The Brief

In campaign mode, Kamala Harris doesn’t refer to herself as a politician, but a prosecutor.

Her rise in Democratic politics began in California’s courtrooms. Voters elected her first as San Francisco’s district attorney and then as the state’s attorney general.

She battled multinational corporations on behalf of Californians, but also oversaw the wrongful conviction of someone who was later stabbed in prison. As the state’s lawyer, she refused to defend California’s gay marriage ban, but did the opposite on the death penalty, defending the state’s policy despite her personal opposition to it.

When she first ran for president five years ago, in a time of rising skepticism about policing, she pitched herself to Democratic primary voters as not merely a prosecutor but a progressive prosecutor. Today, in a general election campaign that may hinge on winning over independents concerned about crime, she’s largely dropped the modifier. Her record as a prosecutor draws criticism from both sides: The left has criticized her for having been too tough, even as the Trump campaign charges that she was “soft as CHARMIN.”

These nine cases — some successes, some stumbles — helped define the complicated law enforcement legacy of the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee:

1. Harris faces first test when a cop is killed

The shooting of a police officer on a poorly lit street in San Francisco in 2004 would haunt Harris for decades.

Officer Isaac Espinoza and his partner were in plainclothes when they approached a man in their unmarked vehicle on April 10. Espinoza, 29, stepped out and flashed a light at David Hill, according to accounts of trial testimony.

Hill fired several rounds from an AK-47. Two struck Espinoza, killing him. Espinoza’s partner was injured, and Hill was accused of first-degree murder, along with other charges.

San Francisco Police Officer Isaac Espinoza was shot and killed while working undercover in 2004.

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The newly elected DA, Harris, declined to pursue the death penalty against Hill – consistent with her position while she campaigned for the office, but offensive to many who attended Espinoza’s funeral.

“This is not only the definition of tragedy, it’s the special circumstance called for by the death penalty law,” former Sen. Dianne Feinstein told the mourners, provoking a resounding standing ovation.

The decision immediately pitted Harris — the first woman, first Black and first Asian American district attorney in San Francisco history — against the police.

“Isaac paid the ultimate price,” said San Francisco Police Officers Association President Gary Delagnes at the funeral. “And I speak for all officers in demanding that his killer also pay the ultimate price.”

After eight weeks of testimony, jurors convicted Hill of second-degree murder and attempted murder. They rejected the charge of first-degree murder, not finding the act premeditated, and Hill’s conviction and life sentence were upheld in 2011.

In her 2009 book “Smart on Crime,” Harris wrote: “The broadly held assumption that simply increasing the penalty for any crime will automatically deter more people from committing the crime is a myth. We have to understand why long sentences alone are not sufficient to rock the crime pyramid for many types of crimes.”

2. Harris’ office convicts the wrong man — a $13 million mistake

Actor Jamal Trulove was a contestant on VH1’s “I Love New York 2,” a “Bachelor”-style dating show in which 20 men competed for the affections of a failed reality show contestant.

A viewer who happened to have witnessed a fatal July 2007 shooting at San Francisco’s Sunnydale housing project saw the show and told police she was convinced: Trulove, she said, had been the shooter.

The witness, Priscilla Lualemaga, had initially identified a different man as the shooter. When police showed her a photo lineup, and told her the shooter in that lineup, Lualemaga said Trulove “looks like the guy who could have shot” the victim.

But after the show aired, Lualemaga said she was certain.

Jamal Trulove during an interview on the music podcast The Art of Dialogue.

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When the case went to trial in 2010, the DA’s office put both Lualemaga and her sister in witness protection, citing alleged threats.The jury convicted Trulove of first-degree murder and he was sentenced to 50 years to life.

But on appeal, a ballistics expert testified that Lualemaga — the only eyewitness to testify that Trulove was at the scene — could not have observed the shooting from the direction she was facing, given the rounds’ trajectory.

