Forum

STOCKTON — Four of California’s gubernatorial candidates tangled over climate change and wildfire preparedness at an economic forum Thursday in Stockton, though they all acknowledged the stark problems facing the state.

Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Republican, stood apart from the three other candidates — all Democrats — at the California Economic Summit by challenging whether the spate of devastating wildfires in California is linked to climate change, and labeling some environmental activists “terrorists.”

After a few audience members shouted at Bianco over his “terrorists” comment, the Democratic candidates seized on the moment to reaffirm their own beliefs about the warming planet.

“The impacts of climate change are proven and undeniable,” said Tony Thurmond, a Democrat and California superintendent of public instruction. “You can call them what you want. That’s our new normal.”

The fires “do have a relationship with climate change,” said former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

Besides environmental issues, the hour-and-a-half forum at the business-centric California Forward’s Economic Summit focused primarily on “checkbook” topics as the candidates, which also included former state Controller Betty Yee, offered gloomy statistics about poverty and homelessness in California.

Given the forum’s location in the Central Valley, the agricultural industry and rural issues were front and center.

Bianco harped on the state and the Democratic leaders for California’s handling of water management and gasoline prices. At one point, he told the audience that he felt like he was in the “Twilight Zone” after the Democrats on stage pitched ways to raise revenue.

Other candidates in California‘s 2026 governor’s race, including former Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra and former Rep. Katie Porter, were not present at Thursday’s debate. Former Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon planned to come, but his flight from Los Angeles was delayed, audience members were told.

All are vying to lead a state facing ongoing budget deficits caused by overspending. A state Legislative Analyst’s Office report released this month cited projected annual operating deficits ranging from roughly $15 billion to $25 billion through 2029. At the same time, federal cutbacks by the Trump administration to programs for needy Californians, including the state’s Medi-Cal healthcare program, will put more pressure on the state’s resources.

All of the candidates had different pitches during the afternoon event. Asked by moderator Jeanne Kuang, a CalMatters reporter, about ways to help rural communities, Thurmond cited his plan to build housing on surplus property owned by the state. He also repeatedly talked about extending tax credits or other subsidies to groups, including day-care providers.

Yee, discussing the wildfires, spoke on hardening homes and creating an industry around fire-proofing the state. Yee received applause when she questioned why there wasn’t more discussion about education in the governor’s race.

Villaraigosa cited his work finding federal funds to build rail and subway lines across Los Angeles and suggested that he would focus on growing the state’s power grid and transportation infrastructure.

Both the former mayor and Yee at points sided with Bianco when they complained about the “over-regulation” by the state, including restrictions on developers, builders and small businesses.

Few voters are probably paying much attention to the contest, with the battle over Proposition 50 dominating headlines and campaign spending.

Voters on Nov. 4 will decide whether to support the proposition, which is a Democratic-led effort to gerrymander California’s congressional districts to try and blunt President Trump’s attempt to rig districts in GOP-led states to retain control of the House of Representatives.

“Frankly, nobody’s focused on the governor’s race right now,” Yee said at an event last week.

The surviving members of progressive rock titans Rush will reunite for a 50th anniversary tour in 2026.

Rush co-founders Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson will play 12 dates in honor of the band’s late drummer Neil Peart, whose monumental percussion talents made Rush a defining act in prog rock. The tour will begin June 7 at the Kia Forum — the site of the band’s last show with Peart in 2015.

“After all that has gone down since that last show, Alex and I have done some serious soul searching and come to the decision that we f— miss it,” Lee said in a statement announcing the tour. “And that it’s time for a celebration of 50-something years of Rush music.”

The question of a Rush reunion without Peart, who died of brain cancer in 2020, was a fraught one. Even up to last year, Lifeson had told Rolling Stone that “there’s no chance that we’re going to get a drummer and go back on the road as the rebirth of Rush or something like that.”

For this tour, the band will be joined by Anika Nilles, a German drummer acclaimed for her work with Jeff Beck.

“As we all know, Neil was irreplaceable,” Lee said in the band’s statement. “Yet life is full of surprises, and we’ve been introduced to another remarkable person; an incredible drummer and musician who is adding another chapter to our story while continuing her own fascinating musical journey. Her name is Anika Nilles, and we could not be more excited to introduce her to our loyal and dedicated Rush fan base, whom, we know, will give her every chance to live up to that near-impossible role.”

In their own statement, Peart’s wife Carrie Nuttall-Peart and daughter Olivia gave their blessing for the tour: “We are thrilled to support the Fifty Something Tour, celebrating a band whose music has resonated and inspired fans for generations, and to honor Neil’s extraordinary legacy as both a drummer and lyricist.”

