Last week’s midterm elections made history across the country, and Los Angeles was no exception: Asian Americans will now hold all three citywide elective offices — mayor, city attorney and controller — for the first time.

Mayor-elect Nithya Raman came to the U.S. from India as a child. City Atty.-elect Marissa Roy’s mother also emigrated from India. And City Controller Kenneth Mejia, who is Filipino, won reelection to a second four-year term in June.

“This is a historic moment for the nation and certainly for our city and state, and for [Asian American and Pacific Islander] communities,” said Manjusha P. Kulkarni, executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, which advocates for resources and funding for the coalition of community organizations it represents. “We feel that the work that we’ve done across many decades has come to fruition in seeing progressive Asian American representation in our city.”

Kulkarni noted that Asian American voters have trended more progressive over the decades, after years of being pigeonholed as largely conservative. Raman and Roy were both endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, and Mejia was recommended by the leftist group.

Across the country, voters made history at the ballot box: California voted in its first Latino governor, Texas elected its first Latina governor and Georgia will have its first Black female governor. Michigan elected Abdul El-Sayed, who will become the first Muslim in the U.S. Senate.

The two largest U.S. cities will now be headed by South Asian Americans: New York City’s Zohran Mamdani, born to Indian parents, and Raman, who arrived from India to the U.S. at the age of 6. Raman became the first Asian American woman and the first South Asian elected to the City Council when she won her seat in 2020.

In her first address as mayor-elect last week, Raman acknowledged the significance of voters putting their faith in her at a time when the Trump administration has terrified immigrant communities with mass deportations.

“This city has opened its arms to people to come and build their dreams here, and the idea that Angelenos voted for an immigrant to be their next mayor at this moment in American history is so deeply moving to me,” she said.

Roy frequently invoked her mother’s immigrant story and her Indian heritage on the campaign trail. As a founding board member of the Asian Democrats of Los Angeles County, she had key Asian American backers, including California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and San Francisco City Atty. David Chiu.

Roy, whose campaign was infused with Bollywood needle drops on Instagram, is also the co-creator of a “Raman Rager” Bollywood dance mix for a South Asian-themed fundraiser that has since taken on a life of its own.

Roy said in an interview that her win in last week’s election represents a moment for the city’s broader immigrant community. When she won, she received Whatsapp messages from family members in India who were watching closely and was featured in an India Weekly article.

“I think this is really a significant moment, not just for the Asian American community, but for the immigrant community to have an immigrant mayor, to have a city attorney who is the daughter of an immigrant,” Roy said. “This is Los Angeles sending a message about who it is.”

Asians are the fastest growing population in the U.S., outpacing Black, Latino and white populations, according to the Pew Research Center. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders represent about 12% of the city’s population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

And they constitute more than 1 million eligible voters in L.A. County, according to an analysis of census data by Asian Americans Advancing Justice Southern California.

“Our communities have helped build Los Angeles, and it’s time our political leadership reflects the enormous role we play in shaping its future,” Dahni Tsuboi, chief executive of the organization, said in a statement.

On election night last week, Zahra Hajee, president of Asian Democrats of L.A. County, hopped from Roy’s election night party — which featured a henna station and a victorious Roy who flashed glittering bangles — to Raman’s, where Mejia gave an impassioned speech as a Raman win looked likely. After Raman took the lead by early Wednesday morning, Hajee, who is Pakistani American and Muslim, became emotional.

“To be able to see two South Asian women leaders — I didn’t think I’d see this in my lifetime,” Hajee said. “Being able to have those shared experiences with our next city attorney and next mayor is just such a surreal feeling and a connection I thought I’d never have.”

The group, which has about a thousand members, was among the first to endorse Roy’s campaign and supported Raman early on. The organization also has a working relationship with Mejia, who is a member of the Green Party. It also helped introduce Raman to key constituencies; she set up an event with small business owners in L.A.’s Little Bangladesh neighborhood near Koreatown, for example.

Nina Long, policy manager for AAPI Force, a progressive statewide coalition, said the candidates’ outreach reflected the nuances of the community, reaching groups including Chinese, Korean and Filipino voters.

“They did not treat AAPIs as a voter bloc to be taken for granted,” she said. “Each of the candidates was really savvy about the diversity of AAPI communities in Los Angeles.”

The dominance of Asian Americans in this election is also a display of the growing political influence of Asian American and Pacific Islander voters.

“For a very long time, the AAPI community was considered a quote unquote margin of victory in Democratic politics,” Hajee said. “We have shown our community is not just a margin of victory but a true base of voters.”

Mejia acknowledged the moment as a “huge feat” for progressive values being championed by Asian Americans.

“Representation is great, but it’s also showing that we have people running on great values centered on people, not special interests,” he said in an interview. “The fact that we are all AAPI is amazing, but the credit is what we stand for and what we believe in.”

He said his views were shaped by having parents who worked hard but were exposed to more conservative values and were expected to keep their heads down and not ask questions. But as life has become harder, more Asian Americans, especially young people, want better, he said.

“I believe what you’re seeing right now, this movement in politics, is that so many people are paying attention, especially those from immigrant communities,” he said.

There are currently three Asian Americans on the L.A. City Council, including Raman, who represents District 4. The other two are Ysabel Jurado of District 14 and John Lee of District 12.

Jurado became the first Filipina elected to the City Council when she won in 2024. In a statement, she said, seeing three Asian American leaders elected to citywide office felt deeply personal.

“It reflects generations of organizing by communities who fought to be heard and opened doors for those who would follow,” she said, adding that she looked forward to pushing for policies that would make living in L.A. more affordable. “We have an opportunity to show what greater representation can mean in people’s everyday lives.”

Times staff writers Noah Haggerty and Sonja Sharp contributed to this report.

Herzog calls for an inquiry into the October 7 attacks during a Knesset session amid political gridlock following elections.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog has urged lawmakers to “leave no stone unturned” and launch an investigation into the October 7 attacks by Hamas in a speech opening the new parliamentary session, after the election left Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc short of a majority.

Herzog called on party leaders to “make concessions” and do “everything possible to avoid a repeat election” at the swearing-in of newly elected members in the 26th Knesset on Tuesday.

The Israeli president tasked opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot with forming the country’s next government on Sunday, starting the clock for him to cobble together a coalition within 28 days, with a possible 14-day extension.

While also short of a parliamentary majority, Eisenkot and his allies hope to use their newfound legislative power to move rapidly to establish an independent inquiry into the October 7 attacks.

“I am committed in this complex situation to form a national emergency government as quickly as possible,” Eisenkot said, ahead of the Knesset session.

Netanyahu has previously refused to form a commission to investigate the attacks, arguing that a panel appointed by the Israeli Supreme Court would be biased against the government.

On Iran, Herzog said in his speech that Tehran “does not stop even for a moment in its plots and threats, whether directly or through its partners”, repeating the notion from his speech officially delegating Eisenkot to form the new government.

The president said Israel “must fortify the alliance” with the United States amid increasing disapproval of Israel among the US public due to the genocidal war on Gaza and the US-Israel war on Iran.

“Alongside the stubborn and determined war against those who seek to harm us, we must build a stable political horizon in the region with our neighbours,” he said, adding that Israel must “strengthen and even add to the peace agreements with Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain”.

Political gridlock

The speaker of the Knesset, a member of Netanyahu’s Likud Party, will remain in the caretaker position until a new vote is held.

“Yashar, Eisenkot’s party, has already submitted 61 signatures of new parliamentarians demanding that the vote take place as soon as possible,” said Al Jazeera’s Nour Odeh, reporting from the occupied West Bank.

Netanyahu and his bloc continue to protest the result of the October 27 elections, claiming foreign interference after Palestinian-Israeli parties secured a 19-seat bloc.

“Those protests have gone unanswered because the results have been certified and every relevant authority has dismissed the allegations that there were widespread violations,” Odeh said.

Eisenkot has yet to strike deals with parties that could bring him to the 61-seat majority needed to form a government. If neither Eisenkot nor Netanyahu forms a coalition, another round of elections could follow.

The maker of Claude is looking to raise up to $64.4bn in one of the largest IPOs in history next week.

Anthropic is seeking a valuation of $1.4 trillion for its upcoming IPO, with the company looking to raise as much as $64.4bn in what would be one of the largest stock market debuts in history.

The company, which makes the Claude AI chatbot, launched its investor roadshow on Tuesday, with reported plans to go public next week.

