Laguna Beach considers more concerts at Irvine Bowl, does noise study

• May 5, 2025

Laguna Beach officials are studying noise levels coming from the Irvine Bowl on the Festival of Arts grounds, in preparation for a possible fall concert and an overall interest in more concerts at the city-owned facility.

Most well-known as the home to the iconic Pageant of the Masters during the summer festival season, city officials and the community have discussed tapping the grounds for year-round use for a while. Many of the town’s nonprofits already take advantage of the setting during the months the pageant is not performing. A community survey done in 2021 also indicated that 90% of the community supported that idea.

Historically, the open amphitheatre set in canyons overlooking the festival grounds has been used as an arts venue, going back to when James Irvine granted the land to the city in 1947. He then stipulated that it be used partially to house a large, outside amphitheatre and a place to hold arts and cultural events.

Recently, though, the City Council discussed the topic of more concerts being held there and authorized a sound analysis as part of their overall environmental review for the venue. The topic of having more events came to the council after the Irvine Bowl policy committee — which in 2020 set a 70 decibel level cap after complaints from nearby residents — couldn’t reach a consensus on amendments to the noise policy that would facilitate allowing a proposed concert this fall.  The committee is comprised of two councilmembers and two Festival of Arts board members.

A tie vote pushed the topic to the City Council because the city owns the facility, Mayor Alex Rounaghi said.

“The community at large wants more year-round usage, and this is a critical first step to achieving that,” said Rounaghi, who is on the policy committee with  Councilmember Sue Kempf.

The sound analysis now being done could cost as much as $227,000 if the consultant’s study includes a review of ambient noise, officials said.

“Laguna Beach is an artist colony and the Irvine Bowl is part of our cultural legacy and how we are a cultural epicenter going forward,” Rounaghi said about opening it up to more opportunities. “The residents are supportive of this idea. We want more opportunities for residents to come together and enjoy live music at the city-owned asset.”

Rounaghi said the council is expected to approve a policy for upcoming concerts after receiving the study’s results. The council will also continue collaborating with the festival on more concert uses throughout the year.

But Wayne Baglin, vice president of the Festival of Arts board, said he is a little perplexed by the study the city is paying to do. He and David Perry, the board president, are the other two members of the Irvine Bowl police committee.

Baglin said the initial request for the planned concert was to raise the decibel level to 75.

“I don’t know what the objection is to go from 70 to 75,” he said, adding his bigger concern is sound spikes that get up to 90 or 105 decibels.

He also said “the sound study is only one portion of the pie,” and nearby neighbors also raise complaints about events beyond the summertime Pageant of the Masters.

“They didn’t realize there would be concerts in addition from mid-September into December and then possibly in April and May also,” he said. “The council just has to decide what they really want to do.”

Baglin said it also doesn’t work to simultaneously have two functions on the grounds because the sound from one event bleeds to the other.

He said the council has encouraged the festival board to make the facility available to local nonprofits over the years. Groups such as the Pacific Marine Mammal Center, Laguna Art Museum, Laguna Plein Air Painters Association and Laguna Beach Arts Alliance have each taken advantage of the facility, he said.

Since the festival board routinely monitors the sound with meters set up in two locations, Baglin said they’ve found that the louder sounds more irritating to neighbors have been auction chanting during fundraisers and private events with DJs.

He added that the council faces a quandary: Noise versus a competition for space.

Baglin said he and others are in favor of more concerts, but it will take working with the promoters to set their schedules. The nonprofits that host events at the Irvine Bowl have scheduled years in advance, he said.

​ Orange County Register 

Who is responsible for the Angels’ collective offensive funk?

• May 5, 2025

ANAHEIM — When a team goes into the kind of prolonged slump that the Angels have endured, the search for a scapegoat usually finds its way to the coaches.

To Perry Minasian, the question of coach accountability starts by looking at which Angels hitters are struggling the most.

Players like Mike Trout, Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo probably aren’t influenced much by a hitting coach, the Angels’ general manager said.

“When it’s your veteran players who have been in the league for a long time … they have basically established themselves in a certain way,” Minasian said Friday. “A lot of veteran players are their own hitting coaches. Now, if we had a group of young guys that were all struggling, totally different. The young guys have actually played better than our veteran players to a certain extent, statistically.”