In a pop era where personal messiness is the oxygen of fame, Dua Lipa is the rare unfazed professional.

Just as Taylor Swift and Charli XCX’s (extremely asymmetrical) feud spilled over the Hot 100 trenches, in comes Lipa’s Radical Optimism tour for four nights at the Forum to reassert that it is, in fact, possible to spin off hits while leaving one’s personal life unscathed.

On Saturday at the opening night of her Forum stand, Lipa — herself a British-Albanian-Kosovar atelier of sophisticated, structurally flawless disco-pop — played for nearly three hours with nary a sweat broken. The club hits pulsed, her dancing was evocative and precise, and the set was again punctuated with a locally-sourced cover from each city she performs in; this time “The Chain” from Fleetwood Mac. (Other recent installments included “Me Gustas Tú” by Manu Chao, AC/DC’s “Highway to Hell” and “Dernière Danse” by Indila.)

Even if the gyre of contemporary fandom demands mess, spite, flops and redemption arcs, Lipa glides over all of it, with morally sound politics and an immaculately tasteful book club to spare.

Dua Lipa takes her Radical Optimism tour to the Forum over the weekend.

(Madison Phipps)

This tour in particular feels like the moment when Lipa is opting out of the rise-and-crash fame cycle and into becoming more of an album artist and deeply considered live act. The hazy disco-rock of “Radical Optimism” (produced with tastemakers Kevin Parker, Andrew Wyatt and Danny L Harle, among others) hit No. 2 on the Billboard 200, her best album debut yet. But it didn’t yield era-defining singles like the pandemic lifesaver “Future Nostalgia” did.

That’s a tough act for anyone to follow up; she should have been on the NHS payroll for the good that “Don’t Start Now,” “Levitating” and “Physical” did in keeping spirits up in 2020. Her last U.S. top-10 single was 2023’s “Barbie”-soundtrack cut “Dance the Night,” and “Houdini” peaked at 11. Yet this tour sold out four nights in L.A. and is unquestionably the most creative, rigorous and musicianship-driven tour of her career.

With a sprawling live band and big moments of unvarnished vocal candor, this was pop at its highest caliber, but with an eye toward long-term durability and integrity. During the set, Lipa took at least two passes around to the front rows, pressing the flesh and taking selfies with gobsmacked tweenage fans. No algorithm will match that for an impact.

From the opening calisthenics of “Training Season” and “Break My Heart,” Lipa ripped through a quiver of deep-house and neo-disco staples to fuel Pride parties for the rest of her life. Those early memes about her terminal chillness must have lighted a fire under her: Lipa’s revamped as one of the top-tier dancers and physical performers of her era, while never shortchanging that smoky ‘90s house-diva vocal power. No singer deserves a Pilates Reformer endorsement deal more.

Dua Lipa makes a stand at the Forum on Saturday night.

(Madison Phipps)

On the poignant breakup-in-waiting ballad “These Walls,” the stiff-upper-lip rock bombast of “Happy For You” and her pass through “The Chain,” she made the case that her range extends well beyond the fizzy, watchgear-precise electropop she’s best known for. On record, “Anything For Love” gets a knowing wink with in-studio jibing between Lipa and her producers; here she played it straight as a lofty piano ballad for the back seats on a floating riser.

But there’s something just so effortless about her Majorca-primed house singles like “Maria,” which feel ready to slip into magic hour rooftop DJ sets for time immemorial. There are other singers to turn to when you’re emotionally ransacked; Dua gets the best nights of your life instead.

Encoring with the still-freaky, deliciously disciplinarian “New Rules” and the laser-cut banger “Houdini,” Lipa walked off the Forum stage with all the proof she needed that, by aligning with a fervent literary life, unwavering peace advocacy and an expanding palette of meticulously groovy songwriting, she’s in an enviable position for a long and meaningful career to come. Let the woman vacation in peace.

SAN DIEGO — Six Democrats running for governor next year focused on housing affordability, the cost of living and healthcare cuts as the most daunting issues facing Californians at a labor forum on Saturday in San Diego.

Largely in lockstep about these matters, the candidates highlighted their political resumes and life stories to try to create contrasts and curry favor with attendees.

Former state Assembly Majority Leader Ian Calderon, in his first gubernatorial forum since entering the race in late September, leaned into his experience as the first millennial elected to the state legislature.

“I feel like my experience and my passion uniquely positioned me in this race to ride a lane that nobody else can ride, being a millennial and being young and having a different perspective,” said Calderon, 39.

Concerns about his four children’s future as well as the state’s reliance on Washington, D.C., drove his decision to run for governor after choosing not to seek reelection to the legislature in 2020.

