Congress should consider a bill to curb sex and obscenity on television even after cable TV companies Monday said they planned to offer packages of family-friendly channels, a member of the Federal Communications Commission said Tuesday.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near the point where we can say we don’t need legislation,” Commissioner Michael J. Copps, a Democrat, said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing in Washington. “Let’s keep pushing.”
Copps’ endorsement of anti-obscenity legislation reflects agency support for Republican FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin’s campaign to shield children from adult fare on television.
On Monday, a group of cable TV providers including the two largest, Comcast Corp. and Time Warner Inc., agreed to offer groupings of family-friendly channels in response to pressure from Martin.
The Senate panel, which is reviewing four bills aimed at limiting indecency on TV and radio, will not vote on any legislation this month, committee Chairman Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) said.
The cable companies “are making very good progress,” Stevens said after the hearing. “We’ll need to give an opportunity for these initiatives to take hold.”
Tuesday’s hearing focused on the reappointment of Copps and the appointment of Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican, to the FCC.
Tate, a Tennessee utility regulator who is backed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), deflected most senators’ questions, saying she wasn’t yet versed on the issues.
Stevens said he expected a committee vote on President Bush’s nominations by Thursday, and a full Senate vote by Dec. 25.
Senate confirmation of Tate, 49, and Copps, 65, would bring the FCC to a 2-2 split between Democrats and Republicans.
Bush hasn’t yet nominated anyone to fill the agency’s fifth seat, which is reserved for a Republican.
Martin on Nov. 29 urged the cable companies to consider a family tier and other options aimed at curbing indecency.
The Senate indecency bills would, among other things, require all cable companies to offer packages of family channels and increase maximum fines on over-the-air broadcasters such as Viacom Inc.’s CBS.
Attention Dylan Hernández! Cannot agree. No time to panic, just yet. Leave Shohei Ohtani alone in his DH status. Dodgers are correct in letting him ease into his pitching until after the All-Star break. We still have plenty of decent arms to carry the load until then.
Aside from the first three quarters of an NBA game, the most meaningless stats in sports are baseball standings from April to July!
Marty Zweben Palos Verdes Estates
The Dodgers continue to find ways to successfully fill holes in pitching, hitting and fielding. The latest arrival, Hyeseong Kim, has demonstrated potential with the bat and in the field. Perhaps, Dave Roberts may want to think about moving him to third base.
Mark Mallinger Malibu
Entering Friday’s game against Arizona, the two players who primarily bat at or near the bottom of the Dodgers’ lineup (and ahead of Shohei Ohtani starting from his second at bat) were hitting .188 and .135. Although not even a quarter of the season has been played, strong consideration should be given by the Dodgers to making changes at the bottom of the lineup, and/or to moving Ohtani to second or third in the order, so that his batting talents can be maximized.
The Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed there will be a technical delegation at the Iran-US talks in Oman on Sunday.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has visited Saudi Arabia and is due to visit Qatar for consultations in the run-up to the fourth round of indirect nuclear talks with the United States, which will take place in Oman on Sunday.
The future direction of Iran’s nuclear programme, its enrichment of uranium, and sanctions relief remain the key issues.
Araqhchi’s Gulf tour on Saturday comes after Tehran confirmed the latest round Friday: “The negotiations are moving forward, and naturally, the further we go, the more consultations and reviews are needed,” Araghchi said in remarks carried by Iranian state media.
Omani Foreign Minister Sayyid Badr Albusaidi said on Friday that, after “coordination with both Iran and the US”, the delayed talks would go ahead in Muscat. The fourth round, initially scheduled for May 3 in Rome, was postponed for what Oman described as “logistical reasons.”
A source familiar with the matter said on Friday that US President Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, plans to attend the meeting in Oman.
Ongoing dispute over nuclear programme
The talks come against the backdrop of a long-running dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions. The meeting is the latest effort to revive diplomacy after years of rising tensions.
Successive US administrations have sought to prevent Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. A sustained effort by world powers during the Barack Obama administration culminated with a 2015 agreement called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
The multilateral agreement created a framework for Iran to receive much-needed relief from international sanctions, in exchange for reducing its uranium enrichment and submitting to inspections of its nuclear facilities.
But when Trump succeeded Obama as US president, he unilaterally withdrew the US from the nuclear agreement in 2018, causing the deal to crumble.
Some Western countries argue that Iran’s programme, accelerated after the US walkout from the 2015 accord, is aimed at developing weapons. Tehran maintains that its nuclear activity is entirely civilian.
Trump himself has acknowledged tensions in his policy on Iran, saying at the start of his second term that hawkish advisors were pushing him to step up pressure reluctantly.
In an interview on Thursday, Trump said he wanted “total verification” that Iran’s contested nuclear work is shut down, but through diplomacy.
“I’d much rather make a deal” than see military action, Trump told the conservative radio talk show host Hugh Hewitt.
“There are only two alternatives – blow ’em up nicely or blow ’em up viciously,” Trump said.
In an interview with Breitbart News on Friday, Witkoff said the US would “take [Iran] at their word” that they do not want nuclear weapons, but set out specific conditions for verifying such a position.
“If that’s how they feel, then their enrichment facilities have to be dismantled. They cannot have centrifuges. They have to downblend all of their fuel that they have there and send it to a faraway place — and they have to convert to a civil programme if they want to run a civil programme,” he said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier raised the possibility of Iran importing enriched uranium for any civilian energy.
Iran’s Gulf outreach
Araqchi’s trips to Saudi Arabia and Qatar on Saturday are part of what he describes as “continuous consultations” with neighbouring states.
He said the visits aimed to address “concerns and mutual interests” regarding the nuclear issue.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei confirmed the presence of a technical delegation in the talks in Oman on Saturday.
In an interview with Mehr News, Baghaei stated that the Iranian delegation is comprised of experts and specialists relevant to the current phase of the negotiations. He did not comment on the US team.
India and Pakistan have reached a ceasefire agreement following a brief period of hostilities over the past few days, United States President Donald Trump announced on Saturday.
Earlier on Saturday, the two neighbours targeted each other’s military sites as Pakistan launched “Operation Bunyan Marsoos” after three of its own airbases were hit by India’s air-to-surface missiles. Both sides claimed to have intercepted most projectiles, but also admitted that some strikes caused damage.
More than 60 people have been reported killed since India launched missiles under “Operation Sindoor” on Wednesday, which it said targeted “terrorist camps” in Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Pakistan has confirmed the killing of 13 people on its side of the Line of Control (LoC), the de facto border between the two countries dividing the disputed Kashmir region.
The strikes had raised fears of a wider conflict between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. While international mediation has resolved disputes between India and Pakistan before, it remains to be seen if this ceasefire will hold and whether people will be able to relax.
What has been agreed upon by India and Pakistan?
“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a full and immediate ceasefire,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
“Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!” Multiple countries are understood to have been involved in these talks.
Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar and Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri confirmed the ceasefire shortly after.
“It was agreed between them that both sides would stop all fighting and military action on land, air and sea with effect from 17:00 Indian Standard Time today [11:30 GMT],” Misri said in a short statement.
“Instructions have been given on both sides to give effect to this understanding. The directors general of military operations will talk again on May 12 at 12:00.”
India and Pakistan have also activated military channels and hotlines following the deal, according to Dar.
Will the two countries engage in further talks now?
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said India and Pakistan had agreed to start talks on a “broad set of issues at a neutral site”.
However, in a statement on social media, India’s Ministry of Information and Broadcasting partially denied this, stating: “There is no decision to hold talks on any other issue at any other place.”
Subir Sinha, director of the South Asian Institute at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera that broader bilateral talks would be a very challenging process as India had previously rejected such a development.
