South Korean singer Taeil is facing the music for the sex crime that prompted his departure last year from popular K-Pop group NCT.
A Seoul Central District Court on Thursday sentenced the 31-year-old musician, born Moon Tae-il, to 3½ years in prison for raping an intoxicated Chinese woman who visited South Korea in 2024, according to numerousoutlets. Taeil was sentenced a month after he and two other men, who also engaged in the assault, pleaded guilty in June to charges of special quasi-rape.
The Korea Herald reported on Thursday the three men were taken into custody after the ruling and were each ordered to complete 40 hours of a sexual violence treatment program. Prosecutors initially sought a seven-year sentence for each of the men, but the court took into account that they were first-time offenders and halved their sentences.
SM Entertainment, the agency representing NCT and its subgroups, announced in August 2024 that it would part ways with Taeil after confirming he “has been accused of a criminal case related to sex crimes.” At the time, SM Entertainment did not disclose additional information but wrote in its statement, “We recognized the seriousness of the issue, and we have decided that Taeil can no longer continue team activities.”
“We have discussed this matter with Taeil, and it has been decided that he will leave the group,” the K-Pop giant added at the time, noting that the singer was “faithfully working on the police investigation.” SM also apologized for “the controversy caused by our artist.”
Taeil and the two other men — identified by prosecutors by surnames Lee and Hong — met the woman in June 2024 at a bar in the Itaewon district of Seoul, and the four drank together.
The tourist became heavily intoxicated, according to the Herald, and the singer allegedly helped her into a taxi with Lee who took her home. Taeil and Hong followed them separately and raped the woman at Lee’s home.
“The defendants took turns committing sexual acts against the victim, who was severely intoxicated and unable to resist. The nature of the crime is particularly grave,” prosecutors reportedly said. “As a foreign tourist assaulted in an unfamiliar environment, the victim likely experienced significant psychological distress.”
Taeil debuted with NCT, or Neo Culture Technology, in 2016 and was most recently active with sub-group NCT 127 prior to his removal.
The Associated Press and former Times staff writer Nardine Saad contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON — Arrests continue to mount in the aggressive federal operation that began more than a month ago to track down and detain undocumented immigrants in Los Angeles, according to Homeland Security figures released Tuesday.
“DHS and its components’ immigration enforcement operations are ongoing in Los Angeles,” a Homeland Security official said in a statement provided to The Times. “Since operations began in June, ICE and CBP have arrested 2,792 illegal aliens in the L.A. area.”
Federal authorities said earlier that 1,618 undocumented immigrants had been detained between June 6 — the start of the DHS operation in Los Angeles — and June 22. The new total includes nearly 1,200 arrests in just over two weeks since then. President Trump deployed the National Guard and U.S. Marines in the city days after the operation began amid heated protests.
The latest figures were released a day after dozens of immigration agents and National Guard members swept through MacArthur Park, just west of downtown, forcing children from a summer camp to be rushed inside.
Gov. Gavin Newsom called it a “disgrace” and the action drew widespread condemnation from local officials. They have repeatedly criticized the federal operations for terrorizing immigrant communities, where business has slowed and many have holed up in their homes.
“The actions from the federal government over the last month do not represent the values of our city or of our country,” said City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who represents the area. “Sending United States soldiers to intimidate children at camp and señoras at the bus stop is not making anyone safer. Raiding Home Depots is not stopping crime. Tearing families away from their children isn’t upholding family values. And let me be clear, this cruelty and the chaos that we see is the point.”
The president’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles has been a test case for the Trump administration as it presses the bounds of executive authority, deploying federal agents and the military to a major metropolitan city with leadership hostile to its cause of deporting mass numbers of immigrants.
The detentions have proven a challenge to local and state officials, who have been dealt setbacks in federal court over the ability of the White House to conduct enforcement operations at the local level.
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has also ruled that Trump can maintain control of the California National Guard, for now, after he took the extraordinary step of federalizing the guard and deploying them to Los Angeles.
Wilner reported from Washington, Uranga from Los Angeles.
Cardi B, who wonders “Am I the Drama?” on her upcoming album, now faces a different question from curious fans: Did she split with Stefon Diggs?
The Grammy-winning “Bodak Yellow” rapper sparked breakup chatter this week after eagle-eyed followers noticed she had taken down photos featuring NFL star Diggs from her Instagram page. Cardi B, 32, and Diggs, 31, hard-launched their relationship during the NBA Playoffs in May and made things Instagram official in June.
Representatives for Cardi B and Diggs did not immediately respond to The Times on Tuesday.
In June, Cardi B flaunted her relationship with the New England Patriots wide receiver, sharing very intimate photos from a steamy boating trip in a since-removed Instagram carousel. “Chapter 5 ……Hello Chapter six,” Cardi B captioned the collection of photos, which is no longer publicly visible on her profile.
Cardi B and Diggs first sparked dating rumors in February, when TMZ published video of the pair arriving at a Miami hotel during Valentine’s Day weekend. In April, they were spotted together again partying it up at a Manhattan nightclub. Photos of the rapper dancing on the athlete’s lap spread online and even got a thumbs-up from the musician’s estranged husband, Migos rapper Offset.
While Cardi B’s Instagram does not currently feature any photos of Diggs, it’s worth noting that they still follow each other on the app. Cardi B and Offset, on the other hand, are no longer Instagram mutuals.
Speculation about the status of Cardi B’s romantic life surfaced as she arrived at Paris Fashion Week sans Diggs. She appeared at the Schiaparelli showcase at Petit Palais wearing a body-hugging gown with a dramatic neckline and fringe. A live crow was perched on the “W.A.P.” artist‘s right hand, evoking imagery from her forthcoming album.
Cardi B revealed in late June that her long-anticipated sophomore album, “Am I the Drama?,” is set to drop Sept. 19, seven years after her debut, “Invasion of Privacy.” Her social media announcement included a look at the theatrical album cover: She wears an abstract red body suit and matching fishnet stockings, grabbing one heel as a dark bird rests on her shoe and more of them swarm around her.
Before the announcement, Cardi B reflected in a teaser on “seven years of love, life and loss” and trading in grace for hell.
“I learned power’s not given. It’s taken,” the Bronx native says in the video. “I’m shedding feathers and no more tears. I’m not back. I’m beyond.”
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is revoking the terrorism designation of a group led by Syria’s new president as part of a broader U.S. engagement with the transitional government since the ouster of former leader Bashar Assad late last year.
In a statement released on Monday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the move, which will take effect on Tuesday, “recognizes the positive actions taken by the new Syrian government” under President Ahmad al-Sharaa.
Earlier Monday, the Federal Register published an advance notice, which said Rubio made the decision on June 23 in consultation with the attorney general and Treasury secretary.
The decision had not been previously announced, although it was made as the Trump administration has been moving to ease or end many U.S. sanctions that had been imposed during Assad’s rule.
The step looks to further end Syria’s isolation since a lightning rebel offensive ousted the Assad family from decades of rule and gives the new government a boost as it tries to rebuild a country shattered by 13 years of civil war.
