A weekend BASE jumping accident in a Utah canyon killed two people, one of them a daredevil athlete best known for performing onstage with Madonna at the 2012 Super Bowl, authorities said.
The Sheriff’s Office in Grand County, Utah, confirmed one of the dead was Andy Lewis, an extreme athlete known for feats in BASE jumping, a dangerous sport that involves parachuting to the ground after jumping from a tall fixed object such as a building, a bridge or a desert cliff overlooking a deep canyon.
In BASE jumping circles, Lewis had a huge following and a reputation for pushing the envelope — leaping into tighter spaces or deploying his parachute later than his peers would dare, said John McEvoy, a BASE jumping instructor in Twin Falls, Idaho, who has jumped with Lewis.
“He had an incredible level of athleticism and skill that was developed over years of practice,” McEvoy said. “But then he would take an incredible amount of risk.”
Lewis’ other sport made him an overnight celebrity, thanks to Madonna
Lewis was also a prominent figure in the niche sports of slacklining and tricklining, which combine elements of high-wire walking with aerial acrobatics — sometimes at perilous heights.
Lewis went from obscure athlete to overnight celebrity when he appeared onstage in Madonna’s 2012 Super Bowl halftime show. Dressed in a Roman toga, Lewis bounced and executed tricks on his inch-wide line as though it was a trampoline while Madonna sang behind him.
“My phone actually rang itself to death three days in a row,” Lewis said soon afterward in an appearance on Conan O’Brien’s late-night show.
Emergency responders were dispatched Sunday to a report of people injured in a BASE jumping attempt at Mineral Bottom, a remote desert area near the Utah-Colorado line, according to the Sheriff’s Office. Lewis and an unidentified 50-year-old man died at the scene, the office said in a news release.
Sheriff’s Lt. Al Cymbaluk confirmed to the Associated Press that it was Lewis the extreme athlete who died. He said he had no further details on the fatal accident.
BASE jumping is far more dangerous than skydiving
Though there’s no official tally of BASE jumping deaths, a list compiled by the website BASEaddict.com shows 540 total fatalities worldwide since 1981 — including 30 people killed last year. Prominent deaths include BASE jumper Dean Potter and his climbing partner, Graham Hunt, who were killed in 2015 while attempting a wingsuit flight in Yosemite National Park.
A study focused on BASE jumping in Norway, published in a medical journal in 2007, estimated that BASE jumping carried risks of injury or death five to eight times greater than skydiving.
Lewis openly acknowledged the sport’s inherent danger.
“It’s weird to think about how many people are dead, because it’s like a normal thing,” Lewis told documentary filmmaker Ella Warnick in an interview published last year.
Lewis owned BASE Jump Moab, a business that offered excursions to inexperienced customers using tandem jumps, in which the customer was harnessed to a guide wearing the parachute.
Sheriff’s spokesperson Cymbaluk said he didn’t know whether Lewis and the other man killed were performing a tandem jump.
Tandem BASE jumping carries additional risk because it straps together two people, one of whom generally lacks experience, under a single parachute, McEvoy said. But because they involve novices, they also tend to be the most low-risk, basic types of jumps.
“Within BASE, it’s a very controversial topic,” McEvoy said. “There’s a lot of people who say it’s the stupidest thing in the world and others arguing, `No, we’re giving people the experience of their lives.’”
No one immediately returned phone, text and Facebook messages left Monday for BASE Jump Moab.
Lewis won four straight world championships in competitive slacklining from 2008 through 2011. Lewis set a Guinness World Record for slackline surfing, swaying his feet side to side in a rocking motion that mimics surfing, while keeping his balance above China’s Diaoshuilou waterfall in 2011.
In 2014, he walked a slackline suspended between two hot air balloons more than 4,000 feet above the Nevada desert.
WASHINGTON — While millions of soccer fans cheer or groan over World Cup matches spanning North America, health officials are on high alert for germs.
A heat wave may be the most obvious health threat. But infectious diseases can spread in a crowd, and experts are scrutinizing wastewater, hospital visits, even social media for any signs that an outbreak might be brewing.
Measles, one of the most contagious diseases, is among the top concerns, sparking a warning this week from the Pan American Health Organization, PAHO. With a nearly six-week stretch of packed stadiums, bars and tourist sites in 16 cities, officials are on the lookout for a long list of infections, from the stomach bug norovirus to mosquito-borne dengue fever.
“This is truly a marathon,” said Palak Raval-Nelson, Philadelphia’s health commissioner.
The mass gatherings come at a tense moment for budget-strapped health agencies in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, hit hard by Trump administration staffing cuts, already was grappling with a growing Ebola outbreak in central Africa and a cruise ship hantavirus outbreak. While CDC officials have advised state and local health departments behind the scenes, it’s expected World Cup disease surveillance dashboard still was “in final development” days before games began, according to the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Our public health professionals are pretty stretched,” said global health specialist Rebecca Katz of Georgetown University, who is leading an unusual new hub to help.
At the Health Security Operations Center, a joint effort between Georgetown and MedStar Health, workers are analyzing data from around the country so they can alert health authorities, even emergency rooms, to any early signs of trouble. The center is issuing daily “situation reports” about disease trends around World Cup host cities and team base camps to several hundred local and federal public health groups, emergency management and hospital officials and others who’ve signed up.
“It’s important that we don’t become alarmist,” said MedStar emergency medicine specialist Dr. Shane Kappler. “We’re trying to be the insurance policy.”
Measles is a top concern for potential World Cup spread
Already more than 2,000 people in the U.S. have come down with measles this year, nearly as many as during all of last year, according to the CDC. Patients can spread measles before the rash appears and they realize they’re sick. Not too long ago, the U.S. seldom saw measles except from international travel by unvaccinated people.
Now with frequent U.S. outbreaks, “actually a lot of our international partners are worried about measles being exported to them after the games,” said Georgetown’s Katz.
Measles is spreading in Canada, too, and has exceeded 11,000 cases in Mexico, according to PAHO. It’s urging soccer fans to be sure they’re vaccinated, with a health campaign saying a single measles patient can spread the virus to up to 18 unprotected people.
Is Ebola a concern at the World Cup?
Brown University’s Dr. Craig Spencer, who survived Ebola while working in the West Africa outbreak over a decade ago, said he’s repeatedly asked about the risk of Ebola during the World Cup — but “for me, Ebola is not the No. 1 or No. 2 or even No. 3 threat.”
“I am concerned about importation of measles, I am much more concerned about the importation of other infectious threats that may not seem as scary to us as Ebola,” Spencer said.
Many health experts agree that the risk of Ebola spreading in the U.S. is very low. That’s partly because of government travel screenings and restrictions on people recently in outbreak-affected areas. Moreover, Ebola spreads by contact with bodily fluids from someone showing symptoms, not through the air like measles or respiratory viruses.
“One fortunate thing about this virus is you’re most contagious when you’re really quite ill. It’s not like COVID, where you could be sitting next to someone who doesn’t even know they’re infected and perhaps contract the virus,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of Brown’s Pandemic Center.
How to spot brewing diseases
There’s precedent for germs invading major sporting events. Canadian scientists linked a community measles outbreak to the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, and clusters of norovirus had to be contained during the Olympics this year in Milan and in 2018 in South Korea.
One way to detect signs of trouble: People with certain viral or bacterial infections shed genetic material that sophisticated testing of wastewater can spot. For example, measles can appear in wastewater days before an emergency room sees its first patients.
A recent surveillance reports from Katz’s center note that wastewater testing recently found diarrhea-causing rotavirus, hepatitis A and norovirus in some parts of the U.S., something to watch as soccer crowds arrive.
In Dallas, officials ramped up wastewater screening including at the international airport, casting a wide net rather than looking for specific illnesses, said Dr. Phil Huang, director of Dallas County Health and Human Services.
His team also is enhancing the usual mosquito testing, checking not just for West Nile virus that regularly spreads in the U.S. but for viruses more common in other countries like dengue and chikungunya.
Public health officials have been preparing for months, said Philadelphia’s Raval-Nelson, including with mock emergency drills and communications with counterparts around the country.
“I don’t want to send a message that there’s one key thing,” she said. “We have the frameworks in place to carry out what we need to.”
A federal immigration judge has granted asylum to a woman orphaned in Iran in the 1970s and adopted by an American war veteran, whom immigration officials threatened this year with deportation to the country with which the U.S. is now at war.
Judge Andrew Fishkin’s ruling probably ends a months-long ordeal for the California woman, one of thousands adopted from abroad who were never granted citizenship because of bureaucratic loopholes between adoption and immigration law.
The woman has lived in the United States since she was adopted by American parents as a toddler and has no criminal record. The Associated Press is not naming her because she worries her legal situation remains tenuous as the administration has time to appeal. A federal judge has allowed her to use a pseudonym, “Ms. S,” in her challenge to the government’s determination of her immigration status.
The woman received a letter from the Department of Homeland Security in February that ordered her to appear for removal proceedings, saying she is subject to deportation because she overstayed her visa in March 1974 at 4 years old.
The woman, 56, described what came next as a terrifying and humiliating few months.
She grew up in a Christian, military family on a farm in Wisconsin and was taught to be patriotic. But the documents she received from the government described her as an “alien;” some said she did not understand English, which is the only language she speaks.
Immigration officials told her she was being arrested, but was released and tracked with an ankle monitor. She bought new pants to try to hide it and taught herself not to cross her legs in work meetings, terrified it would threaten the corporate job in healthcare she’s held for almost two decades.
They fingerprinted her and took her DNA. She said she was obviously weeping in the mug shot they snapped of her.
She prepared herself to be detained: She put her bills on autopay and gave her friends a key to her home.
Her lawyer, Emily Howe, said the government had the power to agree she is an American citizen.
“Instead they treated her like a terrorist, like she was the worst of the worst criminals,” Howe said. “It felt very Big Brother, very Orwellian.”
The Department of Homeland Security declined to comment on the record on an individual case.
The Associated Press profiled the woman in 2024 as part of a story about how many international adoptees were left without citizenship because their American adoptive parents failed to naturalize them.
The woman’s parents were living in Iran, where her father was working for a U.S. government contractor, in the 1970s. He was retired from the Air Force as a lieutenant colonel. He’d been held for years a prisoner of war in Germany during World War II.
The couple found the toddler at an orphanage and returned to the U.S. with her in 1973 and soon completed the adoption. At that time, parents had to separately naturalize adopted children. The woman’s parents have since died.
She didn’t learn she hadn’t been naturalized until she applied for a passport at 38 years old. She still doesn’t know how the oversight happened. She searched her father’s papers and found a letter from a lawyer, dated 1975, that said he was working with immigration officials, “it appears this matter is concluded,” and billed her father for his services.
She filed a federal lawsuit this month trying to prohibit the government from removing her and forcing it to grant her citizenship.
She has long believed she should be considered a U.S. citizen: She has a Social Security card, and a driver’s license and has been legally allowed to work and pay taxes for decades. It’s only the immigration agency that denies she is a citizen. She suspects her paperwork was lost, probably when militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.
Fishkin seemed to agree: He wrote in his ruling that documents from that embassy are not available to her or to the U.S. government. He declared her a refugee, entitled to work in the U.S. His ruling puts the woman on a pathway to being recognized as a citizen.
She’d felt hopeful, she said, when she learned her court date before Fishkin was scheduled for her late father’s birthday. She always felt like she needed to protect not only herself but also her father’s legacy. He was a conscientious military official, she said, who would not have knowingly allowed such a glaring oversight that left his daughter in legal limbo.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Maybe the Dodgers can lure Nuke LaLooshout of retirement.
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The Dodgers are struggling in June, going 7-6 this month after going 20-11 in March/April and 18-10 in May. Why? Let’s take a look.
Runs per game March/April: 5.39 May: 5.25 June: 5.54
Batting average March/April: .273 May: .252 June: .261
OB% March/April: .350 May: .339 June: .354
SLG% March/April: .452 May: .441 June: .413
Power is down a bit, but all the other numbers are normal, so offense does not appear to be a big problem. They are hitting about the same in all the clutch stats, so that’s not a big problem. Let’s look at the pitching:
ERA April: 3.19 May: 2.95 June: 4.73
ERA by starters April: 2.83 May: 3.31 June: 3.28
ERA by relievers April: 3.88 May: 2.35 June: 7.51
Ah, we begin to see the problem: The bullpen, which has been outstanding all season until this month.
That’s a lot of bad pitching in the bullpen this month. Of course, this is the same bullpen that set a team record for most consecutive scoreless innings. And, just like batters go into slumps, so do pitchers.
“Out of the bullpen specifically, I think maybe some strike throwing, a few more walks that we’re not used to over the last six weeks or so, because they’ve been really, really good,” bench coach Danny Lehmann told reporters after the Dodgers lost to the Chicago White Sox on Sunday. “We’ve gotten bit by the long ball, obviously in Pittsburgh, and here tonight. But overall, it’s more the strike throwing and just getting ahead of guys and doing what they’re supposed to do.”
Are fresh arms on the way?
Well, Brock Stewart is on a rehab assignment in Ontario, but he has been injured so often since the Dodgers traded for him, you can’t expect anything from him. You can just hope. Evan Phillips is on assignment in Oklahoma City, and is on track to return in early July.
“It’s really good to see,” Dave Roberts told reporters recently. “Evan’s a guy that’s very focused and determined, and he’s going to do everything he’s supposed to do to get back. And to potentially have him back is a big weapon that we’ve missed for quite some time, and I miss seeing him around. … I depended on him a lot when he was active, so to get him back is going to be a big boost to everyone.”
There are the usual suspects in the minors, such as Paul Gervase, whom they can turn to, but other than that, it’s just wait and see and hope Stewart and Phillips can come back healthy (especially Phillips, who was a key man in the bullpen for four seasons).
Congratulations!
Roberts missed Sunday’s game for a very good reason: His daughter, Emme, graduated from Stanford.
“I’m really proud,” Roberts told David Vassegh on AM 570 last week. “It is weird, though, because you never want to miss a game. But I think that this is a good reason.
“I think the one thing for me, is the world has evolved, and many can argue not in a good way. In some ways good, some ways bad. But I do think in a lot of ways from the workplace sense of things, it’s more open to people spending time with their families. Knowing that those moments are important, they’re fleeting. The job is going to get done with or without you.
“So I encourage my coaches to enjoy graduations and things like that. One of our coaches had to leave for a surgery for their daughter. I certainly welcome that, because there’s nothing more important than family. And also, I think when you get to do moments with your family and other things that are really important, I think you do your job better, and you feel better for the people you work with and for.”
These names seem familiar
How notable players who were with the Dodgers the last couple of seasons are doing with their new teams (through Sunday). Click on the player’s name to be taken to their full stats page:
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.
SEATTLE — If a pregnant Nigerian woman had been allowed to board a plane 25 years ago, the U.S. team’s path through this summer’s World Cup may have unfolded much differently. Instead, a gate agent turned her away, insisting it wasn’t safe for her to fly from New York to London.
