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Pop artist Kii Arens made a name for himself in music over the years, creating concert posters for bands and vocalists such as Radiohead, Elton John, Dolly Parton, the Weeknd, Sonic Youth, Tame Impala, Diana Ross and more.

That work is taking center stage at Arens’ new downtown Los Angeles gallery, FAB LA, in a show titled “And the Winner Is.” Curated by Arens and featuring poster art of Grammy winners, the exhibition is set to open Friday, two days before the 2026 Grammys descend on the city, and just in time to welcome plenty of visiting celebrity faces to the gallery’s third-ever event.

A glittering party scene is part of every exhibition Arens hosts, dating back to his previous gallery, LA-LA Land, which he opened two decades ago on Santa Monica Boulevard in Hollywood and ran until its lease came up last year.

FAB LA officially launched in October with “XO, LA: A Love Letter to Los Angeles,” an exhibition that reflected the eclectic voices and existential challenges that define L.A. culture with paintings, illustrations and mixed media works by Shepard Fairey, Corita Kent, Anthony Ausgang, Ashley Dreyfus, Paul Frank and others.

Pop artist Kii Arens lays on his desk in his new gallery, FAB LA, inside the historic Fine Arts Building on 7th Street in downtown Los Angeles. Posters from his new show, “And the Winner Is,” feature images of Grammy winners just in time for the big awards show.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The flamboyant “Mick Rock’s Rocky Horror Art Show” followed in December. The exhibition was among the last events marking the famous cult film’s 50th anniversary, and featured Rock’s famous photographs alongside pieces by pop star designer Michael Schmidt and digital portraitist Plasticgod. As with previous events at LA-LA Land, the opening attracted rockers, drag queens and club world cognoscenti.

DJs Sean Patrick (Simon Says) and Chris Holmes (Paul McCartney’s touring DJ, and creative collaborator with Cosm) manned the decks, and “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars” winner and podcaster, Alaska Thunderf—, performed as Tim Curry’s Dr. Frank-N-Furter, dancing and prancing around the grand environs.

There are galleries all over Los Angeles, but few can be described as works of art unto themselves. FAB LA is that and more.

Its majestic headquarters are housed inside downtown’s historic Fine Arts Building — a breathtaking palace-like structure with a 100-year history of craftsmanship and creativity.

Located near the intersection of 7th and Flower streets, the landmark building was featured in the 2009 film “(500) Days of Summer,” a hidden gem overshadowed in recent years by hectic street life, chain food spots and bustling business energy. Used primarily as an office building, its ornate design, carvings and sculptures — including a ground floor fountain with frolicking bronze youths — hadn’t invited much public attention or appreciation.

Pop artist Kii Arens catches some air in front of the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designated a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974 and restored in 1983.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

That changed late last year when Arens took over the first two floors.

“Historically, artists lived and worked inside this building,” he said during a recent opening. “This idea really resonated with me.”

Originally from St. Paul, Minn., Arens moved to L.A. in 2004 and promptly opened LA-LA Land. The Hollywood showroom debuted on election night 2004 with a group exhibition called “Happy War,” featuring anti-war works and Fairey as DJ. Wild and kitschy shows followed with opening fetes dedicated to colorful subjects including Andy Warhol, circus clowns, and Canadian television creators and puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft.

In addition to creating art and DJing, Arens is also a musician, and his eclectic music projects reflect his nostalgic proclivities. They include a rock outfit called FLIPP, which he describes as, “the Sex Pistols meets the Spice Girls,” as well as a pop-duo called Jinx, and solo work that counts 4 Non Blondes’ Linda Perry as a collaborator.

Arens is a largely self-taught visual artist. His work has always leaned toward entertainment figures and musical subject matter, which led to major commissions for album covers and tour poster art — some of which will be featured in the upcoming exhibition at FAB LA.

Poster prints of Elton John, left, and Jim Morrison, by Pop artist Kii Arens are part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is,” which features poster art of Grammy winners and is on display in Aren’s new gallery, FAB LA, which opened late last year.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

When LA-LA Land’s lease expired, Arens sought a new place that would embrace his experimental energy. He also wanted a unique backdrop for showcasing imagery that “treats pop culture as a shared memory for all to take in,” he said. “Something worthy of being preserved, not just consumed.”

The Fine Arts Building’s longtime real estate representative, Gibran Begum, was looking for the same thing. Preservation was part of the conversation when the two connected, but both were also focused on revitalization and augmenting the structure’s old-world charms with something fresh and modern. The goal was to once again bring art lovers to the neighborhood.

A cohesive arts event had been lacking in the area since the monthly Downtown Los Angeles Art Walk scaled down in the face of traffic and permit issues, and more recently COVID closures. The event recently resumed, and though it’s much smaller Arens said he has high hopes for its growth, and for FAB LA’s place in its future.

As does Begum, who calls the Fine Arts Building “a rare and special space.”

“The second you enter, you’re somewhere else, it’s almost like walking into something in Florence, Italy,” Begum said. “We were looking for someone to help rejuvenate and reenergize it and who understood the culture of it.”

Pop artist Kii Arens strikes a pose inside the historic Fine Arts Building where he has opened his new gallery, FAB LA. The building was designed in the Romanesque revival style by architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Designed in the Romanesque revival style by revered architects Albert R. Walker and Percy A. Eisen, who also created the nearby Oviatt Building as well as the Beverly Wilshire Hotel in Beverly Hills, the building’s exterior is embellished with dramatic columns and arches. Its interior features gargoyles, griffins and other mystical figures by sculptor Burt W. Johnson, as well as hand-crafted tiles by Ernest Batchelder and murals by Anthony B. Heinsbergen. A vintage elevator ferries guests between floors.

The opulent building opened on Dec. 8, 1926, attracting an estimated crowd of 27,000, and was named a Historic-Cultural Monument in 1974.

Though various artists have shown in the building over its 100-year history, FAB’s vibrant vision, focused on the intersection of design and fine art media, feels like the right fit for the current moment.

“I almost feel like the ghosts of some of the artists are looking down at me and smiling, knowing that what they loved is happening here again,” Arens said.

This includes immersive gatherings, which are a big part of Arens’ plans for FAB. “We’ll have movie premieres, live music events, poetry and I definitely want to have fashion,” Arens said. “The room would make a great runway!”

Charity is also part of the picture.

“And the Winner Is,” serves as a fundraiser for Oxfam, which works to relieve global poverty. Arens said he’s been hosting charity events for the group for the last five years — always right around the Grammys.

“We’ll have a bunch of amazing vinyl records donated by Rhino, and we’ll have clothing donated from famous musicians. Matt Pinfield is DJing and so is Jeffrey Ross,” Arens said.

A poster of Liza Minnelli by Pop artist Kii Arens is part of his latest show, “And the Winner Is” which features poster art of Grammy winners and opens over Grammy weekend.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

The exhibition, which closes March 8, will feature some of what Arens calls his “greatest hits,” including an ebullient Liza Minnelli portrait, and other significant prints such as a black-light poster design of Dolly Parton, and a Van Halen print representing Eddie Van Halen’s famed red-, black- and white-splattered “Frankenstein” guitar design on a notebook.

“I’m into simplifying images until they become familiar, immediate and emotional,” Arens said of his work. “I like to strip images down to what people recognize instantly. The feeling comes first, then I’m focused on evoking optimism, color and joy.”

Up next: A show in April in association with the animation studio Titmouse and dedicated to the art of animation.

