The Brief

The tourism industry in Los Angeles, still rebounding from the pandemic, has gotten a rare gift in the form of Shohei Ohtani.

Since the baseball season started in March, Japanese fans have come by the thousands to L.A. despite a historically weak yen, in hopes of seeing the two-way star slug a home run.

The surge is apparent at the Miyako, a mid-sized, unassuming hotel in Little Tokyo that has become a top attraction for Japanese visitors because of its proximity to Dodger Stadium — just 2 miles away — and a 15-story, very ‘grammable mural of Ohtani covering one of its exterior walls.

Inside the Miyako, workers at the Okayama Kobo bakery in the lobby, sell Japanese-style pastries shaped like blue Dodger helmets while reporting that their Japanese is vastly improving from more Japanese guests coming through the door.

A top seller at the Okayama Kobo Bakery inside the Miyako Hotel are Japanese-style pastries shaped like Dodger helmets.

One traveler from Osaka, Megu Adachi, was in the lobby last week checking in with several other friends. They had tickets to watch Ohtani play, or as Adachi fondly called him, yakyu shonen — a kid obsessed with baseball.

“Baseball only!” Adachi emphasized in English.

Tens of thousands of Japanese fans are coming to see Shohei Ohtani play at Dodger Stadium.

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L.A.’s tourism industry eagerly welcomes international travelers for their tendency to stay longer and spend more than domestic visitors, said Adam Burke, president and CEO the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board.

With travel down from China, the biggest pre-pandemic source of overseas visitors to L.A., other countries such as Japan are proving to be increasingly important sources of tourism dollars.

Because of Ohtani's appeal — not to mention the Dodgers also signing of Japanese pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto — Japan this year may surpass visitor numbers for markets like the U.K. and Australia.

“We could be over 400,000 Japanese visitors," Burke said. "It would absolutely make it one of our top four international markets.”

Leading Japanese tour operator JTB alone plans to bring as many as 25,000 customers to watch Shohei play this season.

Osuke Ishiguro, who manages the agency’s L.A. office, said many customers are paying to see multiple games. Some of them are very casual baseball fans, but were stunned to see Ohtani secure his record-breaking $700 million, 10-year contract with a storied franchise.

“They found out he’s a superstar,” Ishiguro said. “So a lot of people want to just see the game, how he does and how he reacts.”

Shift to South Bay

When the Dodgers are playing at home, half of the Miyako's rooms are occupied by Japanese tourists, said general manager Akira Yuhara. Before Ohtani’s arrival, they had little reason to visit Little Tokyo, Yuhara said, noting some perceive downtown as dangerous.

“Especially this area, they don't want to come,” Yuhara said.

Though it is a cultural hub for Japanese Americans that's rooted in history, Little Tokyo is not widely known in Japan, Yuhara said.

Akira Yuhara, general manager of the Miyako Hotel in Little Tokyo, has seen a big uptick in visitors from Japan since Ohtani started playing on the Dodgers.

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Rather, the most famous L.A.-area attractions are Disneyland, Hollywood, Santa Monica and Universal Studios, home to the new Super Nintendo World co-designed by Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto.

Yuhara said Japanese businesspeople coming to work in L.A. typically end up staying in the South Bay, where SoCal’s Japanese American population center shifted after World War II.

It’s also where scores of Japanese companies like Honda and All Nippon Airways have located their U.S. operations, and where many of their employees live, eat, bank and shop.

Yuhara said a sister hotel he manages in Torrance has traditionally been more popular with Japanese travelers.

If they want a photographic souvenir of Ohtani, they need go no farther than neighboring Hermosa Beach, which has its own mural of the superstar.

But the pull of Ohtani has more travelers traveling up the 110 Freeway and squeezing in a stay downtown.

A mural of Shohei Ohtani on the outside wall of Oceanview Liquor Store in Hermosa Beach.

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“Even when we don't have a game today, they go to Dodger Stadium,” Yuhara said. “They’re interested in Dodgers [merch] shopping.”

Fried octopus and chicken katsu

At the stadium, visitors can pick up Ohtani’s No. 17 jersey. Concession stands sell chicken katsu sandwiches and takoyaki (fried octopus.)

Signs in kanji characters dot the stadium, where tours are now given in Japanese several times a week.

The demand to see Ohtani has created unexpected new lines of business for companies such as Elite Sports Tours, which creates sports travel packages for customers.

Elite went from having "zero" bookings from Japan to, seemingly overnight, working with Japanese tour operators to secure tickets and advising on L.A. traffic, said CEO Tim Macdonell.

