RIYADH: Hail Municipality has unveiled five new investment opportunities for investors, aiming to boost investment prospects in the region, develop commercial, agricultural and recreational activities, and make use of municipal sites in ways that support economic development and improve the urban landscape.
The investment opportunities include the establishment, operation and maintenance of a mixed-use site in the Al-Nuqrah district covering 5,129 sq. meters, with a contract term of up to 20 years, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
They also include an agricultural nursery site in the Al-Rawabi Al-Awwal district covering 9,999 sq. meters, with a contract term of up to 10 years, and a second nursery site covering 16,828 sq. meters, with a term of up to five years.
The opportunities also include the establishment, operation and maintenance of a commercial complex in the Hittin district covering 6,297 sq. meters, with a contract term of up to 20 years, and the establishment, operation and maintenance of a mixed-use site on Jubbah Road covering 20,326 sq. meters, with a contract term of up to 20 years — offering investors diverse opportunities in commercial, agricultural, recreational and tourism activities, and supporting the development and investment of municipal sites in the region.
The Hail Municipality said the opportunities build on its efforts to empower the private sector, encourage investment, and develop commercial, agricultural, recreational and tourism activities, in line with the goals of Saudi Vision 2030 to strengthen partnership with the private sector, support sustainable development and improve quality of life. It invited the public to view details of the opportunities through the municipality’s investment platform.
The sprawling snack-food factory in upstate New York appeared to be closed when a small army of immigration officers arrived after 9 a.m. Following a brief discussion of whether to force their way inside, a manager opened the front door.
Over the next several hours, body cameras were running as federal authorities from several agencies made 57 arrests, debated which files to seize and when to release employees who were U.S. citizens. They also searched for anyone in hiding.
The footage from September 2025 shows the raid at the Nutrition Bar Confectioners plant in Cato, N.Y., town of 2,500 people east of Syracuse, and offers a rare glimpse inside a workplace immigration sweep. The Associated Press analyzed the video, which was part of a lawsuit filed Thursday that accuses authorities of overstepping their search warrants.
The officers ordered a manager to announce their presence over loudspeakers while they entered the building and caught employees on the production line, in the warehouse and a few in the bathroom. Officers covered all exits while others swept the interior, including homing in on locked doors.
Male officers encountered a locked bathroom and began shouting instructions in broken Spanish at female employees through the door, demanding that they come out. After about 10 seconds, officers broke through the door.
One woman was outside of a stall and another in the stall. A male officer peered through a locked stall door, and his body cam video revealed a woman sitting on the toilet.
“Miss, pull up your pants. Come out of the bathroom,” he told her.
“You have to wait. I can’t come out like this, naked!” she replied.
Investigators interviewed the general manager and said they were looking into hiring practices and potential fraudulent documents. Inside and outside the building, officers checked every office, storage room and hallway for anyone who was hiding.
Employees were lined up and separated into groups of U.S. citizens and potential noncitizens. Officers asked for their immigration status, requested documents and posed questions about their entry into the U.S. Some employees were pregnant.
Some were parents and expressed concern for their children at home. Others said they would not answer questions without first speaking to their attorneys, and officers told them they would be arrested.
One employee refused to answer questions. “Will you let me talk to my attorney?” she asked the officer. He raised his voice and continued asking about her immigration status.
U.S. citizens were asked for personal information, including their phone numbers and addresses before they were allowed to leave.
A Border Patrol agent who spoke to another official wearing a camera used disparaging language about children from other countries when recounting his experience working at a South Texas immigrant detention center. He said President Biden’s administration allowed millions of people to enter the United States from countries where children are treated “differently” than they are by American parents.
“In other countries, kids are more of a commodity or it’s more of like, I’m going to put it in those terms. It’s more like an animal, right? It’s not prized the way that we do it,” he said.
“There’s countries like Brazil and other places where they’re literal street rats at a very young age who commit crimes, and then they come here. I don’t know if you have kids, but they’ll eat our kids for breakfast.”
The Homeland Security Department said Friday that it executed a criminal search warrant at the plant as part of an investigation that is still open. Its statement did not address the contents of the video or the merits of the lawsuit.
Not all officers wore body cameras, but those who did often indicated to other officers that they were recording before they initiated a conversation.
ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations unit is responsible for workplace raids, which have been relatively few and low-key compared with ICE’s removal unit, which arrests people in the street, at homes and in public and also manages detention centers. The Trump administration’s largest workplace raid was last year at a Hyundai electric vehicle plant in Georgia. It resulted in nearly 500 arrests and fueled diplomatic tension with South Korea.
