visitor

PARIS — In a minutes-long strike Sunday inside the world’s most-visited museum, thieves rode a basket lift to the Louvre, forced a window into the Galerie d’Apollon — while tourists pressed shoulder-to-shoulder in the corridors — smashed display cases and fled with priceless Napoleonic jewels, officials said.

It was among the highest-profile museum thefts in recent memory and comes as Louvre employees have complained of worker and security understaffing.

One object was later found outside the museum, according to Culture Minister Rachida Dati. French daily Le Parisien reported it was the emerald-studded crown of Napoleon III’s wife Empress Eugénie — gold, diamonds and sculpted eagles — recovered just beyond the walls, broken.

The theft unfolded just 270 yards from the “Mona Lisa,” in what Dati described as “a four-minute operation.” No one was hurt.

Images from the scene showed confused tourists being steered out of the glass pyramid and adjoining courtyards as officers closed nearby streets along the Seine.

Also visible was a lift braced to the Seine-facing facade near a construction zone — an extraordinary vulnerability at a palace-museum.

A museum already under strain

Around 9:30 a.m., several intruders forced a window, cut panes with a disc cutter and went straight for the vitrines, officials said. Interior Minister Laurent Nuñez said the crew entered from outside using a basket lift.

The choice of target compounded the shock. The vaulted Galerie d’Apollon in the Denon wing, capped by a ceiling painted for Louis XIV, displays a selection of the French Crown Jewels. The thieves are believed to have approached via the riverfront facade, where construction is underway, used a freight elevator to reach the hall, took nine pieces from a 23-item collection linked to Napoleon and the Empress, and made off on motorbikes, according to Le Parisien.

Daylight robberies during public hours are rare. Pulling one off inside the Louvre — with visitors present — ranks among Europe’s most audacious since Dresden’s Green Vault museum in 2019, and the most serious in France in more than a decade.

It also collides with a deeper tension the Louvre has struggled to resolve: swelling crowds and stretched staff. The museum delayed opening during a June staff walkout over overcrowding and chronic understaffing. Unions say mass tourism leaves too few eyes on too many rooms and creates pressure points where construction zones, freight routes and visitor flows meet.

Security around marquee works remains tight — the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof glass in a bespoke, climate-controlled case.

It’s unclear whether staffing levels played any role in Sunday’s breach.

The Louvre has a long history of thefts and attempted robberies. The most famous came in 1911, when the Mona Lisa vanished from its frame, stolen by Vincenzo Peruggia and recovered two years later in Florence.

Today the former royal palace holds a roll call of civilization: Leonardo’s “Mona Lisa”; the armless serenity of the “Venus de Milo”; the “Winged Victory” of Samothrace, wind-lashed on the Daru staircase; the Code of Hammurabi’s carved laws; Delacroix’s “Liberty Leading the People”; Géricault’s “The Raft of the Medusa.” More than 33,000 works — from Mesopotamia, Egypt and the classical world to Europe’s masters — draw a daily tide of up to 30,000 visitors even as investigators now begin to sweep those gilded corridors for clues.

Politics at the door

The heist spilled instantly into politics. Far-right leader Jordan Bardella used it to attack President Emmanuel Macron, weakened at home and facing a fractured Parliament.

“The Louvre is a global symbol of our culture,” Bardella wrote on X. “This robbery, which allowed thieves to steal jewels from the French Crown, is an unbearable humiliation for our country. How far will the decay of the state go?”

The criticism lands as Macron touts a decade-long “Louvre New Renaissance” plan — about $800 million to modernize infrastructure, ease crowding and give the “Mona Lisa” a dedicated gallery by 2031. For workers on the floor, the relief has felt slower than the pressure.

What we know — and don’t

Forensic teams are examining the site of the crime and adjoining access points while a full inventory is taken, authorities said. Officials have described the haul as being of “inestimable” historical value.

Recovery may prove difficult. “It’s unlikely these jewels will ever be seen again,” said Tobias Kormind, managing director of 77 Diamonds. “Professional crews often break down and re-cut large, recognizable stones to evade detection, effectively erasing their provenance.”

The Louvre closed for the rest of Sunday as police sealed gates, cleared courtyards and shut nearby streets along the Seine.

Key questions still unanswered are how many people took part in the theft and whether they had inside assistance, authorities said. According to French media, there were four perpetrators: two dressed as construction workers in yellow safety vests on the lift, and two each on a scooter.

Investigators are reviewing closed-circuit TV from the Denon wing and the riverfront, inspecting the basket lift used to reach the gallery and interviewing staffers who were on site when the museum opened, authorities said.

Adamson writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Jill Lawless in London contributed to this report.

Across the nation’s beloved national parks this summer, skeleton crews — whittled down by the Trump administration’s reduction of the federal workforce — have struggled to keep trash from piling up, latrines from spilling over and injured hikers from perishing in the backcountry.

They’ve mostly succeeded, but it has been a struggle.

Now, as bickering politicians in Washington, D.C., threaten to shut the government down and furlough federal employees as soon as next week if a budget deal isn’t reached, 40 former stewards of the nation’s most remote and romantic landscapes have sent an “urgent appeal” to the White House.

If the government shuts down, close the national parks to prevent a free-for-all inside the gates.

Pointing to the strain the parks are already enduring since the new administration fired or bought out roughly 24% of the workforce, the retired superintendents — including those from Yosemite, Joshua Tree, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon — warned of chaos.

If the parks stay open with no employees to manage them, “these nascent issues from the summer season are sure to erupt,” the former superintendents wrote to Doug Burgum, secretary of the Department of the Interior, on Thursday. “Leaving parks even partially open to the public during a shutdown with minimal — or no — park staffing is reckless and puts both visitors and park resources at risk.”

