Federal officials announced Friday that they will immediately begin screening passengers flying into three major U.S. airports for a new, worrisome virus that has infected dozens in China.

Health workers will screen passengers coming from Wuhan, a major city in central China, into Los Angeles International Airport, San Francisco International Airport and John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York.

China has reported 45 cases of a new kind of a coronavirus that officials are calling 2019-nCoV. There have been an additional three cases outside of China. The virus has caused two deaths worldwide, federal officials say.

What is this virus?

In December, China reported an outbreak of a pneumonia-like illness that appeared to be caused by a novel coronavirus, a kind of virus that circulates in animals and in rare cases can spread to humans.

Most of the people who got sick had a link to a large seafood and live animal market in Wuhan, suggesting an animal-to-human transmission, said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, a top U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention official, in a call with reporters Friday.

The market was closed earlier this month for disinfection.

Officials became more concerned about the outbreak when cases were detected in Japan and Thailand among people who had recently visited Wuhan, pointing to possible transmission among humans. Health authorities worldwide are now adopting various strategies to stop further spread of the virus.

“This is a serious situation,” Messonnier said.

OK, it’s a new virus. How bad is it?

Public health officials worry whenever a new virus arrives on scene because there are no treatments for it and they don’t know how people will react to the illness. Plus, no one has any immunity to a new virus to protect them, Messonnier said.

Coronaviruses in particular are alarming because of previous outbreaks of Middle East respiratory syndrome and severe acute respiratory syndrome, other coronaviruses more commonly known as MERS and SARS.

China’s 2003 outbreak of SARS was believed to have originated through animal-to-human transmission in a similar marketplace. That outbreak ultimately killed more than 800 worldwide.

“Those were quite complicated, difficult outbreaks with many people getting ill and deaths,” Messonnier said. “Understanding that this pathogen looks — at least from a genetic perspective — like those pathogens makes us especially worried.”

Who is being screened?

The screening only applies to people who are flying in from Wuhan.

Screening was to begin Friday at JFK airport and on Saturday at LAX and SFO. The San Francisco and New York airports are the only two in the country that receive direct flights from Wuhan, officials said.

LAX was added to the screening because of a large number of passengers flying into LAX who are indirectly coming from Wuhan, said Dr. Martin Cetron, director of the CDC’s division of global migration and quarantine in the press call.

Arriving passengers will answer questions about any respiratory symptoms and will also have their temperature taken, he said. Those whose symptoms don’t match up with the new coronavirus will not be detained.

Patients with worrisome symptoms will be transported to a nearby location — officials would not say where exactly — for further testing. There they will answer more questions and will be tested for the new virus as well as other illnesses, such as the flu, that may be causing their illness. The testing could take hours, he said.

“It’s unlikely they’ll be able to make an immediate connecting flight if they have one,” Cetron said.

About 100 additional CDC workers will be deployed to join existing public health staff at the three airports to do the screenings.

The busiest seasons for travel to the U.S. from China are August and January, Cetron said. The lunar new year on Jan. 25 is expected to draw large numbers of Chinese travelers, he said.

“We’re expecting the screening over the next couple of weeks could include as many as 5,000 people across three airports,” he said.

I’m not flying to or from China. Do I need to be worried?

No. The risk of the virus circulating in the United States is considered low.

“For families sitting around the dinner table tonight, this is not something that they generally need to worry about,” Messonnier said.

The end of several major recurring series including “Ballers” and “The Affair” and a scarcity of studio space helped depress local film and TV production in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to data released Friday.

Overall location production slipped 5% in the quarter to 9,839 shoot days, down from 10,359 shoot days for the same period in 2018, according to a report by FilmL.A., the nonprofit group that handles film permits for the city and county.

Television production shoot days slipped 0.9% in the quarter to 3,761 days from 3,795 a year earlier, the report found. While the L.A. region saw a surge in TV comedies and web-based programs, nearly 10% fewer dramas filmed in the quarter as several series ended production. TV production for the year overall was down about 7% from 2018.

Another explanation for the overall downturn: The quarter is being compared to the record levels of TV production the year before, when Netflix and other streaming services were escalating spending on new shows.

As a result, L.A. production spaces are at near capacity and some crews may be leaving to shoot elsewhere, FilmL.A. officials said.

“The space crunch in our area is pushing production out,” FilmL.A. President Paul Audley said in an interview.

California expanded its tax credit program in 2016, giving filmmakers more incentives to shoot outside a 30-mile zone around L.A. That may be encouraging more production in other areas of the state that are seeing a rise in activity, Audley said.

“It’s good news, but we would like to capture more of it, but that requires us to put more high-quality production space in the region,” Audley added.

Feature films generated 1,052 shoot days in the fourth quarter, down 2.4% from the same period a year ago. The category was down 15% for the year.

Filming for commercials, which is not eligible for state tax credits and is the second largest production category tracked by FilmL.A., struggled to match last year’s high levels, falling 8% in the quarter and 12% for the year.

Still, California’s film tax credit program has played a vital role in attracting and retaining productions that may have gone elsewhere, Audley said.

Among the locally-filmed shows that qualified for the incentive program are the FX horror series “American Horror Story: 1984,” HBO’s “Westworld” and ABC’s “The Rookie.”

SERIES

California Cooking With Jessica Holmes This new episode features a more healthful take on Philly cheesesteaks. Also, a visit to More Than Waffles in Encino. 8 p.m. The CW

Seven Worlds, One Planet This new series documents Earth’s seven continents and how they shape the distinctive animal behavior and biodiversity found in their many environments. Narrated by David Attenborough, the seven-part project uses the ultimate in high-tech filming to capture such firsts as scenes of grave-robbing hamsters in Europe and a Sumatran rhino singing. The premiere visits Australia, where some of the wildlife portrayed has been severely impacted by recent wildfires. 9 p.m. AMC; BBC America; IFC; Sundance

MOVIES

Godzilla: King of the Monsters Michael Dougherty directed and co-wrote this 2019 sequel to 2014’s “Godzilla,” which finds the human race pinning its hopes on the giant lizard to defeat two other formidable monsters, King Ghidorah and Rodan. Kyle Chandler, Vera Farmiga, Millie Bobby Brown (“Stranger Things”), Bradley Whitford, Sally Hawkins, Charles Dance, Thomas Middleditch, Aisha Hinds and David Strathairn star. 8 p.m. HBO

Stolen by My Mother: The Kamiyah Mobley Story Niecy Nash stars in this fact-based drama — as a woman who becomes emotionally unstable following a 1998 miscarriage and walks into a Jacksonville, Fla., hospital posing as a nurse and takes newborn Kamiyah Mobley from the arms of her mother, Shanara (Ta’Rhonda Jones) and raising the baby as her own, until the girl (Rayven Symone Ferrell) learns the truth in her late teens, 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. and 1:45 a.m. Lifetime. The news documentary “Beyond the Headlines: The Kamiyah Mobley Story With Robin Roberts” follows at 10:03 p.m.