“The prosecutor wove these points into the very fabric of her closing argument, going so far as to urge the jury to have the same ‘courage’ as Lualemaga and find defendant guilty,” wrote appellate court judges. “There was no evidence of any threats or other actual danger presented by defendant, his friends, or his family to Lualemaga or her family…”

Trulove was acquitted in March 2015, and went on to a role in the film “The Last Black Man in San Francisco.”

A federal lawsuit he filed after his release — noting he was stabbed in prison when he failed to give his cell’s bottom bunk to a gang leader — cost the city and county of San Francisco $13 million.

In a new podcast interview, he recounted his conviction: “I’ll never forget, when I turned around and I looked, and I seen Kamala Harris — we locked eyes this one time, and she laughed — she literally just kinda busted out laughing,” said Trulove, who’s endorsed Donald Trump.

3. Harris vs. the mentally ill woman shot by police, then prosecuted

The Espinoza case left Harris on shaky ground with the San Francisco Police Department — tension she sought to soothe via a monthly spot in the police union newsletter. In October 2008, here’s how her office presented a case in which police responded to a mentally ill woman in crisis:

“When police were called to the defendant’s home, she allegedly attempted to assault the responding officers with a knife. The police subdued the defendant by shooting her several times.”

Put another way: Police repeatedly shot a schizophrenic woman. And then Harris prosecuted her — but the jury balked.

In August 2008, Teresa Sheehan, then 56, was living in a group home for people with mental illness. When one of the home’s workers attempted to check on her, Sheehan replied with threats and said she had a knife.

A worker summoned police. Two officers knocked on Sheehan’s private room and eventually used a key to open her door. She grabbed a knife with a five-inch blade, the officers would later testify, and said “I am going to kill you. I don’t need help. Get out.”

Teresa Sheehan during Christmas in 2013.

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The officers later testified that they retreated but, worried that Sheehan might climb out of her window and to a fire escape, they opened the door again. One pepper-sprayed Sheehan and, when she didn’t drop the knife, the other shot her twice. The first officer also shot her.

She survived, and a jury acquitted her of making criminal threats and deadlocked on assault, though 11 of 12 jurors voted for acquittal. Sheehan sued San Francisco, settling for $1 million.

“If (Harris) actually looked at it and said, ‘This is a righteous case, I want to go after a mentally ill woman who was shot,’ then you question that decision,” Laurie Levenson, a criminal law professor at LA’s Loyola Law School told CalMatters. “If she didn’t know about it, then you question her management skills.”

4. Harris vs. a ‘predatory’ for-profit college

When a 2013 U.S. Justice Department investigation turned up evidence that the for-profit Corinthian Colleges were targeting “isolated” people who were “unable to see and plan well for the future,” while falsely promising prospective students job placement rates as high as 100%, it caught the eye of Kamala Harris. As California’s new attorney general, she sued them, alleging false advertising and deceptive marketing.

The Santa Ana-based company had purchased several private for-profit colleges that were in financial trouble, including at least three in California. By 2010, it had enrolled more than 110,000 students at 105 campuses.

Soon a number of Corinthian students told the U.S. Education Department that the schools weren’t placing them in jobs at the rates Corinthian had promised, leaving them saddled with student debt. The Office of Federal Student Aid forced the schools to stop any mergers, purchases of new schools or offering new programs.

A person walks past the Everest Institute in Silver Spring, Maryland. Corinthian Colleges, which owns Everest, Heald College and WyoTech schools, was sued by the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau for what it calls a “predatory lending scheme,” the agency said in 2014.

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Harris said the schools were targeting some of California’s most vulnerable prospective students.

“The predatory scheme devised by executives at Corinthian Colleges, Inc. is unconscionable,” Harris said in 2013. “Designed to rake in profits and mislead investors, they targeted some of our state’s most particularly vulnerable people—including low income, single mothers and veterans returning from combat.”

In March 2016, Harris won a default judgment against Corinithian for $1.1 billion; the company never answered Harris’ legal complaint and its lawyers didn’t appear in court on the day of the verdict.

