The Emmys ceremony was about more than just glamour and excellence in television. The current heated political climate and the attack on cultural institutions on and off screen was also a flash point, even though much of it was bleeped for viewers.
During her acceptance speech after winning supporting actress in a comedy series, Hannah Einbinder of “Hacks” proclaimed, “F— ICE” at the end of her speech, denouncing the crackdown on immigrants across the country by the federal government.
Einbinder also mentioned Palestine in her speech and was among several actors, filmmakers and others who wore pins calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Megan Stalter, another “Hacks” cast member, carried a bag pinned with a note that said “Cease Fire.”
When the writing staff for HBO’s “Last Week Tonight With John Oliver” took the stage after winning for writing for a variety series, senior writer Daniel O’Brien said he and his colleagues were happy to be in the company of writers of late-night comedy “while it’s still the type of show that is allowed to exist.”
Television Academy President Cris Abrego paid tribute to the Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which was presented with the Governors Award last week during the Creative Arts Emmys. When he noted that CPB’s federal funding had been shut down by Congress and that CPB would shut its doors, the comment elicited a loud “boo” from the audience.
Hannah Einbinder, who won an Emmy for supporting actress in a comedy series, in the trophy room at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles. She referenced ICE and Palestine in her acceptance speech.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
“CPB has been the backbone of American public media, giving us everything from ‘Sesame Steet’ to ‘Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood’ to ‘Finding Your Roots,’” he said. “In many small towns, those stations were not just a cultural lifeline to small towns across the nation, but an emergency alert system that families could count on.”
He continued, “When division dominates the headlines, storytelling still has the power to unite us. Television and the artists who make it do more than address society — they shape our culture. At times of cultural regression, they remind us of what’s at stake.”
Before presenting the award for talk show, Bryan Cranston took a swipe at West Point’s recent cancellation of the Sylvanus Thayer Award to Tom Hanks, who has been a frequent critic of President Trump. Although a reason for the cancellation was not given, the move was seen by pundits to be politically motivated.
Cranston said in his remarks that the hallmark of an exceptional talk show was to have intelligent conversations with a variety of guests, “from the learned and inspirational Neil deGrasse Tyson, to the degenerate and woke Tom Hanks.”
The award went to “Late Night With Stephen Colbert,” which CBS is ending next year at the conclusion of its season. Although the cancellation was attributed to financial considerations, Colbert’s harsh criticism of Trump has also been blamed for the termination.
During his acceptance speech, Colbert said the show had initially been about love, but had evolved into a show about loss: “Sometimes you only know how much you love something when you get a sense you might be losing it.”
He also said he hoped the show’s end would not bring an end to the late-night talk show tradition.
OMAHA — No formal agreement has been signed to convert a remote state prison in Nebraska into the latest immigration detention center for President Trump’s sweeping crackdown, more than three weeks since the governor announced the plan and as lawmakers and nearby residents grow increasingly skeptical.
Corrections officials insist the facility could start housing hundreds of male detainees next month, with classrooms and other spaces at the McCook Work Ethic Camp retrofitted for beds. However, lawmakers briefed last week by state officials said they got few concrete answers about cost, staffing and oversight.
“There was more unanswered questions than answered questions in terms of what they know,” state Sen. Wendy DeBoer said.
Officials in the city of McCook were caught off guard in mid-August when Republican Gov. Jim Pillen announced that the minimum-security prison in rural southwest Nebraska would serve as a Midwest hub for immigration detainees. Pillen and federal officials dubbed it the “Cornhusker Clink,” in line with other alliterative detention center names such as “ Alligator Alcatraz ” in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer ” in Indiana.
“City leaders were given absolutely no choice in the matter,” said Mike O’Dell, publisher of the local newspaper, the McCook Gazette.
McCook is the seat of Red Willow County, where voters favored Trump in the 2024 election by nearly 80%. Most of them likely support the president’s immigration crackdown, O’Dell said. However, the city of around 7,000 has also grown accustomed to the camp’s low-level offenders working on roads, in parks, county and city offices and even local schools.
“People here have gotten to know them in many cases,” O’Dell said. “I think there is a feeling here that people want to know where these folks are going to end up and that they’ll be OK.”
The Work Ethic Camp first opened in 2001 and currently houses around 155 inmates who participate in education, treatment and work programs to help them transition to life outside prison. State leaders often praise it as a success story for reducing prisoner recidivism.
Some lawmakers have complained that Pillen acted rashly in offering up the facility, noting that the state’s prison system is already one of the nation’s most overcrowded and perpetually understaffed. The governor’s office and state prison officials met with members of the Legislature’s Judiciary Committee last week to answer questions about the transfer.
What the lawmakers got, several said, were estimates and speculation.
Lawmakers were told it was the governor’s office that approached federal officials with the offer after Trump “made a generalized, widespread call that we need more room or something for detainees,” said DeBoer, a Democrat in the officially nonpartisan Legislature.
Lawmakers were also told the facility — which was designed to house around 100 but is currently outfitted to hold twice that — would house between 200 and 300 detainees. The prison’s current staff of 97 is to be retrained and stay on.
The costs of the transition would be borne by the state, with the expectation that the federal government would reimburse that cost, DeBoer recalled.
A formal agreement between the state and federal agency had yet to be signed by Friday.
Asked how much the state is anticipated to spend on the conversion, the agency said “that number has not yet been determined,” but that any state expenditures would be reimbursed. The state plans to hire additional staffers for the center, the agency said.
A letter signed by 13 lawmakers called into question whether Pillen had the authority to unilaterally transfer use of a state prison to federal authorities without legislative approval.
To that end, state Sen. Terrell McKinney — chairman of the Legislature’s Urban Affairs Committee and a vocal critic of Nebraska’s overcrowded prison system — convened a public hearing Friday to seek answers from Pillen’s office and state corrections officials, citing concerns over building code violations that fall under the committee’s purview.
“How can you take a facility that was built for 125 people and take that to a capacity of 200 to 300 people without creating, you know, a security risk?” McKinney asked.
Pillen maintains state law gives him the authority to make the move, saying the Department of Correctional Services falls under the umbrella of the executive branch. He and state prison officials declined to show up at Friday’s hearing.
But dozens of Nebraska residents did attend, with most of them opposed the new ICE detention center.
For the last year, Los Angeles political leaders have searched for a way to upgrade the downtown Convention Center without also delivering cuts to core services.
The city’s budget team pushed for the facility to be emblazoned with digital billboards, which would produce tens of millions in ad revenue. A city-hired consultant came up with several cost-cutting measures, including the elimination of a public plaza originally planned as part of the expansion.
Despite those efforts, the project has only lost ground. On Tuesday, City Council members were informed the price tag has gone up yet again, reaching $2.7 billion — an increase of $483 million from six months ago.
Some at City Hall are growing nervous that the project’s first phase won’t be finished in time for the 2028 Olympic Games, jeopardizing the Convention Center’s status as one of the main venues. Beyond that, city officials have begun worrying publicly that Gov. Gavin Newsom might not support a state bill permitting the installation of two digital billboards that would face the busy 10 and 110 Freeway interchange.
Those two signs — hotly opposed by groups such as Scenic America — are expected to produce the vast majority of the project’s advertising income, according to the city’s budget team.
If state and federal support for the signs fails to materialize, the city’s general fund budget would have to provide an average of $111 million each year through 2058 to cover the cost of the Convention Center expansion, City Administrative Officer Matt Szabo said.
The earliest years would be the most expensive. In 2031, for example, an estimated $167 million in taxpayer funds would go toward the Convention Center’s debt and operations — even after the revenue from the project is factored in, Szabo told the council’s economic development committee on Tuesday.
“Since we last met in this room on this matter, the costs have increased dramatically,” Szabo said. “The serious [construction] schedule risks remain. And revenue that the project relies upon — will rely upon — is in jeopardy.”
For some on the council, the latest bad news is proving to be too much.
Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, who heads the council’s powerful budget committee, told The Times she believes an overhaul of the Convention Center is key to making downtown “stronger, more economically vibrant.” But with the city already struggling to pay for police officers, street repairs and other basic services, the current plan is “just too expensive,” she said.
“Without the signage revenue, the risk to the City’s budget is massive and unaffordable,” Yaroslavsky said in a statement.
Newsom spokesman Izzy Gardon declined to discuss the digital billboard bill, saying the governor’s office “does not typically comment on pending legislation.” State Assemblymember Mark González (D-Los Angeles), who represents part of downtown, said he is “engaging productively” with the Newsom administration on the bill.
“I’m confident we’ll find a path forward,” he said.
Council members must decide by Sept. 15 whether to move ahead with the project, Szabo said. Even some of the council’s downtown boosters sound nervous about their next step.
What “I hear some of my colleagues saying is, ‘Do we want a very beautiful Convention Center but a bankrupt city?’” said Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, who represents the vast majority of downtown.
Business groups have rallied around the expansion, saying it will finally allow L.A. to compete for large conventions, while also injecting new life into a downtown still reeling from the aftereffects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The project has also amassed broad support from organized labor, especially the region’s construction trade unions, which say it would create thousands of jobs.
“With over 800 members out of work, we need a project like this,” said Zachary Solomon, business representative for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 11. “The cost of this project will only continue to increase, so we need this project now.”
Many of the groups backing the Convention Center expansion have played a role in electing council members. Still, if the council presses ahead with the project, it will do so in the face of major warning signs.
The city’s top policy analysts have cautioned that any major construction delay could cause organizers of the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games to pull the Convention Center, which is scheduled to host judo, wrestling, fencing and other competitions, off its list of venues.
“It would be really bad to pay such a premium on such a project and [have] it not be ready in time to host the Olympics,” said Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, who advises the council.
Stuart Marks, senior vice president of Plenary Americas, the development company spearheading the Convention Center project, told council members he is “highly confident” the work will be done on time, saying there is flexibility in the schedule — and major penalties if the developer fails to perform.
Marks, whose company has partnered with Anschutz Entertainment Group on the Convention Center, said the companies tasked with construction have an established history, having worked on projects such as Staples Center — now Crypto.com Arena — and the expanded Moscone Center in San Francisco.
“Their reputations are on the line. Our reputations are on the line. Nobody’s saying there’s no risks. But there are contingencies … mitigation strategies, security packages and contractual regimes that equally meet that risk,” he said.
The proposed timeline calls for APCLA, also known as AEG Plenary Conventions Los Angeles — the joint venture that would oversee the expansion — to start construction later this year, pause that work during the Games and then finish once the event is over.
Under the proposal, a new wing would connect the Convention Center’s landmark green South Hall with the blue West Hall.
Much of the increase in the construction price has been attributed to the city’s Department of Water and Power, which recently issued higher cost estimates for the relocation of utilities under Pico Boulevard and the installation of several miles of cable and conduit.
DWP officials have already warned that they lack the staffing to carry out the project and would need to hire outside labor. They also indicated that work on the Convention Center is likely to result in delays to other projects — including construction of a new rail line in San Fernando Valley — because staff would have to be diverted, according to Szabo’s memo.
Tso has echoed many of Szabo’s concerns, saying in a separate report that the project would have an “acute negative impact” on the general fund budget, which pays for police, paramedic responses and other basic services.
Times staff writer Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
President Trump has threatened to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, New York, Seattle, Baltimore, San Francisco and Portland, Ore., to fight what he says is runaway crime. Yet data show most violent crime in those places and around the country has declined in recent years.
Homicides through the first six months of 2025 were down significantly compared with the same period in 2024, continuing a post-pandemic trend across the U.S.
Trump, who has already taken federal control of police in Washington, D.C., has maligned the six Democratic-run cities that all are in states that opposed him in 2024. But he hasn’t threatened sending in the Guard to any major cities in Republican-leaning states.
John Roman, a data expert who directs the Center on Public Safety & Justice at the University of Chicago, acknowledged violence in some urban neighborhoods has persisted for generations. But he said there’s no U.S. city where there “is really a crisis.”
“We’re at a remarkable moment in crime in the United States,” he said.
Public sees things differently
Trump might be tapping somewhat into public perception when he describes cities such as Chicago as a “killing field.” The vast majority of Americans, 81%, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities, according to a survey released this week by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, though there is much less support, 32%, for federal control of police.
The public was reminded this week that shootings remain a frequent event in the U.S. In Minneapolis, which has seen homicides and most other crime fall, a shooter killed two children attending a Catholic school Mass on Wednesday and wounded 17 a day after three people died in separate shootings elsewhere in the city.
Still, over time, the picture is encouraging, according to numbers from AH Datalytics, which tracks crimes across the country using law enforcement data for its Real-Time Crime Index.
Aggravated assaults — which includes nonfatal shootings — through June were down in Chicago, Portland, Seattle, Baltimore and San Francisco and were virtually unchanged in New York. Reports of rape were up in New York and Chicago during the first half of the year, but down in the other cities, including a 51% drop in San Francisco.
The crime index also showed that property crimes, such as theft, burglary and motor vehicle theft, were mostly down in those six cities in the first six months of 2025. Theft crimes rose from 2020-24 in four of the six cities analyzed by AP.
