Family

Through his decades-long career, Nick Lachey has done it all in Hollywood — he’s acted, he’s released solo albums, he’s led campaigns with brands (including Purina) and he’s reigned on the reality TV circuit, hosting the dating shows “The Ultimatum,” “Perfect Match” and the phenomenon that is “Love Is Blind,” which wrapped up its ninth U.S.-based season last week.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

But through it all, he keeps returning to one passion project: 98 Degrees, the swoon-eliciting boy band that catapulted him to stardom in the late ‘90s.

“I’m really blessed to be able to be a part of some incredible shows,” Lachey says. “But truly it all comes back to the band for me. I still continue to love to do that and perform with those guys, so hopefully that will continue for a long, long time.”

Earlier this year, 98 Degrees released their first non-Christmas album in more than a decade, “Full Circle.” It features reworkings of their most iconic songs — including “I Do (Cherish You)” and “The Hardest Thing” — along with five new tracks.

Outside of work, what’s paramount in Lachey’s life “is being a dad and being present for my kids, and really being involved in their life,” he says. He and his wife, Vanessa Lachey, who’s also his “Love Is Blind” co-host, have three young children: Camden, Phoenix and Brooklyn.

The Cincinnati native and die-hard Bengals fan takes us along for his perfect Sunday in L.A., where he’s lived for more than 20 years. It involves football (of course), an indulgent brunch with waffles, relaxing at a Malibu beach and reading a print copy of the L.A. Times — an activity that we can absolutely get behind.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

7:30 a.m.: Coffee and the L.A. Times

I usually wake up around 7 or 7:30 a.m. I’m conditioned to get up when the kids do, so that’s typically the time even on a weekend. The first thing I’m doing on a Sunday is getting a cup of coffee. I’m kind of old-school. I still get the print paper. So I’ll walk out of my front door and go grab my L.A. Times and my cup of coffee, and hopefully have a few moments to myself to read the paper before my kids get up and harass me.

9 a.m.: Football time

Are we in football season? That’s a very important question. If it’s my dream Sunday then we’re in football season so around 8:30 or 9 a.m., I’m turning on “NFL Countdown” and we’re getting ready for the Sunday slate of games. The Cincinnati Bengals are my team. I grew up in Cincinnati so I’m kind of a fan by birth, if you will. Now, the Bengals are pretty good. For the majority of my life, they’ve been absolutely horrible and I’ve just been stuck with them, but it’s kind of fun now that they’re actually competitive [laughs].

12 p.m.: Indulge in waffles at brunch

We’re getting into the afternoon and getting ready for lunch. A place my family and I love to have lunch or maybe a late brunch is More Than Waffles, which is kind of an Encino institution, if you will. I usually get a skillet or an omelet, then combine that with a waffle. I don’t eat that great, but if you’re ever gonna eat bad, Sunday is the day to do it, so you gotta get the waffle. You gotta get the whipped cream and the strawberries. Go for broke.

2 p.m.: Hang out at the beach

A good Sunday is heading out to the beach. I’d take the kids to Zuma to see the ocean for a little bit even if it’s just a drive. It’s nice to take the drive down that way, see the water and feel the wind on your face. I’m not a big get-in-the-water guy. If I’m in the Caribbean or somewhere, maybe. [laughs] It’s a little chilly for me, so I’m more of the lay-on-the-sand, take-in-the-scenery kind of guy at the beach.

5 p.m.: Burritos and margs for dinner

Let’s get back to the house to take a shower and then we’d hit Casa Vega. That’s another one of my favorites in the Valley. My whole family loves it. I like the oven style chicken burrito smothered. You gotta get the chips and guac. You gotta get a house margarita blended, no salt, and you’re good to go.

8 p.m.: Family meeting

We always have a family meeting on Sunday nights to get ready for the week and kind of go over what’s going on. So we’d get the family back to the house, sit down with the kids, and kind of go over the expectations for the week and plan it out. Then you’re into shower and bath time because it’s a school night.

10 p.m.: Mommy and daddy time

Once the kids are down, maybe Vanessa and I will take in whatever show we’re watching at that time. That’s a good cap to a Sunday. I just finished watching “Perfect Match” on Netflix, which is a classic. I love all the Taylor Sheridan [shows]. I’ve already watched them all.

Renate Reinsve is the new face of Scandinavia: depression with a smile. Standing 5 feet 10 with open, friendly features, the Norwegian talent has a grin that makes her appear at once like an endearing everywoman and a large, unpredictable child. Reinsve zoomed to international acclaim with her Cannes-winning performance in Joachim Trier’s 2021 “The Worst Person in the World,” a dramedy tailor-made to her lanky, likable style of self-loathing. Now, Trier has written his muse another showcase, “Sentimental Value,” where Reinsve plays an emotionally avoidant theater actor who bounces along in pretty much the same bittersweet key.

“Sentimental Value” gets misty about a few things — families, filmmaking, real estate — all while circling a handsome Oslo house where the Borg clan has lived for four generations. It’s a dream home with red trim on the window frames and pink roses in the yard. Yet, sisters Nora (Reinsve) and Agnes (Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas) aren’t fighting to keep it, perhaps due to memories of their parents’ hostile divorce or maybe because they don’t want to deal with their estranged father, Gustav (Stellan Skarsgård, wonderful), who grew up there himself and still owns the place, even though he’s moved to Sweden.

Trier opens the film with a symbolically laden camera pan across Oslo that ends on a cemetery. He wants to make sure we understand that while Norway looks idyllic to outsiders jealous that all four Scandinavian countries rank among the globe’s happiest, it can still be as gloomy as during the era of Henrik Ibsen.

More impressively, Trier shifts to a fabulous, time-bending historical montage of the house itself over the century-plus it’s belonged to the Borgs. There’s a crack in it that seems to represent the fissures in the family, the flaws in their facade. Over these images, Reinsve’s Nora recites a 6th-grade school essay she wrote about her deep identification with her childhood home. Having grown up to become terrified of intimacy, today she’s more like a detached garage.

Nora and Agnes were young when their father, a modestly well-regarded art-house filmmaker, decamped to a different country. At a retrospective of his work, Gustav refers to his crew as his “family,” which would irritate his kids if they’d bothered to attend. Agnes, a former child actor, might note that she, too, deserves some credit. Played in her youth by the compelling Ida Atlanta Kyllingmark Giertsen, Agnes was fantastic in the final shot of Gustav’s masterpiece and Trier takes a teasingly long time to suggest why she retired from the business decades ago, while her older sister keeps hammering at it.

Gustav hasn’t made a picture in 15 years. He’s in that liminal state of renown that I’m guessing Trier has encountered many times: a faded director who’s burned through his money and clout, but still keeps a tuxedo just in case he makes it back to Cannes. Like Reinsve’s Nora, Gustav acts younger than his age and is at his most charming in small doses, particularly with strangers. Trier and his longtime co-writer Eskil Vogt have made him a tad delusional, someone who wouldn’t instantly recognize his graying reflection in a mirror. Sitting down at a cafe with Nora, Gustav jokes that the waitress thinks that they’re a couple on a date. (She almost certainly doesn’t.)

But the tension between Gustav and Nora is real, if blurry. He’s invited her to coffee not as father and daughter, but as a has-been angling to cast Nora as the lead of his next film, which he claims he’s written for her. His script climaxes with a nod to the day his own mother, Karin (Vilde Søyland), died by suicide in their house back when he was just a towheaded boy of 7. Furthering the sickly mojo, Gustav wants to stage his version of the hanging in the very room where it happened.

His awkward pitch is a terrific scene. Gustav and Nora are stiff with each other, both anxious to prove they don’t need the other’s help. But Trier suggests, somewhat mystically, that Gustav has an insight into his daughter’s gloom that making the movie will help them understand. Both would rather express themselves through art than confess how they feel.

When Gustav offers his daughter career advice, it comes off like an insult. She’s miffed when her dad claims his small indie would be her big break. Doesn’t he know she’d be doing him the favor? She’s the lead of Oslo’s National Theatre with enough of a social media following to get the film financed. (With 10 production companies listed in the credits of this very film, Trier himself could probably calculate Nora’s worth to the krone.)

But Gustav also has a lucky encounter with a dewy Hollywood starlet named Rachel (Elle Fanning) who sees him as an old-world bulldog who can give her resume some class. Frustrated by her coterie of assistants glued to their cellphones, Rachel gazes at him with the glowy admiration he can’t get from his own girls. Their dynamic proves to be just as complex as if they were blood-related. If Rachel makes his film, she’ll become a combo platter of his mother, his daughter, his protégée and his cash cow. Nora merely merits the financing for a low-budget Euro drama; Rachel can make it a major Netflix production (something “Sentimental Value” most adamantly is not).

It takes money to make a movie. Trier’s itchiness to get into that unsentimental fact isn’t fully scratched. He seems very aware that the audience for his kind of niche hit wants to sniffle at delicate emotions. When Gustav’s longtime producer Michael (Jesper Christensen) advises him to keep making films “his way” — as in antiquated — or when Gustav takes a swipe at Nora’s career as “old plays for old people,” the frustration in those lines, those doubts whether to stay the course or chase modernity, makes you curious if Trier himself is feeling a bit hemmed in.

There’s a crack running through “Sentimental Value” too. A third of it wants to be a feisty industry satire, but the rest believes there’s prestige value in tugging on the heartstrings. The title seems to be as much about that as anything.

I’ve got no evidence for Trier’s restlessness other than an observation that “Sentimental Value” is most vibrant when the dialogue is snide and the visuals are snappy. There’s a stunning image of Gustav, Nora and Agnes’ faces melting together that doesn’t match a single other frame of the movie, but I’m awful glad cinematographer Kasper Tuxen Andersen got it in there.

The film never quite settles on a theme, shifting from the relationship between Nora and Agnes, Nora and Gustav, and Gustav and Rachel like a gambler spreading their bets, hoping one of those moments will earn a tear. Nora herself gets lost in the shuffle. Is she jealous of her father’s attention to Rachel? Does she care about her married lover who pops up to expose her issues? Does she even like acting?

Reinsve’s skyrocketing career is Trier’s most successful wager and he gives her enough crying scenes to earn an Oscar nomination. Skarsgård is certainly getting one too. But Fanning delivers the best performance in the film. She’s not only hiding depression under a smile, she’s layering Rachel’s megawatt charisma under her eagerness to please, allowing her insecurity at being Gustav’s second pick to poke through in rehearsals where she’s almost — but not quite — up to the task.

Rachel could have been some Hollywood cliché, but Fanning keeps us rooting for this golden girl who hopes she’ll be taken seriously by playing a Nordic depressive. Eventually, she slaps on a silly Norwegian accent in desperation and wills herself to cry in character. And when she does, Fanning has calibrated her sobs to have a hint of hamminess. It’s a marvelous detail that makes this whole type of movie look a little forced.

As Los Angeles city officials worked on an agreement to modernize the Convention Center, more than one member of the McOsker family was playing a key role.

City Councilmember Tim McOsker supported the $2.6-billion expansion, which could bring more tourism but threatens to further exacerbate Los Angeles’ dire fiscal situation.

Nella McOsker, his daughter, runs the Central City Assn., an influential downtown Los Angeles business group, which advocated strenuously for the project.

And his nephew, Emmett McOsker, who was an aide to former Mayor Eric Garcetti, works for the Tourism Department — handling the Convention Center.

Central City Assn. President and Chief Executive Nella McOsker.

(Juliana Yamada/Los Angeles Times)

Nella McOsker often argued for the project as her father listened with his council colleagues. In September, he cast a “yes” vote.

