L.A

John Carpenter has this one recurring nightmare.

“I’m in a huge, massive town I don’t really know,” he says, “and I’m looking for the movie district. And inevitably all the theaters are closed down. They’re all closed down. That’s what the dream is.”

I’m visiting Carpenter at his longtime production house in Hollywood on one of L.A.’s unjustly sunny October afternoons. A vintage “Halloween” pinball machine and a life-size Nosferatu hover near his easy chair. I tell him I don’t think Freud would have too much trouble interpreting that particular dream.

“No, I know,” he says, laughing. “I don’t have too much trouble with that either.”

Nonetheless, it truly haunts him — “and it has haunted me over the years for many dreams in a row,” he continues. “I’m either with family or a group, and I go off to do something and I get completely lost. [Freud] wouldn’t have too much trouble figuring that out either. I mean, none of this is very mysterious.”

Carpenter is a gruff but approachable 77 these days, his career as a film director receding in the rearview. The last feature he made was 2010’s “The Ward.” His unofficial retirement was partly chosen, partly imposed by a capricious industry. The great movie poster artist Drew Struzan died two days before I visited — Carpenter says he never met Struzan but loved his work, especially his striking painting for the director’s icy 1982 creature movie “The Thing” — and I note how that whole enterprise of selling a movie with a piece of handmade art is a lost one.

“The whole movie business that I knew, that I grew up with, is gone,” he replies. “All gone.”

John Carpenter with John Mulaney, appearing as a part of “Everybody’s in L.A.” at the Sunset Gower Studios in May 2024.

(Adam Rose / Netflix)

It hasn’t, thankfully, made him want to escape from L.A. He still lives here with his wife, Sandy King, who runs the graphic novel imprint Storm King Comics, which Carpenter contributes to. He gamely appeared on John Mulaney’s “Everybody’s in L.A.” series on Netflix and, earlier this year, the Los Angeles Film Critics Assn. gave him a Career Achievement Award — a belated lovefest for a veteran who was sidelined after “The Thing” flopped, cast out into indie darkness and was never personally nominated for an Oscar.

The thing that does keep Carpenter busy these days (other than watching Warriors basketball and playing videogames) is the thing that might have an even bigger cultural footprint than his movies: his music. With his adult son Cody and godson, Daniel Davies, Carpenter is once again performing live concerts of his film scores and instrumental albums in a run at downtown’s Belasco this weekend and next.

The synthy, hypnotic scores that became his signature in films like “Halloween” and “Escape from New York” not only outnumber his output as a director — he’s scored movies for several other filmmakers and recently made a handshake deal in public to score Bong Joon Ho’s next feature — but their influence and popularity are much more evident in 2025 than the style of his image-making.

From “Stranger Things” to “F1,” Carpenter’s minimalist palette of retro electronica combined with the groove-based, trancelike ethos of his music (which now includes four “Lost Themes” records) is the coin of the realm so many modern artists are chasing.

Very few composers today are trying to sound like John Williams; many of them want to sound like John Carpenter. The Kentucky-raised skeptic with the long white hair doesn’t believe me when I express this.

“Well, see, I must be stupid,” he says, “because I don’t get it.”

“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Carpenter is quick to put himself down. He always says that he scored his own films because he was the only composer he could afford, and that he only used synths because they were cheap and he couldn’t properly write music for an orchestra. When I tell him that Daniel Wyman, the instrumentalist who helped program and execute the “Halloween” score in 1978, praised Carpenter’s innate knowledge of the “circle of fifths” and secondary dominants — bedrocks of Western musical theory that allowed Carpenter’s scores to keep the tension cooking — he huffs.

“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Carpenter says, halfway between self-deprecation and something more rascally. “It all comes, probably, from the years I spent in our front room with my father and listening to classical music. I’m sure I’m just digging this s— out.”

Whether by osmosis or genetics or possibly black magic, Carpenter clearly absorbed his powers from his father, Dr. Howard Carpenter, a classically trained violinist and composer. Classical music filled the childhood home in Bowling Green and for young John it was all about “Bach, Bach and Bach. He’s my favorite. I just can’t get enough of Johann there.”

It makes sense. Bach’s music has a circular spell quality and the pipe organ, resounding with reverb in gargantuan cathedrals, was the original synthesizer.

“He’s the Rock of Ages of music,” says Carpenter, who particularly loves the fugue nicknamed “St. Anne” and the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. “Everybody would go back to Mozart or Beethoven. They are astonishing — Beethoven is especially astonishing — but they’re not my style. I don’t feel it like I do with Bach. I immediately got him.”

Carpenter was also a film score freak since Day 1. He cites the early electronic music in 1956’s “Forbidden Planet” and claims Bernard Herrmann and Dimitri Tiomkin as his two all-time favorites. Just listen, he says, to the way Tiomkin’s music transitions from the westerny fanfare under the Winchester Pictures logo to the swirling, menacing orchestral storm that accompanies “The Thing From Another World” title card in that 1951 sci-fi picture that Carpenter remixed as “The Thing.”

“The music is so weird, I cannot follow it,” he says. “But I love it.”

Yet Carpenter feels more personally indebted to rock ‘n’ roll: the Beatles, the Stones, the Doors. He wanted to be a rock star ever since he grew his hair long and bought a guitar in high school. He sang and performed R&B and psychedelic rock for sororities on the Western Kentucky campus as well as on a tour of the U.S. Army bases in Germany. He formed the rock trio Coupe de Villes with his buddies at USC and they made an album and played wrap parties.

He also kept soaking up contemporary influences, listening to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London” while location scouting for “Halloween.” Peter Fonda later introduced Carpenter to Zevon and he wanted the director to adapt the song into a film that never happened (starring Fonda as the werewolf, but “this time he gets the girl,” Carpenter recalls). In the ’80s he blasted Metallica with his two boys and he still loves Devo.

It’s incredibly rare for a film director to score their own films, rarer still for one to spend decades on stage as a performing musician. The requisite personalities would seem diametrical.

“My dad was a performing musician, so it was just part of the family,” Carpenter says. However, until 2016, when Carpenter first toured with his music, he was consumed with stage fright. “I had an incident when I was in a play in high school,” he says. “I went up and I forgot my lines. Shame descended upon me and I had a tough time. I was scared all the time.”

The director credits his touring drummer, Scott Seiver, for helping him beat it.

“Your adrenaline carries you to another planet when that thing starts,” he sighs with pleasure. “You hear a wall of screaming people. It’s a big time.”

He pushes back against the idea that directors “hide behind the camera.”

“The pressure, that’s the biggest thing,” Carpenter says. “You put yourself under pressure from the studio, you’re carrying all this money, crew, you want to be on time.”

He remembers seeing some haggard making-of footage of himself in post-production on “Ghost of Mars” in 2001 and thinking: Oh my God, this guy is in trouble. “I had to stop,” he says. “I can’t do this to myself anymore. I can’t take this kind of stress — it’ll kill you, as it has so many other directors. The music came along and it’s from God. It’s a blessing.”

John Carpenter is grateful but he doesn’t believe in God. He believes that, when we die, “we just disperse — our energy disperses, and we return to what we were. We’re all stardust up there and the darkness created us, in a sense. So that’s what we have to make peace with. I point up to the infinite, the space between stars. But things stop when you die. Your heart stops, brain — everything stops. You get cold. Your energy dissipates and it just… ends. The End.”

This is not exactly a peaceful thought for him.

“I mean, I don’t want to die,” he adds. “I’m not looking forward to that. But what can you do? I can’t control it. But that’s what I believe and I’m alone in it. I can’t put that on anybody else. Everybody has their own beliefs, their own gods, their own afterlife.”

He describes himself as a “long-term optimist but a short-term pessimist.”

“I have hope,” he says, “put it that way.” Yet he looks around and sees a lot of evil.

“The true evil in the world comes from people,” says Carpenter, who has long used cinematic allegories to skewer capitalist pigs and bloodthirsty governments. “I know that nature’s pretty rough, but not like men. You see pictures of lions taking down their prey and you see the face of the prey and you say: ‘Oh, man.’ Humans do things like that and enjoy it. Or they do things like that for power or pleasure. Humans are evil but they’re capable of massive good — and they’re capable of the greatest art form we have: music.”

The greatest?

“You don’t have to talk about it. You just sit and listen to it. It’s not my favorite,” he clarifies, alluding to his first love, cinema — “but it’s the one that transcends centuries.”

Music has always been kinder to him than the movie business. That business recently reared its ugly head when A24 tossed his completed score for “Death of a Unicorn.” (At least he owns the rights and will be putting it out sometime soon.) In addition to the high he gets from playing live, he is currently working on a heavy metal concept album complete with dialogue. It’s called “Cathedral” and he’ll be playing some of it at the Belasco.

It’s essentially a movie in music form, based on a dream Carpenter had. Though not one he finds scary. What scares Carpenter, it seems, is not being in control.

That happened to him in the movie world, it’s happening more and more as what he calls the “frailties of age” mount and it happens in that nightmare about getting lost in a big city and not finding any theaters.

“But I can’t do anything about it,” he says. “What can I do? See, the only thing I can do is what I can control: music. And watching basketball.”

As a Los Angeles City Council aide, Jose Ugarte failed to disclose years worth of outside income he made from lobbying and consulting — and, as a result, was prepared to pay a fine.

But the city’s Ethics Commission has now rejected a $17,500 settlement agreement with the council candidate. Two commissioners said the fine was not quite large enough.

“We need to signal that this is a serious violation,” said Manjusha Kulkarni, the president of the commission, who voted against the settlement.

Ugarte is deputy chief of staff to Curren Price and is running to replace his longtime boss on the City Council. Price has endorsed him. But the council aide failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to Ethics Commission documents.

He said the failure to report the outside income was a “clerical reporting error.”

Although two of the commissioners want a steeper fine against Ugarte, the suggested bump isn’t that large.

Two commissioners voted in favor of the $17,500 settlement, but Kulkarni and another commissioner, Terry Kaufmann, agreed the settlement amount should be around $20,000.

It’s an amount that they believe could send a clearer message.

“There is great concern about what is happening in Los Angeles. … Individuals routinely violate the laws we put in place to ensure trust,” Kulkarni said.

Kaufmann added that she was concerned by the fact that Ugarte still worked for a council member and was running for office.

The proposed settlement with Ugarte included seven counts against him, and each comes with a potential $5,000 penalty. But since Ugarte was cooperative, the commission’s director of enforcement reduced the overall penalty by 50%, bringing it down from $35,000 to the $17,500 figure.

Ugarte told The Times that his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office.

He started working for Price in 2013 but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.

A few months ago, my younger daughter, Darby, and I were settling into our seats at the local AMC. As the previews rolled, she gasped. “I know that voice,” she said. “That’s Aidan. Mom, that’s Aidan.”

I looked up just in time to see a familiar shock of brown curls. It was indeed Aidan Delbis, former member of the Falcon Players at Crescenta Valley High School in La Crescenta, a kid I had seen perform alongside my daughter in countless student plays.

Only now he was seated at a kitchen table with Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone as the words “Bugonia” and then “directed by Yorgos Lanthimos” flashed across the screen.

“Did you not know?” I asked my daughter. CV is a fine public school with a good theater program, but it isn’t exactly an incubator for nepo babies and aspiring stars. That one of their own had stepped off last year’s graduation stage and into a major film production should have been very big news long before a trailer hit theaters.

“No,” she said, furiously messaging various friends. “But now they will.”

Now they will indeed. When he joined the cast of “Bugonia,” Delbis didn’t just become a part of Lanthimos’ highly anticipated remake of Jang Joon-hwan’s 2003 black comedy “Save the Green Planet!” He also entered the mythology of which Hollywood dreams are made: A 17-year old sends in his first-ever open-call submission and lands a major role in a very big movie.

With a script by Will Tracy and obvious Oscar potential, “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August at this year’s Venice Film Festival before launching onto the festival circuit, including screenings in Toronto and New York, in preparation for its release this Friday. A slightly absurdist, darkly funny thriller with political undertones, it revolves around the kidnapping of a pharmaceutical company’s CEO, Michelle (Stone), by wild-eyed conspiracy theorist Teddy (Plemons) and his loyal cousin Don (Delbis).

From left, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

Teddy believes Michelle is an alien sent to destroy Earth. Don believes in Teddy. Though he falls in with Teddy’s plans, he often questions them, serving as a continual reminder that even within Teddy’s paranoid view of the universe, there is such a thing as going too far. Don is, in many ways, the heart of the film.

He is also, like the actor who plays him, autistic.

Delbis — who chooses to self-describe as autistic rather than neurodivergent — is not someone who has long nursed dreams of stardom. He took drama classes all through high school, but it wasn’t until his junior year, Delbis says, “that I started to get more into the process. I found the general process of acting, of understanding and investing in different personalities, to be fun and sometimes scary.”

Still, he says, “I wasn’t really sure that I wanted it to be my main career. But it so happened that this happened while I was in high school, and here we are.”

Here is the Four Seasons on a very rainy October afternoon where Delbis, now 19, has just finished his first solo photo shoot and is sitting, fortified by Goldfish crackers (his go-to-snack), for his first long one-on-one interview. He went to some of the film festivals and just returned from “Bugonia’s” London premiere, where he signed autographs on the red carpet and enjoyed flying first class. His parents, Katy and David Delbis, are seated nearby, as is his access and creative coach, Elaine Hall.

Delbis is a tall, good-natured young man who speaks with a distinctive cadence and in an unwaveringly calm tone. Aside from a habit of repeating himself as he searches for what he wants to say next, he seems more comfortable discussing his experience with filmmaking than many of the dozens of more experienced actors I have interviewed in this very hotel over the years.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” Delbis says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“It all started,” he says, “when my mom was friends with this agent, April, and one day she sent Mom an audition that seemed pretty promising, so I submitted for that. And they really liked it and called me back.”

It actually started a bit further back than that. With Plemons and Stone already cast, Lanthimos had decided that he wanted a nonprofessional actor to play Don.

“We went really wide in trying to find someone really special,” the Greek-born director of “The Favourite” and “Poor Things” says in a phone interview. “With these two experienced actors, I wanted to bring in a different dynamic. As we looked at people, I felt that the character would be more interesting if he was neurodivergent.”

Casting director Jennifer Venditti put out an open call, which April Smallwood of Spotlight Development saw and sent to Delbis’ mother, Katy.

“A happy-go-lucky young man, neurodivergent — it practically described Aidan,” Katy says in a later interview. La Crescenta may not be an industry hub, but, like many in L.A., the Delbis family has a Hollywood connection. Aidan’s older brother, Tristan (who is also neurodivergent), works at a movie theater; father David is about to retire after years at the Writers Guild Health Fund; and Katy, a self-described “creative,” has done some acting herself. But no one saw film-acting as a potential career for Aidan, who was set to take a gap year after high school. And, Katy says, she had no idea what sort of movie it was for. “It said for a ‘big film,’ but they always say that.”

She thought of it a bit like the time Delbis, a member of the high school track team, decided he also wanted to try out for basketball. “As I drove him to the school,” Katy said, “I told him that he might not get on since there were a lot of kids who had been playing basketball for years, which he had not. He said, ‘Mom, I just want to see what it’s like.’”

Now Delbis wanted to see what it would be like to audition for a “big film.”

Aidan Delbis in the movie “Bugonia.”

(Atsushi Nishijima / Focus Features)

He had recently performed the Vincent Price monologue from “Thriller” for the school talent show, which Katy filmed on her phone, so Smallwood submitted that. Venditti called Smallwood the next day and met with Delbis over Zoom. Thus began a monthslong process of meetings, rehearsals and auditions.

