Group

Mohammed Annour spent much of his youth living in a flimsy shelter in a dusty, overcrowded refugee camp in east Africa, where the days were long, the food was poor and the future nonexistent.

“Go to the army and fight. That’s one option,” said Annour, who fled war in Sudan for the refugee camp in Chad when he was 9. “The other one is you stay there. But you don’t have a future.”

If he had stayed, Annour, now 33, has little doubt how his story would have ended.

“Probably,” he said, “I’m dead.”

Mohammed Annour, a refugee soccer player who became a coach, and Alan Barker, chairman of the Mighty Cosmos, look across a field in Sweden.

(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)

Instead, he’s in Sweden, raising two boys, working as a quality control inspector for a textile company and playing amateur soccer for a team in the country’s fifth division. And the only thing that separates his experience from the tens of thousands of desperate people he left behind in the camp is the fact someone believed in him enough to give him a chance.

“Everybody needs a chance,” Annour said. “Don’t throw people out. People just need a chance in life.”

“And we got that chance,” he continued, “because of Katie-Jay and Gabriel.”

That would be Katie-Jay Scott and Gabriel Stauring, a pair of South Bay activists who showed up at Annour’s camp on a blazing hot day in 2011, rolled a battered soccer ball across a barren field and transformed an untold number of lives.

Scott and Stauring founded the humanitarian group iACT largely to respond to the crisis in Darfur, a semi-desert plateau in western Sudan that has known nothing but war this century. But unlike many of the dozens of other similarly minded people and groups working in Africa, Scott and Stauring came not to preach, but to listen. They came with questions, not answers.

And what they were told was that the children in the camps needed more than food and shelter. They needed a routine, they needed recreation, they needed joy and they needed hope.

Founders of iACT Gabriel Stauring, left, and Katie-Jay Scott hold up gifts they received after a training session in the Central African Republic. Stauring and Scott were killed in a car crash in 2021, but their nonprofit continues to support refugees.

(Courtesy of iACT)

In other words, they needed soccer.

“Many organizations came into the camps. They just came around and took some pictures and then they leave,” said Annour, a slight man with a serious countenance. “I think [Scott and Stauring] understood us as humans, not just these kids or these people who need food or shelter.

“They saw another side. They saw these people that can make something in life.”

Stauring and Scott were killed in a car accident in Manhattan Beach five years ago, but their legacy lives on in the unique advocacy and aid program they created, one that uses soccer to teach skills and provide structure to refugees stranded in camps, shelters and intolerable poverty in four countries on two continents.

“They were so kind, careful,” Annour said. “Listening to everyone. It didn’t matter where you came from, which color you are. They were open and gave time to everyone they met.”

“Honestly, I didn’t know they were going to change my life or anything,” added Moubarak Abdallah, another refugee introduced to soccer by Scott and Stauring. “I saw them as other people who just come and go. But they were quite special people.

Grace Tanda, of the Mighty Cosmos, strikes the ball during a match. The soccer team in Sweden is comprised of refugees.

(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)

“They wanted to help our ideas shine, to [give] other people hope. They were listening to what I needed.”

Today, there are more than 5,000 children participating in iACT soccer academies in Chad, the Central African Republic, Cameroon and Mexico. Another 1,800 children are enrolled in the group’s Little Ripples preschool program, which also served 475,000 meals to students and staff last year.

But the organization, like many similarly focused humanitarian groups, is fighting for its survival amid a global backlash against refugees and migrants.

The hostility has been especially strong in the U.S., where the second Trump administration has sharply restricted immigration and asylum access and drastically cut congressionally approved spending for life-sustaining programs previously funded through USAID. Many European countries have followed that lead, adopting a stauncher approach to border enforcement and deportations and slashing support for development assistance by 13.8% in 2025, the largest cut in a decade.

This summer, violent anti-immigrant protests in South Africa forced more than 178,000 people to flee to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Nigeria and other countries, reversing a trend that has seen the region’s richest country welcome migrants to work on farms, in construction and other low-paid jobs. Public sentiment toward refugees and migrants has also hardened elsewhere, creating a crisis for nonprofit aid groups.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, this month warned the gap between humanitarian needs and donor contributions is widening, leading to deep cuts and forcing aid groups to fight one another for the shrinking dollars that remain — all at a time when conflicts in Syria, Gaza and Ukraine have swelled the number of refugees worldwide to nearly 42 million; another 69 million people are displaced.

