Kevin Durant scored 40 points on Thursday night to help the visiting Houston Rockets rally for a 113-108 victory over the Orlando Magic.
Reed Sheppard added 20 points and made five 3-pointers for Houston, which trailed by 19 points in the third quarter before going on a 21-0 run to help spur the comeback win. Alperen Sengun had 16 points and Jabari Smith Jr. scored 13 for the Rockets, who won their third straight game.
Desmond Bane led Orlando with 30 points, while Paolo Banchero totaled 19 points, nine assists and eight rebounds. Wendell Carter Jr. scored 16 and Jevon Carter finished with 14 in the loss.
Holding a 10-point halftime lead, Orlando extended the margin to 15 on Tristan da Silva’s triple at the 5:42 mark of the third. After Banchero’s four straight points extended the lead to 19, Sheppard hit three 3-pointers in the midst of a 21-0 Houston run, giving the Rockets a 78-76 edge.
Josh Okogie finished the third with a trey to give the visitors an 81-80 lead ahead of the final quarter.
Bane’s consecutive baskets gave Orlando a five-point cushion with 6:33 left in the fourth, before Durant’s personal 5-0 run knotted the score at 97 apiece.
After Carter split a pair of free throws to put Orlando ahead by a point with 3:23 remaining, Sengun’s consecutive layups and Sheppard’s fourth triple gave Houston a 106-100 advantage at the 1:53 mark.
Orlando had a chance to trim its deficit to one possession, but Anthony Black’s turnover was followed by Sheppard’s game-sealing 3-pointer with 22.7 seconds left.
After Sheppard’s jumper gave Houston a 20-19 lead, the Magic finished the opening quarter on a 10-2 run, with Bane’s 3-pointer giving Orlando a 29-22 edge entering the second.
The Rockets missed their first four shots from behind the arc, before Dorian Finney-Smith’s triple cut Houston’s deficit to four with 11:01 left in the first half.
Durant’s floater pulled the Rockets within four again, but Banchero’s three-point play began an 8-0 Magic run to put them ahead 45-33.
Bane connected on all five of his 3-point attempts in the first half, leading all scorers with 17 points. Durant scored the last eight points of the half for Houston, which trailed 53-43 at the break.
WASHINGTON — Former special counsel Jack Smith on Thursday defended his findings that President Trump “willfully broke the law” in his efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, telling lawmakers that Republican efforts to discredit the probe are “false and misleading.”
“No one should be above the law in our country, and the law required that [Trump] be held to account. So that is what I did,” Smith said during a frequently heated five-hour hearing before the House Judiciary Committee.
Smith appeared at the request of Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), who accused him of pursuing a politically driven investigation and “muzzling a candidate for a high office.”
“It was always about politics and to get President Trump, they were willing to do just about anything,” Jordan said.
Jordan called investigations into the Jan. 6 insurrection “staged and choreographed,” and said Smith would have “blown a hole in the 1st Amendment” if his charges against Trump had been allowed to proceed.
Trump has repeatedly called for Smith to face prosecution over the probe, demanding he be disbarred and suggesting that Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi look into his conduct.
“I believe they will do everything in their power to [indict me] because they have been ordered to do so by the president,” Smith said at the hearing.
Smith’s 2023 investigation found that following Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, Trump led a months-long disinformation campaign to discredit the results, evidenced by audio from a call in which he pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find 11,780 votes.”
Trump’s attempt to sow election discord culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, Smith said. The president directed rioters to halt the certification of the election results, he added.
In closed-door testimony to the committee last month, Smith said the Department of Justice had built a strong base of evidence of Trump’s criminal schemes to overturn the election.
A separate case alleged that the president unlawfully kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago club after the loss.
Trump was indicted in the documents case in June 2023, and later for the alleged election conspiracy and fraud claims. Both cases were abandoned after his victory in the 2024 election on the basis of presidential immunity.
In his opening remarks, Smith reiterated his findings.
“President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold,” he said. “Rather than accept his defeat, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power.”
Republicans asserted that Justice Department subpoenas of phone records were an abuse of prosecutorial power and constituted surveillance of top government officials.
Smith replied that obtaining such data was “common” in conspiracy investigations and that the records showed call dates and times — not content — encompassing the days around Jan. 6, 2021.
Jordan questioned the special counsel’s judgment in personnel selections, which included Department of Justice investigators who probed the Trump campaign over alleged collusion with Russia in the 2016 presidential election.
“Democrats have been going after President Trump for 10 years — a decade — and we should never forget what they’ve done,” he said.
Smith, who has since left the Justice Department to open a private firm with his former deputies, was quick to defend the integrity of his team, adding that Trump has since sought to seek revenge against career prosecutors, FBI agents and support staff for their involvement in the cases.
“Those dedicated public servants are the best of us,” he said. “My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.”
The hearing routinely devolved into disputes between party adversaries, with Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista) lodging scathing accusations against Smith, butting heads with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) over procedure and yielding his time “in disgust” of the witness.
GOP committee members attempted to poke holes in Smith’s findings about the events of Jan. 6. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) accused Republicans on the committee of trying to “rewrite the history” of Jan. 6.
Midway through the hearing, Trump called Smith a “deranged animal” in a Truth Social post where he once again suggested his Department of Justice investigate the former special counsel.
“I will not be intimidated,” Smith said. “We followed the facts and we followed the law. That process resulted in proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he committed serious crimes. I’m not going to pretend that didn’t happen because he threatened me.”
The hearing came as Trump continues to repeat false claims that he had won in 2020.
“It was a rigged election. Everybody knows that now. And by the way, numbers are coming out that show it even more plainly,” Trump said Tuesday at a White House news briefing.
In an address to a global audience in Davos, Switzerland, the following day, he said that “people will soon be prosecuted for what they did.”
Stephen A. Smith is arguably the most-well known sports commentator in the country. But the outspoken ESPN commentator’s perspective outside the sports arena has landed him in a firestorm.
The furor is due to his pointed comments defending an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who fatally shot a Minneapolis woman driving away from him.
Just hours after the shooting on Wednesday, Smith said on his SiriusXM “Straight Shooter” talk show that although the killing of Renee Nicole Good was “completely unnecessary,” he added that the agent “from a lawful perspective” was “completely justified” in firing his gun at her.
He also noted, “From a humanitarian perspective, however, why did he have to do that?”
Smith’s comments about the agent being in harm’s way echoed the views of Deputy of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who said Good engaged in an “act of domestic terrorism” by attacking officers and attempting to run them over with her vehicle.
However, videos showing the incident from different angles indicate that the agent was not standing directly in front of Good’s vehicle when he opened fire on her. Local officials contend that Good posed no danger to ICE officers. A video posted by partisan media outlet Alpha News showed Good talking to agents before the shooting, saying, “I’m not mad at you.”
The shooting has sparked major protests and accusations from local officials that the presence of ICE has been disruptive and escalated violence. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frye condemned ICE, telling agents to “get the f— out of our city.”
The incident, in turn, has put a harsher spotlight on Smith, raising questions on whether he was reckless or irresponsible in offering his views on Good’s shooting when he had no direct knowledge of what had transpired.
An angered Smith appeared on his “Straight Shooter” show on YouTube on Friday, saying the full context of his comments had not been conveyed in media reports, specifically calling out the New York Post and media personality Keith Olbermann, while saying that people were trying to get him fired.
He also doubled down on his contention that Good provoked the situation that led to her death, saying the ICE agent was in front of Good’s car and would have been run over had he not stepped out of the way.
“In the moment when you are dealing with law enforcement officials, you obey their orders so you can get home safely,” he said. “Renee Good did not do that.”
When reached for comment about his statements, a representative for Smith said his response was in Friday’s show.
It’s not the first time Smith, who has suggested he’s interesting in going into politics, has sparked outside the sports universe. He and journalist Joy Reid publicly quarreled following her exit last year from MSNBC.
He also faced backlash from Black media personalities and others when he accused Democratic Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas of using “street verbiage” in her frequent criticisms of President Trump.
