SERIES

Whale Wars: Watson’s Last Stand Capt. Paul Watson is forced to step down, leaving four rookie captains to continue his mission in the first of two new episodes of this documentary series. 8 and 10 p.m. Animal Planet

The Great American Baking Show: Holiday Edition The bakers create sweet and savory creations using spices, then take on one of Paul Hollywood’s toughest challenges. 9 p.m. ABC

Santa’s Baking Blizzard In the season finale host Casey Webb challenges the three remaining teams of bakers and ice sculptors to create a “Night Before Christmas” cake display that prominently features Santa. Jocelyn Delk Adams, Amanda Freitag and Zac Young decide which team wins. 9 p.m. Food Network

Project Runway The designers are challenged to show their holiday spirit with the perfect party dress. 9:30 p.m. Bravo

Ghost Adventures This new episode visits the Riverside’s March Field Air Museum. 10 p.m. Travel

SPECIALS

Democratic Presidential Debate Former Vice President Joe Biden, Mayor Pete Buttigieg (South Bend, Ind.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Tom Steyer, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.) and Andrew Yang are the seven candidates participating in this round, from Loyola Marymount University. Judy Woodruff, Amna Nawaz, Yamiche Alcindor and Tim Alberta moderate. 5 p.m. KCET, KOCE, KPBS and CNN; 9 p.m. KCET; 10 p.m. CNN

A Christmas Carol Ebenezer Scrooge (Guy Pearce) experiences a dark night of the soul in an original take on Charles Dickens’ iconic holiday ghost story in this new special. Andy Serkis also stars. 7:30 p.m. FX

Miss America 2020 Continuing a long tradition, 51 hopefuls from across the United States compete in a series of categories for potentially life-changing scholarships in a pageant held at the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Conn. Miss America 2019, Nia Franklin of New York, will crown her successor. 8 p.m. NBC

iHeartRadio Jingle Ball 2019 Lizzo, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry, Jonas Brothers, Camila Cabello, Khalid, Sam Smith, Billie Eilish and 5 Seconds of Summer are among the musical artists in this year’s edition of the annual holiday special that salutes the season with highlights from concerts across the United States. 8 p.m. CW

Disney Prep & Landing An elite unit of elves ensures that homes around the world are properly prepared to be visited by Santa Claus each Christmas Eve, 8 p.m. ABC. The sequel “Prep & Landing: Naughty vs. Nice” follows at 8:30 p.m. ABC

Gwen Stefani’s You Make It Feel Like Christmas Guests Blake Shelton, Seth MacFarlane, Chelsea Handler, Ne-Yo and Ken Jeong and others celebrate the holidays with a dazzling night of song, dance and satire. 10 p.m. NBC

TALK SHOWS

CBS This Morning (N) 7 a.m. KCBS

Today Greta Gerwig; author Ina Garten. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC

KTLA Morning News (N) 7 a.m. KTLA

Good Morning America Oscar Isaac; Kimberly Kennedy (“Wrap Battle”); Lori Bergamotto, Good Housekeeping. (N) 7 a.m. KABC

Good Day L.A. Jenna Dewan (“Flirty Dancing”); Aldis Hodge: (“Clemency”); breast implant illness: Terry Dubrow; interior designer J. Pickens; Issa Rae, Hilltop Coffee and Kitchen. (N) 7 a.m. KTTV

Live With Kelly and Ryan Anna Kendrick; Kathleen Turner; Lewis Capaldi performs. (N) 9 a.m. KABC

The View Greta Gerwig; Boris Kodjoe and journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones. (N) 10 a.m. KABC

Rachael Ray Dr. Jill Biden; David Muir (“World News Tonight”). (N) 10 a.m. KTTV

The Wendy Williams Show Morris Day (“On Time”). (N) 11 a.m. KTTV

The Talk Ana Gasteyer; Brigitte Nielsen guest co-hosts. (N) 1 p.m. KCBS

Tamron Hall LaChanze (“A Christmas Carol”) and daughter Celia Rose Gooding (“Jagged Little Pill”) perform. (N) 1 p.m. KABC

The Dr. Oz Show The latest updates on Harvey Weinstein; more than 20 women accuse Cuba Gooding Jr. of groping them. (N) 1 p.m. KTTV

The Kelly Clarkson Show Kelly performs “Christmas Eve” song with a children’s choir; Jennifer Hudson; Joel Kim Booster. (N) 2 p.m. KNBC

Dr. Phil A 70-year-old woman says that as a result of her daughter’s actions, she is homeless and living in her car. (N) 3 p.m. KCBS

The Ellen DeGeneres Show Henry Winkler (“Alien Superstar”); comic Rhea Butcher performs; Shin Lim. (N) 3 p.m. KNBC

The Real Stacey Abrams (Fair Fight 2020). (N) 3 p.m. KTTV

The Doctors Hope for cystic fibrosis; retail therapy; 3-year-old downs 18 yogurt cups; digital vision boards. (N) 3 p.m. KCOP

The Daily Show With Trevor Noah (N) 11 p.m. Comedy Central

Conan Adam Sandler. (N) 11 p.m. TBS

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Kate McKinnon; Dua Lipa performs. (N) 11:34 p.m. KNBC

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert Jennifer Hudson; Jonathan Pryce; Sharon Van Etten performs. (N) 11:35 p.m. KCBS

Jimmy Kimmel Live! Margot Robbie; John Kasich; White Reaper performs. (N) 11:35 p.m. KABC

Amanpour and Company (N) midnight KVCR; 1 a.m. KLCS

The Late Late Show With James Corden Taylor Swift; Jennifer Hudson; Rebel Wilson; Jason Derulo; Francesca Hayward; Andrew Lloyd Webber. (N) 12:37 a.m. KCBS

Late Night With Seth Meyers John Lithgow; Ana Gasteyer performs. (N) 12:37 a.m. KNBC

Nightline (N) 12:37 a.m. KABC

A Little Late With Lilly Singh Charlize Theron. (N) 1:38 a.m. KNBC

SPORTS

College Basketball Wofford visits Duke, 4 p.m. ESPN2; Maryland visits Seton Hall, 4 p.m. FS1; NC State visits Auburn, 6 p.m. ESPN2

NHL Hockey The Kings visit the Columbus Blue Jackets, 4 p.m. Fox Sports Net; the New York Islanders visit the Boston Bruins, 4 p.m. NBCSP

NBA Basketball The Lakers visit the Milwaukee Bucks, 5 p.m. SportsNet and TNT; the Houston Rockets visit the Clippers, 7:30 p.m. TNT

For more sports on TV, see the Sports section.