In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education discharged $5.8 billion in student loan debt to 560,000 borrowers who paid to attend Corinthian Colleges.

5. Harris vs. big banks in the mortgage meltdown

Harris’ entry into the national spotlight came at the tail end of the Great Recession in 2011, when as California’s attorney general, she rejected a settlement offer from five major mortgage lenders — one other states agreed to.

It could have jeopardized the deal, but her brinkmanship worked: The banks kicked in a lot more, allowing California to collect about $20 billion, from an initial settlement offer of $4 billion.

The agreement meant Bank of America Corp., JPMorgan Chase & Co., Wells Fargo & Co., Citigroup Inc. and Ally Financial Inc. collectively reduced $12 billion in principal on loans or offered short sales to about 250,000 California homeowners who owed more on their mortgages than their houses were worth.

The story of that negotiation and settlement became a key part of Harris’ political narrative, especially during her first candidacy for president in the 2020 Democratic primaries.

But the shine has somewhat worn off that victory in the years since.

A foreclosed home in Corona during the Great Recession. Dec. 18, 2008

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A recent Wall Street Journal analysis of the settlement found that, though Harris wanted to use the settlement money to reduce mortgage principals, about half the settlement went to banks that wrote off the mortgages on homes that had already been abandoned. Each Californian with a defaulted mortgage got a check for $1,400, which the state suggested it could use to help pay a month’s worth of rent.

Another $4.7 billion was used to reduce debt on second mortgages, often home equity credit lines. Only about $4.5 billion was used to lower debt on primary mortgages.

At the time, Harris told the New York Times that in a homicide case, “you’re talking about something where the body’s cold. So the conversation is about punishment, it’s about restitution. This was not that. Every day there are homeowners in California who will either receive relief so they can stay in their home, or will be in the foreclosure process and potentially lose their home. And that always weighed heavily on my mind.”

6. When Harris defended the death penalty she opposes

When Julia Miller’s husband found her body on Aug. 25, 1992, she had been bound with a telephone cord and stabbed to death. She had two knives still in her neck. There were pieces of three other knives near her body. There was a rag stuffed in her mouth.

Evidence immediately pointed to Miller’s daughter’s boyfriend, Ernest Dewayne Jones, who had already served six years in state prison for raping his previous girlfriend’s mother.

Pamela Miller, Juila’s daughter, told the court “That bastard needs to be sentenced to death.” A judge agreed and Jones was sent to California’s death row. But Pamela Miller told an LA Times reporter that the sentencing was pointless because of how rarely executions were carried out.

A guard stands on duty in California’s Death Row at San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin on December 29, 2015.

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Nearly 20 years later, while Jones awaited execution, a federal judge overturned the sentence, declaring California’s death penalty was unconstitutional because of the “inordinate and unpredictable period of delay” before execution.”

Harris — despite her own personal opposition to the death penalty, and over the objections of death penalty opponents — went to court to defend it. “I am appealing the court’s decision because it is not supported by the law,” Harris said in 2014, “and it undermines important protections that our courts provide to defendants.”

She prevailed, and the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated Jones’ death sentence. In 2019, Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a moratorium on executions, shuttering San Quentin’s death chamber.

7. When Harris refused to defend a same-sex marriage ban

For 29 days in early 2004, San Francisco issued more than 4,000 marriage licenses. Then-mayor Newsom had decided to allow same-sex couples to marry three weeks into his first term; the number of people calling City Hall temporarily knocked out its phone lines.

The weddings were, technically, against the law. Newsom’s office expected an immediate injunction after the first wedding, but it didn’t come for a month. Among those who officiated weddings during that 29-day blitz was the city’s district attorney, Kamala Harris.

