to current anxieties. From the first notes of its new single “Specter” — a brooding vocal workout for Sebastian that ended on pulverizing riffs — Bad Omens used cutting-edge tools and underground influence to elicit arena-rock catharsis.
One early peak of the set came when Jake Duzsik of the L.A. industrial-rock trio Health came out to duet on “The Drain,” a lurching, menacing collaborative single and a standout for both bands. Heavy-rock veterans see something compelling in Bad Omens, which helps situate the band’s pop-savvy tracks like “Left for Good” and “Just Pretend” (a platinum-selling single that wrapped up the main set) with earned feeling rather than calculation.
After the Forum show, I understood why it’s taking them so long to finish a new LP. Sebastian has been open about his mental health struggles. The band is pitched right at a difficult juncture at which their artistic ambitions abut real, life-altering attention.
They can make songs like “What It Cost” (a hooky, lecherous electro track that I’d totally believe was co-written with Max Martin if you told me) and the serrated metal that them earned them their fanbase and would cause a revolt without. It’s not easy to pair the two in a natural way. (Just ask Code Orange, once pitched as metal’s breakout stars who got bogged down in electronic experiments.) Having a K-pop-caliber devoted fanbase is great on the way up, but it’s a tense relationship.
But first and foremost, Bad Omens are gifted musicians, and whatever eldritch magic Sebastian wields onstage will always be bolstered by a serious band contorting metal, dark pop and electronic music. I saw nothing that would stop that one fan from coming back for 10 more years of Bad Omens shows, and plenty to suggest others are going to follow him.
SACRAMENTO — Cori Close’s candid remarks about the growing challenges of coaching in modern college athletics sparked a reaction nationwide among her peers.
On Thursday, the UCLA women’s basketball coach was asked about the rapid changes shaping college sports ahead of her Bruins’ Sweet 16 matchup against Minnesota on Friday night. The No. 1-seeded Bruins (33-1) entered the Sweet 16 round considered a strong Final Four contender, powered by one of the deepest starting lineups in the nation.
“I’ve never been as tired as I’ve been in the last two years, and it’s made me think how much longer I can do this,” Close said. “And I’m just being transparent with you about that. There are so many things that are harder, and we keep losing incredible people on the men’s and the women’s side.”
UCLA has dominated throughout the season, entering the Sweet 16 on a 27-game winning streak that dates to late November. Three starters — Lauren Betts, Charlisse Leger-Walker and Gianna Kneepkens — began their college careers elsewhere before transferring into the program.
“How do we now figure out this transfer portal? Let’s not complain about it,” Close said. “Let’s have solutions about what’s right and what adjustments need to be made. … I’m a huge advocate for NIL. It should have happened 20 years ago. And we need boundaries. We need infrastructure. We need competitive equity. We need transparency.”
In contrast, Louisville coach Jeff Walz offered a more critical perspective when addressing the same topic during a NCAA news conference in Fort Worth, Texas.
UCLA guard Kiki Rice points across the court while talking with Bruins coach Cori Close during an NCAA tournament win over California Baptist at Pauley Pavilion on March 21.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
“I’m friends with Cori,” Walz said. “My favorite line, I would tell her, if you don’t like your job, find a new job. I mean, I’m listening this morning at 4:20 as the workers outside my window at the hotel in the street are working. I mean, you choose your profession. If you don’t like it, find a new profession.”
No. 3-seeded Louisville will face No. 2 Michigan on Saturday after falling short against Duke in the ACC championship game.
Close, who has spent 33 years in coaching, including 15 at UCLA, has navigated an evolving landscape shaped by name, image and likeness compensation policies and the transfer portal, just like everyone else. Last season, she earned national coach of the year and led the Bruins to the program’s first Final Four. UCLA has now reached at least the Sweet 16 during four consecutive seasons and eight times during Close’s tenure in Westwood.
This year, the Bruins swept through Big Ten play undefeated and once again secured a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament.
“I mean, of course, it’s a lot of work, but we chose to do it and we get compensated for it,” Walz said. “I don’t think anybody is going to feel too sorry for us that you might be tired. I’m tired, too, but who is not?”
Several longtime coaches have stepped away from the game in recent years, amid, though not always directly attributed to, the sport’s ongoing transformation. Hall of Fame Stanford coach Tara VanDerveer retired in 2025, while Georgia Tech’s Nell Fortner, Iowa’s Lisa Bluder and Harvard’s Kathy Delaney-Smith stepped down during the past three seasons.
“It’s ever-changing, and that’s the frustrating part, because you can never get a grasp on any of it,” Kentucky coach Kenny Brooks said. “You think that you have it. Then all of a sudden, it’s like somebody pulls a rug out and says, ‘No, we’re changing it,’ and now it’s going to be this way now. We want to get out ahead of everything, but we can’t. We always seem like we’re one step behind because there are so many changes.”
Ultimately, Close’s message centered on the need for structural support in a rapidly shifting environment.
“If there’s one thing I would ask of our governing bodies and the NCAA and our administrations is please develop infrastructure and boundaries that create an opportunity to have sustained excellence and sustainable pace,” she said. “Otherwise, we are going to continue to lose some of our best coaches, and I do not think our game can afford to do that.”
ATLANTA — Attorneys for Georgia’s Fulton County and President Trump’s administration squared off in court Friday over the county’s demand that the FBI return seized ballots and other materials from the 2020 election.
Abbe Lowell, an attorney representing Fulton County, noted that the January raid was “unusual” because it involved an old election and allegations that have already been investigated in the years since Trump, a Republican, lost the county and the state to Joe Biden, a Democrat.
Lowell contended that the Trump administration seized the materials because it grew impatient with litigation the Justice Department filed to obtain them last year. “There’s abundant law that the left hand of the department needs to know what the right hand is doing,” Lowell told U.S. District Judge J.P. Boulee.
Michael Weisbuch, representing the federal government, replied that the separate civil litigation wasn’t “relevant in any respect.” He said the administration has already provided Fulton County with digital copies of everything taken and needs to retain physical copies to carry out its own investigation.
Boulee wrote in a scheduling order that the hearing was needed after the two sides failed to reach an agreement in court-ordered mediation.
Trump’s actions alarm Democrats and election officials
The Jan. 28 seizure from a warehouse near Atlanta targeted the elections hub in Georgia’s most populous county, which is heavily Democratic and includes most of Atlanta. Fulton County has been at the center of unfounded claims by Trump and his allies that widespread election fraud cost him reelection.
The FBI’s move was among several actions by the Trump administration that have alarmed Democrats and many election officials who are concerned it’s using law enforcement to pursue the president’s personal grievances and is planning ways to interfere in this year’s midterm elections. The FBI also used a subpoena earlier this month to obtain records related to an audit of the 2020 presidential election in Maricopa County in Arizona, another battleground state Trump lost that year.
At the same time, the Justice Department is fighting numerous states in court for access to voter data that includes sensitive personal information. Election officials, including some Republicans, have said handing over the information would violate state and federal privacy laws.
Justice Department says it’s investigating 2020 ‘irregularities’
Lawyers for Fulton County argued in a court filing that the seizure of its documents was “improper and unjustified” and demonstrates “callous disregard” for the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. The Justice Department seeks to “set a precedent that would grant the federal government unchecked power to interfere with the local administration of elections,” it wrote.
Justice Department attorneys argued that preparing a detailed affidavit and presenting it to a judge “is the exact opposite of ‘callous disregard’” for those constitutional rights. “Their goal to disrupt an ongoing federal criminal investigation is clear,” they wrote of Fulton County officials.
The Justice Department said it is investigating “irregularities that occurred during the 2020 presidential election in the County” and identified two laws that might have been violated. One requires election records to be maintained for 22 months, while the other prohibits procuring, casting or tabulating false, fictitious or fraudulent ballots.
The filing said the FBI is looking into whether Fulton County properly retained ballot images; whether some ballots were scanned and counted multiple times; whether unfolded, unmailed ballots were counted as mail-in absentee ballots; and potential irregularities concerning tabulator tapes from the scanners used to count ballots.
Fulton County’s lawyers wrote that the “deficiencies” or “defects” in the county’s handling of the 2020 election cited in the affidavit are the kinds of human errors that commonly occur without any intentional wrongdoing and cannot establish probable cause.
Election tech expert cites problems in the affidavit
To support their claims, Fulton County officials submitted a sworn declaration from Ryan Macias, an election technology and security expert who advised the county during the 2020 election. He said the affidavit contains “a multitude of false or misleading statements and omissions” and offered explanations for the alleged “deficiencies.”
Investigations by the Georgia secretary of state and independent reviews contradict the core allegations of the affidavit, which is “rife with statements from witnesses lacking credibility, with extraordinary and undisclosed biases,” Fulton’s lawyers argued.
Georgia’s votes in the 2020 presidential race were counted three times, including once by hand, and each count affirmed Biden’s win.
Federal government lawyers rejected the idea that the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit “intentionally or recklessly misled” the judge, writing that “the supposed misrepresentations and omissions flagged by Petitioners are illusory and/or immaterial.” They also asserted that a lapse of the statute of limitations on the potential crimes does not negate probable cause.
The Justice Department also noted that a federal magistrate judge reviewed the FBI affidavit and signed off on the search warrant. Fulton County sought to have the FBI agent who wrote the affidavit testify at Friday’s hearing, but the Justice Department objected and the judge sided with the federal government.
Brumback writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Nicholas Riccardi in Denver contributed to this report.
How would you feel about getting a dream gig only to see it end in disgrace because of, well, you?
That’s what Gregory Bovino gets to think about for the rest of his life. Friday is the Border Patrol lifer’s last day on the job after 30 years — and he ain’t leaving because he wants to.
For the past year, the self-described “hillbilly” was the personification of the Trump administration’s xenophobic deportation deluge. Helicopter invasions of apartment complexes, tear gas canisters thrown into large crowds, defying court orders, glamorous photo shoots: There was no municipality too big, no tactic too crazy, no quote too incendiary for Bovino to take on while he treated immigrant neighborhoods like the shores of Normandy.
The North Carolina native’s caravan of cruelty quickly earned him a promotion from El Centro sector chief to Border Patrol commander at large, a new position crafted just for him. He embraced the role of migra bogeyman like a tween boy scarfing down a bowl of Warheads, always promising more deportations, more chaos, more more.
Not anymore.
In January, Border Patrol agents shot and killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti during a protest against them a few weeks after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer did the same to Renée Good, a mother of three. Bovino threw napalm on the matter by claiming Pretti wanted to “massacre law enforcement” without offering any evidence. The incidents so soured the public on immigration agents that a Public Religion Research Institute poll released this week showed only 35% of Americans surveyed approved of how Trump is handling immigration, compared to 48% a year ago.
Bovino was sent back down to El Centro and lost his social media privileges, where he had long posted cringe-inducing videos about what a swell guy he was. Even Trump turned on his migra man, telling Fox News that Bovino was “a pretty out-there kind of a guy … and in some cases that’s good. Maybe it wasn’t good [in Minneapolis].”
I should’ve warned Bovino the one time we met that failure was his fate.
Dressed in full Border Patrol uniform complete with a clipped-on walkie-talkie on his shoulder, the guy was billing himself as a modern-day Charles Martel defending the homeland from invading infidels. The nasal-voiced Bovino rambled to Michaelson about how “Ma and Pa America” deserved a country free from undocumented immigrants and vowed to remain in Los Angeles “until the operation is over.”
