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The report comes a day after Trump said Russia will supply diesel to the global market amid a surge in energy prices caused by the wars in Iran and Ukraine.

Russia's Interfax news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Putin sent the message to Trump "in agreement with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian," according to a Google translation.

Other Russian media reports said Putin spoke to Trump by phone after the Russian leader met Pezeshkian on the sidelines of a summit in Turkmenistan.

Interfax didn't elaborate on the specifics of how Iran sees the war — which began on Feb. 28 with U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iranian targets — coming to an end.

The White House didn't immediately respond to CNBC's emailed request to confirm the reported conversation between Putin and Trump.

Russia supply deal

Trump said Friday that Russia will supply more than 4 million tons of diesel to the global market under an arrangement the U.S. president said he agreed with Putin during a phone call.

Russia will immediately supply more than 300,000 tons of diesel, followed by 500,000 tons in November, and 1 million tons immediately thereafter, Trump said in a post on Truth Social. Moscow will then deliver another 3 million tons of diesel based on the condition of Russia's refineries, Trump said.

The Treasury Department temporarily waived sanctions on Russian diesel through April 2027 under a general license issued Friday.

Brent crude oil price, U.S. dollars per barrel, year to date

Iran has stepped up its attacks on oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz, with vessels coming under fire almost daily as Tehran tries to choke off a rebound in crude exports.

A senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard official said Wednesday that Iran will block all "illicit routes" through Hormuz, according to the Fars News Agency, an outlet considered close to the Guard.

The surge in attacks on tankers comes as crude oil exports from the Middle East rebounded in September to prewar levels, largely because the U.S. military escorted ships through Hormuz along Oman's coast.

An interim deal signed in June between the U.S. and Iran to pause hostilities to allow for negotiations quickly broke down.

'Gifts to Putin'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy immediately condemned Trump's diesel deal with Putin. Ukraine's leader warned that easing sanctions without a commitment from Russia to de-escalate the war will only prolong it.

"Gifts to Putin will not bring peace or any benefit to the civilized world," Zelenskyy said in a social media post. "Russia will 'repay' the diesel with further terror and perfidy. Allowing Russia to sell petroleum products is an investment in a war that must be ended, not prolonged."

Diesel prices have surged worldwide as Ukraine has pounded Russian refineries, forcing Moscow to ban diesel exports to global markets. Iran and its Houthi allies have also attacked refineries in the Middle East, further constraining fuel supplies.

Trump is under growing political pressure to lower fuel prices ahead of the November midterm elections. Republicans face competitive elections in conservative strongholds like Iowa, where farmers feel the pinch of high diesel prices. %!s()

In 2023, silver prices in India largely fluctuated between $725 (70,000 rupees) and $830 (80,000 rupees) per kilogramme, rising to around $985 (98,000 rupees) in 2024. But this year, amid the conflict with Iran, silver prices briefly soared as high as $4,670 (450,000 rupees) per kg before easing after the ceasefire. Even now, after some decline, prices are hovering around $2,600 (250,000 rupees) per kg, more than three times their levels just a few years ago.

Dr. Salahuddin Ayyub, an economist and international trade expert with India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry, said geopolitical conflicts have triggered unprecedented volatility in global commodity markets.

“When stock markets become volatile, investors move their money into safer assets, such as gold and silver,” Ayyub explained. “This sudden surge in demand pushes the prices of precious metals sharply upwards.”

The consequences have been particularly severe in India, he said, because gold and silver remain deeply intertwined with weddings, other cultural traditions and family savings. As prices continue to rise, many households are increasingly opting for lower-cost alternatives, such as artificial jewellery.

He warned that while consumers may find substitutes, those whose livelihoods depend on the precious metals industry, including artisans, silversmiths, jewellery shopkeepers and traditional craftsmen, have far fewer options.

“The impact extends well beyond consumers,” Ayyub said. “Entire communities whose incomes depend on these metals are now facing shrinking demand and growing economic uncertainty.”

The surge in silver prices has had another consequence that is often overlooked by the government and policymakers. According to Ayyub, when a country witnesses a sharp rise in demand for imported precious metals, governments often intervene to curb imports and protect their foreign exchange reserves.

“India depends heavily on imported silver. A sudden spike in imports puts pressure on the country’s foreign exchange reserves, so the government tries to discourage excessive imports through tariffs and other restrictions,” Ayyub said.