So Florence Balogun returned to Brooklyn, where she had been visiting relatives, and waited for her second son to be born. And when Folarin arrived a few weeks later, entering the world just hours before Independence Day dawned, he did so as an American citizen.
It was that quirk of fate that allowed Balogun, who lived just two months in the U.S., to represent the country on soccer’s biggest stage.
“I’m extremely proud my individual journey will come full circle now,” he said before the tournament started. “Especially the World Cup being here, the opportunity to represent my nation. It’s going to be something special for me.”
The first game certainly was, with Balogun scoring twice in the first half of a dominant 4-1 win over Paraguay, becoming the first American with multiple goals in a World Cup game in 96 years while introducing himself to a country that may have known his name, but not his unique talent.
“If you don’t know the type of player he is, you could see it today,” midfielder Weston McKennie said. “It’s the World Cup, everyone steps up to their maximum. In the past a lot of people maybe have not made him out to be a player like that.
“He showed everyone he’s willing to do the dirty work as well.”
Balogun once had his pick of countries to represent. His birth in Brooklyn made him eligible to play for the U.S., his longterm residency in London made him eligible to play for England and his parents’ nationality qualified him to play for Nigeria.
He picked the U.S.
And he’s not the only one on the American team who had a choice. Half the men on the World Cup roster — including Christian Pulisic, Gio Reyna and Malik Tillman, who each had a goal or an assist against Paraguay — are dual nationals, meaning they’re playing for the U.S. because they want to, not because they have to.
“You’re more American if you were not born over there because you had the choice to choose and you chose America,” Kenneth Dest, the Surinamese-American father of Dutch-born defender Sergiño Dest, said in an HBO Max documentary.
If America is a nation of immigrants, it only seems right that it should be represented in the World Cup by a team of immigrants. Like Tillman and Dest, who were born and raised in Europe, the sons of U.S. soldiers. Or forwards Tim Weah, the Brooklyn-born son of the former president of Liberia, and Alejandro Zendejas, who was born in Mexico but became a U.S. citizen at 13 after his father was naturalized.
U.S. forward Folarin Balogun, right, celebrates his goal with Sergiño Dest (2) and Chris Richards (3) against Paraguay.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
The paternal great-grandmother of goalie Matt Turner fled religious persecution in Lithuania, with his Jewish ancestors changing their family name from Turnovski to Turner when they arrived at Ellis Island. The parents of midfielder Cristian Roldan came to the U.S. to escape civil wars in Central America, his father from Guatemala and his mother from El Salvador.
They didn’t wind up wearing the same uniform by accident, however. The recruitment of dual nationals dates to the 1980s under Hungarian-born manager Bob Gansler, who qualified the U.S. for the World Cup for the first time in 40 years with a team that included players born in Uruguay, Greece, Germany and El Salvador.
It really began to scale up about 15 years ago under Bob Bradley and his successor Jurgen Klinsmann. Gregg Berhalter then took it to another level, recruiting more than a dozen dual nationals — including Dest, Tillman, Balogun and Turner — in his five years as coach.
The practice isn’t limited to the USMNT. When France won the World Cup in 2018, 16 of the 23 players on the team came from families that recently immigrated from places like Zaire, Cameroon, Morocco, Angola, Congo or Algeria. More than half the players on Algeria’s team in this summer’s tournament were born in Europe while only seven men on Morocco’s roster are from Morocco.
Even Japan, famously homogeneous, has a Black goalkeeper who was born in Arkansas to a father from Ghana.
“Inclusion always pulls sport forward,” said Ronen Dorfan, a journalist and sports historian based in Budapest.
Still, Balogun’s journey is unusual — and not just because of the way it started.
He was two months old when he and his mother finally made it to London and eight years later he was good enough to enter Arsenal’s academy system. He made his junior international debut with England at 17, then three months later was invited to play four games for the U.S. U18 team.
But Balogun’s future appeared to be with England, especially after he scored seven times in 13 appearances with the U21 team, then followed that up with a career-high 21 goals for Reims in France’s Ligue 1 in 2022-23.
Yet neither performance earned him a call-up to a senior national team that was deep at forward.
So the U.S., which desperately needed a fast, technical, two-footed No. 9, pounced, getting Balogun to withdraw from England’s U21 training camp to make a secret visit to Florida. Once there, U.S. Soccer arranged for him to sit courtside at an NBA game, receive VIP passes to Universal Orlando, attend spring training with the Yankees and meet with a number of U.S. national team players.
With a schedule like this, his visit didn’t stay secret for long. After studying pictures Balogun had posted on social media, some U.S. fans determined he was in Orlando and began peppering his feeds with American flag emojis. Others found him at his hotel and urged him to commit to the U.S., a plea his parents, citing a quirk in fate, had been making for years.
You’re American, they argued. You were born there.
Six weeks later he did commit, with FIFA approving his request to switch allegiances from England to the U.S. A month after that, he scored his first senior international goal in the 2023 Nations League Finals and he’s never looked back. Because if Balogun, 24, felt overlooked in England, he’s felt looked after in the colonies.
“When I committed and throughout this whole cycle and the whole journey to me being at this point, I’ve always said the fans gave me so much motivation, showed me so much support,” said Balogun, who speaks in a pronounced London accent. “The most important thing has been to repay that.
“I just want to continue to show the fans I made the right decision. I want to continue to make the fans proud as well.”
He made a great start on that in his World Cup debut.
Buckle in because the training wheels are OFF for this improv drop-in. So Much Improv, created and led by comic Joe Fahey, focuses on getting in your reps by doing back-to-back improvised scenes. Classes are held at Kingsley Studios, which can be difficult to spot. The two-level complex is located right in front of a liquor store, and the studio is on the second floor behind gated doors. The studio looks like a cute living room, with a couch against one wall and plants across another.
The class size tends to be small (my class included five people), but that allows more time to improvise per person. The class is mostly regulars, so there is already a good rapport between Fahey and the students. That means he can give more specific feedback. After completing other beginner courses, this one felt the scariest, but I leaned in. After a few reps, I felt more confident in my ability to improvise and develop tactics to work with my scene partner. By implementing his feedback, I was able to fine-tune my improv skills.
This class is perfect for those who want more practice. The type of reps can differ each class, but the week I went centered on UCB auditions (it was that time of year). Since the class is small, you get a more catered experience.
Best for: Back-to-back practice on intermediate or advanced drills Cost: $20 Time commitment: Two hours Parking: Street parking Pro tip: Bring water because you will be talking a lot, and something caffeinated to beat the late-night crash for this evening class that requires your full attention.
LAS VEGAS — Carolina spent the first part of the Stanley Cup Final surviving, finding ways to overcome deficits and play a high-scoring game that didn’t fit the Hurricanes’ typical style.
But when it came down to doing what it takes to win the Cup, the Hurricanes’ defense put its stamp on this series, shutting down the Vegas Golden Knights and not letting up.
The Hurricanes held Vegas to five total goals in Games 4 and 5 and used a suffocating defense in a 3-0 shutout in Sunday night’s clinching Game 6 to win their first championship in 20 years.
“That’s a lot of years,” said Carolina center Jordan Staal, who received the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP. “It’s amazing. This is something I’ve been going after ever since we got the first one. You want to win it again and again and again. What a feeling, what a battle. The boys were grinding today, my goodness. So many individual efforts just to keep the puck out of our net. It was an amazing ride. I’m just so proud of these guys.”
Carolina Hurricanes players celebrate after defeating the Vegas Golden Knights to win the Stanley Cup on Sunday.
(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
Brandon Bussi, whose entrance late into Game 3 helped turn around the series for Carolina, recorded his first career playoff shutout in stopping 22 shots. Jackson Blake had a goal and assist, and Taylor Hall scored just 3:47 into the game to set the tone. Nikolaj Ehlers added an empty-net goal.
“Your mind wanders the last couple of days and wonder what it may be like out here (on ice after winning) and it’s better than I could have expected,” Hall said. “My career has taken a lot of different turns, but to end up here with this group of guys and to do this is amazing.”
The Golden Knights, who made an unlikely run just to reach the final, struggled badly to muster any kind of offense in Game 6 and went 18:37 between shots on goal in the second and third periods. Playing in their third Cup final, this is the first time they have been shut out.
This clinching game was what many observers expected the series to be like between the defensive-minded teams, but each side watched leads of two-plus goals disappear in the first three games.
Now, the Cup belongs to the Hurricanes, led by coach Rod Brind’Amour, who also captained Carolina to its 2006 title.
This was the first game of the series that Vegas goalie Carter Hart didn’t allow four goals in a game. He finished with 20 saves.
Carolina Hurricanes forward Nikolaj Ehlers celebrates after scoring an empty-net goal in the third period against the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday.
(John Locher / Associated Press)
The Hurricanes began to assume control of the series after falling behind by the score of 4-0 in Game 3. They came back force overtime, and though the Hurricanes lost, they outplayed the Golden Knights from there on out.
Reflecting the do-or-die situation for the Golden Knights, they made several lineup changes, with Brett Howden replacing the injured William Karlsson at second-line center. Mitch Marner could have moved there, but remained at right wing.
Original Golden Knight Reilly Smith made his Cup final debut at third-line right wing, and Braeden Bowman made his playoff debut at fourth-line right wing. Kaedan Korczak replaced Dylan Coghlan on the third defensive pairing.
This title is a testament to Carolina’s resilience as a franchise that kept coming close to winning the Eastern Conference, but couldn’t quite get through until now.
Brind’Amour made sure the Hurricanes kept getting back up after losing in the conference final twice in the past three years and three times in their current eight-year playoff run. The talent was clearly there, but there was always a stumbling block.
Not anymore.
After dispatching Montreal in five games to make the final, the Brind’Amour-led Hurricanes then faced perennial power Vegas and took care of business there too. Now, he will get his name on the Cup for the second time.
So will 37-year-old Staal, who also won the title in 2009 with Pittsburgh. He planted himself in front of Hart and dared the Golden Knights to knock him out of the way. Staal scored in each of the first five Cup final games, the first time that has happened.
The Hurricanes got off to a fast start with a goal just 25 seconds into Game 1, only to lose 5-4 on a late goal from Tomas Hertl. And the Golden Knights were on the verge of taking complete control as minutes ticked down in Game 2 while holding a 2-0 lead and appearing as if they would take a two-game advantage back home.
Then, it all changed. Carolina showed a fight that not only brought the Hurricanes back into the series by rallying to win 4-3 in overtime on Seth Jarvis’ one-timer, but would serve as their signature throughout the series.
That was especially true the following game when the Golden Knights took a 4-0 lead into the third period and the Hurricanes seemed to have no answers. Brind’Amour even appeared to wave the white flag by removing goalie Frederik Andersen and replacing him with Bussi.
Carolina Hurricanes coach Rod Brind’Amour hugs Jordan Staal after the team’s Stanley Cup win on Sunday.
(Ethan Miller / Getty Images)
But the Hurricanes weren’t simply trying to get to Game 4. They sent a message, going on a remarkable rally to force overtime. Though Carolina lost, it was inflection point, with Bussi backstopping a team that was only growing stronger. Carolina then went on to win the next two games and moved within a victory of the championship.
The Hurricanes got it done against the Golden Knights team that was on a heater after John Tortorella replaced Bruce Cassidy with eight games left in the regular season. Vegas then went from third in the Pacific Division to first, knocked off Utah and Anaheim in six games apiece in the playoffs and shockingly swept Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado to win the West.
Now, the Golden Knights have some notable questions to ask, including at the top of the list whether to make Tortorella a full-time coach. He didn’t have any guarantees of coaching in Vegas beyond this season, but getting to the Cup final is a good argument to run it back.
Golden Knights management will make the final call on that, and they don’t always follow league norms.
David Baerwald holds up his most precious possession so that it’s visible on our video conference: a very old violin in a very old, battered case.
Baerwald, an award-winning musician, film composer and songwriter who called Los Angeles home for nearly four decades, doesn’t play the violin. During his years with the Tuesday Music Club (immortalized in the Sheryl Crow album “Tuesday Night Music Club”), he played guitar. But the violin belonged to his grandfather Ernst Baerwald — and it plays an important role in his recently published debut novel, “The Fire Agent.”
Not every successful artist turns to a new medium at age 65 or moves to the opposite coast (Baerwald now lives in Kingston, N.Y.). Then again, not every artist has a family history quite like Baerwald’s, one that includes Germany and Japan, two world wars, a 1920s throuple and Beethoven’s Ninth.
On the Shelf
The Fire Agent
By David Baerwald Spiegel & Grau: 624 pages, $32
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The violin in Baerwald’s hands was the one his German-Jewish grandfather played as a Japanese prisoner of war in the Bandō camp at Tokushima during World War I. “It’s a very serviceable violin,” Baerwald notes. “A friend of mine played it for some years in the Long Beach Symphony. When my grandfather was older and wealthy, he bought a better violin, which was lost in a fire. But this is the one that matters.”
It matters because Ernst Baerwald was a founding member of a German POW orchestra that chose Beethoven’s great symphony as their premiere work — a performance so moving that it began a Japanese tradition marking the December holidays that persist to this day. Baerwald’s grandfather not only kept his violin throughout the war in which he fought; when he defected from the Third Reich in 1941, he placed it in an oiled bag and brought it with him via an oceanic escape.
Ernst Baerwald’s odyssey from a cushy childhood in Frankfurt to his final days in a beautiful Berkeley mansion, with a long sojourn in Tokyo along the way, reads like, well, a novel. Sent to an elite boys’ prep school in Germany, then on to a seriously disciplined Milanese dojo where he was trained by a Japanese sensei, Ernst was a prisoner in Japan for four years during World War I.
Those details might have been easy to find, but it wasn’t until David Baerwald went to clear out his parents’ house in Brentwood that he discovered papers showing that his grandfather had not only been the head of the Tokyo office of I.G. Farben, but that he had given a major speech to the nascent Office of Strategic Services (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency) in 1943 that laid out the plan for the firebombing of Japan.
For the record:
10:56 a.m. June 8, 2026An earlier version of this story said Ernst Baerwald’s 1943 speech to the OSS urged use of the atomic bomb on Japan. It laid out the plan for the firebombing of Japan. It also said Kurt Baerwald joined the CIA. He joined the U.S. Army.
He also urged them not to allow partnerships between large corporations and the military, the way the German scientific community and government did with I.G. Farben and Krupp Armaments and Steel. “Any business that makes peace with Fascism will become Fascist,” he said. “And once Fascism captures economic control, then a Fascist coup will inevitably follow to seize political power. Germany, Italy, Rumania, Japan, Spain the story is the same. We cannot allow it to become the story of America.”
When Baerwald read that, “I was really alarmed, in the moment,” he says, realizing how closely tied his grandfather had been to the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “But it gave me a plan.” He wanted to show how deeply his grandfather had become integrated into Japanese culture.