Then-U.S. Border Patrol commander at large Gregory Bovino, center, along with Border Patrol agents as they march to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building after a show of force outside the Japanese American National Museum where Gov. Gavin Newsom was holding a redistricting press conference on Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
After his interview, Bovino and three Border Patrol agents strolled into the greenroom to grab some homemade cookies while I sat on a couch. He looked me in the eye while bending down to sign Michaelson’s guest book, as if he expected me to not only recognize him but say something.
It was like staring at someone doing an impersonation that was one part Lt. Col. Kilgore from “Apocalypse Now” and two parts Henery Hawk, the short, brash Looney Tunes character that was always trying to capture the much larger Foghorn Leghorn. He really thought that his scorched-earth assault on L.A. would defeat the city and convince other communities to offer no pushback once Bovino’s self-titled “Green Machine” trolled into town.
The opposite happened.
People who had never bothered with politics — even some who voted for Trump or at least agreed with deporting immigrants with criminal convictions — rose up to resist. Everywhere became a front — social media, the streets, courtrooms — and activists across Southern California began to share notes among themselves and with communities nationwide to prepare them for la migra. Bovino flailed back at every affront instead of focusing on his mission, not realizing his recklessness was eroding public support for his cause and threatening it altogether.
That’s when he convinced the Trump administration to send a skeptical National Guard alongside his men to surround the historic L.A. green space in the ludicrously named Operation Excalibur. Armed vehicles parked on Wilshire Boulevard. A grinning Bovino strutted around with media in tow. A wannabe cavalry unit, anchored in the center by an agent on a white horse, swept through a soccer field where children were attending day camp just minutes before.
No one was arrested or detained that day. Instead, Bovino left to a chorus of cuss words and boo birds. The exercise allowed Americans to see the folly of burning millions of taxpayer dollars just so someone could star in a TikTok reel. It also broke the spell Bovino had cast over many critics — myself included — who had feared he truly was an unstoppable Punisher.
Nah, he was just a spiky-haired pendejo.
If Bovino was as smart as he thinks he is, he would’ve followed the longtime strategy of another longtime immigration enforcer. Trump border czar Tom Homan executed a yearslong roundup under the Obama administration with numbers Trump has yet to reach and with nowhere near as much public rancor. Homan, who loves the camera almost as much as Bovino, knew then and now that an issue as explosive as deportations must be approached quietly if it’s to be done successfully.
Instead, not only does he have to clean up Bovino’s mess, there’s now a real chance that the Republicans will lose the midterms because of Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 but are now furious at his administration. That’s why even Trump is now telling Republicans to tone down their anti-immigrant rhetoric, stat.
Gracias, Bovino!
You thought you would go down in U.S. history as a domestic Patton, a borderlands Sherman. Instead, your last week coincided with the publication of a New York Times profile of you railing at enemies while downing coffee at a burger bar in El Centro.
You called Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott “weak-kneed,” mocked Homan and said you could’ve deported 100 million people — a radically racist number considering even the Center for Immigration Studies, which has long pushed for reduced immigration of all kinds, estimated a record 15.4 million illegal immigrants were in this country at the start of Trump’s second term.
Instead, you’re heading off to the Tar Heel State to spend your days hunting… coyotes.
“Maybe I get me some dogs and we go hard,” you told the New York Times. “I’ll take it in my own hands.”
Which reminds me of another hapless cartoon character who thought himself a genius but who kept screwing things up in ceaseless pursuit of his quarry: Wile E. Coyote.
March 27 (UPI) — All 32 NATO nations met or exceeded the alliance’s target for defense spending last year, Secretary-General Mark Rutte said, as Canada and several ally nations increased their investment in defense amid war in Europe and the Middle East.
“We see clearly that our world is constantly changing. And we are adapting to ensure we remain prepared,” he said during a press conference in Brussels, as he released the alliance’s 2025 Annual Report.
“The threat picture across 2025 made clear that we need to do more. And throughout the year, NATO continued to come together to ensure that we are ready and able to respond to any threat, across all domains, both now and in the future.”
The defensive military alliance has called on member states to invest at least 2% of their gross domestic product in defense since at least 2006, with allies in 2014 pledging that those below the guideline would move toward it within a decade — though few nations did so for years.
Amid what he described as a more dangerous security environment — including Russia’s war against Ukraine, the Kremlin’s support from China, Iran, North Korea and Belarus, as well as the broader instability centered on Iran — countries are stepping up, he said, calling 2025 “a landmark year for NATO.”
Amid the protracted war in Europe and uncertainty about the United States’ cooperation with the alliance, defense ministers last year made a commitment to investing 5% of GDP annually in core defense requirements by 2035.
Among nations Rutte highlighted for reaching the 2% benchmark was Canada, which, under the Liberal government of Prime Minister Mark Carney, has sharply increased its defense spending as its once iron-clad relationship with the United States has frayed under the weight of U.S. President Donald Trump‘s incendiary rhetoric, threats of annexation and tariffs.
In the last 10 months of the Carney government, Canada has spent more than $23.8 billion on defense and security, pushing it over the 2% threshold for the first time since the end of the Cold War — and well ahead of the 2032 pledge made by former Defense Minister Bill Blair in 2024.
“As a result of our efforts, this morning, NATO confirmed that Canada has achieved its 2% defense expenditure target — half a decade ahead of the original schedule,” Carney said during a press conference held Thursday aboard a Royal Canadian navy vessel in Halifax Harbor.
“Canadians are responding to our renewed commitment and call to serve.”
The Liberal leader described the 2% target as “the foundation” for further investment in the country’s defense expenditure, as he announced a further $2.1 billion defense package for Atlantic Canada.
“Over the past 11 months, one of our government’s key priorities has been to reinvest in rebuilding and rearming the [Canadian Armed Forces] to provide you with the support you need to achieve mission success,” he said.
“We will continue our efforts with the same speed and determination that we have shown from the very beginning.”
In a quiet moment before the pomp and circumstance of opening day, Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas learned he’d be starting in the final season opener of his long career.
He was on the bench for the Freeway Series finale at Dodger Stadium earlier this week, when manager Dave Roberts came over to check in and give Rojas the news.
“I didn’t know if, ‘Thank you’ was the right thing to say because it’s something I earned,” Rojas recounted before the Dodgers’ 8-2 win Thursday against the Diamondbacks. “It’s not something that I asked for as a favor. So I was just kind of speechless.”
Rojas embraced Roberts.
“It was a gift to myself because of all the hard work and the preparation I put in throughout my whole career,” Rojas said. “This way is the best way possible because I got up to the big leagues as a utility defensive replacement who can play shortstop but couldn’t really hit much.”
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Rojas, who intends to retire after this year, wrapped up his final opening day as a starter.
Opening day is a celebration across baseball. But the Dodgers made it a full production. The pregame program Thursday included roster-introduction pyrotechnics, along with a stage and blue carpet set up in center field.
It was also a time to commemorate the 2025 World Series, raising the banner and revealing the new sign marking the organization’s ninth title.
Rojas rode onto the field perched atop a metallic blue convertible, hoisting the 2025 World Series trophy over his head. To his left sat Freddie Freeman, holding the 2024 trophy. Will Ferrell sat in the driver’s seat.
“It’s here,” Rojas said Thursday afternoon. “This is my last chance to play baseball with an amazing group of guys.”
A spot in the starting lineup hadn’t been guaranteed for the 2025 World Series hero. The Diamondbacks started right-hander Zac Gallen. And throughout the year, Rojas will generally play second base against left-handers, platooning with Alex Freeland to begin the year and eventually Tommy Edman when he returns from the 10-day injured list.
“This means a lot to him, his family and to the Dodger fans,” Roberts said. “And also, most importantly, I think he’s a great option for today. All in, it was the right decision.”
Rojas’ final opening day — he’s lined up to transition into a player development role with the Dodgers next year — was a well-rounded game for the Dodgers.
A marquee pitching matchup between Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Gallen produced a scoreless first three innings. The Diamondbacks broke through first, with Geraldo Perdomo roping a two-run homer off Yamamoto in the fourth inning.
The Dodgers hadn’t recorded a hit since Shohei Ohtani’s leadoff single. But in the fifth, they finally got to Gallen, and batted through the order.
Max Muncy and Teoscar Hernández kicked off the rally with back-to-back groundball singles. Then Andy Pages launched a go-ahead home run into the left-field seats.
Rojas, dropping a single into shallow center field, and Ohtani, drawing a walk, held on the pressure. And the Diamondbacks pulled Gallen for right-hander Juan Morillo.
How the Dodgers celebrated their World Series title ahead of season opener.
The Dodgers tacked on one more run, as Rojas raced home on Will Smith’s single up the first-base line, before Morillo finally escaped a bases-loaded jam.
The next inning, Yamamoto slammed the door shut against the top of the order with a pair of groundouts to Rojas and a strikeout, Yamamoto’s sixth. He retired nine straight batters after Perdomo’s homer.
That would end Yamamoto’s night at six innings.
The Dodgers continued piling on against the Diamondbacks’ bullpen. A four-run rally in the seventh inning featured Kyle Tucker’s first hit as a Dodger, an RBI double and a two-run shot from Smith. The Dodgers’ bullpen held the D-backs scoreless the rest of the way.
After reliever Tanner Scott forced a fly out to shortstop Mookie Betts to end the game, Rojas pointed two fingers to the sky and then joined his teammates in the handshake line.
Rojas held his emotions at bay through spring training, immersing himself in the daily work. But opening day made it more real.
“Baseball is what I remember me doing my whole life,” Rojas said. “I don’t remember myself doing anything else. I know I was a good son, a good brother, a good student. I know that. But I don’t remember myself doing that. I remember myself playing baseball, preparing for a baseball game, working out to be a professional baseball player. Then when I was in the minors I remember myself working really hard to get to the big leagues and then working really hard to be an every-day player. It goes on and on.”
Until it doesn’t.
Future Hall of famer Clayton Kershaw knows what that’s like. Venturing into retirement a year ahead of Rojas, Kershaw was on NBC’s broadcast Thursday, sporting a suit on the field before the game.
He commented on Rojas’ tan, and Rojas told Kershaw he’d stolen his look and had been going sleeveless.
“My wife and my kids call him Uncle Kersh because of the joy he had throughout the year,” Rojas said. “He was really happy all year. He wasn’t really caught up in numbers or stats. He was just enjoying his time. I really wish I can do a little bit of what he did last year. I hope I can enjoy it as much as he did last year.
She has stopped taking painkillers but is still exhausted.
She is back home in Park City, Utah, but spends nearly all of her time in rehab.
She is 41 and has won four overall World Cup championships, with 84 World Cup wins and three Olympic medals, including gold in the downhill at the 2010 Vancouver Games.
“I don’t like to close the door on anything, because you just never know what’s going to happen,” said Vonn, who appears on the magazine’s cover in a long, black dress with a split that shows her left leg — bandages and all.
“I have no idea what my life will be like in two years or three years or four years. I could have two kids by then. I could have no kids and want to race again. I could live in Europe. I could be doing anything.”
She added: “It’s hard to tell with this injury. It’s so [messed] up.”
Vonn, who returned to racing in late 2024 after nearly six years away from the sport, had two victories and three other podium finishes in her five World Cup races during the most recent season. In December, Vonn announced she would be competing in her “5th and final Olympics!”
“I wanted to win the Olympics, and I wanted to win the downhill title, and I was on track to do both of those things,” Vonn told Vanity Fair.
On Jan. 30, Vonn suffered a complete rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament in her left knee, with meniscus and bone damage, when she crashed during a downhill race in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
She decided to compete at the Olympics anyway and had a couple of successful training runs leading up to the Feb. 8 downhill competition.
“I was in the exact mental state that I wanted to be in,” Vonn said. “I was ready to go.”