These import duties are eventually passed on to consumers. “As tariffs increase, the landed cost of silver rises. That is one of the reasons why silver prices in India are currently trading above global prices,” he said.

Globally, silver currently costs $2,100 (201,000 rupees) per kg, but in India, it’s more than 20 percent higher because of heavy government import taxes and strict licensing that chokes off supply. India depends on imports to meet more than 80% of its domestic silver demand and its purchases account for over 20 percent of the global trade in refined silver.

India more than doubled its effective import taxes on gold and silver in May. That saw silver imports plunge by 87 percent to just $75.6 million that month, down from $566.2 million the previous year, the country’s lowest level in over three years.

High silver prices are now forcing Lucknow’s brides to make tough, sometimes devastating, decisions. %!s()

“I’ve always liked confusing people and making them uncomfortable,” Faith says, tucked in a booth in a black t-shirt, jeans, and her Spurlettos, as she’s named them. Faith, alongside her stylist Kennady and creative director Lily, designed them for the video, in which she’s wearing a pair covered in blood near a dead body (we don’t see any actual murdering, but you do the math). The shoes, like Faith’s music, are beautiful, but they’ll cut you if you’re not careful. “I know I’m a blonde Southern girl and I like doing my makeup and stuff,” she says, “but, deep down, I’m like an angry old man.”

That slight sense of unease, coupled with Faith’s crystalline country voice and boundary-pushing songwriting, is at the core of her record Cherry Valley (and the recent deluxe version, Cherry Valley Forever). She’s as much Patsy Cline as she is David Lynch, with songs that aren’t at all afraid to broach taboo topics like mental health, sex, and drugs and pack it all into an imagined concept-album dreamland, wrapping the pain and poison in ribbons and lace. Taking the second spot on Rolling Stone’s Best Country Albums list last year, it’s one of the strongest, most assured debuts the genre has seen of late, earning her an ACM Awards nomination for Album of the Year. The only other debut album to nab the same honors in the past decade was Chris Stapleton, with Traveller. Now, she’s a solid contender for a Best Contemporary Country Album nominee at the Grammys, and up for a CMA Award, too.

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Faith has been just as busy on the road. In the year that followed the release of Cherry Valley, she opened for Stapleton, Kacey Musgraves, Shaboozey, and Post Malone. And, next month, she’ll make her acting debut in Netflix’s Heartland, alongside Jessica Chastain and Jennifer Nettles, playing a young country artist who mysteriously disappears. It’s her first on-screen acting role, and her first audition, too. Faith has achieved all of this in a town where the most boundary-pushing, visionary works and artists aren’t always the ones most celebrated on Music Row. 

“I honestly think that’s one of the most exciting things about Carter and how this music has connected,” says her close friend and producer, Tofer Brown, who has seen his share of young artists get distracted by what might work best on social media, or a desire to please the powers that be. “She is truly writing because she feels what she feels.” Faith describes it, primarily, as her gospel of “no fucks given.”

Not giving a fuck is what got Faith to Cherry Valley. Born in Davidson, North Carolina, Faith was an anxious, self-described shy kid. “I remember if I had to come late to school because I had to go to the dentist or something, that would be the end of the world for me,” she says.

Faith loved country music from an early age, thanks to the tapes her grandfather would play in the car. She loved to sing, and taught herself piano and guitar, but being an artist was an unserious job compared to the more practical goals of her classmates, who were often looking toward traditional careers propelled by elite college degrees. She moved to Nashville anyway, enrolling at Belmont University to study songwriting, graduating in 2021. Songs like 2022’s “Greener Pasture” placed her in the “next big thing” artist category around town. Which is where she stayed for the next few years. Sometimes it’s a tag she can’t escape. “That’s a whole different conversation,” Faith says with a laugh.

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It was “Greener Pasture” that got the attention of Bon Iver, who was looking for an artist to add vocals to his song “Awards Season” from the album SABLE, fABLE. He cold-called Faith while she was sitting in a coffee shop to make the ask. “I guess it gave me a sense of validation that someone so cool thought my music was good,” Faith says. “And on just a really simple level, it made me feel good and gave me some gumption to keep on, because there’s so many times where you’re like, ‘Fuck this. I’m going to make like Bobbie Gentry and get out of here.’”

