year

Sabrina Carpenter famously works late, so it might come as a surprise to some that “Espresso” songstress’ headlining set at Coachella 2026 is comparatively early in the night at 9 p.m.

But that shouldn’t be an issue to music festival fans enjoying the festivities from home on Coachella’s YouTube livestream.

“Couchella,” as it’s affectionately called, is back this year to beam some of the biggest performances, including Sabrina Carpenter and Anyma on the Main Stage, Dijon, Turnstile and Disclosure at the Outdoor Theatre, and Bini, Devo and Blood Orange at the Mojave.

You can also watch via Coachella’s livestream app on iOS and Android.

Here’s who you can watch on Friday’s livestream feeds (times presented in PDT):

Main Stage

5:30 p.m. Teddy Swims; 7 p.m. The xx; 9:05 p.m. Sabrina Carpenter; 12:00 a.m. Anyma

Outdoor Theatre

4 p.m. Dabeulll; 5:20 p.m. Lykke Li; 6:40 p.m. Dijon; 8:05 p.m. Turnstile; 10:35 p.m. Disclosure; 11:55 p.m. “Bonus Set from Do LaB”

Sahara

4:00 p.m. Youna; 4:50 p.m. Hugel; 6:15 p.m. Marion Hofstadt; 8 p.m. Katseye; 9:15 p.m. Levity; 10:50 p.m. Swae Lee; 12:05 a.m. Sexyy Redd

Mojave

4:15 p.m. Bini; 5:30 p.m. Central Cee; 6:45 p.m. Devo; 8:10 p.m. Moby; 9:20 p.m. Slayyyter; 10:35 p.m. Ethel Cain; 11:55 p.m. Blood Orange

Gobi

4 p.m. Bob Baker Marionettes; 4:45 p.m. NewDad; 5:30 p.m. Joyce Manor; 6:15 p.m. CMAT; 7:20 p.m. Fakemink; 8:25 p.m. Holly Humberstone; 9:50 p.m. Joost; 11:05 p.m. Creepy Nuts

Sonora

4 p.m. Wednesday; 4:50 p.m. Fleshwater; 6 p.m. The Two Lips; 7:10 p.m. Ninajirachi; 8:25 p.m. Cachirula & Loojan; 9:15 p.m. February; 10:00 p.m. Hot Mulligan; 10:55 p.m. Carolina Durante; 11:50 p.m. Not For Radio

Quasar

5 p.m. Tiga; 7 p.m. Deep Dish; 9 p.m. Pawsa; 11 p.m. Disco Lines

Note that there have been livestream delays in past years, so don’t worry if your favorite artist is a few minutes late.

In summer, it’s too hot. And in rain, the muddy dirt roads threaten to swallow your car.

But if you can hit Carrizo Plain National Monument on a spring day when the hills and grasslands are green and a few wildflowers remain in the meadows — well, you’re winning. And you’ll be seeing a lonely, raw corner of California that few people ever find.

The monument is about 38 miles long and 17 miles wide — hard to miss, you’d think. But it lies along the San Andreas fault in the usually dry hills between Bakersfield and Santa Maria, far from Interstate 5 or U.S. 101, about 170 driving miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Signs warn motorists what’s ahead in Carrizo Plain National Monument in San Luis Obispo County.

(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)

Within the monument, most of the roads are gravel or dirt, and there is no drinkable water, no food, no gas and spotty cellphone coverage. The education center and two semi-primitive campgrounds feature vault toilets.

It’s almost perfect, in other words, for repelling crowds. Yet it’s pretty good as the centerpiece of an overnight road trip probing small towns and back roads of the western San Joaquin Valley and eastern San Luis Obispo County.

If you happen to arrive Friday, Carrizo staffers and volunteers will be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the monument, which was created from former ranch land under President Clinton. (Free tours and refreshments will be offered at the event, which takes place from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Guy L. Goodwin Education Center.) But next week might be greener, because rain on the plain is probable Saturday and Sunday.

For many visitors, Carrizo’s big draw is wildflowers. The grasslands and hillsides act as a vast, uncluttered canvas for their colors, which typically bloom in March and last through April. But every year is different, especially in this era of climate change. This year, after unusually heavy rains in February, Carrizo Plain erupted in a dramatic bloom in March, attracting several hundred visitors per day.

In Carrizo Plain National Monument on a spring day, the hills and grasslands were green and a few wildflowers remained in the meadows.

(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)

By the time my wife and I arrived in the first days of April, the flowers were past their peak, but the hills were still green and many meadows popped with yellow, purple and blue. If I’m reading my wildflowers handbook right, these were tidy tips, Goldfields, Owl’s Clover, thistle sage, Valley Larkspur, coreopsis, phacelia and hillside daisies.

Meanwhile, the 3,000-acre Soda Lake, which lies dusty, crusty, dry and white in summer, still had some water in it. Imagine the salty lake beds of Mono Lake, the Salton Sea or Death Valley’s Badwater, but surrounded by green hills. It was startling — the opposite of an oasis in the desert.

To get there, we drove north on I-5 into the San Joaquin Valley, then veered west by way of State Routes 166, 33 and 58, pausing for gas at Maricopa (population: 984).

Within the monument, we rambled along Soda Lake Road, admiring windmills, an old ranch house now reserved for bats, and a few hills dotted with lazy cows. (The monument is run by the Bureau of Land Management, which allows grazing.)

Looking a little bit more closely, you realize that the monument is all but torn in two by the San Andreas fault. On Elkhorn Road, you remember that those mountains to the east (the Temblor Range) are slowly lurching to the southeast. Meanwhile the Caliente Range — those mountains just to the west — are lurching the opposite way. The “offset” is growing by about 1.5 inches per year — at least, until the next big quake.

A lone visitor stands at the edge of Soda Lake in Carrizo Plain National Monument.

(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)

Slowly rolling through this scene, we spotted two critters scurrying along the roadside — fist-size creatures hopping on their back legs. These were probably giant kangaroo rats, a native species whose numbers have been growing since their listing as an endangered species in 1987.

We didn’t spot any blunt-nosed leopard lizards or San Joaquin Valley kit foxes (which eat giant kangaroo rats) but those species, too, are endangered and native to the area. Pronghorn antelope and Tule elk are out there, too, the experts say, along with California condors soaring overhead. We just saw crows, loitering on fence posts.

The Goodwin Education Center, the monument’s main gathering spot, is open Thursdays through Sundays, December through May. We looked at maps, got advice on where to go next and ate our sack lunches at a picnic table, marveling at those green slopes.

A San Joaquin kit fox is displayed at the Goodwin Education Center within Carrizo Plain National Monument.

(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)

In this long valley, scientists have found signs of Native campsites up to 10,000 years old — a hint of how much wetter this area once was. Not far from the education center is a short hike to Painted Rock, a protected site that includes Native pictographs on a horseshoe-shaped sandstone formation. The red, black and white images go back 100-4,000 years. (We didn’t see them. From March through May, visitors can see the pictographs only on Saturday guided tours. From July 16 through February, visitors can book self-guided tours.)

After lunch we nosed around nearby Soda Lake, exited the north end of the monument, joined State Route 58 and headed west over a series of whoop-de-doos — those rises and falls in the road that will help you defy gravity, if you take them fast enough.

One of them, I realize now, was the San Andreas fault itself.

Through all of this, we saw no more than 15 or 20 people, cars included. Continuing from State Route 58, we joined State Route 41, watched oak trees and vineyards pop up and multiply, continued into Paso Robles and spent the night.

On the return trip we lingered for an hour or two in Santa Margarita (population: 1,149), checking out the Porch Cafe, the Barn (antiques) and the Giddy Up vintage goods and gift shop, which operates in a blue Quonset structure known as the Rainbow Hut.

Holli Rae owns and runs the Giddy Up vintage goods and gift shop on El Camino Real in Santa Margarita.

(Christopher Reynolds/Los Angeles Times)

“It’s just a sweet little town. So quiet,” said Holli Rae, a filmmaker and former Angeleno who opened the Giddy Up about two years ago. She moved north, she said, for “the nature, the animals, the deer, the birds. The creatures!”

Thanks to U.S. 101, we were home and grateful within three and a half hours.

Soon, we knew, summer will come and fry the Carrizo Plain until everything green is brown. Beginning June 1, in fact, the Goodwin Education Center will close for six months.

For a few more weeks, Angelenos, your window of opportunity is open.

If you go

Where to explore:
Check out the Carrizo Plain National Monument website or call the visitor center at (661) 391-6191. The recorded information line is (661) 391-6193. Also check the weather; most roads in the monument are dirt or gravel and can become impassable in rain.

Where to sleep:
Adelaide Inn, 1215 Ysabel Ave., Paso Robles; (805) 238-2770. This hotel, located near 24th Street and U.S. 101, includes a pool and children’s play area. Rates start at about $100.

River Lodge, 1955 Theatre Drive, Paso Robles; (805) 221-7377. This hotel, born as a motel in 1947, was reborn as a boutique property in 2024. It has 28 rooms, a patio restaurant (Ciao Papi) and an adult-only pool. It stands alongside U.S. 101, about 3 miles south of downtown Paso. Midweek rates often start at $149, often doubling on weekends.

Melody Ranch Motel, 939 Spring St., Paso Robles; (805) 238-3911. This is a throwback 1950s motel with a swimming pool, open May through September. From the start, it has had 19 rooms and a prime spot on Spring Street, the main artery of Paso Robles. Rates start at about $100. Most reservations are taken by phone, in person or through Expedia.

Where to eat:
Joe’s Place, 205 Spring St., Paso Robles; (805) 238-5637. Since 1995, this breakfast-and-lunch spot has been a local favorite for casual family meals.

The Porch Cafe, 22322 El Camino Real, Santa Margarita; (805) 438-3376. This all-day cafe (with beer and wine) stands along the main drag in sleepy little Santa Margarita.

Afrika Bambaataa, the influential rapper and DJ who helped shape the culture of hip-hop via his legendary Zulu Nation block parties in the South Bronx, has died.

Also known for his electro-funk records including “Planet Rock” and “Looking for the Perfect Beat,” the musician — born Lance Taylor — died Thursday “from complications of cancer,” according to TMZ. He was 68.

A Bronx native and former member of the Black Spades gang, Bambaataa was most known for establishing his activist organization Universal Zulu Nation and hosting its block parties through the late ‘70s, gatherings that helped elevate rap from a genre of music to a cultural movement. The first Zulu Nation block party was held in 1977, set against a turbulent time for New York City — one marked by a historic blackout and a series of blazes across the South Bronx. The celebrations welcomed graffiti artists, DJs, emcees and other street performers, offering former gang members a positive outlet and laying the groundwork for what would become the four elements of hip-hop: deejaying, B-boy/girl dancing, emceeing and graffiti painting.

“Rap is about the gangs and the killings that went on until rap music and break-dancing helped end the violence. It brought people together,” Bambaataa told The Times in 1985.

Bambaataa, often named alongside DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash as a founder of hip-hop, concerned himself with community-building after a prize trip to Africa for an essay competition in 1974 shifted his worldview. He told the Red Bull Music Academy in 2017 that he was greatly inspired by “seeing Black people controlling their own destiny, seeing them get up and go to their own work.” He returned home, his new name a nod to a Zulu chief, with a new rhythm to his work.

The sounds of Bambaataa’s South Bronx block parties soon reached mainstream avenues, spreading beyond the community and eventually beyond New York. In 1982, Bambaataa launched into further fame with the release of “Planet Rock,” a Kraftwerk-inspired creation from him and Soulsonic Force, a group he co-founded. By 2006, he had released more than 20 albums, including compilations, and counted James Brown, Yellowman, John Lydon of the Sex Pistols, Boy George and Bootsy Collins among his collaborators.

Bambaataa’s recording career tapered off in the aughts, but he continued working as a DJ until his death. Bambaataa, a Rock & Roll Hall of Fame nominee, was appointed as a three-year visiting scholar at Cornell University in 2012. Years later, he faced controversy when multiple men in 2016 accused the musician of sexual assault. He denied the allegations at the time. Zulu Nation distanced itself from its founder as the allegations went public but has since remained committed to its mission of hip-hop unity.

Among the accusers who went public with their claims was Democratic Party community advocate Ronald Savage, who alleged Bambaataa assaulted him when he was 14. Savage walked back his claims in 2024, saying he met the musician at a club he had entered using a fake ID.

An anonymous accuser raised additional allegations of sexual abuse and trafficking against Bambaataa in 2021. That case ended last year in favor of the musician’s accuser after Bambaataa failed to appear for a court hearing in New York.

Mere hours after gracing the “Euphoria” Season 3 premiere red carpet, disrobing to reveal a sheer top, beige corset bottoms and lace stockings that became the talk of the town, then jetting over to LAX to catch a red-eye to New York, Natasha Lyonne was reportedly removed from her Delta flight.

According to Page Six, the “Poker Face” star hadn’t changed out of her red carpet look before taking her seat in first class, where she promptly dozed off. Flight attendants tried to rouse Lyonne and asked her to close her laptop and fasten her seatbelt, but the outlet reports she was incommunicado and appeared to be zonked out behind her shades.

Onlookers said that, as several flight attendants tried to stir Lyonne, removed her laptop and asked if she needed medical attention, she seemed out of it, and asked, “Where are we?”

