The Brief

This week, indie musician Mitski is playing a series of sold out shows at an unexpected L.A. venue: Hollywood High School’s auditorium.

For the students, it’s an opportunity to see a beloved artist at “our freaking school.” For the school, it’s a continuation of a “world famous” arts legacy.

“It makes me look at the school with so much pride,” said Lotus Rosby, a junior. “I'm like, ‘Wow, they have a huge artist coming to our school.’”

Music for a ‘good cry’

Mitski has built a dedicated following since she self-released her first album in 2012.

Senior Angel Cueto found the singer in middle school during “a very like, angsty teen part of my life."

“There's so many times where I've just bawled my eyes out in the shower to her music, and she's always like the crying artist that I go to when I just want a good cry,” she said.

For sophomore London James, hearing 2014’s “I don’t smoke” was a canon event in her life.

“Mitski speaks to me,” James said. “I understand her, like she's me and I'm her.”

James searched for tickets as soon as she saw the announcement of the Hollywood High shows.

“I didn't even have time to check the prices because every date was already sold out,” she said.

James, who’s in the school’s theatre program, wondered if there’d be a chance for students to volunteer to work backstage.

“But deep down I knew that was not gonna happen,” James said.

A 1920s era view of the Hollywood High School campus looking northwest from Highland Ave. The school opened in 1903 when the surrounding area was largely farmland.

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Then the school announced a contest. If students attended school every class period, every day for two weeks, they’d be entered into a raffle to win a pair of tickets donated by Mitski’s team.

Attendance is tied to school funding and students’ academic success, both of which are priorities for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Michael Reagan, an attendance counselor at the school, said the 168 students who entered the contest had a 96% attendance rate compared to 89% for those who did not.

“ It's definitely my most effective attendance challenge that I've done all year… probably in my three years in the district,” Reagan said.

Hollywood High School's auditorium, pictured here in 1939, and the library were the only two surviving buildings after the the 1933 Long Beach Earthquake.

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Students James, Cueto and Rosby were among the 46 students who won a pair of tickets.

“I think I've said I'm excited 25 million times and I don't think it's enough,” James said.

For Cueto, who’s a senior, it’s another opportunity to reflect on the arts as a viable career path — not just as an artist, but all the roles it takes to put together a show.

“It’s not just us watching a(n) artist that we like so much,” Cueto said. “But us also maybe getting a peak into our future.”

Why Hollywood High?

Hollywood High School is one of two U.S. stops for Mitski’s tour to support her new album, Nothing’s About to Happen to Me.

“I wanted it to feel special,” Mitski told the show World Cafe earlier this year. “  I wanted it to feel like an experience, I wanted to recreate even the feeling that I had going to shows, going to DIY shows, punk shows.”

The artist is also donating $2 of each ticket sale to nonprofit L.A. afterschool music program In The Band.

There are more than a thousand wooden seats between Hollywood High School's first floor and mezzanine and a pipe organ embedded in the walls. "”We rival some of the playhouses on Hollywood Boulevard," Dovlatian said.

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Cueto, a senior at the school, has a different take on the space. “It's like a, in my head, a janky auditorium that I spent like four years in," she said. "Sometimes it hurts my butt sitting in there for too long."

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Mitski isn’t the first musician to play the auditorium. Former Smiths frontman Morrissey played at the school in 2013 and Hollywood High School’s connection to the arts goes back decades.

Principal Samuel Dovlatian calls the school “world famous” because of the long roster of alumni working in arts and entertainment.

They include:

• Carol Burnett, actress, comedian, singer and writer
• Brandy, singer, songwriter and actress
• Sarah Jessica Parker, actress and producer
• Laurence Fishburne, actor, producer and director

Their names line the school's hallways in red stars. Actress Judy Garland also attended the school, but according to Dovlatian, skipped graduation to finish filming The Wizard of Oz.

Ken Handler, the inspiration for Mattel's Ken doll graduated from Hollywood High School in 1961.

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Principal Samuel Dovlatian in Hollywood High School's museum.

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There’s also a collection of memorabilia in a “museum” attached to the school's library with includes:

• The hammer from The Shawshank Redemption, a film written by alum Frank Darabont, who went on to create "The Walking Dead."
• An original Ken doll modeled after alumni Ken Handler. 
• A pair of rhinestone heels owned by Marge Champion, a dancer and the inspiration for Disney’s Snow White. 

