Mary McNamara’s column [“Lies, Spies and NBC,” Oct. 14] was as usual both interesting and factual, plus it provided information I was totally unaware of. I had no knowledge of Ronan Farrow. Since I was not particularly interested in disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein, I did not read much about him, his activities or revelations surrounding allegations of sexual misconduct and all that followed beyond the barest facts.

McNamara succinctly covered many aspects of this whole sordid situation and also introduced me to Farrow, a journalist whom I was unaware of, though I should have been, considering his accomplishments. I will now have to buy and read his book.

Thank you for bringing me such reliable and worthwhile news stories in The Times every day and for having journalists like McNamara and all the others in your employ.

They make my day, every day.

Love The Times.

Judy Reinsma

Santa Clarita

::

Farrow brought down some pretty big players in the entertainment industry. The cover-up included branding journalists as liars, among other things. Even NBC killed his story. But when he found another outlet, the investigation began and toppled some pretty big names.

Which brings me to the subject of Donald Trump. Too bad Farrow hasn’t written a story about Trump’s lies and his alleged sexual abuse of women.

It might help to get the worst president ever impeached.

Ernie Ogren

Torrance

Aces on Trump, entertainment

Until 2017, I would have agreed with the letter writer who feels that the Calendar section is no place to criticize a U.S. president [“Calendar Feedback,” Oct. 13]. But then a former reality TV impresario with no prior government experience took over the White House.

Ever since, I’ve welcomed the percipient Trump-dissing columns of Lorraine Ali and her colleagues. Their insights often ring more true than what I read in op-ed pieces.

Entertainment writers seem most adept at deconstructing the madcap reality-show governance we’ve suffered since 2017. Please keep running their columns so long as we have a president who warrants them.

Marta Tehrani

Santa Monica

Just who is this Brandi Carlile?

Regarding “Tip of the Hat to Joni” [Oct. 14]: So Brandi Carlile has a supergroup, and she only recently came to admire the work of Joni Mitchell? And just who is Brandi Carlile again? Never heard of her.

Kevin Park

Mission Hills

Back on road to ‘Breaking Bad’

Although I agreed with much of Lorraine Ali’s review of “El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie” [“Walt, You Are Missed,” Oct. 12], I was surprised to read her assertion that the title “El Camino” referred to the muscle car that was discarded early in the movie by character Jesse Pinkman.

“El camino” means “the road” in Spanish. The title refers to Jesse’s literal and psychological journey from Albuquerque to Alaska. Given that the “Breaking Bad” series was set in Albuquerque and contained many Latino actors as principal and supporting players, the movie’s title is totally apt.

Gloria Mullendore

Pasadena

::

Someone who never watched “Breaking Bad” might find this movie a bit confusing.

As a person who watched the series, I found it to be very entertaining. Understanding the back story and supporting characters goes a long way. It gives some closure to the Jessie story for avid fans.

Gus Rios

El Cajon

Dangerous times

Regarding Kenneth Turan’s review of the newly restored Joseph Losey film “Mr. Klein,” which depicts the Paris of 1942 [“A 1976 Gem With Biting Relevancy,” Oct. 11]: Timely, indeed.

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Civilizations, like the humans who inhabit them, have proved themselves limited in their ability to see themselves and their “throw” accurately, often overlooking the very element that will determine their future cultural alchemy. Our present culture, obsessed as it appears to be with denouncement, exposure and humiliation of those in the public eye, may well be venturing unwittingly down the path of past totalitarian states, where denunciation, blacklists, spying on fellow citizens and reporting family members became normative — even, sadly, compulsory.

The cultural endgame of such societies, according to “Mr. Klein,” is “to make everybody on the streets so frightened that they won’t even remotely engage in any kind of activity.”

With the present public eye so intently fixed on the twin villainies depicted by the #MeToo Movement and the Trump presidency, we may find ourselves blindsided by a vastly more pernicious yet subtle repressive mechanism arising from within. “Where,” in your own words, “everyone is at risk whether they know it or not.”

Jeff Denker

Malibu

Where have all the old films gone?

Reading Justin Chang’s erudite and entertaining reviews, especially when he’s attending film festivals, I add the current movies he likes and the old pictures he references to my queue, some going back to the ’50s and ’60s.

I’m a longtime Netflix subscriber, and I added Netflix streaming when I got a smart TV. More than two dozen of those films have been on my list for years. Where are they? Who owns them? Do I have to subscribe to 10 different streamers? Anyone remember the Z Channel?

Florence Weinberger

Malibu

50 platforms and nothing’s on

Regarding Mary McNamara’s column “There’s Just Too Much” [Oct. 13]: Usually, I get frustrated knowing there are great TV shows that I’ll never see. But that article had the opposite effect. Being informed that there were not only dozens of marvelous shows I’ll never watch but also dozens of platforms I’ll probably never get around to left me numb instead of unfulfilled. It was too abstract — like an astronomer telling me there are hundreds of other galaxies.

David Macaray

Rowland Heights

Editors note: There are billions and billions of galaxies.

A star is reborn

Regarding Kenneth Turan’s review “A Joy as ‘Judy’” [Sept. 27]: As a member of the viewing and paying public, I would like to take a moment to give my two cents’ worth on Renée Zellweger’s performance in the Judy Garland biopic “Judy.”

My interest in watching this film was born many years ago as a kid watching my mom develop her adoration for Garland. She was Mother’s favorite entertainer of her era.

Fast-forward to 2019, where Zellwegger’s performance was nothing short of spectacular. I was mesmerized from start to finish. From her mannerisms and voice, she really nailed it.

Marc Sandall

Bakersfield
A unique L.A. artist

As a longtime fan of Lari Pittman’s work, I found Christopher Knight’s review of Pittman’s Hammer Museum exhibit [“Freedom Statement,” Oct. 8] to be, well, a bit queer.

Knight states that “Pittman makes the queerest paintings around.” I guess I sort of understand that as a double-entendre — Pittman’s works are “queer” in the original sense of the word, odd and different, and as alluding to the fact that Pittman is gay.

Knight goes on to read more about Pittman’s sexuality into his works. But I can’t say that I’ve ever seen that in Pittman’s art, and it seems beside the point. Only a few of his works have any sort of sexual connotations, and even then they don’t seem to be making any sort of grand homosexual statements.