Attendants ultimately had to tell Lyonne the plane wouldn’t be going anywhere until the actor got off, to which she reportedly obliged.

Due to the series of events, Lyonne missed her scheduled Wednesday morning appearance on “The Drew Barrymore Show.”

“My heart is with all the unpaid TSA agents at our airports,” she wrote on X alongside a pink heart emoji. “Sure was looking forward to speaking honestly with @DrewBarrymore yesterday but guess wasn’t in the cards.”

Fans of Lyonne commented on the post, worried and checking in with the actor, who has long been candid about her battle with addiction. After 10 years of sobriety, the “Orange Is the New Black” star revealed that she relapsed earlier this year in a social media post that has since been deleted.

In March, she checked in with her online followers again, reassuring fans she was on the mend.

“Proud to report this kid is doing a whole lot better & back on her feet. Want to thank our recovery communities & the fans who stood by & were so supportive,” she wrote on X. “Aiming to keep the journey somehow private, but look forward to sharing my experience, strength & hope as makes sense. My heart is with everyone ever going through it.”

Representatives for Lyonne have not responded to a request for comment.

AUGUSTA, Ga. — After the career grand slam, a grand entrance.

Rory McIlroy, who last year became the sixth man to win all four major championships, got off to a spectacular start at the Masters on Thursday to claim a share of the lead with a five-under-par 67.

In one sense, the pressure is off. No more wondering about winning a green jacket. Yet he was relieved to feel those familiar butterflies on the first tee.

“Look, we’re playing the first major of the year, it’s the Masters,” he said, having overcome a slightly wobbly start to collect five birdies in his final 11 holes. “If I felt absolutely nothing on that first tee, that’s not a good sign.

“So it was nice to feel my hand shaking a little bit when the tee went into the ground, and struggle to put the ball on top of the tee. So I knew I was feeling it. That’s a good thing. That’s why we want to be here. We want to be able to play our best golf when we’re feeling like that.”

He finished the postcard day tied atop the leaderboard with Sam Burns, who shot his best-ever round at the Masters.

Among those two shots off the lead is 2018 Masters champion Patrick Reed, who said the warm and dry conditions figure to make a difficult course even more challenging.

“It definitely has the teeth in it to make it really, really tough,” Reed said. “The greens are already getting firm, crusty, and bouncy.”

He said the 17th green, typically one of the firmest on the course, is a good example of that.

“I actually broke one tee on the hole trying to fix a ball mark,” he said. “You already know it’s going to get crusty. You know it’s going to get fast, and it’s going to take a lot of patience.”

Some stars struggled. Two-time champion Bubba Watson shot four-over, as did the long-hitting Bryson DeChambeau, who tied for fifth last year.

Said Shane Lowry, who finished two under: “This might be the toughest Masters we’ve played in a while.”

Bryson DeChambeau reacts after his tee shot on the 12th hole Thursday at Augusta National.

(Eric Gay / Associated Press)

There’s something about this storied tournament that can make even the steeliest of players weak in the knees. Mason Howell, the 18-year-old amateur playing with McIlroy, was taking such vicious swings at the ball that his hat came off three times during his round, including on the opening tee.

“That hasn’t happened in a while,” said Howell, who last year became the third-youngest winner of the U.S. Amateur. “I mean, I was going to swing out of my shoes to see if I could cover that right bunker [on No. 1].”

Even the legendary Jack Nicklaus, who won the Masters a record six times, duck-hooked his ceremonial tee shot early Thursday morning, sending it over the head of patrons lining the left side of the downward slope in front of him.

“I got it high enough to hit it about 110 yards over their heads to the left,” said Nicklaus, 86, who won his last green jacket 40 years ago. “I don’t know what was running through my mind other than not hurt anybody.”

Fred Couples, 66, the oldest competitor in the field, went from a tie for eighth to a tie for 43rd … on one hole. He had a nine on the par-five 15th, landing in the water twice.

Couples, who had been two under to that point, finished quadruple bogey, double bogey, double bogey.

Collin Morikawa, who shot a 74 at two over, said he doesn’t feel quite right, physically, although it doesn’t feel like a back issue to him.

“Physically there’s no pain,” he said. “It’s just a trust thing. My legs don’t want to trust that it’s going to hold up the back and the rest of the body. When that’s feeling wobbly, plus you add the adrenaline and the nerves, it’s just not — it’s not easy…”

He called Thursday “the toughest round I’ve ever played,” and said he could not remember waking up quite as nervous as he was before the start of this tournament.

“I honestly didn’t know if I was going to make contact,” he said.

Rory McIlroy plays a shot from the 12th tee during the first round of the Masters on Thursday.

(Maddie Meyer / Getty Images)

McIlroy, playing in his 18th Masters, said he leaned heavily on his experience to maintain an even keel. A year ago, he had two double-bogeys on Thursday, and two more on Sunday, yet never panicked.

So this time, when he found himself hitting out the trees on some early holes, he resisted the urge to get too “guide-y” on his shots and instead kept swinging away.

“Even though I wasn’t hitting fairways the first few holes, I still kept swinging,” he said. “I didn’t try to get the tee down and hit fairway finders. I just trusted that eventually I’ll start to make some good swings. So that was a little bit different.”

The biggest difference? What he achieved a year ago.

“It’s easier for me,” McIlroy said, “to make those swings and not worry about where it goes when I know that I can go to the Champions Locker Room and put my green jacket on and have a Coke Zero at the end of the day.”

The Dept. of Justice is investigating the NFL’s media deals with streaming companies as more of its games go behind subscription pay walls.

The investigation first reported by the Wall Street Journal centers on the financial impact of live sports streaming on consumers and whether the league’s traditional broadcast partners are getting fair treatment.

The Justice Dept. did not respond to a request for comment. A government official told NBC News the DOJ’s investigation into the NFL is “about affordability for consumers and creating an even playing field for providers.”

Early last month, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah requested the investigation in a letter to the DOJ, and issued a statement Thursday on X saying he was glad to see it move forward.

The Sports Broadcasting Act passed by Congress in 1961 allowed professional football teams to collectively license the TV rights of their games to national broadcast networks without running afoul of anti-trust laws. Lee noted that courts have recognized the act refers to broadcasts “financed through advertising and made available free to the public.”

Lee said sports packages that go behind subscription paywalls “no longer align” with the intention of the act which was passed when the public only had access to three TV networks.

The NFL has not received a letter from the DOJ saying it is under investigation, according to a person familiar with the matter who was not authorized to comment. But the league issued a statement asserting that fans can see every NFL game played by the teams in their markets for free on broadcast TV unlike every other major sport.

“The NFL’s media distribution model is the most fan and broadcaster-friendly in the entire sports and entertainment industry,” the league said. “The NFL has for decades put our fans front and center in how we distribute our content.”

The NFL said 87% its games can be watched on free TV. The other 13% on streaming and cable platforms are made available on the local TV stations of the teams involved in those contests.

The sports rights landscape has shifted dramatically in the last 10 years as deep pocketed tech companies such as Amazon, Google and Netflix have provided the NFL with significant leverage in its negotiations with its longtime TV partners NBC, CBS, Fox and ESPN.

While streaming companies initially eschewed live sports because of the high cost of rights fees, they have found them to be an effective way to bring a massive number of viewers to their platforms.

Amazon Prime Video is paying $1.5 billion a year for the rights to “Thursday Night Football,” a package that was a money loser when carried by the broadcast networks. Netflix has picked up the rights to games on Christmas Day, while Google’s YouTube became the home of the Sunday Ticket package that gives subscribers access to out-of-market games.

The pressure from the newer competitors comes at a time when companies with traditional TV networks depend on the NFL more than ever as it provides the highest rated programming by a wide margin. The NFL packages also give TV station groups with leverage in negotiating carriage deal fees with cable and satellite companies.

Tensions over the rising rights fees are growing as the NFL has the right to open up the deal with Paramount, because the company underwent an ownership change last year when acquired by Skydance Media. The league is reportedly looking for another $1 billion annually from Paramount which is already paying $2.1 billion a year for its package of games on CBS.

The league has also made it clear it plans to exercise its option in 2029 to open the current 10-year media rights contract that runs through the 2032-33 season.

Fox Corporation — home of the Trump-friendly Fox News Channel — heavily depends on the NFL for programming on its TV stations — has already raised concerns about the renegotiation.

Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch has said he believes the $2.5 billion a year Fox pays the NFL is “fair market value.” But he has also told Wall Street analysts the company may have to re-examine its other sports deals in preparation to pay more to the NFL going forward.

Last week, Fox and station group owner Sinclair Broadcasting filed a statement with the FCC asserting that the NFL’s antitrust exemption does not apply to streaming platforms that require paid subscriptions.

“Congress provided a valuable exemption from the antitrust laws for leagues that bargain collectively for sports broadcasting,” wrote Joseph Di Scipio, Fox Corp.’s senior VP, legal and FCC compliance. “But on its face, the statute does not exempt negotiations that the leagues may have with streaming services.”

When the first two seasons of HBO’s teen drama “Euphoria” aired on Sunday nights, 25-year-old actor and singer Al-akhir Fletcher remembers racing online the second each episode ended, toggling between X (then Twitter) and FaceTime just to keep up with the collective reaction.

“I felt like I had to watch because I didn’t want any spoilers,” he recalled. “I didn’t want anyone to tell me about it. There was maybe one week I tried to wait to binge-watch it, and I couldn’t. Everybody was talking about it.”

That anticipation for Season 3, premiering Sunday, still lingers for Fletcher, though it’s tempered now by doubt and distance, thanks to a four-year gap between seasons. Nevertheless, Fletcher said he’ll finish the show.

“Only because I feel like I’ve invested so much already into the show and into the characters and in their stories,” he said. “So I do want to see it through. I want to know what happens, but there is a little bit of hesitation, especially with hearing about all of the politics and the behind-the-scenes drama of what’s happened with the show.”

When Euphoria last aired in 2022, it turned Maddy Perez’s cutout dresses into a going-out uniform, transformed Cassie Howard’s unraveling into a meme with a saying that everyone understood (“I have never, ever been happier”), and sent Labrinth’s score ricocheting across TikTok in slow-motion edits and tear-streaked montages. It also made bona fide stars out of its cast: Zendaya became an Emmy winner, in-demand actor and fashion icon; similarly, Sydney Sweeney has become an onscreen mainstay, and Jacob Elordi, an Oscar nominee this year.

And, crucially, for a stretch, “Euphoria” made HBO feel like a destination again, with episodes that demanded to be seen in real time and dissected instantly before the night was over.

In the four years since its previous season, though, Hollywood has endured dual labor strikes, streamers have tightened budgets and audiences have fractured into increasingly niche viewing habits. The monoculture that once lifted “Euphoria” has thinned, if it even exists at all.

So as the show returns after an unusually long hiatus, the question isn’t just what happens next for Rue and the gang, but whether “Euphoria” can still hit the way it once did. What we do know is the series isn’t picking up where it left off. Season 3 leaps forward five years, aging its characters out of high school and into a much murkier version of adulthood. Maddy (Alexa Demie) is working for a talent agent and navigating the blurry line between managing actors, influencers and potentially sex work-adjacent clients. Cassie (Sweeney) and Nate (Elordi) are set to marry, all while Cassie is attempting to start an OnlyFans account. And then there’s Rue (Zendaya), whose story can’t outrun the looming debt she owes a drug dealer.

“Euphoria’s” Season 3 returning cast, clockwise from left: Jacob Elordi, Alexa Demie and Sydney Sweeney. (Partick Wymore / HBO) (Jeremy Colegrove / HBO) (HBO)

Can a series disappear for four years and reclaim its choke hold on the culture?

Uncertainty hangs over its return and whether more seasons could be expected. (The show’s creator, Sam Levinson, has been evasive about declaring it the final season, while Zendaya told Drew Barrymore this week she believed it was.)

Interviews with fans and media experts suggest there’s no consensus on whether viewers will flock back like before. Some see “Euphoria” as too big to fail, a brand with enough residual heat to dominate conversation on arrival. Others aren’t so sure, pointing to the long hiatus, the off-screen turmoil and a television landscape that no longer moves in lockstep.

What made the show a breakout hit

Part of what makes questions around the show so difficult to answer is how singular “Euphoria” felt when it first arrived in 2019. At the time, HBO wasn’t in the business of teen dramas. The network had long built its identity on adult prestige — crime sagas, antiheroes and sprawling family epics — not stories centered on high schoolers. “Euphoria” marked a strategic shift, one that aimed to pull in younger viewers without diluting the network’s edge.

“I think this was supposed to be their first foray into quote-unquote young adult programming,” said Michel Ghanem, who writes about television. “They were interested in capturing a younger viewership who maybe hadn’t watched that much HBO up until then.”

What emerged didn’t resemble the traditional teen drama playbook. “Euphoria” was moodier and leaned into storylines rooted in addiction, sex and emotional volatility. HBO began experimenting more broadly with shows like “The Sex Lives of College Girls” and “Generation,” but “Euphoria” stood apart in both tone and ambition. The risk paid off.

“It grabbed on to an audience that loved the cast and the performances and the soundtrack and the cinematography,” Ghanem said. “So I think all of those elements together sort of made it into appointment television.”

Hunter Schafer, left, and Zendaya in Season 1 of “Euphoria.” The show premiered in 2019, becoming a hit for HBO.

(Eddy Chen / HBO)

Beneath the glitter and surreal visuals, some viewers saw versions of people and situations they already knew.

“I found a lot of familiarity in it because of being from L.A.,” said Darryl McCrary, a creative artist who is based here. “I felt like I knew the teenagers. I knew the secret drug addict and the out drug addict and the drug dealers. It felt very familiar. It felt like home in a way.”

Aspiring actor and “Euphoria” fan Cheyenne Washington, who grew up in a small town in Connecticut, also recognized the characters. “I went to high school with people like this. My high school isn’t like how it is on Disney Channel. My high school was ‘Euphoria.’”

By its second season, “Euphoria” had become one of HBO’s most-watched series, with episodes drawing millions of viewers. The Season 2 finale pulled in more than 6 million viewers across platforms, cementing the show as a crossover hit.

“That was the show that my students were talking about,” said Jason Mittell, professor of film and media culture at Middlebury College. “‘Euphoria’ is the buzz show amongst younger people, amongst people who were sort of hyper-online, amongst critics; it was something that was really talked about. That’s the thing that sort of raises it up.”

Why production stalled

While the dual Hollywood strikes were one factor in the delay in production, “Euphoria” was also affected by the sudden deaths of actor Angus Cloud, who played Fezco, and executive producer Kevin Turen, who was considered a key force in the show. There were reports of creative tension between Zendaya and Levinson. At the same time, its young cast had transformed into a roster of in-demand movie stars, with schedules and expectations that look very different from when the show began.

“This new season has to kind of do something new and really break new ground to gain the buzz,” Mittell said. “There is a scenario, depending on how they market it, that it actually could get pretty good viewership. But I think that it’s also just ripe for disappointment. Can you just imagine all the takes that are being written right now? Like, ‘Why “Euphoria” shouldn’t have come back.’ There’s so many people eager to write that.”

And yet, the show’s scale and the fame of the people in it may insulate it from outright failure. “Jacob Elordi, Sydney Sweeney — these are some of the biggest actors on the planet now,” Ghanem said. “Even if the show ends up being a creative flop, I think we’re all going to tune in because we want to see those actors together again and see what storyline Sam Levinson will come up with. There’s no possible world where this third season isn’t a massive hit. There’s just no way.”

Angus Cloud, who played Fezco in “Euphoria,” died in 2023 after an overdose. (Evan Agostini / Invision / AP)

“Euphoria” executive producer Kevin Turen also died in 2023. (Jack Plunkett / Invision / Associated Press)

What has shifted more dramatically is how the show and its creator are perceived, experts and fans said. Since “Euphoria” first aired in 2019, Levinson’s profile has evolved, particularly following the backlash to his HBO series “The Idol,” which was widely panned by critics and plagued by reports of behind-the-scenes turmoil. That scrutiny has extended back to “Euphoria,” with renewed criticism around its portrayal of sex, nudity and teenage characters.

“Since 2019, when the first season aired, there have been a lot of conversations around what Gen Z really wants to see on screen,” Ghanem said. “The show’s reputation isn’t unscathed. And I think people are more critical of Sam Levinson’s work.”

That shift may be especially pronounced among younger viewers, who may have been turned off by “The Idol’s” gratuitousness.

“We’ve had all of these recent studies about younger people who don’t necessarily want to see sexually explicit material anymore,” said Brandy Monk-Payton, assistant professor at Fordham University. “They want to see more development of platonic relationships and asexual connections.”

Can a time gap still lead to success?

Long breaks aren’t unheard of on TV, but they’re rarely this long for a show that’s still trying to hold on to cultural urgency. And history suggests that returning is one thing, but recapturing the same intensity of viewership and fandom is another.

Several recent dramas have tested that gap. “Stranger Things” stretched years between seasons as its young cast aged into adulthood, returning to massive viewership, but, some critics and fans argued, with an ending that felt obligatory.

“They weren’t reckless enough with their characters,” McCrary said.

“The Handmaid’s Tale,” once a defining show of the late 2010s, continued after extended pauses but struggled to maintain the cultural grip it once held.

“I think because of the social and political climate of that show, the interest in it waned,” Monk-Payton said. “We didn’t want to be in the world of Gilead anymore. So do fans want to reenter the world that is ‘Euphoria,’ that sensational world of drug addiction and sex and violence?”

Even “Severance,” which earned critical acclaim and awards recognition after its long-awaited second season, sparked debate among viewers about whether it matched the precision and novelty of its first. The pattern, experts say, is less about whether the audience comes back and more about what they come back expecting.

For Monk-Payton, that expectation functions almost like an unwritten agreement between a show and its viewers.

“It has to retain its contract with the audience,” she said, pointing to the balance between continuity and change. “There has to be some kind of familiarity in the characters and relationships, but also growth — something new that justifies coming back.”

That balance, she argues, is where many returning shows falter. Monk-Payton said in the case of “Severance,” what began as a sharply observed workplace sci-fi story expanded into denser mythology in its second season. Though Apple TV announced that “Severance” had become its No. 1 series, she said the show’s evolution didn’t land the same way for all viewers.

“When shows come back after a gap, they can misread what audiences connected to in the first place,” she said.

The risk for “Euphoria” is similar. If its return leans too far away from the emotional core that defined it, or reshapes its characters beyond recognition, it could strain the connection.

“If we don’t recognize Rue or the others in some fundamental way, that’s risky,” Monk-Payton said. “Some viewers will keep watching to see how it ends because they’re completionists. But others may feel that disconnect.”

MADISON, Wis. — The bluntest assessment of Republican failures during this week’s elections in Wisconsin came from one of their own.

“We got our butts kicked,” said U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, who is running for governor.

He was referring to Democratic victories in campaigns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court and the mayor’s office in Waukesha, a conservative suburb outside Milwaukee. But some Republicans were also rattled by a special election in Georgia, where their candidate to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress won by a much slimmer margin than the party enjoyed in the past.

Taken together, the swings from red to blue added more data points to an increasingly clear picture of Democratic momentum heading into the November midterms, when control of the U.S. House, the U.S. Senate and state governments around the country are up for grabs.

“In rural, urban, red, blue, Democrats have overperformed everywhere,” said Jared Leopold, a Democratic consultant whose clients include Keisha Lance Bottoms, a candidate for Georgia governor. “That is a significant canary in the coal mine about what November of ’26 is going to look like.”

Some Republicans insisted there was no need to panic, and their fundraising remains stronger than Democrats’. Stephen Lawson, a Georgia strategist, said “the sky is not falling.”

But he also said his party is running behind where it has been in the past, and Republicans need to be “looking at these results carefully.”

‘A red alarm for Republicans’

Special elections can be notoriously unreliable as political benchmarks, but Democrats have consistently demonstrated surprising strength. They flipped a Texas state Senate district. They won a Florida state House seat in a district that includes President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach.

Then they gained ground on Tuesday in the race to replace Greene, who resigned from Congress in January after a falling out with Trump.

Clay Fuller, the Republican candidate, prevailed by 12 percentage points. Two years ago, Greene won by 29 percentage points and Trump carried the district by almost 37 percentage points.

“That’s a red alarm for Republicans,” said Democratic strategist Meredith Brasher.

Fuller defeated Shawn Harris, who plans to challenge him again in November.

Jackie Harling, the district’s Republican chairwoman, said she believed that Greene’s resignation energized Democrats while her party is suffering from “election fatigue.”

“Marjorie Taylor Greene was like a freight train that you couldn’t stop, and when she pulled out, it gave Democrats hope and it gave them a shot at winning something they believed was unwinnable,” Harling said.

‘Slightly bluer side of purple’

Georgia has key races this year, including an open contest for the governor’s office. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, is trying to defend his seat as well.

There’s reason to think that simmering discontent could boomerang on Republicans just two years after Trump harnessed voters’ anger with his comeback presidential campaign.

In November, Democrats defeated two Republican incumbents in statewide races for seats on the Public Service Commission, which regulates utilities. Rising electricity rates have been a fault line in recent campaigns, especially as enormous data centers are built to power artificial intelligence.

But Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey is trying to maintain modest expectations.

“We could cement ourselves, put ourselves, on the slightly bluer side of purple,” he said. ”We’re not going to overnight turn into Colorado.”

‘A very clear sign of momentum’

Wisconsin holds statewide elections for Supreme Court seats, and liberals expanded their majority with a 20-percentage-point blowout victory on Tuesday.

Democrats saw gains in red, blue and purple counties when compared with another judicial race last year, which was also won by the liberal candidate.

“This to me was a very clear sign of momentum and enthusiasm for Democrats in the fall,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Devin Remiker.

The state has its own open race for governor this year, and Democrats are hoping to take control of the state Legislature and oust Republican U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden.

“It’s time for us to put this thing in overdrive,” said Mandela Barnes, a Democratic former lieutenant governor who is running for governor.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, another Democratic candidate for governor, said it’s clear that “people are really upset with the Republican Party and their brand right now.”

“But that doesn’t mean that they’re automatically going to come over to the Democrats,” Crowley said. “And that’s why we have to continue to focus on the issues and speak to the values of all the voters here in the state of Wisconsin.”

‘A lot of anxiety’

Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor in Wisconsin, cautioned against reading too much into Tuesday’s results.

He said “every election is unique,” and he wasn’t making any changes to his campaign. He said the key to winning will be to “paint that clear contrast of how we are going to help everyday Wisconsinites.”

But Democrats seemed to be making inroads, including in Waukesha. The city is located outside of Milwaukee in the Republican stronghold of Waukesha County.

Democrat Alicia Halvensleben, president of the city’s Common Council, defeated Republican Scott Allen, one of the most conservative members of the state Assembly.

She said Trump came up “a lot” when she was campaigning, although she thinks her victory came down to local issues and how the state legislature wasn’t addressing them.

“There’s so much uncertainty at the national level,” Halvensleben said. “I think that level of uncertainty is causing people a lot of anxiety, all the way down to the local level.”

Bauer, Amy and Cooper write for the Associated Press. Amy reported from Atlanta, and Cooper from Phoenix.

Michael Gates is basing his run for California attorney general on his decade-long reign as Huntington Beach’s top lawman.

When we met at a Starbucks a block away from City Hall, he rattled off his hometown’s bona fides: A drop in crime and homelessness. Tourists from across the world. A thriving Main Street. A small-town feel “almost like the Midwest.”

His biggest obstacle in trying to convince voters that he should replace Rob Bonta, besides his Republican Party membership? Um, Huntington Beach.

For years, Surf City conservatives like Gates have reveled in playing the burr in the saddle of deep blue California. From a torrent of lawsuits against Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration to protests against COVID restrictions to the City Council’s vote to place a plaque outside the public library spelling out “MAGA,” Huntington Beach’s GOP leadership has yet to meet an anti-liberal stunt they didn’t characterize as a stance against tyranny worthy of Bunker Hill.

Their antics made Huntington Beach a national laughingstock — but Gates and his pals so far have had the last giggle.

They ran as a slate in two elections that transformed the City Council from a narrow Democratic majority in 2022 to an all-Republican body in an era when Orange County is turning more and more purple. The takeover became a sensation among California conservatives looking for victories in a state where Democrats maintain a supermajority in both legislative chambers and have held every statewide office for 15 years.

“We’ve morphed into this epicenter of fighting back,” said Mayor Casey McKeon, a third-generation Huntington Beach resident who’s up for reelection this year. “We are the model every city can follow. If I were running for state office, I’d run it on that.”

That’s exactly what the architects of MAGA-by-the-Sea plan to do this November.

In addition to Gates’ bid, gadfly-turned-Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark is seeking an Assembly seat. Her former council colleague Tony Strickland won his state Senate seat last spring and is the co-author of a proposed state ballot initiative that would require voter ID for all elections. Huntington Beach voters approved a similar initiative in 2024, which was later struck down by the California Supreme Court.

The Huntington Beach red revolution now includes conservative commentator Steve Hilton, who launched his campaign for governor last spring near the city’s world-famous pier — even though he lives in Silicon Valley.

Hilton told me he has long loved Huntington Beach because it reminds him of Brighton, the seaside British town where he grew up. His affection for Surf City deepened the more he talked to people like Gates and Strickland, who sold him on their vision to stick it to Sacramento.

“There’s such a joy about it — it’s a place where it’s well-run and clean and orderly,” said the candidate, who has consistently led in polls as his Democratic opponents cannibalize each other’s share of the vote. “When I was thinking where to launch my campaign, it made sense [in Huntington Beach], because it felt like home.”

Then-City Council candidates Tony Strickland, left, and Gracey Van Der Mark attend a “meet and greet” event in Huntington Beach in 2022.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Better not tell anyone in H.B. you’re an immigrant, Steve!

California Republican Party Chairwoman Corrin Rankin is confident the Huntington Beach crew can win.

“What happened there proves that conservative leadership works,” she said. “Currently, we have a former mayor of San Francisco who’s the governor. You look at the contrast of how each of those cities are.”

Strickland, who is Hilton’s campaign chair, swears that he and his former colleagues didn’t plan to take their crusade statewide, but “when you do a great job, other opportunities present themselves.”

“I think California is on the wrong track — most think that,” he added. If his team pulls off a November sweep — governor, attorney general, Assembly seat and the voter ID proposition — “it would be known as the major turnaround in the Golden State that made it golden again.”