“We focused on him right away,” Venditti says. “He seemed to have it all. And he was very committed.”

“I was really unaware of how big a project it was,” Delbis said. “I had never seen a film by Yorgos.”

In March, Lanthimos, Stone and Plemons were in L.A. for the Oscars, so they all met with Delbis and came away impressed.

Lanthimos thought of casting a neurodivergent actor in a part because it would bring a natural clarity and unfiltered unpredictability to the role. He didn’t consider it any more challenging than working with any other actor. And when he met Delbis, Lanthimos says, “I just thought: That’s him.”

“Just from watching that first tape, you could see there was something so magnetic about him,” said Stone during a recent phone interview. (She is also a producer on the film.) “Don is the audience’s window, the one who can see through the charade.”

Still, there were many more steps to take.

“It’s a big leap for any nonprofessional,” Stone says. “It’s a big part in what is essentially a three-hander.”

From left, director Yorgos Lanthimos, Emma Stone, Aidan Delbis and Jesse Plemons at the Venice Film Festival, where “Bugonia” had its world premiere in August.

(Alessandra Tarantino / Invision / AP)

For an autistic actor, it’s an even bigger leap. As talented as Delbis might be, he also had to be able to handle the pressures, boredom and chaos of a film set. Venditti reached out to Hall. The founder of the Miracle Project and mother to a now-adult neurodivergent son, Hall is an acting coach who has worked for more than 20 years to increase the presence and understanding of neurodivergent and disabled people. She is often asked to gauge the ability of actors to take on a certain role — their ease with the material, their physical stamina, their level of independence and their emotional accessibility.

Delbis, she says, ticked all the boxes. He loves horror films, he was on the track team and he was, at the time, about to travel without his parents on a school trip to Sweden.

He is, as he says himself, “a low-key guy,” so Hall gave him some exercises to help him portray more extreme emotions and prepare him for when other cast members might do the same. (One subsequent rehearsal involved a scene in which one of the actors screamed repeatedly.)

Often, Hall says, perfecting these exercises can take weeks; Delbis, working with his mother, did it in a weekend. She also helped him prepare for his meeting with and then chemistry read with Plemons.

Delbis says he was “a bit nervous, though I don’t know why.” He did not recognize Plemons’ name or his face. “I had watched ‘Breaking Bad,’ but I didn’t realize Jesse played Todd. Halfway through [the read], I told him he looked like Todd and he said, ‘That’s because I played him.’ I’ve seen him in other things since then,” Delbis adds. “He’s a very solid actor.”

More important, he says, “Jesse seemed to me to be a very cool guy.”

That feeling is mutual. “When we brought Aidan in, I was excited and a little nervous,” Plemons says during a phone call from London. They started with one of the more extreme scenes from the film. “I was finding my feet too. When it became apparent that he was going to be fine with the darker scenes, I said, ‘This is him; this is Don.’”

While all this was happening, Delbis was finishing his senior year, which included a starring role in a production of “Almost Maine.” “It was not overly hard,” he says, but sometimes it was a lot. “I did one read and then I had to go to rehearsal for the play.”

Venditti remembers that day very well. “Here we were being so careful, treating him like he was fragile and not wanting to overload him,” she says laughing, “and he’s just calmly multitasking.”

When Delbis got the role in May, he and his family signed a nondisclosure agreement, which is why none of his friends knew his news after graduation, and Delbis and his family flew to the U.K. to begin filming. It was a tough secret for his parents to keep. But “any time it looked like I might slip,” Katy says, “Aidan shut me down.” He celebrated his 18th birthday near the set outside of Windsor, where production ran for three months before moving for two weeks in Atlanta.

Hall was hired to be Delbis’ on-set access and creative coach, a job she believes she has invented, meant to make the experience for neurodivergent and disabled actors easier. She suggested that Lanthimos and Tracy simplify Delbis’ script pages, stripping down the description of action “so he wouldn’t get stuck thinking he had to do exactly what was on the page,” she says, which they were happy to do.

“We didn’t want to put any limits on him,” Lanthimos says.

Delbis chose most of his costumes (except a beekeeping suit, motivated by the plot, which he says “was very hot”), which mirrored his own wardrobe preferences down to the horror film t-shirts and mismatched socks. Even the food Teddy and Don eat during the film reflects Delbis’ taste: mac ’n’ cheese, taquitos, spaghetti.

Hall ensured Delbis had extra time before filming, during which she could help him prepare with rehearsal and centering exercises. She visited the set before he arrived so she could tell him exactly what to expect and worked with the production team to ensure that he had his own space between takes. “They built us a little house, with horror posters on the wall and stuffed animals that looked like his cats,” she says. As there were no Goldfish available in the U.K., the production had them flown in.

“Having Elaine there was amazing,” Venditti says. “The idea of having someone to act as eyes and ears of what people are actually experiencing on set, I think it’s groundbreaking. I don’t know why we haven’t done it before.”

Delbis spent a fair amount of time with Plemons, who Hall said occasionally stepped in to help if she had to be away from set.

“We did a decent amount of goofing around,” Delbis says. “The bond that developed between us occurred quite naturally. I consider Jesse a friend.”

For his part, Plemons enjoyed being around someone who spoke his mind.

“I so appreciated Aidan’s inability to tell a lie,” Plemons says. “On a set, you spend so much time waiting around, and he would say, ‘What are we doing? What is taking so long?’ Which was exactly what I was thinking. He’s a very smart, sensitive, self-assured guy, and if you’re unclear in what you’re saying, he will let you know.”

“Aidan is just so funny,” says his “Bugonia” co-star Emma Stone. “We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Stone says that while she and Delbis had a friendly rapport, she hung back a little when they weren’t shooting. “I didn’t want to form the same kind of bond Aidan had with Jesse because [in the film] it’s them against me and I didn’t want to do too much to mess with that.”

But, the two-time Oscar winner says, “Aidan is just so funny. He was on a jag during the kidnapping scene. We spent a lot of time together in a basement and Aidan had so many jokes about that.”

“I went through all of ‘Bugonia’ thinking I had never seen Emma in anything,” Delbis says. “Then I realized my parents had shown me a clip of a woman getting very involved in a birthday card — ‘Pocketful of Sunshine’ — and that was from ‘Easy A.’”

When he was filming, Delbis was all business. Several of the takes which he ad-libbed made it into the film and Delbis is proud of that.

“Despite being in more extreme situations than I’ve been in, there’s something of Don’s emotion and struggles that did feel very familiar to me,” he says. “Feelings of great distress and helplessness and conflictedness and confusion. I have felt that in classes in high school.”

“Aidan has great instincts,” Lanthimos says. “In a scene toward the end [of the film], he was so moving, it was the first time I have ever teared up on set.

There were difficult days — one moment with Plemons, Delbis says, took many takes. “It was hot AF and involved me getting more worked up that I am used to getting,” he remembers. But he appreciated Lanthimos’ willingness to let him try things. “In one scene, Jesse throws a chair and I thought that seemed pretty cool. So at the end of the day, they let me throw a chair. I hope that makes it into the outtakes reel.”

He was also very pleased when the crew threw him a s’mores party at the end of filming. “There was a fire pit on set that looked perfect for s’mores,” he says. “And I told them that, so it was my idea to have a s’mores party.”

Delbis is happy with how the film turned out, including his performance. “I think I looked pretty baller in that suit,” he says of one scene. Though he doesn’t have an opinion on the authenticity debate — whether autistic actors should always be the ones to play autistic characters — he thinks it’s “cool that writers and directors are starting to be more conscientious and give more realistic and respectful depictions of neurodivergent people and characters.”

He is more concerned that audiences understand what he thinks is the most important message of the movie.

“We should try to be more empathetic to people with different worldviews because you never really know what those people are going through,” he says. “The movie feels very relevant to that theme. God knows, people aren’t always willing to be tolerant.”

The sports court on Carnival Radiance.

(Carnival Cruise Line)

Sails to: Ensenada, Puerto Vallarta, Mazatlán, La Paz, Cabo San Lucas and Catalina Island via three- to five-day wintertime voyages
Cost: Starting at about $200 per person

Carnival Radiance is one of the cruise line’s oldest vessels, having launched in 2000 under its original name, Carnival Victory. Following a $200 million refresh in 2021, it’s become a staple along the Long Beach waterfront.

The 2,984-guest ship offers a variety of shorter trips, which first-time cruisers may appreciate. Some of its staterooms connect, allowing extended families to vacation together. And most of its outdoor activities — such as mini-golf, a sports court and a two-level ropes course — are conveniently clustered together. Nearby are waterslides and pools, one of which sits under a large movie screen.

Like Carnival Firenze, Radiance also has NASA and Dr. Seuss-themed activities, in addition to an at-sea Build-a-Bear workshop and “Zumbini,” a kid-friendly Zumba class.

Picky eaters need not fret. Radiance has 15 dining options, nine of which are included in the cost of your cruise. A few have celebrity names attached to them: along with Guy Fieri’s Burger Joint and barbecue restaurant, there’s also a chicken counter from basketball star Shaquille O’Neal.

If you’ve tested the waters with a short Carnival Radiance cruise and can’t get enough, the ship will also be embarking on a 14-day round-trip voyage in early January to Kahului, Maui; Honolulu, Oahu; Nawiliwili, Kauai; Hilo, Hawaii; and Ensenada, Mexico.

After 12 years on the Los Angeles City Council, Curren Price will be term-limited out of the legislative body this coming year.

The candidate he hopes will replace him comes from his staff, his deputy chief of staff, Jose Ugarte, who has been referred to in the past as Price’s “right-hand man.”

But with many months to go before ballots are cast, Ugarte is already in hot water with the city’s Ethics Commission.

According to documents released by the commission, Ugarte has agreed to pay a $17,500 fine for repeatedly failing to disclose outside income he made from his lobbying and consulting firm while also working as a council staffer.

A commission investigation found that Ugarte failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to the documents.

The Ugarte proposed settlement is set to go before the Ethics Commission on Wednesday.

“This was an unintentional clerical reporting error on my part. As soon as I was made aware, I took full responsibility and corrected them,” Ugarte said in a statement emailed to The Times. “I take disclosure seriously. Moving forward, I have implemented steps to ensure nothing is missed.”

Ugarte said his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office. He started working for Price in 2013, but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.

The settlement comes as Ugarte’s boss faces his own ethics quandary.

Price was indicted two years ago on 10 counts of grand theft by embezzlement after his wife’s consulting firm received payments of more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before Price voted to approve projects.

Prosecutors also said Price failed to list his wife’s income on his ethics disclosure forms.

Prosecutors have since filed additional charges against Price saying his wife, Del Richardson, was paid hundreds of thousands by the city housing authority while Price voted in favor of millions in grants to the agency. He also wrote a motion to give $30 million to the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2020 to 2021, a time frame in which Richardson was paid more than $200,000 by the agency.

Price said he supports Ugarte despite the ethics violation.

“This matter dates back to 2021, when he was not employed by the city, and is clerical in nature,” Price said in a statement texted to The Times. “I wholeheartedly support Jose Ugarte, alongside an unprecedented coalition of elected officials, labor groups, and community leaders who stand behind his character, leadership and proven record of results.”

Ugarte is one of the leading candidates running to represent Council District 9, which covers South Los Angeles. He raised $211,206 in the first reporting cycle of the election, far outpacing his rivals.

One of Ugarte’s opponents, Estuardo Mazariegos, called the Ethics Commission findings “very disturbing.”

The Ethics Commission also alleged that Ugarte’s documents about outside income, known as Form 700s, failed to report clients who gave $10,000 or more to Ugarte & Associates.

Those clients were mostly independent expenditures for local candidates.

His firm was paid $128,050 to help with the reelection campaign of Congressman Jimmy Gomez (D-California). It was also paid $222,000 by Elect California to help with the reelection campaign of Mitch O’Farrell among other clients.

“This proposed settlement raises more questions than it answers: Are these the only payments Ugarte hid? Why was he concealing them from the public? And above all, how did these massive payments in outside interests affect Jose Ugarte’s work as a city employee?” Mazariegos said in a statement to The Times.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and congressional Democrats have announced a sweeping investigation into potential misconduct in the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown that has ensnared citizens, made use of racial profiling and terrified communities for months.

Bass and the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), announced that Congress will open up “a broad investigation” into arrests of U.S. citizens by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers, as well as another investigation into immigration raids overall. The announcement was made Monday at a news conference at L.A. City Hall.

“Donald Trump and [Department of Homeland Security Secretary] Kristi Noem are terrorizing immigrants, working people, the people of Los Angeles and of our state every single day,” Garcia said. “They violate the law and they violate the constitution.”

Garcia said that his House committee would investigate “every single brutal misconduct” that immigration authorities have committed in Los Angeles as well as across the country.

Simultaneously, the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations will conduct an investigation into reports of the detention of at least 170 U.S. citizens by immigration authorities, which was reported by ProPublica last week.

“Troublingly, the pattern of U.S. Citizen arrests coincides with an alarming increase in racial profiling — particularly of Latinos — which has been well documented in Los Angeles,” Garcia and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) wrote in a letter to Noem. “In a pattern symptomatic of a disregard for civil rights by DHS, U.S. citizens have faced extended periods of detention.”

For months, agents have roamed the streets of Los Angeles toting guns and chasing down immigrants. The scenes that have played out on the streets — protesters being arrested, immigrants dragged out of their cars — have been repeated in Chicago and other cities with largely Democratic leadership.

Mayor Bass said the arrests of American citizens means that no one in the country is safe.

“This can happen to anyone, to all of us, at any period of time,” she said.

Garcia said that the first hearing of the House committee will be held in Los Angeles and that Angelenos should attend and be heard on immigration enforcement issues.

The congressman did not give a date for the hearing, but said he hoped it would be soon.

In the letter that Garcia and Blumenthal sent to Noem on Monday, the legislators called on the Department of Homeland Security to report the total number of U.S. citizens who have been detained by immigration authorities, as well as how long each individual was detained. They also asked for information regarding the training that CE and Customs and Border Protection agents receive on use of force, among other things.

The White House and the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

A first taste of L.A.’s new Maydan Market. Plus, eating in this town for $50 or less, a cookbook of gravestone recipes, allegations of racial discrimination at a popular L.A. cafe … and how Diane Keaton liked to drink her favorite wine. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Market of dreams

Chefs Rosio Sanchez, left, and Laura Flores Correa of Copenhagen’s Sanchez and Hija de Sanchez, sample mole-sauced turkey legs from Lugya’h at Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Many of us have favorite places to take out-of-town guests — restaurants, hiking trails and idiosyncratic spots like the recently reopened Museum of Jurassic Technology that show our friends and family why we love L.A.

For years, I’ve brought friends to Mercado la Paloma, the food hall and cultural center that is home to Gilberto Cetina‘s Holbox, the seafood counter that was our L.A. Times Restaurant of the Year in 2023 and last year was awarded a Michelin star. These days, there’s always a line for Cetina’s exquisite seafood plates, including his octopus taco with squid-ink-stained sofrito. While one person in your group waits to order at Holbox, you can find many other things to bring to your table at the mercado — unbeatable cochinita pibil and more Yucatecan dishes (try the papadzules or a refreshing agua de chaya) from Chichén Itzá, founded by Cetina’s father Gilberto Sr.; Oaxacan nieves or ice cream flavored with mamey, tuna (cactus fruit) or especially leche quemada (burnt milk) from OaxaCalifornia; and Fátima Juárez‘s gorgeous quesadilla de flor, with orange squash blossom petals spilling out of the blue corn tortilla like sunshine at her masa-focused restaurant Komal (one of Bill Addison’s picks on his 101 Best California Restaurants list).