Pittman is one of L.A.’s greatest artists, and his art has always been wonderfully abstract, fantastical and technically brilliant. That’s more than enough for me.

Mark Gleason

Costa Mesa

SERIES

NCIS The team investigates a Marine corporal (guest star Camryn Grimes) who may have killed her neighbor while under a hypnotherapist’s treatment for insomnia. Meanwhile, Gibbs (Mark Harmon) makes a connection with his new neighbors after one of their kids accidentally sends a baseball crashing through his window. Laura San Giacomo, Jack Fisher and Louise Barnes also guest star in this new episode of the procedural drama. 8 p.m. CBS

The Flash Barry (Grant Gustin) hunts a terrifying meta-human with an unquenchable thirst in this new episode of the superhero drama. 8 p.m. CW

SoCal Connected “Who Killed Josiah?,” a new episode of the local newsmagaine series, visits Arcata, home of Humboldt State University, a town polarized over allegations of racism and police incompetence surrounding the death of college student Josiah Lawson. (N) 8 p.m. and midnight KCET

Martha & Snoop’s Potluck Party Challenge Lil’ Pump joins Martha Stewart’s team and Eve joins Snoop Dogg’s for a Halloween-themed episode of the celebrity cooking show. 8 p.m. VH1

Arrow Oliver, John, Laurel and Tatsu (Stephen Amell, David Ramsey, Katie Cassidy and Rila Fukushima) hunt for an important person within The Monitor’s plan. 9 p.m. CW

Mixed-ish As her first school dance approaches, Bow (Arica Himmel) senses she needs to consider the social impact she might have due to the date she chooses to accompany her in this new episode of the spinoff comedy. 9 p.m. ABC

Fixer to Fabulous Dave and Jenny Marrs renovate historic houses in their hometown of Bentonville, Ark., in this new home makeover series. In the premiere they’re approached by new clients who have fallen in love with New Orleans-style architecture. 9 p.m. HGTV

The Purge The city cleans up after the previous night’s Purge, but Ryan, Marcus, Esme and Ben (Max Martini, Derek Luke, Paola Nuñez and Joel Allen) can’t shake its effects in this new episode of the dystopian drama. 9 p.m. USA

black-ish Bow (Tracee Ellis Ross) is thrilled when Dre (Anthony Anderson) is invited to join an elite social club for well-to-do black patrons and looks forward to mingling, but Dre has misgivings. Also, Junior (Marcus Scribner) helps Pops (Laurence Fishburne) decide on a wedding date. 9:30 p.m. ABC

Frontline Producer Michael Kirk devotes the hour to exploring how President Trump turned the immigration issue in the United States into a political cudgel he could use to fuel division and occasionally violence among right-wing extremists in the new documentary “Zero Tolerance.” 10 p.m. KOCE and KPBS

In a Man’s World The finale of the first season of this documentary series, which gives women a chance to experience how differently their male counterparts often are treated, is devoted to an immigrant whose parents sacrificed much so she could have a better life. 10 p.m. Bravo

SPECIALS

Animated Halloween fare Linus stakes out a spot in the pumpkin patch, hoping to catch a glimpse of the Great Pumpkin in the classic “It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.” Then Woody, Buzz and the gang stop at a motel, and one of them goes missing in “Toy Story of Terror!” 8 and 8:30 p.m. ABC

The Douglas Dynasty: Fame, Addiction, Finding Home Diane Sawyer talks to author Cameron Douglas (son of Michael Douglas and grandson of Kirk Douglas) about growing up in a Hollywood dynasty, his addiction, rehabs, crime and drug dealing, and his seven years in federal prison. 10 p.m. ABC

TALK SHOWS

CBS This Morning Author Bret Baier; singer-songwriter Alanis Morissette; acting DEA administrator Uttam Dhillon. (N) 7 a.m. KCBS

Today Carly Simon; Ree Drummond; Chris Janson performs. (N) 7 a.m. KNBC

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

Good Morning America Mark Hyman; Susan Goldberg; Kate Beckinsale; Jenna Dewan; Sunny Hostin; “Dancing With the Stars.” (N) 7 a.m. KABC

Good Day L.A. (N) 7 a.m. KTTV

Live With Kelly and Ryan Kate Beckinsale (“Farming”); Anna Camp. (N) 9 a.m. KABC

The View Author Newt Gingrich; Edward Norton. (N) 10 a.m. KABC

Rachael Ray Sunny Hostin (“Truth About Murder”); Peter Walsh. (N) 10 a.m. KTTV

The Wendy Williams Show Kron Moore and Ed Quinn (“The Oval”). (N) 11 a.m. KTTV

The Talk Taye Diggs; Elisha Cuthbert. (N) 1 p.m. KCBS

The Dr. Oz Show Videos of people committing shocking and violent acts against their neighbors; identity theft. (N) 1 p.m. KTTV

The Kelly Clarkson Show Mario López; J.B. Smoove; chef Aarón Sánchez. (N) 2 p.m. KNBC

Dr. Phil A woman says her sister is a manipulator who steals, faked cancer and may have been a prostitute. (N) 3 p.m. KCBS

The Ellen DeGeneres Show Keegan-Michael Key (“Green Eggs and Ham”). (N) 3 p.m. KNBC

The Doctors Lash tinting and micro-needling; whether Ozzy Osbourne is a genetic mutant; genes and alcohol. (N) 3 p.m. KCOP

The Wendy Williams Show Kathy Griffin (“Kathy Griffin: A Hell of a Story”); Wale and Jeremih perform. 4 p.m. KCOP

Amanpour and Company (N) 1 a.m. KLCS; 11 p.m. KCET; midnight KVCR

Conan Paul Rudd. (N) 11 p.m. TBS

The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon Jessica Biel; Billy Crudup; Jay Jurden. (N) 11:34 p.m. KNBC

The Late Show With Stephen Colbert John Lithgow; Camila Mendes; Ree Drummond. (N) 11:35 p.m. KCBS

Jimmy Kimmel Live! Benedict Cumberbatch; Kelly Ripa; David Byrne performs. (N) 11:35 p.m. KABC

The Late Late Show With James Corden Joel Edgerton; Harry Connick Jr.; Noah Cyrus performs. (N) 12:37 a.m. KCBS

Late Night With Seth Meyers James Spader; Tim Meadows; Alison Roman; Terence Higgins performs. (N) 12:37 a.m. KNBC

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

A Little Late With Lilly Singh Rosario Dawson; Zoey Deutch. (N) 1:38 a.m. KNBC

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SPORTS

2019 World Series Game 1: The Washington Nationals visit the Houston Astros, 5 p.m. Fox

NHL Hockey The Kings visit the Winnipeg Jets, 5 p.m. Fox Sports Net; the Anaheim Ducks visit the Nashville Predators, 5 p.m. FS Prime

NBA Basketball The New Orleans Pelicans visit the Toronto Raptors, 5 p.m. TNT; the Lakers visit the Clippers, 7:30 p.m. TNT

For more sports on TV, see the Sports section.

