union

WASHINGTON — President Trump issued a series of pardons on Wednesday, awarding them to a former New York congressman, a Connecticut governor, a rapper known as “NBA YoungBoy,” a labor union leader and a onetime Army officer who flouted safety measures during the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump’s actions mixed his willingness to pardon prominent Republicans and other supporters, donors and friends with the influence of Alice Marie Johnson, whom Trump recently named his pardon czar after he offered her a pardon in 2020.

He commuted the sentence of Larry Hoover, a former Chicago gang leader serving a life sentence at a supermax prison in Colorado. Hoover was first imprisoned in connection with a murder in 1973, and was convicted of running a criminal enterprise in 1998, but later renounced his criminal past and petitioned for a reduced sentence. He remains incarcerated on state charges.

Louisiana rap artist NBA YoungBoy, whose real name is Kentrell Gaulden and whose stage moniker stands for “Never Broke Again,” also received a Trump pardon.

In 2024, he was sentenced to just under two years in prison on gun-related charges after he acknowledged having possessed weapons despite being a convicted felon. Gaulden also pleaded guilty to his role in a prescription drug fraud ring in Utah.

Gaulden’s and the other pardons were confirmed Wednesday evening by two White House officials who spoke only on condition of anonymity to detail actions that had not yet been made public.

In a statement posted online, Gaulden said, “I want to thank President Trump for granting me a pardon and giving me the opportunity to keep building — as a man, as a father, and as an artist.”

He said this “opens the door to a future I’ve worked hard for and I am fully prepared to step into this,” and thanked Johnson.

Trump has spent the week issuing high-profile pardons. Video released by a White House aide showed Johnson in the Oval Office on Tuesday, as Trump called the daughter of Todd and Julie Chrisley of the reality show “Chrisley Knows Best” to say he was pardoning them.

Their show spotlighted the family’s extravagant lifestyle, but the couple was convicted of conspiring to defraud banks in the Atlanta area out of more than $30 million in loans by submitting false documents Their daughter, Savannah Chrisley, addressed the Republican convention last summer and had long said her parents were treated unfairly.

Also Wednesday, Trump pardoned James Callahan, a New York union leader who pleaded guilty to failing to report $315,000 in gifts from an advertising firm and was about to be sentenced.

And the president pardoned former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, a Republican who served from 1995 to 2004 and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison for charges related to concealing his involvement in two federal election campaigns.

He also pardoned Michael Grimm, a New York Republican who resigned from Congress after being convicted of tax fraud. Grimm won reelection in 2014 despite being under indictment for underreporting wages and revenue at a restaurant that he ran.

Grimm eventually resigned after pleading guilty and serving eight months in prison. Last year, Grimm was paralyzed from the chest down when he was thrown off a horse during a polo tournament.

Yet another Trump pardon was issued for Army Lt. Mark Bradshaw, who was convicted in 2022 of reporting to work without undergoing a COVID-19 test.

Alice Marie Johnson was convicted in 1996 on eight criminal counts related to a Memphis-based cocaine trafficking operation. Trump commuted her life sentence in 2018 at the urging of celebrity Kim Kardashian West, allowing for Johnson’s early release.

Johnson then served as the featured speaker on the final night of the 2020 Republican National Convention, and Trump subsequently pardoned her before more recently naming her his pardons czar.

Weissert writes for the Associated Press.

FRANKFURT, Germany — Top officials at the European Union’s executive commission say they’re pushing hard for a trade deal with the Trump administration to avoid a 50% tariff on imported goods. Trump had threatened to impose the tariffs on June 1, but has pushed back the deadline to July 9, repeating an oft-used tactic in his trade war.

European negotiators are contending with Trump’s ever-changing and unpredictable tariff threats, but “still, they have to come up with something to hopefully pacify him,” said Bruce Stokes, visiting senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States.

Stokes also sees more at play than just a disagreement over trade deficits. Trump’s threats “are rooted in frustration with the EU that has little to do with trade,’’ Stokes said. “He doesn’t like the EU. He doesn’t like Germany.”

What exactly does Trump want? What can Europe offer? Here are the key areas where the two sides are squaring off.

Buy our stuff

Over and over, Trump has bemoaned the fact that Europe sells more things to Americans than it buys from Americans. The difference, or the trade deficit in goods, last year was 157 billion euros ($178 billion). But Europe says that when it comes to services — particularly digital services like online advertising and cloud computing — the U.S. sells more than it buys and that lowers the overall trade deficit to 48 billion euros, which is only about 3% of total trade. The European Commission says that means trade is “balanced.”

One way to shift the trade in goods would be for Europe to buy more liquefied natural gas by ship from the U.S. To do so, the EU could cut off the remaining imports of Russian pipeline gas and LNG. The commission is preparing legislation to force an end to those purchases — last year, some 19% of imports — by the end of 2027.

That would push European private companies to look for other sources of gas such as the U.S. However the shift away from Russia is already in motion and that “has obviously not been enough to satisfy,” said Laurent Ruseckas, a natural gas markets expert at S&P Global Commodities Insights Research.

The commission doesn’t buy gas itself but can use “moral suasion” to convince companies to turn to U.S. suppliers in coming years but “this is no silver bullet and nothing that can yield immediate results,” said Simone Tagliapietra, an energy analyst at the Bruegel think tank in Brussels.

Europe could buy more from U.S. defense contractors as part of its effort to deter further aggression from Russia after the invasion of Ukraine, says Carsten Brzeski, global chief of macro at ING bank. If European countries did increase their overall defense spending — another of Trump’s demands — their voters are likely to insist that the purchases go to defense contractors in Europe, not America, said Stokes of the German Marshall Fund. One way around that political obstacle would be for U.S. defense companies to build factories in Europe, but “that would take time,’’ he said.

The EU could also reduce its 10% tax on foreign cars— one of Trump’s long-standing grievances against Europe. “The United States is not going to export that many cars to Europe anyway … The Germans would be most resistant, but I don’t think they’re terribly worried about competition from America,’’ said Edward Alden, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ”That would be a symbolic victory for the president.’’

A beef over beef

The U.S. has long complained about European regulations on food and agricultural products that keep out hormone-raised beef and chickens washed with chlorine. But experts aren’t expecting EU trade negotiators to offer any concessions at the bargaining table.

“The EU is unwilling to capitulate,” said Mary Lovely, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics. “The EU has repeatedly said it will not change its sanitary rules, its rules on (genetically modified) crops, its rules on chlorinated chickens, things that have been longtime irritants for the U.S.’’

Backing down on those issues, she said, would mean that “the U.S. gets to set food safety (standards) for Europe.’’

Value-added tax

One of Trump’s pet peeves has been the value-added taxes used by European governments, a tax he says is a burden on U.S. companies.

Economists say this kind of tax, used by some 170 countries, is trade-neutral because it applies equally to imports and exports. A value-added tax, or VAT, is paid by the end purchaser at the cash register but differs from sales taxes in that it is calculated at each stage of the production process. In both cases, VAT and sales tax, imports and exports get the same treatment. The U.S. is an outlier in that it doesn’t use VAT.

There’s little chance countries will change their tax systems for Trump and the EU has ruled it out.

Negotiating strategy

Trump’s approach to negotiations has involved threats of astronomical tariffs – up to 145% in the case of China – before striking a deal for far lower levels. In any case, however, the White House has taken the stance that it won’t go below a 10% baseline. The threat of 50% for the EU is so high it means “an effective trade embargo,” said Brzeski, since it would impose costs that would make it unprofitable to import goods or mean charging consumers prices so high the goods would be uncompetitive.

Because the knottiest issues dividing the EU and U.S. — food safety standards, the VAT, regulation of tech companies — are so difficult “it is impossible to imagine them being resolved by the deadline,’’ Alden said. ”Possibly what you could have — and Trump has shown he is willing to do this — is a very small deal’’ like the one he announced May 8 with the United Kingdom.

Economists Oliver Rakau and Nicola Nobile of Oxford Economics wrote in a commentary Monday that if imposed, the 50% tariffs would reduce the collective economy of the 20 countries that use the euro currency by up to 1% next year and slash business investment by more than 6%.

The EU has offered the US a “zero for zero” outcome in which tariffs would be removed on both sides industrial goods including autos. Trump has dismissed that but EU officials have said it’s still on the table.

Lovely of the Peterson Institute sees the threats and bluster as Trump’s way of negotiating. “In the short run, I don’t think 50% is going to be our reality.’’

But she says Trump’s strategy adds to the uncertainty around U.S. policy that is paralyzing business. “It suggests that the U.S. is an unreliable trading partner, that it operates on whim and not on rule of law,’’ Lovely said. “Friend or foe, you’re not going to be treated well by this administration.’’

McHugh and Wiseman write for the Associated Press. Wiseman contributed to this report from Washington.

When filmmakers say they’re experimenting with artificial intelligence, that news is typically received online as if they had just declared their allegiance to Skynet.

And so it was when Darren Aronofsky — director of button-pushing movies including “The Whale” and “Black Swan” — last week announced a partnership with Google AI arm DeepMind to use the tech giant’s capabilities in storytelling.

Aronofsky’s AI-focused studio Primordial Soup is producing three short movies from emerging filmmakers using Google tools, including the text-to-video model Veo. The first film, “Ancestra,” directed by Eliza McNitt, will premiere at the Tribeca Festival on June 13, the Mountain View-based search giant said.

Google’s promotional materials take pains to show that “Ancestra” is a live-action film made by humans and with real actors, though it’s bolstered with effects and imagery — including a tiny baby holding a mother’s finger — that were created with AI.

