It’s a risky proposition to create a “best of list” for Bob Pool stories in the Los Angeles Times.
Not only are there too many to choose from — more than 4,000 — but there are few shortcuts for finding the true gems. That’s because Pool hated writing for Page 1. He favored economy over length. And the headlines rarely did justice to tales he could weave way inside the old Times Valley Edition, say, on a page next to GE refrigerator ads.
Readers could chuckle at one story Pool wrote for inside the Metro section in 1984, then notice that was one of three bylines he had on the page and that the real winner was at the bottom. In this case, the tale of a Canoga Park homeowner named Jeanette Kohane, whose discovery of chocolate cake smeared on her home (she assumed it was vandalism) led to police to a ring stealing food from the local school’s cafeteria.
Pool, who died Sunday, was a legend in The Times newsroom for three decades. Most of that time, he did not have a defined assignment. His beat was “the Bob Pool story,” a perfect slice of the Los Angeles human condition that many days made reading a newspaper chronicling wars, sleazy politicians, economic distress and environment degradation somewhat bearable.
He had an eye for stories you would want to read. He found people you wanted to know. He respected your time. And he knew how to make you smile (during his early days at the Thousand Oaks News-Chronicle, he knew how to get you interested in a municipal government piece: “Although they’re already up to their knees in sewage effluent, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District leaders agreed Monday night to consider expanding their sewer system to Topanga Canyon.”)
Bob had a desk in the newsroom, but he was most likely out in the field, discovering the unexpected, the surprising and the slightly absurd. In West L.A., he caught up with the head of the Early Typewriter Collectors Assn. — a man in possession of more than 70 machines. But Bob didn’t write it as a nostalgia piece. It turned out he produced the group’s newsletter on a Mac.
As Times columnist Steve Lopez wrote of Pool on his 2014 retirement: He his the ultimate reminder to reporters that “good things happen when you blow off news conferences, set fire to press releases, get out of the office and celebrate the daily drama on what might be the world’s greatest stage.”
Los Angeles Times reporter Bob Pool
(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)
Bob, meet Bob. And another Bob
Pool had a knack for orchestrating a story into something more magical. So in 1991, Pool had an idea when David Rensin and Bill Zehme published the “The Bob Book,” which he described as a paperback that aimed to explore the “name Bob backward and forward.”
He arranged to have Times photographer Bob Chamberlin take the pictures and editor Bob Welkos edited the story.
As for the name, Pool found merit.
There has never been a President named Bob or a King Bob or a Pope Bob, of course. But Rensin and Zehme have decided that men named Bob are men who get things done.
True, Bobs do “enjoy a solid sense of sameness.” But they are decent, dependable types who instinctively make the most of a bad situation, according to the book. Bobs are sensible, approachable, likable and reliable. Not to mention predictable.
Nobody named Bob could have ever written “The Bob Book,” said Rensin, 41, of Sherman Oaks. That’s because Bobs are too pragmatic and unpretentious. Bobs don’t wear berets or quote Nietzsche or hang out at Renaissance fairs, he said. “They don’t take themselves seriously.”
Pool used to tell colleagues he was grateful for being named “Bob.”
What would have happened if his parents named him Seth, he joked.
The bellman from Bell who became a bellwether in Bel-Air
Pool always preferred the little guy over the big name. That is why he was drawn to the story of Tony Marquez:
Once the packages went in the box, Tony Marquez’s award was in the bag.
That’s the short version of how a Los Angeles bellhop has won the title of best hotel worker in America.
Marquez is bell captain at the Hotel Bel-Air. It’s the sprawling hideaway in Stone Canyon north of Westwood where cottage-like suites can go for $3,000 a night — and celebrity guests can come with a truckload of luggage.
But schlepping heavy suitcases and trunks around the Bel-Air’s 12-acre grounds isn’t what earned Marquez a national hotel-rating service’s only individual five-star ranking.
Pool ended the 2004 piece with one of his more beloved kickers: “So says the bellman from Bell who became a bellwether in Bel-Air.”
Santa Pool
In 1990, Pool spent weeks undercover as a retail Santa Claus, reporting a series of stories that would become Times Christmas classics:
By last weekend, I’d spent three weeks portraying Santa in shopping centers and elsewhere around town. I figured I had the slow-gaited Santa walk down pat. Ditto the Santa talk — the patter about what children want for Christmas, the milk and cookies they plan to leave out for me and the importance of brushing teeth and going to bed on time.
“Santas always wonder about it, but I don’t think you should have any fears about being recognized,” said Jenny Zink, head of the Santa Division for Western Temporary Services, who has hired 3,500 St. Nicks across the country this month. Costumed Santas even go unrecognized by their own children, she said.
But Mrs. Claus was not a believer. “Rachel will know who you are,” she fretted. “You’ll destroy her.”
I was undeterred. To make the test complete, I arranged for several of my nieces and nephews from Valencia to also visit with Santa. Mrs. Claus threw up her hands when she heard that.
Pool closed another in the series this way: “At the end of my shift, I took my aching back home for a long, steaming shower. My beard went for a soak in a bath of lukewarm water and Woolite.”
The guest who never checked out
It’s no surprise Pool was drawn to Thelma Becker, who as he reported in 1988, checked into downtown L.A.’s Biltmore Hotel “on Jan. 7, 1940, and never checked out.”
These days, hotel staff members look after the 5-foot-tall Becker as if she was each one’s mother. She is a guest at the hotel’s annual employee Christmas party. She has her own mail box at the employee mail center.
She was invited into a heavily guarded ballroom for a peek at the silver table settings before the Duke and Duchess of York arrived for a recent formal dinner.
“She knows everything about the hotel,” said Evelyne Gibert, manager of the Biltmore’s pastry shop. “If we do the pastry wrong, she’s not afraid to let us know. She knows the ingredients I put in the pastry. She even knows my husband.”
Becker remembers employees’ birthdays with gifts or, in the case of Biltmore public relations director Victoria King, with a surprise party on Tuesday night at a Mexican restaurant.
“She gives me the funnies from her paper every Sunday,” said front desk clerk Teina Tahauri.
Would the new ride vehicles be purely electric? Or would they be hybrids that still burned some climate-wrecking, oil-based fuel? And how long would it take for Walt Disney’s creative and engineering heirs to make the long-overdue switch?
After I wrote a story breaking the news about the company’s plans, a coalition of electric vehicle activists launched a campaign to pressure Disney to commit to electric vehicles — not hybrids — and to phase out gasoline within two years.
On Thursday, those activists won.
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In a written statement, Disneyland spokesperson Jessica Good confirmed to The Times that electrification “means fully electric — it does not mean hybrid or any other version of a gasoline combustion engine.” She added that the theme park “will no longer be using the current engines within the next 30 months.”
That means by fall 2026, Disneyland guests will no longer have to worry about breathing lung-damaging exhaust as they wait in line for Autopia — and park employees won’t have spend hours-long shifts inhaling those fumes as they work the ride.
It’s not yet clear when the newly electrified Autopia will reopen.
“Reimagining an attraction does take time, so we don’t have a reopening date at this time,” Good said.
Zan Dubin, the electric vehicle advocate leading the pressure campaign, was thrilled when she heard Thursday’s news. She called it a “huge victory” and a powerful reminder that climate activism works.
“All it takes for bad stuff to keep happening is for good people to do nothing,” she said, paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln. “And we refuse to stand by and do nothing.”
Dubin had been planning to lead a rally outside Walt Disney Studios in Burbank on Sunday, to urge the company to do better on Autopia. She’s told me she’s moving forward with the event, although she said it will now be more of a celebration.
“We are thrilled,” she said.
The stories that Disney tells at its theme parks — and on its streaming services, cruise ships and other platforms — are far more than entertainment. They play a powerful role in shaping how we understand our world and ourselves. That’s why the company’s decision to close Disneyland’s Splash Mountain ride — which was based on a racist film — and its increasing embrace of LGBTQ+ characters in its films have become such political flash points. The opponents of progress know that these choices matter.