“It’s just a family tradition of public service,” said Doane Liu, executive director of the Tourism Department, who is a longtime friend and former colleague of Tim McOsker — and Emmett McOsker’s boss. “I wish there were more McOskers working at City Hall.”

And there are. Flying a little beneath the radar, due to her last name, is a fourth family member, Anissa Raja — the councilmember’s niece (cousin to Emmett and Nella), who is also his legislative director and president of the Los Angeles County Young Democrats.

Raja does not lead with the fact that she is the councilmember’s relative.

“I don’t mention it because I’m a staffer. I keep it professional at work,” she said.

While the interplay between McOskers can create potential conflicts of interest, Nella says she logs every lobbying conversation she has with Tim’s office to the city’s Ethics Commission, just like she does with other councilmembers.

Plus, she and her dad often disagree. And in L.A. city government, lobbying a close family member is perfectly legal, as long as neither party has a financial stake.

“As a city, we made a policy decision that it shouldn’t be just because you’re related to someone that you can’t try to exert influence over them if they’re in an elected position,” said Jessica Levinson, a professor of law at Loyola Marymount University and former head of the city’s Ethics Commission.

Councilmember Tim McOsker speaking during a 2023 meeting at City Hall.

(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)

For decades, the McOskers — a large, tight-knit Irish Catholic family from San Pedro — have wielded power at Los Angeles City Hall. Unlike the Garcettis and the Hahns, the McOskers have not served in citywide or countywide elected office. But their breadth of influence in Los Angeles politics over the last quarter century may be unparalleled.

The McOskers are hardly alone in making city politics the family business.

There’s Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, whose father-in-law Zev Yaroslavsky once held her seat. And Herb Wesson, the former council speaker, whose son was his aide and whose daughter-in-law Alexis Wesson is chief of staff to Councilmember Adrin Nazarian.

Sometimes that leads to family members bumping up against each other in questionable ways.

Eric Garcetti’s father, Gil Garcetti — perhaps best known for being L.A. County district attorney during the O.J. Simpson trial — was president of the Ethics Commission when his son was on the City Council. That led to issues in 2006, when Gil inadvertently contributed to Eric’s reelection campaign, which was not allowed. Or consider Councilmember Curren Price, who has been charged with allegedly voting in favor of development projects his wife’s company was being paid to consult for.

The McOskers’ tradition of city service predates Tim, who worked for City Attorney James Hahn in the 1990s before becoming Hahn’s chief of staff when Hahn was mayor in the early 2000s. Tim’s father, Mac, was a city firefighter, which many in the family cite as the origin of the public service bug.

To this day, the family is as much, or more of, a fire family than a politics family — and some members have combined the two.

Tim’s brother Patrick is a retired LAFD engineer who served as president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, the powerful firefighters union. Another brother, Mike, who died in 2019, was vice president of the same union.

Emmett, Patrick’s son, said his father was always his hero and that he wanted to be a firefighter. But when he graduated college in 2011 following the Great Recession, the fire department wasn’t hiring, so he got into politics instead.

Tim, too, aspired to be a firefighter at one point. Two of his children are firefighters, one for LAFD and the other for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, while a cousin works for the county fire department.

In 2003, then-Councilmember Janice Hahn — sister of Mayor James Hahn and daughter of longtime county supervisor Kenneth Hahn — told The Times that Tim and his brothers Patrick, Mike and John (then vice president of the city’s Harbor Area Planning Commission) “are involved in everything.”

Rebecca Liu Morales, a former aide to then-Councilmember Eric Garcetti, was Nella McOsker’s close childhood friend in San Pedro.

“We grew up super familiar with public life and what it looks like. We were dragged to campaign events. We spent Saturdays volunteering,” said Liu Morales, who as Doane Liu’s daughter was also raised in a political family.

Little did Nella McOsker know that decades down the line, she would still be attending her father’s campaign events, helping him get elected to the City Council in 2022.

She worked as his operations director, referring to herself as his “Ego Killer” for always being willing to knock him down a peg. The campaign was filled out by volunteers from the family, from Tim’s wife, Connie, to brother Patrick, who was an avid doorknocker.

One politico who lives in the district noted that two McOskers separately knocked on his door and a third called him as part of a phone banking operation.

After Tim won his council seat, Nella took a job running the Central City Assn. Now, she lobbies councilmembers, including her father’s office.

Councilmember McOsker, along with Councilmember Yaroslavsky, proposed a law in 2023 that would have required lobbyists like Nella who are close relatives of councilmembers or high-level council staffers to disclose the relationship. They would have been prohibited from lobbying on land use development projects in that councilmember’s district. Because Nella works on issues involving downtown, not the San Pedro area, she and Tim would likely not have been affected. The law was never passed.

Rob Quan, who runs a transparency-focused good government advocacy group,
said there is no evidence that the McOskers have leveraged their relationships for undue advantage.

Tim said the family rarely talks local politics at dinners and holidays. First off, there are so many of them that the atmosphere can become chaotic.

Last time he hosted Thanksgiving, Tim said about 47 people showed up, and the tables stretched all the way outside onto the back patio. Mostly, they dote on the kids, and cousins reconnect.

“It’s not a lot about politics. It’s a lot about family,” Tim said.

When politics do come up, the McOskers often land on opposite sides.

Tim said he disagreed with his firefighter daughter Miranda and his brother Patrick, who believed LAFD Chief Kristin Crowley should have been reinstated after Mayor Karen Bass ousted her over her handling of the Palisades fire. The two showed up with other firefighters at the council chambers when the council was voting on the issue.

“You can’t have a mayor and a chief of fire … on different pages. It is dangerous,” Tim said.

While Tim and Nella both supported the Convention Center expansion, the two have split on other issues.

Earlier this year, Tim voted to increase the hotel and airport worker minimum wage — which Nella and the Central City Assn. fiercely opposed.

“There’s a different intensity I can get to with him [than with other councilmembers],” she said, referring to her conversations with her father about politics.

This summer, Nella McOsker and the Central City Assn. were part of a business coalition that proposed a ballot measure to repeal the city’s gross receipts tax on businesses, which generates about $800 million for the city annually. Her goal was to help struggling businesses by reducing their taxes.

“Terrible idea,” Tim McOsker said.

That was probably the most annoyed “Tim” got with her, Nella said.

She calls him Tim, not Dad — partially out of decorum in a world where she is lobbying him and his colleagues on a regular basis.

It’s also how she and her four younger siblings grew up — they’ve always called their parents Tim and Connie.

Nella’s son Omero is 4. She says he can be whatever he wants when he grows up, but some in the city family already have their eyes on him.

“I’m ready to offer him an internship,” Liu said.

British actor Pauline Collins, who earned an Oscar nomination for her turn as the stuck-in-a-rut housewife of “Shirley Valentine,” has died. She was 85.

Collins’ family said in a statement Thursday that the actor died peacefully this week at her care home in north London after living with Parkinson’s disease for several years. In the statement, her family said Collins “was so many things to so many people, playing a variety of roles in her life.”

“A bright, sparky, witty presence on stage and screen,” the family described the versatile actor, whose career began in the 1960s.

Collins was well into her 40s when she starred in “Shirley Valentine,” a witty but disgruntled homemaker who accepts a girlfriend’s offer to travel to Greece to bring much-needed spice back to her life. “Sex for breakfast, sex for dinner, sex for tea and sex for supper,” Shirley proudly declares in the 1989 film, directed by Lewis Gilbert.

For Collins, “Shirley Valentine” was more than just an ode to womanhood, self-love and self-discovery. It was also a chance to challenge the conventions of aging in entertainment, including by shooting a nude scene for the film.

“My only sorrow was that I wasn’t younger and thinner,” a 49-year-old Collins told The Times in 1989. “But if I were Jamie Lee Curtis, I wouldn’t have been right for the part.”

“Shirley Valentine,” which also starred Tom Conti as her on-screen Greek lover and Alison Steadman as her friend, led Collins to receive her sole Academy Award nomination, a nod in the leading actress category. The film also received an original song Oscar nomination for Patti Austin’s “The Girl Who Used to Be Me,” written by Marvin Hamlisch and husband-wife lyricist duo Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

Two years before the film’s premiere, Collins originated the role of Shirley Valentine in London for Willy Russell’s one-woman play of the same name. That led to her Broadway debut in 1989 and a Tony Award for best actress in a play the same year. She also won accolades for the play at the Laurence Olivier Awards and a BAFTA for her work in the film adaptation.

Beyond “Shirley Valentine,” Collins was also known for appearing in dozens of TV series including “Upstairs, Downstairs,” “Forever Green,” “The Ambassador,” “Mount Pleasant” and “Dickensian.” She also appeared in films including “City of Joy,” “Paradise Road” and “You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger,” counting Patrick Swayze, Glenn Close, Frances McDormand, Antonio Banderas, Josh Brolin and Anthony Hopkins among her co-stars.

Throughout her decades-long screen career, Collins also continued her work in theater, including productions of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Woman in Mind” and “Cinderella.”

Collins, born in 1940, was raised near Liverpool by a schoolteacher mother and a headmaster father. She told The Times in 1989 that her dad “was one of the early feminists.”

“He had three daughters and always offered us everything that a boy would have — education and stuff,” she said. “[My parents] had a completely shared domestic situation, they both worked, cooked, did the washing. He even washed nappies [diapers] by hand.”

Her marriage to “Upstairs, Downstairs” co-star John Alderton — they married in 1969 — was not too different. “He just spent five months holding down the fort at home while I was on Broadway,” she recalled.

Alderton, 84, said Thursday that Collins’ “greatest performance was as my wife and mother to our beautiful children.”

While Collins was known for her scenic and romantic on-screen vacation to the Greek coast, she preferred a different kind of destination off-screen: St. Petersburg, Fla.

“It’s amazing, people think when you’re on your own you’re going off to have wonderful sexual adventures. Here I am, on my own, going off to Disney World,” she told The Times. “What does that say about me?”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Dallas Cowboys defensive end Marshawn Kneeland has died of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound, police in Frisco, Texas, said Thursday. He was 24.

“It is with extreme sadness that the Dallas Cowboys share that Marshawn Kneeland tragically passed away this morning,” the Cowboys said in a statement. “Marshawn was a beloved teammate and member of our organization. Our thoughts and prayers regarding Marshawn are with his girlfriend Catalina and his family.”

The Frisco Police Department said it was called at approximately 10:39 p.m. Wednesday to help the Texas Department of Public Safety to find a vehicle that had entered the city during a pursuit. The state-level law-enforcement agency said in a statement Thursday that it had attempted to stop the vehicle for a traffic violation, but the driver had refused to stop.

The vehicle was soon found unoccupied, crashed on southbound Dallas Parkway near Warren Parkway. A man — later identified as Kneeland, a resident of nearby Plano — was reported to have fled the scene on foot.

Frisco police were told during the search that Kneeland had expressed “suicidal ideations,” the department said in a statement. “Kneeland was later located at 1:31a.m., deceased with what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The cause/manner of death will be determined by the Collin County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

The Plano Police Department had visited Kneeland’s residence at the request of Frisco police at 11 p.m. Wednesday night but officers were unable to make contact with anyone there. At 11:40 p.m., Plano police said, officers responded to a separate call for a welfare concern associated with Kneeland at the same address, but again were unable to make contact.

Kneeland was selected by the Cowboys out of Western Michigan in the second round of the 2024 draft, less than three months after his mother, Wendy Kneeland, died suddenly of an undisclosed illness. Kneeland told the Dallas Morning News last year that he carried some of his mother’s ashes with him everywhere in a tiny urn on a chain around his neck.