Love on Iceland During a trip with some of her college friends to Iceland, a woman (Kaitlin Doubleday, “Empire”) encounters an old boyfriend (Colin Donnell, “Chicago Med”) in this 2020 romance. Patti Murin, Donnell’s real-life wife also stars. 9 p.m. Hallmark

TALK SHOWS

WEEKEND TALK SHOWS

SATURDAY

Good Morning America (N) 7 a.m. KABC

Frank Buckley Interviews Costume designer Paul Tazewell. (N) 8:30 p.m. KTLA

SUNDAY

CBS News Sunday Morning Laura Dern; members of Mumford & Sons; author Sarah DiGregorio. (N) 6 a.m. KCBS

Good Morning America (N) 6 a.m. KABC

State of the Union With Jake Tapper Impeachment; Iran: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). Impeachment: House Impeachment Manager Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.). Panel: Mary Katharine Hamm; Karen Finney; Terry McAuliffe; Rep. Michael Waltz (R-Fla.). (N) 6 and 9 a.m. CNN

Fareed Zakaria GPS Putin’s power grab: Anne Applebaum, the Atlantic; author Alexander Gabuev (“Russia”). Iran’s Supreme Leader’s speech: Karim Sadjadpour; Ariane Tabatabai. Australia’s wildfires: Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister of Australia. The economy: Ruchir Sharma. (N) 7 and 10 a.m. CNN

Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas); Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio); Donald Trump Jr. (N) 7 a.m. FNC

Face the Nation House Impeachment Manager: Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.). Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas); Gary Cohn; Jan Crawford. Panel: Gerald Seib, the Wall Street Journal; Susan Page, USA Today; Ed O’Keefe; Weijia Jiang. (N) 7:30 a.m. KCBS

Meet the Press Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.); Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.). Panel: Carol Leonnig; Philip Rucker; former Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Md.); Hugh Hewitt. (N) 8 a.m. KNBC; 3 p.m. MSNBC

This Week With George Stephanopoulos (N) 8 a.m. KABC

Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.); Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). Endurance athlete Colin O’Brady. Panel: Karl Rove; Jonathan Swan, Axios; Kristen Soltis Anderson; Charles Lane. (N) 8 a.m. KTTV

Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter Coverage of the impeachment trial: Dahlia Lithwick, Slate; Joe Lockhart; Margaret Sullivan, the Washington Post. New restrictions on access for reporters: Sarah Wire, Los Angeles Times; Meridith McGraw, Politico. The Fox-President Trump feedback loop: Matt Gertz, Media Matters. The Twitter primary: Jon Favreau (“Pod Save America”); Peter Hamby, (“Good Luck America”). (N) 8 a.m. CNN

MediaBuzz Ben Domenech, the Federalist; Gillian Turner; Ray Suarez; Lara Logan; Joe Trippi; Gayle Trotter. (N) 8 a.m. FNC; midnight

Fox News Sunday With Chris Wallace (N) 11 a.m., 4 and 11 p.m. FNC

60 Minutes Great white sharks; the wolves of Yellowstone National Park; photographer Joel Sartore. (N) 7 p.m. KCBS

SPORTS

Premier League Soccer Arsenal FC versus Sheffield United FC, 6:55 a.m. NBCSP; Newcastle United FC versus Chelsea FC, 9:30 a.m. NBC; Burnley FC versus Leicester City FC, 5:55 a.m. NBCSP

College Basketball Loyola Marymount visits San Francisco, 1 p.m. SportsNet; UC Riverside visits UC Irvine, 7:30 p.m. KDOC. Also, Seton Hall visits St. John’s, 9 a.m. Fox; North Carolina visits Pittsburgh, 9 a.m. ESPN; Baylor visits Oklahoma State, 9 a.m. ESPN2; Connecticut visits Villanova, 9 a.m. FS1; Syracuse visits Virginia Tech, 9 a.m. FS Prime; La Salle visits Rhode Island, 9:30 a.m. NBCSP; Butler visits DePaul, 10 a.m. Fox Sports Net; Auburn visits Florida, 10:30 a.m. CBS; Kansas visits Texas, 11 a.m. ESPN; Purdue visits Maryland, 11 a.m. ESPN2; Marquette visits Georgetown, 11 a.m. FS1; Clemson visits NC State, 11 a.m. FS Prime; Colorado visits Arizona, 11:30 a.m. Fox; Richmond visits George Mason, 11:30 a.m. NBCSP; Oregon visits Washington, 12:45 p.m. CBS; Kentucky visits Arkansas, 1 p.m. ESPN; Houston visits Wichita State, 1 p.m. ESPN2; Providence visits Creighton, 1:30 p.m. FS1; George Washington visits Massachusetts, 1:30 p.m. NBCSP; Louisville visits Duke, 3 p.m. ESPN; Northern Iowa visits Bradley, 3 p.m. ESPN2; LSU visits Ole Miss, 5 p.m. ESPN2; BYU visits Gonzaga, 7 p.m. ESPN2

College Football East-West Shrine Game, Noon NFL; NFLPA Collegiate Bowl: American versus National, 4 p.m. NFL

NBA Basketball The Clippers visit the New Orleans Pelicans, 12:30 p.m. ABC; the Lakers visit the Houston Rockets, 5:30 p.m. ABC

NHL Hockey The Kings visit the Philadelphia Flyers, 4 p.m. Fox Sports Net

For more sports on TV, see the Sports section.

The last thing the Recording Academy wanted, or needed, heading into the 2020 Grammy Awards ceremony next week was more turmoil.

Yet that’s precisely what it got late Thursday when the advocacy organization that oversees the annual awards ceremony and accompanying prime-time CBS telecast placed its newly installed president and chief executive, Deborah Dugan, on “administrative leave” amid allegations of misconduct.

In return, Dugan’s lawyer fired back that she is prepared to “expose what happens when you ‘step up’ at the Recording Academy,” a pointed reference to a remark made by former Recording Academy Chief Executive Neil Portnow that was roundly derided as sexist.

The news of Dugan’s exit blindsided many in the music industry as well as those at the 62-year-old organization, which is barely a week from the Jan. 26 Grammy ceremony that will bring thousands of musicians, songwriters, producers, engineers, record company executives and fans together at Staples Center in Los Angeles to celebrate “music’s biggest night.”

The Recording Academy said its move was necessary despite the impending ceremony because of the seriousness of the allegation against Dugan. The academy’s statement did not detail the allegation, but a New York Times report characterized it as “bullying.”

It was leveled by “a senior female member of the Recording Academy team,” according to a statement the academy issued Thursday, which added that the organization’s board of trustees “has also retained two independent third-party investigators to conduct independent investigations of the allegations.”

Dugan retains her title but will remain on administrative leave while the independent investigations are ongoing, an academy spokesperson said. Board chairman Harvey Mason Jr. is serving as interim president.

A source close to Dugan characterized the complaint as “a routine HR matter.”

An academy spokesman said the woman’s complaint about Dugan was filed to the executive committee of the academy’s board of trustees before Dugan herself raised allegations of wrongdoing.

