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Ahmaud Arbery. His name is just one that we’ve come to associate with senseless racial violence in America. On the afternoon of Feb. 23, 2020, in Georgia’s Glynn County, Arbery, 25, was out running when three white men chased him down and shot him. His death ricocheted across the nation just three months before the murder of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.

Now, five years later, the Grammy-winning choral ensemble Tonality is dedicating a show to Arbery at the Wallis in Beverly Hills. The May 24 program, “Put Your Guns Down,” includes the world premiere of founding Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake’s piece “Running From, Running To: A Musical Reflection on Ahmaud Arbery.”

Tonality choral ensemble during a performance.

(Dorian Bonner)

Arbery’s mother, Wanda Cooper-Jones, will attend the concert and has already heard Blake’s 30-minute work for choir, orchestra and soloists. She took time while traveling to answer questions via email about experiencing the music.

“When I first heard the composition, I was overwhelmed. It’s beautiful. I wish I could play it over and over again,” Cooper-Jones wrote. “The fact that someone took the time to honor Ahmaud in this way — it means more than I can put into words. One of the movements is called ‘Running Free,’ and when I heard that, I told Alex that it was like we were made to make a connection.”

After Arbery’s death, Cooper-Jones channeled her grief into creating the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation, which champions mental health awareness and provides scholarships and youth development camps for young Black men.

“One of my favorite quotes from Ahmaud is, ‘When life gets hard, you gotta get hard with it,’” Cooper-Jones wrote. “I hear his voice saying that all the time, especially when I get to the point where I want to give up. Starting the Ahmaud Arbery Foundation hasn’t been easy. It’s hard work. But those words keep me going.”

Arbery, Cooper-Jones explained, inspired everything she does.

“He had a way of leaving every person with ‘I love you,’ no matter who they were. Since losing him, I try to do the same, letting people know I love them, just in case I leave here tomorrow,” she said. “Through the foundation, I’m working to be the change for young Black men like Ahmaud who may be facing mental health challenges or simply struggling to find their place in the world. If they choose running as their outlet, I want them to be able to run free, without fear. That’s what this work is about, honoring Ahmaud’s legacy by fighting for freedom, for justice, and for love.”

Tonality’s Blake also wants to honor Arbery’s life with his music.

“I remember reading about Ahmaud Arbery’s story in 2020 and feeling a deep frustration at how little attention it received. That frustration led me to create a project in 2020 with 60 Black musicians to honor the countless Black lives lost without consequence,” Blake wrote in an email. “‘Running From, Running To’ is my way of ensuring his story is not forgotten — a reflection of our need to remember, to heal, and to strive toward justice that has yet to be fully realized.”

Tonality founding Artistic Director Alexander Lloyd Blake.

(Dorian Bonner)

“Put Your Guns Down,” begins at 7:30 p.m. on Saturday at the Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets can be purchased at thewallis.org.

I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, grateful for Cooper-Jones’ reflections on the power of love. Here’s a rundown of this week’s other arts news.

Best bets: On our radar this week

‘Califas Trilogy’

Playwright and actor Roger Q. Mason made waves with their play “Lavendar Men,” which reimagined Abraham Lincoln’s life through a queer lens. Now Mason has launched the “Califas Trilogy,” plays exploring the California dream at various points in the past, present and future. Times contributor Amanda L. Andrei sat down with Mason to discuss the works, two of which are up and running. Check them out and dive into Mason’s story.
“California Story” runs through June 3 at Caminito Theatre of Los Angeles City College “Hide and Hide” runs through May 29 at Skylight Theatre in L.A.; “Juana Maria” runs May 25-June 1 at Caminito Theatre. www.califastrilogy.com

‘Schoenberg in Hollywood’

Tod Machover’s opera “Schoenberg in Hollywood” is based on a remarkable incident from 1935: In the office of legendary Hollywood producer Irving Thalberg, composer Arnold Schoenberg asks for more than an astronomical fee to score the MGM feature film adaptation of Pearl S. Buck’s “The Good Earth.” He also asks for full control of the movie’s sound — and wants the actors to recite their lines to his musical rhythms. Three more performances of “Schoenberg in Hollywood” by the UCLA Herb Alpert School of Music are scheduled this week at the Nimoy Theater in Westwood. Until then, you can read music critic Mark Swed’s take on Schoenberg and his contribution to the L.A. sound.
7:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd., L.A. schoolofmusic.ucla.edu

Culture news and the SoCal scene

Elizabeth Reaser and Jason Butler Harner, who star as Nora and Torvald in “A Doll’s House, Part 2,” at the Pasadena Playhouse on Friday, May 2, 2025.