The partnership was touted during Google’s I/O developer event, where the company showed off the new Veo 3, which allows users to create videos that include sound effects, ambient noise and speech (a step up from OpenAI-owned competitor, Sora). The company also introduced its new Flow film creation tool, essentially editing software using Google AI functions.

Google’s push to court creative types coincides with a separate initiative to help AI technology overcome its massive public relations problem.

As my colleague Wendy Lee wrote recently, the company is working with filmmakers including Sean Douglas and his famous father Michael Keaton to create shorts that aren’t made with AI, but instead portray the technology in a less apocalyptic light than Hollywood is used to.

Simply put, much of the public sees AI as a foe that will steal jobs, rip off your intellectual property, ruin your childhood, destroy the environment and possibly kill us all, like in “The Terminator,” “2001: A Space Odyssey” and the most recent “Mission: Impossible” movies. And Google, which is making a big bet by investing in AI, has a lot riding on changing that perception.

There’s a ways to go, including in the entertainment industry.

Despite the allure of cost-savings, traditional studios haven’t exactly dived headfirst into the AI revolution. They’re worried about the legal implications of using models trained on troves of copyrighted material, and they don’t want to anger the entertainment worker unions, which went on strike partly over AI fears just a couple years ago. The New York Times and others have sued OpenAI and its investor Microsoft, alleging copyright theft. Tech giants claim they are protected by “fair use.”

AI-curious studios are walking into a wild, uncharted legal landscape because of the amount of copyrighted material being mined to teach the models, said Dan Neely, co-founder of startup Vermillio, which helps companies and individuals protect their intellectual property.

“The major studios and most people are going to be challenged using this product when it comes to the output content that you can and cannot use or own,” Neely said by phone. “Given that it contains vast quantities of copyrighted material, and you can get it to replicate that stuff pretty easily, that creates chaos for someone who’s creating with it.”

But while the legacy entertainment business remains largely skeptical of AI, many newer, digitally-native studios and creators are embracing it, whether their goals are to become the next Pixar or the next Mr. Beast.

The New York Times recently profiled the animation startup Toonstar, which says it uses AI throughout its production process, including when sharpening storylines and lip-syncing. John Attanasio, a Toonstar founder, told the paper that leaning into the tech would make animation “80 percent faster and 90 percent cheaper than industry norms.”

Jeffrey Katzenberg, the former leader of DreamWorks Animation, has given a similar estimate of the potential cost-savings for Hollywood cartoons.

Anyone working in the traditional computer animation business would have to gulp at those projections, whether they turn out to be accurate or not. U.S. animation jobs have already been hammered by outsourcing. Now here comes automation to finish the job. (Disney’s animated features cost well over $100 million to produce because they’re made by real-life animators in America.)

Proponents of AI will sometimes argue that the new technology isn’t a replacement for human workers, but rather a tool to enhance creativity. Some are more blunt: Stop worrying about these jobs and embrace the future of uninhibited creation. For obvious reasons, workers are reluctant to buy into that line of thinking.

More broadly, it’s still unclear whether all the spending on the AI arms race will ultimately be worth the cost. Goldman Sachs, in a 2024 report, estimated that companies would invest $1 trillion in AI infrastructure — including data centers, chips and the power grid — in the coming years.

But that same report raised questions about AI’s ultimate utility.

To be worth the gargantuan investment, the technology would have to be capable of solving far more complex problems than it does now, said one Goldman analyst in the report. In recent weeks, the flaws in the technology have crossed over into absurd territory: For example, by generating a summer reading list of fake books and legal documents polluted with serious errors and fabrications.

Big spending and experimentation doesn’t always pan out. Look at virtual reality, the metaverse and the blockchain.

But some entertainment companies are experimenting with the tools and finding applications. Meta has partnered with horror studio Blumhouse and James Cameron’s venture Lightstorm Vision on AI-related initiatives. AI firm Runway is working with Lionsgate. At a time when the movie industry is troubled in part due to the high cost of special effects, production companies are motivated to stay on top of advancing tech.

One of the most common arguments in favor of giving in to AI is that the technology will unshackle the next generation of creative minds.

Some AI-enhanced content is promising. But so far AI video tools have produced a remarkable amount of content that looks the same, with its oddly dreamlike sheen of unreality. That’s partly because the models are trained on color-corrected imagery available on the open internet or on YouTube. Licensing from the studios could help with that problem.

The idea of democratizing filmmaking through AI may sound good in theory. However, there are countless examples in movie history — including “Star Wars” and “Jaws” — of how having physical and budgetary restrictions are actually good for art, however painful and frustrating they may have been during production.

Even within the universe of AI-assisted material, the quality will vary dramatically depending on the talent and skill of people using it.

“Ultimately, it’s really hard to tell good stories,” Neely said. “The creativity that defines what you prompt the machine to do is still human genius — the best will rise to the top.”

Like other innovations, the technology will improve with time, as the new Google tools show. Both Veo 3 and Flow showcase how AI is becoming better and easier to use, though they are still not quite mass-market products. For its highest tier, Google is charging $250 a month for its suite of tools.

Maybe the next Spielberg will find their way through AI-assisted video, published for free on YouTube. Perhaps Sora and Veo will have a moment that propels them to mainstream acceptance in filmmaking, as “The Jazz Singer” did for talkies.

But those milestones still feel a long way off.

Stuff we wrote

Number of the week

The Memorial Day weekend box office achieved record revenue (not adjusting for inflation) of $329.8 million in the U.S. and Canada, thanks to the popularity of Walt Disney Co.’s “Lilo & Stitch” and Paramount’s “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning.”

Disney’s live-action remake generated $183 million in domestic ticket sales, exceeding pre-release analyst expectations, while the latest Tom Cruise superspy spectacle opened with $77 million. The weekend was a continuation of a strong spring rebound for theaters. Revenue so far this year is now up 22% versus 2024, according to Comscore.

This doesn’t mean the movie business is saved, but it does show that having a mix of different kinds of movies for multiple audiences is healthy for cinemas. Upcoming releases include “Karate Kid: Legends,” “Ballerina,” “How to Train Your Dragon” and a Pixar original, “Elio.”

“Lilo & Stitch” is particularly notable, coming after Disney’s previous live-action redo, “Snow White,” bombed in theaters. While Snow White has an important place in Disney history, Stitch — the chaotic blue alien — has quietly become a hugely important character for the company, driving enormous merchandise sales over the years.

The 2002 original wasn’t a huge blockbuster, coming during an awkward era for Walt Disney Animation, but the remake certainly is.

Finally …

Watch: Prepping for the new “Naked Gun” by rewatching the classic and reliving the perfect Twitter meme.

Listen: My favorite episode of “Blank Check with Griffin & David” in a long time — covering Steven Spielberg’s “Hook” with Lin-Manuel Miranda.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Sunday that the U.S. will delay implementation of a 50% tariff on goods from the European Union until July 9 to buy time for negotiations with the bloc.

That agreement came after a call Sunday with Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, who had told Trump that she “wants to get down to serious negotiations,” according to the U.S. president.

“I told anybody that would listen, they have to do that,” Trump told reporters Sunday in Morristown, N.J., as he prepared to return to Washington. Von der Leyen, Trump said, vowed to “rapidly get together and see if we can work something out.”

In a social media post Friday, Trump had threatened to impose the 50% tariff on EU goods, asserting that the 27-member bloc had been “very difficult to deal with” on trade and that negotiations were “going nowhere.” Those tariffs would have kicked in starting June 1.

But the call with Von der Leyen appeared to smooth over tensions, at least for now.

“I agreed to the extension — July 9, 2025 — It was my privilege to do so,” Trump said on social media shortly after he spoke with reporters Sunday evening.

Von der Leyen said the EU and the U.S. “share the world’s most consequential and close trade relationship.”

“Europe is ready to advance talks swiftly and decisively,” she said. “To reach a good deal, we would need the time until July 9.”

Kim writes for the Associated Press.

Late goals by Lionel Messi and Telasco Segovia allow Inter to split the points on the road against Philadelphia Union.

Inter Miami have fought back from 3-1 down to grab a 3-3 draw at the MLS Eastern Conference leaders, the Philadelphia Union, thanks to a stoppage-time leveller from substitute Telasco Segovia.

Israeli forward Tai Baribo scored twice for Philadelphia on Saturday to give them the two-goal advantage, but Lionel Messi gave Miami hope with an 87th-minute free kick before Segovia’s dramatic 95th-minute goal grabbed the point for Inter.

Quinn Sullivan, called up this week by Mauricio Pochettino to the US national team squad, fired Philadelphia ahead in the seventh minute with a sweet strike after Miami’s defence failed to close down.

Baribo made it 2-0 with an instinctive finish in the 44th minute as Miami’s defensive troubles continued.

The visitors got a foothold in the game in the 60th minute when Noah Allen floated in a cross from the left that was met by a firm header from Argentinian Tadeo Allende.

But Philadelphia restored their two-goal cushion when, from a long throw, Miami were unable to clear and Jean-Jacques Danley pounced on the loose ball and Baribo fired home.

Messi beat Union keeper Andrew Rick with a characteristically well driven free kick for his sixth goal of the season three minutes from the end of regulation time to set up a frantic finale.

Jovan Lukic hit the bar from inside the box early in stoppage time as Philly looked to wrap up the win, but they were left crestfallen in the fifth minute of stoppage time when, after good work from Messi, Segovia pounced and blasted home.

While the result was a welcome sign of character from Miami, they remain with just one win in their past eight games in all competitions, having conceded 23 goals.

Javier Mascherano’s side are sixth in the Eastern Conference and the former Barcelona and Argentina midfielder praised his team’s response.

