week

There’s plenty of dramas in store this week, with Lauren Lyle reprising her role as Karen Pirie on ITV and Keeley Hawes fronting a new show on Amazon Prime. Get the lowdown.

Drama is all the rage this week on the box, with a string of new shows guaranteed to keep viewers on the edge of their seats.

For starters, BBC2 is airing a gripping show, Unforgivable, set to explore the impact of abuse with a star-studded cast. On ITV, Outlander star Lauren Lyle returns to Karen Pirie, ready to face a new cold case on-screen.

Amazon Prime, on the other hand, is gearing up for some gritty scenes with The Assassin, starring Keeley Hawes and The Good Doctor’s Freddie Highmore.

And while there’s plenty more on streaming platforms, Sky viewers will soon wave goodbye to one of their all-time favourite series as Shemar Moore fronts SWAT for the last time.

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Lip Reading the Royals: The Secret Conversations

Saturday, 5

Ever wondered what Prince William whispers to his wife, Kate Middleton, during royal events? Lip Reading the Royals: The Secret Conversations reveals the monarchy’s most private exchanges, caught on camera at weddings, funerals and formal occasions.

With expert lip reading and royal insiders on hand, this eye-opening documentary decodes the hidden dialogue of the royal family – from knowing glances to tense exchanges – offering a rare glimpse behind palace walls. It’s the Crown, unfiltered.

Krays: London’s Gangsters

Saturday, Prime Video

Forget the movie mythos, this two-part documentary unpacks the real Reggie and Ronnie Kray. Featuring never-heard-before recordings from the brothers in prison, this film digs deep into the psychological bond that kept London’s East End crime lords together.

Through expert insights and interviews, this series explores their brutal reign, their unwavering loyalty and descent into popularity. Shedding the Hollywood sheen, this is the raw and unfiltered truth behind Britain’s most renowned gangsters.

SWAT

Sunday, Sky

Shemar Moore leads SWAT into its explosive eighth and final season as Hondo confronts his most personal mission yet. When a school bus carrying students and his former football coach disappears, the team races against the clock.

Meanwhile, tension mounts with new recruit Devin Gamble, whose criminal family ties raise serious red flags. Balancing action-packed sequences with emotional stakes, this season promises high-risk takedowns, moral dilemmas, and a powerful send-off for the elite unit that’s kept L.A safe for seven years.

The Veil

Sunday, C4

Elisabeth Moss trades Gilead for global espionage in this gripping thriller series. She stars as MI6 agent Imogen Salter, tasked with uncovering the truth behind Adilah El Idrissi (Yumna Marwan), a woman suspected of orchestrating a deadly terrorist plot.

As secrets mount and loyalties blur, both women engage in a psychological game of chess spanning Paris, Istanbul and London. It’s tense, atmospheric and rich in twists, exploring trust and the veil between fact and fabrication.

Karen Pirie

Sunday, ITV

Lauren Lyle is back as cold case specialist DI Karen Pirie in this gripping adaptation of Val McDermid’s A Darker Domain. The second season tackles the 1984 kidnapping of heiress Catriona Grant and her toddler son Adam.

Their disappearance has rattled Scotland but when a body and Catriona’s car keys resurface in a remote quarry, Karen must untangle a web of secrets, betrayal and hidden romances. With its dual-timeline and Karen’s razor-sharp wit, there’s more deadpan banter, bold deductions and emotionally charged revelations.

Mandy

Monday, BBC2

Diane Morgan dons the leopard print as Mandy Carter in the fourth season of the gloriously daft BBC comedy. This time, the loveable oddball finds herself in increasingly surreal misadventures and bizarre job trials. But don’t expect her to learn anything new – she’s still up to her old tricks.

Every episode is short and savage and packs absurdist laughs and deadpan brilliance, keeping the cult following firmly on board. There’s plenty of chaos in store for Mandy but in her world, disaster is always part of the plan.

Cold Case Forensics: The Cheesewire Killer

Monday, 5

George Murdoch’s brutal 1983 murder – committed with a cheesewire has haunted Aberdeen for decades. Now, this gripping forensic documentary reopens the chilling case with cutting-edge analysis and fresh leads.

Presented by Kirsty Ward and narrated by Unforgotten’s Nicola Walker, the film retraces the night of the crime, the botched early investigation and what new DNA technology might uncover. With emotional interviews, and detailed insights, this show explores whether justice for George is finally within reach.

Critical: Between Life and Death

Wednesday, Netflix

From the producers of 24 Hours in A&E, this Netflix docuseries offers unprecedented access to London’s Major Trauma System. Cameras follow paramedics, surgeons, nurses and patients across four hospitals – St George’s, Royal Londo, St Mary’s and King’s College – as they tackle life-and-death emergencies.

Shot in real time, Critical: Between Life and Death delivers raw and unfiltered moments from the frontline. Brace yourselves for harrowing injuries, emotional recoveries and the incredible teamwork that keeps Brits alive against the odds.

Acapulco

Wednesday, Apple TV

The sun-drenched dramedy Acapulco returns for its fourth and final season as Maximo Gallardo faces the past – and the future. In 1986, young Maximo (Enrique Arrizon) tries to reclaim the top hotel title after a shock defeat.

Meanwhile, present-day Maximo (Eugenio Derbez) works tirelessly to revive Las Colinas before its grand reopening. Acapulco’s final chapter wraps up loose ends with heart, humour and the show’s trademark neon charm. Expect generational reflections and heartfelt growth for this last dip in Acapulco’s glamorous poolside chaos.

Mr Bigstuff

Thursday, Sky

Danny Dyer is back as loudmouth Lee in Mr Bigstuff’s second season, fresh off a 2025 TV BAFTA win for his performance in the bonkers Sky comedy.

This time, family drama ramps up when Lee and younger brother Glen (Ryan Sampson) discover their supposedly dead father may still be alive.

But as tensions rise between them – and with Glen’s fiancee Kirsty (Harriet Webb) keeping huge secrets – old wounds reopen. Guest stars include Fatiha El-Ghorri and EastEnders icon Linda Henry. With brawls, breakdowns and belly laughs, season two dives deeper into dysfunction with twisted humour and heartfelt honesty.

Unforgivable

Thursday, BBC2

Jimmy McGovern delivers a gripping new BBC Two drama with Unforgivable, where he delves deep into the emotional wreckage left by grooming and abuse within a working-class family.

Anna Friel leads the cast as Anna McKinney, a mother desperately trying to keep her family together, while Bobby Schofield plays Joe – a man sent to rehabilitation after his release from prison, seeking redemption with help from a former nun (Anna Maxwell Martin). It’s gut-punch storytelling at its finest.

Tom Kerridge Cooks Spain

Thursday, ITV

Tom Kerridge swaps British classics for Iberian delights in this six-part travelogue series. Journeying through Spain’s most flavour-packed regions, Tom samples all kinds of delicacies – from sherry vinegar aged since 1896 in Andalusia to anchovies in Santoña and explores seafood culture in Valencia.

Made in partnership with M&S’ Farm to Foodhall campaign, this series offers rich local insight, culinary history and vibrant visuals. Expect a mouth-watering tour of tapas, tradition and technique, filled with Tom’s trademark warmth and love of food. You won’t want to miss a bite.

A Normal Woman

Thursday, Netflix

Marissa Anita commands the screen in this taut, psychological Indonesian drama where she plays Milla – a privileged housewife on the brink of madness after convincing herself she’s contracted a mysterious and incurable illness.

Her body feels alien, her family’s dismissive and, soon enough, reality starts to blur. As her seemingly perfect life teeters on the edge, Milla has to confront uncomfortable truths or cling on to delusion. Dark and unflinching, A Normal Woman explores identity, repression and the cost of being believed.

The Assassin

Friday, Amazon Prime

Keeley Hawes stars as Julie, a retired hitwoman whose peaceful life in Greece is upended when her estranged son Edward (Freddie Highmore) arrives – unearthing secrets that put both of their lives at risk. When enemies from Julie’s shadowy past surface, the duo are forced to collaborate for survival.

Created by Harry and Jack Williams (The Tourist), this six-part thriller blends emotional depth, covert manipulations and sun-soaked suspense. Expect sharp twists, explosive action and a gripping exploration of legacy, family and redemption.

Whitstable Pearl

Friday, U&Alibi

Kerry Godliman returns as Pearl Nolan, the food-loving, crime-solving seaside sleuth in Whitstable Pearl’s third season. In six new episodes, Pearl balances running her restaurant with investigating a string of mysterious deaths across Kent’s coastal community.

With DCI Mike McGuire (Howard Charles) complicating things both professionally and personally, Pearl finds herself in deeper waters than ever.

Get ready for local secrets and emotional tension as the amateur detective tackles love, loss and layered cases in this quietly compelling Brit drama.

Here We Go

Friday, BBC2

The Jessops are back for the third season of Here We Go – and they’re just as chaotic as ever. This time, the lovable family faces everything from disastrous holidays to awkward jobs – even baby bombshells – all with their usual mix of mishaps and mayhem.

Created by Tom Basden and starring Jim Howick and Katherine Parkinson, the hit BBC comedy continues to capture the hilarious ups and downs of everyday life. Expect more laughs, heart and more family m havoc.

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Ken Burns has made more than 30 documentaries and won multiple Emmys.

But without funding from public television, his educational programming such as “The Civil War” and “Baseball” might never have existed, he told “PBS News Hour” in an interview Thursday.

Even today, the acclaimed filmmaker whose works — including his upcoming project “The American Revolution” — are broadcast on PBS, said his films get around 20% of their budgets from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, the body Congress recently voted to defund.

Projects that receive a higher percentage of their funding through public media “just won’t be able to be made,” Burns said. “And so there’ll be less representation by all the different kinds of filmmakers. People coming up will have an impossible time getting started.”

The U.S. Senate this week passed the Trump administration’s proposal to cancel $9 billion in federal funding previously allocated for foreign aid and public broadcasting, and the House of Representatives approved the package after midnight Friday, sending it to President Trump’s desk.

The Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which administers the funds for NPR radio stations and PBS TV affiliates, is on track to lose $1.1 billion that had previously been budgeted for the next two years.

The impact of those cuts will be deeply felt across both NPR and PBS, leaders of both organizations told The Times. Layoffs and reduced programming are expected, and the blows will disproportionately strike smaller markets that rely more heavily on federal funding.

“This is going to hit hardest in the places that need it the most,” said Gabriel Kahn, a professor at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism.

Stations in smaller markets are staffed significantly less than stations in larger cities, often because of the disparity in funding. The Corp. for Public Broadcasting acted as “the great equalizer,” Kahn said, padding the budgets of smaller stations so they could continue operating.

“It’s just going to be increasingly lonely out there as these voices, who were of the community and generally very well trusted, are going to disappear,” Kahn said. “Because within a year, you’re not going to be able to hear these things on the radio anymore in a lot of places.”

The cuts fulfill a longtime dream of conservatives and libertarians, who bristle at the notion of public funds supporting media organizations, especially ones they view as left-leaning. Republicans have for decades called for cuts to public broadcasting because of their perceived liberal slant of its programming.

Trump has called NPR and PBS government-funded “left-wing propaganda.”

But several prominent voices in media and politics were quick to call attention to the harm the cuts will have, especially on communities where the local stations rely heavily on federal funding.

“A PBS station is really like the public library. It’s one of those important institutions that may be the only place where people have access to local news,” Burns said. “There’s a kind of sense of local accountability, and as news becomes nationalized and even internationalized, there’s a loss there.”

PBS President Paula Kerger expressed similar concerns.

“Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” Kerger said in a statement Thursday.

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of two Senate Republicans to vote against the package, said she strongly opposes the cuts to public media in a statement after the vote. She referenced a 7.3 magnitude earthquake in Alaska this week that triggered a tsunami warning as an example of the public service stations provide.

“My colleagues are targeting NPR but will wind up hurting — and, over time, closing down — local radio stations that provide essential news, alerts and educational programming in Alaska and across the country.”

A devastating blow to SoCal stations

Public media outlets in Southern California’s urban areas, which can turn to wealthy locals for donations, are less dependent on federal funding than stations in smaller markets. But they will still feel an immediate loss.

Washington, D.C.-based NPR has two major affiliates serving the Los Angeles area: LAist, or KPCC-FM (89.3), and KCRW-FM (89.9).

LAist, based in Pasadena, was set to receive $1.7 million, about 4% of its annual budget. Alejandra Santamaria, president and chief executive of LAist, said the money is equivalent to 13 journalist positions at the local news operation. KCRW in Santa Monica was expecting $264,000 from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

PBS SoCal, which operates member stations KOCE and KCET in Orange and Los Angeles counties, respectively, is facing a loss of $4.3 million in federal funding, according to Andy Russell, president and chief executive of the stations.

Connie Leyva, executive director of KVCR Public Media in San Bernardino, which operates PBS and NPR affiliates, said earlier this week that the Senate action will mean losing $540,000, about 6% of its operating budget. Thus, she has to consider cutting five positions on an already lean staff.

