year

Aaron Rodgers recently shared photos of himself with his parents and one of his brothers on social media.

While that’s something that a lot of people do, the Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback is a very private person who has never even posted a photo of his wife online.

Rodgers also has been estranged from his parents and brothers for quite some time now.

Those relationships appear to be on the mend, however, after the 22-year NFL veteran took to Instagram on Monday and posted several seemingly recent family pictures — including one of him with his arm around his father Ed, another with his arm around his mother Darla and others of him interacting with older brother Luke.

“Another bonding week,” Rodgers wrote, adding the hashtag #fam.

It was only his fourth Instagram post in more than two years. Luke Rodgers responded in the comment section with two heart emojis.

Rodgers spent 18 seasons with the Green Bay Packers, winning Super Bowl and four league MVP awards before playing two seasons with the New York Jets. The upcoming season will be his second with the Steelers and, he has said, his final one in the NFL.

The rift with his family members was made public in 2016 when younger brother Jordan Rodgers was a contestant on “The Bachlorette.” On one episode, Jordan Rodgers told his now-wife JoJo Fletcher that his famous brother has chosen to live his life in a certain way, “I chose to stay close with my family and my parents and my [other] brother.”

On another episode featuring other members of the Rodgers family (with a conspicuous absence), Luke Rodgers said: “It pains both of us, like, not to have that relationship [with Aaron] — we miss our brother. I trust that God brings things full circle and that everything would just get back to us being a family.”

Weeks later at Packers training camp, Rodgers was asked about the subject.

“I’ve always found that it’s a little inappropriate to talk publicly about some family matters, so I’m just —I’m not going to speak on those things,” Rodgers said, “but I wish him well in the competition.”

He added: “I haven’t seen the show, to be honest with you, so it hasn’t really affected me a whole lot.”

Ed Rodgers confirmed to the New York Times in 2017 that Rodgers hadn’t spoken to his family since late 2014, soon after the quarterback started dating actress Olivia Munn (the couple broke up in 2017).

In the 2024 Netflix docuseries “Aaron Rodgers: Enigma,” the 10-time Pro Bowl selection said he had never been “super duper close” with anyone in his family, except for Jordan Rodgers earlier on. He attributed the rift to a number of things, including his parents’ religious beliefs, sibling rivalries and his family’s reaction to his fame.

“I don’t wish any ill will on them at all,” Rodgers said. “It’s more like this, we’re just different steps in the timeline of our own journeys.”

The ice seemed to have started to thaw between the family members in recent years. According to the 2024 biography “Out of the Darkness: The Mystery of Aaron Rodgers” by Ian O’Connor, Ed Rodgers bought a ticket to a 2023 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe with the hope of possibly coming face to face with his son, who was a participant in the event, for the first time in nine years.

Rodgers saw his father in the crowd and tracked him down. The two of them embraced and said, “I love you.”

“That was a special moment,” Aaron told O’Connor.

O’Connor wrote Tuesday on X that Rodgers invited his parents to his Pleasant Valley High (Chico) Hall of Fame induction in April, then introduced them to the crowd and thanked them for their support.

Labaran Kaduna says his son, Desire, was unlucky in life. Two months after Desire’s white wedding in Rigange, a small Bachama community in the Lamurde local government area of Adamawa State, northeastern Nigeria, his newly built house was burnt to the ground when the Tshobo and Bachama tribes first clashed in July, 2025. A year later, Desire himself was killed in the same conflict that remains unresolved. 

Desire had provided HumAngle with materials and information about the conflict last year, in an effort to bring awareness to the violence, as though he knew that it would one day claim his life too.

Labaran speaks about his late son with a sad smile on his face and pride etched in his voice: “He was a university graduate. Since he was yet to secure a white-collar job, he joined me in farming and soon had his own large farm.”

Desire was 36 years old.

“He had a bad leg which made it difficult for him to walk very fast or run, so when our community was attacked that night, people fled and left him behind,” said Labaran. 

HumAngle gathered that a group of armed men stormed the Rigange community on the night of June 27 and opened fire on people. Labaran believes the men were members of an armed militia and that several of them had been storming the area to wreak havoc since the communal crisis began. That night, many fled, leaving Desire limping behind. 

“His brother survived the attack, so he ran home to inform us. When we reached the spot, we realised that he had been shot dead, and after shooting him, they took all his belongings, like his phone and wallet. They even took his shoes,” the grieving father said. 

A lot can happen in a year 

Desire is one of the many who have lost their lives in the Lamurde communal clash. HumAngle has been unable to obtain the total number of casualties, as efforts to reach Suleiman Nguroje, the Adamawa State Police Public Relations Officer, have failed. He has neither responded to phone calls nor replied to text messages sent to his phone.

In 2025, HumAngle extensively documented the violent land dispute that shattered daily life in Lamurde. The clash, which began in July 2025, forced many locals to flee the area, while those who remained lamented being trapped in their communities, unable to move freely. Access to healthcare and other social services became difficult, especially for Tshobo communities, which had long depended on clinics in Lamurde town, a Bachama stronghold. The most affected communities remain Rigange, Waduku, Wammi, Sabon Layi, and Sikori. A total of 53 houses were destroyed that year while 170 homes were partially damaged.  Despite several peace talks and reconciliation efforts by the government and stakeholders, both tribes continue to clash. 

“Desire was kind and hardworking. He had two little children. Last year, he married their mother in church, but unfortunately, he was not lucky to see them grow,” Labaran said. 

Rosaline Danladi, a Tshobo woman from Anguwan Baki, one of the affected communities in Lamurde, bears the scars of the year-long conflict. Her husband, Danladi, was killed when the tribes clashed in December 2025. Danladi was a farmer who left behind his wife and seven children. 

“We were in the room that night when we heard gunshots, so my husband stepped out while I ran with the children in another direction. We waited for his return, but he never came back,” Rosaline recalled.

Danladi’s remains were later found, and he was buried. Rosaline explained that she has been struggling to keep up with her children’s needs months after his demise because she was a full-time housewife who had always relied on her husband. 

“I am just managing to take care of the children. Two were in a boarding school in Numan while the smaller ones were in a private school here, but they have all recently dropped out,” she said. 

Rosaline said 2025 had been an unfortunate year for her and many in the Lamurde area. Sadly, the conflict has persisted into 2026, and new waves continue to rise. 

Speaking to HumAngle, Jonah John, a security analyst in Adamawa, stressed that the impact of the crisis can not be overemphasised. Apart from deaths, property losses, and displacement, he noted that the closure of the famous Tingo market in the region has affected businesses, leading to a hike in the cost of foodstuffs across Adamawa. 

Fallen classrooms

When both tribes started clashing in June 2025, schools, clinics, and other social services closed temporarily across the affected Lamurde communities. Even though clinics and administrative activities have now resumed, children in communities such as Tingno and Rigange remain out of school. 

HumAngle spoke to Celestine Bafyau, the principal of the Government Day Secondary School in Rigange. He said the school serves almost 300 students from both Bachama and Tshobo communities. 

“We have students from Bashaka, Lamurde, and other Rigange areas,” he stated.

The school was burnt down during the July 2025 clash and has remained deserted to date. To ensure the children don’t miss out on learning, Celestine said, teachers utilised the nearby primary school, but with many students displaced and others who had completely fled town, it became hard to keep up.

According to the principal, students from JSS 3 and SS3 are currently using the primary school block to write their final examinations, and, due to the large number, some are writing theirs under a nearby tree. At the same time, those in JSS1, JSS2, SS1, and SS2 remain out of school. 

“I have taken pictures of the school attached to a report and submitted it to the education board in Yola because we need help,” he stated. 

Celestine noted that teachers are eager to resume teaching.  “Honestly, my staff are ready, and they are disturbed. We do go to school sometimes to check it, but most of the students have relocated to other communities. If there’s peace, we will call them so we can teach them,” he said. 

When the crisis began in July, several people were killed, and many were displaced. In December, another bout of violence erupted between the two tribes and eight people were killed in Lamurde town. Despite three peace deals, a fresh wave of terror occurred in January when three women in the area were attacked and killed on their farm. On June 27, the attack that claimed Desire’s life happened. 

According to the security analyst, Lamurde’s security architecture is very weak. 

“The deployment of the security forces should be treated with a great sense of importance, looking at the fact that it’s the sole responsibility of the government to safeguard and to protect the lives and property of its citizens, but the government has failed totally. That is the only reason why things keep repeating themselves over and over again,” he stressed.  

Locals told HumAngle that security officers deployed to the area had since withdrawn. Youths and local vigilante groups now take turns to patrol the area. 

Both parties have accused each other of using armed militias to fight. Jonah, the security analyst, explained that both parties illegally acquired rifles and other unlicensed weapons to intimidate each other. 

“If they cannot stand the pressure or tension on the other hand, they will have to employ the service of militia,” he warned.

The cause of the Lamurde clash has been linked to land ownership, with both tribes claiming possession of the same land. HumAngle gathered that both parties were instructed by the state government and members of the peace committee to forfeit the land. Yet, the clashes continued. 

There are claims across social media that the land both parties have been clashing over contains mineral resources. While some claim it is gold, others call it ‘mineral’. HumAngle learned that it is clay-like in nature.  

“They brought it home as a sample for me to see. So, it’s like clay. Even if I see it, I can just pass. I wouldn’t even know that it’s important or something. So, they say the men have been packing them in large quantities. And then, actually, Tshobo has never been benefiting from it at all,” Hyginus Mangu, the Tshobo community leader, told HumAngle. 

The controversial mine 

Hyginus said the mine in question lies far away from the town and is in no way affiliated with the land in dispute.  “For me, personally, I don’t know where the spot is, but I do know that there are some people who used to do some mining there, and the people are not Tshobo people. I don’t know how they get to that area to mine,” the Tshobo community leader said. 

He added that the miners were from Gombe State and had been mining in the area before the crisis began.

Jacob Bawa, the Youth leader of Rigange, a Bachama community in Lamurde, corroborated Hyginus’s claim. According to him, the mine is far away from the main town and is not affiliated with the disputed land. Jacob also claimed that locals from the Bachama community do not benefit from the mine. 

Jacob maintained that he had never been to the mine, as it was only recently publicly discovered, even though it had been operating illegally for years. 

HumAngle could not access the mine or obtain pictures of the mineral, as access is highly restricted.  

On June 30, Adamawa State Governor Ahmadu Fintiri banned illegal mining in Lamurde Local Government Area following speculations that the mining was fueling the crisis between the two tribes. Security agencies were directed to ensure strict compliance. The Governor assured locals of securing sustainable peace and addressing the root causes of the Lamurde conflict. 

Jonah, the security analyst, emphasised that allegations that the mine is driving the recurring conflict in Lamurde should be taken seriously by the government and other relevant stakeholders. Although most miners come from Gombe State to extract the minerals, Jonah believes the illegal miners engage Lamurde residents as labourers, who end up clashing over land and resources. He called on locals to shun violence and desist from being used as puppets by the miners who are taking advantage of their home. 

Even though access to farmlands and clinics has improved for the Tshobo people, Hyginus said they still don’t have access to administrative and business services in Lamurde town due to fear of being attacked. 

In Rigange, Jacob Bawa, the youth leader, says life is hard for Bachama locals who stayed behind because they have nowhere else to go. “We are suffering because most of the people have run to neighbouring communities like Numan and Yola. Also, we don’t have mosquito nets or tents because most of the houses here were burnt down,” he said. 

HumAngle gathered that the Lamurde main route is partly closed, and travellers can barely access the area. 

According to Jonah, the use of social media by both parties to spread hate speech and misinformation also re-fuels the crisis. 

“So if the government can put an order, just like the federal government did, any hate speech from each other should equally be dealt with,” he said. 

What lies ahead?

The security analyst calls on the government and stakeholders to secure the people of Lamurde. He also advised the locals to embrace peace and live together as they’ve always done, especially with intermarriages that have occurred between them for centuries. 

“All those people that are hiring all these militias or whatever, please, they should stop that. At the end of every crisis, only the women and the children suffer the most. So honestly, they should look at the future of their children, the future of their local government and the future of their tribes,” he said. 

While Rosaline and Desire’s father continue to bear the burden of grief, they are uncertain of what lies ahead for other grieving families and displaced locals of Lamurde. Rosaline says she’s struggling to get by each day and is doing her best to make sure her children are provided for.  However, she fears another night might come when the clashes will recur as the matter remains unsettled and with her husband gone, she’s not sure if she could cope with another attack.

Labaran (Desire’s father) has a large family. With four wives, 16 children and many grandchildren, he said the family had never been apart. They lived together in their large family home in Rigange. Now, he says, his family is scattered because some of his daughters-in-law had gone to their families for safety. While some of his sons remain in Rigange, guarding what’s left of their household, Labaran has moved with the others to Numan local government, where they are currently staying with a relative. 

“My children built a big apartment, and it was all burnt to the ground. My son-in-law then built a new house for me, and it was burned too. Approximately 13 houses were burnt in my extended family,” the man said. 

But none of those losses, he said, can be compared to the loss of his son, Desire. 

“Just peace. I want peace. We are in a difficult situation at the moment,” he said.

On stage at Red Rocks Amphitheatre in Colorado, a far cry from the sweaty basement punk shows of the band’s early days, Jimmy Eat World played breakthrough power pop hit “The Middle” as the sold-out crowd sang along with the final chorus that “everything will be all right, all right.”

“It really is incredible to us to think about everyone who bothered to spend time with this record and made something of it for themselves over 25 years. This is your guys’ record as much as it’s ours, really,” singer-guitarist Jim Adkins said from the stage.

The band, which has generally shied away from nostalgia plays over its 30-plus year career, is performing the platinum-selling “Bleed American” album in its entirety on tour this summer, including a stop at Warped Tour in Long Beach on Saturday, a matching bookend to the band’s original promotion of the album.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

“It solidified us as, ‘This is what we do. Let the day job go.’ It turned into full-time rock and roll. And that moment only happens once, so it felt appropriate to honor it at 25,” bassist Rick Burch said backstage before the band’s Brooklyn tour stop in June.

Released on July 24, 2001, “Bleed American” was one of the last great rock records of the monoculture, arriving months before Apple’s iPod launched and made shuffle the default and 15 years before streaming became the dominant way to consume music.

“When ‘Bleed American’ took off it was right at the transition of the internet,” says Jim Adkins.

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

A hit with Hollywood roots

Just over a quarter of a century ago, four guys from Mesa, Ariz., came to L.A. to record their fourth album.

Jimmy Eat World’s Adkins, Burch, drummer Zach Lind and guitarist Tom Linton earned recording money between tours by working construction, driving around car dealership customers and selling art supplies and auto parts.

The band had cut ties with Capitol Records after 1999’s “Clarity” — a sweeping, lush and highly influential work highly regarded by their contemporaries that would inspire third-wave emo superstars including My Chemical Romance, Fall Out Boy and Paramore — that the major label had no idea how to market, even after “Lucky Denver Mint” got pickup on L.A.’s alt rock tastemaker KROQ-FM.

“If that song would have been on ‘Bleed American,’ that would have been a No. 1 song,” said Jim Suptic, of Kansas-based second-wave emo band the Get Up Kids, who have been on the “Bleed American” anniversary run. Suptic said that he was inspired to start the band after seeing Jimmy Eat World live in the mid-’90s.