Unlike many federal agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and the National Institutes of Health, whose once obscure and mundane day-to-day operations have become flash points in the nation’s toxic and polarizing culture war, the national parks remain a beloved refuge: a place where Americans of all stripes can unplug, exhale and escape.

In 2024 the parks set an attendance record with over 331 million visitors; that’s nearly two and a half times the number of people (136 million) who attended professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey games combined.

It’s not hard to understand the appeal. Exhausted by the bickering on cable news and social media feeds? Go climb Half Dome in Yosemite, or stroll among the giant trees in Sequoia, or camp beneath the stars in Joshua Tree.

But if the parks stay open with nobody around to maintain them, that cleansing experience will turn nasty the moment a bathroom door opens, according to the retired superintendents.

In previous shutdowns stemming from budget disputes or the COVID-19 pandemic, facilities inside the parks deteriorated at an alarming rate.

Unauthorized visitors left human feces in rivers, painted graffiti on once pristine cliffs, harassed wild animals and left the toilets looking like “crime scenes,” according to a ranger who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution.

“It’s just scary how bad things can get when places are abandoned with nobody watching,” she said.

In an interview Thursday, Senate Majority Leader John Thune said a government shutdown was still “avoidable” despite sharp divisions ahead of Wednesday’s deadline to pass a funding bill.

“I’m a big believer that there’s always a way out,” the South Dakota Republican said. “And I think there are off-ramps here, but I don’t think that the negotiating position, at least at the moment, that the Democrats are trying to exert here is going to get you there.”

Thune said Democrats are going to have to “dial back” their demands, which include immediately extending health insurance subsidies and reversing the healthcare policies in the massive tax bill that Republicans passed over the summer. Absent that, Thune said, “we’re probably plunging forward toward the shutdown.”

After a shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019, park rangers in Death Valley returned to find mounds of feces and what they jokingly called “toilet paper flowers” scattered across the desert floor.

At Joshua Tree, officials found about 24 miles of unauthorized new trails carved across the desert by off-road vehicles, along with some of the park’s namesake trees toppled.

In the absence of park staff, local climbers volunteered to keep the bathrooms clean and stocked with toilet paper, and gently tried to persuade rowdy visitors to put out illegal fires and pick up their trash.

Some complied right away, climber Rand Abbott told The Times in 2019, but “70% of the people I’m running into are extremely rude,” he said. “I had my life threatened two times. It’s crazy in there right now.”

People weren’t the only unruly guests moving in and making themselves at home.

At Point Reyes National Seashore, along the Marin County coast, officials had to close the road to popular Drakes Beach during the shutdown. The absence of humans created an ideal opportunity for about 100 elephant seals to set up a colony, taking over the beach, a parking lot and a visitor center.

The seals didn’t just poop everywhere, they threw a full-scale bacchanal. As far as the eye could see, enormous, blubbery beasts — males can reach 16 feet long and weigh up to 7,000 pounds — were rolling in the sand and mating in broad daylight.

Females, which can weigh up to a ton themselves, wound up giving birth to something like 40 new pups. When the park reopened, flustered officials had little recourse but to open a public viewing area at a safe distance and send employees — primly referred to as “docents” — to explain what was happening on the once serene seashore.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The sun had just begun its descent when the Mane Street Band took the stage for their weekly Honky Tonk Sunday set at Pioneertown’s Red Dog Saloon. Young adults in hiking gear sipped beers beneath chandeliers shaped like wagon wheels as old timers with gray ponytails and cowboy hats chatted with a tattooed bartender. Outside, a group of parents sat around long picnic tables, ignoring their kids who were messing around in the dirt.

It wasn’t easy to tell who was local and who was just visiting the high desert town founded nearly 80 years ago as a permanent movie set for western films. The warm, neighborly scene felt like further proof of what locals had been telling me all weekend: The fake western town that Hollywood built has finally morphed into an actual western town with an identity of its own.

The Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown serves breakfast, lunch and dinner and is a gathering place for locals and visitors alike.

(Simone Lueck / For Time Times)

“This is not Knott’s Berry Farm,” said JoAnne Gosen, a local shopkeeper and goat farmer who moved to the area 21 years ago. “This is a real town and it’s our town.”

After years of upheaval that included skyrocketing home prices, a pandemic-fueled Airbnb boom, a failed proposal for a multi-use event space and a false claim by a reality TV star that she singlehandedly owned the town, residents of this small unincorporated community say Pioneertown is settling into a new equilibrium. The tumultuous era at the town’s landmark roadhouse and concert venue Pappy and Harriet’s appears to have ended as new management repairs relations with the surrounding community. Established businesses like the Red Dog Saloon and the Pioneertown Motel are offering stable employment to locals and transplants alike and more buildings on Pioneertown’s western-themed “Mane St.” are being converted to small, locally run shops.

Locals dance at the Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown.

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Pioneer Bowl in Pioneertown, California. (Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Visitors will also find there’s much more to do than wait two hours for a table at Pappy and Harriet’s. Weekend tourists can grab a taco at the Red Dog Saloon, browse locally made natural bath products at Xeba Botanica, bowl in a historic bowling alley or explore the Berber-meets-cowboy store Soukie Modern. If you’re there on a Sunday morning, you can even pick up a dozen hand-boiled New York-style bagels if you order ahead.

“It can be difficult for us old-timers to see all the changes,” said Gosen, who spins goat fiber into yarn outside her soap shop on Mane Street most weekends. “I don’t love all the Airbnbs and the residents who can’t afford housing. But at the same time, we’re here on the farm by ourselves most of the week and on the weekend we’re fortunate enough to go into town and meet the most amazing people from all over the world.”

Hey bales are scattered on the main street in Pioneertown, cheekily known as “Mane Street.”

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Developers, beware of the ‘Curtis Curse’

Pioneertown has always been a strange, hybrid place: half fake, half real.

