journalist

BEIRUT — Saudi Arabia and Qatar are ready to invest in an economic zone in south Lebanon near the border with Israel that would create jobs for members of the militant Hezbollah group and its supporters once they lay down their weapons, President Trump’s envoy to the Middle East said Tuesday.

Tom Barrack made his comments in Beirut after trips to Israel and Syria where he discussed with officials there the ongoing situation in Lebanon following this month’s decision by the Lebanese government to disarm Hezbollah by the end of the year. Hezbollah’s leader rejected the government’s plan, vowing to keep the weapons.

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces could begin withdrawing from territory they hold in southern Lebanon after the Lebanese government’s “momentous decision” to disarm Hezbollah.

The U.S.-backed Lebanese army is preparing a plan for Hezbollah’s disarmament that should be ready by the end of August. The government is expected to discuss the army’s plan and approve it during a meeting scheduled for Sept. 2.

“We have to have money coming into the system. The money will come from the Gulf,” Barrack told reporters after meeting President Joseph Aoun. “Qatar and Saudi Arabia are partners and are willing to do that for the south (of Lebanon) if we’re asking a portion of the Lebanese community to give up their livelihood.”

“We have 40,000 people that are being paid by Iran to fight. What are you gonna do with them? Take their weapon and say ‘by the way, good luck planting olive trees’? It can’t happen. We have to help them,” Barrack said. He was referring to tens of thousands of Hezbollah members who have been funded since the early 1980s by Tehran.

“We, all of us, the Gulf, the U.S., the Lebanese are all gonna act together to create an economic forum that is gonna produce a livelihood,” Barrack said.

When asked why the U.S. doesn’t go to discuss the Hezbollah issue directly with Iran rather than traveling to Israel and Syria, Barrack said: “You think that’s not happening? Goodbye.” Barrack then ended his news conference and walked out of the room.

Speaking on the U.N. peacekeeping force that has been deployed in south Lebanon since Israel first invaded the country in 1978, Barrack said the U.S. would rather fund the Lebanese army than the force that is known as UNIFIL. Speaking about this week’s vote at the United Nations in New York, Barrack said the U.S. backs extending UNIFIL’s term for one year only.

Conflict escalated to war in September 2024, before November ceasefire

A low-level conflict between Israel and Hezbollah started a day after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led attack against Israel from Gaza, when Hezbollah began launching rockets across the border in support of its Palestinian ally. The conflict escalated into war in September 2024 and left more than 4,000 people dead, and caused destruction worth $11 billion in Lebanon, according to the World Bank.

The war ended in November with a U.S.-brokered ceasefire and since then Hezbollah says it has ended its presence along the border area. Israel has continued almost daily airstrikes that have killed dozens of Hezbollah members.

Amnesty International in a report released Tuesday said it had identified more than 10,000 buildings that were “heavily damaged or destroyed” in southern Lebanon between October 2024 and January this year.

Israeli forces remained in much of the border area for weeks after the ceasefire agreement went into effect and are still holding five strategic points.

Amnesty’s report alleged that Israeli forces may have violated international law by destroying civilian property in areas they were controlling with “manually laid explosives and bulldozers” after the active fighting had ended and there was no longer an “imperative military necessity.”

Barrack chides journalists before news conference, provoking ire

At the start of the joint news conference with U.S. envoy Morgan Ortagus, Barrack warned journalists at the presidential palace to be quiet, telling them to “act civilized, act kind, act tolerant.” He threatened to end the conference early otherwise.

“The moment that this starts becoming chaotic, like animalistic, we’re gone,” said Barrack. He then asked: “Do you think this is economically beneficial for Morgan and I to be here putting up with this insanity?”

None of the journalists present responded to his comments but the Lebanese press syndicate issued a statement about the “inappropriate treatment” that the Lebanese journalists were subjected to and called on Barrack and the State Department to apologize. It added that if no apology were made, it could escalate by calling for boycotting Barrack’s visits and meeting.

The Presidential Palace also issued a statement regretting the comments made by “one of our guests” and greeted journalists who cover news at the palace, thanking them for their “hard work.”

Mroue and Chehayeb write for the Associated Press. AP writer Abby Sewell contributed to this report.

“Stop the killing of our spouses.” The widow of slain Al Jazeera journalist Mohammed Qreiqeh says he was a kind, loving father and husband before he was assassinated by Israeli forces to silence his coverage on the Gaza war.

Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud, speaking over the phone, gives more details on the Israeli attack that killed five of his colleagues, including Anas al-Sharif, in a strike on a journalists’ tent in Gaza City.

BREAKINGBREAKING,

Al-Sharif killed in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack on a tent housing journalists outside al-Shifa hospital.

Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif has been killed in what appears to be a targeted Israeli attack, the director of the al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City has said.

Al-Sharif, 28, was killed after a tent for journalists outside the main gate of the hospital was hit.

The well-known Al Jazeera Arabic correspondent reportedly extensively from northern Gaza.

The Al Jazeera Media Network had recently denounced the Israeli military for what it called a “campaign of incitement” against its reporters in the Gaza Strip, including most notably al-Sharif.

In July, Israeli army spokesperson Avichai Adraee reshared a video on social media accusing al-Sharif of being a member of Hamas’s military wing – a claim that has been forcefully rejected as false.

Israel has routinely accused Palestinian journalists in Gaza of being members of Hamas since it launched its war on the enclave in October 2023 as part of what rights groups say is an effort to discredit their reporting on Israeli abuses.

The Israeli military has killed more than 200 reporters and media workers since its bombardment began, including several Al Jazeera journalists and their relatives.

More to follow.

The city of Los Angeles has tentatively agreed to pay $500,000 to two Knock LA journalists who claim their constitutional rights were violated when police arrested them while covering a protest four years ago in Echo Park.

Without admitting wrongdoing, the city agreed Monday to settle a lawsuit brought by the reporters, averting a federal civil trial just before jury selection was set to begin. The payout, which still needs approval from the City Council, would cover damages and attorney fees.

Kate McFarlane, an attorney who argued the lawsuit on the pair’s behalf, said the outcome felt somewhat hollow. The Los Angeles Police Department’s treatment of journalists covering recent protests against the Trump administration shows that the department’s culture has not changed despite the litigation, she said.

