many people

When I was a child, I watched “The Jetsons” and “Lost in Space” and imagined my adult self living in a world of high-tech ease: flying cars, self-cleaning rooms, high-speed trains, personal jetpacks and wise-cracking robotic companions capable of solving any problem in a trice.

Instead I got Google (now with an irritating and frequently wrong AI feature), increased gridlock, Roombas, far too many passcodes/two-factor authenticator systems and a bunch of motorized ice chests cluttering up the sidewalks.

The last of which were recently banned, mercifully if temporarily, in Glendale. Reading about the city’s upcoming moratorium on delivery robots, I literally cheered. I hate them so much.

I know, I know, they’re adorable, with their wide “eyes” and squat toddler-like determination as they trundle along, pausing in careful recalculation whenever they encounter a curb, street sign, a sidewalk cafe table. Hating them makes me feel a bit like those folks who ban children from weddings or make snarky comments about dogs showing up just about everywhere (two things I would never do).

A Serve Robotics delivery robot heads to work Feb. 13. They navigate autonomously using LiDAR and only require human intervention if they get stuck, damaged or are heavily vandalized.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

But though I am happy to accommodate dog walkers, stroller-pushers and other slow-moving/space-requiring pedestrians, I am less happy to do so for a tricked-out little metal box as it picks its way over potholes and sidewalk cracks on a “heroic” mission to deliver takeout to someone who, presumably, lives less than a mile away from its source.

And it isn’t just cranky-pants impatience. I recently became part of a face-off between two opposite-running Coco bots on the small strip of sidewalk in front of Cafe Figaro. The minutes-long standstill forced several people into the street; many more, including my husband and his cane, engaged in a potentially perilous stutter-step around the two knee-high, randomly moving yet noncommunicative vehicles.

One of which was, for reasons of its own, sporting an American flag — maybe it wants to be a Mars rover when it grows up.

Delivery bots, including those made by Coco, a company begun in 2020 by two UCLA graduates, have been around for a while. Early rollouts, however, were small and often plagued by trouble. Stranded or struggling robots became the new Bird scooters — nifty ideas that proved more problematic in practice.

In the last two years, however, improved models have become an increasing presence; Coco, which has expanded across the country, recently announced a bigger, bolder next-gen model.

The Coco 1, left, alongside the new Coco 2 (Next-Gen) at the Coco Robotics headquarters in February in Venice. Coco Robotics launched its next-generation, fully autonomous delivery robot, Coco 2.

(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Many people love Coco and other delivery robots, which partially replace traffic-clogging, exhaust-spewing delivery drivers with a more environmentally friendly alternative.

Others do not, viewing the bots as sidewalk lice that create hazards and take jobs from humans. Several cities, including Chicago, Toronto and San Francisco, have already instituted bans; Glendale is, as Long Beach recently did, taking a less draconian approach, putting the robots on pause while city officials figure out a regulatory framework.

Good luck with that. The e-bike craze, which is putting many people, including kids, in the hospital at an alarming rate, has thus far defied similar regulatory frameworks. As with delivery robots, the possible benefits of e-bikes — environmentally friendly, traffic-decreasing, super fun to ride — created a demand that ignores the dangers created by popularity.

Unlike e-bikes, or the electric scooters that preceded them, delivery robots aren’t yet causing widespread physical harm. Even my own feelings for those motorized metal coolers are fueled by existential disappointment as much as personal irritation.

In many ways, the high-tech future I envisioned as a child has come to pass — we have computers in our pockets, driverless cars, thumbprint and face ID, and voice-activated remote controls for everything. We may not be able to teleport, either physically or via hologram, but we can Zoom or video chat with pretty much anyone anywhere. ChatGPT is not exactly J.A.R.V.I.S., but it’s something. High-speed trains, and pretty much any mass transportation improvement, continue to elude the United States, but one can experience them elsewhere.

