people

NEW ORLEANS — About 250 federal border agents are expected to launch a months-long immigration crackdown Monday in southeast Louisiana and into Mississippi.

The operation dubbed “Swamp Sweep,” which aims to arrest 5,000 people, is centered in liberal New Orleans and is the latest federal immigration enforcement operation to target a Democratic-run city as President Trump’s administration pursues its mass deportation agenda.

Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino, who has led aggressive operations in Chicago, Los Angeles and Charlotte, N.C., is expected to lead the campaign.

Many in the greater New Orleans area, particularly in Latino communities, have been on edge since the planned operations were reported this month. Republican Gov. Jeff Landry said he welcomes the federal agents.

Here’s what to know:

Border Patrol tactics criticized

Bovino has become the Trump administration’s go-to operative for leading large-scale, high-profile immigration enforcement campaigns. During his operation in Chicago, federal agents rappelled from a helicopter into an apartment complex and fired pepper balls and tear gas at protesters.

Federal agents arrested more than 3,200 immigrants during a surge in the Chicago area in recent months, but have not provided many details. Court documents on roughly 600 recent arrests showed that only a few of those arrested had criminal records representing a “high public safety risk,” according to federal government data.

The Border Patrol, which does not typically operate in dense urban areas or in situations with protesters, has been accused of heavy-handed tactics, prompting several lawsuits. A federal judge in Chicago this month accused Bovino of lying and rebuked him for deploying chemical irritants against protesters.

Bovino has doubled down on the efficacy of his agency’s operations.

“We’re finding and arresting illegal aliens, making these communities safer for the Americans who live there,” he said in a post on X.

Louisiana’s strict enforcement laws

The Department of Justice has accused New Orleans of undermining federal immigration enforcement and included it on a list of 18 so-called sanctuary cities. The city’s jail, which has been under long-standing oversight from a federal judge, does not cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under most circumstances, and its Police Department views immigration enforcement as a civil matter outside its jurisdiction.

Louisiana’s Republican-dominated Legislature, however, has passed laws to compel New Orleans agencies to align with the Trump administration’s hard-line immigration stance.

One such law makes it a crime to “knowingly” do something intended to “hinder, delay, prevent, or otherwise interfere with or thwart” federal immigration enforcement efforts. Anyone who violates the law could face fines and up to a year of jail time.

Additionally, lawmakers expanded the crime of malfeasance in office, which is punishable by up to 10 years in jail, for government officials who refuse to comply with requests from agencies like ICE. It also prohibits police and judges from releasing from their custody anyone who “illegally entered” the U.S. “or unlawfully remained” here without providing advance notice to ICE.

New Orleans braces

In and around New Orleans, some immigration lawyers say they have been inundated with calls from people trying to prepare for the upcoming operation. One attorney, Miguel Elias, says his firm is conducting many consultations virtually or by telephone because people are too afraid to come in person.

He likens the steps many in the immigrant community are taking to what people do to prepare for a hurricane — hunker down or evacuate. Families are stocking up on groceries and making arrangements for friends to take their children to school to limit how frequently they leave the house, he said.

In the days leading up to Border Patrol’s planned operations, businesses have posted signs barring federal agents from entry and grassroots advocacy groups have offered rights-related training and workshops on documenting the planned crackdown.

New Orleans is famous for its blend of cultures, but only around 6.7% of its population of nearly 400,000 is foreign-born, rising to almost 10% in neighboring metro areas. That’s still well below the national average of 14.3%, according to U.S. census data.

The Latino population ballooned during rebuilding efforts after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and now makes up around 14% of the city , according to figures compiled by the New Orleans-based Data Center.

The Pew Research Center estimates 110,000 immigrants who lack permanent legal status were living in Louisiana as of 2023, constituting approximately 2.4% of the state’s population. Most of them are from Honduras.

Amanda Toups, who owns the New Orleans Cajun restaurant Toups Meatery and runs a nonprofit to help feed neighbors in need, said she expects the federal operations will hurt the city’s tourism-dependent economy, which supports the rest of Louisiana.