The community was founded in the mid-1940s by a consortium of entertainers that included Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and the Sons of the Pioneers, a popular singing group at the time that lent the town their name. It was conceived and led in its early years by Dick Curtis, a 6-foot-3 actor who appeared in more than 230 movies and television shows in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Curtis dreamed of creating a permanent western movie set against the rugged backdrop of the Sawtooth Mountains that would also function as a working town with businesses that catered to film crews and residents. The Pioneertown Corp. broke ground in 1946. Among its first buildings were a land office, a beauty parlor, a motel, two restaurants and a feed store — all with Old West facades.

Filming in town mostly stopped in the 1950s, but the area continues to offer visitors and residents a unique mix of fantasy and function decades later. Some buildings like the General Store, the Saddlery and the Post Office house businesses. Others, like the jail, the livery and a barber shop are just facades — great for selfies but little else.

Over the years, people with big dreams and limited understanding of the challenges of building in this particular stretch of desert have tried and failed to bring major developments to the town, which today has about 600 residents. In the ‘60s, a car salesman from Ohio bought the Pioneertown Corp. and proposed plans to create a massive desert resort with townhomes, apartments, lakes and golf courses. He predicted it would eventually draw a population of 35,000. (The business went bankrupt instead.) During the pandemic, a mountain guide and supervising producer for Red Bull Media scared locals with a plan to convert 350 acres into an event space with residences, a recording studio, and an amphitheater that would hold up to 3,000 people. The project was eventually downgraded to a pricey Airbnb and by the time it was completed, he was no longer part of it.

The Film Museum in Pioneertown offers a curated look at the movies and films shot on the Hollywood set turned Western town.

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Curt Sautter, who helps curate Pioneertown’s small film history museum, believes the town has been protected from major development by what he calls the Curtis Curse. “You can be successful in Pioneertown, but if you get greedy or you try to do something that messes with the environment or the community itself you will fail,” he said.

Locals know that growth in Pioneertown is inevitable, but they also point to its limitations: the meager local water supply, the lack of a fire department and that there is only one road into and out of town.

“The community wants slow growth that preserves the western character of the town and is compatible with the desert environment,” said Ben Loescher, an architect and president of Friends of Pioneertown, a nonprofit that supports the community.

Richard Lee of 29 Loaves sells freshly baked bagels outside the Pioneertown Motel on Sunday mornings.

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

What to do in Pioneertown: Bowling, bagels, bingo and more

Today you’ll find signs of measured growth everywhere you look in Pioneertown, making now a great time to visit. Pioneer Bowl, a perfectly preserved 1946 vintage bowling alley with the original murals by a Hollywood set designer on its walls, has just resurfaced its lanes and extended its hours. It’s now open from 3 p.m. to 10 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday. A game will cost you $25 and is first come, first served. It used to be impossible to find breakfast in town, but now you’ll find breakfast burritos, tacos and quesadillas at the Red Dog Saloon, which opens everyday at 10 a.m. On Sundays from 8:30 am to 9:30 a.m., Richard Lee of 29 Loaves delivers his fresh baked bagels to those who ordered them in advance outside the Pioneertown Motel. (The cinnamon-date bagels are especially recommended).

Locals at the Red Dog Saloon in Pioneertown, California. (Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Kids and selfie seekers will enjoy the Pioneertown Petting Zoo where $10 will buy you 20 minutes with chickens, turkeys and a small horse. There is also a little history museum to explore and two old western reenactment groups — Mane Street Stampede and Gunfighters for Hire — who seem to be entertaining themselves as much as they are the audience. (Check their websites for up to date show times.) If you plan ahead, you can also book a hike with goats with Yogi Goats Farm for $95 a person.

Visitors might also consider subscribing to the Pioneertown Gazette, a free weekly newsletter that Pioneertown Motel co-owner Matt French began publishing online in 2023. In it he compiles listings for dozens of concerts, performances, yoga classes and other events happening across the high desert. A personal favorite is Desert Bingo at the Red Dog Saloon 6:30 p.m. on Monday nights, where locals, visitors and transplants gather for a good-natured, foul-mouthed bingo game with a live DJ. One bingo board will cost you $10 and the proceeds benefit a local charity.

Pioneer Bowl in Pioneertown was built in 1946 to entertain film crews. It has recently expanded its hours.

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

Whether you’re planning to visit for an afternoon or considering moving to the area, you’ll find that this Hollywood movie set, turned ghost town, turned tourist curiosity, turned actual western town offers more to entertain locals and visitors than it has in decades, without sacrificing the western vibe that drew its founders to the area nearly 80 years ago.

“It’s the landscape, and that weird western mythology,” said Loescher. “It’s always been full of individuals who are a little iconoclastic and don’t do things the normal way.”

And no matter how many people come along who dream of changing Pioneertown, the challenging desert environment — and the Curtis Curse — will likely keep it that way.

A sign on Mane St. in Pioneertown.

(Simone Lueck / For The Times)

WASHINGTON — The State Department is proposing requiring applicants for business and tourist visas to post a bond of up to $15,000 to enter the United States, a move that may make the process unaffordable for many.

In a notice to be published in the Federal Register on Tuesday, the department said it would start a 12-month pilot program under which people from countries deemed to have high overstay rates and deficient internal document security controls could be required to post bonds of $5,000, $10,000 or $15,000 when they apply for a visa.

The proposal comes as the Trump administration is tightening requirements for visa applicants. Last week, the State Department announced that many visa renewal applicants would have to submit to an additional in-person interview, something that was not required in the past. In addition, the department is proposing that applicants for the Visa Diversity Lottery program have valid passports from their country of citizenship.

A preview of the bond notice, which was posted on the Federal Register website on Monday, said the pilot program would take effect within 15 days of its formal publication and is necessary to ensure that the U.S. government is not financially liable if a visitor does not comply with the terms of his or her visa.

