Los Angeles police say they are looking into “assault with a deadly weapon” charges after someone drove a truck through a crowd of people demonstrating in support of protesters in Iran. A banner on the side of the vehicle said “No Shah” and “Don’t repeat 1953” in apparent reference to that year’s US-backed coup.
Published On 12 Jan 202612 Jan 2026
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WASHINGTON — After a day of partisan feuding over illegal immigration, Senate Republicans and Democrats agreed Thursday to commit $3 billion to gain “operational control” over the southern U.S. border within two years.
The money would be used to build more fencing, vehicle barriers, and camera and radar towers, as well as hire additional border and immigration agents.
The decision to attach the funding to the Homeland Security spending bill puts President Bush — who has said he would veto the overall legislation — in the uncomfortable position of opposing a popular initiative to improve border security.
The 89-1 vote came just two months after the Senate failed to pass a broad immigration bill amid an impassioned assault by critics who branded it as “amnesty” for illegal immigrants. And it reignited the debate in the Senate over two of the thorniest issues: whether the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. should be allowed to become citizens, and whether enforcement alone can stem illegal immigration.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stressed that the $3-billion amendment to the $37.6-billion domestic security bill was just a start to overhauling immigration laws. “Democrats believe stronger border security is an important first step toward fixing our broken immigration system, and we will continue to work toward the enactment of comprehensive immigration reform,” he said.
The bill passed later Thursday, 89 to 4.
Republicans and Democrats had tangled on the Senate floor Wednesday over a more punitive version of the amendment. But Reid and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) came to a late-night agreement that eliminated some elements Republicans had backed, such as a measure allowing hospital workers and police to ask about immigration status.
“Some say we’ve tried enforcement. We really haven’t, in my view,” Cornyn said. “We can do it, it’s just a matter of political will.”
The amendment passed Thursday would pay for substantial increases in manpower — boosting the number of Border Patrol agents to 23,000 from the current 12,000 and adding customs and immigration agents, human smuggling investigators and deputy marshals.
It also would finance significant new fortifications along the 2,000-mile border with Mexico: 700 miles of fencing, 300 miles of vehicle barriers, 105 camera and radar towers, and four unmanned aerial vehicles.
The measure would bolster other enforcement efforts as well: It would reimburse state and local governments for the cost of helping federal agents enforce immigration laws, improve systems to allow employers to check worker eligibility, and require the deportation of people who overstay their visas. The measure also would ensure that federal officials have the space to detain up to 45,000 illegal border crossers at one time.
“This $3 billion is as necessary for national security as any spending we do in Iraq,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), the amendment’s author.
Graham had been a central supporter of the Senate’s failed immigration bill and had argued that the only way to overhaul the system would be comprehensively.
But in the wake of that bill’s demise and amid withering criticism from his constituents, Graham — who is up for reelection next year — began to argue that it was time to approach the immigration problem in stages.
On Thursday, he likened the decisive vote to pass his amendment to “having been robbed 12 million times and finally getting around to putting a lock on the door.”
Graham’s allies in the push for a comprehensive bill were critical Thursday. “The fact is that border security is an important part of a comprehensive package, and everyone knows that this is not the answer,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) said.
But Cornyn, who voted against the comprehensive bill, said the approach to immigration reform would have to be an incremental one. He predicted that heightened enforcement would make it increasingly difficult for employers to find legal workers, leading businesses to pressure Congress to pass more comprehensive reform.
“Frankly, employers were not as vocal as they should have been” during the immigration debate, he said.
Kennedy was asked, within earshot of Graham, whether he agreed with Cornyn’s theory. “Say yes,” Graham suggested. Kennedy did not answer.
California’s two Democratic senators, Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer, voted for the amendment.
The lone dissent came from Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio), who objected to the level of “irresponsible and excessive” spending. Voinovich pointed out that the bill already contained $14.9 billion to pay for port, border and transportation security, as well as funding for first responders in emergencies.
Voinovich also noted that the Department of Homeland Security already spends one-third of its budget on border security and immigration enforcement, “a clear reflection of its priorities.”
The House earlier passed its version of the Homeland Security spending bill, and congressional negotiators will decide whether to include the additional border security spending in the final version.
Bush threatened to veto the Senate bill — which included $2.4 billion more than he had requested even before the $3-billion border amendment. Republican senators said the White House also opposed that amendment. But, they said, the addition of the border spending would make it harder for Bush to veto the bill.
The White House did not return calls for comment.
On Thursday, Reid sent Bush a challenge.
“The Senate demonstrated today that it overwhelmingly supports tough border security,” Reid said. “We hope the president shows us he shares our concern by dropping his irresponsible threat to veto the Homeland Security spending bill.”
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The post of California lieutenant governor is a bit like the human appendix: It serves no necessary function and at times it can be a real pain. This is because the top two officials are independently elected and the rule in recent years has been to have a governor of one party and a lieutenant governor of the other. Lieutenant governors have at times caused mischief when a governor of the opposing party traveled out of state, leaving the No. 2 official as acting governor.
It appears, however, that Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante will have a major role in the administration of the new governor, Democrat Gray Davis. Bustamante, a Fresno Democrat, stands to be the first lieutenant governor in modern California history to wield real clout.
Recent governors have treated their lieutenant governors with indifference or antagonism, even when they were of the same political party. The lieutenant governor has few official duties but one enormous responsibility: succeeding to the governorship if the chief executive dies or resigns.
Now there’s a new look in Sacramento. Bustamante, a former speaker of the Assembly, campaigned with Davis and became an integral part of his transition team, helping select the first appointees to Davis’ administration. This past week, Davis put Bustamante in charge of a key commission that will develop a plan to meet California’s infrastructure needs for the next decade.
Beyond that, Bustamante’s specific role in the new administration has yet to be spelled out. But he is expected to be the administration’s liaison with Mexico, a job in which he can perform a valuable service in shoring up California’s tattered relations with our southern neighbor.
Reformers keep trying to change the state Constitution so that candidates for governor and lieutenant governor run on the same ticket. But all such proposals have been defeated. For now, relations between the two officials must depend on how much the governor wants the No. 2 official to be involved.
So long as they serve independently, however, there is one constitutional change that is urgently needed: that the governor retain his powers when he leaves the state. The idea that the lieutenant governor becomes acting governor the minute the chief crosses the state line is a relic of stagecoach days. The Legislature should start the process to amend the Constitution to recognize this reality.
For now, at least, whenever Davis must leave California, it appears he will have a trusted ally–not an appendix–filling in for him. That is good for Davis and good for California.
The NFL play-offs have got off to a thrilling start with the Los Angeles Rams needing a late touchdown to escape a huge upset at the Carolina Panthers.
The Rams were not only heavy favourites to win on Wildcard Weekend but are among the Super Bowl favourites.
But they needed a touchdown by tight end Colby Parkinson with 38 seconds remaining to claim a 34-31 win in Charlotte.
Despite coming into the post-season with a losing 8-9 record, Carolina had home advantage having stumbled to the NFC South division title.
The Rams, who finished the regular season 12-5, looked on course for a straightforward passage to the Divisional Round after Puka Nacua scored the opening two touchdowns.
But the Panthers regrouped and rushing touchdowns by Chuba Hubbard and quarterback Bryce Young cut the score to 17-14 at half-time, before the hosts tied the game in the third quarter.
Hubbard and Jalen Coker twice put the Panthers in front during the final quarter, but the Rams replied each time with Kyren Williams then Parkinson scoring from passes by quarterback Matt Stafford, who is favourite for this season’s Most Valuable Player award.
Molly Yard, National Organization for Women president, and Eleanor Smeale, former president, do not speak for all NOW members when they say they will not work for any current Democratic candidate (Part I, Aug. 25) other than Rep. Pat Schroeder (D-Colo.).
Granted, there probably isn’t a feminist alive who does not respect and admire Schroeder. I, for one, would rejoice to have her as our President.
But it is erroneous to suggest NOW members will sit out the 1988 elections because the other candidates are dull.
This NOW member believes we have several exciting, strong, intelligent candidates.
Furthermore, to imply there is no difference between a (Democratic Massachusetts Gov.) Michael Dukakis (who favors reproductive choice for all women, including medical funding of abortions for poor women) and a (Republican New York Rep.) Jack Kemp (who favors a constitutional amendment banning abortion for all women, even victims of rape) is not only inane, it is downright irresponsible.
I am distressed that as a NOW activist I might be associated with their unenlightened point of view. Speaking for myself, come 1988, I’ll be out there–and I suspect thousands of other NOW women and men will be there with me–working for the pro-civil rights, pro-human rights, pro-reproductive rights candidate. Schroeder? Dukakis? (Illinois Sen. Paul) Simon? Or . . . ?
JOANNE J. PARKER
West Los Angeles Chapter
California NOW Foundation, President
The main ingredient in lomo saltado, the juicy, stir-fried comfort dish of my childhood, only takes a minute to cook. It can go by in such a flash that you can miss it if you’re not paying attention, so I always made sure to watch for that moment when the flames go up.
I remember standing in rapt attention at the edge of the stovetop as my mom tossed fresh, thinly sliced beef into an oiled pan set on maximum heat. The steak hissed and leaped in a dramatic dance as flames licked the pan from underneath. My mom turned to me and said, “This is why it’s called lomo saltado: the lomo is the steak, and watch how it’s saltando — jumping.”
“The secret is in the smoke,” says Miriam Ramirez, owner of Lonzo’s Restaurant in Culver City. “When you cook lomo saltado, the room should be filled with the smell of smoke. I remember getting it for lunch in Peru and thinking, ‘Oh no, my hair smells like smoke!’ But that’s how I knew it would be good.”
Lomo saltado consists of tomato, onion and bell pepper, seared with steak, traditionally in a wok, and served with sides of rice and potato fries. Peruvians call soy sauce, which is used generously in the dish, “sillao” (pronounced see-yow).
Newcomers to Peruvian cuisine might be surprised to find that soy sauce has a major place in recipes. My Peruvian family always says that in any good meat dish, sillao is the secret ingredient.
“When the dish is already so simple, every ingredient matters,” Ramirez says.
“See-yow” is also the pronunciation for soy sauce in Cantonese. Understanding how a Cantonese word entered Peru’s lingo is a long historical lesson that can be best explained by another Chinese-Peruvian word: chifa. Chifa, which comes from the Mandarin word “chīfàn,” meaning to eat, describes the thriving Chinese-Peruvian fusion cuisine and indirectly, the immigrant history of Peru.
According to researcher Patricia Palma, Chinese immigrants arrived in Peru in the mid-19th century, as laborers after the abolishment of slavery created a demand for cheap labor. As this population grew over the years, Chinese-Peruvian descendants carved out a niche in chifa that reflected their heritage alongside centuries-old Peruvian staples.
“L.A. is so diverse and that’s why I think Peruvian food draws people in. It has a multicultural identity too,” says Benny Gomez, owner of Rosty Peruvian Food in Highland Park. “There’s Chinese and Japanese communities who identify with the Asian influence but also Mexican people who are seeing a different type of Latino food.”