Unfortunately, her race didn’t last long. Vonn lost control on the first jump, spun sideways in the air, slammed to the ground and needed to be airlifted from the course. Vonn and other skiing experts have said that the ruptured ACL likely had nothing to do with her crash at the Olympics.
Vonn suffered a complex tibia fracture and other major damage. It contributed to a condition called compartment syndrome, which involves excessive pressure building up inside a muscle and possibly can lead to permanent injury or amputation.
Five surgeries later, Vonn is on the road to recovery. She has posted several photos and videos on Instagram as she amps up her fitness routine again. In a March 15 post on X, Vonn wrote that she’s not ready to discuss her skiing future.
“My focus has been on recovering from my injury and getting back to normal life,” she wrote, adding, “I’ll let you know when I decide.”
Vonn did tell Vanity Fair that she’s not crazy about the idea of the catastrophe at the Winter Games being the public’s last impression of her as a skier.
“I don’t want people to hang on this crash and be remembered for that. What I did before the Olympics has never been done before. I was number one in the standings. No one remembers that I was winning.”
On their way into the clubhouse Thursday, Dodgers players were greeted by the World Series championship trophies they won in 2024 and 2025. In center field, Dodgers fans were greeted by oversize replicas of those trophies, the better for taking a selfie.
On social media, the Dodgers unveiled their Opening Day hype video. These were the first words: “What’s wrong with being the bad guy?” At Dodger Stadium, the threepeat hype video was a movie trailer with this tag line: “Great sequels build legendary trilogies.”
To the rest of that country, all that winning and all that spending makes the Dodgers the bad guys. For more than a year, the owners of other major league teams have telegraphed their desire to restrain all that spending, preferably through a salary cap.
How does the owner of the Dodgers feel?
Does baseball truly have a problem?
Sit down, Dodgers fans. You might expect the owner of the Colorado Rockies to say that revenue disparity among teams is so great that competitive balance has been destroyed, and he did.
You might not expect Dodgers owner Mark Walter to say this:
”Here’s what the problem is: Money helps us win. We can’t win all the time. We’ve got to have some parity,” Walter told me.
“So we’ve got to come up with something that will give us some parity.”
Don’t take this the wrong way: Walter will always want to win. But the owners, Walter included, are increasingly united in the belief that revenue disparity is the primary explanation why a small-market team has not won the World Series in 11 years.
The Dodgers are making more money from Uniqlo in naming rights this season than some teams are making from local television rights and the Dodgers also are making 10 times as much on their SportsNet LA deal.
The Dodgers generated an estimated $850 million in revenue last season, according to Forbes. Their opening day opponent, the Arizona Diamondbacks, generated an estimated $324 million.
If Walter were to support the pursuit of a salary cap, the owners’ vote could be unanimous. For now, negotiations with the players’ union have not started. There is no formal owners’ proposal on the table, so there is nothing for Walter to approve or reject.
“We’ll have to see what it is,” Walter said.
The players’ union does not dispute the revenue disparity. The union believes the owners should solve that issue among themselves, by sharing more revenue and adding incentives for lower-revenue teams that win. The union also believes “competitive balance” is a fig leaf for “cost control that increases owner profits.”
In the NFL, which has a salary cap, either the Kansas City Chiefs or the New England Patriots has played in the AFC championship in each of the last 15 years.
And, even if the Dodgers are the bad guys, they are not bad for business. The Dodgers hold five of the top 12 spots on baseball’s list of best-selling jerseys: Shohei Ohtani at No. 1, Yoshinobu Yamamoto at No. 2, Mookie Betts at No. 5, Freddie Freeman at No. 7 and Kiké Hernandez at No. 12.
The last two World Series, in which the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees and Toronto Blue Jays, juiced television ratings across the country and around the world. The World Baseball Classic dominated headlines and social media content at what is usually a sleepy time for baseball.
All of that momentum would be at risk if owners shut down the sport in “salary cap or bust” collective bargaining, crossing their fingers that players would surrender as soon as they started missing paychecks next spring.
It is against that backdrop that Dodgers manager Dave Roberts encouraged fans to appreciate this season opener. With potential armageddon looming in negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, who knows when the next season might actually open?
“I understand that,” Roberts said Thursday, “in the sense of, this is where the CBA is at, as far as the expiration. And I do agree: Enjoy it, because nothing is guaranteed. It’s going to be a great year and I hope everyone pours their spirits and their joy into this season, because it’s going to be a great one. We’ll just figure out where it goes after that.”
And, if it goes haywire after that, the Dodgers inevitably will be blamed.
“That,” Roberts said with a laugh, “seems like it’s always been the case recently.”
What would Walter tell Dodgers fans concerned that what might be in the best interest of baseball might not be in the best interest of the Dodgers?
“I don’t want to hurt us,” Walter said. “We’ll be fine.”
• The Academy Awards will move from the Dolby Theatre to L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles beginning in 2029 under a new agreement with AEG that runs through 2039.
• The shift to L.A. Live will place the ceremony within a larger, campus-style complex, allowing the red carpet, show, press operations and post-show events to be staged in a more centralized footprint with increased capacity.
• The move will coincide with the Oscars’ shift to YouTube, part of a broader reset for the ceremony as it looks to expand its global reach after years of declining television viewership.
The Oscars are leaving Hollywood — or at least Hollywood Boulevard.
Beginning in 2029, the Academy Awards will move from the Dolby Theatre, their home for nearly a quarter century, to L.A. Live in downtown Los Angeles, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and AEG announced on Thursday. The ceremony will be held in the theater currently known as the Peacock Theater, which is expected to be renamed before the Oscars arrive as part of a new naming rights deal.
The new agreement runs through 2039. Discussions about the move have been underway for the last couple of years, according to people familiar with the planning who were not authorized to speak publicly.
The change in venue comes as the Oscars are also moving away from their traditional home on broadcast television. Earlier this year, the Academy announced that the ceremony will begin streaming live worldwide on YouTube in 2029, ending a five-decade run on ABC.
Since 2002, the show has been closely associated with Hollywood Boulevard, where the red carpet runs alongside the Walk of Fame and, for one night a year, the area becomes the symbolic center of the film industry. The Dolby Theatre sits at the corner of Hollywood and Highland, inside a retail and entertainment center near the TCL Chinese Theatre and the El Capitan.
L.A. Live offers a more centralized, campus-style setting, with venues and event spaces clustered together. The complex is adjacent to Crypto.com Arena and the Los Angeles Convention Center and is part of a larger sports and entertainment district developed and operated by AEG that regularly hosts concerts, sporting events and awards shows, including the Emmys and the Grammys. AEG has recently proposed adding a new hotel, residences and additional entertainment space to the complex, part of a longer-term expansion of the site.
In some ways, the move out of the Dolby is less a break than a return: The ceremony was staged for years in downtown L.A. at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion and at the Shrine Auditorium before settling at the Dolby.
At the Oscars’ new home, the red carpet, ceremony, press operations and post-show events can all be staged within a compact footprint that includes the adjacent JW Marriott hotel and its ballroom. The theater itself is expected to undergo upgrades to its stage, sound and lighting systems, allowing it to be configured more specifically around the show. The move is also expected to increase capacity, a growing consideration as the academy’s ranks have expanded significantly in recent years, now numbering more than 11,000 members.
At the Dolby, space has long been tight. Each year, multiple blocks of Hollywood Boulevard are shut down for days at a time, rerouting traffic and turning the area into a heavily secured zone — conditions that were even more restrictive this year with security tightened further amid the war in Iran, including a one-mile police buffer around the theater.
The Academy had been looking for a venue that offered greater control over how the show is staged, including how the audience is arranged and how the room is used for both the broadcast and the live event. The new venue is expected to provide more room for press areas, green rooms and backstage operations, along with upgraded technical infrastructure for staging the ceremony.
Early design renderings released by the academy suggest that, for viewers at home, the Oscars may not look all that different. The stage retains the sweeping, curved proscenium that has defined the Dolby Theatre era, suggesting a similar visual approach at a larger scale, with expanded screen space and a more immersive ceiling design.
For both the academy and AEG, which owns and operates the complex, the appeal is in keeping everything in one place — arrivals, ceremony, the Governors Ball and afterparties — rather than spreading events across multiple locations. The setup also creates new opportunities for hospitality and sponsorship tied to the broader campus.
“L.A. Live was built to host the moments that define culture and there is no greater global stage than the Oscars,” said Todd Goldstein, AEG’s chief revenue officer. “Together, we will create an environment that celebrates creativity, honors excellence and delivers an unforgettable experience for movie fans everywhere.”
Taken together, the changes amount to a significant reset for the Oscars, which have seen their audience decline from more than 40 million viewers in the late 1990s to 17.9 million this year, down 9% from the previous year. Moving to YouTube offers a way to reach a broader, more global audience at a time when traditional television viewership has declined.
The Oscars will remain at the Dolby through the 100th ceremony in 2028 before making the transition the following year.
“For the 101st Oscars and beyond, the Academy looks forward to closely collaborating with AEG to make L.A. Live the perfect backdrop for our global celebration of cinema,” Academy Chief Executive Bill Kramer and President Lynette Howell Taylor said in a statement.
First baseman Freddie Freeman, pausing outside of the Dodgers’ home dugout to talk about the upcoming season, nodded his head toward the right-field foul pole, where just beyond it the Dodgers’ championships signs are displayed.
Eight baseball-shaped signs sported their years — 1955, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1981, 1988, 2020, 2024 — while a ninth was still shielded by a blue cover, with plenty of room along the stadium’s club level for more.
“You want to just keep putting those banners up,” Freeman said. “That one’s blocked for a reason. You want to do it again. You want to keep doing it over and over and over again. And that’s what’s fun, and then that’s what makes everything else just take care of itself.”
The 2025 championship sign will be revealed as the Dodgers both celebrate last year’s achievements and set the tone for this year.
They’ll receive their World Series ring on Friday, but they’ll also be in the midst of playing three games against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“Everyone’s different,” Freeman said. “Some people want to move on and get on to the new season and not worry about last year. I’m one of the guys that can appreciate what we did last year, even in the present year.
“It’s hard to win a World Series. I don’t like to just kick it to the side. … Our fans haven’t celebrated it since the parade. We get to celebrate with our fans and open the weekend. It’s going to be a great time.”
“I get my ring, and I put it in the safe, and I don’t really look at it ever again,” he said when asked about the ring ceremony. “It brings back all the emotions from the prior year, you like showing friends and stuff, it’s cool. But no, for me, the motivation is just winning, being with these guys each and every day, and competing with them and working towards that goal.”
On that point, Dodgers players seem to agree.
They don’t need a tangible reminder of their World Series aspirations this year.
“It’ll be one of the few days where we really think about what we did last year, versus what we’re trying to do right now,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said.
Plenty of teams say their goal is to win the World Series. But the Dodgers have raised their outside expectations, too. Entering Thursday, PECOTA put the Dodgers’ odds of completing a three-peat at 20.8%, by far the highest World Series chances in the majors. PECOTA, Baseball Prospectus’ projection system, listed the Mariners as next most likely to win the World Series, at 14.2%.
While those numbers establish a clear favorite, they also reflect how unpredictable the postseason can be. Even the Dodgers, with their lofty payroll and strong player development track record, will need health, luck, and the right mindset to pull off a third straight championship.
“You know what the goal is every single year, and that’s to be the last team standing at the end,” Mucy said. “But we more so preach, how do you get there, instead of that being the goal. And for us, it’s always been, you have to take it one day at a time.”
The phrase itself isn’t a novel concept. The trick is making that focus a reality, and a team standard.
“I talk about it every day,” manager Dave Roberts said. “I’ve talked about it since I got here. It’s just, let’s win a baseball game. That’s our mantra, and everyone in this building, that’s the goal.”