“One of my characters tells Ernst that he has ‘yuyo,’ which might best be described as grace,” says Baerwald. “Its Japanese meaning is closer to the state of a river rock that has been washed over and tumbled thousands of times, so that it’s both distinct, and a meaningful part of its environment.” To some extent, the author understands “yuyo” personally, having lived in Japan and been educated at its International School until age 12, when his family moved back to California, “although I wouldn’t claim it for myself,” he says.
That move, in the early 1970s, may have led to his career in music. “When we got back to the States, I was extremely troubled. Call me a fish out of water, I guess. I went through a period of voluntary mutism — I think they call it selective communication. I didn’t talk to anyone, especially not to my family. My hearing would sort of come and go at will, too.” His mother understood he seemed to like his sister’s acoustic guitar, so she suggested he take some lessons. “At the time, it wasn’t at all a career path, it was a way of reassembling my brain so that I could cope with the reality I was experiencing, finding a way to communicate again.”
Part of what he was experiencing, which he knows a great deal more about now, was feeling “the secrets that were the engine propelling my family.” After Ernst’s long career of service and deception, David Baerwald’s father, Kurt, entered the U.S. Army during WWII and later became a professor of Japanese studies at both in Japan and at UCLA. The effects on their family of five still reverberate. Baerwald’s mother eventually became a clinical psychologist who specializes in trauma. “I had to separate myself completely from my family in order to survive,” he says.
However, what stalled the writing of this first novel were the two decades he initially left out, which included Ernst, Lina and their lover Chizuko being a ménage à trois in a 1923 Tokyo dealing with the aftermath of an earthquake and wildfires.
Although “The Fire Agent” is based on Ernst’s history, not all of the facts are congruent. The wrestling coach at the American school in Tokyo, Ernst’s glamorous courtesan Chizuko, and many of the characters are composites. Speaking of that courtesan, Baerwald says it’s true that his grandfather and grandmother cohabited with a Japanese woman for many years, even after Lina and Ernst had a child together. “I found so many letters between my grandfather and my grandmother and I think they truly loved each other, and I think they truly loved that woman, too.”
That didn’t make it easy for Baerwald to write about that love. “My German grandmother, on whom Lina is partly based, was terrifying,” he says. “It was easier to write about her sex life with my grandfather and their Japanese lover by creating composite characters.”
He didn’t want to leave out their sex life, though, or that of others.
“Every generation of young people thinks they invented sex, right? But nothing is new — and it never gets old. Here’s an example. One of my godfathers, Sam Jameson, was the L.A. Times bureau chief in Tokyo for decades. He was also the doyenne, if you will, of the cross-dressing community in that city. It was this rich world he was a part of that nobody knew anything about. I based the character I call Bünheimer on him.”
Some of the worlds Baerwald has uncovered through his family’s papers are rich and sensual; others, like the POW camp where Ernst was held and the speech he gave to the OSS analysts at the Presidio in the 1940s, are stark and terrible. While he renders all appropriately, he’s aware that his perspective remains that of a white Western man. How did he gain the courage to write about people of other races, cultures and genders? He says it comes from something he did when he was on a swim team in high school. “The psychological trick I would play on myself at each meet was to imagine the water I’d dive into was freezing cold,” he says. “And of course it wasn’t. Which was such a relief and kept me going.”
Like his grandfather’s beloved violin, Baerwald has taken a deep dive into previously unknown waters — and survived. As he works on his second novel, he’s better prepared for airing family secrets and the publishing world. Ever the musician, he likens his first round with it to a Shepard tone, the auditory illusion that can make listeners feel like two notes one octave apart are constantly ascending or descending in pitch (Baerwald has worked with famed composer Hans Zimmer, who used the tone in, for example, “The Dark Knight”).
“A Shepard tone can make you feel like you’re flying. Or sinking,” he says. “At this point in my life and art, I prefer to have my feet firmly on the ground.”
NEW YORK — It was bedlam on Broadway as the New York Knicks won their first NBA championship in 53 years on Saturday night, with exuberant celebrations marred by mayhem and violence, including a shooting in Times Square.
Outside Madison Square Garden, a crowd watching on a big screen roared as the Knicks rallied from a 16-point deficit to beat the Spurs in San Antonio in Game 5 of the NBA Finals.
Soon after, tens of thousands of people filled the streets and the rowdiest among them were clashing with police, smashing windshields, scaling scaffolding, light poles and a statue, climbing into and atop school buses in Times Square and trying to hitch a ride on a moving fire truck.
Around 2 a.m., a 17-year-old was shot near 42nd Street and Broadway, police said. Bystander video captured the sound of at least seven shots and showed people crouching and running for cover. Police took the victim to the hospital because an ambulance could not get through the crowds, police said. A gun was recovered and three people were taken into custody.
Four people were stabbed or slashed, and one of the school buses, which was being used for World Cup transportation, was set on fire and engulfed in flames, police said. Other buses and five police cars were also damaged, police said.
In all, 63 people were arrested, with charges including assault on a police officer, criminal possession of a weapon, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.
Knicks owner James Dolan, speaking in San Antonio after the game, urged fans to stay calm.
“We need to tell everybody in New York that we know that they’re celebrating, we want them to have a great time,” said Dolan, interrupting guard Josh Hart’s news conference. “Please be safe. Don’t get hurt; don’t hurt anybody.”
The city will officially celebrate the Knicks on Thursday with a parade and City Hall ceremony.
As the clock ticked to the final buzzer on Saturday night, anxiety that had dominated the game’s first three quarters gave way to euphoria. An orange-and-blue-tinted fever dream that started with the Knicks’ first playoff game two months ago ended in the third title in their 80-year history.
Fireworks boomed over Brooklyn and Central Park. Fans flocked to Times Square and ran through the streets. Outside the Garden, they sang the team’s anthem: “Go New York, Go New York, Go!”
Police officers and ambulance workers shouted, “Let’s go Knicks!” over loudspeakers in Brooklyn. Strangers shook hands and hugged. In the Lincoln Tunnel, where people were riding buses back from the World Cup at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, drivers honked their horns in celebration.
“I’m so overwhelmed. I’m so happy,” said Mathieu Ogno of Long Island, who fought back tears as he soaked in the victory at a team-sanctioned watch party at Wollman Rink in Central Park.
Ogno wore the jersey of Knicks captain Jalen Brunson, whose 45 points propelled his team to victory and him to the NBA Finals MVP. Brunson’s gritty determination and chip-on-his-shoulder style have made him a fan favorite, embodying New York’s working-class ethos.
The Knicks’ championship — 19,392 days since their last — capped an extraordinary postseason for a franchise that hadn’t been to the NBA Finals since losing to the Spurs in 1999. Since April 23, the team has won 15 of 16 games, with its lone loss coming Monday in Game 3.
Their last title, in 1973, was also won on the road in a Game 5. Their first, in 1970, was won at home in a Game 7 thriller. Neither was celebrated with a parade.
“I’m happy to see my Knicks finally make it over the hump,” said Shawn Muoneke, 26. “I’ve seen them knock on the door. They were knocking on the door the past few years. But they finally made it over the hump, and I’m so happy to see it and I’m so happy I’m in the city to experience it.”
Muoneke, born a year after the Knicks’ last trip to the NBA Finals, started rooting for them when he was 10. He drove from Maryland to be in the city for Game 5 at the team’s Central Park watch party.
“I saw the ups, the downs and I watched the team come back up, and I was so happy to see them finally reach the highest echelon of stardom as a team,” Muoneke said.
After the Knicks’ win, he said, the vibes in the city “are the highest they’ve ever been.”
President Trump, a longtime Knicks fan who attended Game 3 at the Garden with Dolan, congratulated the team in a post on social media.
“What a year it has been but, even more so, what incredible playoff wins we have all witnessed, especially the last four — Maybe the greatest in the history of basketball,” Trump wrote.
With Brunson’s clutch performance, he added, “a superstar was born.”
After several dozen arrests throughout the playoffs and violence after Games 3 and 4 in New York that left officers injured and a teen in a coma, police girded for unrest as Saturday turned to Sunday.
“As we celebrate, be responsible, look out for one another, stay safe, be smart, and make this a night that reflects the very best of our city,” Mayor Zohran Mamdani said on social media. “Let’s go Knicks.”
Sisak and Lum write for the Associated Press. AP writer Emily Wang Fujiyama contributed to this report.
When CBS announced that it planned to outsource the hallowed “Late Show” slot occupied by Stephen Colbert and David Letterman before him to “Comics Unleashed,” the syndicated, low-budget talk show with stand-ups riffing on their routines, many saw politics at play.
But the show’s host and producer, comic-turned-mogul Byron Allen, saw the math. Once a cultural touchstone, late-night television has seen its prominence erode greatly over the years with viewers and advertising dollars shifting away from broadcast TV to streaming.
“I said, ‘Look guys, you’re spending a small fortune on late night,’” recalled Allen, who estimated that the programming was costing the network more than $200 million. He offered it a solution.
His company, the Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group, would pay $15 million for the airtime to run “Comics Unleashed,” which previously aired after “The Late Show,” while keeping most of the advertising time on the program to sell. It was the same time-buy model that propelled his fledgling media empire and made him wealthy many times over.
“Comics Unleashed” drew 1.1 million viewers in its debut in the new time slot last month, down substantially from the 2.7 million Colbert’s show averaged in its final season. Critics chimed in, with one outlet even calling it a “ratings disaster.”
But Allen, typically, was not fazed, saying his show bested the competition in key markets and was more comparable with the same time period last May before Colbert’s post-cancellation victory lap.
“CBS has won big-time because they have zero production costs and now they are saving $55 million a year,” he said in an interview.
Media mogul Byron Allen at his studio on the set of “Comics Unleashed” in Culver City.
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
A relentlessly driven, shrewd dealmaker and entrepreneur, Allen is used to defying skeptics and seeing opportunity in assets overlooked by others. He was one of the first entertainers to recognize that there was more money to be made in owning your content, rather than just performing it.
Over the last three decades, he has built a multibillion-dollar business, Allen Media Group, which now has 2,000 employees across various media properties.
In addition to creating a trove of accessible, family-friendly programs, he’s taken a number of big, bold swings, buying up distressed assets that now span broadcast, cable, streaming and film distribution.
At times, he appears like a minnow trying to swallow a whale. Although many deals have landed, others, such as his bids for ABC, BET, Paramount Global and Tegna, have not.
“He’s had misses, but that doesn’t stop him from going to bat,” said Lloyd Greif, president and chief executive of Greif & Co., a Los Angeles-based investment bank.
After a major restructuring that began two years ago during which the company laid off staffers and sold off properties, Allen is back with a slew of ambitious acquisitions. In addition to owning CBS’ late-night block, he also took over the 12:35 a.m. slot with his comic game show, “Funny You Should Ask.” He declined to reveal how much he paid for that airtime.
Allen recently snapped up controlling interest in the digital media company BuzzFeed (including HuffPost) for $120 million and bought a 10.7% stake in cable channel Starz for $25 million.
Although Allen’s programming has been dismissed as low-budget, apolitical comedy, and his finances have been questioned by some, he remains undaunted by doubters.
“I like to say I’m a 65-year-old overnight success.” And he remains focused on his mission, even proclaiming he is “building the world’s biggest media company.”
An entrepreneurial streak
Allen was born in Detroit, where his grandparents owned a roller rink where he worked as a floor guard. Being surrounded by a family of factory workers and the legacy of 20th century American industry set the stage for his entrepreneurship. “I didn’t play sports; I played office,” he said.
At age 7, after his parents’ divorce, Allen moved to Los Angeles with his mother, Carolyn Folks. It was the summer of 1968 and they planned a two-week vacation. But Detroit was in flames following the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., and they stayed.
Folks put herself through UCLA and eventually worked her way up at NBC from an intern to a publicist, a move Allen credits with changing the trajectory of their lives. His mother couldn’t afford child care, so Allen often accompanied her at the studio, where he soaked up tapings of “Sanford and Son” and “The Tonight Show.” After Johnny Carson finished filming and the studio was empty, Allen would sit at his desk, mimicking the legendary late-night host.
At 14, he convinced his mother to let him do stand-up at the Comedy Store on Sunset Boulevard.
“There were literally four people and 200 chairs. And I said, ‘I have to figure out how to make these chairs laugh.’”
A writer for Jimmie “J.J.” Walker, who was starring on the groundbreaking Norman Lear hit comedy “Good Times,” caught his act. He hired Allen to write jokes for Walker along with a pair of yet-to-be discovered comics: Jay Leno and David Letterman. Allen earned $25 a joke.
Howie Mandel met Byron Allen when they were both starting out at The Comedy Store.
(Allen Media Group)
“Most people in my business wait for other people to give you an opportunity,” said Howie Mandel, the actor and comic who met Allen when they were starting out at the Comedy Store during this period. “Byron and his mom constantly made their own opportunities.”
In 1979, when Allen was 18, he became the youngest comic to appear on “The Tonight Show.” Like a shot out of a cannon, the performance catapulted his career.
While various offers poured in, Allen chose the NBC prime-time series “Real People” as a host and correspondent. It was an embryonic version of reality TV. Allen traveled around the country showcasing quirky, heartwarming stories. The hit show brought Allen to every pocket of America. It also made him a star, delivering him to the country’s living rooms each week.
He continued to tour, doing stand-up and serving as the opening act for such musicians as Lionel Richie and Dolly Parton, and starred in TV movies.
Allen became a hero to young, Black entertainers who were just starting out. Among them was Eddie Murphy, who has called Allen “one of my first inspirations.”
“He just loves comedians,” said Whitney Cummings, co-creator and executive producer of the hit CBS sitcom “2 Broke Girls.” She recalled crucial career and financial advice Allen gave her after she first appeared as a young comic on “Comics Unleashed.” “It gave me like a true north. It changed my life.”
Whitney Cummings says Allen helped her early in her career.
(Troy Conrad)
As Allen’s success swelled, he said, he realized the industry was what he calls “business show, not show business.”
“You need to know the business side and learn the business side and then you can do as many shows as you want. And I knew that I didn’t want to work for anybody,” he said.
While on “Real People,” he sat in on sales meetings and went to the National Assn. of Television Programming Executives, where he introduced himself to Al Masini, the syndication trailblazer who produced “Entertainment Tonight” and “Star Search.”
“I understand you’re the best. I’m here to learn from you,” Allen said.
In 1989 he began hosting the syndicated “The Byron Allen Show.” Two years later, he created BYCA Television Distribution to take over his talk show’s distribution and syndicate other shows.
But Allen and his new company were soon facing legal and financial issues. A group of former employees and an investor sued, claiming they had not been paid. The dispute forced the company into Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
Allen pressed on. He had absorbed another key lesson.
Learning from Richard Pryor
When he was still hanging out at the Comedy Store, he watched Richard Pryor trying out new material.
Iconic comedian Richard Pryor.
(Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)
“He would bomb night after night for almost three months,” Allen said. “I’ll never forget, he told me, ‘Byron, you’re only as good as you dare to be bad.’ I learned, OK, take risks. It’s about growing and taking chances.”
In 1993, Allen launched CF Entertainment on his dining room table in Los Angeles. The production company, later Entertainment Studios, became the foundation of his media empire. He focused on producing low-cost, syndicated programming, including interview series and court shows. Allen produced and often served as host.
His first show, “Entertainers With Byron Allen,” packaged the five-minute celebrity interviews during hotel press junkets, a conveyor belt of actors promoting their latest projects set up by the studios into an hourlong talk show.
Allen bartered the show for free to TV stations in exchange for a split of the revenues from selling commercials to advertisers. Success was not immediate. He said he received countless rejections at first.
“My house went in and out of foreclosure probably 14 times,” he said. At one point, he said, his telephone service was turned off, forcing him use a pay phone for calls.
But the format established the template for what became Allen’s highly successful business. Forbes has estimated his net worth in the billions. Allen declined to discuss his personal or business finances.
The mogul now owns multiple homes, including a $91.3-million mansion in Aspen, Colo., that was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal.
“A lot of people didn’t take him seriously and saw him as a comedian,” said Joan Robbins, Allen’s first employee, who has stayed on for 32 years as president of talent relations. “I don’t think anybody realized the extraordinary business sense he had.”
Byron Allen gets final touches at his studio on the set of “Comics Unleashed.”
(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)
As Allen’s media ambitions have expanded beyond comedy and syndicated talk shows, so has his company. It produces, distributes and sells advertising for 74 television programs (“Mathis Court With Judge Mathis” and “Career Day” among them) as well as owns 13 broadcast stations affiliated with the major networks in 11 markets and several dot-TV cable and digital networks including Cars.TV, Automotive.TV and Comedy.TV.
In 2016, he acquired the Black entertainment platform TheGrio and later purchased the assets of the Black News Channel out of bankruptcy for a reported $11 million, merging its TV assets and carriage deals into TheGrio’s network.
A year earlier, Allen made waves by filing the first of several multibillion-dollar racial discrimination lawsuits to tackle what he called the “trade deficit between Black America and white corporate America.” His case against Comcast for not carrying Allen-owned stations and networks reached the Supreme Court before being settled.
“I feel good about starting that conversation … because we were going in circles and we were definitely suffering from economic genocide,” he said.
In 2018, Allen’s company bought the Weather Channel and the streaming service Local Now for $300 million. His firm also announced it had raised $500 million in credit facilities organized by Deutsche Bank Securities, Jefferies Financial Group, Brightwood Capital Advisors and Comerica Bank to finance production and other acquisitions.
What unites these disparate assets? “We’re directed at where the viewers are,” he said. “That’s where we’ll be.”
But in his tireless push to expand his sprawling company, Allen has made several failed bids for high-profile assets.
In 2023, he offered Disney a reported $10 billion for ABC and some of its cable networks, and the following year bid $30 billion for Paramount Global. He also made plays for Tegna and BET.
None of his offers succeeded, prompting skepticism about his ability to finance such deals. Allen Media Group is wholly owned by the entrepreneur.
Allen dismissed such concerns. “I raised the money to buy the Weather Channel in one day,” he said. “There’s trillions of dollars looking for really good executives and really good deals. I have no problem raising capital.”
The Times viewed multiple letters from private equity firms and banks. Several indicated that Allen had financial backing on the deal to buy BET, and another showed he had $4 billion in funds to back the purchase of Paramount assets.
Over the years, former employees have criticized some of Allen’s employment practices. In 2012 he faced a class-action suit from performers and staffers on “Comics Unleashed” who alleged they were not paid residuals or reimbursed for travel and other expenses. The suit was settled in 2023.
Allen called the suits “frivolous,” saying, “I couldn’t be in business if I actually conducted myself that way.”
Last year, Allen came under fire after announcing sweeping cuts at about two dozen local affiliates that included laying off meteorologists, part of a reorganization to centralize forecasts at the Weather Channel in Atlanta. The move sparked viewer outrage and the plans were reversed.
The controversy came as Allen’s company was retrenching. He sold off about a third of the TV station portfolio for $171 million.
Allen said this was a case of “rightsizing,” paying down debt and investing more in digital. “I sold 10 of my ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox affiliates to Gray [Media] at a great price for us and a great price for them.”
Allen confirmed he is negotiating with lenders over substantial debt payments coming due in the next year, but said he is “highly confident they will get refinanced or extended.”
Shortly after he bought a stake in Starz, Allen announced his intentions to own the cable channel. Starz responded by adopting a poison pill.
“Good luck,” he said. “I still plan to take over Starz, and I will eventually get control of Starz.”
TONOPAH, Nev. — Some years ago, Harry Chahal and his wife were on a trip to Las Vegas when, like countless motorists before and since, they passed through this high desert speck of a town.
Tonopah, built by the mining industry around 1900 and depleted as the gold, silver, lead and mercury waned, is a remote way station about halfway between Reno and Las Vegas. Signs on either side warn — ominously, given the unforgiving expanse ahead — that once you’ve left, the nearest gas station is not for another 100 miles or so.
Harry Chahal opened hometown pizza in 2015 after driving through town and seeing there was no pizza place.
(Mark Z. Barabak / Los Angeles Times)
As he passed through town, Chahal noticed something missing: a pizza parlor.
Pizza is not generally associated with Punjab, India, where Chahal — given name Harvarinderjit — is originally from. But he learned how to make pizza, and how much customers loved gobbling it up, while working at different gas station mini-marts around rural Nevada.
In that absence, Chahal saw opportunity.
He and his wife, Ravinder, moved to Tonopah and in 2015 opened Hometown Pizza in a vacant building on U.S. Route 95, which runs through the heart of town. Ten years later, they bought the Dream Inn Motel, a 39-room operation just up the road.
Views of the 47th president, from the ground up
Lately, Chahal has been sprucing up the motor inn: new cabinets, new furniture, fresh paint every few months. The reason is President Trump.
Tonopah and the surrounding desert, stretching farther than the eye can reckon, is verging on a boom, owing to vast reserves of lithium, boron and other sought-after materials and a Trump administration promise to turn the U.S., in the words of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, into “a mineral powerhouse once again.”
Chahal, 40, is a repeat Trump voter and even though he has issues with some of what the president has done — he’s not happy about the war with Iran and inflation has taken a decent-sized bite out of his pizza business — he feels his faith in Republicans in general and Trump in particular have paid off.
A registered nonpartisan, Chahal is fairly apolitical. “I vote for Republicans because they’re better for business,” he said as a lunch-time crowd of locals and folks passing through tucked into the $11.99 pizza-and-salad buffet. Here’s proof: In the last year, Chahal said, he’s seen motel occupancy increase significantly, from around 15 rooms rented each night to 25 or more.
Those fresh touches to the Dream Inn are Chahal’s investment in the future and a belief that, with Trump in office, even better times lie ahead.
Tonopah was built as a mining town around 1900. It’s fortunes have waxed and mostly waned.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
::
For much of its being, Tonopah relied on metal, minerals and other valuables scooped from the earth. Today, government is the largest employer.
But mining continues to hold fast to the town’s imagination.
A headframe — that’s the tower built directly over an underground mine shaft — is part of Tonopah’s logo. Mining-related sculptures, including statues of Jim and Belle Butler, who staked the first claim in the 20th century silver rush, dot the main thoroughfare. The high school’s athletes are called the “Muckers,” after those who shovel ore into underground rail cars.
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big tourist attraction, along with the Clown Motel and other lodging establishments supposedly haunted by the ghosts of dead miners and other paranormal phenomena. (Chahal says there are no apparitions at the Dream Inn.)
The Clown Motel, which draws visitors from around the world, is said to be haunted by the ghosts of dead miners.
(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)
Lately, however, mining is becoming more than just a part of nostalgic lore. It’s poised to again be a major boon to the local economy and the town’s 3,000 residents.
Plans are underway for a new lithium and boron mine at Rhyolite Ridge, approximately 30 miles southwest of Tonopah, in Nevada’s Silver Peak Range. (Lithium, most of which is now imported, is a vital ingredient in the batteries that store solar energy and power electric vehicles; boron is used, among other things, for bulletproof armor and vests.)
About 27 miles to the south of Tonopah, near the town of Goldfield, a new gold mine is set to open in 2028.
Joe Westerlund, Tonopah’s town manager, said fresh development and the prospect of hundreds of new, good-paying jobs are much welcomed. The median income here is about $37,000 annually, less than half the state average. The hospital in town closed in 2015. Venture off U.S. 95 and the rolling hills are flecked with weathered miner’s cottages and tumbledown homes no longer fit for habitation.
(A three-bedroom, two-bath home in a comfy subdivision on the north end of town can be had for around $250,000, but don’t hurry over to buy; inventory is low and could grow even leaner if demand for housing increases.)
The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is a big local tourist attraction.
“As soon as he got into office, things started loosening up. We had 15 drill rigs,” said Westerlund, who has lived in Tonopah since 1972. “I had never seen that before in my life.”
There are, of course, environmental concerns — about pollution, water supply, native habitat — but those worries haven’t gained much of a toehold. Nye County, which is home to Tonopah, isn’t exactly tree-hugger country — and not just because most of the land is scrub-filled desert. Trump carried Nye County all three times he ran, with landslide support ranging from 68% to 70%.
“This is a pro-Trump town,” Westerlund said, “and I feel like his policies are doing good for the town.”
Chahal stands ready to cash in, knowing firsthand what economic good times feel like.
The Mizpah hotel, opened in 1908, offers the plushest accommodations in town.
(Chris Erskine / Los Angeles Times)
When he moved here in 2014, he and his wife were forced to stay in a motel for six months because workers finishing up a $1 billion solar energy project were taking up most of the living space. That’s the kind of extended-stay guest he’s after, not the tourists bedding at the Mizpah Hotel, the plushest resort in town, with its cut-glass chandeliers, Victorian furnishings and photo gallery of celebrities who’ve stayed the night.
“If I can rent 25 rooms a night, maybe 15 can be for the long term” of several weeks at a time, Chahal said. He’s done the math — $82 a night for a queen bed, single occupancy; $89 for a king — and likes how it pencils out.
::
Chahal came to the U.S. in 2006, after marrying Ravinder, who grew up in the Sacramento area. She had family in Punjab and was a regular visitor to India. The two met when they were 10 years old. Chahal became an American citizen in 2020.
Politically, Indian Americans lean heavily toward the Democratic Party. But in the tiny Nevada communities where the couple lived — Lovelock, Battle Mountain and Ely before Tonopah — there was little or no Indian American presence. So Chahal wasn’t acculturated into the party the way many others have been. Rather, he embraced the GOP gospel of lower taxes and less regulation.
Working seven days a week, Chahal has little time these days for politics, beyond voting. He isn’t particularly ideological or, for that matter, worshipful of Trump.
“Every coin has a head and a tail,” he said, flipping his wrist as though tossing a quarter in the air. He sees two sides to the president. “Maybe you’re angry for some things,” Chahal said. “Maybe you agree with some things.”
He supports the notion of tariffs as a way of bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. He also laments that the pizza boxes he uses, which are made in China, once cost him 30 cents and now run almost 67 cents apiece.
He backs Trump’s promise to round up and deport violent criminals who are in the country illegally. But he’s also mindful of the important role immigrants play, especially in areas like farming and construction, in sustaining the U.S. economy.
Living in a town greatly shaped by outside forces — the fluctuation of commodity prices, the changing of presidential administrations, the shifting priorities emanating from Washington — Chahal is familiar with vicissitudes and the business cycles of boom and bust.
Not everything Trump has done has helped the mining industry.
But based on the talk around town, Chahal believes a more prosperous future is in the offing. He certainly hopes so, and he’s counting on the president to deliver.
Béla Guttmann may be the most consequential soccer coach you’ve never heard of. But if it weren’t for Guttmann, you may never have heard of Pelé.
And Brazil may never have become the greatest soccer-playing country on Earth.
That’s because Guttmann changed the shape of modern Brazilian soccer — and changed the sport forever — when he imported the revolutionary 4-2-4 system from Hungary to Sao Paulo in 1957. A year later, Brazil won the first of five World Cups and the joga bonito was born.
But what Guttmann brought to Brazil isn’t nearly as interesting as how he got it there. That’s just one of the fascinating stories in “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story,” the exhibit that will open the Holocaust Museum LA on Sunday at the Goldrich Cultural Center, a $70-million expansion that will double the size of the Pan Pacific Park museum’s campus to 70,000 square feet.
A soccer ball from the holocaust is among the items on display in the exhibit “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story” at the Holocaust Museum LA.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The exhibit was unveiled during a private reception on Saturday followed by a free preview day open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The grand public opening will take place in August.
The show’s launch coincides with eight local World Cup matches, which kicked off with the United States’ 4-1 win over Paraguay on Friday at SoFi Stadium, and it shines a light on the important but largely overlooked relationship between Jewish life and the global game, as well as how Jewish innovators like Guttmann shaped the modern rhythm, style and culture of the sport.
“It was in the same intellectual level as jazz, as art and everything modern and progressive,” journalist Allon Sander, who helped curate the exhibit, said of Jewish participation in European soccer in the years before World War II.
“The origin of the game and how it intersects with Jews and the Holocaust and the impact that these Jewish footballers and coaches had to shape the game and help popularize the sport is so fascinating,” added Beth Kean, the museum’s CEO. “And it’s an unknown history.”
Much of that story can be told through Guttmann, who was born in Budapest in the final year of the 19th century and developed into one of the sport’s first Jewish stars, representing Hungary in the 1924 Olympics and playing for nine teams in two countries before retiring to become a coach.
But none of that success mattered when the Hungarian government began introducing anti-Jewish laws in 1938, costing Guttmann his job and nearly his life when he was sent to a Nazi forced-labor camp, where he was tortured. Just days before he believed he would be shipped to Auschwitz, which meant certain death, he escaped alongside Erno Erbstein, another Jewish coach.
Erbstein revolutionized soccer in Italy before dying in 1949, along with the entire Torino team, when their plane crashed into a hilltop outside Turin. Four years ago, he was inducted into the Italian soccer hall of fame. Guttmann, meanwhile, who lost much of his family in the Nazi death camps, would go on to coach for 42 years in 14 countries, winning championships in six of them yet only staying in a single place for more than two years just once.
“He’s running away from his demons,” said Ronen Dorfan, a journalist and sports historian based in Budapest whose research was instrumental in putting the exhibit together. “His father was murdered, his sister was murdered. You never know how you survived in Budapest during the war so he had guilt feelings.”
A jersey worn by player Max Wozniak and a jersey from the 1930s are displayed in an exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The exhibit was designed in three sections, the first devoted to the years before World War II, the second is about the Holocaust and the third is the postwar years. And while it details Jewish participation in, and influence on, global soccer, it also challenges the cliché that Jews were intellectuals, artists and laborers but not athletes.
