Nearly three dozen local film, television and streaming production businesses and associations have launched an advocacy group aimed at improving conditions for filming in the state.

The California Production Coalition, formed this week in Los Angeles, aims to voice the concerns of prop houses, equipment leasing firms and other businesses that serve the film and TV industry, which has been been slow to rebound after the pandemic and strikes last year by actors and writers.

The group, whose members include the Motion Picture Assn. (MPA), Television City Studios and the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, also will lobby in support of expanded tax breaks for the industry.

“I joined this coalition to support whatever measures can be taken to ensure that this industry is part of California,” said Kavon Elhami, CEO of Camtec Motion Picture Camera Systems, a 35-year-old business based in Burbank.

“It is absolutely important that these businesses come together to have a voice,” he added.

The group will seek to educate policymakers and the public about the benefits of the state’s film and TV industry as well as support policies and incentives that will reduce red tape and create a more effective environment to film in the state. Rivals such as Georgia, New Mexico and Australia have lured filmmakers with more generous incentives.

The coalition’s first order of business is to get behind Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal, unveiled in October, to more than double the amount of money allocated annually to California’s film and TV tax credit program to $750 million from $330 million.

Between 2015 and 2020, the state’s film tax credit program generated $961.5 million in tax revenue and supported more than 110,000 local jobs, according to a study by the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp.

The idea for the coalition began last summer, when several local businesses and vendors that have long bolstered the industry began talking about ways in which they might organize and voice their concerns.

“This coalition got together to see what we could do to stay in business,” said Pam Elyea, owner of History for Hire, a 40-year-old prop rental company based in North Hollywood.

Elyea said the MPA brought a number of businesses together to talk about increasing the state tax incentives to remain competitive.

“We have the home-court advantage of doing this for 100 years. We have phenomenal resources,” she said.

The U.S. Supreme Court has decided to hear TikTok’s challenge to a law that would ban the popular social media app next month unless its Chinese owner sells it.

The case is set for Jan. 10, nine days before TikTok is scheduled to be shut down in the U.S.

In announcing its decision, the court instructed lawyers for TikTok and the government to prepare arguments around the question of whether the impending ban, which lawmakers feel is needed to block potential meddling by Chinese authorities, would violate the 1st Amendment.

With time running out before the ban takes effect Jan. 19, the justices agreed to decide the TikTok case on a fast-track basis, scheduling two hours of oral argument.

“We’re pleased with today’s Supreme Court order,” TikTok spokesperson Michael Hughes said in a statement. “We believe the Court will find the TikTok ban unconstitutional so the over 170 million Americans on our platform can continue to exercise their free speech rights.”

The legal battle over TikTok poses a conflict between the American tradition of wide-open free speech versus the potential national security threat of a Chinese-owned company that collects the personal data of its users.

TikTok’s future in the U.S. has been uncertain since 2020, when then-President Trump moved to shut down the short-form video app, which people use to share dance routines, news stories, recipes and funny videos.

Trump and others raised the prospect that ByteDance, which owns TikTok, could assist the Chinese government by sharing data it collects from its American users; embedding malicious software in the app; or helping to spread disinformation.

That set off years of back-and-forth between TikTok and the U.S. government. In April, President Biden signed a law that required ByteDance to sell its U.S. operations to a non-Chinese entity or be shut down.

The companies responded by suing the U.S. government in May, saying a ban would violate 1st Amendment rights. They also said that the new law “offers no support for the idea” that TikTok’s Chinese ownership poses national security risks.

“Speculative risk of harm is simply not enough when First Amendment values are at stake,” TikTok and ByteDance said in their filing.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the law two weeks ago, paving the way for a Supreme Court showdown.

In a 3-0 decision, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected TikTok’s free-speech claim, saying the government is not opposed to the content on the social media platform, but to the owner of it.

Judge Douglas Ginsburg cited testimony from the government’s security experts who concluded that they “did not trust” TikTok’s owners to protect the privacy of Americans. That is not a problem of social media in general, he said.