“She helped me a lot in my younger years getting into football,” Kneeland said. “I always had the dream. I always told her, ‘I’m going to the NFL’ and I made it. It’s a hard situation just knowing she got to see me potentially going to the NFL and going through [the process]. She’s still with me. I got this urn of her ashes I carry with me everywhere. I still feel like she’s there watching over me.”

Kneeland played in 18 games, including four starts, and had 26 tackles, four quarterback hits and one sack. On Monday night against the Arizona Cardinals, Kneeland recovered a blocked punt in the end zone for his first NFL touchdown.

“I watched him fight his way from a hopeful kid at Western Michigan with a dream to being a respected professional for the Dallas Cowboys,” Kneeland’s agent, Jonathan Perzley, said in a statement. “Marshawn poured his heart into every snap, every practice, and every moment on the field. To lose someone with his talent, spirit, and goodness is a pain I can hardly put into words.”

Kneeland’s family also released a statement Thursday.

“We are devastated by this tremendous loss and are still processing the depth of our grief,” the family said. “As Marshawn was making his mark on the football field with the Dallas Cowboys, he held an even more special place off the field — as a devoted son, brother, uncle, cousin, nephew, grandson, and friend. He was kind, determined, humble, and full of love. His light shone brightly in every life he touched, and his spirit will continue to live on through the countless hearts he inspired.”

ROCK legend Jon Bon Jovi is the next big name star to join CBeebies Bedtime Story slot.

And he uses his stint to share a loving message about his new granddaughter.

Jon has gushed about his new family role since his son Jake Bongiovi and wife Millie Bobby Brown adopted a baby girl.

The Bon Jovi singer said: “Some of my favourite things in life are music and being a grandad – or as I like to say,‘papa’ – and going on adventures.

“When my grandchildren are a little older, I can’t wait to take them on amazing adventures.

“Music has played a part in all of my kids’ childhoods and I’m looking forward to watching my children become parents and seeing our grandchildren become part of our lives.

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 “It’s not about what I’m going to teach my grandchildren, but what they’re going to teach me!”

The TV storytelling gig has welcomed everyone from Harry Styles to Idris Elba to the bedtime armchair.

Jon has chosen to read his friend Paul McCartney’s book Hey Grandude! tomorrow night (Friday 7 November) at 6.50pm on CBeebies and BBC iPlayer.

He added: “I picked Hey Grandude! because it’s written by the great Paul McCartney, singer, songwriter, storyteller.

“He’s someone I’ve always admired and looked up to, not just for his music but for his parenting and grandparenting skills. He’s a dear friend and someone we all admire.”

Jon will also feature in an episode of the CBeebies Parenting Helpline podcast, out November 27 on the CBeebies Parenting website and BBC Sounds.

He will pose a question about when (and when not) to give parenting advice to your own children.

General Atomics’ Gambit family of drones, with its common modular core ‘chassis’ concept, now has a sixth member optimized for air-to-surface missions, such as attacking hostile air defenses or enemy ships. The company is already eyeing international sales of the new Gambit 6, particularly in Europe, but it could also be of interest to branches of the U.S. military. The latest Gambit configuration underscores the growing pursuit of loyal wingman-type drones, also now often referred to as Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA), by armed forces globally.

Gambit 6 made its official debut yesterday at the annual International Fighter Conference in Rome, Italy. General Atomics’ Aeronautical Systems, Inc. division (GA-ASI) first unveiled the Gambit family back in 2022, at which time it included four designs. They were joined last year by Gambit 5, which is intended for carrier-based operations.

“The Gambit Series is a modular family of unmanned aircraft designed to meet diverse mission requirements, including intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; multi-domain combat; advanced training; and stealth reconnaissance,” according to a press release from GA-ASI. “It’s built around a common core platform that accounts for a significant proportion of the aircraft’s hardware, including the landing gear, baseline avionics, and chassis. This shared foundation reduces costs, increases interoperability, and accelerates the development of mission-specific variants like Gambit 6.”

“The multi-role [Gambit 6] platform is optimized for roles such as electronic warfare, suppression of enemy air defenses (SEAD), and deep precision strike, making it a versatile option for evolving defense needs,” the release adds.

An accompanying rendering, seen in part at the top of this story and below, shows a trio of Gambit 6s. Each one is depicted releasing several GBU-53/B StormBreaker precision-guided bombs, also known as Small Diameter Bomb IIs (SDB II).

The Gambit 6 design looks similar, at least externally, to General Atomics’ YFQ-42A. The YFQ-42A is one of two uncrewed aircraft currently under development as part of the first phase, or Increment 1, of the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program. The other is Anduril’s YFQ-44A, also known as Fury. General Atomics has previously confirmed that the YFQ-42A leverages prior work on an experimental drone called the XQ-67A Off-Board Sensing Station, which flew for the first time last year, and the Gambit family. The YFQ-42A made its maiden flight earlier this year, and a second example is now in flight testing.

General Atomics is also now among the companies under contract to develop conceptual CCA designs for the U.S. Navy.

“It’s best to think of Gambit 1 as optimized for advanced sensing, and represented by our XQ-67A OBSS [Off-Board Sensing Station] flying today,” C. Mark Brinkley, a spokesperson for General Atomics, told TWZ. “Gambit 2 is optimized for air-to-air combat and represented by our YFQ-42A, which has multiple airframes currently flying. Loaded with the proper weapons, a Gambit 2 could conduct a ground or surface strike as a multirole aircraft, but it is not optimized for that ground mission.”

“The Gambit series, including YFQ-42A, can be equipped with EW [electronic warfare] suites or EW-capable launched effects [uncrewed aerial systems],” Brinkely added.

The Gambit 3 design is primarily intended to act as a ‘red air’ adversary during training. The flying wing Gambit 4, so far the most visually distinctive member of the family, is focused on intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. As noted, Gambit 5 is designed for carrier-based combat operations.

“Gambit 6 will be truly optimized for air-to-ground/surface operations. It might visually look like a Gambit 2, and perhaps the differences would be imperceptible to the casual viewer, as both would utilize RF [radiofrequency] and optical sensing,” Brinkley added. “But the mission systems inside Gambit 6 are fine-tuned specifically for ground/surface operations, missions in which General Atomics has developed deep experience over decades of ground/surface sensing and strikes. Gambit 6 could also be outfitted for an electronic warfare mission, for instance, or even naval strikes.”

Overall, “the idea is that Gambit 6 will be primarily looking down.”

Just like an air-to-air combat optimized CCA-type drone, an air-to-surface focused design would help friendly forces expand their coverage and capacity to perform relevant missions over one or more areas of the battlespace, while also reducing the risk to crewed platforms. As described, Gambit 6s seems geared to be particularly well-suited to the suppression and destruction of enemy air defenses mission sets, or SEAD/DEAD, to aid in clearing the way for follow-on operations.

The idea of CCA-type drones taking on these ‘downward-focused’ missions is not new. Though the U.S. Air Force’s CCA program is currently focused on air-to-air missions, the service has expressed interest in future air-to-surface strike and electronic warfare capabilities. Previous U.S. Marine Corps testing of Kratos’ XQ-58 Valkyrie has put particular emphasis on the ability to launch electronic warfare attacks as part of SEAD/DEAD missions conducted together with F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Earlier this year, the Marines confirmed that experimental work with the XQ-58 was transitioning into a full program of record with a clear eye toward a real operational capability. Air-to-surface missions are also a component of other CCA-type programs globally.

“Air forces throughout the world are looking to air-to-ground-capable CCAs to enhance operational capabilities and address emerging threats in a denied environment,” the General Atomics press release says. “Airframes will be available for international procurement starting in 2027, with European missionized versions deliverable in 2029. GA-ASI is building industry partnerships throughout Europe with the aim of providing sovereign capabilities for all its platforms.”

It has been pointed out that the schedule stated aligns particularly well with a German requirement for a CCA-type drone capable of air-to-surface missions. Last year, Airbus also unveiled a loyal wingman drone with a clear eye toward meeting German Air Force needs. Airbus and Kratos also announced a partnership earlier this year to supply a version of the XQ-58 to the Germans.

General Atomics has made clear that it is looking at multiple potential foreign sales opportunities with Gambit 6.

“Many international allies and partners have expressed interest in a CCA optimized for ground or surface strike. Gambit 6 was announced here in Rome on the first day of the International Fighter Conference, and the resulting interest and inquiry from attending military representatives has been great,” Brinkley, the General Atomics spokesperson, also told TWZ. “We look forward to continuing those discussions here this week. We absolutely intend to submit Gambit 6 for various emerging international opportunities.”

“Nothing would prevent the United States from procuring a Gambit 6 variant, fine tuned to American specifications,” he added.

“I don’t have any additional details to offer on Gambit 5 or the US Navy opportunity. We’ve been talking about the Gambit 5 concept for about 16 months at this point, since Farnborough 2024,” Brinkley also said when asked for a general update on the work the company is doing in relation to the Navy’s CCA effort. “There is no specific relationship between Gambit 5 & Gambit 6 at this time. The point of the Gambit Series is to quickly deliver affordable mass at scale, and to adjust to customer demands rapidly, and each of these aircraft does that, while also leveraging years of hard work and demonstrated success. “

As has been made clear in this story already, the market space for CCA-type drones has been steadily growing in recent years, and extends well beyond General Atomics. Just since September, Lockheed Martin’s Vectis and Shield AI’s X-BAT have joined the growing field of relevant designs. The jet-powered X-BAT is a particularly novel design, intended to take off and land vertically, as you can learn more about in great detail in this recent TWZ feature. In addition to the Gambit family, Vectis, X-BAT, and Anduril’s Fury, among other drone designs, are also being showcased at the International Fighter Conference this week. Also on the market now is Boeing’s MQ-28 Ghost Bat, originally developed for the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF). Aviation Week just recently disclosed the existence of a new drone design from Northrop Grumman subsidiary Scaled Composites, referred to now simply as Project Lotus, which could be in the broad CCA category, as well.

Nov. 5 (UPI) — The disruption of federal benefits that help feed families spurred a Pittsburgh man to create a front-yard food bank to help others as the federal government remains shut down.

A.J. Owen. 36, resides in the Pittsburgh suburb of Whitehall, and initially started his ad-hoc food pantry after completing a $150 food run with his two sons about a week ago, according to TribLIVE.

Owen has large plastic bins containing canned goods and other foods placed on portable tables in his front yard for those who need food and for others to leave food donations.

“The amount of donations we received and the amount of people coming and getting food is both so gratifying and so horrifying,” Owentold TribLIVE.

“So many people need help,” he added, “and I’m so happy to be a resource for them.”

Owen said he initially started the food pantry to teach his sons about the need to help others, but it has become a much greater endeavor, as affirmed by a recent visit from Good Morning America and its cameras.

The single father notified others of his effort on social media, which resulted in additional food donations — including one donation that he said was thousands of dollars’ worth of $100 bills from an anonymous person.

He found the money stuffed in an envelope inside his mailbox with a note saying, “May God prosper and bless your food pantry,” Owen told ABC News.

“My body started shaking,” he said. “I started crying.”

He also said, “This was the best cry ever because whatever you want to believe, an angel truly came down and blessed us that day. And we’ve been good ever since.”

Owen didn’t say how much money was in the envelope, other than it added up to “thousands” of dollars.

He posted a video of the anonymous donation on social media, which drew millions of views and prompted others to visit and donate more food.

Among them were Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Yahya Blackand his fiancé, who donated “tons of food,” Owen said on social media.