After a screening of “The Two Popes” in New York recently, screenwriter Anthony McCarten recalls being approached by an audience member with a surprising take on the film.

“He said, ‘You do know this is a Jewish movie, right?’” recalls McCarten. The man went on to say, “‘It’s a foundational aspect of Judaism to debate scripture in such a way that you present an argument hoping to produce a better counterargument.’ That delighted me — because it was not meant to be a movie about Catholicism.”

This awards season, there are a slew of films that directly or indirectly touch on the purpose of religion in characters’ lives — specifically, Catholicism: “Popes,” Poland’s Academy Award entry “Corpus Christi,” Terrence Malick’s “A Hidden Life” and Todd Haynes’ “Dark Waters.” Yet though they may have popes, priests or martyrs as protagonists, these films tend to be less about institutions and doctrine than they are about faith, community and sacrifice.

It’s an interesting left turn, considering how past films such as “Doubt,” “Philomena,” “Spotlight” and “The Magdalene Sisters” have over the last 20 years focused largely on reflecting headlines and revealing the many skeletons in the church’s deep historical closet.

“It’s been in the media for various reasons over the last few years,” notes “Hidden Life” producer Grant Hill, whose film examines an Austrian farmer-turned-WWII war resister martyred for refusing to fight. “It’s a religion that has very much been under scrutiny — for its history and current position.”

But headlines aside — though “Popes” does refer to the scandals that generated them — these films use the nature of faith to illuminate bigger issues. That’s something that will come as a relief to the faithful, says Corby Pons, owner of Wit PR, a specialty publicity and marketing company that emphasizes religion and faith.

“The apprehension for Catholics is that any time the entertainment industry makes films that reflect on Catholicism, it can reflect badly,” says Pons, who consulted with Netflix and Fox Searchlight for “Popes” and “Life.”

“I sat with two nuns who greatly enjoyed the movie, and one key emotion was relief,” says McCarten. “Catholicism had become a horror show every time they opened the newspaper — and that’s not the institution they’d devoted their lives to. They knew humanitarians were trying their best every day to do something good for the world, and they felt frustrated.”

Corby Pons

Exactly why so many films are looking at Catholicism now is unclear, but those approached for this article suggest it’s a reflection of world politics. “We have the rise of autocrats around the globe, and a lot of people are asking, ‘Who should we emulate ourselves after?’” says Pons. “‘Life’ shows a commoner that history would not have remembered otherwise. We can look to people inside our communities. We do not have to be the pope or a president to lead morally.”

Thirst for real moral leadership is so strong in Poland that there’s been a trend of instances where the unordained have declared themselves priests and begun preaching, which is the subject of “Christi.”

“Communities are becoming detached from the Vatican and craving local, spiritual leaders,” says director Jan Komasa. “So whenever there’s someone with enough charisma and passion, he gets to be the new Kanye West. [‘Christi’ protagonist] Daniel wants to connect with other people, and those connections are significant parts of religion. That spiritual feeling is very underestimated — not just by filmmakers, but in art.”

“Dark Waters,” which looks at one lawyer’s real-life two-decade battle against DuPont on behalf of farmers, employees and other residents in West Virginia, uses religions (Catholic and Baptist) primarily as ways to define its characters, but director Haynes says he had another motivation.

“Religion felt so elemental to the cultures we’re describing,” says Haynes. “I wanted to be honest about the worlds we were describing, and religion maintains an aspect of community life that really does bind people together. It’s a through-line that was essential to the story we’re telling.”

Meanwhile, McCarten was hoping with “Popes” to sketch out a way for individuals with opposite worldviews to come to a common understanding, suggesting a blueprint for audience members who also may be at odds.

“These two old men in frocks … are combatants,” he says. “They punch each other to a standstill and say, ‘Let’s sit in silence and listen to each other.’ There’s something about that moment — where people have a real craving for silence, for relief from each other.”

And by examining faith in this way, these filmmakers are hoping to resurrect some of the more important elements of all religions, elements that may have been obscured among all the rhetoric and shouting.

“I feel like we’ve lost some link to the traditions within Catholicism of social justice,” says Haynes. “Not just Catholicism, but other faiths. We shouldn’t forget that what we’re really talking about is reaching out and providing help to the most fragile in our society.”

In the end, each film is full of decisions by an individual who re-examines his own soul to make life-altering changes, even when the consequences of those decisions are dire.

“Someone once said, ‘We can become so heavenly-focused that we are no earthly good,’” Pons notes. “I think what [these films show] us is how to exercise our heavenly faith in a way that allows us to be earthly good in the face of incredible adversity and despite our own flaws.”

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Out of desperation, I ended up on a private jet. Driving from L.A. to San Francisco the day before Thanksgiving is never enticing. This year, the forecast called for heavy rain and snow in the mountains, which meant the 5 Freeway could close anytime at the Grapevine. Also, a fire above Santa Barbara meant potential mudslides.

My husband, Joe, and I started looking for solutions. My first idea — skip the whole thing and spend the long weekend catching up on “The Crown” on Netflix — was vetoed. He decided to check Kayak for last-minute tickets. Flights on American Airlines, for example, started at about $450 a person and would require us to navigate holiday traffic at LAX.

Then, he spotted something: reasonably priced last-minute round-trip flights on something called JSX, formerly JetSuiteX, a public charter jet service that flies out of Hollywood Burbank Airport.

At $378 total per person to fly round-trip from Burbank to Oakland, it cost less than our L.A.-Chicago tickets for Christmas flights that were booked months in advance. It cost much less than I expected, especially for last-minute flights. And the dog could fly free in the cabin with us, saving $125 each way, compared with most major airlines. Checked bags were free — $25 a person additional savings — as were the cocktails on board. The site also claimed we could arrive just 30 minutes before takeoff with luggage.