The veterans on the team preach it too, hoping to pass down that team-first focus to the generation coming behind them.
“When you put on this uniform, you come in here, you see all these superstars working extremely hard every single day — front office, ownership group doing the same thing — that’s the expectation,” Freeman said. “It’s a different standard, and you just want to be part of that standard that keeps the level high.”
After the commotion of the championship banner reveal and the ring presentation the first two days of the season, “let’s win a baseball game,” will continue to be the mantra.
Maybe it will even work well enough, day after day, for the Dodgers to add another sign to their championship display this time next year.
This is the golden age of baseball in Southern California. The Angels heralded its dawn.
In 2002, the Angels won the World Series, the first of six postseason appearances within eight years. The Dodgers had played pretty good ball for more than a century, but they never had done that.
Angel Stadium was the place to be. The rally monkey was all the rage. The team nurtured a wave of young talent to surround Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero. In 2009, the final year of that run, the Angels drafted future Hall of Famer Mike Trout. In 2011, for the first and only time, the Angels sold more tickets than the Dodgers.
Neither the Angels nor the Dodgers made the playoffs in 2010, 2011, or 2012. Since then, the Dodgers have made 13 consecutive postseason appearances, with three World Series championships to show for it. The Angels have made one, and they did not win a game.
Never — and this includes the Dodgers’ time in bankruptcy court — have the fates of the two Los Angeles franchises been so disparate. In 2026, the Dodgers could win their third consecutive World Series championship, and the Angels could finish in last place for the third consecutive year.
At a time major league owners would like you to believe market size equals destiny, the team with baseball’s longest postseason drought plays in the second-largest market in North America.
Today, however, we come not to bemoan the bad times but celebrate the good times, for the Angels and Dodgers.
The century is a quarter old. So here are our quarter-century teams for both the Angels and Dodgers, based solely on performances for those teams. In a few places, we included a deserving player at a secondary position, if his primary position was fully stocked. Let us know where we got it right, and where we didn’t.
And, while you’re there, you’ll see the story of our golden age in a nutshell. Of the 22 players on the Dodgers’ first and second teams, 11 were on at least one of the World Series championship teams this decade. Of the 22 players on the Angels’ first and second teams, only four played for the Angels this decade.
One was Shohei Ohtani, the first-team designated hitter for both teams.
*We considered how long someone played for the Dodgers or Angels during this century, as well as how well someone played, but we’re making an exception here for two reasons: one, left field has not been a position of strength and depth for the Dodgers; and, two: Manny Ramirez’s two-month “Mannywood” run after the Dodgers traded for him in 2008 was simply astonishing: He played 53 games and drove in 53 runs, batting .396 with 17 home runs and a 1.232 OPS. In the playoffs, he batted .520 in eight games, hitting four home runs and driving in 10 runs, with a 1.747 OPS. The two-month “Mannywood” run was good for 3.5 WAR — the same WAR Freddie Freeman delivered over the entire 2025 season. (And, yes, in May of the following year, Ramirez was suspended for violating baseball’s drug policy.)
Imagine waking up early, eager to peep dazzling carpets of brilliant orange flowers at the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. Instagram posts promised a spectacle.
You drive to the reserve north of Los Angeles, but the rolling hills aren’t alive with color.
Bummer. The bloom is over.
Thanks to AI, and a local scientist, such disappointment may soon be a thing of the past.
This year, Steve Klosterman, a biologist who works on natural climate solutions, launched a “wildflower forecast,” powered by a deep-learning model, satellite imagery and weather data.
In a sense, Klosterman, of Santa Monica, developed the tool to meet his own need.
Last spring, the Midwest transplant was hankering to see some wildflowers. He assumed there was some online resource that offered predictions or leveraged satellite images.
“Surely, there must be something,” he recalled thinking. “But there was nothing.”
There are tools. The state reserve operates a live cam trained on one swath of land. Theodore Payne, a California native plant nursery and education center, runs a wildflower hotline, where people can call in and hear weekly recorded reports on hot spots.
“These are all essential resources,” Klosterman said. “At the same time, they’re limited.”
Klosterman isn’t green when it comes to plants. His PhD, at Harvard, focused on the timing of new leaves on trees in the spring and color change in the fall.
For a class project, a team he was part of built a website that predicted those leaf changes in the Boston area. It was a hit.
California poppies bloom in Lancaster, near the state natural reserve, in mid-March.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
To create the poppy bloom predictor, Klosterman turned to AI initially developed for medical imaging. He has harnessed it to instead analyze satellite images of the Antelope Valley.
The model scans 10-by-10-meter squares of land to determine whether poppies are present by their telltale orange color. (It also identifies tiny yellow flowers called goldfields.)
The model is trained on satellite images — which go back nine years — along with past weather data.
It then uses the current forecast, and recent flower status, to peer into the future.
If the mercury is going to hit 100 degrees and wind is picking up — and in previous years that led to withering flowers — that will guide the prediction.
Right now, the model can forecast five days out and is, as Klosterman puts it, “very much a work in progress.” It would be better, more powerful, if it had 100 years to learn from.
As more data are collected, it might someday be able to forecast a week or two out.
Right now, poppies are popping at the reserve in the western Mojave Desert.
It rained throughout the fall and into winter, and poppies need at least seven inches of rain to make a good showing, said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.
Snowfall in January seems to push them to another level, but that didn’t happen this season. So it’s a good bloom, but not extraordinary, she said.
Still, poppies — California’s state flower — blanket swaths of the protected land.
“It almost looks like Cheeto dust,” she said, “like somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape.”
Poppies here have typically peaked around mid-April, but variable weather in recent years has made it hard to predict, she said. Klosterman believes right now is likely the zenith.
Also blooming now: goldfields, purple grape soda lupine and owl’s clover. Wear described the latter, also purple, as looking like a “short owl with little eyes looking at you and a little beak.”
An SUV drives through blooms near the reserve. “It almost looks like … somebody had Cheetos on their fingers and just smeared it on the landscape,” said Lori Wear, an interpreter at the reserve.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
On Sunday, Klosterman experienced the blooms for himself, using his technology as a guide.
It offers predictions in two forms. The first is the amount of the valley — shown in a satellite image — covered in poppies and goldfields, expressed as a percentage. The other is an overlay of orange and yellow splotches on the land.
The map showed a fairly high concentration of poppies near a stretch of Highway 138. He went there and, lo and behold, vibrant flowers awaited him. He sent proof: a smiling selfie in front of a sea of blossoms.
Klosterman’s tool may help answer arguably more complex questions than poppy or no poppy, such as a more precise understanding of the conditions the flowers need to thrive.
Experts know rain is key, but it’s more complicated than that.
Steve Klosterman takes a selfie in a field of California poppies.
(Steve Klosterman)
Heavy rain can supercharge invasive grasses, crowding out the blooms. Natives actually tend to do better after several years of drought, once invasives not adapted to the arid climate die out. That’s what led to an epic superbloom in 2017, Joan Dudney, an assistant professor of forest ecology at UC Santa Barbara, told The Times in 2024.
Klosterman wondered if the recent heatwave would desiccate them. But his model didn’t show that, and neither did his trip. So it’s possible other factors play a significant role in their persistence, such as length of day.
The model could also shed light on what could happen to the flowers as the climate warms. Will they migrate to the north? Will there be fewer blooms?
To game that out, Klosterman said you could invent and plug in a weather forecast with higher temperatures.
For now, Klosterman’s forecast is limited to the Antelope Valley. But if it expands to other areas, and other flower types, it could help people like Karina Silva.
Silva woke up at 5 a.m. last Wednesday to travel from her Las Vegas home to Death Valley National Park, hoping to beat the heat and the crowds to the superbloom.
But several hours later, she and her husband, David, were still trying to find it.
The hillside behind her was sprinkled with desert golds, but the display fell short of the riotous eruption of flowers posted on social media. The superbloom ended in early March, according to park officials.
“I was just thinking it was going to be this explosion of different colors,” Silva said by the side of the road overlooking Badwater Basin.
Three weeks into spring practice, USC football coaches are making one thing clear: 95% of their best will not be accepted or tolerated. Wednesday’s practice started with some of the players doing up-downs after forgetting equipment.
“It was a good message from some of our staff and leaders in terms of the approach that we need to have every day that we come out here,” Trojans coach Lincoln Riley said.
A sentiment that was shared by junior defensive tackle Jide Abasiri: “We just have to be better prepared.”
After the hiccup, Riley said the team responded well and it was back to business.
USC defensive tackle Jide Abasiri (97) is pushing himself to be a more vocal leader as a the Trojans help young players get acclimated to the program.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
After a spirited day on the field on Tuesday following a one-week spring break, Wednesday’s practice was scripted with the intent to cause stress and create discomfort — stacking multiple two-minute drills after a 6 a.m. team meeting. The goal is to build a no-excuses program.
“It’s invaluable time, invaluable reps,” Riley said. “Coming out and working plays and the techniques, great. When you start putting those guys in real-life situations and you make it really difficult on them, you really start to see who rises up and they’re great teaching moments for these guys and for the team in terms of what we want to be and what we want them to be.”
Regardless of the mental challenges Riley applied, the Trojans’ morale remains positive as players compete for spots in the lineup. The energy of the team comes from within, Riley said.
“It allows us as a staff to really hone in on pushing these guys, and coaching and critiquing and correcting,” Riley said. “And they’re taking it well.”
Attention to detail has always been important at USC, but Abasiri said this year there is an extra emphasis being placed on play-specific details. The staff has implemented drills that focus on a player’s specific movement or job during various plays.
Entering his third season with the Trojans, Abasiri said he felt like he needed to be a team leader. USC landed the No. 1 class in the nation for the first time since 2006. With so many new young players joining spring practice and a limited number of Trojans with three years of experience, Abasiri felt it was his job to lead.
“Just being an older guy, I feel like it’s important for me to … help them just come along,” Abasiri said.
So far, his advice has been to “just have fun with it.”
“I mean, obviously, stay on top of everything and all your stuff, but I feel like people get so stressed and so caught up in what they’re doing that they forget that this is supposed to be enjoyable,” Abasiri said.
The coaching staff, meanwhile, is balancing teaching schemes and the playbook.
“You have to be able to do both at this level,” Riley said. “The new guys that came in did have a pretty good foundation. A lot of them came from really good programs. A lot of them had a pretty good working football knowledge to where when we got started with them, it wasn’t like you felt like you were starting from literal square one.”
Return game is still unsettled
USC is still working to identify its top kickoff and punt return options.
“We haven’t done a lot of live returns yet,” Riley said. “We’re just trying to figure out who really fields the ball well, who understands it, who makes decisions and honestly, the returners, they’re showing us a lot of what they can do just in the offensive and defensive periods.”
The coaching staff has a pretty good idea who some of the best players in that position are, but at the moment, they just want to develop the skills, from a return standpoint.
At the dawn of the 2025 season, we published a column with the headline, “What’s the future for aging Angel Stadium? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”
With opening day 2026 upon us, we’d like to update that: “What’s the future for the Angels? It feels like an increasingly uncertain one.”
I don’t mean to be an alarmist. Nothing is happening today, or tomorrow, or in the very near future.
However, the Angels’ stadium lease expires in six years, so what might happen beyond then is starting to come into focus. Angels owner Arte Moreno turns 80 this summer. Moreno — or a new owner, if Moreno eventually sells the team — could simply exercise options to extend the lease for another six years.
But that would not resolve the larger issue of replacing or renovating Angel Stadium. In the coming months, the city expects to release an assessment of what it would take to keep the stadium up and running for years to come, and that could trigger a debate between the city and the Angels about who should pay for what.
