Los Angeles (Calif)

Subterms

    Latest story

    150 Shares36 Views

    Trump Says He Will Put 100% Tariff on Movies Made Outside U.S.

    by

    Declaring foreign film production a national security threat, the president said he had asked his top trade official to start the process of imposing a tax on Hollywood.President Trump said he would impose a 100 percent tariff on movies “produced” outside the United States, proclaiming in a social media post on Sunday that the issue posed a national security threat. Mr. Trump said he had authorized Jamieson Greer, the United States Trade Representative, to begin the process of taxing “any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.” Mr. Trump added, “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat.”The Motion Picture Association, which represents the biggest Hollywood studios in Washington, declined to comment. The association’s latest economic impact report, based primarily on government data and released in 2023, showed that the film industry generated a positive U.S. balance of trade for every major market in the world.As is often is the case with Mr. Trump’s declarations on social media, it was not entirely clear what he was talking about. Did he mean any movie, including independent foreign-language films destined for art house cinemas and movies that play exclusively on streaming services?Would such a tariff apply only to movies receiving tax incentives from foreign countries — or to any movie with scenes shot overseas? What about postproduction visual effects work? A single superhero movie can often involve a half-dozen or more specialized firms scattered around the world.Technically speaking, the vast majority of movies shown in American cinemas are produced in the United States — scripts written, preproduction planning handled, principal actors cast, footage edited and sound added. But Hollywood has increasingly turned to foreign locales for the cameras-rolling part of the moviemaking process because, as with so much traditional manufacturing, it is much cheaper.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    More stories

    • 138 Shares56 Views

      in Elections

      Before the Fire, L.A. Tried to Restore Second Reservoir in Palisades

      by

      Water supplies ran dry in the Pacific Palisades fire, in part because a reservoir was shut down for repairs. Records show the city had tried and failed to prepare an alternative reservoir.Seven months before fire swept through the Pacific Palisades neighborhood of Los Angeles, the city’s water managers were formulating a plan to revive an old reservoir to temporarily boost the area’s limited water capacity.The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power was exploring the option because the neighborhood’s main reservoir — the Santa Ynez Reservoir — had been taken offline as a result of a torn cover, which officials had begun preparations to repair early in 2024. The repair project was still months away from completion this January when the fire broke out, and with the reservoir empty, firefighters ran short of water in fighting the blaze.Emails released to The New York Times under public records law show that the city had searched for solutions to rectify the monthslong supply shortage but, despite lengthy discussions and preliminary preparations, failed to correct the problem in time.In early June 2024, crews spent several days cleaning the Pacific Palisades Reservoir, a facility that was about three miles away from the larger Santa Ynez site, and that was retired in 2013. The work, officials wrote, was “in preparation for temporarily placing the Pacific Palisades Reservoir back into service while the Santa Ynez Reservoir is out of service.”After the cleaning was completed, the crews planned more work, including disinfection of the area and installation of new pipes.But the plan to bring the old reservoir back online was never completed. Ellen Cheng, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, said in an email on Friday that the city ultimately determined that bringing the reservoir back online could have posed a risk to workers and residents of nearby homes because of structural and other safety issues.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 150 Shares199 Views

      in Elections

      Jay North, Child Star Who Played ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Dies at 73

      by

      Mr. North was best known for playing the towheaded Dennis Mitchell on the television series, which ran on CBS from 1959 to 1963.Jay North, who played the well-meaning, trouble-causing protagonist of the popular CBS sitcom “Dennis the Menace” from 1959 to 1963, died on Sunday at his home in Lake Butler, Fla. He was 73.His death was confirmed by Laurie Jacobson, a friend of Mr. North’s for 30 years. The cause was colorectal cancer, Ms. Jacobson said.Mr. North played the towheaded Dennis Mitchell, who roamed his neighborhood, usually clad in a striped shirt and overalls, with his friends, and often exasperated his neighbor, a retiree named George Wilson, who was played by Joseph Kearns. Herbert Anderson played Dennis’s father, and Gloria Henry played his mother.Dennis winds up causing lots of trouble, usually by accident.In one episode, a truck knocks over a street sign, and Dennis and a friend stand it up — incorrectly. Workmen then dig a gigantic hole, meant to be a pool for a different address, in Mr. Wilson’s yard.The show, which was adapted from a comic strip by Hank Ketcham, presented an idyllic, innocent vision of suburban America as the 1950s gave way to the tumultuous ’60s.But things were not easy for Mr. North behind the scenes.Many years after “Dennis the Menace” ended, Mr. North said that his acting success came at the cost of a happy childhood.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      How a Black Progressive Transformed Into a Conservative Star