“We showed character, personality. It was another difficult start of the game for us because in the beginning, we conceded the goal, … but the guys showed they want to fight to get out of this situation,” the Miami coach said.

“We are in a bad trend but with a lot of spirit to come back to be the team we were at the beginning of the season,” he added before demanding better from his back line.

“We cannot concede every single corner kick and every single throw-in and give opponents opportunities to score. … We need to be more focused in those situations,” Mascherano said.

Israel is facing condemnation from some of its strongest allies over its increasing aggression in Gaza.

The UK is cancelling new trade talks and the EU is reviewing old agreements, while both are imposing sanctions on Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

The two powers say they cannot stand by while Israel expands military operations, increases air strikes and starves Palestinians in Gaza with its total blockade.

But critics are asking why they did not step in before.

Will the new measures be imposed?

And most importantly: Will any of this change the reality on the ground for the Palestinians?

Presenter:

Folly Bah Thibault

Guests:

James Moran – Former EU ambassador to Egypt and Jordan

Yossi Mekelberg – Senior consulting fellow at Chatham House

Zaid Belbagi – Managing partner of Hardcastle Advisory and political commentator

If you want to understand what’s going on in the streaming business, go find Elmo and Cookie Monster.

Netflix’s recent deal to stream the upcoming season of “Sesame Street” is, on its own, a major step in the entertainment giant’s effort to become a go-to destination for preschooler programming. At the same time, it’s a useful way to understand one of the media industry’s other big stories of the last week — Warner Bros. Discovery’s re-rebranding of its streaming service back to HBO Max.

First, the deal itself.

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix will begin streaming the beloved children’s show’s upcoming 56th season, along with 90 hours of older episodes, later this year. New “Sesame Street” episodes will continue to air in the U.S. on PBS’ stations and digital platforms, the nonprofit Sesame Workshop’s longtime TV partner (which could use a win amid Congress’ efforts to defund public broadcasting). Episodes will premiere the same day on PBS and Netflix.

The new season will be released in three batches, and will include some format changes and the return of popular segments such as “Elmo’s World” and “Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck.” Episodes will now be built around one 11-minute story, reflecting the shorter attention spans of younger viewers. The partnership includes a new animated segment, “Tales from 123.” Additionally, Netflix will be able to develop “Sesame Street” video games.

Netflix is welcoming “Sesame Street” to its block after HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery opted not to re-up its deal for new episodes, citing a shift in corporate priorities during a period of harsh cost-cutting.

HBO — and by extension, the streaming service known until recently as Max — had been the home of “Sesame Street” for years. The company then called Time Warner inked its deal with Sesame Workshop a decade ago, before AT&T or David Zaslav and his Discovery empire entered the picture.

Having Big Bird appear on the exclusive and adult-skewing “Game of Thrones” network never made much sense, but the deal was a lifeline for Sesame Workshop and kept the show alive, though it raised concerns among parent groups.

After AT&T took over, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max, a much reviled rebranding that was meant to make room for more populist content, including “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.” It also allowed for more kids’ programming, such as shows from Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera, along with “Sesame Street.”

Then came Zaslav, who stripped HBO from the streamer’s name entirely, leaving it as just Max. Part of the justification of the change was that the name HBO, while well known and respected among fancy people in New York and L.A., was a turnoff for Middle America and those who might otherwise sign up to binge-watch “Dr. Pimple Popper” and Guy Fieri.

The executives were also convinced that the HBO brand, known for “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” was a deterrent for parents.

This was the era when streaming services were trying to be everything to everyone, and were losing billions of dollars trying to catch up to Netflix. Few companies other than Walt Disney Co. and HBO had distinct brands that made sense to people outside corporate conference rooms.

The decision to excise the HBO moniker was widely derided at the time as flawed managerial thinking.

Larry Vincent, a professor at USC Marshall School of Business and former UTA chief branding officer, called it a “classic case of right question, wrong answer” that will go down alongside New Coke in the annals of marketing blunders.

The name HBO has historically stood for quality, to the point that when people try to describe Apple TV+’s boutique streaming strategy, they compare it to early HBO. Last week, in an effective mea culpa during the media business’ big upfront week of presentations for advertisers, the company said the service would be called HBO Max again.

“It just violated everything we know about how you build a premium brand,” Vincent said of the earlier rebrand. “HBO has been at this for 50 years. It connotes a certain level of quality…. What we see now is that this is a reset to going back to the default position, because they realized this was silly.”

The backpedaling move drew howls from social media, journalists and rivals. Even Max’s own X account joined in on the fun. Warner Bros. Discovery executives were bracing for whatever John Oliver would say Sunday night during his show, and the comedian — never shy about bashing his own bosses — did not disappoint.

The decision was an admission of a couple things: First, that trying to be an “everything store” for entertainment was foolhardy when Netflix and Amazon both serve that exact purpose; and second, that it was a mistake to shy away from the brand that makes the streaming offering special.

Casey Bloys, chairman of HBO and Max content, said in a statement that returning to the old name “clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”

As my colleague Stephen Battaglio recently pointed out, when media companies put out new streaming services these days, there’s a tendency to avoid the now-cliche plus sign and stick with the brand name consumers already understand.

For example, Disney’s new $30 a month ESPN flagship service is simply called ESPN (ESPN+ is already taken by a more limited service).

Under Bloys, HBO has continued its tradition of highly regarded original series, with recent examples including the latest seasons of “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and “The Righteous Gemstones.”

The brand confusion is still real, though. I’ve spoken with agents and read publications that should know better that mistakenly think “Hacks” and “The Pitt” are HBO shows, when they’re actually Max originals. That may not be important to consumers, but within the industry and for artists, it matters.

As for preschool-focused programming such as “Sesame Street,” that’s no longer a priority for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming strategy. The company has said it now wants to focus on “stories for adults and families.”

People who want shows for their toddlers can find them almost anywhere, including for free on YouTube. Disney+, of course, has troves of kids content, including Australia’s acclaimed and much-watched “Bluey.”

And, increasingly, kids are tuning into Netflix, which is now the land of “Ms. Rachel,” “CoComelon” and “Blippi,” all of which rose to popularity on YouTube. Kids and family programming now accounts for 15% of the platform’s viewership, according to the company. Netflix also has “Peppa Pig” and “Hot Wheels Let’s Race.”

Suffice to say, if you want or need to turn your little ones into couch zombies for a while, Netflix has an increasingly crowded ZIP Code of shows for you.

Stuff we wrote

Numbers of the week

Cable’s consolidation continues with Friday’s announcement that Charter and Cox will merge in a $34.5-billion deal, uniting Southern California’s two major cable TV and internet providers.

The Charter-Cox combination would have 38 million customer homes in the nation, a larger footprint than longtime cable leader Comcast.

Of the many interesting aspects of the deal, this one is particularly relevant to Los Angeles residents — if approved by Charter shareholders and regulators, the merger would end one of the longest TV sports blackouts, my colleague Meg James reports.

Cox customers in Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates and Orange County would finally have the Dodgers’ TV channel available in their lineups. For more than a decade, Cox has refused to carry SportsNet LA because of its high cost.

New Line Cinema’s horror franchise revival “Final Destination: Bloodlines” won the weekend box office with $51 million in the U.S. and Canada (more than $100 million globally), exceeding pre-release analyst estimates.

The horror genre’s power to draw moviegoers is undeniable. The marketing was clever (complete with morbid 3D billboards), and this series has built-in nostalgic value. The new grisly supernatural teen movie comes 14 years after the previous one, “Final Destination 5.” The audience response has been generally positive.

With a reported production budget of $50 million, this was a no-brainer, and another win for Warner Bros. chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy coming after “Minecraft” and “Sinners.” All eyes are now on James Gunn’s “Superman,” coming in July.

Finally …

Listen: “Chaise Longue” rock band Wet Leg has new music on the way. Here’s a preview.

The Baltic nation is seeking damages, including compensation for border reinforcement costs.

Lithuania has initiated legal proceedings against Belarus at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), accusing its neighbour of orchestrating a refugee and migrant crisis by facilitating the smuggling of people across their border.

“The Belarusian regime must be held legally accountable for orchestrating the wave of illegal migration and the resulting human rights violations,” Lithuanian Justice Minister Rimantas Mockus said in a statement on Monday.

“We are taking this case to the International Court of Justice to send a clear message: no state can use vulnerable people as political pawns without facing consequences under international law.”

The case, submitted to the ICJ in The Hague, centres on alleged violations by Belarus of the United Nations Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea and Air.

Lithuania’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said attempts to resolve the issue through bilateral talks failed and it has evidence showing direct involvement by the Belarusian state in organising refugee and migrant flows, including a surge in flights from the Middle East operated by Belarusian state-owned airlines.

After landing in Belarus, many of the passengers were escorted to the Lithuanian border by Belarusian security forces and forced to cross illegally, Lithuanian officials said.

Lithuania also accused Belarus of refusing to cooperate with its border services in preventing irregular crossings and said it is seeking compensation through the ICJ for alleged damages caused, including costs related to border reinforcement.

Tensions between the two countries have simmered since 2021 when thousands of people – mostly from the Middle East and Africa – began arriving at the borders of Lithuania, Poland and Latvia from Belarus.

Belarus had previously deported Middle Eastern refugees and migrants with more than 400 Iraqis repatriated to Baghdad on a charter flight from Minsk in November 2021.

That same year, a Human Rights Watch report accused Belarus of manufacturing the crisis, finding that “accounts of violence, inhuman and degrading treatment and coercion by Belarusian border guards were commonplace”.