Cities defend safety strategies
Trump exaggerated and misstated facts about crime in Washington when his administration took over the D.C. police department and flooded the capital with federal agents and the National Guard. He referred to Baltimore, 40 miles away, as a “hellhole” during a Cabinet meeting and has said he might “send in the ‘troops.’ ”
“I’m not walking in Baltimore right now,” Trump said.
Yet Baltimore has shown drops in major crime, according to the crime index. Homicides and rapes were down 25% or more in the first half of 2025 compared with the same period in 2024. Homicides were down for three consecutive years through 2024 and were 35% lower when compared with 2018.
“Deploying the National Guard for municipal policing purposes is not sustainable, scalable, constitutional, or respectful,” Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, a Democrat, said on social media site X.
Baltimore has found ways to reduce violence by offering mentorship, social services and job opportunities to young people likely to commit crimes, said Michael Scott, director of the Center for Problem-Oriented Policing at Arizona State University and a former police chief in Florida.
“That approach has resulted in more significant reductions in shootings and homicides than any other strategy I’ve seen in the over 50 years I’ve been in the field,” Scott said.
Vice President JD Vance told a Wisconsin crowd on Thursday that governors and mayors should ask the Trump administration for help.
“The president of the United States is not going out there forcing this on anybody,” Vance said of using the National Guard, “though we do think that we have the legal right to clean up America’s streets if we want to.”
Tales of different cities
Trump doesn’t seem to disparage big cities in states that favor Republicans. Charlotte, N.C., had 105 homicides in 2024 compared with 88 in 2023. The rate of vehicle thefts per 100,000 people more than doubled there from 2020-24. Indianapolis had a homicide rate of 19 per 100,000 residents in 2024 — more than four times higher than New York’s.
Amy Holt, 48, who recently moved to Charlotte from a gated community in northern Virginia, said someone tried to steal her husband’s car in their new city. She also found bullets on the ground while walking with dogs.
There’s no discussion about sending the National Guard to Charlotte. Holt believes most cities should be trusted to be in charge of public safety, adding that troops in uniforms would be “alarming” and “scary.”
Democratic-elected officials in cities targeted by Trump have publicly rejected suggestions that their residents need the National Guard. “Crime is at its lowest point in decades, visitors are coming back, and San Francisco is on the rise,” Mayor Daniel Lurie said.
Experts question just how effective the National Guard would be and where troops would be deployed in cities.
“It’s going to make residents think: Things must be much worse than I realize to have the military in my neighborhood. What’s going on?” Scott said. “It’s more likely to generate undue fear and apprehension than it will lead to perceptions of reassurance and safety.”
White and Keller write for the Associated Press. White reported from Detroit and Keller reported from Albuquerque, N.M. AP video journalist Erik Verduzco in Charlotte, N.C., contributed to this report.
Stability is a thing of the past at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which this past week fired its director of dance programming, Jane Raleigh, as well as two other full-time dance programmers, Mallory Miller and Malik Burnett.
A few days later, the center announced its new dance director — a young Washington Ballet dancer named Stephen Nakagawa, who, according to the New York Times, sent a letter to the center’s president, Richard Grenell, lamenting “radical leftist ideologies in ballet.”
Nakagawa also wrote that he was “concerned about the direction the ballet world is taking in America,” that he was upset by the “rise of ‘woke’ culture,” at various dance companies and that he “would love to be part of a movement to end the dominance of leftist ideologies in the arts and return to classical ballet’s purity and timeless beauty.”
If “woke” is a MAGA dog whistle for diversity, equity and inclusion, then restoring “purity” to classical ballet could lead to a regressive whitewashing of the art form.
“With God, all things are possible,” Nakagawa wrote in a social media post announcing his appointment. “I am excited and honored to begin working with the incredible Kennedy Center and this amazing administration.”
The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment about how its dance programming might change now that Nakagawa has taken over, but a person close to the situation, who declined to be identified said, “The [terminated] individuals were given multiple opportunities to come up with new ideas and failed to offer any.”
In interviews following their dismissal, Miller and Burnett said they had attended a meeting with Grenell in which he told them that they needed to prioritize “broadly appealing” programming in order to attract corporate sponsorship. Grenell reportedly used the reality TV competition “So You Think You Can Dance” as an example of what he had in mind.
What Grenell seems to be missing is that, under Raleigh, dance programming at the Kennedy Center was among the best in the nation — with broad appeal. The current season, which had been programmed before Raleigh and the others were fired, included some of the country’s most vaunted and popular companies including Martha Graham Dance Company, American Ballet Theatre and New York City Ballet.
The Kennedy Center also commissioned great work, including Mark Morris’ “Moon,” which staged its world premiere at the center in April. Times classical music critic Mark Swedcaught the show at an “unusually quiet” venue shortly after President Trump staged his February takeover of the center.
“‘Moon,’” Swed told me, “served as a marvelous example of how [the] dance series already provides what both its audiences and new administration want. It celebrates American greatness, representing the historic Moonshot and Voyager space missions through wondrous dance, sanguine 1930s swing music and cavorting spacemen. There is even bit of cheerful conspiracy theory with the help of a cuddly alien or two.”
It doesn’t take a MAGA apparatchik to know that’s a winning formula.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, dancing my way to a better tomorrow. Here’s your arts news for the week.
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Prince on his 1987 Sign O’ The Times tour at the Palais Omnisports in Paris.
(FG/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images)
Prince – Sign O’ The Times The purple one’s 1987 film featuring live performances of songs from his ninth studio album gets the Imax treatment this weekend. Neither a commercial nor critical success upon its original release, interest in the project has only increased as the artist’s stature continued to rise, even after his death from an accidental overdose in 2016. Ranking Prince’s singles in 2021, Times pop music critic Mikael Wood wrote, “Inspired in part by the bad news he saw splashed across the front page of the Los Angeles Times one summer day in 1986, the title track of Prince’s magnum opus addresses AIDS and the crack epidemic in language as haunted and unsparing as the song’s rigorously pared-down groove.” The movie opens Thursday in limited theatrical release; check theaters for showtimes. www.imax.com/prince
“Villagers on Their Way to Church from Book of Hours,” c 1550, by Simon Bening (Flemish, about 1483 – 1561) Tempera colors and gold paint Getty Museum Ms. 50 (93.MS.19), recto
(J. Paul Getty Museum)
Going Places: Travel in the Middle Ages As we wrap up our own summer excursions, what better time to vicariously explore how it was done in medieval times through this exhibition of Getty Museum manuscripts illustrating the subject, augmented by an interactive component inspired by early 8-bit arcade video games. Times art critic Christopher Knight has described Northern European manuscripts as “one unmistakable strength of the Getty’s collection.” The show opens Tuesday. 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m. Tuesday–Friday and Sunday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Saturday; closed Monday, through Nov. 30. J. Paul Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive. getty.edu
Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers performs Arturo Márquez’s concerto “Fandango” with the LA Phil at the Hollywood Bowl in 2021.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Márquez’s Fandango & Shostakovich’s Fifth Violinist Anne Akiko Meyers performs Arturo Márquez’s Latin Grammy-winning composition with the L.A. Phil, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, Tuesday night at the Hollywood Bowl. The orchestra will also perform the Mexican composer’s “Danzon No. 2” and Shostakovich’s popular “Symphony No. 5.” When “Fandango,” commissioned by the L.A. Phil and written for Meyers, had its world premiere in 2021, Times classical music critic Mark Swedcalled it “substantial. It is based on the Mexican fandango Márquez grew up with in Sonora. His instrument is the violin, and his father was a mariachi violinist. But Márquez’s goal in the concerto was to use his folk and dance roots in a formal classical way, taking as his example such European composers as Manuel de Falla and Isaac Albéniz. In Márquez’s concerto, he allows Meyers to revel in her virtuosity. He writes melodies that sound old and worth keeping. Dance rhythms do what they’re supposed to, making feet tap and nerves tingle.” The gates open at 6 p.m. with the music scheduled to start at 8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY 🎭 Masala Dabba Food, cooking and the titular spice box are central to playwright Wendy Graf’s world-premiere drama about an Indian/African American family directed by Marya Mazor. 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sept. 14. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. InternationalCityTheatre.org.
🎭 NOIR! A Hollywood thriller is the milieu for a new immersive theatrical experience from the creators of “It’s Alive” and “The Assassination of Edgar Allan Poe.” 7:50 p.m. Friday-Sunday, Sept. 6, 13 and 20. Heritage Square Museum, 3800 Homer St. downtownrep.com
SATURDAY 🎥 Barry Lyndon The American Cinematheque marks the 50th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s visually sublime adaptation of William Makepeace Thackeray’s novel about an 18th century English rogue, starring Ryan O’Neal and Marisa Berenson, with the L.A. premiere of a new 4K restoration. 7 p.m. Egyptian Theatre, 6712 Hollywood Blvd. americancinematheque.com
🎥 Drop Dead Gorgeous Actor Denise Richards will be in person for a 35 mm screening of the 1999 small-town beauty pageant mockumentary, a darkly comedic cult favorite written by Lona Williams, directed by the State’s Michael Patrick Jann and co-starring Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin and Kirsten Dunst. 7:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. academymuseum.org
🎭 Just Another Day “Wonder Years” dad Dan Lauria wrote this romantic comedy on the enduring nature of love and stars with Academy Award nominee Patty McCormack (“The Bad Seed”) as a septuagenarian couple who meet every day on a park bench to verbally spar and reminisce. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, 2 p.m. Sunday, through Sept. 28, with 8 p.m. Wednesday shows on Sept. 17 and 24. Odyssey Theatre Ensemble, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd. odysseytheatre.com
🎨 Rising Sun, Falling Rain: Japanese Woodblock Prints An exhibition exploring the growth of Edo-period ukiyo-e printmaking and the later shin-hanga movement through more than 80 works from the Grunwald Center for the Graphic Arts features work by Katsukawa Shunshō, Utagawa Toyokuni, Katsushika Hokusai, Utagawa Hiroshige, Tsukioka Yoshitoshi and Kawase Hasui. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday–Sunday and Tuesday–Thursday, closed Monday, through Nov. 30. UCLA Hammer Museum, 10899 Wilshire Blvd., Westwood. hammer.ucla.edu
🎨 Martin Wittfooth: Deus ex Terra The Canadian artist examines the repeating patterns of nature and the ways it serves as both muse and a mirror of the human soul in this solo exhibition. Opening reception, 7 p.m. Saturday; noon-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. Corey Helford Gallery, 571 S. Anderson St., Los Angeles. coreyhelfordgallery.com/
SUNDAY
The cast of “One Man, Two Guvnors” at a Noise Within: Trisha Miller, from left, Kasey Mahaffy, Ty Aldridge and Cassandra Marie Murphy.
(Daniel Reichert)
🎭 One Man, Two Guvnors Richard Bean’s swinging ’60s British farce won James Corden a Tony Award and largely introduced him to American audiences. The show, based on “The Servant of Two Masters” by Carlo Goldoni, is directed by A Noise Within producing Artistic Directors Julia Rodriguez-Elliott and Geoff Elliott, with songs by Grant Olding. Previews: 2 p.m. Sunday; 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Sept. 5; opening night: 7:30 p.m. Sept. 6; 2 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Friday; 2 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, through Sept. 28. A Noise Within, 3352 E. Foothill Blvd., Pasadena. anoisewithin.org
TUESDAY 🎥 Who Killed Teddy Bear? The Los Angeles premiere of a newly struck 35 mm print presents Joseph Cates’ uncensored director’s cut of his 1965 neo-noir thriller starring Sal Mineo, Juliet Prowse, Jan Murray and Elaine Stritch with footage seen for the first time in six decades. 7 p.m. Los Feliz Theatre, 1822 N. Vermont Ave. americancinematheque.com
WEDNESDAY 🎭 Am I Roxie? Written-actor Roxana Ortega’s one-woman comedy is a wild ride through her mother’s mental decline. Directed by Bernardo Cubría. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday; 8 p.m. Friday; 3 and 8 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 5. Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Ave., Westwood. geffenplayhouse.org
THURSDAY 🎭 Oedipus the King, Mama! Troubadour Theater, a.k.a. the Troubies, applies its brand of commedia dell’arte-inflected slapstick to Sophocles’ classic Greek tragedy, infused with the music of Elvis Presley. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday, through Sept. 27. The Getty Villa, 17985 Pacific Coast Highway, Pacific Palisades. getty.edu
🎼 Mozart’s Requiem Conductor James Gaffigan leads the L.A. Phil in the composer’s final, uncompleted Mass, with the Los Angeles Master Chorale, preceded by Ellen Reid’s “Body Cosmic” and Brahms’ “Song of Destiny.” 8 p.m. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
Culture news and the SoCal scene
Danielle Wade as Maizy, left, and Miki Abraham as Lulu in the North American Tour of “Shucked” at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre.