That’s more than 1 out of every 70 people on Earth, according to the UNHCR.

Annour and his family were once part of that wave, fleeing their home in Sudan in 2003, stepping around dead bodies and witnessing unimaginable horror, to escape one in a series of continuing civil wars that have given way to genocide. More than 15 million people have been displaced in the 23 years of fighting, with more than 1.3 million still stranded in teeming refugee camps in eastern Chad.

Annour said he would have perished there if not for Stauring and Scott, who introduced soccer to their camp. Three years after the pair arrived, an international tournament for stateless players, the CONIFA World Football Cup, was held and iACT entered a 20-man team comprised of players from 12 camps. Annour, a left back, made the cut as did Abdallah, a physical midfielder with a perpetual smile who would become the team captain.

“No one is thinking this [is] going to be life-changing,” Abdallah remembers thinking. “You know, there was like a small chance but it became big dreams for us.”

The team, Darfur United, was outscored 39-0 in its two games in Ostersund, Sweden, but most of the players chose to stay in Ostersund rather than return to their camps and were welcomed by the Swedish government. They received asylum and eventually formed an integration team, the Mighty Cosmos, that advanced as high as the fifth division of Swedish soccer.

Abdallah is a natural leader, said Alan Barker, chairman of the Mighty Cosmos, and the kind of person who receives total respect from the other players.

Mugenyi Ngabu, left, cheers during the Mighty Cosmos’ match in Sweden. The team is comprised entirely of refugees.

(Courtesy of Darren Hamlin)

“He is a sort of guy you can rely on 100%,” Barker said. “Personally, I would trust him with my life. He is a doer, not a talker. A problem solver not a problem creator. And he always wants the best for everybody.”

Annour, he added, has been troubled by knee injuries on the field but remains “a strong and quiet yet forceful personality of the group.”

“He is a passionate believer in fair play and honesty and has no room for dishonesty or deception in any aspect of life,” Barker continued. “Maybe that’s a reflection of his childhood in the refugee camps and Chad, where there was no time for such things. He’s a sort of guy whose name would be first on the team sheet. The team sheet of football and life.”

More important is the fact that the players, teenagers or young adults when they arrived in Sweden, have married, had children of their own, become citizens and integrated into the local community, where their civic work was this year recognized with one of Sweden’s most prestigious awards.

“I never dreamed to be in this position when I was a kid. I was trying to survive, to live day by day,” said Annour, who is working three jobs to support his sons, aged 1 ½ and 4.

“I’m here. I can provide for my family. Moubarak provides for his family. It’s like saving a generation, not just me and Moubarak.”

“It’s about the chances,” agreed Abdallah, 35, who also lives in Sweden where he coaches the Mighty Cosmos while raising a 5-year-old son.

“The door has to open. That’s all.”

iACT offered a way to open those doors when it first rolled that battered soccer ball onto a dirt lot. Without that, “these guys wouldn’t be here, wouldn‘t have the lives they have,” said Darren Hamlin, a British filmmaker who has started a Kickstarter campaign to fund a documentary on the refugee players.

By focusing on single players and their game and not the vastness of the sprawling global refugee crisis, Hamlin says the film has the power to redefine these former refugees not as obscure numbers but as flesh-and-blood people with dreams and talents and aspirations. That was what inspired Scott and Stauring when they founded iACT.

“Football has this power to transcend sports. It becomes an emotional thing,” said Hamlin, who is behind on his goal of raising $66,000 by the end of the month to expand work on the documentary. “It doesn’t matter how many stats or things we put in front of people; they don’t really pay attention.

“But football kind of goes deeper sometimes. Football is kind of the vehicle that delivers the message.”

Getting that message out, however, is becoming increasingly difficult. As government funding for refugee programs around the world has dried up, groups like iACT have found themselves fighting for the same slice of a much smaller funding pie.

“Fundraising at all levels has become more difficult with the gutting of USAID, especially with the increase in larger NGOs [non-government organizations] applying for foundation grants,” said Merri Weir, a retired teacher and iACT board member since 2016. “It is becoming harder and harder because we’re competing with larger NGOs. The funding stream has become tighter.”

At the same time, the need has swelled.

“The refugee camps in Chad are still very unstable,” said Weir, who has visited the camps multiple times. “The current war has not ended and shows no sign of ending. Refugees are still coming across the border, which has more than doubled the number of Sudanese refugees.