“In this moment where everything feels disposable, I want to make something that is solid, something you stand in front of, not scroll past,” Arens said.

SAN FRANCISCO — Katie Porter’s still standing, which is saying something.

The last time a significant number of people tuned into California‘s low-frequency race for governor was in October, when Porter’s political obituary was being written in bold type.

Immediately after a snappish and off-putting TV interview, Porter showed up in a years-old video profanely reaming a staff member for — the humanity! — straying into the video frame during her meeting with a Biden Cabinet member.

Not a good look for a candidate already facing questions about her temperament and emotional regulation. (Hang on, gentle reader, we’ll get to that whole gendered double-standard thing in a moment.)

The former Orange County congresswoman had played to the worst stereotypes and that was that. Her campaign was supposedly kaput.

But, lo, these several months later, Porter remains positioned exactly where she’d been before, as one of the handful of top contenders in a race that remains stubbornly formless and utterly wide open.

Did she ever think of exiting the contest, as some urged, and others plainly hoped to see? (The surfacing of that surly 2021 video, with the timing and intentionality of a one-two punch, was clearly not a coincidence.)

No, she said, not for a moment.

“Anyone who thinks that you can just push over Katie Porter has never tried to do it,” she said.

Porter apologized and expressed remorse for her tetchy behavior. She promised to do better.

“You definitely learn from your mistakes,” the Democrat said this week over a cup of chai in San Francisco’s Financial District. “I really have and I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how do I show Californians who I am and that I really care about people who work for me. I need to earn back their trust and that’s what campaigns are literally about.”

She makes no excuse for acting churlish and wouldn’t bite when asked about that double standard — though she did allow as how Democratic leader John Burton, who died not long before people got busy digging Porter’s grave, was celebrated for his gruff manner and lavish detonation of f-bombs.

“It was a reminder,” she said, pivoting to the governor’s race, “that there have been other politicians who come on hot, come on strong and fight for what’s right and righteous and California has embraced them.”

Voters, she said, “want someone who will not back down.”

Porter warmed to the subject.

“If you are never gonna hurt anyone’s feelings, you are never gonna take [JPMorgan Chase Chief Executive] Jamie Dimon to task for not thinking about how his workers can’t afford to make ends meet. If you want everyone to love you, you are never gonna say to a big pharma CEO, ‘You didn’t make this cancer drug anymore. You just got richer, right?’ That is a feistiness that I’m proud of.”

At the same, Porter suggested, she wants to show there’s more to her persona than the whiteboard-wielding avenger that turned her into a viral sensation. The inquisitorial stance was, she said, her role as a congressional overseer charged with holding people accountable. Being governor is different. More collaborative. Less confrontational.

Her campaign approach has been to “call everyone, go everywhere” — even places Porter may not be welcomed — to listen and learn, build relationships and show “my ability to craft a compromise, my ability to learn and to change my mind.”

“All of that is really hard to convey,” she said, “in those whiteboard moments.”

The rap on this year’s pack of gubernatorial hopefuls is they’re a collective bore, as though the lack of A-list sizzle and failure to throw off sparks is some kind of mortal sin.

Porter doesn’t buy that.

“When we say boring, I think what we’re really saying is ‘I’m not 100% sure how all this is going to work out.’ People are waiting for some thing to happen, some coronation of our next governor. We’re not gonna have that.”

Gavin Newsom, she noted, was a high-profile former San Francisco mayor who spent eight years as lieutenant governor before winning the state’s top job. His predecessor was the dynastic Jerry Brown.

None of those running this time have that political pedigree, or the Sacramento backgrounds of Newsom or Brown, which, Porter suggested, is not a bad thing.

“I actually think this race has the potential to be really, really exciting for California,” she said. “… I think everyone in this race comes in with a little bit of a fresh energy, and I think that’s really good and healthy.”

Crowding into the conversation was, inevitably, Donald Trump, the sun around which today’s entire political universe turns.

Of course, Porter said, as governor she would stand up to the president. His administration’s actions in Minneapolis have been awful. His stalling on disaster relief for California is grotesque.

But, she said, Trump didn’t cause last year’s firestorm. He didn’t make housing in California obscenely expensive for the last many decades.

“When my children say ‘I don’t know if I want to go to college in California because we don’t have enough dorm housing,’ Trump has done plenty of horrible attacks on higher ed,” Porter said. “But that’s a homegrown problem that we need to tackle.”

Indeed, she’s “very leery of anyone who does not acknowledge that we had problems and policy challenges long before Donald Trump ever raised his orange head on the political horizon.”

Although California needs “someone who’s going to [buffer] us against Trump,” Porter said, “you can’t make that an excuse for why you are not tackling these policy changes that need to be.”

She hadn’t finished her tea, but it was time to go. Porter gathered her things.

She’d just spoken at an Urban League forum in San Francisco and was heading across the Bay Bridge to address union workers in Oakland.

The June 2 primary is some ways off. But Porter remains in the fight.

Thousands of middle-class Californians who depend on the state-run health insurance marketplace face premiums that are thousands of dollars higher than last year because enhanced federal subsidies that began during the COVID-19 pandemic have expired.

Despite fears that more people would go without coverage with the end of the extra benefits, the number enrolling in Covered California has held steady so far, according to state data.

But that may change.

Jessica Altman, executive director of Covered California, said that she believes the number of people dropping their coverage could increase as they receive bills with their new higher premiums in the mail this month. She said better data on enrollment will be available in the spring.

Altman said that even though the extra benefits ended Dec. 31, 92% of enrollees continue to receive government subsidies to help pay for their health insurance. Nearly half qualify for health insurance that costs $10 or less per month. And 17% of Californians renewing their Covered California policies will pay nothing for premiums if they keep their current plan.

The deadline to sign up for 2026 benefits is Saturday.

Here’s help in sorting out what the expiration of the enhanced subsidies for insurance provided under the Affordable Care Act, often called Obamacare, means in the Golden State.

What expired?

In 2021, Congress voted to temporarily to boost the amount of subsidies Americans could receive for an ACA plan. The law also expanded the program to families who had more money. Before the vote, only Americans with incomes below 400% of the federal poverty level — currently $62,600 a year for a single person or $128,600 for a family of four — were eligible for ACA subsidies. The 2021 vote eliminated the income cap and limited the cost of premiums for those higher-earning families to no more than 8.5% of their income.

How could costs change this year for those enrolled in Covered California?

Anyone with income above 400% of the federal poverty level no longer receives subsidies. And many below that level won’t receive as much assistance as they had been receiving since 2021. At the same time, fast-rising health costs boosted the average Covered California premium this year by more than 10.3%, deepening the burden on families.

How much would the net monthly premium for a Los Angeles couple with two children and a household income of $90,000 rise?

The family’s net premium for the benchmark Silver plan would jump to $699 a month this year from $414 a month last year, according to Covered California. That’s an increase of 69%, costing the family an additional $3,420 this year.

Who else could face substantially higher health bills?

People who retired before the Medicare-qualifying age of 65, believing that the enhanced subsidies were permanent, will be especially hit hard. Those with incomes above 400% of the federal poverty level could now be facing thousands of dollars in additional health insurance costs.

How did enrollment in Covered California change after the enhanced subsidies expired on Dec. 31?

As of Jan. 17, 1,906,033 Californians had enrolled for 2026 insurance. That’s less than 1% lower than the 1,921,840 who had enrolled by this time last year.

Who depends on Covered California?

Enrollees are mostly those who don’t have access to an employer’s health insurance plan and don’t qualify for Medi-Cal, the government-paid insurance for lower-income people and those who are disabled.