Dugan submitted a memo less than a month ago, reportedly to the organization’s human resources department, detailing her concerns about practices she had discovered including voting irregularities, financial mismanagement, “exorbitant and unnecessary” legal fees and “conflicts of interest involving members of the academy’s board, executive committee and outside lawyers,” according to a New York Times report.

“You knew that Deb was going to face a lot of organizational challenges going into this,” said an entertainment industry veteran with knowledge of the workings of an independent task force created in 2018 to examine issues of gender and racial bias in the music industry and Recording Academy. “I do know the frustration level she was struggling against with this very incestuous, archaic, cronied organizational structure between the board and the [academy’s regional] chapters.”

A source with knowledge of the academy’s leadership spoke critically of Dugan’s executive skills. “She didn’t have the qualities or experience to run the organization. She felt she was hired to restructure the Grammys. Somehow she got the message that’s what she was there for. But she never stopped to learn how things work.”

Beyond the particulars of the crossfire accusations, the episode has highlighted a clash of cultures that is rocking not just the music industry or even the broader entertainment world, but companies of all stripes in the #MeToo and Time’s Up era.

“I honestly believe the reports we’re seeing [about Dugan’s allegations] have a degree of veracity to them,” said another longtime Recording Academy member who, like others, insisted on anonymity so they could speak freely. “It is hard to change. Is she a bully? I have no idea. But if she was a dude who was coming in, would it be characterized differently?”

The bombshell developments grew out of efforts the academy began in earnest after the 2018 Grammy ceremony. That’s when then-President and Chief Executive Portnow said backstage, in response to a question about the predominance of male award recipients that evening, that the time had come for women to “step up” to achieve parity. The remark prompted pop star Pink, among others, to call for Portnow to “step down” for the tone-deaf comment on factors working against women in the music industry.

Portnow said the comment was taken out of context and quickly attempted to walk it back but announced in the weeks after the incident that he would indeed step down after his contract ended in 2019.

The immediate response was the formation of a 15-woman, three-man task force headed by Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff, Tina Tchen, which made 18 specific recommended changes, some of them striking at fundamental elements of the organization’s operations, in its final report issued in December.

Among the many findings was that not only was there little diversity among the academy’s 40-member board, but the same was evident on the special committees that review recordings submitted for award consideration. Thus, committees that even in recent years remain overwhelmingly male and white ultimately have been deciding which recordings and artists make it to the nomination circle, affecting the makeup of winners to a large extent.

“It’s an old-boys network,” the source close to the task force said.

Portnow’s departure led to the hiring of Dugan, who previously worked with U2 singer Bono at the AIDS nonprofit organization (Red) that was founded in 2006. Before that she held top positions at Disney Publishing Worldwide and EMI/Capitol Records after spending years as a Wall Street lawyer.

Despite her history with various music-related firms, Dugan was viewed as an outsider by many in an industry that doesn’t routinely welcome them. Former NBC News chief Andrew Lack encountered significant resistance when he took over as head of Sony Music Entertainment in 2003. English financier Guy Hands was roundly pilloried for his handling of EMI Music when his Terra Firma private equity firm acquired it in 2007 and lost an estimated $2.5 billion when Citigroup took over the music conglomerate in 2011.

Dugan started her duties guiding the Recording Academy in August at the same time musician-producer Mason was installed as new chairman of the board of trustees, signaling the potential for change under new top leadership.

Just last week, in an interview with The Times, she spoke in upbeat terms about the opportunity given her to lead the academy into a new era following Portnow’s 17-year tenure at the top.

“Everything’s being examined,” she said. “What are our values in 2020?” She also expressed a desire for greater transparency at the organization, whose methods for determining which recordings are singled out each year for nominations and awards remain a mystery to many.

Bringing change would necessarily present risks. As Dugan put it last week, “I think people are excited. But you know what? Change is disorienting. You start thinking, ‘Hmm, what’s that mean for me?’”

As it happened, Dugan reportedly often was at odds with Mason. Some academy officials were put off by a “very different management style” than they had become accustomed to during Portnow’s reign, and bristled at the change. Others, however, praised the new energy and ideas she brought.

Some of those ideas spoke to building of community and sensitivity to members’ feelings, which also generated complaints in some quarters.

“She wanted to take down walls and thought everybody should work in one communal space,” one source said. “There was a lot of kumbaya type stuff, like ‘Let’s get together and hold hands.’ She wanted everyone to take the train [from the academy’s West Los Angeles offices] down to Staples Center as a group.”

The palace intrigue, however, is not expected to spill over into the Grammy telecast, which will be hosted again by musician Alicia Keys and at which emerging artists Billie Eilish and Lizzo are leading the nominations.

Times pop music critic Mikael Wood contributed to this report.

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Dearest OPRAH,you have been a shining light to my family and my community. Contributing so much to my life that I couldn’t list a fraction of it in this blog.Ihave given you the gift of meditation and the groundbreaking book”THE POWER OF NOW “we bonded to say the least. This is why it’s so troubling that you choose me to single out in your recent documentry. I have already admitted to being a playboy more (appropriately titled today “womanizer”) sleeping with and putting myself in more compromising situations than almost any man I know. Not 8 or 14 thousand like Warren Beatty or Wilt Chamberlain, but still an embarrassing number. So many that some could reinterpret or reimagine a different recollection of the same experiences. Please note that ur producers said that this upcoming doc was to focus ONLY on 3 hand chosen women. I have refused to get in the mud with any accusers, but let’s acknowledge what i have shared. I have taken and passed nine 3-hour lie detector tests (taken for my daughters), that these stories have been passed on by CNN, NBC, BUZZFEED, NY POST, NY MAG, AND OTHERS. Now that you have reviewed the facts and you SHOULD have learned what I know; that these stories are UNUSABLE and that “hurt people hurt people”. Today I received a call from an old girlfriend from the early 1980s which means that they are using my words/evidence against me and their COMMITMENT/ (all of the claims are 25 to 40 years old) It is impossible to prove what happened 40 years ago, but in my case proof exists of what didn’t happen, mostly signed letters from their own parents, siblings, roommates, band members, interns, and in the case of 2 of your 3 accusers,their own words in their books. Shocking how many people have misused this important powerful revolution for relevance and money. … In closing, I am guilty of exploiting, supporting, and making the soundtrack for a grossly unequal society, but i have never been violent or forced myself on anyone. Still I am here to help support a necessary shift in power and consciousness. Let us get to work on uplifting humanity and put this moment and old narrative behind us

A post shared by Russell Simmons (@unclerush) on Dec 13, 2019 at 6:35am PST

Shortly after the Sundance reveal, rapper 50 Cent targeted Winfrey on Instagram, accusing the TV host and super-producer of singling out black men, such as Simmons, in her #MeToo activism.

“I don’t understand why Oprah is going after black men,” the “Candy Shop” hitmaker wrote under a photo of Simmons and Winfrey smiling together. “No Harvey Weinstein, No Epstein, just Micheal jackson and Russell Simmons this … is sad.”

The next day, Simmons took to social media to air his grievances with the Harpo Productions head.

