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The Latin Recording Academy has unveiled the nominees for its 27th Latin Grammy Awards. The ceremony will air live Nov. 12 on Univision from the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas.

Edgar Barrera leads the count with a total of 10 nominations, followed by Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, Jorge Drexler, Karol G and Rosalía, who each received seven nods.

Trailing behind them are indie folk artists Silvana Estrada and Mon Laferte, who each received six nominations.

All nominations are for recordings released between June 1, 2025, to May 31, 2026.

Hit songwriter Barrera — who now holds the record for the most Latin Grammy nominations, reaching 84 this year — could make history once more if he wins in any category.

The Texas-born composer — who has collaborated with the likes of Bad Bunny, Karol G, Shakira and Maluma, along with anglophone divas like Ariana Grande and Madonna — is currently tied with Calle 13’s Residente for the title of most-awarded individual in Latin Grammy history.

Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso took home five Latin Grammy awards last year, which tied them for the most wins that night alongside Bad Bunny — who received no nominations this year.

Now, the kooky Argentine pair are nominated in multiple top categories, following the release of their experimental 2026 LP “Free Spirits” — which features collaborations with British musicians Sting and Fred Again, as well as California’s very own Anderson .Paak and Jack Black. The duo is competing for album of the year, as well as record of the year for the song “Ha Ha.”

Karol G is also contending for top prizes, including album of the year for “Tropicoqueta,” her 2025 survey of Latin American pop. (She previously won the honors back in 2023 for her heartbreak album, “Mañana Será Bonito.”) Her tender pop duet with Marco Antonio Solis, “Coleccionando Heridas,” is also nominated for record of the year and song of the year.

Spanish singer Rosalía is up for record of the year, song of the year and pop song for the song “La Perla” — which features the música mexicana sibling trio Yahritza y Su Esencia. The band resurfaced from the shadows following a public fallout with Mexican media regarding their American-leaning tastes in cuisine; their 2026 album, “Metamorfosis,” is also nominated for contemporary Mexican music album this year.

There are several notable first-time nominees, some of whom De Los has previously profiled. This includes Xavi, whose album “Dosis” is up for contemporary Mexican music album, as well as his viral TikTok song “No Capea,” which he recorded with Grupo Frontera, in the regional song category. Working-class hero Macario Martínez is also in the running for the new artist award.

Colombian artist Ryan Castro is also nominated for the first time alongside Afrobeat singer Kapo and producer Gangsta for their song “La Villa” in the urban performance category. Castro is also nominated for urban music album for his joint LP “Omerta” alongside J Balvin.

Here’s the list of nominees in all general categories:

Record of the year

“Ha Ha” – Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso

“¿Cómo Se Ama?” – Jorge Drexler

“Dime” – Silvana Estrada

“O Amor Nos Encontrou” – Loulu Gilberto

“Coleccionando Heridas” – Karol G & Marco Antonio Solís

“Femme Fatale” – Mon Laferte

“Desde Que Te Tengo” – Carín León

“Niño” – Milo J

“La Perla” – Rosalía Featuring Yahritza y Su Esencia

“Alma” – Elena Ros

Album of the year

“Equilibrivm” – Anitta

“Free Spirits” – Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso

“Taracá” – Jorge Drexler

“Vendrán Suaves Lluvias” – Silvana Estrada

“Tropicoqueta” – Karol G

“Femme Fatale” – Mon Laferte

“Muda” – Carín León

“La Vida Era Más Corta” – Milo J

“¿Dónde Es El After?” – Rawayana

“Lux (Complete Works)” – Rosalía

Song of the year

“Coleccionando Heridas” – Edgar Barrera, Kevyn Mauricio Cruz, Luis Miguel Gomez Castaño & Karol G, songwriters (Karol G & Marco Antonio Solís)

“¿Cómo Se Ama?” – Jorge Drexler & Diego López Crespo “Mauro”, songwriters (Jorge Drexler)

“Dime” – Silvana Estrada, songwriter (Silvana Estrada)

“Femme Fatale” – Mon Laferte, songwriter (Mon Laferte)

“Hasta Jesús Tuvo Un Mal Día” – Rafa Arcaute, Renee Barri, Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, Vicente Jimenez “Vibarco”, Martin Kierszenbaum, John Ryan, Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner & Federico Vindver, songwriters (Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso Featuring Sting)

“Humano” – Emmanuel Briceño, Juanes, Felipe Navia & Vivir Quintana, songwriters (Juanes & Vivir Quintana)

“La Perla” – Noah Goldstein, David Rodríguez, Ryan Tedder, Rosalía & Dylan Wiggins, songwriters (Rosalía Featuring Yahritza y Su Esencia)

“Mi Gran Amor” – Edgar Barrera, Becky G, Luis Miguel Gómez Castaño, Manuel Lorente, Daniel Rondón & Carlos Santana, songwriters (Santana Featuring Becky G)

“Nilo” – Massimo Giovanardi & Zanna, songwriters (Zanna)

“Solifican12” – Santiago Alvarado, Milo J & Santiago Ruiz, songwriters (Milo J)

Best new artist

Delilah

Fabian

Loulu Gilberto

Arath Herce

Macario Martínez

maye

Sofia Monroy

Kendall Peña

Dora Sanches

Aria Vega

Zeca Veloso

When Judy Collins comes to Los Angeles, she likes to stay at the Beverly Hilton in part because “they serve a fabulous breakfast,” she says over coffee at the hotel on a recent morning. “That’s rare today,” she adds. “Too often a place will just send up a cardboard shopping bag with the things you ordered in it.”

Collins knows her amenities: At 87, the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter still plays about 120 shows a year, drawing audiences around the world with her high, clear voice and an expansive repertoire that blends the hits that made her famous in the 1960s and ’70s — Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now,” Leonard Cohen’s “Suzanne,” Stephen Sondheim’s “Send in the Clowns” — with traditional folk tunes and material of her own.

Yet now she’s preparing to hang it up with a lengthy farewell tour she’s calling Sweet Judy Blue Eyes (after “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes,” the folk-rock classic her one-time lover Stephen Stills wrote about her for Crosby, Stills & Nash). The night before our interview, Collins played L.A.’s Ford Theatre; she’ll be back through Southern California for a Sept. 27 date at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara and again next year for shows in Palm Springs and Aliso Viejo.

After we talk, she plans to do a bit of tai chi, for which she uses an app on her phone and which she wishes more people practiced. “Maybe that would alter civilization,” she says. “If we were all doing tai chi, we couldn’t be at war with Iran.” Then she’ll head to the airport for a flight home to New York, where she’s lived for decades — most of them with her husband, industrial designer Louis Nelson, who died in 2024.

At breakfast, Collins is wearing a patterned turquoise jacket over a matching dress and high-heeled black leather boots.

“You like these?” she asks of the boots. “These are Stuart Weitzman. I bought them 30 years ago, and I’ve never stopped wearing them.”

That’s a well-made boot.
They fit, they’re great and I reject all invitations to get rid of them.

Has your thinking about clothes changed over the decades?
I used to dress in jeans because I was a cowgirl — I hung out with rodeo riders in Colorado. As I came up, I liked what was simple. My mother made all our clothes on a Singer sewing machine for years. Now I love beaded things. I have full closets I need to go through.

Before you came onstage last night, an announcer told the audience not to take pictures or videos.
That’s my management’s doing — it’s important to them, so I go along with it. But the pictures are usually bad. Also, the phones take people’s minds off what’s going on onstage. People need the chance to focus. We’re in a period of insanity right now, so people need time to sit wherever they are. They could go to the ballet or to the theater, but they choose to come to me, and they get to sit there and they get to listen and they get to think about their own lives.

As a performer, that’s what you seek to provide.
I’m providing silence. It’s such a noisy world — so full of crappy music that plays outside all these hotels and places where we stay. It drives me nuts.

You have a line in the show where you say, “Something unexpected happened — I turned 87.” It got a good laugh.
People applaud too.

What are they saying by applauding?
They want to be acknowledged for their own ages, whether they’re 87 or 90 or 19. People are coming to see me, but they’re also coming to see their history. They’ll remember what happened 60, 70 years ago — they were probably marching at the same things I was marching at. And if they’re 19, they want to know why we’re not marching now.

Judy Collins performs on “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” in 1969.

(CBS via Getty Images)

You said we’re in a period of insanity.
This country is losing so much of the depth of our origin. The fact that workers who’ve come to this country are being taken off to God knows where — it makes no sense. Number one, these people often have some sort of legality. And secondly, they do the work here. Nobody else wants to go up to the orchards in Oregon and pick the fruit. Do you?

I can’t say that I do.
I don’t want to do that.

This tour is billed as your grand farewell.
So long, you guys.

I’m always reluctant to trust that framing. Cher’s done like eight farewell tours.
I hadn’t counted them up — shame on me.

Should we really believe you?
I think we have to believe in the present tense. What you’re hearing is what’s happening.

You had a music stand onstage with you. What was on it?
All the lyrics to all the songs.

You can’t possibly need the lyrics anymore.
Oh, yes, I do.

You’ve been singing some of them for decades.
Doesn’t matter — it has to be there in case you have to look at it.

Would you say you do look? Or is it more of a security blanket?
It’s a security blanket. But my eyes wander — I like to see who’s in the audience and what’s going on. I like to look up and down the aisles, and I like to fantasize: How did this happen?

Your life and career?
I mean, I know how it happened. I was 16, and I started going to the Denver Folklore Society, which was run by a guy named Lingo the Drifter. And Lingo the Drifter had these wonderful evenings where we all played the guitar and sang and drank illegal whiskey and so on.

Judy Collins last month in Beverly Hills.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Before Denver, you lived briefly as a kid in Los Angeles.
My father was a very eclectic and fabulous radio personality. He had a radio show for 30 years in Seattle then here in Hollywood, broadcasting out of CBS — a big deal. If we weren’t in school, we would drive up Santa Monica Boulevard into Hollywood and we’d stand around and watch them produce the radio mysteries. People would walk in a sandbox to get the sound of somebody walking up the gravel road to the door.

Are you familiar with the term “nepo baby”?
No.

It refers to the child of a famous artist who follows in their parent’s footsteps.
Oh, that’s interesting.

People use it derisively, as if to say that a kid has overly benefited from their advantages.
We certainly had advantages. For instance, the Library of Congress, which is the jewel in the crown — I don’t know what they’re doing now — but they sent us Braille books and they sent us all the shows from New York and they sent us the recordings of all the Shakespearean plays by the great Dame Judith Anderson and John Gielgud. I had all that growing up. In some ways, I wasn’t raised — I was trained. I got to see how a professional has to handle his life. My father was a professional in all ways. He drank — occasionally, not all the time — but he was absolutely organized about everything, including that.

You’ve been sober for something like half a century.
Forty-eight years. I’m in my 49th now.

You ever miss drinking?
Oh, my God, no. I was so sick — I was gone. Bye-bye.

Some people replace one addiction with another.
I had an eating disorder, which is still kind of … You know, last night, I asked for apple juice during the show — I was in trouble because I wasn’t eating. When my husband died, I stopped eating again. I’d stopped eating in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, but I got over that. But suddenly I didn’t want to eat again.

Would you consider that disordered eating?
I don’t know. Anyway, I have to really be careful. We had a talk about it last night. I have to eat these protein bars, and I have to eat them all the time.

Do you remember the first gig you played after your husband died?
Oh, yes — I had to go out. When my son took his life in 1992, I got a call from Joan Rivers — she and I knew each other pretty well. She was getting ready to go out and do her show in Las Vegas, and she called me in New York and she said, “I have to tell you this” — her husband had just killed himself — she said, “You cannot stay home. You have to go out.” I was canceling all my shows, and she said, “You can’t do that because you won’t ever get over this if you do.”

How did you take that advice?
I said, “Thank you,” and I called my staff and I said, “Put ’em back on.” My mother came out with me, Louis came out with me, my sister came out with me, and it was incredibly true: I had to be working or else I would die. So when it came to Louis, I was out three days later.

What did that feel like?
Well, it was wonderful because I was working. I can work and get through anything — that’s the psychological effect of what I’m doing on the stage. I’m interacting with people, I’m hearing the laughter, I’m hearing the music. What could be more healing?

This is why I’m wondering why you plan to stop touring.
But you see, I have all these other things to do — I have a life that’s not just touring. I’m working on the music for a Broadway show. And I’m doing a new book — it’s called “Singing Through the Storm,” and it’ll be out next year, I hope.

Judy Collins and Leonard Cohen attend the 41st annual Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony in New York in 2010.

(Larry Busacca / Getty Images)

You’ve interpreted the music of so many great songwriters: Joni Mitchell, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen. Was there ever a writer whose work you admired but couldn’t find your way into?
No.

OK.
I’ll tell you my funniest Leonard story. In 2014, I think it was, I went to this little group in Norway called Democrats Abroad — lonely group of people. That night, this woman came up to me and said, “Hi, I’m Marianne.” I said, “Hi, Marianne.” And then she said, “I’m Leonard’s Marianne.” She said, “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you for many years: We were living together in Spain, Leonard and I, and he was writing songs and we were swimming in the nude. And then one day he came to me and he said, ‘Marianne, I’m going to New York to sing my songs for Judy Collins,’ and he went to New York and he played you all his songs and you recorded them.” Marianne said, “I just wanted to tell you that you ruined my life.” Fortunately, we became friends on Facebook.

You opened last night’s set with “Both Sides Now.”
Oh, yes.

This might be the most famous song you do. Some artists would save it for later in the show.
I don’t want people to wonder for an hour and a half: Will she? Won’t she? What will I do if she doesn’t?