This week, however, I tried a new place when Rosio Sanchez, the Copenhagen-based chef I wrote about in this newsletter a few months ago, said she was coming to L.A. for the Chef Assembly conference and two collaborations, one that took place Wednesday with Jordan Kahn at Meteora and another that is happening all day Sunday at Enrique Olvera and chef Chuy Cervantes’ downtown taco spot Ditroit with Yia Vang of Minneapolis’ Hmong restaurant Vinai. Sanchez wanted to meet someplace for lunch, but had just tried Komal at the Mercado la Paloma and had even been to Thai Taco Tuesday at Anajak Thai, one of my other dependable suggestions for wowing visitors. I had to change my usual game plan.

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Chef-founder Rose Previte details the bevy of vendors and dishes at West Adams’ cross-cultural new food hall.

Fortunately, our intrepid woman about town Stephanie Breijo had been telling me all about Maydan Market in anticipation of its recent opening in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, across the street from a branch of chef Kat Turner‘s Highly Likely. In addition, Breijo made a hunger-inducing video showing off the live-fire-based restaurants at the heart of the market founded by Rose Previte, whose Maydan in Washington, D.C., is devoted to the cuisines of the Middle East and was among the Top 40 restaurants chosen in 2024 by the Washington Post’s recently unmasked critic Tom Sietsema.

Here in Los Angeles, Previte wanted to open a food hall centered on hearth cooking from different cultures. That not only means new branches of her Maydan restaurant and Compass Rose cafe, but Afro-Mexican Guerrerense cooking at Maléna from Tamales Elena founder Maria Elena Lorenzo; Yhing Yhang BBQ from Holy Basil chef Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat, serving charcoal-grilled Thai chicken, seafood and duck, and a space for emerging chefs that is currently featuring Melnificent Wingz from Melissa “Chef Mel” Cottingham.

Most of the places so far don’t open until 5 p.m. — I spotted Arpapornnopparat prepping some fantastic-looking chile sauces for his dinnertime barbecue that I am eager to try. But lunch operations are slowly getting underway and on Thursday afternoon we were lucky to find Alfonso Martinez of Poncho’s Tlayudas fame at Lugya’h, his new post in the market. In addition to tlyaudas — which Addison, in his 2022 review of Poncho’s called one of his “this is the Los Angeles I love” dishes — Martinez is serving dishes from Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte at Lugya’h.

Mole-covered turkey leg with a black bean tamal from Alfonso Martinez’s Lugya’h at Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

With Sanchez and her chef Laura Flores Correa, best known as Laurita, I was able to try a turkey leg sauced in a dark, rich “mole de bejed” with a black bean tamal on the side. The meat was incredibly moist, perfect with the tamal. We also got bowls of foamy Mexican cacao-flavored atole, which came with brioche-like Oaxacan pan de yema.

A slice of tlayuda with chorizo, grilled tasajo and the blood sausage moronga from Lugya’h at L.A.’s Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

And even though the current plan is to serve tlyaudas only during dinner, we were able to try one with three meats: chorizo, beautifully charred on the edges from the fire; a slice of grilled tasajo, and a link of moronga, one of the best blood sausages I’ve ever eaten, from a recipe, as Addison writes, handed down as a wedding gift from the father of Martinez’s wife Odilia Romero. She was helping out at the market this week, though is anxious to get back to her work advocating for Indigenous migrants in L.A. That might not be easy once word spreads about the deliciousness of Lugya’h’s food.

Alfonso Martinez, right, and Odilia Romero, who have expanded their Poncho’s Tlayudas operation to Maydan Market under the name Lugya’h.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Indeed, each of the places Previte has curated is certain to draw a crowd. I’m looking forward to bringing more friends and trying them all.

If you think $50 a person sounds like a lot for dinner …

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s crazy that $50 per person is now considered a cheap sit-down meal.”

“The fact that LAT is suggesting $50 a person is somehow a ‘win’ is pretty crazy.”

Those are two reader comments on our 50 under $50 guide to restaurants where it’s possible to eat for $50 or less a person — including tax and tip. Which actually means finding items on the menu that cost $38 a person to account for an approximate 10% sales tax and 20% tip. We thought it was important for you to not get hit with charges that traditionally are not reflected on most restaurant menus.

To those readers who say $50 a person is too much to spend for a nice sit-down dinner, we agree. But all over the city — and in so many parts of the country — it’s increasingly difficult to get dinner at a non-fast-food or fast-casual restaurant for less than $50. Indeed, some of our finest restaurants charge $500 and even more than $1000 a person once you figure in wine or sake pairings.

This kind of pricing, which accounts for luxury ingredients and livable salaries for members of the kitchen and dining room staff that provide world-class service, puts many of our most acclaimed restaurants out of reach for the majority of Angelenos. That’s why we thought it was important in these tough economic times to come up with a guide to more affordable restaurant choices. We weren’t only going for “cheap eats.” Our entire Food team searched the city for a range of places that, as senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey wrote, “must be open until 9 p.m.” (so a true dinner spot), “doesn’t have to offer table service, but must [have] seating available to enjoy your food on-site” and where “you must be able to order at least two menu items, whether that’s a starter and a main, an entree and a dessert, or a large plate and a cocktail.”

The restaurants we chose ranged from the casual but highly acclaimed Sonoratown, which has what our critic Bill Addison says is “the Los Angeles food item I have consumed more than any other” (the $12.50 Burrito 2.0) to strategic ordering suggestions at star chef spots such as Dave Beran‘s Pasjoli and Bestia from husband-and-wife chefs Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis. In between are affordable date-night places, including Cody Ma and Misha Sesar‘s Persian spot Azizam, the buzzy Cal-Italian Beethoven Market
and Propaganda Wine Bar in the Arts District. We’re always looking for more suggestions. If you have a favorite affordable place, tell us about it in the story’s comment section.

Also …

• Stephanie Breijo spoke with archivist and social media personality Rosie Grant about her new cookbook “To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes,” which as the title implies, is a collection of recipes that decedents or their loved ones treasured so much they had them etched on their tombstones.
• Breijo also broke down the allegations of racial discrimination at the L.A. restaurant Great White and Gran Blanco “after intensifying social media videos claim that Great White segregates customers based on ethnicity and race, which its owners and some employees deny.”

And finally … ‘slug it down’

Diane Keaton in 2023.

(Raymond Hall/GC Images via Getty Images)

In memory of the great Diane Keaton, let’s raise a toast to her unforgettable movie roles and personal style with what she called “the only wine that I love.”

“It’s called Lillet,” she said in an Instagram video she made back in 2022 with a similar unconventional approach to ice that Stanley Tucci demonstrated his viral negroni video from 2020. After adding many ice cubes to a large yet elegant tumbler, she fills the glass with Lillet and adds a wedge of lemon, instructing her followers to “slug it down” without the addition of the usual tonic or sparkling water. Apparently, Keaton was not a spritz kind of gal. “And if you don’t like it,” she said to her viewers, “that’s fine with me. I’ll just drink all this myself.” Sounds like she knew how to live.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Rebecca Ellis, Noah Goldberg and the esteemed Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

For nearly three years, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia has been trying to use his office to dig deep on the city’s homelessness programs — how they’re run and, more importantly, how effective they are.

The road so far has been a bit bumpy.

Early in his tenure, Mejia sent staffers to the Westside to monitor Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves unhoused people into hotels and motels. He quickly pulled back after facing resistance within City Hall.

A year later, Mejia offered to have his office conduct a court-ordered audit of the city’s homelessness programs. The work went to a private firm instead, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $3 million.

Mejia also promised to produce a “focused audit” on Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homelessness initiative, which has not materialized.

At one point, he even posted an Instagram video of himself and his staff doing choreographed moves to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” to explain why he hadn’t audited the program. The video displayed the words: “We tried. We tried. We tried.”

But this week, the city’s top accountant got his big break, securing a plum role in the high-stakes legal battle over homelessness between the city and the nonprofit L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. That fight hinges on whether the city is living up to its commitment, enshrined in a legal settlement, to clear encampments and build more homeless beds.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter assigned attorney Daniel Garrie, an expert in cybersecurity and computer forensics, as a new third-party monitor to determine whether the city is truly on track to open 12,915 new homeless beds and remove nearly 10,000 encampments, as required by the settlement.

Carter tapped Mejia to serve as a liaison between Garrie and the city, calling him the “most knowledgeable person” on homelessness funding. In a six-page order, the judge said the city controller would support Garrie by “facilitating data access.” He also said Mejia would be less expensive than former City Controller Ron Galperin, who was also under consideration and expected to charge $800 an hour.

The judge’s order was well-timed, coming at a moment of heightened scrutiny over homelessness initiatives in L.A. and across the region.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors accused two real estate executives of misappropriating millions of dollars in state funds allocated in the region’s fight against homelessness. According to prosecutors, one of them engaged in bank fraud, identity theft and money laundering — purchasing a property on L.A.’s Westside and quickly flipping it for more than double the price to Weingart Center Assn., a nonprofit housing developer that received city funds to build interim homeless housing.

Mayoral candidate Austin Beutner, the former schools superintendent who spent some time at City Hall, also turned up the heat, calling this week for Bass to let Mejia audit the city’s homeless programs. He made that pitch after Rand researchers concluded that the region’s yearly homeless count is not accurately tracking homeless people who don’t live in tents or cars.

“The Mayor is blocking the elected Controller from auditing the City’s efforts,” Beutner said on X. “We need an immediate audit to tell us how much is being spent, on what, and whether it’s having any impact.”

Bass spokesperson Clara Karger, in an email to The Times, said the mayor and the city controller “work well together” on various issues, including a recent audit of the city’s housing department.

Asked whether Bass refused to participate in Mejia’s planned Inside Safe audit last year, Karger replied: “A city elected official should not conduct a performance audit of another elected official.”

“Inside Safe has robust oversight systems in place,” she said. “There are hundreds of pages of publicly available reports on Inside Safe and an assessment of Inside Safe was completed under the Alliance settlement.”

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto declined to weigh in on Carter’s order. But she has previously pointed to a 16-year-old legal ruling barring the city controller from conducting performance audits of other elected officials.

“The legal advice from the City Attorney’s Office is known to our clients and has not changed over the years,” said Feldstein Soto spokesperson Karen Richardson.

The judge’s order may only be the beginning.

Mejia has been urging the city’s Charter Reform Commission to propose language that clearly gives him the power to audit programs overseen by his fellow elected officials. Such a move would erase any doubts about whether he has the legal standing to scrutinize Inside Safe.

The debate over the powers of the city controller goes back decades. In 2008, then-City Controller Laura Chick clashed with City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo over her attempt to audit his office’s workers compensation unit. The following year, right before Chick left office, a judge sided with Delgadillo and found that the controller lacked the authority for the audit.

In the short term, Carter’s order could give Mejia new leeway to identify lax oversight of L.A.’s homelessness programs, offering the public fresh insight into how closely they are tracked, and possibly identifying waste or fraud.

Mejia declined interview requests from The Times. Last month in federal court, he dazzled Carter with his office’s online dashboards, which show expenditures not just for Inside Safe but many other homelessness programs.

Carter praised the work of Mejia and his team, according to a transcript of the proceedings. Mejia, in turn, said his office enjoys the work but sometimes struggles to carry it out with its existing staff.

“Some of these contracts are 400 pages,” he said. “And so right now, we have a two-person team who is doing all of that and putting all this together.”

Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the L.A. Alliance, welcomed the selection of Mejia, saying he’s clearly been pushing to get more involved in the case.

“My only concern is, I don’t know if he will engender a lot of cooperation from the city, because they don’t seem inclined to cooperate with him,” Mitchell said.

That wasn’t the message from Councilmember Tim McOsker, who voiced alarm in recent months over the costly bills submitted by the outside law firm handling the L.A. Alliance case for the city. McOsker, who spent several years in the city attorney’s office, expressed confidence in Mejia’s abilities and said the decision to pick him would be cost effective.

“It is imperative that we give value to the taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles,” he said.

State of play

— BEUTNERPALOOZA: After weeks of speculation, Beutner jumped into the June 2026 race for mayor. His team got off to a choppy start last weekend, uploading “Austin for LA Mayor” images to his social media accounts before he had even made a formal announcement, then abruptly taking them down. Hours later, Beutner formally went public, blasting Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his mother-in-law’s home and severely damaged his Pacific Palisades home.

By Monday, Beutner had released a video announcing his campaign, which assailed Trump over his immigration crackdown. Two days later, he appeared with supporters in San Pedro, repeating his warning that the city is “adrift.”

— DEFINE ADRIFT: The following morning, Bass joined former Councilmember Mike Bonin, director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, to discuss politics, leadership and her tenure. She took issue with Beutner’s characterization of L.A. as “adrift,” saying the city has been through “multiple shocks this year,” including a catastrophic firestorm and “being invaded” by federal authorities in June.

The talk took place on the 72nd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, offering a staggeringly beautiful post-rain city view, which offers a good excuse to revisit former California poet laureate Dana Gioia’s classic poem, “Los Angeles After the Rain.”

— FIERCE AMBITION: Is L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath running for mayor of Los Angeles? The former West Hollywood mayor hasn’t ruled it out — and moved to the city a few months ago.

— WE’RE NOT IN TEXAS ANYMORE: Two more plaintiffs in L.A. County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement have come forward to say they were told to invent their claims in exchange for cash. The allegations follow a Times investigation published earlier this month that found seven plaintiffs who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Downtown LA Law Group, which filed cases for the plaintiffs, has denied involvement with the alleged recruiters.

— BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Meanwhile, the county is preparing to pay out an additional $828 million to another group of plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused in county facilities.

— GETTING OUT THE VOTE: Real estate developer Rick Caruso, the is-he-or-isn’t-he potential mayoral/gubernatorial candidate, is sending mailers to more than 45,000 voters who lived in fire-damaged sections of Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena and now have temporary addresses. He advised them on how to update their voter registration by listing a temporary mailing address while also remaining in their original voting district, according to a Caruso spokesperson. Caruso is paying for the effort, which is nonpartisan and doesn’t mention any specific election. His team declined to provide the cost.

—SPEAKING OF CARUSO: Politico took a look at the mall magnate’s recent travels around the state, which have fueled speculation that he’s leaning toward a gubernatorial bid. The outlet reported that Caruso, who self-financed his 2022 mayoral campaign, recently met with Democratic megadonors Haim Saban and Ari Emanuel.

— THREE’S COMPANY: East Hollywood resident Dylan Kendall filed paperwork this week to challenge incumbent Hugo Soto–Martínez in next year’s race to represent Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park and other neighborhoods. Kendall, a business owner who previously worked at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, cited quality-of-life issues as the impetus for her candidacy. Political consultant Michael Trujillo and fundraiser Kat Connolly have joined her campaign. (One of Soto-Martínez’s upstairs neighbors, Colter Carlisle, is also running.)

— MORE FALLOUT FROM G: L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport received a $2-million payout this summer after telling the county supervisors she had experienced professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete.

— 1,000 DAYS LEFT: Bass reminded Angelenos on Friday that the start of the 2028 Olympic Games is just 1,000 days away. Appearing in Venice, she signed an executive directive streamlining preparations for the international event.

— BYE, JULIA: We are super bummed to report that this was erstwhile City Hall reporter Julia Wick‘s last week at The Times. She will miss all of you. But she says please keep in touch!