According to its filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Tuesday, Anthropic plans to offer 825 million shares priced between $70 and $78, giving it a valuation of up to $1.4 trillion when potential shares are included.

It has also secured $26bn in a separate private placement backed by some of the world’s largest tech companies, including Google, Nvidia, Microsoft and AMD.

The listing is being closely watched as a major test for how much investors are still willing to bet on AI companies, which have driven huge gains in tech stocks and the broader US market.

The $1.4 trillion valuation is lower than earlier estimates, which had suggested Anthropic could be valued between $1.5 trillion and $2 trillion, as concerns grow about the company’s enormous infrastructure spending and recent swings in AI stock prices.

Those concerns extend beyond Anthropic, with investors increasingly questioning whether AI companies can make enough money to justify their soaring valuations and sustain the boom.

Despite the uncertainty, Anthropic’s growth has been explosive.

The company reported revenues of $17bn in their third quarter, up from $1.4bn a year earlier, as its net losses narrowed. On Tuesday, Anthropic said it was on pace to generate about $81bn in annual revenue, $10bn higher than its estimate a month earlier.

The company credits its growth to the demand for Claude, including from industries like healthcare, financial services and legal services.

But to keep up with that demand, Anthropic has committed almost $900bn to computing costs with partners including Amazon and Google, a massive financial bet on continued demand for its product.

The IPO also lands in an uncertain political climate, with Democrats having just won control of both chambers of the US Congress in the midterm elections last week. The new Democratic-led House of Representatives and Senate have raised the prospect of more regulation of AI companies and new restrictions on the construction of data centres that power the technology.

AI stocks slid after the midterms, with the Nasdaq falling 5.5 percent on Thursday, its biggest one-day drop in more than a year. The selloff, also driven by declines at Nvidia, whose CEO was targeted by an alleged Chinese spy, wiped out trillions of dollars from the market.

Markets have since recovered some of those losses, though the Nasdaq dipped slightly below 1 percent on Tuesday. Some analysts argued the sell-off was an overreaction and that the election was unlikely to derail the expansion of data centres.

Russell Brand told to ‘watch his step’ during new life inside prison – and he’ll be ‘lowest of the low’

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans met Tuesday to discuss their future and were expected to reconvene in the afternoon as they decide whether to keep South Dakota Sen. John Thune as their leader. The meetings come just a week after steep losses in the midterm elections that cost them their majority.

Thune is expected to be reelected, given that he remains popular with his GOP colleagues and is so far running unopposed. But senators left the meeting after two hours of discussions with no resolution on a way forward.

“We want to be thoughtful and do the right thing,” said West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice as the meeting broke up. He said no obvious alternative had emerged, but “there is a legitimate argument that if we lost as badly as we lost, why would we continue on with the same leadership?”

At the same time, the current GOP leadership “didn’t cause this problem to happen,” Justice said.

Some Republicans who returned to Washington on Monday for the first time since the election wipeout that cost them at least seven seats had said beforehand that it’s too soon to endorse the status quo.

“We need to have some real soul-searching,” said Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who circulated a letter to the conference asking for a delay in the closed-door, secret-ballot leadership elections. “We can’t just continue on business as usual — that kind of defeat demands change.”

Still, Johnson conceded that there’s no one else on the ballot.

“That’s part of our problem, who would want the job?” he said, turning to a reporter and joking, “Do you want it?”

The angst comes as the party is just beginning to reckon with what the election results mean for GOP lawmakers and how soon they can try to rebuild their ranks. Two additional races remain uncalled in Alaska and Mississippi that could further deplete their numbers.

The Republican leadership declined to move the elections, which include contests for other party leaders as well and are held in the small Old Senate Chamber just down the hall from the large one used Tuesday. But senators could still seek a vote to delay them.

Thune said on Monday they will have a “very fulsome, robust conversation about where we go from here and then we’ll see what the consensus of the conference is.”

“Ultimately that’s a decision made by Republican senators,” Thune said.

Despite some critics, Thune has respect from colleagues

Thune, who replaced Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky as leader in early 2025, has spent much of the last two years navigating President Trump, who has often been at odds with the Senate.

While backing up Trump on most policy, Thune has refused to change Senate rules and scrap the filibuster to pass voting legislation that would require proof of citizenship for all voters — a position that frustrated Trump and enraged some in the president’s political base.

But Trump hosted Thune and his family at the White House in October. He said Monday that the GOP leader is “a very fine man.” The election is “up to the Senate,” Trump said.

Thune has made it a point to hear out different viewpoints before he makes major decisions and has maintained close relationships with the rank and file — a different approach from his predecessor, McConnell.

Thune “has widespread support” among Republican senators, said Oklahoma Sen. Jim Lankford, who said he supports having the elections on Tuesday when many of the new GOP senators are already in town for freshman orientation.

“It’s a pretty complicated role to be able to manage,” Lankford said. “No one wants that job.”

Walking into the meeting, South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds said most senators are ready to move forward. It is time to have “leadership in place,” he said.

Republicans push to delay leadership elections

Still, Johnson and others in his conference say Tuesday’s leadership election is too soon.

The midterm election was “an incredible repudiation of the focus of this Congress for the last two years,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, citing reductions to Medicaid and rural hospital funding in the sweeping tax cuts bill that Republicans pushed through last year. Hawley voted for the legislation after criticizing it.

Hawley said he hasn’t “heard any acknowledgement of that yet from leadership, which I think is extremely alarming,” and he also hasn’t heard from Thune personally.

“I want to hear that we are going to have a different direction,” including ways to lower costs for Americans, Hawley said.

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick in a statement over the weekend said Republicans shouldn’t choose a leader until the lessons of the election have been “digested and debated.” Indiana Sen. Jim Banks said Republicans need to “sit down and have a frank conversation about where we fell short.”

Republican Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, one of a few senators who signed Johnson’s letter asking for a delay, said any leadership contest should come after the two outstanding Senate elections in Alaska and Mississippi are decided.

Neither of those races has yet been called, so it’s unclear if Republican Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi will be returning to the Senate next year.

Thune looks to the next Congress

The soul-searching comes as lawmakers are trying to wrap up the year’s work — funding the government and seeing if there are some issues where they can work together, including an energy permitting bill that moved forward on a bipartisan vote Monday evening.

Republicans will try to confirm as many of Trump’s nominees as they can before the new Congress begins in January, and Democrats will strategize on how to best keep up their momentum into next year.

Thune is expected to emphasize his collaborative approach to his colleagues and point out what they did get done in the last year — including the tax and spending cuts legislation and an attempt at reining in the chaotic annual spending process.

In his first remarks on the Senate floor since the election, which he called a “tough night,” Thune previewed his pitch to his colleagues who are looking for answers on how they will navigate the minority.

Republicans will be willing to work with Democrats, Thune said Monday, but “the American people are not looking for socialist government and leftist fantasies.”

Despite gains, Democrats are having similar conversations

Across the aisle, Democrats who could hold as many as 56 seats next year are having private discussions about whether New York Sen. Chuck Schumer is still the right person to lead them.

Schumer has found critics on the left and the right of his caucus as candidates from both sides declined to say in the campaign whether they would support him as leader. Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen and Michigan Sen. Elissa Slotkin have both considered challenging Schumer, but neither has announced a run.

Many in the party have said it’s time for generational change after Schumer’s 12 years as leader. Still, Schumer appears to have widespread support from his members after carrying his party to massive wins in Tuesday’s elections.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, Schumer’s New York colleague and the head of the Democratic Senate campaign arm, predicted that he will win enough support. Schumer not only won the Senate back but he “cares deeply, and he understands politics well,” she said.

Jalonick and Sloan write for the Associated Press.

Scott McTominay has revealed he received treatment to correct an irregular heartbeat two days before Scotland’s World Cup win over Haiti in June.

The Napoli midfielder recently underwent an ablation procedure – a minimally invasive operation to correct irregular heart rhythms – in Manchester.

At the World Cup, the 29-year-old was was put to sleep to correct his heartbeat and was given the all clear to play in the opening 1-0 victory over Haiti in Massachusettes.

“I had to go and get the shock on my heart,” the former Manchester United player, who also also played the 90 minutes in the losses to Morocco and Brazil, said.

“I was two days before the Haiti game. You’ve prepared so well. I was in such good condition and then something like that happens. You’re thinking, ‘how is this happening to me’?