JTB manager Ishiguro said the gambling scandal involving Ohtani's ex-interpreter that exploded at the start of the season didn't seem to affect interest among Japanese travelers wanting to see Ohtani.

He expects even more Japanese fans will come during the summer and into the fall should Ohtani stay healthy, the Dodgers make the postseason and the yen recovers.

The agency is booking guests in and around Little Tokyo, shuttling them to and from the stadium and their hotels, Ishiguro said.

He said not since another Japanese superstar, Hideo Nomo, played for the Dodgers two decades ago have this many Japanese tourists regularly flocked to this part of town.

Yutaka Umezawa has noticed more people speaking Japanese on the street and at Daikokuya, the ramen shop where he works.

"I can hear that they're Japanese and usually they're talking about Ohtani," said Umezawa, who moved to L.A. eight years ago from Chiba.

Yutaka Umezawa works at the Daikokuya, which is selling Dodgers-themed shirts celebrating the ramen shop's anniversary. He says that Japanese tourists prefer official MLB jerseys.

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Outside the Miyako hotel, Tadashi Onaka was visiting the Ohtani mural with his son Yusuke, who lives in Arizona. He had traveled from Japan with the intent of seeing his son, but made sure to take a detour to L.A. so he could watch Ohtani play at home.

“He hit a run in the first inning,” Onaka recalled. ”Just getting to see it was good.”

Now he found himself in Little Tokyo, a place he was surprised to learn has existed for 140 years.

Very small, he said, and very different from Japan, he said. Rather, it's its own thing that legions of Ohtani fans are now getting to discover.

Aaron Donald returned to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday, ending his retirement after 2 1/2 years to chase another Super Bowl title.

The 35-year-old Donald made his decision after several weeks of discussion and nearly three months of intensive workouts for a star defensive lineman who reigned atop his position in a Rams uniform from 2014 until his retirement in early 2024.

Donald joined a light practice at the Rams’ training complex later Sunday, shaking hands and exchanging hugs with Myles Garrett and the rest of his teammates, both old and new.

While he hasn’t decided whether he will play in the Rams’ season opener against the 49ers in Australia next month, Donald is eager to complete a comeback that seemed improbable only three months ago.

“Do I feel like I can play at a high level? Yes,” Donald said. “Do I feel like I can still be myself? One hundred percent, and if I didn’t feel like that, I wouldn’t be here.”

Donald agreed to a one-year contract, and ESPN reported he will make at least $20 million in an incentive-laden deal.

Donald became one of the greatest defensive players of his era during a decade spent entirely with the Rams in St. Louis and Los Angeles. He won three AP NFL Defensive Player of the Year awards while earning 10 Pro Bowl selections, eight All-Pro selections and a Super Bowl ring before he retired somewhat abruptly following the 2023-24 season.

After two years of tending to his business interests and enjoying ample family time, Donald began to entertain the notion of a comeback this summer after the Rams traded young lineman Jared Verse in a deal for Garrett, one of Donald’s few peers in contemporary defensive line play.

With MVP Matthew Stafford leading the NFL's top-ranked offense, Los Angeles was already the betting favorite in most sportsbooks to win its second Super Bowl title under McVay even before Donald's comeback.

Along with Garrett, Los Angeles added cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson from Kansas City to a defense that now looks more equipped to keep pace with the Rams' offense, which returns every major contributor around Stafford from last season's elite unit.

Donald's 111 career sacks are the Rams' franchise record and the second most in NFL history among linemen who primarily played on the interior.

The decision resets Donald's eligibility clock for his all-but-automatic induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, but he's much more interested in seizing the strong opportunity to play for a second ring while lining up alongside Garrett and talented young contributors Byron Young, Kobie Turner and Braden Fiske on what should be an opponents' nightmare of a defensive front.

Donald would have been eligible for the 2029 class in Canton, Ohio.

The ink isn’t dry on an expansion of pension benefits for California police and firefighters — in fact, Gov. Gavin Newsom hasn’t even signed it into law — but unions are already negotiating contracts as if their members could soon be eligible for more lucrative retirement formulas.

It sweetens the perks for public safety employees by allowing them to retire with full benefits at 55 rather than 57, and it allows their unions to bargain for more generous pension formulas by increasing the maximum accrual rate to 3% per year of service from today’s 2.7%.

It also includes a provision that will boost retirement income for all higher-earning public employees by increasing a cap on how much they can receive from their pensions.

The Senate passed the measure by a vote of 33-0. It passed by a similarly overwhelming majority of 70-2 in the Assembly.

