Topline:
From backyard BBQs to car shows to just cruisin' around town, you know good times are on tap when Brenton Wood's hits like The Oogum Boogum Song, Gimmie Little Sign, or I Like The Way You Love Me are on the playlist.
Why it matters: Wood has enjoyed the kind of career and timelessness most musicians only dream of achieving. What motivated him to reach such heights? Hunger, according to the man himself.
Why now: Wood turns 82 today.
If Southern California had a soundtrack, Brenton Wood's music would be all over it.
From backyard BBQs to car shows to just cruisin' around town, you know good times are on tap when his hits like The Oogum Boogum Song, Gimme Little Sign, or I Like The Way You Love Me are on the playlist.
Now 82 years young on Wednesday, Wood has enjoyed the kind of career and timelessness most musicians only dream of achieving. What motivated him to reach such heights? Hunger, according to the man himself.
"I just needed a hit,” Wood told LAist recently. “I needed some money."
Wood grew up in San Pedro, one of 11 kids. Food was scarce. "My father would bring home rabbits sometimes with the buckshot still in them," he said.
Wood closely studied music trends. When his earliest recordings, a collection of doo-wop-style tunes didn’t take off, Wood went back to the drawing board, studying the hits and weaving the best parts into his own writing.
He also found inspiration in his own love life. "Whatever changes I went through, it [was] me learning that I could express my feelings to the person standing in front of me," he said.
A decade later, in 1967, when he released The Oogum Boogum Song, it was clear all that note-taking had paid off. It went on to peak at #34 on the Billboard Top 100.
Wood told us: "It was [Abracadabra] because they were casting a spell on me."
He didn’t even like the song when the label first presented it to him. Then, he spent six weeks reworking it. As he recorded that reworked version, he said he knew it was something special.
"I was laughing all the way through,” he recalled. “I thought, boy, this is gonna be catchy."
His hunch proved true. Shortly after the record debuted, he brought the new 45 to the historic Dolphins of Hollywood and had the in-house DJ play it.
"Before I got out of the record shop, people lined up ready to buy it. I thought, 'Maybe I'm onto something.'"
He sure was. His subsequent album, Baby You Got It, gave us faves like Gimme Little Sign and the low-rider deep cut Catch You On The Rebound.
The songs not only made him a mainstay on radio stations at the time but also continued to resonate in the subsequent decades on oldies radio, including The Art Laboe Connection Show.
Wood’s songs became particularly beloved in Latino communities — where they were immensely popular.
“Mr. Wood's music is part of the fabric of Chicano & Lowriding culture,” explains Julie Vasquez, president of Joyas Musicales, who’s been listening to Wood “since birth.” “His music connected with the culture and for decades has been handed down from generation to generation.”
Vasquez and her colleague, Edward "E-Dub" Rios, produce music that captures the oldies sound.
“It would be bigger than hitting the lotto to have an eternal impact through music like Mr. Wood has done,” Rios said.
There is a special place in Wood's heart for his Latino fans and his embrace by the communities.
"It makes me feel like I'm being accepted," Wood said.
Brenton Wood, one of the last living legends of "Oldies but Goodies," still performs and will appear at the Greek on October 7.
Topline:
Democrats notched big wins across the country, even in deep red districts that Republicans in Texas, Florida and North Carolina had gerrymandered to benefit their own party. That begs the question — did California really need to toss aside its independent redistricting commission?
The backstory: The “blue tsunami” that engulfed the country was enough to sweep away Republicans in ruby-red districts that Trump won by double digits two years ago as Democrats improved on their 2024 margin by a stunning 15 percentage points. At least five of California’s nine-member Republican delegation were among the political casualties. It’s not clear yet whether California Democrats could have picked up those seats under the old district lines drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission, known as the gold standard for map drawing.
More details: The party faithful are adamant that Prop. 50 was a crucial unifying force for California voters who felt helpless in the face of a mercurial second Trump administration. “It gave Democrats and voters an opportunity to do something and to realize that they, in fact, did have power to act,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who leads the California Democratic delegation, in an interview with CalMatters Wednesday. “People were despondent about Trump.”
Read on... for more on the blue wave and Prop. 50.