European Union officials have also accused Minsk of “weaponising” migration in an effort to destabilise the bloc. The claims are strongly denied by Belarus.

In December, the EU approved emergency measures allowing member states bordering Belarus and Russia to temporarily suspend asylum rights in cases in which migration is being manipulated for political ends.

When Los Angeles City Council members took up a plan to hike the wages of tourism workers this week, they received some carefully worded advice from city lawyers: Don’t vote on this yet.

Senior Assistant City Atty. Michael J. Dundas advised them on Wednesday — deep into their meeting — that his office had not yet conducted a final legal review of the flurry of last-minute changes they requested earlier in the day.

Dundas recommended that the council delay its vote for two days to comply with the Ralph M. Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law.

“We advise that the posted agenda for today’s meeting provides insufficient notice under the Brown Act for first consideration and adoption of an ordinance to increase the wages and health benefits for hotel and airport workers,” Dundas wrote.

The council pressed ahead anyway, voting 12-3 to increase the minimum wage of those workers to $30 per hour by 2028, despite objections from business groups, hotel owners and airport businesses.

Then, on Friday, the council conducted a do-over vote, taking up the rewritten wage measure at a special noon meeting — one called only the day before. The result was the same, with the measure passing again, 12-3.

Some in the hotel industry questioned why Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, who runs the meetings, insisted on moving forward Wednesday, even after the lawyers’ warning.

Jackie Filla, president and chief executive of the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, said the decision to proceed Wednesday gave a political boost to Unite Here Local 11, which represents hotel workers. The union had already scheduled an election for Thursday for its members to vote on whether to increase their dues.

By approving the $30 per hour minimum wage on Wednesday, the council gave the union a potent selling point for the proposed dues increase, Filla said.

“It looks like it was in Unite Here’s financial interest to have that timing,” she said.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who opposed the wage increases, was more blunt.

“It was clear that Marqueece intended to be as helpful as possible” to Unite Here Local 11, “even if it meant violating the Brown Act,” she said.

Harris-Dawson spokesperson Rhonda Mitchell declined to say why her boss pushed for a wage vote on Wednesday after receiving the legal advice about the Brown Act. That law requires local governments to take additional public comment if a legislative proposal has changed substantially during a meeting.

Mitchell, in a text message, said Harris-Dawson scheduled the new wage vote for Friday because of a mistake by city lawyers.

“The item was re-agendized because of a clerical error on the City Attorney’s part — and this is the correction,” she said.

Mitchell did not provide details on the error. However, the wording on the two meeting agendas is indeed different.

Wednesday’s agenda called for the council to ask city lawyers to “prepare and present” amendments to the wage laws. Friday’s agenda called for the council to “present and adopt” the proposed changes.

Maria Hernandez, a spokesperson for Unite Here Local 11, said in an email that her union does not control the City Council’s schedule. The union’s vote on higher dues involved not just its L.A. members but also thousands of workers in Orange County and Arizona, Hernandez said.

“The timing of LA City Council votes is not up to us (sadly!) — in fact we were expecting a vote more than a year ago — nor would the precise timing be salient to our members,” she said.

Hernandez said Unite Here Local 11 members voted “overwhelmingly” on Thursday to increase their dues, allowing the union to double the size of its strike fund and pay for “an army of organizers” for the next round of labor talks. She did not disclose the size of the dues increase.

Dundas’ memo, written on behalf of City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, was submitted late in Wednesday’s deliberations, after council members requested a number of changes to the minimum wage ordinance. At one point, they took a recess so their lawyers could work on the changes.

By the time the lawyers emerged with the new language, Dundas’ memo was pinned to the public bulletin board in the council chamber, where spectators quickly snapped screenshots.

CHESTER, Pa. — Tai Baribo scored two second-half goals, including the winner in stoppage time, and the Philadelphia Union rallied to beat the Galaxy for the first time at home with a 3-2 victory on Wednesday night.

The Galaxy (0-9-4) continued the worst start by a defending champion in MLS history despite Diego Fagúndez becoming the eighth player in league history to reach 75 goals and 75 assists in a career.

Baribo scored in the sixth minute of stoppage time after tying the match 2-2 with a goal in the 50th for the Union (8-3-2), who are on a five-match unbeaten run. Baribo has a league-leading 10 goals this season.

Defender Mauricio Cuevas scored for the first time this season and the second time in 31 career appearances to give the Galaxy the lead in the 31st minute. Fagúndez scored his second goal this season for a 2-0 lead in the 37th. Marco Reus collected assists on both scores.

Philadelphia tied it in the first five minutes of the second half. Jacob Glesnes headed in a goal off a corner kick by Kai Wagner in the 48th minute.

Homegrown goalkeeper Andrew Rick made the 10th start of his career and did not have a save for the Union.

John McCarthy had four saves as the Galaxy built a 2-0 lead in the first half and finished with seven.

Philadelphia improved to 1-3-2 all time at home in the Galaxy’s first visit since 2018.

The Union travel to play Atlanta United on Saturday. The Galaxy will host rival LAFC on Sunday.

Freddy Escobar stood on the sidewalk outside his former workplace waving a green thumb drive and a stack of papers that he said would clear his name.

The suspended president of the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City said he couldn’t get into the office where he’s worked since 2018. He said the union’s parent organization had changed the locks to the building and the gate code to the parking garage.

He rang the doorbell to deliver his evidence, including photos of receipts, to counter allegations that he hadn’t documented many of his credit card purchases. But there was no answer.

“Wow,” he said. As he turned to face news cameras, Escobar closed his eyes for a moment. “An organization that I would have died for is not giving me an opportunity now to present to them what they’ve been looking for.”

The dramatic scene unfolded Friday morning outside the union’s office in Historic Filipinotown, four days after the International Assn. of Fire Fighters suspended Escobar and two other union officers over financial improprieties, including “serious problems” with missing receipts.

The IAFF also placed UFLAC under conservatorship, a first for any of the local firefighter unions overseen by the Washington, D.C.-based organization, a spokesperson said. The unprecedented move followed Times reports about the IAFF’s financial audit as well as massive overtime payments to Escobar and other union officials.

IAFF General President Edward Kelly disclosed the audit’s findings in a letter to UFLAC members Monday.

From July 2018 through November 2024, Escobar initiated 1,957 transactions on his UFLAC credit card, totaling $311,498, the letter said. More than 70% of those transactions — amounting to $230,466 — had no supporting documentation.

“The auditors could not ascertain the purpose of these transactions,” Kelly wrote in the letter. He added that an additional 157 transactions — amounting to $35,397 — were only partially supported by required documentation.

“This means there is no way to determine whether $265,862.34 in dues money spent by President Escobar without documentation was for legitimate union expenditures,” the letter said.

The audit found that two other UFLAC officials — former Secretary Adam Walker and former Treasurer Domingo Albarran Jr. — together had more than $530,000 in credit card transactions with no receipts or partial documentation. Walker did not respond to a request for comment, and Albarran declined to comment.

In all, about $800,000 in credit card purchases were not properly documented, the letter said.

Vice Presidents Chuong Ho and Doug Coates were suspended and accused of breaching their fiduciary duties in “failing to enforce UFLAC policy.” Neither responded to a request for comment.

Escobar arrived at the union office Friday morning to speak to reporters at a press conference he had called to refute the allegations. He said he was unaware he was being audited and was never asked to provide his receipts.

Under UFLAC policy, receipts are required for all credit card expenditures, along with an explanation of the expense, including the names of those present and the business reason for the expenditure.

Escobar said the records he was holding included everything the IAFF said was missing. But he also said he did not tally up the totals and did not know how much money he was accounting for. All the receipts he was providing, he said, had already been uploaded into the union’s expense system.

“Whatever they say I don’t have, I have,” he said.

He said he compiled years of documentation, including more than 1,500 receipts, meeting minutes and explanations for his expenses, which included transactions for gas, food, hotels and Uber rides. He said none were personal expenses.

Asked why he expensed Uber rides when he had a take-home car provided by the union, he said the rides were for members doing union business.

Accounting problems had been flagged earlier by auditors for UFLAC, who in March 2024 highlighted “significant deficiencies” because officers were failing to properly document their expenditures.

Despite that warning, Escobar made 339 transactions in 2024 using his UFLAC credit card — for a total of $71,671 — without submitting a single receipt, Kelly wrote.

Escobar said the auditors never spoke to him.

“What’s a warning? It was an audit that said that we could always do better and that always occurs — we could always do better,” he said.

Asked what could have been improved, since he said he had all his receipts, he replied: “Probably more detail. … Explanations, fine tuning.”

He called on the IAFF “do the right thing” and reinstate him as president. In the meantime, he said he will go back to work as an LAFD captain at a fire station in Boyle Heights.

In a statement Friday, IAFF spokesperson Ryan Heffernan said that since March 2024 and as recently as last month, Escobar was “repeatedly urged — in written communication and face-to-face meetings — to fulfill his fiduciary duties to the members of Local 112 and submit proper documentation for all expenditures.”

“Despite this, the forensic audit, issued in May 2025, confirmed serious deficiencies in Mr. Escobar’s expense reconciliation and record-keeping practices between 2018-2024,” the statement said.

Last month, a Times investigation found that Escobar and other top union officers have for years been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting five- to six-figure union stipends.

Escobar made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He more than doubled his base salary of $184,034 with overtime payouts that year, earning more than $424,500 from the city in pay and benefits, payroll data show.

He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union, according to its most recent federal tax filing. He reported working 48 hours a week on union and related duties, while records provided by the city for that year show he picked up an average of roughly 30 hours of overtime a week on firefighting shifts — a total of about 78 hours of work each week.