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Since Henrik Ibsen’s classic play “A Doll’s House” premiered in 1879, one thing has not changed: It’s still shocking for a woman to walk out on her child. Which is where playwright Lucas Hnath’s starts his 2017 play, “A Doll’s House, Part 2”: 15 years after Ibsen’s female protagonist, Nora, left her husband and daughter to find her own way in life. In a new production at Pasadena Playhouse, screen actors Elizabeth Reaser and Jason Butler Harner play Nora and husband Torvald, coming up with their own answers about what these two former life partners may now think and feel about each other. Read all about the show here.

Times theater critic Charles McNulty, a part-time professor at CalArts, enjoyed reading playwright Sarah Ruhl’s new book, “Lessons From My Teachers.” Ruhl is a playwriting instructor at Yale who finds plenty to learn from her students. “Even in the classroom, with its necessary hierarchies and rigorously observed boundaries, teaching isn’t a one-way street,” McNulty writes in review of the book. “Authority is enriched, not undermined, by intellectual challenge. The most thrilling moments in my years of teaching drama have come when in the dialectical heat of class discussion, a new way of understanding a scene or a character’s psychology emerges from conflicting perspectives.”

Maestro Esa-Pekka Salonen conducts the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Pierre-Laurent Aimard at piano at the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

(David Swanson/For The Times)

The classical music world is abuzz with the thought that conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen might return to lead the Los Angeles Philharmonic after Music and Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel leaves at the end of next season to take over the New York Philharmonic. Times critic Swed ruminates on the possibility of Salonen playing a transitional role for a couple years while the search continues for a permanent successor.

Joe Ngo, Abraham Kim, Kelsey Angel Baehrens, Jane Lui and Tim Liu in “Cambodian Rock Band” at East West Players.

(Teolindo)

Massive cutbacks to the National Endowment for the Arts continue to send shock waves through L.A.’s arts community. East West Players announced that it lost a $20,000 grant meant to support the creative team behind the world premiere of Prince Gomolvilas’ “Paranormal Inside,” scheduled for the fall. “The loss of this funding represents more than a financial setback; it is a symbolic blow to our mission and to the creatives who rely on institutional support to tell vital, underrepresented stories,” the theater wrote in an email to supporters. The loss, which represents 10% of the budget for the project, couldn’t come at a worse time for the company, which in April was forced to layoff five full-time staff members. The theater is calling on members of the community to help fundraise and to contact their local representatives to protest the Trump administration’s proposed elimination of the NEA.

A massive art installation created by transgender and nonbinary artists in support of visibility and acceptance for their community was unveiled Saturday in Washington, D.C. The “Freedom to Be” project was spearheaded by the American Civil Liberties Union and helped kick off World Pride in the capital by displaying hundreds of quilts meant to build on the legacy of the 1987 AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The Getty has announced the lineup for its free outdoor summer concert series, “Off the 405.” This year’s performers include Bartees Strange, Cate Le Bon, Helado Negro, Alabaster DePlume and Moses Sumney. Check out the full schedule here.

And last but not least

Times travel writer Christopher Reynolds, who may have the best job at the paper, just released this list of “the 34 coolest, kitschiest, most fascinating motels in California,” which appeals to just about every aspect of my personality and taste. Now I just need a few months off — and a lottery win — to stay at each and every one.

ATLANTA — The case of a pregnant woman in Georgia who was declared brain-dead and has been kept on life support for three months has given rise to complicated questions about abortion law and differing views about whether a fetus is a person.

Adriana Smith, a 30-year-old nurse and mother, was about two months pregnant on Feb. 19 when she was declared brain-dead, according to an online fundraising page started by her mother. Doctors said Georgia’s strict antiabortion law requires that she remain on life support until the fetus has developed enough to be delivered, her mother wrote.

The law, one of a wave of measures enacted in conservative states after the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade in 2022, restricts abortion once cardiac activity is detected and gives personhood rights to a fetus.

Smith’s mother says the law has left her family without a say in a difficult situation, and with her due date still months away, the family is left wondering whether the baby will be born with disabilities or can even survive. Some activists, many of them Black women like Smith, say it raises issues of racial equity.

What does the law say?