“I want [my children] to have opportunity. I want them to have a future. I want life to be better. I want it to be easier,” Calderon, whose family has deep roots in politics. State leaders must focus “on D.C.-proofing California. We cannot continue to depend on D.C. and expect that they’re going to give a s—t about us and what our needs are, because they don’t.”

Former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, who also served as the state’s attorney general after a 24-year stint in Congress, argued that it is critical to elect a governor who has experience.

“Would you let someone who’s never flown a plane tell you, ‘I can fly that plane back to land’ if they’ve never done it before?” Becerra asked. “Do you give the keys to the governor’s office to someone who hasn’t done this before?”

He contrasted himself with other candidates in the race by invoking a barking chihuahua behind a chain-link fence.

“Where’s the bite?” he said, after citing his history, such as suing President Trump 122 times, and leading the sprawling federal health bureaucracy during the pandemic. “You don’t just grow teeth overnight.”

Calderon and Becerra were among six Democratic candidates who spoke at length to about 150 California leaders of multiple chapters of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

The union has more than 200,000 members in California and is being battered by the federal government shutdown, the state’s budget deficit and impending healthcare strikes. AFSCME is a powerful force in California politics, providing troops to knock on voters’ doors and man phone banks.

The forum came as the gubernatorial field to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom is in flux.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris announced earlier this summer that she has opted against running for the seat. Former Senate Leader Toni Atkins suspended her gubernatorial campaign in late September.

Rumors continue to swirl about whether billionaire businessman Rick Caruso or Sen. Alex Padilla will join the field.

“I am weighing it. But my focus is first and foremost on encouraging people to vote for Proposition 50,” the congressional redistricting matter on the November ballot, Padilla told the New York Times in an interview published Saturday. “The other decision? That race is not until next year. So that decision will come.”

Wealthy Democratic businessman Stephen J. Cloobeck and Republican Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco declined an invitation to participate in the forum, citing prior commitments.

The union will consider an endorsement at a future conference, said Matthew Maldonado, executive director for District Council 36, which represents 25,000 workers in Southern California.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa leaned into his longtime roots in labor before he ran for office. But he also alluded to tensions with unions after being elected mayor in 2006.

Labeled a “scab” when he crossed picket lines the following year during a major city workers’ strike, Villaraigosa also clashed with unions over furloughs and layoffs during the recession. His relationship with labor hit a low in 2010 when Villaraigosa called the city’s teachers union, where he once worked, “the largest obstacle to creating quality schools.”

“I want you to know something about me. I’m not going to say yes to every darn thing that everybody comes up to me with, including sometimes the unions,” Villaraigosa said. “When I was mayor, they’ll tell you sometimes I had to say no. Why? I wasn’t going to go bankrupt, and I knew I had to protect pensions and the rest of it.”

He pledged to work with labor if elected governor.

Labor leaders asked most of the questions at the forum, with all of the candidates being asked about the same topics, such as if they supported and would campaign for a proposed state constitutional amendment to help UC workers with down-payment loans for houses.

“Hell yes,” said former Rep. Katie Porter of Irvine, who teaches at UC Irvine’s law school and benefited from a program created by state university leaders to allow faculty to buy houses priced below the market rate in costly Orange County because the high cost of housing in the region was an obstacle in recruiting professors.

“I get to benefit from UC Irvine’s investment in their professionals and professors and professional staff housing, but they are not doing it for everyone,” she said, noting workers such as clerks, janitors, and patient-care staff don’t have access to similar benefits.

State Supt. of Instruction Tony Thurmond, who entered the gathering dancing to Dr. Dre and Tupac’s “California Love,” agreed to support the housing loans as well as to walk picket lines with tens of thousands of Kaiser health employees expected to go on strike later this month.

“I will be there,” Thurmond responded, adding that he had just spoken on the phone with Kaiser’s CEO, and urged him to meet labor demands about staffing, pay, retirement and benefits, especially in the aftermath of their work during the pandemic. “Just get it done, damn it, and give them what they’re asking for.”

Former state Controller Betty Yee agreed to both requests as well, arguing that the healthcare employers are focused on profit at the expense of patient care.

“Yes, absolutely,” she said when asked about joining the Kaiser picket line. “Shame on them. You cannot be expected to take care of others if you cannot take care of yourselves.”

AFSCME local leaders listening to former U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra speak at a gubernatorial forum Saturday in San Diego.

(Seema Mehta / Los Angeles Times)

What a piquant moment for Nine Inch Nails to be back on the road playing their version of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans.”

