week

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. It was another week of scandal in high school football. And also games with top performances. It’s an interesting balancing act for sportswriters.

Scandal widens

There’s continuing fallout from an Archdiocese of Los Angeles investigation that self-reported violations by Bishop Montgomery’s football program to the Southern Section, resulting in the school ending its varsity season after playing one game and forfeiting another. Now the rest of the season will be forfeits as the school investigates its 24 transfer students.

President Patrick Lee has been placed on administrative leave, according to a parent who says faculty were told of the decision. The Archdiocese has declined to confirm, saying it doesn’t comment on personnel matters. Most interesting is that Lee was brought in last school year as Bishop Montgomery’s first president. Also faculty members have been directed not to speak to the media. The school’s principal resigned from her role as president of the Camino-Del Rey Athletic Assn.

The school is trying to play a junior varsity schedule while allowing eligible varsity players to participate, but that’s unlikely to gain traction. Hart canceled this week’s JV game with Bishop Montgomery, not wanting to subject its regular JV players that include freshmen to a game against possible varsity players out of concern for player safety.

The Southern Section has to decide whether eligible Bishop Montgomery varsity players can transfer and be eligible immediately since the school dropped its varsity program.

An attorney is representing fired head coach Ed Hodgkiss and five ineligible players. Legal action is expected.

The Southern Section has continued its crackdown of transfer students who submitted inaccurate paperwork. Long Beach Millikan had to forfeit two games for using ineligible players and most of its transfer students are now listed under review on the Southern Section transfer web page. One of those players who didn’t play Friday after previously being cleared was quarterback Ashton Pannell, who transferred from Loyola after previously attending St. John Bosco. Other schools are also dealing with issues involving transfer students.

The Archdiocese held a scheduled meeting with principals and athletic directors. The Catholic schools chief indicated changes are coming on how to handle transfer students within Archdiocese high schools.

Remember, under CIF rules, you have to move physically with the entire family unit to be eligible immediately. Otherwise you get a one-time sit-out period transfer status that lasts for a portion of the season. Schools confirm the transfers through paperwork requirements. The Southern Section appears to be using AI technology to catch students using addresses that had previously been used. That can result in a violation of bylaw 202, which prohibits providing false information. It also is a violation to receive inducements to transfer, such as housing, known as bylaw 510, undue influence.

One good thing is the early season attention on ineligible players can prevent numerous forfeits at the end of the football season that could prevent a school from entering the playoffs because of an anonymous tip.

Marine League coaches who forfeited to Narbonne last season alleging money payments feel vindicated after a booster confirmed during a podcast that he paid parents to transfer their sons to Narbonne. Here’s a report.

Madden Williams of St. John Bosco prepares to make a game-tying 51-yard touchdown catch against St. Frances.

(Craig Weston)

It was the Madden Williams show in Bellflower. He made two spectacular catches in the fourth quarter to rally St. John Bosco to a 21-14 victory over Baltimore St. Frances. Here’s the report.

Los Alamitos improved to 4-0 with a 41-21 win over Gardena Serra. There’s no doubt no coach has done a finer job in the first month of the season than Ray Fenton.

Mission Viejo exposed the weakness in Northern California football, routing one its top teams, Folsom, 53-14. Folsom and De La Salle are considered the top Northern California teams in contention for a CIF state championship Open Division bowl spot. San Mateo Serra comes to town to play St. John Bosco on Friday.

Jason Miller, the Leuzinger coach who used to coach in Northern California, was asked to explain the downward trajectory.

“Lots of traditional football families have moved out of the Bay Area, replaced by tech families,” he said. “Black and white families with generations of football players have found the Bay Area unaffordable. Interest has lacked in college football as well. East Palo Alto and West Oakland were once treasure chests of athletes that have been watered down by gentrification.”

Bishop Amat came up with an upset win over Valencia behind a game-winning 79-yard touchdown run from Ryan Salcedo. Here’s the report.

Huntington Beach quarterback Brady Edmunds.

(James Carbone)

Quarterback Brady Edmunds of Huntington Beach had a big game in win over Western. Here’s the report.

Here’s this week’s top 25 football rankings by The Times.

Here’s the top performers from the weekend games.

Here’s this week’s schedule of games.

City Section

Hamilton coach Elijah Asante poses next to campus mural of Hall of Fame quarterback Warren Moon.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

The City Section’s top teams continue to struggle in nonleague games against Southern Section opponents, but the strategy is designed to prepare them for league play. Birmingham lost to Moorpark, Carson lost to Palos Verdes and San Pedro lost to Great Oak.

Meanwhile, Palisades and Granada Hills engaged in a passing vs. running scoring marathon before Palisades prevailed 59-44 behind 387 yards passing and six touchdowns from quarterback Jack Thomas.

Robert Garrett, the longtime coach at Crenshaw, continues to be on administrative leave. The Cougars suffered their first team in falling to Hamilton 23-6. Jacob Riley of Hamilton had three interceptions. Here’s the report.

Garfield got its first win for new coach Patrick Vargas over La Palma Kennedy. All-City running back Ceasar Reyes rushed for 172 yards and had 12 solo tackles on defense.

Here’s this week’s top 10 City Section rankings.

Verbum Dei rising again

Verbum Dei President Father Travis Russell finally got around to putting up a photo of the new Pope.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Verbum Dei is preparing to play its first football game later this month after dropping its varsity season last year for lack of players. It’s a re-start with a new coach and the backing of an energized school president who carries around a tool box acting like a handy man for any and all problems.

Here’s the report.

Girls volleyball

The Stillwell volleyball family. Sophomore Lucy (left), father Tom, a former UCLA All-American, and senior Maya. The daughters play at Harvad-Westlake.

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Tom Stillwell won three NCAA titles playing volleyball for UCLA. Now he has two daughters playing for Harvard-Westlake. He’s enjoying life as a Girl Dad. Here’s the report.

Four-year starter Abby Zimmerman has led Redondo Union girls volleyball.

(Steve Galluzzo)

What a week it was for Redondo Union volleyball with wins over previously unbeaten Marrymount and powerful Mater Dei. Here’s the report from the Marymount victory.

The schedule doesn’t get any easier with a home match against Sierra Canyon on Tuesday.

Venice handed Palisades its first defeat in winning its own tournament championship. Gaia Adeseun-Williams and Samantha Lortie was named co-tournament MVPs from Venice.

JSerra is 11-0 and continuing to look like one of the best flag football teams in the Southern Section. The Lions began the El Toro tournament with shutout wins over Classical Academy of San Diego and Edison.

Freshmen receivers Tessa Russell and Ava Irwin continue to be impact players.

Panorama is off to 7-0 start in the City Section behind quarterback Yadhira Hermenegildo.

Prep talk

A look at the positives from high school sports last week.

All-American Kami Miner dropped by Redondo Union to offer a pep talk to the girls volleyball players.

Louie Vargas (left) with his son, Danny, has been officiating for 52 years.

(Courtesy Danny Vargas)

It’s year No. 52 as a high school sports official for Louie Vargas, who’s 80 years old and still a head linesman for football games.

The Slye brothers, Jordan Jr. and Marty, are lifting up Salesian football and a third brother will arrive next season.

First-year coach Derwin Henderson has Rialto off to a 3-0 start.

Notes . . .

Infielder Trevor Deack of Orange Lutheran has committed to Utah Tech. . . .

Pitcher Damian Catano of Arcadia has committed to St. Mary’s. . . .

A refurbished outside basketball court at Crenshaw High was dedicated Saturday and painted in the school’s colors. . . .

Sophomore point guard Josh Lowery has transferred to Sierra Canyon. . . .

Swimmer Tori Yamamura of Valencia has committed to Missouri. . . .

Bishop Alemany baseball has picked up Mikey Martinez from Crespi. He was a starting infielder and top relief pitcher as a sophomore for the Mission League champions. Also senior pitcher Jaden Lee, the younger brother of UCLA pitcher Justin Lee, has left Sherman Oaks Notre Dame for Alemany. . . .

Casey Patterson is the new boys volleyball coach at Newbury Park . . . .

The stadium fields at Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks and Westlake will be receiving refurbishment beginning Dec. 1, forcing soccer teams to seek alternative sites. . . .

Long Beach Millikan has forfeited wins over Las Vegas Foothill and Newbury Park for using ineligible players.

From the archives: Ty Dieffenbach

Former Agoura quarterback Ty Dieffenbach

(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)

Former Agoura quarterback Ty Dieffenbach, who originally signed with and spent two years at Pittsburgh, made his debut for Cal Poly last week and passed for 263 yards and ran for 69 yards in a win over San Diego. He accounted for three touchdowns and was named the Big Sky player of the week. On Saturday, things didn’t go as well in a 63-9 loss to Utah. He passed for 82 yards.

Here’s a story from 2022 looking at Dieffenbach’s potential as a quarterback.

Recommendations

From Burlisononbasketball, a story on top girls basketball players making an impression at a local camp.

From Communityforwardredlands, a story on the return of Hall of Fame football coach Dick Bruich.

From SFGate.com, a story on the rapid growth of girls flag football.

From the Los Angeles Times, a story on the soccer Thompson sisters gaining money and attention.

From the Los Angeles Times, an excerpt from a book on Newbury Park’s cross-country success.

Tweets you might have missed

Until next time….

Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at [email protected], and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.

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RMT, the UK’s largest transport union, is demanding better pay and shorter working hours.

Members of the United Kingdom’s largest transport union have gone on strike in London, bringing the city’s underground train system to a halt as tube services are suspended.