“We are always trying to challenge stereotypes. Stereotypes that we might have about ourselves and even stereotypes that we believe about others,” said Jordanna Gessler, the museum’s vice president of education and exhibits who helped curate the show. “It’s crucial to help people find their place and their voice and really see the unity, the similarities between people.
“This is a story that was lost in time and we’re really bringing it out,” Gessler added. “To really have this conversation and encourage people to explore stories that they might not know.”
One thing people might not know is that in the 1920s and ‘30s, Europe’s best teams weren’t in England, Germany or France, but in Austria and Hungary, where they were led by Jewish players and coaches such as Hugo Meisl, Jozsef Braun, Arpad Weisz, Marton Bukovi, Gusztav Sebes and Gyula Mandi. Weisz and Braun were both killed by the Nazis.
A soccer ball from the 1974 World Cup is displayed at an exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The surge of antisemitism and fascism in Germany, Italy and Eastern Europe helped spread the influence of those revolutionary players and coaches around the world.
“With the rise of the Reich and the Holocaust, the coaches ran away,” Dorfan said. “And they ran to every corner of the world, to Brazil, to Argentina, to Portugal [and] provided coaches to Real Madrid, to Barcelona, to Benfica, to Flamengo.
“There isn’t one of these clubs that doesn’t owe its tactical development in the ‘40s and ‘50s to the Jewish coaches, which came primarily from Hungary.”
The primary tactical development was the shift from the popular but rigid 2-3-5 formation, which required immense physical endurance and tactical discipline, to the fluid 4-2-4, which spread the wingers to the touch line and allowed for improvisation and creativity on the attacking end, a formation pioneered in Budapest in the 1920s.
“They developed a more refined game of passing the ball, keeping it on the carpet rather than the English kick and run, and really put thought into tactical thinking,” Dorfan said.
Guttmann, who played or coached for more than two dozen teams in his career — including one, in Romania, that paid him in vegetables during the postwar period — brought the Hungarian approach to Brazil in 1957 when he coached Sao Paulo to a championship. After Vicente Feola, the manager Guttmann replaced at Sao Paulo, took over the national team a year later, he brought the formation with him, popularizing many of the tactics still used in modern soccer, such as fluid defensive wingers, overlapping full backs, the use of a withdrawn striker and an attacking midfield.
The soccer team at the Theresienstadt concentration camp’s flag is displayed in a Holocaust Museum LA exhibit called “The Beautiful Game … The Untold Story.”
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
“He is the whole exhibition in one man,” Dorfan said of Guttmann.
“Obviously if we wouldn’t have had the Holocaust, those [coaches] wouldn’t be kept out of Europe, Europe would be much stronger, much more developed. [And] then the development of Brazil or the success of Brazil would be coming much later,” Sander said.
Dorfan spent the better part of two years tracking down many of the more than 100 trophies, uniforms, photos and trinkets that make up “The Beautiful Game” exhibit, a search that required determination, perseverance and more than a little luck. Many of the items, because of their ties to Jewish athletes and teams, were hidden during the war and presumed lost. Others resurfaced only through detective work that sent Dorfan following leads that spanned decades and crossed more than a dozen borders.
That also cost money. So Alan Rothenberg, the man who, as president of the U.S. Soccer Federation, first brought the World Cup to Los Angeles 32 years ago, stepped up to lead an effort that raised more than $1 million to fund the exhibit.
“The story really needs to be told, particularly with what’s going on right now with respect to antisemitism,” Rothenberg said. “It’s really important for people to realize what can happen. And soccer is a great vehicle to draw them in. The one main thing in the museum is bringing schoolkids in.”
The Nazis and their collaborators failed in their attempt to erase the history of Jewish soccer pioneers; in fact, they inadvertently popularized both the men — and women — and their ideas. But the sport also helped other Jews survive a dark period and Kean said that may be the most beautiful and uplifting part of “The Beautiful Game.”
“The main reason we decided to do this exhibition in the first place is because for years so many survivors, when they talk about their life before the war, so many of them talk about soccer. So many of them were passionate and fond of the sport,” she said.
“We knew the exhibit opening was going to coincide with the World Cup. L.A. is going to be on the world stage. This is a great opportunity for the museum to get these stories out.”
The first three days of the 2026 FIFA World Cup are done, with the U.S. and Mexico each winning their group stage openers. However, most of the World Cup field is still looking to hit the competitive pitch for the first time.
Here’s everything you need to know about matches being played on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday in the 48-team tournament across the U.S., Mexico and Canada (all times Pacific).
Sunday’s Group E games:
Germany vs. Curacao
Germany’s Antonio Rudiger and Deniz Undav walk on the field before a friendly against the U.S. in Chicago on June 6.
The buzz: This is David vs. Goliath. Germany, a four-time champion ranked 10th in the world, against Curaçao, the smallest country to qualify for a World Cup. But remember David won that first battle, and Curaçao, with a roster full of Dutch-born-and-bred players and an experienced coach in Dick Advocaat, at 78 the oldest manager in the tournament, won’t be a pushover.
Ivory Coast vs. Ecuador
Ecuador’s Piero Hincapie controls the ball during a World Cup qualifier against Argentina in September 2025.
(Franklin Jacome / Getty Images)
Where: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia Time: 4 p.m. TV: FS1, Telemundo
The buzz: Ecuador hasn’t lost since September 2024, a run that’s been fueled by the European-based back line of Willian Pacho (Paris Saint-Germain), Piero Hincapié (Arsenal), Pervis Estupiñán (AC Milan) and holding midfielder Moisés Caicedo (Chelsea). Ivory Coast is the youngest team in the World Cup, with an average age of 25.4 years, but it beat France in its final tournament tuneup. In three previous World Cups, the Elephants failed to advance out of the group stage.
Sunday’s Group F games:
Netherlands vs. Japan
Netherlands standout Frenkie de Jong looks on during an international friendly against Algeria on June 3.
The buzz: The eighth-ranked Dutch, arguably the best team never to win a World Cup, come into this tournament with a golden generation led by defenders Virgil van Dijk and Nathan Ake, midfielder Frenkie de Jong and coach Ronald Koeman. Japan’s only loss in the last 12 months came to the U.S. in a friendly last September; after that it beat fellow World Cup qualifiers England, Scotland, Ghana and Brazil and played Paraguay to a draw. The Dutch have lost just twice, to Algeria and Germany, in the last 23 months.
Sweden vs. Tunisia
Tunisia’s Hannibal Mejbri warms up before an international friendly against Belgium on June 6.
The buzz: Tunisia played in five of the last seven World Cups without getting out of group play, but this time it brings a roster that blends international veterans such as midfielders Hannibal Mejbri (Burnley) and Elias Achouri (Copenhagen) and young talent, including teenager Rayan Elloumi of the Vancouver Whitecaps, the ninth-youngest player in the tournament. Sweden beat Ukraine and Poland in a pair of UEFA playoff games this spring to grab a place in this tournament. Aston Villa defender Victor Lidelof is the most experienced player with 76 caps, including four World Cup appearances.
Monday’s Group G games:
Belgium vs. Egypt
Belgium’s Joaquin Seys, left, and Axel Witsel celebrate after defeating the U.S. in an international friendly on March 28.
The buzz: Belgium hasn’t lost in more than a year, but it also hasn’t played a top-10 team since 2024. It has a veteran core of four players — midfielders Axel Witsel and Kevin De Bruyne, goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and forward Romelu Lukaka — with more than 100 international caps. Egypt, Africa’s oldest national team, is playing in a World Cup for the fourth time and is still looking for its first win. Liverpool forward Mohamed Salah, the team’s active leading scorer, is the only player on the roster with a World Cup goal.
Iran vs. New Zealand
Iran’s Amirhossein Hosseinzadeh plays the ball during an international friendly against Gambia on May 29.
The buzz: For the first time in World Cup history a tournament qualifier, Iran, will play in a country with which it is at war, the U.S. The Iranians, with the second-oldest roster in the tournament, are playing in their fourth straight World Cup. Only a 1-0 loss to the U.S. kept them from advancing out of group play in 2022. New Zealand, playing in its third World Cup, was winless the first two times — although it didn’t lose in its last visit in 2010, playing Slovakia, Italy and Paraguay to draws. The Kiwis are the only team this century not to lose in group play while also failing to advance.
Monday’s Group H games:
Spain vs. Cape Verde
Spain’s Ferran Torres scores during an international friendly against Iraq on June 4.
(Manu Fernandez / Associated Press)
Where: Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta Time: 9 a.m. TV: Fox, Telemundo
The buzz: Cape Verde is one of four nations making its World Cup debut and it will open against second-ranked Spain, a tournament favorite which has lost just once since March 2024. Every player on Spain’s roster plays for a top European team; four of them played in last month’s Champions League final.
Saudi Arabia vs. Uruguay
Uruguay’s Federico Valverde heads the ball past Brazil’s Joao Gomes during a Copa America quarterfinal match in 2024.
(Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)
Where: Hard Rock Stadium, Miami Gardens, Fla. Time: 3 p.m. TV: FS1, Telemundo
The buzz: Saudi Arabia, playing in its third straight World Cup, began its last visit by beating eventual champion Argentina in one of the most stunning upsets in tournament history. And the last time the World Cup was held in the U.S., in 1994, the Arabian Falcons became the first Arab-Asian team to reach the round of 16. Uruguay, a quarterfinalist in 2018, comes into this World Cup with an experienced roster led by Real Madrid midfielder Federico Valverde and Atlético Madrid defender José María Giménez.
Tuesday’s Group I games:
France vs. Senegal
France’s Kylian Mbappe works out with teammates in Waltham, Mass., on Friday.
The buzz: France, ranked third in the world by FIFA, played in the last two World Cup finals and is favored to make it back again this year. Its best player, captain Kylian Mbappe, holds the tournament record with four goals in World Cup finals, including a hat trick in Qatar four years ago. Senegal is led by former African player of the year Sadio Mane, the country’s all-time leader in goals. Senegal made the quarterfinals in 2002 and the round of 16 in Qatar.
Iraq vs. Norway
Norway’s Erling Haaland controls the ball during a World Cup qualifier against Moldova in March 2025.
The buzz: Norway is playing in the World Cup for the first time this century which means Manchester City‘s Erling Haaland will finally make his tournament debut. A three-time Premier League scoring champion, Erling has more goals for club at country at 25 than either Lionel Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo had at that age. Iraq has gone even longer between World Cups, making its only appearance in 1986 when it lost all three games. Iraq won its way back with a 2-1 victory over Bolivia in an inter-confederation playoff last March. The winning goal came from forward Aymen Hussein, the team’s active leader in goals and appearances among outfield players.
Tuesday’s Group J games:
Argentina vs. Algeria
Argentina’s Lionel Messi, fourth from left, practices with teammates in Kansas City, Kan., on Thursday.
The buzz: Top-ranked Argentina was upset by lowly Saudi Arabia in its World Cup opener four years ago, then ran the table to give Lionel Messi the one title he was missing. Argentina returns 17 players from its world championship team, among them Messi, the golden ball winner; goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez, the golden glove winner; and midfielder Enzo Fernández, the 2022 tournament’s best young player. Algeria is ranked 28th in the world, it best ranking in more than a decade, and has lost just twice in the last two years. Its roster features 16 players from first-division clubs in Europe.
Austria vs. Jordan
Mousa Al-Tamari of Jordan controls the ball during the international friendly match against Switzerland on May 31.
The buzz: Jordan played its first international match in 1953 but it hasn’t played in World Cup until now, finally qualifying by finishing second to South Korea in its Asian group. Its best player is captain Musa Al-Taamari, a dynamic winger known as the “Jordanian Messi” who leads active players with 91 international caps. Austria is playing in the World Cup for the first time this century and it hasn’t won a game here since 1990. Its best player in Real Madrid defender David Alaba, a four-time Champions League winner and 10-time Austrian footballer of the year.
SAN ANTONIO — Jalen Brunson and the Comeback Knicks did it again. And now they’re the Champion Knicks.
For the first time in 53 years, New York rules the NBA. Brunson scored 45 points, including 13 straight for New York in the fourth quarter, and the Knicks beat the San Antonio Spurs 94-90 in Game 5 of the NBA Finals on Saturday night.
The Knicks won the series 4-1, rallying from double-digit deficits in all four of those victories. The deficit was 16 on Saturday night. Brunson and the Knicks were never fazed.
“I have no words,” Brunson said during the on-court celebration. “It’s everything I ever dreamed of.”
New York guard Jalen Brunson drives in front of San Antonio center Luke Kornet during the second half of the Knicks’ 94-90 win Saturday.
(Darren Abate / Associated Press)
Brunson, fittingly, closed with a flourish. He set a Knicks record for points in a finals game; it had been 38 by Willis Reed against the Lakers in Game 3 of the 1970 series. It now belongs to the left-handed point guard who changed the franchise’s fortunes when he arrived four years ago.
Mikal Bridges and Josh Hart — the other two parts of the “Nova Knicks” trio that also includes Brunson, three players who were NCAA champions at Villanova and teamed up in New York to try to do the same — combined to score 27 points. Bridges had 14, Hart 13.
“I don’t know what I’m feeling,” Brunson said. “I’m in awe. Whenever someone counted us out, we found a way to come back and do something about it.”
New York Knicks center Karl-Anthony Towns, right, hugs forward Og Anunoby after defeating the San Antonio Spurs for the NBA title on Saturday.
(Darren Abate / Associated Press)
Dylan Harper scored 25 for the Spurs, who got 19 points, 14 rebounds and five blocked shots from Victor Wembanyama.
The Knicks improved to 4-0 in closeout opportunities this season, winning them all on the road. It didn’t feel like the road, though — not with thousands of New York faithful having made the trip to Texas to see a moment 53 years in the making.
New York got to the brink of this title by rallying from 29 points down in Game 4 to win 107-106 on OG Anunoby’s tip-in with 1.2 seconds left on Wednesday night. It was the largest comeback in NBA Finals history and the biggest comeback in any game this season, regular season or playoffs.
By comparison, then, a 16-point rally in this one seemed easy.
The game followed the same script in the opening minutes as all the others in the series, with the Spurs taking a double-digit lead in the first quarter and then frittering most of it away in the second quarter.
The Spurs became the first team in the play-by-play era, which started in the 1996-97 season, to lead five finals games by 10 points or more in first quarters.
The Knicks simply could not make a shot, missing on 16 of their first 18 tries and each of their first 11 two-point attempts. There even was a point in the second quarter when Wembanyama had more blocked shots (five) than the Knicks had made shots (four). San Antonio’s lead was as many as 10 in the first quarter, as many as 16 in the second.
Of course, none of it mattered much. As always, the Knicks came back.
New York Knicks fans react in New York after the team’s title-clinching win over the Spurs on Saturday night.