If you care about climate progress, you should care about Autopia.
Disneyland visitors wait to exit the Autopia attraction in March.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
When the attraction opened in 1955 as a centerpiece of Walt Disney’s Tomorrowland, it helped cement the idea in the American consciousness that gas-guzzling cars — and endless freeways — were the way of the future. Within a year, President Eisenhower had signed the bill that would create the Interstate Highway System as we know it today.
Nearly 70 years later, cars, trucks and other modes of transportation are the nation’s largest source of heat-trapping emissions — emissions that have fueled record global temperatures for 10 straight months, resulting in deadlier heat waves, fires and storms. Fossil fuel combustion also produces regular old air pollution that researchers say kills millions of people each year.
Mining to supply lithium for lithium-ion electric car batteries can be environmentally destructive in some places. Freeways have historically been built through low-income communities of color, tearing apart vibrant neighborhoods. The more we can rebuild our cities around public transit, electric bikes and green space — and less around cars — the happier and healthier we’ll be.
Beyond Autopia, Walt Disney Co. has an opportunity to promote that kind of future in Tomorrowland.
As I wrote earlier this month, Disneyland fans agree that the once-futuristic land hasn’t been especially forward-thinking for a long time. To my mind, clean energy and sustainability would make the perfect theme for a new and improved Tomorrowland. There’s already a major public transit element in the Monorail. Throw in some gas-free induction stoves at the main restaurant, some solar panels, some environmental films at the currently empty movie theater — it could be pretty awesome.
But even short of all that, we’re going to need a lot of electric vehicles, fast, to get the climate crisis under control. And for Disney to start telling the story of those EVs at Autopia is a big deal. The company deserves credit for getting it right.
“I’m glad they’re stepping up and doing the right hitting,” said Joel Levin, executive director of Plug In America, a national electric vehicle advocacy group that’s sponsoring this Sunday’s rally. “It’s a great way for the public to experience electrification, to turn it into a teachable moment, rather than the experience of standing next to a gas lawnmower, which is what it feels like now.”
A diverse array of Orlando performers unite for the ‘Story’ performances in March
Oh Adventurous Orlando performer and director Christian Kelty (Joe’s NYC Bar, The Little Merman From the Black Lagoon) is gathering together a group of local performers across genre and practice for Story —running over the new few Thursday evenings only.
Taking over Ten10 Brewing’s BSide Space, Kelty and a crew of collaborators — including Banky, Michelina, Jester Cordell, Nigel John and director Sam Hazel— present Story for four successive Thursdays in March and early April.
Story is a mix of improv theater and live music, dance, spoken word and visual art. Kelty, who has been batting this idea around since 2012, promises a “one of a kind, artistic experiment.”
The Ringer’s Bill Simmons shares some brief thoughts on the Celtics’ loss to the Cavaliers (2:08) before he is joined by Matthew Belloni to answer 10 burning questions about the Oscars (8:46). Then Bill talks with Casey Wasserman about planning for the 2028 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (42:17), managing talent at Wasserman, the future of college sports (1:02:38), media, the next generation of stadiums, and more (1:34:54).
Host: Bill Simmons Guests: Matthew Belloni and Casey Wasserman Producer: Kyle Crichton
You may have heard that Jennifer Lopez made her own autobiographical version of Cloud Atlas where she journeys through time and space to heal her heart through the redemptive power of self-love and flower petals. You may have heard that her journey includes a steampunk Flashdance homage and a Ben Affleck jump scare and that Jane Fonda leads a sort of Greek-chorus-meets–Inside Out think tank of celestial beings. And those rumors (all true) may have stirred up some questions in your soul like: why, how, who, and huh? But perhaps most importantly: What on Jane Fonda’s green earth did we do to deserve such a thing?
Now, the tone with which you ask that last question might depend on how you typically respond to the artistic stylings of one Jennifer Lynn Lopez. Do you see her as a visionary? A Hollywood septuple threat? An artist constantly reinventing herself? A star who’s outkicked her talent coverage but continues to iterate on a public persona that’s never been particularly convincing as a contemporary auteur?
Nah, not that last one—this movie rules. It is singularly weird, and should be treated as such!
This Is Me … Now: A Love Story (huge win for punctuation) makes not a lick of narrative sense, and yet it is a masterpiece—as long as the barometer for what constitutes a masterpiece is “being extremely Jennifer Lopez.” One thing I’ve always respected about J.Lo is that she is going to sell you J.Lo, whether you meant to walk into the J.Lo shop or not. Was anyone expecting a sequel to her 2002 album This Is Me … Then 22 years later? Certainly not. (Except maybe J.Lo—why else would she name her album that in the first place?) Was anyone demanding that J.Lo make a visual album? I don’t think so. (Except, again, J.Lo, who is never not saying, “I guess I’ll just have to DO IT myself,” about an artistic endeavor that is entirely and wholly about … herself.) But then Jennifer Lopez reunited with Ben Affleck, the man she dedicated This Is Me … Then to in 2002, called things off with three days before their planned wedding, then got back together with and ultimately married 20 years later. Such a reunion deserved something more than just a sequel album.
Screenshots via Prime Video
So, from the heart/soul/dreams of Jennifer Lopez comes a 55-minute-long narrative musical that Amazon paid to distribute, once again dedicated to the epic love she and Ben Affleck share. In one sense, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story is a visual album for This Is Me … Now, which also dropped on February 16. In every other sense, however, J.Lo has made a 55-minute movie about a Leo learning to love herself while singing and dancing her way through two decades of romantic misadventures. It is the most Jennifer Lopez thing Jennifer Lopez has ever done in a career that has always been fully devoted to performing at max Jennifer Lopez. It is the ultimate continuation of J.Lo telling what she sees as her hero’s journey: a mission to be understood by a society that has been inaccurately consuming her artistry and personal life for nearly three decades …
Casting yourself as the underdog with a self-funded budget of $20 million? Iconic behavior. There is no other celebrity this insistent upon reminding us that she is an artist. To be fair, though, I’ve never seen art quite like This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. It is as if Michael Scott was given an eight-figure budget to make Threat Level Midnight, or if The Room was created by a legion of astrology-obsessed musical theater nerds instead of Tommy Wiseau. Like those films, This Is Me … Now is pure camp most especially because of its creator’s sincere belief in its artistic significance. J.Lo is the FUBU of pop stars—everything she makes is for Jennifer Lopez, by Jennifer Lopez—and this celestial steampunk odysseyis no different.
I believe that Jennifer Lopez loves these 55 minutes of musical cinema she’s created, and that’s enough for me. But for anyone who’s not Jennifer Lopez, you may have some questions about the facts and figures of This Is Me … Now: A Love Story. The movie will not tell you outright why Jennifer Lopez’s robot heart is powered by flower petals, or why her character exclusively resides in terrifying futuristic homes made entirely of glass—so I’m here today to answer some common questions that may arise regarding everyone’s favorite new movie featuring both ellipses and a colon in the title.
Is this a musical? A movie? A musical movie? A movie musical?
Stunningly, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story is yet another entry into this year’s canon of films that don’t fully spell out that they’re musicals in their trailers. Sure, the This Is Me … Now trailer was scored by Jennifer Lopez’s “This Is Me … Now” song. But I kind of just assumed the movie would be that: scored. But no, Jennifer Lopez is breaking into song and dance at all times in this movie. That makes it a musical.
From the trailer, I’d also assumed this would be a feature-length film. But, again, no! It is a 55-minute movie that according to J.Lo should not be classified as a music video, yet it also isn’t nearly long enough to be feature length. So what is it? The trailer tells us it’s a “new INTIMATE, CINEMATIC, MUSICAL experience,” and you know what? I agree: Jennifer Lopez’s first self-written, self-funded, and self-starring creation certainly is a “new … experience.”
Does J.Lo play herself in this musical movie?