Does drinking Surf City’s water grant you magical powers, too?

It’s easy to dismiss what Strickland, Gates and the others have created as a lucky local run that’s about to crash into the reality of running statewide as a Republican. Even in Huntington Beach, residents tired of perpetual culture wars rejected two ballot measures last year seeking to give the City Council more control over a municipal library system that Van Der Mark long claimed was essentially providing pornography to children.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learned while tracking H.B.’s ever-aggrieved conservatives for a quarter century, it’s to never underestimate them — the more you do, the more they fume, the more they scheme. They plan with the discipline of a Dodgers World Series team and brawl like hometown hero and mixed martial arts legend Tito Ortiz, who was on the council for a few months in 2021 before stepping down because he said the job “wasn’t working for me.”

Gates, 51, is so Huntington Beach that he looks it: Bull-necked. Blue-eyed. Bro-y. No-nonsense haircut. An aw-shucks countenance barely hiding a righteous anger that seeks to pile-drive progressive California into submission.

“I know what it looks like to be from a working-class family, a hardworking family, and find it very difficult to make ends meet,” said Gates, noting that his Irish American parents sometimes had to grab food and diapers for their children from the St. Bonaventure Catholic Church pantry. “So frankly, let’s take control away from the government and give control back to the working-class people.”

Fullerton College political science professor Jodi Balma teaches her students about Huntington Beach as an example of how “the power of a slate can really work” in an era of polarization. But when I asked if she thought the Surf City insurgents could upend California politics, the professor quickly said, “No.”

A majority of California voters think the state is heading in the wrong direction, and the number of undecided voters in elections ranging from California governor to the L.A. mayor’s race is putting the fear of God into Democratic leaders. But how deluded can Strickland and company be to think that aligning themselves more with President Trump — who just endorsed Hilton — is a winning strategy in a state where Democrats outnumber Republicans by nearly 2 to 1? And propping up Surf City — a wealthy beach town so full of itself that it makes Santa Monica seem as humble as Santa Ana — as the last, best hope to save California?

Hilton demurred when I asked if he agreed with everything his pals on the City Council have done over the years. “I’m not there, so I don’t see the day-to-day operation,” was his weak salsa reply.

Gates was more forthright.

“I think probably everybody in city leadership would admit the library thing got out of control,” he said. By then, Gates was working for the Department of Justice in Washington as a deputy assistant attorney general in the civil rights division, resigning after just 10 months because he said he missed home.

Sand art at Huntington City Beach in 2020.

(Raul Roa / Los Angeles Times)

Gates talked a good talk for most of our hourlong conversation. He and Hilton are pushing especially hard for Latino voters — they “can save California because they understand that new leadership can turn the state around.”

But for everything Gates said that might appeal to a frustrated Democrat like me, his Huntington Beach braggadocio continually won out.

He alternately hailed his own political astuteness (“You be patient, bide your time, be disciplined, keep your mouth shut. The long game will win.”), brought up transgender issues (“I want to protect our young girls. I want to stop all the mutilation surgeries happening in hospitals to our young people.”) and inveighed against out-of-control Democrats (“[Californians are] abused. And honestly, we’re pissed off. We’re getting really mad.”).

Most of all, Gates proclaimed time and time again just how darn special Huntington Beach is.

“We love our freedoms. We love flying our American flags,” he said. “We love our beach. I don’t know, it’s a different culture here.”

Good luck selling Californians on it.

Walt Disney Co. is planning an extensive round of layoffs in the coming weeks, according to a source familiar with the matter but unauthorized to comment.

The move comes nearly three months after Disney unveiled a more streamlined management structure that sought to centralize its sprawling marketing operations.

Disney declined to comment.

The total number of layoffs could be as many as 1,000, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported news of the planned cuts.

Many of the layoffs are expected to come from the recent consolidation of Disney’s marketing department.

After officially taking the reins of the company last month, Chief Executive Josh D’Amaro told employees he wants the Burbank media and entertainment giant — which includes film and TV studios, a tourism division, streaming services and live sports programming — to operate as “one Disney,” saying the global businesses all play a role in deepening consumers’ relationship with Disney and its characters.

Like many studios in Hollywood, Disney has faced decreased theatrical revenues, the continued decline of linear television and the smaller profits it makes from its streaming services. Though the company’s theme parks division has served as its economic engine for years, Disney recently indicated it expects to see “headwinds” in international tourism to its U.S. parks.

News of the planned Disney job cuts add to the ongoing drumbeat Hollywood has endured for the last few years.

On Tuesday, Sony Pictures Entertainment said it planned to cut hundreds of its employees worldwide as it looked to restructure its business.

Disney recently laid off thousands of workers in the years after former Chief Executive Bob Iger returned to the company. At the time, Iger said Disney had been pumping out too many shows and movies to compete with Netflix and needed to retrench.

Davey Lopes, the no-nonsense, base-swiping second baseman on a historic Dodgers infield that played together for a record 8½ seasons, died Wednesday at age 80, the Dodgers announced.

The first 10 years of Lopes’ 16-year major league career were spent with the Dodgers, and he returned to the organization in 2011 to serve as first-base coach for five years. Lopes was a four-time All-Star who won two stolen base titles, one Gold Glove and helped the Dodgers to four World Series, including the championship in 1981.

Taken in the second round of a 1968 Dodgers draft haul considered the most talented in baseball history, the 5-foot-9, 170-pound Lopes rose from a rough-and-tumble Rhode Island upbringing to become the team’s everyday second baseman and leadoff batter by 1973.

Lopes played outfield in the minor leagues but became part of a bold move by Dodgers manager Walter Alston before the 1973 season: Lopes would move to second base, Bill Russell from center field to shortstop and Steve Garvey from third to first base. Ron Cey would be installed at third. The Dodgers moved longtime coach and scout Monty Basgall — known as an exceptional infield instructor — from the front office to the field to help the players adjust to their new roles.

The quartet took the infield together for the first time in the second game of a doubleheader against the Cincinnati Reds in a sold-out Dodger Stadium on June 23, 1973. They stuck together through their 1981 World Series championship season, after which Lopes was traded to the Oakland Athletics for Lance Hudson, a utility player who never reached the major leagues.

Lopes continued to play well, not retiring until 1987 at age 42. He stole 557 bases and was successful in 83% of his attempts, one of the best rates in major league history. He also displayed power for a leadoff batter, hitting 155 home runs, including a career high of 28 for the Dodgers in 1979.

Although Lopes’ lifetime batting average was .263, he had an excellent eye, walking nearly as many times as he struck out and logging an excellent .349 on-base percentage. He scored 1,023 runs in 1,812 career games.

As games progressed, Lopes typically batted after the pitcher, who was at the bottom of the order. He became adept at stalling tactics that gave pitchers ample rest if they’d just returned to the dugout after running the bases.

Times assistant sports editor Houston Mitchell, a lifelong Dodgers follower, described what happened next: “Lopes was a magician at wasting time to give the pitcher a chance to towel off and cool down a bit. Especially if there were two out. Lopes would spend an extra moment or two in the on-deck circle. He’d take his time getting the round weight off his bat. Then he would slowly walk to the batter’s box.”

David Earl Lopes was born May 3, 1945, and raised in East Providence, R.I., a town of Irish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants seeking jobs in factories and along the waterfront. One of 12 children, Lopes was a toddler when his father died. Lopes’ mother, Mary Rose, worked as a domestic.

Lopes often described his upbringing as difficult, referring to his neighborhood as a “ghetto” and describing it to Times columnist Jim Murray as “roaches, rats, poor living conditions, drugs as prevalent as candy.”

“If it hadn’t been for sports, there’s no telling what I’d be or where I’d be,” Lopes told The Times’ Ross Newhan in 1973. “All I had to do is step off the porch to a choice of all the things you associate with a ghetto.”

Long before he became an accomplished base stealer, Lopes said he became an expert at shoplifting. “I never stole anything major, just clothes and baseballs and bats,” he told Murray.

Lopes needed an adult role model and one came along in the coach at an opposing high school, Mike Sarkesian, who grew up in a Providence tenement but became the basketball coach and athletic director at Iowa Wesleyan College the year Lopes graduated from high school.

“Whatever I missed by having not really had a father, Sarkesian provided,” Lopes told Newhan. “He could relate to my problems, my environment. The drive, the determination, not to give in to the ghetto, to make something of my life, stems from my relations with him.”

Sarkesian recruited Lopes to play baseball at Iowa Wesleyan. Two years later, Sarkesian became athletic director at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan., Lopes went with him. Lopes was taken by the San Francisco Giants in the eighth round of the 1967 MLB draft but opted to return to Washburn, where he played baseball and basketball well enough to be inducted into the school’s Hall of Fame in 1987.

The Dodgers drafted him in the second round a year later and Lopes signed for $10,000. He skipped spring training his first two minor league seasons to complete his classes at Washburn and graduated in 1969 with a degree in elementary education.

Lopes spent the 1968 and 1969 seasons at Class-A Daytona Beach, and married Linda Lee Vandover during his first season. The night before the wedding he broke up no-hitters in both games of a doubleheader with late-inning hits.

A promotion to triple-A Spokane came in 1970. His manager was Tommy Lasorda and the team was exceptional, posting a record of 94-52. Among his teammates were Garvey and Russell as well as other future major leaguers Bill Buckner, Bobby Valentine and Tom Paciorek.

Lasorda recalled Lopes as so shy he wouldn’t speak to anyone. “It took two years, but he finally came around,” Lasorda said. “[He] finally got to the point where he felt he belonged.”

Lopes showed improvement at the plate his second year at Spokane, batting .306 with Cey as a teammate. The Dodgers moved their triple-A affiliate to Albuquerque in 1972 and in his third season at that level Lopes exhibited the blend of power and speed that would be his calling card, posting a slugging percentage of .476 while stealing 48 bases.

Five years in the minor leagues after having attended college meant Lopes was 27 when he made his major league debut that September. He was the opening day second baseman the following year and turned 28 a month into the season.

Lopes quickly made up for lost time, his stolen base totals increasing in each of his first three full seasons from 36 to 59 to 77. On Aug. 24, 1974, he stole five bases in a game against the St. Louis Cardinals, becoming the first NL player to do so since 1904.

It wasn’t long before the best catcher in baseball, the Reds’ Johnny Bench, lauded Lopes, saying, “He’s the best there is at stealing. Lopes not only has the knowledge and speed, but also the quick acceleration. He has everything.”

The once reticent Lopes also showed leadership qualities as early as 1976, when a throw by new Dodgers outfielder Dusty Baker had missed the cutoff man.

“We don’t play that way,” Lopes told Baker.

“Hey, I almost threw him out.” the Dodgers newcomer replied.

“We don’t play that way,” Lopes emphasized.

“I’d never had a player get in my face like that, and I didn’t like it too much,” Baker recalled of the incident. “I looked up and the whole team was coming over to back up Davey.”

Lopes was popular with fans as well. In 1980, he received 3,862,403 votes to lead all MLB players and start at second base in the All-Star Game at Dodger Stadium. That was his third of four consecutive All-Star appearances.

The Dodgers were consistent winners with Lopes, Garvey, Russell and Cey anchoring the infield, but lost the World Series in 1974 to the Athletics and in 1977 and ’78 to the Yankees. In 1981, however, they broke through, winning the Fall Classic for the first time since 1966 by defeating the Yankees in six games.

“They can do anything they want with us now,” said Lopes, who set a record by stealing 10 bases in 10 attempts that postseason. “I’ve got the ring. They can’t take that away from me.”

Youngster Steve Sax, however, did take his job. Lopes, 36, was traded to the A’s during the offseason. He was hardly through, playing another six seasons and even stealing 47 bases in 99 games in 1985 for the Chicago Cubs to become the first 40-year-old player to steal more bases than his age.

Lopes retired after the 1987 season and spent the next four years as a coach under Valentine with the Texas Rangers. Next he coached for three years under another former teammate, Baltimore Orioles manager Johnny Oates, and for four years with the San Diego Padres under Bruce Bochy.

In 2000, Lopes got his shot at managing, signing a three-year deal with the Milwaukee Brewers, who posted losing records in his first two seasons. When the Brewers won only three of their first 15 games in 2002, Lopes was fired.

“A lot of people discouraged me from taking [the Brewers job] because they thought I was just setting myself up for failure,” Lopes told The Times’ Ross Newhan, sensing the odds were catching up to him, “but I was determined to show them I could do it.”

Lopes returned to the Padres as a first-base coach from 2003-2005. He spent one season as the Washington Nationals’ first-base coach and baserunning adviser, and he served in the same capacity for the Phillies from 2007 to 2010.

The Phillies led the major leagues in stolen base percentage three times during his tenure and won the 2008 World Series championship, but that season began with a serious health issue for Lopes. Days before spring training, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. It was in remission by opening day.

In 2011, Times columnist Bill Plaschke lobbied for the Dodgers to add Lopes to the coaching staff. General manager Ned Colletti did just that. Lopes displayed an empathy for young players, saying, “I’ve been there, I know what it’s like when you’re young and you need to know somebody is covering your back. Sometimes you feel lost, and you need a coach or manager to alleviate that.”