Peru’s lomo saltado is not only a beautiful marriage of the two cultures, but a perfectly balanced ode to each culture’s culinary traditions: Peru is reflected in the potatoes, aji amarillo and bell pepper, and China in the stir-fry technique and of course, the sillao.
“Peruvian food has 14,000 years of history,” says Ignacio Barrios Jacobs, lead chef of Merka Saltao in Culver City. “I think [lomo saltado] holds the story of Chinese immigrants who were cooking their food for people who said, ‘this needs my potato and chile peppers.’”
In Culver City, East Hollywood, and the San Fernando Valley, Peruvian restaurants are combining traditional flavors with distinctly Angeleno flair, like saltado burritos or California oak wood-fired rotisserie chicken.
“When my dad opened his Peruvian restaurant 30 years ago, Peruvian was not popular at all in L.A.,” says Dennis Tamashiro, owner of Mario’s Peruvian and Seafood. “Now, people are paying attention, because it proves that it’s unique.”
Here are eight takes on lomo saltado to try in Los Angeles, from classic versions that remind me of home, to creative takes that make the dishes distinctly L.A.
Santa Fe, N.M. — Meow Wolf is coming to Los Angeles. And with its move to the Southland, the experiential art collective isn’t just taking over a former movie theater, it is, in a sense, placing a skewed spotlight on Hollywood’s grandiosity itself.
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Born in Santa Fe, N.M., more than a decade ago, Meow Wolf’s fast-tracked rise has taken the company to Denver, Las Vegas, Houston and the Dallas suburbs. Along the way the firm has skirted the line between theme park-like interactive experiences and hand-made, outsider art, pitching itself as a new form of all-encompassing, maximalist, sensory overloaded entertainment — or, in the words of one of its creative directors, “that classic feeling of good confusion.”
Destined to open in late 2026 at West L.A.’s Howard Hughes entertainment complex, Meow Wolf has kept much of its plan for Los Angeles under wraps. Until now.
Meow Wolf arist Chris Hilson spins a hanging mobile. Hilson is working on multiple pieces for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos / For The Times)
A work in progress piece by Los Angeles collective Everything Is Terrible. “Los Angeles is a city built on madness, dreams — broken and realized — and most importantly, simulacra. With this work, we are confronting propaganda, competing narratives, forgotten labor and myths that refuse to die,” said the group in a statement.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It’s been known that the installation would be taking over a large section of what had long been the Cinemark movie theaters. Meow Wolf, however, is using the location to lean into one of L.A’s longest standing — and currently troubled — ritualistic experiences. In the same way exhibitions in Santa Fe or Las Vegas begin in an otherworldly house or an extraordinary grocery store before getting truly psychedelic, Meow Wolf Los Angeles will launch via a fantastical movie theater, one complete with a concession stand — beware of the animated, sentient candy — and a grand auditorium. Here, describes co-founder and executive vice president Sean Di Ianni, guests may spy transparent seats that appear to be floating.
“Over your head will be etherealized seats — sculptures of these kind of translucent seats that will be animated with light and hyper-directional sound,” Di Ianni says. “You might hear the inner monologue of a previous audience.”
Sean Di Ianni, co-founder of Meow Wolf, is leading development of the Los Angeles space, which is taking over part of Cinemark movie theaters at the Howard Hughes entertainment complex.
(Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times)
A view into the Meow Wolf warehouse during a walk through of new art projects that will be featured in Meow Wolf L.A.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
When Meow Wolf announced Los Angeles as its next destination for a full-scale, walk-through exhibition in 2024, it did so during a time of tumult, the company having just undergone a round of severe layoffs. And thus, Los Angeles became not just Meow Wolf’s next step but its rebirth.
During a two-day tour of Meow Wolf’s Santa Fe headquarters late last year, the company unveiled multiple pieces of art in various stages of planning, with installation in Los Angeles set to ramp up in the coming weeks. Though Meow Wolf is keeping certain story elements off the record for now, and some plans may shift as art is completed, expect an exhibit based around an intergalactic roadside attraction, a location destined for a pilgrimage. Throughout, guests will explore the hulls of a spaceship, hop on planet-traversing bikes and uncover a divey greasy spoon at the end of the galaxy, complete with sculptures of the proprietor at various stages of his life.
Artist Karen Lembke looks to see how the cape falls for a piece destined for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
But by grounding it in the nostalgia and timeless appeal of a movie theater, the hope is to also learn some lessons from more linear entertainment. “We pushed really hard on this one to take that story experience to the next level,” says Shakti Howeth, creative director. “We got so much feedback from other shows that people want more of that. They want it to make sense. They want to understand it. They want to think about it afterwards. They want to grab onto certain characters.”
Thus, it will be Meow Wolf’s first exhibition with a firm beginning, middle and conclusion, even if the latter is a bit open-ended. Meow Wolf is known for its byzantine tales, but here the company is aiming to simplify, zeroing in on a story that coalesces around our instinct for a rite of passage. Think, for instance, of the way humans may trek to witness a newborn panda, or similarly cross the globe to capture the aurora borealis. Locally, ceremonial destinations such as Disneyland or the corner chapel spring to mind — anywhere people gather craving community, connection, reverence and, hopefully, a revelation.
Though narrative plans date to 2022, before Los Angeles was chosen as the locale, once the team knew it was moving into a former movie theater it was sold on the concept. That’s in part due to the transcendent nature of cinema, but also a recognition of what Los Angeles represents culturally.
“It’s cool that we’re creating a story about a pilgrimage because L.A. is that for so many artists, especially people involved in storytelling,” says Howeth. “It’s one of those places that’s built on layers and layers of dreams, and we’re really exploring that here. Not only dreams, but broken dreams — the compost that can happen when you digest broken dreams.”
It’s not the only way the exhibition hopes to reflect Los Angeles. Throughout, we’ll follow the lives of three characters, some known to Meow Wolf die-hards and some new creations, such as a Boyle Heights-raised usher. Elsewhere, an installation bathed in neon and shape-shifting projections nods to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House. And Meow recently completed the filming of multiple short movies that serve as cinematic parodies — a Bob Fosse-inspired musical, a Clint Eastwood-style western, a “Lethal Weapon”-like action flick and more. They’ll be shown throughout the space, and expect to encounter characters possessing a cult-like obsession to the films.
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1. Work in progress pieces by aritst Jess Webb. 2. Costumes by Emmanuelle John. 3. Chris Hilson’s space bike model. (Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It isn’t lost on Meow Wolf creatives that they’re dabbling in themes of religious-like devotion to the art of storytelling at a time when Hollywood is in flux. The very venue for the exhibition, for instance, was open to the team largely because of the struggles that movie theaters have had to confront.
Early concepts had the exhibition starting, perhaps, in a motel, or a work that nodded to L.A.’s Midcentury architecture. “But being in L.A., a number of sites, due to the dire state of the movie theater business right now, were movie theaters,” says James Longmire, who works on Meow Wolf’s story development. “So why not a movie theater? Why not lean into that? In my mind, that immediately started to connect and feel a lot more resonant to this idea of art and story being important forces in humanity and human growth and how we grapple with not having answers to big questions.”
An art installation, partly inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright’s Ennis House, is planned for Meow Wolf Los Angeles.
(Gabriela Campos / For The Times)
And it will be interactive. A spiritual temple, for instance, will house a secretive space that Meow Wolf creatives refer to as a “reverse escape room,” in which guests will have to work together to find and break into. Creative director Elizabeth Jarrett, who worked on Scout Expedition’s long-running immersive L.A. show “The Nest,” is helping to devise a handful of quests and what Meow Wolf is calling “story moments,” which will take over an entire space. Lighting and visual cues, for instance, may direct audience members to collaborate or reposition themselves — a psychic motel room, perhaps, where a tree has grown into a couch. Sit in the right spot and cause the room to come alive with projections and cinematics.
It was important, says Jarrett, for the so-called story moments to be triggered by the audience. “The audience has a sense of agency in the story advancing,” Jarrett says. “We’re communicating when an opportunity is arising for you to choose to engage. The guests are a protagonist and a character as much as any other character in this world. There are characters who speak directly to the audience. We’re experimenting with breaking the fourth wall.”
Not all of the art, of course, will reference film. Meow Wolf is planning, for example, a two-player game in which tarot cards will be digitally constructed exquisite corpse-style. And art curator AJ Girard is working closely with dozens of L.A. artists to bring them into the space. Gabriela Ruiz is one such artist who will have a large presence in the exhibition, a part of Ruiz’s work being an adorably vibrant, multicolored insect that will serve as a periscope.
“I thought about a little bug because they have the ability to see infrared and visualize the world differently than we do,” Ruiz says.
Girard, too, views the space as something of a commentary on L.A. “Social media and social capital is so relevant in our city,” Girard says. “How do we make fun of it in an avant garde, punk, radical way? How do we poke holes at it?”
Meow Wolf Los Angeles will house a cafe that will feature neon art.
(Gabriela Campos/For The Times)
It won’t be easy, especially for a city that sometimes takes its main, exportable art a bit too self-serious. But if Los Angeles has long viewed the movie theater as a temple, perhaps it’s time someone turns one into a playground.
“It’s partly our job to be playful with it, to not let that weight crush us,” Di Ianni says. “Let’s poke fun at movies. Let’s celebrate them. Let’s have fun with the reputation of Los Angeles and its insane impact. We have to play. That’s what we’re inviting the audience to come in to do. They’ll hopefully have meaningful, emotionally resonant experiences that show them a different perspective on their own stories, but to get them there, they’re going to have to play.”
If you asked Los Alamitos basketball coach Nate Berger to be honest about early expectations for a team that returned zero starters, he would have said a 1-9 start wouldn’t have been surprising.
But the Griffins, loaded with backups from last season and members of a good junior varsity team, are 8-6 going into an early Sunset League showdown with 16-1 Corona del Mar on Monday.
Tyler Lopez has been leading the way. The senior committed to Jessup University in Northern California is averaging 17 points and eight rebounds. Sophomore Isaiah Williamson, younger brother of former Eastvale Roosevelt standout Issac Williamson, has been making major contributions.
Berger has been pleased with his players’ growing experience and confidence after some early season struggles adjusting.
“I was pleasantly surprised how my team responded and some of these young players have jelled,” he said.
This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.
WASHINGTON — Maria Eugenia Torres Ramirez was having dinner with her family in Los Angeles on Friday night when the flood of messages began. Word had begun to circulate that the U.S. was invading Venezuela and would seize its president, Nicolás Maduro.
Torres Ramirez, 38, fled her native country in 2021, settled in L.A. and has a pending application for asylum. Her family is scattered throughout the world — Colombia, Chile and France. Since her parents died, none of her loved ones remain in Venezuela.
Still, news that the autocrat who separated them had been captured delivered a sense of long-awaited elation and united the siblings and cousins across continents for a rare four-hour phone call as the night unfolded.
“I waited for this moment for so long from within Venezuela, and now that I’m out, it’s like watching a movie,” said Torres Ramirez, a former political activist who opposed Maduro. “It’s like a jolt of relief.”
Many Venezuelans across the U.S. celebrated the military action that resulted in Maduro’s arrest. Economic collapse and political repression led roughly 8 million Venezuelans to emigrate since 2014, making it one of the world’s largest displacement crises.