With the band’s tight budget, producer Mark Trombino, who produced “Clarity” and predecessor “Static Prevails,” worked with the band for free in L.A., banking on the future success of the album. After recording drums at Cherokee Studios, the band relocated to Harddrive Analog & Digital Recording in North Hollywood to make the bulk of “Bleed American.”

“The studio was so small, it didn’t have a lounge,” Lind recalled.

But there was a bus stop outside they used instead, where they would hang out with “an assortment of characters,” Adkins said.

He and Lind commuted to the Valley from Redondo Beach, where they crashed on the floor of Lind’s brother’s place. Linton fondly remembers the great food in the city and hanging out with friends in other bands while Burch spent downtime skateboarding in L.A.

Even without the cash or support from a label, recording “Bleed American” didn’t feel like a do-or-die moment for the band’s future.

“We just kind of figured we might have to go out and just release this ourselves. Let’s just do the best job we can, and be happy with what we put out,” Linton said.

But with the buzz growing around the new music, record labels came calling.

‘The Middle’ meets the moment

By the time the album dropped in July 2001, the guitar-heavy snarling title track of “Bleed American” had already been in regular rotation on alt-rock stations for a month.

After a stint on the Warped Tour, Jimmy Eat World set out on a U.S. headlining tour in the fall, with Hey Mercedes opening.

“I remember that tour in particular, them sort of really finding their confidence in their voice and their shows and their performance and the whole package. And this was before ‘The Middle’ really broke, but I could tell that they were really firing on all cylinders,” said Hey Mercedes singer-guitarist Bob Nanna, whose influential emo group Braid first played with Jimmy Eat World in 1998.

The album landed on the Billboard charts three weeks after its release, and while its peak position was 31, it remained on the chart for 70 weeks. (A couple of months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, the name of the album was changed to “Jimmy Eat World” on pressings before reverting to the original title in 2008.)

“When ‘Bleed American’ took off it was right at the transition of the internet,” Adkins said.

By 2002, “Bleed American” was taking off due to the popularity of the song “The Middle.”

(Scott Gries / Getty Images)

The media landscape hadn’t yet transformed. Rock music magazines like Spin, NME, Alternative Press and Kerrang! were thriving. The band made the rounds on the late-night talk shows as “The Middle” video clip played on MTV’s popular show “Total Request Live.”

“Things hadn’t splintered out into a zillion niche locations just quite yet,” Adkins said.

By March 2002, “The Middle” had hit the Billboard charts, where it climbed to No. 5 by the summer and spent 33 weeks on the Hot 100.

“They were a real band that had a radio hit, and not a radio band reverse engineered,” the Get Up Kids’ Suptic said.

The success was surreal for the band members as they heard the song on the radio, in restaurants and the gym. Today, you can still summon an entire generation with the opening guitar melody.

“I understand why that song has resonated,” Lind said. “I think there’s a few themes in the album that resonate with people in times when things are going tough. You know, ‘The Middle’ is definitely one of those songs that so many people have found encouragement from, whether they’re dealing with a breakup or going through cancer.”

“It seems like one of those songs that people have used to feel better and I think that’s obviously really powerful.”

“It solidified us as, ‘This is what we do. Let the day job go.’ It turned into full-time rock and roll,” says bassist Rick Burch about the success of “Bleed American.”

(Evelyn Freja / For The Times)

Here we are now

But the fans selling out the tour dates around the U.S. know much more than the hits, singing along to the deep cuts after traveling hundreds of miles to get to the show, in some cases.

Fans traveled from states like Michigan and Texas for the tour kickoff at Red Rocks in Colorado.

Robie O’Donnell took the train up to New York from the Washington, D.C., area to take his 12-year-old daughter to her first Jimmy Eat World show. The Brooklyn show was his 25th after he discovered them in the late ‘90s from a recommendation on the Get Up Kids’ website.

Behind him in line hours before doors opened was Jane Kung, who was only 8 when “Bleed American” was released and got into it when she was in high school. She didn’t want to miss the chance to hear it live.

“The fact that so many people wanted to come see this is something I didn’t expect,” Adkins said about the tour.

The fans get a chance to geek out over the rarely-played deep cuts from the album, like “Your House,” which required a revamp because of the studio work on the song, and the live debut of “(Splash) Turn Twist,” which was on the Japanese import of the album. Even louder than the sing-along to “The Middle” is the call and response from the crowd on the album’s second-biggest hit, “Sweetness.”

“Having this piece that we’ve created be embraced by so many is a very accomplished feeling,” Burch said.

Nanna even ventured into the crowd after Hey Mercedes opened the Brooklyn show, singing along to “A Praise Chorus,” the band’s crunchy guitar-filled love letter to rock music, among others.

“The world is a tough, s— place now and to have these moments where everybody can sing along to something that’s just pure joy was really soul enriching,” he said.

After U.S. strikes on Iran’s largest nuclear facilities last year, both President Trump and the White House were adamant that the Middle East nation’s nuclear program had been destroyed.

“Monumental Damage was done to all Nuclear sites in Iran, as shown by satellite images. Obliteration is an accurate term!” Trump wrote on social media.

“Iran’s Nuclear Facilities Have Been Obliterated — and Suggestions Otherwise are Fake News,” the White House wrote in a press release.

A year later, the U.S. and Iran are five months into a war Trump said would be over in weeks. Iran has gained leverage by seizing control of the Strait of Hormuz, a vital energy corridor, and the U.S. has been forced to the negotiating table as global gas prices have spiked — including again this week after a ceasefire agreement collapsed.

And Trump — facing mounting criticism that he has pushed the U.S. into another “forever war” despite campaigning on doing exactly the opposite — is leaning back into the notion that Iran presents an unacceptable nuclear threat and strikes are needed, namely at another Iranian nuclear facility known as Pickaxe Mountain.

“Pickaxe is a possible target for a nice big fat shot right near the front door,” the president recently said on “The Hugh Hewitt Show.” “We’re going to take out Pickaxe Mountain. Tell the Iranians to be ready.”

Pickaxe, a heavily fortified facility deep underground that would be difficult to penetrate even with powerful “bunker buster” bombs, was not targeted during last year’s 12 Day War between Iran and the U.S. and Israel, nor in the full-scale war of the last five months.

However, it is less than two miles from Natanz, one of Iran’s primary nuclear enrichment facilities, which was struck both last year and this year. On Monday, the Wall Street Journal reported that Israeli intelligence believes Iran moved thousands of uranium-enrichment centrifuges into Pickaxe last fall — bolstering its ability to reconstitute a nuclear program that threatens the U.S. and regional allies.

Trump’s sudden focus on Pickaxe as a suspected hub of Iranian nuclear activity, which comes as his administration is trying to justify its continued entanglement in its unpopular war there, is an acknowledgment that two prior military campaigns and years of attempted diplomacy by his administration have failed to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

Few experts ever bought into the Trump administration’s claims that Iran’s nuclear program had been completely destroyed, and even Trump and his closest allies have walked some of those comments back — including in discussions about Iran’s ability to retrieve and repurpose enriched material buried at Natanz and other targeted sites.

Some experts have cited construction activity around Pickaxe as evidence Iran is continuing to develop the facility in violation of recent agreements with the U.S., but have said the exact nature of the work isn’t known. They’ve also wondered if the Trump administration intends to use the work there to lay the groundwork for a broader, boots-on-the-ground war effort that would be unpopular in the U.S. but necessary to truly accomplish Trump’s stated goal of ending Iran’s nuclear program for good.

The Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington-based think tank, said last week that it wasn’t clear “if Iran still plans on installing a large-scale assembly facility” at Pickaxe Mountain “given the destruction of Iran’s centrifuge program,” but “if Iran starts to rebuild its centrifuge manufacturing capability, it could plan to install a smaller centrifuge assembly facility in Pickaxe Mountain able to serve a nuclear weapons program.”

The space under the mountain, the institute said, may be “large enough to also hold a centrifuge enrichment plant capable of producing weapon-grade uranium” and is “likely large enough to also hold certain nuclear weaponization activities such as making weapon-grade uranium metal and shaping it into nuclear weapon components.”

Retired Army Gen. Joseph Votel, the former head of U.S. Central Command, told The Times that Iran has had a substantial amount of time to relocate equipment since the bombings of last year and has “demonstrated that they are savvy on these kinds of things,” and the U.S. “should be serious about it and try to confirm the intelligence.”

And “if there have been centrifuges that have been moved there and are underground and spinning and developing nuclear bomb grade materials,” he said, “we should be very, very concerned about that.”

Benjamin Radd, a political scientist and senior fellow at the UCLA Burkle Center for International Relations, said it is true that Iran is continuing its enrichment program in clandestine ways that present an ongoing threat and that “the war is not going the way the president wanted.” He also said Iran’s activity around Pickaxe helps Trump justify the war — and its possible expansion.

Radd said Iran has used the war to block independent inspections of its nuclear facilities by the International Atomic Energy Agency and reconstituted some of its nuclear capabilities in the process, including as talks with the U.S. shifted from its nuclear program to the Strait of Hormuz.

Trump and the U.S., meanwhile, have “vacillated” between trying to “manage” the Iranian nuclear program by reining in enrichment, to trying to “neutralize” the program with targeted attacks on its nuclear infrastructure. Radd said that “even though his rhetoric is there,” Trump hasn’t had “the resolve or the ability or the mandate” to move to fully eliminate Iran’s nuclear program, because that would require “much more forceful intervention” than the American public is willing to accept, such as U.S. troops on the ground in Iran.

He said he wonders now if the president’s talk about Pickaxe is part of a shift in that direction — or at least threatening it — after Trump and his advisors realized that the current cycle of war, negotiations and then more war is giving Iran the time it needs to reconstitute its nuclear program.

“I’m wondering if that is just a threat, or if it’s a genuine option that the president is actually considering,” Radd said.

Under Senate questioning Tuesday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth declined to say whether American bombs were capable of destroying whatever is under Pickaxe Mountain.

ESPN’s 30 for 30 will launch the first two of six podcast episodes July 28 examining the gambling scandal that resulted in Shohei Ohtani‘s interpreter Ippei Mizuhara going to prison for stealing nearly $17 million from the baseball superstar and gambling it away.

The podcast, titled “The Betrayal of Shohei Ohtani” is told by Tisha Thompson, the ESPN investigative reporter who led the outlet’s groundbreaking coverage in March 2024.

Ohtani, who signed a record 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers in December 2023 after playing six years with the Angels, apparently trusted Mizuhara implicitly. He said he was unaware that the interpreter regularly ransacked his bank account for more than two years.

The podcast will recount Mizuhara’s life before he began working for Ohtani in 2013 when both were with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters in Japan. When Ohtani moved to the United States to play for the Angels in 2018, Mizuhara came with him.

Thompson interviews childhood friends and colleagues of Mizuhara, but the interview that will generate the greatest interest is a 90-minute phone call she had with him 16 hours before she published the story. Thompson got permission from Mizuhara to tape the call and it remains the only interview he has given.

Mizuhara told her that Ohtani had helped him pay off his gambling debts, a story he recanted a day later. The Dodgers fired him the same day they opened the 2024 season with a game against the San Diego Padres in Seoul, South Korea.

IRS special agent Chris Seymour gave Thompson the first interview of his career, and what he and prosecutors say about Mizuhara’s motive goes beyond the narrative that he had a gambling addiction, according to ESPN.

Another interview by Thompson is with bookmaker Mathew Bowyer, who explains on tape that his relationship with Mizuhara began during a hotel poker game with Angels players. Bowyer pleaded guilty last year to running an illegal gambling business, money laundering and filing a false tax return. He was sentenced to 12 months and one day in prison and ordered to pay $1.6 million in restitution to the IRS.

Episodes one and two — “The Letter O” and “The Interview” — will debut July 28, followed by episodes dropping every Tuesday and Thursday through Aug. 11.

THE Only Way Is Essex stars Dan Edgar and Chloe Lewis have been spotted together for the very first time – following a year-long secret romance.

Dan, 36, reportedly reconnected with former co-star Chloe, 35, at Georgia Kousolou and Tommy Mallet‘s second wedding in Majorca.

The pair stepped out together at Tonic Terrace in Bournemouth and posed for the camera.

The venue posted on Instagram: “Amazing to have @chloelewis91 & @danedgar pop in and see us on Saturday night 🤍

“Hope you enjoyed your cocktails and come back and see us soon!”

Speaking on his new girlfriend Chloe, who was on the show between 2015 and 2019, Dan said previously: “She’s very understanding and very grown up as a person anyway.

star’s update

Bobby Norris reveals he’s back in hospital – months after face and neck lift

awful ordeal

TOWIE’s Jordan Brook reveals that doctors told him he might have brain cancer

“She’s done the show before and she’s understanding of how it all works.”

It comes as Dan and Chloe previously soft-launched their romance back in May.

Dan shared a slew of images on Instagram and captioned them: “A very different few days in ibiza mixed with a first look at some newness we have coming from the brand. Recharged and ready to go.”

In what appeared to be their first interaction on social media, Chloe replied with a sweet heart hands emoji beneath Dan’s post.

Fans were then thrilled when Dan liked her post and flocked to comment.

One wrote: “Love this love you 2.”

Another said: “Finally, a confirmation.”

A third added: “Love Chloe and Dan together. @chloelewis91 is stunning, and seems like such a kind person too.”

MUNICH, Germany — Nicholas Brownlee had just fallen in love with opera and was eager to see if his emerging bass-baritone voice could handle Richard Wagner’s music. It did not go well.

“I kept reading how you have to wait to sing this big repertoire,” Brownlee said. But there was one bit of Wagner — Wolfram’s “Song to the Evening Star” from “Tannhäuser” — that’s “a little bit lighter. I figured it was more appropriate.”

So he brought it to his teacher, Thomas Rowell, at the University of South Alabama and asked what he thought.

“I just laughed at him and told him to go away,” Rowell recalled. “He knew that big voice was there, and he was so eager to try on the clothes, but they didn’t fit for a while. It was still a very young instrument.”

Reminded of that exchange nearly 20 years later, Brownlee smiles. “I was a bit ambitious,” he said. “But this was just me.”

Now that ambition — what he calls “a fire in my belly that burns brighter every day,” — has helped propel Brownlee to the very top of his profession at age 37. And he’s done it by singing a lot of Wagner.

Brownlee recently made his debut as Wotan, embattled king of the gods, in “Die Walküre” at the Bavarian State Opera House, part two of a complete “Ring” cycle directed by Tobias Kratzer. He had previously sung the role in “Das Rheingold,” the opera that opens the cycle.

The critics reached for superlatives. “A heroic baritone straight out of a textbook,” wrote Markus Thiel in Merkur, “with a powerful, resonant voice, a force of nature.” Carlota Moseguí in Platea Magazine praised his voice and said Brownlee “possesses all the qualities to become the definitive Wotan of his generation.”

Next, Brownlee heads to the Wagner shrine in Bayreuth, Germany, where he will star as the title character in “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman.”) And his upcoming season is one Wotan after another.

“It’ll be ‘Siegfried’ time in Munich, then ‘Walküre’ time in Buenos Aires, then ‘Rheingold’ time in Barcelona,” he said. Add to that two of the “Ring” operas in Frankfurt and then two complete cycles next summer back in Munich.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime thing to have a student who goes that far, especially from a small regional state university like ours,” said Rowell, who remains close friends with Brownlee and officiated his wedding to mezzo-soprano Jennifer Feinstein. “I have to pinch myself. I’m enjoying it vicariously.”

