year

CLEVELAND  — He hears it in nearly every arena the Lakers enter.

“We want Bronny. We want Bronny.”

But on Monday night in Cleveland’s Rocket Arena, where the familiar chant reached arena-filling decibels, it felt different. It felt like home.

Bronny James provided some of the few Lakers highlights in the team’s worst loss of the year — a 129-99 drubbing by the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday — to turn an emotional homecoming for his father into a happy return for the 21-year-old. James scored eight points with two rebounds, an assist and a steal. He knocked down two three pointers and slammed a one-handed transition dunk to elicit a roar from the crowd that welcomed back a son they watched grow up.

Laker Bronny James #9 of the Los Angeles Lakers shakes hands with the Cavliers’ Larry Nance Jr. Wednesday.

(Jason Miller / Getty Images)

“I was just excited to go out there and play,” James said. “I’m always ready to go out and play, whether that’s when the entire arena is saying ‘We want Bronny‘ or no one is. I was just really, really grateful that they put me in at that time and I was able to go out and get a few buckets.”

With the Lakers trailing by 20 by the third quarter, the chants for James started early. “We want Bronny” chants occur at nearly every Lakers game, almost turning the young guard’s playing time into a sideshow instead of much-needed opportunities for a developing player trying to find his footing in the NBA.

James hadn’t played in a game since Jan. 18 and hadn’t scored since Jan. 12. But he got on the scoreboard in thrilling fashion Wednesday night, tipping away a crosscourt pass and taking the ball in transition for a dunk that left even his dad nodding approval from the bench.

“He handles all of it so well,” said guard Gabe Vincent, who called Bronny “a light” in the Lakers’ otherwise forgettable blowout. “It’s incredible. His maturity through it all is incredible. … It’s great to see him have a moment like that.”

The former USC guard who also scored his first NBA points in Cleveland as a rookie last year has bounced between the Lakers and the team’s G League affiliate this year as he hopes to make strides as a shooter and on-ball defender while “building up his tolerance for being in elite shape,” coach JJ Redick said. James has had some promising moments, especially when the Lakers were short-handed earlier this season, showing quicker decision making and increased confidence shooting the ball.

Monday was just the second time in his career that he made two threes in a game.

“He’s as level headed and just as normal of a 21-year-old as I’ve ever been around,” Redick said.

When the Lakers got to the arena Monday, James was welcomed home by a childhood photo of him on a screen outside the visiting locker room. It showed him on stage in 2016 during the Cavaliers’ championship celebration wearing a championship hat and white T-shirt, holding up one finger.

LeBron James glanced at the championship banner from that team before the game Monday, fueling the intense emotions of what could be his last game in his hometown against the team that launched his NBA dreams in 2003.

The Cavaliers, wearing navy blue throwback uniforms, showed a tribute video for LeBron James during the first quarter, highlighting James’ takeover of Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference Finals in which he scored 25 consecutive points. Bronny was 3 years old at the time. Almost two decades later, he remembered all the afternoons he spent at the Cavaliers arena after school.

“It’s literally my entire life,” Bronny said of the city of Cleveland. “So just really appreciative of all the people that show some love. I just remember being a kid and being here pretty much every day after school. It’s a bunch of nostalgia coming back and being here.”

The James family was prepared for the occasion. LeBron scanned the arena before the game to find his mother in a suite. She once watched him begin his career in this very arena, now she was watching both her son and her grandson play in the same game. After saying it out loud, the elder James struggled to process 5 idea.

“I don’t even know how to even, like, wrap that all in one in my brain,” LeBron James said. “It’s so weird and so cool and so surreal. My mom gets to watch her son and her grandson play in the NBA at the same time.”

Gloria James waited in the hallway outside the Lakers locker room to take photos with her son and then her grandson. Bronny was the last Laker out of the arena, stopping to take dozens of photos with family members dressed in purple and gold Lakers jerseys. His grandmother told him to “act right.” He promised to oblige.

HAVEN’T you heard? Going abroad for a holiday is out in the year 2026, but cosy cottage staycations and UK city breaks are well and truly back.

If you’re thinking of ditching an overseas break for somewhere closer to home, these are our top picks from postcard-perfect villages, to busy cities and even our favourite hotels.

Sykes Holiday Cottages has predicted a record high for staycations in 2026, reporting that bookings made in January are up 9 per cent year-on-year.

So where should you book? The Sun Travel team has plenty of suggestions…

Skegness, Lincolnshire

For fun at the beach, Head of Sun Travel Lisa Minot suggests a trip to this popular seaside town: “The original Lincolnshire seaside town of Skegness is celebrating a landmark birthday in 2026 – the 90th birthday of the very first Butlin’s holiday camp.

“Founded by Billy Butlin, it offered affordable, organised seaside holidays  and helped popularise the all-in, onsite entertainment model that has stood the test of time.

GO SEA IT

£9.50 holiday spot with shipwrecks, seals offshore & horseshoe-shaped waterfalls

SIGHT SEA

£9.50 holidaymakers’ favourite Skegness activities… away from the beach

“This year will see a host of special events at Butlin’s to celebrate, including a special weekend over the Easter weekend including a dazzling firework and laser show on April 11.

“Of course, there’s lots more to see and do – from classic arcade amusements and fish and chips on the pier to bucket and spade beach fun.

“For a must-do day out, Natureland Seal Sanctuary’s rescue and rehabilitation work makes for a fascinating visit and the Gibraltar Point Nature Reserve promises dunes, saltmarshes and birdlife for nature lovers.”

Snettisham, Norfolk

Travel Reporter Jenna Stevens recommends a visit to her hometown, she said: “Born and raised in North West Norfolk, I’ve seen hordes of tourists flock to my county every year for a summer staycation.

“But I’m always surprised when holidaymakers head for the same few touristy spots, and miss out on exploring our quiet, pretty villages such as Snettisham.

“Snettisham Beach is a quiet yet arguably more beautiful alternative to Hunstanton or Holkham. It’s known for dramatic orange sunsets and spectacular displays of pink-footed geese sweeping across the horizon.

“Head out for breakfast to the trendy Old Store for a full-on fry up with duck fat hash browns, and spend the day hand-feeding farm animals and heading out on deer safari at the family-friendly Snettisham Park.

“When the evening creeps in, head to The Rose and Crown for a pint of local ale and an unbeatably cosy pub atmosphere. As the working day winds down, the 14th-century pub is packed with local cricket players and dog-walkers settling down by the fire – who will happily talk your ear off about the best hidden spots in Norfolk.

“Plus, Snettisham is only a 10-minute drive to the royal residence and beautiful woodlands of Sandringham, which has a large wooden playground and plenty of walking trails marked by wooden animal sculptures.”

Burford, The Cotswolds

Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey said: “While you might be tempted over to the Cotswolds for the world-famous Bourton-on-Water, or for a pint at Clarkson’s Farm, you’d be remiss to skip out on a trip to Burford.

“The main high street is one of the prettiest in the area with barely any chain restaurants and shops.

“The sandy yellow Cotswold stone is instead used for vintage sweet shops, pubs dating back hundreds of years and cosy gift shops selling twee home goods.

“Make sure to grab a cake and a coffee at Hunter’s Cake Company, or some afternoon tea at Huffkins. Any leftover crusts can be taken to the river at the bottom of the hill, to make friends with the eager ducks.”

Grantchester, Cambridgeshire

Travel Reporter Alice Penwill visited one destination that’s used as a TV backdrop of the same name, she said: “Just 15-minutes outside of Cambridge is the beautiful village of Grantchester.

“Most people would have heard of Grantchester because of the television series starring Robson Green and Rishi Nair that’s set in the 1950s and has been filmed in the actual village for years.

“Lots of visitors take pictures outside the vicarage and the church – but where I headed was for a relaxing walk along the River Cam before stopping in The Orchard Tea Garden set in an actual apple orchard.

“It’s famous for having a number of literary legends visit, like Virginia Woolf and E.M. Forster. While you’re there I’d suggest picking up a homemade scone, which you get with a pot of jam and clotted cream for £5.40.”

Unplugged, Wales

For those seeking a peaceful break, Assistant Travel Editor Sophie Swietochowski, has a hotel suggestion that will top all others when it comes to switching off. “The Unplugged brand first popped up on my radar a few years back, during another frenzied lockdown when life was lived primarily through screens and burnout felt inevitable.

“The off-grid cabin company specialises in digital detoxes – a trend that will certainly be growing in 2026. The idea is that visitors lock away their devices in the safe until the end of their stay (a basic Nokia phone is provided for emergencies).

“Stays can be booked for three nights minimum – to ensure guests fully reap the physical and mental health benefits of going phone-free. Dotted across the country, each of the two-person cabins, of which there are now over 50, stand solo, immersed in nature, (bar a few paired ones, for the purpose of group bookings).

“I’ve got my eye on Taffy, a cosy, dog-friendly cabin in Powys, Wales, where walking trails are aplenty. It comes with a private hot tub, meaning evenings can be spent soaking in the bubbles under a starry sky.

“All the essentials are provided, including a kitchenette, bathroom and roaring log burner, plus there’s board games and books for entertainment as well as an outdoor seating area. Prices for Unplugged start at £420 in total for three nights.”

Knaresborough, North Yorkshire

One of the most beautiful towns is in the North of England, and Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey insists you visit, she said: “If you ever wanted to feel like you stepped into a pretty postcard picture, then the closest you will get to that is going to Knaresborough.

“The tiny market town almost looks fake, from the historic viaduct going over the river to the trains trundling along over the top.

“Add in a few kayakers on the water, and it’s the perfect place to lose a few hours. Kill some time before your train home with a glass of wine at The Mitre.

“And don’t forget to pop to the nearby York to Betty’s for a famous Fat Rascal scone.”

Newcastle

Travel Reporter Jenna Stevens said there’s one city with lots of bars, and plenty of culture too. “I first went to Newcastle to visit a friend at university and check out its legendary nightlife scene.

“And whilst the nightlife is a huge part of what makes Newcastle such a great city break – I was shocked by just how much this city has to offer.
Stepping out of the central train station, you’ll be wandering through cobbled streets overlooked by grand neoclassical stone buildings through Grainger Town.

“Head towards the Quayside, and you’ll start to see more of the city’s industrial side. There’s a series of seven pretty bridges that stretch over the river, which glows with neon city reflections at nighttime.

“For a dose of history, Newcastle Castle is a sight to behold with over 2,000 years of heritage, plus you can even climb to its rooftop for the best panoramic views across the city skyline.

“But if you do want to dip into the famous nightlife, I recommend heading to The Bigg Market or the Ouseburn for cheap pints and an electric atmosphere.”

University Arms Hotel, Cambridge

When heading to the city of Cambridge, Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey says there’s only one hotel you should check into. She said: “I might be cheating on my home city of Oxford, but the University Arms Hotel in Cambridge makes it worth it.

“The historic hotel is a must for any tourist who wants to immerse themselves in British history. Rooms are named after famous Cambridge alumni – the best being the Hawking Suite which overlooks the common.

“Bathrooms play readings of The Wind in the Willows and you can grab a book and a treat in the Library room to wind down in.

“Complimentary blue bikes for pedalling around town, free Saturday walking tours and even punting packages in the summer – it’s the quintessential English escape.”

Cornwall

For Assistant Travel Editor Sophie Swietochowski, there’s one spot you can’t miss. She said: “You don’t need me to tell you that Cornwall is a staycation hotspot year in year out.

“There’s a reason I still haven’t tired of the coast-rich region with its sweeping, blustery beaches – despite visiting at least four times annually.

“It’s the constant newness: more quality restaurants, another music festival, and undiscovered cultural experiences. Even some of the historic and nature-focused sites, a big part of what makes the south west so special, are regularly being given a new lease of life.

“The Cornish coastal meadows project, due to be completed this year, will see the addition of new grasslands, encouraging more plant growth and thriving wildlife from bees and butterflies to grasshoppers.