“I’m supporting this because the men and women who run toward fire, violent crime and life threatening emergencies are not working ordinary jobs,” said Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, a Republican representing Lancaster.

If Newsom signs Assembly Bill 1383, it will mark the state’s first enhancement of public employee pensions since former Gov. Jerry Brown championed a law that required public employees hired after 2013 to work longer for full benefits and kick in more money from their paychecks to fund their retirements.

Brown’s law followed the back-to-back financial crises of the dot-com bust and the Great Recession, which obliterated tens of billions of dollars of assets in California pension funds and set off fears that they could become insolvent.

California’s largest pension fund has not fully clawed out from its recession-era losses. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System as of July 1 held assets worth $637 billion, or about 85% of what it owes to its 2 million members over time.

CalPERS over the last decade has ratcheted up the rates it charges cities, counties and the state, both by requiring employers to pay down losses faster and by revising its earnings targets to acknowledge that it expects to earn less money from investments. Payroll and employer contributions to CalPERS totaled $14.9 billion in the 2017 financial year; by 2025, the number climbed to $30.2 billion, according to the pension fund’s annual financial reports.

The new retirement bill would require government employers and employees to contribute an additional $282 million to CalPERS to cover the lower retirement age and increased cap on pensionable income. The sum is expected to increase by hundreds of millions of dollars more if all public safety agencies agree to pay the maximum benefits, according to the California Department of Finance.

The finance department, which reports to Newsom, recommended that lawmakers reject the bill.

The measure would also apply to pension systems outside of CalPERS, including 20 that are managed by counties.

Cities, counties fought pension expansion

California local government agencies united in opposing the measure. They’re now hoping Newsom will veto it.

“We want to pay our police and fire and all our employees all we can, but it has to pencil out at the end,” said Napa Mayor Scott Sedgley, who is a retired Napa firefighter.

Unions were confident the measure would pass because it sailed through every vote in the Legislature, with Republicans joining with Democrats in arguing it’s an important investment in public safety.

Some local police and fire unions insisted on including clauses in new contracts that reopen bargaining over retirement benefits if Newsom signs the bill. One was in Napa, where the city recently struck a five-year contract with its firefighter union that includes a reopening pensions connected to the bill that just passed the Legislature.

The unions “don’t want to miss the year, two years, or whatever they’re locked into their agreement,” said attorney Michael Youril of the firm Liebert Cassidy Whitmore.

“I would say there’s going to be immense pressure” on local government agencies to increase retirement benefits to the maximum rate allowed, he said.

San Diego Police Department officers arrest a group of protesters who barricaded themselves inside Mayor Todd Gloria’s office at San Diego City Hall in San Diego, on Jan. 23, 2026. The protesters demanded to meet with Gloria to discuss concerns about how SDPD interacts with federal immigration agents.

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Unions are allies to Gov. Newsom

The bill would benefit public safety unions that have been critical allies to Newsom, including California Professional Firefighters and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. Leaders of the firefighter union in particular lobbied for the lower retirement age by pointing to the toxic hazards their members face, which can shorten their careers and lives.

The unions stress that the bill does not fully unwind Brown’s pension law. Until that law took effect, police and firefighters could retire at 50 with even more generous pension formulas. They characterize the current bill as a modernization of the one Brown signed.

Revising the pensions has been the top legislative priority for the Peace Officers Research Association of California, an organization that represents California police unions. The association’s president, Brian Marvel, said the possibility of a Newsom veto worries him.

“We’re really hoping that the governor doesn't want to go down that path because we really feel that this is a great opportunity for him to leave office addressing a huge issue within public safety,” Marvel said.

Recruiting and retention have been a problem, Marvel said.

“We want to make sure that we have the necessary resources to be able to address what the community’s needs are,” he said.

If the bill doesn’t get past Newsom, Marvel said law enforcement groups “would have to have serious conversations regarding his veto” if Newsom seeks the presidency.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

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California lawmakers are poised to adopt a proposal Monday to exempt independent Hollywood productions from a new cap on how many tax credits they can claim each year, following months of pressure from the multibillion-dollar entertainment industry and fears about more productions fleeing the state.

The proposal, Assembly Bill 186, effectively maintains independent productions’ ability to access California’s film tax credits. Such productions often have smaller budgets than major studios and claim less tax credit.

Created in 2009 to help California's film industry compete with the tax incentives and lower costs in other states and countries, the film tax credit lets production companies offset a portion of their annual tax liability. Last year, as Hollywood reeled from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, union strikes and wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully pushed state leaders to double the size of the program and allocate up to $750 million a year in film tax credits in an attempt to keep more film and TV jobs in California.

