Israeli strikes on Gaza this week have killed more than 100 people following the killing of an Israeli soldier, but the shaky ceasefire continues to hold.
It’s dead certain that if you’ve been a television critic for, ahem, a number of years, you’re going to have reviewed a passel of shows based on the writing of Stephen King, America’s most adapted, if not necessarily most adaptable author. (It’s been a mere three months since the last, “The Institute,” on MGM+.) The latest float in this long parade premieres Sunday on HBO — it’s “It: Welcome to Derry,” a prequel to the 2017 film, “It” (and its 2019 follow-up, “It: Chapter Two”) based on King’s 1986 creepy clown novel, each of which made a packet. (There was a 1990 TV miniseries version as well.)
Developed by Andy Muschietti (director of the films), Barbara Muschietti and Jason Fuchs, “Derry” is an extension of the brand rather than an adaptation, which features a white-faced circus-style clown called Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård, back from the movies) who lives in the sewer and comes around every 27 years to feed on children’s fear — fear being the preferred dish of many famous monsters of filmland, and white-faced circus clowns having lost all goodwill in the culture. (No thanks to King. Or Krusty.) And while I assume some of the series’ points may be found within King’s original 1,138-page novel, life is short and that is going to have to remain an assumption. In any case, it’s very much a work of television — not what I’d call prestige television, despite a modicum of well-done fright effects — just ordinary, workman-like TV, with monsters. (Or one monster in many forms.)
It’s 1962 in Derry, Maine, and everywhere else. (Subsequent seasons — prequel prequels — will reportedly be set in 1935 and 1908.) The Cold War is heating up. Schoolchildren, forced to watch animated films about the effects of a nuclear blast, are ducking and covering beneath their desks (a psychological rather than a practical exercise). But the threat of annihilation has done nothing to slow them in their teenage rituals. Bullies chase a target down the street. A group of snobby girls is called the Pattycakes, because they play patty cake, and their leader is named Patty. On the other hand are the kids we care about, the outsiders, banded together in unpopularity. It’s a paradoxical quality of horror films that to be an outsider either qualifies you as a hero or the monster — the insiders are usually just food. Not that the monsters are particular about whom they eat.
We open in a movie theater. Robert Preston is on the screen in “The Music Man,” performing “Ya Got Trouble.” (Chronologically accurate foreshadowing!) In the audience is Matty (Miles Ekhardt), a boy way too old to be sucking on a pacifier. Chased from the theater — he’s been sneaking in — it’s a snowy night, and he accepts a ride from a seemingly normal family, who quickly turn abnormal. Suddenly it’s four months later and Matty is an officially missing child.
Taylour Paige, Blake Cameron James and Jovan Adepo play the Hanlon family, who have just moved to Derry, Maine.
(Brooke Palmer / HBO)
The series begins promisingly, setting up (as in “It,” or, hmmm, “Stranger Things”) a company of junior investigators. Phil (Jack Molloy Legault) has a lot of thoughts about aliens and sex; Teddy (Mikkal Karim Fidler) is studious and serious and has thoughts about Matty. Lilly (Clara Stack) is called “loony” because she spent time in a sanitarium — the King-canonical Juniper Hill Asylum — after her father died in a pickle factory accident. (Not played for laughs, although the pickle is perhaps the funniest of all foods.) Lilly thinks she heard Matty singing “Trouble” through the drain in her bathtub; Ronnie (Amanda Christine), the daughter of the cinema’s projectionist Hank (Stephen Rider), has heard voices in the theater’s pipes. The kids run the film, and supernatural mayhem ensues. It’s pretty crazy! Gross hallucinations — or are they? — will afflict them through the series.
Meanwhile, Air Force Maj. Leroy Hanlon (Jovan Adepo) has been transferred to the local base, where secret doings are afoot, involving (classic plot line) the military’s desire to claim and weaponize whatever barely understood dangerous thing that’s out there in the woods. (His value to this operation is that he cannot feel fear, the result of a brain injury.) The Hanlons — including wife Charlotte (Taylour Paige), a civil rights activist in a Jackie Kennedy pillbox hat, and son Will (Blake Cameron James) — are Black (as are Ronnie and her father, seemingly accounting for 100% of Derry’s in-town African American population). “Don’t be looking for trouble,” Leroy tells Charlotte, who responds, “There’s going to be trouble anywhere we go. That’s the country you swore your life to defend.” Will, who is scientific, will become friends with Rich (Arian S. Cartaya), an appealingly goofy kid in a band uniform; they’ll both wind up on the Pennywise case.
Typically, the kids — also including Marge (Matilda Lawler, the secret weapon of “Station Eleven” and “The Santa Clauses”), Lilly’s socially desperate friend — are the strongest element in the story and the show; their energy overwhelms the obviousness of the narrative, and whatever takes us away from them, into pace-slowing side plots, is time less well spent.
What else? There’s a Native American element — including the old Indian burial ground story — represented by Rose (Kimberly Guerrero), who runs a thrift store (called Second Hand Rose, in a nice nod to Fanny Brice) and whose indomitable air makes her a kind of counterpart and potential ally to Charlotte. Manifest destiny gets a mention, and the plot will conventionally pose Native humbleness against white hubris. Dick Hallorann (Chris Chalk) is a Black serviceman with a tragic mental gift, used cruelly by his superiors — a familiar King type. Racism is a recurring theme without becoming a consistent plot point, with messages for 2025. (Rich: “This is America. You can’t just throw people in jail for nothing.” Will: “Are we talking about the same country?”)
Also: A statue of Paul Bunyan is going up in town — and in fact a 31-foot-tall Bunyan statue was unveiled in Bangor, Maine, in 1959. This is pointed to a couple of times, so I would imagine some kind of Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man scenario coming in the series’ unseen back half. Or something.
Horror, especially body-horror — there are two monstrous birth sequences in the five episodes, out of nine, available to review — has, you may have noticed, moved from the fringes to the center of popular (even high) culture, with A-list stars signing on and Oscar and Emmy nominations not unlikely. Indeed, the good, cheap, unrespectable, unambitious variety of scare flick has mostly disappeared from the big screen. That “Welcome to Derry” is more of a cheesy B-picture than its makers might like to imagine, assembled from worked-over tropes — somewhat excusable for King having originated many of them — is more in its favor than not. TV remains a haven for cheesiness. Long may it remain so.
Brian O’Connor thinks part of his success is due to California voter approval of Proposition 13, the landmark property tax reduction proposal that catalyzed the taxpayer revolt more than a decade ago.
He is the general manager of the Bel-Air Patrol, which operates Los Angeles’ oldest private residential security patrol service. Since Proposition 13, the company has greatly expanded its territory and number of clients, he said.
Business is good and getting better for a growing number of such companies that deploy armed and unarmed guards to watch over Southern California neighborhoods. In fact, such businesses are growing all over the nation.
Residential guard services are a fast-growing segment of the security guard business, says Robert McCrie, editor of Security Letter, a trade publication. He estimated that residential guard services account for 10% to 15% of the nation’s $6.5-billion annual security guard bill. “The growth has been quite unmistakable since World War II. One reason is that people simply feel afraid,” said McCrie, who is also a professor of security management at New York’s John Jay College of Criminal Justice.
More Seek Permits
The public’s perception that government services have declined in California since the passage of Proposition 13 adds to the fear, O’Connor said. People feel that their local police departments are stretched too thin, he said. “The police obviously have to prioritize where they concentrate their effort,” he said.
People also want more control of their personal safety, he said. The average homeowner can’t control the police, but he can hire and fire private security firms at will, he said.
Within the city of Los Angeles, about 50 firms have Los Angeles Police Department permits to offer residential patrol service. Many more operate in the county, and “there may be some operating illegally (in Los Angeles),” said Det. Richard Rudell, chief of the permit section of the Los Angeles Police Commission.
Rudell said he has noted a steady increase in the number of firms applying for permits in recent years, although “some have subsequently gone out of business.” Every year, a number don’t renew their permits, he says.
Security guards do not have police powers. For example, guards patrolling a neighborhood may not detain someone believed to be acting suspiciously, said Lt. Fred Nixon, a Los Angeles Police Department spokesman.
Like anyone, they may make a citizen’s arrest of a person caught committing a crime. Guard companies claim that their presence deters crime, but independent statistical studies aren’t available to verify that claim.
“The police department believes that a highly visible patrol tends to deter crime,” Nixon said. “That is not a vote for or against private patrols. (The patrol) is only part of the equation.”
Private companies offer different levels of services. The larger security alarm companies provide armed guards to respond to an alarm. Other services simply drive through a neighborhood, or by an individual residence, or stop and inspect the exterior of properties. Still others provide mail and newspaper pickups for clients who are out of town and an escort service for clients fearful of entering an empty house after being away for a period.
Added Problems
Although the concept of security patrols seem simple, it’s not that easy for small operators–who are the vast majority of patrol businesses–to make a patrol service a success, said Robert Rockwell, a Walnut Creek, Calif., security management consultant.
