Frederick Wiseman, a preeminent documentary filmmaker, has died. He was 96.
The filmmaker’s death was announced by his family Monday in a statement released by Zipporah Films, Wiseman’s distribution company.
In a career that lasted nearly 60 years, Wiseman produced and directed 45 films beginning in 1967 with “Titicut Follies,” a documentary on the the patient-inmates of Bridgewater State Hospital for the Criminally Insane in Massachusetts, through 2023’s “Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,” a documentary on the Troisgros family’s Michelin three-starred restaurant in Ouches, France. His final film earned universal critical acclaim, and was recognized as the best nonfiction film of 2023 by the New York Film Critics Circle, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. Awards and the National Society of Film Critics.
“Wiseman, whose observational approach has often been mischaracterized as objective or omniscient, here drops any pretense to neutrality, so potent and overpowering is his sense of kinship with a fellow artist,” wrote Justin Chang in his 2023 review. “The marriage of sensibilities in front of and behind the camera is the stealthiest meeting in ‘Menus-Plaisirs — Les Troisgros,’ and the most unexpectedly satisfying.”
A scene from Frederick Wiseman’s “Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros.”
(PBS)
The filmmaker considered both Cambridge, Mass., and Paris his homes. His films, to an extent, reflected that transatlantic residency in their freshness of perspective. They display an innate curiosity and astonishing degrees of empathy, intelligence and perceptiveness, with subjects ranging from public and social institutions to cultural and specialized spaces and the minutiae of human interactions.
Wiseman’s other films included “High School” (1968), “Welfare” (1975), “Juvenile Court” (1973), “Public Housing” (1997), “La Danse” (2009), “National Gallery” (2014), “Ex Libris — The New York Public Library” (2017) and “City Hall” (2020). The varied body of work earned three Emmy Awards and an honorary Academy Award. Wiseman was also awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur Prize fellowships.
Beyond documentaries, the director also made three fiction films, “Seraphita’s Diary” (1982), “The Last Letter” (2002) and “A Couple” (2022). In reviewing the last, Chang wrote, “I suspect [Wiseman] is no more likely to impose himself on one of his fictions than he would on one of his documentaries, which ‘A Couple’ may resemble more than it appears. Wiseman has spent a career probing the complex inner workings and painfully human errors of America’s establishments, but in marriage itself, he may have found the most fraught, mysterious and unreformable institution of all.”
Nathalie Boutefeu in the movie “A Couple.”
(Film Forum)
Frederick Wiseman was born Jan. 1, 1930, in Boston. He graduated from Willams College and Yale Law School before embarking on a filmmaking career in the mid-1960s. He remained staunchly independent, establishing Zipporah Films, named for his wife, in 1971, in order to maintain control over distribution of his work.
In addition to his filmmaking career, Wiseman worked as a theater director and actor, including a recent appearance in Rebecca Zlotowski’s 2025 film “A Private Life,” starring Jodie Foster.
Wiseman’s wife of 65 years, Zipporah Batshaw Wiseman, died 2021. He is survived by his two sons, David (Jennifer) and Eric (Kristen Stowell), and three grandchildren, Benjamin, Charlie and Tess, as well as his friend and collaborator Karen Konicek, with whom he worked for 45 years.
Mike Trout says he would prefer to return to center field for the Angels, and the star slugger says he will skip the World Baseball Classic because of insurance issues.
The 11-time All-Star who been plagued by injuries since 2021 says his familiar position isn’t as physically demanding as the corner outfield spots, contrary to traditional thinking.
Trout played his most games since 2019 last season, finishing at 130. The three-time American League MVP started 22 of his first 29 games in right field before a knee injury sidelined him for a month. The 34-year-old was exclusively a designated hitter when he returned in late May.
Trout had 26 home runs but hit just .232, by far the worst average of his career when he had at least 400 at-bats.
He spent time in left field early in his career but was a center fielder for 11 consecutive seasons before the switch to right. Injuries limited Trout to 111 games the previous two years.
Trout said conversations with first-year manager Kurt Suzuki have included the idea of a return to center.
“I feel like I’m at my best when I’m in center,” Trout told reporters at the club’s spring training facility Monday. “If I have to go to the corner, I’ll go to the corner.”
Trout said a return to center will be good for his health.
“When I was in center, it was less on my body than the corners,” Trout said. “To be honest, in right field I felt I was running a lot. Talking to some other outfielders and they’re saying that they feel the same way sometimes, center is less on your legs. I just feel … confident in center.”
Trout, who played in his only WBC three years ago, had said he was interested in playing again before insurance issues arose.
“It’s disappointing,” Trout said. “I wanted to run it back with all the guys.”
Promising young Boston outfielder Roman Anthony has been named as a Team USA injury replacement for Arizona’s Corbin Carroll, who has a broken bone in his right hand.
DISNEY Cruise Line fans were treated to a welcome surprise this week when it was announced that the Disney Wish would be making its way to the UK for the first time.
Arriving next year, the ship will sail on a series of European itineraries departing from Southampton – meaning no need to faff around with flights.
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Couples should set their sights on Sky Princess, which has a more grown-up atmosphere than the other ships mentioned here
And without the need to splurge on airfares, travellers have more cash to splash on board.
This year will see many mega ships sailing out of Britain on no-fly itineraries.
Sophie Swietochowski takes a look at five top cruise ships – of varying sizes – to keep your eye on in 2026 for some cracking European voyages . . .
ROYAL CARIBBEAN’S LIBERTY OF THE SEAS: NORWAY
FUN is never in short supply on Royal Caribbean ships, and Liberty Of The Seas is no exception.
Kids can hurl down three storeys on whooshing waterslides, twirl on an indoor ice rink and test their nerves in a mind-boggling escape room, all while the adults kick back with a frozen daiquiri at the Solarium Bar.
On top of al that, there are 15 lip-smacking restaurants — pizza, Mexican, teppanyaki, they’ve got it all — as well as a selection of all-singing, all-dancing theatre shows that will amaze.
And with plenty of space on the upper decks for soaking in the views, this vessel is a great choice for a Norwegian fjords cruise.
GO: A six-night Norwegian Adventure is from £547pp, departing Southampton on October 10 and calling at Stavanager and Oslo.
If wellness is your thing, the spa and fitness areas are some of the best and brightest at sea, home to a yoga and meditation studio, plus thermal rooms including a steam bath, Himalayan salt sauna and cold room.
And when that cold room gets too much, head to the upper decks — a late November sailing around the Canary Islands is the perfect opportunity to take advantage of sunloungers, thanks to temperatures in the 20s.
AMBITION is an ideal size for first-timers, with capacity for just 1,200 passengers, meaning it won’t feel overwhelming when on board.
If you start with a short cruise, like the four-night Holland and Belgium one, you can get a feel for cruising without jumping in headfirst.
Awesome Amsterdam is a top destination for the AmbassadorCredit: Getty
Swing by The Cavern bar, named after Liverpool’s Cavern Club which was visited regularly by the Beatles back in the day — there is live music and fresh pours flowing day and night.
If that doesn’t bowl you over, The Palladium sure will, with its constant dance, music and comedy performances.
For something special, splurge extra dosh on the Chef’s Table — a nine-course celebratory fiesta.
GO: A four-night Weekend Escape to Holland and Belgium is from £410pp, departing London Tilbury on November 27 and calling at Zeebrugge for Bruges, Amsterdam and Rotterdam.
YOU need not worry about the weather when you’re sailing on P&O Cruises’ Iona.
The ship’s vast Skydome means you can swim in the main pool come rain or shine, thanks to a glass-domed roof that gives the area a greenhouse feel.
The lovely bubbly hot tub on P&O’s Cruises’ IonaCredit: Supplied
Take That fans should grab a ticket to the Greatest Days theatre show, adapted from the West End musical with sing-along bangers.
Among the 30 bars and restaurants are Sindhu, the British-Indian fusion joint that does a knockout lamb bhuna, as well as The Olive Grove which celebrates all things Mediterranean.
A two-week Med cruise will give you plenty of time to explore the on-board shopping and bars.
GO: A 14-night Spain, Portugal and Canary Islands sailing costs from £978pp, departing Southampton on November 21 and calling at Madeira, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote, Lisbon, Vigo and La Coruna.
COUPLES should set their sights on Sky Princess, which has a more grown-up atmosphere than the other ships mentioned here.
Entertainment extends throughout the day, well into the evening.
Surf’s up aboard the Royal Caribbean’s Liberty Of The SeasCredit: Instagram/@royalcaribbeaneurope
Creative types can attend history of art lectures in the Fine Arts Gallery, while the boozier crowd can stomp their feet several storeys above at one of the famous top-deck parties.
When the sun dips beyond the horizon, snuggle down in the open-air poolside theatre for a movie under the stars and then, if you’re feeling lucky, swing by the Vegas-style casino.
Balcony cabins are still available for the Norwegian fjords cruise — you will be grateful for them with the jaw-drapping views coming your way.
GO: A seven-night Norwegian Fjords sailing is from £843pp, departing Southampton May 23 and calling at Bergen, Skjolden, Olden and Stavanger.
Nearly a year since the Palestinian-Israeli film No Other Land won an Academy Award, its co-director, Hamdan Ballal, says Israeli settler attacks on the cluster of occupied West Bank villages known as Masafer Yatta have only gotten worse, as those involved in the documentary bear the brunt of Israeli reprisals.
The latest bout of violence came on Sunday, when Israeli settlers stormed Ballal’s hometown of Susya, despite an Israeli court ruling designating the area around his home as closed to non-residents. Israeli army officers called by the family to enforce the ruling, issued two weeks prior, sided with the attackers.
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“The ruling was supposed to make things better for us, but the opposite happened,” Ballal told Al Jazeera on Monday. “Israeli authorities did nothing to enforce the decision, but joined the settlers in the attack.”
One of his brothers was held in a chokehold by an army officer and later hospitalised with breathing difficulties. Four other relatives – two brothers, a nephew, and a cousin – were detained for several hours as they arrived at the scene. They have all since been released.
The Palestinian film director said his family was ambushed by the same Israeli settler who led an attack against him as he returned from the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles last March. Then, he had been taken away in a blindfold by a group of Israeli settlers and army officers and released a day later with injuries to his head and stomach, leading to global condemnation.
Ballal said the retaliation for the documentary has since been directed against his family, rather than himself, to avoid media attention. His relatives have been routinely prevented from grazing sheep and ploughing the land. At times, they have been arrested, questioned about his work and whereabouts, or intimidated to vacate their homes.
“My family is paying because of me; because I shared the movie and I shared the truth,” he said.
The film, which won the Oscar for best documentary on March 2, follows Palestinian journalist Basel Adra and Israeli journalist Yuval Abraham as they try to protect Palestinian homes amid tensions with settlers in Masafer Yatta in the South Hebron Hills. Israeli filmmaker Rachel Szor also shares directing credits.
Israeli settlers in the area often graze their animals on Palestinian land to assert control, signal unrestricted access, and lay the groundwork for establishing illegal outposts, cutting Palestinians off from their farms and livestock.
The Israeli army argues that it has to demolish the Palestinian villages to convert the area into a military “firing” or training zone. It did not respond to Al Jazeera’s request for comment on Sunday’s incident.
Across the occupied West Bank, Israel’s far-right coalition government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, has been openly promoting new measures to expand Israeli control over the Palestinian territory.
Most recently, it announced the resumption of the land registration processes for the first time since 1967, which Israeli rights groups say will accelerate the dispossession and displacement of Palestinians in violation of international law.
‘Right to live’
Ballal’s family has not been the only one to pay the price for the acclaimed documentary.
Adra, the Palestinian protagonist in the film, had his home in at-Tawani raided by the Israeli army in September, after clashes broke out with a group of Israeli settlers that trespassed in his olive grove.
In July, Awdah Hathaleen, an activist, football player and a consultant for No Other Land, was shot dead, in the chest, in the village of Umm al-Khair. The father of three was a key figure in non-violent resistance against settler violence in Masafer Yatta. His assailant, Israeli settler Yinon Levi, later said, “I’m glad I did it,” according to witnesses.
Ballal said he does not hesitate to describe these attacks as being “terrorist”, as they leave the Palestinian community in Masafer Yatta constantly fearing for their safety.
“It’s a simple right for Palestinians to feel safe in their homes,” he told Al Jazeera. “We are scared; we are in danger, and it’s been like this for a long time.”
“International law doesn’t work for Palestinians,” he continued. “But we are human, and we have a right to live.”
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is walking away from his second job at “60 Minutes” in the latest sign of upheaval at the storied news magazine.
Cooper said in a statement Monday he is leaving the CBS News program because he wants to spend more time with his two young children. He joined the program in 2007 while maintaining his role as prime-time anchor at CNN.