Then-Attorney General Kamala Harris, right, officiates the wedding of Kris Perry, left, and Sandy Stier, second from left, in San Francisco, in 2013. Stier and Perry were married Friday, June 28, 2013, after a federal appeals court on Friday cleared the way for the state of California to immediately resume issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples after a 4 1/2-year freeze.

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“One of the most joyful (moments of my career) was performing the marriages in 2004. Truly joyful,” Harris told The Advocate earlier this year.

The California Supreme Court nullified all of the marriages in April 2004, and voters then approved Proposition 8 to define marriage as between a man and a woman.

When same-sex couples challenged the ballot measure all the way to the nation’s highest court, then-Attorney General Harris refused to defend it, saying it was unconstitutional. “The Supreme Court has described marriage as a fundamental right 14 times since 1888,” Harris said in 2013. “The time has come for this right to be afforded to every citizen.”

Later that year, when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals cleared the way for same-sex marriages to resume in California, Harris officiated the first wedding.

8. Cheap prison labor, defended by Harris’ office

Harris read a news story one day in 2014 and discovered that attorneys at the state Justice Department she was heading had argued against the release of minimum-security prisoners because of their value to the state labor pool.

That, at least, is how she explained it in an interview with Buzzfeed News.

“I will be very candid with you, because I saw that article this morning, and I was shocked, and I’m looking into it to see if the way it was characterized in the paper is actually how it occurred in court,” Harris told BuzzFeed News in a 2014 interview. “I was very troubled by what I read. I just need to find out what did we actually say in court.”

The inmates working in prisons as groundskeepers, janitors and cooks earned between 8 and 37 cents per hour.

Prison inmates lay water pipe on a work project outside Oak Glen Conservation Fire Camp #35 in Yucaipa, in 2014. Thousands of convicted felons form the backbone of California’s wildfire protection force under a unique and little-known prison labor program.

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A federal judicial panel overseeing California’s overcrowded prison system had ordered the state to increase the sentence reductions minimum-security inmates earned for participating in rehabilitation and education programs.

But California Justice Department attorneys had a different view, arguing that prisons needed cheap inmate labor to keep functioning.

“Extending 2-for-1 credits to all minimum custody inmates at this time would severely impact fire camp participation — a dangerous outcome while California is in the middle of a difficult fire season and severe drought,” Justice Department attorneys wrote in a September 2014 filing.

The argument, later disavowed by Harris, was part of her office’s frequent conflicts with the three-judge panel overseeing the prison system.

Harris’ attorney general’s office “continually equivocated regarding the facts and the law,” the three-judge panel wrote in 2013. “This court would therefore be within its rights to issue an order to show cause and institute contempt proceedings immediately.”

The judges said they didn’t do so because that might further delay the state’s release of nonviolent prisoners.

9. Harris, her lawyers and a fake confession

A Kern County prosecutor invented two lines of incriminating testimony in a defendant’s 2013 deposition and sent the faked transcript to the defendant’s public defender.

The phony lines read like a confession from defendant Efrain Velasco-Palacios, and would have changed the potential charges of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child to penetrative sex with a child — meaning a conviction could trigger a life sentence.

When the public defender discovered the fabrication, he successfully argued to get the case dismissed.

Then, Harris’ Justice Department appealed.

Their argument: The charges shouldn’t have been dismissed because, while the prosecutor did fake the lines, he didn’t physically assault Velasco-Palacios.

Former California Attorney General Kamala Harris gives her first news conference in Los Angeles on Nov. 30, 2010.

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“Dismissal is an appropriate sanction for government misconduct that is egregious enough to prejudice a defendant’s constitutional rights,” the California Court of Appeals found in 2015. “On appeal, however, the People dispute that (the prosecutor’s) misconduct was outrageous or conscience shocking in a constitutional sense, as it was not physically brutal.”

The appellate court justices said it found “no support” for that argument.

“If Harris really thinks that knowingly producing a fraudulent document to secure an illicit advantage isn’t ‘outrageous,’ then perhaps she slept through her legal ethics courses,” wrote Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, in 2015.