Manager Ron Washington also declined to assign much blame for the slump to the coaches when asked about it on Sunday.

“I think our players are doing the best they can and our coaches are working as hard as they can every single day,” Washington said. “At some point, the (players) have got to get it done between those lines.”

That was a week after catcher Logan O’Hoppe said any criticism of hitting coaches Johnny Washington, Tim Laker and Jayson Nix was misplaced.

“It’s no one else but (the players),” O’Hoppe said. “I think that’s part of the frustration of it, too. The blame is getting put on the wrong people.”

Despite the widespread opinion that the players are ultimately responsible for themselves, that is not always how the industry works. Fair or not, team-wide performances like this routinely cost coaches their jobs.

The Texas Rangers, who are last in the majors in runs per game, fired offensive coordinator Donnie Ecker on Sunday. Ecker was part of the staff that helped the Rangers win the World Series in 2023.

Considering the different expectations of the two teams, the failure of the Rangers’ hitters has been much more egregious than what’s happened to the Angels.

Still, the last three weeks for the Angels (13-19) have been nothing short of miserable offensively.

Over the past 21 games, the Angels have totaled 52 runs, scoring one run or getting shut out seven times. The last time the Angels scored 52 runs or fewer in a 21-game stretch was 1992.

The Angels have hit .197 over that stretch, with a strikeout rate of 30.7% and a walk rate of 4.7%. The major league averages are 21.9% and 8.9%, respectively.

Even including the first 12 games, when the Angels were 8-4 and hitting the ball better, their overall numbers are still among the worst in the majors. They rank 26th in runs per game (3.5), 29th in average (.214), 26th in OPS (.650), 29th in strikeout rate (26.9%) and 30th in walk rate (6.6%).

To Minasian’s point, though, some of the biggest underachievers are veterans who have been in the big leagues long enough that they likely aren’t being influenced much by the hitting coaches.

Trout, 33, has a .726 OPS, which is down from his career .991 mark coming into this season, and even the .860 figure of the past two injury-marred years. Trout is on the injured list with a bone bruise in his left knee.

Ward, 31, has a .578 OPS, down from his career .758 figure.

Rengifo, 28, is currently at .544, compared with his career .698 mark, and significantly down from his .754 OPS in the previous three years.

“They’re better hitters than they’ve shown,” Minasian said. “We’re expecting them to be a lot more productive going forward.”

The veterans who have been part-time players — Travis d’Arnaud (.622 OPS), Tim Anderson (.455) and Kevin Newman (.322) — have also underperformed. All three are over 30 with at least six seasons of big league service time, so they probably fit Minasian’s description as players who are “their own hitting coaches.”

Among the young players, shortstop Zach Neto (.887) and O’Hoppe (.878) have delivered. Kyren Paris has been in a miserable slump for most of the past three weeks, but he started the season so hot that he still has a .742 OPS, which is above the major league average of .708.

The only players who don’t fit the narrative are Jorge Soler and Jo Adell. Soler, 33, is the only veteran who has produced approximately what the Angels expected, with a .731 OPS. Adell has been the worst of the young players, with a .505 OPS.

Adell’s slump has been particularly frustrating to the Angels because he’s stuck to the toe-tap he adopted just before finishing last season with a .771 OPS over his last 34 games.

Looking over all of it, Minasian remains hopeful that better days are ahead.

“The work has been good, the coaching has been good,” Minasian said. “It’s just execution, right? It’s going up there with a plan and executing. And baseball is hard, you know. It’s a hard sport, and you’re going to go through times when you don’t play well. This is one of those times. So this is where, for me, you really look for guys to step up.”

UP NEXT

Blue Jays (TBD) at Angels (LHP Tyler Anderson, 2-0, 2.67), Tuesday, 6:38 p.m., FanDuel Sports Network West, 830 AM

​ Orange County Register 

Southern California business owners get creative as tariffs, surcharges hit

• May 5, 2025

Jack Carlisle is refusing to let the Trump administration’s tariffs ruin his 12-year-old business.

The owner of The Potting Shed in Orange’s historic downtown plaza is using everything he learned during the pandemic lockdowns to nail down his inventory ahead of anticipated price surges for imported goods.