Patrol services have all the challenges of hiring and supervising personnel as other guard companies, he said, with the additional burden of purchasing and maintaining vehicles that are driven constantly, he said. They also have the complication of getting a sufficient client base and calculating patrol routes under a price structure that will produce a profit, he said.
Because of the complications, many of the nation’s largest providers of security guards have shied away from that segment, he said, although many will provide a stationary guard for an apartment building, or gated community. (The largest segment of the security guard business is providing on-site guards for businesses and factories.)
Many larger companies that offer residential patrols are essentially in the business of selling security alarms.
Rockwell is also vice president of California Contract Security Guard Service, a trade group of 125 companies. “Very few of our members are involved,” he said.
Most residential patrols are small, perhaps operating with two or three people, he said. “One guy starts a patrol business where he does the patrols himself. Then he hires somebody else to take (another) shift,” Rockwell said.
Thomas Walthen acquired residential patrols in 30 cities across the country, including one in Los Angeles, when his Van Nuys-based California Plant Protection bought the venerable Pinkerton Security Service in 1987, creating a tie between CPP/Pinkerton and Borg-Warner’s security business as the nation’s largest provider of security guards.
High Accident Rate
(Borg-Warner includes Burns International Security Services, Wells Fargo Guard Services and Baker Industries, the parent of the Bel-Air Patrol). The acquisition put Walthen in a business segment that he abandoned 20 years ago. Unlike many services in the old days, Pinkerton has developed a “substantially sophisticated patrol service,” Walthen said.
Nevertheless, he added, “We’re still in the process of evaluating the operation. It looks like a profitable arm,” he said. But there are some problems. “The ratio of accidents to miles driven seem to be terribly out of line,” he said, and nobody seems to know why.
Although relatively big companies are in the minority among those offering residential patrols, they are among the best known in Southern California. A familiar sight throughout affluent neighborhoods are lawns and gardens sprouting signs for Bel-Air, MacGuard Security Services and Westec Security, a unit of Japan’s SECOM Co. All three sell alarm systems and offer armed response to alarms as well as neighborhood patrols.
“We’re not a security guard company. We sell a concept of security,” said Westec President Michael Kaye, explaining how the company’s alarm systems interact with a staff of almost 800 people. About 200 are guards on patrol. The company views itself as playing an “observe and report” role for the police. However, he said, the company plays a crucial prevention role.
“We’ve found time and time again that if a patrol is in a neighborhood, there is less crime. Burglars are basically lazy and will take the path of least resistance,” he said. Westec cites the experience of three Westside communities where it has tracked crime statistics before and after patrols.
Incidents Drop
One area with 400 homes had several burglaries a month before Westec began patrols seven years ago. Since patrols started, there have been no more than three burglaries a year and only one in 1988. Another neighborhood with 500 homes reported seven to 10 robberies a month before the patrols, the company said, but in the nine years of patrols, there have been less than six a year. Thus far in 1988, there have been three incidents.
A community of 250 homes reported several burglaries a month before the Westec patrols began seven years ago, the company said, but has had no more than two per year since. There haven’t been any incidents reported in 1988, the company said.
“We’re in the public relations and protection business,” said O’Connor, the retired British policeman who runs Bel-Air Patrol. “We’re never in conflict with law enforcement because we aren’t in that business,” he added.
The fire gutted import cargo terminals areas at Dhaka airport, destroying an estimated $1bn of ‘urgent air shipments’.
Published On 19 Oct 202519 Oct 2025
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A fire that decimated a cargo complex in Bangladesh’s largest airport has caused devastating losses to garment exporters during the peak export season.
The blaze – which ripped through the cargo import area of Dhaka’s Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport on Saturday afternoon – gutted storage areas holding huge quantities of raw materials, apparel and product samples belonging to exporters.
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“We have witnessed a devastating scene inside,” said Faisal Samad, director of the Bangladesh Garment Manufacturers and Exporters Association (BGMEA).
“The entire import section has been reduced to ashes,” he said, estimating losses could reach as high as $1bn.
Onlookers gather as firefighters try to extinguish the fire at Dhaka airport [Maruf Rahman/AFP]
Smoke continued to rise from the charred remains of the facility on Sunday as firefighters and airport officials assessed the damage.
Among the destroyed goods are “urgent air shipments”, including garments, raw materials, and product samples, added Inamul Haq Khan, senior vice-president of BGMEA.
He warned that the loss of samples could jeopardise future business in the country’s crucial garment industry, worth $47bn per year. “These samples are essential for securing new buyers and expanding orders. Losing them means our members may miss out on future opportunities,” he said.
Cause of blaze unclear
The airport cargo village that caught fire is one of Bangladesh’s busiest logistics hubs, handling more than 600 metric tons of dry cargo daily – a figure that doubles during the October to December peak season.
“Every day, around 200 to 250 factories send their products by air,” Khan said. “Given that scale, the financial impact is significant.”
The cause of the blaze has not yet been determined, and an investigation is under way.
Smoke engulfs the fire-damaged cargo terminal of Dhaka airport, October 19, 2025 [Munir Uz Zaman/AFP]
The incident marks the third major fire reported in Bangladesh this week. A fire on Tuesday at a garment factory and an adjacent chemical warehouse in Dhaka killed at least 16 people and injured others. On Thursday, another burned down a seven-storey garment factory building in an export processing zone in Chittagong.
The government said the security services were investigating all incidents “thoroughly”, and warned that “any credible evidence of sabotage or arson will be met with a swift and resolute response.”
“No act of criminality or provocation will be allowed to disrupt public life or the political process,” it said, urging calm.
Bangladesh is the world’s second-largest exporter of apparel after China. The sector, which supplies major global retailers such as Walmart, H&M and the Gap, employs about four million workers and generates more than a tenth of the country’s GDP.
The fire is expected to delay shipments and pose additional challenges in meeting international delivery deadlines.
Janani Mohan is missing a saree she wore at her wedding in April, which was also worn by her mother
Graduate student Nicole Lobo moved back to the US in late August after a year in the UK, shipping 10 boxes of possessions back home to Philadelphia that she expected to arrive within a few days.
Six weeks later, she is still waiting for the shipment – and fears it is lost, destroyed by UPS as the company struggles to handle a flood of packages facing new customs and tariff rules.
“It’s been horrific,” says the 28-year-old, who was notified last month that her boxes would be disposed of, leaving her to make frantic phone calls and send emails to try to head off the outcome.
The decision abruptly made an estimated 4 million packages each day subject to new, more onerous processing and documentation rules.
As the influx leads to longer processing times and higher, sometimes unexpected, costs across the industry, some customers of UPS like Nicole, say they fear their packages have been lost in the backlog.
“It’s beyond comprehension to me,” says Janani Mohan, a 29-year-old engineer living in Michigan, who has also spent hours on hold and sent repeated emails since a tracking alert listed a box sent by her parents in India as set for disposal.
The parcel held her wedding dress, which had also been worn by her mother, an heirloom sari from her grandmother and wedding photos, among other items.
“I literally cried to them on the phone,” she says. “Everything in there is very close to my heart.”
Oregon-based Mizuba Tea Co, which has used UPS for more than a decade to import matcha from Japan, has five shipments together worth more than $100,000 held up in processing.
The firm has received conflicting alerts about their status, including some saying the items were set for disposal.
“My whole team is basically on scan watch,” says Lauren Purvis, who runs the business with her family and is now starting to worry about running out of inventory if the limbo continues.
“It’s just clear to us that the current importing systems were not prepared to handle the sheer amount of volume and paperwork.”
Mizuba Tea
Lauren Purvis says her whole team is on “scan watch”
Importers typically have 10 days after goods enter the US to submit documentation about the goods, pay tariffs and other fees, allowing the package to go to its recipient.
But the Trump administration’s rapid changes to tariff rules have made it increasingly difficult to meet customs deadlines requirements, say shipping companies like FedEx and UPS, which offer customs services and often act as importers of record.
For example, businesses are now responsible for paying tariffs on any steel or aluminium contained in a product , and in many cases vouching for its country of origin – information that many businesses, let alone their shipping companies, do not know.
“Because of changes to US import regulations, we are seeing many packages that are unable to clear customs due to missing or incomplete information about the shipment required for customs clearance,” a UPS spokeswoman said.
While acknowledging longer shipping times, the company said it was still successfully clearing more than 90% of international packages within a day of arrival.
The spokeswoman said its policy was to contact customers three times before moving to dispose of a package.
But seven people interviewed by the BBC, including several businesses responsible for shipping the items, said they had received no word from UPS about issues before seeing the tracking alert that their package would be trashed.
FedEx, another major player in the industry, said it does not typically destroy packages, unless directed to do so by the shipper.
Nicole, the graduate student, says she has been asked to supply more information about her items, which she did promptly in early September.
She did not hear more until seeing the notice about disposal in late September. After the BBC enquired about her package, the tracking information was updated for the first time in weeks to say it was “on the way”, raising her hopes.