Let’s be absolutely clear: This Is Me … Now is autofiction. In the opening scene, we see Jennifer Lopez on the back of a motorcycle with a man who looks a lot like Ben Affleck (played, in silhouette, by Ben Affleck), which then crashes while traversing a lake, signifying the greatest heartbreak of her life. In the narrative of the film, J.Lo is reunited with that man once more after 10 years, three divorces, and a journey through time and song to find love with the most important person in her life: herself. These are not the precise details of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck’s sprawling love story, but they’re close …
And yet, Jennifer Lopez’s character isn’t called Jennifer Lopez. She’s called “the Artist.” We only actually learn that from the movie’s closed captioning (“[The Artist laughs]”), as the movie works very hard to never call the character by a name—y’know, like Fleabag, if Fleabag was always doing intricate chest choreography instead of speaking directly to camera.
There are certainly indicators that the Artist is supposed to be world famous like J.Lo, but we learn absolutely nothing beyond the fact that she is permanently unlucky in love. “I know what they say about me, about hopeless romantics, that we’re weak,” the Artist says in one of her many monologues to her therapist. “But I’m not weak. It takes strength to keep believing in something after you keep falling flat on your face.” Some might also say it takes strength to produce nine studio albums and over 30 feature films and co-headline the Super Bowl … but that’s a story for a different for-J.Lo-by-J.Lo production. (It’s called Halftime, and she already made it, obviously.)
This movie is about love and love only. Ultimately, the Artist’s monologue ends with the line, “I believe in soulmates and signs and hummingbirds.” Because her name is the Artist, not the Writer.
OK then, so is Ben Affleck in this movie?
Ben Affleck … is in this movie. The entire point of the movie, after all, is that every mistake J.Lo has ever made in her life—every liquor-swilling boyfriend who’s ever broken any one of her metaphorical and also quite literal (in this movie) glass houses—has been leading back to Ben Affleck. So, obviously … in this movie … Affleck plays a TV commentator named Rex Stone, wearing a Donald Trump wig and a Mrs. Doubtfire prosthetic nose, and also occasionally proselytizing the news in the background of scenes. This character makes exactly no sense, but in one scene he does manage to deliver the film’s entire thesis statement when he says, “In 2012, the no. 1 question people asked was, ‘What is love?’”
Sorry, what people? Asked who? Why is 2012 the reference point here? The answer to all of those questions is: It doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters in the world is love. And if you’re wondering what the “top questions” people ask now are, according to Rex Stone, they’re: “Where my refund? Why women kill? Will I get laid? Is Europe a country? How I screenshot a Mac? Am I preg-erant? And why my poop green?”
It’s the funniest sequence of the movie, and I would bet my On the J.Lo newsletter subscription that Ben Affleck wrote that little diddy himself.
So how does this movie communicate a complicated timeline that spans 20 years, three divorces, and multiple time jump dream sequences?
In a word: bangs. Anytime we cut to J.Lo and she has bangs, we are in the present. Anytime she doesn’t have bangs, she is either in the past, in a dream, or in some version of the present (recent past) that she’s relaying to her therapist.
J.Lo’s bangs are ascritical to the plot of This Is Me … Now as the robot heart that’s powering the Artist’s metaphysical world (more on that in a minute). But because J.Lo is eternally ageless, at times we also have to rely on a basset hound puppy aging into an elder basset hound to understand that J.Lo has spent the last decade or so growing, healing, and preparing her heart to love Ben Affleck again.
What inspired Jennifer Lopez to make this movie?
Other than Ben Affleck, I have several theories: moments that occurred throughout the film that made me think, “This line/scene/image has clearly been rattling around in Jennifer Lopez’s head for a decade, so she decided to create an entire $20 million passion project around it.” They are as follows:
When she says to one of her future ex-husbands (played by the famously blond adult male Derek Hough), “You feel like home to me … but I left home for a reason.” J.Lo loves this line, you can just tell.
The movie opens with a million AI-rendered images of Jennifer Lopez depicted within the Puerto Rican folktale of Alida and Taroo … and I just know that Jennifer Lopez got one look at herself as a Greek goddess or a space explorer in December 2022 and thought, “I HAVE to get this imagery to the people.”
J.Lo learned a lot about astrology at some point, it made her realize a bunch of stuff about herself (classic Leo), and she decided to spend $20 million relaying that information to the public.
J.Lo did inner child work with a therapist. Quite literally, there is a dream sequence in this movie in which J.Lo apologizes to her younger self on the dark and dirty streets of the Bronx, and once she does, the sun comes out, and both J.Los break into song. Of course, we know it’s a dream sequence because the Artist is relaying it to her therapist, Fat Joe.
Is Fat Joe a licensed therapist?
From what I can tell, no. But he does wear a full beige outfit with all the confidence and gravitas of your richest aunt, so he’s at least believable as a therapist. Also believable? That J.Lo would try to pry personal details out of her therapist in order to bond. (“You’re such a Taurus. What sign is your wife?”)
You said we’d get back to this: Why is Jennifer Lopez’s heart powered by flower petals?
Right. After the Artist crashes on the motorcycle, signaling the greatest heartbreak of her life, we’re taken inside the Heart Factory, where an oiled-up and tank-topped Jennifer Lopez is yelling, “It’s gonna break!” I don’t know how to convince you that I’m not lying to you about the events of a J.Lo musical, but I promise I am not. There is a giant metal heart pulsing above the factory workers which has apparently reached “critical petal levels.”
That’s right. Jennifer Lopez’s heart is powered by flower petals, and the only way to save it is for Jennifer Lopez to get in a jumpsuit, walk a gangplank out to the heart, journey inside its destructing valves, and start feeding rose petals to the dwindling fire that powers it while simultaneously breaking into the song “Hearts and Flowers” (get it???) with the rest of the workers down on the factory/dance floor.
It’s not until a little later in the movie that we learn this was a dream sequence (no bangs—I should have caught it), and much later in the movie, we see the petal levels stabilize enough to repair the broken heart. So yeah, Jennifer Lopez is basically just Being John Malkovich–ing inside her own heart for like 20 years (well … earth years, robot-heart years may be measured differently), trying to save herself so she can marry Ben Affleck.
You’re telling me Jennifer Lopez’s Ben Affleck movie stages an elaborate reference to Armageddon?
That’s exactly what I’m telling you.
Are there any other dream sequences in this movie?
I’m pretty sure that any scene that doesn’t happen directly in the presence of Fat Joe himself is a dream sequence, or at the very least a recounting of a dream or memory by the Artist to her therapist, which, again, is Fat Joe. These include, but are not limited to: the aforementioned heart factory, a love addiction intervention, the shattering of a glass home via physical abuse, watching a healing round of The Way We Were on a custom monogrammed Gucci-esque couch, and, of course, a Singin’ in the Rain homage. So you might be wondering …
Is there a wedding montage in this movie?
Oh yeah, you betcha. And it’s amazing. The Artist married three men across 10 years, one song (“To Be Yours”), and several wedding dresses. The first wedding dress features two heart-shaped mesh cutouts that perfectly frame J.Lo’s crotch. Romance!
Perhaps more unexpected, however, is the couples therapy montage, wherein all three husbands sit in front of Fat Joe alongside the Artist (this feels like a psychiatric moral gray area, Fat Joe). Dialogue selections include: “I’m a piece of art in her collection,” and, “I feel like I’m just another thing in her house.”
What I wouldn’t give to be a Gucci-monogrammed sectional in J.Lo’s house! But ultimately, the Artist grows tired of all of these uninspiring men, leaves them behind in their own futuristic houses, and starts fucking around with a bunch of dummies. Her friends are forced to give her an intervention, and Fat Joe recommends joining Love Addicts Anonymous …
Is Love Addicts Anonymous a real thing?
Technically it’s called “Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous,” but yes,it is indeed a real 12-step program (though J.Lo makes sure to clarify that she is not a sex addict in her autofictional musical movie). At J.Lo’sLove Addicts Anonymous meetings, you’re led by veteran character actor Paul Raci, and you express yourself exclusively through modern dance.