“I’m not letting this get under my skin,” he said recently from his 8,000-square-foot storefront in the trendy downtown adjacent to Chapman University. “I’ve got to make good business decisions for my family and my customers,” said Carlisle.

For Carlisle, the tariffs bring to mind the Covid era when people took to gardening and making their homes more enjoyable.

“I can’t say for sure, but maybe we’re headed in that direction again, if pricing continues to rise on electronics, and cars and other things.”

Carlisle, who does over a $1 million in annual sales with his plants, pots, soil, candles and other houseware items, is like myriad other business owners scrambling to find new ways to get around the tariffs. Relationships with vendors forged over the years certainly helps.

One of his vendors, a Canadian-based ceramic pot maker, is holding inventory at “pre-tariff” prices in a warehouse in San Diego, hoping that the tariff war eventually blows over.

“The tariffs are actually making me a kind of leaner, meaner machine,” Carlisle said. “I’m choosing my buying a lot more carefully. I’m working with some of these relationships that I’ve built over my 12 years in business to create solutions so that this can work for all of us,” Carlisle said.

Also see: ‘Nowhere to turn’: Small businesses dependent on imports from China are feeling more desperate

Business owners in Southern California are rethinking how to replace foreign-made products from Canada, China and Mexico and avoid paying for the new tariffs, most of which were imposed April 2.

The National Retail Federation expects U.S. imports to plunge by at least 20% in the second half of 2025 if the higher tariffs remain in place — including a minimum 10% tariff applied universally. The ports complex in Long Beach and Los Angeles is bracing for a dip in cargo because of the new tariffs, especially from China, where imports are getting hit with fees that are 145% higher.

Small aerospace manufacturing shops from Orange to El Segundo are struggling with the tariffs targeting aluminum extrusions and aircraft hose assemblies. The administration imposed 25% tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum on all countries, increasing costs for U.S. manufacturers and putting them at a disadvantage to their global competitors.

Family-run businesses — like The Potting Shed — are struggling to minimize pricing impacts on everything from hotel furniture to forgings, and keep their shops humming while they wait for hesitant customers to buy.

Surprise tariffs

Still, some small businesses are reeling from the tariffs.

An office chair maker in Torrance uses a components suppliers in China that raised prices to cover the 145% in tariffs.

Aura Seating, which recently opened a small factory along the eastern shores of Lake Michigan in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, already laid off half of its 16-person workforce in California, according to Minal Mondkar, founder and CEO of the 15-year-old company.

“We get some components from overseas, mainly from China. Earlier this year, we had a 25% tariff, and we were managing that. Then it became 145%. For a small business to swallow this, it’s not the easiest thing,” she said. “It’s like a ripple effect.”

The business, which sells high-end chairs to hotels, resorts and casinos, had $3.8 million worth of orders canceled due to the climbing costs.

“Our customers are saying that maybe it will be another quarter before they can even look at buying those products, because they are not making any money,” she said. “I don’t want to let go of any more employees, but it’s going to be difficult if I don’t get these orders in another quarter. I’m not saying I’ll close down, but it’ll be really difficult for me to sustain myself and all these employees.”

Gloomy times

Some small manufacturers feel the tariffs are just another crushing wave.

Last fall, a family-run metal forging company that manufactures aluminum parts for Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft got stung when 33,000 machinists went on strike. A supply chain shakeup led to cuts in workers and a reduction in work days. Independent Forge Co. Inc. in Orange recovered after the strike was settled.

Now, with the tariffs, the company is seeing tough times again, according to Andrew Flores, Independent Forge president.

“It’s mainly our schedules that are being impacted,” Flores said. “There’s been a lot of adjustments made by Boeing and a lot of other companies that are looking at the tariffs. We’ve seen a decrease in activity from our overseas customers. It’s very gloomy.”

Also see: Trump tariffs rattle small business owners already dealing with tight margins

The company creates designs for metal products and machine parts, with molds filled with aluminum placed into super-heated presses.

On the Boeing 737 Max, the company’s parts are used as hangers to hold engines in place, or make locks for door mechanisms. Independent Forge also makes components for the F/A-18 fighter aircraft, like a part for the flight control system needed to manually override the controller on the rear rudder in emergency situations.