The National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers (RMT) said about 10,000 members walked off their jobs on Sunday night for the first of five days of strikes over working hours and pay.

The London Underground, which carries an estimated 5 million people daily, showed on its website that all of the capital city’s underground tube lines were either suspended or partially suspended with the exception of the newly built Elizabeth Line, which took the strain of commuters seeking alternative paths into the city. The Transport for London (TfL) website crashed due to increased web traffic.

Queues formed outside Elizabeth Line stations, and platforms in the city were crowded. The rest of London’s transport system and national rail services were unaffected by the strike.

The BBC showed an image from the Neasden train depot in northwest London showing dozens of stationary tube carriages.

RMT members took positions on picket lines across tube stations in London as part of the industrial action, which began on Sunday at 6pm (17:00 GMT) and will continue until Thursday.

The transport union decided to take strike action after it rejected an annual pay increase of 3.4 percent from TfL, which is the public body responsible for operating London’s buses, underground and other transport services. RMT is also pushing for reduced working hours from 35 to 32 hours a week.

An RMT spokesperson said: “We are not going on strike to disrupt small businesses or the public. This strike is going ahead because of the intransigent approach of TfL management and their refusal to even consider a small reduction in the working week in order to help reduce fatigue and the ill-health effects of long-term shift work on our members.”

In a post on X, RMT said the tube was operating with 2,000 fewer staff than before the pandemic, which was resulting in “extreme shifts (4 am starts, 1 am finishes) to keep London moving.” The post added: “Fatigue and understaffing are a dangerous mix.”

Kim Johnson, a left-wing MP for Liverpool, showed support for the RMT members and said on social media: “No worker should be put at risk by fatigue & extreme shift rotations”.

TfL says any reduction in hours is “unaffordable and impractical”.

In a post on X, London Mayor Sadiq Khan called on TfL and RMT “to get around the table and resolve their dispute”. He added: “Nobody wants to see strike action – it causes serious disruption for Londoners, businesses and visitors alike.”

No talks are currently scheduled between RMT and TfL. Their last round of talks collapsed on Wednesday.

The Cincinnati Bengals have started 0-2 or worse in the past three seasons and Joe Burrow was 1-9 in the first two weeks in his career, so their one-point win against the Cleveland Browns will be a huge relief.

Even more encouraging was the fact the much-maligned defence stepped up to clinch their 17-16 victory.

Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiver Emeka Egbuka became only the second rookie since the 1970 merger to score a game-winning touchdown in the final minute as they edged Atlanta thanks to the Falcons missing a last-gasp field goal.

Las Vegas Raiders rookie running back Ashton Jeanty scored as they beat the Patriots in New England, and Washington’s Jacory Croskey-Merritt had an even better debut with 82 yards and a score as the Washington Commanders dominated the New York Giants.

Matthew Stafford became the 10th player in NFL history to reach 60,000 passing yards as the Los Angeles Rams beat the Houston Texans, while the San Francisco 49ers lost George Kittle to a hamstring injury in victory over the Seattle Seahawks.

Headline rookie Travis Hunter made his eagerly anticipated debut for the Jacksonville Jaguars, taking six catches for 33 yards as a receiver and playing six snaps on defence in a comfortable win over Carolina.

Top overall draft pick Cam Ward lost on his debut as the Tennessee Titans were beaten by the Denver Broncos.

The Kit Kat Club is closing its Broadway doors early on Sept. 21, as current “Emcee” Billy Porter battles a “serious case of sepsis,” according to the production team.

“It is with a heavy heart that we have made the painful decision to end our Broadway run,” said producer Adam Speers in a statement. “On behalf of all the producers, we’re so honored to have been able to bring this version of John Kander, Fred Ebb, and Joe Masteroff’s important masterpiece, ‘Cabaret,’ to New York and to have opened the doors to our own Kit Kat Club for the year and a half we have been here.”

“Cabaret at the Kit Kat Club” — as this revival is titled — opened on Broadway in April 2024, with Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin in the lead roles. Following their September 2024 departure, duos Adam Lambert and Auli’i Cravalho, and Orville Peck and Eva Noblezada played the titular roles.

Porter stepped into the role of the Emcee, alongside co-star Marisha Wallace as Sally Bowles, in July. The duo was expected to lead the production’s final 13 weeks — originally scheduled to end on Oct. 19 — before Porter’s illness sidelined him.

“Billy was an extraordinary ‘Emcee,’ bringing his signature passion and remarkable talent,” said Speers. “We wish Billy a speedy recovery, and I look forward to working with him again in the very near future.”

As of Sept. 21, the production will have played 18 preview performances and 592 regular performances. Marty Lauter and David Merino, the production’s longtime alternates for Emcee, will share the role for the final two weeks of performances. Their exact performance schedules — opposite Wallace as Bowles — are forthcoming.

CoreWeave (CRWV 1.92%) stock got hit with a double-digit sell-off over the last week of trading. The company’s share price fell 13.5% from its level at the previous week’s market close.

CoreWeave saw a valuation pullback due to some hesitance about growth-dependent valuations for artificial intelligence (AI) companies. The stock also saw sell-offs in conjunction with news that the company is on track to acquire another player in the AI space. CoreWeave is still up roughly 123% from its price at market close on the day of its initial public offering earlier this year, but it’s also down 51.5% from its high.

Image source: Getty Images.

CoreWeave stock slips on valuation and acquisition concerns

Investors have recently been taking a more cautious approach to valuations for some companies in the AI space, and CoreWeave stock has seen sell-offs in conjunction with the trend. Investors also apparently haven’t been thrilled with some of the company’s planned acquisition moves.

On Sept. 3, CoreWeave published a press release announcing that it had entered into definitive terms to acquire OpenPipe — a company that specializes in the training of AI agents. Specifics of the buyout were not included in the press release. Investors were also seemingly unimpressed when CoreWeave announced in July that it planned to acquire Core Scientific in a $9 billion all stock deal.

What’s next for CoreWeave?

While many new AI companies will be launched over the next decade, the artificial intelligence market is also likely to see a very high amount of consolidation across the stretch. Buying companies that can complement its own technologies and product offerings and reduce operating costs through synergies could wind up being a great move for CoreWeave, but it’s also not surprising that the stock has seen big pullbacks in response to recent acquisition and financing news.

In addition to the all-stock buyout proposed with Core Scientific and the potential for new stock to be used to fund the OpenPipe buyout, CoreWeave has also announced other plans to sell large blocks of new stock in order to raise funds. This raises some questions about whether the company has thought that its stock was overvalued in a way that made new stock sales and stock-backed buyouts attractive, and the new share sales and related deals mean that existing shareholders are seeing the value of their stakes diluted.

I don’t care whom you’re playing.

Seven-hundred fifty-five yards are a lot of yards.

That’s how much USC gained during its 59-20 victory over Georgia Southern on Saturday.

One-hundred thirty-two points are a lot of points.

USC receiver Ja’Kobi Lane evades Georgia Southern defensive back Tracy Hill Jr. during the Trojans’ win Saturday at the Coliseum.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

That’s how much USC has scored in its two games this season, including its blowout victory over Missouri State the week before.

If you want to believe the Trojans are better than they were in their previous two seasons, there are developments that could further convince you that you’re right. If you want to believe Lincoln Riley has elevated his team from mediocrity, there are statistics you could cite to support your observations.

There is also evidence to the contrary, of course.

The two games USC has played this season were more or less Rorschach tests.

The only indisputable truth to emerge was that Trojans receivers Makai Lemon and Ja’Kobi Lane would be serious problems for every one of their opponents.

Everything else remained up for debate.

When you watched the Trojans trample over former Clay Helton’s Eagles at the Coliseum, were you encouraged by how quarterback Jayden Maiava threw for 412 yards or concerned how badly he misfired on some of the handful of passes he didn’t complete?

Was your breath taken away by how Waymond Jordan changed direction in his 167-yard performance or did you gasp in horror when he fumbled on the opening drive?

Were you heartened by how USC scored every time it was in the red zone or alarmed by its three separate illegal-use-of-hands penalties on defense?

Did you see the 39-point margin of victory as an indication the Trojans are ready to take on the big boys or Georgia Southern’s four consecutive drives into their territory in the first half as a sign they will encounter trouble when the level of competition improves?

Riley was more measured in praising his team than he was a week ago.

“Definitely a lot of positives to take out of it,” Riley said.

However …

“Several things we have to clean up,” he said. “We had a couple of errors, I thought, especially with penalties where we have to be better as a football team, more disciplined as a football team.”

Riley warned his team of the consequences of failing to improve.

“It’s like I told the guys last night, there were plays we made last week that some weeks where if we’re not cleaner when we play more talented teams, the results are going to look like that,” he said. “And, so, we have to look at it through the lens of, ‘Did we do our best?’ We’re still a long ways off our best. That’s the No. 1 thing that showed up.”

Riley has sounded tone deaf at times during his three-plus years at USC, but this wasn’t one of them.

Mistakes could be punished by Michigan State, which will present the Trojans with their first real test on Sept. 20.

Mistakes could be punished by Illinois and Notre Dame and Oregon.

USC coach Lincoln Riley directs his team from the sideline during the Trojans’ win over Georgia Southern Saturday.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

Mistakes probably won’t be punished by UCLA, which has been turned into a complete Dumpster fire by athletic director Martin Jarmond, but that’s another story for another day.

For what it’s worth, Georgia Southern’s coach offered an optimistic view of USC’s ceiling. Helton was the Trojans’ head coach for five-plus seasons and still follows the program.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s a better personnel team than last year, especially, I think, offensively,” Helton said.