“Give me,” Pablo Neruda beseeched the gods of metaphor in a 1961 poem, “the secret wine kept in each syllable” — the help to conjure images of our oceans receding into myth.

Thirty-five years later, Argentine-born American composer Osvaldo Golijov turned “Oceana” into a wine-drunk cantata. On Sunday night, the Los Angeles Master Chorale, conducted by Grant Gershon and featuring incomparable Brazilian jazz singer Luciana Souza, gave “Oceana” an intoxicating performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall.

This is a startlingly prophetic work. In his text, Neruda bequeathed a timely monument where “crashing waves have disappeared, seas that passed away with chant and travelers.” Painfully, he also might have been describing Golijov’s career, which has mimicked the “coming and going of surfs, of races of honey fallen into the marine jug upon the reefs.”

“Oceana” was a breakthrough for a 36-year-old composer: the heady use of Latin rhythms, jazz scat singing, an orchestra highlighted by a pair of amplified guitars and percussion instruments evocative of those crashing waves, along with choral writing that has elements of Palestrina and Bach. The premiere was at the Oregon Bach Festival, and it presaged Golijov’s most famous work, his “St. Mark Passion” in 2000, which made him seem the perfect voice for the start of a multicultural new century.

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It was evident that over the next two decades, Golijov’s music would be ubiquitous and that he would be at the center of our cultural life. But after his opera “Ainadamar,” the song cycle “Ayre” for Dawn Upshaw and the cello concerto “Azul” for Yo-Yo Ma, the composer entered a fallow period that has lasted a dozen years.

An overzealous journalist mistook compositional transformation for plagiarism, only adding to Golijov’s insecurities. He scored a couple of Francis Ford Coppola films that never caught on, but there have been few new works, and nothing major. He never completed a violin concerto commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic or an opera for the Met. Performances of his music have become less prominent. A prestigious recording contract dried up. His once opulent website became a digital shadow of its former self.

The good news is that it sounds like Golijov is back. At the end of the month in Worcester, Mass., the Silkroad Ensemble and soprano Nora Fischer will premiere the composer’s first big new work since 2006, “Falling Out of Time,” based on a novel by Israeli writer David Grossman. Meanwhile, a few chamber pieces have retained their advocacy, particularly “The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind,” which had a recent performance at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts in Beverly Hills. But a big-deal production like the Master Chorale’s “Oceana” was a rare and very important revival.

“Oceana” is a reinvention of the Bach cantata form for a modern age, Golijov celebrating the oceans and dramatizing their demise with the same transfixing death-and-transfiguration emotions and musical resourcefulness that Bach employed to celebrate God and render the last days of Jesus. The structure is a series of “calls” — vocal effusions and scat songs for Souza, accompanied by a Latin-tinged ensemble of guitars, harp, percussion and flutes. That’s followed by three “waves” for the chorus and orchestra that set Neruda’s stanzas.

“O-ce-an-a” is chanted back and forth by double chorus. The syncopations and intricate counterpoint create great complexity. The score looks impossibly difficult. But everything sounded natural, the ear following the rhythmic waves just as the eye follows the ocean’s at the beach.

A remarkable aria for scat singing calls for a boy soprano to intone the text. Kristin Haegelin, 17, described as a “girl soprano,” produced a clean, boy-like tone with the chops of an accomplished singer. The cantata ended with an a cappella chorus, “Chorale of the Reef,” that had the character of a Bach motet. The chorus was ethereal in its quiet patterning, meant to deify Neruda’s “Spondylus” (better known as spiny oysters) as “heroes crowned with thorns.” Music, water and all that lived within faded into shimmering, precious ether.

The Master Chorale did not ostensibly make the concert, which opened its season, about “Oceana.” It titled the program “Bruckner’s Great Mass.” Bruckner wrote his Mass No. 3 in F Minor when he was 44, eight years older than Golijov was when he composed “Oceana.” But the Austrian composer was a slow starter and still finding his voice. He had just begun to write symphonies, which would be his crowning glory.

The Mass lasts an hour. It has its adherents and it has its merits, particularly the big moments in the Credo, where there are hints of the great symphonist to come. But much of the Mass is formulaic text setting by a religiously devoted composer whose great strength was producing symphonic cathedrals of sound and convoluted melodies that work their way into your consciousness like a drug.

Gershon pulled out all the stops, and this was most effective in Bruckner’s ecstatic revelation of Resurrection. But Sunday’s real resurrection was of “Oceana” and its choral benedictions on our dying coral reefs.

There’s a rule of thumb when it comes to buying travel insurance: “Buy the least expensive policy that fits your needs,” says Jenna Hummer of online retailer Squaremouth. It’s not like wine, where the higher the price, the better the bottle.

How do you know if you are paying too much?

Experts say travelers should consider cost and coverage when choosing a plan. That means make sure you are covered for costs you would expect to be reimbursed for if things go wrong (such as airfares, cruises, tours, hotels, etc.), and not choosing coverage you may not need (such as cancel-for-any-reason insurance, which sounds so comforting but can be so pricey).

How much does a standard travel insurance policy cost?

Generally, expect to pay 5% to 10% of your prepaid, nonrefundable travel costs for a standard plan that will refund 100% of your money. You can also insure individual parts of your trip, say, just airfare and hotels or buy only medical insurance.

Squaremouth customers this year paid an average $249 for policies.

And don’t expect to find a deal on travel insurance. “Travel insurance is highly regulated, and it is illegal to offer a discount on policies,” Squaremouth’s website says.

What costs are reimbursed if something happens?