Do you still enjoy singing “Both Sides Now”?
I love it. It was Al Kooper who brought me to Joni — she sang it to me over the phone. Al is living a very sane, quiet life in the Northeast now. He’s married — never goes out anymore. It’s hard to think of Al Kooper just sitting there enjoying his marriage and his garden.

What will you do on the plane home today?
I’ll probably get out the computer and noodle around on the book and see what I can come up with.

The work never ends.
It never ends because it’s not done.

WASHINGTON — A nonprofit run by Black federal lawmakers launched a multimillion-dollar effort Tuesday to engage lower-propensity voters in key districts in the midterm elections, following years of dissatisfaction over traditional efforts to reach such voters.

The Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s “SO VOTE” campaign will seek to register and mobilize young voters, as well as voters in majority-Black and rural communities, across the South, Midwest and West. The campaign involves partnerships with dozens of local organizations, the institute said, with in-person and online outreach to voters often sidestepped by major political campaigns.

“For decades, as far as I can remember, there are those of us who have always complained about the fact that neither party spends the significant and requisite time with Black and brown and poor and rural communities,” said Marcia Fudge, a former Democratic congresswoman from Ohio who served as the secretary of Housing and Urban Development during the Biden administration.

“So we finally decided to take it upon ourselves to do something that we didn’t think anybody else in the industry was doing,” said Fudge, who is spearheading the new effort alongside former Black Caucus colleagues.

Effort blends old tactics with new technologies to boost turnout

Voter engagement efforts will cover outreach across Georgia and Mississippi, as well as target voters in 16 congressional districts that are likely to determine control of the House.

Instead of traditional television advertising, the campaign will convene local civic groups and houses of worship, as well as fraternities and sororities. The effort will also use some now-widespread techniques in political campaigns, such as geotargeting online ads and partnerships with local content creators for audiences who mainly receive their news online.

While the voter engagement efforts are officially nonpartisan, the Black Caucus’ targeted races are in many regions where Black voter turnout could prove key to whether a Democratic candidate prevails in closely divided House districts. Cedric Richmond, a former Louisiana Democratic congressman who served as a senior adviser to President Joe Biden, said the effort would focus on repeatedly engaging voters in rural communities who feel alienated from Democratic campaigns.

“If you’re not happy with the way things are going, then voting is part of the solution, but it takes constant communication,” Richmond said.

The Black Caucus’ institute has raised about $1 million for the campaign, primarily from individual donors, and plans to spend at least $4.5 million in the midterm election cycle.

Campaign responds to GOP redistricting and disappointing turnout in the past

The new outreach effort follows years of disappointment and frustration among some in the Black Caucus at the broader Democratic Party’s efforts to court Black, rural and younger voters.

Rep. Jim Clyburn, an influential South Carolina Democrat who decried the lackluster voter turnout in the 2024 election, said the campaign “allows us to put to practice that which we have been proposing, and we have never had the resources to do it. But this year we do.”

The effort is also a response to Republican-led redistricting efforts in multiple states, said Rep. Bennie Thompson, a Mississippi Democrat.

“These Southern states are trying to minimize Black political participation and ultimately Black political strength,” he said. “So what we have to do is take that low-propensity voter and elevate their participation so they become an additional voice to be reckoned with.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

Amanda Seyfried and Thomas Sadoski are calling it quits.

The former couple, who tied the knot in March 2017, told People that they had been separated for some time.

“We have been separated for a while, and it’s proven to be the right move for us and our family unit. We’ve got each other forever — and it’s GOOD,” Seyfried and Sadoski told the outlet.

On Tuesday, Seyfried shared a piece of prose by poet and author Bianca Sparacino on her Instagram stories that read:

“Maybe in another lifetime.”

“No.

“This is all you get. So please, just fight for the things that crack light into your life, fight for the things that soften you. Protect the people you love, leave them better than you found them. Defend your heart, do whatever it takes to keep it open despite what it has been through. Forgive, not just others, but yourself, as well. Slow down. Taste, and touch, and feel and care. Create the things you want to see in this world, stay as curious as possible. Honour your joy, do not shy away from the good that is trying to reach you, do not convince yourself that you are unworthy of it. Be strong enough to be gentle. Be brave enough to break. Be all that you are. Be all that you are.”

The pair met back in 2015 while starring in “The Way We Get By,” a two-person off-Broadway play that explores love and lust and takes place the morning after a drunken hookup. It was Seyfried’s stage debut. “I feel like the luckiest guy in New York right now, to be honest with you,” Sadoski told Backstage on Broadway at the time. “I mean, I get one of the great American playwrights, one of the great American directors, and a perfect scene partner, I’m a pretty happy guy.”

The two teamed up again the same year to play love interests once more in “The Last Word.”

After spending a good portion of the year pretending to be in love with Seyfried on stage and screen, in October 2015, Sadoski split from his wife of eight years, studio casting executive Kimberly “Becky” Hope. By March 2016, the “Newsroom” actor was romantically linked to the “Mamma Mia!” star.

Seyfried, 40, and Sadoski, 50, tied the knot in a private countryside ceremony in 2017. There were no family or friends on the guest list, just their officiant and Seyfried’s dog, Finn. Shortly after the nuptials, the pair welcomed a baby girl, Nina. In 2020, they had a son, Thomas Jr.

The couple have raised their family on a farm in the Catskill Mountains of upstate New York, a property the “Mean Girls” star bought in 2013, while also maintaining properties in Los Angeles and Manhattan. But last month, Seyfried listed her 2,700-square-foot Los Angeles residence for about $3.2 million.

“American Idol” is packing up its stars after 25 years in Hollywood.

In the latest blow to Los Angeles film production, ABC’s long-running program will move its upcoming season to the Atlanta area, according to Fremantle, which produces the show with 19 Entertainment, owned by Sony Pictures Television.

Fremantle declined to comment further.

The move comes as Los Angeles’ production levels have tumbled, prompting concern from film workers, union leaders and elected officials who are scrambling to address the crisis. California, despite boosting its tax incentive program, has been struggling to compete against other states that offer more lucrative credits.

TV production activity in the L.A. region was down 27% in the second quarter compared with the same period a year ago, largely because of fewer reality TV shoots, according to the nonprofit FilmLA.

Earlier this year, another broadcast TV stalwart, Fox’s “The Masked Singer,” made plans to vacate its space on the Fox lot on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles and head to New Jersey, also in search of more lucrative tax credits. Another ABC hit, “Shark Tank,” also is relocating to Atlanta from its longtime home base on Sony’s Culver City lot.

“American Idol” has been a local economic engine since launching on Fox in 2002. For years, the show ranked as the No. 1 show on TV and employed hundreds of workers each season as aspiring singers hoped for their big break.

The most recent season originated from Red Studios in Hollywood.

Georgia offers generous tax incentives, including up to a 30% tax credit for reality television productions that spend at least $500,000 in the state. Unlike California, Georgia’s tax program allows compensation for actors and other so-called above-the-line workers to be included.

Like California, Georgia has been grappling with lower production levels. For more than a decade, its soundstages attracted colossal movie productions, but the region was dealt a blow when the Walt Disney Co. recently shifted production of its Marvel superhero films to facilities near London.

On Tuesday, a bipartisan coalition of lawmakers, the Motion Picture Assn., industry unions, Hollywood special ambassador Jon Voight and filmmaker Steven Paul made a pitch for a federal film and television tax credit to keep jobs in Hollywood and in the U.S. broadly.

Rep. Laura Friedman (D-Glendale) plans to introduce a bill into Congress as early as this month in collaboration with Rep. Brian Jack (R-Ga.), who represents a district southwest of Atlanta. The MPA released a study estimating a federal tax credit could add 143,000 film and TV jobs.

This year, in particular, has seen big swings as the California Film and TV Tax Credit Program expanded eligibility to include competition shows.

Large-scale competition shows are eligible under the state’s incentive program if they have a minimum budget of $1 million per episode. The credit, however, does not include traditional reality shows, game shows, talk shows or docu-follow television programs.

Changes in California’s formula resulted in a jump to 676 shoot days in the second quarter, compared with 463 shoot days during the first three months of the year. Nonetheless, this year’s April-June quarter still reflected an almost 40% decline when compared with the same time last year.

FilmLA said that over the last five years, reality productions have plummeted nearly 63%.

ABC in late July announced “American Idol” was returning, marking its 10th season on the Walt Disney Co. network. Producers are auditioning potential contestants this week during stops in Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina.

ABC declined to comment on the move.

Ryan Seacrest has long hosted the show, which last season featured Lionel Richie, Luke Bryan and Carrie Underwood, a previous “American Idol” champion, as the celebrity judges.

Deadline first reported the planned move to Georgia.

Game shows are also leaving L.A.

A growing number of programs long based around Hollywood and New York have headed across the ocean to Ireland and Britain to take advantage of tax credits that bring down the cost of production as broadcast network executives contend with shrinking audiences and lower profit margins.

Fox currently has several prime-time game shows produced overseas, including “The Floor,” “Celebrity Name That Tune” and “Beat Shazam.

Staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.

CINCINNATI — A simple change opened up a dramatic offensive turnaround for Dodgers left fielder Teoscar Hernández.

Hernández’s two-run homer Tuesday, in the Dodgers’ 4-0 win against the Reds, was his second home run in as many nights, as the team trimmed its magic number to clinch the division to two. And, significantly, this one was against a right-handed pitcher.

“It’s been very helpful,” manager Dave Roberts said after the game. “As certain guys are not seeing the ball as well, it’s nice to kind of backfill with guys like Teo swinging the bat. And when you can slug like he can, you can win baseball games, and he can carry us for a while. And the last 10 days, something like that, it’s been really good from him.”

Through the end of August, Hernández had just a .668 OPS against right-handed pitchers this season. So, when manager Dave Roberts was asked in Detroit whether the Dodgers would consider setting up a left-field platoon with the team’s September call-ups, he said yes.

Hernández homered off Tigers left-hander Framber Valdez on the last day of the series. And before the Dodgers opened a three-game set against the Cardinals at Dodger Stadium, Hernández met with the hitting coaches.

Against Valdez, Hernández was in a closed stance, to delay his front hip from opening, according to Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates. But the team’s hitting group thought a return to a familiar setup could be a long-term solution.

“It was a great meeting we had,” Bates said. “We all talked about it, and then he felt comfortable enough to do it, and then the rest is to his credit. He’s just been who he is.”

In the past, Hernández had used a “twister tap” as his stride. He started in a more open stance, tapped his toe in line with the pitcher, and then set his foot down. But lower-body injuries the last couple of years — a left groin strain last season and a left hamstring strain earlier this season — forced him away from it.

His improved health and hip flexibility opened up the avenue for him to return to that timing mechanism.

“When Teo’s hips are loose that way, and his front leg looks like an Elvis knee, it’s a good sign for us,” Bates said. “Because that means that he can open and close it without his upper body going with it.”

The advantage of the twister tap, as Hernández explained it, is how repeatable it is. A more traditional stride can be sped up or slowed down.

“Just being able to control my body and being in a good position,” Hernández said earlier this month. “I can see the pitch a little sooner and identify what kind of pitch it is and if it’s going to be a strike or a ball.”

Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitches during one of his seven shutout innings against the Reds Tuesday.

(Carolyn Kaster / Associated Press)

With that change, he’s rewarded the Dodgers for deciding against platooning left field. Hernández entered Tuesday with a .777 OPS against right-handed pitchers — a sample size of just 28 plate appearances but still a significant jump.

“The biggest thing is his plate coverage away,” Bates said. “Because now he can spoil pitches, and he’s staying in at-bats longer.”

Hernández’s dramatic offensive turnaround, along with fellow corner outfielder Kyle Tucker’s improvement, have helped steady a Dodgers offense that’s missing Shohei Ohtani (on the IL with right biceps and left knee injuries) and includes a hobbled Freddie Freeman (right knee soreness).

Rookie Josue De Paula, mostly filling in for Ohtani at designated hitter, has already shown he can take mature at-bats and provide some pop. But he’s still finding his footing in a new league.

It lengthens the Dodgers lineup for Hernández, after a slow start to his year, to return to being a veteran power threat — just in time to, ideally, carry the momentum into the postseason.

On Monday, he launched his two-run shot off left-hander Nick Lodolo. On Tuesday, he replicated the feat off right-hander Rhett Lowder.

On the second pitch of the at-bat, Hernández recognized a hung slider, and he roped it over the left-field fence at 109.3 mph, according to Statcast. The blast put the Dodgers up 3-0 in the third inning, with Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto settling into a groove on the other side.

Yamamoto had walked the first two batters he faced, but he reigned in his control to pitch seven scoreless innings and allow just one more baserunner, on a double by Reds star shortstop Elly De La Cruz.

The Dodgers also scored on Hunter Feduccia’s second-inning single and Alex Freeland’s seventh-inning homer. And the Dodgers bullpen completed the shutout.

Freeman staying in the lineup

Freeman was all smiles after his three-hit game Tuesday — after going hitless for his last four games.

“I was supposed to be off tomorrow, but I played myself in there,” he said. “So I’m very excited.”

Roberts explained: “He was joking, saying, ‘If I get three hits, then can I be in there tomorrow?’”

Sure enough, the mechanical adjustments he made in the batting cage — focusing on getting his foot down early and making contact out in front — got him there.

“I’m just trying to find something that gives me results,” Freeman said. “We’re at the time where we’re just trying to get hot for five weeks here. So kind of like I did in the World Series a couple years ago, I did the step-out move. That’s not sustainable over six months. I’m not trying to find something that’s sustainable.”

Though Roberts has been trying to find opportunities to rest Freeman, he saw promising signs Tuesday beyond the results.

“Just my eyes, just watching him move, I feel good about him going tomorrow,” Roberts said.