(Heather Khalifa / Associated Press)
A 22-9 run in the second quarter got New York within three, before Devin Vassell scored just before the halftime buzzer to give San Antonio a 42-37 edge at the break.
And that capped an opening 24 minutes of either offensive ineptitude or defensive prowess, depending on perspective. The 79 combined points in the first half were the lowest in a finals game since Game 7 of Lakers-Celtics in 2010, and the combined 31.8% field goals shooting by the Knicks and Spurs was the lowest in the first half of a finals game in the play-by-play era.
Brunson won NCAA crowns twice with Villanova — both in Texas, the 2016 one in Houston and the 2018 one in San Antonio, just a few miles away from the arena that the Spurs call home.
A Texas three-step of titles, and this one was surely the sweetest of all.
There was a time in the beginning of Sublime’s recent revival when Jakob Nowell, the son of the band’s late singer Bradley Nowell, saw himself simply as a good son trying to help his adoptive uncles — drummer Bud Gaugh and bassist Eric Wilson — restart his dad’s iconic Long Beach trio. The goal wasn’t to take the place of his frontman father who died of an overdose in 1996. “I’ll never look at it as my band. Sublime is my dad’s band, and I’m helping out, that’s all,” he told The Times in 2024. Luckily, he was wrong.
The journey of finding his own voice through his father’s sly, shambolic poetry and reggae rock anthems, along with his determination on the road with Gaugh and Wilson through a barrage of festivals and tour dates helped him eventually step into his own as a songwriter and Gen Z rock star. It’s all been done with the mission to preserving his dad’s legacy and having fun while doing it. Now it feels as natural as the trio sitting together on the waterfront in LBC’s shoreline marina within earshot of the bellowing horn of the Queen Mary earlier this year as they were finishing the recording of “Until the Sun Explodes,” the first album under the Sublime moniker in 30 years.
Just like the band’s original recipe of shoving punk, dub reggae, hip-hop and ska into a blender, the new songs dutifully stick to the formula along with Jakob’s soulful caterwauls that sound scarily similar to his dad. But what emerges from the 21-song tracklist is the evolution of a trademark sound that gives a nod to the past while standing strong on its own, just like Jakob, despite coming to the interview on crutches while healing from a performance-related knee injury. The band members chatted with The Times about recapturing the effortless essence of their immortal beach-ready sound and looking forward to a second chance to chase an endless summer.
This interview was edited for length and clarity
It’s kind of a rare thing for all three of you guys to be in one place at the same time. What was it like working in the studio together to finish the new album?
Bud Gaugh: Magical. Things are just coming together. We showed up, Jake had an idea for another song, and he sent us a little demo and said “Hey, this is what I’ve been thinking about.” And then we get down to the studio [in San Pedro], and he’s like, “Oh yeah, so I had another idea,” and kind of changed it. We jumped in there [and by the end of our sessions, we had written] brand new songs to the list of songs that we already had.
The band’s revival has been a long time in the making. I remember when you guys had your first show together, a surprise gig a couple years ago as part of a benefit show for the Bad Brains frontman H.R. Do you feel you’ve come a long way since then?
Eric Wilson: I never thought the chemistry would be like it was with Bradley.
Jakob Nowell: Especially now that we’ve been playing together this long, the chemistry is very much there. We’re just comfortable and having fun. Jamming together is the best. We get in there to do a take for a song, and I’m always like “Let’s just do like three more!” It’s just that much fun, and that’s how it feels playing live too.
When did the idea for creating a new album come about?
Gaugh: It was pretty much just while we were playing shows, At first, the idea was that we were getting together to do this benefit for H.R. [at Teragram Ballroom in December 2023]. We went from “How’s this going to work?” and then [after the show] it was like, “Wow, this is something special. We should definitely go out and play some more shows, and get this music out there and get the opportunity to bring the music to the people in the purest form that we possibly could.” As we’re doing that, it’s like we’re seeing the reaction in the fans, and we were feeling it emotionally. We realized this is going to be bigger than we ever thought. That’s when we really decided where it was going to go.
Jakob Nowell, right, once thought Sublime was only his late father’s band; now, fronting the Long Beach trio, he’s leading a new chapter that still honors Bradley Nowell’s legacy.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Were any of the songs on the new album mined from previously unreleased material or did you start fresh?
Nowell: There was that song we did with Stick Figure [“Feel Like That”], so I think that kind of inspired us. [We realized] “Oh s—, there really is some meat on the bone.” And then I had found some old recordings of stuff that were just like jams without even like vocals or whatever. Then it became just this thing during sound check or maybe in the middle of sets, we’d just start jamming these random progressions and stuff, and it kind of just evolved from there naturally.
The new songs that I’ve heard fit right in the vein of what people love about Sublime. What was it like putting some of those new songs in the setlist as you were building them?
Nowell: It was like magic. We were joking yesterday that sometimes we’ll play a new song for the first time just randomly and I’d see people try mouthing the lyrics and stuff and I’ll say “you’ve never even heard this before! I know you haven’t. We don’t even really know what the hell we’re saying.”
Gaugh: You frontin’! [Laughs]
Nowell: But [the new material] sounded like it was supposed to be there, so it was kind of a rad little test in a lot of ways. We almost don’t even have to think about it. That’s always going to be the guiding goal of any band trying to make fun music that’s relatable.
Wilson: What if you’re Slayer? That’s not true if you’re Slayer.
Jakob, it seems like you’ve gotten a lot more comfortable in the frontman role since joining the band. What’s it like just taking the lead, not just for the sake of your dad, but for the fans?
Nowell: Oh, dude, it’s the best. I don’t even have to think about it. We really feel like this is — we’re a band, you know?
Gaugh: It’s [Jakob’s] band too. Now it’s our band. It’s us.
Nowell: It feels like that whenever we’re hanging out, just doing stuff, or at the studio or at these shows. So, this upcoming year feels like a really rad adventure. We got all these different eras [of fans] — people who were in their 50s when [Sublime’s] first stuff dropped, who are still alive, and then their kids and their grandkids and great grandkids. Everybody finds a piece of the discography they can relate to. That’s what is most exciting. It’s not just one or two songs, people sing along to everything.
I was at Warped Tour in Long Beach last year when you guys played and —
Nowell: That was my favorite set!
To me that felt like it encapsulated what you were talking about with the multigenerational groups of fans that have enjoyed you guys and associate you with Long Beach.
Gaugh: It was like a homecoming for me. I remembered playing the Chili Cook off, you know, right over there in the same area [as Warped Tour], and it was just bringing me back 30 years. It’s so meaningful to be in our backyard playing our music again, right there. This is where it all started. It’s come full circle.
Nowell: It was like playing at a local bar in a cool way. I had this huge group of people up front, they were just talking and shouting and saying stuff, like f–ing with us and joking around. I was like “Damn this is great!”
How about you, Eric? How’d you feel playing Warped?
Wilson: [Mumbles] It was f–ing awesome.
Now that you’ve played all these festival shows, from Coachella to No Values, you’ve got your own festival going on. Can you talk a little bit about Sublime Fest and your Sublime Reef Madness Cruise and how you came up with it?
Nowell: We could put on a bunch of the bands we love, and some of our boys, like Vandals, and make it our own vibe.
Gaugh: You walk around Coachella and there’s so many different elements there. Wouldn’t it be neat if we could make like all this like a Long Beach element, a Sublime element. Looking at this thing, it’s like “Oh wow. So we can actually get some of our friends and set up like a tattoo booth, and have our idea of art and everything out there, and mix it all together — food, art, music — bringing all these different elements, and friends of ours that play music. We get to decide who’s going to share the stage with us, so it’s really neat. It’s like planning a high school party or something like that.
Nowell: The biggest backyard party ever seen.
You guys always had your own sound going on, what’s it like to see that the fans still want it?
Wilson: It took a lotta years to catch on, but it did.
Nowell: Yeah, the kids really want that, like ‘90s, Y2K kind of vibe. That was the last era of like cool authenticity and stuff. You can see it when young people make stuff to look retro … when things get so high fidelity, we’re almost losing a little element, so I think these festivals kind of seek to bring some of that back in a way that everybody can get into.
With “Until the Sun Explodes,” Sublime’s first album in three decades, Jakob Nowell, Bud Gaugh and Eric Wilson rediscover their studio chemistry, jamming new songs that feel instantly familiar onstage.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
You guys also have the timeless iconography of the Sublime sun logo. The title of the album is “Until the Sun Explodes.” Does that title have any particular meaning to you?
Nowell: It’s almost just another way of saying “forever,” like “Oh baby I’m gonna love you till the sun blows up.” That’s gonna happen in billions of years, if at all. The fact that [Sublime’s] lasted this long and has this many fans is evidence to me that we wanna be here forever. I think that’s what everybody wants for themselves.
Jake, you’ve taken steps to advance your own aspirations and music with your label, Sunburnt Records, how does that fit into where Sublime is right now?
I was inspired by the whole Skunk Records thing [Sublime’s first label], Evan Zinger with [his lifestyle brand] SRH, and just all the local brands I grew up with when I was a kid. So just trying to do a cool, chill local thing that has that vibe of putting on small shows and kind of getting to use this new notoriety to be like, man, I have so many friends in these small bands like Strange Case and Eight Ball, and other bands up and down Southern California. Let’s put on shows and sneak them on a Sunburnt Stage at [Sublime Fest] and if people really like that Sublime sound here’s a bunch of kids who are carrying the torch like Slightly Stoopid did when they started out. Mike Watt always said “start your own band!” So the more we can inspire people to do that and be some small part of that, it’s a dream come true.
Do you feel like this version of Sublime is something Brad would be proud of?
Gaugh: We all kind of brought our own element to the music orignally. So we just kind of followed that recipe. Jake’s his own person, he’s got his own influences, and we just kind of stick with that idea. Jake brings in his feelings, and Eric brings in his and we sat there and recorded this song, and then as we were recording it, we’re coming up with ideas. It’s like, “Oh wait, we should do this here, slow that down there, stop here,” it’s all a conglomeration of ideas, everyone does their part, brings in their own spices and we mix it in a pot like gumbo.
The city witnessed Carl Lewis win four Olympic gold medals, cheered Valerie Brisco-Hooks’ historic golden double and watched Edwin Moses extend his 400-meter hurdles unbeaten streak. L.A. has history with track and field.
Now when Ato Boldon, a UCLA Hall of Famer and four-time Olympic medalist for Trinidad and Tobago, looks to this weekend’s L.A. Grand Prix and the city’s future with the sport, he wonders what it holds.
“I’ve always felt like L.A. needs a signature event,” Boldon said, “and with the Olympics coming up in two years, you look at the quality of this event this weekend, and you’re like, yeah, this is the kind of meet they should have all the time.”
At the halfway mark of the Olympic quadrennium, the USA Track & Field event serves as an important checkpoint for the sport’s hope to break out of the four-year popularity cycle.
The two-day event, which begins Saturday with the women’s hammer throw at the South Bay Athletic Club, features 18 Olympic or world champions competing primarily at USC’s Allyson Felix Field. Sunday’s marquee competition beginning at 1 p.m. will be televised on NBC.
With USA Track & Field building toward a home Olympics, L.A. has been a critical but stubborn market to conquer. Last year’s L.A. Grand Prix, which would have been the third edition of the meet, was canceled in April. The decision, USA Track & Field Chief Executive Max Siegel said, came down to another meet scheduled in the same venue within the same month.
But that competing event, part of Michael Johnson’s upstart Grand Slam Track league, was canceled only weeks before it was set to take place at UCLA’s Drake Stadium, leaving L.A. without a major track competition last summer.
“We knew last year when we canceled the meet that we had every intention leading up to the Olympics to be present in the L.A. market,” Siegel said.
The city knows great track. UCLA boasts legends such as Rafer Johnson, Jackie Joyner-Kersee and Florence Griffith-Joyner. USC, which boasts more Olympians than any other U.S. university, had athletes win nine Olympic medals in track and field at the 2024 Games in Paris, including double gold medals for Rai Benjamin in the 400-meter hurdles and 4×400-meter relay and a 4×100-meter relay championship for TeeTee Terry.
After Terry ran the second leg of the relay, Sha’Carri Richardson’s stare down at the end of her anchor leg became one of the iconic shots of the Paris Games, where 70,000 people packed Stade de France and millions more tuned in for one of the most-watched Olympics.
But the sport is back in the shadows like it always seems to be outside of Olympic years, said Boldon, now NBC Sports’ track and field analyst. There have been several attempts to penetrate the U.S. sports consciousness since the successful Paris Games. Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian launched Athlos, a women’s track and field meet that began in New York City in 2024 and added a stop in London to its 2026 schedule. Grand Slam Track, founded by the Olympic legend Johnson and touting major names including Gabby Thomas and Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, filed for bankruptcy last year, after completing only three of four planned events in its first season, and is only now emerging from it.
This year’s inaugural USATF Tour aims to organize the fragmented sport by streamlining the calendar and working with existing event coordinators to provide resources, including prize money and travel for top athletes, marketing and drug testing. The tour, which was in College Station, Texas, last week for the Lone Star Grand Prix, has 17 events in 10 states.
American Tara Davis-Woodhall after winning the women’s long jump at the 2025 world championships in Tokyo.
(Ashley Landis / Associated Press)
“I feel like LA28 gives the country something to organize around,” said Siegel, who hopes track and field can rise to be among the five most popular sports in the United States. “People are paying more attention to athlete stories in anticipation of what’s going to happen on U.S. soil.”
There is no shortage of stories at the L.A. Grand Prix. Almost everyone who matters in American track and field will be there, Boldon said. Kenny Bednarek, the silver medalist in the 200 meters in Paris, will line up in the 100 meters against Botswana’s Letsile Tebogo, who took gold in the 200 in 2024.
Tara Davis-Woodhall, the reigning Olympic long jump champion, will compete in her signature event and race in the 100-meter hurdles for just the second time in the last five years. Her husband, Hunter Woodhall, will race in the 400 meters on Saturday, when Para athletes will be among those competing in the L.A. Distance Classic at Allyson Felix Field.
Richardson will run her first 100-meter race of the season. The 2024 Olympic silver medalist could be in line to end a three-decade gold medal drought in 2028. No U.S. woman has stood atop an Olympic podium for the 100 since 1996, when Gail Devers won in Atlanta.
Such a stacked field outside of an Olympic year on U.S. soil could be a sign of a changing tide for track and field, Boldon said. The L.A. Grand Prix is a gold-level event on the World Athletics Continental Tour, the second-highest tier of single-day international competition. As athletes vie for world ranking points, the event could be a true Olympic preview two years before the Games begin at the Coliseum.
“This,” Boldon said, “is not a normal week in our sport.”
On a Thursday in early June, under the hot bright lights of the famous Blue Note jazz club in Hollywood, the legendary trumpeter and composer Arturo Sandoval took center stage with a microphone in hand — and a hip wiggle for good measure. Rocking a silk shirt adorned with rhinestones, and backed by his incredibly nimble band, the Cuban-born virtuoso kicked off his four-night residency at the club with sizzling banter and panache.