A particularly rich piece of dialogue comes when Paul Raci tells the Artist, after her impromptu performance of “Broken Like Me,” that “I know you feel like no one gets you.” To which Jennifer Lopez—a woman who is in the middle of making an hour-long music video about herself—responds: “I don’t even get me.”
But that was J.Lo … then. And this is J.Lo … now. And this J.Lo … has read her birth chart.
Do you need to have a casual understanding of astrology to understand this movie?
It would certainly help! Even though the movie starts with a Puerto Rican folk tale that continues to proliferate through the movie in the form of a hummingbird (bet you didn’t see a J.Lo neck tattoo coming!), we’re really expected to come in with our own knowledge of the zodiac.
Bare minimum, knowing at least a little about all 12 astrological signs will really help color in the Zodiacal Council when it shows up …
What is a Zodiacal Council?
Oh, well it’s a collection of humanoid representations of the 12 star signs who watch over the Artist from the heavens as she fumbles her love life. They are exposition machines who say things like, “She’s smart, she’s beautiful, and she seems so strong—why does she always need to be with somebody?!” But most importantly, they are played by the likes of Keke Palmer (Scorpio), Trevor Noah (Libra), Post Malone (Leo), Sofia Vergara (Cancer), Jenifer Lewis (Gemini), and Neil deGrasse Tyson (Taurus), and, as aforementioned, they are led by Jane Fonda the Sagittarius. (Congratulations to all Sagittariuses for this iconic Monster in Law representation—and apologies to Aquariuses and Capricorns, who are straight up not represented on the Cameo Council.)
If you’re otherwise not a huge Jennifer Lopez fan, the Zodiacal Council scenes are pretty much the main reason to watch This Is Me … Now. It feels like a Super Bowl commercial in that none of these people ever filmed in the same room together, the narrative structure remains extremely thin throughout, a new person pops up with each new scene (hey look, it’s Jay Shetty!), and Post Malone is there, always seeming like he’s on the verge of performatively eating a bag of Doritos.
So did Jennifer Lopez make an hour-long, $20 million music video about being a Leo?
According to everything I learned about astrology from This Is Me … Now: A Love Story—yeah, she did. Leos are confident and assertive. Leos are enthusiastic, creative, and more self-conscious than you think. Leos are, above all else, hopeless romantics (at least according to my favorite Leo, Jennifer Lopez). And not only is Jennifer Lopez a Leo … she reunited with another Leo at the end of this movie whom she will eventually fall back in love with, marry, write an album about, and create an hour-long, absolutely bonkers, beautiful, gorgeous, perfect musical movie to accompany that album about …
And in a few weeks, This Is Me … Now: A Love Story will be followed up with The Greatest Love Story Never Told, a documentary about the making of this musical movie.
To drop a documentary about the musical you created about the album you wrote about your love story that the world has been consuming for over two decades, and to then call it “The Greatest Love Story Never Told,” well, I’m just gonna say it: classic Leo. Never change, Jennifer Lopez. And if you do, please make a musical about it.
But did you cry during This Is Me … Now: A Love Story?
So kind of you to ask, and yes, of course I did. The Artist healed her own heart through the power of time and Flashdance. She learned to love herself first in order to truly love another. She went back in time and space and told her 8-year-old self that she’s sorry and she loves her. She found Ben Affleck again on a beach in front of a giant, unexplained sand statue straight out of Game of Thrones.
Explore the world of love through a variety of lenses. Here’s a collection of powerful films that each portray love and romance in a unique way, spanning multiple genres including drama, comedy, fantasy, animation, and sci-fi.
“Cinema is a mirror by which we often see ourselves.”
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Movies give us the opportunity to explore major themes in life in a meaningful and profound way.
A powerful film can lead to a better understanding of your own experiences. It can communicate thoughts and emotions that may have been challenging to express; and, at times, completely reshape our perspective on life.
For better or worse, movies play a pivotal role in shaping our beliefs and map of reality. We pick up ideas through films, sometimes absorbed at a very young age, and those ideas find their way into our daily lives influencing our choices and perspectives.
Filmmakers understand the transformative power of cinema, purposely using it to shake up people’s consciousness. The goal of a solid film is to create an experience that leaves you a different person by the end of it.
As viewers, it’s essential to be aware of a film’s effects both emotionally and intellectually. Often, the movies that linger in our thoughts long after watching are the most impactful and life-changing.
Here’s a collection of classic films about love and romance. Each movie has had a lasting influence on audiences in one way or another. It’s an eclectic list that spans multiple genres, including drama, comedy, animation, fantasy, mystery, and sci-fi.
Titanic (1997)
James Cameron’s epic tale blends love and tragedy against the historical backdrop of the Titanic’s sinking in 1912. The film weaves a captivating narrative of a forbidden romance blossoming amidst a natural disaster.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)
In this mind-bending story, a man attempts to erase the memories of a lost love using cutting-edge technology, only to find fate conspiring to bring the couple back together repeatedly. The film explores the complexities of memory, love, and destiny.
Beauty and the Beast (1991)
Disney’s classic adaptation of the French fairy tale is celebrated for its beautiful animation and memorable songs. The film goes beyond appearances, illustrating the transformative power of true love.
Her (2013)
Set in a near-future world, “Her” tells the unconventional love story of a lonely man who forms a deep connection with his computer’s operating system. The film delves into themes of technology, loneliness, and the nature of human connection.
Before Sunrise (1995)
Richard Linklater’s film follows two young tourists who meet on a train in Europe and share an unforgettable night in Vienna. The movie explores the transient nature of connections and the profound impact of brief encounters.
Lost in Translation (2003)
Sofia Coppola’s film features a washed-up American celebrity and a young woman forging an unexpected bond in Tokyo. “Lost in Translation” navigates themes of loneliness, connection, and self-discovery.
Cinema Paradiso (1988)
An Italian filmmaker reflects on his past and learns how to channel his love in a different and creative way through his art and craftsmanship.
Past Lives (2023)
Two childhood friends reconnect after years apart, seeking to unravel the meaning behind their enduring connection. The film explores the complexities of friendship, time, and shared history.
Set in a dystopian future, “The Lobster” challenges societal norms by presenting a world where individuals must choose a romantic partner within 45 days or face transformation into an animal. The film satirizes the pressure to conform in matters of love.
Annie Hall (1977)
Woody Allen’s classic romantic comedy is a hilarious and heartfelt movie that explores neurotic love and the psychological obstacles we commonly face in marriage and long-term relationships.
Your Name. (2016)
A masterful anime that combines elements of science fiction, fantasy, and romance. It centers on a mysterious connection between a boy and girl who swap bodies, learn about each other’s lives, and search to find each other in real life.
A Woman Under the Influence (1974)
John Cassavetes’ uncomfortably raw and dramatic portrayal of the profound impact of mental illness on marriage and family, navigating the complexities with unflinching honesty.
The Fountain (2006)
Darren Aronofsky’s “The Fountain” explores love and mortality through three interconnected storylines spanning different time periods. The film delves into themes of eternal love and the quest for immortality, providing a visually stunning and emotionally resonant experience.
Scenes From a Marriage (1974)
Legendary director Ingmar Bergman’s deeply incisive and detailed chronicle of a rocky marriage’s final days.
Choose one movie and analyze it
Each of these films offers a different perspective on love while also pushing the boundaries of cinema and story-telling.
It’s fun to compare each story: How did the couples meet? What defined “love” for them? What obstacles did they face? Did the relationship work out in the end or not? Why?
While films are often seen as just a source of entertainment or healthy escapism, they can also be an avenue for self-improvement and growth.
The “Movie Analysis Worksheet” is designed to make you think about the deeper themes behind a film and extract some lessons from it that you can apply to your life.
Watch with a friend and discuss
If you don’t want to do the worksheet, just watch one of the movies with a friend (or loved one) – then discuss it after.
Watching a film together is an opportunity to share a new experience. It can also spark up interesting conversations. This is one reason why bonding through movies is one of the most common ways we connect with people in today’s world.
Which film will you check out?
