garcia

Jacob Ulibarri spent about six hours on New Year’s Day last year squashing hot spots where the Lachman fire had burned.

The rookie Los Angeles firefighter arrived sometime after 7 a.m., when the smoky areas were all over and easy to see. By the time the next crew swapped with his that afternoon, they were scarcer: “One every 30 minutes, roughly,” Ulibarri recalled.

At that point, Battalion Chief Martin Mullen, who was running the mop-up operation, had walked three laps around the perimeter of the fire. He recalled one hot spot he saw at about 10 a.m., which crews hit with water. Later in the afternoon, Mullen did his fourth and last loop and left the area for good.

He decided to leave the hoses out overnight, just in case.

Over the next two days, a series of communication failures and questionable decisions led crews to leave the area prematurely, with embers from the small Jan. 1 fire later reigniting into the devastating Palisades fire. A firefighter picking up hoses on Jan. 2 found crackling, red-hot coals in the dirt and warned colleagues that a more thorough mop-up was needed. Also that morning, a captain cautioned his chief that it was too soon to pick up the hoses. In yet another missed opportunity, crews apparently did not walk the entire perimeter of the burn scar after a caller reported smoke in the area on Jan. 3.

Because of the holiday, some were filling in for others outside of their normal assignments. Firefighters said they adhered to the LAFD’s strict chain of command and did not question higher-ups, while those in charge had fuzzy memories or shifted responsibility to others.

The revelations, contained in the sworn testimony of a dozen firefighters earlier this year as part of a lawsuit filed by Palisades fire victims, corroborate previous reporting by The Times and call into question the LAFD’s repeated claims that commanders left the fire “dead out.” More than a year later, with much of the Palisades still in ruins, LAFD leaders have refused to explain how or why the breakdowns occurred.

The LAFD employees mentioned in this story either could not be reached or declined to comment.

In a statement Monday, LAFD spokesperson Stephanie Bishop pointed to the alleged arsonist charged by federal prosecutors with deliberately setting the earlier fire. “The Lachman and Palisades Fire incidents would not be matters of discussion had this individual not allegedly initiated the original fire,” she said.

“It is important to allow the legal process to proceed without external influence or speculation. Offering running commentary on depositions outside of the courtroom risks compromising witness testimony, affecting the integrity of evidence review, and impacting ongoing judicial proceedings. We stand by the investigation conducted by the ATF,” Bishop added, referring to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

Around 6 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2025

At the end of his 24-hour overtime shift, Mullen handed the reins to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia, recommending that the incoming chief scope out the fire perimeter.

“I told him I left him hose lines in place overnight. You need to walk that and make sure there’s nothing going up on there,” said Mullen, whose regular job is managing the LAFD’s 106 fire stations and 30 or so other buildings.

Before Garcia set foot on the burn scar, he put word out to station captains about the plan for the morning: Pick up hoses.

At Fire Station 19 in Brentwood, Capt. Alexander Gonzalez got a text from the chief’s aide, directing him to bring a “plug buggy” — a pickup truck used to carry equipment — “to help pick up hose.”

The plan reached Capt. David Sander at Fire Station 23 in the Palisades and Capt. Michael McIndoe at Fire Station 69.

McIndoe had reservations.

He told the chief’s aide that he thought the hoses should stay out longer. He had seen the forecast that day — a National Weather Service alert had warned of weather conducive to wildfires — and handling any lingering hot spots would be easier with hoses in place. The aide told him to take it up with the chief.

So McIndoe shared his concerns with Garcia over the phone.

Garcia “said something along the lines of, ‘OK. Let me go check it out, and then I’ll get back to you,’” McIndoe testified.

But the orders for the morning never changed.

8:30 a.m. on Jan. 2, 2025

After a briefing at Fire Station 23, Scott Pike and his partner took their ambulance to a cul-de-sac near the burn area. They spotted some hose dangling over a retaining wall covered in ivy.

An engine crew threw a 20-foot ladder to get over the wall. Soon, Pike said, they got another call and left.

“We were kind of making jokes, like, ‘It’s on us,’’’ recalled Pike, a firefighter normally assigned to a station in Sunland.

He grabbed his brush jacket, helmet and gloves and climbed over. He decided to hike to the end of the hose line — he was feeling good and thought he’d get a workout in.

Pike followed the main line — called the trunk line — which had hoses branching off in other directions. About 100 feet in, he saw where grass had burned. He navigated through culverts and climbed a steep hill of about 300 feet before hitting a hiking trail.

When he got to the end of the line, at about 8:45 a.m., he noticed a handful of smoky areas in heavier brush, and a hand line that wasn’t cut properly.

One ash pit was so hot he didn’t want to touch it, even with gloves. So he kicked it with his boot, exposing red-hot coals. He heard crackling and smelled smoke. He looked around, and there were no other firefighters.

We shouldn’t be picking up hoses, he thought to himself. Instead, we should be filling the hoses with water to do a more thorough mop-up.

He pinched the hose, directing any residual water to the ash pit. It steamed and crackled. He felt defeated when he only got a couple of gallons out, which wasn’t enough.

He slowed down, in case the pickup plan were to change because of his observations, and was relieved when more crews began hiking over.

“Hey, guys, are you seeing what I’m seeing?” Pike told a couple of firefighters. He was working an overtime shift away from his usual fire station, so he didn’t know them. “Like, maybe we should be charging these lines instead of picking them up.”

Since they were already there, he figured, some extra mop-up could save them work down the line if the fire were to reignite.

The firefighters shrugged him off and seemed eager to finish the assignment.

“They were like, ‘Yeah, I see what you’re saying,’ And then it was like, ‘We’ll tell one of the skippers. We’ll tell one of the captains.’ But, like, in the meantime, people were just very much like, just get the hose picked up,” Pike testified.

Shortly after, he saw a captain and raised the same concerns.

“That’s how I approached him, is like, ‘Hey, Cap … We have hot spots in general. We have some ash pits,’” Pike said. “That’s an alert to double-check the whole area and maybe we need to switch our tactics.”

Pike testified that it was not his job “to overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.”

The captain suggested possibly bringing hand tools or a backpack filled with water up the hill to extinguish any hot spots.

Pike went back to picking up the hose while awaiting new orders, which never came.

The LAFD has declined to say whether the captain has been identified. Pike believed the captain was from Engine 69, which would have been McIndoe. But McIndoe told The Times he did not speak with Pike that day.

McIndoe said he also came across a smoldering ash pit during the couple of hours he was on the hill.

He retrieved a backpack with water from his engine, sprayed into the ground with a couple of gallons of water and dug up the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied it was cool.

At one point, he saw Garcia, the battalion chief, and brought up their earlier conversation.

“I just went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I hope you don’t think I’m just trying to get out of work,’” McIndoe said. “And he said, ‘No, that’s — that’s fine.’ Something along those lines, and that that’s all I can really recall.”

He said he was trying to tell Garcia that he believed “that the hose should stay up a little bit longer.”

