The U.S. Department of Justice has agreed to stop demanding medical records that identify young patients who received gender-affirming care from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, ending a legal standoff with families who sued to block a subpoena that some feared would be used to criminally prosecute the parents of transgender kids.
The agreement, filed in federal court Thursday, allows the hospital to withhold certain records and redact personal information from others who underwent gender-affirming treatments, which Trump administration officials have compared to child mutilation despite support for such care by the nation’s major medical associations.
Several parents of CHLA patients expressed profound relief Friday, while also acknowledging that other threats to their families remain.
Jesse Thorn, the father of two transgender children who had been patients at Children’s Hospital, said hospital officials have ignored his requests for information as to whether they had already shared his kids’ data with the Trump administration, which had been scary. Hearing they had not, and now won’t, provided “two-fold” relief, he said.
“The escalations have been so relentless in the threats to our family, and one of the things that compounded that was the uncertainty about what the federal government knew about our kids’ medical care and what they were going to do about that,” he said.
Less clear is whether the agreement provides any new protections for doctors and other hospital personnel who provided care at the clinic and have also been targeted by the Trump administration.
The agreement follows similar victories for families seeking to block such disclosures by gender-affirming care clinics elsewhere in the country, including a ruling Thursday for the families of transgender kids who received treatment at Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C.
“What’s unique here is this was a class action,” said Alejandra Caraballo, a civil rights attorney and legal instructor at Harvard, who was not involved in the Los Angeles case. “I can’t undersell what a major win that is to protect the records of all these patients.”
Some litigation remains ongoing, with families fearful appeals to higher courts could end with different results. There is also Republican-backed legislation moving through Congress to restrict gender-affirming care for youths.
Another father of a transgender patient at Children’s Hospital, who requested anonymity because he fears for his child’s safety, said he was grateful for the agreement, but doesn’t see it as the end of the road. He fears the Trump administration could renew its subpoena if it wins on appeal in cases elsewhere.
“There’s some comfort, but it doesn’t close the book on it,” he said.
In a statement to The Times, the Justice Department said it “has not withdrawn its subpoena. Rather, it withdrew three requests for patient records based on the subpoenaed entity’s representation that it did not have custody of any such records.”
“This settlement avoids needless litigation based on that fact and further instructs Children’s Hospital Los Angeles to redact patient information in documents responsive to other subpoena requests,” the DOJ statement said. “As Attorney General Bondi has made clear, we will continue to use every legal and law enforcement tool available to protect innocent children from being mutilated under the guise of ‘care.’”
Children’s Hospital did not respond to a request for comment.
“This is a massive victory for every family that refused to be intimidated into backing down,” Khadijah Silver, director of Gender Justice & Health Equity at Lawyers for Good Government, which helped bring the lawsuit, said in a statement Friday. “The government’s attempt to rifle through children’s medical records was unconstitutional from the start. Today’s settlement affirms what we’ve said all along: these families have done nothing wrong, and their children’s privacy deserves protection.”
Until last summer, the Center for Transyouth Health and Development at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles was among the largest and oldest pediatric gender clinics in the United States — and one of few providing puberty blockers, hormones and surgical procedures for trans youth on public insurance.
It was also among the first programs to shutter under coordinated, multi-agency pressure exerted from the White House. Ending treatment for transgender children has been a central policy goal for the Trump administration since the president resumed office last year.
“These threats are no longer theoretical,” Children’s Hospital executives wrote to staff in an internal email announcing the closure of the clinic in June. “[They are] threatening our ability to serve the hundreds of thousands of patients who depend on CHLA for lifesaving care.”
In July, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi announced the Justice Department was subpoenaing patient records from gender-affirming care providers, specifically stating that medical professionals were a target of a probe into “organizations that mutilated children in the service of a warped ideology.”
California law explicitly protects gender-affirming care, and the state and others led by Democrats have fought back in court, but most providers nationwide have shuttered under the White House push, stirring fear of a de facto ban.
Parents feared the subpoenas could lead to child abuse charges, which the government could then use to strip them of custody of their children. Doctors feared they could be arrested and imprisoned for providing medical care that is broadly backed by the medical establishment and is legal in the states where they performed it.
The Justice Department’s subpoena to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles had initially requested a vast array of personally identifying documents, specially calling for records “sufficient to identify each patient [by name, date of birth, social security number, address, and parent/guardian information] who was prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.”
It also called for records “relating to the clinical indications, diagnoses, or assessments that formed the basis for prescribing puberty blockers or hormone therapy,” and for records “relating to informed consent, patient intake, and parent or guardian authorization for minor patients” to receive gender-affirming care.
According to the new agreement, the Justice Department withdrew its requests for those specific records — which had yet to be produced by the hospital — on Dec. 8, and told Children’s Hospital to redact the personally identifying information of patients in other records it was still demanding.
Thursday’s agreement formalizes that position, and requires the Justice Department to return or destroy any records that provide personally identifying information moving forward.
“The Government will not use this patient identifying information to support any investigation or prosecution,” the agreement states.
According to the attorneys for the families who sued, the settlement protects the records of their clients but also all of the clinic’s other gender-affirming care patients. “To date, they assured us, no identifiable patient information has been received, and now it cannot be,” said Amy Powell, with Lawyers for Good Government.
Cori Racela, executive director for Western Center on Law & Poverty, called it a “crucial affirmation that healthcare decisions belong in exam rooms, not government subpoenas.”
“Youth, families, and medical providers have constitutional rights to privacy and dignity,” she said in a statement. “No one’s private health records should be turned into political ammunition — especially children.”
The agreement was also welcomed by families of transgender kids beyond Southern California.
“This has been hanging over those families specifically in L.A., of course, but for all families,” said Arne Johnson, a Bay Area father of a transgender child who helps run a group of similar families called Rainbow Families Action. “Every time one of these subpoenas goes out, it’s terrifying.”
Johnson said each victory pushing back against the government’s demands for family medical records feels “like somebody is pointing a gun at your kid and a hero comes along and knocks it out of their hand — it’s literally that visceral of a feeling.”
Johnson said he hopes recent court wins will push hospitals to resist canceling care for transgender children.
“Parents are the ones that are fighting back and they’re the ones that are winning, and the hospitals should take their lead,” he said. “Hospitals should be fighting in the same way the parents are, so that their doctors and other providers can be protected.”
The Trump administration has said it is freezing child care funds to all states until they provide more verification and administrative data about the programs in a move fueled by a series of fraud schemes at Minnesota day care centers run by Somali residents.
All 50 states will be impacted by the review, but the Republican administration is focusing most of its ire on the blue state of Minnesota. Minnesota Democratic Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement Wednesday that he was “exploring all our legal options to ensure that critical childcare services do not get abruptly slashed based on pretext and grandstanding.”
Minnesota will face additional hurdles to restart child care funding by needing to provide even more verification for child care centers in the state that are suspected of fraud. The administration is also calling for an audit of some Minnesota child care centers after a series of fraud schemes involving government programs in the state in recent years.
It is unclear how much more robust the verification process for states will be than it was before the new measures were implemented.
Deputy Secretary of Health and Human Services Jim O’Neill called it a response to “blatant fraud that appears to be rampant in Minnesota and across the country” in a social media post announcing the change on Tuesday. Officials are also requiring all states to provide additional verification to get child care funds.
Here are some things to know about these moves:
More verification needed for all states to get child care funds All 50 states will have to provide additional levels of verification and administrative data before they receive more funding from the Child Care and Development Fund, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson. However, before Minnesota can receive child care funds again, it will have to provide even more verification for child care centers in that state that are suspected of fraud, such as attendance and licensing records, past enforcement actions and inspection reports.
In his post on Tuesday, O’Neill said all Administration for Children and Families payments nationwide would require “justification and a receipt or photo evidence” before money is sent, but the HHS spokesperson said Wednesday that the additional verifications only apply to CCDF payments.
Walz says Trump is politicizing the issue Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic vice presidential nominee, said in a social media post that fraudsters are a serious issue that the state has spent years cracking down on but that this move is part of “Trump’s long game.”
“He’s politicizing the issue to defund programs that help Minnesotans,” Walz said.
State Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy condemned the move in a statement Wednesday.
“Republicans are playing sick games and winning devastating prizes,” Murphy said. “And now, tens of thousands of Minnesota families will pay the price as Donald’s Trump’s agents strip away crucial funding. Our day care system is already stressed; this reckless decision could force a collapse that affects all of us.”
Fraud investigations could stretch to other programs, states The administration launched efforts in recent weeks to track down fraud in other programs in Minnesota and is looking at fraud in other states. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in an interview with “Fox & Friends” on Wednesday that the administration is considering similar fraud investigations in other blue states, such as California and New York.
The administration will continue to send officers to investigate “potential fraud sites” in Minnesota and deport undocumented immigrants, Leavitt said, adding that the Department of Homeland Security is considering plans to denaturalize citizens.
The Department of Labor is also investigating the state’s unemployment insurance program, Leavitt said. The administration this month threatened to withhold SNAP food aid funding from Democratic-controlled states, including Minnesota, unless they provide information about people receiving assistance. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in December sent Minnesota a letter threatening to disqualify it from SNAP and cut funding unless it recertified the eligibility for over 100,000 households and interviewed them in-person within 30 days, according to a lawsuit filed by Minnesota’s attorney general, who Leavitt criticized.
Attention focused on Minnesota The announcement came a day after U.S. Homeland Security officials conducted a fraud investigation in Minneapolis, questioning workers at unidentified businesses. Trump has criticized Walz’s administration over the cases, capitalizing on them to target the Somali diaspora in the state, which has the largest Somali population in the U.S.