“One of the arguments about this so-called robust policy towards Pakistan that Modi’s government had adopted was that it was no longer possible to sit down and discuss a broad and long-term commitment to resolve issues,” Sinha said.
Therefore, this would mark a reversal of the Indian government’s position and could play out poorly with the right wing in India, whose members have been calling for an attack on Pakistan.
Sinha said both the Indus Waters Treaty, which India suspended its participation of and the Simla Agreement, which Pakistan threatened to pull out of, will need to be fully resumed and “to be looked [at] perhaps as bases for moving forward”.
Were India and Pakistan actually at war?
Officially, no. Despite intense military exchanges, including missile strikes, drone attacks, and artillery shelling, neither government made an official declaration of war.
India and Pakistan instead characterised their military actions as specific coordinated “military operations”.
Pakistan on Saturday launched a retaliatory assault it named “Bunyan Marsoos”, Arabic for “Wall of Lead”, just days after India initiated “Operation Sindoor“, responding to a deadly attack on tourists in Pahalgam on April 22, which it blamed on Pakistan-based armed groups.
However, that is not unusual for these two countries. They have not officially declared war in previous major conflicts, even as thousands of soldiers and civilians died.
Has third-party intervention solved disputes between India and Pakistan before?
Yes. Third-party mediation has resolved disputes since 1947, when the subcontinent split through partition and India and Pakistan fought their first war. After a yearlong war over ownership of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, a United Nations-brokered ceasefire effectively split Kashmir between Indian- and Pakistan-administered regions in 1948.
The 1965 Indo-Pakistani War ended with the Tashkent Declaration in January 1966, following mediation by the erstwhile Soviet Union. The accord saw Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and Pakistani President Ayub Khan agree to pull back to pre-war positions and restore diplomatic and economic ties.
During the 1999 Kargil War, Pakistani troops crossed the LoC and seized Indian positions. Then-US President Bill Clinton convinced Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to withdraw, warning of international isolation.
In 2002, then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed he and his team had mediated the end of a tense stand-off along the LoC following an attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001. The following June, Powell said that through negotiations, he had received assurances from President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan that “infiltration activity” across the LoC would cease and that armed groups would be dismantled on Pakistani territory.
What constitutes a war?
There is no single definition. International humanitarian law, such as the Geneva Conventions, uses the term “international armed conflict” instead of “war”, defining it more broadly as any use of armed forces between states, regardless of whether either side calls it a “war”.
In modern international law, all uses of force are categorised as “armed conflict” regardless of justifications such as self-defence, according to Ahmer Bilal Soofi, an advocate in the Supreme Court of Pakistan who also specialises in international law.
The suspension of a treaty can also signal the start of war, he added. India suspended its participation in the landmark Indus Waters Treaty with Pakistan on April 23, a move Pakistan described as a “hostile act”.
“Political scientists normally say a war only exists after fighting becomes quite intense – normally 1,000 battle deaths,” said Christopher Clary, assistant professor of political science at the University at Albany. “For governments, though, wars exist whenever they say so.”
Experts argue the recent escalation in military actions by India and Pakistan was as much about signalling strength as they were about military objectives, and was also part of a broader effort to manage domestic and international perception.
Sean Bell, a United Kingdom-based military analyst, said much of the current rhetoric from both India and Pakistan is deliberately aimed at domestic audiences. Each side is “trying to make clear to their own populations that there is a robust military response, and that they’re retaliating for any actions”, he told Al Jazeera. But this tit-for-tat dynamic, Bell warned, risks becoming difficult to stop once it starts.
Why are countries reluctant to formally announce a war?
Following the adoption of the UN Charter in 1945, “no country claims ‘war’ or declares ‘war’ as, legally speaking, it is viewed as unlawful use of force”, Soofi told Al Jazeera.
Officially, being in a state of armed conflict triggers international legal obligations, such as following the rules of armed conflict and being accountable for war crimes.
In the latest India-Pakistan standoff, both sides portrayed the other as the aggressor, insisting it should be the one to de-escalate.
The absence of a formal, universally accepted definition of war means countries can engage in sustained military operations without ever officially declaring war. Ambiguity also allows governments to frame military actions in ways that suit their political or diplomatic goals.
For example, Russia has consistently described its 2022 invasion of Ukraine as a “special military operation”, despite large-scale troop deployments, air strikes and territorial occupation. Similarly, the US referred to the Korean War in the 1950s as a “police action” and framed its long-term activities in Afghanistan and Iraq as “counterterrorism operations”. Israel also often uses terms like “military campaign” or “operation” for cross-border offensives, such as “Operation Protective Edge” during its 2014 war in Gaza.
Emmerdale spoilers have teased John Sugden sets his sights on his next prey next week on the ITV soap, amid his killer secrets being under threat according to soap boss Laura Shaw
16:59, 10 May 2025Updated 17:02, 10 May 2025
Emmerdale spoilers have teased John Sugden sets his sights on his next prey next week(Image: ITV)
There’s hints another death could loom on Emmerdale at the hands of killer John Sugden.
Next week he eyes up his next prey, leading to a pursuit in the woods. According to spoilers, John’s feud with his fiancé Aaron Dingle’s best man Mackenzie Boyd takes a dangerous turn.
As Mack tries to sabotage his enemy during the stag do paintballing, a battle commences and John is distracted when he spits Mack sneaking off. The spoilers read that John “heads off in pursuit of his prey”, but will he catch up with Mack and what does he have planned?
Fans have been fearing that Mack will be John’s next victim, with Mack actor Lawrence Robb even telling the Mirror his own fears about his soap fate at the hands of the secret killer.
Lawrence told us that if John was to turn serial killer then Mack would definitely be a goner. Given there’s a storyline coming up for Mack and Aaron, said to be “life-changing”, could this be the moment John takes action, and might next week’s spoilers foreshadow what’s ahead?
There’s hints another death could loom on Emmerdale(Image: ITV)
Soap boss Laura Shaw recently told The Mirror that John’s secrets, including what happened to Aidan Moore and the death of Nate Robinson, were very close to finally coming to light. But will John kill Mackenzie before anyone learns the truth?
Laura teased: “There’s a wedding coming up, and that is Aaron and John. I’ve just signed off those episodes and they are very brilliant and very exciting.
“John is full of trepidation heading into the wedding, worrying about what secrets might get exposed along the way. The wedding plays out across a whole week but as one day. We’ve got stylistic fun in there with some of John’s nightmares.
“We see potential things that might happen. We’ve also got Aidan in a coma and I can tell you he’s absolutely not gonna be in that coma forever.
“So is he gonna wake up? If he does, what secrets can he come back with? Is he gonna walk in and spoil the wedding?” On the Nate body twist she added: “We know Nate’s body is still in that lake and again, I can reveal that Nate is not gonna stay in that lake forever.
Next week he eyes up his next prey, leading to a pursuit in the woods(Image: ITV)
“So when John finds out the lake is being dredged and he knows the body is gonna come up, will he make it to his vows? Is he gonna be arrested?
“It’s all going on and it’s gonna be good, with Nate and Aidan both threatening to ruin the day for John and putting everything with Aaron at risk, what lengths is John gonna be pushed to to avoid that happening?” On the top secret storyline involving Mack and Aaron, she went on: “We’ve got big stuff coming up for Aaron and Mackenzie towards the end of summer into autumn.
“We’ve got a big week of episodes planned for then. It’s gonna be life changing for those two. We’ve still got that flashforward from New Year, we’ve not forgotten about it. Might that happen there? We shall see.
“We are actually in the process of building a new set for that week and I’ve read the first drafts of the scripts and I have to say it’s some of the most exciting and gripping episodes that I’ve read in a long time. I can’t wait to see what happens with that.”
SOUTHAMPTON avoided the joint-lowest Premier League points record.