“If you’re scaring off even 5% of tourism, that’s devastating,” she said. “You’re brown and walking around in town somewhere and you could get tackled by ICE and you’re an American citizen? Does that make you want to travel to New Orleans?”

Brook, Santana and Cline write for the Associated Press and reported from New Orleans, Washington and Baton Rouge, La., respectively.

At least two areas of the country’s worst-affected Sumatra island are still unreachable, as authorities struggle to deliver aid.

The death toll from devastating floods and landslides in Indonesia has risen to 442, according to a tally published by the national disaster agency, as desperate people hunt for food and water.

The National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) on Sunday said 402 others were still missing as authorities raced to reach parts of hardest-hit Sumatra island, where thousands of people were stranded without critical supplies.

Another 402 people are missing in Indonesia’s three provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra and Aceh, according to the agency.

At least 600 people have died across Southeast Asia as heavy monsoon rains overwhelm swathes of Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. The deluges also triggered landslides, damaged roads, and downed communication lines.

The floods in Indonesia displaced thousands of people, with at least two cities on Sumatra island still unreachable on Sunday. Authorities said they deployed two warships from Jakarta to deliver aid.

“There are two cities that require full attention due to being isolated, namely Central Tapanuli and Sibolga,” BNPB head Suharyanto said in a statement.

The ships were expected in Sibolga on Monday, he said.

Desperate situation

The challenging weather conditions and the lack of heavy equipment also hampered rescue efforts.

Aid has been slow to reach the hardest-hit city of Sibolga and the Central Tapanuli district in North Sumatra.

Videos on social media show people scrambling past crumbling barricades, flooded roads and broken glass to get their hands on food, medicine and gas.

Some even waded through waist-deep floodwaters to reach damaged convenience stores.

The annual monsoon season, typically between June and September, often brings heavy rain, triggering landslides and flash floods.

A tropical storm has exacerbated conditions, and the flooding tolls in Indonesia and Thailand rank among the highest in those countries in recent years.

Climate change has affected storm patterns, including the duration and intensity of the season, leading to heavier rainfall, flash flooding and stronger wind gusts.

When photographer Peter Turnley was just 20 years old, an acquaintance from the California Office of Economic Opportunity reached out to him with a question. Would he be interested in taking four months off from school in Michigan to come out west, drive around, and take pictures of the state’s poor and working-class populations? An eager Turnley jumped at the chance and ended up spending the summer of 1975 traversing California in his tiny white Volkswagen, doing everything from spending time with migrant farmworkers in the San Joaquin valley to hopping trains with travelers looking for work to chatting up Oaklanders about how they were making ends meet.

But then his OEO contact left mid-project and, while Turnley says he submitted a set of prints to the department, they never ended up seeing the light of day. That will all change Dec. 4, when the pictures — along with others the news photographer has taken in his current hometown, Paris — will go on display at the Leica Gallery in L.A.

Why did California’s OEO think of you for this project back in 1975?

When I was a freshman in college at the University of Michigan, during the winter break, I went back to Fort Wayne, Indiana, which is where I’m from. There was a very progressive mayor in power at that point and he assembled a really interesting group of people in his city government.

When I began photography at the age of 16, I decided to use it to try to change the world, and I particularly admired photographers that had used photography to affect public policy, like the Farm Security Administration photographers in the 1930s, which included people like Dorothea Lange. So I convinced this mayor to hire me to shoot pictures for the city of Fort Wayne on the themes that the city was making policy around.

During that time, I met a woman who was the public affairs officer for the city of Fort Wayne. Unbeknownst to me, two years later she moved out to California and that’s how I got a letter at the end of my sophomore year of college asking me if I would be willing to come out to California to do a four-month road trip to document the lives of the working class and the poor of California. She explained to me that the Office of Economic Opportunity needed to make a report that underlined its efforts in trying to help the the poor of California, and that they they wanted to use these photographs as a way to illustrate that report.

