Apparel giant PVH Corp and German fashion firm zLabels are the latest to join the Action, Collaboration, Transformation (ACT) initiative aimed at achieving living wages for workers in the global garment and textile industry.

Trade leaders from Japan, the US and the EU have reiterated their called for a reform of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in the hope of creating a more efficient system that allows global trade to be conducted in a fairer way. 

John Sadler and Hronis Racing have teamed up the past nine years to form a powerful trainer/owner combination in Southern California. Here are some of their top horses:

• Accelerate: Became only the third horse this year to sweep the Santa Anita Handicap, Gold Cup and Pacific Classic in the same year.
• Stellar Wind: Beat the great Beholder twice in 2016 and was named top 3-year-old filly in 2015.
• Catalina Cruiser: The 4-year-old colt has raced only four times, but he’s sitting on a huge 5-year-old campaign next year.
• Lady of Shamrock: Private purchase won the 2012 Grade I Del Mar Oaks.
• Iotapa: Claimed for $50,000, she won a pair of Grade I stakes, the Vanity and Clement L. Hirsch, and finished third in the 2014 Breeders’ Cup Distaff.
• Vagabond Shoes: Bought at auction, won the Grade II Del Mar Handicap in 2013.
• Hard Aces: A private purchase, he won the 2015 Grade I Gold Cup at Santa Anita.

Kosta Hronis vividly remembers the afternoon he and his brother, Pete, were introduced to trainer John Sadler at Santa Anita.It was a 2010 meeting that changed their lives.

The Hronis brothers, who grow grapes for a living in the Northern California town of Delano (situated between Bakersfield and Fresno), were longtime racing fans since they were kids and wanted to own a horse. Or, at least, Kosta did.

“When I told my brother we were going to buy a horse, he looked at me and said, ‘You’re crazy dude. We don’t know anything about this,’” Kosta Hronis said. “And I was like, ‘I think we can do this.’”

Step One: Find a trainer.

That part was easy. A Santa Anita usher took the Hronis brothers straight to Sadler’s box, the same man who ran one of the most successful barns in Southern California and had such heavyweights as weight-loss guru Jenny Craig and Ike and Dawn Thrash as clients.

“I was thinking, ‘He’s not going to mess around with a couple of farmers from Bakersfield who want to claim a horse. There’s just no way,’” Kosta said.

He was wrong. The three met for lunch less than a week later and struck a deal shortly thereafter.

“They said they wanted to get a race horse,” Sadler recalled. “I said, ‘OK we’ll get you a race horse, but I think the best route is to claim one.’ When you claim one you get action fairly soon and you can see how you like it. I wanted to see if they were a good fit for horse racing. We claimed a horse and it just kind of grew from there.”

Indeed.

It’s grown from their first horse, a $40,000 claim named Sleep Tight, to stakes winners the likes of Stellar Wind, Accelerate, Lady of Shamrock, Iotapa, Vagabond Shoes, Hard Aces and their newest star, Catalina Cruiser.

It’s safe to say the Hronis brothers are having the time of their lives, and Kosta says they owe it all to Sadler.

“John’s the expert, he’s the horseman,” Hronis said. “We grow grapes for a living. He’s not going to tell me how to grow grapes, and I’m not going to tell him how to race horses. We respect him. We’ve built this whole thing around John Sadler, he’s built it.

“I’ve never told him what jockey to put on a horse, never told him what race to race in, short or long, turf or dirt, or anything. We’ve left that all to him. But again, we have a great line of communication. He keeps us informed. We know what’s going on. There are no surprises. That’s been very nice for us and it’s been a great learning experience for sure. We’ve learned a lot from John.”

Sadler, in turn, says he feels blessed to have met the Hronis brothers and developed a close business relationship that has been a boon for all three. The 54-year-old Pete, kind of the silent partner, leaves it up to older brother Kosta, 59, to be the face of Hronis Racing. Meanwhile, Kosta leaves it up to Sadler to lead the entire operation.

“He kind of leaves it up to me and then I call him and tell him what we’re doing, explain why we’re doing certain things,” Sadler said. “And he gets it. He gets what we’re trying to do. It’s really pretty seamless.”