“You have to get on with it, that’s the cards that you’re dealt in football. Sometimes, things don’t go your way.

“I was 100% [fit], but obviously, whenever you’re sat in a hospital bed two days before the first game of the World Cup about to get put to sleep, it’s not ideal, is it?”

Air Force B-1B Lancer pilots have begun taking to the skies in small, contractor-operated bizjets under a new initiative designed to give them more flying time without putting additional demands on the bomber fleet. The Bomber Supplemental Trainer for Aircrew Readiness (BSTAR) program began flying earlier this month in Abilene, Texas, close to Dyess Air Force Base. Using civilian HondaJet aircraft, the program is supposed to help bomber crews build foundational airmanship while preserving B-1 sorties for specialized combat training, and is now set to expand.

The first military training flight took place on November 2, 2026, with a B-1 pilot from Dyess at the controls. The Air Force officially launched the initiative two days later, with Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC) commander Gen. S.L. Davis and an incoming B-1 pilot taking part in the event. Maj. Gen. Ty Neuman, Eighth Air Force and Joint-Global Strike Operations Center commander, also participated in an observer flight.

“Combat-ready aircrews are built on foundational airmanship, sound decision-making and time in the air,” Davis said. He added that the program provides additional flying opportunities at a much lower cost than using the bombers themselves.

The initiative uses a contractor-owned, contractor-operated (COCO) model. XSTAR Aviation provides the aircraft, instructor pilots, maintenance, scheduling, and other support. Flights operate from Abilene Regional Airport, meaning the Air Force does not need to dedicate additional B-1 aircraft or military maintenance personnel to the effort.

The goal is to provide eligible B-1 pilots with approximately 100 additional flight hours each year. That is equivalent to roughly four additional two-hour sorties per month. The training focuses on core flying skills, including instrument procedures, mission planning, aircraft handling, and crew resource management.

Those hours are intended to build and sustain general airmanship, not to replace training that can only be conducted in the B-1. Aerial refueling, tactical employment, and weapons delivery will remain part of the bomber’s own training syllabus. The idea is to preserve B-1 flight hours for those specialized requirements while allowing pilots to maintain and develop more basic flying skills in less expensive aircraft.

“B-1 aircrews require precision, discipline, and sound judgment,” Neuman said. “BSTAR increases airmanship, producing safer, more effective and more lethal operators while preserving B-1 flight hours for specialized training.”

Sorties are tracked and debriefed, with feedback and operational data collected to help assess the program’s effectiveness. That information is also expected to inform the development of training curricula and potential expansion of the effort.

A New Training Model For The B-1 Force

The aircraft and personnel supporting BSTAR began moving into place earlier this year. Positioning and validation flights took place in September, followed by the start of contractor instructor-pilot operations in October.

XSTAR Aviation says the program is designed to grow beyond its initial location. The company plans to expand operations to Rapid City, South Dakota, in January 2027, supporting B-1 pilots assigned to nearby Ellsworth Air Force Base. That would establish a two-location operation serving the bomber’s two principal bases.

The effort is backed by a significant contract award. A March 23, 2026, award notice on SAM.gov lists X-Star Inc. as the recipient of an award worth up to $78 million, including base and option periods. The award is identified as “Bomber Supplemental Trainer for Aircrew Readiness Production Other Transaction SBIR Phase III.”

The award’s objectives extend beyond simply providing aircraft and flight hours. They include developing training solutions and curricula, collecting performance data, evaluating training outcomes, and tracking airmanship trends. The work is also intended to help determine how the model could be sustained and scaled, potentially supporting a steady-state BSTAR Companion Trainer Program across the wider Air Force.

XSTAR Aviation describes itself as a veteran-owned small business created as a direct outgrowth of an AFGSC-led BSTAR study. The company says it was established as a subsidiary of SBCC to manage contractor-owned and contractor-operated aircraft and provide turnkey training solutions for the Department of Defense.

The aircraft being used are civilian HondaJets. The HondaJet family is a light business jet powered by two GE Honda HF120 turbofan engines, with the engines in an unusual installation on pylons above the wings. The Elite II version, for example, has a published maximum cruise speed of 422 knots, a maximum operating altitude of 43,000 feet, and a range of 1,547 nautical miles with four passengers and fuel reserves.

Flying a HondaJet to Austin, TX with Just One Pilot

Companion Trainers Are Nothing New For The Air Force

The use of companion aircraft to supplement pilot training is not a new concept for the Air Force. B-2 pilots, for example, have long used T-38 Talon advanced jet trainers to maintain basic flying proficiency. The smaller jets allow crews to practice skills such as instrument flying, formation work, and aircraft handling without having to use the much more expensive stealth bombers for every training event. The Air Force has also used T-37 and T-38 trainers to support other aircraft communities, including B-52, F-22, KC-135, and U-2 crews.

The idea of using business jets specifically for bomber training also goes back a long way. A 1981 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report discussed an Air Force proposal for a dedicated Companion Trainer Aircraft (CTA) for B-52 crews. The concept called for a small, fuel-efficient, business-type aircraft with avionics similar to those in the Stratofortress. It was intended to supplement simulator training and provide opportunities to practice tasks such as communications, aerial refueling rendezvous, navigation, terrain avoidance, and weapons delivery, while reducing the need to use B-52s for those activities.

The Air Force planned to evaluate the concept in fiscal year 1981, though it never became an operational program.

What Happens Next?

BSTAR is a modern take on that 1980s-era Companion Trainer Aircraft idea, using contractor-operated civilian business jets to provide supplemental flying experience without requiring the Air Force to acquire and sustain a dedicated fleet of military companion trainers.

Returning to the BSTAR initiative, XSTAR Aviation Executive Vice President of Operations Col. Miles McClung, USAF (Ret.), described the effort as an investment in fundamental flying skills. “Our mission is to build airmanship through flight training,” he said.

For the B-1 community, the program means pilots can gain more time in the air and practice important flying skills without putting additional hours on an aging bomber fleet. The B-1 remains essential for training in the aircraft’s unique mission systems and combat capabilities, but not every proficiency requirement needs to be met in the aircraft itself.

The initiative is not without its skeptics. One former B-1 pilot, speaking to TWZ on condition of anonymity, questioned how much additional proficiency crews would gain from flying HondaJets, given that its handling characteristics and instrumentation bear little resemblance to those of the Bone. While acknowledging that getting pilots into the air is preferable to relying entirely on simulators, the former pilot argued that the latter can be more useful for practicing bomber-specific mission tasks. The HondaJet also offers little direct benefit to weapon systems officers, who cannot use it to practice the B-1’s specialized mission systems or combat procedures.

The former pilot suggested that BSTAR reflects a wider challenge facing the B-1 community, with reductions in aircraft availability, flight hours, crew numbers, and maintenance resources making it increasingly difficult to maintain the flying requirements of the Air Force’s Ready Aircrew Program (RAP), which establishes minimum standards for retaining combat-ready status. While the contractor-operated approach should be considerably less expensive than generating additional B-1 sorties, he questioned whether the resulting flight time would translate into meaningful improvements in combat readiness.

Nevertheless, the economics of the approach are difficult to ignore. A HondaJet is estimated to cost roughly $2,000-$3,000 per flight hour to operate, compared with approximately $90,000 for a B-1B flight hour. Even allowing for a higher effective cost of perhaps $4,000 per hour under the BSTAR contract, that represents a cost difference of more than 20 times, potentially reaching 30-45 times depending on the actual operating costs. The COCO model also gives the Air Force considerable flexibility. After all, XSTAR provides the aircraft, pilots, maintenance, and supporting infrastructure, without requiring the service to acquire additional aircraft, establish new facilities, or assign military personnel to run the operation. As with Red Air adversary providers, the arrangement can also be expanded, recompeted, or discontinued at the end of the contract period, offering a degree of flexibility that would be difficult to achieve with an Air Force-owned fleet.

Fiscal Year 2027 budget documents outline plans for a $342 million investment in upgrades for the Air Force’s remaining 44 B-1Bs over the 2027-2031 period. The funding is intended to modernize the bomber and preserve its combat capabilities through 2037, extending the aircraft’s relevance well beyond its previously anticipated retirement timeline. That extended service life comes as demand for the B-1B remains high, including its recent heavy involvement in Operation Epic Fury. Keeping a fleet that has been reduced by a third viable for another decade will therefore require not only major aircraft upgrades and careful preservation of airframes, but also sustained investment in maintaining aircrew proficiency and readiness.