I was given some very basic statistics of pockets of poverty around the state of California, but no other specific direction, and I was promised just enough money to cover fleabag hotels and diner food and gasoline. I was given access to a government darkroom in Sacramento, where occasionally I would go to develop film and make contact sheets and prints, but otherwise, I was out, driving to every corner of the state.

What were your impressions of the state before you came, as someone originally from the Midwest?

I didn’t grow up on a farm [in Indiana] but I knew a little bit about farming and what really struck me when I went out to California was what I think most of the world doesn’t really realize, and that is that [much] of the state is agricultural and rural. In many ways, the San Joaquin Valley felt a whole lot more like Indiana than almost any other place I could imagine.

What did you take away from the project as a whole?

One of the aspects of this body of work that fascinates me and that I guess in some ways I’m very proud of is that one feels in the photography and in the connection with people an almost innocent and authentic view. The pictures are very direct. They’re very human and they really deal with the lives of people, because you’re looking into their eyes and getting close to them.

Another thing that struck me was that because I was dealing particularly with people that were working class or often very poor, that there was something very similar in terms of people’s plight, whether they were living in urban areas or in the countryside. Everyone I met seemed like really decent, good, hard-working people that just wanted a better life for themselves and their family. They wanted to survive with dignity, and I felt that we all owe these people a great sense of debt.

I also remember that when I spent some time with hobos — and I’m not sure if that’s a pejorative word today, but they’re a little different category of people than simply those who are homeless. Hobos were most often men that chose this lifestyle to ride the trains and stop and work in various places. But I remember being in a boxcar with four men and all four were pretty much like everyone else. It was just that their lives had kind of crossed over a line into the margins, just by a thread. And I remember realizing at this young age just how fragile life is, or how close we can be to that line at almost any time.

Something I found striking in these pictures is how little has changed, in some ways. There have always been people working in California’s fields that are underpaid and underappreciated, and in some ways, things have only gotten worse for a lot of that population.

During COVID, I lived in New York City and every day for three months from the very first day of the lockdown, I went out and I walked. I would meet people and I would ask them three questions: What was their name, their age, and how were they making it? And then after three months, I went back to Paris, and I walked the streets there and did the same thing, ultimately making a book of the pictures I took from that time called “A New York-Paris Visual Diary: The Human Face Of Covid-19.”

But the thing that struck me during COVID was that it was the working class of New York that saved all of our lives. There were whole walls of buildings on the Upper West Side that were dark at night because everyone had gone to the Hamptons or left New York, but the people that saved our lives were cashiers, postal workers, FedEx workers, nurses, doctors, medics, ambulance drivers and mostly working-class people. And looking back, I had this hope that maybe when the COVID crisis was over, that we would rectify in a general way how we looked at our society and how we value the people that are actually doing the work in our society, but in actuality, once the lockdown was over, we just went back to being ruled and led by people that have a lot of money. And, really, the well-to-do of California and the rest of the world would never go and pick their own strawberries.

Have you kept in touch with anyone whose picture you took in 1975, or heard from anyone after the fact?

I’ve for sure wondered what happened to all the people in the pictures, but unfortunately over all these years, I’ve never had contact with anyone. It would be absolutely amazing if somebody from that time would come out of the woodwork.

You’ve been a working photographer for over 50 years now, having worked in 90 countries, taking 40 covers for Newsweek, and shooting many of the last century’s most important geopolitical events. Are there moments you still can’t believe you saw, or pictures you can’t believe you took?

Well, just this morning, I signed the prints that will be in this exhibit and they’re really beautiful. They’re made in Paris and they’re traditional silver gelatin prints, beautiful quality. But I held up one of the images from The Other California – 1975, and it was this Okie, a guy that was born during the Dust Bowl in Oklahoma and moved out to California. Looking at that image today, looking in the eyes and the face of this man, I really had the impression that — even though it’s my own photograph — that I was looking at one of Dorothea Lange’s photographs. I’m very proud of the fact that there’s a continuity of that kind of attention to the heart of people’s lives in my work.