“I had to watch what I said in Cuba,” he told the audience. “Now I live in the United States of America, man — I say whatever the hell I want. Do you like it? Well, if you don’t, I don’t care!”
Now 77, Sandoval feels he was liberated by the power of jazz. Released in May, his dynamic new album, “Sangú” — Spanglish for “sounds good!” — is bursting with the free-spirited energy he’s cultivated in the decades since he came to the United States from Cuba. Sandoval maintains a fiery pace throughout the album, commanding not only the trumpet, but the timbales and piano. (He even recorded his own scat singing for the appropriately-titled track, “Scat.”)
Once derided by the revolutionary government as “Yankee imperialism,” jazz music became a staple of Sandoval’s daily diet. As a young trumpet player in Cuba’s national band, he sought refuge in the sounds of Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie by tuning into Voice of America: a radio program covertly broadcast from the States. Sandoval eventually served three-and-a-half months in jail in the 1970s when he was caught listening to the program — but with famed pianist and director Chucho Valdés, Sandoval would pioneer a distinctly Afro-Cuban jazz fusion with the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, which was renamed Irakere and won a Grammy for best Latin recording in 1980.
“Jazz is synonymous with freedom,” he said. “And I’ve always said the most important word in any dictionary around the world is the word ‘freedom.’”
Inside his Tuscan-style home in the Valley, Sandoval’s shelves are lined with the myriad of awards he’s collected in the time since he arrived in the States: an Emmy award for scoring the 2000 movie based on his own life, “For Love or Country,” which starred Cuban American actor Andy García; 10 Grammy statuettes and the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which was presented to him by President Obama in 2013.
Just last month, Sandoval was also awarded knighthood by the King of Spain. “Does that make me Don Arturo Sandoval?” he audibly asked the ChatGPT application on his phone; indeed, it does. (“My wife gets a little jealous of ChatGPT,” he added with a laugh.)
Come July 4, Sandoval will perform at the America250 concert in Washington D.C., which is a bipartisan celebration of the United States’ 250th birthday. Co-chairs of the event include former President George W. Bush, former First Lady Laura Bush, former President Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama. Seated next to his Bösendorfer grand piano, Sandoval spoke with The Times while on break from his world tour to discuss the new album, his collaborations with Karol G and Ariana Grande, as well as his weakness for a good cigar.
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
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What keeps you playing the trumpet after all these years? I have no choice. The piano is not that complicated, but the trumpet is a pain in the butt. The trumpet is merciless. You have to practice every single day, otherwise it sends you a bill.
How do you smoke cigars and stay healthy enough to play the trumpet? I’ve been a big time cigar smoker since I was 14 years old. I never miss a day. I had a good one already. Every year they put me in the MRI to check my lungs. And the doctor always says, “Man, you have lungs like a person who never smoked.” A cigar is completely different from cigarettes. [With] a cigar you don’t inhale to the bottom of the lung, you know, it’s from here [taps his throat]. That’s the art.
You’ve been knighted by the king of Spain! How does that feel? Great! We’re having 30 people over tonight. My wife is cooking for everyone. The consul [from Spain] called me three or four days ago [and] said, “Arturo, I got a surprise for you. I just got a package from the king at my house, ready to give it to you.” And I said, “What kind of joke is that?” My four grandparents came from Spain to Cuba — from my mother’s side, they were from Tenerife, Isla Canaria. From my dad’s side, they were Gallegos from Galicia. Even if I weren’t related to my family in Spain, whatever — I love Spain!
Given how restricted music and expression were in Cuba, how did you get into the international jazz community? We put together a big band called Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna [later called Irakere]. I met a journalist who played the saxophone — he said, “Man, you ever hear any jazz music?” He played for me a compilation or recordings of Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker. That was in ’67 or ’68. Ten years later, I got a phone call from the guy — there was a jazz cruise going around the Caribbean and they [were in Havana] for 48 hours. I told him, “Pretend we never had this conversation!” But I went to the harbor. When the boat arrived, I saw Maestro Gillespie coming down the stairs. I didn’t know how to say one word in English. But God has always been good to me.
A guy behind him started talking to me in perfect Spanish. He was a percussionist playing with the great Stan Getz … a bunch of good musicians there. Dizzy started asking me questions through him. They said, “You have a car?” I had a Primo 1951, but it was falling apart. He said, “Ok, show me Havana.” He stayed for a jam session that night with Irakere. Gillespie went back to New York and told everybody about those musicians he heard in Cuba. Then one day a guy came to Irakere’s rehearsal and introduced himself with a translator — he was the president of CBS Records. A few months later, he put us on the plane [to New York] and drove us in a little bus straight to [perform at] Carnegie Hall. CBS made a recording of that, [which gave us] our first Grammy.
Many years later, in 2013, you were awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. What’s something special you remember about that night? My granddaughter Lola was there, she was 6. It’s customary to take a photo with the president and the first lady. And we did, the whole family. When we got together for the photo, Lola started pulling at Obama’s jacket. He looked her and said, “May I help you?” She said, “Mr. President, I missed school today. I need a note from you.”
I said, “Oh Lord.” But Obama smiled and said, “Of course.” Then he got a paper with the White House [logo] on top and wrote, “Please excuse Lola from the school today … [Signed,] Barack Obama.”
Legendary jazz trumpeter Arturo Sandoval, shown performing at Dorothy Chandler Pavillion in Los Angeles in 2016.
(Courtesy of Timothy Norris)
Your new album is so cinematic. What’s the story behind it? One day my son and his wife, who’s my manager, came over and said, “Papa, you’re getting old. You have to change your repertoire.” I said to my son, “I’ve been feeding you for 50 years and then you come and tell me what to do? Gimme a break!” But to be honest, when the pandemic happened, I was locked [inside] here. I used to travel a lot, and I was so frustrated and sad. So for two-and-a-half years, I started writing two or three new tunes a day and recorded a few hundred on my own. They picked 100 out of those; I said, “[Now] pick 12.”
When I got with the band, when somebody told me what to play — a little faster, a little slower — I said, “What the heck, man?” But I did it. And they were right. I’m so happy, blessed and grateful because they are amazing musicians. Nobody’s weird. No drugs, no alcohol, strictly into the music.
You joined Karol G’s band at Coachella this year — how did that happen? As an old man, it’s not every day you have the opportunity to play Coachella. She called me last year to play on a tune in her latest album, “Ivonny Bonita.” So when they invited her to Coachella, she said, “Arturo, we’d like to play with you there.” She’s got great charisma and knows how to put a show together. To play for [more than] 150,000 people each night? That’s not my daily gig. I was nervous, but grateful for the opportunity. And when I checked my followers on Instagram, I got like 5,000 people in a few days — that never happens to me!
Let’s talk about Instagram! Oh that’s a funny story. [In 2018] I did an album of duets with Stevie Wonder, Pharrell Williams, Ariana Grande … big time people. When Pharrell wrote a song for our duet, we were in the studio, cutting the track. He said, “Arturo, I’m producing for Ariana Grande in a studio across the hall. You would like me to call her?” I said, “Of course, man.” They sang together, Pharrell and Ariana. And by the end, I got my phone and said, “Ariana, can we take a photo with Pharrell?” She took my phone out of my hand to take [a selfie] and said to me, “Put it on Instagram.” I didn’t know what that was. She said, “You don’t know what Instagram is?” Sorry, I’m old! But I put it on Instagram, thanks to Ariana Grande. She’s so talented, man.
How do you stay dedicated to music after all this time? People talk a lot about the word “talent.” What’s that? A lot of people supposedly have big talent, but they don’t have the passion, the discipline, the commitment. See those roses in my yard? If somebody gave you a seed, you put it in a vase with fresh dirt. Add some vitamins and water, and if you’re lucky, you’re gonna have a rose. But if they gave somebody the exact same seed and they left it on a table somewhere, that rose is gonna die! I’m 77 years old and I still practice every day. Nothing goes to my head. All those awards would mean nothing if I didn’t take care of what I had.
Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser and Noah Goldberg, giving you the latest on city and county government.
Los Angeles voters have finally gotten some closure on the outstanding contests in the June 2 primary election, with City Councilmember Nithya Raman qualifying for the runoff against Mayor Karen Bass, and Measure ER, the countywide sales tax hike, prevailing after a week of ballot counting.
With nearly all the votes counted, Angelenos are now getting a more granular understanding of the strongholds built up by each of the top three mayoral candidates.
Districts that went big for Bass, Raman and Pratt
Early on in the vote-counting process, it looked like Raman might not win her Hollywood Hills-based district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Reseda. In the end, she pulled out a first-place finish, securing nearly 34% of the vote compared to Bass’ 31%, according to Paul Mitchell, vice president of the voter data firm Political Data Inc, who aggregated county precinct data into council districts. Spencer Pratt, the former reality TV personality, trailed at 27%.
Still, Raman’s strongest support came from three districts on the eastern end of the city.
Mitchell’s analysis showed Raman with 45% of the vote in Council District 13, which includes all or parts of Echo Park, Hollywood and Atwater Village. She got nearly 40% in Council District 1, which takes in parts of Highland Park, Mt. Washington and Angeleno Heights. And she scored nearly 38% of the vote in Council District 14, which includes downtown, Boyle Heights and El Sereno.
Those districts are represented by Hugo Soto–Martínez, Eunisses Hernandez and Ysabel Jurado, respectively — all members of Democratic Socialists of America, who all endorsed Bass instead of Raman, a DSA member herself. Raman placed first in all three.
Bass found her greatest strength in the three districts that cover South L.A., coming in first in all three. Her best performance was in District 8, represented by Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, where she led with nearly 62% of the vote.
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The mayor received 45% of the vote in Council District 10, which stretches from Koreatown to the Crenshaw Corridor, and 42% in Council District 9, which stretches from the southern edge of downtown south to 95th Street.
Pratt performed the strongest in the west San Fernando Valley. He was the top vote-getter in District 12, which is represented by Councilmember John Lee and includes Chatsworth, Granada Hills and Porter Ranch. In that district, he received 39% of the vote, Mitchell’s assessment showed.
Pratt got nearly 37% of the vote in District 3, which is represented by Councilmember Bob Blumenfield and includes Woodland Hills, Warner Center and Canoga Park.
Pratt also led the pack in the 5th District, which takes up much of the Westside and is represented by Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky. He had 30.7% of the vote, compared to Raman’s 30.6%, according to Mitchell’s analysis.
Nithya Raman attacks the L.A. ‘political machine’
It was one of tougher attacks of the mayoral primary: Raman accused Bass of engaging in “pay to play” — making decisions that benefited certain interest groups, who then spent big on her reeelection.
At her first post-election press conference Wednesday, Raman revisited that line of attack, criticizing Bass over her push to upgrade the city’s Convention Center. That $2.6 billion project was approved in the middle of the city’s financial crisis, when the council was contemplating major job cuts, Raman said.
“Downtown business groups then spent over a million dollars supporting her in her reelection. Meanwhile, the city went back to voters asking them to pay more to fix their streetlights. That is the political machine at work,” she said.
Pay to play was a potent issue in the 2005 election, when Mayor James Hahn was defeated by Councilmember Antonio Villaraigosa. At the time, federal agencies had opened corruption investigations into decisions at the city’s harbor and airports, as well as the Department of Water and Power. That year, the phrase “pay to play” was synonymous with criminal wrongdoing.
In a video acknowledging his primary defeat, Pratt said he got into the mayor’s race to “expose this corrupt machine.”
Raman stopped short of such a framing.
“It’s not corruption,” Raman told reporters at Vista Hermosa Park. “But it is evidence that the system, and how it works, particularly the influence of money in politics, has led to some very broken priorities here in the city.”
Last year, policy analysts warned the Convention Center project would be a financial drag from the moment it opens, consuming more than $100 million per year throughout the 2030s. Business groups and labor organizations pushed back, saying the project would help revitalize downtown while creating much needed construction jobs.
The Central City Assn., a downtown-based business group that supported the Convention Center upgrade, spent about $1.6 million on efforts to reelect Bass.
“Nithya Raman doesn’t think we need more jobs or visitors to our hotels and restaurants that produce the tax revenues downtown generates for the entire city, so it’s hard to support her,” said Central City Assn. President and Chief Executive Officer Nella McOsker in a statement.
Bass spokesperson Alex Stack also pushed back on Raman’s criticism, saying the mayor has been with “every group and industry to deliver results for Angelenos.”
“Nithya Raman can’t get anything done and then attacks the same groups she sought to endorse her campaign,” he said.
Pratt trailed Trump among L.A. voters
As a mayoral candidate, Pratt was dogged by questions about whether he was MAGA — shorthand for the movement that first powered President Trump into office in 2016. The Republican had received fulsome praise from Trump-aligned figures, including podcast host Joe Rogan and Greg Gutfield of Fox News.
Pratt downplayed his GOP ties. Still, there’s one area where he definitely had some similarity with Trump: His performance with L.A. voters.
Trump and Pratt both picked up roughly one out of every four votes in L.A. during their respective campaigns.
Pratt, former star of MTV’s “The Hills,” had 25.5% of the vote in L.A., according to results posted Friday. In November 2024, Trump did a little better, receiving 26.5%, county election results show.
Trump had 369,319 votes in L.A. two years ago, compared to 976,781 for then-Vice President Kamala Harris. By Friday, Pratt had 217,638 votes, compared to 247,242 for Raman and 292,115 for Bass.
It might not be fair to compare Pratt and Trump, given that there were key differences between the elections. Pratt was competing in a primary campaign, while Trump was in a general election. The candidate pool was different as well.
Trump was running in a six-way contest where Harris was his main rival. Pratt, on the other hand, was in a race featuring 13 other candidates.
Although two-thirds of those candidates were complete unknowns, four of Pratt’s rivals ran serious campaigns, amassing endorsements and spending significant amounts of money.
State of play
— TRUMP VS. LAHSA: The Trump Administration moved Thursday to block the embattled Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority from receiving federal funds, saying the agency was badly managed and engaged in fraud. Elected officials across the city denounced the move, while nonprofit groups also voiced alarm. “This is intended to create chaos,” said Jerry Jones, the head of the Greater LA Coalition on Homelessness, which represents groups that serve the region’s unhoused.
— PAYOUT PROBE: Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said Wednesday that he believes four out of every five claims in the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history — one that resulted in a $4 billion payout by Los Angeles County— may be fake. Hochman has asked a judge to pause the sex abuse payments while he continues his criminal investigation into the plaintiffs, lawyers and therapists involved in filing the claims.
— GET READY TO RUMBLE: The showdown between Bass and Raman is going to get ugly, political experts said this week, in part because they agree on a number of big-picture political issues. Both will need to court at least some of the disaffected voters who picked Pratt in the primary.
