March

In Mexico and parts of Central America, Día de los Muertos is regarded as a day to commemorate and celebrate departed family and friends.

For generations, Greater Southern California has joined the tradition with altars, Aztec dances and displays of marigolds in late October to early November. The day to honor the dead also has served as a day of gathering among the living.

However, some celebrations are being reconsidered because of fears that participants may get caught in deportation raids executed by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

This week the Department of Homeland Security announced it had deported more than half a million undocumented people since the Trump Administration took over in January. More than 2 million people have left the nation overall, the department said.

With raids continuing, some organizers of this weekend’s Día de los Muertos events are moving ahead with celebrations, while others have canceled them.

Times reporters spoke with event organizers to learn what they’re doing differently.

Cancellation is the policy

My colleague Suhauna Hussain reported in mid-September that Long Beach was nixing its annual parade, which drew sizable crowds in the past.

The event was canceled at the request of City Councilmember Mary Zendejas “out of an abundance of caution,” according to city spokesperson Kevin Lee, because it’s “a large and very public outdoor event.” Officials were not aware of any targeted federal enforcement activity.

“This decision did not come lightly,” Zendejas and the city said in statements. The decision addresses “genuine fears raised by community members, especially those who may face the possibility of sudden and indiscriminate federal enforcement actions that undermine the sense of security necessary to participate fully in public life.”

Roberto Carlos Lemus, a marketer who brought food trucks and other vendors to the festival last year, called the cancellation “very sad.”

“Everyone’s very sad about the situation. Día de los Muertos has been one of the largest celebrations for a very long time, and the city has done a great job putting it on,” Lemus told The Times. “Unfortunately, with Latinos being kidnapped and attacked by ICE and the current administration, I do understand why they made the decision that they made.”

The action was mirrored in other places. Santa Barbara’s Museum of Contemporary Art canceled its own parade because the “threat to undocumented families remains very real.” In Northern California, organizations in Berkeley and Eureka also canceled celebrations for similar reasons.

Moving ahead

Others are not letting the immigration raids interfere with the celebration.

Last year, tens of thousands of visitors patronized Division 9 Gallery’s Day of the Dead celebration in downtown Riverside. This year’s free two-day event will feature Aztec dancers, a pageant, processions, Lucha Libre wrestlers and altars — the traditional stands along with ofrendras placed inside classic cars — on Saturday and Sunday.

The event, located on Market Street between University Avenue and 14th Street, continues to grow in popularity, organizer Cosmé Cordova said.

Cordova said he’s not sure if there will be 60 altars, as was the case last year, or if 45,000 people will attend Saturday, the most popular of the two days.

“Because of what’s going on, people are afraid,” he said. “But we’re not canceling.”

Cordova said he’s hired security and noted that Riverside police and the mayor will be present.

“We’re working with the city and others to make sure everything is going to be good,” Cordova said. “This is an event that the community comes out for and I’m not concerned about anyone breaking it up.”

The week’s biggest stories

Gladstone’s Malibu, an iconic dining landmark, pictured partially smoking from the Palisades Fire on Jan. 8, 2025.

(Connor Sheets/Los Angeles Times)

Palisades Fire investigation

Dodgers World Series coverage

Trump Administration polices and reactions

Crime, courts and policing

More big stories

This week’s must-read

More great reads

For your weekend

(Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Going out

Staying in

Have a great weekend, from the Essential California team

Jim Rainey, staff writer
Kevinisha Walker, multiplatform editor
Andrew J. Campa, reporter
Hugo Martín, assistant editor
Karim Doumar, head of newsletters

How can we make this newsletter more useful? Send comments to [email protected]. Check our top stories, topics and the latest articles on latimes.com.

USC women’s basketball star JuJu Watkins will miss the upcoming college basketball season as she recovers from the serious knee injury she sustained during the NCAA tournament in March.

Watkins said in an announcement on social media that she planned to take the 2025-26 season to “fully focus on continuing to recover so I can come back to the game I love.”

“The last few months have been filled with a lot of healing, rest and reflection,” Watkins said in a statement. “Recovering from this injury hasn’t been easy, and I want to say thank you — your love, support and kind words have truly lifted me up during one of the most challenging times in my life.”

Watkins was in the midst of a stellar sophomore season when her knee buckled on a breakaway during the second round of the NCAA tournament. The injury proved to be a devastating blow to USC’s title hopes, as the Trojans eventually lost in the Elite Eight to Connecticut.

There was a glimmer of hope that Watkins might be able to return for a potential postseason run in March 2026, a full year after her injury. Two orthopedic surgeons told The Times at the time that she’d require upwards of 12 months to recover.

“There’s going to be a lot of differences from person to person in that recovery process,” said Dr. Gabriella Ode, an orthopedic surgeon who serves as the team physician for the New York Liberty. “There’s nothing wrong even with a 12-month recovery. I want to be very explicit about that. There are many people who it takes 12 months.”

Any speculation that Watkins might return sooner than that ended Sunday, more than a month before the start of the women’s college basketball season.

USC coach Lindsay Gottlieb said in a statement that the program would “fully support her decision to focus on recovery this season.”

“While we will certainly miss her impact on the court, she continues to play a vital role in our program as a leader and teammate. The strength and maturity she has shown through this process is a reflection of who she is.”

Her impact won’t be easily replaced. But the arrival of another top prospect, Jazzy Davidson, should help fill some of the void.

“No one is filling JuJu’s shoes,” Gottlieb said earlier this month. “Those are unique shoes. But the fact that Jazzy can step into our program and already just make a really unique and incredible impression on everybody is pretty wild. She’s really, really good.”

In two seasons at USC, Watkins has been nothing short of a phenomenon, both on and off the court.

A Compton native, Watkins arrived at USC in 2023 intent on helping build the program back up, and within one season had helped turn the Trojans into national title contenders. As a sophomore, she won the Wooden Award, the Naismith Trophy, Big Ten Player of the Year and became the first USC player ever named the Associated Press player of the year. She also powered USC to a Big Ten title in its first season in the conference, all while becoming the fastest Trojan ever to 1,000 career points, a mark that she surpassed early in her sophomore year.

Upon her return as a senior, Watkins technically would still have two years of eligibility remaining. But the Trojan superstar is almost certain to declare for the WNBA draft when she’s first eligible in 2027.

Sept. 13 (UPI) — More than 100,000 Britons who are frustrated with the United Kingdom’s immigration policies marched in central London during a Saturday afternoon and evening event billed as “Unite the Kingdom.”

The event was organized by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon aka Tommy Robinson and included a video address from Elon Musk.

Musk, 54, accused the U.K. government of not protecting “innocent people, including children who are getting gang-raped,” The Times reported.

“There’s this genuine risk of rape and murder and the destruction of the country and the dissolution of the entire way of life,” Musk told the protesters.

“If you weren’t under a massive attack, then people should go about their business and live their lives, but unfortunately, if the fight comes to you, you don’t have a choice,” he continued.

“Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you,” Musk added. “You either fight back or you die.”