In this modern era of digital photography, on the one hand I think it’s wonderful that everyone is making photographs now more than ever before. On the other hand, I think that the world of photography has moved away from real powerful, direct human connection. And to me, that’s what’s most important. I’m a lot more interested in life than I am in photography. I mean, I care a lot about photography. I love beautiful photographs, and I try to take them as well as possible, but what’s most important to me are the themes of life that I photograph and at the center of all that is emotion.

Authorities have not yet released information about the attacker’s identity or motive behind the attack on a family gathering.

At least four people have been killed and 10 wounded after a shooting during a family gathering in northern California’s Stockton, local authorities said.

The shooting took place at a child’s birthday party, Stockton’s Vice Mayor Jason Lee said in a Facebook post late on Saturday.

“I am in contact with staff and public safety officials to understand exactly what happened, and I will be pushing for answers,” he said.

Heather Brent, a spokesperson for the San Joaquin County sheriff’s office, said the victims included both children and adults.

The shooting occurred inside the banquet hall, which shares a car park with other businesses.

“We can confirm at this time that approximately 14 individuals were struck by gunfire, and four victims have been confirmed deceased,” San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office said in a post on X.

“This is a very active and ongoing investigation, and information remains limited. Early indications suggest this may be a targeted incident, and investigators are exploring all possibilities.”

Police said they received reports shortly before 6pm (02:00 GMT) of a shooting that occurred near the 1900 block of Lucile Avenue in Stockton.

The authorities have not yet released information about the identity or the motive of the attacker. They did not immediately provide information on the severity of the injuries of the surviving victims.

The office of Governor Gavin Newsom said he has been briefed on the “horrific shooting” in Stockton and will be following up on the evolving situation.

WITH the temperatures dropping, the thought of being cosy couldn’t be more appealing – and there’s an English holiday cottage that’s the ideal place for just that.

Located in Weston-under-Lizard in Shropshire, you will find a little cottage called Hansa.

Looking as if it has been ripped from the pages of Hansel and Gretel, the cottage sits off-grid within 200 acres of Shropshire woodland.

This Victorian gothic lodge was built to originally host lunches for the Earl of Bradford, but now is somewhere you can stay.

And according to Unique Stays, it has a ” fairytale otherworldliness”.

It is surrounded by woodland with lots of wildlife and views over a vast lake.

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Guests enter the lodge through a small porch with benches and twisting tree branches.

On the inside, the original dark wood panels from 1856 cover the walls and above you rests a chandelier covered in metal ivy.

There are then two green velvet chairs and a plush double bed complete with a green throw.

The green colour palette is continued in the small kitchen with a four-ring hob, gas oven, fridge, small freezer and a Nespresso machine and there is a sleek, paler green tiled bathroom with a walk-in rainfall shower as well.

Inside the main bedroom area, there is also a table and chairs, a desk and a woodburner.

Guests can park on a gravel drive and then the cottage can be reached via a woodland track.

In addition, guests get a welcome hamper full of local treats to enjoy during their stay.

And you will also get marshmallows for the fire, logs and kindling, a BBQ Grill Egg with a pizza stone, smart TV, Bluetooth speaker, Wi-Fi, iPad, two vintage-style bicycles, his and her Hunter wellies and a rowing boat to use during your stay.

Just outside of the lodge, there is another table and chairs for outdoor dining and a woodfired hot tub.

Babes in arms are welcome with cots available on request, as are up to two dogs which will be charged at £60 each, per week.

The cottage sleeps up to two people and costs from £1,450 per week or £1,095 per short break.

One recent visitor said: “Hansa was a brilliant home to stay in and I can’t sing the owner’s praises enough.

“The cupboards were stocked with everything you could possibly need, there were fresh eggs, milk, bread and even a hamper of goodies from both sweet treats to a full on cheese board with something bubbly to wash it down with.

“They really thought of everything!”