In his post Tuesday, O’Neill, who is serving as acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, referenced a right-wing influencer who posted a video last week claiming he found that day care centers operated by Somali residents in Minneapolis had committed up to $100 million in fraud.
Meanwhile, there are concerns about harassment that home-based day care providers and members of the Somali community nationwide might face amid the vitriol, including Trump’s comments earlier this month, referring to Somali immigrants as “garbage.” Washington state Attorney General Nick Brown released a statement about home-based day care providers being harassed and accused of fraud, saying, “Showing up on someone’s porch, threatening, or harassing them isn’t an investigation. Neither is filming minors who may be in the home.”
The Trump administration and House Republicans advanced measures this week to end gender-affirming care for transgender children and some young adults, drawing outrage and resistance from LGBTQ+ advocacy organizations, families with transgender kids, medical providers and some of California’s liberal leaders.
The latest efforts — which seek to ban such care nationwide, strip funding from hospitals that provide it and punish doctors and parents who perform or support it — follow earlier executive orders from President Trump and work by the Justice Department to rein in such care.
Many hospitals, including in California, have already curtailed such care or shuttered their gender-affirming care programs as a result.
Abigail Jones, a 17-year-old transgender activist from Riverside, called the moves “ridiculous” and dangerous, as such care “saves lives.”
She also called them a purely political act by Republicans intent on making transgender people into a “monster” to rally their base against, and one that is “going to backfire on them because they’re not focusing on what the people want,” such as affordability and lower healthcare costs.
On Wednesday, the House passed a sweeping ban on gender-affirming care for youth that was put forward by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), largely along party lines.
The bill — which faces a tougher road in the U.S. Senate — bars already rare gender-affirming surgeries but also more common treatments such as hormone therapies and puberty blockers for anyone under 18. It also calls for the criminal prosecution of doctors and other healthcare workers who provide such care, and for penalties for parents who facilitate or consent to it being performed on their children.
“Children are not old enough to vote, drive, or get a tattoo and they are certainly not old enough to be chemically castrated or permanently mutilated!!!” Greene posted on X.
“The tide is turning and I’m so grateful that congress is taking measurable steps to end this practice that destroyed my childhood,” posted Chloe Cole, a prominent “detransitioner” who campaigns against gender-affirming care for children, which she received and now regrets.
Queer rights groups denounced the measure as a dangerous threat to medical providers and parents, and one that mischaracterizes legitimate care backed by major U.S. medical associations. They also called it a threat to LGBTQ+ rights more broadly.
“Should this bill become law, doctors could face the threat of prison simply for doing their jobs and providing the care they were trained to deliver. Parents could be criminalized and even imprisoned for supporting their children and ensuring they receive prescribed medication,” said Kelley Robinson, president of the Human Rights Campaign, one of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+ rights groups.
On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services are proposing new rules that would ban such care by medical providers that participate in its programs — which includes nearly all U.S. hospitals. The health department said the move is “designed to ensure that the U.S. government will not be in business with organizations that intentionally or unintentionally inflict permanent harm on children.”
The department said officials will propose additional rules to prohibit Medicaid or federal Children’s Health Insurance Program funding from being used for gender-affirming care for children or for young adults under the age of 19, and that its Office of Civil Rights would be proposing a rule to exclude gender dysphoria as a covered disability.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, issued warning letters to manufacturers of certain medical devices, including breast binders, that marketing their products to transgender youth is illegal.
“Under my leadership, and answering President Trump’s call to action, the federal government will do everything in its power to stop unsafe, irreversible practices that put our children at risk,” Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said in a statement. “Our children deserve better — and we are delivering on that promise.”
The proposed rule changes are subject to public comment, and the Human Rights Campaign and other LGBTQ+ organizations, including the Los Angeles LGBT Center, urged their supporters to voice their opposition.
Joe Hollendoner, the center’s chief executive, said the proposed changes “cruelly target transgender youth” and will “destabilize safety-net hospitals” and other critical care providers.
“Hospitals should never be forced to choose between providing lifesaving care to transgender young people and delivering critical services like cancer treatment to other patients,” Hollendoner said. “Yet this is exactly the division and harm these rules are designed to create.”
Hollendoner noted that California hospitals such as Children’s Hospital Los Angeles have already curtailed their gender-affirming services in the face of earlier threats from the Trump administration, and thousands of transgender youth have already lost access to care.
Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statement contrasting the Trump administration’s moves with California’s new partnership with The Trevor Project, to improve training for the state’s 988 crisis and suicide hotline for vulnerable youth, including LGBTQ+ kids at disproportionately high risk of suicide and mental health issues.
“As the Trump administration abandons the well-being of LGBTQ youth, California is putting more resources toward providing vulnerable kids with the mental health support they deserve,” Newsom said.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta’s office is already suing the Trump administration for its efforts to curtail gender-affirming care and target providers of such care in California, where it is protected and supported by state law. His office has also resisted Trump administration efforts to roll back other transgender rights, including in youth sports.
On Thursday, Bonta said the proposed rules were “the Trump Administration’s latest attempt to strip Americans of the care they need to live as their authentic selves.” He also said they are “unlawful,” and that his office will fight them.
“If the Trump Administration puts forth final rules similar to these proposals, we stand ready to use every tool in our toolbox to prevent them from ever going into effect,” Bonta said — adding that “medically necessary gender-affirming care remains protected by California law.”
Arne Johnson, a Bay Area father of a transgender child who helps run a group of similar families called Rainbow Families Action, said there has been “a lot of hate spewed” toward them in recent days, but they are focused on fighting back — and asking hospital networks to “not panic and shut down care” based on proposed rules that have not been finalized.
Johnson said Republicans and Trump administration officials are “weirdly obsessed” with transgender kids’ bodies, are “breaking the trust between us and our doctors,” and are putting politics in between families and their healthcare providers in dangerous ways.
He said parents of transgender kids are “used to being hurt and upset and sad and worried about their kids, and also doing everything in their power to make sure that nothing bad happens to them,” and aren’t about to stop fighting now.
But resisting such medical interference isn’t just about gender-affirming care. Next it could be over vaccines being blocked for kids, he said — which should get all parents upset and vocal.
“If our kids don’t get care, they’re coming for your kids next,” Johnson said. “Pretty soon all of us are going to be going into hospital rooms wondering whether that doctor across from us can be trusted to give our kid the best care — or if their hands are going to be tied.”
The Times spoke to several therapists, social workers, researchers and organizations serving Thai and Asian Americans to examine how treatment and recovery can be tailored toward their needs. These recommendations emerged: addressing a client’s practical needs, involving family and community in their care and practicing mindfulness in the context of community.
Addressing clients’ practical needs first
Gordon Hall, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Oregon, explained that Asian Americans have high dropout rates after going to therapy. Helping them solve practical problems can be a way to keep them engaged.
“[Some therapists] may spend the first three weeks on [a client’s] thoughts and feelings, and maybe that will eventually get to the person’s practical problems,” Hall said. “But for many Asian Americans, they may think: What do my thoughts and feelings have to do with this conflict I’m having with my mom, or this issue with my boss about asking for a raise?”
Natyra Na Takuathung, a case manager at Asian Pacific Counseling & Treatment Centers, works with psychiatric social worker Wanda Pathomrit to help clients, many of whom are Thai immigrants, apply for social benefits. Pathomrit meets with clients to understand their mental health anxieties, and Na Takuathung can help them apply for programs like CalFresh or CalWorks.
Pathomrit explained that she integrates case management into her therapy sessions because many clients with depression, trauma or avoidance behaviors may struggle to maintain relationships with case managers or follow through on referrals. Instead of separating the roles, she uses real-world situations — navigating the Department of Public Social Services or substance treatment centers — as opportunities to build coping skills, practice emotional regulation and foster self-compassion.
“By coaching in the moment, I help clients grow confidence and self-esteem while accessing services,” Pathomrit said. “For high-need, high-risk cases, this intensive approach is not ‘extra’ — it’s critical for progress.”
But some clients are hesitant to accept help, explained Na Takuathung, because they believe they will “burden” society by doing so.
“They had this idea that if they did not ask for public benefits, then they were ‘good immigrants,’” Na Takuathung said. “They would think it’s better that they struggled and made their own money, and even if it wasn’t enough, they would just struggle in silence.”
The choice is ultimately up to them, Na Takuathung said. But she explains how these programs can relieve some of their stress, reminding them that they do not have to feel guilty.
“You’ve been living in this country. You contributed to this country, too,” Na Takuathung said. “You deserve kindness.”
Involving family in care
In a study examining culturally competent treatments for Asian Americans, Hall and co-author Janie Hong explain that Western-based approaches tend to emphasize individualism and personal reflection.
“You go in, you have to talk about your problems, you have to verbalize what’s going on inside to a stranger within 50 minutes, and that healing happens through this vocalization of your internal experiences,” said Hong, a clinical associate professor at Stanford Medicine.
In contrast, many Asian communities are rooted in collectivist cultures, where identity and wellness are deeply intertwined with family and group harmony.
“If you’re in a community where everyone’s supposed to be taking care of you and you’re supposed to be taking care of them, if you have a problem, that implicates your whole group,” Hall said. “Approaches that are very focused on the individual … may deter Asian Americans from seeking treatment.”
As the chief clinical officer of Richmond Area Multi-Services, one of the country’s first agencies addressing Asian American and Pacific Islander communities’ needs for culturally competent services, Christina Shea has observed the value of involving family members in a person’s care.
“If you work with [a client] in the Western psychology, it helps because that’s one unit,” Shea said. “But if you work with, say, somebody from Southeast Asia [and] you work with one individual, that’s not enough. That’s not a unit, because that person is connected with the family.”