He pointed specifically to receivers Lemon and Lane, and running backs Jordan and Eli Sanders.

“And the quarterback [Maiava] is playing really, really within himself. You can see reps and experience matter,” Helton continued. “I’ve always thought that, and the experience he had last year, you see his growth.

“They’ve got a good situation here. You can see the changes that have been made from last year’s personnel group to this year’s personnel group, and talking with Coach Riley, I know he’s happy. He’s getting the opportunity to coach a lot more, he said, and you can see it. You can see it on tape.”

Helton still considers himself a champion of USC, and what he saw the Trojans do against his team on Saturday night gave him hope for what they might be able to accomplish this season.

“I hope,” Helton said, “they go win it all.”

WASHINGTON — Thousands of protesters marched across Washington, D.C., on Saturday in one of the largest demonstrations against President Trump’s federal takeover of policing in the nation’s capital.

Behind a bright red banner reading, “END THE D.C. OCCUPATION,” in English and Spanish, protesters marched more than two miles from Meridian Hill Park to Freedom Plaza near the White House to rail against the fourth week of National Guard troops and federal agents patrolling D.C.’s streets.

The “We Are All D.C.” protest — put together by local advocates of Home Rule and the American Civil Liberties Union — was perhaps the most organized demonstration yet against Trump’s federal intervention in Washington. The president justified the action last month as a way to address crime and homelessness in the city, even though city officials have noted that violent crime is lower than it was during Trump’s first term in office.

Trump targeted D.C. after deploying the National Guard to Los Angeles earlier this year as the administration ramped up its immigration enforcement efforts and attempted to quell protests. The White House then turned to Washington, which presented a unique opportunity for Trump to push his tough-on-crime agenda because of its subservient legal status to the federal government.

The presence of armed military officers in the streets has put Washington on edge and spurred weeks of demonstrations, particularly in D.C. neighborhoods. Trump’s emergency declaration taking charge of D.C. police is set to expire on Wednesday.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. diplomat who has been a D.C. resident for about a decade, told the Associated Press on Saturday that he’s worried about the “authoritarian nature” in which the administration is treating his city.

“Federal agents, national guards patrolling our streets, that’s really an affront to the democracy of our city,” he said, adding that it’s worse for D.C. residents due to their lack of federal representation. “We don’t have our own senators or members of the House of Representatives, so we’re at the mercy of a dictator like this, a wannabe dictator.”

Among the protesters Saturday were also former D.C. residents like Tammy Price, who called the Trump administration’s takeover “evil” and “not for the people.”

Jun Lee, an artist living in Washington, showed up with a “Free DC” sign that she made on a woodcut block. She said she came to the protest because she was “saddened and heartbroken” about the effect of the federal intervention on her city.

“This is my home, and I never, ever thought all the stuff that I watched in a history documentary that I’m actually living in person, and this is why this is important for everyone. This is our home, we need to fight, we need to resist,” she said.

Also Saturday, Trump repeated threats to add Chicago to the list of other Democratic-led cities he wants to target for expanded federal enforcement. His administration is set to step up immigration enforcement in Chicago, similar to what took place in Los Angeles, and deploy National Guard troops. Like the District of Columbia, Chicago’s recent crime data do not reflect the war zones Trump has repeatedly compared it to.

Violent crime in Chicago dropped significantly in the first half of the year, representing the steepest decline in over a decade, according to city data. Shootings are down 37%, and homicides have dropped by 32%, while total violent crime dropped by over 22%.

In response to Trump’s threats, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, called the president a “wannabe dictator” who is “threatening to go to war with an American city.”

“This is not a joke,” Pritzker wrote on X. “This is not normal.”

Pesoli and Amiri write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and New York, respectively.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Dakota Smith giving you the latest on city and county government during a short week.

When Los Angeles hosted the Olympics in 1984, the San Fernando Valley refused to take part.

Valley homeowners, fearing traffic and development, successfully blocked any Olympic competitions from taking place in the Sepulveda Basin. Environmentalists also objected to using the basin, a 2,000-acre flood plain that’s home to an array of birds.

Business owners, who had hoped for a surge from international visitors, lost out. Many tourists didn’t come across the hill, and some Valley locals stayed home to watch the Olympics on television, rather than shop, The Times reported in August 1984.

Now, the Olympics are coming to L.A. and the Valley, with BMX, skateboarding, 3×3 basketball and modern pentathlon planned for temporary venues at the Sepulveda Basin.

L.A. City Council members and business leaders are planning for a flurry of activity, including Olympics watch parties, youth sports clinics and pin-trading parties where athletes and fans swap pins and other Olympics memorabilia.

They are also hoping that stores, restaurants and other businesses in the Valley can benefit from the Games.

“During ’84, I remember being this young girl in the Northeast San Fernando Valley and feeling completely disconnected [from the Olympics],” said Councilmember Monica Rodriguez at a Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber of Commerce event Thursday.

Rodriguez and four other council members who represent San Fernando Valley neighborhoods (Bob Blumenfield, John Lee, Nithya Raman and Adrin Nazarian) weighed in on Olympics planning and other city issues during the panel, hosted by journalist Alex Cohen. (Councilmember Imelda Padilla, who represents the central and eastern Valley, was absent.)

Rodriguez said her father worked at a Los Angeles Fire Department station near USC and the Olympic Village, and would come home with stories about the festivities.

Blumenfield, whose district includes Reseda, Woodland Hills and Tarzana, recalled sneaking into a men’s gymnastics final in 1984 by walking the wrong way through an exit door. (His seats were very good: actor John Travolta was a few rows in front of him, he told The Times.)

During the 2028 Games, Blumenfield is planning watch parties in his district, with locals and visitors enjoying the Games on a big screen. He hopes visitors will take the G Line to Olympic events at the basin, and stop at stores and restaurants along the way.

“We want the Olympics to be part of the whole city, including the West Valley,” Blumenfield said in an interview.

Resistance to the ’84 Olympics wasn’t isolated to the Valley: Many Angelenos feared traffic from swarms of visitors and the threat of terrorism following the murders of 11 members of the Israeli Olympic team by a Palestinian militant group at the 1972 Munich Summer Games.

Still, the pushback by Valley residents traced to another event: Mayor Tom Bradley‘s effort in 1978 to move the Hollywood Park racetrack from Inglewood to the Sepulveda Basin. Dozens of homeowners and business groups fought the proposal, and Bradley eventually dropped it.

The same opponents coalesced again when Bradley supported swimming, archery, rowing and biking events in the basin.

Renee Weitzer was president of the Encino Homeowners Assn. during planning for the ’84 Games and helped fight the Hollywood Park project. But she later broke with those opponents and backed Olympic venues in the Valley.

Peter Ueberroth, head of the committee that brought the Games to Los Angeles in 1984, also lived in Encino at the time and told Weitzer that the committee couldn’t afford a long fight over Valley venues.

Ueberroth said, “ ‘I don’t have time for this. I am pulling out of the Valley,’ ” Weitzer said in a recent interview.

Ueberroth also claimed that anti-Olympic Valley residents threw poisoned meat to his dogs at his home.

Today, Weitzer thinks the Valley lost a big opportunity to transform the Sepulveda Basin with swimming pools and other venues that the committee would have paid for.

“It would have been fabulous, and it would have served the Valley well,” she said.

Bob Ronka, then a city council member from the northeast San Fernando Valley, led the effort to put a charter amendment on the ballot in 1978 to ensure that taxpayers didn’t foot the bill for the Olympics.

In the end, the ’84 Games generated a profit of more than $250 million dollars.

“He thought it would be a financial disaster for Los Angeles,” said Rich Perelman, former vice president of press operations for the L.A. Olympic organizing committee that Ueberroth chaired.

“So we didn’t put anything [in the Valley]. Why row the boat uphill?” said Perelman, who today runs The Sports Examiner, an online news site dedicated to Olympic sports.

Nor did Bradley want a fight with Valley council members over Olympic venues, recalled Zev Yaroslavsky, who was a council member representing the Westside and part of Sherman Oaks at the time.

“The Valley was left out of any part of the Games,” said Yaroslavsky. “Most people would probably say it was a mistake.”

While the Valley didn’t host any events, Birmingham High School in Van Nuys got a new synthetic-surface running track so Olympic athletes could train. (The school is now called Birmingham Community Charter, and the neighborhood is referred to as Lake Balboa.)

Nailing down venues in the Valley isn’t the only pressure faced by LA28, the private committee paying for and overseeing the Games.

Like other parts of L.A., the Valley today is far more ethnically, racially and culturally diverse than in 1984. Rodriguez, whose district includes Mission Hills, Sylmar and Pacoima — neighborhoods with large Latino populations — has repeatedly questioned whether Latinos will be adequately represented.

LA28’s “Los Angeles” portion of the closing ceremonies and handover event at the Paris Olympics included Billie Eilish, H.E.R., Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snoop Dogg, as well as appearances by Tom Cruise and Olympic athletes, sparking criticism on social media about the lack of Latino participants.

A coalition of Latino and Asian organizations also highlighted the dearth of diversity in a September 2024 letter to LA28 chair Casey Wasserman and Mayor Karen Bass.

At last week’s Ad Hoc Committee for the 2028 Olympics, Rodriguez asked LA28 leaders about the “glaring omission of the Latino community in the flag transfer ceremonies” during the 2024 Paris Games.

“I’ll be damned if that happens again with these Games, especially in light of what our community is going through,” Rodriguez said last week, referring to the recent federal immigration raids in L.A. that have overwhelmingly targeted Latinos.