“A lot of our customers are trying to lock down pricing so that they can continue to keep that pricing in case the items they need shoot through the roof,” he said. “And we’re trying to avoid keeping long-term agreements because we don’t know where the metals market is going to end up. Everyone is just bracing themselves for what’s going to happen next. Basically, everybody’s trying to hold off on placing any orders.”

Price increases

Randy Herber, president of Herber Aircraft Co. Inc., said that he is seeing larger vendors hesitate before placing orders for parts with his small El Segundo-based aerospace business.

“We’re watching it to make sure it’s not a sustained, long-term thing, verus a hesitation, or a pause,” he said. “This is different from an order never being placed. We feel right now it’s more of a hesitation, and they will still place the order and everything will be delayed a month or two.”

Herber’s business manufactures, repairs, distributes and performs light assembly of wire harnesses and hoses on civilian and military aircraft.

The harness side of the business is unfazed by tariffs because the company buys its metals and performs its own manufacturing in the U.S. However, Herber does see hose assemblies being affected by added costs from tariffs and surcharges because of its international customer base.

His largest aerospace customers, Eaton Corp. plc, a power management company in Dublin, Ireland, and Lord Corp., a North Carolina unit of Parker Hannifin Corp., each passed along price increases caused by the tariffs or added surcharges.

“The unknowns behind the tariffs are the biggest issue, not the actual tariffs,” Herber said. “We have not been affected by anything yet, but manufacturers we distribute for are trying to figure out how to deal with them and pass them along to us.”

Duty-free zones

Not everyone is claiming hardship.

Lily Jack, an Inglewood-based hospitality furniture maker with access to factory space in Inglewood, Mexico and Vietnam — and certain component parts that are made in China and shipped to Vietnam or Mexico directly — isn’t “materially affected by tariffs,” explained Jeffery Sears, the company chairman.

This is because Lily Jack’s products qualify to be moved duty-free under the Trump administration’s free trade agreement with Mexico, where the company has established a Latin America subdivision.

The duty-free United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement replaced the North American Free Trade Agreement on July 1, 2020. USMCA compliance depends on the complexity of a company’s supply chain, but the rules to qualify can be as simple as attaining a country of origin certification from a supplier.

“The way our manufacturing is set up, we have a way to deal with the tariffs in a special way,” Sears said.

The U.S. has imposed a 10% baseline tariff on imports from all countries, including Vietnam. The U.S. initially threatened a 46% tariff on imports from the Southeast Asian nation in early April, a move that was later temporarily suspended.

“It’s impossible for businesses to plan because the one thing a government shouldn’t do is create uncertainty,” Sears said. “I feel badly for companies in other industries, and quite frankly, even our competition at times, because how do you make a big decision. You don’t know what tomorrow brings, even based upon what was said the day before. There’s no business person brilliant enough to be able to guess right every day.”

Meanwhile, Marianne Syzmanski, an adjunct professor of entrepreneurship at USC Marshall School of Business, sees a silver lining to the tariffs.

“I think the tariffs are making mom-and-pops think a little bit outside the box, and that’s not a bad thing,” said  “There’s a chance that some businesses pivot and start looking at another competitive product, or alternative idea to save money.”

“We’re going to know by Christmastime, whatever we’re buying our kids, that it may cost a little more,” she said. “It’s a perfect opportunity for consumers to realize that we actually could use less, and we don’t need to keep buying so much stuff.”

​ Orange County Register 

Researchers who studied walnuts want you to know about the health benefits

• May 5, 2025

A handful of walnuts a day may keep the doctors away, according to a clinical trial at UConn School of Medicine.

Well, certain types of important doctors that is.

The clinical trial confirmed the health benefits of eating walnuts in improving colonic health and for cancer prevention, a spokesperson for UConn School of Medicine said.

“Ellagitannins in the walnut are importantly providing the anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties that we’re seeing in patients in our clinical trial research, particularly the gut’s conversion of ellagitannins to a potent anti-inflammatory agent, urolithin A,” said Daniel W. Rosenberg, who leads a multidisciplinary team of researchers at the UConn School of Medicine.