Does Brownlee worry at all about damaging his voice from so much heavy singing?

“I don’t think you’re supposed to say this, but no, not really,” he replied. “We like to put this big stamp on Wagner and say ‘Be Careful!’” But he said he finds the demands of each opera different enough to help him avoid burnout.

Still, he promises that his roles the following season will be more varied, including a return to one of his favorites — Baron Scarpia in Puccini’s “Tosca.” And down the road are two Verdi roles — the villainous Iago in “Otello” and the comic Falstaff.

Of the latter, he said, “I want to flex a different muscle. I talk fast, I’m a bubbly, fun guy, but what I do on stage is so serious all the time. Boy it would be fun to just be a jolly fat guy!”

Just how did a boy from a working-class family in a small town outside Mobile, Ala., become one of a handful of go-to singers in the world for these demanding roles?

His first success as a vocalist actually came as the youngest grandchild in a large extended family, performing Conway Twitty imitations to grab attention. Classical music had to wait until he fell under the spell of his high school choral director.

When he went to college, he planned to study conducting, but Rowell heard him sing and cajoled him into joining the Mobile Opera chorus.

“I went in the first day and I hated it,” Brownlee recalled. “I said, this is in Italian, who cares? That’s for stuffy elite people, not for us blue-collar fellas.”

Still, his curiosity made him determined to figure out why some people loved the art form. So he sat by the side of the stage one night to watch the emotional final scene of Verdi’s “La Traviata,” when the heroine dies after being reunited with her lover.

“When she said, ‘O, gioia!’ and she fell into his arms, and now she’s dead, Alfredo’s weeping over her, and Germont is feeling half-responsible, I was weeping uncontrollably,” he said. “And I didn’t even know what they were saying.”

That’s when he started taking voice lessons, and from there followed years of study and apprenticeships both in the U.S. and later in Germany. Along the way he competed twice in the Metropolitan Opera’s National Council Auditions.

The first time, still in his early 20s, he made it to the semifinals in New York. “I did not go on to the finals, which was absolutely correct,” he said. “Failure is a great lesson.” (Coincidentally, one of the winners that year was Ryan Speedo Green, who performed Wotan in May at Walt Disney Hall and will bein the Met’s upcoming “Ring” cycle.)

Brownlee returned in 2015, and this time he took home one of the top prizes. Other awards have followed, including in 2025, best male singer at the International Opera Awards and the Richard Tucker Award for most promising American singer.

Yet this American singer is still barely known to most opera audiences in his native country. Brownlee’s career has so far been largely in Germany, where he and Feinstein are raising their two daughters and are currently applying for dual citizenship.

“I can perform anywhere in Europe and be home in two hours to see my girls,” he said. “In America that’s just not something you can do.”

He may be rooted in Europe for now, but major U.S. houses are beckoning with increasing urgency.

When he appeared at Chicago’s Lyric Opera this past spring as the prophet Jochanaan in Richard Strauss’ “Salome,” general director John Mangum called his performance “absolutely thrilling.” He said Brownlee is “definitely going be at the top of our list” as the company charts its future Wagner performances.

And Peter Gelb, the Met’s general manager, who heard him sing a major role for the first time during the Munich run of “Walküre,” said “I was blown away. … We’ll definitely be offering him big roles at the Met in upcoming seasons.”

Silverman writes for the Associated Press.

Colson Whitehead’s latest foray into the bent world of “reluctant fence” Ray Carney — “Cool Machine,” the third and final installment of his Harlem Trilogy — is an American epic disguised as a heist novel. It’s a dizzyingly brilliant measure of the versatility and depth of the acclaimed author’s literary talent.

After writing two books dealing with monstrous historical trauma and institutional abuse — “The Underground Railroad” and “The Nickel Boys,” for which he won two successive Pulitzers — Whitehead pivots to an entirely new genre, subverting it, toying with it, making it wholly his own. And while the Harlem novels, too, have a great deal to say about serious subjects such as systemic racism, corruption, and crimes and misdemeanors of various proportions, they often lean on humor to get the message across.

In fact, it’s easy to envision the author at his laptop, as exhilarated as his prose, cracking himself up over how he bends language, employs slang, and forges descriptions like this one about a bar where Carney and a partner in crime conspire over how to fence a stolen diamond necklace: “He met Flinch Wilson at the Marlin, a narrow dive on 110th and Broadway with a decor inspired by an old leather shoe that lived in a drainage pipe.” Or this about a rival who has it out for Carney and his cohorts: “Buzz struck him as a plumber, one who comes back when you aren’t home to strangle your parakeet if you stiff him on the bill.”

“Cool Machine” is set in the 1980s, and Carney is still in the picture. It’s the Reagan era, and predatory capitalism rules, as does Mayor Giuliani, who’s waged war on the mafia and the homeless. What Whitehead dubs the “churn” roils the city and his protagonist. It’s that “churn” that beckons Carney to break his promise to himself and once again divert from his legit furniture store business. The excuse this time is that his wife Elizabeth wants to open her own travel agency, and can’t get a bank loan. Despite the couple’s closeness, for all these years her husband has managed to conceal that he’s a part-time crook. He desires respectability, but savors the buzz, the camaraderie — the honor among thieves. Carney falls in with criminal mastermind Uncle Rich and signs on to his outrageous plan to break into the Waldorf Astoria; the goal is to liberate Jesse Owens’ Olympic gold medal from those who forced him to cash it in.

The intricacy with which Whitehead details the planning and execution of this caper marks him as a top-tier researcher — he’s drawn on many primary sources to ground this work of fiction in historical fact. (There’s also his obsessive use of Pinterest.) The scenes set in the bowels of Grand Central, where there’s a secret train track leading to the Waldorf, are thrilling enough to read for their action, but the atmospheric descriptions are equally delectable: “Track 23’s next departure pulled into the station. One commuter joined Carney and Uncle Rich on the platform, a deflated man in a pinstripe suit with shiny elbows, then another businessman who sagged on one side, as if his briefcase was filled with lead weights.” One of the marvels of this novel is how effortlessly such sentences land, despite being honed to perfection. It would be a spoiler to say anything further about whether the thieves’ mission impossible yields their reward.

Part two of the novel shifts downtown, into the heart of the ’80s East Village art scene. A preoccupation of Whitehead’s — Jean-Michel Basquiat — is the inspiration for a fictional graffiti artist whose omnipresent scrawls capture the pretensions of the burgeoning wheelers and dealers, who, like uptown crooks, are relentless strivers, albeit with sleeker facades. Their snobbery is juxtaposed with Carney’s friend and colleague Pepper’s unsettling bluntness and eyeball to eyeball stare. He’s on the trail of a psychopath-for-hire dubbed “the Melancholy Hitman,” while battling stomach issues that have him downing Pepto-Bismol and coughing up blood in random bathrooms. In this section, Carney plays a supporting role to Pepper’s lead; “Escape from New York” is the enveloping soundtrack.

In the novel’s final act, Carney reemerges from straight life and Pepper from retirement in Delaware to rescue Carney’s nephew, Robert, who’s on the mob’s hit list for a murder he witnessed. Political corruption is rampant, and the revelation of who’s on the take has rattled a lot of cages. Robert is unwittingly entrapped, and has absconded with something mob bigwig Lombardi wants revenge for. Carney dons his best furniture salesman hat to make the pitch of a lifetime, a deal that could save Robert’s life, or take Carney’s. As Carney drives to the meet-up, he reflects on New York’s evolution: “Crime transformed the city by degrees. He thought of what John [his son] told him about rap music, where it came from. Rap was part of the New York environment now, barging from boom boxes and windows. They created something new from the spoils, the theft of turntables from record shops, the rip-off of a musical line or riff from another song — a crooked art.”

For those who enjoy knowing how an author’s inspiration arrives, it’s amusing to note that in the case of the trilogy that kicked off in 2021 with “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead told the New Yorker: “I was staring off into space and thinking about how much I like heist films and how much fun it would be to write a heist.” That sounds simple enough, but “Harlem Shuffle” turned out to be years in the making. The idea initially came to him around the same time he was writing “The Underground Railroad,” which was published in 2016. It wasn’t until after the release of that book, and then “Nickel Boys,” that Whitehead decided to lighten the mood by composing a crime novel set in New York City in the 1960s. And while he usually avoids staying on the same topic or voice from book to book, in the midst of writing “Harlem Shuffle,” Whitehead found he was still imagining further escapades for his main character, this time in the 1970s, with the city on the verge of bankruptcy, and incendiary conflagrations between the NYPD and the Black Liberation Army trending. As he envisioned what would become “Crook Manifesto,” Whitehead thought: “Why not make it three?”

Carney is part poet. Part crook. Part salesman. Part philosopher. To my knowledge, Carney’s creator is neither crook nor salesman, but Whitehead can lay claim to those other two mantles. His vocabulary appears boundless, as does his apparent love for the city he grew up in, where he still lives. “Cool Machine” is a modern masterpiece and an ode to New York, no matter that rats skitter and cockroaches scamper underfoot. When Carney has the chance to move anywhere in the world he wants, he ponders the appeal of fresh air. “Fresh was nice,” he reflects, “but so was other stuff. Noise, dirt, and struggle.” After escaping Manhattan, he wonders, “Where do you go? There’s no place else. It was like going on the lam from yourself.”

Whether or not New York is your jam, or a place you have escaped from or to, Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy is destined to live on as an American classic. Never mind the rats and cockroaches — it’s the churn.

Haber is a writer, editor and publishing strategist, and co-founder of the Ink Book Club on Substack. She was director of Oprah’s Book Club and books editor for O, the Oprah Magazine.

A year ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Donald Trump struck a trade deal in Turnberry, Scotland, shaking hands under the spotlight of the world’s media after weeks of trade disputes.

ADVERTISEMENT

ADVERTISEMENT

Defended by the Commission as the best deal it could secure, the agreement imposed 15 percent US tariffs on imports from the EU, while the EU committed to removing its duties on most US industrial products.

The Europeans also pledged to invest €520 billion in the US and purchase €700 billion in US energy by 2028, including liquefied natural gas (LNG), oil and nuclear energy products.

The Turnberry agreement was supposed to draw a line under the dispute. Instead, it opened a new chapter.

Over the past year, Trump has repeatedly threatened the EU with new tariffs, slowing the implementation of the agreement on the European side, where lawmakers froze its ratification. Following negotiations between the EU’s co-legislators, the bloc eventually removed its tariffs on 1 July.

On the US side, the process has been no smoother. The White House had to adopt new tariffs after the US Supreme Court ruled in February 2026 that the duties imposed on US trading partners in 2025 were illegal.

The new tariffs, introduced under a different legal basis, are set to expire at the end of this week, on 24 July, unless Congress extends them – a prospect considered unlikely with the midterm elections approaching.

As the Turnberry deal marks its first anniversary, here are four things to know about the state of transatlantic trade relations.

1. Trade with the US increased in 2025

Despite the tariff war, transatlantic trade has not shrunk. Quite the opposite: EU-US goods and services trade rose by 4.5 percent to €1.8 trillion in 2025, as companies rushed shipments ahead of Trump’s tariffs, offsetting the slowdown later in the year.

Since January 2025, US importers have had to pay around €31 billion in additional duties, compared with €7 billion in pre-tariff years.

Following the Supreme Court ruling, however, some have already been refunded. US data released in mid-July shows that $81 billion was paid back for tariffs imposed globally on the country’s trading partners.

2. Europe is on track to meet its investment pledges

According to the European Commission, the EU will keep its promise to invest massively in the US. In early 2025, it reported that EU companies had pledged €242 billion in investments across various US sectors, including cars, IT, chemicals and food.

Regarding energy investments, an EU senior official said the €700 billion target will be exceeded. The Commission said that, in 2025 alone, EU buyers imported energy products and signed deals worth more than $250 billion.

As the Iran war broke out and the EU phased out Russian gas supplies, purchases of US LNG and oil reached record levels. New nuclear projects will also be carried out in cooperation with US partners.

3. Negotiations continue on exemptions, steel and aluminium

The EU-US trade saga is far from over. Brussels and Washington have started negotiating new tariff exemptions for EU goods. The Turnberry agreement referred to these future discussions, but the White House wanted the EU to implement its side of the agreement before talks could begin.

Last autumn, the Commission, together with European businesses, drew up a list of hundreds of products for which it hopes to restore pre-existing tariff levels. The list, recently transmitted to the US side, covers around €150 billion worth of EU exports and includes iconic products such as Roquefort, olive oil, wines and spirits.

The Europeans also hope to make progress on steel and aluminium. The US still imposes 50 percent tariffs on imports from trading partners worldwide. However, the Commission expects the discussions to be challenging, as the White House wants to bring production back to the US while also dealing with massive Chinese overcapacity.

4. The US is preparing new tariffs

Following the Supreme Court ruling, the White House had to rely on a new legal basis to impose tariffs reaching the 15 percent ceiling set by the Turnberry agreement. But those tariffs expire on Friday, and the US is already looking for new ways to impose additional duties.

European officials therefore expect the White House to introduce new tariffs targeting forced labour and overcapacity following investigations launched under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. The forced labour tariffs have already been announced and are expected to come first, despite the EU arguing that it already has legislation banning forced labour.

“Of course we do not agree with the findings on forced labour, and we’ve made that very clear to our United States counterparts,” an EU senior official said. “But the main objective is to make sure that the agreement is respected and that our companies can benefit from the stability and predictability that was set out there.”

So as long as those future tariffs don’t exceed the 15 percent cap, the EU will not go against them.

The Commission is also closely monitoring a US investigation into German drug pricing under Section 301, which could also lead to punitive tariffs if the US Trade Department finds that “persistent underpayment for innovative pharmaceutical products by Germany is unreasonable or discriminatory and burdens or restricts US commerce”.

“The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Angie Katsanevas and her husband, Shawn Trujillo, are calling it quits.

According to Page Six, the reality television personalities have separated after 27 years of marriage. The news comes after years of rumors, starting during Season 4 of “RHOSLC,” that Trujillo was involved in affairs with numerous men. The drama played out onscreen and bled into Season 5 of the reality series.

The former couple denied the rumors repeatedly.

During a 2023 appearance on the “Behind the Velvet Rope Podcast,” Trujillo called the rumors “pretty ridiculous.” The same year, he and Katsanevas spoke with Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live,” and Trujillo said it wasn’t the rumor that he was gay that offended him, but the rumor that he’d been unfaithful.

“It’s not a gay/straight thing,” Trujillo said. “It’s an infidelity thing. We love our gay community. We’ve been embedded in it for 30 years now, just based on what we do for our business.”

“I’m here to support Angie, and I’ll take the hits,” he added.

Katsanevas noted that Salt Lake City had “come a long way,” and that stereotyping a man for being a hairdresser might have been commonplace 15 years ago but that there had never been infidelity rumors around her marriage “in Salt Lake City or anywhere.”

The former couple tied the knot the same year they launched their business, Lunatic Fringe Salon, in 1999. The husband-and-wife team ultimately expanded the luxury beauty business into a successful franchise that operates across Utah, Idaho and Ohio, with the flagship store located in Salt Lake.