“Dearest OPRAH, you have been a shining light to my family and my community. Contributing so much to my life that I couldn’t list a fraction of it in this blog,” Simmons wrote, captioning a photo of himself and Winfrey having a book talk. “This is why it’s so troubling that you choose me to single out in your recent documentry.

“I have already admitted to being a playboy more (appropriately titled today ‘womanizer’) sleeping with and putting myself in more compromising situations than almost any man I know,” he continued. “So many that some could reinterpret or reimagine a different recollection of the same experiences.”

Winfrey did not respond to the social media criticisms.

Dick and Ziering get real notes

Though Simmons’ Instagram meltdown didn’t initially worry Dick and Ziering, the filmmaking duo later told The Times that they received their most critical notes yet from Winfrey’s production company just days after the music mogul posted his rant.

Up until that point, the directors explained, all interactions with Winfrey and Harpo had been positive and encouraging, leading to relatively insignificant requests, such as “We don’t like the way this scene transitions” or “Can we build out this scene because we want more of this character?”

The studio’s new concerns were different, suggesting that the film might not be ready for Sundance. Though surprised by the sudden pushback, the pair didn’t let it shake them.

“We felt like we could address them,” Dick said. “We didn’t really feel like the film needed them, because the film was already good, but as good partners, we wanted to honor the relationship and just keep moving forward.

“So what we had to do was cancel a lot of holiday plans, but we have a great staff and we pushed forward and we got it out.”

Winfrey and Apple exit the doc

On Jan. 10, Winfrey announced her departure from the project — just 20 minutes after she sent an email notifying Dick and Ziering of her plans. In her public statement, she cited creative differences while declaring her “respect” for the filmmakers she‘d left behind.

“In my opinion, there is more work to be done on the film to illuminate the full scope of what the victims endured and it has become clear that the filmmakers and I are not aligned in that creative vision,” Winfrey said.

“Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering are talented filmmakers. I have great respect for their mission but given the filmmakers’ desire to premiere the film at the Sundance Film Festival before I believe it is complete, I feel it’s best to step aside.”

She also noted that she “unequivocally” believes and supports Simmons’ accusers and clarified that she would continue to collaborate with Time’s Up to make sure the women’s stories are seen and heard.

“We support Oprah Winfrey in maintaining that the victims’ stories deserve to be heard on their own terms,” Time’s Up President Tina Tchen said in a statement.

“Too often, black women are silenced, disbelieved, or even vilified when they speak out. On top of that, for years, these women have been attacked by powerful forces surrounding Russell Simmons — illustrating how difficult it is to speak out against powerful men. And how important it is for powerful men to be held accountable for their actions.”

Apple also dropped its involvement, which had hinged on its deal with Winfrey.

The filmmakers respond

When Winfrey walked, Dick and Ziering released their own statement, expressing their disappointment while still giving her credit for standing by “the survivors in the film.”

“Revealing hard truths is never easy, and the women in our documentary are all showing extraordinary strength and courage by raising their voices to address sexual abuse in the music industry,” they said. “The film is a beacon of hope for voices that have long been suppressed, and an inspiration for anyone wanting to regain their personal power.”

In a follow-up interview, the directors told The Times they were blindsided by Winfrey’s move, describing their “close working relationship” with her throughout the making of the film.

“She loved, loved, loved what we did,” Ziering recalled. “And then she saw it numerous times throughout the editing process. We had a very close working relationship and very, very positive — enthusiastically positive. There weren’t any issues.”

Despite the setback, “On the Record” will still debut Jan. 25 at Sundance, where Dick and Ziering will be on the lookout for a new distributor.

Winfrey tells her side

In a New York Times piece published Friday, Winfrey elaborated on the reasoning behind her decision to pull out of the film, explaining the difficult balancing act she had been forced to perform. After hearing concerns from trusted external sources, Winfrey said, she ultimately felt the film needed more work and would not be ready in time for Sundance.

For those reasons, the industry veteran said, she dissociated herself from the vehicle — though she acknowledged that Simmons had pressured her “multiple times.” Winfrey maintained that she never stopped believing the women at any point.

“I told him directly in a phone call that I will not be pressured either into, or out of, backing this film,” Winfrey said. “I am only going to do what I believe to be the right thing.”

Winfrey said she also received calls from people who challenged Dixon’s account, as well as from “When They See Us” creator Ava DuVernay, who reportedly offered a harsh critique of the film after Winfrey asked her to view it through a cultural lens.

“She’s got Simmons on one side pressuring her, and then she’s got a film on the other side that she doesn’t agree with,” DuVernay told the New York Times. “So if she walks away from the film she seems like she’s caving to Simmons, and if she stays with the film then she’s putting her name on something that she feels doesn’t quite hit the mark.”

Dixon told the New York Times she felt abandoned when she and other participants heard Winfrey was backing out.

“I feel like I’m experiencing a second crime,” Dixon said. “I am being silenced. The broader community is being intimidated. The most powerful black woman in the world is being intimidated.”

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WHITEHORSE, Canada — 

As I waited on the airport tarmac about midnight in Whitehorse, capital of Canada’s Yukon Territory, I shivered, a combination of the 8-degree air and my excitement. I was about to find out whether my new strategy for seeing the northern lights would work.

Several friends had traveled to the far north to see the mysterious colorful lights, but it either snowed every night or the aurora borealis didn’t occur. They returned home disappointed.

I was hoping for a sure thing, so I searched for a tour operator that would guarantee its guests would see the dazzlers. Like most of life, no trip came with guarantees. But the Aurora 360 Experience seemed as close to fail-safe as you can get, especially when you’re trying to view a natural phenomenon that depends on the sun’s electrons bashing into Earth’s electrons. I booked it for my husband, Paul, and me.

That’s how we ended up with 50 others boarding a chartered Air North 737-500 jet one night in February 2019.

Kalin Pallett, our Aurora 360 Experience leader, said astronomers and space-weather forecasters had combed 20 years of aurora borealis data and chose Feb. 7 as the best night for seeing the northern lights above Whitehorse. The company chartered a jet for that night — and for Feb. 8 as a backup. Even if it were cloudy or snowing, we would see them while flying six miles up.

What if the lights were a no-show both nights? Pallett had packed the four-night Aurora 360 Experience with on-the-ground activities to steep guests in the culture, nature and allure of the Yukon. Even if we didn’t check off the big-ticket item on our bucket list, Pallett promised we’d go home happy.

I hoped he was right.

Flight to the lights

When our plane leveled at 36,000 feet, the pilot shut off the interior and exterior lights. Like moviegoers in a darkened theater, the passengers fell silent.

Twenty minutes into our flight I heard an excited voice over the PA: “There they are! The aurora borealis!”

The passengers cheered. Flight attendants served Yukon gin cocktails with glowing-green plastic ice cubes.

For the next three hours we took turns pressing our faces to the windows and sharing our joy at what we saw. The ethereal green glow sometimes hovered above the horizon and sometimes spread throughout the sky. Its movement was so gradual that it seemed like a dream.