There is also the possibility that BSTAR is spinning up at this point in order to support the Air Force’s forthcoming B-21 Raider. As we have explored in the past, the B-21 fleet could be tasked with a much broader range of operational missions than the B-1 that it will replace, putting a premium on available airframes, which could impact hours allocated to pilot training. The B-21, although built for better efficiency than the B-2, will not be cheap to fly either. A COCO pilot trainer might be one approach to help mitigate that.

In the meantime, as the Air Force works to sustain its bomber force and prepare its crews for their demanding missions, the service eyes BSTAR as a way of adding flying opportunities while keeping the Lancers available for the training only they can provide. Time will tell if that investment proves worthwhile enough for wider adoption.

Contact the author: thomas@thewarzone.com

In late October, two non-Equity touring musicals opened on the same night at two of L.A.’s largest theaters: “Tommy” at the Hollywood Pantages and “The Music Man” at Center Theatre Group’s Ahmanson. The shows — which operate outside of the Actors’ Equity Assn., the union that represents more than 51,000 professional stage actors and managers nationwide — reignited a contentious debate about whether a major regional nonprofit like CTG should host nonunion shows.

Critics questioned whether these productions threaten CTG’s artistic mission and if Angelenos should pay top dollar for nonunion shows. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, what should matter more, a theater’s bottom line or its core values? The underlying implication in much of the criticism was that non-Equity shows are subpar and that hosting them implies a tacit acceptance of the mistreatment of actors.

Savannah Stevenson, who plays Mrs. Paroo in the national tour of “The Music Man,” would like to banish those concerns.

“We should completely dispel the notion that because we’re a non-Equity tour, we’re somehow put through the wringer,” Stevenson said during a phone interview from the Airbnb she was sharing with three cast members. It was a few hours before curtain during the final days of the show’s nearly two-week run in downtown L.A., before it departed for the Capitol Theatre in Yakima, Wash.

Touring small towns like Yakima is a big part of why non-Equity shows exist. The tours began popping up in the 1990s after the rise of the Broadway megamusical, to bring shows to places that would otherwise go without. Before its arrival in L.A., “The Music Man” was in Senatobia, Miss., with a population of about 8,500. A major union show like “The Lion King” will never stop in Senatobia, but the people there can enjoy a bit of River City thanks to Stevenson and the rest of “The Music Man” cast.

“The biggest difference in my mind is, frankly, the schedule. As a non-Equity tour, we do significantly more one-nighters or short engagements,” Stevenson said. “But we also all knew that when we signed up for it. And that is what allows us to share this particular piece of musical theater and musical theater history with such a wide swath of the country.”

Many professional actors choose to remain non-Equity for a variety of reasons, Stevenson said. Jobs are more plentiful for non-Equity actors, she noted, especially if you make a living working at regional houses outside of major cities, which often book only a handful of Equity actors per show. Stevenson recently shared a dressing room and top billing with an Equity actor in a Connecticut show — and other than the fact that the Equity actor was paid more, their treatment was the same, she said.

“We worked side by side every single day, had equally large parts, and I don’t think that anyone coming to that show would have said, ‘Oh, well, gosh, the Equity girl was the real standout in that show,’” Stevenson said gamely.

Elizabeth D’Aiuto, left, Addie Jaymes and Savannah Stevenson in the touring production of Meredith Willson’s “The Music Man.”

(Marshall Meadows)

Stevenson spoke in the wake of a review by Times theater critic Charles McNulty, which called “The Music Man” a “community-theater-level production,” and slammed CTG for “damaging its stature as a nonprofit theater leader by offering such an important showcase to this second-tier touring production.”

The public reception for “The Music Man” was quite warmer. The show ranked above “Amélie, A New Musical,” “Latin History for Morons” and “Paranormal Activity” in audience surveys, according to CTG, and late last week it was on track to outsell “Parade,” “Life of Pi” and “Paranormal Activity.” CTG’s Artistic Director Snehal Desai said each year fans ask for a classic musical and this season only two such shows were on tour: “The Sound of Music” and “The Music Man.” The former (an Equity tour) went to the Pantages, which is run by the for-profit Nederlander organization. That left the latter available to CTG.

The uproar resulting from the non-Equity “The Music Man’s” arrival at the Ahmanson ties directly into the ongoing — and at times overheated — conversation about the future of the American nonprofit theater movement that erupted in late July when the Public Theater’s Artistic Director Oskar Eustis announced his intention to step down after 23 years, declaring the movement “over” and “not coming back.” Since then, theater leaders, including Desai, have been casting around for a brand new way of building a sustainable future. In Desai’s case, that meant attempting to stay in the black — a course of action that is not always looked upon kindly.

Equity vs. non-Equity

The decision to book non-Equity shows was less about saving money than it was about the Tetris-like planning required to keep the Ahmanson gainfully booked, Desai said. The cost of hosting an Equity versus a non-Equity show is about the same for CTG. Non-Equity shows get paid a flat-rate guarantee that is less than what Equity shows seek, but that’s just one piece of the pie, Desai said. CTG also must factor in overhead and local labor costs, production and marketing expenses, and more. This year there are 25 touring Equity shows and 24 non-Equity shows (a number that has stayed fairly steady for the last eight years, with the exception of the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when Equity tours shut down completely). More than 20 available Equity shows went to the Pantages — along with at least five non-Equity shows. This left only a few Equity shows for CTG to choose from, and Desai had to make sure those fit into the schedule.

Aliya Grace in the North American tour of “Boop!,” which is coming next year to the Ahmanson Theatre.

(Matthew Murphy)

This season will see three non-Equity shows: “Clue,” “The Music Man” and Boop!,” which is the rare show to go straight from Broadway to a non-Equity tour.

“The three [non-Equity shows] that we programmed were what was available to us,” Desai said, adding that the shows came from producers CTG had worked with before so he was confident that “they’re maintaining a certain quality. That they’re taking care of the companies. That they’re adhering to standards.”

Daniel Sher, the president of Big League Productions, which is producing “The Music Man” tour, said the organization does its best to follow union rules that are “reasonable.” Big League has produced mostly non-Equity touring shows for about 35 years, and Sher noted that the show’s crew is union, so the production adheres to many union rules by proxy. The Ahmanson is a union house, with its own union crew — so those rules also apply. Sher wishes he could provide health insurance for his actors, but that is cost-prohibitive, so he gives a small health stipend instead.

“I think there’s just a lot of non-Equity work now,” Sher said. “So it’s kind of like it’s a natural market force. As long as there remains this kind of vast amount of work, there are actors who will choose to remain non-Equity.”

Broadway hits will almost always start as Equity tours, he said, but once they stop being money-making juggernauts, they often go nonunion by necessity. That’s the case with “The Music Man,” he said, noting that a show of its size and scope would be financially impossible to stage as an Equity tour in the current marketplace. He would love for the union to consider allowing a mix of union and nonunion actors on national tours — like it does for regional theaters: “There’s a world where the producers and Equity could try to find a way, but the economics just have to work.”

Stevenson’s goal is to keep performing. She was an Equity member at the beginning of her career, then took 18 years off to practice law before returning to acting — this time without an Equity card.

“Whether you are a presenter or a producer or an actor or a member of the crew, or an audience member, we are all aligned around the notion of ensuring that the theater industry does not continue to contract in the way that it has, particularly since the pandemic,” she said. “So if we can ensure that we’re keeping a variety of shows alive and reaching more corners of the country, then we have to make room for both Equity and non-Equity tours.”

The 2025 North American tour of “Clue,” which played at the Ahmanson Theatre during a non-Equity tour.

(Evan Zimmerman for MurphyMade)

Even Actors’ Equity has changed its approach to non-Equity shows. In 2001 the union picketed a previous non-Equity tour of “The Music Man” and in 2014 it ran an ad campaign urging theatergoers to “Ask if it’s Equity,” before buying tickets. That campaign, along with more demanding rules around how an actor could join the union, were scrapped in 2023 out of concern for “small ‘e’ equity and justice, and who should have the decision to join the union,” said Actors’ Equity Assn. sopkesperson David Levy.

Prior rules relied on the employer to decide whether an actor was worthy of joining the union, “and we wanted to put that power back in the hands of the actual members themselves,” Levy said. Actors’ Equity currently has an “open access” policy that allows anyone who has worked in any kind of professional theater in the U.S. to join.

