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Nithya Raman slowly recited the start of her handwritten message to Angelenos.

Llegué de la India con mi madre a los seis años. Sé lo que cuesta empezar de nuevo.

I came from India with my mother when I was 6. I know what it takes to start over.

The mayoral hopeful was in the green room of Univision’s Westchester studios on Thursday, waiting for an interview with anchor Guad Venegas. He would ask each question in both English and Spanish, and Raman could respond in English.

But she hoped to do better than that.

Since the start of her campaign, Raman has sprinkled Spanglish into her speeches and sometimes offered whole sentences in softly accented, lightly stilted Spanish. It’s part of an effort to win over Latinos, nearly half the city’s population and a crucial swing vote , with less than a week to go before election day.

“Can you say the whole thing for me?” Raman asked Lauren Perez-Rangel, her Latino outreach senior director, who read the full message in effortless Spanish. Raman repeated it word for word, accent for accent, with no flubs or pauses.

“You got it!” Perez-Rangel told her boss.

“I hope,” Raman replied.

It was showtime.

Raman, who serves on the L.A. City Council, grinned when someone said “me vale madre” — I don’t give a damn — on the walk to the studio. She cracked in English, “I doubt that’s true!” when I told an Univision producer in Spanish that no one likes my work.

A cameraman proclaimed “¡Muy bien!” when Raman rattled off an “uno, dos, tres” mic check. Venegas responded in English, “It’s always like that” to Raman’s comment in Spanish that her pronunciation is better than her comprehension.

During the interview, Raman raised her eyebrows when Venegas talked about streets filled with “basura,” the word for “trash” that became an insulting pun on Bass’ name hurled by then-candidate Spencer Pratt during the primary. Raman answered questions in English even when Venegas only asked them in Spanish, fully understanding what he said. And she kept saying “sí” to acknowledge Venegas’ points, as a native speaker would.

She never got a chance to read her Spanish-language statement, but that was OK. I saw enough to know that while she isn’t going to write the next “Don Quixote,” she isn’t limited to ordering at Casa Vega.

Supporters have praised her efforts en español. Critics dismiss them as pandering. I see something more interesting at work.

Raman spoke Tamil and Malayalam in India before moving to the U.S. as a child. If she wins, she would be the first immigrant mayor since Canadian-born Frank Shaw in the 1930s. She’d also be the first mayor whose native tongue wasn’t English since Bernard Cohn, who grew up speaking German in Prussia and served as mayor for two weeks in 1878.

Having a non-native English speaker in charge of a world capital such as L.A. — and one who wants to express herself in the city’s second tongue — wouldn’t just be symbolic. A person who’s earnest about learning a language is forever trying to decipher something new, failing far more often than succeeding in the early going — yet always working to master the task.

Isn’t that what we want from any politician, especially in a city where 56% of residents live in a household that speaks a language other than English?

Los Angeles mayoral candidate and city councilmember Nithya Raman prepares to speak at a “Latinos Con Raman” rally at La Cita Bar in downtown Los Angeles on Sept. 18.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Familiarity with Spanish has become a prerequisite for L.A. mayors. Antonio Villaraigosa famously took classes to improve his assimilated Spanish. Eric Garcetti described his fluency as “good community meeting Spanish” and often delivered remarks in Spanish. Bass, who was married to a Chicano and treats her ex-husband’s children as her own, isn’t fluent but has a robust Spanish-language outreach for her campaign, complete with ads, mailers and websites.

For Raman, though, learning Spanish isn’t just a way to reach out to constituents. It’s a reminder of “what it means to grapple with a bureaucracy that wasn’t intended for you.”

We spoke outside Univision’s studios after her interview. I asked to speak about her experience with Spanish as a way to show a private side of her to Angelenos. (I had asked Bass to sit down with me and talk about food. The interview was initially scheduled, then campaign spokesperson Alex Stack said it was canceled so Bass could attend a news conference assailing Raman for saying that former LAPD Police Chief Daryl Gates was a “gold standard” in protecting immigrants. Bass’ campaign didn’t reschedule the interview and didn’t provide comment on her Spanish skills in time for publication.)

In 2022, Raman co-authored a motion that introduced live Spanish translation services at city council committee meetings. She wants the city to research whether it can provide the information that’s being lost as the Trump administration increasingly deletes Spanish-language versions of federal websites.

“You have to show them that you’re trying,” Raman told me. “And even if you go out there, and you speak broken Spanish, and you mess it up, and you don’t conjugate it properly, and you get all the endings wrong — ‘a’ versus ‘o’ — the fact that you show up and you say it, and you try it in Spanish, means something to the people that I’ve been talking to.”

Her Spanish journey began with four years of classes at a suburban Boston high school. She chose Spanish instead of French because she felt it “would be more useful for me in the world.”

Raman forgot most of it while attending Harvard and MIT but started practicing with her brother, a Spanish major at UCLA, when she moved to L.A. 13 years ago. She read bilingual books for beginners and streamed shows such asNetflix’s dark comedy “La Casa de las Flores” (“The House of Flowers”) and podcasts such as “Chill Spanish.”