Ironically, they did so against the four-time defending champions Manchester City in a drab goalless draw at St Mary’s.
1
Southampton scrapped and scraped their way to a point against Manchester CityCredit: PA
Southampton went into the game with the only thing to play for trying to reach 12 points – one more than Derby managed in 2007-08.
At the end of a lifeless first half, Lesley Ugochukwu somehow escaped a second yellow – much to the fury of Manchester City players… and no doubt Arsenal fans, too.
Saints put their bodies on the line throughout the second half.
Omar Marmoush came the closest to breaking the deadlock, hitting the crossbar in the first of seven minutes of injury time.
But Southampton held on to cling on to that precious clean sheet.
THIS IS A DEVELOPING STORY..
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Two years ago, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass laid out an ambitious and expensive goal for her first city budget: restore the size of the Los Angeles Police Department to 9,500 officers.
At the time, the LAPD was struggling with recruitment, and Bass — just four months into her job — openly worried the department would soon fall below 9,000.
Now, the mayor’s hiring goal looks even more out of reach. With the city battered by a budget crisis and homicides falling by double digits, some are wondering: just how low can, or should, LAPD staffing go?
On Thursday, the City Council’s budget committee provided a short-term answer, moving forward with a plan to cut the LAPD by another 300 officers — not through layoffs, but simply by slowing down recruitment. Such a move would leave the department with 8,400 officers by June 2026, down from about 8,700 this year and 10,000 five years ago.
The slowdown, if approved by the City Council later this month, would free up $9.5 million, helping the city save some of the civilian workers at the LAPD whose jobs are among the 1,600 targeted for elimination in the mayor’s proposed budget.
But that wasn’t the end of it. Faced with a nearly $1-billion shortfall and several years of financial turmoil ahead, the five-member committee obtained an analysis from the city’s policy experts showing how much could be saved if the LAPD ramps down hiring even more, and for a longer period of time.
The answer? $385 million over five years, if the LAPD cuts the mayor’s police hiring plan for 2025-26 by 75%. Under that scenario, the department would bring on just 120 recruits per year — far fewer than the number who resign or retire — leaving slightly more than 6,600 police officers by 2030.
Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, an outspoken opponent of police spending who sits on the budget committee, requested the analysis. She was one of three council members who voted against Bass’ budget last year, arguing that too much money went to the LAPD and not enough to departments that provide other critical city services.
The four-page analysis handed Hernandez and her allies, who have long called on the city to shift funds away from police, a road map for driving down police spending over the long term.
Hernandez, in an interview, called the committee’s decision to cut police hiring in half over the coming year — taking Bass’ proposal for 480 recruits down to 240 — a good start. She sounded intrigued by the numbers laid out in the analysis, saying it “lays out a very clear pathway” for future budget deliberations.
“This budget crisis is not going to be solved in one budget cycle,” said Hernandez, who represents part of the Eastside. “So I’m hoping we take this into consideration as we try to move this city out of this crisis.”
Others were more critical of the committee’s deliberations.
Sylvia Robledo, a former City Council aide who plans to run against Hernandez next year, warned that scaling back police hiring would increase attrition, result in officer burnout and force the LAPD to spend even more on overtime.
Real estate developer Rick Caruso, now mulling a second run for mayor, also blasted the committee’s approach, calling it “just more of the mismanagement we’ve come to expect from this City Hall.”
“Whether it’s a disastrous budget that will cut services while raising costs on working families, a downgraded bond rating, or fewer cops, Los Angeles is on the wrong track, and this budget will only make it worse,” Caruso, who called in 2022 for the LAPD to have 11,000 officers, said in a statement.
Bass spokesperson Clara Karger said in an email that her boss “has not abandoned her goal to grow the Los Angeles Police Department.” Karger argued that progress is still being made, with the LAPD receiving a record number of applicants and a larger number of officers staying in their jobs.
“Now, with new leadership in the Personnel Department and LAPD, we will eliminate barriers preventing applicants from becoming officers,” she said.
Karger would not say whether Bass would veto a budget that cuts the number of LAPD recruits in half, noting that the council is still “in the middle of the process” of reviewing the spending plan for 2025-26.
In recent years, a majority of council members have been willing to give Bass the money she needs to preserve sworn hiring at the LAPD, even as its ranks continued to shrink. But that equation changed once Bass proposed layoffs for more than 400 civilians working at the Police Department.
Budget committee members coalesced around the idea of slowing down police hiring on the condition that it save the jobs of some of the 133 specialists who carry out critical tasks at the LAPD, such as handling DNA rape kits or conducting fingerprinting analysis.
The committee didn’t bite on another Hernandez idea: halting the acquisition of new police helicopters. Hernandez, who pushed unsuccessfully for that idea last year, will almost certainly raise it again in coming weeks.
“I’m going to keep doing my best to try to move forward with fiscally responsible suggestions and decisions,” she said.
State of play
— CUTTING BACK: The council’s budget committee didn’t just go after police hiring. During its marathon 11-hour meeting on Thursday, the panel also took steps to zap Bass’ proposal for creating a new 67-person homelessness unit within the Los Angeles Fire Department and endorsed a reduction of up to $10 million for Inside Safe, the mayor’s initiative to move homeless Angelenos into interim and permanent housing. The committee is set to finalize its recommendations next week.
— OPEN FOR BUSINESS: Bass went to the 10th Select LA investment summit this week to offer foreign investors a clear message: L.A. remains very much open for business. “At a time of global uncertainty, Los Angeles stands out as a reliable, stable partner for international business and trade,” she said during her welcome remarks, while also releasing her office’s investors guide to L.A.
— WAGE WORRIES: Meanwhile, a coalition of business groups has been pleading with city leaders to delay passage of an ordinance requiring hotel owners and businesses at Los Angeles International Airport to pay a $30 per hour minimum wage, plus $8.35 per hour for healthcare. Those groups say the proposal will deal a potentially fatal blow to L.A.’s tourism industry. “L.A. has destroyed housing production. Now they’re coming for tourism,” said Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.
— SO LONG, NATE: Former L.A. City Councilmember Nate Holden, who served in the state Legislature and later spent 16 years on the council, died this week at 95. “He was a lion in the State Senate and a force to be reckoned with on the Los Angeles City Council,” said L.A. County Supervisor Janice Hahn.
— SOIL SAMPLES: New soil testing by the L.A. County Department of Public Health has found high levels of lead and other toxic metals at homes destroyed by January’s catastrophic wildfires and cleared by federal cleanup crews.
— MORE FIRE FALLOUT? Bass joined L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, Annenberg Foundation Executive Director Cinny Kennard and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel for a wildfire recovery panel moderated by Fox 11’s Elex Michaelson at the Milken Institute Global Conference.
The mayor was bullish on the city’s recovery and defended the performance of DWP head Janisse Quiñones. But she also hinted that more city officials might lose their jobs over the fires.
“I think that there are a number of people that should be held accountable, and we’re in the process of doing that,” she said, without providing specifics. Bass ousted her previous fire chief, Kristin Crowley, in February.
— JEERING FROM THE SIDELINES: One figure was notably absent from the Milken stage: Caruso, the former mayoral candidate and frequent Bass antagonist. Caruso, who recently published an op-ed criticizing the mayor’s leadership, was slated to participate in the recovery panel but dropped out after Bass joined the lineup.
“I’m not going to be part of a campaign stop,” he told a reporter shortly after the panel, while holding court in the bustling Beverly Hilton lobby bar. Caruso has been flirting with the idea of another mayoral run but said he won’t “focus on a decision until the end of summer.”