Owen did not say if his food pantry effort might outlast the federal government shutdown, which entered a record 36 days on Wednesday and temporarily disrupted funding of the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

After going global for its second volume, “Star Wars: Visions” Volume 3 brings the anthology series back to its roots with a new slate of shorts all created by Japanese anime studios.

Each season of the Disney+ series, which launched in 2021, has infused fresh creative energy into the galaxy far, far away by giving international animation houses the freedom to explore ideas about the Force, the factions of the Galactic War and brand new planets and cultures outside of the constraints of the long-running franchise’s canon.

And while Volume 3, which premiered last week, revisits some characters that were introduced in Volume 1, it also shows how anime is a medium with range. From the gritty installment that explores the complexity of the dark sides of the Force through a battle between former Sith and Jedi (“The Duel: Payback”) to a more heartwarming story about a pair of resourceful orphans who decide to become family (“Yuko’s Treasure”), there are different types of anime for everyone.

Anée-san in “The Duel: Payback,” one of the shorts in “Star Wars: Visions” Volume 3.

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

With movies like “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba Infinity Castle” and “Chainsaw Man — The Movie: Reze Arc” making waves at the box office, anime’s growing popularity is undeniable and its availability on major streamers has also made anime series and movies more accessible than ever. So for those whose curiosity about the medium has been piqued by “Star Wars: Visions,” here are some titles to check out based on the themes and stories of the nine shorts that comprise Volume 3.

Stunning fights (with some moral ambiguity)

Sagiri in an episode of “Hell’s Paradise.”

(©Yuji Kaku/Shueisha, Twin Engine, Mappa / Crunchyroll)

Let’s be honest: Lightsaber duels are awesome. So it’s no surprise that a number of shorts in “Star Wars: Visions” Volume 3 leaned into stories involving Jedi and/or the Sith, including “The Duel: Payback,” “The Lost Ones” and “The Bird of Paradise.”

For those who are looking for anime featuring stylish and stunning sword-fighting scenes, the ever popular “Demon Slayer” (Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll), featuring a secret organization fighting to protect humans from demons, is an obvious choice. Another show featuring stylish combat between skilled warriors and supernatural monsters is “Hell’s Paradise” (Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll). The series follows a ninja who is recruited by an executioner to join a party of death row inmates on a quest to find the elixir of life on a mythical island populated with mysterious deadly threats. The successful convict will be pardoned for all of their past crimes. The premise may remind some of the supervillain team-up “The Suicide Squad,” but the fighting scenes — and the island’s inhabitants — stand alone.

Master and apprentice dynamics

Frieren, left, and Fern from “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End.”

(Crunchyroll)

Speaking of Jedi, “The Lost Ones” and “The Bird of Paradise” also touch on the relationship between a Jedi master and their padawan apprentice. If a story involving a lineage of student-teacher dynamics that’s about friendship, human connection, memory, mortality and legacy sounds intriguing, consider checking out “Frieren: Beyond Journey’s End” (Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll). The fantasy series follows an elven mage, her young human apprentice and others they pick up along their years-long journey to visit the spirits of old friends. The show is part travelogue, part adventure quest with monsters, magic battles and dungeon exploration.

Lovable scoundrels

Kazuki, left, Miri and Rei in an episode of “Buddy Daddies.”

(©KRM’s Home / Buddy Daddies Committee / Crunchyroll)

The world of “Star Wars” is full of scoundrels that fans can’t help but love for their swagger and independent moral code, and “Visions” installments “The Smuggler” and “The Bounty Hunters” add to that legacy.

Well-known classics like “Cowboy Bebop” (Crunchyroll) and “Lupin the Third” (Tubi, Crunchyroll) and the long-running “One Piece” (Netflix, Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll) are good starting points for those first dipping their toes into anime and are interested in the adventures of a ragtag group of bounty hunters, thieves and/or pirates. For those looking for something new, consider “Buddy Daddies” (Crunchyroll), which follows a pair of assassin roommates who form a makeshift family after taking in a 4-year-old they encounter while out on a job. Think of it like “The Mandalorian,” if Mando had a recluse gamer co-parent and Grogu was a picky eater.

Political space wars and mech suits

Suletta Mercury in an episode of “Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury.”

(©Sotsu, Sunrise, MBS / Crunchyroll)

Some film and TV shows set in the galaxy far, far away are more political than others, but aspects of the conflict involving the Galactic Empire, Rebel forces and stray Jedi are touched on in a few of the shorts in “Visions” Volume 3 like “The Lost Ones,” “The Smuggler,” “Black” and “The Song of Four Wings,” with the latter featuring a young protagonist that dons a snazzy flying mech suit.

The mecha franchise “Gundam” is best known for its giant robots, but it’s a sprawling space opera that touches on political themes including the horrors of corruption, inequity and war. A recent standout is newcomer-friendly “Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch From Mercury” (Crunchyroll). The show follows a shy new transfer student at a corporate military school where recruits train and settle disputes in giant mech suit combat. The series uses school drama and a budding teen romance as a backdrop to touch on themes such as class strife and prejudice, corporate greed and personal vengeance.

Emotionally resonant robots

Atom in an episode of “Pluto.”

(Netflix)

From the Skywalkers’ fussy protocol droid C-3PO to Hera Syndulla’s cranky astromech Chopper, lovable androids are a “Star Wars” signature. “Visions” Volume 3 installments “The Ninth Jedi: Child of Hope” and “Yuko’s Treasure” each introduce loyal droids that tug viewers’ heartstrings.

The title androids in “Astro Boy” (also known as Atom) and “Doraemon” are kid-friendly household names in Japan akin to Mickey Mouse and Snoopy, but a more mature option is “Pluto” (Netflix). The gritty, sci-fi murder mystery series is based on a reimagining of a story arc from the “Astro Boy” manga, and is set in a world where humans live alongside robots — though the dynamic is a bit different than in “Star Wars.” The story follows a robot detective who is investigating a string of robot and human killings, and, like many sci-fi stories about androids and artificial intelligence, touches on themes like what makes humans human.

A scene from “Yuko’s Treasure,” one of the shorts in “Star Wars: Visions” Volume 3.

(Lucasfilm Ltd.)

Rambunctious kids

Plenty of “Star Wars” media is made with younger audiences in mind, but not many are about the adventures of children in the galaxy far, far away. “Vision” Volume 3’s “Yuko’s Treasure” puts a couple of orphan kids in the forefront — along with an adorable bear-like droid.

There’s no shortage of anime series about the (mis)adventures of rambunctious kids and one of the more heartwarming involves a “fake” family. “Spy x Family” (Disney+/Hulu, Crunchyroll) follows a secret agent working to maintain the fragile peace between neighboring nations and the faux happy family he constructed for his latest undercover mission. Unbeknownst to him, his adopted daughter is secretly a telepath and his fake wife is an assassin. As one might expect, a telepathic first grader with a wild imagination who lives with a spy and an assassin can get caught up in plenty of shenanigans. Bonus: The family also adopts a cute massive dog.

Kotaro in an episode of “Kotaro Lives Alone.”

(Netflix)

On the opposite end of the spectrum is “Kotaro Lives Alone” (Netflix), a more grounded show with just as outlandish a premise. The series follows a 4-year-old who moves into a rundown apartment complex alone — for reasons that are eventually revealed as his neighbors get to know him. The boy is unusually self-reliant and mature but also childish and understandably vulnerable. As viewers might assume, there are not many happy circumstances that could possibly lead to a 4-year-old child living on his own, but there’s more warmth than tragedy.

Musical, visual spectacle

One of the standouts in “Star Wars: Visions” Volume 3 is “Black,” a jazz-fueled, mind-bending fever dream of a Stormtrooper during a battle. The bold, music-driven 13-minute short is a visual spectacle that challenges viewers and there’s not much else out there that compares. Though it has a more structured narrative, the anime film “Inu-Oh” (Netflix) is a psychedelic rock opera that might scratch the same itch. Set in 14th century Japan, the film follows two young artists who forge a friendship because they are both outcasts — the musician is blind, and the dancer was born with monstrous deformities — and their dazzling performances drive the story.

GRATEFUL Dead singer Donna Jean Godchaux-MacKay has sadly died at the age of 78.

The singer, who made a name for herself in the band in the 70s, was also a backup singer for Elvis Presley and Percy Sledge.

The rocker sadly died on Sunday after a lengthy cancer battle.

A statement was released after she died at Alive Hospice in Nashville.

The statement announced her passing reads, “She was a sweet and warmly beautiful spirit, and all those who knew her are united in loss.

“The family requests privacy at this time of grieving.

“In the words of Dead lyricist Robert Hunter, ‘May the four winds blow her safely home’.”

Fans have already flocked to social media to express their sadness over her tragic passing.

One person on X said, “Donna was awesome. Really sad about this.”

Another penned, “Beautiful and powerful voice, there will never be another Donna Jean.”

A third person added, “So sad to learn of the passing of Donna Jean Godchaux.

“Through most of the 1970s, she made her mark on American music as a singer with the Grateful Dead. May she rest in peace.”

And a fourth said, “RIP Donna Jean Thatcher Godchaux-MacKay.

“Helluva singer who worked with the Grateful Dead & Elvis and put up with a sh**load of misogyny. Tough, special lady.”

CLARKSTON, Ga. — After fleeing the war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette landed in the Atlanta area last November and began to find her footing with federal help.

Separated from her adult children and grieving her husband’s death in the war, she started a job packing boxes in a warehouse, making just enough to cover rent for her own apartment and bills.

Antoinette has been relying on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps, for her weekly grocery trips.

But now, just as life is starting to stabilize, she will have to deal with a new setback.

President Donald Trump’s massive budget law, which Republicans call the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, slashes $187 billion — or nearly 20% — from the federal budget for SNAP through 2034. And separate from any temporary SNAP stoppages due to the federal shutdown, the law cuts off access completely for refugees and other immigrant groups in the country lawfully. The change was slated to take effect immediately when the law was signed in July, but states are still awaiting federal guidance on when to stop or phase it out.

For Antoinette, 51, who did not want her last name used for fear of deportation and likely persecution in her native country, the loss of food aid is dire.

“I would not have the means to buy food,” she said in French through a translator. “How am I going to manage?”

Throughout its history, the U.S. has admitted into the country refugees like Antoinette, people who have been persecuted, or fear persecution, in their homelands due to race, religion, nationality, political opinions, or membership in a particular social group. These legal immigrants typically face an in-depth vetting process that can start years before they set foot on U.S. soil.

Once they arrive — often with little or no means — the federal government provides resources such as financial assistance, Medicaid, and SNAP, outreach that has typically garnered bipartisan support. Now the Trump administration has pulled back the country’s decades-long support for refugee communities.

The budget law, which funds several of the president’s priorities, including tax cuts to wealthy Americans and border security, revokes refugees’ access to Medicaid, the state-federal health insurance program for people with low incomes or disabilities, starting in October 2026.

But one of the first provisions to take effect under the law removes SNAP eligibility for most refugees, asylum seekers, trafficking and domestic violence victims, and other legal immigrants. About 90,000 people will lose SNAP in an average month as a result of the new restrictions narrowing which noncitizens can access the program, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

“It doesn’t get much more basic than food,” said Matthew Soerens, vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief, a Christian humanitarian organization that supports U.S. refugees. “Our government invited these people to rebuild their lives in this country with minimum support,” Soerens said. “Taking food away from them is wrong.”