“Being a correspondent at ’60 Minutes’ has been one of the great honors of my career,” Cooper said. “I got to tell amazing stories, and work with some of the best producers, editors and camera crews in the business. For nearly 20 years, I’ve been able to balance jobs at CNN and CBS, but I have little kids now and I want to spend as much time with them as possible, while they want to spend time with me.”
Cooper’s departure could be the first of a number of changes for “60 Minutes” as Bari Weiss, who joined CBS News as editor-in-chief last October, is expected to substantially overhaul the prestigious news magazine.
Cooper, 58, was courted for the anchor role at “CBS Evening News” last year before the network parted ways with the anchor duo of Maurice DuBois and John Dickerson. Cooper signed a new deal with CNN instead, and CBS News gave the anchor job to Tony Doukopil.
CORTINA D’AMPEZZO, Italy — World-class athletes, thrilling events, stirring medal ceremonies, I will remember all of those from the Winter Olympics. But what I experienced Sunday on my 45-minute bus ride from my hotel to Cortina will stay with me longer.
There was a young woman sitting across the aisle. She looked to be in her mid-20s, about the age of my daughter, and was wearing a knit cap with a Switzerland logo. Her dark hair was in long, thin braids and framed her friendly face.
“How’s it going?” I asked, setting down my backpack.
“Nervous,” she said with a faint smile.
That started the conversation, one that would have me repeatedly wiping my eyes with my sleeve.
Her name was Michelle Gloor. She’s 25 and from a small town outside of Zurich. Her boyfriend, Cedric Follador, is pilot of the Swiss bobsled team and has races throughout the week. She was heading to watch him practice.
Michelle knows all about the sport. In fact, she had been the brake woman on the Swiss national team and had hoped to be competing in these Olympics herself. She grew up as a track-and-field athlete, a sprinter, and only took up bobsled in 2022.
Women’s bobsled — or bobsleigh, as Europeans call it — is a two-person operation with a pilot in front and brake woman in back.
“The first responsibility is pushing the sled as fast as I can, together with my pilot,” she said in a German accent and near-flawless English. “I have to sit still and count the curves until we reach the finish line, when I have to pull the brakes. I’m responsible that the sled won’t crash into something.”
Her best friend had made the transition from track to bobsled, was looking for a brake woman, and convinced Michelle to give it a try.
“My first bobsleigh ride was in St. Moritz and I was so nervous,” said Gloor, a third-year law student at the University of Zurich. “I think I was crying in the back of the sled because I’d never felt anything like that, all the G-forces and you don’t have any cushion in the sled. It all hurts.
“But after the second run, I felt the adrenaline and it was great. It caught me from then. It took me two runs.”
She was 22 and the future was bright. They entered the Swiss championships and won. Michelle got serious about her new sport, training every day, eating right, building muscle.
Immersed in that world, she met Cedric but for the first 1½ years they were just casual friends. Their conversations were all bobsled-related.
“Then in spring 2024 he texted me and asked, ‘How are you?’” she said. “More personal stuff.”
They had been dating for about six months when a discovery would dramatically change their lives.
In November 2024, during a routine check-up, a gynecologist found evidence of cancer in Michelle’s ovaries. If there were signs she was ill, Michelle hadn’t noticed them. She had been tired the prior summer, yes, but she attributed that to her training.
“It was pretty advanced,” she said of the cancer. “I went to the women’s doctor every year and they couldn’t explain why they couldn’t see it earlier. I don’t know. I’m not questioning that anymore. It’s just … yeah.”
There was no time to wait. By December, she was in surgery. Doctors opened her abdomen from her breast bone down, looking for more growths. They deemed the operation a success, and six months of chemotherapy began in February.
“I lost my hair,” she said. “I had long, black hair. Losing that wasn’t bad. But I lost the hair on my face — my eyebrows, my eyelashes — that was hard. But I always knew it just had to be.”
Her doctor told her her cancer was Stage 3.
“That means it’s on the other organs too,” she said. “But the difference between Stage 3 and Stage 4 is it’s not in my lungs. It’s in my tummy area but not more upwards.”
“Women or even men my age, you live in your world, you are following your dreams. And you don’t think about something happening in your life.”
— Michelle Gloor, on being diagnosed with cancer at a young age
Cedric was by her side.
“I asked him after the diagnosis if he wants to join me in this journey or not,” she said. “I can understand if he won’t because we were together not even half a year, and I can understand if he said, ‘Hey, it’s too much for me. I can’t do that.’
“Then he took time for himself, and he came back and said he wants to stay with me. He wants to support me in every imaginable way.
“He drove me to therapy when he was in town because he had a bobsleigh season going on from November until March, in my toughest time. Every time he was home, he was there for me. When he wasn’t there, we were phoning every day. He was there all the time, even when he wasn’t there physically.”
Her parents and younger brother were there for her too, of course, but she wanted to give them some time to themselves. Cedric was her rock.
There are elements in his job as a driver that both help him in his sport, and her in her disease.
“As a driver, you really need to focus on what’s going on straight ahead of you,” she explained. “You can’t really switch away your thoughts. You have one minute of full concentration. I think you can compare it to Formula One because you only see the next curve in front of you.
“He’s very calm and I think that helps him in a sporting way to not overreact emotionally and stuff like that. But also for me as a partner, I’m very emotional. When I’m too excited or too sad or too angry, he can calm me down to a normal level. On a stress-less level, and to be stress-free is very important for someone who has cancer.”
Switzerland’s Cedric Follador, right, and Luca Rolli compete in two-man bobsled at the Milan-Cortina Olympics on Monday.
(Richard Heathcote / Getty Images)
Michelle, petite and pale, has lost about 40 pounds over the past year. Mostly muscle.
“I was avoiding sugar in the beginning of the illness,” she said. “You read so much stuff. But after losing so much weight, doctors told me just eat what you want to eat. Because having energy is more important than eating too much sugar.”
In August, doctors discovered more cancer in her. Another surgery to open her abdomen.
“They said it’s still there,” she said. “Those microcells which they couldn’t remove because they couldn’t see them, they grew. But once all those microcells have grown up and been removed, or have been killed by therapy and medication, there won’t be any new cells because the ovaries have been removed, so they don’t produce any more.”
She tries not to Google her illness anymore. It doesn’t help her frame of mind. She’s changed in other ways, too.
“I was a very direct person before my illness,” she said. “Now I’m even more direct and straight-forward. I say no, and I don’t explain myself. If I don’t want to do something, I don’t have to. I just say no.
“Before that, I had a bad feeling about myself and explained myself just because I say no. I don’t do that anymore.”
In December, she began radiation. She has another scan after the Olympics.
There are times she just can’t believe this is happening.
“Women or even men my age, you live in your world, you are following your dreams,” she said. “And you don’t think about something happening in your life. I only know young people in Switzerland, so I can only speak for them. But they don’t talk about that.
“They are not sensible about what can happen, and that’s why it’s important for me to speak out about it. For example, with a women’s doctor, you have to go. It can happen to anyone.
“I’m a young woman. I do sports since I’m 10 years old. I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t smoke. But it still can happen.”
Her illness has shined a spotlight on her friendships. Lots of her old friends showed concern at first, then went on with their lives. A handful checked in on her frequently. Some are new.
“I got in touch with a woman during chemotherapy, she was there too,” Michelle said. “She has breast cancer. She saw my cross necklace, and we were talking about faith and how it helped in those hard times.
“We are still in contact now. We are writing letters to each other. We’re not texting or phoning, just writing letters and sending postcards. She’s as old as my mom, but it’s very cool to have someone with almost the same story.”
How will that story end? Michelle has her hopes, this fearless young woman who took to bobsledding on her second time down the track.
“My goal is to be in the Olympics in four years,” she said. “I’ll be 29 by then. The age is still good — even better than now for a bobsleigh athlete. And I have a great team. My bobsleigh pilot is very supportive and she said she always has a place for me in the sled.”
This week, Michelle is supporting Cedric — just a sliver, she said, of the way he has supported her. They got engaged in December. It happened at sunset in his little hometown in the Swiss Alps.
“He was talking about himself and us, and then he proposed to me,” she said. “I said yes. Of course.”
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. At last, our long, national nightmare is over. The Dodgers re-signed Kiké Hernández.
Well, the first spring training game is Saturday against the Angels. Opening day is March 26 at home against Arizona. So what better time to look at a potential opening day roster? After all, it’s not like there will be injuries and roster moves before then, right? This will definitely be the roster.
But first, a couple of notes to catch up on:
—They are splitting up the raising of the World Series flag and the ring ceremony again. The ring ceremony is March 27.
—The Dodgers re-signed Evan Phillips to a one-year, $6.5-million deal. The Dodgers originally acquired Phillips off waivers from the Tampa Bay Rays near the end of the 2021 season. Since then, he has gone 15-9 with a 2.22 ERA and 45 saves in 201 games (195 innings). His injury last season threw the bullpen into disarray. He had Tommy John surgery in June and won’t be back until the All-Star break.
—To make room for Phillips on the 40-man roster, the Dodgers designated Ben Rortvedt for assignment, probably hoping again that Rortvedt will go unclaimed and they can send him to the minors. However, the New York Mets claimed Rortvedt, and he will compete for a backup spot with, among other, former Dodger Austin Barnes, who signed a minor-league deal with the Mets on Jan. 29
—The Dodgers re-signed Kiké Hernández to a one-year, $4.5-million deal. He had elbow surgery in the offseason and won’t be able to play until probably the All-Star break, so expect him to be put on the 60-day IL soon. To make room for Hernández, the Dodgers put Phillips on the 60-day IL.
—The Dodgers traded Anthony Banda, whom they designated for assignment last week, to the Minnesota Twins for $500,000 of international bonus pool space.
—The Dodgers signed Max Muncy to a contract extension, giving him $7 million for the 2027 season with a $10-million team option for 2028. Muncy has said he wants to remain with the Dodgers the rest of his career, and he will be 38 when the 2028 season ends.
—In this era of high contracts, you have to look at Muncy and Will Smith, who has a 10-year, $140-million contract, and marvel. They both have left a lot of money on the table to remain with the Dodgers. Especially Smith, who is arguably the best catcher in baseball, and definitely in the top three.
Why are the Dodgers so good at getting players for under market value? Muncy said this last week to reporters:
“Part of me and who I am as a person and how I was raised, I like to be loyal to people. This organization took a chance on me when I was out of baseball, basically. That meant a lot to me. They stuck with me when things were going bad. They’ve never wavered on me at all. That means a lot to me in itself, and it’s just a place I’m very comfortable. My family’s comfortable here. We have a chance to win every single year. That’s why I play this game. I want to win. Obviously you make money in this game, but that’s not why I play. I play because I want to win. It’s the competitive fire that I want to go out and win as much as I can. That to me is worth more than money.
“I know I’m leaving money on the table, but I’m more than OK with that because I wouldn’t be OK with myself trying to chase money somewhere else watching this team win and I’m on the sidelines. That’s just not who I am. I would rather win. Another component to it is just the relationships I’ve built here. Like I was just saying, I like to be loyal and my relationships mean a lot. I’ve created such a relationship with the staff, the front office, the coaches, the medical and training staff, the clubhouse guys. I just don’t want to create that somewhere else. Being here for my entire career at this point would mean the world to me, and this gives me the chance to do that.”
So, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the 40-man roster.
Pitchers Ben Casparius Edwin Díaz Jack Dreyer Paul Gervase Tyler Glasnow Brusdar Graterol Edgardo Henriquez Kyle Hurt Will Klein Landon Knack Ronan Kopp Bobby Miller Evan Phillips-* River Ryan Roki Sasaki Tanner Scott Emmet Sheehan Blake Snell Brock Stewart Gavin Stone Blake Treinen Alex Vesia Justin Wrobleski Yoshinobu Yamamoto
Two-way players Shohei Ohtani
Catcher Dalton Rushing Will Smith
Infielders Mookie Betts Tommy Edman Alex Freeland Freddie Freeman Kiké Hernández Hyeseong Kim Max Muncy Miguel Rojas
Outfielders Alex Call Teoscar Hernández Andy Pages Michael Siani Kyle Tucker Ryan Ward
*-on 60-day IL so doesn’t count as part of the 40-man limit.
So, let’s assume the Dodgers go with 13 pitchers and 13 position players as usual. And, Dave Roberts reiterated Thursday that they will go with a six-man rotation, at least for the first part of the season. Where does that leave us?
Bullpen (8) Edwin Díaz *Jack Dreyer Brusdar Graterol Will Klein *Tanner Scott Blake Treinen *Alex Vesia *Justin Wrobleski
*-left-handed
—Henriquez also could slip in here, it just depends on how everyone looks in spring training. Plus, knowing Dodgers history, one of these guys probably will start the season on the IL.