Robert Murray, the prosecutor who filed the false transcript, would later describe his actions to the State Bar Court as a joke and a prank. It recommended a two-year suspension. Murray now works at the Office of the Inspector General and has had an active law license since 2018, according to the state bar website.

In her 2009 autobiography on her years as a prosecutor, Harris wrote about the kind of crimes that motivated her.

“In nearly twenty years as a prosecutor, the last six as the elected District Attorney of the City and County of San Francisco, I have spent a lot of time moving between the bright spotlight that shines on certain aspects of our criminal justice system and the darker places that the public doesn’t see,” she wrote. “I have prosecuted the manipulative predators who commit sexual assaults on children. I have prosecuted conduct that is so destructive that my first and only priority has been to remove the perpetrator from free society for as long as humanly possible. Sometimes, forever.”

Residents in East LA are weighing the promise of a new Metro E Line extension with concerns over construction disruptions, small-business impacts and whether more outreach is needed about the project.

The 4.7-mile extension of the Metro E Line would connect East Los Angeles to Montebello with four new stations. The project would relocate the existing Atlantic and Pomona station underground and include a mix of underground, aerial and street-level track transit.

The $7.9 billion project is expected to open for service between 2035 and 2037, according to Metro.

Construction will begin in 2029 and last approximately eight to 10 years, pending full funding approval. It’s part of a wider plan to connect the E Line to the city of Whittier, though officials say the work will be built in two phases due to funding constraints.

While officials say the project is intended to reduce traffic congestion and ease pressure on local roads, residents at a recent community meeting focused more on the immediate impact and communication.

Concerns over construction and local impact

“Thirty days for comment on a complex issue like this is ridiculous. … We need better outreach,” said East LA resident Clara Solis about a 30-day public comment period ending June 26.

Solis and others also raised concerns about how construction could affect traffic and disrupt local commerce, pointing to past transit projects.

“How is this going to impact the businesses? When the Gold Line went through, a lot of our businesses really suffered economically. We want to see a presentation on that. You should have a presentation just on how it’s going to impact the businesses,” Solis added.

A map shows the Eastside Transit Corridor Phase 2 project will extend the E Line nearly nine miles east from East Los Angeles to the City of Whittier. ()

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Calls for broader outreach

East LA resident Kristie Hernandez said community outreach for the project should also extend to people who do not necessarily live within the immediate 200-foot project radius.

“We need to understand that folks who don’t necessarily live within that close proximity also frequent that area when they drive,” said Hernandez.

Hernandez advocated for a 90-day public comment window and also called for presentations on underground infrastructure, especially in the wake of the East LA pipeline that was punctured during construction work in late May.

“We do not want that to happen again,” she said.

A promise for greater mobility

Lucia Martinez spoke favorably about the extension plans, considering that she relies on buses to get around East LA to do her shopping. She said she looks forward to using the Metro to travel to the Citadel as well as to the hospital in Pasadena.

“As an older woman who became aware of this project, I think it is amazing because I am someone who does not drive,” she said.

LA Documenter Rafael Cazzorla contributed reporting for this story. LA Documenters trains and pays LA residents to take notes at local government meetings around Los Angeles. You can find meeting notes and audio at losangeles.documenters.org

For the first time in nearly three decades, the Food and Drug Administration approved a new chemical UV filter for use in sunscreens sold in the U.S. And that has many dermatologists cheering.

"This is a very big deal," says Dr. Heather Rogers, a dermatologist in Seattle and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology.

The new ingredient is called bemotrizinol, and it has several advantages over the chemical sunscreen ingredients previously available in the U.S., Rogers says.

"It hits like really every box for us that we have been waiting for as dermatologists and consumers," Rogers says.

Here's what you need to know about this new ingredient and how it could lead to better sunscreens sold stateside.