Those lessons have happened “pretty regularly” since she joined the city council in 2020, Raman said, although she scaled back once the mayoral campaign intensified.

I wondered what languages are spoken in her household. Her husband, whose Tamil-speaking parents are immigrants from India, only speaks English. Her twin 10-year-olds “can kind of follow along” when she speaks to her parents in Tamil, but she is no longer fluent in Malayalam.

“I have friends like who speak a different language, and they’re, like, religious about speaking it to their children,” Raman said. While she would love for her children to learn other languages, “life is too stressful trying to make every moment of your time with your family into almost a chore.”

I asked about the pandering charge. Throwing out Spanish phrases in an effort to appeal to Latinos is a political cliché as weak salsa as eating tacos in East L.A. or cruising in a lowrider.

Raman shook her head.

“To try and communicate to people in the language that they speak doesn’t feel like pandering. It feels like what the city should do,” she said. “Why shouldn’t elected representatives here also speak Spanish, or do their best to communicate to people in their language?

“If there was a lot of Tamil speakers here,” Raman continued, “I would appreciate that for me and for my family and for my grandparents.”

Mayor Karen Bass speaks during the “Latinos Con Bass” campaign at Ernest E. Debs Regional Park on Sunday, Sept. 20, 2026 in Los Angeles.

(Kayla Bartkowski/Los Angeles Times)

Then I tested her Spanish.

Had she heard of one of my favorite words: convenenciero? Someone who goes with what will help them and doesn’t stand for anything but themselves. Haters have never outright called Raman a convenenciera, I said, but that’s what they’re insinuating in almost every other sentence.

In fairness, most politicians have a bit of convenenciero in them.

“People say, ‘She doesn’t stand for anything,’ but people also criticize me for being ideological, so which is it?” Raman calmly responded. “I try and learn. And I don’t come and say, ‘I know what you want.’ I say, ‘I’m trying to learn what you want, and I want to make the city work for you. How can I make it work?’”

So you’re not a convenenciera?

“I don’t feel that,” Raman said, repeating the phrase two more times.

I told her I’d ask three questions in Spanish. First: how was she doing?

“Bien. Un poco nervioso.”

“Poca nerviosa,” I corrected. A bit nervous. She thanked me for correcting her and said, “Sí, sí, nerviosa.”

What was she doing to try and relax during this campaign?

“Yo quiero estar con mi familia. Mis hijos …” I want to be with my family. My children …

She thought about the right phrase.

“… son mi vida.” Are my life.

What’s a word she loves in Spanish?

Perez-Rangel suggested chisme — gossip.

“I do like chisme!” Raman said with a laugh. But that wasn’t it.

“I like the word tomar [to take] and how many different meanings it has,” she said in English, then rattled off definitions and tenses in Spanish. Tomar bebidas. Tomar su tiempo.

“Tomar City Hall?” I asked.

She laughed again and said something that needs no translation: “Yes.”

Banished Traitors star Hannah Fry revealed she is actually related to one of her co-stars and shared her true opinions of them after leaving Ardross Castle

The aim of the game is for faithfuls to hunt out the Traitors, but for one contestant, they discovered more than they bargained for in the latest series of Celebrity Traitors.

Recently ousted traitor Hannah Fry was part of the group of famous faces battling it out to bag a big lump sum for charity in the second celeb offering of the BBC show.

Thursday’s episode of the saw Hannah feel the force as fellow Traitors Maya Jama and James Acaster turned on her in a bid to save themselves. The mathematician and author, 42, discovered she is related to one of her co-stars.

When she was asked who she was closest to in the Ardross Castle, Hannah said: “I really like Joanne. We actually discovered that we’re cousins, by marriage. So her cousin is married to my cousin.”

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She then joked: “We’re basically sisters. I really loved her so much. She described herself as how she came out of the womb as a show pony.

“That’s the perfect description of that woman. She is phenomenal. She knows exactly who she is, and she is totally unapologetic about it. I cannot tell you how much I admire her. She’s phenomenal.”

In the same episode as Hannah being banished, comedian Rob Beckett was also murdered. He admitted he found being murdered funny. but Hannah she’d cried more during her five days of playing the game than at any other point in her life.

Speaking in the immediate aftermath of her leaving the castle, she said she found the whole experience a rollercoaster of emotions. Hannah said: “I laughed more, cried more and got more excited than I ever have in the entirety of the rest of my life combined.

“I really preferred being Faithful. I think it’s just a much more authentic experience.” She went on to say hat one of the lessons learned was that she hated “lying to people’s faces”.

She continued: “I think there’s actually some pride in being a rubbish Traitor.” And she admitted she knew she wasn’t destined to last long in the game.

“On the first day, I asked Michael Sheen who he would murder, and he said, ‘You’. At that point I knew I was really in trouble,” she said.

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MANY parents usually spend years saving up for family holidays abroad.

But one savvy couple has managed to swap life in the UK for a full-time travel adventure – all while saving £36,000.