The arts are also a core part of the school’s present.

Dovlatian said even if students don’t go into the entertainment industry, they’ll take away valuable skills about working in teams and communicating.

“You have to go beyond the textbook,” Dovlatian said. “Get [students] hands-on learning, get them to struggle with the problem, the concept, the dance routine, the material, the equipment, and let them figure out for themselves what success means.”

The historic library, which includes a mural of entertainment industry history, is one reason junior Dulce Duque chose to attend the school. “ I really like our old Hollywood vibes,” Dueque said.

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Hollywood High converted the former auto-body shop into a studio where students learn video and film production.

Mawuena Akorli uses that space as a junior in the New Media Academy program. She said as a Black girl, she doesn’t often see herself in the media.

“ I wanna make stories and films that people can relate to and makes them feel seen,” Akorli said.

The same auditorium where Mitski will host her residency is also home to the school’s performing arts magnet, which includes theatre, dance and music.

James has an invitation for anyone else in the audience to see Hollywood High’s Spring musical, which starts in mid-April.

“ If you can go see Mitski, you can come see Into the Woods,” James said. “Y'all know where this auditorium is.”

The Supreme Court on Monday gave itself more time to consider a national ban on telemedicine access to the abortion pill mifepristone.

Justice Samuel Alito extended an earlier order he issued by three more days, so rules for prescribing mifepristone online or through the mail remain in effect through Thursday at a minimum.

The case at issue

The tumult over the future of telemedicine access to mifipristone started on May 1 with a ruling from the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. That ruling re-instituted prescribing rules from before the pandemic that required patients to receive mifepristone in person in a doctor's office or clinic.

The Food and Drug Administration determined that the rule was medically unnecessary in 2021. The state of Louisiana sued last fall, arguing that telemedicine access undermines the state's abortion ban.

What is telemedicine abortion?

The telemedicine abortion process starts with a patient connecting with a healthcare provider on the phone or online. If the patient is eligible, that provider can prescribe two medications — mifepristone and another pill called misoprostol. Patients can pick up the medicine at a local pharmacy, or providers can mail the drugs to a patient's home.

That access is a big part of the reason why the number of abortions nationally has actually increased since the Supreme Court overturned the constitutional right to abortion in 2022. Now, most abortions in the U.S. use this combination of medications, and one quarter happen via telemedicine.

After the 5th Circuit ruling, some providers said they would continue offering telemedicine access to abortion medication using a different protocol that involves higher doses of misoprostol and no mifepristone.

Researchers say that method is just as safe and effective, but tends to cause more pain for patients and more side effects, like nausea and diarrhea. Misoprostol has other medical uses, such as treating gastric ulcers and hemorrhage, and has been on the market longer than mifepristone. It is likely to remain fully accessible, even if mifepristone is restricted.

Since the FDA's prescribing rules for medications apply to the whole country, a change to the rules about how mifepristone can be accessed has national impact. That means it affects states with constitutionally-protected access to abortion, states with criminal bans, like Louisiana, and all states in between.

States' rights

Nearly two dozen Democratic-led states submitted an amicus brief in this case, writing that the appeals court decision put the policy choices of states with bans above the choices of states "that have made the different but equally sovereign determinations to promote access to abortion care."

There are also stakes related to the power of FDA and other expert agencies to set rules. While the Trump administration's FDA did not respond to the Supreme Court's request for briefs, a group of former leaders of the agency, who served under mainly Democratic and some Republican presidents, wrote about this in an amicus brief.

They defended the FDA's process in approving the medication and modifying the rules for prescribing it, and say the appeals court decision "would upend FDA's gold-standard, science-based drug approval system."

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A fire has broken out on an oil and gas platform about 6.6 miles offshore from Santa Barbara.

The fire was reported just after 7 a.m. on Monday. Onboard crew members were unable to contain it. The 26 workers were evacuated, and two minor injuries were reported.

Santa Barbara County, Santa Barbara City and Ventura County firefighters, as well as the Santa Barbara Harbor Patrol and the U.S. Coast Guard, are involved in efforts to contain the blaze.

There's no word on what started the fire.

This is a developing story.