“We’ve been seeing journalists in the last few weeks being attacked by LAPD, either by less-lethal weapons or other weapons that LAPD uses to suppress their First Amendment rights to report,” McFarlane said.

An LAPD spokesperson declined to comment. The Los Angeles City Attorney’s office did not respond to questions.

Another recent lawsuit filed by several news media advocacy groups after dozens were injured by police actions during protests in June led to a court order that bars officers from targeting reporters with hard foam projectiles and other crowd-control munitions.

The Knock LA case stems from the evening of March 25, 2021. Jonathan Peltz and Kathleen Gallagher, both working for the online news nonprofit organization, were reporting on the removal of a homeless encampment from the banks of Echo Park Lake.

Despite “clearly identifying” themselves as reporters and being among other journalists “engaged in similar conduct,” Peltz or Gallagher said in their lawsuit that they were arrested and booked after the LAPD declared an unlawful assembly. Under state law, journalists are generally allowed to cover police activity even after members of the public have been ordered to disperse.

Among those detained were Times reporter James Queally, Spectrum News reporter Kate Cagle and L.A. Taco reporter Lexis-Olivier Ray. Unlike the two Knock LA journalists, they were were all released at the scene.

Police, however, bound Peltz and Gallagher by the wrists with plastic zip ties. They also searched the pair and their phones, and confiscated their other belongings before placing them on buses with dozens of other arrested protesters. Both remained in custody for more than four hours.

Peltz, the lawsuit claims, was later taken to the hospital, where medical staff said swelling in his arms and hands was the result of a pinched nerve from being held in the zip ties for so long.

None of the more than 180 people arrested that night were charged.

Attorneys for the two journalists argued that their arrests fit a pattern of LAPD officers “obstructing, targeting, and retaliating against” journalists reporting on their actions — particularly those from smaller, nontraditional media outlets —dating to the 2000 Democratic National Convention.

In a text thread disclosed during the litigation, then-LAPD Chief Michel Moore messaged some of his senior staff members on the night of the Echo Park protest, asking about Queally’s detainment. Moore said he had been texted by another Times reporter asking for an explanation.

The thread included former assistant Chiefs Daniel Randolph and Beatrice Girmala as well as deputy Chief Donald Graham, the incident commander that night.

Moore wrote: “Queally posted that he is being arrested. I’ve asked [the public information officer] to support and assist in any way possible. If Queally is in custody it will garner significant attention due to his status with the LAT.”

Graham responded that he would send a spokesperson to the scene to “to identify Queally.”

Moore responded that he “[w]ould recommend you hold transports until figured out.”

The LAPD later released an after-action report that acknowledged some missteps in dealing with members of the news media, but also defended the police response that night, arguing that officers felt threatened and arrests became necessary.

The department said it stepped up its outreach to local media organizations and provided additional training for new sergeants and detectives for identifying journalists at mass demonstrations.

McFarlane, the attorney for the Knock LA reporters, said their case was less about who the LAPD sees as a member of the media and more as a reflection of the department’s ongoing efforts to thwart scrutiny.

“The broader theme is that it’s clear that the LAPD is trying to hide their actions, especially when we know their actions are unlawful,” she said.

Police in Cincinnati arrested at least 13 people, including two journalists, after demonstrators protesting the immigration detention of a former hospital chaplain blocked a two-lane bridge carrying traffic over the Ohio River.

A reporter and a photography intern who were arrested while covering the protest for CityBeat, a Cincinnati news and entertainment outlet, were among those arraigned Friday morning in a Kentucky court.

Other journalists reporting on protests around the U.S. have been arrested and injured this year. More than two dozen were hurt or roughed up while covering protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles.

A Spanish-language journalist was arrested in June while covering a “No Kings” protest against President Trump near Atlanta. Police initially charged Mario Guevara, a native of El Salvador, with unlawful assembly, obstruction of police and being a pedestrian on or along the roadway.

A prosecutor dropped the charges, but Guevara had already been turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and is being held in a south Georgia immigration detention center. His lawyers say he has been authorized to work and remain in the country, but ICE is trying to deport him.

Video from the demonstration in Cincinnati on Thursday night shows several tense moments, including when an officer punches a protester several times as police wrestle him to the ground.

Earlier, a black SUV drove slowly onto the Roebling Bridge while protesters walked along the roadway that connects Cincinnati with Covington, Ky. Another video shows a person in a neon-colored vest pushing against the SUV.

Police in Covington said those arrested had refused to comply with orders to disperse. The department said in a statement that officers who initially attempted to talk with the protest’s organizer were threatened and met with hostility.

Among the charges filed against those arrested were rioting, failing to disperse, obstructing emergency responders, criminal mischief and disorderly conduct.

Reporter Madeline Fening and photo intern Lucas Griffith were charged with felony rioting and several other charges, said Ashley Moor, the editor in chief of CityBeat.

A judge on Friday set a $2,500 bond for each of those arrested.

The arrests happened during a protest in support of Ayman Soliman, an Egyptian immigrant who worked as a chaplain at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. He was detained last week after he showed up for a routine check-in with ICE officials at its office near Cincinnati.

Protesters met in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday in support of Soliman, then walked across the bridge carrying a banner that read, “Build Bridges Not Walls.”

Covington police said that “while the department supports the public’s right to peaceful assembly and expression, threatening officers and blocking critical infrastructure, such as a major bridge, presents a danger to all involved.”

Seewer writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Kate Brumback in Atlanta and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed to this report.

A federal judge has granted a temporary restraining order that blocks Los Angeles police officers from using rubber projectiles and other so-called less-lethal munitions against reporters covering protests against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

In a ruling made public Friday, U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera said a coalition of press rights organization successfully argued that a court injunction was necessary to protect journalists and others exercising their 1st Amendment rights.

The Los Angeles Press Club and investigative reporting network Status Coup filed suit last month to “force the LAPD to respect the constitutional and statutory rights of journalists engaged in reporting on these protests and inevitable protests to come.” The lawsuit challenged the “continuing abuse” by police of members of the media covering the demonstrations.