The Angels are frustrated by all of this, and in particular by what they consider the curiously timed skirmishes over their 21-year-old Los Angeles name. They are annoyed that, for the second consecutive season, city issues have detracted from the hope and faith and joy that surrounds opening day. It is the city, after all, that walked away from two deals that would have secured the Angels’ long-term future in Anaheim.
During negotiations for the last deal, city officials made clear that keeping the Angels was the top priority, even if Anaheim could make more money selling the stadium property to a developer that would not need to retain the stadium.
Now, with six years left on the lease and no commitment beyond then, the mayor of Anaheim says it is time to prepare for a future with or without the Angels.
“We need to plan for what we see as a vision for that property when the lease has expired,” Mayor Ashleigh Aitken told me. “That’s going to take time. No matter how that deal goes, we’re not breaking ground on any project next year.
“But what we need to do, whether it includes the Angels — which I hope it does — or not, is come up with a vision that includes everything residents want to see happen on that land. And only then can we truly advocate for a project that makes sense for us.”
On the day of the home opener last season, Aitken issued an open letter inviting Moreno to meet with her for “an open and honest conversation about the future of baseball in Anaheim” and listing eight starting points for negotiations on a new deal, including the Angels’ restoration of the Anaheim name.
“They have not reached out to us about reopening negotiations for potential development around the property,” Aitken said.
Moreno previously explored other potential ballpark sites, including Tustin in 2014 and Long Beach in 2019.
In Tustin, the targeted land is no longer available. In Long Beach, the proposed waterfront lot remains vacant, but the challenge remains too: Over 81 games each season, how would tens of thousands of fans drive into and out of a ballpark primarily accessible by a single freeway?
For the Los Angeles Angels, perhaps the solution could be found in Los Angeles County.
The Dodgers could bar every other major league team from moving into L.A., but not the Angels. Under MLB rules, neither team could stop the other team from moving anywhere within Los Angeles County or Orange County.
The logical landing spot would be Inglewood, where the Rams, Chargers and Clippers have moved since 2020. Inglewood Mayor James Butts said Sofi Stadium and Intuit Dome have helped to revitalize the city, with unemployment down, home prices up, and municipal revenue up.
“Before, we were known for gangs and crimes and poverty,” Butts told me.
“Now, we are known as the sports and entertainment capital of the western United States.”
How about a baseball stadium in place of the Forum?
“The Forum parcel is absolutely not large enough for a baseball stadium,” Butts said.
Butts said he believes a baseball stadium there would require about 170 acres for the stadium and surrounding parking. Angel Stadium and its surrounding parking lots cover about 150 acres.
On the other hand, the Athletics are building a ballpark on a nine-acre site in Las Vegas, where nearby parking, entertainment and dining options already exist, with more on the way, and with the A’s not responsible for any of that. The same could be true for the Angels in Inglewood, with Rams owner Stan Kroenke and Clippers owner Steve Ballmer developing the land around the sports facilities.
However, Butts said he did not envision baseball coming to Inglewood, at least so long as he remains the mayor. Not enough room in town, he said.
“We’re maxed out when it comes to sports,” Butts said. “We are not going to reduce the housing stock and move residents out to have a baseball team.”
Anaheim has one, plus a 150-acre site perfect for a new stadium surrounded by restaurants and shops and homes. There will be days to be anxious and worried about the Angels’ future in the city they have called home for 60 years. Today is not one of them.
Take it from the mayor of Anaheim, who told me that even after telling me why she wants the city attorney to look into whether the Angels are violating their stadium lease.
“Opening day, to me, is nothing about clauses in a contract,” Aitken said. “It’s about family traditions. It’s about kicking off summer. And it’s about getting so many factions and neighborhoods of Anaheim together for a singular purpose, which is cheering on our hometown boys. That’s the beauty of baseball.”
And, as a lifelong Angels fan, she had one more thing to say.
“Right now,” Aitken said, “we’re tied for first place.”
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida Democrats, beaten down by years of Republican domination in what was once the consummate battleground state, claimed new optimism Wednesday after a special election victory in President Trump’s home district.
Emily Gregory will represent the district that includes Mar-a-Lago, the president’s resort in Palm Beach, as a state representative.
Democrats are also hopeful that Brian Nathan will win a state senate seat in the Tampa area; the Associated Press has not yet called that race but he currently has a narrow lead that is within the state’s automatic recount range.
Gregory’s victory is the latest flip of a Republican-held seat since Trump’s second presidency began, giving Democrats fresh confidence in a midterm election year with control of Congress and many statehouses — including Florida’s — up for grabs in November.
“The pendulum swings in both directions,” Florida Democratic chairwoman Nikki Fried told reporters. “Last night it swung hard in the state of Florida.”
She added, “If we can win in Donald Trump’s backyard, we can win anywhere.”
For Gregory, a 40-year-old political newcomer who owns a fitness company, it has been a stunning introduction to the national spotlight.
“I believed in myself the whole time,” Gregory said, describing her political “naiveté” about the district and its Republican leanings as an asset.
She told the AP she did not make her contest about the president specifically, but focused heavily on constituents’ concerns involving the economy and everyday costs — from fast-rising insurance in the hurricane-prone district to groceries and gas.
She described herself as a lifelong “proud Florida Democrat” but said she did not run to be a face of the party or lead the opposition movement to Trump. She said she will go to Tallahassee focused on proposals to limit insurance rate hikes, expand healthcare access and lift “huge, crushing burdens on the average Florida family.”
“I just see myself as very embedded in my community, very representative of District 87,” she said. “And I’m so humbled and proud to be their representative.”
Trump endorsed Gregory’s opponent, Jon Maples, and cast a mail ballot in the contest. The president reiterated his support for Maples on the eve of the election with a social media post saying the Republican candidate was backed “by so many of my Palm Beach County friends.”
As of midday on Wednesday, Trump had not mentioned the outcome of the race.
Fried praised Gregory and Nathan, a 45-year-old veteran and union worker, as quality candidates who could capitalize on the broader political environment.
“The type of person and connection on the issues matters,” Fried said.
Gregory flipped a seat that her Republican predecessor had won by 19 percentage points. Fried said Trump carried the district by 11 points in 2024.
Republicans still dominate the Florida Legislature, and they have been considered heavy favorites to hold the governor’s office in November, four years after Gov. Ron DeSantis won a blowout reelection campaign.
But Fried insisted the trends suggest a competitive landscape. She noted that Tuesday’s victories followed two congressional special elections in 2025 when Florida Democrats lost but dramatically narrowed the usual margins in heavily Republican districts.
“You’ve seen tremendous overspending by Republicans,” Fried said of the current cycle. “It’s not working.”
A spokesman for Republican U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds, whom Trump has endorsed for Florida governor, took at least some notice of the latest results.
“We constantly assess how we execute our strategy — that’s just good campaigns,” said Ryan Smith, Donalds’ chief campaign strategist. “What won’t change is our mission: President Trump endorsed Byron Donalds to deliver real results and defend the Florida Dream, and that’s what voters can expect to see from us.”
Gregory, meanwhile, said she’s ready to get to work for her constituents — even the most famous one who did not vote for her.
“I should have a constituent service office available soon, and I would love to have a conversation,” she said when asked what her message to the president would be. “He’s welcome to call me, as I am his new state representative.”
Barrow and Schneider write for the Associated Press. Barrow reported from Atlanta.
GRAPEVINE, Texas — Conservatives are holding one of their largest annual gatherings at a perilous political moment for President Trump and with open division on the right over the war he launched in Iran.
While Trump maintains broad support among conservatives, the war in Iran is more than a wrinkle for activists drawn to his “America First” campaign pledge against getting involved in foreign conflicts. A new AP-NORC poll shows about 59% of Americans think the military action in Iran is excessive. The debate will be a subtext — and likely flare publicly — as thousands of activists, influencers and Republican lawmakers gather at the Conservative Political Action Conference that begins Wednesday outside Dallas.
The event also comes a day after a Democrat flipped the Florida state legislative seat that’s home to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate.
The gathering will be a contrast to the celebratory meeting one year ago when Trump, newly returned to office, vowed to “forge a new and lasting political majority” and Elon Musk wielded a chain saw to symbolize how the Republican administration was slashing the government workforce and red tape.
This year, neither Trump nor Vice President JD Vance has been publicly announced as speaking to the gathering. But among those who are slated to speak are big names in the MAGA movement who have voiced conflicting views on the Iran war.
“This is obviously going to be a hot topic,” said John Gizzi, a CPAC veteran and columnist for the conservative media outlet Newsmax, who noted the possibility of greater U.S. involvement over an uncertain length of time.
Some featured speakers are divided over Iran and Israel
Among the featured speakers scheduled at the four-day event is longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon. Bannon said during his “War Room” podcast this month that should the war become “a hard slog,” it could cost the GOP conservative voters ahead of the midterms.
“We are going to bleed support,” Bannon said.
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who supports the war, also is on the agenda at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center.
“I think President Trump was exactly right to act to protect Americans,” Cruz said last week in a CBS News interview.
Former Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz’s scheduled speaking slot is a reminder of the disagreement among some conservatives about the U.S. military alliance with Israel against Iran.
Gaetz, host of a show on the conservative One America News Network, has said the U.S. has been too cozy with Israel as popular conservative personalities such as Tucker Carlson have challenged conservatives’ longtime bond with the country, prompting criticism from GOP groups, including pro-Israel Republicans, of antisemitism.
Others scheduled to speak include Trump border czar Tom Homan and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley, who is running for the U.S. Senate in North Carolina.
Trump’s standing is strong among his base
A year after Trump presided over the group’s jubilant conference upon his return to office, he is in a much different place.
At war while worries about jobs and household costs linger, his approval is down. His signature domestic policy, aimed at tightening voting rules ahead of November’s midterm elections, has stalled in a Congress his party controls, while the House Republican majority is in jeopardy and the party’s hold on the Senate is less certain than a year ago.
Despite the dividing lines, Trump enjoys enduring approval from his party’s right flank. Eighty-six percent of conservatives said they approved of the president’s job performance in a February AP-NORC poll.
And while Trump’s supporters remain devoted, some within the most conservative circles say division over Iran could signal trouble for Republicans in November.
Texas Rep. Steve Toth, who plans to attend CPAC, suggested that Trump’s support remains robust among conservatives but that Republican messaging on the war could be stronger.
“From MAGA people, for the most part, I don’t hear frustration with the president,” said Toth, who beat incumbent Republican Rep. Dan Crenshaw in Texas’ March 3 primary. “I don’t know that we’re doing a great job at communicating the full ramifications.”
Texas’ GOP Senate primary is a lingering issue
Another stark reminder of the contrast with last year is Texas’ unresolved Senate primary, a particular political headache for Trump.
Texas Attorney Gen. Ken Paxton, who is challenging four-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn, not only is attending the event but also has one of the event’s premier speaking roles, the Ronald Reagan Dinner on Friday evening. Cornyn is not attending the Texas conference.
Trump said three weeks ago he would soon endorse one of them after Paxton finished narrowly behind Cornyn in the March 3 primary, though neither received a majority to avoid a May 26 runoff.
Trump implored whoever didn’t get the endorsement to drop out, writing in a social media post that the bitter contest “cannot, for the good of the Party, and our Country, itself, be allowed to go on any longer.”
The deadline for candidates to remove their names from the May 26 runoff ballot passed last week, as Paxton and Cornyn were launching stepped-up attack ads targeting one another.
Beaumont and Catalini write for the Associated Press. Catalini reported from Morrisville, Pa. AP writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
Weekly insights and analysis on the latest developments in military technology, strategy, and foreign policy.