—Stewart is expected to miss part of the season, and there are questions about Snell, who says he slowed his process of getting ready for the season, and Graterol, who didn’t pitch last season.
—Remember, Ohtani counts as a two-way player, so he is a pitcher and designated hitter but takes only one roster spot, allowing the Dodgers to carry 14 pitchers when the official roster says 13.
Two-way player (1) Shohei Ohtani
Catchers (2) Dalton Rushing Will Smith
Infielders (6) Mookie Betts Tommy Edman Freddie Freeman Hyeseong Kim Max Muncy Miguel Rojas
Outfielders (4) Alex Call Teoscar Hernández Andy Pages Kyle Tucker
—There’s a chance Edman starts the season on the IL.
—The odds that this is the actual opening day roster are very long. Remember, this is just a guess, not a prediction, so please, no wagering.
—This is just to give you a sense of where the Dodgers stand. Dave Roberts already said it is the best team he has had. But, as I’ve said before, here is what will happen: People will say they are going to set the record for wins. Expectations will be sky high. Injuries will hit the pitching staff. Slumps will happen. Some fans will wonder what happened and say the Dodgers stink and Roberts couldn’t manage his way out of his own house. The Dodgers will end the season with around 95 wins. And then anything can happen in the postseason.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto talks about pitching and other topics with José Mota. Watch and listen here.
Until next time…
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
In the streets of Cartagena, Colombia, cumbia musicians beat tambora drums and blow into flautas, women in red, yellow and blue ruffled dresses whisk by, and sweating food vendors push carts, their arepas sizzling.
Among the music and striking color of Cartagena, my dad handed me my first arepa. Arepas are the most essential dish of Colombia and neighboring Venezuela, centered around South America’s most treasured crop: corn.
To prepare an arepa, corn kernels are ground into flour or pre-ground corn flour is used (often the iconic yellow bag of Venezuelan brand P.A.N.), and mixed with water and salt. The soft dough is then fried, grilled or baked into a pancake-like shape. The result is delightfully simple yet endlessly customizable.
“My memory of arepas is eating them morning, afternoon and night,” said Yesika Baker, owner of Chamo’s Venezuelan Cuisine in Pasadena. “In Venezuela, the areperas are open 24/7.”
The arepa has deep roots. Before Colombia and Venezuela came to be known as separate territories, they were unified by Indigenous groups with similar culinary traditions. When the Spanish first arrived in South America, Indigenous women were cooking corn cakes similar to the modern arepa, meaning the tradition likely goes back thousands of years, according to University of Venezuela anthropology professor Ocarina Castillo.
Today, the arepa is popular in both countries. In Colombia, an arepa tends to be simple: topped with cheese by street vendors, filled with egg for a tasty breakfast or, most often, served as a side to a hearty meal. Some say the masa of a Colombian arepa tends on the thinner side as well.
“Growing up in Colombia, the arepa is like the Mexican’s tortilla. Everything comes with an arepita,” said Santiago Restrepo, owner of Sus Arepas in East L.A. “Venezuelans, on the other hand, use it like a pita — stuffed. With Venezuelan-style arepas, you can really have fun with the fillings.”
The Venezuelan arepa “rellena” or stuffed style, is one that you’ll see dominate this list, with an experimental appeal that makes them a favorite for Angelenos. One of Venezuela’s most popular arepas is the Reina Pepiada, which translates to “curvy queen” and is typically filled with shredded chicken, avocado, cilantro and mayonnaise. According to Castillo, the name is in honor of a real beauty queen, Susana Duijm, the first Venezuelan to win Miss World in 1955.
In Colombia and Venezuela, it’s common to eat arepas at least once a day, especially at breakfast. But for a dish so essential to millions of people, for a long time, arepas were underrepresented in L.A.’s food scene.
“When I first moved to L.A. [in the ‘80s], you couldn’t find arepas anywhere,” Restrepo said. “Up until 2020, I wouldn’t have considered them a popular dish here. But just in the past few years, they’ve exploded.”
Restrepo credits their meteoric rise to a photogenic appeal. If you’re an avid consumer of food content online, then you’ve likely seen the arepa rellena — after a typical wait time of 20 minutes, they come layered and overflowing with ingredients like shredded beef, stewed beans, melted cheese or plantains.
“A good arepa rellena is all in the fillings,” said Mercedes Rojas, chef of the Arepa Stand, which pops up at local farmers markets on the weekends.
From creative picks stuffed with mango and cheese to a Koreatown-inspired arepa with bulgogi and plenty of traditional options, this guide features nine standouts in L.A.’s growing arepa scene.
Although, for your sake, don’t try to ask which country created the arepa, or who does it best. “It’s a long fight, amiga,” Baker said. “From Venezuela or Colombia, we defend our arepas.”
Slowly, LeBron James put on a pair of ice bath toe booties and dipped his left foot and then his right foot into a bucket that had been prepared for him following a Lakers game at Crypto.com Arena. His longtime personal trainer and athletic performance coach, Mike Mancias, next wrapped both of James’ knees and his back in ice.
James closed his eyes for a few seconds and leaned back in his chair as the media gathered around him for his postgame interview.
This was just another step James has taken to care for his body, a step that shows the lengths he takes in the maintenance of his 6-foot-9 frame that has helped him have an illustrious 23-year career, longer than any player before him.
“Obviously I didn’t know it would be 23 years. I didn’t know that, but I know I didn’t want to have no six- or seven-year career. I can’t become legendary in six or seven years,” James told The Times. “I always had a mission. When I knew I could play this game at a high level, like, going to Chicago and playing with MJ [Michael Jordan] and all those guys when I was a sophomore [in high school]. And then when I went up to Cleveland and played against the Cavs when I was a junior and I was like, ‘Oh … I belong. I belong.’ I knew I still had to learn and I still had to continue to get my body right, continue to learn the game and nuances.
“But I was playing against NBA guys for a long time and I was like, ‘If I get the opportunity to crack the league, if I get the opportunity to showcase what I’m able to do, the only thing that can stop me is if I don’t take care of my body. The only thing that can stop me from being the greatest or one of the greatest to ever play this game is if I do not take care of myself.’ I did take care of my body. That’s it.”
James’ dedication to self care has become legendary in the sporting world. He is known to invest moire than $1.5 million annually for a comprehensive approach to keeping his body fine-tuned.
James considers himself a biohacker: someone who uses science and technology to make their body function better and more efficiently.
He talked about using Normatec leg compression boots, hyperbaric chambers to restore oxygen, cryotherapy, red-light therapy and other cutting-edge technologies to maintain elite performances and longevity at the age of 41.
He talked about prioritizing sleep and nutrition, avoiding artificial sugars and fried foods.
When he missed the first 14 games this season because of sciatica, James cut back on drinking wine, one of his passions, in order to get his body back to full health.
“Obviously it’s gotten even more detailed as me and Mike have built a program,” James said. “It’s been 22 years of our program.”
LeBron James jokes with trainer Mike Mancias while sitting out a game with the Cavaliers in 2010 to rest for playoffs.
(Mark Duncan / Associated Press)
It has worked for James to the highest order, as he has become the leading scorer in NBA history with 42,975 points.
Though his streak of being voted as a starter to the All-Star team was snapped at 21 years in a row, James still extended his NBA record to 22 selections when the coaches voted him in as a reserve for the tournament that will be played Sunday at Intuit Dome.
Over his career, James said, he’s received plenty of offers to try new ways to do his physical therapy. For the most part, he has said no.
“It’s all type of … that is presented to you,” James said, smiling. “[People] are always trying to get you to do s—. But once we got the connection, it wasn’t really many people that we allowed to come and be in what we do. We had a couple of guys obviously throughout the process that helped along the way. But, nah, we knew what we wanted to do.”
When James was growing up in Akron, Ohio, and it became obvious he was athletic, he said his uncle, Curt, encouraged him to start taking care of his body immediately. His mother, Gloria, advised him to listen.
“I used to stretch before I went to bed and when I woke up, when I was like 10 or 11 years old,” James said. “My uncle Curt, my mom’s younger brother, used to make me do 100 calf raises a day and he used to make me do 50 pushups and 50 situps a day.”
James shook his head and laughed recalling those moments.
LeBron James glides past Kings forward DeMar DeRozan for a reverse dunk during a game in December.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
“He told me I had to get my calves stronger if I wanted to be great,” James said, smiling. “I never knew what that meant, whatever. But yeah, my uncle used to tell me to do that, and then a good friend of mine used to always tell me to stretch before I got in the bed and after I got out of the bed when I woke up the next morning. I don’t know, man. I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
At no time during all this did James know what that advice would mean for his future.
“No, but I had people that I trusted,” James said. “I was icing after every game my rookie year. I was 18 years old. I was icing after games when I was a high school senior, a high school junior. Like, I was lifting [weights] my senior year.”
James told a story about playing in an AAU tournament with Kendrick Perkins when he was 14 and how some players were sitting in the stands eating fast food.
“They were eating McDonald’s,” James said, smiling, “and I was eating fruits.”
Jason Kidd, the Hall of Fame point guard who’s now coach of the Dallas Mavericks, was an assistant with the Lakers when James led them to the 2020 championship, and the two were teammates on the 2008 USA Olympic team that won the gold medal in Beijing.
Kidd has watched how James is averaging 22 points on 50.2% shooting, 7.1 assists and 5.8 rebounds this season and can’t help but marvel at how he continues to be a highly effective player with so many miles on his body.
“He’s had some injuries, but he’s taken care of his body, he’s always prepared himself for the marathon,” Kidd said. “But I think it’s the mental side. I think that’s the hardest part is to wake up and say, ‘Do I need to go play against a 20-year-old or a 19-year-old?’ He’s won championships, he’s been MVP, he’s been the face of the league. He’s a billion-dollar company.
“So, it’s the mental side. Understanding that he loves competition and he loves the game of basketball. So I think for him to do it at 41 is incredible.”
When the Lakers faced Kidd’s Mavericks on Thursday night, James was back in the lab early getting his body ready about six hours before tipoff.
LeBron James talks with assistant coach Jason Kidd during a 2020 playoff game.
(Associated Press)
It didn’t matter that it was the last game before the weeklong All-Star break. In James’ eyes, if you take care of your body, it will take care of you.
“I woke up this morning, went straight downstairs, got a stretch, did a little activation, like a little small lil’ lift” of weights, James said after the game. “Then I iced after that. Then I used the Normatec to pump my legs for an hour. Then I took a nap in the hyperbaric chamber for an hour and a half. Then I got in the cold tub, again, before I came here. So, I started my process here when I got here at 1:15 and prepared for a 7 o’clock game. It’s just around the clock.”
And as it turned out, all his work led to yet another record for James.
His triple-double of 28 points, 12 assists and 10 rebounds made him the oldest player to accomplish the feat, pushing him past Karl Malone, who was 40 when he did it in November 2003.
And now comes another record with the All-Star Game.
PHOENIX — Coming off an offseason in which the Dodgers spent over $300 million on just two free agents, the two-time defending champions’ luxurious spending has undoubtedly been a topic of conversation and consternation around Major League Baseball.
However, when asked about the Dodgers’ record-setting payroll Sunday, the Philadelphia Phillies’ Bryce Harper and the San Diego Padres’ Manny Machado were complimentary of the way the Dodgers do business.
“I love it,” Machado told reporters at the team’s facility in Peoria, Ariz. “They figured out a way to do it. … I think every team has the ability to do it. I hope all 30 teams could learn from that.”
Machado spent a half of a season with the Dodgers in 2018 before inking a $300-million contract with the Padres. That same winter, the Dodgers met with Harper, who eventually signed a $330-million contract with the Phillies. Harper shared the same sentiment as Machado when he spoke with reporters in Clearwater, Fla.
“I love what the Dodgers do, obviously,” Harper said. “They pay the money, they spend the money. I mean, they’re a great team. They run their team like a business, and they run it the right way.”
Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes, while speaking with media at Camelback Ranch Sunday, made it clear that his organization isn’t searching for approval from any outside sources.
“We’re not looking externally for validation,” Gomes said. “The validation is winning championships and putting out as good a team as we can each and every year, and all we’re trying to do is get a little bit better each and every season, with the goal of winning championships. [Our] coaching staff, our players I think view it as that. Good, bad or indifferent, the external stuff is something we can’t worry about.”
Gomes also credited Dodgers ownership for providing the financial resources to help the front office continue to bolster its roster each winter.
“[We’ve had] incredible support from ownership,” Gomes said. “We’ve always [been] in the position to address the needs that will help us go out and win another championship, so I think a lot of it is looking at what’s needed in the roster and what’s available. We’ve been in the fortunate position to be able to acquire guys that fit that really well.”