She didn’t, though. At least not yet. She and Brown began crafting the songs that would become Cherry Valley around 2022, recording two years later. A drive through the town of Cherry Valley, Tennessee, inspired the idea of a concept record, where the songs are part of a visual and sonic world where hearts are broken, people let you down, and sex, drugs, and country music keep you going. Still, they feel achingly personal: “if only I could settle the chemicals running in my brain,” Faith sings on the stunning “If I Had Never Lost My Mind,” “I could be happy, and you could have stayed.” For Faith, keeping her work so vulnerable, even in the discomfort, is about “not filtering myself. In this town, or this industry.”

CHERRY VALLEY DIDN’T ALWAYS GET A POSITIVE reaction. When she played some folks in Nashville her song “Misery Loves Company,” with the lyric “birds are circling, something must have died,” they told her it was a little too “aggressive,” she says. “And my personality is like, ‘OK, fuck you then! Whatever.”

Brown sees Faith’s ability to stay so true to her vision as one of “a million things” that sets her apart. “It’s her true knowledge of who she is,” the producer says. “A lot of these young artists are so sensitive and impressionable by songwriters that have clout, but Carter’s always known what she wants to say.”

Part of her vision is that juxtaposition of elements, and leaning into making her audience feel that sense of discomfort. Faith has explored that thoroughly in her music videos, like “Bar Star,” where she cozies up to actor Billy Bob Thorton (“bless his liver and his honky-tonk heart,” she sings brilliantly), or “Pearl Handled Pistol,” where she possibly commits a murder in those spurred stilettos alongside Laci Kaye Booth and Baby Nova.

Due to some revealing wardrobe choices, the three women got their share of “slut-shaming” comments on social media. “It’s definitely not going to make me want to cover up, if that was your goal,” Faith says. She points to artists like the Chicks as the epitome of women whose mere existence makes people uncomfortable, and who maybe the industry always wanted to find a way to silence.

“That’s kind of happening now, I feel like,” Faith says. “There are a lot of really successful women, so everyone is like ‘oh good, this opens up doors for women.’ I don’t really feel like much has changed here. There’s still only a certain amount of spots, and you have to be so much better than a man, obviously. We want to empower our daughters, but not our women.” 

She thinks of another one of her core influences, Lana Del Rey, and the arc of her career: especially her first performance on Saturday Night Live, which came with a gleeful handful of ridicule. When Faith appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, she wore a lace white dress partly inspired by the one Del Rey chose for that infamous appearance. “It felt like a cornerstone of my life watching pop culture,” she says, seeing an artist she adored torn apart in real time. “[Her performance] was beautiful, and it was real.”

Faith, clearly, doesn’t gravitate to artists who mute or censor themselves (tourmate Musgraves is another big inspiration). She, too, wants everyone to feel welcome at her shows — which is part of why she dropped off of the lineup for Kid Rock’s Rock the Country Festival. “When I looked out at the audience of my last club shows, I could see every type of person,” she says. “And that made me feel really good. Because I wrote [these songs] as a white, blonde, straight girl from the south. But you go to different places and there are people who resonate with my story in their life, and that’s really, really cool because music has done that for me. I don’t know if country does that all the time for people.” (She has a name for the kind of country music that exists as light radio fluff, intended to piss off no one: “pander city.”)

That audience is about to grow exponentially, when Heartland begins streaming Nov. 13 on Netflix. Though Faith always loved Broadway and has dreams of playing Roxie Heart in Chicago, she wasn’t outwardly looking for film roles. When the script landed on her desk, she figured why not give it a try. “It would be fun,” Faith thought. “And it would make me nervous. I kind of like doing things that make me nervous.” She had a feeling that she landed the job right away, and she was right.

Faith didn’t sign up for acting lessons, instead taking the advice from director Shana Feste (Country Strong), who actually discouraged her from doing so. “She explained that you have all these colors or tools in your toolbox from your life and your emotional experiences and then you use them to act,” Faith says.

The biggest agenda item for Faith right now, though, is finishing her next album, which is about halfway done. The songs from Cherry Valley Deluxe, like “Pearl Handled Pistol” and the Wyatt Flores duet “Nothin’ Better to Do,” serve almost as a transition point .

“I feel like Cherry Valley was very technicolor and candy-coated,” she says. “And this is almost like when you’re extremely full glam and it takes like 18 makeup wipes to take it off. This is the first makeup wipe. Taking one layer back. That’s kind of how I envisioned it in my head.”

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Cherry Valley was character-driven, but what she’s writing now is more raw. “It’s just me, not different people for every song,” Faith says. She hopes people like it, but she’s not asking for opinions.

