year

Reposts flood in. Likes climb faster than administrators can count.

Each spring, the Chargers know how to run up this score.

When it comes to what senior director of production Tyler Pino calls the “content Super Bowl,” the Chargers are multi-time season NFL schedule release champions. They broke the internet with popular anime videos in 2022 and 2023. A Sims 2 theme in 2024 kept online sleuths laughing for weeks at inside jokes.

The schedule reveal video posted Wednesday in the pixelated style of Minecraft surpassed one million views on X, formerly known as Twitter, in 45 minutes, and four million in three hours, confirming the Chargers’ social media dynasty. The next closest NFL team schedule video was viewed roughly 1.5 million times during that same span.

The Chargers set the bar among a throwback action figure commercial, a Mario Kart parody and an ad for a prescription drug. They had some brief competition when the Indianapolis Colts also dropped a Minecraft-themed video only to delete it roughly an hour later. The Jets even poked fun at the unexpected twin videos.

Each year’s creative videos have suddenly become more notable than the schedules they promote. But the Chargers’ content team tries to stay focused on the process of winning fans over one like, lower-case letter and laugh at a time.

“I don’t think our goal is to be the best on the internet,” said Megan Julian, Chargers senior director of digital and social media, “but our goal is to build generational fandom on the internet.”

Known for their creativity and casual humor, the Chargers were named the NFL’s best Twitter account by Complex in 2019, 2022 and 2023.

When Julian joined the Chargers in 2018, she was the only person behind the social media accounts. The franchise had just returned to L.A., where a whole generation had grown up without the NFL. Fans were already invested in different teams. Instead of trying to change an established fan’s mind, the content team aimed to cultivate new ones by reaching different, younger audiences that will fill SoFi Stadium for generations.

Allie Raymond, left, and Megan Julian of the Chargers’ social media team, walk on the practice field during rookie minicamp at the team’s headquarters in El Segundo.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Julian made the Chargers’ social media accounts feel like entering a group chat. The team, which includes director of organic social media Allie Raymond; Jaemin Cho, the senior vertical video coordinator; Lorren Walker, programming manager for organic social media; and coordinator Hannah Johnson, post in lower-case text in short, sharp bursts. They never overexplain the joke.

Here, among friends, it’s already known.

“You’re talking with the fans,” Julian said. “Not at them.”

Occasionally commenters complain about the lower case letters or can’t keep up with the newest slang. The schedule release videos often include pointed jokes toward opposing players or teams. Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson, who controversially sat out for one play last year because he was tired, ran out of gas in a go-kart race in this year’s video.

But the unique tone has built a distinct brand for an organization that is fighting for any way to stand out in a crowded L.A. market.

“We’re creative, and we think a little bit off kilter,” said David Bretto, the director of creative video. “But we do that because we’re allowed to do that, and the organization sees the success.”

A member of the Chargers’ content team films players taking part in rookie minicamp at the team’s headquarters in El Segundo on May 9.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

The content team’s reputation precedes them. When videographers checked bags at the NFL combine, security guards asked what they were cooking for the schedule release. Incoming rookies asked who is behind the keys of the social media accounts that go viral with the latest TikTok trends.

Inspired by the energy of young, charismatic stars on the 2018 team including Keenan Allen, Mike Williams and Derwin James Jr., Julian started to craft a social media persona that matched the on-field personnel. For the franchise’s current era, showing the players’ personalities remains at the forefront.

Some players welcome the sight of the social media team holding a tiny microphone tethered to their phones. Linebacker Daiyan Henley is as ubiquitous on the Chargers’ TikTok account as the team’s logo. A more reserved personality such as Justin Herbert still shines through in videos that showcase the star quarterback’s humble charm.

Highlight videos of Herbert avoiding their cameras still turn into internet gold because while this is a football team, football is only a fraction of the franchise’s digital brand.

“There are only 20 days a year that we actually play the sport,” said Jason Levine, Chargers senior vice president of brand, creative and content. “Then the other 345, we’re just entertaining people.”

Allie Raymond records players and coaches taking part in Chargers rookie minicamp on May 9.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

The biggest internet stage is the schedule release. The Seattle Seahawks sparked a revolution in 2016 with a cupcake-themed video in which special ingredients representing each city of their opponents were stirred into a batter. Some teams hire production companies and outside contractors to prepare for the big reveal. This season, NBA legend Allen Iverson and actress Brenda Song made cameos for the Buffalo Bills and the Rams, respectively.

But Julian proudly notes that all of the Chargers’ videos have been produced in-house.

The Chargers’ first major schedule release video came in 2019 when they represented each opponent with stock footage. A dog dressed in a lion’s mane. A person in a bear suit on a picnic. Both games against the AFC West rivals Kansas City Chiefs were represented by awkward chefs. The 73-second collection of clips was so weird it somehow worked.

The day before it dropped, Julian and Bretto nearly scrapped the project all together.

“To me, schedule release kind of feels like you’re on a cliff,” Bretto said. “You put all this work to get to the top of this mountain, and at the very end, there’s nothing to do but just jump. You don’t know how the audience is going to react.”

Just count the tens of thousands of likes. The reception is clear.

For the last 18 months, the city of Rancho Palos Verdes has been struggling to address a worsening local emergency — the dramatic expansion of an ancient landslide zone that has torn homes apart, buckled roadways and halted utility services.

Triggered by a succession of heavy winter rains in 2023 and 2024, the ongoing land movement has upended the lives of residents and cast the city into financial uncertainty. Without significant outside aid, officials say they expect to spend about $37 million this fiscal year on emergency landslide mitigation — a sum nearly equal to the city’s annual operating budget.

Now, to make matters worse, the Trump administration has announced that it will cease funding the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities grants — a major pot of money the city hoped to use to finance a long-term prevention and stabilization plan.

“The BRIC program was yet another example of a wasteful and ineffective FEMA program,” read the administration announcement. “It was more concerned with political agendas than helping Americans affected by natural disasters.”

For the city of Rancho Palos Verdes, the action amounts to the likely loss of $16 million for stabilization work. It also marks a striking reversal in federal support for local slide mitigation efforts.

In September 2024, a campaigning Trump visited his nearby Trump National Golf Club to say that government needed to do more to help residents in the slide area. “The mountain is moving and it could be stopped, but they need some help from the government. So, I hope they get the help,” Trump said.

Last week, city officials again extended a local emergency declaration as the crisis continues to pose unprecedented strain on city finances.

“We are running out of money quickly,” Rancho Palos Verdes Mayor Dave Bradley said at a recent City Council meeting. “We are dramatically coming to the end of our rope to be able to [continue landslide mitigation efforts]. … We are spending major percentages on our total budget on this one issue.”

The majority of those allocated funds have gone toward a collection of new underground “de-watering” wells, which pump out the groundwater that lubricates landslide slip planes — a strategy that geologists have credited with helping to ease the movement in recent months.

Millions of dollars have also gone toward repeated repairs to Palos Verdes Drive South — which continues to crack and shift — as well as efforts to fill fissures, improve drainage and maintain important infrastructure, such as sewer and power lines.

While the city isn’t yet facing a major budget shortfall, its reserve funds have quickly dwindled over the last two years. By next fiscal year — which begins in July — the city expects to have only $3.5 million in unallocated capital improvement reserves, down from $35 million three years ago, according to city data. And while landslides have been the most pressing concern of late, city officials say they now face an estimated $80 million in other capital projects.

“Without a doubt, we need outside help for this landslide,” said Ramzi Awwad, the city’s public works director. He said the city is working to find and apply for other federal and state funding sources, but has run into roadblocks because landslides are not typically included within most disaster or emergency response frameworks.

“This is a disaster … very much exacerbated by severe weather and severe climate change,” Bradley recently testified before the California Assembly Committee on Emergency Management. He called the growing price tag for necessary response “unsustainable.”

Many areas of the Rancho Palos Verdes landslide complex — which covers more than 700 acres and includes about 400 homes — are still moving as much as 1.5 feet a month, damaging property and infrastructure, according to the city. Other sections that shifted several inches a week at the peak of movement in August 2024 have slowed or completely halted. City officials attribute those improvements to the ongoing mitigation projects as well as a much drier winter — but they say more work is needed to keep the area safe and accessible.

Officials argue the loss of FEMA funding could stymie long-term slide prevention efforts that were in the works for years before land movement drastically accelerated last year.

The Portuguese Bend Landslide Remediation Project, which calls for the installation of a series of water pumps called hydraugers, as well as other measures to keep water from entering the ground, was initially awarded a $23-million FEMA BRIC grant in 2023, Awwad said. The grant was later reduced to $16 million.

The project is separate from the city’s ongoing emergency response, but key to long-term stability in the area, Awwad said.

Rancho Palos Verdes officials dispute the administration’s assertion that the BRIC grant program is “wasteful and ineffective.” Instead, they say it represented a lifeline for a small city that has long dealt with landslides.

For decades, the city’s most dramatic landslide — the Portuguese Bend slide — has moved as much as 8.5 feet a year, or approximately an inch or two per week. Last summer, it was moving about a foot a week. Other nearby landslides, including Abalone Cove and Klondike Canyon, also saw dramatic acceleration last year, but those areas are not a part of the long-term stabilization plan.

Shown is a view of a large fissure in Rancho Palos Verdes’ Portuguese Bend neighborhood. Landslides have accelerated in the city following back-to-back wet winters in 2023 and 2024.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

“Losing the BRIC funding will jeopardize the city’s ability to implement long-term efforts to slow the Portuguese Bend landslide and prevent the kind of emergency we are experiencing now from happening again,” Megan Barnes, a city spokesperson, said.

Because BRIC grants were earmarked for preventive measures, the city was unable to use the money for its emergency response. But in recent weeks, the city completed the first phase of the long-term project — planning, engineering and final designs — after FEMA approved $2.3 million for that initial work.

Officials say the city has yet to receive that portion of the funding, and it is now unclear whether it ever will.

“We are still seeking clarification on the next steps for what, if any, portion of the BRIC grant may be available,” Barnes said. “We continue to strongly urge our federal, state and county partners to recognize the urgency of this situation and continue to support the city in protecting our residents and vital infrastructure.”

Awwad said it’s not just the local residents who benefit from such stabilization efforts; it also helps the thousands of motorists who use Palos Verdes Drive South and thousands more residents who rely on the county-run sewer line that runs alongside the road.

“This is a regional issue,” Awwad said.

Barnes said the city is considering applying to FEMA’s Hazard Mitigation Grant Program for the project, but securing state or federal funding for stabilization projects has been a challenge.

After the Biden administration declared the 2023-2024 winter storms a federal disaster, the city applied to FEMA for over $60 million in disaster reimbursements, linking its landslide mitigation work to the heavy rainfall. But FEMA officials rejected almost all of the city’s request.

The city has appealed that decision, but it seems unlikely federal officials will reverse course. In a recent letter to FEMA about the appeal, the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services recommended the appeal not be granted because the landslides “were unstable prior to disaster” and therefore not a “direct result of the declared disaster.”

“Cal OES agrees with [the city] that the winter storms… may have greatly accelerated the sliding,” the letter said. “However … the pre-existing instability dating back to 2018 makes that work ineligible per FEMA policy. “

The most significant outside funding the city has received has come from Los Angeles County. Supervisor Janice Hahn secured $5 million for the landslide response — more than $2 million of which has been distributed to homeowners for direct assistance through $10,000 payments. The county’s flood control district also allocated the city $2 million to help cover costs preparing for the rainy season.

In 2023, the city also received $2 million from Congress after U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) helped secure the funds for landslide remediation.

The city’s most dramatic financial support — if it comes through — would be a $42-million buyout program that was awarded last year by FEMA. With that money, city officials expect a buyout of 23 homes in the landslide zone, 15 of which have been red-tagged, or deemed unlivable. FEMA has yet to allocate those funds, Barnes said, but even if it does, none of the money would go toward slide mitigation or prevention.

In the face of such difficulties, city officials have thrown their support behind a bill that could change how the state classifies emergencies.

Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates) introduced AB 986, which would add landslides as a condition that could constitute a state of emergency — a change that could free up a pool of state funds for Rancho Palos Verdes.

He called the bill “a common sense proposal” after seeing what the Rancho Palos Verdes landslide zone has been dealing with, but similar bills in the past have failed.

“The Palos Verdes peninsula … has been witnessing what I call a slow-moving train wreck,” Muratsuchi testified at an Emergency Management Committee hearing last month. “Homes are being torn apart. … The road is being torn apart, utilities are being cut off. By any common sense definition: a natural disaster.”

Life, death, crime, kitsch, nostalgia, immigrant aspirations and witty design — all of these elements converge in the world of motels, which didn’t exist before 1925.

Here are five facts and phenomena from the century of history.

The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.