State of play

— SETBACK FOR TRUMP: Mayor Karen Bass and other California political leaders cheered a federal judge’s decision Tuesday barring soldiers from aiding in immigration arrests and other civilian law enforcement in the state. The 9th Circuit or the Supreme Court could reverse the order.

— UP, UP, AND AWAY?: The price tag for the proposed Los Angeles Convention Center expansion keeps rising and is now an estimated $2.7 billion — an increase of $483 million from six months ago. The project would connect the two existing convention halls with a new building and add massive digital billboards, including some facing the freeways.

—BAD OWNER: City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto announced that the city is settling several lawsuits over alleged illegal short-term rentals and party houses in Hollywood. Among them is Franklin Apartments, a rent-stabilized building that turned 10 units into short-term rentals, and later, an underground hotel.

— MEET THE TRASHERS: Bass launched Shine LA to clean city streets in time for the 2028 Olympics. Meet the San Fernando Valley group whose members — mostly retirees in their 60s and 70s — are already volunteering their time.

— PADILLA TARGETED: A group of residents in City Councilmember Imelda Padilla‘s district on Tuesday filed a notice of their intention to seek her recall. The residents — some of whom have a connection to the Lake Balboa Neighborhood Council — didn’t respond to requests for comment. Padilla’s chief of staff, Ackley Padilla, told The Times that her office is “focused on the work at hand, improving the quality of life in our neighborhoods, keeping our youth, seniors and families safe.”

—GARCETTI REEMERGES: Former Mayor Eric Garcetti, in an email fundraising pitch for U.S. House of Representatives candidate Eileen Laubacher, who is trying to unseat Colorado’s Lauren Boebert, confirmed that he is now a Valley resident after returning from India, where he served as U.S. Ambassador. Garcetti, who spent some of his childhood in Encino, wrote that it’s “great to be home in our house in the San Fernando Valley (where my LA story began).”

Zine exits. Who didn’t see this coming?

Former City Councilmember Dennis Zine last week abruptly withdrew from consideration to serve on the commission tasked with changing L.A.’s charter.

Zine, a former LAPD sergeant who is now a reserve officer, served on a similar charter commission in the late 1990s. He is known as a bomb thrower who regularly skewers some city council members by referring to them as the “Crazy Train” in his CityWatch column.

Zine wrote in CityWatch that he met with two council members, including Ysabel Jurado, ahead of his nomination hearing and concluded that he could not work with a “hostile and anti-LAPD body of elected officials.”

In an interview, Zine said he has no ill will toward Jurado — who is among the council’s most progressive members — and plans to have lunch with her. Other council members relayed to him that the full council wouldn’t support his nomination, Zine said.

“I didn’t want to see a split vote on the council floor,” he said. “I didn’t want to see a dogfight.”

Zine, who represented the West Valley when he was a council member, said he is staunchly against some proposals pushed by advocates, including expanding the size of the City Council.

Blumenfield, who nominated Zine for the commission, mistakenly told him that the appointment didn’t need council approval, Zine said.

Blumenfield said he hadn’t anticipated the “difficult process” and said the former council member would have added “immense institutional memory and experience regarding how the city works.”

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? Inside Safe, Bass’ program to shelter homeless people, visited Skid Row this week, a Bass spokesperson said.
• On the docket next week: The City Council is expected to consider a vote on the Convention Center expansion. On Sept. 10, the council’s Transportation Committee will hear an update on transit plans for the 2028 Olympics.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

If you consume tea with any sort of interest, maybe you’ve been hearing about the worldwide matcha shortage of 2025?

Matcha, but much much more

In short: Viral posts featuring soothingly smooth, mint green matcha drinks on TikTok and other social media over the last few years have ignited a global craze. Coupled with a pandemic-era focus on matcha as an antioxidant-rich superfood that might help prevent cancer and perhaps even improve memory and reduce anxiety, its demand is booming. Industry analysts predict the market size to almost double to $6.5 billion internationally by 2030.

Supplies from tea farmers, and dwindled inventory from distributors, can’t keep pace — especially given labor shortages and a recent heatwave in Japan that decreased yields of tencha, the traditional variety of shade-grown tea which is powdered into matcha. Many companies, small and large, that sell matcha have attempted to stockpile their reserves. Wholesale prices this year have increased by a staggering 265%, according to the International Tea Co.

Walk with this knowledge into Kettl, a new Japanese tea cafe and shop in Loz Feliz, and the calmness of the two-story space feels all the more remarkable.

Leaves of Koju oolong, grown in Japan, before a tasting at Kettl in Los Feliz.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

No sense of scarcity here. Order a matcha cortado to drink on premises and it arrives in a gorgeously coarse ceramic cup, the tea decorated with the requisite foam art. Choose from three matcha varieties for your latte: nutty and chocolaty, creamy and floral, or umami-intense. Ask for whisked matcha with options in a similar range of flavors. Grab a cooling matcha splashed with sparking water over ice to go.

Or, stick around for a tasting with schooled staffers who can guide you through wider nuances of matcha — and, even better, to a world of Japanese teas far greater than the current object of focus. This is why I’ve become a regular at Kettl.

Zach Mangan was a jazz drummer in his twenties in the 2000s when, on tour in Paris, he happened upon a store selling sincha, the prized tea made from the first spring harvest in Japan.

“The smell of the glossy, needlelike leaves was incredibly nostalgic, though I had never experience it before,” he writes in his 2022 book, “Stories of Japanese Tea.” “It reminded me of the lawn of my childhood home when freshly mowed. I brewed it and was captivated by how much flavor was packed inside my tiny cup of tea.”

Kettl founder Zach Mangan talks tea behind the counter of his new Los Feliz shop.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

The experience led down one path after another: A job at a now-closed tea shop in New York called Ito En. A first monthlong trip to Japan in 2010, where he understood the degrees to which freshness can take green teas from pleasant to electric. A series of return visits in which he developed relationships with tea producers so he could become an importer.

His first client, from a cold call, was renowned chef David Bouley. Other chefs began buying. He and his wife, Minami Mangan, opened the first Kettl shop in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, in 2021.

Their Los Angeles location, delayed for several years by a familiar litany of permit and buildout hurdles, steeped their first teas for customers in February.

The state of L.A.’s sit-down tea scene

As a mid-level tea obsessive, I’d say the culture around drinking serious tea in public spaces in Southern California remains niche. No insult intended to matcha and boba shops: I’m talking about places for a face-to-face, sit-down shared experience between the tea brewer and the drinker. I’ve written plenty about Alhambra’s by-appointment-only Tea Habitat, my favorite place in the country for dan cong, the exceptionally fragrant oolongs from the Phoenix Mountain region in China’s Guangdong province.

A tasting at Tea Habitat in Alhambra.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Tomoko Imade Dyen, a Tokyo-born Angeleno who works as a PR consultant and television producer, holds occasional, enlightening Japanese tea tastings with seasonal foods. The Good Liver store in downtown L.A. also holds regular tastings and carries premium matcha that tends to sell fast.

Kettl and its serene, sunny rooms, in this context, feel extravagant. There are ticketed classes, held upstairs, which teach the basics of, say, making iced matcha in summertime, but I’m most drawn to the four-seat tasting bar to the right of the ordering counter. On weekends it’s wise to reserve seats, but I’ve had luck slipping in on weekday afternoons. A staffer will hand you a menu booklet outlining options: bowls of first-rate matcha that begin at $15; pots of other teas, which include multiple steepings, starting at $10; an in-depth tea omakase starting at $70 per person.

I’m happy whisking matcha for myself at home. Drinking in the shop, I’m curious about sencha, the broadest category of green teas produced in Japan. Mangan likens the diversity of styles made under the term to the wild differences between all red wines bottled across France, or whiskies distilled in Scotland.

When he was in town last month, he brewed two for me at the bar. Hachiju Hachiya from Yame — a city on Japan’s Kyushu island so famous for tea that green fields show up at the top of a Google search — was herbaceous but also tasted like popping edamame pods as a snack at a sushi bar.

Hatsutsumi, grown 20 miles away deep in the mountains of the Fukuoka prefecture, smelled like one of those March mornings in Los Angeles after the rain when the city’s terrain rushes into urgent bloom. The texture was almost buttery.

A steeping of gyokuro, a Japanese shade-grown green tea, at Kettl in Los Feliz.

(Bill Addison / Los Angeles Times)

Kettl receives weekly shipments from Japan, so the possibilities are always changing. This past week I drank a rare gyokuro (tea that undergoes a specific, laborious shaded process for three weeks before harvesting; it’s steeped with lots of leaves at unusually cool temperatures) with specific, sweet seashore aromas emblematic of its style.

“The tasting notes were so enthusiastic on this one, I knew Zach wrote them,” joked Ashley Ruiz, who was brewing that day. The taste reminded me, wonderfully, of crabmeat. And I’ve had very few Japanese loose-leaf oolongs; Ruiz suggested one that was light and expressive, with stone fruit flavors knocking about.

There is so much more to return for. It’s promising to witness the shop’s steady foot traffic, and the groups of people lingering in conversation over tea. Maybe it’s matcha mania … and maybe Kettl is nudging L.A.’s tea culture in magnetic new dimensions.

Kettl: 4677 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, (323) 407-6155, kettl.co

Early bird tickets

VIP tickets (allowing early entry) to The Times’ Food Bowl Night Market, presented by Square, are already sold out for the Saturday-night session taking place Oct. 11 at City Market Social House in downtown L.A. Friday-night VIP tickets are still available, but going fast. More than 40 restaurants are participating, including Holbox, Baroo, the Brothers Sushi, OyBar, Heritage Barbecue, Crudo e Nudo, Hummingbird Ceviche House, Rossoblu, Perilla LA, Evil Cooks, Villa’s Tacos, Holy Basil and Luv2Eat Thai Bistro. Check lafoodbowl.com for tickets and info.