Phramaha Dusit Sawaengwong sees these dynamics frequently as a monk at Wat Thai of Los Angeles. He commonly observes conflict when immigrant parents’ high hopes and expectations clash with their children’s own career aspirations.
Phramaha Dusit Sawaengwong, monk and secretary, stands inside the temple at Wat Thai of Los Angeles.
(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)
Language barriers can exacerbate the disagreement. A common Thai word used to describe suffering is hua òk ja tàek, which means that one’s chest (heart area) is about to shatter. But parents with limited English may have difficulty conveying this sentiment to their child.
“[They] want to say something, but [they] don’t know how to say it,” he said.
Since parents often visit him at the temple for counseling help, he advises them to let their child absorb all the different opportunities available to them and to let them bloom.
“Don’t expect … just let them learn,” Sawaengwong said.
Support can extend beyond family.
Danielle Ung, a counseling and health psychology assistant professor at Bastyr University, is examining the mental health toll on Southeast Asian students during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. She works with patients to identify communities where they can receive support, viewing community as “concentric circles that surround that person.”
“Community can mean friends, extended families, adopted families, even the community which you live in,” Ung said.
Pam Evagee and Ta Sanalak are volunteer teachers at Wat Thai temple who coordinate Thai-language lessons and cultural programs to foster communication and understanding between family members. They ask parents to understand how living in the U.S. can influence their child’s beliefs while explaining to the student the importance of learning traditional customs because of where their parents grew up.
“We understand the parent because we are Thai, and we understand the kid because we’ve lived here [in the U.S.] for quite some time,” Sanalak said.
Families can also support each other at Wat Thai.
Some kids may be the only Thai student at their school, explained Evagee. At the temple, they can form friendships with other Thai students who understand their challenges. And many parents will cook meals together at the temple for their children while sharing advice on handling conflicts within families.
Mindfulness is a core tenet of Buddhism. According to the Pew Research Center, 90% of adults in Thailand identify as Buddhist, and many Thai Americans continue to practice the religion.
According to Hall, many Western therapies incorporate mindfulness, but the focus remains on the individual, whereas Eastern-based mindfulness practices account for the self within a community.
“There’s what’s called loving kindness meditation, where you focus on someone who’s done something for you,” Hall said. “You might meditate on your mother to the extent that she’s taken care of you, the gratitude you have for [her] and what you [owe] her.”
Buddhist monk Phiphop Phuphong frequently employs this approach when visiting people who are ill or hospitalized.
A diabetic man who had his leg amputated expressed deep grief over the loss and shame at “becoming a burden,” feeling dependent on his mother and sister. Phuphong guided him through mindfulness exercises to help him find peace with his new reality while encouraging him to stay strong for his mother’s and sister’s sake.
“Your body is your present,” Phuphong said through an interpreter. “Bring your mind back to your home.”
Health policies and training have come a long way
The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health has services to reach underserved communities. It supports cultural competency through translation and interpreting services, culturally and linguistically inclusive services and bilingual bonuses for employees. But language is just the start.
“We’re trying to cover all of our bases, but I do think there’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Dr. Lisa Wong, who heads the department. “And I don’t think we’re going to make a huge amount of progress until we bring a more diverse workforce into mental health.”
Wong added that it is difficult to recruit clinical professionals from diverse ethnic backgrounds because many new immigrants and their children choose higher-earning professions rather than mental health fields.
In addition, much of the training and education for practitioners are still based on Western concepts of mental health and recovery. Many evidence-based models were developed from research on predominantly Eurocentric populations, explained Carl Highshaw, executive director of the National Assn. of Social Workers’ California chapter.
“While these models have value, they often fail to capture the realities of immigrant and collectivist cultures,” Highshaw said. “We need to adapt and co-create interventions that honor cultural traditions, family systems and community networks.”
Hong appreciates that many therapists are now acknowledging clients’ cultural context. Equally important, she said, is finding methods that do not stereotype.
“Not all Asian Americans are going to respond to a problem-solving approach, and not all Asian Americans are collectivist or interdependent,” Hall added. “[Some] may really want the mainstream cognitive behavioral approach. They want to talk about their thoughts and feelings, and that may actually help them.”
Approaches that have worked for the Thai community and for Asian Americans can work for other communities too, Hall said.
For Highshaw, cultural competence is “not optional,” especially in a diverse state like California.
“Moving beyond a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “Ensuring that interventions reflect the lived experiences, values and strengths of the communities we serve … is an ethical responsibility.”
Interpreter Supakit Art Pattarateranon contributed to this report.
Of all the finger-pointing and recriminations that come with the current federal government shutdown, one of the most striking elements is that the Trump administration blames it on Democratic support for granting taxpayer-funded healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants. The White House has called out California specifically, saying the state exploits a legal “loophole” to pay for that coverage with federal dollars, and other states have followed suit.
“California utilized an egregious loophole — since employed by several other states — to draw down federal matching funds used to provide Medicaid benefits for illegal immigrants,” the White House said in a policy memo released Wednesday as a budget stalemate forced a shutdown of the U.S. government.
The administration said that the Working Families Tax Cut Act, which goes into effect in October 2026, closes the loophole by prohibiting the use of taxpayer money to provide healthcare coverage to undocumented immigrants and other noncitizens.
In the memo, the White House accused congressional Democrats of wanting to repeal those policy reforms as a condition to keep the government running.
Izzy Gardon, a spokeswoman for Gov. Gavin Newsom, said there’s nothing to the administration’s underlying assertion that California and other states have found some sort of loophole that enables them to funnel Medicaid money to noncitizens.
“This is false — CA does not do this,” Gardon said in a one-line email to the L.A. Times.
Healthcare policy experts agree. California is not exploiting a “loophole,” said Adriana Ramos-Yamamoto, a senior policy analyst at the California Budget & Policy Center, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that studies inequality.
“The state is making lawful, transparent budget choices to invest in health coverage with its own dollars,” Ramos-Yamamoto said in a statement to The Times. “These investments improve health outcomes, strengthen communities, and lower health care costs in the long run.”
At issue is Section 71117 of the Republican-backed “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which imposes nearly $1 trillion in reductions to federal Medicaid healthcare spending for low-income Americans over the next 10 years. The provision allows states “to finance the non-federal share of Medicaid spending through multiple sources, including state general funds, healthcare related taxes (or ‘provider taxes’), and local government funds,” as long as taxes on healthcare providers are imposed uniformly so as not to unfairly burden providers of Medicaid services.
The bottom line, analysts said, is the administration is citing a problem with the law that doesn’t seem to exist, at least not in California.
“The so-called California loophole references a provision in the law that ends a waiver of the uniformity requirements for provider taxes — this provision has nothing to do with using federal funds to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” said Jennifer Tolbert, a healthcare expert at the nonprofit healthcare research, polling and news organization KFF.
“But the White House makes the claim that California uses the money they get from the provider tax to pay for care for undocumented immigrants,” Tolbert said.
Fact-checking the administration’s claim is all the more difficult because there are no official data on how states spend money collected from provider taxes, Alice Burns, another KFF analyst, added. What’s more, California is among several states that offer some level of Medicaid coverage to all immigrants regardless of status. And because California cannot be federally reimbursed for healthcare spending on people who are not in the country legally, those expenses must be covered at the state level.
The White House memo goes on to claim that if Democrats were to succeed at repealing the provisions in the Working Families Tax Act, the federal government would have to spend an additional $34.6 billion in taxpayer money “that would continue to primarily be abused by California to fund healthcare for illegal immigrants.”
This assertion also misconstrues the facts, according to KFF.
“What we do know is that the $35 billion in savings that is referenced in the White House Fact Sheet refers to the federal government’s estimated savings … resulting from states making changes to their provider tax systems,” KFF spokesperson Tammie Smith said. That is, the projected savings aren’t connected to healthcare for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally.
Political squabbling aside, California’s approach to medical coverage for low-income, undocumented immigrants is set to undergo a major shift thanks to provisions in the 2025-26 state budget that the Democrat-led legislature and Newsom approved in June.
Starting on Jan. 1, adults “who do not have Satisfactory Immigration Status (SIS)” will no longer be able to enroll in Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, according to the state’s Department of Health Care Services webpage. Those who already have this coverage can keep it and continue to renew their enrollment. And starting on July 1, Medi-Cal enrollees who are age 19-59, undocumented and not pregnant will have to pay a $30 monthly premium to keep their coverage.
“In light of the militarized mass immigration raids and arrests causing fear and chaos across California, we are disappointed that the governor and the leadership in the Legislature chose to adopt a state budget that makes our communities even more vulnerable,” Masih Fouladi, the center’s executive director said at the time.
Everyone in California who qualifies for Medi-Cal will still be eligible to receive emergency medical and dental care, no matter their immigration status.
Springfield, Ore. – The Oregon Department of Human Services (ODHS) Child Welfare Division is asking for the public’s help in locating a missing 14-year-old girl from Springfield. Stella “Clay” Dolton, a child in foster care, was last seen on Sunday, Sept. 22, and is believed to be in danger.
Authorities believe Stella may be attempting to travel from Eugene to the Portland area.
ODHS urges anyone who sees her or has information about her whereabouts to call 911 or contact local law enforcement immediately.
Description:
Name: Stella “Clay” Dolton
Pronouns: She/Her
Date of Birth: Dec. 24, 2010
Height: 5 feet 3 inches
Weight: 140 pounds
Hair Color: Brown
Eye Color: Brown
The case is being handled by the Springfield Police Department under case number 25-6345. She is also listed with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children under case #2062243.
ODHS noted that missing children in foster care may be at significant risk, and media alerts are issued when necessary to help ensure their safety. In some cases, a child may go missing multiple times, prompting more than one public alert.