“It is critical that we are able to sustain our current refugee-led programs.”

In response, Weir’s group, which will hold its annual fundraising event in Manhattan Beach next month, has considered everything short of a corner lemonade stand and selling chocolate door to door to make up for the lost financial backing it needs to continue what Scott and Stauring started.

“In the past, it is our uniqueness and our innovation and our refugee-led action [that] set us apart,” said Weir. “It was very appealing.”

The Trump administration complicated things even further in June 2025 when it instituted a travel ban and entry restriction list on Chad, leading the Chadian government to retaliate by revoking visas for American citizens, including aid workers. That means fewer children playing soccer and attending preschool, fewer meals being served — and fewer success stories like the ones told by Abdallah and Annour.

“I spent 12 years in a refugee camp,” Abdallah said. “People just hope to get a meal for the day. [iACT] brought the footballs and then just brought the idea. A chance to change our lives. Opportunity.

“There’s a lot of people in the refugee camps [that] could be pilots, doctors, better football players. Maybe there is the next Lionel Messi, Cristiano [Ronaldo], Lamine Yamal in the camp. But they don’t have any opportunity to get out.”

“The world is crazy. It’s just war everywhere,” added Annour, who is about to begin a college course on sports science. “Those people who don’t like refugees, who don’t want the United Nations to bring more refugees, they need to put themselves in our shoes.

“People are so naive to think they can just ignore what’s going on. It’s getting bigger every day.“

Abdallah and Annour may have left the camps, but the camps have not left them. The work they have done in Sweden includes the construction of a community sports and culture center, addressing crime prevention and mental health, refugee resettlement, and fundraising efforts that support the work of iACT and other groups working with the people they left behind.

“My mom is still in the same camp, so I’ve been back three times now with a lot of footballs, football boots and football equipment,” Abdallah said.

Scott and Stauring, who lived in Redondo Beach before the fatal car crash, thought they were bringing soccer to the camps in Africa, but what they really brought was hope and proof that if someone just opens the door, you might be surprised what you find on the other side.

Top Democrats in Congress have joined a California immigrant and the Nevada State Democratic Party in suing the Trump administration over its unprecedented voter fraud probes in both states and broader efforts to meddle in state-run elections nationwide — alleging they are a “pretext to seize control over elections.”

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., late Tuesday, accuses President Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche and the agencies they lead of using “shoddily compiled lists of supposed noncitizens” and “coercive threats of legal retaliation against state officials” to assert federal control over the Nov. 3 midterms.

In addition to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and several national Democratic groups, the plaintiffs include Erick Jose Jimenez, an “active California voter” and naturalized U.S. citizen since 2006 who now “fears that he will be unlawfully targeted for voting and disenfranchised (or worse)” given the Trump administration’s track record of misidentifying naturalized citizens as noncitizens.

Lauren Bis, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that while “Democrats and the media continue to dismiss concerns about voter fraud, the Trump Administration is taking decisive lawful action to protect our elections,” including by “prosecuting election crimes, strengthening election infrastructure security, and protecting vulnerable voters from fraud and coercion.”

“Anyone who illegally votes in our elections will be held accountable,” Bis said.

A Justice Department spokesperson said “election integrity is a top priority” and that the department’s actions are “grounded in the law and being litigated in open court.” A Homeland Security spokesperson said it is “laser focused on prosecuting and removing aliens who vote and preventing the dilution of the votes of U.S. citizens.”

Officials from both agencies have asserted that California and other states have ineffective policies for ensuring noncitizens do not vote — relying in part on voters attesting to being citizens — and staunchly defended their own processes for identifying noncitizens on state rolls.

Democrats and leading elections experts say isolated voter fraud does occur and should be taken seriously, but that there is no evidence of widespread fraud.

Tuesday’s lawsuit cites Trump administration claims of thousands of potential noncitizens on Nevada voter rolls crumbling amid state scrutiny. It also cites an administration list of 20,000 “likely noncitizens” allegedly on California rolls being “proven remarkably slapdash” and inaccurate in recent litigation between the administration and California.

The lawsuit alleges a coordinated effort between Trump and other administration officials — in violation of the 10th Amendment and other federal law — to intimidate state and local elections officials nationwide into removing voters from rolls, denying ballots to legally registered voters and segregating the ballots of others “based on spurious and unreliable claims that they are not citizens.”