Emory Healthcare, which runs the hospital, has not explained how doctors decided to keep Smith on life support except to say in a statement that it considered “Georgia’s abortion laws and all other applicable laws.”

The state adopted a law in 2019 to ban abortion after cardiac activity can be detected, about six weeks into pregnancy, that came into effect after Roe was overturned.

That law does not explicitly address Smith’s situation, but allows abortion to preserve the life or physical health of the pregnant woman. Three other states have similar bans that kick in around the six-week mark, and 12 bar abortion at all stages of pregnancy.

David S. Cohen, a professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law in Philadelphia, said the hospital might be most concerned about part of the law that gives fetuses legal rights as “members of the species Homo sapiens.”

Cohen said that Emory may therefore consider Smith and the fetus as two patients and that once Smith was on life support, the hospital had a legal obligation to keep the fetus alive, even after Smith was considered brain-dead.

“These are the kind of cases that law professors have been talking about for a long time when they talk about fetal personhood,” he said.

State Rep. Nabilah Islam Parkes, an Atlanta-area Democrat, said Friday that she sent a letter to state Atty. Gen. Chris Carr asking for a legal opinion on how Georgia’s abortion law applies when a pregnant woman is brain-dead.

Divide within antiabortion movement

Antiabortion groups are divided over whether they should support personhood provisions, which are on the books in at least 17 states, according to the advocacy group Pregnancy Justice.

Some argue that fertilized eggs, embryos and fetuses should be considered people with the same rights as babies after birth. This personhood concept seeks to give them rights under the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, which says a state can’t “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process or law; nor deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.”

Some saw personhood as politically impractical, especially after personhood amendments to state constitutions were rejected by voters in Colorado, Mississippi and North Dakota between 2008 and 2014. Those who steered away sought laws and restrictions on abortion that stopped short of personhood, although they were often informed by the concept.

Personhood proponents argue this lacks moral clarity. Some personhood proponents have been sidelined in national antiabortion groups; the National Right to Life Committee cut ties with its Georgia Right to Life affiliate in 2014 after the state wing opposed bills that restricted abortion but allowed exceptions for rape and incest.

Unequal access to care for Black women

The Associated Press has not been able to reach Smith’s mother, April Newkirk. But Newkirk told Atlanta TV station WXIA that her daughter went to a hospital complaining of headaches and was given medication and released. Then, her boyfriend awoke to her gasping for air and called 911. Emory University Hospital determined she had blood clots in her brain and she was declared brain-dead.

It’s not clear what Smith said when she went to the hospital or whether the care she was given was standard for her symptoms. But Black women often report that their pain isn’t taken seriously, and an Associated Press investigation found that health outcomes for Black women are worse because of circumstances linked to racism and unequal access to care.

Monica Simpson, executive director of SisterSong, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging Georgia’s abortion law, said: “Black women must be trusted when it comes to our healthcare decisions.”

“Like so many Black women, Adriana spoke up for herself. She expressed what she felt in her body, and as a healthcare provider, she knew how to navigate the medical system,” Simpson said, noting that by the time Smith was diagnosed “it was already too late.”

It’s unclear whether the clots in Smith’s brain were related to her pregnancy.

But her situation is undoubtedly alarming for those seeking solutions to disparities in the maternal mortality rate among Black women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Black women had a mortality rate of 50.3 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2023. That’s more than three times the rate for white women, and it is higher than the rates for Latino and Asian women.

What is Smith’s current situation?

While Smith is on a ventilator and probably other life-support devices, being declared brain-dead means she is dead.

Some experts refer to “life support” as “maintenance measures,” “organ support” or “somatic support,” which relates to the body as distinct from the mind.

Emory has not made public what is being done to allow Smith’s fetus to continue to develop.

In another case in Florida, doctors successfully delivered the baby of a 31-year-old woman who was declared brain-dead while 22 weeks pregnant, but not without weeks of sustained monitoring, testing and medical care. The woman’s family wanted to keep the fetus, physicians with the University of Florida College of Medicine said in a 2023 paper.

On her first day of admission, doctors administered hormones to raise her blood pressure and placed a feeding tube. After she was transferred to an intensive care unit, an obstetric nurse stayed by her bedside continuously to monitor the fetus’ heart rate and movements.

She was on a ventilator, regularly received steroids and hormones, and needed multiple antibiotics to treat pneumonia. Her medical team encompassed multiple specialties: obstetrics, neonatology, radiology and endocrinology.