With a standard plan, you are covered 100% for trip cancellation or interruption; medical expenses and evacuations (essential for overseas travelers whose stateside plans, such as Medicare, don’t cover them abroad); lost or delayed luggage; and canceled or delayed flights.

You need to read the fine print to make sure you understand when and how coverage kicks in. For example, trip cancellation reimburses the full trip cost if you, or your companions or family members, become ill or injured and in case someone dies. But you won’t get reimbursed if you decide you don’t want to go (that’s the cancel-for-any-reason upgrade) or if your reason isn’t covered in the plan.

Also medical evacuation, for example, kicks in when you become seriously ill or injured (and covers transporting remains too), not just because you’re feeling anxious about severe weather or civil unrest at your vacation destination.

Payouts for lost or damaged luggage usually are capped at $250 to $500 per bag. (If you are bringing more expensive items, add them to your homeowners insurance.) You can add family members, or groups of 10 or more, to one policy too.

One tip: If things go wrong, save police reports, luggage receipts, receipts for meals and hotel stays, etc. You will need to present the paperwork to your insurer to make a claim.

When should you buy?

Let’s get the silliness out of the way. You can’t buy travel insurance if you’re standing in the middle of a 140-mph hurricane on vacation. If a hurricane strikes your destination, you would be reimbursed if you had been insured beforehand and if the hurricane had been named by the World Meteorological Organization.

“[Coverage] has to represent the amount of money you would lose if you prepaid for the trip, to make you economically whole,” says Stan Sandberg, cofounder of TravelInsurance.com.

The earlier you buy, the earlier you are covered, particularly if things go wrong long before you leave for your trip.

Travelers may upgrade their policy for more flexibility. And though cancel-for-any-reason coverage sounds great, you’ll pay about 40% to 50% more in premiums and receive at most 75% of your costs if you cancel.

Also, for this type of coverage, you usually have to buy a policy within 21 days of putting down money on your trip and have to cancel at least 48 hours ahead of time.

Should you ever buy policies offered when you’re buying a cruise or airline ticket?

It depends on what the airline or cruise company plan says, but it’s usually presented as a choice that’s “very binary, take it or leave it,” Sandberg says. “You buy now, and that’s all you get.”

And it could leave you underinsured, if the policy offered on an airline’s site covers only the cost of airfare and nothing else. Ditto for cruise lines.

Experts say travelers usually can do better by shopping around and comparing policies by what’s covered and what they cost. After that, look for insurers that receive an A.M. Best credit rating, which means the company has been financially vetted, Hummer says.

You may want to start your comparative search at a travel aggregator website, such as Squaremouth.com, InsureMyTrip.com and TravelInsurance.com. These sites provide lots of information and FAQs about how to choose, explain what coverage terms mean, and, if you wind up buying through their site, can help mediate if you have a problem collecting from an insurer.

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The Los Angeles Zoo welcomed a newborn Masai giraffe, a subspecies native to Kenya and Tanzania that was recently deemed to be one of the most endangered animals in the wild. The new calf is on display now at the zoo with the herd of four females and one male.

The unnamed baby giraffe born Oct. 5 weighed 138 pounds and stood 6½ feet tall, according to an L.A. Zoo news release. Giraffa camelopardalis subspecies tippelskirchii can grow up to 17 feet tall, weigh up to 2,700 pounds and have what are called “irregular” shaped patches all over their bodies.

The calf is the fifth born to her mother, named Hasina, and seventh from her father, Phillip. All giraffes at the zoo belong to the Masai subspecies, and are part of a special breeding program that aims to maintain genetic diversity.

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“The giraffe calf won’t be returned to the wild, but that doesn’t mean she will live her whole life here at the L.A. Zoo,” spokeswoman April Spurlock wrote in an email. “She will probably be here for the next two to three years, and then she could go to another [American Zoo Assn.]-accredited zoo if there is a breeding recommendation from the Species Survival Plan program.”

There are about 500 such zoo-based conservation programs under way for different species.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature in July put the subspecies on its endangered Red List after populations in the giraffes’ native habitat dwindled by 50% in the past three decades, largely because of poaching and habitat loss. About 35,000 Masai giraffes still exist in the wild.

Terry Ann McIntosh’s financial nightmare began four years ago, soon after she hired a caregiver through a family services website.

McIntosh, then 75 and in a wheelchair, had assumed that the young woman who eventually showed up at her San Mateo, Calif., home wouldn’t steal from her. She was wrong. In October 2015, Meletofetofe Uhila began logging into McIntosh’s Bank of America account, using the older woman’s credentials. The first time, Uhila attempted to transfer $10,000 into her own account. The bank blocked it, requesting that McIntosh call in to verify her identity. Uhila called instead, pretending to be McIntosh.

Though Uhila failed the bank’s security questions, and McIntosh had never made a similar transfer in all the years she held the account, the bank allowed it to go through. Unaware, McIntosh continued to visit her branch every week, as she had done for the past 15 years. No bank employee ever mentioned the transaction.

Over the next nine months, Uhila made 44 additional transfers, ultimately stealing about $245,000 from McIntosh. Though Uhila was eventually caught and convicted, she had only $8,000 left to return to McIntosh. So McIntosh asked Bank of America for her money back. Despite all the seemingly bright red flags raised by Uhila’s conduct, the bank said no.

Tales such as McIntosh’s — of being hoodwinked by a criminal only to face an uphill battle to be made whole — are on the rise, consumer and legal experts warn. Already targeted by phone scammers and greedy relatives, elderly Americans face another threat. Increasingly, it’s the professionals — the lawyers, insurers and financial advisors that the elderly trust — who are the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

In 2017, financial institutions filed 63,500 suspicious activity reports tied to the exploitation of older adults, quadruple the amount reported four years earlier, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, for a total of $1.7 billion in attempted thefts and losses. That estimate, however, is a tiny fraction of the real total. The reports “may account for less than 2%” of actual incidents, the CFPB says. Estimates of total losses ranged as high as $36.5 billion, according to one financial services firm.

One in 5 older Americans is a victim of financial exploitation, said Jilenne Gunther, who heads the BankSafe initiative at the AARP’s Public Policy Institute, costing U.S. financial institutions $1 billion in deposits annually. The vast majority of such attempts to separate the elderly from their money, both legal and illegal, go unreported.