      by

      In the summer of 2020, Xaviaer DuRousseau was preparing to appear on a Netflix reality show called “The Circle,” where a group of strangers, isolated in separate apartments, compete for a cash prize and occasionally adopt fake digital personas to trick one another.Mr. DuRousseau, then 23, was a progressive who marched in Black Lives Matter protests, had pushed his university to require ethnic studies courses as a graduation requirement and voted for Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont in 2016. For the TV show, producers wanted Mr. DuRousseau, a Black man, to pose as a white woman and lecture others about racial injustice, before revealing his true identity.Mr. DuRousseau spent hours boning up on right-wing politics to get ready for debates with conservative contestants.But as he watched videos from PragerU, the conservative advocacy group, and Candace Owens, a right-wing influencer, he found himself nodding along.Maybe, he began to think, the media really was targeting President Trump for taking on the political establishment. Maybe free college and free health care were unrealistic goals, despite what Mr. Sanders said. Maybe police brutality against Black people was less common than he thought.“I was getting so frustrated, because I kept agreeing with some of the stuff that they were saying,” he said. “I just kept debunking myself, over and over.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 175 Shares169 Views

      in Elections

      ‘No Cake, No Entry’: More Than 1,000 Picnic to Celebrate the Love of Cake

      by

      No crumbs were left behind at Cake Picnic in San Francisco on Saturday as attendees gawked, photographed and ultimately ate 1,387 cakes.More than a thousand people gathered for a picnic on Saturday around tables draped with white tablecloths and spread over the lawn of the Legion of Honor art museum in San Francisco.There was just one rule: “No cake, no entry.”Kayla Kane, Mikayla Tencer and Lizzy Giap, left to right, wait to register and set down their cakes.Laura Morton for The New York TimesAttendees — including pastry chefs, home bakers and people with store-bought cakes — walked, drove and flew to bring elaborate cake creations to Cake Picnic, a touring festival where you can have your cake and eat it, too.“It was harder to get than a Taylor Swift concert ticket,” said Elisa Sunga, Cake Picnic’s organizer, noting that the $15 tickets sold out in less than a minute.This Cake Picnic turned out to be the biggest since it started nearly a year ago. Ms. Sunga described the intense interest in the festival as both “exciting” and “terrifying.”A spectacular variety of cakes adorned the tables, including: a light lemon cake with passion fruit filling, a tower made out of smaller spongecakes, Jell-O cake, pink champagne cake, a kid-baked dinosaur pyramid cake, and plenty of desserts with flowery ornaments.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Trump Pulled $400 million From Columbia. Other Schools Could Be Next.

      by

      The administration has circulated a list that includes nine other campuses, accusing them of failure to address antisemitism.The Trump Administration’s abrupt withdrawal of $400 million in federal funding from Columbia University cast a pall over at least nine other campuses worried they could be next.The schools, a mix that includes both public universities and Ivy League institutions, have been placed on an official administration list of schools the Department of Justice said may have failed to protect Jewish students and faculty.Faculty leaders at many of the schools have pushed back strongly against claims that their campuses are hotbeds of antisemitism, noting that while some Jewish students complained that they felt unsafe, the vast majority of protesters were peaceful and many of the protest participants were themselves Jewish. The Trump administration has made targeting higher education a priority. This week, the president threatened in a social media post to punish any school that permits “illegal” protests. On Jan. 30, his 10th day in office, he signed an executive order on combating antisemitism, focusing on what he called anti-Jewish racism at “leftists” universities. Then, on Feb. 3, he announced the creation of a multiagency task force to carry out the mandate.The task force appeared to move into action quickly after a pro-Palestinian sit-in and protest at Barnard College, a partner school to Columbia, led to arrests on Feb. 26. Two days later, the administration released its list of 10 schools under scrutiny, including Columbia, the site of large pro-Palestinian encampments last year.It said it would be paying the schools a visit, part of a review process to consider “whether remedial action is warranted.” Then on Friday, it announced it would be canceling millions in grants and contracts with Columbia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 88 Shares189 Views