“I heard a quote once that said, ‘The way to kill good art is ask 10 people what they think about it,’ and I think that’s true,” Faith says, standing up in her spurred stilettos (a few weeks later, a pair arrives in the mail with a note that cautions the wearer to be careful when taking them through TSA). “I just remind myself that this could all go away, so I hope I did it the way I want to.” %!s()

Since Google Maps first came online in 2005, the little red pin has been its defining symbol, and it's one you can take control of yourself. Even if where you are isn't a specific business or address, you can easily drop a pin within the app to save a location. Whether you're trying to meet up with friends in the park, mark a scenic viewpoint for future visit or remember where you left your bike, dropping a Google Maps pin can be incredibly useful.

Over its lifetime, Google Maps has debuted a lot of advanced features, from 3D mapping to telling you how busy a business is. Sometimes, though, the simplest feature is the most useful: telling you how to get from point A to point B. If your point A or B isn't officially on the map, putting it there yourself is easy.

How to drop a pin on Google Maps

To drop a pin on mobile:

1. Open the Google Maps app.

2. Find the location you wish to pin, then press and hold on the spot.

3. If desired, add a label by scrolling across the options next to Directions and hitting Add label. This lets you set a custom name for the place instead of using its GPS coordinates, and adds it to the Labeled section of the Saved tab.

4. To save the pin for yourself, tap Save in the same list. Choose a list and add a note about the spot if needed.

5. To share the location with others, scroll through the list and tap Share, then choose your sharing method.

On a computer, there's an extra quick step, but it's still easy to access and share the exact coordinates that come along with a pin:

1. Go to the Google Maps website.

2. Click the area that you wish you share. A gray dot will appear on the map, and you'll see the GPS coordinates appear in a small box at the bottom of the screen. 

3. Click those GPS coordinates to open the standard Google Maps info panel for that spot. From there, use the same steps as above to Save, Add a label or Share the place.

4. As an alternative, you can right-click any spot on the map to show a list of options. Click the GPS coordinates to copy them or click Share this location to do so faster. Directions from here and Directions to here can also be useful if you don't need to save the pin.

Other useful Google Maps location features

Matthew Nichols1/Shutterstock

In lieu of sharing a pin to direct people to a location, you can also live-share your own location for a set time with the following steps:

1. Open the Google Maps app.

2. Tap your profile picture in the upper-right corner and select Location sharing.

3. Select Share location (or New share), then choose the amount of time you want to share your location for. Alternatively, choose Until you turn this off to do so indefinitely. 

4. Finally, select a contact's Google account to share directly to their Maps app, or select More options to send via another method.

For an even more customized experience, you can also create an entire map by using Google's My Maps feature. With this, you can add multiple layers for different location types (like parks, restaurants and tourist attractions). It's great for having an entire vacation itinerary all in one place, or keeping a detailed map of business clients for quick navigation. 

Each custom map can have up to 10,000 lines, shapes, or places, meaning in addition to precise addresses, you can denote custom areas as well. These can only be created on desktop, but are viewable in the mobile app. %!s()

He emerges from the elevator at UCLA's football facility wide-eyed, his voice already at decibels most people would reserve for daylight hours and heads to the campus tennis stadium nearby. On Tuesday mornings, he reserves a sliver of time to run up and down the steep steps. Everything else, Chesney says, is football.

By 7 a.m., Chesney is back inside. He has traded his running shoes for flip-flops. His hair is carefully coiffed, and as he stands behind a table inside the auditorium where the entire team meets at 7:15 a.m., he bobs his head to the rhythm of 50 Cent's "Many Men (Wish Death)" as if he were a DJ spinning his best mix.

On this particular Tuesday morning, the room is vibrating. Thirteen months after starting last season 0-3 and firing DeShaun Foster as head coach, UCLA is 4-0 and ranked No. 21 in the nation under Chesney. The program is nearly unrecognizable from its previous iteration, flying high while the man standing at the front of the room appears to possess the energy required to levitate.

"The second half of this season starts right now, eight [weeks] are done," Chesney says, his voice growing louder. "There's eight more coming up here. Just like you committed on Day 1 of camp, this is about a recommitment today."

The meeting is a tone-setter for the day, the week, the next opponent, which, in this case, is Oregon -- the toughest team UCLA has faced to date. The meeting is also where Chesney's coaching style comes into view, a style that has produced a 136-52 overall record and eight conference titles across five programs.