An estimated 110,000 people participated in the protest march from Waterloo Bridge to Whitehall and at times clashed with police, 26 of whom were injured when pelted with bottles and other projectiles, according to The BBC.

Four officers suffered serious injuries, and at least 25 people were arrested for what London’s Metropolitan Police called “wholly unacceptable” violence.

The Metro Police deployed 1,000 officers, who were assisted by 500 others from nearby jurisdictions.

“There is no doubt that many came here to exercise their lawful right to protect, but there were many who came intent on violence,” Matt Twist, assistant commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police, told the BBC.

A counter-protest called “Stand Up to Racism” drew about 5,000 participants and was organized by Women Against the Far Right, The Guardian reported.

Those protesters carried placards saying, “Refugees Welcome” and “Oppose Tommy Robinson,” among others.

Sept. 13 (UPI) — Nepal’s former chief justice Sushila Karki was sworn in this week as the country’s first-ever female prime minister, amid continued social upheaval in the South Asian country.

The country has also called an election for March 5, which would come roughly halfway through the current political term.

Karki, 73, was hastily sworn in under heavy security as the country of almost 30 million people remains under strict military curfew following deadly protests earlier in the week that caused prime minister KP Sharma Oli to resign.

U.S. Ambassador to Nepal Dean Thompson was one of the few foreign officials present at the swearing in ceremony.

Oli, who served three terms as the country’s prime minister, had his house set on fire as part of the anti-corruption protests. The demonstrations were first sparked after the Nepalese government moved to block access to several social media apps.

Nepal’s military has moved most of the country’s serving politicians to an army barracks near the capital of Kathmandu.

The country’s current parliament was officially dissolved Friday evening.

The Communist Party of Nepal criticized the dissolution of parliament, saying it was in “serious disagreement” with the move, a sentiment echoed by the Nepal Bar Association.

Karki was chosen informally by the so-called “Gen-Z” protestors, who organized a vote on the messaging app Discord.

In 2016, she became the first woman to serve as chief justice in Nepal.

Nepal had yet to issue an official statement and the official website of the prime minister’s office could not be reached Saturday afternoon.

India’s government issued a formal statement, recognizing the new transitional government.

“We welcome the formation of a new Interim Government in Nepal, led by Right Honorable Mrs. Sushila Karki. We are hopeful that this would help in fostering peace and stability,” India’s Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement.

“As a close neighbor, a fellow democracy and a long term development partner, India will continue to work closely with Nepal for the well-being and prosperity of our two peoples and countries.”

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in London on Saturday for an anti-immigration rally called ‘Unite the Kingdom’, organised by far-right activist Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, better known as Tommy Robinson. Anti-racism campaigners also marched in counterprotests.

WASHINGTON — Senate Democratic Leader Charles E. Schumer weathered backlash from Democrats earlier this year when he voted with Republicans to keep the government open. But he’s now willing to risk a shutdown at the end of the month if Republicans don’t accede to Democratic demands.

Schumer says he and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries are united in opposing any legislation that doesn’t include key healthcare provisions and a commitment not to roll them back. He argues that the country is in a different place than it was in March, when he vigorously argued against a shutdown, and he says he believes Republicans and President Trump will be held responsible if they don’t negotiate a bipartisan deal.

“Things have changed” since the March vote, Schumer said in an interview with the Associated Press on Thursday. He said Republicans have since passed Trump’s massive tax breaks and spending cuts legislation, which trimmed Medicaid and other government programs, and Democrats are now unified — unlike in March, when he voted with Republicans and Jeffries voted against the legislation to fund the government.

A shutdown, Schumer said, wouldn’t necessarily worsen an environment in which Trump is already challenging the authority of Congress. “It will get worse with or without it, because Trump is lawless,” Schumer said.

Democrats’ consequential decision

Schumer’s threat comes as Republicans are considering a short-term stopgap spending measure to avoid a Sept. 30 shutdown and as Democrats face what most see as two tough choices if the parties can’t negotiate a deal — vote with Republicans to keep the government open or let it close indefinitely with no clear exit plan.

It also comes amid worsening partisan tensions in the Senate, where negotiations between the two parties over the confirmation process broke down for a second time on Thursday and Republicans are changing Senate rules to get around Democratic objections to almost all of Trump’s nominees. Democrats are also fuming over the Trump administration’s decision to unilaterally claw back $4.9 billion in congressionally approved foreign aid just as negotiations over the spending deadline were getting underway in late August.

Republicans move ahead

Republicans say that Democrats clearly will be to blame if they don’t vote to keep the government open.

Trump said Friday to not “even bother” negotiating with Democrats. He said Republicans will likely put together a continuing resolution to keep funding the federal government.

“If you gave them every dream, they would not vote for it,” Trump said, adding “we will get it through because the Republicans are sticking together.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.), said in an interview with Punchbowl News on Thursday that he believes Democrats see it as “politically advantageous” to have a shutdown.

“But they don’t have a good reason to do it,” Thune said in the interview. “And I don’t intend to give them a good reason to do it.”

Thune has repeatedly said that Schumer needs to approach Republicans with a specific proposal on healthcare, including an extension of expanded government tax credits for many Americans who get their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act. Some Republicans are open to extending those credits before they expire at the end of the year, but Thune has indicated that he is unlikely to add an extension to a short-term spending bill, instead favoring a “clean” stopgap for several weeks without any divisive issues while Congress finishes its budget legislation.

Schumer said he believes his caucus is ready to oppose the stopgap measure if Republicans don’t negotiate it with Democrats. “I think the overwhelming majority of our caucus, with a few exceptions, and same with the House, would vote against that,” he said.

Less realistic is Democrats’ demand that Republicans roll back Medicaid cuts enacted in their tax breaks and spending cuts legislation this summer, what Trump called his “big, beautiful bill.”

Escalating partisan tensions over spending

Schumer said Democrats also want Republicans to commit that the White House won’t take back money they have negotiated and Congress has approved after Republicans pushed through a $9-billion cut requested by the White House in July and Trump blocked the additional foreign aid money in August. “How do you pass an appropriations bill and let them undo it down the road?” Schumer said.

Congress is facing the funding deadline Sept. 30 because Republicans and Democrats are still working out their differences on several annual budget bills. Intractable partisan differences on an increasing number of issues have stalled those individual bills in recent years, forcing lawmakers to pass one large omnibus package at the end of the year or simply vote to continue current spending.

A shutdown means federal agencies will stop all actions deemed nonessential, and millions of federal employees, including members of the military, won’t receive paychecks. The most recent shutdown — and the longest ever — was during Trump’s first term in 2018 and into 2019, when he demanded money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall. It lasted 35 days.

Schumer’s March vote

Schumer’s move to support the spending legislation in March put him in the rare position of bucking his party’s base. He said then that of two bad options, a partial government shutdown was worse because it would give Trump even more control to lay off workers and there would be “no offramp” to get out of it. “I think people realize it’s a tough choice,” he said.