The lawsuit against Homeland Security claims federal officers exceeded the authority of their warrants and violated workers’ constitutional rights against unlawful search and seizure.
“There were no arrest warrants,” said Perry Grossman, a supervising attorney at the New York Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit with the Worker Justice Center of New York.
“There was no suspicion that individual workers had committed crimes. And they seized easily 100 people for nonconsensual questioning. They arrested 57. Out of those 57 people, criminal charges were brought against only five. And the most serious charge was unlawful reentry.”
Grossman said one employee got her charges dismissed after contending in a lawsuit that her 4th Amendment rights were violated. He said he was not aware of any charges or indictments against the employers.
Officers detained about 60 people and deported some employees, including two plaintiffs who are part of Thursday’s lawsuit. One plaintiff has since been allowed to reenter the country. Attorneys for the second deported plaintiff are seeking his return.
Law enforcement agencies have come under criticism for not using body cameras and for refusing to release footage when they do. ICE, in particular, has been scrutinized after a $75-billion infusion from Congress and an expanding street presence that has led to three fatal shootings this year.
ICE’s own rules on releasing video are unclear. Its policy calls for expedited release of footage after a serious injury or death in custody when doing so is determined to be in the “ best interests of the agency.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly promised to equip ICE field agents with body cameras, as required by Congress. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin said last week that the agency was “on track” to do so by the end of September.
Gonzalez and Vancleave write for the Associated Press.
When her home burned down in the Eaton fire, artist Susannah Mills felt lost and adrift — but never alone. Her home was part of an Altadena artists collective called JJU, or John Joyce University, named after a beloved carpenter who lived there for 26 years. And although the residents were forced to scatter in the wake of the January 2025 devastation, they remained in contact, looking for ways to support one another through what is still an ongoing process of recovery.
A few months after her loss, Mills was accepted into an artist residency at BKN, a retreat in the northern Stockholm Archipelago, where she expanded her watercolor practice from relatively small works to large scale, and explored installation. Like JJU, BKN prides itself on building community, and while there Mills began talking with BKN curator Anna Viola Hallberg about bringing other L.A. fire survivors to Sweden to experience the same sense of connection and relief Mills was feeling.
Hallberg had already been thinking along those lines and suggested they create another residency to do just that. In the fall of 2025, Mills and Hallberg, with the help of another L.A. artist, Rick Gradone, started an organization named Los Angeles Wildfire Survivors, or L.A.W.S., and raised the funds to send 13 Eaton and Malibu-based artists to BKN for two months.
The result was life-altering for the artists, most of whom were still working to rebuild from the devastating loss — and some of whom had been so occupied with the logistics of recovery that they had not been able to make time to work.
“It creates a network, and people who work together in the residency continue to help each other,” said Hallberg in a recent interview. “So there’s a really true new arts community that lingers beyond the residency.”
It soon became clear to the team behind L.A.W.S. that more needed to be done, and they solicited another round of applications for a residency, set to begin later this month at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state. Eight Eaton fire survivors have been selected in a competitive process, and plans are in the works to bring another cohort of artists to Sweden next Spring.
“We want to expand this outside of Los Angeles ultimately, because there are fires everywhere and there is climate disaster everywhere,” Mills said, explaining that the group’s mission is growing as changing weather patterns result in escalating cataclysm and displacement of artists globally.
“The media focuses on the disaster really fast, and they don’t understand just how long the recovery takes,” Gradone said in a recent interview. “So this puts some kind of resource in place where people can continue to to get help, especially artists who lose everything that they’ve made, lose their studio spaces and homes. That can’t be recovered in six months.”
L.A.W.S. operates as a not-for-profit and has applied for official nonprofit status, a process that can take some time in California. It is also actively looking for fiscal sponsorship. Up until now the group has relied on its personal connections to raise money to support its artist residencies. Mills’ partner, Brian Huskey, is a comedian and actor who has rallied celebrity friends to auction off small pieces of art on cards in support of L.A.W.S. But there is a need for more help as the group grows.
“Word has really caught on with people who want to have this experience, which I’m really happy about,” said Mills.
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing I could turn back time, Cher-like, to an era before the world fast-tracked climate change with its laissez faire approach to global warming. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY
Bruce Willis, left, talks with director M. Night Shyamalan on the set of the 2000 film “Unbreakable.”