Santa Anita opens its fall meet on Friday.  Sadler and the Hronis brothers will be in action again Saturday at Santa Anita when Accelerate, who swept the Southland’s three major races for older horses this year at Santa Anita and Del Mar, runs in the $300,000 Grade I Awesome Again Stakes. They hope it will be a prelude to a start in the $6 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs on Nov. 3.

“I was a little suspect of him at 4 running a mile and a quarter, but as he’s matured this year at 5 he’s had no problems with the big distance,” Sadler said of Accelerate. “I think it’s just he’s one of those horses that was kind of a late foal, he got to the races late, and he’s just continued to improve. It’s kind of rare where you see that kind of improvement that he’s had from 4 to 5.”

Kosta Hronis is even more effusive in his praise of Accelerate, a son of Lookin At Lucky who’s won four of five races in 2018, including three Grade I events. That number will grow to five if he wins his final two races of the year. If he does, Kosta believes he’s right there with Justify in the Horse of the Year conversation.

“There’s no doubt that with Accelerate’s resume that he should definitely be considered,” he said. “He’s in the conversation for sure. I think (Justify) was a slam dunk in June, but I think as we look at it today, with (Accelerate’s) resume and his resume that is going to continue, we’re definitely in the conversation. I’m going to say we’re neck and neck right now. We’ll just see if Accelerate can finish it off.”

Then there’s Catalina Cruiser, a giant 4-year-old colt whose upside appears limitless. Sadler plans to run the son of Union Rags in the Breeders’ Cup Dirt Mile on Nov. 3 off works alone after he improved to 4-0 lifetime with a victory in the Grade II Pat O’Brien Stakes at Del Mar on Aug. 25.

“He looks like the next really nice horse,” Kosta Hronis said. “He’s just learning. He’s only run four races so he’s just going to get better.”

You can probably say the same thing about Team Sadler-Hronis. Asked if Hronis Racing, which Kosta said has about 50 horses in training, might diversify and give some of their horses to other trainers, Kosta gave a clear indication that that’s not going to happen anytime soon.

“I guess I’m going to retire when John retires. That’s the way I look at it,” he said.

Sadler, who decided a few years ago to downsize his barn and go for quality over quantity, has about 75 horses in training between Santa Anita and Los Alamitos. So a good portion of his barn is filled with horses owned by the Hronis brothers.

“At one point I had a bigger barn than I have today,” Sadler said. “Although I have a fairly large stable, I don’t have what we call one of those mega-barns like (Doug) O’Neill or (Peter) Miller or (Bob) Baffert. We’re by no means a small barn, but what we’re trying to do is have really good horses to run in really important races. That’s my focus.”

Same for Hronis Racing, which has graduated from the claiming ranks to private purchases and buying horses at the various sales around the country.

Kosta seems to get it. He knows how fortunate he and his brother are to have owned so many talented horses in nine years.

“A friend of mine who’s been in the business for about 50 years, when we got Lady of Shamrock and she was on her little streak, he told me in the paddock before a race, ‘You need to enjoy every minute of this horse’s career because they don’t come along very often. I’ve been in the business for 50 years and I’ve never had a horse like this,’” he said.

And that’s no sour grapes.

For hardcore horror enthusiasts Halloween is so much more than carving a pumpkin for the front porch and dressing up to trick-or-treat every Oct. 31. Halloween has become big business and the haunt industry is booming as most major theme parks across the country put on their own nightly scare-a-thons that last anywhere from four to seven weeks leading up to the spooky holiday.

There are hundreds of Halloween events happening all around Southern California this haunting season and plenty of die-hard horror fans are always ready for a good scare. Some have even created groups and social media accounts dedicated to this time of year and hundreds of online gorehounds devote their feeds to Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights, which kicked off on Sept. 14 and is running on select evenings through Saturday, Nov. 3.

Justyn Schwoegler, 16, of Long Beach first attended Halloween Horror Nights in 2015 and got his initial big scare in a maze based on the film “Insidious.” He was hooked and has attended the event ever year since, splurging and going multiple times with other HHN fanatics he met via Twitter, where he goes by @HHNManics.