Matt Wood, Serve Robotics supervisor, drives a robot to a holding area earlier this year in the company’s parking lot where it and 26 others were to be transported by delivery truck to a farther service location.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The problem is, of course, that reality is much more complicated than futuristic visions sold by “The Jetsons,” “Minority Report” or the cultural marketers of Silicon Valley. Like e-bikes, every advancement creates a host of new problems — hackers, identity theft, system failures, increased energy demands. Labor-saving devices are rarely that — instead labor is shifted, from one department to another, from the body to the brain, or standards are raised — when laundry is done by a machine, its operator must ensure that all clothing is bright, soft, sweet smelling and stain-free just as those who have been given a company smartphone must be available 24/7. After all, how hard is it to answer a text?

Delivery robots are both disappointing in their reality and alarming in their symbolic implication. With all manner of industries constricting and AI threatening entry-level positions, many people have become delivery drivers, full-time or as an economically necessary side gig. Are robots coming for them as well? And are we all going to step around them and post photos on Instagram as they do?

It’s a lot to put on a relatively new and small industry that remains, thus far, a cute and novel way to receive a salad or a few groceries. Those who fear imminent robotic world domination can actually take heart — like the AI actor Tilly Norwood, these little geezers have limited abilities. They don’t go very far, or move very fast; they are easily damaged and disabled (especially in Philadelphia). If they are the vanguard of a sentient nonhuman enemy, we don’t have much to fear yet.

Still, as these robots grow in number and size, those big innocent “eyes” and the cutesy design take on an unnerving air. As Albert Brooks said in “Broadcast News”: “What do you think the devil is going to look like if he’s around … he will be attractive, he’ll be nice and helpful.”

And deliver your lunch.

HAVANA — Reggaeton boomed in a neighborhood bar in Old Havana on a recent night, when, suddenly, the music stopped and everything went dark.

The customers groaned. Another blackout.

A U.S. blockade on oil shipments to Cuba has plunged the island into its worst energy crisis in modern history. The country’s already cratering economy now teeters on the verge of collapse, with vehicles idled by a lack of gas, hospitals forced to cancel surgeries and millions living without a steady supply of electricity and water.

It is the result of a calculated pressure campaign by President Trump, whose administration is negotiating with Cuba’s leaders over the future of the communist-ruled Caribbean island.

People fed up with rolling blackouts have staged sporadic protests in recent days, banging pots and shouting slogans against the government, rare demonstrations in a country known for repressing dissent.

Some power outages hit isolated areas, but in recent weeks Cuba has experienced three island-wide blackouts. The most recent one struck Saturday night and continued into Sunday.

Two men sell food from a cart in front of the Kempinski hotel Friday night in Havana.

As Havana and Washington hash out a possible deal — which is likely to include some form of economic opening, and perhaps limited changes to Cuba’s leadership — many people here say they feel like pawns in a geopolitical game beyond their control.

Some, like those at the bar, who kept drinking in the dark after the power vanished, say they have little choice but to adjust to a life where flushing a toilet, cooking a pot of rice or riding a bus to work is now considered a luxury.

“The U.S. is trying to punish the Cuban government,” said one customer, named Rolando. “But it’s the people who are suffering.”

Cuba’s struggles long predate the oil embargo. For years, Cubans have complained of food shortages, crumbling public services and political repression. Demographers say Cuba is undergoing one of the world’s fastest population declines — a 25% drop in just four years — as birth rates fall and emigration soars.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel blames “genocidal” economic, financial and trade restrictions imposed by the United States in the decades since Fidel Castro’s army toppled the U.S.-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

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1. Young people play dominoes in the streets of Old Havana. 2. A woman reacts to her granddaughter at a bar in Old Havana. (Natalia Favre/For The Times)

But many Cubans blame their own leaders for mismanaging the economy — and straying from the ideals of Castro’s revolution. They were raised to believe in an implicit social contract, which maintained that while Cubans might not have luxuries or be allowed all civil liberties, they would always have free education and healthcare, a place to sleep and enough to eat.

“The pact has failed,” said Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos Espiñeira, an economist at the Christian Center for Reflection and Dialogue in Havana.

He faults the government for soaring inflation and a misguided investment strategy that pumped money into the tourism industry while neglecting fundamental sectors like industry and healthcare.