About 770,000 live in the U.S. as of 2023, concentrated mainly in the regions of Miami, Orlando, Houston and New York. Just over 9,500 live in L.A., according to a 2024 U.S. Census estimate.
In the South Florida city of Doral, home to the largest Venezuelan American community, residents poured into the streets Saturday morning, carrying the Venezuelan flag, singing together and praising the military action as an act of freedom.
In Los Angeles, a different picture emerged as groups opposed to Maduro’s arrest took to the streets, though none identified themselves as being of Venezuelan descent. At a rally of about 40 people south of downtown Los Angeles, John Parker, a representative of the Harriet Tubman Center for Social Justice, called the raid a “brutal assault and kidnapping” that amounted to a war crime.
The United States’ intervention in Venezuela had nothing to do with stopping the flow of drugs, he said, and everything to do with undermining a legitimate socialist government. Parker called for Maduro to be set free as a few dozen protesters behind him chanted, “Hands off Venezuela.”
Parker said when he visited Venezuela a few weeks ago as part of a U.S. peacemaking delegation, he saw “the love people had for Maduro.”
A later demonstration in Pershing Square drew hundreds out in the rain to protest the U.S intervention. But when a speaker led chants of “No war in Venezuela,” a woman draped in a Venezuelan flag attempted to approach him and speak into the microphone. A phalanx of demonstrators circled her and shuttled her away.
At Mi Venezuela, a restaurant in Vernon, 16-year-old Paola Moleiro and her family ordered empanadas Saturday morning.
A portion of one of the restaurant’s walls was covered in Venezuelan bank notes scrawled with messages. One read: “3 de enero del 2026. Venezuela quedo libre.”
Venezuela is free.
Around midnight the night before, Paola started getting messages on WhatsApp from her relatives in Venezuela. The power was out, they said, and they forwarded videos of what sounded like bomb blasts.
Paola was terrified. She’d left Venezuela at age 7 with her parents and siblings, first for Panama and later the U.S., in 2023. But the rest of her family remained in Venezuela, and she had no idea what was going on.
Paola and her family stayed up scanning television channels for some idea of what was happening. Around 1:30 a.m., President Trump announced that U.S. forces had captured Maduro.
“The first thing I did, I called my aunt and said, ‘We are going to see each other again,’” she said.
Because of the Venezuelan state’s control over media, her relatives had no idea their leader had been seized by U.S. forces. “Are you telling me the truth?” Paola said her aunt asked.
Paola hasn’t been home in nine years. She misses her grandmother and her grandmother’s cooking, especially her caraotas negras, or black beans. As a child, she said, certain foods were so scarce that she had an apple for the first time only after moving to Panama.
Paola said she was grateful to Trump for ending decades of authoritarian rule that had reduced her home country to a shell of what it once was.
“Venezuela has always prayed for this,” she said. “It’s been 30 years. I feel it was in God’s hands last night.”
For Torres Ramirez, it was difficult to square her appreciation for Trump’s accomplishment in Venezuela with the fear she has felt as an immigrant under his presidency.
“It’s like a double-edged sword,” she said. “Throughout the course of this whole year, I have felt persecuted. I had to face ICE — I had to go to my appointment with the fear that I could lose it all because the immigration policies had changed and there was complete uncertainty. For a moment, I felt as if I was in Venezuela. I felt persecuted right here.”
During a news conference Saturday morning, Trump said Maduro was responsible for trafficking illicit drugs into the U.S. and the deaths of thousands of Americans. He repeated a baseless claim that the Maduro government had emptied Venezuela’s prisons and mental institutions and “sent their worst and most violent monsters into the United States to steal American lives.”
“They sent everybody bad into the United States, but no longer, and we have now a border where nobody gets through,” he said.
Trump also announced that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela and its vast oil reserves.
“We’ll run it professionally,” he said. “We’ll have the greatest oil companies in the world go in and invest billions and billions of dollars and take that money, use that money in Venezuela, and the biggest beneficiary are going to be the people of Venezuela.”
Torres Ramirez said that while she’s happy about Maduro’s ouster, she’s unsure how to feel about Trump’s announcement saying the U.S. will take over Venezuela’s oil industry. Perhaps it won’t be favorable in the long term for Venezuela’s economy, she said, but the U.S. intervention is a win for the country’s political future if it means people can return home.
Patricia Andrade, 63, who runs Raíces Venezolanas, a volunteer program in Miami that distributes donations to Venezuelan immigrants, said she believes the Trump administration is making the right move by remaining involved until there is a transition of power.
Andrade, a longtime U.S. citizen, said she hasn’t been to Venezuela in 25 years — even missing the deaths of both parents. She said she was accused of treason for denouncing the imprisonment of political opponents and the degradation of Venezuela’s democracy under Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez. She said she worries that Venezuela’s remaining political prisoners could be killed as payback for Maduro’s arrest.
“We tried everything — elections, marches, more elections … and it couldn’t be done,” she said. “Maduro was getting worse and worse, there was more repression. If they hadn’t removed him, we were never going to recover Venezuela.”
While she doesn’t want the U.S. to fix the problems of other countries, she thanked Trump for U.S. involvement in Venezuela.
She said she can’t wait to visit her remaining family members there.
WILLIAM T. VOLLMANN is the author of numerous books, among them, “Rising Up and Rising Down: Some Thoughts on Violence, Freedom and Urgent Means,” and, most recently, “Poor People.”
CALIFORNIA HAS sometimes been referred to as “the Great Exception,” but for better and worse, this term applies quite well to all of our United States.
We commenced our independence as the nation that overthrew a government of men for a government of laws. William Blake wrote poems about us; the French Revolution was in part inspired by us. Like all institutions, we often fell short of our best possibilities, but bit by bit, falteringly and over decades and centuries, we improved ourselves. Belatedly and grudgingly, we abolished slavery; still more belatedly, we admitted that equality of representation included women as well as men. There are places on this Earth that have not yet achieved this much.
Nor did we rest there. I have visited any number of countries where free speech is not even a dream. In America, I can rail against my government to my heart’s content, knowing that there will be no midnight knock at my door. If some bully in uniform does pick on me, I have a decent chance of legally escaping his clutches.
Not only has America striven intermittently to be fair and even good, it remains an excellent place to make and keep money. It is, as they say, the locus of the easy life. And so, in spite of Native American genocide, Jim Crow, ruthless monopolism, etc., we became and for a very long time remained an ideal for ourselves and others.
I remember an old man from what used to be called Czechoslovakia; he escaped the communist regime by skiing over many mountains, and he finally found haven in California. I ate at his restaurant 40 years later. He told me that he had always dreamed of living in America. He still considered America the best place on Earth. In so many countries — from Kazakhstan to Colombia to Afghanistan — I have met people like him, people who long to be saved by going to America.
I remain grateful to have been born an American. As I get older, I admire our Constitution more and more. But what I love the most about my experience of American-ness is our famous individualism. Not everyone needs to like me, but I assume, with some correctness, that my eccentricities will be tolerated. I am my own person — and sometimes lonely for that, but that is the price that an American pays. I am, as you are, an exception in a crowd.
We are Americans, and so until recently, we knew that we were the best. Because so many people wanted to be us, we could act as we pleased — and we did, because we were the Great Exception; we were America the Blessed. Hence our complacent belief, so long borne out by the facts, that American movies and American brands would always sell. Hence also our comforting faith that the Kyoto Protocol did not apply to us, so that we could spew out all the greenhouse gases we liked, and use a pig’s share of the world’s resources. (Just this week, I learned of the U.S.’ new plan for energy independence: coal plants, subsidized for the next 25 years.)
Being America the Perfect, we invented the doctrine, even before 9/11, that we could seize war criminals in any part of the globe and whisk them off to The Hague. Of course, we insisted that should we ever commit war crimes, we would remain immune to prosecution in that court. Well, after all, how could Americans do any wrong?
Our current administration of torturers (this word sounds so shrill, so preposterous in relation to the America I believe in, that I have to remind myself over and over that it is literally accurate, that this president and his two attorneys general have quite literally legalized torture) has gone further in this direction than I ever could have imagined. President Bush’s modus operandi is this: Bull your way ahead. If you meet obstacles, overcome them with arrogant bluster. If this fails, proceed to vicious, mendacious brutality.
I wish I could blame him alone for the degradation of the America I loved. Unfortunately, Americans not only voted for this man, but after he proved himself to be a criminal, they reelected him. As one of my friends replied when I asked why we should attack Iraq when Iraq had done nothing to us: “Why not attack Iraq?”
We were Americans, you see. Why not do whatever suited our whims?
And now what? “They hate us,” we whisper to one another in amazement. In another decade, we might even begin to wonder about the degree of our exceptionality. What if we had to follow the rules that everyone else does?
Well, why not put off that pain as long as possible? It’s much more fun to remain the Great Exception.
Alas, while we hunker down behind the drawbridge, awaiting our next 9/11, we don’t even take the trouble to be united. Exceptionalism undermines us from within.
Alaskan towns are tilting in the melting permafrost, but who cares down in the Lower 48? Republicans and Democrats hate each other. Automobiles isolate us. Generations of advice-givers have made us believe that profit best defines the successful life, and so the white-collar crooks of Enron and the ghetto thugs who murder as they please celebrate their own exceptionalism against the rest of us.
Exceptionalism may be understandable and even excusable, but it should not be eternally acceptable. All-white juries have unjustly convicted black defendants in this country, and that makes me ashamed; but the notion that a 21st century criminal trial cannot be fair unless at least some jurors are the same race as the defendant is of a piece with the idea that men and women will never understand each other, that Muslim cab drivers can refuse to pick up passengers who carry liquor and that right-to-life pharmacists can refuse to fill a desperate woman’s prescription for the morning-after pill.
Let’s pander while Rome burns! I’m not worried; I’ll never catch fire. Like each and all of us, I’m my own favorite exception.
Clockwise from top middle: Tacos from Marvito, beef tartare from Monsieur Dior by Dominique Crenn, smoked bologna sandwich and fries from Mario’s Butcher Shop, spicy albacore with onigiri and seared scallops from OyBar, and a fish sandwich from Bopomofo cafe.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times, Ron de Angelis / For The Times, Philip Wang)
US president backs away from troop deployment to US cities amid legal setbacks, vows return when crime ‘begins to soar’.
United States President Donald Trump announced he is ceasing his efforts to deploy federal troops to several Democratic-led cities in a major policy pivot.
The announcement on Wednesday comes amid a series of legal setbacks to Trump’s efforts to deploy National Guard members to Chicago, Illinois; Los Angeles, California; and Portland, Oregon.
list of 3 itemsend of list
In a post on Truth Social, Trump said he’s “removing” the National Guard from those cities, although their deployment was already mostly limited by lower courts.
“We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact,” he said.
Despite the claim, the National Guard has been barred from taking direct part in law enforcement, which remains illegal under US law. Trump had not invoked the Insurrection Act of 1807, which allows presidents to deploy troops domestically when “unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion” against the federal government make it “impracticable to enforce” US law “by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings”.
Because of that, troops deployed in or around Los Angeles, Portland and Chicago had been largely tasked with guarding federal buildings and offering support services to immigration enforcement.