LOTS has and is changing in the world of travel and it can be confusing to keep up – but there are two vital changes for Brits.
Last year a new system known as the Entry/Exit System (EES) was introduced and later this year, the European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS) will be introduced.
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Both ETIAS and EES impact Brits travelling to EU countriesCredit: Getty
Both impact Brits travelling to much-loved holiday destinations including Spain, France and Greece.
But what are they both and how are they different?
EU Entry/Exit System (EES)
EES stands for Entry/Exit System and is a new digital border system in Europe.
Anyone who is not a European national, which includes Brits, and is travelling for a short stay (up to 90 days within any 180-day period) within EU countries will now be tracked when they enter and exit that country.
In order to do this, a new system was put in place where travellers scan their fingerprints and have their photo taken when they are at the border of an EU country.
If you have not done this before, you will have to register at a kiosk when travelling to a participating country.
However, this is usually done as a selection process as the new system is being rolled out in phases until April 2026.
If you are selected, your passport will be scanned, as well as your fingerprints and your photo will be taken.
You will also be asked some questions about your travels, such as why you are visiting the country you have arrived into and where you will be staying whilst you are in the country.
Your data will then be stored in the Biometric Matching Service for three years.
If you travel again within these three years to EU countries, you will only need to scan your face or a fingerprint.
Children under 12-years-old will not need to give their fingerprints.
The system has been introduced to hopefully make border checks faster and more modern.
EES is already being rolled out and requires you to scan your fingerprint and faceCredit: Getty
It also allows authorities to track who comes in and out of the Schengen Area – which is a zone in Europe that allows passport-free travel under a common visa policy.
Some of The Sun Travel team have experienced EES already.
Sophie Swietochowski, Assistant Travel Editor, said: “I travelled through Alicante Airport the other day, guided to the EES kiosks set just prior to border control, where the traditional passport stamping system is still in place for Brits.
“The assumption by airport staff was that every Brit getting off the plane wouldn’t have registered yet.
“There was a high number of kiosks, where staff were busy guiding Brits through the registration process: first, language selection; then passport scan (just like the one at electronic border control); next a facial picture; then fingerprint scans are taken.
“For me, along with about 30 per cent of the other travellers around me, the kiosk wouldn’t register my fingerprints, so I was sent to border control where my passport was stamped in the traditional way.
“On the return leg, Brits have to go to the same kiosks, this time in departures. They will be asked to go through the same process before passing through border control to reach the non-Schengen gates.”
Alice Penwill, Travel Reporter, said: “On my arrival at Vilnius Airport in Lithuania, I was quickly ushered towards the new EES machines for registration.
The new system allows individuals to be tracked as the enter and exit EU countriesCredit: Getty
“Luckily I was one of the first off the plane and had plenty of time to do so.
“The first thing I had to do was select my language, then it began the process.
“It will scan your passport first, then take a photo of you, and then scan your fingerprints.
“I was then asked a few questions about my trip, like if I had proof of accommodation, what my citizenship status is, if I had a return travel ticket, money to fund my holiday and medical insurance – where you answer yes, no or other in some cases.
“Registration took just a few minutes, but I then had to queue up at border control for almost an hour.
“Here they still stamped my passport and asked further questions like the name of my hotel and proof of my return journey.”
The system is expected to be fully operational by April 10, 2026 – which means if you travel after then and haven’t yet been registered, you will be at that point.
The participating countries for the EES are:
Austria
Belgium
Bulgaria
Croatia
Czechia
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
France
Germany
Greece
Hungary
Iceland
Italy
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Malta
Netherlands
Norway
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovakia
Slovenia
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
European Travel Information and Authorisation System (ETIAS)
On the other hand, ETIAS is a completely different system and stands for European Travel Information and Authorisation.
This is a new system that will allow visitors to enter countries within the Schengen Area and other participating countries.
Sounds like EES, right?
Wrong – ETIAS is essentially a visa waiver that is linked to your passport and says you can visit a country.
Whereas EES is the system that tracks you when you eventually visit that country.
ETIAS is essentially a visa waiver that is linked to your passport and says you can visit a countryCredit: Getty
Any national who is visa-exempt, including Brits, will have to get ETIAS authorisation.
It will be valid for up to three years, or until your passport expires – whichever is soonest.
To get ETIAS authorisation, you will need to visit the official ETIAS website and follow the instructions on its portal.
The application should only take a couple of minutes to complete, but it may take up to 30 days to be approved – so it is best to be prepared.
Unlike EES, you will also need to pay for ETIAS – like you would do with an ESTA for America.
ETIAS will cost €20 (£17) per person, but travellers under 18 and over 70 do not need to pay the fee (though they still have to apply for one).
ETIAS hasn’t started yet, but is expected to begin in late 2026, with a specific introduction date to be announced by the EU closer to the time.
These 30 European countries require visa-exempt travellers to have an ETIAS travel authorisation
Two years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass went to Sherman Oaks to cut a quick campaign ad for a trusted ally: Councilmember Nithya Raman.
Standing next to Bass, Raman looked into the camera and praised the mayor’s work on homelessness, saying she was “honored” to have her support.
“I couldn’t be prouder to work alongside her,” Raman said.
That video, recorded at a get-out-the-vote rally for Raman’s reelection campaign, feels like a political lifetime ago. On Feb. 7, Raman launched a surprise bid to unseat Bass, saying the city is at a “breaking point” and no longer capable of providing basic services.
Raman’s entry into the race, hours before the filing deadline, shocked the city’s political elite and infuriated the mayor’s supporters. Some observers called it a betrayal of Shakespearean proportions.
Raman’s name had appeared on a list of Bass endorsers just weeks earlier. Bass’ support for Raman’s 2024 reelection bid had helped the councilmember earn 50.7% of the vote and avoid a messy runoff.
“How can she treat a relationship like this, and dispose of it once it’s served its purpose?” said Julio Esperias, a Democratic Party activist who volunteered with Raman’s 2024 campaign at Bass’ request. “It’s a breach of trust, a betrayal, and it’s kind of hard for me to stomach at the moment.”
In 2024, Bass — then at the peak of her popularity — was featured prominently in Raman’s campaign mailers. She sent canvassers to knock on voters’ doors. A speech Bass delivered at Raman’s rally in Sherman Oaks was turned into a social media video with stirring background music.
Councilwoman Nithya Raman talks to attendees during an election night party held by the Democratic Socialists of America – LA chapter at The Greyhound on Nov. 4 in Los Angeles.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
That video, along with other posts highlighting Bass’ support for her, still appears on Raman’s Instagram page, which now promotes her run for mayor.
Bass, politically bruised over her handling of last year’s devastating Palisades fire, now faces an insurgent campaign from one of the City Council’s savviest players.
Esperias said he regrets helping Raman claw back the endorsement of the Los Angeles County Democratic Party in 2023, after it nearly went to her opponent.
Bass, for her part, has downplayed any hard feelings, saying she intends to run on her record — including her collaboration with Raman. Asked if she viewed Raman’s candidacy as a betrayal, she responded: “That’s not significant now.”
Mayor Karen Bass speaks before signing a rent stabilization ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council, the first update to the ordinance in nearly 40 years, at Strategic Actions for a Just Economy in Los Angeles Tuesday, Dec. 23, 2025.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
“I will tell you that it was a surprise, absolutely,” Bass said. “But I am moving forward, I am going to run my race, and I look forward to serving with her in my second term.”
Raman has been delivering a similarly complicated message, expressing deep respect for the mayor while arguing that the city is in desperate need of change.
On the morning of Feb. 7, before filling out her paperwork at the city clerk’s office, Raman called Bass to inform her she was running.
The next day, the two women met privately at Getty House, the mayor’s mansion. Neither would say why they met or what they discussed.
At City Hall, both supporters and critics of Bass have been retracing recent events, looking for clues as to how things went wrong.
In November, while watching election returns for New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Raman told The Times that Bass was the most progressive mayor the city ever had — noting that Angelenos “vote their values.” Last month, Bass twice announced that she had Raman’s endorsement.
On Friday, Raman said she could not remember exactly when she endorsed Bass, saying she believed it came during a phone call with the mayor “probably in the fourth quarter of last year.” At the same time, she said her exasperation with the city’s leadership has been building for months.
“I have been actually frustrated by the conditions in the city for quite some time, particularly over this last year, where we are both unable to deliver basic services, like fixing streetlights and repaving streets for my constituents, but also are not moving toward a more accountable, transparent and efficient system of addressing issues like homelessness,” she said in an interview.
Gloria Martinez, center, of United Teachers Los Angeles, speaks at a rally outside City Hall featuring opponents of the effort to rewrite Measure ULA, a tax on property sales to pay for housing initiatives.
(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)
Raman pointed to Measure ULA, the voter-approved tax on property sales of $5.3 million and up, as a catalyst for her mayoral bid. Although she has been a supporter of the tax, she has also concluded that it is a major obstacle to building new housing.
Last month, Raman tried without success to put a measure on the June 2 ballot that would have scaled back the types of properties covered by the tax, in hopes of jump-starting apartment construction.
Raman also told The Times that Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature program to move unhoused people indoors, needs to be redesigned so it is “fiscally sustainable.” She said she “simply did not see any progress” from the mayor’s office on that issue.
Asked whether she betrayed Bass, Raman said her decision to run was driven by the growing problems facing the city — and the need for change.
“My most important relationship in this role is with the people of Los Angeles, not the politics of City Hall,” she said.
Bass campaign spokesperson Douglas Herman pointed out that Raman is head of the council’s housing and homelessness committee — and that she repeatedly voiced support for Bass programs that have delivered back-to-back reductions in street homelessness.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Nithya Raman scans a QR code to get election updates during an election night party in March 2024.
(Myung Chun/Los Angeles Times)
“While we are developing more cost effective models, it is absolutely urgent that we get people off our streets immediately,” Herman said. “Nithya Raman is acting like a typical politician and knows it because she congratulated Mayor Bass for cleaning dangerous and long-standing encampments in her district.”
Raman’s decision has sparked an outcry from an unlikely combination of Bass allies. Danny J. Bakewell, Jr., executive editor of the Los Angeles Sentinel, condemned Raman’s actions last week in an editorial that invoked the O’Jay’s 1972 hit “Back Stabbers.”
“One of life’s greatest disappointments is discovering that someone you believed was a friend is not,” wrote Bakewell, whose newspaper focuses on issues facing the city’s Black community.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League, which represents rank-and-file LAPD officers and opposed Raman’s reelection in 2024, offered a similar take.
“If political backstabbing were a crime, Nithya Raman would be a wanted fugitive,” the union’s board, which has endorsed Bass, said in a statement.
Zev Yaroslavsky, a former county supervisor and City Council member, does not believe that Raman’s recent history with Bass — endorsing her and later running against her — will be an issue for the electorate. In L.A. political circles, however, it will be viewed as a transgression, at least in the short term, he said.
“As a politician, you don’t have much currency. What you have is your word,” he said.
Yaroslavsky, director of the Los Angeles Initiative at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs, said he is certain that Raman and the other major candidates — community organizer Rae Huang, reality television star Spencer Pratt and tech entrepreneur Adam Miller — have looked at polls showing that Bass is politically weakened and vulnerable to a challenge.
“If Raman becomes mayor, nobody’s going to remember this, including the political class,” he said. “If she doesn’t, it’ll be a little more difficult for her. It’s not irreparable. But there will be a residue to this.”
On the council, Raman belongs to a four-member voting bloc, each of whom won office with support from Democratic Socialists of America. While Bass is generally considered more conservative than Raman on public safety issues, the two share many of the same policy priorities, particularly around homelessness.
In her first campaign for City Council in 2020, Raman ran on a promise to address the city’s homelessness crisis in a humanitarian way, by moving unhoused residents into temporary and permanent housing.
Bass, a former state Assembly speaker and 12-year member of Congress, took office two years later and made homelessness her signature issue, convincing the council to expand her power to respond to the crisis.
Raman backed Bass’ declaration of a homelessness emergency, which gave the mayor the power to award contracts and sign leases directly. A week later, Bass staged her first Inside Safe operation in Raman’s district, on a stretch of Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood.
As recently as July, Raman appeared on a Bass press release touting the city’s progress on homelessness.
Bass first announced that Raman had endorsed her on Jan. 27. Raman said she did not begin seriously contemplating a run for mayor until the following week, as the filing deadline approached.
Over a tumultuous 48-hour period, former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner exited the race, while real estate developer Rick Caruso and L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath announced that they, too, would stay out.
“I realized we were potentially not even going to have a real competition, and that troubled me,” Raman said.
Esperias, the Bass supporter, said he is still processing Raman’s decision to run.
He said Bass tapped him to help Raman in 2023 after one of Raman’s opponents, deputy city attorney Ethan Weaver, cleared a key hurdle in his bid for the endorsement of the county’s Democratic Party.