When passengers complained that their pictures paled compared with the real thing, Canadian nature photographer Neil Zeller offered tips on how to photograph the lights. (“Instagram has spoiled us,” he said.)

I gave up on my iPhone camera and turned to the window, determined to etch the northern lights into my memory.

Mush!

Upon returning to Earth after our lights fantastic, we rolled into bed about 4 a.m., and when the alarm rang later that morning, I was as groggy as a college student who had crammed all night for finals.

The near-zero air outside zapped me wide awake. Dressed in my rented Arctic gear — insulated parka, bib-overall snow pants, boots and mittens — and looking like the Michelin Man, I climbed into a van for our excursion to the Sky High Wilderness Ranch, set among mountains dotted with spruce trees.

The yapping of 150 Alaskan huskies told me we’d arrived in time for dog-sled rides. The musher (from marche, the French word for “go”) gave me a choice: I could huddle under a blanket and enjoy the scenery while she mushed the dogs, or I could mush them myself. I was up for a Yukon adventure. She gave me a quick lesson on how to stand on the back of the sled, hang on and let the dogs run. If I wanted to stop them, I could dig my boot into the snow.

The dogs raced along an icy path through the forest and across a frozen lake. When they picked up speed on a curve, I panicked. I jammed my boot into the snow, but it didn’t stop the dogs. Barking, they shot me a look that said, ‘Lady, what’s your problem?’” I hung on and let them go for it.

First Nations tales

That night we dined at Whitehorse’s Kwanlin Dun Cultural Centre, a gathering place for descendants of the Yukon’s First Nations people. Dancers in wooden raven masks depicted ancient legends; then Gramma Susie, a First Nations poet, read some of her work. She said people saw the northern lights as a reflection of their ancestors’ spirits.

“When I was 13, my grandma warned me to stay inside at night or they would take me with them to cure their loneliness,” she said. “I think she was just trying to keep me home and out of trouble.”

Near midnight, Pallett recommended we take a van to an empty field about 30 miles from town used for aurora borealis sightings. “You will see how most tourists experience the northern lights,” he said. “It takes a lot of patience.”

Paul and I soon found ourselves among groups of tourists in Arctic parkas. We couldn’t see their faces in the dark but we heard Portuguese and Chinese. They hustled back and forth between heated yurts and the edge of the field, where they had set up cameras on tripods. The sky was blanketed with stars; there was no hint of green. I took refuge from the cold in a yurt.
Two hours and several cups of hot chocolate later, I heard cheers. I stepped outside to observe a ribbon of green light snaking slowly across the horizon. Cameras clicked. Then the green faded to black. One hour and another cup of hot chocolate later, I joined fellow travelers in a van back to town. Paul insisted on hanging out in case the northern lights reappeared. When he rolled into bed at 3 a.m., he murmured that it had been a wash.

Glass-blowing, moose and musk oxen

Our last day in Whitehorse we viewed Gold Rush artifacts at the MacBride Museum, then strolled along the snowy banks of the Yukon River. Despite the below-freezing temperature, the door to Lumel glass-blowing studios was wide open. Owner Lu Baker-Johnson beckoned us in to warm up.

“This is the only place in Whitehorse that leaves its door open in the winter,” she said. I understood why as I walked over to the 2,100-degree furnace. I peeled off my parka and accepted her offer to blow glass.

Baker-Johnson guided my hands on the punty, a stainless-steel rod for shaping molten glass. “I invite homeless people — locals call them ‘river walkers’ — to stop in to warm up,” she said. “As long as they’re ‘solid’ — their hands aren’t shaking — they are welcome to blow glass. The creativity clears their minds.” Under Baker-Johnson’s gentle direction I discovered the thrill of her craft.

That afternoon our group toured the Yukon Wildlife Preserve, a 700-acre home to 12 species of northern Canadian animals. They were rescued from the wild because they were orphaned or injured. I admired fluffy white Arctic foxes and a silver-furred lynx, and giggled at a moose that had shed its antlers for the winter and looked as though it was, well, missing something.

I was most taken by the musk oxen, the size of small bison, whose thick fur reached the snowy ground. A guide explained that fossils of musk oxen ancestors indicate that they had migrated to this region across the Bering land bridge from Siberia more than a million years ago.

After dark we visited the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Yukon Observatory, a two-room building atop a hillock in a forest. Whitehorse is an ideal spot to study the stars, Pallett said, because its air is among the cleanest in the world, according to the World Health Organization. On the observation deck I peered through the 11-inch telescope at a sliver of moon etched with craters. They seemed close enough to touch.

We trudged through the forest to the Tahkini Hot Pools, following a path of glow sticks planted in the snow. The therapeutic qualities of the mineral-rich hot springs were discovered in 1907, but First Nations people used them long before that. “In the 1940s when the U.S. Army was building the Alaska Highway, work crews would come out here for a soak,” Pallett said.

In the locker room I traded my Arctic gear for a bathing suit, stepped into the cold and plunged into the pool. The water, heated to 107 degrees, was heavenly. I could make out the shadowy figures of other visitors up to their chins in the water. Their eyebrows, lashes and hair were frosted with ice.

Pallett had recommended we look for the northern lights while we were soaking. I peered into the sky through the steam rising off the pool. No glimmer of green, but the extraordinary wonder of stars was enough.

If you go

THE BEST WAY TO WHITEHORSE, CANADA

From LAX, Air Canada offers connecting service (change of planes) to Whitehorse. Restricted round-trip airfare from $821, including taxes and fees.

Aurora 360 Experience, (778) 776-2406, aurora-360.ca. From about $2,840 per person, double occupancy. Includes hotel, meals and chartered flight as well as hot springs, dog sledding, wildlife preserve and observatory excursions. Departures Jan. 23-27, 2020, and Feb. 11-15, 2021.

Regarding: “Real Trip-Ups With Real ID,” On the Spot, by Catharine Hamm, Jan. 12: Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why bother? Get a passport — does the same job in the U.S., and it takes you overseas too. And lasts for 10 years.

Bob Haut
Topanga

::
The do-nothing Congress finally did something. It passed a Real ID law that is good for nothing. What purpose does it serve?

The documents they require — a Social Security card, a birth certificate and a passport —can all be fake. How would the DMV ever verify a 30-, 40-, 50-year-old birth certificate from a foreign country?

With all the airport security measures that exist with bags and bodies searched multiple times, a Real ID adds nothing to the security process. As Billy Preston sang, “Nothing from nothing leaves nothing.”

Robert Bubnovich
Irvine

Getting home is harder than getting to the destination

I just returned from a wonderful trip to Colorado with my two teenage grandsons.

We waited about 15 minutes at LAX for a bus to take us to the new lot for taxi, Uber and Lyft pickups. About 30 people were waiting. Once the bus finally arrived, I knew I would have trouble climbing aboard. I’m 80 and have physical limitations. Thank goodness I had two able-bodied grandsons to help get me on the bus.

After we arrived at the new lot, we grabbed a taxi. I had no intention of trying to order a Lyft or Uber. When I gave the taxi driver directions to my home, usually a 20-minute drive, he laughed. There was no way he could take the usual route. We had a huge detour.