1. It blocks both UVA and UVB rays

Rogers says in general, you want to use sunscreens that are broad spectrum, meaning they protect against both UVA rays — the longer wavelengths that cause premature aging and wrinkles — and UVB rays, which lead to sunburns. Both types of UV rays can cause skin cancer.

She says the sunscreens currently sold in the U.S. do an excellent job of protecting against UVB rays, but the chemical UV filters available in sunscreens in the U.S. until now aren't as good at blocking out UVA rays.

In general, chemical sunscreens sold in the U.S. rely on an ingredient called avobenzone to block out UVA rays, says Kelly Dobos, a cosmetic chemist who teaches at the University of Cincinnati.

But avobenzone by itself isn't photo stable, meaning its protection can start to break down rapidly when exposed to sunlight. And as avobenzone breaks down, it can release molecules that lead to skin irritation, says Alexa Friedman, a senior scientist with the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, or EWG.

By contrast, bemotrizinol offers protection against both UVA and UVB rays all on its own, and it is photo stable, so it breaks down more slowly, offering better protection, Rogers says.

"So if you go a little longer than two hours to reapply your sunscreen, there will be more protection left," Rogers says. However, she says you should still reapply sunscreen every two hours.

2. It's long been used in other countries 

Bemotrizinol has been widely used in European and Asian sunscreens for decades. But it has taken 20 years for the FDA to approve its use in this country.

That's because in the U.S., sunscreens are regulated as over-the-counter drugs rather than cosmetics, as they're classified in Europe. That means ingredients need to undergo rigorous testing for safety and efficacy before they can be approved for use in the U.S.

"It's really expensive and time consuming," Dobos says. The European company DSM-Firmenich spent at least $18 million over more than two decades in its push to gain FDA approval for bemotrizinol.

3. It has a well-documented safety profile

However, all that testing means bemotrizinol has more safety data to back it up than any other chemical sunscreen ingredient currently approved in the U.S., says Friedman of EWG.

"This ingredient is exciting because we have that data to support its safety," Friedman says.

Friedman says animal testing showed bemotrizinol doesn't lead to concerns like reproductive harm, while clinical testing on humans found that it does not irritate the skin, even after repeated application over time, "which is hopefully how people are using sunscreens."

And because bemotrizinol's molecules are larger, it's not readily absorbed by the skin and into the bloodstream, she says.

That's important, because studies have shown that some of the other chemical sunscreen UV filters sold in the U.S. can be absorbed in the bloodstream, prompting calls for more safety data and leading to a backlash against sunscreen on social media fueled by misinformation. Rogers says that trend is concerning because skin cancer is the most common form of cancer.

"We just need to have sunscreen that people will use, that they'll trust," Rogers says. "And this ingredient is going to allow that to happen. And that is very exciting."

And bemotrizinol is also considered to be non-irritating, Friedman says. That should be welcome news to people who've been put off by chemical sunscreens in the past.

4. It could lead to sunscreens that look better on you

Until now, Rogers says, the only sunscreen ingredient available in the U.S. that offered the aforementioned advantages of bemotrizinol — photo stable, non-irritating, minimally absorbed into the skin and with good broad spectrum protection against both UVA and UVB rays — was zinc oxide.

Both zinc oxide and titanium dioxide are mineral UV filters. Both chemical sunscreens and mineral sunscreens work by absorbing UV rays from the sun. Mineral sunscreens also reflect some UV rays. The bigger difference is that mineral sunscreens sit on the surface of the skin, while chemical sunscreens get absorbed into the skin, Rogers says.

The downside of mineral sunscreens is that they can leave an unattractive white cast on the skin — think of lifeguards with white paste on their noses. "Particularly if you're a person of color, zinc is going to make you look pale, white or ashy, which really makes it hard to use on a regular basis," Rogers says.

Bemotrizinol, on the other hand, is transparent on the skin, and because it protects against both UVA and UVB rays on its own, it doesn't have to be mixed with as many other chemical filters and stabilizers to achieve broad spectrum protection, Dobos adds. She says that should lead to more aesthetically pleasing, less greasy sunscreen formulations in the near future.