Vera’s order bars the department from using less-lethal munitions and other crowd-control tools such chemical irritants and flash-bang grenades “against journalists who are not posing a threat of imminent harm to an officer or another person.”

“On some occasions, LAPD officers purportedly targeted individuals who were clearly identifiable as members of the press,” Vera wrote.

The judge cited a June 8 incident at a demonstration downtown where an Australian reporter named Lauren Tomasi was wrapping up a report on live TV, dozens of feet away from a line of officers.

“No protesters are visible near her,” Vera wrote. “Despite this, an LAPD officer appears to aim at Tomasi, hitting her leg with a rubber bullet.”

The judge ruled that the LAPD cannot prohibit a journalist from entering or remaining in protest areas that have been closed off to the public while “gathering, receiving, or processing information.”

The order also forbids intentionally “assaulting, interfering with, or obstructing any journalist who is gathering, receiving, or processing information for communication to the public.”

Free press advocates who brought the suit praised the judge’s decision.

“The press weren’t accidentally hurt at the immigration protests; they were deliberately hurt,” said attorney Carol Sobel. “It’s astonishing to me that we are at the same point with LAPD over and over again.”

City lawyers could challenge the order before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell has said he’s “very concerned” by instances of journalists being targeted by police munitions and vowed each incident would be investigated. He said he did not believe officers were aiming at reporters with less-lethal weapons.

“It is a target-specific munition,” he told reporters at a press briefing. “That’s not to say that it always hits the intended target, particularly in a dynamic situation.”

Vera’s order says that if the LAPD detains or arrests a person who identifies themselves as a journalist, that person may contact a supervisor and challenge their detention. The order also required the LAPD to report back to the court with details of officers being informed of the new rules. The judge set a preliminary injunction hearing for July 24, in which both sides will argue the merits of the case.

The lawsuit accuses the LAPD of flouting state laws passed in the wake of the 2020 protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, when journalists were detained and injured by the LAPD while covering the unrest.

Apart from journalists, scores of protesters allege LAPD projectiles left them with severe bruises, lacerations and serious injuries.

Under the restrictions ordered by the judge Friday, police can target individuals with 40-millimeter rounds “only when the officer reasonably believes that a suspect is violently resisting arrest or poses an immediate threat of violence or physical harm.” Officers are also barred from targeting people in the head, torso and groin areas.

Times staff Writer Libor Jany contributed to this report.

British investigative journalist Asa Winstanley, known for his coverage of Palestine, had his home raided by police in October 2024. Although a court in May 2025 deemed the seizure of his devices unlawful, Winstanley says that current laws are being weaponised to intimidate some journalists.

Bill Moyers, a soft-spoken former White House aide turned journalist who became a standard bearer of quality in TV news, died Thursday in New York. He was 91.

Moyers’ son William told the Associated Press his father died at Memorial Sloan Kettering hospital after a long illness.

Moyers began his TV career in 1971 during the early years of PBS after serving as a leading advisor and press secretary to President Johnson. He spent 10 years in two stints at CBS News in the 1970s and ‘80s. He was editor and chief correspondent for “CBS Reports,” the network’s prestigious documentary series, and an analyst for the “CBS Evening News.”

He also did a turn as a commentator on “NBC Nightly News” and was a host of the MSNBC program “Insight” in 1996.

But Moyers was often frustrated with the restraints of corporate-owned media and returned to non-commercial PBS each time.

At PBS, “Bill Moyers Journal” was the first news program on the service, launched in 1972 just as the Watergate scandal was heating up. His documentaries and series, which included “Now With Bill Moyers” and the weekly interview show “Moyers & Company, ” often examined complex issues and offered serious discussion. He earned top prizes in television journalism, including more than 30 Emmy Awards. His final program for PBS aired in 2013.

Moyers made a posthumous star out of a literature professor at Sarah Lawrence College with the landmark 1988 PBS series “Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth,” an exploration of religious and mythological archetypes. The series was watched by 30 million viewers.

His 2006 series “Faith and Reason,” where Moyers interviewed authors about the role of religion in their lives, was the kind of programming that distinguished public television, even as audiences had more viewing options on cable.

Moyers also fronted tough investigative programs such as “The Secret Government,” a deep dive into the Iran-Contra scandal during the Reagan administration. He often focused on the influence of money in the nation’s politics.

A believer in liberal causes, Moyers aggravated Republican administrations who often cited his programs when they accused PBS of bias and attempted to cut its federal funding.

PBS President Paula Kerger, who worked closely with Moyers for decades, said he always embodied the aspirations of public television.

“Bill was always of service: as a journalist, a mentor, and a fierce champion for PBS,” Kerger said in a statement. “He fought for excellence and honesty in our public discourse, and was always willing to take on the most important issues of the day with curiosity and compassion.”

Moyers was born June 5, 1934 in Hugo, Okla., the son of a dirt farmer and day laborer. He attended high school in Marshall, Texas, where he covered sports for the local newspaper.

After graduating from the University of Texas, he earned a master’s in divinity from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and became an ordained minister. He preached at small rural churches.

While in college, he established a relationship with Johnson, who hired him to work on his 1954 reelection campaign for U.S. Senate. He worked as a news editor for KTBC radio and television, the Austin, Texas, outlets owned by Johnson’s wife, Lady Bird.

Moyers stuck with Johnson when the senator was elected as John F. Kennedy’s vice president, becoming his personal assistant and later serving as a deputy director of the Peace Corps.

After Johnson was sworn in as president on Nov. 22, 1963, following the assassination of Kennedy, Moyers ascended as well. He was a top Johnson aide with a wide range of duties including press secretary.

According to a 1965 profile in Time magazine, Moyers was a key figure in assembling Johnson’s ambitious domestic policy initiatives known as the Great Society. He shaped legislation and edited and polished the work of Johnson’s speechwriters.

When Johnson underwent anesthesia for a gall bladder operation, Moyers was given responsibility to decide whether then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey should take over the president’s powers in the event of a crisis.

Moyers had a major impact on political communication when in 1964 he signed off on the creation of the “Daisy” ad for Johnson’s presidential election campaign.