Doctors performed surgery to remove the fetus at 33 weeks when its heart rate fell, and the baby appeared to be in good health at birth.

“We don’t have great science to guide clinical decision-making in these cases,” said Dr. Kavita Arora, an obstetrician and gynecologist in North Carolina who raised concerns about the effect of prolonged ventilator use on a fetus. “There simply aren’t a lot of cases like this.”

The 2023 paper warned that “costs should not be underestimated.”

It is not clear whether Smith, whose mother said she was a nurse at Emory University Hospital, had health insurance. But JoAnn Volk, a professor, founder and co-director of the Center on Health Insurance Reforms at Georgetown University, said that for people with health insurance, it’s generally up to the insurer to determine whether care is medically necessary and covered under the plan.

While it is unclear how much it will cost to keep Smith on life support until the fetus can be delivered, or who will be responsible for that cost, her mother’s GoFundMe page mentions Smith’s 7-year-old son and notes that the baby could have significant disabilities as the effort aims to raise $275,000.

Associated Press writers Brumback and Thanawala reported from Atlanta and Mulvihill from Cherry Hill, N.J. AP writer Jeff Amy in Atlanta contributed to this report.

May 15 (UPI) — Authorities in western New Jersey arrested and charged a mother and stepfather after their 18-year-old daughter whom they had chained up and locked in a dog create for years escaped their home last week.

Circumstances of her escape were not made public, but authorities said the unidentified girl had fled her home Thursday and received assistance from a neighbor.

The girl told authorities that she had been physically, mentally and sexually abused by her parents since about 2018, when her mother removed her from school.

The girl’s parents, Brenda Spencer, 38, and Branndon Mosley, 41, were arrested and charged Sunday with a slew of offenses, including kidnapping, endangering the welfare of a child, criminal restraint and assault with a deadly weapon. Mosley, the stepfather, faces additional charges of sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault and endangering the welfare of a child by sexual assault.

“This is the most abhorrent, heinous crime anyone could commit,” Camden County Prosecutor Grace MacAulay said during a press conference Wednesday.

“You see criminals all over the country doing horrific, horrible acts, whether it’s physical or sexual abuse. When it comes at the hands of a parent to a child, there’s nothing worse.”

Authorities said the 18-year-old girl told detectives that shortly after being removed from sixth grade at Spencer’s discretion to be allegedly homeschooled, she was confined to live in a dog crate, where she lived for one year, before being chained up and forced to live in a padlocked bathroom, where she was let only only when family visited.

She was also forced, at times, to live in a bare room with just a bucket to use as a toilet, according to authorities who said she informed detectives that it was armed with an alarm system that would alert the defendants if she tried to leave.

She informed police that Mosley had sexually abused her and beat her with a belt.

MacAulay told reporters that the girl was “living in squalid, filthy conditions” alongside numerous animals, including large dogs and chinchillas.

During the press conference, it was also revealed that the girl’s 13-year-old sister was also living in the same residence, though it was not stated if she was subjected to the same treatment, but that she, had also been removed from school years earlier at Spencer’s discretion to be homeschooled.

In New Jersey, parents are only required to notify the school district of their intent to homeschool their children without requirements from the state’s Department of Education to follow up or to confirm attendance or accreditation, MacAulay explained.

“Homeschooling may be the right choice for many families. Unfortunately, it can be used by others as a means to hide abuse,” she said.

MacAulay said both girls were safe but did not elaborate on their conditions as they are minors and victims of abuse.

“As you can imagine, anyone who’s been confined for a period of seven years, held in these conditions, living in squalid filth, is going to be damaged psychologically, physically, emotionally, mentally,” she said.

“And as you can appreciate when it comes to cases involving child endangerment and child abuse and sexual assault, confidentiality to protect the victims is paramount.”

Gloucester Township Police Chief David Harkins explained the several-day gap between the 18-year-old’s escape and her parents’ arrest was due to authorities not knowing the extent of the situation.

He said on Thursday when police were contacted, what the girl had described was “a domestic violence-type situation” and that “she did not want to disclose all this information.

“She did not disclose this information about being held to this level,” he said.

An investigation was conducted Thursday following the girl’s escape, but based on the information they had, their investigative authorities were limited.

“Without a corroborating victim, there’s only so much we could do,” he said. “We offered her services. We gave her some resources at that time. She was looking for homeless services.”

On Saturday, the girl contacted authorities again, at which point they learned to what degree she was being held, Harkins said.