De Paula, Freeland and third baseman Max Muncy will be out of the lineup Wednesday, Roberts said.

JJ Gabriel is already the youngest person to play for Manchester United’s Under-18 team.

He is also the youngest person to play in an unofficial game with United’s first team.

The 15-year-old striker appeared set to become the youngest person to play in an official game with United’s first team. The club plays Brighton in an English League Cup game Wednesday.

But seems unlikely to happen at this point — not after Gabriel has requested to be let out of his youth registration with the club immediately to become a free agent. Gabriel is under contract with United until the end of the current season in May.

United remains hopeful it can retain the young star, a person with knowledge of the situation but unauthorized to comment told the Associated Press.

According to the BBC, Gabriel did not train with the team late last week “amid issues in the relationship between the player’s family and United.” The publication also states that chief executive Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox “are directly involved in discussions with the player’s family, which underlines how seriously the club [regards] the situation.”

If United declines Gabriel’s request, the matter could ultimately be decided by the Premier League.

Gabriel’s father, Joe O’Cearuill, was a defender who played for Arsenal, mainly in the lower leagues, and briefly for Ireland’s national team.

Born in London on Oct. 6, 2010, Gabriel first gained wide attention — and the nickname “Kid Messi,” after global soccer legend Lionel Messi — as an 8-year-old youth player showing his skills in a YouTube video posted by SV2 in 2019. It has been viewed more than 5 million times.

After playing for youth academies such as Arsenal, West Ham United and Chelsea, Gabriel signed with Manchester United at age 11. He was 14 years, 6 months and 1 day old when he scored two goals in his U-18 debut, a 13-1 victory against Leeds on April 5, 2025.

Gabriel went on to score 20 goals in only 21 appearances and was named the U-18 Premier League player of the year. He also became the youngest player to be named Manchester United’s academy player of the year. Making his UEFA Youth League debut last week, Gabriel netted a hat trick during a 5-0 victory over Sabah.

On Aug. 1, Gabriel made his first appearance with United’s first team, playing eight minutes during a preseason game against Atlético Madrid. He was 15 years, 9 months and 26 days old. The youngest Manchester United first-team player in an official game is David Gaskell, who was 16 years and 19 days old when he first appeared for the club on Oct. 24, 1956.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

In an abandoned warehouse in Barcelona, the diva concealed her face beneath a helmet. Her hair moved like a black waterfall as she strutted, bare feet arched, as if in heels. The heels do appear later, click-clacking as the camera reveals a screen on her pelvic region, and as she reveals her face, growling a provocative verse from “Taconeando” — “Yo sé que tu quieres que me venga.”

Throughout the course of her July 27 “XXXXX” livestream, which beamed her first album in five years to the world, the artist-producer Alejandra Ghersi Rodríguez, best known as Arca, bathed in the warm hue of red light and strobes — and later, what seemed to be blood.

She blew kisses to the camera and toward the sky. She let out vocoded screams as she writhed on an industrial floor and lay resplendently upon a mountain of sand. She covered her bikini-clad body in peonies, visually echoing an Ana Mendieta “Silhueta.”

It would be too simplistic to label “XXXXX” as a return to form for the expansive Venezuelan artist; this record is more than a pop-timized syncretization of her previous electronic experimentations, such as her 2013 debut EP “&&&&&,” or the hourlong single “@@@@@.”

Lest we forget her celebrated self-titled album in 2017, which was the first time we heard Arca’s voice untreated to the doleful melody of a tonada, the Venezuelan folk genre popularized by llanero troubadour Simón Díaz; or the wildly ambitious five-album “Kick” cycle, in which she indulged in the Caribbean sounds of dembow and reggaeton, then melded them together into one ambient stream, with her signature glitchy flair.

The album cover of “XXXXX,” which calls to mind one of Swiss artist’s H.R. Giger’s biomechanoid machine-human chimeras, nods to the much-ness inherent here: specifically the post-humanist conceit of “diva as technology” that lies at the bloody, beating heart of this record.

What best captures her ambitions on “XXXXX” is the aptly named song “Everything,” which centers a soft-hard sequence of percussion that threatens to consume you — and if it does, you let it.

When every color of paint is mixed together, a dark color emerges. When every sound is blended together, what does it become? An orchestral flourish slowed to a whisper as in “Finisher?” An explosion, like in the fast-rattling crackle of “Syncope?” Or a hand on your hookup’s throat, telling them they know exactly what you want from the interaction as in “Fxck?”

The alchemy on “XXXXX” doesn’t always go down smoothly. Arca’s never been an artist to be easily swallowed and thrown back into the ouroboros of the pop machine; if she’s always been the sand in the cog, what happens when the underground diva herself surfaces to mainstream superstardom? These are problems to ponder in the shadows of a club.

The diva as a concept is already rooted in transformation. A beautiful, powerful woman flaunts her voice dramatically onstage, reaching new heights and incarnating — to paraphrase Wayne Koestenbaum’s observations on operatic divas, like Maria Callas in his seminal text “The Queen’s Throat” — an airy sense of freedom.

Arca — a nonbinary trans woman who makes uncategorizable music and embodies unquestionable glamour — anchors her divahood in a mutation of body, soul and sound. It’s a concept she has been playing with since her second album, “Mutant,” which also gave her fanbase a name.

Still, attempting to situate her in any tradition is moot.

Her divahood exists in the context of Venezuelan underground electronic music, where Arca was the youngest of a generation of DJs and producers. This includes the raptor house don DJ Babatr; hard fusion father DJ Yirvin; Luis Garban (who plays as Cardopusher and Safety Trance); MPeach; and Phran.

It was two years ago that Arca brought all of them together in Caracas; it was then that the glitchy young experimentalist, now the most famous contemporary Venezuelan musician, became the gravitational center of a scene as fractured as the country it was born from.

Arca is now the kind of artist who could be seen walking runways in Berlin, or seated front row at the Saint Laurent show at Paris Fashion Week. Last month in Iceland, Arca served as the high priestess of Echolalia: an eclipse rave helmed by longtime collaborator Björk and a coterie of local acts.

Arriving in a summer defined by pop divas switching gears — Charli XCX turning to rock music (in a sense), Madonna leaning hard into nostalgia after a career of refusing to repeat herself, and the ever-smiley Karol G surrendering to her saudade — Arca’s “XXXXX” is similarly an invitation to transmute.

But if we can locate Arca’s divahood in a lineage, it might be in the modern tradition of the anonymous and enigmatic doll at the rave: ready to let her ego dissolve into the bass.

You listen to the quiet internal world Arca conjures on “Raver,” with its jangling and haunted electronic keys. You can see her clearly there: lost under the strobes, eyes turned up toward heaven, letting herself sway, sweaty, between moments of euphoria, completely in her body. Has anyone ever been more enraptured and glorious? Every raver has, in a sense, wandered gladly to oblivion with “eyes closed and heart open,” as Arca says on “Cinch.”

We may get drugged up to forget it all; or we go sober with earplugs and water and good sneakers and coffee, or cold yerba mate toward the music. Yet all of us seek to get lost in the sound, to cinch our waists and let the bass move through us — to have the transcendental experience of “[letting] the beat f— you,” as Australian scholar McKenzie Wark describes halfway through her essential book, “Raving.”

The aesthetics of ravers reaching the mainstream — and into the hands of normies through the rise of so-called “corporate raves” — has allowed for the creation of depictions that exist outside of the real, silent moments of transcendence. It’s the communion, after so much ceremonial dance, with the divine.

For all the modernity of its rave philosophy and sci-fi metallic soul, “XXXXX” has a connection to an ancient divinity — to older technologies, from ritual to radio.

Near the beginning of “XXXXX,” the song “Willow” ushers us into this new world, with a clanging that evokes the sound of church bells in space. After a minute of this, the crash of hi-hat punctures the silence. Arca’s pitched-up vocals seep through, matching the beat in a disjointed chant: “Willow tree blowing in the wind, let it fall.” The song continues flourishing with the deconstructed trap beat and dark synthesizers that call to mind the classic sounds of witch house. It’s the opening of the ceremony, the energetic cleansing of the space.

The album’s loose framework as a transmission from an intergalactic underground radio station, “Diva Experimental FM,” is a structure she’s been playing with for years in the form of a show streamed on NTS. She launched this new era with another mix for the show called “Airdoll,” a storm of baile funk with currents of ambient music, R&B and Gregorian chants. These various sonic streams fuel the mechanical but witchy futurist soul of “XXXXX.”

In their multi-genre 2025 book “Dysphoria Mundi,” Spanish trans philosopher and activist Paul B. Preciado points to gender dysphoria as a symptom of the world’s broken state and the utopia that could well rise from the ashes. The constant procession of natural disasters — and the indifferent leaders and the violent bloodthirsty systems they work under — push society to mutate into something better. As with Arca the artist, “XXXXX” is a curse-breaker, a cultural palate cleanser and a call to evolve.

WASHINGTON — Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky returned to the Senate to vote on Monday for the first time in three months, looking noticeably more frail after he was hospitalized for a June fall in his home.

McConnell’s lengthy absence from the Senate generated a flood of criticism and online speculation, as he initially remained quiet for weeks about his condition. The 84-year-old senator eventually disclosed a month later that he had been “briefly unconscious” due to the fall and had also been treated for mild pneumonia in the hospital.

He briefly addressed reporters Monday from a wheelchair outside the Senate chamber, smiling but speaking slowly and with some difficulty. McConnell joked that he wasn’t sure how many reporters would be there after dodging so many questions during his almost two decades as leader.

He said he was back in the Senate to work on a pending farm bill and because he has an ongoing interest in NATO and “backing up our good friends who are totally in the fight against the Russians.”

Reporters and photographers were told by Senate staff not to take video of his remarks in the second-floor hallway, even though video is often permitted in that area. Still images were allowed.

McConnell, who holds the distinction of being the longest-serving Senate leader, is in his final months of his four decades in office. He is retiring at the end of January after one of the most consequential careers in modern politics.

Republicans have nominated U.S. Rep. Andy Barr to replace him, while Democrats have nominated former state lawmaker Charles Booker. McConnell has said he is determined to finish out his term.

McConnell suggests he’s still recovering

In a statement issued before his remarks, McConnell made clear that he may still miss some votes due to his health issues.

He said that he is “still not quite back to 100%, but I’ve assured Leader (John) Thune that, as I continue with physical therapy on the advice of my doctors, I will do my best to be present for tough votes when our Conference needs me.”

“My recovery has been a long and often frustrating process, and the lingering effects of childhood polio haven’t made it any easier,” McConnell said in the statement.

The senator’s extended leave highlighted increasing public concern about the age of lawmakers and their capacity to carry out their duties. Speculation about his condition grew so intense at one point that Kentucky’s Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear took the extraordinary step of issuing a public letter asking McConnell to update the public in a “transparent manner.”

McConnell’s absence was also felt over the summer as Republicans were unable to advance a farm bill out of committee. His return could give GOP leaders a needed vote as they try to advance legislation on cryptocurrency regulation and college sports.

A history of health problems

McConnell had polio in his early childhood and has long acknowledged difficulty as an adult in walking and climbing stairs.

A statement from the Capitol physician that was included with McConnell’s July release said that the senator has “experienced several falls through the year” due to his “post-polio condition.” The office said his physical therapy was aimed at reducing the risk of him falling again.

“A comprehensive evaluation by a multidisciplinary team determined that he had no fractures, cardiac abnormalities, stroke, tumor, or hemorrhage,” the physician’s office said.

McConnell was first elected to the Senate in 1984 and was the Republican leader from 2007 until last year, serving as both majority and minority leader during that period.

Toward the end of his time as leader and in the last two years as a rank and file senator, McConnell’s health has visibly declined.

He was hospitalized with a concussion in March 2023 and missed several weeks of work after falling in a Washington hotel. He twice froze up during news conferences after he returned, staring vacantly ahead before colleagues and staff. A year later, he fell and sprained his wrist while walking out of a GOP luncheon.

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press.

The 78th Primetime Emmy Awards saw a number of firsts: A first-time host, a first-time Emmy winner and the first to win two lead acting Emmys in a night. These notable achievements were coupled with moments of remembrance for legendary actors and creators, like Dolly Parton, Rob Reiner and Catherine O’Hara, among many others.

With Mariska Hargitay at the helm, the show ran at a quick pace without feeling rushed, giving room to winners to say their thanks in acceptance speeches while still having moments of fun in between. Here, our writers discuss some of the best moments of the ceremony. — Maira Garcia

Best moment of overdue recognition: Rhea Seehorn

Rhea Seehorn finally won an acting Emmy, an accolade that was long overdue.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

If you appreciate Rhea Seehorn’s complex, subtle acting, her dynamic range and her deadpan humor, then you’ve probably found the Emmys to be maddening over the years. She famously wasn’t nominated for playing poker-faced attorney Kim Wexler on “Better Call Saul” until the show’s two-part final season. And she never won, not even for the raw, heartbreaking work she did in those last episodes. So seeing her win, finally, for her lead turn on “Pluribus” was thrilling, long overdue recognition that, given her history, made you wonder if it would ever come. Awards voters typically don’t appreciate nuanced acting, too often equating “best” with “most.” But Seehorn’s work on “Pluribus” was undeniable. Playing Carol Sturka, a sad woman forced to save the world from happiness and hive mind, Seehorn had the role of a lifetime and ran with it. This Emmy was a long time coming, and you could feel that when she choked up on stage accepting it. Her palpable joy thanking “Pluribus” creator Vince Gilligan, wiping away tears, is one reason why we keep watching the ceremony. — Glenn Whipp

Best double Emmy haul: Matthew Rhys

Matthew Rhys with his double Emmy haul for “The Beast in Me” and “Widow’s Bay.”