“Stay at the recently renovated Pedn Olva, a pub with rooms that’s been carved into the craggy cliff-face facing the choppy sea in St Ives. Gobble up a bowl of crabby fries, before retiring to the bedroom to stargaze (rooms come with mini telescopes).”

Celtic Manor, Wales

When it comes to staycations, there’s one hotel that stands out for Head of Sun Travel, Lisa Minot. She revealed: “This high-end destination resort is a must-visit for stays that combine championship golf courses with luxury accommodation and an excellent spa.

“Set in 2,000 acres of scenic parkland in the Usk Valley near Newport in South Wales, it features three championship golf courses and has hosted the Ryder Cup.

“Celtic Manor has also welcomed the rich and famous. Former US president Barack Obama stayed in their fabulous four-bedroom huge Hunter Lodges when the NATO Summit was held at the resort in 2014.

“I’ve stayed in one of the lodges – and possibly even in the same bed – and can testify they offer the very best of lodge living for large groups complete with an open-plan living/dining room with vaulted ceilings and outdoor terrace with stunning golf course views from its own hot tub.

“It’s a great option for a hen or stag weekend with a difference.”

New Forest, Hampshire

Down in Hampshire, the New Forest is ripe for exploring with heathland, forest trails, wildlife and pretty villages which Travel Reporter Alice Penwill found when she visited.

She said: “I loved wandering through Brockenhurst where you see all the beautiful wild ponies, donkeys and cows roaming around – some even take a gander down the high street.

“The lovely houses even have grates on their driveway so the animals don’t wander up to the front door.

“After a long walk there are a number of pubs with big gardens where you can have a refreshing drink like The Snakecatcher, Foresters Arms and The Huntsman.”

York

Another must-visit city is the vibrant York according to Assistant Travel Editor Sophie Swietochowski, she told us: “Was it the higgled piggledy buildings flanking the narrow alleyways or maybe the grand cathedral with its looming Gothic tower that first made me fall in love with York?

“Or perhaps it was merely the friendly folk who filled its cafes and shops. The Yorkshire lot seem a little more cheery than those down south. Either way, charming York is one of my favourite cities in the UK and I believe it should be on everyone’s bucket list.

“The main hub, within the City Walls (a landmark in themselves, dating back to Roman times) is my favourite area. Here you’ll find Betty’s Tea Room – an absolute must visit. The first of these fancy northern cafes opened in Harrogate way back in 1919.

“Today there are five scattered across Yorkshire, including one in York itself. Sip on tea (Yorkshire, of course) served from polished silver pots and tuck into traditional bakes like the fat rascal, a type of chunky scone crammed with fruit and spices that was invented in this county.”

Chester

Another favourite from Head of Sun Travel, Lisa Minot is this spot in the North West of England, she said: “It’s been dubbed the prettiest city in England and I can definitely say I agree – Chester’s historic centre is a delight to explore.

“Shopaholics will have even more reason to visit in 2026 with the launch of the H Beauty store from Harrods on February 6.

“Set in the former Browns of Chester building, an Edwardian beauty on Eastgate Rows, it will feature a champagne bar, blow-dry bar, interactive play tables and of course, lots of high end beauty products.

“There’s more shopping delights on The Rows, a two-tier medieval galleries, covered walkways lined with timber-framed facades, boutiques and cafes stacked above street level.

“And of course, you can’t miss a walk around the City Walls, the most complete circuit of Roman and medieval walls in Britain that gives you  scenic stroll with great views over the town, gardens and river.”

Anglesey, Wales

Travel Reporter Alice Penwill found a beautiful Welsh village on a trip to Anglesey, she said: “I’ve always loved peace and quiet on holiday rather than a rowdy night out, so when I stumbled upon the village of Moelfre on a trip to Anglesey, I was delighted.

“The quaint former fishing village has beautiful pebbled coves and long stretching strips of land out to sea with lighthouses perched on top.

“One must-do is stop into Ann’s Pantry for a Welsh beer or a generously sized scone, and the Coastal Cafe for fish and chips – it’s so popular that locals and holidaymakers queue out the door during the weekend.

“Just a short walk away is Traeth Lligwy beach which you can reach while hiking the coastal path.

“It has stretches of golden sands, and when the tide goes out, a natural paddling pool forms in the middle as water gets trapped behind a sandbank. Some sunbathers even spot dolphins amongst the sea waves.”

For more suggestions from our travel experts, these are our favourite day trips in the South East – from pubs with a view to quiet beaches.

And for more inspiration, here are our travel team’s best trips of 2025 – from new theme parks to private UK islands.

After an enormous storm dumped 3 feet of snow on Mammoth Mountain, rookie ski patroller Claire Murphy and a partner scrambled to help make the resort safe for guests ahead of a very busy — and very lucrative — Presidents Day weekend.

In howling wind and blowing snow, the patrollers labored to clear enormous piles of fresh, unstable powder from a steep, experts-only run, one of a group appropriately named the “Avalanche Chutes.”

Ski patrollers use hand-held explosives, and their own skis, to deliberately trigger small slides in the chutes before the resort opens, to prevent an avalanche from crashing down later in the day on thousands of paying customers gliding happily — and obliviously — along the much gentler slopes below.

Mammoth Mountain ski patrol members Claire Murphy, left, and Cole Murphy (no relation) both died while doing avalanche mitigation on the mountain.

(Courtesy of Lisa Apa; Tracy Murphy)

But something went horribly wrong that day. Instead of remaining safely above the sliding snow, Murphy and her partner got caught in it. He was buried up to his neck but survived. She was trapped beneath the collapsing wall of white and got crushed to death against a towering fir tree. She was 25 years old.

The avalanche that killed the young patroller on Feb. 14, 2025, stunned Mammoth’s tight-knit ski community. Her friends and colleagues were consumed with grief, but most regarded it as a freak accident, something that hadn’t happened before and was unlikely to be repeated.

But then, less than a year later, it happened again.

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In late December — after a “Christmas miracle” storm dumped more than 5 feet of snow on the previously parched resort — 30-year-old ski patroller Cole Murphy (no relation to Claire) and his partner were hurrying to clear the same chutes before the busiest week of the year.

They, too, were caught in a deliberately triggered slide. Cole’s partner suffered a serious leg injury, but he survived.

Signs on top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth advise skiers that the runs are for experts only.

Cole was swept away and carried hundreds of feet down the mountain, where he suffocated beneath more than a meter of avalanche debris, according to two sources. Both were involved in the effort to save Cole, but asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.

With the sudden deaths of two young patrollers in such a short span, and in such distressingly similar circumstances — Claire and Cole came to rest within a few hundred yards of each other — questions began to swirl.

Were the resort’s managers pushing too hard to open the mountain after major storms? Had training standards slipped, pushing relatively inexperienced ski patrollers into dangerous situations? Are young ski patrollers afraid to speak up, even when they think they’ve been asked to take unreasonable risks?

Lisa Apa, Claire Murphy’s mother, said she begged mountain officials to take a hard look at their training and safety procedures after her daughter’s death — to figure out what went wrong and make sure it never happened again.

They blew her off, she said.

A small memorial remains at a tree, where an avalanche claimed the life of ski patrol member Claire Murphy.

When she heard about the second death, Apa said she immediately fired off a text to a senior ski patrol manager at Mammoth: “You killed another ski patroller … you’ve learned nothing!”

She told a Times reporter last week, “Claire would be f—ing furious if she knew this happened a second time.”

Mammoth Mountain officials have remained measured in their public response.

In a statement emailed to The Times, Mammoth Mountain President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Clark wrote that, after Claire Murphy’s death, the ski patrol had been empowered to “pursue a slower, phased opening of the mountain on storm days.”

After Cole Murphy’s death 10 months later, Clark wrote that resort managers “immediately instituted” measures to “de-pressurize storm mornings,” giving ski patrol more time to work and more latitude to keep chair lifts closed until the mountain is deemed safe.

In a follow-up interview, Clark insisted the pressure on Mammoth’s managers to open quickly after big storms comes from customers desperate to ski fresh powder, not from corporate executives chasing profits.

Chair 22 takes skiers to the top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have been killed by avalanches in the last year.

“Maybe 10 years ago that was different,” Clark said. But after the most recent accident, the message from the resort’s owners — Alterra Mountain Co., a privately held, multibillion-dollar conglomerate that owns 19 resorts across the U.S. and Canada — was to use caution.

“Make sure you’re taking your time,” Clark said they told him.

Apa, who sobbed talking about her daughter, gasped when she heard that.

Of course senior executives offer reassuring words after a tragedy, she said. But as a former business journalist, who once anchored a show called “Street Smart” on Bloomberg TV, Apa said she spent her career around top corporate officers. Anyone who believes profit motive doesn’t drive such decisions is naive, she said.

“Maybe you’re not getting a phone call, or an email, from the CEO saying, ‘get this mountain open today!’” she said. But any manager who develops a reputation as someone who’s afraid to open after a storm, on the busiest day of the year, “won’t be around very long,” she said.

No doubt, many skiers are desperate to hit the slopes after a storm brings fresh powder.

The sensation of floating down the hill with almost no resistance is dreamlike and addictive. No other conditions compare.

That’s why social media is full of influencers bragging about their epic “pow days,” and why hordes of paying customers start champing at the bit when the mountain is covered in a fresh blanket of white, but the ski patrol won’t let them at it.

A former Mammoth ski patroller recalled years of riding lifts with eager customers complaining that the steepest runs with the deepest powder were still closed for avalanche control.

Mammoth Mountain‘s summit is more than 11,000 feet high and averages nearly 400 inches of annual snowfall.

“I’d point to all of the mountains around Mammoth,” he said. There are dozens of beautiful, towering summits in the surrounding eastern Sierra with absolutely no rules and nobody to stop an adventurous soul from climbing up and skiing down.

But there are no chairlifts, so getting up those mountains is a physically exhausting test of will. And there’s no avalanche control, so you’re on your own when it comes to determining which slopes are safe, which are death traps.

“If you’re such an expert, why aren’t you over there,” the ski patroller said he’d ask, usually ending the conversation.

Within the boundaries of commercial ski resorts, avalanche control takes many forms.

At Mammoth, the steepest slopes near the 11,000-foot-high summit are controlled with a howitzer — an actual cannon. When the resort is closed, crews fire explosive shells across a valley up into the highest, heaviest and most threatening piles of fresh snow. Their aim has to be excellent, since stray shrapnel can do serious damage to ski lifts. But it’s a remarkably efficient way to get enormous quantities of snow sliding down the mountain without putting anyone at risk.

The ski patrol office at the top of Lincoln Mountain.

Another option is called a “Boom Whoosh,” which looks like an industrial chimney and is installed just above spots where dangerous piles of snow frequently accumulate. It works by remote control, igniting a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen — like lighting a gigantic camping stove — to create a shock wave that triggers an avalanche. Mammoth has one at the moment, near the summit above a run called Climax, and officials are hoping to install more.

Then there’s the old-fashioned technique: sending ski patrollers into the steepest, most technical terrain with backpacks full of explosives.

That’s what happens in the Avalanche Chutes — known locally as “the avis” — a handful of natural rock and snow slide paths carved by thousands of years of erosion into the side of a 10,000-foot sub-peak called Lincoln Mountain. Patrollers start early in the morning after a storm and ride a snowcat — like a school bus on tank treads — to a plateau just above the chutes.

Big red signs with black diamonds are everywhere on Lincoln Mountain, indicating its trails are for experts only. The chutes are the steepest trails of all, marked on maps with two black diamonds, the highest rating possible. Casual skiers go weak in the knees at the thought of making a wrong turn onto a vertigo-inducing “double-black.”

After hopping out of the snowcat, patrollers divide into pairs and work their way toward the chutes. Sometimes the wind is so strong it scours nearby boulders free of snow, so they have to take off their skis and climb over the bare rocks in their awkward, plastic boots to get to the edge.