To put in everyday language, Rosenberg said, “There are many potential benefits one can get from eating walnuts, with so little downside risk, that just grabbing a handful every day is really something that you can easily do for your long-term health benefit.”

Rosenberg, who has studied walnut properties for more than a decade, serves as the HealthNet Chair in Cancer Biology and is an investigator in the Center for Molecular Oncology.

Rosenberg has also researched the connection between walnut consumption and its anti-inflammatory properties.

The UConn research team’s clinical trial findings show that high levels of urolithin A formation by the gut microbiome from walnut consumption has a positive impact on reducing inflammatory markers across blood, urine, and fecal samples, and may even positively affect the immune cells within colon polyps, according to UConn.

For the clinical trial, patients between the ages of 40 to 65 years and at an elevated risk for colon cancer, were referred for the study from the Division of Gastroenterology at UConn Health, the University of Connecticut’s academic medical center, according to UConn.

Each of 39 enrolled study participants were screened by the clinical research team at UConn John Dempsey Hospital and asked to complete an NIH Food Frequency Questionnaire for analysis by Ock Chun Ph.D., a nutritional epidemiologist in the College of Agriculture, Health and Natural Resources at UConn Storrs.

Patients were asked to avoid all ellagitannin-containing foods and beverages for a week to set their urolithin levels at or close to zero before they began consuming ellagitannin-rich walnuts as part of their closely monitored diet, according to a statement from UConn.

At the end of the three-week study, all participants received a high-definition colonoscopy done by Drs. John Birk and Haleh Vaziri.

Among the key findings the researchers found that elevated urolithin A levels in the urine of patients correlated with the serum levels of peptide YY, a protein that has been associated with inhibition of colorectal cancer. Reduced levels of several inflammation markers present in the blood were also found, especially in obese patients that had the greatest capacity to form urolithins by their gut microbiome, according to a statement from UConn.

Rosenberg also used high-dimensional spatial imaging technology that allowed UConn researchers to develop a detailed view of cellular interactions present inside colon polyps that were removed during colonoscopy at the end of the walnut study.

The imaging technology revealed that patients with high levels of urolithin A formation following walnut consumption was associated with reduced levels of several important proteins that are often present in polyps, showing for the first time how walnut ingestion may enhance colon health.

The research team also found that the protein vimentin, often associated with more advanced forms of colon cancer, was greatly reduced inside polyp tissues obtained from patients who had also formed the highest levels of urolithin A by their gut microbiome.

The new findings build upon the earlier work of Dr. Masako Nakanishi, an assistant professor in the Rosenberg Lab, who showed in several earlier publications that walnuts had beneficial and anti-cancer effects in the colons of cancer-prone mice, key findings that prompted the current clinical trial.

“Urolithin A has a very positive influence on inflammation and maybe even cancer prevention,” Rosenberg said. “Our study proves that dietary supplementation with walnuts can boost the general population’s urolithin levels in those people with the right microbiome, while significantly reducing several inflammatory markers, especially in obese patients.”

Rosenberg said the study provides strong rationale for dietary inclusion of walnut ellagitannins for cancer prevention.The research was supported by awards from the American Institute for Cancer Research, the California Walnut Commission, and the National Cancer Institute.

​ Orange County Register 

Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs sex trafficking trial is set to start with jury selection

• May 5, 2025

NEW YORK (AP) — Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop entrepreneur whose wildly successful career has been dotted by allegations of violence, will be brought to a New York courthouse Monday to be tried on charges that he used the influence and resources of his business empire to sexually abuse women.

Jury selection is scheduled to begin in the morning and potentially take several days. Opening statements by the lawyers and the start of testimony is expected next week.

The 17-page indictment against Combs reads like a charging document filed against a Mafia leader or the head of a drug gang, accusing him of engaging in sex trafficking and presiding over a racketeering conspiracy.

The indictment says that with the help of people in his entourage and employees from his network of businesses, Combs engaged in a two-decade pattern of abusive behavior against women and others.

Women were manipulated into participating in drug-fueled sexual performances with male sex workers that Combs called “Freak Offs,” prosecutors say.