Likewise, Janani says the company reached out last week, after the BBC got in touch, for a few more documents and her package now appears to have cleared customs.
Swedish Candy Land
Daniel and Tobias Johansson, co-founders of Swedish Candy Land, say lost packages have cost their company $50,000
But for businesses, the chaos has already had real costs.
Swedish candy exporter Swedish Candy Land says more than 700 packages it sent via UPS to customers in the US in the first few weeks of September have been held up.
Co-founder Tobias Johansson says the business switched to FedEx after becoming aware of the problem and its shipments were now arriving without incident, although the process took a few days longer than before .
But the lost packages, some of which have been reported destroyed, have cost the firm roughly $50,000 in refunds, not including the expenses they incurred in shipping and brokerage fees.
“That was a big hit for us and we haven’t gotten any answers yet for anything,” says Mr Johansson.
Experts say the ripple effects are being felt across the supply chain, even on businesses, like Mizuba, that were not bringing in shipments using the $800 exemption from tariffs, known as de minimis.
“This can be felt pretty much across the board,” says Bernie Hart, vice president of business development at Flexport, a logistics and customs business.
In a call with financial analysts last month, FedEx executives said it had been a “very stressful period” for its customers, especially smaller players.
“That is a big headwind,” chief executive Raj Subramanian said, warning that changes to the trade environment would likely lead to a $1bn hit this year, including $300m in additional expenses as the firm hires and faces other costs related to the new rules.
But John Pickel, vice president of supply chain policy for the National Foreign Trade Council, which represents many shipping firms, fears the issues may get worse before they get better.
Overall trade volumes last month were lower than is typical, in part because many businesses rushed goods into the US early to beat tariffs.
“There’s always been this prevailing thought that companies will figure it out,” he says. “What we’ve seen is that is much harder than anyone anticipated.”
THE family of a mother found dead in a scalding hot bathtub fear their loved one had been forced to take drugs.
Ana Carolina de Silva was found dead with her partner in a motel bathtub after they had been partying until after midnight following their daughter’s fourth birthday party.
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Ana Carolina de Silva’s family has released a statement, denying their daughter used drugsCredit: newsX
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Parents Ana and Jeferson were found dead in a bathtub after a night outCredit: Newsflash
The pair – who had been found in a tub filled with 50C water – had died from poisoning, causing severe dehydration and heatstroke, leaving their young daughter orphaned.
Both parents had traces of cocaine and very high levels of alcohol in their blood when they died.
Ana’s family said unequivocally she was “not a drug user”, in a statement released to the media.
The family said they had “concerns of possible forced ingestion or poisoning” after the 42-year-old businesswoman was found dead.
“It is with deep indignation that we, the family of Ana Carolina de Silva … repudiate the fake news that has been spread,” the statement opened.
“Although reports indicate the presence of substances in her blood, we affirm with complete certainty that Ana was not a drug user.”
“Given the inconsistencies, we raise serious concerns about possible forced ingestion or poisoning and demand a rigorous, transparent and impartial investigation,” the statement added.
The family said they want to “preserve Ana’s memory and dignity, [and to] ensure that the truth prevails over cruel and unjust speculation”.
“We will not allow her story to be tarnished by unjust assumptions,” the statement said.
“We will continue to seek answers, confident that justice will be served.”
Horror as two teen girls found dead on train roof after ‘subway surfing’
According to the investigation, Ana and her husband, military police officer Jeferson Luiz Sagaz, 37, “[died from] exogenous poisoning”.
Chief medical examiner Andressa Boer Fronza said the deaths were “the process of heatstroke with intense dehydration, thermal collapse, culminating in organ failure and death.”
Investigators say the couple passed out in a bathtub filled with 50C water while a space heater blasted heat into the room.
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Ana’s family said they want to ‘preserve her memory and dignity’Credit: newsX
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The couple had been out celebrating after their daughter’s fourth birthday partyCredit: Newsflash
Toxicology tests revealed very high alcohol levels and traces of cocaine, Globo G1 reported.
As well as the room, officers examined the couple’s car and the motel’s CCTV.
Following the family’s statement, the Civil Police told Brazilian media outlet G1 “it would not be commenting on the investigation”.
Scientific police said “all forensic examinations carried out followed strict scientific protocols and were conducted by official experts and specialised technical teams”, repeating the sentiments of the finalised reports.
In a press conference where details of the investigation were revealed to the public, chief inspector Felipe Simao said the couple “had a busy social life but did not have a drug habit”.
“The big issue raised in the statements we took, talking to people involved in this, is that they did not have the habit of using cocaine,” he said.
The couple had spent the day of their deaths celebrating their daughter’s birthday at a food park, drinking before heading to a night club.
They then checked into the Dallas Motel in São José, Santa Catarina state, just after midnight on August 11.
But Jeferson and Ana Carolina never returned to collect their child the next morning at Jeferson’s sister’s home.
Worried relatives reported them missing, and police later found the pair lifeless in the bathroom.
Police said there was no history of violence.
Ana owned a nail salon and had been with Jeferson for nearly 20 years.
The couple’s daughter, just four years old, is now in the care of relatives after the tragic birthday celebration turned fatal.
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Her family has called for a new and ‘independent’ investigation into her deathCredit: newsX
In Hollywood, something shifted in the six days between the time that Walt Disney Co. dropped “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “indefinitely,” following Kimmel’s comments about the suspect in the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and the late-night comedian’s return.
For many, Kimmel’s rebound appears to be a win for free speech and a testament to the power of boycotts against powerful corporate interests. However, for other writers, particularly comedy scribes, who view the events that transpired in the darkest, most McCarthy-esque terms, the fight over comedy may have just begun.
“There’s fear and outrage at the same time,” said Emmy-winning comedy writer Bruce Vilanch, who for years was the head writer for the Oscars and “Hollywood Squares” and has written jokes for comics including Billy Crystal and Bette Midler.
“Ever since ‘woke’ started before COVID and George Floyd, comedy became a minefield. And then, last week, it became a nuclear garden,” he said.
Indeed, the day after Disney announced Kimmel’s return, President Trump told reporters that TV networks critical of him are an “arm of the Democrat Party,” and said, “I would think maybe their license should be taken away.” Angered that Kimmel was returning to the airwaves, he took to social media to threaten ABC and called for the late-night scalps of NBC’s Seth Meyers and Jimmy Fallon.
Such ominous threats have cast a pall in writers rooms across the industry.
One showrunner currently developing multiple series, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that many of her colleagues have started to become more cautious about incorporating certain elements in their stories, something they didn’t do before. Others are having discussions privately rather than posting them on social media.
Several writers and showrunners who have worked on late-night shows, sitcoms and films declined to share their thoughts on the matter with The Times, citing fear of reprisals.
The cascade of anxiety comes at a time when Hollywood continues to struggle to get on solid footing after the pandemic lockdown, the dual labor strikes in 2023 and cost-cutting across the media landscape.
“Artists are already very concerned about our consolidated media ecosystem. A small shrinking number of gatekeepers control what Americans watch on TV, and these conglomerates are now being coerced into censoring us all by an administration that demands submission and obedience from what should be a free and independent media,” said television writer Meredith Stiehm, who is the outgoing president of Writers Guild of America West, during a rally in support of Kimmel outside the El Capitan Theatre last week.
“This cowardice has not only put the livelihoods of 20 writers, crew members and performers in limbo,” she said. “It has put our industry and our democracy in danger.”
Political satire has long held a mirror to human folly while challenging power with humor.
More than 2,400 years ago, Greek playwright Aristophanes’ biting, satirical comedies such as “Lysistrata” ridiculed Athens leaders during the Peloponnesian War. Many of the English nursery rhymes that are now viewed as sweet stories of princesses and fairies began appearing during the 14th century as veiled swipes at the monarchy. Rather than a lovely children’s melody, “Baa Baa Black Sheep” is said to be a critique of the wool tax imposed by King Edward I.
During the 1950s and 1960s, the brilliant satirical singer-songwriter (and mathematician) Tom Lehrer skewered taboo topics of the day such as the Catholic Church, militarism and racial conflict in America through parody songs.
In the early 1970s, George Carlin’s controversial monologue about the “Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television” set off a landmark Supreme Court case that broadened the definition of indecency on public airwaves and set a free speech precedent for comedians.
Every presidential campaign season has become must-see TV on “Saturday Night Live.” Think Dana Carvey’s George H.W. Bush, Phil Hartman’s Bill Clinton, Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin or Alec Baldwin’s Donald Trump.
But now the political climate has changed drastically.
“It’s a dark time for comedians and, by extension, for all Americans,” said a statement put out by hundreds of comedians under the banner Comedians4Kimmel in the wake of his ouster.
“When the government targets one of us, they target all of us. They strike at the heart of our shared humanity. They strip away the basic right every person deserves: to speak freely, question boldly, and laugh loudly.”