In this room, everything feels as if it's being run at twice the speed, as if the hurry-up offense the Bruins might utilize on the field has relocated indoors. Players sit with notebooks scribbling while Chesney flips through slides on a screen containing both broad mantras and hyper-specific game-plan tasks. He calls out a position group and on cue, each respective coach begins his spiel -- often expletive-laden -- that is part information, part motivation for what that group needs to do in the upcoming game. On a few occasions, Chesney interjects to hammer the point home.

"You will do what you have to do to win the game. That's done. That's not a debate. That's a f---ing fact," he says. "I'm worried about how can you mentally take yourself to a different standard, hold yourself to that standard and never f---ing waver from it. That's the question. How do I make that unbreakable? How do I bury my f---ing fracture point?"

Once the morning meeting concludes, players break off into position groups. Chesney hangs back with the special teams group where his longtime coach-in-crime Drew Canan, UCLA's assistant coach who oversees special teams and tight ends, rattles off assignments for players and reviews game planning with the same relentless cadence. The two have been working together since he joined Chesney's 2014 staff at Assumption University in Massachusetts.

"I don't think there's a better person who can change a culture as he does," Canan said.

Canan recalls one Saturday practice during spring camp when the energy and effort from start to finish was impressive. Equally notable was the way players were not just in sync with Chesney's vision, but enjoying being part of it.

"It brought me back to the early days at Holy Cross, it brought me back to last year at James Madison," Canan said. "It was the seventh or eighth practice we had [at UCLA] and I remember walking off the field and saying, 'He did it again. We've got it.'"

TEN MINUTES AFTER the team has split into position meetings Tuesday morning, the mood inside the running backs room is one of quiet confidence.

"Don't be surprised if we have success," running backs coach A.J. Steward tells the group. "They don't play as hard and as physical as we do."

This room in particular is as emblematic as any of the kind of recipe Chesney and his staff have concocted that is working. Steward is one of the few holdovers from the previous staff and now, under his purview, there's a former JMU running back (Wayne Knight), a former Iowa State back (Dylan Lee) and two returning UCLA running backs (Anthony Woods and Jaivian Thomas). Together, this collection makes up the top rushing attack in the country in yards per carry (6.95) while Knight leads them all with 445 yards and nine touchdowns.

About 10 months ago, after Chesney had taken the job and hired his staff, UCLA held a unique recruiting visit day. Every player who arrived in Westwood that day was coming from JMU, including Knight. After checking off their top priority of securing Nico Iamaleava's commitment, Chesney, alongside new general Darrick Yray, shifted to the next important task: convince a group of JMU players who spent one season with Chesney that UCLA should be the next stop in their college careers.

There was one issue. It was one of the handful of days in Los Angeles on which rain was in the forecast.

"These guys had been hearing all about how great L.A. was and the weather and they get this?" Yray said with a laugh. The former Florida State GM with West Coast ties had already bought into Chesney's vision when he turned down a multiyear contract to stay in Tallahassee.

"I'd always kind of told myself if the right opportunity ever showed up to get back on the West Coast, I'm going to come running," Yray said. "The first time I got on the phone with Chesney, you start to hear him speak and it was like, 'This dude is real.' And you dive in and start understanding what was going to happen here. And I was like, 'Oh, this thing has a chance to go.'"

That Chesney & Co. have been able to generate as much excitement about the program and success early is inextricable from the fact that they were able to mobilize the foundation they had at James Madison westward. All told, 28 staff members and 11 players from JMU followed Chesney.

"That's a lot of people that are speaking the same language from day one. It allows you to catapult your success a lot quicker in theory," said Matt Transue, the program's chief of staff by way of JMU. "It has definitely helped, especially early on when we were resetting the culture here. Now everybody's bought in."

Signs of the Dukes' influence and Chesney's ethos from his first coaching job are everywhere. The practice structure is essentially the same one he has used at previous stops, including JMU. Walk through the weight room and you'll see a commemorative JMU weight plate hanging in one of the strength staff's offices. The PowerPoint slide of "core principles" that Chesney used at Assumption, Holy Cross and JMU is the same one he used during his first team meetings in January at UCLA.

"I think the awe factor for all of us that came from James Madison was, 'How has this place not won at a high level?'" Transue said. "The first day we got here, we were like, 'Holy cow, this is unbelievable.' I think that appreciation too is a lot of our coaches are from lower levels. They follow Chesney from Division III all the way through. So this is a big-time opportunity and they've already won with far less than what they have here now."