It says the president is pushing the above efforts not “in a vacuum,” but in the face of repeated steps by Congress and the courts to block his election agenda.

The lawsuit, backed by prominent Democratic elections attorney Marc Elias, follows another filed in the same court last month by attorneys with the UCLA Voting Rights Project, on behalf of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, or CHIRLA, and a California voter named Pedro Trujillo.

That ongoing lawsuit challenges the Trump administration’s use of unproven federal databases to allege registered California voters are not citizens, which it says risks misidentifying eligible voters and has left naturalized citizens frightened — the same argument made by Jimenez.

Jimenez, who could not be reached for comment, has “eagerly and consistently exercised his right to vote” since becoming a citizen two decades ago, and plans to vote in the Nov. 3 election but fears being misidentified as a noncitizen and targeted, Tuesday’s lawsuit says.

Administration officials have defended the accuracy of their lists, including in the lawsuit the Justice Department filed against California last week. In that case, the Trump administration has asked the court to force California to set aside the ballots of the 20,000 “likely noncitizens” it flagged until their citizenship is confirmed.

First Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli, the lead federal prosecutor in L.A., has said that list was compiled using public California voter registration records and third-party and law enforcement data, and that federal authorities have “overwhelming evidence” that those voters are ineligible.

On Monday, federal authorities filed fraudulent registration and other election-related charges against 28 lawful permanent residents in California, which Essayli said “prove our list is accurate and that noncitizens are actually voting.”

However, other administration officials have acknowledged the lists may not be entirely accurate. Acting Deputy Atty. Gen. Trent McCotter said Monday that “there may be some names on there who, it turns out, ultimately are citizens.” A Homeland Security official said in a court filing Monday that “discrepancies” have been found in about 189 of the records.

California Secretary of State Shirley Weber and Dean Logan, head of the Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk’s office — both named defendants in the California case — have accused the Trump administration of illegally interfering in state elections and trying to purge voters in the immediate lead up to an election in violation of federal law using inaccurate data.

Logan’s office said Tuesday that a preliminary analysis of a subset of the administration’s list found many were born in the U.S., weren’t registered or had never voted.

Eric Dangerfield is surrounded by senior citizens.

After a packed set at Riot Fest the previous weekend, the 25-year-old lead singer and rhythm guitarist of the Paradox welcomed the quiet of his boomer-dominated neighborhood.

“I’m a suburban dude,” he said, smiling from his home in metro Atlanta, his cropped two-toned dreads bobbing as he spoke.

The Paradox spent much of the summer on the festival circuit, powering through a growing discography of pop-punk gems, so Dangerfield and the three other band members are taking a brief breather before their Proceed With Caution Tour starts this month — their first as headliners.

It’s peaceful. That is, “Except when the boys come over,” he adds.

On a late morning in September, the boys are here and accounted for: patching in to a video call, minutes apart, from their homes, also in suburban ATL. Dangerfield, born with the perfect stage name, has ideas that flow faster than he can seem to get them out. Then there’s Donald Bryant on bass. Yin to Dangerfield’s yang, with a quiet, commanding presence.

Percy “PC3” Crews has been playing drums since he was 3, and his vicious skills on the drum kit contrast with a cheery, relaxed demeanor. Finally, there’s Christopher Bernard, a.k.a. Xelan — the lead guitarist and Dangerfield’s vocal complement.

Dangerfield likens the four to musical superheroes from a Marvel series. But not so much the “Earth’s mightiest heroes” variety.

On their first headlining tour, the band brings its new EP, “Proceed With Caution,” to Los Angeles while claiming space in a historically white genre and weaving social commentary into its pop-punk sound.

(Shorefire Media)

“I’m like Mister Fantastic and Donald’s my Invisible Woman. Xelan’s the Thing, and Percy is John Storm,” he says of his partners in musical mischief. “If I’m ugly, just say that,” quips Xelan, the band’s oldest member at 30. “Yeah. Because you’re strong, bro,” reassures Eric.

By this time, the interview has devolved into fun-loving chaos.

They finish each other’s sentences and switch up their Google Meet backgrounds, cracking up as an awkward graduation portrait pops up. At some point, Bernard decides to give a bedroom tour, showing off his collection of Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy posters.

A photo of him with Travis Barker hangs next to a framed Billboard plaque on a nightstand. Barker was featured on the Paradox’s 2025 single “Bender” and performed with the group at Vans Warped Tour the same year.