— A SCATHING SENDOFF: As we mentioned higher up, Pratt released a video Friday that was both an acknowledgment of his primary election defeat and a vitriolic screed against Bass and Raman, his former rivals. Pratt called them “morons,” “commie animals” and “corrupt communists,” and made clear he intends to ramp up his attacks in the coming months. “I don’t have campaign laws hamstringing me now. It’s war,” he said.
— WOOING LATINOS: Bass carried far more Latino-majority neighborhoods than her rivals in last week’s primary, a Times analysis found. She carried 35 Latino-majority neighborhoods, including Boyle Heights, Pacoima and Historic South-Central. That was a 46% increase from 2022, when she won 24 Latino-majority neighborhoods in her primary against Rick Caruso and Kevin de León, the analysis found.
— EKING OUT A WIN: The countywide sales tax hike known as Measure ER prevailed this week, with late-arriving ballots pushing the number of ‘yes’ votes just above 50%. “It’s a lifesaver to carry us through the storm we’re all in,” said County Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who led the push among her colleagues to get the measure on the ballot.
— AN EXPENSIVE FEE-FA: Bass was set to attend the U.S. opening game of the World Cup Friday at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood after being invited by FIFA, her office said. Still, Bass wasn’t exempt from the high ticket prices she criticized earlier this year. She paid $2,735 out of pocket for her ticket, a spokesperson said. On a related note, the mayor announced more than 100 “Kick it in the Park” events where Angelenos can watch World Cup games for free.
— MORE OF THE SAME: In a break with recent history, every council member who ran for reelection this year won their race. “People see what we’re doing, and they want us to keep fighting for them,” said Councilmember Tim McOsker, who won nearly three out of every four votes in his San Pedro-to-Watts district.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to address homelessness went to the area around 54th Street and Western Avenue, in the South L.A. district represented by Harris-Dawson.
On the docket next week: The City Council meets Wednesday to take up a sprawling package of charter reform proposals, including a move to ranked-choice voting and a larger number of council members. Will the council send those ideas to voters or punt them for another two years? Stay tuned!
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.
Quick question for Pratt: If you’re on record claiming that 9/11 was an inside job and the Sandy Hook massacre was a hoax, and you run for office in a deep blue city with President Trump’s backing but not much of a plan or even a clue as to what a mayor can or can’t do, should you be calling other people morons?
And yet the pouting Pratt pulled more than 200,000 votes. So sore loser or not, he tapped into a lack of faith in elected officials and simmering frustration with City Hall, which happen to be the essence of today’s column.
I have five questions for Bass and Raman. They’re somewhat inter-related and have to do with matters I hear about regularly from readers:
Infrastructure (sidewalks, streets, etc).
Homelessness (billions of dollars spent, and a long way to go).
And focus. (Do the candidates have a clear set of goals and a plan for achieving them?)
We’ve got five months to visit and revisit these topics, and today I’m going to focus on the first, so here we go.
Infrastructure:
A few days ago, I met with Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable. Hutchinson is a longtime community activist and commentator, and he had just launched a torpedo in the direction of City Hall.
“There are hundreds of busted, dangerous sidewalks in South L A that have gone unrepaired for years,” he wrote to his network of followers. “They cause hundreds of injuries, and have resulted in massive numbers of claims and payouts in settlements. LA City Officials must act now to jumpstart a crash program to fix these sidewalks.”
On my way to meet Hutchinson, I traveled west along Florence Avenue and saw dozens of typical rough patches on the street and sidewalks. But if there were a contest to identify the all-time worst sidewalks in Los Angeles, Hutchinson’s discovery of the one at 71st Street and 11th Avenue would be a Hall of Fame contender.
For starters, it’s got the classic uplift, and the villain is the usual suspect — ficus tree roots. A 20-foot slab of sidewalk is pitched sharply, as if designed by trip-and-fall lawsuit lawyers. Way back in 2014, in my early days on sidewalk patrol, I was able to crawl under a similarly ruptured sidewalk in West L.A., and I could’ve done the same at 71st and 11th.
But I thought better of it after Hutchinson peered into the opening and said it looked like a comfy home for rats and other vermin.
The homeowner, Sharon Kelly, can’t use her front gate because of the lopsided sidewalk. She let me borrow her tape measure, which revealed a 16-inch rise in the pavement.
“It keeps rising,” Kelly said. “But it was already lifted when we came here.”
That was in 1997. I asked if she’s called the city for help.
“Several times,” she said, and the only response was a slapdash temporary asphalt patch.
Hutchinson said residents have responded in force to his call for emergency sidewalks repairs, just as they did when he crusaded for a crackdown on widespread illegal dumping.
“Dozens of residents have come out of the woodwork, and here’s what they all say: ‘We have called our city council person and various city departments repeatedly, over and over again.’”
And the response?
“Nothing,” Hutchinson said.
While we were talking, two people with walkers steered clear of the worst spot near Kelly’s property. Charles McQuarn, 77, said traversing the neighborhood means zigzagging around all the hazards.
“I gotta come out into the streets, too,” he said.
When he was a teenager, McQuarn said, he worked for a community group that fixed sidewalks. I mentioned that Councilmember Monica Rodriguez has been using Conservation Corps youths to do the same, but it’s time to scale up that program and come up with other remedies to speed the process.
The city is fixing about 600 sidewalks each year, the backlog of requested repairs stands at about 30,000 and if you get onto the waiting list, you’re looking at about 10 years before help arrives.
When we were done on 71st Street, Hutchinson led me over to a nearby stretch of Florence where, for blocks and blocks, it appears as if there have been volcanic eruptions around the trees. Large chunks of cracked sidewalk form mounds, one after another. The Hutchinson Himalayas are a site to behold — a mile-long museum of municipal neglect.
And it’s been like this, Hutchinson said, “for years.”
The question for Bass and Raman: What will you do to speed the repairs?
Homelessness:
Voters have been generous when it comes to repeatedly taxing themselves more, and more, to address homelessness. There’s been Measure H, Measure A, Measure ULA and Proposition HHH.
Yet although billions of dollars have been spent and tens of thousands of people have been helped and housed, more than 40,000 people are homeless in the city and roughly 70,000 in the county. In her primary victory speech, Bass said families shouldn’t have to step around encampments, and Raman has said greater urgency is needed.
Questions for Bass and Raman: Why haven’t taxpayers gotten more for their money with the two of you at the helm, what are you going to do to speed progress and create more accountability, and what distinguishes you from each other?
The City Council is about to consider a motion to increase park funding through charter reform (with dozens of community groups in support), and progress is ridiculously slow on an agreement to use schools as after-hours playgrounds.
Question for Bass and Raman: Do you support the charter reform, and what else are you going to do to address the sad state of the city’s parks?
Trash and blight:
In downtown L.A., vandalism, shuttered storefronts and post-COVID abandonment have crippled what was a vibrant, revenue-generating economy that benefited the whole city.
In Hollywood, a resident hired her housekeeper to help report illegal dumping of goods that are often used to construct more homeless encampments, leading to all sorts of problems.
On the south lawn of City Hall, a graffiti-tagged monument and fountain have been out of commission for most of the last six decades.
Question for Bass and Raman: At the very least, can you fix the fountain?
Focus:
Like any big city with great assets and unlimited challenges, many residents have a love-hate relationship with L.A. But years ago, someone told me he loves Los Angeles because it’s a messy, multi-cultural work in progress, set on a dramatic landscape between mountain and sea, trying to figure out what it wants to be.
Question for Bass and Raman: Whether in the realm of basic services or grand visions, what three or four primary objectives do you have over the next four years?
Gene Shalit, the fast-talking funnyman who reviewed films, plays and books for NBC’s “Today” show has died. He was 100.
Shalit’s family confirmed the longtime critic’s death Friday, telling NBC that he “passed away peacefully after 100 years of an amazing life.”
According to a 2010 interview with Guy Ludwig, Shalit’s producer for more than 20 years, Shalit was hired as a contributor at “Today” in 1968. He reviewed books once a month or so, but audiences were so fascinated by his eccentric personality and equally unconventional looks that NBC ramped up the critic’s on-air appearances.
In January 1973, on the same day he was promoted to arts editor, Shalit debuted “Critic’s Corner,” the segment that would ultimately make him a household name. In 2010, Shalit retired as one of the last regular film critics on a major network.
Ludwig referred to Shalit as the “foxy grandpa” of the “Today” show.
Shalit cut his teeth in media as an entertainment columnist for McCall’s magazine, eventually landing the role of senior film critic for Look magazine in 1968 and writing a humor column for Ladies’ Home Journal. His quick wit, punchy puns and unique voice came through even on the page, and NBC took notice.
“No one at NBC had seen him. They’d only read his stuff. So he walked into this executive’s office and the executive took one look at him and said, ‘Mr. Shalit, have you ever thought of radio?’” Ludwig told “Today.”
“They didn’t know how the public would react to someone who looked so different from people who were typically on TV in 1967.”
On “Critics Corner,” Shalit favored humor over the highfalutin. He was an everyman’s critic. Of 1997’s action-thriller “Face/Off,” he said, “Now, ‘Face/Off’ is a literal title, because both of their faces are taken off. Then each face is put onto the other’s head. Even their voices are switched with microchip implants. In other words, this is an entirely reasonable, rational movie!”
“Many critics will give so much of the plot of a movie away that they destroy the movie for the viewer … I just don’t give away the story,” he told the Associated Press in 1993.
During his tenure, he was known to bust up his colleagues, and “Today” anchors ranging from Edwin Newman, Barbara Walters and Jane Pauley to Tom Brokaw, Bryant Gumbel, Katie Couric, Al Roker and Meredith Vieira.
But not everyone appreciated Shalit’s style. In 1989, a leaked in-house memo from “Today” show co-host Bryant Gumbel to Marty Ryan, the former executive producer of the NBC program, complained that Shalit’s film reviews “are often late and his interviews aren’t very good.”
Eugene Shalit was born March 25, 1926, in New York City and grew up in Morristown, N.J. He launched his elementary school’s first newspaper, “The Spotlight,” and purchased a fedora to seal his fate as a journalist. In Morristown High School he wrote the school newspaper’s humor column “The Broadcaster.” In 1949, he graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Shalit was married to Nancy Lewis for 28 years until her death in 1978 and never remarried. The couple had six children: Peter, Willa, Emily, Amanda, Nevin and Andrew. Emily died from ovarian cancer in 2012.
Golf legend Phil Mickelson is refuting an accusation that he inappropriately touched a female employee at a prestigious golf club in Southern California a few months ago.
According to Golf Digest, Mickelson allegedly approached the worker at Farms Golf Club in Rancho Santa Fe and made “nonconsensual and inappropriate physical contact.” After she rejected him, she reported to her supervisors and accused him of sexual misconduct.
Mickelson hired Tom Clare, a top defamation attorney, who said video evidence contradicted the allegations.
“There is a great deal of misinformation circulating and, while Phil’s full attention is devoted to a private family health matter, he has retained defamation counsel and is determined to hold accountable any publication or individual trafficking in speculation or false rumors,” Clare said in a statement to Golf Digest.
Clare did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.
The San Diego County Sheriff’s Office said it investigated but found no evidence of an assault. However, the allegation resulted in the immediate removal of Mickelson from the golf grounds and revocation of his longtime membership at the club.
Farms Golf Club said in a statement to the golf magazine that it conducted a thorough investigation before confronting Mickelson and stood by its decision to end his membership. Farms also said no video cameras were in the area where the alleged misconduct occurred.
“Following a staff member report of member misconduct, the club provided immediate and ongoing support to the staff member, conducted a thorough independent investigation of the incident and took decisive action,” the statement read. “This individual is no longer a member of The Farms Golf Club.
“To protect the safety and privacy of our staff and member, we are unable to speak further on the matter.”
Mickelson, who turns 56 next week, withdrew from professional golf this year because of family health reasons, last playing at the LIV Golf South Africa in March. A married father of three, Mickelson won six major tournaments on the PGA Tour — three Masters, two PGA Championships and one British Open — before he left the tour in 2022 for the upstart LIV Golf League, which will lose the financial backing of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund this fall.
His estimated career earnings exceed $1 billion, including $97 million in PGA Tour prize money, a reported $200 million signing bonus to join LIV Golf and an estimated $800 million from endorsements and business ventures.
Mickelson was one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour before his controversial move to LIV and comments about his Saudi backers, and his career survived some unsavory headlines, several of which pertained to gambling.
The Detroit News obtained federal court records that claimed a mob-connected bookie handled bets for Mickelson and was accused of cheating the golfer out of $500,000 in 2007.
Mickelson was accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in 2016 of getting an insider trading tip and buying $931,000 of stock from sports gambler Billy Walters. Mickelson was not charged and agreed to pay back the amount.
The Directors Guild of America’s national board on Friday unanimously recommended its membership vote in favor of a four-year contract with the major studios that would increase wages, boost contributions to its health plan and establish guardrails surrounding AI technology.
“We entered this negotiation with three main priorities: secure our Health Plan, protect jobs, and ensure that our members remain secure as AI continues to impact our industry,” DGA President Christopher Nolan said in a statement. “We succeeded in these areas and gained in many others.”
Under the proposed contract, major studios would increase their contributions to the DGA’s health plan by 24.4% over four years, the largest since the plan was founded. In return, the DGA would recommend changes to its plan’s trustees including “modest” increases to the eligibility threshold and annual premiums, the DGA said on Friday.
The contract also increases minimum salaries for most jobs by 2.5% in the first year and up 3% for each of the following years in the agreement. Directors of network non-prime time strip dramatic programs will see their minimum salaries increase 2.5% for each year under the agreement.
The union, which represents more than 19,500 directors and members of directorial teams in areas such as film, commercials and news, said the agreement helps the union’s push for a federal production incentive. Hollywood creatives believe such a benefit could prevent U.S. entertainment jobs from moving overseas where production costs can be significantly lower. The proposed agreement secures a commitment that most senior management at the major studios represented by the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers “would engage in meaningful advocacy for a federal production incentive above and beyond the ongoing lobbying efforts of the Motion Picture Association,” according to the DGA.
The contract also adds more guardrails to AI technology, including treating footage created by artificial intelligence as the same as footage shot by a camera, meaning it will still be under the director’s control, according to the DGA. Major studios will also be required to notify the DGA if an employer decides to license a director’s work to train a generative AI system to create new work, the union said. The agreement also establishes an employer-funded program to enhance directors’ AI skills.
“With these gains, a four-year Agreement was both appropriate and necessary to provide stability and potential for growth at a moment when the industry has been experiencing contraction,” Nolan said in a note to members on Friday.
DGA and AMPTP reached the tentative contract earlier this week. At that time, AMPTP said “we appreciate the hard work and commitment of our guild partners in achieving a fair deal that helps advance a stable and successful entertainment industry.”
DGA members will have until June 25 at 5 p.m. to vote on the plan. If approved, the contract would go into effect July 1 and run through June 30, 2030.