He faced massive backlash from within the party after the vote, with some activists calling on him to resign. Jeffries temporarily distanced himself from his New York colleague, saying in a statement immediately after Schumer’s vote that House Democrats “will not be complicit.” The majority of Senate Democrats also voted against the GOP spending legislation.

This time, though, Schumer is in lockstep with Jeffries and in messaging within his caucus. In Democrats’ closed-door lunch Wednesday, he shared polling that he said suggested most Americans would blame Trump, not Democrats, for a shutdown.

“I did what I thought was right” in March, Schumer said. “It’s a different situation now than then.”

Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Christopher Megerian contributed to this report.

THREE protesters have been arrested after a police officer was punched in a busy shopping centre.

Masked demonstrators became “aggressive” as a peaceful protest took place on the Isle of Dogs, central London, this afternoon.

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Police said that a small group made their way into the Canary Wharf shopping centre before becoming hostile towards officers.

Following the unrest, cops ordered crowds to remove their masks under Section 60 AA and called in reinforcements.

A Section 35 was also put in place, forcing demonstrators to leave the area.

Shocking footage on social media showed cops tackling protesters to the ground.

The Met confirmed arrests had been made for common assault, possession of drugs and assault on police.

In a statement, the force said: “We have been facilitating peaceful anti-asylum protest on the Isle of Dogs this afternoon.

“Protesters, including some masked, moved into the Canary Wharf shopping centre where a small group became aggressive towards cops.

“We are aware there are young children in the protest area.

“While we deal with any criminality our officers are ensuring the safety of them is paramount.

“One of our officers was punched in the face – luckily they have not suffered significant injury.”

Yesterday, five people were arrested after demonstrators tried to force their way into a migrant hotel in West Drayton, west London.

The Met said a group of masked men attempted to force their way into the Crowne Plaza hotel following peaceful protests.

Nationwide protests were sparked after the landmark ruling to boot migrants out of the Bell Hotel in Essex was overturned.

Epping Forest District Council last week won a bid at the High Court to block migrants from being housed at the hotel.

The temporary injunction meant that the building has to be cleared of its occupants by September 12.

But on Friday, the Court of Appeal overturned the injunction following an appeal by the Home Office and hotel owners Somani.

The latest ruling means the migrants can stay where they are for the time being.

And demonstrations have since continued to spread, with 19 councils vowing to take legal action to boot asylum seekers out of hotels.

The hotel in Essex, has been at the centre of protests after two of its guests were charged with sexual offences.

Angie Claire, 56, who has five grandchildren aged under seven, was protesting outside the building on Friday night.

She told the Sun: “I think it’s absolutely disgusting for the safety of the children in the area.

“I’ve got nothing against immigrants but when they’re causing trouble and problems with our children, they need to be moved on.

“I think they should go home. Why should our government be funding all of this? I think it’s disgusting.

“My children grew up here and they were safe. We never had a worry in the world.

“Now there’s a fear of our children even walking out the front doors so I think it’s best they go.”

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Before MLB’s newest trophy was offered up as the prize in a competition between the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, it had to pass through the hands of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.

The custom Fender Telecaster guitar, named the Vedder Cup, is said to have been played by its namesake for “about an hour” before it was shipped off to T-Mobile Park in Seattle.

“He gave it a good run through,” George Webb, Pearl Jam’s equipment manager, told the Seattle Times on Monday. “He always likes to feel like he puts a little energy, you know, spiritual energy, into an instrument. Not just hand off something that’s brand-new, never-touched kind of thing. So yeah, jammed on it for about an hour. Had a good time.”

The trophy features many nods from the 60-year-old musician, including a hand-drawn “cresting wave” illustration and an arrow and mod symbol — an allusion to Vedder’s tribute to the Who on his personal guitar. On the back, the Padres and Mariners logos appear alongside text hand-written by the singer and guitarist: “The Vedder Cup Established 2025 by Major League Baseball.”

The Vedder Cup, a guitar shown off Monday by Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, will go each year to the winner of the full-season series between the Mariners and the San Diego Padres.

(Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)

It also contains a logo from EB Research Partnership, a nonprofit co-founded by Vedder and his wife, Jill, after a childhood friend’s son was born with the painful skin condition epidermolysis bullosa. The nonprofit funds research on the disease.

The cup is intended to bring “meaningful awareness” to the rare disorder, Mariners Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Trevor Gooby said in a statement in March, when the longtime rivalry became official.

“We can’t wait to see this rivalry series grow and look forward to battling the Mariners for the Vedder Cup,” Padres Chief Executive Erik Greupner added.

The rivalry, such as it is, arose from forces both real and manufactured, apparently. Vedder has strong ties to both cities, having grown up in San Diego, then moved to Seattle to start Pearl Jam with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament — hence, the “Vedder” Cup.

Also, upon the introduction of interleague play in the late ’90s, MLB looked for “natural” rivalries between teams like the Padres and Mariners. This year, the league canonized the rivalry, which is said to have begun as geographic, given both teams’ West Coast homes, Reuters reports.

The two teams have met almost annually since 1997. In the informal all-time series, Seattle currently leads 68-63. Additionally, they share a training complex in Peoria, Ariz.

Some fans are still left with questions as to why the competition has turned official, with one claiming on Reddit that “padres and mariners fans literally give no s— about each other.”

Still, they conceded it is “likely the most meaningless and yet kinda fun thing in MLB.”

The trophy was in the spotlight Monday when the teams met for the fourth time this season. The Mariners notched a 9-6 victory over the Padres, taking the season series after three previous wins in San Diego. The Padres beat the Mariners Tuesday, 7-6, and the final game is Wednesday, but the contest has already been decided. Cal Raleigh, the Mariners’ switch-hitting, homer-hammering catcher, known as “Big Dumper,” hoisted and played the trophy in celebration Monday night.

The name and logo for the cup were first shown off in March, but its final design wasn’t finished until the weeks leading up to the fixture.

“Typically on a custom build like this it will take us six months or so to source the wood, get everything mapped out ready to go and take our time to vet the process, apply the graphics, do some test runs,” Chase Paul, director of product development for Fender, told the Seattle Times. “On this we just kind of headed into it in parallel with testing and the production version at the same time, and kind of getting it ready to go.”

In all, it took Fender eight or nine weeks to get the work done, which Paul called a “really incredible effort by the team in the shop.”

Naturally, Vedder doesn’t want the trophy guitar to sit on a shelf for the next year while it’s in the Mariners’ possession. According to Webb, “He wants it to be played.”

“That’s his attitude with everything. It’s a living, breathing instrument. It sounds great,” he added.

As an added bonus to fans, the league announced it would give away limited-edition Vedder Cup hats during the last 2025 game between the two on Wednesday.

To no surprise, the exclusive ticket package that included the hats has sold out.

Tens of thousands of people have marched through Australia’s major cities and towns, organiers said, demanding action to save dying and starving Palestinians.

More than 40 protests took place across Australia on Sunday, the group Palestine Action said, including large turnouts in state capitals Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne.

“We demand from our politicians more than just talk. We are long past this,” Remah Naji, one of the organisers of the protest in the eastern city of Brisbane, told Al Jazeera.