What’s different now is that where once market and cultural forces placed pressures on comedians — see Ellen DeGeneres and Roseanne Barr — the squeeze is now coming directly from the government. (Barr, who was fired from her eponymous reboot in 2018 after she made a racist tweet about senior Obama advisor Valerie Jarrett, has accused ABC of having a “double standard.”)
“That’s just called censorship,” said Vilanch. “This is the government actually intervening in the most capricious way.”
It’s not just late-night comedy that is deemed offensive, Trump has made public a rolling perceived enemies list, and he is going after them with vigor.
Just last week, former FBI Director James Comey was indicted, and Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said that she would “absolutely target” people who engaged in “hate speech.”
This month, Trump sued the New York Times for $15 billion, claiming that the paper and four of its journalists had engaged in a “decades-long pattern … of intentional and malicious defamation.” A federal judge dismissed the suit. In July, he sued the Wall Street Journal and its owner, media mogul Rupert Murdoch, for $10 billion, claiming defamation. That suit is ongoing.
What’s deemed funny or offensive has shifted through the years. Comedy writers have long pushed that line and adjusted. But after the cultural wars and trigger warnings of recent years, where writers adapted to audience sensitivities, they are now facing an era where offending the president and his administration itself is considered illegal.
”So much was going on before,” said a veteran late-night TV writer. “It just feels like another brick in the wall of the world that I have worked in for the past 35 years no longer exists.”
The uproar over Kimmel began after the comedian seemed to suggest during his monologue that Tyler Robinson, the Utah man accused in the shooting death of Kirk, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.
Last Tuesday, after Kimmel came back on air with a defiant defense of free speech, several writers sighed a breath of relief, seeing his return as a victory.
“It would have been scary if this actually ended in his firing,” said the former late-night writer.
But the culture and free speech wars are not over.
“I think [comedy] will get sharper,” said Vilanch. “It will get sharper and probably meaner because people are angry, and they want to fight back. And that’s always what happens when you try and shut people down. They come back stronger.”
At 3:25 in the morning of July 24, Milagro Solis Portillo was woken up and booked out of B-18, ICE’s basement detention facility in the downtown L.A. courthouse. She was not told where she was headed as she was put onto a commercial flight along with two immigration officer escorts. A few hours later, she was booked into the Clark County Jail in Jefferson, Ind.
Ming Tanigawa-Lau, an attorney at Immigrant Defenders Law Center representing Portillo, said her transfer was retaliatory, especially when there was open space at nearby facilities. The 36-year-old’s encounters with ICE had caused a local stir. She suffered a medical incident during her arrest outside her home in Sherman Oaks that required treatment at Glendale Memorial Hospital.
While at the hospital, she was monitored constantly by immigration officers. Local activists and representatives held events protesting her treatment. After two weeks, ICE forcibly removed her from the hospital against the advice of her medical team and sent her to B-18 and then across the country.
State Sen. Sasha Renée Perez (D-Alhambra) speaks at a news conference in front of Glendale Memorial Hospital where Milagro Solis Portillo was treated after being arrested by ICE on July 7.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Portillo isn’t the only detained immigrant flown across the country. The Times analyzed ICE data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by the Deportation Data Project and found that transfers between facilities in the first half of this year are happening faster and more frequently compared with the same period last year. The typical detainee is transferred at least once. From January through July, 12% of those detained have been transferred at least four times. In the first half of 2024, 6% of detainees were transferred 4 or more times.
Setareh Ghandehari, advocacy director at Detention Watch Network, said transfers have been used as a retaliatory tactic for those who make requests, file complaints or stage protests such as hunger strikes. Transfers move people from places where they may already have an attorney or where there are established legal-services organizations to a place that is unfamiliar and where there may be fewer resources for detained migrants.
ICE moves people from temporary holding spaces to more long-term housing as they prepare detainees for deportation. But, as a result, they could be sent far from loved ones, professional organizations, church groups and other community networks. They miss out on in-person visits from family and instead have to pay for phone or video calls. Ghandehari said she believes this isolation is deliberate.
“Conditions are bad because it’s meant to be a deterrent,” Ghandehari said. “So it’s also part of the way the system is set up. And I think transfers play into that more than people realize.”
On July 18, a 20-year-old man was deported from the Alexandria Staging Facility to Honduras. Two months prior, on May 13, he was arrested outside of Orlando and then transferred 15 times back and forth across the country between facilities in Florida, California, Arizona, Hawaii and finally Louisiana.
He had no criminal history. Public ICE data do not show whether he had an attorney or was fighting his case to remain in the country.
15 transfers. 11 facilities. 4,800 miles.
A man first detained in Florida spent 30 days in a federal detention center in Hawaii.
Broward Transitional Center, Fla.
Alexandria Staging Facility, La.
Florence Staging Facility, Ariz.
Florence Service Processing Center, Ariz.
Golden State Annex, Calif.
Bakersfield hold room, Calif.
Honolulu Federal Detention Center, Hawaii
Arizona Removal Operations
Coordination Center, Ariz.
July 18 – Deported to Honduras
Arizona Removal Operations
Arizona Removal Operations
Facility placement is not to scale.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project
LOS ANGELES TIMES
The journeys from one facility to another can be difficult. On Aug. 15, ICE moved Portillo from Clark County Jail to Louisiana through a flight out of Chicago. First, she spent about 12 hours in a holding room in the nearby Clay County Justice Center without access to communicate with anyone. Around 1:30 a.m. the next day, she and nine other women were put into a van headed to Chicago, five to a bench on either side.
“It was a very scary trip,” Portillo said, speaking with The Times through a translator. “We couldn’t be comfortable because our hands and feet were handcuffed. It was dangerous because it seemed like the officials driving were falling asleep. We could feel that the van would sway one way and another way at dawn.”
According to Tanigawa-Lau, it can take days after a transfer for family and legal representatives to find out that a person has been moved. The online system that is meant to show where detainees are located is not updated right away. The families of detainees typically find out where their loved one has been sent from the detained person — once they are able to place a phone call.
The abrupt relocations of her clients have led to missed appointments and court hearings, Tanigawa-Lau said. When a client is transferred, it becomes more difficult to mount a legal defense.
In the Los Angeles area, Tanigawa-Lau and her organization have knowledge of the judges and how to contact detention facilities to communicate with clients.
States such as Louisiana don’t have the same kind of immigration defense infrastructure. On the Immigration Advocates Network site, California has 205 resources listed to help migrants and their representatives find local legal services. Indiana has 16. Louisiana has 10. The Alexandria Staging Facility in Louisiana, which has deported the most immigrants this year, routinely limits access to attorneys, according to reporting by the Guardian.
Portillo recounted a comment made on the flight from California to Chicago by one of the ICE agents escorting her that it was thanks to the laws in California that she was being brought to Indiana. Indiana’s Republican Gov. Mike Braun is a strong supporter of the Trump administration’s immigration strategy.
ICE did not respond to questions about what considerations are made when transferring detainees or about why Portillo was sent to the Indiana facility.
Jason Houser, former ICE chief of staff during the Biden administration, said the goal of transfers is to optimize for removals, which typically happen from Louisiana and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas.
They also have to consider facility capacity. ICE is operating under a policy to fill all beds. Additionally, with bond hearings being denied, immigrants are stuck waiting for their cases to be resolved in detention. As many facilities reach, and even exceed, their bed capacity, Houser said this means that folks that need to get to Louisiana are stuck because there aren’t open beds along the way.
“If you fill every bed, can I move somebody from Northern Virginia through Tennessee to Louisiana? No, because the Tennessee field director will tell the Virginia field director, ‘I have no empty beds.’ Your person must just continue to sit there,” Houser said.
Most detention stays for those arrested in 2025 lasted about 24 days and resulted in removal. So far, 63% of those booked into a detention facility were deported. But some are held in detention much longer. More than a quarter of those booked into a detention center this year are still in custody. About 24% were held for more than two months. Nearly 9% for more than five months.
“If there is someone in an ICE bed that isn’t a convicted criminal and has no foreseeable way to be removed within 30 days, that isn’t a criminal, they should not be in a … bed,” Houser said. “They should be out at their job being a thriving member of the community until they’re humanly able to be removed. But that’s not what this administration is about.”
In the first half of 2024, more than 45,500 immigrants were released from detention on bond, through parole or under supervision while they went through immigration proceedings. This year, 13,800 received similar treatment. The vast majority have had to wait for their cases to conclude while in detention.
Portillo still gets emotional talking about her experience in ICE detention. She had been in California for 15 years. Her family was in Los Angeles. When she was transferred to Indiana, she lost all hope of winning her case and returning to them.
Upon arrival at the jail, it was clear to her that this was not a detention center. She was being held with people who had committed crimes. For weeks, as her mental health declined, she felt like she was being tortured.
Milagro Solis Portillo was transferred 2,000 miles away from her family and her attorney
Glendale Memorial Hospital, Calif.
Anaheim Global Medical Center, Calif.
Clay County Justice Center, Ind.
South Louisiana ICE Processing Center, La.