Another visitor said: “Hansa is a special place, we couldn’t have chosen a better calming little house to chill.

“Thank you for letting us stay in this fairy-style house, where it was warm, cosy, we had everything we needed.”

For things to do nearby, the cottage sits in a sprawling 26-acre estate that has seen battles of the 1642 civil war and even former King Charles II shelter in The Royal Oak of Boscobel House parkland after he fled the Roundheads.

In Weston-under-Lizard itself, guests will find Weston House – a 17th century manor house with a vast art collection and restaurant.

The site also hosts a number of events throughout the year.

Tickets to the house cost £11 per person.

Just a 30 minute drive away you could head to Dudmaston Estate in Quatt – a 17th century National Trust house with a Modern Art collection, pretty gardens, play areas and a second-hand bookshop.

Alternatively, also 30 minutes away, is The Bear Inn, in Hodnet, located inside a former 16th century coaching inn.

The friendly pub serves comfort dishes such as monkfish with mushroom, chicken wing, leek and madeira for £28, rose veal, ox cheek tart with carrot, ale and jus for £29 and goats cheese gnocchi with beetroot, chestnut and broccoli for £22.

It takes just an hour to drive from Birmingham to Hansa lodge.

For more holiday cottage and lodge inspo, here is the secluded English cottage where your garden is the beach and people say it ‘doesn’t even look real’.

Plus, stunning cottage is crowned ‘Best for Beaches’ in UK and you can book for £27 per person, per night.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Capitol Police on Tuesday announced that the agency was opening regional field offices in California and Florida to investigate threats to members of Congress in the wake of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

Threats against members of Congress have increased in recent years. As of Tuesday, total threats so far in 2021 were double what they were at this point a year ago, according to Capitol Police.

Home to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) and other prominent members of Congress, California gives the law enforcement agency a Western base to investigate claims of threats made against members. The state is also home to the nation’s largest congressional delegation.

Yogananda Pittman, the department’s acting chief, told lawmakers in March that the vast majority of the increased threats were from people who didn’t live near Washington..

The field offices will be in the Tampa and San Francisco areas, according to Capitol Police.

“At this time, Florida and California are where the majority of our potential threats are,” a department spokesperson said in a statement. “The field offices will be the first for the Department. A regional approach to investigating and prosecuting threats against Members is important, so we will be working closely with the U.S. Attorney’s Offices in those locations.”

The new field offices are among the changes made since the attack six months ago in which Capitol Police were quickly overwhelmed by thousands of pro-Trump supporters, hundreds of whom were able to break into the Capitol building, forcing members to temporarily halt certification of the 2020 election results and flee for safety. Capitol Police leaders told congressional committees investigating the incident that they had no information that the crowd would become violent.

Five people died in the melee or the days after. Two officers died by suicide, and more than 140 were injured — some permanently. More than 500 people have been charged for participating in the attack.

Other changes, spurred in part by congressional investigations and reports by the department’s internal watchdog, include increased training for officers alongside the National Guard, improved intelligence-gathering efforts and protocols for reporting sensitive information, and new equipment and technology for officers.

The police agency rarely provides information to the public on how it operates, citing security concerns and member safety. For example, unlike other government agencies, the internal watchdog’s reports are not publicly available.

A spokesperson did not answer questions Tuesday about how many staff would be hired or what the cost to taxpayers would be.

The spokesperson said other regional offices were expected.

Very few members of Congress are accompanied by security outside of the Capitol building, and it is unclear if the new offices will primarily investigate threats against members or also will help when security is needed in the state. The Capitol Police have jurisdiction to investigate all threats made against a member of Congress.

“Buy now, pay later” has become a retail fixture seemingly overnight, and Cyber Monday is set to be the services’ biggest sales day yet. But as these payment options offer customers freedom and flexibility, are they also opening the door to a wave of unregulated debt?

Periodically, the Latinx Files will feature guest writers. Filling in this week is film reporter extraordinaire Carlos Aguilar.