The experience

I looked deep within myself to assess what it was worth to me to not spend the next day sitting in the car inching up the 5 Freeway in Thanksgiving traffic and terrible weather. Every woman has her price. Mine is $378.

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 6:45 a.m. The hangar for JSX is just off to the side of the Burbank airport, separate from the main drop-off area. We arrived at 6:03 a.m. and walked right up to the desk. The woman checked us in on the computer, then swabbed our carry-on bags to check for traces of explosives. Someone else tagged and grabbed our suitcases, and we walked through the glass doors into the waiting area.

No line to check in, no line to drop off our bags and an easier Transportation Security Administration screening process (JSX follows all federal safety protocols). No full-body scanner. No X-ray machine. No removing liquids. Everyone’s shoes remained on.

We were among the first to arrive for our flight. We could either wait in one of the lounges off to the side with doors, or wait out in the hangar where we could take selfies with the plane. The lounges had free snacks: an assortment of trail mixes, teas and a Starbucks coffee machine. No Wi-Fi, though.

More people trickled in, and quite a few seemed to have done the same canine math as we: A golden retriever, a French bulldog and a Chihuahua had all joined our dachshund mix in the lounge area by the time we boarded.

Boarding took about two minutes and consisted of our walking maybe 100 feet to the small flight of stairs up to the 30-seat plane. There are no overhead bins, so if you’re carrying a piece of luggage, plan to check it.

The plane started taxiing at 6:50 a.m. and launched a slightly bumpy ascent at 6:58. Because it’s a smaller aircraft, you’re closer to the engines, which were loud once we were in the air.

I immediately noticed the ample legroom. I’m 5 feet, 4 inches tall and my husband is 5-foot-10; both of us could stretch out without our knees coming anywhere near the seat in front of us. The person in front of me reclined the seat without interfering with my personal space.

It was a short flight, but the promised free alcohol was provided. I was pleasantly surprised to discover JSX served top shelf. It was barely 7 a.m., but just for the heck of it, I had a Ketel One with orange juice.

Exiting the plane in Oakland took maybe 45 seconds. If you are the last ones off, the staff is patient about letting you take photos on the stairs as though you’re a visiting dignitary.

As in Burbank, we were in a smaller area detached from the main Oakland airport. Our suitcases arrived on a luggage cart about 10 minutes after we did. Our ride could pull right up in front. My holiday travel nightmare had turned into a short, pleasant plane trip that was over by 9 a.m.

The ride home went just as smoothly. The experience felt dignified and luxurious and cost much less than I expected, especially for last-minute flights.

Would I fly JSX again? Yes. In fact, we‘ve already booked flights for January.

The basics

JSX defines itself as a public charter operator that flies out of private terminals and offers “hop-on jet service.” It operates 30-seat Embraer 135s and 145s, smaller planes that are exempt from TSA screening rules that apply to large airports. Snacks and drinks are free, as are two checked bags and seat selection. It flies daily routes from Burbank to Oakland and Concord, Calif., as well as Las Vegas and Phoenix. Flights also link Orange County with Las Vegas and Oakland.

On Thursday, JSX begins seasonal service between Burbank and Orange County, and Mammoth Lakes, Calif. Flights operate Thursdays through Mondays.

Prices flex, as they do on commercial flights, depending on when you buy your ticket. I checked online Monday and found available tickets from Burbank to Oakland at a price of $139 on Christmas Day (Dec. 25) and a return flight Dec. 29, for $169 to $209. (Prices for a return flight Dec. 30 were $139.)

Info: JSX

JSX isn’t the only one in the smaller-airport game. Taos Air, also a public charter operator, will begin seasonal service Jan. 9 between Hawthorne Municipal Airport (a.k.a. Jack Northrop Field) and Taos Regional Airport in Taos, N.M. The service already flies between Taos and Austin, Texas. Of course, this is designed for people who want to hit the slopes at Taos Ski Valley and its newish lodgings, the Blake, but anyone can hop on board.

About six round-trip flights per week will operate on Thursdays, Saturdays, Sundays or Monday holidays. Service ends in spring.

An online check found availability for outbound airfares from Hawthorne to Taos of $220 on Jan. 16 and a return flight of $220. The service also operates flights between McClellan-Palomar Airport in Carlsbad, Calif., and Taos.

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Info: Taos Air

Quickly, now: When does your passport expire? Your kids’ passports? Maybe you don’t remember, but even if you do, who really wants to deal with the process?

Mobile Passport, which Customs and Border Protection says “does not require preapproval and is free to use,” can help.

You may know this app because it’s helping travelers get through U.S. customs more quickly. Like Global Entry, it aims to expedite re-entry to the U.S. Unlike Global Entry, which costs $100 for five years, the Mobile Passport app is free. (A premium version of the app costs $14.99 a year or $4.99 a month and gives you access to a document scanner and “encrypted storage of passport profiles,” its website says.)

Now that app has teamed up with RushMyPassport. Its helping hand is twofold: It reminds you six months before your document’s expiration date that the end is nigh, and it can help you through the application process, even if you need a passport quickly.

It can secure your document in as little as 12 days, it promises in a news release, and maybe as little as one day, which can save you time and save your skin if you have forgotten all about renewing it.

You’ll pay for the service, of course, which doesn’t include government fees or shipping. Eight- to 10-day service begins at $119; same-day processing costs $449. The order process is completed online.

And keep your eyes open for another service: obtaining visas. The company plans to introduce a visa service in 2020.

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As Boeing Co. prepares to shut much of a huge factory near Seattle that builds the grounded 737 Max jet, the economic hit is reverberating in Southern California and across the United States.

When the company announced this week that it will temporarily halt production of the 737 Max — the nation’s largest manufactured export, analysts say — with no timetable for production to resume, it cast a cloud over the hundreds of companies that make the plane’s parts.

The Southland’s aircraft supply chain is taut, full of small companies that have synced their operations to the needs of midsize and large manufacturers, said Ivan Rosenberg, head of the Aerospace and Defense Forum trade association.