Kahn, the USC professor who is also the publisher and editor of Crosstown L.A., a nonprofit newsroom focused on local reporting and data journalism, said the cuts could have unintended consequences for Trump’s own voters.

“The irony, of course, is that these are areas that generally support Trump with high margins, and they’re are also areas that have the greatest allegiance to their local public radio station,” he said.

Artists are formed by the spaces they spend time in — and in the case of countless Los Angeles artists, writers and musicians, that place was the city’s oldest restaurant and bar, Cole’s French Dip, which is slated to close on Aug. 2.

Founded in 1908 by Harry Cole in downtown’s historic Pacific Electric building, then the city’s primary railway transit hub, the legendary public house is credited with inventing the French dip sandwich after its chef dipped bread in au jus to soften it for a patron who had trouble chewing. (Note: Philippe the Original in Chinatown takes issue with this story, claiming full credit for the juicy culinary delight.)

The possibility of an apocryphal legend aside, Cole’s went on to become one of the very best bars in the area, attracting a solidly blue-collar crowd over the years, including the notoriously ribald, drunken poet Charles Bukowski. The restroom even sported a placard that read, “Charles Bukowski pissed here,” an unflinchingly literal claim to fame frequently mentioned in self-guided tours of literary L.A. (Barney’s Beanery in West Hollywood has a less off-color plaque at its bar in reference to Jim Morrison, who allegedly relieved himself on the spot without heading for the urinals.)

I like to think of Bukowski with a beer and a shot of whiskey in front of him, scribbling away on a napkin at the bar in Cole’s. I’ve done the same over the years, having discovered the bar in 1999 when I first moved to Los Angeles. Downtown was not on the up-and-up in those days, and Cole’s had fallen on hard times but was still beloved.

Cole’s French Dip in 1996.

(Con Keyes / Los Angeles Times)

My rock band played a few shows in its back room, and I fell in love with what was at the time a true dive bar — a place where the occasional unhoused patron spent his Social Security check alongside a smattering of unknown, paint-spattered artists who stopped by from nearby studios. I remember meeting a musician there one night who invited me and a friend to his 6th Street loft and showed me literally thousands of records stacked like a maze throughout the space, so high that you couldn’t see over them, so many that I wondered if he had space to sleep.

Cole’s was that kind of bar — a refuge for artists and misfits, a place that didn’t care what your story was as long as you had a good one.

The last time I went to Cole’s before downtown bar magnate Cedd Moses (artist Ed Moses’ son) bought it and restored it to its early 20th century glory, a rat ran over my foot as I sat at a torn, tufted banquette. I love a good dive (my husband proposed to me at the now-shuttered Brown Jug in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District), but that was a bridge too far, even for me.

Moses has long had a deep affinity for dive bars and, in the aughts, went about transforming and resurrecting a number of spaces in downtown L.A., including Cole’s, in ways that stayed true to their historic integrity. His 213 Nightlife Group (now called Pouring With Heart), was integral to downtown’s prepandemic boom.

That downtown is once again suffering from the kind of trouble and malaise that beset it in the ’80s and ’90s should be cause for great concern. On the bright side, it’s times like these when artists can again afford to move in. Maybe they can rally to save Cole’s.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, warning you that there is now often a line to get into Cole’s, but encouraging you to go anyway. Paying your respects to the classic institution is worth the wait. Bring a good book and a sketch pad.

Best bets: On our radar this week

Uma Thurman in “Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair.”

(Andrew Cooper / Miramax Films)

‘Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair’
Quentin Tarantino presents rare screenings of the complete version of his four-hour martial arts epic that brought together “Vol. 1” and “Vol. 2,” with additional flourishes. Uma Thurman stars as the Bride in a quest for revenge against the title character (David Carradine) and his band of assassins (Lucy Liu, Daryl Hannah, Vivica A. Fox and Michael Madsen). Added flair: It’s the filmmaker’s personal 35 mm print screened at the Cannes Film Festival in 2006, so it has French subtitles.
Friday-Tuesday, Thursday-July 28. Vista Theater, 4473 Sunset Drive. vistatheaterhollywood.com

Artemisia Gentileschi in Naples
Curator Davide Gasparotto discussses the Italian artist’s work from the period she spent in Naples beginning in 1630. Gentileschi quickly became one of the most in-demand painters in the region, and Gasparotto illustrates the large-scale works, including the newly restored “Hercules and Omphale,” she completed during this time.
2 p.m. Saturday. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive, L.A. getty.edu

George Strait performing in 2021.

(Jack Plunkett / Invision / AP)

George Strait
Chris Stapleton and Little Big Town join the country legend on this stadium tour in support of his latest album, “Cowboys and Dreamers.”
5:45 p.m. Saturday. SoFi Stadium, 1001 S. Stadium Drive, Inglewood. sofistadium.com

TaikoProject
The L.A.-based taiko drumming group marks its 25th anniversary with a one-night-only concert featuring its innovative percussion work, plus guests including the Grammy-winning Latinx group Quetzal and multi-instrument soloist Sumie Kaneko, performing vocals, on the koto and the shamisen.
7 p.m. Saturday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org

‘Bye Bye Tiberias’
Filmmaker Lina Soualem portrays four generations of Arab women, including her mother, actor Hiam Abbass, who carry the burden of history within them and deal with an evolving meaning of home. Preceded by a 1988 short, “Measures of Distance,” in which filmmaker Mona Hatoum combines letters from her mother in war-torn Beirut with layered images and voice to question stereotypes of Arab womanhood. Both films are part of the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s series “(Dis)placement: Fluctuations of Home.”
7:30 p.m. Saturday. Billy Wilder Theater, UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu

DeJuan Chirstopher and Kacie Rogers in the play “Berta, Berta.”

(Makela Yepez Photography)

‘Berta, Berta’
Andi Chapman directs the West Coast premiere of Angelica Chéri’s love story about a Black man seeking redemption in 1920s Mississippi. DeJuan Christopher and Kacie Rogers (“Furlough’s Paradise” at the Geffen) star.
July 19-Aug. 25; 8 p.m. Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays; 4 p.m. Sundays. The Echo Theater Company. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com

Catherine Hurlin as Giselle and Daniel Camargo as Albrecht in an American Ballet Theatre production of “Giselle.”

(Rosalie O’Connor)

Giselle
American Ballet Theatre dances this romantic tale set in the Rhineland forests where betrayal, revenge and forgiveness play out. With the Pacific Symphony.
7:30 p.m. Thursday and July 25; 2 and 7:30 p.m. July 26; 1 p.m. July 27. Segerstrom Center for the Arts, 600 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scfta.org

The SoCal scene

Conductor Thomas Sondergard, left, applauds solo pianist Kirill Gerstein on opening night of the L.A Phil at the Hollywood Bowl on July 8, 2025.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

The Los Angeles Philharmonic opened its 103rd season at the Hollywood Bowl earlier this month, and all was not well, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed, noting low attendance, the cancellation of highly anticipated shows featuring Gustavo Dudamel with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra and a general edginess that has taken root in the city since the intensive ICE raids began.

“‘A Beautiful Noise’ is a jukebox musical that understands the assignment,” begins Times theater critic Charles McNulty’s review of the show playing at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre through July 27. Anyone familiar with McNulty’s taste knows this is high praise coming from a critic who often doesn’t take a shine to the genre. This musical gets a pass because it exists simply to pay tribute to Neil Diamond’s beloved catalog with “glorious” singing of “American pop gold.” Former American Idol winner Nick Fradiani delivers a “thrilling vocal performance,” McNulty notes.

The New Hollywood String Quartet celebrated its 25th anniversary with a four-day festival at the Huntington’s Rothenberg Hall, and Swed was there to capture the scene. The festivities conjured the magic of the legendary studio musicians who first formed the quartet in the late 1930s. Classical music fans and lovers of cinematic scores didn’t always see eye to eye, but it was Hollywood that “produced the first notable American string quartet,” Swed writes.

McNulty also reviewed two shows in Theatricum Botanicum’s outdoor season: “The Seagull: Malibu” and “Strife,” both of which are reimagined in the American past. Ellen Geer directed the former, setting Chekhov’s play in the beach city of Malibu during the 1970s. Geer co-directs John Galsworthy’s 1909 social drama alongside Willow Geer — moving the action from the border of England and Wales to Pennsylvania in the 1890s. The plays are ambitious, if uneven, writes McNulty.

Culture news

Attendees surround the stage area where singer-musician Abraham Alexander is performing with his band at KCRW’s summer nights event at the Hammer Museum.

(Kailyn Brown / Los Angeles Times)

The Hammer Museum is back with its annual summer concert series, which is free as always. There are two upcoming shows: Very Be Careful with Healing Gems and DJ Eléanora, July 31; and Open Mike Eagle with Jordan Patterson and J.Rocc, Aug. 19.

Ann Philbin, former director and current director emeritus of the Hammer Museum at UCLA, was named this year’s Getty Prize recipient. She chose to donate its accompanying, pay-it-forward $500,000 grant to NPR and its Los Angeles member stations, KCRW and LAist.

The “Jesus Christ Superstar” casting news keeping coming. Earlier this week, it was announced that Josh Gad will play King Herod and Phillipa Soo will play Mary Magdalene in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s iconic musical, staged at the Hollywood Bowl in early August and starring Cynthia Erivo as Jesus and Adam Lambert as Judas.

The Carpenter Center announced its 2025–2026 season, including an evening with Sandra Bernhard and Mandy Patinkin in concert; a cabaret series that opens with Melissa Errico performing Barbra Streisand’s songbook; a dance series featuring Alonzo King LINES Ballet; a “Wow!” series that includes the Peking Acrobats; and a Sunday afternoon concert series with a special tribute to the songs of John Lennon and Harry Nilsson.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Hot cheese bread and meat pies? Count me in!

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court signaled again this week that it believes the president has the full power to control federal agencies, including by sharply cutting their staffs and their spending.

It’s the latest example of the court’s conservative majority intervening to rule for President Trump and against federal district judges. They have done so in brief orders with no explanation, prompting further criticism from Democrats and progressives.

But Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and his conservative colleagues have made clear over many years that they believe the president’s “executive power” includes controlling agencies and firing officials, even those who were deemed “independent” by Congress.

On Monday, the court issued a one-line order setting aside the decision of a federal judge in Boston who said the Education Department must rehire about 1,400 staffers who had been laid off.

Trump’s attorneys had appealed in early June, arguing the administration was “streamlining” the department while “acknowledging that only Congress can eliminate” it.

Democratic state attorneys had sued to stop the layoffs, arguing Trump was effectively “dismantling” the department, and the judge agreed the layoffs were illegal.

The week before, the conservative majority set aside the decision of a federal judge in San Francisco who blocked Trump’s plans for laying off tens of thousands of employees at more than 20 departments and agencies.

Democrats and progressives condemned the decisions and the majority’s refusal to explain its reasons.

Michael Waldman, president of the Brennan Center, said the justices “have let Trump amass vast new power, and they have done so without putting their names on it. They are proving willing accomplices to a constitutional coup, all without leaving a trace.”

In May, Roberts and the court upheld Trump’s dismissal of Democratic appointees to the National Labor Relations Board and the Merit Systems Protection Board, both of whom had fixed terms set by Congress.

“Because the Constitution vests the executive power in the President, he may remove without cause executive officers who exercise that power on his behalf,” the court said. “Both the NLRB and MSPB exercise considerable executive power.”

The three liberals dissented.

Peter M. Shane, a New York University law professor, has written extensively on the so-called “unitary executive theory” and said it explains why Trump has been winning since he returned to the White House.

“Trump’s use of executive power is not a distortion of the Roberts court’s theory of the presidency,” he said. “It is the court’s theory of the presidency come to life.”

Still pending before the court this week is an appeal from Trump’s lawyers that seeks the firing of three Democratic appointees to the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

The commissioners have seven-year terms, but in May, the Trump White House told the three Democratic appointees they had been “terminated.”

They sued and won a reinstatement order from a federal judge in Baltimore.

The recent rulings from the court have come on emergency appeals at the early stage of a lawsuit. The court’s majority said Trump’s initiatives may go into effect while the litigation continues. But at some point, the justices will have to hear arguments and issue a written ruling on the underlying legal issue.

In ruling for the three officials the CPSC, the judge in Baltimore pointed to the Supreme Court’s 1935 decision which protected the constitutionality of “traditional multi-member independent agencies.”

The court’s opinion in the case of Humphrey’s Executor vs. United States drew a distinction between “purely executive officers” who were under the president’s control and those who served on a board “with quasi-judicial or quasi-legislative functions.”

But that precedent has been endangered in recent years.

Five years ago, Roberts spoke for the court and ruled the director of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau can be fired by the president, even though Congress had said otherwise.

But since that case did not involve a multi-member board or commission, it did not overrule the 1935 precedent.