Still, Chesney contends they are building something new with familiar pieces rather than trying to recreate what they had. It has been his approach at every stop. But this time, he is attempting to build the same foundation on a bedrock of better resources, yes, but also higher pressure.

"I remember when they eventually were like, 'Hey, we want you to be the head coach.' I'm like, 'Damn, you're handing me that much?" Chesney said of the program's budget to go along with his five-year, $33.75 million contract. "I better get this s--- right.'"

Despite the bigger stakes, Chesney was confident in the knowledge he was bringing with him a system that worked at previous stops, even if they were smaller, as well as a trusted staffers whom he knew would handle their business the way he wanted. He also knew that the excitement and momentum he needed to create around the program in Year 1 had to be engineered by him and centered, to an extent, on him too.

"I understood [UCLA fans, donors, media] are not going to know a lot of our players yet. They're not going to know a lot of our coaches yet. And the only way to do this is to get myself out there," Chesney said. "It had to be me to get the culture set, to get the expectations spoken about, to get what we needed from the alums and the support that we expected and the energy that was going to go into everything we do. There was only one person that could do that."

IT'S 9:15 A.M. WHEN Chesney takes the party outside. The Bruins pour out onto the practice field, which on this scorching day in L.A., is punishing anyone who dares to step on its unforgiving turf with temperatures in the mid-90s. Much like the meeting inside, UCLA's practice has an almost frenetic pace where no second feels unaccounted for. Chesney is a human rubber band, stretching himself in every direction.

A moment with the first-team offense which, during this week has put loud speakers just behind their huddle to mimic the noise expected to be heard in Eugene on Saturday, one that the JMU contingent is quite familiar with from their CFP loss to Oregon last season. A check-in on the defensive backs, a quick Facetime with a recruit during stretching, a low-crouch in front of the defensive linemen to study their pass-rush technique and suddenly a loud whistle followed by an even louder yell.

"One up-down!"

The entire team echoes Chesney's remark in unison and drops to the ground.

"Special!" he says, signaling a transition to special teams. "You f---ing do that s---!"

Hang around the practice long enough and you start to hear another voice breaking through the music. It is older, but no less menacing than Chesney's.

"Knock him down! Put him on his ass!" Bob Sr., Chesney's dad and a volunteer assistant for the Bruins, tells a lineman.

As the two orbit the practice field, one can capture just how far the apple fell from the tree. The answer? Not far, yet enough to where 76-year-old Bob Sr. can recognize that his son -- "Bobby" as he calls him -- had something unique from an early age.

"Even as a kid, you could see that leadership quality in him. All the kids gravitated toward him, whatever game they played, he was in charge," Bob Sr. said.

And so the elder Chesney found himself gravitating to his son as well. When Chesney got his first head coaching gig at Salva Regina, a Division III school in Newport, Rhode Island, Bob Sr. -- a longtime high school coach with a few stints at the college level -- came along for the ride. He has been at every stop since, roaming practices, helping the rest of the staff and keeping an eye on his son's rise.

"I think if you just look at the total person, Bobby, you look at his total package that he's selling, it certainly would fit at every level. And so far you have seen it has fit at every level," Bob Sr. said. "He started at the lowest of lows, worked his way up telling the same story, improving it, spit-shining it a little bit as you move on. When you can afford a little more, the better polish, you can polish it a little bit better. And so right now the shoes are shining."

There is an unmistakable energy about Chesney that feels incongruous or at least hard to comprehend at first glance when you consider that he landed in Los Angeles of all places. Nothing about Chesney's journey indicated Hollywood would fit him. From growing up in Kulpmont, Pennsylvania, where the town's trade of coal mining was his side gig at one point, to bartending in Baltimore, he eventually got his start as a graduate assistant at Norwich University, a military college in Vermont. Yet perhaps no transplant to this city has found comfort and cohesiveness as quickly as he has.

"He has the L.A. look, he has the L.A. temperament. This is a perfect place for him," Bob Sr. said. "He's not one of these coaches that just says two words. He'll try to explain everything right or wrong. He's not going to hide from any question. He's just made for this type of atmosphere to thrive in this kind of environment."

The small-town roots have not desiccated, but what has crystallized over 16 years of head coaching experience from Salva Regina to Westwood is an ability to stitch the same magnetic thread through it all.