Where Magic Fingers are found

From the late 1950s into the ’80s, thousands of motels proudly advertised their Magic Fingers — a little collection of vibrating electric nodes under your mattress that would give you a 15-minute “massage” for 25 cents, inspiring creators from Kurt Vonnegut to Frank Zappa. Alas, their moment passed. But not everywhere. Morro Bay’s Sundown Inn, which gets two diamonds from the Auto Club and charges about $70 and up per night, is one of the last motels in the West that still features working Magic Fingers, offered (at the original price) in most of its 17 rooms. “We’ve owned the hotel for 41 years, and the Magic Fingers was here when we started. We just kept them,” said co-owner Ann Lin. Ann’s mother- and father-in-law immigrated from Taiwan and bought the property in 1983.

Motels, hotels and Patels

Many motels and small hotels are longtime family operations. Sometimes it’s the original owner’s family, and quite often it’s a family named Patel with roots in India’s Gujarat state. A recent study by the Asian American Hotel Owners Assn. found that 60% of U.S. hotels — and 61% of those in California — are owned by Asian Americans. By one estimate, people named Patel own 80% to 90% of the motels in small-town America. The beginnings of this trend aren’t certain, but many believe that one of the first Indians to acquire a hotel in the U.S. was Kanjibhai Desai, buyer of the Goldfield Hotel in downtown San Francisco in the early 1940s.

Motels, media and murders

There’s no escaping the motel in American pop culture. Humbert Humbert, the deeply creepy narrator of Vladimir Nabokov’s 1955 novel “Lolita,” road-tripped from motel to motel with his under-age victim. Edward Hopper gave us the disquieting 1957 oil painting “Western Motel.” In the film “Psycho” (1960), Alfred Hitchcock brought to life the murderous motel manager Norman Bates. When Frank Zappa made a movie about the squalid misadventures of a rock band on tour, he called it “200 Motels” (1971). When the writers of TV’s “Schitt’s Creek” (2015-2020) wanted to disrupt a rich, cosmopolitan family, they came up with the Rosebud Motel and its blue brick interior walls. And when executives at A&E went looking for a true-crime series in 2024, they came up with “Murder at the Motel,” which covered a killing at a different motel in every episode.

The Lorraine Motel, before and after

The 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. made the Lorraine Motel in Memphis globally notorious. But before and after that day, the Lorraine played a very different role. Built as a small hotel in 1925 and segregated in its early years, the property sold to Black businessman Walter Bailey in 1945. He expanded it to become a motel, attracting many prominent African American guests. In the 1950s and ’60s, the Lorraine was known for housing guests such as Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Roy Campanella, Ray Charles, Nat King Cole, Aretha Franklin, Lionel Hampton, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and the Staples Singers. After King’s assassination, the motel struggled, closed, then reemerged in 1991 as the National Civil Rights Museum, now widely praised. Guests follow civil rights history through the building, ending at Room 306 and its balcony where King was standing when he was shot.

The man upstairs in the Manor House

In 1980, a Colorado motel owner named Gerald Foos confided to journalist Gay Talese that he had installed fake ceiling vents in the Manor House Motel in Aurora, Colo., and for years had been peeping from the attic at guests in bed. The man had started this in the 1960s and continued into the ’90s. Finally, in 2016, Talese spun the story into a New Yorker article and a book, “The Voyeur’s Motel,” sparking many charges that he had violated journalistic ethics.

Denise McKinney says she has probably somewhere close to half a million matchbooks tucked away inside her Riverside home.

She’s been collecting for years and will typically pick up whatever strikes her fancy, no pun intended. She has specialties now, like matchbooks with animals on them or matchbooks that advertise radio and TV stations, but she says her biggest collection by far is books from Southern California, including vintage motel matchbooks.

The motel turns 100. Explore the state’s best roadside havens — and the coolest stops along the way.

The president of the Angelus Matchcover Club says she likes matchbooks because of how they reflect a region’s history. She’s grabbed books that tout Route 66 attractions or places from her Orange County hometown.

Matchbook collectors Olivia Frescura, Robert Donnelson, Denise McKinney and Cheryl Crill.

(Amanda Villegas / For The Times)

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the motel, a concept that originated with the Milestone Mo-Tel in San Luis Obispo (later renamed the Motel Inn). Though it didn’t become widely known until after World War II, “motel” is essentially a portmanteau for “motor hotel,” or a lodging place where the rooms could be entered through the parking lot rather than through a central lobby.

To get travelers in the door, motels used gimmicks to stand out among the stiff competition, like neon signs and themed decor, but also promotional materials like free postcards and pocket-sized matchbooks. With the 100th anniversary in mind, we wanted to look back at some of Southern California’s motel history as seen through collectors’ matchbooks. These books represent just a small fraction of the thousands of motels that have operated in the region but are a great place to start.

As the box office improves, will a steep discount on tickets bring more people to the multiplex this summer?

That’s what AMC Theatres is betting.

The Leawood, Kan.-based chain said this week that members of its AMC Stubs loyalty program, which has a free tier, will get 50% off adult evening-priced movie tickets all day long Wednesdays, starting July 9.

The move comes as the studios and theater owners have struggled to bring audiences back to the movies after the COVID-19 pandemic.

Box-office revenue improved in fits and starts as the pandemic waned, though the number of films released was greatly affected by the dual writers and actors strikes in 2023.

As of this past weekend, domestic ticket sales this year are down about 30% compared with the same time period in 2019, according to Comscore. Even before the pandemic, attendance numbers were declining.

But there is some hope on the horizon.

Total North American box-office grosses this year are expected to reach about 80% of 2019’s totals, with 2026 predicted to reach 86%, said Alicia Reese, senior vice president of equity research for media and entertainment at Wedbush Securities.

“The post-pandemic recovery has been pretty bumpy,” she said. “That said, the strikes really challenged the box-office volume for a while, but that’s now in the rear-view mirror.”

Theatrical attendance and flexible ticket pricing were frequent topics of conversation at the CinemaCon trade conference earlier this year in Las Vegas, where studio executives and exhibitors alike mused about how to bring audiences back to theaters.

A more diverse lineup of films would help, some said. Others, like Paramount domestic distribution president Chris Aronson, argued that an improved experience in the theaters, including fewer ads, limited trailers, extended matinee pricing or daily deals could lure customers back.

He highlighted the “Discount Tuesday” promotion available at many theaters.

“Why not ‘Discount Wednesdays’? Unless, of course, you’re already at full capacity on Wednesday, in which case, don’t do it,” he said during his on-stage presentation, to laughter from the audience of theater owners and industry executives.

That’s now exactly what’s happening at AMC, as theater operators consider ways to improve traffic on less-attended weekdays.

In explaining the decision, AMC Chief Executive Adam Aron touted the improved box-office results in the fiscal second quarter.

Just a few months ago, the industry was collectively wringing its hands over the poor performance in the first quarter, including underwhelming showings from films such as Disney’s troubled live-action “Snow White” and a general lack of blockbusters.

The bleak first quarter at the box office took a toll on AMC’s earnings, which the chain reported last week.

The company reported revenue of $862.5 million, down 9.3% from the $951.4 million it logged during the first quarter of 2024. Net loss for the first quarter was $202.1 million, compared with a loss of $163.5 million during the previous year. AMC also reported lower attendance for the first quarter with 41,903 admissions, a decrease of 10.1% from the same time period a year ago.

Aron cautioned in a statement at the time that the first-quarter domestic box office was “a distorting anomaly” and that anyone trying to draw conclusions about the movie theater business from those results was “likely to be mistaken.”

So far this spring, films like Warner Bros. Pictures’ “A Minecraft Movie” and Ryan Coogler’s “Sinners” have jolted the box office back to life.

And with several new movies on the horizon, including Disney’s live-action “Lilo & Stitch” and the Tom Cruise-led “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” analysts and theaters feel optimistic about the potential box office trajectory. As of last weekend, the year’s box-office grosses are up 16% compared with the same time period last year, according to Comscore.

“Realistically, we could not afford to have made this change to our ticket pricing strategy until the box office showed true signs of sustained recovery,” Aron said in a statement. “But in April and now in May, the box office has been booming, and the remainder of 2025 appears poised to continue that upward box office trend.”

Already, Tuesdays have emerged as the biggest non-weekend moviegoing day, said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at Comscore. Adding another lower-priced day to the mix could help drive attendance, increase concession sales and expose audiences to trailers for new films, he said.

“When consumers feel like they’re getting something more, the loyalty developed there is very important,” Dergarabedian said. “Having one of the bigger chains commit to this is a big deal.”

The initiative will likely be a test to whether it cannibalizes higher-priced attendance on other days, Reese said.

“Overall, I think it’s a strong strategy with a lot of really good content available over the summer to get people who wouldn’t otherwise go to the movies to come back to the movie theater,” she said. “Either way, it gets attention, it gets far more people onto their loyalty programs that they can communicate with directly, it opens their eyes to AMC’s paid subscription program.”

Dynamic ticket pricing, similar to hotels and concerts, has long been discussed as a potential attendance booster but hasn’t been fully embraced for movies.

Nonetheless, AMC has experimented with different kinds of discounts. The company a couple years ago introduced modestly lower-priced tickets for less in-demand front row seats, but later backed away from the idea.

Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed slashing funding by 67% for a pioneering deal with Google to support struggling California newsrooms, citing financial pressures that have promoted wider budget cuts.

California newsrooms had expected to receive $30 million from the state as part of a deal brokered last year in which Google and the state would jointly contribute money over five years to support local newsrooms through a News Transformation Fund. The state Department of Finance confirmed Wednesday that California instead will pay out $10 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year.

“The sole reason for the reduction is more limited/fewer resources than projected in the January budget,” Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer said.

Newsom announced Wednesday that the state is facing an additional $12-billion budget shortfall next year. The revised $321.9-billion plan will also include a reduction in healthcare for low-income undocumented immigrants and a decrease in overtime hours for select government employees.

The deal was born of negotiations that began with a proposed funding bill written by Assemblymember Buffy Wicks (D-Oakland), which is known as the California Journalism Preservation Act. It would have required Google to pay into a fund annually that would have distributed millions to California news outlets based on the number of journalists they employ. The California News Publishers Assn., of which the Los Angeles Times is a member, backed the larger effort.

It was designed to aid newspapers that have seen their finances collapse in recent years, leaving fewer journalists to cover institutions and communities.

The proposal was modeled after a Canadian bill that has Google paying about $74 million per year. Google fought the bill, arguing its passage would force the company to remove California news from its platform, thus restricting access for Californians.

Instead, the state and Google agreed in August to provide nearly $250 million to newsrooms over five years, starting in 2025, with funding slated for two projects.

The second initiative was a $68-million pledge for Google to fund artificial intelligence in the form of a National AI Accelerator. The AI funding element of the deal drew sharp rebukes from Democratic lawmakers and journalists.

California had pledged $30 million in 2025 and $10 million for each of the next four years. Google agreed to an initial payment of $15 million in 2025 and $55 million in total into the journalism fund. Google also agreed to boost its own journalism programs with a separate $50-million grant.

U.S. and UCLA gymnast Jordan Chiles is a two-time Olympian and three-time NCAA individual champion.

She looks completely comfortable in her own skin as she’s performing a floor routine to music by empowering artists like Beyoncé and proudly displaying the more than 20 “amazing art pieces” she has tattooed on her body.

For much of Chiles’ life, however, the body that helped propel her to athletic greatness made her feel “ugly” and self-conscious. But when she first saw photos of herself as a Sports Illustrated Swimsuit model, “I literally started bawling my eyes out,” Chiles recently told People magazine.

U.S. and UCLA gymnast Jordan Chiles appears on the cover of the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue, on newsstands beginning May 17. The portrait was shot in Boca Raton, Fla., on Nov. 4.

(Ben Horton /Sports Illustrated / Contour by Getty Images)

Chiles said her mother, Gina, reacted similarly.

“My mom actually cried a few times from some of the photos because she’s been there literally every single moment of my life,” Chiles said, “so I think it was more of her realizing how beautiful her daughter is and what I’ve gone through.

“She was there when I would cry and be like, ‘Mom, they’re saying this. They’re saying that.’ Or I would look at myself in the mirror and call myself ugly almost every day. I think it was just really cool for her to know that I get this opportunity and that I get the ability to embrace who Jordan is.”

Chiles was a member of the U.S. Olympic squads that won team silver at the Tokyo Games in 2021 and team gold at the Paris Games last summer. Chiles was also awarded her first individual Olympic medal, a bronze in the floor exercise, in Paris but it was taken away because of a technicality.

At UCLA, Chiles won two national titles in the uneven bars (2023, 2025) and one on the floor (2023). She also finished second in the all-around competition in 2023 and helped the Bruins to a second-place overall finish this year. Chiles has already announced she will return to Westwood next year for her senior season.

When the 2025 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue hits newsstands on Saturday, Chiles will be one of four models appearing on her own cover (Olivia Dunne, Salma Hayek Pinault and Lauren Chan are the others). As opposed to how she felt looking at her own reflection years ago, Chiles said she is “in awe” after seeing herself on the front of the iconic magazine.

“I’ve embraced every single aspect of who I am and I’ve embraced the amazing body that I have,” Chiles said.

SACRAMENTO — One of the many traits that set California apart from other states is the way undocumented immigrants are woven into our communities.

Their economic impact is obvious, and the Golden State would be hard-pressed to keep our status as a world-competing financial power without their labor.