By the time Gonzalez, who was backfilling that day at the Brentwood station, got to the scene, the operation was well underway, with half the hose already down the hillside.

“When I got there, it was just, it’s like a big daisy chain of hands pulling hose off and getting it down to the street. And rolling it, hosing it off and loading it into the plug buggy,” he testified.

He did not see smoldering that day. He testified that he went about 200 to 300 feet up, to where piles of hose were being dropped. “The next person brings it back down and that was it,” he said.

Some firefighters on hose pickup duty that day have not been deposed in the lawsuit. Aside from McIndoe and Pike, the four other firefighters who testified that they were at the burn scar on Jan. 2 said they did not see smoldering.

Garcia testified that at the burn scar, no one raised any concerns with him about the hose pickup. Nor did he see any need to leave the hoses at the site.

At 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 2, Garcia texted two higher-ups: “All hose and equipment has been picked up.”

Around 4:30 p.m., Garcia walked the area again with his aide to see if they had left any equipment behind. He saw no issues.

“We both walked the whole area,” Garcia said. “We went separate directions, but covered the whole area, and there was nothing that would bring any concern.”

11:51 a.m. on Jan. 3, 2025

Shortly before noon, someone called the LAFD about a grass fire in the burn area.

Engineer Edward Rincon, who had been on Engine 23 retrieving hoses the day before, pulled up to the same cul-de-sac. Once again, his crew threw the 20-foot ladder over the retaining wall. As on the previous day, he never entered the burn scar. He stayed with the engine while the captain and two firefighters went to scope out the area. He set the volume high on his radio to hear if they needed anything.

On the other side of the wall, Capt. Cesar Garcia walked for what he said was more than a couple of football fields, while the two firefighters went to different peaks to look around for smoke or fire.

“Everything is completely burned. I don’t smell anything. I don’t see any smoke. I don’t see any fire,” he testified.

He canceled another engine that was assigned to the call.

Firefighter Michael Contreras said he also didn’t see smoke. He said he could not see the entirety of the burn scar from his vantage point. He also said he did not suggest to his captain, Cesar Garcia, that they walk the whole perimeter.

“Is there a reason you did not?” a plaintiffs’ attorney asked.

“Again, would not be my lane to tell him that, you know,” he said.

Battalion Chief Mario Garcia was on duty again that day. Like Rincon, he stayed with his vehicle. Cesar Garcia said the chief pulled up a live feed on an iPad from two cameras on the mountain, which showed no smoke or fire.

An incident report shows they spent about 34 minutes on the call.

On the morning of Jan. 7, LAFD records show, a captain on duty in the Palisades called Fire Station 23 and told colleagues: The Lachman fire had started up again.

Two years after Huntington Beach residents voted to effectively ban Pride flags from being displayed on city property, the conservative coastal city could be represented by a gay member of Congress and outspoken critic of President Trump — Rep. Robert Garcia.

That twist of fate came after last year’s unprecedented mid-decade rejiggering of California’s congressional districts.

Voters in November overwhelmingly approved Proposition 50 — Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to neutralize Republican gerrymandering in Texas — to help Democrats win control of the House this November and put a meaningful check on the Trump administration.

The political tremors triggered by the ballot measure already have reshaped California’s political landscape.

Veteran Republican Rep. Darrell Issa of northern San Diego County, an incessant thorn in the backside of President Obama, has called it quits. Northern California Rep. Kevin Kiley has shed his GOP label to run as a political independent. And two Republican congressional incumbents find themselves in a political death match in a newly crafted district straddling Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

The new 42nd District remains anchored in Garcia’s home base of Long Beach. But under the new lines, it has swapped out Southeast L.A. communities such as Downey and Bell Gardens for the more MAGA-friendly cities of Huntington Beach and Newport Beach.

“I say that every time a district crosses the L.A.-Orange County border, a Democrat gets its wings,” said Paul Mitchell, the redistricting expert who drew the new lines for Democrats. “Drawing the Long Beach district to go down to Huntington Beach meant that you’re giving Robert Garcia a community that, in its elected City Council, has been real anathema to who he is as a person, being an out gay member of Congress.”

The change means Garcia’s district shifts rightward with a lot more Republican voters, but still has a Democratic majority. Former Vice President Kamala Harris would have still won the new district in the 2024 presidential race by 13 points, making Democrats confident that it’s still one where Garcia could win.

As the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, Garcia is poised to win more power in pushing back against the Trump administration if historical precedent holds and Democrats win back the House majority in November.

Garcia was unavailable for an interview, but many of the new voters he will have to court are represented by Rep. Dave Min (D-Irvine), who won the closely divided Orange County seat in 2024 and now faces a slightly bluer voting base in his newly configured district.

“I have a lot of voters to introduce myself to,” said Min, who described himself as “progressive for Orange County” because he cares about protecting civil rights but often aligns with law enforcement and small-business interests.

“The message [to new voters] is that you may not always agree with me, but that I will try my best to do what I say. I will fight to deliver on the promises I make, I will fight for the values that I represent myself as caring about. And I listen to my constituents,” he said, noting that he recently held his seventh town hall since he was elected.

In a neighboring Orange County district, Republican Reps. Young Kim and Ken Calvert are going to battle for control of the region’s only safe Republican seat post-Proposition 50. That district also crosses county lines — into Corona, Chino Hills and other parts of western Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Republicans may be dismayed to see the two popular party leaders battling it out in what promises to be a brutal and expensive election.

Republican “primary voters are looking for how to distinguish between two of the same flavor,” said Rob Stutzman, a Republican political strategist. “Republican voters are going to like both of them, so how do you make that judgment?

“Often, it comes down to who their friends are,” he said, noting that endorsements from interest groups and other elected officials are usually more valuable in primaries than general elections.

A handful of Democratic candidates have also declared for the seat, which campaign strategists said could split the liberal vote and allow both Calvert and Kim to advance to the general election ballot.

Issa bids farewell, Kiley drops GOP label

Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) listens to testimony from witnesses during a House Oversight Committee hearing entitled “Reviews of the Benghazi Attack and Unanswered Questions,” in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in 2013 in Washington.

(Drew Angerer / Getty Images)

Issa’s decision to forgo a run for reelection came as a surprise Friday, even though speculation has swirled about his future after the newly drawn congressional districts put him in a seat where Democratic voters outnumber Republicans. That was a major downgrade from his current district, which swallows up right-leaning eastern San Diego County and the conservative pockets of Temecula and Murrieta.

“This decision has been on my mind for a while and I didn’t make it lightly,” Issa said in a statement. “But after a quarter-century in Congress — and before that, a quarter-century in business — it’s the right time for a new chapter and new challenges.”

Democrats celebrated the departure of Issa, who helped fund the successful 2003 recall of California Democratic Gov. Gray Davis, and led the congressional investigation of the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi during the Obama administration.

“After over two decades of disastrous representation, Darrell Issa is once again running for the exits — and good riddance,” said Anna Elsasser, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Several Democrats had already announced plans to challenge Issa, including San Diego City Councilmember Marni Lynn von Wilpert.