About 300 National Guard members remained under federal control in both Los Angeles and Chicago at the time of Trump’s announcement, with 200 more in Portland.
Since first deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles to respond to protests against mass immigration enforcement sweeps, Trump has repeatedly claimed major cities across the US have been plagued by overlapping crime and immigration crises.
Critics have accused Trump of taking part in dangerous political theatre to target opponents.
Trump’s announcement did not reference the ongoing National Guard deployment in Washington, DC, a federal territory, or in New Orleans, Louisiana, which had been specifically requested by the state’s Republican governor.
The president’s move comes amid a series of legal setbacks, topped last week by a Supreme Court order keeping in place a lower court’s ruling barring the president from deploying the National Guard to Chicago.
While members of the federal military, National Guard troops are typically deployed at the request of state governors. Presidents can unilaterally deploy the National Guard, but only in instances when other federal agents can no longer execute the law.
The majority of Supreme Court justices ruled Trump has not yet met that threshold, dealing a major blow to the administration’s justification for similar deployments across the country.
Earlier on Wednesday, Department of Justice lawyers in California withdrew a request to keep troops in the state under federal control as they appealed a lower court’s ruling. That ruling by US District Judge Charles Breyer said the troops must be returned to state control.
In a post on X, the office of California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat and top Trump critic, said the “admission by Trump and his occult cabinet members means this illegal intimidation tactic will finally come to an end”.
Newsom and his staff “look forward” to a more lasting court ruling on the issue.
For his part, Trump, in his Truth Social post, said he would not hesitate to redeploy troops.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again – Only a question of time!” he said.
2025 was challenging for Angelenos. The year began with the double firestorms, and chaos and uncertainty continued into June when immigration agents and protesters clashed, as the Trump administration deployed thousands of National Guard troops to the city. Unquestionably, these news events were among the most-read articles published by the Los Angeles Times this year.
However, several other stories made the list, including two notable faith-focused stories, how Cesar Galan joined the priesthood after belonging to a violent L.A. street gang and how the hosts of a popular evangelical podcast known as “Girls Gone Bible” have become unlikely religious authorities.
To look back on the diverse stories that defined this year, we compiled our most-visited coverage into three categories: The articles that attracted the highest number of readers, the stories our audience spent the longest time reading (most of them are accompanied by audio) and the most popular stories that only our subscribers get to read.
Most-read stories | Deep reads | Subscribers’ favorites
(ranked by overall number of visits)
The Times published countless live blogs, stories, investigations and feature pieces related to the catastrophic January fires that blazed through thousands of acres, killed 31, forced the evacuation of roughly 100,000 people and destroyed more than 16,000 structures.
These stories, undoubtedly, received the highest number of visits, as the Eaton and Palisades fires brought disruption, displacement and uncertainty across the city.
Residents received faulty emergency alerts, exposing early on the systemic failures in preparedness, evacuation protocols and emergency response. The Times reviewed the aftermath of L.A.’s double disaster to call city and county officials to account, reveal critical gaps and make the case for ensuring that we’ll be better prepared next time.
The news of the killings of “When Harry Met Sally” director Rob Reiner and his photographer wife, Michele Singer Reiner, sent shock waves across Hollywood and the country’s political establishment — Reiner championed progressive causes and was involved in efforts to challenge the proposition that had banned same-sex marriage in California in 2008. Reiner’s son Nick, who struggled with addiction for years, was arrested on suspicion of murdering his parents.
What we know about Nick’s addiction struggle and the hours before the director and his wife were killed.
A massive earthquake of magnitude 8.8 in Russia brought tsunami alerts to a wide swath of the Pacific. After the tsunami waves arrived in California, advisories were downgraded and canceled for much of the state. Southern California saw only modest waves and the highest tsunami waves reported on state shores peaked around 4 feet in Crescent City, about 20 miles from the Oregon border, where a dock was damaged. For how monstrous the earthquake was, why was there so little damage?
In September, detectives discovered a girl’s badly decomposed remains in an abandoned Tesla registered to rising singer D4vd at a Hollywood tow yard. Authorities identified the remains as those of 15-year-old Celeste Rivas, an Inland Empire resident who was reported missing in April 2024. According to court documents reviewed by The Times, the LAPD is now investigating Rivas’ death as a homicide.
The fifth-most read story of the year was those pertaining to the June immigration raids and protests in L.A. On June 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out a series of immigration sweeps, including two downtown that sparked a tense standoff. In the following days, immigration agents and protesters clashed across L.A. In a show of force, President Trump sent 2,000 California National Guard troops to the city, marking the first time in 60 years that a president had deployed a state’s National Guard without a request from that state’s governor.
Read more about what happened in the days following the National Guard’s arrival in L.A. and find more immigration stories here.
As the wildfires raged into Wednesday, Jan. 8, scores of fire hydrants in Pacific Palisades had little to no water flowing out and all water storage tanks in the area quickly “went dry.” Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered an investigation into the causes behind the dry fire hydrants that hampered firefighting efforts and L.A. City Council called on the city’s water utility to explain why firefighters ran out of water and why a key reservoir was offline.
Nearly a year later, residents and experts are examining the weaknesses of L.A.’s water systems and are calling to redesign Southern California’s water infrastructure.
Also widely read: State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded
Seven-month-old Emmanuel Haro disappeared on Aug. 14 after his mother, Rebecca Haro, said she was assaulted by an unknown man in a sporting goods store’s parking lot and was rendered unconscious. The missing baby’s mom told investigators that when she awoke, her son was gone. More than a week later, baby Emmanuel’s parents were arrested on suspicion of murder.
According to a news release from the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department, the couple faked the story about their son being kidnapped. In November, Jake Haro, Emmanuel’s father, was sentenced to 25 years to life for the murder of his son.
In late January, after President Trump said on social media that the U.S. military had “entered” California and “TURNED ON THE WATER,” the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dramatically increased the amount of water flowing from two dams in Tulare County. In a visit to L.A. the previous week, Trump had also vowed to “open up the valves and pumps” in California to deliver more water. Local water managers were caught off-guard by the decision, but they said they convinced Army Corps officials to release less water than originally planned.
A week after the Palisades fire began, several areas reopened to residents as officials continued to investigate the cause of the wildfire. Officials focused their efforts on a popular hiking trail that reveals the famous Skull Rock and views of the Pacific Ocean. The general area was the site of a small fire on New Year’s Eve that burned for a few hours before fire officials said they extinguished it.
In October, authorities offered a detailed timeline about what they allege caused the fire: The Jan. 1 blaze, now known as the Lachman fire, rekindled to become the Palisades fire days later. They also simultaneously announced the arrest of a 29-year-old man whom they suspected of setting the initial fire on New Year’s Eve. He has now been charged with deliberately setting the Lachman fire.
A Times investigation later found that firefighters were ordered to leave the smoldering burn site, instead of monitoring the burn area for reignitions.
Over the first weekend of the January fires, firefighters were able make progress with the help of calmer winds and higher humidity. As a fleet of aircraft worked to prevent the Palisades fire from scorching homes in Brentwood and Encino, officials warned that Santa Ana gusts were expected to pick up again the following week and cautioned the public to stay on alert.
Most-read stories | Deep reads | Subscribers’ favorites
(ranked by average time spent on the page)
This is the story of Father Cesar Galan, a chaplain at St. Francis Medical Center, who experienced the lowest moment of his life and found the grace to change in the very hospital in which he now listens to patients’ fears, prays with them and offers to hear their confessions if they are Catholic. Galan grew up in the heart of Chivas and belonged to its street gang until a bullet spun him down to the ground on his stomach.
For Alejandro Sánchez, reclaiming a gold mine in Mexico, which was taken over by the sons of the drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was more than a business proposition. It was a reckoning with his past.
For years, Sánchez had worked to revive the mine, encountering corrupt officials and cartel operatives who demanded hefty bribes. He once had to dive for cover during a firefight. But now he was close to resuming operations at the mine with deposits worth billions.
Why did the billion-dollar mine matter so much to Sánchez and was he able to reckon with his past and reclaim the billion-dollar mine?
Angela Halili and Arielle Reitsma are best friends who both have a background in modeling and acting. Nearly every week for the last two years, the two have shared heart-to-hearts that are at the core of “Girls Gone Bible,” their faith-based podcast they launched in 2023. The evangelical podcast now has millions of listeners and as a result, Halili and Reitsma have built a two-microphone megachurch. They have gone on a national live tour and prayed at President Trump’s pre-inauguration rally.
The co-hosts of this podcast that tops religious charts on Spotify predict that a Southern Californian Christian revival is coming.
Times staff writer Christopher Goffard revists old crimes in L.A. and beyond, from the famous to the forgotten, in his series “Crimes of The Times.” In this installment of the series, Goffard examined the 1968 assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in California, after the Trump administration released a cache of classified files.
Convicted gunman Sirhan Sirhan’s current attorney, Angela Berry, said a team of researchers is combing the files for new evidence. Have they been able to find anything of use?
As the Eaton fire devastated parts of the San Gabriel Valley, Santa Anita Park stepped up and fulfilled its role as a community citizen. Even though the 80-year-old track was unaffected by the fires and the air quality was well within the range for safe racing, the park canceled racing the first week after the fires and opened up its expansive space to be used as a center for donation collection and distribution among other charitable gestures.
But horse racing is decades past the days when spectators lined up to watch the sport. As attendance continues to decline from what it was years ago, many battle with the unfathomable idea that the track may soon close or be sold.
This is the story of Jerardyn, a 40-year-old refugee from Venezuela, who at the height of the immigration raids and protests in Southern California, confronted a painful decision: After entering the United States last year with her family in hopes of obtaining asylum, Jerardyn would migrate again, this time, voluntarily.
Authorities initially ruled the 2023 death of 18-year-old Amelia Salehpour an open-and-shut case of accidental overdose. The medical examiner’s office agreed, deciding against a more thorough autopsy. But Salehpour’s family was unconvinced. They hired a high-end investigative firm that uncovered evidence that Amelia was being groomed for sex work, that she was strangled to death and that her death had been made to look like an overdose.
The contradictory findings have since triggered internal conflict among L.A. County prosecutors and detectives from the LAPD’s homicide and narcotics units.
From Andrew Garfield to Zendaya, Daniel Craig and Demi Moore, Hollywood’s biggest stars dressed to impress at the 82nd Golden Globe Awards.
Also widely read: Oscars red carpet 2025: Ariana Grande, Mikey Madison and all the best looks
Since L.A. experienced its first wide-scale homelessness during the Great Depression and the housing crunch after World War II, it has suffered chronic homelessness. Former Times staff writers Mitchell Landsberg and Gale Holland explored the key events and policies that shaped L.A. to become the homeless capital of the U.S.
In April 2024, USC hired a new coach for its men’s basketball program. USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen declared the day Eric Musselman was introduced as a “transformational day for USC men’s basketball.” Almost a year later, in March, Times USC beat writer Ryan Kartje joined Musselman toward the end of a hard first season.
Most-read stories | Deep reads | Subscribers’ favorites
(subscriber-exclusive stories ranked by number of visits)
A new California housing bill, which took effect July 1, has changed the way homeowners associations are allowed to discipline homeowners. The changes came just in time for Jinah Kim, who was set to be fined up to $500 per day for fixing a doorway inside her condo even though her homeowners association said she couldn’t. Under the new rules, she now owes only $100.