The ad showing a girl counting petals she pulls from a daisy blends into a countdown for the launch of nuclear missile. Moyers expressed regret for the spot — an attack on Johnson’s Republican opponent Barry Goldwater’s views on the use of nuclear weapons. He believed the use of visceral imagery harmed the country’s politics in the long term.

Moyers left the Johnson White House in 1967 as he was disenchanted with the escalation of the Vietnam War. He went on to become publisher of the Long Island, N.Y., daily newspaper Newsday, raising its stature in the journalism industry, before his first tenure at PBS.

When he rejoined PBS in 1986, he formed his own production company called Public Affairs Television.

Moyers’ preacher-like delivery and emphasis on high moral standards in his commentaries led some people to criticize him as being a pious scold. But as cable news brought a more raucous style of current affairs discussions to TV, Moyers’ gentler approach was an oasis for many.

“His mission has always been to make things better, not louder,” Neil Gabler wrote in an appreciation of Moyers for The Times in 2009. “In a world of ego and bombast, he has always been modest and self-effacing.”

Moyers is survived by his wife Judith; three children, Suzanne Moyers, John D. Moyers and William Cope Moyers; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter.

French Cambodian director Rithy Panh has often cited the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge, which killed his family and from which he escaped, as the reason he’s a filmmaker. His movies aren’t always directly about that wretched time. But when they are — as is his most memorable achievement, the Oscar-nominated 2013 documentary “The Missing Picture,” which re-imagined personal memories using clay-figurine dioramas — one senses a grand mosaic being assembled piece by piece linking devastation, aftermath and remembrance, never to be finished, only further detailed.

His latest is the coolly observed and tense historical drama “Meeting With Pol Pot,” which premiered last year at Cannes. It isn’t autobiographical, save its fictionalization of a true story that happened concurrent to his childhood trauma: the Khmer Rouge inviting a trio of Western journalists to witness their proclaimed agrarian utopia and interview the mysterious leader referred to by his people as “Brother No. 1.” Yet even this political junket, which took place in 1978, couldn’t hide a cruel, violent truth from its guests, the unfolding of which Panh is as adept at depicting from the viewpoint of an increasingly horrified visitor as from that of a long-scarred victim.

The movie stars Irène Jacob, whose intrepid French reporter Lise — a perfect role for her captivating intelligence — is modeled after the American journalist Elizabeth Becker who was on that trip, and whose later book about Cambodia and her experience, “When the War Was Over,” inspired the screenplay credited to Panh and Pierre Erwan Guillaume. Lise is joined by an ideologically motivated Maoist professor named Alain (Grégoire Colin), quick to enthusiastically namedrop some of their hosts as former school chums in France when they were wannabe revolutionaries. (The character of Alain is based on British academic Malcolm Caldwell, an invitee alongside Becker.) Also there is eagle-eyed photojournalist Paul (Cyril Gueï), who shares Lise’s healthy skepticism and a desire to learn what’s really happening, especially regarding rumors of disappeared intellectuals.

With sound, pacing and images, Panh readily establishes a mood of charged, contingent hospitality, a veneer that seems ready to crack: from the unsettlingly calm opening visual of this tiny French delegation waiting alone on an empty sun-hot tarmac to the strange, authoritarian formality in everything that’s said and shown to them via their guide Sung (Bunhok Lim). Life is being scripted for their microphones and cameras and flanked by armed, blank-faced teenagers. The movie’s square-framed cinematography, too, reminiscent of a staged newsreel, is another subtle touch — one imagines Panh rejecting widescreen as only feeding this evil regime’s view of its own righteous grandiosity.

Only Alain seems eager to ignore the disinformation and embrace this Potemkin village as the real deal (except when his eyes show a gathering concern). But the more Lise questions the pretense of a happily remade society, the nervier everything gets. And when Paul manages to elude his overseers and explore the surrounding area — spurring a frantic search, the menacing tenor of which raises Lise’s hackles — the movie effectively becomes a prison drama, with the trio’s eventual interviewee depicted as a shadowy warden who can decide their fate.

Journalism has never been more under threat than right now and “Meeting with Pol Pot” is a potent reminder of the profession’s value — and inherent dangers — when it confronts and exposes facades. But this eerily elegiac film also reflects its director’s soulful sensibility regarding the mass tragedy that drives his aesthetic temperament, never more so than when he re-deploys his beloved hand-crafted clay figurines for key moments of witnessed atrocity, or threads in archival footage, as if to maintain necessary intimacy between rendering and reality.

Power shields its misdeeds with propaganda, but Panh sees such murderous lies clearly, giving them an honest staging, thick with echoes.

A coalition of press rights organizations is seeking a court order to stop the “continuing abuse” of journalists by the Los Angeles Police Department during protests over President Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The federal lawsuit, filed Monday by the Los Angeles Press Club and investigative reporting network Status Coup, seeks to “force the LAPD to respect the constitutional and statutory rights of journalists engaged in reporting on these protests and inevitable protests to come.”

The suit cites multiple instances of officers firing foam projectiles at members of the media and otherwise flouting state laws that restrict the use of so-called less-lethal weapons in crowd control situations and protect journalists covering the unrest. Those measures were passed in the wake of the 2020 protests over the killing of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis when journalists were detained and injured by the LAPD while covering the unrest.

The recent suit filed in the Central District of California describes journalists being shot with less-lethal police rounds, tear-gassed and detained without cause.

Carol Sobel, a longtime civil rights attorney who represents the plaintiffs, said LAPD officers have also been blocking journalists from areas where they had a right to be, in violation of the department’s own rules and Senate Bill 98, a state law that prohibits law enforcement from interfering with or obstructing journalists from covering such events.

“You have people holding up their press credentials saying, ‘I’m press,’ and they still got shot,” she said. “The Legislature spent all this time limiting how use of force can occur in a crowd control situation, and they just all ignored it.

Apart from journalists, scores of protesters allege LAPD projectiles left them with severe bruises, lacerations and serious injuries.

The Police Department said Monday that it doesn’t comment on pending litigation. A message for the Los Angeles city attorney’s office, which represents the LAPD in most civil suits, went unreturned.

