The Brief

SAG-AFTRA members put down the picket signs after one of the longest strikes in the union’s history came to a close.

Although the details of the tentative agreement for their new contract with the Association of Motion Picture and Television Producers hasn't been shared publicly, some L.A. area actors are celebrating the news and the solidarity shown over the past 118 days.

Keri Safran is an actor, dialect coach, and SAG-AFTRA strike captain at Paramount Studios. She told LAist that while the labor dispute isn’t officially over until the agreement is ratified by the union members, she has faith in the negotiating committee.

“They really were prepared to die on the hill of AI protection,” Safran said. “So if they are happy, I trust that we will be happy.”

Safran added that she found a beautiful, fun community out on the picket lines. She said the tentative agreement means there will still be human actors on set, who need other human beings to do their make-up, to build props, to record sound, and to make the magic happen.

Keri Safran working as a strike captain for Paramount Studios while Duncan Crabtree Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator, speaks to the crowd.

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“I think I'm still in the immediate place of being grateful that, at least for the moment, we have protected the livelihoods of so many people,” she said.

Kirsten Vangsness is a playwright and actor, best known for portraying Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds. She said it’s a bizarre feeling knowing the strike is behind them, but she is incredibly proud of the union for sticking together.

Vangsness said there’d been a lot of pressure on the negotiating committee to reach a deal and get Hollywood back to business, but many actors haven’t made a living wage in years.

“There was no choice but for us to hold the line,” Vangsness said. “Because if we wouldn't, acting would just become a hobby for very few.”

With the strike lifted, she said studios want productions up and running as fast as possible. Vangsness is looking to get back to work in the new year, but she said now she’s just hoping that all of the strike captains are hired by every casting director in town.

What the union has said about terms

According to the union's statement the tentative agreement — "valued at over one billion dollars" — includes:

• Compensation increases
• Terms that have "unprecedented provisions for consent and compensation that will protect members from the threat of AI"
• A bonus for streaming
• Increases in pension and health care caps
• Raises for background performers
• Provisions to protect diverse communities

AMPTP calls deal "a new paradigm"

The AMPTP confirmed those details in a statement released Wednesday night, calling the tentative agreement "a new paradigm."

"It gives SAG-AFTRA the biggest contract-on-contract gains in the history of the union, including the largest increase in minimum wages in the last forty years; a brand new residual for streaming programs; extensive consent and compensation protections in the use of artificial intelligence; and sizable contract increases on items across the board,” the association said.

Getting back to work

Brendan Bradley, actor and strike captain at Paramount Studios, said he can start promoting two of his projects immediately. He said the economic gears are slowly starting to spin again, and he’s hopeful he can get back on set this month.

Bradley said acting has always been such an individualized career — you either got the part or someone else did. But he said standing on the picket lines, surrounded by other entertainment unions, brought everyone together for the love of the industry and the community.

Sol Crespo, an actor and strike captain, is also expecting to start working again after the holidays. But, she thinks the healing process is going to take a lot longer.

Crespo said she feels like a weight has been lifted, but she also feels a little bit of grief.

While she is so proud of the union for staying together, she said the reality is that some colleagues couldn’t afford to stick out the strike and have been forced to leave the industry altogether.

Crespo also said the relationship between actors and CEOs has been eroded after 118 days on opposite ends of the picket lines, and both sides need to be prepared to build it back up. With that being said, Crepso is excited for the future.

“It feels like something has shifted,” she said. “It feels that moving forward, we are sending a clear message that you cannot trample on us, that you cannot take us for granted. That might have been what happened in the past, but no more.”

Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.

Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.

Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.

Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.

The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.

Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.

Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.

Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.

The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.

Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.

Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.

Injury report

Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.

Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.

Up next

The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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