“Now, we demand actions in the same way we acted in times of genocide. We are signatories to the Genocide Convention, which means that we have an obligation to prevent and punish genocide when it occurs.”

Protests denouncing Israel’s war and starvation campaign were also held in several other countries on Sunday.

In Australia, where people rallied in cities of all sizes nationwide, protesters urged sanctions against Israel and an end to arms trade with the country, which has been accused of carrying out a genocide by leading rights groups.

Organisers estimate more than 300,000 people participated in the demonstrations.

In Sydney, organiser Josh Lees said Australians were out in force to “demand an end to this genocide in Gaza and to demand that our government sanction Israel” as rallygoers, many with Palestinian flags, chanted “free, free Palestine”.

In Melbourne, protesters congregated outside the State Library Victoria, chanting “sanction Israel now”.

Organiser Nour Salman said Australia’s plans to recognise Palestinian statehood must be accompanied by tougher sanctions on Israel.

“Enough is enough. There is no ifs, buts or maybes,” Salman said.

Thousands also gathered in the southwestern city of Perth.

“Our government cannot claim to support human rights while continuing to arm an apartheid regime,” Friends of Palestine Western Australia organiser Nick Everett was quoted as saying by WAToday newspaper.

“Trade unions, civil society, and communities across the country are united in calling for action. Palestine can’t wait.”

‘Enough is enough’

The protests came after the world’s leading authority on food crises –  the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – declared famine in Gaza City.

The warning has come as Israeli forces have intensified attacks and bombardments across Gaza, where nearly two million people have been displaced.

The IPC report said more than half a million people in Gaza – about a quarter of its population – face catastrophic levels of hunger, with many at risk of dying from malnutrition-related issues.

Protests in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza were also held elsewhere around the globe on Sunday, including in Malaysia, Kenya, Belgium and Senegal. Over the weekend, demonstrations took place in the United Kingdom and Sweden.

A mass rally held in Malaysia’s capital, Kuala Lumpur, saw thousands of people demonstrate, answering a call by Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, who said the demonstration would act as a starting point to form a group of activists to take humanitarian aid to Gaza later this month.

In Senegal’s capital Dakar, demonstrators condemned Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the enclave, and called for humanitarian aid to be allowed into the famine-struck Gaza Strip.

In Nairobi, hundreds of bikers rallied, chanting: “Free Palestine”. Many decried the international community for its inability to stop Israel’s deadly assault.

Al Jazeera’s Catherine Soi, reporting from Nairobi, said protesters are standing in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza.

“They have watched horrific images of children who are starving; they have seen parents being killed as they go to get food for their families,” Soi said. “Here, they are saying: ‘Enough is enough.’”

At least 62,263 Palestinians have been killed in the Israel-Palestine war since it started on October 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.

The victims include at least 2,000 Palestinians who were attempting to secure meagre food parcels at the Israeli and US-backed GHF aid distribution sites, dubbed by Palestinian officials as “death traps”.

Last November, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes in Gaza, including using starvation as a weapon of war.

Jimmie Allen, the Grammy-nominated singer known for “Best Shot” and “Warrior,” is liable for sexually assaulting a woman in a Las Vegas hotel room in 2022 and filming it, a federal judge decided this week.

Judge Aleta A. Trauger on Monday filed an order in Tennessee federal court granting a motion for sanctions and judgment against the 40-year-old country musician, according to court documents reviewed by The Times. Allen’s accuser — identified in court documents as “Jane Doe 2” — filed her motion against the singer and his co-defendants in May, but they failed to respond in a timely manner, the order said.

“The court therefore interprets this motion to be unopposed,” Trauger said, adding later in her order, “defendants throughout have failed to comply with case management discovery deadlines and even failed to comply with specific Orders of this court.”

The order adds that Allen and the co-defendants — his bodyguard and Aadyn’s Dad Touring Inc. — also failed to pay the plaintiff $5,950 in nonrefundable legal fees, as ordered in March. A legal representative for the defendants did not immediately respond on Wednesday to The Times’ request for comment.

Elizabeth Fegan, an attorney for the plaintiff, told The Times on Wednesday that her legal team is “pleased with the Court’s decision to grant judgment for Plaintiff in light of Jimmie Allen’s refusal to participate in the litigation process.”

“We look forward to proving up Plaintiff’s damages caused by Allen’s predatory acts,” Fegan added.

Allen faced multiple sexual assault lawsuits in the summer of 2023, which took a toll on his career and professional opportunities. In May 2023, a woman who said she was Allen’s former manager accused him of sexual battery, assault, false imprisonment, sex trafficking and emotional distress. The woman — identified in court documents as “Jane Doe” — dropped her complaint against Allen in March 2024 after reaching a settlement with the singer, and eventually dismissed the case with prejudice in October 2024.

Jane Doe 2 sued Allen in June 2023, requesting a jury trial and an unspecified amount in damages. She alleged in her complaint that Allen sexually assaulted her in his hotel room in Las Vegas in July 2022. She also accused the singer of filming the alleged assault without her consent, causing her to “suffer extreme emotional distress, including anxiety and depression.”

Allen responded to the two lawsuits with a countersuit of his own in July 2023. At the time, he denied the allegations and accused one woman of defaming him, and the other woman of illegally taking his cellphone after consenting to being recorded.

Amid the final weeks of litigation in Jane Doe 2’s suit, Allen promoted new music and live concerts on social media. Earlier this month, he also addressed the sexual assault allegations on the “Playlisted Podcast,” hosted by Austin Burke.

“I always tell people, ‘No matter where you go in life, the more successful you become … be careful because you have a target on your back,’” he said in an episode published Aug. 10. “Anytime you hear the word ‘lawsuit,’ know there’s money involved.”

He added later in the episode: “As the world moves forward, I just wish people are smarter. I hope people aren’t ‘sheeple’ anymore. That people actually use their brain in every decision, in everything they read.”

The Federal Trade Commission accused a shadowy group of flooding Ticketmaster with fake accounts to purchase and resell tickets to concerts by Taylor Swift, Bruce Springsteen and other top artists.

The FTC alleged that between Nov. 1, 2022, and Dec. 30, 2023, a core group of three individuals used a network of sites such as Totaltickets, TotallyTix and Front Rose Tix to purchase at least 379,776 tickets from Ticketmaster, spending nearly $57 million. The complaint states they then resold those tickets on secondary marketplaces for nearly $64 million.

The trio allegedly used software to mask IP addresses, purloined credit cards and SIM cards to create fake Ticketmaster accounts. They also enlisted friends and family to create Ticketmaster Verified Fan accounts, giving small sign-up bonuses and kickbacks for creating new accounts.

The FTC alleges that the group made $1.2 million from flipping tickets to Taylor Swift’s record-breaking Eras Tour in 2023 alone. According to the complaint, at a Las Vegas Taylor Swift concert, “Defendants used 49 different accounts to purchase 273 tickets to Taylor Swift’s March 25, 2023, concert at Allegiant Stadium, dramatically exceeding The Eras Tour’s 2023 six-ticket limit. Defendants then marked up and resold these tickets, netting $119,227.21 in revenue.”