Lopes served as Dodgers first-base coach for five years — immediately improving the team’s base-stealing prowess — before closing out his five-decade baseball career in 2017 as a coach for the Nationals under his old teammate Baker.

“I’m not doing much. I’m retired, taking it easy,” Lopes said about retirement on a podcast. “It was not a difficult decision to make, but one I was kind of hesitant to make. But it all works out.

“I got the opportunity to play, manage or coach for a long, long time. I’m extremely thankful. I was one of the lucky ones in the big leagues for 45 straight years. That’s a long time. I have no complaints.”

Lopes is survived by two brothers, Patrick and John, and four sisters, Jean, Judith, Mary and Nina.

Paramount President Jeff Shell is expected to exit the company after being entangled in a legal battle with a controversial Las Vegas gambler and self-styled “fixer.”

Shell has been negotiating his exit and is expected to leave imminently after just eight months on the job, said two people familiar with the matter who were not authorized to comment publicly.

The veteran entertainment executive officially joined the media company with David Ellison’s takeover in August, though he had been a key member of Ellison’s team for nearly two years as the group worked to assemble the pieces of the tech scion’s growing empire. Ellison’s Skydance Media acquired Paramount and then pulled off a stunning $111-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. Discovery in late February.

Shell brought substantial experience running a media company to Ellison’s inner circle, a group that included former investment bankers and others who haven’t run a large-scale enterprise. Shell also served as a member of Paramount’s board and is expected to leave that role, too.

His exit comes after the high-roller, Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani, sued Shell in Los Angeles County Superior Court on March 9, alleging fraud and breach of an oral contract. Cipriani claimed that he provided Shell with “sophisticated, high-value crisis communications services,” according to his suit. He alleged Shell spilled corporate secrets, which Shell has denied, and also failed to deliver on a verbal pledge to help Cipriani develop an English-language version of a Roku TV Spanish music show.

Shell maintains Cipriani fictionalized the two men’s dealings, then spread “false and salacious lies to extract a massive payday.” Cipriani has been seeking $150 million in damages. Shell filed a counterclaim, saying the two men met only twice and that Shell owed him nothing.

The legal skirmish cast a cloud over Shell’s tenure helping lead the company because the Ellisons wanted to stay focused on their Warner Bros. takeover and lining up regulators approvals in the U.S. and abroad. The Cipriani controversy made Shell’s future at Paramount untenable, the sources said.

Shell’s departure comes three years after he was ousted as NBCUniversal chief executive.

NBCUniversal-owner Comcast hired a law firm to investigate him after a CNBC anchor filed an internal sexual harassment claim against him. Shell stepped down, acknowledging that he’d had an “inappropriate relationship” with the journalist, who has since left the company.

The job at Paramount was envisioned to be his second act.

Shell’s dealings with Cipriani began with an August 2024 meeting at litigator Patty Glaser’s Century City office. At the time, Glaser represented both men and urged Cipriani to “cease” his efforts to drum up damaging stories about Shell, who was trying to recover from the scandal that cost him his job at NBC.

Jeff Shell, Paramount Skydance president.

(Paramount / Skydance)

The most serious of Cipriani’s allegations was that he made a report about Shell to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission that Shell had discussed highly sensitive Paramount information with him: Paramount’s proposed $7.7-billion deal with the UFC owner to bring the mixed-martial arts fights to CBS and other Paramount outlets. Shell, in his lawsuit, denied the allegation.

Robert James “R.J.” Cipriani in Amazon Prime Video’s 2025 series, “Cocaine Quarterback.”

(Courtesy of Prime)

Paramount’s brass hired the Gibson Dunn law firm to investigate Shell’s surreptitious dealings with Cipriani. Investigators have been reviewing whether Shell had divulged any secrets. The review is still pending.

“Nobody believed me,” Cipriani said Wednesday. “The best thing I did was cooperate with Gibson Dunn and showed them that the texts were real.”

It’s unclear whether Ellison will look to bring in other experienced media executives or look to senior Warner Bros. Discovery executives following Paramount’s proposed takeover of that company.

TORONTO — For a couple moments Tuesday afternoon, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts spit out a rapid-fire version of Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s biography, or at least his Baseball Reference page.

World Series winner? Check. World Baseball Classic winner? Check. Olympic Games gold medalist? Check. Sawamura Award winner, presented annually to Japan’s best pitcher? Check.

Cy Young award winner? No.

Or, at least, not yet.

The Dodgers have won 12 Cy Young awards, the most of any major league team, with franchise icons including Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Fernando Valenzuela, Orel Hershiser and Clayton Kershaw bringing home the hardware. Yamamoto has the talent to win.

Is it in their best interest if he does? Or could the numbers he might need to put up to win the award be counterproductive to the Dodgers winning another World Series?

In this century, only two players have won a Cy Young award and a World Series championship in the same season: Randy Johnson, with the 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks, and Justin Verlander, with the 2022 Houston Astros.

The Dodgers include October on their schedule every year. Their regular season consists of priming pitchers for October, not padding their resumes for awards.

No Dodgers pitcher has thrown 200 innings or won 20 games over the past four years, the last two of which have ended with parades. If the Dodgers choose not to mess with team success, they would not afford Yamamoto the chance to hit either of those traditional barometers of excellence.

The last time a Dodgers pitcher won a Cy Young in a year in which the team won the World Series: Hershiser, in 1988. He threw 267 innings that season, then another 42⅔ in the playoffs. The Dodgers are as likely to let Yamamoto throw that much as they are to let him bat cleanup.

“I think he could throw more, but I don’t think he needs to,” Hershiser said. “Every organization is different.

“If Yamamoto was on a .500 club that was hoping to get a wild card, they wouldn’t be planning for October every year like the Dodgers. They would be pitching him more.”

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto prepares to deliver in the first inning of a 4-1 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on Tuesday night at Rogers Centre.

(Cole Burston / Getty Images)

Roberts said he did not believe that whatever restraints the Dodgers might put on Yamamoto would spoil his chances for the Cy Young award, if his performance otherwise warrants it. The game has changed, and with it the award voting.

Of the 10 Cy Young winners over the past five years, eight did not throw 200 innings. None won 20 games.

Yamamoto has pitched six innings in each of his first three starts, including Tuesday’s 4-1 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays. He averaged 5.8 innings per start last season, when he pitched 173⅔ innings.

Is a seven-inning pitcher beyond where he is, or where the game is today?

“I purposefully took him out of a lot of games where he had six innings, and I could have pushed him, and I don’t know how it would have played out,” Roberts said before the game. “But there’s a lot of intentionality to kind of banking what you have with him. But could he be? I don’t see why he couldn’t.

“I think he would certainly argue that I’ve probably taken him out too soon at times.”

If Yamamoto is the Dodgers’ best pitcher, then every inning he pitches is an inning that gives the Dodgers their best chance to win. There is no need to extend him beyond his comfort zone, but he pitched 193 innings twice in Japan, averaging 7.4 innings per start. He should be able to handle 200 innings.

“It’s certainly possible,” Roberts said, “but I’m just not going to manage to get him to reach a certain milestone. How he’s pitching in a certain game, to then go to the next game and how it looks, that’s kind of how I do it.”

Yamamoto started 30 games last season. One more inning in each start would have gotten him to 200 innings.

To his credit, Roberts did not take him out after six innings Tuesday. Yamamoto started the seventh inning and faced two batters — the first doubled after an ABS review nullified a strikeout, the second dropped a bunt single — then left after 97 pitches. Alex Vesia, Blake Treinen and Edwin Díaz collected the final nine outs.

That, too, is a plan. Handing the ball to an ace like Yamamoto and asking for nine innings is ancient history.

“You have bullpens that are a lot richer and deeper,” Hershiser said. “You’ve got quality arms in the bullpens, where ballclubs are spending money.

“As far as the workload in the playoffs compared to what they’re doing in the regular season, I think they all could still do what we did. I just think they’re not being trained or asked to do it. I just think it’s a different time and a different culture.

“He’s able to do it. I think (Shohei) Ohtani is able to do it. I think (Blake) Snell is able to do it. I think (Tyler) Glasnow is able to do it. But there is a different way to spend your assets now.”

Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitches against the Arizona Diamondbacks on March 26 at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The concept that a team would give a pitcher an extra start or two to make his case for an award? Not this team, anyway.

“Now they’re saving those 10 or 20 innings for the playoffs,” Hershiser said.

“I think our guys have a chance to win a Cy Young even pitching once a week, if that’s what they ask them to do, until the games mean something more. Then they might bring them back on no days rest, as they have.”

That was a wink and a nod toward Yamamoto, who has won his last four appearances here: Game 2 of the World Series on 10 days rest; Game 6 on five days rest; Game 7 on no days rest, and Tuesday on five days rest.

The Dodgers have made clear that saving an inning for the postseason is preferable to spending it during the regular season. For a pitcher under contract to the Dodgers through 2035, it is certainly defensible in the short and the long term.

But, for a coaching staff and front office that loves the phrase “gives us our best chance to win,” a little more of Yamamoto could do just that.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — If you’ve ever planned to motor west and take the highway that’s the best, this might be the time: Route 66 turns 100 this year.

The Mother Road, as author John Steinbeck dubbed it, has evolved over the years from an escape for poor farmers fleeing the devastating dust storms of the 1930s to perhaps the quintessential American road trip that’s still delivering kicks.

Although there have been faster and more direct routes between the nation’s second- and third-largest cities for some time, Route 66’s neon still burns brightly and its vintage signs beckon travelers to restored motor lodges, classic diners and roadside attractions.

Each stop turns the wheels of the imagination, leaving travelers to contemplate what life was like for the people and communities that have made the road hum over the years.

Illinois

Chicago has long been one of the country’s economic engines, with access to international waters and railroads that linked all corners of the country. In the 1920s, Oklahoma businessman Cyrus Avery, known as the Father of Route 66, knew it wouldn’t be long before automobiles would dominate the transportation landscape, and the Windy City would be the perfect place to start the journey he envisioned.

A member of the federal highway board appointed to map the U.S. highway system, Avery opted to go with the number 66. He knew those double digits were ripe for marketing and could be seared into the minds of motorists.

For some travelers, the journey is fueled more by the food than the scenery, and there’s plenty to choose from — slices of homemade pie, thick shakes, cheeseburgers and an assortment of fried delights.

The Cozy Dog Drive In in Springfield, the Illinois capital, is one of the many diners that sprang up along Route 66, and its breaded hot dogs on a stick have stood the test of time. Third-generation owner Josh Waldmire says the recipe is a secret.

Waldmire’s grandfather, Ed, saw the concoction’s potential as fast and convenient road food and developed a system for frying the dogs vertically.

Missouri

Route 66 has its share of twists and turns, and it’s no surprise that a highway famous for its quirky roadside attractions would cross the nation’s most famous river on one of the more peculiar bridges known to modern engineering.

As the road nears St. Louis, the mile-long (1.6-kilometer-long) Chain of Rocks Bridge hovers more than 60 feet (18 meters) above the Mississippi River.

Engineers eventually built a straighter, higher-speed option, and a poor resale market spared the original bridge from the scrap heap. Today it’s reserved for pedestrians and cyclists.

A median in Missouri is home to St. Robert Route 66 Neon Park, which features orphaned neon signs that once beckoned travelers to stop at certain sites and businesses along the highway. Often handcrafted, they weren’t only markers for motels, cafes and gas stations, but were also folk art and symbols of local culture.

Kansas

The Sunflower State hosts only a short stretch of Route 66, but it packs a punch with the Kan-O-Tex Service Station in Galena. A classic example of roadside fare, the station served as inspiration for the animated 2006 Pixar film “Cars.”

Director John Lasseter and his crew took road trips along the route, digging into history and looking for elements that could bring the project to life. It was in Galena where they spotted the old boom truck that served as the basis for the character Tow Mater. The plot wasn’t far off, as so many once bustling towns — like the fictional Radiator Springs — nearly faded away after being bypassed by an interstate.

Kansas also is home to the Brush Creek Bridge, otherwise known as the Rainbow Bridge. It’s on the National Register of Historic Places and is one of few remaining examples of the concrete arched bridges designed by James Barney Marsh.

Oklahoma

There was a real danger for some who traveled the road, particularly Black motorists passing through inhospitable and segregated areas during the Jim Crow era. The Green Book — a guide first published in 1936 by Victor Hugo Green — listed hotels, restaurants and gas stations that would serve Black customers.

The Threatt Filling Station near Luther wasn’t listed in The Green Book, but it was a safe haven — not only for getting fuel, but for barbecue and baseball. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, it was the only known Black-owned and operated gas station along Route 66.

Route 66 is littered with abandoned buildings and faded signs, but one example of the highway’s resilient spirit stands tall in Sapulpa, near Tulsa. The restored Tee Pee Drive-In Theater offers a step back into the 1950s, when the booming car culture helped spawn thousands of drive-in theaters nationwide.

Built in 1949, the drive-in officially opened in the spring of 1950 with a screening of John Wayne’s “Tycoon.” It was one of the few drive-ins at the time to have paved pathways. Over the years, it survived a tornado, a fire that destroyed the concession stand and break-ins before being shuttered for more than 20 years. It reopened in 2023.

Texas

Blink and you might miss it, but a stop at the Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo is a must for any Route 66 journey. For decades, visitors have been spray-painting the 10 vintage Cadillacs at the site and mulling the transitory nature of time as Bruce Springsteen did in his 1980 song of the same name.