Proposition 50 also split the sprawling district held by Kiley, a Republican from Rocklin, into six pieces, leaving the Northern California congressman and frequent Newsom critic with few good options.

Over the following months Kiley posted on social media to announce — like the dating show “The Bachelor” — where he would not run until it came down to two districts: a safe Republican seat that would force Kiley into a primary with longtime Rep. Tom McClintock (R-Elk Grove) or a district with a 9-point Democratic registration advantage.

Kiley chose to avoid challenging McClintock and delivered his final rose to the new 6th District along with a twist: On Friday the congressman announced he would run as an independent candidate rather than a Republican.

Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-Rocklin) in his office in Washington in 2025.

(Richard Pierrin / For The Times)

In a lengthy social media post and accompanying video, Kiley said he has become “frustrated, sometimes disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress” and that he answers to constituents, “not party leaders.”

But without a political party behind him, Kiley’s campaign is “entirely his burden,” said Republican strategist Matt Rexroad. “He’s not going to get the party endorsement. He’s really on his own.”

Without a letter denoting a political party next to their name on the ballot, independent candidates have historically gotten lost in the mix.

One other candidate, a Christian author named Michael Stansfield, confirmed Friday that he filed to run for the seat as a Republican, giving Kiley automatic competition for conservative votes.

Several Democrats have already announced campaigns for the seat — which lumps conservative suburbs of Sacramento with liberal-leaning ones closer to the capital city — including former state Sen. Richard Pan, Sacramento Dist. Atty. Thien Ho, West Sacramento Mayor Martha Guerrero and Lauren Babb, a public affairs leader for Planned Parenthood clinics in California and Nevada.

The race could revive a pandemic-era rivalry between Kiley and Pan, who tussled over vaccine and public health rules while serving in the state Legislature.

New districts, new challengers

For some longtime Democrats such as Rep. Brad Sherman, the addition of new GOP voters could help them fend off challenges from younger progressive candidates.

Half a dozen Democrats, mostly younger progressives, have filed paperwork to challenge Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), 71, who has represented parts of the San Fernando Valley for nearly 30 years.

The 32nd District remains solidly blue post-Proposition 50, but a nearly seven-point swing to the right “makes it less likely that two Democrats go to the general, which makes it less likely that [Sherman] would get beaten,” said Mitchell.

It’s a similar story for Reps. Doris Matsui (D-Sacramento), Mike Thompson (D-St. Helena) and John Garamendi (D-Walnut Grove), who are all in their 70s and 80s and facing younger, more progressive challengers.

While gaining more conservative voters may help some incumbents avoid facing another Democrat in November, the threat of such a faceoff is pushing them to be more active on the campaign trail, Rexroad said.

“You’re seeing more activity by Doris Matsui and Mike Thompson and John Garamendi as a result of them being challenged, because they like their seats and they’d like to hold on to them,” Rexroad said.

Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.

For decades, Iranian novelist and memoirist Shahrnush Parsipur wrote under the threat of her country’s oppressive laws. Parsipur was imprisoned for her work four separate times: once under the shah, who ruled Iran before the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and three times under the regime that took power that year.

Despite this Damoclean sword hanging over her, she managed in 1989 to publish “Touba and the Meaning of Night,” a sweeping historical novel that lays bare Iran’s crushing patriarchal culture. In 1990, she wrote “Women Without Men,” a book of connected stories that trace the lives of five women, including a sex worker and schoolteacher, in search of liberation and self-actualization.

Shortly after the book’s publication, the Iranian government threw Parsipur in prison for a fourth time, where she remained for over four years.

Flash forward 36 years, and an English translation of “Women Without Men” has published in the U.K. for the first time. (The first U.S. English translation was published by Feminist Press in 2011.)

Now, the U.K. book has been nominated for this year’s International Booker Prize. In an email exchange, Parsipur, who presently lives in exile in Northern California, expounded on her career, Iran and the recent developments there.

✍️ Author Chat

(The L.A. Times may earn a commission from bookshop.org links.)

Women Without Men was longlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize

(The Feminist Press)

What is your feeling about the U.S. air attack against Iran?

I am very sorry for my country. People suffer and the country becomes ruined. I will never forgive Israel and the U.S. I am an American also and as an American I want to stop the war. I do not think that Americans and Israelis can bring liberty to Iran. The people of Iran must try for themselves.

The government threw you in prison shortly after you published “Women Without Men.”

I was never a political activist and they did not torture me. But one time they put me in a grave for two months in Ghezel Hesar Prison. There, we always had to sit without speaking and our eyes were closed by a cover and we listened to Islamic slogans.

So it was solitary confinement?

We were sitting in a space the size of a grave and there was a wooden wall between every grave, so you could not see anything except your grave.

Did you write in prison?

Yes, I began to write my novel “Touba and the Meaning of Night.” I wrote half of it and suddenly they took it and after one year the men of Ayatollah Montazeri came to prison and they gave me the novel. They had destroyed two pages that were about the killing of a girl. I thought the virginity of my book was ruined. So I burned it. I wrote my memoirs when I came to the U.S.

So you burned the book and then rewrote it?

When my prison term finished I wrote “Touba” again.

Do you still have family in Iran?

Yes, I have some family in Iran and I cannot contact them. The internet does not work and mobiles are silent.

Do you think change in Iran will come soon? Will the U.S. help to liberalize the country?

The Islamic laws must change and a country like Israel cannot do that. So, the Iranian must change the situation. All my books are banned in Iran, except ones that they change themselves. But “Women Without Men” is published in more than 30 countries. The Booker International Prize is an English prize and if they give it to me there is no relation with banning the book in Iran. I am not surprised about the situation.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

“‘Second Skin’ is more sociological than sexy; more anthropological than animalistic,” writes Meredith Maran.

(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Catapult)

Julia M. Klein is fascinated by Loubna Mrie’s memoir “Defiance,” which, she writes, “offers a prism on Syria’s authoritarian society before the 2011 uprising and subsequent civil war, and vivid snapshots of the devastation that the war unleashed.”

Mark Athitakis considers two books that tackle the old “New Hollywood” of the late ’60s and early ’70s: Paul Fischer’s “The Last Kings of Hollywood,” which spotlights the Coppola, Lucas and Spielberg pantheon, and Kirk Ellis’ “They Kill People,” about the making of “Bonnie and Clyde.” Athitakis calls Ellis’ history “a meaty yet accessible book that captures the lightning-in-a-bottle nature of the generation’s ur-text,” while Fischer’s book “has a gift for highlighting the ways that moments that we now accept as inevitable were often the product of dumb luck.”

Diane Garrett has a chat with Elizabeth Arnott about her novel “The Secret Lives of Murderers’ Wives,” which she calls “an empathetic and at times bracing mystery tale about unlikely crime solvers circa 1966.”