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Hollywood this week, focusing on the area around Santa Monica Boulevard and Heliotrope Drive in Soto-Martínez’s district.
• On the docket next week: The council’s public works committee takes up the issue of long-delayed sidewalk repairs, including the city’s obligations to make them wheelchair accessible.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to [email protected]. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

SAN FRANCISCO — About 24 hours after President Trump declared San Francisco such a crime-ridden “mess” that he was recommending federal forces be sent to restore order, Manit Limlamai, 43, and Kai Saetern, 32, rolled their eyes at the suggestion.

The pair — both in the software industry — were with friends Thursday in Dolores Park, a vibrant green space with sweeping views of downtown, playing volleyball under a blue sky and shining autumn sun. All around them, people sat on benches with books, flew kites, played with dogs or otherwise lounged away the afternoon on blankets in the grass.

Both Limlamai and Saetern said San Francisco of course has issues, and some rougher neighborhoods — but that’s any city.

“I’ve lived here for 10 years and I haven’t felt unsafe, and I’ve lived all over the city,” Saetern said. “Every city has its problems, and I don’t think San Francisco is any different,” but “it’s not a hellscape,” said Limlamai, who has been in the city since 2021.

Both said Trump’s suggestion that he might send in troops was more alarming than reassuring — especially, Limlamai said, on top of his recent remark that American cities should serve as “training grounds” for U.S. military forces.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate at all,” he said. “The military is not trained to do what needs to be done in these cities.”

Across San Francisco, residents, visitors and prominent local leaders expressed similar ideas — if not much sharper condemnation of any troop deployment. None shied away from the fact that San Francisco has problems, especially with homelessness. Several also mentioned a creeping urban decay, and that the city needs a bit of a polish.

But federal troops? That was a hard no.

A range of people on Market Street in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.

“It’s just more of [Trump’s] insanity,” said Peter Hill, 81, as he played chess in a slightly edgier park near City Hall. Hill said using troops domestically was a fascist power play, and “a bad thing for the entire country.”

“It’s fascism,” agreed local activist Wendy Aragon, who was hailing a cab nearby. Her Latino family has been in the country for generations, she said, but she now fears speaking Spanish on the street given that immigration agents have admitted targeting people who look or sound Latino, and troops in the city would only exacerbate those fears. “My community is under attack right now.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said troop deployments to the city were “completely unnecessary” and “typical Trump: petty, vindictive retaliation.”

“He wants to attack anyone who he perceives as an enemy, and that includes cities, and so he started with L.A. and Southern California because of its large immigrant community, and then he proceeded to cities with large Black populations like Chicago, and now he’s moving on to cities that are just perceived as very lefty like Portland and now San Francisco,” Wiener said.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, defended such deployments and noted crime reductions in cities, including Washington, D.C., and Memphis, where local officials — including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat — have embraced them.

“America’s once great cities have descended into chaos and crime as a result of Democrat policies that put criminals first and law-abiding citizens last. Making America Safe Again — especially crime-ridden cities — was a key campaign promise from the President that the American people elected him to fulfill,” Jackson said. “San Francisco Democrats should look at the tremendous results in DC and Memphis and listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Bowser and welcome the President in to clean up their city.”

A police officer shuts the door to his car after a person was allegedly caught carrying a knife near a sign promoting an AI-powered museum exhibit in downtown San Francisco.

A presidential ‘passion’

San Francisco — a bastion of liberal politics that overwhelmingly voted against Trump in the last election — has been derided by the conservative right for generations as a great American jewel lost to destructive progressive policies.

With its tech-heavy economy and downtown core hit hard by the pandemic and the nation’s shift toward remote work, the city has had a particularly rough go in recent years, which only exacerbated its image as a city in decline. That it produced some of Trump’s most prominent political opponents — including Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris — has only made it more of a punching bag.

In August, Trump suggested San Francisco needed federal intervention. “You look at what the Democrats have done to San Francisco — they’ve destroyed it,” he said in the Oval Office. “We’ll clean that one up, too.”

Then, earlier this month, to the chagrin of liberal leaders across the city, Marc Benioff, the billionaire Salesforce founder and Time magazine owner who has long been a booster of San Francisco, said in an interview with the New York Times that he supported Trump and welcomed Guard troops in the city.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff said, just as his company was preparing to open its annual Dreamforce convention in the city, complete with hundreds of private security officers.

The U.S. Constitution generally precludes military forces from serving in police roles in the U.S.

On Friday, Benioff reversed himself and apologized for his earlier stance. “Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” he wrote on X.

He also apologized for “the concern” his earlier support for troops in the city had caused, and praised San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, for bringing crime down.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, also called for federal intervention in the city, writing on his X platform that downtown San Francisco is “a drug zombie apocalypse” and that federal intervention was “the only solution at this point.”

Trump made his latest remarks bashing San Francisco on Wednesday, again from the Oval Office.

Trump said it was “one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” but “now it’s a mess” — and that he was recommending federal forces move into the city to make it safer. “I’m gonna be strongly recommending — at the request of government officials, which is always nice — that you start looking at San Francisco,” he said to leading members of his law enforcement team.

Trump did not specify exactly what sort of deployment he meant, or which kinds of federal forces might be involved. He also didn’t say which local officials had allegedly requested help — a claim Wiener called a lie.

“Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot, and that’s exactly what our administration is working to deliver,” Trump said, before adding that sending federal forces into American cities had become “a passion” of his.

Kai Saetern, 32, was playing volleyball in Dolores Park on Thursday. Saetern said he has never felt unsafe living in neighborhoods all over the city for the last 10 years.

Crime is down citywide

The responses from San Francisco, both to Benioff and Trump, came swiftly, ranging from calm discouragement to full-blown outrage.

Lurie did not respond directly, but his office pointed reporters to his recent statements that crime is down 30% citywide, homicides are at a 70-year low, car break-ins are at a 22-year low and tent encampments are at their lowest number on record.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Lurie said. “But I trust our local law enforcement.”

San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins was much more fiery, writing online that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had turned “so-called public safety and immigration enforcement into a form of government sponsored violence against U.S. citizens, families, and ethnic groups,” and that she stood ready to prosecute federal officers if they harm city residents.

Attendees exit the Dreamforce convention downtown on Thursday in San Francisco.

“If you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents … I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day,” she said.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — whose seat Wiener is reportedly going to seek — said the city “does not want or need Donald Trump’s chaos” and will continue to increase public safety locally and “without the interference of a President seeking headlines.”

Newsom said the use of federal troops in American cities is a “clear violation” of federal law, and that the state was prepared to challenge any such deployment to San Francisco in court, just as it challenged such deployments in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The federal appellate court that oversees California and much of the American West has so far allowed troops to remain in L.A., but is set to continue hearing arguments in the L.A. case soon.

Trump had used anti-immigration enforcement protests in L.A. as a justification to send troops there. In San Francisco, Newsom said, he lacks any justification or “pretext” whatsoever.

“There’s no existing protest at a federal building. There’s no operation that’s being impeded. I guess it’s just a ‘training ground’ for the President of United States,” Newsom said. “It is grossly illegal, it’s immoral, it’s rather delusional.”

Nancy DeStefanis, 76, a longtime labor and environmental activist who was at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to complain about Golden Gate Park being shut to regular visitors for paid events, was similarly derisive of troops entering the city.

“As far as I’m concerned, and I think most San Franciscans are concerned, we don’t want troops here. We don’t need them,” she said.

Passengers walk past a cracked window from the Civic Center BART station in downtown San Francisco.

‘An image I don’t want to see’

Not far away, throngs of people wearing Dreamforce lanyards streamed in and out of the Moscone Center, heading back and forth to nearby Market Street and pouring into restaurants, coffee shops and take-out joints. The city’s problems — including homelessness and associated grittiness — were apparent at the corners of the crowds, even as chipper convention ambassadors and security officers moved would-be stragglers along.

Not everyone was keen to be identified discussing Trump or safety in the city, with some citing business reasons and others a fear of Trump retaliating against them. But lots of people had opinions.

Sanjiv, a self-described “techie” in his mid-50s, said he preferred to use only his first name because, although he is a U.S. citizen now, he emigrated from India and didn’t want to stick his neck out by publicly criticizing Trump.

He called homelessness a “rampant problem” in San Francisco, but less so than in the past — and hardly something that would justify sending in military troops.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not like the city’s under siege.”

Claire Roeland, 30, from Austin, Texas, said she has visited San Francisco a handful of times in recent years and had “mixed” experiences. She has family who live in surrounding neighborhoods and find it completely safe, she said, but when she’s in town it’s “predominantly in the business district” — where it’s hard not to be disheartened by the obvious suffering of people with addiction and mental illness and the grime that has accumulated in the emptied-out core.

“There’s a lot of unfortunate urban decay happening, and that makes you feel more unsafe than you actually are,” she said, but there isn’t “any realistic need to send in federal troops.”

She said she doesn’t know what troops would do other than confront homeless people, and “that’s an image I don’t want to see.”

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

A proposal to explore removing Los Angeles police officers from traffic enforcement is stuck in gridlock. Again.

The initiative to take the job of pulling over bad drivers away from cops is months behind schedule, frustrating reform advocates and some city leaders who argue that Los Angeles is missing an on-ramp toward the future of road safety.

Local officials first raised the prospect during the national reckoning on racial injustice that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, but the plan has progressed in sluggish fits and starts since then. Backers thought that they had scored an important victory with the release in May 2023 of a long-promised study mapping out how most enforcement could be done by unarmed civilian workers.

Last summer, the City Council requested follow-up reports from various city departments to figure out how to do that and gave a three-month deadline. But more than year later, most of the promised feasibility studies have yet to materialize.

“I’m very upset about the delay,” said Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early champions. “Generally speaking, when you try to do a big reform like this, at least some portion of the people who want to do the work are very motivated to change the status quo — and I don’t think we have that here.”

He said there was blame to go around for the continued delays, but that he’s encouraged by his conversations with officials from the involved departments that studies will be completed — a precursor to legislation that would allow for re-imagining traffic safety.

At the same time, he said that he still saw a role for armed police in certain traffic situations.

“I don’t even think we need to be pulling people over at all for vehicle violations, especially for those that don’t pose any public safety risks,” he said, before adding: “If somebody’s going 90 miles an hour down Crenshaw Boulevard, that person does need to be stopped immediately and they do need to be stopped by somebody with a gun.”

In a unanimous vote in June 2024, the council directed city transportation staff and other departments to come back within 90 days with feasibility reports about the cost and logistics of numerous proposals, including creating unarmed civilian teams to respond to certain traffic issues and investigate accidents. Also under exploration were ideas to limit fines in poorer communities and end stops for minor infractions, such as expired tags or air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

Of the dozen or so requests made by the council, only two reports by the city’s transportation department have been completed so far, officials said.

Both of the studies — one assessing parking and traffic fines, and the other looking at how so-called “self-enforcing infrastructure” such as adding more speed bumps, roundabouts and other street modifications could help reduce speeding and unsafe driving — are “pending” before an ad hoc council committee focused on unarmed alternatives to police, according to an LADOT spokesman. The committee will need to approve the reports before they can be acted on by the full council, he said in a brief statement.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, the council’s top policy advisor, said she understands frustration over the delays. She said the protracted timeline was also at least partly caused by difficulties in obtaining reliable data from some of the participating departments, but declined to point any fingers. Two additional reports are in the final stages of being finalized and should be released by the end of the year, she said.

Although top LAPD officials have in the past signaled a willingness to relinquish certain traffic duties, others inside the department have dismissed similar proposals as fanciful and argued the city needs to crack down harder on reckless driving at a time when traffic fatalities have outpaced homicides citywide.

Privately, some police supervisors and officers complain about what they see as left-leaning politicians and activists taking away an effective tool for helping to get guns and drugs off the streets. They argue that traffic stops — if conducted properly and constitutionally — are also a deterrent for erratic driving.

A recently passed state law allowed the use of use of automated speeding cameras on a pilot basis in L.A. and a handful of other California cities.

Some advocates, however, are leery of relying on technology and punitive fines that can continue historical harms, particularly for communities of color.

“It’s been just a big bureaucratic slog,” said Chauncee Smith, of Catalyst California, which is part of a broader coalition of reform advocacy groups pushing for an end to all equipment and moving violation stops.

While L.A. has spent more than a year finishing a “study of a study,” he said, places such as Virginia, Connecticut and Philadelphia have taken meaningful action to transform traffic enforcement by passing bans on certain types of low-level police stops.

He cited mounting research in other cities that showed road improvements along high-injury street corridors were more effective at changing driver behaviors, ultimately reducing the number of traffic-related deaths and serious injuries more than the threat of being ticketed. But he also acknowledged the difficulty of making such changes in L.A.’s notoriously fragmented approach to planning and delivering infrastructure projects.

Smith and other advocates have also argued for an outright ban on so-called pretextual stops, in which police use a minor violation as justification to stop someone in order to investigate whether a more serious crime has occurred.

The LAPD has reined in the practice in recent years under intense public pressure but never abandoned it. Further changes could require legislation and are likely to face stiff opposition from police unions such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which has been highly vocal in its criticism of the pretext policy change.

Leslie Johnson, chief culture officer for Community Coalition, a South L.A.-based nonprofit , said that despite the delays the organization plans to press ahead with efforts to reimagine public safety and to keep pressure on public officials to ensure the study results don’t get buried like past efforts. She said that there is renewed urgency to push through the changes after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that critics says has opened the door to widespread racial profiling.

“Even though we’re a sanctuary city, we’re concerned that these prextexual stops could be leveraged” by federal immigration authorities, she said.

In a rare public rebuke, the Los Angeles City Council pressed the city’s top lawyer to abandon her attempt to halt a federal judge’s order prohibiting LAPD officers from targeting journalists with crowd control weapons.

One day before “No Kings” demonstrations against the Trump administration were set to launch in L.A. and elsewhere, the council voted 12-0 to direct City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto to withdraw her request to lift the order.

Hours later, Feldstein Soto’s legal team did just that, informing the judge it was pulling back its request — around the same time the judge rejected it.

Since June, the city has been hit with dozens of legal claims from protesters and journalists who reported that LAPD officers used excessive force against them during protests over Trump’s immigration crackdown.

The lawsuit that prompted the judge’s ban was brought by the Los Angeles Press Club and the news outlet Status Coup, who pointed to video evidence and testimonials suggesting that LAPD officers violated their own guidelines, as well as state law, by shooting journalists and others in sensitive parts of the body, such as the head, with weapons that launch projectiles the size of a mini soda can at speeds of more than 200 miles per hour.

“Journalism is under attack in this country — from the Trump Administration’s revocation of press access to the Pentagon to corporate consolidation of local newsrooms,” Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who introduced the motion opposing Feldstein Soto’s legal filing, said in a statement. “The answer cannot be for Los Angeles to join that assault by undermining court-ordered protections for journalists.”

In a motion filed Wednesday, Feldstein Soto’s legal team sought a temporary stay of the order issued by U.S. District Judge Hernán D. Vera. She reiterated her earlier argument that Vera’s ban was overly broad, extending protections to “any journalist covering a protest in [the City of] Los Angeles.”

The city’s lawyers also argued that the ban, which bars the LAPD from using so-called less lethal munitions against journalists and nonviolent protesters, creates “ambiguous mandates” that jeopardize “good-faith conduct” by officers and pose “immediate and concrete risk to officer and public safety.”

In addition to Feldstein Soto’s request for a temporary stay, the city has filed an appeal of Vera’s injunction. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals is taking up the appeal, with a hearing tentatively set for mid-November.