(Matthew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
If you’re a sucker for puns, you’ll love “Shucked,” the musical comedy running through Sept. 7 at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The show, writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty, “never met a pun it didn’t like.” But there’s more to the folksy tale of mixed-up love in a place called Cob County — “Shucked” is a “folksy farcical riot, wholesome enough for widespread appeal but with just enough flamboyant oddity to tickle the funny bone of urban sophisticates.” The actors are also top-notch, including Danielle Wade, who plays the female lead Maizy. Wade, writes McNulty, “sounds like an ingenue Dolly Parton, exquisite to listen to, especially when her heart is in play.”
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s annual Art+Film Gala returns for its 14th year. This year’s honorees are filmmaker Ryan Coogler and Light and Space artist Mary Corse. The elaborate dinner — which always attracts a high-powered Hollywood crowd — is co-chaired by LACMA trustee Eva Chow and Leonardo DiCaprio. It’s scheduled to take place on Nov. 1 and will be the last such event to occur before the museum opens its new Peter Zumthor-designed building next spring.
Tyrone Huntley, an usher at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
Remember the fabulous actor who played Simon in the Hollywood Bowl’s unforgettable “Jesus Christ Superstar”? The one who also served as an understudy for Cynthia Erivo’s Jesus? His name is Tyrone Huntley, and his story is similar to those of countless working actors in L.A. Namely that he also has a day job. Only in Huntley’s case, his day job is working as an usher at the Hollywood Bowl. One day he was onstage in one of the season’s hottest shows, and the next he was showing people to their seats at the very same venue. Read all about it here.
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A scene from the 2022 documentary “¡Viva Maestro!”: Gustavo Dudamel smiles as he wraps up Encuentros performance in Palacio de Bellas Artes.
(Gerardo Nava / The Gustavo Dudamel Foundation)
Gustavo Dudamel is still the music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, but he’s already got one foot in New York City, where he is scheduled to become the music director of the New York Philharmonic in September 2026. This week the N.Y. Phil issued a news release highlighting Dudamel’s presence in its 2025-26 season. As the orchestra’s music and artistic director designate, Dudamel will lead six weeks of subscription programs, as well as the season-opening concerts. Next month he will conduct the world premiere of Leilehua Lanzilotti’s “of light and stone.”
Almost two years ago, Holocaust Museum LA broke ground on a $65-million expansion. It is now a less than a year out from opening at its new Jona Goldrich campus, which includes a 200-seat multipurpose theater, a 3,000-square-foot gallery, two classrooms, an interactive theater featuring a virtual Holocaust survivor, a pavilion with an authentic boxcar, a gift shop and a coffee shop, as well as a variety of outdoor community spaces. Designed by architect Hagy Belzberg, it will double the museum’s footprint in Pan Pacific Park.
The Consortium of Asian American Theaters & Artists issued a news release voicing concern “over the recent and evolving casting decisions in the Broadway production of ‘Maybe Happy Ending’,” created and written by Hue Park, with music by Will Aronson. The Michael Arden-directed Broadway adaptation won six Tony Awards this year, including for best musical, direction of a musical and lead actor in a musical (Darren Criss). However, after the award wins, Criss, who is of Filipino descent, took a leave of absence from the show and was replaced by a white actor, Andrew Barth Feldman. “This is not just about one casting decision, even if only momentary. It reflects a longstanding pattern of exclusion, whitewashing, and inequity that AAPINH and global majority artists have confronted for decades in U.S. theater,” the news release said.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Ojai’s Hotel El Roblar, which first welcomed guests in 1919, has officially reopened. The newest hotel in Ojai is now also its oldest, writes Times Travel writer Christopher Reynolds. See you there!
FORT PIERCE, Fla. — A truck driver accused of making an illegal U-turn that killed three people in Florida last week who the Trump administration said was in the U.S. illegally was denied bond Saturday.
The crash sparked a clash between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and California Gov. Gavin Newsom over Harjinder Singh, a native of India who obtained a work permit and driver’s license in the state.
Singh was charged with three state counts of vehicular homicide and immigration violations, and he was denied bond on all charges. He is being held in the St. Lucie County Jail, Lt. Andrew Bolonka from the St. Lucie County Sheriff’s Office said. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has put a hold on him.
Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said issuing a commercial license to someone in the country illegally is “asinine.” California is one of 19 states, in addition to the District of Columbia, that issues licenses regardless of immigration status. Supporters say that lets people work, visit doctors and travel safely.
Newsom’s press office responded in a social media post on X that Singh obtained a work permit while Donald Trump was president, which McLaughlin disputed.
Florida authorities said Singh entered the U.S. illegally from Mexico in 2018.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis dispatched Lt. Gov. Jay Collins to California to escort Singh onto an airplane Thursday.
Singh made the illegal turn on the highway about 50 miles north of West Palm Beach, according to the Florida Highway Patrol. A minivan in the neighboring lane was unable to avoid the truck’s trailer and slammed into it, killing the minivan’s driver and two passengers.
Singh and a passenger in his truck were not injured.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. On Friday, we’ll see how they did in the four games against the Rockies and look at the final Padres series of the season. But until then, here’s a bonus edition of the newsletter.
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Top 10 center fielders
Here are my picks for the top 10 center fielders in Dodgers history, followed by how all of you voted. Numbers listed are with the Dodgers only. Click on the player’s name to be taken to the baseball-reference.com page with all their stats.
1. Duke Snider (1947-62, .300/.384/.553, 142 OPS+, seven-time All Star)
Snider is known primarily as a power hitter, but he also led the NL in runs three times, in walks once and in OB% once. He also led the league in homers in 1956 with 43 and in RBIs in 1955 with 136. He hit 40 or more homers in five consecutive seasons and it can be argued that he is the greatest player in Dodgers history. He also hit four home runs in the 1955 World Series and 11 World Series homers overall. Snider grew up in Compton and went to Compton High, where the Dodgers discovered him and signed him for $750 after he graduated before the 1943 season. He was assigned to the minors and developed a reputation as a bit of a crybaby, once demanding he be sent to another team after a manager flashed him the take sign. He joined the Dodgers in 1947 and was a part-time player for a couple of seasons. Branch Rickey took him under his wing in 1948 and helped him improve his plate discipline and his footwork in center field. He became the starting center fielder in 1949 and quickly became one of the better players in the league. When the Dodgers moved to L.A. in 1958, injuries and the Coliseum, with its’ 430-foot distance to right-center, hurt his power somewhat. Snider hit only 15 homers in 1958 and 23 in 1959. He then became a part-time player again, but is the first Dodger to get a hit in Dodger Stadium. The Dodgers sold him to the New York Mets in 1963 and he retired after a season with the San Francisco Giants in 1964. It took him several tries to be elected to the Hall of Fame, finally breaking through with 86% of the votes in 1980. Snider died in Escondido on Feb. 27, 2011.
2. Willie Davis (1960-73, .279/.312/.413, 107 OPS+,two-time All Star, 3 Gold Gloves)
Davis was an outstanding defensive player who led the NL in triples twice (1962 with 10 and 1970 with 16) and whose offensive numbers don’t look as impressive as they should because he played during one of the biggest pitchers eras in baseball history. His best season was probably 1969, when he hit .311 with 23 doubles, eight triples and 11 homers, or it could have been 1962, when he hit .285 with 18 doubles, 10 triples and 21 homers, or 1971, when he hit .309 with 33 doubles, 10 triples and 10 homers. He didn’t walk much and had moderate power, but he caught everything hit to him (except for that one game in the 1966 World Series, but let’s not get into that). He is still the L.A. Dodgers’ career leader in runs (1,004), hits (2,091) and triples (110). He was traded to the Montreal Expos after the 1973 season for reliever Mike Marshall and retired after the 1979 season. Davis played in the majors for 18 seasons and had over 2,500 hits, but strangely never appeared on the Hall of Fame ballot. Not that he would have made it, but he certainly deserved to be up for consideration. He died in Burbank on March 9, 2010.
3. Pete Reiser (1940-42, 1946-48, .306/.384/.460, 132 OPS+, three-time All Star)
Pete Reiser never met an outfield fence he didn’t like crashing into and it may have cost him a Hall of Fame career. After playing in 58 games with the Dodgers in 1940, Reiser came into his own in 1941 when he hit a league-leading .343 to go with 117 runs, 39 doubles, 17 triples, 14 homers and 76 RBIs. He also played great defense in center. That got him second place in NL MVP voting behind teammate Dolph Camilli (Reiser should have won). Reiser led the league in nine categories. He followed that by hitting .310 with 33 doubles and 10 homers in 1942, leading the league with 20 steals and making his second straight All-Star team. However, on July 18 of that year, he crashed full speed into the center field fence while chasing a fly ball. He ended up with a separated shoulder and fractured skull. In those days though, you didn’t let little things like a fractured skull slow you down. He returned to the lineup a week later, but he wasn’t the same. He hit .244 the rest of the season. He then enlisted in the Army and spent three years there. Reiser returned to the majors in 1946 and broke his leg while stealing second. He crashed into the fence in St. Louis and missed some time. But he still led the league with 34 steals, though his batting average dropped to .277. In 1947, he was chasing another fly ball when he crashed into the wall face-first. This caused another fractured skull. He was given the Last Rites by a priest in the hospital before making a miraculous recovery. He ended up playing 110 games that season. He was a bench player the following season, as he had put on a little weight and had been slowed tremendously by his numerous injuries. The Dodgers traded him to the Boston Braves after the season for Nanny Fernandez and Mike McCormick. He retired after the 1952 season and came back to the Dodger organization as a roving minor-league hitting instructor. He joined Walter Alston’s coaching staff in L.A. in 1960 and helped tutor Maury Wills on how to steal bases. Reiser had a heart attack in 1965, went on as an assistant coach for other teams. Reiser, who smoked a pack of cigarettes a day throughout his adult life, died of emphysema in Palm Springs in 1981. He was only 62.
4. Matt Kemp (2006-14, 2018, .292/.348/.494, 127 OPS+, three-time All Star, two Gold Gloves)
I won’t write too much on Kemp since I assume everyone knows a lot about him. His arthritic hips robbed him of his speed, so if you only know him from his 2018 return, keep in mind that he stole 40 bases in 2011, 35 in 2008 and 34 in 2009. He never really had a bad season with the team, it’s just that his best seasons were so good that his other seasons looked bad in comparison. He was robbed of the MVP award in 2011, finishing second to Ryan Braun of Milwaukee, who was later suspended for 65 games for violating baseball’s drug policy. Kemp had a better season than Braun.
5. Mike Griffin (1891-98, .305/.399/.416, 125 OPS+)
It’s really hard to compare players from the 19th century to players much later, because it was such a different game. But Griffin was great and deserves a spot in the top 10.
Griffin score 100 or more runs in six of his eight season in Brooklyn, stole 264 bases and was considered the finest fielding center fielder of his day. In 1894, he hit a career-high .357. He was named team captain in 1895. But his career ended strangely.
Brooklyn fired manager Bill Barnie during the 1898 season and named Griffin as player-manager. He had that position for four games, decided he didn’t like it and asked to be just a player again. Team president Charles Ebbets became the manager.
After much cajoling, Ebbets convinced Griffin to try and become player-manager again for the 1899 season. He signed a contract for $3,500. What Griffin didn’t know was that Brooklyn was having financial problems, as was Baltimore, so Ebbets (who was wealthy) bought the Baltimore club and merged it with Brooklyn. Baltimore was managed by Ned Hanlon, considered a top manager. Ebbets no longer needed Griffin as a manager, and sent him a new contract for $2,800 as just a player. Griffin refused, saying he had a signed contract for $3,500. In March, 1899, Ebbets sent Griffin a telegram that stated: “You have been released to the Cleveland club. They wish you to report to Cleveland on Monday, to go with team to Hot Springs. Personally I wish you the best of luck in your new position.”
Griffin said he wouldn’t play for Cleveland. After two weeks of fighting over it, with various lawyers involved, Cleveland sold his contract to St. Louis. He never reported there, instead announcing his retirement and suing Ebbets for breach of contract. The New York State Supreme Court ruled in Griffin’s favor. But Griffin never played in the majors again. He died in 1908 of pneumonia. He was 47.
6. Cody Bellinger (2017-22, .248/.332/.487, 118 OPS+, two-time All Star, 2017 Rookie of the Year, 2019 NL MVP, one Gold Glove)
After his first four seasons, it seemed possible that Bellinger was going to be the best position player in Dodgers history and a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Then, while celebrating a home run in the 2020 World Series, he and Kiké Hernández high-fived so strongly that Bellinger separated his shoulder. He was never the same after that, hitting .165 in 2021 and .210 in 2022. The Dodgers had little interest in re-signing him as a free agent, and he has since played for the Cubs and Yankees, putting together solid seasons for both teams. But he has never again reached the heights he once reached.
There’s not a lot out there about Frederick. What is known was dug up by baseball historian Graham Womack: Frederick came into the league as a 27-year-old rookie in 1929 and led the league with 52 doubles (to go with 24 homers). He followed it up by hitting .334 with 44 doubles, 11 triples and 17 homers. Then Rawlings introduced a cork-cushioned baseball to the majors and Frederick’s power slowly began to slip. He was out of the majors for good when the Dodgers traded him to a minor-league team in 1934 for Frenchy Bordagaray. In 1935, he hit .363 for Sacramento. He then hit .322 over five years with the Portland Beavers, who made him player manager for his 19th and final professional season in 1940. Frederick finished his minor league career with 2,467 hits. Add that to his major league total, and Frederick had 3,421 hits in his pro career. He died in 1977 in Tigard, Ore., at the age of 75. You can read much more about Frederick here.