Will the new rules allow homeowners to get away with things they shouldn’t and abuse community rules?
In July, talk show host Phil McGraw’s TV network, Merit Street Media, which launched last year, filed for bankruptcy protection from creditors and sued its distribution partner, Trinity Broadcasting Network. During a nearly three-hour hearing in Dallas in October, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Scott Everett said that he’d “never seen a case” like the Chapter 11 filing Dr. Phil’s company was attempting.
How did the genial celebrity psychologist’s media network crash?
Entering the job market can be a stressful endeavor for new graduates and for a fresh generation of students behind them who are preparing to start their college journeys. The unemployment rate for recent college graduates is at its highest nationwide since 2021. What are the lowest- and highest-paying majors according to a Federal Reserve Bank of New York report?
This investigation was so popular, it also landed on our list of deep reads.
Every year for the last 13 years, The Times has published its essential guide to L.A.’s dining scene. This year, Times restaurant critic Bill Addison took the challenge further and spent months journeying California to find the best restaurants that depict the state’s eclectic food scene accurately. Instead of ranking the restaurants that make the Golden State, in Addison’s words, a “culinary juggernaut,” the list, which is only a beginning, offers a glimpse into the cultures and diversities that make up California. Start eating!
Also widely read: These are the 101 best restaurants in Los Angeles
This is the grisly story of Patrice Miller, 71, who was found dead with her right leg and left arm partially gnawed off in her kitchen and whose autopsy determined, officials said, that she had probably been killed by an animal after it broke into her home. Miller’s death marked the first known instance in California history of a fatal bear attack on a human and has sparked increasingly heated battles around predators in the state.
What solutions are lawmakers representing conservative rural districts in the state’s rugged northern reaches pushing forward? Would measures to ward off California’s predators increase safety?
Tulsa Remote is a program that pays remote workers to relocate to Oklahoma’s second-largest city for at least a year. Since its inception in 2019, the program has attracted more than 3,600 remote workers. More than 7,800 Californians have applied to the program and 539 have made the move.
Why are Californians moving to Tulsa through the program, cementing California as the second-most popular origin state behind Texas?
In a more recent edition of the “Crimes of the Times” series, Goffard writes about a 50-year-old West Virginia man, Alex Baber, who dropped out of high school and taught himself codebreaking. Baber now says he has cracked the Zodiac killer’s identity, and in the process solved the Black Dahlia case as well.
This series attracted a high number of readers and also landed on our list of deep reads.
Artificial intelligence’s coding capabilities and tools are rapidly advancing, making experienced engineers more productive. But these improvements now outpace entry-level programmers, making job prospects for early-career software engineers more difficult to find.”We don’t need the junior developers anymore,” said Amr Awadallah, chief executive of Vectara, a Palo Alto-based AI startup. “The AI now can code better than the average junior developer that comes out of the best schools out there.”
Los Tigres del Norte have gone gold and platinum many times, but on Sunday the acclaimed group went yellow for the first time.
The Grammy-winning band appeared in animated form on the latest episode of “The Simpsons,” which aired Sunday, and performed an original corrido about the escapades of Homer Simpson and Pedro Chespirito (also known as the Bumblebee Man).
The unexpected collaboration came with some anticipation as the long-running show promoted the group’s appearance Friday on social media.
“A legendary band. An original song. A very Simpson twist. @lostigresdelnorte perform “El Corrido de Pedro y Homero” this Sunday on FOX,” the program’s official Instagram page wrote in a post alongside a pair of stills from the episode.
The “Jaula de Oro” artists appear only in the end credits and their tune recaps the zany adventures of Homer and Pedro within the episode. In the Simpsons-verse, Pedro Chespirito plays a beloved character on the slapstick comedy Spanish-language show “Channel Ocho.” The character is an homage to Mexican television icon Roberto Gómez Bolaños, better known as “Chespirito.” Bumblebee Man is a nod to “El Chapulín Colorado,” and “Channel Ocho” is a reference to to Gómez Bolaño’s best known character, El Chavo del Ocho.
“We are deeply grateful and very happy for this special moment in our history, being part of the universe of The Simpsons,” Los Tigres Del Norte told Rolling Stone. “For us, it’s an honor that our stories continue to cross borders, cultures, and generations. “When music tells stories, it can reach anywhere… even Springfield.”
The episode’s head writer Cesar Mazariegos told Rolling Stone the band’s inclusion was a “tip of the hat” to the show’s sizable Latin American fandom, specifically its Mexican and Mexican American fans.
“They are absolute, worldwide legends. I mean, they were on tour when we reached out to ask them for a song. I assumed they wouldn’t have time,” Mazariegos said. “When we heard back that they were game, I couldn’t have been more thrilled.”
Mexican director and Oscar winner Alejandro González Iñárritu was also portrayed and voiced himself in Sunday’s episode.
Los Tigres del Norte’s guest spot is only the most recent in a long line of musical legends featured on “The Simpsons.” U2, Paul McCartney, Green Day, Ringo Starr, Sting and Dolly Parton have made an appearance on the show.
Other Latinx artists have popped up in Springfield as well, including Tito Puente, Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos. In 2021, Bad Bunny made a special appearance in “The Simpsons” universe when he released an animated music video for his 2020 ballad “Te Deseo Lo Mejor” — which sees him drawn into the same universe as “The Simpsons.”
Re “Bush Order Lets Him Control Roberts’ Memos,” Aug. 11
I’m not being facetious: I really don’t understand. Please write an editorial and explain to me why, unless it’s truly a matter of national security, should any president be allowed to control access to a former president’s documents that were discharged as part of his official duties? Even the claim of lawyerclient privilege is specious unless it is from consultations with the president’s private, non-taxpayer-paid attorney. Otherwise, the public has retained the legal representatives, so any citizen should be allowed — in fact, have a right — to see the lawyers’ notes.
TOM OGDEN
Hollywood
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Re “Roberts, misjudged,” Opinion, Aug. 11
Defending John Roberts’ 1980s position on the Voting Rights Act, Abigail Thernstrom argues that race should not be an issue in political districting. She quotes Roberts’ claim that we stand before the law “only as Americans” and Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch’s claim that officials should “represent individual citizens” and not blocs. The sentiments are sure uplifting but ingenuous.
Citizens should stand before laws they have had some effect in creating and be represented by officials they have had some effect in electing. To prevent tyranny by the majority, minority interests should be represented in office, and not only racial interests, but also economic and demographic ones.
A wag in The Times’ Opinion section recently proposed that all political districting be based entirely on income levels, not geography. The proposal is amusing, but not entirely wrong.
DAVID EGGENSCHWILER
Los Angeles
In the late game, Henry set an NFL record with his seventh career 200-yard game as the Ravens beat the Packers 41-24 at Lambeau Field.
The Ravens (8-8) play at the Pittsburgh Steelers (9-6) in week 18 and the contest will be for the AFC North title if the Steelers lose to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.
Henry set the tone on Baltimore’s opening drive, rushing in from three yards before the Packers responded with a 39-yard Malik Willis touchdown pass to Christian Watson.
The running back was in the endzone again early in the second quarter before field goals from Tyler Loop put the visitors in a strong position.
Willis scored for the Packers on a 22-yard run but Henry completed his hat-trick to put the Ravens 27-14 in front at half-time.
Green Bay responded after the break and pulled within three after Willis’ second touchdown run of the day was followed by a Brandon McManus field goal.
But the Ravens were able to pull out of sight in the fourth quarter as Tyler Huntley threw a 10-yard touchdown pass to Zay Flowers and Henry added a 25-yard touchdown run for his fourth score of the night.
The Packers’ third straight loss ensures they will be the NFC’s seventh seed in the play-offs and that the Chicago Bears will win the NFC North.
I have been reading in The Times for over a year that California’s economy is doing great and that we have a state budget surplus. Isn’t this surplus in cash? Then why is the voter being asked to approve bonds for schools, libraries, parks and clean water?
I’ve also been reading that one should apply any extra cash to pay down high-interest debts and that, to ensure financial security, one should be careful about spending and to try to save a little for the future. Does this only apply to individuals and not to governments?
KATHRYN FONG ROUSH
Granada Hills
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Not much is said about Prop. 16, the veterans bond. If passed, bonds will be sold to pay for retirement homes for American veterans. I will be voting yes on Prop. 16, and I urge you to do the same. These veterans served our country with honor. They were ready to sacrifice their lives for us, and I’m sure we can sacrifice a few bucks for them now, when they need our help.
AMUL PANDYA
Moorpark
Karl Rove, the canny and controversial presidential advisor who will be leaving the White House at the end of the week, may have more enemies than anybody in Washington. He also may have more nicknames. George Bush calls him “boy genius.” Critics of the administration have often described him as “Bush’s brain.”
But the name that has really stuck with Rove over the years is “the architect.” In January 2000, before Bush had competed in a presidential primary, he was asked about Rove’s role in shaping his campaign strategy.
“Karl gets credit for being the architect of it,” he said, “and he should.” He famously repeated the term at a news conference after his 2004 victory over John Kerry. Wayne Slater and James Moore titled their second book on Rove, published last year, “The Architect: Karl Rove and the Master Plan for Absolute Power.”
What is it about architecture that makes it so attractive as a metaphorical job description? There’s Bill Walsh, the NFL coach who after he died last month was widely remembered as “the architect of the West Coast offense.” And Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Osama bin Laden’s Rove, often is called the architect of 9/11. Don’t forget James Madison, architect of the Constitution, or Alfred Hitchcock, labeled by one of his biographers “the architect of anxiety.” The computer industry is full of information and software “architects” who do their building with zeros and ones.
And, of course, there’s God: architect of the universe.
The architect label suggests precision, strategic savvy and the ability to consider a project from a certain analytical remove — to see the whole chessboard at a glance. It describes the person who sketches out a complex plan but never the one who executes it.
As a metaphor, it’s a step up from “engineer,” which used to be as common a rhetorical title as architect is now. Somebody in Rove’s position a few decades ago would have been said to have “engineered” an electoral victory; those architects at Intel and Microsoft were once called software engineers.
But engineering, a profession that tends to be more esteemed in quickly growing industrial societies than in postindustrial ones like ours, has none of the Machiavellian undertones required to capture the scope of Rove’s role. It implies pure expertise — all science and no art.
In his canonical “Ten Books on Architecture,” written in the 1st century BC, Roman architect Vitruvius argued that successful buildings had three qualities in common: firmness, commodity and delight. In other words, to qualify as a piece of architecture, a structure had to be not only stable and useful but beautiful.
That distinction helps explain why certain public figures become candidates for architect status. There usually has to be a sense, even among rivals, that what you are producing is the result of creativity along with hard work or brute force. It has to be impressive in form as well as function, in operation as well as plan. Like architecture, it has to have one foot in the practical world and one foot in the aesthetic.
