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There have been numerous legal challenges to President Trump’s immigration sweeps across California that have led to at least 3,000 arrests.

But one lawsuit has the potential to dramatically alter the policy.

The ruling

A coalition of civil rights groups and private attorneys sued the federal government, challenging the cases of three immigrants and two U.S. citizens swept up in chaotic arrests that have sparked widespread protests since early June.

On Friday, U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, an appointee of President Biden, temporarily blocked federal agents in the Southland from using racial profiling to carry out immigration arrests after she found sufficient evidence that agents were using race, a person’s job or their location, and their language to form “reasonable suspicion” — the legal standard needed to detain an individual.

Frimpong ruled that using race, ethnicity, language, accent, location or employment as a pretext for immigration enforcement is forbidden by the 4th Amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government.

The order covers Los Angeles, Riverside, San Bernardino, Orange, Ventura, Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

The judge also ordered that all those in custody at a downtown detention facility known as B-18 must be given 24-hour access to lawyers and a confidential phone line.

On Monday, the administration asked a federal appeals court to stay the judge’s order blocking the roving patrols, allowing it to resume raids across the seven California counties.

“It is untenable for a district judge to single-handedly ‘restructure the operations’ of federal immigration enforcement,” the appeal argued. “This judicial takeover cannot be allowed to stand.”

What experts are saying

Legal experts say it’s hard to say just how successful the federal government will be in getting a stay on the temporary order, given the current political climate.

“This is different from a lot of the other kinds of Trump litigation because the law is so clear in the fact finding by the district court,” said Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law. “So if you follow basic legal principles, this is a very weak case for the government on appeal, but it’s so hard to predict what will happen because everything is so ideological.”

In the past, legal scholars say, it would be extremely uncommon for an appeals court to weigh in on such an order. But recent events suggest it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

Courts have backed Trump’s immigration policies in other cases.

• In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of allowing the federal government to deport convicted criminals to “third countries” even if they lack a prior connection to those countries.
• That same month, it also ruled 6 to 3 to limit the ability of federal district judges to issue nationwide orders blocking the president’s policies, which was frequently a check on executive power.
• In June, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decided to leave troops in Los Angeles in the hands of the Trump administration while California’s objections are litigated in federal court, finding the president had broad — though not “unreviewable” — authority to deploy the military in American cities. California had sued against the deployment.

It’s not an easy case for the government, said Ahilan Arulanantham, professor of practice and co-director of the Center for Immigration Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law.

“I think one thing which makes this case maybe a little bit harder for the government than some of the other shadow docket cases is it really does affect citizens in an important way,” he said. “Obviously the immigration agent doesn’t know in advance when they come up to somebody whether they’re a citizen or a noncitizen or if they’re lawfully present or not.”

What is next?

The Frimpong ruling is now on appeal.

The plaintiffs argued in their complaint that immigration agents cornered brown-skinned people in Home Depot parking lots, at car washes and at bus stops across Southern California in a show of force without establishing reasonable suspicion that they had violated immigration laws. They allege agents didn’t identify themselves, as required under federal law, and made unlawful arrests without warrants.

Government lawyers argued in their motion that “ethnicity can be a factor supporting reasonable suspicion in appropriate circumstances — for instance, if agents are acting on a tip that identifies that ethnicity — even if it would not be relevant in other circumstances,” lawyers stated in their motion.

Attorneys said in the motion that speaking Spanish, being at a particular location or one’s job “can contribute to reasonable suspicion in at least some circumstances.”

Government lawyers said Frimpong’s injunction was a first step to placing immigration enforcement under judicial monitorship and was “indefensible on every level.” They asked the higher court to pause the order while the appeal is heard.

The government is also appealing another injunction imposed by a federal judge in the Eastern District of California after Border Patrol agents stopped and arrested dozens of farmworkers and laborers — including a U.S. citizen — during a days-long operation in the Central Valley in January.

That case is likely to be heard later this year.

The MLB All-Star Game has served disparate purposes over the years. It always has been a showcase for baseball’s top talent. Once upon a time, the outcome determined home field advantage in the World Series. In recent years, it has been a fashion runway for ridiculous uniforms.

This year, it will be an incubator.

The Automated Ball-Strike (ABS) Challenge System will take its next measured step toward regular-season implementation when it is used in the All-Star Game on Tuesday in Atlanta.

Just as ABS was conducted during spring training, each team will get two challenges that can be made only by the pitcher, catcher or batter. Successful challenges are retained.

The player making a challenge taps his cap or helmet to let the plate umpire know that his ball or strike call will be reviewed. The ubiquitous Hawk-Eye system tracks the trajectory and location of the pitch and and a graphic of the pitch is displayed on the scoreboard while the call is being reviewed.

In the minor leagues, ABS has been tested since 2021 and the ABS challenge was implemented in 2022. Major leaguers got their first taste during spring training.

Result? Not much difference from the calls made by human umpires. Strikeouts were reduced slightly and walks increased a tick.

“We have made a lot of progress in the way the system works,” MLB vice president of on-field strategy Joe Martinez said at a media-demonstration session during spring training, “and also the way we weave the system into the game play. And we’re at a point in triple-A where we have a system that the players like, the coaches like, the umpires like and the fans like.”

The shape of a major league strike zone as called by umpires isn’t the precise cube seen on television but takes a rounded form that bulges wider in the middle of the zone and tightens at the top and bottom.

Human umpires continue to improve, in no small part because pitch tracking puts every call under a microscope. MLB umpires have improved their accuracy in calling balls and strikes every year since pitch tracking technology was introduced in 2008, according to FanGraphs. Accuracy has spiked from 81.3% to 92.4%. Expressed another way, incorrect calls have been reduced by nearly 60% in 15 years.