An analysis by KFF, a nonprofit that provides health policy information, found that nearly half the adults enrolled in an ACA plan are small-business owners or their employees, or are self-employed. Occupations using the health insurance exchanges where they can buy an ACA plan include realtors, farmers, chiropractors and musicians, the analysis found.

What is the underlying problem?

Healthcare spending has been increasing faster than overall inflation for years. The nation now spends more than $15,000 per person on healthcare each year. Medical spending today represents about 18% of the U.S. economy, which means that almost one out of every five dollars spent in the U.S. goes toward healthcare. In 1960, health spending was just 5% of the economy.

What has California done to help people who are paying more?

The state government allocated $190 million this year to provide subsidies for those earning up to 165% of the federal poverty level. This money will help keep monthly premiums consistent with 2025 levels for those with an annual income of up to $23,475 for an individual or $48,225 for a family of four, according to Covered California.

Where can I sign up?

People can find out whether they qualify for financial help and see their coverage options at the website CoveredCA.com.

What if I decide to go without health insurance?

People without insurance could face medical bills of tens of thousands of dollars if they become sick or get injured. And under California state law, those without coverage face an annual penalty of at least $900 for each adult and $450 for each child.

Many in Hollywood fear Warner Bros. Discovery’s sale will trigger steep job losses — at a time when the industry already has been ravaged by dramatic downsizing and the flight of productions from Los Angeles.

David Ellison‘s Paramount Skydance is seeking to allay some of those concerns by detailing its plans to save $6 billion, including job cuts, should Paramount succeed in its bid to buy the larger Warner Bros. Discovery.

Leaders of the combined company would search for savings by focusing on “duplicative operations across all aspects of the business — specifically back office, finance, corporate, legal, technology, infrastructure and real estate,” Paramount said in documents filed with the Securities & Exchange Commission.

Paramount is locked in an uphill battle to buy the storied studio behind Batman, Harry Potter, Scooby-Doo and “The Big Bang Theory.” The firm’s proposed $108.4-billion deal would include swallowing HBO, HBO Max, CNN, TBS, Food Network and other Warner cable channels.

Warner’s board prefers Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion deal, and has repeatedly rebuffed the Ellison family’s proposals. That prompted Paramount to turn hostile last month and make its case directly to Warner investors on its website and in regulatory filings.

Shareholders may ultimately decide the winner.

Paramount previously disclosed that it would target $6 billion in synergies. And it has stressed the proposed merger would make Hollywood stronger — not weaker. The firm, however, recently acknowledged that it would shave about 10% from program spending should it succeed in combining Paramount and Warner Bros.

Paramount said the cuts would come from areas other than film and television studio operations.

A film enthusiast and longtime producer, David Ellison has long expressed a desire to grow the combined Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. slate to more than 30 movies a year. His goal is to keep Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. stand-alone studios.

This year, Warner Bros. plans to release 17 films. Paramount has said it wants to nearly double its output to 15 movies, which would bring the two-studio total to 32.

“We are very focused on maintaining the creative engines of the combined company,” Paramount said in its marketing materials for investors, which were submitted to the SEC on Monday.

“Our priority is to build a vibrant, healthy business and industry — one that supports Hollywood and creative, benefits consumers, encourages competition, and strengthens the overall job market,” Paramount said.

If the deal goes through, Paramount said that it would become Hollywood’s biggest spender — shelling out about $30 billion a year on programming.

In comparison, Walt Disney Co. has said it plans to spend $24 billion in the current fiscal year.

Paramount also added a dig at Warner management, saying: “We expect to make smarter decisions about licensing across linear networks and streaming.”

Some analysts have wondered whether Paramount would sell one of its most valuable assets — the historic Melrose Avenue movie lot — to raise money to pay down debt that a Warner acquisition would bring.

Paramount is the only major studio to be physically located in Hollywood and its studio lot is one of the company’s crown jewels. That’s where “Sunset Boulevard,” several “Star Trek” movies and parts of “Chinatown” were filmed.

A Paramount spokesperson declined to comment.

Sources close to the company said Paramount would scrutinize the numerous real estate leases in an effort to bring together far-flung teams into a more centralized space.

For example, CBS has much of its administrative offices on Gower in Hollywood, blocks away from the Paramount lot. And HBO maintains its operations in Culver City — miles from Warner’s Burbank lot.

Paramount pushed its deadline to Feb. 20 for Warner investors to tender their shares at $30 a piece.

The tender offer was set to expire last week, but Paramount extended the window after failing to solicit sufficient interest among Warner shareholders.

Some analysts believe Paramount may have to raise its bid to closer to $34 a share to turn heads. Paramount last raised its bid Dec. 4 — hours before the auction closed and Netflix was declared the winner.

Paramount also has filed proxy materials to ask Warner shareholders to reject the Netflix deal at an upcoming stockholder meeting.

Earlier this month, Netflix amended its bid, converting its $27.75-a-share offer to all-cash to defuse some of Paramount’s arguments that it had a stronger bid.

Should Paramount win Warner Bros., it would need to line up $94.65 billion in debt and equity.

Billionaire Larry Ellison has pledged to backstop $40.4 billion for the equity required. Paramount’s proposed financing relies on $24 billion from royal families in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The deal would saddle Paramount with more than $60 billion of debt — which Warner board members have argued may be untenable.

“The extraordinary amount of debt financing as well as other terms of the PSKY offer heighten the risk of failure to close,” Warner board members said in a filing earlier this month.

Paramount would also have to absorb Warner’s debt load, which currently tops $30 billion.

Netflix is seeking to buy the Warner Bros. television and movie studios, HBO and HBO Max. It is not interested in Warner’s cable channels, including CNN. Warner wants to spin off its basic cable channels to facilitate the Netflix deal.

Analysts say both deals could face regulatory hurdles.

Just like his famously inventive offenses, Mike McDaniel had many options.

He interviewed for several head coaching jobs after his four-year tenure in charge of the Miami Dolphins ended this month, and he could have been an offensive coordinator pretty much anywhere he pleased.

McDaniel still wants to be a head coach again someday, but he chose to join the Chargers alongside Jim Harbaugh and Justin Herbert because the combination of time, place and personnel seemed perfect for this idiosyncratic coach who also happens to be one of the top offensive minds in football.

“It didn’t take long for me to feel this is what I was looking for,” the Chargers’ new offensive coordinator said Tuesday. “You just want to be a part of a hungry organization with like-minded football people that are doing anything and everything to win. And for me, the opportunity to work with coach Harbaugh was too good to pass up. It felt like I was extremely fortunate to be afforded this opportunity.”

Harbaugh and the Chargers seem equally fortunate to land McDaniel, an ideal candidate for the crucial job of directing Herbert’s career into something worthy of his prodigious talent.

In his introductory news conference, McDaniel immediately went into great detail about what he wants to do for Herbert, who has thrown for 24,820 yards and 163 touchdowns while emerging as one of the NFL’s top passers in his six seasons with the Chargers.

“You have a competitive player that each and every year is trying to get better at his craft, (but) I think he hasn’t neared the ceiling to what he’s capable of,” McDaniel said.

Herbert has consistently shined despite playing with three permanent head coaches, four offensive coordinators and a changing collection of playmakers and linemen around him.

Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert scrambles against the New England Patriots in the AFC wild-card playoffs on Jan. 11.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Despite playing in some offensive schemes perceived to be relatively primitive by modern NFL standards, particularly in the past two years under Harbaugh and fired coordinator Greg Roman, Herbert has frequently carried the Chargers through his improvisation, arm strength and sheer competitive will.