Council members have become increasingly vocal about their frustrations with the city attorney’s office. Two months ago, they voiced alarm that an outside law firm billed the city $1.8 million in just two weeks — double the amount authorized by the council. They have also grown exasperated over the rising cost of legal payouts, which have consumed a steadily larger portion of the city budget.

After Feldstein Soto’s motion was reported by LAist, several city council members publicly distanced themselves from her and condemned her decision.

In a sternly worded statement before Friday’s vote, Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez wrote that the city attorney’s “position does not speak for the full City Council.”

“The LAPD should NEVER be permitted to use force against journalists or anyone peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights,” said the statement from Soto-Martínez, who signed Hernandez’s proposal along with Councilmembers Ysabel Jurado and Monica Rodriguez.

On Friday, the council also asked the city attorney’s office to report back within 30 days on “all proactive litigation the Office has moved forward without explicit direction from the City Council or Mayor since July 1, 2024.”

Rodriguez said that Friday’s vote should send a message that the city council needs “to be consulted as a legislative body that is independently elected by the people.”

“What I hope is that this becomes a more permanent act of this body — to exercise its role in oversight,” she said.

Carol Sobel, the civil rights attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of the plaintiffs, welcomed the council’s action. Still, she said Feldstein Soto’s filings in the case raise questions about whose interests the city attorney is representing.

“Sometimes you say ‘Mea culpa, we were wrong. We shouldn’t have shot people in the head, despite our policies,’” she said.

Los Angeles County is poised to pay out an additional $828 million to victims who say they were sexually abused in county facilities as children, months after agreeing to the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

The award, posted on the county claims board agenda Friday, would resolve an additional 414 cases that were not included in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement approved this spring. Both the supervisors and the county claims board will need to vote on the payout before it is finalized.

The record $4-billion settlement covered more than 11,000 people, who say they were abused inside county-run juvenile facilities and foster homes as children. The individual payouts will range from $100,000 to $3 million.

The newest payout would break down to an average of roughly $2 million per person. It involves cases from three prominent law firms: Manly, Stewart & Finaldi, Arias Sanguinetti Wang & Team, and Panish Shea Ravipudi.

The firms declined to comment on the potential settlement until the vote by the Board of Supervisors.

The announcement follows reporting by The Times that found nine plaintiffs who say they were paid by recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Four of them have said they were explicitly told to make up claims. All had lawsuits filed by Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA.

The firm has denied any involvement with recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs to sue. DTLA said previously it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and is conducting new screenings to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

The county said any claims brought by DTLA will undergo an additional level of review before payments are made, citing reporting by The Times. The extra screening “may require plaintiff interviews and additional proof of allegations,” the county said.

DTLA did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday.

The exterior of Downtown LA Law Group’s offices in Los Angeles.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who recently launched an investigation into the $4-billion settlement following The Times’ reporting, said the vetting will ensure “money goes only to the true victims of abuse.”

“Our settlements balance our obligation to compensate victims and treat their experiences with compassion with the need to put strong protections in place to protect taxpayers from fraud,” she said.

County Counsel Dawyn Harrison says she wants to see the law changed so “unscrupulous lawyers don’t get windfalls at the expense of survivors of abuse.”

“The conduct alleged to have occurred by the DTLA firm is absolutely outrageous and must be investigated by the appropriate authorities,” said Harrison. “Not only does it undermine our justice system, it also deprives legitimate claimants of just compensation.”

All cases will be reviewed by retired judges before the money is allocated, the county said.

If a judge believes a claim is fraudulent, the plaintiff will not get any money, the county said Friday. The county’s original plan stated that if the county found a fraudulent claim, the plaintiff could be offered $50,000 to resolve it or remove the case from the settlement so that it could be litigated separately.

The flood of claims was unleashed with the passage of Assembly Bill 218 in 2020, which changed the statute of limitations and gave survivors a new window to sue their abusers. Since then, school districts and governments have faced many decades-old claims, for which they say there are no longer records kept on file to allow for vetting.

Dominique Anderson, pictured above around age 11, is among the plaintiffs who sued the county for alleged sexual abuse and would stand to receive payouts as part of a new settlement announced Friday.

(Courtesy of Dominique Anderson)

County supervisors have been increasingly critical of the law, which they argue has left them defenseless against claims dating back to the 1950s. If the supervisors approve the new settlement, the county will have paid out nearly $5 billion in child sex abuse lawsuits this year — with more to come.

The county is still facing an additional 2,500 cases, which they say will further strain the region’s social safety net. The county recently required most departments trim their budgets to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

“L.A. County and other local governments must balance their obligations to past victims with the need to avoid ruinous financial impacts,” said acting Chief Executive Joe Nicchitta.

I can’t think of another time that I was quite as terrified as when I walked alone into an interactive horror maze called “Feast” at a chilling carnival-like event called “The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor: Summoned by the Seas,” which takes place in the parking lot in front of the famously haunted ship, and also in the creepy bowels of its engine rooms, through Nov. 2.

“Dark Harbor,” is the scarier sister event to Griffith Park’s famous “Haunted Hayride.” Both Halloween season fright fests are produced by Thirteenth Floor Entertainment Group, which specializes in seasonal terror. The highlight of the nightly carnivals — which include food and drink booths, bars and rides — are a series of interactive mazes populated by bloody monsters, drooling ghouls, murderous clowns, spectral ghosts and maniacal serial killers.

The spooks are largely played by local actors — many of whom come back year after year for a guaranteed paycheck while pursuing a profession that is anything but financially sound. It is to these hardworking artists that the events owe their success. I was struck by just how dedicated the actors were to scaring us mere mortals out of our pants.

The masks, elaborate makeup and props, including butcher knives and bats, surely help the players stay in character— but this is not easy work. The actors must contend with aggressive guests who try to get in their faces (this is against the rules), as well as shrill, shrieking patrons who jump and run as they approach (guilty!).

But the actors are specially trained to handle these reactions and more.

“Each fall, Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor and Los Angeles Haunted Hayride hire a few hundred performers, most of our cast are locals who come back year after year. We hold open calls in the summer and focus on energy, movement, and presence more than traditional acting experience,” wrote “Dark Harbor‘s” general manager, Star Romano, in an email.

After the performers are hired, Romano explained, they attend orientation, safety training and rehearsals leading into opening weekend.

“It’s a huge community effort, part performance, part team reunion, and one of my favorite things about the season,” Romano wrote.

The result of those efforts led to me sleeping with the lights on for two nights straight.

“Get away from me! I’m too scared!” I shouted at one Leatherface-type character as he approached me with a chain saw.

“That’s the whole point,” he growled under his breath before obeying my wishes and lurching off toward another fear-stricken guest.

(NOTE: For a kid-friendly immersive Halloween experience, you can head to the company’s “Magic of the Jack O’Lanterns,” which features 5,000 hand-carved pumpkins on-site at South Coast Botanic Garden.)

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, inviting you to sink into spooky season with me. Here’s your weekly arts and culture news.

On our radar

Benjamin Millepied’s L.A. Dance Project performs “On the Other Side.”

(Laurent Philippe)

L.A. Dance Project
Renowned choreographer Benjamin Millepied continues his exploration of the intersection of dance and visual art with the ballet triptych “Gems,” featuring artwork by collaborators Barbara Kruger, Liam Gillick, Mark Bradford and others. The performance is composed of three contemporary ballets inspired by precious stones: “Reflections” (2013), “Hearts & Arrows” (2014) and “On the Other Side” (2016). The show — with music by David Lang and Philip Glass — marks the first time these pieces have been staged together.
— Jessica Gelt
7:30 p.m. Thursday through Oct. 25. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. https://thewallis.org/show-details/la-dance-project-gems

New York artist Jon Henry stages photographs that reflect on reports of Black men killed by police.

(The Brick)

Monuments
The most eagerly anticipated theme exhibition this fall is reflected in the emphatic title, pointedly written all in caps. “MONUMENTS” was inspired by the wave of revulsion following the violent 2017 white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va. — a deadly riot opposing the proposed removal of a local statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. That statue is now gone, torn down along with some 200 other tributes across the country to American turncoats who supported chattel slavery. (The last known Confederate monument in Southern California was removed in 2020.)
A selection of decommissioned Confederate statues will be shown at MOCA and alternative space the Brick, joint organizers of the exhibition; they’ll be paired with contemporary work by Bethany Collins, Stan Douglas, Leonardo Drew, Jon Henry, Martin Puryear, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker and a dozen other artists, borrowed and commissioned for the occasion.
— Christopher Knight
Thursday through May 3, 2026. Geffen Contemporary at Museum of Contemporary Art, 152 N. Central Ave., Little Tokyo; The Brick, 518 N. Western Ave. moca.org

Vikingur Olafsson will perform with conductor Santtu-Matias and Philharmonia.

(Timothy Norris / Los Angeles Philharmonic)

Santtu-Matias Rouvali and Vikingur Ólafsson join the Philharmonia Orchestra
It’s been almost a decade since Finnish conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali, a former Dudamel Fellow at the L.A. Phil, last returned to Southern California as a guest conductor of the L.A. Phil. In the meantime, though, he’s been busily attracting attention in London as principal conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra (having succeeded Esa-Pekka Salonen in 2021). For his first local appearance with the Philharmonia, he is joined by the stellar Icelandic pianist Vikingur Ólafsson in Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G. The program also includes the local premiere of a new score meant to awaken environmental awareness, popular Mexican composer Gabriela Ortiz’s “Si el Oxígeno Fuera Verde” (If Oxygen Were Green), along with Shostakovich‘s Fifth Symphony. Shortly after fall, Ólafsson heads back to Disney in January as soloist with the L.A. Phil for John Adams’ latest piano concerto, “After the Fall.”
— Mark Swed
8 p.m. Tuesday. Renée & Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall, 615 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. philharmonicsociety.org

The week ahead: A curated calendar

FRIDAY

Ethan Remez-Cott, left, and Matthew Goodrich in the play “Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared.”

(Amanda Weier)

Amerika or, The Man Who Disappeared
There’s Kafkaesque and then there’s the genuine article. Open Fist Theatre Company presents the world premiere of Dietrich Smith’s adaptation of the Franz Kafka novel that details the strange experiences of a 17-year-old European immigrant after he arrives in New York City aboard a steamer.
7:30 p.m. Friday; 7 p.m. Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday; and 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 20; through Nov. 22. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. openfist.org

Ms. Holmes & Ms. Watson–Apt. 2B
Two free-spirited roommates embrace mystery and adventure in the L.A. premiere of Kate Hamill’s dark modern comedy, a gender-bent spin on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle directed by Amie Farrell.
7:30 p.m. Thursday-Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday through Nov. 2. International City Theatre, 330 E. Seaside Way, Long Beach. ictlongbeach.org

नेहा & Neel
Asian American theater collective Artists at Play and Latino Theater Company collaborate for the world premiere of Ankita Raturi’s new comedy about an Indian immigrant and single mom on a cross-country college tour with her 17-year-old American-born son. Directed by East West Players artistic director Lily Tung Crystal.
Through Nov. 16. Los Angeles Theatre Center, 514 S. Spring Street, downtown L.A. latinotheaterco.org

17th OC Japan Fair
Japanese culture festival featuring food, shopping, a cosplay show, a tuna cutting show, popular Japanese entertainers, traditional instrument performances, games, kimono models meet and greet, and more.
4 p.m.-10 p.m. Friday; noon-10 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday. OC Fair & Event Center, 88 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa. oc-japanfair.com

David Roussève will perform “Becoming Daddy AF” Friday and Saturday at the Nimoy.

(Rachel Keane)

Becoming Daddy AF
Renowned dance-theater artist David Roussève presents the West Coast premiere of his experimental movement journey “Becoming Daddy AF.” The piece marks Roussève’s first full-length solo performance in more than two decades and explores themes that have touched and shaped his life, including HIV, genealogy and the loss of his husband of 26 years. (Jessica Gelt)
8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu

Unravelled
The story of Canadian biologist Dr. Anne Adams, who turned to painting at age 53, and her remarkable connection to French composer Maurice Ravel, with whom she shared the same rare brain disease. A play infused with music and visual art, written by Jake Broder and directed by James Bonas.
7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. thewallis.org

SATURDAY

British artist Edmund de Waal will install new work in three sites at the Huntington, including the Chinese garden.

(Linnea Stephan)

The Eight Directions of the Wind
British artist, potter and writer Edmund de Waal is obsessed with archives, which he describes as “places, streets, hillsides as much as card indexes.” For a body of new work, he once traveled to the place in China where the clay used to make porcelain was discovered — and then on to Dresden, Germany; Cornwall, U.K.; and the Appalachian Mountains, where subsequent cultures reinvented it. De Waal’s three site-specific, yearlong installations will be in the Huntington’s cultural and natural “archives” that are its art gallery and Chinese and Japanese gardens. (Christopher Knight)
Through Oct. 26, 2026. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org

Lorde performs Saturday at the Kia Forum.

(Scott A Garfitt / Invision/AP)

Lorde
Just as her generation has, by all accounts, sobered up and gone sexless, Lorde returned this year with a defiant album about the giddy rush of partying and the frightening ramifications of a body in search of pleasure. “Virgin” pulls her back to the experimental electro-pop many fans were hoping for after the relatively complacent “Solar Power,” and the album is brimming with startling meditations on pregnancy scares, familial inheritance and the malleability of gender. (August Brown)
7 p.m. Kia Forum, 3900 W. Manchester Blvd., Inglewood. thekiaforum.com

Orchidées
Cellist Kate Ellis performs composer Nick Roth’s cello étude — which traces the 100‑million‑year evolution of orchids by translating their DNA sequences into music — accompanied by time‑lapse footage of blooming specimens from the Huntington’s orchid collection. Also available to livestream.
7 p.m. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org

Tortoise
The lauded post-punk band performs “Touch,” their first new album in nine years with opening sets from local duo Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer and KCRW DJ Ale Cohen.
8 p.m. Saturday. The Broad, outdoor East West Bank Plaza, 221 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. thebroad.org

TUESDAY
A Concert for Lowell
A memorial tribute to Lowell Hill, one of the great patrons of new music in L.A., featuring many of the city’s top local artists, including Wild Up, MicroFest, Piano Spheres, the Industry, Partch Ensemble, Monday Evening Concerts, Long Beach Opera and People Inside Electronics.
8 p.m. Monk Space, 4414 W. 2nd Street. brightworknewmusic.com

Morgan Siobhan Green as Eurydice and Nicholas Barasch as Orpheus in the 2022 “Hadestown” North American Tour.