“I’ve got clients wondering how fast this is going to work its way down the supply chain to them,” Rosenberg said. “There’s a lot of uncertainty right now, and business hates uncertainty. It would be nice to know how long this is going to last.”

Wesley Turnbow, chief executive of metal-finishing company EME Inc., which provides aircraft parts with a protective coating, said work for Boeing comprises half of his company’s business. He estimates coating parts for 737 Max makes up about 5% or 10%. He hasn’t gone so far as to expect to lay off workers, but the Max halt “could really affect our future,” he said.

If the halt lasts longer than two or three months, the industry could see widespread job cuts, said Paul Weisbrich, an investment banker at D.A. Davidson & Co. Mom-and-pop shops will be hit first, while the midsize companies with more diversification in their revenue will be able to weather the storm longer, he added.

The Max was grounded worldwide in March after two deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia killed a total of 346 people. Boeing kept buying parts and churning out the plane, amassing about 400 Max jets that it can’t deliver to airlines. To slow down its cash burn, the company is pausing production of the Max starting in January.

There are some winners, Weisbrich said. Companies working on maintenance and repair as well as spare parts will see more business, because the grounding of the Max means airlines will need to fly older planes longer.

An executive at a Southern California components manufacturing firm, who declined to be named because he was not allowed to disclose information, said his company has lost significant business from Boeing since the planemaker dialed down production in recent months. However, he said, his company is seeing a rise in demand for high-quality spare parts.

Getting the 737 Max back in the air depends largely on the Federal Aviation Administration, which is evaluating Boeing’s effort to fix flight-control software that was a major factor in the crashes. Investigators have found that software designed to stop an aerodynamic stall was a huge problem for pilots, and Boeing is updating the code to make it less aggressive.

The FAA will not give a date for when the Max can return to the skies, and last week the agency said Boeing had an unrealistic expectations for putting the plane back into service. New FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson has said the decision will be on the agency’s timetable, not Boeing’s, indicating that it will take longer than Boeing had expected.

Places such as Wichita, Kan., Stamford, Conn., and Cincinnati are also feeling the pinch. Those cities are home to some of the 900 companies worldwide that supply parts for the troubled plane.

Boeing does not currently plan to lay off any of the 12,000 workers at its factory in Renton, Wash. But smaller parts companies like Wichita-based Spirit AeroSystems might not have that luxury. They could be forced to cut employees, and some might even get pushed out of business.

With 13,500 workers, Spirit is the largest employer in Kansas’ biggest city. It gets half of its revenue from making fuselages for the 737.

Even though Max production slowed earlier this year, Spirit and other suppliers continued to crank out parts, putting many of them in storage. As of Friday, Spirit had 90 fuselages on a ramp adjacent to nearby McConnell Air Force Base.

CFM International, a joint venture between General Electric and France’s Safran, which makes the Max engines, also faces uncertainty.

The Cincinnati company said Tuesday that it’s working with customers and other suppliers “to mitigate the impact of the temporary shutdown of the 737 Max production.”

The company, which has more the 80 manufacturing sites worldwide with about 50,000 workers, said it can move people and manufacturing across multiple engine programs. That may hold off any layoffs. CFM produces other engines for commercial and military aircraft.

Stamford-based Hexcel, which makes composite materials used on the 737 Max frame and engines, already was reporting lower sales after Boeing slowed the rate of Max production. On Tuesday the company tried to sound hopeful, saying it’s confident in the airplane’s long-term success and looks forward “to its return to flight and gradual ramp-up in production during 2020.”

The 737 Max is such a big product that by itself, the production hiatus will shrink the U.S. gross domestic product by around 0.5% in the first three months of 2020, predicted JP Morgan Economist Michael Feroli. That could cut the U.S. economy’s growth rate by a roughly a quarter, to 1.5%.

Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist for RSM, a tax advisory and consulting firm, predicted layoffs by suppliers and wrote in a note that some may have trouble staying in business. At an event his firm hosted in Wichita last summer, one executive from a midsize company indicated that if the Max grounding turned into a production halt, “it would be an existential risk” to that firm.

“It cannot be overstated just how important the domestic and global supply chains associated with Boeing are to the small- and medium-sized firms,” Brusuelas wrote.

If parts supply companies stop production, it will be difficult for them to quickly restart their factories, and that could further delay any startup of Boeing’s assembly lines.

Spirit AeroSystems CEO Tom Gentile said in October during the Kansas Economic Outlook Conference that it would take a long time to come back if production were reduced.

Boeing’s situation is so important, it has been discussed at the White House, top presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway said Monday.

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Asked if President Trump might intervene, she said: “Boeing knows the president is watching. He’s met with them…. When you say he intervenes and gets involved, it’s to protect American interests. Safety first when it comes to airlines.”

The ripple effects of the Max grounding already have hit airlines, which have been forced to delay putting the Max into their flight schedules. That has cut the number of available seats, pushing prices up. But analysts say it also has stopped airlines from adding routes and expanding.

Southwest Airlines, which was counting on the Max to update its fleet, pushed back any hope of restoring the plane to service by five weeks, to April. American Airlines did the same last week. United, which already pulled the Max from its schedules through March 4, said it will keep monitoring the process to determine when the aircraft can safely fly again.

Hussain is a Times staff writer. Krisher writes for the Associated Press.

A clause that would allow California to take over bankrupt utility giant PG&E Corp. under certain circumstances has emerged as a big sticking point in negotiations between the company and Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Newsom wants the parent of Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to include a provision in its reorganization proposal that would allow the state to take control of its assets if it fails to meet performance and safety metrics. Negotiating such a clause has become one of the biggest challenges in talks between the company and the governor’s office, people familiar with the situation said, asking not to be identified because the information wasn’t public.

Newsom’s support is crucial to PG&E’s efforts to exit the biggest utility bankruptcy in U.S. history by a state-imposed deadline of June 30. The power giant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in January after its power lines were linked to deadly blazes that erupted across Northern California in 2017 and 2018, leading to an estimated $30 billion in liabilities.