Sobel filed a similar action in the wake of the LAPD’s response to the 2020 protests on behalf of Black Lives Matter-L.A. and others who contended that LAPD caused scores of injuries by firing hard-foam projectiles. A federal judge later issued an injunction restricting the department’s use of 40-millimeter and 37-millimeter hard-foam projectile launchers to officers who are properly trained to use them.

Under the restrictions, which remain in place with the court case pending, police can target individuals with 40-millimeter rounds “only when the officer reasonably believes that a suspect is violently resisting arrest or poses an immediate threat of violence or physical harm.” Officers are also barred from targeting people in the head, torso and groin areas.

The city has paid out millions of dollars in settlements and jury awards related to lawsuits brought by reporters and demonstrators in 2020 who were injured.

On Monday, the LAPD announced an internal review of a June 10 incident in which a 30-year-old man suffered a broken finger during a confrontation with officers of the vaunted Metropolitan Division.

According to the department’s account, the Metro officers had been deployed to contend with an “unruly” crowd on Alameda Street and Temple Street and said that Daniel Robert Bill and several other demonstrators refused to leave the area and instead challenged officers. During a confrontation, several officers swung their batons and fired less-lethal munitions at Bill “to no effect” and then “used a team takedown” before arresting him.

After his arrest, Bill was taken to an area hospital, where he underwent surgery to repair a broken finger on his left hand.

The department’s Force Investigation Division will review the case, as it does all incidents in which someone is seriously injured or killed while in policy custody.

Department leaders have in the past argued that officers need less-lethal weapons to restore order, particularly when faced with large crowds with individuals throwing bottles and rocks.

The department’s handling of the recent protests is expected to be addressed at Tuesday’s meeting of the LAPD Police Commission, the department’s civilian policy-making body. The body reviewed complaints of excessive force against the department stemming from the 2020 protests but has not staked a public position about the continued use of the 40-millimeter projectiles and other crowd control measures.

Abraham Márquez, a reporter with the nonprofit investigative news startup Southlander, was filming a tense standoff between Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies and immigrant rights protesters in Paramount on Saturday night when he saw a deputy aim a “less-lethal” launcher in his direction.

Sensing a confrontation, Márquez said, he raised his press credential and “kept yelling press, press, press,” even as he turned and began running in the opposite direction. He barely made it a few feet before he felt a stinging pain as first one foam round, then another slammed into his buttocks and his back.

“They just unloaded,” he said of the deputies.

He was nearly struck again a short time later, when deputies riding by in an armored vehicle sprayed foam rounds into a gas station parking lot where Márquez and a KTLA-TV news crew had sought cover, he said. He was shaken, but said that he felt compelled to keep reporting.

“I got hit and whatnot but I’m glad I was there to document it,” he said.

The incident was one of dozens in which journalists have been shot with less-lethal police rounds, tear-gassed, shoved and detained while chronicling the ongoing civil unrest and military intervention in the nation’s second-largest city, according to interviews and video footage reviewed by The Times.

The police actions have drawn angry condemnation from public officials and 1st Amendment advocates. There have been multiple reported instances of reporters not only being struck by projectiles, but also having their bags searched, being threatened with arrest and getting blocked from areas where they had a right under state law to observe police activity.

Among those hit by police projectiles were several Times reporters in the course of covering protests in downtown L.A. over the past few days.

The LAPD and L.A. County Sheriff’s Department have faced criticism and lawsuits over their treatment of news media during past crises, but some covering the recent events say the situation has only gotten worse with the inflammatory anti-media messaging coming from the Trump White House.

“The price for free speech should not be this high,” said Arturo Carmona, president and publisher of Caló News, a news site that covers issues that matter to English-speaking Latinos. “Several of our reporters, several of whom are women of color, have been harassed and attacked by law enforcement.”

In one high-profile case, a CNN reporter was briefly detained by officers while doing a live on-air segment.

In another, Australian TV news reporter Lauren Tomasi was shot in the leg by a less-lethal round by an riot gear-clad officer moments after she wrapped up a live on-air segment. The incident became an international affair, with Australian Prime Minister Tony Albanese calling it “horrific.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass said it “sends a terrible message,” and several city councilmembers referenced it while grilling LAPD Chief Jim McDonnell on Tuesday about his department’s response to the protests.

In a statement, the Sheriff’s Department said it was reviewing video footage from several incidents involving the news media to determine whether any of its deputies were involved.

The department said it is “committed to maintaining an open and transparent relationship with the media and ensuring that journalists can safely perform their duties, especially during protests, acts of civil disobedience, and public gatherings.”

“Our goal is to support press freedom while upholding public safety and operational integrity,” the statement said.

LAPD Deputy Chief Michael Rimkunas said that two of the roughly 15 complaints the department was investigating as of Tuesday involved possible mistreatment of journalists — a number that is expected to grow in the coming days and weeks.

Rimkunas said the department decided to launch an investigation of the Tomasi incident on its own, but has since been in contact with the Australian consulate.

A coalition of 27 press and civil liberties advocacy groups wrote to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Tuesday “to express alarm that federal officers may have violated the First Amendment rights of journalists covering recent protests and unrest related to immigration enforcement in the Los Angeles area.”

Multiple journalists who covered the protests told The Times that officers and deputies used physical force or the threat of arrest to remove them from areas where they have a right to be.

In doing so, the journalists said, police were ignoring protections established by state law for journalists covering protests, as well as their own departments’ policies adopted after mass protests after George Floyd’s murder in 2020 and over the clearance of a homeless encampment in Echo Park in 2021.

On Saturday, journalist Ben Camacho was documenting the scene in Paramount, where images of people vandalizing and burning cars dominated the nightly newscasts. Wearing his press pass and with a camera hanging around his neck, he watched in shock as law enforcement opened fire on the crowd with less-lethal munitions, striking Nick Stern, a British news photographer, who crumbled to the ground in front of him.

After helping carry Stern to safety, Camacho said he too was struck by a round in the kneecap.

“I start to screaming pretty much at the top of my lungs,” he said. “It was like a sledgehammer.”