But most Californians know, and are OK with the reality, that at least some of our neighbors, our kids’ classmates, our co-workers, are without legal documents, or in blended-status families.

Gov. Gavin Newsom took a stand Wednesday for those undocumented Californians that seems to have gone largely unnoticed, but which probably will be a big fight in Congress and courts. In his bad news-filled budget presentation, Newsom committed to keeping state-funded health insurance for undocumented residents (with cuts, deep ones, which I’ll get to). Although some are disappointed by his rollbacks, many of which will hit citizens and noncitizens alike, standing by California’s expansion to cover all low income people is a statement of values.

“We’ve provided more support than any state in American history, and we’ll continue to provide more support than any state in American history,” he said.

Sticking with that promise is going to be tough, and likely costly.

This decision comes as Congress considers a Trump-led budget bill that would severely penalize states (there are 14 of them) that continue to provide health insurance to undocumented immigrants. California, of course, has the largest number of such folks on its Medi-Cal plan and would be the hardest hit if that penalty does indeed become the new law — to the tune of $27 billion over six years, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

To put that in perspective, the governor is now estimating a nearly $12-billion budget shortfall this year. That federal cut would add at least $3 billion a year to our costs once it hits.

That federal cut, Newsom said, was “not anticipated in this budget,” which means we are ignoring it for the time being.

Federal programs aren’t open to noncitizens, and no federal dollars are used to support California’s expansion of healthcare to undocumented people.

But Congress is threatening an approximately 10% cut in reimbursements to states that insure undocumented people via the Medicaid expansion that was part of the Affordable Care Act. That expansion allows millions of Americans to have access to healthcare.

Those expansion funds are working in ways that many don’t know about. For example, as Newsom pointed out, behavioral health teams doing outreach to homeless people are funded by Medicaid dollars.

In all, about one-third of Californians rely on Medi-Cal, including millions of children, so this threat to cut federal funds is not an empty one, especially in a lean year.

Katherine Hempstead, a senior policy advisor for the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which advocates for universal healthcare, said that the bill being debated by Congress is so full of cuts to healthcare that arguing against the provision penalizing coverage for undocumented people may not be a priority for most Democrats — making it more likely that the cut will get through.

“I don’t know if this is going to be a do-or-die issue,” she said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom presents his revised 2025-26 state budget during a news conference Wednesday in Sacramento.

(Rich Pedroncelli / Associated Press)

And indeed, the pressure by Republicans to kill off coverage entirely for undocumented folks was quick.

“Gov. Newsom has only partially repealed his disastrous policy,” Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) said in a statement. “ It needs to be reversed entirely, or Californians will continue to spend billions on coverage for illegal immigrants and our state will lose an even larger amount in federal Medicaid funding.”

Newsom has given economic reasons for sticking with the state’s coverage for all low-income residents, regardless of status. When people don’t have access to routine care, they end up in emergency rooms and that is extremely expensive. And also, Medicaid has to cover that emergency care, so taxpayers often end up spending more in the long run by skimping on upfront care.

“It’s definitely important to the people that get the coverage because they don’t really have an alternative,” Hempstead said.

But that care has been vastly more expensive than California expected, also to the tune of billions of dollars in unexpected costs, in part because so many people have signed up.

To the dismay of many, Newsom’s budget reflects both recent economic woes — a $16-billion revenue hit caused by what he’s dubbing the “Trump slump” — as well as the state vastly understimating the cost of covering those undocumented folks.

That shortfall may force cuts in the coverage that undocumented people qualify for if the Legislature goes along with Newsom’s plan, or even parts of it.

Most notably, it would cap enrollment for undocumented adults age 19 and over in 2026, effectively closing the program to new participants. That’s a huge hurt. His plan also calls for adding a $100 per month premium, and other cuts such as ending coverage for the extremely popular and expensive GLP-1 weight loss drugs for all participants.

“I don’t want to be in this position, but we are in this position,” Newsom said.

Amanda McAllister-Wallner, executive director of Health Access California, called those cuts “reckless and unconscionable” in a statement.

“This is a betrayal of the governor’s commitment to California immigrants, and an abandonment of his legacy, which brought California so close to universal healthcare,” she said.

I strongly believe in universal single-payer healthcare (basically opening up Medicare to everyone), so I don’t disagree with McAllister-Wallner’s point. In better days, I would hope to see enrollment reopen and benefits restored.

But also, we’re broke. This is going to be a year of painful choices for all involved.

Which makes Newsom’s, and California’s, commitment to keep insurance for undocumented people notable. The state could back down under this real federal pressure, could try to find a way to claw back the benefits we have already given.

But there’s a moral component to providing healthcare to our undocumented residents, who are such a valuable and vital part of our state.

Although the fiscal realities are ugly, it’s worth remembering that in providing the coverage, California is sticking with some of its most vulnerable residents, at a time when it would be easier to cut and run.

When a Los Angeles County judge resentenced Erik and Lyle Menendez on Tuesday, he offered the brothers a path to freedom for the first time since they were given life in prison for killing their parents with shotguns in 1989.

The latest development makes Lyle, 57, and Erik, 54, eligible for parole — but that is just one of three avenues that could enable them to walk free after 35 years behind bars.

In the coming months, several different judges, parole commissioners and even Gov. Gavin Newsom could still have a hand in the brothers’ fate.

When could they get parole?

Tuesday’s decision by L.A. County Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic modifies the brothers’ original sentence to 50 years to life. Under the state’s youthful offender law, both are immediately eligible for parole because the shootings happened before they turned 26.

A parole hearing probably will be scheduled before the end of the year, according to lawyers working with the Menendez defense team. At the hearing, a panel of commissioners could deem the brothers suitable for parole, but that decision is not final on its own. A 90-day review period would follow, and Newsom could block their release.

Nothing had been scheduled as of Wednesday. At a parole hearing, the brothers will have to take accountability for their crimes and argue to commissioners that they are unlikely to re-offend. In statements delivered in court on Tuesday, they appeared contrite and emotional when revisiting the murders.

“My actions were criminal, selfish, cruel and cowardly,” Erik Menendez said Tuesday. “I have no excuse, no justification for what I did. … I take full responsibility for my crimes.”

Lyle also said he made “no excuses” for felling his mother and father with shotgun blasts, and apologized to the nearly two dozen relatives who have spent years fighting for his release.

“I’m so sorry to each and every one of you,” Lyle told the court Tuesday. “I lied to you and forced you into a spotlight of public humiliation you never asked for.”

How else could they be released?

Before the resentencing process began, Erik and Lyle’s attorneys also filed an application for clemency with Newsom. If the governor grants clemency, their sentence would be commuted immediately and they could walk right out of the Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, where they’ve been housed for years.

A remote clemency hearing is scheduled for June 13, with the brothers set to appear virtually before the parole board. On that day, the board can make a recommendation to Newsom on their suitability for release — which could also forecast their fortunes at an eventual parole hearing.

There is no timeline for Newsom to act on the clemency application, and he is not required to respond to it. The governor has already announced a potential change to statewide parole processes in connection with the case.

The brothers also have a pending petition for a new trial. In the motion, defense attorney Mark Geragos pointed to additional evidence of sexual abuse committed by Jose Menendez, including a fresh allegation from a member of the boy band Menudo.

The brothers have long argued they carried out their crime for fear their parents would kill them to cover up years of sexual abuse committed by Jose.

What’s next for the district attorney?

Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman thrust himself into the center of the Menendez case even before he was elected, attacking his predecessor’s decision to seek to have the brothers resentenced last year despite having no access to files on the case.

Hochman asserted that former Dist. Atty. George Gascón filed the petition only to save his failing reelection bid and promised to review the case after he was inaugurated.

In March, Hochman formally announced his opposition to their resentencing, saying the brothers still had not shown proper “insight” into their crimes by atoning for lies they told about their motives in the case and attempts to get witnesses to give fabricated testimony at their original trials.

Despite Jesic repeatedly warning prosecutors that those arguments weren’t legally appropriate for a resentencing hearing, Hochman’s team barreled ahead, ultimately ending in the most high-profile loss of Hochman’s early tenure as district attorney.

Hochman said Wednesday he still considered his opposition to their resentencing a success because it presented to the judge, parole board and governor — all of whom would have a say in the brothers’ fate — a “full record of the facts.”

Hochman maintained that he did not believe the brothers should be released and said prosecutors will “participate” in any future parole hearings.

Hochman could also potentially appeal Jesic’s ruling. The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to an inquiry about that approach.

Times staff writers Richard Winton and Matthew Ormseth contributed to this report.

“What the f— is going on?” Bernard Sumner says jokingly.

After crashing on both Zoom and WhatsApp, the founding member of New Order decided to give FaceTime a shot. He materializes, sitting on a couch with a white wall behind him. Mild, inviting eyes hide behind his glasses.

It’s been 45 years since he, now “below 70 and above 20,” founded the group alongside bassist Peter Hook, drummer Stephen Morris and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert. But it’s impossible not to mention New Order in the same breath as its previous ensemble in Joy Division. The story is all too familiar, with the band springing up after a Sex Pistols gig in Manchester.

“Famously, loads of people went … Morrissey was there, and the Buzzcocks were there … and everyone went out and formed a band,” Sumner quips.

And to anyone who has ever heard Joy Division, it makes complete sense. The band’s debut album “Unknown Pleasures” is imbued with the Pistols’ signature sense of “anarchistic rebellion, aggression and energy,” from the very first track. Sumner describes the gig as a pivotal moment in the history of music as it, sonically, gave everything the “kick in the balls” it needed.

“It was really ‘f— the establishment’ … we’d all had a pretty s— time at school and the rebelliousness and didn’t like the establishment,” Sumner says. “It was giving those teachers a kick! F— you and f— your lessons and f— all the s— you’re trying to teach us, because we’re not f— interested.”

“Punk gave us the excuse we really needed,” he adds.

But just a few years after Joy Division graced the music scene, the group came to an untimely demise following the death of lead singer Ian Curtis. And a year after that, New Order appeared with Sumner, Hook, Morris and Gilbert at the helm, and an entirely different sound to back them.

The band began to mix in synthesizers with the typical instrumentation, creating an unforgettable, hypnotic sound — every thump and woosh calls listeners to the dance floor and begs them to move. Sumner says it came from nothing, with no conscious effort being put into the familiar noise that would go on to define decades to come.

New Order performs in front of a buzzing crowd in Sydney, Australia.

(Warren Jackson)

“Four people came together and that’s what we did,” Sumner says. “We got rehearsals, but we had no great plan, we didn’t give a s— about earning loads of money, we didn’t give a s— about being famous.”

In fact, their creative process boiled down to going to rehearsals, talking about what they saw on TV the night before and going to grab a baked potato from Spudulike near the studio.

“Then we’d go, ‘Should we try to write something?’” he recalls. “We go, ‘Yeah, okay,’ and then we switch the amps on, and just see what happened.”

He even tells a story of the first time they worked in New York, and met up with famous producer Arthur Baker. The latter was used to working with session musicians, and while doing so, decided to throw New Order into a studio while he finished up.

“He said, ‘Come up with some ideas,’” Sumner says. “We just couldn’t, because we’d been put on the spot and told to do it, and that had never happened before … the trick was not to think about it.”

However, even with its original and revolutionary style, New Order struggled to etch its name in the charts outside of the indie and indie alternative categories. In the ’80s, they were reliant on radio play and didn’t get much outside of college campuses in America.

Instead, groups like Sumner’s, such as the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen, ignored what was going on in the mainstream altogether, leaving the numbers game to pop music.

“We just ignored what was going on in the mainstream,” he says. “We didn’t really like what we were hearing on the radio, so we made our own radio.”

Of course, when the internet came around, it bypassed mainstream radio and absolved the band’s issues with getting airtime. This led to its undoubted success in bridging the gap between generations, with parents sharing the group’s records with their kids.

“Good music is good music, isn’t it? It always floats to the top,” he says. “Buy a New Order record, it’s a good investment for the rest of your life.”

Sumner claims the group is now “more successful” than they’ve ever been and says it comes down to a couple of factors, including cohesion.

“In the early days, we used to get f— up quite a lot and that f— up the shows,” Sumner says. “We used to play a really good one, celebrate how great it was, and then the next one would be terrible because we celebrated too much.”

Bernard Sumner of New Order bows out to fans.

(Warren Jackson)

“Our popularity has increased, really, rather than decreasing, and it usually decreases, doesn’t it?” he jokes.

This relationship between generations that grew up listening to the group and those now is all too apparent when it comes to festivals like Cruel World, which celebrates post-punk, new wave, goth and alt-rock. The event, first hosted in 2022, has brought the likes of Iggy Pop, Duran Duran and Morrissey back to the main stage.

Now, New Order is set to headline the festival on May 17 alongside Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. It’s an unexpected ’80s revival that has maintained steady enough attendance to point toward becoming a staple, much like many of Goldenvoice’s other feats.

“There must be an appetite for this [era of] music, otherwise they wouldn’t be putting it on,” Sumner jokes. “It’s got soul, it really has got soul.”