Late Tuesday, PG&E won court approval for multibillion-dollar settlements with two groups at the center of its reorganization: wildfire victims and their insurers. That makes Newsom’s sign-off the biggest obstacle in the company’s efforts to get a restructuring deal done.

“The governor has been clear about the state’s requirements — a new and totally transformed entity that is accountable and prioritizes safety,” Newsom’s office said in a statement. “Critically important to that is ensuring that the new entity has the flexibility to fund this transformation. These points are not negotiable.”

PG&E said it intends to comply with the state’s requirements and will continue to address the demands raised by the governor in his letter.

“PG&E has been engaged in constructive dialogue to address those concerns with the common objectives of having PG&E be safe, sound and financially stable upon emergence from Chapter 11,” the San Francisco company said in its statement. “PG&E expects this dialogue to continue.”

The company’s shares rose 3.7% to $11.31 on Wednesday.

Any reorganization would need approval from the state Public Utilities Commission, whose members are appointed by the governor. And the company will have to prove to Newsom’s office that it has fully resolved its bankruptcy and past wildfire liabilities by June if it wants to participate in a new fire insurance fund to avoid future catastrophic losses.

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Newsom has also ordered PG&E to replace its entire board and come up with a better financing plan that’s cost-neutral for its customers and isn’t so dependent on expensive short-term bridge financing. The company and the governor’s office are working on those demands, people familiar with the talks said.

Meanwhile, a rival restructuring plan being pitched by PG&E bondholders, including Pacific Investment Management Co. and Elliott Management Corp., already includes a clause that would allow for a state takeover. But the option would kick in only if the company is found guilty of willful misconduct related to a future fire — and only if the blaze burns more than 5,000 buildings, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.

The creditors’ rival plan hasn’t been approved in Bankruptcy Court or by the governor’s office and faces its own challenges.

Deveau and Chediak write for Bloomberg.

Instagram is finally making rules to govern content in influencer advertising.

Influencers, the photo-sharing app’s most-followed users who are paid by brands to post, will no longer be allowed to promote products related to vaping, tobacco and weapons, Instagram said Wednesday in a blog post. The decision came after Britain’s Advertising Standards Authority ruled this week that British American Tobacco can’t use influencer marketing to advertise e-cigarettes. An Instagram representative said the move to ban such posts more broadly was unrelated.

Instagram, owned by Facebook Inc., has long allowed people with thousands or even millions of followers to operate their own sponsored-content operations, outside the Facebook ad-buying system, without the level of oversight applied to the rest of the company’s advertising. For years, the company felt that if an influencer had cultivated an audience willing to hear their messages, Facebook shouldn’t get in the way.

However, there’s been a surge of sponsored content promoted by influencers, so Instagram wants to “establish clear rules to help protect our community,” at least when it comes to vaping, weapons and tobacco, according to a spokeswoman. Facebook already has rules against such products in its official advertising programs.

Instagram reaches a younger demographic than Facebook’s flagship social-media app, and that audience may be more easily swayed by promotions from famous users of the platform. Influencers popular with teens on Instagram have especially helped spread the appeal of e-cigarettes, drawing U.S. Federal Trade Commission scrutiny over their promotional tactics. Beginning next year, Instagram, which recently started requiring new users to disclose their birth dates, will restrict the audience for influencer ads about alcohol and diet supplements.

Having new rules doesn’t necessarily mean they’ll be enforced. A few years ago, after pressure from the FTC on advertising disclosures, Instagram started to require influencers to use a specific branded-content tool to disclose the money behind their posts. Influencers regularly flout that rule with little consequence, and sometimes don’t even disclose whether they are paid to post about a product.

As part of the same announcement, Instagram also said it would open up Facebook’s Brand Collabs Manager, a tool Facebook creators use to find sponsors for their content and manage their promotional deals, to Instagram influencers. Among its capabilities, the tool allows creators to automatically share data showing the performance of sponsored posts with advertisers; previously, many influencers resorted to sending screenshots of their analytics dashboards to brands.

The change comes as Instagram is experimenting with removing public “like” counts from posts, a development that the company believes will encourage users to post more often, but which decreases advertisers’ visibility into how much engagement sponsored posts receive.

A stab of the throttle, and the rear tires break loose. A little more gas — really, just a little more — and you’re sideways.

In Hellcat guise, Dodge’s Challenger coupe and Charger sedan are true muscle cars: loud, heavy, unwieldy, scary, silly and, yes, extremely fast.

Dodge has hewed to the original muscle car formula, transforming relatively inexpensive (and tame) rides with the addition of high-performance V-8 engines cranking out more than 700 horsepower.

The performance is staggering: 0-60 mph comes in about 3.5 seconds, with a top speed of about 200 mph for both cars. It is Ferrari-like speed for a fraction of the price: for the 2019 models, the Challenger SRT Hellcat starts at around $61,000 and the Charger SRT Hellcat at about $67,000.

Dodge’s original muscle cars — like the 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona — were once drag strip mainstays, cementing the brand’s reputation among enthusiasts. Today’s performance would’ve been unfathomable back in the muscle car heyday of the 1960s, so I wondered, do these new vehicles contain any of the old Dodge DNA?

I was particularly curious about how the Hellcat models compared to the Daytona. That’s because it was the ride of choice of Big Willie Robinson, the subject of “Larger Than Life,” a seven-part podcast I hosted for The Times that documented the street racer’s effort to bring peace to an L.A. torn apart by the Watts riots.

“When you get around cars, man, there ain’t no colors, just engines,” Robinson told The Times in 1981.

Speed wasn’t always Robinson’s focus, but the car he drove was still exceedingly fast. And rare. Only 501 of the 1969 Daytonas were made — and they were “purpose-built to win NASCAR races,” according to Brandt Rosenbusch, manager of historical services for FCA US, the parent company of Dodge. These days, examples can fetch more than $500,000 when they cross the auction block.

“The fact that Dodge was willing to bring out such a radical car with the expressed purpose of winning is amazing,” Rosenbusch said. “These are now one of the most collectible cars among enthusiasts.”