To keep women in line, prosecutors say Combs used a mix of influence and violence: He offered to boost their entertainment careers if they did what he asked — or cut them off if they didn’t.

And when he wasn’t getting what he wanted, the indictment says Combs and his associates resorted to violent acts including beatings, kidnapping and arson. Once, the indictment alleges, he even dangled someone from a balcony.

Combs and his lawyers say he is innocent.

Any group sex was consensual, they say. There was no effort to coerce people into things they didn’t want to do, and nothing that happened amounted to a criminal racket, they said.

The trial is expected to take at least eight weeks.

Combs, 55, has acknowledged one episode of violence that is likely to be featured in the trial. In 2016, a security camera recorded him beating up his former girlfriend, the R&B singer Cassie, in the hallway of a Los Angeles hotel. Cassie filed a lawsuit in late 2023 saying Combs had subjected her to years of abuse, including beatings and rape.

The Associated Press does not typically name people who say they have been sexually abused unless they come forward publicly, as Cassie, whose legal name is Casandra Ventura, did.

Combs’ attorney, Marc Agnifilo has said Combs was “not a perfect person” and that there had been drug use and toxic relationships, but said that all sexual activity between Combs, Cassie and other people was consensual.

The trial is the latest and most serious in a long string of legal problems for Combs.

In 1999 he was charged with bursting into the offices of an Interscope Records executive with his bodyguards and beating him with a champagne bottle and a chair. The executive, Steve Stoute, later asked prosecutors to go easy on Combs, who pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and took an anger management class.

Later that same year, Combs was stopped by police after he and his then-girlfriend, Jennifer Lopez, fled a nightclub where three people were wounded by gunfire. Combs was acquitted of all charges related to the incident at a 2001 trial, but a rapper in his entourage, Jamal “Shyne” Barrow, was convicted in the shooting and served nearly nine years in prison.

Then in 2015, Combs was charged with assaulting someone with a weight-room kettlebell at the University of California, Los Angeles, where one of his sons played football. Combs said he was defending himself and prosecutors dropped the case.

Now, Combs faces his most serious case yet.

If convicted, he faces the possibility of decades in prison.

​ Orange County Register 

Ahead of the conclave, the Vatican staff is to be sworn to secrecy under threat of excommunication

• May 5, 2025

By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Cleaners and cooks. Doctors and nurses. Even drivers and elevator operators.

All the support staff for the cardinals who will elect the successor to Pope Francis are taking an oath of secrecy on Monday ahead of the conclave that’s starting on Wednesday.

The punishment for breaking the oath? Automatic excommunication.

The oath-taking is being held in the Pauline Chapel at the Vatican for all those assigned to the upcoming conclave. They include clerics in support roles, including confessors speaking various languages. The cardinals themselves will take their oath on Wednesday in the Sistine Chapel, before they cast their first ballots.

But an array of laypeople are also required to house and feed the cardinals. A conclave’s duration cannot be predicted — and it will only be known when white smoke rises out of the Sistine Chapel chimney to signal a winner.

All those people will be sequestered to be on hand for any medical needs, and maintain the majestic beauty appropriate for the election of the next head of the 1.4 billion strong Catholic Church.

The oath

The provisions for the oath-taking are laid down in Vatican law.

St. John Paul II rewrote the regulations on papal elections in a 1996 document that remains largely in force, though Pope Benedict XVI amended it twice before he resigned in 2013. He tightened the oath of secrecy, making clear that anyone who reveals what went on inside the conclave faces automatic excommunication.

In John Paul’s rules, excommunication was always a possibility, but Benedict revised the oath that liturgical assistants and secretaries take to make it explicit, saying they must observe “absolute and perpetual secrecy” and explicitly refrain from using any audio or video recording devices.

They now declare that they: “Promise and swear that, unless I should receive a special faculty given expressly by the newly elected pontiff or by his successors, I will observe absolute and perpetual secrecy with all who are not part of the College of Cardinal electors concerning all matters directly or indirectly related to the ballots cast and their scrutiny for the election of the Supreme Pontiff.

“I likewise promise and swear to refrain from using any audio or video equipment capable of recording anything which takes place during the period of the election within Vatican City, and in particular anything which in any way, directly or indirectly, is related to the process of the election itself.