As recently as January, Katsanevas was gushing about Trujillo on “The Viall Files” podcast. The businesswoman and housewife told hosts Nick Viall (of “The Bachelor” fame) and his wife, Natalie Joy Viall, that she and Trujillo met in a hair salon when she stopped by for a haircut more than three decades ago.

“He was working there with his big muscles and his long hair and his hoop earrings and he was so good looking and he was a bodybuilder and a hairdresser,” she said. “You didn’t see straight men doing hair at that time, which I know sounds crazy. Obviously things have changed since then; there are a lot of straight men that are hairdressers, but he was so kind and so sweet, and not really a macho guy. He was soft-spoken, quiet, very focused on his career and shy. And I just love that about him.”

The two became an item when Katsanevas started working at the salon when she was 21 and Trujillo was 24. “He would flirt with me in the back room and hold my hand under the table, and then he asked me to dinner one Valentine’s night,” she said.

According to the salon owner, when she was invited to join the cast of “RHOSLC” in 2021, she wasn’t prepared for the jabs that would be aimed at Trujillo or the toll it would take. “I had no idea what I was signing up for. I had no idea people would say or question my marriage after 30 years,” she said.

Bravo has not yet announced a release date for Season 7 of “RHOSLC,” but the forthcoming season wrapped filming in May and is expected to air this fall. Whether the former couple’s split will play out in the new season remains uncertain.

Katsanevas and Trujillo did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment.

WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance and his wife, Second Lady Usha Vance, announced the birth of their fourth child, the first born to a sitting vice president in more than 150 years.

Born Sunday, Alec Neel Vance joins older siblings Ewan, 9; Vivek, 6; and Mirabel, 4.

Vance announced the birth Sunday on social media with a statement signed by him and his wife.

“We are excited to announce that our baby boy, Alec Neel Vance, was born this morning. Usha and the baby are happy and healthy, and our kids are overjoyed to meet their little brother,” the statement said.

They thanked doctors and staff at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center and with the White House medical team.

The Republican vice president’s growing family is in keeping with his passionate advocacy for Americans to have more children. He has also suggested that the 2025 killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was his friend, factored into the decision to have another child.

Vance, a former U.S. Marine, repeatedly expressed alarm about declining birth rates in America as he launched his political career in 2021 with a bid for a U.S. Senate seat from Ohio. As vice president, he said in Washington at the 2025 March for Life anti-abortion rally, “I want more babies in the United States of America.”

The vice president, who’s 41, has been accompanied on overseas trips by Usha Vance, 40, and their children, with the kids often pajama-clad as they board Air Force Two for the overnight flights.

Usha Vance, the daughter of immigrants from India, had already been the subject of some public fascination because of her husband. Her pregnancy, which was announced in January, amplified that spotlight since it is rare for occupants of the United States’ highest public offices to add to their families while serving.

The last time a sitting vice president became a new father was in the 1800s.

Schuyler Colfax and his second wife, Ellen Wade, had a son, Schuyler Colfax III, in 1870 when Colfax was serving as vice president, according to the White House Historical Assn. Decades before that, John C. Calhoun and his wife, Floride Bonneau, had a son, William, in 1829 when Calhoun was vice president, the association said.

Usha Vance recently came under scrutiny after The New York Times’ fashion critic called attention to the stomach-hugging, coral maternity dress she wore for a Father’s Day episode of “Storytime with the Second Lady,” a video podcast she launched during the pregnancy.

The Times wrote that the attention that Vance, Miller and Leavitt had put on their pregnancies offered “an image of idealized womanhood that gives literal shape to the pronatalist movement,” which encourages couples to have as many children as possible to counter declining birth rates.

The second lady responded on social media, writing, “Now that we know the political significance of my $8.75 coral maternity dress from Old Navy, can’t wait to hear what the New York Times has to say about my elastic-waistband pants and compression socks! In the meantime, enjoy my pregnancy fashion (or lack thereof) and a good story with your kids on Storytime with the Second Lady.” She later shared the receipt for the dress, and her husband applauded her frugality.

“She bought a $50 dress for $8.75. America: meet your next director of the federal budget!” the vice president wrote on social media.

Superville writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — He is baseball’s invisible man.

Remember when the Dodgers signed Kyle Tucker? The prophets of doom wailed. The Dodgers had opened Pandora’s box, and out would fly a lockout, a pall of smoke over their games, and a plague of locusts.

The salary cap proposal was coming anyway. The Dodgers did play through wildfire smoke at Yankee Stadium last Friday. No locusts, at least not yet.

But no one foretold that the star to whom the Dodgers agreed last winter to pay an average of $60 million each year would be, well, average.

Over the first half of the season, Tucker’s OPS+ was 100, making him a player defined by that metric as “league average.”

He is batting .240, 30 points below his career average. He is on pace for full-season career lows in home runs (11) and OPS (.702).

His WAR is 0.9, below the 1.3 of Tyler Glasnow. By that metric, Tucker has contributed less to the Dodgers’ success this season than Glasnow, who has pitched in seven of the team’s first 100 games.

Hardly anyone outside Los Angeles has noticed, and hardly anyone in Los Angeles has gotten all worked up about it.

“I appreciate that our fan base, compared to some others, gives a lot more grace to players,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “And I know he sees that as well.”

Here is what Tucker’s trials have cost the Dodgers: Absolutely nothing.

He had two hits, both singles, in 13 at-bats as his team won the weekend series against the New York Yankees. The Dodgers remain the owners of the best record in the major leagues.

Tucker’s four-year contract, lucrative as it is, was not accompanied by a withering spotlight. He does not need to lift his team into the postseason, a burden often borne by marquee free agents signed to put their team over the top.

With the Dodgers?

Shohei Ohtani is the face of baseball. Freddie Freeman’s son walked around the All-Star Game in a T-shirt that read “My Dad Has 2,500 Hits.”

Mookie Betts last played here as a World Series-winning, Gold Glove-winning right fielder; he returned as a World Series-winning, Gold Glove-caliber shortstop.

“I think it certainly helps being around a lot of other guys who have high expectations,” Roberts said.

Neither rain nor smoke nor heat can keep the Dodgers from their appointed October rounds. They need Tucker to prosper then.

Dodgers outfielder Kyle Tucker singles during the second inning against the New York Yankees on Friday.

(Caleb Bowlin / Getty Images)

“Obviously, we all want to play well all year,” Betts said. “It’s not like we’re kicking the can and nobody cares. Even then, we’d love to be ready in October.

“It’s really just about playing. You never know. You could have a great October and get one hit, and it could be the biggest hit.”

Said Tucker: “Everyone here is very talented. Everyone is here to help each other out. Everyone here just wants to get back to another World Series, and win it. So I’m trying to do my part and just play baseball.”

He insists he is not weighted down by the external expectations that accompany his contract.

“I think that’s the beauty of it, the thing that’s refreshing,” Betts said. “I don’t think he cares about any of that. He just wants to play well and do his thing and help the boys.

“I don’t think he really cares about the expectations.”

You may think “$60 million” when he comes to the plate. He does not.

“I try, regardless of what my situation is,” Tucker said. “Sometimes it works out. Sometimes it doesn’t. I’ve just got to try and do better.”

His strikeouts are up significantly this season. His bat speed is down slightly. His hard contact rate is down significantly.

He’s working on fixing his swing. He’s been working on it. He’ll keep working on it.

Roberts said the quality of Tucker’s at-bats have looked better over the past couple weeks, even if the results may not show it.

“The thing that I’ve appreciated since Day 1 is, he hasn’t run from his struggles,” Roberts said. “He’s owned it.”

Tucker made the All-Star Game in each of the four years preceding this one. The Dodgers are betting his level of performance will at least approach that in the second half.

Betts said he does not see anything specific to worry about with Tucker.

“I don’t see anything at all,” Betts said. “He’s a competitor. He’s already come through a bunch during the year. It’s not like he’s not doing anything.

“He’s not hitting .330 with 30 [home runs], like we all would dream we were doing, right? But, as a team, we’re doing OK.”

For now, the Dodgers are. Their true season starts in a little more than two months.

From Tucker, the accountability is appreciated. Production would be better.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Went to the movies to see “The Odyssey” on Friday. Just got out Sunday in time to write this newsletter.

We are two weeks away from the trade deadline of Monday, Aug. 3, at 3 p.m. PT. The Dodgers usually make a deal or two around that time, sometimes major, sometimes minor. Who are the big names the Dodgers might have interest in this season? Let’s take a look.

Tarik Skubal, SP, Detroit Tigers, 6-5, 2.83 ERA

It seems every year Skubal, who won the last two AL Cy Young Awards, is the top name available at the deadline, and this might finally be the year that it happens. Sure, the Tigers are on the fringe of the wild-card race, but can they really afford to let their most valuable trade piece walk away without getting anything for him? Skubal is a free agent after this season. Then again, what will the new bargaining agreement look like? Will Skubal be able to demand as much on the open market once the new agreement is in place? And do the Dodgers really need him? Bill Plaschke says they do. But, they have the best record in baseball without him. They have won two straight World Series without him. They don’t need him. The question is, do they want him? They certainly have the pieces to get him, and the resources to sign him to a long-term deal. Plus, he missed part of this season because of elbow surgery and they love to get formerly injured pitchers.

Joe Ryan, SP, Minnesota Twins, 6-5, 2.85 ERA

The Twins are very much in the wild-card race, so it seems unlikely they trade Ryan unless someone offers them something too good to turn down. He won’t be a free agent until after the 2028 season. The same can be said of Sonny Gray of Boston. The Red Sox have won 13 in a row, so it seems unlikely they are trading anyone unless they lose their next 13.

The problem with the trade deadline since the postseason was expanded to 12 teams is that so many teams have a chance at the postseason. In the AL, 12 teams have a chance at making the postseason. Detroit is 46-53 and only 4.5 games out of a wild-card spot. Minnesota is only two games out. In the NL, 11 teams have a chance. It’s hard to trade one of your best players when you have a chance at the postseason.

Casey Mize, SP, Detroit Tigers, 4-6, 2.79 ERA

Mize will also be a free agent at the end of the season and is having his best season by far. He missed almost two seasons of his career because of Tommy John surgery.

Luis Arraez, 2B, San Francisco Giants, .326/.366/.455, 133 OPS+

Quite a few Dodgers fans would like to see the team acquire Arraez to play second. However, with Tommy Edman back and playing well, and Kiké Hernández back soon, they don’t really need a second baseman right now, especially one who is a poor fielder.

Reid Detmers, 3-6, 4.16 ERA, and José Soriano, 8-6, 3.49 ERA, SP, Angels

The Angels have the worst record in baseball, so much of their roster will be available. Unless the Dodgers believe that Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow or Shohei Ohtani won’t pitch the rest of the season, it’s hard to see how these players fit in.

Ryan Jeffers, C, Minnesota Twins, .288/.401/.540, 160 OPS+

Jeffers is the only top-line catcher rumored to be available this season. And it seems the only way the Dodgers acquire him is if they are convinced Will Smith isn’t coming back. Otherwise, perhaps a reunion with Ben Rortvedt, who is stuck in the minors with the Mets.

Those are just a few of the players available (I recommend you visit mlbtraderumors.com to see a complete picture of what every team wants or could offer). Next time, we will look back at trade deadline deals after Andrew Friedman took over.

What will happen this season? Well, Friedman will pull off a deal or two involving players who aren’t on everyone’s list. The Dodgers can win the World Series with the team they have right now, but it never hurts to add more pitching.

Injury Report

Edwin Díaz: Has made a couple of appearances with Class A Ontario, pitching two innings, striking out four. He will need to pitch in consecutive games before he is activated.

Tyler Glasnow: His back has been an issue all season. He is throwing only fastballs at the moment.

Kiké Hernández: Is on assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City and could return when the Dodgers return home from their current trip.

Shohei Ohtani: Has been shut down from pitching because of swelling in his left knee. Timetable for his return as a pitcher remains murky, but he can still hit.

Will Smith: Out until at least mid-August. His return is pivotal for the Dodgers, because they don’t want to go into the postseason with just Dalton Rushing to count on behind the plate.

Blake Snell: Began a rehab assignment in triple A on Saturday and will probably need to make at least three more starts there before he is ready.

Blake Treinen: On the IL since June 20 because of a sore elbow, he is slowly working his way back.

As for the other guys on the IL, Ben Casparius, Brusdar Graterol, Bobby Miller, Gavin Stone, it would be miraculous to get meaningful contributions from them this season.

These names seem familiar

How notable players who were with the Dodgers the last couple of seasons are doing with their new teams (through Sunday). Click on the player’s name to be taken to their full stats page:

Anthony Banda, Twins: 2-0, 4.46 ERA, 2 saves, 34.1 IP, 31 hits, 15 walks, 33 K’s, 97 ERA+, out for the season

Cody Bellinger, Yankees: .255/.345/.417, 414 PA’s, 19 doubles, 3 triples, 11 homers, 52 RBIs, 113 OPS+

Walker Buehler, Padres: 5-5, 5.36 ERA, 89 IP, 93 hits, 35 walks, 81 K’s, 77 ERA+

Mike Busch, Cubs: .244/.370/.403, 438 PA’s, 17 doubles, 2 triples, 12 homers, 52 RBIs, 117 OPS+

Michael Conforto, Cubs: .241/.327/.476, 160 PA’s, 10 doubles, 8 homers, 22 RBIs, 122 OPS+

Justin Dean, Cubs: .400/.571/.800, 7 PA’s, 1 triple, 3 RBIs, 279 OPS+

Caleb Ferguson, Reds: 1-0, 3.20 ERA, 1 save, 19.2 IP, 20 hits, 8 walks, 19 K’s, 139 ERA+

Jack Flaherty, Tigers: 3-8, 4.48 ERA, 82.1 IP, 76 hits, 40 walks, 98 K’s, 97 ERA+

Kenley Jansen, Tigers: 1-4, 4.38 ERA, 11 saves, 24.2 IP, 16 hits, 14 walks, 27 K’s, 100 ERA+

Craig Kimbrel, Rays: 0-2, 4.50 ERA, 30 IP, 26 hits, 12 walks, 29 K’s, 96 ERA+

Gavin Lux, Rays: on the IL

Dustin May, Cardinals: 5-7, 4.78 ERA, 98 IP, 97 hits, 32 walks, 95 K’s, 84 ERA+

Zach McKinstry, Tigers: .196/.277/.298, 256 PA’s, 7 doubles, 2 triples, 4 homers, 19 RBIs, 60 OPS+

James Outman, Tigers: .159/.224/.288, 143 PA’s, 4 doubles, 2 triples, 3 homers, 13 RBIs, 42 OPS+

Joc Pederson, Rangers: .243/.339/.479, 302 PA’s, 9 doubles, 2 triples, 16 homers, 35 RBIs, 136 OPS+

Luke Raley, Mariners: .230/.287/.459, 267 PA’s, 9 doubles, 1 triple, 15 homers, 37 RBIs, 111 OPS+

Ben Rortvedt, Mets: in the minors

Corey Seager, Rangers: .182/.292/.374, 219 PA’s, 6 doubles, 10 homers, 25 RBIs, 94 OPS+, on the IL

Justin Turner, Tijuana (Mexican League): .280/.386/.466, 228 PA’s, 18 doubles, 6 homers, 28 RBIs

Trea Turner, Phillies: .242/.292/.375, 428 PA’s, 17 doubles, 12 homers, 35 RBIs, 78 OPS+

Miguel Vargas, White Sox: .242/.352/.485, 422 PA’s, 21 doubles, 1 triple, 21 homers, 59 RBIs, 132 OPS+

Kirby Yates, Angels: 0-5, 3.74 ERA, 3 saves, 21.2 IP, 15 hits, 8 walks, 28 K’s, 113 ERA+

Up next

Monday: Dodgers (Emmet Sheehan, 4-6, 4.81 ERA) at Philadelphia (*Cristopher Sánchez, 11-4, 2.62 ERA), 4:10 p.m., ESPN, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Tuesday: Dodgers (*Eric Lauer, 4-5, 4.81 ERA [3-0, 3.12 ERA with Dodgers]) at Philadelphia (Zack Wheeler, 10-1, 2.13 ERA), 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Wednesday: Dodgers (*Justin Wrobleski, 10-2, 2.69 ERA) at Philadelphia (Aaron Nola, 3-7, 5.68 ERA), 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

All times Pacific

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Shaikin: Shohei Ohtani’s knee troubles creating a major pitching dilemma for Dodgers

Shaikin: With Will Smith out indefinitely, Dodgers need to trade for a catcher

Hall of Famers Jeff Kent and Andruw Jones played one forgettable Dodgers season together

Dodgers Debate: What the Dodgers need right now

And finally

The Dodgers honor Vin Scully on opening day in 2016. Watch and listen here.