For one Bruce Springsteen show at MetLife Stadium on Sept. 1, 2023, “Defendants used 277 different accounts to purchase 1,530 tickets, dramatically exceeding Springsteen and the E Street Band’s four-ticket limit. Defendants marked up and resold these tickets, netting $20,900.84 in revenue.”

The FTC alleges their actions are a violation of the Better Online Ticket Sales Act. Representatives for Ticketmaster parent firm Live Nation did not immediately return a request for comment.

While Ticketmaster is not accused of any wrongdoing in the complaint, Swift famously lambasted Ticketmaster after the Eras Tour on-sale fiasco in which many fans were locked out of opportunities to buy tickets and saw seats instantly snapped up and placed on resale markets at many times the face value.

“There are a multitude of reasons why people had such a hard time trying to get tickets and I’m trying to figure out how this situation can be improved moving forward,” she wrote in a 2022 social media post. “I’m not going to make excuses for anyone because we asked them multiple times if they could handle this kind of demand and we were assured they could.”

“It really pisses me off that a lot of [fans] feel like they went through several bear attacks to get them,” Swift added.

The incident prompted rowdy hearings in Congress and a federal antitrust lawsuit against Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Although Ticketmaster is not targeted in the complaint, the FTC does include a slide that it says is from a 2018 presentation deck, where Ticketmaster warns of “Serious negative economic impact if we move to 8 ticket limit across the board.” In March, President Trump issued an executive order to combat fraudulent ticket reselling practices.

A march has begun from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas northward to the central part of the country, in protest of policies that make legal immigration status difficult to achieve.

Wednesday’s march set out from the border city of Tapachula, near Guatemala, and nearly 300 migrants, asylum seekers and supporters took part.

But the demonstration was overshadowed by the arrest one day earlier of one of its leaders, prominent immigration activist Luis Garcia Villagran.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed the arrest in her morning news conference on Wednesday. She alleged that Garcia Villagran had been detained for taking part in human trafficking.

“That is the crime,” she said, adding that Garcia Villagran was “not an activist”.

She added that an arrest warrant had been pending for the activist for years. But it was unclear why his arrest was carried out now.

The nonprofit Pueblo Sin Fronteras, however, disputed Sheinbaum’s characterisation of Garcia Villagran.

“The detention of Luis Villagran, director and human rights defender, is an unacceptable assault,” the nonprofit’s head, Irineo Mujica, wrote in a post to social media.

“Luis Villagrán’s only ‘crime’ is to defend those who have no money or voice, and to tell the truth, which bothers the powerful. Stop criminalising human rights defenders!”

Mujica – who was detained himself in 2019 on similar charges, only to be released – argued that Garcia Villagran’s arrest was a political distraction.

“This is a smokescreen: dirty and corrupt politics to cover up the true networks of corruption,” he said.

Mujica and Garcia Villagran have both been prominent voices in a movement to make legal immigration pathways more accessible.

They have also been among the organisers associated with the trend of the migrant “caravans” that travel from southern Mexico to the United States border in recent years.

Some of those past caravans have involved thousands of people, many of whom banded together for protection against criminal networks, corrupt officials and other threats they may face as they migrate.

Migration northwards, however, has slowed, particularly since US President Donald Trump took office for a second term in January.

Trump quickly attempted to bar asylum claims at the border, a move that has spurred a legal backlash.

Last month, a court blocked his asylum ban on the basis that it created an “alternative immigration system” without deference to Congress’s laws.

But Trump’s policies have nevertheless had a dampening effect on immigration at the border. In June, US Customs and Border Protection recorded only 9,306 “encounters” with migrants and asylum seekers at the country’s southern border – a nearly 93 percent drop compared with the same period last year.

Wednesday’s march had a different objective than those past caravans, though, particularly as migrants and asylum seekers turn away from the US and seek other destinations.

Organisers of the march sought to draw attention to the slow processing time for asylum applications in Mexico and other hurdles to achieving legal immigration status.

It also served as a demonstration against Mexican policies that have sought to keep undocumented migrants and asylum seekers in the south of the country, away from the US border.

The Trump administration has pressured Mexico to crack down on immigration into the US, including through the threat of tariffs.

Garcia Villagran’s arrest in the hours leading up to the march, however, left some migrants and asylum seekers fearful of taking part in the march.

The news agency AFP obtained one message that was circulating among participants that read, “Hide, don’t let yourselves get caught.”

A Catholic priest who took part in Wednesday’s march, Heyman Vazquez, told The Associated Press news agency that Garcia Villagran’s arrest was “unjust”.

He added that the arrest revealed a sense of insecurity in the government over the question of migration. The solution, he explained, would be to make it easier for migrants and asylum seekers to obtain legal status, thereby removing the need for such protests.

WASHINGTON — Eric Hildenbrand has noticed prices continue to rise this year with President Trump in the White House.

The San Diego resident doesn’t blame Trump, however, his choice for president in 2024, but says Gov. Gavin Newsom and other Democrats who control the state are at fault.

“You can’t compare California with the rest of the country,” said Hildenbrand, 76. “I don’t know what’s going on in the rest of the country. It seems like prices are dropping. Things are getting better, but I don’t necessarily see it here.”

Voters like Hildenbrand, whose support of the Republican president is unwavering, help explain Trump’s polling numbers and how they have differed from other presidents’ polling trajectory in significant ways. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in March found that 42% of U.S. adults approved of Trump’s job performance. That is a lower rating than those of other recent presidents at the beginning of their second terms, including Democrat Barack Obama and Republican George W. Bush.

The most recent AP-NORC poll, from July, puts Trump at 40% approval. While that is not a meaningful change from March, there is some evidence that Trump’s support may be softening, at least on the margins. The July poll showed a slight decrease in approval of his handling of immigration since earlier in the year. Some other pollsters, such as Gallup, show a downward slide in overall approval since slightly earlier in his term, in January.

But even those shifts are within a relatively narrow range, which is typical for Trump. The new AP-NORC polling tracker shows that Trump’s favorability rating has remained largely steady since the end of his first term, with between 33% and 43% of U.S. adults saying they viewed him favorably across more than five years.

Those long-term trends underscore that Trump has many steadfast opponents. But loyal supporters also help explain why views of the president are hard to change even as he pursues policies that most Americans do not support, using an approach that many find abrasive.

Persistently low approval numbers

Trump has not had a traditional honeymoon period in his second term. He did not in his first, either.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in March 2017, two months into his first term, showed that 42% of Americans “somewhat” or “strongly” approved of his performance. That is largely where his approval rating stayed over the course of the next four years.

The recent slippage on immigration is particularly significant because that issue was a major strength for Trump in the 2024 election. Earlier in his second term, it was also one of the few areas where he was outperforming his overall approval. In March, about half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of immigration. But the July AP-NORC poll found his approval on immigration at 43%, in line with his overall approval rating.