Aug. 29 – Deported to El Salvador
Clay County Justice Center
Glendale Memorial Hospital
Anaheim Global Medical Center
South Louisiana ICE Processing Center
Clay County Justice Center
Glendale Memorial Hospital
Anaheim Global Medical Center
South Louisiana ICE Processing Center
Facility placement is not to scale.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement data from the Deportation Data Project
LOS ANGELES TIMES
Ghandehari says that the transfers create an environment of “fear and anxiety” as a tactic to encourage people to self-deport. She says that it is an explicit strategy for this administration but it is not new. This year, however, the number of voluntary returns and departures more than doubled.
“It is about efficiency for ICE on their end, but with a total disregard for the people that they’re detaining and ripping apart from their loved ones,” Ghandehari said.
For Portillo, her treatment in detention became too much to endure.
“I decided to give up. We weren’t going to keep fighting … not because I didn’t want to stay but because of health reasons. … My mental health since being in Indiana started to suffer. When I was in L.A., it was one thing. I knew that my family was close and I had access to my attorney,” she said.
Ultimately, she decided it would be better to return to El Salvador.
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As thousands gather for Charlie Kirk’s memorial, debate rages over a clampdown on free speech in the US. Late-night TV hosts have spoken out in support of Jimmy Kimmel following his cancellation, while President Donald Trump reiterated his view that critical coverage of him is illegal.
For the 79th year, mariachi musicians, waving Mexican flags and shouts of “Viva Mexico,” flooded Cesar Chavez Avenue in East Los Angeles on Sunday for the annual Mexican Independence Day parade and celebration.
But this year, in the face of the Trump administration’s relentless immigration crackdown — recently bolstered by the Supreme Court decision that allows federal agents to restart their controversial “roving patrols” across Southern California — there was a renewed sense of defiance, and of pride.
For many, it was even more important to show up. To stand tall.
“We’re here and we’re going to continue fighting for our rights and for others who cannot fight for themselves,” Samantha Robles, 21, said as she watched the parade roll by. “I’m happy that many people are here so they can raise their flags — just not the Mexican flag, but also the American flag, because we’re both Mexican American.”
Members of the Mexican Consulate in Los Angeles hold a Mexican flag at the East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade & Festival on Cesar Chavez Avenue on Sunday in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
But the parade was also a bittersweet moment for Robles. This year, her grandmother opted to stay home, given ongoing sweeping immigration raids across the region. A new Supreme Court ruling authorized U.S. immigration agents to stop and detain anyone they might suspect is in the U.S. illegally, even if based on little more than their job at a car wash, speaking Spanish or having brown skin. Immigration rights attorneys and local leaders have denounced that as discriminatory and dangerous, and it has stoked fears in Robles, who describes herself as an East L.A. native.
“I have my brown skin, I have my Indigenous features,” Robles said. “I’m afraid not just for myself, [but] for my friends who are also from Mexico and they came here for more opportunities, for a higher education. … I’m afraid for those who are getting taken away from their families.”
The Comité Mexicano Civico Patriotico Inc., which organized Sunday’s parade and celebration, addressed those fears in a press conference on Friday, but decided to move ahead with its celebration of Mexican independence from Spain, as it has done so in September for decades.
That decision seemed to drive a sense of proud resistance on Sunday.
“Aqui estamos y no nos vamos!” (“We are here and we are not leaving!”) yelled Rosario Marín, the former mayor of Huntington Park and the parade’s madrina, or godmother.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass holds TJ’s parrot Pepe Hermon at the East L.A. Mexican Independence Day Parade & Festival on Sunday in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
When Mayor Karen Bass rode by the crowd, she read aloud a sign from the sidewalk that said: “Trump Must Go!”
The crowd cheered.
“I was just reading the sign,” she said, with a smile on her face. But Bass reiterated her support for her Latino constituents, and her opposition to the ongoing immigration raids, calling them horrible.
“Our city stands united,” Bass told the crowd. “We are a city of immigrants. We understand that 50% of our city is Latino, and the idea that Latinos would be targeted is abhorrent.”
The Trump administration has insisted its immigration actions are merely an attempt to enforce the law, and has blasted Bass and other city leaders for stoking resistance. But many Latino leaders say the administration’s use of force is an abuse of power, stoking fears that have hurt people and the region’s economy.
Alfonso Fox Orozco wears traditional Mexican dress at the East L.A. Parade & Festival on Sunday in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Such concerns may have affected Sunday’s parade, which seemed less attended than prior years. Anti-Trump and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE signs, lined the street. Organizations such as the United Teachers Los Angeles yelled out “La migra no, la escuela si.” (“No immigration enforcement, yes schools!”)
Jenny Hernandez, a fifth-generation East L.A. resident, held up a homemade sign that read “Crush ICE.” The 51-year-old has been disturbed by the recent raids, many of which have targeted individuals in the workplace.
“What they’re doing is wrong,” she said. “We are not criminals. We’re Mexican, Hispanic, Latino, Chicano, whatever you want to call it…. We do not deserve this treatment.… There needs to be a change.”
La Catrina Andante sits atop a car in traditional face paint at the parade Sunday in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
But mostly, the day emanated Latino joy, unseen in recent months. Burnt sage filled the air at one intersection, courtesy of a Danza Azteca group, while attendees — some in traditional embroidered dresses and shirts — relished the cumbia song blasting from a nearby radio.
A young girl, no more than 5 years old, belted out a call for “fresas” alongside her mother, a street vendor. A grandmother sat with her lap covered in a blanket, knitted with the colors of the Mexican flag. Politicians, teenagers, dancers and charros, or men riding dancing horses, shouted, “Viva Mexico!”
Girls dressed as vendors from Patzcuaro, Michoacan, balance on pots at the East L.A. Parade & Festival Sunday in Los Angeles.
(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)
Other ethnic groups joined the popular celebration, including waves of Puerto Ricans, Bolivians and Salvadorans. Notable faces included Snow Tha Product and Real 92.3 FM radio host Big Boy, who at one point took the reins as an elotero vendor. Space shuttle astronaut José M. Hernández led the parade as grand marshal. , His journey from migrant farmworker to NASA astronaut was detailed in the Amazon Prime film “A Million Miles Away.”
Giselle Salgado, also an East L.A. native, said it was important to see a good turnout from her community, as well as from public officials, though she noticed a smaller crowd this year.
“We’re not afraid,” she said. “This is our tradition, we’ve always come out here. … I’m sure a lot of people are scared, but they’re still here. We’re not going to let fear and intimidation work against us.”
BROOKLYN PARK, Minn. — As the nation comes to grips with the slaying of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, two candidates in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park are going door to door seeking to win a legislative seat left open by another political attack that killed a longtime state lawmaker and her husband.
The troubling political violence is a clear concern along Brooklyn Park’s tree-lined streets, where voters will head to the polls Tuesday to fill a state House seat left vacant by the fatal home-invasion killing of their neighbor, Rep. Melissa Hortman. The Democrat was first elected in 2005 and served as Minnesota’s Democratic House leader before her death in June.
Hortman, her husband and their dog were killed early on the morning of June 14 in their Brooklyn Park home in what investigators say was a politically motivated attack.
Vance Boelter, 57, faces federal and state murder charges in the Hortmans’ deaths, as well as attempted murder and other charges in the shooting of another Democratic Minnesota lawmaker, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, who both survived a shooting attack at their home the same day.
A neighborhood in fear
The Republican candidate seeking Hortman’s seat, real estate agent Ruth Bittner, noticed early in her campaign that people in the neighborhood where Hortman was killed seemed afraid to open their doors.
“We are in very, very scary times, and we definitely need to get out of this trajectory that we’re on here,” Bittner said.
Bittner said the political violence — particularly since the Wednesday killing of Kirk as he spoke at a Utah college event — briefly gave her pause about running for public office. But she concluded that “we can’t cower.”
“We have to move forward as a country and we have to, you know, embrace the system that we have of representative government, and we have to just do it, you know?” she said. “There’s no way to solve this problem if we shrink back in fear.”
The special election also comes less than a month after two schoolchildren were killed when a shooter opened fire on a Minneapolis Catholic church during Mass. The Aug. 27 shooting injured 21 others, most of them students at Annunciation Catholic School.
Officials identified the shooter as 23-year-old Robin Westman, a former student who they say fired more than a hundred rounds through the windows of the church. Westman was found dead of what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot.
“It’s definitely come up, you know, folks have referenced the recent shootings, Annunciation and Charlie Kirk,” the Democratic candidate, Xp Lee, a former Brooklyn Park City Council member, said Thursday as he knocked on doors in the district. “Just yesterday, I was outdoor knocking, [and] a couple of people mentioned it.”
Lee said Hortman was a neighbor whom he would often see walking her beloved golden retriever, Gilbert, around Brooklyn Park. He said she met with him to offer advice when he ran for City Council.
“I can’t think of a better way to honor her than to go to the Capitol and do my best in the seat,” he said.