Essentially, McDaniel doesn’t want Herbert to have to work so hard.

“There’s a lot of incredible plays Justin has made,” McDaniel said. “He’s firmly capable, and sometimes as a coach you can rely upon that a little too much. … It can be taxing over time for a player to necessitate an incredible play too often, so you try to take it off of him by creating some low-cost, high-reward offense that he’s firmly capable of doing, but maybe a player of lesser talent would be capable of doing as well.”

McDaniel said the Dolphins’ struggles when Tua Tagovailoa was out with injuries reinforced his determination to keep Herbert safer. The Chargers quarterback took 96 sacks in the past two seasons.

“He has an incredible ability to do off-schedule (throws),” McDaniel said. “I think I’ll be firmly coaching away from the off-schedule stuff at the front end, because he can always go back to that comfort zone as you work out other things. I think a primary focus on how to have offense without putting him in a vulnerable position will be a starting point, and we’ll extrapolate from there.”

McDaniel and Herbert spoke last week, and the quarterback is ready to work.

“He was in high spirits and just excited about attacking something,” McDaniel said. “You lose in the playoffs in the first round, it’s a lot of work that you feel kind of like (left you with) an empty stomach. So that hunger, I could hear in his voice.”

Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh attends Mike McDaniel’s introductory news conference on Tuesday.

(Marcio Jose Sanchez / Associated Press)

McDaniel is joining a good team that needed a spark after consecutive 11-6 seasons followed by two playoff losses under Harbaugh. The Chargers have needed that spark to join the NFL’s upper echelon ever since they moved north from San Diego, posting six winning records over nine years with just one postseason victory.

McDaniel could be the ingredient to put the Chargers into championship contention if this partnership with Harbaugh flourishes. The 42-year-old coordinator hit it off immediately with his famously square-looking new boss.

“I feel like we’re the same guy,” McDaniel said while Harbaugh laughed at the back of the room. “He’s just taller. No, I think one thing we share is that Jim has never patterned himself after somebody. He’s his own person, and I would say that hopefully I would be described in a similar fashion. Who knows? I might be a 100% Dockers coach now.”

The fashion-forward McDaniel’s line was even funnier because he delivered it while wearing what appeared to be a $12,000 Bottega Veneta woven leather jacket.

The chance to learn from Harbaugh was important in his decision, but McDaniel also paid his respect to past Chargers coaches Sid Gillman and Don Coryell, two offensive innovators who changed football forever.

“There was a lot that I found very attractive,” McDaniel said. “I was fortunate to have some opportunities, but it started with coach Harbaugh. To be a part of an organization that has the legacy of Sid and Air Coryell, I was super attracted to. Got a quarterback who I’ve always admired, and just a lot of young players. A great situation for my family and me to go to the next chapter.”

Beacham writes for the Associated Press.

Before arriving at CBS News in October to become editor in chief, Bari Weiss had never been inside a television control room.

But on Tuesday, she presented her plan for taking the storied news division forward after a series of moves that has damaged its standing among viewers, failed to improve ratings, lowered internal morale and generated highly negative press coverage.

Weiss, addressing the staff gathered at the CBS Broadcast Center in Manhattan, reached out to those who have not been impressed with what they have seen so far. “I’m not going to stand up here today and ask for your trust,” she said, according to a transcript provided by CBS News. “I’m going to earn it, just like we have to do with our viewers.”

The statement was an acknowledgment that the early days of Weiss’ tenure have not been smooth. Weiss has dealt with her own lack of familiarity with TV news procedures, the entrenched culture of a legacy media institution and suspicion that partisan politics are driving changes. The town hall-style meeting was an attempt at a reset.

Weiss fought the claims that her mandate at CBS News is to provide friendlier coverage to the Trump administration as parent company Paramount pursues an acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery. She said she has never discussed CBS News coverage of the White House with Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison, to whom she reports.

Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison attends the premiere of “Ghosted” at AMC Lincoln Square in New York in April 2023.

(Evan Agostini/Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

“I’m here to do one thing,” Weiss said. “It’s not to be a mouthpiece for anybody. It’s simply to be a mouthpiece for fairness and the pursuit of truth.”

She told employees her business goal for CBS News is to expand its reach on digital platforms.

“We are not doing enough to meet audiences where they are, so they are leaving us,” she said, adding that the network’s strategy until now has been “to cling to the audience that remains on broadcast television. If we stick to that strategy, we’re toast.”

Weiss said she wants to focus on expanding the most successful CBS News programs — “60 Minutes,” “CBS Sunday Morning” and true crime magazine “48 Hours” to other platforms, including podcasts, newsletters and live events. “We need to shift to a streaming mentality immediately,” she said, adding that “our competitors are not just the other broadcast networks.

The pronouncement — which could have been made five to 10 years ago — was welcomed by some CBS News employees who believe the operation has lagged in using its resources to expand beyond traditional TV. Overall, they were encouraged by Weiss’ remarks.

“She went a good way to bring people together,” said one attendee. “That was a good start.”

One question posed to Weiss, which is likely to loom over her tenure, is how much time does CBS News have to replace the substantial revenue still generated by traditional TV with digital enterprises. Ad rates for digital platforms are substantially lower than those for TV, which means greater dependence on subscriptions and other revenue sources.

Weiss did not provide any specifics on the level of investment for the new initiatives. “The emphasis going forward is going to be building things that people are ultimately willing to pay for,” she said.

Weiss said the network is recruiting “fresh young talent” that will focus on reporting first through social media, “but will appear everywhere else too.” She showed three recent hires based in London, Kyiv and New York who deliver their stories across different platforms using their iPhones.

Weiss also announced the hiring of 19 new contributors, several of whom have already appeared on the Free Press, the digital news site that CBS News parent Paramount acquired as part of the deal to bring her into the company.

The dependence on contributors, who are not employees but paid for their TV appearances, is commonly used on cable news networks that need to fill hours of programming.

Weiss has acknowledged to colleagues that she’s not familiar with the process of moving the assembly line of stories from the assignment stage, through the reporting and editing process and onto a schedule of programs, some of which run 365 days a year.

Her lack of experience was glaring in her handling of “60 Minutes,” the network’s most prestigious and profitable program. CBS News staffers were stunned when she decided to pull a segment on the abuses at an El Salvador prison used by the U.S. government to detain undocumented immigrants from Venezuela.

“CBS Evening News” anchor Tony Dokoupil and the network’s chief national correspondent Matt Gutman.

(CBS News)

The story had been researched and reported for months by correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi and fully vetted by the standards department when Weiss yanked it one day before its originally scheduled Dec. 21 air date. Alfonsi called the move political and the conflict added to the narrative that Weiss is trying to placate the White House.

Weiss insisted Alfonsi’s story needed more reporting including an interview with an administration official, even though the White House had already declined requests to participate. The segment ran a month later with only minor additions to the reporting which executives inside the news division say was not worth the public drama created by Weiss’ editorial decision.

At the meeting, Weiss acknowledged she would have approached the matter differently but defended her intent.

“It’s always gonna be my prerogative as editor of this newsroom to say that I want more information, and to push to get more information,” she said. “Now, am I ever going to hold something again after it has been put out there with promos? I don’t want to make that exact same decision again, no I do not.”

Weiss added that Paramount management had no influence on her decision to hold Alfonsi’s story. “I wanna just say this as plainly and clearly as possible,” she said. “I was not pressured by David Ellison or anyone else.”