“The quality of the talent in these tours is not any less than the quality of talent on any union stage,” Levy said. “What’s at issue is how that talent is treated, how they’re paid, what the workplace safety rules are, what accommodations they’re given as they travel, whether they get appropriate rest time.”

While the union would prefer that every theater show operate under an Equity contract, it’s aware that this may not be financially feasible in all situations, Levy said, noting that nonunion shows might be the only viable option for smaller towns across the country without rich and diverse theater ecosystems.

“We would never want to deprive those audiences of having that transformational opportunity of seeing singers and dancers and actors and musicians do their thing,” Levy said, adding that L.A., unlike less populous cities, doesn’t have a dearth of theater offerings. “Now, in a perfect world, that job would come with both standardized wages and work rules and benefits, as well as the safety guarantees of a union contract.” He paused, “We do not live in a perfect world.”

The future of nonprofit theater

CTG came perilously close to financially bottoming out in 2023 when it closed the Mark Taper Forum for almost a year and a half. This happened just before Desai took over from Michael Ritchie as the third artistic director in CTG’s history, arriving just in time to pick up the pieces following the COVID-19 pandemic. When CTG finally reopened its theater doors after an astonishing 56 weeks, its staff was decimated, tickets sales had plunged and the cost of putting on productions had skyrocketed. CTG’s staffing still remains more than 20% down from its pre-pandemic high, although its subscriptions are on the rise — up 226% over last year.

“We used to talk to donors about how CTG valued union-only productions, even though they are more expensive, because CTG valued more than just the bottom-line,” former CTG board chair Kiki Ramos Gindler wrote on Facebook in response to McNulty’s review. “Unlike the Nederlander Organization, a for-profit theatre business keenly focused on profits. … The mission is to support our community, not to find ways to keep from going out of business. If this is a path to staying in business, it’s a wrong path and maybe time to take a final bow rather than completely throw away core values.” (Nederlander declined a request for comment on the issue.)

In late September the DeVos Institute of Arts and Nonprofit Management, which was founded at the Kennedy Center in 2001 and supports arts groups nationwide, hosted a nearly two-hour Zoom forum called “Is the American Nonprofit Theater Movement Over?” About 17 major theater leaders spoke on the call that had 800 participants, including Eustis and Desai, all seeking to examine what elements of “a historical model for producing and presenting nonprofit theater in America” have ended, and which remain relevant.

Center Theatre Group’s Mark Taper Forum in 2019, four years before it was temporarily closed due to a financial crisis.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

“When I first became an artistic director, there were two words that I had never heard before that became my mantra for years: cash flow. These days, a lot of my conversations seem to be focused on three words: minding the gap,” Desai said. “There are so many gaps confronting our field right now. There is the gap between what a production costs and the revenue it can generate. The gap between the impact of the work we make and the value we assign it. The gap between the origin stories of our institutions and the communities we serve. And perhaps, most importantly, there is the gap between the models we inherited and the world we actually live in.”

For CTG, that means keeping the 2,000-seat Ahmanson Theatre booked with revenue-generating shows in order to afford to continue producing work the company does at the Taper and at Culver City’s Kirk Douglas Theatre. “Phantom of the Opera” ran for 4½ years straight at the Ahmanson from 1989 to 1993, a commercial success that enabled a golden age at CTG under founding Artistic Director Gordon Davidson that included the 1992 premiere of Tony Kushner’s groundbreaking two-part play “Angels in America.”

The Ahmanson needs to be that commercial vehicle again, if CTG is to continue pushing artistic boundaries, Desai said. CTG-produced shows are always Equity, while major touring shows arriving at the Ahmanson sometimes aren’t.

“When a show doesn’t meet its goal, it is a huge swing. It is millions of dollars. And so we have to be super careful about what we’re programming,” Desai said. “And I’m also trying to take care of the audience that I’m building in line with the artistic vision.”

A Northern California judge on Monday permanently barred Shasta County from implementing a voter-approved initiative that sought to dramatically reshape voting in the conservative stronghold.

Measure B, which was passed by 56% of voters in the June primary, sought to require hand-counted ballots, eliminate most mail-in voting and require residents to present government-issued photo identification to cast a ballot on election day.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta and Secretary of State Shirley Weber, the state’s top elections official, sued Shasta County days after the primary, arguing that Measure B violates state election laws. Shasta County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Hanna temporarily blocked the measure in August.

In his final ruling Monday, Hanna wrote that the provisions of Measure B “are wholly contrary to existing state law.”

“The regulation and administration of the electoral process is a matter of statewide concern, and Shasta County’s status as a charter county does not entitle it to enact invalid legislation simply because some in this community do not agree with the existing law,” the ruling continued.

Attorney Alexander Haberbush, who represented a group of Measure B supporters, did not immediately respond to The Times’ request for comment. But Haberbush told local television station KRCR that they are “reviewing every option, including an appeal.”

“Today’s ruling tells the voters of every charter county in California that they have no say over how their own elections are run. This ruling goes far further than any state law requires,” he told the station.

The battle over election integrity took hold in the mostly rural Shasta County in 2023. At the time, the Shasta County Board of Supervisors, fueled by President Trump’s unsubstantiated election fraud claims, stopped using Dominion voting machines and opted to hand-count ballots for the county’s more than 110,000 registered voters. The move quickly prompted a new state law that banned them from doing so.

The fight has continued amid Trump’s calls for the government to “nationalize” state-run elections and restrict voting by mail.

Weber in a statement Monday described Measure B as a “colossal waste of time and taxpayer funds” and an attempt to disenfranchise voters.

“Today’s decision affirms what was a forgone conclusion from the beginning,” she said. “As long as there are those willing to enact reckless, illegal, and poorly drafted laws, on behalf of Californians, we will see them in court.”

Sherman Oaks Notre Dame football coach Evan Yabu pulled off a rare feat — he changed what had been working during the regular season with a new strategy for the playoffs.

All season, Tahj Skinner, the team’s best athlete and starting safety, had been playing quarterback. Notre Dame qualified for the Southern Section Division 2 playoffs and faced Corona del Mar on Friday.

That’s when Yabu made a big change. He put in freshman West Dunton, a junior varsity player, to be the starting quarterback to free up Skinner to play receiver and also focus more on defense. Dunton kept his poise to deliver a 20-19 victory. Skinner caught 10 passes.

Yabu said Dunton had been preparing well on junior varsity and it gave the Knights the opportunity to use Skinner’s other skills.

Next up for the Knights is a Friday showdown against top-seeded Chaparral at home.

Call it bold what Yabu did but it worked, and Skinner can always return to quarterback if needed for his running skills.

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

A deadly train collision in the outskirts of the Egyptian capital Cairo, which killed at least seven people and injured more than 125 others according to the country’s Ministry of Health and Population, has ignited a wave of parliamentary and political demands for accountability. The disaster raises urgent questions about the effect of the millions of dollars the Egyptian state has poured into upgrading the railway network and whether those investments are genuinely improving passenger safety.

A train travelling between Giza and Fayoum on Sunday ran into the back of another train on the Cairo-to-Aswan route, causing the latter to derail onto a countryside road in al-Ayyat district. Following the crash, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi directed authorities to conduct an urgent investigation to “hold accountable anyone found to have been negligent”.

The Egyptian parliament’s Transport and Communications Committee summoned Transport Minister Kamel el-Wazir to an emergency session on Tuesday to investigate. Meanwhile, opposition voices have escalated demands for political accountability, ranging from criticising the minister to demanding the dismissal of the entire government.

Abdel Moneim Imam, a member of Parliament and head of the Justice Party, told Al Jazeera that the situation requires decisive action, and highlighted several previous train disasters in al-Ayyat. A 2002 fire killed more than 370 people, while a train collision in 2009 killed 15 people, and three separate collisions in 2016 killed 14 people in total.

Al-Ayyat is a major corridor for trains travelling between Cairo and southern Egypt, with heavy railway traffic and railway switches in the area.

“The recurrence of train accidents in the al-Ayyat area, despite what the Transport Ministry has repeatedly announced regarding the development of the railway system, reflects the absence of genuine accountability for the officials responsible for those accidents,” Imam stated.

“Taking decisive measures and holding officials accountable for previous accidents would have prevented the recurrence of these scenes,” he added. “The minister of transport enjoys the protection of the parliamentary majority, which prevents the activation of parliamentary accountability … The continued turning of a blind eye to the shortcomings and the recurrence of accidents without genuine accountability leads to the continuation of the crisis.”