The Billboard plaque commemorates the band’s song “Get the Message” from its debut EP, “NSFW,” reaching No. 1 on the Alternative Airplay chart in January — a great achievement for any rock artist — but the Paradox also happens to be the first all-Black band to do so.

The success, although rapid, didn’t come from nowhere. All of the members have been working toward music in some form for years.

Dangerfield had a deal with a small label where he was originally making a go of it as a pop and R&B soloist. He also put out his music online. Looking for something different, he remembered his passing interest in pop-punk from his days growing up in Palm Coast, Fla. It was the “Fat Lip” video by Sum 41 that sealed the deal.

Yearning to be in a band, he started working with Bernard, whom he met online and shared his passion for the genre. Bryant was Dangerfield’s childhood friend from Palm Coast who had also moved to Atlanta, while Crews had been a fixture on the local music scene. And the name? It came from Dangerfield’s love of quantum physics.

Shortly after the group officially formed in June 2024, Dangerfield’s then-girlfriend — now wife and band “momager” Lexi Dangerfield — opened Instagram and TikTok accounts filming and posting their homey videos. The band’s song “Kaitlyn” and some covers blew up. The artists’ perspective, filtered through a Gen Z lens, struck a multigenerational nerve.

Attention came so quickly that Dangerfield felt the need to defend against online detractors who were convinced the group was an industry plant.

From there, the fairy-tale plot thickened. Billie Joe Armstrong followed Dangerfield on Instagram, and the two struck up a friendship that led to the Paradox opening for Green Day on the Atlanta stop of its Saviors Tour. But this was, of course, after Jack White’s people called — who the group ended up opening for at Basement East in Nashville.

Things haven’t slowed down in the two years since, with opportunities coming fast and furious. In the spring of last year, the band signed a deal with Hundred Days Records, a subsidiary of Virgin Music Group, and teamed up with producers Mike Pepe and Robopop to work on “NSFW.”

“Bender,” the group’s collaboration with Barker, and “Do Me Like That” are featured on Madden NFL 27 and NBA 2K26 video game soundtracks. Last month, the musicians streamed a concert from Twitch superstar Kai Cenat’s house. And now, instead of opening for their idols, they are inviting them up on stage as guests. For their second Warped Tour in Long Beach, that meant Deryck Whibley of Sum 41 and Logan Henderson from Big Time Rush.

The embrace from established musicians has definitely helped the band navigate its rise. In a moment of doubt, Crews said Good Charlotte’s Joel Madden, in particular, came through with sage advice.

“He asked me a question: ‘How does it feel being where we were?’ And I was like, ‘It feels like a dream.’ It felt like I was gonna wake up on my desk sophomore year with drool on my f— table. And I was telling him that, and he was like, ‘You know, it may feel that way, but it is real … It’s real, and it’s you … you belong in these rooms.’”

The irony of being embraced in a mostly white subgenre of punk rock while Black American culture formed its foundation is not lost on the group. Had the band come about during one of Dangerfield’s favorite eras of music, the ’50s and ’60s — there would likely have been rooms in which they weren’t welcomed.

While the band members understand the impact their visibility has — especially for non-white kids who grew up in the suburbs as they did: skating, riding BMX, building Legos, watching anime, dreaming of a life onstage — it does require some balance. “They’re not asking Taking Back Sunday this stuff,” Dangerfield acknowledged when asked if they might tire of the representation mantle. “Or Blink, but … We are a minority in this space and in this country, and I think that you know the stuff that comes with being Black should definitely be talked about. I think those conversations are important.”

He said as much in August, when the group made its Tiny Desk debut in celebration of NPR’s Black Music Month. “Now, like they said, we made history,” he said, leaning into the mic after the first song. “And the Paradox is in the business of bringing rock ’n’ roll back to the originators.”

A glance at the comment section under the video makes clear the group’s authenticity resonates with those who haven’t felt seen or heard in certain spaces.

“I’m a black girl from the suburbs of Metro ATL,” wrote @rainjojo. “And I’m glad to see representation of people who are like me indulging in punk rock. I got into this genre from childhood shows like “16,” “Stoked”, and other early 2000 to 2010 shows, and I remember being bullied for being whitewashed. Please keep making more music like this.”

The tour is named after “Proceed With Caution,” the band’s sophomore EP released on Oct. 2. Across six tracks, it continues in the same vein as “NSFW,” with sharp melodies and a dash of humor thrown in. But on “That’s Not Fair,” the group wades deeper into social commentary. It was also the most difficult to record, cut raw with no click track.