Kirk killing aftermath
The shooting of Kirk, which happened in front of hundreds of people and was captured on video and widely circulated on social media, has rattled the nation and drawn condemnation from across the political spectrum. Officials announced Friday that the suspected gunman, Tyler Robinson, 22, was taken into custody Thursday night, and investigators said they believe he acted alone.
“An open forum for political dialogue and disagreement was upended by a horrific act of targeted violence,” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz said in a post on X. “In America, we don’t settle our differences with violence or at gunpoint.”
Hoffman, the lawmaker who was shot and wounded in June, and his family also issued a statement denouncing the attack on Kirk.
“America is broken, and political violence endangers our lives and democracy,” the Hoffmans’ statement said. “The assassination of Charlie Kirk today is only the latest act that our country cannot continue to accept. Our leaders of both parties must not only tone down their own rhetoric, but they must begin to call out extreme, aggressive and violent dialog that foments these attacks on our republic and freedom.”
Lee described the political climate in the wake of Kirk’s killing as a “charged atmosphere.”
“So I want to do what I can to really bring that down,” he said. That includes supporting a ban on semiautomatic weapons and high-capacity magazines, he said.
Lee keeps a shotgun for home defense, he said, but assault-style rifles “are weapons of, like, war that really we don’t need on our streets.”
Vancleave and Beck write for the Associated Press and reported from Brooklyn Park and Omaha.
Disney World, in Florida, is reported to be “dead”, as rides are quiet and there are few queues. Americans have expressed worry about the state of tourism in the US
15:37, 11 Sep 2025Updated 16:55, 11 Sep 2025
It’s said to have been quiet at the theme park (stock image)(Image: JHVEPhoto via Getty Images)
There’s been plenty of upheaval at Disney World lately, with a beloved attraction shutting its doors for good after 54 years. However, holidaymakers are now spotting another major shift at the popular destination, as the resort has apparently become “dead.”
Claims are emerging that the famous theme park has grown remarkably quiet this summer, with visitors sharing different theories about what might be behind it. The issue was recently highlighted by a man called thenobleways on TikTok, who filmed his latest trip to Disney World to share his thoughts on what was happening in Florida.
He said: “I’m at Magic Kingdom right now, and this place is a tomb. There is literally nobody here. There is no wait time for anything.
“Space Mountain – walk on. Haunted Mansion – walk on. Pirates of the Caribbean – walk on. The longest I have even seen a wait time for Seven Dwarfs today [is] 30 minutes.
“Peter Pan’s Flight – up to 30 minutes, but everything is walk on all day long. I don’t know what’s going on. It’s Labor Day weekend – should be crowded, should be packed normally – this place is empty.
“I am absolutely loving it, but what do you think? What’s going on? Why is there nobody here? I have never seen it like this.
“It’s been years since I’ve seen it this empty, especially on a holiday weekend. I don’t know, I’m going to enjoy it while I can.”
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The clip has racked up more than 7,000 views since being posted, with viewers rushing to share their theories about the quiet scenes.
One person commented: “People don’t want to go to Florida.” Another chimed in with: “Too expensive, politics, Trump.”
A third weighed in: “Florida is imploding financially and nobody wants to go there. Miami and the other beaches are struggling as well.”
Meanwhile, a fourth also remarked: “Nobody can afford Disney anymore. Think [it’s] the tariffs.”
Someone else also pitched in with: “That’s because it’s Florida. Disney in California is packed. Let’s face it, Florida is in major decline.”
Last month, CBS reported that tourism is actually on the rise in Florida, despite a drop in Canadian visitors. Visit Florida previously estimated 34.435 million people travelled to Florida from April 1 to June 30, which increased from 34.279 million people during the same period last year.
However, Disney is reported to have experienced a decline in tourism. The drop in travel to Orlando, particularly linked to the Walt Disney World theme parks, is said to partly stem from Disney Experiences’ major renovation projects taking place across the resort.
There could be a multitude of reasons for the dwindling crowds in Orlando, including steep ticket prices that some find hard to justify, a decrease in international visitors, particularly from Canada, stiff competition from Universal’s upcoming Epic Universe park and the ongoing effects of the pandemic.
Attorneys for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said in a Friday letter that they intend to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the African nation of Eswatini after he expressed a fear of deportation to Uganda.
The letter from ICE to Abrego Garcia’s attorneys was earlier reported by Fox News. It states that his fear of persecution or torture in Uganda is “hard to take seriously, especially given that you have claimed (through your attorneys) that you fear persecution or torture in at least 22 different countries. … Nonetheless, we hereby notify you that your new country of removal is Eswatini.”
Human rights groups have documented violations and abuses in Uganda — as well as in Eswatini, a tiny African kingdom formerly known as Swaziland.
Eswatini’s government spokesperson told the Associated Press on Saturday that it had received no communication regarding Abrego Garcia’s transfer there.
The Salvadoran man lived in Maryland for more than a decade before he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador earlier this year. That set off a series of contentious court battles that have turned his case into a test of the limits of President Trump’s hard-line immigration policies.
Although Abrego Garcia immigrated to the U.S. illegally around 2011 as a teenager, he has an American wife and child. A 2019 immigration court order barred his deportation to his native El Salvador, finding he had a credible fear of threats from gangs there. He was deported anyway in March — in what a government attorney said was an administrative error — and held in the country’s notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
Facing a court order, the Trump administration returned him to the U.S. in June only to charge him with human smuggling based on a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Though that court case is ongoing, ICE now seeks to deport him again. Abrego Garcia, who denies the charges, is requesting asylum in the United States.
He was denied asylum in 2019 because his request came more than a year after he arrived in the U.S., his attorney Simon Sandoval-Mosenberg has said. Since he was deported and has now reentered the U.S., the attorney said, he is now eligible for asylum.
“If Mr. Abrego Garcia is allowed a fair trial in immigration court, there’s no way he’s not going to prevail on his claim,” he said in an emailed statement.
As part of his asylum claim, Abrego Garcia expressed a fear of deportation to Uganda and “nearly two dozen” other countries, according to an ICE court filing in opposition to reopening his asylum case. That Thursday filing also states that if the case is reopened, the 2019 order barring his deportation to El Salvador would become void and the government would pursue his removal to that country.
Marc Seawright took pride in his job at the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, where he worked for more than eight years and most recently oversaw technology policy to support the agency’s mission of combating workplace harassment and discrimination.
But then President Trump began targeting transgender and nonbinary people within hours of returning to the White House by issuing a series of executive orders — including one declaring the existence of two unchangeable sexes. Seawright was ordered to develop technology to scrub any mention of LGBTQ+ identities from all EEOC outreach materials, which had been created to help employers understand their obligations under civil rights law.
Suddenly, his tech expertise “was being leveraged to perpetuate discrimination against people like me,” said Seawright, 41, who served as the EEOC’s director of information governance and strategy before he quit in June, citing a hostile work environment. “It became overwhelming. It felt insurmountable.”
A San Francisco-based Army veteran, Seawright is one of 10 transgender and gender nonconforming government employees across federal agencies who spoke with the Associated Press about their workplace experiences since Trump regained office, describing their fear, grief, frustration and distress working for an employer that rejects their identity — often with no clear path for recourse or support. Several requested anonymity for fear of retaliation; some, including Seawright, have filed formal discrimination complaints.
Since January, the Trump administration has reversed years of legal and policy gains for transgender Americans, including stripping government websites of “gender ideology” and reinstituting a ban on transgender service members in the military.
The White House and the EEOC declined to respond to allegations that the president’s policies created a hostile workplace for transgender federal employees. But his executive order, which defines sex as strictly male or female, states that its goal is to protect spaces designated for women and girls.
“Efforts to eradicate the biological reality of sex fundamentally attack women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, and well-being,” the order says.
Independent Women, a nonprofit that advocates for legislation defining sex as male and female, supports Trump’s executive order.
“Women’s rights can get erased if men can just self-identify to women’s spaces,” said the organization’s senior legal advisor Beth Parlato.
Brad Sears, senior scholar at UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, which researches policy impacting LGBTQ+ people, points to “a sweeping, government-wide initiative to really erase transgender people from public life,” including adults in the workplace.
“The federal workplace is increasingly an inhospitable place for the transgender employees who remain,” Sears said.
Compared with private sector workers, transgender federal employees are especially vulnerable because many ultimately answer to the president, said Olivia Hunt, director of federal policy at Advocates for Trans Equality, which seeks legal and political rights for transgender people in the United States.
“In the absence of an ability to impose their will directly on employers throughout the country, this administration is going to use the tools that they have to attack the trans people who are in close proximity to them, and that includes federal workers,” Hunt said.
Withrow visits armories across Illinois for her job, sometimes in remote areas. But Trump’s executive order directing agencies to take “appropriate action” to ensure that intimate spaces “are designated by sex and not identity” created a major hurdle for Withrow when her supervisors informed her that she was no longer allowed to use the women’s restroom at work.
“I don’t use men’s spaces because I don’t feel comfortable doing that,” the 34-year-old said.
At locations without single-occupancy options, a simple bathroom break can mean a 45-minute round trip to a nearby gas station or McDonald’s.