It’s not a ranch, but rather a public art installation created in 1974 by the art and architecture collective Ant Farm. At first, the cars — which were half-buried front-down at a 60-degree angle — were used for target practice. Others would scratch their initials into the metal. The spray painting started later.

Arrive in Adrian and you’re halfway through your trip. Steps from a white line marking the midpoint of Route 66 is the Midway Cafe, where the “ugly pies” are anything but.

If you’re still hungry, head back to Amarillo for a 72-ounce (2 kilogram) steak and all the sides at The Big Texan. If you can finish the meal in an hour or less, it’s free.

New Mexico

More than half of Route 66 cuts through sovereign Native American lands, often tracing routes used by tribes long before settlers arrived. Much like the railroad in the 1800s, the highway opened the door to a new era of commerce, but it also fueled stereotypes about cultures along the way.

There are still faded and crumbling references to tipis and feathered headdresses at some stops along the historic highway. The symbols were easily appropriated for marketing by roadside vendors but weren’t indicative of the separate and distinct Native American cultures in the area.

Today, tribes are telling their own stories and showcasing their creations, whether it be pottery, fruit pies or poems.

Albuquerque boasts the longest intact urban stretch of Route 66. Those 18 miles (29 kilometers) pass through several neighborhoods and business districts, from historic Old Town to Nob Hill.

Some of the old motor lodges and neon signs along what is now Central Avenue have been restored. Other signs are being reimagined using hubcaps, elaborate lowrider-inspired paint jobs and New Mexico’s classic yellow and red license plates in a nod to the car culture that is very much still alive in the city.

Arizona

Musician Jackson Browne was taking his own road trip in the early 1970s when his car left him stranded in Winslow. The experience inspired the lyrics to the Eagles’ hit “Take it Easy.” But it’s certainly not the only song that is a must-have for a Route 66 playlist.

Bobby Troup created a classic American road anthem in the 1940s with “(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66.” Nat King Cole, Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones and Depeche Mode carried it through the decades, each covering the song with their own flair.

While standing on a corner in Winslow, don’t be surprised if someone saunters up with a guitar and starts strumming favorites from their own road trip playlist.

Before leaving the state, the one-time gold mining town of Oatman features a Wild West atmosphere, daily staged shootouts and beloved burros. Oatman was a destination along one of the original alignments of Route 66 via a treacherous path through the Black Mountains, but it was later bypassed as part of improvements made in the 1950s.

California

Once a desert oasis, Roy’s Motel & Café in Amboy is a quintessential Route 66 landmark. The towering neon sign is one of the most photographed spots along the road. Inside, foreign currency left by international visitors lines one wall. Across the street, a clothing post decorated with shoes, shirts and other items juts up from the desert floor.

This stretch of the highway through the Mojave Desert offers a special kind of solitude. The pavement gets rough in spots and the landscape takes charge, showing off Joshua trees, wide-open spaces and the remnants of ancient volcanic activity.

Much of the area is undeveloped, meaning it looks a lot like it would have when Route 66 was commissioned in 1926.

After making it through oft-congested Los Angeles, the iconic Santa Monica Pier marks the end of the line, and it’s nothing short of a perpetual party with a steady stream of spectators and performers. Although many stretches of Route 66 have lapsed into decay, the breathtaking views of the Pacific Ocean are a reminder of the pursuits made possible by the road over the last century.

Bryan writes for the Associated Press. AP writers John O’Connor in Springfield, Ill., and Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City contributed to this report.

Pastry chef, baker and champion of whole grains Roxana Jullapat opened Friends & Family in East Hollywood nine years ago, a forerunner among a new wave of artisanal bakeries in Los Angeles. Her first book, “Mother Grains,” served as an introduction to baking with freshly milled ancient grains such as rye, barley, buckwheat, corn, oat, rice, sorghum and local wheat. Her follow-up cookbook, “Morning Baker,” centers the same whole grains with an emphasis on incorporating them into easy, everyday bakes and weekend projects, from muffins and scones to viennoiserie and naturally leavened and yeasted breads, along with French toast, pancakes, waffles, doughnuts and quiche. With the first book, “I didn’t anticipate that people were so ready and hungry for cooking and baking with grains,” she said recently. “They were ingredients they already had in their kitchen.” The follow-up book is also a snapshot of Friends & Family’s morning bake, the daily production of several dozen kinds of pastries that fill the pastry case to overflowing. There are recipes that are easy to jump into, and there is a chapter devoted to whole-grain croissants, made with spelt and whole wheat. A primer on her favorite flours and recommended millers is a vital resource.

Show more Show less

TikTok advertising leader Khartoon Weiss is leaving the short-form video company, joining a wave of American executives stepping down over the past year.

Weiss is departing to pursue a new opportunity, the company said Tuesday. She had been at the video service for nearly six years, most recently in charge of TikTok’s global brands and agency business for North America.

Other recent departures have included global head of creators, Kim Farrell, who left earlier this year after almost six years, and Blake Chandlee, who departed in 2025 after leading advertising and marketing for six years.

Michael Beckerman, a public policy executive who helped lead TikTok’s fight against a US ban, also exited last year, as did music chief Ole Obermann. And Erich Andersen, who served as US-based general counsel for TikTok and its Chinese parent ByteDance Ltd., left that role in 2024.

Though ByteDance spun off key parts of its US business in January — part of a national security deal brokered by the Trump administration — the Chinese company remains in control of the advertising and marketing arm. In March, Weiss was the star of TikTok’s first major event since this tumultuous regulatory saga came to a close following more than half a decade.

“We’re going to kick into fifth gear,” Weiss said at the event. “We’re going to completely accelerate.”

In a memo this week, Weiss told advertisers that a search was underway for a replacement. The message was first reported by Digiday.

ByteDance regularly restructures TikTok teams and shuffles leaders. In some cases, it’s enlisted leaders or personnel who worked in China, angling to replicate the success it’s enjoyed in that country with TikTok’s sister app, Douyin.

Levine writes for Bloomberg.

The UK is in talks about considering making the same decision

Greece has announced that it will introduce a brand new rule next year that will impact millions of people. The change comes months after Australia implemented a similar decision in December 2025, and now Greece is urging the European Union to follow suit with its upcoming ‘ban‘.

Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis confirmed on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, that Greece will ban all children under 15 from accessing social media. The measure, which will come into force on January 1, 2027, is designed to protect children’s mental health and will apply irrespective of parental consent.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis cited “unambiguous” evidence that addictive screen time and social media algorithms are contributing to anxiety and sleep deprivation among children. Data from the Greek Safer Internet Centre in Athens shows that 75% of children currently using social media in Greece are of primary-school age.

It comes as the UK government has started a discussion about possibly banning under-16s, and Ireland and Denmark are considering doing the same. Last month, the House of Lords supported a proposal to ban under-16s from using social media platforms in the UK.

In a video posted on TikTok, Kyriakos Mitsotakis said: “We have decided to go ahead with a difficult but necessary measure: ban access to social media for children under 15 years old. Greece is among the first countries in the world to adopt such a measure.” The prime minister went on to say he would put pressure on the European Union to follow suit.

The Greek government plans to enforce the ban through its existing ‘Kids Wallet’ application, which is already used to verify ages for alcohol and tobacco purchases. This application will be used to filter and block social media access at the device level.

Unlike approaches that rely on social media platforms to police themselves, Greece is pursuing a ‘source-based’ approach. Parents will be required to activate the Kids Wallet app on all of a child’s devices to block access at the system level. Greek officials hope this state-mandated device-level block will effectively counter circumvention methods, such as VPNs.

Greece joins other nations implementing strict age-based digital restrictions, including Australia, which enforces an under-16 ban, and Indonesia. Following the announcement, Kyriakos Mitsotakis wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, calling for a common EU-wide “Digital Age of Majority” to be set at 15.

While both Greece and Australia share the goal of protecting children’s mental health, their enforcement methods differ significantly. Australia’s existing under-16 ban places the burden on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook to find and remove underage accounts.

Since its launch in December 2025, Australia’s platform-based model has faced challenges. The eSafety Commissioner recently reported “significant concerns” about platforms that allow children to bypass checks or that provide insufficient reporting tools for parents.

Australia’s ban impacts ten major “high-risk” social networks but largely spares educational and messaging services like Google Classroom and WhatsApp. The Greek proposal is part of a broader framework that also restricts minors from online gambling, dating apps, and tobacco and alcohol sales.

Meanwhile, the UK government is actively considering an outright ban on social media for children under 16 through a high-profile national consultation and legislative debate. A three-month government consultation on “digital wellbeing” is currently open, seeking views on restrictions such as overnight curfews and “app caps,” and is scheduled to close May 26, 2026.

In the legislative arena, the House of Lords has twice defeated the government by adding an amendment to the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill that would mandate a social media ban for under-16s. The House of Commons previously rejected this measure in March 2026, with the bill scheduled to return to the Commons on April 15, 2026.

To laugh or to cry? It’s a question that feels a little too familiar of late — one confronted often while watching “Maddie’s Secret,” the debut as writer-director from comedian and performer John Early.

Playing the title role with an unnerving sincerity and startling sense of vulnerability, Early stars as Maddie Ralph, a young woman climbing the ranks as a Los Angeles food influencer while secretly hiding her struggle with bulimia.

Early’s performance is a truly remarkable highwire act, all the more so for the wig, padding and prosthetics he wears to play the character. Made in the earnest style of a disease-of-the-week television movie without ever tipping over into winking irony, the film is both funny and tender.

“That, to me, is Maddie’s true secret,” says Early, 38, on a recent video interview from the apartment he is renting in New York City while appearing onstage in Wallace Shawn’s new off-Broadway play “What We Did Before Our Moth Days.”

“The secret of the movie — the real twist of the movie — is not any kind of trope-y reveal,” Early says. “The twist is actually a tonal twist. What I hope is then that becomes funny: the sheer commitment to the stakes of it.

“At any given moment, you can experience it as totally sincere, you can absorb it genuinely and be moved by it,” Early continues, “or you can take a little break and step out of it and find it uproariously funny that we’re even doing this to begin with.”

John Early, front, and Eric Rahill in the movie “Maddie’s Secret.”

(Magnolia Pictures)

Early’s skillfully wrought psychodrama, which had its world premiere at last fall’s Toronto International Film Festival, is now the opening-night selection for this year’s Los Angeles Festival of Movies, playing Thursday at Eagle Rock’s Vidiots with members of the cast present for a Q&A, and then again on Friday at 2220 Arts + Archives in Historic Filipinotown.

“Maddie’s Secret,” which opens in theaters June 12, makes for a fitting kickoff for this year’s event. Though the programming includes movies from all over the world, organizers ended up leaning heavily into films made in Los Angeles.

“This year it really does feel like a homegrown festival,” said Sarah Winshall, LAFM’s co-founder and festival director. “What it ended up doing is making us think about L.A. as a small town as a result.”

“I think the movie is an incredible accomplishment,” said Micah Gottlieb, LAFM co-founder and artistic director. “It’s made by somebody who’s not just a great comedian but also is a cinephile, knows the history of cinema, is trying to make something that fits within that lineage, while also just making an all-out entertaining movie.”

“Maddie’s Secret” was shot in the same workaday, creative-class neighborhoods where LAFM unspools. (Maddie’s house in the movie is Early’s own home.) The actor and filmmaker describes it as a “very Echo Park, Silver Lake, Eagle Rock, Frogtown, Glassell Park, Highland Park, Los Feliz movie.”

The story is also rooted in Early’s own complicated feelings about the L.A. food scene.

“It’s completely born out of my time in L.A. and my initial shock when I was confronted with a burgeoning restaurant scene,” says Early, who grew up in Nashville and moved to L.A. from New York in 2016.

“Not to always be talking about millennials, but it seemed very much of my generation,” he says, “specifically these kinds of restaurants where the food is really expensive but you’re sitting on a milk crate, eating lots of Middle Eastern food made by white people. There was just something very funny about all of it to me, even though I completely also sincerely loved it and still do.”

The film’s supporting cast is drawn largely from Early’s own circle of friends, including his most frequent collaborator, the comedian and writer Kate Berlant, along with Conner O’Malley, Claudia O’Doherty, Eric Rahill and Vanessa Bayer. The film’s production designer Gordon Landenberger is his ex-boyfriend and Early is excited that a number of other key collaborators, including costume designers Kimme Aaberg and Izzy Heller and cinematographer Max Lakner, are working on a feature for the first time, just as he is as writer-director.

“I think I wanted to force myself at gunpoint into a place of innocence and naivete,” says Early. “I think this movie is a strange mutation of the camp tradition.”

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Berlant plays Maddie’s best friend in the film. She and Early have worked together on shorts, live performances and their 2022 Peacock special “Would It Kill You to Laugh?” The two always share what they are developing and so Berlant first heard about “Maddie’s Secret” when it was just percolating as an idea.

“It was a very wild proposition,” she recalls with a laugh while driving down L.A.’s Beverly Boulevard. “He’s like, ‘I’m going to play a woman who’s struggling with bulimia.’ I was like, ‘Good luck.’ I was astonished that he totally pulled it off and he’s such a true filmmaker. It was kind of miraculous.”