8. Jim Wynn (1974-75, .261/.394/.463, 144 OPS+, two-time All Star)
Wynn might be a little too high here, but he was my first favorite player on the Dodgers, so here he is.
The Dodgers acquired Wynn from the Astros before the 1974 season for Claude Osteen. Wynn got off to a fast start and became a fan favorite, with the bleachers in left center being dubbed “Cannon Country,” after Wynn’s nickname, “The Toy Cannon.”
Wynn hit .271 with 32 homers and 108 RBIs in 1974 while leading the Dodgers to the World Series. Honestly, he should have won the MVP award that season, but he finished fifth to Steve Garvey,
He got off to a good start in 1975, hitting .270 with 14 homers at the All-Star break, but slumped after that. The Dodgers, always ones at that time to trade a player a season too soon rather than a season too late, sent him to Atlanta for Dusty Baker.
Strangely, Wynn is probably best remembered by Dodgers fans for a play in the 1974 World Series.
Usually a standout defender, Wynn hurt his right shoulder making a diving catch near the end of the season, and his throwing arm after that had all the strength of a wet paper towel.
Knowing this, right fielder Joe Ferguson and Wynn had a deal. If a ball was hit between them and a runner was on third, Ferguson would make the catch with the hope his stronger arm would hold the runner, or that he could throw them out trying to score.
Game 1 of the World Series reached the eighth inning, with Oakland leading, 3-1. With Sal Bando on third for the A’s, Reggie Jackson hit a fly ball to right center. With a left-hander up, Wynn was playing toward right-center, and Ferguson was closer to the right-field line, so it looked like Wynn’s ball all the way.
Wynn set himself for the catch, when at the last second Ferguson, who started racing over as soon as the ball was hit, cut in front of him, made the catch, and threw a perfect strike to catcher Steve Yeager 300 feet away. Bando barreled over Yeager, who held on to the ball for the out.
Some Dodger fans, even now, think Ferguson was just trying to show up Wynn, which isn’t true.
“I called to him that I could take it and he said ‘Go ahead,’ ” Ferguson said.
Asked if that was true, Wynn responded “Yep. Wasn’t that one tremendous throw? It hurt my arm just to look at it.”
9. Brett Butler (.298/.392/.368, 112 OPS+, one-time All Star)
Butler was a pest. He seemed to be on base all the time, ran the bases with reckless abandon and scored 80-100 runs every season. Signed as a free agent, Butler made the All-Star team in his first season with the Dodgers and led the league with 112 runs and 108 walks. His on-base percentage topped .400 three times with L.A. and he played solid defense. He was caught stealing a little too often (28 times in 1991 compared to 38 stolen bases), but he’s the type of player you don’t see too often in the game today. In May of 1996, Butler was diagnosed with cancer of the tonsils. He underwent treatment and returned to the lineup in September. He played one more season with the team and retired.
I’ve written tons about Hernández. With the Dodgers, he has played at least 50 games at every position for the Dodgers, except pitcher (where he has appeared 10 times) and catcher (zero). One of the biggest fan favorites in Dodger history, he becomes an entirely different hitter in the postseason, where he has hit .278/.353/.522 in 75 postseason games with the Dodgers, including 10 homers and 26 RBIs.
The readers’ top 10
1,302 ballots were sent in. First place received 12 points, second place nine, all the way down to one point for 10th place. For those of you who were wondering, I make my choices before I tally your results. Here are your choices:
The next five: Johnny Frederick, Joc Pederson, Juan Pierre, Mike Griffin, Don Demeter.
Top 10 right fielders
Who are your top 10 Dodgers right fielders of all time (including Brooklyn)? Email your list to [email protected] and let me know. Remember, we are considering only what they did with the Dodgers.
Many of you have asked for a list of players to consider for each position. Here are the strongest right fielder candidates, in alphabetical order.
Mookie Betts, Buzz Boyle, Hubie Brooks, Thomas Burns, Dick Cox, Willie Crawford, Mike Davis, J.D. Drew, Andre Ethier, Ron Fairly, Al Ferrara, Carl Furillo, Shawn Green, Tommy Griffith, Babe Herman, Teoscar Hernández, Frank Howard, Jay Johnstone, Fielder Jones, Willie Keeler, Harry Lumley, Mike Marshall, Raúl Mondesi, Yasiel Puig, Frank Robinson, Reggie Smith, Casey Stengel, Darryl Strawberry, Ed Swartwood, Dixie Walker, Paul Waner and Hack Wilson.
A reminder that players are listed at the position in which they played the most games for the Dodgers, which is why Frank Howard and Ron Fairly are listed here, for example.
And finally
Willie Davis homers off of Nolan Ryan in the 1973 All-Star Game. Watch and listen here.
Until next time…
Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.
LINCOLN, Neb. — Nebraska announced plans for an immigration detention center in the remote southwest corner of the state as President Trump’s administration races to expand the infrastructure necessary for increasing deportations.
The facility will be dubbed the “Cornhusker Clink,” a play on Nebraska’s nickname of the Cornhusker State and an old slang term for jail. The alliterative name follows in the vein of the previously announced “Alligator Alcatraz” and “Deportation Depot” detention centers in Florida and the “Speedway Slammer” in Indiana.
Republican Gov. Jim Pillen said Tuesday he and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had agreed to use an existing minimum security prison work camp in McCook — a remote city of about 7,000 people in the middle of the wide-open prairies between Denver and Omaha — to house people awaiting deportation and being held for other immigration proceedings. It’s expected to be a Midwest hub for detainees from several states.
“This is about keeping Nebraskans – and Americans across our country – safe,” Pillen said in a statement.
The facility can accommodate 200 people with plans to expand to 300. McCook is about 210 miles west of Lincoln, the state capital.
“If you are in America illegally, you could find yourself in Nebraska’s Cornhusker Clink. Avoid arrest and self deport now using the CBP Home App,” Noem said in a separate statement.
Noem’s agency posted a picture on social media showing ears of corn wearing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement hats, standing in front of a prison fence.
The governor said later at a news conference in McCook that the center will have the advantage of being located at an existing facility and near a regional airport. He told reporters he didn’t know if the center would house women as well as men or if children could be held there. He said he first learned the federal government was interested in the facility on Friday.
Pillen also announced he would order the Nebraska National Guard to provide administrative and logistical support to Nebraska-based immigration agents. About 20 soldiers will be involved. And he said the Nebraska State Patrol would allow six troopers to help federal immigration agents make arrests.
Adding detention facilities to hold growing number of immigrants arrested
The Trump administration is adding new detention facilities across the country to hold the growing number of immigrants it has arrested and accused of being in the country illegally. ICE centers were holding more than 56,000 immigrants in June, the most since 2019.
The new and planned facilities include the remote detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz,” which opened last month. It’s designed to hold up to 3,000 detainees in temporary tent structures. When Trump toured it, he suggested it could be a model for future lockups nationwide.
The Florida facility also been the subject of legal challenges by attorneys who allege violations of due process there, including the rights of detainees to meet with their attorneys, limited access to immigration courts and poor living conditions. Critics have been trying to stop further construction and operations until it comes into compliance with federal environmental laws.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced last week that his administration is preparing to open a second facility, dubbed “Deportation Depot,” at a state prison in north Florida. It’s expected to have 1,300 immigration beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, state officials said.
Also last week, officials in the rural Tennessee town of Mason voted to approve agreements to turn a former prison into an immigration detention facility operated by a private company, despite loud objections from residents and activists during a contentious public meeting.
And the Trump administration announced plans earlier this month for a 1,000-bed detention center in Indiana that would be dubbed “Speedway Slammer,” prompting a backlash in the Midwestern state that hosts the Indianapolis 500 auto race.
Corrections director Rob Jeffreys said the 186 inmates currently at the McCook work camp will be transferred to other state facilities over the next 45 to 60 days. The repurposed facility will be run by the state but will be paid for by the federal government. He said it’s already set up and accredited to hold prisoners, so detainees won’t be housed in tents or other temporary quarters.
The Nebraska plan has already raised concerns
In a video posted to social media, state Sen. Megan Hunt, an independent, blasted a lack of transparency about plans for a detention center, citing her unfulfilled request to the governor and executive branch for emails and other records.
She urged people to support local immigrant rights groups.
“The No. 1 thing we need to do is protect our neighbors, protect the people in our communities who are being targeted by these horrible people, these horrible organizations that are making choices to lock up, detain, disappear our neighbors and families and friends,” Hunt said.
Around a half-dozen protesters sat in the hallway outside the governor’s office Tuesday afternoon making signs that said, “No Nazi Nebraska” and “ICE = Gestapo.”
Maghie Miller-Jenkins of Lincoln said she doesn’t think an ICE detention center is a good idea, adding the state should tackle problems like child hunger and homelessness. “This state has numerous things they could focus on that would benefit the constituents,” she said.
Funk writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Steve Karnowski in St. Paul, Minn., Jack Dura in Fargo, N.D., and Scott McFetridge in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this story.
MIAMI — A federal judge in Miami dismissed part of a lawsuit that claimed detainees were denied access to the legal system at the immigration detention center in the Florida Everglades known as “Alligator Alcatraz” and moved the remaining counts of the case to another court.
Claims that the detainees were denied hearings in immigration court were rendered moot when the Trump administration last weekend designated the Krome North Processing Center near Miami as a site for their cases to be heard, U.S. District Judge Rodolfo Ruiz said in a 47-page ruling Monday night dismissing a 5th Amendment count.
The judge granted the state defendants a change of venue motion to the Middle District of Florida, where the remaining claims of 1st Amendment violations will be addressed. Those include allegations of delays in scheduling meetings between detainees and their attorneys and an inability for the detainees to talk privately with their attorneys by phone or videoconference at the facility whose official name is the South Detention Facility.
ACLU lawyer Eunice Cho, the lead attorney for the detainees, said the federal government reversed course only last weekend and allowed the detainees to petition an immigration court because of the lawsuit.
“It should not take a lawsuit to force the government to abide by the law and the Constitution,” Cho said. “We look forward to continuing the fight.”
The judge heard arguments from both sides in a hearing earlier Monday in Miami. Civil rights attorneys were seeking a preliminary injunction to ensure detainees at the facility had access to their lawyers and could get a hearing.
Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration raced to build the facility on an isolated airstrip surrounded by swampland two months ago in order to aid President Trump’s efforts to deport people who are in the U.S. illegally. The governor has said the location in the rugged and remote Everglades was meant as a deterrent against escape, much like the island prison in California that Republicans named it after. The detention center has an estimated annual cost of $450 million.
The state and federal government had argued that even though the isolated airstrip where the facility is located is owned by Miami-Dade County, Florida’s Southern District was the wrong venue since the detention center is located in neighboring Collier County, which is in the state’s Middle District.
Judge Ruiz had hinted during a hearing last week that he had some concerns over which jurisdiction was appropriate. Attorneys for the detainees had argued that Ruiz’s court was appropriate since the detainees were under the oversight of federal officials in the Miami regional office. Any transfer to another venue would cause a delay in a court decision.
Ruiz noted the facts in the case changed Saturday when the Trump administration designated the Krome facility as the immigration court with jurisdiction over all detainees at the detention center.
The judge wrote that the case has “a tortured procedural history” since it was filed July 16, weeks after the first group of detainees arrived at the facility.
“Nearly every aspect of the Plaintiffs’ civil action — their causes of action, their facts in support, their theories of venue, their arguments on the merits and their requests for relief — have changed with each filing,” the judge wrote.
The state and federal government defendants made an identical argument last week about jurisdiction for a second lawsuit in which environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued to stop further construction and operations at the Everglades detention center until it’s in compliance with federal environmental laws.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams in Miami on Aug. 7 ordered a 14-day halt to additional construction at the site while witnesses testified at a hearing that wrapped up last week. She has said she plans to issue a ruling before the order expires later this week. She had yet to rule on the venue question.
Detainees at the facility have said worms turn up in the food, toilets don’t flush, flooding floors with fecal waste, and mosquitoes and other insects are everywhere.
Civil rights attorneys also said officers were going cell to cell to pressure detainees into signing voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys, and some detainees had been deported even though they didn’t have final removal orders. Along with the spread of a respiratory infection and rainwater flooding in tents, the circumstances had fueled a feeling of desperation among detainees, the attorneys wrote in a court filing.
Fischer, Schneider and Frisaro write for the Associated Press. Frisaro reported from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and Schneider reported from Orlando, Fla.
There was much ado Wednesday about President Trump’s picks to receive the coveted Kennedy Center Honors in December. Journalists and culture watchers combed through the histories of the president’s nominees — including actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone, glam-rock band KISS, disco singer Gloria Gaynor, country music star George Strait and English actor Michael Crawford — in order to better understand his choices.