“I take this oath fully aware that an infraction thereof will incur the penalty of automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See. So help me God and these Holy Gospels, which I touch with my hand.”

Preparations underway

The Sistine Chapel has already undergone a week-long transformation following the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on April 21 at age 88.

Technicians installed a floating floor to level out the space and make way for ceremonial furnishings, including tables for the electors and their aides, which are draped by Vatican upholsterers.

The famous stove used to signal the voting outcomes was placed in its designated corner, a placement dictated by protocol, and firefighters installed the chimney on the roof.

Twelve technicians and maintenance craftsmen will remain inside for the duration, maintaining temperature, lighting, and electrical systems, and assisting with ceremonial logistics like operating the stove, the Vatican City State administration said.

As tradition dictates, all windows in the conclave zone are darkened to guarantee privacy. Nearly 80 access points around the perimeter are sealed with lead on the eve of the conclave.

A colonel and a major of the Pontifical Swiss Guard Corps are among those taking the oath — they will be responsible for surveillance near the Sistine Chapel, the frescoed Renaissance jewel where 133 cardinal electors will be voting.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.

​ Orange County Register 

Trump threatens a 100% tariff on foreign-made films, saying the movie industry in the US is dying

• May 5, 2025

By JILL COLVIN and JAKE COYLE, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump is opening a new salvo in his tariff war, targeting films made outside the U.S.

In a post Sunday night on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he has authorized the Department of Commerce and the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to slap a 100% tariff “on any and all Movies coming into our Country that are produced in Foreign Lands.”

“The Movie Industry in America is DYING a very fast death,” he wrote, complaining that other countries “are offering all sorts of incentives to draw” filmmakers and studios away from the U.S. “This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda!”

It wasn’t immediately clear how any such tariff on international productions could be implemented. It’s common for both large and small films to include production in the U.S. and in other countries. Big-budget movies like the upcoming “Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning,” for instance, are shot around the world.

Incentive programs for years have influenced where movies are shot, increasingly driving film production out of California and to other states and countries with favorable tax incentives, like Canada and the United Kingdom.

Yet Trump’s tariffs are designed to lead consumers toward American products. And in movie theaters, American-produced movies overwhelming dominate the domestic marketplace.

China has ramped up its domestic movie production, culminating in the animated blockbuster “Ne Zha 2” grossing more than $2 billion this year. But even then, its sales came almost entirely from mainland China. In North America, it earned just $20.9 million.

In New Zealand, where successive governments have offered rebates and incentives in recent years to draw Hollywood films to the country, the film industry has generated billions of dollars in tourism revenue driven by the “Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films, which featured the country’s pristine and scenic vistas. More recently, the blockbuster “Minecraft” movie was filmed entirely in New Zealand, and U.S. productions in 2023 delivered approximately $777 million to the country in return for about $119.6 million in subsidies, according to government figures.

New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said he was awaiting more details of Trump’s measures before commenting on them but would continue to pitch to filmmakers abroad, including in India’s Bollywood. “We’ve got an absolutely world class industry,” he said. “This is the best place to make movies, period, in the world.”

The Motion Picture Association, which represents major U.S. film studios and streaming services, didn’t immediately respond to messages Sunday evening.

The MPA’s data shows how much Hollywood exports have dominated cinemas. According to the MPA, the American movies produced $22.6 billion in exports and $15.3 billion in trade surplus in 2023.

Trump, a Republican, has made good on the “tariff man” label he gave himself years ago, slapping new taxes on goods made in countries around the globe. That includes a 145% tariff on Chinese goods and a 10% baseline tariff on goods from other countries, with even higher levies threatened.

By unilaterally imposing tariffs, Trump has exerted extraordinary influence over the flow of commerce, creating political risks and pulling the market in different directions. There are tariffs on autos, steel and aluminum, with more imports, including pharmaceutical drugs, set to be subject to new tariffs in the weeks ahead.

Trump has long voiced concern about movie production moving overseas.

Shortly before he took office, he announced that he had tapped actors Mel Gibson, Jon Voight and Sylvester Stallone to serve as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood to bring it “BACK — BIGGER, BETTER, AND STRONGER THAN EVER BEFORE!”