Berlant describes their shared sensibility, the ability to simultaneously play comedy and pathos, as a kind of freedom. “Just the underlying absurdity or joke really gives you the ability to go to these really intense emotional places,” she says. “It gives you the permission to go to places that otherwise would be too unbearably saccharin.”

For Early it was also a chance to fulfill his longtime desire to play an old-school ingénue.

“I think I wanted to force myself at gunpoint into a place of innocence and naivete,” says Early. “I think this movie is a strange mutation of the camp tradition.”

“I was astonished that he totally pulled it off and he’s such a true filmmaker,” says Kate Berlant, Early’s longtime collaborator. “It was kind of miraculous.”

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

He references Susan Sontag’s famous essay “Notes on Camp” to say there are two kinds of camp humor, one that is unknowing and another that is knowing. It is near impossible now to genuinely create the first kind, but the process of making “Maddie’s Secret” was in a sense about being the second and striving for the first.

“In the age of the internet and in the kind of crumbling, depressing world we live in, it’s almost impossible to be the first kind of camp,” says Early, “to feel innocent and naive and to twirl. But obviously there is a part of me, there’s a part of all of us, that is very childlike and innocent and has hope. So I think this movie, it knows itself to be camp but it’s aching to be more like the first kind of camp. It’s aching to be pure and naive.”

Though it may be easy to place what Early is doing in the tradition of drag performers such as Divine’s work with filmmaker John Waters, to Early his performance in “Maddie’s Secret” sits outside of it.

“Drag is often obviously about a certain kind of extravagance and fabulousness and Maddie is very humble,” he says. “And so I don’t really see it as drag. It didn’t feel like drag doing it, whatever that means. It honestly just felt like acting to me.”

In dealing with the serious topic of bulimia, Early was careful never to make the eating disorder the joke. He points to a trio of TV movies — 1986’s “Kate’s Secret,” starring Meredith Baxter Birney; 1997’s “Perfect Body,” starring Amy Jo Johnson; and 1981’s “The Best Little Girl in the World,” starring Jennifer Jason Leigh — along with Lauren Greenfield’s 2006 documentary “Thin” as key influences on how he approached the film’s depiction of the illness. (Other non-bulimia influences include Alfred Hitchcock’s “Marnie,” Paul Verhoeven’s trashy “Showgirls” and Adrian Lyne’s “Flashdance.”)

“I don’t find bulimia itself funny,” says Early. “The genre of these movies — that’s what’s funny. It’s the emotional pitch of those movies and the way that they’re made and the acting style and the kind of moralistic quality while being totally pervy. All that was funny to me. And then also putting contemporary life — young, gentrified L.A. food-content influencer culture — putting all that through a melodrama-style filter, that was funny to me.”

While writing the screenplay, Early says he often found himself weeping, overtaken by the emotions of what he was creating. “I guess I’m not above the genre at all,” he admits.

But playing the part was another matter, having sold everyone involved in the production on a very specific tone and conception of what they would do together.

“I was like, ‘I am so stupid, I can’t believe I have put myself in this position,’” Early says, laughing at the memory. “I had set myself up to do the thing that I really had no proof that I could do, which is to play an almost Juliet kind of character who’s going through these extreme things. And I was the one that promised everyone that we would take it seriously. And then suddenly I was like ‘OK, well you have to do it. You actually have to do it.’”

Even if Early was uncertain in the moment, the result is undeniable: a dizzying, disarming blend of humor and emotion — and one of the year’s boldest performances.

When she ran for mayor four years ago, Karen Bass said she wanted to regrow the Los Angeles Police Department to the 9,500-officer force it was before the ranks began to shrink. Now up for reelection — and facing a budget crunch — Bass says her plan has shifted.

The aim going forward, she told The Times in a recent interview, is to simply stop the department from getting smaller.

As of this week, the department had 8,677 sworn personnel — the lowest total in nearly a quarter-century. Even after efforts under Bass to streamline hiring and boost recruitment, some officials are concerned there won’t be enough new cops to replace those projected to leave or retire in the coming years.

“My goal changed, unfortunately,” Bass said. “I do hope that one day we get to the expansion, but we are not there now.”

A Bass spokesperson said after the interview that the mayor remains committed to reaching the 9,500-officer benchmark in the long run, but did not provide a timeline for getting there.

On April 20, Bass will release her spending plan for the upcoming fiscal year, which starts on July 1. She and the City Council will spend the coming months working out how to balance the city’s books in a way that avoids deep cuts to other services and the layoffs of city employees. A projection by the city administrative officer estimates the city’s budget deficit to be “several hundred million.”

Bass said she had spent years addressing a years-old administrative bottleneck within the city’s personnel department, which runs the background process for police hires.

The efforts were targeted “at every level: at the top, as well as internal to the department,” said Bass. “At least the impediments that kept us from retaining recruits, to get them in the academy, that has changed.”

The mayor called the old hiring process “archaic,” and said similar issues exist with other city departments. At the LAPD, she said, “We expanded recruitment and had a record number of recruits, and then we couldn’t get them hired, so we had to revamp the hiring process.”

Despite attrition at the LAPD in recent years, crime has plummeted, with homicides in the city falling to levels not seen since the 1950s. Yet public safety remains an issue in the mayor’s race, where Bass faces a challenge from City Councilmember Nithya Raman.

A recent survey co-sponsored by The Times found that more than half of voters view Bass unfavorably in the race. The same poll found that 39% of Angelenos think the LAPD needs to increase in size, with 29% saying the department should stay the same size and 19% saying it should shrink.

Raman came out ahead of Bass in a recent poll that only identified candidates in the mayoral race by their platforms, but not their names, though other surveys that identified them by name showed Bass in the lead.

Raman has said that she believes the police force is the right size at around 8,700 officers. Bass’ onetime ally has argued the mayor has thrown too much money at the LAPD, an approach Raman claims has come at the expense of other basic services such as park maintenance and street paving.

Raman has accused the mayor of signing off on raises for police officers with a contract that has done little to make a dent in the department’s recruitment struggles and only made worse the city’s financial picture. She and other critics say that with the dwindling number of cops, officials need to start investing more in community-led efforts that prioritize prevention over punishment in order to further reduce crime.

Bass said she had embraced a crime-fighting strategy that balances traditional policing with a more public health-oriented approach, pointing out that she had opened an Office of Community Safety to support gang interventionists who help defuse neighborhood conflicts before they explode into violence. Her administration also spearheaded sending mental health teams or other unarmed responders to emergency calls that were once fielded by police.

It’s no accident, she said, that killings in some of the most crime-impacted neighborhoods had fallen by 27%. So far this year, police say that most crime categories are down compared to where they were at this point in 2025.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has said that without addressing police staffing the city’s progress on crime is at risk, especially as L.A. gets set to host large-scale sporting events like the World Cup and the 2028 Olympics.

During his briefing to the Police Commission on Tuesday, McDonnell said roughly 8% of the department’s employees are unavailable to work because they are on sick leave or other work restrictions. McDonnell and other police officials have said staffing shortages are limiting the department’s ability to respond quickly to low-level crimes, leading to high officer burnout rates, and driving up overtime expenses.

Asked to assess McDonnell’s first year-and-half as the city’s top lawman, Bass issued a written statement that said she considered McDonnell a strong partner “lowering crime, hiring more officers, and reversing longstanding trends.”

She added: “I will always keep pushing every City leader to do better by the people of Los Angeles.”

Bass said she would continue working with the chief to “identify measures” to reduce the number of police shootings, particularly those involving people in crisis.

Such changes would go hand in hand with an overhaul of the department’s much-maligned disciplinary system, which has faced criticism from some corners for not meting out harsh enough punishments when officers shoot unarmed people. The union that represents the department’s rank-and-file members has long complained of a double standard that lets well-connected officers and senior leaders off the hook.

Bass said that based on her conversations with officers, “the internal part of the disciplinary system has gotten a little better.”

Broader reforms have also been under discussion, with the council weighing new limits on so-called police pretextual stops, in which officers use a minor violation as justification to pull someone over and then investigate whether a more serious crime has occurred. Bass said she is in favor of further changes to tighten LAPD policies.

A recently published report by Catalyst California, a group that advocates for racial justice, found that such stops have continued to disproportionately affect Black and Latino drivers, even as the LAPD has scaled back their use over the past decade.

“Certainly, when I was younger, I experienced pretextual stops, and they are terrifying,” Bass said, adding that she believed the department’s culture was already changing. “I will tell you that as many roll calls as I’ve been to, a lot of officers already feel like they can’t do pretextual [stops] anymore — so I think there’s been progress there, but clearly more, more to go.”

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.

Reaction to Tiger Woods’ car crash and driving under the influence arrest last month ranged from sadness to dismay to exasperation. Few observers, however, expressed surprise.

Although widely recognized as perhaps the greatest golfer of all time, Woods, 50, has been in a downward spiral personally and professionally for years.

His struggles with prescription drugs became public in 2017 when police found him asleep at the wheel of his car with the engine running near his Jupiter, Fla., home. Multiple painkillers, sleep aids and THC were detected in his system. Woods checked into rehab shortly after that incident, saying his efforts to manage insomnia and pain from his staggering number of surgeries on his own was a mistake.

Now, though, he’s again in rehab, likely in Switzerland after his private jet landed in Zurich on Friday, according to reports. The latest crash is the fourth major incident involving Woods behind the wheel since 2009.

“I feel bad for Tiger,” fellow golf great Jack Nicklaus told the Palm Beach Post. “He’s been taking painkillers for a long time and I don’t know how much pain he’s in. But I don’t think he’d be taking them if he didn’t need them.”

Woods’ current pivot to recovery follows a barrage of headlines about his rollover crash and unfocused, hiccups-laden aftermath captured on police officers’ body cameras that included a phone call to President Trump, failed field sobriety tests, handcuffs and a drive to jail in the back seat of a squad car.

A vehicle rests on its side after a rollover accident involving golfer Tiger Woods along a road in Rancho Palos Verdes on Feb. 23, 2021. Woods suffered leg injuries that required surgery.

(Ringo H.W. Chiu / Associated Press)

The episode also provides an opportunity to reflect on Woods’ meteoric rise, sustained excellence and precipitous decline on the golf course, his scandal-plagued personal life and what the future might hold.

What does this latest episode say about Tiger Woods and where does he goes from here?

Prodigy to supremacy

Born Eldrick Tont Woods on Dec. 30, 1975, Tiger was given his nickname by his father, Earl, a U.S. Army lieutenant colonel and Green Beret who served in Vietnam. Earl’s combat partner was nicknamed Tiger and it was passed along.

Earl was deployed in the 1960s to the same base in Thailand where Kultida Punsawad worked as a secretary. They married and settled in the Orange County town of Cypress after the war. Tiger was their only child.

“When Tiger was 10 months old, I unstrapped him out of his high chair and he walked over and hit the ball,” Earl recalled on an HBO documentary about his son. “I said, ‘Oh my God, I’ve got something special.’ ”

Amateur Tiger Woods, right, talks with his father, Earl Woods, after practice for the Masters golf tournament at the Augusta National Golf Club in the 1990s.

(Amy Sancetta / Associated Press)

That soon became apparent to everyone. At age 5, Woods showed his golfing prowess on the television show “That’s Incredible.” At 6, he played a televised two-hole exhibition at Calabasas Country Club with legendary golfer Sam Snead, whose record of 82 PGA Tour victories would be equaled by Woods nearly 40 years later.

Life wasn’t all manicured greens. The only black child in his kindergarten class, he was tied to a tree by sixth graders, The Times’ Bill Plaschke reported. Woods played in his first national junior tournament at 13 in Texarkana, Ark., and a local reporter accused him of participating only because he wanted to integrate the local country club.

His excellence eventually stifled racism and quieted critics. As a high school sophomore in 1992, Woods became the youngest golfer to play in a PGA Tour event, shooting a one-over-par 72 at Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles.

He first hurt his back during that historic round, pulling a muscle while hitting out of deep rough. Afterward he remained on site for treatment, foreshadowing what would be a career-threatening battle with back injuries that includes seven surgeries since 2014 — several microdiscectomies, a 2017 lumbar fusion and most recently a lumbar disc replacement performed in October 2025.

“Tiger Woods’ experience with spinal disease highlights a real and under-recognized issue among modern-era golfers,” said Dr. Corey Walker of the Barrow Neurological Institute. “Tiger’s use of the mechanics of the modern-day swing places a tremendous strain on the back.”

The high-torque swing emphasizes maximum rotation of Woods’ shoulders relative to his hips. It’s tough on his spine but also results in long drives and low scores.

Bothersome backs are common among golfers. Scotland-based osteopath Gavin Routledge, who has teamed with renowned golf coach Gary Nicol in developing a treatment program for spinal injuries, views Woods’ medical history as particularly telling.

“I honestly can’t see a way out for him,” Routledge told Golfweek. “We have known for decades that once you have one disc surgery, the chances of having another are substantially higher, especially if you use the fusion technique like Tiger. It’s a domino effect.”

Woods had no such worries in the mid-1990s. Amid winning three consecutive U.S. Amateur titles, he attended Stanford but left in 1996 after two years and turned pro at 20, smiling and saying “Hello, world” at his introductory news conference.