Once in place, one of the patrollers tosses a hand-held explosive — it looks like a cartoon stick of dynamite — down the hill. The patrollers cover their ears, wait for the boom, and hope the explosion has loosened the big stuff and sent it sliding.

Then they ski down in carefully choreographed zigzags, sometimes hopping up as they go, to dislodge any remaining loose slabs beneath their feet.

A view of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have died in the last year.

The key to “ski cutting,” as it’s called, is to make sure your partner is anchored in a secure spot, usually off to the edge of the chute and out of the way of a potential slide, before you start moving.

In normal conditions, it’s just another day at the office. But after a massive “atmospheric river” storm, the risks increase.

This season’s Christmas storm was a monster, and it arrived with the biggest crowds of the year.

To keep the customers happy, Mammoth executives opened the lower part of the mountain on Christmas Day, the portion least exposed to avalanche risk. But there was so much fresh snow, patrollers spent the day digging out people who had simply gotten stuck in huge drifts, even on the relatively flat terrain.

And then, in the early afternoon, Raymond Albert, a 71-year-old regular known to fellow skiers as “every day Ray,” was spotted in a pocket of deep, fresh snow beside a well-traveled run near the bottom of Lincoln Mountain.

He had somehow popped out of his skis, which were behind him, and pitched forward, ending up with his head in the snow and his feet in the air, according to a written report of the incident provided to his family.

Looking down one of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth Mountain.

It’s unclear how long he was in that position before bystanders dug him out. When ski patrollers arrived he had no pulse. With so much fresh snow on the ground, the patrollers struggled to find a firm enough surface to lay him on his back and perform CPR. They finally used a bystander’s legs as a makeshift platform, according to the report, but could not revive him.

In a normal week, Albert’s death would have been big news, but it received almost no public attention because early the next morning, Cole Murphy and his colleagues headed up Lincoln Mountain to clear the chutes.

It’s still not publicly known what caused the slide that buried Murphy and his partner, but according to two people involved in the effort to save Murphy’s life, witnesses said that an avalanche triggered by an explosive in a neighboring chute might have “propagated” horizontally to where Murphy and his partner were working — taking them by surprise.

Resort officials declined to answer detailed questions about either Claire or Cole Murphy’s deaths, saying their lawyers advised them not to offer specifics during ongoing investigations by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.

As soon as Cole Murphy disappeared in that wall of white, the clock started ticking. More than 90% of avalanche victims survive if they can be freed within 15 minutes, according to the Utah Avalanche Center, but the odds drop “catastrophically” after that.

It took Cole’s desperate colleagues 18 minutes to locate him and dig him out, sources said. When they finally pulled him free, his skin was blue and he wasn’t breathing, the sources said.

He was airlifted to a hospital in Reno and pronounced dead days later.

Tracy Murphy, Cole’s mother, said her son loved Mammoth Lakes and the tight bonds he forged on that “little island” of outdoor enthusiasts, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of mountains and desert.

After Claire’s accident, Tracy Murphy said her son was “shaken to the core.”

Cole’s roommate was the patroller in the chute with Claire that day, she said. Last month, the roommate was among the patrollers frantically trying to dig Cole free.

She’s waiting for OSHA’s report, but for now, Murphy said, “I believe that Mammoth would not have knowingly put any patroller in danger. I feel, in my heart, that this was just an extremely unlucky event.”

Her son had been on the job for a few years before his accident; Claire Murphy had been a ski patroller for only a couple of months before hers.

The wind was howling “like a jet engine” that day, according to accounts Apa received from ski patrollers who were there.

The witnesses told Apa that Claire’s partner triggered the fatal avalanche with his skis, and was quickly swallowed by it. But he survived, at least in part because he was about 6½ feet tall and his head remained above the debris.

It’s still a mystery why Claire was in the path of the slide, but the difficulty of hearing and seeing each other amid the wind and blowing snow probably played a part, Apa said.

Seconds after the slide began, it slammed Claire into the tree. When her colleagues dug her out, she was upright, with her back pinned against the trunk. She was facing uphill, Apa said, looking straight at the wall of snow bearing down on her.

Claire probably had no time to react, Apa said, pausing to steady herself before finishing the thought, but she hoped her daughter didn’t suffer. “It kills me to think of her trapped there, scared,” she said.

After hearing about the accident, Apa raced to Mammoth from the East Coast on a private jet provided by the mountain. She implored doctors to keep Claire’s heart beating until she arrived, she said. “I can’t come to a dead body, you have to keep her alive so I can hold her hand,” she begged.

Lisa Apa, left, with her daughter Claire Murphy.

(Lisa Apa)

Apa arrived in time to spend a few days in a Reno hospital with her unconscious daughter. She washed and braided her hair, read her letters from people wishing her well, and thought about what she wanted to say to the other young women on the ski patrol.

“Don’t get out of the snowcat if you’re scared,” she said she told them at Claire’s memorial service and in private conversations. “Go back down the mountain if you think what they’re doing is wrong. You have to say something, you have to.”

But that’s tough, Apa acknowledged, because there are only so many ski patrol jobs in the country, and most of those women had been dreaming about it since they were little girls.

Becoming persona non grata at either of the two big companies that dominate the U.S. ski industry — Alterra and Vail Resorts — could be a career killer, patrollers fear.

Apa said she is still haunted by the possibility that concern for their jobs prevents patrollers from pushing for safer working conditions, and that what happened to Claire and Cole will soon be forgotten.

On a cold, crisp day last week, beneath an almost impossibly peaceful cobalt sky, a reporter skied the Avalanche Chutes with a group of locals including a former patroller and a professional mountain guide who trains clients on avalanche safety.

There had been no significant fresh snow for weeks, so no one was worried about avalanches. Alone on the broad, steep face, the only sound came from the metal edges of skis biting into the hard surface.

The group pointed their skis toward a stand of tall fir trees hundreds of feet below. Some of them had been snapped in half by previous avalanches, one was still caked on its uphill side with thousands of pounds of snow.

And one, just below it, had a recent boot track around its base. A photographer trained his sharp eye on a faded strand of red cloth, light as gossamer, pinned to the trunk at eye level. Dried rose petals hung around it.

Claire’s tree. She hasn’t been forgotten.

An integral part of whale watching, Capt. Rick Podolak explained as we zipped out of North San Diego Bay past Point Loma, is establishing trust.

That and a fast vessel, good timing and luck. All of which we hoped would align during a whale-watching excursion in late December, the month typically inaugurating an annual gray whale migration from the Arctic south to Baja California.

“We call them our Christmas whales,” said Podolak, of Adventure Whale Watching.

Grays endure an epic roundtrip journey of 10,000 miles or more, and California holds a prime seat through May. Along with being a migratory route for grays and humpbacks, this stretch of Pacific Coast from San Diego to beyond the Bay Area offers seasonal feeding grounds that attract a variety of whale species throughout the year.

“I would go so far as to boast that California has some of the best whale watching in the world,” said Ted Cheeseman, a Santa Cruz whale researcher and co-founder of Happywhale, a photo-based whale identification platform.

Tempering the enthusiasm Cheeseman and other researchers hold around current thriving whale populations are significant concerns about gray whales dying. Grays’ numbers along the Pacific Coast have plunged by half in the last decade, to about 13,000, due to climate change affecting their Arctic food supply.

“Last year was by far the lowest count we’ve ever had, and this year is even lower,” said Alisa Schulman-Janiger, a marine biologist and whale researcher who coordinates an annual gray whale census out of Rancho Palos Verdes.

In December 2025, volunteers spotted 14 whales headed south to calving lagoons in Mexico. In December 2024, they counted 33. In December 2014, by comparison, there were 393.

With numbers like those rattling in my head and the clock ticking as Podolak piloted us north along the coastline, I grew increasingly doubtful about us witnessing the grays’ movement south. We were looking for backs or flukes (tails) breaking the water. Most telling is the spout — the condensed mass of water vapor and mucus that whales force from their blowholes as they surface.

After 90 minutes, we’d spied cormorants and pelicans galore, but little else. It was nearly time to head back.

Then, there it was. A spout, rising clearly against the coastline. Then another, just before the whale dove from sight. The captain identified it as a gray whale, with their distinct white patches of clinging barnacles.

This month, California tour operators have reported several gray sightings. As we watch for them and other cetaceans, this is one instance in which tourists can create positive change. Advocacy organizations outline how to select ethical tour operators and federal agencies are charged with maintaining safe distances (100 yards for most whale species) between vessels and marine mammals. Whale researcher Cheeseman says well-managed whale tourism raises public awareness and financially supports whale science and conservation.

“For some people, seeing a blue whale in the Santa Barbara Channel checks a box — it’s an Instagram post,” he said. “For others, it entirely transforms their view of the natural world.”

Starting in San Diego and moving north, here are some of California’s leading whale-watching spots.

A LIDO that first opened five decades ago is hoping to welcome swimmers back after a three-year closure.

Popular swimming spot Stanhope Open Air Swimming Pool is raising money for repairs and upgrades needed to open its doors once again.

The once bustling open air pool in County Durham was the area’s only heated lido.

It first opened in 1974 and welcomed swimmers for 48 years before its closure in 2023.

In 2023, the lido was forced to shut after it experienced electrical issues in the plant room.

But prior to that, the lido saw more than 8,000 swimmers in 2022.

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Now, the charity looking after the pool is hoping that it will once again reopen to the public by next year.

The charity posted on Facebook about the update: “We are delighted to announce that we have agreed a new 30-year lease with our landlords. Weardale Open Air Swimming Pool first opened in 1974, with a life expectancy of 30 years.

“The hard work of our wonderful volunteers kept things going for much longer, but the pool infrastructure now needs complete renovation.”

It detailed that lots of essential works are still needed to restore the lido to its former glory.

This includes relining the pool, rewiring the whole site, refurbishing the plant room and upgrading the changing rooms and snack bar.

It added that it will need to “raise hundreds of thousands of pounds”, but locals remain optimistic.

One wrote on the post: “That’s fantastic news, loved that pool, be lovely to see it up and running again.”

Another added: “Great news, it is quite an asset to the area. Hope the future is bright!”

The charity is asking for the community and users to donate to help the cause – but is also applying for grants for the refurbishment.

The lido is 25metres long and when it was open was always heated to 27C – so it was warm even on the cool summer evenings.

It even had a springboard, so the depth of the pool was a maximum of three metres deep.

Along with the main pool was another smaller one for children which was just half a metre deep – it was also heated to the same temperature and had a slide.

Visitors were also able to use the on-site sauna, cafe and shop where they could buy dive toys, armbands and goggles.

Here are all of the new lidos set to open across the UK from seafront pools to city swimming spots.

Plus, this English lido with heated swimming pool and Full Moon swims reopened after a £120k upgrade.

When Gary Patterson resigned as coach of Texas Christian in October 2021, midway through his 21st season with the Horned Frogs, the now-65-year old coach decided to take a step back and reevaluate where he and the college game were headed.

“I’d had a job since I was 9 years old,” Patterson said. “Just kind of wanted to take a break.”

For decades, football had been at the forefront of his and his family’s life, so much so that his wife joked she was merely his “mistress.” He wanted to spend time with her, with his grandkids. Plus, after a few seasons, he knew he’d be eligible for the College Football Hall of Fame, which was important to him.

Patterson ended up filling that time with football, anyway. He watched the game from afar, helping out as a consultant on staffs at Texas and Baylor, even working with Amazon Prime’s football coverage, just to score a subscription to Catapult, all along biding his time for the right opportunity to come along.

It came earlier this month, four years after his departure from Fort Worth, in the form of a text message from USC coach Lincoln Riley, whom he knew from their days coaching across from each other in the Big 12. The Trojans’ defensive coordinator, D’Anton Lynn, had left in late December for the same job at Penn State. Riley needed a replacement.