The one Robinson drove — he dubbed it the King Daytona — was especially rare. It was one of only a few dozen 1969 Daytonas built with a Hemi motor, whose hemispherical combustion chambers aid performance. Robinson’s wife, Tomiko, had a matching Hemi car she called the Queen Daytona.

This fall, I finally got the chance to compare the 1969 Daytona to its spiritual successors. Dodge lent me a 2019 Charger Hellcat (price as tested: $74,915) and a 2019 Challenger Hellcat Redeye ($91,169), a special version of the car that adds 80 horsepower for a total of 797.

Between the two Hellcat variants, the Redeye more closely resembles the 1969 Charger Daytona: both are uncommon coupes that offer top-of-the-line performance from the brand. (However, in relative dollars, the Redeye is quite a bit more expensive than the 1969 Hemi Daytona, which cost around $5,600 new, or about $40,000 today.)

Few cars can compare to the go-fast looks of the Daytona, with its sleek nose cone and towering rear wing. Still, the Redeye signals it means business with dual hood scoops that, unlike so many modern cars, actually function, feeding the engine air.

Our tester came with a $6,000 widebody package that outfits the car with flared fenders that accommodate enormous Pirelli P-Zero tires paired with 20-inch wheels. A $3,495 graphics package swaths the hood, roof and trunk lid in matte black paint. The effect of these options is immense, transforming the car into something legitimately menacing.

Despite appealing touches like an 8.4-inch touchscreen that runs the intuitive Uconnect vehicle management system, the interior of the Redeye was a letdown. It is bathed in plastic that can feel cheap in places, and the front seats were squishy and unsupportive, betraying the car’s sporting nature. The dated interior points to the age of this iteration of the Challenger platform, which bowed in 2008.

But there are touches that reveal a sense of fun — and even mischief. One amusing detail: the Redeye and the Charger Hellcat come with two keys, a black one and a red one. Use the black key, and you’ll be able to access only 500 horsepower. You’ll need the red one to unlock the car’s full potential.

The Redeye’s 6.2-liter V-8 does its share of barking and snarling, but it’s the high-pitched whine of the supercharger, which pressurizes air fed into the engine, that is the defining feature of the car’s aural character. The sound doesn’t immediately scream “muscle car,” but it is an aggressively mechanical one that I grew to appreciate.

Fifty years after the Daytona debuted, the Redeye offers, right off the showroom floor, performance for which Robinson and his ilk would have had to pay dearly.

Dodge clocks the Redeye’s quarter-mile, the traditional drag racing length, at 10.8 seconds. The August 1970 issue of Popular Hot Rodding described the King Daytona, which Robinson had souped up at Keith Black Racing Engines, a Hemi specialist then based in South Gate, as a “true low, low 12-second street machine.”

I couldn’t get any seat time in the late Robinson’s car — it was destroyed in 1971, and his wife’s matching car was wrecked a few years later. But I did track down a 1969 Hemi Daytona owned by car collector Greg Joseph.

Joseph actually knew Robinson; he met the leader of the Brotherhood of Street Racers in the 1990s via former Times Publisher Otis Chandler. At the time, Joseph was curating the muscle car collection of Chandler, whose holdings included a 1969 Hemi Daytona of his own.

Joseph said he was touched by the realization that he, Chandler and Robinson and his street racer wife each owned one of these unique rides.

“They truly were icons,” Joseph said. “It kind of brings back the nostalgia, the memories of the time when I went to all the drag races.”

Joseph, a retired history professor who long taught at Long Beach City College, said he sees the through line from the Daytona to the Redeye, in part because both harness what he called “state-of-the-art technology to go fast.”

“This is all-out high-performance,” said Joseph, gesturing at the Redeye. “Same with the Daytona.”

Still, the Redeye isn’t entirely state-of-the-art. It derives its power from a pushrod V-8 — that’s old-fashioned technology in an era of overhead cam motors with variable valve timing — but I get Joseph’s point. This is a car whose launch can be programmed via a special mode that holds the RPM at a desired spot in the power band for optimal acceleration.

And the Redeye carries over other technology from the 2018 Challenger Demon, an even higher-performance version of the car that put out 840 horsepower — and did zero to 60 in 2.3 seconds — but was sold for only one year. Among the goodies that have found its way from the Demon to the Redeye is an intercooler chiller system that keeps the motor at the ideal temperature.

Although the Redeye was the more extreme of the two cars I tested, the Charger Hellcat seemed to turn more heads during the week I drove it. As with the Challenger, this version of the Charger has been around for several years, but in Hellcat guise, the exterior modifications stand out. Perhaps that’s because they’re transforming a sedan with comparably more sedate looks.

At one stoplight, a man in a black minivan eyed the Charger Hellcat lustily from the neighboring lane. I edged the car forward, summoning a bark from the big V-8, and the other driver laughed appreciatively. Up the street, our lanes merged into one, and he happily ceded the road.

The minivan may have been no match for the Charger Hellcat, but the American muscle car rivalry is alive and well. And in many ways — even as manufacturers move toward increased electrification and hybridization — we are in the midst of a new golden age for these vehicles. A horsepower war touched off by the launch of the 2015 Challenger and Charger Hellcats shows no signs of slowing down. Chevrolet’s Camaro ZL1 offers 650 horsepower, and Ford is readying a top-end Mustang — the Shelby GT500 — packing 760 horsepower.

The Hellcat cars both deliver a quintessential muscle car ride. But it wasn’t easy for me to see a link to the Dodge drag strip heroes of yore, amid the many trappings of modernity.

Still, I was able to find a connection to the past in an unexpected place: some of the new cars’ shortcomings. Details like the Redeye’s subpar seats — yielding in all the wrong places — seemed to telegraph Dodge’s focus on speed, and little else. Thinking about the Hellcat cars this way, I grew to view many of their flaws as charming. And the ties to the 1960s were ultimately driven home via a mishap.

Before the Redeye was lent to The Times, it underwent some mechanical work that left the interior smelling of gasoline. Workers had attempted to mitigate it, but the bouquet of fuel stubbornly persisted.

But it didn’t bother me. It felt a little rough, a little raw. Like how old cars sometimes smell after they’ve been throttled hard.