(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)

It was the sort of epic night that might make life vest-wearing mayor Tom Loftis jolt from his boat seat in shock or compel the villainous real estate heir Nile Jarvis to scarf down a whole rotisserie chicken with a glint in his eye — Matthew Rhys, the actor who brought both characters to life on screen, won two Emmys during Monday’s ceremony.

In doing so, he achieved a feat no actor has accomplished in 78 editions of the Emmy Awards: he won two lead acting Emmys in the same night. He was recognized for lead actor in a limited series for his turn in Netflix’s psychological thriller “The Beast in Me,” where he played Nile equal parts charming and terrifying. Later, he took the stage to accept the lead comedy actor prize for his optimistic but skeptical take on a mayor of a small, haunted island town in Apple TV’s horror comedy “Widow’s Bay.”

Rhys didn’t react like his characters might have — instead, he thanked his homeland: “To the great and good people of Wales… we are a small but mighty nation!”) And he took in the moment being feted by his partner, Keri Russell, who hung on him with pride as he made his way back to the main seating area after his first win.

The double wins add to Rhys’s collection of gold across the acting categories. In 2018, he took home the prize for lead drama actor for “The Americans.” — Yvonne Villarreal

Best reaction to someone else winning: Martin Short

Martin Short, left, with his “Only Murders in the Building” co-star Steve Martin on the red carpet at the Emmys.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Rhys may have taken home lead actor Emmys for limited series and comedy series, but the award for best reaction belongs to Martin Short.

During Rhys’ acceptance speech for lead actor in a comedy, the camera briefly panned to Short, who was nominated for “Only Murders in the Building,” just in time to catch him ripping paper into pieces — presumably his speech — and throwing it on the floor in anger and disbelief.

It lasted only a few seconds, but Short took advantage of the moment.

The timing. The commitment. The expressive performance. Short’s full comedic arsenal was on display before the camera moved on. It was the kind of quick visual gag that was easy to miss, and plenty of people probably did. But for those who caught it, I hope it was worth the spit-take. I am certainly glad I had a napkin at hand.

Short may have lost the Emmy, but his comedic timing remains undefeated. Stay funny, Short. — Anthony Solorzano

Best emotional moment that emptied our tissue box: Michael J. Fox

Michael J. Fox received the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award for his work and advocacy on Parkinson’s disease.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

In an Emmys telecast full of genuine emotion — Reba McEntire’s musical celebration of Dolly Parton, a heartbreaking In Memoriam segment that ended with Jamie Lee Curtis’ personal tribute to Rob Reiner — the most moving moments were claimed by Michael J. Fox, receiving the Bob Hope Humanitarian award.

Fox’s decades-long battle with Parkinson‘s disease, and for those who suffer from it, is well known, as is his refusal to let it define him or his career — he received his 19th Emmy nomination this year, for guest actor in “Shrinking.” But when he first came out on stage, in a wheelchair and classic black, he spoke first about his admiration for Bob Hope, a man whose tireless support of soldiers “and military families like mine” illuminated, for Fox, the necessity of showing up for others. “When it starts to get tough, you show up, you help, and if you add a little joy while you’re doing it, that’s so you know it’s even better.”

The utter silence of that room as he spoke, the admiration on all those famous faces said it all. Fox remains as he has long been — funny, sincere, wildly talented and one of the most courageous people many of us will ever know. — Mary McNamara

Best self-depricating host: Mariska Hargitay

Mariska Hargitay didn’t take herself too seriously as host, cracking a number of silly jokes throughout the night.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Host Mariska Hargitay was refreshingly lewd and charmingly self-deprecating as the first female host of the Emmys in 15 years.

By not taking herself too seriously, she set a laid-back tone for a high pressure show that for many nominees feels like a life or death moment.

Winning is not everything, Hargitay regularly reminded the crowd, with bits that grounded actors’ experience, like a clip from a 1984 B-horror film she starred in called, “Ghoulies,” which, as she explained to everyone, is a film, “where a monster pops out of a toilet.”

“Jamie Lee Curtis isn’t the only scream queen around here,” Hargitay quipped.

That joke came after an ongoing series of goofy, blue wisecracks, including one about “Law & Order” producer Dick Wolf, saying his real name was “Richard Penis;” that her “SVU” character, Olivia Benson, was “America’s sweetheart sex cop;” that aging fans who once loved and watched “Hannah Montana” would soon need “Hannah Mammogramas;” and an aside about her packed work schedule, noting that “Margo may have money troubles, but Mariska’s doing just fine.”

She ended the night with a mic drop by introducing Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey as “my two favorite flavors of vape.” — Jessica Gelt

Best changes to a host’s hair: Hargitay and her hairstylist

A sampling of Mariska Hargitay’s hairstyles at the Emmy Awards.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

Beach waves, bombshell, Targaryen-inspired twists, luscious locks and a tousled bob. Mariska Hargitay changed her hairstyle so many times throughout the Emmy Awards it was hard to keep track. One can only imagine the quick work happening backstage to get her hair coiffed amid costume changes. And one can only hope there was a wig wall somewhere inspired by Catherine O’Hara’s Moira Rose. The bombshell blowout was reportedly a tribute to her late mother, ‘50s starlet Jayne Mansfield — Hargitay took home two Emmys earlier this month for a documentary she directed about her. Her quick-turn tresses were yet another example of the first-time host’s infectious enthusiasm. — Brittany Levine Beckman

Best presenter who should host the next awards show: John Mulaney

John Mulaney introduced the award for lead actor in a drama series, but not before sending up men.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

I’ll say it: I’m not sure how I feel about John Mulaney. I’ve waffled over the years. I used to love his work, then I found it tired, then I fell off the bandwagon altogether. So believe me when I tell you: I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about him presenting lead actor in a drama series. I wasn’t primed to like his speech. And yet.

He won me — I’m not necessarily a certified Mulaney hater, but certainly not a full-blooded Mulaney lover — over with a truly funny arpeggio of riffs about the mediocrity we accept from men and male actors. I was trepidatious, as was the live audience. (“This award is for the guys. Just men being men,” is a scary start.)

But then Mulaney rounded the curve with a tongue-in-cheek reference to the “Bluey” dad controversy and I sat up straighter. If the line, “some of the men in this category do method acting, and some do regular, less annoying acting” didn’t get me, then “they can play anything, these nominees, not just doctors — they can play a cop or an FBI agent or a secret agent, and then that’s it, no other examples,” certainly did. Don’t get me started on the DJ Khaled quote (I loved it).

Let this man host an awards show, as he is clearly trying to do. I recognize the game, and I respect it.

Also: a very honorable mention to Meg Stalter dressed as a literal Emmy statue. Meg, you are the only method actor I respect. — Laura Zornosa

Best Targaryen family reunion: Emma D’Arcy and Emilia Clarke

Emma D’Arcy and Emilia Clarke nodded to “Game of Thrones” before presenting the award for lead actress in a limited series or television movie .

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

One of the last things I ever expected to see on an awards show in 2026 is the Mother of Dragons speaking in High Valyrian on stage. So “Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke hitting the stage with “House of the Dragon’s” Emma D’Arcy to present the award for lead actress in a limited series or television movie was a pleasant surprise.

“In the ‘Game of Thrones’ universe, Emilia is my great-great-great-great-really-great granddaughter,” D’Arcy said. “And in honor of our shared Targaryen lineage, Emilia is going to address you in High Valyrian — our mother tongue — and I will translate.”

Clarke earned four Emmy nominations during “Game of Thrones’” run for portraying Daenerys Targaryen, one of the last surviving members of the family that long reigned over Westeros. D’Arcy, meanwhile, plays Rhaenyra Targaryen in “House of the Dragons,” which is set at a time when there are so many Targaryens that a war of succession became inevitable.

The Targaryen team-up was my favorite but it wasn’t the only name-based collaboration of the night. An earlier segment saw Olivia Benson, the fan-favorite “Law & Order: SVU” character played by Hargitay, share the screen with another Olivia Benson — Taylor Swift’s cat that is named after her. The cat made a surprise cameo along with the mega pop star in a pre-recorded segment about the likelihood of Swift appearing at the Emmys. — Tracy Brown

Best invitation to dinner at their house: Marcello Hernández

Marcello Hernández presented an award, but not before presenting some dinner invitations to a few people in the crowd.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

When I saw “SNL’s” Marcello Hernández would be presenting at the Emmys, I knew it would be a special moment, and he didn’t let me down. The actor, who presented the award for directing for a comedy series, promptly made himself at home, shouting out, “Donde ‘tan los Latinos?” He then took the opportunity to say hello to a few fellow actors in the room.

“Very quickly, I would like to say hello to Harrison Ford,” he said, looking at the actor sitting in the audience, who gave an exasperated look and waved. “You are a legend and a real inspiration to me and I would like to invite you to have dinner at my house.”

The room erupted in laughter, but he wasn’t finished. He then extended an invitation to Zendaya and her partner, Tom Holland: “I want to say hi to Zendaya, you’re a beast and you’re amazing. And I saw you and I wanted to play it cool, and I decided I can’t do that. So I would like to invite you and Spider-Man to have dinner at my house.”

Then he proceeded to invite Oscar Isaac, the Guatemalan actor who utilizes his given name professionally, suggesting they might be related. “You are so good in ‘Beef’ and you are also Hernández, like I am. So we could be cousins, you never know. And I will see you at Christmas, I will cook you whatever you want.”

Lastly, he said a hello to Matthew McConaughey, and quoted his Cuban tía, who told him if he works very hard, he can hang out with “Matthew McCon-i-purse.” It was a light-hearted speech that spoke to anyone who suddenly finds themselves in a room wondering how they got there. — M.G.

As the fall equinox approached from a week away, the Primetime Emmy Awards made its 78th visit, leaving trophies in some hands, the honor of just being nominated for others and bupkes for the rest of the thousands who make what we call television. Once again I have been called to witness (from afar) and report, so let’s get down to it.

It was the turn of NBC (and Peacock) in the round robin of major networks who broadcast the show, and to keep things literally in-house it was hosted by Mariska Hargitay, “America’s sweetheart sex cop Olivia Benson” from the network’s “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” and broadcast from the Peacock Theater, formerly the Microsoft Theater, formerly the Nokia in #DTLA, formerly downtown Los Angeles.

When reviewing the Emmys, or any awards show, as television in its own right, the only real questions are what distinguishes it from its many previous appearances on the karmic wheel of life — how it tricks up the basic, immutable form, like different decorations on the same sugar cookie recipe you have been using forever. Anything unexpectedly or especially moving, rousing, funny or strange, things that go against the grain of a production that wants to keep things controlled in order to bring the ship in on time.

This year the critic has been given the gift of Hargitay, primarily a serious actor (and director and producer), following in a long line of comedians and comic actors. There have been other serious actors as host, for example, Raymond Burr in 1959, Tom Selleck in 1984 and Angela Lansbury in 1993. And certainly, if you’re looking for someone to represent the medium rather than merely to comment on, celebrate or joke about it, you could do no better than Hargitay, the longest-serving actor on the longest-running prime-time live-action series on American TV. She’s beautiful, glamorous, self-possessed. She was recently on Broadway in “Every Brilliant Thing,” which involved a degree of what comedians call “crowd work,” so standing up in front of a live audience of people no more famous than she wasn’t going to throw her. Professional comedian Nate Bargatze, who hosted last year, was much more of a dark horse.

Emmys host Mariska Hargitay with singer Taylor Swift and her cat Olivia Benson on screen during a skit the 78th Primetime Emmy Awards.

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Although I would have bet on a pre-filmed “Special Victims Unit” routine to open the show, which is why I’m not a gambler, it wasn’t until an hour in that it appeared. (It involved murder-style boards, concerning the Case of Whether Taylor Swift would be making an appearance; she did, in the bit.) The pre-filmed production number that did open the show began with Hargitay and her actual good friend New York Knick Jalen Brunson steaming their clothes when Hargitay suddenly realizes she is due across the country to host the show. This led to Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock ’N Roll” reconceptualized as “I Love TV Screens,” which included the “Widow’s Bay” sea hag revealed to be Jennifer Coolidge, bringing boba tea (rhymes with “TV”); other rhymes matched “eating beef” and “watching ‘Beef’” and “Ed Gein” and “mean.” It moved to the live stage, with Hargitay flanked by dancers with television heads. Both segments felt more effortful than funny, but not unfunny.

On her own, however, Hargitay was above all a woman having a good time, never less than likable and game and enthusiastic, managing the scripted patter as well as anyone might have. Her monologue included several jokes about age, one about “L&O” producer Dick Wolf’s real name (Richard Penis), and another about her inability to pronounce “finale” because she’d never been in one. As is practically an Emmys tradition, some of these were confusing (even to the people performing it), or went on too long (Nick Offerman, cornered at his table, describing his work as an erotic house painter), or just had the effect of having been put on their feet without much, if any, rehearsal. Presenting the final award, for outstanding comedy, Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey, told to stretch — the show was actually running short — described the plot of their upcoming Apple series, “Brothers,” until they were allowed to move on.

As to what the Television Academy calls “creative elements,” everything that isn’t a presentation or a speech, they advertised tributes to the 30th anniversary of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” certainly a typo, and the 50th of “Charlie’s Angels,” a logical impossibility, but these were really just themed groupings of presenters — Sarah Michelle Gellar and David Boreanaz in the former, Kate Jackson, Cheryl Ladd and Jaclyn Smith in the latter. (The Angels managed a few words for Farrah Fawcett, but none for Shelley Hack, Tanya Roberts or David Doyle.) But there were full tributes to Dolly Parton (Sally Field enthused, Reba McEntire sang); to James Burrows, with Jamie Lee Curtis pivoting emotionally to talk about old friend Rob Reiner, who won a posthumous guest appearance Emmy this year for “The Bear”; and to Catherine O’Hara, with her “Home Alone” child Macaulay Culkin and “Schitt’s Creek” children Annie Murphy and Dan Levy, who spoke to “helping her build a TV character over the age of 60 that wears leather miniskirts and eight-inch heels and speaks in a strange, sometimes unintelligible transatlantic accent, and know that she will not scare an audience away.”

