Prince William and his eldest son, Prince George, put on aprons to help make Christmas lunch at a homeless shelter, a charity that the Prince of Wales first visited as a child with his mother, the late Princess Diana.The royal father and son were seen decorating a Christmas tree and helping with meal preparations in the kitchen at The Passage in central London, in a video posted to William’s YouTube account on Saturday.“Proud to join volunteers and staff at The Passage in preparing Christmas lunch – this year with another pair of helping hands,” read a post on the social media account of William and his wife, Princess Catherine.William is the royal patron of The Passage, which he first visited when he was 11 with his mother, Diana. The heir to the throne has visited the charity in recent years, but this was the first time George, 12, joined him.The young royal signed his name in a book on the same page that Diana and William had written their names 32 years ago, in December 1993.William was shown pouring Brussels sprouts onto an oven tray, while George helped set out Yorkshire puddings and set a long table for dozens of attendees.William launched his Homewards project in 2023 to tackle homelessness.
LONDON —
Prince William and his eldest son, Prince George, put on aprons to help make Christmas lunch at a homeless shelter, a charity that the Prince of Wales first visited as a child with his mother, the late Princess Diana.
The royal father and son were seen decorating a Christmas tree and helping with meal preparations in the kitchen at The Passage in central London, in a video posted to William’s YouTube account on Saturday.
“Proud to join volunteers and staff at The Passage in preparing Christmas lunch – this year with another pair of helping hands,” read a post on the social media account of William and his wife, Princess Catherine.
William is the royal patron of The Passage, which he first visited when he was 11 with his mother, Diana. The heir to the throne has visited the charity in recent years, but this was the first time George, 12, joined him.
The young royal signed his name in a book on the same page that Diana and William had written their names 32 years ago, in December 1993.
William was shown pouring Brussels sprouts onto an oven tray, while George helped set out Yorkshire puddings and set a long table for dozens of attendees.
William launched his Homewards project in 2023 to tackle homelessness.
Some older Bay Area teenagers will have a chance to make their voices heard this election — albeit in limited fashion.
While still barred from voting on higher-profile races such as those for president or Congress, 16- and 17-year-olds living in Oakland and Berkeley will be able to cast ballots in upcoming school board elections, which determine the leadership and policies of local districts.
The vote was extended thanks to the passage of Berkeley’s Measure Y1 and Oakland’s Measure QQ, according to a joint news release.
The state already has a system that pre-registers 16- and 17-year-olds to vote, and their registration becomes active once they turn 18, officials said. The same system will be used to allow them to vote in their local school board elections, but not other races scheduled at the same time, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.
“This has never been done before in California and we had to make sure that it was done properly,” Alameda County Registrar of Voters Tim Dupuis said in a statement. “I would like to thank the Board of Supervisors for their support in helping make it possible for 16- and 17-year-olds in Oakland and Berkeley to vote for school board in November 2024.”
Four of seven board seats in the Oakland Unified School District are up for election in November, as are two in the Berkeley Unified School District.
“Voting is not just a right but a civic duty, and extending this right to 16- and 17-year-olds will foster a culture of civic participation from an early age,” Oakland Mayor Sheng Thao said in a statement.
Though the goal of this new policy is to increase youth voter turnout, its effects won’t be known until the polls close. And many minors still may opt not to vote.
“Me, personally, I’m not that political, especially with today’s standards,” Naseem Bennett, a 17-year-old Oakland Tech senior, told the Mercury News. “But would I vote? I would think about it.”
Those 3, 5 and 20% fees at the bottom of your menu could be here to stay. With little time to spare, a new law will allow restaurants and bars to continue charging service fees, healthcare costs and other surcharges when listed clearly for diners to see. The practice was set to be outlawed beginning Monday.
On Saturday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 1524, an emergency measure to exempt California food and beverage vendors from Senate Bill 478 — a law that goes into effect in July and targets ticket sellers, hotel and travel websites and other businesses that charge “hidden” or “junk” fees.
Before Newsom signed SB 1524, which was introduced in early June, restaurants and bars were included in the affected businesses, and Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta had advised that the food and beverage vendors roll such fees into listed menu prices to avoid the possibility of legal action.
“These deceptive fees prevent us from knowing how much we will be charged at the outset,” the attorney general, who co-sponsored SB 478, said in a statement the day it was signed. Bonta could not be reached for comment regarding the exemptions allowed by SB 1524.