“The way that Jasmine Crockett chooses to express herself … Aren’t you there to try and get stuff done instead of just being an impediment? ‘I’m just going to go off about Trump, cuss him out every chance I get, say the most derogatory things imaginable, and that’s my day’s work?’ That ain’t work! Work is, this is the man in power. I know what his agenda is. Maybe I try to work with this man. I might get something out of it for my constituents.’ ”
A dissenting panel of federal judges for the Ninth Circuit on Friday deemed California’s open carry ban in most counties unconstitutional.The ruling comes following a challenge by Mark Baird, who the San Francisco Chronicle identifies as a gun owner from Siskiyou County. Baird specifically challenged California’s restriction on open carry in counties with a population greater than 200,000.(Video Above: California ammunition background check law is unconstitutional)The panel ruled 2-1 in Baird’s favor. In favor of Baird, Judge Lawrence VanDyke noted that the restrictions apply to roughly 95% of the state’s population. And for those counties with populations under 200,000, the judge notes that those wanting to open carry need to apply for a license allowing them to do so, but that the ability to secure the license is “unclear.””California admits that it has no record of even one open-carry license being issued, and one potential reason is that California has misled its citizens about how to apply for an open-carry license,” the ruling’s summary states, referring to the opinions of VanDyke and Judge Kenneth K. Lee. The panel held that the open carry ban was inconsistent with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applied to states under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also referred to the standard applied in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that “historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”Judge N. Randy Smith, who dissented in part, noted that “open carry is not conduct that is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.” Smith also noted that reasoning in the Bruen case allows California to lawfully eliminate one manner of public carry to protect citizens, “so long as its citizens may carry weapons in another manner that allows for self-defense.”Smith asserted that because California allows concealed carry, it may restrict open carry.While the court primarily sided with Baird, it also rejected his related challenge to California’s licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents. Those counties may issue open-carry permits.See the full ruling here. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office slammed the ruling on social media Friday. “California just got military troops with weapons of war off of the streets of our cities, but now Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit want to replace them with gunslingers and return to the days of the Wild West. California’s law was carefully crafted to comply with the Second Amendment and we’re confident this decision will not stand,” the Newsom’s office said.KCRA 3 has reached out to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Office for comment.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
A dissenting panel of federal judges for the Ninth Circuit on Friday deemed California’s open carry ban in most counties unconstitutional.
(Video Above: California ammunition background check law is unconstitutional)
The panel ruled 2-1 in Baird’s favor.
In favor of Baird, Judge Lawrence VanDyke noted that the restrictions apply to roughly 95% of the state’s population. And for those counties with populations under 200,000, the judge notes that those wanting to open carry need to apply for a license allowing them to do so, but that the ability to secure the license is “unclear.”
“California admits that it has no record of even one open-carry license being issued, and one potential reason is that California has misled its citizens about how to apply for an open-carry license,” the ruling’s summary states, referring to the opinions of VanDyke and Judge Kenneth K. Lee.
The panel held that the open carry ban was inconsistent with the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms as applied to states under the Fourteenth Amendment. It also referred to the standard applied in 2022’s New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v. Bruen, which established that “historical record makes unmistakably plain that open carry is part of this Nation’s history and tradition.”
Judge N. Randy Smith, who dissented in part, noted that “open carry is not conduct that is covered by the plain text of the Second Amendment.” Smith also noted that reasoning in the Bruen case allows California to lawfully eliminate one manner of public carry to protect citizens, “so long as its citizens may carry weapons in another manner that allows for self-defense.”
Smith asserted that because California allows concealed carry, it may restrict open carry.
While the court primarily sided with Baird, it also rejected his related challenge to California’s licensing requirements in counties with fewer than 200,000 residents. Those counties may issue open-carry permits.
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office slammed the ruling on social media Friday.
“California just got military troops with weapons of war off of the streets of our cities, but now Republican activists on the Ninth Circuit want to replace them with gunslingers and return to the days of the Wild West. California’s law was carefully crafted to comply with the Second Amendment and we’re confident this decision will not stand,” the Newsom’s office said.
KCRA 3 has reached out to California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s Office for comment.
Dozens of Topanga residents gathered in the town’s Community House to hear Assistant Fire Chief Drew Smith discuss how the Los Angeles County Fire Department plans to keep Topangans alive in a fierce firestorm.
In the red-brick atrium, adorned with exposed wood and a gothic chandelier, Smith explained that if a fire explodes next to the town and flames will reach homes within minutes, orchestrating a multi-hour evacuation through winding mountain roads for Topanga’s more than 8,000 residents will just not be a viable option. In such cases, Smith told attendees at the town’s Oct. 4 ReadyFest wildfire preparedness event, the department now plans to order residents to shelter in their homes.
“Your structure may catch on fire,” Smith said. “You’re going to have religious moments, I guarantee it. But that’s your safest option.”
Wildfire emergency response leaders and experts have described such an approach as concerning and point to Australia as an example: After the nation adopted a similar policy, a series of brush fires in 2009 now known as Black Saturday killed 173 people, many sheltering in their homes.
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Some in the bohemian community of nature lovers, creatives and free spirits — who often pride themselves on their rugged, risky lifestyle navigating floods, mudslides, wildfires and the road closures and power outages they entail — are left with the sinking realization that the wildfire risk in Topanga may be too big to bear.
Water tanks called “pumpkins” are available to helicopters to be used during a fire at 69 Bravo, an LAFD Command Center along Saddle Peak Road in Topanga.
They see the shelter-in-place plan as a perilous wager, with no comprehensive plan to help residents harden their homes against fire and no clear, fire-tested guidance on what residents should do if they’re stuck in a burning home.
“Do we need to have some way of communicating with first responders while we are sheltering in place? Would the fire front be approaching us and we’re just on our own?” asked Connie Najah, a Topanga resident who attended ReadyFest and was unsettled by the proposal. “What are the plans for helping people through this season and the next season while we’re waiting to have widespread defensible space implementation?”
No fire chief wants to face the scenario of a vulnerable town with no time to evacuate. But it is a real possibility for Topanga. Smith, speaking to The Times, stressed that the new guidelines only apply to situations where the Fire Department has deemed evacuations infeasible.
“If we have time to evacuate, we will evacuate you,” Smith said.
Emergency operations experts say not enough has been done in their field to address the very grim possibility that evacuating may not always be possible — in part because it’s a hard reality to confront. It’s not a small problem, either: Cal Fire has identified more than 2,400 developments around the state with at least 30 residences that have significant fire risk and only a single evacuation route. Topanga is home to nine of them.
“We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area.”
— James Grasso, president of the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness
Recent fires, including the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise and Woolsey fire in Malibu, have made the issue too hard to ignore.
In Topanga, Najah has a ham radio license so she can stay informed when power and cell service inevitably go down. The elementary school relocates out of town during red-flag days. A task force including the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, the Fire Department and other emergency operations agencies publishes a Disaster Survival Guide and distributes it to every household.
“The survival guide was born out of necessity,” said James Grasso, president of TCEP, who also serves as a call firefighter for the county Fire Department. “We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area, particularly during Santa Ana wind conditions.”
The guide had instructed residents to flock to predetermined “public safe refuges” in town, such as the baseball field at the Community House or the large parking lot at the state park, to wait out fires. If residents couldn’t make it to these, there were predetermined “public temporary refuge areas” within each neighborhood, such as street intersections and homes with large cleared backyards, that provide some increased chance of survival.
But when the Fire Department determined the spaces were not capable of protecting the town’s entire population from the extreme radiant heat, it pivoted to sheltering in place — the last and most dangerous option listed in the old guide.
Connie Najah, a 16-year resident of Topanga, points out photographs from the Topanga Disaster Survival Guide of places that were once considered “public safe refuges” to be used during a fire.
The survival guide’s old plan was consistent with what emergency response experts and officials have argued across the globe, but it failed to meet typical safety standards for such an approach.
The report argued that, due to tightly packed combustible structures amid an accumulation of flammable vegetation, “nearly all” communities are “unsuitable” for sheltering in place.
David Shew, a trained architect and firefighter who spent more than 30 years at Cal Fire, said that for a shelter-in-place policy to be viable, a community would need to undertake significant work to harden their homes and create defensible space — work that has not been done in most California communities.
It’s “not really safe for people to just think, ‘OK, I’ve done nothing but they told me to just jump in my house,’” he said.
And once a house ignites, suggestions that Smith offered up at ReadyFest like sheltering in a bathroom are of little use, said Mark Ghilarducci, a former director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
“Under certain circumstances, your home could potentially provide a buffer,” he said. But if a house is burning and surrounded by fire in the wildlands, “you’re in a position where you are essentially trapped, and your bathroom’s not going to save you.”
Smith said, however, that the Fire Department had done its own analysis of the Topanga area and determined that the fire dynamics in the area are too extreme for Topanga’s proposed public shelter spaces to be effective.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area.”