“TikTok is the only global platform of its kind that has been designated by the political branches as a foreign adversary controlled application,” Ginsburg wrote in the Dec. 6 decision.

Like the appellate court, the Supreme Court justices could be wary of overturning the judgment of Congress and two presidents on a matter of national security.

In the spring, a few notable names announced their interest in buying the U.S. portion of TikTok, including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who said he was assembling an investor group. Since the law passed, however, there has been little public indication of a possible sale.

On Wednesday, another interested buyer, former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt, said he expected the Supreme Court to uphold the law and reiterated his plans to make an offer along with other investors.

The group’s proposal, McCourt said in a statement, would “migrate this vibrant community to an American-made tech stack that gives people control of their data and embraces a transparent approach to content recommendation and moderation.”

Free speech organizations have warned that enforcing the ban would set a bad precedent.

“We should be concerned about this law as Americans who engage with one another on social media, but we should also be concerned about the global system of free expression,” said George Wang, staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute.

If the law is upheld, he said, it’s “hard to see where the stopping point is.”

“Future bans of social media platforms are possible, but maybe also other forms of media,” Wang said. “It really blesses the government’s ability and authority to shut down entire platforms for speech on pretty vague national security justifications.”

TikTok on Monday said that its estimates showed that small businesses on the platform would lose “more than $1 billion in revenue and creators would suffer almost $300 million in lost earnings in just one month” unless the ban was halted.

TikTok’s lawyer before the high court, Noel Francisco, is a familiar figure for the justices, having served as U.S. solicitor general during Trump’s first term.

Chang reported from Los Angeles and Savage from Washington.

The Port of Los Angeles is on track to process more than 10 million container units this year and is expecting a record-breaking December.

The port in San Pedro handled more than 880,000 Twenty-Foot Equivalent Units (TEUs) in November, up 16% from the same period last year, Executive Director Gene Seroka said. This year, the port has moved more than 9.3 million TEUs.

“We’re tracking 19% ahead of 2023 and 7% above that all important five year average,” Seroka said at a media briefing this week. “That puts us well on pace to exceed 10 million TEUs for only the second time in our 117-year history.”

The port processed more than 10.6 million container units in 2021, but that number fell to about 9.9 million in 2022 and 8.6 million in 2023. If December numbers meet expectations, the port could move more than 10.2 million units in 2024.

“All indications suggest that we’re heading into our best December on record,” Seroka said. “Traditionally it’s a softer month for volume, but this December we’ll likely surpass 900,000 TEUs.”

The Port of Los Angeles has been one of the busiest and highest ranked ports in the country for more than two decades, but recent geopolitical forces have brought even more activity to the West Coast.

“A few issues have led to increased cargo movement through Los Angeles,” Seroka said, including “the unresolved labor contract negotiations on the East and Gulf coasts, as well as frontloading of cargo as a hedge against potential tariffs.”

Thousands of dockworkers from Maine to Texas launched a strike in October over wages and the use of automation, shutting down seaports along the East Coast and disrupting normal trade. The union representing the dockworkers suspended the strike three days later but is prepared to resume striking Jan. 15 when its contract expires. The strike did not affect workers on the West Coast who are represented by a different union.

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have seen increased activity as shipments are diverted away from the East Coast amid the unresolved labor negotiations. The Port of Los Angeles spent months preparing for the possibility of a dockworkers strike on the East Coast, Seroka told The Times in October.

The recent election has also had an effect on trade volume in Los Angeles as the country braces for potential heavy tariffs under President-elect Donald Trump. Trump has proposed tariffs on trade with Mexico, Canada and China, the United States’ top three trading partners.

Fearing the effect of these tariffs on trade, many merchants are sending large shipments before they take effect, Seroka said.

In November, the Port of Los Angeles processed 458,165 loaded imports, 124,117 loaded exports and 302,033 empty containers.