She said the journalism standards at the network have not changed since she arrived, but believed the division has been more welcoming to a wider range of viewpoints.

“I don’t think a year ago CBS News would’ve had [former National Rifle Assn. spokesperson] Dana Loesch, let’s say, on the morning show,” Weiss said. “I think that’s something to be proud of.”

Weiss praised the revamped “CBS Evening News with Tony Dokoupil” — with a new anchor she handpicked, even though critics have been harsh and the ratings have slipped. All three of the major network evening newscasts are down in January compared to a year ago, but CBS is off the most at around 20%.

Segments on the program, such as Dokoupil’s frothy tribute to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a brief item on the fifth anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection in Washington that had President Trump calling it the fault of the Capitol police, were widely panned. But the attention has died down as the program has settled into being a straight-ahead newscast.

While the fiascoes involving “60 Minutes” or the first week of the “CBS Evening News” have been demoralizing, some journalists in the division are still hopeful Weiss can be a catalyst for change and want her to succeed.

But her rocky start will be tough to turn around according to Tom Bettag, a former network news producer who is now a lecturer at the University of Maryland’s Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

“Weiss started off so miserably with ’60 Minutes’ and the Dokoupil launch, that you wonder if she can redeem herself,” Bettag said. “You only get one chance to make a first impression.”

Weiss isn’t the first executive to be put in charge of a TV news operation without any hands-on experience. It was not easy for the others, either.

Michael Gartner, a Pulitzer Prize-winning newspaper editor was appointed to oversee NBC News in the mid-1980s. During his turbulent five-year tenure, he struggled with talent egos as he tried to get costs under control. Walter Isaacson came from Time magazine to run CNN in 2001. He was gone after 18 months, expressing bewilderment over the public scrutiny of every network move.

Weiss’ previous management experience was running the Free Press, which has a staff of 60 compared to the sprawling CBS News operation with more than 1,200 employees around the world.

Weiss is also an anomaly as she comes to the job with an established point of view. Her journalism career was as an opinion writer before she launched the Free Press. The site gained a following for its criticism of the progressive left and purveyors of so-called “woke” policies.

Weiss has been vocal in telling CBS News employees that the public has less trust in legacy media, an assertion that is often pushed by Trump and his supporters. (She told the meeting that the network needs to target “independents … those who want to equip themselves with all the facts, who are curious to hear what’s going on, even if it offends their sensibilities.”)

Weiss carries that agenda while she tries to overcome the whispers of “she’s not one of us” at CBS News, which even loyal insiders believe leans too heavily on its storied history defined by 20th century journalism icons such as Walter Cronkite and Edward R. Murrow.

“I think this place has allowed the ghosts of the past to walk these halls a little too much,” one CBS News journalist said. “They need to be acknowledged, but not obsessed over every day. The New York Yankees don’t sit around dwelling on Babe Ruth every day. They focus on winning.”

While “60 Minutes” and “CBS Evening News” are the editorial backbone of the division and are getting the bulk of Weiss’ attention, the division also has to chart a future course for “CBS Mornings,” a major revenue generator. Co-host Gayle King’s contract is up in May and last year there were leaks to an industry trade suggesting that Paramount wants her to return in another role and presumably a lower salary.

“CBS Mornings” is in third place behind ABC’s “Good Morning America” and NBC’s “Today,” but still has a following and King is the most recognizable star in the news division. Morning show viewing is habitual and a change in the host chair could lead King’s fans to abandon the program. Once viewers leave, it’s hard to get them back, especially in today’s fragmented media environment where consumers have a seemingly endless array of alternatives.

At the town hall, Weiss gave a positive shout-out to King, who is angry over the press reports. “I’ve had people come and pet me like a puppy and say, ‘I’m sorry that you’re leaving CBS, I won’t watch those guys anymore,’” King said.

“I just want everyone here to know that she’s absolutely beloved,” Weiss said. “And we see her long into the future here at CBS.”

People close to the morning program who were not authorized to comment publicly believe King would return for another contract. But the network is already preparing for the future if King does depart.

Adriana Diaz and Kelly O’Grady were named co-hosts of “CBS Saturday Morning” and will be the principal fill-ins for King on the weekday program, clearly an attempt to get them familiar with the audience. “It’s a very explicit attempt to start building a bench,” said one insider.

Before the town hall meeting on Tuesday, many CBS News veterans were frustrated that Weiss had not addressed the entire division during the first three months of her tenure. King, who told colleagues she was impressed overall with the presentation, told Weiss they needed to meet sooner.

“For many people — they’ve never even heard your freakin’ voice,” King said. “So it’s good to hear, to see you’re a real person and this is what you want.”

Hey, Greenland — feeling a little low after President Trump’s ongoing attempts to buy or otherwise acquire the land under your feet? Neil Young can fix that framework!

Just keep “Rockin’ in the Free World.” For free. Forever.

The 80-year-old “hippie at heart” on Tuesday granted “our friends in Greenland” a year of free access to his music catalog, hoping that its contents “ease some of the unwarranted stress and threats you are experiencing from our unpopular and hopefully temporary government.”

(Of course, all U.S. administrations, even Trump’s, are effectively temporary, given the whole “elections every four years” thing. That should ease some stress right there.)

“It is my sincere wish for you to be able to enjoy all of my music in your beautiful Greenland home, in its highest quality,” Young wrote on his blog. “This is an offer of Peace and Love. All the music i have made during the last 62 years is yours to hear.” It’s unclear whether he’s giving away the middle-tier “Rust” subscription, which is just a penny under $45 a year, or the top-notch “Patron” subscription, which adds unspecified extras and a promise of priority treatment for $99.99 annually. The basic level subscription, at $24.99 a year, doesn’t provide the “highest quality” sound or the “music films” his message promises.

Greenlanders who take him up on his offer can renew for free annually as long as they stay put on the island. Young’s team will need cellphone numbers with the Greenland country code: 299.

Young said he hoped other “organizations” would follow in his footsteps.

He does have a “Heart of Gold,” after all.

ORLANDO, Fla. — President Trump’s crackdown on immigration contributed to a year-to-year drop in the nation’s growth rate as the U.S. population reached nealry 342 million people in 2025, according to population estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Census Bureau.

The 0.5% growth rate for 2025 was a sharp drop from 2024’s almost 1% growth rate, which was the highest since 2001 and was fueled by immigration. The 2024 estimates put the U.S. population at 340 million people.

Immigration increased by 1.3 million people last year, compared with 2024’s increase of 2.8 million people. The census report did not distinguish between legal and illegal immigration.

In the past 125 years, the lowest growth rate was in 2021, during the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when the U.S. population grew by just 0.16%, or 522,000 people, and immigration increased by just 376,000 people because of travel restrictions into the U.S. Before that, the lowest growth rate was just under 0.5% in 1919 at the height of the Spanish flu.

Tuesday’s data release comes as researchers have been trying to determine the effects of the second Trump administration’s immigration crackdown after the Republican president returned to the White House in January 2025. Trump made the surge of migrants at the southern border a central issue in his winning 2024 presidential campaign.

The numbers made public Tuesday reflect change from July 2024 to July 2025, covering the end of President Joe Biden’s Democratic administration and the first half of Trump’s first year back in office.

The figures capture a period that reflects the beginning of enforcement surges in Los Angeles and Portland, Ore., but do not capture the impact on immigration after the Trump administration’s crackdowns began in Chicago; New Orleans; Memphis, Tenn.; and Minneapolis, Minn..