— Drew Smith, assistant fire chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department
During hot, aggressive fires like the Woolsey, Franklin and Palisades fires, Smith said, “for 30 to 100 people, you need a minimum of clear land that’s 14 acres, which is 14 football fields.” Many of the safety areas in the survival guide, such as an L.A. County Public Works water tank facility, are barely larger than 1 acre.
The department argues sheltering in place, although far from guaranteeing survival, eliminates the risk of residents getting trapped on roadways, unable to see, with almost no protection.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area,” Smith said.
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1.Topanga resident James Grasso, president of Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, walks toward a baseball field that was once declared a public safe refuge to escape to during a fire at the Topanga Community Center.2.Connie Najah stands on a portion of Peak Trail that was at one time considered a public temporary refuge area during fires in Topanga.
Regardless of what residents (or emergency response experts) think of the department’s approach, the safest thing residents can do, experts say, is to always, always, always follow the department’s orders, whether that’s to evacuate, find a safety zone or shelter in their homes. The department’s plan to keep residents alive depends on it.
Still, the history of shelter-in-place policies — and their more aggressive companion, “stay and defend,” which involves attempting to actively combat the blaze at home — looms heavy.
After more than 100 bush fires swept through southeast Australia in 1983, killing 75 people in what became known as Ash Wednesday, Australian fire officials adopted a “stay or go” policy: Either leave well before a fire reaches you, or prepare to stay and fend for yourself. If you’re living in a high fire hazard area, the philosophy goes, it is your responsibility to defend your property and keep yourself alive amid strained fire resources.
Around the same time, California considered the policy for itself after dangerous fires ripped through the Santa Monica Mountains, Ghilarducci said. State officials ultimately decided against it, choosing instead to prioritize early evacuations. Cal Fire’s “Ready, Set, Go!” public awareness campaign became the face of those efforts.
In 2009, an explosive suite of brush fires broke out, yet again, in southeast Australia and seemed to confirm California’s worst nightmare: 173 people lost their lives in the Black Saturday tragedy. Of those, 40% died during or after an attempt to defend their property, and nearly 30% died sheltering in their homes without attempting to defend them. About 20% died while attempting to evacuate.
Afterward, Australia significantly overhauled the policy, placing a much greater emphasis on evacuating early and developing fire shelter building standards.
Nearly a decade later, California confronted its own stress test. The Camp fire ripped through Paradise in the early morning on Nov. 8, 2018. The time between the first sighting of the fire and it reaching the edge of town: one hourand 39 minutes. The time it took to evacuate: seven hours.
Among the miraculous stories of survival in Paradise were the many individuals who found refuge areas in town: a predetermined safety zone in a large, open meadow; the parking lots of stores, churches and schools; a local fire station; roadways and intersections with a little buffer from the burning trees.
But the same day, the intensity of the Woolsey fire in the Santa Monica Mountains — similarly plagued with evacuation challenges — unsettled fire officials. It’s in these conditions that Smith doubted Topanga’s refuge sites could protect residents.
Stuck without many options, the Fire Department began slowly thinking about refining the policies that proved disastrous for Australia. The Palisades fire brought a renewed urgency.
Just a month before ReadyFest, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone stirred anxiety among emergency response officials when he appeared to endorse a stay-and-defend policy,telling KCAL-TV, “We’ve always told people that when the evacuation order comes, you must leave. We’ve departed from that narrative. With the proper training, with the proper equipment and with the proper home hardening and defensible space, you can stay behind and prevent your house from burning down.”
The department later clarified the statement, saying the change only applies to individuals in the Santa Monica Mountains’ community brigade who have received significant training from the department and operate under the department’s command. (The brigade is not intended as a means for members to protect their own homes but instead serve the larger community.)
Now, residents worry the policy to shelter in place is coming without enough preparation.
A worker stops traffic that has been reduced to one lane on a portion of Topanga Canyon Boulevard for underground cable installation Nov. 19.
A Times analysis of L.A. County property records found that roughly 98% of residential properties in Topanga were built before the state adopted home-hardening building codes in 2008 to protect homes against wildfires.
However, a significant number of Topangans have opted to complete the requirements regardless. Various fire safety organizations in the Santa Monica Mountains have visited more than 470 of Topanga’s roughly 3,000 residential properties to help residents learn how to harden their homes. These efforts are, in part, why the National Fire Protection Assn. designated the mountain town as a Firewise Community in 2022.
There are some relatively simple steps homeowners can take, such as covering vents with mesh, that can slightly reduce the chance of a home burning. But undertaking a comprehensive renovation — to remove wood decks, install noncombustible siding and roofing, replace windows with multipaned tempered glass, hardscape the land near the house and trim down trees — is expensive.
A report from the community development research nonprofit Headwaters Economics found a complete home retrofit using affordable materials costs between $23,000 and $40,000. With high-end materials that provide the best protection, it can cost upward of $100,000.
“We’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
— Connie Najah, 16-year resident of Topanga
Many Topangans have taken up the challenge, anyway. Grasso, who lost his home in the 1993 Old Topanga fire, has slowly been hardening his property since the rebuild. He’s even built a concrete fire shelter against a hillside with two steel escape doors and porthole windows.
Researchers have found comprehensive home hardening and defensible space can reduce the risk of a home burning by about a third, but not bring it down to zero. (Albeit, none have tested Grasso’s elaborate setup.)
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1.Nancy Helms stands on top of “dwarf carpet of stars,” a succulent plant that surrounds a large area of her home as a fire prevention method on Rocky Ledge Road in Topanga.2.Ryan Ulyate uses metal sculptures of plants and cactus outside his home in Topanga. He has eliminated any brush or flammable plants near his home and surrounds it in gravel to prevent his home from catching fire.3.Ryan Ulyate shows a vent opening that he covered with metal filters to prevent embers from entering his home if a fire occurs in Topanga.
Wildfire safety experts hope the state someday adopts building standards for truly fire-proof structures that could withstand even the most extreme conditions and come equipped with life-support systems. But any such standards are years away, and the L.A. County Fire Department has to have a plan if a fire breaks out tomorrow.
For Grasso, fire risk is a risk like any other, like the choice to drive a car every day. In exchange for the beauty of living life in Topanga, some folks will learn to accept the risk and do what they can to mitigate it: Harden a home, fasten a seat belt. Others — especially those unable to take the drastic steps Grasso has been able to — will deem the beauty of life in Topanga not worth the risk of getting trapped by flames.
“The amount of money it takes to get to this point is too cost-prohibitive for us at this moment,” Najah said. “It’s really a tough place to be in. … It’s not going to be easy, and we’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.
Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 Saturday night to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.Video above: Dodgers celebrate World Series win with fans during downtown Los Angeles parade in 2024Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 96 pitches in the Dodgers’ win on Friday, escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth and pitched 2 2/3 innings for his third win of the Series.He gave up a leadoff double in the 11th to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk grounded to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-4-3 double play.With their ninth title and third in six years, the Dodgers made an argument for their 2020s teams to be considered a dynasty. Dave Roberts, their manager since 2016, boosted the probability he will gain induction to the Hall of Fame.Bo Bichette put Toronto ahead in the third with a three-run homer off two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who was pitching on three days’ rest after taking the loss in Game 3.Los Angeles closed to 3-2 on sacrifice flies from Teoscar Hernández in the fourth off Max Scherzer and Tommy Edman in the sixth against Chris Bassitt.Video below: Japanese media cover Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers Andrés Giménez restored Toronto’s two-run lead with an RBI double in the sixth off Tyler Glasnow, who relieved after getting the final three outs on three pitches to save Game 6 on Friday.Max Muncy’s eighth-inning homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage cut the Dodgers’ deficit to one run, and Rojas, inserted into the lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman.Toronto put two on with one out in the bottom half against Blake Snell, and Los Angeles turned to Yamamoto.He hit Alejandro Kirk on a hand with a pitch, loading the bases and prompting the Dodgers to play the infield in and the outfield shallow. Daulton Varsho grounded to second, where Rojas stumbled but managed to throw home for a forceout as catcher Smith kept his foot on the plate.Ernie Clement then flied out to Andy Pages, who made a jumping, backhand catch on the center-field warning track as he crashed into left fielder Kiké Hernández.Seranthony Domínguez walked Mookie Betts with one out in the 10th and Muncy singled for his third hit. Hernández walked, loading the bases. Pages grounded to shortstop, where Giménez threw home for a forceout. First baseman Guerrero then threw to pitcher Seranthony Domínguez covering first, just beating Hernández in a call upheld in a video review.The epic night matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Series Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3 victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
TORONTO, ON —
Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 Saturday night to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.
Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.