As for what’s next in terms of new releases, the group recently had to shut down rumors of an album on the way. It’s been 10 years since its critically-acclaimed album, “Music Complete,” was delivered to fans, who are understandably craving a new project. Sumner says the delay comes down to general motivation to write again, with some members wanting to do so and others not being “too keen.”

“I’m one of the ones that does,” Sumner assures. “That’s all I can say, really.”

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s 2025-26 revised budget proposal reneges on his signature policy to provide free healthcare coverage to all low-income undocumented immigrants as costs exceed expectations and the state anticipates challenging economic times ahead.

Newsom’s office said the governor’s spending plan, which will be released late Wednesday morning, calls for requiring all undocumented adults to pay $100 monthly premiums to receive Medi-Cal coverage and for blocking all new adult applications to the program as of Jan. 1.

The cost share will reduce the financial burden on the state and could lower the total number of people enrolled in the healthcare program if some immigrants cannot afford the new premiums. Freezing enrollment may prevent the price tag of the program from continuing to balloon after more people signed up for coverage than the state anticipated.

The governor’s office said the changes will save a combined $5.4 billion through 2028-29, but did not detail the cost savings in the upcoming fiscal year that begins July 1.

Newsom is expected Wednesday to project a deficit for California in the fiscal year ahead, which includes higher than expected Medi-Cal costs, and more significant shortfall estimates in the following years. In the current budget year, the governor and lawmakers approved a $2.8-billion appropriation and took out a separate $3.4-billion loan just to pay for extra expenses for Medi-Cal through June.

The rising costs have drawn criticism from Republicans and added pressure on Democrats to consider scaling back coverage for immigrants. A recent poll found strong support among California voters for offering free healthcare to undocumented children. Just over half of voters supported providing the healthcare to eligible immigrants 50 years old or above, and a plurality — 49% — favored providing the coverage to adults between the ages of 18 and 49.

Medi-Cal, the California offshoot of the federal Medicaid program, provides healthcare coverage to eligible low-income residents. After the Republican Congress this year passed a budget blueprint that includes billions of dollars in spending reductions, fears also persist that cuts to federal Medicaid funding may be looming.

California became the first state in the nation to offer healthcare to all income-eligible immigrants one year ago after the expansion was approved by Newsom and the Democratic-led Legislature.

Gov. Jerry Brown, a Democrat, signed a bill in 2015 that offered Medi-Cal coverage to all children younger than 19.

Newsom grew the Medi-Cal coverage pool to include all income-eligible immigrants in California under a multiyear expansion by age categories that began in 2020 and concluded in 2024.

California’s new budget shortfall comes in addition to $27.3 billion in financial remedies, including $16.1 billion in cuts and a $7.1-billion withdrawal from the state’s rainy day fund, that lawmakers and the governor already agreed to make in 2025-26.

The deficit marks the third year in a row that Newsom and lawmakers have been forced to reduce spending after dedicating more money to programs than the state has available to spend. Poor projections, the high price tag of Democratic policy promises and a reluctance to make long-term sweeping cuts have added to the deficit at a time when the governor regularly touts California’s place as the fourth-largest economy in the world.

On Tuesday afternoon, Newsom’s office said President Trump’s tariff policies have also hurt California’s financial standing and projected that the state will lose out on $16 billion in revenue from January 2025 through June 2026 because of the levies on imported goods and the effect of economic uncertainty on the stock market.

Just north of Magic Mountain’s roller coasters, hidden within the vast, anonymous industrial parks of Valencia, lies the secret lab where the murderous doll M3GAN was born.

“Born” is putting it a touch dramatically — but only a touch. Though she’s taken on a prankish life of her own since the 2022 runaway horror hit made her dance moves iconic, M3GAN is a product of several teams, primarily the animatronic makeup and design company Morot FX Studio, but also a human actor, 15-year-old Amie Donald, several puppeteers and a swarm of technicians performing in concert like a group of modern dancers.

And while the nondescript row of beige offices I pull up to doesn’t scream “secret lab,” that’s not far off either. Just last night, Christian Bale was here, testing out some face-changing prosthetics for his forthcoming role in “Madden,” about the Oakland Raiders football legend. Nicolas Cage dropped in a day earlier. Both will be returning in the days ahead.

“You want a popcorn?” asks Adrien Morot, 54, the shop’s boyish proprietor in a baseball cap. It’s a Saturday in April — the only available time he has in a typically job-crammed week to show us some of the new work he’s done on “M3GAN 2.0,” due in theaters June 27.

There’s a noticeable pride Morot takes in touring me around his geek’s paradise: a two-level office crammed with shelves of scowling latex heads, furry creatures and a pair of giant gators overlooking it all. You see posters for horror movies like Eli Roth’s “Thanksgiving” as well as more elegant, perhaps unlikely gigs: Darren Aronofsky’s “mother!” and the Bale-starring “Vice,” for which the actor was transformed into Dick Cheney. (Morot’s task: turning Steve Carell into Donald Rumsfeld.)

At Morot FX Studio, makeup jobs from the company’s past productions are displayed.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Scattered pizza boxes left on workbenches lend to the air of dorm-room fantasy but Morot is quick to open one up: no leftover slices, only delicate pieces of fabricated skin applications. Pizza boxes are perfect for those.

“I have to admit that, especially for somebody like me that grew up just doing this — this was my hobby, really — there’s never a day where you don’t come into the shop feeling: This is so cool,” Morot says.

Once upon a time, he was a kid in Montreal, horror-obsessed, making his own creations. “F/X,” the deliriously fun 1986 thriller about a special-effects man on the run, is one he watched as a “dumb 16-year-old, very cocky, like a teenager thinking that I was better than everything,” but also a movie he can recount beat for beat.

Also picking her way through the shop is Kathy Tse, Morot’s longtime creative partner and wife. Soft-spoken, with a mind for specifics that complements and protects Morot, her presence immediately makes the space feel more like a serious studio shared by two contemporary artists. She explains that Valencia was “family-friendly” and a better real-estate value.

“Because we have good chemistry — we have trust — we work well together,” Tse, 44, says. “That is so important when you are under duress, under stress. And because of that, they always end up calling us back.”

Morot puts the finishing touches on Brendan Fraser for “The Whale,” work that won his team an Oscar.

(Niko Tavernise / A24)

Hollywood has called back, noticing them in a big way. The Oscar they won for the fleshy organic work they did with Brendan Fraser on “The Whale” is nowhere to be seen. It’s in a closet somewhere, Morot admits, sheepishly.

“Winning an Oscar has never been in the list of accomplishments that I was seeking, truly ever,” he says. “My only goal that I was really dying for was to have one of our creations on the cover of Fangoria magazine. That’s the only thing.” (They line the shop’s business office.)

Tse steers us around to the notion of a certain intimacy they like to work at, a realist aesthetic that might be called the Morot house style.

“What was great about the Oscar that year was how Brendan and Adrien really bonded,” she adds. “They were like brothers, with the constant support and dirty jokes and texts going back and forth. I think that was such a nice, beautiful relationship. To this day, they still text.”

“That’s always how we saw our work,” Morot says. “We’re there to help the actor if we can with what we produce — to help them find the character.”

And with that, the pair take me up to the second level of their shop, followed by their border terrier, Jasper, and there she is, the girl of the hour.

Allison Williams and an animatronic M3GAN in a scene from the movie “M3GAN 2.0,” directed by Gerard Johnstone.

(Universal Pictures)

“M3GAN 2.0” is exactly the sequel fans will be wanting. It embraces the essential ridiculousness of the concept — a vicious AI in the robotic body of a pissed-off tween — as well as the folly of tech bros who would move fast and break things before heeding some fairly obvious warnings.

It’s more of a comedy. The laughs are constant (yes, M3GAN sings another of her awkward songs). Also, reading the room, the filmmakers realize that we’ve come to love her and want to root for her. To that end, she’s been turned into something of a force for good, drafted into doing battle against a military-grade AI called Amelia, also built into the body of a young woman.

For the sake of our visit, Morot and Tse have set up two full-size M3GANs, one from the first movie, another from the upcoming film, the latter more muscular and a good several inches taller. That change was motivated by the realities of their human actor.

“Amie, she keeps growing so quickly and within a year grew over two inches,” Tse says. “The first one she was yay high and then six months later, she grew. We had to readjust all of our dolls.”

Says Morot, “She is such a joy to work with — a real trouper. And I think that everybody was enamored with her and it just made sense to bring her back in the second movie. So I think that the script was altered or adapted to make sure that she would fit within the story.”

One of the several M3GAN masks at Morot FX Studio.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

When M3GAN is running or doing one of her viral swirly-arm dances, it’s performed by Donald, a young actor from New Zealand, wearing a mask designed by Team Morot. He shows me the mold. “That’s her face on the inside,” he says. “That’s a negative impression of her face. It’s quite heavy, actually.”

But when it’s a medium shot or close-up, you’re seeing an animatronic puppet operated by several people. Usually Morot is working the mechanisms in the eyes and lubricating them — he can speak excitedly at length about “eyeball pivot” — while Tse is manipulating arms and doing a fair amount of hand-acting.

“In my naiveté, I never quite understood just how much this was basically an elevated Muppet movie,” says “M3GAN” director Gerard Johnstone, calling from the editing suite at Blumhouse’s post-production facility in Koreatown, where he’s finalizing the sequel’s cut. He remembers learning about Morot and Tse’s skills in 2019 before the pandemic hit and being convinced by their commitment to lifelike illusion.

“I found that hugely inspiring,” the director says. “I thought, Why are we making something that looks like a toy when these guys can make things that look human? Wouldn’t that be really fun if we went further into the uncanny valley than we’ve ever gone before? And Adrien and Kathy were the perfect people to partner up with on that.”

Tse’s M3GAN designs, these days rendered by a phalanx of digital printers (a single head can take up to 50 hours), became proof of concept and helped green-light the first film, not an everyday occurrence.

In the room with us in Valencia, the dolls eyes’ are hypnotic, carrying a trace of malevolence. “There’s a presence,” Tse offers.

“I thought, Why are we making something that looks like a toy when these guys can make things that look human?” says “M3GAN 2.0” director Gerard Johnstone. “Wouldn’t that be really fun if we went further into the uncanny valley than we’ve ever gone before?”

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Watching them finesse each strand of M3GAN’s hair, every neck tilt and eye motion for our photo shoot, Morot and Tse look like nothing more than devoted stage parents, grooming a promising theater kid. It’s a natural thought that begs an obvious question.

“Oh, for sure,” Tse agrees, owning up to parental affection for her creations. “Look how we care about our dolls. There’s so much pride and you’re protective of making sure that they look good, that they’re well cared for.”

The pair have a 20-year relationship, tying the knot around the time they were working on the first “M3GAN,” a watershed moment for them.

“I was a young flower at the time when we first met,” Tse says without a trace of sarcasm. “He was doing a film and I was just graduating from university. I was working in banking and we met that way. So he was already working in film and he brought me into it, actually.”

“I could have went into banking,” Morot cracks.

Morot and Tse operating animatronics on the set of the first “M3GAN.”

(Geoffrey Short / Universal Pictures)

In each other, they found kindred spirits of perfectionism, going on to corner the Montreal makeup market, which was then booming with Hollywood shoots. Years of work came without days off or vacations.

But they knew a relocation to Los Angeles was inevitable. In the 1990s, Morot had given the town a shot, apprenticing with other designers, learning his craft and drinking in the city until he needed to move back to Canada for family reasons.

“I was really bummed when I had to move back,” he says. “For me, L.A. always felt like home. When I landed here at 21, I was like, oh, my God, everything is here.”

It’s not lost on them that their specialty has come to represent something increasingly rare: an actual craft with an emphasis on real-world tactility in a moment when digital spurts of blood are becoming the norm. Prosthetic makeup effects have become a last stand, a bastion of the old ways.

“This is a massive extinction of the entire movie industry,” Morot says, alarmed. “We’re losing the human process behind it. That’s going to be a tragedy because we’re going to lose the communal experience of movies. We’re already there with all the streaming platforms and YouTube, where people are all on their own, silo-watching. There’s no longer the watercooler discussion about what show is in right now because everybody’s watching their own thing.”

Tse strikes a more pragmatic tone. “I think you have to in a way embrace it,” she says of AI. “Some parts of the industry will unfortunately lose work, but then you’ll have to find your way into another area.”

Morot, right, and Tse prepare a metallic M3GAN for action in “M3GAN 2.0.”

(Geoffrey Short / Universal Pictures)

“M3GAN” and “M3GAN 2.0,” for all their enjoyable sci-fi nuttiness, are expressly about these questions of AI’s prominence. They may be horror movies with training wheels, but they’re also teaching PG-13 audiences to maintain a healthy skepticism about the future. Their lineage goes back to “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the prescient 1970 nightmare “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” about two AIs that take over the world’s nuclear arsenal, a plot that reemerges in the new “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”

“The reason I did ‘M3GAN’ was out of frustration as a parent,” says Johnstone. “I was bringing my children up in this age of devices and trying to figure out where the balance lies and seeing everyone around me kind of accept it and thinking, Wait, there’s got to be a middle ground here. Why aren’t schools having a conversation?”