Also …

Seniors in some parts of the country say they are being denied COVID-19 vaccinations amid an ongoing spike in cases, leading to rising frustration over new Trump administration policies that are making it harder to get the shots.

Matthew D’Amico, 67, of New York City, said a Walgreens declined to administer COVID-19 vaccines to him and his 75-year-old wife on Friday because they didn’t have a prescription. They’re trying to get vaccinated ahead of a trip.

“I can’t believe we can’t get” the vaccine, D’Amico said in an interview. “I’ve been inoculated a number of times and never had to get a prescription. And it’s just very frustrating that this is where we are.”

He’s not alone in his exasperation. Under the leadership of the vaccine skeptic Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., federal agencies have effectively made it more difficult to get vaccinated against COVID-19 this year. The Food and Drug Administration has only “approved” COVID-19 vaccines for those age 65 and up, as well as younger people with underlying health conditions.

That means across the country, people younger than 65 interested in getting the COVID-19 vaccine must now either consult with a healthcare provider or “attest” to a pharmacy that they have an underlying health condition. It’s a potential hurdle that can make getting the vaccine more difficult and, some health experts worry, prompt even more Americans to eschew getting vaccinated.

As D’Amico can attest, though, being part of a group for whom the COVID vaccine is “approved” doesn’t necessarily guarantee easy access.

“For me to go to my primary [healthcare provider] now and get a prescription, it’s just kind of ridiculous,” D’Amico said.

At least some people younger than 65 are encountering pharmacy staff asking probing questions about their medical conditions.

That happened Friday at a CVS in Orange County, according to 34-year-old Alex Benson, who takes medication that can suppress his immune system.

Besides just protecting himself, he wanted to get vaccinated as he has family members who are at high risk should they get COVID — his mother is immunocompromised, and his mother-in-law had open-heart surgery on Thursday night.

Benson said an employee asked why he thought he was eligible for the vaccine.

“They asked me for either a prescription or they wanted to know … why I felt I needed the vaccination,” Benson said. At one point, a staffer offered to call his doctor to get an authorization for the vaccine.

Benson said he was alarmed by the questions, and started to “feel kind of some desperation to plead my case to the pharmacist.” Another CVS staffer later came over and said further answers weren’t necessary and simply attesting he was eligible was good enough. He eventually got the vaccine.

Still, he felt the experience was dismaying.

“I think easy access should be the policy,” Benson said. “I tend not to get too political, but it seems just rather juxtaposed to me that an anti-regulation administration is using regulation in this way. They’re supposed to be removing barriers to healthcare.”

The vaccine chaos comes as COVID-19 is either increasing or starting to hit its late summer peak. According to data released Friday, there are now 14 states with “very high” levels of coronavirus detected in their wastewater — California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Indiana, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Connecticut, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii and Alaska, as well as the District of Columbia.

Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, the regional physician chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente Southern California, said data continue to show an increase in coronavirus cases.

“Over this past week, we’ve seen an increase in the number of outpatient COVID cases, and even a smattering of inpatient cases,” Hudson said. “It appears that we may be nearing the top of the wave, but it may be another two weeks or so until we truly know if we’re there.”

The rate at which coronavirus lab tests are confirming infection also continues to rise statewide and in the Los Angeles area. For the week ending Aug. 30, California’s COVID test positivity rate was 12.83%, up from 7.05% for the week ending Aug. 2. In L.A. County, the positive test rate was 14.83%, up from 9.33%.

Other data, however, suggest some areas may have reached their summer COVID peak.

In Orange County, the COVID positive test rate was 13.1%. That’s below the prior week’s rate of 18%, but still higher than the rate for the week that ended Aug. 2, which was 10.8%.

In San Francisco, the test positivity rate has been hovering around 9% for the last week of reliable data available. It’s up from 7% a month earlier.

In addition, wastewater data in L.A. County show coronavirus levels declined slightly from the prior week.

“It’s too early to know if this decrease in wastewater viral concentrations is the first sign that COVID-19 activity is peaking or is regular variation typical of this data source,” the L.A. County Department of Public Health said.

COVID hospital admissions in California are increasing — with the latest rate of 3.93 admissions per 100,000 residents, up from 2.38.

But they remain relatively low statewide and in L.A. County. The number of L.A. County residents seeking care for COVID-related illness, or who have been hospitalized, “is quite a bit lower than during summer surges in 2023 and 2024,” the public health department said.

A relatively mild summer wave, however, could mean that the annual fall-and-winter COVID wave might be stronger. In July, the state Department of Public Health said that scientists anticipate California would see either a stronger summer COVID wave or a more significant winter wave.

The current confusion over federal COVID vaccine policy has been exacerbated by the chaos at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Kennedy earlier this year fired everyone on the influential Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and orchestrated the firing of CDC Director Susan Monarez just 29 days after she was confirmed to the post by the Senate.

Some of Kennedy’s handpicked replacements on the ACIP have criticized vaccines and spread misinformation, according to the Associated Press. And the new interim CDC director — Jim O’Neill, a Kennedy deputy — is a critic of health regulations and has no training in medicine or healthcare, the AP reported.

The CDC hasn’t issued its own recommendations on who should get vaccinated, and that inaction has resulted in residents of a number of states needing to get prescriptions from a healthcare provider for at least the next couple of weeks. In some cases, that’s true even for seniors, as D’Amico found out.

As of Friday, CVS said people need a prescription to get a COVID-19 vaccine, sometimes depending on their age, in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maine, North Carolina, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.

CVS couldn’t even offer the COVID-19 at its pharmacies in Nevada as of Friday; they were only available at the company’s MinuteClinic sites, according to spokesperson Amy Thibault.

CVS said it expects to offer COVID-19 vaccines without prescriptions at its pharmacies in New Mexico, Nevada, New York and Pennsylvania “soon,” due to recent regulatory changes in each state.

“Right now, all patients in all states need to attest to being eligible for the vaccine in order to schedule an appointment online,” Thibault said. If an adult says they have no underlying health conditions, but do have a prescription from a healthcare provider for “off-label” use of the vaccine, they can get the shot, Thibault confirmed.

On Thursday, Hawaii joined California, Washington and Oregon in launching the West Coast Health Alliance: an interstate compact meant to provide science-based immunization guidance as an alternative to the CDC.

“Together, these states will provide evidence-based immunization guidance rooted in safety, efficacy, and transparency — ensuring residents receive credible information free from political interference,” according to a statement from Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office.

The statement suggested that the Trump administration was essentially “dismantling” the CDC.

“The absence of consistent, science-based federal leadership poses a direct threat to our nation’s health security,” the statement said. “To protect the health of our communities, the West Coast Health Alliance will continue to ensure that our public health strategies are based on best available science.”

It was not immediately clear, however, whether the formation of the West Coast Health Alliance would make it easier for people to get COVID-19 vaccines at the nation’s largest pharmacy retailers, where many people get their shots.

Mainstream medical groups, such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, are also offering their own recommendations to advise individuals and families on what vaccines they should get.

Welcome to Bunker Talk. This is a weekend open discussion post for the best commenting crew on the net, in which we can chat about all the stuff that went on this week that we didn’t cover. We can also talk about the stuff we did or whatever else grabs your interest. In other words, it’s an off-topic thread.

The caption to this week’s top shot reads:

Europe. Germany. Rheinland. Area of Bonn. District of Ahrweiler. Bad Neuenahr. Regierungsbunker. Secret Bunker Buit By The Government of Bonn As An Emergency Site of the Constitutional Bodies of the Federal Republic of Germany. Control of A Huge Armored Door Europa. Germany. Rhineland. Bonn Area. Ahrweiler District. Bad Neuenahr. Regierungsbunker. Secret Anti-atomic Bunker Built By The Bonn Government As An Emergency Location For The Constitutional Bodies of the German Federal Republic. Controls of A Huge Armored Door. (Photo by: Giulio Andreini/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Also, a reminder:

Prime Directives!

• If you want to talk politics, do so respectfully and know that there’s always somebody that isn’t going to agree with you. 
• If you have political differences, hash it out respectfully, stick to the facts, and no childish name-calling or personal attacks of any kind. If you can’t handle yourself in that manner, then please, discuss virtually anything else.
• No drive-by garbage political memes. No conspiracy theory rants. Links to crackpot sites will be axed, too. Trolling and shitposting will not be tolerated. No obsessive behavior about other users. Just don’t interact with folks you don’t like. 
• Do not be a sucker and feed trolls! That’s as much on you as on them. Use the mute button if you don’t like what you see.  
• So unless you have something of quality to say, know how to treat people with respect, understand that everyone isn’t going to subscribe to your exact same worldview, and have come to terms with the reality that there is no perfect solution when it comes to moderation of a community like this, it’s probably best to just move on. 
• Finally, as always, report offenders, please. This doesn’t mean reporting people who don’t share your political views, but we really need your help in this regard.

The Bunker is open!

Contact the editor: Tyler@twz.com

WASHINGTON — Facing viral rumors of his imminent death, President Trump emerged in the Oval Office on Tuesday alive and scowling. Core tenets of his economic policies were under strain. Flashy diplomatic overtures to Moscow appeared to be backfiring. And a scandal over a notorious sexual abuser that has fixated his base was roaring back to life in Washington.