By 2000, he became the youngest golfer to complete the career Grand Slam of winning the Tour’s four majors and only the fifth ever to do so, following Ben Hogan, Gene Sarazen, Gary Player, and Nicklaus.

His dominance accelerated quickly, and nearly every year from 1997 to 2013 he won at least four and as many as nine tournament championships. He had his first back surgery in 2014 and the victories ceased until he shocked the sports world in 2019 by winning the Masters — the tournament considered the pinnacle of golf — for the fifth time, but the first in 14 years.

Tiger Woods and caddie Steve Williams watch Woods’ chip shot teeter at the edge of the cup before dropping in the 16th hole during the final round of the 2005 Masters tournament.

(Al Tielemans / Sports Illustrated via Getty Images)

“It’s overwhelming, just because of what has transpired,” Woods said. “It’s unreal to experience this.”

A few months later he won the inaugural PGA Tour event in Japan to tie Snead’s record of 82 career titles, hoisting the trophy 23 years to the day of his first Tour title at the 1996 Las Vegas Invitational. It was his last victory.

Comeback attempts have been infrequent and unsuccessful, measured against the standards he set for decades. All the while, his injuries mounted and personal life deteriorated.

Losing his grip

Even with his career at its pinnacle and before his back became chronically balky, Woods found his way onto tabloid headlines. It all started with his first public car accident.

Woods crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a fire hydrant outside his home in Isleworth, Fla., at 2:30 a.m. Nov. 27, 2009. He was treated at a hospital with minor injuries and the incident turned out to be the culmination of a whirlwind of missteps that revealed Woods having affairs with several women outside of his marriage to Swedish model Elin Nordegren, the mother of his two children.

Additional reporting identified Woods as a regular at the Mansion, a club for high rollers at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas, where he had a $1 million betting limit and played blackjack at $25,000 a hand with NBA superstars Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley.

Woods admitted in 2010 that he had a sex addiction and spent 45 days at an inpatient program in Hattiesburg, Miss. He and Nordegren divorced.

The turmoil took a toll on Woods’ golf game for two years, but he rebounded, winning three tournaments in 2012 and five in 2013. It wasn’t until his first back surgery in 2014 that his career plummeted for good.

Research indicates that retirees who define themselves primarily through their careers are vulnerable to prolonged distress. Few have had a professional life so clearly defined and wildly successful as Woods.

Tiger Woods hits from the fairway at the Riviera Country Club during the second round of the Genesis Invitational on Friday, Feb. 16, 2024 in Pacific Palisades.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

While not officially retired — he planned to play in this week’s Masters until his rollover crash and arrest — his last PGA Tour event was the Open Championship in Scotland in July 2024.

His most formidable obstacles to another comeback might be physical. Woods walks with a limp after suffering extensive damage to his right leg and ankle from a near-fatal single-car crash in Rancho Palos Verdes in 2021. And his most serious back surgery took place only six months ago.

Woods’ more immediate concern seems to be kicking his use of addictive opioid painkillers. A judge in Martin County, Fla., granted his request to seek treatment outside the U.S. He also turned down the role of United States Ryder Cup captain in 2027.

“I know and understand the seriousness of the situation I find myself in today,” Woods said in a statement. “I am stepping away for a period of time to seek treatment and focus on my health. This is necessary in order for me to prioritize my well-being and work toward lasting recovery.

“I’m committed to taking the time needed to return to a healthier, stronger, and more focused place, both personally and professionally. I appreciate your understanding and support, and ask for privacy for my family, loved ones and myself at this time.”

What now?

Woods will continue to make a sizable impact on golf even if he never sets another ball on a tee.

He serves as Founder and CEO of TGR, a multibrand enterprise that includes a charitable foundation, a golf course design company, an events production company and an upscale restaurant, among other holdings.

His $120 million earnings from PGA Tour purses pales in comparison to what he has made in endorsements — an estimated $2 billion, most notably from Nike.

His immense popularity lined the pockets of nearly everyone associated with the PGA Tour. TV ratings skyrocketed, tournament purses spiked and he single-handedly expanded golf’s demographic appeal.

The Masters is taking place this week in Augusta, Ga. Woods, who has donned the famed green jacket given the champion five times, is on the minds of many of the golfers.

Tiger Woods celebrates after sinking his putt on the 18th green to win the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club on April 14, 2019.

(Kevin C. Cox / Getty Images)

“He was my hero growing up,” said Jason Day, a veteran pro golfer and close friend of Woods. “It must be hard to be who he is and have everyone kind of down on him.”

Later, Day added this: “The only thing I don’t understand is that it’s a bit selfish of him to drive and put other people in harm’s way as well. But when you’re the player he was and how strong-willed he is — he thinks he can do almost anything — and that’s probably why he’s driving and a little bit under the influence.”

Woods has also been on the mind of Nicklaus, at 86 the only living golfer who enjoyed anything close to the success of Woods.

“Sometimes you get too far down the line and just need somebody to help you,” he said. “I think Tiger probably needs some help. We all want to help him. We are all on his side.”

One of L.A.’s most unique art galleries is closing up shop.

Gallery 1988, which opened in 2004 and proclaimed itself “the first pop culture-focused art gallery in the world,” will cease operations at the end of April. In a post on Instagram, gallery owner Katie Sutton said that while the gallery had been forced to close its physical space on Melrose a few years back, she had “really tried to keep things going [online], especially for our amazing artists.” Unfortunately, she wrote, “the [art] market is the worst I’ve seen it in over two decades,” and the decision to close became inevitable.

A launching pad for artists whose work paid tribute to television, film, video games and more, Gallery 1988 was renowned for shows like the annual “Crazy 4 Cult,” which showcased pieces celebrating underground classics from across the entertainment space. It also specialized in single-focus shows like “Weird Al,” which celebrated the career of the oddball recording artist “Weird Al” Yankovic, and “You’re the Very Best, Like No One Ever Was,” which paid tribute to the world of Pokémon.

Exhibitions at Gallery 1988, which is closing after 20 years, often featured lines around the block, with fans who camped out for a chance to score a prized piece.

(Courtesy of Gallery 1988)

Perhaps most famously, the gallery collaborated with studios to create art-focused campaigns around properties such as “The Avengers” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” while also launching solo shows from artists like Scott C, Luke Chueh and Tom Whalen.

Gallery 1988 was renowned for selling work that ranged in price from $10 into the thousands, enabling customers from around the world to buy pieces that spoke to them, whether a postcard-sized digital print or a large oil-on-canvas painting.

A number of other galleries have closed in recent months across Los Angeles, including Blum, Nino Mier Gallery, Clearing, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and L.A. Louver. Sutton says that she’s heard through the gallery grapevine that “even galleries that haven’t closed are struggling,” adding that “it’s a hard time for everybody.”

Though there’s never one reason a business closes, some industry observers and art fans have cited the rise in AI-generated content potentially devaluing original art overall. It’s especially true in the pop culture space, with consumer activity down not just at places like Gallery 1988 but also at events such as WonderCon in Anaheim, where artists could often expect to make a good chunk of change.

Jensen Karp, who co-founded Gallery 1988 with Sutton but stepped back after a health scare nearly two years ago, says that while he certainly sees a “malaise in culture because of AI” that’s indicative of the population “losing the understanding of what true art is,” he wouldn’t attribute the collapse of Gallery 1988 solely to that one thing.

Kristin Tercek “Rejoice” 2015 for the “Force Awakens” show with Disney, LucasFilm and Unicef at Gallery 1988.

(© Kristin Tercek / courtesy of Gallery 1988)

“Our customer base was the people who looked up release dates and who went to the Arclight, and that sense of community is just not there anymore post-pandemic,” Karp says. With the entertainment industry struggling in L.A. as well, that means less disposable income floating around for things like art — especially from the kinds of people who might be inclined to buy a portrait of, say, Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk.”

Greg Simkins, a California based artist who often sold through Gallery 1988 under the name “CRAOLA,” says he’s felt the impact of the entertainment industry’s contraction firsthand. “People like directors, producers and actors were some of our biggest clients,” Simkins says. “All of the sudden they’re leaving, going to places like Atlanta and Canada. AI is screwing up the movie industry too, and those are the kinds of people who had expendable money to buy original art so it trickles down.”

It doesn’t help that there’s more pop culture-centered art floating around now, and not just on sites like Instagram and Etsy. Though Gallery 1988 was a frontrunner in celebrating popular culture through art when it opened, even hosting a “Rick and Morty”-themed show before the Adult Swim series had a lick of merchandise, it also became a proof of concept for companies including Disney and Netflix, which have started selling their own artist-created material inspired by their properties.

And with Hollywood releasing fewer movies into theaters, the base of what Gallery 1988 artists could pay tribute to also began to contract. Frequent gallery contributor Whalen says that when Gallery 1988 opened, it was filling a niche and “creating fresh content for movies that spoke to” people in their 20s and 30s. Over time, though, art that celebrated properties like “Ghostbusters,” “Back to the Future” and “The Goonies” started to overwhelm the market, causing “a lot of the 1970s and ‘80s movies to become stale,” Whalen says.

Scott C’s “Breaking Bad Upon the Mount,” 2012, for the “Breaking Bad Art Project: With Sony and Vince Gilligan” at Gallery 1988.

(© Scott C. / courtesy of Gallery 1988)

While Sutton and Karp both say they’re beyond grateful that they got to open Gallery 1988 in the first place, let alone keep it open for more than 20 years, they’re worried about what closing the gallery will mean to some of their contributing artists.

“There are so many incredible artists out there and there are so many more places for them to show their work now and that’s amazing,” Sutton says. “But with that bombardment of media from everywhere, it’s hard to really see stuff because it’s coming at you from all directions. So many artists are out there trying to make a living and support their families and that’s just becoming harder and harder.”

“So many of the artists we showed never expected to have an art gallery email them,” Karp says. “I’m so proud of all the artists we worked with and what we were able to do, but I also know that [Gallery 1988 shutting down] closes up an avenue for all of them too and that sucks.”

A HUGE Eden Project attraction has finally confirmed a new opening date – and it will be the newest in 25 years.

Eden Project Morecambe will overlook Morecambe Bay in Lancaster, and will be the first new Eden Project since the one in Cornwall opened in 2001.

It has now confirmed it will open its first phase in early 2027, followed by a full opening in 2028.

It comes after the new attraction appointed contractor VINCI Building for the next stage of development and construction.

Overall, the North West-based Eden Project is set to cost £100million and the first phases, which will be 1.5 acres of landscaped gardens, will open early next year.

The public will be able to get a sneak peak at the free-to-enter Bring Me Sunshine Garden at the 2026 RHS Chelsea Flower Show, before it relocates to Morecambe permanently.

Read more on travel inspo

CHEAP BREAKS

UK’s best 100 cheap stays – our pick of the top hotels, holiday parks and pubs

By 2028, visitors will be able to explore two shell-inspired structures that will house “immersive ‘Realms’ exploring humanity’s relationship with the natural world”.

In the Realm of the Sun, visitors can expect “a bright, tropical landscape of the near future where humans have discovered how to heal and re-engage with the broken rhythms of the natural world around them”.

Details previously mentioned include hanging plants and mini gardens, a multi-sensory area, a cascading waterfall, a 20-metre Elder Tree sculpture and a ‘Town Square’.

The ‘Realm’ is also planned to adapt to both the hot and cold seasons.

Then inside the Realm of the Moon visitors can explore a darker space, with a “hyper-real rock pool” that has sped-up cycles of tides.

Between the two realms, there is expected to be an area called Metronome, where visitors will purchase entry tickets.

There will be a 750-capacity Tidal Theatre, a 300-capacity restaurant and a shop at the attraction as well.

Once the attraction is open, visitors will be able to interact with different exhibits as well as participate in a number of workshops.

Eight concerts or events are also planned for the attraction each summer, aiming to attract around 6,000 people.

Eden Project Morecambe will bring around £80million to the local area as well as hundreds of jobs.  

Changes to the project were announced back in February after both residents and councillors raised concerns over the impact it would have on some of the nearby landmarks such as the Midland Hotel and Winter Gardens venue.

From the updated plans, changes were also made to ensure there would be more outside areas with coastal plants, as well as links to animal and human life.

And to prevent flood damage to the attraction, there will be a sea defence area that will wrap around the site and feature raised walkways.

When plans were originally approved in 2022 the attraction was set to feature four domes and it was set to open in 2026 – though this has now been pushed back.

The attraction will sit on the site of the former Bubbles Leisure Complex.

John Pye, project director for Eden Project Morecambe, said: “VINCI Building’s appointment marks an exciting acceleration for Eden Project Morecambe.

“Their technical capability, deep roots in the North West and strong commitment to sustainability and social value make them a powerful partner as we move towards breaking ground later this year.

“This is a nationally significant project for Morecambe and for the region and this latest milestone brings us another step closer to realising that vision.”

Gary Hughes, regional director at VINCI Building, said: “Our team brings extensive experience in delivering complex cultural and environmental projects and we are committed to placing local people, local businesses and local supply chains at the heart of delivery.”

This isn’t the only new Eden Project site set to open in the UK – there are also plans to open an Eden Project in Dundee.

The project was first announced back in 2020 and is set to cost £130million.

In other attraction news, here are the 20 most-visited attractions in England that are completely free to enter.

Plus, here are our favourite old-fashioned English seaside resorts – with quaint promenades and retro beach huts.