California Democrats went all in on redistricting last year in a rebuke of President Donald Trump’s call for Republicans to gerrymander red states and preserve their U.S. House majority.
Ultimately, though, it appears such a gamble wasn’t even necessary.
The “blue tsunami” that engulfed the country was enough to sweep away Republicans in ruby-red districts that Trump won by double digits two years ago as Democrats improved on their 2024 margin by a stunning 15 percentage points.
At least five of California’s nine-member Republican delegation were among the political casualties.
It’s not clear yet whether California Democrats could have picked up those seats under the old district lines drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission, known as the gold standard for map drawing.
“There was no need to undermine the work of independent redistricting when there has been so much good work done to improve representation,” said Carah Ong Whaley, executive director of the group Better Choices for Democracy, which opposed Proposition 50, the voter-approved measure to temporarily suspend the commission and redraw the maps to oust five Republicans.
She said it was party elites with large public platforms, led by Gov. Gavin Newsom, who drilled into voters’ psyches that California voters would suffer from Texas’ “rigging” of the midterm elections.
“It wasn’t that a lot of voters all of a sudden organized and said, ‘We need to get back at Texas,’” Ong Whaley said. “It was party elites telling voters they shouldn’t take this.”
Still, the party faithful are adamant that Prop. 50 was a crucial unifying force for California voters who felt helpless in the face of a mercurial second Trump administration.
“It gave Democrats and voters an opportunity to do something and to realize that they, in fact, did have power to act,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who leads the California Democratic delegation, in an interview with CalMatters Wednesday. “People were despondent about Trump.”
At first, Lofgren said, the delegation hoped that the mere threat of California redrawing its own districts would be enough to call Trump’s bluff. She said Newsom wrote a letter to Texas Gov. Greg Abbott — who lost his own reelection bid Tuesday night — and proposed a detente: If you stop your gerrymandering, we’ll stop ours. Texas forged ahead.
The energy from the Prop. 50 win, along with off-year victories in New York City’s mayoral race and gubernatorial contests in New Jersey and Virginia, helped propel Democrats out of the political wilderness, said Paul Mitchell, who drew the new maps.
“That victory put wind in the sails for a lot of folks who went on to help create this blue tsunami,” Mitchell said. “It was the only way the Democrats were fighting back.”
In addition to ousting five Republicans, the maps were also drawn to shore up support for incumbent Democrats in Southern California swing districts. Mitchell estimated that protecting those members in one of the most expensive media markets in the country freed up more than $100 million that the cash-strapped party could spend in newly competitive districts elsewhere.
But critic Mike Madrid said it was unethical to try to save democracy and preserve good governance by actively dismantling the voter-created redistricting commission designed to keep map drawing out of the hands of partisan operatives and lawmakers.
“It's like a textbook warning of what the founders were concerned about when they warned about political parties,” said Madrid, co-founder of the Lincoln Project and an anti-Trump Republican who opposed Prop. 50. He called the move to prioritize party loyalty over democratic norms a “very, very dangerous” precedent.
“What they were literally saying is, ‘Let's undo democracy to protect democracy,’” Madrid said. “There's something very Orwellian about it.”
Tuesday’s blue tsunami dealt a seismic blow to California’s Republican delegation, which is expected to drop from nine to just four or even three members.
The handful who survived were in solidly red districts that shielded them from voters’ fierce pushback elsewhere.
Prop. 50 packed conservative voters into just a few reliably Republican districts, including those of Central Valley Rep. Vince Fong and Sierra Nevada Rep. Tom McClintock, whose races were called shortly after polls closed Tuesday night. In Southern California, two incumbents were still duking it out for the state’s last safe Republican seat.
“I guess the good news is that they can all meet in one car,” quipped longtime Republican consultant Jon Fleischman of the waning California GOP delegation.
Fong defeated Democratic challenger Sandra Van Scotter with 63% of the vote as of Wednesday in a district with a 20-percentage-point Republican voter registration advantage.
Campaign spokesperson Ryan Gardiner declined to make Fong available for an interview or comment on Republicans tumultuous losses elsewhere. In a statement, Fong said he would “continue fighting to lower costs, protect our communities and deliver critical investments for our region.”