“Aliens applying for visas as temporary visitors for business or pleasure and who are nationals of countries identified by the department as having high visa overstay rates, where screening and vetting information is deemed deficient, or offering citizenship by investment, if the alien obtained citizenship with no residency requirement, may be subject to the pilot program,” the notice said.

The countries affected will be listed once the program takes effect, it said.

The bond would not apply to citizens of countries enrolled in the Visa Waiver Program and could be waived for others depending on an applicant’s individual circumstances.

Visa bonds have been proposed in the past but have not been implemented. The State Department has traditionally discouraged the requirement because of the cumbersome process of posting and discharging a bond and because of a possible misperceptions by the public.

However, the department said that previous view “is not supported by any recent examples or evidence, as visa bonds have not generally been required in any recent period.”

Lee writes for the Associated Press.

State parks officials say they’re unveiling a lottery-style drawing system for select campsites in three of California’s most sought-after state park campgrounds: Malibu Creek, Morro Bay and McArthur-Burney Falls.

The new system began this month at Malibu Creek, allowing would-be campers to enter a lottery for possible openings eight months away — in this case, from March 1 to April 1, 2026.

Drawings are held seven months ahead of the stay, giving the winners 30 days to claim and pay for reservations. There’s a limit of one entry per visitor per drawing. ADA sites are included. Malibu Creek has about 63 campsites.

The programs will begin later this summer at Morro Bay in San Luis Obispo County (over 140 campsites) and McArthur-Burney Falls in Shasta County (about 128 campsites and cabins), where growing crowds have posed challenges for visitors and rangers in recent years. Campsite reservation costs (which include nightly rates and an $8.25 reservation fee) are unchanged and the lottery process is free, but fees could be added later.

Meanwhile, the parks department has also streamlined its reservation websites so that campers can move more easily between the informational site parks.ca.gov and the booking site reservecalifornia.com and see fresher information on what’s available. In announcing the coming changes, parks officials said travelers will able to see “almost real-time campsite status and availability at other nearby campgrounds.”

The move to a lottery system had been expected since late 2023, when California’s legislature approved several measures designed to reduce no-shows and give more people access to the most popular spots. In previous years, reservations at many campgrounds have vanished within minutes of opening.

State parks communications staffers were unable to say Monday exactly how many of the campsites at Malibu Creek, Morro Bay and McArthur-Burney Falls would be part of the drawing.

The system is based on a pilot project at the State Ravine Cabins in Mt. Tamalpais State Park, where rangers started using a reservation drawing system in 2023. That system is still in place.

To level the playing field among those who make repeated use of the campground drawings, the state has set up a points system. “Unsuccessful applicants will receive one point to be used in future drawings, which increases their chances of winning until they are awarded a reservation,” the state’s FAQ on the system explains. “Once a visitor wins a reservation, their points are removed and their balance starts at zero.”

Statewide, California’s campground system continues to open most of its 15,000 campsites for online reservations at 8 a.m., six months ahead of the booking date, on a rolling basis. (In other words, at 8 a.m. Aug. 3 the state will start taking reservations for stays on the night of Feb. 3.) Telephone reservations are still possible at (800) 444-PARK (7275).

In May, a state parks spokesman said the state’s most sought-after campgrounds for the last two years have been Pismo State Beach, Crystal Cove State Park, Refugio State Beach, Half Moon Bay State Beach, Doheny State Beach, Bolsa Chica State Beach, San Clemente State Beach, New Brighton State Beach, San Elijo State Beach and Morro Bay State Park.

Picture this: A gaggle of 21-year-olds squeeze into a booth, pull the curtain and smile for the camera. After a series of mysterious analog rumblings, the booth expels a tiny strip of prints. The posers crowd in to savor the tiny film prints — and raise their cameras to snap digital images of them.

While boomers blink in puzzlement, legions of digital natives have embraced the old-school ritual and machinery of the photo booth — and the people at San Francisco-based Photomatica are among those building empires on that enthusiasm. Their latest venture: a Photo Booth Museum in Silver Lake, which opens Thursday.

For anyone who grew up with digital photography, a photo booth is a sort of visual adventure — a selfie with “analog magic.” And at $6.50 to $8.50 for a strip of four photos, it’s more affordable than plenty of other entertainment options. Photomatica, one of several companies riding the photo booth wave, has been restoring and operating these contraptions since 2010. This is the company’s second “museum.”

At the new L.A. site at 3827 W. Sunset Blvd. (near Hyperion Avenue), the company has gathered four restored analog photo booths — two of which date to the 1950s — and one digital booth. The 1,350-square-foot space is designed to look “as if you walked into a Wes Anderson movie set,” said spokeswoman Kelsey Schmidt.

The machines are retrofitted to accept credit cards and Apple Pay, but otherwise the technology is original on the old machines — which means no retakes and a 3-to-5-minute wait for image processing. The film-based booths print black-and-white images only; the digital booth offers a choice of color or black and white.

Is this at all like a traditional museum experience? No. It’s a for-profit venture. Though visitors might learn a little about photography history, the core activity is making and celebrating selfies. So far, Schmidt said, the booths have been especially popular with people under 25, especially female visitors.

A birthday group gathers for a snapshot in the Photo Booth Museum, San Francisco.

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Photomatica rents out and operates about 250 booths (including bars, restaurants, hotels, music venues and special events) nationwide. The company hatched the museum idea after drawing immediate crowds with a booth in the Photoworks film lab on Market Street in San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood.

On its Thursday opening night, the L.A. Photo Booth Museum will operate from 6 to 10 p.m., offering up a limited number of free photo sessions and key chains. Otherwise, daily hours will be 1 to 9 p.m.