If Morot and Tse, both at the bleeding edge of their field, end up making AI palatable for a younger generation, with M3GAN as their mascot, they’re at least doing it the old-school way, with tools that inspired them from the start. They’ve brought out a mechanical head for me to see — it’s actually the first doll they ever built (just without the skin) and it has a rather large speaking cameo in the new movie: an unsettling scene about rebuilding in an underground bunker and saving the world before it’s too late.

“We were lucky,” Tse says — by which she means, lucky that they saved this prototype for the moment. The glistening jawline and lidless eyes are giving unmistakable Terminator vibes. Morot cradles the head, still that boy dreaming of Fangoria covers.

It’s the kind of thing you hold onto in a lab in Valencia.

In police circles, it’s known as the “LAPD lottery.”

Speaking at a city budget presentation this month, Police Chief Jim McDonnell said some officers have sought to “weaponize” the department’s disciplinary system to settle grievances, leaving city taxpayers on the hook for the legal bills.

Los Angeles has paid out at least $68.5 million over the last five years to resolve lawsuits filed by officers who claimed to be the victim of sexual harassment, racial discrimination or retaliation against whistleblowers, according to a Times analysis of payout data released by the city attorney’s office.

Skeptics inside the Los Angeles Police Department write off the claims as opportunistic officers trying to hit the jackpot, twisting paper trails created by the department’s much-maligned internal discipline system into the basis for lawsuits.

But the officers who sue and their labor attorneys argue the department’s continued failure to thoroughly investigate complaints or fix systemic issues leaves no other recourse.

Several recent civil trials have resulted in settlements or jury awards in the seven figures or more, including $11.5 million to a former K-9 officer who alleged colleagues spread false rumors about him and mocked his Samoan heritage. Dozens of other suits remain pending, likely leaving the city staring down more substantial payouts in the coming years.

The question of how to deal with the suits has emerged as one of the most pressing issues since McDonnell’s tenure as chief began in November. Mayor Karen Bass has said the city’s $1-billion budget deficit is at least partly driven by expensive legal payouts, as well as emergency response costs related to the Palisades fire and “downward national economic trends.”

Last year, the LAPD’s private fundraising arm gave $240,000 to hire an outside consultant to help the department analyze “the results of litigation to see if there are lessons to be learned from that.”

The consultant, Arif Alikhan, the department’s former director of constitutional policing, said he and his team are seeking to identify trends of risky behavior, improve tracking of problem employees and hold supervisors accountable for not addressing conduct that exposes the department to liability.

Part of the challenge, he said, is that cases take years to resolve, leading to lag time in awareness. “Then it kind of bubbles up and becomes a bigger issue and then you have multiple people suing.”

The city attorney’s office, which is responsible for defending the department against lawsuits, said in response to questions from The Times that cases are settled when “there could be a jury finding of liability, and when we can reach an agreement for a reasonable amount of money.”

“We will always do what is in the best interests of the city and continue to aggressively defend lawsuits—especially when plaintiffs’ attorneys try to make a fortune off of the City with unreasonable non-economic damages claims,” the city attorney’s office said in a statement. “Our office will aggressively defend against lawsuits that lack merit, as well as lawsuits in which the plaintiff’s attorney is making unreasonable demands for taxpayer dollars to resolve a case.”

The LAPD has long wrestled with costly litigation, and many claims by aggrieved officers are dismissed. But according to the data released to The Times, payouts for officer-driven lawsuits have increased recently: At least 13 verdicts or settlements worth $1 million or more have come since 2019, including nine in the last three years.

Beyond the cost to taxpayers, the public airing of workplace disputes can prove embarrassing to a department that has long fancied itself a spit-and-polish institution.

Take the Transit Services Division, where years of troubles and finger-pointing have led to a snarl of more than half a dozen lawsuits.

A former detective, Heather Rolland, received a $949,000 payout after she accused male colleagues of disparaging her for being injured on the job and of fostering a hostile work environment for women who worked in the division, which holds a lucrative contract with the county Metropolitan Transportation Authority to provide security on bus and train lines.

Among the male officials mentioned in her lawsuit is Randy Rangel, a former Transit Services sergeant, who filed his own claim against the city alleging he was retaliated against after reporting another officer for abusing his overtime pay. Last month, an L.A. County jury awarded him $4.5 million, which may still be challenged on appeal.

One of the witnesses who testified on Rangel’s behalf was his former captain, Brian Pratt, who also has a pending suit against the city. Pratt contends he was targeted with an anonymous personnel complaint after accusing a deputy chief of inappropriately using division staff to do nontransit work — a claim the city has denied in court filings.

The cycle of litigation continued with an internal affairs detective assigned to investigate Pratt. The detective alleged in a whistleblower claim that his bosses demanded unfavorable findings despite no evidence of wrongdoing. The lawsuit by Det. Hamilton Alvarenga also remains pending, with the city disputing his allegations.

Yet another Transit Services supervisor, Ashraf “Andy” Hanna, is pursuing legal action over what he alleged is a culture of anti-Arab discrimination. Hanna is also named as a defendant in several lawsuits, with co-workers accusing him of workplace hostility, which he disputes. One of his accusers, an officer named Natalie Bustamante, recently settled her sexual harassment lawsuit with the city for an undisclosed sum.

LAPD officers are supposed to report wrongdoing — or attempts to cover it up — to their supervisors, internal affairs or the Office of the Inspector General, which can investigate and potentially refer cases of misconduct to the chief for discipline. Those complaints are sealed from the public under state law, but the plaintiffs in several recent civil lawsuits alleged that the internal investigations tended to drag on unnecessarily and rarely led to punishment for the accused.

Attorney Matthew McNicholas, who has represented scores of officers in civil lawsuits, said he thinks that the growing payouts are a reflection of the city attorney’s hardball approach to civil litigation. This tough stance is costing taxpayers money by insisting on fighting cases even when it was clear they would lose in court, he said.

He pointed to the cases of Lou and Stacey Vince, a police couple who filed separate lawsuits against the department for retaliation and discrimination they faced while working in the San Fernando Valley. Lou Vince had alleged mistreatment after he returned from a work injury. In her claim, Stacey Vince said that after speaking up in her husband’s defense, she was denied a promotion and moved into a cramped office underneath the gym floor at the Police Academy with no furniture or Wi-Fi.

The couple, represented by McNicholas, received nearly $11 million in combined payouts.

“We tried to settle them both for low seven figures,” he said.

Joanna Schwartz, a UCLA law professor, said risk managers in L.A. and other cities should be looking for “policy changes or adjustments to staffing” after getting sued repeatedly.

“Best practices include internally investigating all allegations brought in lawsuits and then reviewing all the information that comes out during the course of discovery and trial,” Schwartz said.

The issue is not unique to the LAPD: Los Angeles County spent $150 million last year alone to defend the Sheriff’s Department from a slew of legal claims. And employment-related awards are only a fraction of the $358.8 million paid out in all LAPD lawsuits since 2019, including for traffic accidents, crackdowns on protesters and a botched fireworks detonation that leveled several city blocks and left dozens of residents displaced.

But the department’s handling of workplace complaints has drawn criticism on multiple fronts, including from the Los Angeles Police Protective League.

The union for rank-and-file officers, which sometimes helps members bring lawsuits, has cited the large verdicts as a sign senior LAPD officials are turning a blind eye to injustices in the workplace.

Last week, Jamie McBride, an outspoken union board member, filed a lawsuit in which he accused an assistant police chief of unfairly reprimanding him for speaking out about the LAPD’s grooming policy, the rules for how officers can keep their hair and mustaches.

McBride said in his suit that his remarks came during a union meeting in August 2023, when someone in the audience asked whether the department intended to change its rules to allow beards without a medical exemption, which is commonly granted to Black officers with skin conditions that make shaving painful.

McBride said he replied, “Well, I hope not ‘cause I think it looks like s—.”

He learned, according to his lawsuit, that that the department opened an investigation for what it deemed “racially discriminatory comments.”

McBride’s suit argues that his statement — “however controversial” — was made in the “context of protected union activity.”

The city has not yet filed a response in court to McBride’s claim. He didn’t respond to a message seeking comment.

McBride, who previously received $1.5 million after suing over alleged retaliation by his LAPD supervisors, is part of an internal work group looking at potential changes to the discipline system, along with Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas, who runs the department’s professional standards bureau.

Rimkunas defended the department’s “thorough and comprehensive process” for addressing officer complaints, but said he is also pushing for “additional safeguards to be certain the complaint system is properly used.”

He said internal investigators are being more judicious about screening complaints before starting a formal inquiry. Cases involving apparent personality conflicts between employees are referred back to their supervisors for mediation “within weeks, even when the behavior may not have reached the level of misconduct,” he said.

It used to take up to a year, Rimkunas said, to “reach a point for potential intervention.”

A MUM who was “proud” to quit smoking after 20 years has been “left on her deathbed” and will die if she lies down – after taking up vaping for a year.

Loyda Cordero Faliero, 39, says she made the switch from smoking cigarettes to vaping around 18 months ago because she “thought it would be the healthier option”.

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But at the start of March 2025 – after vaping “24/7” for “little over a year” – she was rushed to the emergency department after her oesophagus “closed-up” and she choked on a sip of her drink.

Loyda was diagnosed with pulmonary bullae [large air spaces] in her lungs and a collapsed lung, which doctors told her was a result of a build-up of fluid from vaping.

The 39-year-old says doctors told her it could “kill her at any moment” if the sacs were to rupture and has to sleep sat up as she could choke to death if she lies down.

Loyda was advised to avoid any physical activity and claims she was told that even lifting a gallon of milk (eight pints) would be too strenuous as it could increase the risk of one of the air-filled sacs rupturing.

The mum-of-two was forced quit vaping in order to be eligible for surgery to remove the sacs from her lungs – and was warned that if she continued the habit then she might not be alive in five years’ time.

Loyda, who is now recovering from the potentially life-saving surgery in hospital, says she wants to warn others of the dangers of vaping.

Speaking before the surgery, Loyda, from Franklinville, New York, US, said: “My doctor said that my lung collapsed because they were building up with the liquid from my vape and one of the pulmonary bullae ended up rupturing.

“My oesophagus is out of place to where the pulmonary bullae sac is putting pressure onto that and if that ruptures, it could cause a bleed on the brain or internal bleeding which could kill me instantly.

“It’s causing a lot of problems. If I lay down when sleeping instead of sitting up I can choke to death on my own spit or I can suffocate and die.

“I literally have to sit up in bed or on a recliner when I sleep because I’m no longer allowed to sleep lying down until after the surgery – it’s pretty much a life or death situation.

“It’s made me very emotional. I quit something thinking that it was going to be healthier but unfortunately it destroyed me more than it benefited me.

“I was so proud of myself for quitting cigarettes and going to something which I thought was healthier.

“I have two grown kids and even if they’re grown, I’m still a mum. I still have responsibilities and I still want to be here for my grandkids.

“Basically I’m on my deathbed and it’s a ticking time bomb waiting to go off.”

Loyda says she experienced breathlessness, nausea, dizziness and pain in the weeks before her hospital admission – but had put it down to her poor overall health.

After receiving the diagnosis, she says she was ordered by doctors to stop all physical activity in order to reduce the risk of one of the pulmonary sacs rupturing and killing her.

Vaping is 100 per cent more dangerous than cigarettes

Loyda Cordero Faliero

Loyda continued: “I’m not allowed to be active at all as in cleaning, washing dishes or going up and down the stairs.

“They say that even lifting a gallon of my milk is overdoing it for my body because the way that my lung has collapsed, it flares me up really bad.

“I can’t even cook dinner or stand up to do dishes because by the time I’m done with dishes I’m literally crying in pain and gasping for air.

“It really has taken over my life more than I ever thought it would.

“I was told my doctors that I had to quit vaping in order to be accepted for surgery.

“And I can’t go back to smoking after the surgery because this is just going to happen to me again.

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“I’m going to be stuck with this health issue for the rest of my life.

“The doctors said that if I carried on vaping then within the next five years I would end up on life support and I wouldn’t make it because of how badly this damaged my lungs and how badly the liquid has built up in my lungs.”

After giving up vaping completely, Loyda underwent surgery to have the pulmonary sacs removed from her lungs on April 30.

She is now recovering in hospital and wants to help raise awareness and warn others of the potential health problems vaping can cause – and says she believes that it is both more dangerous and harder to quit than smoking cigarettes.

Loyda said: “With a cigarette, you can put it out and do what you’ve got to do but with a vape it’s like a cell phone – it’s literally stuck in your hand 24/7 and you’re hitting it even when you don’t want to hit it just because it’s there.

“It’s horrible. Vaping is 100 per cent more dangerous than cigarettes.”

This story contains spoilers for “Andor” Season 2, including Episodes 10 through 12.

When Elizabeth Dulau first heard what showrunner Tony Gilroy had planned for her character in Season 2 of “Andor,” she burst out laughing.