To the northeast, McClintock’s victory over Democrat Michael Masuda was a narrower but comfortable lead with 56% of the vote as of Wednesday.
Jon Huey, a campaign manager for McClintock, declined an interview request from CalMatters and did not respond to questions about the GOP’s losses but McClintock signaled in a statement that perhaps his Republican colleagues had acquiesced to Trump too much.
“The American people spoke loudly and clearly that they are hurting and angry about the economic impact of the war in Iran and the tariffs on their quality of life,” McClintock said in a statement. “Congress has surrendered too much of these responsibilities to the executive branch and it is time for Republicans and Democrats alike to restore the constitutional balance.”
Rep. Ken Calvert, who moved to run in Orange County’s 40th Congressional District after his Inland Empire district was redrawn, was leading with about 54% of the vote against Republican colleague Rep. Young Kim Wednesday.
Meanwhile, Mojave Desert Republican Rep. Jay Obernolte was hanging on for his political life against Tessa Lynn Hodge, a Democrat, in a race that wasn’t even considered competitive before Election Day. On Wednesday, Obernolte was leading with 51% of the vote.
“Everyone else was caught in the blast zone,” GOP strategist Rob Stutzman said.
Tuesday’s results could spell more trouble for congressional Republicans in future elections. National party leaders will have even less of an incentive to invest in California candidates if there are simply fewer of them.
Trump’s botched redistricting maneuver in red states and his failure to respond to California’s gerrymander ultimately left the California delegation out to dry, Stutzman said.
The National Republican Congressional Committee, the fundraising arm responsible for electing House Republicans, will likely focus on competitive seats in North Carolina, Texas and Florida going forward, he said.
“It’s a complete disaster, and these California Republicans just got the worse end of the stick.”
NRCC spokesperson Christian Martinez did not immediately return a phone call, voicemail and text message requesting comment Wednesday.
The few remaining GOP members are unlikely to challenge the president despite his all-time unpopularity, Fleischman said.
“None of them are mavericks,” he said. “I don’t see our four most conservative Republicans from California bucking the president and bucking House leadership.”
As part of their promise to win over voters for the mid-decade redistricting last year, California Democrats promised to roll back the new House maps ahead of 2030 and pass legislation to ban gerrymandering.
The ball is now in their court, said Ong Whaley. “They promised it was just this one time.”
Lofgren, who has repeatedly introduced legislation aimed at banning mid-decade redistricting and establishing independent commissions in each state, said she was optimistic that a Democratic-controlled Congress would be open to ending partisan gerrymandering.
“Congress has the right to legislate on this,” she said. “The idea that this will be bipartisan, I'm skeptical because of their prior actions. But we'll see.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
Perse, a Brentwood restaurant, breaks from the kabob houses that defined Persian dining in L.A.’s “Tehrangeles” and instead offers dishes from across Iran’s regions.
Why it matters: Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran, yet its Persian restaurants have long served the same handful of dishes. Perse aims to show diners how varied the cuisine is across regions.
Why now: Nine months after opening, Perse landed on the L.A. Times 101 list. Pirshirazi plans to expand on the idea in 2027 with monthly dinners devoted to a single region.
Take the escalator to the third floor of a sprawling plaza on San Vicente Boulevard in Brentwood and you’ll find Perse, a different kind of Persian restaurant.
Farinaz “Naz” Pirshirazi and her brother, Farbod, opened Perse in February to challenge how Angelenos think about Persian food.
Los Angeles is home to the largest Iranian community outside Iran, and for decades, nearby Westwood’s “Tehrangeles” has defined what Persian dining looks like here: kabob, a few familiar stews and rice.
When Pirshirazi arrived in Los Angeles in 2011, she was surprised by what she saw when it came to food from her home country.
“It felt like they took 18 foods of that wonderful 3,000-plus types of dishes that we have in Iran… and kind of copy-pasted,” she said.
Walking into some restaurants felt like stepping into the pre-revolution Iran she’d seen in old movies.
“For me it was time travel,” she said.
She isn’t the only one who sees it. Naz Deravian — author of the cookbook Bottom of the Pot and a New York Times Cooking contributor who has lived in L.A. since 1996 — said the city’s Iranian food scene “was getting a little stagnant” over the past two decades.