This weekend, Descanso Gardens will unveil a meticulously curated art exhibition titled “Roots of Cool: A Celebration of Trees and Shade in a Warming World.” Co-curated by Edith de Guzman, cooperative extension climate researcher at the UCLA Luskin Center for Innovation, and artist Jolly de Guzman — a husband-and-wife duo — the exhibition highlights all-women artists who provoke visitors to contemplate the pressing issue of shade equity, the unequal access to cooling shade across urban neighborhoods, and what a tree and shade filled future can look like for L.A.

The goals of the exhibition are clear from the start, beginning with its title, “Roots of Cool,” which creatively integrates the Fahrenheit symbol in the word “of,” a tree in the letter “t” and the word “cool” as a shadow cast from the word “roots.”

The exhibit begins in the garden’s pathways, strewn with artworks, which lead visitors to the gallery rooms housed in the park’s Sturt Haaga Gallery and historic Boddy House.

A visitor’s proposal for a new type of bus stop that offers more shade, part of the new exhibition “Roots of Cool: A Celebration of Trees and Shade in a Warming World” at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

The first piece of art on the path, located at the gardens entrance, is Leslie K. Gray’s “Bus Stop of the Past,” an outdoor installation that shows the silhouette of a woman standing on an L.A. street, presumably waiting for a bus, with no shade structure nearby, meant to represent the climate-related challenges women bus riders faced while commuting in the past.

It’s the first of a three-part installation — the other two parts show up later in the exhibition — that invites visitors “to think temporally about where we’ve been and where we’re going,” Gray said. According to the artist, it is meant to highlight historical urban planning decisions that have left certain communities disproportionately vulnerable to heat, particularly women of color, who are prominent riders of L.A. public transportation, as indicated by statistics displayed on the bus signs accompanying the works.

Another standout of the outdoor part of the exhibition is Chantée Benefield’s “Cool Canopy,” which entails dozens of multicolored umbrellas suspended over visitors’ heads. The piece is particularly resonant given that it is actually a recreation that Benefield made after the original was lost, along with her family home, in the Eaton Fire.

Artist Chantée Benefield’s installation “Cool Canopy” at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“What if the trees in neighborhoods were like graffiti, just ubiquitous everywhere?” Benefield asked. Her installation is both a colorful homage to lost greenery and a powerful statement on urban shade disparities, prompting visitors to contemplate what they would do without the shade being cast by these “trees” as they walk through the sunny patch where the work is located.

The next stop on the pathway is the second piece in Gray’s three-part installation: “Bus Stop of the Present.” It’s a version of the first, but with the addition of a shade structure for the woman bus rider. However, it shows clearly that the added structure is still inadequate, reflecting many of the realities women bus commuters face today. The bus sign here contains scientific facts that make the case for the critical need for systemic urban planning changes. Gray emphasized that these facts were carefully selected from peer-reviewed research and “scientifically vetted.”

Entering the Sturt Haaga Gallery, things change. Each room is meant to elicit a specific experience around urban planning and vegetation, and so each has its own visual and auditory scheme.

Kim Abeles’ piece “Looking for Paradise (Downtown Los Angeles).”

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

It begins with a dreary, urban past: shown against gray walls, works by Kim Abeles and Diana Kohne address historical inequities. Abeles’ installation “Looking for Paradise” visualizes the uneven distribution of trees in Downtown Los Angeles, while Kohne’s painted urban landscapes vividly depict the shade inadequacies she witnessed firsthand through her bus commutes as an L.A. resident, emphasizing how Los Angeles and other cities were built for “efficiency” rather than human comfort. The works are paired with compelling research, including the history of redlining and crucial heat-shade statistics, which visitors can interact with and see how their own communities are affected by these factors.

The next room is the present, with bright yellow walls representing the increasing urban heat of a changing climate. The artworks attempt to do the same. For example, Lisa Tomczeszyn’s installation, “Every Bench Deserves a Tree,” consists of two benches beside each other, one with no shade and only a street sign reading “Asphalt Blvd” while the other is shaded by a large tree — with leaves that are actually cutout photos of trees throughout the Deaconso gardens.

Finally, the third gallery room attempts to project a cooler, more verdant future with walls colored a serene green hue. It features works that imagine a future where technology and city planning better respond to environmental stressors, including Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke’s “Suspended Garden.” Like Tomczeszyn’s work in the previous room, this piece is also comprised primarily of benches set underneath umbrellas. In this case however, those umbrella canopies are made of repurposed plant materials.

Artist Pascaline Doucin-Dahlke’s piece “Suspended Garden” at Descanso Gardens.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

One key goal of the exhibit is to help visitors connect to the importance of heat, shade and urban trees. For example, at the very end of the exhibit in the Boddy House, visitors can contribute to a real-world data collection study about how shade shapes their neighborhoods and what shade-heat related fact they find most striking, and are also invited to draw their imagined shade structures for women waiting at bus stops.

“[We] just don’t want to do science and just don’t want to do art. [We] want to create a good intersection that actually engages people,” said Jolly de Guzman.

Yarn Bombing Los Angeles’ installation inside of Boddy House at Descanso Gardens on July 9, 2025.

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“We want to get them through the heartstrings, visually, aesthetically and actively,” added Edith de Guzman. Reflecting on the broader potential for change, she said, “There’s a lot of reasons to despair right now, but if we change our radio frequency a little bit, we can connect to a whole different feeling. We can actually create the city we want, in the neighborhoods that we deserve.”

The exhibition will run from July 12 to Oct. 12, 2025, with a free opening reception on Friday, July 11, from 5 to 7 p.m.

In his ongoing war on “woke,” President Trump has instructed the National Park Service to scrub any language he would deem negative, unpatriotic or smacking of “improper partisan ideology” from signs and presentations visitors encounter at national parks and historic sites.

Instead, his administration has ordered the national parks and hundreds of other monuments and museums supervised by the Department of the Interior to ensure that all of their signage reminds Americans of our “extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity and human flourishing.”