The U.S. Army says it hopes to see production of a finalized version of the next-generation M1E3 Abrams tank begin next year. The exact timeline will depend on the performance of early prototype tanks in testing by operational units, which is slated to kick off later this year.
Brent Ingraham, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology, discussed current plans for the M1E3 program with TWZ and other outlets at a media roundtable on the sidelines of the Association of the United States Army’s (AUSA) annual Global Force Symposium yesterday. The Army officially unveiled the first early prototype M1E3 at the Detroit Auto Show in January, which was delivered years ahead of the program’s original schedule.
“That will again be this summer, early fall,” Ingraham said when asked about the schedule for M1E3 early prototypes arriving at so-called Transformation In Contact (TIC) units. These are operational formations that have been given a test role as part of the Army’s larger TIC effort, which is intended to help accelerate the fielding of new and improved capabilities, as well as tactics, techniques, and procedures to go with them.
The M1E3 early prototype on display at the 2026 Detroit Auto Show. US Army
Beyond that, the central goal for the M1E3 program is “to get to production as fast as possible,” Ingraham continued.
The Army’s top acquisition official added that “it’s going to depend on how well they [the early prototypes] perform,” but that “hopefully” production of the new tanks will then start “in the next 12 months or so.”
It also remains to be seen how the M1E3’s configuration may evolve between now and production start. Whether the next-generation tanks will be entirely new production vehicles is also not entirely clear. The early prototype shown at the Detroit Auto Show featured a substantially reworked hull and now uncrewed turret, but that was clearly still derived from the configuration of the latest M1A2 System Enhancement Package Version 3 (SEPv3) Abram variant. Prime contractor General Dynamics Land Systems had previously rolled out an AbramsX next-generation demonstrator with a much more significantly evolved design.
A stock picture of US Army M1A2 SEPv3 Abrams tanks. US Army
AbramsX Technology Demonstrator on the Move
That being said, the M1E3 early prototype does differ in a host of other very important ways from the M1A2 SEPv3. At the top of that list is a new hybrid propulsion in place of the fuel-hungry gas turbine found on previous Abrams models. The new propulsion configuration includes a modified Caterpillar C13D six-cylinder diesel engine and an ACT1075LP transmission from SAPA. Army officials have previously said the M1E3 will be between 40 and 50 percent more fuel efficient compared to previous versions.
It’s now known that the M1E3 prototypes has selected a modified Caterpillar C13D Inline-6 cylinder engine, rated at 1100hp. The engine is paired with SAPA’s ACT1075LP transmission, which incorporates a 250hp electric motor to provide additional emergency drive for auxiliary use. pic.twitter.com/a7k8oxA8Em
The M1E3 also has new lightweight tracks from American Rheinmetall and a hydropneumatic suspension system understood to have come from Horstman Group. In a post on X in January, the latter firm noted that switching “to external hydropneumatic suspension” helps “free up crew space by removing torsion bars,” but did not explicitly confirm its involvement in the program. A suspension system of this kind, which has been tested on Abrams in the past, also allows for the hull of the tank to be raised and lowered in ways that can help improve survivability and offer other operational benefits.
The M1E3 tank employs an external hydropneumatic suspension system developed by Horstman, a company headquartered in Bath, United Kingdom. A defining feature of this suspension is that it eliminates the need for torsion bars.
The M1E3’s crew configuration differs significantly from existing variants, as well. The next-generation tank’s turret is intended to be entirely remotely operated, with the truncated three-person crew (instead of the traditional four) moved down into the front of the hull. The loader role is eliminated, and an autolaoder is set to be utilized instead. Historically, the U.S. military, as well as many Western armed forces, have eschewed autoloaders in their tanks. Soviet and now Russian tank designs, along with Chinese ones, have more typically had this feature. In terms of the M1E3’s main gun, the Army otherwise looks to be sticking with the same 120mm smooth-bore type used on Abrams variants now.
Interestingly, what has been seen so far of the expected crew compartment for the M1E3 is also similar in many broad respects to the design of Russia’s T-14 Armata. Despite having made its public debut in 2015, the T-14 has, at best, seen very limited operational service. In addition, the M1E3’s driver will operate the tank via a controller that looks like one that might come with a video game console, which the Army has said is a deliberate choice.
M1E3 used Fanatec Gaming Controller. Colonel Ryan Howell, Program Lead for the M1E3, said:“It now takes just 30 seconds to train a young soldier to drive that tank—something that used to take us days, even weeks……I’ll share a quote from one of the soldiers who helped us early… https://t.co/6y3VGXmVzUpic.twitter.com/fWNGyZ8AtO
“It now takes just 30 seconds to train a young soldier to drive that tank – something that used to take us days, even weeks,” Col. Ryan Howell, the program manager for the M1E3, told Fox News back in January in Detroit. “I’ll share a quote from one of the soldiers who helped us early in the process. When we first sat him down at the crew station, he was already in the process of transitioning out of the Army, but he was assisting us by informing key design decisions. He told us, ‘If I had known I could work on a platform like this, I would have stayed in the Army.’”
These various design elements are key to the Army meeting its goals for the overall weight of the M1E3. The service has previously said that it hopes the next-generation tank will tip the scales at around 60 tons. Weight creep has been a major issue for the Abrams since it first entered service in the 1980s, with the latest M1A2 SEPv3 variant coming in at 78 tons.
“This next-generation Abrams is designed to transform how armored units operate globally,” Michelle Link, the Army’s Deputy Capability Program Executive for Ground Combat Platforms, had said in a press release in January. “By streamlining its sustainment needs and increasing deployment speed, the M1E3 Abrams ensures faster movement from ports to the front lines, making it more agile and accessible in any environment.”
In terms of other capabilties, the M1E3 early prototype presented in Detroit had a Leonardo DRS Stabilized Sight System (S3), which features a mix of electro-optical and infrared cameras, and a remote weapon station (RWS) from EOS on top of the turret. The RWS was armed with a 40mm automatic grenade launcher, a 7.62x51mm machine gun, and a Javelin anti-tank guided missile. The M1E3’s complete armament package could still expand, including with the addition of launchers for loitering munitions.
A close-up look at the EOS remote weapon station, along with Leonardo DRS S3 seen to the right, on top of the M1E3 early prototype in Detroit in January. US Army
The Army currently says the M1E3 will be fitted with a version of the Israeli-design Iron Fist active protection system (APS). The service is already fielding that APS, which it has now designated as the XM251, on the M2A4E1 variant of the Bradley infantry Fighting Vehicle. It is also expected to be integrated onto 8×8 Stryker wheeled light armored vehicles and the future replacement for the Bradley family, tentatively designated the XM30. Iron Fist’s prime contractor, Elbit Systems, notably just recently disclosed that the system has at least some capability to defeat incoming kamikaze drones, as well as anti-tank guided missiles and other infantry anti-armor. The Army is also now pursuing add-on passive anti-drone armor for existing Abrams tanks and other armored vehicles, which could make its way onto the M1E3.
An official US Army overview of what it has now designated the XM251 Active Protection System, a version of the Israeli-designed Iron Fist. US Army
Iron Fist APS | Active Protection System for Armored Vehicles
In Detroit, other cameras were seen positioned at various points around the M1E3’s hull and turret, providing the crew with what looks to be a distributed vision system. This would allow the crew to ‘see’ through the hull of the tank while sitting nestled under its armor with all the hatches sealed. The camera feeds could be integrated into a helmet-mounted system and paired with augmented reality to create an overlay with various important data.
The next-generation tank is also expected to feature a variety of other advanced systems, including new targeting capabilities and other onboard sensors, as well as a networked communications suite.
The Army clearly expects the M1E3’s design to further evolve, at least to some degree, based on Soldier feedback and other data collected during testing that will start later this year. Time will tell how different the final configuration is from the early prototype the service unveiled in January.
If the core design performs well and the program otherwise keeps to its aggressive schedule, production of the Army next main battle tank could well start next year.
A woman in Indiana who put off dental surgery because she doesn’t know if she can afford the copay. A Florida couple with young children who are depleting their savings. A grandmother in Idaho who plans to sell her car to pay the rent.
They are among about 50,000 Transportation Security Administration officers expecting to receive another $0 paycheck this week. A dispute in Congress over funding the Department of Homeland Security has held up their salaries since mid-February. With monthly bills coming due, many of these federal employees, who screen passengers and luggage at airports across the U.S., are making difficult choices about how to make ends meet.
High absentee rates at some major airports have produced long lines and frustrated passengers at understaffed security checkpoints. Union leaders and federal officials say empty gas tanks, child care expenses and the threat of eviction keep more screeners from showing up the longer the shutdown continues. At last count, more than 455 had quit instead of weathering the ongoing uncertainty, according to DHS.
“Stop asking me about the long lines. Ask me if somebody’s gonna eat today,” Hydrick Thomas, president of the national American Federation of Government Employees union council that represents TSA employees, told reporters Tuesday.
Indiana TSA agent turns to food pantry for groceries
Before starting her shift at Indianapolis International Airport on Monday, Taylor Desert stopped at a food bank for meat, eggs, vegetables and dairy products.
“I never thought I would be in a position where, working for the federal government, I would need to go to a food bank to supplement my groceries,” she said as she loaded bags into her car.
Desert, who has been a TSA officer for seven years, said her last full paycheck came on Feb. 14, the day the shutdown started.
She had some savings to draw on despite a record 43-day shutdown last fall but put some personal plans on pause.
For example, Desert needs to get her wisdom teeth removed but says the TSA isn’t approving time off during the shutdown. She also worries about costs from the surgery not covered by insurance.
Wednesday was the 39th day of the DHS funding lapse. If it goes another 21 days, Desert said she would seek another job.
“I don’t want to have to spend my entire savings just to afford to keep living,” she said.
Florida TSA couple worry about their young children
Oksana Kelly, 38, and her husband, Deron, 37, both work as TSA agents at Orlando International Airport. They have two young children and don’t know how they will keep supporting their family without any income coming in.
Kelly said they’re dipping into savings for now, but it’s running dry. If the shutdown persists, they will ask relatives for help or take out a loan, which she worries would put them deeper in debt.
Her husband has worked as a DoorDash delivery driver in his spare time since the shutdown in October and November. He’s considered resigning from the TSA to put the couple on more stable financial footing.
“It’s very mentally exhausting,” said Kelly, who is an organizer for the labor union representing TSA workers across central and northern Florida. “How do we even decide between being able to feed our kids or come to work?”
Kelly said strangers might criticize the couple for “putting all eggs in one basket” since both choose to work for the TSA for the past decade.
“All we want is to pay our bills and get the pay we deserve,” she said.
A veteran officer in Idaho fears homelessness
Rebecca Wolf cries every day. She tries to hide it from her grandchildren, ages 11 and 6.
“They don’t understand why grandma’s crying,” Wolf said. “I try not to cry in front of them, but sometimes it’s just too much.”
The 53-year-old TSA officer and union leader in Boise, Idaho, joined the agency soon after its creation in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. She was homeless at the time but turned her situation around with steady work and the benefits of federal employment.
Now, Wolf can’t help but dwell on where she was 24 years ago. “I don’t want to be in that position again,” she said.
Her Feb. 28 paycheck amounted to $13.53, sending her “into a spiral right away.”
With no savings to fall back on, she is preparing to sell her car to cover her rent due in a week. She calls nonprofits daily seeking rental assistance, but hasn’t had any luck.
Supporting six family members — four children and two grandchildren — has always been challenging, but the repeated shutdowns have made it nearly unsustainable.
Wolf, who serves as president of AFGE TSA Local 1127, is hesitant to walk away from both the job that turned her life around and her role advocating for fellow officers.