AB 186 also revises that program to benefit other motion picture companies by allowing them more time to use their film tax credits and giving them a bigger refund — and more quickly — if they choose to cash out on their unused credits.

Under the new program, companies can apply leftover credits to future tax years, or get a cash refund — often in the millions of dollars — for the unused portion.

Industry leaders celebrated last year’s expansion but it soon clashed with another Newsom priority: Capping corporate tax credits. In July, the governor signed into law a permanent cap, limiting the amount big companies can claim at up to $5 million or 70% of a company’s tax liability, whichever is higher, amid a gloomy budget outlook and pressure to make billionaires and corporations pay more.

Hollywood advocates were infuriated, arguing the cap threatened to hamstring the film tax credit program. Bryan Lourd, CEO of the Creative Artists Agency, urged lawmakers earlier this month to exempt the industry from the cap.

“Without this fix, we risk destabilizing a program that is critical to keeping film and television production in California and the thousands of jobs it supports,” he said in a letter.

While the final deal does not exempt the entire industry, it reflects a starting point, said Assemblymember Rick Zbur, a Democrat who represents Hollywood and co-authored last year’s film tax credit expansion.

The legislation will “provide greater stability and certainty for productions and workers, mitigate the impacts of the business tax credit limitation, and help us continue competing for jobs and investment,” he said in a statement.

Under AB 186, some studios would be able to claim the tax credits above the cap up to 15 years in the future, instead of the nine years allowed under current law. Those who claimed tax credits from the expanded program last year would also be able to claim up to 95% of the unused tax credits as refunds, up from the current 90%, and the state must pay off the refund within two years, instead of five.

If approved, the measure would cost the state up to $170 million in annual tax revenue, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.

A slew of lobbyists representing motion picture studios, such as SkyDance and Walt Disney, as well as labor unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), supported the deal during a budget hearing Sunday.

Shane Gusman, lobbyist for SAG-AFTRA and the Teamsters Union in California, told CalMatters the deal represents a compromise.

“It’s fair to say that the unions and others were arguing for a full exemption,” he said Sunday. “But it’s one of those things we … got enough so that the program will continue to work.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

The Los Angeles Police Department wants 300 new vehicles for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it's asking the city to pay for them.

LAPD officials say the request for around $30 million to procure the vehicles would help temporarily expand the Police Department's fleet during the summer of 2028, so the police force could patrol Olympic venues while maintaining its presence around the city.

City officials are skeptical. The L.A. City Council discussed the request at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting earlier this month, where councilmembers questioned why the city should cover the cost.

"I'm incredibly uncomfortable with spending $30 million on cars, and the excuse being used that we need them for the Games, when the Games are going to be a month long," Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, told LAPD officials.

The committee kicked the decision down the road, asking the city administrative officer for more information on the financial effects of procuring the vehicles, the different options to pay for them and where else LAPD might find the resources, including from other law enforcement agencies in the state.

But the request highlights an increasingly thorny question around the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Who will pay for astronomical security costs?

The price tag for LAPD activity during the Olympics is of huge importance to the city of L.A., which is the financial backstop for the Games. The Olympics are intended to be privately funded and cost-free for the taxpayer.

Private Olympics organizing committee LA28 has not included expenses for police in its more than $7 billion budget, and is banking on the federal government covering security costs.

The Trump administration has allocated $1 billion for security at the Games, but those costs will be distributed among the many cities with Olympic and Paralympic venues, and it's not clear how much Los Angeles will get.

LAPD's vehicle request is one example of the limits of that support, according to Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who wrote in a July letter to the Budget and Finance Committee that he does not expect federal funds to cover the 300 additional vehicles he's requesting.

That's because LAPD is anticipating federal dollars to go toward paying to deploy thousands of officers across the city during the Games.

According to one estimate sent to the City Council by LAPD in May, the department's personnel costs for the Olympics and Paralympics could be more than $730 million, with close to half of that money going to outside law enforcement brought in to fill staffing holes.

As the council delays a decision on new patrol vehicles, the city is moving ahead with a separate request. It already approved $13 million to procure 107 non-patrol vehicles for the Games in its 2026-2027 budget. Those include trucks, prisoner transport vans and unmarked investigative vehicles.

According to the department, vehicles acquired for the Olympics won't permanently expand the LAPD fleet. Instead, new vehicles will replace old ones once the Games are over.