With the explicit goal of making people laugh, the endearingly foul-mouthed Mexican American filmmaker Alejandro Montoya Marin is building an unpretentious body of work.

“There are far smarter people than me to make ‘Parasite’ or to make Yorgos [Lanthimos’] movies,” says Montoya Marin, 42, laughing during a recent video interview from his home in Los Angeles. “I want to entertain you for 88 minutes and have you come out and be like, ‘I’m going to recommend that to a friend.’ That’s it.”

It’s not that he lacks ambition.Montoya Marin, whose T-shirt is emblazoned with Hong Kong action film legend John Woo, feels secure in the type of storytelling that best suits his interest and abilities. And he’s taken a DIY approach to making films and promoting them so that they can reach audiences directly.

“Their job is to tell you no,” he says of decision makers in the entertainment industry. “But you have the ability to say, ‘F— you, I’m going to be creative. You’re not going to tell me when I can be creative.’ And that was always the mentality that I had.”

His third feature, “The Unexpecteds,” now available on streaming platforms, features a mostly Latino cast: Chelsea Rendon (“Vida”), Francisco Ramos (“Gentefied”) and Alejandro De Hoyos (“The Man From Toronto”) — as well as actor Matt Walsh in the lead role. Executive produced by independent cinema legend Kevin Smith of “Clerks” fame, the action comedy follows a group of everyday working people who take justice into their own hands after an online financial guru, Metal Mike (John Kaler), scams them out of their savings.

“I love underdog stories because I feel like I am one and there are so many people like that,” Montoya Marin says about “The Unexpecteds” and his other films. “Maybe there could be movies that can inspire them or make them feel good about themselves for a little bit.”

Born in Laredo, Texas, to parents from Yucatán and Mexico City, Montoya Marin owes his cinematic awakening to a disparate double feature that introduced him to the gritty dystopia of “RoboCop” and the heart-rending sentimentality of “Cinema Paradiso.”

He was about 7 years old and had tagged along with his uncle, who was taking a date to the movies, in the Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo. “I didn’t understand [“Cinema Paradiso”] because it was in Italian and subtitled in Spanish. My Spanish wasn’t amazing then,” says Montoya Marin. “But I understood a lot of it, and that double feature did it for me.”

And thus, his topsy-turvy, multicity trail to the triumphs and pitfalls of moviemaking began. At 12, Montoya Marin moved from the U.S. to Merida, Yucatán, where he then made his first amateur short film inspired by the “Star Wars” universe.

He later studied marketing in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. To supplement his income during those days, Montoya Marin opened his own video store, which he called Quick Stop Video, in honor of Quick Stop Groceries, the convenience store in Smith’s “Clerks.” One day, an office opened across the street that had a sign that read “Go study in Canada.” Intrigued, Montoya Marin inquired about film schools, and was immediately enticed by Vancouver Film School, mainly because a young Smith had briefly attended there. He sold all his movies and, as an American citizen, got a student loan and moved to Canada.

Though they now have a close relationship, Montoya Marin’s father, a successful businessman, did not initially support his artistic aspirations, which caused conflict.

“My dad would go, ‘Bring those dreams down because the fall will be less hard,’ and I’d go, ‘F— that. Why?’” he recalls. “He told me, ‘If you go there I don’t want to see you. You’re not seeing the family.’ I was like, ‘OK, that’s a risk I have to take.’”

After graduating, Montoya Marin couldn’t afford to live in Los Angeles and instead moved to Albuquerque, N.M., where he worked for 13 years as a production assistant and as a commercial director. During that time, a career-altering opportunity came his way.

While in Europe shooting a project, Montoya Marin finished the screenplay for his first feature, “Monday.” The script earned him a spot in Robert Rodriguez’s reality show “Rebel Without a Crew,” which aired in 2018 on El Rey Network. Each participant had to produce their feature film with a budget of $7,000, the same amount of money Rodriguez made his debut, “El Mariachi,” for.