Even if it was unintended, it made the Redeye feel a little bit closer to 1969.

A little bit closer to the Daytona. A little bit closer to Robinson.

2019 Dodge Charger SRT Hellcat

Times’ take: Prodigious power in a family friendly package
Highs: Good value for the performance delivered
Lows: Interior materials are lacking
Vehicle type: Four-door, five-passenger sedan
Base price: $67,495
Price as tested: $74,915
Powertrain: 6.2-liter, eight-cylinder, supercharged gasoline engine
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Horsepower: 707
Torque: 650 pound-feet
Estimated fuel economy rating: 13 miles per gallon city / 22 highway / 16 combined

2019 Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat Redeye

Times’ take: The ultimate American muscle car
Highs: Truly menacing looks, and performance that lives up to them
Lows: Options quickly add up to a pricey ride
Vehicle type: Two-door, five-passenger coupe
Base price: $71,945
Price as tested: $91,169
Powertrain: 6.2-liter, eight-cylinder, supercharged gasoline engine
Transmission: Eight-speed automatic, rear-wheel drive
Horsepower: 797
Torque: 707 pound-feet
Estimated fuel economy rating: 13 miles per gallon city / 22 highway / 16 combined

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Call it the end of a retail era. After 41 years at the Fred Segal center, Ron Robinson is closing his Melrose Avenue bricks-and-mortar store in early 2020. (He shuttered his Santa Monica location in November.) Although the news may coincide with Barneys New York’s bankruptcy and a shifting retail landscape, Robinson emphasized that his stores shouldn’t be lumped in with the others.

He said he’s closing his doors to have more free time. “It was a decision I made,” the 70-year-old entrepreneur said, sipping coffee on the patio of Mauro Cafe adjacent to his West Hollywood store. “I said, ‘I’m just not up for another five years or 10 years.’ … It’s important to know that this isn’t a going-out-of-business. This isn’t lost-our-lease. This isn’t bankruptcy. … I’m at a certain age and I want the time for me.”

Robinson kicked off his farewell festivities in November with a friends-family-and-customers soiree called “A Happy Ending,” the first in a series of farewell events at the store. The boutique will remain open in January and, likely, into February. “We’re flexible,” Robinson said. “The landlords here really wanted us to stay. … I don’t have a firm [closing] date.”

Before the party, Robinson walked around his 6,000-square-foot store, introducing his employees as if they were celebrities in their own right. He presented his wife, Stacy, who is the company’s vice president, with the same zest as he did the children’s department manager, Walter Giedrocz. “I wanted you to meet everybody,” Robinson said, explaining that a number of his employees had been with him for 25 years. “They’re part of our family.”

No surprise, celebrities have long been a part of the clientele.

Stacy Robinson reminisced about the time Bruce Springsteen tried on underwear at the store, and she told a story about Robin Williams jumping behind the counter for an impromptu comedy bit while shopping for Hawaiian shirts. She held a commemorative yearbook from last year’s 40th anniversary, which revealed additional anecdotes, such as that actress-singer Rita Wilson was a sales associate before her career (and that of husband Tom Hanks) took off.

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Ron Robinson shared his own memories. “I lived on that parking lot,” he said, motioning to a row of cars behind the boutique. He explained that, prior to opening his store in 1978, he worked as a salesman, buyer and vice president for Fred Segal in 1968. During that time, he lived on the property. “There was a duplex there, and there was another duplex next to it. I lived in each one as I worked here, and they knocked it down for parking.”

During Robinson’s trip down memory lane, he strolled through the boutique’s Apothia cosmetic and fragrance shop in addition to the men’s, women’s and home design departments. In the children’s section, Robinson pointed to a wall and ceiling covered with butterflies. He commissioned them from French fashion designer Christian Lacroix eight years ago. “They said, ‘We don’t want to do a kids shop,’” Robinson said, “and I said, ‘You’ll want to do this kids shop.’” They agreed.

Robinson opened his children’s department 35 years ago. “I started that as a single guy, no kids,” he said. “But I knew that my customers wanted a black leather motorcycle jacket and a pair of denim jeans for their baby, so I got it for them.” (Robinson now has a 27-year-old son, Max.)

Once the store closes, Robinson will shift focus to real estate and development endeavors as well as exploring various philanthropic opportunities. He said he looked forward to spending time with his family in addition to continuing his Apothia fragrance brand, which launched with one perfume, named If, in 2000. He developed the scent by surveying 100 women from around the country. Drew Barrymore, Jennifer Garner and Macy Gray, whom Robinson met through the store, also participated in its creation, he said.

Apothia has since expanded to 12 scents in the form of perfumes, candles, diffusers, lotions and body washes ($30-$95) available at the Ron Robinson boutique and the Apothia website. Apothia also collaborated with MissoniHome on a line of five candles in 2014. Recently, a few of the scents were rereleased and are available at the Italian label’s Miami and New York stores.

Robinson said his Ron Robinson retail website would add new merchandise as he felt inclined. “I had a dream, and thankfully, my dream came true,” he said. “I read a quote that really signified what I’m doing. [Dr. Seuss] said, ‘Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.’ … I’m saying farewell to retail because I’ve done it for 41 years. We’ve been very fortunate.”

• Where: 8118 Melrose Ave., Los Angeles

  Hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday, noon to 6 p.m. on Sunday, with extended hours expected during the holidays.

  Info: (323) 651-0239

• ronrobinson.com
• apothia.com

Leslie Saeta loves Christmas.

Standing in her South Pasadena kitchen in early December, you would think it is Christmas as Saeta, dusted in flour and flanked by wreaths, bakes dozens of frosted sugar cookies for her annual holiday party.

The first party took place 33 years ago: “We had 45 friends for the party,” Saeta recalls. “Now, we have more than 200.”

How does she do it?

We caught up with Saeta, a 60-year-old marketing executive turned Instagram star, in the beginning stages of her monthlong party prep, an annual adventure she chronicles on her popular blog and Instagram account, My 100 Year Old Home, to find out.