Imam, who has described himself as a reformist politician, called for ministers to be questioned in Parliament over the latest accident.

Legislative response

Egypt’s parliamentary transport committee met on Tuesday in the presence of Transport Minister Kamal el-Wazir to discuss the circumstances of Sunday’s train collision, and measures to prevent similar accidents.

However, Ahmed el-Derby, the secretary of the committee, told Al Jazeera before the meeting that its purpose was not to “interrogate [el-Wazir] or confront him with premeditated accusations”.

Asked whether the government bore political responsibility for railway accidents, el-Derby said that ultimate responsibility rested with those overseeing the railway system.

“Officials bear responsibility for mistakes that occur during their tenure, even if they did not personally make those mistakes,” el-Derby said, adding that the accident showed that something had gone wrong and that an investigation was needed to establish who was responsible and hold them accountable.

“We do not support the hasty demands to dismiss officials, and dismissals alone do not represent a solution to the crisis,” he said.

Policy failures

Atef el-Maghawry, head of the Tagammu Party’s parliamentary bloc, said the repeated railways accidents in al-Ayyat pointed to wider government failures, rather than problems confined to the Transport Ministry.

“Despite the ministrys announcements about upgrading the railway network and signalling systems, the recurrence of accidents in al-Ayyat points to a crisis that goes beyond the the Transport Ministry and reflects broader government policies,” he told Al Jazeera.

El-Maghrawy argued that replacing the transport minister would not be enough, and instead called for the dismissal of the entire government over its failures to address a wide range of social issues.

“What is required is a change in policies, not simply a change of personnel,” he said.

“There are achievements that have been realised in the railway sector, and other sectors, but questions remain regarding the cost of these achievements and the results entailed by them,” el-Maghawry explained.

Financial transparency

Parliamentarians are now demanding answers on railway funding. Irene Saeed, head of the Reform and Development Party’s parliamentary bloc, called for a detailed breakdown of how the Transport Ministry spent loans obtained in 2026.

Saeed wants to know what proportion of loans taken out by the ministry during el-Wazir’s tenure went towards safety, signalling and maintenance, and how many accidents in 2025 and 2026 were found to be the railway authority’s responsibility.

The Transport Ministry says approximately $37bn was allocated to transport investments between 2014 and 2024.

Hassan Mahdy, a highway engineering professor at Ain Shams University, warned against drawing conclusions before the investigation is complete. He pointed to upgrades across Egypt’s railway network, including a shift to electronic systems intended to manage train movements and reduce reliance on human intervention.

Mahdy said that investigators had to establish why one of the trains stopped on the main track – highlighting the possibility of a sudden technical failure or someone activating the emergency brake. In addition, investigators would need to verify whether the second train’s signalling system warned its driver of a stationary train on the line before the collision.

El-Derby said that the railway signals had issued a stop instruction, citing information from the signalling director, but it remained unclear whether the driver received the warning early enough to stop.

He also urged caution about directly comparing the collison with the previous deadly incidents in al-Ayyat, saying railway operations and signalling have since been upgraded.

“The results of the investigations will reveal all the circumstances of the accident, whether the cause is linked to the human element or a technical flaw in the system,” Mahdy said.

It has also been used as a staging area for aircraft and material bound for the Middle East.

Air refuelling tankers were “forward deployed” to the region during operations against Iran.

Asked about the US evacuating aircraft from RAF Mildenhall, Education Secretary Lucy Powell told BBC Breakfast she could not comment on ongoing operational matters.

She added that “we take the security and safety of our bases incredibly seriously” and “we will always act on security intelligence when we need to”.

A US Air Force spokesperson said its aircraft “rotate between installations and operating locations for a variety of reasons including training and real world requirements”.

“US military aircraft are hosted in accordance with access, basing, and overflight agreements with our allies and partners. Due to operations security, we will not provide further information on movement of assets,” the spokesperson added.

Former UK national security adviser Lord Ricketts told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “We are talking about an airbase which houses these large tanker aircraft. Of course, they are large targets, an airbase has a long perimeter, so they are inevitably vulnerable.”

He added: “Nobody knows at this stage what this information was. I suspect part of it is an abundance of caution.”

A new study shows that the pressure of organising everything on holiday leaves trip leaders needing another holiday just to recover.

Planning and booking a holiday is supposed to be the ultimate escape, but new research reveals that many of those who organise trips end up worn out by the burden of responsibility.

According to the findings, six in 10 people have arrived home from a break only to feel they need another one. A poll of 2,000 adults found that for 35%, the most draining aspect is having to plan the trip in the first place, while for 30%, it’s taking the lead on arrangements once they’ve actually arrived.

Despite their best efforts to switch off, 32% can’t stop checking whether everyone around them is having a good time. Meanwhile, 30% spend their precious downtime hunting out restaurants, and 25% find themselves putting together the day’s itinerary.

In a bid to escape the constant pressure of being in charge, 22% sneak off for a quiet coffee, 17% retreat to the sanctuary of their hotel room, and 11% resort to pretending to be asleep.

IHG Hotels & Resorts (IHG) commissioned the research and has teamed up with TV presenter Josie Gibson to launch its ‘When the Host Needs Hosting’ campaign.

“I’m that person who’s always making sure everyone’s glass is full and having the best time,” Josie admits. “So, when I’m away, I absolutely love being the one who gets looked after for a change.

“Whether it’s a big holiday, travelling for work or just a little night away, for me it’s about being able to switch off, relax and let someone else take care of things.”

The research revealed 54% of adults regularly take on caring responsibilities for others in day-to-day life, while 57% often find themselves arranging group activities. Meanwhile, 49% typically feel it falls to them to ensure everyone is enjoying themselves.

So much so that 64% of those surveyed by OnePoll.com have come back from a break feeling as though they required another holiday just to recuperate.

Yet despite finding organisational duties exhausting while away, 28% do actually enjoy the role. And 31% believe they are the most suitable person to take control within their friendship circle, family or amongst work colleagues.

Nevertheless, for a trip to genuinely feel like a proper escape, over a third (34%) said it’s being able to simply turn up and enjoy themselves. For 33%, not having to cook or clean helps them properly switch off while 32% value having a comfortable room ready for them when they arrive.

Neetu Mistry, managing director of UK & Ireland at IHG Hotels & Resorts, which is launching ‘When the Host Needs Hosting’ experiences through its One Rewards Access platform, said: “The people who bring everyone together are often the ones who find it hardest to switch off.

“And our research shows that even when they’re away, many are still thinking about everyone else.

“For us, great hospitality is about creating the space for people to step back, relax and feel genuinely looked after.

“We’re celebrating the people who do so much for others and reminding them that sometimes, it’s their turn to be the guest.”

TOP 10 HOLIDAY TASKS BRITS WOULD LOVE TAKEN OFF THEIR HANDS:

1. Cooking
2. Cleaning
3. Resolving problems
4. Managing timings and schedules
5. Coordinating transport
6. Planning the itinerary
7. Organising activities
8. Making reservations
9. Making sure everyone else is happy
10. Deciding where everyone eats

Last week, sports drama series “The Greatest” debuted on Prime Video, detailing the life of Muhammad Ali and how he grew from Cassius Clay, the Olympic champion, to one of the biggest sports and civil rights icons of all time.

The show has gotten high marks from critics and counts Michael B. Jordan and Ali’s widow, Lonnie, as executive producers. But what might not be known is the role another major sports heavyweight played in its inception.

Authentic Brands Group, which owns the likeness of Ali, was inspired by the post-NBA career and platform of Shaquille O’Neal in thinking about how to tell Ali’s story to a new generation. Authentic also owns the likeness of O’Neal, who is a significant owner of the New York-based brand management company, and saw how he leveraged his basketball fame into all manner of endorsements after his retirement, from pitching Epson printers and Carnival Cruise Line to DJing at music festivals. (O’Neal also spoke with Lonnie Ali regularly, and was instrumental in helping to make her feel comfortable with the project and production team.)

“He’s still incredibly popular, and his businesses are doing amazing. It’s really all because of his platform,” Corey Salter, chief executive of entertainment at Authentic Brands Group, told me. “So what we wanted to do with Muhammad Ali, and this was a long time in the making, is what is Muhammad’s platform? How do we make that come to life again?”