(Frank Masi / Touchstone Pictures)
Unbreakable M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero thriller with a twist stars Bruce Willis, Charlayne Woodard, Robin Wright, Samuel L. Jackson and Spencer Treat Clark. 7 p.m. Vidiots, The Eagle, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org
SATURDAY
“the wheat leaping constantly from the shute,” Marley Freeman (2026). Oil, acrylic on linen, 58 by 54 inches.
(Marley Freeman / Parker Gallery)
Marley Freeman The artist’s new exhibition of paintings, “worthless serpentine,” takes its title from the writings of Joan Didion. Opening, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday, through Oct. 31. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
SUNDAY
Doyle Lane: Master Of Clay The first major museum retrospective of the Los Angeles ceramic artist features more than 100 works from the 1950s through the 1980s, from functional pottery to monumental murals, as well as archival documents. Through Feb 22. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
Marie Atoinette A 20th anniversary screening of the semibiographical period film with a postpunk- and new wave-fueled soundtrack with writer-director Sofia Coppola and star Kirsten Dunst in person. Coppola and photographer Andrew Durham will sign copies of their new book, “Making Marie Antoinette,” at the Academy Museum Store in a separately ticketed event prior the screening. 6:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
TUESDAY
Andrea Bocelli performs live in Vienna on Aug. 22.
(Thomas Kronsteiner / Getty Images)
Andrea Bocelli The Italian tenor arrives at the Hollywood Bowl for two nights on his Romanza 30th Anniversary World Tour. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
WEDNESDAY
Elliott Hundley “Book of Sand” is an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and tapestries focusing on the artist’s “own exuberant internal universe” created through compiling paint, paper cutouts, string, encaustic and other found materials. Artist led walk–through, 11 a.m.; opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Oct. 24. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com
The Peterson Show The world premiere of Janine Nabers’ play about a group of former child stars from a beloved TV show about a Black family come together after a scandal entangles their famous TV father. Directed by Michelle Bossy. Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, opens, 8 p.m. Saturday (sold out), runs through Oct. 26. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com
THURSDAY
The Case-Book of C. Auguste Dupin The world premiere of a new play adapted and directed by John Strysik, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 18. Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. theatre40.org
The Ford/Hill Project A Waterwell Production created by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel, this documentary theater piece is based on the verbatim Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court confirmation hearings, 30 years apart. The cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Betty Gabriel, Dulé Hill and Jerry O’Connell. 8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
The SoCal scene
A view of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles from a garden.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Hey, have you heard? The Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts will open Sept. 22 and began member previews late last week. Just kidding. Of course you have heard, because hot takes currently abound on the new $1-billion museum. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay, and Team Arts spent the week rolling out a spate of stories explaining how we got here, as well as what you can find in the shiny new 300,000-square-foot Ma Yansong-designed building.
Randolph Thompson, Desiree Mee Jung, Adam J. Smith, Nicole Javier and Julanne Chidi Hill in “Pericles” at Boston Court Pasadena.
(Brian Hashimoto)
Times theater critic Charles McNulty spent an evening at Boston Court Pasadena watching Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” which takes place at a disaster relief center, where anxious evacuees improvise a play to escape their fear of the storm they are fleeing. “It’s hard to allow yourself to fully believe in the incredible turn of events when the prevailing attitude is so emphatically tongue-in-cheek,” McNulty wrote of the West Coast premiere.
McNulty also had lunch in Manhattan with playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who has two plays running in L.A.: “Grangeville,” which McNulty calls “Los Angeles’ most acclaimed theatrical offering of the summer” and has been extended at Ruskin Group Theatre through Sept. 21; and “A Case for the Existence of God,” in a recently opened Rogue Machine production at the Matrix Theater’s Henry Murray Stage. “Drama in Hunter’s hands is built around an encounter. He doesn’t force his characters to jump through hoops,” writes McNulty in a profile. “He listens to them, as they navigate their complicated feelings, closely tracking the way their intersecting paths lead them toward incremental revelation.”
IAMA Theatre Company is set to launch its ninth annual New Works Festival, which will take place Sept. 14-28 at Atwater Village Theatre, and will feature staged readings of six new plays. Tickets are $18 for each reading and can be found at iamatheatre.com. This year’s festival includes “The Half-Sibling Play” by Agyeiwaa Asante; “All Remaining Assets” by Serena Berman; “The Starters” by Laura Winters; “Betta Mus Come” by Alicia Carroll; “Werewolves” by Liba Vaynberg; and “The Great Florida Python Challenge” by John Lavelle.