Finally, Costa Beavin Pappas considers Brian Raftery’s curiously titled “Hannibal Lecter: A Life,” which is really a biography of Lecter’s creator, author Thomas Harris. “For fans of true crime, Raftery has written a fascinating biography and origin story about one of pop culture’s most emblematic serial killers, and his lasting bite on society,” writes Pappas.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Taschen Beverly Hills sells eye-catching artistic works

(TASCHEN)

Taschen Beverly Hills may well be the most gorgeous bookstore in Los Angeles, all gleaming, polished wood and ambient light illuminating the store’s lavishly illustrated art and design books. The shop opened over two decades ago as a showcase for the German publisher’s catalog, and it remains a popular destination for tourists and Taschen cultists who collect the company’s highly collectible titles. I spoke with Taschen Executive Director Creed Poulson about what’s selling right now.

What is the store’s clientele?

At the risk of sounding like a marketing manager, we have something for everyone, because our price points range from $10 up to thousands of dollars. Which allows us to have a mixed clientele in the store.

I know there is a kind of Taschen cult, folks who will buy your books because of your reputation.

That comes from our owner Benedikt Taschen, who is a collector and understands the mindset of a collector. Our books become collectible, regardless of the cost.

What is selling right now?

“Ferrari” by Pino Allievi, who is one of Formula One’s best known correspondents. “The James Bond Archives,” which is edited by Paul Duncan, and “Ultimate Collector Watches” by Charlotte and Peter Fiell.

Lately, there has been a turn among Gen Z into all things analog. Have you seen younger customers come into the store?

Yes, absolutely. I’m seeing a lot of the younger generation coming, especially during our annual sales — fans that are migrating away from just looking at images online, into book collecting. They want a tactile object they can hold and feel, and they want something they can enjoy as an object.

Early in Michael McIndoe’s shift on Jan. 2, 2025, his crew got their marching orders: Pick up hoses left overnight at the scene of the Lachman fire.

McIndoe, a captain at Fire Station 69 in Pacific Palisades, didn’t think the plan was a good idea, he said in sworn testimony obtained by The Times. He had read the National Weather Service’s forecast for the day — temperatures were expected to be warmer — and handling any lingering hot spots would be easier with hoses in place.

While he was still at the station, he said, he relayed his concerns by phone to Battalion Chief Mario Garcia, who was in charge of the operation.

Garcia “said something along the lines of, ‘OK. Let me go check it out, and then I’ll get back to you,’ ” McIndoe testified last month.

Despite the warning, Garcia’s orders never changed, and McIndoe spent a couple hours or so that morning rolling up hose lines.

At one point, McIndoe said, he came across a smoldering ash pit. He retrieved a backpack with water from his engine, sprayed into the ground with a couple gallons of water and dug up the dirt with his hand tool until he was satisfied it was cool.

Days later, amid high winds, embers from the Lachman fire ignited into the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes.

McIndoe was one of a dozen Los Angeles firefighters deposed in January in a lawsuit filed by Palisades fire victims against the city and the state. Transcripts and videos of the testimony were released Thursday and Friday, backing up earlier reporting by The Times that crews were ordered to pack up their hoses despite signs that the Lachman fire was not completely out.

One firefighter, Scott Pike, testified that he informed a captain of hot spots and ash pits in the area but that he never received orders to take care of the hazards.

Garcia testified that no one informed him of any concerns about picking up the hoses and that he believed the decision was made before his shift.

The testimony raises questions about why LAFD officials did not address concerns expressed to them about weather conditions and potentially dangerous hot spots that could flare up into another fire. With Pike and McIndoe saying they were following directions from above, and Garcia and the battalion chief from the prior shift appearing to pass the buck to others, it is unclear who made the decision to leave the Lachman fire.

LAFD spokesperson Stephanie Bishop declined to answer the question of who decided to pull the hoses, citing an ongoing investigation. She also would not answer whether officials had identified the captain whom Pike spoke with or determined what the captain did with his concerns.

Pike said he did not know the captain’s name but believed the captain was from Engine 69.

McIndoe testified that he was the captain on Engine 69 that day. In an email Saturday, McIndoe said he was not authorized to speak with the media but wanted to correct the record: “I did not speak to, nor do I recall seeing, Firefighter Pike the day that we picked up hose at the Lachman fire.”

Garcia did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Pike did not respond to a request for comment.

That day, McIndoe testified, he saw Garcia on the hill picking up hoses and brought up their earlier conversation.

“I just went up to him, and I said, ‘Hey, I hope you don’t think I’m just trying to get out of work,’ ” McIndoe said. “And he said, no, that’s — that’s fine. Something along those lines, and that that’s all I can really recall.”

He said he was trying to clarify with Garcia that he believed “that the hose should stay up a little bit longer.”

Garcia testified that when he got to the burn scar, no one raised any concerns about the hose pickup, nor did he see any need to leave the equipment at the site.

He said he thought the decision to pick up the hoses was made before his shift — though he was “not 100 percent sure” — and that it was a “collaborative decision, based off all the information that was received.”

By the time he got up to the burn area, Garcia testified, half the hose had already been picked up. He walked the perimeter to ensure there was a line cut around it and that it was cold, and did not see any smoke or any sign that the fire was not fully extinguished.

“Came across several members,” he said. “Nobody mentioned anything about there being any concerns of any sort.”

Battalion Chief Martin Mullen, who was on duty before Garcia, testified that he walked the perimeter four times and left the hose lines in place overnight as a precaution, keeping two assistant chiefs, Vinny Alvarado and Joseph Everett, in the loop. Mullen said they informed another top chief, Phillip Fligiel.

The hoses could be hooked up again quickly “if something were to happen,” Mullen testified.

Mullen testified that he also notified Garcia: “I told him I left him hose lines in place overnight, you need to walk that and make sure there’s nothing going on up there.”

Mullen, who said he was not involved in deciding when to pick up the hoses, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In an email Sunday, Everett said: “I was not present or assigned to that incident. As a result I made no command decisions nor do I have information as to anyones testimony.”

Text messages obtained by The Times through a public records request in December show that Fligiel, Alvarado and Everett were making plans to remove the equipment on Jan. 1. The Lachman fire, which federal prosecutors believe was deliberately set, flared up shortly after midnight on Jan. 1, 2025. A few hours later, at 4:46 a.m., the LAFD announced that it was fully contained at eight acres.

“I imagine it might take all day to get that hose off the hill,” Fligiel said in a group chat early the morning of Jan. 1. “Make sure that plan is coordinated.”

At 1:35 p.m. on Jan. 2, Garcia texted Fligiel and Everett: “All hose and equipment has been picked up.”

Earlier that day, Pike was making troubling observations that led him to think that the entire area needed to be re-investigated. He saw about five smoky areas and ash pits, including one he remembered vividly that was too hot to touch with his gloved hand.

“So I just kicked it with my boot to kind of expose it, and there was, like red hot, like, coals,” he testified. “And I even heard crackling.”