Those marching orders, which went into effect late last week, have left Trump opponents and free speech advocates gasping in disbelief, wondering how park employees are supposed to put a sunny spin on monuments acknowledging slavery and Jim Crow laws. And how they’ll square the story of Japanese Americans shipped off to incarceration camps during World War II with an “unmatched record of advancing liberty.”

At Manzanar National Historic Site, a dusty encampment in the high desert of eastern California, one of 10 camps where more than 120,000 Japanese American civilians were imprisoned during the early 1940s, employees put up a required notice describing the changes last week.

Like all such notices across the country, it includes a QR code visitors can use to report any signs they see that are “negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur, and abundance of landscapes”.

An identical sign is up at the Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Kern County, a tribute to the struggle to ensure better wages and safer working conditions for immigrant farm laborers. Such signs are going up across the sprawling system, which includes Fort Sumter National Monument, where Confederates fired the first shots of the Civil War; Ford’s Theater National Historic Site in Washington, D.C., where Abraham Lincoln was assassinated; and the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Park.

So, nothing negative about John Wilkes Booth or James Earl Ray?

In response to an email requesting comment, a National Park Service spokesperson did not address questions about specific parks or monuments, saying only that changes would be made “where appropriate.”

The whole thing is “flabbergasting,” said Dennis Arguelles, Southern California director for the nonprofit National Parks Conservation Assn. “These stories may not be flattering to American heritage, but they’re an integral part of our history.

“If we lose these stories, then we’re in danger of repeating some of these mistakes,” Arguelles said.

Trump titled his March 27 executive order requiring federal sign writers to look on the bright side “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” He specifically instructed the Interior Department to scrutinize any signs put up since January 2020 — the beginning of the Biden administration — for language that perpetuates “a false reconstruction” of American history.

Trump called out signs that “undermine the remarkable achievements of the United States by casting its founding principles and historical milestones in a negative light.”

He specifically cited the National Historical Park in Philadelphia and the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., as bowing to what he described as the previous administration’s zeal to cast “our Nation’s unparalleled legacy of advancing liberty, individual rights, and human happiness” as “inherently racist, sexist, oppressive, or otherwise irredeemably flawed.”

His solution? Order federal employees and historians to rewrite the “revisionist” history with language that exudes patriotism.

“It all seems pretty Orwellian,” said Kimbrough Moore, a rock climber and Yosemite National Park guide book author. After news of the impending changes began circulating in park circles, he posted on Instagram a sign he saw in the toilet at the Porcupine Flat campground in the middle of the park.

Across from the ubiquitous sign in all park bathrooms that says, “Please DO NOT put trash in toilets, it is extremely difficult to remove,” someone added a placard that reads, “Please DO NOT put trash in the White House. It is extremely difficult to remove.”

Predictably, the post went viral, proving what would-be censors have known for centuries: Policing language is a messy business and can be hard to control in a free society.

“Even the pooper can be a venue for resistance,” Moore wrote.

Netflix on Tuesday spilled more details about its retail stores coming to the Philadelphia and Dallas areas later this year and unveiled plans to open a third location in Las Vegas in 2027.

The more than 100,000-square-foot locations, called Netflix House, will sell merchandise and food based on popular Netflix programs and will have immersive activities pulled from series including “Wednesday” and “Squid Game.”

At Netflix House Philadelphia, located inside the King of Prussia Mall, visitors explore the Eve of Outcasts Festival that falls under Wednesday’s spell where they will discover “games, mis-fortunes and horrifying surprises,” Netflix said.

The location will also have virtual reality games where fans can play the main character inside the worlds of Netflix programs, watch fan events on a big screen inside a theater and play mini golf inspired by programming.

There will also be an interactive experience based on pirate series “One Piece,” where visitors can dodge villains to reach the Devil Fruit.

Netflix House at Galleria Dallas will have a game room and immersive experiences based on “Stranger Things” and “Squid Game,” where players will engage in “diabolical games.”

The Netflix House location opening in Las Vegas will be at BLVD on the strip.

Netflix House is part of a larger effort by the streamer to keep its fans engaged with in-person retail and events. The company has launched more than 40 experiences, reaching 10 million fans in 300 cities, , such as candlelight concerts and balls inspired by “Bridgerton.”

The company has partnered with brands and retailers on clothing, toys, lotions and snacks based on their shows.

Earlier this year, Netflix opened a restaurant inside MGM Grand in Las Vegas called Netflix Bites that features Netflix-themed foods like “WWE Smashburger” or a three-tiered tea service inspired by “Bridgerton,” according to the restaurant’s website.

Netflix Bites, which serves food and cocktails, will also be located in each of the upcoming Netflix House locations too.

“Just let me go tell her you’re here.”

Former Matinee idol Buddy Rogers bounded by the winding staircase to the third floor of his Beverly Hills mansion and called to his wife of 37 years: “Mary, darling. You have a visitor, pet.”

There were murmurs upstairs. Then Rogers walked slowly down the white steps to his visitor beneath the portrait of Mary Pickford in the spacious living room.

He shrugged and shook his head. “Mrs. Rogers would like to see you, darling, but she’s in the shower, dear.”

The scene is usually the same whenever anyone calls on the admired queen of the silent films. She is either sleeping or in the shower, always “unavailable.”

Classic stories from the Los Angeles Times’ 143-year archive

Hundreds have been party guests of Buddy Rogers at fabled Pickfair in the last decade, but none has ever seen Miss Pickford. Even her stepson, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., doesn’t see her when he spends an occasional week in the guest cottage.

One of her last interviews was in 1965—to an English silent film historian who has tried many times to see or phone her. But she is unavailable.

Mary Pickford, who will be 80 in April, is upstairs in her bedroom in a self-imposed seclusion that has lasted nearly two decades.

She was the first real movie star, a pioneer of the movie colony, coming to Hollywood when it was no more than a country village. She was America’s Sweetheart of the early 20th century—famous for her golden Mary-Jane curls, dimpled chin and simple charm. They called her Goldilocks.