(T Charles Erickson)

Hadestown
The Tony and Grammy Award-winning musical that reimagines the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice as a New Orleans-style folk opera returns on its latest national tour. “Born out of a concept album by Anaïs Mitchell, who wrote the book, lyrics and music, the show travels to the underworld and back again with liquified grace,” wrote Times theater critic Charles McNulty in a 2022 review. “Developed by Rachel Chavkin, the resourceful director who won a Tony for her staging, ‘Hadestown’ achieves a fluidity of musical theater storytelling that makes an old tale seem startlingly new.”
Through Nov. 2. Hollywood Pantages Theatre, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood. broadwayinhollywood.com

Learning to Draw
The exhibition traces a 300-year evolution of artistic training and the mastery of drawing in Europe from about 1550 to 1850. Bringing together the physical control of the hand and the concentration of the mind, the foundational artistic act became essential to exploring, inventing and communicating visual ideas in the modern world.
Through Jan. 25, 2026. Getty Museum, 1200 Getty Center Drive. getty.edu

Dispatch: Ben Platt: Live at the Ahmanson

Actor, singer and songwriter Ben Platt stands for a portrait at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York on Thursday, April 20, 2023.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Breaking news sure to make L.A. musical theater fans swoon: Center Theatre Group announced Friday that Broadway superstar Ben Platt will be in residency for two weeks and 10 shows at the Ahmanson Theatre , Dec. 12–21. Two-time Tony Award-winning director Michael Arden is set to direct the the residency, appropriately titled, “Ben Platt: Live at the Ahmanson.” Platt’s appearance comes a year after he staged a wildly successful three-week residency at Broadway’s Palace Theatre, which included a cornucopia of famous special guests including Cynthia Erivo, Nicole Scherzinger, Jennifer Hudson, Kacey Musgraves, Sam Smith, Micaela Diamond and Shoshana Bean. The production is staying mum on who might appear onstage alongside Platt during his L.A. run, but it’s safe to expect more big names.

“When you think of the very best in musical theatre, it simply doesn’t get any better than Ben Platt, whose stage presence and charisma make him one of the seminal performers of his generation,” said CTG’s artistic director, Snehal Desai, in a news release that promised “the holiday event of the season.”

Tickets and information can be found at centertheatregroup.org.

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Bassist Tonya Sweets, from left, Marlon Alexander Vargas and drummer Dee Simone in “littleboy/littleman,” directed by Nancy Medina, at Geffen Playhouse.

(Jeff Lorch)

A tale from a land of immigrants
Rudi Goblen’s “littleboy/littleman” is in the midst of its world premiere at the Geffen Playhouse. The two-person show about two Nicaragua-born brothers is much like a performance piece, writes Times theater critic Charles McNulty in his review. It’s also a deeply American story. “Lest we forget our past, America is the great democratic experiment precisely because it’s a land of immigrants. Out of many, one — as our national motto, E pluribus unum, has it. How have we lost sight of this basic tenet of high school social studies?” McNulty writes.

Les Miz at 40
I went backstage at the Pantages for the opening night of “Les Misérables,” which happened to coincide with the 40th anniversary of the legendary musical. The mood was euphoric and everyone in the cast and crew seemed to have a story about a formative connection to the show. Stage manager Ken Davis walked me through the maze-like wings and filled me in on what it takes to tour a show of this scale. Of particular note: The touring production travels with 11 tractor trailers containing over 1,000 costumes, 120 wigs and hundreds of props.

Patrick Martinez, “Fallen Empire,” 2018, mixed media

(Michael Underwood)

When the sum is less than the whole
Times art critic Christopher Knight was not impressed by “Grounded,” a newly opened exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The show’s theme, rooted in recent acquisitions of contemporary art, is promising, but ultimately falls apart. Viewed as a whole, “the 39 assembled contemporary paintings, sculptures, photographs, textiles and videos by 35 artists based in the Americas and areas of the Pacific underperform,” writes Knight. “Sometimes that’s because the individual work is bland, while elsewhere its pertinence to the shambling theme is stretched to the breaking point,” Knight writes.

Remembering Bernstein
Tuesday marked the 35th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein’s death, and reminders of the great composer’s tributes to John F. Kennedy abound, writes Times classical music critic Mark Swed. In a piece of commentary about what Bernstein’s work can teach us about memorials, Swed examines multiple L.A. productions rooted in that work, including L.A. Opera’s “West Side Story” and Martha Graham Dance Company’s “En Masse” at the Soraya. Swed also wonders whether those important pieces will reach the Trump administration’s newly configured Kennedy Center in the spring.

Guests attend the K.A.M.P. family fundraiser at the Hammer Museum on Oct. 12, 2025, in Los Angeles.

(Stefanie Keenan / Getty Images for Hammer Museum)

Everyone went home happy
UCLA’s Hammer Museum raised nearly $200,000 last weekend with its 16th annual K.A.M.P. (Kids Art Museum Project) fundraiser. More than 700 excited parents and children showed up at the gloriously messy event co-chaired by Aurele Danoff Pelaia and Talia Friedman. Kids roamed the courtyard over the course of four hours, creating art at stations set up and manned by participating artists including Daniel Gibson; Sharon Johnston and Mark Lee of the Johnston Marklee architecture firm; Annie Lapin; Ryan Preciado; Rob Reynolds; Jennifer Rochlin; Mindy Shapero; Brooklin A. Soumahoro; and Christopher Suarez. Fairy Gardens were constructed of thick clay and foraged leaves; cardboard boxes were painted with rollers; plates were spray-painted and affixed with knickknacks and jewelry; and geometric shapes were glued to canvases and painted an array of bright colors. Children went home with their art, and parents left knowing they supported a host of free Hammer Kids programs that serve thousands of children and families annually.

Fair wages on Broadway
Musicians working on Broadway, represented by AFM Local 802, voted to authorize a strike earlier this week — with 98% in favor. The nearly 1,200 musicians have been working without a contract since Aug. 31. According to an open letter the musicians sent to the Broadway League on Oct. 1, their demands include: “Fair wages that reflect Broadway’s success. Stable health coverage to allow musicians and their families to enjoy the health benefits that all workers deserve. Employment and income security so that hardworking freelance musicians have some assurance of job security. This includes not eliminating current jobs on Broadway.” Bargaining talks are ongoing.

Gene Hackman co-stars in “Bonnie and Clyde,” alongside Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway.

(Associated Press)

Gene Hackman, art collector
The late actor Gene Hackman’s art collection will go up for auction through Bonhams in November. Highlights of the 13-piece collection — which is being offered as a single-owner sale — include works by Milton Avery, Auguste Rodin and Richard Diebenkorn. Hackman was passionate about art throughout his life, and took an extra-special interest in it after he stopped acting. During that time he dedicated himself to taking classes and art-making. He even kept a journal of everything he learned, according to Bonhams.

Historic homes tour
Paging architecture fans: It’s not too late to reserve a spot in Dwell’s open-house event, back in L.A. for its second year. Tours of three historically significant Eastside homes are on offer during the day-long event, which launches from Frank Lloyd Wright’s Hollyhock House in Barnsdall Art Park. The three additional houses in the tour are: Richard Stampton’s Descanso House in Silver Lake; Taalman Architecture, Terremoto, and interior designer Kathryn McCullough’s Lark House in Mount Washington; and Fung + Blatt’s San Marino House in — you guessed it — San Marino.

— Jessica Gelt

And last but not least

Still feeling sad about losing Diane Keaton? Me too. Here’s a list I put together of her 10 most important films. Watch one you haven’t seen — if that’s possible.

It’s almost a year into Trump 2.0 and MAGA has gone full “snowflake.”

You know the word, the one that for the past decade the right has wielded against liberals as the ultimate epithet — you know, because libs are supposedly feelings-obsessed, physically weak, morally delicate and whiny as all get out.

Well, if you’re MAGA in 2025, you should probably embrace the term like Trump hugging an American flag with a Cheshire Cat grin.

Because if you think, among other things, that Portland is “War ravaged” like Trump claims it is and the U.S. of A. has to send in the military, you truly are a snowflake.

It sure wasn’t the left that called for the firing of people who criticized one of their heroes in the wake of their tragic death. Or that revoked visas over it. Or cheered when a late-night talk show host was temporarily suspended after the FCC chairman threatened to punish his network, as Brendan Carr did to ABC when he told a podcaster Disney could mete out punishment to Jimmy Kimmel “the easy way or hard way.”

Which president complains any time someone doesn’t think they’re the greatest leader in human history? Threatens retribution against foes real and imagined every waking second? Whines like he’s a bottle of Chardonnay?

Trump even complained this week about a Time magazine cover photo that he proclaimed “may be the Worst of All Time.”

“They ‘disappeared’ my hair, and then had something floating on top of my head that looked like a floating crown, but an extremely small one. Really weird!” the king of MAGA-dom wrote on Truth Social.

Here’s guessing he’d have complained a little less if the “something” floating on the top of his head looked like a really, super-big crown.

President Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One prior to departure from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Sunday.

(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty Images)

Watch out, Time magazine, Trump might send the Texas National Guard to your newsroom!

This is an administration that is forcing airports to run videos blaming the government shutdown on their opponents? What branch of the government just asked journalists to only publish preapproved information?

And always with the reacting to Democrat-led cities like Portland, Chicago and L.A. as if they’re Stalingrad during the siege.

Kristi Noem, Homeland Security secretary in August: “L.A. wouldn’t be standing today if President Trump hadn’t taken action then. That city would have burned down if left to the devices of the mayor and the governor of that state.”

Trump about Washington, D.C., over the summer as he issued an executive order to take over its police department in the wake of what he characterized as out-of-control crime: “It is a point of national disgrace that Washington, D.C., has a violent crime rate that is higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world.”

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to military brass he called in from across the world last month to declare the following: “No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done.”

Welcome to our Snowflake Government. The way these people’s tough talk turns into waterworks at the slightest provocation, you’d think they were the ski slopes of Mt. Baldy come summertime.

Trump and his lackeys possess scary power and don’t hesitate to use it in the name of punishing enemies. But what betrays their inherent snowflake-ness is how much they cry about what they still don’t dominate and their continued use of brute force to try and subdue the slightest, well, slight.

The veritable pity party gnashes its teeth more and more as the months pass. Trump was so angry at the sight of people causing chaos over a relatively small area of downtown L.A. after mass raids swept Southern California in June — chaos that barely registered to what happens after a Dodgers World Series win — that he sent in the Marines.

His spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, keeps describing any nasty look or bad word thrown at migra agents as proof of them suffering a supposedly unprecedented level of assault despite never offering any concrete proof.

The Southland’s acting U.S. attorney, Bill Essayli, accused an LAPD spokesperson last week of leaking information to The Times after one of my colleagues asked him about … wait for it … an upcoming press conference.

No part of the government melts faster, however, than the agency with the apropos acronym of ICE.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement and their fellow travelers across Homeland Security are Trump’s own Praetorian Guard, tasked with carrying out his deportation deluge. They’ve relished their months in the national spotlight cast by the federal government simultaneously as an unstoppable force and an immovable object. La migra continues to crash into neighborhoods and communities like a masked avalanche of tear gas and handcuffs, justice be damned.

But have you seen how they’re flailing in Chicago?

Illinois State Police clash with demonstrators by the ICE facility in Broadview, Ill., as tensions rise over prolonged protests targeting federal ICE operations in Chicago on Oct. 10.

(Jacek Boczarski / Anadolu via Getty Images)

They’re firing pepper balls at the heads of Presbyterian priests outside detention facilities and tackling middle-aged reporters.

Border Patrol sector chief Gregory Bovino, who thinks he’s Napoleon with a crew cut and an Appalachian drawl, has accused protester Cole Sheridan of causing an unspecified groin injury even though the government couldn’t provide any video evidence during a preliminary court hearing earlier this month.

Agents have set off tear gas canisters without giving a heads-up to Chicago police. They’re detaining people without giving them a chance to prove their citizenship until hours later.

All this because — wah, wah! — Windy City residents haven’t welcomed la migra as liberators.

Bovino and his ICE buddies keep whimpering to Trump that they need the National Guard to back them up because they supposedly can’t do their job despite being the ones armed and masked up and backed by billions of dollars in new funds.

That’s why the government is now pushing tech giants to crack down on how activists are organizing. In the past two weeks, Apple has taken down apps that tracked actions by ICE agents and a Chicago Facebook group that was a clearinghouse for migra sightings at the request of the Department of Justice.

On X, Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi bragged that she “will continue engaging tech companies to eliminate platforms where radicals can incite imminent violence against federal law enforcement” despite offering no evidence whatsoever — because who needs facts in the face of Trump’s blizzard of lies?

Since the start of all this madness, I’ve seen the left offer a rejoinder to the snowflake charge: the slogan “ICE Melts,” usually accompanied by a drawing of the action at hand. It’s meant to inspire activists by reminding them that la migra is not nearly as mighty as the right makes them out to be.

That’s clever. But the danger of all these conservative snowflakes turning into a sopping mess the way they do over their perceived victimhood is that the resulting flood threatens to drown out a little thing we’d come to love over many, many, many years.

Democracy.

At the highly anticipated Clare V. sample sale last month at Row DTLA, designer Clare Vivier exuded calm as she walked through the packed aisles, smiling and offering assistance while hundreds of frenzied shoppers snatched up her discounted handbags, colorful accessories and apparel. (Shout-out to the stranger who offered me tips on how to clean my ink-stained Clare V. leather wallet from a few years back!) So when we chatted recently about her ideal Sunday in Los Angeles, I couldn’t resist asking Vivier where she likes to shop when she has a day off.

In Sunday Funday, L.A. people give us a play-by-play of their ideal Sunday around town. Find ideas and inspiration on where to go, what to eat and how to enjoy life on the weekends.

“I love to shop for vintage goods,” Vivier said. “My go-to vintage shop is Luxe de Ville in Echo Park on Sunset. And just two doors down, there’s another great vintage store, Wilder. In Atwater, there’s the Curatorial Dept. on Glendale Boulevard and the Gift of Garb consignment shop in Silver Lake is wonderful — it’s like having your own private the Real Real, which I love.”

As for her perfect Sunday, she’ll stick close to Glendale, where she and her family have recently moved. “We are loving Glendale so far,” she said. “It’s fun to move within your own city — it’s a change, but not overwhelmingly so, as you’re still close to work and your friends.”

Vivier recently remodeled and expanded her flagship Clare V. showroom on Sunset Boulevard in Silver Lake. The sunny showroom now features two spacious rooms filled with Vivier’s signature handbags and colorful “bits, bobs, straps and fobs,” according to the store’s window. Vivier, in a personal touch, acknowledged she might stop in on a Sunday, but only after enjoying a few of her other favorite spaces in L.A.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for length and clarity.

9 a.m.: Shop for vintage goods at local flea markets
A perfect Sunday usually starts with going to one of the flea markets — either the Pasadena City College Flea Market or the Rose Bowl Flea Market. Sometimes, we visit the Long Beach Antique Market and the Santa Monica Antique and Vintage Market, but those are really our go-to favorites. We just moved to Glendale after 24 years in Echo Park, so when I’m shopping with my husband, we are usually looking for home decor items.

If we split up, I’ll look for vintage clothing inspiration for Clare V., including vintage handbags and clothing, as well as anything else. I love vintage clothing and accessories, and use them as inspiration for my collections. I enjoy selling my clothes and buying new ones; I have a huge closet. Sometimes I sell my items on Clare’s Closet Purge on Instagram. Or I’ll post about them on my personal Instagram then sell my items there, which is really fun. I’ll then donate the money to a worthy organization.

11 a.m.: Light lunch
On the way home from the market, we would stop for lunch somewhere like Little Ripper in Glassell Park. Either we’d get some food to go or we would eat there. Their open-faced toasts are great — their John Dory Tuna Toasts are always delicious.

Noon: Get outdoors
On Sundays, I enjoy doing something outdoorsy, such as playing tennis at Nibley Park or taking a walk through Deukmejian Wilderness Park in Glendale, which is truly beautiful. I had never heard of it until I moved there. They have great walking trails, and you’re welcome to bring your dog if you’d like.

2 p.m.: Shop for groceries at neighborhood markets
Usually, we would go shopping for food for dinner because we love to have Sunday dinners at our house and host our extended family and friends. We would probably go to Cookbook market in Highland Park — we used to go to the one in Echo Park when we lived in the neighborhood. We’d get some great cheeses, baguettes, vegetables and wine. They have it all. On the way home, we’d stop by Fish King Seafood in Glendale and pick up some great fresh fish, then come home and make dinner. Sometimes I would stop by one of my stores — usually the Silver Lake one, because it’s the closest to where I live. I love to drop by and visit, talk to customers, and see how the store is looking, especially since it’s new.