“He wasn’t going to jump back into this for anything,” Riley said Wednesday. “It had to be the right opportunity, the right kind of place, the right kind of setting. I know he knows and believe he’s found that.”

No one is more invested in that than USC’s head coach. Whether Patterson turns out to be the right fit at the right time for the Trojans may ultimately determine the trajectory of Riley’s future with the program. Patterson will be Riley’s third defensive coordinator in five seasons at USC.

“I think it’s an unbelievable hire by Lincoln,” said David Bailiff, who worked with Patterson at New Mexico and TCU. “For him not to be intimidated with Gary’s background, that all he wants to do is get USC better — a lot of coaches probably wouldn’t hire Gary because he’s been a head coach for so long.”

For Patterson, who never beat Riley in seven meetings while at TCU, it was a particularly ideal partnership.

“Any time that I was ever part of a team that had a great offense and scored a lot of points, we won a lot of ball games,” Patterson said.

Patterson, however, hasn’t been a full-time assistant since the turn of the 21st century. He last served as defensive coordinator under Dennis Franchione, who brought Patterson with him from New Mexico to TCU in 1998. He was promoted to head coach in 2000, when Franchione left for Alabama. A week later, across the country, USC hired Pete Carroll.

That’s how deeply entrenched Patterson was for more than two decades at TCU, where his tenure, by any measure, was a staggering success. Over 22 seasons, Patterson led the Horned Frogs to 181 wins and six conference titles. Throughout, defense remained his calling card. Five different times during his tenure, TCU finished No. 1 in the nation in yards allowed, as Big 12 offenses struggled for years to adjust to his multifaceted 4-2-5 scheme.

But by 2021, while Patterson’s TCU defense had largely remained strong, the luster of his long tenure in Fort Worth had faded. The bottom fell out that fall, as the Horned Frogs started the season 3-5. Informed that he wouldn’t be back the following season, Patterson instead resigned with four games left.

Now he returns not as a head coach, but as a coordinator, a step down that Patterson seemed just fine with when asked Wednesday.

“I love it, to be honest with you,” Patterson said.

The entire landscape of college football has also been turned on its head since Patterson last coached, with the advent of revenue sharing and the rise of the transfer portal. But he didn’t seem all that concerned by those changes Wednesday. Mostly because he doesn’t expect it to affect what USC is asking him to do.

Trojans fans hope Gary Patterson’s hire leads to more of this, when three USC players brought down a Northwestern running back last season.

(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)

“My job is defense,” Patterson said. “I don’t deal with NIL. I don’t deal with all those different things.”

His reputation as a mastermind on the defense certainly precedes him, and at USC, that’s where he’ll be needed most. Bailiff, who worked with Patterson at New Mexico and served as his first defensive coordinator at TCU, said that hisability to diagnose what a defense needs is “superior from any person I’ve ever seen.”

His signature 4-2-5 defense was designed, in part, to allow for such adaptability. With five defensive backs on the field most of the time, Patterson’s scheme is intended to adjust to any offense, allowing for his defense to limit substitutions and match up against most personnel groupings.

That scheme, after four years away from the game, is likely to be different by the time it’s installed at USC. Patterson said he plans to marry his original 4-2-5 at TCU with concepts he learned at Texas and Baylor. He also plans to integrate some of what USC’s defense was already doing, with most of the assistants from last season expected to remain on staff.

“Instead of just coming in and saying, well, ‘This is how we’re going to do it,’” Patterson said, “it’s been a little bit more work of trying to put it all together.”

It’ll be up to Patterson to put it all together on USC’s defense, which in four seasons under Riley, has never put things together for long.

“Hopefully,” he said, “[I can] be that last piece to help SC get over the bar, get into the playoffs, to bring out a championship.”

The U.S. Department of Education has given San José State 10 days to comply with a list of demands after finding that the university violated Title IX concerning a transgender volleyball player in 2024.

A federal investigation was launched into San José State a year ago after controversy over a transgender player marred the 2024 volleyball season. Four Mountain West Conference teams — Boise State, Wyoming, Utah State and Nevada-Reno — each chose to forfeit or cancel two conference matches to San José State. Boise State also forfeited its conference tournament semifinal match to the Spartans.

The transgender player, Blaire Fleming, was on the San José State roster for three seasons after transferring from Coastal Carolina, although opponents protested the player’s participation only in 2024.

In a news release Wednesday, the Education Department warned that San José State risks “imminent enforcement action” if it doesn’t voluntarily resolve the violations by taking the following actions, not all of which pertain solely to sports:

1) Issue a public statement that SJSU will adopt biology-based definitions of the words “male” and “female” and acknowledge that the sex of a human — male or female — is unchangeable.

2) Specify that SJSU will follow Title IX by separating sports and intimate facilities based on biological sex.

3) State that SJSU will not delegate its obligation to comply with Title IX to any external association or entity and will not contract with any entity that discriminates on the basis of sex.

4) Restore to female athletes all individual athletic records and titles misappropriated by male athletes competing in women’s categories, and issue a personalized letter of apology on behalf of SJSU to each female athlete for allowing her participation in athletics to be marred by sex discrimination.

5) Send a personalized apology to every woman who played in SJSU’s women’s indoor volleyball from 2022 to 2024, beach volleyball in 2023, and to any woman on a team that forfeited rather than compete against SJSU while a male student was on the roster — expressing sincere regret for placing female athletes in that position.

“SJSU caused significant harm to female athletes by allowing a male to compete on the women’s volleyball team — creating unfairness in competition, compromising safety, and denying women equal opportunities in athletics, including scholarships and playing time,” Kimberly Richey, Education Department assistant secretary for civil rights, said.

“Even worse, when female athletes spoke out, SJSU retaliated — ignoring sex-discrimination claims while subjecting one female SJSU athlete to a Title IX complaint for allegedly ‘misgendering’ the male athlete competing on a women’s team. This is unacceptable.”

San José State responded with a statement acknowledging that the Education Department had informed the university of its investigation and findings.

“The University is in the process of reviewing the Department’s findings and proposed resolution agreement,” the statement said. “We remain committed to providing a safe, respectful, and inclusive educational environment for all students while complying with applicable laws and regulations.”

In a New York Times profile, Fleming said she learned about transgender identity when she was in eighth grade. “It was a lightbulb moment,” she said. “I felt this huge relief and a weight off my shoulders. It made so much sense.”

With the support of her mother and stepfather, Fleming worked with a therapist and a doctor and started to socially and medically transition, according to the Times. When she joined the high school girls’ volleyball team, her coaches and teammates knew she was transgender and accepted her.

Fleming’s first two years at San José State were uneventful, but in 2024 co-captain Brooke Slusser joined lawsuits against the NCAA, the Mountain West Conference and representatives of San José State after alleging she shared hotel rooms and locker rooms with Fleming without being told she is transgender.

The Education Department also determined that Fleming and a Colorado State player conspired to spike Slusser in the face, although a Mountain West investigation found “insufficient evidence to corroborate the allegations of misconduct.” Slusser was not spiked in the face during the match.

President Trump signed an executive order a year ago designed to ban transgender athletes from competing on girls’ and women’s sports teams. The order stated that educational institutions and athletic associations may not ignore “fundamental biological truths between the two sexes.” The NCAA responded by banning transgender athletes.

The order, titled “Keeping Men Out of Women’s Sports,” gives federal agencies, including the Justice and Education departments, wide latitude to ensure entities that receive federal funding abide by Title IX in alignment with the Trump administration’s view, which interprets a person’s sex as the gender they were assigned at birth.

San José State has been in the federal government’s crosshairs ever since. If the university does not comply voluntarily to the actions listed by the government, it could face a Justice Department lawsuit and risk losing federal funding.

“We will not relent until SJSU is held to account for these abuses and commits to upholding Title IX to protect future athletes from the same indignities,” Richey said.

San José State was found in violation of Title IX in an unrelated case in 2021 and paid $1.6 million to more than a dozen female athletes after the Department of Justice found that the university failed to properly handle the students’ allegations of sexual abuse by a former athletic trainer.

The federal investigation found that San José State did not take adequate action in response to the athletes’ reports and retaliated against two employees who raised repeated concerns about Scott Shaw, the former director of sports medicine. Shaw was sentenced to 24 months in prison for unlawfully touching female student-athletes under the guise of providing medical treatment.

The current findings against San José State came two weeks after federal investigators announced that the California Community College Athletic Assn. and four other state colleges and school districts are the targets of a probe over whether their transgender participation policies violate Title IX.

The investigation targets a California Community College Athletic Assn. rule that allows transgender and nonbinary students to participate on women’s sports teams if the students have completed “at least one calendar year of testosterone suppression.”

Also, the Education Department’s Office of Civil Rights has launched 18 Title IX investigations into school districts across the United States on the heels of the Supreme Court hearing oral arguments on efforts to protect women’s and girls’ sports.

At the 2024 Oscars, Ryan Gosling, reprising his role as Ken in Greta Gerwig’s 2023 movie “Barbie,” donned a bedazzled pink suit and belted the ballad “I’m Just Ken.”

“I’m just Ken, anywhere else I’d be a 10,” the actor sang. “Is it my destiny to live and die a life of blond fragility?”

Barbie’s needy male counterpart, it turns out, is not “just Ken.” His full name is Kenneth Sean Carson, according to Mattel, which says the doll saw a uptick in popularity in the years following the hit movie’s release.

Ahead of Ken’s 65th birthday, the El Segundo-based toy giant shared a laundry list of niche biographical details about the doll, including his official “birthday” — March 11, 1961, making him a Pisces — as well as his relationship history with Barbie.

The company said in a statement Monday that Ken has “experienced a resurgence in recent years.”

A Mattel spokesperson cited the “Barbie” movie as a driving factor, as it showed a “different side” of Ken. In a meta move, the company later in 2023 released Ken dolls modeled after Ryan Gosling’s portrayal of Ken.

The “Kenbassador” line launched last year was a “great success,” the spokesperson said. The first product in that toy series was a $75 doll modeled after basketball player LeBron James released in April.

Mattel says it does not break out sales of Ken dolls, but in 2017, when Mattel unveiled Ken dolls with different body types, including one that invited “dad-bod” comparisons, the company told the Wall Street Journal that, on average, girls have one Ken doll for every seven Barbies they own.

Ruth Handler, the creator of Barbie, named the original doll after her daughter, Barbara. The glamorous doll, unique in that it depicted a grown woman rather than a baby, was an instant hit when it debuted at the New York Toy Fair in 1959. Barbie has significantly evolved in the decades since. Recent additions include Barbies with Type 1 diabetes and another with autism.

The Ken doll, created in 1961, was named after Handler’s son, Kenneth. He featured molded hair, wore red swim trunks and carried a yellow towel.

Kenneth Handler told The Times in a 1989 story that there were few similarities between him and the doll named after him. He died in 1994.

“Ken doll is Malibu,” he said. “He goes to the beach and surfs. He is all these perfect American things.”

But when Kenneth Handler was at Hamilton High School in Beverlywood, he “played the piano and went to movies with subtitles.” He continued, “I was a nerd — a real nerd. All the girls thought I was a jerk.”

Like Barbie, Ken dabbled in many different careers over the decades. There have been doctor, pilot, tennis player, firefighter, lifeguard, barista and even Olympic skier Kens, among many others. In 2006, he received a “mid-life makeover” from celebrity stylist Phillip Bloch.

According to the company, Ken and Barbie “met” on the set of their first television commercial in 1961 and soon began dating. After more than four decades, the doll couple broke up in 2004, but reunited in 2011.

Mattel was founded by Ruth Handler; her husband, Elliot Handler; and Harold “Matt” Matson in 1945 in a Los Angeles garage. The toy maker became a publicly traded company in 1960.

Mattel, which also owns Fisher-Price and Hot Wheels, wrote in its October Securities and Exchange Commission filing that “industry-wide shifts in retailer ordering patterns” pushed its third quarter net sales down 6%.