He noted that many people are working on freelance contracts that don’t offer medical insurance, and said officers sometimes brush aside reporters with credentials from smaller independent outlets, which have an important role in monitoring events on the ground.

Some police officials — who were not authorized to speak publicly — said officers try their best to accommodate reporters, but the situation on the street involves split-second decisions in a chaotic environment where they find themselves being attacked. They also contend that journalists from newer outlets or those who primarily post on social media act in adversarial or confrontational ways toward officers.

Los Angeles Press Club Press Rights Chair Adam Rose said he has been collecting examples of officers from local, state and federal agencies violating the rights of journalists — seemingly ignoring the lessons learned and promises made the wake of past protests.

Rose said many of the incidents were documented in videos that journalists themselves posted on social media. As of Wednesday morning, the tally was 43 and counting.

The mistreatment of journalists at the recent protests are part of a “history of ugly treatment by police,” Rose said, which included the 1970 killing of one of the city’s leading Latino media voices, Ruben Salazar, who had been covering a Chicano rights protest when he was struck by a tear-gas canister fired by a sheriff’s deputy.

Even in cases where police abuses are well-documented on video, discipline of the offending officers is rare, Rose said.

With plunging revenues leading to the downsizing of many legacy newsrooms, a new generation of citizen journalists has taken a vital role in covering communities across the country — their reporting is as protected as their mainstream counterparts, he said.

“The reality is police are not the ones who’re allowed to decide who is press,” he said.

Some larger news companies have taken to hiring protective details for their reporters in the field, largely in response to aggressive crowds.

On Saturday, L.A. Daily News reporter Ryanne Mena was struck in the head by a projectile fired by law enforcement during a demonstration in Paramount.

She wasn’t sure whether it was a tear gas canister or less-lethal munition, but said she later sought medical treatment and was diagnosed with a concussion. The day before she was hit in the thigh by another projectile while reporting downtown outside the jail, she said.

Covering a few prior protests had taught her to always be mindful of her surroundings and to “never have my back toward anyone with a weapon.”

“It’s still kind of unbelievable that that happened,” she said of her concussion. “It’s unacceptable that that happened that other journalists were targeted.”

Times staff writers Connor Sheets and David Zahniser contributed to this report.

Driverless Waymo vehicles, coated with graffiti and engulfed in flames. Masked protesters, dancing and cavorting around burning American flags. Anonymous figures brazenly blocking streets and shutting down major freeways, raining bottles and rocks on the police, while their compatriots waved Mexican flags.

The images flowing out of Los Angeles over nearly a week of protests against federal immigration raids have cast America’s second most populous city as a terrifying hellscape, where lawbreakers rule the streets and regular citizens should fear to leave their homes.

In the relentless fever loop of online and broadcast video, it does not matter that the vast majority of Los Angeles neighborhoods remain safe and secure. Digital images create their own reality and it’s one that President Trump and his supporters have used to condemn L.A. as a place that is “out of control” and on the brink of total collapse.

The images and their true meaning and context have become the subject of a furious debate in the media and among political partisans, centered on the true roots and victims of the protests, which erupted on Friday as the Trump administration moved aggressively to expand its arrests of undocumented immigrants.

As the president and his supporters in conservative media tell it, he is the defender of law and order and American values. They cast their opponents as dangerous foreign-born criminals and their feckless enablers in the Democratic Party and mainstream media.

The state’s political leaders and journalists offer a compelling rebuttal: that Trump touched off several days of protest and disruption with raids that went far beyond targeting criminals, as he previously promised, then escalated the conflict by taking the highly unusual step of sending the National Guard and Marines to Southern California.

Reaction to the raids by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and the subsequent turmoil will divide Americans on what have become partisan lines that have become so predictable they are “calcified,” said Lynn Vavreck, a political science professor at UCLA.

“The parties want to build very different worlds, voters know it, and they know which world they want to live in,” said Vavreck, who has focused on the country’s extreme political polarization. “And because the parties are so evenly divided, and this issue is so personal to so many, the stakes are very high for people.”

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1. A demonstrator waves a Mexican flag as a fire that was set on San Pedro street burns on Monday night. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) 2. Protesters continue to clash with the Los Angeles Police Department in downtown on Monday. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) 3. Protesters continue to clash with the Los Angeles Police Department in downtown Los Angeles on Monday. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times) 4. Anti-ICE protesters face off with the LAPD on Temple St. on Monday. (Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times) 5. Flowers lay at the feet of federalized California National Guard members as they guard the Federal Building on Tuesday. (Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

As a curfew was imposed Tuesday, the sharpest street confrontations appeared to be fading and a national poll suggested Americans have mixed feelings about the events that have dominated the news.

The YouGov survey of 4,231 people found that 50% disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of deportations, compared with 39% who approve. Pluralities of those sampled also disagreed with Trump’s deployment of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to Southern California.

But 45% of those surveyed by YouGov said they disapprove of the protests that began after recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions. Another 36% approved of the protests, with the rest unsure how they feel.

Faced with a middling public response to the ICE raids and subsequent protests, Trump continued to use extreme language to exaggerate the magnitude of the public safety threat and to take credit for the reduction in hostilities as the week progressed.

In a post on his TruthSocial site, he suggested that, without his military intervention, “Los Angeles would be burning just like it was burning a number of months ago, with all the houses that were lost. Los Angeles right now would be on fire.”

A large crowd hold their fist up with faith leaders outside the Federal building in downtown Los Angeles as demonstrators protest immigration raids in L.A. on Tuesday,.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

In reality, agitators set multiple spot fires in a few neighborhoods, including downtown Los Angeles and Paramount, but the blazes in recent days were tiny and quickly controlled, in contrast to the massive wildfires that devastated broad swaths of Southern California in January.

Trump’s hyperbole continued in a fundraising appeal to his supporters Tuesday. In it, he again praised his decision to deploy the National Guard (without the approval of California Gov. Gavin Newsom), concluding: “If we had not done so, Los Angeles would have been completely obliterated.”

The Republican had assistance in fueling the sense of unease.