And it helps if there is a noticeable gap between a typical approach to your job and the way you perform it. Walsh’s reserved, professorial style on the sidelines and the quick grace of his best San Francisco 49ers offered a sharp contrast to football’s inherent violence and plodding, three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust conservatism. Hitchcock too seemed all the more urbane because he was creating artworks for a mass audience, cinematic choreography to be enjoyed with popcorn.
A similar dynamic was at work from the start between Bush and Rove. As a presidential candidate, Bush had the popcorn part down from the beginning: Despite his gilded political pedigree as the son of a president and the grandson of a senator, and his years at Andover, Yale and Harvard, he has always been comfortable cloaking himself in down-home rhetoric. He needed a way to turn that raw material — of connections and a certain kind of charm — into votes on a national level.
And we, the public, needed a way to reconcile the seeming contradiction between the aw-shucks, tongue-tied Bush persona and the nimble strategic thinking that got him elected president — twice — by outfoxing the Democrats in nearly every battleground state. (Bush might have won Georgia or Texas by himself, but it took an architect to win Ohio.) Self-taught and widely curious, Rove is a true mirror image of Bush — and the perfect vehicle for that reconciliation. If he hadn’t existed, the pundits would have had to invent him.
The odd twist to this story is that architects are increasingly chafing at what they see as the political limitations of their profession. At ground zero in New York, in post-Katrina New Orleans and in traffic-choked Los Angeles, they are realizing that however much celebrity they may enjoy, it hasn’t helped them become real players in shaping the future of cities.
Leading architects, including Thom Mayne and Rem Koolhaas, have been outspoken in recent months about trying to change that. They want to leverage their fame into clout and, by operating more strategically, move closer to the centers of power. They want to be metaphorical architects — of disaster recovery, of urban rebirth — and not just the real thing.
In short, they’d like to be more Rovian.
—
Why this column stuck with me: I chose “I’m Fighting Parkinson’s One Punch At A Time” because it was a story that took four years to write but one that has resonated immediately and endlessly.
When I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in the winter of 2021, I decided to keep the diagnosis a secret. Initially I didn’t even tell my own three children. I didn’t want people feeling sorry for me, or looking at me differently or, worse, treating me differently. I wanted to continue with my normal life while fighting the disease in private.
As part of this fight, I attended a boxing class for Parkinson’s patients. The class was filled with 80-year-old women pounding on a heavy bag, 75-year-old men dancing across the floor, elderly and trembling people working hard to stave off the effects of PD. They quickly became my heroes, and deserved to be illuminated as inspirations to others. I finally realized that I could tell their story and maybe push others to come out of the PD shadows and seek the same therapy.
And, well, if I was going to write about others with Parkinson’s disease, I would have to come clean about myself. So, with help from boxing instructor Jody Hould and sports editor Iliana Limón Romero, I did. And I’m glad I did. I’ve since heard from countless people that the story moved them to admit their illness and begin boxing therapy or other types of PD workouts. My diagnosis was a punch in the gut. But thanks in part to the encouragement that came from this story, I’m fighting back.
WASHINGTON — There is an unmistakable aura of sadness when William P. Rogers talks about the man who was once his close friend and how that friend deceived him.
“I never before had a friend who turned out to be not quite a friend,” says the former attorney general and secretary of State.
The friend was Richard Nixon.
Oblivious to the clatter of dishes and the hum of lunch conversation in a crowded restaurant, Rogers sat at a corner table recently and looked back on years at the center of history.
He was President Eisenhower’s attorney general and Nixon’s secretary of State. In private law practice, he represented Martin Luther King Jr. before the Supreme Court.
But he is quick to point out that he had no role in one landmark event of the Nixon years–Watergate.
Nixon “never asked me about any of that nonsense until much too late,” Rogers said.
Rogers left the Nixon administration in August 1973 and resumed private law practice, a low-profile life he clearly enjoyed. He rarely gave interviews and never talked in detail about his relationship with Nixon.
Now 84, he put aside that reluctance and recalled his years as a valued advisor and close friend to Nixon as well as the discomforting knowledge of how much Nixon never told him.
“He didn’t lie; he just didn’t tell me the truth,” Rogers said.
It wasn’t only the truth about Watergate.
When Nixon sent Henry Kissinger, his White House national security advisor, on a secret trip to China, his secretary of State was left out in the cold.
Neither did Rogers know about Kissinger’s secret negotiations with North Vietnam.
Their bureaucratic struggle was no contest. After the 1972 election, Nixon decided it was time to replace Rogers with Kissinger.
White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman wrote in his diary: “Had a meeting with Rogers this afternoon and got into the separation. It didn’t work out very well in that Rogers obviously was shocked to be told that he was to leave.”
Kissinger wrote that he believed Nixon “wished to establish, for once, a relationship of primacy over his old friend and mentor Bill Rogers to whom he had so often turned during the periods of his own weakness.”
Rogers was a young lawyer on the staff of a Senate committee and Nixon was a freshman congressman from California when they met in 1948. Nixon was agonizing over whether to believe Whittaker Chambers’ allegation that Alger Hiss, a high State Department official, was a member of an underground communist group.
Nixon asked Rogers to review their sworn testimony. He wanted to know if he could prove one of them was lying. “I said, ‘I’m sure you can.’ I based it on the fact that Chambers had given a lot of particulars that you can’t make up,” Rogers said.
Hiss was convicted of lying and Nixon’s political career was on the rise.
Two years later, Nixon was elected to the Senate and in 1952 Eisenhower offered him the vice presidential nomination.
Rogers was on a campaign trip with his friend when the news broke that a group of California supporters of Nixon had established an $18,000 fund to help cover expenses. His position on the Republican ticket in jeopardy, Nixon made his case to the voters in a televised appearance that came to be known as the Checkers speech.
In his book “Six Crises,” Nixon wrote that the night before the speech, “I took a long walk with Rogers up and down the side streets near the hotel to get some fresh air and exercise and to test out the first outline of my speech on him. He encouraged me to go forward with the plan I had adopted.”
Nixon saved his career with a brilliant speech that referred to his wife’s “respectable Republican cloth coat” and the Texan who gave the Nixons their cocker spaniel, Checkers.
Rogers and Nixon remained fast friends through the Eisenhower administration. But losses in the 1960 presidential race and the 1962 race for governor of California left Nixon embittered, said his former friend.
“He was a changed man,” Rogers said.
From there, the two men took different paths. Rogers spent the Kennedy-Johnson years in private law practice, arguing Martin Luther King Jr.’s case in 1964 before the Supreme Court, which said for the first time that the news media had special protection against libel suits by public officials.
When Nixon finally became president in January 1969, Rogers returned to government as secretary of State, despite having little experience in diplomacy.
“I recognized when I took the job that President Nixon wanted to run things himself and that’s what he did,” Rogers said. “He always sort of resented the State Department.”
At the start of the second term, Watergate began to dominate Nixon’s presidency.
What was it like, watching the scandal unfold?
“What do you do?” said Rogers, his expression betraying the uncountable hours he has spent looking back on that period.
When Nixon realized he would have to fire Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, he asked Rogers to do it for him. Rogers refused.
“He said, ‘Will you be with me when I do it?’ I said, ‘No, Mr. President. . . . They’re your people.’ ”
In August of that year, Nixon became the first president to resign the office.
After that, Rogers and his wife saw the former president and his wife, Pat, a couple of times.
“We saw them once for lunch,” Rogers recalled. “Remarkably, we had conversations just as if nothing had happened.
“I couldn’t understand that.”
De Los recently did a team huddle to determine our personal list of best albums, as well as our favorite songs released in 2025. This is not another garden variety Latin genre list, but a highlight reel of 2025 releases that showcases artists from Latin America and the diaspora.
20. Selena Gomez and Benny Blanco feat. the Marías, “Ojos Tristes”
Released months before their highly-publicized wedding in September, “I Said I Love You First,” the album by multi-hyphenate superstar Selena Gomez and hit songwriter-producer Benny Blanco, was first conceived from nights spent perusing each other’s vintage record collections. Gomez resonated with the spectral 1982 ballad “El Muchacho de Los Ojos Tristes,” as originally recorded by the O.G. sad girl en español, Jeanette. After seeing the Marías in concert, the couple hit up the band to further maximize their joint slay — and revamp the classic as a bilingual dream-pop track, simply named “Ojos Tristes.” It not only topped the Billboard Hot Latin Songs chart, but it introduced a new generation to Jeanette’s timeless allure. —Suzy Exposito
19. JR Torres, “Desde Abajo Vengo”
It never fails: True to its ever reliable, unassuming ethos, the genre of música mexicana invariably delivers some of the year’s most gorgeous tunes. The melody on this two-minute single by Culiacán, Sinaloa, native JR Torres is a pearl of astounding purity, a theme developed alternately by the accordion and vocal line, and one that — like so many norteño hits — conveys an ocean of longing. The lyrics belong to the himnos de superación canon: a self-taught man outlines his road to success, paved with honesty, resilience and hard work. But it is the music itself that cements “Desde Abajo Vengo” as a Mexican classic for the ages. —Ernesto Lechner
18. Juana Rozas, “WANNA HOTEL”
Juana Rozas understands the emerging queer Latin underground, in all of its swirling genre hodgepodge, better than most. Her album “TANYA” is an unrestrained porteña whirlwind, rapidly shifting between industrial, electroclash, and doom metal, with all of these disparate influences coalescing on the highlight track “WANNA HOTEL.” The song splits the difference between atmospheric trap heaven and hardstyle hell, placing you squarely in a warehouse mosh pit. It’s vertigo-inducing sonic whiplash, complete with thumping techno and copious nose drugs. You can try to head to the hallways for a breather, but it feels better to be in the depths of Rozas’ debauchery. —Reanna Cruz
17. Macario Martinez, “Sueña Lindo, Corazón”
There isn’t a better feel-good story this year than Macario Martínez’s unexpected rise to fame. The Mexico City native and now former street sweeper went viral in January after uploading a TikTok video that showed him riding in the back of a sanitation truck at night. Soundtracking it is a snippet of “Sueña Lindo, Corazón,” a tender, stripped-down folk lullaby for a wounded heart. The clip included the following caption: “Life asks for a lot and I’m just a street sweeper who wants you to listen to his music.” Listen they did. The video has been viewed tens of millions of times and was shared by the likes of Harry Styles. turning Martínez into one of the most promising rising talents in Latin music. —Fidel Martinez
16. Dareyes de la Sierra, “Frecuencia”
The opening line of “Frecuencia” — “Yo sé que voy a morirme por eso bien loco vivo” (“I know I’m going to die, that’s why I live crazily”) — hits a little bit different once you learn that singer José Darey Castro survived an attempt on his life in 2004. Don’t let the usage of traditional música Mexicana instruments fool you; the cadence of this braggadocious track about hedonistic excess and indulgence is closer to hip-hop. With “Frecuencia,” and the album it comes from (“Redención,” which translates to “Redemption”), the regional veteran with more than two decades of experience under his belt proves that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself. —F.M.
15. Cuco, “Ridin’”
For his third studio album, “Ridin’,” Cuco said he wanted to embody the timelessness of Chicano soul without being derivative. “I wanted to go for more natural sounds with the soul sound, but I think it’s just inevitable for me sometimes,” the 27-year-old multi-instrumentalist from Hawthorne told De Los this summer. “I’m just going to end up doing some psychedelic parts with the music because that’s what I’ve always been.” This happy marriage of influences is most apparent in the LP’s titular track, which starts off feeling like you’re cruising with your sweetheart down a Southern California highway in a 1964 Chevy Impala before taking off into space. —F.M.