Other recent polls show growing discontent with Trump’s approach on immigration. A CNN/SSRS poll found that 55% of U.S. adults say the president has gone too far when it comes to deporting immigrants who are living in the United States illegally, an increase of 10 percentage points since February.

“I understand wanting to get rid of illegal immigrants, but the way that’s being done is very aggressive,” said Donovan Baldwin, 18, of Asheboro, N.C., who did not vote in the 2024 election. “And that’s why people are protesting, because it comes off as aggression. It’s not right.”

Ratings of Trump’s handling of the economy, which were more positive during his first term, have been persistently negative in his second term. The July poll found that few Americans think Trump’s policies have benefited them so far.

Even if he is not a fan of everything Trump has done so far, Brian Nichols, 58, of Albuquerque is giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Nichols, who voted for Trump in 2024, likes what he is seeing from the president overall, though he has his concerns both on style and substance, particularly Trump’s social media presence and his on-again, off-again tariffs. Nichols also does not like the push to eliminate federal agencies such as the Education Department.

Despite his occasional disagreements with Trump, though, Nichols said he wants to give the president space to do his job, and he trusts the House and Senate, now run by Republicans, to act as a safeguard.

“We put him into office for a reason, and we should be trusting that he’s doing the job for the best of America,” Nichols said.

Overall views are steady

Trump has spent the last six months pushing far-reaching and often unpopular policies. Earlier this year, Americans were bracing themselves for higher prices as a result of his approach to tariffs. The July poll found that most people think Trump’s tax and spending bill will benefit the wealthy, while few think it will pay dividends for the middle class or people like them.

Discomfort with individual policies may not translate into wholesale changes in views of Trump, though. Those have largely been constant through years of turmoil, with his favorability rating staying within a 10-percentage point range through his widely panned handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, a felony conviction and an attempted assassination.

To some of his supporters, the benefits of his presidency far outweigh the costs.

Kim Schultz, 62, of Springhill, Fla., said she is thrilled with just about everything Trump is doing as president, particularly his aggressive moves to deport anyone living in the country illegally.

Even if Trump’s tariffs eventually take effect and push prices up, she said she will not be alarmed.

“I’ve always had the opinion that if the tariffs are going to cost me a little bit more here and there, I don’t have a problem with that,” she said.

Across the country, Hildenbrand dislikes Trump’s personality and his penchant for insults, including those directed at foreign leaders. But he thinks Trump is making things happen.

“More or less, to me, he’s showing that he’s on the right track,” he said. “I’m not in favor of Trump’s personality, but I am in favor of what he’s getting done.”

Thomson-Deveaux and Cooper write for the Associated Press and reported from Washington and Phoenix, respectively.

GREENBELT, Md. — A federal judge in Maryland has prohibited the Trump administration from taking Kilmar Abrego Garcia into immediate immigration custody if he’s released from jail in Tennessee while awaiting trial on human smuggling charges, according to an order issued Wednesday.

U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis ordered the U.S. government to provide three business days’ notice if Immigration and Customs Enforcement intends to initiate deportation proceedings against the Maryland construction worker.

The judge also ordered the government to restore the federal supervision that Abrego Garcia was under before he was wrongfully deported to his native El Salvador in March. That supervision had allowed Abrego Garcia to live and work in Maryland for years, while he periodically checked in with ICE.

Abrego Garcia became a prominent face in the debate over President Trump’s immigration policies after his wrongful explusion to El Salvador in March. Trump’s administration violated a U.S. immigration judge’s order in 2019 that shields Abrego Garcia from deportation to El Salvador because he probably faces threats of gang violence there.

The smuggling case stems from a 2022 traffic stop for speeding, during which Abrego Garcia was driving a vehicle with nine passengers. Police in Tennessee suspected human smuggling, but he was allowed to drive on.

U.S. officials have said they’ll try to deport Abrego Garcia to a country that isn’t El Salvador, such as Mexico or South Sudan, before his trial starts in January because they allege he’s a danger to the community.

A federal judge in Tennessee has been considering whether to release Abrego Garcia to await trial, prompting fears from his attorneys that he would be quickly expelled by ICE.

In an effort to prevent his deportation, Abrego Garcia’s attorneys asked the judge in Maryland to order the U.S. government to send him to that state to await his trial. Short of that, they asked for at least 72 hours’ notice if ICE planned to deport Abrego Garcia.

Abrego Garcia’s American wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, is suing the Trump administration in Xinis’ Maryland court over his wrongful deportation in March and is trying to prevent another expulsion.

U.S. officials have argued that Abrego Garcia can be deported because he came to the U.S. illegally around 2011 and because a U.S. immigration judge deemed him eligible for expulsion in 2019, although not to his native El Salvador.

Following the immigration judge’s decision in 2019, Abrego Garcia was released under federal supervision, received a federal work permit and checked in with ICE each year, his attorneys have said.

The Trump administration recently stated in court documents that they revoked Abrego Garcia’s supervised release when they deemed him to be in the MS-13 gang and deported him in March.

Finley writes for the Associated Press.

BOSTON — President Trump’s plan to end birthright citizenship for the children of people who are in the U.S. illegally will remain blocked as an order from one judge went into effect Friday and another seemed inclined to follow suit.

U.S. District Judge Joseph LaPlante in New Hampshire had paused his own decision to allow for the Trump administration to appeal, but with no appeal filed in the last week his order went into effect.

“The judge’s order protects every single child whose citizenship was called into question by this illegal executive order,” said Cody Wofsy, the ACLU attorney representing children who would be affected by Trump’s restrictions. “The government has not appealed and has not sought emergency relief so this injunction is now in effect everywhere in the country.”

The Trump administration could still appeal or even ask that LaPlante’s order be narrowed, but the effort to end birthright citizenship for children of parents who are in the U.S. illegally or temporarily can’t take effect for now.

The Justice Department didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

Meanwhile, a judge in Boston heard arguments from more than a dozen states who say Trump’s birthright citizenship order is blatantly unconstitutional and threatens millions of dollars for essential services. The issue is expected to move quickly back to the nation’s highest court.

U.S. District Judge Leo Sorokin was asked to consider either keeping in place the nationwide injunction he granted earlier or consider a request from the government either to narrow the scope of that order or stay it altogether. Sorokin, located in Boston, did not immediately rule but seemed to be receptive to arguments from states to keep the injunction in place.

Lawyers for the government had argued Sorokin should narrow the reach of his earlier ruling granting a preliminary injunction, arguing it should be “tailored to the States’ purported financial injuries.”

Much of the hearing was focused on what a narrower ruling would look like. The plaintiffs raised concerns that some alternatives floated by the Trump administration — such as giving children in states affected by the birthright citizenship order Social Security numbers, but not citizenship — would be costly and unworkable.

They said such a system would burden these states with having to set up new administrative systems, sow confusion among the parents whose children are affected and possibly turn these states into magnets for families from other states looking to access the benefits.

Government lawyers didn’t seem tied to any one alternative, but told Sorokin the scope of his injunction should be limited. When pressed on how they would do that, a lawyer for the government, Eric Hamilton, would only commit to complying with whatever order was issued.