They were deployed by the Trump administration to combat “violent, insurrectionist mobs” in and around Los Angeles, but in recent days the only thing many U.S. Marines and California National Guard troops seemed to be fighting was tedium.

“There’s not much to do,” one Marine said as he stood guard outside the towering Wilshire Federal Building in Westwood this week.

The blazing protests that first met federal immigration raids in downtown Los Angeles were nowhere to be seen along Wilshire Boulevard or Veteran Avenue, so many troops passed the time chatting and joking over energy drinks. The Marine, who declined to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to reporters, said his duties consisted mostly of approving access for federal workers and visitors to the Veterans Affairs office.

More than five weeks after Trump mobilized an extraordinary show of military force against the will of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, few National Guard troops and Marines have remained in public view, most retreating to local military bases in Orange County.

As an indication of the military’s dwindling role in immigration enforcement operations, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Tuesday ordered the release of 2,000 National Guard troops. Now, Bass, Newsom and others are demanding the complete removal of remaining troops — or about 2,000 California National Guard soldiers and 700 Marines.

“Thousands of members are still federalized in Los Angeles for no reason and unable to carry out their critical duties across the state,” Newsom said on X, accusing Trump of using California National Guard troops as “political pawns.”

“End this theater and send everyone home,” the governor said.

Bass said the troops’ primary mission in L.A. was to guard federal buildings that “frankly didn’t need to be guarded.”

“They had to leave their families, they had to leave their education, they had to leave their work,” Bass said at a news conference Tuesday. “We have had no problems for weeks, so why were they here?”

Steve Woolford, a resource counselor for GI Rights Hotline, a nonprofit group that provides free, confidential information to service members, said calls from troops had gone down dramatically over the last month.

“The most recent people I talked to sounded like they’re sitting around bored without much to do,” Woolford said. “And they’re happy with that: They aren’t asking to do more. At the same time, I don’t think people see a real purpose in what they’re doing at all.”

The majority of National Guard troops have been stationed at the Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos, according to military officials and governor’s office officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Over the last few weeks, a massive tent city has risen at the Orange County base — about 25 miles southeast of downtown L.A. The tents, some of which stretch up to 50 yards long, provide living quarters, cafeteria space and other facilities. On a recent morning, National Guards troops — some dressed in full combat fatigues, others in T-shirts and shorts — could be seen exercising, milling about and playing a game of touch football.

A separate group of Marines and National Guard troops have remained at the Westwood federal building for an entire month. The federal building has been outfitted with sleeping and eating arrangements for troops, according to a Marine who spoke with The Times.

To be sure, some California National Guard troops embarked on tense missions with federal immigration agents on sweeps at farms, warehouses and public streets.

On July 7, Guard troops accompanied federal agents as they descended on MacArthur Park on horses and in armored vehicles in a heavily militarized show of force. It’s still unclear whether any arrests were made that day, but crowds quickly formed around the federal agents and military troops, screaming for them to “get the f— out!”

A few days later, Guard troops wearing riot face shields and clutching long, wooden batons faced off with hundreds of protesters in Ventura County as immigration agents arrested about 200 suspected undocumented immigrants at Glass House Farms, a large, licensed cannabis greenhouse in Camarillo.

But most of the deployed Guard troops and Marines do not appear to have been engaged in raids or even the federal building security in recent weeks.

An estimated 90% of the National Guard troops stationed in the L.A. area over the last few days have not been deployed on daily missions, according to a source within Newsom’s office who has knowledge of the military operation.

“For the most part … they’re sitting around,” the source said.

The source, who spoke on condition on anonymity because they were unauthorized to speak publicly on the deployment, said an estimated 3% of the 4,000 troops — about 120 soldiers — were taking part in daily missions, mostly consisting of security at federal buildings.

An additional couple hundred were standing by for “quick response force” missions — ready to mobilize within a few hours for an immigration raid or a crowd control operation. But even if all those troops were used each day, the source said, that still left about 88% of the 4,000 troops — or about three-quarters of the remaining 2,000 — underutilized.

The Pentagon and Task Force 51, the military’s designation for Los Angeles area troops, declined to answer questions about how many Guard troops and Marines were engaged in protecting federal buildings or accompanying immigration agents on daily missions. Nor did they comment on the claim from Newsom’s office that most troops were “sitting around.”

Guard soldiers and Marines were “primarily protecting fixed-site federal facilities and protecting federal law enforcement personnel while they conduct immigration enforcement activities, such as warrant services,” read a task force statement.

Federal officials have also declined to provide precise details on the cost of the deployment. Hegseth previously said that the mobilization of troops would cost $134 million, but it’s unclear whether that estimate is accurate.

Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at Defense Priorities, a military research group, said there is little evidence that the military presence is necessary.

“The need for military forces in Los Angeles is low while the need for National Guard forces elsewhere in the state is rising,” Kavanagh said. “That they’re still deployed after so much time, when there doesn’t seem to be a need, suggests that this really is about setting precedent of having military forces involved in immigration enforcement and deployed in U.S. cities.”

Kori Schake, senior fellow and director of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, agreed: “They have a real job to be training for — fighting and winning the nation’s wars — which this performative policing is a distraction from.”

The first convoys of Guard troops rumbled into L.A. on June 8, shortly after the Trump administration announced it would send 2,000 Guard members to the city to quell unrest as protesters graffitied buildings downtown, set Waymo driverless cars ablaze and clashed with ICE agents as they tried to conduct immigration raids.

As California leaders protested, and called the deployment unnecessary, the Trump administration doubled down. On June 10, 700 Marines from the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center about 150 miles west in Twentynine Palms arrived in L.A. A week later, the task force ballooned to 4,800 personnel when Hegseth added 2,000 more Guard troops.

Newsom condemned Trump for diverting members of the California National Guard as they geared up for wildfire season, noting that the unit assigned to combating wildfires was at just 40% of its regular staffing levels due to the deployment. The governor’s office also complained that about 150 California Guard soldiers were being pulled from the state’s Counterdrug Task Force, which focuses on interrupting drug trade at the U.S.-Mexico border and throughout California.

The Trump administration eventually approved a request to release 150 Guard members for state wildfire suppression.

The Guard has been deployed to Los Angeles before, but never against the will of the L.A. mayor and California governor.

In 1992, President George H.W. Bush mobilized the National Guard to L.A. after multiple days of riots following a jury’s acquittal of four white police officers in the beating of Black motorist Rodney King. About 6,000 troops were ultimately sent in, requested by California’s then-Gov. Pete Wilson and Mayor Tom Bradley, to guard trouble spots and gain control of neighborhoods after rioters attacked stores, torched buildings and, in some extreme cases, beat and killed residents. The Times dubbed it “the worst civil unrest in Los Angeles history.”

Nearly 30 years later, Guard troops were called in again during the 2020 protests following the murder of George Floyd. After downtown buildings were vandalized and graffitied and police cars were set aflame, L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti asked Newsom to send in 1,000 National Guard troops to restore order and assist local law enforcement.

But last month, the federal government sent in the troops without local politicians’ support, setting in motion an intense legal showdown.

A day after National Guard troops hit the ground in L.A., Newsom and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to end the “illegal and unnecessary takeover” of a California National Guard unit. They argued that the unwarranted commandeering of National Guard troops, without the consent or input of the governor, violated the U.S. Constitution and exceeded the president’s Title 10 authority.

A U.S. district judge in San Francisco sided with the state, ruling June 12 that Trump broke the law when he deployed thousands of California National Guard troops to L.A. against the state’s will. The judge issued a temporary restraining order that would have returned control of the National Guard to California. But the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals paused that court order, allowing the troops to remain in L.A. while the case played out in federal court.

Kavanagh said she was disturbed to see Guard troops accompanying federal agents on immigration raids. Even if they had orders not to participate in law enforcement activities, confrontations could escalate quickly.

“There’s so many chances for things to spiral out of control,” she said. “While we haven’t seen any unintentional escalation yet, that doesn’t mean we won’t.”

When troops were first deployed to L.A., advocates for service members warned of low morale. The GI Rights Hotline received a flurry of calls voicing concern about immigration enforcement, Woolford said.

Some military personnel told the hotline that they did not want to support ICE or play any role in deporting people because they considered immigrants part of the community or had immigrants in their family, Woolford said. Others said they did not want to point guns at citizens. A few worried that the country was on the verge of turning into something like martial law, and said that they didn’t want to be on the side of being armed occupiers of their own country.

Many were shocked that the deployment orders were for 60 days.

“There’s no way they’re really going to keep us here that long, are they?” Woolford said he was asked.

But as the military brought in more contractors and set up giant tents with cots, Woolford said, callers to the hotline seemed more resigned to the idea that they would remain in L.A. a long time.

Asked about the pressures facing troops on their mission to Los Angeles, one Marine outside the Wilshire Federal Building summed it up this way:

“That’s just orders,” he said. “We do what we’re told — it’s the system.”

Times staff writer Jeanette Marantos contributed to this report.

ATLANTA — Major League Baseball will not cancel its 2028 All-Star Game in order to participate in the Los Angeles Olympics, Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday.

Manfred said representatives of the league and LA28 met Monday, with both sides hoping to work toward an agreement in which major leaguers would play in the Olympics. MLB has declined to stop its season for previous Olympic baseball tournaments, so minor leaguers and college players have participated in those Games.

But Manfred also warned that any agreement likely would apply only to the L.A. Games, where major leaguers could be done in a week. If baseball remains on the Olympic schedule for Brisbane in 2032, MLB would remain reluctant to shut down for the extended period needed to get players to Australia, allow them to prepare and play, and then return to their major league teams.

“I think that the idea of playing in L.A. in ‘28, regardless of the possibility of ongoing Olympic participation in another location, that there is some merit to it,” Manfred said at a meeting of the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

“I think it is an opportunity to market the game on a really global stage. I think, obviously, because it is in the U.S., the logistics of it are easier.”

On Monday, LA28 announced that baseball would be played July 15-20, 2028, intended as an inducement for MLB to minimize schedule disruption by skipping the All-Star Game for that year and switching to the Olympics in the same week.

Manfred indicated the league’s preference would be to play the All-Star Game in its usual window, then compete in the Olympics and resume the regular season.

“It’s doable,” Manfred said. “They put out a schedule. They tell you it’s not going to move. We’ll see whether there is any movement on that.

“It is possible to play the All-Star Game in its normal spot, have a single break that would be longer, but still play 162 games without bleeding into the middle of November. It would require significant accommodations, but it is possible.”

The 2025 MLB All-Star Game had plenty of big moments, as the National League let a six-run lead slip away in the late innings but emerged victorious after a home run “swing-off” determined the outcome of the 95th annual event for the first time.

One of the biggest moments from the game, however, actually occurred 51 years, three months and one week earlier. That’s when the legendary Hank Aaron broke Babe Ruth‘s longstanding MLB record with his 715th home run — a milestone event that was re-created in dramatic fashion after the sixth inning Tuesday night (July 15, a.k.a, 7/15) at Truist Park in Atlanta.

The actual milestone event took place about 10 miles from there on April 8, 1974, when Aaron and the Atlanta Braves hosted the Dodgers at the since-demolished Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. A crowd of 53,775 was on hand, with millions more watching on national TV, when Aaron launched a fourth-inning pitch by Al Downing over the left-center-field wall to make baseball history.

This week, a crowd of 41,176 — again with millions more watching on TV or streaming — witnessed the moment come back to life through video and audio clips (yep, that’s legendary Dodgers announcer Vin Scully you hear, along with Braves announcer Milo Hamilton), pyrotechnics and lots of modern technology.

It was really a sight to behold as Aaron and the others somehow appeared on the field as the events unfolded just like they did more than a half-century ago. A firework was launched from home plate and scorched through the air marking the trajectory of Aaron’s landmark blast. Lighted footprints traced the Hall of Famer’s every step around the basepath.

The tribute included part of Scully’s call from that day. “What a marvelous moment for baseball,” he said, “what a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the state of Georgia, what a marvelous moment for the country and the world.”

(Although it wasn’t included in the tribute, Scully went on to explain one of the reasons the moment was so significant: “A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol. And it is a great moment for all of us, and particularly for Henry Aaron.”)

Hank Aaron’s historic 715th home run.

Aaron died in 2021 at age 86, but his wife Billye Aaron was on hand for the festivities.

“I think people can look at me and say, ‘He was a great baseball player, but he was even a greater human being,’” Aaron said in a clip that played at the end of the tribute.

NEW YORK — President Trump is lashing out at his own supporters as he tries to clamp down on criticism over his administration’s handling of much-hyped records in the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking investigation, which Trump now calls a “Hoax.”

“Their new SCAM is what we will forever call the Jeffrey Epstein Hoax, and my PAST supporters have bought into this “bull——,” hook, line, and sinker,” Trump wrote Wednesday on his Truth Social site, using an expletive in his post. “They haven’t learned their lesson, and probably never will, even after being conned by the Lunatic Left for 8 long years.”

“Let these weaklings continue forward and do the Democrats work, don’t even think about talking of our incredible and unprecedented success, because I don’t want their support anymore! Thank you for your attention to this matter,” he went on.

The rhetoric marks a dramatic escalation for the Republican president, who has broken with some of his most loyal backers in the past, but never with such fervor.

The schism centers on his administration’s handling of the Epstein, who was found dead in his New York jail cell in August 2019, weeks after his arrest on sex trafficking charges. Last week, the Justice Department and the FBI acknowledged that Epstein did not maintain a “client list” to whom underage girls were trafficked, and they said no more files related to the investigation would be made public, despite past promises from Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi that had raised the expectations of conservative influencers and conspiracy theorists.

Bondi had suggested in February such a document was sitting on her desk waiting for review. Last week, however, she said she had been referring generally to the Epstein case file, not a client list.

“It’s a new administration and everything is going to come out to the public,” she had said at one point.

Trump has since defended Bondi and chided a reporter for asking about the documents.

“I don’t understand what the interest or what the fascination is,” he said Tuesday.

The blowup comes after Trump and many figures in his administration, including FBI Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, have spent years stoking dark and disproved conspiracy theories, including embracing QAnon-tinged propaganda that casts Trump as a savior sent to demolish the “deep state.”

Trump’s comments so far have not been enough to quell those who are still demanding answers.

“For this to go away, you’re going to lose 10%” of the “Make America Great Again” movement, former adviser and Steve Bannon said during a gathering of young conservatives recently.

Far-right commentator Jack Posobiec has said he will not rest “until we go full Jan. 6 committee on the Jeffrey Epstein files.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also appeared to break with Trump, calling for the Justice Department to “put everything out there and let the people decide.”

“The White House and the White House team are privy to facts that I don’t know. This isn’t my lane. I haven’t been involved in that, but I agree with the sentiment to put it out there,” Johnson told conservative podcaster Benny Johnson.

Colvin writes for the Associated Press.

Josh Kim and Sam Hong had successful careers in tech — but in 2022, they decided to start making burgers, bought a few portable griddles and did their first pop-up at Thank You Coffee in Chinatown. About a year and a half later, the pair earned a vendor spot at Smorgasburg, where they served 450 burgers on their first day of service inspired by their Korean American childhoods — think pork belly sandwiches with sesame mayo and kimchi jam, and a smashburger patty topped with a tempura-fried enoki mushroom, yuzu mayonnaise and pickled red onions.

“I say it’s like exploring cultural confusion,” Kim said of Softies’ menu. “Sam and I are both Korean American, so we grew up at home eating Korean dishes. But whenever we’re out, we wanted to eat burgers and pizza and whatnot. So it’s kind of trying to figure out what that looks like.”

Kim and Hong soft opened their bricks-and-mortar location of Softies Burger in the USC Village on July 6, where they formerly worked at Cafe Dulce. Owner James Choi put in a good word for them to the landlord who, after going to Smorgasburg to try their food, offered them a spot at the campus-adjacent shopping center.

The newly-opened burger joint has a few new items on the menu, including a classic New York-style chopped cheese sandwich, a chicken Caesar salad with spicy panko breadcrumbs and shrimp paste and a selection of sodas, along with drip coffee and cold brew. Desserts pull from childhood nostalgia, including a diner-inspired lime pie with yuzu and a miso-caramel banoffee pie.

Leading up to the opening, Kim and Hong started a GoFundMe that raised over $18,000 for restaurant equipment, furniture and other inventory. Neither of the pair are chefs, though Kim sees his time working in tech for OpenTable and DoorDash as “data gathering” for what he didn’t realize at the time would become his own restaurant.

The three burgers on the menu hail from Kim and Hong’s Smorgasburg days: the Cali, their take on a classic In-N-Out burger, doctored up with roasted garlic and caramelized onions (a nod to Korean barbecue toppings); the Japanese Peruvian-inspired Aji burger, a smashburger patty topped with pickled jalapenos and a cilantro, garlic and lime mayonnaise; and a rotating third option, which is currently the Crispy Shroom burger.

“We are very specific about the fact that we’re not chefs,” Kim said. “The kind of restaurant we want to build, it’s not too stuffy … We just want this space, especially for the USC students, to feel like their restaurant.”

Kim and Hong designed the 2,600-square-foot space to look like an old-school diner with modern Korean and Japanese influences, pairing retro barstools with spherical chandeliers, sleek white tables and wooden booths and chairs.

Softies Burger is currently open seven days a week from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m.

835 W. Jefferson Blvd. Unit 1710, Los Angeles, https://softiesburger.square.site

“The Bear” deli from Chicago at Uncle Paulie’s Deli

The hit FX series “The Bear” has given the iconic Chicago beef sandwich renewed time under the national spotlight. On the heels of the show’s fourth season, the dish, which features tender slices of roast beef dripping with au jus on a crusty roll, is back at the forefront of diners’ minds — and Angelenos are about to get a taste.

The Beverly Grove location of Uncle Paulie’s Deli will host Mr. Beef — the Chicago deli that inspired the Berzatto family’s restaurant on the award-winning drama-comedy — for a pop-up on July 19 and 20.

“Last year was such a success we had to run it back,” Uncle Paulie’s wrote in an Instagram post of its former collaboration with Mr. Beef.

Mr. Beef’s signature Italian beef sandwich, topped with giardiniera and dipped in au jus, will be offered at Uncle Paulie’s on Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Chicken tenders with salad in anchovy vinaigrette at Joshua Skenes’ Happies Handmade.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

Happies Hand Made

A new destination for fried chicken has arrived in the Arts District. Chef Joshua Skenes, who formerly led the two Michelin-starred Saison in San Francisco and now-closed, one Michelin-starred Angler in the Beverly Center, opened Happies Hand Made on June 6. Skenes throws his fried chicken on the grill before serving it a la carte, in sandwiches or on top of a crispy waffle alongside tallow fries.

The concept is centered around high-quality comfort food, with limited drops and an evolving menu. Happies Hand Made also offers soft serve, with flavors such as wild strawberry, passion fruit and butterscotch, alongside cold brew, tea drinks and house-made sodas, including the Yuzu-Up and Kumquat Cream Top.

Happies Hand Made is open on Wednesday through Sunday from 12 to 8 p.m.

427 S. Hewitt St., Los Angeles, happieshandmade.com

Brisket sliders from Smokey Chance BBQ at Citizen Public Market.

(Athena Riley)

Smokey Chance BBQ and Jikoni at Citizen Public Market

After wowing customers with its 14-hour-smoked brisket at Culver City’s Citizen Public Market for the last nine months, Smokey Chance BBQ will begin a permanent residence at the food hall beginning July 17.

“Before, we literally took over a corner, which was a seating area at the market,” said chef Derrell Smith. “Now we’ll have the opportunity to actually have a full, built-out kitchen [where] we can expand our menu and be able to experiment how we wanted to before.”

Smith, pitmaster Jeff Chen and Darren Wong, who Smith described as the “brain” of Smokey Chance, will serve sliders and other new dishes next week, alongside mainstays that include a brisket Cuban sandwich, brisket cheesesteak, and cornbread made with beef tallow and topped with Calabrian chile honey butter.

“Our barbecue sauce is made with gochujang and jerk — Jeff and Darren are both Taiwanese and Chinese, and my grandma taught me to cook, and she was from North Carolina,” Smith said. “[We’re] taking all of these regional ingredients and turning them into something that’s just fun and whimsical.”

Jikoni, a summer pop-up from “AfriCali” cookbook author Kiano Moju, has been extended at Citizen Public Market for the rest of the summer. Moju puts a California twist on the Kenyan and Nigerian food she grew up eating in Oakland, offering a rotating menu with dishes like Swahili biriyani and saucy coconut butter beans with chapati, along with mishkaki, skewers popular in Tanzania and Kenya.

“When I was on the book tour, people kept asking, ‘Where can I try food like this?’ … I thought it could be fun to do a pop-up where we bring the book to life with some of the recipes,” Moju said.

After a successful pop-up at Melody wine bar this spring, Moju said that Smith told her about a temporary spot opening up at Citizen Public. Her initial two-week residency was extended to a month and just last week, the food hall announced that the Jikoni pop-up would remain through August.

“It’s really fun, but it’s also still incredibly crazy because I thought I’d just be writing recipes and telling people how to cook, and here I am running a restaurant,” Moju said.

Smokey Chance BBQ is open Friday and Saturday from 12 to 8 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 7 p.m, and will begin Thursday service on July 17. Jikoni is open on Wednesday through Saturday from 12 to 9 p.m. and Sunday from 12 to 8 p.m.

ATLANTA — In a week where so much of the focus was on players who weren’t playing in the All-Star Game, and those who were selected that weren’t seen as deserving, it was the player who had been in more Midsummer Classics than anyone else who delivered the most profound reminder.

Before the start of Major League Baseball’s 95th All-Star Game at Truist Park in Atlanta, National League manager Dave Roberts called upon longtime Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw to speak in the clubhouse.

And in an impromptu pregame speech as the team’s elder statesman, Kershaw imparted the most important lesson he’s learned from his 11 All-Star Games.

“The All-Star Game, it can be hard at times for the players,” Kershaw recounted when asked about his message to the team. “It’s a lot of travel, it’s a lot of stress, chaos, family, all this stuff.”

“But,” the 37-year-old future Hall of Famer added, “it’s meaningful, it’s impactful for the game, it’s important for the game. We have the best All-Star Game of any sport. We do have the best product. So to be here, to realize your responsibility to the sport is important … And I just said I was super honored to be part of it.”

Kershaw, admittedly, was picked for this year’s game for more sentimental reasons than anything.

After making only 10 starts in the first half of the year following offseason foot and knee surgeries, the future Hall of Famer was shoehorned in as a “Legend Pick” by commissioner Rob Manfred, getting the nod a week after becoming the 20th pitcher in MLB with 3,000 strikeouts.

The honor made Kershaw feel awkward, with the three-time Cy Young Award winner repeatedly joking that he hadn’t really deserved to return to the All-Star Game for the first time since 2023, despite his 4-1 record and 3.38 ERA so far this season.

At first, he acknowledged, he even had a little hesitancy about participating in this week’s festivities in Atlanta.

“My initial response was just, you don’t ever want to take somebody’s spot,” he said. “You don’t ever want to be a side show.”

A side show, however, Kershaw was not.

Instead, as the man with the most All-Star selections of anyone in this year’s game (and the fourth-most by a pitcher), Kershaw was at the center of one of the most memorable moments from the National League’s win on a tiebreaking home run derby after a 6-6 tie.

Upon entering the game at the start of the second inning, he retired the first two batters he faced; the latter, a strikeout looking of Toronto Blue Jays slugger Vladimir Guerrero Jr. He then turned to the dugout to see Roberts coming to get him, ending what could very well be his final appearance in the Midsummer Classic (even though, he has made a point of noting, he has not made any decision on retirement after the season).

And as he exited the mound, he was serenaded with one of the night’s loudest ovations, waving a hand in appreciation before blowing a kiss to his family in the stands.

“I didn’t anticipate to be here. I definitely didn’t anticipate to pitch,” Kershaw said. “So it was awesome. So thankful for it now.”

Many others in Atlanta felt the same way about sharing the week with Kershaw.

Shohei Ohtani watches his base hit during the first inning.

(Brynn Anderson / Associated Press)

NL starter Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates had the locker next to Kershaw in the Truist Park clubhouse, and joked his only hope was that veteran left-hander wouldn’t get sick of him by the end of the event.

“He’s such a class act, it’s just so impressive,” Skenes said. “We were in the waiting room before the red carpet today, and he had all his kids, and watching him as dad too, it was a cool experience.”

San Francisco Giants ace Logan Webb recalled his memories of watching Kershaw while growing up in Northern California.

“I just respect him so much, watching him pitch,” Webb said. “You could’ve asked me five years ago, and you could’ve said Clayton Kershaw was a legend already. He is a legend. I’m just happy I’m able to share a clubhouse with him.”

Kershaw’s lighter side was on display Tuesday, as well, with the pitcher mic’d up with the Fox broadcast team for his brief outing.

“I’m gonna try to throw some cheese real quick, hold on,” he joked while unleashing an 89-mph fastball to Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh, which turned into a lineout in left thanks to a diving effort from Kyle Tucker of the Chicago Cubs.

“Hey!” Kershaw exclaimed. “That was sick.”

On his first pitch to Guerrero, Kershaw threw another fastball that the Blue Jays’ star took for a strike.

“Right down the middle,” Kershaw said. “I’m so glad he didn’t swing.”

When Guerrero got to a 1-and-1 count after a curveball in the dirt, Kershaw contemplated his next pitch.

“I think I probably gotta go slider,” he said. “Let’s see what Will thinks.”

Behind the plate, teammate Will Smith instead called for a curveball.

“Nope, he wants curveball again,” Kershaw laughed. “All right, fine.”

Guerrero swung through it — “Oh, got him,” he said — before freezing on a slider two pitches later for a called third strike.