“I hate to say this because I love L.A. so much,” she said.
Deravian quickly added that the classic kabob houses still matter: “Those restaurants have their place in the food culture.”
It's hard to pin down why Persian food here hasn’t evolved the way Korean or Mexican food has. Pirshirazi thinks immigrant parents steered their kids away from the restaurant business. Deravian points to geopolitics.
“We can’t leisurely travel to Iran and experience the food there,” she said. “It’s not like just going to Italy for the summer.”
Still, there are exceptions. Azizam, which started as a pop-up, opened in Silver Lake in 2024, and Atlanta-based Rumi’s Kitchen opened in Century City in September. But restaurants that break from the kabob-house format remain few and far between.
Pirshirazi’s upbringing shaped Perse's menu. During the Iran-Iraq War, her parents left Tehran to escape the bombing and settled in Sari, in Mazandaran province along the Caspian Sea. There, neighbors taught her mother to cook northern Iranian food, rich in herbs, seafood, and duck, with pomegranate molasses and sour orange for acidity.
The family returned to Tehran in 1989, and Pirshirazi was born the next year. But northern cooking stayed on the table, and as a kid she realized her classmates had never heard of most of the food she ate every day. She also remembered childhood road trips across Iran, when her father often stopped at local grocers and asked about regional favorites.
That regional range shows up across Perse's menu. Start with the fesenjoon, a slow-simmered walnut-and-pomegranate stew from Gilan, on the Caspian Sea. The stew is silky with an earthy texture from the ground walnuts, and it balances sweet and tart almost like a tangy mole. On top sits duck confit, which adds a rich, gamey note to every bite.
From Tehran comes the Bazari koobideh, which Pirshirazi modeled on the version served at the city’s Grand Bazaar, where she says older men eat it four or five times a week.
“Whenever they have their koobideh, they crack an egg yolk on top of the rice, mixing everything together with some butter, some sumac, some lemon juice, and then it becomes like a carbonara pasta,” Pirshirazi said.
At Perse, a skewer of ground beef and lamb arrives over flatbread with saffron rice, a grilled tomato, sumac, and a ramekin of egg yolk sauce. The sauce is her answer to the raw yolk.
“You can literally close your eyes, and it feels like you are eating koobideh in the Grand Bazaar of Tehran,” she said.
Starting next year, Pirshirazi is considering a monthly four-course dinner, limited to 20 to 24 guests, built around a single city or region, such as Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan, or northern or southern Iran.
“I think that would be a wonderful, wonderful idea to showcase each region,” she said.
That’s the kind of focus Deravian hopes to see more of, comparing Persian cooking to Italian food, which evolved beyond red-sauce joints into more regional cooking.
“Iranian cuisine is hyper regional, and we haven’t gotten to that place yet,” she said.
Ultimately, she wants Persian food to be an everyday choice rather than something saved for special occasions.
“It just needs to become … a popular cuisine to think of on a Wednesday night,” she said. “‘Oh, let’s go out for Persian food.’”
Topline:
Now that the midterm results are in, could drivers see lower gasoline and diesel prices anytime soon? Not so fast, experts say. Here's why.
The backstory: Democrats are now poised to take control of Congress by wide margins — and a critical driver of their success has been voter fury about how the war in Iran has driven up the cost of fuel. Before the war, about one fifth of the world's oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. As the war throttled that waterway, the price of oil rose: A barrel of Brent crude cost about $70 in late February, spent months hovering around the $110 mark, and is now close to $95.
What could Democrats do? The new Congressional Democrats will have the power to push the president to end the war in Iran, in part by making it harder to authorize new war spending. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-NY) told reporters on Wednesday that Democrats are intent on ending the war and bringing down the cost of living, saying that "relief is on the way."
Read on... for more on what the blue wave means for gas and diesel prices.
Democrats are now poised to take control of Congress by wide margins — and a critical driver of their success has been voter fury about how the war in Iran has driven up the cost of fuel.