Anyone with concerns about the safety of a child or adult in Oregon is encouraged to report abuse or neglect by calling the Oregon Child Abuse Hotline at 1-855-503-SAFE (7233). The hotline operates 24/7, including weekends and holidays.
The Powerball jackpot reached $1.1 billion after no tickets matched all six numbers in Saturday night’s drawing, making it the fifth-largest prize ever. The cash value is nearly half a billion dollars. In Sacramento, hopefuls headed to Lichine’s Liquor on South Land Park Drive, a store known for its lucky streak, having sold a winning ticket worth $1.7 million last year.KCRA 3 asked several people buying tickets what they would do with the money if they won. “A lot of plans, I have a family to take care of. For myself, a vacation. I’m retired now, so it’s a good time to get some money and enjoy life,” said Shajendra Sharma. “Oh man, we’re gonna do a whole lot of magic,” said Frank Dumlao. “Take care of the family, take care of some of the people that need it more than others, you know, stuff like that.””I think it would be a great opportunity to take some vacation in Europe, you know. And buy a home on the French Riviera, yeah. My dream,” said Francis Bourton.The dreamers of winning big bought their tickets at Luchine’s Liquor Store, which has had several big winners in the past.”It’s why everybody comes here,” said Dumlao.The California Lottery once listed the store as the sixth-luckiest place in the state for winning $1 million or more.The Chevron gas station in Arden-Arcade was also busy on Monday. It’s a lucky store too.It sold a $41 million Super Lotto ticket in 2022.”We have sold many… two Powerballs and one Super Lotto, and it’s lucky. So that’s why people are coming and buying the lottos from here,” said clerk Rahul Riydan.Only six Powerball grand prizes have topped a billion dollars, and the odds of winning are about one in 292 million. Four Californians missed Saturday’s jackpot by just one number but still won seven-figure payouts. Learn more here. Unfortunately, no big winners in Sacramento on Monday. But one Californian matched five numbers, winning around $1.3 million. Learn more here. For anyone hoping for similar luck, the next drawing is Wednesday at 8 p.m., and tickets are $2.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
The Powerball jackpot reached $1.1 billion after no tickets matched all six numbers in Saturday night’s drawing, making it the fifth-largest prize ever. The cash value is nearly half a billion dollars.
In Sacramento, hopefuls headed to Lichine’s Liquor on South Land Park Drive, a store known for its lucky streak, having sold a winning ticket worth $1.7 million last year.
KCRA 3 asked several people buying tickets what they would do with the money if they won.
“A lot of plans, I have a family to take care of. For myself, a vacation. I’m retired now, so it’s a good time to get some money and enjoy life,” said Shajendra Sharma.
“Oh man, we’re gonna do a whole lot of magic,” said Frank Dumlao. “Take care of the family, take care of some of the people that need it more than others, you know, stuff like that.”
“I think it would be a great opportunity to take some vacation in Europe, you know. And buy a home on the French Riviera, yeah. My dream,” said Francis Bourton.
The dreamers of winning big bought their tickets at Luchine’s Liquor Store, which has had several big winners in the past.
“It’s why everybody comes here,” said Dumlao.
The California Lottery once listed the store as the sixth-luckiest place in the state for winning $1 million or more.
The Chevron gas station in Arden-Arcade was also busy on Monday. It’s a lucky store too.
It sold a $41 million Super Lotto ticket in 2022.
“We have sold many… two Powerballs and one Super Lotto, and it’s lucky. So that’s why people are coming and buying the lottos from here,” said clerk Rahul Riydan.
Only six Powerball grand prizes have topped a billion dollars, and the odds of winning are about one in 292 million.
Four Californians missed Saturday’s jackpot by just one number but still won seven-figure payouts. Learn more here.
Unfortunately, no big winners in Sacramento on Monday. But one Californian matched five numbers, winning around $1.3 million. Learn more here.
For anyone hoping for similar luck, the next drawing is Wednesday at 8 p.m., and tickets are $2.
Charges have officially been filed after 21 dogs were found dead at a boarding facility in Argyle, New York.Robert and Anastasia Palulis, the owners of Anastasia’s Acres, are facing 22 misdemeanor counts after investigators said the building where the dogs were held did not have proper water access or ventilation.The charges are for overdriving, torturing, and injuring animals; failure to provide proper sustenance, which is considered a misdemeanor under New York State Law, according to court paperwork obtained by sister station WPTZ.One dog was taken to an emergency animal clinic for care.Both owners were released and are due in Argyle court at a later date.The owner of two of the dogs who died said she was devastated by the news of her beloved pets’ deaths.”Their house is literally 30 feet from the kennel where the dogs are boarded,” said Danielle Barber. “So the fact that nobody went out to check on the dogs at any point in time. I’m sure there were dogs barking in distress.”Anastasia’s Acres has been in business since 2020, and provides boarding, day care, training, grooming, and home care services for local dog owners, according to their website.Barber went on to say that she has not heard from either Robert or Anastasia Palulis following the incident.”I hope that she is held responsible… there are 21 dogs involved, it’s just completely unforgivable,” Barber said. “And the fact that she has not reached out in any sort of capacity to offer condolences, remorse, anything speaks volumes.”On Monday, WPTZ reached out to the owners of the business for comment, but they did not respond.
ARGYLE, N.Y. —
Charges have officially been filed after 21 dogs were found dead at a boarding facility in Argyle, New York.
Robert and Anastasia Palulis, the owners of Anastasia’s Acres, are facing 22 misdemeanor counts after investigators said the building where the dogs were held did not have proper water access or ventilation.
The charges are for overdriving, torturing, and injuring animals; failure to provide proper sustenance, which is considered a misdemeanor under New York State Law, according to court paperwork obtained by sister station WPTZ.
One dog was taken to an emergency animal clinic for care.
Both owners were released and are due in Argyle court at a later date.
via Washington County Sheriff’s Office
Robert and Anastasia Palulis
The owner of two of the dogs who died said she was devastated by the news of her beloved pets’ deaths.
“Their house is literally 30 feet from the kennel where the dogs are boarded,” said Danielle Barber. “So the fact that nobody went out to check on the dogs at any point in time. I’m sure there were dogs barking in distress.”
Anastasia’s Acres has been in business since 2020, and provides boarding, day care, training, grooming, and home care services for local dog owners, according to their website.
Barber went on to say that she has not heard from either Robert or Anastasia Palulis following the incident.
“I hope that she is held responsible… [the fact that] there are 21 dogs involved, it’s just completely unforgivable,” Barber said. “And the fact that she has not reached out in any sort of capacity to offer condolences, remorse, anything speaks volumes.”
On Monday, WPTZ reached out to the owners of the business for comment, but they did not respond.
FACT: A pet resource center is NOT the same as an animal shelter; however, it does include animal sheltering as a component of the services offered. In a traditional animal sheltering model, the animal shelter is where pets are taken to get any kind of resources or help, but is not usually the best solution.
I don’t know why, but some kids are reeeeally not into brushing their teeth. They fight their parents on it and seem adverse to anything that has to do with toothpaste, mouthwash or floss. So, if you have a child who is resisting healthy oral hygiene, here are some tips to help you out.
Colour-changing mouthwash. It’s a bit tricky to find up here (they sell it south of the border), but Listerine has this amazing mouthwash that makes any plaque or food on a child’s teeth turn blue or green – that way, they can see exactly which spots need to be brushed. Plus, it turns teeth-brushing into a game.
Tooth timer. This also makes brushing a bit more fun and challenging because kids have to brush their teeth for a certain amount of time. You can buy an actual little tooth-shaped timer, or a regular one from a board game would do.
Learn about oral care. You know those little laminated placemats? They’re usually blank on the back. Using a black wipe-off marker, draw some teeth, and then give your child the coloured wipe-off markers to draw little “germs” on them. Then, with a cheapy dollar store toothbrush, have them “brush” off the germs.
There’s also an awesome dentist Playdoh set that can make learning about teeth fun.
Buy oral care products together. Take your little one to the pharmacy and pick out their toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and mouthwash (another quick trick: electric toothbrushes are more exciting for some kids).
A full-time work-from-home mom, Jennifer Cox (our “Supermom in Training”) loves dabbling in healthy cooking, craft projects, family outings, and more, sharing with readers everything she knows about being an (almost) superhero mommy.
JEFFERSON COUNTY — Families with loved ones living at Villagio Senior Living in Jefferson County are left scrambling to find them new homes after the facility announced it is closing, just one month after notifying tenants.
Multiple family members reached out to Denver7, saying the living facility notified them on May 13 of the closure happening on June 13.
“I started to like, panic,” said Thanhnguyet Vo, whose father lived at the facility since 2018 until now.
Vo’s father is an 86-year-old with dementia.
“It’s not easy to find a place in 30 days and then pull all your finances together and pull all your resources,” said Vo.
Denver7 obtained a copy of the notice sent to families. The letter reads, in part:
“We are sad to be delivering this news, as we are very proud of the community of residents and team members here at the Villagio; but we also understand in this atypical economic environment, that difficult decisions must be made.”
Villagio Senior Living
Vo claims the living facility never discussed the possibility of raising rates with tenants.
“Being caregivers and loved ones of residents, we have a stake in it, too. I consider us stakeholders in the business decision too, and we were never given a chance to even say anything until it was already over,” said Vo.
According to a report published by the American Health Care Association in August 2023, 579 nursing homes have closed throughout the country since 2020.
Denver7 called and emailed Villagio Senior Living to find out why the facility would be closing, but have yet to hear back from anyone at the center.