“This is one of the most despicable cases that I’ve ever run across,” he said.

Spencer was described as unemployed, and Mosley worked as a train conductor with the SEPTA Regional Rail system.

Both defendants were being held at the Camden County Correctional Facility, pending detention hearings.

Two-year-old Maikelys Espinoza Bernal was reunited with her mother in Venezuela following calls for her return.

A Venezuelan toddler who was separated from her parents after they crossed the United States-Mexico border together has been returned to Venezuela, to where her mother was deported in April.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro thanked the administration of United States President Donald Trump for the return on Wednesday of two-year-old Maikelys Espinoza Bernal to her mother, Yorely Bernal.

“We must be thankful for all the efforts, for [Trump special envoy] Rich Grenell for his efforts … and thank Donald Trump, too,” Maduro said, calling the child’s return “an act of justice”.

Both of the toddler’s parents were accused by the Trump administration of involvement with the Tren de Aragua gang, a claim for which the government has offered no evidence and is firmly denied by family members.

The child’s father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, was among at least 137 Venezuelans sent to a prison in El Salvador in March.

Venezuelan officials had sought the return of Maikelys, and footage shown on state television showed First Lady Cilia Flores holding Maikelys after she arrived at an international airport near the capital of Caracas.

The child was reunited with her mother and grandmother in an event at the presidential palace attended by Maduro, who has voiced occasional criticism of Trump’s deportation push but reached an agreement in March to receive Venezuelans deported from the US.

The Trump administration has invoked sometimes vague and unsubstantiated claims of Tren de Aragua membership to send Venezuelan migrants to CECOT, a maximum security prison in El Salvador, notorious for abusive conditions, without due process under the 1798 Alien Enemies Act.

The toddler’s father, 25-year-old Maiker Espinoza, has been accused by the Trump administration, without evidence, of being a “lieutenant” in Tren de Aragua who oversees “homicides, drug sales, kidnappings, extortion, sex trafficking and operates a torture house”.

“At no time has my son been involved with them,” his mother, Maria Escalona, told the news agency Reuters this month, of claims that her son is a member of Tren de Aragua. “I think this is political – they are using the case of my son to cover up the horror that is being committed against all these innocents.”

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) also accused Yorely Bernal of recruiting young women for narcotics smuggling and sex work, but has not provided any evidence for those claims and deported her to Venezuela in April.

The Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, a rarely used wartime law that grants the president powers to expeditiously expel people from the country without usual protections, under the pretext that irregular migration to the US constitutes a foreign “invasion”.

A report by the US intelligence community found no evidence for public claims by the Trump administration that Tren de Aragua was coordinating activities with the Maduro government as part of a clandestine attack on the United States.

On Wednesday, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard fired two top members of the intelligence body that authored that assessment.

THE Lady-Datejust, the Pearlmaster, the Oyster or the Yachtie – whatever your favourite Rolex is, it’s probably worth well over £10,000. 

The Swiss watch brand is synonymous with luxury, and us normal folk will probably spend our whole lives dreaming of owning one of its timepieces. 

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But where do we turn when saving up the five figures needed for an opulent watch is impossible? As it goes, Primark. 

The fast fashion giant has released a Rolex dupe for a mere £10. 

The affordable design is a copycat of the luxury brand’s Lady-Datejust in oyster steel and yellow gold – which costs a staggering £17,300 to buy direct. 

“Gold is coveted for its lustre and nobility,” a Rolex blurb reads. “Steel reinforces strength and reliability. 

“Together, they harmoniously combine the best of their properties.”

Money-saving content creator Aimee Michelle unearthed the imitation watch in her local Primark and took to Instagram to alert fellow fashionistas. 

“The comparison is uncanny,” she said. 

“Everything down to the fluted bezzle, the stainless steel with the gold and even the ‘mother of pearl’ face.

“It’s the only one they have currently in store… but this is big news.”

The Primark watch’s official name is The Edit Metal Watch, and it is made from 80% steel and 20% zinc. 

“Add a touch of luxury to your accessories edit with this timelessly sophisticated metal watch,” high street bosses said. 

The timepiece has a classic and timeless design that will be relevant and stylish throughout every season, meaning you’ll get way over your £10’s worth of wear. 

Like the Lady-Datejust, it is smaller and more delicate compared to many other watches.

As such, it’s ideal for women who prefer a more understated and elegant size without compromising on style.