Numerous business operators in the service industry have been vocal against SB 478, which passed in October. They said they feared that raising list prices during a tumultuous year marked by closures and inflation would cost them more customers and support. Multiple restaurateurs told the Los Angeles Times that the process of revising or entirely overhauling their tipping and surcharge system could result in the loss of staff benefits or all-out closures. SB 1524’s rules allowing such surcharges could affect tens of thousands of restaurants throughout the state.
“We’re the most regulated of any business out there, and we are struggling to survive in the broken system that has been handed to us throughout many, many decades,” said Eddie Navarrette, a co-founder of the Independent Hospitality Coalition, a restaurant advocacy group. “When you add more regulations, whatever it may be, it makes things more difficult. Things are already difficult … there is a mass exodus of our small-restaurant community. I think it’s a huge relief, just to have one less thing being thrown at them right now.”
Navarrette spent weeks campaigning for SB 1524’s passage, writing letters, meeting with upwards of 35 policy advisors, legislators or their representatives, knocking on doors at the state Capitol, and explaining the usage of service fees within the restaurant industry, whose tip-based employee earnings make it different from most fields that will be affected by SB 478.
Surcharges, health fees and service charges are regularly used within the industry to stabilize wages across dining rooms and kitchens — where servers often receive tips but cooks and dishwashers do not — and to help offset the cost of benefits such as healthcare. Businesses with larger service fees, such as 18% or 20%, often note that tips are not expected.
“It’s confusing why the restaurants are claiming that they need to do things differently, because it just feels like they’re saying that they need to hide the cost of their food for us, and that doesn’t feel right,” said Jenn Engstrom, state director of the California affiliate of the Public Interest Research Group (CALPIRG) a nonprofit organization that advocates for consumer interests and protections.
“It feels like you’re being duped,” she said. “That’s what it feels like: that they’re trying to trick you.”
Some local restaurants have come under fire on accusations of misusing service fees or other surcharges, though multiple chefs and restaurateurs told The Times that these “bad actors” are few and far between.
“Every restaurateur that I know who cares in this industry is using it in a way that is so immensely appropriate and responsible and forward-thinking that if it was to go away, it would be really crippling to everybody,” Kato restaurateur Ryan Bailey told The Times earlier this year.
The new bill, which passed unanimously in the state Assembly and Senate in late June, was co-written by Sen. Bill Dodd (D-Napa) — who also co-wrote SB 478 — as well as Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Assemblymembers Matt Haney (D-San Francisco), Jesse Gabriel (D-Encino) and Cecilia Aguiar-Curry (D-Winters).
It is supported by the California Restaurant Assn. and the labor union Unite Here, both of which represent thousands of hospitality workers in California.
SB 1524 “will enable restaurants to continue to support increased pay equity and to make contributions to worker health care and other employee benefits,” Matthew Sutton of the California Restaurant Assn. said in a statement. “And, importantly, consumers will remain empowered to make informed choices about where they choose to dine out.”
While some restaurateurs and bar operators are breathing a sigh of relief over the continuation of service fees, others are frustrated with the government’s quick change in tack.
In April, ahead of SB 478’s July 1 start date — but before the new carve-out for restaurants and bars — L&E Oyster Bar and sibling restaurant El Condor rolled their 4% service fees into listed menu prices.
(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)
Following the attorney general’s guidance for SB 478, in April restaurateur Dustin Lancaster rolled a 4% surcharge into the menu list prices of two of his L.A. restaurants, L&E Oyster Bar and El Condor. He said that SB 1524 would not prompt him to revert to a service-fee model, at least for the foreseeable future, and that it wasn’t “so simple to just unbake the cake.”
“This is, sadly, all too familiar territory for restaurants in California,” Lancaster told the L.A. Times this week. “Just like in COVID, they jerk us around and expect us to pivot and change our model repeatedly as if it’s no big deal to small businesses. Restaurants continue to shutter [at] an alarming rate in L.A., and this sort of unnecessary about-face is why California continues to be the least small-business-friendly state in America.”
At Bell’s, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Santa Barbara County’s Los Alamos, owners diligently tracked the progress of both state Senate bills and awaited final word before determining whether to remove their 20% service charge, which benefits all nonmanagerial staff.
And even before SB 1524’s passage, Bell’s listed the charge on its the lunch and dinner menus, on its web page for frequently asked questions, and on its homepage section on takeout orders. The new law will allow the restaurant to continue its practice without reconfiguring its business model.
Greg Ryan, an owner of Bell’s, told The Times that he had been listening to and was understanding of customers, legislators and his team, and that he wanted to do what was best for his staff.