“I’m getting blown up by former teammates saying, ‘Wow, you’ve changed so much,’ and they’re right,” Kershaw joked afterward, acknowledging his once-fiery demeanor never would have allowed him to embrace an in-game interview like that. “I don’t think I would’ve ever done that [in the past]. But it was actually kind of fun.”

Really, that was the theme of Kershaw’s whole week.

Reluctantly accepting his stature as one of the game’s most decorated players. Accepting an invitation designed to honor his career accomplishments. And providing a reminder of the All-Star Game’s meaning, in what will perhaps be his last time on such a stage.

“It’s a very awesome, special thing to get to come to All-Star Games,” he said. “I remember the first one, how special that was. And I don’t think a lot has changed for me over the years to get to come to these things. So I don’t take that for granted. I think it’s really awesome. I mean, I shouldn’t be here anyway, so it’s very possible this could be my last one. So it was just a very awesome night, special.”

Six weeks ago in Munich, Paris Saint-Germain overwhelmed one of Europe’s top teams in the UEFA Champions League final, earning a trophy and recognition as the world’s best club team.

On Sunday in East Rutherford, N.J., PSG handed that mantle to Chelsea, which routed the exhausted Parisians 3-0 in the FIFA Club World Cup final, PSG’s worst loss in nearly two years.

So ended the first expanded Club World Cup, a tournament manufactured mainly to monetize the sport while lengthening the season six weeks for some teams — both PSG and Chelsea were playing for the 65th time in 48 weeks — and further congesting an already crowded schedule for others. And though it attracted more than 2.4 million fans overall, more than a quarter of the games drew fewer than 17,000 people, four got less than 9,000 and the competition overall averaged about the same attendance as the top 25 summer friendlies played in the U.S. last summer.

That’s after FIFA, the event’s organizer, drastically reduced ticket prices and, in some cases, let people in for free. So why did we play this tournament at all?

Well, the best answer is the Club World Cup served as a dress rehearsal for the real World Cup, which will be played at the same time and in some of the same stadiums next year. And if what FIFA learned from the club tournament doesn’t force it back to the drawing board to make some major changes for next summer — especially to kickoff times — it will be an education wasted.

The biggest takeaway was the weather. It was way too hot (and humid and stormy and just generally yucky).

Chelsea played three of its seven games in temperatures described by local weather authorities as “extreme,” meaning people were told to avoid strenuous physical activity or, in some cases, to even avoid going outdoors. (Sunday’s final kicked off in 81-degree temperatures and 69% humidity, conditions that necessitated two hydration breaks.)

“The heat is incredible,” Chelsea midfielder Enzo Fernandez said in Spanish before the final. “The other day I got a bit dizzy during a play. I had to lie down on the ground because I was dizzy. Playing in this temperature is very dangerous.”

But it’s not just the danger to players FIFA should worry about (although that, clearly, is paramount). The conditions also change the way the game must be played, making it far less attractive to viewers.

“The speed of the game is not the same. Everything becomes very slow,” Fernandez said. “Let’s hope that next year they change the schedule.”

Wydad AC’s Cassius Mailula, center, and Mohamed Moufid try to cool off during a FIFA Club World Cup group match against Al Ain FC in Washington on June 26.

(Julia Demaree Nikhinson / Associated Press)

For the Club World Cup, many games started at midday or in the early afternoon so they could be broadcast in prime time in Europe and Africa. But the conditions on the field were often oppressive as a result.

MetLife Stadium, where Sunday’s final was played, will host eight World Cup matches, including the final, next summer. And while the kickoff times for that tournament won’t be revealed until the World Cup draw in December, BBC Sport said it has learned FIFA plans to start many East Coast games at noon, 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. local time.

FIFA issued a statement earlier this month that suggested it is not taking the problem near seriously enough, touting the hydration breaks, in which matches are halted so players can get a drink, as “significant and progressive measures … being taken to protect the players from the heat.”

FIFPRO, the union representing international soccer players, isn’t being so dismissive.

“From a health and safety perspective, this [extreme heat] is something that must take priority over commercial interests with regards to the safety of the players,” Alexander Bielefeld, the union’s director of policy and strategic relations, said on a conference call. “Heat conditions are not happening in a vacuum. The debate on extreme heat is not happening in a vacuum.

“It’s actually quite foreseeable.”

According to FIFPRO, at least three games at the Club World Cup should have been suspended or postponed because of extreme weather. It was so hot during a group-play game in Cincinnati, in fact, Borussia Dortmund’s bench players stayed in the locker room, watching the first half on TV.

The last World Cup that played in the U.S., in 1994, remains the hottest in history, which is remarkable for a tournament that since been played in Africa and the Middle East. That year Mexico and Ireland faced off in Orlando, Fla., where midday temperatures hit 105 degrees. And it was 100 degrees on the field for the final, which kicked off at noon at the Rose Bowl. (Not surprisingly that game ended in a scoreless draw, as did the 1999 Women’s World Cup final, played at the Rose Bowl under equally as oppressive conditions. Both games were decided in penalty kicks.)

More severe weather is all but certain next year.

“What you’re seeing right now is very typical,” Ben Schott, operations chief with the National Weather Service, told the Athletic. “Next year we may be going through the same thing.

That’s not good since a half-dozen Club World Cup games were delayed or halted by weather this summer, including Chelsea’s round-of-16 win over Benfica in Charlotte, N.C. That match was paused for two hours because of lightning.

“I can understand that for security reasons, you have to suspend the game,” Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca said. “But if you suspend seven, eight games, that means that probably is not the right place to do this competition.”

FIFA had a chance to protect its most valuable property, the World Cup final, by scheduling it for one of the four roofed stadiums chosen to host games in the U.S. in 2026. Instead it will tempt fate — and the weather gods — by playing the final at open-air MetLife.

If there were a silver lining to these storm clouds — I’m trying to be positive here — it’s that coaches and players are now keenly aware of what awaits them next summer, giving them ample time to get ready.

“We’re going to come prepared next year,” said Inter Milan’s Marcus Thuram, a French international. “There’s a lot of players that are doing the Club World Cup that will be doing the World Cup with their countries next year. So I think it’s a good preparation.”

Let’s hope FIFA is preparing as well. Because if the heat was on for the Club World Cup, it will be even warmer for the organizers of the real World Cup next summer.

⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans will test the popularity of Department of Government Efficiency spending cuts this week by aiming to pass President Trump’s request to claw back $9.4 billion in public media and foreign aid spending.

Senate Democrats are trying to kill the measure but need a few Republicans uncomfortable with the president’s effort to join them.

Trump’s Republican administration is employing a rarely used tool that allows the president to transmit a request to cancel previously approved funding authority. The request triggers a 45-day clock under which the funds are frozen. If Congress fails to act within that period, then the spending stands. That clock expires Friday.

The House already has approved Trump’s request on a mostly party line 214-212 vote. The Senate has little time to spare to beat the deadline for the president’s signature. Another House vote will be needed if senators amend the legislation, adding more uncertainty to the outcome.

Here’s a closer look at this week’s debate.

Trump has asked lawmakers to rescind nearly $1.1 billion from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which represents the full amount it’s due to receive during the next two budget years.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense.

The corporation distributes more than two-thirds of the money to more than 1,500 locally operated public television and radio stations, with much of the remainder assigned to National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System to support national programming.

The potential fallout from the cuts for local pubic media stations has generated concern on both sides of the political aisle.

Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said he’s worried about how the rescissions will hit radio stations that broadcast to Native Americans in his state. He said the vast majority of their funding comes from the federal government.

“They’re not political in nature,” Rounds said of the stations. “It’s the only way of really communicating in the very rural areas of our state, and a lot of other states as well.”

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said that for the tribal radio stations in her state, “almost to a number, they’re saying that they will go under if public broadcasting funds are no longer available to them.”

To justify the spending cuts, the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers have cited certain activities they disagree with to portray a wide range of a program’s funding as wasteful.

In recent testimony, Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought criticized programming aimed at fostering diversity, equity and inclusion. He said NPR aired a 2022 program entitled “What ‘Queer Ducks’ can teach teenagers about sexuality in the animal kingdom.” He also cited a special town hall that CNN held in 2020 with “Sesame Street” about combatting racism.

Targeting humanitarian aid

As part of the package, Trump has asked lawmakers to rescind about $8.3 billion in foreign aid programs that aim to fight famine and disease as well as promote global stability.

Among the targets:

— $900 million to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases and strengthen detection systems to prevent wider epidemics.

— $800 million for a program that provides emergency shelter, water and sanitation as well as family reunification for those forced to flee their own country.

— $4.15 billion for two programs designed to boost the economies and democratic institutions in developing and strategically important countries.

— $496 million to provide humanitarian assistance such as food, water and healthcare for countries hit by natural disasters and conflicts.

Some of the health cuts are aimed at the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, which President George W. Bush, a Republican, began to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. The program is credited with saving 26 million lives and has broad bipartisan support.

On PEPFAR, Vought told senators “these cuts are surgical and specifically preserve lifesaving assistance.” But many lawmakers are wary, saying they’ve seen no details about where specifically the administration will cut.

The administration also said some cuts, such as eliminating funding for UNICEF, would encourage international organizations to be more efficient and seek contributions from other nations, “putting American taxpayers first.”

U.S. leaders have often argued that aiding other nations through “soft power” is not just the right thing to do but also the smart thing.

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) told Vought that there is “plenty of absolute nonsense masquerading as American aid that shouldn’t receive another bit of taxpayer funding,” but he called the administration’s attempt to root it out “unnecessarily chaotic.”

“In critical corners of the globe, instead of creating efficiencies, you’ve created vacuums for adversaries like China to fill,” McConnell told Vought.

Trump weighs in

The president has issued a warning on his social media site directly aimed at individual Senate Republicans who may be considering voting against the cuts.

He said it was important that all Republicans adhere to the bill and in particular defund the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

“Any Republican that votes to allow this monstrosity to continue broadcasting will not have my support or Endorsement,” he said.

For individual Republicans seeking reelection, the prospect of Trump working to defeat them is reason for pause and could be a sign that the package is teetering.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) opted to announce that he would not seek reelection recently after the president called for a primary challenger to the senator when he voted not to advance Trump’s massive tax and spending cut bill.

Getting around a filibuster

Spending bills before the 100-member Senate almost always need some bipartisan buy-in to pass. That’s because the bills need 60 votes to overcome a filibuster and advance. But this week’s effort is different.

Congress set up a process when Republican Richard Nixon was president for speedily considering a request to claw back previously approved spending authority. Under those procedures, it takes only a simple Senate majority to advance the president’s request to a final vote.

It’s a rarely employed maneuver. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush, a Republican, had some success with his rescissions request, though the final bill included some cuts requested by the president and many that were not. Trump proposed 38 rescissions in 2018, but the package stalled in the Senate.

If senators vote to take up the bill, it sets up the potential for 10 hours of debate plus votes on scores of potentially thorny amendments in what is known as a vote-a-rama.

Democrats see the president’s request as an effort to erode the Senate filibuster. They warn that it’s absurd to expect them to work with GOP lawmakers on bipartisan spending measures if Republicans turn around a few months later and use their majority to cut the parts they don’t like.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York offered a stern warning in a letter to colleagues: “How Republicans answer this question on rescissions and other forthcoming issues will have grave implications for the Congress, the very role of the legislative branch, and, more importantly, our country,” Schumer said.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) took note of the warning.

“I was disappointed to see the Democrat leader in his recent Dear Colleague letter implicitly threaten to shut down the government,” Thune said.

The Trump administration is likening the first rescissions package to a test case and says more could be on the way if Congress goes along.

Freking writes for the Associated Press.

Bitcoin has scaled $120,000 for the first time, a major milestone for the world’s largest cryptocurrency in the run-up to what could be a landmark week.

Starting July 14, “Crypto Week” will see the US House of Representatives debate three industry-friendly bills that are likely to provide cryptocurrencies with the US regulatory framework that crypto insiders have long demanded.

US President Donald Trump has urged policymakers to revamp their rules, away from the plethora of lawsuits brought against crypto firms by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) under former President Joe Biden (2021-2025), in favour of the industry.

Expectations of further tailwinds helped propel Bitcoin, up 29 percent so far this year, to a record high of $122,055 on Monday. Bitcoin, the very first cryptocurrency, began trading in January 2009, when it was valued at just $0.004.

The surge has sparked a broader rally across other cryptocurrencies as Ether, the world’s second-most popular token, reached a five-month high of $3,048.2 on Monday.

More generally, the sector’s total market value has swelled to roughly $3.8 trillion, according to CoinMarketCap.

Cryptocurrencies are a form of monetary exchange that allows people to bypass central banks and traditional payment methods.

What is at stake?