Video above: Dodgers celebrate World Series win with fans during downtown Los Angeles parade in 2024
Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 96 pitches in the Dodgers’ win on Friday, escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth and pitched 2 2/3 innings for his third win of the Series.
He gave up a leadoff double in the 11th to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk grounded to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-4-3 double play.
With their ninth title and third in six years, the Dodgers made an argument for their 2020s teams to be considered a dynasty. Dave Roberts, their manager since 2016, boosted the probability he will gain induction to the Hall of Fame.
Bo Bichette put Toronto ahead in the third with a three-run homer off two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who was pitching on three days’ rest after taking the loss in Game 3.
Ashley Landis
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Will Smith celebrates his home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the 11th inning in Game 7 of baseball’s World Series, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, in Toronto.
Los Angeles closed to 3-2 on sacrifice flies from Teoscar Hernández in the fourth off Max Scherzer and Tommy Edman in the sixth against Chris Bassitt.
Video below: Japanese media cover Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
Andrés Giménez restored Toronto’s two-run lead with an RBI double in the sixth off Tyler Glasnow, who relieved after getting the final three outs on three pitches to save Game 6 on Friday.
Max Muncy’s eighth-inning homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage cut the Dodgers’ deficit to one run, and Rojas, inserted into the lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman.
Toronto put two on with one out in the bottom half against Blake Snell, and Los Angeles turned to Yamamoto.
He hit Alejandro Kirk on a hand with a pitch, loading the bases and prompting the Dodgers to play the infield in and the outfield shallow. Daulton Varsho grounded to second, where Rojas stumbled but managed to throw home for a forceout as catcher Smith kept his foot on the plate.
Ernie Clement then flied out to Andy Pages, who made a jumping, backhand catch on the center-field warning track as he crashed into left fielder Kiké Hernández.
Seranthony Domínguez walked Mookie Betts with one out in the 10th and Muncy singled for his third hit. Hernández walked, loading the bases. Pages grounded to shortstop, where Giménez threw home for a forceout. First baseman Guerrero then threw to pitcher Seranthony Domínguez covering first, just beating Hernández in a call upheld in a video review.
The epic night matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Series Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3 victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 Saturday night to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.Video above: Dodgers celebrate World Series win with fans during downtown Los Angeles parade in 2024Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 96 pitches in the Dodgers’ win on Friday, escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth and pitched 2 2/3 innings for his third win of the Series.He gave up a leadoff double in the 11th to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk grounded to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-4-3 double play.With their ninth title and third in six years, the Dodgers made an argument for their 2020s teams to be considered a dynasty. Dave Roberts, their manager since 2016, boosted the probability he will gain induction to the Hall of Fame.Bo Bichette put Toronto ahead in the third with a three-run homer off two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who was pitching on three days’ rest after taking the loss in Game 3.Los Angeles closed to 3-2 on sacrifice flies from Teoscar Hernández in the fourth off Max Scherzer and Tommy Edman in the sixth against Chris Bassitt.Video below: Japanese media cover Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers Andrés Giménez restored Toronto’s two-run lead with an RBI double in the sixth off Tyler Glasnow, who relieved after getting the final three outs on three pitches to save Game 6 on Friday.Max Muncy’s eighth-inning homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage cut the Dodgers’ deficit to one run, and Rojas, inserted into the lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman.Toronto put two on with one out in the bottom half against Blake Snell, and Los Angeles turned to Yamamoto.He hit Alejandro Kirk on a hand with a pitch, loading the bases and prompting the Dodgers to play the infield in and the outfield shallow. Daulton Varsho grounded to second, where Rojas stumbled but managed to throw home for a forceout as catcher Smith kept his foot on the plate.Ernie Clement then flied out to Andy Pages, who made a jumping, backhand catch on the center-field warning track as he crashed into left fielder Kiké Hernández.Seranthony Domínguez walked Mookie Betts with one out in the 10th and Muncy singled for his third hit. Hernández walked, loading the bases. Pages grounded to shortstop, where Giménez threw home for a forceout. First baseman Guerrero then threw to pitcher Seranthony Domínguez covering first, just beating Hernández in a call upheld in a video review.The epic night matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Series Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3 victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
TORONTO, ON —
Will Smith homered in the 11th inning after Miguel Rojas connected for a tying drive in the ninth, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Toronto Blue Jays 5-4 in Game 7 Saturday night to become the first team in a quarter century to win consecutive World Series titles.
Los Angeles overcame 3-0 and 4-2 deficits and escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth to become the first repeat champion since the 1998-2000 New York Yankees, and the first from the National League since the 1975 and ’76 Cincinnati Reds.
Video above: Dodgers celebrate World Series win with fans during downtown Los Angeles parade in 2024
Smith hit a 2-0 slider off Shane Bieber into the Blue Jays’ bullpen, giving the Dodgers their first lead of the night.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who threw 96 pitches in the Dodgers’ win on Friday, escaped a bases-loaded jam in the ninth and pitched 2 2/3 innings for his third win of the Series.
He gave up a leadoff double in the 11th to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who was sacrificed to third. Addison Barger walked and Alejandro Kirk grounded to shortstop Mookie Betts, who started a title-winning 6-4-3 double play.
With their ninth title and third in six years, the Dodgers made an argument for their 2020s teams to be considered a dynasty. Dave Roberts, their manager since 2016, boosted the probability he will gain induction to the Hall of Fame.
Bo Bichette put Toronto ahead in the third with a three-run homer off two-way star Shohei Ohtani, who was pitching on three days’ rest after taking the loss in Game 3.
Ashley Landis
Los Angeles Dodgers’ Will Smith celebrates his home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the 11th inning in Game 7 of baseball’s World Series, Sunday, Nov. 2, 2025, in Toronto.
Los Angeles closed to 3-2 on sacrifice flies from Teoscar Hernández in the fourth off Max Scherzer and Tommy Edman in the sixth against Chris Bassitt.
Video below: Japanese media cover Shohei Ohtani, Dodgers
Andrés Giménez restored Toronto’s two-run lead with an RBI double in the sixth off Tyler Glasnow, who relieved after getting the final three outs on three pitches to save Game 6 on Friday.
Max Muncy’s eighth-inning homer off star rookie Trey Yesavage cut the Dodgers’ deficit to one run, and Rojas, inserted into the lineup in Game 6 to provide some energy, homered on a full-count slider from Jeff Hoffman.
Toronto put two on with one out in the bottom half against Blake Snell, and Los Angeles turned to Yamamoto.
He hit Alejandro Kirk on a hand with a pitch, loading the bases and prompting the Dodgers to play the infield in and the outfield shallow. Daulton Varsho grounded to second, where Rojas stumbled but managed to throw home for a forceout as catcher Smith kept his foot on the plate.
Ernie Clement then flied out to Andy Pages, who made a jumping, backhand catch on the center-field warning track as he crashed into left fielder Kiké Hernández.
Seranthony Domínguez walked Mookie Betts with one out in the 10th and Muncy singled for his third hit. Hernández walked, loading the bases. Pages grounded to shortstop, where Giménez threw home for a forceout. First baseman Guerrero then threw to pitcher Seranthony Domínguez covering first, just beating Hernández in a call upheld in a video review.
The epic night matched the Marlins’ 3-2 win over Cleveland in 1997 as the second-longest Series Game 7, behind only the Washington Senators’ 4-3 victory against the New York Giants in 1924.
It was April 2021 and the LAPD was facing sharp criticism over its handling of mass protests against police brutality. The Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles complaint accused officers of firing less-lethal weapons at demonstrators who posed no threat, among other abuses.
Smith said the assistant Los Angeles city attorney wanted his signature on a prewritten sworn declaration that described how LAPD officers had no choice but to use force against a volatile crowd hurling bottles and smoke bombs during a 2020 protest in Tujunga.
He refused to put his name on it.
Instead, eight months later, Smith filed his own lawsuit against the city, alleging he faced retaliation for trying to blow the whistle on a range of misconduct within the LAPD.
Los Angeles Police Department Capt. Johnny Smith.
(LAPD)
Smith and his attorneys declined to be interviewed by The Times, but evidence in his lawsuit offers a revealing look at the behind-the-scenes coordination — and friction — between LAPD officials and the city attorney’s office in defense of police use of force at protests.
Smith’s lawsuit says he felt pressured to give a misleading statement to cover up for reckless behavior by officers.
The captain’s claim, filed December 2021 in Los Angeles Superior Court, has taken on new significance with the city facing fresh litigation over LAPD crowd control tactics during recent protests against the Trump administration.