For months, the practice has felt like a balancing act.
As SB 1524 made its way through California’s Assembly and Senate, outcry on social media and in public forums such as Reddit was swift and vocal, with multiple anonymous posters commenting that to retaliate for the exemption, they would stop leaving tips. Another Reddit user created a spreadsheet that tracks surcharges and service fees in restaurants across the state.
An L.A. restaurateur, speaking anonymously for fear of customer retribution, told The Times that they’d seen an increase in tips of $1, 0% or other low amounts over the course of the month, possibly in response to the 3-4% service fees their restaurant was charging.
“I’m not thrilled with the bill,” CALPIRG’s Engstrom said of SB 1524. “I think it was better when restaurants and bars also had to have really clear upfront pricing, so that consumers could do easy comparison shopping. When I decide to go out to a restaurant with my family, I check the prices first, on the menu, online.”
That SB 1524 requires clear posting of fees is a benefit, she said, but it’s not as strong as SB 478 with the attorney general’s initial guidance that called for rolling service fees into listed prices. Engstrom called SB 478 “a great model bill,” saying she would love to see similar consumer-protection legislation in other states, or federally — without many carve-outs for industries, regardless of how service fees factor into their business plans.
“I think [SB 1524] is unfortunately kind of a step backwards, but it’s still transparent,” she said. “You can still see it; you just have to do the math.”
The new version of the book differs subtly from the one originally slated for March, with multiple sections revised and reworded. But there is one conspicuous difference: the removal of a passage in the acknowledgments praising Agus’ former collaborator, Los Angeles writer Kristin Loberg.
“The Book of Animal Secrets: Nature’s Lessons for a Long and Happy Life” by Dr. David B. Agus
(Courtesy of David B. Agus M.D., Simon & Schuster)
“We have been working together for thirteen years, and I enjoy every moment we spend together,” Agus had initially penned to the person who co-wrote “The Book of Animal Secrets” and his three previous titles. “You are an amazing partner, an insightful thinker, a remarkably talented writer, and a good friend.”
Agus, an oncologist at USC’s Keck School of Medicine and chief executive of the Ellison Institute for Transformative Medicine, was not the only high-profile figure to have credited Loberg with his books’ success.
“The collaboration I have had with my partner and friend, Kristin Loberg, has been truly special,” CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta wrote in the acknowledgments of his 2021 book “Keep Sharp: Build a Better Brain at Any Age.”
“We should all be lucky enough to have a real mind meld with someone like Kristin, who immediately understood what I was trying to convey and always helped me get there,” Gupta wrote of Loberg, who went on to produce two more volumes with him. “She is the very best at what she does, and quite simply, this book would not have been possible without her.”
For years, Loberg was a prolific and sought-after ghostwriter of health- and wellness-themed nonfiction books, a standout in the niche industry of wordsmiths who quietly craft books for authors who lack the time or experience to pen their works alone.
Between 2006 and 2022, the Los Angeles native was credited on 45 titles, nearly all released by the so-called Big Five, the handful of publishers that dominate the U.S. book industry. Books with her shared byline sold millions of copies and garnered coveted bestseller designations from Amazon and the New York Times.
Publishers often introduced her to authors seeking a writing partner, according to Loberg’s former clients and her own previous interviews.
“If the publisher, of all people, is the one doing the recommendation, that’s kind of the gold standard,” said Dan Gerstein, CEO of the agency Gotham Ghostwriters.
That changed abruptly in March. A review by The Times of Agus’ four books with Loberg found significant plagiarism: not just a recycled turn of phrase or a few missing attributions, but entire paragraphs and pages copied and pasted verbatim from blog posts, news articles and other sources.
Her two other best-selling clients, Gupta and celebrity talk show guest Dr. David Perlmutter, issued public statements saying they had reviewed their books and likewise found plagiarized material in their titles.
“I accept complete responsibility for any errors my work may have contained,” Loberg said at the time in a statement that acknowledged “allegations of plagiarism” and apologized to writers whose work was not properly credited.
Publishers pledged to review all of her books and take corrective steps where necessary. In the nine months since, they have been quietly cleaning up an editorial mess that some industry observers say is partly of their own making.
A Times investigation of books by Dr. David Agus found more than 120 passages that are virtually identical to the language and structure of previously published material from other sources.
(Los Angeles Times)
Simon & Schuster said it has released updated versions of six books by Agus and Gupta with the problematic passages either reworked or excised. Loberg’s name is scrubbed from the credits and acknowledgments in the latest editions on Amazon’s Kindle store.