Shawna Reeves, director of elder abuse prevention at the Institute on Aging in San Francisco, says few understand that such activity can involve professional firms and companies, including banks, financial advisors, insurers and law firms.

“This is big business, perpetrated by actors people think are legitimate,” Reeves said. According to social workers, prosecutors and other officials across the country, common stratagems involve attempts to sell the elderly ill-advised annuities and reverse mortgages, as well as solar panel installations and access to veterans’ benefits.

At the Iowa attorney general’s consumer protection division, complaints about professionals manipulating elderly clients pour in “nonstop,” said Chantelle Smith, an assistant attorney general in Des Moines. They involve “any type of business you can imagine.”

When InvestmentNews surveyed 591 financial advisors about elder fraud in 2017, it found that 62% said they have seen or suspected financial abuse of an older client at least once. Some 39% of them said the perpetrator was another financial professional — but more than half admitted they didn’t bother to report it.

It’s not just financial professionals doing the fleecing. Doug Chalgian, an attorney with the Michigan-based elder law firm Chalgian & Tripp, said some lawyers build a business model helping adult children take control of their parents’ assets. Others encourage older clients to make financial decisions that aren’t in their best interest.

“There’s a sleazy underbelly to elder law,” Chalgian said.

The consequences of such unethical behavior aren’t just financial. Elderly people who fall victim to financial wrongdoing are more likely to die prematurely, research shows. Losing one’s life savings, worrying about maintaining control over assets that remain or simply being embarrassed at having been taken advantage of all play a part, Smith said.

“Where do you go after you’ve been exploited by a professional you thought you could trust, and you are now at perhaps your most vulnerable state? Another ‘trusted’ professional?” Smith asked. “They die. It kills them.”

The night before Barbara Williams died in August 2015, she and her husband Tom decided to leave the bulk of their assets to a nonprofit serving the homeless near their Oroville, Calif., home.

Tom Williams had relied on his wife, a former bookkeeper, to handle their finances. Williams, then 78, called American Family Legal Services, the firm he thought had helped them with estate planning in the past, to update their trust.

Not long after, Victor Pantaleoni arrived at his home. An independent insurance agent, Pantaleoni quickly went about selling Williams on purchasing an annuity — one that, unlike the updated trust Williams sought, would earn Pantaleoni a $9,500 commission, according to a lawsuit Williams later filed in the Superior Court of California in Butte County.

The agent had Williams sign a blank check and blank documents, ostensibly needed to modify the trust, Williams said. Instead, Pantaleoni used them to move $100,000 of Williams’ money into a National Western Life Insurance Co. annuity, according to court filings.

Williams, who intended to use those savings for healthcare expenses and emergencies, was left with only about $14,000 in his account. When he tried to cancel the annuity and get his money back, National Western didn’t respond. The company instead told Pantaleoni he had five days to “conserve” the annuity or he would lose his commission, according to court filings.

Williams alleged that, as a result, Pantaleoni tricked him into signing a second annuity application. National Western subsequently reissued the annuity. Williams tried a second time to get his money back. He called and wrote National Western, complaining about Pantaleoni.

But instead of investigating, National Western slapped Williams with a surrender penalty of almost $15,000 and allowed Pantaleoni to hold onto his original commission, keeping him as an agent, according to the lawsuit. Though the insurer refunded the rest of his money, Williams had spent thousands of dollars on legal fees and other expenses related to his dealings with Pantaleoni.

He sued both Pantaleoni and National Western in late 2017 for elder financial abuse, negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.

In April, a jury found National Western and Pantaleoni liable of elder financial abuse and negligence, and found Pantaleoni liable for fraud. It awarded Williams $3.1 million, declaring the insurer primarily responsible. The company appealed in September. Pantaleoni did not.

“Pantaleoni couldn’t have done what he did without the complicity of a company willing to turn a blind eye,” said Williams’ attorney Frank Fox.

This wasn’t the first time Pantaleoni was accused of improper behavior when working with seniors. In 2015, the California Department of Insurance filed a formal accusation against him, detailing his violation of insurance statutes in his dealings with a 74-year-old widow. The agency fined Pantaleoni and restricted his insurance license.

“I never did elder financial abuse and I never would,” said Pantaleoni, 62. However, in the case of Williams, he admitted he was negligent, in part because he didn’t have errors and omissions insurance, a type of liability policy, at the time. But he nevertheless disputed most of the other allegations in the lawsuit. “I did what the client wanted,” he said.

As for National Western, in 2010 the insurer settled a class action claiming it had misled seniors about penalties for withdrawing money from their annuities. National Western’s settlement included an accord with the California insurance commissioner requiring the company to make reforms in its sales, marketing and complaint procedures. The insurer denied any wrongdoing.

National Western, which uses thousands of independent agents to sell its insurance, had just two employees in its compliance department responsible for handling complaints at the time Williams tried to return the annuity, according to court documents. “Our independent agents are careful to ensure policyholders thoroughly understand the agreements they enter into when they purchase our annuity or life insurance products,” National Western’s chief legal officer, Rey Perez, said in an emailed statement.

When it comes to luring the elderly into a trap, some strategies are more aggressive than others. Earlier this year, a federal law enforcement officer outside Washington started to get glossy flyers at his home, inviting him to a free meal and a “retirement strategies workshop” at a local restaurant. “Expect to have a little fun and obtain some meaningful information with none of the usual financial double-talk,” one read.

By chance, the officer, who requested anonymity because he isn’t authorized to speak publicly, noticed that the retirement planner’s address matched that of an attorney he suspected was targeting the elderly. So on a sticky night in July, he dropped by the dinner.

At an Italian restaurant in Virginia, more than a dozen elderly couples picked at their salads as the presenter asked them to fill out forms describing their assets and then complete worksheets while he extolled the virtues of annuities. “We can get you two to three times as much as a bank and keep you just as safe,” he said.

To the officer, the workshop shared the same traits as so-called trust mills, a term he used to describe schemes in which unscrupulous individuals try to sell seniors questionable investments under the guise of estate or retirement planning. He echoed a warning on the Minnesota attorney general’s website about such con artists: “Once he obtains your financial information, he will usually try to get you to buy an annuity or other insurance product. He may have several meetings with you before he reveals his true intentions: to sell you insurance.”

Kathryn Stebner, the lawyer for Terry Ann McIntosh, is a national expert on elder law. Given how her client’s account was methodically emptied, she said she can’t fathom how the bank missed what happened. “I don’t know how much plainer it could be,” she said.

After discovering what happened, McIntosh became deeply distressed, and not just for her own circumstances; she also needed her savings to support her disabled adult daughter. Last year, she sued Bank of America. As the trial approached this fall, the bank settled. Bank of America spokesman Andy Aldridge said the institution is “working with Ms. McIntosh to help her recover from the criminal actions of her caregiver.”

Financial institutions may have gotten the hint when it comes to making it harder to scam the elderly. According to Marti DeLiema, an assistant professor of research at the School of Social Work at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, more banks are investing in detection software and training. Executives, she said, “have really strong incentives, because the problem is only going to get worse.”

DeLiema, a consultant for major banks and broker-dealers, said financial institutions “need better communication across lines of business. For example, the brokerage side needs to talk to the banking side if they suspect a customer is at risk.”

She added that banks also could benefit from a rule similar to what the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority put in place last year, allowing broker-dealers to pause a disbursement and investigate without worrying about clients suing them.

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DeLiema said banks also lack the trusted contact form that broker-dealers are supposed to have clients fill out. “Banks need to do that,” she said. “Banks need another tool in their toolbox to protect us from ourselves.”

Smith, the Iowa assistant attorney general, started pursuing financial advisors, securities brokers and insurance agents for exploiting older people about two decades ago. She said that elder financial abuse is more than a legal issue. It’s societal.

Financial predators aren’t being prosecuted “in any significant number, relative to how many cases there are,” she said. And when it comes to lawsuits, “most of them don’t go to court.” Meanwhile, perpetrators seek out and spend time with older people who are isolated and lonely. They know many of their targets won’t report what’s happening for fear of embarrassment or of having their children take control of their finances.

“They target, they stalk,” Smith said. “I tell all the older people I talk to: ‘You have a bull’s-eye on your back.’”

Ford Motor Co.’s Jim Hackett and Wall Street analysts started this year frustrated with one another. Sure, the automaker had been underperforming, but the chief executive appealed for time to show he was fixing things. He assured them the redesigned Explorer SUV that would be rolling out months later would be a proof point.

But rather than help the earnings results Ford delivers this week, the Explorer will be a hindrance. Sales have plunged as a factory plagued by personnel problems has struggled to get the new sport utility vehicle out the door. Thousands have been shipped 270 miles away to another Ford plant for rework.

The botched Explorer launch puts Hackett back in the position he was early this year — testing the patience of investors. A downbeat assessment of how long it will take to turn the automaker around already cost the company an investment-grade credit rating. By pointing to the SUV as one of the first products he influenced, the CEO staked his reputation on it.

“From a design, styling and content standpoint, it hit the marks,” Jeff Schuster, a forecasting analyst for LMC Automotive, said of the Explorer. “But if you can’t get out of the gate, that certainly is going to put some question marks not only on his credibility, but from a consumer standpoint, on the vehicle itself.”

The transformation of Ford’s Chicago assembly plant was one of the most complex in the company’s history, a spokeswoman said. The company is shipping the new Explorer — the all-time best-selling SUV nameplate in the U.S. — to dealers now and performing additional quality inspections as needed, she said.

Ford is expected to report Wednesday that third-quarter profit slipped to 26 cents a share, according to analysts’ estimates compiled by Bloomberg, down from 29 cents a year ago. Automotive revenue is expected to slip to $34.3 billion, from $34.7 billion.

“This Explorer issue is going to be a big negative for the quarter,” said David Whiston, an analyst for Morningstar who rates Ford the equivalent of a buy. “It’s a viciously competitive market and you don’t want to be missing one of your big hitters.”

Ford shares have fallen 15% since Hackett, 64, took over in May 2017. The stock slumped 37% during the tenure of his predecessor, Mark Fields.

When Ford reported early this month that Explorer deliveries collapsed by almost half during the quarter, Mark LaNeve, the automaker’s U.S. sales chief, said dealers had adequate inventory to sell.

“Availability has improved dramatically over the last 30 to 45 days,” he said in an interview. “We’ll be able to hit our stride with Explorer starting now.”

Supply in showrooms may indeed be building up, but a batch of about 2,500 Explorers in need of repairs arrived recently at the company’s factory in Flat Rock, Mich., which for weeks has been fixing and finishing vehicles shipped from the Chicago plant where the SUV is built, according to people familiar with the matter.

LaNeve told analysts Oct. 2 that the Chicago plant had started shipping Explorers directly to dealers. But most of those models also have required repairs before they can be sold, said the people, who asked not to be identified describing internal issues the company is having.

And not all problems with Chicago-built SUVs are being fixed before they reach customers’ driveways. Consumer Reports had problems with the Lincoln Aviator — a mechanically similar model built alongside the Explorer — that the magazine’s testers purchased last month for $63,400. The digital gauges that display speed, fuel consumption and other important information shake and flip, making them difficult to read.

“Ford does tend to struggle with the new introductions, especially if they’re a larger departure from the previous design,” said Jake Fisher, the magazine’s director of auto testing. “It could take a few years to get the bugs worked out.”

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Ford is not experiencing similar setbacks as it begins building a redesigned version of its Escape compact SUV at its factory in Louisville, Ky. LaNeve told analysts the Escape “is a much more normal launch.”

Days after the January debut of the new Explorer — which hadn’t been redesigned in almost a decade — Hackett described Ford’s product development as “constipated,” and said his executive team was fixing what ailed the company.

“The new Explorer and Ranger, which our administration kind of intercepted in process, are good examples of where we started to have influence,” said Hackett, who played football for Bo Schembechler in the 1970s at the University of Michigan.

What the CEO wasn’t counting on was for a problematic plant to cause trouble again. The Chicago factory, fined twice in the last two decades by federal workplace-harassment regulators, is riven with dissension that’s hampering productivity and quality, according to people familiar with the situation.

Roving groups of workers are intimidating other employees, creating a hostile environment, the people said. That’s driving up turnover and leaving some vehicle assembly unfinished, contributing to the company having to complete the work at the Michigan factory or at dealerships, the people said.