The brief notice offered no details about the revocation of the foreign terrorist organization designation for the al-Nusrah Front, also known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
Al-Nusrah was originally designated a foreign terrorist organization for its previous affiliation with Al Qaeda. In 2017, it split and changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which the first Trump administration added to the initial designation.
Syria has been improving relations with the United States and other Western countries following the fall of Assad in December in an offensive led by Al-Sharaa ’s group.
On June 30, seven days after Rubio signed the revocation, President Trump signed an executive order ending many U.S. economic sanctions on Syria, following through on a promise he made to Al-Sharaa when the two met in Saudi Arabia in May.
“This FTO revocation is an important step in fulfilling President Trump’s vision of a stable, unified, and peaceful Syria,” Rubio said in his statement.
Trump’s executive order did not rescind sanctions imposed on Assad, his top aides, family members and officials who had been determined to have committed human rights abuses or been involved in drug trafficking or part of Syria’s chemical weapons program.
It also leaves intact a major set of sanctions passed by Congress targeting anyone doing business with or offering support to Syria’s military, intelligence or other suspect institutions.
While the Trump administration has passed temporary waivers on those sanctions, known as the Caesar Act, they can only be permanently repealed by law.
Dinosaurs ruled the box office once again this weekend as “Jurassic World Rebirth” hauled in a strong $147.3 domestically over the five-day Fourth of July period to kick off what industry insiders hope will be an impressive month at movie theaters.
The holiday total for “Jurassic World” in the U.S. and Canada exceeded industry expectations. Universal Pictures’ “Jurassic World” reboot was expected to gross $120 million to $130 million during its long opening weekend, according to analyst and studio projections.
The movie unseated Apple’s Brad Pitt racing film “F1 The Movie,” which landed in second place with $26.1 million domestically, bringing its total to $109.5 million in North America, according to distributor Warner Bros.
“Rebirth’s” 2022 predecessor, “Jurassic World: Dominion,” debuted with $145 million from its first three days of release and went on to collect $1 billion globally. The new movie carries an estimated production budget of $180 million, not counting marketing costs.
Big-budget creature features have global appeal, as the numbers showed. Opening in 82 countries outside the U.S. and Canada, “Rebirth” grossed $171 million internationally. That included $41.5 million from China, proving that Hollywood movies can still do well in the Middle Kingdom despite the dominance of local production in the populous country.
The global total for “Rebirth’s” opening was $318.3 million.
Directed by Gareth Edwards (“The Creator,” “Rogue One”) and starring Scarlett Johansson and Mahershala Ali, “Rebirth” earned unenthusiastic reviews from critics, notching a 52% approval rating on aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The “Jurassic” franchise has seen multiple iterations since Steven Spielberg’s 1993 blockbuster “Jurassic Park,” based on the popular Michael Crichton science fiction novel, wowed audiences with its combination of practical and computer-generated effects that gave the T. rex and other killer dinos their stunning realism. That film spawned not only sequels but toys, theme park attractions, animated series and video games.
Although the sequels, starting with Spielberg’s own “The Lost World,” never achieved the acclaim of the original, they continued to mint money for Universal and Spielberg’s production company, Amblin.
Prior to “Rebirth,” the “Jurassic” movies had grossed a total of roughly $6 billion worldwide, not adjusting for inflation, according to box office website The Numbers. The first “Jurassic Park” grossed $978 million worldwide, according to Box Office Mojo, which is equal to $1.86 billion in today’s dollars.
The latest “Jurassic” movie did not get a slot at Imax theaters, since those were taken up by “F1.” Next week, the valuable Imax real estate will be taken up by Warner Bros. and DC Studios’ “Superman.” Films shown on Imax often reap bigger box office numbers, aided in part by the higher ticket prices at those theaters, and because they’re viewed as more of a must-see event.
“Jurassic World” is the first of three big tentpole films arriving this month in theaters. In addition to “Superman,” Walt Disney Co. and Marvel Studios’ “The Fantastic Four: First Steps” opens in a few weeks.
July has historically been one of the strongest summer months at the box office, putting more pressure on these three films to deliver.
Despite big box office gains in April and May, June saw a string of underperforming films such as Lionsgate’s “John Wick” spinoff “Ballerina,” Sony Pictures’ “Karate Kid: Legends” and Disney and Pixar’s original animated effort “Elio.”
Theatrical business in June was 25% lower compared to the pre-pandemic average of June 2017, 2018 and 2019, according to David A. Gross’s FranchiseRe movie industry newsletter. It was also down 5.3% compared to last June, which saw big hits like Disney and Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and Sony’s “Bad Boys: Ride or Die.”
“We see this ebb and flow,” said Shawn Robbins, founder of the website Box Office Theory. “These next four to five weeks will certainly give us a sense of how to grade the summer overall.”
July 3 (UPI) — The U.S. economy added seasonally adjusted 147,000 jobs in June despite lower predictions, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday.
The unemployment rate dipped to 4.1%, which is lower than the expected increase of 4.3%. The rate that includes discouraged workers and part-time workers slid to 7.7%. There are 7 million unemployed people in the United States. The jobless rate dropped due to fewer workers looking for jobs. The unemployment rate has stayed between 4% and 4.2% since May 2024.
According to the BLS, there were job gains in health care (39,000) and state government, while the federal government keeps losing jobs. The government lost 7,000 jobs in June, and employment is down by 69,000 since its January peak. (Those on paid leave or getting ongoing severance are counted as employed.)
People who work part-time for economic reasons was at 4.5 million, which changed little in June. These are people who want full-time work. Those not in the labor force but who want jobs stayed at 6 million.
The number of discouraged workers, those who believed no jobs were available for them, increased in June to 637,000, an increase of 256,000.
Other major industries, like mining, retail and transportation, showed little change over last month.
In response to the news, the stock market rose Thursday.
“The solid June jobs report confirms that the labor market remains resolute and slams the door shut on a July rate cut,” Jeff Schulze, head of economic and market strategy at ClearBridge Investments, told CNBC. “Today’s good news should be treated as such by the markets, with equities rising despite the accompanying pickup in interest rates.”
The Pew Research Center is one of the most trusted polling firms in the country, especially when it comes to Latinos. Last week, it published findings that should have been a victory lap for Donald Trump and his tortuous relationship with America’s largest minority.
According to Pew, Trump won 48% of Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election — the highest percentage ever recorded by a Republican presidential nominee and a 12 percentage point improvement from his 2020 showing.
Latinos made up 10% of Trump’s coalition, up from 7% four years ago. Latino men went with a Republican for the first time. Trump even improved his share of support among Latinas — long seen by Democratic leaders as a bulwark against their macho Trumpster relatives — by a 13-point margin, a swing even greater than that of Latino men.
Pew’s findings confirm one of Trump’s most remarkable accomplishments — one so unlikely that professional Latinos long dismissed his election gains as exaggerations. Those voters could have been the winds blowing the xenophobic sails of his deportation fleet right now.