Until next time …

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

KISUMU, Kenya — As U.S. antiabortion groups’ campaign to restrict abortion access at home and abroad has gained strength since President Trump returned to office, his administration is delivering new global momentum to the movement by exporting its view of “family values” to nations overseas.

At the annual March for Life demonstration in January in Washington, Vice President JD Vance announced sweeping new restrictions on U.S. funding for nongovernmental organizations, foreign governments and U.N. agencies that promote access to abortion, gender-affirming care and diversity initiatives overseas. “We’re going to start blocking every international NGO that performs or promotes abortion abroad from receiving a dollar of U.S. money,” he told the crowd.

That effort has been particularly active in Africa, where doctors and advocates now describe an environment of rising harassment, arbitrary detentions and deadly backstreet abortions, with often deadly results for women across the continent.

The expanded restrictions build on the antiabortion advocacy work carried out by conservative U.S. nonprofits abroad — especially in Africa, where healthcare is highly dependent on foreign aid. The region has the world’s highest estimated proportion of unsafe abortions and highest maternal mortality rates — including the highest number of maternal deaths per 100,000 abortions.

The new rules represent a radical expansion of earlier U.S. policy that cut assistance to overseas groups providing abortion-related services. Experts say at least $30 billion in U.S. aid could be affected, reshaping health policies worldwide.

“We’re seeing opportunity here to have a consistently pro-life ethic,” Nicole Hunt of Colorado-based Focus on the Family, a conservative Christian evangelical group, told the Associated Press. “We’ve been influencing health policies for a long time with our foreign aid. This is just a new direction.”

In the crosshairs is an international convention signed by African countries two decades ago declaring safe abortion a human right. Known as the Maputo Protocol, it obliges signatory nations to legalize abortion in cases of rape, incest, fetal malformation or risk to a woman’s health.

But implementation has been spotty, forcing women to seek illicit procedures. Every year, sub-Saharan Africa records over 6 million unsafe abortions, according to the African Institute for Development Policy.

Emboldened by Trump’s policies, U.S. antiabortion groups now aim to overturn even this limited access to safe abortion.

In Nairobi, Nardos Hagos of the International Planned Parenthood Federation said she is deeply worried for the future.

“We’ve now moved into a new era where we are the ones who are in opposition because the most powerful and influential supporters of reproductive health — the U.S. and a lot of Europe — are now more aligned with anti-rights groups,” she said.

“We’re gonna see more women dying from unsafe abortions.”

Africa is the focus

It’s difficult to track the full scope of the funding U.S. antiabortion charitable groups send to Africa.

Publicly available information from nonprofit tax filings of 17 such groups show money sent to Africa jumped 50% between 2019 and 2022, to over $16 million, according to an analysis by the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, a research group.

And the funding kept growing: The organizations spent almost $9.4 million in Africa during 2023 and 2024, previously unreported data analyzed by the institute show.

That’s “just the tip of the iceberg,” said the institute’s Claire Provost.

“What we’re seeing here is just a fraction of what the real investment on the continent is,” Provost said, noting that unlike other tax-exempt charitable organizations, U.S.-based churches and some religious groups are not required to complete annual financial disclosures detailing revenue, contributions and expenses.

It’s not possible to see “even limited information” about how much money the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, among others, funnel to Africa, she said.

Widely known as the Mormon church, the Salt Lake City-based church is ”increasingly active on the continent, including opposing sexual and reproductive rights issues,” Provost said. With over 1 million followers in Africa, it has held “Strengthening Families” conferences across Africa over the last eight years.

Sean E.R. Donnelly, the church’s communications manager for Africa, said in an AP interview that about a quarter of the $1.5 billion the church spent overseas last year was in Africa, for development projects “with the goal of helping people, especially families,” including in healthcare, education and emergency relief.

Asked about women’s reproductive rights and abortion, he said the church was “not really active” in those areas, but noted the issues may be discussed by its African partners during church-sponsored conferences.

“We have the deputy prime minister, we have the ministries of gender, we have all the ministers who are relevant to family, and we’re helping them … as they craft policy and strategy to make sure that we protect the family,” Donnelly said of the conferences.

Asked about the church’s position on abortion, he sent a statement outlining that it generally opposes elective abortion in most cases but allows exceptions for rape, incest or danger to a woman’s health in counseling its members. He said via email that the church conducts no activities related to abortion and reproductive rights.

Last year’s church-sponsored conference took place in Sierra Leone at a time when the country was close to decriminalizing abortion. But pressure from local religious lobbies stalled the process, local rights groups said.

Activists and rights groups have raised the alarm over the influence of local religious groups, whose strategies mirror those of some conservative U.S. Christian groups. In response to AP’s questions about the conference and any pressures around abortion and other reproductive rights issues, Donnelly said, “This is not how the church operates in Africa or globally.”

He also referred AP to the church’s Caring Report, which outlines its humanitarian work globally and does not mention the conference.

It’s tricky to determine how the U.S. money is spent once it reaches Africa because of loose requirements on disclosing financial data in African countries.

Focus on the Family spent $370,000 in Africa between 2019 and 2023, according to the Institute for Journalism and Social Change, which says that probably does not fully capture the scope of the group’s influence or work. Focus on the Family’s Hunt said its mission is “to change hearts and minds on abortion” globally, but she declined to provide details of activities in Africa.

Harassment of reproductive rights groups

Hannah Ruguru vowed to help women get abortions safely after losing her sister to a backstreet procedure. But her work at a reproductive health clinic in Kisumu in rural western Kenya has proved increasingly hazardous.

She’s been screamed at by protesters and encountered so much abuse on Facebook that she deleted her account, she said.

“Sometimes you can get scared,” Ruguru said. But “at the end of the day, I’m helping women.”

Marie Stopes International, which runs the clinic where Ruguru works, said in a 2024 report that staff in several African countries described online and legal attacks from U.S.-based groups and U.S.-funded local organizations. In Congo, it said, health workers have been detained for days for providing legally permissible services before being released without charge.

“The extent of the opposition has made abortion providers fearful of coming into work,” the report said.

In Ethiopia, the group said, the head of the local office of U.S.-based Family Watch International has “targeted and trolled members of our senior leadership team on social media,” and released YouTube videos promoting antiabortion misinformation.

In Kenya, the names and addresses of staff at reproductive rights organizations have been published online, accusing them of murder.

The owner of a private abortion clinic in Nairobi said staff members have been harassed by police and detained. Officials demand bribes, threatening charges if they don’t pay up, the owner said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

Musoba Kitui, regional director of Ipas Africa Alliance, which promotes reproductive rights and access to safe abortion care, said the changes in U.S. foreign aid policy combined with “this advancing American interest in ideology in Africa is really concerning.”

“We think the consequences are going to be dire,” Kitui said, especially for women and marginalized communities such as LGBTQ+ people.

‘It’s a culture war’

Last year, antiabortion Christian groups from the U.S., Europe and Africa and high-ranking Kenyan officials gathered in Nairobi for a conference on “Promoting and Protecting Family Values in Challenging Times.” Poland-based antiabortion group Ordo Iuris handed out a guide in four languages, including Swahili, with tips on lobbying international organizations, including the United Nations, European Union and African Union.

Travis Weber, vice president of the Family Research Council, a Washington-based evangelical group active in antiabortion advocacy, said he traveled to Nairobi to “defend the family as God designed it.”

Charles Kanjama, vice chairman of African Christian Professionals Forum, the conference organizer, said that, previously, international aid often supported reproductive rights — but times have changed.

“We are hoping that … we can start attracting money from people who think like us,” said Kanjama, among Africa’s most prominent antiabortion figures. “It’s a culture war, really.”

Indeed, the antiabortion agenda is gaining momentum. In June, representatives of 20 African countries finalized a draft charter at a conference in Ghana that calls for rejecting sexual and reproductive health rights. It will be voted on by the African Union next year. Family Watch International’s co-founder, Sharon Slater, was among those fundraising for the charter’s passage at the European Parliament in Brussels this year.

Legal gray area

In Kenya, one of Africa’s richest countries, seven women die every day on average from complications of unsafe abortions, according to the African Population and Health Research Center.

The 2010 Kenyan Constitution permits abortion when a woman’s health or life is threatened. Subsequent court decisions have also allowed abortions in cases of rape, incest or serious threat to a woman’s mental health.

But there’s a major legal gray area. Kenya’s penal code, which dates to the colonial era, continues to criminalize abortion providers and women seeking the procedure, who can face up to 14 years in prison.

Most public hospitals don’t perform abortions, leaving women the option of pricey private clinic procedures or risky illicit methods, healthcare officials said.

In May, an appeals court in Kenya overturned a ruling that affirmed access to abortion as a fundamental right — a case led by Kanjama, who said the decision “restored constitutional balance.”

The Kenyan Health Ministry, Justice Ministry and the government spokesperson’s office did not reply to repeated AP requests for comment, including detailed questions sent via email.

The U.S. State Department, in response to an AP request for comment on the Trump administration’s new rules governing American aid overseas, said: “The American people expect their tax dollars to support programs that save lives … and reflect American values, not fund abortion-related activities, left-wing social agendas, or wasteful overseas bureaucracies.”

“U.S. assistance continues to support a wide range of maternal and child health services as part of the America First Global Health Strategy,” it said in a statement.

The toll of unsafe abortions

In Kenya, doctors are obligated to treat women suffering from post-abortion complications, often from underground procedures, including bleeding, infections and the loss of their wombs — and it’s those cases that often end up in public hospitals.

“By the time the women come, we are often dealing with a life-threatening situation,” said Dominic Omollo, the reproductive health coordinator in Bondo, western Kenya.

Even as the stated aim of U.S., international and Africa-based antiabortion groups is to protect life, activists and healthcare providers say that, in reality, the result is more unsafe abortions and more women dying.

In Karabok, a village in rural Kenya, two trees were planted at the site where Mary Olouch is buried, just feet from where the 25-year-old bled to death after an illicit abortion.

“She did not open up to anyone,” said Loice Ochieng, a community health volunteer in charge of family planning in the village.

Olouch already had a young child when she realized she was pregnant. She didn’t tell her husband. When he came home one evening, he found her bleeding and rushed her to the hospital, but it was too late.

Olouch did not qualify for an abortion in a public hospital and couldn’t afford a private clinic on her meager income selling fish. Abortion carries enormous stigma in rural communities, and husbands often don’t allow women to use contraceptives, Ochieng said.

After Olouch’s death, women started to talk more openly about abortion in Karabok, where, for many, even uttering the word had been taboo, Ochieng said.

Now, she said, if women “have a problem, they come to me, they ask. Because they have seen that this thing can cause death.”

Pronczuk and Beaty write for the Associated Press and reported from Kisumu and New York, respectively. AP writers Evelyne Musambi in Nairobi and Caitlin Kelly in Freetown, Sierra Leone, contributed to this report.

Wilfredo Engalla, a 51-year-old Filipino immigrant, alleged in a medical malpractice case that Kaiser doctors misdiagnosed him with colds and allergies for years before eventually informing him he had terminal lung cancer.

He died before his complaint could be heard by an arbitrator, which his Kaiser policy required. His case prompted a withering rebuke from the California Supreme Court, which said Kaiser’s system of arbitrating legal disputes was subject to long delays and unfair to its members. The year was 1997.

Nearly three decades after the landmark decision, the HMO giant — which made a series of sweeping reforms after the ruling — is once again facing questions over whether its arbitration system is stacked against the interests of its members.

Plaintiffs attorneys, legislators and patients say Kaiser’s private and confidential process for arbitrating legal disputes over medical care still has key flaws that favor Kaiser over patients bringing malpractice cases. The company insures about 25% of Californians, including some employees of the Los Angeles Times.

“Kaiser has really lost its way,” said Assemblyman Robert Garcia (D-Rancho Cucamonga). Garcia, who is a longtime Kaiser member, recently introduced a bill to require the California attorney general to oversee arbitrations mandated by any health plan.

Kaiser defended its arbitration system, saying in a statement that it was fair for both patients and the nonprofit.

Many companies and other organizations, including some hospitals, HMOs and physician groups, require their customers or patients to take their complaints to private arbitration rather than to court.

But unlike most other companies, which send claims to large arbitration firms, Kaiser created its own system back in 1971.

Under Kaiser’s system, once a neutral arbitrator is selected, either party can opt to disqualify that person without cause. There is no limit on the number of disqualifications.

Although the health plan designed the system to be fair, patients and their lawyers have alleged that in reality Kaiser’s greater knowledge of arbitrators’ past rulings and its ability to veto arbitrators give it an advantage to pick favorable judges.

Critics such as Arlan Cohen, a physician and attorney who has brought more than two dozen cases against the health plan, say the system also provides a financial incentive to arbitrators to rule in Kaiser’s favor in order to be selected for future cases.

While Kaiser has access to all the decisions made by arbitrators in its system, the patient’s family gets a more limited disclosure of an arbitrator’s history of cases, lawyers say, adding that it’s not easy to see which arbitrators have ruled frequently for Kaiser.

Kaiser said it disagreed that the system allowed it to select favored arbitrators.

“The appointment process is not influenced by whether the arbitrator has ruled for or against KP or has a record of ruling against Kaiser Permanente,” its statement said.

“As required by law, both parties receive information about potential arbitrators and can decline to move forward with any they are not comfortable,” the statement said.

One problem is what experts call the “repeat player effect,” in which a large company appearing repeatedly before the same panel of arbitrators allegedly gains an advantage over the individual bringing a single complaint.

David Allen Larson, past chair of the American Bar Assn.’s dispute resolution section, said the repeat player effect happens because the patient will likely be choosing an arbitrator on the health plan’s system just once, while “Kaiser is selecting them every single day.”