Ford is unaware of any recent issues in which employees are intimidating one another, the spokeswoman said. The automaker is waiting its turn to negotiate a new labor contract with the United Auto Workers union, which has been on strike against General Motors Co. since mid-September.

Ford spent a combined $1 billion upgrading its 95-year-old assembly plant and 63-year-old stamping factory in Chicago, outfitting them with advanced manufacturing technology to produce the Explorer, Aviator and Police Interceptor Utility.

Those investments included $40 million to upgrade lighting and add security at the plants, where some employees have experienced sexual and racial harassment. In August 2017, the company agreed to pay as much as $10.1 million to settle claims following an investigation by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Ford faced similar charges at the Chicago factories in 1999 that led to a $17.5-million settlement.

When Hackett’s executive team discusses quarterly results with analysts this week, they’re likely to have to address how much further the plant has to go to overcome its troubled past.

“You can’t afford to have these kinds of issues in this market environment. It shouldn’t have become the problem that it is,” LMC’s Schuster said. “They have some explaining to do.”

When the economist Uwe Reinhardt died unexpectedly in November 2017, his colleagues and followers lamented the silencing of one of the most penetrating, objective and effective voices in the healthcare debate.

They didn’t know the half of it. With the posthumous publication this month of his final work, a book entitled “Priced Out: The Economic and Ethical Costs of American Health Care,” Reinhardt’s reputation for cutting to the quick of the issues in U.S. healthcare reform is only enhanced. The book should be required reading for anyone who professes to have an interest in the debate — economists, journalists, legislators, doctors and patients.

Reinhardt, who spent his academic career on the Princeton faculty, may be best known for his seminal article on the reason for America’s outlandish spending on healthcare compared to every other developed country. Published in the journal Health Affairs in 2003, it was headlined, “It’s the Prices, Stupid.”

The late economist Uwe Reinhardt

In the article, Reinhardt and his co-authors explained that although Americans had fewer hospital admissions per capita and shorter stays per admission than residents of other countries, they paid more per admission and per day. The U.S. also paid the highest prices, by far, for drugs.

The culprit was the private insurance sector, which played a much larger role in America than in other countries; the public sector, represented here mostly by Medicare and Medicaid, was roughly as cost-effective as public health programs elsewhere. (An updated version published this year by Reinhardt’s co-authors —“It’s Still the Prices, Stupid” — came to the same conclusion.)

Yet “Priced Out” raises an even more important point — that a chief obstacle to enacting sensible healthcare reform in the U.S. is our refusal to state the political issue squarely. As Reinhardt writes, it’s this: “To what extent should the better-off members of society be their poorer and sick brothers’ and sisters’ keepers in health care?”

To Reinhardt, this question is “the elephant in the room no one likes to mention.” Although it’s the fundamental ethical question underlying the healthcare debate, “we have never been able to reach a politically dominant consensus on the distributive social ethic that should guide our health system, because we dare not confront that question at all.”

Every other developed country has long since pondered this fundamental question and concluded that healthcare is a social good that should be “available to all on roughly equal terms,” Reinhardt writes, though the method of delivery varies from country to country.

Instead, we’re distracted into addressing the question in what Reinhardt calls “camouflaged form”— whether to “repeal and replace Obamacare,” for example or whether to allow premiums for seniors to be five times higher than for young adults, or three times higher.

My own favorite among these largely diversionary arguments is the one about whether the tax increase Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren would institute to pay for Medicare for All will hit the middle class or not. Here’s a pro tip: The American healthcare system imposes an enormous tax burden on the middle class today; getting to a system that provides universal healthcare is the point.

As Reinhardt documents, the American system as it exists essentially rations healthcare by income class. This isn’t always easily discernible because the system is “exceedingly complex and almost beyond human comprehension.”

Its fragmentation into untold private and public payers and public and profit-seeking providers makes it impossible even to determine what a specific procedure costs. Reinhardt shows this by referencing a study by the Health Care Pricing Project that found the average hospital list price for a hip replacement — one of several procedures tracked by the study — at $51,458, the average insurance-negotiated price at $24,565, and the price paid by Medicare at $13,419.

Variations like this make a mockery of the conservative mantra that the key to lowering healthcare spending is to give patients more “skin in the game” via higher deductibles and co-pays. The idea that this will prompt patients to shop around for the best deals “has been a cruel hoax,” Reinhardt writes. In truth, they enter the healthcare market “like blindfolded shoppers pushed into a department store … to shop around smartly.”

This “consumer-driven healthcare” idea is just another diversion to keep Americans from seeing the fundamental issues of the system clearly.

The cost of specific procedures may be opaque to the average patient, but there is no question that on average, Americans are vastly overpaying for their services. No country approaches the more than 18% of gross domestic product the U.S. spends on healthcare. Switzerland, which may come closest, spent only 12.3% in 2017. But Americans actually spend less time with physicians and have fewer and shorter stays in the hospital than Europeans; they just spend more per visit.

Reinhardt attributes much of the difference to the insane administrative complexity of the American system, especially in the private sector. The costs are manifest. U.S. physician practices spent an average of more than $80,000 per doctor interacting with health insurers, according to a 2011 study. That was four times the cost incurred by practices in Canada, which has a single-payer system. As Reinhardt reports, the Duke University hospital system, which had 957 beds in 2017, employed 1,600 billing clerks.

That suggests that the vaunted joint venture by Warren Buffett, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon looking for a magic bullet to solve the healthcare conundrum with a technocratic fix may be barking up the wrong tree.

The Affordable Care Act reduced the segmentation of American healthcare by income class by eliminating it from the individual insurance market, as it had been eliminated from the senior healthcare market by Medicare. But the political compromises embedded in the law to get it passed made it only a partial victory.

Through federal subsidies, the ACA protects most of its enrollees, those earning less than 400% of the federal poverty line ($103,000 for a family of four this year), from the impact of rising premiums. But individual buyers earning more than that threshold are fully exposed to rising premiums.

Republicans and other Obamacare critics “have successfully made the plight of this group” — about 10% of the Obamacare exchange customer base — “the focus of their criticism,” Reinhardt observes. “It is why they, and President Trump, argue that Obamacare is imploding.” But that’s simply untrue of the larger market segment receiving subsidies. “That market is not imploding.”