14. Mon Laferte, “Las Flores Que Dejaste En La Mesa”
Recently, Mon Laferte told me that she was especially proud of a verse in this song where she rhymed the description of a former lover’s erection with the word architecture. The juxtaposition of poetic wordplay with graphic sexuality is one of the Chilean singer’s favorite devices — here, it adds a frisson of decadence to a lush orchestration reminiscent of John Barry’s 007 themes. A key track off Laferte’s noirish “Femme Fatale,” “Las Flores Que Dejaste En La Mesa” takes off with the quiet longing of bossa nova, boils into unhinged bolero territory, then incorporates the icy electro loops of trip-hop icons Portishead. Still, the heart of the song is Laferte’s vocal performance — wounded and incandescent. —E.L.
13. Planta Industrial, “Oi”
Hilariously named “Punkwave Sin Barreras” — a nod to the ESL learning series “Inglés Sin Barreras” — the debut EP by the Bronx Dominican duo Planta Industrial is a generous helping of punk rock, darkwave and dembow fusion. The project is powered by high school friends turned rappers, who go by the names A.K.A. The Darknight and Saso (recently featured on the song “Caribeño” with Rauw Alejandro). On “Oi,” a clever stand-in for the word “hoy,” the duo deploy frenetic breakbeats, Ramones-style gang vocals and a touch of Toño Rosario freakness to demand their dues from a cheapskate boss. “F— you, pay me, “ chant the MCs. “Mañana, no — oi oi oi!” —S.E.
12. Six Sex feat. MCR-T, “Bitches Like Me”
This year, Argentina established itself as the Latin rave epicenter, with Six Sex leading the charge. Alongside Berlin-based club DJ MCR-T, and a propulsive synth line from Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out of My Head,” the Buenos Aires baddie crafts one of the chicest earworms of the year. The beauty of using one of the best pop melodies of all time is that it’s already engineered for success, so MCR-T keeps it simple and silly with the addition of a thumping, four-to-the-floor beat. It plays out like a drunken freestyling session in your coolest friend’s apartment — with lines like “you are not that bitch” delivered with a heavily-accented affectation that feels seductive, but more importantly, unbothered. —R.C.
11. Rosalía feat. Yahritza Y Su Esencia, “La Perla”
Although the Spanish singer would be ineligible for this list on her own, Rosalía’s diss track “La Perla” — a scathing, ranchera-style ballad dedicated to a certain pretty boy ex with a sizable collection of other women’s bras — shines bright among her otherwise sparkling collection of orchestral pop songs in “Lux.” Rosalía wisely recruited the swooning Mexican American sierreña trio, Yahritza Y Su Esencia, to help her better emulate a Paquita La Del Barrio dress-down of a lover gone astray. The spirit of “La Perla” articulates not what it sounds like to be loved Mexicanly, but to be loathed Mexicanly — á la Catalana. —S.E.
10. Netón Vega, “Me Ha Costado”
Netón Vega’s sprawling debut album “Mi Vida Mi Muerte” makes a formidable attempt to define the rapidly-shifting sound of corridos tumbados, courtesy of one of the genre’s eminent songwriters. On “Me Ha Costado,” Vega, who hails from Baja California Sur, combines blown-out 808s with a G-funk whine to create a pan-Californian posse track. There’s an overload of shot-calling swagger dripping from every section here, from Alemán’s bouncing hook to Victor Mendivil’s shoutouts to San Andrés and Mazamitla. If you close your eyes, you could see the trio’s lowrider rolling down Whittier Blvd, with all three mischief-makers hanging out the windows. —R.C.
9. Cardi B, “Bodega Baddie”
I am tired of celebrities pretending that they go to the bodega for street cred: “if you know, you know.” One thing about Cardi B, though? I believe she remembers where she came from. “Bodega Baddie” is a bilingual ode to the Bronx’s Dominican enclaves where Cardi From The Block spent her childhood. It’s less than two minutes long, but moves at such a breakneck pace that if you close your eyes, you’re transported outside a deli on Dyckman on a hot summer day — where the fire hydrants are open, 808s are shaking storefront windows, and the whole block is outside. It’s some of the most electric mise-en-scène this year, anchored by a sample of Magic Juan’s “Ta Buena (Tipico)” merengue. —R.C.
8. Kali Uchis, “Sugar! Honey! Love!”
The Colombian American soulstress has played many roles in her songs: a baddie, a psychic, a woman adrift at sea in a yellow raincoat. But in the making of her 2025 album “Sincerely,” she explored the profound vulnerability of becoming a mother — and her sighing revelations in “Sugar! Honey! Love!” melt most beautifully into the hazy pop ether. “I was already an emotional person, [but] since my pregnancy I’ve been able to feel a lot deeper,” she told De Los in May. “When your child is born, you’re reborn in a lot of ways. It’s a death and a rebirth of yourself. But I think a lot of joy and hope comes with that.” —S.E.
7. Adrian Quesada feat. Angélica Garica, “No Juego”
At the start of “No Juego,” we hear the sound of tape being rewound, as if to suggest that we’re about to listen to something from a different era. Sure enough, the psychedelia of the keyboard, guitar and drums transports us to the late 1960s, only to be brought back to the present by the self-assured delivery of vocalist (and El Monte’s own) Angélica Garcia. “No vine pa’ pedir permiso,” she briefly raps (“I’m not here to ask for permission”), before throwing theatrical vocal daggers at a former lover who couldn’t stay true. She’s letting us know that we’re in her world and she’s not playing around. “No Juego” is easily the crown jewel of “Boleros Psicodélicos II.”—F.M.
6. Ca7riel y Paco Amoroso, “#TETAS”
Sometimes a song is only as successful as its concept. On “#TETAS,” the Argentine trickster gods Ca7riel y Paco Amoroso try to reverse-engineer a pop anthem, ChatGPT buzzwords and all. A flippant listener could dismiss “#TETAS” as just a winking novelty song — after all, what “serious” track contains a character named Gymbaland, the lyrics “let me be your Chad,” and a post-chorus counting dabs? The thing is, though, between the slinking bass line, the massive 80’s Yamaha pianos, and a final key change that soars through the ceiling, the song becomes the exact pop anthem that they’re trying to satirize. “This is a f— smash,” go the final lines of the song. We’re inclined to agree. —R.C.
5. Silvana Estrada, “Como Un Pájaro”
As we compiled the songs for this list, we struggled selecting just one track off Silvana Estrada’s stunning second album. At 28, the singer-songwriter from Veracruz informs her work with a level of maturity that most artists won’t achieve in a lifetime. Like most of the cuts in “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias,” “Como Un Pájaro” draws from the wisdom of the trova movement; enamored with the immediacy of stringed instruments, chronicling the process of healing using metaphors from the natural world. The song’s climax — Estrada’s lustrous voice intertwined with a swelling orchestral arrangement — will probably bring tears to your eyes. Fun fact: In concert, she reproduces the lilting whistled interlude to perfection. —E.L.
4. Astropical, “Fogata (Leo)”
Following a memorable performance at the Hollywood Bowl last summer, it became apparent that Astropical, the supergroup formed by members of Colombia’s Bomba Estéreo and Venezuela’s Rawayana, will probably never reconvene again. We’ll always have “Fogata,” though — a song about holding on to the precious moments of bliss when confronted with the ephemeral nature of… well, everything. The track combines the warmth of a beachside bonfire with slick, Afrobeats-soaked grooves. The stars of the show? The honeyed harmonies of Li Saumet and Beto Montenegro, now intertwined until the end of time. —E.L.
3. Isabella Lovestory, “Telenovela”
Who among us hasn’t thought — whether it be ironically or authentically — “my life is a movie?” Isabella Lovestory takes it one further: her sexcapades, in all their glamour and drama, are worthy of their own telenovela. Much of her sophomore album “Vanity” has main character energy, and Lovestory’s “Telenovela,” with its extended metaphors of Barbarella bad bitches, “tragica erotica,” and using “su lengua pa cambiar el canal” is the descriptive centerpiece. If it doesn’t bring a flush to your cheeks, you’re not listening hard enough; the way she coos “uy-uy-uy” will linger the next time things get a little hot and heavy. —R.C.
2. Fuerza Regida, “Marlboro Rojo”
If I sit on the porch of my Boyle Heights home for 15 minutes, I guarantee you that a pickup truck will eventually drive by playing a corrido at a window-rattling volume. For the last six months, the song of choice blasting from the blown out speakers of these mamalonas has been “Marlboro Rojo.” I get it. The track is so unapologetically — ugh, cringe word, I know — Mexican. What better way to announce your presence than with the boom boom of the sousaphone? 2025 was a marquee year for música Mexicana and no one was more on top of their game than Fuerza Regida. My personal favorite version of this song is from the Apple Music Live concert taped earlier this summer at Mexico City’s GNP Stadium. Hearing the tens of thousands of fans singing the chorus back to JOP gives me chills. — F.M.
1. Bad Bunny, “Baile Inolvidable”
Is there a Bad Bunny record that’s not a love letter to his native Puerto Rico? His 2025 juggernaut, “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” however, goes far beyond the usual motherland worship; the album’s greatest takeaway is to cherish not just the place, but the people you call home, too. Invoking the feverish, tropical melodrama of salsa titans past and present, Bad Bunny delivers one of his most tremendous vocal performances — powered by his enduring love for a woman he used to know, comparing her to an unforgettable dance. But it’s just like Benito to cut through the gravitas of his own song by lauding an ex for her sexual prowess — namely, her boquita — but his magic as a hit songwriter is most potent in verses that oscillate between the sacred and profane. —S.E.
Throughout 2025, De Los has championed the rise of the Latino artists from their respective musical silos and into the broader global pop stratosphere. The 2026 Super Bowl halftime show headliner Bad Bunny and Inland Empire corrido kings Fuerza Regida scaled new commercial and cultural heights this year, as emerging acts like Silvana Estrada, Ela Minus and Netón Vega took exciting new detours in their sounds.
De Los recently did a team huddle to determine our personal best releases of 2025 — this is no garden variety Latin genre list, but a highlight reel of our favorite works by artists from Latin America and the diaspora.