The 2025 numbers were a jarring divergence from 2024, when net international migration accounted for 84% of the nation’s 3.3 million-person increase from the year before. The jump in immigration two years ago was partly because of a new method of counting that added people who were admitted for humanitarian reasons.

“They do reflect recent trends we have seen in out-migration, where the numbers of people coming in is down and the numbers going out is up,” Eric Jensen, a senior research scientist at the Census Bureau, said last week.

Unlike the once-a-decade census, which determines how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets, as well as the distribution of $2.8 trillion in annual government funding, the population estimates are calculated from government records and internal Census Bureau data.

The release of the 2025 population estimates was delayed by the federal government shutdown last fall and comes at a challenging time for the Census Bureau and other U.S. statistical agencies. The bureau, which is the largest statistical agency in the U.S., lost about 15% of its workforce last year due to buyouts and layoffs that were part of cost-cutting efforts by the White House and its Department of Government Efficiency.

Other recent actions by the Trump administration, such as the firing of Erika McEntarfer as Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, have raised concerns about political meddling at U.S. statistical agencies. But Brookings demographer William Frey said the bureau’s staffers appear to have been “doing this work as usual without interference.”

“So I have no reason to doubt the numbers that come out,” Frey said.

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

How good is senior Nathan Castrejon scoring goals for South East’s soccer team?

Coach Felipe Bernal said, “His strength and speed gets him through like Mbappe of Real Madrid. That’s the way I see him at this level.”

Castrejon, 5 feet 10, 160 pounds, entered this week with 38 of South East’s 90 goals. South East has its best chance to win a City Section title since it won in a big upset in 2022. This season would be no upset, since the Jaquars are 16-1-3.

Bernal has so many players with the first name of Nathan that he has to call them by their last name. Besides Castrejon, there’s Nathan Medina, who has eight goals, and Nathan Vargas, a backup goalie who has filled in well while the starter was sick.

“We’re a complete team this year,” Bernal said.

One of the most interesting players is 5-4 David Velasco. “The kid gets the job done,” Bernal said. “He’s amazing.”

Velasco has 11 assists.

South East is 6-0-1 in the competitive Eastern League that includes longtime power Bell.

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

Doris, who has made 23 Six Nations appearances, will lead Ireland out against a France side shorn of some high-profile players.

While fit-again captain Antoine Dupont is back, head coach Fabien Galthie opted not to select France’s all-time top try-scorer Damian Penaud, veteran centre Gael Fickou and back row Gregory Alldritt, who skippered the side in Dupont’s absence last year.

Having faced Alldritt on several occasions for both club and country, Doris admits he was surprised by the 28-year-old’s omission.

“If you look at the Top 14 week in, week out, there’s so many quality players at the top level, they’ve got an abundance of talent to choose from,” added Doris.

I was surprised Alldritt wasn’t in it. I obviously faced him and La Rochelle a few weeks ago. I rate him very highly but they’ve got quality across the back row and I’m sure [Anthony] Jelonch will represent the eight shirt very well.

“It’s always a big threat playing against France, especially away from home at a hostile place like Stade de France, so looking forward to it.”

Ryan Wedding, a former Canadian Olympic snowboarder who allegedly became the head of a billion-dollar drug trafficking organization, pleaded not guilty to multiple charges against him Monday and was ordered detained as his case proceeds.

Wedding, who authorities say was in hiding for more than a decade and on the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted Fugitives” list, was arrested last week. He faces 17 felonies in two separate indictments.

During the court hearing at the Ronald Reagan Federal Building and Courthouse in Santa Ana, Wedding, who wore a beige jail uniform and black Crocs, scanned the gallery and occasionally smirked. Hulking and tattooed, the 6’3” Wedding towered over his attorney and the deputy marshals standing guard in the courtroom.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Early ordered Wedding jailed without bond and set the next hearing for February 11.

The judge set a tentative trial date in March, although Wedding’s attorney, Anthony Colombo, said it would likely take more time for the case to unfold.

Colombo did not argue for his client’s release on Monday afternoon, later citing “the whirlwind” Wedding had experienced since his apprehension.

“It takes time to put the sureties in place, to have the information for the court to establish that there’s a condition or combination of conditions that could secure his release,” Colombo told reporters. “We were not in the position today to do that and we anticipate addressing that at a later date.”

Colombo said he first met with his client several days ago, after his arrival in the U.S., and described him as being “in good spirits.” Colombo disputed claims from federal authorities that Wedding had been in hiding out in Mexico.

“Hiding out and living somewhere are two different things,” Colombo said. “I would characterize him as living, the government can characterize it their way.”

Colombo added that his client was arrested and “he did not surrender.”

Wedding, who was known by many aliases, including “El Jefe” and “Public Enemy,” is accused of becoming a major trafficker of cocaine into Canada and the United States and a ruthless leader who ordered killings, including one of a witness in a 2024 federal narcotics case against him. The alleged order resulted in the victim being shot to death in a restaurant in Medellín, Colombia, in January 2025, prosecutors said.

The former Olympic snowboarder was charged in a 2024 indictment with running a continuing criminal enterprise, assorted drug trafficking charges and directing the murders of two members of a family in Canada in retaliation for a stolen drug shipment.

“Just to tell you how bad of a guy Ryan Wedding is, he went from an Olympic snowboarder to the largest narco trafficker in modern times,” Patel said in a news conference Friday announcing the arrest. “He is a modern-day El Chapo, he is a modern-day Pablo Escobar. And he thought he could evade justice.”

When questioned about authorities likening his client to El Chapo and Pablo Escobar, Colombo said “I think it’s overstated, that’s their spin.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Jim McDonnell said last week that Wedding’s alleged global drug trafficking organization “used Los Angeles as its primary point of distribution.”

Akil Davis, assistant director in charge of the Los Angeles FBI field office, said after Wedding’s capture that his alleged organization shipped approximately 60 metric tons of cocaine through Southern California on its way to Canada.

Authorities have arrested 36 people in connection with their role in the transnational organization and the U.S. Treasury Department has sanctioned 19 people, including Wedding, according to Davis.

Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi previously said Wedding’s operation was responsible for generating more than $1 billion a year in illegal drug proceeds.

Wedding competed for his home country, Canada, in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

An experienced attorney, Colombo previously represented Rubén Oseguera González, also known as “El Menchito,” the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, “El Mencho,” the leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel.

Oseguera González was sentenced last year to a term of life in prison plus 30 years to run consecutively for his role in a major drug trafficking conspiracy.

WASHINGTON — Eleanor Holmes Norton, the 18-term delegate for the District of Columbia in Congress and a veteran of the Civil Rights Movement, has filed paperwork to end her campaign for reelection, likely closing out a decades-long career in public service.

Norton, 88, has been the sole representative of the residents of the nation’s capital in Congress since 1991, but she faced increasing questions about her effectiveness after the Trump administration began its sweeping intervention into the city last year.

Mayor Muriel Bowser congratulated Norton on her retirement.

“For 35 years, Congresswoman Norton has been our Warrior on the Hill,” Bowser wrote on social media. “Her work embodies the unwavering resolve of a city that refuses to yield in its fight for equal representation.”

Norton’s campaign filed a termination report with the Federal Election Commission on Sunday. Her office has not released an official statement about the delegate’s intentions.

The filing was first reported by NOTUS.

Her retirement opens up a likely competitive primary to succeed her in an overwhelmingly Democratic city. Several local lawmakers had already announced their intentions to run in the Democratic primary.