“I worked hard to get to where I am now, and the thought I might lose it all scares me,” she said, her voice breaking as she tried to stifle the sound of weeping.
Massachusetts agent digs into savings to get by
Mike Gayzagian, a TSA officer at Boston’s Logan International Airport, says long stretches without pay have become enough of a “new normal” that he’s prepared for them.
The 56-year-old says he has a financial cushion of about six months to tap but that his situation is “an exception to the rule.”
“The majority live paycheck to paycheck and don’t have those kinds of reserves available,” said Gayzagian, who is president of his local TSA union chapter.
It shouldn’t be this way for federal workers, he said.
“The financial situation adds an additional burden to what is already a stressful job,” Gayzagian said. “I didn’t go into public service to make a lot of money. I went into public service because it has a certain stability and reliability and predictability that other jobs don’t have.”
A father in Utah leaves TSA
Robert Echeverria quit his job as a TSA agent at Utah’s Salt Lake City International Airport about two weeks into the current shutdown.
The 45-year-old, who has a wife and three children, counted five government shutdowns in the nine years he worked for the agency. The toughest was last year’s record shutdown that ended in mid-November around the start of the holiday season.
Echeverria said his family skipped Christmas and took months to recover financially. He began looking for a new job in February when it became clear Congress was headed for another budget battle.
“Emotionally I was already distraught,” Echeverria said last week. “We were barely recovering from the last shutdown.”
He now works for the department that manages the airports in Utah’s capital. Leaving federal service “was a hard decision for me,” Echeverria said.
“I really believed in the mission of the TSA,” he said. “We took an oath, and it was a way for me to give back to the country that gave me so much.”
He’s still based at Salt Lake City International, where his 20-year-old daughter works as a TSA agent, and says that seeing his former colleagues struggling is difficult.
“They all feel betrayed by their government because they’re showing up to work,” Echeverria said. “They’re there, but they feel that the government doesn’t care for them,” he said.
Marcelo, Lamy and Yamat write for the Associated Press. Marcelo reported from New York, Lamy reported from Indianapolis and Yamat reported from Las Vegas.
Dodgers fans generally hiss at the mention of Frank McCourt — the former owner took the team into bankruptcy, after all — but today is about tipping our cap to him.
Without him, fans would have no option to take public transit directly to Dodger Stadium. On his watch, the Dodgers helped secure government funding for the shuttle buses that provide free rides between Union Station and Dodger Stadium.
Sixteen years later, beyond the addition of a sister shuttle from the South Bay, that’s it.
The Dodgers boast the best team in the world. Shohei Ohtani is a tourist attraction. So is their historic ballpark. The Dodgers sold a record 4 million tickets last year.
In 1990, the last year Fernando Valenzuela pitched for the Dodgers, Los Angeles County unveiled a report that suggested ways to improve access to Dodger Stadium “for those who cannot or do not wish to drive.”
The options: a monorail, people mover, or light rail extension from the Chinatown Metro station; the shuttle buses that McCourt and Metro launched 20 years later; the gondola that McCourt first pitched in 2018 and continues to pursue; and a walking path.
A passenger exits the Chinatown Metro station in January.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
L.A. is all about the car. You will most likely drive to Dodger Stadium, and so will your children.
For decades, the Dodgers have promised to ease traffic by adding amenities that encourage fans to come early and stick around after the game. That has not materialized, and notorious congestion within and around the stadium is as much a tradition as Dodger Dogs.
What if you could walk, for real? What if you could head into the stadium along a beautifully landscaped and wide Dodgers-themed path, a blue ribbon of fans coalescing into a community, with decorations and food carts, shade and lighting, and chants of “Let’s Go Dodgers!” along the way?
You can walk now, sort of. It’s about a mile.
There’s a map at the Chinatown Metro station displaying the pedestrian path toward Dodger Stadium.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
At one end of the Chinatown station, there is a map with a pedestrian route, in a glass case that faces away from Dodger Stadium. If you walk out of the station at the other end, or if you just start heading in the direction of Dodger Stadium, good luck finding the map.
There are Metro signs leading you back to the station from Dodger Stadium, but none leading you along the route there.
The Dodgers actually would prefer you did not take that route, or at least the last part of it. I walked it with Alissa Walker, whose Torched newsletter is the go-to place to learn how major sporting events impact the everyday lives of Angelenos.
We entered the Dodger Stadium property at an intersection with no crosswalks, where cars enter and exit the 110 freeway. We stood atop a dirt patch next to a crumbling curb.
“To go a very short distance safely with a feeling that you’re not going to die,” Walker said, “is very difficult.”
With Game 3 of the World Series underway at Dodger Stadium last October, a few folks scurried across a pedestrian bridge with LED lights and blue glow sticks.
The bridge connects Chinatown with Dodger Stadium, traversing the 110. Without this bridge, there is no walking path to Dodger Stadium.
“Our goal was, just by adding some lights, to make the really dark path at the top of the bridge at night a little bit brighter, so that it felt a little less scary,” transit advocate Jeremy Stutes said, “and to add a little bit of fun and whimsy.”
Glow sticks forming the “LA” logo of the Dodgers were placed on a pedestrian bridge over the 110 Freeway connecting Chinatown to the area where Dodger Stadium is located during the World Series and for several months after. As of last week, the glow sticks were no longer there.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
From the Chinatown Metro station, the bridge is three blocks up College Street and one block down Yale Street. It’s an easy walk, and for now you pass an elementary school, a church, a row of Chinese restaurants, a dirt lot where a hospital once stood, parking lots, and an auto repair facility with a Dodgers flag hung on a wall.
When I did the walk last week, the trash at the foot of the bridge included a plastic cup, socks, a piece of rotting fruit, a half-full bottle of tequila, and half of a turkey sandwich, peeking out from torn plastic wrapping that indicated the sandwich had gone bad three days earlier. On the bridge: shopping bags, a pair of flip-flops, stray clothes scattered at one end, and graffiti everywhere.
A sign painted on the sidewalk indicates the direction toward the Chinatown Metro station.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
That was the point those volunteers made last October: Clean up the bridge and light up the bridge — as they did for three days — and fans will walk there.
“It’s not that it’s not used,” Stutes said. “It’s not designed to be a safe space to use as an alternative to driving.”
When you cross the bridge, you can turn right or left along Stadium Way to get to a stadium entrance.
Turn right, as the map tells you to do, and you’ll encounter decaying sidewalks, with cracked and buckled concrete that turns a modest uphill walk into an obstacle course. Once you get onto the stadium grounds, the paint is fading along the pedestrian path, which offers you no protection from passing cars.
Turn left, and you’ll have to walk part of the way in the street, on an unprotected bike lane. You also could walk along the road behind the Fire Department training center, a path with no sidewalks and passing fire trucks. Either route takes longer than the one on the map, but you would enter Dodger Stadium through a pair of protected and brightly painted pedestrian paths. (That entrance, along Vin Scully Avenue, is a quarter-mile from Sunset Boulevard, where two Metro bus routes stop.)
If the primary choices for getting out of Dodger Stadium after a game are car congestion or Dodger Stadium Express shuttle bus congestion, a downhill walk to Chinatown Metro station — 12 minutes, Metro says — would be a nice option. That’s why those folks lit up the bridge over the freeway during the World Series.
“The lights were just a fun way,” transit advocate Kevin Dedicatoria said, “to show, ‘Hey, here’s a bridge so you don’t have to play, ‘Dude, where’s my car?’ or have to worry about waiting for the bus.’”
McCourt hails from Boston, where the local subway drops Red Sox fans a few short blocks from Fenway Park. When McCourt owned the Dodgers, I asked him if he could envision a subway or light rail extension to Dodger Stadium.
He’d love it, he said then, but the Dodgers were a private business, and government should pay for public transit.
Homes line a street in Eylsian Park, where Dodger Stadium is located.
(ETIENNE LAURENT/For The Times)
It was a fair point. The Dodgers pay taxes. In an era where teams regularly demand stadium and arena deals that exempt them from property tax, the Dodgers have paid $12.8 million in property taxes over the past three years, according to Los Angeles County tax collection records.
Would demand for public transit amid a car culture justify the investment? The Dodger Stadium Express indicates it could: Ridership has just about quadrupled since its inaugural season, from 122,273 in 2010 to 463,147 last year, according to Metro.
Even along the poorly maintained, poorly lit and poorly advertised pedestrian path, Metro said more than 700 riders returned to the Chinatown station on each of the three nights of World Series home games last year.
“As seen in social media videos during the 2025 postseason, the walking path continues to explode in popularity,” Metro spokesman Jose Ubaldo said.
Next steps?
“It’s astonishing to me that the Dodgers have not taken it upon themselves, as this great community partner, to fix this problem,” Walker said. “It is the city’s responsibility, but the Dodgers should be doing this, as part of what they want to represent to this community.”
The walking path includes segments along city streets, a Caltrans bridge, and Dodger Stadium property. Just who is the responsible party?
A Caltrans spokesman said the city is responsible for maintaining the bridge. A spokesman for the city’s department of street services did not provide an answer. A spokesman for the Dodgers declined to comment.
You could almost hear the sigh from city councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium.
“That’s what my job is: to bring people and agencies and organizations together to accomplish a goal,” Hernandez said. “We’re already in conversation with all these entities.
“We’re looking at some of the things we can enhance to make this a more walkable and accessible option for people.”
City Council member Eunisses Hernandez, center, talks with Circle outreach workers in Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
How much might those enhancements cost?
Without a look at a city-commissioned Dodger Stadium traffic mitigation study, expected to be completed this fall, Hernandez said she could not put a price tag on it.
“What I can tell you,” she said, “is that it will be less than half a billion dollars, for sure.”
By year’s end, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on McCourt’s gondola project, estimated to cost $500 million and proposed as privately financed. Last November, the council voted 12-1 to urge Metro to kill the project.
Metro granted its approval, but with conditions that included a requirement to explore supplementing the gondola with other Dodger Stadium transit options, including more buses along Sunset Boulevard and a designated walkway from there to the stadium.
The walking path proposed in that 1990 study would have avoided Sunset Boulevard and the current Stadium Way routes — the ones with crumbling sidewalks, or no sidewalks at all — by using escalators and walkways to get fans up and down the hill between Lookout Drive, just off Stadium Way, and Dodger Stadium.
“Pedestrians could be directed through Chinatown,” the study read, “where numerous restaurants, shops and pedestrian amenities are provided.”
It’s hard to sell Chinatown businesses on the benefits of the gondola when fans would ride between Union Station and Dodger Stadium, soaring over Chinatown. It would be easier if a walking path led at least some of those fans through Chinatown, even if only on the way back from the game.
Even if the gondola system really can accomplish what its proponents say it can — loading 35 people into a cabin every 23 seconds — thousands of riders leaving when the game ends could mean a long line to board.
One of the entrances to Dodger Stadium on Stadium Way, the easiest access when walking from Chinatown Metro station.
(Etienne Laurent/For The Times)
“Also,” the 1990 study said, “passenger waiting following a game is psychologically perceived as being three to four times longer than actual waiting time.”
From this perspective, McCourt might win a few council votes by funding a first-class walking path. The cost, I’m told, would depend on what the enhancements include: signs, lights, trees, shade canopies, sidewalk repairs, escalators, and so on. For something close to $5 million — one one-hundredth of the projected cost of gondola construction — McCourt likely could do an exceptional job.
Is there any sign of progress here? Happily, yes.