Gaynor left some scratching their heads, especially because the disco queen’s most iconic song, “I Will Survive,” is an established anthem on dance floors at LGBTQ+ clubs. But Stallone — fondly known as Sly Stallone — seemed an obvious option. He was part of a cohort of tough-guy performers, including Jon Voight and Mel Gibson, named by Trump as “special ambassadors” to Hollywood, and he once called Trump the “second George Washington” while introducing at a gala in Palm Beach, Fla.
But the heart of an artist apparently beats beneath the “Rocky” star’s hardened pectorals. His Instagram is littered with abstract paintings featuring thick, brash strokes with obvious nods to the work of Jackson Pollock and Jean-Michel Basquiat. He is exclusively represented by Provident Fine Art in Palm Beach, and regularly posts his canvases to social media with captions like, “No hesitation. No overthinking. Just color, motion, guts. Sometimes you don’t wait for the perfect moment—you throw the punch and make it count.”
Another, of a twisted yellow and red face, reads, “A portrait I did of Rambo’s state of mind before he enters a BATTLE, called ‘…SEEING RED’.”
Not all of Sly’s fans are happy about his affiliation with Trump. A comment on his most recent painting read, “Sorry to hear you are taking part in the Kennedy honors. Linking your self to trump is not a good look. I hope you reconsider.”
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, wondering if the “Tulsa King’s” oil paintings might now make it into the Smithsonian. Here’s your arts news for the week.
Best bets: On our radar this week
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Antigone Frederique Michel directs Neil Labute’s adaptation of the Jean Anouilh play exploring the effects of authoritarianism (inspired by Sophocles, it was first produced in 1944 Paris during the Nazi occupation). Friday through Sept. 21. City Garage Theatre, Bergamot Station Arts Center, 2525 Michigan Ave. T1, Santa Monica. citygarage.org
Pirates Wanted Last Call Theatre presents an immersive adventure experience featuring swashbuckling, knot tying, navigation, liar’s dice, sea shanties and more. Recommended for landlubbers 13 and over. Younger mateys must be accompanied by an adult. Aug. 16-17, 22-24. Pine Ave. Pier, Long Beach. ticketleap.events/tickets/lastcalltheatre/lastcallpirateswanted
Russian pianist performs with the L.A. Phil Tuesday and Thursday at the Hollywood Bowl.
(L.A. Phil)
Rachmaninoff Under the Stars Two nights, two different programs of the Russian romanticist’s work featuring Russian pianist Daniil Trifinov and the L.A. Phil conducted by Daniel Harding. 8 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
The Broadway production of “Shucked” in 2023; the national tour arrives Tuesday at the Hollywood Pantages.
(Mathew Murphy and Evan Zimmerman)
Shucked The corn and puns are higher than an elephant’s eye in this Tony-winning musical comedy with a book by Robert Horn, music and lyrics by Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally and directed by Jack O’Brien. Tuesday through Sept. 7. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com
Multi-instrumentalist Herbie Hancock performs Wednesday at the Hollywood Bowl.
(Amy Harris / Invision / AP)
Herbie Hancock The versatile performed is joined by trumpeter Terence Blanchard, bassist James Genus, guitarist-singer Lionel Loueke and drummer Jaylen Petinaud for a freewheeling night of jazz. 8 p.m. Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
Culture news
Perry Picasshoe and his father walk through downtown Riverside while looking for a good spot to place another ice block on July 3, 2025.
(Daniel Hernandez)
Riverside artist Perry Picasshoe found a way to address the pain and upheaval of seeing people in his community pursued and deported by ICE. In a symbolic effort, Picasshoe melted 36 ice blocks on sidewalks of the Inland Empire where enforcement raids took place. “I took it as a metaphor of what’s happening,” Picasshoe said in an interview withDe Los. “I was also thinking a lot about having these blocks of ice as almost a stand-in for people.”
Times Theater Critic Charles McNulty attended a Black Out matinee performance of the two-character play “Berta, Berta,” by Angelica Chéri. The show is receiving its West Coast premiere in an Echo Theater Company production at Atwater Village Theatre directed by Andi Chapman. The action, which takes place in 1923 Mississippi, unfolds as the titular character wakes in the middle of the night to find the love of her life covered in the blood of a man he killed. The play’s themes were enhanced by the unique community environment of the performance, McNulty writes. “I was more alert to the through line of history. Although set in the Deep South during the Jim Crow era, there appeared to be little distance between the characters and the audience,” he notes.
A new museum is set to open in a historic building in Miami, honoring, “the history of Cuban exiles with immersive, state-of-the-art exhibits that explore the meaning of migration, freedom and homeland,” writes Joshua Goodman. The building that houses the new enterprise was once the city’s tallest structure and was known as the “Ellis Island” of Miami.
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Dancer Michael Tomlin III, with the Lula Washington Dance Company, rehearses in Los Angeles in January 2020.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
Lula Washington Dance Theatre is celebrating its 45th anniversary on Aug. 23 at the Ford. Washington has been a seminal figure in the arts world, including in her home base of South L.A. — guiding and shaping hundreds of young community members and dancers at her studio over the years. The company has toured extensively around America and the world, and in 2021 received a nearly $1 million Mellon Grant. “Where there’s a will there’s a way. We are still here! After all of the trials and tribulations, riots, earthquakes, COVID and Project 2025, we are still dancing! Dance has saved us and it will save us all,” Washington told The Times in advance of the anniversary. The tribute at the Ford will include performances of historic Washington pieces alongside new works by Martha Graham, Donald McKayle and more. For tickets and additional information, click here.
The Old Globe announced that actor Katie Holmes will kick off the theater’s 2026 season in a new production of Henrik Ibsen’s “Hedda Gabler,” directed by the Globe’s Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. The classic stage play is being given fresh life in a Globe-commissioned new version by playwright and screenwriter Erin Cressida Wilson. The show marks Holmes’ return to the Globe after Edelstein directed her in a 2023 production of “The Wanderers.” Performances are scheduled to run from Feb. 7 to March 8, 2026, and tickets are currently available by subscription only at TheOldGlobe.org.
The Broad is back with its summer concert series. On Aug. 16, guests can attend a show called “PAST + FUTURE = PRESENT, Pt. 1.” The after-hours event (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.) includes access to the special exhibition, “Jeffrey Gibson: the space in which to place me,” as well as two performance stages on several museum floors. Haisla hip-hop duo Snotty Nose Rez Kids will rock out upstairs while indie rockers Black Belt Eagle Scout will take to the lobby stage.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Wondering what Trump’s Kennedy Center Honors announcement felt like to watch? Here are the first 13 minutes, although it went on for much (much) longer.
Snoopy is the superstar of the “Peanuts” world, but Ben Folds is loyal to Charlie Brown. “I’m going to have to go with Chuck because he’s so emotionally compressed,” the singer-songwriter said when asked for a favorite.
Folds didn’t grow up poring over the Charles M. Schulz comics or memorizing the TV specials — “I can’t think of anything I really was a fan of outside of music” — but he loved Vince Guaraldi’s music for the animated specials.
He started studying Charlie Brown and the gang when he was hired to write the title song for “It’s the Small Things, Charlie Brown,” sung by Charlie’s sister Sally in the 2022 Apple TV special. And he recently dove back into the world of these iconic characters when he returned to write the final three songs for “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical.”
“I think it’s good that I came to fully appreciate the world of ‘Peanuts’ as an adult,” says Folds, although he adds that he was still starstruck about writing for Charlie Brown. “It’s a lot of responsibility,” he says. “I was asking the Schulz family, ‘Can I say this?’ and they’d say, ‘Yes, it’s yours.’”
Ben Folds performs in concert during the “Paper Airplane Request Tour” at ACL Live at The Moody Theatre on December 11, 2024 in Austin, Tx.
(Rick Kern / Getty Images)
Folds’ best-known songs, such as “Brick,” “Song for the Dumped,” “Army,” “Rockin’ the Suburbs” and “Zak and Sara,” may seem too sardonic or dark for the sweet world of Snoopy and company. But he sees it differently.
“There’s a lot of deep stuff there. ‘Peanuts,’ like ‘Mister Rogers,’ presents an empathetic and nuanced, not dumbed-down view of the world, and that is rare for kids programming,” he says. “I was able to say stuff in my songs that kids will understand but that will go over the heads of many adults.”
He also knows how to approach the storytelling aspect of musical writing pragmatically.
Within the show’s parameters, Folds is grateful to the creators for giving him his artistic freedom. “They give me carte blanche and don’t push back” Folds says, adding that when he puts in poetic imagery — ”I’m not calling myself f—ing Keats or anything,” he adds as an aside — director Erik Wiese would weave those ideas into the animation. “That’s really cool to see.”
“My ambition is to have them tell me that my lyrics meant they could delete pages of script,” he adds. “That’s what these songs are for.”
Wiese says Folds was the ideal person to “take the mantle” from Guaraldi: “He brings a modern thing and his lyrics are so poetic; on his albums he always touches your heart.”
Writer and executive producer Craig Schulz, who is Charles’ son, was impressed by both Folds’ songwriting and the responsibility the musician felt to the “Peanuts” brand. “He has a unique ability to really get into what each of the gang is thinking and drive the audience in the direction we want to,” says Schulz, adding that there was one day where the writers got on the phone with Folds to explain the emotions they needed a scene to convey “and suddenly he says, ‘I got it, I’m super-excited’ and then he hangs up and runs to the piano and cranks it out.”
The first song Folds wrote for “A Summer Musical” was when Charlie Brown realizes that the camp he holds dear “is going to get mown over in the name of progress. I wanted him to have the wisdom of his 60-year-old self to go back to ‘when we were light as the clouds’ to let him understand the future,” he says. So it’s a poignant song even as he’s writing about Charlie Brown looking through “old pictures of people he met five days ago. That’s the way kids are — they’re taking in a whole world and learning a lot in five days.”
(He did not write the show’s first two songs, though you’ll hear plenty of Folds-esque piano and melody in them because, Wiese says, “We wanted it to sound cohesive.”)
In the final song, Folds’ lyrics celebrate the saving of the camp (yeah, spoiler alert, but it’s “Peanuts,” so you know the ending will be happy), but he laces in the idea that these children are inheriting a lot of bad things from older generations, including climate change. But it’s not cynical, instead adding an understanding that their parents did the best they could (with a “Hello Mother, Hello Father” reference thrown in for the old-timers) and that this new generation will do the best they can and make their own mistakes.
Franklin, Marcie, Peppermint Patty, Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Woodstock and Sally in “Snoopy Presents: A Summer Musical.”
(Apple TV+)
Folds says it’s important for people in the arts and on the left to bring a realistic view but not to become doomsayers.
“I see how bad it could get, but there are two stories you can always tell that might be true — one way to talk about climate change will leave people saying, ‘We’re screwed anyway so I’ll just drink out of plastic bottles and toss them in the garbage,’ but the other way is to motivate people, to tell a story that shows an aspiration towards the future.”
That does not mean, of course, that Folds is blind to the perils of the moment. He stepped down as the National Symphony Orchestra’s artistic advisor at the Kennedy Center to protest Donald Trump’s power play there.
“I couldn’t be a pawn in that,” he says. “Was I supposed to call my homies like Sara Bareilles and say, ‘Hey, do you want to come play here?’” But he’s focusing on the positive, noting that he’s now working with other symphony orchestras with that free time.
Folds has recently also tried countering the turmoil of our current era: Last year he released his first Christmas album, “Sleigher,” and his 2023 album “What Matters Most” opens with “But Wait, There’s More,” which offers political commentary but then talks about believing in the good of humankind, and closes with the uplifting “Moments.”
And obviously, Folds knows that a show that stars a beagle and a small yellow bird that defies classification is not the right place to get bogged down in the issues of the day. Even when the lyrics dip into melancholy waters, they find a positive place to land.
“In this era I don’t want the art that passes through my world to not have some semblance of hope,” he says.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is preparing to open a second immigration detention facility at a state prison in north Florida, as a federal judge decides the fate of the state’s holding center for immigrants at an isolated airstrip in the Florida Everglades dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
DeSantis announced Thursday that the new facility is to be housed at the Baker Correctional Institution, a state prison about 43 miles west of Jacksonville. It is expected to hold 1,300 immigration detention beds, though that capacity could be expanded to 2,000, state officials said.
After opening the Everglades facility last month, DeSantis justified opening the second detention center, dubbed “Deportation Depot” by the state, by saying President Trump’s administration needs the additional capacity to hold and deport more immigrants.
“There is a demand for this,” DeSantis said. “I’m confident it will be filled.”
United States President Donald Trump has unveiled his slate of picks for the Kennedy Center Honors, an annual awards show designed to honour actors, musicians, designers and creative professionals who have dedicated their lives to the performing arts.
On Wednesday, Trump appeared on stage at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, one of the premier stages in Washington, DC, in a show of power over the national cultural institution.
“We’ll make it better than it ever was, frankly,” he said of the awards show. “ It’ll be something that people are going to be very proud of.”
This year’s five honourees include disco singer Gloria Gaynor, country music performer George Strait, the rock band Kiss, British comedian Michael Crawford and actor Sylvester Stallone, star of the classic films Rocky and Rambo.