“I just couldn’t believe what he was saying,” says the actor, who portrays the aloof and steadfast rebel spy Kleya Marki in the “Star Wars” series. “And then my first thought was: I need to keep this a secret now for years. How on Earth am I going to do that?”

Kleya plays a pivotal role in the final three-episode arc of “Andor.” After Imperial intelligence officers finally uncover Luthen Rael’s (Stellan Skarsgård) ties to the Rebellion, the antiques dealer attempts to kill himself before he can be captured and interrogated. When Luthen fails, it’s left to Kleya to tie up his final loose end and then deliver vital information to the rebels on Yavin.

Dulau, who didn’t even know if she would be called back for Season 2, learned of Kleya’s storyline in 2023 when Gilroy called to tell her he wanted her to return.

“I’m glad he told me then because it gave me a long time to really ponder how to prepare for that scene,” Dulau says. “He said, ‘We want her to be the one that kills him, and we want it to be additionally heartbreaking because she doesn’t have time to say goodbye.’”

“Andor’s” final episodes sees Kleya utilize the skills she’d honed as Luthen’s closest and most trusted associate as she infiltrates a heavily guarded hospital to reach him. But rather than breaking Luthen out to save him, Kleya’s only option is to unplug him from the machines that are keeping him alive. Then, she has to make sure the information Luthen died for is delivered to the Rebellion.

“We do not have a bad moment of film of her in our cutting room,” says Gilroy, comparing Dulau to Meryl Streep. “She’s unbelievable.”

Elizabeth Dulau says it boggles her mind that Kleya’s story ties into “Star Wars’” famous Death Star plans.

(David Reiss)

“Andor” marks Dulau’s first acting job after graduating from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. While the audition came to her as a role in an “untitled Disney+ project,” she’d heard on the down-low that it was for a “Star Wars” project. She has since been cast in shows including “All the Light We Cannot See,” “Gentleman Jack” and the upcoming “House of Guinness.”

“The beautiful thing about Kleya in Season 1 is that she’s such a mystery,” Dulau says. “You can tell that she’s important, but she’s sort of on the peripheries. There’s so many question marks, so it’s such a delight that a lot of those questions get answered this season.”

That Kleya ultimately plays a role in helping the Rebel Alliance get the Death Star plans needed for them to eventually defeat the Empire also “boggles my mind,” she says.

“It’s not lost on me that Tony has literally written me into Star Wars history with that storyline,” Dulau says. “That blows my mind because it’s so iconic and I have a teeny, tiny little corner of that now.”

Dulau, in a conversation edited for length and clarity, discusses Kleya and Luthen’s relationship, her character’s commitment to the Rebellion and working with Stellan Skarsgård.

There is so much that happens in Episode 10, but how did you approach that final moment where Kleya has to unplug Luthen from life support?

Tony made it very clear to me that he didn’t want her to totally break down in that scene. That breakdown, for Kleya, comes afterward because she’s still in action mode. In that scene, I really wanted to connect with all the love that had grown between her and Luthen, against both of their better judgment, but also all the hate. When Luthen and whatever team of men came to the community she lived in and destroyed them when he worked for the Empire, Kleya was not so young. She would remember her mom and dad. She would remember if she had siblings, any best friends. Luthen is not innocent on that day. He was brave enough to save Kleya, but we don’t know what happens outside of his ship.

Then they spend the next 15 years protecting each other and continuing to save each other. So against their better judgment, love grows between them. I think they’re constantly being pulled apart by that. It’s too scary to acknowledge the fact that they’ve come to really care for each other because this awful thing is there. I wanted to try to condense that and make it as clear as possible in that scene when I go to kill him.

I spent a lot of time leading up to shooting on that day daydreaming. I use daydreaming a lot in my process. And I daydreamed about that day — what happened, what Kleya saw and what she did not see when Luther and his men came to destroy her people. I daydreamed completely made-up scenes in my head, like the day when Luthen made Kleya laugh for the very first time, or happy memories between them. I imagined that those actual flashback scenes were memories of hers that just were intrusive thoughts as she was trying to focus on her mission.

Kleya Marki (Elizabeth Dulau) is Luthen Rael’s (Stellan Skarsgård) closest associate.

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

What was your initial take on Kleya and Luthen’s dynamic?

In Season 1, what really fascinated me was that he sets a lot of importance to Kleya’s words. He really listens to her and trusts her and allows himself to be seen by her in a way that he doesn’t let himself be seen by anyone else. So what’s the power dynamic? It’s not the classic father-daughter thing. It’s not like he’s the boss and she’s just the assistant. There’s a real equality, and that’s quite rare, I think, to see between an older man and a younger woman. I was just fascinated by that and had a lot of fun in Season 1 trying to square up to Stellan Skarsgård and tell him what to do. That was intimidating, but really fun.

Then when I found out their backstory, so much about Kleya made sense. It just really broke my heart. In another life, Luthen would have just been this antiques nerd. In hardening himself to what he has to do, he also hardens this young girl, Kleya. It helped me realize that underneath all that hard exterior, at the very core of who Kleya is, actually is something extremely tender and extremely loving. That’s why she is so tough on the outside because there’s something very painful that she’s protecting deep down. She doesn’t let herself have any friends or fall in love or any of that. She makes herself as lethal a weapon as possible. But against her best judgment, love grows for Luthen, care grows between them, and all of that is what they have to lose. But neither of them are ever willing to admit that.

So much of “Andor” is about the sacrifice everybody makes. But for Kleya, we see that her sacrifice has been ongoing.

Yes. “I don’t have lately, I have always,” she says. She has stripped her life of anything that makes her vulnerable. Joy and love and friendship are some of the the most worthwhile things that a human being can have in their life, but it also makes you vulnerable, in a way. And Kleya just cannot afford to be vulnerable. She tells herself, “I have nothing to lose. Everything is for the Rebellion.” [But] she’s lying to herself. She doesn’t really know until Episode 10 that, actually, Luthen is the thing that she has to lose. And she’s willing to do it. She’s willing to sacrifice.

It seems like the closest Kleya has to a frenemy of sorts is Vel, but how do you see their dynamic?

Vel really gets under her skin. Even though Vel is such a tough character as well, she has those relationships. She allows herself to have that relationship with Mon Mothma, her cousin, and with Cinta. She allows herself to fall in love and Kleya just cannot wrap her head around it. How could you let yourself be this vulnerable? But also, maybe for Kleya, there’s a bit of jealousy there as well that Vel has those things.

Kleya has made herself “as lethal a weapon as possible” for the Rebellion, says Elizabeth Dulau.

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

How did you see Kleya’s trip to Yavin and seeing what she and Luthen had been working for? Because things aren’t quite over for her yet.

I always thought she sees it as her final job, getting the information about the Death Star to Cassian and just getting that information to Yavin. Because you see Cassian have to convince her to come with him to Yavin. She doesn’t want to go there. I don’t know how much she feels she has left to give at that point. She is overwhelmed by grief for Luthen and that grief makes her realize just how much actually she’s come to love him. So she’s in this place of this immensely painful realization about the man who did this awful thing and wiped out her people. How does anyone reckon with that? That’s the space that she’s in when she’s trying desperately to convince Cassian to go without her to Yavin.

Then, once she’s on Yavin and she sees Vel, that tiny little conversation with her, as short as it was, it’s monumental for Kleya because it helps shift her perspective enough that she maybe starts to see a future for herself there amongst that community.

That final shot actually is her looking at the people of Yavin doing their morning routines and seeing the culmination of all of her and Luthen’s work for all those years. I think it’s a feeling of immense satisfaction and sadness that they pulled it off, but also that he’ll never see it.

What was it like working with Stellan Skarsgård?

My final audition actually was with Stellan. I remember my agent calling me to say, “Your recall went well. The note is, for your final audition, just try not to be too nervous. Walk into that room like you’ve been doing this for years.” Then she said, “Your final audition is going to be at Pinewood Studios. You’re going to be reading opposite Stellan Skarsgård. But don’t let that make you nervous.” And I just burst out laughing. Like, this isn’t real. This isn’t happening.

He met with me for coffee 10 minutes before the audition because it was a chemistry read and he wanted to not do it cold. Stellan has this wonderful magic to him that after 10 minutes of chatting with him for the first time ever, I really felt like I was walking into the room with a friend and that I had someone in my corner that was rooting for me.

Stellan has had such a long and rich career, so I don’t know what this job is for him, but this is such a huge job for me and Stellan has been such a huge part of that. I always looked forward to having another scene with Stellan. It was like going home again, having another scene with him, because he was my anchor throughout the whole thing. He knew that it was my first job, so I could ask him all the questions about what was happening, acting techniques for screen, all of that stuff. I could have those conversations with him and he was always so willing to talk about it. He really took me under his wings big time and I will always be so grateful to him for that.

California became a national pioneer four years ago by passing a law to make ethnic studies a high school graduation requirement. But only months before the policy is to take effect, Gov. Gavin Newsom is withholding state funding — delaying the mandate as the course comes under renewed fire.

The pause has left school districts throughout the state in limbo nearly four years after the launch deadline was set. Beginning this fall, students entering 9th grade would have been the first class required to pass a one-semester class at some point during their high school years.

But under the 2021 law, the mandate to reach 5.8 million students does not take effect unless the state provides more money to pay for the course. The funding would cover the cost of materials and the teacher staffing and training that go along with adding a new field of study.

Newsom’s office, which will issue its May revision of next year’s proposed state budget Wednesday amid a tightening financial outlook, did not respond to questions about why he has not included funding for the ethnic studies requirement that he approved, praising it as an avenue to “teach students about the diverse communities that comprise California.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance answered on Newsom’s behalf.

“The budget doesn’t include funding that would trigger the ethnic studies graduation requirement,” said H.D. Palmer. As to the reason why, “the short answer is that the state has limited available ongoing resources.”

At the onset, $50 million in seed money was allocated statewide, but the law stated an additional unspecified amount would be needed in the future. State officials later set that amount at about $276 million. But several years have passed without state officials budgeting the funding.

As California’s more than 1,600 high schools wind down for the year, it is uncertain how many will offer the course in the fall. Some — including Los Angeles Unified, Santa Monica Unified and Alhambra Unified — will go forward with ethnic studies no matter what. Some of these districts, including L.A. Unified, already have their own ethnic studies graduation requirement.

Others — including Chino Valley Unified — will shelve the class until the law forces them to offer it.

Still others, such as Lynwood Unified, in south L.A. County, say they are deeply concerned about any wavering in the state’s commitment to the subject.

State funding would be “critically important for sustainability,” according to a Lynwood district statement. Without it, the school district is going to cancel the course and instead teach units of ethnic studies within other classes.

“We remain committed to the principles and purpose behind ethnic studies — ensuring our students see themselves and others reflected in the curriculum,” Lynwood Supt. Gudiel R. Crosthwaite said. “However, like many school districts across California, we are navigating the dual challenge of declining enrollment and insufficient state funding to support new course mandates.”

Renewed controversy

The current political environment complicates the launch of the ethnic studies requirement.

State officials were moving toward an ethnic studies requirement amid the nation’s racial reckoning after the 2020 murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement, and violent attacks on Asian Americans.

Many ethnic studies supporters believe that anti-racist teachings and exploring the history and perspectives of marginalized groups — Black and Indigenous people, Asians and Latinos — are key to bridging misunderstanding among students, reducing racial and ethnic conflict, and motivating teenagers to pursue social justice causes.

But not everyone sees ethnic studies the same way. Some religious and political conservatives view the state’s guidelines for ethnic studies as the kind of “woke” ideologies in education that President Trump has vowed to eliminate as he seeks to do away with diversity, equity and inclusion programming in schools.

California’s ethnic studies curriculum guide embraces pro-LGBTQ+ content and speaks of connecting students to “contemporary social movements that struggle for social justice and an equitable and democratic society, and conceptualize, imagine, and build new possibilities for a post-racist, post-systemic-racism society.”

With tensions high over how race, religion and ethnicity are taught in schools, state lawmakers recently explored legislation that would have put strict standards on how ethnic studies could be taught. That bill was supported by 31 legislators and its sponsors expressed particular concern about how ethnic studies teachers are presenting Jews and the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — re-igniting long-simmering concerns about the field of study.

Amid weekend discussions, however, the group shelved the bill — which dealt only with ethnic studies. Instead, lawmakers unveiled a broader piece of school legislation aimed at ending campus antisemitism while providing greater “anti-discrimination protections related to nationality and religion.”

A hearing on the new bill is set for Wednesday.

Teacher Amber Palma talks with student Angel Alvarez during an ethnic studies class at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

Although the bill’s provisions are still being crafted, it would apply to any course or schooling activity — and include a mechanism for stronger oversight of K-12 ethnic studies, which remains central to the concerns of the bill’s primary sponsors, including Assemblymember Dawn Addis (D-Morro Bay).

“Jewish families and children have been made, in many instances, to feel unwelcome or made the targets of hate and discrimination in school — where they’re supposed to feel safe and supported,” Addis said. “We want to get all the things in place to get back to what schools are supposed to be doing.”