“If the court modifies the preliminary injunction or stays the preliminary injunction, it should be at most tailored to injuries plaintiffs are alleging, which are primary financial,” Hamilton said.

Sorokin pushed back, at one point using an analogy of someone who sued a neighbor over loud music. The defendant offers to build a wall to limit the noise but Sorokin wondered how they could ensure it met the zoning code and was something the defendant could afford.

“What you are telling me is we will do it but, in response to my question, you have no answer how you will do it,” Sorokin said.

LaPlante issued the ruling last week prohibiting Trump’s executive order from taking effect nationwide in a new class-action lawsuit, and a Maryland-based judge said this week that she would do the same if an appeals court signed off.

The justices ruled last month that lower courts generally can’t issue nationwide injunctions, but it didn’t rule out other court orders that could have nationwide effects, including in class-action lawsuits and those brought by states. The Supreme Court did not decide whether the underlying citizenship order is constitutional.

At the heart of the lawsuits is the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which was ratified in 1868 after the Civil War and the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision. That decision found that Scott, an enslaved man, wasn’t a citizen despite having lived in a state where slavery was outlawed.

The Trump administration has asserted that children of noncitizens are not “subject to the jurisdiction” of the United States and therefore not entitled to citizenship.

Casey writes for the Associated Press.

Crystal Palace supporters have staged a protest against Uefa’s decision to demote the club to the Conference League.

On Tuesday, hundreds of fans marched to Palace’s Selhurst Park ground carrying banners and chanting against European football’s governing body.

The Eagles, who qualified for the Europa League by winning the FA Cup in May – their first major trophy – were demoted to the lower tier of Uefa competition after breaching multi-club ownership rules.

American businessman John Textor owns a stake in Crystal Palace and is the majority owner of French club Lyon, who have also qualified for the Europa League.

The rules of European football’s governing body state clubs owned, to a certain threshold of influence, by the same person or entity cannot compete in the same European competition.

Uefa’s rules set a deadline of 1 March 2025 to show proof of multi-club ownership restructuring – a deadline which Palace missed.

Textor is currently in the process of selling his stake in Crystal Palace to New York Jets owner Woody Johnson.

Nottingham Forest, who finished seventh in the Premier League last season, are set to replace Palace in the Europa League.

Palace are expected to take their case to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas).

“At the end of the day it’s an injustice, just by a couple of admin errors. We qualified for it,” Nick Philpot from the Red and Blue Review podcast said at the march.

“We won the cup – it should be we go into it without any question about it.

“You’re penalising the entire club and the fanbase. Why would you do that?”

Last week, Crystal Palace chairman Steve Parish called the decision “a bad day for football” and “a terrible injustice”.

“We’ve been locked out of a European competition on the most ridiculous technicality,” he said. “Supporters of all clubs should be devastated for us.”

Uefa has been approached for comment.

Mexican actor Manuel Masalva is on the road to recovery after contracting an aggressive bacterial infection in March that left him in a medically induced coma for weeks.

In his first social media post since the onset of his illness, the “Narcos: Mexico” actor updated his followers on his current health status via Instagram on Monday evening.

“I am healing. I want to profoundly thank you all for the support you have given me and continue to give me, in every sense, every one of you,” Masalva wrote. “This [process] has barely begun, there is much more left to go, but I feel blessed, strong, reborn and well-accompanied. … God has given me a new life.”

Masalva first felt the onset of an ailment when he arrived in Dubai in March, following a trip to the Philippines, revealing that he ended up spending 105 days in the Dubai hospital that first treated him for his prolonged illness.

The actor first arrived in the Middle East city on March 18, his manager Jaime Jaramillo Espinosa told The Times in April.

“[After] about two days in Dubai, Masalva began to feel internal discomfort and pain which increased by the day,” Jaramillo Espinosa said.

On March 26, Masalva underwent emergency surgery after doctors discovered the bacterial infection, which prevented him from traveling back to his home in Mexico. The following day, the infection reached his lungs and he had to be put into a medically induced coma.

Masalva thanked the Dubai hospital staff for their work and for the distinct culture that “overflowed with love and spirituality.”

“I don’t know if I really understand all of what’s going on or just a part of it, it’s been an eternity and there are still some parts missing, I just want to the strongest thanks that I can give to God, my family, my doctors and all those people that have supported me since the start of this process. I owe you all my life,” he wrote.

Masalva played the role of Ramón Arellano Félix in the Netflix drama series “Narcos: Mexico,” alongside Diego Luna, Bad Bunny and Scoot McNairy. He has also been featured on the telenovela “La Rosa de Guadalupe” and recently in the series “La Guzmán.”

NEW YORK — Social justice advocates are creating a queer history archive that celebrates Bayard Rustin, a major organizer in the Civil Rights Movement and key architect of the March on Washington.

The Bayard Rustin Center for Social Justice will launch a digital archive this fall featuring articles, photos, videos, telegrams, speeches and more tied to Rustin’s work. Sourced from museums, archives and personal accounts, it’s designed as a central space where others can add their own stories, creating a living historical record.

“There’s this hole in our history,” said Robt Martin Seda-Schreiber, the center’s founder and chief activist. “And there are great resources about Bayard, but they’re all spread out, and none of it has been collected and put together in the way that he deserves, and more importantly, the way the world deserves to see him.”

Rare footage of Rustin speaking at a 1964 New York rally for voting rights marchers who were beaten in Selma, Ala., was recently uncovered and digitized by Associated Press archivists. Other AP footage shows him addressing a crowd during a 1967 New York City teachers’ strike.

“We are here to tell President Johnson that the Black people, the trade union movement, white people of goodwill and the church people — Negroes first — put him where he is,” Rustin states at the 1964 rally. “We will stay in these damn streets until every Negro in the country can vote!”

Rustin mentored Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

The legacy of Rustin — who died in 1987 aged 75 — reaches far beyond the estimated 250,000 people he rallied to attend the March on Washington in 1963, when Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his “I Have A Dream” speech. Rustin also played a pivotal role behind the scenes, mentoring King and orchestrating the Montgomery bus boycott.

And his influence still guides activism today, reminding younger generations of the power the community holds in driving lasting change through nonviolence, said David J. Johns, a queer Black leader based in Washington, D.C.

“Being an architect of not just that moment but of the movement, has enabled so many of us to continue to do things that are a direct result of his teaching and sacrifice,” said Johns. He is the chief executive and executive director of the National Black Justice Collective, which attributes its advocacy successes in the Black queer space to Rustin’s legacy.

Rustin was born into activism, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute. His grandparents, Julia Davis and Janifer Rustin, instilled in him and his 11 siblings the value of nonviolence. His grandmother was a member of the NAACP, so Rustin was surrounded and influenced by leaders including the activist and scholar W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson, who wrote “Lift Every Voice and Sing.”

Rustin was expelled from Wilberforce University in 1936 after he organized a strike against racial injustice. He later studied at Cheyney University of Pennsylvania, the nation’s first historically Black college, then moved to New York during the Harlem Renaissance to engage more deeply with political and social activism. He attended the City College of New York and joined the Young Communist League for its stance against segregation.