On Friday, he disputed his total earnings, saying “it’s a lot less than that,” though he did not provide evidence.

HARRISBURG, Pa. — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved.

Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred.

As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers, who were themselves rattled by Fetterman’s behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.

The interaction at Fetterman’s Washington office, described to the Associated Press by the two people who spoke about it on the condition of anonymity, came the day before New York Magazine published a story in which former staff and political advisors to Fetterman aired concerns about the senator’s mental health.

That story included a 2024 letter, also obtained by the AP, in which Fetterman’s one-time chief of staff Adam Jentleson told a neuropsychiatrist who had treated Fetterman for depression that the senator appeared to be off his recovery plan and was exhibiting alarming behavior, including a tendency toward “long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues.”

Asked about the meeting with teachers union representatives, Fetterman said in a statement through his office that they “had a spirited conversation about our collective frustration with the Trump administration’s cuts to our education system.” He also said he “will always support our teachers, and I will always reject anyone’s attempt to turn Pennsylvania’s public schools into a voucher program.”

Fetterman earlier this week brushed off the New York Magazine story as a “one-source hit piece and some anonymous sources, so there’s nothing new.” Asked by a reporter in a Senate corridor what he would say to people who are concerned about him, Fetterman said: “They’re not. They’re actually not concerned. It’s a hit piece. There’s no news.”

Reached by telephone, Aaron Chapin, the president of the Pennsylvania State Education Assn. who was in the meeting with Fetterman, said he didn’t want to discuss what was a private conversation.

Surviving a stroke, battling depression

The teachers union encounter adds to the questions being raised about Fetterman’s mental health and behavior barely three years after he survived a stroke on the 2022 campaign trail that he said almost killed him. That was followed by a bout with depression that landed him in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, barely a month after he was sworn into the Senate.

The scrutiny also comes at a time when Fetterman, now serving the third year of his term, is being criticized by many rank-and-file Democrats in his home state for being willing to cooperate with President Trump, amid Democrats’ growing alarm over Trump’s actions and agenda.

Fetterman — who has been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged, and auditory processing disorder, a complication from the stroke — has talked openly about his struggle with depression and urged people to get help.

In November, he told podcast host Joe Rogan that he had recovered and fended off thoughts of harming himself.

“I was at the point where I was really, you know, in a very dark place. And I stayed in that game and I am staying in front of you right now and having this conversation,” Fetterman said.

But some who have worked closely with Fetterman question whether his recovery is complete.

In the 2024 letter to Dr. David Williamson, Jentleson warned that Fetterman was not seeing his doctors, had pushed out the people who were supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan and might not be taking his prescribed medications. Jentleson also said Fetterman had been driving recklessly and exhibiting paranoia, isolating him from colleagues.

“Overall, over the last nine months or so, John has dismantled the early-warning system we all agreed upon when he was released,” Jentleson wrote. “He has picked fights with each person involved in that system and used those fights as excuses to push them out and cut them off from any knowledge about his health situation.”

Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Williamson works, declined to make him available for an interview, citing privacy and confidentiality laws protecting patient medical information.

A lone wolf in the Senate

Fetterman has long been a wild card in the political realm, forging a career largely on his own, independently from the Democratic Party.

As a small-town mayor in Braddock, the plainspoken Fetterman became a minor celebrity for his bare-knuckled progressive politics, his looks — he’s 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head — and his unconventional efforts to put the depressed former steel town back on the map.

He endorsed the insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in 2016’s presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed Democrat in 2016’s Senate primary. In 2020, when he was lieutenant governor, he became a top surrogate on cable TV news shows for Joe Biden’s presidential bid and gathered a national political following that made him a strong small-dollar fundraiser.

Elected to the Senate in 2022, he has made waves with his casual dress — hoodies and gym shorts — at work and at formal events and his willingness to chastise other Democrats.

Fetterman returned to the Senate after his hospitalization in 2023 a much more outgoing lawmaker, frequently joking with his fellow senators and engaging with reporters in the hallways with the assistance of an iPad or iPhone that transcribes conversations in real time.

Yet two years later, Fetterman is still something of a loner in the Senate.

He has separated himself from many of his fellow Democrats on Israel policy and argued at times that his party needs to work with, not against, Trump. He met with Trump and Trump’s nominees — and voted for some — when other Democrats wouldn’t.

He has stood firmly with Democrats in other cases and criticized Trump on some issues, such as trade and food aid.

One particularly head-scratching video of Fetterman emerged earlier this year in which he was on a flight to Pittsburgh apparently arguing with a pilot over his seat belt.

Despite fallout with progressives over his staunch support of Israel in its war in Gaza, Fetterman was still an in-demand personality last year to campaign in the battleground state of Pennsylvania for Biden and, after Biden dropped his reelection bid, Vice President Kamala Harris.

Since Trump won November’s election — and Pennsylvania — things have changed. Many one-time supporters have turned on Fetterman over his softer approach to Trump and his willingness to criticize fellow Democrats for raising alarm bells.

It nevertheless brought Fetterman plaudits.

Bill Maher, host of the political talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher,” suggested that Fetterman should run for president in 2028. Conservatives — who had long made Fetterman a target for his progressive politics — have sprung to Fetterman’s defense.

Still, Democrats in Pennsylvania say they are hearing from people worried about him.

“People are concerned about his health,” said Sharif Street, the state’s Democratic Party chairman. “They want to make sure he’s OK. People care about him. There’s a lot of love for him out there.”

Levy writes for the Associated Press. The AP’s Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — An alleged coast-to-coast criminal conspiracy that has defrauded the employee benefit plans of major labor unions is being investigated by a joint task force of FBI and Labor Department agents, The Times learned Tuesday.

The alleged fraud involves hundreds of thousands of dollars in health insurance payments by members of labor unions in the last few years.

Search warrants filed in federal court in San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore and other cities show that the investigation centers on Angelo T. Commito, a reputed associate of organized crime figures.

Sources said companies linked to Commito are suspected of using kickbacks and extortion tactics to obtain contracts for prepaid health care plans from labor unions.

Indictments May Be Near

At least half a dozen federal grand juries have been investigating the case for months, and indictments may be sought within several days, authorities said.

These sources, who declined to be named, said the broad investigation was hinted at in April when FBI Director William S. Sessions testified about the government’s continuing crackdown on organized crime before the permanent investigations subcommittee of the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee.

Although Sessions did not specifically mention employee benefit plans, he said the bureau was maintaining vigilance over “criminal organizations that deal in various criminal activities for profit,” including some in the field of labor racketeering.

Sessions noted that in the last two years, in addition to the convictions of Mafia members and associates, 43 officials or members of labor unions were convicted of racketeering charges.

The current investigation reportedly involves labor officials or employees with the Hotel and Restaurant Employees Union, the Teamsters Union, the United Food and Commercial Workers and others. Names of those suspected of criminal conduct could not be learned.

‘New Generation of Racketeer’

Raymond Maria, chief of the Labor Department’s office of labor racketeering, refused in an interview to disclose the names of those targeted. But he said federal investigators are focusing on “a new generation of racketeer” in the labor field.

“This new generation includes bankers, attorneys, accountants and administrators of employee benefit plans who, in many cases, deal with members of organized crime,” he said.

He said the people suspected of wrongdoing in the labor conspiracy allegedly “sought to establish a nationwide criminal monopoly in the delivery of services to employee benefit plans–insurance, health care, vision care, legal services and various types of rehabilitative counseling.”

Kickbacks were “the basic sales tool,” he said, in which union officials or benefit plan trustees received payoffs to award service contracts. The alleged offenses occurred within the last six years.

Maria complained that “the large number of employee benefit plans in the country dwarfs the minuscule number of government agents assigned to investigate instances of fraud. So the situation provides a tremendous incentive to steal and to cheat.”

Hope to Curb Abuses

Federal officials said they hope that the current inquiry cracks down on such abuses.

Commito, who reportedly maintains homes in San Francisco, Palm Springs and Chicago, could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Efforts to obtain comment from his lawyer, former U.S. Atty. Dan K. Webb of Chicago, also were unsuccessful.

Commito’s principal company is Chicago-based Labor Health Plans Inc., but he also owns firms named Labor Health and Benefits Plan and Dental Health Care Alternatives, according to FBI search warrants on file in Chicago.

Active for years in the prepaid health care industry, Commito’s firms usually receive monthly fees from labor unions of $5 to $15 per worker covered, authorities said.

In warrants it has filed, the FBI sought information about alleged payments or gifts from Commito’s firms to a former official of the United Auto Workers who died in December. Agents also sought documents that they believed would show contacts between Commito’s companies and organized crime figures in New York and Chicago, according to court files.

Identified as Mob Associate

The Pennsylvania Crime Commission identified Commito in 1982 as an associate of several Philadelphia-area mobsters, including John James Allu, who was convicted of three perjury counts for his testimony at hearings into New York City Teamsters corruption.

A former Teamster official told The Times that Commito also had been close to Vito Mango, a convicted felon who formerly ran Teamsters Local 413 in Columbus, Ohio, with which Commito had a contract to provide health services.

Court officials in Huntington Beach, Calif., confirmed that a search warrant was served earlier this year on Contact Corp., a prepaid health care company headed by Mark Kusel, in connection with the inquiry. Kusel declined comment on the matter two months ago. A reporter who attempted to call him Tuesday found that the company’s phone had been disconnected.

Since Sunday night, Hollywood has been trying to make heads or tails of President Trump’s bombshell proposal to levy 100% tariffs on films made outside of the U.S.