“They know the system. They know the rules,” Larson said of Kaiser. “The entire process gives them an advantage.”

Alan Kang, a lawyer, in a recent petition filed in L.A. County Superior Court, contends that the fees the arbitrators earn from hearing cases — as much as $2,000 an hour — give them an incentive to rule in Kaiser’s favor so they are chosen to hear more cases.

“When a judge’s future income is at stake, it is impossible to be impartial,” Kang wrote in the petition.

The petition seeks to void the December decision of an arbitrator who ruled against the family of Evangelina Aquino, a Kaiser employee who died of cancer at age 40.

Kang, the Aquino family and the medical experts they hired for the case say her cancer would have been treatable if Kaiser doctors had found it with a test they said her symptoms called for. Kaiser argued it was a different kind of cancer that was aggressive and untreatable. The arbitrator agreed with Kaiser in the December decision.

After the ruling, Kang began analyzing data from Kaiser’s system.

His review of dozens of cases in the last six years found that judges overseeing the most cases nearly always ruled for Kaiser.

“The message is clear: deliver wins for Kaiser and you will get additional business,” Kang wrote in his court petition.

The Oakland-based health plan declined to answer questions about its arbitration system and Kang’s claims, but said in a statement that its “arbitration process is designed to be fair, impartial, and accessible to all members. While some arbitrators may handle multiple Kaiser Permanente-related cases, they are not employed by Kaiser Permanente, and they are selected by both parties, in accordance with the law.”

“We recognize that arbitration cases often involve difficult and deeply personal experiences for patients and families,” the statement said, “and we take all concerns raised through these processes seriously.”

Kaiser’s unique arbitration system

Arbitration can have advantages over the court system, including allowing Kaiser to save on legal costs, which otherwise would raise the price of premiums it charges to families, employers and governments.

Kaiser offers to pay the arbitrators’ fees, which can save families tens of thousands of dollars.

Arbitration may also lead to faster outcomes, possibly avoiding years of litigation. Unlike civil litigation, arbitration decisions are especially difficult to appeal.

After the criticism by the state Supreme Court in 1997, Kaiser reformed the system by creating the Office of the Independent Administrator. The office is funded by a Kaiser trust and the $150 fee each patient filing a claim must pay, said Marcella Bell, who serves as the independent administrator.

Bell said the office works independently from Kaiser.

The office selected 195 retired judges and lawyers to serve on a panel that patients and Kaiser can choose from when selecting a neutral arbitrator to oversee and decide a malpractice case.

Rules written by the independent administrator, in consultation with the health plan and an advisory board, allow Kaiser and the family to cut an arbitrator they don’t like, at multiple steps in the process.

The administrator’s office randomly selects 12 members from its panel. Both sides can each remove any four of those arbitrators. The two sides then rank the remaining arbitrators in order of preference. The administrator selects the top-ranked arbitrator to hear the case.

The two parties then still have the ability to disqualify that selection without cause.

Members of the United Nurses Assns. of California and Union of Healthcare Professionals strike outside Kaiser Permanente in Oakland on Jan. 28.

(Jessica Christian / San Francisco Chronicle)

Last year, Kaiser’s arbitration system closed 529 arbitration cases.

The arbitrators threw out 14% of the cases, ruling in favor of Kaiser’s motion for summary judgment, and dismissed an additional 5% of cases on technical or procedural grounds.

Only 23 cases, or 4% of the total, went to a hearing. Among those, the arbitrator decided for Kaiser in 17, with the patient winning the remaining six.

Patients and their families withdrew their claim in 20% of the cases. About half of those patients did not have a lawyer and had tried to represent themselves.

The parties settled for an undisclosed sum in 57% of the cases. The settlements are confidential.

Patient safety questions

Those who have studied the use of arbitration by Kaiser and other HMOs for medical malpractice claims say the secrecy of the settlements and the closed hearings could keep safety problems from coming to light.

“The secrecy of arbitration proceedings may prevent publicity that could reveal poor doctors,” the California Research Bureau warned in a report in 2000 that analyzed Kaiser’s system. That compares with public court cases that could deter “bad behavior” in the future, the researchers wrote.

In December 2023, 53-year-old Francisco Delgadillo arrived at the Kaiser ER in Vallejo with severe chest pain. After an initial assessment, he waited eight hours for care, according to state regulators.

He died in the lobby. A state and federal investigation found multiple violations, including that Kaiser failed to have a licensed nurse monitoring the dozens of patients in the ER’s waiting room.

The Delgadillo family filed an arbitration claim. Their lawyer Jeff Mitchell said the case settled for a confidential sum and he could not discuss it.

Mitchell agreed that the secrecy raised patient safety concerns.

“They love the system, otherwise they would not be so hellbent to keep it,” Mitchell said of Kaiser’s repeated efforts to dispel criticism. “They don’t want these cases to get in front of juries.”

A licensed practical nurse attends to a patient at a Kaiser Permanente in Culver City in September.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Calls for reform

Despite the changes Kaiser made after the 1997 court decision, patients and their families have continued to complain.

According to the administrator’s 2025 annual report, the “most common” complaint the office heard last year was about the neutral arbitrator.

“Most complained that the arbitrator was biased, partisan, unjust, and in Kaiser’s favor,” the report said.

Stephen Martinez, a retired aerospace engineer from Bellflower, is leading the effort to pass the state bill introduced by Garcia.

At an April hearing in the state Assembly, Martinez spoke about how his wife had found a lump in her breast and asked for an appointment with her longtime caregiver at Kaiser to examine it. Instead she was sent to a physician assistant, who dismissed it, he said.

“The PA prescribed warm compresses, a sports bra, and limited chocolate,” Martinez testified. “We would later find that Lindalee did have breast cancer that had already spread.”

Martinez and his wife said they spent $175,000 on lawyers and medical experts to bring that arbitration case. A chief breast surgeon at Kaiser and another surgeon who had retired from that job both testified that the Kaiser physician assistant failed to follow the health system’s guidelines.

Kaiser’s expert argued that the physician assistant did an appropriate exam and that his low suspicion of breast cancer was reasonable. The neutral arbitrator concurred and ruled against the couple.

After passing the Assembly, Assembly Bill 1770 is now in the state Senate for consideration. The bill lets the attorney general decide what actions they will take to ensure health plan arbitrations are handled fairly and transparently. If the bill passes, the state would add four deputy attorneys general, a legal analyst and three legal secretaries to do that work, according to a legislative analyst’s report.

Kaiser says it has concerns about the bill, including that it would “create overlapping state oversight and duplicative reporting requirements.”

Kaiser Permanente’s corporate offices in downtown Oakland in January 2025.

(Jane Tyska / East Bay Times via Getty Images)

Questions of a missed diagnosis

When Janene Fowler was 22, her body seemed to turn against her. She grew weak, pain shot through her hands and feet, her heart raced. She soon required a wheelchair.

Fowler’s medical chart detailed what could have caused her disabling problems. A test eight years before had found a deficiency of vitamin B12, according to the chart. Over the years, Kaiser doctors noted problems such as depression, unexplained pain, shortness of breath, a sore tongue and an abnormal gait — all possible symptoms of vitamin B12 deficiency.

In February 2022, after her family complained about her not being able to see a neurologist, she got an appointment. The specialist noted her vitamin deficiency, telling the nurse to start her on a supplement at once. But the treatment did not begin because the paperwork was lost, her medical records show.

Two weeks later, Fowler left Kaiser to see a doctor at UCLA. A doctor there quickly started injections of B12.

Her symptoms gradually got better, but her new doctors say the years-long deficiency left permanent damage. She still can’t walk without help.

The arbitrator, a retired judge, sided with Kaiser’s doctors and experts, who questioned whether Fowler’s problems were caused by a deficiency of vitamin B12. While one test showed a deficiency, he noted that a second test failed to confirm it. He wrote that Fowler and her lawyers had failed to prove that Kaiser “breached its duty of care.”

Cohen, Fowler’s lawyer, asserted that the retired judge’s decision was contrary to UCLA medical records, which detail her deficiency and treatment.

Fowler now spends most of her time at home. She can’t drive. She often falls when she tries to get around with a cane. She loves to cook, but said she burns herself when she tries.

“My hands don’t really do what I tell them,” she said.

Kaiser declined to answer questions about her case, citing patients’ privacy rights.

Fowler said she’s angry about how the health plan’s doctors and its arbitration system treated her.

“I thought I was going to die, and no one at Kaiser seemed to care,” she said. “What justice can you have in a system that is run by those you are trying to sue?”

SOUTHPORT, England — Ryan Fox of New Zealand survived a wild ride along the back nine of Royal Birkdale and delivered the biggest putt of his life Sunday, making a 12-foot birdie on the final hole to win the British Open for his first major title.

Four players had a share of the lead at some point Sunday. Cameron Young was atop the leaderboard for two hours without hitting a shot because he finished his astonishing six-under 64 when the leaders were on the front nine.

Fox never lost hope, even after a pair of bogeys on the back nine, and the 39-year-old son of an All Blacks rugby player delivered the goods when it counted. He birdied the 16th to tie Young for the lead, and then made birdie on the toughest hole to become the third Kiwi to win a major.

Fox closed with a two-under 68 and thrust both of those powerful arms into the air. He was on the phone with his family moments later and heard saying, “You asked me to bring a trophy home, and I am, aren’t I?”

His name will go on the base of that shiny Claret Jug, joining Bob Charles of New Zealand from 1963.

His sterling moment brought more disappointment for Young. The American also finished one shot behind in the British Open at St. Andrews four years ago, and he had a Sunday lead on the front nine at the Masters until Rory McIlroy overtook him.

“I gave it everything I had all the way through,” Young said when he finished. He was on the range when he heard the cheer for Fox. Young declined interviews when it was over.

Sam Burns, the 54-hole leader who was never planning to be at the Open until his wife gave birth to their daughter earlier than expected, lost a two-shot lead and didn’t make birdie over the last 12 holes to finish two shots behind.

Defending champion Scottie Scheffler somehow managed to stick around until the end, getting two bad bounces that cost him momentum, then getting one big break for a most improbable birdie but failing to birdie the 18th. He closed with a 67 and shared fourth with hometown star Tommy Fleetwood, who fell back early but thrilled the thousands packed along the dunes with a birdie-birdie finish for a 68.

Missing from all drama, remarkably, was Bryson DeChambeau. He lost a golf ball and made triple bogey on the 11th hole and didn’t make a birdie until he was well out of contention. That two-shot penalty he received Friday for improving the path of his swing wasn’t an issue at the end. DeChambeau shot a 72 and tied for 14th.

Fox won for the 10th time worldwide, his biggest title before Sunday coming at the BMW PGA Championship in 2023. He is the oldest first-time major champion since Henrik Stenson was 40 at Royal Troon 10 years ago.

Fox finished at 10-under 270, got his hands on the jug and heard those magic words when he was introduced as the “Champion golfer of the year.”

“I’m not quite sure how I hit that putt on 18. Look, it is a dream come true,” Fox said. “Looking at that trophy now, it’s the first time I’ve seen it up close. So it’s pretty amazing.”

Young was flawless until the final hole, his tee shot finding a pot bunker. He tried to open the face of a six-iron but caught it thin and it smacked into the vetted wall and into the rough. He hit the next shot into a greenside bunker and nearly holed it for par. The bogey put him at nine-under 271.

Burns was losing ground quickly on the front nine with three straight bogeys, none more damaging than a pitch to the reachable par-four fifth hole that went over the back of the green.

Si Woo Kim emerged as the leader going to the back nine until he made bogeys on the 11th and 12th holes, and fell out of contention for good with a pair of late bogeys that added to a 40 on the back nine for 72.

And then there was Young, at the top of the leaderboard, the wind gaining strength and the challenge to match him looking tougher by the hole.

Fox fell two shots behind Young’s score when he missed a six-foot par putt on the 11th.

He hit his approach to 12 feet on the 13th for birdie, then hit a superb pitch to tgree feet for birdie on the par-five 14th to tie Young.

But his hopes took a nasty turn on the par-five 15th when his tee shot caromed off the side of a bunker and settled next to the lip, leaving him no stance and no shot. He smartly played away from the back pin to the fairway, chipped from 45 yards away to six feet and made bogey.

It was as big as any shot he hit until the last.

He rallied with another clutch shot to 10 feet for birdie on the 16th to again tie with Young, and right when it looked as though the Open was headed for its first playoff in 11 years, Fox came up with a winner.

Fleetwood found the raucous ovation to be a consolation. He grew up in Southport and long dreamed of winning an Open at Royal Birkdale. He holed a 65-foot putt on the first hole that brought the loudest cheer of the day. And he was one shot behind as he played the ninth.

But he dropped three straight shots and the hope was gone. Even so, the ovation on the 18th hole was one he won’t forget.

“This disappointment that I didn’t win today or I couldn’t get it done when I was in a really good position, of course there’s only one person that gets to win it, and my dream of winning the Open will carry on and I’ll continue to chase it,” Fleetwood said.

“But stuff like that, walking down 18 and the atmosphere out there, that was beyond stuff that I’ve dreamt of. That was just stuff that I never imagined.”

Ferguson writes for the Associated Press.

NEW YORK — What if the Dodgers never get a full season of pitching from Shohei Ohtani?

In his first season with the Dodgers, he did not pitch at all. In his second, he did not pitch until June. And, halfway through this third season, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts admitted Sunday he could not say when Ohtani might pitch again.

“Don’t know yet,” Roberts said.

October might be your immediate concern, and it should concern the Dodgers too. Of the four starting pitchers they would plan to use in the postseason — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Ohtani — Yamamoto is the only one pitching major league innings right now. It’s not Tarik Skubal or bust, but the Dodgers should trade for someone they would start in a playoff game.

Yet, for a player with seven years left on his $700-million contract beyond this one, there might be a lot fewer opportunities to celebrate Ohtani as a two-way player than the Dodgers and their fans envision.

Ohtani did not pitch in his first year and a half with the Dodgers as he recovered from elbow surgery. When his rehabilitation was complete, he was good to go.

This is different. Ohtani is battling irritation in his left knee. Roberts used three concerning words to describe it: “wear and tear.”

There is no easy fix. The lubricant injection Ohtani received a week ago relieves symptoms for a short period of time, usually a few months. It is repeatable, but its benefits are not always felt right away.

The Dodgers had announced Ohtani would start Wednesday. Roberts said Ohtani experienced discomfort while playing catch, and that was enough for the Dodgers to push back his next start to…

“I would say that it’s going to be some time,” Roberts said. “It’s not going to be a day-to-day thing.”

Shohei Ohtani warms up before facing the Tampa Bay Rays at Dodger Stadium on June 15.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

If it is a wear-and-tear thing, there might be no solution besides management over the remainder of his career.

“I think it’s a little bit, it’s just like all of us, all athletes, that kind of have wear and tear,” Roberts said. “That’s just part of it, and now it’s just kind of showing itself a little bit, and then you got to manage it. I think that it’s the years of sliding, pitching, hitting and all that stuff.”

Ohtani is aware of this. He is 32. This is his 14th professional season. He reported to spring training with the goal of winning the National League Cy Young award, in part because who knows how long you can do everything at an elite level on a baseball field?

“Inside, I’m assuming this is my last chance as a pitcher,” Ohtani told the Japanese sports magazine Number in an interview published last month.