In 2024, Barbie gross billings — which measure the total value of products Mattel ships to retailers before sales adjustments — were down 12% from 2023, which had seen a boost from the movie, according to the company’s annual SEC filing.

Pop artist Kii Arens made a name for himself in music over the years, creating concert posters for bands and vocalists such as Radiohead, Elton John, Dolly Parton, the Weeknd, Sonic Youth, Tame Impala, Diana Ross and more.

That work is taking center stage at Arens’ new downtown Los Angeles gallery, FAB LA, in a show titled “And the Winner Is.” Curated by Arens and featuring poster art of Grammy winners, the exhibition is set to open Friday, two days before the 2026 Grammys descend on the city, and just in time to welcome plenty of visiting celebrity faces to the gallery’s third-ever event.

A glittering party scene is part of every exhibition Arens hosts, dating back to his previous gallery, LA-LA Land, which he opened two decades ago on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and ran until its lease came up last year.

FAB LA officially launched in October with “XO, LA: A Love Letter to Los Angeles,” an exhibition that reflected the eclectic voices and existential challenges that define L.A. culture with paintings, illustrations and mixed media works by Shepard Fairey, Corita Kent, Anthony Ausgang, Ashley Dreyfus, Paul Frank and others.

Pop artist Kii Arens lays on his desk in his new gallery, FAB LA, inside the historic Fine Arts Building on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Posters from his new show, “And the Winner Is,” feature images of Grammy winners just in time for the big awards show.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The flamboyant “Mick Rock’s Rocky Horror Art Show” followed in December. The exhibition was among the last events marking the famous cult film’s 50th anniversary, and featured Rock’s famous photographs alongside pieces by pop star designer Michael Schmidt and digital portraitist Plasticgod. As with previous events at LA-LA Land, the opening attracted rockers, drag queens and club world cognoscenti.

DJs Sean Patrick (Simon Says) and Chris Holmes (Paul McCartney’s touring DJ, and creative collaborator with Cosm) manned the decks, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” winner and podcaster, Alaska Thunderf—, performed as Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, dancing and prancing around the grand environs.

There are galleries all over Los Angeles, but few can be described as works of art unto themselves. FAB LA is that and more.

Its majestic headquarters are housed inside downtown’s historic Fine Arts Building — a breathtaking palace-like structure with a 100-year history of craftsmanship and creativity.

Located near the intersection of 7th and Flower streets, the landmark building was featured in the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer,” a hidden gem overshadowed in recent years by hectic street life, chain food spots and bustling business energy. Used primarily as an office building, its ornate design, carvings and sculptures — including a ground floor fountain with frolicking bronze youths — hadn’t invited much public attention or appreciation.

Pop artist Kii Arens catches some air in front of the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974 and restored in 1983.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

That changed late last year when Arens took over the first two floors.

“Historically, artists lived and worked inside this building,” he said during a recent opening. “This idea really resonated with me.”

Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Arens moved to L.A. in 2004 and promptly opened LA-LA Land. The Hollywood showroom debuted on election night 2004 with a group exhibition called “Happy War,” featuring anti-war works and Fairey as DJ. Wild and kitschy shows followed with opening fetes dedicated to colorful subjects including Andy Warhol, circus clowns, and Canadian television creators and puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft.

In addition to creating art and DJing, Arens is also a musician, and his eclectic music projects reflect his nostalgic proclivities. They include a rock outfit called FLIPP, which he describes as, “the Sex Pistols meets the Spice Girls,” as well as a pop-duo called Jinx, and solo work that counts 4 Non Blondes’ Linda Perry as a collaborator.

Arens is a largely self-taught visual artist. His work has always leaned toward entertainment figures and musical subject matter, which led to major commissions for album covers and tour poster art — some of which will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at FAB LA.

Poster prints of Elton John, left, and Jim Morrison, by Pop artist Kii Arens are part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is,” which features poster art of Grammy winners and is on display in Aren’s new gallery, FAB LA, which opened late last year.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

When LA-LA Land’s lease expired, Arens sought a new place that would embrace his experimental energy. He also wanted a unique backdrop for showcasing imagery that “treats pop culture as a shared memory for all to take in,” he said. “Something worthy of being preserved, not just consumed.”

The Fine Arts Building’s longtime real estate representative, Gibran Begum, was looking for the same thing. Preservation was part of the conversation when the two connected, but both were also focused on revitalization and augmenting the structure’s old-world charms with something fresh and modern. The goal was to once again bring art lovers to the neighborhood.

A cohesive arts event had been lacking in the area since the monthly Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk scaled down in the face of traffic and permit issues, and more recently COVID closures. The event recently resumed, and though it’s much smaller Arens said he has high hopes for its growth, and for FAB LA’s place in its future.

As does Begum, who calls the Fine Arts Building “a rare and special space.”

“The second you enter, you’re somewhere else, it’s almost like walking into something in Florence, Italy,” Begum said. “We were looking for someone to help rejuvenate and reenergize it and who understood the culture of it.”

Pop artist Kii Arens strikes a pose inside the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designed in the Romanesque revival style by architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Designed in the Romanesque revival style by revered architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the nearby Oviatt Building as well as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, the building’s exterior is embellished with dramatic columns and arches. Its interior features gargoyles, griffins and other mystical figures by sculptor Burt W. Johnson, as well as hand-crafted tiles by Ernest Batchelder and murals by Anthony B. Heinsbergen. A vintage elevator ferries guests between floors.

The opulent building opened on Dec. 8, 1926, attracting an estimated crowd of 27,000, and was named a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974.

Though various artists have shown in the building over its 100-year history, FAB’s vibrant vision, focused on the intersection of design and fine art media, feels like the right fit for the current moment.

“I almost feel like the ghosts of some of the artists are looking down at me and smiling, knowing that what they loved is happening here again,” Arens said.

This includes immersive gatherings, which are a big part of Arens’ plans for FAB. “We’ll have movie premieres, live music events, poetry and I definitely want to have fashion,” Arens said. “The room would make a great runway!”

Charity is also part of the picture.

“And the Winner Is,” serves as a fundraiser for Oxfam, which works to relieve global poverty. Arens said he’s been hosting charity events for the group for the last five years — always right around the Grammys.

“We’ll have a bunch of amazing vinyl records donated by Rhino, and we’ll have clothing donated from famous musicians. Matt Pinfield is DJing and so is Jeffrey Ross,” Arens said.

A poster of Liza Minnelli by Pop artist Kii Arens is part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is” which features poster art of Grammy winners and opens over Grammy weekend.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The exhibition, which closes March 8, will feature some of what Arens calls his “greatest hits,” including an ebullient Liza Minnelli portrait, and other significant prints such as a black-light poster design of Dolly Parton, and a Van Halen print representing Eddie Van Halen’s famed red-, black- and white-splattered “Frankenstein” guitar design on a notebook.

“I’m into simplifying images until they become familiar, immediate and emotional,” Arens said of his work. “I like to strip images down to what people recognize instantly. The feeling comes first, then I’m focused on evoking optimism, color and joy.”

Up next: A show in April in association with the animation studio Titmouse and dedicated to the art of animation.

“In this moment where everything feels disposable, I want to make something that is solid, something you stand in front of, not scroll past,” Arens said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Katie Porter’s still standing, which is saying something.

The last time a significant number of people tuned into California‘s low-frequency race for governor was in October, when Porter’s political obituary was being written in bold type.

Immediately after a snappish and off-putting TV interview, Porter showed up in a years-old video profanely reaming a staff member for — the humanity! — straying into the video frame during her meeting with a Biden Cabinet member.

Not a good look for a candidate already facing questions about her temperament and emotional regulation. (Hang on, gentle reader, we’ll get to that whole gendered double-standard thing in a moment.)

The former Orange County congresswoman had played to the worst stereotypes and that was that. Her campaign was supposedly kaput.

But, lo, these several months later, Porter remains positioned exactly where she’d been before, as one of the handful of top contenders in a race that remains stubbornly formless and utterly wide open.

Did she ever think of exiting the contest, as some urged, and others plainly hoped to see? (The surfacing of that surly 2021 video, with the timing and intentionality of a one-two punch, was clearly not a coincidence.)

No, she said, not for a moment.

“Anyone who thinks that you can just push over Katie Porter has never tried to do it,” she said.

Porter apologized and expressed remorse for her tetchy behavior. She promised to do better.

“You definitely learn from your mistakes,” the Democrat said this week over a cup of chai in San Francisco’s Financial District. “I really have and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how do I show Californians who I am and that I really care about people who work for me. I need to earn back their trust and that’s what campaigns are literally about.”

She makes no excuse for acting churlish and wouldn’t bite when asked about that double standard — though she did allow as how Democratic leader John Burton, who died not long before people got busy digging Porter’s grave, was celebrated for his gruff manner and lavish detonation of f-bombs.

“It was a reminder,” she said, pivoting to the governor’s race, “that there have been other politicians who come on hot, come on strong and fight for what’s right and righteous and California has embraced them.”

Voters, she said, “want someone who will not back down.”

Porter warmed to the subject.

“If you are never gonna hurt anyone’s feelings, you are never gonna take [JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive] Jamie Dimon to task for not thinking about how his workers can’t afford to make ends meet. If you want everyone to love you, you are never gonna say to a big pharma CEO, ‘You didn’t make this cancer drug anymore. You just got richer, right?’ That is a feistiness that I’m proud of.”

At the same, Porter suggested, she wants to show there’s more to her persona than the whiteboard-wielding avenger that turned her into a viral sensation. The inquisitorial stance was, she said, her role as a congressional overseer charged with holding people accountable. Being governor is different. More collaborative. Less confrontational.

Her campaign approach has been to “call everyone, go everywhere” — even places Porter may not be welcomed — to listen and learn, build relationships and show “my ability to craft a compromise, my ability to learn and to change my mind.”

“All of that is really hard to convey,” she said, “in those whiteboard moments.”

The rap on this year’s pack of gubernatorial hopefuls is they’re a collective bore, as though the lack of A-list sizzle and failure to throw off sparks is some kind of mortal sin.

Porter doesn’t buy that.

“When we say boring, I think what we’re really saying is ‘I’m not 100% sure how all this is going to work out.’ People are waiting for some thing to happen, some coronation of our next governor. We’re not gonna have that.”

Gavin Newsom, she noted, was a high-profile former San Francisco mayor who spent eight years as lieutenant governor before winning the state’s top job. His predecessor was the dynastic Jerry Brown.

None of those running this time have that political pedigree, or the Sacramento backgrounds of Newsom or Brown, which, Porter suggested, is not a bad thing.

“I actually think this race has the potential to be really, really exciting for California,” she said. “… I think everyone in this race comes in with a little bit of a fresh energy, and I think that’s really good and healthy.”

Crowding into the conversation was, inevitably, Donald Trump, the sun around which today’s entire political universe turns.

Of course, Porter said, as governor she would stand up to the president. His administration’s actions in Minneapolis have been awful. His stalling on disaster relief for California is grotesque.

But, she said, Trump didn’t cause last year’s firestorm. He didn’t make housing in California obscenely expensive for the last many decades.

“When my children say ‘I don’t know if I want to go to college in California because we don’t have enough dorm housing,’ Trump has done plenty of horrible attacks on higher ed,” Porter said. “But that’s a homegrown problem that we need to tackle.”

Indeed, she’s “very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head on the political horizon.”

Although California needs “someone who’s going to [buffer] us against Trump,” Porter said, “you can’t make that an excuse for why you are not tackling these policy changes that need to be.”

She hadn’t finished her tea, but it was time to go. Porter gathered her things.

She’d just spoken at an Urban League forum in San Francisco and was heading across the Bay Bridge to address union workers in Oakland.

The June 2 primary is some ways off. But Porter remains in the fight.

Thousands of middle-class Californians who depend on the state-run health insurance marketplace face premiums that are thousands of dollars higher than last year because enhanced federal subsidies that began during the COVID-19 pandemic have expired.