U.S. film and television production has been hampered in recent years, with setbacks from the COVID-19 pandemic, the Hollywood guild strikes of 2023 and the recent wildfires in the Los Angeles area. Overall production in the U.S. was down 26% last year compared with 2021, according to data from ProdPro, which tracks production.

The group’s annual survey of executives, which asked about preferred filming locations, found no location in the U.S. made the top five, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Toronto, the U.K., Vancouver, Central Europe and Australia came out on top, with California placing sixth, Georgia seventh, New Jersey eighth and New York ninth.

The problem is especially acute in California. In the greater Los Angeles area, production last year was down 5.6% from 2023 according to FilmLA, second only to 2020, during the peak of the coronavirus pandemic. Last, October, Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, proposed expanding California’s Film & Television Tax Credit program to $750 million annually, up from $330 million.

Other U.S. cities like Atlanta, New York, Chicago and San Francisco have also used aggressive tax incentives to lure film and TV productions. Those programs can take the form of cash grants, as in Texas, or tax credits, which Georgia and New Mexico offer.

“Other nations have been stealing the movie-making capabilities from the United States,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Sunday night after returning from a weekend in Florida. “If they’re not willing to make a movie inside the United States we should have a tariff on movies that come in.”

Associated Press writers Gary Field in Washington and Charlotte Graham-McLay in Wellington, New Zealand, contributed to this report from Washington.

​ Orange County Register 

Europe launches a drive to attract scientists and researchers after Trump freezes US funding

• May 5, 2025

By CATHERINE GASCHKA and LORNE COOK, Associated Press

PARIS (AP) — The European Union launched a drive on Monday to attract scientists and researchers to Europe with offers of grants and new policy plans, after the Trump administration froze U.S. government funding linked to diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“A few years ago, no one would have imagined that one of the biggest democracies in the world would cancel research programs under the pretext that the word diversity was in this program,” French President Emmanuel Macron said at the “Choose Europe for Science” event in Paris.

“No one would have thought that one of the biggest democracies in the world would delete with a stroke the ability of one researcher or another to obtain visas,” Macron said. “But here we are.”

Taking the same stage at the Sorbonne University, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the EU’s executive branch would set up a “super grant” program aimed at offering “a longer-term perspective to the very best” in the field.

She said that approximately $566 million will be put forward in 2025-2027 “to make Europe a magnet for researchers.” It would be injected into the European Research Council, which already has a budget of more than $18 billion for 2021-2027.

Von der Leyen said that the 27-nation EU intends “to enshrine freedom of scientific research into law” with a new legal act. As “the threats rise across the world, Europe will not compromise on its principles,” she said.

Macron said that the French government would also soon make new proposals to beef up investment in science and research.

Last month, hundreds of university researchers in the United States had National Science Foundation funding canceled to comply with U.S. President Donald Trump’s order to end support to research on diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as the study of misinformation.

More than 380 grant projects have been cut so far, including work to combat internet censorship in China and Iran and a project consulting with Indigenous communities to understand environmental changes in Alaska’s Arctic region.

Some terminated grants that sought to broaden the diversity of people studying science, technology and engineering. Scientists, researchers and doctors have taken to the streets in protest.

While not mentioning the Trump administration by name, von der Leyen said that it was “a gigantic miscalculation” to undermine free and open research.

“We can all agree that science has no passport, no gender, no ethnicity, no political party,” she said. “We believe that diversity is an asset of humanity and the lifeblood of science. It is one of the most valuable global assets and it must be protected.”

Von der Leyen’s drive to promote opportunities in Europe in the field of science and take advantage of U.S. policy shifts dovetails with the way that she has played up the potential for trade deals with other countries since Trump took office in January and sparked a tariff war last month.

The former German defense minister, and trained doctor, vowed that the EU would also address some of the roadblocks that scientists and researchers face, notably excessive red tape and access to businesses.

Macron said that science and research must not “be based on the diktats of the few.”

Macron said that Europe “must become a refuge” for scientists and researchers, and he said to those who feel under threat elsewhere: “The message is simple. If you like freedom, come and help us to remain free, to do research here, to help us become better, to invest in our future.”

Lorne Cook reported from Brussels.

​ Orange County Register