In his first 10 starts this season, he posted a 0.74 earned-run average, never giving up more than two runs in a start. In the four starts since the knee irritation surfaced June 10, his ERA is 4.38, and he has given up at least three runs in each start.

Can he pitch effectively if he can tolerate the discomfort? Would he want to? Would the Dodgers want him to, given their investment in him as one of the most dynamic hitters in baseball history?

To this point, Roberts said, Ohtani has experienced the irritation only on the mound, not at bat. As a result, Roberts said, the Dodgers do not believe shutting down Ohtani as a hitter for a few days would help ease the discomfort.

Maybe this works, with the injection calming the knee long enough to get Ohtani through the season, or with the irritation waning. Even then, it’s going to take some time.

“The first step is getting him into a spot where he feels like, and we feel like, he can pitch and not regress,” Roberts said.

Ohtani has not pitched in 16 days, and let’s say he does not pitch for another 16. Then the Dodgers would be looking at building back Ohtani’s endurance as they ramp up for the playoffs. So, even if Ohtani can return, could he pitch deep into a postseason game?

Shohei Ohtani hits a home run against the Tampa Bay Rays at Dodger Stadium on June 16.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The Ohtani Effect is real, and grand. It is measured in T-shirts and ticket sales, tourists and movie promotions, bobblehead dolls and international corporate sponsorships.

But all of that should not obscure Ohtani’s greatness as a player.

If Aaron Judge cannot hit, he cannot help the Yankees, and they entered play Sunday 18-20 since he suffered a rib injury.

If Ohtani cannot pitch … well, he has hit 11 home runs since then, for the team with the best record in the major leagues.

The Dodgers do not believe Ohtani’s viability as a pitcher is in jeopardy, but we can already hear the cynics: In a worst-case scenario, if he could not pitch well again, would the contract be worth it?

It already is: Two full seasons, two World Series championships.

When Victor Marx was 3 years old, he was forced into a voodoo ritual involving a beheaded cat. At age 7, he killed a man.

Or so Marx says.

But he was not just a precocious child.

As an adult running a “high-risk” Christian ministry, Marx says he rescued 45,000 women and children from captivity and abuse. As a civilian, he supposedly called in a U.S. military airstrike that killed 70 ISIS fighters. He’s exorcised demons — and can do so over the telephone, he says, if need be.

True or, most likely, false, those woolly claims and epic tales of derring-do aren’t the weirdest thing about Marx.

The weirdest thing is that Marx is the Republican nominee for governor of Colorado, an actual part of these United States.

A political newcomer, Marx eked out his victory in a three-way race by less than 2,500 votes out of more than 520,000 cast. (It took almost nine days to declare a winner, but surely you knew that already, given the national outcry over how long it took Colorado to count its ballots. Oh, wait. Never mind.)

Although slender, Marx’s victory delivered a strong statement: about the grave condition of mainstream Republicanism; about the increasing embrace of oddity and extremism by a deeply disaffected slice of the American electorate; about the unsettled and unsettling nature of today’s politics.

“It’s almost cult-like,” Dick Wadhams, a former Colorado GOP chairman, said of Marx’s support. “You talk to some of these people, and there is no doubt in their mind he will be governor, because God has decided that he’s going to be governor.”

There’s fat chance of that. (Please don’t smite me.)

Colorado has elected only one Republican governor in the last 55 years, and that was back in 2002. It’s been 10 years since a Republican won any statewide office. The Democratic nominee, Atty. Gen. Phil Weiser, is as close to a November shoo-in — after stomping U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary — as it gets.

But Marx, 61, a former Marine and expert in martial arts, is nothing if not swaggering. His role model is, of course, the political disrupter and fabulist-in-chief currently occupying the White House.

Like President Trump, Marx relies heavily on personal charisma, a strong social media presence and the purposeful shunning of campaign norms which, to the politically alienated, speaks to his independence from the establishment and offers a welcome break from the same old, same old.

He casts himself as a problem-solver and negotiator par excellence. He skimps on policy and skipped most of the preprimary debates; at the one he did attend, Marx brought his dog, a Dutch shepherd, onstage. In lieu of a closing statement, Marx prayed.

When asked, he hasn’t backed off his fantastical claims. But Marx hasn’t done a very good job substantiating them.

As a young boy growing up in Louisiana, he says, his abusive stepfather — the one who supposedly involved him in a satanic feline decapitation — drove him to rural Mississippi, where Marx shot and killed a man. Police told Colorado Public Radio they had no record of any unsolved homicides from that time.

“How many people have you killed?” Kyle Clark, an anchorman on Denver’s 9News, asked the candidate in a persistent and revealing sit-down interview.

“I don’t think that’s important,” Marx replied. “It’s actually kind of — it’s an odd question to me.”

Actually, it’s not.

(Conceding the Republican race, state Sen. Barbara Kirkmeyer — the runner-up — conspicuously declined to endorse Marx, urging voters to “choose the path that is best for Colorado” in November. “For the record,” she added. “I still haven’t killed anyone.”)

In many ways, Marx is a mainstream conservative Republican. He founded All Things Possible Ministries, a Christian nonprofit that tends to refugees and other victims of trauma. His focus on law and order, tax relief, small government and deregulation are all standard GOP fare.

But his florid tales of youthful homicide, telephonic exorcisms, personally intercepting human smugglers on the U.S.-Mexico border — well, not so much.

Most voters will probably have a hard time getting past those autobiographical extravagances, which could spell trouble — depressed GOP turnout, guilt by association — for other Colorado Republicans, including freshman Rep. Gabe Evans, who’s fighting to hang onto a closely fought congressional seat in the north-central part of the state.

It’s a loss Republicans can ill afford as they desperately seek to preserve their bare House majority.

Despite its preference for Democratic governors, Colorado was, until not that long ago, a competitive two-party state. It was a presidential battleground as recently as 2012. Republicans held a majority in the state Senate as recently as 2018.

But the MAGA-fication of the state GOP has hastened Colorado’s evolution from political battleground to a solidly blue bastion.

“The Colorado Republican Party right now is impotent and irrelevant,” said Wadhams, who fought unsuccessfully against its takeover by Trump-worshiping zealots. “The ironic twist to this story is that polling has shown over the past several months that voters are getting restless about what they see as the decline of Colorado in terms of education, energy, roads and transportation.”

Just last week, the annual Colorado Health Foundation issued its annual Pulse Poll, a dour report card on the state of the state that found three-quarters of respondents were concerned they may not be able to live there in the future.

But don’t expect Democrats to lose their sovereignty anytime soon.

That’s what happens when a party and its voters stop seriously competing and instead indulge their passions and fever dreams. You get candidates, and political caricatures, like Victor Marx.

God help us.

One year ago, when tickets first went on sale for “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm, nearly every screening sold out instantly.

The unprecedented ticket mayhem built hype — not just for the film, but for the format. By the time a second round of tickets were made available last month, buyers swarmed with such frenzy that they crashed the AMC Theatres app.

In Los Angeles, home base for cinephiles of every stripe, scoring one of these coveted opening weekend tickets was particularly challenging. Much of the excitement revolved around the fact that “The Odyssey” was the first feature shot entirely on Imax 70mm film, a technical achievement that involved the invention of a new camera.

• Share via Close extra sharing options

Want to see The Odyssey in 70mm but couldn’t get tickets? Glendale’s historic The Alex Theatre has you covered.

For 28-year-old Van Nuys resident Chase Stanley, who tried and failed to secure a ticket, that milestone was top of mind.

“Ultimately, I’m just jealous that I’m not included,” he said. “Since it’s the first movie to capture the whole thing in 70mm Imax, it’s my due diligence to see it like that.”

Despite the enthusiasm from moviegoers, film projection has been considered a dying art since most movie theaters worldwide switched to digital projection in the early 2010s.

More than a marketing tactic, the scarcity of tickets for Imax 70mm screenings underscored both the dearth of theaters capable of projecting films in the premium large format — only 41 — and projectionists with the requisite skills.

A number of renowned directors, including “The Odyssey’s” Christopher Nolan, prefer to shoot on film and strongly encourage analog viewing. But because few theaters own the necessary equipment or employ full-time projectionists, coordinating a release as massive as “The Odyssey” is its own arduous journey.

Jimmy Gonzales is Cepheus, left, Matt Damon is Odysseus and Himesh Patel is Eurylochus in “The Odyssey.”

(Melinda Sue Gordon / Universal Pictures)

Venues new and old

There are 25 theaters in the United States showing “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm, eight of which are located in California. One of L.A.’s favorites is the Universal Cinema AMC at CityWalk Hollywood, where veteran Imax projectionist Taylor Umphenour has worked for the last three years.

On his Instagram page, Umphenour shares “projectionist POV” photos and videos with more than 22,000 followers, giving them a unique glimpse into the projection booth for movies like “Sinners,” “One Battle After Another” and “Project Hail Mary.” His company, Film Leader Co., supervises film restorations and runs technical operations for a smattering of cinema houses across the country.

In addition to his work at CityWalk, Umphenour has been busy for weeks overhauling the projection setup at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale.

Releases such as “The Odyssey” have renewed interest in film projectionists and specialty theaters, including the historic Alex Theatre.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The 100-year-old venue opened in 1925 as a vaudeville and silent movie house where Walt Disney previewed his animated shorts, but it changed identities many times over the course of its history. Now, Umphenour and his team are working with Miles Williams, the theater’s artistic director, to transform it into a “premier cinema house” in time for “The Odyssey’s” release. It marks the first time the theater has been used for a first-run film release since “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” in 1991.

“What better opportunity to relaunch this venue than to open with Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’? That’s why this project is on such a tight turn,” Umphenour said.

His team built an entirely new, massive booth in just three weeks to house sound equipment and projectors capable of running both 35mm and 70mm film. To secure the Alex a last-minute 70mm print of “The Odyssey” — which costs tens of thousands of dollars to manufacture, ship and distribute and runs about four miles long — Umphenour relied on his relationship with distribution executives at Universal.

The Alex will screen the movie in 70mm, which uses the same film stock as Imax 70mm but runs vertically instead of horizontally, making each physical frame roughly three times smaller than its Imax counterpart. Audiences seeking the larger-than-life Imax experience will have to look elsewhere — like CityWalk — but Umphenour believes that analog screenings will still draw a crowd.

“What’s special about these — about running on film, about running 70mm, about handling premium large formats — is that it does remind people how much they love going to the movies,” he said.

“What it’s all about is expanding that sense of scope and horizon, the analog color, that sense of immersion.”

Not a job for ‘popcorn projectionists’

In advance of “The Odyssey’s” release, Imax contracted 130 experienced projectionists and required each to attend an intensive, weeklong training program.

“I’ve said for years that the projectionist is the last performer in a long chain of people that started with an idea,” Umphenour said. “They are the final person to deliver the vision of the filmmakers to the audience, and therefore, one of the most crucial.” Far from simply pressing a button, film projectionists must actively guide a screening, threading and splicing reels and closely monitoring for mechanical issues.

But thanks in large part to the dwindling number of theaters projecting analog film since 2013, finding capable, actively working projectionists for releases like “The Odyssey” can be a struggle.

Sean McKinnon, director of specialty presentations and AV integration at Boston Light and Sound, is in charge of hiring these projectionists for about 60 venues across the country screening “The Odyssey” in 70mm. He did the same for “Oppenheimer” in 2023, which had the longest theatrical window of the year.

“It was pretty challenging finding people for ‘Oppenheimer,’ especially because the film was so amazing, it was in theaters for so long,” he said of the 122-day release. Staffing projectionists for “The Odyssey” has been “definitely easier,” he said, as the “word has gotten out.”

The talent pool McKinnon pulls from includes theater managers, retired projectionists, trainees from specialized college programs and even workers in other professions who take PTO for the occasion.

“We get people from really all walks of life,” he said. “It’s a special event and people want to be a part of it.”

Taylor Umphenour checks the projector’s focus at the historic Alex Theatre in Glendale.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Outside of big cities, the lack of local projectionists also means McKinnon’s company has to fly people to Morrow, Ga., or Valley View, Ohio, for instance, to run the booth for the duration of a film’s run.

Leah Saint Marie, a filmmaker and former projectionist at the Vista Theatre in Los Feliz, attributed the staffing struggle to the experience and knowledge divide between hobbyists and experts.

“Training is pretty easy if you want to be what they call a ‘popcorn projectionist,’” she said. They “can thread the movie and push start, but if there are any mechanical issues, they can’t fix it.”

“I don’t think anybody who’s going to run a 70mm Imax are popcorn projectionists, because it’s very technical,” she added. Each Imax film print of “The Odyssey” is 11 miles long and weighs roughly 600 pounds.

The most recent data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that in 2023, there were 2,610 motion picture projectionists employed in the U.S. — an increase from 1,900 in 2022. In 2012, the BLS estimated roughly 8,000 projectionists and predicted the number would decline by 26.5% in the next 10 years — but it ultimately decreased by 76%.

“If you want to maintain expertise in the field, what you want are enough [movie] theaters out there running film that somebody can try their hand at it and get better,” Umphenour said.

Why film matters

Could the overwhelming audience demand for Imax 70mm screenings translate into a resurgence of fully equipped theaters? According to Imax Chief Executive Richard Gelfond, it’s more complicated than that.

“The problem is they haven’t made new Imax film projectors in about 50 years,” Gelfond told Variety on Wednesday. “We build new projectors every day, but film projectors, using this film, it’s not practical. So we’ve got to find them and retrofit them and rebuild them, which is what we did for ‘Odyssey.’ But can all 2,000 of our theaters be film projectors? No. There’s just not that many around.”

That said, Cinemark reportedly installed Imax 70mm projectors at three of its theaters ahead of “The Odyssey’s” release, and there are 11 more theaters projecting “The Odyssey” in Imax 70mm than there were for “Oppenheimer.”

Cinema engineer Justin Dennis is working with projectionist and production manager Taylor Umphenour to build a new projection booth capable of running both 35mm and 70mm film at the Alex Theatre.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Saint Marie recalled working as a projectionist in Pennsylvania during the period when most theaters transitioned from film to digital. While training at a new theater, she was surprised to find an old film projector still stored in the booth, and even more surprised to learn it was for Nolan’s sake.

“When he releases a [movie] on film, we have to have the projector. A lot of places around the United States kept their projectors specifically for Nolan,” she said.

Nolan isn’t the only director with an affinity for large format film and analog media. Quentin Tarantino, Paul Thomas Anderson and Ryan Coogler (whose 2025 hit “Sinners” made quite a splash in Imax 70mm) are others associated with what Umphenour dubbed “the 70mm renaissance.”

According to Saint Marie, theaters worldwide transitioned from film to digital projection mainly because the cost of shipping a Digital Cinema Package is much cheaper than shipping a film release print. But the community of skilled laborers and enthusiastic audiences who champion analog projection say it’s worth it.

“I think there’s something to be said about what film gives you as an artistic community, versus what digital gives you is just consuming as a capitalistic society,” Saint Marie said. To McKinnon, it comes down to the “tradition of humans telling a story by flickering light” harking back to prehistoric times.

For Umphenour, the story of “The Odyssey’s” release and all of the 70mm fanfare is one of preservationists triumphing over countless obstacles.