Denver7
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Matt is joined by Wall Street Journal reporter Isabella Simonetti to discuss an article she wrote that focuses on the older ages of television viewers and how it has affected advertisers (03:35). They go through how the pitches to ad buyers have shifted, the age gap between people who consume traditional linear TV and streaming, whether age demographics are still used, the growing acceptance of older casts on TV, and whether linear TV is beginning to age out. Matt finishes the show with a prediction about the distribution of The Apprentice, which highlights Donald Trump’s rise during his business career (19:50).
For a 20 percent discount on Matt’s Hollywood insider newsletter, What I’m Hearing …, click this link: puck.news/thetown
I Saw the TV Glow is, on its surface, a movie about identity and teenage isolation. But it’s also about how we attach those ideas to art and entertainment consumption during our formative years. And on yet another level, A24’s new psychological coming-of-age drama is about the mediums through which art and entertainment are passed down. Largely set in the ’90s, the movie revolves around two teens, Owen and Maddy, who bond over a surreal YA television show called The Pink Opaque. (Think: Buffy meets A Trip to the Moon.) But Owen’s parents forbid him from watching—“Isn’t that a show for girls?” asks Owen’s dad, played by Fred Durst—so he can only consume the series in secretive ways. Specifically: VHS dubs of The Pink Opaque that Maddy makes for Owen and hides in the high school dark room. It’s a relic from the pre-streaming era that should feel familiar to older millennials—the idea that a piece of physical media could change your life.
It’s fitting, then, that A24 and director Jane Schoenbrun have staked a large part of the movie’s experience on another relic of the pre-streaming era: the compilation soundtrack. The I Saw the TV Glow OST is the type of project you don’t see much of in 2024. It’s a who’s who of indie music mixed with a handful of rising artists, all providing original recordings. The album, which was released on May 10 through A24 Music, features stars such as Phoebe Bridgers and Caroline Polachek alongside critical darlings Bartees Strange and L’Rain, plus exciting (relative) newcomers such as Sadurn and King Woman. On its own, it may be one of the best collections of songs you’ll hear all year. But tied to Schoenbrun’s tale of identity repression and awakening, the tracks take on vivid life. (Certain songs are inextricable from specific scenes—like Polachek’s “Starburned and Unkissed” playing as handwritten notes cover the screen, or Maria BC’s haunting “Taper” playing during Maddy’s set-piece monologue.)
For Schoenbrun, this marriage of sight and sound was always the vision for I Saw the TV Glow, which releases wide on Friday. The hope was to make something similar to the soundtracks for Donnie Darko, The Doom Generation, and John Hughes’s most famous movies—all indelible, and all inspirations Schoenbrun cites. (This was in addition to commissioning a gorgeous score by Alex G, who also worked on Schoenbrun’s last film, 2021’s We’re All Going to the World’s Fair.) The director—a self-described music nerd who grew up escaping to punk shows in New York City—even went as far as to make individualized playlists for artists to give them a sense of Schoenbrun’s thinking. “I knew that there was a sort of ground level of sad girl lesbian shit that I love and felt in line with the film, but I didn’t want it to just be that,” Schoenbrun says. “A great soundtrack needs to explore outwards, in the way that the Drab Majesty song does or the Proper song does. If it was just one thing 16 times, people would get bored really quickly. But if it was 16 things that all feel a piece of themselves, it could stand the test of time.”
That approach pays off throughout the film, like during King Woman’s visceral in-movie performance of “Psychic Wound” (a moment that will make any self-respecting Twin Peaks fan recall the Roadhouse performances) or yeule’s cover of Broken Social Scene’s “Anthems for a Seventeen Year-Old Girl,” which appears twice in I Saw the TV Glow. (It’s perhaps fitting that BSS’s 2002 original had another soundtrack moment in 2010, when it was featured in Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World.) Ultimately, despite the “various artists” label, the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack feels like a cohesive document—a testament to not only how the movie ties the songs together, but also the work that Schoenbrun, A24, and music supervisors Chris Swanson and Jessica Berndt put into it.
“I didn’t want it to be the dumb soundtrack of pop-rock cover songs of ’70s hits or whatever,” Schoenbrun says. “I didn’t want it to become pastiche or an exercise for anybody, but I think I knew I was playing within this lineage of the Mallrats soundtrack or the Buffy original soundtrack. I wanted to create this thing that could conjure that memory. Because so much of what the film is trying to do is conjure that era of media.”
Much like the plot of the movie, the existence of this soundtrack seems both sentimental and unfamiliar. (Or, as Taja Cheek—who records under the name L’Rain and contributed the song “Green” to the project—tells me, “very nostalgic, but also really kind of fresh and new.”) While these types of compilation albums used to be the norm, the movie and music industries have shied away from them in the new economic and streaming realities. And in some cases, that’s maybe not a bad thing—the fewer blockbuster soundtracks, the fewer Godzilla-style abominations we have to deal with. But that also means fewer—if any—Doom Generations or Above the Rims or Empire Records. And that maybe means a world where original music doesn’t matter as much to a movie unless it’s a score by one of the few dozen composers who get regular work.
So the question becomes: If I Saw the TV Glow and its accompanying album succeed, do they have the potential to become almost a real-life extension of the Maddy-Owen VHS experience? Meaning: Could they pass down the soundtrack experience, making it easier for other filmmakers and studios to take similar risks? Because in this case, the medium is as fascinating as what it contains—and how it connects to the past.
A24
For Swanson, one of the TV Glow music supervisors and the cofounder of indie music powerhouse Secretly Group, it was Pump Up the Volume. (“Pump Up the Volume actually made me want to start my own pirate radio station,” he says. “I was convinced that was my destiny.”) For Billboard writer Andrew Unterberger, it was not only beloved albums like the Singles and Kids OSTs, but also strange artifacts like the one for The Cable Guy. (“A couple hits from it, but do I actually remember any of those being in that movie? Maybe one, maybe two.”) For L’Rain—one of the stars of the I Saw the TV Glow album—it was Whitney Houston’s Waiting to Exhale. (“Just like, ‘Wow, look at all of these very famous women that are contributing to the soundtrack.’”) For veteran music supervisor Liz Gallacher, it was one of the forever classics: Pretty in Pink and all the Smiths and Echo & the Bunnymen that entailed. (“My absolute hero is John Hughes,” she says. “The way that he used music, it just spoke to me so much when I was younger.”)
Everyone interviewed for this pointed to a soundtrack or two that they’ve fallen in love with. Many were filled with original songs. Some, like the Wes Anderson soundtracks that longtime music supervisor Zach Cowie highlighted, became beloved for introducing new generations to long-overlooked songs. (Personally speaking, I can trace my Nico and Velvet Underground love back to this scene.) But the soundtracks that everyone cited share a common thread: They are all, by this point, decades old.
It’s tempting to dismiss that as a function of age—most people I spoke with grew up in the ’80s or ’90s, after all. But digging into data unearths an unavoidable reality: There are far fewer movie soundtrack albums that break through these days, and the ones that do often bear little resemblance to the ones that held cultural real estate throughout the ’80s, ’90s, and early 2000s.
The Ringer examined Billboard’s year-end top 100 albums list for every year going back to 1978, the year that Saturday Night Fever and Grease finished no. 1 and no. 2, respectively (the Apex Mountain for John Travolta and Italian Americans dancing on-screen). That year, four movie soundtrack albums placed in the list: those two, plus the one for the musical-comedy Thank God It’s Friday and the movie FM, which featured Steely Dan’s eponymous hit. For the next decade-plus, the number stayed roughly in that ballpark besides a few fallow periods (just one soundtrack album placed in the top 100 in 1983: Flashdance) and sporadic spikes (seven made it the following year, including Flashdance again, but also Purple Rain, Footloose, and, naturally, The Big Chill). But the numbers take off starting in the mid-1990s: 10 make the list in 1994, nine in 1995, 12 in 1997, and a whopping 13 in 1998. (Possibly 14, depending on how you classify Spiceworld.)
If you grew up in the era, you’re undoubtedly familiar with how seemingly every movie had an accompanying “soundtrack”—typically a mix of songs that would appear in the movie alongside others totally unrelated to it, which were included under the loose “inspired by the motion picture” banner. Track lists were often filled with loosies from marquee artists and whatever new artist the label was looking to promote. Some were overfilled behemoths that doubled as a testament to record industry gluttony—everyone remembers Batman Forever for Seal’s no. 1 hit “Kiss From a Rose,” but what about U2, Method Man, and Sunny Day Real Estate?—while others became beloved documents of a sound or era. (See: how Singles helped codify the sound of grunge and Above the Rim solidified Death Row’s place in the industry and gave us “Regulate” in the process.) Sometimes, the soundtrack’s notoriety far eclipsed the movie it was allegedly inspired by. (It’s long been a joke around these parts that no one has actually seen the movie Judgment Night despite the notoriety of its rap-rock mashups, but the same could be said of High School High and The Show and their influential hip-hop soundtracks.)
Where so many of the popular soundtracks of the ’70s and ’80s came from movies explicitly about music—Purple Rain, Footloose, Saturday Night Fever—these ’90s OSTs were often different. Slightly craven—but in some ways, no less essential. How else do you explain something like the album that accompanied Bulworth? “There weren’t movies about music or about characters that were particularly interested in music,” says Unterberger, the Billboard journalist. “Or there weren’t musical situations necessarily in the movie, but they still had to have these sorts of big-ticket soundtracks. … They weren’t always the most artistically lofty collections of music, but they were a lot of fun.”