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This week’s episode of True Detective: Night Country opens with a clever bit of sound editing, as the signature white noise of HBO’s logo blends seamlessly in with Police Chief Liz Danvers’ (Jodie Foster) white noise machine, at her bedside, failing to relax her. She can’t stop obsessing over the video she and Navarro (Kali Reis) found of Anne Kowtok’s last moments, looking for more clues. It’s Christmas Eve, and Anne’s cries for help are about to be joined by a chorus.
“Part 4” of Night Country is the season’s most haunted hour, the ghosts in the periphery of the show taking center stage, even as its protagonists continue to deny them. The emotional crux of the episode rests on Navarro’s sister Julia (Aka Niviâna), whom Danvers finds wandering in the snow without a coat, shivering through some kind of episode. Navarro checks Julia into a facility for extended care, but it’s already too late: She sees the dead everywhere. And so she walks out onto the ice and joins them.
Night Country’s protagonists have been speeding toward the brick wall of their own denial, and Julia’s death is the collision. The injustices and tragedies that haunt Ennis and intersect with each other are boiling over, and neither Navarro nor Danvers can ignore them much longer.
That doesn’t mean they don’t try: Navarro, grieving, starts a fight and gets her ass kicked. Danvers, who has been slowly revealed to be a woman broken down and shoddily rebuilt like a work of jagged kintsugi, becomes so hostile and toxic that she can’t hit up her fuckbuddy Captain Connelly (Christopher Eccleston) for a drunken hookup without browbeating him, and ends up spending the holiday wasted and alone. This would be a quiet, sad episode if it weren’t for the growing choir of the dead.
Photo: Michele K. Short/HBO
The thin membrane between the living and dead in Ennis is one of Night Country’s richest thematic veins, and showrunner Issa López never turns down an opportunity to remind us of it. Sometimes it is in casual juxtaposition, staging mundane conversations in front of a horrific “corpsicle”. Other times it’s in the ways the planet’s history is engraved on its surface too deeply for us to scrub out, like the ancient whale bones frozen in the background of the ice cavern where Anne Kowtok died. And finally, it is in the angry shades of dead women who scream in Navarro’s ear.
We’re past Night Country’s midpoint, and the assorted hauntings of “Part 4” form a ghostly mosaic of the show’s many concerns about our past, and how we work hard to ignore it. The eerie secrets locked away in ice, Navarro’s distance from her Indigenous culture, the toxic entitlement of men that causes women’s opportunities to curdle — if it doesn’t snuff them out outright. History can suffocate us if we pay it no mind. We can forget the dead but the dead may not forget us.
Danvers has her own haunting to contend with, a monstrous one-eyed polar bear that causes her to drive into a snowbank — a bear that Night Country suggests is not real. It’s another haunting, the shape of Danvers’ lost son Holden’s favorite stuffed animal. It’s one of the few things of his she keeps around, one of the only signs that she’s never stopped grieving, never did the work of moving on.
“The dead are gone,” she insists to Navarro. “Fucking gone.”
Navarro says that if Danvers believed that, she wouldn’t keep that stuffed bear. And perhaps, the viewer can infer, she wouldn’t throw herself into this job, seeking justice for Anne Kowtok, working her way through the spirals hidden across Ennis, staring at horrors others look away from. The ghosts surrounding Ennis will not be ignored. The white noise isn’t tuning them out anymore.
In our inaugural true crime episode of Guilty Pleasures, Jodi and Chelsea talk through their feelings about the many twists and turns of the new three-part true crime Netflix docuseries, American Nightmare (1:00). Then they catch up on the viral news story of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, who has very recently been released from prison, and the many pieces of culture surrounding her wild story of Munchausen syndrome by proxy, including the brand new Lifetime series: The Prison Confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard (35:05).
Hosts: Jodi Walker and Chelsea Stark-Jones Producer: Sasha Ashall
Juliet and Amanda kick off the week by breaking down their thoughts, feelings, and questions about the Jennifer Lopez documentary coming to Prime Video in February after watching the new trailer (1:00). Then they talk about the new Mean Girls musical movie remake with Reneé Rapp playing Regina George, as well as Reneé Rapp’s unfiltered public persona (14:00), Josh Radnor’s outdoor January wedding (29:53), the 21st Living Legends of Aviation Awards (37:19), and more!
Hosts: Juliet Litman and Amanda Dobbins Producers: Sasha Ashall and Jade Whaley
A 14-year-old boy has been arrested this week on suspicion of killing his parents and critically injuring his younger sister in rural Fresno County, authorities said.
The boy, whose name has not been released because he is a minor, faces two charges of murder and one charge of attempted murder, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release. Detectives have not determined a motive in the case.
The boy’s parents, Lue Yang and Se Vang, both 37, were found dead by officers in the family’s Miramonte home around 7:40 p.m. Wednesday, authorities said in the release. The boy’s 11-year-old sister “suffered major injuries” but is expected to survive.
The boy placed a 911 call earlier to report that someone had broken into his home and attacked his mother, father and sister, then fled in a pickup truck, according to the news release. Detectives who spoke with the boy discovered “inconsistencies” with his story, determining he fabricated the story and had used “multiple weapons to attack his family members,” authorities said.
A 7-year-old boy was also home during the attack, but was not physically injured, authorities said. Other family members are now caring for the boy.
Officers had not previously received any calls for service to the family’s home, Fresno County Sheriff John Zanoni said during a news conference this week.
Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s no. 1 most-read story focuses on some of the biggest education trends from 2023.
With the start of a new year and education conference season just beginning, educators and industry leaders are discovering the biggest education trends for 2023. The past few years have seen a significant transformation for education and edtech, and 2023 will continue to bring new ideas and emerging technologies.
This year, schools are placing a focus on supporting students’ individual needs and recovering pandemic learning loss. Because of this, we will see an increase in edtech to support learning, better accommodations for students, a focus on wellbeing, and new approaches to teaching that engage with students’ interests and future careers.
Here are five of the biggest education trends for 2023:
1.Social and Emotional Wellbeing
The pandemic prompted the need for a stronger focus on supporting the social and emotional wellbeing of students and teachers alike. As we rebound from the academic, emotional, and community challenges that arose during the pandemic, schools will need to ensure they’re offering the support and resources that students and teachers need.
Children and teens are currently experiencing higher rates of depression, anxiety, and suicidal thoughts than before the pandemic, and the academic and emotional pressures that come with recovering pandemic learning loss continue to affect student wellbeing. In 2023, we will see schools working to improve mental health programs, provide new academic support systems and resources for students, and implement technologies and programs focused on social-emotional learning and student wellbeing.
Teachers are struggling too: The demands of teaching have led to high rates of teacher stress and anxiety, and K-12 educators have the highest burnout rate of any profession in the U.S. To support teacher wellbeing and retain valuable, talented educators, schools will embrace new ways improve teachers’ work-life balance and wellbeing, including implementing new edtech tools, offering mental health resources, or even redesigning school spaces to better support educators in the classroom.
2.Personalized and Self-Led Learning
Personalized learning is by no means a new education trend, but learning models focused on an individualized or personalized approach will continue to evolve in 2023. Learning gaps widened during the pandemic, and as students continue to work to recover this learning, they will benefit from individualized learning opportunities. Schools will continue to provide struggling students with tutoring services, while advanced students will find new learning opportunities through online courses or internships outside the classroom.
Self-led, active learning will also see a rise as teachers enable students to work at their own pace and make more decisions about their learning––from what types of assignments they complete to how they want to work in the classroom. We expect this to motivate schools to create more flexible, active learning spaces that can be modified to fit a wide variety of learning needs. This will include the addition of modular pieces, tech-enabled learning areas, and a variety of different seating options to ensure student comfort and encourage movement.
3.Game-Based Learning and Esports
Ninety-seven percent of adolescents play at least one hour of video games per day, so bringing games into the classroom is intuitive for students. Gamified learning motivates students to engage with educational content in a different way, keeping students excited about their progress and helping to synthesize learning. Bringing games into the classroom also gives students an opportunity to explore social-emotional principles, increasing their adaptability and communication and improving their ability to work with others.