She has taped a color-coded Excel spreadsheet to-do list to the kitchen cabinet. On it, she has detailed her pre-party plan: She and her friends will prepare 500 crab cakes with lemon dill sauce on the Thursday and Friday before the party (color coded orange). Fig jam and holiday decor will be finished one week prior (yellow); flowers are to be arranged on Friday (blue). Many of the recipes (categorized by assorted colors) will have to be increased by tenfold.

The home is an ideal setting for a holiday party. The kitchen walls are painted a pale green, and the white cupboards and Carrara marble countertops add to the older home’s modern farmhouse vibe — familiar to the 259K who follow her on Instagram. There are sparkling Christmas trees in the living room and dining room; 18 wreaths hang throughout the five-bedroom house. While holiday songs play on Pandora, fragrant evergreen swags, tied to the dining room chairs, scent the air.

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Every year, Leslie Saeta transforms her South Pasadena home into a Winter Wonderland — in October.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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For her holiday cocktail party for 200, Saeta will make 17 appetizers, which will be laid out on her dining room table.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Saeta works on sugar cookies in her South Pasadena kitchen, three weeks before her annual party.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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An array of festive cookie cutters includes a black one that’s a replica of Saeta’s 100-year-old home.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Saeta ices sugar cookies. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Saeta bakes desserts in advance of the holiday party and freezes them.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Frosted sugar cookies are a Saeta holiday tradition.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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The blogger and DIY guru created the place mats, which include verses from holiday carols. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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DIY tree decorations, made by Saeta, are detailed on her blog My 100 Year Old Home.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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The color scheme, and the pillows, reflect the holiday. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Wreaths in Saeta’s craft room are among 18 that hang throughout the house.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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The holiday is in the details for Saeta. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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A vintage sign hangs in the family room.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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The entryway of the South Pasadena home, which Saeta and her husband bought from his parents.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Leslie Saeta works in her kitchen, with Sport by her side.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times )

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Holiday decor gives the modern farmhouse-style kitchen a festive mood.  

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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The entryway features greenery from the Original Los Angeles Flower Market. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times)

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Leslie Saeta and Sport. 

(Mariah Tauger/Los Angeles Times )

Saeta cooks everything for the stand-up cocktail party herself, including 17 hors d’oeuvres and desserts she bakes in advance and stores in two freezers. By 3 p.m. the day of the party, she says, she is done and “off the clock.” (She hires caterers to help her with serving and cleanup.)

“I really enjoy it,” Saeta says as she cuts snowflake-shaped cookies with a cookie cutter. “It’s so rewarding to cook for people. It’s our gift to our friends, our children and our community.”

After more than 30 years of entertaining, Saeta has learned that, with a little planning, it is possible to throw a party for a huge crowd without a lot of stress.

And that’s really the essence of her blog and Instagram account.

“I want to show people that they can throw a party and have fun and it doesn’t have to be perfect,” she says. “I don’t host house tours because this is where I live. It’s not a place to show. It’s a place to share.”

On the night before the party, Mary Liz Burns, who has attended the party since the beginning, helps Saeta get ready with a crew of friends whose kids all grew up together. “It’s a South Pasadena tradition,” she says. “Everyone knows about it. There’s always a line for the crab cakes. The key to their success is that they are bite-sized. You just pop them in your mouth.”

Burns is not surprised by her longtime friend’s success as an online influencer. “Leslie puts 250% into everything she does,” she says. “People might have hosted similar events in the past but stopped or quit. She has always understood the bigger picture of what the holidays mean to people.”

And then there’s The Dress: “Our husbands went to high school together,” Burns explains. “Our wedding pictures are almost identical. We got married at the same place. Our wedding dresses look so similar except she made hers.” Of course she did.

Thanks to the popularity of Joanna Gaines’ farmhouse-modern design (Google Trends listed farmhouse style as the No. 1 trending home style of 2019), My 100 Year Old Home has become a beacon for the fans and followers who are drawn to Saeta’s warmth and unpretentious style — she shops at Costco, Trader Joe’s and the wholesale Original Los Angeles Flower Market in downtown Los Angeles — and affordable DIY tips.

Of course, it helps that she and her husband, David, happen to live in a traditional 1913 South Pasadena home that exudes Norman Rockwell charm.

The residence, which has been decked out for the holidays since October, is a favorite with set decorators and location scouts who have filmed commercials, television shows and, most recently, the Ben Affleck film “The Way Back.”

“Last year, it took the film crew two and a half days to put away all of my Christmas stuff, dress the sets and then put all of my Christmas stuff back when they were done,” she says, laughing at the memory.

David grew up in the house, and the couple purchased it from his parents in 1998. Since then, the pair, who have three grown sons, have remodeled the house three times. “They were always very generous about the changes,” Saeta says of her in-laws.

As a self-described “open book,” Saeta says she enjoys sharing her life at home, including DIY crafts and entertaining projects, the family’s irresistible 7-year-old Labrador, Sport, and the home’s Hollywood exploits.

Saeta works about 70 hours a week on her blog, Instagram and brand endorsements and tries to answer every direct message and comment that she receives.

Still, it doesn’t feel like work.

‘It’s the best job in the world,” she says. “I get paid to create things. I’ve done that all of my life.”

Leslie Saeta’s Christmas Party Menu

HORS D’OEUVRES

· Spicy grilled shrimp

· Beef tenderloin with rolls

· Smoked turkey with cranberry-orange muffins

· Smoked paprika salmon with lemon dill sauce

· Chicken lettuce wraps

· BLT tomatoes

· Skewered chicken with peanut sauce

· Skewered flank steak with peanut sauce

· Crab cakes with lemon dill sauce

· BBQ chicken sliders

· Ham and Swiss sliders

· Phyllo with spinach dip

· Whipped sweet potatoes in crusts with pecan topping

· Brie cups with pomegranates

· Seared ahi tuna in sesame wonton cups with maple soy sauce

· Pesto stuffed mushrooms

· Fig, pear and gorgonzola grilled cheese sandwich

DESSERTS

· Double mint chocolate cookies

· Peanut butter fudge

· Frosted sugar cookies

· Coconut joy candy bars

· Christmas crack (Saltine cracker toffee)