Reinhardt is withering about Republican ventures to erode the Affordable Care Act. The replacement bill passed by the GOP-controlled House under then-Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) in 2017 plainly “favored the rationing of health care … by income class.”

Although the elimination of the penalty for breaching the ACA’s individual insurance mandate was enacted by the GOP and signed by Trump after Reinhardt’s death, this book makes clear that his opinion would have been equally dismissive, for he argues that one Obamacare “fix” that would have been technically simple albeit “politically difficult” would have been to increase the penalty to ensure that more young and healthier Americans had an incentive to sign up for coverage.

In 2012, Reinhardt proposed a reform to the ACA that, mischievously enough, purported to give conservative critics of the law just what they said they wanted — the “freedom” to choose whether to join the Obamacare pool or scorn it. Aware that the ACA gave the critics an escape valve that allowed them to join the pool if they got sick (though they might have to wait as long as a year until the annual open enrollment window), the catch was that their decision to refuse it would be in effect for the rest of their lives.

Every American would have to decide by the age of 26 whether to accept the ACA’s community-rated premiums — that is, premiums set without regard to their health condition — or “take a chance on being uninsured” or entering a market with premiums based on their illness. If they chose to be rugged individualists, they could never change their minds.

If they did fall ill or get injured, Medicaid would cover them (“rugged individualists live in a society that does not like to see people dying in the street,” he observed) but any expenses they incurred would give the government a claim on their lifelong income and assets until the bill was paid off.

“Libertarians should like this arrangement,” Reinhardt smirked, figuratively. His insight was profound: The prospect of actually being at risk for all your uninsured medical expenses was likely to concentrate their minds and remind them that, when it comes to health coverage, we all really are in the same pool.

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SoftBank Group Corp. is taking control of WeWork, part of a rescue financing plan that will see founder Adam Neumann depart from the company’s board, according to people familiar with the matter.

Neumann is expected to sell about $1 billion of stock to the Japanese investment firm as part of the deal, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because the deal hasn’t been announced. He can also assign two board seats and will get a roughly $185-million consulting fee.

WeWork had been considering two separate rescue packages from SoftBank and JPMorgan Chase & Co. to keep it from running out of money as soon as next month.

JPMorgan had been putting together a $5-billion debt package for WeWork, which would have been one of the riskiest junk-debt offerings in recent years.

SoftBank, WeWork and JPMorgan either declined to comment or couldn’t immediately be reached. Dow Jones earlier reported details of the deal.

The bailout underscores the rapid unraveling of the startup. Just this summer, WeWork appeared to be headed toward a rich initial public offering. But public investors spurned the company, which lost $900 million in the first half of this year. As its estimated valuation cratered, WeWork last month ousted Neumann as chief executive officer and, eventually, pulled its IPO paperwork.

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Standing poolside at the home of Zoë and Olivier de Givenchy in Beverly Hills, Walt Disney Co. Chairman and Chief Executive Bob Iger addressed an intimate gathering of Angelenos on Friday about the new Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, slated to open in 2020.

“When you think about the world today, when you think about the pessimism, the cynicism and the uncertainty … the entertainment business has never been as important as it is today,” said Iger, chair of the Campaign for the Academy Museum, speaking of “the ability to give people a chance to escape, to enlighten them, to make them happy.”

He then added, “There is no better time, not only for the business, but to celebrate the business, which is one of the reasons the museum is being built.”

The event

On the occasion of Renzo Piano’s visit to Los Angeles, Iger invited a select group of Academy Museum enthusiasts to the cocktail party with the Pritzker Prize-winning architect of the 300,000-square-foot showcase for the past, present and future of film.

The scene

Just inside the living room, director and producer Ava DuVernay caught up with the museum’s newly appointed director, Bill Kramer. “I’m wildly excited about the museum,” the Oscar-nominated director stopped to tell us. “I’m excited about there being a permanent home for cinematic expression that is inclusive of all kinds and all cultures of people.”

Outside on the patio, four-time Oscar nominee Willem Dafoe, along with his wife, filmmaker Giada Colagrande, listened to the project update. Acknowledging his interest, he said, “I’ve been following the museum’s progress.”

“We’re finally going to have a place in Los Angeles, in the place where movies are made, where people can actually touch Dorothy’s shoes [from ‘The Wizard of Oz’] and see something from ‘Star Wars,’” said Oscar-nominated screenwriter Nia Vardalos. She then joked that if asked, she’d gladly contribute something from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” the original or the sequel, “because I steal something from every movie I write.”

The program

In introducing Iger to guests, Olivier de Givenchy said after moving to Los Angeles five years ago, he was surprised to hear there was no museum of motion pictures. “If you come to Los Angeles from anywhere in the world, you want to see something about this industry that has shaped and continues to shape how we see the world,” he said.

Addressing the group, Iger then said the museum has now raised more than 80% of the $388-million goal, “which is no easy task, but we’re getting there.” He called the former Wilshire Boulevard May Co. space, rechristened the Saban Building, “a work of art.” Of the theater in the adjacent sphere, he said, “I think it is going to blow people away. It is a true work of architecture art, and it will become, I believe, a landmark in the years to come.”

The crowd

The 50 by-invitation guests included Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences President David Rubin and the academy’s Chief Executive Dawn Hudson; museum trustees Dominic Ng and Jim Gianopulos; California Film Commission Executive Director Colleen Bell; and filmmakers Bob Simonds, Joshua Grode, Jeremy Zag, Yariv Milchan, Beau Flynn, Mike Medavoy and Miky Lee.

The quotes

“This is completely different from other museums,” said Piano, whose critically acclaimed portfolio includes the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Whitney Museum in New York, the Beyeler Foundation outside Basel in Switzerland, the Menil Collection in Houston and more. “Cinema is changing all the time. Cinema is a young art — so young, it’s only 100 years old. So, we don’t know what can happen in the next 100 years. This is more than a museum. It’s a laboratory.”

Said Rubin, “If the Oscars broadcast represents our one forward-facing, outward-facing time to focus on films, the museum will take care of the other 364 days.”

Iger dismissed any concerns that the museum’s completion had originally been slated for 2019.

“I’m in the business of opening things,” Iger said in a private conversation. “I find that if you delay something to make something better, and it opens and everybody loves it, no one is ever going to remember that it opened late. But if you rush something to market, and it isn’t quite ready, and it disappoints people, that will stick forever.”