Trump, a former reality TV star, also revealed that he would host the award show himself. In his opening remarks, he suggested his allies strong-armed him into taking the hosting gig.
“I’ve been asked to host. I said, ‘I’m the president of the United States. Are you fools asking me to do that?’” Trump said. “ So I have agreed to host. Do you believe what I have to do?”
Wednesday’s announcement was Trump’s latest foray into the arts, as he seeks to reshape the US’s cultural institutions to reflect his agenda.
Presenters unveiled the nomination for country music artist George Strait at the Kennedy Center on August 13 [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
Exerting power over the Kennedy Center
During Trump’s first term, from 2017 to 2021, the Republican leader never attended the Kennedy Center Honors, breaking with a longtime presidential tradition.
Since the ceremony’s beginnings in 1978, presidents have been regular attendees, except in rare cases, including Cold War-era negotiations and the 1979 Iran hostage crisis.
But since returning to the White House for a second term in January, Trump has not only sought to make his presence known at the Kennedy Center, but he has also sought to wield power over its programming.
On February 7, Trump announced he would purge the Kennedy Center’s governing board and declared his intention to lead the institution as its chair.
“I have decided to immediately terminate multiple individuals from the Board of Trustees, including the Chairman, who do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture,” Trump wrote at the time. “We will soon announce a new Board, with an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!”
By February 12, the new Kennedy Center board had made good on its promise to elect Trump as chair.
Since then, Trump has expanded his reach into the country’s arts and culture spheres. On Tuesday, for instance, his administration revealed it would undertake an “internal review” of several Smithsonian museums, to “ensure alignment with the President’s directive to celebrate American exceptionalism”.
Trump also teased his new vision for the Kennedy Center Honors — and appeared to troll critics who expressed outrage over Republican proposals to rename the performing arts centre after the Republican leader.
“GREAT Nominees for the TRUMP/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,” Trump wrote on social media in the lead-up to Wednesday’s announcement.
He pledged the revamped award show would reflect “the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment”.
Presenters unveil a portrait of the rock group KISS at the Kennedy Center on August 13 [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
A crackdown on crime in the capital
The Kennedy Center Honors is expected to air on the TV channel CBS in December, and it broadcasts from its eponymous theatre.
In Wednesday’s speech, Trump tied the upcoming ceremony to his broader campaign to crack down on crime in Washington, DC.
“ In the coming months, we’ll fully renovate the dated and, really, the entire infrastructure of the building and make the Kennedy Center a crown jewel of American arts and culture once again,” he said.
“ We have the right location, and soon we will be a crime-free area.”
Earlier this week, Trump invoked the capital’s Home Rule Act to take control of the local police force, and he deployed members of the National Guard to patrol the city’s streets, despite the fact that violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low.
Trump, however, has denied the legitimacy of those statistics, a claim he made again at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday.
“ You’re gonna see a big change in Washington crime stats very soon — not the stats that they gave because they turned out to be a total fraud. The real stats,” he said.
Trump also faces legal limitations to his efforts: The capital’s police can only be federalised for a period of 30 days, barring congressional action.
When asked about that limit at Wednesday’s news conference, Trump indicated he would seek to retain control of Washington’s police for the long term.
“ If it’s a national emergency, we can do it without Congress,” Trump said, though he added that he would introduce a crime bill that would allow him to extend his control over the local police.
“ We’re going to do this very quickly, but we’re going to want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency. If I have to, I will, but I think the Republicans in Congress will approve this pretty much unanimously.”
Donald Trump stands in front of a portrait of Sylvester Stallone, a 2025 Kennedy Center honouree [Alex Brandon/AP Photo]
Trump ‘very involved’ in honouree selection
The Republican leader also hinted at a potential political bent to the reimagined Kennedy Center Honors.
He has previously denounced the Kennedy Center’s programming, pledging to nix artistic productions like drag shows and book classic Broadway hits instead.
In response, over the past year, the touring production of the hit Broadway musical Hamilton cancelled its scheduled stop at the Kennedy Center, as did comedian Issa Rae and the opera Fellow Travelers.
Performers in a touring production of Les Miserables also boycotted performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump’s changes.
Still, Trump doubled down on the programming changes, saying his ratings success on the reality TV show The Apprentice testified to his arts-industry smarts.
“I shouldn’t make this political because they made the Academy Awards political and they went down the tubes,” Trump said on Wednesday.
“They’ll say, ‘Trump made it political,’ but I think, if we make it our kind of political, we’ll go up, OK? Let’s see if I’m right about that.”
He also confirmed that he had played a large role in selecting this year’s Kennedy Center honourees.
“I would say I was about 98-percent involved. No, they all went through me,” Trump explained, adding that he turned down “plenty” of candidates, including “a couple of wokesters”.
Looking ahead, Trump said the Kennedy Center would feature heavily in his plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the country’s founding in 2026.
“I’m going to be president for the Olympics. I’ll be president for the World Cup. And the 250th is going to be maybe more exciting than both,” Trump said. “It’s a great celebration of our country. We’re going to be using this building for a lot of the celebration.”
Ever since federal immigration raids ramped up across California, triggering fierce protests that prompted President Trump to deploy troops to Los Angeles, the state has emerged as the symbolic battleground of the administration’s deportation campaign.
But even as arrests soared, California was not the epicenter of Trump’s anti-immigrant project.
In the first five months of Trump’s second term, California lagged behind the staunchly red states of Texas and Florida in the total arrests. According to a Los Angeles Times analysis of federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from theDeportation Data Project, Texas reported 26,341 arrests — nearly a quarter of all ICE arrests nationally — followed by 12,982 in Florida and 8,460 in California.
Even in June, when masked federal immigration agents swept through L.A., jumping out of vehicles to snatch people from bus stops, car washes and parking lots, California saw 3,391 undocumented immigrants arrested — more than Florida, but still only about half as many as Texas.
When factoring in population, California drops to 27th in the nation, with 217 arrests per million residents — about a quarter of Texas’ 864 arrests per million and less than half of a whole slew of states including Florida, Arkansas, Utah, Arizona, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Nevada.
The data, released after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the government, excludes arrests made after June 26 and lacks identifying state details in 5% of cases. Nevertheless, it provides the most detailed look yet of national ICE operations.
Immigration experts say it is not surprising that California — home to the largest number of undocumented immigrants in the nation and the birthplace of the Chicano movement — lags behind Republican states in the total number of arrests or arrests as a percentage of the population.
“The numbers are secondary to the performative politics of the moment,” said Austin Kocher, a geographer and research assistant professor at Syracuse University who specializes in immigration enforcement.
Part of the reason Republican-dominated states have higher arrest numbers — particularly when measured against population — is they have a longer history of working directly with ICE, and a stronger interest in collaboration. In red states from Texas to Mississippi, local law enforcement officers routinely cooperate with federal agents, either by taking on ICE duties through so-called 287(g) agreements or by identifying undocumented immigrants who are incarcerated and letting ICE into their jails and prisons.
Indeed, data show that just 7% of ICE arrests made this year in California were made through theCriminal Alien Program, an initiative that requests that local law enforcement identify undocumented immigrants in federal, state and local prisons and jails.
That’s significantly lower than the 55% of arrests in Texas and 46% in Florida made through prisons or jails. And other conservative states with smaller populations relied on the program even more heavily: 75% of ICE arrests in Alabama and 71% in Indiana took place via prisons and jails.
“State cooperation has been an important buffer in ICE arrests and ICE operations in general for years,” said Ariel Ruiz Soto, a Sacramento-based senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute. “We’ve seen that states are not only willing to cooperate with ICE, but are proactively now establishing 287(g) agreements with their local law enforcement, are naturally going to cast a wider net of enforcement in the boundaries of that state.”
While California considers only some criminal offenses, such as serious felonies, significant enough to share information with ICE; Texas and Florida are more likely to report offenses that may not be as severe, such as minor traffic infractions.
Still, even if fewer people were arrested in California than other states, it also witnessed one of the most dramatic increases in arrests in the country.
California ranked 30th in ICE arrests per million in February. By June, the state had climbed to 10th place.
ICE arrested around 8,460 immigrants across California between Jan. 20 and June 26, a 212% increase compared with the five months before Trump took office. That contrasts with a 159% increase nationally for the same period.
Much of ICE’s activity in California was hyper-focused on Greater Los Angeles: About 60% of ICE arrests in the state took place in the seven counties in and around L.A. during Trump’s first five months in office. The number of arrests in the Los Angeles area soared from 463 in January to 2,185 in June — a 372% spike, second only to New York’s 432% increase.
Even if California is not seeing the largest numbers of arrests, experts say, the dramatic increase in captures stands out from other places because of the lack of official cooperation and public hostility toward immigration agents.
“A smaller increase in a place that has very little cooperation is, in a way, more significant than seeing an increase in areas that have lots and lots of cooperation,” Kocher said.
ICE agents, Kocher said, have to work much harder to arrest immigrants in places like L.A. or California that define themselves as “sanctuary” jurisdictions and limit their cooperation with federal immigration agents.
“They really had to go out of their way,” he said.
Trump administration officials have long argued that sanctuary jurisdictions give them no choice but to round up people on the streets.
Not long after Trump won the 2024 election and the L.A. City Council voted unanimously to block any city resources from being used for immigration enforcement, incoming border enforcement advisor Tom Homan threatened an onslaught.
“If I’ve got to send twice as many officers to L.A. because we’re not getting any assistance, then that’s what we’re going to do,” Homan told Newsmax.
With limited cooperation from California jails, ICE agents went out into communities, rounding up people they suspected of being undocumented on street corners and at factories and farms.
That shift in tactics meant that immigrants with criminal convictions no longer made up the bulk of California ICE arrests. While about 66% of immigrants arrested in the first four months of the year had criminal convictions, that percentage fell to 30% in June.
The sweeping nature of the arrests drew immediate criticism as racial profiling and spawned robust community condemnation.
Some immigration experts and community activists cite the organized resistance in L.A. as another reason the numbers of ICE arrests were lower in California than in Texas and even lower than dozens of states by percentage of population.
“The reason is the resistance, organized resistance: the people who literally went to war with them in Paramount, in Compton, in Bell and Huntington Park,” said Ron Gochez, a member of Unión del Barrio Los Angeles, an independent political group that patrols neighborhoods to alert residents of immigration sweeps.
“They’ve been chased out in the different neighborhoods where we organize,” he said. “We’ve been able to mobilize the community to surround the agents when they come to kidnap people.”
In L.A., activists patrolled the streets from 5 a.m. until 11 p.m., seven days a week, Gochez said. They faced off with ICE agents in Home Depot parking lots and at warehouses and farms.
“We were doing everything that we could to try to keep up with the intensity of the military assault,” Gochez said. “The resistance was strong. … We’ve been able, on numerous occasions, to successfully defend the communities and drive them out of our community.”
The protests prompted Trump to deploy the National Guard and Marines in June, with the stated purpose of protecting federal buildings and personnel. But the administration’s ability to ratchet up arrests hit a roadblock on July 11. That’s when a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order blocking immigration agents in Southern and Central California from targeting people based on race, language, vocation or location without reasonable suspicion that they are in the U.S. illegally.
That decision was upheld last week by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But on Thursday, the Trump administration petitioned the Supreme Court to lift the temporary ban on its patrols, arguing that it “threatens to upend immigration officials’ ability to enforce the immigration laws in the Central District of California by hanging the prospect of contempt over every investigative stop.”
The order led to a significant drop in arrests across Los Angeles last month. But this week, federal agents carried out a series of raids at Home Depots from Westlake to Van Nuys.
Trump administration officials have indicated that the July ruling and arrest slowdown do not signal a permanent change in tactics.
“Sanctuary cities are going to get exactly what they don’t want: more agents in the communities and more work site enforcement,” Homan told reporters two weeks after the court blocked roving patrols. “Why is that? Because they won’t let one agent arrest one bad guy in the jail.”
U.S. Border Patrol Sector Chief Gregory Bovino, who has been leading operations in California, posted a fast-moving video on X that spliced L.A. Mayor Karen Bass telling reporters that “this experiment that was practiced on the city of Los Angeles failed” with video showing him grinning. Then, as a frenetic drum and bass mix kicked in, federal agents jump out of a van and chase people.
“When you’re faced with opposition to law and order, what do you do?” Bovino wrote. “Improvise, adapt, and overcome!”
Clearly, the Trump administration is willing to expend significant resources to make California a political battleground and test case, Ruiz Soto said. The question is, at what economic and political cost?
“If they really wanted to scale up and ramp up their deportations,” Ruiz Soto said, “they could go to other places, do it more more safely, more quickly and more efficiently.”
WASHINGTON — A dozen Democratic House members — including four from California — sued the Trump administration Wednesday after lawmakers were repeatedly denied access to immigrant detention facilities where they sought to conduct oversight visits.
The lawsuit, filed in federal district court in Washington, says each plaintiff has attempted to visit a detention facility, either by showing up in person or by giving Homeland Security Department officials advanced notice, and been unlawfully blocked from entering.
Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for Homeland Security, said in a statement that visit requests should be made with enough time to prevent interference with the president’s authority to oversee executive department functions, and must be approved by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. McLaughlin said a week’s notice suffices.
“These Members of Congress could have just scheduled a tour; instead, they’re running to court to drive clicks and fundraising emails,” she wrote.
Among the plaintiffs are California Reps. Norma Torres of Pomona, Robert Garcia of Long Beach, who is the ranking member of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Jimmy Gomez of Los Angeles, and Lou Correa of Santa Ana, the ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security and Enforcement.
Also included are Reps. Adriano Espaillat of New York, who is the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus; Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who is the ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee; and Jamie Raskin, of Maryland, who is the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee.
In an interview with The Times, Gomez said there was always an understanding between the executive and legislative branches about the importance of oversight. Under the Trump administration, that has changed, he said.
“We believe this administration, unless they’re faced with a lawsuit, they don’t comply with the law,” he said. “This administration believes it has no obligation to Congress, even if it’s printed in black and white. That’s what makes this administration dangerous.”
In a statement, Correa said that, as a longtime member of the House Homeland Security Committee, his job has always been to oversee Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Until this summer, he said, he fulfilled that role with no issues.
Reports from immigrant detention facilities in recent months have included issues such as overcrowding, food shortages and a lack of medical care. U.S. citizens have in some cases been unlawfully detained by immigration agents.
The lawsuit demands that the Trump administration comply with federal law, which guarantees members of Congress the right to conduct oversight visits anywhere that immigrants are detained pending deportation proceedings. The lawmakers are represented by the Democracy Forward Foundation and American Oversight.
ICE published new guidelines last month for members of Congress and their staff, requesting at least 72 hours notice from lawmakers and requiring at least 24 hours notice from staff before an oversight visit. The guidelines, which have since been taken down from ICE’s website, also claimed that field offices, such as the facility at the Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles, “are not detention facilities” and fall outside the scope of the oversight law.
The agency says it has discretion to deny or reschedule a visit if an emergency arises or the safety of the facility is jeopardized, though such contingencies are not mentioned in federal law.
The lawsuit calls ICE’s new policy unlawful.
A federal statute, detailed in yearly appropriations packages since 2020, states that funds may not be used to prevent a member of Congress “from entering, for the purpose of conducting oversight, any facility operated by or for the Department of Homeland Security used to detain or otherwise house aliens.”
Under the statute, federal officials may require at least 24 hours’ notice for a visit by congressional staff — but not members themselves.
The lawmakers say congressional oversight is needed now more than ever, with ICE holding more than 56,800 people in detention as of July 13, according to TRAC, a nonpartisan data research organization.
Ten people have died in ICE custody since Trump took office. Earlier this year, the administration moved to close three internal oversight bodies at Homeland Security, but revived them with minimal staff after civil rights groups sued.
Gomez said members of Congress have a duty to determine whether the administration is fulfilling its obligations to taxpayers under the law. The administration’s position that holding facilities inside ICE offices are not subject to oversight is a slippery slope, he said.
“What happens if they set up a camp and they say ‘This is not a detention facility but a holding center?’ For us it’s that, if they are willing to violate the law for these facilities, the potential for the future becomes more problematic,” he said.
OCHOPEE, Fla. — Deportation flights from the remote Everglades immigration lockup known as ”Alligator Alcatraz″ have begun and are expected to increase soon, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said Friday.
The first flights operated by the Department of Homeland Security have transferred about 100 detainees from the immigration detention center to other countries, DeSantis said during a news conference near the facility.
“You’re going to see the numbers go up dramatically,” he said.
Two or three flights have already departed, but officials didn’t say where those flights headed.
Critics have condemned the South Florida facility as cruel and inhumane. DeSantis and other Republican officials have defended it as part of the state’s aggressive push to support President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Building the facility in the Everglades and naming it after a notorious federal prison were meant as deterrents, DeSantis and other officials have said.
The White House has delighted in the area’s remoteness — about 50 miles west of Miami — and the fact that it is teeming with pythons and alligators. It hopes to send a message that repercussions will be severe if U.S. immigration laws are broken.
Trump has suggested that his administration could reopen Alcatraz, the notorious island prison in San Francisco Bay. The White House also has sent some immigrants awaiting deportation to a detention lockup in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and others to a megaprison in El Salvador.
The Everglades facility was built in a matter of days over 10 square miles. It features more than 200 security cameras and more than 5 miles of barbed wire. An adjacent runway makes it more convenient for homeland security officials to move detainees in and out of the site.
It currently holds about 2,000 people, with the potential to double the capacity, Florida Emergency Management Director Kevin Guthrie said Friday.
DeSantis wants the U.S. Justice Department to allow an immigration judge on site to speed up the deportation process.
“This was never intended to be something where people are just held,” he said. “The whole purpose is to be a place that can facilitate increased frequency and numbers of deportations.”
Critics have challenged federal and state officials’ contention that the detention center is just run by the state of Florida. Environmental groups suing to stop further construction and expansion demanded Thursday to see agreements or communications between state and federal officials and to visit the site.
Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Mike Schneider contributed to this report.
Chris Newman was carrying two bags when we recently sat down for breakfast at Homegirl Café in downtown Los Angeles.
One was a newish satchel holding his laptop and papers for the cases he’s working on, which happen to involve some of the most infamous moments in the Trump administration’s deportation deluge.
“If we can litigate the calamity [of Trump] at the local level to the widest degree, that can help democracy survive, dude,” Newman told me as he picked at black beans and two eggs over easy.
The other bag, a big straw tote, was filled with anti-Trump and anti-migra T-shirts, posters and stickers. Wherever Newman goes these days, he hands them out like a progressive Santa Claus.
“I want to keep the proper amount of anger to have the fuel to do all this,” he said. “The pendulum is sweeping so wide and so fast. We need to be ready.”
For the past 21 years, Newman has been a pivotal, omnipresent part of Southern California’s immigrant rights movement as legal director for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, better known as NDLON. His work takes him from street corners advising jornaleros about their rights to my alma mater, UCLA, where he’s on the faculty of the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment.
Newman’s influence extends far past Los Angeles, however. He’s a regular presence on national media outlets, quick and eloquent with insights and righteous anger. Politicians from Sacramento to Washington know he isn’t afraid to tear into them if he thinks they’re too timid to publicly call out xenophobia or support laws that protect the undocumented.
“He does not mind being the bad cop,” said Angela Chan, assistant chief attorney at the San Francisco public defender’s office. In her previous job last decade, she and Newman helped craft a trio of bills that made California a sanctuary state.
“It can make a meeting very uncomfortable, but Chris is cutting all the bulls— so you get much closer to having an honest conversation,” Chan said. “He does not expect or pursue pomp or circumstance.”
Chris Newman, legal council for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, outside Homegirl Cafe in Los Angeles.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Salvador Reza, a longtime organizer in Phoenix, first worked with Newman in the mid-2000s after asking NDLON to help pressure the city to let day laborers seek work. Newman participated in forums, organized rallies and ultimately convinced city officials to lay off by citing a 2006 lawsuit against Redondo Beach that he had worked on. In that case, an ordinance banning day laborers was ruled unconstitutional.
“He cares a lot about people, and he’ll go out of his way to help out anyone who needs it who’s being abused by the system,” said Reza, who saw Newman earlier this year when the two met with Home Depot managers over allegations that their stores in Phoenix were chasing off day laborers. “He’s super busy over there in California right now, isn’t he?”
A fast talker who exudes confidence but isn’t a braggart, Newman looks far younger than 49. His full head of hair, round-framed glasses and freshly sprouted mustache gives the Chicagoland native the look of a Depression-era do-gooder.
“I’m trying to hold onto the anger stage so I don’t get into the sad stage,” he said. “And I don’t want to get there because that’ll lead to the acceptance stage, and too much of L.A. is already there.”
Newman never planned for a career like this, even though his mother was from Denmark, his father is a Hungarian Jew and his brother is of Salvadoran descent. He attended law school in Denver, set on becoming a death penalty lawyer, until realizing “it wasn’t like I thought it was in the movies.”
A mentor suggested that Newman recharge his bleeding heart by volunteering with Minsun Ji, founder of Denver’s first day laborers’ center. “I didn’t even know day laborers were a thing,” Newman admitted. But he immediately “loved everything — just hanging out there, chewing the fat and hearing the stories of the jornaleros.”
Ji assigned him to help clean the restrooms his first few weeks. Newman eventually graduated to handling wage theft cases and volunteered for whatever was needed, including driving a van full of day laborers to an NDLON conference in suburban Maryland in 2002. There, he heard Thomas Saenz, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund who led a successful lawsuit against Prop. 187, the 1994 California anti-immigrant ballot initiative. Saenz told the crowd about MALDEF’s lawsuits against Southern California cities that were trying to ban day laborers.
“That’s when I realized I could use my law degree to do the exact same thing,” Newman said. “[It was] something that I loved in theory, but I didn’t realize it was happening in real life.”
“It was at eight at night, and I was still at the [NDLON] office,” Alvarado said in a phone interview. “And Chris said, ‘I want to do a fellowship with you. The fellowship deadline is at three in the afternoon the next day. Can I go right now so we can write it?’”
He began to laugh. “We didn’t sleep all night, but we did it — we finished his application. And Chris never left.”
(Newman remembers the moment differently. He said he applied for the fellowship, but Alvarado forgot about it until the day before it was due.)
Twenty-one years later, Alvarado says Newman’s energy and verisimilitude haven’t changed.
“Even though he’s a lawyer, his feet are on the ground — he’s not an elitist. By 8 in the morning, he will have read every article written that day about immigration. He’ll tell me what we need to do, and then he goes out and does it.”
Like the Abrego Garcia case.
Newman called Abrego Garcia’s lawyer to offer help, then connected with the family to organize a GoFundMe campaign through NDLON. Next was enlisting artists in a social media campaign to make Abrego Garcia’s predicament go viral. Soon, Newman was on a flight to El Salvador in an unsuccessful bid to visit the imprisoned Abrego Garcia, something he would try two more times.
“It felt like a Venn diagram of everything I’ve worked for over the past 20 years,” said Newman, who has yet to speak to Abrego Garcia. “At the time, we had no idea whether he was innocent or guilty. What mattered is that he deserved due process.”
“I’m a Cornel West disciple,” Newman responded. “And he said there’s a difference between hope and optimism.”
West defined optimism as based on a rational analysis of what’s out there, while hope is an act of courage against what seems like impossible odds.
“No one has ever accused me of being an optimist,” Newman said.
He kept thinking about it.
“I don’t know, but I think the tide will turn. I remember when Arpaio had an 85% approval rating. And he went down.”
He got more animated. “I know people can turn the tide, but they have to do their part.”
He reached into his straw tote and brought out his anti-migra swag — a T-shirt emblazoned with “Arrest Trump, Not Migrants,” bumper stickers reading “ICE Out of LA!” with the “LA” in Dodgers style, red-and-white signs declaring “I.C.E. Off My Property Get A Warrant!”
Our waitress came with the bill, then looked at the T-shirt. “That’s really cool!” she exclaimed.
“Want it?” Newman replied as he handed it to her. Other Homegirl staffers grabbed stickers and signs.
As we exited the cafe, Newman left a stack on a table next to the door.
“I’m going to go to Highland Park later to ask businesses if they want to post them on their windows,” he said as a customer eyed the signs.
“Go ahead and take it, man,” Newman urged. “Take a bunch!”
Attending a BTS member’s solo show is probably the best way to understand the power of the group beyond Western conceptions of boy bands and the limitations of the K-pop idol system.
Jin, the eldest member of the group, has become the third bandmate to solo headline a world tour with his #RUNSEOKJIN_EP. Tour, which brought him to Anaheim’s Honda Center on Thursday and Friday night.
At the outset of the septet’s 2022 break, Jin was on a time crunch. South Korea had raised the mandatory age of military enlistment from 28 to 30 years old(with legislation nicknamed the BTS law), and it was his time to go.
Without time for a bigger project before heading off, he debuted the soaring single “The Astronaut,” co-written by his favorite band, Coldplay, and paired with a nostalgia-tinged sci-fi music video.
Jin plays piano during his two-night run at Honda Center
(Bright Music)
After he was discharged from the military in June of last year, he got straight to work releasing the upbeat pop-rock EP “Happy,” followed six months later by his latest release, “Echo,” which veered in a more indie direction. Much of the songs on the tour’s 18-song set list come from both of these releases, sprinkled with a few of his earlier stand-alone singles.
On Thursday’s show, the over-18,000-capacity arena appeared nearly sold out, so far proving the group’s famous fandom will show up for each member.
Jin’s particular brand of quirky, humorous and suave energy was on full display at both shows, drawing out an element of the group’s alchemy that helps explain its broad appeal and devoted fans, while also showing how the group is a world unto itself.
Perhaps more than any other BTS member, Jin seems to want to deliver to existing fans rather than reaching for more. The tour is designed as an exclusive love letter to the fandom with nearly every element of its design.