Esperias, who lives in L.A.’s Vermont Square neighborhood, said he worked with Raman’s team on a plan to persuade party members to pull Weaver’s endorsement, then flip it to Raman. While Esperias and others called and texted party members, Bass sent a letter urging them to endorse Raman.
Weaver, in an interview, said he immediately felt the difference. After Bass’ letter, interest in endorsing him evaporated.
“It changed the amount of people that would take my call,” he said.
Once the election was over, Esperias said, Raman sent a text message thanking him for his help during a tough campaign.
“I put my credibility, I put my relationships on the line to help build this coalition to get that endorsement,” Esperias said.
Raman argued that the support has gone both ways.
During Bass’ first mayoral campaign, Raman held a fundraiser at her Silver Lake home and introduced Bass to key people in her district.
“I did help her in her election as well, just like she helped me,” she said.
Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.
SACRAMENTO — Gavin Newsom writes in his upcoming memoir about San Francisco’s highborn Getty family fitting him in Brioni suits “appropriate to meet a king” when he was 20 years old. Then he flew aboard their private “Jetty” to Spain for a royal princess’s debutante-style party.
Back home, real life wasn’t as grand.
In an annual performance for their single mom, Newsom and his sister would pretend to find problems with the fancy clothes his dad’s friends, the heirs of ruthless oil baron J. Paul Getty, sent for Christmas. Poor fit. Wrong color. Not my style. The ritual gave her an excuse to return the gifts and use the store credit on presents for her children she placed under the tree.
California’s 41st governor, a possible suitor for the White House, opens up about the duality of his upbringing in his new book. Newsom details the everyday struggle living with his mom after his parents divorced and occasional interludes into his father’s life charmed by the Gettys’ affluence, including that day when the Gettys outfitted him in designer clothes at a luxury department store.
“I walked out understanding that this was the split personality of my life,” Newsom writes in “Young Man in a Hurry.”
For years, Newsom asserted that his “one-dimensional” public image as a slick, privileged politician on a path to power paved with Getty oil money fails to tell the whole story.
“I’m not trying to be something I’m not,” Newsom said in a recent interview. “I’m not trying to talk about, you know, ‘I was born in a town called Hope with no running water.’ That’s not what this book is about. But it’s a very different portrayal than the one I think 9 out of 10 people believe.”
As he explores a 2028 presidential run and basks in the limelight as one of President Trump’s most vociferous critics, the book offers the Democratic politician a chance to write his own narrative and address the skeletons in his closet before opponents begin to exploit his past.
A book tour, which is set to begin Feb. 21 in Nashville, also gives Newsom a reason to travel the country, meet voters and promote his life story without officially entering the race. He’s expected to make additional stops in Georgia, South Carolina, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
The governor describes the book as a “memoir of discovery” that sent him interviewing family members and friends and digging through troves of old documents about his lineage that his mother never spoke about and his father smoothed over. Learning about his family history, the good and the bad, Newsom said, helped him understand and accept himself. Mark Arax, an author and former Los Angeles Times journalist, was his ghostwriter.
“I’ve changed the opinion of myself,” Newsom said when asked if he believed the book would revise his glossy public image. “It kind of rocked so many parts of my life, and kind of cracked things open. And I started to understand where my anxieties come from and why I’m overcompensating in certain areas.”
Newsom writes that his interest in politics brought him and his father, William, closer. His mother, Tessa, on the other hand, didn’t share his father’s enthusiasm.
She warned him to get out while he still could, worried her only son would eschew his true self.
“My mother did not want that world for me: the shrewd marriage of tall husbands and tall wives that kept each year’s Cotillion Debutante Ball stocked with children of the same; the gritted teeth behind the social smiles; the spectator sport of who was in and who was out based on so-and-so’s dinner party guest list,” Newsom wrote.
At the heart of her concern was her belief that Newsom’s “obsessive drive” into business and politics was in response to his upbringing and an effort to solve “the riddle” of his identity from his learning disorder, dyslexia, and the two different worlds he inhabited.
“As I grew up trying to grasp which of these worlds, if either, suited me best, she had worried about the persona I was constructing to cover up what she considered a crack at my core,” Newsom writes. “If my remaking was skim plaster, she feared, it would crumble. It would not hold me into adulthood.”
Newsom’s mother was 19 years old when she married his father, then 32. He learned through writing the book that his mother hailed from a “family of brilliant and daring misfits who had carved new paths in botany and medicine and left-wing politics,” he writes.
There was also secret pain and struggles with mental health. His maternal grandfather, a World War II POW, turned to the bottle after returning home. One night he told his three young daughters to line up in front of the fireplace so he could shoot them, but stopped when his wife walked in the door and took the gun from his hand. He committed suicide years later.
Newsom’s father’s family was full of more traditional Democrats and Irish Catholic storytellers who worked in banking, homebuilding, law enforcement and law. Newsom describes his paternal grandfather as one of the “thinkers behind the throne” for former California Gov. Edmund “Pat” Brown, but his family never held public office despite his dad’s bids for the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and the California Legislature.
The failed campaigns left his father in financial and emotional turmoil that crippled his marriage when Newsom was a small boy. A divorce set the stage for an unusual contrasting existence for the would-be governor, offering him brief exposures to the wealth and power of the Gettys through his dad.
Newsom said he moved casually between the rich and poor neighborhoods of San Francisco as a boy.
“It was a wonder how effortlessly I glided because the two realms of my life, the characters of my mother’s world and the characters of my father’s world, did not fit together in the least,” Newsom writes.
Mayor Gavin Newsom and his dad, Judge William Newsom, have lunch at the Balboa Cafe in San Francisco.
(Christina Koci Hernandez / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
Though William Alfred Newsom III went on to become an appellate court justice, Newsom’s father was best known for his role delivering ransom money to the kidnappers of J. Paul Getty’s grandson. He served as an adviser to the family without pay and a paid administrator of the $4 billion family trust.
The governor wrote in the book that the ties between the two families go back three generations. His father was close friends with Getty’s sons John Paul Jr. and Gordon since childhood when they became like his sixth and seventh siblings at Newsom’s grandparents’ house.
Gordon Getty in particular considered Newsom’s father his “best-best friend.” Newsom’s dad helped connect the eccentric music composer “to the outside world,” the governor wrote.
“My father had this way of creating a safe space for Gordon to open up,” Newsom writes. “He became Gordon’s whisperer, his interpreter and translator, a bridge to their friends, a bridge to Gordon’s own children.”
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and his sister, Hilary Newsom, in a promotional portrait for the Search for the Cause campaign, which raises funds for cancer research, on Nov. 21, 2025.
(Caroline Schiff/Getty Images)
His father’s friendship with Gordon Getty exposed Newsom and his younger sister, Hillary, to a world far beyond their family’s own means. Gordon’s wife, Ann, and Newsom’s father organized elaborate adventures for the Gettys’ four sons and the Newsom children.
Newsom describes fishing on the Rogue River and riding in a helicopter while studying polar bears on the shores of the Hudson Bay in Canada. He recalled donning tuxedos and carrying toy guns pretending to be James Bond on a European yacht vacation and soaring over the Serengeti in a hot air balloon during an East African safari.
Throughout his travels, Newsom often blended in with the Gettys’ brown-haired sons. He wrote that the actor Jack Nicholson once mistakenly called him one of the “Getty boys” at a party in a 16th-century palazzo in Venice where guests arrived via gondola. Newsom didn’t correct him.
“Had I shared this encounter with my mother, she likely would have asked me if deception was something I practiced whenever I hobnobbed with the Gettys,” Newsom said in the book. “Fact is, I was always aware of the line that separated us from the Gettys. Not because they went out of their way to make us aware of it but because we, as good Newsoms, paid constant mind to the distinction.”
Newsom wrote that his mother seemed to begrudge the excursions when her children returned home. She raised them in a much more ordinary existence. Newsom describes his father’s presence as “episodic.”
“For a day or two, she’d give us the silent treatment, and then we’d all fall back into the form of a life trying to make ends meet,” he wrote. “After enough vacations came and went, a cone of silence took hold.”
Newsom’s mother worked as an assistant retail buyer, a bookkeeper, a waitress at a Mexican restaurant, a development director for a nonprofit and a real estate agent — holding as many as three jobs at once — to provide for her children. His mother’s sister and brother-in-law helped care for them when they could, but he likened himself to a latchkey kid because of the amount of time he and his sister spent alone.
They moved five times in 10 years in search of a “better house in a better neighborhood” with good schools, taking the family from San Francisco to the Marin County suburbs. Though his mother owned a home, she often rented out rooms to bring in extra money.
Tired of his mother complaining about finances and his father not coming through, Newsom wrote that he took on a paper route.
In the book, Newsom describes his struggles with dyslexia and how the learning disorder undercut his self-esteem when he was an emotionally vulnerable child.
Eager to make himself something more than an awkward kid with sweaty palms and a bowl haircut who couldn’t read, Newsom mimicked Remington Steele, the suave character on the popular 1980s detective show. He chugged down glassfuls of raw eggs like Sylvester Stallone in “Rocky” and ran across town and back like a prizefighter in training.
He found confidence in high school sports, but his struggle to find himself continued into young adulthood. Newsom wrote that he watched tapes of motivational guru Tony Robbins and heeded his advice to remake yourself in the image of someone you admire. For Newsom, that became Robbins himself.
“Find a person who embodies all of the outward traits of personality, bearing, charisma, language, and power lacking in yourself,” Newsom described the philosophy in the book. “Study that person. Copy that person. The borrowed traits may fit awkwardly at first, but don’t fret. You’ll be surprised by how fast the pose becomes you, and you the pose.”
His father scoffed at the self-help gurus and nurtured his interest in business.
More than a half-dozen friends and family members, including Gordon Getty, invested equal shares to help him launch a wine shop in San Francisco. Newsom named the business, which expanded to include restaurants, hotels and wineries, “PlumpJack,” the nickname of Shakespeare’s fictional character Sir John Falstaff and the title of Gordon Getty’s opera.
“Gordon’s really inspired me to be bolder and more audacious. He’s inspired me to be more authentic,” Newsom said. “The risks I take in business … just trying to march to the beat of a different drummer and to be a little bolder. That’s my politics. But I also think he played a huge role in that, in terms of shaping me in that respect as well.”
Newsom described Gordon and Ann Getty as like family. The Gettys also became the biggest investors in his wineries and among his largest political donors.
In an interview, Newsom said there are many days when he feels his mother “absolutely” was right to worry about the facade of politics and the mold her son stuffed himself into.
Gavin Newsom heads for his home neighborhood on Nov. 3, 2003, to cast hisvote for San Francisco mayor.
(Mike Kepka / San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
He described the day the recall against him qualified for the ballot amid the COVID-19 pandemic as humbling and humiliating, though it later failed by a wide margin. Still today, he said, there’s a voice in his head constantly questioning why he’s in politics, what he’s exposing his wife and children to and doing with his life.
By choosing a career as an elected official despite his mother’s warnings, Newsom ultimately picked his father’s world and accomplished his father’s dream of taking office. But he said the book taught him that so much of his own more gutsy positions, such as his early support for gay marriage, and his hustle were from his mother.
Newsom said he’s accepted that he can’t control which version of himself people choose to see. Writing the book felt cathartic, he said, and left him more comfortable taking off his mask.
“It allowed me to understand better my motivations, my purpose, my meaning, my mission… who my mom and dad were and who I am as a consequence of them and what truly motivates me,” Newsom said. “There’s a freedom. There’s a real freedom. And it’s nice. It’s just so much nicer than the plaster of the past.”
On a holiday celebrating love and affection, thousands of enthusiastic basketball fans showed up at Intuit Dome to cheer for their favorite NBA players in a trifecta of skills competitions on the eve of the league’s 75th annual All-Star Game.
Getting Saturday off to a scintillating start was the three-point contest — one of All-Star Weekend’s most coveted prizes since Larry Bird won the initial contest in 1986 as well as the next two.
Portland’s Damian Lillard joined Bird and Craig Hodges (1990-92) as the only three-time winners with a stunning exhibition in the final round, ending up with a score of 29 — two better than runner-up and 2018 champion Devin Booker of Phoenix. Lillard equaled the best final-round score, set by Karl-Anthony Towns in 2022.
“I came out here excited to do it,” said Lillard, a nine-time All-Star who is sitting out this season after surgery to repair a torn Achilles tendon last May. “I can’t say I knew I’d win but I came in confident. This is my sixth time doing it … this felt like a game to me.”
Lillard went second in the finals and watched anxiously from the bench as it looked like Booker would overtake him before missing his last three shots from the corner.