Major League Baseball negotiated a change with the umpires association last offseason in how home-plate umpires are evaluated, effectively tightening the strike zone. The change decreased the margin of error for umpires in their evaluations, resulting in fewer called strikes off the edges of the plate.

Still, a handful of calls are missed in nearly every game, and the all-stars will have an opportunity to tap their caps and challenge at least two calls per team. Should the experiment be a hit with participants and fans, the next step will be for the 11-person MLB competition committee to consider implementing the challenge system for the 2026 regular season.

All-Star notes

— All-Stars will wear what they wear during regular-season games, meaning those unsightly uniforms that were uniformly panned by players and fans the last several years will remain in a closet somewhere. This will be the first year since 2019 that players wear the regular-season uniforms of their teams.

— Department of serendipity: The All-Star Game will take place on Tuesday (7/15) in Atlanta, the number and location of Hank Aaron’s historic home run in 1974 that vaulted him past Babe Ruth to become MLB’s all-time leader at the time. Hammerin’ Hank blasted No. 715 off the Dodgers’ Al Downing at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium. The tribute will re-create the moment through the use of projection mapping and custom pyrotechnics at the end of the sixth inning.

— MLB All-Star week begins Saturday with the Futures Game. The MLB draft will be held Sunday, the Home Run Derby is scheduled for Monday with the All-Star Game taking place Tuesday.

Ask any vegan about the early days of plant-based ice cream, and they’ll shudder at the thought. Remember the chalky, grainy consistency? The barely-there sweetness? Before Los Angeles became a hub for vegan cuisine, sorbet was the best available option. Thankfully, that’s no longer the case — now, some of the best scoop shops in the city are dedicated to plant-based ice cream that delivers the same flavor and texture you’d expect from dairy versions.

Opened in 2010, KindKreme was L.A.’s first fully dairy-free ice cream chain, operating three locations before it closed, one at the former Sage Regenerative Kitchen and Brewery in Echo Park. It remained one of the city’s only destinations for vegan ice cream until 2014, when Van Leeuween launched artisanal pint flavors.

The trend picked up in 2015 with the opening of Yoga-urt, a plant-based frozen yogurt chain that now has four locations. Around the same time, established creameries began introducing vegan options, and oat, cashew and macadamia milks started landing in stores, indicating a growing desire for dairy milk alternatives.

Magpies Softserve opened in Silver Lake the following year, with “flavors that reflect the city, like horchata, ube, Thai tea and black sesame,” said Warren Schwartz, who co-owns the chain with his wife Rose. The couple uses a coconut cream, oat milk and nut milk base for soft serve that also makes its way into pies. “We experimented with plant-based fats, emulsifiers and natural stabilizers to get that creamy, satisfying texture that people expect,” he added.

L.A. is now awash with vegan ice cream shops serving flavors inspired by childhood nostalgia, cultural heritage and our region’s abundant year-round produce. From raw-vegan ice cream made with young Thai coconut meat to dairy-free frozen yogurt infused with healthy probiotics, here are 10 vegan ice cream shops to help you cool down this summer.

Balamory, which starred the likes of Julie Wilson Nimmo as Miss Hoolie, is set to return after the BBC announced last year that it had commissioned two new series for CBeebies

A cast member from the original Balamory has announced that they will be part of the pre-school show’s return on CBeebies. It comes after the BBC announced plans for a “reboot” of the show, which is said to be getting a “revamp”.

It was announced last year that Balamory would be revived more than 20 years since it last aired. The broadcaster said at the time that the reboot is expected to launch in 2026 with the first of two new series that it had commissioned.

The BAFTA-winning show, which launched on the BBC children’s channel in 2002, focused on the fictional island community off the coast of Scotland. It ran for four series before coming to an end two decades ago in 2005.

It included Julie Wilson Nimmo, now 53, who played Miss Hoolie, among its cast. Miss Hoolie, who acted as the narrator of each episode, was introduced as a nursery teacher and remained the lead character throughout.

Julie has now confirmed that she will be back for the new series of Balamory. She shared the news in response to a fan who asked about the prospect in the comments section of a post about the actor doing yoga on Sunday.

The fan asked in the comments section on Instagram over the weekend: “Are you going to be in Balamory reboot?” Julie, who liked the comment, addressed the prospect in a reply. She simply responded to the fan: “Yup.”

It was previously suggested by the BBC that the new series will feature characters from the original show, as well as introducing a host of new residents of Balamory. No casting details were included in the initial announcement, though.

Balamory had been filmed in the village of Tobermory. It was announced last year that the new series will either be filmed in the same location or elsewhere in Scotland, with the prospect of Rothesay mentioned at the time.

Julie returned to Tobermory at the end of her BBC Scotland show Jules and Greg’s Wild Swim, in which she toured wild swimming locations with her husband Greg Hemphill. She teased then that she felt emotional being back.

Whilst arriving into the village, she told her husband on the docuseries, which aired last year: “This is magical.” She added: “I actually feel really emotional.” Julie, who later took photos with fans, then said: “I’m pure welling up.”

Speaking about the reboot, Julie said: “It’s the craziest and best news ever that Balamory is coming back. I seriously think this is bigger than the Oasis reunion. Everyone I know loves the show and has been missing it.”

When the BBC first announced the revival last year, it said that the new series will be set in the fictional Balamory, with stories “centred around a nursery school and their teacher.” It added that it’s interested in “some” of the original characters being included alongside “a host of new faces”.

Kate Morton, Head of Commissioning 0-6 for BBC Children’s and Education, said at the time: “A whole new generation will discover and enjoy Balamory as we bring families together with this new update for CBeebies. It will be a real treat for parents who grew up with the show to now introduce their little ones to the brightly coloured world getting to know a host of old and new characters together.”

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