Authentic Brands Group has an extensive portfolio, ranging from clothing brands (Quiksilver, Champion and Forever 21, to name a few) and media (Sports Illustrated), to likenessess of celebrities such as O’Neal, Marilyn Monroe, David Beckham and Elvis Presley. (The company recently filed lawsuits with other Presley music rights holders against AI companies Anthropic and Suno, alleging copyright infringement. Salter said the lawsuit is ongoing and that the company will “vigorously defend” its intellectual property.)

In 2023, Authentic Brands Group launched its film, TV, audio and commercial production arm that’s focused on telling stories around the company’s intellectual property.

In many ways, the origin story of “The Greatest” exemplifies how Authentic Studios thinks about its projects and why they’ve embarked on the production business.

Though Ali died in 2016, “The Greatest” will allow him to remain in the cultural zeitgeist, Salter told me.

“We are giving platforms for our living legends and our icons,” Salter said. “It just really brings him back to people that unfortunately didn’t get to see him in his prime and what he accomplished in his lifetime.”

The genesis of the studios segment goes back to the 2022 release of Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis.”

Years earlier, Authentic Brands had licensed the Elvis IP to Warner Bros. and built a good working relationship with the Australian film director Luhrmann. But as the team sat as guests in the mezzanine section during the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the group realized there could be more opportunities in being directly involved in production, rather than just licensing their IP.

“If we make compelling, interesting and great content, the brand should get that lift,” said Colin Smeeton, president of Authentic Studios. “It’s just a way for us to expand the reach and scope of the brands.”

The Authentic Studios banner has four labels: O’Neal’s Jersey Legends Productions, Beckham’s Studio 99, Sports Illustrated Studios and Authentic Productions, which includes all of the other Authentic-owned brands. The studio is based in Beverly Hills and has about 35 employees. The entertainment segment of Authentic Brands Group makes up about 25% to 30% of the company’s overall business, and the studio is profitable, Smeeton said.

Among the projects that O’Neal’s production company has released are a three-part docuseries on the life and career of NBA legend Allen Iverson and a Netflix show called “Power Moves with Shaquille O’Neal,” about his and Iverson’s plans to revitalize the Reebok brand. The company also has produced commercials.

“When a project comes to me, I like to do what’s known in my office as ‘Shaq it up,’” O’Neal told me in an interview. “You’ve got to allow the writers and everybody else to have their creative process, and then I’ll make it Shaq.”

What exactly does Shaqing it up entail?

“A lot of humor has to be involved,” he said. “When you get home and you turn on the TV, I want to make you smile.”

As I’ve written, IP has become the name of the game in Hollywood. With reboots and sequels, the entertainment business is betting that people will flock to familiar stories and names. Just look at the acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery — a major draw for bidders Skydance and Netflix was the company’s extensive portfolio of IP, which includes “Harry Potter,” “The Lord of the Rings” and DC Studios.

Expanding that thinking to brands is a logical next step. After all, the success of 2023’s “Barbie” may be the best recent example of harnessing a brand name with a compelling storyline. And, for a while, that film boosted sales of Mattel’s Barbie dolls.

Authentic Studios wants to expand into digital, build on its YouTube footprint and explore vertical storytelling. The studio is developing projects based on the brand Quiksilver’s origin story and the story of retail brand Guess.

“It’s not about doing more; it’s about making sure that the projects that we do make and do develop actually matter and make them count,” Smeeton said. “If we’re going to spend the time and energy, we want to make sure that it is going to be entertaining for the viewer and the fan, but it ultimately is going to be a good outcome for the brand as well.”

Stuff we wrote

Film shoots

Number of the week

NBC News data analyst Steve Kornacki has become a mainstay of election coverage. And that paid dividends for the network last week, when its “Kornacki Cam” drew a record 29 million views across all platforms, my colleague Stephen Battaglio reported.

Kornacki’s coverage spanned 10½ continuous hours and was woven into NBC’s election night broadcast.

Final figures showed NBC averaged 6.7 million viewers in prime time, followed by ABC (5.2 million), Fox (4.31 million), CNN (4.1 million), MS NOW (3.7 million) and CBS (2.7 million).

What I’m watching

Other than watching UCLA continue its 9-0 season with a win over Minnesota this past weekend, I caught the first episode of “The Greatest,” as part of my reporting for the newsletter. The season starts with Cassius Clay’s gold medal-winning match at the 1960 Rome Olympics. I thought the acting was strong, and the theme of fighting racism and injustice at home was especially compelling.

Did California help Texas turn blue?

One of the biggest stories of this month’s Democratic sweep in the midterms is that a very red Texas elected a Democratic U.S. Senator and governor.

Pundits cite many theories for the surprising results: Anger over the Iran war, high gas prices, Trump fatigue and data centers.

But did California’s high home prices and the state’s historic exodus play a role?

Experts doubt it. In fact, some Californians who moved to Texas are actually concerned about the blue wave.

Many presume that those arriving from California must be much more liberal than the average Texan, said Joshua Blank, research director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

But “a significant share of the Californians transplanting to Texas tend to be moderate to conservative in their views,” he said.

For years, Californians fled to Texas in droves. About 100,000 people made the move in 2022 alone, and many were looking not just for a lower cost of living but also a state that reflected their conservative political outlook.

Nearly half of those Californians who moved to Arizona or Texas during the California exodus in recent years identified as conservative or very conservative, according to a Stanford University study.

The Public Policy Institute of California found that those who leave the state often go to states that share their political beliefs: “Californians leaving for Republican states are much more likely to be Republican than Democratic, compared to Californians as a whole, while those leaving for Democratic states are more likely to be Democratic than Republican,” the PPIC wrote.

In all, hundreds of thousands of conservative Californians have relocated to Texas since the 2020 pandemic emergency, studies suggest.

Marie Bailey, 44, moved from El Segundo to a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb in 2017. She and her husband built a home for $750,000, while a “tiny fixer upper” in El Segundo would’ve cost upward of $1 million.

The couple quickly figured out that they could capitalize on the niche in the real estate market for California migrants to Texas.

For years, Bailey has administered the Facebook group where 45,000 users swap recommendations on how to make the move. She runs a real estate firm that places Californians all over the state.

“Ninety-nine percent of our clientele are people moving from California,” Bailey told The Times in 2023. As for why people make the move, “No. 1 is cost of living and No. 2 is politics.”

Banners for politicians are shown Oct. 27, 2026, in Edinberg, Texas.

(Gabriel V. Cardenas / For The Times)

Texas’ red politics were a big reason she made the move.

Bailey’s husband, who was previously employed by the UCLA medical system, “wouldn’t even talk about his politics because he was afraid of losing his job,” she said.

“Nowhere is perfect,” Bailey said in 2023, “but we fit in a lot better here.”

Now, just three years later, Bailey is confronting a seismic shift in her state.

“I’m actually thinking of moving to Oklahoma because of this,” she said in an interview Thursday. “Or Florida.”

In the Facebook group ‘Move to Texas from California,’ most posts since Tuesday concerned the new state of affairs in the Lone Star State.

“If I have to tolerate blue I might as well have good weather so maybe back to CA? Or give FL a try?” one commenter wrote.

“I am literally closing on a house in Texas next week! I am so pissed,” wrote another.

Blank sees some upsides to the Texas blue wave for those who moved from California.

“They get the benefit of having left what they see as a too-liberal state, and they get a place that is conservative but is unlikely to get much more conservative any time soon,” he said.

Blank thinks many California transplants were primarily motivated by housing costs, with politics being secondary.

“They don’t have to move back,” he said of Californians who moved to the Lone Star state. “And if they do, I’m gonna tell them they’re silly. It’s not a good way to make decisions.”

Welcome back to the Lakers newsletter, where vibes are high.

The Lakers (10-2) are atop the Western Conference and on a six-game winning streak. Luka Doncic and Austin Reaves are trolling road fans in equal measure. Doncic even had some time to dance to “YMCA” during a win in Atlanta.

The Lakers could have had plenty of excuses for a bad performance Monday. They were without Reaves and Quentin Grimes. They were groggy after flying in from Detroit that morning. Instead of falling back on those reasons to lose, they discovered ways to win, uncovering new layers to a team still in its early stages.

“Every game is going to present different challenges, and that’s why every game you learn something new,” Lakers coach JJ Redick said. “And you hopefully grow from whatever you learn. That’s the beauty of this. And after 82 games, hopefully you’re a pretty darn good team.”