It was good business for the labels in the era when you could charge $17.99 for a CD and not have to worry about much beyond a hit song or two. (Also, for the movie studios, they doubled as good promotion: What better way to promote Batman Forever than to have clips of Jim Carrey’s Riddler pop up between shirtless shots of Seal every hour on MTV?) But these albums also provided something for the listener: a way to deepen their connection with the film. Gallacher—a music supervisor who has worked on movies such as The Full Monty, 24 Hour Party People, and Bend It Like Beckham—says that, at their best, these kinds of soundtracks were an extension of the filmgoing experience that could be popped into a Walkman or six-CD changer for months or years afterward. “There was an element back in the day of people wanting a sort of souvenir of the movie,” she says. “You could put things together like compilation albums in a way, and people felt like that was a souvenir of the movie.”
Of course, like many things in the music industry, the bottom fell out of the movie soundtrack market over the next decade. As downloads—first illegal and then through iTunes and other digital marketplaces—began to erode the idea of the album, these types of compilations began to fade. In 1999, the year Napster debuted, nine soundtracks finished in Billboard’s year-end top 100. The years immediately after hovered between three and five albums. And even when the numbers have reached similar heights as the ’90s—like in 2008, when eight movie soundtracks made the year-end list—those figures were buoyed by albums aimed at decidedly younger audiences. (In other words, lots of High School Musical and Cheetah Girls.) In more recent years, as streaming has replaced downloads and plays have become the primary means of measuring an album’s success, kids’ movies have often been the only reliable chart producers. (Moana, for example, made the year-end top 100 each year from 2017 to 2021. And in 2021, it was the only soundtrack to earn that distinction.) Twenty years after Garden State, the idea that something like its accompanying album could break through seems far-fetched. If a song will change your life, odds are it’s not coming from a soundtrack.
I was struck by the streaming aspect recently when I got out of a screening of Bertrand Bonello’s The Beast, a time-warping love story that uses the music of Roy Orbison, Visage, and Frankie Valli to staggering effect. Its soundtrack is a different concern from I Saw the TV Glow’s—where TV Glow uses only brand-new recordings, The Beast recontextualizes older songs, not unlike a Wes Anderson or Quentin Tarantino movie. Shortly after the QR code credits rolled, several of the tracks were still rattling around in my brain. Twenty years ago, I may have driven straight from the theater to the store to buy The Beast’s soundtrack. Instead, before I had even started my engine, I found a playlist of the songs in the movie—one put together not by the studio or a record label, but by a user named “filmlinc”—and gave it a like. (And here seems like as good of a place as any to note that Spotify is The Ringer’s parent company.)
The process isn’t exactly novel—this is what music consumption is for most people in 2024. But given the difficulty and expense that comes with acquiring the rights for these songs—especially at a time when old music is more in demand than new music—these kinds of compilation soundtracks functionally don’t exist as a commercial or physical product. (The Beast’s does exist in a truncated form, with Bonello’s original score packaged alongside a few of the synced tracks.) For Zach Cowie, a music supervisor who’s worked on Master of None and American Fiction, that intangibility has made these kinds of compilations feel fleeting and disposable. “We all know what the cover of the Forrest Gump soundtrack looks like,” Cowie says. “Because somebody you knew had it if you didn’t have it. Having them be physical objects I think is what established this moment that we’re talking about.”
Even for Gallacher, who’s seen soundtracks she’s worked on receive gold plaques or achieve cult status, it’s an evolution that makes sense. “No one wants a compilation anymore of music from a movie,” Gallacher says. “They can just go and listen to their favorite songs anytime on Spotify. They don’t need that. People will put playlists on.”
It’s fair to say that few shed tears over the death of the Forrest Gump–style soundtrack—which charged consumers upwards of $30 for the privilege of hearing Joan Baez and Creedence back-to-back. The overall decline in the market has, however, had a knock-on effect on compilation soundtracks filled with original music—like ones from Singles or I Saw the TV Glow. Looking at the Billboard charts reveals how rare of a commodity they’ve become. Besides kids’ flicks, the types of OSTs that have tended to make the year-end top 100 recently either are tied to music-centric films (La La Land, A Star Is Born) or have been helmed by a headlining superstar musician. (But even those are rare: Kendrick Lamar’s platinum-certified Black Panther soundtrack was certainly the exception, not the rule.)
Ones for smaller movies are practically nonexistent—and even when they do exist, they gain less traction. Unterberger recalls a soundtrack to the film The Turning, which came out in January 2020. The movie and its music came and went with barely anyone noticing. This happened even though the soundtrack possessed an ethos similar to I Saw the TV Glow’s—The Turning’s album boasted the likes of Mitski, Empress Of, and a living legend (and friend of The Ringer) in Courtney Love. From Unterberger’s vantage point, however, The Turning lacked one thing that TV Glow has: a sense of intentionality with the music. “It was actually one of my favorite albums of that year, and it felt coherent as a soundtrack,” Unterberger says of The Turning. “But it seemed to have very little to do with the movie—it didn’t seem to really feed off of the movie in any way that I could tell just by listening to it. And it didn’t really get a lot of attention.”
To that end, I Saw the TV Glow has something in common with the biggest non-franchise movie of the past few years: Barbie. (The truly opaque pink.) While the two movies couldn’t feel more different in terms of scale and subject—other than some of Barbie’s broad-strokes platitudes about identity and gender—Greta Gerwig’s movie also made the music feel integral. Helmed by a trio of producers including Mark Ronson, Barbie the Album recruited some of the biggest stars to make music specifically for the film, and many of those songs became the backbone of some of the film’s biggest moments. (“I’m Just Ken,” anyone?) The album spawned two top-10 singles—Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” and Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice’s “Barbie World”—and won Billie Eilish and Finneas a few pieces of hardware to go along with the Mattel plastic.
Cowie credits the creators of Barbie for not only enlisting the artists they did, but also making the songs feel organic in the universe of the film. The audience, he says, can typically tell when the approach is thoughtful. And that counts for something in a music-discovery landscape increasingly dominated by the algorithm and hivemind curation. “It was the best possible thing to support the world that they were building,” Cowie says of Barbie. “And people paid attention to that. But what made that happen is the fact that everyone in the world saw that movie. If the music was an afterthought, no one would talk about the music.”
Barring a (welcome) miracle, I Saw the TV Glow likely won’t be the type of movie that everyone in the world goes to see. But it is one that’s sure to develop a dedicated following—the Donnie Darko and Twin Peaks comparisons go deeper than the musical moments. And that’s part of the reason Schoenbrun took the “mixtape approach” to this soundtrack. They wanted to create moments and heighten story beats, but they also wanted to produce something that felt “made lovingly”—“distinctive from a Spotify playlist or a YouTube recommendation.” (Or, put another way: They wanted something that felt like the result of “angry sex between capitalism and art-making.”)
“There’s something very human about it, and there’s something that’s not disposable,” Schoenbrun says. “There’s something that feels lovingly prepared. The handmade nature of it—the physicality of it, even if it’s not literally physical—is a big part of the appeal.”
A24
Schoenbrun, of course, had the vision for what they wanted the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack to be. It also helped that they had a willing partner in their studio to make it happen.
There’s no shortage of praise being heaped upon A24, which has grown in the past decade from a scrappy, small indie to one of the most recognizable names in film on the back of its creatives-first mindset. But it’s worth calling out its approach to music as a microcosm of that. Arguably no movie company has put such a focus on sonic backdrops in recent years as the one responsible for Uncut Gems and its Daniel Lopatin score and the 4K restoration of the Talking Heads’ classic concert film, Stop Making Sense. (Speaking of, you can preorder the SMS tribute album featuring Paramore and Lorde, among others, right now.) The company has even gone as far as to form its own label, A24 Music (which, like its embrace of T-shirt maker Online Ceramics, can be seen as good business and great branding as much as it is a means of producing art).
Schoenbrun says that many of their early conversations with the studio revolved around the idea of making an all-original compilation that both worked inside of the movie and also stood on its own outside of it. They’re not confident that would’ve been possible at a studio that either (1) didn’t have the same track record of prestige and success as A24 or (2) was inherently more risk averse because of the costs associated with these types of projects. “A lot of other studios operating at the level of A24 or above the level of A24, financially, just don’t have any room to take a shot on something coming from a place of love, rather than a place of like, ‘Well, if we have these 16 artists on the soundtrack, our data tells us that it’s going to get this many streams on Spotify and make us this much money in sales or whatever,’” Schoenbrun says. “And I think A24 has made its name and staked its brand on finding people like me, who have a lot of love and want to make something with that love, and I think that is a process that is inherently at odds with the other thing.”
A24 representatives declined to comment for this article, but others—both ones who have worked with the company and ones who haven’t—were complimentary of the way it tackles music and how it fits into the overall mission. “I love A24 because that’s the kind of studio that would allow something like that to happen,” Cowie says. “I just love their artist-first thing. I don’t think you’d be able to do this at another studio.”
For Swanson, who co-supervised the music on I Saw the TV Glow, what made the music feel important was the simple fact that Schoenbrun and A24 treated it as though it was. On other projects with other studios, the soundtrack often comes last, as counterintuitive as it may seem. That never felt like the case here, Swanson says. “They embed their music department in with the creative force, the producers, and director of the films early enough that they’re employing their credibility, their budget,” he says. “It’s not uncommon for music supervisors to be relegated to a postproduction role after most of the money’s been spent. The filmmaker isn’t less aspirational about music. It’s just by virtue of it being dealt with last, you’ve got to find the change in the couch cushions. That these combos are starting so early is a game changer.”
All of this made I Saw the TV Glow a unique project for Swanson and Berndt, who co-supervised the music with him. Supervising work typically involves making playlists and sourcing songs, Berndt says. This time, it was collaborating closely with Schoenbrun. “We’ve certainly taken early meetings on projects not too far from this where they want to do a bunch of original songs,” Berndt says. “They want to create real soundtrack moments with some commissioned songs. And it’s pretty rare that it can actually happen. Obviously, it takes budget, time, creativity, the right timeline for artists to be able to have the capacity to create music like this for a film. And we just got really lucky that we could actually make it happen.”