"I think it's a real win for public health," Dobos says. "If we can make a sunscreen that consumers like to use and want to use and apply in the proper amounts, I think that's something that's really going to be a win for consumers."

DSM-Firmenich has exclusive rights to market bemotrizinol in the U.S. for 18 months. It will be sold under the brand name Parsol Shield. The company says the first sunscreen products containing the ingredient should start hitting American store shelves around September.

The Justice Department on Friday approved Paramount's proposed $111 billion takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery.

After concluding its antitrust investigation into the pending merger, the department said in a statement that it found that the deal posed no threat to competition or consumers of film, broadcast television or streaming.

The decision clears the way for a merger of two rival Hollywood studio titans: Paramount, the owner of CBS, including CBS News, will swallow the much larger Warner, which includes HBO and CNN.

The DOJ''s Antitrust Division concluded that a union of two studio giants isn't anti-competitive because the streaming market has expanded the competition for conventional Hollywood studios, which includes Netflix, Apple and Amazon, as well as smaller streamers. The Justice Department's view is that, for the same reason, consumers won't lose out because there are plenty of other places to get entertainment.

Several states, including California, have raised antitrust concerns. The European Union is investigating as well.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who has been investigating the deal for antitrust violations, said in a post on social media following the Justice Department's approval: "The merger of Warner Bros and Paramount is not a done deal and remains under investigation by my office."

In a statement following the decision, Paramount described the deal as "pro-competitive," and would result in "a stronger company better positioned to compete against dominant technology platforms in an industry increasingly defined by intense competition for audiences, talent, technology, and investment."

The company said it planned to complete the merger as soon as possible, "delivering its benefits to consumers, creators, and the entertainment industry as a whole."

The consolidation will put media mogul David Ellison — son of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison — at the helm of Warner Bros. studio as well as its cable and streaming properties, including CNN and HBO. The Ellison family took over Paramount and CBS last summer.

In the months leading up to the regulatory approval, critics in Hollywood feared the deal would consolidate an already concentrated media landscape and lead to fewer jobs and less creative content.

In April, thousands of directors, actors, writers and other industry talent — including Kristen Stewart, Pedro Pascal and Javier Bardem — signed an open letter opposing the merger.

The elder Ellison is also a financial backer and adviser to President Trump on artificial intelligence. Critics of recent changes at CBS under the Ellisons' control are concerned that, as they say has happened with CBS News, the acquisition would make CNN more friendly to Trump.

NPR's Carrie Johnson and Mandalit del Barco contributed to this story.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Countless soccer fans will stream into SoFi Stadium (temporarily renamed Los Angeles Stadium) in the coming days, or maybe catch a match at a neighborhood watch party.

But right here in Los Angeles — at LACMA’s Resnick Pavilion to be specific — are a series of miniature face-offs too, thanks to a local artist who’s captured some big moments with the tiniest of soccer players in the exhibition, Fútbol Is Life.

Artist and animator Lyndon J. Barrois  Sr. gave me a tour of his home studio in Mid-City on a recent Friday. Tools of his trade are scattered throughout, including a glue gun, paint brushes and a life-sized recreation of a human skeleton.

And inside an orange, Halloween-themed Utz pretzel barrel, thousands of pieces of a material that sets Barrois apart: chewing gum wrappers.

“I find them around the world,” Barrois said. “When we travel, I see them on the ground and I pick them up. One trip we took to New Orleans... I must have come back with maybe two dozen. I found some in Lisbon, I found some in Marrakesh, I found some in Nairobi.”

Barrois crafts these little strips of foil and paper into art: one inch-tall, lifelike sculptures of humans in kinetic poses. Oftentimes, that means capturing his favorite moments from sports games with what he calls ‘sportraits.’

Barrois handles one of his earlier miniatures

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“All my life I was just making toys,” he said. “These are all my toys. Because I would play with these things like action figures.”