US lawmakers will discuss three key pieces of legislation during “Crypto Week”:

• The GENIUS Act aims to clarify when digital assets like crypto tokens are considered securities or commodities, helping startups avoid legal uncertainty by providing clear regulatory rules. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins (GENIUS) Act has already passed the Senate.
• The Clarity Act would block federal agencies from using court rulings to overextend regulatory power, ensuring that Congress – and not courts – defines how crypto assets are classified and governed.
• The Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act would prohibit the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency (CBDC), arguing it could enable government surveillance of Americans’ financial activity and threaten individual privacy.

This marks a sharp reversal for a sector that once threatened to do its business outside the US, citing a hostile environment and heavy-handed enforcement.

Crypto companies have long accused US financial regulators (like the SEC) of enacting confusing or conflicting rules.

“We expect capital that was previously sidelined due to regulatory uncertainty to re-enter … even if final passage stalls,” Jag Kooner, head of derivatives at Bitfinex crypto exchange, told Reuters.

This week’s decisions could make it easier for companies to launch new digital asset products and to trade in crypto.

Does the proposed legislation have critics?

Democrats are expected to offer amendments to the GENIUS and Clarity Acts.

Critics have argued that the Trump administration is conceding too much ground to the crypto industry.

“I’m concerned that what my Republican colleagues are aiming for is another industry handout,” Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren said on July 9 at a Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee hearing.

She urged Congress to bar public officials, including Trump, from issuing, backing or profiting from crypto tokens.

Warren also argued that new crypto rules should not “open a back door to destroy” longtime securities laws, or allow volatility in the crypto market to spill over into the traditional financial system.

Finally, she underscored that anti-money laundering rules should apply to the industry. Crypto users are identified by alphanumeric wallet addresses, not their names, allowing bad actors to obscure the source of their illicit funds.

The Biden administration adopted a tough regulatory stance towards cryptocurrencies, aiming to oversee the digital assets as securities subject to the same regulations as stocks and bonds.

What’s Trump’s interest in crypto?

Trump, once a crypto sceptic, became a major promoter during his presidential campaign last year, even becoming the first major-party presidential candidate to accept campaign donations via crypto.

During the 2024 campaign, crypto insiders spent nearly a quarter of a billion dollars, according to Federal Election Commission data, in support of crypto allies – and to try and weed out antagonists.

In March, Trump said he would create a crypto reserve that would include five cryptocurrencies (including Bitcoin), adding he would make the US “the crypto capital of the world”.

Meanwhile, Trump’s family business has launched several cryptocurrency meme coins, flash-in-the-pan assets inspired by internet jokes or cultural references, such as $Trump and $Melania.

Trump has faced criticism over conflicts of interest regarding his family’s ventures. For instance, World Liberty Financial – a crypto group backed by Trump and his sons in 2024 – has earned the president $57m.

Elsewhere, Trump Media & Technology Group filed paperwork with the SEC in July seeking approval to launch its own “Crypto Blue-Chip ETF”, an exchange-traded fund holding Bitcoin and other digital currencies.

How has Bitcoin performed since Trump was re-elected?

If Bitcoin were a country, it would rank in the top 10 by gross domestic product, roughly on par with countries like Brazil ($2.17 trillion) and Canada ($2.14 trillion).

Since Donald Trump’s re-election in November 2024, Bitcoin has surged by 75 percent, rising from about $69,539 at close on Election Day to its current record level. It rallied to above $100,000 for the first time last December.

The cryptocurrency briefly dropped below $90,000 on February 25, amid market jitters triggered by Trump’s announcement of new tariffs on multiple countries and industries worldwide, before recovering after Trump’s “crypto reserve” announcement.

Bitcoin’s rise also arrives amid a wider backdrop of economic uncertainty, notably the global turmoil from Trump’s steep – and on-again, off-again – tariffs imposed on key trading partners worldwide, in addition to ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Bitcoin has shown resilience this year, rebounding in line with its macro exposures following tariff announcements,” Citibank analysts wrote in a research paper last week.

As Israel’s unrelenting war on Gaza continues, deadly attacks by Israeli settlers and forces against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank have also soared to near-daily killings.

According to Shireen.ps, a database compiled by Palestinian journalists, 177 Palestinians have been killed there this year alone.

On Friday, Israeli settlers beat to death 20-year-old American Palestinian Sayfollah Musallet, his family stating that the mob surrounded him for three hours during the assault and attacked medics attempting to reach him.

Eight other Palestinians were also slain this past week – including one child – as a result of settler attacks, as well as targeted assassinations and raids conducted by Israeli troops.

In four instances, the bodies of those killed have been detained by Israeli authorities.

Here are the eight other Palestinians killed in the past week:

Wissam Ghassan Ishtiyeh, 37

Shtayyeh was killed on July 6 during an Israeli raid on the village of Salem, east of Nablus, according to Shireen.ps.

Israeli forces stormed the village and surrounded two houses during the operation, local sources reported.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that Israeli authorities had held his body, refusing to release it to the family for burial.

The Israeli military confirmed the killing.

الشهيدان وسام غسان اشتية وقصي ناصر نصار، اللذان ارتقيا برصاص الاحتلال عقب حصار منزل في قرية سالم شرق نابلس، ولا يزال الاحتلال يحتجز جثمان الشهيد اشتية. pic.twitter.com/Pl2NY2rDHK

— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) July 6, 2025

Translation: The martyrs Wissam Ghassan Ishtiyeh and Qusay Nasser Nassar, who were killed by occupation forces’ gunfire following the siege of a house in the village of Salem, east of Nablus, and the occupation continues to detain the body of the martyr Ishtayeh.

Qusay Nasser Mahmoud Nassar, 23

Nassar was also killed on July 6 in Salem, caught in the crossfire as Israeli forces killed Shtayyeh.

Israeli forces had detained the young man’s body, but later the Palestine Red Crescent Society received it and rushed him to Rafidia Hospital, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.

Ahmad Nafeth Gabriel al-Awiwi, 19

Al-Awiwi died on July 8 in Hebron, succumbing to his injuries after being shot by Israeli forces during a raid on the city six months ago, according to Shireen.ps.

The young man was hospitalised a week ago for brain surgery related to his injuries; however, his health deteriorated, and his death was announced last week, local sources reported.

Painful farewells and prayers to the Palestinian youth, Ahmad Nafeth Al-Awiwi, who succumbed to his wounds following his injury by Israeli occupation fire nearly six months ago. pic.twitter.com/vkgqFwaqjM

— Quds News Network (@QudsNen) July 9, 2025

Iyad Abdel-Moati Iyad Shalakhti, 12

Shalakhti died of critical wounds on July 9, after being shot by Israeli forces three days earlier in the Askar al-Jadid camp in Nablus, Wafa reported.

The boy was shot with live ammunition by an “Israeli soldier positioned inside a heavily armoured Israeli military vehicle” around 9:30pm on July 6,  according to documentation collected by Defense for Children International – Palestine.

“My brother, my life, and friend,” his mother stated in an emotional address following his death, according to footage verified by Al Jazeera.

Ahmed Ali al-Amour, 54

Al-Amour was shot at by Israeli forces on July 10 and then run over by an Israeli military vehicle in Rummana, west of Jenin, according to local sources.

Authorities in Israel claimed that he was attempting a suicide attack, Shireen.ps reported.

Israeli soldiers seized al-Amour’s body, Wafa reported. Local sources told the agency they also arrested his sons, claiming that a soldier had been moderately injured in a stabbing attack.

The man’s killing was part of a raid on the town, where Israeli forces raided a large number of homes and destroyed their contents, Wafa said. They also deployed sniper teams and launched a wide-scale arrest campaign in the town.

With al-Amour’s death, the number of those killed in the Jenin governorate since the start of Israeli military raids there on January 21 has risen to 41.

Palestinian Ministry of Health stated that the Israeli occupation forces held the body of Ahmad Ali Al-Amour (55 years old), who was killed this morning under the pretext of carrying out a stabbing attack in the town of Rummana, west of Jenin.#Israel pic.twitter.com/AOapzmCFVk

— Al-Jarmaq News (@Aljarmaqnetnews) July 10, 2025

Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed Abed, 23 and Malik Ismail Abdul Jabbar Salem, 23

The men were shot dead on July 10 in the Gush Etzion settlement, south of Bethlehem. Israeli police said they had carried out a stabbing and shooting attack there.

Abed was from the town of Halhul in the Hebron governorate, while Salem lived in Bazariya, west of Nablus, according to Wafa.

The agency reported that the attack by the young men resulted in the death of one Israeli settler. Their bodies were detained by Israeli authorities.

مصادر محلية: الشهيدان محمود يوسف محمد عابد (٢٣ عاماً) من حلحول ومالك إبراهيم عبد الجبار سالم (٢٣ عاماً) من بلدة بزاريا بنابلس منفذا عملية “غوش عتصيون” شمال الخليل. pic.twitter.com/CzHCP8kpIU

— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) July 10, 2025

Translation: Local sources: The martyrs Mahmoud Youssef Mohamed Abed (23 years old) from Halhul and Malik Ismail Abdul Jabbar Salem (23 years old) from the town of Bazariya in Nablus, the perpetrators of the “Gush Etzion” operation north of Hebron.

Muhammad Rizq Hassan al-Shalabi, 23

Al-Shalabi was lost during a settler attack on the town of Sinjil, north of Ramallah, on July 11, and was later found dead after being shot and beaten by settlers there, according to local sources.

It was the same attack in which American citizen Musallet was killed.

The Palestinian Health Ministry, citing a medical report, stated that al-Shalabi was killed after being shot in the chest, which penetrated his back.

He was also left to bleed for several hours, the ministry said.

Activist Ayed Ghafri told Wafa that dozens of settlers armed with automatic rifles attacked residents who were protesting against the construction of a new settlement outpost in Khirbet al-Tal, accompanied by foreign solidarity activists.

The attack also resulted in the injury of 10 citizens from the villages and towns of Sinjil, al-Mazraa ash-Sharqiya, Abwein, and Jaljalia, north of Ramallah, with wounds and fractures, the agency added.

The municipality of Sinjil condemned the killings of the two men, saying it “will only increase our adherence to our land and our determination to defend it by all legitimate means”.

الشهيد محمد رزق شلبي الذي عثر عليه بعد ساعات من اختفاءه وتظهر على جسده علامات تعذيب وضرب مبرح على أيدي المستوطنين خلال تصديه للهجوم على سنجل شمال رام الله. pic.twitter.com/7D78pbVmq5

— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) July 11, 2025

Translation: Muhammad Rizq al-Shalabi, who was found hours after his disappearance, showing signs of torture and severe beating at the hands of settlers during his resistance to the attack on Sinjil, north of Ramallah.

Talks between Health Secretary Wes Streeting and the British Medical Association (BMA) will take place next week in a bid to avert strike action in England’s NHS, the BBC understands.

Resident doctors, previously known as junior doctors, announced earlier this week that they will walk out for five consecutive days from 25 July until 30 July over a dispute about pay with the government.

The BMA said strikes would only be called off if next week’s talks produce an offer it can put to its members.

The government has insisted it cannot improve its offer of a 5.4% increase for this year.

Resident doctors were awarded a 5.4% pay rise for this financial year – which will go into pay packets from August – following a 22% increase over the previous two years.

But they are arguing that pay in real terms is still around 20% lower than it was in 2008 and have called for the government to set out a pathway to restoring its value.

They believe that this year’s 5.4% increase doesn’t take them far enough down that path.

Health department sources have told the BBC the health secretary is sympathetic to improving working conditions for resident doctors, but he won’t budge on salaries.

After the BMA’s strike announcement, Streeting called the strike “unnecessary and unreasonable”, adding: “The NHS is hanging by a thread – why on earth are they threatening to pull it?”

He said the government was “ready and willing” to work with the BMA, but any further strike action would be a disaster for patients and push back the progress made in reducing waiting lists in England.

BMA resident doctor committee co-chairs, Dr Melissa Ryan and Dr Ross Nieuwoudt, said on Wednesday they had been left with “no choice” but to strike without a “credible offer to keep us on the path to restore our pay”.

Lord Robert Winston, a professor and TV doctor who was a pioneer of IVF treatment, resigned from the BMA on Friday over the planned strikes.

In an interview with The Times, he urged against strike action and said it could damage people’s trust in the profession.

Resident doctors took part in 11 separate strikes during 2023 and 2024.

In order to end the previous strikes last year the incoming Labour government awarded a backdated increase worth 22% over two years.

The action in England will not affect resident doctors in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland, who negotiate directly with their devolved governments on pay.

Resident doctors’ basic salaries in England range from £37,000 to £70,000 a year for a 40-hour week, depending on experience, with extra payments for working nightshifts and weekends.

That does not include the latest 5.4% average pay award for this year which will start to be paid into wage packets from August.