The 2020 protests led to a court order that limits how LAPD officers can use certain less-lethal weapons, including launchers that shoot hard-foam projectiles typically used to disable uncooperative suspects.
The city is still fighting to have those restrictions lifted, along with others put in place as a result of a separate lawsuit filed in June by press rights organizations.
Last month, City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto drew a rebuke from the City Council after she sought a temporary stay of the order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera.
Feldstein Soto argued that the rules — which prohibit officers from targeting journalists and nonviolent protesters — are overly broad and impractical. Vera rejected Feldstein Soto’s request, but the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking up the matter, with a hearing tentatively set for mid-November.
A counterprotestor is arrested after approaching Trump supporters holding a rally in Tujunga in 2020.
(Kyle Grillot / AFP / via Getty Images)
Smith said in his lawsuit that he wouldn’t put his name on the Tujunga declaration because he had reviewed evidence that showed officers flouting LAPD rules on beanbag shotguns, as well as launchers that fire 37mm and 40mm projectiles — roughly the size of mini soda cans — at over 200 mph.
Smith’s lawsuit said the launchers are intended to be “target specific,” or fired at individuals who pose a threat — not to disperse a crowd.
Smith said he raised alarms for months after the Tujunga protest, which occurred amid outrage over the police killings nationwide of Black and Latino people at the end of President Trump’s first term.
But it wasn’t until the city got sued, Smith’s complaint said, that incidents he flagged started to receive attention.
The city has denied the allegations in Smith’s lawsuit, saying in court filings that each LAPD use of force case was thoroughly investigated.
Smith’s lawsuit cites emails to senior LAPD officials that he says show efforts to sanitize the department’s handling of excessive force complaints from the protests.
An internal task force deemed most of the citizen complaints “unfounded.” Yet nearly two dozen of those cases were later reopened after Smith and a small team of officers found that the department’s review missed a litany of policy violations, his lawsuit says.
Smith also called out what he saw as “problematic bias” in the way what occurred at the Tujunga protest was reported up the chain of command.
His complaint describes a presentation given to then-Chief Michel Moore that downplayed the severity of the damage caused by less-lethal projectiles. According to Smith, the report omitted photos of “extensive injuries” suffered by one woman, who said in a lawsuit that she had to undergo plastic surgery after getting shot in the chest at close range with a beanbag round.
The LAPD stopped using bean-bag shotguns at protests after a state law banned the practice, but the department still allows officers to use the weapons in other situations, such as when subduing an uncooperative suspect.
Los Angeles police officers attempt to stop a confrontation between Trump supporters and counterprotestors during a pro-Trump rally in Tujunga in 2020.
(Kyle Grillot / AFP / via Getty Images)
Alan Skobin, a former police commissioner and a friend of Smith’s, told The Times he was in the room when Smith received a call in April 2021 from the city attorney’s office about the declaration he refused to sign.
The exchange appeared to turn tense, Skobin recalled, as Smith repeated that details contained in the document were a “lie.”
Skobin said he wondered whether the assistant city attorney went “back and examined the videotaped and all the other evidence.”
“That’s what I would hope would happen,” Skobin said.
A spokesperson for the Los Angeles city attorney, Karen Richardson, provided The Times with a California State Bar report that said there was insufficient evidence to discipline the lawyer involved; the case was closed in June 2024.
Richardson declined further comment, citing Smith’s pending lawsuit.
According to Smith, other high-ranking LAPD officials went along with the misleading story that the officers in Tujunga acted in response to being overwhelmed by a hostile crowd.
Smith claims he faced retaliation for reporting a fellow captain who said police were justified in using force against a protester who held a placard turned sideways “so that the pole can be used as a weapon against officers.”
Body camera footage showed a different version of events, Smith said, with officers launching an unjustified assault on the man and others around him.
The colleague that Smith reported, German Hurtado, has since been promoted to deputy chief.
The city has denied the allegations in court filings. When reached for comment on Friday, Hurtado said he was limited in what he could say because the litigation is ongoing.
“From what I understand all that’s been investigated and it was unfounded,” he said, referencing Smith’s allegations.
“The lawsuit, I don’t know where it’s and I don’t know anything about it. No one’s talked to me. No one’s deposed me.”
Critics argue that the LAPD continues to violate rules that prohibit targeting journalists during demonstrations.
After a peaceful daytime “No Kings Day” protest downtown Oct. 18, about 100 to 200 people lingered outside downtown’s Metropolitan Detention Center after nightfall. Police declared an unlawful assembly and officers began firing 40mm projectiles.
Lexis-Olivier Ray, a reporter for the news site L.A. Taco who regularly covers demonstrations, was among those hit by the rounds.
Hundreds participate in the No Kings Day of Peaceful Action in downtown Los Angeles on Oct. 18.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
In a video shared widely online, an LAPD officer can be heard justifying the incident by saying they were firing at “fake” journalists.
An LAPD spokesperson said the incident with Ray is under internal investigation and could offer no further comment.
Ray said it wasn’t the first time he’d been struck by less-lethal rounds at protests despite years of legislation and court orders.
“It’s pretty discouraging that stuff like this keeps happening,” he said.
Jim McDonnell was introduced by Mayor Karen Bass to serve as LAPD chief during a news conference at City Hall on Oct. 4, 2024.
(Ringo Chiu / For The Times)
LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell defended the department at the Police Commission’s weekly meeting Tuesday, saying the “No Kings” protesters who remained downtown after dark were shining lasers at officers, and throwing rocks, bottles and fireworks.
Asked about the incident involving Ray, the chief said he didn’t want to comment about it publicly, but would do so “offline” — drawing jeers from some in the audience who demanded an explanation.
McDonnell told the commission that he supported the city’s efforts to lift the court’s injunction. Easing the restrictions, he said, would “allow our officers to have access to less-lethal force options so that we don’t have to escalate beyond that.”
Times staff writer Noah Goldberg contributed to this report.
DAUGHTER’S. WESH TWO NEWS STARTS NOW WITH BREAKING NEWS. WE’RE FOLLOWING SEVERAL BREAKING NEWS STORIES FIRST IN BREVARD COUNTY, WHERE THE SHERIFF SAYS THEY’VE MADE AN ARREST IN THE MURDER OF A 15 YEAR OLD GIRL. BUT THE SEARCH FOR ANOTHER SUSPECT CONTINUES IN JUST THE LAST HOUR, SHERIFF WAYNE IVEY ANNOUNCED THIS MAN, 20 YEAR OLD JOHN TARIK SMITH, WAS ARRESTED FOLLOWING A TRAFFIC STOP IN VOLUSIA COUNTY. HE’S NOW FACING SEVERAL CHARGES, INCLUDING FIRST DEGREE MURDER. THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE JUST POSTED VIDEO OF DETECTIVES WALKING SMITH INTO THE BREVARD COUNTY JAIL. INVESTIGATORS BELIEVE HE HELPED AMBUSH A CAR OUTSIDE A RESTAURANT IN UNINCORPORATED COCOA LAST WEEK. SHOOTING AND KILLING CORREIA DUNNELLON AND WOUNDING TWO YOUNG MEN. NOW, DEPUTIES ARE LOOKING FOR A SECOND SUSPECT RIGHT NOW. AND THIS IS HIS PHOTO HERE. HIS NAME IS XAVIER BUTLER. IF YOU KNOW WHERE HE IS OR YOU HAVE ANY INFORMATION, YOU’RE URGED TO CALL THE SHERIFF’S OFFICE OR THE CRI
Arrest made after 15-year-old killed in Cocoa ambush shooting
An arrest has been made after a 15-year-old girl was killed in an ambush shooting in Cocoa last week, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday.Jonterich Smith, 20, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. He is being held without bond.The BCSO is still looking for the second suspect, Xazavier Butler. If found, he will be faced with the same charges as Smith, and held without bond. Ka’Ryah Duncan was one of three people shot while sitting in a parked car outside a restaurant on Clearlake Road. Another car pulled up behind them and fired dozens of shots, leaving all three people wounded, BCSO said. Duncan later died from her injuries. Video shared by the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office to Facebook
BREVARD COUNTY, Fla. —
An arrest has been made after a 15-year-old girl was killed in an ambush shooting in Cocoa last week, the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office announced Monday.
Jonterich Smith, 20, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder and two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm. He is being held without bond.
The BCSO is still looking for the second suspect, Xazavier Butler. If found, he will be faced with the same charges as Smith, and held without bond.
Ka’Ryah Duncan was one of three people shot while sitting in a parked car outside a restaurant on Clearlake Road.