“At the end I was at his mercy but it worked out,” said Lillard, who won with 24 points in 2023 and 26 in 2024. “I was once a fan too — as a kid I went to the All-Star Game in Oakland— and fans want to see their guys. That’s what made me want to be a part of it.”
In the first round, eight players had 70 seconds to shoot 27 balls from five designated spots on the court. Booker posted the highest score (30, one shy of the record) and also making the finals with 27 points each were Lillard and Charlotte rookie Kon Knueppel. Donovan Mitchell (24), Norman Powell (23), Jamal Murray (18), Tyrese Maxey (17) and Bobby Portis Jr. (15) were eliminated.
Next up was the shooting stars competition, which returned to All-Star Weekend after a 10-year hiatus and featured four teams, each consisting of two current NBA players and one retired “legend.”
Jalen Brunson, Towns and Allan Houston led Team Knicks to a 47-38 triumph over Team Cameron, made up of Duke alums Jalen Johnson, Knueppel and Corey Maggette, a former Clipper.
“This was cool and the game’s become more and more international,” said Brunson, who got passes from his dad, Rick, a New York assistant coach. “Basketball is a universal language. Winning’s always fun, not just beating a team from Duke.”
In the semifinals, Team Knicks beat Team Harper (Dylan Harper of San Antonio, Ron Harper Jr. of Boston and their father, five-time NBA champion Ron Harper) while Team Cameron beat Team All-Star (Scottie Barnes of Toronto, Chet Holmgren of Oklahoma City and three-time All-Star Richard Hamilton).
From left, Rick Brunson, Allan Houston, Jalen Brunson and Karl-Anthony Towns hold the winners’ trophies after the shooting stars competition.
(Jae C. Hong / Associated Press)
Was it a case of the old guy carrying the young guys?
“He did his job,” Towns joked about Houston, who played for the Knicks from 1996 to 2005 and serves as general manager of their G League team.
Shooting stars was a regular feature from 2004 to 2015 and originally featured an NBA player, a WNBA player and a retired player on each team shooting from four locations. This year, each team had 70 seconds to score points by shooting from seven areas worth anywhere from two to four points.
Rounding out the Valentine’s Day festivities was the crowd-pleasing slam-dunk contest, showcasing the individuality and athleticism of its four first-time participants: Lakers center Jaxson Hayes, San Antonio forward Carter Bryant, Miami forward Keshad Johnson and Orlando rookie guard Jase Richardson.
The 6-foot-6 Johnson, who measured a 42-inch vertical leap at the 2024 draft combine, ultimately raised the gold trophy following a final round total of 97.4. He made a side-to-side move at the rim on his penultimate attempt, then sprinted the length of the court and soared for a windmill jam on his last effort.
“Everyone make some noise,” the jubilant Johnson told the roomful of reporters afterward. “It’s a dream. I beat the odds. Every year I watched the dunk contest and I learned from all the people before me.”
Slam dunk winner Keshad Johnson goes between the legs while dunking.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Bryant settled for second with 93 despite a perfect score of 50 after he bounced the ball off the floor, under his leg for a one-handed stuff that drew thunderous applause on his first try before making a less-difficult 360-degree dunk with time running out on his second attempt.
“I really wanted him to finish that last one,” Johnson said. “Both of us are from U of A [Arizona], so we wanted to put on a show and we did.”
In the opening round all four players attempted two dunks, receiving a score between 40 and 50 per try. Bryant (94.8) and Johnson (92.8) qualified for the final dunk-off, in which both got two more attempts.
“Dunking is an art and it’s kind of hard to come up with new stuff,” said Johnson, an Oakland native who leaped over Bay Area rapper E-40 on his first dunk. “My goal is to just be myself and put my own flavor in it.”
Spurred on by the hometown crowd, Hayes was third at 91.8 while Richardson, the son of two-time winner Jason Richardson, was last at 88.8.
Judging were former champions Nate Robinson, Dominique Wilkins, Brent Barry, former Lakers center Dwight Howard and fans on the NBA app.
Lakers center Jaxson Hayes rises for a tomahawk dunk.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Julius Irving won the first dunk contest in 1976, the year before the ABA-NBA merger. Robinson (2006, 2009, 2010) and Mac McClung are the only three-time winners. McClung, the previous champion and only player to win three years in a row, announced in January he would not defend his title.
That opened the door for a new winner in Johnson.
“Being undrafted and in the G League and being the underdogs at San Diego State… I’ve learned how to dream dreams,” said Johnson, who keyed the Aztecs’ surprising run to the NCAA tournament’s Sweet 16 in 2023 before transferring to Arizona. “I’m so grateful to be here. I’m from Oakland, the West Coast is home to me and I felt like the fans were with me.”
MILAN — When she skated, Tara Lipinski was always nervous. But it was different before the free skate of the 1998 Olympics. The teenager cried that morning. She called her parents after the six-minute warmup and said she couldn’t do it. Her legs were physically shaking in her beginning pose. She didn’t know what to do.
“When you go to the Olympics, there’s no training for that,” said Lipinski, now an analyst for NBC. “You don’t know what it’s going to feel like ‘til you’re actually feeling it.”
The awe-inspiring dream that often starts as a child can quickly turn into a nightmare for athletes who get blinded by the bright Olympic spotlight. While Lipinski realized her dream, becoming Olympic champion in Nagano, she knows the suffocating feeling of competing under the Olympic rings.
She knows the stress that devoured Ilia Malinin on Friday in Milan.
Malinin’s meltdown from favorite to eighth place underscored the unpredictability of the Olympic stage. The 21-year-old dubbed “the Quad God” was supposed to unleash the first quadruple axel in Olympic history. The four-and-a-half twisting jump he successfully executed when he was 17 has been the talk of the Olympic cycle.
Battling nerves and the conditioning needed for a long Olympic competition, he didn’t use it during the team competition or his individual short program. The free skate would be the last opportunity. It felt like the perfect coronation for the soon-to-be Olympic champion.
Then he bailed midair.
“I think that, for me, I would be like, ‘Oh, man, I just missed what everyone was waiting for,’” Lipinski said. “You go through that minute of being rattled and you have to come back to [the program]. … The next jump [he] wasn’t able to completely reset and shake it off. And then once that next mistake happened — and for Ilia, who doesn’t make mistakes — I think that was probably very difficult for him.”
The standing-room-only crowd gasped when Malinin gave up on the quad axel. Fans grew more uneasy when he fell two jumps later. They tried to urge him on as the mistakes piled up. Instead of joyful encouragement, the clapping felt like desperation in the arena.
Ilia Malinin falls during his free skate at the Milan-Cortina Games on Friday.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Eight years ago, when Nathan Chen bent under the Olympic pressure in Pyeongchang, the crowd’s gasps each time he stumbled through his short program only made one of the hardest moments of his career even more difficult.
“That just hurts you to your gut,” Chen said in a video for Yahoo Sports. “You get up and mentally you have to refresh … but also the energy just changes in the arena. You can tell there’s tension now.”
Chen, then 18 years old in his Olympic debut, bounced back in a fearless free skate that moved him into fifth overall. He became almost unbeatable for the next Olympic cycle. At the Beijing Games, he set the world record for the short program, exorcised the demons from 2018 and became the United States’ first Olympic gold medalist in men’s singles in 12 years.
Malinin was a contender to be at those Games four years ago. He finished second in the 2022 U.S. championships, but was left off the Olympic team in a controversial decision. Then just 17, he was only in his first full season of senior competition.
But Malinin was already poised to be the future of the sport. Simply going to the Games as an understudy to Chen’s leading role would have been valuable experience.
Instead, U.S. Figure Skating selected third-place finisher Vincent Zhou and fourth-place Jason Brown.
Sitting with his coaches while waiting for his score Friday, a frustrated Malinin said if he had been sent to Beijing, he “wouldn’t have skated like that.”
“It’s not easy,” he said as cameras zoomed into his face.
He shrugged. He reset.
“It’s done,” he said.
“I think if I went to ’22 then I would have had more experience and know how to handle this Olympic environment,” a composed Malinin said in the mixed zone interview area. “But also, I don’t know what the next stages of my life would look like if I went there. So now all I can do is just regroup from this and really just take in the information that happened and just figure out how to manage in the future.”
Malinin has said he wants to skate for three Olympic cycles. The first attempt ended in shattering disappointment. That could only make the comeback sweeter.
“He will dominate the sport for years to come,” Lipinski said. “This was a huge, obviously, heartbreak for him, but we will see him rise again.”
It’s one thing most everyone agrees on: federal funding cuts have left the Los Angeles County health system teetering toward financial collapse.
But the supervisors’ chosen antidote — a half-cent sales tax to replenish county coffers — is being condemned by a slew of cities as its own form of financial catastrophe.
“I heard from every city in my district,” said Kathryn Barger, the only supervisor who voted against putting the sales tax on the June ballot.
The resounding reaction? “Absolutely not,” she says.
“People are fatigued,” Barger said. “I’m not convinced that it’s going to pass.”
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Observers wouldn’t have sensed that fatigue from the rowdy crowd of supporters that filled the board meeting Tuesday, along with seldom-used overflow rooms. The supervisors voted 4-1 at the meeting to put the tax on the ballot.
“There really are no other viable and timely options,” said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who introduced the measure along with Supervisor Hilda Solis. “Trust me, I looked high and low.”
The goal, supervisors say, is to generate $1 billion per year to backfill the dwindling budgets of local hospitals and clinics battered by federal funding cuts.
The county’s already bracing for impact. The Department of Public Health announced Friday it would shutter seven clinics. Officials say it’s just the beginning, with the county poised to lose more than $2 billion in funding for health services over the next three years. Hospitals could be down the road, they warn.
But many cities, some of which could have local sales tax hit more than 11%, are revolting on the plan.
“I have been getting calls and texts and letters like honestly I have not gotten in a long time,” Supervisor Janice Hahn told the audience as a message from Jeff Wood — the vice mayor of Lakewood — pinged on her phone. “They are really diving in on this one.”
In a series of opposition letters, the cities unleashed a torrent of criticism. Norwalk called the tax “rushed.” Palmdale said it had “significant flaws.” Glendale found it “deeply troubling and fundamentally unfair.”
Some bristled at the cost to consumers. Palmdale and Lancaster — some of the poorest cities in the county — could wind up with some of the highest sales tax rates in the state if the measure passes.
Some cities say the bigger issue is they don’t trust the county. They point to its checkered history of pushing ballot measures that don’t live up to their promises.
Measure B, a special parcel tax, was passed in 2002 to fund the county’s trauma center network. An audit more than a decade later found the county couldn’t prove it used the money for emergency medical services.
Measure H, the homelessness services tax measure, was passed in 2017 as a temporary tax. Voters agreed in 2024 to make the tax permanent and to double the rate — though some cities insist they’ve never gotten their fair share of the funds.
“It’s a historical issue,” said Glendora mayor David Fredendall, whose city opposes the sales tax. “We don’t trust it.”
The county decided to put the sales tax on the ballot as a general tax, meaning the money goes into the general fund. Legally, supervisors could use the money for whatever services they desire.
“They say ‘No, this is our plan’, but we’re going to expand from five to nine supervisors over the next few years before this tax expires,” said Marcel Rodarte, the head of the California Contract Cities Assn., a coalition of cities inside the county. “They may say we need to use these funds for something else.”
A general tax also is easier to pass, since it needs only a majority vote. Special taxes — levies earmarked for a specific purpose — need two-thirds of the vote.
The measure also asks voters to approve the creation of an oversight group that would monitor where the money goes. The supervisors also voted on a spending plan for the tax money, which would dedicate the largest portion of funds for uninsured residents over the next five years.
Some opponents predict the tax will stick around longer than advertised.
“A temporary tax is like Bigfoot,” said Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn., a group that advocates for lower taxes. “It exists in fantasy.”
State of play
— FRIENDLY FIRE: Three hours before the filing deadline, L.A. City Councilmember Nithya Ramanjumped into the race for mayor, challenging her former ally Karen Bass. Her candidacy will be Bass’ most serious threat.
— DEFUND DETOUR: Shortly after, Raman staked out her position on cops, saying she doesn’t want the LAPD to lose more police. Raman called for department downsizing when she first ran for city council in 2020.
— LOYAL LABOR: The head of the AFL-CIO, the county’s powerful labor federation, blasted Raman as an “opportunist.” Federation president Yvonne Wheeler said her organization will “use every tool” at its disposal to get Bass reelected.
— PETITION PUSH: Scores of candidates for L.A. city offices picked up their petitions Feb. 7, launching their effort to collect the signatures they need to qualify for the ballot. The first to turn in a petition was Councilmember Traci Park, who is facing two challengers while running for reelection in a coastal district.