And there was Julianna Margulies presenting the Bob Hope Humanitarian Award to Michael J. Fox, who, in his usual way, was eloquent and funny, and let the people know about the goodness of Bob Hope, setting up a punchline in the bargain. Like a lot of you, I love Michael J. Fox, and I’m just going to leave that here, with a pile of soaked-through tissues.

John Mulaney stole the show as a presenter at the 78th Emmy Awards ceremony at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

But what America will mostly remember from this night was John Mulaney, introducing the award for lead actor in a drama, and burning the house down with a routine that went wherever it wanted. “They can play anything, these nominees. Not just doctors. They can play a cop or an FBI agent or a secret agent. And then that’s it. No other examples.”

“Since the creation of television, men have been historically underrepresented,” Mulaney said, explaining that the medium was all “beauty contests and children talking to hand puppets until the early ’60s. Until a man walked out and said, ‘Enough. My name is Fonzie and the president’s been shot.’” Mulaney is a man who has convulsed crowds in arenas and stadiums, but, as a local, nothing made me laugh harder than the words, “You know, I was shooting down Barham last night at 90 miles an hour.”

Nothing against Hargitay, but it’s clear that Mulaney should host this show, and every awards show, from now on.

CINCINNATI — Dodgers left-handed pitcher Kris Bubic is scheduled to meet the team in Cincinnati, according to people with knowledge of the plans who weren’t authorized to discuss it publicly.

Bubic made his last rehab appearance for Triple-A Oklahoma City on Sunday, so the Dodgers are not expected to activate him off the 60-day injured list right away.

The Dodgers acquired Bubic from the Royals at the trade deadline this year. He’d been on the IL since May, first with a low-grade flexor strain in his left forearm, and then a shoulder impingement setback.

Bubic reported to the Dodgers’ Arizona complex, where the 2025 All-Star began working back as a reliever due to the time constraints of the season.

In six Triple-A rehab appearances (5 2/3 Innings) this month, Bubic didn’t allow a run, and he limited opponents to two hits and two walks.

Because Bubic is on the 60-day IL, the Dodgers will need to clear spots on the active and 40-man rosters to reinstate him.

The first edition of “60 Minutes” since CBS News editor in chief Bari Weiss initiated drastic changes to the venerable program made it to air Sunday. But the changes weren’t all that apparent on screen.

The 59th season premiere was highly anticipated following months of turbulence behind the scenes. Weiss fired “60 Minutes” correspondents Sharyn Alfonsi and Cecilia Vega, both of whom complained the executive pushed them to add right-wing talking points to their stories. Longtime correspondent Scott Pelley was ousted after he angrily questioned the firings at a staff meeting.

Weiss — who took over editorial control of CBS News after parent company Paramount acquired her heterodox digital news site the Free Press — also dismissed “60 Minutes” executive producer Tanya Simon and replaced her with screenwriter and documentary filmmaker Nick Bilton, who has no previous experience in TV news.

Weiss restocked the program’s correspondent corps with one new full-timer — Ross Douthat, the longtime conservative opinion writer for the New York Times — and several new contributors, none of whom showed up in the premiere.

Douthat is the only newcomer added to the opening credits where the correspondents introduce themselves on camera. He also did the closing segment called “The Last Minute,” talking about the dangers of AI and the need for “journalism you can trust.”

But the look and tone of “60 Minutes” remained intact, with only a few minor tweaks to the graphics.

The episode was heavily promoted, with one on-air spot drawing on clips with from the program’s storied past. Correspondents throughout CBS News touted the premiere on their social media accounts.

The program opened with Norah O’Donnell’s exclusive interview with the Air Force officer who was shot down over Iran and rescued by special forces. The U.S. fighter jet was the first to be lost over enemy territory in more than 20 years.

The interview gave a detailed account of the rescue mission and steered clear of any political discussion about the Iran war, which O’Donnell described as “costly and unpopular.” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sat for an interview, focusing solely on the rescue mission.

The second segment was a hidden-camera investigation showing how self-styled lobbyists are shopping access to President Trump to felons looking for a pardon. Video captured pardon brokers Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, who were seen asking for $300,000 for their help, saying they worked with influencers close to Trump who would advocate for their cases. (The White House told “60 Minutes”: “Anyone spending money to lobby for pardons is foolishly wasting their money … President Trump performs his constitutional duties in an ethically sound manner, and to suggest so otherwise is either ill-informed or malicious.”)

Some on social media expressed surprise that “60 Minutes” would do a tough story on the Trump administration under Weiss after repeated reports that she is attempting to make the program more amenable to conservatives. “So I guess Bari Weiss didn’t totally destroy “60 Minutes” after all?” political analyst Chris Cillizza wrote on X.

The Los Angeles Rams made up the third segment in the program, which typically includes sports stories when CBS has a late afternoon football game leading into prime time. The package mostly focused on Rams head coach Sean McVay.

The ratings for “60 Minutes” will be issued by Nielsen later this week. Last year the program averaged 9.1 million weekly viewers, making it the most watched non-sports program in prime time.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. There are only 13 games remaining in the regular season. Time flies when you are having fun.

A different opinion

Throughout the season, I like to occasionally reach out to others to see what they think of the Dodgers so the readers are not exposed to just my viewpoint. This time I reached out to two of my favorite sports people.

I have listened to sports talk radio for about 50 years. Bud Furillo, Superfan, Rick Talley, Joe McDonnell, Steve Edwards, Fred Wallin, Steve Somers and many, many others. For me, “The Mason and Ireland Show,” hosted by Steve Mason and John Ireland and currently on ESPN Radio, surpasses them all. They can talk knowledgeably about any of our local teams, and the Dodgers are no exception. They were kind enough to answer a few questions.

Q. With the postseason rapidly approaching, how would you assess the Dodgers’ season so far?

Ireland: Surprising, in this sense: the Dodgers are heavy favorites to win it all, but they rarely beat good teams. Since the All Star break, they are 6-16 against teams with winning records. That’s obviously not good, and doesn’t bode well for the postseason. But having said that, for the Dodgers, the regular season is basically a dress rehearsal for the playoffs. I’m not sure they’re motivated until October. Maybe they’ll “flip a switch” and turn it on when it counts. We’ll see.

Mason: The Dodgers seem to be in a good groove right now. Mookie is starting to look like Mookie. Teo has come around. But hard to judge this team without a healthy Andy Pages and with Ohtani on the IL. I worry that as an organization, they didn’t get Shohei off his feet sooner. He has wrestled with injury for the last couple of months, and his biggest at bats are coming in October. They still have a chance to win 100 games, and they’re in position to three-peat, but with the playoffs, it’s a crapshoot. It’s a historically good rotation, but will those bats be clicking at the right time?

Q. The Dodgers have won two World Series in a row. Winning a third would be great, but if they don’t, does winning two in a row make up for it?

Ireland: Absolutely. Let’s face it, most teams want to be the Dodgers. A seemingly unlimited payroll, best manager in baseball, best front office. It’s incredibly hard to win two World Series in a row, and almost impossible to win three straight. No National League team has ever done it. So if they pull it off, it’s icing on the cake. But the cake has been great.

Mason: When the Yankees clinched their three-peat in 2000, they only won 87 games and lost 15 of their final 18. That shows you how hard it is. Honestly, the odds are strongly stacked against anybody winning three in a row, but if they fail, it is not a waste of a season. When you go back-to-back, you’ve got to show a lot of gratitude to the organization and to those players. A lot has to go right to win it all.

Q. Do you think Shohei Ohtani should just stop pitching altogether and focus on hitting the rest of his career?

Ireland: Selfishly, I hope he does both. That’s what makes him the best baseball player I’ve ever seen in person. But it’s obviously hard, and he’s had to shut down pitching at least three times since he came over from Japan. This year, it seemed to me that he was going for the Cy Young Award, while trying to keep up his offensive numbers, and it didn’t work. So maybe they do just let him hit moving forward, but I hope not. One thing that complicates things is that at least so far, the Dodgers have let Shohei do what he wants. And my sense is that he wants to continue to pitch and hit, so that figures into this too. It may not be a Dodgers decision — it might be Shohei.

Mason: I really want Shohei to do both, but in a specific way. He’s never going to give you 25 starts, and as good as he is, I cannot imagine him winning the Cy Young. He started 14 games to start the season this year — I say, instead, put those 14 starts at the end of the season. Ramp him up after the All-Star break, and have him ready to contribute on the mound in October. I was there for the magical night in the playoffs last year, when he hit three home runs and struck out 10. As a baseball fan, I really want to see him do both.

Q. If you were put in charge of the Dodgers and could make three immediate changes to the organization, be it on field, the stadium, whatever, what would you choose?

Ireland: For starters, I would address affordability. Most Dodgers fans have been priced out. They lead the league in attendance every year, so they have a business model that works. But I would take two or three sections in the upper deck and make those $5 tickets. They can afford it, and I think the gesture alone would score major points with fans.

On the field, they need to get younger. Freddie Freeman is 36, and so is Max Muncy. Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernández, and Blake Snell are all 33. Andrew Friedman has been great at roster building, so they have the right guy. But it isn’t easy to say goodbye to great players as they age out, and he’s facing that now.

Finally, everybody I know thinks there’s a lockout coming. To me, that would ruin all of the progress baseball has made over the last five years. The game has never been better. All of the rule changes have worked, and the pitch clock has been brilliant. Most people feel the Dodgers are the main reason for the lockout. They outspend everybody, have a sweetheart TV deal, and most small market teams can’t keep up. The Dodgers need to lead the charge to avoid this lockout. I’m against a salary cap, but everything should be on the table. I would lock both sides in a room and tell them not to come out until they have a deal. It’s a huge story that we probably don’t talk about enough.

Mason: First I would expand the number of retired jerseys. It would be great to see guys like Maury Wills, Steve Garvey, Bill Russell, Davey Lopes, Orel Hershiser and other Dodger greats receive that honor.

Andrew Friedman is a genius, but he has overspent on guys like Kyle Tucker and Edwin Díaz. I’d like to see them consider more of their minor league talent employed. Love that Rushing and Freeland have had strong moments this year, but instead of signing Tucker, why not find a way to use De Paula or Tibbs or Sirota. I know they are unproven, but once upon a time, so was Andy Pages.

Pet peeve of mind, but I don’t like the brand of Dodger Dogs being served. Farmer John hot dogs had a better taste and texture than the ones they are using now. Plus, Dodger Dogs are much better when grilled, so why are there so many boiled hot dogs at the stadium?

Q. Favorite Dodger of all time?

Ireland: Can I say Vin Scully, or is that cheating? I say all the time that I grew up going to Sportscasters School, but I just didn’t know it. For years, I listened to Vin call the Dodgers, Chick Hearn call the Lakers, Dick Enberg call the Angels and Bob Miller call the Kings. FOUR Hall of Fame announcers — I didn’t know what a bad announcer sounded like until I moved out of L.A. But I had this exchange with my Dad before he died in 2017:

Dad: “If you want to be a sports announcer, you better study more than just the sports page.”

Me: “Not necessary — I just need to call the games.”

Dad: “Listen to Vin Scully — he talks about EVERYTHING.”

Of course, my Dad was right. Listening to Vin was a history lesson every time he did a game. I learned more from him than I did from a lot of my professors at UCLA.

Mason: Back in the day, I would have said Sandy Koufax, who I had the pleasure of meeting at Dodgertown in Vero Beach, but nobody, in the history of the game has awed me the way that Shohei Ohtani has. His performance in NLCS Game 4 last year is the greatest I have ever witnessed in person. Better than any athlete in any sport. I have been a baseball fan all my life, and I could never have even imagined that was possible. I also love Ohtani’s Harada chart, basically his goals in life and career. One of his goals has been to “be someone people root for.” Hard to find anybody who is not amazed by both his talent and his humility.

Q. I have long said that the Mason and Ireland show is the best sports talk show of all time. Do you guys remember when you first met? First impressions? And remind the readers where they can listen to you now.

Ireland: Mason and I were kind of a weird shotgun wedding in the beginning. In the early ‘90s, he moved to XTRA in San Diego from Toledo, Ohio, to do mornings. After a few months, the station decided they didn’t like him. So they moved him to nights in an effort to try and get him to quit.

I was a TV guy in San Diego, who filled in on the radio station when they needed somebody. They called me and said, “We’re going to put you on at night with Steve Mason, but he’s not happy with us. Anything could happen.” On the first night, I walked in and Mason was working on a screenplay on his computer and he told me, “Just have fun and say anything you want — I won’t be here for long anyway.” So we just started goofing around, and I asked Mase on the air why he thought mornings didn’t work. He started making fun of himself, then me, and we just clicked.

After it was over, I called the program director and said, “You guys are idiots — Mason is fantastic. If you can’t build a show around him, you don’t get it.” The more Mason stopped caring, the better he got. They came back to him and said, “That’s the guy we thought we were getting from Ohio.” They told him they wanted him to stay, and told him he could pick his partner. He picked me, and we were off and running. The first week was pretty bad, but we were following a failed show, so they let us work through it, and we’ve been at it ever since.