All Trump had to do was stick to his campaign promises and target the millions of immigrants who came in illegally during the Biden years. Pick off newcomers in areas of the country where Latinos remain a sizable minority and don’t have a tradition of organizing. Dare Democrats and immigrant rights activists to defend the child molesters, drug dealers and murderers Trump vowed to prioritize in his roundups. Conduct raids like a slow boil through 2026, to build on the record-breaking number of Latino GOP legislators in California and beyond.
Instead of going after the worst of the worst, la migra has nabbed citizens and noncitizens alike. A Times analysis of data obtained by the Deportation Data Project at UC Berkeley Law found that nearly 70% of those arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement from June 1 through June 10 had no criminal convictions.
Instead of harassing newcomers with few ties to the U.S., agents are sweeping up migrants who have been here for decades. Instead of doing operations that drew little attention, as happened under Presidents Obama and Biden — and even during Trump’s first term — masked men have thrown around their power like secret police in a third-rate dictatorship while their bosses crow about it on social media. Instead of treating people with some dignity and allowing them a chance to contest their deportations, the Trump administration has stuffed them into detention facilities like tinned fish and treated the Constitution like a suggestion instead of the law of the land.
The cruelty has always been the point for Trump. But he risks making the same mistake that California Republicans made in the 1980s and 1990s: taking a political win they earned with Latinos and turning it into trash.
Fullerton College student David Rojas calls on Fullerton High students across street to join a protest against Proposition 187 on Nov. 3, 1994. The ballot initiative sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants but instead changed California politics.
My generation of Mexican Americans — well on our way to assimilation, feeling little in common with the undocumented immigrants from southern Mexico and Central America who arrived after our parents — instead became radicalized. We waved the Mexican flag with pride, finding no need to brandish the Stars and Stripes that we kept in our hearts. We helped Democrats establish a supermajority in California and tossed Republicans into the political equivalent of the La Brea Tar Pits.
When I covered anti-ICE protests in June outside a federal building in Santa Ana, it felt like the Proposition 187 years all over again. The Mexican tricolor flew again, this time joined by the flags of El Salvador, Guatemala and other Latin American countries. The majority of protesters were teens and young adults with no ties to the immigrant rights groups I know — they will be the next generation of activists.
I also met folks such as Giovanni Lopez. For a good hour, the 38-year-old Santa Ana resident, wearing a white poncho depicting the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl, blew a loud plastic horn as if he were Joshua trying to knock down the walls of Jericho. It was his first protest.
“I’m all for them deporting the criminals,” Lopez said during a short break. “But that’s not what they’re doing…. They’re getting regular people, and that’s not right. You gotta stand up for regular raza.”
Since then, I’ve seen my social media feeds transform into a barrio CNN, as people share videos of la migra grabbing people and onlookers unafraid to tell them off. Other reels feature customers buying out street vendors for the day so they can remain safely at home. The transformation has even hit home: My dad and brother went to a “No Kings” rally in Anaheim a few weeks ago — without telling each other, or me, beforehand.
When rancho libertarians like them are angry enough to publicly fight back, you know the president is blowing it with Latinos.
People gather on Sunset Boulevard and Vin Scully Avenue to protest against immigration raids in Los Angeles as well as the Dodgers on June 21, 2025.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Back to Pew. Another report released last month found that nearly half of Latinos are worried that someone they know might get deported. The fear is real, even among Latino Republicans, with just 31% approving of Trump’s plan to deport all undocumented immigrants, compared with 61% of white Republicans.
California Assemblymember Suzette Martinez Valladares and state Sen. Rosilicie Ochoa Bogh are among those GOP skeptics. They signed a letter to Trump from California Republican legislators asking that his migra squads focus on actual bad hombres and “when possible, avoid the kinds of sweeping raids that instill fear and disrupt the workplace.”
When proud conservatives like Ochoa Bogh and Valladares, who is co-chair of the California Hispanic Legislative Caucus, are disturbed by Trump’s deportation deluge, you know the president’s blowing it with Latinos.
Yet Trump is still at it. This week, the Department of Justice announced it was suing the L.A. City Council and Mayor Karen Bass, arguing that their “sanctuary” city policy was thwarting “the will of the American people regarding deportations.”
By picking on the City of Angels, Trump is letting us set an example for everyone else — because no one gets down for immigrant rights like L.A., or creates Latino political power like we do. When mass raids pop up elsewhere, communities will be ready.
Many Latinos voted for Trump because they felt that Democrats forgot them. Now that Trump is paying attention to us, more and more of us are realizing that his intentions were never good — and carrying our passports because you just never know.
Kyle Hendricks knows what it takes to make it in Major League Baseball.
The 162-game trek of the regular season is familiar to the 35-year-old Southern California native across his 12-year career. With Joe Maddon as his manager for the first half of his career, Hendricks was provided room to screw up — messing around with his mechanics and pitch arsenal — to become a top-end starting pitcher that helped the Chicago Cubs claim the 2016 World Series.
“It established a lot of confidence in me,” said Hendricks, who started more than 30 games four times in five seasons from 2015-19. “The organization handing you the ball every fifth day, having that confidence in you to give the team a chance to win. That’s how you learn.”
Learning has arrived in spades for the Angels pitching staff. The starting rotation owns a 4.22 earned-run average, fostering a crop of middle-of-the-pack pitchers that doesn’t feature a traditional ace, nor former Cy Young Award winners. (The Angels’ overall staff ERA of 4.58 ranks 24th in MLB entering Monday.)
But there’s something that makes this group stand out from the rest of the league: pitching every fifth day.
The Halos feature the only pitching staff in baseball to have their season-opening rotation — of Yusei Kikuchi, Jack Kochanowicz, José Soriano, Tyler Anderson and Hendricks — make every start of the season as the All-Star break approaches. The Angels (41-42) set a team record over the weekend for most games to begin a season using no more than five starters, surpassing the mark of 80 games set in 1999.
The only other team close to the Angels? The Tampa Bay Rays, who have used just six pitchers to start — a singular spot start mixed in for the AL East contenders.
As the ulnar collateral ligament epidemic has grown over the last decade — forcing players with elbow injuries under the knife for Tommy John surgery — and as openers and bullpen games have become more normalized in MLB, having the same five pitchers throw every fifth day has become a rarity.
For instance, up the highway at Dodger Stadium, the Dodgers have used 13 traditional starting pitchers in 2025.
“That’s huge,” catcher Travid d’Arnaud said, adding that it’s helpful for him and Logan O’Hoppe to work with the same crop of starting pitchers week-by-week, building camaraderie and chemistry. “Games started is one of the most valuable things you could do over a year, especially when you’re getting 30 to 35 starts. For everyone to not miss one and just keep going every fifth day, especially when things aren’t going well, I think that’s when you learn the most, regardless of good or bad.”
Kochanowicz, for example, has a 6.44 earned-run average over his last eight starts and has only struck out 61 batters in 86 innings while opponents have hit .289 against him this season.