"He's very easy and charismatic and it's natural to him. He's very much involved in bringing people along," Transue said. "He did this at the last place, it was a small-town community and it was the same approach, because I think people just want to have interaction with the program. They want to have a little bit of a connection to it. He makes everyone feel connected to it."

There is a calculus to it all, of course. Chesney understands the equation he has to solve for in a city with plenty of teams, activities and attractions competing for people's attention. It's why at UCLA he has found an ample runway to be himself, to be an "open book" those around the program said, inviting anyone who is interested to practice, impressing in meetups with donors and, from the beginning, finding ways to show up at other UCLA athletics events.

"You want me to go talk to alums, I'm going to do it. You want me to go play golf with somebody? I'm going to do it," Chesney said. "On top of that, I'm going to make sure that we bring all these high school coaches by every practice we possibly can so they get a feel for who we are. I think that what they and the fans need to hear is that this time around it's different."

The push has paid off. Even before the program started winning, investments from donors have poured in. A $9.6 million donation from late alumnus Lawrence Layne in January plus a $10 million from Angelo Mazzone III in April. Before the season began, UCLA fired athletic director Martin Jarmond, who helped hire Chesney, and replaced him with former NBA executive Tim Harris to create "a new strategy to grow revenue through partnerships, licensing and other ventures," according to university chancellor Julio Frenk.

Beyond Chesney's own contract, the Bruins have grown their staff beyond previous limitations, having the luxury to add extra pieces like former NFL quarterback Derek Carr as a volunteer special adviser to Chesney while also being able to spend like a top-25 team on their roster. Yray said the Bruins were almost never offering the highest amount for a player in the portal, but the combination of being financially competitive enough and getting them on a call or in a room with Chesney has often made the difference.

"I think there's been a lot of like, 'Wow, OK, this guy's for real.' And it's not just talk," Transue said. "That allows people to buy in relatively quickly. And then you add success to it and now the sky's the limit."

BY ABOUT 1 P.M., the day has slowed down, but it hasn't stopped. Players have left for class, but they'll go over tape later in the afternoon. While coaches huddle in a room and study more film, Chesney continues to move. In between a radio interview and getting through calls to potential recruits, he steals a moment to eat lunch.

"He's definitely changed the mindset in there, just how you feel. I don't know how to explain it," Iamaleava said before the season. "When Ches walks into a room, he just brings that winning mentality."

The speed at which the culture has shifted at UCLA can be proved with the big numbers -- three wins against Power 4 opponents, a 2027 recruiting class that could be its highest ranked since 2016, a top-25 ranking. It can also be seen in the small details Chesney has zeroed in on. Whether that's putting up laminated sheets with the faces and names of the catering staff, maintenance staff, the equipment students and sports med students so players and coaches know them or the way that players have to maintain a clean locker room, it all stands in stark contrast to what was happening before.

"The weight room you could not walk through, because it was like three strength coaches in a row that brought their own stuff in, but didn't take anything out. It was actually dangerous there," Chesney said. "I'm looking out at a shed and there's things pouring out of the shed. I'm like, 'Let's get a giant dumpster and let's just start throwing s--- away, because these kids can't live this way. This ain't fair.' It was dirty. It was neglected is what it felt like."

The shed is now cleaned up, the weight room is organized, and everyone in the building knows that the guy who cuts the grass they run on is Kirt Bakos. And though Chesney says this has always been his approach, he would be lying if he didn't acknowledge that being here is both surreal and motivation to further press into what got him here.

"If back then I ran into or had a chance to see the head coach of UCLA or the head coach of Ohio State, I'd be like, 'Holy s---, that's the head coach of ...' And for me, I'm like, 'It's just me though.' So I think you see it differently," Chesney said. "I feel like I'm just the same guy that was making $5,000 a year not too long ago. Sometimes things fall in the line for you and you end up in a place like this. But I never sought it. I never really chased it."

A conviction not previously seen or heard in this part of town is what now courses through the halls in Westwood. To hear those closest to Chesney speak, those who were there at the beginning or those who have jumped on the train at different stops, there is an unassailable belief in the system and the man behind it that success is talked about as a foregone conclusion.

"I know how the movie ends. The movie ends with us holding a trophy," Canan said. "The trophy was a little small trophy at Assumption. Then it got a little bit bigger at Holy Cross, a little bit bigger at James Madison. And I think in the near future at UCLA, we'll be holding a bigger trophy, too." %!s()