Despite fears that more people would go without coverage with the end of the extra benefits, the number enrolling in Covered California has held steady so far, according to state data.

But that may change.

Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, said that she believes the number of people dropping their coverage could increase as they receive bills with their new higher premiums in the mail this month. She said better data on enrollment will be available in the spring.

Altman said that even though the extra benefits ended Dec. 31, 92% of enrollees continue to receive government subsidies to help pay for their health insurance. Nearly half qualify for health insurance that costs $10 or less per month. And 17% of Californians renewing their Covered California policies will pay nothing for premiums if they keep their current plan.

The deadline to sign up for 2026 benefits is Saturday.

Here’s help in sorting out what the expiration of the enhanced subsidies for insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, means in the Golden State.

What expired?

In 2021, Congress voted to temporarily to boost the amount of subsidies Americans could receive for an ACA plan. The law also expanded the program to families who had more money. Before the vote, only Americans with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level — currently $62,600 a year for a single person or $128,600 for a family of four — were eligible for ACA subsidies. The 2021 vote eliminated the income cap and limited the cost of premiums for those higher-earning families to no more than 8.5% of their income.

How could costs change this year for those enrolled in Covered California?

Anyone with income above 400% of the federal poverty level no longer receives subsidies. And many below that level won’t receive as much assistance as they had been receiving since 2021. At the same time, fast-rising health costs boosted the average Covered California premium this year by more than 10.3%, deepening the burden on families.

How much would the net monthly premium for a Los Angeles couple with two children and a household income of $90,000 rise?

The family’s net premium for the benchmark Silver plan would jump to $699 a month this year from $414 a month last year, according to Covered California. That’s an increase of 69%, costing the family an additional $3,420 this year.

Who else could face substantially higher health bills?

People who retired before the Medicare-qualifying age of 65, believing that the enhanced subsidies were permanent, will be especially hit hard. Those with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty level could now be facing thousands of dollars in additional health insurance costs.

How did enrollment in Covered California change after the enhanced subsidies expired on Dec. 31?

As of Jan. 17, 1,906,033 Californians had enrolled for 2026 insurance. That’s less than 1% lower than the 1,921,840 who had enrolled by this time last year.

Who depends on Covered California?

Enrollees are mostly those who don’t have access to an employer’s health insurance plan and don’t qualify for Medi-Cal, the government-paid insurance for lower-income people and those who are disabled.

An analysis by KFF, a nonprofit that provides health policy information, found that nearly half the adults enrolled in an ACA plan are small-business owners or their employees, or are self-employed. Occupations using the health insurance exchanges where they can buy an ACA plan include realtors, farmers, chiropractors and musicians, the analysis found.

What is the underlying problem?

Healthcare spending has been increasing faster than overall inflation for years. The nation now spends more than $15,000 per person on healthcare each year. Medical spending today represents about 18% of the U.S. economy, which means that almost one out of every five dollars spent in the U.S. goes toward healthcare. In 1960, health spending was just 5% of the economy.

What has California done to help people who are paying more?

The state government allocated $190 million this year to provide subsidies for those earning up to 165% of the federal poverty level. This money will help keep monthly premiums consistent with 2025 levels for those with an annual income of up to $23,475 for an individual or $48,225 for a family of four, according to Covered California.

Where can I sign up?

People can find out whether they qualify for financial help and see their coverage options at the website CoveredCA.com.

What if I decide to go without health insurance?

People without insurance could face medical bills of tens of thousands of dollars if they become sick or get injured. And under California state law, those without coverage face an annual penalty of at least $900 for each adult and $450 for each child.

Many in Hollywood fear Warner Bros. Discovery’s sale will trigger steep job losses — at a time when the industry already has been ravaged by dramatic downsizing and the flight of productions from Los Angeles.

David Ellison‘s Paramount Skydance is seeking to allay some of those concerns by detailing its plans to save $6 billion, including job cuts, should Paramount succeed in its bid to buy the larger Warner Bros. Discovery.

Leaders of the combined company would search for savings by focusing on “duplicative operations across all aspects of the business — specifically back office, finance, corporate, legal, technology, infrastructure and real estate,” Paramount said in documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Paramount is locked in an uphill battle to buy the storied studio behind Batman, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo and “The Big Bang Theory.” The firm’s proposed $108.4-billion deal would include swallowing HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and other Warner cable channels.

Warner’s board prefers Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion deal, and has repeatedly rebuffed the Ellison family’s proposals. That prompted Paramount to turn hostile last month and make its case directly to Warner investors on its website and in regulatory filings.

Shareholders may ultimately decide the winner.

Paramount previously disclosed that it would target $6 billion in synergies. And it has stressed the proposed merger would make Hollywood stronger — not weaker. The firm, however, recently acknowledged that it would shave about 10% from program spending should it succeed in combining Paramount and Warner Bros.

Paramount said the cuts would come from areas other than film and television studio operations.

A film enthusiast and longtime producer, David Ellison has long expressed a desire to grow the combined Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. slate to more than 30 movies a year. His goal is to keep Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. stand-alone studios.

This year, Warner Bros. plans to release 17 films. Paramount has said it wants to nearly double its output to 15 movies, which would bring the two-studio total to 32.

“We are very focused on maintaining the creative engines of the combined company,” Paramount said in its marketing materials for investors, which were submitted to the SEC on Monday.

“Our priority is to build a vibrant, healthy business and industry — one that supports Hollywood and creative, benefits consumers, encourages competition, and strengthens the overall job market,” Paramount said.

If the deal goes through, Paramount said that it would become Hollywood’s biggest spender — shelling out about $30 billion a year on programming.

In comparison, Walt Disney Co. has said it plans to spend $24 billion in the current fiscal year.

Paramount also added a dig at Warner management, saying: “We expect to make smarter decisions about licensing across linear networks and streaming.”

Some analysts have wondered whether Paramount would sell one of its most valuable assets — the historic Melrose Avenue movie lot — to raise money to pay down debt that a Warner acquisition would bring.

Paramount is the only major studio to be physically located in Hollywood and its studio lot is one of the company’s crown jewels. That’s where “Sunset Boulevard,” several “Star Trek” movies and parts of “Chinatown” were filmed.

A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

Sources close to the company said Paramount would scrutinize the numerous real estate leases in an effort to bring together far-flung teams into a more centralized space.

For example, CBS has much of its administrative offices on Gower in Hollywood, blocks away from the Paramount lot. And HBO maintains its operations in Culver City — miles from Warner’s Burbank lot.

Paramount pushed its deadline to Feb. 20 for Warner investors to tender their shares at $30 a piece.

The tender offer was set to expire last week, but Paramount extended the window after failing to solicit sufficient interest among Warner shareholders.

Some analysts believe Paramount may have to raise its bid to closer to $34 a share to turn heads. Paramount last raised its bid Dec. 4 — hours before the auction closed and Netflix was declared the winner.

Paramount also has filed proxy materials to ask Warner shareholders to reject the Netflix deal at an upcoming stockholder meeting.

Earlier this month, Netflix amended its bid, converting its $27.75-a-share offer to all-cash to defuse some of Paramount’s arguments that it had a stronger bid.

Should Paramount win Warner Bros., it would need to line up $94.65 billion in debt and equity.

Billionaire Larry Ellison has pledged to backstop $40.4 billion for the equity required. Paramount’s proposed financing relies on $24 billion from royal families in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The deal would saddle Paramount with more than $60 billion of debt — which Warner board members have argued may be untenable.

“The extraordinary amount of debt financing as well as other terms of the PSKY offer heighten the risk of failure to close,” Warner board members said in a filing earlier this month.

Paramount would also have to absorb Warner’s debt load, which currently tops $30 billion.

Netflix is seeking to buy the Warner Bros. television and movie studios, HBO and HBO Max. It is not interested in Warner’s cable channels, including CNN. Warner wants to spin off its basic cable channels to facilitate the Netflix deal.

Analysts say both deals could face regulatory hurdles.

Just like his famously inventive offenses, Mike McDaniel had many options.

He interviewed for several head coaching jobs after his four-year tenure in charge of the Miami Dolphins ended this month, and he could have been an offensive coordinator pretty much anywhere he pleased.

McDaniel still wants to be a head coach again someday, but he chose to join the Chargers alongside Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert because the combination of time, place and personnel seemed perfect for this idiosyncratic coach who also happens to be one of the top offensive minds in football.

“It didn’t take long for me to feel this is what I was looking for,” the Chargers’ new offensive coordinator said Tuesday. “You just want to be a part of a hungry organization with like-minded football people that are doing anything and everything to win. And for me, the opportunity to work with coach Harbaugh was too good to pass up. It felt like I was extremely fortunate to be afforded this opportunity.”

Harbaugh and the Chargers seem equally fortunate to land McDaniel, an ideal candidate for the crucial job of directing Herbert’s career into something worthy of his prodigious talent.

In his introductory news conference, McDaniel immediately went into great detail about what he wants to do for Herbert, who has thrown for 24,820 yards and 163 touchdowns while emerging as one of the NFL’s top passers in his six seasons with the Chargers.

“You have a competitive player that each and every year is trying to get better at his craft, (but) I think he hasn’t neared the ceiling to what he’s capable of,” McDaniel said.

Herbert has consistently shined despite playing with three permanent head coaches, four offensive coordinators and a changing collection of playmakers and linemen around him.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert scrambles against the New England Patriots in the AFC wild-card playoffs on Jan. 11.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Despite playing in some offensive schemes perceived to be relatively primitive by modern NFL standards, particularly in the past two years under Harbaugh and fired coordinator Greg Roman, Herbert has frequently carried the Chargers through his improvisation, arm strength and sheer competitive will.

Essentially, McDaniel doesn’t want Herbert to have to work so hard.

“There’s a lot of incredible plays Justin has made,” McDaniel said. “He’s firmly capable, and sometimes as a coach you can rely upon that a little too much. … It can be taxing over time for a player to necessitate an incredible play too often, so you try to take it off of him by creating some low-cost, high-reward offense that he’s firmly capable of doing, but maybe a player of lesser talent would be capable of doing as well.”

McDaniel said the Dolphins’ struggles when Tua Tagovailoa was out with injuries reinforced his determination to keep Herbert safer. The Chargers quarterback took 96 sacks in the past two seasons.

“He has an incredible ability to do off-schedule (throws),” McDaniel said. “I think I’ll be firmly coaching away from the off-schedule stuff at the front end, because he can always go back to that comfort zone as you work out other things. I think a primary focus on how to have offense without putting him in a vulnerable position will be a starting point, and we’ll extrapolate from there.”

McDaniel and Herbert spoke last week, and the quarterback is ready to work.

“He was in high spirits and just excited about attacking something,” McDaniel said. “You lose in the playoffs in the first round, it’s a lot of work that you feel kind of like (left you with) an empty stomach. So that hunger, I could hear in his voice.”

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh attends Mike McDaniel’s introductory news conference on Tuesday.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

McDaniel is joining a good team that needed a spark after consecutive 11-6 seasons followed by two playoff losses under Harbaugh. The Chargers have needed that spark to join the NFL’s upper echelon ever since they moved north from San Diego, posting six winning records over nine years with just one postseason victory.

McDaniel could be the ingredient to put the Chargers into championship contention if this partnership with Harbaugh flourishes. The 42-year-old coordinator hit it off immediately with his famously square-looking new boss.

“I feel like we’re the same guy,” McDaniel said while Harbaugh laughed at the back of the room. “He’s just taller. No, I think one thing we share is that Jim has never patterned himself after somebody. He’s his own person, and I would say that hopefully I would be described in a similar fashion. Who knows? I might be a 100% Dockers coach now.”

The fashion-forward McDaniel’s line was even funnier because he delivered it while wearing what appeared to be a $12,000 Bottega Veneta woven leather jacket.