In the past several years, schools have also seen an increase in esports team participation. In 2023, we expect this trend to continue, with schools investing more resources into building esports teams and creating comprehensive esports spaces where teams can gather, practice, and compete. Evidence shows that academic esports benefits students’ overall academic performance and social emotional learning. Plus, students who are successful in esports competitions earn significant opportunities for college and scholarships.
4.Microlearning and Nano-Learning
“Microlearning,” or “nano-learning,” is a learning approach that has been successfully used in corporate training for a while, but it’s expected to really emerge in K-12 education in 2023. This bite-sized learning technique targets small chunks of learning content, which are presented to students in short, easily digestible tutorials or mini-lessons. Lessons focus on repetition of the same concepts spaced out over time, with the goal of increased retention.
The rapid growth of short-form video content like TikTok and Instagram Reels has illuminated the possibilities of using microlearning to engage students. Students are already turning to TikTok for homework help, which can expose them to new ideas and topics, but also opens students up to potential misinformation. Microlearning emerging as a K-12 education trend will enable teachers to better curate the bite-sized content students seek out for their learning, providing them with engaging content that breaks down complex topics into less intimidating chunks.
5. AR, VR, and AI
Augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and artificial intelligence (AI) are all projected to become more prevalent as educational tools and resources in 2023. These technologies will be working behind the scenes in some of the ways they will benefit education, such as AI being used to target students’ learning through edtech tools and platforms.
In other applications, AR, VR, and AI will be used directly by students. Students will participate in VR and AR experiences, gaining access to more immersive learning experiences through these tools. With easy-to-use AI art generators becoming more popular, they may use AI in creative endeavors. There are also AI programs available to help students find quality resources for research assignments, help them refine their writing, explain complex math problems, and more. When students graduate, they will encounter and use these technologies in college and their careers, so early exposure will prove beneficial.
We anticipate that this year will be exciting as new education trends transform learning in classrooms far and wide.
Each year, we share our 10 most-read stories. Not surprisingly, many of this year’s Top 10 focused on equity, edtech innovation, immersive learning, and the science of reading. This year’s 2nd most-read story focuses on literacy and student engagement.
In this episode of Innovations in Education, Madeleine Mortimore, Global Education Innovation and Research Lead for Logitech details how classroom technologies, if used properly, can increase student engagement and ultimately test scores.
Kevin is a forward-thinking media executive with more than 25 years of experience building brands and audiences online, in print, and face to face. He is an acclaimed writer, editor, and commentator covering the intersection of society and technology, especially education technology. You can reach Kevin at KevinHogan@eschoolnews.com
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.”
With just over 24 hours left before Rockstar Games was set to debut its first Grand Theft Auto 6 trailer, a grainy video started circulating online: The GTA 6 trailer, but marked with a massive bitcoin watermark. About 30 minutes later Rockstar did the corporate equivalent of saying “Fuck it,” uploading the trailer and pointing to it in a terse post on X: “Our trailer has leaked so please watch the real thing on YouTube.”
It’s unusual for a company like Rockstar to disregard its original, announced schedule and just post the thing, but it’s not the first time it’s happened. When The Last of Us Part 2’s PlayStation 5 remaster was leaked early on the PlayStation Store by data miners looking for new information, hours later, an official trailer popped up on YouTube, with several prominent Naughty Dog developers declaring that “leaks really suck.” (In Naughty Dog’s case, however, timing for The Last of Us Part 2’s remaster wasn’t announced, and it’s possible the YouTube release was its planned time.)
Typically, in the event of a leak, a company starts issuing takedown requests as quickly as possible — which Rockstar did, of course — and waits it out until the planned debut. (We’ve seen this plenty of times when Pokémon games leak early; Nintendo and The Pokémon Company try to take things down, but don’t acknowledge leaks head-on.) In the case of GTA 6, the early launch of the trailer hasn’t diluted the hype, with the GTA 6 trailer reaching more than 85 million views by Tuesday morning. It’s quickly gaining on Rockstar’s debut Grand Theft Auto 5 trailer, which was published on Nov. 2, 2011, and has more than 99 million views.
Image: Rockstar Studios/Rockstar Games
Several Rockstar employees have expressed their upset feelings about the leak: “This fucking sucks,” one developer posted to X. (The post, and the developer’s X account, have since been deleted.) The GTA 6 trailer wasn’t the first video game trailer to be leaked, and it definitely won’t be the last in an internet landscape where everyone from fans to brands is always fighting for eyeballs.
For better or worse, leaks have already become a part of GTA 6’s journey to its release — something that’s relatively on theme, as Rockstar’s upcoming game seemingly takes on the struggle for internet fame.
Grand Theft Auto is one of the video game industry’s most successful properties, which makes it a hot target for hackers and potential leaks. GTA 5 was released 10 years ago, and people have been salivating ever since at the prospect of the sixth entry in the series. Rockstar has been quiet about GTA 6 for most of the past 10 years; the studio didn’t acknowledge the game was in development until February 2022. Later that year, GTA 6 made history as Rockstar’s developers were subject to one of the largest leaks in modern video game history.
On Sept. 18, 2022, a hacker published more than 90 videos — roughly an hour’s worth of footage — from the in-development game. The leak was, and still is, unprecedented because of its sheer scope, the level of anticipation for the game in question, and because of how rare it is for fans to see huge parts of a AAA video game in a visibly unfinished state. The leaked footage depicted a GTA 6 that was clearly in development, with debug tools, blocked-out environments, and all.
Image: Rockstar Studios/Rockstar Games
The hacker claimed to have accessed Rockstar’s internal Slack, which is an application workplaces use to communicate and share files. A United Kingdom court found that a U.K.-based 18-year-old, Arion Kurtaj, was largely responsible for the hack. Kurtaj had been previously arrested for other hacking incidents performed in association with notorious group Lapsus$, and he was out on bail when he went after Rockstar, Uber, and Revolut. Kurtaj’s hack of Rockstar was the last one he managed before he was caught again in a Travelodge hotel that he had been put up in following concerns for his safety (he was previously doxxed by “rival hackers,” according to the BBC). Kurtaj and a second 17-year-old hacker were found guilty in August. The BBC reported that the prosecution’s lead barrister on the case, Kevin Barry, said the hackers were motivated by “notoriety,” “financial gain,” and “amusement.”
The damage had been done; many fans couldn’t resist the peek behind the curtain before the real show began. The hourlong clips in the leak gave eager GTA 6 fans a lot of material to work through, and by September of this year, the community had put together a 60-page document outlining every single detail from the leak.
Rockstar announced in November that it would post a trailer in December, news that was first reported by Bloomberg and quickly confirmed by Rockstar. Last week, Rockstar finally announced a date for the trailer: Dec. 5. In the lead-up to the trailer drop date, several quick videos were uploaded to TikTok purporting to show parts of the GTA 6 Vice City map; the video clips, which quickly spread, appeared to be recordings of a computer screen. The source and credibility of these uploads remains unconfirmed, but they do seem to match the cityscapes we’ve now seen in the legitimate trailer. Somewhere along the way, rumors started circulating that the leak came from a Rockstar employee’s son, but Polygon is unable to verify those claims. It’s impossible to tell, of course, whether the TikTok leaks came from the same source as Dec. 4’s trailer leak.
GTA 6’s legacy of leaks not only has an impact on how the community sees the game, but it’s something that affects developers, too. Rockstar is famously secretive — or perhaps notoriously so — and leaks are sometimes considered a rare look behind the curtain for fans, or even a triumph for transparency. Unfortunately, though, leaks can often have the opposite effect. Speaking to Wired in 2022, a AAA developer said leaking can tighten things up even more, making the industry more opaque — even within studios themselves. Sometimes, a “trust vacuum” forms between departments as studios investigate leaks internally, Wired reported. The player experience will rarely, if ever, be significantly altered by a leaked trailer or gameplay video, but the same can’t be said for the people making a leaked game.