At the Forum on Thursday, for the first show of a final two-night stand of the electronic-rock band’s Peel It Back arena tour, singer Trent Reznor didn’t elaborate on the freshly resonant subtext in Bowie’s song (one that Reznor remixed for the late Brit and, in its music video, played a Travis Bickle-esque creep).

But you could feel the sold-out Forum roil with new unease at that squelching industrial song, as Reznor muttered Bowie’s scabrous lyrics about “No one needs anyone … Johnny wants p— and cars … God is an American.”

At this point, who isn’t a little afraid of Americans? Nine Inch Nails thrive in the murk of base human instinct and tech-driven dread. Who better to help us limn out these feelings of disgust, rage and desolation right now?

Now in their fourth decade as a group, Nine Inch Nails — the duo of Reznor and producer/keyboardist Atticus Ross along with a closely held touring band — does two difficult things extraordinarily well.

For 15 years, Reznor and Ross have served as Hollywood’s eminent techno-intellectuals, with a pair of Oscar wins for their film scores including the brooding lashes of David Fincher’s “The Social Network” and the yearning ambiance of Pixar’s “Soul.” They have an upcoming film-music festival, Future Ruins, that will be the first of its kind and caliber in Los Angeles.

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1. Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails. 2. Trent Reznor. 3. Fans react as Nine Inch Nails perform at Kia Forum. (Hon Wing Chiu / For The Times)

But Thursday’s Forum show was a decadent reminder of just how nasty and violent this band can be as well.

Opening on the smaller, in-the-round B-stage, Reznor took a solo-piano run through “Right Where It Belongs,” gradually adding Ross, bassist-keyboardist Alessandro Cortini and guitarist Robin Finck into a squalling “Piggy (Nothing Can Stop Me Now),” before finally introducing drummer Josh Freese on the calisthenic drum workout of “Wish.”

Freese was a last-minute addition to the touring band, after the group unexpectedly swapped percussionists with Foo Fighters days before Peel It Back kicked off. But Freese — an NIN veteran of the mid-2000s — has become a fan-favorite returning hero, bolstering this lineup with pure rocker muscle.

Back on the main stage, they redlined through “March of the Pigs” and seethed with fuzzbox rot on “Reptile.” They veiled the stage in gauze on “Copy of A,” casting dozens of Reznor shadows while he strutted and howled about a despondent, depersonalized modernity.

A second pass through the rave-ready B-stage gave a hint at what the band’s cryptically billed upcoming Coachella set might look like. “Nine Inch Noize” — implying an ongoing collaboration with their opener and collaborator, the German club music producer Boys Noize — took form here under a monolithic, blood-colored lightbox. Reznor, Ross and Boys Noize revved up a new single, “As Alive As You Need Me To Be” from the film “Tron: Ares,” but also revamped the eternal hit “Closer” and “Came Back Haunted” with an after-hours sizzle.

It’s impossible to imagine a single as desperately sexual, as sacrilegiously sacred as “Closer” ever making it to the Hot 100 today. For the Gen Z fans fascinated by Nails’ gothic-erotic aesthetic, it felt more transgressive than ever.

After slashed-up takes on “The Perfect Drug” and “The Hand That Feeds,” the band closed out the set with an opposing pair of songs that covered the full range of what its audience is likely going through today. How viscerally satisfying to scream “Head like a hole, black as your soul / I’d rather die than give you control” as American life seems to unravel with each passing hour.

But of course, the band closed on “Hurt.” Johnny Cash recorded his canonical version at 70, a cover now synonymous with a lion in winter starting down the grave. Just 10 years younger at 60, Reznor performed it Thursday with all the tightly coiled emotion and intimate grandeur of the kid who wrote it. American life is pain; Nine Inch Nails endures.

A decade ago, “Weird Al” Yankovic launched his 12th concert tour, which covered 200 shows over two years. Somewhere along the line, the pop world’s foremost parodist was backstage putting on a fat suit “for literally the 1,000th time” when he was suddenly struck by the desire to “go out on stage and do a show like a regular musician.”

Soon after, he launched his “Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour,” playing small venues with no video screens, no costume changes, no props or choreography, and none of the song parodies that made him famous. The songs were still comedic — “Everything I write winds up a little warped,” he says — but were original tunes that were pastiches of, say, Frank Zappa or They Might Be Giants’ style. He enjoyed it so much he revived the concept a couple of years ago.

Yankovic, 65, has also not released a parody song for more than a decade, in part, he says, because there’s no longer a “monoculture where it’s more obvious what the hits are,” but also because he enjoys the challenges of those original pastiches, some of which take months for him to develop.