“We were just trying to think of things that were not fair, [from] small and trivial like losing your keys to, I don’t know, using it as a bridge to talk about larger issues and things like that,” Dangerfield says of the song. “I think a big thing for me personally, it’s not political … is kind of the fact that everything is getting so expensive. The price of everything is rising so rapidly, and the salaries that people are being paid are not really growing to match that.”

The Paradox perform at The Moroccan Lounge on Thursday, Oct. 22.

(Hunter Lyon)

“And it’s like, we got very lucky, but the thing is, most people don’t,” he continued. “If you’re gonna sacrifice all your time, slaving away working for big corporations and stuff like that, you should at least be able to, you know, buy a candy bar or something.”

So far, the musicians aren’t taking anything for granted and are trying to enjoy the in-between moments.

Dangerfield and his wife took their daughter on a Disney cruise for her second birthday — she’s spent much of her young life traveling with the band.

With some of his publishing money, Bernard indulged his love of vintage Japanese fashion and has a 2000s-era Tuscan house on his vision board. Crews stays healthy, listens to lots of Snarky Puppy, and looks forward to the relaxed cannabis laws of L.A. when the tour stops at the Moroccan Lounge on Oct. 22 and 23. If time allows, he might even have time to surf in Malibu.

Bryant, who counts Mike Dirnt, Mark Hoppus and James Jamerson among his biggest influences, balances a dream of seeing his band play for thousands with looking forward to a life lived like his older brother: a chiropractor with a nice family.

But some dreams will have to wait as the band goes back to making music, hopefully with lasting impact. The members want to become household names, “like Nirvana,” with music people will play for hundreds of years. Why not?

Anything is possible when you are a fantastic foursome.

An animal rights group is urging Crystal Palace to retire their live bald eagle mascot with immediate effect, saying a “bright stadium filled with boisterous fans is no place for animals”.

In a letter to Palace CEO Sharon Lacey, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) asked the Premier League club to stop using the eagle, named Phoenix, in pre-match displays at Selhurst Park and to never use live animal mascots again.

The London team, known as the Eagles since 1973, introduced a live eagle to matchdays in 2010. Kayla, who died in 2020, performed the role for 10 years and her replacement Phoenix made her debut against West Ham in August 2024.

Peta says birds can become “frightened, disoriented and panicked” in stadium environments, putting themselves and fans at risk.

Using them for displays and entertainment also denies the animals, who “would naturally avoid humans”, the opportunity to engage with their natural instincts, leading to “frustration and stress”, the group said.

The organisation has “detailed records” of incidents involving live mascots, including birds, being injured or killed in collisions with walls, windows and match balls, as well as a falcon embedding its talons in a spectator’s scalp after landing on his head.

In 2017, a Charlton Athletic fan was found guilty of trying to punch Kayla the eagle at a League Cup fixture two years earlier.

“Many professional sports teams use only willing humans as mascots and the club already has Pete the Eagle to excite the crowd,” said Dr Carys Bennett, Peta’s senior corporate projects manager.

“Bald eagles are widely recognised as symbols of freedom. They deserve better than to be used as an entertainment prop to amuse the Eagles’ fans.”

The four-year legal battle of a former member of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. who sued the organization behind the Golden Globes over allegations of sexual harassment, discrimination and breach of contract, has ended.

Husam “Sam” Asi, a long-standing member of the HFPA who had been expelled from the group in 2022, filed to settle and dismiss his lawsuit with prejudice on Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

Asi was not immediately available for comment.

“The HFPA is pleased to resolve its litigation with Dr. Asi on mutually agreeable terms and wishes Dr. Asi the best in his future endeavors,” said a spokesperson for the HFPA in a statement to The Times.

Asi sued the HFPA in May 2022, three months after the organization put him on probation following allegations of sexual misconduct that were first reported in the Wrap, prompting a third-party investigation into him.

At the time, he denied the misconduct allegations, calling them baseless. “Of course, I deny them, I deny them all, they are ludicrously absurd,” he told The Times then.

Asi represented the United Kingdom and the Middle East for the association from 2010 to 2022 and was a Palestinian journalist for the BBC Arabic service and a columnist for pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi. In his lawsuit, he alleged that the HFPA was “weaponizing false sexual misconduct allegations” in retaliation for “his attempts to hold it accountable.”