It was a challenging week for the president, whose aggressive approach to his second term has begun to hit significant roadblocks with the public and the courts, and overseas, with longstanding U.S. adversaries Trump once hoped to coax to his will.

The president called for an expedited Supreme Court review of an appellate court ruling that he had exceeded his authority by issuing sweeping global tariffs last spring — a decision that, if left standing, could upend the foundation of his economic agenda. On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics issued jobs numbers showing a contraction of the labor market in July, a first since the depths of the pandemic in 2020.

New art lining a hallway in the West Wing features photographs of Trump’s summit with Vladimir Putin in Alaska, where Trump said the Russian president had agreed to meet with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to discuss an end to the war. Yet, three weeks on, Russia had launched its most intense bombardment of Kyiv in years, and Putin traveled to Beijing for a military parade hosted by Xi Jinping, which Russian state media used to mock the U.S. president.

During an appearance in the Oval Office on Friday afternoon, Trump said reaching a deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine has turned out to be “a little bit more difficult” than he initially thought.

And a rare spree of bipartisanship broke out on Capitol Hill — in opposition to Trump’s causes.

A tense hearing at the Senate Finance Committee with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid bare concern over the direction of federal vaccination policy and public health recommendations under his leadership across party lines.

Trump declined to stand behind him wholeheartedly after the hearing. “He’s got some little different ideas,” Trump told reporters, adding: “It’s not your standard talk.”

On Wednesday, moments after a group of more than 100 women pleaded for Trump’s help from the steps of the Capitol seeking transparency over the investigation of their alleged abuser, Jeffrey Epstein, Trump dismissed the matter as a “hoax” perpetrated by Democrats.

“The Department of Justice has done its job, they have given everything requested of them,” Trump repeated on Truth Social on Friday. “It’s time to end the Democrat Epstein Hoax.”

Trump was close friends with Epstein for more than a decade. But his base has repeatedly called for the release of thousands of files in his case — and some of Trump’s staunchest allies in Congress are set to vote against his wishes for a discharge petition directing the Justice Department to do so in the coming days.

A far-right political activist released hidden camera footage this week of a Justice Department official claiming the agency would redact the names of Republicans, but not Democrats, identified in the files. In the video, the DOJ official also suggested that Epstein associate Ghislaine Maxwell was recently moved to a lower-security prison as part of a deal to keep her quiet.

Public support for Trump has appeared stable since July, with roughly 42% of Americans approving of his job performance across a series of high quality polls. But the end of the August recess in Washington — and the oncoming flu and COVID-19 season — could return public attention to subjects that have proved politically perilous for the president this week.

Polls show that a majority of the president’s Republican voters support vaccines. They oppose Putin and increasingly support Ukraine. And across the political spectrum, Americans want the Epstein files released, unredacted and in full.

A string of court losses

The president’s agenda suffered several setbacks this week, as federal judges across the country ruled his administration had broken the law in various instances.

In San Francisco, a federal judge ruled that Trump’s deployment of military troops in Los Angeles was illegal and barred soldiers from aiding immigration arrests in California in an order set to take effect next week.

In Boston, a federal judge said the Trump administration broke the law when it froze billions of dollars in research funds awarded to Harvard University. In another court ruling, a judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deporting dozens of unaccompanied migrant children to Guatemala.

And on Friday afternoon, a federal judge stopped the Trump administration from taking away the deportation protections under Temporary Protected Status for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans and Haitians living in the United States.

While the court decisions represent a snag for key portions of the administration’s agenda, the cases continue to play out in court — and could ultimately turn in favor of Trump.

Legal experts are closely watching those decisions. In the case of the military troop deployments, for instance, some fear a reversal on appeal could ultimately hand the president broader power to send troops to American cities.

Trump has floated additional federal deployments — to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans — in recent days.

Trump reacts to a bad week

Trump greeted the waves of bad news with a characteristic mix of deflection, finger-pointing and anger.

He warned that losing his appeal on tariff policy at the Supreme Court would render the United States a “third world country,” telling reporters, “if we don’t win that case, our country is going to suffer so greatly.” And he said he was “very disappointed” in Putin.

After the parade in Beijing — which was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, a longstanding U.S. ally now ostracized by Trump’s tariffs — drew widespread media attention, Trump wrote on social media that the countries were conspiring together against the United States.

“We’ve lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China,” he wrote.

In another lengthy social media post on Friday, Trump accused Democrats of fueling the Epstein “hoax” as a means to “distract from the great success of a Republican President.”

Days earlier, survivors of Epstein’s sexual abuse publicly pressured lawmakers to back a legislative measure to force the release of the sex trafficking investigation into the late financier.

“This is about ending secrecy wherever abuse of power takes root,” said Anouska De Georgiou, who was among the Epstein victims who held a news conference on Capitol Hill.

A few high-profile Republicans also broke with Trump on the Epstein issue, calling for more transparency on the investigation. Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said she is willing to expose those who are tied to Epstein’s sex trafficking case.

On a phone call with Trump on Wednesday morning, Greene suggested he meet with Epstein’s victims at the White House while they were gathered in town. He was noncommittal, the congresswoman told reporters.

The survivors left town without a meeting. At the direction of the White House, Republican leadership continues to press Republican members to oppose efforts to release the files.

Shares of Ciena (CIEN -0.20%) rallied 23.9% this week through 1:46 p.m. ET Friday, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Ciena is a leader in optical transceivers and other IP networking and routing hardware and software. That’s a market that has typically served large telecom players, but which has now reaccelerated in the age of artificial intelligence (AI), and the increased networking demands required for it.

On Thursday, Ciena showed off a new AI-powered acceleration, delivering fiscal third-quarter results that handily beat analyst expectations.

Ciena blows past estimates on the back of AI networking needs

In its fiscal third quarter, Ciena grew revenue 29.4% to $1.22 billion, while adjusted non-GAAP (generally accepted accounting principles) earnings per share nearly doubled, up 91.4% to $0.67. Both figures handily beat analyst expectations, especially the bottom-line figure, which bested estimates by $0.14.

Ciena is capitalizing on the newfound demand for inter-data center networking, stemming from the growth of generative AI. AI training companies are now connecting multiple data centers to function as a single AI “cluster,” which increases bandwidth needs. Moreover, as AI becomes infused into many enterprise and edge applications, the need for lighting-fast “inferencing” is also growing networking demand by leaps and bounds.

While Ciena’s traditional telecom market is only growing at a 4% pace, newer markets in metro routing and data center communications are forecast to grow at a 26% compound annualized growth rate through 2028, wherein the new markets will equal the size of Ciena’s traditional markets.

Image source: Getty Images.

Ciena: An underappreciated AI star?

After its rally this week, Ciena currently trades around 27.5 times next year’s earnings estimates. Its fiscal year ends in October 2026.

That’s not exactly cheap anymore, but it is a lower valuation than other AI stars that have recently come onto the scene. That being said, the company could make for a solid addition to a high-quality AI-oriented “basket” portfolio for those bullish on the long-term prospects of the AI build-out.

PITTSBURGH — Over three nights in Pittsburgh this week, the Dodgers didn’t win a game, despite playing a last-place Pirates club.

They didn’t grow their division lead, despite the second-place San Diego Padres suffering their own three-game sweep.

And, as veteran infielder Miguel Rojas stressed Thursday night, they simply didn’t look like a team capable of sharing in any joy, despite their constant insistence that better play will materialize.

“I feel like ever since we started playing poorly a couple months ago, the pressure and frustration has been building up on the team,” Rojas said.

“We know what we’re capable of. We’re playing under the threshold, the goal that we have. But at the end of the day, we gotta put all that aside … and we have to find some joy and some motivation to come to the ballpark. Not just, ‘I gotta do my job.’ We have to come here and enjoy ourselves around the clubhouse, regardless of the situation.”

The situation, of course, looks bleak, with Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the Pirates sealing a confounding three-game sweep.

“It’s frustrating. It’s embarrassing,” Rojas said. “But we have to be able to turn the page and come tomorrow with a better attitude. … We have to find a way to enjoy the game a little bit more.”

This loss, granted, was the easiest to explain.

In six scoreless innings, Cy Young frontrunner Paul Skenes was his typically dominant self. Already the major-league ERA leader, the second-year right-hander stuck out eight batters, gave up just two hits, escaped his only real threat by stranding a pair of two-out baserunners in the third inning, and otherwise overpowered the Dodgers with a seven-pitch repertoire headlined by his upper-90s mph sidearm fastball.

His counterpart, two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell, was nowhere near top form, giving up five runs in five innings despite largely limiting much hard contact.

The Dodgers (78-62) did finally show some life offensively in the top of the ninth, scoring three times (their first runs since the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game) and putting the tying run on base. But by then, it was too little, too late — with the game ending on a three-pitch strikeout by newly called-up catcher Ben Rortvedt, the latest hair-pulling moment in a season of deflation.

“We’re just not playing good baseball, that’s really it,” Snell said. “We’ve got to figure that out. That’s on us to do that. We’ve got to get it going. It’s crunch time right now. Can’t really have excuses.”

Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes delivers against the Dodgers on Thursday.

(Justin Berl / Getty Images)

Indeed, the Dodgers lead the NL West by only two games — having missed a chance to create distance in the standings after the Padres unexpectedly dropped three straight against the Baltimore Orioles earlier in the week.

They also trail the Philadelphia Phillies by three games for a top-two seed in the NL playoff picture, placing themselves in danger of facing a three-game wild-card series rather than a first-round bye.