Rogers—tanned, athletic and manicured at 68—shook his head affectionately. “She just doesn’t go out. But she’s doing great, darling. I took her out for a drive last week, but she said it made her nervous and she wanted to go home.”

Pickfair, 1974, is a museum—once called the “White House of Hollywood”—where U.S. Presidents, foreign heads of state, financiers and famous authors paid court to Miss Pickford.

Contemporary accounts of those gleaming parties come so vividly to mind while in the mansion that one can almost hear music and laughter, faint and incessant, from the garden and the cars going up and down the heart-shaped drive.

In the old days, guests at Pickfair could ride horses through the mountains to the Pacific Ocean and pass only one house along the way.

But time and progress have taken their toll on Pickfair. Only five of the original 15 acres remain. Five $150,000 homes were built on what used to be her vegetable garden.

A china set that Napoleon gave Josephine in 1807 is locked inside a glass cabinet. The mansion property and artistic contents are valued at $2 million.

The big rooms and high hallways are full of Frederic Remington paintings, early 18th-century antiques from Europe, Chippendale chairs and mirrors and Victorian tables. A sterling silver urn, given to Miss Pickford by the queen of Siam, is also in a glass case.

Film awards—including the first Oscar for the best performance by an actress in sound—are scattered around.

In almost every room as portraits of Miss Pickford staring down from the walls—at stages of her life from 18 to 59.

Rogers points out every detail eagerly. “Look here, darling.”

He leads the visitor into the small “Rodin Room,” named after Auguste Rodin (1840-1917), father of modern sculpture. There are his rare sketches of nude dancing women, which Miss Pickford bought almost half a century ago.

Ultimately, Rogers confided, the visitor would get her audience with Miss Pickford after all —after a fashion.

He dialed his wife on a house phone on a small table.

Mary Pickford in lace gown, ca. 1930

(Bettmann / Bettmann Archive)

“Yes, darling, she’s here,” he said. “She’s a young one, dear.”

He handed over the phone. “Mrs. Rogers wants to talk to you, sweet. She’s so happy you’re hear, darling.”

Gusty Santa Ana winds slapped hard against Pickfair, howling loudly, rattling closed windows.

“Boy! If I were outside right now I’d feel like hen caught in a tornado,” Miss Pickford laughed. It was fresh and spontaneous laughter.

It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each syllable were an arrangement of notes that would never be played again. Her voice was sad and lovely and grandmotherly, but with bright things in it.

“I just hopped out of the tub,” Miss Pickford said. “I’d come down and chat with you but my hair isn’t fixed. I’m afraid I’d have to get all dressed up for you.”

She said she enjoys the privacy and rest long denied her after all the busy years in the public eye as one of the world’s wealthiest and most beautiful women.

“Yes, I miss my career, certainly,” Miss Pickford said. “But I feel I’ve earned this rest. I used to work from 6 in the morning until midnight—the actress by day, the producer by night! Ut was a struggle. I never had time to myself.

“This is the first time in my life without constantly being interrupted.”

She did not specify what has intruded on her solitude for the last decade or more, but said she now goes nowhere—not to movies, nor to shows, nor out to dinner, nor even shopping. “I’ve chosen this way of life for myself,” she said. “I like my privacy.”

She said she reads mysteries and newspapers, dictates, looks out of her bedroom windows at Los Angeles and Beverly Hills, listens to records and watches television.

“I’m reading all about the devil,” Miss Pickford confessed. “I think all this exorcism business is a hoax. Buddy says the movie is scary and I don’t like to be scared.”

Rogers sat slumped in a nearby armchair watching, amused.

Miss Pickford is aware she is different from other silent stars who have kept busy and still earn honors on stage and screen despite their ages.

(Lilliam Gish, a close friend of 75, often appears in comedies as a little old lady. Gloria Swanson, the same age, is on Broadway and TV. Marlene Dietrich still does her famous songs at nightclubs and theaters at 74.

(Mae West, 83, likes to stay public and recently judged a UCLA kissing contest. And Helen Hayes is starring in a new, prime-time TV series called Snoop Sisters. She’s 73).

It’s been so long since I met the public,” she said. “People are so nervous these days. I don’t think people would have the patience to listen to me…

“I played little girls, you know. Actresses can’t go on and on forever doing that type of role. I can’t imagine Jack Benny being 80, can you? And yet he’s kicking around all the time on TV. Women can’t get away with that like men can.

Pickford disappeared from public view for more than a decade not long after this photo was taken of her at her Pickfair Estate in 1963.

(Los Angeles Times)

“Although I often dream I am before the cameras again. The other night, I imagined myself in a long shot and wondered if I should not redo my hair for it…”

She paused, then said musingly, “I have several pretty house dresses. I could throw one on and come down and talk to you… but I’m too lazy.”

Damn…

Some who have not seen Miss Pickford for years guess that time has not been kind to her. But her business manager, Matty Kemp, 64, describes her as having the “beautiful skin of a baby.” She’s 5-foot-1 and very slim.

“She keeps her hair blonde and has that same winsome smile that everyone remembers,” Kemp said. “You can’t detect a wrinkle on her face.”

Two favorite friends of Miss Pickford are Miss Gish and Mildred Loew (producer Adolph Zukor’s daughter). They visit Miss Pickford once a year when they are in town.

Miss Pickford has not viewed her films for 25 years. They have been shown only twice in the United States since they were locked up in vaults at Bekins and Producers Film Center in Hollywood in 1933.

There they have sat, deteriorating with time. Miss Pickford wanted it that way. She is one of the few stars who owns and controls her films.

Just recently she was persuaded not to order her films burned at her death. She had not wanted to be compared with today’s actresses.