4 p.m.: Shop for houseplants in Highland Park
I love to shop for plants at Echo Garden, a family-run nursery on York in Highland Park. I’ve been trying to nurture my green thumb so I’ve been buying houseplants for our new house there. I like to support small businesses. They have a nice selection of houseplants there and have outdoor plants as well. I haven’t perfected my green thumb, but I’m working on it. I love having the energy of plants inside my home. I find it to be calming. They are like little animals. They enjoy being dusted and taken care of. It’s fun.

5 p.m.: Early Sunday dinner
If we’re not hosting dinner at our house, I love having an early dinner at a restaurant that’s open from lunch to dinner. I especially enjoy a 4 or 5 o’clock dinner on Sunday, when you can meet a friend and have a glass of rosé and something light to eat. It’s kind of my favorite time to be at a restaurant. It feels like you’re on vacation when you’re at a restaurant at that time of day and there aren’t many people there yet, and it’s outside of your routine.

If I’m going to have an early dinner somewhere, one of my favorites is L&E Oyster Bar on Silver Lake Boulevard in Silver Lake. I love their oysters, but they also have a great burger, pastas and salads. Another one of my favorite restaurants right now is Bar Etoile on Western, but unfortunately, it’s closed on Sundays.

11 p.m.: Late-night TV viewing
After everyone leaves and we clean up from dinner, we’d probably watch a show around 11 or midnight. Unfortunately, I am more of a late-night person than I should be. I’m not a reality TV person, so I won’t be watching “Love Island,” but there is a Danish show that we just finished called “The Secrets We Keep” on Netflix. I loved that. I’m looking forward to “The Morning Show” coming back. I like Reese, Jen and Mark Duplass; the cast is so good.

CHICAGO — Since the Trump administration announced its intention to accelerate and forcefully detain and deport thousands of immigrants here, the Chicago area is a split screen between everyday life and a city under siege.

As many people shop, go to work, walk their dogs and stroll with their friends through parks, others are being chased down, tear-gassed, detained and assaulted by federal agents carrying out immigration sweeps.

The situation is similar to what occurred in Los Angeles in summer, as ICE swept through Southern California, grabbing people off the street and raiding car washes and Home Depots in predominantly Latino areas, while leaving large swaths of the region untouched.

Take Sunday, the day of the Chicago Marathon.

Some 50,000 runners hailing from more than 100 countries and 50 states, gathered downtown to dash, jog and slog over 26.3 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and city streets.

The sun was bright, the temperatures hovered in the upper-60s, and leaves of maple, oak, aspen and ginkgo trees colored the city with splashes of yellow, orange and red.

Demonstrators march outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.

(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)

It was one of those rare, glorious Midwestern fall days when everyone comes outside to soak in the sunlight, knowing the gloom and cold of winter is about to take hold.

At 12:30, Ludwig Marchel and Karen Vanherck of Belgium strolled west along East Monroe Street, through Millennium Park. They smiled and proudly wore medals around their necks commemorating their marathon achievement. They said they were not concerned about coming to Chicago, despite news stories depicting violent protests and raids, and the Trump administration’s description of the city as “war torn,” a “hellhole,” a “killing field” and “the most dangerous city in the world.”

“Honestly. I was mostly worried that the government shutdown was somehow going to affect my flight,” said Marchel. He said he hadn’t seen anything during his few days in town that would suggest the city was unsafe.

Another man, who declined to give his name, said he had come from Mexico City to complete the race. He said he wasn’t concerned, either.

“I have my passport, I have a visa, and I have money,” he said. “Why should I be concerned?”

At that same moment, 10 miles northwest, a community was being tear-gassed.

Dozens of residents in the quiet, leafy neighborhood of Albany Park had gathered in the street to shout “traitor” and “Nazi” as federal immigration agents grabbed a man and attempted to detain others.

According to witness accounts, agents in at least three vehicles got out and started shoving people to the ground before throwing tear gas canisters into the street. Videos of the event show masked agents tackling a person in a red shirt, throwing a person in a skeleton costume to the ground, and violently hurling a bicycle out of the street as several plumes of smoke billow into the air. A woman can be heard screaming while neighbors yell at the agents.

Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring agents to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons such as tear gas, chemical sprays, plastic bullets and flash grenades.

Witnesses told the Chicago Sun-Times that no warnings had been given.

Deirdre Anglin, community member from Chicago, takes part in a demonstration near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.

(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)

Since Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz” was initiated more than six weeks ago, roughly 1,000 people have been arrested or detained.

At the ICE detention facility, in Broadview — a suburb 12 miles west of downtown — there have been daily protests. While most have been peaceful, some have devolved into physical clashes between federal agents or police and protesters.

In September, federal agents shot pepper balls and tear gas at protesters peacefully gathering outside the facility. On Saturday, local law enforcement forced protesters away from the site with riot sticks and threats of tear gas. Several protesters were knocked to the ground and forcefully handcuffed. By the end of the evening, 15 people had been arrested.

Early Sunday afternoon, roughly two dozen protesters returned to the site. They played music, danced, socialized and heckled ICE vehicles as they entered and exited the fenced-off facility.

In a largely Latino Chicago neighborhood called Little Village, things appeared peaceful Sunday afternoon.

Known affectionately by its residents as the “Midwestern capital of Mexico,” the district of 85,000 is predominantly Latino. Michael Rodriguez, a Chicago city councilman and the neighborhood’s alderman, said 85% of the population is of Mexican descent.

On Sunday afternoon, traditional Mexican music was being broadcast to the street via loudspeakers from the OK Corral VIP, a western wear store.

Demonstrators protest near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.

(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)

Along East 26th Street, where shops and buildings are painted with brightly colored murals depicting Mexican folklore, history and wildlife — such as a golden eagle and jaguar — a family sat at a table eating lunch, while two young women, in their early 20s, laughed and chattered as they strolled west toward Kedzie Avenue.

Rodriguez said that despite appearances, “people are afraid.”

He said he spoke with a teacher who complained that several of her elementary-school aged students have stopped coming to class. Their parents are too afraid to walk them or drive them to school, hearing stories of other parents who have been arrested or detained by ICE agents at other campuses in the city — in front of their terrified children.

Rodriguez’s wife, whom he described as a dark-skinned Latina with degrees from DePaul and Northwestern universities, won’t leave the house without her passport.

At a barber shop called Peluqueria 5 Star Fades Estrellas on 26th, a coiffeur named Juan Garcia sat in a chair near the store entrance. He had a towel draped over the back of his neck. He said his English was limited, but he knew enough to tell a visitor that business was bad.

“People aren’t coming in,” he said. “They are afraid.”

Victor Sanchez, the owner of a taco truck parked on Kedzie Road, about a half-mile south of town, said his clientele — mostly construction workers and landscapers — have largely disappeared.

“Business is down 60%,” he said to a customer. “I don’t know if they have been taken, or if they are too afraid to come out. All I know is they aren’t coming here anymore.”

Rodriguez said that ICE agents have arrested people who live in his neighborhood, but those arrests took place outside the borders of his district.

“I think they know this is a well-organized and aware neighborhood,” he said. “I think they’ve cased it and decided to grab people on the outskirts.”

Lindsey Horvath knew all the words to “Pink Pony Club.”

It was an overcast Sunday in June, the WeHo Pride parade was in full swing and the hit song about an iconic West Hollywood gay bar was blasting at full volume.

Sure, the county supervisor’s sequined, rainbow muumuu was giving her an angry rash. But that did little to dampen her spirits as she danced atop her pink pony-themed Pride float, swaying and mouthing the lyrics.

Five hours later, Horvath had traded her sequins and rainbow sneakers for a simple black dress and heels.

Now, she sat on a wooden pew for evening Mass at her 121-year-old Catholic parish in Hollywood.

But she still knew all the words, albeit this time to a traditional hymn about the holiness of the Lord. And then she knelt down in quiet prayer.

Horvath, 43, defies easy characterization.

She is the first millennial member of the county Board of Supervisors, a governing body that wields tremendous power despite remaining unknown to most Angelenos.

When elected in November 2022, she went from representing roughly 35,000 people as a West Hollywood City Council member to having more than 2 million constituents across a sweeping, 431-square-mile district that sprawls from the Ventura County line down to Santa Monica, east to Hollywood and up through much of the San Fernando Valley.

While attending the University of Notre Dame, Horvath held a leadership position with the school’s College Republicans chapter, helped create Notre Dame’s first gay-straight alliance and drew national opposition for staging “The Vagina Monologues” at the Catholic university — all while working three jobs to pay off her student loans. (She’s still paying them off.)

During her 2022 campaign for supervisor, she had the backing of some of the most progressive politicians in the city, including then-Councilmember-elect Eunisses Hernandez, as well as then-Councilmember Joe Buscaino, one of the more conservative members of the body.

As a member of the West Hollywood City Council, she helped approve what was then the highest minimum wage in the country, yet her county reelection bid was just endorsed by one of the region’s most prominent pro-business groups.

In the three years since she was elected to the county Board of Supervisors, she has effectively rewritten the structure of county government and drastically changed its approach to homelessness response.

Horvath’s Midwestern mien, unflagging politeness and warm smile belie her fierce ambition.

She has long been seen as someone who does not — to crib a phrase occasionally used about her behind closed doors — “wait her turn.” And that impatience has worked out OK for her so far.

All of which raises the question, will Horvath challenge Karen Bass in the June 2026 Los Angeles mayoral race?

Horvath speaks as supporters rally in September for her motion to pass an emergency rent relief program.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Her name has been bandied as a potential Los Angeles mayoral candidate since early in the year, when her public profile exploded in the wake of the devastating Palisades fire and tensions between her and Bass first became public.

She has done little to tamp the speculation since, though some posit she is merely expanding her profile ahead of a run for county executive in 2028.

Still, the political rumor mill went into overdrive in early summer, as word trickled out that the erstwhile mayor of West Hollywood had moved into a two-bedroom apartment at the edge of Hollywood — firmly in the city of Los Angeles.

When asked about her mayoral intentions late last month, Horvath demurred, but made clear the door was open.

“I have no plans to run for mayor,” she said, sitting under the sun in Gloria Molina Grand Park, just outside her office in the Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration, within direct view of City Hall.

“I continue to be asked by people I deeply respect, so I continue to listen to them and consider their requests, and I’m taking that seriously,” she continued. “But I’m focused on the work of the county.”

Horvath, left, embraces Mayor Karen Bass in August at an event in Pacific Palisades.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Horvath declined to share specifics about who was pushing her to run, though she said they were “significant stakeholders” that didn’t hail from any single community.

On Monday, former schools chief Austin Beutner kicked off his campaign for mayor, becoming the first serious candidate to challenge Bass. Political watchers have speculated that Beutner’s entrée could potentially open the floodgates by offering a permission structure for others to challenge the mayor of the nation’s second-largest city.

In the immediate wake of the January firestorm, Bass’ political future appeared to be in real jeopardy, but she has since regained some of her footing and shored up support with powerful interests, such as local labor groups.

***

Horvath was 26 and had lived in West Hollywood for all of 18 months when Sal Guarriello, a 90-year-old West Hollywood council member, suddenly died.

It was spring 2009. The advertising executive and Ohio transplant was active in Democratic and feminist circles, co-founding the Hollywood chapter of the National Organization for Women and leading the West Hollywood Women’s Advisory Board. (Raised by conservatives, Horvath started college as a Republican but soon evolved into a staunch Democrat.)

Former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti — who was then president of the Los Angeles City Council — had become a friend and mentor to Horvath through her activism. He and others urged her to throw her hat into the ring for the open seat.

More than 30 people applied, but Horvath was ultimately chosen by the remaining members of the council to join them — an outcome that was stunning, even to her.

After two years in her appointed role, she lost an election bid in 2011 but continued to make a name for herself in the tight-knit, clubby world of progressive West Hollywood politics.

Undeterred, she ran again for West Hollywood City Council in 2015 and won.

Horvath is sworn in as the new county supervisor for District 3 in December 2022.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Horvath remained on the council for the next seven years and twice served as mayor before turning her ambitions toward the county Hall of Administration.

She was seen as an underdog in her supervisor’s race, running against former state Sen. Bob Hertzberg, a political veteran who had a 3-to-1 fundraising advantage and first took elected office as she was entering high school.

Hertzberg had far more name recognition, but Horvath ultimately defeated him with a coalition that included local Democratic clubs and some of labor.

***

On the Board of Supervisors, Horvath has been unafraid to take chances and ruffle feathers.

Less than two years into her first term, Horvath was leading the charge to fundamentally reinvent the structure of county government, which hadn’t been meaningfully changed in more than a century.

Horvath’s bold plan to increase the size of the board from five to nine supervisors and create a new elected county executive position was approved by voters last November.

Voters will choose the county’s first elected executive in 2028. Opponents (and even some allies) have long griped that Horvath has her sights set on the very position she helped create, which will undoubtedly be one of the most powerful elected offices in the state.

“There are people who are never going to be convinced that I created this measure without seeing a seat for myself in it,” she says. “I’m not interested in convincing people of that. I’m interested in doing the work.”

As she campaigned for Measure G, critics also said Horvath and her allies were moving too fast, with too much left to figure out after the vote, including the price tag.

“Not everybody always loves you when you do things that upset the status quo. But I think history judges people not by ‘Did everybody love them in a given moment?’ … It’s were they smart and were they brave,” Garcetti said of Horvath.

“And she’s both,” he added.

Still, some of those criticisms came to bear in July, when it was revealed that county officials committed a near-unthinkable administrative screwup. When voters approved the sprawling overhaul to county government in November, the move unintentionally repealed Measure J, the county’s landmark criminal justice reform passed by voters in 2020.

Horvath said she didn’t think she and other proponents moved too fast, arguing that if they hadn’t seized the moment, they would have missed the opportunity “to bring about the change that has been stuck for far too long.”

Horvath argues that the fact that Measure J could have been unwritten in the first place is why Measure G was so needed.

***

Horvath was, briefly, everywhere during the fires.

While Mayor Bass receded into the background, Horvath was a constant presence at media briefings and on the news.

Her face was so omnipresent that a man she’d recently gone on a date with — someone who didn’t fully understand what she did for a living — spotted her on television with some confusion.

That was the last she heard from him, she said. (Dating as a public official is “very weird,” and not just because the one time she tried to use Tinder while abroad, she was seemingly banned for impersonating herself.)

She also tussled with Bass behind closed doors in late January, as revealed in text messages obtained by The Times that highlighted an increasingly fractious relationship.

The two women were at odds even before flames laid waste to a wide swath of coastal paradise.

Last November, Horvath went public with a proposal to shrink the duties of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, which is overseen by city and county political appointees.

Horvath called for hundreds of millions of dollars to be shifted out of the agency and into a new county department focused on homelessness — a proposal to which Bass strenuously objected.

Horvath ultimately pushed her strategy forward in April, but not without warnings from Bass about creating a “massive disruption” in the region’s fight against homelessness.

Horvath attends a news conference celebrating the Army Corps of Engineers clearing debris from the final house in the Palisades in late August.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Horvath’s relationships in the Palisades have also not been without some tension.

The supervisor recently pledged $10 million of her county discretionary funds to help rebuild the Palisades-Malibu YMCA, but some in the community have felt betrayed by her, according to Pacific Palisades Residents Assn. President Jessica Rogers.