“There are 70mm theaters running this film throughout the world that, frankly, have been kept alive through the deep devotion of people who care about this format,” Umphenour said. “They really do deserve to be celebrated because, like so many things in life, if you don’t have people that care about it, you don’t end up with a thing.”

“The results of all this work are not images projected on screen,” he continued. “It’s a community brought together to hear a story well told, which allows them to create a life memory they get to carry forward for years and years.”

Film projection takes center stage at the Alex Theatre.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

The Son, as they say, will come out tomorrow.

Bet your bottom dollar that Son Heung-min, LAFC’s $26 million man — the record MLS fee for an incoming player — would peel himself off the mat and clear away the cobwebs and sorrows of the past few weeks and months.

He did it with a sizzling, right-footed goal in the 57th minute of LAFC’s 3-0 victory Friday over the Galaxy in the 27th rendition of El Tráfico and the first this year. Also, the first crosstown showdown of Son’s so-far, so-so tenure in L.A.

His arrival last August from Tottenham Hotspur in England’s Premier League was met with uncommon fanfare. Here came another global soccer icon to Major League Soccer — and to L.A., where the South Korean sensation was welcomed enthusiastically by a Korean diaspora that’s about 250,000 strong.

LAFC forward Son Heung-Min celebrates after scoring a goal against the Galaxy at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson on Friday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

The first Asian player to win the Premier League Golden Boot, Mayor Karen Bass spoke at Son’s introductory news conference. The Dodgers invited him to throw out the first pitch on Shohei Ohtani’s bobblehead night (and turned around this season and produced a bobblehead of Son throwing that pitch).

His first LAFC goal — a free kick over the wall in a 1-1 draw with FC Dallas — was named the MLS’s goal of the year. After notching 173 goals across all competitions with Tottenham Hotspur, he finished with nine goals in his first 10 regular-season appearances for LAFC.

Then the scoring stopped. As if someone turned off the spigot.

Before Friday, Son recorded nine assists but no goals over 13 unlucky matches this season. He went 44 shots without striking a goal. And 237 days between goals, according to The Chosun Daily’s tally.

Yeah, just a bit of what his LAFC teammate Mark Delgado described as “a drought.”

Most painfully, Son also was shut out in South Korea’s disastrously short World Cup stay.

South Korea entered the tournament with the expectation that its “golden generation” – led by Son – would reach the knockout stage. But after it opened Group A with a 2-1 win over Czechia, the Koreans lost 1-0 to Mexico and 1-0 to South Africa and failed to qualify for the round of 32 as one of the eight best third-placed teams.

The uproar in South Korea that followed included the country’s president demanding an investigation.

Mexico’s Julián Quiñones and South Korea’s Son Heung-min vie for the ball during a World Cup match on June 18 in Guadalajara, Mexico.

(Ricardo Mazalan / Ap Photo/ricardo Mazalan)

For his part, a heartbroken Son shared a statement on Instagram: “I don’t dare to convey the disappointment and hurt of the fans with a single word ‘sorry.’ So even saying those words feels insufficient.”

It was impossible not to wonder: What the heck?

Where was the version of Son that everyone was celebrating a year ago?

How did the 34-year-old’s game decline so suddenly?

Was this a classic case of overpromising and underdelivering?

It still might be. LAFC — now 8-5-3 and third in MLS’s Western Conference — is going to face tougher competition in the days ahead than the work-in-progress Galaxy.

But on Friday, the center-forward was aggressive and in control. He took two shots in the first seven minutes, both blocked by defenders. He toyed with the Galaxy just before halftime, lining up to take a penalty before turning it over to Denis Bouanga, who scored to make it 2-0.

Then he and Delgado exchanged passes in the second half to set up Son’s first goal in darn near forever.

LAFC coach Marc Dos Santos gave Son 10 days off after the World Cup, but Son said he was eager to return to L.A., because he so enjoys the camaraderie of this club.

Those good vibes were on display when Son’s shot whizzed between two defenders and the outstretched arms of Galaxy goalkeeper Novak Micovic.

Son put his finger to his lips in the universal “shhh” sign and then did his patented camera celebration — click! — miming a snapshot. Because every goal is precious, and let’s be real, you never know when another will come.

LAFC’s Son Heung-Min celebrates after scoring what could be a breakthough goal against the rival Galaxy at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson on Friday.

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

Around him, the crowd and his colleagues went wild.

Dos Santos did some vein-popping flexing on the sideline. Mathieu Choinière pumped his fists as though he were operating a handcrank. Jacob Shaffelburg and Ryan Hollingshead flanked him on either side as though posing for a family photo. Son’s hair got tousled and nobody wearing black and gold could stop smiling.

“He deserves it, coming back from an emotional World Cup, and joining us right away,” Dos Santos said.

“He’s a great guy,” Delgado said. “He’s been in a bit of a goal drought, and, you know, we all want him to score. We all, he’s always smiling, and in training, he’s always scoring.

“And we’re like, ‘yeah, we need that, we need that!’ Trying to give him confidence,” Delgado continued. “And in games, he finally is getting that confidence back. So to see him score and put the ball in the net and just see his face light up with a smile is awesome. We all want to see him succeed here. We all want him to lead this club like we know he can.”

Now the goal is to keep the goals coming.

“Scoring the first goal of this season, I think it [will] help me,” Son said. “I think, definitely, going forward through the second part of the season. So, let’s keep going, and hope Wednesday [against Salt Lake] I can score another goal.”

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg, with an assist from Connor Sheets, giving you the latest on city and county government.

As Los Angeles city officials deal with the fallout from last month’s Lineage warehouse fire, one powerful lobbying firm has been at the center of the efforts.

M Strategic Communications took on Lineage as a client two days after the fire ignited at the company’s cold storage facility in Boyle Heights, spewing toxic smoke for miles. A putrid odor from 85 million pounds of rotting food remains a concern.

The company said in a filing to the city’s Ethics Commission that it would be lobbying the mayor and other city officials and would also handle “crisis communications and work related to impact of facility fire.”

Shortly after the fire started, Lineage CEO Greg Lehmkuhl got on the phone with Mayor Karen Bass, and the mayor suggested that Lineage give money to the nonprofit California Community Foundation to disburse to local organizations, according to Jeff Rivera, the company’s chief operating officer.

California Community Foundation has also hired M Strategic Communications to lobby the mayor and other city officials related to reforms to the city’s mansion tax.

After Bass’ suggestion, M Strategic Communications put its two clients, Lineage and CCF, in touch. By that point, according to M Strategic, CCF had already created a fund to help with the emergency.

The lobbying firm also has close ties to Bass. One of its two principals is Shannon Murphy, who was a deputy chief of staff to Bass when Bass was speaker of the State Assembly more than a decade ago. Murphy remains a close confidant of Bass, according to a source with knowledge of the mayor’s office.

M Strategic Communications subcontracted some of the work in its June 19 contract with Lineage to Yusef Robb, who was an unpaid advisor and spokesperson to the mayor until early June.

Robb initially continued to serve as an unpaid, unofficial advisor to the mayor, though no longer as a spokesperson. After The Times and other outlets reported on his work for Lineage last Saturday, Robb said he would no longer serve as an unpaid advisor.

CCF has been paying out the $2 million in funds to more than 20 groups to provide relief to Boyle Heights residents.

During a raucous town hall in Boyle Heights last week, where residents booed the officials who spoke, Bass noted that Airbnb was providing short-term rental assistance for people who live close to the fire.

As it turns out, Airbnb is also a client of M Strategic Communications, which was brought on to help legalize vacation home rentals in the city.

Airbnb has provided more than 1,000 nights of free housing to local residents since the fire, the company said.

“We are grateful that so many of those we work with step up when Los Angeles is in need,” said Chris Modrzejewski, a principal at M Strategic Communications.

Whither auditors?

L.A. City Controller Kenneth Mejia investigates inefficiencies, fraud and other issues in the city’s more than 40 departments, whose budgets add up to more than $46 billion per year.

He employs eight auditors and five fraud, waste and abuse investigators, which he says is far from enough. He has requested more staff, to no avail.

On Thursday, Mejia endorsed Councilmember Nithya Raman for mayor, arguing that she would better fund his department and would be more open and transparent with information than Bass’ office has been.

“Nithya believes in the power of transparency and accountability as a tool,” Mejia said during a press conference with Raman.

Raman did not provide specific numbers on how many people she would hire for Mejia’s team.

“I’ve committed to ensuring that we’re fully funding that fraud, waste and audit team,” she said. “The other piece is not standing in the way, but actually opening the door when the controller asks for information about various programs and departments.”

Bass did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Fire funds

Local leaders aren’t happy that Congress still hasn’t appropriated supplemental funding to assist with recovery from the Palisades and Eaton fires.

The catastrophic fires were extinguished more than a year-and-a-half ago, but federal lawmakers have yet to fund a combined request for $15.7 billion from the L.A. city and county governments.

That’s different from what happened after past disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina and Superstorm Sandy, when Congress appropriated large portions of the amounts that were requested.

The federal money would go toward projects like restoring and rebuilding infrastructure, parks, schools and senior centers, as well as housing and residential support.

The delays have slowed the recovery process and hamstrung reconstruction efforts, according to Bass and L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger.

This week, the pair sent joint letters to congressional leaders and members of the county’s congressional delegation, calling on them to fund the requests.

They also lamented the fact that the Trump administration’s recent $87.6 supplemental funding request did not detail support for fire victims.

Bass and Barger called on Congress to appropriate supplemental funds “to cover the infrastructure and rebuilding needs associated with the Eaton and Palisades fires.”

State of play

— ROBB JOBS: While serving as a top informal advisor to Bass, Yusef Robb was also working as a crisis communications consultant for Lineage, the company whose cold storage warehouse in Boyle Heights erupted in flames last month. Robb stepped down as an advisor to the mayor following The Times and other outlets’ reporting.

— FREE AND FOR SALE: Robb worked for the mayor as an unpaid spokesperson and advisor for months earlier this year, at the same time that he had a $587,500 contract with Los Angeles World Airports.

— ANOTHER ONE GONE: A top spokesperson for Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass departed Monday after a brief tenure, joining a growing list of communications aides who have left over the last nine months. Kolby Lee, who started as Bass’ director of communications in February, said he was resigning to spend time with family and loved ones.

— AIRING GRIEVANCES: The contractor for Los Angeles International Airport’s long-awaited automatic people mover train filed a lawsuit against the city, amid ongoing disputes over project delays.

— PROJECT NIXED: The state has rescinded a $73.4-million grant for a new mental health and drug treatment facility in San Pedro, putting the future of the controversial project in jeopardy. Neighbors had picketed outside the property at 2100 S. Western Ave. and packed a town hall in April to oppose the project, with some expressing fears about drug users coming to the area.

—TO FLOCK OR NOT TO FLOCK: Less than a week after the Los Angeles Police Department halted its relationship with Flock Safety over concerns about how the company shares data from automated license plate readers, police officials said they are working out a new agreement — this time with more protections.

— HEAT WAVE: The Bass administration has appointed a new chief heat officer. Daniela Simunovic took on the role on May 31 after the administration discreetly fired Marta Segura, the first person to hold the position. Simunovic served as Bass’ senior director of climate and sustainability for three years.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? This week, the mayor’s signature homelessness program went to Chatsworth in City Councilmember John Lee‘s district, bringing 22 people inside.
• On the docket next week: The L.A. City Council remains on recess next week.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

Tennessee propositioned Paramount Skydance, hoping to tempt it to become the next company to leave California.

As California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta gathered a coalition of 12 state attorneys general to try to block Paramount’s $111-billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery, Tennessee slid into Paramount’s DMs, suggesting it would be better treated in the southern state.

Corporate flight from the Golden State has increased in recent years, with many California-based companies fleeing for lower taxes and more lax business regulations. For the first time this year, California was not the state with the most Fortune 500 companies, after Texas dethroned it in June.

California companies packing up their people and headquarters to move to Texas has been a well-traveled road for those looking for options. Now Tennessee wants to be in the running as a prime destination as well.

Here is what you need to know about its efforts:

What happened with Paramount?

In a July 2 letter to Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, Tennessee Deputy Gov. Stuart McWhorter pitched a relocation of the studio’s Hollywood headquarters to the Volunteer State. In the middle of a brutal legal battle with California regarding the proposed Warner Bros. merger, Tennessee may appear more appealing to Ellison. Paramount relocated its headquarters from New York to Los Angeles in August of last year.

“As Paramount Skydance writes its next chapter, Tennessee offers a compelling proposition: a state where creativity and technology converge, where talent is developed intentionally, and where innovation is embraced,” said McWhorter in the letter viewed by The Times. “We would welcome the opportunity to share our vision for how Tennessee could help shape the future of Paramount Skydance and its talented team.”

Though many in Hollywood have giggled at the idea of a major studio moving to the South, it isn’t totally ridiculous.

Ellison has backing from his father, tech billionaire and Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison. Oracle, once a California-based company, is now moving its headquarters to Nashville.

In December of 2020, the software tech company left California, where it was founded in 1977, to relocate to Texas. In April 2024, it chose Nashville as the home for Oracle’s “world headquarters,” which began construction in February.

Have other companies moved to Tennessee?

Oracle isn’t the first company to set up in Tennessee. Nissan, which had operated its U.S. headquarters out of Gardena since 1960, left the state in 2005 for Franklin. Nissan chose Tennessee for its drastically lower operational costs.

Mitsubishi Motors also moved its headquarters to Franklin from Cypress in 2019. Mitsubishi moved for lower operational costs and to be in a state with less-strict business regulations than California‘s.

Two beloved California burger chains moved to Tennessee.

In 2018, CKE, the parent company of Los Angeles-founded Carl’s Jr., also left California for Tennessee. CKE consolidated Carl’s Jr. and its St. Louis chain, Hardee’s, under its headquarters in Franklin.

In-N-Out — arguably California’s most iconic burger spot known for its animal fries and double doubles— began a transition out of California in 2023. It established a corporate office in Franklin, and last summer, owner and Chief Executive Lynsi Snyder announced her own move to Tennessee.

Last year, Snyder said pandemic-era restrictions and California policy motivated her decision to leave, but she has no plans for In-N-Out to expand farther East. The majority of In-N-Out locations are still in California.

“There’s a lot of great things about California, but raising a family is not easy here. Doing business is not easy here,” Snyder said.

What is so special about Tennessee?

The southern state’s highly business-friendly tax incentives make it an extremely desirable location. Businesses and billionaires are drawn to Tennessee by its lack of state income and property taxes. Instead, the state relies on a 7% sales tax as its main source of tax revenue. Tennessee also offers a number of tax credits and grants for businesses, including many designed to support newly relocated businesses, cover costs of training new employees, and construction.

Tennessee’s central location and well-connected infrastructure support supply chain logistics. Seven interstate highways run through Tennessee, and six of the United States’ class 1 rail lines operate there, allowing companies to cut transportation costs dramatically. Memphis is also home to the busiest cargo airport in the country.

The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development says the state has one of the best business incentive programs in the country and has been ranked the third best state for doing business by Chief Executive magazine.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee attributes the success to the state’s competitive tax policy, workforce, and quality of life.

“Companies choose Tennessee because they recognize the strength of our workforce, our strategic location and our ability to support long-term growth,” Lee said in an emailed statement. “Tennessee’s success comes from our commitment to helping businesses thrive.”