Hachette Book Group released new electronic versions of the four books Perlmutter wrote with Loberg, including the bestselling “Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs, and Sugar — Your Brain’s Silent Killers.” Loberg’s name no longer appears in those books either.
“It seems like what they’re doing is something of a stealth new version, where they are letting corrected ones replace the ones with plagiarism relatively quietly,” said Jonathan Bailey, owner of the copyright and plagiarism consultancy CopyByte in New Orleans. “While this is much better than doing nothing, it would be much better to have first pulled the books from sale and then replaced them with clearly marked new editions.”
Representatives for Penguin Random House, HarperCollins and Macmillan did not respond to multiple queries about the outcome of promised reviews of Loberg’s books. They also declined to comment on whether they have made any changes in their editorial processes.
Neither Loberg nor her attorney responded to requests to comment for this story.
It’s unclear how plagiarism of this scale evaded notice for so long. In addition to outside sources, Loberg frequently borrowed sections from her projects with other clients. The result was a sort of ouroboros of wellness content across multiple books.
For instance, multiple passages from Dr. Michael F. Holick’s 2010 “The Vitamin D Solution: A 3-Step strategy to Cure Our Most Common Health Problem” and 2011’s “Mom Energy: A Simple Plan to Live Fully Charged” by dietitian Ashley Koff and fitness trainer Kathy Kaehler appeared in Agus’ 2012 bestseller “The End of Illness.”
Parts of “The End of Illness” surfaced the following year in Perlmutter’s “Grain Brain.” A decade later, a long passage on diabetes from “Grain Brain” appeared nearly verbatim in the original version of “The Book of Animal Secrets.”
Previous Loberg clients contacted by The Times described her as a skilled professional with a warm demeanor.
“She was super to work with and very talented,” said Dr. Carl Lavie, who collaborated with her on his 2014 book “The Obesity Paradox: When Thinner Means Sicker and Heavier Means Healthier.”
In a statement posted temporarily to her website, Loberg described the errors as inadvertent.
“I have never intentionally used another author’s work without attribution,” she wrote in the statement, which was removed after a few weeks. “The most troubling part for me is thinking and knowing I was doing everything right, only to learn that I was not as meticulous and diligent as I thought. In all my years in this profession, I’ve never once had a complaint about content.”
Yet the sheer amount of work Loberg took on during those years should have raised red flags, according to people familiar with the publishing industry. Other ghostwriters working in similar genres told The Times they tend to focus on one project at a time, frequently spending a year or more on a single book. Including the original version of Agus’ “Animal Secrets,” Loberg’s name has appeared on 46 titles since 2006.
“The original sin here was not factoring in what Loberg’s workload was,” said Gerstein of Gotham Ghostwriters. “Very, very few ghostwriters who work at that level would take on that much work for a prolonged period of time.”
The Times discovered the misappropriated material by running thee manuscripts through iThenticate, a plagiarism-detection software program used frequently by researchers, publishers and instructors.
Surprisingly, Loberg once described the same program as an essential part of her own professional process.
In a since-removed 2014 post on the Los Angeles Editors & Writers Group blog, she wrote that she had started using iThenticate the previous year, and encouraged other writers to do so “to ensure that our works are bulletproof.”
“It’s far too easy to cut and paste with good intentions during the crazy writing process and later find yourself accused of plagiarism,” Loberg wrote. “So while you might think that the secret to truly original content is just great writing, let me suggest that you add, ‘And it’s been certified organic by an anti-plagiarism program’!”
Whereas Loberg and her higher-profile clients have publicly apologized for misusing authors’ words without attribution, the companies that published the books have been largely quiet.
Given that Agus issued an apology after problems with his books came to light, “it’s not that much different a context or that hard a lift for the publishers to do the same,” Gerstein said, especially considering their role in pairing Loberg with authors.
“There was nothing in her past to indicate that she was capable of this, or this was a high risk,” he said. “But given that they did recommend her, then to make a statement of some responsibility, and to acknowledge their role in it at a minimum, wouldn’t seem that much to ask.”
The muted response from publishers is “very disheartening and disconcerting, to say the least,” said Barbara Glatt, a forensic plagiarism investigator based in Chicago.
If publishers are slow to react “even when armed with incontrovertible proof,” she said in an email, “one can only imagine that going forward with the continued advances in machine learning (ChatGPT for example) that the line between plagiarism and originality will be further blurred.”