“We don’t believe that she’s properly engaging her community,” Rogers said, citing the independent commission that Horvath convened in the wake of the fires. “She put a lot of time and energy into creating this report. The intentions might have been good, but she didn’t include proper community participation.”

Rogers was particularly bothered by Horvath’s proposal for a countywide rebuilding authority, since Rogers felt like Horvath hadn’t earned their trust. The rebuilding authority, which was supported by the mayor of Malibu, did not come to fruition.

“There’s a perception that [Horvath] is too aggressive,” said another community leader, who asked to speak anonymously because they hope to get things done without alienating anybody. “But there’s more of a mix to how people feel about her than you can see.”

The loudest voices, particularly in community WhatsApp groups, NextDoor and other forums, tend to be the most vitriolic, the community leader said, positing that some of the gripes about Horvath had more to do with her progressive politics than her leadership.

“People are suffering, and I will always show up for my constituents — especially when the conversations are difficult. The Blue Ribbon Commission provided independent, expert guidance on a sustainable rebuild. Its recommendations were meant to inform, not replace, community engagement,” Horvath said.

***

The chances of Horvath entering the mayoral race still remain far slimmer than the alternative, particularly because she is up for reelection in 2026 — meaning she would have to sacrifice her safe board seat for an uphill battle challenging an incumbent who still has deep wells of support in the city.

Former Los Angeles City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who long represented the Westside and now directs the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State LA, said he wondered why someone would want the job of mayor while in the comparatively plush position of county supervisor.

Supervisors have more power and suffer far less scrutiny, he argued. Still, there were benefits to remaining in the mix.

“Being mentioned as a potential candidate is one of the greatest places a political figure can be. Because when you’re in the mentioning stage, it’s all about your strengths, your assets, your positive attributes,” Bonin said with a laugh. “Once you declare, it’s the reverse.”

Times staff writers David Zahniser and Rebecca Ellis contributed to this report.

It felt like the kind of thing that must happen in Hollywood all the time: a hundred bucks to be a movie extra.

Austin Beagle, 31, and Nevada Barker, 30, said they were trying to sign up for food stamps this spring when someone offered them a background role outside a county social services office in Long Beach. They thought the gig seemed intriguing, albeit a bit unusual.

The offer came not from a casting director, but a man hawking free cellphones. The filming location was, oddly enough, a law firm in downtown Los Angeles.

Like many DTLA clients, Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker signed a retainer agreement that entitles the firm to 45% of their payout.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

Maybe this was how actors were recruited here, they figured. The couple had recently moved from the remote ranching town of Stinnett in the Texas panhandle, and the recruiter seemed to appreciate their Southern drawl. They hopped on a bus, excited to make $200 between them.

“They said we’d be extras,” said Beagle, who was unemployed at the time. “But when we got to the office, that’s not what it was at all.”

The couple said they arrived at the lobby of Downtown LA Law Group. A Times investigation published earlier this month found seven plaintiffs represented by the firm who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse, which could violate state law. Two said they had never been abused and were told to manufacture their claims.

Downtown LA Law Group has denied any involvement with the recruiters who allegedly paid plaintiffs. The firm said in a statement it would never “encourage or tolerate anyone lying about being abused” and has been conducting additional screening to remove “false or exaggerated claims” from its caseload.

Four days after The Times’ investigation was published, the firm asked for a lawsuit on behalf of Carlshawn Stovall, one of the men who said he fabricated claims, to be dismissed with prejudice, meaning the case cannot be refiled.

The firm requested a second case spurred by Juan Fajardo, who said he made up a claim using the name of a family member, to be dismissed with prejudice on Sept. 9 after Fajardo says he told lawyers he wanted to drop the lawsuit.

Now, with Beagle and Barker, two more have come forward to allege they were told to invent the stories that led to their lawsuits.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker said they’d been in Southern California only a few months when they were flagged down outside a social services office where they were hoping to enroll in food stamps. The couple have since moved back to Stinnett, Texas.

(Joe Garcia / For The Times)

The couple said that when they arrived at DTLA’s offices in April, a man came down to the lobby with a clipboard and gave them a piece of paper to memorize before going upstairs. They assumed this was the role they’d be playing — with room to go off script.

“They told us to say that we were sexually abused and harassed by the guards in … Las P? I can’t think of the institution’s name,” said Beagle, who added he was told to say the incidents occurred around 2005.

“The worse it was the better,” he recalled being told.

On April 29, Downtown LA Law Group filed a lawsuit against the county on behalf of 63 plaintiffs, including Beagle and Barker, who claimed they were abused at Los Padrinos, L.A. County’s juvenile hall in Downey. The couple are now part of the $4-billion settlement.

Allegations of potential fraud and pay-to-sue tactics have rocked both L.A. County government and powerhouse law firms, which are scrambling to figure out how to salvage the largest sex abuse settlement in U.S. history.

Perhaps no group has been shaken more than sex abuse victims themselves, who fear allegations of false claims could derail what they hoped would be a life-changing settlement.

“I just couldn’t believe it,” said Jimmy Vigil, 45, who sued the county in December 2022 for alleged sexual abuse by a probation officer at a detention camp in Lancaster.

Vigil said he was repeatedly molested as a 14-year-old and forced to masturbate in front of other teens while the guard watched.

“It makes me feel disgusted,” said Vigil, now a mental health case manager in Ventura County. “You have absolutely no clue what I went through. You have no clue how hard I have strived in life to make it to where I am at today.”

Jimmy Vigil, now a mental health case worker in Ventura, said he was repeatedly molested as a teenager and forced to masturbate in front of other teens.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

Barker and Beagle said that after memorizing the card with the basics of their story, they were taken upstairs to a room at DTLA’s office where about 20 people were waiting. Everyone seemed confused, they said.

They “were asking us ‘Hey, did y’all promise to get paid? And we said ‘Yeah, somebody told us that we’d get paid $100 if we come in,” Beagle said. “Everybody was just concerned about getting paid whatever they were promised.”

DTLA said in a statement it has “never directed, nor do we have any knowledge that anyone was ever paid, hired, or brought to the DTLA office, or was asked to memorize a script of any kind under the guise of filmmaking,”

“We are not filmmakers,” the firm said. “No one authorized on behalf of the firm has ever promised or implied movie extra work as a means of retaining clients.”

Beagle and Barker said they were called in together to a glass cubicle where a woman spent 15-20 minutes asking them questions about their story of abuse. Barker said she struggled to come up with details because “it was all made-up stuff.”

Beagle said he thought maybe the staffers in the law firm were also acting, pretending not to know this was “a fake thing.”

“Like, they were testing us all out to see if we knew how to act — just play the part,” Beagle said. “Like, this was a trial thing.”

The couple said they were befuddled at the interaction but figured they’d done enough to get their money; the receptionist told them to come back in a few hours to collect.

The firm said, in some circumstances, it provides “interest free loans to clients once they have retained our services.”

Beagle and Barker said they frittered away two hours at Pershing Square a few blocks away until around 4 p.m. It was only when they came back to the firm, they said, that it became clear there was no movie.

A man named Kevin paid them $100 each, and told them they were part of a massive settlement involving juvenile halls they’d never heard about until that afternoon. The man told them they could get $100 for each additional person they referred to go through the same process, Beagle said.

“We walked out thinking I don’t know how legit this is and we might even get f— in trouble for it,” Beagle said.

Like most sexual abuse lawsuits, the suit was filed using only plaintiffs’ initials. The Times reviewed paperwork that DTLA provided to Beagle and Barker, which they signed in order to become clients on April 21 and to opt into the L.A. County settlement on May 29.

Under the settlement, each plaintiff could be eligible for anywhere from $100,000 to $3 million. Retainer agreements for Beagle and Barker reviewed by The Times show DTLA would get 45% of their payout.

Beagle and Barker said they aren’t banking on getting any money from L.A. County. After all, they said, they grew up in Texas, more than a thousand miles away from the abuse-plagued facilities.

“We need it, but it’s not ours. It’s like finding a wallet,” Barker said. “Return it.”

A Times investigation published earlier this month found plaintiffs represented by Downtown LA Law Group who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue L.A. County over sex abuse. Four now say they were told to make up the claims.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Among some survivors, there is a palpable fear that the fraud allegations will steamroll the settlement, overshadowing the fact that many county-run facilities were home to unchecked abuse and torpedoing their chance of receiving a life-changing sum.

The Times interviewed eight victims for this article represented by Slater Slater Schulman, ACTS LAW Firm, McNicholas & McNicholas, and Becker Law Group. Many said they were aghast at learning the worst years of their life may have become fodder for quick cash.

“It felt like a kick in the gut,” said Trinidad Pena, 52. “For somebody just to lie about it was just sickening.”

On Sept. 18, Pena said, she was eating a pancake breakfast at a homeless services center in Long Beach when she learned she had something in common with a woman sitting on the picnic bench next to her.

Both had filed lawsuits against L.A. County alleging sexual abuse at county-run facilities. Both of them were part of the county’s $4-billion settlement. But she was the only one, she believed, who had actually been abused.

The woman told her she’d been paid $20 to sue by a woman who hung around on the sidewalk outside the community center clutching a clipboard, she said.

The Times could not reach the recruiters allegedly responsible for paying plaintiffs for comment.

Trinidad Pena, who sued in 2022 over sex abuse, said she was jarred to find herself at breakfast with a woman who told her she’d been paid to sue the county.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Pena sued L.A. County in December 2022 over an alleged rape when she was 12 by a staff member at MacLaren Children’s Center, a shuttered youth shelter now infamous for predatory staff. No amount of cash is going to erase the scars from that, she says. But it would help.

Last month, Pena traded in her New Orleans shotgun apartment for the streets of Southern California, where she was raised. The move was, she said, a Hail Mary attempt to get medical treatment through the state’s public benefits for a cyst sprouting behind her right eye that made her vision wobble and her head crackle with pain.

She is currently living on $1,206 a month in and out of her van with a failing shunt in her head, which doctors implanted to treat her cyst. She eats mostly the nonperishable Trader Joe’s snacks she brought from Louisiana.

A six- or seven-figure settlement could help save her life, Pena said.

“I’m going to have myself a hell of a Charlie Sheen party and take a nosedive off a balcony at the Chateau Marmont if I do not get some sort of relief,” said Pena, who says she grew up in foster care near the legendary West Hollywood hotel.

Part of what has made the false claims so infuriating, victims say, is that L.A. County youth detention facilities were indeed home to horrific abuse decades ago.

Kizzie Jones, 47, said she’s on antidepressants as a result of a female probation officer who allegedly molested her twice a week and groomed her with bags of chips and bottles of conditioner.

Robert Williams, 41, says he has no friends — a near-total isolation he said traces back to repeated sexual assaults in the shower he suffered as a teen.

Mario Paz, 39, said a guard molested him under the guise of soothing his genitals with milk after he was pepper sprayed while naked. The abuse, he says, has left him traumatized to the point that he is unable to change his children’s Pampers.

All three of them filed lawsuits against the county alleging sexual abuse by county probation officers.

Mario Paz, 39, said his time at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall left him traumatized and damaged the relationship he has with his own children.

(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)

“For someone to capitalize on something that they never endured or never experienced, I think it’s a travesty,” said Cornelious Thompson, a 51-year-old community health worker, who sued the county in December 2022.

When he was around 13 at Los Padrinos, Thompson says he was put on psychiatric medication that knocked him out. He woke up in his unit sore with his pants hanging by his knees, bleeding. It took him years to tell anyone.

He said he recently lost his job with a contractor for the county’s health department due to budget cuts. The county had to slash spending, in part, to pay for the $4-billion settlement.

It was “bittersweet,” he says, losing his job because the county was finally paying for what he said he endured as a teenager.

Only now, a new fear has crept in as two more people say they made up claims: Will he still be believed?

Are you eating out less? Is it starting to feel like a sit-down dinner, even at a casual restaurant, can set you back what you might have paid for a big celebratory meal not too long ago?

Daytime is one thing, with lunch deals or happy hour discounts coaxing more consumers out for a bite. But at prime dinnertime lately, getting the check can come with sticker shock.

Industry trends show diners are getting more selective about dining out as inflation worries wallop U.S. consumers. In a 2025 survey from global accounting firm KPMG, 85% of respondents said they are eating at home more often to save money due to budget limitations. As a result, U.S. restaurants and bars saw one of the weakest six-month periods of sales growth during the first half of 2025 — even weaker than during the COVID pandemic when lockdown orders were in place, according to a CNN analysis of Commerce Department data.

In Los Angeles, the added factors of the 2025 wildfires, ICE raids, and rising rental and labor costs make the trend feel especially acute.

But with a little strategy, it’s more than possible to have a standout meal at some of L.A.’s most exciting haunts right now without breaking your budget. For this guide, the Food team challenged ourselves to find 50 L.A. restaurants where you can dine for $50 or less per person, including tax and tip.

A nice dinner out translates differently for everyone, so we set a few parameters before beginning our search:

• The pre-tax total should be no more than $38 per person, in order to account for a roughly 10% sales tax and 20% tip. Sometimes it needs to be even less if a restaurant includes a mandatory service fee.
• The restaurant doesn’t have to offer table service, but there must be seating available to enjoy your food on-site.
• It must be open until at least 9 p.m.
• You must be able to order at least two menu items, whether that’s a starter and a main, an entree and a dessert, or a large plate and a cocktail.

The final list ranges from places ranked on The Times’ annual 101 Best Restaurants guide that require specific hacks to stay within budget, to more casual options where $50 lets you sample a wide swath of the menu. And just in case you’re bringing a date or a friend, we share suggestions for how to approach this challenge as a duo.

Note that the prices outlined below are accurate as of our most recent visits but may change based on which location you visit, whether you’re ordering in person, for pickup or delivery and other factors.

Reality television production in Los Angeles declined sharply this summer, leading to a nearly 21% drop in overall TV shoot days, a new report shows.

The total number of shoot days in the greater L.A. area from July to September was 4,380, down 13.2% compared to a year ago, according to data from FilmLA, a nonprofit that handles film permits for the Los Angeles region.

The third-quarter data does not reflect the full effect of the state’s newly bolstered film and TV tax credit program, which was passed this summer.

In the most recent round, 22 TV series were chosen amid a nearly 400% increase in applications, with 18 of those shows primarily filming in the L.A. area.

Projects that received an incentive have 180 days to start production after notice of their award, and it often takes time to commence filming.

Because of that, FilmLA executives were not surprised to see on-location production continue to slip during the summer months.

“Fortunately, we’ve already begun to see early signs of these incentives having their desired effect,” he said. “We’re excited to be taking calls from productions looking to line up their locations and pull permits,” FilmLA Vice President Philip Sokoloski said in a statement.

TV production totaled 1,441 shoot days, down 20.7% compared to the same time period last year. The decline is especially significant because TV is the region’s main driver of production.

Reality TV dropped to 649 shoot days, down 31.4% compared to last year. Other genres of TV production also saw a downturn — drama (down 19%) and pilots (down 34.5%). Production of television comedies, however, was a bright spot with 79 shoot days, up 41.1%.

Feature film production in L.A. also ticked up with 522 shoot days, an increase of 9.7% compared to last year. But commercial production, which does not receive a tax incentive, was down 17.9% to 668 shoot days.

The report’s “other” category, which includes student films, still photo shoots and documentaries, saw a decrease of 9.9% to 1,749 shoot days.

A shoot day represents one crew’s permission to film at a single location in a 24-hour period.