By the time we got home, the trip with tip was $60. It usually costs between $35 and $40 with tip, and it took us an extra half-hour to get home

I think of all the people who’ve just arrived from far away and then have to go through this mess. What does this say about Los Angeles?

We desperately need to allow taxis to pick up passengers curbside. Many are seniors or disabled.

Shame on whoever decided to do this. I have two trips in April and am dreading coming home.

Elaine Cohen
Santa Monica

Mistakes? They’ve made a few

Regarding the Jan. 5 On the Spot column (“Learn From the Stupid Mistakes I Made,” by Catharine Hamm): I’ve been a tour director more than 30 years, so when I book my own vacation, I am meticulous about details. At least until I booked my flight to India.

I’ll never forget landing in New Delhi to connect with our flight to Haridwar. The Indian official looked at my tickets and dismissed me, stating: “This flight was yesterday.” I emphatically said, “No, it isn’t. It’s in a few hours.”

I argued, pleaded, then asked for mercy when I realized I hadn’t paid attention to the arrival date when booking. It actually landed two days after departing LAX, with the time change.

I had to purchase new tickets because it was a different carrier. But the worst part was that we lost our prepaid hotel and invaluable time we wanted to spend in Haridwar.

Linda Perez
Mission Viejo

::
After reading Hamm’s column, I reviewed my recent month-long trip to France: All went as planned. Maybe because I really have learned from many past mistakes. I missed a cruise ship in the Greek Isles not once but twice —10 years apart. I flooded a hotel in Bordeaux, France; I left my purse in a London tube station; another year, another purse at the British Museum (both were returned). On bus tours, I missed a day trip to a Greece monastery; another year, it was a day trip to the Plitvice Lakes in Slovenia. I lost a sweater somewhere on the way to Jordan, another at a hotel in Paris — I even lost one in downtown Los Angeles between Walt Disney Hall and the Omni Hotel.

Not one incident has dampened my desire to travel. Most make a story to recount at home; the banal ones, of course, I keep to myself.

Carol Clark
Los Feliz

::
I loved reading the travel mistakes. I consistently find myself adding to my own catalog of errors, a few of which you’ll find detailed below.

• Make sure your phone is on the proper international setting, even in Canada. I was meeting a friend in Toronto and staying with her for a few days. She had all my flight details and would be meeting me at the airport. In Toronto, I breezed through customs, thanks to a broken arm that rendered me useless at filling out forms and put me in the short “needs assistance” line.

When I walked out of the terminal and didn’t see my friend, I assumed that I was early and that she was on her way. I plunked myself down to wait, facing the door so I would see her come in. After calling and messaging her through WhatsApp but receiving no response, I figured she didn’t have a signal on the train.

More than an hour later, we discovered that we’d both been there the whole time, waiting on opposite sides of a large pillar. We’d each called and texted the other numerous times, but because I hadn’t adjusted my phone settings, the messages had been stuck in limbo. If only I had bothered to hoist myself up and walk around a little, we would have discovered each other and been at her house already.

After restarting my phone, the ride from the airport into the city was peppered with the ding-dings of our messages finally coming through.

• Pay attention to airport switcheroos. I was in charge of booking everything for a pre-Christmas trip to New York with a friend. In my defense, I was working under pressure, using a combination of air miles and credit cards for our tickets, toggling among websites and fielding calls and texts from my friend/travel companion, who was nervous about the trip, the money, our seating arrangements and the East Coast cold.

The price seemed to increase every hour. With a combination of panic and relief, I finally locked in our tickets.

After a vexing, not-so-holly-jolly trip, my friend and I were grateful to be on our way home. Attempting to check in at JFK, however, I discovered that I had booked our departing leg out of Newark, N.J., thanks to the “include nearby airport” settings that I had apparently overlooked. By the time we discovered my mistake, it was too late for an exorbitant Lyft ride (on top of the one we’d just taken) to make our flight.

Forty-five minutes on hold with the airline, a thick cloud of tension and some hefty change fees later, we were only six hours away from the next outbound flight, which we were lucky to be squeezed onto. We spent the time exhausted and grumpy in a corner of holiday-packed JFK.

• If you’re going to walk a mile (or 10) in those shoes, make sure they’re up to the task. Everyone knows to travel with comfortable shoes, but waterproof and comfortable are other things altogether. I have thick, all-weather rubber boots that I hardly ever wear because they’re heavy, and there isn’t much need for them in day-to-day life. I’ve walked in them, but not much.

I pack these boots only when I travel in winter, which is what I encountered on a recent trip to Vancouver. After getting soaked in my comfy leather boots the first day, I opted on the second day for the waterproof backups. I was just beginning a full day of wandering when I realized that despite thick socks, my little toes were being pulverized by the stiff rubber.

By the time I returned to my hotel in the evening, my little toes had been reduced to bloody nubs. Instead of giving in and buying a new pair of comfortable waterproof shoes, I spent the rest of the trip alternating between inadequate footwear, one day getting soaked, the next day bandaging my abused appendages and hobbling through the pain.

• Make sure your medications are the solution, not the problem. I’ve always been afflicted by motion sickness. On childhood family camping trips up the California coast, everyone knew where we’d be pulling over for me to throw up. We had favorite restaurants discovered near many of our regular mercy stops and activities scheduled around them.

I’ve become nauseated wading into the ocean, sitting up too fast in the dark — you get the idea. So when I started flying regularly in my late teens, I naturally equipped myself with over-the-counter motion sickness medication, which I took religiously an hour before every flight.

I did discover a few years ago that by switching brands, the innertube-level swelling I regularly experienced during any length of flight was reduced to a tolerable human degree and faded much more quickly upon landing. I would still often become nauseated, prompted by turbulence or a strong smell, but if I got sick with medication, what would happen if I didn’t take anything at all? Airsickness apocalypse was the only logical answer.

On a recent trip from LAX to Kamloops, Canada, we were on the tarmac pre-flight when I realized I had forgotten to take my pill. Rummaging through an oversize purse, I discovered with not a little panic that my brand-new box of medication had accidentally been thrown into my wheeled carry-on, which had been checked at the gate because of the diminutive size of the overhead bins.

With my salvation unreachable, I dreaded the 3½ hours that lay ahead. Locating my airsickness bag, I gave a guilty glance to the unfortunate man sitting next to me and braced for what was to come. Then … nothing.

Even when we hit turbulence for the last 45 minutes, there was a slight swirling in my stomach and that was it. On the second leg of the flight, same thing, despite flying in a tiny local plane. When I decided to try flying home without medicinal assistance and again felt minimal discomfort, I couldn’t ignore that I had felt more comfortable on those three flights than most of the trips I had taken with the “aid” of medication over the last 20 years. Not only had my medication been depositing me in foreign lands bloated and swollen for most of that time but it had also been exacerbating my already fragile stomach, the bewildering true cause of the very thing it was designed to prevent. Go figure.

Phoebe Millerwhite
Claremont

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Walt Disney Co. Chief Executive Officer Bob Iger’s compensation was $48 million last year, down 28% because of a special bonus he got in fiscal 2018 for extending his contract and clinching the agreement to buy 21st Century Fox Inc.