The small things in life

Barrois began making his miniatures at 10 in New Orleans, starting with the tiny drivers he made for his Hot Wheels cars.

Many of those original creations he’s held onto for five decades. Now they overflow from a Hershey’s Chocolate tin.

There are hundreds and hundreds of his tiny gum wrapper figures in Barrois’ studio: soccer players and boxers and football players with helmets so small he crafts them on pin heads.

It was while he was studying graphic design at Xavier University in New Orleans that Barrois says he realized his craft could be more than just a childhood hobby. One of his professors encouraged Barrois to take his miniature for what it really was: sculpture.

Barrois went on to get his master’s degree in film and video from CalArts in 1995 and has worked in animation and visual effects ever since, with credits on films like The Matrix Reloaded, Night at the Museum and Terence Malick’s The Tree of Life.

“It’s weird what things take you where,” Barrois said. “I always loved movies and wanted to do it in some capacity. I just didn’t know how. And to say that this is what led to all that, a childhood hobby, I don’t even know how to describe the feeling. Or how humbling it is,” he said.

Ravi S. Rajan, president of CalArts, said that whether Barrois is animating a monologue by author Ta-Nehisi Coates or creating special effects for a Matrix film, he makes his subjects more human and relatable.

“And I think that’s the magic of what he does as an artist,” Rajan said.

Barrois’ mastery in making his lilliputian figures has brought him into plenty of fine art spaces. Just a couple of miles from his home, Fútbol Is Life meticulously recreates historic moments from men’s and women’s soccer in a sizable space inside the Resnick Pavilion.

One of the vignettes in Barrois' 'Fútbol Is Life' depicts a celebratory moment from Argentina 3-1 win over the in 1978.

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“You can imagine when they showed me this room, I was like: I gotta fill this room with little people!,” the artist said on a recent visit to his show.

And fill it he did. Inside clear cases there are dozens of scenes from soccer history spanning nearly a century of World Cup matches. That includes Brazilian footballer Marta Vieira da Silva celebrating a goal during a 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup match.

“One of them that really gave me the most joy is probably the game where Marta kisses her foot after she scores. Because just the flex of that whole moment. I can’t kiss my foot, man,” Barrois said with a chuckle.

But there are less celebratory moments, too, like when German players gave a pre-kickoff Nazi salute before facing off against the Swiss team, foreshadowing a world that would soon be at war.

It’s a dark moment in history captured in a playful way that makes you look twice.

“That was the German team in 1938. Pre-World War II, but it was the rise of Nazism. And so that’s how the team saluted when they came out on the field,” Barrois said. “The importance of this was to also contrast what the same German team did in 2022. They wore ‘human rights’ on their T-shirts.”

Lyndon J Barrois Sr. in his Mid-City studio.

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Robert Garrova

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LAist

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Already writing history

As museum visitors look in wonderment at the minuscule scale of Barrois work, they are also drawn into some of these past realities.

“It makes the subject matter easier to digest. Because there’s a lot of tough subject matter here. But still, you pay attention to it,” Barrois explained.

Artist Lyndon J. Barrois, Sr. at his LACMA exhibition 'Fútbol Is Life'

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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Each vignette is a different conversation starter: from on-field protest moments, to celebrations of underdog victories to prisoners of war playing their beloved game on a dirt field.

Barrois said his exhibition is a deep dive into the history of the game. That includes “the players, the personalities, and the politics.”

“Because it’s countries. It’s bragging rights. It’s unification. It’s division. It’s all that,” he said.

And discourse arising from the current World Cup isn’t lost on Barrois. The Iran men’s team is scheduled to play two matches here in L.A., even as the U.S. war with their country looks like it will continue.

“This game is already writing history before it even begins with all this political stuff happening,” Barrois said.

“So it’s going to be interesting to see all the stories that get told out of this one.”

Maybe a job for some skilled hands... And a few humble gum wrappers.