Before the war, about one fifth of the world's oil passed through the Strait of Hormuz. As the war throttled that waterway, the price of oil rose: A barrel of Brent crude cost about $70 in late February, spent months hovering around the $110 mark, and is now close to $95.
That's driven up the price of everything that's refined from crude. A gallon of gas costs $4.12 on average — about $1 higher than a year ago. The price of diesel hit a record high in September at $6.52, and while it's fallen a bit since then, a gallon remains about $2.50 higher than this time last year, according to AAA.
These soaring prices helped major oil companies rake in huge profits over the past two quarters, while making the cost of fuel at the pump uncomfortably high for drivers, and boosting the price of nearly everything in a nation that is heavily reliant on trucking.
So now that the midterm results are in, could drivers see lower gasoline and diesel prices anytime soon?
Not so fast, experts say. Here's why.
Nothing yet — members of the new Congress won't be sworn in until January.
And once they are seated, U.S. legislators have limited powers to directly affect the price of oil, which is dictated by a complex global market.
In the run-up to the election, most of the actions taken by the federal government to lower fuel prices came through the White House, not Congress. Hoping to stave off losses for his party, President Trump tried to ease the cost of diesel by loosening federal rules on dyed diesel, which is normally used for farming. He also announced a deal that would bring more Russian diesel to global markets, including the U.S., by temporarily lifting sanctions. Neither of these did much to move the needle.
But the new Congressional Democrats will have the power to push the president to end the war in Iran, in part by making it harder to authorize new war spending. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-NY) told reporters on Wednesday that Democrats are intent on ending the war and bringing down the cost of living, saying that "relief is on the way."
"What a unified Democratic Congress can do is make escalation considerably more costly: both chambers can pass resolutions, attach conditions to war spending and hold back confirmations of key officials," Claudio Galimberti, chief economist of Rystad Energy, wrote in a market note to the media.
Still, the president has veto power over legislation, as well as executive powers. " President Trump still retains full discretionary authority over military strikes, over blockades and sanctions, licenses, and so on," said Jorge León, head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy, in an interview with NPR.
Trump has sent mixed messages about whether he wants to end or escalate the war. In the past few weeks, he warned Gulf Arab countries to prepare for a new military campaign after the midterms. The U.S. struck Qeshm, an island in the Strait of Hormuz that Iran uses to launch its own strikes, on Nov. 2.
But on election night, Trump told The New York Times that he knew voters were unhappy about gas prices. And the next day, as the extent of the election rout became clear, Vice President JD Vance posted on social media: "The reason we lost is the war."
Jaime Brito, executive director of refining and oil markets for Dow Jones Energy, says if there's a deal to end the war, traders could be very excited. Brito said they might look for formal announcements from both Iran and the U.S. that the strait is reopening, and that both sides are pulling back their military presence in the area.
If market traders are convinced the peace will last? "If that scenario happens, then I personally see crude prices dropping, you know, $15, $20 [a barrel] immediately, in the next two, three days from the announcement," he said.
But for gasoline and diesel prices to fall, too, oil would have to start moving again. Ships that have been running long, alternative routes to avoid passing through the Strait of Hormuz would have to return to their points of origin, and then resume their former routes through the strait. León pointed out, that could lead to traffic jams.
From there, that crude will still need to be refined and make its way onto the market.
In the most optimistic scenario, Brito said, it could take three months after a ceasefire or deal is announced for gasoline and diesel prices to hit their prewar levels.
León thinks it would take more like six months for the price of crude to hit its prewar level, and then another month or two for gasoline and diesel to follow. But that's assuming all goes well. And, both of them said, there could be hiccups along the way that stretch the recovery timeline out for up to a year after a deal is announced.
" I don't want to say this, but, you know, expensive gasoline prices could be a new normal," Brito said.
The first big X factor: the war in Ukraine.
If Ukraine continues attacking Russian refineries, the price of diesel may not drop as precipitously as gasoline might. That's because Russia's refineries normally bring much of the world's diesel to global markets. Resuming traffic through the Strait of Hormuz will help lower the price of diesel — but it may take longer to reach its prewar level, León said.
Other scenarios could make for a less rosy picture, León said. U.S. refineries have been running above 90% capacity — what if they need emergency maintenance just at the moment when there's more oil ready to bring to market? Or, what if hostilities restart again, despite a deal?