— SHOW YOUR RECEIPTS: Three top officers of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 were suspended from their posts Monday after an investigation by the union’s parent organization found $800,000 in credit card purchases that were not properly documented. The International Assn. of Fire Fighters, which oversees UFLAC, suspended President Freddy Escobar and the others over financial improprieties, including “serious problems” with missing receipts. Escobar, who is now locked out of UFLAC’s office, said Friday that he has paperwork that would clear his name.
— BAD FOR BARNSDALL: Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House, located in East Hollywood’s Barnsdall Art Park, could close to the public if the mayor’s budget is approved. The reductions also threaten the site’s designation as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
— HIRING A CHIEF: The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced the hiring of a new police chief: Bill Scott, an LAPD veteran who most recently was chief of the San Francisco Police Department. Scott will be responsible for building Metro’s new police force, a concept approved by the board last year.
— D IS FOR DORMANT: Speaking of transportation, the Metro D line, also known as the Purple Line, will soon be closed for 70 days as construction continues on a $3.7-billion extension of the subway west to La Cienega Boulevard. The extension is scheduled to open by the end of 2025.
— TRANSITIONS: Former Board of Public Works president Vahid Khorsand has moved across the 3rd floor to the mayor’s office, taking a new job last week as deputy mayor of community engagement. Steve Kang, a former member of the Central Area Planning Commission, is taking over as public works president. Khorsand, a super fan of The Killers, managed to work in lyrics from the band into his all-staff goodbye email and his final board remarks.
QUICK HITS
Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature homelessness program went to two parts of Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky’s Westside district: Wilshire Boulevard at San Diego Way and Robertson Boulevard at Burton Way. Inside Safe workers also went to Warner Center in Councilmember Bob Blumenfield’s west San Fernando Valley district and made return visits to Chinatown and South L.A., per the mayor’s team.
On the docket for next week: The City Council is scheduled to vote Wednesday on the plan for hiking the minimum wage of hotel workers and employees of private companies doing business at Los Angeles International Airport.
Stay in touch
That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.
Hull KR have gone 40 years without a major trophy and lifted their only Challenge Cup even further back, in 1980.
But hopes are sky high in Humberside, with Rovers sitting top of Super League and now in their ninth Challenge Cup final after an emphatic second-half display.
KR showed first as both sides ignored the unusually high spring temperatures and went full-tilt in a breathless first half.
Batchelor chased down Lewis’ kick through to score after Guillermo Aispuro-Bichet failed to punch the ball out of the in-goal area, and then added a hotly-debated second try after a lengthy video review.
Matthieu Laguerre appeared to ground the ball at the same time as the second-rower, but video referee Ben Thaler could not overrule Chris Kendall’s on-field decision to award the try.
Dragons offered little in attack in the opening 15 minutes but then exploded into life, as Smith cut back inside to split open the Rovers defence and cross near the posts.
And when Keary chased down a chip ahead soon after, Thaler did this time overrule Kendall – who had called offside – as the Dragons pinched the lead.
Catalans went close to extending that lead moments later, but Julian Bousquet’s rash flicked offload just metres from the line instead found a Rovers hand.
But the match turned again before half-time as Jai Whitbread’s brilliant offload in the tackle sent Lewis flying over to restore the Hull KR advantage.
Lewis booted a penalty as Rovers piled on the pressure after the restart and then cracked the French side when Broadbent spotted a gap and launched a scorching diagonal run through to the posts.
Jez Litten’s thrilling run from his own half sparked a breathless move which fell just short, but KR killed the game with 10 minutes left as Catalans visibly wilted.
Kelepi Tanginoa was sent clear by Lewis’ cut-out pass and fed Burgess, whose pass inside gave Broadbent a clear run to the line. Burgess then ran in at the left corner for try number six.
Kashmiris injured in cross-border fights between India and Pakistan are evacuated from Neelum valley in Pakistani-administered Kashmir on Saturday. Photo by EPA-EFA
May 10 (UPI) — India and Pakistan on Saturday agreed to an “immediate cease-fire,” the neighboring Asian nations and U.S. President Donald Trump announced.
The Asian nations, both of which are nuclear powers, paused fighting at 5:00 p.m. local time after weeks of increasing skirmishes that have included airstrikes from both sides, including early on Saturday.
Once fighting stopped, Pakistan fully reopened its airspace for all flights across the country after being closed for several hours, CNN reported.
“After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE,” Trump posted on Truth Social before 8:00 a.m. EST. “Congratulations to both Countries on using Common Sense and Great Intelligence. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”
The nations’ leaders also confirmed the cease-fire.
“Pakistan has always strived for peace and security in the region, without compromising on its sovereignty and territorial integrity!” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar wrote on X.
Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar, also posted on X, saying that “India and Pakistan have today worked out an understanding on stoppage of firing and military action. India has consistently maintained a firm and uncompromising stance against terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. It will continue to do so.”
Both sides agreed to talk again Monday.
Britain also played a key role in the talks, the BBC reported. Also involved were Saudi Arabia and Turkey, CNN reported.
“I urge both parties to sustain this. De-escalation is in everybody’s interest,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy in a post on X.
A Pakistani government source told CNN that the United States played a crucial role in the talks, which occurred during the last 48 hours and included U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vice President JD Vance.
In a statement, Rubio said the nations have agreed “to start talks on a broad set of issues at a neutral site.”
“We commend Prime Ministers Modi and Sharif on their wisdom, prudence and statesmanship in choosing the path of peace,” Rubio added.
On April 22, tourists were massacred in Indian-controlled Kashmir. At least 25 Indian citizens and one Nepali national died in an area only accessible by foot or on horseback
India blamed Pakistan, launched “Operation Sindoor” and targeting nine locations within Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Islamabad has denied involvement in the massacre.
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif said that retaliatory strikes Saturday against India specifically targeted military infrastructure in New Delhi that he said was used to launch earlier attacks in “a powerful and well-coordinated response,” according to CNN.
Eleven people were killed, including a child, and 56 others injured by India along the Line of Control, Pakistan said.
“Last night, intense shelling from the Indian side took place at more than five different locations along the Line of Control,” Pir Mazhar Saeed Shah said.
Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan each control parts of Kashmir, fighting wars over the territory in 1965, 1971 and 1999.
In Pakistan-administered Kashmir, Indian shelling has damaged 235 homes, including 29 completely destroyed, Pakistan’s Shah said.
A shopkeeper in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, earlier told a BBC reporter that they are “not really worried about my safety, but I don’t know how this can end. War is bad for people in both countries, no matter their religion.”
China, which borders the two nations, also weighed in on the fighting.
“China is closely following the current situation between India and Pakistan and is deeply concerned about the escalation,” a spokesperson for China’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
“We strongly urge both sides to prioritize the broader interest of peace and stability, remain calm and restrained, and return to the path of political resolution through peaceful means,” the statement said
The International Monetary Fund announced that it will give an approximately $1 billion loan to Pakistan for relief, which is part of a $7 billion bailout Pakistan secured from the IMF in September 2024.
The paramilitary force has been blamed for attacks on a prison in el-Obeid and a displacement camp in Darfur.
At least 33 people have been killed in Sudan in attacks suspected to have been carried out by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) as the brutal two-year war claims its latest victims.
An RSF strike on a prison on Saturday in el-Obeid killed at least 19 people, while on Friday evening, at least 14 members of the same family were killed in an air attack in Darfur, local sources said.
The attacks – part of the RSF’s ongoing war with the military-led government’s Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) since 2023 – came after six straight days of the paramilitary group’s drone attacks on the army-led government’s wartime capital of Port Sudan.
These attacks damaged key infrastructure, including a power grid and the country’s last operational civilian airport, which was a key gateway for aid into the war-ravaged nation.
The war has left tens of thousands dead, displaced 13 million people and triggered what the United Nations calls the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The attack on the prison on Saturday also wounded 45 people, a medical source told the AFP news agency. The source said the jail in the army-controlled city in the North Kordofan state capital was hit by an RSF drone.