Even without that one-time boost, Iger’s pay remains among the highest in corporate America. It was bolstered by achieving a number of goals, including seeing through the $71-billion Fox transaction to its completion last March. He also launched Disney+, a new streaming service that made its debut with more than 10 million customers in its first day.

Iger’s salary increased 4.3% to $3 million, Burbank-based Disney said in a filing Friday.

The executive, 68, agreed to postpone his retirement until December 2021 so he could oversee the Fox acquisition.

Executive compensation has been a flashpoint across the U.S. but especially at Disney, where Iger has seen his pay adjusted over the last few years because of pushback from investors and shareholder advocates.

Just this week, Abigail Disney, a granddaughter of company co-founder Roy Disney, testified in support of a California bill that would impose additional taxes on companies doing business in the state that have excessive levels of executive pay compared with everyday employees.

On that front, Disney made some headway last year, though the CEO still outearns the median worker by 911 to 1. It had been 1,421 to 1.

The median pay of employees at Disney rose 13% to $52,184 annually, the company said.

German rangers stand guard to shoo away visitors from a nondescript stretch of forest near Berlin, where a sign nearby warns of “Lebensgefahr” (mortal danger).

The precautions are part of the frantic activity underway to set up Tesla Inc.’s latest assembly plant, Elon Musk’s most daring attack on the German auto establishment. Workers wielding metal detectors have started combing through an area equivalent to some 200 football fields to search for errant ammunition lurking beneath the sandy surface of tiny Gruenheide.

It’s the first stage to prepare a site that could churn out as many as 500,000 cars a year, employ 12,000 people and pose a serious challenge to Volkswagen, Daimler and BMW. Once it is deemed free of World War II explosives, harvesters and trucks will roll in to clear thousands of trees in the first stage of development. The work needs to be done by the end of February to meet Tesla’s aggressive timetable.

The project represents a second chance for the quiet town, nestled between two lakes on the edge of a nature reserve southeast of Berlin.

Gruenheide lost out on a similar factory two decades ago, when BMW opted for Leipzig. The memory of that missed opportunity motivated town officials to move quickly when Tesla expressed interest in building its first European factory in Germany, with a plot set aside for industrial use and offering easy access to the autobahn and rail lines.

“The investment is a unique opportunity,” Mayor Arne Christiani said in his office, where a map of the Tesla project hangs on the wall. “It gives young people with a good education or a university degree the possibility to stay in our region — an option that didn’t exist in past years.”

If it clears Germany’s red tape, the plant will make Tesla batteries, powertrains and vehicles, including the Model Y crossover, the Model 3 sedan and any future cars, according to company filings. The factory hall will include a pressing plant, paint shop and seat manufacturing in a building that will be 2,440 feet long — nearly triple the length of the Titanic. There’s space for four such facilities.

Musk is taking his fight for the future of transport into the heartland of the combustion engine, where the established players long laughed off Tesla as an upstart on feeble financial footing that couldn’t compete with their rich engineering heritage. He casually dropped the news at an awards ceremony in Berlin in November, leaving the top brass of Germany’s car industry shell-shocked.

“Elon Musk is going where his strongest competitors are, right into the heart of the global auto industry,” said Juergen Pieper, an analyst with Germany’s Metzler Bank. “No other foreign carmaker has done that in decades given Germany’s high wages, powerful unions and high taxes.”

Building a factory in Europe’s largest car market is a major test of Musk’s global ambitions. Demand in the region is flat, and buyers are more loyal to local brands. Meanwhile, labor costs in Germany’s auto sector are 50% higher than in the U.S. and five times what they are in Poland, just an hour’s drive away from Gruenheide.

On the positive side, electric cars require less labor to build, and Germany has a deep reserve of auto experts. The location also offers the soft-power advantage of proximity to the country’s leaders.

Under pressure for being slow to pick up on the electric car shift, German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government extended a welcoming hand to Musk. Economy Minister Peter Altmaier offered to try to ease regulatory hurdles that may snag construction. “There’s a lot at stake” in Tesla’s plan, he said soon after the project was announced.

Musk’s incursion comes at a strategically opportune time. Riding a wave of optimism after successfully starting deliveries of its China-built Model 3 sedans a year after breaking ground on a factory there, Tesla’s stock has doubled in the past three months.

Meanwhile, German peers are struggling with the costly shift away from combustion engines. Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler announced thousands of job cuts last year, when German car production fell to its lowest level in almost a quarter of a century.

For Gruenheide, the planned investment has suddenly transformed the town of 8,700 people into a sought-after location. Local officials receive development proposals on a daily basis: anything from 22-story apartment towers to U.S.-style shopping malls, said Christiani, who hopes the plant will help unlock financing for public transport, schools and medical facilities.

In the town hall, five thick binders are available for locals to peruse the project’s details, including 463 trucks expected to roll into the plant each day, a rail spur for train deliveries and an on-site fire brigade.

Tesla still has to jump through a number of hoops. Residents can raise objections, and some complain they’ve seen little from the company since its blockbuster announcement. Meanwhile, the local water utility warned it won’t be able to adequately supply the site in time and raised concerns over its location in a zone where sources of drinking water are protected by law.

And then the company has to carry out initiatives to protect wildlife — including scaring off any wolves in the area, relocating hibernating bats and removing lizards and snakes until construction is finished. The U.S. carmaker also has to replace felled trees.

The mayor expects these hurdles to be cleared so that the first made-in-Gruenheide Teslas can roll out in July 2021.

“The forest is classified as a harvest-ready, inferior pine forest,” Christiani said. “It was never supposed to be a rainforest.”

1/11

French Montana is asking $6.599 million for the Hidden Hills home he bought four years ago from Selena Gomez. 

(Hagai Aharon)

2/11

The three-acre compound centers on a custom home of 7,800 square feet. 

(Hagai Aharon)

3/11

The hip-hop star added a recording studio. 

(Hagai Aharon)

4/11

Amenities include a gym, a movie theater and a wine cellar. 

(Hagai Aharon)

5/11

Michael Clifford, guitarist for pop-punk outfit 5 Seconds of Summer, bought a Valley Village home on New Year’s Eve for $2.025 million. 

(Compass)

6/11

The property includes a 2,400-square-foot main house and a 1,800-square-foot guest house. 

(Compass)

7/11

A swimming pool. 

(Compass)

8/11

Former Los Angeles Kings star Ilya Kovalchuk paid $11.2 million for a contemporary-style home in Beverly Hills’ Trousdale neighborhood. 

(Simon Berlyn)

9/11

Forest Whitaker has sold a pair of properties on a combined lot in the Hollywood Hills for $3.85 million. 

(Aaron Hoffman)

10/11

In total, the houses combine for 11 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms across 6,700 square feet. 

(Aaron Hoffman)

11/11

The two homes each have a separate entrance and driveway but share a gated 1.6-acre lot with a swimming pool. 