Brito agreed. Before the end of the year, there could theoretically be new attacks in the strait, he wrote, "if the current administration sees it as a 'window' to complete unfinished tasks before the new Congressional layout takes their seat in January."
And there's also one more factor at play: The war has raised the price of moving oil itself around the world.
Since the Strait of Hormuz has been blocked off for so long, freight costs have gone up; ships carrying oil have had to skirt around the strait, take longer routes and use more fuel in the process. Plus, the price of insuring those ships has gone up, since transit around the strait has gotten so much riskier.
That means that even the oil industry is paying more to be in the oil business. And if hostilities persist and those freight costs remain high, that could keep the price of Brent crude elevated for longer.
"Bottom line," Brito wrote, for any hope of a return to normal prices, "you need to see a definitive end of the conflict."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Billionaire Leon Black on Wednesday filed a federal defamation lawsuit against California Rep. Robert Garcia for public comments the Democratic congressman made tying him to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The backstory: The court filing comes less than two months after the House approved a resolution holding Black in contempt of Congress for defying the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas in its investigation into Epstein. In June, Black appeared for a voluntary interview at the committee during which he denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking network. Weeks later, Garcia said during a TV interview that “Leon Black is at the center of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes” and that Black “was one of the last people to actually interact” with Epstein before he committed suicide in prison. In addition, Garcia said that he had “talked to survivors that have credibly named Leon Black as someone that was involved in direct abuse of women and was directly involved” with Epstein.
What's next: Those statements were false and were made maliciously, Black asserts through his lawyers. The defamation lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeks a jury trial and $7.25 million in compensatory and punitive damages. “Congressman Garcia’s knowing lies have caused real and significant ongoing harm to Mr. Black. His physical safety has been threatened, he has received a barrage of hateful calls, emails, and social media posts, and his business and philanthropic endeavors have suffered,” the filing states. Garcia’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
Billionaire Leon Black on Wednesday filed a federal defamation lawsuit against California Rep. Robert Garcia for public comments the Democratic congressman made tying him to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The court filing comes less than two months after the House approved a resolution holding Black in contempt of Congress for defying the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas in its investigation into Epstein.
In June, Black appeared for a voluntary interview at the committee during which he denied any knowledge of Epstein’s sex trafficking network.
Weeks later, Garcia said during a TV interview that “Leon Black is at the center of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes” and that Black “was one of the last people to actually interact” with Epstein before he committed suicide in prison.
In addition, Garcia said that he had “talked to survivors that have credibly named Leon Black as someone that was involved in direct abuse of women and was directly involved” with Epstein.
Those statements were false and were made maliciously, Black asserts through his lawyers. The defamation lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York seeks a jury trial and $7.25 million in compensatory and punitive damages.
“Congressman Garcia’s knowing lies have caused real and significant ongoing harm to Mr. Black. His physical safety has been threatened, he has received a barrage of hateful calls, emails, and social media posts, and his business and philanthropic endeavors have suffered,” the filing states.
Garcia’s office didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment on the lawsuit.
In September, Garcia called the contempt resolution against Black “an important step toward justice and accountability.”
Black had refused to respond to subpoenas asking him to appear and to turn over any potential nondisclosure agreements involving the investigation into Epstein.
Black’s lawyers have repeatedly denounced the Oversight Committee’s pursuit of the former head of a private equity firm as an abuse of congressional power. They have maintained he had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s criminal conduct.
Black was among several prominent figures, including Bill Clinton and Bill Gates, who had been asked to appear as part of the Oversight Committee’s long-running probe of Epstein. Survivors of Epstein’s alleged sexual abuse have told personal stories of being young women in a trafficking enterprise organized by Epstein and his colleague Ghislaine Maxwell.
Black co-founded the private equity firm Apollo Global Management and stepped down in 2021 during the fallout over his ties to Epstein.
Lawmakers have alleged that Black paid Epstein $180 million during their yearslong relationship.
A 2021 review commissioned by Apollo found that Black paid Epstein $158 million from 2012 to 2017, after Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from a minor. The review said the payments were for “bona fide tax, estate planning and other related services.”