Not just a handout

The White House and officials at the United States Department of Agriculture did not respond to emails about support for the provision that ends SNAP for refugees in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

But Steven Camarota, director of research for the Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for reduced levels of immigration to the U.S., said cuts to SNAP eligibility are reasonable because foreign-born people and their young children disproportionately use public benefits.

Still, Camarota said, the refugee population is different from other immigrant groups. “I don’t know that this would be the population I would start with,” Camarota said. “It’s a relatively small population of people that we generally accept have a lot of need.”

Federal, state, and local spending on refugees and asylum seekers, including food, healthcare, education, and other expenses, totaled $457.2 billion from 2005 to 2019, according to a February 2024 report from the Department of Health and Human Services. During that time, 21% of refugees and asylum seekers received SNAP benefits, compared with 15% of all U.S. residents.

In addition to the budget law’s SNAP changes, financial assistance given to people entering the U.S. by the Office of Refugee Resettlement, a part of HHS, has been cut from one year to four months.

The HHS report also found that despite the initial costs of caring for refugees and asylees, this community contributed $123.8 billion more to federal, state, and local governments through taxes than they received in public benefits over the 15 years.

It’s in the country’s best interest to continue to support them, said Krish O’Mara Vignarajah, president and CEO of Global Refuge, a nonprofit refugee resettlement agency.

“This is not what we should think about as a handout,” she said. “We know that when we support them initially, they go on to not just survive but thrive.”

Food is medicine

Clarkston, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, is home to thousands of refugees.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Food insecurity can have lifelong physical and mental health consequences for people who have already faced years of instability before coming to the U.S., said Andrew Kim, co-founder of Ethnē Health, a community health clinic in Clarkston, an Atlanta suburb that is home to thousands of refugees.

Noncitizens affected by the new law would have received, on average, $210 a month within the next decade, according to the CBO. Without SNAP funds, many refugees and their families might skip meals and switch to lower-quality, inexpensive options, leading to chronic health concerns such as obesity and insulin resistance, and potentially worsening already serious mental health conditions, he said.

After her husband was killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Antoinette said, she became separated from all seven of her children. The youngest is 19. She still isn’t sure where they are. She misses them but is determined to build a new life for herself. For her, resources like SNAP are critical.

From the conference room of New American Pathways, the nonprofit that helped her enroll in benefits, Antoinette stared straight ahead, stone-faced, when asked about how the cuts would affect her.

Will she shop less? Will she eat fewer fruits and vegetables, and less meat? Will she skip meals?

“Oui,” she replied to each question, using the French for “yes.”

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia with his wife and two teen daughters, Lukas, 61, has been addressing diabetes-related complications, such as blurry vision, headaches, and trouble sleeping. SNAP benefits allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli, according to Lilly Tenaw, the nurse practitioner who treats Lukas and helped translate his interview.

His blood sugar is now at a safer level, he said proudly after a class at Mosaic Health Center, a community clinic in Clarkston, where he learned to make lentil soup and balance his diet.

“The assistance gives us hope and encourages us to see life in a positive way,” he said in Amharic through a translator. Lukas wanted to use only his family name because he had been jailed and faced persecution in Ethiopia, and now worries about jeopardizing his ability to get permanent residency in the U.S.

Since arriving in the U.S. last year from Ethiopia, Lukas has been visiting the Mosaic Health Center in Clarkston, Ga., to address diabetes-related complications. Food stamps allow him and his family to afford fresh vegetables like spinach and broccoli.

(Renuka Rayasam/KFF Health News)

Hunger and poor nutrition can lower productivity and make it hard for people to find and keep jobs, said Valerie Lacarte, a senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.

“It could affect the labor market,” she said. “It’s bleak.”

More SNAP cuts to come

While the Trump administration ended SNAP for refugees effective immediately, the change has created uncertainty for those who provide assistance.

State officials in Texas and California, which receive the most refugees among states, and in Georgia told KFF Health News that the USDA, which runs the program, has yet to issue guidance on whether they should stop providing SNAP on a specific date or phase it out.

And it’s not just refugees who are affected.

Nearly 42 million people receive SNAP benefits, according to the USDA. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that, within the next decade, more than 3 million people will lose monthly food dollars because of planned changes — such as an extension of work requirements to more people and a shift in costs from the federal government to the states.

In September, the administration ended a key report that regularly measured food insecurity among all U.S. households, making it harder to assess the toll of the SNAP cuts.

The USDA also posted on its website that no benefits would be issued for anyone starting Nov. 1 because of the federal shutdown, blaming Senate Democrats. The Trump administration has refused to release emergency funding — as past administrations have done during shutdowns — so that states can continue issuing benefits while congressional leaders work out a budget deal. A coalition of attorneys general and governors from 25 states and the District of Columbia filed a lawsuit on Oct. 28 contesting the administration’s decision.

Cuts to SNAP will ripple through local grocery stores and farms, stretching the resources of charity organizations and local governments, said Ted Terry, a DeKalb County commissioner and former mayor of Clarkston.

“It’s just the whole ecosystem that has been in place for 40 years completely being disrupted,” he said.

Muzhda Oriakhil, senior community engagement manager at Friends of Refugees, an Atlanta-area nonprofit that helps refugees resettle, said her group and others are scrambling to provide temporary food assistance for refugee families. But charity organizations, food banks, and other nonprofit groups cannot make up for the loss of billions of federal dollars that help families pay for food.

“A lot of families, they may starve,” she said.

Rayasam writes for KFF.

When: Volunteers are typically needed on weekdays in the mornings and afternoons. Corporate volunteer shifts are typically scheduled on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Weekend volunteer opportunities can be arranged by emailing [email protected].

Where: Volunteers are needed at the warehouse in Santa Monica Mondays-Thursdays or at their mobile pantries around their service area including the Gerard Mobile Pantry, VAP Mobile Pantry and West LA Civic Center Mobile Pantry.

Details: Register online for volunteer opportunities. Drop off food donations at the food bank between 7 a.m. and 3 p.m. Monday through Friday. Frozen and/or refrigerated foods can be accepted by calling (310) 828-6016 beforehand. Appointments are required to drop off large collections of food.

Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner took aim at the rising cost of basic city services Thursday, saying Mayor Karen Bass and her administration have contributed to an affordability crisis that is “crushing families.”

Beutner, appearing outside Van Nuys City Hall, pointed to the City Council’s recent decision to increase trash collection fees to nearly $56 per month, up from $36.32 for single-family homes and duplexes and $24.33 for three- and four-unit apartment buildings.

Since Bass took office in December 2022, the city also hiked sewer service fees, which are on track to double over a four-year period. In addition, Beutner said, the Department of Water and Power pushed up the cost of water and electrical service by 52% and 19%, respectively.

“I’m talking about the cost-of-living crisis that’s crushing families,” he said. “L.A. is a very, very special place, but every day it’s becoming less affordable.”

Beutner, speaking before a group of reporters, would not commit to rolling back any of those increases. Instead, he urged Bass to call a special session of the City Council to explain the decisions that led to the increases.

“Tell me the cost of those choices, and then we can have an informed conversation as to whether it was a good choice or a bad choice — or whether I’d make the same choice,” said Beutner, who has worked as superintendent of L.A. schools and as a high-level deputy mayor.

When the City Council took up the sewer rates last year, sanitation officials argued the increase was needed to cover rising construction and labor costs — and ramp up the repair and replacement of aging pipes.

This year sanitation officials also pushed for a package of trash fee hikes, saying the rates had not increased in 17 years. They argued that the city’s budget has been subsidizing the cost of residential trash pickup for customers in single-family homes and small apartments.

Doug Herman, spokesperson for the Bass reelection campaign, defended the trash and sewer service fee increases, saying both were long overdue. Bass took action, he said, because previous city leaders failed to make the hard choices necessary to balance the budget and fix deteriorating sewer pipes.

“Nobody was willing to face the music and request the rate hikes to do that necessary work,” he said.

DWP spokesperson Michelle Figueroa acknowledged that electrical rates have gone up. However, she said in an email, the DWP’s residential rates remain lower than other utilities, including Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric.

By focusing on cost-of-living concerns, Beutner’s campaign has been emphasizing an issue that is at the forefront of next week’s election for New York City mayor. In that contest, State Assembly member Zohran Mamdani has promised to lower consumer costs, in part by freezing the rent for rent-stabilized apartments and making rides on city buses free.

Since announcing his candidacy this month, Beutner has offered few cost-of-living policy prescriptions, other than to say he supports “in concept” Senate Bill 79, a newly signed state law that allows taller, denser buildings to be approved near public transit stops. Instead, he mostly has derided a wide array of increases, including a recent hike in parking rates.

Beutner contends that the city’s various increases will add more than $1,200 per year to the average household customer’s bill from the Department of Water and Power, which includes the cost not just of utilities but also trash removal and sewer service.

Herman pushed back on that estimate, saying it relies on “flawed assumptions,” incorporating fees that apply to only a portion of ratepayers.

In a new campaign video, Beutner warned that city leaders also are laying plans to more than double what property owners pay in street lighting assessments. He also accused the DWP of relying increasingly on “adjustment factors” to increase the amount customers pay for water and electricity, instead of hiking the base rate.

The DWP needs to be more transparent about those increases and why they were needed, Beutner said.

On an overcast morning in September, Hector Alessandro Negrete left his beloved Los Angeles — the city he was brought to at 3 months old — and headed down Interstate 5 to Mexico, the only country where he held a passport.

It was a place that, to him, had “always felt like both a wound and a possibility.”

Negrete, 43, sat in the passenger seat as a friend steered the car south and two more friends in another car followed. He had condensed his life to three full suitcases and his dachshund mix, Lorca.

They pulled over at the beach in San Clemente. Angel Martinez, his soon-to-be former roommate, is deeply spiritual, and his favorite prayer spot is the ocean, so he prayed that Negrete would be blessed and protected — and Lorca too — as they began a new stage in their lives.

On the near-empty beach, the friends embraced and wiped away tears. Martinez handed Negrete a small watermelon.

As instructed, Negrete walked to the edge of the water, said his own prayer and, as a gift of thanks to the cosmos, plopped it into a crashing wave.

Negrete, holding a drink, embraces his friend Angel Martinez as they visit a drag club in Tijuana after leaving Los Angeles a day earlier.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Negrete doesn’t call it self-deportation.

“Self-repatriation,” he said. “I refuse to use this administration’s language.”

President Trump had been in office just over a month when Negrete decided he would return to Mexico. Methodical by nature, he approached the decision like any other — by researching, organizing and planning.

Negrete secured three forms of Mexican identification: his voter credential, a renewed passport and a card akin to a Social Security ID.

He registered Lorca as an emotional support animal, paid for a vaccine card and a certificate of good health, and crate-trained her in a TSA-approved carrier.

He announced his decision to leave in June on his Substack newsletter: “If you’re thinking, ‘Alessandro’s giving up,’ look deeper. I am choosing freedom. For the first time, I feel unshackled from the expectations of waiting.”

Negrete walks the streets of Boyle Heights while shopping for moving supplies after deciding he would leave the U.S. on his own terms.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Negrete had grown tired of wishing for immigration reform. He had built his career advocating for immigrants such as himself, including stints as statewide coordinator for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, or MALDEF, and as executive director for the California Immigrant Youth Justice Alliance.

He said his work had helped legalize street vending in Los Angeles and he assisted the office of then-California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris in securing the release of a young woman from immigration detention. He was the first openly undocumented and LGBTQ+ person on the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council.

Under previous administrations, Negrete’s political work had felt like a shield against deportation. Even during Trump’s first term, Negrete had marched at rallies denouncing his immigration policies.