Represented by the ACLU, Withrow filed a class action complaint in May challenging the Trump administration’s policy on the basis of sex discrimination.
A spokesperson for the Illinois National Guard declined to comment on the pending lawsuit but said the agency is “committed to treating all of our employees with dignity and respect.” The Department of Defense also declined to comment, citing policy, but affirmed its commitment to enforcing relevant laws and implementing the gender executive order.
For Seawright at the EEOC, he feels like his skill set was being wielded against the agency’s mission, not to support it. Following Trump’s signing of his executive order, Acting EEOC Chair Andrea Lucas, a Republican, quickly began reshaping policy and, among other things, removed the agency’s “pronoun app,” which allowed employees to display their pronouns in their profiles. It was a tool that was created — then dismantled — by Seawright.
He had spent two years developing the app to support a nonbinary employee at the agency.
“For it to be just kind of yanked away summarily with none of the thoughtfulness and planning that went into implementing the tool … that became really frustrating,” Seawright said.
His mental health suffered, and he requested extended personal leave shortly after he completed the project scrubbing references to gender identity. When he returned in late February, the situation continued to deteriorate.
He hired lawyers at Katz Banks Kumin and filed a formal discrimination complaint. In June, Seawright resigned, citing “significant distress, anxiety, depression, sleeplessness, anger, and sadness” caused daily by Lucas’ “anti-transgender actions.”
Withrow, meanwhile, still works in her role while navigating similar challenges.
“I do feel as though there is at least an implied threat for trans folks in federal service,” she said. “We’ll just continue to meet the objectives and focus on the mission, and hope that that is enough proof that we belong.”
SACRAMENTO — Responding to the Trump administration’s aggressive and unceasing immigration raids in Southern California, state lawmakers this week began strengthening protections for immigrants in schools, hospitals and other areas targeted by federal agents.
The Democratic-led California Legislature is considering nearly a dozen bills aimed at shielding immigrants who are in the country illegally, including helping children of families being ripped apart in the enforcement actions.
“Californians want smart, sensible solutions and we want safe communities,” said Assemblymember Christopher Ward (D-San Diego). “They do not want peaceful neighbors ripped out of schools, ripped out of hospitals, ripped out of their workplaces.”
Earlier this week, lawmakers passed two bills focused on protecting schoolchildren.
Senate Bill 98, authored by Sen. Sasha Renée Peréz (D-Alhambra), would require school administrators to notify families and students if federal agents conduct immigration operations on a K-12 or college campus.
Legislation introduced by Assemblymember Al Muratsuchi (D-Rolling Hills Estates), AB 49, would bar immigration agents from nonpublic areas of a school unless they had a judicial warrant or court order. It also would bar school districts from providing information about pupils, their families, teachers and school employees to immigration authorities without a warrant.
A separate bill by Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D-Berkeley), SB 81, would bar healthcare officials from disclosing a patient’s immigration status or birthplace, or giving access to nonpublic spaces in hospitals and clinics, to immigration authorities without a search warrant or court order.
All three bills now head to Gov. Gavin Newsom for his consideration. If signed into law, the legislation would take effect immediately.
The school-related bills, said L.A. school board member Rocio Rivas, provide “critical protections for students, parents and families, helping ensure schools remain safe spaces where every student can learn and thrive without fear.”
Federal immigration agents have recently detained several 18-year-old high school students, including Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz, who was picked up last month while walking his dog a few days before he started his senior year at Reseda Charter High School.
Most Republican legislators voted against the bills, but Peréz’s measure received support from two Republican lawmakers, Assemblymember Juan Alanis (R-Modesto) and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh (R-Yucaipa). Muratsuchi’s had support from six Republicans.
“No person should be able to go into a school and take possession of another person’s child without properly identifying themselves,” Sen. Shannon Grove (R-Bakersfield) said before voting to support the bill.
The healthcare bill follows a surge in cancellations for health appointments as immigrants stay home, fearing that if they go to a doctor or to a clinic, they could be swept up in an immigration raid.
California Nurses Assn. President Sandy Reding said that federal agents’ recent raids have disregarded “traditional safe havens” such as clinics and hospitals, and that Newsom’s approval would ensure that people who need medical treatment can “safely receive care without fear or intimidation.”
Some Republicans pushed back against the package of bills, including outspoken conservative Assemblymember Carl DeMaio (R-San Diego), who said that the raids that Democrats are “making such hay over” were triggered by the state’s “sanctuary” law passed in 2018.
The state law DeMaio attacked, SB 54, bars local law enforcement from helping enforce federal immigration laws, including arresting someone solely for having a deportation order, and from holding someone in jail for extra time so immigration agents can pick them up.
The law, criticized by President Trump and Republicans nationwide, does not prevent police from informing federal agents that someone who is in the country illegally is about to be released from custody.
“If you wanted a more orderly process for the enforcement of federal immigration rules, you’d back down from your utter failure of SB54,” DeMaio said.
Chino Valley Unified School Board President Sonja Shaw, a Trump supporter who is running for state superintendent of public instruction, said that the bills about school safety were “political theater that create fear where none is needed.”
“Schools already require proper judicial orders before allowing immigration enforcement on campus, so these bills don’t change anything,” Shaw said. “They are gaslighting families into believing that schools are unsafe, when in reality the system already protects students.”
But Muratsuchi, who is also running for superintendent, said the goal of the legislation is to ensure that districts everywhere, “including in more conservative areas,” protect their students against immigration enforcement.
A half-dozen other immigration bills are still pending in the Legislature. Lawmakers have until next Friday to send bills to Newsom’s desk before the 2025 session is adjourned.
Those include AB 495 by Assemblymember Celeste Rodriguez (D-San Fernando), which would make it easier for parents to designate caregivers who are not blood relatives — including godparents and teachers — as short-term guardians for their children. An increasing number of immigrant parents have made emergency arrangements in the event they are deported.
The bill would allow nonrelatives to make decisions such as enrolling a child in school and consenting to some medical care.
Conservatives have criticized the bill as an attack on parental rights and have said that the law could be misused by estranged family members or even sexual predators — and that current guidelines for establishing family emergency plans are adequate.
Also still pending is AB 1261, by Assemblymember Mia Bonta (D-Alameda), which would establish a right to legal representation for unaccompanied children in federal immigration court proceedings; and SB 841 by Sen. Susan Rubio (D-Baldwin Park), which would restrict access for immigration authorities at shelters for homeless people and survivors of rape, domestic violence and human trafficking.
As Israel’s military advances further in towards Gaza City, Palestinians like Mohammed Zaher fear another forced expulsion with nowhere to go. Exhausted and trapped, he pleads for the war to end, describing life under occupation as unbearable.
Passengers travelling from Spain to Italy were screaming in fear as their Wizz Air flight was hit with severe turbulence and was forced to make an emergency landing
13:15, 24 Aug 2025Updated 13:15, 24 Aug 2025
A Wizz Air plane was forced to make an emergency landing after it was hit with severe turbulence(Image: Getty Images)
Passengers on a flight returning from Spain were left screaming in fear as their plane was thrown around in terrifying turbulence, forcing the pilot to make an emergency landing.
The Wizz Air flight was travelling from Alicante, Spain, to Fiumicino Airport, Rome, this week when it encountered severe turbulence. In a shocking video posted to social media, petrified passengers could be heard shrieking on the Airbus A321 as it battled the bumpy conditions.
The seatbelt signs were on while the majority of the cabin lights were turned off, only adding to the fearful moment for travellers on board. In the video shared on TikTok, the user added the caption, “Attimi di terrore sul volo”, translating to “Moments of terror on the flight.”
A passenger on the Wizz Air flight shared a shocking video on social media of the turbulence(Image: TikTok)
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Passengers in the video can be heard shouting, “Oh God”, and “No, no, no!” while others remained quiet with heavy breaths. Outside through the windows, the plane’s red lights can be seen amid the grey and dark sky.
Italy has faced extreme weather this summer, and Rome was given a severe thunderstorm warning. The bad weather is what impacted the Wizz Air flight, which attempted to land at Fiumicino, the country’s busiest airport.
After several attempts, the pilot aborted the plan and was redirected to Bologna, over 250 miles away, to make a safe landing. The flight from Alicante to Rome typically takes under two hours, but due to delays and severe turbulence, it landed in Bologna at 3:53am – almost three hours after it was due to arrive in Rome.
Wizz Air said: “Wizz Air flight W4 6038 from Alicante to Rome Fiumicino on August 20 was diverted to Bologna Airport after it was unable to land safely due to adverse weather conditions at Rome Fiumicino Airport.
Passengers could be heard screaming on the flight as it was rocked by turbulence(Image: TikTok)
“The aircraft landed safely and without incident in Bologna at 3:57 a.m. local time. Passengers were provided with ground transportation from Bologna to Rome.”
The airline added that passengers who “had independently arranged ground transportation” would be entitled to a refund. Wizz Air also said: “Weather conditions are beyond the airline’s control, and safety remains Wizz Air’s top priority.”