But for interim Angels manager Ray Montgomery, the ability for the 6-foot-7 sinkerballer to learn from failure and learn to adjust in the big league environment has caused Kochanowicz to show extra mettle on the mound.
Against the Red Sox on June 22, Kochanowicz faltered in the first inning, giving up three runs. But the second-year Angels starter pitched into the fifth, gave up just one more run, and worked longer than big-league veteran Walker Buehler did for Boston.
Kochanowicz, 24, didn’t have his best stuff, striking out one, but battled early adversity to keep the Angels in the ballgame — a game they’d eventually win, 9-5.
“I think this is the time of year to your point where they’re going to see the difference,” Montgomery said, adding that every pitcher in the league is dealing with wear or tear in the middle months. “I think mentally is where you have to see it. And that’s where I credit Jack … for getting even through five [innings]. Just that was a mental grind from him.”
It’s not just Kochanowicz. Soriano has produced a sneaky-good campaign in his third MLB season — and second in the starting rotation. The 26-year-old Dominican-born righty holds a 3.99 earned-run average across 17 starts. In four of his last six starts, he’s allowed one or fewer runs.
Going out every five days, no matter the results, has begun to show its dividends. Against the Athletics on June 10, Soriano struck out 12 in a seven-inning, one-run outing. Pitching versus the Astros on June 21, he struck out 10 across 6 ⅔ innings. However, there have been bumpy moments — like when he gave up eight runs in four innings on Friday against the Nationals.
“I just keep my head up,” Soriano said in Spanish through team interpreter Manny Del Campo when asked after the game about how knowing he’ll be back starting in five days helps him prepare after less-than-ideal appearances. “Don’t get frustrated with those kind of outings and be good, and keep working hard and be ready for those big outings.”
The velocity is there for Soriano — averaging 97 mph on his fastball and sinker — but the pitchability is a skill that comes with time, Hendricks said.
The first-year Angel and long-time big leaguer added that routine building takes time and for Soriano and Kohcanowicz, they’ve been provided a runaway for experimentation — which can lead to success.
“It really helps their confidence,” Hendricks said. “‘You can see this year with Jack and José, they’re just learning how to go about their routine. What they need in between starts — it changes depending on how you feel and what you’re working on from the last start. So just to see all those adjustments that they’re making is truly how you learn yourself.”
He continued: “I think they’re doing so well right now, but it’s going to be even better for them the longer they go in their careers.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom is suing Fox News for defamation, alleging that the news outlet intentionally manipulated its coverage to give the appearance that the governor lied about a phone call with President Trump.
The governor’s demand for $787 million in punitive damages escalates his aggressive effort to challenge misinformation. The lawsuit, announced Friday, places Newsom at the forefront of the political proxy war between Democrats and Republicans over the press by calling out an outlet that many in his party despise.
“By disregarding basic journalistic ethics in favor of malicious propaganda, Fox continues to play a major role in the further erosion of the bedrock principles of informed representative government,” the suit states. “Setting the record straight and confronting Fox’s dishonest practices are critical to protecting democracy from being overrun by disinformation and lies.”
Newsom, a potential presidential candidate, said he decided to sue in part because Fox failed to change after admitting in a legal settlement two years ago to spreading falsehoods about the 2020 presidential election.
In response to Newsom’s lawsuit, Fox criticized the California governor, accusing him of undercutting the 1st Amendment.
“Gov. Newsom’s transparent publicity stunt is frivolous and designed to chill free speech critical of him. We will defend this case vigorously and look forward to it being dismissed,” Fox News said in a statement Friday morning.
Trump told reporters on June 10 that he spoke with Newsom “a day ago.”
“Called him up to tell him, got to do a better job, he’s doing a bad job,” Trump said. “Causing a lot of death and a lot of potential death.”
Newsom immediately rejected Trump’s timeline on social media.
The governor had already spoken publicly about talking to Trump on the phone late in the night on June 6 in California, which was early June 7 for Trump on the East Coast. Newsom said the National Guard was never discussed during that call. They didn’t talk again, he said.
“There was no call,” Newsom posted on X. “Not even a voicemail. Americans should be alarmed that a President deploying Marines onto our streets doesn’t even know who he’s talking to.”
Trump attempted to fire back at Newsom through Fox and shared a screenshot of his call log with anchor John Roberts. The log showed that a phone call occurred on June 7 and provided no evidence of a call on June 9 as Trump claimed.
“It is impossible to know for certain whether President Trump’s distortion was intentionally deceptive or merely a result of his poor cognitive state, but Fox’s decision to cover up for the President’s false statement cannot be so easily dismissed,” the complaint states.
Newsom’s legal team said Roberts initially misrepresented the situation to viewers “to obscure President Trump’s false statement of fact.”
Then during an evening broadcast on June 10, Fox News host Jesse Watters showed a video of Trump’s comments about the phone call but omitted the president saying that it happened “a day ago.” The edit made it appear that Newsom alleged the two never spoke at all.
“Why would Newsom lie and claim Trump never called him? Why would he do that?” Watters then asked.
A banner at the bottom of the screen during the segment claimed “Gavin lied about Trump’s call.”
Newsom’s lawyers said Fox “willfully distorted the facts” and defamed Newsom to tens of millions of people.
“Fox advanced this lie about Governor Newsom out of a desire to harm him politically,” the complaint states.
Newsom is particularly attuned to his critics on Fox, a conservative-leaning television network that he describes as the epicenter of a right-wing media ecosystem that misleads the public to benefit Trump and his allies. Similar to reports of Trump watching CNN, the governor regularly follows Fox political coverage. He pays close attention to the outlet’s assessment of his leadership.
Fox commentators and opinion hosts, such as Watters, are given a wide berth to express their views, even when they contradict the reporting of its nonpartisan correspondents. They aggressively defend Trump and his policies, while often casting California as a failed state with incompetent leadership.
But Newsom has also benefited from Fox and used his appearances on the network to brandish his image as a brawler for Democrats and his standing as a potential future presidential candidate.
Fox hosted a much talked about debate between Newsom and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2023. The California governor also participated in a sit-down interview with Sean Hannity, which drew praise from within and outside of his party.
During a talk on the social media website Substack on Friday, Newsom said he started going on Fox to disrupt propaganda and the network’s narrative about Democrats.
“I have a high threshold for the bulls— on Fox, is the point,” Newsom said. “I wouldn’t do this unless I felt they really did cross the line.”
The amount of the governor’s request for damages was a subtle dig at the outlet.
Fox agreed two years ago to pay Dominion Voting Systems $787 million to drop a lawsuit related to the network’s false claims that voting machines were manipulated to help President Biden win the 2020 election. The news organization settled the case rather than put its executives and on-air talent on the witness stand in a high-profile trial.
Fox faces a similar lawsuit from Smartmatic, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based voting machine company that claims its business had been hurt because of the network’s reporting.
The news outlet has maintained that reporting on Trump’s fraud claims was newsworthy and protected by the 1st Amendment. Barring a settlement, the case could go to trial next year.