Opening night, Schwoegler met up with Jose Calixo, 19, of Pacoima (@Mr_HHN), Scott York, 18, of Escondido (@SoCalExploring) and Mia Medina, 17, of Granada Hills (@MiaHHN13) to go through all of the mazes multiple times.  The quartet all agreed that hands down, their favorite attraction at HHN this year is the Universal Monsters featuring an original score by Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash.

“I thought that maze was absolutely breathtaking,” Schwoegler said. “I also loved ‘Poltergeist’ and ‘Trick ‘r Treat,’ but what’s so great about Universal Monsters is that even though they put a more modern take on these characters, it still feels like the old films and captures their charisma and charm. There were incredible effects and it had some of the best sets I’ve ever seen at the event. It’s just such a nostalgic treat for Horror Nights fans and that’s why I think everyone is really digging it.”

Calixo attends HHN the most out of the group. This is his 10th year and he plans to go about 15 times this season using his Frequent Fear Pass. He’s already been through each maze a handful of times and insists that he never gets bored and he’s not immune to a good scare.

“I don’t scare easily, but every once in a while they do get me,” he said with a laugh. “Universal Studios does the horror movie properties and they pretty much do it better than anyone else in Southern California when it comes to detail. They make it so you feel like you’re in the horror film, which makes it so special. My first year, I went through a ‘Halloween’ maze and it was like I was in the film with Michael Myers and I just wanted to keep coming back.”

York has been going to HHN for eight years and though he lives more than 100 miles away, he tries to go at least four times a year. Like Calixo, he also hits up the mazes multiple times. His favorite maze of all time is La Llorana, based on the popular Latin American urban legend, which debuted at the event in 2011 and returned in 2012. He loves opening night, but he likes to let the “scareactors” get into a groove and settle in for the scares a few weeks into the event.

“Opening night, scareactors are getting used to what they’re supposed to do and how they’re supposed to scare,” he said. “Most scareacters miss their cues on opening night, so they don’t match the the audio playing or when they hit their button for the strobe lights to come out, so you miss a lot of scare opportunities. But once the weeks go by and you go through again, all the scareactors are on point, they’re all making their cues and they’re giving you those good scares.”

In 2014, Medina’s mom told her she just wasn’t ready for HHN. Being stubborn and pretending to be brave, she said she hyped herself up and went in with the attitude like “Oh, I got this.” She wasn’t much of a horror fan before, but after leaving an evening of pop-out scares, she was addicted and thus began her love of everything horror-related. She too is a Frequent Fear Pass holder and will be getting her money’s worth this season. She said she enjoys the camaraderie of Horror Nights and meeting new, like-minded fans each year. She also likes playing the annual guessing game as to which horror properties HHN creative director John Murdy will include in the event.

“It’s really cool that we get to interact with each other and there’s a bunch of different Twitter accounts, but we can all talk about our love of horror and Horror Nights in general,” she said. “We do talk about what we think is coming and put together a little wish list and we try to guess the mazes based on the facades that they post online, but then we just get taken by surprise.”

Murdy and the rest of his Horror Nights crew are very active on social media and interact with the fanatics by posting little Easter egg images or by cluing the horror super sleuths on Twitter (@HorrorNights) with secret passwords they can give specific characters in the park on certain nights to get little prizes and film props as they wait in the maze queues.

“We’ve been doing that since it started in 2011 with the ‘Hostel’ maze,” Calixo said. “It’s usually like a business card or something, but this year it was pretty cool with ‘The First Purge’ because they gave us a little first aid kit.”

Collectively these hardcore fans said they’d like to see future attractions based on “Hellraiser,” “Killer Klowns from Outer Space,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” “Scream” and “The Thing.” They have all kinds of tips for first timers, including wearing comfortable shoes for all of the walking, getting there as early as possible and splurging for the early entry tickets if you can and always starting with the attractions on the back lot and working your way back to the front of the park.