Additional tumult is coming for the Smithsonian Institution as secretary Lonnie Bunch announced he will step down from his leadership position. The news comes in the midst of President Trump’s pressure campaign on the organization and his administration’s attempts to alter what Smithsonian museums include in their exhibitions.
For some, peace and quiet is the perfect escape, but popular holiday hotspots can often come with crowds and noise. So why not swap the chaos for a getaway to one of the ‘world’s quietest’ countries?
A secluded mountain paradise has been named the quietest country(Image: Getty)
As Brits lament about the quickly fading sunshine after a summer of record-breaking heatwaves, it might be tempting to head for warmer climes before winter finally sets in. And at this time of year, holidays can be cheaper — and often quieter — as people return to work after the summer break and children begrudgingly go back to school.
For some, peace and quiet sounds like the perfect escape. But the usual summer hotspots can mean crowds, queues and constant noise. So why not swap the chaos for one of the world’s “quietest” countries instead?
One such nation is a secluded haven, with temperatures climbing into the 20s in September. It’s even been named the quietest country on the planet — which may not come as a surprise, given it didn’t allow visitors until the 1970s.
Go2Africa has created a list of 10 destinations where tranquillity is part of the appeal, basing the results on various indicators rather than opinion alone. It weighed up how busy a place feels – including how many people live there, how concentrated tourism is, how much countryside and protected land, and how congested the roads tend to be.
It was Bhutan, in South Asia, that came out on top — scoring 89.44 on the “quiet score”.
Go2Africa notes on its website: “The country, sitting in the shadow of the Eastern Himalayas, is well known for being beautifully preserved, with tourists only able to visit through licensed local tour operators and by paying a daily Sustainable Development Fee.
“The country ranks particularly high for rural land density with 39,041km2 of forested mountains, terraced valleys, and sparsely populated highland terrain and an exceedingly high percentage of protected areas.”
Bhutan is known for its strikingly unspoilt landscape, with around 39,041km² of forested mountains, valleys and sparsely populated highland areas.
If you’re looking at a late-season break, autumn can still feel pleasantly warm: September through November often brings sunshine and highs near 25C. Just bear in mind temperatures aren’t uniform — they can shift depending on which valley you’re in.
Autumn is also prime season for trekking — and for catching big cultural celebrations such as Thimphu Tshechu.
Bhutan also protects its low-impact tourism model with a compulsory visitor charge — around £70 a day for adults. The levy, called the Sustainable Development Fee, is used to fund priorities including conservation, education and healthcare.
One of Bhutan’s standout sights is Taktsang — better known as the “Tiger’s Nest” — a 17th-century monastery seemingly clinging to the mountainside around 3,000 metres above sea level. But visitors should be prepared: reaching it means a demanding hike that can take anywhere from two to four hours.
Second on the list was Namibia, which recorded a Quiet Score of 86.69. The southern African country is famously arid — in fact, it’s the driest nation in sub-Saharan Africa — and Go2Africa sums it up as being “built on scale and emptiness”, promising travellers “complete solitude”.
As for the remainder of the rankings: Botswana came third, followed by Zambia, Gabon, Venezuela, Chad, the Central African Republic, Mongolia and Bolivia. At the opposite end of the scale, Singapore was crowned the noisiest country with a Quiet Score of just 6.78.
Imagine a Saturday night “spectacular,” under the stars at the Hollywood Bowl, with the Los Angeles Philharmonic performing as fireworks explode in the night sky — for $10?
Not a pipe dream.
The L.A. Phil has taken a major step in expanding its accessibility. The organization announced this week that it will offer Los Angeles County residents with active Medi-Cal or EBT cards $10 tickets to L.A. Phil performances at the Hollywood Bowl starting with the 2027 season.
It will offer at least 100 of these tickets at each of the orchestra’s Hollywood Bowl concerts. Tickets will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis. The L.A. Phil didn’t say exactly how eligible residents could secure such tickets. It plans to announce that process in Spring 2027 before the season starts.
L.A. Phil Vice President of Community and Government Engagement, Cynthia Fuentes, said in an interview that the organization has been “prioritizing accessibility for a very long time.”