Pike, a 23-year LAFD veteran based at a station in Sunland, was working an overtime shift at Fire Station 23, the LAFD’s second outpost in the Palisades, that day. He relayed his observations to a captain and two firefighters.

“That’s how I approached him, is like, ‘Hey, Cap … We have hot spots in general. We have some ash pits,’ ” Pike testified about his conversation with the captain. “That’s an alert to double-check the whole area and maybe we need to switch our tactics.”

Pike testified that it was not his job “to overstep and tell him what to do. He earned that rank.”

The captain, he said, suggested possibly bringing hand tools or a backpack filled with water up the hill to extinguish any hot spots. Pike went back to picking up the hose while awaiting new orders, which never came.

Pike testified that he felt his colleagues — the captain and two firefighters — blew him off.

“It kind of sits heavy with me that nobody listened to me,” he said.

In his deposition, McIndoe did not recall details about other conversations he had that day.

He was asked by a plaintiffs’ attorney: “Any dialogue with anyone else that you haven’t told me about concerning any of the work that was being done up there at the Lachman fire site, in terms of checking for smokers? Making sure that you got all the hose? Anything like that?”

McIndoe responded: “I don’t recall specific conversations. I think I may have had a conversation with one or two of the other captains that were on scene before we left.”

McIndoe testified that he told that captain — whom he said was from Fire Station 37 — that he thought it would be a good idea to leave the hose out because the warm weather could preheat the ground and bring up smokers, “and it would be nice to have the hose lines in place to address those.”

The Times reported in October that crews were ordered to leave the Lachman fire, even though the ground was still smoldering and rocks were hot to the touch.

In a text message reviewed by The Times, a firefighter who was at the scene wrote that Garcia had been told it was a “bad idea” to leave because of the visible signs of smoking terrain, which crews feared could start a new fire if left unprotected.

“And the rest is history,” the firefighter wrote.

Feb. 26 (UPI) — In a court hearing Thursday, the Justice Department must convince a judge that it didn’t prosecute Kilmar Abrego Garcia as retaliation for fighting his deportation.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert McGuire, based in Nashville, secured an indictment in 2025 against Abrego Garcia, who is undocumented and married to an American citizen, for human trafficking from a 2022 traffic stop in Tennessee. Abrego Garcia had nine passengers in the vehicle, and he was not arrested or given a ticket for the stop.

The government alleges he was the driver in a human smuggling conspiracy, but only after he was mistakenly deported to El Salvador in April 2025. The government returned him in May after court rulings demanded it and McGuire got the indictment.

Abrego Garcia’s lawyers have argued that the prosecution is in retaliation for challenging his deportation. While vindictive prosecution is difficult to prove, U.S. District Judge Waverly D. Crenshaw has signaled that he may agree with Abrego Garcia’s lawyers.

Crenshaw pointed to comments made by Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche in a Fox News interview the day Abrego Garcia was brought back to the United States.

Blanche said that the Justice Department began its investigation into the traffic stop after the federal court in Maryland determined that it had no right to deport Abrego Garcia, The Washington Post said.

“What should we do as the Department of Justice when a judge is accusing us of doing something wrong?” Blanche said. “We have an obligation … to investigate it, and that’s exactly what we did.”

McGuire has said in court that he alone made the decision to prosecute Abrego Garcia, but messages between him and the DOJ have contradicted that claim, The Post reported.

Associate Deputy Attorney General Aakash Singh told McGuire in an April 27 message in the court filings that prosecuting Abrego Garcia should be considered a “top priority.”

“The only ‘independent’ decision Mr. McGuire made,” Abrego Garcia attorney Sean Hecker said in a Dec. 19 court filing, “was whether to acquiesce in [the Office of the Deputy Attorney General’s] directive to charge this case, or risk forfeiting his job as Acting U.S. Attorney — and perhaps his employment with the Department of Justice — for refusing to do the political bidding of an Executive Branch that is avowedly using prosecutorial power for ‘score settling.'”

McGuire has also argued that the reason he didn’t prosecute Abrego Garcia earlier is that he didn’t know about the traffic stop. But the judge disputed that claim.

“Cases do not magically appear on the desks of prosecutors,” Crenshaw wrote in October. “The motivations of the people who place the file on the prosecutor’s desk are highly relevant.”

On Thursday, McGuire and two agents from the Department of Homeland Security are expected to testify. Abrego Garcia’s attorneys have tried to subpoena Blanche and Singh, but Crenshaw has said their testimony isn’t necessary.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio updated U.S. legislators on Iran just hours before President Donald Trump issued warnings over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions in his State of the Union address. In the past days, U.S. military forces in the region have grown to the highest levels seen since the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. New assets that have arrived include U.S. Air Force F-22 Raptors, reportedly in Israel, while F-16s have been deployed to Diego Garcia to protect the Indian Ocean outpost against potential Iranian attacks.

Rubio provided a rare intelligence briefing for congressional leaders — the so-called “gang of eight” — which includes the senior lawmakers from both parties in the House and Senate, as well as the chairs and ranking members of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The contents of the briefing are classified, but it underscores the wider preparations for potential significant military action against Iran.

The “gang of eight” receives classified intelligence from the White House in the form of briefings, and their content can include preparations for military operations. It is notable that the last time Rubio publicly briefed the group was on January 5, one day after the U.S. military launched its successful operation to capture Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.

As he left yesterday’s briefing, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said: “This is serious, and the administration has to make its case to the American people.”

“I’m very concerned,” added Jim Himes, the ranking democrat on the House intelligence committee. “Wars in the Middle East don’t go well for presidents, for the country, and we have not heard articulated a single good reason for why now is the moment to launch yet another war in the Middle East.”

Rubio’s intel update preceded Trump’s State of the Union address last night, during which the U.S. president reaffirmed that Iran would never be permitted to acquire nuclear weapons.

In his address, Trump stated that he would rather handle rising tensions with Iran through diplomatic means. However, he also claimed that Tehran was developing ballistic missile technology that could potentially reach the United States, without providing further details.

“They’ve already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas,” Trump said. “And they’re working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.”

WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice appears to have withheld from disclosure files on disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein related to a claim that President Trump sexually abused a minor, a top Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday.

“Oversight Democrats can confirm that the DOJ appears to have illegally withheld FBI interviews with this survivor who accused President Trump of heinous crimes.” U.S. Rep. Robert Garcia of Long Beach said in a statement. “Oversight Democrats will open a parallel investigation into this.”

Garcia is the top-ranking Democrat on the House committee probing Epstein and how federal law enforcement handled its investigation into sex trafficking accusations against the financier.

Trump has repeatedly said he cut ties with Epstein two decades ago and was not aware of the late financier’s activities. The president has also said he didn’t engage in wrongdoing. Last year, Trump strenuously opposed releasing the Epstein files but then signed legislation forcing their release after it was passed by Congress.

A Justice Department spokeswoman said the file that listed all FBI interviews with the victim was temporarily removed in order to do redactions and put back online on Thursday. The spokeswoman said the department has not deleted any of the files and all documents responsive to the law have been produced unless they fall within a category that justifies being withheld.