His colleagues in Congress introduced a resolution to formally condemn the riots. “Congress steps in amid ‘out-of-control’ Los Angeles riots as Democrats resist federal help,” Fox News reported on the resolution, being led by Rep. Young Kim of Orange County.

A journalist based in New Delhi pronounced, based on unspecified evidence, that Los Angeles “is descending into a full-blown warzone.”

Veterans Affairs Secretary Douglas Collins suggested that the harm from the protesters was spreading; announcing in a social media post that a care center for vets in downtown L.A. had been temporarily closed.

“To the violent mobs in Los Angeles rioting in support of illegal immigrants and against the rule of law,” his post on X said, “your actions are interfering with Veterans’ health care.”

A chyron running with a Fox News commentary suggested “Democrats have lost their mind,” as proved by their attempts to downplay the anti-ICE riots.

Many Angelenos mocked the claims of a widespread public safety crisis. One person on X posted a picture of a dog out for a walk along a neatly kept sidewalk in a serene neighborhood, with the caption: “Los Angeles just an absolute warzone, as you can see.”

Federal officers and the National Guard protect the Federal building in downtown Los Angeles as demonstrators protest on Tuesday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

In stark contrast to the photos of Waymo vehicles burning and police cars being pelted with rocks, a video on social media showed a group of protestors line dancing. “Oh my God! They must be stopped before their peaceful and joy filled dance party spreads to a city near you!” the caption read. “Please send in the Marines before they start doing the Cha Cha and the Macarena!”

And many people noted on social media that Sunday’s Pride parade in Hollywood for the LGBTQ+ community went off without incident, as reinforced by multiple videos of dancers and marchers celebrating along a sun-splashed parade route.

But other activists and Democrats signaled that they understand how Trump’s position can be strengthened if it appears they are condoning the more extreme episodes that emerged along with the protests — police being pelted with bottles, businesses being looted and buildings being defaced with graffiti.

On Tuesday, an X post by Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass reiterated her earlier admonitions: “Let me be clear: ANYONE who vandalized Downtown or looted stores does not care about our immigrant communities,” the mayor wrote. “You will be held accountable.”

The activist group Occupy Democrats posted a message online urging protesters to show their disdain for the violence and property damage.

“The moment violence of property damage begins, EVERY OTHER PROTESTER must immediately sit on the floor or the ground in silence, with signs down,” the advisory suggested. “The media needs to film this. This will reveal paid fake thugs posing as protesters becoming violent. ….The rest of us will demonstrate our non-violent innocence and retain our Constitutional right to peaceful protest.”

Craig Silverman, a journalist and cofounder of Indicator, a site that investigates deception on digital platforms, said that reporting on the context and true scope of the protests would have a hard time competing with the visceral images broadcast into Americans’ homes.

“It’s inevitable that the most extreme and compelling imagery will win the battle for attention on social media and on TV,” Silverman said via email. “It’s particularly challenging to deliver context and facts when social platforms incentivize the most shocking videos and claims, federal and state authorities offer contradictory messages about what’s happening.”

Dan Schnur, who teaches political science at USC and UC Berkeley, agreed. “The overwhelming majority of the protesters are peaceful,” Schnur said, “but they don’t do stories on all the planes that land safely at LAX, either.”

Protesters march in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday.

(Jason Armond/Los Angeles Times)

Though it might be too early to assess the ultimate impact of the L.A. unrest, Schnur suggested that all of the most prominent politicians in the drama might have accomplished their messaging goals: Trump motivated his base and diverted attention from his nasty feud with his former top advisor, Elon Musk, and the lack of progress on peace talks with Russia and Ukraine. Newsom “effectively unified the state and elevated his national profile” by taking on Trump. And Bass, under tough scrutiny for her handling of the city’s wildfire disaster, has also gotten a chance to use Trump as a foil.

What was not disputed was that Trump’s rapid deployment of the National Guard, without the approval of Newsom, had little precedent. And sending the Marines to L.A. was an even more extreme approach, with experts saying challenges to the deployment would test the limits of Trump’s power.

The federal Insurrection Act allows the deployment of the military for law enforcement purposes, but only under certain conditions, such as a national emergency.

California leaders say Trump acted before a true emergency developed, thereby preempting standard protocols, including the institution of curfews and the mobilization of other local police departments in a true emergency.

Even real estate developer Rick Caruso, Bass’ opponent in the last election, suggested Trump acted too hastily.

“There is no emergency, widespread threat, or out of control violence in Los Angeles,” Caruso wrote on X Sunday. “And absolutely no danger that justifies deployment of the National Guard, military, or other federal force to the streets of this or any other Southern California City.”

“We must call for calm in the streets,” Caruso added, “and deployment of the National Guard may prompt just the opposite.”

Veteran correspondent for the US broadcaster, Terry Moran, had called Trump aide Stephen Miller a ‘world-class hater’.

Veteran journalist Terry Moran will not be returning to ABC News after he was suspended by the broadcaster for a social media post that called United States President Donald Trump and his deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller “world-class haters”.

In a statement, the US network said on Tuesday that Moran’s quickly-deleted post on X was “a clear violation of ABC News policies”, the Associated Press news agency reports.

It added that Moran’s contract was ending, and “based on his recent post… we have made the decision not to renew”.

The post on Sunday night was primarily directed at Miller, whom Moran described as “the brains behind Trumpism”.

“Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater,” Moran had said on X.

Moran, who had recently interviewed Trump in his role as Senior National Correspondent for ABC News, also described the US President as a “world-class hater”, but said that in Trump’s case, it was only a “means to an end” of “his own glorification”.

In Miller’s case, however, Moran said, “his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate”.

The Trump administration quickly condemned Moran’s post, with Vice President JD Vance describing it as an “absolutely vile smear of Stephen Miller”.

Moran, 65, had worked at ABC News since 1997. He was a longtime co-anchor of “Nightline”, and covered the Supreme Court and national politics.

During an interview with Trump that was broadcast a month ago, the president told Moran, “You’re not being very nice” in the midst of a contentious exchange about deportations.

Trump aide Steven Cheung responded to Moran’s exit on Tuesday with a post on X, simply saying: “Talk s***, get hit.”