“When you create accessibility programs, they have to be very intentional,” Fuentes said. “Folks are really struggling to make ends meet right now, and for us, it’s so important not only that we create great music on our stages, but that people can afford to see it. Your income levels shouldn’t dictate whether you have access to the arts or not.”
The $10 ticket announcement is the latest move towards making L.A. Phil events more accessible at a time when tickets to see the orchestra at the Hollywood Bowl are, on average, about $48, Fuentes said.
The L.A. Phil has been offering discounted tickets since the 1970s. It now offers more than 50,000 $1 Hollywood Bowl tickets annually — some seats open to the general public and others given out by the L.A. Phil in partnership with the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and L.A. County Parks, to low-income students, senior centers and others in need.
Last year the L.A. Phil boosted the numbers of its $1 tickets from 36,000 to 55,000. It also distributes tens of thousands of free tickets to non-profit organizations through a program called Community Concert Connections.
The L.A. Phil debuted its new accessibility program at the Ford during the venue’s 2026 season. The program is still active at the Ford.
“That was our pilot program for the L.A. Phil, with the intention of implementing it at the Hollywood Bowl,” Fuentes said. “When we started looking into EBT cardholder tickets, [we realized] it happens in a lot of museums but not a lot at performance arts organizations. Partly because it’s a ticketed structure with assigned seats and it’s a more controlled environment. We wanted to build the infrastructure of how you execute it on the back end. The Ford was an incredible way to start the process — do it on a smaller scale, look at what works and then be able to scale up to the bowl.”
The L.A. Phil is in a period of transition. Daniel Harding will step in as the L.A. Phil’s new Music Director, replacing Music & Artistic Director Gustavo Dudamel, starting with the 2027–2028 season. He’ll oversee orchestral programming at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Hollywood Bowl. Newly appointed Creative Director Esa-Pekka Salonen begins his tenure at the start of the 2026/27 concert season in early October. He’ll conduct and curate subscription concerts and multidisciplinary projects. Anna Handler will serve as conductor in residence for the next three years starting with the 2026/27 season.
“But Gustavo will be back every summer to do a suite of concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and also in December of this year at Walt Disney Concert Hall,” Fuentes said. “He’ll continue to have a presence with the L.A. Phil.”
Operating the Hollywood Bowl is a partnership between the L.A. Phil and the Los Angeles County Department of Parks and Recreation.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, whose district includes the Hollywood Bowl, said in a statement that the L.A. Phil has been “a trailblazer in the arts” for more than a century. Their new accessibility initiative, she said, is “that same spirit of innovation and partnership.”
“The Hollywood Bowl is one of Los Angeles County’s most cherished public assets,” Barger said, “and every resident should have the opportunity to experience the joy, inspiration, and sense of community that it offers.”
“But there’s no other L.A. County facility, for performing arts, that we found in our research that had an EBT Program,” Fuentes added. “Part of our goal is to take our findings to the field to share so that other performing arts non-profits follow, especially L.A. County-based [ones], so we can ensure we’re creating accessibility for everyone in the county.”
Fuentes pointed to her own upbringing to illustrate the importance of accessibility programs in the arts.
“I grew up in South Central with working-class parents that had three kids,” she said. “When you don’t have disposable income, you don’t have opportunities [to see arts performances]. Everyone should have the opportunity to go to a show and share a communal experience around music without the fear of not having enough to make your rent or mortgage.”
The 31-year-old became the first Irish player to represent Europe in the competition when she was selected for the 2021 version and broke the all-time rookie points record for either the Solheim Cup or Ryder Cup with a contribution of 4.5 points as the away team triumphed 15-13.
The County Cavan woman’s overall individual record in the competition after also taking part in the two subsequent editions reads eight wins, one half and three defeats.
“It’s one of my favourite events. It’s a team event which we don’t get to do very often and matchplay which I love,” she explained.
“I think once you’re part of one Solheim, the same as the Ryder Cup, you don’t want to miss any more.
“It’s competitive, there’s no money on the line, it’s all just for pride and all the rest. You’re doing whatever you can to help your teammates and the team.
“We obviously lost the last one so there’s an extra incentive to try and bring it back this time.”
Maguire, a two-time winner on the LPGA Tour and a one-time victor on the Ladies European Tour, hopes the backing of home supporters can help Europe reclaim the trophy at the 20th running of the event.
“Home support always helps as well. There was massive Irish support in Spain two times ago so hopefully a few Irish will maybe make the trip to Holland.”