Back in 2023, Ruth and Steven Rowe made a decision which shocked a lot of people after “selling everything they owned” and buying a one-way ticket to Sri Lanka.

They have been globe-trotting ever since on a budget of just £30 a day, and have turned the world into a classroom for their two children Aurora, five, and Atlas, four.

Ruth, 35, and Steven, 36, said they had always dreamed of travelling full-time and, as the moment approached to put the children into a nursery, they felt the time was right.

Ruth said: “We knew those early years were precious and we wanted more time together as a family before school routines took over.”

They flogged all their belongings on Facebook Marketplace or via car boot sales and set off from the village of Eardisley, Herefordshire, with just two suitcases of clothes and a few toys.

The family has already been to 17 different countries, ticking off bucket-list destinations such as Costa Rica, Guatemala, Ecuador, and Indonesia.

They stay four weeks at a time in Airbnbs and have also visited the likes of Thailand, Malaysia, Cyprus, the USA, Colombia, and Peru – all while saving around £12,000 a year.

They currently have no plans to return and want to continue world-schooling in exotic locations – while spending around £2,000 a month, compared to £3,000 back in the UK, as a result of their rent and outgoings being less.

Ruth and Steven had been renting a barn conversion and had both children during the Covid-19 pandemic.

They had travelled extensively before having kids but couldn’t shake the feeling that there was still so much of the world they wanted the children to experience.

Ruth added: “We wanted more time with them as we know those early years are precious, so we thought, why not just do it? So we did.

“Selling everything was an exhilarating experience.

“Our car, furniture and most of our possessions all went through Facebook Marketplace and car boot sales.

“We kept only a handful of memory boxes filled with special items from the children’s early years and a few clothes.

“We set off at the start with two big suitcases, a medium and a small one – and a stroller.

“And since then we’ve downsized to just two suitcases – it is really surprising how little you really need.

“Possessions don’t make you happy, life experiences do.”

They arrived in Sri Lanka with no return ticket and no real plan beyond seeing where life took them.

Ruth added: “And we’re still travelling now. We’ve been travelling full-time ever since, slow-exploring the world as a family, while my husband runs his coaching business remotely and we embrace world-schooling on the road.

“It’s been beautiful, chaotic, challenging and incredibly freeing.”

The couple also support themselves financially via Steven’s online coaching business – which he can still run wherever they are in the world.

However, Steven revealed the lifestyle isn’t always glamorous.

He added: “We use Airbnbs mainly but I’ve been working out of little cupboards in some places – it has been challenging at times but we’re in a fortunate position.

“We aim to live off around £30 a day and we stay in places for a month at a time so I can work Monday to Friday.

“But it can vary greatly; a two-bed apartment in one country can be £800 but a smaller one in another country £1,300.”

The couple say their children are now educated through “life experiences” – be it picking up Spanish in Latin America or learning about volcanoes while hiking in Peru.

And they say giving the kids no screen time whatsoever on their travels has helped them to become more patient and creative.

Ruth added: “They are also learning counting through things like paying a tuk-tuk driver in different currencies and the first time Aurora ever wrote her name it was in sand on a beach with a stick.

“We give them no screen time at all – which I think has taught them patience on their travels and to be more creative when they are bored sitting on a bus.

“They thought the TV back home was a radio as we’d only use it for Spotify and we think that’s allowed their imagination to flourish.

“I have just seen their confidence grow so much, and of course there’s no way of really telling how they would have been at home, but they are just so open and talk to anyone – young and old.

“I will sit down and teach them some reading and phonics and writing – but we’re not rigid with it and it’s still very much about learning through playing.

“It wasn’t a case of we hated the UK – we just love the world. But I was never a fan of the cold and rain so that is something I don’t miss.

“Also, we’ve found children aren’t treated like nuisances like you find in some restaurants in the UK.

“They are welcomed in and looked after, lots of places have playgrounds too to keep them entertained; that was a big difference to the UK too.

“Sri Lanka is just the most welcoming place we’ve ever been – people would invite us to eat in their homes and absolutely loved the kids.

“Costa Rica is beautiful with all the wildlife and jungle, Guatemala is underrated – it is also an incredible place and one of our favourites.”

Ruth was also not a fan of the cold and wet British weather – but admits she misses British chocolate.

She added: “The only thing I miss is friends and family – and also British chocolate.”

Steven also believes the lifestyle has been transformational for the children.

He said: “These positive environments have brought such positive developments so far in our children. Atlas was swimming independently at two.

“This way they get one-to-one without being part of the larger school system, which we have no issue with, we just see the benefits from doing it this way.

“We make sure the children are at the centre of what we do, we always research kids’ clubs and activities wherever we stay.

“They are loving learning about all the wildlife too – we had iguanas and sloths outside our doors in Costa Rica.

“Aurora had surf lessons in Bali and will be sandboarding in the Peruvian desert; it’s magical for them.

“The children have most enjoyed all the swimming they’ve been able to do and all the wildlife has been a massive enjoyment for them too.”

Follow the couple’s travels on Instagram.