In a letter to Fox, Newsom’s lawyers said they will voluntarily dismiss the governor’s suit if the outlet retracts its claims that he lied about speaking to Trump.
“We expect that you will give the same airtime in retracting these falsehoods as you spent presenting and amplifying them,” his lawyers stated. “Further, Mr. Watters and Fox News must issue a formal on-air apology for the lie you have spread about Governor Newsom.”
The governor said any damages he might receive from the lawsuit, punitive or otherwise, would go to charity.
Times staff writer Stephen Battaglio contributed to this report.
Game 81. The halfway point of the season arrived at Angel Stadium — and the Angels, albeit squarely in contention at .500, were dealing with a bit of organizational uncertainty.
Bench coach Ray Montgomery took over on June 20 as the acting — now interim — manager as the Angels entered Friday winners in seven of their last 10 games.
The Angels are in a much better spot than 2024. This time last season, after game 81, they were 11 games under .500 — squarely out of the postseason hunt.
Friday, however, even after losing 15-9 in a three-hour, 11-minute slog of a series opener against the Washington Nationals (34-48), the Angels (40-41) still are just two games out of the third American League wild-card spot.
In a game where the Angels and Nationals combined for 24 runs and 30 hits — with the 19 hits and 15 runs given up by the Angels’ pitching staff representing season-worst marks — what ultimately separated the teams was the Angels’ inability to come through with runners on base.
In the sixth and seventh innings — down one and two runs, respectively — the Angels had opportunities to take the lead or tie the score with runners in scoring position, but failed to capitalize. From there, the Nationals’ lead grew, with Hunter Strickland giving up four runs in the ninth as part of a 10-run barrage against the bullpen.
“It kind of just felt like an off-night tonight all the way up and down,” Montgomery said. “Those guys have been asked to do a lot over the last few weeks, and they’ve responded. So tonight wasn’t the night.”
Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery, second from left, waits on the mound with catcher Logan O’Hoppe during a pitching change in the fifth inning Friday.
(Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Associated Press)
In the early innings, the Angels had plenty of opportunities against Nationals starting pitcher Jake Irvin, who struggled against the heart of the lineup.
Jo Adell struck a 92-mph fastball high and away to right field for a solo home run — his 18th overall and 11th in June — in the second. An inning later, Nolan Schanuel and Taylor Ward received hanging breaking balls — a high curveball and slider, respectively — and pulled the ball for short-porch home runs.
“The idea is that if we’re hunting the pitches that we want to do damage with pitcher to pitcher, we’ll avoid the chase and kind of be able to get better pitches to hit,” Adell said, who has helped the Angels post four or more walks in the last four games. “You know, our thing is, you’re only as good of a hitter as the pitches that you get.”
Three home runs in three innings helped the Angels build a three-run lead. Across 4 ⅓ innings of work against Irvin, the Angels’ lineup continued to click. They tallied nine runs (eight earned to Irvin) on nine hits — just enough for an early lead as José Soriano trudged through his worst outing of the season.
Soriano couldn’t get out of the fifth against the Nationals. The shutdown pitching he had featured in his last three starts — giving up just two runs across 20 ⅔ innings — looked like a distant memory. The right-hander struck out four and walked two, while giving up eight earned runs and nine hits.
“I mean, that’s not what we would have expected, given what he did in his last three outings and what we talked about a little bit yesterday,” Montgomery said. “Just wasn’t sharp, didn’t feel crisp from the get go.”
Added Soriano in Spanish through team interpreter Manny Del Campo: “I feel a little bit upset because of my performance tonight. … I feel upset because I wasn’t able to help win tonight.”
Angels shortstop Zach Neto (shoulder) returned to action, striking out in the seventh inning as a pinch hitter.
Before the game, Neto said that he’d likely be able to hit before throwing — something he’s yet to do — after jamming his shoulder on a stolen base attempt Tuesday.
“He proved to me, proved to the medical staff, proved to everybody else he was capable of coming in,” Montgomery said. “We thought it was a good time to give it a shot right there.”
The Angels will try to even the series Saturday with right-hander Kyle Hendricks (5-6, 4.83 earned-run average) on the mound.
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Former Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman laid in state in the Minnesota Capitol rotunda on Friday while the man charged with killing her and her husband, and wounding a state senator and his wife, made a brief court appearance in a suicide prevention suit.
Hortman, a Democrat, is the first woman and one of fewer than 20 Minnesotans accorded the honor. She laid in state with her husband, Mark, and their golden retriever, Gilbert. Her husband was also killed in the June 14 attack, and Gilbert was seriously wounded and had to be euthanized. It was the first time a couple has laid in state at the Capitol, and the first time for a dog.
The Hortmans’ caskets and the dog’s urn were arranged in the center of the rotunda, under the Capitol dome, with law enforcement officers keeping watch on either side.
The Capitol was open for the public to pay their respects from noon to 5 p.m. Friday. House TV was livestreaming the viewing. A private funeral is set for 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The service will be livestreamed on the Department of Public Safety’s YouTube channel.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris will fly to Minnesota for the funeral but won’t have a speaking role, according to her personal office. Harris expressed her condolences this past week to Hortman’s adult children, and spoke with Gov. Tim Walz, her 2024 running mate, who extended an invitation on behalf of the Hortman family, her office said.
His hearing takes a twist
The man accused of killing the Hortmans and wounding another Democratic lawmaker and his wife made a short court appearance Friday to face charges for what the chief federal prosecutor for Minnesota has called “a political assassination.” Vance Boelter, 57, of Green Isle, surrendered near his home the night of June 15 after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history.
An unshaven Boelter was brought in wearing just a green padded suicide prevention suit and orange slippers. Federal defender Manny Atwal asked Magistrate Judge Douglas Micko to continue the hearing until next Thursday. She said Boelter has been sleep deprived while on suicide watch in the Sherburne County Jail, and that it has been difficult to communicate with him as a result.
“Your honor, I haven’t really slept in about 12 to 14 days,” Boelter told the judge. And he denied being suicidal. “I’ve never been suicidal and I am not suicidal now.”
Atwal told the court that Boelter had been in what’s known as a “Gumby suit,” without undergarments, ever since his transfer to the jail after his first court appearance on June 16. She said the lights are on in his area 24 hours a day, doors slam frequently, the inmate in the next cell spreads feces on the walls, and the smell drifts to Boelter’s cell.
The attorney said transferring him to segregation instead, and giving him a normal jail uniform, would let him get some sleep, restore some dignity, and let him communicate better. The judge agreed.
Prosecutors did not object to the delay and said they also had concerns about the jail conditions.
The acting U.S. attorney for Minnesota, Joseph Thompson, told reporters afterward that he did not think Boelter had attempted to kill himself.
The case continues
Boelter did not enter a plea. Prosecutors need to secure a grand jury indictment first, before his arraignment, which is when a plea is normally entered.
According to the federal complaint, police video shows Boelter outside the Hortmans’ home and captures the sound of gunfire. And it says security video shows Boelter approaching the front doors of two other lawmakers’ homes dressed as a police officer.