We’re on every day from noon to 3 p.m. on ESPN LA, and we post a podcast of every show as soon as it ends. You can also listen live on the ESPN LA app from anywhere in the world, which is a free app that works great. Also, you can find Mason’s podcast, “Mason Plus,” on that app, which has some great deep dives with a lot of cool people in and out of sports.

Mason: Thank you for the kind words. John’s story of our meeting and partnership is right on. In radio, there is this idea that you can throw any two people in a studio and they will automatically do great radio. It just doesn’t work like that. John and I clicked immediately. The show has always been good because John and I are so different. He’s Corona del Mar, and I am a kid from Toledo. Even now, he’s very Manhattan Beach, and I’m very Venice. We see the world differently, which leads to healthy debate, but we have a deep respect for each other and for what we have built.

The postseason race

The Dodgers’ magic number to clinch the NL West is four. Here are the postseason seedings as of Thursday’s games. The three division winners get the top three seeds, followed by the three teams with the best records. The top two division winners get a first-round bye. The division winner with the worst record plays the wild-card team with the worst record, and the other wild-card teams play each other in the best-of-three wild-card round that begins Tuesday, Sept. 29.

Division leaders
1. Milwaukee, 93-57
2. Dodgers, 90-59
3. Atlanta, 88-62

Wild cards
1. Chicago, 83-67
2. Philadelphia, 83-67
3. San Diego, 81-68
4. Arizona, 79-71
5. Pittsburgh, 75-75

Remember, there are no extra games to break ties anymore. It all comes down to tiebreakers. Atlanta and Milwaukee have the tiebreaker over the Dodgers. For the wild card, the Cubs have the advantage over the Phillies, having won six of seven games against each other. The Diamondbacks and Padres have split 10 games, but their final three games this season are against each other, so that very well could determine the final wild-card spot.

The Dodgers won it all last season without a first-round bye, but with all the injuries, it would be nice to get that bye this season. They have only three games remaining against a team with a winning record, so they really have no one to blame but themselves if they don’t get it.

Up next

Monday: Dodgers (*Tarik Skubal, 9-7, 2.84 ERA [2-2, 2.93 ERA with Dodgers]) at Cincinnati (*Nick Lodolo, 3-4, 5.12 ERA), 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Tuesday: Dodgers (Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 13-8, 2.62 ERA) at Cincinnati (Rhett Lowder, 6-10, 5.81 ERA), 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Wednesday: Dodgers (TBD) at Cincinnati (*Andrew Abbott, 6-11, 4.84 ERA), 3:40 p.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

Thursday: Dodgers (TBD) at Cincinnati (Brady Singer, 6-14, 5.38 ERA), 9:40 a.m., SportsNet LA, AM 570, KTNQ 1020

All times Pacific

*-left-handed

In case you missed it

Josue De Paula hits three-run homer, but Dodgers suffer walk-off loss to Marlins

Dodgers Debate: Is anyone on the Dodgers not injured?

‘He’s not supernatural.’ Shohei Ohtani’s injury management raises tough questions

Shaikin: Why it’s past time for MLB players, owners to get a 2028 Olympics deal done

And finally

Vin Scully is interviewed by the Braves announcers during his final season. Watch and listen here.

Until next time …

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

For Orville Peck, the best Sundays are basically all the same. And they are pretty similar to every other day of the week too. The masked country singer (and now actor) got sober three years ago and has figured out a routine that helps him stay clear-minded and present with the people in his life whom he cares about.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“If I don’t keep up that routine, especially on a day like a Sunday, it quickly falls into no day feeling fun,” he says. “[The routine], which to some people is like, ‘Oh God, that looks like hell,’ is fun for me because it is fun for me to show up for myself.”

Peck’s latest album, “Mule,” which details his sobriety journey, is out Friday. That same day, he’s headlining the Hollywood Bowl, one of his favorite venues in the city.

Peck currently lives in the Hollywood Hills and has been in Los Angeles, on and off, for 18 years. “It’s definitely home to me,” he says. “I met my partner there. I’ve had some of the most important moments of my life in Los Angeles. I will always love this city.”

It’s also particularly conducive to his new lifestyle. “There’s a ton of other crazy people going to the gym and swimming and going to [12-step] meetings every single day,” Peck says. “So I’m in appropriately obsessive company for sure.”

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

5 a.m.: Early to rise

I wake up painfully early. I’ve been doing that since I was a toddler. I used to hold my mother’s eyelids open in the morning to get her to wake up.

When I wake up, the first thing I will do is meditation. I do transcendental meditation. I find every other form of meditation impossible. I’ll do TM for 20 minutes. My partner started doing it and I saw how much he was benefiting from it, so I decided to go and take the course and just loved it.

And then I’m an avid journaler, so I usually journal for probably about half an hour in the morning.

7 a.m.: Caffeination and hydration

I will make a very large iced coffee. I’m not snobbish about coffee, I’ll drink whatever.

I also fill up a massively obnoxious water bottle that has times on it that I carry everywhere. It looks like performative hydration, but it’s literally because if I don’t challenge myself to drink water, I just won’t drink water at all. It’s basically to shame myself into drinking water.

8 a.m.: Pool time, Part 1

I get to a public pool and I do laps. I grew up in South Africa and you’re forced to play every sport known to mankind. I always excelled at swimming, so it’s the one thing I still love to do. I just started up [again] within the last year.

I work out a lot, but when I’m at the gym, I don’t do any cardio. I’m never going to be on a treadmill or anything like that. Swimming feels like a fun way to keep me engaged.

10 a.m.: Meal prep

Then I go meet back up at home with my partner. We’ll go take our dog for a walk or we’ll go to a farmers market to get some produce for the week.

Then we’ll go grocery shopping because I love to cook. I will go to whatever is easiest. I’ll frequent a Gelson’s or a Ralphs or a Whole Foods. If I’m going to Whole Foods, I’m not doing regular grocery shopping. I want brands. I like a Coca-Cola.

I’d say I’m cooking usually about five or six nights a week. I’m very organized — I’m a Capricorn, if you can’t tell. I usually have a whole menu of what I’m going to do for the week, so I’ll get everything I need for that.

I will read a recipe or see a recipe I like, and then I will just freestyle it. I used to work in restaurants, so I feel pretty confident about it. But in terms of the style [of cooking], I’m best at recipes that take a long time, so anything that requires lengthy flavor building, like stews or curries.

Noon: Pool time, Part 2

Back at the house, we’ll have some lunch, something easy by the pool. So more swimming.

2 p.m.: Gym time

I’ll work out either at the house or go out to the gym. I’ve been sticking with a weight training routine for a couple of years now, but I try to evolve the exercises all the time because I get bored really easily.

Sometimes I work with a trainer. I filmed “Street Fighter” last year in Australia, so I did a ton of different training and martial arts training for months. It opened up my horizons to a lot of different forms of working out that I just didn’t know before. I’ve got a pretty big encyclopedia to pull from at this point.

4 p.m.: Recovery

I’ll usually head to a 12-step meeting, I’ll either catch one online or try to find one in person because there’s a lot around L.A.

6 p.m.: Not cooking tonight

On the weekend is where we will typically order in or eat out, maybe with some friends. Some places I love to order in from are the Sisters Cafe, which is Vietnamese, and Jon and Vinny’s.

9 p.m.: Early to bed

Both my partner and I are 80 years old at heart. We always have grand plans about watching a movie or whatever, and then we’re both inevitably snoring by 10 p.m. at the latest.

I used to live my life like a psycho maniac doing everything unhealthy. It definitely didn’t involve going to 12-step meetings and swimming laps at seven in the morning. It was whatever the opposite of that is.

When I went through the first two years of my sobriety, I went through a lot of trial and error in terms of overdoing it with things like therapy and mindfulness, and then also underdoing it as well. It took me a couple of years to really find what are the things that make me feel good about myself, make me feel grounded, make me feel accountable, and still feel like I’m living a happy life and not just white-knuckling 12 hours of, essentially, therapy every day. So I’ve found the things that really work for me.

There’s days where I will totally not do every one of those things. There’s days where I’m too lazy to go swimming and there are days where I’m like, “I don’t want to go to the gym.” I’m not militant about it. The other thing I’ve learned is to be easy with myself.

Garth Brooks, Zach Top and Riley Green will headline 2027’s Stagecoach country music festival, organizers announced Monday, bringing together one of the genre’s veteran standard-bearers with two of Nashville’s ascendant stars.

The three-day event, scheduled for April 23-25 at Indio’s Empire Polo Club, will also feature Hardy, Brothers Osborne, Willie Nelson, Shaboozey, Stella Lefty, Charley Crockett, Stephen Wilson Jr., Turnpike Troubadours, Gretchen Wilson, Ernest, Hudson Westbrook and a reunited Florida Georgia Line.

Among the non-country acts on the bill for the annual show, which for years has been expanding its stylistic footprint, are Kelly Clarkson, Pitbull, David Lee Roth, Sean Paul, Flo Rida, Matchbox Twenty, the Fray and Journey, the last of which was scheduled to perform at this past April’s festival but whose set was called off after high winds temporarily shut down Stagecoach.

Brooks, who previously headlined Stagecoach in 2018, launched an arena tour last month, while Top and Green both just picked up nominations for November’s CMA Awards: Top for male vocalist of the year and album of the year (for his “Ain’t in It for My Health”) and Green for musical event of the year (for his and Carly Pearce’s duet “If I Don’t Leave I’m Gonna Stay”).

Other acts scheduled to perform at next year’s festival, which takes place on the same grounds as Coachella the weekend after that event, include Carín León, Cody Jinks, Melissa Etheridge, Dasha, Waylon Wyatt, Tedeschi Trucks Band and Laci Kaye Booth.

Passes for Stagecoach, which start at $549 and go up past $4,000 for various VIP packages, will go on sale Friday. Goldenvoice, the Los Angeles-based promoter that puts on Stagecoach and Coachella, announced last week that its inaugural Ocean Way festival, which was to be held on the beach in Santa Monica on Sept. 26 and 27, had been canceled due to erosion caused this month by Hurricane Marie.

A former employee of Activision Blizzard is suing the Santa Monica-based game company, alleging she was sexually harassed and subject to retaliation.

In a lawsuit filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court on Wednesday, the woman, filing anonymously as Jane Doe, says the game giant “fostered and tolerated a pervasive ‘frat boy’ workplace culture,” where male employees and supervisors “openly objectified women, viewed and displayed pornography” and made demeaning sexual remarks in her presence.

She is seeking unspecified compensatory damages, including for lost wages, benefits and earning capacity.

“We take these allegations seriously. We strive to maintain a respectful and inclusive workplace, and we do that through best-in-class policies and systems designed to prevent and address harassment, discrimination, and retaliation, and by holding employees accountable for their behavior,” said a Blizzard spokesperson in a statement to The Times.

The woman, who said she worked for the company for 14 years beginning in 2009 in its sound department, accuses 10 men of subjecting her variously to harassment, physical assault, inappropriate touching and inappropriate comments.

Between 2011 and 2012, she alleges, one co-worker lured her to his apartment, where he repeatedly touched her leg and “blocked her exit, threaten[ing] her with physical violence and attempted to rape her.” He continued to demand dates and spread sexual rumors about her calling her a “bitch” and “slut” in front of co-workers and a male manager, according to the suit.

Over five years starting in 2010, Jane Doe says that she was “repeatedly sexually harassed” by another man, a re-recording mixer with whom she worked with, and who told her that she would “be risking her career if she reported him,” the complaint states.

She further alleges that a third man, Blizzard’s audio director, “repeatedly touched” her leg “in a sexual manner without her permission” and when she rejected his advances he “retaliated against her by sabotaging her work and ensuring that she was denied a promotion.”

According to the suit, Jane Doe’s complaints and reports to her supervisors and human resources about her alleged treatment were dismissed and they “failed to take timely or effective corrective action.”

Further, the former employee says that she was “required to work excessive and unsafe hours” and told not to report overtime.

As a result of the harassment, the employee says in her complaint, she suffered suffered depression “and was required to seek ongoing psychiatric care” before being discharged in April 2024.

A year earlier, Activision Blizzard and California’s Civil Rights Department reached a roughly $50-million settlement agreement to resolve an employment discrimination and equal pay lawsuit. .

The Civil Rights Department sued Activision Blizzard in 2021, alleging that women at the company were regularly subjected to sexual harassment, paid less, denied promotions and met with retaliation when they raised concerns with managers.

As part of the agreement, Activision Blizzard agreed to pay up to $45.75 million to compensate women who worked for the company in California from Oct. 12, 2015, to Dec. 31, 2020. The company also agreed to pay $9.1 million to cover the Civil Rights Department’s attorneys fees and costs.
Activision Blizzard also settled a case with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. As part of that 2022 settlement, the company agreed to establish an $18-million fund for workers who experienced sexual harassment or discrimination, among other types of workplace misconduct.

Activision Blizzard has denied all wrongdoing.