Troy Flint, chief communications officer for the California School Boards Assn. said the ethnic studies requirement “has been fraught since its inception, and there have been starts, stumbles and restarts to try and develop a piece of legislation that’s amenable to all the different interest groups. … And I don’t know that we’ve reached that point yet.”

“School districts are in a bind,” both in terms of their costs and their academic program, he added, “because there’s a possibility a mandate could be implemented, but it’s uncertain.”

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

What’s happened since the law was approved?

Newsom signed the ethnic studies graduation requirement into law in 2021, giving districts four years to develop one or more ethnic studies classes, using a menu of materials and topics from the nearly 700-page state model curriculum guide, approved by the State Board of Education.

That curriculum guide had been a source of controversy — leading Newsom to veto an earlier bill for an ethnic studies requirement. After substantial revisions, the final version eliminated course materials that likened the Palestinian cause, in its conflict with Israel, to the struggles of marginalized groups in America — because critics said it lacked balance or nuance.

The revision also toned down what critics characterized as obscure academic jargon and bias against capitalism. More groups were added as potential study topics, including Jewish Americans, Sikhs and Armenians.

Under current law, the state’s model curriculum serves as a guide — not a required set of lessons. School districts are responsible for developing their courses and are free to teach units that reflect their enrollment. Students in Glendale, with its large Armenian American population, for example, could study the Armenian immigrant experience.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

This flexibility has allowed academic experts in the field to prepare prepackaged courses and lessons that vary widely to help schools prepare. Some are free to download. Independent Institute, for example, has posted one free curriculum that consciously aims to be less controversial in terms of current political disputes.

The group with perhaps the most long-standing ties to the field of ethnic studies in California has created a curriculum called Liberated Ethnic Studies. This curriculum also is free to download, although some of its creators and supporters have worked as school district consultants.

A portion of the Liberated content guide has worried a coalition of Jewish groups who contend portions of the curriculum veer toward antisemitism. Their concerns have fueled ongoing debate in Sacramento about the need for stricter course standards.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

Creators of the Liberated materials had been involved in writing the first version of the state’s model curriculum — which also was criticized by Jewish groups and legislators. State officials ultimately removed the Liberated academics from involvement in the state’s curriculum guide. And the academics, in turn, disowned the state curriculum guide and created their own materials.

A leader of the Liberated curriculum effort, Cal State Northridge professor of Chicano and Chicana studies Theresa Montaño, said she does not know how may school districts are using their lessons because they can be downloaded for free. She estimated that 70% of the Liberated content is virtually identical to the state’s revised model curriculum.

She said concerns about politicized content are overwrought.

“Ethnic studies was born out of a movement to begin to make certain that communities of color have the rightful location in the curriculum,” Montaño said.

She added that the scholars who put together the Liberated contents are recognized leading experts in an academically rigorous field that has developed over the last 60 years.

Students take part in an activity during an ethnic studies class at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

What’s happening in the classroom?

Ethnic studies teacher Amber Palma teaches at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood and virtually all of her students are Latino with immigrant backgrounds — and some degree of current political context is unavoidable.

“If the class is about your identity and your place in this American society — and that is a real social political issue that you are facing in context as we speak — you can’t say we’re going to not talk about what’s happening,” Palma said. “You have to address concerns, as you would with any class, with any kids.”

“Given our climate and the challenges that our students and their families and their communities are facing, I think we really do need to push the sense of empowerment, a sense of agency,” said Palma, whose district developed its own curriculum.

Students listen as teacher Amber Palma leads a discussion during an ethnic studies class at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

“If done right, ethnic studies is a good thing for all students,” said David Bocarsly, executive director of Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California, a lobbying group whose positions include supporting Israel’s right to exist. “Unfortunately … we have seen far too many instances of factually inaccurate and antisemitic content entering classrooms,” he said.

Bocarsly said members of his coalition of Jewish groups estimate there are real or potential problems in several dozen school districts among the 1,000 in California, based on issues that have emerged. The extent to which the Liberated curriculum is used in these districts has not been determined.

Assemblymember Addis is concerned that there could be inappropriate elements of Liberated’s alleged bias affecting “hundreds and hundreds” of school districts up and down the state.

In April, the California Department of Education concluded that two Bay Area ethnic studies teachers in the Campbell Union High School District violated California law when they included content related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that was allegedly biased and discriminated against Jewish students.

How are school districts responding?

A winter clash in the Palo Alto, Calif., school district underscores the kinds of debates that have unfolded about the course.

In a district with 40% Asian enrollment, some complained the course defined power and privilege in a way that discounted the hard work that resulted in prosperity for many immigrants. Critics also accused district officials of a lack of transparency and of not allowing for meaningful input into course content. Some were concerned that topics would be divisive.

“As feared, rancor has ensued,” said Lauren Janov, a critic of the Liberated curriculum and co-founder of Palo Alto Parent Alliance. “From the start, the state lost control of ethnic studies.”

In January, the Palo Alto board approved its own ethnic studies requirement by a 3-2 vote.

In February, Santa Ana Unified shelved three ethnic studies classes as part of a legal settlement reached with a coalition of Jewish groups. The groups had filed a lawsuit alleging that secrecy and antisemitism defined the district’s ethnic studies rollout.

The district still offers various other ethnic studies courses and has no plans to reverse policy, regardless of state funding, a district spokesperson said.

Student Arianne Moreno distributes an assignment during an ethnic studies class at Firebaugh High School in Lynwood.

(Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

In San Bernardino County, the Chino Valley Unified school board president also raises cost as an issue but sees the mandate pause as an opportunity to step back from ethnic studies.

“We made it clear that the course will not be implemented unless the state mandate goes into effect,” said Sonja Shaw, a pro-Trump Republican who is running for state superintendent of public instruction.

“Much of the ethnic studies already being pushed reflects divisive, politically driven ideology that doesn’t unite students; it separates them. …While kids are falling behind in reading, writing and math, the state continues to push its political agendas onto children,” Shaw said.

In Los Angeles Unified, the state’s largest school system, 11 courses can satisfy the district’s requirement, including a broad survey course and more specialized classes, such as African American Literature, American Indian Studies and Exploring Visual Arts through Ethnic Studies.

The resentencing hearing for brothers Erik and Lyle Menendez kicked off Tuesday morning with emotional testimony from family members, one of whom testified in court that they should be freed from prison for the shotgun killing of their parents more than 30 years ago.

Annmaria Baralt, often wiping away her tears, testified that the relatives of victims Jose and Kitty Menendez want a judge to give the brothers a lesser sentence than life without parole for the 1989 murders inside their Beverly Hills mansion.

“Yes, we all on both sides of the family say 35 years is enough,” she told Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Jesic in a Van Nuys courtroom. “They are universally forgiven by both sides of their families.”

Baralt, whose mother was Jose Menendez’s older sister, said the family had endured decades of pain from the scrutiny of the murders.

“From the day it happened… it has been a relentless examination of our family in the public eye,” she said, beginning to cry. “It has been torture for decades.” She said the family was the butt of repeated jokes on “Saturday Night Live” and lived like outcasts who wore a “scarlet M.”

The Menendez brothers have been in prison for more than 35 years after being sentenced to life without the possibility of parole in the gruesome 1989 murders. The brothers bought shotguns with cash and opened fire as their mother and father watched a movie. Jose Menendez was shot five times, including in the kneecaps and the back of the head. Kitty Menendez crawled on the floor, wounded, before one of the brothers reloaded and fired a fatal blast, jurors heard at their two trials.

On the stand Tuesday, Baralt echoed the brothers’ justification for killing their parents — saying it was out of fear their father was going to kill them to cover up his past sexual abuse of the boys.

She told the judge that she believes they have changed and are “very aware of the consequences of their actions.”

“I don’t think they are the same people they were 30 years ago,” she said.

If Jesic agrees to resentence them, the brothers would become eligible for parole under California’s youthful offender law, since the murders happened when they were under 26. If the judge sides with Los Angeles Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, they would still have a path to freedom through Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is weighing a clemency petition. Regardless, Erik and Lyle would still have to appear before the state parole board before they could walk free. Jesic on Tuesday emphasized that the bar to keep them from being resentenced is high, and that they would have to still pose a serious danger to the public.

Prosecutor Habib Balian spent the morning trying to punch holes in the brothers’ relatively clean reputations they’ve gotten behind bars.

Under cross-examination, Baralt admitted that she never thought her cousins were capable of killing their parents until they’d done it, and that prior to their criminal trial decades ago, Lyle Menendez had asked a witness to lie for him on the stand.

Nearly two dozen of the brothers’ relatives, including several who testified Tuesday, formed the Justice for Erik and Lyle Coalition to advocate for their release as interest in the case reignited in recent years. The release of a popular Netflix documentary on the murder, which included the unearthing of additional documentation of Jose Menendez’s alleged sexual abuse, helped fuel a motion for a new trial.

The family has become increasingly public in its fight for Erik and Lyle’s release after Hochman opposed his predecessor’s recommendation to re-sentence them. They have repeatedly accused Hochman of bias against the brothers, called for him to be disqualified from the case and alleged he intimidated and bullied them during a private meeting. Hochman has denied all accusations of bias and wrongdoing, and says he simply disagrees with their position.

Kitty Menendez’s brother, Milton, was the only member of the family opposed to Erik and Lyle’s release, but he died earlier this year. Kathy Cady, who served as his victims’ rights attorney, is now the head of Hochman’s Bureau of Victims’ Services, another point of aggravation for the relatives fighting for the brothers release.

Pete Rose was posthumously removed from Major League Baseball’s permanently ineligible list Tuesday, making the all-time hits leader eligible for induction into the National Baseball Hall of Fame.

Rose had been exiled from the sport since 1989, after he was found by then-commissioner Bart Giamatti (yes, the father of actor Paul Giamatti) to have been betting on his team’s games while he was manager of the Cincinnati Reds. Rose died Sept. 30, 2024, at age 83.

Rose’s daughter, Fawn Rose, filed a petition for reinstatement Jan. 8 and met with current MLB commissioner Rob Manfred. In February, President Trump advocated for the lifetime ban to be lifted in a social media post, then met with Manfred in April to discuss the matter.

Jeffrey Lenkov, a Los Angeles lawyer who represented Rose at the time of his death and prepared the petition pro bono, told The Times the decision was the result of several years of working with Manfred and his executive team.

“The Rose family and I are extremely overjoyed at the wisdom, courage and compassion exhibited by the commissioner,” Lenkov said. “The reinstatement in and of itself is a historic moment because many people, including Pete at times, thought the ban would never be lifted.

“Getting into the Hall of Fame on his merits is an opportunity he wanted and should be able to receive now.”

Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose hits a line drive single to break Ty Cobb’s all-time hits record in 1985.

(Associated Press)

From his 24-year career that resulted in more MLB hits — 4,256 — than any other player in history to his lifetime ban, Rose’s saga was as complex and sad as it was triumphant. Pete Rose Night will take place Wednesday at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati, and the decision to lift the ban undoubtedly will elevate the mood.

Here is a look at key elements of his rise, fall and potential inclusion in the Hall of Fame.

Will Rose immediately be inducted into the Hall of Fame?

No. Barring an unforeseen exception, a three-year waiting period will apply before Rose can be put on the ballot because the committee that could vote him in doesn’t convene until December 2027 to consider candidates for induction in the summer of 2028.

Rose remains ineligible to be voted in by the Baseball Writers Assn. of America because its ballot includes only candidates whose playing careers ended no more than 15 years prior to the election. Players are eligible to be voted into the Hall of Fame by the baseball writers five years after they retire. However in 1991, two years after Rose was banned from baseball and months before he was set to make the ballot, the Hall’s board of directors passed a rule prohibiting anybody on the ineligible list from being a candidate for induction.

Now that he is eligible, his case will be reviewed by the 16-member Classic Baseball Era Committee that evaluates players who made their greatest impact before 1980. Rose would qualify for consideration because his 24-year career began in 1963.

The committee voted in Dick Allen and Dave Parker this year. When it convenes again to vote for 2028 induction, Rose would need an aye from a 75% majority — 12 of the 16 members.

What did Rose do to deserve a lifetime ban?

Since before the 1919 Black Sox Scandal resulted in Shoeless Joe Jackson and other players being banned for life for taking money from gamblers and throwing games, Major League Baseball has had a rule against gambling to protect the integrity of the game. Rule 21(d) is posted in every clubhouse and states: “Any player, umpire, or Club or League official or employee, who shall bet any sum whatsoever upon any baseball game in connection with which the bettor has a duty to perform, shall be declared permanently ineligible.”

Rose bet on the Cincinnati Reds when he was the team’s player-manager in 1985 and ‘86, and the manager in ’87. An MLB investigation headed by lawyer John Dowd resulted in a 225-page report released in 1989 that named men that Rose allegedly placed bets with and cited evidence that Rose bet on Reds games.

Cincinnati Reds manager Pete Rose before a spring-training game March 22, 1989, after the Commissioner’s Office investigation into his gambling was released.