They also added that aborting a landing is a “standard procedure in the event that conditions are not ideal for a safe landing”. The airline thanked the pilots and cabin crew for “ensuring everyone’s safety during the turbulence and for making the right decision to divert the flight to Bologna.”
Eddie Howe explains why Newcastle are in a lose-lose situation with Isak
EDDIE HOWE says Newcastle are in a lose-lose situation regarding Alexander Isak – but admitted there’s “two sides to every story” amid the star’s ongoing strike.
The wantaway Swede, 25, finally went public on his desire to leave this week with his bombshell “broken promises” statement.
Newcastle hit back at the those claims from the striker, who still refuses to play as he tries to force a move to Liverpool, and denied any promises had been made that he could go.
Liverpool, who head to St. James’ Park on Monday, are preparing a new £130m British record bid that Toon insist will be turned down.
And Howe faces the prospect of eventually losing a world-class star or keeping a player who doesn’t want to be there.
He said: “The club has to act in the best interests of Newcastle and we will do that in every situation.
“It is a lose-lose situation to a degree for us because I don’t think we can come out of this winning in any situation. That is why I have said all summer it is a difficult situation for the club to manage.
“We love Alex in the sense in what has done for this football club since he has been here, what he has contributed, what he has given, how professional he’s been and this has just been an unfortunate few months that looks like it is coming to an end. And it will come to an end pretty quickly and then we can focus on the football again.”
Howe says Isak’s relationship with the Toon Army can still be repaired as he refused to stick the boot into the forward – who has become public enemy No1 with fans.
He said: “I believe it can. I believe the supporters will always react off how a player plays and gives the team.
“This has been an unfortunate situation but there are always two sides to every story.
“There’s always more than even I will know, because there are conversations and things that have taken place far away from me and my knowledge of it.
“I’ve been focusing on the team and pre-season, so I’ve become totally detached from the situation to a degree so I think my job now is to support Alex, care for him at this moment in time and see where we are in a week’s time.”
Howe, who hopes to bolster his forward line by bringing in Yoane Wissa, revealed he hasn’t spoken to the £150m-rated hotshot this week.
He claims the whole fall-out is nothing personal and continued to stress how much he wants Isak to return and fire the club to more glory after last season’s Carabao Cup success.
He said: “When I see him we speak as normal. There are no issues between us.
“It’s difficult on both sides. It’s far from ideal for both parties, that’s Alex and us. But when we see each other we’re fine.
“He’s training later on detached from the group. We will, I’m sure, catch up at some stage and hopefully speak soon.
“He’s contracted to us. He’s our player. My wish is he would be playing on Monday night but he won’t be, which is regrettable. But 100 per cent I want to see him back in a Newcastle shirt.
“There’s no doubt how the players will feel. They will feel the same way I do.
“Alex is an outstanding player and a very, very good person, a good character, a good lad. He wants to succeed in his career.
“This has been a really difficult situation for him and for the players to see us without him.
“The players have handled it really well. If Alex decided to come back and play for us the players would welcome him back.”
Howe, who claimed he “didn’t know” if Isak had been fined for refusing to face Aston Villa, also says he has no idea if the situation can be resolved before the September 1 transfer deadline.
But he says the club are still determined to keep the rebel but warned Isak would only pull on a Black and White shirt again if he was “totally committed”.
Howe added: “I’m not a fortune-teller, unfortunately. I’d love to be, but I’ve got no way of knowing what will happen in the next few days in terms of trying to get some finality on the situation, so I’m in the same boat as everybody else, really.
“The club has had a very strong stance regarding Alex’s situation all summer. Obviously there has been a lot of conversations between the club and his representatives that I’ve not been a part of, but for me, nothing has changed throughout the summer.
“If Alex is to play for Newcastle again, he has to be totally committed. I don’t think it works any other way. But that question is for another day. When any player puts on the shirt and steps onto the pitch, he has to give his all for the team.”
If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed.
But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe. All risk encountering immigration enforcement agents.
“They can go where they want,” said Maria, 50, who insisted the Associated Press not use her last name for fear of detention. “There is no limit.”
Natural disasters have long posed singular risks for people in the United States without permanent legal status. But with the arrival of peak Atlantic hurricane season, immigrants and their advocates say President Donald Trump’s robust immigration enforcement agenda has increased the danger.
Places considered neutral spaces by immigrants such as schools, hospitals and emergency management agencies are now suspect, and advocates say agreements by local law enforcement to collaborate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement make them more vulnerable and compel a choice between being physically safe and avoiding detention.
“Am I going to risk the storm or risk endangering my family at the shelter?” said Dominique O’Connor, an organizer at the Farmworker Association of Florida. “You’re going to meet enforcement either way.”
For O’Connor and for many immigrants, it’s about storms. But people without permanent legal status could face these decisions anywhere that extreme heat, wildfires or other severe weather could necessitate evacuating, getting supplies or even seeking medical care.
Federal and state agencies have said little on whether immigration enforcement would be suspended in a disaster. It wouldn’t make much difference to Maria: “With all we’ve lived, we’ve lost trust.”
New policies deepen concerns
Efforts by Trump’s Republican administration to exponentially expand immigration enforcement capacity mean many of the agencies active in disaster response are increasingly entangled in immigration enforcement.
Since January, hundreds of law enforcement agencies have signed 287(g) agreements, allowing them to perform certain immigration enforcement actions. Most of the agreements are in hurricane-prone Florida and Texas.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management oversees building the state’s new detention facilities, like the one called “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades. Federal Emergency Management Agency funds are being used to build additional detention centers around the country, and the Department of Homeland Security temporarily reassigned some FEMA staff to assist ICE.
The National Guard, often seen passing out food and water after disasters, has been activated to support U.S. Customs and Border Protection operations and help at detention centers.
These dual roles can make for an intimidating scene during a disaster. After floods in July, more than 2,100 personnel from 20 state agencies aided the far-reaching response effort in Central Texas, along with CBP officers. Police controlled entry into hard-hit areas. Texas Department of Public Safety and private security officers staffed entrances to disaster recovery centers set up by FEMA.
That unsettled even families with permanent legal status, said Rae Cardenas, executive director of Doyle Community Center in Kerrville, Texas. Cardenas helped coordinate with the Mexican Consulate in San Antonio to replace documents for people who lived behind police checkpoints.
“Some families are afraid to go get their mail because their legal documents were washed away,” Cardenas said.
In Florida, these policies could make people unwilling to drive evacuation roads. Traffic stops are a frequent tool of detention, and Florida passed a law in February criminalizing entry into the state by those without legal status, though a judge temporarily blocked it.
There may be fewer places to evacuate now that public shelters, often guarded by police or requiring ID to enter, are no longer considered “protected areas” by DHS. The agency in January rescinded a policy of President Joe Biden, a Democrat, to avoid enforcement in places like schools, medical facilities and emergency response sites.
The fears extend even into disaster recovery. On top of meeting law enforcement at FEMA recovery centers, mixed-status households that qualify for help from the agency might hesitate to apply for fear of their information being accessed by other agencies, said Esmeralda Ledezma, communications associate with the Houston-based nonprofit Woori Juntos. “Even if you have the right to federal aid, you’re afraid to be punished for it,” Ledezma said.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in an email that CBP had not issued any guidance “because there have been no natural disasters affecting border enforcement.” She did not address what directions were given during CBP’s activation in the Texas floods or whether ICE would be active during a disaster.
Florida’s Division of Emergency Management did not respond to questions related to its policies toward people without legal status. Texas’ Division of Emergency Management referred The Associated Press to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office, which did not respond.
Building local resilience is a priority
In spite of the crackdown, local officials in some hurricane-prone areas are expanding outreach to immigrant populations. “We are trying to move forward with business as usual,” said Gracia Fernandez, language access coordinator for Alachua County in Central Florida.
The county launched a program last year to translate and distribute emergency communications in Spanish, Haitian Creole and other languages. Now staffers want to spread the word that county shelters won’t require IDs, but since they’re public spaces, Fernandez acknowledged there’s not much they can do if ICE comes.
“There is still a risk,” she said. “But we will try our best to help people feel safe.”
As immigrant communities are pushed deeper into the shadows, more responsibility falls on nonprofits, and communities themselves, to keep each other safe.
Hope Community Center in Apopka has pushed local officials to commit to not requiring IDs at shelters and sandbag distribution points. During an evacuation, the facility becomes an alternative shelter and a command center, from which staffers translate and send out emergency communications in multiple languages. For those who won’t leave their homes, staffers do door-to-door wellness checks, delivering food and water.
“It’s a very grassroots, underground operation,” said Felipe Sousa Lazaballet, the center’s executive director.
Preparing the community is challenging when it’s consumed by the daily crises wrought by detentions and deportations, Sousa Lazaballet said.
“All of us are in triage mode,” he said. “Every day there is an emergency, so the community is not necessarily thinking about hurricane season yet. That’s why we have to have a plan.”