The White House pointed to a Justice Department social media post saying “ALL responsive documents have been produced” unless there is a legitimate legal reason for withholding them. Democrats on the House Oversight Committee “should stop misleading the public while manufacturing outrage from their radical anti-Trump base,” the statement added.

A White House spokesperson previously cited the release of documents as evidence of its transparency and support for helping Epstein’s victims.

Sara Guerrero, a spokesperson for Garcia, said the department “has yet to respond as to why these documents are missing, despite the active subpoena from the Oversight Committee that does not allow for withholding these documents. They are not addressing the missing files about the survivor and her allegations.”

Legislation Congress passed last year to force disclosure of the Epstein files permits limited redactions for reasons such as to protect victims or classified information and to avoid jeopardizing ongoing criminal investigations.

“Under the Oversight Committee’s subpoena and the Epstein Files Transparency Act, these records must immediately be shared with Congress and the American public,” Garcia said. “Covering up direct evidence of a potential assault by the President of the United States is the most serious possible crime in this White House cover up.”

Tarabay and Strohm write for Bloomberg News. Steven T. Dennis and Hadriana Lowenkron of Bloomberg contributed to this report.

On 18 February 2026, reports emerged that Britain was withholding American permission to use Diego Garcia in any hypothetical strike against Iran. The following day, Trump posted “DO NOT GIVE AWAY DIEGO GARCIA” on Truth Social, linking the base directly to potential operations against Tehran in terms that left no room for diplomatic interpretation. The sequence lasted forty-eight hours and revealed what months of careful legal construction had obscured: that the architecture of conditional access Britain had built around a strategically significant military installation was worth precisely what the decisive power chose to make it worth. Whether the intervention also carried tactical signalling toward Tehran is a legitimate question, and intra-alliance friction of this kind sometimes functions as maximalist positioning before settlement. What matters analytically, however, is not the post itself but what the post revealed when operational pressure arrived. It was also, for anyone who had read Washington’s December 2025 National Security Strategy carefully, entirely predictable.

Power Does Not Ask

There are two ways to understand how military power operates in the international system, and the Chagos episode forces a choice between them. The first holds that great powers are meaningfully constrained by the frameworks they inhabit, alliance structures, legal agreements, and diplomatic settlements, and that these frameworks produce stable, predictable behavior even when the underlying interests they were designed to manage come under pressure. The second holds that frameworks are expressions of power relationships at a given moment rather than independent constraints upon them, so that when power shifts or decides to assert itself, the frameworks adjust to reflect the new reality rather than containing it. The first is the language of liberal internationalism. The second is the language of realism, and what February produced was an unambiguous realist moment.

The December 2025 National Security Strategy had already committed this diagnosis to paper. The document did not describe Europe as weak through circumstance. It described Europe as having chosen weakness, identifying a “loss of national identities and self-confidence” as the continent’s defining condition and stating openly that it is “far from obvious whether certain European countries will have economies and militaries strong enough to remain reliable allies.” The strategy framed European concerns about Russia as evidence of that same condition, noting that this lack of self-confidence was most evident in Europe’s relationship with Russia, despite the fact that European allies enjoy a significant hard power advantage over Russia by almost every measure save nuclear weapons. Washington’s reading of its European partners, formalized two months before the Diego Garcia friction became public, was of states that had systematically preferred institutional solutions over sovereign ones, legal arrangements over unconditional control, and managed conditionality over the exercise of will. Britain’s handling of Chagos was, in that context, not an anomaly. It was a confirmation.

What is analytically significant about Trump’s intervention is not simply that he rejected the deal but that he did not engage it at all, did not address the ICJ ruling that gave it legal foundation, did not contest the lease terms that were its operational expression, and did not enter the diplomatic logic that had produced it over months of negotiation. A decision of this kind does not derive its authority from the framework it overrides, because it precedes that framework, and the framework itself only ever existed on the sufferance of the power now choosing to move against it. When Trump asserted that leases are “no good when it comes to countries,” he was not making a legal argument that could be answered within the same register. He was stating a principle about the nature of sovereign will: that when it moves, it moves prior to and above whatever conditional arrangements were constructed in the period of its dormancy.

This is realism in its purest operational form, in which states pursue interests, great powers pursue interests with the capacity to enforce them, and legal architecture functions as an instrument of power when it serves those interests and an obstacle to be displaced when it does not. The Chagos deal did not alter the underlying power relationship between Washington and London, but it did create a layer of conditionality over an asset Washington considers operationally essential, and when operational pressure arrived, that conditionality became intolerable, not because Mauritius is hostile, not because Britain is an adversary, but because no great power conducting military projection at a global scale can accept that a weak state sits structurally inside the chain of its operational decisions, regardless of how that state arrived there or how benign its intentions are understood to be.

Beneath the realist logic sits a transactional one, and the two reinforce each other in ways that matter for how Britain should read what happened. Trump does not evaluate alliance relationships by their historical depth or their institutional architecture. He evaluates them by what they yield in the current moment, and every asset is a leverage point to be maximized. Diego Garcia represents unconditional American operational value. The Chagos deal reduced that value by inserting a condition. From a transactional perspective, that insertion was not a diplomatic nuance to be managed but a concession to be reversed, because Trump’s governing principle across every alliance relationship is maximum American gain, and conditionality is by definition a reduction of gain. The decisionism explains how he responded. The transactionalism explains why.

The Geography of Decision

Diego Garcia is not incidental to American power projection in the region, though its significance is that of an enabler rather than a prerequisite. The base sits at the center of the Indian Ocean, within operational reach of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Malacca, and the East African littoral, and it has supported American military operations across that entire arc for half a century through bomber rotations, logistics chains, and a sustained forward presence that no other installation in the basin fully replicates at the same scale and permanence. It does not make American power projection possible in any absolute sense, but it makes it faster, cheaper, and more sustained, which in the context of time-sensitive operational planning against a target like Iran is not a marginal difference but a meaningful one.

The Iran dimension exposes the conditionality problem with particular clarity because the operational context in which Diego Garcia’s value is most acute is precisely the context in which conditional access is most dangerous. American military assets have accumulated across the Middle East, talks are active, and a base capable of projecting strategic airpower directly into the Persian Gulf theater is not a background consideration but a variable whose availability, or unavailability, shapes what options exist and on what timeline. Britain’s reported reluctance to grant operational clearance, under a deal still unratified and still contested in domestic courts, still legally dependent on Mauritius’s continued cooperation, revealed that the conditionality embedded in the arrangement had already entered the operational calculus before any of the stabilizing assumptions behind the deal had time to establish themselves. Strategic friction did not arrive at the end of a long maturation period. It arrived in weeks, because operational pressure does not wait for diplomatic frameworks to consolidate.

That compression of the timeline is itself the most realistic lesson. Power does not defer to the developmental logic of legal arrangements, and when the operational moment arrives, whatever sits between a great power’s will and its objective is reclassified from a framework to be respected into a problem to be solved.