10. Cazzu, “Latinaje”
Reeling from a romantic disappointment of mythological proportions and the lackluster reception of her previous album, Argentine trap queen Cazzu fired back with a maximalist travelogue that draws from salsa and cumbia, Argentine folk and electro-pop. Cazzu hails from the province of Jujuy, miles away from the musical snobbery that plagues much of Buenos Aires, and her genuine investment in a pan-Latino idiom is contagious. A sumptuous corrido tumbado about a red dress that went viral (“Dolce”) and an Andean-flavored ode to her daughter (“Inti”) are the emotional cornerstones of an album that refuses to harbor resentment and instead chooses to embrace plurality. Her absence from the main categories in this year’s Latin Grammys was nothing short of criminal. —Ernesto Lechner
9. Netón Vega, “Mi Vida Mi Muerte”
As one of música mexicana’s most in-demand songwriters, Netón Vega has crafted hits for every big crossover artist, from Xavi to Peso Pluma. Naturally, it’s about time that he delivered a full-length project of his own. Vega’s debut album, “Mi Vida Mi Muerte,” takes stock of the current sound of corridos tumbados and pushes it to its limits alongside the very collaborators that he helped top the charts. Vega’s chameleonic qualities as a songwriter allow him to bend the rules of what counts as “Mexican” music, and over 21 songs, he establishes that his vision includes Californian G-funk, blissed-out boom bap and even Caribbean reggaeton. Vega sounds equally as comfortable on the radio smash “Loco” as he does wailing over a bajo sexto, proving that the future of corridos, with him at the helm, can be more expansive than ever before. —Reanna Cruz
8. Juana Aguirre, “Anónimo”
If the music business thing doesn’t quite pan out for Juana Aguirre, Argentina’s newly anointed resident genius could find success as a film director — such is the palpable cinematic gravity of “Anónimo,” a stark masterpiece of digital mood conjuring. Aguirre builds her tracks slowly, armed with an unerring instinct for beauty and a ruthless, try-and-discard methodology. The results are childlike at times — parts of “La Noche” and “Lo_Divino” sound like nursery rhymes — while the nakedness of “Volvieron” brims with a solemn, ageless kind of grace. Her sonic spectrum is panoramic, from esoteric folktronica murmurs and camouflaged industrial noise to the cosmic stillness of “Un Nombre Propio” and the ritualistic piano of “Las Ramas.” Until “Anónimo,” the Argentine avant-garde had never sounded so intoxicatingly sensuous. —E.L.
7. Adrian Quesada, “Boleros Psicodélicos II”
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, multi-instrumentalist and producer Adrian Quesada enlisted some of the most enthralling vocalists in Latin music to record “Boleros Psicodélicos,” a love letter to Latin American psychedelic ballads from the ’60s and ’70s. The album, which featured original compositions alongside kaleidoscopic covers of the genre, was hailed as an instant classic after its 2022 release. Three years later, Quesada improved upon the winning formula by actually being in the same room as his collaborators — the first album was made in isolation. “There’s a little bit more life, energy to some of the songs,” Quesada told De Los of “Boleros Psicodélicos II.” That vibrancy is certainly felt in tracks like “Bravo” — Puerto Rican singer iLe’s voice is laced with plenty of venom to do justice to Luis Demetrio’s spiteful lyrics (“Te odio tanto / Que yo misma me espanto / De mi forma de odiar”) — and “Primos,” which has Quesada pair up with guitar vibemasters Hermanos Gutiérrez for the album’s only instrumental track. Here’s hoping that we get another installment of this brilliant series three years from now. —Fidel Martinez
6. Nick León, “A Tropical Entropy”
Hailing from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., just a hop, skip and a jump north of Miami, the electronic mixmaster Nick León broke through a busy pop music landscape this year as a producer with a distinctly Floridian point of view. In his latest album, “A Tropical Entropy” — the title harks back to a phrase from Joan Didion’s 1987 book, “Miami” — León crafted his moody “beach noir” sound by blanketing his dynamic assemblages of dembow, dancehall and other Afro-Caribbean rhythms with a foamy, oceanic ambience that flows and hisses throughout the record. Featuring the vocal talents of Ela Minus (“Ghost Orchid”), Erika De Casier (“Bikini”) and Esty (“Millennium Freak” with Mediopicky), it’s an audible feast for club kids whose afters entail collapsing on the sand and watching dolphins traverse the horizon at sunrise. —Suzy Exposito
5. Not For Radio, “Melt”
Released in October, “Melt” is the frosty solo album by María Zardoya, lead singer of Grammy-nominated L.A. band the Marías, who wrote and recorded 10 of her most soul-baring songs yet during a haunted winter sabbatical in the Catskills. Imbued with brooding elements of chamber pop à la Beach House, Broadcast and the Carpenters, there is much enchantment to be found in the details of Zardoya’s electric drama; like how the warm fuzz of an organ meets frosty chimes on opening track “Puddles,” or in the restless, skittish pulse of “Swan.” Zardoya’s yearning for a love lost crescendoes, and is most devastating, in the piano ballad “Back to You”; but it seems as though even her darkest, most melancholic moments are touched by the fae. —S.E.
4. Isabella Lovestory, “Vanity”
With 2022’s “Amor Hardcore,” Isabella Lovestory established herself as a neoperreo princess — the Ivy Queen for the Instagram era. The Honduran pop star’s follow-up album “Vanity” takes a different approach, trading sleazy sexcapades for campy vulnerability. As in her name, Lovestory is inherently a storyteller. Her lyrics are pulled from half-remembered dreams, speaking of herself in immersive, surreal contradiction. She’s a perfume bottle made of foam, or a strawberry made of metal. It’s a deceptively saccharine world, one that she sees as, in her words, a “poisonous lollipop.” And when the production falls somewhere between RedOne productions and Plan B deep cuts, that world becomes a post-cultural, hazy pop dystopia of both the past and a far-off, distant future. —R.C.
3. Fuerza Regida “111XPantia”
In summer 2024, while promoting the band’s previous album, “Pero No Te Enamores,” Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz assured me that the San Bernardino quintet was not abandoning the sound that made it one of the biggest acts in the música mexicana space. Simply put, JOP was scratching a creative itch by flirting with Jersey club, drill and house music. True to his word, the charchetas and tololoche are now back and on full display in “111xPantia.” Yet the band’s 9th studio album is by no means a rehash of their past work; Fuerza Regida is as experimental as ever, whether by incorporating a banjo on “Peliculeando” (what’s next, a collab with Mumford & Sons?) or sampling Nino Rota’s iconic theme song on “GodFather” (given the focus on excess, the lyrics are more Tony Montana than Michael Corleone). This year, JOP & Co. set a new benchmark for the ever-evolving genre, all while becoming the biggest band in the world; Fuerza Regida was notably the only non-solo act to crack Spotify’s end-of-year top global artist list. —F.M.
2. Silvana Estrada, “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias”
Estrada’s second full-length album is a musical masterclass in maintaining serenity through loss. With her head held high, the Latin Grammy-winning Mexican singer-songwriter soldiered through an extended period of grief to write “Vendrán Suaves Lluvias,” including a harrowing heartbreak and the shocking murder of a friend. The bones of songs like “Como Un Pájaro” and “Un Rayo de Luz” are folk ballads, which she initially wrote using her trusty cuatro; but with the mighty backing of an orchestra, Estrada’s compositions swell with a symphonic grandeur that bolster the songbird’s more empowered and optimistic stance in the face of disappointment. “¿Cuál еra la idea de aventartе sin dejarte caer? Qué manera tan desoladora de querer,” she sings with an arid, jazzy inflection on “Dime” — a plea to a half-hearted lover who cowers at the force of her integrity. —S.E.
1. Bad Bunny, “Debí Tirar Mas Fotós”
“Debí Tirar Mas Fotós” has managed to dominate conversation all year — from its No. 1 debut in January to this summer’s blockbuster residency and subsequent world tour. Much has been said already about Bad Bunny’s magnum opus; the album is a generation-spanning, full-throated celebration of boricua resilience, and simultaneously a pointed warning about the ongoing neocolonization of La Isla del Encanto. But perhaps, in the spirit of its title, its best function is as a series of timeless musical snapshots: There’s the sweeping voice of the jíbaro calling down from the mountains on “Lo Que Le Pasó A Hawaii.” Sweat from rum-soaked nights in Brickell and La Placita lingers on “Voy a LLevarte Pa PR” and “Eoo.” Hands fold together on “Weltita” as waves ebb and flow, and the warmth of a grandparent’s final forehead kiss lingers on “DTMF.” It’s a record that is designed to be intimately understood by Latinos, with Bad Bunny’s personal ethos of Puerto Rican independence managing to build a bridge between the island and those displaced from it. And with Benito’s Super Bowl victory lap right around the corner, “Debí Tirar Mas Fotós” is poised to dominate not just 2025, but the coming months as well, cementing him as — to paraphrase “Nuevayol” — el rey de pop, reggaetón y dembow.
Reanna’s pick: Corridos Ketamina, “Corridos Ketamina”
There’s one night at the start of every Los Angeles autumn when you can begin to feel the chill of loneliness in the air. When I heard “V-Neno,” the opening track on Corridos Ketamina’s self-titled debut EP, I was taken back to the first time I felt it: walking around at 3 AM alone and moody as hell. The 14-minute EP is like if Lil Peep and Lil Tracy went down to Sinaloa for the weekend. Triple-tracked vocals drenched in reverb drift over sluggish guitar loops, all struggling to claw out of the K-hole. Yes, technically Corridos Ketamina are making narcocorridos (what you see is what you get: in an interview with the Fader, they put it simply, “Let’s make the first corrido about doing K”), but there’s something still warm and inviting at the core of these seven songs. Maybe it’s the familiar blend of emo, rap, shoegaze and corridos — or it’s the fact that this is a record that could only come out of Los Angeles, born out of late nights on empty freeways and in seedy apartments. —R.C.
Ernesto’s pick: Amor Elefante, “Amigas”
I dare you not to smile when you listen to “Hipnótico,” the synth-pop fantasia that kicks off “Amigas,” a welcome return to action for Buenos Aires quartet Amor Elefante. The band moves in the fertile periphery where sunshine pop meets dream rock, channeling the Police on the reggae vibe of “Universal Hit” and diving into Cocteau Twins ether on “La Vuelta.” If anything, “Amigas” illustrates the band’s bloom as composers of potential singles: drummer Rocío Fernández goes funky on the folk-driven “La Vuelta,” while keyboardist Inés Copertino flexes her disco diva status on the outro line to “Foto de una Coreografía.” In lead singer Rocío Bernardiner, Amor boasts one of South America’s most radiant voices. —E.L.
Suzy’s pick: Ela Minus, “Día”
Born in Bogotá, Colombia, and now based in Brooklyn, electronic artist-producer Gabriela Jimeno, or Ela Minus, first bonded with beats as a tween drummer in a hardcore band. That rugged punk rock intensity would later unify the vast, synth-laden sprawl that is her second album, “Día”: a chronicle of her displacement during the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent ego death. She lets her listeners in with the vulnerable yet galvanizing dance track “I Want to Be Better,” which she has described as her “only love song” — but icily calls for the world’s end on the Latin Grammy-nominated club cut “QQQQ,” and rejects the parasocial worship of pop stars in “Idols,” chanting: “Chasing after phantoms / Bowing down to someone else’s idols.” Indeed — how embarrassing! —S.E.
Fidel’s pick: Cuco, “Ridin’”
Hawthorne’s own Cuco (real name Omar Banos) tapped into the soundtrack of Southern California’s lowrider culture — soul and R&B — to make “Ridin’” one of the best neo-Chicano soul albums in recent years. Tracks like “My 45” and “ICNBYH” (“I Could Never Break Your Heart”) are perfect accompaniments for slow drives down Whittier Boulevard. “Para Ti,” the only Spanish song on the LP, sounds like it could come out of one of your abuelo’s bolero albums. —F.M.