Jin is especially skilled at merging elements of his personality and interests into an integrated intellectual property that transcends visuals, merchandising and format while remaining firmly in on the joke, as well as sincere and engaging.
The name of the tour references his solo variety show called “Run Seokjin,” which itself is an iteration of the group’s variety show, “Run BTS.” (Seok-jin is his birth name.) It provides a framework for the structure of the concert, as classic Korean variety-show elements are employed during the nearly two-hour-long set list.
Preshow, concertgoers could be found in either official or fan-made merch with a dizzying array of references to either the artist’s music, aspects of his personality or both.
A cute alien figure, the character created for the space-themed “The Astronaut,” graced headbands, while tuna hats and various fishing-related outfits nodded to the viral “Super Tuna,” an EDM-meets-trot love anthem to a tuna fish and his love for fishing in general. There are even a few ramen-themed outfits, as he is now the face of a famous Korean ramen brand that coincidentally shares his name.
A known gamer (some fans could also be seen in “Super Mario” costumes), he began the show sauntering onstage in silence only to slam on a game-show buzzer that launched both a blast of confetti and the first strains of “Running Wild,” the all-English-language pop-rock lead track off of “Happy.”
Jin changes into a country-western look during the song “Rope It” at the Honda Center
Within BTS’ vocal line, Jin’s ability to hit clear, clean high notes added to the group’s reputation for songs in a high register, with the lower tenor work picked up by bandmates V and Jungkook.
“Running Wild,” however, begins with a beautifully low resonant tone that Jin has been able to explore more on his solo efforts.
Throughout the show, he was anchored by guitarist Park Shin-won, bass player Yoo Hyun-wook, drummer Kim Dong-hyun, and keytar/keyboardist Kim Chang-hyun, all veteran players in the Korean music industry. But for the first half of the show, the band remained obscured by screens as the focus was on Jin, who cuts an almost young Elvis-like figure with hisfamously swoon-worthy good looks.
In a later rock segment of the set, the band took on more visible prominence but remained as supportive figures. Clad in a glittery Gucci jean suit (he is a brand ambassador), Jin then exuberantly launched “I’ll Be There for You,” an uptempo rockabilly-tinged pop song with a sing-a-long chorus, a style that seems to be his rock ’n’ roll safe space.
The orchestrated madcap structure takes hold when backed by a running instrumental. Relatively early in the show, he announced that a short break was in order. A giant clock appeared, counting down the minute and a half onstage while he sipped water, vibed with his band and exchanged “woofs” with the crowd.
Jin sporting his baseball jersey merch onstage at Honda Center
(Bright Music)
He transitioned into the lushly melancholy “With the Clouds” off of “Echo” — an interesting track with a cool “backpedal” transition that highlights his softer midrange tone. But before the audience members got too deep in their feelings, at its conclusion, he offered them his best Zoolander stare and blew kisses — which they loudly ate up.
“Every show is a challenge,” he said in English, referring to the game-show format, “And you and I have to do it together,” making it clear participation was expected going forward.
He was not joking. He read out the rules for what was essentially an arena-scale game of charades between him and the audience, in which his number of wins determined which costume he donned for the next act. “I have nine seconds to change my clothes, so be good and talk to the person next to you,” he quipped, leaving the stage with a countdown clock, popping up dutifully on time in a large fishing hat and boots.
After the insanely campy “Super Tuna,” he spun a “Price Is Right”-style wheel to determine what song the audience will karaoke to as he changes again. The audience chose “Anpanman,” a punchy BTS classic that played with lyrics as hilarious Y2K low-fi graphics of him singing bumps on the screen.
Upon his return, clad in black, he accompanied himself on the longing ballad “I Will Return to You” and transitions into “Abyss.” Credited as a songwriter on almost all of his solo songs, “Abyss,” a single released in 2020, delves into especially early feelings of self-doubt that are jarringly in contrast with his later confident demeanor. Both songs were not accompanied by subtitles, allowing the listener to focus on the particular beauty and comfort he embodies while singing in Korean and further underlining a focus on the fandom.
After the fan chants of “Kim Seokjin” died down, he switched back to rock mode with the gorgeous “The Background.” Whether or not he has experienced real-life heartbreak is unknown — BTS members keep their lives private — but he makes you believe he has: “Even if I call you / It echoes back and hurts me again / Even waiting / I try to convince myself it’s love.”
The massive Army crowd gathers for Jin at Honda Center
The campiness wasn’t completely over as he thrilled fans again with “Rope It,” a quirky, pop-country ditty where he gamely hip-swiveled and hat-tilted, channeling his inner Clint Black. A medley of BTS hits including “Dynamite” and “Butter” followed, where he danced a bit. Sexy frontman, variety-show host, rock star, comedian, he was everything for every fan.
With all of its wacky charm and big confetti budget, the show remained remarkably minimalist; no fancy choreography or set pieces. Jin is comfortable onstage and at his most charming when going off script and speaking freely to the audience in Korean through a translator.
It will be interesting to see where he takes his incredible vocal prowess as a solo performer in years to come — it’s exciting to think of the possibilities of even a harder-edged sound or a full country album.
But as the show slowly wound down, and after one last talk with the crowd, amid his trio of encore songs, perhaps lies the most compelling version of him. “Epiphany,” off the 2018 BTS album “Love Yourself: Answer,” offers both a sonic and mental self-actualization that has as he has transitioned from his 20s into his 30s: “The real myself inside the smiling mask / I reveal it entirely / I’m the one I should love in this world / shining me, precious soul of mine.”
Along with the stars on Hollywood Boulevard and the Universal Studios theme park, a new celestial attraction is set to debut in Los Angeles.
The Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center at Exposition Park is expected to complete construction this year, according to its architects, only three years after the first shovels broke ground.
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That would make the center ready in time for when Los Angeles hosts visitors from around the world to see the 2026 World Cup, the 2027 Super Bowl and the 2028 Olympics.
One of the aspects that makes this place special is its showcase, the Space Shuttle Endeavour. The spacecraft stands in a stack position, meaning it’s standing — complete with boosters and a rare fuel tank — as if it were ready to launch. It’s the only shuttle in the nation to feature such a feat.
Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president and chief executive of the California Science Center, and Ted Hyman, partner at architectural firm ZGF, which designed the air and space center, recently shared updates with The Times, including news of an exclusive partnership with director/producer J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot.
(William Liang / For The Times)
What’s that shiny thing off the 110 Freeway?
That silver cylindrical colossus that is easily seen from the freeway houses the stacked space shuttle.
The Endeavour was meticulously placed there in January 2024 as much of the museum was built around it.
As for the 20-story diagrid, or shuttle housing building, the museum’s construction crew is about 80% finished wrapping a stainless-steel skin exterior around the shuttle, according to an estimate from Mark Piaia, a ZGF project architect.
The shiny view comes courtesy of 4,247 panels and 1,074 diagonal strips that would stand 7,862 feet tall if lined up.
(William Liang / For The Times)
When will construction be done and the museum be open?
Rudolph said building construction is expected to be completed this year.
He would not provide an official opening day but noted that artifact and exhibit installations would still need to be completed.
The museum is expected to house about 20 planes and jets, including a Boeing 747.
There are also plans for a 45-foot slide that imitates the feeling of entering the atmosphere with a radiating orange glow, two sonic booms and the “S” turns a shuttle would make upon reentry.
(Courtesy of ZGF via the California Science Center)
What should visitors expect to see?
Rudolph was excited about what he’s calling “the reveal.”
He exclusively told The Times that a pair of introductory films are being produced by directing/producing titan J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot. That’s the same production company responsible for some of the latest “Star Wars” and “Mission:Impossible” movies.
The first film will greet visitors as they walk into the museum and will focus on the entire air and space exhibits.
The second will screen at a mini theater at the entrance to the space shuttle exhibit. It is a five-minute film that focuses on the history and inspiration behind the space shuttle. The film ends with a simulated launch, during which steam rises from the floor and through hallway doors and fills the theater.
As the steam impairs a guest’s vision, the screen is removed and visitors get a surprise: a full, “envelope” view of the stacked 20-story space shuttle.
“It is an amazing experience and we want to really build it up,” Rudolph said. “It’s not just about the hardware, but about the people and the educational aspects.”
Can visitors get inside the shuttle?
The delicate nature of the shuttle makes that impossible.
“There’s no way,” Rudolph said. “The hatch is very small and it’s very fragile.”
There is, however, a mock-up of the flight deck — an area designed to carry cargo — that visitors can toy with to get a feel that only shuttle astronauts once got.
We’ll continue to follow the progress of the air and space museum as we head toward opening day.
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LAS VEGAS — Yanic Konan Niederhauser received the pass near the half-court line from a Clippers teammate who had just stolen the basketball. The 6-foot-11 center maneuvered down the court, his long strides allowing him to use just two dribbles before he took flight outside the circle and threw down a thunderous dunk over helpless Lakers defender Cole Swider.
The crowd inside Thomas & Mack Center went into a frenzy, including Clippers owner Steve Ballmer, who leaped out of his courtside seat, pumped his fists and yelled.
At that moment Monday night, Niederhauser displayed his agility, speed and ballhandling skills. It was another step taken in his progress while playing in the NBA Summer League on the campus of UNLV.
The Clippers had used the 30th and last pick in the first round of the NBA draft to select Niederhauser out of Penn State because they saw potential.
That exciting, and in many ways unexpected, play was an encouraging sign for the Clippers.
“I didn’t see Mr. Ballmer because I was in the moment,” Niederhauser, laughing, said late Monday night. “That’s the guard skills I was talking about and I had a couple of fast breaks these last few days and I passed the ball away. Now I said, ‘Naw, man. I can go up by myself.’ I told myself I was going to dunk it and I did.”
In his first three games in the NBA Summer League, Niederhauser has shown different skills.
It was his defense and rebounding in the first game, against the Houston Rockets in which he blocked four shots and collected 10 rebounds. Though he missed all four of his shots and scored just one point, Niederhauser found other ways to contribute.
It was a little bit of everything in his second game, against the Milwaukee Bucks in which he had two points, three rebounds, two steals and one block.
It was his offense in the third game against the Lakers in which he scored 10 points, grabbed two rebounds and had two steals.
“He just sticks with it,” Clippers assistant and Summer League coach Jeremy Castleberry said. “No matter if it’s going good or bad, he sticks with it. He’s trying his best to do everything we ask him to do. And just like I said after the last game, he continues to get better. From the last game [against the Bucks] to this game [against the Lakers], he was a little bit better than he was last game. He’s getting the dunks, catching the basketball, finishing it, being a rim-protector, consistently running the floor. Like, you can see the progress.”
Niederhauser was born in Bern, Switzerland, a town of about 135,000 an hour from Zurich. Even so, at 15, the Clippers’ international scouts became aware of Niederhauser when he played on the under-16 Switzerland national team. At that time, he was a 6-1 guard.
Niederhauser had a growth spurt at 17 that pushed him into playing center position. He said he was 6-5 when he broke his knee and was forced to sit out for a year.
Clippers center Yanic Konan Niederhauser elevates for a shot over Lakers center Christian Koloko during a Summer League game in Las Vegas.
(Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images)
“I was like out for a whole year and once I came back, after a whole year of sitting out and I get back on the court, now I’m 6-11,” he said. “Yeah, in one year, I had to change my whole game from being like a forward/guard to being a center. So, yeah, I had guard skills. That’s why sometimes I be dribbling the ball.”
Niederhauser laughed, agreeing those guard skills helped him make that electric dunk against the Lakers.
His size, weight (242 pounds) and youth (22) are all part of the package the Clippers like.
“We think there’s plenty of upside,” Clippers general manager Trent Redden said. “You know, the famous draft word, obviously. But for a guy that’s his age, he’s still learning and growing into his frame that he hasn’t really had his whole life. We just haven’t had a guy that size at that position in a backup role that’s young that we can feed into and give to our developmental staff.”
As a kid growing up in Switzerland, Niederhauser learned to speak four languages — Swiss, German, French and English.
His parents, Dominique and Nadege Niederhauser, made sure their son was well-versed.
“Since I was a baby, I was speaking all those languages,” Niederhauser said. “My mom, she speaks French. She’s from the Ivory Coast and that’s where I learned French, and my dad speaks mostly German and so that’s how I learned my German.”
Now that Niederhauser is with the Clippers, he’ll have tutors to teach how the NBA game is played.
Lopez is 37 and a 17-year veteran who signed with the Clippers this summer.
He mentioned how he played with great players like Kevin Garnett, Paul Pierce and Giannis Antetokounmpo. Now it’s up to him to pass on knowledge to Niederhauser like others passed on to him.
“I’m absolutely ready to get on the court, help him out and help him adjust and become a great player in this league,” Lopez said.
Niederhauser is soaking it all in while in Las Vegas, from the games to the practices to the conversations he’s had with Clippers coach Tyronn Lue.
“He’s been giving me advice. I can just tell that he has a lot of knowledge,” Niederhauser said. “I’m loving this. I’m in a great situation with experienced players to learn from. I’m just taking time to learn and get my experience. Everything is new to me so I’m just trying my best to soak everything in and just get better every day.”