Another car pulled up behind them and fired dozens of shots, leaving all three people wounded, BCSO said.
Minnesota Lynx forwards Alanna Smith and Napheesa Collier anchor the WNBA’s 2025 All-Defensive first team announced on Wednesday.
Joining the duo is Seattle Storm guard Gabby Williams and two players currently competing in the WNBA Finals, Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson and Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas.
Smith and Wilson were named 2025 Co-Defensive Players of the Year last month.
The Lynx had an WNBA-best 34-10 record this past season but were eliminated by the Mercury in the semifinals of the playoffs.
Named to the All-Defensive second team were Indiana Fever forward Aliyah Boston, Golden State Valkyries guard Veronica Burton, Atlanta Dream guard Rhyne Howard, Storm forward Ezi Magbegor and New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart.
Simone Charley scored the equalizer in the 85th minute and the Orlando Pride rallied for a 1-1 road draw with the Houston Dash on Friday night.Fighting for a playoff spot, Houston (7-10-6, 27 points) took the lead in the 62nd minute when Malia Berkely scored amid traffic off a short corner.
Ten minutes later, the Pride (9-8-6, 33 points) started to take control, getting three shots away, including an attempt from Ally Lemos which Abby Smith had to reject in the 79 th minute.
Charley, who came off the bench in the 68th minute, was able to head home a delivery from Haley McCutcheon with five minutes remaining in regular time for her first goal in three years, which also stunned the home crowd.
Orlando has earned three points in the two matches following its 0-5-4 rut, as it continues to challenge for a top-four spot in the NWSL standings. They are currently tied with Seattle for fourth place, but the Reign have a game-in-hand.
The Dash, meanwhile, have managed just two goals amid their current 1-2-1 stretch, as their own push toward playoff position continues. They current reside in 10 th place, still only two points behind eighth-place Louisville.
Houston owned an 8-2 overall shot advantage during the scoreless first half. Orlando responded and pressured early in the second half, only to be thwarted by some key saves from Smith (five saves).Orlando owned a 6-3 advantage when it came to shots on target. Pride goalkeeper Anna Moorhouse was credited with a pair of saves.
Jo and Rob grab their flight funds to recap the fourth episode of Slow Horses Season 4. They open with a few more listener emails before discussing a theory on what landed J.K. Coe in Slough House, how they’re feeling about Season 4 in relation to past seasons, and the shocking fate of Sam Chapman (18:32). Along the way, they check in on coat watch and Spy Vs. Spy (38:22). Later, they’re joined by Slow Horses showrunner and Emmy Award–winning writer Will Smith to talk about why Hugo Weaving was the perfect actor to play this season’s villain, what it’s like to be juggling multiple seasons at once, his approach to writing pleasant grumps, and much more (49:35).
Hosts: Joanna Robinson and Rob Mahoney Guest: Will Smith Producer: Kai Grady Additional Production Support: Justin Sayles
Art Smith takes a quick look around Time Out Market Chicago and softly asks: “Do you know what chefs do after they’re 60?”
Smith, the celebrity chef who worked with Oprah Winfrey and has served dignitaries, like President Biden, didn’t expect an answer. Smith posed the question to justify his new rapport with the Chicago Hounds, a professional rugby team founded in 2022 that plays home matches at SeatGeek Stadium in suburban Bridgeview. In February, Smith and the Hounds announced a collaboration in which Smith’s new brand, Sporty Bird, began selling chicken sandwiches and more at the stadium. Over the weekend, Smith also unveiled a Sporty Bird-branded food stall at Time Out Market, the food hall run by the media company.
Beyond his association with Oprah, Smith is known for restaurants like Table Fifty-Two in Gold Coast, a hit mostly known for its fried chicken. Smith is proud of the restaurant (which was rebranded as Blue Door Kitchen & Gardenin 2016) and its alums: “Joe is just killing it here,” Smith says of Joe Flamm, the chef and co-owner of Rose Mary, right down the street from Time Out Market.
Chef Art Smith swears he can cook more than chicken.Sporty Bird/Kim Kovacik
Last year, Smith opened Reunion at Navy Pier and he maintains a residence in Hyde Park. But he still travels. He talked about an upcoming trip to India and meeting esteemed chef Francis Mallmann earlier this year during a visit to an island in Patagonia. Even though he joked about his age, Smith’s star continues to shine, passing through open doors closed to most food hall tenants. Most food halls brand themselves as incubators, taking chances on relatively unproven talent. Smith is the opposite.
Still, the venture with the Hounds is a risk. He touts himself as the only professional chef who owns a professional sports team in America. It’s a claim that’s hard to verify. For example, is a burger cook who works at an Applebee’s and has shares in the publicly-owned Green Bay Packers, considered an owner of a pro team?
Smith wants to bring energy to Time Out (“I want to throw a party,” he says) and sees potential — even as the food hall goes through changes. Smith praised chef Jorge Kaum, the chef behind Gutenburg, a food hall burger stall. Kaum is also a chocolatier and made chocolate-shaped rugby balls in honor of Smith’s opening.
Avli is set to leave the market at the end of the month — they’re going to open a stand-alone location in the area. Evette’s left earlier this year. Of the original lineup from 2019, only chef Bill Kim (Urbanbelly) remains. A few of the restaurants had problems with management and didn’t like the terms of their contracts. Food halls have struggled during the pandemic. Two closed in the West Loop/Fulton Market — Politan Row and Fulton Galley. In March, Time Out brought in a new general manager, Steve Pelissero, to bring in some stability.
Sporty Bird features chicken (“I do know how to cook more than chicken,” Smith says). The spicy nuggets have heat, at least during an opening event last week. But there’s a worry that too much heat will alienate customers in the area.
Jade Court’s Carol Cheung is working with Sport Bird.Sporty Bird/Kim Kovacik
Unexpectedly, the stall has a familiar face behind the counter. Carol Cheung, the chef and the owner behind Hyde Park’s Jade Court, an acclaimed Cantonese restaurant and longtime member of the Eater Chicago 38, is managing operations. As Smith is a Hyder Parker, he befriended Cheung and wants to find a way to revive Jade Court, which struggled at the University of Chicago’s Harper Court development. Time Out does have spaces available.
What gave Smith the idea to partner with the hounds? Last year, soccer legend Lionel Messi launched a fried chicken sandwich in Miami with Hard Rock Cafe. Smith saw the sandwich become a viral sensation, yet he was hardly impressed by the sandwich: “I could do better,” Smith says.
Some vendors have fled, others say they’ve made money at the food hall. Kaum, who also has a stall in Miami, says things are improving in Chicago. Smith is hopeful that Sporty Bird, and perhaps a Jade Court revival, can take advantage. He’s reminded of something his friend Oprah once told him: “You don’t have to be first,” Smith recalls Winfrey saying. “But you do have to be better.”
The Chicago location of Smith & Wollensky remains closed after a small Friday, April 5 fire in the steakhouse’s kitchen. A firefighter was seen taken off in a stretcher. No customers or staff were hurt, according to the steakhouse.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation. The steakhouse, via social media, apologized to customers and vowed for an update ASAP. Smith & Wollensky, a chain with 10 locations, opened its Chicago steakhouse in 1998, off the Chicago River in the Marina City complex.
Marshmello fans lineup in front of Wiener Circle
Before his Saturday performance at the Aragon Ballroom, Marshmallo, a DJ and electronic music producer, played a surprise set on top of the Wiener Circle — turntables were installed on the roof. Hundreds flooded toward the restaurant. No ketchup stains harmed the DJ’s glorious white visage.
Thank you to the security team for keeping traffic moving and for @cta for showing your passengers on the 22 Clark bus a good time! pic.twitter.com/BWNsqYfFg0
— The Wieners Circle (@TheWienerCircle) April 7, 2024
Chart-topping musician visits River North restaurant
If music doesn’t work out for singer-songwriter Benson Boone, maybe working in a restaurant will.
Boone, whose album — Fireworks & Rollerblades — released last week was in Chicago where he played two shows at the Salt Shed. In between the concerts, he joined a growing contingent of musicians who arrange to work at a restaurant for publicity. Pizzeria Portofino in River North was the venue of choice. While the Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises’ restaurant along the Chicago River isn’t exactly a magnet for Boone’s Tik Tok-obsessed fanbase, the singer still shared a pizza (topped with marinara, Italian sausage, red onions mozzarella cheese, artichoke hearts, and parmesan) he baked alongside Pizzeria Portofino’s Pizza Chef Jeff Smyl with guests. Boone’s single, “Beautiful Things,” has been No. 1 on global charts since mid-February.