— EYES ON ICE: Los Angeles police officers must turn on their body cameras if they’re at the scene of federal immigration enforcement operations, according to a new executive directive issued by Bass. LAPD officers also must document the name and badge number of the agents’ on-scene supervisor.
— CONTESTING CLEANUPS: A federal judge ruled this week that the city of L.A. violated the constitutional rights of homeless people by seizing and destroying their personal property during encampment cleanups. Lawyers for the plaintiffs want U.S. District Judge Dale S. Fischer to issue an injunction requiring the city to give homeless people the opportunity to contest the seizure of their property.
— HOTEL HIKE: Voters in the June 2 election will be asked to hike the city’s tax on nightly hotel stays — increasing it to 16% from 14% — for the next three years. The tax would then drop to 15% in 2029.
— PAYDAY POLITICS: The county is considering a proposal that would remove supervisors’ final decision-making power in contract disputes involving sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. Supporters say it’ll take politics out of labor negotiations while opponents warn of bloated labor costs.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to Los Angeles City Council District 13, bringing 50 unhoused Angelenos indoors from an encampment.
On the docket next week: The county’s back to its marathon budget briefings. Tune in Tuesday for presentations from the sheriff, district attorney and probation department.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
WHEN people ask me about city breaks, the question they ask has changed over the years.
It used to be about nightlife, food scenes or ticking off landmarks.
Holiday expert Rob Brooks has plenty of experience travelling abroad with kidsCredit: Rob Brooks
Now, more often than not, it’s parents asking a much more practical version of the same thing. Where is a good place to go with kids?
I’m Rob. I work in travel, I look at holiday pricing and trends every day, and I’ve stayed in more hotels than I can count.
I’m also 32, with a two-year-old and an eight-month-old. That combination has completely reshaped how I think about city breaks.
For me, the right family city break is about timing as much as place.
Sensible weather. Walkable centres. Enough going on without it feeling overwhelming. Somewhere forgiving if the day doesn’t go to plan.
This is my month-by-month guide to where I’d go on a city break with kids, based on value, weather, popularity and what’s actually on.
They’re all places I’d genuinely feel comfortable taking my own family.
January – Budapest, Hungary
January is a month where calm matters. After Christmas, families tend to want somewhere affordable, predictable and easy to manage, and Budapest fits that bill perfectly.
It is cold, usually around 3 to 5C, but that brings real advantages.
The city is quiet, hotel prices drop significantly, and the city moves at a slower pace. That makes it far less stressful with buggies and tired legs.
Budapest is compact, flat and well-connected by trams, which makes getting around simple.
Indoor attractions like cafés and historic bathhouses give you plenty of warm places to dip into throughout the day.
The famous Szechenyi Baths in Budapest, HungaryCredit: AlamyVenice Carnival takes place in February, where the streets are filled with colourful masksCredit: AlamyWarm up in Budapest by dipping into family-friendly public bathhouses or indoor attractionsCredit: Getty Images
February – Venice, Italy
February works for families because it offers spectacle without the chaos you get later in the year.
Venice Carnival brings colour, parades and street performers, particularly during the daytime when it feels surprisingly family-friendly.
Children get the magic of masks and costumes, while parents avoid the summer (and summer prices).
Temperatures hover around 7 to 9C, which keeps days comfortable for walking.
Vaporetto boats also turn everyday transport into part of the experience, which is always a win with younger travellers.
March is one of the most reliable months for a family city break, and Amsterdam is one of the easiest cities to do with children.
The weather sits around 10 to 12C, the city starts to feel brighter, and peak tourism is still a few weeks away.
It is flat, organised and designed for everyday life, which makes navigating it with kids feel intuitive rather than stressful.
March is also when parks, canal walks and museums like NEMO Science Museum really come into their own, giving you options that work whether the day is high energy or low key.
Visiting Amsterdam in March means mild weather and brighter days, plus it’s only an hour awayCredit: Getty ImagesAthens sits between a comfortable 18 – 22°C in April, perfect for strolling the city’s streetsCredit: Getty ImagesExplore Stockholm by bike as a family, and stop off at attractions like Djurgården parkCredit: Getty Images
May – Istanbul, Turkey
May works brilliantly for families because Istanbul becomes warm and lively without tipping into intense heat.
Temperatures sit around 22C to 25C, which is comfortable for walking, ferry rides and outdoor meals.
The city naturally breaks days into short, varied experiences, which is ideal with children. A boat ride, a park stop, some street food, then a rest.
Public transport is efficient, parks like Gülhane provide breathing space, and the sheer variety of sights keeps everyone engaged without needing a rigid plan.
I’ve found May breaks from around £130pp for a family of four, making it one of the best-value big cities in Europe at that time of year.
June – Stockholm, Sweden
June is when Stockholm really makes sense for families.
Long daylight hours, mild temperatures around 18 to 22C, and a strong outdoor culture mean days feel relaxed rather than rushed.
Parks, islands and waterfront walks are everywhere, and ferries turn getting around into part of the fun.
The city feels calm, clean and safe, with lots of space to pause when needed. Museums are interactive, and many attractions are designed with families in mind.
I’ve found June breaks from around £147pp for a family of four, which is good value considering how expensive Stockholm can be later in the summer.
July – Krakow, Poland
July is peak summer, but Krakow works for families because it combines warmth with value and a very manageable city layout.
Temperatures can reach 25 to 30°C, but the city centre is compact and full of shaded squares where you can slow things down when needed.
Summer festivals and outdoor cafés give the city energy without it feeling overwhelming, and everything is close enough that you are never committing to long days out.
Food prices are low, accommodation is good value, and it is an easy city to dip in and out of at your own pace.
I’ve found July breaks from around £144pp for a family of four, which is strong value for a European city in the heart of the school holidays.
Rob recommends visiting Gülhane Park in Istanbul for a quiet space to explore with kidsCredit: Alamy Stock PhotoEdinburgh comes alive with street theatre and performances during the Fringe FestivalCredit: Getty Images
August – Edinburgh, UK
August is Edinburgh at full tilt, but it is one of the rare cities where busyness actually works for families.
The Fringe Festival fills the city with daytime street performers, pop-up shows and family-friendly entertainment that you can stumble across without planning ahead.
That makes it ideal if you want flexibility rather than rigid itineraries.
Temperatures usually sit between 18 and 21C, which is perfect for walking without fatigue, and green spaces are never far away if you need a break.
I’ve found August flight and hotel breaks from around £217pp for a family of four. You could do it cheaper with hotel-only and driving or getting the train, but flights are often so reasonably priced that it still makes sense to fly.
September – Munich, Germany
September is a great time to visit Munich with kids.
Early autumn brings warm but comfortable days around 18 to 22C, and the city feels open and easy to navigate.
Oktoberfest adds colour and atmosphere during the day, with fairground rides and music that children enjoy, while the rest of the city remains calm and spacious.
It is easy to sample the buzz without being consumed by it, which is exactly what families need.
Munich’s Oktoberfest has plenty of fairground rides and games that kids will loveCredit: Getty ImagesKrakow is both affordable and packed with unique attractions, with breaks from £144ppCredit: Getty Images
November – Naples, Italy
November is ideal for families who want a more relaxed, authentic city break.
Temperatures stay mild, usually between 15 and 18C, and tourist numbers drop sharply. That brings better prices and a much more local feel, with everyday life taking centre stage.
Naples is lively and unapologetically real, which many children find fascinating.
Simple pleasures like waterfront walks and excellent, inexpensive food carry the experience.
To age is to find one’s appreciation for life’s daily joys sharpen, especially as more inconvenient realities assert themselves. Lifelong Tangier resident Maria Angeles (Carmen Maura), part of the bustling Moroccan city’s entrenched Spanish community, is one such grateful senior. We see her at the beginning of “Calle Málaga” in a state of smiling contentment, walking her neighborhood streets and being greeted by vendors.
What she surely isn’t expecting, however, as she buys food and makes croquetas in preparation for an eagerly awaited visit from her daughter from Madrid, is that this trip will threaten all she holds dear. That’s because Clara (Marta Etura), a divorced mom struggling to pay the bills, arrives with the news that she’s selling the grand old apartment her widowed mother has lived in for 40 years. Won’t it be nicer for Maria to live with her in Spain and be closer to her grandchildren? Or at the very least be taken care of locally in Spanish-specialized assisted living?
The look on Maura’s face — this celebrated actor’s most well-honed tool — suggests a range of emotions regarding forced elderhood or grannydom that are far less accommodating.
How Maria handles her imminent uprooting is at the core of Moroccan filmmaker Maryam Touzani’s third feature, her follow-up to the similarly sensitive family drama “The Blue Caftan.” “Calle Málaga,” written with Touzani’s husband Nabil Ayouch, is not a passive narrative, though, merely content with the internalized ache of acceptance. It is to some extent an emotional heist film and protest tale in delicate harmony, in that after initially agreeing to be placed in that Tangier senior center while her possessions are boxed up or sold, Maria schemes to steal her life back from under her absent daughter’s nose.
If you don’t look too closely at the details of Touzani’s charming scenario — which requires that a lot of things to fall into place, if enjoyably so — the movie becomes a sweet and spicy counternarrative to stories about aging that patronize their protagonists. (Another noteworthy example was last year’s rapturous American indie “Familiar Touch.”) Maria essentially becomes a crafty squatter in her own up-for-sale apartment, reclaiming some items from a hard-nosed but increasingly understanding antiques dealer (a well-cast Ahmed Boulane) and engineering a clever way to earn money with the help of friendly neighborhood kids who adore her. Her gambit even opens the door for unexpected romance, giving her frequent chats with Josefa (María Alfonsa Rosso), a childhood friend, an increasingly eye-opening frankness.
It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Maura, her almond-shaped eyes as powerfully suggestive as ever, conveying Maria’s rejuvenated spirit and sensuality with as much magnetism. Touzani, an unfussy, patient director with a fondness for the simplicity of human interaction, implicitly trusts her star to carry the film’s effervescence and complexity, although you may wish the filmmaking was a little less straightforward.
There is, after all, a reckoning for Maria’s situation we can’t help but keep in the back of our mind. Because our first brief glimpse of Clara is a sympathetic one — as opposed to conveniently antagonistic — we know “Calle Málaga” won’t settle for a tidy resolution. And it doesn’t, save leaving us with a view of Maria’s bid for freedom that, like the rose petal that is one of Touzani’s go-to visuals, beautifies the air whether still connected to the roots or separated and strewn like so much that’s fragile in life.
‘Calle Málaga’
In Spanish and Arabic, with subtitles
Not rated
Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes
Playing: Opens Friday, Feb. 13 at Laemmle Monica Film Center and Laemmle Town Center, Encino
Faced with numerous complaints about broken streetlights that have plunged neighborhoods into darkness, two Los Angeles City Council members unveiled a plan Friday to spend $65 million on installing solar-powered lights.
With 1 in 10 streetlights out of service because of disrepair or copper wire theft, Councilmembers Katy Yaroslavsky and Eunisses Hernandez launched an effort to convert at least 12% of the city’s lights to solar power — or about 500 in each council district.
Broken streetlights emerged as an hot-button issue in this year’s election, with council members scrambling to find ways to restore them. Councilmember Nithya Raman, now running against Mayor Karen Bass, cited the broken lights as an example of how city agencies “can’t seem to manage the basics.”
By switching to solar, the streetlights will be less vulnerable to theft, said Yaroslavsky, who represents part of the Westside.
“We can’t keep rebuilding the same vulnerable systems while copper theft continues to knock out lights across Los Angeles,” she said.
Three other council members — Traci Park, Monica Rodriguez and Hugo Soto-Martínez — signed on to the proposal. All five are running for reelection.
Miguel Sangalang, director of the Bureau of Street Lighting, said there are 33,000 open service requests to fix streetlights across L.A., although some may be duplicates. The average time to fix a streetlight is 12 months, he said.
Repair times have increased because of a rise in vandalism, the department’s stagnant budget and a staff of only 185 people to service the city’s 225,000 streetlights, he said.
About 60,000 street lights are eligible to be converted to solar, according to Yaroslavsky.
Council members also are looking to increase the amount the city charges property owners for streetlight maintenance. Yaroslavsky said the assessment has been unchanged since 1996, forcing city leaders to rely on other sources of money to cover the cost.
Last month, Soto-Martínez announced he put $1 million into a streetlight repair team in his district, which stretches from Echo Park to Hollywood and north to Atwater Village. Those workers will focus on repairing broken lights, hardening lights to prevent copper wire theft and clearing the backlog of deferred cases.
On Monday, city crews also began converting 91 streetlights to solar power in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park. Hernandez tapped $500,000 from her office budget to pay for the work. The shift to solar power should save money, she said, by breaking the cycle of constantly fixing and replacing lights.
“This is going to bring more public safety and more lights to neighborhoods that so desperately need it and that are waiting a long time,” she said.