The night before, 14 people were killed at the Abu Shouk displacement camp near el-Fasher in Darfur, a rescue group said, blaming the paramilitary.
The camp “was the target of intense bombardment by the Rapid Support Forces on Friday evening”, said the group of volunteer aid workers.
The camp near el-Fasher, the last state capital in Darfur still out of the RSF’s control, is plagued by famine, according to the UN.
It is home to tens of thousands of people who fled the violence of successive conflicts in Darfur and the conflict that has been ripping Africa’s third-largest country asunder since 2023.
The RSF has shelled the camp several times in recent weeks.
Abu Shouk is located near the Zamzam camp, which the RSF seized in April after a devastating offensive that virtually emptied it.
RSF escalation
Elsewhere on Saturday, SAF warplanes struck RSF positions in the Darfur cities of Nyala and el-Geneina, destroying arms depots and military equipment, a military source told AFP.
The RSF has recently said it had taken the strategic town of al-Nahud in West Kordofan, a key army supply line to Darfur.
The RSF’s escalation in Port Sudan earlier this month came after the military struck the Nyala airport in South Darfur, where the RSF receives foreign military assistance, including drones. Local media stated that dozens of RSF officers were killed in the attack.
The war began as a power struggle between SAF chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo. It has effectively divided the country into two, with the army controlling the north, east and centre, while the RSF and its allies dominate nearly all of Darfur in the west and parts of the south.
Both sides have been accused of committing war crimes.
SHOPPERS have been left gutted after discovering a major supermarket has axed popular crisps.
Aldi has discontinued its Snackrite Mighty Crisps, just weeks after they were first introduced.
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At the time of their launch back in January, shoppers posted rave reviewsCredit: Facebook
The Marmite-flavoured crisps, which first hit shelves back in January, quickly became a hit with shoppers, priced at just 89p for a pack of six.
However, one fan of the savoury snack recently noticed their absence from stores.
Curious about the situation, they reached out to Aldi on X (formerly Twitter) to find out what had happened, only to be disappointed by the response that the crisps had been discontinued.
The shopper wrote on X: “What’s happened to those new Mighty Crisps you brought in?
“They’re so good and were selling out so why have more not been brought in?”
Aldi replied: “They were part of our seasonal range and will only be available at certain times of the year until sold out.
“Sorry for any disappointment caused.”
Frustrated by the reply, the shopper hit back, saying: “They were literally only in for a few weeks…
“No idea why they would be seasonal?
“They’re the best flavour you’ve brought in and should be available all year round…
“You do make some strange decisions sometimes.”
People are just realising there’s a ‘life changing’ way to seal an open food packet without a clip
Marmite enthusiasts can opt for these crisps as an alternative to both Walkers and Aldi’s Mighty Crunch varieties, available at Tesco for as little as £2.20.
Top discontinued products
Here are our top discontinued snacks – including picks from our team…
Fabulous Bakin’ Boys Cupcakes
Consumer reporter Emily Mee says: “It was always a good day when I spotted these in my lunch box at school. Putting a layer of chocolate on top of a vanilla cupcake is a simple idea but a genius one. I would pay good money to try these again…”
Ready Salted Chipsticks
Head of Consumer Tara Evans says: “Ready Salted Chipsticks. Why did they get rid of this classic flavour? Some people think ready salted is boring – but why mess with a classic? I often feel taunted when I see the salt and vinegar version in shops.”
Coco Pops Rocks
Consumer news editor Ellie Smitherman says: “No idea whose bright idea it was to get rid of these, but it was possibly one of the worst moves in cereal history. Coco Pops Straws, too! If I had known the last time I’d have one would be the last time, I’d have savoured it far more.”
Tooti Frooties
Senior consumer reporter James Flanders says: “Tooty Frooties were a chewy blast of childhood joy. Scrapped after 50 years, they were Britain’s alternative to Skittles – and in an age obsessed with nostalgia, bringing them back just makes sense. Lots of dupes can be picked up at budget supermarkets but they just don’t taste the same.”
White Maltesers
While the milk chocolate version is still going strong, White Chocolate Maltesers were pulled from shelves in 2014. Mars said it was a “difficult decision” at the time, and fans still post comments on its social media pages calling for it to come back.
Heinz Toast Toppers
Out of all the discontinued products, this is one of the ones we see the most calls for to come back. The creamy cans came in a variety of flavours like chicken and mushroom or cheese and ham. They were binned in 2015 after delighting shoppers for decades.
Cadbury Spira
Another of the regular calls we see is for the Cadbury Spira to return. The chocolate featured twin bars in each pack which were formed into a spiral shape, with six hollow tubes running through each one.
New pontiff sets out vision, pledging to continue ‘precious legacy of predecessor Pope Francis.
Pope Leo XIV has held his first meeting with the world’s cardinals since his election as the head of the Catholic Church, identifying artificial intelligence (AI) as one of the most crucial issues facing humanity.
Leo, the first American pope, laid out a vision of his papacy at the Vatican on Saturday, telling the cardinals who elected him that AI poses challenges to defending “human dignity, justice and labour” – a view shared with his predecessor, the late Pope Francis.
Explaining his choice of name, the pontiff said he identified with the late Leo XIII, who had defended workers’ rights during his 1878-1903 papacy at the dawn of the industrial age, adding that “social teaching” was now needed in response to the modern-day revolution brought by AI.
The late Pope Francis, who died last month, warned that AI risked turning human relations into mere algorithms and called for an international treaty to regulate it.
Francis warned the Group of Seven industrialised nations last year that AI must remain human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools would not fall to machines.
In his speech, delivered in Italian, Pope Leo made repeated references to Francis and the mourning over his death, saying the late pontiff left a “precious legacy” and signalling that he would continue with his vision.
China controversy
Francis was pope for 12 years and often garnered criticism from conservative cardinals, who said he was watering down the Church’s doctrine on issues such as the inclusion of LGBTQ Catholics and women’s leadership.
Leo, the former US Cardinal Robert Prevost, was a relative unknown on the global stage, before he was elected pontiff, who spent most of his career as a missionary in Peru before serving as a senior Vatican official.
Saturday’s meeting took place in the same small Vatican auditorium where the cardinals had been gathering in the days before the conclave to discuss who should be the next pope.
Czech Cardinal Dominik Duka was cited by the Reuters news agency as saying the situation of Catholics in communist China had been raised as an issue.
The Vatican and China in 2018 signed a controversial deal on the appointment of bishops in the country, which gives Beijing some input into their selection.
Conservatives have attacked the still-secret deal as a sellout, but Duka told Reuters it was necessary to keep dialogue open in places where the Church is oppressed.
On a scorching Friday afternoon at L.A. Valley College, Loyola and Harvard-Westlake High tennis players gathered for a moment of silence wearing T-shirts that read “Live Like Braun,” in honor of Loyola captain Braun Levi, who was killed last weekend in Manhattan Beach while walking on a street.
Loyola and Harvard-Westlake tennis players and coach Brian Held honor the memory of Braun Levi, killed last weekend in a tragic accident, before playoff match on Friday. pic.twitter.com/Ggc7yMmDRF
Loyola players decided after much reflection and mourning to play Friday’s Southern Section Open Division playoff match against Harvard-Westlake.
“We want to play for Braun,” coach Brian Held said.
A moment of silence was held. Levi’s mother, Jennifer, was there receiving hugs and support.
All week at Loyola, students have been supporting each other trying to heal. A celebration of Levi’s life will be held at 6 p.m. Saturday at Loyola.
In an email, Sylvia Almanzan, the grandmother of a Loyola student, wrote, “The Loyola faculty has been amazing during this time of providing counselors and support not only to the students but families as well. I just wanted to state how this remarkable young man touched so many lives especially my grandson’s in such a positive way.”