Police are investigating a robbery at a mall near the Santa Anita racetrack Sunday afternoon that shook crowds of holiday shoppers.
“There was a smash-and-grab,” said Arcadia Police Lt. Tony Juarez. He said more detailed information would be released later. A security official at the Shops at Santa Anita also confirmed the robbery.
“Everything is OK and everything is safe now,” said the official, who declined to give his name.
On social media, posters reported shoppers running for cover and hiding in stores.
This is a developing story and will be updated as more information becomes available.
It was just after 2:30 p.m. on a recent Wednesday, and the school stage hadn’t yet transformed into a reading room.
Christopher VanderKuyl, an assistant principal in Chicago’s west suburbs, hurriedly dragged brown folding chairs across the wood floor. He made a mental note to figure out who’d rearranged the furniture.
“They can’t do that,” VanderKuyl lamented to his co-teacher, Megan Endre. “We’re using this as a classroom!”
A year ago, school would have been over around this time, and the students at Columbus East Elementary would be walking out the door. But this year, a group of fifth graders were instead sitting on the school’s stage, reading aloud about the life of Rosa Parks as they worked on reading fluency and comprehension. Similar activities were taking place in nearly every corner of the school: In another classroom, students rolled dice to practice two-digit multiplication and huddled close to their teacher to review their work.
What’s happening at Columbus East is one of the rare efforts nationally to give students more instructional time in an attempt to make up for what they lost during the pandemic. Here in Cicero School District 99, students are getting an extra 30 minutes of reading or math instruction every day, which adds up to around three additional weeks of school. School leaders hope that will be enough time to teach students key skills they missed and boost test scores.
“We do a lot of good things for our students, we have many, many resources, but our students need more,” said Aldo Calderin, the district’s superintendent. “There are challenges, I’m not going to sit here and say that there’s not. But I know that we’re doing right by our kids.”
The district is about a month into the extra academic lessons, and staff say they’re still working out the kinks. The initiative has added new instructional challenges for Cicero teachers, who were already busy putting a new reading curriculum in place and helping students cope with the ongoing fallout of the pandemic.
Still, Cicero stands out for making a longer school day a reality. While many schools used COVID relief funding to beef up summer school or add optional after-school tutoring, far fewer added extra time to the school day or year.
In Cicero, a new teachers union contract, extra pay for teachers, and school board support helped make the change happen. Elsewhere, efforts to add instructional time have faced pushback from school board members and teachers who thought the added time would be too costly and disruptive.
Thomas Kane, a Harvard education professor who has studied learning loss during the pandemic, said “it’s great to see” districts like Cicero adding instructional time.
“It obviously depends, though, on how that time is used, especially if it’s coming at the end of the day, when kids or teachers might be tired,” Kane said. “But honestly at this point, more instructional time is what’s needed to help students catch up.”
How Cicero students got a longer school day
Cicero 99, which runs through junior high, serves around 9,200 students in a working-class, mostly Latino suburb of Chicago. About three-quarters of students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch and more than half of students are learning English.
School leaders floated the idea to lengthen Cicero 99’s school day before COVID hit, but the proposal took on greater urgency when educators saw how the pandemic set students back in reading and math.
The year before the pandemic, 22% of students in the district met or exceeded Illinois’ English language arts standards, while 16% cleared that bar in math. By spring 2021, after students spent nearly a year learning remotely, 10% met state standards in English and 5% met them in math.
At Columbus East, staff recall students who hid under bed covers or pointed their cameras at ceiling fans during remote learning. Others had trouble hearing over blaring TVs, barking dogs, and whirring blenders.
Kane’s research into district-level learning loss found that Cicero students in third to eighth grades lost the equivalent of a third of a year in reading from spring 2019 to 2022, and a little less than half a year in math. The losses were similar to those in other high-poverty Illinois districts, Kane said, but still “substantial.”
“There is a sense of urgency,” said Donata Heppner, the principal at Columbus East, who’s part of the district team that planned for the extended day. “If we don’t grow more than expected, we’re never going to catch up.”
So last year, Calderin, with the school board’s support, negotiated a new contract with the teachers union that included the longer school day.
“At the beginning, we were: No, no, no, no, no,” said Marisa Mills, the president of Cicero’s teachers union and a seventh grade English language arts teacher at Unity Junior High. “And then we really started to get down to the nitty gritty, and started to talk about: Well, what if we did do this?”
Teachers got on board after the district agreed that the extra time would be used only for instruction, Mills said, and that students wouldn’t be tethered to a device during that time. Teachers also got a “very fair” bump in compensation: A 10% raise, and a one-time $5,000 bonus for this school year, paid for with COVID relief dollars. The deal, which runs through 2026, got the support of 70% of teachers.
It helped, Calderin said, that the extra time was well-received by families. Many students’ parents work multiple jobs and struggle to arrange after-school care for their children — an issue somewhat alleviated by a longer day.
Here’s how the longer day works: The district gave students pretests and used those to group students with similar abilities. Students spent the first month of the school year practicing walking their routes to their extended-day groups and getting to know their new teachers.
Now students spend two weeks in a reading group, then two weeks in a math group, or vice versa, and then get reshuffled based on how they’re doing. The district provided lessons and activities for teachers that tie in with the district’s usual curriculum.
But there’s no additional staff working the extended day. So it takes everyone, from paraprofessionals to social workers to principals, to make it work.
On that recent Wednesday at Columbus East, VanderKuyl and Endre circulated among 16 fifth graders as they read. This group spent all of second grade learning remotely and now many struggle to write their letters in a straight line or pay attention when a teacher is talking.
VanderKuyl stopped to help one student pronounce “prejudice,” while Endre urged a distracted student poking her pen in the air to follow along.
“Alright, who would like to share their summary out loud?” Endre asked.
She pressed her students to elaborate — “Who’s the man you’re talking about?” — and checked to make sure they got the details right: “It wasn’t a school bus right? It was a public bus.” Her goal this year is to boost students’ confidence and help more students read at a fifth grade level on their own.
It’s about “building that independence in reading for them,” Endre said. “Maybe not necessarily ‘Oh, I can read a whole fifth-grade level text myself.’ But can I read and understand a paragraph?”
Longer school day is not without challenges
While it may seem simple, adding 30 minutes to the school day presents plenty of instructional challenges.
Not every adult is a math or reading specialist, so some staff need extra practice and training. The extended-day groups are smaller than students’ usual classes, but are still large enough that it can be challenging for teachers to provide one-on-one attention. Some students are hungry and tired at the end of the day and miss going home earlier.
“My brain is too over-capacitated!” said one fourth grader with dark hair and white-rimmed glasses at nearby Sherlock Elementary.
And some students struggle with the frequent regrouping. Columbus East, for example, has a program for students with emotional disabilities who typically learn in the same classroom all day. Some have found it challenging to be in a new environment with different peers and without their usual teacher.
On that recent Wednesday, a student sitting at the back table in Arlen Villeda’s fifth grade math group sobbed as she struggled with the extended-day lesson. At first, the student loved the extra math lessons, Villeda said later, but as the classes got harder, the student’s frustration started to mount.
“I hate my life!” she cried. “Everyone is done!”
Villeda tried to keep moving forward with the four students seated in front of her, as a classroom aide nudged the crying student to take a break.
Villeda has tried strategies shared by the student’s usual teacher — like walking the student to the familiar calming corner in her classroom when she gets overwhelmed — but Villeda says it can be challenging to know exactly how to help. For some students, she said, “consistency really makes a big difference.”
“Like with anything, we know that change is going to become easier as time goes on,” she said. “But I honestly feel like this is still an adjustment period for us — for the teachers and for the students.”
For now, Heppner, Columbus East’s principal, and others are revisiting how the extended day is going and making changes when needed. Going forward, for example, teachers will have more say over how students are grouped. And teachers can ditch activities that were “a total bomb,” as Heppner put it.