Finding great Mexican food in unexpected places. Losing the city of L.A.’s oldest restaurant. A guide to the vegan ice cream boom. The Italian potatoes that changed Jenn Harris’ mind about fat fries. And “some guy on Tripadvisor.” I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Salbute salute

Salbute with Yucatan-inspired racado negro chicken at Sanchez in Copenhagen.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

As Angelenos, we don’t think twice about eating Mexican food one day, Thai food the next and Korean food the day after that. Weekend breakfast with friends is as likely to be Chinese rice porridge as it is a plate of buckwheat pancakes or chilaquiles. In fact, we rarely bother to break down our dining choices by cuisine. It’s more, let’s go get some ramen or birria or boat noodles.

But when we travel, we tend to eat more conservatively. With limited time in a new place, we usually stick to what we perceive as the food of the country we’re visiting. Trying to find decent Mexican food in Italy, for instance, while not impossible, isn’t easy in a country that prizes the joys of hyper-regionality. You take a risk ordering pasta alla carbonara (a seemingly simple dish that’s hard to perfect if you don’t take your time with the guanciale) outside of Rome or tortellini en brodo in any Italian region other than Emilia-Romagna.

And yet, when I landed in Copenhagen late last month, with all the glories of smørrebrød and cutting-edge Nordic cuisine to explore — including two places in the city (Noma and Geranium) named at different points the No. 1 restaurant in the world on the World’s 50 Best list — the first place I headed was a Mexican restaurant.

Of course, the restaurant, Sanchez, is no ordinary Mexican spot. The owner, Rosio Sanchez, was the head pastry chef for Rene Redzepi at Noma for five years before opening her first Copenhagen taqueria, Hija de Sanchez, in 2015. She briefly returned to collaborate with Redzepi on Noma’s 2017 Mexico pop-up in Tulum. If a real-life version of “The Bear” character Marcus (Lionel Boyce) had been sent to Copenhagen for pastry chef training at the world’s best restaurant in 2014, Sanchez likely would have been his mentor, not Will Poulter‘s character Luca. Indeed, Sanchez appears in the series’ chef-packed Season 3 finale talking about why she loves to cook. And one of Sanchez’s former chefs, Laura Cabrera, has risen to lead her own kitchen at the zero-waste restaurant Baldío in Mexico City.

Chef Rosio Sanchez at the Kødbyen location of her Copenhagen taqueria Hija de Sanchez in 2016.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

When I first ate Sanchez’s Mexican cooking in 2016 at Hija de Sanchez, I was immediately struck by the skill of her tortilla making, not easy in a place where masa is not readily available, and the way she was able make food that felt completely Mexican while incorporating Danish ingredients — a fjord shrimp taco, for instance, or gooseberry salsa. Never mind that as she told Margy Rochlin in this paper during a 2017 guest chef appearance at the L.A. Times Food Bowl with Sqirl‘s Jessica Koslow, some of her first customers in Copenhagen called tortillas “pancakes.” Or that when she saw Danes eating tacos with a fork and knife she had an illustrated and nonjudgmental “how to eat your taco” poster made. Since those early days, Copenhagen eaters have taken to her tacos. There are now five Hija de Sanchez taquerias across the city.

Al pastor, barbacoa and vegetarian tacos plus a glass of jamaica at the Torvehallerne food market location of Rosio Sanchez’s Copenhagen taqueria Hija de Sanchez.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

But Sanchez was not solely interested in exploring tacos. At the end of 2017 she opened Sanchez, a restaurant that elevates Mexican cuisine while still keeping it approachable. In its current form, the restaurant offers a five-course tasting menu for the rough equivalent of $82 with the option of an even more affordable three-course meal for about $59. If you want still more, you can add extra courses — such as an oyster with a sauce of habanero and sea buckthorn, or a slender bean, sheep cheese and cured egg burrito.

The oyster was a good, bracing start. And lime-cured langoustine ceviche, served aguachile style, with a verde sauce and fermented tomato water, kept the freshness going. But it was the salbute, with a jolt of intense corn from the puffed fried tortilla and layers of deep, complex flavors from chicken cooked in recado negro sauce, made with charred chiles, plus grilled bladderwrack seaweed in place of lettuce, a quail egg and a drizzle of habanero-árbol chile oil that showed how Sanchez is combining tradition, local ingredients and her own new way of approaching Mexican food.

Monkfish cheek, marinated al pastor style, beautifully charred and served with herbs on a lightly charred lettuce leaf came next. It all led to carnitas tacos that we assembled ourselves with freshly made tortillas, herbs, salsa, pickled jalapeño and onion, plus, because this is Copenhagen, green sea buckthorn.

The night’s most memorable dish, however, was dessert. The menu’s description was understated: chocolate mousse. But what is usually a satisfying but unexciting dish came out with a ring of salsa macha, crunchy with pumpkin seeds and preserved ancho chiles, a layer of whipped cream and, for good measure, roasted kelp and drips of olive oil. The mousse itself was made chocolate from Chiapas and hid a nugget of more chiles underneath.

Chocolate mouse with salsa macha, whipped cream and roasted kelp at Sanchez in Copenhagen.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

The spicy and sweet flavors felt both old and new. It’s the kind of dish that shows that Mexican cuisine even thousands of miles away from Mexico itself is still evolving. Now if only we could get Sanchez to open a branch of her restaurant here in L.A.

Loss and uneasy hope

Cole’s French Dip on 6th Street in downtown Los Angeles will close its doors on Aug. 2.

(Con Keyes / Los Angeles Times)

It’s been a tough week for L.A. restaurants. Karla Marie Sanford reports that Cole’s French Dip, which opened in 1908, making it the city’s oldest restaurant, will close its doors on Aug. 2. “By the time the Olympics get here, all these mom and pops will be gone,” said Brian Lenzo, senior vice president of operations for Cedd Moses’ Pouring With Heart, which took over the downtown L.A. restaurant in 2008. “Hopefully it’s a wakeup call for the right people to step up and figure out a plan.”

Another downtown loss: David Schlosser announced that his rigorous Japanese-focused restaurant Shibumi — last year he recreated a 1789 Japanese banquet — will permanently close on July 19.

Senior food editor Danielle Dorsey reports that Alisa Reynolds’ soul food bistro My 2 Cents, on The Times’ 101 Best Restaurants in L.A. list, will close on July 31 after 12 years on Pico Boulevard. Reynolds plans to focus on catering, pop-ups and collaborations.

And Lauren Ng reports that Melody, the Virgil Village natural wine bar that hosted many pop-ups during its nearly 10 years in business, will close this weekend, though owner Eric Tucker will open a temporary “Bar Band-Aid” pizza spot on July 16 until the Craftsman bungalow space can be sold.

Members of the Morfin family eat tacos and drink agua frescas at El Gato Night Market.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

But there are some signs of resilience even in this tough climate. Ng spent time at the recently reopened El Gato Night Market, which shut down for two weeks after ICE raids heated up in Los Angeles. Though more than half of the market’s 70 to 80 vendors had not returned in the first days of the reopening and business was slow at first, the crowds started to return after a few days. “Vendors, many of whom worry for their safety and the future of their businesses, show up for work out of necessity,” Ng writes, “but also to provide comfort and familiarity for customers, most of whom are Latino and often bring their young children.”

Maria Sanchez, known as “Maria la de los Burritos” sells $5 burritos in Watts out of the trunk of her car.

(Yasara Gunawardena / For The Times)

Meanwhile, when Maria Sanchez, known on social media as “Maria la de los Burritos,” was asked to leave her usual burrito-selling spot outside a Home Depot after ICE raids started happening, she was undeterred. She packed her gold-foil-wrapped burritos in the trunk of her car and found eager customers at construction sites. Her carne asada burritos typically sell out in 30 minutes. Contributor Madeleine Connors profiles the maker of these internet-viral burritos that are also doing some good for L.A. workers.

Also …

Awan offers more than a dozen flavors of the fully vegan ice cream made with coconut cream and Balinese vanilla.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

• The days of chalky, grainy, barely sweet plant-based ice cream are in the past, says contributor Omari Allen, who writes about the blossoming of vegan ice cream in Los Angeles and put together a guide to 10 of the best shops serving great dairy-free ice cream.
• How Steve Samson‘s thrice-fried potatoes at Rossoblu changed Jenn Harris’ mind about fat fries.
• Hawa Hassan, author of “Setting a Place for Us” and “In Bibi’s Kitchen,” made arnabeet mekleh — Lebanese fried cauliflower with tahini — in the Times Test Kitchen. Watch how she did it and get the recipe.
• Deputy food editor Betty Hallock has 15 ways to make the most of summer melons.
• If menu prices are feeling too high, here are 19 affordable picks from critic Bill Addison‘s 101 Best Restaurants in California guide.
• Restaurants, bars consider turning off music as licensing fees skyrocket, report Ashley Carman and Aruni Soni.
• The Country Kitchen in Malibu is just one of the businesses recently reopened after the Palisades fire struggling to regain customers even in peak tourist season, reports Caroline Petrow-Cohen.
• Kraft Heinz Co. is preparing to break itself up, reports Crystal Tse, Liana Baker and Kristina Peterson.
• Jewel Thais-Williams, founder of L.A.’s Black lesbian and queer nightclub Jewel’s Catch One, has died at the age of 86. “Jewel’s Catch One became a kind of West Coast Studio 54,” writes August Brown. “People came from all over the world to party there. Europe, South America — they’d come straight from LAX and leave their bags at coat check,” Thais-Williams’ sister Carol Williams told Brown. “The club was universally known for its acceptance.”

And finally … a word from ‘some guy on Tripadvisor’

The sign outside Sliders in Copenhagen: “Try the worst sliders some guy on Tripadvisor has ever had in his entire life alongside enjoying our ‘terrible service.’”

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Restaurants handle negative customer feedback in different ways. Some, as this sign seen outside the burger bar Sliders in Copenhagen, embrace it. The invitation: “Try the worst sliders some guy on Tripadvisor has ever had in his entire life alongside enjoying our ‘terrible service.’ ” It certainly got my attention. If I hadn’t already filled up on smørrebrød, I would have stopped in for a “lamb za’atar spectacular” or “decadent Dane” (beef patty, melted Danish cheese, caramelized onions and pickled apple) slider.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

Rick Cole has forgotten more about municipal government than most of us will ever know.

The 72-year-old former mayor (Pasadena), city manager (Ventura, Azusa, Santa Monica) and deputy mayor (Los Angeles) returned for a third stint at Los Angeles City Hall in 2022, bringing a depth of experience to political neophyte and then-newly elected City Controller Kenneth Mejia’s office as Mejia’s chief deputy.

After two and a half years in City Hall East, Cole announced last month that he would be leaving his post to focus on the Pasadena City Council, which he joined again last year.

Cole knew that holding down “a more-than-full-time role in LA and a more-than-part-time role in Pasadena” would be difficult to juggle, he wrote in a LinkedIn post, and ultimately decided he couldn’t do both jobs justice.

In a goodbye presentation to the L.A. City Council, he sounded the alarm, saying he has never been more worried about the city.

We sat down with Cole to discuss that speech and his fears. Here’s some of our conversation, very lightly edited and condensed for clarity.

Tell me about the speech you gave at council. What motivated it?

I’ve never been more alarmed about the future of Los Angeles. I delineated the existential challenges facing the city, which have been decades in the making. Politics needs to be looking out at the future and not just reacting to the crises of the day. And Los Angeles needs bold, systemic reform to meet the moment.

Why are you so alarmed about the future of Los Angeles?

It’s a converging set of crises. You have a homelessness emergency, an affordable housing crisis, a billion-dollar structural financial challenge that’s resulted in the loss of thousands of key city jobs. You had a firestorm that destroyed an entire neighborhood. And you have the federal government at war with the people in the government of Los Angeles.

And underneath that, you have an existential challenge to Hollywood, which is unfolding. And you have crumbling infrastructure.

And you have people feeling that government can’t really fix any of these things, that the money we spend gets wasted, fair or unfair. That’s a challenge.

Do you think the government is wasting taxpayer money?

Every institution has some level of waste. The problem with Los Angeles government and the public sector in California is an aversion to innovation.

We’ve fallen behind the private sector in adapting to the new world of advancing technology and changing demographics. That’s fixable, and that’s what I was advocating for.

What would it look like to fix these problems? Who’s responsible, and who is currently dropping the ball?

The lack of responsibility is built into the City Charter.

Tell me more about what you mean by that.

The people who originally wrote the charter a hundred years ago intentionally designed the system to diffuse authority, which therefore diffused accountability. So it’s really difficult to know who is in charge of any given thing.

A clear example is that the department heads have 16 bosses. They report to the mayor, but in each of the council districts, the council members think that the department heads report to them. That they … have to make the council member happy with what’s going on in their district, whether it’s trimming trees on a particular street or fixing a sidewalk in front of a constituent’s home, the general managers [of city departments] are subject to extreme and constant political pressure.

That distracts them from fixing the system so that we’re doing a better job, so that there are fewer resident complaints, so that a constituent wouldn’t have to go to their council member to get their street fixed. The street would get fixed every 10 years.

But if you are have 16 bosses and and a continually shifting set of priorities, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to put in place systemic solutions.