With 22 games remaining, the Dodgers would have to be perfect the rest of the way to reach the 100-win mark. At this point, even 90 victories feels far from a certainty, given the team’s 4-12 record in their last 16 against teams with losing records.

“I want to say it’s uncharacteristic, but I think we’ve done that a lot,” manager Dave Roberts acknowledged afterward.

And when facing the current best pitcher in the sport, they certainly never seemed poised to change that trend.

Skenes set the tone immediately on what had been a rainy evening in Pittsburgh. Shohei Ohtani struck out on a 99-mph heater in the game’s first at-bat. The next seven Dodgers who came to the plate all recorded outs, flailing at Skenes’ mix of four-seamers, sweepers, curveballs and changeups to allow him to quickly find a comfortable rhythm.

It wasn’t until Dalton Rushing — who started in place of an injured Will Smith, as the team’s starting catcher awaited results on a CT scan for a bruised hand he suffered the night before — hit a third-inning fastball high off the center-field wall for a double that gave the Dodgers their first baserunner. But, after an Ohtani walk, Mookie Betts grounded out to retire that threat.

From there, the only other damage Skenes allowed was a fifth-inning single from Rojas. And though the Dodgers’ ability to at least foul off two-strike pitches — they fought off 15 in all — at least got him out of the game after six innings, it was already too late to mount a comeback.

That’s because, unlike the Dodgers, the last-place Pirates (64-77) actually managed to build rallies against another of the game’s other top pitchers.

Snell’s outing was a grind from the start, with Rushing misfiring to first base for an error in the first inning and Betts reacting slowly to a ground ball at shortstop to extend the second.

Snell worked around those jams. In the third, however, he followed a leadoff single by Bryan Reynolds with a pair of wild pitches that got by Rushing. With Reynolds suddenly on third, and the Dodgers’ infield forced to play in, Tommy Pham slapped a single through the dirt for the night’s opening run.

Dodgers pitcher Blake Snell delivers in the second inning Thursday against the Pirates.

(Justin Berl / Getty Images)

Two innings later, the Pirates broke it open.

In the fifth, Snell gave up three consecutive singles that doubled Pittsburgh’s lead. Then, after an intentional one-out walk to Andrew McCutchen, Nick Yorke went after a first-pitch curveball for a two-run double down the line. McCutchen later scored from third on a grounder.

“It just seemed like today there was some seeing-eye single, balls finding the outfield grass,” Roberts said. “I thought he was good, not great. But again, a little bit unlucky. When you’re facing Paul Skenes, you just can’t afford to give up runs.”

If all that wasn’t enough, the game ended with another regrettable sequence in the ninth. Betts broke up the shutout with a leadoff home run. Singles from Teoscar Hernández, Michael Conforto, Andy Pages and Rojas brought around two more runs with the Dodgers down to their last out.

Then, however, Rortvedt came up as their ill-fated final hope.

A career minor-leaguer whom the Dodgers acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays at the trade deadline, then called up Thursday after Smith took a foul ball off his hand the night before, Rortvedt struck out after having replaced Rushing an inning earlier.

As Roberts explained postgame, he was trying to get Rushing (a rookie who has been a backup this season, but will likely start the next three games as Smith recovers from his bruised hand) off his feet. Given the way the game had gone, he wasn’t expecting Rushing’s spot in the order (which was due up eighth in the ninth inning) to come back up again.

“Obviously, in a separate world, I would’ve loved to have had Dalton up there,” Roberts said. “But when you have three hits through eight [innings] and you’re down 5-0, just kind of trying to figure out how to preserve him for the next few days, too.”

So it goes for the Dodgers right now. Their inconsistent lineup continues to scuffle. Their supposed strength of a rotation hasn’t been able to dominate. And, with their record an incomprehensible 22-30 since July 4, there remains no end in sight to their second-half slide — nor visible signs of anything other than frustration.

“I feel like, as an offense, we’re putting a little bit too much pressure on ourselves, because we feel the necessity of winning. And we’re really forgetting about the most important part, which is playing for each other and having some joy when we play this game,” Rojas said.

“We all know, when you’re losing baseball games it’s not that fun. But I feel like we have to find a way to put everything in perspective. We’re still in first place. We’re still two games ahead of the Padres. We should be able to have some fun while we’re playing the game, and kind of relax a little bit more. Because I think when this team is together like that, we’re really hard to beat.”

In one of his first company-wide directives, Paramount Chief Executive David Ellison announced that employees must work in the office five days a week, beginning in January.

In a Thursday email, Ellison outlined the company’s phased-in approach for office attendance — including offering a severance package to Los Angeles- and New York-based vice presidents and lower-ranking employees if they wish to leave the company rather than return to the office.

The move sets the stage for what’s expected to be deep staff cuts later this year. Ellison and his RedBird Capital Partners investors have promised Wall Street more than $2 billion in cost savings as they take over the storied media company, install their own teams and integrate Skydance Media businesses, including video games and animation, into Paramount’s operations. Paramount previously cut several hundred jobs this summer.

Paramount representatives have declined to comment on the pending layoffs beyond saying they hope to achieve the cuts with one large round.

The Ellison family and RedBird finalized their $8-billion takeover of Paramount last month after months of turmoil as federal regulators chewed over the deal until Paramount agreed to pay President Trump $16 million to settle his lawsuit over “60 Minutes” interview edits.

Since then, Ellison and his lieutenants have moved quickly to remake Paramount with big bets, including agreeing to pay $7.7 billion for media rights to UFC’s mixed martial arts events in the U.S. in a seven-year deal with TKO Group Holdings. The company also invested in the construction of a Texas-based production hub for prolific “Yellowstone” creator Taylor Sheridan. It agreed to pay $1.5 billion over five years for streaming rights for “South Park,” the Comedy Central cartoon.

On Thursday, Paramount said it had reached a three-year global film distribution deal with “Dune” studio Legendary, beginning with next year’s “Street Fighter.” Paramount will market and distribute Legendary films throughout the world, except in China, where Legendary East oversees releases.

Financial terms were not disclosed. The deal allows Warner Bros. to continue to distribute some films, including co-productions “Dune: Part Three” in 2026 and “Godzilla x Kong: Supernova” in 2027.

CBS News also is bracing for change. Paramount’s new chief is reportedly in negotiations with journalist Bari Weiss to buy her center-right news site, the Free Press, and join CBS News in an undisclosed role. A Paramount spokesperson on Thursday declined to comment on the talks.

Until now, Paramount staffers were expected to be in the office a couple days a week, but it was not consistently applied, according to people with knowledge of the matter but not authorized to comment.

Ellison is attempting to reset Paramount’s culture after years of under-investment, layoffs and management turmoil. In the email, he wrote the return-to-office directive was aimed at “building a stronger, more connected, and agile organization that can deliver on our goals and compete at the highest level.”

“We have a lot to accomplish and we’re moving fast,” Ellison said. “We need to all be rowing in the same direction. And especially when you’re dealing with a creative business like ours, that begins with being together in person.”

Media companies have had varying policies after the initial “work-from-home” policies imposed at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic nearly five and a half years ago. Sony Pictures Entertainment brought its employees back to the Culver City lot relatively quickly. Disney Chief Executive Bob Iger ordered a return to the office in January 2023, less than two months after he returned to lead the company.

“As I said during our town hall, some of the most formative moments of my life happened in rooms where I was a fly on the wall, listening and learning,” Ellison wrote in his email. “I’ve never seen that happen on Zoom. Being together in-person isn’t just about showing up — it’s about actively engaging with the business, supporting one another and the team’s efforts, and contributing to our shared momentum.”

Times Staff Writer Sam Masunaga contributed to this report.

A look at this week’s top high school football games in the Southland.

FRIDAY

Baltimore St. Frances (1-0) at St. John Bosco (2-0), 7 p.m.

Two nationally ranked powerhouses meet to keep their mythical national championship hopes alive. St. John Bosco coach Jason Negro said St. Frances has as much talent as any team in the country. The Braves have an impressive group of six linebackers that willl try to use their speed to deal with St. Frances’ big-play weapons. It’s another opportunity for sophomore quarterback Koa Malau’ulu to get the ball to his prolific group of receivers. The pick: St. John Bosco.

Folsom (2-0) at Mission Viejo (2-0), 7 p.m.

One of Northern California’s top teams is led by Brigham Young-bound quarterback Ryder Lyons. Mission Viejo counters with Ohio State-bound quarterback Luke Fahey. It should be an offensive slugfest. The pick: Mission Viejo.

PITTSBURGH — It was a pivotal moment, in a pivotal game, in what’s become a pivotal week for the Dodgers in the National League West standings.

Which, rather predictably given their recently floundering form, meant they found a new way to mess it all up.

In the top of the second inning on Wednesday night at PNC Park, the Dodgers appeared to be in optimal position.

Earlier in the day, the second-place San Diego Padres had been swept by the woebegone Baltimore Orioles, opening the door for the Dodgers to extend their 2½-game lead in the division. And despite trailing by a run in their own showdown against a last-place team, the Dodgers had the Pittsburgh Pirates on the ropes, loading the bases with no outs for a chance to take the lead.

The task, at that point, was simple.

Get the ball in play. Manufacture some early scoring. And, at the very least, set a positive tone for a night in which the NL West lead could grow.

“That’s a situation where you get shorter with your swing, use the big part of the field and you’ve got to drive in a run,” manager Dave Roberts said.

That approach, however, never materialized.

Over the rest of an inexplicable 3-0 loss to the Pirates, what happened next would instead loom large.