But that was before the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement patrols that tore into Southern California during Trump’s second term. On June 6, as anti-ICE protesters took to the streets, Negrete rushed to downtown Los Angeles when fellow activists told him street medics were needed.

“One of my homies said, ‘Hey fool, what are you doing here?’” he recalled. Seeing Los Angeles police officers advancing on the crowd, he realized that no amount of public support could protect him.

He fled. “Thank God I left.”

Negrete, in red, with his friends and colleagues at a farewell party and yard sale in August.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In mid-August, Negrete hosted a yard sale and going away party. The flier was tongue-in-cheek: “Everything must go! Including me!”

His red T-shirt stated plainly, “I AM UNDOCUMENTED,” and his aviator sunglasses hid the occasional tears. Tattoos dotted his extremities, including an anchor on his right leg with the words “I refuse to sink.”

“I think it hit me when I started packing my stuff today,” he told a former colleague, Shruti Garg, who had arrived early.

“But the way you’ve invited everyone to join you is so beautiful,” she replied.

One table held American pop-culture knickknacks — sippy cups with Ghostface from the movie “Scream,” collectible Mickey Mouse ears, a Detective Batman purse shaped like a comic book, another purse shaped like the locker from the ‘90s cartoon “Daria.”

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Negrete said the items reminded him of his youth and represented the gothic, quirky aspects of his personality.

“I was born in Mexico, but I don’t know Mexico,” he said. “So I’m leaving the American parts of me that are no longer going to serve me.”

The back yard slowly filled with loved ones from Negrete’s various social circles. There was his mostly queer softball team — the Peacocks — his running group, his chosen family and his blood family.

Negrete’s close friend Joel Menjivar looked solemn.

“I’m scared it’s going to start a movement,” he said. “Undocumented or DACA friends who are talented and integral to the fabric of L.A. might get ideas to leave.”

Another friend, Mario Mariscal, said he took Negrete’s decision the hardest, though at first he didn’t believe Negrete was serious. More than once he asked, “You really want to give up everything you’ve built here for a new start in Mexico?”

Eventually, Negrete had to tell Mariscal that his questions weren’t helpful. During a deeper conversation about his decision, Negrete shared that he was tired of living with the constant fear of getting picked up, herded into an unmarked van and taken away.

“I just kept telling him, ‘That’s not going to happen to you,’” Mariscal said. “But the more this administration keeps doing it, the more it’s in our face, the more we’re seeing every horror story about that, it became clear that, you know what, you do have a point. You do have to do what’s right for you.”

Negrete continues packing for his move to Mexico as roommate Martinez works at their Boyle Heights home.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Negrete is cognizant of the privilege that makes his departure different from that of many other immigrants. He is white-passing, fluent in Spanish and English, and moved with $10,000 in savings.

In June, he was hired as executive director of a U.S.-based nonprofit, Old School Hub, that works to combat ageism around the world. The role allowed him to live wherever he wanted.

He decided to settle in Guadalajara, a growing technology hub, with historic buildings featuring Gothic architecture that he found beautiful. It also helped that Guadalajara has one of the country’s most vibrant LGBTQ+ scenes and is a four-hour drive from Puerto Vallarta, a renowned queer resort destination.

As Negrete began his new job while still in L.A., he picked a moving date — Sept. 4 — and booked a two-week Airbnb near the baseball stadium.

That Guadalajara’s team, the Charros de Jalisco, wore Dodger blue felt like a good omen.

On the day he left the United States, Negrete and Martinez hold a prayer at the beach in San Clemente in which Negrete offers thanks to the universe with an offering of a watermelon.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

On the drive toward the border, messages poured into Negrete’s phone.

“I’m sending you all my love Alessandro,” one read. “Cuídate. [Take care.] Know that even though you’re far away from home, you carry us with you.”

“Todo te va a salir bien,” read another. Everything will go well for you, it said. “Spread your wings and flyyyyy.”

Afraid of being stopped and detained at the airport, as has happened to other immigrants attempting to leave the country, Negrete preferred to drive to Tijuana and then fly to Guadalajara.

Negrete’s driver, his friend Jorge Leonardo, turned into a parking lot at the sign reading “LAST USA EXIT.”

Negrete put on his black felt tejana hat and called Iris Rodriguez, who was in the companion car. He asked her to cross on foot with him.

Negrete walks his last few steps on American soil as he enters Mexico en route to Guadalajara, his new home.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“I don’t want to go alone,” he said.

“We’re still on American soil,” Leonardo said. “You can still change your mind.”

Negrete ignored him.

“See y’all on the other side,” he said as he hopped out of the car.

He and Rodriguez stopped for photos in front of a sign with an arrow pointing “To Mexico.” Around a corner, the border came into full view — a metal turnstile with layers of concertina wire above it.

The line for Mexicanos was unceremoniously quick. The immigration agent barely glanced at Negrete’s passport before waving him through.

On the other side, a busker sang “Piano Man” by Billy Joel in perfect English.

“Welcome to the motherland,” Rodriguez told him. Negrete let out a deep breath.

Negrete tours downtown Guadalajara, where he now lives.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Negrete’s immediate family members, and almost all of his extended family, live in the U.S.

He was born in Manzanillo, Colima, in 1982. Three months later, the family relocated to Los Angeles, where his parents had two more children.

At 17, Negrete was one of two students in his graduating class at Roosevelt High School to get into UC Berkeley. That’s when he found out he didn’t have papers.

His parents had divorced and his father married a U.S. citizen, obtaining a green card when Negrete was at Roosevelt. They began the legalization process for Negrete in 1999, he said, but two years later he came out to his family as gay.

His father was unsupportive and refused to continue seeking to adjust his immigration status. By the time they mended their relationship, it was too late. Negrete had aged out of the pathway at 21.

In 2008, Negrete said, he was arrested for driving while under the influence of alcohol. Four years later, President Obama established the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, program to protect immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Negrete failed to qualify because of the DUI.

He said he got his record expunged in 2016, but — again — it was too late.

The following year, Trump began unwinding DACA, shutting out new generations of would-be recipients, including Negrete.

Negrete waited until his last night in the U.S. to tell his mother, who now lives in Colorado, that he was leaving. He had grown tired of friends and other family members begging him to change his mind.

He had partially hinged his decision on the fact that his mom was in remission from her third bout with cancer and had just obtained legal residency. With life more stable for her, he could finally seek stability for himself.

“You taught me to dream,” Negrete recalled telling her. “This is me dreaming. I want to see the world.”

She cried and scolded him, promising to visit and repeating what she had said when he came out to her all those years before: “I wish you told me sooner.”

At a hotel in Tijuana, Negrete’s emotions finally caught up with him.

The day after Negrete and his three friends left L.A., three more friends surprised him by arriving in Tijuana for a final Friday night out together. One of them presented a gift he had put together with help from Negrete’s entire social circle — a video with loved ones sharing messages of encouragement.

Negrete shares a tearful moment with his friend Joel Menjivar, who gifted him a self-produced video of friends and colleagues offering good wishes.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

In Negrete’s hotel room, as he and his friends watched, the mood grew sentimental.

“You’re basically the one that formed the family friend tree,” one friend said in her clip. “Friendships do not die out in distance.”

Negrete sobbed. “Yes! Friendships don’t have borders,” he said.

“Every single one of you has said this hasn’t hit y’all, like it’s a mini vacation,” he said. “I want to think of it as an extended vacation.”

“This isn’t goodbye, this is we’ll see each other soon,” he continued.

Off his soapbox, Negrete then chided his friends for making him cry before heading to a drag show.

Negrete had a habit of leaving social gatherings abruptly. His friends joked that they would refer to him as “catch me on the 101” because every time he disappeared during a night out, they would open Apple’s Find My app and see him on the freeway heading home.

“We’re not gonna catch him on the 101 no more,” Martinez said.

The last few flights of stairs lead Iris Rodriguez and Negrete to his Airbnb apartment in Guadalajara.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

On the flight to Guadalajara, Negrete’s heart raced and he began to hyperventilate. The anxiety attack caught him off guard.

Negrete had worked hard to show his friends and family that he was happy, because he didn’t want them to think he had doubts — and he had none. But he began to worry about the unknown and to mourn his former dreams of gaining legal status and running for public office.

“It hit me all at once,” he recounted. “I am three hours away from a whole new life that I don’t know. I left everything and I don’t know what’s next.”

Many deep breaths by Negrete later, the plane descended through the clouds, revealing vibrant green fields and a cantaloupe-hued sunset.

Negrete tests the bed at his temporary home in Guadalajara.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Inside the Airbnb, he was surprised to find a clothesline instead of a dryer. Noticing the blue 5-gallon jug of water in the kitchen, he remarked that he would have to remember tap water wasn’t safe to cook with. But alongside the new was something familiar: The view from his 11–story apartment showed off a sprawling metropolis dotted with trees, some of them palms.

The next day started off like any Sunday, with a trip to Walmart and drag brunch.

Negrete marveled at the cost of a large carton of egg whites ($1) and was shocked to see eggs stored at room temperature, liquid laundry detergent in bags and only single-ply toilet paper. He treated himself to a Darth Vader coffee mug and a teapot featuring characters from “The Nightmare Before Christmas.”

After brunch, it was time to play tourist. Negrete was accompanied by Rodriguez, who stayed with him for the first two weeks, and a new friend, Alejandro Preciado, whom he had met at Coachella in April and happened to be a Guadajalara local.

Negrete tours downtown Guadalajara. He was drawn to the city, in part, by its Gothic architecture.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Their first stop was the city’s Spanish Renaissance cathedral, where Negrete said a quick prayer to the Virgin Mary at his mother’s request. Negrete treated his friends to an electric carriage ride around the historic buildings, where he excitedly pointed out the Gothic architecture, then they bought aguas frescas and walked through an open-air market, chatting in an English-heavy Spanglish.

“I’m trying to look at how people dress,” Negrete said, suddenly self-conscious about his short shorts. “I’m pretty sure I stand out.”

After dinner, Negrete was booking an Uber back to his Airbnb when a message popped up: “We’ve detected unusual activity.”

The app didn’t know he had moved.

Before he arrived in Guadalajara, Negrete had already joined an intramural baseball team and a running club. Practices began days after his arrival.

Negrete enjoys a view of the sprawling hills of Guadalajara.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Within a month, he moved into an apartment, visited Mexico City and reconnected with aunts in Mexico City and Guadalajara he hadn’t seen in decades.

He reflected on the small joys of greeting neighborhood señoras on morning dog walks, discovering the depths of Mexican cuisine and the peace of mind that came with no longer feeling like a target — though he’ll still freeze at the sight of police lights.

Still, Negrete remained glued to U.S. politics. In late September, the federal government detailed plans to begin processing initial DACA applications for the first time in four years. Had Negrete stayed in the U.S., he would have finally qualified for a reprieve.

He isn’t regretful.

Lorca greets Negrete as he arrives home after touring Guadalajara.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

His new dreams are wide-ranging. He wants to buy a house in Rosarito, where friends and family from L.A. could visit him. He wants to travel the world, starting with a trip to Spain. And he wants to help U.S. organizations build resources for other immigrants who are considering repatriating.

The goal isn’t to encourage people to leave, he said, but to show them they have agency.

“I actually did it,” he said. “I did it, and I’m OK.”

Now, he said, Mexico feels like an estranged relative that he’s getting to know again.

Oct. 30 (UPI) — The U.S. Department of State on Thursday ordered non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali, where the government is in armed conflict with al-Qaida-linked terrorists.