His lawyers have declined to comment on the charges, which could carry the federal death penalty. Thompson said last week that no decision has been made. Minnesota abolished its death penalty in 1911. The Death Penalty Information Center says a federal death penalty case hasn’t been prosecuted in Minnesota in the modern era, as best as it can tell.
Boelter also faces separate murder and attempted murder charges in state court that could carry life without parole, assuming that county prosecutors get their own indictment for first-degree murder. But federal authorities intend to use their power to try Boelter first.
Other victims and alleged targets
Authorities say Boelter shot and wounded Democratic state Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, at their home in Champlin before shooting and killing the Hortmans in their home in the northern Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Park, a few miles away.
Federal prosecutors allege Boelter also stopped at the homes of two other Democratic lawmakers. Prosecutors also say he listed dozens of other Democrats as potential targets, including officials in other states. Friends described Boelter as an evangelical Christian with politically conservative views. But prosecutors have declined so far to speculate on a motive.
Boelter’s wife speaks out
Boelter’s wife, Jenny, issued a statement through her own lawyers Thursday saying she and her children are “absolutely shocked, heartbroken and completely blindsided,” and expressing sympathy for the Hortman and Hoffman families. She is not in custody and has not been charged.
“This violence does not align at all with our beliefs as a family,” her statement said. “It is a betrayal of everything we hold true as tenets of our Christian faith. We are appalled and horrified by what occurred and our hearts are incredibly heavy for the victims of this unfathomable tragedy.”
An FBI agent’s affidavit described the Boelters as “preppers,” people who prepare for major or catastrophic incidents. Investigators seized 48 guns from his home, according to search warrant documents.
While the FBI agent’s affidavit said law enforcement stopped Boelter’s wife as she traveled with her four children north of the Twin Cities in Onamia on the day of the shootings, she said in her statement that she was not pulled over. She said that after she got a call from authorities, she immediately drove to meet them at a nearby gas station and has fully cooperated with investigators.
“We thank law enforcement for apprehending Vance and protecting others from further harm,” she said.
1 of 6 | On June 27, 2005, Dennis Rader, the so-called “BTK” (bind, torture, kill) killer, pleaded guilty to 10 slayings in the Wichita, Kan., area. He was sentenced to life in prison. File Phot courtesy of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Dept. | License Photo
On this date in history:
In 1829, English scientist James Smithson left a will that eventually funded the establishment of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington — in a country he never visited.
In 1844, Mormon founder Joseph Smith was slain by a mob at a jail in Carthage, Ill.
In 1847, the first telegraph wire links were established between New York City and Boston.
In 1859, Louisville, Ky., schoolteacher Mildred Hill composed a tune for her students and called it “Good Morning To You.” Her sister, Patty, who wrote the lyrics, later added a verse that began “Happy Birthday To You.”
In 1950, U.S. President Harry S. Truman ordered naval and air forces to help repel the North Korean invasion of South Korea.
UPI File Photo
In 1979, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled private employers could give special preferences to Black people to eliminate “manifest racial imbalance” in traditionally white-only jobs.
In 1991, Associate Justice Thurgood Marshall announced he was retiring from the U.S. Supreme Court. He was the first African American to sit on the high court.
In 2003, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission opened a long-awaited nationwide registry for people who want to block unwanted telemarketing calls.
In 2005, Dennis Rader, the so-called “BTK” (bind, torture, kill) killer, pleaded guilty to 10 slayings in the Wichita, Kan., area. He was sentenced to life in prison.
In 2007, Tony Blair officially stepped down after a decade as British prime minister, submitting his resignation to Queen Elizabeth II. Blair was succeeded by Gordon Brown and became Britain’s envoy to the Middle East.
In 2011, a federal court jury in Chicago convicted former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich on 17 felony corruption charges that included trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama after the 2008 presidential election. Blagojevich was sentenced to 14 years in prison.
In 2017, the FARC rebel group officially disarmed in a ceremony with the Colombian government.
In 2019, the Supreme Court ruled the federal government can’t include a question about citizenship in the U.S. census.
In 2023, producers of Wheel of Fortune announced Ryan Seacrest would succeed Pat Sajak as the host of the long-running game show. Sajak’s final episode aired June 7, 2024.
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that his country had delivered a “slap to America’s face” by striking a U.S. air base in Qatar and warned against further attacks in his first public comments since a ceasefire agreement with Israel.
Khamenei’s prerecorded speech that aired on Iranian state television, his first appearance since June 19, was filled with warnings and threats directed toward the United States and Israel, the Islamic Republic’s longtime adversaries.
The 86-year-old, a skilled orator known for his forceful addresses to the country’s more than 90 million people, appeared more tired than he had just a week ago, speaking in a hoarse voice and occasionally stumbling over his words.
The supreme leader downplayed U.S. strikes on three Iranian nuclear sites Sunday using bunker-buster bombs and cruise missiles, saying that President Trump — who said the attack “completely and fully obliterated” Iran’s nuclear program — had exaggerated its impact.
“They could not achieve anything significant,” Khamenei said. Missing from his more than 10-minute video message was any mention of Iran’s nuclear program and the status of their facilities and centrifuges after extensive U.S. and Israeli strikes.
His characterization of Monday’s strike on the U.S. air base in Qatar contrasted with U.S. accounts of it as a limited attack with no casualties.
The White House responded to Khamenei’s video, accusing him of trying to “save face.”
“Any commonsense, open-minded person knows the truth about the precision strikes on Saturday night,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “They were wildly successful.”
U.N. nuclear watchdog confirms damage to Iran sites
The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog, International Atomic Energy Agency Director Rafael Grossi, reiterated Thursday that the damage done by Israeli and U.S. strikes at Iranian nuclear facilities “is very, very, very considerable” and that he can only assume the centrifuges are not operational.
“I think annihilated is too much, but it suffered enormous damage,” Grossi told French broadcaster RFI. The IAEA has not been allowed to visit any of the Iranian facilities to do an independent assessment of the damage.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, also conceded Wednesday that “our nuclear installations have been badly damaged, that’s for sure.”
Khamenei has not been seen in public since taking shelter in a secret location after the outbreak of the war on June 13, when Israel attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and targeted top military commanders and scientists.
After Sunday’s attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Trump was able to help negotiate a ceasefire that came into effect Tuesday.
Iranian leader warns U.S. against further attacks
Khamenei claimed the U.S. had only intervened in the war because “it felt that if it did not intervene, the Zionist regime would be utterly destroyed.”
“It entered the war to save them, yet it gained nothing,” he said.
He said his country’s attack Monday on the U.S. base in Qatar was significant, since it shows Iran “has access to important U.S. centers in the region and can act against them whenever it deems necessary.”
“The Islamic Republic was victorious and, in retaliation, delivered a hand slap to America’s face,” he said, adding, “This action can be repeated in the future.”
“Should any aggression occur, the enemy will definitely pay a heavy price,” he said.