First, second-year outfielder Andy Pages came up, worked another full count against Pittsburgh starter Braxton Ashcraft … then went down swinging chasing a slider that would’ve been ball four.

Next, rookie infielder Alex Freeland again ran the count full, got an elevated slider up in the zone to hit … but kept the bat on his shoulder as the umpire rung him up for a called third strike.

A Kiké Hernández flyout would ultimately end the inning. But it was the first two at-bats that had Roberts fuming afterward.

“You never want to say that one inning kind of win or loses a game,” Roberts said. “But the second inning, bases loaded, nobody out — I just felt that we had two bad at-bats and didn’t come away with anything.”

“That flipped the game,” Roberts later added. “It flipped the momentum.”

Indeed, on a night the Dodgers (78-61) failed to score any of their 11 baserunners or record a hit in seven at-bats with men in scoring position, no sequence was more frustrating than their second-inning fizzle.

It was the latest epitome of the team failing to produce in a clutch situation. Another example of their roster flunking some basic fundamentals.

“We’ve got to collectively get all of us on board understanding the magnitude of each at-bat, each situation,” Roberts bemoaned from his office postgame. “I sound repetitive [about how] it’s got to get better. But I do believe that having the right approach, the right mindset, the right urgency in a particular at-bat lends itself to better results.”

This has been a recurring theme for the Dodgers during the second half of the season; the kind of fine-margin miscues that have haunted them during a perplexing 22-29 stretch since July 4.

Sometimes, it’s their big-name superstars that falter. In other cases, it’s younger contributors like Pages and Freeland who fail to execute when required.

The only constant: Every time the Dodgers seem to be turning a corner, they find another way to trip themselves up.

“I do believe that the guys that we have in the room are capable of putting together consistent team at-bats of urgency from the first pitch on,” Roberts said. “But at the end of the day — and I’m sure our players are echoing the same message — we just got to get it done.”

This week’s series at PNC Park (the fourth straight the Dodgers have dropped here over the last four years) has exemplified the club’s maddening current rut in other ways.

One night, they explode at the plate for seven runs … only for their pitching staff to give up nine as it did in Tuesday’s loss.

The next, they piece together a decent pitching effort (even after Shohei Ohtani was scratched from his scheduled start because of an illness) … only for the offense to squander every single opportunity they had to take control of the contest (and lose catcher Will Smith along the way to a bruised hand he suffered on an errant foul ball, though postgame X-rays came back negative).

“We haven’t really put it together at all for a while now,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “We need to start playing better.”

On Wednesday, the Pirates jumped in front in the first inning, when Bryan Reynolds homered in the 12th pitch of his at-bat off spot starter Emmet Sheehan. Andrew McCutchen doubled the lead in the second, adding to the sting of the Dodgers’ squandered bases-loaded opportunity with a line-drive home run in the game’s very next at-bat.

After that, “we just really couldn’t put anything else together,” Roberts said.

Or, more precisely, they failed to finish any other chances off.

The Dodgers loaded the bases again with two out in the third, before Alex Call hit a dribbler up the first-base line to retire the side.

The team had two runners aboard again in the fifth and seventh, but continued to come up empty each and every time.

“We had guys on, we just didn’t get the hit,” said Freeman, who rolled into a fifth-inning double-play to extinguish that threat. “Frustrating night.”

The only saving grace right now is that the Padres (who have lost four in a row while dealing with a string of deflating injuries) haven’t made up ground against them.

“I’m very much aware of that,” Roberts said. “But they’re feeling the same thing we are. We’ve got to control what we can control. And we’re certainly not.”

A different approach in Wednesday’s second inning might have changed all that. Instead, it served as another regrettable failure, turning a potentially pivotal chance to stretch the division lead into one of the season’s most dispiriting losses.

Smith update

Smith exited Wednesday’s game after the second inning, when a foul tip bounced off the dirt and hit his right throwing hand as it was hanging behind his right thigh.

Because Smith’s X-rays came back negative, Roberts said the club was hopeful he could avoid the injured list. However, given the swelling and soreness he was feeling postgame, the team was still planning to call up a third catcher on Thursday for more roster insurance.

Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift announced their engagement more than a week ago, and the excitement has yet to wear off for the Kansas City Chiefs tight end.

On this week’s episode of the “New Heights” podcast, Kelce described to his brother, Jason, how it feels to introduce the pop music superstar as his fiancée.

“I still get giddy,” Kelce said. “I love it. It’s exciting times.”

The brothers opened the show with Kelce’s first public comments on his upcoming nuptials since he and Swift made the announcement on Aug. 26 with a joint Instagram post. That post has received more than 36 million likes and has been reposted more than any other Instagram post, passing the 1-million mark in its first six hours.

“I appreciate everybody that reached out and sent something, and all the posts, and all the excitement that’s been going on,” Kelce said. “It’s been really fun telling everybody who I’m going to be spending the rest of my life with.”

Just days after the announcement, the couple attended a college football game between Cincinnati (the Kelce brothers’ alma mater) and Nebraska at Arrowhead Stadium, the Chiefs’ home field. While much of the public was thrilled to see Swift’s massive engagement ring out and about for the first time, Kelce said it was another first that made the occasion special to him.

“Actually, it was my first time introducing Taylor as my fiancée to a few of my teammates,” Kelce said. “So, yeah, it was pretty cool.”

Kelce provided no insight into any wedding plans, though, telling his brother at one point, “We’re gonna see how it all shakes out.”

Both the groom and bride would seem to have plenty on their plates in upcoming months, with the Chiefs starting the 2025 season Friday against the Chargers in São Paulo, Brazil, and Swift releasing a new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Oct. 3.

MEXICO CITY — Security, sovereignty, tariffs, trade, drugs and migration — all hot-button issues for the Trump administration and its neighbors in the Western Hemisphere — will top Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s agenda this week on his third trip to Latin America since becoming the chief U.S. diplomat.

In talks with leaders in Mexico and Ecuador on Wednesday and Thursday, Rubio will make the case that broader, deeper cooperation with the U.S. on those issues is vitally important to improving health, safety and security in the Americas and the Caribbean.

Yet, President Trump has alienated many in the region — far beyond the usual array of U.S. antagonists like Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela — with persistent demands, coupled with threats of sweeping tariffs and massive sanctions for not complying with his desires.

Mexico has been a focus for Trump

Mexico, the only country apart from Canada to share a border with the U.S., has been a particular target for Trump. He has demanded, and so far won, some concessions from Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum’s government, which is eager to defuse the tariff threats.

Just a few hours before Rubio’s arrival Tuesday, Sheinbaum was set to lead a meeting of the country’s most important security forum, which brings together all 32 governors, the army, navy, federal prosecutor’s office and security commanders to coordinate actions across Mexico.

Sheinbaum had been talking for weeks about how Mexico was finalizing a comprehensive security agreement with the State Department that, among other things, was supposed to include plans for a “joint investigation group” to combat the flow of fentanyl and the drug’s precursors into the U.S. and weapons from north to south.

“Under no circumstance will we accept interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that is detrimental to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the country,” she said Monday in her State of the Nation address marking her first year in office.

Last week, however, a senior State Department official downplayed suggestions that a formal agreement — at least one that includes protections for Mexican sovereignty — was in the works.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview Rubio’s meetings, said sovereignty protections were “understood” by both countries without having to be formalized in a document.

Sheinbaum lowered her expectations Tuesday, saying during her morning news briefing that it would not be a formal agreement but rather a kind of memorandum of understanding to share information and intelligence on drug trafficking or money laundering obtained “by them in their territory, by us in our territory unless commonly agreed upon.”

Mexico’s president touts keeping close ties with the U.S.

Of her meeting with Rubio on Wednesday, she said it was always important to maintain good relations with the United States.

“There will be moments of greater tension, of less tension, of issues that we do not agree on, but we have to try to have a good relationship, and I believe tomorrow’s meeting will show that,” Sheinbaum said. “It is a relationship of respect and at the same time collaboration.”

To appease Trump, Sheinbaum has gone after Mexican cartels and their fentanyl production more aggressively than her predecessor. The government has sent the National Guard to the northern border and delivered 55 cartel figures long wanted by U.S. authorities to the Trump administration.

The Trump-Sheinbaum relationship also has been marked by tension, including the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration announcing a new initiative with Mexico to combat cartels along the border that prompted an angry denial from Sheinbaum.

Despite American officials singing her praises, and constantly highlighting collaboration between the two countries, Trump glibly said last month: “Mexico does what we tell them to do.”

Migration and cartels are a focus of Rubio’s trip

In announcing the trip, the State Department said Rubio, who has already traveled twice to Latin America and the Caribbean and twice to Canada this year, would focus on stemming illegal migration, combating organized crime and drug cartels, and countering what the U.S. believes is malign Chinese behavior in its backyard.

He will show “unwavering commitment to protect [U.S.] borders, neutralize narco-terrorist threats to our homeland, and ensure a level playing field for American businesses,” the department said.

Rubio’s first foreign trip as secretary of state was to Panama, El Salvador, Guatemala and the Dominican Republic, during which he assailed Chinese influence over the Panama Canal and sealed deals with the others to accept immigrant deportees from the United States. Rubio later traveled to Jamaica, Guyana and Suriname.

The senior State Department official said virtually every country in Latin America is now accepting the return of their nationals being deported from the U.S. and, with the exception of Nicaragua, most have stepped up their actions against drug cartels, many of which have been designated foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S.

The official also said progress has been made in countering China in the Western Hemisphere.

Lee and Janetsky write for the Associated Press. AP writer María Verza in Mexico City contributed to this report.