“The Department of State ordered non-emergency employees and their family members to leave Mali due to safety risks,” the State Department said in an update to its travel advisory for the West African nation.

“The U.S. government cannot offer routine or emergency services to U.S. citizens outside of Bamako due to safety risks. Do not travel to Mali for any reason.”

The announcement comes two days after the U.S. Embassy in Mali issued a security alert urging U.S. citizens in the country to “depart immediately” via commercial flights.

“U.S. citizens who choose not to depart Mali should prepare contingency plans for any emergency situations that may arise, including a need to shelter in place for an extended period,” the embassy said.

The embassy has repeatedly issued warning about disruptions in the country of gasoline and diesel supplies, closure of public institutions, including schools, nationwide, and the armed conflict around the Mali capital of Bamako.

Mali has experienced a political and security crisis since January of 2012, with a rebellion and subsequent coup. The situation has intensified since Sept. 3, when the al-Qaida Jama’a Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin declared a blockade on major fuel and food supply routes across in the country.

Southern California Edison increased the number of Eaton fire victims that are eligible to file claims for damages in its final compensation proposal, though some Altadena residents say the utility’s program still falls short.

After talking to residents about the plan it released in July, Edison said it decided to expand the area of homes that are eligible for compensation for smoke damage.

“Expanding the eligibility area is one of the most significant updates made as a result of feedback,” said Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company. “The number of qualified properties nearly doubled for those with damage from smoke, soot or ash.”

The utility also increased the amount of compensation it is offering for some victims. For example, each child in a family that lost its home will be eligible to receive $75,000 for pain and suffering, up from $50,000 in the initial plan.

To receive payments under the utility’s Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program, families must agree to drop any lawsuits they filed against the utility for the Jan. 7 fire.

The program also is open to businesses that lost revenues and renters who lost property. And it covers those who suffered physical injuries or had family members who died.

Edison is launching the victim compensation program even though government fire investigators have not released their report on the cause of the fire. The inferno swept through Altadena, destroying 9,400 homes and other structures and killing 19 people.

Videos captured the fire igniting under a century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon that Edison had not used since 1971, and Pizarro has said a leading theory is that the line somehow re-energized and ignited the blaze. Edison said in a federal securities filing this week that “absent additional evidence, SCE believes that it is likely that its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition.”

In documents detailing its final compensation plan, the utility included the example of a family of four with a 1,500-square-foot home that was destroyed. The family would receive $900,000 to rebuild, $360,000 for personal property, $140,000 for loss of use and $380,000 for pain and suffering. It also would receive a $200,000 “direct claim premium” for agreeing to settle outside of court.

That total of $1,980,000 is then reduced by the family’s $1 million of insurance coverage, according to the company’s example.

On Thursday, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) sent a letter to Edison saying she was concerned about how the utility was requiring victims to waive their future legal rights in order to get compensation. And she called on Edison to provide immediate housing assistance to fire victims.

“Having acknowledged its potential role in starting the Eaton Fire, Edison must do everything within its power to prioritize the needs of survivors and make this commitment a core part of its corporate duty,” she wrote to Pizarro. “This means ensuring fire victims can recover and rebuild their lives with the support they are owed.”

Edison expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the payments it makes to victims by a $21-billion state wildfire fund that Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers created in 2019 to shield utilities from bankruptcy. Administrators of the wildfire fund told members of the state Catastrophe Response Council this week that they expect Eaton fire claims “to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

In September, Newsom signed a bill that will bolster the money available by another $18 billion for future wildfires. Under that bill, Edison is allowed to raise electric rates for any Eaton fire costs that exceed the original $21-billion fund.

Some Eaton fire survivors told the council, which oversees the wildfire fund, that Edison’s program fails to fully cover damages suffered by victims. Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, recently sent the council a report detailing where her group found shortfalls. For example, Chen said, Edison is deducting a homeowner’s full insurance coverage from the compensation amounts even if the insurer has reimbursed the family for only part of that amount.

“Nine months after Edison’s negligence shattered our lives, the toll is clear,” the group’s report states. “Many have drained retirement savings, maxed out credit cards, or watched marriages and health deteriorate under the strain. “

“You destroyed our homes, lives and community,” the report says of Edison. “Fix what you broke. “

Chen’s group joined with Perez in calling for Edison to provide emergency housing assistance for victims.

Edison said its program is designed “to help the community recover and rebuild faster.” The utility said a report by RAND, the non-profit research group it hired to assess the compensation plan, determined the payment amounts “used modern statistical methods and in our judgment were thoughtfully done and well executed.”

Edison said victims can start filing for claims now and that it expects to get back to them with an offer within 90 days.

HOLLY Hagan’s Geordie Shore pals have donated thousands to her late sister Darci’s memorial so her family can take time off work to grieve. 

Heartbroken Holly, 33, revealed last week that Darci had passed away aged 19. 

Now her famous friends have rallied around the family during the incredibly difficult time, The Sun can reveal. 

An insider said: “Holly Hagan’s famous pals have donated thousands of pounds to help pay for her tragic sister’s funeral and memorial, and allow them some breathing space from work. 

“Charlotte Crosby and her partner Jake Ankers have donated £2,000, Sophie Kasaei has given £1,000, Adam Frisby £1,000 and Gaz Beadle and Nathan Henry gave £500 each.”

In an emotional statement sharing the tragic news, Holly wrote: “It is with immeasurable grief and sadness that our baby girl, my baby sister Darci Rose passed away peacefully holding my hand surrounded by family and her best friends.

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“She was never in any pain.

“The last four days have been something I hope no family ever has to go through.

“We are traumatised in every sense of the word.

“One day we will share Darci’s story. But for now I please ask that you do respect our privacy and allow us to process what has happened.

“To the incredible ambulance crew, and everyone at Manchester Royal Infirmary A&E and ICU, thank you so much for giving my sister the absolute best chance.

“Because of you all we have had the opportunity to hold her hand, stroke her hair and feel her heart beating for the last time.

“We will forever be grateful for the way you have looked after her and us throughout this unimaginable process.”

Holly added: “Right now my job is to support my family in any way that I can to ensure they don’t have to worry about work/finances.

“Any posts you see this month are pre-recorded and scheduled ahead of time. I will be continuing to work, so they do not have to.”

The TV star then reflected on her late sister and recalled some of the fondest memories they shared together.

Holly continued: “Darci is so beautiful and she genuinely didn’t even realise it.

“I always told her she’d look better without the huge spider lashes but we all know what a hypocrite I was being since I wore nine pairs at her age!

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“She lived in Darci world, forgetting to turn lights off, didn’t know how to lock doors after coming in from a night out, leaving the freezer open so my mam came down to a puddle of defrosted food.

“She was the best aunty, Alpha-Jax adored her. She spent his whole birthday on the bouncy castle with AJ and Alba, and that’s a memory I’ll cherish forever.”

Septuagenarian TV star Kelsey Grammer is still growing his family, most recently with the arrival of his newest child.

The beloved “Cheers” and “Frasier” actor, who turned 70 in February, is now a father of eight. Grammer announced he and wife Kayte Walsh welcomed their fourth child together during his appearance on the “Pod Meets World” podcast.”

We just had our fourth one, it just became eight kids,” he said during the podcast episode, published Monday. “Christopher, that’s [who] just joined the family.”

The Emmy-winning TV veteran said his newest son arrived “three days” before the episode taped and joked with podcast hosts Rider Strong, Danielle Fishel and Will Friedle that he has “clusters” of children of different ages.

Grammer and Walsh, 46, married in 2011 and also share a teenage daughter and two sons. People reported in June that the couple was expecting a child again, publishing photos of the two taking a stroll through London.

The five-time Emmy winner has been married four times. Before Walsh, he was married to dancer-model Camille Donatacci. He was also briefly married to Leigh-Anne Csuhany, and dance instructor Doreen Alderman before that. His seven other children, the eldest being actor Spencer Grammer, hail from those previous relationships.

The sitcom star became a grandfather in October 2011, when his son Spencer welcomed a son with ex-husband James Hesketh.

In the past, Grammer has been open about the “beauty of being an older dad.” He told the Guardian in 2018 that raising children later in life he feels fortunate to “get a chance to kinda try it again. That’s been a real gift.”

The actor announced the arrival of his eighth child while promoting his book “Karen: A Brother Remembers,” released in May, about the brutal murder of his sister at age 18 and his lifelong battle with grief. During the episode, Fishel asked the actor how much his children knew about his late sister.

He explained his older children have varying degrees of knowledge about his sister, while his younger kids will have to wait to learn more and read his book. “Some of the stuff is too brutal, they don’t really need to be exposed to that yet,” he said.

Throughout the podcast episode, Grammer also recalled the proceedings in his sister’s case and learning how to process the loss while delivering laughs on TV.

“I didn’t walk around talking about it a lot, it’s been with me since the day it happened,” he said.

Michaela Thompson, an unemployed mother in the San Fernando Valley, relies on federal assistance to afford the specialized baby formula her 15-month-old daughter needs because of a feeding disorder. At $47 for a five-day supply, it’s out of her reach otherwise.

But with the federal shutdown blocking upcoming disbursements of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — previously known as food stamps — Thompson said she doesn’t know how she’s going to fill her daughter’s bottles.

“It feels like the world is kind of crumbling right now,” she said. “I’m terrified for my family and my daughter.”

Millions of low-income families who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table in California and across the country — about 1 in 8 Americans — are confronting similar fears this week, as federal and state officials warn that November funds will not be issued without a resolution to the ongoing federal shutdown and Congress shows no sign of a breakthrough.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that California is joining other Democrat-led states in suing the Trump administration to force SNAP payments through the use of contingency funds, but the litigation — even if successful — won’t prevent all the disruptions.

Army Spc. Jazmine Contreras, center, and Pfc. Vivian Almaraz, right, of the 40th Division Sustainment Brigade, Army National Guard, Los Alamitos, help workers and volunteers pack boxes of produce at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

It is already too late for some of the 5.5 million California residents — including 2 million children — who rely on such benefits to receive them in time to buy groceries after Friday, when many will have already used up their October benefits, state officials said. Advocates warned of a tidal wave of need as home pantries and CalFresh cards run empty — which they said is no longer a risk but a certainty.

“We are past the point at which it is possible to prevent harm,” said Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the organization End Child Poverty California.

About 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

State officials, local governments and nonprofit organizations are scrambling to get the word out to families and to redirect millions of dollars in emergency funding to stock more food at local food banks or load gift cards for the neediest families, but many say the capacity to respond is insufficient — and are bracing for a deluge of need.

“People really don’t understand the scale and scope of what is happening and the ripple effect it will have on the economy and with people just meeting their basic needs,” said Angela F. Williams, president and chief executive of United Way.

Already, United Way is seeing an uptick in calls to its 211 centers nationwide from people looking for help with groceries, utility bills and rent, Williams said. “There’s a critical crisis that has been brewing for a while, and it’s reaching a fevered pitch.”

Cheyne said many families are well aware of the looming disruption to aid and scrambling to prepare, including by going to state food banks for groceries. Newsom has activated the National Guard to help handle that influx in California.

However, Cheyne said many others will likely find out about the disruption while standing in grocery store checkouts.

“We anticipate a huge surge in people extremely upset to find out that they’ve literally shopped, and the groceries are in their cart, and their kids are probably with them, and then they get to the checkout, and then it’s, ‘transaction denied: insufficient funds.’”

Children and older people — who make up more than 63% of SNAP recipients in California — going hungry across America is a dire enough political spectacle that politicians of both parties have worked aggressively to prevent it in the past, including during previous government shutdowns. But this time around, they seem resigned to that outcome.