The Structural Position of the Weak

The analytical core of the Chagos case is not about Mauritius’s intentions, which by all available evidence are not hostile, but about the structural position that the deal assigned to it within the architecture of American operational planning, because in the logic of great power competition, it is position rather than intention that determines strategic relevance. By inserting itself, or being inserted, into the chain of conditions governing a great power’s operational freedom, a weak state acquires a form of leverage it could never achieve through military means, and the Chagos deal gave Mauritius exactly that position, not through hostility but through legal standing, not through power but through presence within a conditional architecture that a great power now had reason to find constraining.

For Washington operating within a decisionist strategic logic, that presence is categorically unacceptable regardless of Mauritius’s intentions. The relevant question is not whether Mauritius would obstruct American operations but whether, under the terms of the arrangement, it structurally could, and the answer is yes in a way that no amount of diplomatic goodwill can fully neutralize. Sovereignty transferred to Mauritius is not sovereignty parked with a neutral party but sovereignty that now sits within reach of Chinese economic leverage, meaning the lease does not merely introduce conditionality but introduces conditionality whose future content Washington cannot determine or guarantee. A great power conducting global military projection cannot organize its operational planning around the sustained goodwill of a small state whose strategic orientation it cannot guarantee. That such goodwill is required at all is the problem the deal created.

Weak states do not constrain great powers through legal arrangements in any durable sense, because the constraint only holds when the great power chooses to honor it, and great powers choose to honor constraints only when the cost of non-compliance exceeds the cost of compliance, a calculation that shifts decisively once operational necessity enters the equation and the framework reveals itself to be dependent on tolerance rather than grounded in power.

Conclusion

Britain converted unconditional sovereign control over a strategically significant military installation into a conditional leasehold arrangement whose operationalization depended on a small state’s legal cooperation and presented that conversion as a resolution of vulnerability rather than the creation of a new one. Britain was not being naive. It was an attempt to preserve the base’s long-term legal viability against mounting international pressure, a calculation that the alliance relationship would absorb any friction that followed. What Britain did not account for was that its ally evaluates arrangements not by their legal durability but by whether they constrain American will, and a solution sophisticated enough to satisfy international law was simultaneously insufficiently decisive to satisfy Washington.

From the perspective of the December 2025 National Security Strategy, that conversion was not a surprise. It was the predictable output of a European strategic culture that Washington had already formally diagnosed: one that reaches instinctively for institutional solutions when strong states would resolve through will, that mistakes legal legitimacy for strategic security, and that has internalized the habits of the post-Cold War order to the point where it can no longer easily distinguish between a framework and the power that makes frameworks real.

Trump’s response was the most realistic verdict on that presentation, not an argument against the deal’s legal coherence, which was never in question, but a decision that the framework was insufficient for the operational reality it was meant to serve, delivered in terms that made the underlying logic unmistakable. The framework did not collapse under the pressure. It was revealed, under pressure, to have rested entirely on the assumption that the decisive power would continue to choose not to decide otherwise, an assumption that realism has always identified as the central fragility of arrangements built on consent rather than grounded in power.

The strong do not negotiate with the architecture of constraint, and for Europe, February was less a shock than a reminder that the rules it has built its strategic identity around have always depended on the continued willingness of a decisive power to operate within them.

Fellow American Stevenson, 28, smiled, nodded his head and clapped as Garcia added: “I want to be a great champion, I’m not scared.

“I fought Devin Haney. I’ll fight you, Shakur Stevenson. I’ll fight anybody.”

Garcia was then told Stevenson had said he was “levels above” him right now, to which he replied: “You’ve got to have some type of punching power to get me off you, because it’ll just be a different style – and I’m not going to hit him light.”

Garcia was given a one-year ban for failing a drugs test in 2024 after beating Haney, with the victory overturned and the fight recorded as a ‘no contest’.

The win for Garcia was his first since a shock points loss to Rolando Romero last year and improves his record to 25 victories and two defeats.

Barrios was upgraded from interim to full WBC champion in June 2024 and had made two previous successful defences via draws, retaining his title with a majority draw against a then 46-year-old Manny Pacquiao last summer.

Garcia is the new world champion after a unanimous points decision victory against title holder.

Ryan Garcia has won the WBC welterweight title with a dominant unanimous decision over Mario Barrios.

Garcia dropped Barrios in the opening seconds on Saturday night in Las Vegas, Nevada, and controlled the fight with sharp combinations. The 27-year-old stayed patient after the early knockdown and turned more conservative late with a big lead.

The judges scored the fight 119-108, 120-107 and 118-109 for Garcia (25-2, 20 knockouts) of Victorville, California. The Associated Press news agency had it 119-109.

“It feels good to finally be a world champion,” Garcia said. “It’s something I’ve been dreaming of since I was seven years old.”

Garcia already has begun to turn to his future, looking at WBO super lightweight champion Shakur Stevenson and saying he wanted him next.

This was the second underwhelming bout in a row for Barrios (29-3-2, 18 KOs) of San Antonio, Texas, after he was fortunate to escape with a majority draw victory over Manny Pacquiao in July.

The win capped a turbulent stretch for Garcia, including a suspension, fines and other controversies.

In the co-main event, Gary Antuanne Russell kept his title against Andy Hiraoka.

Our present podcast era has bred a new generation of interlocutors from the public sphere, veteran interviewees turned journalists. Harper Simon is among the many pro musicians who have taken on the role of insatiably curious interrogator. The singer-songwriter, who is the son of Paul Simon, has made four solo albums and toured the country both as a solo artist and sideman, but it wasn’t until he was tapped by music manager Michael Lustig in 2016 to host an internet series called “Talk Show” that Simon found his new avocation.

The cream of Simon’s interviews have now been collected in “Thinking Out Loud,” which is published by L..A. imprint Hat & Beard Press. I chatted with Simon about the art of the interview, Pink Floyd and Ed Snowden.

✍️ Author Chat

I have found that people who have been interviewed a lot are good at interviewing others. They know how to avoid the banal and obvious questions.

I’m not a trained journalist, so the conversations were closer to what Andy Warhol’s “Interview” magazine used to be. More of a casual back-and-forth, rather than me trying to ask questions or having someone promote their product. So the book is really a combination of folks that I’ve known my whole life and others that I just asked to interview.

Interviewing public figures can be a very stilted experience. And then you wind up not getting much of anything.

Interviews with journalists are a funny thing. There is always this weird, uncomfortable hierarchical relationship, where the journalist might feel superior, or the subject feels that way. It creates this strange imbalance. The journalist might feel the need to wrest some hot information from the subject, or find some aha moment and then the subject gets their guard up. I feel like the interviews in my book are very relaxed. You’re going to get some truth, even if it’s a modest truth. There were some interviews I left out of the book because the subjects seemed too media trained or too guarded.

Some of your interviewees, like Eric Idle and Buck Henry, are people you’ve known your entire life, having grown up with your dad in that kind of very stimulating artistic milieu. Does that help or hurt?