      in Elections

      Inside the 2025 Vanity Fair Oscars Party

      by

      Zoe Saldaña stood in the middle of Vanity Fair’s Oscars after-party Sunday night, holding an In-N-Out burger in one hand and her best supporting actress statuette in the other.She hugged Cynthia Erivo twice and then grinned for a selfie with Gayle King. Queen Latifah applauded as she twirled at the center of a dance circle.If Adrien Brody had similar moves, he kept them to himself. He brought along his Oscar for best actor and his parents, who were asked over and over about how proud they must be of their son.“We’re so ashamed,” his father, Elliot Brody, deadpanned.At Vanity Fair’s annual post-Oscars party, the ceremony’s victors and also-rans streamed in one after another for a stiff drink or a victory lap.Kim Kardashian, left, and Helena ChristensenParis HiltonHalle BerryDanielle Brooks, left, and Cynthia ErivoWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      Former L.A. Fire Chief Kristin Crowley Appeals Her Dismissal

      by

      The appeal came less than a week after Mayor Karen Bass removed the chief from her job. She blamed her for a lack of preparation as a blaze destroyed the Pacific Palisades neighborhood.The former chief of the Los Angeles Fire Department appealed her dismissal on Thursday, less than a week after Mayor Karen Bass removed her from the post and blamed her for not being prepared as a wildfire devastated the city’s Pacific Palisades neighborhood.Kristin Crowley, the former chief, sent a letter to the Los Angeles City Council informing its members of her decision to appeal. “I look forward to hearing from you about next steps, if any,” she wrote on Thursday.Zach Seidl, a spokesman for the mayor, said that Ms. Crowley had a right to appeal her removal.But it is unlikely to succeed. Two-thirds of the City Council, or 10 of its 15 members, would need to approve the appeal for Ms. Crowley to be reinstated, according to the City Charter. At least four council members, including the council president, stood behind Mayor Bass at the news conference last week as she announced Ms. Crowley’s replacement.Ms. Bass has said publicly that she made a mistake leaving the country and traveling to Ghana days before the wildfires erupted across the region in early January. For weeks, she privately told friends that she would never have left had she been fully briefed on the scope of the threat.The mayor blamed Ms. Crowley for that lack of warning, an assertion that the chief has disputed. Ms. Crowley said that before Ms. Bass left the country, there had been numerous alerts from weather forecasters about the dangerous conditions.The dismissal came after weeks of tension. Veteran fire officials in the region had claimed that the response helmed by Ms. Crowley was significantly less aggressive and experienced than the department had mounted in past situations of high fire risk. Ms. Crowley maintained that the department had been underfunded, which the mayor and city budget officials denied.When Ms. Crowley was removed, the mayor said that she would remain with the Fire Department in an assignment to be determined by the new interim chief. At the time, Ms. Crowley seemed prepared to accept the agreement.But leaders of the city firefighters’ union have since pushed back on her removal, charging that Ms. Crowley was scapegoated for a ferocious fire driven by hurricane-force winds that would have been devastating regardless, and for ongoing budget constraints that were the fault of City Hall.Ms. Bass’s predecessor, Eric Garcetti, had appointed Ms. Crowley. The City Council has typically deferred to the mayor’s right to appoint new general managers. More

    • 100 Shares179 Views

      in Elections

      California’s Push for Electric Trucks Sputters Under Trump

      by

      The state will no longer require some truckers to shift away from diesel semis but hopes that subsidies can keep dreams of pollution-free big rigs alive.President Trump’s policies could threaten many big green energy projects in the coming years, but his election has already dealt a big blow to an ambitious California effort to replace thousands of diesel-fueled trucks with battery-powered semis.The California plan, which has been closely watched by other states and countries, was meant to take a big leap forward last year, with a requirement that some of the more than 30,000 trucks that move cargo in and out of ports start using semis that don’t emit carbon dioxide.But after Mr. Trump was elected, California regulators withdrew their plan, which required a federal waiver that the new administration, which is closely aligned with the oil industry, would most likely have rejected. That leaves the state unable to force trucking businesses to clean up their fleets. It was a big setback for the state, which has long been allowed to have tailpipe emission rules that are stricter than federal standards because of California’s infamous smog.Some transportation experts said that even before Mr. Trump’s election, California’s effort had problems. The batteries that power electric trucks are too expensive. They take too long to charge. And there aren’t enough places to plug the trucks in.“It was excessively ambitious,” said Daniel Sperling, a professor at the University of California, Davis, who specializes in sustainable transportation, referring to the program that made truckers buy green rigs.California officials insist that their effort is not doomed and say they will keep it alive with other rules and by providing truckers incentives to go electric.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More