The chance to learn from Harbaugh was important in his decision, but McDaniel also paid his respect to past Chargers coaches Sid Gillman and Don Coryell, two offensive innovators who changed football forever.

“There was a lot that I found very attractive,” McDaniel said. “I was fortunate to have some opportunities, but it started with coach Harbaugh. To be a part of an organization that has the legacy of Sid and Air Coryell, I was super attracted to. Got a quarterback who I’ve always admired, and just a lot of young players. A great situation for my family and me to go to the next chapter.”

Beacham writes for the Associated Press.

Before arriving at CBS News in October to become editor in chief, Bari Weiss had never been inside a television control room.

But on Tuesday, she presented her plan for taking the storied news division forward after a series of moves that has damaged its standing among viewers, failed to improve ratings, lowered internal morale and generated highly negative press coverage.

Weiss, addressing the staff gathered at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, reached out to those who have not been impressed with what they have seen so far. “I’m not going to stand up here today and ask for your trust,” she said, according to a transcript provided by CBS News. “I’m going to earn it, just like we have to do with our viewers.”

The statement was an acknowledgment that the early days of Weiss’ tenure have not been smooth. Weiss has dealt with her own lack of familiarity with TV news procedures, the entrenched culture of a legacy media institution and suspicion that partisan politics are driving changes. The town hall-style meeting was an attempt at a reset.

Weiss fought the claims that her mandate at CBS News is to provide friendlier coverage to the Trump administration as parent company Paramount pursues an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. She said she has never discussed CBS News coverage of the White House with Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, to whom she reports.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison attends the premiere of “Ghosted” at AMC Lincoln Square in New York in April 2023.

(Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

“I’m here to do one thing,” Weiss said. “It’s not to be a mouthpiece for anybody. It’s simply to be a mouthpiece for fairness and the pursuit of truth.”

She told employees her business goal for CBS News is to expand its reach on digital platforms.

“We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are, so they are leaving us,” she said, adding that the network’s strategy until now has been “to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we’re toast.”

Weiss said she wants to focus on expanding the most successful CBS News programs — “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning” and true crime magazine “48 Hours” to other platforms, including podcasts, newsletters and live events. “We need to shift to a streaming mentality immediately,” she said, adding that “our competitors are not just the other broadcast networks.

The pronouncement — which could have been made five to 10 years ago — was welcomed by some CBS News employees who believe the operation has lagged in using its resources to expand beyond traditional TV. Overall, they were encouraged by Weiss’ remarks.

“She went a good way to bring people together,” said one attendee. “That was a good start.”

One question posed to Weiss, which is likely to loom over her tenure, is how much time does CBS News have to replace the substantial revenue still generated by traditional TV with digital enterprises. Ad rates for digital platforms are substantially lower than those for TV, which means greater dependence on subscriptions and other revenue sources.

Weiss did not provide any specifics on the level of investment for the new initiatives. “The emphasis going forward is going to be building things that people are ultimately willing to pay for,” she said.

Weiss said the network is recruiting “fresh young talent” that will focus on reporting first through social media, “but will appear everywhere else too.” She showed three recent hires based in London, Kyiv and New York who deliver their stories across different platforms using their iPhones.

Weiss also announced the hiring of 19 new contributors, several of whom have already appeared on the Free Press, the digital news site that CBS News parent Paramount acquired as part of the deal to bring her into the company.

The dependence on contributors, who are not employees but paid for their TV appearances, is commonly used on cable news networks that need to fill hours of programming.

Weiss has acknowledged to colleagues that she’s not familiar with the process of moving the assembly line of stories from the assignment stage, through the reporting and editing process and onto a schedule of programs, some of which run 365 days a year.

Her lack of experience was glaring in her handling of “60 Minutes,” the network’s most prestigious and profitable program. CBS News staffers were stunned when she decided to pull a segment on the abuses at an El Salvador prison used by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants from Venezuela.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and the network’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.

(CBS News)

The story had been researched and reported for months by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and fully vetted by the standards department when Weiss yanked it one day before its originally scheduled Dec. 21 air date. Alfonsi called the move political and the conflict added to the narrative that Weiss is trying to placate the White House.

Weiss insisted Alfonsi’s story needed more reporting including an interview with an administration official, even though the White House had already declined requests to participate. The segment ran a month later with only minor additions to the reporting which executives inside the news division say was not worth the public drama created by Weiss’ editorial decision.

At the meeting, Weiss acknowledged she would have approached the matter differently but defended her intent.

“It’s always gonna be my prerogative as editor of this newsroom to say that I want more information, and to push to get more information,” she said. “Now, am I ever going to hold something again after it has been put out there with promos? I don’t want to make that exact same decision again, no I do not.”

Weiss added that Paramount management had no influence on her decision to hold Alfonsi’s story. “I wanna just say this as plainly and clearly as possible,” she said. “I was not pressured by David Ellison or anyone else.”

She said the journalism standards at the network have not changed since she arrived, but believed the division has been more welcoming to a wider range of viewpoints.

“I don’t think a year ago CBS News would’ve had [former National Rifle Assn. spokesperson] Dana Loesch, let’s say, on the morning show,” Weiss said. “I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Weiss praised the revamped “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil” — with a new anchor she handpicked, even though critics have been harsh and the ratings have slipped. All three of the major network evening newscasts are down in January compared to a year ago, but CBS is off the most at around 20%.

Segments on the program, such as Dokoupil’s frothy tribute to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a brief item on the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington that had President Trump calling it the fault of the Capitol police, were widely panned. But the attention has died down as the program has settled into being a straight-ahead newscast.

While the fiascoes involving “60 Minutes” or the first week of the “CBS Evening News” have been demoralizing, some journalists in the division are still hopeful Weiss can be a catalyst for change and want her to succeed.

But her rocky start will be tough to turn around according to Tom Bettag, a former network news producer who is now a lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

“Weiss started off so miserably with ’60 Minutes’ and the Dokoupil launch, that you wonder if she can redeem herself,” Bettag said. “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

Weiss isn’t the first executive to be put in charge of a TV news operation without any hands-on experience. It was not easy for the others, either.

Michael Gartner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor was appointed to oversee NBC News in the mid-1980s. During his turbulent five-year tenure, he struggled with talent egos as he tried to get costs under control. Walter Isaacson came from Time magazine to run CNN in 2001. He was gone after 18 months, expressing bewilderment over the public scrutiny of every network move.

Weiss’ previous management experience was running the Free Press, which has a staff of 60 compared to the sprawling CBS News operation with more than 1,200 employees around the world.

Weiss is also an anomaly as she comes to the job with an established point of view. Her journalism career was as an opinion writer before she launched the Free Press. The site gained a following for its criticism of the progressive left and purveyors of so-called “woke” policies.

Weiss has been vocal in telling CBS News employees that the public has less trust in legacy media, an assertion that is often pushed by Trump and his supporters. (She told the meeting that the network needs to target “independents … those who want to equip themselves with all the facts, who are curious to hear what’s going on, even if it offends their sensibilities.”)

Weiss carries that agenda while she tries to overcome the whispers of “she’s not one of us” at CBS News, which even loyal insiders believe leans too heavily on its storied history defined by 20th century journalism icons such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

“I think this place has allowed the ghosts of the past to walk these halls a little too much,” one CBS News journalist said. “They need to be acknowledged, but not obsessed over every day. The New York Yankees don’t sit around dwelling on Babe Ruth every day. They focus on winning.”

While “60 Minutes” and “CBS Evening News” are the editorial backbone of the division and are getting the bulk of Weiss’ attention, the division also has to chart a future course for “CBS Mornings,” a major revenue generator. Co-host Gayle King’s contract is up in May and last year there were leaks to an industry trade suggesting that Paramount wants her to return in another role and presumably a lower salary.

“CBS Mornings” is in third place behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today,” but still has a following and King is the most recognizable star in the news division. Morning show viewing is habitual and a change in the host chair could lead King’s fans to abandon the program. Once viewers leave, it’s hard to get them back, especially in today’s fragmented media environment where consumers have a seemingly endless array of alternatives.

At the town hall, Weiss gave a positive shout-out to King, who is angry over the press reports. “I’ve had people come and pet me like a puppy and say, ‘I’m sorry that you’re leaving CBS, I won’t watch those guys anymore,’” King said.

“I just want everyone here to know that she’s absolutely beloved,” Weiss said. “And we see her long into the future here at CBS.”

People close to the morning program who were not authorized to comment publicly believe King would return for another contract. But the network is already preparing for the future if King does depart.

Adriana Diaz and Kelly O’Grady were named co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning” and will be the principal fill-ins for King on the weekday program, clearly an attempt to get them familiar with the audience. “It’s a very explicit attempt to start building a bench,” said one insider.

Before the town hall meeting on Tuesday, many CBS News veterans were frustrated that Weiss had not addressed the entire division during the first three months of her tenure. King, who told colleagues she was impressed overall with the presentation, told Weiss they needed to meet sooner.

“For many people — they’ve never even heard your freakin’ voice,” King said. “So it’s good to hear, to see you’re a real person and this is what you want.”

Hey, Greenland — feeling a little low after President Trump’s ongoing attempts to buy or otherwise acquire the land under your feet? Neil Young can fix that framework!

Just keep “Rockin’ in the Free World.” For free. Forever.

The 80-year-old “hippie at heart” on Tuesday granted “our friends in Greenland” a year of free access to his music catalog, hoping that its contents “ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”

(Of course, all U.S. administrations, even Trump’s, are effectively temporary, given the whole “elections every four years” thing. That should ease some stress right there.)

“It is my sincere wish for you to be able to enjoy all of my music in your beautiful Greenland home, in its highest quality,” Young wrote on his blog. “This is an offer of Peace and Love. All the music i have made during the last 62 years is yours to hear.” It’s unclear whether he’s giving away the middle-tier “Rust” subscription, which is just a penny under $45 a year, or the top-notch “Patron” subscription, which adds unspecified extras and a promise of priority treatment for $99.99 annually. The basic level subscription, at $24.99 a year, doesn’t provide the “highest quality” sound or the “music films” his message promises.

Greenlanders who take him up on his offer can renew for free annually as long as they stay put on the island. Young’s team will need cellphone numbers with the Greenland country code: 299.

Young said he hoped other “organizations” would follow in his footsteps.

He does have a “Heart of Gold,” after all.

ORLANDO, Fla. — President Trump’s crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nealry 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024’s almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest since 2001 and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.

Immigration increased by 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024’s increase of 2.8 million people. The census report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.

In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people, and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.

Tuesday’s data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made the surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.

The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the first half of Trump’s first year back in office.

The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration’s crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; and Minneapolis, Minn..

The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.

“They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up,” Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.

Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.

The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.

Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Brookings demographer William Frey said the bureau’s staffers appear to have been “doing this work as usual without interference.”

“So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out,” Frey said.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

How good is senior Nathan Castrejon scoring goals for South East’s soccer team?

Coach Felipe Bernal said, “His strength and speed gets him through like Mbappe of Real Madrid. That’s the way I see him at this level.”

Castrejon, 5 feet 10, 160 pounds, entered this week with 38 of South East’s 90 goals. South East has its best chance to win a City Section title since it won in a big upset in 2022. This season would be no upset, since the Jaquars are 16-1-3.

Bernal has so many players with the first name of Nathan that he has to call them by their last name. Besides Castrejon, there’s Nathan Medina, who has eight goals, and Nathan Vargas, a backup goalie who has filled in well while the starter was sick.

“We’re a complete team this year,” Bernal said.

One of the most interesting players is 5-4 David Velasco. “The kid gets the job done,” Bernal said. “He’s amazing.”

Velasco has 11 assists.

South East is 6-0-1 in the competitive Eastern League that includes longtime power Bell.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

Doris, who has made 23 Six Nations appearances, will lead Ireland out against a France side shorn of some high-profile players.