In recent years, neighborhoods ranging from Hancock Park and Lincoln Heights to Mar Vista and Pico Union have been plagued by copper wire theft that darkens the streets. On the 6th Street Bridge, thieves stole seven miles’ worth of wire.
Yaroslavsky and Park spoke about the problem Friday at a press conference in the driveway of a Mar Vista home. Andrew Marton, the homeowner, pointed to streetlights around the block that have been targeted by thieves.
Many surrounding streets have been dark since shortly after Christmas, Marton said. He has changed his daily routines, trying not to walk his dog late at night and worrying for the safety of his family.
He said he reported the problem to the city and was told it would take 270 days to fix. He then reached out to Park, who contacted the police department, he said.
A couple of neighboring streets had their lights restored, he said, but his street remains dark at night.
Park said she and Yaroslavsky identified $500,000 in discretionary funds to pay for a dedicated repair team to fix streetlights, either by adding solar or by reinforcing the existing copper wire, in their respective Westside districts.
IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. — Mike and Patricia McCoy answered the door of their cozy cottage in Imperial Beach, a short stroll from crashing waves and several blocks from the Tijuana River Estuary, where California meets Mexico and the hiking trails are named for them.
They offered me a seat in a living room filled with awards for their service and with books, some of them about the wonders of the natural world and the threat to its survival. The McCoys are the kind of people who look you in the eye and give you their full attention, and Patricia’s British accent carries an upbeat, birdsong tone.
A sign shows coastal conservationists Mike and Patricia McCoy as young adults “Making a Difference” at the estuary.
(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)
In the long history of conservation in California, few have worked as long or as hard as the McCoys.
Few have achieved as much.
And they’re still at it. Mike at 84, Patricia at 89.
The McCoys settled in Imperial Beach in the early 1970s — Mike was a veterinarian, Patricia a teacher — when the coastal protection movement was spreading across the state amid fears of overdevelopment and privatization. In 1972, voters approved Proposition 20, which essentially laid down a hallmark declaration:
The California coast is a public treasure, not a private playground.
Four years later, the Coastal Act became state law, regulating development in collaboration with local government agencies, guaranteeing public access and protecting marine and coastal habitats.
During that time, the McCoys were locked in a fight worth revisiting now, on the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act. There had been talk for years about turning the underappreciated Tijuana River Estuary, part of which was used as a dumping ground, into something useful.
Mike McCoy knew the roughly 2,500-acre space was already something useful, and vitally important. It was one of the last major undeveloped wetlands in Southern California and a breeding and feeding site for 370 bird species, along with fish, reptiles, rabbits, foxes, coyotes and other animals.
In McCoy’s mind, it needed to be restored, not repurposed. And certainly not as a giant marina, which would have destroyed a habitat that was home to several endangered species. At a 1977 Imperial Beach meeting packed with marina supporters, Mike McCoy drew his line in the sand.
The Tijuana Estuary in Imperial Beach is seen on Friday.
(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)
“I went up there,” McCoy recalled, pausing to say he could still feel the heat of the moment, “and I said, ‘You people, and I don’t care who you are, you’re not going to put a marina in that estuary. That’s sacrosanct. You don’t mess with that. That’s a fantastic system, and it’s more complex than you’d ever believe.’”
The estuary won, but the McCoys weren’t done. As I began talking with them about the years of advocacy that followed, Patricia’s modesty blushed.
“We don’t want to be blowing our own trumpet,” she said.
They don’t have to. I’m doing it for them, with the help of admirers who were happy to join the symphony.
Patricia went on to become a member of the Imperial Beach City Council and served for two years on the Coastal Commission, which oversees implementation of the Coastal Act. She also helped Mike and others take the estuary restoration fight to Sacramento, to Washington, D.C., and to Mexico.
“This is what a real power couple looks like,” said Sarah Christie, legislative director of the Coastal Commission. “They wield the power of nature and the power of the people. You can’t overstate their contribution to coastal protection.”
The McCoys’ signature achievement has been twofold, said Jeff Crooks, a San Diego wetlands expert. They helped establish the estuary as a protected wildlife refuge, and they also helped build the framework for the estuary to serve as a research center to monitor, manage and preserve the habitat and collaborate with other managed estuaries in the U.S.
Sewage and debris flow from Tijuana are an ever-present threat and decades-long source of frustration and anger in Imperial Beach, where beaches have been closed and some residents have planted “Stop the Stink” yard signs. Crooks said there’s been some progress on infrastructure improvements, with a long way to go.
Coastal conservationist Mike McCoy looks at a new interpretive sign at the Tijuana Estuary in Imperial Beach on Friday.
(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)
But “even though we’re beating it up,” Crooks said of the pollution flowing into the estuary, it’s been amazingly resilient in part because of constant monitoring and management.
Chris Peregrin, who manages the Tijuana Estuary for the state park system, said the nonprofit Tijuana Estuary Foundation has been a good partner, and the president of the foundation board is guess who:
Mike McCoy.
The foundation ”fills gaps that the state cannot,” Peregrin said. “As one example, they run the research program at the reserve.”
For all their continued passion about the mission in their own backyard, the McCoys fret about the bigger picture — the alarming increase in greenhouse gases and the biodiversity decline. Through the estuary window, they see a planet in peril.
“They both think big like that,” Crooks said. “Mike especially comes from the mindset that this is a ‘think globally and act locally’ kind of thing.”
“Restoration is the name of the game, not intrusion,” Mike told me, and he wasn’t talking just about the estuary.
On the very week I visited the McCoys, the Trump administration delivered a crushing blow to the environmental movement, repealing a government finding that greenhouse gas pollution is a threat to the planet and public health. He called those claims, backed by overwhelming scientific consensus, “a giant scam.”
It’s easy to throw up your hands at such knuckle-dragging indifference, and Mike told me he has to keep reaching for more stamina.
But Serge Dedina, a former Imperial Beach mayor who was inspired by the McCoys’ activism as a youngster, sees new generations bringing fresh energy to the fight. Many of them work with him at Wildcoast, the international coastal conservation nonprofit he founded, with Patricia McCoy among his earliest collaborators.
“I wouldn’t be a conservationist and coastal activist without having worked with Patricia and Mike and being infused with their passion,” said Dedina. ”I think sometimes they underestimate their legacy. They’ve had a huge impact on a whole generation of scientists and conservationists and people who are doing work all along the coast.”
We can’t underestimate the legacy of the citizen uprising of 1972, along with the creation of an agency dedicated to coastal conservation. But it’s only fair to note, on the 50th anniversary of the Coastal Act, that not everyone will be reaching for a party hat.
The Coastal Act has been aggressively enforced, at times to a fault in the opinion of developers, homeowners, commercial interests and some politicians. Former Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed the act into law, once referred to Coastal Commission agency staffers as “bureaucratic thugs” for tight restrictions on development.
There’s been constant friction, thanks in part to political pressure and the clout of developers, and one of the many future threats to the core mission is the need for more housing throughout the state. The balance between new construction and continued conservation is sure to spark years of skirmishes.
Coastal conservationists Mike and Patricia McCoy on a trail named after them at the Tijuana Estuary Visitor Center in Imperial Beach.
(Hayne Palmour IV / For The Times)
But as the Coastal Commission website puts it in marking the anniversary, the major achievements of the past 50 years include the “wetlands not filled, the sensitive habitats not destroyed, the access trails not blocked, the farms and ranches not converted to urban uses, the freeways and gated communities and industrial facilities not built.”
In the words of the late Peter Douglas, who co-authored Proposition 20 and later served as executive director of the Coastal Commission, the coast is never saved, it’s always being saved.
Saved by the likes of Mike and Patricia McCoy.
I had the pleasure of walking through the estuary with Mike, past the plaque dedicated to him and his wife and “all who cherish wildlife and the Tijuana Estuary.” We also came upon one of the new interpretive signs that were to be dedicated Friday, including one with a photo of Mike and Patricia as young adults “Making a Difference.”
Mike pointed a finger here and there, explaining all the conservation projects through the year. We saw an egret and a rabbit, and when I heard a clacking sound, Mike brightened.
“That’s a clapper rail,” Mike said, an endangered bird that makes its home in the estuary.
The blowing of the trumpet isn’t just for the McCoys.
It’s a rallying call to those who might follow in their footsteps.
Pat Haden, Vince Evans, Sean Salisbury, Rodney Peete, Matt Cassel, Todd Marinovich, Rob Johnson, Carson Palmer, Matt Leinart, Mark Sanchez, Caleb Williams. Just a few of the great USC quarterbacks who went on to have NFL careers, yet never won a Super Bowl. Congratulations to Sam Darnold, the first USC quarterback to win the Super Bowl. I will always remember Sam’s amazing performance in the 2017 Rose Bowl game against Penn State. Sam was a redshirt freshman that year. He had the heart of a champion then and still does now.
Dave Ring Manhattan Beach
Sam Darnold’s odyssey, from first-round bust to Super Bowl champion, is straight out of a Hollywood movie. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, Darnold proved success in football, like life, is not always linear. He has now won more Super Bowls than his 2017 draft class colleagues, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson, combined.
In fact, Kellie Delka stands just 5-foot-3 and weighs about 120 pounds. That’s it; that’s Puerto Rico’s entire team.
Her only event is skeleton, in which athletes travel at about 80 mph down an icy mile-long track with 16 turns. And she won’t be in the hunt for a medal in Saturday’s final rounds after finishing 24th of 25 athletes in Friday’s two heats.
Yet her presence is important just the same because it means Puerto Rico has a team here, even if it was just one person. For most of the century, that wasn’t the case.
“I was approached by the federation. They’re like, ‘hey, they’re trying to grow their winter federation. Maybe that would be something you’d be interested in helping,” she said. “So in 2018, I dropped everything, and I’ve been living on the island ever since.”
That was the first step of what Puerto Rico hopes will be a rebirth of a Winter Olympics program that had been razed to the ground.
In 2002, the island was set to send a bobsled team to the Winter Games in Salt Lake City but one of its sledders couldn’t prove he met Puerto Rico’s residency requirement. Embarrassed, the local Olympic committee didn’t just withdraw its two-man team, it ended recognition for all of the island’s winter sports.
No athlete would represent the territory in the Winter Games for another 16 years, until Charles Flaherty, a teenage American-born skier who moved to Puerto Rico when he was nine, competed in the 2018 Winter Games. A year later an ice hockey federation was established and in 2023 a curling federation.
In between those two things Delka, 38, made her Olympic debut, carrying the Puerto Rican flag with William Flaherty, Charles’ younger brother, in the opening ceremony in Beijing.
She carried it by herself in Italy.
Kellie Delka waves the flag of Puerto Rico during the Winter Olympic opening ceremony on Feb. 6.
(Misper Apawu / Associated Press)
Because Puerto Rico is an unincorporated U.S. territory, its residents are citizens of the U.S., but to represent the island in the Olympics, you must be born in Puerto Rico, have a parent or grandparent who was born there or live there for at least two years.
It was that final requirement that Delka, a native Texas, was seeking to fulfill when she moved to the island.
“I love the island, I love the people,” she said. “I’ll probably live there forever.”
A pole vaulter and cheerleader at the University of North Texas, Delka was introduced to skeleton by Johnny Quinn, a fellow North Texas alum who competed in the bobsled. She made her international debut in 2013 and was competing for the U.S. through the end of 2017, when Puerto Rico’s federation called.
Leaving a team to go it alone was more difficult than she expected.
“That was the hardest part,” she said. “When you go by yourself, like, it’s a pretty lonely journey. And then not having a coach the whole time, because you have to pay for that as well.
“I love the sport. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t love it, because you definitely don’t make money from it.”
Eight years later, Delka speaks no Spanish but says she feels intensely Puerto Rican. She gets some financial support from an International Olympic Committee scholarship fund and small, intermittent assistance from the federation. But mostly she supports herself in the sport, in part by selling bikinis she designed on the beach in Luquillo, the tiny community on the northeast tip of the island where she lives.
Puerto Rico’s Kellie Delka hopes she can inspire other athletes to represent the island in the Winter Olympics.
(Alessandra Tarantino / Associated Press)
“I love to sew, I like to make jewelry. I like to make bikinis, and I like to be involved in the community,” she said. “That’s how you meet people.”
Next she wants to inspire them. Because there’s no use in starting an Olympic team if no one else wants to join.
“I would love a teammate,” she said. “I don’t want it to just be me forever, like right now it is.
“I want to start mentoring younger people because I want kids to know that you don’t have to have everything to make it. I don’t have anything. I’m doing this by myself. I’m going to the gym by myself, I’m going to the track by myself, I’m traveling by myself.
“You can do it too, and I can help you do it.”
Sometimes all you need is one person to get started.