In an internal report last December, Metro said Zero Emissions Transit (ZET) — the nonprofit organization now shepherding the gondola project — is pursuing ways to link pedestrians and bicyclists to the transit system and to Dodger Stadium. Those potential improvements include sidewalk repairs and a revitalized pedestrian pathway from the Chinatown Metro station to the bridge across the 110 and then across Stadium Way, to Lookout Drive and the hill above.
“Dodger Walk is envisioned as a series of switchbacks,” the report said, “inspired by the original walking path up Lookout Mountain that existed prior to the construction of Dodger Stadium.”
Whether such switchbacks would make the walk to the stadium longer or shorter than the current path remains to be determined.
In a statement, ZET said: “We embrace and include active transit solutions to increase pedestrian and bike access throughout the project area.” In particular, ZET said, it was “supportive” of a walking path to Dodger Stadium.
The Metro report cautioned the concepts “are in the early planning stage,” so L.A. might get an extravagant walking path, a utilitarian one, or none at all.
Here’s hoping McCourt gives us a path of some kind — whether the city approves the gondola or not — because a pretty walk generations can enjoy would be a prettier civic legacy than driving a team into bankruptcy.
Governing, the political sages tell us, is all about making choices, particularly when leadership faces finite resources and the choices are between war and peace; this is the “guns or butter” balancing raised by Lyndon Johnson’s pursuit of the Vietnam War and, appropriately, by President Trump’s Iran war.
Thus far, according to budget experts and the Trump administration itself, the war has cost Americans about $25 billion, with the White House reportedly preparing to seek $200 billion more in military funding. That points to the obvious question of what the U.S. could buy if it stopped spending on the Iran adventure.
Here’s the short answer: Medicaid coverage, free school lunches, and housing, child care and community college assistance for tens of millions of Americans. Those estimates come from Bobby Kogan, senior director for federal budget policy at the liberal Center for American Progress.
$11.3 billion would have fully funded the training of 100,000 new nurses to solve our staffing crisis. Instead, it was spent in just six days on an illegal war with no endgame.
Democrats in Congress have offered their own juxtapositions: “$11.3 billion would have fully funded the training of 100,000 new nurses to solve our staffing crisis,” Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) observed on social media. “Instead, it was spent in just six days on an illegal war with no endgame.” (She wrote when that was the government’s estimate on spending in only the first week of the Iran war.)
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Details will follow. But first, a reminder that the “peace dividend” — that is, the surge of available resources for socially beneficial spending after the cessation of hostilities — has always been an elusive concept.
In part that’s because it invariably gets tied up in conflicts over precisely what peacetime programs political leaders wish to fund, and that often involves tougher decisions than whether to mount a bombing campaign against a perceived adversary.
“What happened to the peace dividend?” economist Augusto Lopez-Claros asked last year, referring to the supposed surfeit of funds that was to flow after the end of the Cold War. His answer was that there were always alternatives, many of them militaristic in nature, in the wings to suck up the funds that had been spent in the past.
The issue has especially acute significance today, not merely because of the Iran war. The Trump administration and Republicans in Congress have been campaigning to cut federal spending, almost entirely on social programs such as Medicaid and on Social Security and Medicare benefits, ostensibly because they contribute heavily to our “unaffordable” federal budget deficits.
Never mind that the largest single contributor to the deficit is the massive tax cut enacted by Republicans in 2017, during the first Trump term, which were made permanent by the GOP’s budget bill last year.
Placing military spending in the context of alternatives is typically shunned by Republicans and conservatives. The Wall Street Journal editorial board derided the exercise as “dorm room politics,” referring specifically to an estimate by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont) that the $200 billion reportedly sought by the White House “would pay for free college for every American,” and more.
That doesn’t mean the exercise isn’t worthwhile, however. Kogan acknowledges that it wouldn’t be up to the Pentagon to redirect its budget to the social programs that could be funded with its funding request, but his point in making the comparisons is “to get a sense of scale.”
So let’s dive in, starting with Kogan’s work. He matched the cost of several social services against the $25 billion estimated to be spent on the war through the end of this week and the $200-billion new request. He also broke down some of the spending by ordnance. The price of one Tomahawk missile, invoiced about $3.5 million each, could cover Medicaid for a year for 275 people, for example; the U.S. has fired an estimated 300 of them in the Iran war so far, for more than $1 billion.
Kogan calculated that more than 3.1 million people could be covered by Medicaid for $25 billion, and 24.8 million could be covered for $200 billion. He based this estimate on the Congressional Budget Office’s finding that the federal share of Medicaid came last year to $668 billion to cover about 82 million adult and child enrollees, or about $8,048 per person annually.
Then there’s free school lunches, which the government has pegged at up to $4.69 per day for about 30 million children receiving meals in school. If they all received free lunch, that would come to a little over $25 billion, based on a 180-day school year. (Only about two-thirds of those children receive free meals, with the rest receiving cut-price meals or paying full price.)
Child care isn’t typically a governmental responsibility (though it should be); Kogan uses an estimate from the nonprofit organization Child Care Aware that care cost Americans about $13,128 on average in 2024; inflating that to a 2026 figure yields an average of $14,048, meaning that 1.78 million households could be covered for about $25 billion, and about 14.2 million for $200 billion.
Tuition for a two-year path to an associate degree in community college, that portal to higher education for millions of Americans, will cost an average of $8,700 this year by Kogan’s reckoning, based on the College Board’s estimate of $8,300 for 2025. That means that about 2.87 million Americans could have their tuition fully covered for about $25 billion, and nearly 23 million students could be covered for $200 billion.
The progressive Century Foundation contributed estimates of how much in social program spending could be accommodated for $200 billion. Its roster includes the cancellation of all medical debt for the 100 million Americans shouldering about $194 billion in medical debt. The enhanced Affordable Care Act premium subsidies that expired this year could be continued for almost six years for about $200 billion, extrapolating from the 10-year, $350-billion estimate produced by the CBO. “Ensuring health coverage for all Americans,” the foundation noted, “could save an estimated 68,000 lives per year.”
The foundation also notes that $200 billion could ameliorate the draconian cuts in Medicaid imposed by the preposterously named One Big Beautiful Bill that the GOP enacted as a budget measure in July. The work requirement in that bill is estimated to reduce Medicaid spending by $326 billion over 10 years, according to the CBO, mostly by throwing enrollees out of the program. The work rules, which as I’ve reported do nothing to enhance employment, could be deferred for six years, preventing the loss of coverage for about 5.2 million Americans.
Mother Jones reported soberly that $200 billion would cover the wages of 2.8 million public school teachers, based on an average salary of $72,030, as reported by the National Education Assn.
The publication took a rather more fanciful approach for some calculations. It reported that $200 billion would pay for 2,666 sequels to the “Melania” documentary, based on the $75-million reported cost of its production and marketing by Amazon, its sponsor. And 500 more White House ballrooms, based on the latest projection of $400 million for just one.
Obviously all these calculations are somewhat chimerical. No one really believes that if Congress rejects the $200-billion ask, that money would be redeployed for any of these social programs, at least while the GOP remains in control of the government purse strings. The basic arithmetic itself is subject to cavils resulting from the murkiness of some of the cost calculations and projections.
But they’re not far wide off the mark in terms of orders of magnitude. Millions of dollars in social spending could be covered by billions of dollars in military spending, and much more productive investments could be made in the years and decades to come.
The lost “peace dividend” encompasses not just domestic needs, but also “the potentially catastrophic risks that we are taking on in the future because we are misallocating resources now,” Lopez-Claros observed — “spending massively on defense while leaving unattended climate change mitigation, pandemic preparedness, the shamefully high levels of malnourishment in the world, among others. We may well come to regret this and by then, unfortunately, it might be too late.”
Even before the first bombs fell on Iran, after all, the U.S. was shortchanging all those imperatives. “Just last July, Trump signed into law the biggest cuts to the social safety net in all U.S. history,” Kogan says, including “the biggest cuts to Medicaid ever, and the biggest cuts to SNAP, ever.” (The GOP budget bill cut SNAP, the food stamp program, by $186 billion, leaving “nearly 3 million young adults ages 18 to 24 who receive SNAP vulnerable to losing that assistance,” the Urban Institute estimated after the bill was signed.
At their heart, these calculations are not really about dollars and cents. The financial figures just help us keep score of the choices that define us as a nation.
Shohei Ohtani’s three straight strikeouts in the fourth inning of his final spring start Tuesday featured a different putaway pitch for each.
He got Angels slugger Jorge Soler to whiff on a sweeper. Jeimer Candelario went down on a curveball. And Jo Adell struck out on a fastball.
“Just shows the confidence he has and different ways he had to attack guys, to get ahead and also put guys away,” manager Dave Roberts said after the Dodgers’ 3-0 loss to the Angels in the Freeway Series finale. “And today the feel was really good, even better than the first outing.”
Pretty much everything was clicking for Ohtani heading into the regular season, even though it was only his second spring training start on the mound. Ohtani recorded 11 strikeouts in four-plus innings. He held the Angels to four hits, three of which were consecutive singles in the fifth, and was charged with three runs, all scored in the fifth.
For the first time in three years, Ohtani is set to begin the season as a fully healthy pitcher. And it will be the Dodgers’ first time managing his two-way schedule all year. Limited the last two seasons by his recovery and build-up from elbow surgery, Ohtani last made 20-plus starts in 2023 with the Angels.
“The desire is high,” Roberts said when asked about Ohtani’s aim to pitch wall to wall. “I think it’s realistic. Then the bigger question is, how are we going to manage that and navigate it?”
Thinking through the plan going into the season, Roberts floated the idea of giving Ohtani a little extra rest between starts. Dodgers starters are already on a six- to seven-day rotation. But a six-man starting pitching group gives the team flexibility as they map out their pitching plan.
“My intent is to be in the rotation under normal rest, normal circumstances,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton last week in Arizona. “Now if management thinks that I need extra rest, I’ll take it. But I’ll let management handle that. Just looking at our roster, we have a lot of pitchers. It doesn’t hurt to rest more.”
Ohtani’s in-game limits, after a build-up slowed by his participation in the World Baseball Classic as a position player, will be adjusted before each start. But his Freeway Series outing Tuesday set him up well. He stretched out to 86 pitches.
“When you’re talking about the first game of the season, could he get through six innings? Could he touch the seventh? Yes,” Roberts said Tuesday afternoon. “But he won’t touch the eighth inning. So there’s got to be some responsibility as far as how we manage him.”
When it comes to awards, Ohtani is going after a third World Series title. But his trophy case is well stocked with individual accolades too. He’s won four MVPs, five All-Star selections, four Silver Sluggers and a Rookie of the Year award.
The Cy Young, however, has remained elusive. He came close in 2022, when a 2.33 ERA and league-leading 11.9 strikeouts per nine innings earned him a fourth-place finish in the American League. It was the only time in his career that he crossed the 25-start threshold, with 28.
“I would never want to sacrifice our chance of winning and performing in the postseason,” Ohtani said. “So I think that’s really the No. 1 goal in my mind. Just because I want to try to win the Cy Young and throw more innings, that’s not necessarily the priority over winning a championship. So with that being said, if there’s a situation where there’s some injuries and I do have to pitch on shorter rest, I’m happy to do so.”
Would showing that he can make regular starts all year automatically put him in the Cy Young conversation?
“Oh yeah,” Roberts said. “Because of just talent, ability, will. If he does that, he’ll be in the conversation, absolutely. I have no doubt about that.”
Of course, besides reigning NL Cy Young winner Paul Skenes, Ohtani would also be competing for the award with his own teammate, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who enters the season with the edge.
If Ohtani continues to pitch like he did on Tuesday, while building up the rest of the way, he and the Dodgers will be in good shape.
“It was another good one for him,” Roberts said, “and he’ll be ready to go.”