They’re always on the look out for and share the Easter eggs in the mazes with nods to special moments within the films and television shows, but Schwoegler thinks he and others have noticed a pattern that gives hints to the following year’s attractions within the gauntlet sections of the mazes.

He found an “Evil Dead 2” poster in “The Purge” gauntlet in 2016, and the following year HHN featured the “Ash Vs. Evil Dead” attraction. Last year, inside The Horrors of Blumhouse maze, he noted a graffiti Frankenstein painted on a wall, and this year the iconic monster the star in the Universal Monsters maze. This year, he’s still looking for clues, but did see the words “Hate the living, love the dead” painted on a wall outside of the Universal Monsters maze which he thinks it may be a nod to the horror punk rock band the Misfits.

“That is a Misfits song and Murdy has said he’s wanted to do something with the Misfits for a really long time,” he noted. “They may say it’s all a coincidence, but it’s still pretty cool.”

Universal Studios Hollywood’s Halloween Horror Nights

When: 7 p.m. on select nights through Saturday, Nov. 3

Where: 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City

Tickets: General admission passes are $67-$97. The Universal Express tickets, which allows one-time express access to each maze, ride and show are $149-$229; The after 2 p.m. day/night ticket combo grants access to all daytime attractions plus Halloween Horror Nights for $99-$139 (and can be upgraded to a Universal Express ticket for $179-$269). Two-night Fear Passes are $109; The Frequent Fear Pass with up to 21 available visits is $169; The Ultimate Fear Pass, which includes up to 29 evenings of scares, is $350. The R.I.P. Tour exclusive behind-the-scenes experience for groups of up to 12 is $279-$399 per person. All passes are available at HalloweenHorrorNights.com.

Restaurateurs Emily and Tom Kaplan want to give the next generation the confidence to succeed.

So they’ve cooked up a culinary education program.

Over the summer, the Sherman Oaks couple, who co-own three Hugo’s restaurants and two taco stands, celebrated the opening of a training kitchen in what had been a classroom at El Nido FamilySource[cq comment=”CQ FamilySource”] Center in Pacoima.

The after-school classes, free to underserved youth enrolled in El Nido’s programs and based on income, train budding young chefs on everything from knife skills to how to prepare mostly plant-based meals on a budget while mastering culinary arts, food safety and sanitation, and job skills.

“These kids are interested and curious and want to learn,” Emily Kaplan said. “And they are going to be so much better prepared to walk in for a job interview.”

The new program is one of a handful across Southern California that give underserved youth a chance through culinary training and mentorship, including Smooth Transition, Hatch CulinaryLab in Orange County, and L.A. Kitchen in Los Angeles as well as Homeboy Industries.

For the Kaplans, the latter program, founded by Father Greg Boyle, was their biggest inspiration.

“My husband and I have been following them for many years,” said Emily Kaplan. “When they first opened Homegirl Cafe, we were there. In my eyes, Father Boyle is a total saint.”

Like Homeboy Industries, El Nido hopes to start small and then grow and expand.

Students catered El Nido Family Centers’ Garden Gala in Beverly Hills during which the Kaplans were presented with the 2018 Visionary Award for creating the training kitchen on Saturday, Sept. 22. The menu included cauliflower tacos, chicken tostadas, and ceviche.

The Kaplans, including their son and daughter, came to El Nido as volunteers more than 6 years ago. They spearheaded the installation of a community garden and provided expertise in the areas of hospitality and beyond.

But Tom Kaplan said the idea for the kitchen originated with a student’s dream of starting a food truck.

“You couldn’t train enough people in a food truck so that’s when El Nido asked us, ‘Well, what about doing a kitchen somewhere?’ And then they got this property,” he said. “We thought, ‘Well, what about right here? We have enough room. This is bigger than our taco stands.”

Next on the horizon is turning the training kitchen into an open cafe, complete with a barista bar, for the community.

But Tom Kaplan said “our goal isn’t to filter kids into the restaurant business, but really so that if they go off to college they can get a job easily.