Trump has dismissed the retaliatory attack as a “very weak response,” saying that the U.S. had been warned by Iran in advance and emphasizing that there had been no casualties.
With the ceasefire, life slowly returns to normal in Iran
On Thursday, Iran partially reopened its airspace, which had been closed since the war began, and shops in Tehran’s capital began to reopen, with traffic returning to the streets.
Majid Akhavan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Roads and Urban Development, said Iran had reopened its airspace for the eastern half of the country to domestic and international flights, including those transiting Iranian airspace.
Earlier this week, Tehran said 606 people had been killed in the conflict in Iran, with 5,332 people wounded. The Washington-based Human Rights Activists group released figures Wednesday suggesting Israeli strikes on Iran had killed at least 1,054 and wounded 4,476.
The group, which has provided detailed casualty figures from multiple rounds of unrest in Iran, said 417 of those killed were civilians and 318 were security forces.
At least 28 people were killed in Israel and more than 1,000 wounded, according to officials there. During the 12-day war, Iran fired more than 550 missiles at Israel with a 90% interception rate, according to new statistics released by Israeli authorities Thursday. Israel, meantime, hit more than 720 Iranian military infrastructure targets and eight nuclear-related sites, Israel said.
Trump has also asserted that American and Iranian officials will talk next week, giving rise to cautious hope for longer-term peace.
Iran has not acknowledged that any such talks would take place, though U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff has said there has been direct and indirect communication between the countries. A sixth round of U.S.-Iran negotiations was scheduled for earlier this month in Oman but was canceled after Israel attacked Iran.
Iran has insisted that it will not give up its nuclear program. In a vote underscoring the tough path ahead, its parliament agreed Wednesday to fast-track a proposal that would effectively stop the country’s cooperation with the IAEA, which has monitored the program for years.
Amiri and Rising write for the Associated Press. The AP’s John Leicester in Paris and Natalie Melzer in Nahariya, Israel, and Aamer Madhani in Washington contributed to this report.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo took a break on a warm day, wiped his brow and pointed out the Folgers coffee can in the corner of his office.
He’s told the story many times, but felt it was worth repeating, given recent events.
For years, Gordo’s parents were undocumented. They crossed the border from Zacatecas, Mexico, when he was a young child, settled in Pasadena and raised their family. Gordo’s father was a dishwasher and cook; his mother was a seamstress in a factory that used to be across from City Hall. The family lived in a converted garage.
“Under my parents’ bed was a Folgers coffee can, and in that can was cash, a list of names and phone numbers, copies of birth certificates and identification cards,” said Gordo, who was the oldest child and describes himself as a latchkey kid.
“If my parents didn’t come home, I was to take that can and go knock on the neighbor’s house” and get help, Gordo said.
The can in his office isn’t the original. It’s a replica, and a reminder.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo is the son of immigrant parents.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
With federal raids across Southern California, families and neighborhoods have been reeling. People have been afraid to leave the house following arrests at car washes, building supply centers, restaurants, the Garment District and street vending locations.
Gordo knows how they feel.
“We lived in fear, and that’s what’s so offensive about this, and painful, frankly,” he said.
In Pasadena, Gordo said, it hasn’t been clear whether the sweeps are being conducted by legit federal agents or vigilantes. Their cars are unmarked. Their faces are shielded. Their uniforms don’t answer any questions.
In recent days, a man exited a vehicle in Pasadena and pointed a gun in the direction of protesters before speeding away, emergency lights flashing. At a bus stop, several men were detained, some of whom were on their way to work on construction sites in the post-fire rebuilding of Altadena, according to Gordo.
And the city canceled some swimming and other recreational programs Saturday amid fears of increased federal enforcement activity. Gordo told The Times that masked men with guns and vests had chased several men at Villa Parke.
“They’re creating volatile, dangerous situations,” Gordo told me, saying he fears that bullets will fly through neighborhoods, or that police will arrive on scene and not know what’s what or who’s who.
Even people with legal status are wary, Gordo said, because some of the raids appear to be arbitrary and indiscriminate. As my colleague Rachel Uranga reported, the majority of those arrested in the first 10 days of June in Southern California had no criminal records, despite Trump’s vow to reel in “the worst of the worst.”
“I’m carrying my passport with me,” Gordo said.
Pasadena Mayor Victor Gordo outside City Hall in Pasadena.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“The overreach is stigmatizing an entire swath of our society. Whether you look or sound like an immigrant, in the eyes of others, you are automatically considered an outsider, and that’s morally and legally wrong.”
Gordo’s positions on immigration enforcement haven’t always gotten straight A’s from immigrant rights advocates. In 2017, L.A. Progressive said Gordo’s coffee can story was compelling, but accused the then-councilman of waffling on a proposed city ordinance prohibiting police contacts with any federal law enforcement agencies.
The article said Gordo was opposed to local police “having contacts with ICE,” but said on one occasion that he “favored an exception for bad guys.”
Gordo ultimately voted in favor of that ordinance, which passed unanimously, and told me he feels now as he did then. The vast majority of undocumented immigrants are here to work hard and create opportunities for their families, he said. Same as his family. But there have to be consequences for “bad actors,” he added, and that’s a criminal justice matter, not an immigration issue.
“If the federal government or our own police believe there is someone who has violated the law, they should address that issue,” Gordo said. “But they should do it respecting the Constitution of the United States, and what the federal government is doing now is missing due process.”
Also missing, says Gordo, is any conversation about immigration reform that would serve the needs of employers and give immigrants a pathway to making even greater contributions.
He recalled that when he was about 10, his family moved back to Mexico temporarily as part of the process of establishing legal status in the U.S., which was made possible under the Carter administration. His father is a U.S. citizen, as was his late mother. Gordo and a sibling became attorneys; another is a doctor and yet another is an educator.
Now, said Gordo, there’s no path to legalization. There’s just this hypocritical system in which there is demand for immigrant labor in many industries, along with demonization of these very contributors.
Pablo Alvarado, a Pasadena resident and executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told me he’s had differences with Gordo over the years. But he thinks the events of the last month have prompted the mayor to more fully embrace his immigrant identity.
“He’s stepping up to the moment and I’m very proud of what he’s doing,” said Alvarado, who has joined Gordo at vigils and demonstrations. “It’s one thing to tell the story of where you came from, and another thing to … confront the powers … behind these unlawful ICE operations. … I think he’s been fearless.”
Gordo told me he visited the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles on June 18, with Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) and state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Alhambra), to check on arrestees. They were denied entry, but Gordo met a distraught woman from Pomona who was not being allowed to deliver heart medication to her husband.
Gordo offered his services as an attorney and was allowed entry along with the woman. He said he later learned that the husband had been arrested during his lunch break on a landscaping job, had been in the country 22 years with no criminal record and was in the process of obtaining a green card.
Gordo said that when he and the woman entered the detention center, the husband and wife were separated by a glass partition.
“She was crying and shaking,” Gordo said. “He was telling her it was all going to be okay. He was comforting her, and trying to smile.”