Rustin served jail time and was posthumously pardoned

Rustin was arrested 23 times, including a 1953 conviction in Pasadena, for vagrancy and lewd conduct — charges commonly used then to criminalize LGBTQ+ people. He served 50 days in jail and lost a tooth after being beaten by police. California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a posthumous pardon in 2020, acknowledging Rustin had been subjected to discrimination.

Rustin and figures such as Marsha P. Johnson, a prominent transgender activist during the gay rights movement, continue inspire the LGBTQ+ community because they “were super intentional and unapologetic in the ways in which they showed up,” Johns said.

“I often think about Bayard and the March on Washington, which he built in record time and in the face of a whole lot of opposition,” Johns said.

Walter Naegle, Rustin’s partner and a consultant on projects related to his life and work, said it’s important for the queer community to have access to the history of social movements.

“There wasn’t very much of an LGBTQ+ movement until the early 50s,” said Naegle. “The African American struggle was a blueprint for what they needed to do and how they needed to organize. And so to have access to all of the Civil Rights history, and especially to Bayard’s work — because he was really the preeminent organizer — I think it’s very important for the current movements to have the ability to go back and look at that material.”

Rustin had to step away from leadership for several years

Rustin’s sexuality and his former association with the Young Communist League forced him to step away as a Civil Rights leader for several years.

In 1960, New York congressman Adam Clayton Powell Jr. threatened to spread false rumors that Rustin and King were intimately involved, weaponizing widespread homophobia to undermine their cause, according to the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute.

But Rustin resumed his work in 1963 as chief organizer of the March on Washington, which became a defining moment in the Civil Rights Movement and paved the way for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

In 2023, Netflix released the biopic “Rustin.” Filmmaker and co-writer Julian Breece, who is Black and queer, grew up in the ’90s when, he said, being gay still correlated with the spread of AIDS, leading to shame and isolation. But he learned about Rustin’s impact on the Civil Rights Movement and found a peer to admire.

“Seeing a picture of Rustin with King, who is the opposite of all those things, it let me know there was a degree to which I was being lied to and that there was more for me potentially, if Bayard Rustin could have that kind of impact,” Breece said.

“I wanted Black gay men to have a hero they could look up to,” he said.

Green writes for the Associated Press.

June 28 (UPI) — Saturday’s Budapest Pride march is expected to have drawn record attendance and participation in opposition to Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s anti-LGBTQ policies.

The parade is being held in the Hungarian capital amid threats of legal consequences by Orban and the Hungarian government, including a ban on gatherings that promote homosexuality, the BBC reported.

Hungary’s child protection law restricts such gatherings, but Pride march organizers are being joined by Hungarians and politicians from other European nations to support those who identify as LGBTQ.

“This weekend, all eyes are on Budapest,” European equality commissioner Hadja Lahbib told media in Budapest on Friday.

“This is bigger than one Pride celebration, one Pride march,” Lahbib said. “It is about the right to be who you are, to love who you want, whether it is in Budapest, in Brussels or anywhere else.”

March organizers expected between 35,000 to 40,000 people to participate in the march, but the BBC reported said organizers estimated as many as 200,000 people showed up.

Orban and Hungary’s Fidesz party earlier this year enacted the nation’s child protection law and have said it applies to the Pride march and similar events.

The law also bans the display of LGBTQ promotional materials, which might include the rainbow flag.

Orban has said there won’t be a violent police crackdown on the event, but organizers and participants might be subject to legal prosecution afterward. Facial recognition technology could identify participants, each of whom could be fined up to $500.

“The police could break up such events because they have the authority to do so,” Orban told state-run radio on Friday.

“Hungary is a civilized society [and] a civic society,” Orban continued. “There will be legal consequences, but it cannot reach the level of physical abuse.”

Event participants waved Pride flags and signs mocking Orban, including at least one depicting the prime minister in drag.

Thousands to march in Hungary’s capital despite government ban, highlighting EU-wide resistance against anti-LGBTQ laws.

A record number of people are expected to attend a Pride march in the Hungarian capital, Budapest, defying a ban that marks an unprecedented regression of LGBTQ rights in the European Union.

The event on Saturday comes after Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s ruling coalition earlier this year amended laws and the constitution to ban the annual celebration. Orban’s government has consistently argued that the legislation defends traditional family values and protects children.

While the prime minister has been emboldened by the anti-diversity offensive of President Donald Trump in the United States, his own initiatives have drawn protests at home and condemnation from the EU and rights groups.

The nationalist leader on Friday said that while police would not “break up” the 30th edition of the Pride march, those who took part should be aware of “legal consequences”.

Despite the risk of a fine, more than 35,000 people are expected to gather at 2pm (12:00 GMT) near Budapest’s city hall, an hour before the march begins.

Ministers from several EU countries and dozens of European politicians are expected to attend in defiance of the ban, reminiscent of events in Moscow in 2006 and Istanbul in 2015.

“We’re not just standing up for ourselves … If this law isn’t overturned, Eastern Europe could face a wave of similar measures,” Pride organiser Viktoria Radvanyi said.

Earlier this week, EU chief Ursula von der Leyen called on the Hungarian authorities to reverse the ban.

Thirty-three countries have also spoken up in support of the march.

While parade organisers risk up to a year in prison, attendees can face fines up to 500 euros ($580). The latest legal changes empower the authorities to use facial recognition technology to identify those who take part.

Freshly installed cameras have appeared on lamp posts along the planned route of the march.

However, Budapest Mayor Gergely Karacsony has insisted that no attendee can face any reprisals as the march – co-organised by the city hall this time – is a municipal event and does not require police approval.

“The police have only one task tomorrow, and it is a serious one: to ensure the safety of Hungarian and European citizens attending the event,” Karacsony said during a briefing with visiting EU equalities commissioner Hadja Lahbib.

Far-right groups have announced multiple counterprotests along the planned route of the procession.

Justice Minister Bence Tuzson this week sent a letter to EU embassies cautioning diplomats and staff against participating because of the police ban.

Several EU countries have informed their citizens of the potential of fines through travel advisories.

Since Orban’s return to power in 2010, the country of 9.6 million people has been steadily rolling back LGBTQ rights.

Legal changes have, in effect, barred same-sex couples from adopting children, prevented transgender people from changing their name or gender in official documents, and a 2021 law forbade the “display and promotion” of homosexuality to under-18s.

In March, politicians passed a bill targeting the annual Pride march, amending the 2021 law to prohibit any gathering violating its provisions.

A month later, parliament also adopted a constitutional change to strengthen the legal foundations for the ban.

“Orban is employing a tried-and-tested recipe ahead of next year’s election by generating a conflict,” political analyst Daniel Mikecz told the news agency AFP. Orban was “polarising society”, he added.

Voter opinion polls suggest Orban’s Fidesz party has been losing ground to the opposition.

The first Pride march was held in 1970 in New York to mark the anniversary of the city’s Stonewall riots in June 1969, which created the gay rights movement.