Levi’s doubles partner, Cooper Schwartz, was originally not going to play on Friday as a way to not tarnish his memory winning the Mission League title with Levi. He changed his mind and played with a new partner. They won their matches 7-5, 7-6 and 6-4 and on match points, Schwartz used Levi’s racket.
Harvard-Westlake won the match 14-4 to advance.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email [email protected].
US is looking to fast-track investments by UAE, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, Bloomberg News said.
United States President Donald Trump’s administration has reportedly discussed the possibility of expediting investments by the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Qatar before his trip to the region next week.
The early-stage talks were reported first by Bloomberg News. Any such development would require the US government to reform the Committee for Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS), an interagency organisation led by the US Department of the Treasury, and which also includes representatives from the Departments of Commerce, Defense, Homeland Security and State that review foreign real-estate investments to evaluate if any prose a national security risk.
While it is not clear what a reform would entail, the goal would be to fast-track investments from these countries, with whom Trump had fostered a close working relationship during his first term, and bring in billions of dollars into the US economy.
The president might announce more information about the status of the changes and what it entails during his visit, which begins May 13.
Investment surge
Five of the top 10 most active wealth funds come from these three countries. Three of those five funds are in the UAE. In March, UAE National Security Adviser Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed met the president and later committed $1.4 trillion in investments to the US over a 10-year period.
The commitment includes investments in sectors such as artificial intelligence, energy, and aluminium manufacturing, including the first new aluminium smelter in the US in 35 years. It also includes a $1.2bn mining partnership with Abu Dhabi-based ADQ, a sovereign wealth fund, and the New York City-based investment firm Orion Resource Partners to mine for “critical minerals” in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The largest segment of the proposed investment is in artificial intelligence. An Abu Dhabi-based investment fund called MGX has promised to invest $100bn in a data centre and energy infrastructure to support AI development in the United States.
In January, in less than a week of Trump taking office, Saudi Arabia pledged to spend $600bn in the US over the next four years. Trump later said at the World Economic Forum in Davos in Switzerland, that he pushed the country to invest $1 trillion in the economy. Trump and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman have a close relationship, which the two developed during Trump’s first term in office.
Qatar already had a strong investment relationship with the US. In 2015, the Qatar Investment Authority pledged a $35bn investment and opened offices in New York and Washington to facilitate the investments. QIA later committed $45bn in 2019.
Some of QIA’s most notable investments include $200m in EatJust, an alternative meat and egg brand, and major real-estate investments in New York City, including a 10 percent stake in the Empire State Building.
Conflict of interest concerns
Despite no direct involvement of the Trump Organization — the private company housing the Trump family-owned brands, including Trump Hotels and Golf Resorts – Trump’s upcoming trip and the proposed fast-tracking of investments have raised concerns of conflict of interest.
A month after winning the US election, the Trump Organization announced it had leased its brand to two new real estate projects in Saudi Arabia.
The president’s company also has projects and developments in all three of the countries he is set to visit, and that might receive fast-track status for investments.
“This trip, where Trump will meet with foreign officials who have the ability to make decisions affecting his company and business partners, poses enormous conflicts of interest for Trump, whose company is engaged in significantly more foreign business than during his first term”, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington wrote in a note published on Thursday.
On April 30, the Trump Organization, whose real-estate development arm is led by his son Eric, announced a new luxury golf resort in Qatar. Unlike in the first Trump administration, the Trump Organization said in advance of Trump’s inauguration in January that it would not shy away from foreign property investments.
Analysts have low expectations of a breakthrough, but host Switzerland hopes ‘roadmap’ will emerge.
China’s trade envoy He Lifeng has met United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent in Switzerland for talks aimed at easing a trade war between the superpowers that is roiling global markets.
The first official engagement, since the US slapped a 145 percent tariff on Chinese goods, prompting a retaliatory 125 percent duty from China, began on Saturday at an undisclosed location in Geneva, Switzerland, according to the Chinese state news agency Xinhua.
A motorcade of black cars and vans was seen leaving the home of the Swiss ambassador to the United Nations in the suburb of Cologny, The Associated Press news agency reported.
A diplomatic source, speaking to AP on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the meeting, said the sides met for about two hours before departing for a previously arranged luncheon.
The trade dispute, which effectively amounts to a mutual boycott of products, was prompted by US President Donald Trump last month when he announced sweeping duties on almost every country in the world, which are now subject to a 90-day reprieve while negotiations take place.
Experts believe China may be looking for the same 90-day waiver as well as a reduction of the 145 percent tariff – Trump suggested that it could be reduced to 80 percent, saying in a Truth Social post on Friday that the amount “seems right”.
Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said on Friday that the US would not lower tariffs unilaterally, adding that China would need to make concessions as well.
Bessent has said the meetings in Switzerland would focus on “de-escalation”.
“The best scenario is for the two sides to agree to de-escalate on the … tariffs at the same time,” said Sun Yun, director of the China programme at the Washington, DC-based Stimson Center, adding even a small reduction would send a positive signal.
“It cannot just be words,” she said.
Distrust running high
Trump has justified the punitive tariff by citing unfair trade practices and accusing Beijing of failing to curb the export of chemicals used to produce fentanyl, a lethal synthetic opioid.
China, for its part, says it will not bow to “imperialists” and bullies.
With distrust running high, both sides have been keen not to appear weak, and economic analysts have low expectations of a breakthrough.
Trump has suggested the discussions were initiated by China. Beijing said the US requested the discussions and that China’s policy of opposing US tariffs had not changed.
Swiss Economy Minister Guy Parmelin met both parties in Geneva on Friday and said the fact that the talks were taking place was already a success.
“If a roadmap can emerge and they decide to continue discussions, that will lower the tensions,” he told reporters on Friday, saying talks could continue into Sunday or even Monday.
Here’s Looking at You’s Lien Ta talks about the death of chef Jonathan Whitener, chef Jonathan Gil talks about running a restaurant with Stage IV cancer, and the chef trying to get as many Angelenos as possible to try Sri Lankan food. Also, our nominees for the James Beard Media Awards. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.
‘Too pretty to be a chef’?
“Top Chef” host Kristen Kish.
(Stephanie Diani / Bravo)
Nearly every female chef I’ve met hates to talk about being a female chef. Just, chef, please.
It’s a stance that Dominique Crenn asserted when she won the World’s 50 Best Restaurants’ award for “world’s best female chef” in 2016. “She famously called it ‘stupid,’” Heather Plattwrote last year in this paper of Crenn’s feelings about her award. “‘A chef is a chef.’”
Even with the stories of yelling, groping and much worse behavior emerging since the #MeToo reckoning, the knowledge that the stresses of the industry also take a toll on men has conditioned some of us to believe that while women may not have an easy time in the business, they can still advance in the industry if they are tough enough.
Here in Los Angeles, after all, it’s not hard to name female chefs who lead their own restaurants, including Socalo‘s Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken, n/naka‘s Niki Nakayama and Carole Iida-Nakayama, A.O.C.‘s Suzanne Goin, Mozza‘s Nancy Silverton, Playa Provision‘s Brooke Williamson, Jar‘s Suzanne Tract, Kismet‘s Sara Kramer and Sarah Hymanson, Highly Likely‘s Kat Turner and many, many more than the handful of veterans who were making their way to the top during the 1970s, ‘80s and ‘90s.
Indeed, some of the war stories we’ve frequently heard about women in restaurant kitchens have a quaint quality. In 1983, Ruth Reichlwrote a feature story for California magazine that began with the story of Milliken’s first attempt (ultimately successful) to work at Chicago’s Le Perroquet. “Jovan Trboyevic, the owner, said he would never hire a pretty girl like me — it would cause chaos in the kitchen,” Milliken told Reichl. “He offered me a job as a hat check girl instead.”