A look at the top 25 high school football teams in the Southland after Week 3:

Rk. School (record) result; Next game; last week’s ranking

1. SANTA MARGARITA (4-0) def. Sacramento Inderkum, 41-0; vs. Norco at Saddleback College, Friday; 1

2. ST. JOHN BOSCO (3-1) def. Kahuku (Hawaii), 49-3; at Honolulu St. Louis, Saturday; 3

3. SIERRA CANYON (3-0) def. Honolulu St. Louis, 52-0; vs. Orange Lutheran, Friday; 4

4. ORANGE LUTHERAN (3-1) def. Gardena Serra, 35-0; at Sierra Canyon, Friday; 5

5. MATER DEI (4-0) def. Corona Centennial, 10-9; vs. Las Vegas Bishop Gorman at Santa Ana Stadium, Friday; 6

6. CORONA CENTENNIAL (1-2) lost to Mater Dei, 10-9; vs. Rancho Cucamonga, Friday; 2

7. MISSION VIEJO (3-1) def. San Diego Lincoln, 56-0; vs. Pittsburg, Friday; 7

8. SAN CLEMENTE (4-0) def. La Costa Canyon, 31-21; at Murrieta Valley, Sept. 25; 8

9 . CHAMINADE (4-0) def. Beaumont, 42-24; vs. St. Bonaventure, Friday; 9

10. PALOS VERDES (4-0) def. Huntington Beach Edison, 28-3; at Wilmington Banning, Friday; 10

11. JSERRA (3-1) def. Oak Hills, 63-0; at Bishop Amat, Friday; 11

12. YORBA LINDA (4-0) def. Esperanza, 42-7; at Huntington Beach, Friday; 12

13. SERVITE (2-2) def. St. Paul, 69-14; at Damien, Sept. 25; 14

14. CORONA DEL MAR (4-0) def. Newport Harbor, 16-6; vs. La Serna, Thursday; 15

15. BISHOP AMAT (4-0) def. Culver City, 65-13; vs. JSerra, Friday; 16

16. CREAN LUTHERAN (2-2) lost to El Dorado Hills Oak Ridge, 28-21; at Oakdale, Friday; 13

17. CHAPARRAL (2-2) def. Rancho Cucamonga, 20-15; vs. Herriman (Utah) Mountain Ridge, Friday; 18

18. CARSON (3-1) def. Long Beach Poly, 17-14; at North Torrance, Friday; 19

19. OXNARD PACIFICA (4-0) def. Palmdale Highland, 35-6; at Sierra Canyon, Sept. 25; 21

20. GARDENA SERRA (2-2) lost to Orange Lutheran, 35-0; vs. Oaks Christian, Friday; 22

21. LA SERNA (3-0) def. Northview, 45-6; at Corona del Mar, Thursday; 25

22. WESTLAKE (4-0) def. Laguna Beach, 28-23; vs. Tustin, Friday; 23

23. RANCHO CUCAMONGA (2-2) lost to Chaparral, 20-15; at Corona Centennial, Friday; 17

24. TUSTIN (3-1) def. Damien, 21-10; at Westlake, Friday; NR

25. LA HABRA (4-0) def. Mira Costa, 29-24; vs. Orange Vista, Friday; NR

EastEnders fans think they know what brings Stacey Slater back to Walford amid reports actress Lacey Turner is filming a few episodes for the BBC soap during her Strictly stint

Stacey Slater is returning to EastEnders, according to new reports – and it’s very soon.

Lacey Turner is said to be reprising her role on the BBC soap, while she’s starring on Strictly Come Dancing. According to the reports, Stacey could be back in time for Christmas and the big New Year’s Day 2027 episode.

While nothing has been confirmed, it’s thought Lacey will be filming for a handful of episodes, reprising her role around October and November time. Given filming is often around six to eight weeks ahead of transmission, this could mean Stacey is back for December and New Year.

This detail has left many fans convinced they have figured out what brings Stacey back. Some think the episodes are tied into the return of her brother Sean Slater, while others wondered if this means Stacey could be the pregnant woman in Max Branning’s bed, yet to be identified.

A fan posted on social media: “Stacey only seems to be back for a few episodes which must link in with Sean returning. Lacey couldn’t have come back to film anything without it being noticed.”

Another fan said: “Great that Stacey is coming back. I did wonder at the start if it may be her in Max’s bed, but they didn’t part on good terms when she left for Brazil because of Max and Zoe.

“To be cosying up to Max again seems a bit strange. It might be to do with the Vic as she helped Kat.” A third fan said: “I think the best outcome would be if she was the pregnant woman.

“I know it’s probably Priya but that feels to obvious. I don’t really want Max to have another kid, but I’d rather he have one with Stacey than Priya.”

One fan theorised: “Streets are saying stacey is the pregnant woman in max’s bed nyd 2027.” Another said: “Stacey back around new years? How do i make sure she’s not the pregnant woman in max’s bed?”

A further post read: “Stacey is returning for a guest stint but they’ll probably have her involved with Max.” A final comment said: “Will she be the pregnant woman in his bed or will he cheat on Linda with her? Lbr it’s going to be one or the other.”

On Stacey’s apparent comeback, the source told The Sun: “Lacey has created one of the soap’s most iconic character’s in Stacey Slater. She is loved by the fans.

“So the fact that she’s agreed to return, even if it’s only for a handful of episodes, will come as a huge boost for the loyal viewers. Lacey returning for a few episodes to turn the tide. This is not a permanent return.”

They added: “It’s going to take more than Lacey returning for a few episodes to turn the tide.”

EastEnders airs Mondays to Thursdays at 7:30pm on BBC One and BBC iPlayer. * Follow Mirror Celebs and TV on TikTok , Snapchat , Instagram , Twitter , Facebook , YouTube and Threads .

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High has been known for years as the school for kickers, with the likes of kicking guru Chris Sailer and NFL kickers Nick Folk and Kai Forbath among a long list of standouts.

Notre Dame coach Evan Yabu has been keeping a secret weapon hidden for two years. Charles Szares made a 49-yard field goal for the freshman team in 2024. He was the backup on varsity last season, getting to do one kickoff.

This season as a junior, he has burst onto the scene as a varsity starter. After four games, he is perfect on PATs (23 for 23), perfect on field goals (six for six) and on Friday he was perfect on kicking the ball into the end zone (eight for eight on touchbacks). He also punts.

“I’m not kidding — this is the best kicker/punter I’ve seen,” Yabu said.

Szares has been playing soccer all his life and continues to play for a club team and Notre Dame football.

He started kicking by accident in eighth grade. He was a receiver and a youth football coach saw him fooling around kicking at a flag football game.

“You want to join the team?” the coach asked.

Said Szares: “I’ve had a love and passion ever since.”

Szares knows about Notre Dame’s kicking tradition from looking at the alumni board of top football players in the gym. And Sailer trains him. “He’s outstanding,” Sailer said.

He still hasn’t gotten the opportunity to try a possible game-winning field goal this season, though he made a 45-yard field goal on Friday in a win over Oaks Christian.

“I handle pressure pretty well,” he said. “I’m more confident under pressure oddly.”

He also thanks his long snapper, John Henry Mason, and holder, Levi Gonzaga.

And just remember, he has two seasons to go after the Notre Dame kicking records.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

DELANO, Calif. — The rows of candies and nuts at the Guadalajara Meat Market — tamarindo con chile, seasoned pistachios, spicy paletas — sat mostly untouched as customers filtered through this carniceria in the late afternoon heat.

“You see a lot of people consuming the minimum, what they need to get by through the week,” said owner Carina Murillo, 31, as she checked out customers on a recent weekday. “Instead of buying six items, they’re buying three items.”

While customers bypass extras, like the snacks at the front counter, Murillo’s costs have gone up. Imported goods from Mexico and Canada have become more difficult to source and sometimes carry tariffs, she said. Transportation fees have risen as diesel prices respond to the war in Iran. The market’s insurance costs have risen by about a third. All of it has forced Murillo to increase prices.

“You see a lot of people consuming the minimum,” says Carina Murillo, owner of Guadalajara Meat Market. “Instead of buying six items, they’re buying three items.”

As the area struggles, Murillo, a college graduate who years ago felt motivated enough to door-knock for political causes, is among those who have become disillusioned. Those in Washington, she said, don’t understand the lives of the working people who keep the country running.

There have been “years where I feel completely overpowered to the point where I’m not motivated to take part,” said Murillo, who didn’t vote in 2024 but plans to do so in November. “That’s what happens when you feel discouraged or like nothing’s going to change.”

The economic strife plaguing Americans is clear in this rural, majority-Latino Central Valley congressional district, home to the state’s most competitive House race, the closely watched contest between Republican Rep. David Valadao and Democrat Randy Villegas.

Democrats hope the national economic angst will translate into big turnout in the midterm elections, but some in this region worry that years of financial struggle may depress voters’ desire to participate rather than motivate them.

Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) presides over a congressional hearing in March. The Republican is in a race against Democrat Randy Villegas that is considered a toss-up.

(Allison Robbert / Associated Press)

And Republicans, who rely on their party turnout beating that of Democrats in rural areas, also face the risk that frustration with the current political climate could dampen enthusiasm.

“Before they can think about Valadao, before Trump or Gavin Newsom or who’s going to run, families are concerned with the immediate: paying the rent, having the food on the table,” said Eliseo Gamiño, who heads the Central Valley Leadership Round Table, a coalition of Latino community leaders and elected officials. “You can’t be thinking about voting when your kids are hungry.”

Few voters who spoke to The Times in this swing district were decided on which party to support in November — or whether to vote at all. Such undecided voters will likely decide the election outcome, and persuading them is the key challenge for both parties as November nears.

Alexa Lopez sweeps up at closing time on a slower than usual Friday that saw one dress sold at Christina’s Fashion in Delano.

In a district that is the third-youngest in population in the country, the simmering uncertainty among Gen Z and millennial voters in particular could affect turnout or results.

Thirty-one percent of its voting-age population is 29 or younger, according to the Tufts University research center CIRCLE, which tracks youth civic engagement, making it among the top swath of House races in which young people could swing the outcome.

California’s swingiest district

The 22nd District, carved from the state’s agricultural epicenter, is one of fewer than two dozen toss-up races nationwide that will likely determine which party controls the U.S. House in the second half of President Trump’s current term. It is also among several high-stakes races nationwide that will test progressive candidates.

Valadao’s seat has long been considered a vulnerable one; Democrats added about 100,000 Fresno residents to the district under Proposition 50’s new map in a bid to help their chances. The boundaries include swaths of Kern, Kings and Tulare counties, along with a very small piece of Madera County.

“It’s going to be crucial in an area that is more purple, more bipartisan, where it’s very clear it can go either way … that these candidates make an effort to get those voters on their team,” said Brittany Martinez, a California-based Republican strategist.

Valadao, 49, who comes from a dairy farming family, is well known in the district and has repeatedly secured victory in close races, retaking the seat in 2020 after losing it in 2018’s blue wave. He saw a close race in 2022, then won by nearly seven percentage points in 2024, outperforming Trump.

His biggest vulnerability this time around may be his vote for the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included steep cuts to Medicaid. Local hospitals are bracing for funding cuts, though a carve-out may keep many valley residents from losing coverage. The district has the highest proportion of Medi-Cal recipients of any in the state, with 67% of residents enrolled as of 2025, according to the California Health Care Foundation.

Valadao spent part of the August recess touring the Central Valley for private meetings with local entities including a hospital, a housing program, a sawmill and a school district, and held a telephone town hall last week. Democrats have criticized him for not holding face-to-face voter events, including public town halls.

Democratic candidate Randy Villegas chats with residents during an August town hall in Hanford.

Villegas, 31, a professor and school board member who was endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and is aligned with the Working Families Party, bested a Democrat backed by the party’s House campaign arm to win the nomination.

Villegas has banked on a more public-facing approach to win over swing voters — recently handing out popsicles from a pushcart he wheeled around a Labor Day event in Bakersfield, for instance — a strategy his campaign calls “going everywhere.” Republicans have criticized his record as too far left for the moderate district.

Both candidates have attempted to lean away from partisan narratives. Valadao rarely mentions Trump on social media and did not attend the president’s Republican convention in Dallas last week; Villegas has worked to frame the progressive issues he champions as an effort to help Central Valley voters rather than an ideology.

Trump carried the district as drawn now by less than 2 percentage points in 2024. Since then, residents say they have felt squeezed by housing, gas and grocery prices. The war in Iran has pinched Central Valley farmers — already struggling with water supply and other issues — by driving up fertilizer prices.

Ailyn Flores, center, picks up balloons for a party at Big Delano Discount store.

Tyler Stidham, 28, and her husband recently moved back to Lemoore from San José with their 1-year-old in order to live with family because they could no longer afford their own place.

“Rent got too high and having a family is expensive,” she said as the couple waited for their order from a food truck at the Hanford farmers market on a recent Thursday evening. They have cut out family trips and started meal-planning and budgeting to save money.

Stidham said she is planning to vote and hoping government leaders can make life more affordable. Her husband recalled a favorable impression of Valadao after once meeting him. Stidham isn’t sure who she’ll be casting her vote for.

“I haven’t done my research [yet],” she said.

Young voters said they felt frustrated waiting for a better economy that has yet to materialize.

“I feel like the government is playing in our face. I feel like everything is a show,” said Emma Woodward, 23, of Hanford.

The Sierra movie theater has closed down in Delano, Calif.

(Gary Kazanjian / For The Times)

A store manager at a coffee chain, Woodward bought a house last year to avoid throwing money at increasingly high rent payments, but it has been “hard to survive.” She got a roommate to help with costs, but the two of them sometimes find themselves using food drives for groceries. She has cut out “fun spending,” including concerts and travel.

Woodward said she wanted to vote in order to send the message to Congress that the economy needs improvement. She, too, wanted to research the candidates further; she leaned toward Villegas but was not yet convinced.

‘Whatever happens happens’

Valadao and Villegas must also battle to reach apathetic voters — those who may sit the election out or who are fed up with both parties. In one indication of voter fatigue, local organizers have found it a challenge to register new voters this year.

Dresses on display at Christina’s Fashion store after closing time on a quiet Friday night in Delano, Calif.

People who are unregistered often express mistrust in the government and the feeling that “nothing’s going to change,” said Biviana Camacho, 23, civic engagement program manager for Loud for Tomorrow, a youth organizing group based in Delano that runs voter registration events.

“A lot of folks have been in survival mode for such a long time,” she added, as the group worked on planning a fall event series on a recent afternoon. Their goal: 20 to 25 new registrations per event.