And that work shows up on the screen. Berndt and Swanson both point to the two on-screen performances—one by Sloppy Jane and Phoebe Bridgers, another by King Woman. Where live performances in movies can often come across as forced, these feel organic. And more importantly, they also help push the narrative forward. “It’s like, at this point, everything is going to shift for Owen,” Berndt says. “It’s like this moment of, ‘Oh, Maddy’s back, this is great.’ It’s like, ‘Where have you been? Tell me everything.’ And then your whole world is changing with what Maddy is telling Owen. And just that beautiful moment of these wonderful performances happening both in the forefront and then in the background of their heavy conversation is just the most beautiful moment in shifting the way the rest of the film is going to go.”
It’s scenes like that that have the potential to make the I Saw the TV Glow soundtrack resonate like so many of the projects from decades ago. The album likely won’t reach Saturday Night Fever heights—though, admittedly, it was never designed to—but it’s not hard to imagine it could become an object of cultish devotion, like a Donnie Darko or Gregg Araki soundtrack. And if this record does catch on, it’s possible we’ll see a world where studios take more shots like this. We may not be looking at a full-on resurgence of compilation soundtracks, but projects like TV Glow and Barbie show that with the proper care and creativity, there’s still a market for them. “It’s getting attention—the music for it—before the movie’s even happened,” says Cowie. “Anything that draws attention to this age-old thing still having some power is so great. … What would be so rad is if this does come out and it continues to have the reception it has before it’s even out. That opens the doors wider at all the other studios because it’s proof that this can still work.”
That would be a happy accident for Schoenbrun. Ultimately, their hopes are that the soundtrack and the movie each become portals into different worlds: the movie as a means of discovering artists such as L’Rain and Maria BC, the music as a means of leading people to seek out the on-screen lives of Owen and Maddy. And if more people discover a nostalgic medium in the process, all the better.
“I’m really hoping that, when people watch the movie and discover the music—or vice versa, listen to the soundtrack and then go discover the movie—that this level of handmade care and sharing something, it comes through.”
Arizona abortion providers could practice in California under a new law designed to provide care to women who cross the state line as they face newly restrictive prohibitions at home.
The bill introduced on Wednesday aims to expedite temporary authorization for those Arizona doctors to practice in both states and is the latest move by Gov. Gavin Newsom to make California a reproductive health “sanctuary” as abortion seekers in several Republican led states have lost access to care after the overturning of the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court decision in 2022.
The proposal would temporarily allow licensed Arizona doctors to perform abortions and provide related care to Arizona patients traveling to California until the end of November. The Arizona doctors would be under the oversight of California’s Medical Board and Osteopathic Medical Board.
The legislation, which if passed and signed by the governor would go into effect immediately, comes after the Arizona Supreme Court voted this month to impose a near total abortion ban, reinstating a law from 1864 that prohibits abortions except when the woman’s life is at risk.
“Arizona Republicans continue to put women in danger — embracing a draconian law passed when Arizona was a territory, not even a state,” Newsom said in a statement released Wednesday morning. “California will not sit idly by.”
The governor is working with the state legislature’s California Women’s Caucus to pass the bill.
California saw a surge in abortions after the Supreme Court reversed Roe, and now clinics are bracing for more following the latest Arizona ruling.
The bill is likely to pass with ease with Newsom’s support but is sure to reignite criticisms from Republican lawmakers who say the Democratic governor — widely viewed as a future presidential candidate — should focus more on California’s crises, including a budget deficit and surging homelessness, and less on out-of-state policies.
The bill joins a litany of abortion measures that Newsom and California’s Democratic supermajority have approved in recent years — not just to enhance care in the Golden State but to provide support to nonresidents facing limited care nationwide.
Last year, Newsom signed a bill into law to allow doctors living under “hostile” laws in states where abortion is banned to receive training in California.
Earlier this week, at a news conference in Modesto, Newsom said that abortion access rollbacks have already “placed a burden” on California’s healthcare system, especially in Imperial, Riverside and San Diego counties, where clinics have seen an increase in out-of-staters, including patients from Arizona and Texas.
On Sunday, Newsom launched another round of TV advertisements that call out red state antiabortion laws, this time to be aired in Alabama and focusing on proposals that aim to punish women for interstate travel to obtain services.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is allowing Idaho to enforce its ban on gender-affirming care for transgender youth while lawsuits over the law proceed, reversing lower courts.
The justices’ order Monday allows the state to put in place a 2023 law that subjects physicians to up to 10 years in prison if they provide hormones, puberty blockers or other gender-affirming care to people under age 18.
Under the court’s order, the two transgender teens who sued to challenge the law still will be able to obtain care.
The court’s three liberal justices would have kept the law on hold.
A federal judge in Idaho had blocked the law in its entirety, saying that it was necessary to do so to protect the teens.
PEOPLEGreg Stevens was recently announced as the new president at Cabot Wealth Management. Rob Lutts and the firm’s managing partners made the announcement last week. It was effective Jan. 1. Stevens has been with Cabot for 20 years and has been instrumental in managing the growth and success of the firm over those years. He takes over the role of president from Lutts who founded the firm in 1983. Lutts will remain with Cabot as part of the management team. “I am confident that Greg will be a solid leader for the firm and, along with other senior leadership, will continue to ensure that our key focus is the same as it has been for 40 years — doing everything we can to help our clients achieve their goals,” said Lutts. The firm, based in Salem, is a leading wealth management firm that provides a wide range of services including investment management, financial planning, estate planning, tax filing and planning. Cabot is a national firm that serves clients across the country.
Aubrie L. Gallagher recently joined Downey Law Group, LLC/DLG Closing to its law practice based in Topsfield and Haverhill. Gallagher is an experienced estate planning, probate, and trust administration attorney, having practiced as a solo practitioner for over 10 years. An Amesbury native, she graduated from Massachusetts School of Law in 2011. She comes from three generations of estate planning and probate attorneys, following in the footsteps of her mother, attorney Janice Weyland Sinclair, and her grandfather, attorney Wendell P. Weyland, who was a CPA and estate attorney in the Topsfield/Boxford area. Gallagher lives in Amesbury with her husband and family.
Hancock Associates, a leading provider of land surveying, civil engineering and wetland science services, has announced the semi-retirement of Don Frydryk PE, PLS. Frydryk joined Hancock Associates, which has offices in Danvers, as a Regional Office Manager when the firm acquired Sherman & Frydryk, LLC, a land surveying and civil engineering firm located in Palmer. He will continue in a smaller, part-time role as Business Development Coordinator and focus on business development for Hancock’s western Massachusetts offices and mentoring staff.
MILESTONESConnolly Brothers Inc., a construction management firm based in Beverly, recently completed a 52,000-square-foot design-build fit-up project for Calare Properties. The facility, located in Milford, will serve as a new state 911 Public Safety Answering Point, State 911 Training Center, Municipal Police Training Committee Academy and offices for the Massachusetts Department of Correction Professional Standards Unit. The two-story building was vacant for seven years, presenting challenges for Connolly’s design team. At first, it was critical to ascertain an understanding of the existing infrastructure, such as underground plumbing and structural components. Connolly proceeded to update the structural requirements, such as reinforcing second-floor and roof bar joists, strengthening steel column brace frames and creating four new grade beams, in order to meet updated building code requirements for use group risk category of the building. Connolly provided additional accessible entrances and replaced the exterior stairs with new granite. The electrical requirements to support the 911 Communication Center required a high level of coordination between Connolly’s design and construction teams, as this included design of 22 workstation consoles that support the intricate technological infrastructure needed to support the operating requirements for a 911 emergency dispatch center. Connolly served as both Architect of Record and Construction Manager for this design-build project. The project team also included Platinum Fire Protection, D+D/DNET and Tech Mechanical.
PEOPLEIan Staber recently joined SV Design in Beverly as the project manager for the firmâs commercial architecture team. Staber brings 13 years of experience ranging from architectural design, kitchen and cabinet design, project management, and facilities management, having worked for multiple firms between Connecticut, the Boston area and Colorado. As project manager at SV Design, he oversees several local, affordable housing developments and is working on multifamily and institutional projects from conception to completion. Staber has a bachelorâs degree and masterâs in architecture from Northeastern University. Most recently, he had worked with Seger Architects in Salem on projects ranging from office fit-outs, multifamilies, dormitories, and restaurants. He lives in Salem with his wife and two kids. On the side, he creates custom calligraphy designs and paints large scale murals as Esoteric Calligraffiti.
Lou DiFronzo, Matthew LaLone and Carole Wedge were recently elected to the board of directors for Northeast Arc, a nonprofit organization based in Danvers that serves children and adults with disabilities. DiFronzo, who lives in North Reading, is a partner at Seyfarth Shaw, LLP, and provides advisory legal services to his clients concentrating in commercial transactions and general outside counsel counseling to private companies. He has been involved in numerous complex financing and M&A transactions helping his clients to achieve their business objectives. LaLone, who lives in Melrose, is President of Administration and General Counsel at Energy North, one of the largest wholesale distributors of fuel in New England and Upstate New York. It also operates and owns 70 gas stations, convenience stores, car washes and food service locations as well as providing 45,000 households with heating oil and propane. Wedge, who lives in Concord, recently retired as a principal at Shepley Bulfinch, a national design firm with studios in Boston, Durham, Hartford, Houston, and Phoenix. As the former president and CEO, she is recognized for her leadership in the firmâs evolution and growth into an innovative organization with an open and diverse culture.