According to his lawsuit, Asi said he had “been subjected to and endured a pattern of sexual harassment, hostile behavior, racial epithets and discrimination, and retaliatory conduct, none of which was ever investigated or handled according to HFPA’s bylaws and procedures.”

Asi further alleged that the organization issued a news release announcing that it was putting him on probation “without informing him or communicating with him and contrary to their own bylaws.”

The HFPA denied Asi’s claims.

A flurry of litigation ensued over the next four years.

In July 2022, the HFPA filed a special motion to strike nine of Asi’s 14 causes of action under California’s anti-SLAPP statute, arguing its statements to the press were protected activity.

In October 2023, a year after an L.A. County Superior Court judge denied the HFPA’s anti-SLAPP motion, an appeals court reversed much of that decision and granted the organization’s motion to strike seven of the 14 accusations Asi had filed against it.

The HFPA filed another motion to dismiss Asi’s complaint, based on his “failure to comply with the court’s orders,” in August, stating that it planned to file a motion “to deem Asi a vexatious litigant.”

According to the court docket, a contempt hearing was scheduled for November.

The organization has undergone a series of reforms and changes over the last five years in order to rehabilitate its image and revive its relationship with Hollywood.

NBC had dropped the broadcast of the 2022 Globes and studios including Netflix and WarnerMedia cut ties with the HFPA following a 2021 Los Angeles Times investigation that raised questions about the group’s ethical and financial lapses and revealed that not one of its then-87 members was Black.

Todd Boehly, the billionaire chairman of private equity firm Eldridge Industries, acquired the Golden Globes in 2023, dissolved the nonprofit HFPA and converted the awards show into a for-profit enterprise.

In July, original founding HFPA members filed an antitrust lawsuit in federal court against media mogul Jay Penske, Penske Media Corp., the Golden Globe Foundation and others, alleging the acquisition of the popular awards show was a “sham process tainted by fraud.” The plaintiffs are seeking damages of at least $150 million.

Rock band Pavlov’s Dog is mourning the loss of singer-songwriter and lead vocalist David Surkamp, who died Monday at age 74.

Violinist and Pavlov’s Dog member Abbie Steiling announced Surkamp’s death Wednesday on Facebook. Additional information about Surkamp’s passing, including a cause of death, was not revealed.

“David leaves behind a legacy of endless creativity, unmistakable artistry, and a body of music that has touched lives across generations and around the world,” Steiling said on the band’s behalf.

Pavlov’s Dog also remembered its vocalist for his “profoundly poetic spirit and a romantic heart that found its way into every note, every lyric and every performance.”

Surkamp was born May 23, 1952, and led Pavlov’s Dog, known for songs “Julia” and “Late November,” since its founding in 1973 in St. Louis. He founded the band alongside bassist Rick Stockton, violinist Siegfried Carver and drummer Mike Safron, according to the band’s website. The group, which first signed to ABC Records under a six-figure deal, released its debut album “Pampered Menial” in 1975. The release featured the band’s most popular songs and showcased Surkamp’s high-pitched and trembling, yet powerful, vocals.

Pavlov’s Dog’s second release “At the Sound of the Bell” followed in 1976 and its third, “Lost in America,” came more than a decade later in 1990. Surkamp departed Pavlov’s Dog while recording its junior album and traveled to Seattle to further develop his musical talents. This led to a collaboration with British musician Iain Matthews and their power pop duo Hi-Fi.

Surkamp and his Pavlov’s Dog collaborators reunited in the early 2000s and Surkamp’s wife, Sara, joined as a vocalist and guitarist. The group went on to tour Europe, including playing the Netherlands’ Arrow Rock Festival in 2006. Over the years, Pavlov’s Dog saw members come and go: Some musicians departed the group because of conflicting commitments and others — including founding members Carver and Rayburn — died in the late aughts and early 2010s.

The group, with Surkamp still at the helm, later released albums “Echo & Boo” in 2011, “Wonderlust” in 2025 alongside some live albums, remasters and unreleased demos.

“He always allowed the musicians around him to shine in their strengths, generous with the spotlight and appreciative of what each brought to the music,” Steiling continued in the band’s Facebook post. “No matter what life held for him, he came alive onstage. Even on his hardest days, when the lights came up and the count-off began, he was a consummate performer. If he was playing music, it was a great day.”