Red-pilled individuals claim they have awakened to the truth that no-fault divorce, spousal support, custody laws, and many other things associated with marriage are biased against men. The Onion asked red-pilled Americans to explain why men should never get married, and this is what they said.
Have you watched Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the 2005 Brad-and-Angelina action comedy, recently? Like, actually watched it, not just let your nostalgic memories of it play in your head. Mr. & Mrs. Smith was at the center of pop culture in the mid-aughts for a lot of reasons that had nothing to do with the actual movie, and a few that did: It’s sexy fun with massive stars, and director Doug Liman knows how to put together a good action scene. The elevator pitch — two professional assassins are married to each other, but don’t know about the other’s job — is a good one.
But right now, in 2024, it’s almost unwatchably strange. It’s one of those not-that-old movies that are so specific to their time they seem to have aged beyond their years. The bitter, marriage-is-hell humor lands wrong. The two leads look hot but sort of unreal, like they’re the premature product of de-aging technology. There are some iffy digital shots, and the cinematography and camera work — all handheld, all high-contrast, all orange and teal, all the time — are extremely 2005. It’s just not a film that plays anymore, and although it was a huge hit and the eye of a tabloid storm, it’s not much talked about today.
Which makes it an odd choice to be adapted into a Prime Video streaming series. Or maybe it doesn’t. Maybe, in fact, the choice by star Donald Glover and co-creator Francesca Sloane is a genius one.
In the current phase of the streaming wars (a phase we might be on the precipice of leaving behind, but that’s another story), the studios have not been shaken in their belief that any level of intellectual property name recognition is better than none, and creatives have been barraged with invitations to rework this or that old movie. Very rarely, as in the improbable success of Noah Hawley’s Fargo, an anthology series made in the spirit of the Coen brothers’ cinematic masterpiece, this has worked. More often it has not. Sometimes, the misbegotten results have at least been interesting, like Amazon’s curious reinterpretation of Dead Ringers. Sometimes, as in the case of the uninspired retread of Fatal Attraction, they have been both pointless and dull.
Photo: David Lee/Prime Video
Glover and Sloane’s inspired choice was to select a movie from the studios’ menu that is famous but unsophisticated and not especially beloved, with a dated iconography that could easily be junked and a strong concept that could be stripped to its core and rebuilt completely from scratch. This is exactly what they’ve done, creating a delightful series that is almost the inverse of its inspiration, while sharing its core values: It’s funny, sexy, glossy, and exciting, and built around the chemistry of its two leads.
The setup is markedly different. Rather than rival assassins who got hitched by accident, Glover and Maya Erskine’s John and Jane Smith have been purposefully paired up by the same shadowy employer, shedding their previous lives to begin a new one together. Where Pitt and Jolie begin the film as flawless pros trapped in domestic tedium, Glover and Erskine are awkward, hesitant newbies exploring their dangerous new profession and budding relationship together.
This sets up a show that is a lightly spiced, well-observed take on contemporary work and relationships with a side order of covert-ops hijinks. It might take viewers a couple of episodes to adjust to Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s unique world. It’s intimate and chatty, with a casual approach to the action stuff that isn’t concerned with realism or plausibility, and constantly lowers the dramatic temperature and the stakes, even as the Smiths get involved in increasingly outlandish mission-of-the-week scenarios. It’s a cool, easygoing relationship dramedy about people who just happen to be elite contract agents (but also gig workers, kind of). That’s not to say it doesn’t deliver thrills — there are some close scrapes, and one later episode set on Lake Como has an outstanding protracted chase scene — but it’s easy to tell where Glover and Sloane’s interest really lies: The action is as broad-brush and goofy as the Smiths’ dialogue is plausible, intricate, and nifty in its detail.
Photo: David Lee/Prime Video
Photo: David Lee/Prime Video
Mr. & Mrs. Smith — unlike the cinematically ambitious Fargo show, for example, which Sloane worked on, as well as contributing to Glover’s Atlanta — is also under no illusions about what medium it belongs to. This is very much a TV show. It has slick, aspirational visuals, with lovely location shoots around New York and Europe, handsome architecture, and cool fashion (Glover’s looks are on point). But the scale is small, and the 40-minute episodes are tight, discrete, satisfying short stories. Each one moves the Smiths’ relationship on while pairing them with a string of one-off guest stars, often as the couple’s mission target. It’s a murderer’s row of iconic actors: John Turturro, Sharon Horgan, Parker Posey, Ron Perlman, Sarah Paulson, Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, and more. Perlman is magnificent as a mournful, childish oligarch with a killer Hitler joke, while Paulson provides a savagely accurate parody of a couples therapist.
This is just a great TV format, and in theory Mr. & Mrs. Smith could run forever like this; it’s reminiscent of Poker Face in the way it seeks to rehabilitate old-school case-of-the-week TV. Glover, however, likes to play games with form, as with Altanta — albeit to a much less experimental extent in this case. Mr. & Mrs. Smith is only a few episodes old before it starts to break its own format. It’s cunningly done, but it perhaps doesn’t leave Glover and Sloane with a lot of room to maneuver in a potential second season.
Perhaps, though, that’s because Mr. & Mrs. Smith’s primary motivator is John and Jane’s relationship, and it’s essential to the drama that this keeps moving forward. Glover and Erskine are simply irresistible: likable, simultaneously spiky and smooth, damaged but competent (up to a point), and very plausibly into each other. Their scenes together radiate with the comfortingly bitchy intimacy of two people who are inseparable partners in absolutely everything, and when things go wrong between them, the show’s insouciant surface cracks enough to expose real hurt.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith is a fun bit of escapism wrapped around a complex, warm, and relatable love story. Glover and Sloane made something new and refreshing out of a movie that is past its sell-by date. If we’re only allowed to watch new things based on other, older things, we’ll be lucky if a fraction of them are made with as much wit and creativity as this.
Perhaps the most telling—if cynical—part of Amazon’s new Mr. & Mrs. Smith series occurs in the opening minutes of the second episode. Over bagels and lox, Maya Erskine’s Jane asks Donald Glover’s John what inspired him to go down the path of high-risk espionage and 40-hour-a-week drudgery. In his winking and meta way, Glover simply responds “money,” as the couple laugh, knowing there’s rarely another answer.
For almost two decades, this hyper self-awareness has been Glover’s signature. Mr. & Mrs. Smith revels in a mischievous and playful hubris. Glover knows that you know about his lucrative, eight-figure deal with the Bezos behemoth. Just like he understands that Donald and Maya aren’t Brangelina, and that a show originally meant to star Phoebe Waller-Bridge before Erskine joined is the type of discourse machine few creators can stoke.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith, and by extension Glover, feels caught between two eras of TV struggling to coexist. On paper, Glover’s and co-creator/showrunner Francesca Sloane’s show nestles nicely into Amazon’s growing portfolio of four-quadrant, IP-spy thrillers. It’s a remake of a beloved 2005 movie, starring two darlings of the prestige TV era with a cast of supporting players—Paul Dano, Michaela Coel, Alexander Skarsgard, Sarah Paulson, Ron Perlman—that’d put most comparable programming to shame. Its ballooned budget is so tastefully deployed across its wardrobe and locales that it feels like a sentient Instagram feed of those vacation girls Drake is always complaining about.
Like Atlanta before it, Mr. & Mrs. Smith lives and dies by the audacity of its swings. If Brad and Angelina’s original was pitching the rebirth of domestic bliss as aspirationally sexy, the reboot’s vision is more earnestly sober. Amazon’s Mr. & Mrs. Smith asks the type of questions—Can love survive the gig economy? How much of ourselves do we lose in an interracial relationship? How many times is it socially acceptable to call your mom on a given day?—that can make couples therapy feel like a lobotomy. In other words, it’s a Donald Glover show.
Eight years ago, the novel proposition of Atlanta was that it was in constant conversation with the hyper-online and underrepresented Black spaces it mined for inspiration. In the deflating final days of the Obama era, a convergence of multiple factors—Trump, the Black Lives Matter movement, streaming wars—meant white America had a lot of time and money to spend on Black art that was deemed “important” and also made them feel good.
Careers were minted. Creatives turned mogul. A generation of Black showrunners became recognizable by one half of their name: Glover, Issa, Rhimes, Waithe, Carmichael. We were inundated with a bounty of great art (and just as much schlock) with no sign of an end.