Ostensibly, the Trump tariff plan is part of an effort to bring Hollywood productions back home, after decades of runaway production.

Remarkably few movies are made entirely in the U.S. — let alone Los Angeles — because studios have been lured abroad to countries including Canada, Britain, Australia, Hungary and Bulgaria by generous government incentives. Special effects are often outsourced overseas.

This has contributed to what leaders in California now call a crisis for the state’s production economy. The Los Angeles area also faces stiff competition from other states, including Georgia and New York.

So Trump has clearly identified a real problem, though the solution he offered is questionable, to say the least. Filmmakers say they want to shoot in the States but need help to make it financially feasible. Tariffs won’t help with that. In fact, they’ll make it worse.

“It’s great that the president is starting to pay attention,” said Jeffrey Greenstein, who has produced movies shot in multiple countries. “So let’s have a real conversation about it and figure out the best way to start bringing movies back.”

The chaotic and vague way Trump’s plan was announced sent studio executives scrambling to figure out what it all meant. The notion seemed ill-thought-out and knee-jerk, many producers said.

How do you even put a tariff on movies, which are distributed digitally? Why tariffs, rather than a robust national tax credit program, which many in the industry have advocated for?

“Nobody knows and I don’t suspect we will for awhile,” said one executive who was not authorized to comment. “Is [the tariff] on domestically funded foreign productions? Is it on foreign funded ones? Is the tariff on film revenues or film costs on those projects or both, etc., etc., etc. What constitutes a feature? Who knows.”

Who knows, indeed.

Before Sunday’s announcement, actor Jon Voight, one of Trump’s “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, traveled to Florida with his manager Steven Paul for a meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago to present a plan for the film industry. Ideas addressed included federal tax incentives, job training and “tariffs in certain limited circumstances,” according to a statement from Paul’s production company.

Gov. Gavin Newsom has now called on Trump to create a $7.5-billion federal film tax credit program. The governor’s office reached out to the White House Monday evening to encourage Trump to work with California to create a federal credit modeled after the state’s program.

Some executives and producers said the tariff idea would hasten Hollywood’s demise rather than save it, because of the increased costs for studios that are already under financial pressure. Reciprocal tariffs from other territories could follow. China is already getting more restrictive for American movies thanks to Trump trade policies.

Already, there are signs that the administration might be walking the proposal back, leaving entertainment business analysts to doubt that the idea will actually go into effect.

Nonetheless, the turmoil could cast a pall over the Cannes Film Festival this month, where a lot of indie movie deals happen.

“It still creates a headache for the film business and particularly indie film if there is yet more uncertainty in an already fragile marketplace, particularly among the banks and investors,” said Stuart Ford, head of Los Angeles-based film and TV company AGC Studios.

Just what Hollywood needs — more uncertainty.

Read my colleagues Meg James and Samantha Masunaga for more on the tariff situation.

IFC’s new look at 25 years old

Indie movie stalwart IFC Films has seen dramatic changes in the specialty film market since it launched 25 years ago.

The challenges are real, as streaming changes moviegoer habits and the box office continues to creep back from the pandemic doldrums. Meanwhile, newer entrants — including A24, Neon and Angel Studios — have reshaped the business by establishing themselves as fresh brands that mean something to their target audiences.

The types of movies that draw independent film fans to theaters have also shifted radically, especially compared to the early 2000s when IFC released “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” by far its biggest hit. Even 2014, the year the company put out Richard Linklater’s best picture Oscar nominee “Boyhood,” seems a lifetime away.

The market now is younger and hungrier for horror movies, thrillers and edgy genre mashups. At the same time, the major Hollywood studios have, with few exceptions, turned their attention to broad-based tentpole movies, which gives companies like IFC an opportunity to make a bigger mark.

“The audience for what I would call specialty now is very different than it was a few years ago,” said IFC Entertainment Group head Scott Shooman. “It’s not just older-skewing dramas anymore.”

With all that in mind, New York-based IFC on Tuesday unveiled a brand refresh, changing its name to Independent Film Co. As part of the rebranding effort, the company unveiled a new logo and a “customized audio logo” created by Adam “Adrock” Horovitz of the Beastie Boys.

Independent Film Company’s new logo.

The change is part of a broader rejiggering of film assets within parent company AMC Networks. Independent Film Co. will exist under the newly named IFC Entertainment Group, an umbrella that also includes the IFC Center movie theater, fellow distribution arm RLJE and the horror streaming service Shudder, which turns a decade old this year.

“As the consumer becomes more familiar with brands and who’s purveying the movies, it becomes important for us to refresh the brand,” Shooman said. “It’s gonna take the movies to fill it out, but that’s something that we look forward to doing.”

As the independent space has evolved, so has IFC’s strategy.

The company is aiming to release fewer films while taking bigger swings with more commercial-leaning movies and heftier budgets. Currently, the group releases about 50 movies a year, which according to Shooman is getting closer to the ideal number. About 30 of those releases are through the Shudder arm, a handful of which also go into theaters.

For the rest, 12 are from Independent Film Co. and eight are under the RLJE banner, and all of those are released theatrically. As the company refines its strategy, it’s moving further away from the foreign films and documentaries that helped define the brand years ago, though it will still do one or two of those a year, Shooman said.

“We’re gonna be sniper oriented on those and really make sure that they are the needle-moving films in that space,” he said.

IFC is coming off a strong couple of years, fielding commercial successes including Colin and Cameron Cairnes’ “Late Night With the Devil” and Chris Nash’s “In a Violent Nature,” along with prestigious titles such as “The Taste of Things” and the Academy Award-nominated stop-motion animated feature “Memoir of a Snail.”

Upcoming releases include Eli Craig’s “Clown in a Cornfield”; Sean Byrne’s thriller “Dangerous Animals,” which debuts at Cannes Directors’ Fortnight; and Jay Duplass’ “The Baltimorons.”

Essential to the larger IFC strategy is Shudder, which over the last 10 years has established itself as a destination for horror fans with its mix of new titles and handpicked library selections.

Shudder was, for example, the home of Coralie Fargeat’s first feature, “Revenge,” before she went on to make “The Substance.” It was also behind the 2022 experimental and divisive microbudget film “Skinamarink” from Kyle Edward Ball. Last year, it released “Oddity,” its second time working with Irish director Damian McCarthy.

“As we’re able to grow as a company, we’ve become synonymous with taste, with quality and with author-driven impactful horror,” said Emily Gotto, Shudder’s head of acquisitions and production.

Shudder prides itself on the way it curates its platform with a human touch, not by algorithm.

Some of Shudder’s best gets have been older, little-seen titles with which the company can make a splash. The best example perhaps was when the company secured the rights to the 1981 body horror classic “Possession,” which hadn’t been widely available through streaming or video on-demand.

That coup was a prime example of how the company can make “subscriber events” out of releasing older titles, said Shudder’s programming and acquisitions head Sam Zimmerman, who is in charge of curating the streamer’s offering.

Zimmerman said the company succeeds when “we follow our taste and our passion and release and make movies that take someone a foot further than they thought they were going to go that day.”

“Having that instinct confirmed is both surprising but exciting to me,” he said, “because I think that’s what people want out of horror.”

Finally …

Listen: The blues great Buddy Guy is in the news because of “Sinners,” so why not?

May 5 (UPI) — European Union nations plan to spend more than half a billion dollars to attract foreign researchers after the Trump administration cut funding to universities.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Monday appeared alongside French President Emmanuel Macron at Sorbonne University in Paris to unveil the initiative.

“Choose Europe for Science” would provide $566 million from 2025 to 2027 to attract foreign researchers to “help support the best and the brightest researchers and scientists from Europe and around the world,” she said.

In her speech, von der Leyen didn’t mention Trump or the United States. The Trump administration has terminated several billion dollars in research grants. Also his next budget includes billions cut in science.

“The role of science in today’s world is questioned,” von der Leyen said. “The investment in fundamental, free and open research is questioned. What a gigantic miscalculation. I believe that science holds the key to our future here in Europe. Without it, we simply cannot address today’s global challenges — from health to new tech, from climate to oceans.

“So more than ever we need to stand up for science,” she added. “Science that is universal — shared by all humanity — and that is unifying. Because the pursuit of knowledge and the yearning to understand how things work are values that bring us together as people, as it has done today.”

The Trump administration, besides slashing research grants, has cut spending to the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other science agencies.

Universities have lost funding because of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, including Harvard.

The Ivy League school had $2.2 billion in grants and $60 million for contracts paused over its policies, including activism on campus. Also, Trump has threatened to revoke Harvard’s tax-exempt status. Harvard has filed a lawsuit.

“We can all agree that science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity or political party,” von der Leyen said. “And as such it does play a crucial role in connecting people and creating a shared future in today’s fractured world. We believe that diversity is an asset of humanity and the lifeblood of science. It is one of the most valuable global goods and it must be protected.

Macron also said France separately would commit another $113 million.

“We must not downplay what is at stake today,” Macron said. “No one could have imagined a few years ago that one of the world’s largest democracies would abolish research programs on the grounds that there was the word diversity in their programs,” Macron said. “No one could have imagined that one of the world’s greatest democracies could, in one fell swoop, strike out the possibility of obtaining a visa for a researcher.”

Also, Von der Leyen announced she would put forward the “European Innovation Act and a Startup and Scaleup Strategy, to remove regulatory and other barriers, and to facilitate access to venture capital for innovative European startups and scaleups.”

She wants EU countries to spend 3% of their gross domestic product on research by 2030.

“And we will put forward ambitious proposals on research and innovation funding in the next long-term budget,” she said. “Because we know that an investment in science is an investment into our future.”