Surkamp was preceded in death by his wife Sara, who died in 2025 at age 72. He is survived by children Saylor and Evan.

Los Tigres Del Norte will perform this Saturday at Anaheim’s Honda Center. Ahead of rocking the Pond with its classic hits, the famed norteño band brought its signature sound and activism to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert. The performance closed out the series’ Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, dubbed as “El Tiny.”

Composed of the Hernández brothers (Jorge, Hernán, Eduardo and Luis) and cousin Óscar Lara, Los Tigres Del Norte was founded in the late 1960s in the Sinaloan town of Rosa Morada and settled in San José. It has sold millions of records worldwide with songs about the drug trade, unrequited love and immigrant life in this country.

That theme of immigrant struggle within the U.S. was top of mind when the group performed at NPR’s Washington, D.C., offices.

The group was recently honored by the city of Minneapolis in September for defending the rights of immigrant communities for decades, and for standing in solidarity with the city following the large-scale immigration enforcement campaign that took place there earlier this year. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey proclaimed Sept. 9 Los Tigres del Norte Day.

“[Following the Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids], they told the people of Minneapolis, the Latino American community that we are one, that we are united and that we’re going to do everything possible for the people that we love,” Frey said in a September news conference.

Los Tigres’ director and lead vocalist Jorge Hernández told The Times the honor came as a surprise to the group, who was in town for the 39th annual Hispanic Heritage Awards to present the people of Minnesota with the Humanitarian Award for their collective acts of solidarity with the immigrant community throughout the ICE raids.

The frontman said he was humbled by the action and was touched to spend time with members of the Minneapolis community who worked on the front lines during the ICE surge.

“There were Latinos present who set an example for how to support people in [a time of chaos],” Hernández said. “Those who were documented brought food to families who were undocumented so that they didn’t have to go outside to face the problems that were made possible due to [the Trump administration]. It’s because of action like those that we showed up for the city.”

Immediately after its time in Minnesota, the band flew out to film the Tiny Desk set.

The performance was a long time coming, according to Hernández.

“It was something beautiful and historic for us which should’ve happened 10 to 15 years ago,” he said, blaming conflicting schedules for the delay.

Though postponed, the 73-year-old musician knew the band’s messages would land with as much timeliness as ever.

In his introduction for Los Tigres Del Norte, NPR’s “Alt.Latino” host and “El Tiny” coordinator Felix Contreras spoke about why he wanted the band to perform as part of Tiny Desk’s month-long celebration of Latinidad.

“Our community is under attack and it’s not the first time … and it takes away our humanity,” Contreras said before Los Tigres kicked off the set with their hit “Somos mas Americanos.” “And for as long as I can remember, these gentlemen have been giving us back our humanity.”

Opening with the 2001 track was notable as the song flips jingoist U.S. narratives about who can call themselves American. The lyrics assert that Mexicans are more American than “gringos” and highlight how a large swath of the U.S. once belonged to Mexico.

Los Tigres let their songs do all the talking as they played straight through a series of tunes from across several decades, including 1995’s “Golpes en el Corazón,” 1997’s “Quiero Volar Contigo,” 1989’s “Ni Parientes Somos” and the 1986’s bittersweet single “La Puerta Negra.”

Hernández said the group wanted to use the platform to bring further awareness to the struggles immigrants continue to face in this country with an audience that notably skews more American than Los Tigres is accustomed to.

“We performed songs that talk about the problematic systems [in the U.S.] that have been around for years, but that are right now worse than ever before,” Hernández said. “The songs we sang [for Tiny Desk] have a lot to do with our society. I hope the wider public can listen to it and translate the songs to English so that they can connect to the lyrics.”

He said he hopes that the band can set an example for younger people that political messaging through music can empower artists, not hinder them.

“We’ve been singing songs since the ’70s about immigration and problems our community faces,” Hernández said. “As an artist, if you see a problem that affects your community, no matter how much you ignore it, you must realize that you are an active participant. You can’t stay quiet, your songs should talk about your problems so that through your work you can connect with and inform people.”

One thing that has continued to surprise and inspire Hernández over the last few years is seeing younger generations of fans celebrate his group’s music.

“They are the future and we sing our songs to them so that they can hear about the problems in our community that have existed and that persist,” he said. “At some point in life you will face big problems and it will be important that you know your history, what you stand for and how to defend yourself. We want to help people know their rights and be prepared to know how to act in difficult times like right now.”