Miller, meanwhile, has been focused on the Trump administration’s decision to send 4,000 National Guard soldiers and a Marine battalion to Los Angeles, amid anti-immigration enforcement protests in California’s capital city.

In one post on X on Tuesday, Miller said that California has become a “criminal sanctuary for millions of illegal alien invaders” and that “huge swaths of the city where I was born now resemble failed third world nations.”

The AP news agency reported that Moran’s contract with ABC had been due to expire on Friday, according to people with knowledge of the situation.

Moran’s post also comes at what was already a sensitive time for ABC News. The network agreed to pay $15m towards Trump’s presidential library in December to settle a defamation lawsuit over George Stephanopoulos’ inaccurate claim that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E Jean Carroll.

Moran leaves ABC as major television networks in the US struggle to retain audiences amid the soaring popularity of some podcasters and subscription-based newsletters.

The shift has also been embraced by some journalists, such as Mehdi Hasan, who started his own media network in early 2024, after quitting MSNBC when it cancelled his show in late 2023.

Federal Communications Commissioner Anna M. Gomez traveled to Los Angeles this week to sound an alarm that attacks on the media by President Trump and his lieutenants could fray the fabric of the 1st Amendment.

Gomez’s appearance Wednesday at Cal State L.A. was designed to take feedback from community members about the changed media atmosphere since Trump returned to office. The president initially expelled Associated Press journalists from the White House, for example. He signed an executive order demanding government funding be cut to PBS and NPR stations.

Should that order take effect, Pasadena-based radio station LAist would lose nearly $1.7 million — or about 4% of its annual budget, according to Alejandra Santamaria, chief executive of parent organization Southern California Public Radio.

“The point of all these actions is to chill speech,” Gomez told the small crowd. “We all need to understand what is happening and we need people to speak up and push back.”

Congress in the 1930s designed the FCC as an independent body, she said, rather than one beholden to the president.

But those lines have blurred. In the closing days of last fall’s presidential campaign, Trump sued CBS and “60 Minutes” over edits to an interview with then-Vice President Kamala Harris, alleging producers doctored the broadcast to enhance her election chances. CBS has denied the allegations and the raw footage showed Harris was accurately quoted.

Trump-appointed FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, upon taking office in January, revived three complaints of bias against ABC, NBC and CBS, including one alleging the “60 Minutes” edits had violated rules against news distortion. He demanded that CBS release the unedited footage.

The FCC’s review of Skydance Media’s pending takeover of CBS-parent Paramount Global has been clouded by the president’s $20-billion lawsuit against CBS. The president rejected Paramount’s offer to settle for $15 million, according to the Wall Street Journal, which said Trump has demanded more.

Two high-level CBS News executives involved in “60 Minutes” were forced out this spring.

Gomez, in an interview, declined to discuss the FCC’s review of the Skydance-Paramount deal beyond saying: “It would be entirely inappropriate to consider the complaint against the ’60 Minutes’ segment as part of a transaction review.” Scrutinizing edits to a national newscast “are not part of the public interest analysis that the commission does when it considers mergers and acquisitions,” she said.

For months, Gomez has been the lone voice of dissent at the FCC. Next month, she will become the sole Democrat on the panel.

The longtime communications attorney, who was appointed to the commission in 2023 by former President Biden, has openly challenged her colleague Carr and his policies that align with Trump’s directives. She maintains that some of Carr’s proposals, including opening investigations into diversity and inclusion policies at Walt Disney Co. and Comcast, go beyond the scope of the FCC, which is designed to regulate radio and TV stations and others that use the public airwaves.

The pressure campaign is working, Gomez said.

“When you see corporate parents of news providers … telling their broadcasters to tone down their criticisms of this administration, or to push out the executive producer of ’60 Minutes’ or the head of [CBS] News because of concerns about retribution from this administration because of corporate transactions — that is a chilling effect,” Gomez said.

Wednesday’s forum, organized by the nonprofit advocacy group Free Press, was punctuated with pleas from professors, journalists and community advocates for help in fending off Trump’s attacks. One journalist said she lost her job this spring at Voice of America after Trump took aim at the organization, which was founded more than 80 years ago to counter Nazi propaganda during World War II.

The Voice of America’s remaining staffers could receive reduction-in-force notices later this week, according to Politico.

Latino journalists spoke about the difficulty of covering some stories because people have been frightened into silence due to the administration’s immigration crackdown.

For now, journalists are able to carry out their missions “for the most part,” said Gabriel Lerner, editor emeritus of the Spanish-language La Opinión.

But he added a warning.

“Many think that America is so exceptional that you don’t have to do anything because fascism will never happen here,” Lerner said. “I compare that with those who dance on the Titanic thinking it will never sink.”

The White House pushed back on such narratives:

“President Trump is leading the most transparent administration in history. He regularly takes questions from the media, communicates directly to the public, and signed an Executive Order to protect free speech on his first day back in office,” spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “He will continue to fight against censorship while evaluating all federal spending to identify waste, fraud, and abuse.”

FCC Commission Chairman Brendan Carr on Capitol Hill.

(Alex Wroblewski / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Traditionally, the five-member FCC has maintained an ideological balance with three commissioners from the party in power and two from the minority. But the senior Democrat — Geoffrey Starks — plans to step down next month, which will leave just three commissioners: Gomez, Carr and another Republican, Nathan Simington.

Trump has nominated a third Republican, Olivia Trusty, but the Senate has not confirmed her appointment.

Trump has not named a Democrat to replace Starks.

Some on Wednesday expressed concern that Gomez’s five-year tenure on the commission could be cut short. Trump has fired Democrats from other independent bodies, including the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Gomez said if she is pushed out, it would only be because she was doing her job, which she said was defending the Constitution.

Rep. Raul Ruiz (D-Indio) applauded Gomez’s efforts and noted that he’s long appreciated coordinating with her on more routine FCC matters, such as ensuring wider broadband internet access.

“But now the fight is the survival of the free press,” Ruiz said.

He noted that millions of people now get news from non-journalist sources, leading to a rise of misinformation and confusion.

“What is the truth?” Ruiz said. “How can we begin to have a debate? How can we begin to create policy on problems when we can’t even agree on what reality is?”