By the time current “Top Chef” host Kristen Kish was establishing herself in Chicago and Boston restaurants, “hat check girl” was a job associated with black-and-white movies, not actual restaurant work.
So I took notice when Kish, in her new memoir “Accidentally On Purpose,” devoted the better part of a chapter to the disrespect she received in a male-dominated kitchen after she won Season 10 of “Top Chef” in 2013. It was so bad that less than a year after attaining what she’d thought of as her dream job — chef de cuisine at a fine-dining destination restaurant, Boston’s now-closed Menton — she quit.
We’re talking about a chef who proved to be the epitome of calm and unflappability in the midst of reality TV drama during her season as a “Top Chef” contestant and the ultimate team player when she declined to blame a fellow contestant for the dish that led to Kish being eliminated from the competition. (Kish worked her way back into the game she ultimately won thanks to her cooking on “Last Chance Kitchen.”) She’s also rappelled down a waterfall to harvest watercress in Panama for the National Geographic series “Restaurants at the End of the World.”
The irony is that Menton, Boston’s first Relais & Châteaux restaurant, was a woman-owned restaurant. It was one of several businesses overseen by the hospitality company founded by Barbara Lynch, who was forced to close all of her restaurants last year because of a number of factors, including the fallout from a 2023 investigation of workplace abuse by New York Times reporter Julia Moskin.
In her book, Kish does not question any of the accounts of employees who shared their stories with Moskin and others in the press about their boss (the incidents detailed appear to have happened after Kish left the company in 2014). Still, she views Lynch as a supportive mentor who gave her credit for dishes she created and was the one to suggest her as a contestant to “Top Chef’s” producers. Instead, Kish blames her issues in Menton’s kitchen on the ungenerous attitudes of her male colleagues (while emphasizing that she has “worked with many wonderful men over the years”) and on a corporate decision to give her the top job at Menton without the power to make menu changes and subjecting her to a “training period.”
“Barbara, along with the company’s director of operations and its wine director — both of whom were women — were pulling for me to have the job” after “Top Chef,” she wrote in the book. “But there were also two men in the upper echelon of the organization who were not in agreement and didn’t buy that I was ready for it.”
The experience was the opposite of what Kish had experienced at another of Lynch’s restaurants, the 10-seat Stir, where the menu changed nightly with the seasons and the chefs cooked as they talked and joked with customers across the counter — great training for her “Top Chef” run.
Yet at Menton, without the full support of the company, “the team, mostly men,” Kish writes, felt free to be “recalcitrant at best and more often perniciously undermining. … Sometimes I was disregarded or ignored. … Later, on my rare days off or when I was traveling … they were changing dishes without my knowledge. … It was a sort of psychological warfare for which I wasn’t prepared. Not a single cell in my body wanted to engage in this kind of … conflict.”
Among the untrue rumors she heard about herself was that the only reason she had the Menton job was because she was having an affair with Lynch.
“I don’t know if one of the male chefs from the company would have walked back into something like that,” Kish told me onstage when I interviewed her and “Top Chef” head judge Tom Colicchio at last month’s L.A. Times Festival of Books. “They probably would have been praised and celebrated. There were people who wanted my position and my job. And I don’t think [many] at the top echelon of the restaurant actually thought I was going to do well.”
Then there was the time she and Lynch went to a gathering in London for Relais & Châteaux restaurants and encountered a male chef who bluntly told Kish, “You’re too pretty to be a chef.”
Suddenly, the gulf between Kish and Milliken decades earlier wasn’t so vast.
Kish writes that Lynch instantly scolded the male chef for his insult: “She told him in no uncertain terms to get … out of there and leave us alone. And while I felt protected, it also made me sad. It was very clear that this was something Barbara had probably been dealing with her whole career. There was almost a rote reaction that many women in many fields would likely recognize — one they needed to cultivate in order to survive and succeed. Always playing defense, working harder, stirring up responses to pull out when some entitled overbearing dude shows up, seeming to think he matters more.”
Of course, Kish’s story has a happy ending. Leaving Menton could have ended her career as a chef since she was getting so many offers to appear on television (“Iron Chef: Quest for an Iron Legend,” “Fast Foodies” and “Restaurants at the End of the World”), something she is very good at. But she now oversees the restaurant Arlo Grey by Kristen Kish in Austin, while balancing life with her wife, Bianca Dusic, and hosting duties on Bravo’s “Top Chef.”
I’ll have more to share from my conversation with Kish and Colicchio in next week’s newsletter. Meanwhile, here’s what else has been happening …
‘His food lifted my soul’
Lien Ta, left, and the late chef Jonathan Whitener in 2022 outside Here’s Looking at You, the Koreatown restaurant they founded in 2016.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
During a wide-ranging interview with Food’s Stephanie Breijo, restaurateur Lien Ta, the founder of Here’s Looking at You, shared how mentally exhausting the restaurant business can be after revealing this week that she is closing her Koreatown restaurant on June 13. Of course, the slow pandemic recovery and erratic business after the recent fires factored into her decision, but it was the sudden death last year of her co-founder, the chef Jonathan Whitener, that weighed most on Ta.
“Eating his food,” Ta told Breijo, “lifted my soul. … The truth is that I created this restaurant with Jonathan, and he’s eternally my collaborator. The remaining team are all in agreement that we want this to remain Jonathan’s restaurant. We are missing our leader. Signing on for another five-year lease doesn’t make sense when your leader is gone.”
Ta also talked about the “horrible dread” she felt at times “wondering if anyone was going to book a reservation or come in at all, and who we were going to cut [from service].”
“I was definitely buried in a lot of grief,” she added. “Sometimes I wasn’t really sure what to focus on this last year, to be honest … a lot of restaurant owners are sort of programmed to always find solutions, to get through the day or the week or whatever your metric is. I’ve been doing that for a long time.”
‘I’m Mexican. I don’t know how to give up’
Chef Joshua Gil, pictured in 2023, recently opened Three Flames in Westchester and is known for his pioneering pop-up Supper Liberation Front and several Los Angeles restaurants, including now-closed Tacos Punta Cabras and Miramé.
(Jenn Laskey / Courtesy Joshua Gil)
Breijo also had an intense conversation with chefJoshua Gil, who has Stage IV cancer and is in a contract dispute with his his former Mírame and Mírate business partner, but still recently was able to transform a strip-mall Mongolian barbecue restaurant into a Baja-style seafood spot called Three Flames with “tacos, burgers, loaded fries and some of the city’s most creative new tostadas and specials” while keeping the Mongolian barbecue.
“I’m a very stubborn a—,” Gil told Breijo. “I like telling people, ‘I’m Mexican. I don’t know how to give up.’”
One concession to his illness is that he is leaning hard on Anthony Rodriguez, who worked with Gil at Mírame and Mírate.
“These days he sees Rodriguez as the chef,” Breijo wrote, “and himself as a cook who sometimes creates recipes.”
“I’ve been sitting with our identities: who we are, our images of who we are,” Gil said. “I haven’t donned the [chef’s] whites in a long time, and yet I’m still referred to as ‘chef.’ We never lose that. It doesn’t matter how away from the kitchen you are. You’re constantly being called ‘chef’ by those that know you as such, and it’s [hard] holding on to that livelihood, that lifestyle.”
James Beard recognition
Karla Vasquez in the L.A. Times test kitchen.
