The handoff of the Summer Olympic Games from Paris to Los Angeles just got a lot louder. Performances by Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and the Red Hot Chili Peppers are expected to be featured in the Closing Ceremony of the Paris games on Sunday, multiple sources told Variety. 

All three artists will be seen from Los Angeles in a mix of pre-taped and live performances. Producer Ben Winston, who is no stranger to live music events as the producer of the Grammy Awards and CBS’ 2021 “Adele: One Night Only” special, is coordinating with French producers of the Closing Ceremony. 

Tensions are high around live music events this week after authorities in Austria thwarted a terrorist attack plot during Taylor Swift’s planned three-night stand in Vienna with her “The Eras Tour.” Two high-ranking Individuals familiar with the planning for the surprise L.A. concert stunt said security and crowd control has been a point of concern for local officials even before the alarming news from Vienna. Security, which doesn’t come cheap, will have to account for potential threats from air, land and sea in Los Angeles. In a nod to those heightened fears, Variety has agreed to withhold the location of the performance.

Representatives for the Olympics and the musical artists declined to comment.

At the Closing Ceremony, the musical performances from Los Angeles are expected to follow a much-hyped stunt from Tom Cruise, news of which leaked last week. Cruise will jump on his motorcycle for an average day of death-defying tricks in France, before tossing to a prerecorded package that will see him parachute down next to the iconic Hollywood sign. The L.A.-affiliated musicians will take it from there.

It’s not hard to figure why Eilish, Snoop and the Chili Peppers were chosen. Eilish, one of the biggest pop sensations of the past decade, is a native whose 2021 concert film was titled “Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles.” Snoop Dogg, who has become an absolute internet darling in his role as on-air personality for NBC during the Paris Games, hails from Long Beach and is synonymous with West Coast rap. The Chili Peppers emerged out of L.A.’s punk scene in the 1980s. The band’s 1999 hit “Californication” is an anthem for the milk, honey, fruits and nuts that Los Angeles shelters. 

At the end of Sunday’s Closing Ceremony, Los Angles Mayor Karen Bass will accept the Olympic Torch and bring it home (maybe in her carry-on luggage?) as she returns from Paris. As of next week, the city of Los Angeles has three years and 11 months to get ready for the Summer Games, which are scheduled to run from July 14 to July 30 in 2028.

(Pictured: Billie Eilish, Snoop Dogg and Anthony Kiedis of the Red Hot Chili Peppers)

Former Catalan separatist leader Carles Puigdemont defied an arrest warrant to appear at a rally in Barcelona on Thursday after seven years of self-imposed exile, before reportedly fleeing the scene with a car belonging to a regional police officer.

Amid a heavy police presence, Puigdemont had told a crowd of thousands of followers in the Catalan capital he aimed to revive the independence drive that plunged Spain into political crisis in 2017. 

“They thought they’d be celebrating my arrest and they thought that this punishment would dissuade us,” he said. “Well, they are wrong.”

SPAIN’S PARLIAMENT VOTES TO GRANT AMNESTY TO CATALAN SEPARATISTS THROUGH CONTROVERSIAL BILL

Authorities suspect that, when he had finished speaking, Puigdemont got into a white car belonging to a police officer and left the vicinity, a Catalan interior department spokesperson said, sparking a frantic search by authorities.

The regional police, known as the Mossos d’Esquadra, said two of its officers had been arrested as part of their investigation into Puigdemont’s whereabouts, including the owner of the car.

The separatist leader, 61, fled to Belgium seven years ago after a failed secession bid and has been living in exile ever since.

He faces an arrest warrant for alleged embezzlement related to a 2017 independence referendum ruled illegal by the Spanish courts. Puigdemont says the vote was legal and therefore the charges linked to it have no basis.

A Mossos spokesman said there was no prior arrangement with Puigdemont for his arrest and the force had decided the detention should be made “at the most appropriate time so as not to generate public disorder.”

Puigdemont ally Laura Borras described the arrested officer on X as “a patriot and exemplary Mosso.”

The hunt for Puigdemont created traffic chaos in Barcelona and near the border with France as police set up roadblocks and searched car boots. 

In Barcelona, several Puigdemont supporters clashed with police in a bid to breach the cordon surrounding the park housing the regional parliament building. Officers clad in riot gear used batons and pepper spray to deter them.