The United States spent 3.6% of its GDP on research and development in 2022, according to World Bank collection of development indicators.

Trump’s proposed budget cuts include $4.9 billion to the National Science Foundation, $1.5 billion to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, $6 billion to NASA, $18 billion to NIH, $3.6 billion to the CDC. Health and Human Services will have discretionary funding slashed by 26%.

Macron said Monday that France can “welcome the best researchers” with their work on climate science under threat.

Over the last 40 years, the European Union has funded 33 Nobel Prize laureates.

During the 1930s when fascists took power in Europe, many scientists fled to other countries, including the United States. Albert Einstein fled Germany and settled in the United States before Adolf Hitler took power.

Air traffic controllers at Newark Liberty International Airport briefly lost communications with planes under their control, “unable to see, hear, or talk to them” last week, a union spokesman has said.

The 28 April incident led to multiple employees being placed on trauma leave, contributing to hundreds of delayed or diverted flights. More than 150 flights have been cancelled so far on Monday alone, according to tracking website FlightAware.

The airport, one of New York’s busiest hubs, has been grappling with staff shortages for more than a week.

The Federal Aviation Administration acknowledged in a statement that “our antiquated air traffic control system is affecting our work force”.

Confirming the controllers had taken leave following the incident, the FAA said it could “not quickly replace them”.

“We continue to train controllers who will eventually be assigned to this busy airspace,” the statement said.

Air traffic control operations at the airport have come under sustained criticism recently.

Last week, United Airlines announced it was cancelling 35 flights per day from its Newark schedule because the airport “cannot handle the number of planes that are scheduled to operate there”.

“In the past few days, on more than one occasion, technology that FAA air traffic controllers rely on to manage the airplanes coming in and out of Newark airport failed – resulting in dozens of diverted flights, hundreds of delayed and cancelled flights,” United CEO Scott Kirby said.

He also said the issues were “compounded” because over 20% of FAA controllers “walked off the job”.

The National Air Traffic Controllers Association said the employees took leave under provisions for workers that experience a traumatic event at work.

The union would not say how many controllers had taken leave, or how long they lost contact with planes for.

The Newark incident comes as the US Department of Transport last week unveiled a package designed to boost the numbers of FAA air traffic controllers.

“The package will allow more of the best and brightest candidates to get into air traffic facilities and on the job faster, as well as increase retention of experienced controllers,” the FAA said.

The transport department said it was on track to hire at least 2,000 controllers this year.

In February, the Trump administration began firing hundreds of FAA employees, weeks after a fatal mid-air plane collision in Washington DC.

The agency said it would continue to hire and onboard air traffic controllers and safety professionals.

The president and two other top officers of the Los Angeles Fire Department’s labor union 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 accounted for.

The International Assn. of Fire Fighters, which oversees the United Firefighters of Los Angeles City and other local firefighter unions across the country, suspended President Freddy Escobar and the two others over diverse financial improprieties, including “serious problems” with missing receipts, according to a letter by IAFF General President Edward Kelly to UFLAC members.

The IAFF appointed a conservator to take over the labor union to “restore responsible financial stewardship and guarantee the fulfillment of UFLAC’s legitimate objectives,” Kelly wrote.

“The leadership of UFLAC has abdicated its fiduciary responsibilities and placed Local 112 in ill repute. The financial malpractice by the leadership of UFLAC has dealt serious harm to the membership,” Kelly added.

The dramatic move came after a wide-ranging audit of UFLAC’s finances revealed different kinds of financial improprieties.

The audit found that from July 2018 through November 2024, Escobar initiated 1,957 transactions on his UFLAC credit card, totaling $311,497.58, the letter said. More than 70% of those transactions — amounting to $230,466 — have no supporting documentation.

“The auditors could not ascertain the purpose of these transactions,” Kelly wrote in the letter. He added that an additional 157 transactions — amounting to $35,397 — were only partially supported with required documentation.

“This means there is no way to determine whether $265,862.34 in dues money spent by President Escobar without documentation was for legitimate union expenditures,” the letter said.

Escobar did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The audit found that two others — former Secretary Adam Walker and former treasurer Domingo Albarran Jr. — together had more than $530,000 in credit card transactions with either no receipts or that were only partially documented. Walker did not immediately respond to a request for comment, and Albarran declined to comment.

Vice Presidents Chuong Ho and Doug Coates were also suspended and accused of breaching their fiduciary duties in “failing to enforce UFLAC policy.” Neither immediately responded to a request for comment.

“Protecting the dues money that members contribute to their Local union is one of the highest priorities for all Local union officers,” Kelly wrote. “In fact, Local union officers have a legal responsibility, called a fiduciary duty, to ensure that your dues are spent in your best interests and in a manner you can track. This is so you know exactly how your dues money is being spent.”

The investigation began last October when the new treasurer of the union, Jason Powell, raised concerns to the IAFF about alleged improper record-keeping and use of union funds.

The Times first reported on the audit, along with the suspension of Walker, who had been accused of improperly depositing more than $75,000 of funds from the union’s charity for injured firefighters into his personal accounts from December 2022 to January 2024.

Walker previously told The Times that the allegations are false. He said the account he drew from was not for the charity, the UFLAC Fire Foundation, but was set up for two golf tournaments to raise money for a disabled former firefighter. All of the deposits were reimbursements for his legitimate out-of-pocket expenses for the tournaments, Walker said.

The IAFF investigation, however, found that immediately after moving large sums of money out of the charity’s account into his personal accounts, Walker paid his mortgage and RV loan payments, and made cash ATM withdrawals at casinos, the letter said.

The announcement also comes on the heels of a Times investigation that found Escobar and other top union officers for years have been padding their paychecks with overtime while also collecting five- to six-figure union stipends.

Escobar made about $540,000 in 2022, the most recent year for which records of both his city and union earnings are available. He more than doubled his base salary of $184,034 with overtime payouts that year, earning a total of more than $424,500 from the city in pay and benefits, payroll data show.

He collected an additional $115,962 stipend from the union, according to its most recent federal tax filing. He reported working 48 hours a week on union and related duties, while records provided by the city for that year show he picked up an average of roughly 30 hours of overtime a week — a total of about 78 hours of work each week.

The moment of truth arrived … and Bella Jones rose to the occasion.

Leaping as high as she could from her right-side position, the Redondo Union senior angled a crosscourt kill that clipped the top of the net and dropped into the open court to complete a 12-21, 21-14, 15-13 comeback for Jones and partner Kara Namimatsu to lift the Sea Hawks to a thrilling 3-2 dual victory over defending champion Mira Costa in the CIF Southern Section Division 1 beach volleyball final Saturday afternoon at Long Beach City College.

The Bay League rivals had split the first four matches, with Redondo Union winning on the first two courts and Mira Costa prevailing on the last two, so the championship came down to Court 3, where Jones and Namimatsu were down 11-8 to the Mustangs tandem of Lily Sprague and Allyn Hilt before rallying back to take a 14-12 lead on an ace by Jones. Sprague’s spike landed on the baseline to stave off the first championship point, setting the stage for Jones’ heroics.

“I told Kara let’s go out swinging … win or lose I’m going to be aggressive,” said the teary-eyed Jones, who is headed to San Diego State to play indoor volleyball. “I was really nervous and it wasn’t the best swing, it hit the tape, but all these girls mean so much to me and I wanted to win it for them.”

It was only the second time Jones and Namimatsu had played together — the first being two days before in the semifinals.

“We had an injury so we switched our lineup on the bus for JSerra and we just went with it,” Jones confessed. “Yesterday we served and passed to each other for about an hour and that helped.”

Redondo Union’s Abby Zimmerman lofts the ball over Mira Costa’s Simone Roslon in the Southern Section Division 1 girls’ beach volleyball final.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“Our chemistry works well together and in the timeouts our coach told us to trust in each other, trust in your training,” added Namimatsu, a junior transfer from Bishop Montgomery and early USC beach volleyball commit.

The result was practically a carbon copy of the Sea Hawks’ semifinal triumph, only that time it was Abby Zimmerman and Avery Junk winning 15-13 in the third set of the deciding match on Court 1. On Saturday, the pair swept Mira Costa’s top duo of Olga Nikolaeva and Simone Roslon, 21-17, 21-14.

“This is a really big win for us and it’s really exciting to have all five matches going on at the same time,” said Zimmerman, an All-CIF junior outside hitter who is going to California for indoor. “Our coaches trusted me and Avery to go up against their best. It was just our day.”

“We beat them earlier this year which gave us confidence that we could do it but we lost to them in the finals the last two years so we knew we had to play our best,” added Junk, a senior head to Florida State to play beach with twin sister Addy, who won 22-20, 20-17 on Court 2 with partner Leah Blair.

Mira Costa juniors Audrey Flanagan and Anabelle Redaelli prevailed easily 21-11, 21-18 on Court 4 while sophomores Lerin Rosenthal and Sammy Nammack won 21-17, 25-23 on Court 5.

On March 4, Redondo Union snapped Mira Costa’s 170-match winning streak spanning over a decade (the majority of them coming in Interscholastic Beach Volleyball League play before the CIF sanctioned beach volleyball). Mira Costa won the rematch 5-0 on March 26 and was poised for a three-peat.

Saturday, however, belonged to the Sea Hawks.

A similar scenario unfolded in the first dual Saturday morning and the ending was equally dramatic as Long Beach Poly’s Simone Millsap and Alyssa Luna overcame a match point on Court 4 to win the deciding set 17-15, with Millsap serving an ace to clinch the Jackrabbits’ 3-2 triumph over Anaheim Canyon in the inaugural Division 3 final.

Long each Poly celebrates its 3-2 triumph over Anaheim Canyon in the Southern Section Division 3 girls’ beach volleyball final Saturday at Long Beach City College.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“My thought was ‘I need to get this in,’” Millsap said of her last serve against Canyon’s Erin Ly and Hannah Huang. “I just closed my eyes and envisioned it going to the left corner— and luckily it did.”

Poly’s Aleeya Salima and Lindyn Foster pulled out a 13-21, 21-17, 15-11 win on Court 1 to level the score.

“Going into the last set we knew it come down to us and I think it was about 8-8 when we heard cheering and saw everyone running over to our court that we knew for sure,” Millsap said.

“When a game’s going point by point, your goal is to get the last two,” said Luna, who was called up from JV to play with Millsap in the third round of the playoffs. “Our indoor team won CIF in November so this is extra special.”

The second match of Saturday’s championship tripleheader pitted two Long Beach schools against each other and again it came down to Court 4, where Wilson sophomore Iyla Alvarado and junior Jane Morrison prevailed 21-19, 18-21, 15-11 over Millikan’s Mikayla Brumbelow and Johanna Swerdloff to secure the title for the Bruins.

Moments later, Rams juniors Sophia Orbiso and Aubrey Greene pulled out a 21-17, 17-21, 21-19 win on Court 2 but by then Wilson had already clinched. Millikan was trying to avenge 3-2 and 4-1 losses in Moore League play.

Long Beach Wilson’s Sadie Calderone is defended at the net by Millikan’s Bethany Arnold in the Division 2 final Saturday at Long Beach City College.

(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)

“It was 2-1 at that point, but I was like ‘we need to do this!,” Morrison said. “It helps having people there supporting me. Even though we’d beaten them twice this is the finals and we knew it could go either way.”

“No matter what’s going on with the other matches, we want to win ours,” Alvarado added. “This is our second year playing together, we have good chemistry, we talk strategy and pride ourselves on being mentally stronger than the other team.”

A school leaders’ union says it is taking legal action against Ofsted over proposed changes to the way it inspects schools in England.

The National Association of Head Teachers (NAHT) has asked for a judge to review plans for new school report cards, which are due to be introduced in the autumn after Ofsted got rid of its old one or two-word judgements.

Its general secretary, Paul Whiteman, said the plans amounted to “another crude grading system to hang over the heads of leaders”, and should be scrapped.

Ofsted said supporting mental health was an important part of the proposals, and that the union’s legal claims were “plainly untenable”.

The NAHT said it had issued a claim with the High Court for a judicial review on Saturday, as school leaders gathered for its national conference in Harrogate.

The decision comes after the sister of head teacher Ruth Perry, who took her own life after an Ofsted inspection, called for the new system to be delayed.

A letter signed by Prof Julia Waters with more than 30 others last week, including the general secretaries of four teaching unions, warned the changes would “continue to have a detrimental impact on the wellbeing of education staff and hence on students’ school experience”.

On Friday, Mr Whiteman told NAHT members: “Following Ruth’s death, we were promised change.

“What we’ve been offered, if you scratch beneath the surface, is more of the same – another crude grading system to hang over the heads of leaders.”

Mr Whiteman said school leaders embraced accountability, but said it was “utter nonsense” that Ofsted’s proposed model was the only viable way to assess schools.

He called on Ofsted boss Sir Martyn Oliver to “scrap these proposals” and “think again”.

A debate by NAHT representatives on the proposed changes was scheduled to take place on Saturday, the second day of the union’s conference.

Ofsted’s report cards are set to assess key aspects of each school, including quality of education, behaviour and attendance, personal development, and leadership and management.

There will be five possible grades for each area:

• causing concern
• attention needed
• secure
• strong
• exemplary

A separate part of the report card will say whether the school’s duties around safeguarding have been met.

Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has said the new system will provide “rich, granular insight” to help deliver “tailored” support for struggling schools.

Ofsted’s consultation on the changes ended this week.

An Ofsted spokesperson said: “Supporting the mental health of those we inspect is an important part of the development of our proposals and we are already hearing positive feedback through our inspection tests.

“Our legal team have responded robustly to NAHT. Their suggested claims are plainly untenable. If legal action is launched, we will resist and seek costs.”

When Jim McDonnell took over as Los Angeles police chief late last year, he promised to take stock of the department within 90 days and start overhauling what needed fixing.

Nearly six months later, seemingly little has changed and there are growing questions about when — or even if — McDonnell will shake things up.

Complicating the chief’s situation is the possibility of losing more than 400 civilian workers to layoffs as city leaders scramble to close a $1-billion budget gap.

McDonnell addressed the delays in his reorganization plan during a City Council committee hearing Wednesday, saying that his original three-month timetable was set back by the January wildfires.

Now, the chief said, the challenges ahead are clear.

“I have an opportunity as we move forward with our senior leadership team to reevaluate based on what the budget ends up looking like,” he said, “and then to be able to streamline our operations to support our core functions, which is getting out there and answering radio calls for service.”

Council members are trying to figure out how to save positions on the chopping block, including by reducing overtime funds or even potentially slowing down the hiring of new police recruits.

Some have expressed concerns that patrol officers would be taken out of the field to backfill certain desk jobs. Roughly 130 positions — including crime scene photographers and analysts who process fingerprints and ballistic evidence — are not easily replaced, McDonnell warned.

“We know cops aren’t going to turn a wrench, and we need somebody to fix” broken-down squad cars, Councilmember Tim McOsker said.

Another council member, Eunisses Hernandez, requested more information from the department about whether the millions spent on its helicopter fleet was justified given the city’s financial straits.

Among other changes, McDonnell said he has considered updating the department’s so-called “basic car” plan, which divided the city into small geographical areas that are patrolled by a senior lead officer who is responsible for building ties with community representatives. The city has grown since the program was last studied, he said.

McDonnell on Wednesday repeated his promise to announce a departmental realignment after the completion of a study by Rand Corp., a global policy think tank brought in last year to conduct a top-down review. McDonnell told council members that the department had received some preliminary recommendations from the study, with a final version expected in the coming weeks.

The chief has also convened numerous working groups, which he has said will “reevaluate the way we’ve been doing business versus what we may look to do moving forward.”

Given the “very difficult financial times,” he said, it would be “very questionable” to plan for a future with “major increases” to the department’s size.

Connie Rice, a longtime civil rights attorney who has both sued the LAPD and advised past chiefs on reforms, said McDonnell shouldn’t have to wait for high-priced consultants to tell him what’s wrong with the department.

Among the challenges, she said, are the department’s “hollowed out” community policing program and long-standing issues with racism. She noted McDonnell has said little about how he intends to address allegations about a group of recruitment officers who were secretly recorded making derogatory comments about Black police applicants, women and LGBTQ+ co-workers.

“The LAPD is in a world of trouble, and the xenophobic comments are just the start,” Rice said.

Mario Munoz, a retired LAPD internal affairs lieutenant who now runs a firm that advocates on behalf of whistleblowers, said he has heard concerns within the department about McDonnell’s inaction.

“I don’t think [police officials] know what he’s looking for, because he hasn’t made his expectations clear,” Munoz said, adding that his sense is that even after the Rand audit there will not be major changes or “true reform of the system.”

With crime numbers continuing to trend downward, McDonnell has received public support from Mayor Karen Bass and the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file officers.

But a faction in the Command Officers Assn., which represents all officials above the rank of lieutenant, has pushed for the union to call a no-confidence vote against McDonnell, citing growing discontent over his performance so far.

Some of McDonnell’s backers point out that the chief took a similarly deliberative approach during his last two leadership stints, as chief of police in Long Beach and as Los Angeles County sheriff. Given the challenge of taking over a department as large and complex as the LAPD, it only makes sense that McDonnell should take his time, they say.

In a letter to Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky ahead of his Wednesday presentation to the budget committee, McDonnell argued against eliminating hundreds of jobs and said that the staffing reductions could lead to the closure of three city jails.

“Tasks previously performed by civilian professionals may require staffing by sworn personnel, potentially impacting the number of officers that are available to deploy for protection and service to our communities,” the chief’s letter said.

Amplifying the uncertainty, McDonnell has yet to fill several captain and several commander vacancies, and he has not elevated any candidates from the lieutenant’s promotional list.

But he has made some personnel changes, including moving Deputy Chief Emada Tingirides from her longtime home base in South Bureau to Central Bureau. She was replaced by Deputy Chief Ruby Flores. He also ousted the civilian head of the department’s constitutional policing office, who had drawn the wrath of the police union.

Bernard Parks, a former chief who later served on the City Council, said McDonnell is in a tough spot amid the budget crunch and competing pressures from inside and outside the department.

Parks said he laid out his reorganization plan within weeks of being appointed chief in 1997, but he didn’t fault McDonnell for treading carefully.

“The key is if you have a plan, you should share it as best you can in its totality: We’re at Point A, and we’re trying to get to Point Z,” Parks said. “Stops and starts are the worst thing you can do with an organization because people lose interest quickly.”

Others have similarly preached patience for McDonnell.

Councilmember John Lee, who chairs the council’s public safety committee, said in an interview last month that the chief had privately shared some plans for the department, which centered on improving recruitment and retention of officers.

Lee said it’s “very natural” for some senior officials to worry about their fate under a new chief.

“There’s a lot of different concerns from everybody — it could be a captain whose commuting might change or somebody who’s established really good relationships with a community,” Lee said.

McDonnell may not be moving as quickly as some would like, Lee added, but “we have to put a little trust in him.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.