And in terms of who do you blame: Do you blame the general manager? Do you blame the mayor? Do you blame your council member? Do you blame the lack of resources that the city has to allocate?

The answer is yes.

What needs to change?

What I advocated is designing the city to work in the 21st century, which means a chief operating officer who works for the mayor to make sure the city runs effectively across 44 departments. We don’t have such a person now.

It means a chief financial officer. The responsibilities of a chief financial officer are [currently] divided between four different offices in the city, so it’s difficult, again, to point to one person who’s in charge of keeping the city fiscally sound.

The charter calls for a one-year budget, but we could do a two-year budget and simply update it once a year and be consistent with the City Charter. But then we would have a much broader view of the city’s financial future, and we wouldn’t waste so much time on a budget process that takes 11 of the 12 months and produces very little change.

State of play

— SAFER CITY: L.A. is on pace for its lowest homicide total in nearly 60 years as killings plummet, according to an LAPD tally. The falling murder rate mirrors a national trend in other big cities. As my colleague Libor Jany reports, it also paints a decidedly different picture than the Gotham City image offered by President Trump and other senior U.S. officials as justification for the deployment of military troops in L.A. in recent weeks.

—MORE RAIDS FALLOUT: Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration raids. The money will come from philanthropic partners, not city coffers, and the cash cards will be distributed by immigrant rights groups.

—MOTION TO INTERVENE: The city and county of Los Angeles are among the local governments seeking to join a lawsuit calling on the Trump administration to stop “unlawful detentions” during the ongoing immigration sweeps. The lawsuit was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, Public Counsel and immigrant rights groups last week.

—IN MEMORIAM: Longtime former executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs Jaime Regalado died last month at age 80. Born in Boyle Heights, Regalado served in the U.S. Navy and was the founding editor of California Politics & Policy and the California Policy Issues Annual. He led the Pat Brown Institute at Cal State L.A. from 1991 to 2011.

—“SOMEONE GOOFED”: When L.A. County Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Janice Hahn co-wrote Measure G, a sprawling overhaul of county government that voters passed last November, they didn’t realize they would also be repealing Measure J, a landmark criminal justice measure that voters had passed four years earlier. Thanks to an administrative screw-up for the ages, that’s exactly what happened. The relevant changes won’t go into effect until 2028, so county leaders have some time to undo their oops.

—DISASTER AVERTED: A potentially tragic situation was averted Wednesday night, after all 31 workers in a partially collapsed Los Angeles County sanitation tunnel were able to make their way to safety. Work on the tunnel has been halted, and the county sanitation district board is looking into what caused the collapse.

—POSTCARD FROM SANTA MONICA: In the long shadow of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller‘s hard-line anti-immigration policies, local and national observers alike are paying renewed attention to Miller’s upbringing in the famously liberal enclave once dubbed “the People’s Republic of Santa Monica.” Join me for a deep dive into Miller’s time at Santa Monica High School and learn why some of his former classmates think he’s getting his revenge on Southern California.

QUICK HITS

• On the docket for next week: The city’s charter reform commission will meet Wednesday afternoon. The City Council remains on recess.
• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s program to combat homelessness was in South Los Angeles this week, according to a tweet from Bass’ office.
• A political poem to pair with your morning coffee: “I Am Waiting” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti.

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.

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who can’t stop watching their favorite fictional serial killer.

The “Dexter” universe expands this week with the arrival of another spinoff. And it brings Dexter Morgan, the titular antihero played by Michael C. Hall, back from the dead. “Dexter: Resurrection” picks up after the events of “Dexter: New Blood” — we promise, we’re not trying to start a drinking game here — where the serial killer vigilante was seemingly killed. In anticipation of the show’s Friday premiere, Greg Braxton, our certified “Dexter” expert, spoke with Hall about reviving the killer role — check it out here. And this week’s Guest Spot features David Zayas, Hall’s co-star who plays Angel Batista, discussing his return.

Also in this week’s Screen Gab, our streaming suggestions include a cozy crime comedy featuring an antiques expert heroine and another home improvement series from the Chip and Joanna Gaines factory.

ICYMI

Must-read stories you might have missed

“Girls” creator Lena Dunham, right, returns to TV with the Netflix rom-com series “Too Much,” led by “Hacks” breakout star Megan Stalter.

(The Tyler Twins / For The Times)

When Lena met Megan: How a DM blossomed into ‘Too Much’: Netflix’s “Too Much” isn’t a story about friendship or sex. It’s about love — Lena Dunham’s version, and she knew Megan Stalter had what it took to be the star.

Maggie Q brings the heat to cold cases in ‘Ballard,’ a ‘Bosch’ spinoff series: The actress, known for her action-heavy roles in “Nikita,” “Mission: Impossible III” and “Designated Survivor,” stars in “Ballard,” about a LAPD detective based on a popular character in Michael Connelly’s bestselling novels.

Up, up and … eh? A rebooted ‘Superman’ gives the Man of Steel a mind of marshmallow: Director James Gunn launches his DC Extended Universe with a high-energy Superman played by David Corenswet, joined by co-stars Nicholas Hoult and Rachel Brosnahan.

Commentary: Can ‘Love Island USA’ watch parties offer a guide for saving linear television?: You don’t have to love “Love Island USA” to appreciate that in this increasingly fractured time of TV viewership, it is drawing people together.

Turn on

Recommendations from the film and TV experts at The Times

Steve Edge as Dom and Sally Lindsay as Jean in a scene from Acorn TV’s “The Madame Blanc Mysteries.”

(Mark Cassar / AcornTV)

“The Madame Blanc Mysteries” (Acorn TV)

Back for a fourth season, this series set among British expatriates in the south of France (played by the island of Malta) is nominally a detective show — there’s always a crime to solve — but at heart it’s a small-town comedy more interested in the lives of its quirky repeating characters than in whodunit. Series co-creator Sally Lindsay stars as Jean White, an antiques expert regularly called upon by Police Chief André Caron (Alex Gaumond) to analyze some clue or give the history of vintage stolen goods. Completing her world are alliterative, spritely rich oldsters Judith and Jeremy (Sue Holderness and Robin Askwith); garage owner Gloria (Sue Vincent); taxi driver Dom (Steve Edge), whose long-simmering passion for Jean has at last come to a boil; and, excitingly, Tony Robinson, who was Baldrick on “Blackadder,” as Dom’s formerly larcenous Uncle Patrick, now running the local bar where all the characters inevitably wind up. As is the case with many such shows, it gets sillier as it goes on; but if you want serious, there are plenty of dark serials happy to take your time. This place is sunny. — Robert Lloyd

“Mini Reni” (HBO Max, Discovery+)

As someone who can spend an alarming amount of time watching Sunday-reset cleaning videos on TikTok as a way to convince myself it has motivating powers, I am always on the lookout for home improvement shows that have the same effect. In the series, shiplap queen Joanna Gaines ditches hubby Chip to tackle “quick” home makeovers. With each episode, she has about a week to transform three rooms — “There’s no demo day. We’re just using things like paint, trim, tile and furniture” to change a space, she assures us. It’s still an ambitious undertaking for the average person — I have towel hooks that I’ve needed to hang for months, so the thought of having secret doorways installed anywhere in my space is just not happening — but it feels just as good to believe you’re getting ideas for a project down the line. — Yvonne Villarreal

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

David Zayas as Angel Batista in “Dexter: Resurrection.”

(Zach Dilgard / Paramount+ with Showtime)

“Dexter: Resurrection,” the latest addition to the ever-expanding “Dexter” universe, makes good on its title. After being shot in the chest — by his son, no less — and pronounced dead in the 2021 series “Dexter: New Blood,” Dexter Morgan (Michael C. Hall), the forensics specialist who moonlighted as a serial killer vigilante, is now very much alive and well enough to deliver some more narrative intrigue in the series for Paramount+ with Showtime. While there are newcomers added to the mix, returning characters include Angel Batista (David Zayas), Dexter’s friend who is now a captain at the Miami Metro Police Department where they once worked together — and he’s on a mission to fill in questions about Dexter’s past. Zayas stopped by Guest Spot to talk about what to expect in the new sequel series and how his own experiences in law enforcement inform his onscreen roles. — Yvonne Villarreal

Fans had hoped for the long-teased face-off between Batista and Dexter in “Dexter: New Blood,” but it didn’t happen. “Dexter: Resurrection” provides that anticipated reunion. What can you tease about the dynamic that plays out between these characters?

The dynamic between Batista and Dexter is now a cautious cat-and-mouse game. Batista is also still in shock about the revelation that Dexter been alive all these years.

One would imagine that your own experiences in law enforcement have loosely inspired or informed at least one scenario in the police or detective roles you’ve played in your career. What’s interesting to you about getting to explore that other career dramatically and/or cinematically?

I always explore the human element and the circumstances of the scene regardless of the position the character holds. Having been a real police officer, it helps me break down certain characters that I have encountered in my previous career.

You’re back in the new season of “The Bear,” as the supportive husband of Tina, who is played by your real-life wife, Liza Colón-Zayas. Describe what one of the show’s intense workplace scenes would look like if it were set in the Zayas kitchen.

I think a scene in our kitchen would become intense. Liza would just kick me out. She calls the shots in the kitchen.

What have you watched recently that you’re recommending to everyone you know?

Season 4 of “The Bear” [Hulu]. The characters are so real and unapologetically flawed. It makes every moment of the show important and captivating.

What’s your go-to “comfort watch,” the film or TV show you return to again and again?

“The West Wing” [HBO Max]. It always gives me hope of how our political system should work for the people of this country.

Mayor Karen Bass announced a plan Friday to provide direct cash assistance to people who have been affected by the Trump administration’s sweeping immigration raids.

The aid will be distributed using cash cards with a “couple hundred” dollars on them, which should be available in about a week, Bass said at a news conference.

“You have people who don’t want to leave their homes, who are not going to work, and they are in need of cash,” she said.

Bass spoke about a family she met who needed two incomes to afford their rent. After one of the breadwinners was detained in an immigration raid, she said, the family is concerned they may face eviction.

It was not immediately clear what the qualifications will be needed to receive the cards.

The mayor emphasized that the money will not come from city coffers but from philanthropic partners. The cards will be distributed by immigrants rights groups such as the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles.

The city will coordinate between philanthropists and organizations distributing the cards, according to the mayor’s office.

The mayor compared the program to “Angeleno Cards,” created by Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2020 to give financial assistance to people struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The announcement came during a Bass news conference about an executive order she signed Friday directing all city departments to “bolster protocols” and training on how to comply with the city’s sanctuary policy, which states that city employees and city property may not be used to “investigate, cite, arrest, hold, transfer or detain any person” for the purpose of immigration enforcement, except for serious crimes. Departments will have to come up with their plans within two weeks.

The Trump administration sued the city over the sanctuary policy last month, arguing that it discriminates against organizations like ICE.

The executive order also creates a working group that will examine — and possibly update — the LAPD’s policy on responding to immigration enforcement. Since 1979, the LAPD has taken a strong stance against enforcing federal immigration law, prohibiting its officers from initiating contact with anyone for the sole purpose of learning their immigration status.

The executive order also includes a directive to file Freedom of Information Act requests for Immigration and Customs Enforcement to turn over records with the dates and locations of every raid in the city since June 6, as well as the identities of the people detained and the reason for their detention.

The cash cards are one of a slew of announcements — including the executive order — this week by the mayor in response to the federal immigration crackdown in Los Angeles that has entered its second month.

Earlier this week, Bass and the city attorney announced the city’s intention to join a lawsuit calling for an end to the Trump administration’s “unlawful” raids in the city.

Elijah Asante, the football coach at Hamilton High who’s never been shy about making predictions, wants it to be known that he believes freshman quarterback Thaddeus Breaux is a future first-round NFL draft pick.

He calls him “the Franchise,” and has plans to let him throw 50 passes a game.

Breaux, who is 6 feet 3 and 205 pounds, welcomes the challenge of living up to high expectations. Working out with the Yankees on their new grass field with lights earlier this week, Breaux stood out with his size. On Saturday, he’ll get to show off his arm in the Culver City passing tournament.

Last season, the Yankees went 2-9 in Asante’s first season after taking over just a few weeks before practice began. He’s ambitious, having tried to schedule Mater Dei this season but settling for a season opener against Gardena Serra on Aug. 28. Doubt him at your own peril because he twice had teams beat Mater Dei when he was head coach at Carson and helped quarterback James Boyd become City player of the year at L.A. Jordan.

The Yankees appear to have more depth and talent this season. Besides Breaux, Miles Manilay is a returning safety, Jacob Riley has shown promise as a receiver and Micah Butler is an imposing 6-3, 275-pound junior lineman.

Asante is bringing back his best one-liner, “We will shock the world.” The big question is what is Asante referring to.

Manilay, with a 4.38 grade-point average and a sister who attends Harvard, is one of the captains. He sees a much improved team but also isn’t about to let Asante off the hook.

“I don’t know what world he’s talking about,” he said when asked about “shocking the world.”

Stay tuned.