An institution in Washington politics for decades, Norton is the oldest member in the House. She was a personal friend to civil rights icons such as Medgar Evers and a contemporary of other activists turned congressional stalwarts, including Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) and the late Reps. John Conyers (D-Mich.) and John Lewis (D-Ga.).

But Norton has faced calls to step aside in recent months as residents and local lawmakers questioned her ability to effectively advocate for the city in Congress amid the Republican administration’s aggressive moves toward the city.

The White House federalized Washington’s police force, deployed National Guard troops from six states and the federal district across the capital’s streets and surged federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security into neighborhoods. The moves prompted outcry and protests from residents and a lawsuit from the district’s attorney general.

Norton’s retirement comes as a historically high number of lawmakers announce they will either seek another public office or retire from official duties altogether. More than 1 in 10 members of the House are not seeking reelection this year.

Norton’s staunch advocacy for her city

As the district’s delegate, Norton does not have a formal vote in the House. But she has found other ways to advocate for the city’s interests. Called the “Warrior on the Hill” by her supporters, Norton was a staunch advocate for D.C. statehood and for the labor rights of the federal workers who called Washington and its surrounding region home.

She also secured bipartisan wins for district residents. Norton was the driving force behind the passage of a law that provides up to $10,000 per year for students who attend public colleges outside the district. It also provides up to $2,500 per year for students who attend select private historically Black colleges and universities across the country and nonprofit colleges in the D.C. metropolitan area.

In the 1990s, Norton played a key role in ending the city’s financial crisis by brokering a deal to transfer billions of dollars in unfunded pension liabilities to the federal government in exchange for changes to the district’s budget. She twice played a leading role in House passage of a D.C. statehood bill.

Steeped in the civil rights movement

Norton was born and raised in Washington, and her life spans the arc of the district’s trials and triumphs. She was educated at Dunbar High School as part of the school’s last segregated class.

“Growing up black in Washington gave a special advantage. This whole community of blacks was very race conscious, very civil rights conscious,” she said in her 2003 biography, “Fire in My Soul.”

She attended Antioch College in Ohio and in 1963 split her time between Yale Law School and Mississippi, where she worked as an organizer during the Freedom Summer of the Civil Rights Movement.

One day that summer, Evers picked her up at the airport. He was assassinated that night.

Norton also helped organize and attended the 1963 March on Washington.

In an interview with the Associated Press in 2023, Norton said the march was still “the single most extraordinary experience of my lifetime.”

She went on to become the first woman to lead the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which helps enforce anti-discrimination laws in the workplace. She ran for office when her predecessor retired to run for Washington mayor.

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

HONOLULU — Seven Japanese American soldiers will be promoted to officer ranks in a solemn ceremony Monday, eight decades after they died fighting for the U.S. during World War II despite having been branded “enemy aliens.”

The seven were students at the University of Hawaii and cadets in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, on track to become Army officers, when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941. They initially served in the Hawaii Territorial Guard, but soon after the attack the U.S. barred most Japanese Americans from service and deemed them enemy aliens.

The seven cadets instead worked with a civilian labor battalion known as “Varsity Victory Volunteers,” which performed tasks such as digging ditches and breaking rocks, until American leaders in early 1943 announced the formation of a segregated Japanese American regiment. The seven were among those who joined the unit, known as the 442nd Regimental Combat Team.

The combat team, along with the 100th battalion composed of mostly Japanese Americans from Hawaii, went on to become one of the most decorated units in U.S. history. Some of its soldiers fought for the Allies even as their relatives were detained in Japanese American internment camps because they were considered a public danger.

“It is important for us to really kind of give back and recognize our forefathers and these veterans that we stand on the shoulders of,” said 1st Sgt. Nakoa Hoe of the 100th Battalion, 442nd Regiment, what the unit is now known as in the Army Reserve. He noted the once-segregated unit now includes a “multitude of cultures.”

The seven “sacrificed so much at a challenging time when their loyalty to their country was questioned and they even had family members imprisoned,” he added.

The seven men — Daniel Betsui, Jenhatsu Chinen, Robert Murata, Grover Nagaji, Akio Nishikawa, Hiroichi Tomita and Howard Urabe — died fighting in Europe in 1944. All but Murata were killed during the campaign to liberate Italy from Nazi Germany. Murata was killed by an artillery shell in eastern France.

They will be promoted Monday to 2nd lieutenant, the rank they would have had if they completed the ROTC program. Relatives of at least some of the men are expected to attend the ceremony, scheduled to be held in a Honolulu park.

Even though Hawaii was not yet a state, the cadets were American citizens because they were born in Hawaii after its annexation in 1898.

“Fighting an injustice at home, these seven men later gave their lives fighting on the battlefields of Europe,” said a news release from U.S. Army Pacific. “They were unable to return to school and finish their commissioning efforts.”

Monday’s ceremony capping efforts to honor the men comes amid growing concern and criticism that President Donald Trump’s administration is whitewashing American history ahead of the nation celebrating 250 years of its independence, including last week’s removal of an exhibit on slavery at Philadelphia’s Independence National Historical Park.

Last year, the Pentagon said internet pages honoring a Black medal of honor winner and Japanese American service members were mistakenly taken down — but it staunchly defended its overall campaign to strip out content singling out the contributions by women and minority groups, which the Trump administration considers “DEI.”

Honoring the seven isn’t about DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — but recognizing them for their merit and that “they served in the ultimate capacity of giving their lives for the country,” said Lt. Col. Jerrod Melander, who previously led the University of Hawaii’s ROTC program as professor of military science.

Melander said he launched the commissioning effort in 2023 during former President Joe Biden’s administration and that the promotions were approved last year during the Trump administration.

The university awarded the men posthumous degrees in 2012. Laura Lyons, interim vice provost for academic excellence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, called their promotions especially important.

“Everyone’s contribution to and sacrifice for the ideals of freedom and the security of this country should matter and should be acknowledged, regardless of who they are,” Lyons said.

Kelleher writes for the Associated Press.

The Rams won’t be the only no-shows at the Super Bowl. President Trump will be conspicuous in his absence from the biggest annual, single-day sporting event in the United States.

“It’s just too far away,” Trump told the New York Post. “I would go if, you know, it was a little bit shorter.”

Or perhaps not so far to his left?

Super Bowl LX will be played Feb. 8 at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, part of the San Francisco Bay Area that Trump has so often reviled.

The teams — the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks — hail from deeply entrenched blue states. Massachusetts and Washington have voted for the Democratic presidential candidate in every election since 1988.

Trump also has expressed disgust over the musical performers at this year’s game: Bad Bunny and Green Day, both unabashed critics of the current administration. Bad Bunny will play the halftime show while Green Day will perform ahead of the kickoff.

“I’m anti-them,” Trump said. “I think it’s a terrible choice. All it does is sow hatred. Terrible.”

Ahead of a tour last fall to promote his most recent album, Bad Bunny (whose real name is Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio) announced he would skip the United States because he was afraid of ICE raids at his concerts. The Puerto Rican superstar — who has nearly 84 million monthly listeners on Spotify — explained why he made an exception for the Super Bowl.

“What I’m feeling goes beyond myself,” he said in a statement. “It’s for those who came before me and ran countless yards so I could come in and score a touchdown. This is for my people, my culture and our history.”

Green Day, an American pop-punk band of almost 40 years, has since Trump’s first term swapped a line in the lyrics of the 2004 hit “American Idiot” from “I’m not part of a redneck agenda” to “I’m not part of the MAGA agenda.”