I think I might get better material from folks like that. There’s a warmth there, but I’m also a huge fan of their work, so I want to hear about Eric Idle’s work with Monty Python, or Buck Henry hosting “Saturday Night Live.” There are still plenty of stories that I’ve never heard.

Harper Simon, the artist and son of Paul Simon, has released three solo albums and toured the country. His latest project is a collection of interviews.

(Demme)

Someone like Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has been interviewed hundreds of times in his career. What is there left to ask?

It’s kind of like my father, where the legacy is so familiar and well-known, what is there left to be said? What is there left to say about “Dark Side of The Moon”? But it turned out to be a really good interview. He had some great things to say about [Pink Floyd founder] Syd Barrett, how Gilmour felt like the other members had behaved callously towards him at times. He also speaks with great warmth about his own family.

Harry Dean Stanton is in the book, and I have to empathize. He was by far the most difficult interview subject I’ve ever had to deal with. A man of few words.

It’s funny, because I wound up doing some projects with Harry Dean, like this big tribute event to help raise money for Vidiots in Eagle Rock, but even after all of that, we didn’t get any closer. He was a very hard person to know.

You interviewed James Woolsey, and you guys were definitely not on the same page, but the tone remains civil. Don’t you think it’s important to have a reasoned discourse with someone you don’t agree with politically?

Absolutely, but that was one that definitely became contentious at times. James Woolsey had been the former head of the CIA under Clinton. So I came into the interview feeling very outgunned. I’m not a trained political journalist. But somehow I had gotten it in my head that I was Abbie Hoffman and he was J. Edgar Hoover or something. This was 10 years ago, and Edward Snowden was the big story in the news. So I led with that, and Jim Woolsey, being a good CIA man with very strong convictions, felt that Snowden was a traitor. But then he said he would like to see him hung by his neck, which felt aggressive. Then things really went off the rails when we somehow got locked into a discussion about Israel and Palestine. I remember him saying to me, “You’re just parroting the talking points of the Muslim Brotherhood.” Now I found those words echoing in my thoughts when I listen to some people discuss the current situation. I respected him and enjoyed the conversation but it was intense. I thought I held my own reasonably well but he was a tough guy to get in the ring with.

(This Q&A was edited for length and clarity.)

📰 The Week(s) in Books

“‘Second Skin’ is more sociological than sexy; more anthropological than animalistic,” writes Meredith Maran.

(Los Angeles Times illustration; book jacket from Catapult)

Meredith Maran thinks Anastasiia Fedorova’s book “Second Skin” does a great job of busting open the taboo of what is commonly regarded as deviant sexual desire. The book “advocates for a person’s right to like what they like and to get it consensually,” writes Maran.

Victoria Lancaster has a chat with Emily Nemens about her new novel “Clutch” and the challenges of writing about midlife among a clutch of close female friends. “I was cognizant of balance and understanding the lazy-Susan of it,” says Nemens. “Making sure I was spinning all the way around the table and touching each piece in each storyline.”

Two new novels about game-changing women in history — Janet Rich Edwards’ “Canticle” and Paula McLain’s “Skylark” — find favor with Bethanne Patrick. What these books “get right about their very different heroines and time periods is that change doesn’t happen overnight. … [But] change can and does happen, one determined woman at a time.”

Finally, on the occasion of the new screen adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” six authors weigh in on their love of Emily Brontë’s enduring romance novel.

📖 Bookstore Faves

Skylight Books on Vermont is a staple of the Los Feliz literati.

(Joel Barhamand/For the Times)

Let us praise Skylight Books, which for over 30 years has remained a pillar of its Los Feliz community, with the main shop and the arts annex just a few doors away from each other on Vermont Boulevard. Store manager Mary Wiliams tells us what her customers are sweeping off the shelves right now.

What is selling right now?

“Vigil” by George Saunders is our biggest seller right now. Aside from that, it seems like great recent fiction in paperback is dominating the bestseller list — “Rejection” by Tony Tulathimutte, “The City and Its Uncertain Walls” by Haruki Murakami, “Martyr!” by Kaveh Akbar, and “All Fours” by Miranda July all are books that keep on selling really well for us, month after month.

Do you sell more fiction than nonfiction, or is it a tie?

We sell a good amount of both, but fiction is the bigger seller. Especially literary fiction, which is our bread and butter. On the nonfiction front, “Everything Now” by Rosecrans Baldwin is a perennial bestseller out of our Regional section — it’s a great collection of essays about Los Angeles. And everything Patti Smith touches turns to gold, so her book “Bread of Angels” is also a hit here.

Your arts annex is unlike anything else in L.A. I suppose there is still a market for cool periodicals and expensive art books that the internet hasn’t knocked out?

Our goal with the annex is for it to be a place of discoverability — where you can find the weird cool art book, comic or magazine you didn’t know you needed. We hope even our customers who are well-versed in art books find something new every visit. A fair amount of what we carry isn’t widely available online in the U.S., so when we put it on our website in our Annex Picks section and advertise it in our newsletter, we get orders from around the country.

Skylight Books in Los Angeles is located at 1818 North Vermont Ave.

(Please note: The Times may earn a commission through links to Bookshop.org, whose fees support independent bookstores.)

Posting on the Truth Social platform on Wednesday, Trump wrote: “I have been telling Prime Minister Keir Starmer, of the United Kingdom, that Leases are no good when it comes to Countries, and that he is making a big mistake by entering a 100 Year Lease…”

Judge states Trump administration has made ‘one empty threat after another’ to deport Salvadoran national to Africa.

A United States federal judge has ruled that the administration of US President Donald Trump cannot re-detain Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran national who was wrongfully deported last year and who the federal government has sought to deport again.

US District Judge Paula Xinis stated on Tuesday that a 90-day detention period had passed without the administration presenting a workable plan to deport Abrego Garcia, whose lawyers say he is being punished because his wrongful detention embarrassed the government.

Xinis said that the government “made one empty threat after another to remove him to countries in Africa with no real chance of success”.

“From this, the court easily concludes that there is no ‘good reason to believe’ removal is likely in the reasonably foreseeable future,” he added.

The ruling is a victory for Abrego Garcia, who has been fighting his attempted deportation by US immigration authorities who have tried to send him to African nations such as Uganda, Eswatini, Ghana, and Liberia. Abrego Garcia was released from an immigration detention facility in December.

His wrongful deportation to El Salvador, where he was held in a prison known for poor conditions and widespread abuse, became an early flashpoint in the Trump administration’s push to deport non-citizens from the US, often with few efforts to abide by due process requirements. The Trump administration had also accused Abrego Garcia of being a member of the criminal group MS-13, without offering any evidence.

His mistaken deportation prompted widespread anger and calls for the Trump administration to bring him back to the US. After initially stating that it had no authority to do so, the Trump administration brought Abrego Garcia back to the US in June following a court order mandating his return. It has since charged him with human smuggling, an allegation that he denies.