(John Swart / Associated Press)

After denying for nearly 15 years that he bet on baseball, Rose admitted it in his 2004 book, “My Prison Without Bars,” written with Rick Hill. Later, he would sign and sell baseballs with the inscription, “Sorry I bet on baseball.” The balls currently go for $200 to $400 apiece online.

Born and raised in Cincinnati, Rose began gambling as a youngster when his dad took him to a local racetrack. By the time he reached the big leagues, he bet on college and pro basketball and pro football in addition to the horses.

“On Feb. 5, 1986, I wrote three checks for eight grand each to cover my losses on the NFL playoffs,” Rose wrote. “The NFL turned into March Madness, which turned into the NBA playoffs, which always turned into the skids.

“I always lived by one hard and fast rule: You don’t bet on baseball. But for the first time in my life, I was no longer playing baseball, just managing. A part of me was still looking for ways to recapture the high I got from winning batting titles and World Series. If I couldn’t get the high from playing baseball, then I needed a substitute.

“I can’t honestly remember the first time I bet on baseball. But I remember the first time I spoke openly about it. I was sitting in my living room, watching the 1986 playoffs between the Mets and the Astros. I had a group of friends over for the game. Without even thinking of the consequences, I said, ‘Betting on the playoffs makes the games more exciting to watch.’ ”

Rose’s immense popularity in his hometown began to erode when the Dowd Report was made public on June 27, 1989.

“Forever and ever and ever, the people here have been solidly behind Pete,” Marty Brennaman, longtime broadcaster for the Reds, told The Times’ Bill Plaschke. “This is the most provincial city I’ve lived in. I can’t imagine a more provincial city.

“But now, there is a segment of the population where, if they haven’t completely gone the other way against Pete, there is at least an element of doubt in their minds. People are becoming divided.”

Longtime Cincinnati historian Dan Hurley insisted the public reaction was even harsher.

“I think the reaction finally is, ‘Hey, they got him,’ ” Hurley said of Rose. “And for us, that’s not very pleasant.”

Rose does have his supporters within baseball. Terry Francona, his former teammate who is in his first season as Reds manager, recently said, “If he’s not in the Hall of Fame, there isn’t one.”

Why the change of heart by MLB?

Pete Rose speaks at a news conference in Las Vegas after MLB commissioner Rob Manfred said he has no intention of altering Rose’s lifetime ban from baseball.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

Rose first petitioned for reinstatement in 1997 when Bud Selig was commissioner. Selig didn’t meet with Rose until 2002 and did not rule on the issue before he retired in 2006. Manfred rejected a second petition by Rose in 2015, saying, “Mr. Rose has not presented credible evidence of a reconfigured life either by an honest acceptance by him of his wrongdoing, so clearly established by the Dowd Report, or by a rigorous, self-aware and sustained program of avoidance by him of the circumstances that led to his permanent eligibility in 1989.

“Absent such credible evidence, allowing him to work in the game presents an unacceptable risk of a future violation by him of Rule 21, and thus to the integrity of our sport. I, therefore, must reject Mr. Rose’s application for reinstatement.”

The fact that Rose died in September created an opportunity to revisit his status. If the permanently ineligible list exists to prevent a person who poses a threat to the integrity of the game from working in baseball, could that status change when the person is no longer living?

Roses adorn the statue of Pete Rose at Great American Ballpark in Cincinnati after the all-time hits leader died.

(Kareem Elgazzar / Associated Press)

That argument was made in the December petition by Rose’s family, and Manfred took it into consideration.

“The decision was very complex and it’s not easily said that it could have been done during his lifetime,” Lenkov said. “MLB had a lot of factors to work through. They had to be receptive to listening for a number of years on this issue, and they did.

“Pete in his lifetime felt he had done his time, paid the price. I believe he lived with a scarlet letter on him because of it. His punishment was substantial.”

The relationship between gambling and professional sports — including MLB — has evolved dramatically in recent years. Sports betting is legal in 40 states, and the American Gaming Assn. estimates that its total economic impact is $328 billion a year and revenue from it exceeded $115 billion in 2024.

Yet restrictions still apply, again to protect the integrity of the game. Can a baseball player, coach or umpire bet on March Madness brackets, the Super Bowl or participate in a fantasy football league? Yes. Can they bet on anything — baseball or otherwise — through illegal or offshore bookmakers? No.

What was President Trump’s role in the reinstatement?

Seemingly out of nowhere, the president injected himself into the conversation. Even before the family’s petition for reinstatement had become public, Trump posted a bombastic message on Truth Social on Feb. 28 that read:

“Major League Baseball didn’t have the courage or decency to put the late, great, Pete Rose, also known as ‘Charlie Hustle,’ into the Baseball Hall of fame. Now he is dead, will never experience the thrill of being selected, even though he was a FAR BETTER PLAYER than most of those who made it, and can only be named posthumously. WHAT A SHAME!

“Anyway, over the next few weeks I will be signing a complete PARDON of Pete Rose, who shouldn’t have been gambling on baseball, but only bet on HIS TEAM WINNING. He never betted against himself, or the other team. He had the most hits, by far, in baseball history, and won more games than anyone in sports history. Baseball, which is dying all over the place, should get off its fat, lazy ass, and elect Pete Rose, even though far too late, into the Baseball Hall of Fame!”

No evidence has surfaced of Rose betting on the Reds to lose. After confessing in his book that he bet on baseball, he emphasized that point.

“I bet on my own team to win,” Rose told NJ.com. “That’s what I did in a nutshell. I was wrong, but I didn’t taint the game. I bet on my team every night because that’s the confidence that I had in my players. And I was wrong.”

A pardon wasn’t necessary for Manfred to reinstate Rose, although in 1990 Rose served five months in prison after pleading guilty to tax evasion.

Trump met with Manfred at the White House on April 16, but neither man spoke publicly about what they discussed. MLB issued a statement that said, “President Trump is a longtime fan of baseball. As he has done in the past, Commissioner Manfred was pleased to visit the White House again to discuss issues pertaining to baseball with the president.”

What are Pete Rose’s Hall of Fame credentials?

Cincinnati Reds player-manager Pete Rose is congratulated by his teammates after he broke Ty Cobb’s hitting record in Cincinnati on Sept. 11, 1985.

(Associated Press)

Rose broke Ty Cobb’s career hits total of 4,189 in 1985 and finished with 4,256. That alone would be enough for entry into the Hall of Fame, but Rose also was named National League Rookie of the Year in 1963 and the NL Most Valuable Player in 1973. He won three batting titles and three World Series titles — two with the Reds in 1975 and ’76 and one with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1980.

Rose batted .303 with an on-base percentage of .375, earning the nickname Charlie Hustle because he sprinted to first base even on a walk. He led the NL in hits seven times, doubles five times, and in 1978 put together a 44-game hitting streak, second in baseball history to Joe DiMaggio’s 56-game streak.

Rose played in more games (3,562), had more plate appearances (15,890) and more at-bats (14,053) than any other player.

WASHINGTON — House Republicans proposed sweeping tax breaks Monday in President Trump’s big priority bill, tallying at least $4.9 trillion in costs so far, partly paid for with cuts to Medicaid, food stamps and green energy programs used by millions of Americans.

The House Ways and Means Committee named its package “THE ONE, BIG, BEAUTIFUL BILL” in all capital letters, a nod to Trump himself. It seeks to extend the tax breaks approved during Trump’s first term — and boost the standard deduction, child tax credit and estate tax exemption — while adding new tax breaks on tipped wages, overtime pay, Social Security benefits and auto loans that Trump promised during his campaign for the White House.

There’s also a tripling of the state and local tax deduction, called SALT, from $10,000 up to $30,000 for couples, which certain high-tax state GOP lawmakers from New York and California already rejected as too meager. Private universities would be hit with a hefty new tax on their endowments, as much as 21%, as the Trump administration goes after the Ivy League and other campuses. And one unusual provision would terminate the tax-exempt status of groups the State Department says support “terrorists,” which civil society advocates warn is a way to potentially punish those at odds with the Trump administration.

Overall, the package is touching off the biggest political debate over taxes, spending and the nation’s priorities in nearly a decade. Not since 2017 has Congress wrestled with legislation as this, when Republicans approved the Trump tax cuts but also failed to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The cost assessments are only preliminary, and expected to soar.

“Republicans need to UNIFY,” Trump posted on social media before departing for a trip to the Middle East.

Trump said when he returns to Washington, “we will work together on any and all outstanding issues, but there shouldn’t be many — The Bill is GREAT. We have no alternative, WE MUST WIN!”

But one key Republican, Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, implored his party not to impair Medicaid, arguing that cutting healthcare to pay for tax breaks is both “morally wrong and politically suicidal.”

“If Republicans want to be a working-class party — if we want to be a majority party — we must ignore calls to cut Medicaid and start delivering on America’s promise for America’s working people,” Hawley wrote in the New York Times.

Late Monday, the House Agriculture Committee released its proposals — cutting $290 billion from federal nutrition programs, in part by shifting costs to the states and requiring able-bodied adults without dependents to fulfill work requirements until they are 64 years old, rather than 54, to qualify for food aid.

Round-the-clock work ahead

As Republicans race toward House Speaker Mike Johnson’s Memorial Day deadline to pass Trump’s big bill, they are preparing to flood the zone with round-the-clock public hearings starting Tuesday and stitch the various sections together in what will become a massive package.

The politics ahead are uncertain. The bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation said Monday that tax breaks would reduce revenue by $4.9 trillion over the decade — and that was before Trump’s new tax breaks were included.

Texas Rep. Chip Roy, a member of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, warned the price tag could climb to $20 trillion, piling onto the deficits and debt.

“I sure hope House & Senate leadership are coming up with a backup plan,” Roy posted on social media, “…. because I’m not here to rack up an additional $20 trillion in debt over 10 years.”

House Republicans have been huddling behind closed doors, working out final provisions in the 389-page tax portion of the package.

The legislation proposes to boost the standard deduction many Americans use by $2,000, to $32,000 per household, and increase the child tax credit from $2,000 to $2,500 for four years. It adds a new requirement focused on preventing undocumented immigrants from benefiting from the credit even if the children are U.S. citizens, which the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank, estimates would affect 4.5 million children who are U.S. citizens or lawful residents.

It would also increase the estate tax exemption, which is now $14 million, to $15 million and index future increases to inflation.

As for the president’s promises, the legislation includes Trump’s “no taxes on tips” pledge, providing a deduction for those workers in service industry and other jobs that have traditionally relied on tips. It directs the Treasury secretary to issue guidance to avoid businesses gaming the system.

The package also provides tax relief for automobile shoppers with a temporary deduction of up to $10,000 on car loan interest, applying the benefit only for those vehicles where the final assembly occurred in the United States. The tax break would expire at the end of Trump’s term.

For seniors, there would be a bolstered $4,000 deduction on Social Security wages for those with adjusted incomes no higher than $75,000 for individuals and $150,000 for couples.

But one hard-fought provision, the deduction for state and local taxes known as SALT, appears to be a work in progress. The legislation proposes lifting the cap to $15,000 for single filers and $30,000 for couples, but with a reduction at higher incomes — about $200,000 for singles and $400,000 for couples.

“Still a hell no,” wrote Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) on social media.

Battle over Medicaid, food aid

Meanwhile, dozens of House Republicans have told Johnson and GOP leaders they will not support cuts to Medicaid, which provides some 70 million Americans with healthcare, nor to green energy tax breaks that businesses back home have been relying on to invest in new wind, solar and renewable projects.

All told, 11 committees in the House have been compiling their sections of the package as Republicans seek at least $1.5 trillion in savings to help cover the cost of preserving the 2017 tax breaks, which are expiring at the end of the year.

The final section from the Agriculture Committee proposed cutting the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program, known as SNAP, by expanding work requirements, limiting future expansions of the program and forcing states to shoulder more of the cost.

Along with new work requirements for older Americans, it would also require some parents of children older than 7 to work to qualify, down from 18 years old. Only areas with unemployment rates over 10% would be eligible for waivers.

Some Republicans have already balked at the increased costs to the states, which would be required to contribute at least 5% of the cost of SNAP allotments beginning in 2028.

At the same time, the legislation would invest $60 billion in new money for agriculture programs, sending aid to farmers.

On Sunday, House Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee unveiled the cost-saving centerpiece of the package, with at least $880 billion in cuts largely to Medicaid to help cover the cost of the tax breaks.

While Republicans insist they are simply rooting out “waste, fraud and abuse” to generate savings with new work and eligibility requirements, Democrats warn that millions of Americans will lose coverage. In the 15 years since Obamacare became law, Medicaid has only expanded as most states have tapped into federal funds.

A preliminary estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the proposals would reduce the number of people with healthcare by 8.6 million.

To be eligible for Medicaid, there would be new “community engagement requirements” of at least 80 hours per month of work, education or service for able-bodied adults without dependents. People would also have to verify their eligibility to be in the program twice a year, rather than just once.

There are substantial cuts proposed for green energy programs and tax breaks, rolling back climate-change strategies from the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act.

Mascaro and Freking write for the Associated Press. AP writers Amanda Seitz, Leah Askarinam and Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.