Mills, the union president, said she knows some teachers, especially those who don’t specialize in reading and math, are struggling with extra preparation work. But already she’s seeing glimmers of progress. She feels like she can do more with her seventh graders in the smaller extended-day groups, and some have made strides in their reading.
“It’s going to be a little nuts for the first year, for sure,” Mills said. “But if this is something we really want to do for our students, that’s what it’s going to have to be.”
Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools.
Bakari Sellers is joined by director Gelila Bekele to discuss her journey from modeling to filmmaking (1:10) and her new documentary chronicling the life of Tyler Perry, Maxine’s Baby (6:49).
Ishani Desai was just doing her job. As a reporter on a murder case, she needed information she felt she could get from only one person: the man who was behind bars.
“I went to the source,” said Desai, a former reporter for the Bakersfield Californian.
She couldn’t have known at the time that the notes from her jailhouse interview would spur a court order that, legal experts say, could threaten freedom of the press in California.
The suspect, Sebastian Parra, was in custody on suspicion of his alleged role in the Aug. 24, 2022, death of 43-year-old Benny Alcala Jr., a counselor for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Alcala was fatally shot at an electric vehicle charging station outside a Target store in Bakersfield. Witnesses reported seeing two men flee the area of the shooting. One was identified as Robert Pernell Roberts, who was arrested on suspicion of murder, and the second was Parra, who denied involvement in the shooting and, initially, was not arrested.
Parra testified at Roberts’ preliminary hearing, as did law enforcement. Roberts’ attorney, Lexi Blythe of the Kern County Public Defender’s Office, pointed out inconsistencies between Parra’s testimony and that of law enforcement.
Parra was subsequently indicted by a grand jury. Like Roberts, he has pleaded not guilty to murder.
Blythe then filed a subpoena for Parra’s February jailhouse interview with Desai — which consisted solely of Desai’s handwritten notes — saying it was necessary for her defense of Roberts.
The Californian challenged Blythe’s subpoena, citing the 1st Amendment as well as California’s shield law, a section of the state constitution that protects news organizations from being held in contempt of court for withholding sources and unpublished information, including interview notes.
The Kern County Superior Court ruled the newspaper was in contempt of court and ordered the notes be turned over, as they were “reasonably necessary” for Roberts’ defense and his constitutional right to a fair trial.
The Californian appealed the decision to the California 5th Circuit Court of Appeal, which upheld the lower court’s decision but reversed the contempt-of-court ruling.
As a result, the Californian handed over the unpublished notes to the Kern County Public Defender’s Office on Nov. 15. The news outlet also published the notes online.
Desai, now a reporter at the Sacramento Bee, said in an emailed statement to The Times that she had decided to interview Parra to answer a question she faced while covering the murder case.
“No one would tell me why the man who was once the prosecution’s star witness now faced an egregious murder charge,” Desai, 25, said. “So, I went to the source.”
Desai said, however, that there was nothing significant that she wrote down that day at the jail that wasn’t also included in her Feb. 26 story in the Californian.
The Californian’s own story on the appellate decision states the newspaper will not pursue an appeal at the California Supreme Court because the case would be unlikely to be reviewed and because of the outsize expense. The news outlet cited legal expenditures “exceeding $100,000” in the case so far.
The paper, however, does seek to make the ruling unpublished, a legal process that would make the opinion unusable in future cases. Though the opinion remains public record, unpublishing it would render the case unusable as a citation and limit the precedent it sets in similar cases for California news organizations.
Even if the decision is unpublished, the ruling is viewed as a worrying setback by advocates of press freedom, who fear it could affect the ability of journalists to do their job in the Golden State.
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David Loy, the legal director of the First Amendment Coalition, worries this decision could be chilling for journalists reporting on criminal cases.
“It, in effect, makes the bar lower than it should be to pierce the reporter’s shield,” said Loy, whose organization filed an amicus brief in the case. He called the appellate court decision disappointing.
Although California’s shield law remains strong, he said the ruling makes it easier for attorneys to use the only exception under which journalists must turn over unpublished material: when a criminal defendant seeks such information. In such cases, the California Supreme Court has established a balancing test to weigh the rights of a reporter against those of the defendant.
Loy said this test has for decades found that only in an “extraordinarily compelling situation” would a journalist have to turn over their notes, something he didn’t see in this case.
“The function of the court is to balance the interests,” Loy said. “It seems like that balance has been somewhat skewed by this opinion.”
Loy said he’s worried the ruling could make reporters and editors hesitate when considering whether to interview someone in jail or a witness to a crime — interviews that he called a cornerstone of good journalism.
“If that cost and risk is too high, that’s going to be a deterrent to report that story in that way,” Loy said, noting the potential legal fees. “It’s going to make reporters, and, I assume, editors and publishers, risk-averse.”
Another organization that filed an amicus brief in the case was the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Lisa Zycherman, the organization’s deputy legal director and policy counsel, said the chilling effect of the ruling would affect not just journalists but also potential sources.
“Forcing a journalist to betray a promise of confidentiality could make sources think twice, or they might just not come forward,” Zycherman said. “That chills the free flow of information to the public, and it compromises the ability of journalists to do their jobs.”
Christine Peterson, the Californian’s executive editor, said that since the legal battle over the notes began, she had already had a colleague walk away from an interview with an incarcerated source.
“He decided that, for the kind of story it was, that it wasn’t critical,” Peterson said. “That’s not to say we won’t continue to interview criminal defendants who agree to it and are in custody, but I think it’s fair to say this gave him pause.”
Desai, however, said her determination had only grown after the ruling.
“Many reporters — including myself — wonder if our work and sources are safe,” she wrote in her statement to The Times. “But the alternative is to shirk my duty, letting our community go uninformed and unaware of the powerful criminal justice system. That option is untenable for me and I refuse to back down when encountering threats to my work’s sanctity.”
As the long-running UK science-fiction show about the eponymous Doctor, a Time Lord who travels through space and time, celebrates its 60th anniversary, it is effectively the third new beginning for the show, following the original run, from 1963 to 1989, and the revival, which began in 2005. Writer Russell T Davies is back for another stint in charge. A huge fan of the original series, he was largely responsible for its Noughties return, presiding over the Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant eras. His comeback has been greeted with jubilation by those fans who felt that recent seasons had not been among the best.
The Power of the Doctor, the final episode of Chris Chibnall’s stint as the most recent showrunner, pulled off something of a coup de théâtre at the very end of the episode by having the latest (and 13th) incarnation of the Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker, regenerate as the 10th Doctor, played by David Tennant, rather than as the newly-announced Doctor Ncuti Gatwa (the Rwandan-Scottish actor who broke out with his role as Eric Effiong in Sex Education).
So now we have Tennant, one of the most popular incarnations of the Time Lord, back in the saddle for three 60th-anniversary specials before Gatwa gets the keys to the celebrated space-and-time machine, the Tardis.
The Star Beast, the first of those three specials, is loosely based on a comic strip that appeared in Doctor Who Weekly magazine in 1980.
In it, the Doctor is as much in the dark as we are as to why they’re back to their old self (Tennant bowed out of the role in 2009). And he is not the only returning veteran. One of the Doctor’s companions, their “best friend” Donna Noble (Catherine Tate), is back too.
For complicated reasons, when they were last hanging out together 15 years ago, the Doctor had to wipe Donna’s memory to save her life. If she ever remembers him, she will die.
The story that Donna has accepted is that she had a bit of a breakdown that caused her to forget everything. But she still has the vague sense that “something’s missing”, as she puts it. “Like I had something lovely and it’s gone… some nights I lie in bed thinking ‘what have I lost?’” She is happily married, with a teenage daughter, Rose (Yasmin Finney) – but this domestic peace is now firmly disrupted…
The Doctor, soon after arriving in London, is distracted by a spaceship crashing, and races to the scene. One of the escapees is the Meep (voiced by Miriam Margolyes), a cute, furry, big-eyed alien. The Meep says it is being pursued by “monsters” who want to kill it… and plot-wise, that’s about all we’re allowed to tell you.
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