(Katrina Frederick / For The Times)
Nominations for the James Beard Media Awards,covering books, broadcast media and journalism, were announced on Wednesday. Among the many excellent cookbooks and broadcast, video and audio shows nominated is “The SalviSoul Cookbook: Salvadoran Recipes and the Women Who Preserve Them” by L.A.’s Karla Tatiana Vasquez. As former Food reporter Cindy Carcamowrote in her profile of Vasquez last year, “SalviSoul” is “the first-ever Salvadoran cookbook to appear on a Big Five imprint.” Food editor Daniel Hernandez talked with Vasquez after news of the nomination came out for our Cooking newsletter, which will publish tomorrow. (Subscribe for free here.)
We also received the happy news that three of our own Food journalists are nominated for Beard awards.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in Chicago on June 14.
Also …
An array of dishes at Kurrypinch, including coconut roti, kola kanda risotto, coconut chickpea curry, lamprais, chicken biriyani and pan-seared salmon with curry pumpkin puree plus mango lassi.
(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)
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Who: Liverpool vs Arsenal What: English Premier League Where: Anfield, Liverpool, United Kingdom When: Sunday at 4:30pm local time (15:30 GMT)
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Liverpool were crowned Premier League champions in front of their fans two weeks ago when Arne Slot’s side thrashed Tottenham Hotspur 5-1.
Now they face an Arsenal side wounded by not only their third consecutive second-place finish in the English top-flight but also their elimination from the Champions League on Tuesday.
Manager Mikel Arteta has come out fighting with regards to what the Gunners need to do to take the next step in their hunt for silverware – and that starts with their visit to face the Reds.
What has Arteta said ahead of the game?
Arteta has urged Arsenal to use the frustration of having to give champions Liverpool a guard of honour on Sunday as fuel to win the Premier League title next season after admitting they have gone “backwards” this term.
“Something has to drive you, motivate you, and pain for this is a good one to use when you really want to do something. It’s the right thing to do, usually as a motivation for next season,” Arteta said of Arsenal’s guard of honour for the champions.
“They’ve been the best team, they’ve been the most consistent, and what Slot and the coaching staff have done has been fascinating, it’s been really good.
“They fully deserve it, and that’s the sport. If somebody is better, you have to accept it and try to reach that level.”
What happened to Arsenal’s Champions League hopes?
The Gunners were beaten 2-1 by Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday to end their bid to win the tournament for the first time.
It was a painful loss for Arsenal, who created a host of chances in the early stages of the second leg but could not find a way past inspired PSG keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma.
When did Arsenal last win the Premier League?
After finishing as runners-up to Manchester City for the previous two seasons, the north Londoners remain without a title since 2004.
What is Liverpool’s take on the game?
Liverpool are in cruise control in the Premier League with a 15-point gap to Arsenal in second.
The Gunners themselves are only six points from slipping out of the Champions League qualification positions.
Mathematically, the Gunners could finish as low as seventh, which would also mean they finish outside the Europa League qualification spots.
“Both teams look forward to playing this game. Difficult to predict,” Reds boss Slot said when asked what kind of game he expects.
“There is a little bit at stake for Arsenal, as I presume they would rather finish second than third or fourth. Difficult to predict if it will be edgy, but it is a game to look forward to.”
The sides shared a 2-2 draw at Emirates Stadium in October.
Bukayo Saka and Mikel Merino twice gave the Gunners the lead, with Virgil van Dijk and Mohamed Salah coming up with the equalisers.
How can Arsenal bridge the gap?
Arsenal’s failure to sign a striker in the January transfer window was a big blow in a season marred by long injury absences for Kai Havertz, Gabriel Jesus and Bukayo Saka at various stages.
“In January, it was clear or not? I made a very clear statement, and the statement continues the same. I want the best team, the best players. If we have three goal scorers over 25, bring them in, we’re going to be a much better team, yes,” Arteta said.
“We are there, we are providing the numbers that win you titles. We have to be a little bit luckier, but still do better to make sure that nobody has a season better than you.”
Head-to-head
Arsenal have not won at Anfield since 2012 – a match that Arteta played in for the Gunners.
The north Londoners are, however, on a five-match unbeaten run against the Reds, winning two of those.
Liverpool team news
Right-back Conor Bradley will start the match, as revealed by Slot in his pre-match news conference. Trent Alexander-Arnold, who has announced he will leave the club this summer, is set to be named among the subs as a result.
Joe Gomez is the only other major absentee for the Reds.
Arsenal team news
Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Magalhaes, Takehiro Tomiyasu and Kai Havertz all remain sidelined for the Gunners.
However, midfielder Jorginho has returned to the match day squad following an injury.
A MAN has been arrested after two teenage girls were raped and sexually assaulted near a train station.
Both vile attacks took place in Exeter, Devon, and were within an hour of each other.
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Two teenage girls were targeted and sexually assaulted in ExeterCredit: Getty
A 16-year-old girl was raped on Clyst Halt Avenue at around 9pm on Friday night.
Half an hour later, a 17-year-old girl was sexually assaulted twice in the Digby and Sowton train station area.
A 19-year-old man from Exeter has been arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault and is in police custody where he will be questioned.
Devon and Cornwall police said both incidents occurred in the area of the Digby and Sowton train station in Exeter between 8.45pm and 10pm on Friday night.
Det Chief Insp Dave Pebworth said: “Detectives are investigating reports of two very serious incidents which occurred in Exeter last night.
“We are not seeking anyone else in relation to these incidents.”
Police urged anyone with information to contact them on 101 or via the police website, quoting reference 50250116456.
More to follow… For the latest news on this story keep checking back at The Sun Online
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May 9 (UPI) — The United States is backing a new plan that will see food and other aid supplied to Gaza privately, officials confirmed on Friday.
“President [Donald] Trump has made very clear that one of the most urgent things that needs to happen is humanitarian aid into Gaza,” U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said Friday, during a news conference outside the American embassy in Jerusalem.
“Today we are announcing that process is ongoing, it is launched.”
Huckabee did not give an exact date as to when aid may start flowing into Gaza under the new operation.
“It is going to require the partnership not only of governments but of NGOs, charitable organizations and nonprofits from around the world,” Huckabee said Friday.
“There are several partners who have already agreed to be a part of the effort. We are not prepared to name them yet because some of the details of their participation are still being worked out.”
He did say Israeli forces would not participate in distribution, aside from providing “necessary military security” around distribution points.
Private entities with their own security will be permitted to distribute aid in the Palestinian enclave, which has been under a total Israeli blockade since early March.
Huckabee shot down speculation Israel was behind the plan and would control the efforts.
“They will not be involved in the distribution of the food or even bringing the food into Gaza,” calling news reports that Israel will control the operation “wholly inaccurate.”
International aid agencies including the United Nations, have been unable to distribute supplies, leading to little or no food in the Palestinian enclave.
In April, the U.N. World Food Program said only half of Gaza’s 2.1 million population was getting around 25% of its daily food needs.
The Israel Defense Forces has accused members of Hamas of stealing aid after it gets delivered, something Huckabee reiterated Friday.
“Previous actions have often been met with Hamas stealing the food that was intended for hungry people,” Huckabee told reporters.
“Nobody is interested in helping Hamas, because Hamas has taken food that was intended to help very desperate citizens and stolen it from them, sold it on the black market and then took the money to buy weaponry to murder more people.”
The former Governor of Arkansas said Trump had approved the plan with stipulations that the food aid be distributed “efficiently and safely” while also ensuring it is protected from theft by Hamas.
“There still remains a desperate need for humanitarian aid that Hamas is obviously not capable or willing to provide,” Huckabee said Friday.
Hamas remains in possession of 59 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza, with only 21 believed to be alive.
International aid organizations were critical of the plan Friday, instead calling for Israel to lift its total blockade of Gaza to permit food and medical supplies to cross the border.
“Humanitarian aid should never be used as a bargaining chip,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder told reporters in Geneva.
Huckabee on Friday admitted the new process “will not be perfect, especially in the early days.”