“I always thought of myself as an entertainer for my own generation,” she explained. “That was all that counted. It was Lillian Gish who convinced me that the films belong to the public and that I had no right to destroy them.”

So the Mary Pickford Foundation, run by Kemp, has spent about $260,000 to preserve and restore the films. (Some foreign countries have copies of her movies and show them at special screenings).

Some will be shown this month at film festivals honoring Miss Pickford throughout Europe. Her managers want to test the reaction of other countries before they consider showing them in the United States.

She wants to attend the Paris tribute.

“I’m longing to see Paris again. I got my warmest reception there long ago. I wonder if their reactions to me would be the same. Did you know that I can speak straight French for a half an hour?”

If she goes, it will be her first public appearance since 1965, when she visited Europe.

In the early 1970s, England and France had film tributes for Miss Pickford. There were parades in London and Paris and thousands of people lined the streets to get a glimpse of her. They shouted for her autograph and locks of her hair.

But Miss Pickford was not there. At the last minute, she stayed at Pickfair. Rogers went alone and waved to the crowds for her.

She still misses producer D.W. Griffith.

“No one came close to him,” she said. “He mastered the close-up, the fade-out. No one ever called him David because everyone had the greatest respect for him. He was always Mr. Griffith.”

Miss Pickford also spoke fo Douglas Fairbanks Sr., her second husband. They were considered the world’s most romantic couple.

In films, Fairbanks was the dashing hero who could dispose of 20 adversaries in a running fight. According to Miss Pickford, he was exuberant and often did handstands or leapt over sofas to amuse friends.

“Because he had never outgrown a small boy’s penchant for showing off, he was rarely referred to as Douglas or Mr. Fairbanks,” she said. “It was always Doug.”

She sighed and her voice became sad.

“I got word that my beloved cameraman Charles Rosher died in Portugal. He was a master, too.”

Another pause.

“He once said, ‘I’m not going to shoot this film because there’s a shadow on Miss Pickford’s face.’ I said, ‘Charlie, what does it matter?’ But he insisted. He was so loyal. I don’t know where to send word to his wife.”Miss Pickford said she was appalled by Watergate.

“I can’t see any individuals destroying this country,” she said, vehemently. “The United States is supposed to be the leader of the world and some punks are letting it go to the ashcan. We obviously need some housecleaning.”

(She was a big contributor to President Nixon’s reelection campaign, according to Kemp. During World War I, she also sold $48 million worth of Liberty Bonds for the United States.

(The government wanted her to make war propaganda films then, but she would make only humorous ones. One showed her riding a horse down San Fancisco’s Market St., her golden curls flying in the breeze, leading the 143rd Field Artillery shipward to France.)

Of today’s stars, Miss Pickford said she is most impressed with Katherine Hepburn and Liza Minelli.

But her favorite remains Shirley Temple. “Oh, she was the cutest baby,” she said. “She had more talent than anyone. Too bad she had to retire, but she left us with a lot of beautiful memories.”

She added that there were no actors she was particularly fond of. “Nope. None since Gable,” she said.

There was another deep sigh. Rogers seized on the silence to draw the conversation to a close. “She’s doing great, darling, but I don’t want to tire her out,” he said.

Miss Pickford’s voice started to trail away.

“It was nice talking to you,” she said. “Maybe I’ll see you someday…”

There’s a new interactive exhibit opening on Thursday at the California Science Center across the street from the Coliseum that will provide Disneyland-like sports entertainment for all ages, and it’s free.

Using censors, cameras and 21st century technology, “Game On!” takes up 17,000 square feet formally occupied by the Space Shuttle Endeavor exhibit. It allows visitors to learn about science, sports and movement. You get to actively participate by hitting a softball against pitcher Rachel Garcia, take batting practice instructions from Freddie Freeman and kick a soccer ball into a goal while learning from Alyssa and Gisele Thompson. All are mentors.

Yet there’s so much more. You get to try swimming strokes, skateboarding, snowboarding, cycling. There’s climbing, yoga, dancing and challenging your senses during an exhibit that tests your quickness trying to block a hockey puck. There’s a basketball exhibit where you shoot a ball toward the basket and learn if your form is good or not.

One of the murals at the new interactive sports exhibition at California Science Center.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

“There’s something for everybody,” said Renata Simril, president and CEO of the LA84 Foundation that helped provide funding along with the Dodgers Foundation and Walter Family Foundation.

She’s not embellishing. Parents, children, adults, teenagers — they’re all going to be smiling. Don’t be surprised if nearby USC students discover a new place to enjoy an hour break for fun and laughter from studying by walking over to the exhibition hall when it opens at 10 a.m.

The California Science Center new interactive sports exhibit — “Game On!” — opens on Thursday. It’s free.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

It’s supposed to be open through the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, but don’t be surprised if popularity creates momentum to keep it around longer.

“It’s really cool,” said Garcia, a former UCLA All-American softball pitcher who appears on a screen showing off her 60 mph pitch as a participant swings a real bat trying to hit an imaginary ball as a light trail moves down a rail toward the batter. “I think it’s phenomenal. It’s going to get a lot of kids engaged.”

Garcia even tried to hit against herself. “I missed the first time,” she said.

The batting cage where Freeman is providing hitting advice has a real soft ball and bat. It will be popular for all ages.

The rock climbing exhibit still has not been completed, but participants will wear a harness as they climb toward the ceiling.

While kids will be the most enthusiastic, a dinner recently held at the facility that had adults dressed in tuxedos and dresses resulted in them trying out the exhibits and acting like teenagers again.

Using science to teach lessons could provide inspiration for non-sports visitors. There’s sound effects throughout and most important, pushing a button doesn’t just mean you watch and listen. It means you get to participate, whether hitting a baseball or softball, trying to make a free throw, trying to swim or skateboard.

Don’t be surprised when word gets out how fun this exhibition creates. There will be lines. The only question will it be kids lining up or adults?