DETENTION ORDER

Reacting to news that Puigdemont had again absconded from under the noses of a large police deployment, a Supreme Court source said a judge had been clear in his instructions that the former Catalan president was to be arrested.

“The Mossos know that they have a detention order… they had the obligation to detain him and bring him before the courts,” the source said.

Two national police unions also criticised the failure to arrest Puigdemont.

“Where are the Mossos? The best-paid police force in Spain incapable of doing their job, of arresting the coup-monger and fugitive from justice Puigdemont,” police union Jusapol said on X.

Two sources with links to the Catalan government said it had identified a problem with some rogue Mossos, who appear to be loyal to Puigdemont.

A government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment, nor did Puigdemont´s lawyer.

His arrest could jeopardise the Socialist-led national government´s fragile alliance with Puigdemont’s Junts party, on which it relies for legislative support.

Catalonia’s parliament on Thursday afternoon confirmed Salvador Illa, an ally of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, as head of the Catalan government.

“I will govern for everyone having into account the plurality and diversity of Catalonia,” Illa said.

The Socialists hope taking control in Catalonia after a decade of separatist rule will turn the page on the independence drive.

The Spanish parliament passed an amnesty law in May pardoning those involved in the failed 2017 secession bid, but the Supreme Court upheld arrest warrants for Puigdemont and two others who were also charged with embezzlement, ruling that the amnesty law does not apply to them.

The crowd of thousands, who had gathered near the parliament to welcome him, hoped his return would help build momentum towards independence, which has lost support in recent years.

“It represents the return of a symbol,” said Xavier Vizcaino, 63, who was wrapped in an independence flag.

No-one had expected him to disappear again.

Former Barcelona Mayor Xavier Trias, who was present at the rally, marvelled at Puigdemont’s flight.

“It was magic,” he told Reuters.

Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and inspiring life story made him among the sport’s most popular players during a long professional career, died Thursday. He was 88.

Rodriguez’s death was announced by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’ native Puerto Rico. He didn’t provide a cause of death.

“Chi Chi Rodriguez’s passion for charity and outreach was surpassed only by his incredible talent with a golf club in his hand,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “A vibrant, colorful personality both on and off the golf course, he will be missed dearly by the PGA Tour and those whose lives he touched in his mission to give back. The PGA Tour sends its deepest condolences to the entire Rodriguez family during this difficult time.”

He was born Juan Antonio Rodriguez, the second oldest of six children, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, when it was blanketed with sugar cane fields and where he helped his father with the harvest as a child. The area is now a dense urban landscape, part of San Juan, the capital of the U.S. island territory.

Rodriguez said he learned to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick and then found work as a caddie. He claimed he could shoot a 67 by age 12, according to a biography provided by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Management Group in Stow, Ohio.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1955-57 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960 and won eight times during his 21-year career, playing on one Ryder Cup team.

The first of his eight tour victories came in 1963, when he won the Denver Open. He followed it up with two the next year and continued through 1979 with the Tallahassee Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002, and had total combined career earnings of more than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.

Rodriguez was perhaps best known for fairway antics that included twirling his club like a sword, sometimes referred to as his “matador routine,” or doing a celebratory dance, often with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt. He often imitated fellow players in what he insisted was meant as good-natured fun.

He was hospitalized in October 1998 after experiencing chest pains and reluctantly agreed to see a doctor, who told him he was having a heart attack.

“It scared me for the first time,” Rodriguez recalled in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. “Jim Anderson (his pilot) drove me to the hospital and a team of doctors were waiting to operate. If I had waited another 10 minutes, the doctor said I would have needed a heart transplant.

“They call it the widow-maker,” he said. “About 50 percent of the people who get this kind of heart attack die. So I beat the odds pretty good.”

After his recovery, he returned to competition for a couple of years but phased out his professional career and devoted more of his time to community and charity activities, such as the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation, a charity based in Clearwater, Florida, founded in 1979.

In recent years, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, where he was a partner in a golf community project that struggled amid the recession and housing crisis, hosted a talk show on a local radio station for several years, and appeared at various sporting and other events.

He showed up at the 2008 Puerto Rico Open and strolled through the grounds in a black leather coat and dark sunglasses, shaking hands and posing for pictures but playing no golf. “I didn’t want to take a spot away from young men trying to make a living,” he said.

Rodriguez is survived his Iwalani, his wife of nearly 60 years, and Donnette, his wife’s daughter from a previous marriage.

___ AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf