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In some ways, it was just another campaign coffee: Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner in a roomful of voters talking about his career and life accomplishments.

But this was no ordinary meet-and-greet. Beutner was standing inside a partially rebuilt house — with no doors, no windows and no drywall — in an area leveled by the Palisades fire. In the living room, about a dozen people spoke about what they had been through, from the frantic evacuation to the sight of smoldering ruins to the battle to get rebuilding permits.

Allison Holdorff Polhill, who owns the home, introduced Beutner — a former L.A. school superintendent — as the civic leader she would turn to first in a crisis.

“We were in the worst disaster that L.A. has ever experienced,” she told the group. “And we needed a leader that has experience with disasters and emergencies.”

The catastrophic Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead, has redefined the L.A. mayor’s race, expanding the field of candidates and creating a political minefield for Karen Bass as she seeks a second four-year term.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a City Hall ceremony where flags are lowered to half-staff to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

When the fire broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, Bass drew criticism for being in Ghana on a diplomatic mission. Once she returned, she was at odds with her fire chief and unsteady in her public appearances.

More recently, she has faced scrutiny over her handling of the recovery, as well as fire officials’ watering down of an after-action report that was supposed to identify mistakes in the firefighting effort.

The Times found that LAFD officials failed to fully pre-deploy engines to the Palisades amid forecasts of dangerously high winds and that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to leave the scene of a Jan. 1 blaze, even though it wasn’t fully extinguished. That fire rekindled a week later to become the Palisades fire.

Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University, said he expects the disaster will be the No. 1 issue in the June 2 mayoral primary, resonating with voters well beyond Pacific Palisades.

To wage a competitive campaign, each of Bass’ challengers will need to make the fire and its aftermath “a reflection of what’s wrong with city government,” he said.

“It really does reflect on the readiness of the city, the responsiveness of the city, how is government working at the most basic level,” said Guerra, who also runs the Center for the Study of Los Angeles.

So far, Bass’ major challengers are embracing that strategy.

Beutner, who ran the L.A. Unified School District early in the pandemic, has accused Bass of failing to take responsibility for the city’s failures before and after the fire. On Monday, appearing with fire victims in Pacific Palisades, he called on the mayor to form a citizens commission to examine what went wrong.

Rae Huang, a community organizer who is challenging the mayor from the left, has expressed disappointment in what she called Bass’ “finger-pointing” — a reference to the mayor’s criticism, and ouster, of Fire Chief Kristin Crowley last year.

Then there’s reality TV star Spencer Pratt, an outspoken Bass critic, who launched a campaign rooted in his fury over the city’s handling of the fire — and the loss of his family’s home in the flames.

“I’ve waited a whole year for someone to step up and challenge Karen Bass, but I saw no fighters,” Pratt said in a social media post Wednesday. “Guess I’m gonna have to do this myself.”

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, second from right, announced on Wedneday that he is running for mayor. He is suing the city over its handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his home in Pacific Palisades.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Still unclear is whether two formidable public figures will jump in — L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022. On Wednesday, Caruso said he will decide in the next couple of weeks whether he will run for mayor or governor.

Asked whether he might stay out of both races, Caruso responded: “I think that option is pretty much off the table now.”

As the city marked the one-year anniversary of the fires this week, Bass mostly kept a low profile, addressing the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club over the weekend and joining a private vigil at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine.

While Pratt and hundreds of demonstrators were staging a “They Let Us Burn” rally in the Palisades, Bass stood solemnly outside City Hall as police officers lowered flags to half-staff. Bass spoke about grief and loss, but also the fact that more than 400 homes are being rebuilt.

“You see signs of hope everywhere,” she told the crowd.

Bass’ political team has taken a tougher approach, accusing her most outspoken critics — including Pratt, who is releasing a book later this month — of exploiting the disaster for political or even financial gain.

“For the first time ever we saw a major wildfire politicized by MAGA leaders and monetized by social influencers making tens of thousands of dollars per month and hawking books on the backs of a devastated community,” Bass campaign strategist Doug Herman said in a statement.

For much of the past year, Bass has faced criticism over the Fire Department’s deployment decisions and its failure to put out the Jan. 1 fire. She also has taken hits over the recovery, with residents saying she has not delivered on promises to waive permit fees for rebuilding homes lost in the fire.

Now, the focus has turned to a new and unsettling question: Did the city undermine its own effort to assess the Fire Department’s mistakes?

The Times reported last month that LAFD officials made changes to the after-action report that were so significant that its author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse it.

“The fact that [Cook] is not willing to sponsor, or support, or endorse the report says a hell of a lot about the fact that there is no trust and clear leadership,” Huang said.

Bass told The Times on Wednesday that she did not work with the Fire Department on changes to the report, nor did the agency consult her about any changes.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath speaks at a rally in support of the county’s emergency rent relief program to help households who have lost income because of federal immigration enforcement.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Horvath, who is running for a second four-year term as county supervisor, has also ripped the city over the report, saying wildfire victims feel “gaslit” — and deserve answers.

The supervisor, whose sprawling district includes the Palisades burn area, said she has been hearing from people asking her to run for mayor. She said she would prefer to continue in county office. But she voiced concern about the city’s future — not just its handling of the wildfire, but also the budget, the homelessness crisis and the delivery of basic services.

“I think people are hungry for a different kind of leadership,” she told The Times.

Pacific Palisades has not been a political stronghold for Bass. Although she won her 2022 race against Caruso by a 10-point margin, she trailed him by double digits in the Palisades.

Like many people across the region, the major mayoral candidates were directly impacted by the January fires or have family who lost homes — or both.

Beutner’s home was severely damaged in the Palisades fire, forcing him to live elsewhere for the past year. His mother-in-law’s home, also in the Palisades, was completely destroyed.

Bass has spoken repeatedly about her brother, whose Malibu home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. Huang’s 53-year-old cousin lost her Altadena home in the Eaton fire. Pratt, who is suing the city over the Palisades fire, said on social media that the flames consumed not just his home but also one owned by his parents.

Caruso, still a candidate-in-waiting, managed to save Palisades Village, the shopping center he opened in 2018, in part by securing his own private firefighting crew. But the inferno nevertheless destroyed the homes of his son and daughter, who are 26 and 29.

Real estate developer Rick Caruso on Wednesday unveils an installation in Pacific Palisades with three beams of light to mark the one-year anniversary of the fires.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

On the night the fire broke out, Caruso voiced his fury on live television about empty fire hydrants and the overall lack of water to douse the flames. Since then, he has offered a steady stream of criticism about the rebuilding process, including the mayor’s decision not to select a replacement for Steve Soboroff, who served 90 days as her recovery czar.

Caruso has spoken favorably in recent weeks about a few aspects of the recovery, including the reopening of classrooms and the quick removal of fire debris. He credited L.A. Unified and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, respectively, for those accomplishments — not the city.

“Frankly, the bright spots are under the leadership of other people,” he told The Times.

Beutner has been equally blunt. At last month’s campaign coffee, he said the city needs to convene a citizen panel similar to the Christopher Commission, which was formed weeks after the 1991 police beating of Rodney King. The panel assessed the LAPD’s handling of discipline, misconduct complaints, excessive force by officers and other issues.

“If you have a tragedy, you have public hearings, you have leaders who are empaneled with the money they need to ask tough questions of everybody — the mayor, her staff, the acting mayor, police, fire” and the Department of Water and Power, Beutner told the group. “What did you do, and what would you have done differently?”

Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Bass, said the city is already participating in a state investigation, which is being overseen by the Fire Safety Research Institute, into the Palisades and Eaton fires.

On top of that, she said, the fire department is commissioning an independent investigation into its response to the Jan. 1 fire that reignited into the Palisades fire. That blaze, known as the Lachman fire, was mentioned only briefly in the department’s after-action report.

“Mayor Bass wants all the information to ensure accountability and to continue implementing needed reforms, many of which are already underway from LAFD,” Karger said.

Elle Simone Scott, a chef and cookbook author best known for her work on “America’s Test Kitchen,” has died. She was 49.

Describing her as “one of [the organization’s] brightest stars,” “America’s Test Kitchen” Chief Content Officer Dan Souza confirmed in a statement Thursday that Scott died Monday after a long battle with ovarian cancer. The news was first announced Wednesday on “ATK’s” Instagram.

“Scott brought warmth and a vibrant spirit to everything she did,” Souza said. “Friends and colleagues will remember [her] for her ability to create community and provide opportunities for others, both inside and outside of work … Her legacy will live on at America’s Test Kitchen and in the homes and hearts of the millions of home cooks whose lives she touched.”

A Detroit native, Scott joined “America’s Test Kitchen” in 2016 and became the first Black woman cast member on the popular PBS cooking show. In addition to authoring cookbooks “Boards: Stylish Spreads for Casual Gatherings” and “Food Gifts: 150+ Irresistible Recipes for Crafting Personalized Presents,” she hosted “The Walk-In” podcast and worked as a food stylist.

In a tribute on Instagram, friend and fellow TV chef Carla Hall praised Scott for being “a force” and “a trailblazer.”

“At America’s Test Kitchen, Elle helped open doors that had long been closed — becoming one of the first Black women audiences saw in the test kitchen, and doing so with grace, authority, and joy,” wrote Hall. “Her voice mattered. Her work mattered. She mattered.”

According to WBUR, Scott, who lived in Boston, pivoted to a career in food in 2008 after she lost her home, car and job as a social worker during the recession.

“The thought occurred to me, ‘if I have to do something for the next 25 years of my life, it better be something I love,’ ” Scott said during a 2019 radio segment. “The only thing I could think of was cooking. It was the one thing that brought me peace and joy.”

She became an advocate for representation in food media and the culinary world, co-founding SheChef Inc., an organization for women chefs of color that provides mentorship to young women pursuing a career in the field, in 2013.

“I thought it would be a great way to create a network to bring those underrepresented people together to see how we could support each other, create a network where we can help each other grow professionally — also to just deal with the angst of being women in kitchens where we are the only women in the kitchen,” Scott told WTOP News in 2019.

Scott was first diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2016, according to the Detroit News, but told the outlet she was cancer-free in 2020.

“Elle faced ovarian cancer with courage and honesty, using her platform to educate, advocate, and uplift even while fighting for her life,” Hall said in her tribute. “We honor you, Elle. Your legacy lives on in every kitchen you inspired and every cook who finally saw themselves reflected back.”

When Liz Wilson saw the Eaton fire advancing, from her home in Pasadena last year, she knew that life would never be the same in her corner of Southern California. On Wednesday, the one-year anniversary of the disaster, A Concert for Altadena felt like the most optimistic place to be.

“People didn’t just lose their homes, they lost their community,” Wilson said, in the lobby of the Pasadena Civic Auditorium where scores of local acts had gathered for the benefit show. Organizers booked it to raise funds for the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, and to give locals something hopeful to attend on the painful day of Jan. 7.

“This is not just a fundraiser, but a way to reconnect and show support for community that’s surviving,” she said. “Altadena was and is an arts community, that’s a big part of it. We have so many friends and neighbors continuing to figure out if they’re coming back, if they’re able to rebuild. The more distant you get from it, you may forget. But we haven’t.”

The anniversary of the Eaton and Palisades fires, beginning one of the city’s most difficult years in recent history, was largely marked by quieter reflections on the loss and how much work still laid ahead. But Altadena in particular was a historic community for musicians and artists. For them, getting together for a show felt like a natural way to honor the occasion and look ahead.

Kevin Lyman, the Vans Warped Tour founder and USC music industry professor, is a two-decade Altadena resident who was displaced from his home for four months after the Eaton fire. He organized the concert for the community to use the day to reconnect, and keep focus on the work left to do.

“In this business, I’ve got to be an optimist, and every day I see more trucks coming into Altadena with lumber and workers. You go away for a few days and see a frame of a new home. But then you go to the next block, and there are five empty lots,” he said.

“One of the hardest parts is that if you’re living up there, you can go two miles away and life just goes on,” he added. “You’ve got to remind people that we’re still here, people still can still use help. Artists that survived and reestablished themselves are here supporting artists that haven’t been.”

Altadena resident and actor John C. Reilly hosted the night, noting the resilience of rebuilding efforts and tossing barbs at the utility company Southern California Edison, whose equipment ignited the fire: “A company that prioritized profits for shareholders over improving infrastructure,” as he put it. He pilloried President Trump’s reactions to the blaze: “He told us to go rake leaves? Go f— yourself, dude.”

The night highlighted ground-level activism from organizers like Heavenly Hughes of My Tribe Rise, who led the crowd in a raucous chant of “Altadena’s not for sale.” But the live performances found poignancy in the city’s spirit as a music town. L.A. Latin rock group Ozomatli started the night with a jubilant jam down the aisles, while Everclear’s Art Alexakis noted between riffs that after the Eaton fire displaced him, “I had to live in a hotel for five months, but I’m lucky.”

Travis Cooper drove down from Northern California for the show, moved by the ways Altadena held to its cultural identity after the Eaton fire. His parents lost a home in a fire in Redding a few years back, so “I can relate to how devastating that feels,” he said. “Even the threat of it growing up was horrific, so to have that actually happen was another level. But my parents had people donate clothes, places to stay, and that meant a lot to them, so we wanted to come support this community too.”

The headline act of the night was the Altadena folk-rock group Dawes, whose founders lost homes and gear in the Eaton fire. They’ve become emissaries for the neighborhood within the music industry, performing at last year’s Grammys just weeks after the fire.

At the Pasadena Civic Auditorium, they led a round robin of acts including Brad Paisley, the Killers’ Brandon Flowers, Aloe Blacc, Jenny Lewis and Rufus Wainwright. They were accompanied by vocal virtuosos Lucius and blues-rock rippers Judith Hill and Eric Krasno, each fixtures in the local music community trying to rebuild itself in the wake of the Eaton fire.

Altadena is a deeply intergenerational community, and the crowd felt the decades of L.A. music history in Stephen Stills coming out for Buffalo Springfield’s “For What It’s Worth” next to a younger act like Lord Huron covering the Kinks’ “Strangers.”

Dawes is a veteran L.A. act, and songs like “All Your Favorite Bands” had new texture in the light of how the fire upended the lives of so many artists. “I hope the world sees the same person that you always were to me,” Taylor Goldsmith sang. “May all your favorite bands stay together.”

For those bands still trying to stay together, the night was redemptive. Jeffrey Paradise, the Poolside frontman who lost his home in the Palisades fire, DJed the concert’s official after-party. He’s since relocated to Glassell Park, and acknowledged that the fires are still a challenging topic, for him and for friends trying to support those displaced.

“It’s hard to talk about because so many things are mixed up in it,” he said. “It was the worst year of my life, but also great and heartwarming to see support from people. It’s so hard to answer how you’re doing because I don’t have an easy answer,” he said.

A concert like this was one way to acknowledge the gravity of last year’s loss, but also to raise money to help everyone get back to the land, people and music they love.

“It’s a disaster, and we’re getting through a disaster. I want to be resilient and help others, and do what I can to move forward,” he said. “It forces you to reinvent who you are and redefine what matters. I don’t have an option not to.”

WASHINGTON — Five years after the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol by President Trump’s supporters, the White House released a website this week attempting to revise history.

Reasserting Trump’s false claim that he had won the 2020 presidential election, the administration doubled down on his decision to issue blanket pardons for the rioters, blamed Capitol Police for escalating tensions that day, and denounced Trump’s vice president at the time, Mike Pence, for “refusing to act” in defiance of the Constitution to stop congressional certification of Trump’s loss.

It was a display of political audacity that has become the hallmark of Trump’s second act — challenging anyone to stop him from asserting raw executive authority, both at home and increasingly abroad.

Whether on foreign or domestic policy, lawmakers have struggled to respond to an administration that moves with unfettered restraint and exceptional speed. The U.S. Supreme Court has only facilitated Trump’s expansion of unitary executive power. And governments abroad accustomed to Trump’s lack of predictability now face a president whose entire philosophy toward foreign interventionism appears to have turned on a dime.

“There are political checks. They are checks, though, that have been degraded,” said William Howell, dean of the School of Government and Policy at Johns Hopkins University and author of “Trajectory of Power: The Rise of the Strongman Presidency.”

“They are checks that are looked upon not just with frustration, but an outward animosity by the president,” Howell added. “It’s a feature of his populist politics for him to say, ‘anything that stands in my way is illegitimate.’”

Unitary rule

Trump’s extraordinary use of executive authority has no comparison in recent times. The president has issued more than 220 executive actions in his first year back in office — more than the 220 orders he issued throughout his entire first term, and dwarfing the 276 actions that President Obama issued over eight years in office.

Directing the Justice Department to prosecute his political enemies, and deploying his pardon power to shield his friends and allies, Trump risks fueling the very sort of politicized system of justice he campaigned against as a presidential candidate.

And his administration has shown derision for Congress, controlled by the president’s own party, approving historically few bills and neglecting those that have passed, such as the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Trump has attempted to unilaterally rename the Defense Department and the Kennedy Center, despite straightforward laws requiring acts of Congress to do so, and has impounded funds appropriated by Congress for child care and family assistance allocated to Democratic states.

“The nature of presidential power is that it is given as much as taken,” said Andrew Rudalevige, a professor of government at Bowdoin College and author of “The New Imperial Presidency.” “You can’t have an imperial presidency without an invisible Congress. And certainly, the current Congress is setting new records for intentional invisibility.”

After Trump bulldozed the East Wing of the White House, a reporter asked his press secretary what was stopping him from knocking down the entire building. Karoline Leavitt demurred. “That’s a legal opinion that’s been held for many years,” she said, suggesting he could, in fact, demolish the rest of it.

“The institutional constraints on the unilateral presidency are weak,” said Dino Christenson, a political science professor at Washington University in St. Louis and co-author of “The Myth of the Imperial Presidency.” “The conservative majority of the [Supreme] Court has also recently chosen to back executive power.

“Arguably,” he added, “international constraints are even weaker, at least for powerful nations like the U.S.”

‘Governed by force’

Trump’s order over the weekend to depose Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, seizing him and his wife from their bedroom in a stunning military raid, was the type of rare exercise in American power that has defined past presidencies. But Trump said he was just getting started.

Beaming from the operational success in Caracas, Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One that he was considering military action against no fewer than five countries, allies and foes alike. His homeland security advisor, Stephen Miller, said that no one would even try to stop Trump from militarily taking over Greenland, an autonomous region of Denmark, a NATO ally and European Union member state.

“We live in a world,” Miller told CNN, “that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”

At the State Department, veteran U.S. diplomats waited anxiously for guidance from the administration on how it would justify the operation based on international law on the global stage. It never came. “At least with Iraq, Libya, Syria, there was an effort to seek legal cover,” one diplomat said, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “This is just grab-and-go.”

After the president vowed to run Venezuela going forward as a vassal state, Trump’s energy secretary said the United States would exert control over its oil production “indefinitely.”

And the Trump administration ordered the seizure of two foreign tankers on Wednesday in international waters that have violated its unilateral oil embargo against Caracas, risking precedent governing the laws of the seas that have for decades ensured international commercial flows.

It was a surprising turn for a president who had campaigned on a promise to focus on domestic policy, under a slogan of “America first.”

“So many of the claims that he was making — both in terms of his power and his politics — was about an inward turn, about standing up for America and attending to core problems that it had failed to face, whereas all these foreign entanglements were distractions to be avoided,” Howell said. “So it is striking that he has assumed this new posture of outward imperialism — land grabs, oil tankers, removing heads of state — all at once.”

Several Republican lawmakers expressed skepticism over Trump’s new posture, warning the president against entrenching the U.S. military in foreign conflicts. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican from Louisiana, warned that U.S. military action against Denmark in Greenland “would not be appropriate” after the White House issued an explicit threat of force.

Scholars of the imperial presidency often say that public opinion — not the legislature or the courts — remains the strongest check on executive authority. Trump is ineligible for a third term in office, and has signaled in recent weeks that he recognizes that constitutional limit as unambiguous.

“I don’t think Trump is immune from the laws of political gravity,” Rudalevige said. “Despite his bluster, he is a lame duck. He has never had a Gallup approval rating above 50%, and that rating is in the 30s. His policy actions are even less popular.”

But he also said he believes the public supports him in his brash use of power, telling lawmakers there could be a “constitutional movement” to keep him in office.

“MAGA loves it,” Trump said in an interview with NBC News this week, defending his foreign policy approach. “MAGA loves what I’m doing. MAGA loves everything I do.”

“MAGA is me,” he added. “MAGA loves everything I do, and I love everything I do, too.”

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Palisades fire report was sent to mayor’s office for ‘refinements,’ Fire Commission president says
The deep dive: Michael Reagan’s death reverberates among Californians of both parties
The L.A. Times Special: One year since my childhood home burned

More to come,
Michael Wilner
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Walking the almost-empty streets of this small seaside town near Clacton-on-Sea felt like a fever dream. Returning to London has never felt better

Stepping off the train at Frinton-on-Sea and being greeted with a blackboard advertising fresh cream teas- without a vending machine in sight – it was clear I had travelled across the country, and back in time. Initially thinking it was maybe a 10 year jump – I was soon proven wrong.

Making the short walk from the station to the pub, I could hear war-time ditties blasting out of pet shops and brassy military anthems playing through charity shops sound systems. Inside were dust-coated frames of wartime front pages: “We Never Surrender.” On walking into the Frinton War Memorial club, or “the Mems”, it was apparent that the town stood frozen in time at the first VE day, a living memorial to World War Two.

The eyes of Queen Elizabeth II bore down on the royal blue velour seats of the pub, with its matching navy carpet. Union Jacks covered one wall with an altar-like construction standing underneath. A drum, fake plastic poppies and some nondescript trophies rested on top of a bookshelf. The contents of the shelf looked like someone had emptied out a grandad’s attic into it. One standout book was “Commando Call of Battle: The Best 10 Commando Comic Books ever!”

Despite blending in perfectly with the palette of Frinton, the way passersby’s eyes lingered on you for a second too long let you know they knew you weren’t one of them. This was palpable when walking into this club – it was a head turner in the true sense of the term. A wave of faces swung around to let you know they had sensed a newcomer. If this wasn’t enough – I then had to sign a form with my name, address, phone number, and my “contact” Pierre who had a temporary membership – a crumpled piece of paper which he had to present each time he walked in. In their defence – they may have just been territorial about their £5 pints.

My reason for the visit, the Frinton Summer Season, brought me the biggest culture shock. The run of summer plays, run for a week each, and are held in the magnolia pebble dash theatre just opposite the members club. Before the play, the audience, with an average age of 60, rose to sing the national anthem with their hands on their hearts.

Gasping for some fresh air and a change of scene, Pierre and I headed to the beach for a fish and chips, from Young’s Other Place. This came in at a steep £32 for one small and one large battered cod and chips and mushy peas. Although in a welcome change ID was not needed for a chippy tea – ketchup did have to be purchased by the bottle.

Getting back on the air-conditioned train to Liverpool Street felt like a rush of relief to the nervous system and watching the people of Bethnal Green look through me as I walked back to my flat had never felt more welcome. Even if it was perfumed with the stench of hot summer drains, it felt like I was finally back in 2025.

Singer-songwriters Lisa Simmons-Santa Cruz and her husband Francisco Carroll Santa Cruz were going through a challenging time last March when they worked on Snoop Dogg’s 2025 gospel album, “Altar Call.”

“We were actually writing all those songs in a hotel, displaced,” Carroll Santa Cruz said.

The couple, who have worked in the entertainment industry for more than 29 years writing and producing music for artists like Kelly Rowland and television shows such as “Desperate Housewives,” had lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire a few months earlier.

Still, the platinum singer-songwriters didn’t want to pass up the opportunity, which came up during the final week of their hotel stay when Simmons-Santa Cruz and Carroll Santa Cruz were introduced to Snoop Dogg through artists Charlie Bereal and Point 5ve. Although Snoop Dogg had also set up a donation center for fire victims, the couple chose not to share their own displacement with him or anyone else in the music industry.

“We needed something the fire couldn’t burn and that was our music,” Simmons-Santa Cruz said. “At that time, we needed something separate from the fire — something that the fire couldn’t touch, it was too traumatic to keep revisiting what we’d lost, so our work became our peace and our escape.”

Despite the loss of their home studio and the limitations of working from a hotel room, they successfully completed the project in a short amount of time. Simmons-Santa Cruz later described the experience as “divine intervention in the midst of tragedy,” saying the music gave them space to heal through faith while doing what they loved most.

“It was comforting, we didn’t have to focus on the fire or what was lost, the music gave us a moment to reflect on life, and it became a saving grace,” she said.

The couple had originally resided in the Altadena home with Simmons-Santa Cruz’s 77-year-old mother, who first bought the house in 1974. In the aftermath of the fires, the couple was forced to figure out where they were going to live as they also grappled with the immense paperwork, bills and insurance claims that came with the loss of their home.

MusiCares, a health and welfare charity for musicians founded by the Recording Academy in 1989, offered them assistance.

“They were like, the FEMA of the music industry,” Simmons-Santa Cruz said.

According to Theresa Wolters, executive director of MusiCares, the organization supports the music community through direct financial assistance for basic living, medical, mental health and substance use needs, as well as free preventive healthcare. One year after the Los Angeles wildfires, MusiCares has directed more than $15 million toward relief and recovery, reaching over 3,200 music professionals affected by the disaster.

When MusiCares stepped in to provide emergency funds for Simmons-Santa Cruz and her husband, it also offered to replace an important instrument for her. Her father, who died seven years ago, helped her pick her first guitar, but the guitar was left behind when the fire broke out.

“That guitar was very sentimental for me,” she said.

Nothing can ever replace the personal memory tied to the guitar, but Simmons-Santa Cruz says that MusiCares offered her hope through this deed, and the new guitar represents that.

“I just broke down, I just started crying, because I’m like, who replaces a guitar? … The last thing that was on my mind was replacing our equipment because we’re still in survival mode,” she said.

Drummer Darryl “JMD” Moore” getting fitted for custom ear molds for his live performances at MusiCares Altadena Health and Wellness Clinic at Grammy Museum L.A. Live

(Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

The couple is living in a rental and continuing to deal with the fallout of the fires, still unable to rebuild their house because of the financial costs. Since the fires, many other music professionals have faced similar hardships, like music producer and drummer Darryl “JMD” Moore, who still has to pay the mortgage on the home he lost while rebuilding another one “like for like” as mandated by the mortgage bank.

“I wanted to build a home for my children, and my grandchildren, my descendants, that would serve them financially and in every other way it could, because I know this property is valuable, my house doubled in value, it was worth twice what I paid for,” Moore said. “But our insurance is not paying us enough money to build the same house, it’s like hundreds of thousands of dollars short, so everybody like us, we’re in a scramble to get the money to fill in the gaps.”

After years of renting in Altadena, Moore finally bought his first home there in 2011, a purchase made possible thanks to his success in the music industry. Moore is known in both the jazz and hip-hop music scenes, having produced acts like the Pharcyde and Freestyle Fellowship while also drumming for jazz greats like Horace Tapscott. Moore originally grew up in South L.A., where he started playing drums at 13, focusing on R&B and funk before eventually being mentored by the renowned jazz saxophonist and singer Elvira “Vi” Redd.

When the Eaton fire began to crawl toward Moore’s house, he said he quickly packed his most important possessions. He took an archival hard drive which contained his music from 2004 to the present, but everything else burned: his recording studio, archival tapes and reels, and his favorite drum set, a vintage 1965 Rogers Holiday kit he bought in the ‘80s.

“I played on albums and records with that Rogers kit, when I moved to New York in ’89, I took that Rogers kit with me, and I pushed that kit down the street every night from the East Village to the West Village to work,” Moore said. “I can get one that looks just like it if I was willing to spend the $4,000, but was it in the back of the subway, did I play it on Bleecker Street?” the jazz drummer said.

Immediately after the fire took his home, Moore needed to work, but he no longer possessed the peripherals and equipment he required to record. MusiCares donated thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment he needed, including a drum set, and it also provided grants to help him pay both his mortgage and the rent where he’s currently staying. Moore has a long way to go before he completely recovers financially, but he says the organization made a significant impact in his life this past year, and he’s grateful.

“My studio’s back online, I’m able to practice, I’m able to work and do some gigs … it gave me my voice back, really, that was the beginning of everything,” the hip-hop producer said.

For Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay, a married couple raising a 16-year-old and a 9-year-old, the emotional weight has been just as significant as the financial burden that followed. The couple said they’ve been proactive in prioritizing the mental well-being and happiness of their children since losing their Altadena home.

“It was harder for them early on, when we were moving so frequently, we didn’t have any control over it, we were just trying to get somewhere stable to be, and I think they were processing the loss when they were sad that we didn’t have our home,” Sanford said.

Sanford and her husband are singer-songwriters and have scored music for television shows like “Weeds” and “Orange Is the New Black.” The couple is also in a children’s music band called Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang, and they recently composed music for the off-Broadway show “Romy and Michele the Musical.”

Like many others, the couple lost their personal recording studio, making work difficult. The stress has been immense for the couple, but they said MusiCares was able to ease some of the financial burden when the organization offered them grants to cover their mortgage, which they are still on the hook for.

Darryl “JMD” Moore in front of his home that burned down in the wildfires, taken in 2023.

(Darryl “JMD” Moore)

“There’s all the red tape and hurdles and things we have to do just to rebuild our home, so that in itself is like a full-time job that we never wanted, on top of just our regular lives raising our kids and doing work,” Jay said. “So, to have the support of someone like that and have them say you don’t have to worry about this one aspect for a while, is invaluable.”

Recently, Sanford was asked to perform at a groundbreaking ceremony her former Altadena neighbor was having for a new house being built there. Sanford’s daughter had not wanted to go back to the neighborhood, but she decided to accompany her mother anyway. The return was cathartic.

“She was able to walk around our lot and have a private moment, and I asked her how she felt, and she said, ‘I feel safe here, this is my home,’” Sanford said.

At the event, Sanford sang a song she penned in 2011 called, “Acorn,” which was inspired by the grandeur of oak trees and what they symbolize in nature. The song has taken on a different meaning for her in the wake of the fires.

“The acorn is a metaphor, and I think that’s kind of where we all are right now, we have to start over, we have to start small, and eventually we’ll get back to where we were,” Sanford said.

Spencer Pratt, a reality television star who lost his home in the Palisades fire and then emerged as a sharp critic of Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom, announced Wednesday that he will run for mayor.

The former star of “The Hills” has spent much of the last year firing off social media posts blaming the mayor and governor for the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and burned more than 6,800 homes.

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Pratt made his announcement at the “They Let Us Burn” event in Pacific Palisades on the one-year anniversary of the fire.

“We’re going to expose the system. We’re going into every dark corner of L.A. politics and disinfecting the city with our light,” he said to a crowd of hundreds, many of whom cheered.

Former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, who is running against Bass, has also attacked the mayor’s performance on the fire, saying she has not accepted responsibility for the city’s failures.

Community organizer Rae Huang, who is running from Bass’ left, has offered her own critique, saying the mayor has engaged in too much finger-pointing.

Still unclear is whether real estate developer Rick Caruso — another outspoken critic of Bass on the fire — will launch a second mayoral bid. Bass defeated him in 2022 by a comfortable margin.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, who represents the areas that burned in the Palisades fire and who has also criticized the city’s response to the fire, said Monday night that she is still considering her own run for L.A. mayor.

Speaking with CNN’s Elex Michaelson, Horvath said she is “listening to a lot of the people who are encouraging me to get into this race, people who are looking for a different kind of leadership.”

“You know, there are a lot of people who are asking me about running for mayor,” Horvath said. “And I think it’s because they see that we are setting up in the county a different structure of accountability, and that’s long overdue for the region.”

The Palisades fire has become a serious political liability for Bass as the mayoral race gains momentum. She was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana when the fire ignited.

Since then, she has faced criticism over a series of issues surrounding the city’s emergency response, including LAFD deployment, the fact that the Santa Ynez reservoir was empty, and the Fire Department’s failure to put out a New Year’s Day fire that eventually rekindled into the Palisades fire.

Bass, for her part, said Tuesday that she is using the full extent of her mayoral powers to “restore the Palisades community and return families home as quickly and safely as possible.”

Bass’ campaign team did not immediately respond to an inquiry about Pratt’s announcement. But earlier this week, they took direct aim at Pratt and other critics, accusing them of using the disaster for their personal benefit.

“For the first time ever we saw a major wildfire politicized by MAGA leaders and monetized by social influencers making tens of thousands of dollars per month and hawking books on the backs of a devastated community,” said Bass campaign spokesperson Doug Herman. “While some may choose to divide people and tear down the progress that’s being made, Mayor Bass will continue to work to unite people and focus on doing everything that she can to get everyone in the Palisades back in homes, business re-opened, and beloved community spaces up and running again so that the Palisades can once again thrive.

Pratt and his wife, reality television personality Heidi Montag, sued the city in January after their Palisades house burned down, arguing that the Santa Ynez reservoir should not have been offline and empty when the fire erupted.

As recently as Tuesday, Pratt posted on X saying he was “shocked that 7% of Angelenos have ‘a great deal of confidence’ in their city and state government.”

“Have they looked around?” he wrote.

In the past, Pratt has also hinted at a run for governor. On his website, he still advertises “Spencer for Governor” shirts for $20, at a more than a 50% discount.

Pratt became famous in the aughts for his role on “The Hills,” where he was known as Montag’s boyfriend-turned-husband. He has also appeared on “Celebrity Big Brother” and “The Hills: New Beginnings.”

It has been named the most beautiful spot in the UK for a winter stroll by a new study – and it’s a real gem worth visiting.

If you’re feeling the sting of the January blues, you’re not alone. This time of year can be a real struggle, with not a lot of sunlight and gloomy weather – but one pick-me-up is wrapping up warm and heading out for a brisk walk.

Us Brits are spoilt for choice when it comes to scenic strolls right on our doorstep. And there’s one trail that’s been crowned the most picturesque in all the land.

Nestled in Balloch, a quaint village perched on the stunning shores of Loch Lomond in Scotland, lies this gem. Loch Lomond & The Trossachs National Park has bagged the title of the UK’s most gorgeous spot for a winter wander.

It comes from a study by CEWE, which scoured the UK for the best walks using desk research and Google review data, reports the Express.

Each location was examined for star ratings, number of reviews and winter-related keywords such as ‘winter’, ‘cold’, ‘scenery’, and ‘peaceful’ to pinpoint the ones boasting the most captivating views.

And the lochside trail, which begins in Balloch, clinched the top spot, with a flurry of reviews raving about its wintery allure.

As Scotland’s first national park, established back in 2002, it’s home to over 22 lochs and 21 Munros.

Winter might not be the best time for tackling the more challenging peaks, but there are plenty of gentler routes to explore within the park.

Balloch Castle country park stands out as a real gem. As the only country park situated within the national park boundaries, visitors can explore plenty including a walled garden, enchanting fairy glen, and naturally the historic castle.

The Three Lochs Way represents another fantastic trail starting from Balloch, though at 34 miles in length, tackling it in manageable stages is highly recommended.

Visitors to the national park have showered it with glowing praise, with Google reviews brimming with enthusiasm. One delighted tourist said: “Love visiting Loch Lomond, regardless of the weather the views and scenes are absolutely stunning.”

A second reviewer wrote: “One of the most beautiful locations anywhere. Mountains, forests, lochs abound in a well managed national park. Great facilities across the region and second to none for hiking, cycling and camping.”

Meanwhile, a third visitor commented: “This place has something for everyone. From lochs, hills, waterfalls and mountains to quiet little villages and spa resorts.

“Massive areas of beautiful and unspoiled wilderness to explore, perfect for walking, cycling or even driving if you prefer the less strenuous approach.”

Beyond serving as the gateway to Loch Lomond, Balloch boasts a brilliant selection of exciting attractions suitable for all ages.

The Sea Life centre is worth a visit, being amongst Scotland’s rare aquariums, housing thousands of fascinating marine creatures waiting to be explored.

If you fancy a spot of retail therapy, Loch Lomond Shores is a stylish shopping destination featuring shops like Frasers and Mountain Warehouse, along with eateries, cafes and a farmers market held every first and third Sunday of the month.

Jan. 6 (UPI) — The man accused of vandalizing Vice President JD Vance’s home in Cincinnati has a history of mental health issues, his defense attorney said in court Tuesday.

William DeFoor, 26, was arrested and is accused of vandalizing the Vance home at 12:15 a.m. EST on Monday while the vice president and second lady Usha Vance were in Washington, D.C.

DeFoor’s attorney, Paul Laufman, made the mental health claim during his client’s arraignment hearing in Hamilton County Municipal Court on Tuesday.

Laufman said the vandalism was not politically motivated, and Judge Janaya Trotter Bratton ordered DeFoor to post an $11,000 bond to be released from custody.

DeFoor writes “peaceful” prose in his poems, and his using a hammer to damage a vehicle driven by a federal agent watching Vance’s home and then several windows on the home were not intended as a political statement, Laufman told the court.

“I just don’t think there’s anything political going on,” Laufman said.

DeFoor is accused of felony damage, criminal trespass, criminal damage and obstructing official business.

He has a history of mental health-related cases heard by the Hamilton County Mental Health Court and has been arrested multiple times for vandalism.

When DeFoor arrived outside of Vance’s home, he tried to break the windows of a Secret Service vehicle that was blocking the driveway, according to a criminal complaint filed by FBI Assistant Special Agent Gavin Hartsell.

A Secret Service agent and Cincinnati police announced their presence and ordered DeFoor to “stop and drop the weapon” he was holding, Hartsell wrote.

“DeFoor ignored all commands and began to use a hammer to break glass windows,” located on the front of Vance’s home, he said.

Hartsell described the windows as “large, historic windows” that contained “enhanced security assets” owned by the federal government. He estimated the cost of damage at $28,000.

Vance on Monday said a “crazy person tried to break in by hammering the windows” on his family’s home and thanked the Secret Service and Cincinnati police for quickly responding to the matter in a social media post.

There were no stars in the October sky. No moon that 64-year-old Masuma Khan could see from the narrow window of the California City Immigration Processing Center.

“No planes,” she said, recalling her confinement.

Once a prison, the facility in the Mojave Desert, located 67 miles east of Bakersfield, reopened in April to hold people in removal proceedings, including Khan.

It was not the kind of place where she imagined ending up — not after living in the country for 28 years, caring for her daughter and surviving one of California’s deadliest wildfires, the Eaton fire.

Khan was fortunate not to have lost her west Altadena home to the Jan. 7 fire, which destroyed more than 9,000 structures and killed 19 people.

But in the months that followed, Khan faced another threat — deportation.

As fire recovery efforts were underway in Los Angeles, the Trump administration launched immigration raids in the city, hampering recovery efforts and creating more distress for immigrants after the fires.

Although Trump said the mass deportations would target criminals, news reports and court filings show the roundups ensnared immigrants with no criminal history, green card applicants, even American citizens.

Khan worried. She was in the process of adjusting her immigration status and was required to check in every year with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

An immigration attorney reassured her that there was no cause for concern: Her husband and daughter were citizens, she had no criminal record, and her case was still under review.

And so, on Oct. 6, Khan drove to downtown Los Angeles for her routine immigration check-in and found herself caught up in Trump’s deportation surge.

Eaton fire survivor Masuma Khan, 64, right, with her daughter Riya Khan and husband Isteak Khan after bring released in December.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Khan was taken into custody by ICE agents and kept in a cold room for almost an entire day. She said agents denied her access to a lawyer and a phone until she signed deportation papers. Khan resisted but later signed.

She was placed in a van with other detainees and driven three hours north to the detention center in California City. She said there was no air conditioning in the van and she became nauseous and started to experience hypertension symptoms.

At the facility she was denied access to medications for high blood pressure, asthma, peripheral arterial disease, general anxiety and hypothyroidism, she said.

Khan, who is also prediabetic, said she struggled to maintain her health at the facility. Her blood pressure spiked and she began to experience stroke-like symptoms. Her legs swelled up and she became weak.

She said the facility was so cold that people often became ill, including staff. She and other women used socks as scarves, sleeves and mittens but were threatened with fines if they continued to misuse the garments.

She said she became sick and her vision got blurry without her prescribed eye drops. Her Halal meals shifted to a medical diet that included pork, which she cannot eat because she is Muslim.

Khan’s experience at the facility was similar to that of other detainees who filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and ICE. They alleged inhumane conditions at the facility that included inadequate food, water and medical care, frigid cells and lack of access to medications and lawyers.

The California City Immigration Processing Center in Kern County, where Masuma Khan was held.

(Patrick T. Fallon/AFP/Getty Images)

In an email response, Tricia McLaughlin, a DHS spokesperson, said any claims about “subprime conditions at ICE detention facilities are false.”

“All detainees are provided with proper meals, certified by dietitians, medical treatment and have the opportunities to communicate with lawyers and family members.”

Khan said she spent most days in her cell crying.

“I missed my family, I missed everything,” she said “I was frustrated.”

She often thought of home: her husband and daughter, her small garden and the birds she fed daily with seeds and oranges from her balcony.

It would be weeks before she could see her family again, before she could gaze at the mountains and hear the symphony of wildlife.

‘Like an inferno’

The Eaton fire had been raging for hours in west Altadena when Khan and her husband were awakened by evacuation alerts on their phones at 3:30 a.m.

Khan got out of bed and from her bedroom window could see flames raging in the mountains.

Khan hadn’t seen anything like it. Four years before she arrived, the Kinneloa fire, sparked by a campfire, erupted in the same mountains. It fed on dry and flammable vegetation and was driven by Santa Ana winds. It was a destructive fire.

But the Eaton fire was different. Hurricane-force winds helped spread the embers and flames deep into the town’s heart — destroying homes, schools and countless structures.

A business and vehicle are a total loss as the Eaton fire rages along Lake Avenue in Altadena on January 8, 2025.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Khan and her husband, Isteak, didn’t have time to grab much before fleeing in their car that evening.

“It was like an inferno,” Isteak Khan, 66, recalled. “You could see the embers flying everywhere. It was very chaotic.”

The couple drove about three miles south to a supermarket in Pasadena. For a month they lived at a hotel until they were allowed to return home.

When they got back the surrounding neighborhoods were in ruins: Trees were charred, cars were stripped down to metal frames and homes were gutted or left in ash.

The couple’s apartment still was standing but had suffered smoke damage and there was no electricity, no safe water to use. The couple depended on water bottles and showered at the homes of relatives.

Khan never thought she would experience such a disaster in the U.S. Then again, she didn’t journey here for her own reasons. She came to save her daughter.

‘Incredibly traumatized’

In August 1997, Khan was living in Bangladesh with her husband and their 9-year-old daughter, Riya. That month Riya had traveled with her grandparents to the U.S. to see relatives when she fell seriously ill. Doctors determined she was suffering from kidney failure and needed ongoing treatment including chemotherapy and peritoneal dialysis.

Khan traveled to the U.S. on a visitor’s visa to be with Riya. For more than a decade her daughter received treatment at the Children’s Hospital in Los Angeles.

Khan became her daughter’s primary caretaker and did not return to Bangladesh as her visa was expiring. Her husband joined her in 1999 after obtaining a visa. He and Riya eventually received green cards and became citizens.

The following year, as Khan looked for legal ways to adjust her immigration status, she met a man at a Bangladeshi grocery store who befriended her and offered to help her obtain a green card, according to court records. Little did Khan know that this man — who spoke her language and was well known in the Bangladeshi community — was a scammer, one of many who prey on South Asians migrating to the U.S.

At the time Khan did not speak, read or write English well, and this man told her he could file an asylum application on her behalf, for a fee amounting to several thousand dollars.

But Khan was unaware this man had filed the application for her using a false name and listed his own address for future correspondence from immigration authorities, according to court documents.

All this came to light when she showed up for an asylum hearing in Anaheim in 1999 and responded to the questions of an asylum officer who noticed the information did not match what was in the application.

The officer denied the application, and later she was unaware of a notice to appear before an immigration court, since it had been sent to the scammer’s address.

Her absence at the hearing prompted an immigration judge to order her to be deported. Khan did not find out about the court’s action until 2015, when her husband petitioned to adjust her status so she could obtain a green card.

After the petition was denied and her case was closed because of the deportation order, Khan hired an immigration attorney who sought to reopen the case. But a judge denied it, and her appeal also was rejected by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In February 2020, Khan was detained by ICE but released and required to check in with immigration officials. That year she hired an immigration attorney who submitted paperwork to let her stay in the U.S. The application was pending when ICE took her into custody on Oct. 6.

McLaughlin, the DHS spokesperson, said there was no reason for the government to reconsider her case, since Khan had a final removal order since 1999 and had exhausted all appeals.

“She has no legal right to be in our country,” McLaughlin said. “DHS law enforcement lawfully arrested her on Oct. 6.”

Yet Khan caught a break in early November when a federal judge ordered her released. The judge ruled the government cannot detain Khan without giving her a hearing and explaining why it needs to detain her.

It was a victory for her legal team, made up of a law firm and two nonprofit groups — the South Asian Network and Public Counsel and Hoq Law APC.

Laboni Hoq, a chief attorney on the case, said the goal is to keep Khan out of detention while the team seeks to adjust her status.

“We’re feeling like she has a shot to pursue that process … given her long history in the country and that she is law-abiding and has met all the requirements to deal with her case through the court system and immigration system,” Hoq said.

Khan’s predicament has drawn the attention of numerous Southern California politicians, including U.S. Rep. Judy Chu and U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff. Much of it had to do with Khan’s 38-year-old daughter, Riya, who reached out to the lawmakers and also took to social media to bring her mother’s case to the public’s attention.

Still, it is unclear what will happen next.

As Khan’s legal fight proceeds, she must check in regularly with immigration authorities, as she did in downtown L.A. on Dec. 19, accompanied by Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra), who also became aware of her case from Riya’s efforts.

“She’s incredibly traumatized by what’s happened to her,” Pérez said of Khan. “She’s scared to even participate in the community events that we have during the holidays … it’s painful, it makes me angry, it makes me sad and I just wanted to be here with her.”

At their Altadena home one recent evening, the Khans sat in their living room. Riya said the hope was that the case will be reopened so her mother can obtain a green card.

“We’re going to stay together,” Isteak said.

Not far from Masuma, old “welcome home” balloons hovered. As she sat next to her daughter, she could express only two things: “I cannot leave this country. This is my home.”

CINCINNATI — A man who broke windows at Vice President JD Vance’s Ohio home and caused other property damage was detained early Monday, the U.S. Secret Service said.

The man was detained shortly after midnight by Secret Service agents assigned to Vance’s home, east of downtown Cincinnati, agency spokesperson Anthony Guglielmi said in a statement emailed to the Associated Press. He has not been named.

The Secret Service heard a loud noise at the home around midnight and found a person who had broken a window with a hammer and was trying to get into the house, according to two law enforcement officials who were not publicly authorized to discuss the investigation into what happened and spoke on the condition of anonymity. The man had also vandalized a Secret Service vehicle on his way up the home’s driveway, one of the officials said.

The home, in the Walnut Hills neighborhood, on hills overlooking the city, was unoccupied at the time, and Vance and his family were not in Ohio, Guglielmi said.

The Secret Service is coordinating with the Cincinnati Police Department and the U.S. attorney’s office as charging decisions are reviewed, he said.

Vance, a Republican, was a U.S. senator representing Ohio before becoming vice president. His office said his family was already back in Washington and directed questions to the Secret Service.

Walnut Hills is one of the city’s oldest neighborhoods and is home to historic sites, including the Harriet Beecher Stowe House.

Richer and McCormack write for the Associated Press. AP writers Mike Balsamo and Sarah Brumfield contributed to this report.

MICKEY Rourke is begging for cash on GoFundMe as he turns to fans to save him from being evicted from his Hollywood home.

The controversial actor, 73, could lose his Los Angeles house after falling behind in his rent by thousands and thousand of dollars.

Mickey, who last year had a controversial appearance on Celebrity Big Brother, has set up a GoFundMe page to help pay off his debt of just under $60K (£44,500).

The actor’s fundraiser was kicked off yesterday morning citing the actor had given his “full permission”.

The page, called Help Mickey Rourke Stay in His Home reads: “Today, Mickey is facing a very real and urgent situation: the threat of eviction from his home.

“This fundraiser is being created with Mickey’s full permission to help cover immediate housing-related expenses and prevent that from happening.

EVICTED AGAIN?

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“Mickey Rourke is an icon—but his trajectory, as painful as it is, is also a deeply human one.

“It is the story of someone who gave everything to his work, took real risks, and paid real costs. Fame does not protect against hardship, and talent does not guarantee stability.

“What remains is a person who deserves dignity, housing, and the chance to regain his footing.”

The statement added: “The goal is simple: to give Mickey stability and peace of mind during an extremely stressful time—so he can stay in his home and have the space to get back on his feet.”

The page is being run by his friend Liya-Joelle Jones who told the Hollywood reporter: “Mickey is going through a very difficult time right now, and it’s been incredibly touching to see how many people care about him and want to help.”

EVICTION NOTICE

Mickey is facing possible eviction from his Los Angeles home after allegedly failing to pay nearly $60K in rent.

The actor — born Philip Rourke Jr. — began renting the three-bedroom, 2.5-bathroom home on March 30 under a lease of $5,200 per month. 

The lawsuit involving his possible eviction states the rent was raised to $7,000 per month starting in his second month of occupancy.

Court documents obtained by the Daily Mail and filed in LA’s Superior Court showed the actor was served a three-day notice on December 18.

Mickey was ordered to pay overdue rent or vacate the property.

According to the complaint filed by landlord Eric T. Goldie, Mikey owed $59,100 at the time. 

When a process server attempted to deliver the notice, the actor was not home, so the document was posted outside the residence.

The property carries historic significance in Los Angeles. 

Built in 1926, the house was occupied in the 1940s by legendary crime novelist Raymond Chandler, according to the Los Angeles Times.

It sits in the Beverly Grove neighborhood, just south of West Hollywood and a few blocks from The Grove shopping center and the adjacent Farmers Market.

REMOVED FROM CELEB BIG BROTHER

The lawsuit marks another blow for the star, who has had a tumultuous twelve months.

Early last year he was kicked out of the Celebrity Big Brother house over “unacceptable language and behavior” directed at fellow housemate JoJo Siwa.

At the time ITV issued a statement and said: “Mickey Rourke has agreed to leave the Celebrity Big Brother house this evening following a discussion with Big Brother regarding further use of inappropriate language and instances of unacceptable behaviour.”

CARACAS, Venezuela — It was about 2 a.m. Saturday Caracas time when the detonations began, lighting up the sullen sky like a post-New Year’s fireworks display.

“¡Ya comenzó!” was the recurrent phrase in homes, telephone conversations and social media chats as the latest iteration of U.S. “shock and awe” rocked the Venezuelan capital. “It has begun!”

Then the question: “¿Maduro?”

The great uncertainty was the whereabouts of President Nicolás Maduro, who has been under Trump administration threat for months.

The scenes of revelry from a joyous Venezuelan diaspora celebrating from Miami to Madrid were not repeated here. Fear of the unknown kept most at home.

Hours would pass before news reports from outside Venezuela confirmed that U.S. forces had captured Maduro and placed him on a U.S. ship to face criminal charges in federal court in New York.

Venezuelans had watched the unfolding spectacle from their homes, using social media to exchange images of explosions and the sounds of bombardment. This moment, it was clear, was ushering in a new era of uncertainly for Venezuela, a nation reeling from a decade of economic, political and social unrest.

Government supporters display posters of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, right, and former President Hugo Chávez in downtown Caracas on Saturday.

(Matias Delacroix / Associated Press)

The ultimate result was an imponderable. But that this was a transformative moment — for good or bad — seemed indisputable.

By daybreak, an uneasy calm overtook the city of more than 3 million. The explosions and the drone of U.S. aircraft ceased. Blackouts cut electricity to parts of the capital.

Pro-government youths wielding automatic rifles set up roadblocks or sped through the streets on motorcycles, a warning to those who might celebrate Maduro’s downfall.

Shops, gas stations and other businesses were mostly closed. There was little traffic.

“When I heard the explosions, I grabbed my rosary and began to pray,” said Carolina Méndez, 50, who was among the few who ventured out Saturday, seeking medicines at a pharmacy, though no personnel had arrived to attend to clients waiting on line. “I’m very scared now. That’s why I came to buy what I need.”

A sense of alarm was ubiquitous.

“People are buying bottled water, milk and eggs,” said Luz Pérez, a guard at one of the few open shops, not far from La Carlota airport, one of the sites targeted by U.S. strikes. “I heard the explosions. It was very scary. But the owner decided to open anyway to help people.”

Customers were being allowed to enter three at a time. Most didn’t want to speak. Their priority was to stock up on basics and get home safely.

Rumors circulated rapidly that U.S. forces had whisked away Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.

There was no immediate official confirmation here of the detention of Maduro and Flores, both wanted in the United States for drug-trafficking charges — allegations that Maduro has denounced as U.S. propaganda. But then images of an apparently captive Maduro, blindfolded, in a sweatsuit soon circulated on social media.

There was no official estimate of Venezuelan casualties in the U.S. raid.

Rumors circulated indicating that a number of top Maduro aides had been killed, among them Diosdado Cabello, the security minister who is a staunch Maduro ally. Cabello is often the face of the government.

But Cabello soon appeared on official TV denouncing “the terrorist attack against our people,” adding: “Let no one facilitate the moves of the enemy invader.”

Although Trump, in his Saturday news conference, confidently predicted that the United States would “run” Venezuela, apparently during some undefined transitional period, it’s not clear how that will be accomplished.

A key question is whether the military — long a Maduro ally — will remain loyal now that he is in U.S. custody. There was no public indication Saturday of mass defections from the Venezuelan armed forces. Nor was it clear that Maduro’s government infrastructure had lost control of the country. Official media reported declarations of loyalty from pro-government politicians and citizens from throughout Venezuela.

In his comments, Trump spoke of a limited U.S. troop presence in Venezuela, focused mostly on protecting the oil infrastructure that his administration says was stolen from the United States — a characterization widely rejected here, even among Maduro’s critics. But Trump offered few details on sending in U.S. personnel to facilitate what could be a tumultuous transition.

Meantime, Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez surfaced on official television and demanded the immediate release of Maduro and his wife, according to the official Telesur broadcast outlet. Her comments seemed to be the first official acknowledgment that Maduro had been taken.

“There is one president of this country, and his name is Nicolás Maduro,” the vice president said in an address from Miraflores Palace, from where Maduro and his wife had been seized hours earlier.

During an emergency meeting of the National Defense Council, Telesur reported, Rodríguez labeled the couple’s detention an “illegal kidnapping.”

The Trump administration, the vice president charged, meant to “capture our energy, mineral and [other] natural resources.”

Her defiant words came after Trump, in his news conference, said that Rodríguez had been sworn in as the country’s interim president and had evinced a willingness to cooperate with Washington.

“She’s essentially willing to do what we think is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” Trump said.

Pro-government armed civilians patrol in La Guaira, Venezuela, on Saturday after President Trump announced that President Nicolás Maduro had been captured and flown out of the country.

(Matias Delacroix / Associated Press)

Somewhat surprisingly, Trump also seemed to rule out a role in an interim government for Marina Corina Machado, the Venezuelan Nobel Peace Prize laureate and longtime anti-Maduro activist.

“She’s a very nice woman, but doesn’t have respect within the country,” Trump said of Machado.

Machado is indeed a controversial figure within the fractured Venezuelan opposition. Some object to her open calls for U.S. intervention, preferring a democratic change in government.

Nonetheless, her stand-in candidate, Edmundo González, did win the presidency in national balloting last year, according to opposition activists and others, who say Maduro stole the election.

“Venezuelans, the moment of liberty has arrived!” Machado wrote in a letter released on X. “We have fought for years. … What was meant to happen is happening.”

Not everyone agreed.

“They want our oil and they say it’s theirs,” said Roberto, 65, a taxi driver who declined to give his last name for security reasons. “Venezuelans don’t agree. Yes, I think people will go out and defend their homeland.”

Special correspondent Mogollón reported from Caracas and staff writer McDonnell from Boston. Contributing was special correspondent Cecilia Sánchez Vidal in Mexico City.

John Mayer calls it “adult day care”: the historic recording studio behind the arched gates on La Brea Avenue where famous musicians have been keeping themselves — and one another — creatively occupied since the mid-1960s.

Known for decades as Henson Studios — and as A&M Studios before that — the three-acre complex in the heart of Hollywood has played host to the creation of some of music’s most celebrated records, among them Carole King’s “Tapestry,” Joni Mitchell’s “Blue,” Guns N’ Roses’ “Use Your Illusion” and D’Angelo’s “Black Messiah.”

In 1985, A&M’s parquet-floored Studio A was where Quincy Jones gathered the all-star congregation that recorded “We Are the World” in a marathon overnight session; in 2014, Daft Punk evoked the studios’ wood-paneled splendor in a performance of “Get Lucky” with Stevie Wonder at the 56th Grammy Awards.

A soundstage on the property has seen nearly as much history, including filming for TV’s “The Red Skelton Show” and “Soul Train” and the production of the Police’s MTV-defining music video for “Every Breath You Take.” More recently, Mayer and his bandmates in Dead & Company took over the soundstage to workshop their cutting-edge residency at the Las Vegas Sphere, not long after Mayer cut his most recent solo LP, 2021’s “Sob Rock,” at Henson.

“I used to come here even if I didn’t quite have anything to do,” says the Grammy-winning singer and songwriter known for his romantic ballads and bluesy guitar heroics. “I just wanted to be around music — to have a place to go as an artist to find some structure in my life.”

Now, with an eye on preserving the spot at a moment of widespread upheaval in the entertainment industry, Mayer and his business partner, the filmmaker McG, have finalized a purchase of the lot, which they bought for $44 million from the family of the late Muppets creator Jim Henson and which they’ve renamed Chaplin Studios in honor of the silent-film giant who broke ground on it more than a century ago.

Their vision for Chaplin, which takes up half a city block between Sunset Boulevard and De Longpre Avenue, is ambitious. “We’re doing our best to create kind of a Warhol’s Factory thing of like-minded artists bumping into each other to do their best work possible,” says McG.

And the duo already have some powerful support behind them.

“A lot of my friends and I were very happy to see that Henson was being taken over by some great people,” Paul McCartney tells The Times in an email. The rock legend, who made 2001’s “Driving Rain” and 2018’s “Egypt Station” at Henson, admits that news of the studio’s changing hands left folks in his world “worried that it might not be handled sensitively.”

“However, we realize now we have no reason to be as John Mayer and McG seem to be doing a fantastic job in keeping the famous studio alive.”

Still, the challenges they face are real: Thanks to advances in cheap audio equipment — and with the economics of streaming having cut into once-lavish recording budgets — even A-list artists often opt these days to record at home rather than shell out to book into an old-line studio like Chaplin. (Consider that at least two of the songs nominated for record of the year at February’s Grammys ceremony — Billie Eilish’s “Wildflower” and Chappell Roan’s “The Subway” — were constructed primarily at home.)

“Everyone with a computer and a microphone has a studio,” Mayer says, and that’s not even accounting for the proliferation of music conjured up by AI out of the digital ether.

On the film side, the ongoing exodus of production from L.A. raises natural doubts about the ability to keep a soundstage busy with clients — doubts, one presumes, that led the owners of Occidental Studios near Echo Park to put that lot up for sale last summer.

“The real estate guys weren’t necessarily saying what a prudent business move this was,” says McG, who directed the 2000 blockbuster “Charlie’s Angels” and executive produced TV’s “The O.C.” “But it’s not about the dividend or the monthly spit-out. I admire John for throwing down.”

Says Mayer: “I love doing things that people tell me aren’t gonna work. That’s how I know I’m onto something.”

McG inside the soundstage at Chaplin Studios.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Mayer, 48, and McG, 57, are lounging on a December afternoon in Mayer’s ranch-hand-chic office, which occupies what once was the mill where wood for Charlie Chaplin’s movie sets was cut. Last night the co-owners threw a holiday party for the studio’s staff and friends; McG breakdanced — “My neck hurts today, but I got through it,” he says — while Mitchell turned up and played the piano in Mayer’s personal Studio C, where she liked to work in the ’70s.

As we talk, Mayer is sipping no fewer than three different smoothies — an approach he says he picked up from the late Apple founder Steve Jobs, who evidently would order multiple smoothies to ensure he wasn’t missing out on a new discovery.

“There’s something I relate to about that,” Mayer says, his Double RL boots propped on a coffee table in front of him. “I’m gonna have this smoothie and a little bit of these other smoothies to figure out: Does that smoothie beat this smoothie as my all-time-favorite order? What if there’s a smoothie out there in the world that you haven’t tried yet that could be your favorite?”

He puts down one cup and picks up another. “This one has wheatgrass in it,” he reports. “Not for me.”

The singer met McG, whose real name is Joseph McGinty Nichol, in 2024 through the studio’s longtime manager, Faryal Ganjehei. Each had ample experience on the lot: In the 1990s, McG shot music videos on the soundstage for the likes of Sublime and Smash Mouth; Mayer first recorded at Henson in 2005 when he cut a version of “Route 66” for the soundtrack to “Cars.”

“You’d think John and I would have known each other just from around here or from Ari Emanuel’s or whatever,” McG says. “But this was actually a bit of an arranged marriage” between two people who’d separately heard rumblings that the Jim Henson Co. might be looking to move its operations. (The company, which makes a variety of children’s television shows, is now headquartered at Studio City’s Radford Studio Center.)

“One year in, we’re still performing vigorous lovemaking,” McG says of his and Mayer’s union.

“Can’t wait to see that in Times New Roman,” Mayer adds.

Herb Alpert, left, and Jerry Moss at A&M headquarters in 1966.

(Bettmann Archive / Getty Images)

Charlie Chaplin, who was born in London, began building the lot in 1917 in a white-and-brown English Tudor style; he went on to direct some of his best-known films, including “Modern Times” and “The Great Dictator,” on the property. After Chaplin left the United States in 1952, the lot was used for episodes of “The Adventures of Superman” and “Perry Mason.”

In 1966, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss bought the place and made it the base for their A&M Records; they converted two of the lot’s soundstages into high-end recording studios that drew the the likes of Sergio Mendes, the Carpenters, Stevie Nicks, U2 and John Lennon. Henson took over in 2000 and continued to cultivate what many of the studio’s regulars describe as a cozy family vibe.

“It was truly my home away from home,” says John Shanks, who produced hit records by Sheryl Crow, Miley Cyrus and Ashlee Simpson, among many others, at Henson. “My kids celebrated birthdays there — they knew where the candy was in Faryal’s office.”

Mayer and McG say they’re putting $9 million into improvements on the lot — “an up-to-speed-ovation,” the director calls it — but have no plans to make significant structural or stylistic changes. Ganjehei’s staff of around 22 engineers, techs and runners will stay on, as will artists who maintain offices and studios on the property, among them Daft Punk’s production company and the duo of Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman.

“We’ve all seen places we loved get renovated and then you go, ‘Yeah, I don’t like it there anymore,’” McG says.

Such as?

“The Four Seasons on Doheny,” Mayer responds. “They took out the old dining room and put in a Culina, and it’s no fun anymore.” Of Chaplin, he says, “This place has a beating heart. All we have to do is effectively not kill it, right?” He laughs. “Just stay away from the big red button that says, ‘I got an idea.’”

Adrian Scott Fine welcomes that attitude.

“It’s what we like to hear — it’s not what we often hear,” says the president and chief executive of the Los Angeles Conservancy, a nonprofit dedicated to historic preservation. “When places transfer out of long-term stewardship, that always raises our spidey senses: What does this mean for the future? Sometimes they go into safe hands with the next owner. Oftentimes it means radical change, loss of character, maybe demolition or redevelopment. So we’re very hopeful when someone says that because it doesn’t happen enough in L.A.”

John Mayer, right, and McG inside Studio B at Chaplin Studios.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

As a show of historical continuity, Mayer and McG initially wanted to call the property Chaplin A&M. But Mayer says he couldn’t get Universal Music Group, which controls the A&M brand, to sign off on the name.

“I’ve never seen fruit so close to the ground before,” he says of the idea to bring back A&M. “Everyone I spoke to did the thing that people at record companies do, where it starts to get very gauzy as it moves up the flagpole: ‘Listen, I get it, but I can’t get the person above me to see it.’” (Moss died in 2023, and a spokesperson for Alpert said he wasn’t available for an interview. A UMG spokesperson didn’t respond to a request for comment.)

More disappointing, Mayer and McG say, was the Henson family’s decision to take down the 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog — dressed as Chaplin’s Little Tramp character — that presided for 25 years over the lot’s front entrance.

“It was important to the Hensons to have Kermit — that was expressed very early on,” Mayer says of the statue, which the family is donating to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. “We might have had the delusion of a reprieve. But they didn’t change their mind.”

“I talk to people I know and they say, ‘My kids go to school on La Brea, and every day we drive by and say, “What’s up, Kerms?”’” McG says. “It saddens me that the people of Los Angeles won’t be able to share in Kermit looking over them. If I sold Randy’s Donuts to a barbecue place, I’d hope the barbecue guy would keep the giant doughnut. It’s in the ‘I Love L.A.’ video with Randy Newman, OK?

Until recently, a 12-foot statue of Kermit the Frog presided over the front entrance to the Henson property on La Brea Avenue.

(AaronP / Bauer-Griffin / GC Images)

“This isn’t a McG thing,” the director adds. “It’s not a John Mayer thing. With the greatest respect, it’s not even a Henson thing. Kermit, to me, had transcended all of that and become a part of the fabric of this community.”

Did they make that emotional case to the Hensons?

“We tried,” Mayer says.

And it fell on deaf ears?

“Indeed,” says McG. (A spokesperson at the Jim Henson Co. declined to comment.)

Mayer has seen the comments on social media blaming him for Kermit’s disappearance, which is no doubt why he’s eager to get the word out that it wasn’t his doing. Yet the singer — a tabloid fixture since the days when he dated Taylor Swift and Jessica Simpson — says he’s not tortured by his haters.

“They should be worried about what I think of them,” he says with a laugh. “Honest to God, sometimes I read stuff and I go, ‘If only you knew …’ And I don’t have to apply that to myself as a balm so I stop feeling bad. I’m at the age now where I’ve seen everything you could possibly write, and I’ve survived.”

Not so long ago, Mayer would happily jump into the rough and tumble of online discourse. “But don’t you find yourself scrolling away from things so obviously designed to outrage you?” he asks. The sun is starting to go down outside — this is the time of day, he says, when Chaplin’s bucolic grounds remind him of Montecito’s San Ysidro Ranch — and he’s getting slightly philosophical.

“Millennials had their brains ripped out by the things they read. Gen Z is beginning to go, ‘I think a lot of these are bots.’ And I think Gen Alpha will be the generation that looks and says, ‘There’s a whole bunch of clankers writing bulls—. We don’t care.’

“My years of trash talking or being critical of any artist in any way — I think they’re over,” he says. “It never felt as good as it feels to run into people in the hallway and be glad they’re here.”

The sense of community Mayer feels — and is trying to nurture — at Chaplin is one reason he’s optimistic the studio will succeed.

“I think we’re leaving an era of ‘I did it myself — aren’t you amazed?’ Look at Dijon onstage at ‘SNL,’” he says of the R&B singer and producer who led an expansive group of musicians through a vivid TV performance in early December. “We’ve heard our hands applauding the fact that people have done it alone, and now we’re turning the corner and loving collaboration again. And you can’t come into a place like this and do it alone.”

“I love doing things that people tell me aren’t gonna work,” John Mayer says.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Even so, bills wait for no vibe shift. Beyond the business of recording, Mayer and McG are eager to make Chaplin’s soundstage a destination for acts in need of rehearsal space — AC/DC was recently in there practicing — as well as for certain high-end live events.

“If Anna Wintour’s gonna do ‘Women of Hollywood,’” McG says, “I need Anna Wintour going, ‘John, it’s got to be at your place.’”

Mayer says he’s fantasized about a sitcom or a talk show taking up residence on the soundstage.

“I hear John’s pretty good friends with Andy Cohen,” McG says of the Bravo host. “We’ll see where his show goes.”

“He looked at it,” Mayer says. “I think he needed more space to be able to do ‘Real Housewives’ reunions. Think about the number of Star Waggons you need for that.”

Yet music remains at the heart of Mayer’s ambitions for Chaplin, which he says he intends to own long enough to “sit down in a chair for a documentary several times, talking about other people’s records that were made here.” (Mayer himself says he’s been “defending the calendar of 2026” to record an album of his own.)

“Every time an artist drives through that gate, they’re taking an emotional risk,” he says. “Hoping they have a song in them but not being sure — it’s a very vulnerable state to be in. Everyone’s walking around, bumping into walls, thinking about what the rhyme is to that word. I want to make this the greatest place you could ever struggle.”

Actor Mickey Rourke faces eviction from his Los Angeles home after failing to pay rent.

Rourke, whose birth name is Philip Andre Rourke Jr., received a three-day notice to pay rent or vacate the premises on Dec. 18 and had failed to comply, according to court documents filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday.

At the time of the notice, he owed $59,100 in unpaid rent.

A representative for Rourke did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In March, Rourke signed a lease for the three-bedroom, 2.5-bath house for $5,200 a month; it was subsequently raised to $7,000 a month, states the court filings.

A Zillow listing describes the property as a “nicely upgraded Spanish bungalow” built in 1926. Raymond Chandler was said to have resided there for two years in the 1940s.

The property’s owner, Eric Goldie, is requesting compensation for attorney‘s fees and for damages. A lawyer for Goldie was unavailable for comment.

A former boxer, Rourke, 73, turned to acting with small roles in the 1980 film “Heaven’s Gate” and “Body Heat” a year later, before earning acclaim for his role in 1982’s “Diner.”

After a slate of leading roles in a number of movies including “The Pope of Greenwich Village,” “9 1/2 Weeks” and “Rumble Fish,” Rourke‘s film career took a nosedive, with his off-screen antics frequently overshadowing his acting.

“I lost everything. My house, my wife, my credibility, my career,” he told The Times in an interview in 2008. “I just all had all this anger from my childhood, which was really shame, not anger, and used it as armor and machismo to cover up my wounds. Unfortunately, the way I acted really frightened people, although it was really just me who was scared. But I was like this person who was short-circuited and I didn’t know how to fix myself.”

In 2005 he reemerged with the neo-noir action thriller “Sin City.”

Three years later, Rourke’s portrayal of aging, washed up wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, in the Darren Aronofsky film “The Wrestler,” earned him a Golden Globe and an Oscar nomination for lead actor.

Rourke’s return to the big screen has not been an entirely smooth ride.

In April, he agreed to exit “Celebrity Big Brother UK” after producers warned him over the use of “inappropriate language and instances of unacceptable behavior,” according to a statement a spokesperson for the show released at the time.

His remarks allegedly included comments about JoJo Siwa’s sexuality

Following his departure from the reality show, his manager announced that he was pursuing legal action over a pay dispute, claiming that the show had disrespected her client by “publicly embarrassing him” and declined to pay him, according to People.

Listening to the usual legacy media suspects, one might think 2025 was an apocalyptic wasteland of sorts — an authoritarian fever dream brought on by the return of Donald J. Trump to the Oval Office. The reality looked very different. This past year was, in many ways, a pretty great and clarifying one. Let’s take stock of what happened when our government remembered whom it serves, as well as what unfinished business remains as we flip the calendar.

First, the obvious: Political sanity was restored to the nation’s capital. After years of leftist elite-driven chaos — wide-open borders, hyper-vindictive lawfare, fecklessness on the world stage and more — the nation has begun to revert back to first principles: national sovereignty, law and order, and strong leadership abroad. Under Trump, the United States has once again acted like a real nation-state that pursues its real interests — not a nongovernmental organization with a nagging guilt complex.

That reorientation has paid huge dividends. On immigration, the Biden-era invasion at the southern border has tapered by more than 90%. On energy, a renewed embrace of domestic production has led to the lowest average national gas prices in nearly five years. Violent crime, thanks to Trump’s law enforcement operations and innovative use of the National Guard, has dramatically fallen: Murders decreased by nearly 20% from 2024, and robbery and burglary also saw double-digit percentage decreases. Abroad, allies and adversaries alike recalibrated to the reality that the White House once again means what it says.

Still, work always remains. Here, then, is my 2026 wish list.

Peace in Eastern Europe

The Russia-Ukraine war has gone on far, far too long. The Trump administration has exerted tremendous diplomatic effort trying to orchestrate a peace deal, which remains elusive. A durable peace — one that halts the senseless slaughter on both sides, respects Ukrainian sovereignty and accommodates legitimate Russian concerns, and avoids a wider great-power conflagration — should be a paramount Trump administration foreign policy goal in 2026. Russia is the invader and Vladimir Putin is the greater obstacle to a lasting peace, but both sides need to make painful — if, frustratingly, also painfully obvious — concessions.

Victory on birthright citizenship

Back home, a consequential legal battle now sits before the U.S. Supreme Court: the Trump administration’s righteous challenge to the erroneous practice of constitutionally “required” birthright citizenship for the U.S.-born children of noncitizens. The notion that the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 in the aftermath of the Civil War, was meant to constitutionalize a global human trafficking magnet — granting automatic citizenship to all children born here, including those whose parents entered the country illegally — is indefensible as a matter of plain constitutional text, the congressional history in the House and Senate Judiciary Committees, and basic common sense. Indeed, birthright citizenship has been nothing short of ruinous for the United States. A Trump administration victory would restore Congress’s rightful authority over circumscribing citizenship and remove a longstanding incentive for illegal immigration.

Improved affordability and housing costs

Legal victories mean relatively little if ordinary Americans continue to feel like they are getting squeezed. Improved affordability must be front and center in 2026 — from the federal level down to states and localities. The cost of living is not an economic abstraction; it affects rent, groceries, child care and the difficulty of buying a first home. Housing, in particular, demands attention. Housing policy should reward supply, not suffocate it — cutting red tape and burdensome construction fees, reforming zoning incentives, and curtailing the inflationary spending that puts upward pressure on mortgage rates. A nation where young families cannot afford to put down roots is a nation courting decline — the very antithesis of Trumpian restoration.

Justice for Minnesota fraud scandal

The burgeoning fraud scandal over state and federal funds for child care in Minnesota, including at businesses run by Somali Americans — astonishing in scale — has become a test case for whether the rule of law still applies when politics get uncomfortable. Justice means following the facts wherever they lead: recovering stolen taxpayer dollars and holding wrongdoers and abettors legally accountable without fear or favor. To wit, on the subject of abettors: What did Gov. Tim Walz (D-Minn.), Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and other prominent Minnesota politicians know, and when did they know it? Moreover, what did Kamala Harris — who picked Walz as her 2024 presidential running mate — know, and when did she know it? The Biden administration and the Walz administration began investigating these fraud allegations years ago, and the American people deserve answers to all these questions.

Tamed Communist China

Finally, no wish list can be complete without confronting the central geopolitical challenge of our age: that of Communist China. Simply put, Xi Jinping and the Chinese Communist Party, who just presided over their largest live-fire military exercises around Taiwan, must be meaningfully deterred in the Indo-Pacific. That means maintaining a combative tariff posture, implementing as much economic decoupling as is feasible and emboldening key regional allies — such as Japan — who share America’s interest in freedom of maritime navigation and diminished Chinese hegemony. Decades from now, Trump’s presidential legacy will be partially defined by how he handled the China challenge. Now is not the time to take the foot off the gas pedal.

This past year showed what is possible when Washington rejects the politics of managed decline and reembraces the best of the American tradition and way of life. Let us hope we will see more — a lot more — of that same success in this new year.

Josh Hammer’s latest book is “Israel and Civilization: The Fate of the Jewish Nation and the Destiny of the West.” This article was produced in collaboration with Creators Syndicate. X: @josh_hammer

It was the last story I wrote before everything changed.

It was Jan. 5, 2025, and I was marveling at the Rams gumption in their short-handed loss to the Seattle Seahawks.

“It was weird,” I wrote. “It was wild.”

I was so witty. I was so wrong.

Two days later, I was fleeing for my life, steering my car down narrow Altadena streets with a fireball at my back and a nightmarish future sprawled across the smoke-filled streets ahead.

Now that was weird and wild.

The year 2025 was more tumultuous than any silly football game and its accompanying overwrought metaphors. It was a year that knocked me flat, tearing me apart from so many things that once anchored me, setting me afloat in a sea of guilt and despair and ultimate uncertainty.

Today, I have a home but no home. My days are filled with the beeps and growls of bulldozers. My nights are draped in the silence of emptiness. What was once one of the coolest secrets in Los Angeles has become a veritable ghost town, the vast empty spaces populated by howling coyotes and scrounging bears.

And I’m one of the lucky ones.

A lot has changed in the 12 months since the Eaton Fire spared my house but destroyed my Altadena neighborhood. I say a daily prayer of thanks that I did not endure the horror of the 19 people who lost their lives and thousands more who lost their homes. I am beyond fortunate to live in what was left behind.

But virtually nothing was left behind. Venerable manicured homes have been replaced by weed-choked vacant lots. Familiar local businesses are now empty parking lots. There is the occasional sighting of new construction, but far more prevalent is “For Sale” signs that have seemingly been there for months.

After living in the limbo of hotels and Airbnbs for two months while my home was remediated, I was blessed to return to four walls and running water, but beset with the guilt of having a front-row seat to the pain of so many who lost everything. I was spared, but nobody in Los Angeles was spared, and it wasn’t until halfway through the year that I noticed a consistent light from the strangest source.

Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani points as he rounds the bases after hitting a solo home run during Game 3 of the World Series.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Every night, I would watch the Dodgers. At least once every couple of weeks, I would attend a Sparks game with my daughter, MC. Soon, there would be Saturdays with one of our college football teams, then Sundays with the NFL then, the baseball playoffs, leading to the insane Game 7 and morphing into the annual Lakers winter drama.

By the final weeks of December, I realized that one thing has consistently kept my spirits strong, perhaps the same thing that has helped keep our city upright through trials much tougher than mine.

Sports.

The highs, the lows, the dramatics, the desperation, it was all there when nothing was there, it was the feeling that even with everything gone, you still belonged to something.

UCLA women’s basketball players celebrate as confetti falls after they beat USC to win the Big Ten tournament title.

(Michael Conroy/AP)

From Dodgers exhilaration to Laker despair, from USC football frustration to UCLA women’s basketball greatness, sports has been the bright wallpaper on a year of Southland darkness.

It is sports that kept me grounded, kept me steady and somehow kept me believing.

In the worst year of my life, it was sports that saved me.

The path back to normalcy began two weeks after the Eaton fire, when I left my temporary hotel room to attend a press conference for the Dodgers’ latest Japanese import, Roki Sasaki.

“Invincible,” I wrote about the team’s rebuilt roster, a word that was so comforting during such a time when everything in life felt tenuous.

I came back to the hotel after the press conference, wrote my story then, like thousands of others in my situation, packed up and moved to another hotel.

Lakers guard Luka Doncic claps hands with forward LeBron James during a game against the Clippers on March 2.

(Mark J. Terrill / Associated Press)

Soon thereafter I was awakened late one night with the news of the Lakers stunning acquisition of Luka Doncic. I wrote this column from a rental house while preparing to move to yet another new place. My clothes were in a plastic grocery bag. My house was still in shambles. In Doncic, as least, there was hope.

Several days later I attended the Doncic press conference, asked a question, and Doncic asked me to repeat it. Turns out, it wasn’t a language barrier, it was a sound barrier. I was speaking too softly. It was then I noticed that the trauma from the fire had exacerbated my Parkinson’s Disease, which affected my voice, one of the many symptoms which later led me to acknowledging my condition in a difficult mid-summer column.

Yeah, it was a helluva year.

Good news returned in early March when it was announced that the Dodgers had made Dave Roberts the richest manager in baseball, giving him a new four-year, $32.4 million contract. In a bit of dumb luck that hasn’t stopped me from bragging about it since, 10 years ago I was the first one to publicly push for Roberts’ hiring. In such unstable times in our city, Roberts had become the new Tommy Lasorda, and his presence became a needed jolt of smile.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts salutes fans during the team’s World Series celebration at Dodger Stadium on Nov. 3.

(Carlin Stiehl/For The Times)

In early April, I wrote a column I never thought I’d write — that Bronny James had been transformed from circus to contributor. I also wrote a column that I maybe wish I hadn’t written so soon, that JJ Redick was a Laker success.

By then, writing stories about Laker conflicts was a refreshing respite from dealing with fire hassles. We were back in the house, but were we safe? Did we test enough for toxins? And how can we look our next-door neighbor in the eye when she comes to examine the giant empty scar where her house once stood?

In late May I sadly said goodbye to my second family when I wrote about the end of my 22-year run on ESPN’s popular “Around the Horn” game show. It wasn’t the first time in 2025 that a column brought me to tears, witness the video immediately after the fire. Agreed, I spent the year showing so much emotion for someone who had gotten so lucky. But I’m guessing I wasn’t alone.

Two weeks later I wrote about my new family, the group of boxers I have joined in my fight against Parkinson’s. That was the toughest column I have ever written, as I was acknowledging something I refused to admit for five years. But the fire had seemingly set the disease ablaze, and I could hide it no longer.

The year continued with columns about the soon-to-be-retiring Clayton Kershaw, the greatest Dodger pitcher with the greatest entrance song. Hearing “We Are Young” when he took the mound consistently gave me hope that, through the treacheries of a summer that marked the escalation of those insane ICE raids, we can continue to strive for rebirth.

That’s what sports consistently provided in 2025, the hope that from beneath the rubble, we could all fly again.

I voiced this hope in a Rams preview column that predicted they would go to the Super Bowl. I later wrote a Rams column predicting they would actually win the Super Bowl. I stand by my stories.

All of which led to a series of Dodger playoff columns that hopefully reflected the building energy of a town enthralled. After their Game 7 victory against the Toronto Blue Jays, I was so spent that I hyperventilated for what felt like an hour.

Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto holds up the MVP trophy after beating the Blue Jays and winning the World Series.

(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)

“In the end, they not only ran it back, they sprinted it back, they slugged it back, and then, finally, they literally Will-ed it back,” I wrote.

In hindsight those words could have been written not only about a team, but a city, fighting back, staying strong, the results of its struggle mirroring the Dodgers’ consecutive championships, punching through desperation, from struggle to strength.

In 2025, sports showed me that life can get better, life will be better, that if we hang in there long enough we can all hit that Miggy Ro homer, make that Andy Pages catch, stay forever young.

And thus I offer a heartiest and hopeful welcome to 2026.

Bring it on.

Russia has threatened to retaliate against Ukraine after alleging that nearly 100 drones had targeted one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s residences.

The threat on Monday was made as United States President Donald Trump tries to broker a peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine, which will enter its fifth year in February.

What has Russia claimed?

On Monday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov alleged that Ukraine had launched the attack on the Valdai residence, one of Putin’s residences in the Novgorod region in northwestern Russia. The property is 360km (225 miles) north of Moscow.

Lavrov told reporters that Ukraine had launched 91 drones towards the residence. He added that air defence systems shot down the drones and no one was injured.

The Russian Ministry of Defence said 49 of the drones were shot down over the Bryansk region, one was shot down over the Smolensk region and 41 were shot down over the Novgorod region while en route.

“Such reckless actions will not go unanswered,” Lavrov said. “The targets for retaliatory strikes and the timing of their implementation by the Russian armed forces have been determined.”

Russian officials accused Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, of carrying out the strike to derail the prospects of a peace agreement.

In an apparent reference to Zelenskyy, Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev wrote on X: “The stinking Kiev b**tard is trying to derail the settlement of the conflict. He wants war. Well, now at least he’ll have to stay in hiding for the rest of his worthless life.”

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said the strike took place on Sunday “practically immediately after” talks were held in Florida between Trump and Zelenskyy on ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.

After that meeting, Trump and Zelenskyy had voiced optimism, saying a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine was “close”.

Putin has not publicly commented on the attack yet. It is unclear where Putin was at the time of the attack, but he was holding meetings in the Kremlin on Saturday and Monday.

How has Ukraine responded?

Zelenskyy has strongly denied Russia’s allegation that Ukraine attacked one of Putin’s residences.

“Russia is at it again, using dangerous statements to undermine all achievements of our shared diplomatic efforts with President Trump’s team,” Zelenskyy wrote in an X post on Monday.

“This alleged ‘residence strike’ story is a complete fabrication intended to justify additional attacks against Ukraine, including Kyiv, as well as Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.”

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also condemned Moscow’s claims, saying they were designed to undermine the negotiations.

In a post on X, Sybiha said the claim was intended “to create a pretext and false justification for Russia’s further attacks against Ukraine, as well as to undermine and impede the peace process”.

In another post on Tuesday, Sybiha wrote: “Almost a day passed and Russia still hasn’t provided any plausible evidence to its accusations of Ukraine’s alleged ‘attack on Putin’s residence.’ And they won’t. Because there’s none. No such attack happened.”

How has Trump reacted?

Trump appeared to accept the Russian version of events on Monday when he told reporters: “It’s one thing to be offensive. It’s another thing to attack his house. It’s not the right time to do any of that. And I learned about it from President Putin today. I was very angry about it.”

But when reporters asked Trump if US intelligence agencies had evidence of the alleged attack, Trump said: “We’ll find out.”

Congressman Don Bacon, a member of Trump’s Republican Party, criticised the president for accepting the Russian account of events without assessing the facts.

“President Trump and his team should get the facts first before assuming blame. Putin is a well known boldface liar,” Bacon wrote in an X post.

How have other world leaders reacted?

Like Trump, other leaders appeared to accept the Russian allegations.

In a statement released on Monday, the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote: “The United Arab Emirates has strongly condemned the attempt to target the residence of His Excellency Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and denounced this deplorable attack and the threat it poses to security and stability.”

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote in an X post on Tuesday: “Deeply concerned by reports of the targeting of the residence of the President of the Russian Federation.”

Modi added that the ongoing diplomatic engagement being led by the US is the “most viable path” towards achieving peace. “We urge all concerned to remain focused on these efforts and to avoid any actions that could undermine them.”

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also condemned the alleged attack.

“Pakistan condemns the reported targeting of the residence of His Excellency Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation. Such a heinous act constitutes a grave threat to peace, security, and stability, particularly at a time when efforts aimed at peace are underway,” Sharif wrote on X.

“Pakistan expresses its solidarity with the President of the Russian Federation, and with the government and people of Russia.”

Have Putin’s residences previously been attacked?

Russia has made previous claims of Ukrainian attacks on Putin’s residences, including on the Kremlin, Putin’s official residence and main workplace.

In May 2023, Moscow alleged that Ukraine had deployed two drones to attack Putin’s residence in the Kremlin citadel but said its forces had disabled the drones. Kyiv denied any involvement.

On December 25, 2024, Russia alleged that it had intercepted and destroyed a Ukrainian drone also targeting the Kremlin. Kyiv again denied responsibility.

Conversely, Ukraine has alleged that Russia has attacked Kyiv and other government buildings in Ukraine.

In September, the Ukrainian military said a Russian drone attack damaged a government building in Kyiv that is home to Ukraine’s cabinet. Plumes of smoke were seen emerging from the building. Russia said it had targeted Ukrainian military infrastructure only.

What has Russia now threatened to do?

While Russia has not outright threatened to end the peace talks, Moscow said it would realign its position in the talks.

“The diplomatic consequence will be to toughen the negotiating position of the Russian Federation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.

Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova warned that Moscow’s response “would not be diplomatic”. Indeed, it has warned that it plans to hit back militarily but has given no details of how or when it might do this.

Will this derail the US-led peace talks?

Speaking to reporters after his “terrific” meeting with Zelenskyy on Sunday at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida, Trump told reporters that Moscow and Kyiv were “closer than ever” to a peace deal.

But Trump has made this claim several times before. In April, Trump said Russia and Ukraine were “very close to a deal” after Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow.

On December 15, Trump also said Russia and Ukraine were “closer than ever” to a deal after talks in Berlin involving Zelenskyy and the leaders of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and NATO.

However, observers and analysts said the issue of territorial concessions remains a major sticking point. Trump’s 28-point peace plan for Ukraine, which he unveiled in November, involved Ukraine ceding large amounts of land that Russia has occupied during nearly four years of war. Zelenskyy has stated on numerous occasions that this is a line Ukraine will not cross.

Most analysts are sceptical that any progress has been made on this point and said the latest accusations against Ukraine will probably have little effect. “I don’t think there is anything to derail at this point,” said Marina Miron, an analyst at King’s College London.

The peace process “is not going well due to disagreements on key issues between Ukraine and Russia”, she told Al Jazeera.

“Trump has repeatedly claimed that a peace deal is close without sustainable agreement,” Keir Giles, a Russian military expert at the London think tank Chatham House, told Al Jazeera this month.

Russia has occupied nearly 20 percent of eastern Ukraine and has been slowly gaining territory as Ukraine’s military has been weakened by desertions, casualties and dwindling military aid. Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014.

“It’s probably impossible that Ukrainians will voluntarily withdraw from these territories unless we will also see a withdrawal of Russian forces on the other side,” Nathalie Tocci, director at the Rome-based think tank Istituto Affari Internazionali (Institute of International Affairs), told Al Jazeera.

Giles said there are still parallel negotiation tracks, however – one involving the US and Ukraine and another between Ukraine and European nations. He added, however, that there is no clear evidence that these efforts are fully coordinated or aligned in terms of strategy.

christine.maiduc@latimes.com

For more on California politics, follow @cmaiduc.

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Updates on California politics

UPDATES:

2 p.m.: This article was updated to clarify that Fight Back California is targeting 30,000 voters in each of the seven districts.

This article was originally published at 3 a.m.

Bath: De Glanville; Cokanasiga, Lawrence, Ojomoh, Arundell; Russell, Spencer (c); Obano, Dunn, du Toit; Roux, Molony, Bayliss, Underhill, Reid.

Replacements: Frost, Van Wyk, Griffin, Hill, Pepper, Carr-Smith, Carreras, Harris.

Sin bin: Frost (65)

Northampton: Hendy; Todaro, Freeman, Hutchinson, Ramm; Belleau, McParland; Iyogun, Smith, Davison; Prowse, Munga, Chick (c), Graham, Pollock.

Replacements: Walker, Scola, Millar Mills, Benson, Brown, James, Lumley, Sleightholme.

Sin bin: Prowse (12)

Referee: Craig Maxwell-Keys

YouTube personality Adam the Woo, known for his videos about his travels and exploring theme parks and other pop culture destinations, has died.

The content creator, whose full name was David Adam Williams, was found dead Monday in his home in Celebration, Fla., the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office confirmed to The Times. He was 51.

Sheriff’s deputies responded to a call at Williams’ home at 2:53 p.m. Monday after a “friend had borrowed a ladder and looked in the 3rd story window to see a male on a bed that was not moving,” a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “Upon entering the residence with Fire Rescue, the male was reported deceased.”

According to the statement, deputies had also been dispatched to the home earlier that afternoon for a well-being check where “[t]he residence was secured, [but] no contact was made with the adult male residing there.”

Adam the Woo described himself on his YouTube channel as “[a]n 80s pop culture nerd with a desire to travel and video what I see.” He posted more than 4,000 videos about his adventures at Disney and Universal theme parks, pop culture conventions, movie filming locations, abandoned cities and more across his two YouTube channels, which combined had more than 1 million subscribers.

The vlogger had shared a look at his Christmas decorations as well as the holiday festivities in his community in the latest video posted to his the Daily Woo channel on Sunday. As news of his death circulated on Tuesday, Adam the Woo’s fans shared tributes in the comments of his videos.

“I hope his friends and Family look back at all his videos and tell themselves he lived a life he dreamed of living,” one fan posted on his latest video. “He saw the world. He had so many friends and fans and was so loved.”

“It never felt like you were watching him. It always felt like you were there with him,” posted another. “We will forever be grateful for the journeys you took us on, Adam.”

Williams was last seen on Sunday “by the friend that looked into his window,” the Osceola County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson said. The investigation is ongoing and the medical examiner will conduct an autopsy to determine the cause of death.

We might rarely get to see snowfall in Los Angeles, but logging onto social media in December means the arrival of a different kind of flurry. The one where our friends, both close and parasocial, excitedly share the year-end music-listening data dumps of their Spotify Wrapped.

Spotify Wrapped only represents the culmination of our listening habits on a single music platform, but every shared Wrapped post seems to come with some self-evident clarity about our personal identity. Spotify Wrapped bares our souls and provides us the opportunity to see ourselves deconstructed via our musical inclinations. By most accounts, it’s an irresistible delight. Oh, Spotify, you rascal, you’ve got us pegged.

For anyone in Los Angeles, 2025 has been one hell of a year to get the Wrapped treatment. We’re still processing the aftermath of the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires — and haunted by ICE raids and the federal administration’s ceaseless attacks on California. Not to mention Jimmy Kimmel getting silenced.

Maybe it’s not such a bad idea to take that temperature check.

But listening to music can be a passive experience — one enjoyed in tandem with folding laundry, or driving a car. To really learn about ourselves and how our year has been, we might want to turn elsewhere, to a habit with more intention. I’m talking, of course, about reading.

While there’s apps for tracking our reading habits, like StoryGraph or Goodreads, I’m devoted to a wholly analogue tracking method that’s helped me churn through books faster and with more intent than ever before: the book stack.

Starting every January, whenever I finish a book, I place it sidelong atop a shelf in the corner of my living room. With each new book I conquer, the stack gets taller, eventually becoming a full tower by December. A book stack, low on analytics, can’t tell me the total number of pages I’ve read, or how many minutes I spent reading, but it’s a tangible monument to my year’s reading progress. Its mere presence prods me into reading more. It calls me a chump when the stack is low and cheers for me when it reaches toward the ceiling.

My first book stack started in 2020, a wry joke to demonstrate the extra time we could all devote to reading books during a pandemic. The joke barely worked. I ended up reading just 19 books that year, only a few more than I had the previous year (though it could’ve been more if one of those books wasn’t “Crime and Punishment”).

Still, the book stack model gamified my reading habits and now I give books time I didn’t feel I had before. I bring books to bars, movie theaters and the DMV. If ever I have to wait around somewhere, you better believe I’ll come armed with a book.

The pandemic may have waned, but my book stack count continued to climb, peaking in 2023 after reading 52 books, averaging one per week.

But, hey, it’s about quality, not quantity, right? If there’s a quality to be gleaned from my 2025 book stack, you’d see that I’ve been looking for hot tips on how to survive times of extreme authoritarian rule. Some were more insightful than others.

In the stack was Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward’s “All the President’s Men,” a landmark true story about two intrepid reporters who brought down the president of the United States by repeatedly bothering people at their homes for information. Fascinating as it is, it also feels like a relic from a time when doing something like that could still work. Philip Roth’s “The Plot Against America” tells the story of a Jewish New Jersey family in an alternate timeline where an “America First” Charles Lindbergh beats Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940 presidential election, ignoring the threat of Hitler in Europe and giving way to a rise in antisemitism at home. Roth paints a dreary portrait of how that scenario could have played out, but the horrors are resolved by something of a deus ex machina rather than by any one character’s bold, heroic actions. Then there’s Anthony Doerr’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “All the Light We Cannot See,” about the converging stories of a German boy enlisted in Hitler’s army and a blind French girl during World War II. Sadly, this novel reads less like a book about living under fascist rule than a thirsty solicitation to become source material for Steven Spielberg’s next movie.

Each of these titles have merit, but this year’s book stack had two gems for anyone who wants to know how best to resist tyranny. Pointedly, there was Timothy Snyder’s tidy pocket-sized handbook “On Tyranny” filled with 20 short but fortifying chapters of practical wisdom like “Do not obey in advance,” “Defend institutions” and “Believe in truth.” Each is applicable to our current moment, informed by historical precedent set by communist and fascist regimes of the past century. This book — well over a million copies sold — came out at the start of Trump’s first term in 2017, so I came a little late to this party. The fact that Snyder himself moved to Canada this year should give us all pause.

Practical advice can also be found in great fiction, and on that front I found comfort and instruction in Hans Fallada’s “Alone in Berlin” (a.k.a. “Every Man Dies Alone”), based on the true story of a married couple living in Berlin during World War II who wrote postcards urging resistance against the Nazi regime and secretly planted them in public places for random people to discover. Under their extreme political conditions, this small act of civil disobedience means risking death. Not only is the story riveting, there’s also great pleasure in seeing the mayhem each postcard causes and how effective they are at exposing the subordinate class of fascists for what they truly are: nitwits.

Also notable in “Alone in Berlin” is the point of view of both the author and his fictional heroes. Neither a target of persecution, nor a military adversary, Fallada nevertheless endured the amplified hardships of living under Nazi rule during World War II. His trauma was still fresh while writing this book and it’s evident in his prose. He survived just long enough to write and publish “Alone in Berlin” before dying in 1947 at the age of 53.

If I’ve learned anything from these books, it’s that it’s in our best interest to not be afraid. Tyrants feed on fear and expect it. A citizenry without fear is much harder to control. That’s why we need to raise our voices against provocations of our rights, always push back, declare wrong things to be wrong, get in the way, annoy the opposition, and allow yourself to devote time to do things for your own enjoyment.

And in that spirit, my book stack also includes a fair amount of palate cleansers in the mix: Jena Friedman’s “Not Funny,” short stories by Nikolai Gogol, Jhumpa Lahiri’s “The Namesake” (whose main character is named after Gogol), and a pair of Kurt Vonnegut novels. Though it’s hard to read Vonnegut without stumbling upon some apropos nuggets of wisdom, like this one from his novel “Slapstick:” “Fascists are inferior people who believe it when somebody tells them they’re superior.”

Zachary Bernstein is a writer, editor and songwriter. He’s working on his debut novel about a poorly managed remote island society.