Members of the military and their families receive food donated by Feeding San Diego food bank on Friday.

(Sandy Huffaker / AFP / Getty Images)

Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach a deal on the budget impasse as Democrats fight Republicans over their decision to slash healthcare subsidies relied on by millions of Americans. With no end in sight to the nearly month-long shutdown, federal workers who are either furloughed or working without pay — including many in California — are facing financial strain and increasingly showing up at food pantries, officials said.

A deluge of SNAP recipients will only add to the lines, and some food bank leaders are becoming increasingly worried about security at those facilities if they are overwhelmed by need.

Pointing fingers

In a statement posted to its website Monday, the Department of Agriculture wrote that Senate Democrats had repeatedly voted not to restore the SNAP funds by passing a short-term Republican spending measure.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” it said. “We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The Trump administration had said Friday that it cannot legally dip into contingency funds to continue funding SNAP into November, even as it uses nontraditional means to pay for the salaries of active-duty military and federal law enforcement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks through Statuary Hall at the Capitol on Tuesday.

(Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images)

The administration has used tariff revenue to temporarily fund the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, which serves about 6.7 million women and children nationally, though it is unclear how long it will continue do so. The California Department of Public Health said the state WIC program, which supports about half of all babies born in California, should “remain fully operational through Nov. 30, assuming no unexpected changes.”

On Capitol Hill, negotiations to end the shutdown have mostly ground to a halt. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) once again refused to call House members back into session this week, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who want to negotiate a deal to reopen the government. In the Senate, negotiations remain at a stalemate.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have relentlessly blamed President Trump and his administration for causing the disruption to food aid, just as they have blamed the president for the shutdown overall.

“Donald Trump has the power to ensure 40 million people don’t go hungry during the shutdown. But he wishes to inflict the maximum pain on those who can least afford it. He won’t fund food. But he’s happy to build a golden ballroom,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Monday on X.

Schiff was referring to a $250-million ballroom Trump has planned for the White House, which he recently set into motion by demolishing the historic East Wing.

A member of the U.S. Navy waits in line to receive food from volunteers with Feeding San Diego food bank.

(Sandy Huffanker / AFP / Getty Images)

State and local responses

States have responded to the looming cut in different ways. Some have promised to backfill SNAP funding from their own coffers, though federal officials have warned they will not be reimbursed.

Newsom has stood up the National Guard and directed tens of millions of dollars to state food banks, but has made no promises to directly supplement missing SNAP benefits with state dollars — despite advocacy groups calling on him to do so.

On Friday, dozens of organizations wrote a letter to Newsom and other state officials estimating the total amount of lapsed funding for November to be about $1.1 billion, and calling on them to use state funds to cover the total amount to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude.”

Carlos Marquez III, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn. of California, said counties and other local agencies are responding in a number of ways, including making contributions to local food banks and looking for ways to redirect local funds — and find matching philanthropic dollars — to directly backfill missing SNAP benefits.

Los Angeles County, which has about 1.5 million SNAP recipients, has already approved a $10-million expenditure to support local food banks, its Department of Children and Family Services has identified an additional $2 million to redirect, and its partners providing managed care plans to SNAP recipients have committed another $5 million, he said.

He said his group has advocated for Newsom to declare a statewide emergency, which would help equalize the response statewide and allow for mutual aid agreements between wealthier and poorer areas.

He said his group also is advocating for the state to begin using school lunch programs to direct additional food to families with younger children at home, and to work with local senior care facilities to make sure elderly SNAP recipients are also being helped.

What comes next?

Williams, of United Way, said the organization’s local chapters are “looking for partners on the ground” to provide additional support moving forward, as needs will persist.

“It seems like every day the needs just become more and more pressing, and I’m concerned, honestly, not only about the economic toll that is being taken on individuals, I’m concerned about the mental health and emotional toll this is taking on people,” Williams said. “My hope is that people from all sectors will step up and say, ‘How can we be good neighbors?’”

On Friday, National Guard troops began a 30-day deployment at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, where they are sorting produce and packing food boxes. Due to “heightened concern” in the community about the military’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown, the troops will be working in warehouses and not interacting directly with the public, said Chief Executive Michael Flood.

Flood said there has already been a surge in demand from laid-off federal workers in Los Angeles, but he’s expecting demand to increase markedly beginning Saturday, and building up distribution capacity similar to what was in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which seemed odd, considering “this is a man-made disaster.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” Flood said. “Folks in D.C. can prevent this from happening.”

When Gigi Perez took to the stage at the Austin City Limits Festival earlier this month, it felt like the universe was holding up a mirror, reflecting back all the growth she’d done in the four years since her last performance there.

Back in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted record deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles — the wistful acoustic guitar track “Sometimes (Backwood)” and the devastatingly raw “Celene.” The 2021 edition of ACL was the first festival she ever performed, and though her early afternoon slot at one of the smaller stages attracted a few dozen audience members, Perez had spent so many years dreaming of the opportunity that it didn’t matter. She was happy just to be there.

This month, Perez returned to Austin no longer an emerging artist, but as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick folk ballad from 2024, “Sailor Song,” had topped the U.K. singles chart and earned more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the back of its success, she spent the first half of this year opening for Hozier in support of her 2025 debut LP, “At the Beach, in Every Life.”

So when she took the stage at ACL in October, this time it was for a coveted golden hour set, with a sea of people stretched out before her — and a chorus of voices singing along to her every word.

“It was magical,” Perez told De Los. “There were people there who were actually at my first set in 2021, standing in the front. It meant a lot to me. I think that there’s a shock that I still experience with people coming to my set at a festival.”

At 25 years old, Perez has lived more life than most. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., the singer grew up in a devoutly Christian Cuban household, the middle child of three sisters.

As a teenager, the religious values she’d been steeped in were beginning to clash with her own realizations about her sexuality — and music provided a lifeline. The queer artists she listened to, like Hayley Kiyoko and Troye Sivan, tapped into feelings she hadn’t been able to articulate, and inspired her to write music that would allow her to express them in her own words.

At 18, just as she was preparing to head to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, her grandmother and uncle passed away, just weeks apart from each other. These dual losses set off a wave of grief and sparked difficult questions about her faith. She was struggling to regain her footing over the next year when, just months into the pandemic, her family experienced the sudden loss of her older sister Celene.

Perez felt unmoored. Her whole life, Celene had been a north star, a guiding light who inspired her to take up music, and who wanted to be a singer herself. Perez did what she knew how: wove her pain and anger and devastation into music, writing the soul-stirring tribute, “Celene.”

“The other day, I thought of something funny, but no one would’ve laughed but you,” she sings. “And mom and dad are always crying. And I wish I knew what to do.”

(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)

Her first original songs gained traction on TikTok, getting the attention of Interscope Records. From there, her career began to take off. She opened for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus, releasing her first EP, “How to Catch a Falling Knife,” in April 2023. Then, just months into a string of performances scheduled in London that summer, the label released her from her contract.

“I remember just being dumbfounded,” she said. “It was this immediate, very deep sense of fear and failure.”

But the funny thing about grief — that all-consuming force that had dragged her out to sea multiple times over the last several years — was that as suffocating as it could be, it was also surprising and unpredictable. So despite the depth of complicated emotions washing over her, Perez was acutely aware that this news was nothing compared to the loss of her sister. “So many things that happen in my life don’t affect me in that same profound way,” she said. “That was one of the things that made me. I don’t know, it’s hard to find the words even now.”

Growing up, Celene had her sights set on Broadway. She introduced Gigi to several musicals, from a bootleg version of “Legally Blonde,” to her first live theater experience in “Wicked,” to the cast album of Lin–Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They played one song from the soundtrack, “Breathe,” on repeat. It’s sung by the character Nina, the daughter of immigrants in Washington Heights, who returns home in shame after having to drop out of Stanford University.

“That’s how I was feeling at the time,” Perez professed.

In London, she listened to the song on repeat. Then, she started writing. From the beginning, her style has always been instinctual; a freeform jam session where she sits at the piano or with her guitar and just lets her ideas flow out. The title came to her first — “At the Beach, in Every Life” — and the song poured out of her, nearly word for word.

“I remember the first time I played those chords on the piano, I had no idea what was going to happen,” she said. “I just knew something was opening up inside me, but I had no idea how deep the well was going to be, or that I was going to be an artist who gets to travel the world. I just had these desires, these visions, but to really live it is something else.”

After finishing out her commitments in the U.K., she moved back home to Florida. From her childhood bedroom, she began to rebuild. She taught herself music production and kept writing more songs. Without intending to, the puzzle pieces of the last few years of her life began to fall into place, and the grief that had consumed so much of her story finally had an outlet.

“At the Beach, In Every Life” details a breaking down of Perez’s walls. Her sadness and regret washes over tracks like “Sugar Water” and “Crown,” building into fiery passion on “Chemistry” and “Sailor Song,” before cresting into the haunting resolution of the title track that closes it out. It’s a portrait of loss and yearning, made up of vivid recollections from her childhood, her family, and her previous relationships. In short, it’s the album she wishes she could’ve listened to five years ago when her pain seemed insurmountable.

“I had just been operating blind for so long,” she said. “Being able to share my experience of loss in this specific way, it’s something that my 20-year-old self would be in disbelief of. At the time, it was like being without air, the isolation was so suffocating.”

Not long ago, Perez’s sadness could sometimes make her self-conscious. She wanted to share what she was going through, but she also didn’t want to be defined by it. “I didn’t want to be that girl who was always talking about her sister, but there was this very genuine desire to cry out for help, or acknowledge her,” she said. “Everyone is different, but for me, I needed to acknowledge her in order to be well.”

Fans of Gigi Perez at the barricade during her performance at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas.

(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)

Now, not even five years later, it feels like she’s finally turned the page and started a new chapter. “I’ve been able to build a life around my grief, and honor the loss of my sister in a way that’s helped me,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what healing should look like, but her death affected me and continues to affect me in these very profound ways. This is the best case scenario for me, because I get to share it with others — that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to navigate: the feeling that no one understands you.”

“Knowing that we’re not alone has really saved my life,” she said. “I used to be the person thinking, ‘What’s the point of being alive?’ But knowing there are other people with the same question, I know now that we can hold each other’s hands through that. That’s given me a purpose and that helps me continue to move through it.”

In the process of writing the album, Perez found ways to bring both of her sisters along for the ride. There are voice memos from Celene, along with a snippet of her singing on “Survivor’s Guilt.” But there’s also “Sugar Water,” a track she co-wrote with her younger sister, Bella, who joins her onstage to perform the song on tour. “Anyone who has two sisters knows the chaos and intensity that can bring,” she said. “But we loved each other, and we still do. My relationship to what it means to be a woman was shaped by having sisters, and Celene and Bella are the closest reflection that I have of myself.”

Amid this wild, almost unbelievable year, Perez has been grounded by her family’s presence. Her mom is part of her management team, and her dad has joined them on the road.

“There’s something to be said about being in it so much that it’s almost hard to physically feel it on the level you want to,” Perez said. But over the last few weeks, as she’s gotten the opportunity to revisit the places where she first found her footing as a performer, she’s had the opportunity to reflect on just how much she’s grown since then.

For now, she plans on heading back home to Florida once her tour is over to spend time reflecting on everything. “I think that’s when I’ll start to see the confetti fall,” she said. “Life is uncertain, and we never know what it’s going to throw our way, but this was a year that I prayed for. And I think it was a year that a lot of people who love me prayed for too. So for that, I’m very grateful.”