“This is the worst moment in Cuba’s history,” he said. “But things were really bad before this.”

The Vedado neighborhood in Havana.

Life has long been challenging for Pablo Barrueto, 63, who works mornings at a construction site and now spends afternoons filling plastic jugs from a tap on the street and hauling them up narrow stairwells to neighbors who have been without water for weeks.

His two jobs barely enough cover food for him and his partner, Maribel Estrada, 55, who earns $5 monthly as a security guard at a state-run museum.

The pair, who live in a cramped studio apartment in a crumbling colonial-era building, can’t afford butter or mayonnaise, so breakfast is a piece of plain bread. Barrueto said he often goes to bed hungry. It has been years since he has tasted pork or beef.

“I work so hard,” said Barrueto, who on a recent afternoon was cooking beans in a pair of tattered jeans. “But I don’t see the fruits of my labor.”

Pablo Barrueto, center, fills water containers from a public tap after more than 17 days without running water.

Estrada has developed ulcers on her legs, but the doctor who prescribed her antibiotics said she wouldn’t be able to find them on the empty shelves of state-run pharmacies. On the black market, the medication was being sold for more than what Estrada makes in a month.

“If I lived in another country, my legs wouldn’t look like this,” she said, rolling up her pants to show the chronic sores on her calves.

Estrada said she was reaching a point where she would accept anything that would improve her life, even U.S. intervention.

“If things don’t get better, they should just hand over the country to Trump,” she said.

The U.S. has long played a major role in Cuban history, from its involvement in the island’s war of independence from Spain to the heavy hand of American companies in Cuba’s sugar industry. Washington repeatedly backed unpopular leaders who protected U.S. interests, including Batista, whose corrupt and repressive regime sparked support for the Cuban Revolution.

For decades, the island was celebrated by U.S. critics worldwide as a scrappy symbol of anti-imperialism and a utopic experiment in socialism. But in recent years, amid a government crackdown on dissent, some of that support has faded.

A man holds his ration book and cash while waiting to collect his daily bread in Havana.

The Trump administration’s bellicose new push to dominate Latin America with tariffs and military intervention has scared allies who in the past might have come to Cuba’s rescue.

Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, all led by leftists, have declined to provide emergency fuel shipments in recent months out of fear of angering Trump.

The current crisis was set in motion on Jan. 3, when the U.S. launched a surprise attack on Venezuela, killing 32 Cuban security guards stationed there — in addition to scores of Venezuelan troops and civilians — and capturing President Nicolás Maduro.

As the U.S. seized control of Venezuela’s oil industry, the impacts immediately rocked Cuba, which had long relied on subsidized oil shipments from Maduro’s regime.

Cuba’s leaders say the country has not received a single fuel shipment in three months, debilitating an economy that depends on oil to generate the electricity.

There is little relief in sight.

An employee of a MIPYME sells vegetables and other goods to a customer Friday in Havana.

A state-owned Russian oil tanker loaded with 750,000 barrels of crude is currently crossing the Atlantic. It’s unclear whether the U.S. will try to stop the ship from reaching Cuba, where the oil, once refined, could provide Havana with energy for several weeks.

At the same time, the “Nuestra América” humanitarian convoy is in the process of delivering more than 20 tons of critical supplies to Cuba, some of which will arrive by boat in the coming days.

David Adler, a general coordinator of Progressive International, a global leftist group that helped organize the flotilla, said he hoped the delivery of medicine, food, baby formula and solar panels would highlight the severity of Trump’s restrictions on Cuba.

“We’re beginning to come to grips with the fact that there will be mothers and children and elderly and sick people who will die simply as a result of this senseless and cruel and criminal policy,” Adler said. “Why are we inflicting such cruel punishment on a country that does not represent any threat to the United States?”

In Cuba, where many fear the prospect of no electricity come summer, with its muggy heat and swarms of disease-carrying mosquitoes, people are getting creative. With virtually no public transport and few drivers able to find — or afford — gas that costs more than $5 a gallon, many people have resumed riding bicycles. Others have fashioned electric-powered scooters into slow-moving taxis.