“And if they don’t want to go to college, they can see that we’ve created something out of nothing and that they can do the same,” he said. “Maybe they want to be entrepreneurs right out of high school. I think it’s a really good microclimate for education and skills.”

A worker outside a Santa Ana store sustained second-degree burns to his face, chest, an arm and a leg after a suspect threw acid at him in the parking lot Tuesday night, Sept. 25.

Firefighters found the man standing next to a car in the parking lot after the approximately 9 p.m. call and rinsed him off, Orange County Fire Authority Capt. Tony Bommarito said.

The hazardous-materials team was called to the parking lot in the 700 block of East Fourth Street. It cordoned off the area and took samples of the chemical while the 43-year-old man was treated and then taken to a hospital.

“Hazmat … determined the chemical was some kind of acid,” Bommarito said.

Santa Ana police said investigators don’t know if the attack was random or targeted.

“The employee had just gotten off work,” said police Cpl. Anthony Bertagna. “He was having a cigarette and he sees this metal cylinder on his car.”

Along with the container was a man wearing a hoodie and bandana over his face. The employee confronted the suspect about being near his car and the man throws a chemical from the metal container at him, Bertagna said.

“The entire left part of this body was burned.”

The man fled in a dark vehicle and was at large.

Space-Age fashion. Is it still relevant today? And can we have a future if we don’t take care of our present?
Those were some questions pondered by Yolanda Zobel for her debut collection for the house, titled “The Future Is Behind You.” After all, in a world drowning in plastic waste, sorting out planet Earth is more of a preoccupation for the youth of today.
It’s all part of the repurposing vision for the brand’s reboot.
The textured vinyl synonymous with Courrèges was the starting point for the collection, but more the decaying state of materials lying in the house archives, which the designer sought to re-create in materials dappled with shine. “I want to take people with me in what it feels like to come inside a treasure box like this,” said the designer, who has pledged to discontinue its production while investing brand profits in developing an alternative material for the future. Instead for her “post-plastic” collection, the focus was more on natural-looking fabrics like unwashed, non-dyed cotton.
The collection oscillated between crazy club gear telegraphing the cool kids of the Berlin scene that the designer is part of, with tamer items like capes and anoraks. Highlights included a beige trench in a

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“It started with intimacy,” Yang Li said of his spring collection. “And then looking at the duality of fake intimacy and real intimacy. That translates in a lot of pieces.” He pointed to a cropped military-cut vest overlaid with organza, making its pockets and zipper inaccessible, as an example.
Women’s names were embroidered on numerous garments, such as a billowing white dress. They nod to an exhibition Li will open in London in May called “Too Much but Not Enough” featuring “new Chinese women” he photographed over two months in China.
“It deals with fear, desire, extremities of wealth, lack of wealth,” said the Beijing-born, London-based designer. “As things are changing so much over there, I thought it’s part of my duty to also comment on that, as a young Chinese person with one foot in China and one foot in the west.” After the British capital, the show will travel to Beijing.
He’s been so busy, Li eschewed a runway display and presented in a Paris showroom instead. He also referenced Cat Power’s feminine-masculine duality and channeled it through the likes of oversize shirts.
The brand’s soft punk attitude still infused the finely tailored creations for spring, which often involved hardworking fabrics. A

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Ben Taverniti’s spring collection was an amalgamation of the sexed-up street athletica you’ve seen a squillion times if you’ve seen it once, especially if you follow any Kardashian or Kardashian-adjacents. (Taverniti himself falls into the latter category.) He does it well, infusing his hybrids of windbreaker-meets-dress/jean jacket/cape with a high-level attitude. The proportions were exaggerated, playing oversized track pants and parka against abbreviated sports bras, biker shorts and body-con dresses. Knee-high boots made out of toggled windbreaker material also upped the fashion quotient, as did chiffon nylons, leather and corset effects on sweatshirts and Ts. Part of the collection was done in collaboration with Agent Provocateur. Inspired by a Nineties athletic look, Taverniti said, “I like the idea that you don’t know if the girl is coming out of the gym, going to the gym or going straight to dinner.” It’s far from a new concept in this current ath-leisure world, but it still has legs.

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