“I wanted to prove that I’m more than just the parody guy,” says Yankovic, who also co-wrote the 2022 TV film “Weird: The Al Yankovic Story.” The loopy biopic satire starred Daniel Radcliffe and earned Yankovic an Emmy nomination for his writing. (Recently, he also had self-parodying cameo in “Naked Gun.”)

“The smaller tours cleansed the palate for me and were fun for my band and the hardcore fans,” he says. “But now we’re back playing the big tent. We’ve ramping up the silliness.”

(Wesley Lapointe / Los Angeles Times)

Now, having proved he was more than the parody guy, Yankovic has re-embraced the whole full-throated “Weird Al” parody thing — his “Bigger & Weirder” tour, which comes to the Kia Forum in Inglewood on Saturday, features plenty of video screens, lots of costume changes and props, and twice as many band members.

And, of course, it features parodies covering decades of pop music: The Knack (“My Bologna”), Michael Jackson (“Eat It”), Madonna (“Like a Surgeon”), Coolio (“Amish Paradise”), Nirvana (“Smells Like Nirvana”) and Robin Thicke (“Word Crimes”).

“The smaller tours cleansed the palate for me and were fun for my band and the hardcore fans,” he says. “But now we’re back playing the big tent. We’re ramping up the silliness.”

That includes reviving not just old songs but also old bits. “Some fans feel comfort in repetition, which is OK,” he says. While he’ll change up individual jokes, “we’re trying not to change too much what people came to see — if we don’t fulfill their expectations, they’re liable to walk away disappointed.”

(His fans are committed enough that some even parody his songs with their own rewrites. Yankovic is particularly impressed by Steve Goodie, who parodied his “Hardware Store” with “Dumbledore” and even has a one-man show called “AL! The Weird Tribute (and How Daniel Radcliffe Got Mixed Up in This Nonsense).” “It’s fun and gratifying and a little ‘Inception’-like,” Yankovic says, although he has yet to parody Goodie’s parody.)

And so band newcomer Probyn Gregory, a musician who worked with Brian Wilson, Paul McCartney, Billy Joel and Eric Clapton, spends “Smells Like Nirvana” dressed like a janitor and mopping the stage as part of the performance. “He’s an amazing artist, but you can’t have a sense of shame and be part of this entourage,” Yankovic says.

For the most part, of course, Yankovic is putting Gregory and the other multi-instrumentalists he hired to more practical uses — three of them are women because he wanted three-part female harmonies, but between them they also can add percussion, guitar, saxophones and more. “I needed somebody that could play the trumpet and then someone to play clarinet for the polkas,” he says. “In the arenas, I hear our sound and think, ‘Wow, this is much, much bigger than it’s ever been.’”

It’s also more layered, with all those instruments enabling him to “stretch and do songs that were out of our reach as a five-piece.”

To show off his band, Yankovic drops the funny stuff at one point in each show, covering a classic song and playing it straight. In recent weeks, the group has played Paul Simon’s “You Can Call Me Al,” George Harrison’s “What Is Life,” the Box Top’s “The Letter,” the Doobie Brothers’ “China Grove,” and even Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.”

“It’s a rotating slot and almost every night is something different,” he says. The fans get into it, he says, although when he talks to them about it, he sometimes finds their reactions “baffling.”

“People sometimes say, ‘Oh, you guys can really play. You can really do real music,’” he says. “What do you think we’ve been doing? Just because the words are funny, it’s not real music?”

Yankovic is a “pop culture sponge” and has always listened to various music genres, first for pleasure and then for work. “I just like to soak it in and regurgitate it in my own demented way,” he says. But he was also raised on Dr. Demento, and was heavily influenced by Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Allan Sherman, and Monty Python. Those comedians taught him that craftsmanship matters even, or especially, when you’re being silly.

“I think that the craftsmanship is one of the reasons that the humor works so well and I think the best parody is material that emulates the original source as closely as possible,” he says. “It helps the joke if you’re sucked into thinking you’re listening to a particular pop song and then think, ‘Wait a minute, these aren’t the lyrics I’m used to.’”

For that to work, the craftsmanship in his writing and arranging must be matched by the musicianship in his band; he hopes his audience appreciates both sides of that coin.

He adds that he thinks he personally has improved over time. “I think I’m a better singer now than I was in the ’80s and I’m a better musician and a better arranger,” he says.

Even with the four newcomers, Yankovic relies heavily on his original band. “I’ve got one of the best bands in the world and they do every genre flawlessly, and that’s what helps make the whole act work,” he says. “The core band has been together for over 40 years and we’re kind of telepathic in the way we communicate now, so we’re a lot better than we were back in the day.”