On May 2, 2025, arts and cultural organizations across the country received notifications that grants and funding promised by the National Endowment for the Arts were being rescinded. This was part of a larger initiative by the Trump Administration to dismantle not just the NEA, but also other arts advocacy programs including the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute for Museum and Library Services.
Los Angeles County's population has now dipped to just under 9.7 million, marking a continuation of a steady slide for the nation's most populous county. The raw number of departures is eye-catching, but experts say the broader trend may be even more concerning: fewer people are coming in to replace those who leave.
"Collective bargaining has been the fastest and most effective way for the regulation of AI technology," SAG-AFTRA Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland stated, emphasizing the union's role in shaping AI usage in Hollywood.
Six of California's 214 billionaires have been widely reported to have left the state in time to avoid a proposed 5% wealth tax - but that small cohort would have collectively generated $27 billion in tax revenue, roughly a fourth of the initiative's projected $100 billion haul.
Row K Entertainment was conceived as a niche solution to a specific problem: too many indie movies, not enough indie buyers. Launched in August 2025, the fledgling label entered the movie market with a clear pitch.
He has brought up tariffs for the movie and television industry many times, and I've hopefully talked to him the way out of them. Healthy incentive programs attract a lot of production, and you've seen a lot of them move from California to Georgia to New Jersey. Having the incentives versus tariffs is much better.
Lashing out at what he called 'lackluster management' of Hollywood's $922-million redevelopment plan, Los Angeles City Councilman Michael Woo on Friday proposed sweeping changes in the way the city's Community Redevelopment Agency handles the project and vowed to increase the voice of residents and small merchants in Hollywood planning decisions.
Simply put, it was no longer "financially attractive," the company said. In December, Netflix had reached a deal to acquire some of Warner Bros. Discovery's assets: Their library, movie studio and HBO. Almost immediately Paramount, who months earlier had expressed interest in purchasing Warner Bros., initiated a hostile takeover bid for the whole company, which culminated in a $31 per share offer this week.
Los Angeles is home to more than a dozen one-of-a-kind cinemas that operate on their own terms. Some of these theaters have been around for 100 years, and in classic LA fashion some of them are owned by living LA legends-think Quentin Tarantino and Kyle Ng. Kristen Stewart recently announced she's also jumping into the mix with her purchase of Los Angeles's Highland Theatre.
We have run out of options for creating more production space," said Frederick Huntsberry, Paramount's chief operating officer. The internal expansion would create nearly 7,300 jobs during construction and accommodate 5,500 permanent workers at the studio.
The Human Artistry Campaign's " Stealing Isn't Innovation " movement launches today with over 800 signatories. Those include many Hollywood actors, including Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, as well as writers such as Jodi Picoult and Roxane Gay, and musicians like Cyndi Lauper and They Might be Giants. The campaign has a simple message: "Stealing our work is not innovation. It's not progress. It's theft-plain and simple."
California has regained its bragging-rights ranking as the world's fourth-largest economy. Using gross domestic product as the scorecard, my trusty spreadsheet compared fresh state-level data for the third quarter of 2025 from the Bureau of Economic Analysis with 2025 business output estimates for countries compiled by the International Monetary Fund, released in October. In the third quarter, California's economy produced goods and services at a nation-leading annual rate of $4.296 trillion a 4.5% increase from the previous year, according to the BEA.
But the boom raises questions: Will it continue to be accompanied by a decline in tech and other jobs? Is it a bubble? RELATED: AI regulation battle looms in California despite Trump threats Tax revenue from stock-option withholding paid by some of the state's biggest tech companies made up about 10% of all income tax withholding in 2025, estimated Chas Alamo, the principal fiscal and policy analyst with the LAO.
Everyone in Half Moon Bay seemed to know that something was going on. Some saw the casting call for extras circulating on Nextdoor: locals only, appearing to be ages 20 to 50. Others noticed the street closures on Tuesday, as heavy rains pummeled the small city. And a few, biking on the bluffs overlooking Wavecrest Beach on Wednesday, stumbled across a film crew clustered under a row of canopies, complete with a camera crane and several generators.
"Every time people visit San Francisco, they're blown away by our city's beauty and energy," said Lurie in a statement. "Film takes that feeling and carries it far beyond our city limits. And when productions choose San Francisco, they do more than showcase our city's outstanding beauty. They invest directly in our workers, our neighborhoods and our creative economy."
Last week, he opened a $230-million movie and television studio on the edge of the Arts District in downtown Los Angeles nestled alongside the dramatic new Sixth Street Bridge. The state-of-the-art complex has five sound stages, offices and other proper movie studio features such as a mill, commissary and base camp. "We just had all the major networks, all the major streaming platforms walk through this facility and they can't believe how nice it is," said Wainright, managing partner of East End Studios.
Nearly every other month since 2015, Carla Rossi has hosted a movie screening at the Hollywood Theatre that's also a drag show. The event, called Queer Horror, helps explain why The Ring is a "lesbian-coded ode to unwanted queer kids" and contextualizes Hellraiser 's "outrageously horny injection of iconic '80s queer horror." If Rossi's intro alone doesn't forever change your relationship to the night's movie, the on-theme drag performances-burlesque, lip-syncing, acrobatics-certainly will.