But only 12 games in, what kind of team are the Lakers?

Dozen-game progress check

On offense, the Lakers are who we thought they were. They’re as efficient as expected for a team that got its wish-list center to pair with Doncic and Reaves. They’re first in NBA offensive rating (121.5), points per game (121.9) and field-goal percentage (50.5).

The defense is also as most expected. That is, it’s the team’s weak spot. The Lakers entered Monday 21st in defensive rating. The only other team with a winning record outside of the top 13 was Denver (5-4).

“I think we can be way better than 21st,” Doncic said. “I think we have the potential for that.”

Doncic said the Lakers, who inched up to 19th in defensive rating (113.9) after Monday, relax after building big leads, allowing opponents to claw back. They survived comeback attempts from Detroit and Atlanta, but Stephen Curry and the Warriors burned them.

The Lakers’ biggest defensive flaw is rebounding. Despite making a massive sign-and-trade to add center Walker Kessler, the Lakers are 29th in the NBA in rebounding (40.3 per game). Giving up 13.5 offensive rebounds a game, the Lakers allow 18.2 second-chance points a game, the third-worst in the league.

Redick said before the Lakers played the Clippers on Oct. 28 that the team needed Kessler to pick up his rebounding rate, especially defensively. The 7-foot-2 center has responded with six double-doubles in the last seven games.

“A lot of it is about timing, a lot of it is about hitting the guy first, not getting pushed under the rim,” Kessler said of finding his rebounding rhythm. “And I got to do a better job of those balls that I get my hands on, securing the ball.”

Walker Kessler, here tangling with Portland’s Donovan Clingan, has been a standout on defense for the Lakers.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Kessler, who still wears a wrap on his left pinky after missing part of the preseason with a jammed finger, had four turnovers against the Pistons. Even when he got both hands on the ball, it would get stripped.

The Lakers try to mask the rebounding woes by forcing turnovers. They’re second with 18.6 turnovers forced per game and third in steals with 10.8 per game. Matisse Thybulle leads the team with 2.1 steals per game. Doncic cares more about people knowing he’s averaging two steals per game than the fact he was the first player since Wilt Chamberlain to average more than 40 points per game through nine games.

Kessler’s rim presence has allowed the Lakers to dial up their defensive pressure.

“Sometimes he may not block them, but just the shots that he alters allows us to get out and run and get stops,” guard Collin Sexton said. “He’s a big part of our defense and he’s the anchor on the back line. You go down there, you got to deal with Walk.”

Kessler has won many of those battles. Entering Monday, opponents were shooting 45.1% within six feet of the rim against Kessler, the lowest mark in the NBA among players defending at least 50 attempts from that distance, according to the Lakers.

The fourth starter

Ziaire Williams reacts after sinking a three-pointer against Portland last month.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The starting power forward spot was one of the biggest question marks heading into the season. The Lakers have found two strong solutions.

Lineups with Doncic, Reaves, Kessler, Thybulle and Ziaire Williams have a 132.5 offensive rating, the best in the league for any five-man group that’s played more than 50 minutes. The second-best offensive group is the starting lineup with Jake LaRavia in Williams’ place.

But adding LaRavia into the starting group has profound defensive impact: Doncic, Reaves, Kessler, Thybulle and LaRavia have a defensive rating of 93.6 points allowed per 100 possessions, the third-best five-man lineup that has played more than 50 minutes. As a result, the LaRavia group has the best net rating in the league (30.9 compared to 16.8 with Williams).

“He’s a winning player,” Redick said of LaRavia’s sometimes unnoticed contributions. “I mean, it’s simple as that. Puts the team first always, whether he’s starting, coming off the bench — 12 minutes, 20 minutes — you know you’re going to get A-plus effort. Now, having been with us for two years, you know he’s at the point where you’re typically going to get A-plus execution of our schemes and our communication and our rules.”

For a weak rebounding team, LaRavia adds a much-needed jolt on the boards. Averaging 3.5 rebounds and 1.7 offensive boards per game, the Lakers have a 53.2% rebounding rate when he’s with Doncic, Reaves, Kessler and Thybulle compared to 42.1% when Williams is in the group.

Williams, who missed three games with a foot injury and hasn’t returned to the starting lineup since, is trusted to guard on the ball and gives the second unit a scoring punch with his hot-shooting start. The Lancaster native is shooting 45.2% from three while taking the fourth-most three-point attempts on the team.

He was four for eight from three-point range Sunday, but frustrated Pistons fans swore he didn’t miss a shot. He knocked down two early threes to contribute to the Lakers’ 26-point lead in the second quarter then staved off the comeback with another clutch three-pointer after the Pistons cut the lead to one during the fourth quarter. He added an emphatic exclamation mark with a cutting dunk off a Kessler assist with 93 seconds left.

Williams just knows how to pick his spots.

On tap

Wednesday at Bucks (1-9), 5 p.m. PST

Former Miami Heat mainstays Tyler Herro (22.3 points per game) and Jaime Jaquez Jr. (16.4) lead the rebuilding Bucks after the Giannis Antetokounmpo era. While a mismatch on paper, this could still be a difficult game at the end of a tiring three-games-in-four-days trip.

Sunday at Suns (3-6), 1 p.m. PST

The Lakers will enter the game on multiple days of rest for the first time since their season opener. They played their first three weeks without a two-day break. The Suns are without center Mark Williams (shoulder), which could open the floodgates for a big game from Kessler.

Favorite thing I ate this week

The pink room pizza from Unc’s in Detroit.

(Thuc Nhi Nguyen / Los Angeles Times)

In the great pizza debate of thick or thin crust, I go Detroit almost every time. The airy, chewy crust is like biting into a pizza pillow. Since last year’s trip to Detroit, a new pizza place opened downtown, so there was some great pizza right around the corner. Unc’s Pink Room pizza has pepperoni, whipped ricotta, hot honey and banana peppers. Returning readers know I love a sweet and spicy pizza combo.

Asking for a friend: Do you eat Detroit pizza with a fork and knife or with your hands? The gooey cheese pulls create kind of a mess with your hands, but cutting with a fork and knife feels too formal for pizza. (OK, the friend is me.)

In case you missed it

No Austin Reaves, no problem. First-place Lakers beat Hawks for sixth consecutive win

Austin Reaves steps up in Luka Doncic’s absence to lead Lakers over Pistons

Luka Doncic’s historic run jump-starts early MVP conversation

Swanson: Luka Doncic can lead Lakers to a title, but only if his teammates pull their weight

Luka Doncic scores 53 as Lakers avenge loss to Trail Blazers

Lakers assign Bronny James, Cameron Carr to G League team

Lakers win uneven game over Kings behind 40 points from Luka Doncic

Fun, flowing, not yet flawless: Lakers’ league-best offense still has room to improve

Until next time…

As always, pass along your thoughts to me at thucnhi.nguyen@latimes.com, and please consider subscribing if you like our work!

Decision by the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority reportedly related to ⁠US sanctions imposed on Iranian airlines.

Iraq barred a plane carrying Iran’s national football ⁠team from ⁠landing at Basra airport on Tuesday, a decision by the Iraqi Civil Aviation Authority linked to ⁠sanctions by the United States imposed on Iranian airlines, two Basra airport officials told the Reuters news agency.

The plane returned to Iran and landed ⁠at Abadan airport, and the team will now travel by road to Basra, an Iranian consulate official in Basra said.

The Iranian team was travelling to Iraq to participate in a ‌four-nation tournament in Basra also involving Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine.

An Iraqi civil aviation official said Iraq made the decision because it could not risk violating US sanctions on Iranian airlines.

The incident highlights the increasing impact of US sanctions on Iranian aviation operations in Iraq. ⁠

Washington announced sanctions on any global companies doing business with Iranian airlines after September 23, aiming to ground Iran’s entire civil fleet worldwide.

In September, Iraq ordered the suspension of Iranian flights to Baghdad airport after the US threatened secondary sanctions against airports and service providers that handle Iranian carriers.

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent warned that airports servicing Iranian airlines could face sanctions, including exclusion from the US ‌dollar system.

This warning was part of a broader effort to tighten restrictions on Iran’s transport sector and on ‌foreign ‌entities providing services to sanctioned Iranian airlines.

Intensified sanctions are part of a US bid to squeeze Iran economically as President Donald Trump struggles to end the war that the US and Israel launched on the country in February.