The group’s head of membership, Rosanai Paniagua, 28, agreed. “Here, there’s not a lot of hope because people haven’t seen what good policy could do for them,” she said. “A lot of apathy, for sure, because change hasn’t really happened here.”

Marco Estrada, 20, taking a break outside the Main Street barbershop where he works in Delano, said he wasn’t sure he could imagine anything Congress could do for him. He’s never voted and doesn’t plan to in November. His two co-workers said the same.

“Whatever happens happens,” Estrada said.

Valeria Valdez, a College of the Sequoias freshman, said she was planning to vote in her first election and said the government should help lower gas prices. The 18-year-old wasn’t sure, though, whether she would make a decision in the House race.

“It feels pretty far away from me, to be honest,” she said. “I just want to do what I can for our community and not focus on how corrupt the government is.”

That sentiment is part of what Villegas is aiming to target as he meets voters.

“It’s easy to feel cynical and apathetic in a moment where so many things seem stacked against us,” Villegas said in an interview. “But I tell people that … their vote and their voices do matter, otherwise we wouldn’t have billionaires and corporations spending millions of dollars trying to influence these election outcomes.”

A spokesperson for Valadao did not respond to a request for comment. Valadao said on a Washington Sun podcast in January that he “absolutely” worries about Republican voter enthusiasm, but noted it was a problem on both sides of the aisle. Earlier this month, he conveyed confidence about his race.

“I’ve won in these types of races. I can win again,” he told the Associated Press. “I think we should be fine.”

Inside Murillo’s market, business picked up as 5 o’clock neared. Murillo rang up tortillas, cuts of meat, and three-liter Mexican soda bottles. She advised a customer about treating a bug bite, helped a man wire money and cajoled a city worker about getting a sidewalk repair.

Congress should “definitely” be helping communities like hers, she said. She plans to research her voting options so she can participate in November. But trusting political candidates, she mused, can feel like a risk for voters.

“Whether they execute what they promise or not,” she said, “that’s shown with time.”

California prison towns made a grim bargain decades ago.

They built their economies around an industry that relied on an ever-growing prison population, mostly from California’s major metropolitan areas. Then, about 15 years ago, legislators changed sentencing laws in ways that caused the prison population to drop, and the prisons started going away.

Gov. Jerry Brown oversaw massive reductions in California’s prison population in the 2010s. Gov. Gavin Newsom has closed five prisons since taking office in 2019. Now, some of those towns face difficult choices if they’re going to survive. One prison town is still fighting the closure, one is betting on businesses to make up its losses and a third — the town of Susanville — is remote, isolated and in deeper trouble than the rest.

Perched on one of the last major stops before Reno and the desert deep in the Lassen National Forest, Susanville has always been the kind of place California puts the things it doesn’t want to see, hear, smell or really even think about.

“Prisons in communities are not popular, so they tend to be located in areas that are desperate economically,” said Dan Newton, who worked for the city of Susanville for 20 years and was its city manager until recently. “That would describe this area.”

The city’s management was informed in 2021 that the prison was scheduled for closure. They went to court to challenge the closure, arguing the state’s environmental review process hadn’t taken into account the prison closure’s impact on the town. Newsom had a solution: A budget bill that exempted correctional facility closures from the environmental review process.

“There was initially a lot of panic,” said Susanville Mayor Mendy Schuster. “Houses went on the market. People left town. State jobs are good jobs with a good income, and they were going to leave.”

Since the closure announcement, the population of Susanville has fallen from a peak of about 16,000 in 2021, the year Newsom announced the prison would close, to 14,000 in 2024, the last year for which American Community Survey data were available.

Not all of the 1,100 former prison employees left town. Some transferred to a nearby prison, and some retired and stayed in the area. The elementary school lost 10% of its enrolled students between 2021 and the 2025-2026 school year.

The town’s remoteness is also one of its attractions. The surrounding area offers some of the most stunning vistas in far Northern California, sweeping views from highway lookout points over miles of desert rimmed by the mountains of the Cascade Range where it meets the Sierra Nevada.

The history of this area is one of the state or federal government telling its residents that it needs them — to mine for gold, to cut down trees for timber, to guard all the people they sent to prison — and then coming along later to tell residents that their services are no longer needed.

Susanville, the spot on the map, is an immutable intermingling of unique geologic formations. Susanville, the incorporated city, is running out of time.

“We’re heading toward insolvency,” Newton said before he resigned as city manager to take a position in Tehama County government.

The prison building boom

When the state’s three-strikes law still imposed mandatory life sentences on anyone with two or more prior convictions for violent felonies, California needed places like Susanville to put its skyrocketing prison population.

According to Brown University’s Prison Proliferation Project, states and the federal government operated 511 prisons in 1970. By the end of the prison building boom in 2000, that number had risen to 1,663.

The prison guards who lived in Susanville coached Little League and bought bread at the bakery downtown. They had steady jobs with top-tier health and retirement benefits; today experienced correctional officers earn $9,650 a month in base pay.

The town benefited from carceral policies that pulled prisoners hundreds of miles from their families, even as Lassen County counted those inmates as residents until 2022 and built around a prison boom that showed no signs of ending.

Until, of course, it did.

In 2006, overcrowding forced some of the state’s 170,000 prisoners to sleep in hallways and multipurpose rooms. But sentencing policies changed in the early 2010s to put more people in jail than prisons, and when people went to prison, they went for shorter sentences. Now, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is down to 90,000 prisoners, and has 8,000 more beds available than it has people in custody.

An emergent field of research in the last 15 years has focused on the era of the “prison bust,” when prison closures have outnumbered prison openings. Criminal justice policy researchers have found that the proposed economic benefits of prisons to small, rural communities were probably overstated to begin with.

“A large portion of prison jobs (were) filled by residents of neighboring towns,” wrote the authors of a 2024 article in the journal Punishment & Society. “Even those who moved to the area for prison jobs often settled in adjacent communities, providing little direct benefit to the local economy.”

Not only might prisons not be engines of economic growth, according to a seminal 2010 study from researchers at Washington State University, they might have stymied the development of other industries warded off by the presence of the prison.

Brown University associate sociology professor John Eason, whose book “Big House on the Prairie” focused on a prison in the rural South, found that the economic fate of prison towns is most closely correlated to when they were built, more than where they were built.

“Towns that adopted prisons earlier in the prison boom received a short-term boon compared to those that did not build, but the effects were not lasting,” Eason wrote.

Towns that built a prison early in the boom saw increased median home values and median income, Eason wrote, with reduced poverty and unemployment, but those effects did not last longer than a decade, which he called “a decay effect.”

But the residents and leadership of the city of Blythe, where the shuttered Chuckwalla Valley State Prison was built in 1987, are certain that their economic problems began and ended on the day in 2022 when the prison closed down.

Desert town tried to keep prison open

“We still haven’t got nothing from the state,” said Blythe Mayor Joseph DeConinck. “I hate to say it, but Blythe’s in the middle of nowhere, we’re the furthest from Sacramento, I just hate to say it again, we’re only a few votes out here.”

The mayor of the small desert city in Riverside County near the Arizona border watched the failed lawsuit over the Susanville prison closure and decided against filing their own litigation after Newsom ordered the Blythe prison closed just before Christmas 2022.

Instead, Blythe chose honey over vinegar and launched a lobbying effort to convince state legislators and the governor that the town needed some kind of economic rescue.

It has, so far, failed to produce results.

“We took these prisons when nobody else wanted them,” DeConinck said. “And we adapted to them because they became a strong economic generator for our area.”

Blythe’s population of 18,000 in 2022 had fallen to 17,400 by 2024, the last year for which census statistics are available. A drop of just 3% of the population might not sound drastic, but Blythe was in trouble long before the prison closed.

The population has been dropping since a peak of about 20,000 in 2010. A Riverside County civil investigation in June 2022 found that the city can’t pay its bills, its population is fleeing to Phoenix or the Coachella Valley, and neither the city nor its residents have bright prospects.

Six months after that investigation, Newsom announced the prison closure.

DeConinck said city leadership flew to Sacramento and tried, in vain, to get any traction. He recalled one meeting between the Blythe city manager and representatives of the governor in which he said the city itself was promised direct financial assistance.

The era of sweet-talking the state is over now, DeConinck said.

“They wouldn’t even have a conversation with us,” said Vice Mayor Johnny Rodriguez. “They’re not doing anything to assist us because they have this political mantra that all prisons are bad.”

Rodriguez said the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of General Services sent representatives to a meeting on the future of the shuttered prison site. It didn’t go well.

“We had just one meeting with a potential developer who had some interest in it, and all the state provided was, what you can’t do, what they won’t do,” Rodriguez said. “They won’t give a timeline when they would start talking about it, so what’s that going to do?”

Newsom’s office referred questions to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Will Matthews, a corrections spokesperson, said in a statement after this article first published that the state sent $995,000 to the Riverside County Workforce Development Division in August 2024.

“State representatives met with local leaders in July 2024 to discuss these resources and other available assistance,” Matthews said. “There was no commitment to providing direct financial assistance to the City of Blythe.”

Matthews said until the Blythe prison site’s infrastructure is separated from neighboring Ironwood State Prison and its bond obligations are resolved, the property can’t move through the state’s process for dispensing with surplus property.

In a March hearing before a Senate budget subcommittee, Corrections Secretary Jeff Macomber said he’s eager to end his agency’s control over closed prison sites.

“I don’t want to hold on to closed facilities,” Macomber said. “Believe it or not, I have to provide a little bit of staffing. It’s unpopular, there’s security risks. We have people break in because who doesn’t want to run in, to break into a closed prison?”

Newsom began closing prisons with the deactivation of the Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy, followed by the prison in Susanville, and then a prison in Blythe near the Arizona border. The state also ended its contract with a private prison in Kern County, a site now being operated as an immigrant detention center. A prison in Norco, also in Riverside County, is scheduled to close in October.

More prisons probably will close. The Legislature this year passed a budget that called for the state to shut at least one more. Its passage reflected Democratic lawmakers’ desire to save money — about $150 million a year per prison — by eliminating underused correctional facilities.

And some state prisons have astronomical deferred maintenance bills. The state auditor recently released a report estimating that five of them need repairs that would cost $2.4 billion.

Rodriguez is still fighting for a prison on the shuttered site. He has plans to pitch the federal government on opening a women’s prison there to account for the closure of the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, which closed after 10 guards were charged with sexually abusing the prisoners.

“Closing Chuckawalla was a mistake,” said Assemblymember Jeff Gonzalez, a Coachella Republican. “For our rural communities, these facilities are critical employers that support local families and local economies.”

Ready for change on edge of Bay Area

If any town was prepared for a prison closure, it was Tracy.

Optimism abounds, even on the city website, which promotes it as “one of the fastest growing suburbs of the San Francisco Bay Area.” The city has for decades been a bedroom community for commuters to the East Bay Area and San José.

The offers are pouring in to fill the abandoned prison site, said San Joaquin County Supervisor Robert Rickman, who was mayor of Tracy from 2016-2020.

“We’ve been in contact with folks in the agricultural industry, the education industry and even some of them who are interested in opening a casino,” Rickman said. “I would say [the prison closure] was neutral. The property isn’t sitting forgotten. South county is a very prosperous portion of our county.”

Prison guards and support staff mainly transferred to the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, Rickman said.

“I guess you’re never really prepared for a closure,” Rickman said, “but the good thing is that nobody lost their jobs.”

Tracy has the advantages that Susanville does not: It’s next to Interstate 5 along a busy commercial corridor in a populated and growing section of the state. Tracy also doesn’t have the drawbacks of Blythe and the Inland Empire desert — the weather never gets too hot, and there is reliable access to water.

Instead of challenging the state government like Blythe, Rickman gets to play host and pitch man to businesses.

Back in Susanville, it’s been a struggle to get any business to return calls.

Hard choices in Susanville

“For the last two years, we’ve adopted deficit budgets,” said Newton, the erstwhile city manager. “We’re deficit spending in order to fill public safety vacancies, and expenditure increases are outpacing our revenue increases.

“It’s going to start eating at our cash reserves.”

The town is hoping some industry — any industry — can come in and save it. City leaders have little hope for state assistance. But the city also has its own limitations.

First, Newton said, it’s hard to make a businesses on the border of California and Nevada choose California, with its higher taxes and stern regulatory environment. That choice in finance terms is known as regulatory arbitrage.

Second, industry needs power, and Susanville doesn’t have a lot of power on the grid, nor the infrastructure to support it. A bad thunderstorm can knock out the lights to half the city. The city’s transmission lines can’t handle the wattage demanded by heavy industry.

Third, the city and county’s limited population is working against it. Prisons force people to work and live in an area, and the state supplies the workforce. But there is no big workforce base on which to draw for any industry. When the prisons close, the guards transfer to new locations or retire and leave the rural, geographically isolated area.

The pandemic didn’t help. Downtown businesses were already struggling when people started buying more retail goods online, a trend that didn’t abate when lockdowns ended, Schuster said.

Now, some of the largest tax generators in town are on sales from online shopping and fuel taxes — people stop in town to get gas because Susanville has the only gas stations for 20 miles in any direction.

A baseball grandstand burned down last year, and in March, a lumber mill that employed about 30 people caught fire. No one was injured, but the mill burned to the ground.

Now the 8,000 people in this remote corner of California have to ask themselves what more they can wring from the land, what more they can take and what more it can yield. One idea includes a new truck stop.

Whatever salvation comes for the town, if any salvation comes at all, won’t be at the hands of the state government that built a prison and then took it away, Newton said.

“No one is coming to save us.”

This article was updated to include information that the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shared after publication.

Duara writes for CalMatters.