Turning Point USA, the conservative non-profit founded by the late Charlie Kirk, announced in October that it would stage its own counterprogramming to the Super Bowl and stream it on conservative outlets. The “All American Halftime Show” is billed as “Celebrating Faith, Family, & Freedom.” As of Monday, musical artists had not been announced.

Trump became the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl a year ago when he received a muted, mixed reaction of cheers and boos in New Orleans. But this year, the 5½-hour flight from Washington D.C. to the Bay Area apparently is too long for the president, who in January alone has flown to Switzerland, Detroit and Palm Beach.

Trump has long enjoyed attending high-profile sporting events. He was present at the College Football Playoff title game between Indiana and Miami a week ago and in 2025 attended the Army-Navy college football game, the U.S. Open Final and the Ryder Cup. In 2019, he attended Game 5 of the World Series in Washington D.C., where he was resoundingly booed.

The NFL has resisted pressure to replace Bad Bunny with a performer more politically palatable to Trump.

“There’s a lot of people right now who don’t like Bad Bunny being in the Super Bowl halftime show,” NFL chief marketing officer Tim Ellis said at a conference in October. “Well, not everyone has to like everything we do. Bad Bunny is f—ing awesome.”

Not everyone has to like the teams that earned Super Bowl berths and the states they call home, either. And not everyone has to approve of the venue. That includes the President, who made it clear that if he decides to watch, he’ll do so from a distance.

When “The Great British Baking Show” returns for another season later this year, the tent will welcome a new judge alongside the freshest batch of competitors.

British cookbook author and TV personality Nigella Lawson will join the beloved baking competition as a judge, succeeding Prue Leith, who announced her departure from the series last week. “The Great British Baking Show” (alternatively titled “The Great British Bake-Off” in the United Kingdom) unveiled Lawson’s appointment Monday on Instagram. She will co-judge alongside longtime “Bake Show” fixture and bread expert Paul Hollywood.

“I’m uncharacteristically rather lost for words right now!” Lawson said in a joint Instagram post. “Of course it’s daunting to be following in the footsteps of Prue Leith and Mary Berry before her, great dames both, but I’m also bubbling with excitement.”

“The Great British Baking Show” first aired on the BBC in 2010, with Hollywood judging competitors’ bakes alongside Mary Berry. Berry departed the series when it moved from the BBC to commercial broadcaster Channel 4 and Leith began her tenure in 2017.

During her “Baking Show” days, Leith became known among fans and competitors for her affinity for boozy bakes and colorful fashion and accessories. Notably, she and Hollywood co-judged the series in its 11th season, which was filmed and aired amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Leith, announcing her exit, said “Bake Off has been a fabulous part of my life for the last nine years” and looked forward to a new chapter in her life.

“But now feels like the right time to step back (I’m 86 for goodness sake!), there’s so much I’d like to do, not least spend summers enjoying my garden,” she wrote, adding later in her caption that she believes her successor will “love [the show] as much as I have.”

Lawson, a former journalist and Margaret Thatcher cabinet member Nigel Lawson’s daughter, comes to “Baking Show” with some history with Channel 4. The broadcast aired her series “Nigella Bites” in the late 1990s and early aughts in tandem with the release of her book of the same name.

Her television credits also include hosting her series “Nigella Feasts,” “Nigella Express,” “Nigella Kitchen” and “Nigellissima” and judging on shows “Iron Chef America,” “The Taste” alongside Anthony Bourdain and “MasterChef Australia,” among others.

She has penned more than a dozen books, most recently 2020’s “Cook, Eat, Repeat.”

“The Great British Bake Off is more than a television programme, it’s a National Treasure – and it’s a huge honour to be entrusted with it,” she said on Monday. “I’m just thrilled to be joining the team and all the new bakers to come. I wish the marvellous Prue all the best, and am giddily grateful for the opportunity!”

WASHINGTON — The crisis touched off by President Trump’s demand to take ownership of Greenland appears over, at least for now. But the United States and its European allies still face a larger long-term challenge: Can their shaky marriage be saved?

At 75 years old, NATO has survived storms before, from squabbles over trade to estrangement over wars in Vietnam and Iraq. France, jealous of its independence, even pulled its armed forces out of NATO for 43 years.

But diplomats and foreign policy scholars warn that the current division in the alliance may be worse, because Trump’s threats on Greenland convinced many Europeans that the United States has become an unreliable and perhaps even dangerous ally.

The roots of the crisis lie in the president’s frequently expressed disdain for alliances in general and NATO in particular.

Long before Trump arrived in the White House, presidents from both parties complained that many NATO countries weren’t pulling their weight in military spending.

But earlier presidents still considered the alliance an essential asset to U.S. foreign policy and the cornerstone of a system that prevented war in Europe for most of a century.

Trump has never seemed to share that view. Even after he succeeded in persuading NATO members to increase their defense spending, he continued to deride most allies as freeloaders.

Until last year, he refused to reaffirm the U.S. commitment to help defend other NATO countries, the core principle of the alliance. And he reserved the right to walk away from any agreement, military or commercial, whenever it suited his purpose.

In the two-week standoff over Greenland, he threatened to seize the island from NATO member Denmark by force, an action that would have violated the NATO treaty.

When Britain, Germany and other countries sent troops to Greenland, he threatened to hit them with new tariffs, which would have violated a trade deal Trump made only last year.

Both threats touched off fury in Europe, where governments had spent most of the past year making concessions to Trump on both military spending and tariffs. When Trump backed down, the lesson some leaders drew was that pushing back worked better than playing nice.

“We do prefer respect to bullies,” French President Emmanuel Macron said.

“Being a happy vassal is one thing. Being a miserable slave is something else,” Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever said.

The long-term danger for the United States, scholars said, is that Europeans might choose to look elsewhere for military and economic partners.

“They just don’t trust us,” said Richard N. Haass, a former top State Department official in the George W. Bush administration.

“A post-American world is fast emerging, one brought about in large part by the United States taking the lead in dismantling the international order that this country built,” he wrote last week.

Some European leaders, including Macron, have argued that they need to disentangle from the United States, build military forces that can defend against Russia, and seek more reliable trade partners, potentially including India and China.

But decoupling from the United States would not be easy, fast or cheap. Europe and Canada still depend on the United States for many of their defense needs and as a major market for exports.

Almost all NATO countries have pledged to increase defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product, but they aren’t scheduled to reach that goal until 2035.

Meanwhile, they face the current danger of an expansionist Russia on their eastern frontier.

Not surprisingly for a group of 30 countries, Europe’s NATO members aren’t united on the question. Macron has argued for more autonomy, but others have called for caution.

“Despite all the frustration and anger of recent months, let us not be too quick to write off the transatlantic partnership,” German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said at Davos.

“I think we are actually in the process of creating a stronger NATO,” said Finnish President Alexander Stubb. “As long as we keep doing that, slowly and surely we’ll be just fine.”

They argue, in effect, that the best strategy is to muddle through — which is what NATO and Europe have done in most earlier crises.

The strongest argument for that course may be the uncertainty and disorder that would follow a rapid erosion — or worse, dissolution — of an alliance that has helped keep its members safe for most of a century.

The costs of that outcome, historian Robert Kagan warned recently, would be borne by Americans as well as Europeans.

If the United States continues to weaken its commitments to NATO and other alliances, he wrote in the Atlantic, “The U.S. will have no reliable friends or allies, and will have to depend entirely on its own strength to survive and prosper. This will require more military spending, not less. … If Americans thought defending the liberal world order was too expensive, wait until they start paying for what comes next.”