While fit-again captain Antoine Dupont is back, head coach Fabien Galthie opted not to select France’s all-time top try-scorer Damian Penaud, veteran centre Gael Fickou and back row Gregory Alldritt, who skippered the side in Dupont’s absence last year.

Having faced Alldritt on several occasions for both club and country, Doris admits he was surprised by the 28-year-old’s omission.

“If you look at the Top 14 week in, week out, there’s so many quality players at the top level, they’ve got an abundance of talent to choose from,” added Doris.

I was surprised Alldritt wasn’t in it. I obviously faced him and La Rochelle a few weeks ago. I rate him very highly but they’ve got quality across the back row and I’m sure [Anthony] Jelonch will represent the eight shirt very well.

“It’s always a big threat playing against France, especially away from home at a hostile place like Stade de France, so looking forward to it.”

Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges against him Monday and was ordered detained as his case proceeds.

Wedding, who authorities say was in hiding for more than a decade and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, was arrested last week. He faces 17 felonies in two separate indictments.

During the court hearing at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding, who wore a beige jail uniform and black Crocs, scanned the gallery and occasionally smirked. Hulking and tattooed, the 6’3” Wedding towered over his attorney and the deputy marshals standing guard in the courtroom.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Early ordered Wedding jailed without bond and set the next hearing for February 11.

The judge set a tentative trial date in March, although Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, said it would likely take more time for the case to unfold.

Colombo did not argue for his client’s release on Monday afternoon, later citing “the whirlwind” Wedding had experienced since his apprehension.

“It takes time to put the sureties in place, to have the information for the court to establish that there’s a condition or combination of conditions that could secure his release,” Colombo told reporters. “We were not in the position today to do that and we anticipate addressing that at a later date.”

Colombo said he first met with his client several days ago, after his arrival in the U.S., and described him as being “in good spirits.” Colombo disputed claims from federal authorities that Wedding had been in hiding out in Mexico.

“Hiding out and living somewhere are two different things,” Colombo said. “I would characterize him as living, the government can characterize it their way.”

Colombo added that his client was arrested and “he did not surrender.”

Wedding, who was known by many aliases, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of becoming a major trafficker of cocaine into Canada and the United States and a ruthless leader who ordered killings, including one of a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him. The alleged order resulted in the victim being shot to death in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025, prosecutors said.

The former Olympic snowboarder was charged in a 2024 indictment with running a continuing criminal enterprise, assorted drug trafficking charges and directing the murders of two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

“Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” Patel said in a news conference Friday announcing the arrest. “He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”

When questioned about authorities likening his client to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, Colombo said “I think it’s overstated, that’s their spin.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said last week that Wedding’s alleged global drug trafficking organization “used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.”

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said after Wedding’s capture that his alleged organization shipped approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine through Southern California on its way to Canada.

Authorities have arrested 36 people in connection with their role in the transnational organization and the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned 19 people, including Wedding, according to Davis.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.

Wedding competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

An experienced attorney, Colombo previously represented Rubén Oseguera González, also known as “El Menchito,” the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Oseguera González was sentenced last year to a term of life in prison plus 30 years to run consecutively for his role in a major drug trafficking conspiracy.

WASHINGTON — Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term delegate for the District of Columbia in Congress and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, has filed paperwork to end her campaign for reelection, likely closing out a decades-long career in public service.

Norton, 88, has been the sole representative of the residents of the nation’s capital in Congress since 1991, but she faced increasing questions about her effectiveness after the Trump administration began its sweeping intervention into the city last year.

Mayor Muriel Bowser congratulated Norton on her retirement.

“For 35 years, Congresswoman Norton has been our Warrior on the Hill,” Bowser wrote on social media. “Her work embodies the unwavering resolve of a city that refuses to yield in its fight for equal representation.”

Norton’s campaign filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday. Her office has not released an official statement about the delegate’s intentions.

The filing was first reported by NOTUS.

Her retirement opens up a likely competitive primary to succeed her in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Several local lawmakers had already announced their intentions to run in the Democratic primary.

An institution in Washington politics for decades, Norton is the oldest member in the House. She was a personal friend to civil rights icons such as Medgar Evers and a contemporary of other activists turned congressional stalwarts, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the late Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.).

But Norton has faced calls to step aside in recent months as residents and local lawmakers questioned her ability to effectively advocate for the city in Congress amid the Republican administration’s aggressive moves toward the city.

The White House federalized Washington’s police force, deployed National Guard troops from six states and the federal district across the capital’s streets and surged federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security into neighborhoods. The moves prompted outcry and protests from residents and a lawsuit from the district’s attorney general.

Norton’s retirement comes as a historically high number of lawmakers announce they will either seek another public office or retire from official duties altogether. More than 1 in 10 members of the House are not seeking reelection this year.

Norton’s staunch advocacy for her city

As the district’s delegate, Norton does not have a formal vote in the House. But she has found other ways to advocate for the city’s interests. Called the “Warrior on the Hill” by her supporters, Norton was a staunch advocate for D.C. statehood and for the labor rights of the federal workers who called Washington and its surrounding region home.

She also secured bipartisan wins for district residents. Norton was the driving force behind the passage of a law that provides up to $10,000 per year for students who attend public colleges outside the district. It also provides up to $2,500 per year for students who attend select private historically Black colleges and universities across the country and nonprofit colleges in the D.C. metropolitan area.

In the 1990s, Norton played a key role in ending the city’s financial crisis by brokering a deal to transfer billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities to the federal government in exchange for changes to the district’s budget. She twice played a leading role in House passage of a D.C. statehood bill.

Steeped in the civil rights movement

Norton was born and raised in Washington, and her life spans the arc of the district’s trials and triumphs. She was educated at Dunbar High School as part of the school’s last segregated class.

“Growing up black in Washington gave a special advantage. This whole community of blacks was very race conscious, very civil rights conscious,” she said in her 2003 biography, “Fire in My Soul.”

She attended Antioch College in Ohio and in 1963 split her time between Yale Law School and Mississippi, where she worked as an organizer during the Freedom Summer of the Civil Rights Movement.

One day that summer, Evers picked her up at the airport. He was assassinated that night.

Norton also helped organize and attended the 1963 March on Washington.

In an interview with the Associated Press in 2023, Norton said the march was still “the single most extraordinary experience of my lifetime.”

She went on to become the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which helps enforce anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. She ran for office when her predecessor retired to run for Washington mayor.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

HONOLULU — Seven Japanese American soldiers will be promoted to officer ranks in a solemn ceremony Monday, eight decades after they died fighting for the U.S. during World War II despite having been branded “enemy aliens.”

The seven were students at the University of Hawaii and cadets in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, on track to become Army officers, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. They initially served in the Hawaii Territorial Guard, but soon after the attack the U.S. barred most Japanese Americans from service and deemed them enemy aliens.

The seven cadets instead worked with a civilian labor battalion known as “Varsity Victory Volunteers,” which performed tasks such as digging ditches and breaking rocks, until American leaders in early 1943 announced the formation of a segregated Japanese American regiment. The seven were among those who joined the unit, known as the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The combat team, along with the 100th battalion composed of mostly Japanese Americans from Hawaii, went on to become one of the most decorated units in U.S. history. Some of its soldiers fought for the Allies even as their relatives were detained in Japanese American internment camps because they were considered a public danger.

“It is important for us to really kind of give back and recognize our forefathers and these veterans that we stand on the shoulders of,” said 1st Sgt. Nakoa Hoe of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regiment, what the unit is now known as in the Army Reserve. He noted the once-segregated unit now includes a “multitude of cultures.”

The seven “sacrificed so much at a challenging time when their loyalty to their country was questioned and they even had family members imprisoned,” he added.

The seven men — Daniel Betsui, Jenhatsu Chinen, Robert Murata, Grover Nagaji, Akio Nishikawa, Hiroichi Tomita and Howard Urabe — died fighting in Europe in 1944. All but Murata were killed during the campaign to liberate Italy from Nazi Germany. Murata was killed by an artillery shell in eastern France.

They will be promoted Monday to 2nd lieutenant, the rank they would have had if they completed the ROTC program. Relatives of at least some of the men are expected to attend the ceremony, scheduled to be held in a Honolulu park.

Even though Hawaii was not yet a state, the cadets were American citizens because they were born in Hawaii after its annexation in 1898.

“Fighting an injustice at home, these seven men later gave their lives fighting on the battlefields of Europe,” said a news release from U.S. Army Pacific. “They were unable to return to school and finish their commissioning efforts.”

Monday’s ceremony capping efforts to honor the men comes amid growing concern and criticism that President Donald Trump’s administration is whitewashing American history ahead of the nation celebrating 250 years of its independence, including last week’s removal of an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park.

Last year, the Pentagon said internet pages honoring a Black medal of honor winner and Japanese American service members were mistakenly taken down — but it staunchly defended its overall campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers “DEI.”

Honoring the seven isn’t about DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — but recognizing them for their merit and that “they served in the ultimate capacity of giving their lives for the country,” said Lt. Col. Jerrod Melander, who previously led the University of Hawaii’s ROTC program as professor of military science.

Melander said he launched the commissioning effort in 2023 during former President Joe Biden’s administration and that the promotions were approved last year during the Trump administration.

The university awarded the men posthumous degrees in 2012. Laura Lyons, interim vice provost for academic excellence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, called their promotions especially important.

“Everyone’s contribution to and sacrifice for the ideals of freedom and the security of this country should matter and should be acknowledged, regardless of who they are,” Lyons said.

Kelleher writes for the Associated Press.

The Rams won’t be the only no-shows at the Super Bowl. President Trump will be conspicuous in his absence from the biggest annual, single-day sporting event in the United States.

“It’s just too far away,” Trump told the New York Post. “I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter.”

Or perhaps not so far to his left?

Super Bowl LX will be played Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, part of the San Francisco Bay Area that Trump has so often reviled.

The teams — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — hail from deeply entrenched blue states. Massachusetts and Washington have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988.

Trump also has expressed disgust over the musical performers at this year’s game: Bad Bunny and Green Day, both unabashed critics of the current administration. Bad Bunny will play the halftime show while Green Day will perform ahead of the kickoff.

“I’m anti-them,” Trump said. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

Ahead of a tour last fall to promote his most recent album, Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) announced he would skip the United States because he was afraid of ICE raids at his concerts. The Puerto Rican superstar — who has nearly 84 million monthly listeners on Spotify — explained why he made an exception for the Super Bowl.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown. This is for my people, my culture and our history.”

Green Day, an American pop-punk band of almost 40 years, has since Trump’s first term swapped a line in the lyrics of the 2004 hit “American Idiot” from “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.”

Turning Point USA, the conservative non-profit founded by the late Charlie Kirk, announced in October that it would stage its own counterprogramming to the Super Bowl and stream it on conservative outlets. The “All American Halftime Show” is billed as “Celebrating Faith, Family, & Freedom.” As of Monday, musical artists had not been announced.

Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl a year ago when he received a muted, mixed reaction of cheers and boos in New Orleans. But this year, the 5½-hour flight from Washington D.C. to the Bay Area apparently is too long for the president, who in January alone has flown to Switzerland, Detroit and Palm Beach.

Trump has long enjoyed attending high-profile sporting events. He was present at the College Football Playoff title game between Indiana and Miami a week ago and in 2025 attended the Army-Navy college football game, the U.S. Open Final and the Ryder Cup. In 2019, he attended Game 5 of the World Series in Washington D.C., where he was resoundingly booed.

The NFL has resisted pressure to replace Bad Bunny with a performer more politically palatable to Trump.

“There’s a lot of people right now who don’t like Bad Bunny being in the Super Bowl halftime show,” NFL chief marketing officer Tim Ellis said at a conference in October. “Well, not everyone has to like everything we do. Bad Bunny is f—ing awesome.”

Not everyone has to like the teams that earned Super Bowl berths and the states they call home, either. And not everyone has to approve of the venue. That includes the President, who made it clear that if he decides to watch, he’ll do so from a distance.