Young people talk in the street in central Havana.

One man in the small town of Aguacate made headlines after he modified his 1980 Fiat Polski to run on charcoal, the same fuel many people here are now cooking with.

Camila Hernández, who works at Havana’s airport, had hoped to celebrate her 21st birthday at home with friends, eating and dancing. “It would have been wonderful,” she said.

But it had been weeks without regular electricity in the home she shares with her parents and boyfriend. His family’s home had power — but lacked water.

To avoid yet another night sitting in the darkness, she marked her birthday by strolling to the Paseo del Prado, an iconic boulevard not far from the waterfront cooled by a light sea breeze.

Her boyfriend’s mother, Yusmary Salas, 47, said poor living conditions were testing her patience. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without planning how I will flush the toilet,” she said. She said she is hungry for change, but has no idea what shape it will take.

Trump insists he “can do whatever I want” in Cuba, and recently said he expects to have the “honor” of “taking Cuba in some form.”

Pablo Barrueto carries a water container up to his home in Old Havana.

Such talk rattles many here who grew up in a country where government buildings still bear the revolutionary motto: “Homeland or death, we will prevail.”

Salas said she hopes that whatever comes next is peaceful, and that Cubans, long a proud people, have their dignity restored. And their power restored, too.

At the darkened bar in Old Havana, workers scrambled to light candles and serve beer that, without refrigeration, would soon go warm. Someone with a battery-powered speaker hit “play” on a song, the 2004 Daddy Yankee hit “Gasolina.”

“Dáme más gasolina!” they sang together. “Give me more gasoline!”

Zendaya and Tom Holland exchanged their vows in a luxurious ceremony off the Italian coast attended by previous “Spider-Man” duos Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone and Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and officiated, obviously, by Robert Downey Jr.

At least that’s what one improbable image fantasized in a recent slew of AI-generated “wedding photos” circulating online.

“Tomdaya” (Tom + Zendaya) fans in recent weeks took it upon themselves to conjure up photos from the “Spider-Man” co-stars’ supposed nuptials, further stoking speculation that the betrothed stars, both 29, had said their vows. The phony wedding photos began making the rounds on social media after Law Roach, Zendaya’s longtime stylist, claimed earlier this month that “the wedding’s already happened.” Zendaya broke her silence on the photos and wedding rumors on Monday, telling late-night host Jimmy Kimmel that “many people have been fooled by them.”

The “Challengers” and “Dune” star, promoting her upcoming film “The Drama,” told Kimmel that the viral AI images caused people to approach her and congratulate her for the “gorgeous” ceremony and had even duped people in her close circles.

“Babe, they’re AI,” she recalled telling loved ones. “They’re not real.”

“Odyssey” co-stars Zendaya and Holland were first romantically linked in 2021, years after first sharing the screen in 2017’s “Spider-Man: Homecoming.” Zendaya memorably teased her engagement to the British actor at the 2025 Golden Globes, when she stepped out on the red carpet with a ring on that finger. At that awards show, when former Times columnist Amy Kaufman asked the actor if she was engaged, Zendaya flashed her ring, smiled coyly and shrugged her shoulders.

Earlier this year, eagle-eyed fans had their eyes on another ring. Tomdaya wedding rumors began gaining traction when Zendaya was spotted on Feb. 18 with a plain gold band on her left ring finger in place of her engagement diamond. Weeks after that, stylist Roach made his bold claim, one he danced away from at the 2026 Academy Awards on Sunday.

When the Hollywood Reporter asked Roach about his comment during the Oscars red carpet, he turned his attention elsewhere. “I think the weather’s really amazing today, it’s so sunny it’s a little warm but it’s beautiful,” he said.

During her late-night spot, Zendaya did not confirm or deny whether she and Holland had tied the knot but instead offered a video to “clear the confusion.” The video, a wedding scene from “The Drama,” shows Zendaya’s character posing alongside co-star Robert Pattinson’s, though his face is obscured by a picture of Holland.

“That was real footage,” she quipped. “That was real, I was there.”