(Aaron Hoffman)

Rapper French Montana is shooting for the stars in Hidden Hills. Four years after buying Selena Gomez’s Mediterranean mansion for $3.3 million, he’s trying to double his money by listing the property for sale at $6.599 million.

The steep price hike reflects a bit of remodeling. The rapper painted over Gomez’s bold tones of purple and turquoise and added a $400,000 recording studio in the guesthouse. Other amenities include a gym, a movie theater and a wine cellar.

The three-acre compound centers on a custom home of 7,800 square feet. Dark hardwood accents offset bright shades of white and tan in the expansive living spaces, which include a two-story great room, chef’s kitchen, breakfast nook and formal dining room.

There’s a massage chair in the master suite, as well as a spa tub and steam shower. It’s one of five bedrooms along with six bathrooms across two stories.

Outside, hanging lights top a tile courtyard with a fountain. In the entertainer’s backyard, patios and lawns surround a swimming pool and spa. A dining cabana with a brick pizza oven and an elephant statue shrouded in ivy complete the scene.

Gabriel Palmrot of Douglas Elliman holds the listing.

A prolific mixtape artist, Montana has released more than a dozen during his career in addition to three studio albums — the most recent of which, “Montana,” dropped in 2019. His hits include “Pop That,” “Unforgettable” and “No Stylist.”

Actor double-dips in sale

A two-for-one special did the trick for Forest Whitaker, who has sold a pair of properties on a combined lot in the Hollywood Hills for $3.85 million.

The Oscar-winning actor had been trying to unload the homes for the last three years, offering them separately in 2018 for $3.5 million and $1.5 million. Last fall, he put the complete compound up for sale at $3.995 million.

Each boasts its own entrance and driveway, but they share a gated 1.6-acre lot with a swimming pool and spa surrounded by landscaped patios and secluded nooks. In total, the houses combine for 11 bedrooms and 11 bathrooms across 6,700 square feet.

The larger home clocks in at 4,700 square feet, offering expansive living spaces with a more dramatic style. There’s a voluminous great room with dual staircases, as well as a dining room, a living room and a center-island kitchen.

Upstairs, a master suite with a corner fireplace enjoys a spa tub and balcony. Down below, there’s an entertainer’s den with a game room and custom shelving accessed by a ladder.

Across the property, the smaller home covers 2,000 square feet. Its three-story floor plan feels a bit more relaxed with brighter living spaces marked by white walls and carpet. There’s a den with a fireplace, a tile kitchen and a movie theater with tiered seating.

The 58-year-old Whitaker took home an Academy Award for best actor for his role in the 2006 film “The Last King of Scotland.” More recently, the Texas native starred as Saw Gerrera in “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” and as Zuri in “Black Panther.”

Michael Nourmand and Adam Sires of Nourmand & Associates held the listing, according to the Wall Street Journal. Charles H. Le of ReMax Estate Properties represented the buyer.

The new king of Trousdale

Former Los Angeles Kings left wing Ilya Kovalchuk, who was waived by the team in December, has bought a home in the Trousdale section of Beverly Hills for $11.2 million.

The single-story house, built in 2018, has clean lines, slabs of ribboned marble and pocketing doors that take in city and ocean views. Some 6,200 square feet of interior holds a subdued chef’s kitchen with an island, a formal dining room, an office, five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. A wet bar sits in the far corner of the open-concept living room.

Outside, grounds of more than half an acre center on a swimming pool with a raised spa and baja deck. A dining pavilion and built-in barbecue sit across from the pool.

The property originally came up for sale in early 2018 for $16.888 million and was more recently listed for $11.495 million.

“Beverly Hills real estate is an international luxury brand that is a tried and true investment,” Rodeo Realty agent Michael Rabbani said. “Buying real estate in Beverly Hills is an investment to the likes of buying gold.”

Rabbani shared the listing with Joe Babajian, also of Rodeo Realty, and Hilton and Hyland’s Rayni and Branden Williams. Nina Moshkovich of Nelson Shelton Real Estate Era Powered represented the buyer.

Kovalchuk, 36, signed a three-year, $18.75-million contract with the Kings last summer, but lasted less than halfway through the deal before being waived by the team. The two-time all-star and Olympic gold medalist has since signed a one-year pact with the Montreal Canadiens.

Closing out the year

Michael Clifford, guitarist for pop-punk outfit 5 Seconds of Summer, had something extra to celebrate this New Year’s Eve. Records show he shelled out $2.025 million for an entertainer’s haven in Valley Village, with the sale closing on the final day of 2019.

Though the property covers less than half an acre, it somehow manages to cram in eight bedrooms, 10 bathrooms and a decked-out yard with fire pits, fountains, an outdoor kitchen, sunken conversation pit and sleek swimming pool and spa.

Two structures fill out the fenced grounds: a 2,400-square-foot main house and an 1,800-square-foot guesthouse. A whitewashed open floor plan anchors the main home; it combines a family room, dining area, office, chef’s kitchen and living room with an eye-catching wall of stacked stone.

A wall of glass lines the master bedroom, taking in views of the backyard and guesthouse on the other end of the property. Amenities fill the guesthouse floor plan. There’s an indoor-outdoor screening room, as well as a chic billiards room with gray hardwood floors.

Tucked at the very back of the lot is a Zen garden complete with walking paths, a grassy lawn and fire pit.

Federico Rolon of Compass held the listing. Keven Stirdivant of Kase Real Estate represented the buyer.

Clifford formed 5 Seconds of Summer in Sydney, Australia, with Luke Hemmings, Calum Hood and Ashton Irwin in 2011. Between three studio albums, their hits include “Youngblood,” “Easier” and “Teeth.”

Former magical kingdom for lease

In the Hollywood Hills, the longtime home of Disney animator Art Babbitt and his late wife, actress-singer-dancer Barbara Perry, has come up for lease at $6,500 a month.

Tucked away in the Outpost Estates neighborhood, the restored Spanish-style house puts forth a sunny disposition with a blond facade and sunburst orange accents. Inside, colorful tile risers line a staircase leading upstairs.

A beamed-ceiling great room with a fireplace and an adjacent bar is at the heart of the 1920s house. Also within 2,083 square feet of space are a period kitchen, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. An upstairs sunroom/yoga studio takes in tree-top and city views.

French doors in the great room open directly to a tiled patio for outdoor entertaining. A two-car garage sits off the front.

Babbitt, who died in 1992 at 84, was one of Walt Disney’s earliest animators and the developer of the Goofy cartoon character. His other works included the first animation of Donald Duck in “The Wise Little Hen” and Geppetto the wood-carver in “Pinocchio” (1940). He also created the famous dancing mushroom scene in “Fantasia.”

Perry, who died last year at 97, was a renowned tap dancer early in her career, headlining at such nightclubs as Chez Paree in Chicago and Cocoanut Grove in L.A. As an actress, she appeared on episodes of “The Dick Van Dyke Show” and “The Andy Griffith Show.” More recently, she had roles on the comedies “How I Met Your Mother” and “Baskets.”

Stephanie Mora of Sotheby’s International Realty holds the listing.

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