The partition had a small opening. They couldn’t fit their hands through it, but Gordo watched as the pair hooked their pinky fingers.
“All she could muster was, ‘I told you,’” Gordo said. “‘I told you not to go to work.’”
£1.308 billion (Powerball) on January 13 2016 in the US, for which three winning tickets were sold, remains history’s biggest lottery prize
£1.267 billion (Mega Million) a winner from South Carolina took their time to come forward to claim their prize in March 2019 not long before the April deadline
£633.76 million (Powerball draw) from a winner from Wisconsin
£625.76 million (Powerball) Mavis L. Wanczyk of Chicopee, Massachusetts claimed the jackpot in August 2017
£575.53 million (Powerball) A lucky pair of winners scooped the jackpot in Iowa and New York in October 2018
WASHINGTON — Between June 6 and June 22, immigration enforcement teams arrested 1,618 immigrants for deportation in Los Angeles and surrounding regions of Southern California, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
DHS did not respond to requests for information on how many of those arrested had criminal histories and a breakdown of those convictions.
As immigration arrests have occurred across Southern California, demonstrators have protested the federal government’s actions and bystanders have sometimes confronted immigration officers or videotaped their actions. Between June 6 and June 22, 787 people have been arrested for assault, obstruction and unlawful assembly, a DHS spokesperson said.
Figures about the Los Angeles operation released by the White House on June 11 indicated that about one third of those arrested up until that point had prior criminal convictions.
The “area of responsibility” for the Los Angeles field office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area and the Central Coast, as well as Orange County to the south, Riverside County to the east and up the coast to San Luis Obispo County.
Data from the first days of the Los Angeles enforcement operation show that a majority of those arrested had never been charged with or convicted of a crime.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said Monday that 75% of nationwide arrests under the Trump administration have been of immigrants with criminal convictions or pending charges. But data published by Immigration and Customs Enforcement show that figure is lower in recent weeks.
Nationally, the number of people arrested without criminal convictions has jumped significantly and many of those are nonviolent offenders, according to nonpublic data obtained by the Cato Institute that covers the period from last Oct. 1, the start of the federal fiscal year, to June 15. The most frequent crimes are immigration and traffic offenses.
Serious violent offenders account for just 7% of those in custody, according to Cato.
Immigration enforcement officers have recently intensified efforts to deliver on President Trump’s promise of mass deportations. In California, that has meant arrests of people in courthouses, on farms and in Home Depot parking lots.
But, with a daily goal of 3,000 arrests nationwide, administration officials still complain that agents are failing to arrest enough immigrants.
Democrats and immigrant community leaders argue that agents are targeting people indiscriminately. Despite the chaotic nature of the raids and protests in Los Angeles, 1,618 arrests by DHS in southern California over more than two weeks is about 101 arrests per day — a relatively small contribution to the daily nationwide goal.
Perhaps the bigger achievement than the arrests themselves, advocates say, is the fear that those actions have stoked.
Times staff writer Rachel Uranga contributed to this report.
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Although you prefer to keep moving on, the new moon suggests this is a day to stand still – at least to understand what’s happening with a passion partner.
Ask the right questions, you’ll get the right answers – so give this plenty of thought.
Single? Opinions may seem far apart, but two hearts are so in tune.
No deal is over until it’s finalised – however far along a negotiation road you have come.
Take time to look at where two sides find themselves, and use your intense imagination and the new moon’s new harmony to find a fresh way forward. In love?
A date can be reset.
Single? Your soulmate has natural ability to adapt.
You are the sign with all the creative skills so take every opportunity to explore what you can do and how and where you could push yourself further, or harder.
You may not blow your own trumpet, but make an exception today.
A routine trip linked to a dull task can set the scene for sparkling romance.
Get all the latest Pisces horoscope news including your weekly and monthly predictions
Unlock even more award-winning articles as The Sun launches brand new membership programme –Sun Club.
The once-clashing R&B songstresses Brandy and Monica are back — together.
The titans announced their first-ever co-headlining tour, “The Boy Is Mine,” on Tuesday, paying homage to their 1998 hit of the same name. Kelly Rowland, Muni Long and recent “American Idol” winner Jamal Roberts are scheduled to appear as special guests along the road.
“This really is a full-circle moment,” Brandy said in a statement to Variety. “Monica and I coming together again isn’t just about the music — it’s about honoring where we came from and how far we’ve both come. ‘The Boy Is Mine’ was a defining chapter in R&B, and to share the stage all these years later is bigger than a reunion — it’s a celebration of growth, sisterhood, and the love our fans have given us from day one.”
She added that she recognized the love “The Boy Is Mine” still received, saying that the song “means everything to me.”
Upon its release, the song spent 13 weeks at No. 1. That was 27 years ago, and though the pair have been on “different journeys” since, they’ve come back together to give “the people what they’ve been asking for.”
“God’s timing perfectly aligned us,” Brandy said.
Presale for the tour begins on June 26, with general tickets going on sale on June 27. The run currently includes one Los Angeles-area show on Nov. 9 at the Kia Forum.
Brandy and Monica had a widely publicized fallout in 1998. Monica is said to have punched Brandy in the face just before they took the stage at that year’s MTV Video Music Awards to perform their hit single.
The duo was seen as a monumental combination of ‘90s talent, with both Brandy and Monica being lauded for their debut records. Brandy had already achieved RIAA platinum status with her eponymous album released in 1994 when she was just 15. “The Boy Is Mine” was an instant hit when it was released four years later, but the VMAs incident seemed to spawn acrimony.
Though both would remain in the music industry, Brandy would also pursue an acting career. The “Vocal Bible” took off following her role as the first African American actor to play Cinderella in 1997. More recently, she starred as a rapper in the ABC drama series “Queens” in 2021.
Monica’s 1995 debut, “Miss Thang,” went platinum when she was 14, but the singer largely remained out of the spotlight following the release of “Code Red” in 2015. She teased a pivot into the country music genre in 2022 with “Open Roads,” which she says was produced entirely by 10-time Grammy winner Brandi Carlile. Though she confirmed its completion in 2023, it has yet to be released.
After the kerfuffle in 1998, it wouldn’t be until 2012 that the two collaborated again on “It All Belongs to Me” and 11 years more before they worked on a remix of “The Boy Is Mine” for Ariana Grande. In 2021, Brandy and Monica appeared on “Verzuz,” a popular webcast series made by Swizz Beatz and Timbaland where two artists pit their best hits against each other.
The affair went down smoothly until about 30 minutes in, when Monica spoke of how she had come a long way from “kicking in doors” and “smacking chicks,” a (seemingly autobiographical) line from her hit song “So Gone.”
“You sure was,” Brandy replied. “I was one of the ones.”
But Monica refuted the quip, claiming, “People think I’m abusive. That’s not what happened.”
After a little back and forth, Brandy conceded, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that … I didn’t mean no shade by that.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” Monica replied before moving on, as both singers seemed to have done with the announcement of the upcoming tour.