Then the pandemic struck, and soon the entire era of “peak TV” came under scrutiny. The white guilt and easy PR born from 2020 protests and social movements could only last so long in Hollywood, a place where the illusion of change is usually mistaken for the real thing. “Prestige” shows began to fade. Shows like Lovecraft Country, Them, and Love Life came and went without securing the same type of rabid fan bases that Atlanta and Insecure could boast (and even those shows were never ratings juggernauts).
The 2023 Hollywood strikes didn’t help matters. In November, returning Disney CEO Bob Iger said the quiet part out loud when he declared, “We have to entertain first. It’s not about messages.” The not-so-subtle jab at diversity as the main culprit for Disney+’s stagnation arrived right on schedule. A couple months later, Issa Rae acknowledged what this prevailing new Hollywood order meant for the darkest people in the room. “You’re seeing so many Black shows get canceled, you’re seeing so many executives—especially on the DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] side—get canned,” Rae told Net-A-Porter. In January, Rap Sh!t, Rae’s follow-up to Insecure, was canceled at Max after two seasons. “You’re seeing very clearly now that our stories are less of a priority. I am pessimistic, because there’s no one holding anybody accountable.”
Mr. & Mrs. Smith isn’t a Black show in the way we’ve been taught to view any mass media originated by a powerful Black person. Sloane hails from El Salvador, and the show’s creative duties are split up between a host of creatives from Hiro Murai to Carla Ching. While the series’ best moments can’t help but interrogate ideas on race and power, it’s always through the prism of matrimony and the ways it can drive the people stuck within it mad.
The pilot episode doesn’t begin with our new John and Jane but instead with two conventionally attractive stand-ins for Pitt and Jolie played by Alexander Skarsgard and Eiza González. Naturally, in the show’s winking manner, Skarsgard’s neck is blown off within minutes, metaphorically signaling that our traditional spies need to die for Glover and Erskine to provide something a tad more esoteric. Perhaps the show’s most loaded (and hilarious) moment arrives when our new half-Japanese, half-white Jane murders three Black targets when she gets jealous that John is connecting with these men over Asian jokes. The racial complications of the situation volley back and forth until they’re too absurd to take seriously. John thinks his Japanese wife is jealous of his Black male bonding, which she’s chastised for by their wealthy white marriage counselor.
Like its protagonists, Mr. & Mrs. Smith is at war with itself,sweating profusely with ideas and ambitions. It’s a self-conscious examination of whether greatness in romance, career aspirations, and art can flourish within the confines of domesticity. The show is enamored of its own sense of subversion, but it most often succeeds when it’s more conventional.
Similar to the institution it seeks to mock and venerate, the pace and emotional fallout of the series is brutal, closer to Marriage Story than Mission: Impossible. It has all the ugly and tortured contours of witnessing a good friend’s marriage disintegrate before your eyes.
Glover’s and Erskine’s portrayals of John and Jane are awkward and cringe-inducing, and the camera often lingers on their most intimate moments with a voyeuristic quality. The duo’s chemistry is slippery. True to life, there’s less of a spark and more of a sloppy runaway freight train of existential and boredom-fueled horniness. You believe their love in the same way you would the word of your hopelessly romantic friend. Time, life, and rapidly decreasing hormonal levels will always tell them what you cannot.
But the sincerity baked into the elevated rom-com premise gives the show its electricity. Glover still has an uncanny ability to disarm the audience, his laugh and innocent charm as infectious as it was behind the Greendale table. While Glover and Erskine’s chemistry waxes and wanes from episode to episode, the show’s comedic moments—Jane warming John’s dangerously frostbitten penis, Jane going to great lengths to hide her farts, John lying about smelling said farts—are its most refreshing.
The conundrum of Mr. & Mrs. Smith is that marriage—like love, vulnerability, and moguldom—is inherently corny because growing older is corny. At 40, Glover is no longer “Trojan horsing” his concepts through the Hollywood system. He’s been part of the industry for almost 20 years, dating back to his time working on 30 Rock. Like James Harden before him, Donald has become a system, and Mr. & Mrs. Smith is the first of his shows to interrogate life from that perspective. Glover’s John is distrusted by the faceless spy corporation in a way Jane is not. Rarely does John follow rules, plans, or conventional thinking even when it becomes clear his life hangs in the balance. Ever since Donald made the leap from network sitcom star to auteur status, he’s chafed against rewriting the history of his ascent.
Part of the myth of Atlanta is how much John Landgraf—the FX executive who coined the phrase “peak TV”—didn’t want the show they ended up getting. “Steve always reminds me, ‘FX didn’t want to do this show—you had to beg them. Fuck them,’” Glover told The New Yorker in a 2018 profile, paraphrasing his brother and Atlanta co-creator. “I like Landgraf, I’ve learned a lot from him, but FX is a business. It’s not there to make some kid from Stone Mountain, Georgia’s dreams come true.” (Landgraf, for his part, didn’t dispute Glover’s narrative. “I don’t have a problem with the Trojan-horse narrative if it’s important to Donald,” Landgraf responded. “We’re in the business of making pieces of commercial television that mask deeper artistic narratives.”)
By Episode 4 of Mr. & Mrs. Smith, this fraught subtext is made plain when Glover and Erskine meet fellow Agents Smith (played by Wagner Moura and Parker Posey) years into their spycraft and relationship. The humor and tragedy of the generational divide between the young and old Smiths is illustrated when the older John is unable to distinguish between a Clipse and Eminem song, in very much the same way most don’t care to interrogate the rise of FX’s Dave in the wake of Atlanta.
“It’s hard to be old and famous and stay punk,” Moura waxes poetically.
“I don’t think it’s possible. I don’t think you’re supposed to be punk,” Donald responds.
Glover returns to the idea of who and what isn’t “punk” a lot. He reportedly told the Atlanta writing staff, “We’re the punk show—what’s the most punk thing to do?” during its conception, and after the disappointing critical reception to Atlanta’s third season, his wife’s response was “You do punk things, you get punk results.” By the time Atlanta returned for the following season, it was competing in a crowded landscape it had paved the way for, as shows like Reservation Dogs, Barry, Ramy, and Dave followed their own lanes of subversion to acclaim of their own.
One of the unspoken tragedies about the end of whatever you want to call the last 20 years of television is that it presented a convenient truth. For a moment, there was a belief—as nurturing as it was naive—that by virtue of TV finally becoming artistically “important” it could also inspire change. Maybe if we watched and related to the depths of Tony Soprano, Walter White, or Don Draper enough we’d come to find out something about ourselves. Naturally, that extended to Earn and Issa and Dre. But that rarely if ever happens. TV is mass media entertainment, and all it’s ever known is the mean. Transcendent television always existed in opposition to that.
In that same New Yorker article, Glover spoke about Atlanta’s capacity to teach something important. Critical consensus was still on the show’s side and we were yet to see the other side of the streaming boom. “I don’t even want them laughing if they’re laughing at the caged animal in the zoo. I want them to really experience racism, to really feel what it’s like to be black in America,” Glover said. “It’s scary to be at the bottom, yelling up out of the hole, and all they shout down is ‘Keep digging! We’ll reach God soon!’”
We’re back to digging. And maybe that’s the joy of Mr. & Mrs. Smith. A series this messy being made by a team that still seems to care when the market says they don’t have to is still an entertaining proposition.
Every frame isn’t perfect. Often the show’s world seems to adhere around the joke or punch line, leaving characters to seem far more stupid or downright illogical than they probably should be. But then Ron Perlman delivers a terrible Holocaust joke or Glover punctuates a scene by cocking his hat to the side like a 2007 Derrick Comedy skit and it all comes back into focus.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith found a reason to exist and managed to get there in the most peculiar way possible. It didn’t need to save or change the world, because no amount of peak TV—even the shows by Black creators—could. Like marriage, eras can only last so long until a new pair of Smiths comes around.
Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay react to Nick Saban’s retirement announcement (11:33) before discussing Stephen A. Smith going scorched earth on Jason Whitlock (22:28). Then, a conversation about Democratic criticism leading up to the election (43:50), and Kai Cenat echoes Christian concerns over Lil Nas X’s latest single (1:09:57).
Hosts: Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay Producers: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith
Chris and Andy talk about the finale of Slow Horses Season 3, and how the show is set up to be able to try different types of storytelling with each season (1:00). Then, they are joined by show creator Will Smith to talk about how they have been able to put out a new season every six months (17:28), and working with Gary Oldman to bring the character of Jackson Lamb to life (35:30).
Hosts: Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald Guest: Will Smith Producer: Kaya McMullen
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