MILESTONESWilliam Raveis Real Estate recently won the National Top Brokerage Award at Inman Connect in Las Vegas. Since 1998, the Inman Innovator Awards have honored companies, individuals and new technology that increases productivity, efficiency and transparency for consumers and real estate professionals alike. Out of more than 150,000 real estate firms in the country, only a handful of companies meet the criteria to qualify. Inmanâs highest honor of âTop Brokerage 2023â was awarded to Raveis, which has been a real estate industry leader for 50 years. âWeâve been on a winning streak with number one for global, HGTV Ultimate House Hunt, best local agency awards, and now we are officially the number one real estate company in the United States,â said founder and CEO William âBillâ Raveis. âWe are very proud to be recognized and owe our outstanding success to the wonderful sales associates and employees at William Raveis.â The company has more than 4,500 sales associates, 400 employees, and over 140 office locations from Maine to Florida, with local offices in Marblehead and other North Shore communities.
24 pets
facing euthanasia are arriving at APA! now as their originating shelter
was presented with a potential eviction. The 90+ remaining animals in
the No Kill shelter hold the same fate if they can’t be moved to other
places.
A Costa Mesa man and former nanny convicted of molesting or showing pornography to 17 young boys under his care was sentenced Friday to more than 700 years in prison, according to the Orange County district attorney’s office.
Matthew Antonio Zakrzewski, 34, was found guilty last month of 34 felonies — including 27 counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a minor under the age of 14, two counts of oral copulation by a child under 10, two counts of distributing pornography to a minor, one count of possessing child pornography, one count of using a minor for sex acts and one count of an attempted lewd or lascivious act with a minor.
The victims ranged from 2 to 12 years old.
Zakrewski’s total sentence was 705 years to life, plus two years and eight months, prosecutors said.
Zakrzewski worked as a professional nanny, branding himself as “the original Sitter Buddy” on his website. Between Jan 1, 2014, and May 17, 2019, Zakrzewski would sexually assault the children he was hired to watch, often filming the abuse, according to prosecutors. He would instruct the children not to tell their parents of his actions.
Zakrzewski was first reported to authorities in May 2019, when a Laguna Beach family told police he had inappropriately touched their 8-year-old son. Over the course of the investigation, 16 additional victims would come forward.
Prosecutors said Zakrzewski molested 16 of the boys and showed pornography to the 17th.
In a statement, Orange County Dist. Atty. Todd Spitzer said Zakrzewski’s actions robbed 17 children of their innocence.
“Children are not born knowing how to lie, but this master manipulator taught these very young children to lie — and to keep secrets from their own parents,” Spitzer said. “The sexual exploitation of children is meant to destroy the smallest of souls.”
In a statement read during sentencing, Zakrzewski did not apologize for his actions, according to the district attorney’s office.
“I prided myself on bringing smiles to your children and all the good times we shared were 100% genuine,” he said, according to the office’s statement.
Prosecutors said multiple parents cried and covered their ears as he spoke.
In mid-September, YouTube announced a collection of new artificial intelligence tools coming to the platform. The tools touch basically every part of the content creation process, from generating topics to editing and even generating video footage itself through the Dream Screen feature. But even as AI features have caused an uproar in so many other creative industries, the response to YouTube’s new suite of tools has been muted. Instead, YouTubers are sharing other concerns about the ways generative AI is already affecting the platform.
It’s been a watershed year as generative AI tools have made it easier to create images and text, all generated from internet scrapes of others’ art and writing. Artists and writers have typically pushed back, citing issues like copyright and their own work being undermined — in September, high-profile authors including George R.R. Martin and Jodi Picoult filed to sue OpenAI for scraping their books. And then there’s generative AI’s issues with hallucination and inaccuracies.
On the other side of the coin, these tools have been used by many people, either experimentally or professionally. Prizes have been won by AI art, while some news sites cut their staff and put out AI-generated articles. AI has also become a cornerstone of TikTok, particularly AI-powered filters. Creators use the Bold Glamour filter to apply makeup, a Ghibli filter to look like characters from the studio’s films, and even pay a fee for filters that generate themed avatars — like the hugely popular ’90s high school photo filter.
Maybe it’s the fact that YouTube’s tools aren’t available to the general public yet. But the quiet reception still seems to buck the trend. On the YouTube Creators account on X (formerly known as Twitter), the announcement only picked up a few hundred likes, doing similarly to engagement-bait tweets like “how do you make your audience feel seen and heard?” On the main YouTube account, it performed worse than a tweet reading “stars are kinda just sky rocks.”
On the platform itself, it’s difficult to find videos discussing the tools at all, despite a thriving community of YouTubers who explain how to use AI tools in making videos — just not the ones announced by YouTube. Instead, these videos focus on explaining existing tools to generate scripts and voice-overs, and to create and edit together images for the video visuals. YouTube’s new tools basically give creators an in-house option for much of this: Creators will be able to generate video prompts and script outlines, automatically edit clips together, and create AI-voiced dubs into other languages.
The main potential draw is that these AI tools would generate content based off of creators’ own historical output. For example, YouTube says the “insights” tool will be personalized so that new video ideas will take into account what a creator’s audience is already watching, something that other text generators can’t do without access to YouTube’s data. It also aims to recommend music for videos, including royalty-free music that hypothetically should help creators know what won’t get them troublesome copyright strikes.
But existing creators don’t seem particularly interested one way or the other. “No one’s heard of it yet,” says Jimmy McGee, a YouTuber who recently made a video titled “The AI Revolution is Rotten to the Core.” As the title might suggest, he’s not a huge fan of YouTube’s proposed tools, but he says it’s “strange” how they’ve been received.
He thinks it may be that these tools are mainly geared toward creators, and viewers may not notice if, for example, a video is edited with the help of AI. He doesn’t think the more obvious tools, like the melty generated visuals of Dream Screen, will take off in the long run. “People will get sick of those quick enough that it’s not really a problem,” he says. But the other tools might lead to longer-term issues in the creator space.
Viewers might not immediately notice if AI software is used to edit videos, but McGee worries that it will undermine those who actually use it. “It’s going to de-skill newer people on YouTube,” he says. Although he finds it unlikely that it will replace professional editors in its current form, it will prevent newer creators from growing their skills. YouTube is billing the feature as an easier way in for people who might not be as confident in their skills yet. It’s also aimed toward Shorts, YouTube’s vertical-video spinoff, so it might make things easier for those who only have their phones to edit on. But McGee thinks that relying on it may end up discouraging video creators in the long run as they struggle to grow creatively.
“I think the more decisions you can make in your video, the better the video can be,” says McGee. “Maybe it won’t be [at first], but the ceiling is higher. That’s what worries me. If someone goes in earnestly trying to use these tools, it’d be very sad to see them give up.”
That potential pitfall depends on whether YouTube’s tools stick around. Parent company Google has a habit of shuttering things — including features it has hyped up a lot more than this one. And generative AI is currently running at a loss for most companies. “We’re probably going to see a decline in its popularity pretty soon,” says media and fandom critic Sarah Z. “[In the meantime] I hope these tools are helpful to creators and serve as a way of empowering them to better execute videos that serve their visions rather than a way to undercut creators.”
But some creators already feel undercut by AI on the platform. Just before YouTube’s tool announcement, creator Abyssoft released a video about a potential case of plagiarism. In it, he detailed the similarities between a previous video he had put out and a video uploaded by a different channel and speculated on how AI could have been used to perform the theft, including using speech-to-text programs and AI voice-over software.
Contacted for comment, Abyssoft pointed out that this is already a widespread issue on the platform. In May, science communicator Kyle Hill spoke out against YouTube channels using AI to create unverified but attention-grabbing content on the site. These videos are often misleading and in some cases appear to copy topics that Hill himself had made videos on.
In his video, Abyssoft says that he isn’t sure what the solution to these issues is. But one thing he suggests is that YouTube should disclose when AI is being used in video creation. He’d also like to see “a punishment or strike system for people that fail to disclose and are proven to be using AI.”
This would be easier if it were YouTube’s own AI tools that were being used; the platform would already be aware. In response to a request for comment on whether Google was considering implementing this feature or any additional measures to avoid plagiarism and misinformation on the platform, Google policy communications manager Jack Malon stated that all content is subject to the existing community guidelines, and that these are “enforced consistently for all creators on our platform, regardless of whether their content is generated using artificial intelligence.”
Although Abyssoft considered some of the other generative AI tools as potentially useful, like the music tool helping creators avoid copyright issues, he continues to fear what easy access to AI tools might do to YouTube creators. “AI facilitates plagiarism in a way we haven’t seen before, and with a bit of effort it will soon become undetectable,” he says. “Competing in a sea of faceless AI channels will be a tough challenge for creators who make a living this way, as their upload cadence will be greatly outpaced by the AI.”
However, he doesn’t think that AI will necessarily produce interesting videos. “I’m assuming the tool that suggests video topics is only going to suggest ideas that it thinks will do well in the algorithm,” he says. “Things will get incredibly formulaic if [it’s] relied on too much.”
He does acknowledge that channels with technical content, such as his own speedrunning history videos, have the advantage of research and understanding that can’t be carried out by AI. McGee similarly feels somewhat protected by his own style. “My videos are messy and I like them that way,” he says. “I can make all the melty, weird visuals myself and make something I’m actually proud of.”
But other channels might not be able to survive. “Someone that covers current news will see AI upload videos before their editing is finished, since it can just scrape whatever articles have been published for the day and render out a video and voice-over in less than an hour,” says Abyssoft.
YouTube’s tools haven’t yet launched beyond a few test countries, so it’ll be some time until we see the impact they’ll have on the platform. But while creators have concerns that they might add new issues for both existing and upcoming video makers, they also have prior concerns about the use of AI that they feel aren’t being addressed by the platform. It seems to be these that are holding creators’ attention, not any new announcements.
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