“It was a dream come true. Robert is very down to earth. You could tell he’s not bulls—. He doesn’t play the game,” he says. “We would be filming at three in the morning, y ahí lo veías trabajando.”

“I was honored to mentor Alejandro as he directed his very first feature film,” Rodriguez said in an email. “He had the true indie filmmaking spirit within him and inspired me right back! He’s a great representation of what audiences desire: authenticity and passion.”

After “Monday,” an action comedy centered on a man down on his luck who gets caught in a cartel war, Montoya Marin raised $60,000 via crowdfunding to make his sophomore effort, “Millennium Bugs,” a Y2K-set tale about two people coming of age as the world anticipates chaos. And while neither of those films had the impact he’d hoped for, that outcome did not deter him in the slightest.

“There’s no Plan B, compadre,” he said, laughing. “That’s why I can firmly just go headfirst because if I die on set, I will be a happy man.”

Montoya Marin met Walsh while shooting Eva Longoria’s “Flamin’ Hot,” where they both had acting parts. A friendship developed between them, and eventually the filmmaker offered Walsh the part in “The Unexpecteds.” Although he shot the film in 15 days, like his previous features, this time he had a more sizable budget (still under $1 million).

As part of its 2024 festival run, “The Unexpecteds” screened at Smith’s Smodcastle Film Festival in New Jersey, where it won the Best Comedy Award. It was there that Montoya Marin first connected with one of his heroes.

“Giving a platform to fledgling filmmakers with the Smodcastle Film Festival is meaningful to an old film fest kid, and if my name can help them open a single door, I’m happy to help,” Smith said. “But being involved with ‘The Unexpecteds’ does me more good than them. Attaching myself to a talent like Alejandro is a sure way to ensure I get to stick around in a business I’m getting too old for.”

The first time Montoya Marin met Smith in person was right before going on a news show where the two were supposed to have a joint interview to promote the film. It was there that Montoya Marin witnessed his hero’s walk-the-walk allyship in action.

Before going on air, the production informed Montoya Marin that they wouldn’t be able to have him do the interview. Only Smith would be on camera. “But to make it up to you guys, we’re going to make this a Hispanic Heritage Month themed segment,” the team told them.

That’s when Smith stepped in. “You’re going to put the white guy to come and promote Hispanic Heritage Month,” he said, according to Montoya Marin. “Kevin goes, ‘That’s stupid. I’m not doing that. Mic him up, because the filmmaker is the best salesman of a film.’” Smith was shocked at what the TV folks had tried to pull. “I told Kevin, ‘You were just witness of what they do to us without saying an insult. It’s just polite,’” Montoya Marin recalls.

Thanks to Smith’s intervention, Montoya Marin ultimately did the interview. “I fell in love with him even more,” he added.

Now that his most ambitious project yet is out in the world, Montoya Marin has multiple projects in the works, from a thriller to a comedy set in the ‘90s, and even a project that would allow him to shoot in Mexico. Like a good salesman, he has perfected his pitch.

“I’m dying to make a movie in Spanish. I already have the concept and some producers. I just need $1.5 million and I will give you one of the best comedies in Mexican cinema,” he declares. “And I’m not saying just to be m—, but I know I’m funnier in Spanish.”

Speaking with Montoya Marin, one gets the sense that he’s consistently trying to disarm you into rooting for him. It’s not manipulative but refreshingly sincere — and a bit brash. Getting behind him is a vote of confidence for independent cinema that doesn’t take itself so seriously. His humorous conviction and rousing spiel make one eager to believe him.

The American Cinematheque will screen “The Unexpecteds” on Dec. 13 at the Los Feliz 3, with Montoya Marin and Smith in attendance.

Stories we read this week that we think you should read

Unless otherwise noted, stories below were published by the Los Angeles Times.

Politics, immigration and foreign affairs

Arts, culture and entertainment

WASHINGTON — Charges against the man accused of shooting two National Guard members have been upgraded to first-degree murder after one of the soldiers died, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia announced Friday.

Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, were hospitalized in critical condition after the Wednesday afternoon shooting near the White House. President Trump announced Thursday evening that Beckstrom had died.

U.S. Atty. Jeanine Pirro’s office said the charges against Rahmanullah Lakanwal, a 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war, now include one count of first-degree murder, three counts of possession of a firearm during a crime of violence and two counts of assault with intent to kill while armed.

Beckstrom and Wolfe were deployed with the West Virginia National Guard as part of Trump’s mission in the nation’s capital that federalized the D.C. police force, which he says is a crime-fighting campaign. The president has deployed National Guard members to many Democratic-run cities, including Los Angeles, to assist with his mass deportation efforts.

Trump called the shooting a “terrorist attack” and criticized the Biden administration for allowing Afghans who worked with U.S. forces during the Afghanistan war to enter the U.S. The president has said he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and expel millions of immigrants from the country.

In an interview on Fox News, Pirro said there are “many charges to come” beyond the upgraded murder charge. She said her heart goes out to the family of Beckstrom, who volunteered to serve and “ended up being shot ambush-style on the cold streets of Washington, D.C., by an individual who will now be charged with murder in the first degree.”

Pirro, a former Fox News host, declined to discuss the suspect’s motive, saying officials have been working around the clock on that question. Investigators are continuing to execute warrants in Washington state, where Lakanwal lived, and other parts of the country, she said.

Wolfe remains in “very critical condition,” West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey said Friday. He ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in recognition of Beckstrom’s death.

“These two West Virginia heroes were serving our country and protecting our nation’s capital when they were maliciously attacked,” Morrisey said. “Their courage and commitment to duty represent the very best of our state.”

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021

Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.

Lakanwal applied for asylum during the Biden administration, but his asylum was approved under the Trump administration, #AfghanEvac said in a statement. #AfghanEvac is a nonprofit organization that has worked with the U.S. government to resettle more than 195,000 Afghan evacuees, according to its website.

Lakanwal has been living in Bellingham, Wash., about 80 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.

Mohammad Sherzad, a neighbor of Lakanwal’s in Bellingham, told the Associated Press in a phone interview Friday that Lakanwal was polite, quiet and spoke very little English.

Sherzad said he attended the same mosque as Lakanwal and had heard from other members that Lakanwal was struggling to find work. Some of his children attended the same school as Lakanwal’s children, Sherzad said.

“He was so quiet and the kids were so polite, they were so playful. But we didn’t see anything bad about him. He was looking OK,” Sherzad said. Sherzad said Lakanwal “disappeared” about two weeks ago.

In his address to the troops Thursday, Trump said that Lakanwal “went cuckoo. I mean, he went nuts.”

People who knew Lakanwal say he served in a CIA-backed Afghan army unit before immigrating to the United States. Lakanwal worked in one of the special Zero Units in the southern province of Kandahar, according to a resident of the eastern Afghan province of Khost who identified himself as Lakanwal’s cousin. He said Lakanwal was originally from the province and his brother had worked in the unit as well.

The cousin spoke to AP on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. He said Lakanwal had started out working as a security guard for the unit in 2012 and was later promoted to a team leader and a GPS specialist. A former official from the unit, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Lakanwal’s brother was a platoon leader.

Zero Units were paramilitary units manned by Afghans and backed by the CIA that also served in front-line fighting with CIA paramilitary officers. Activists had attributed abuses to the units. They played a key role in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from the country in 2021, providing security around Kabul International Airport as the Americans and Afghan evacuees withdrew from the country.

Beckstrom is remembered

Beckstrom enlisted in 2023, the same year she graduated high school, and served with distinction as a military police officer with the 863rd Military Police Company, the West Virginia National Guard said in a statement.

“She exemplified leadership, dedication, and professionalism,” the statement said, adding that Beckstrom “volunteered to serve as part of Operation D.C. Safe and Beautiful, helping to ensure the safety and security of our nation’s capital.”

The president called Beckstrom an “incredible person, outstanding in every single way.”

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration initiative that brought roughly 76,000 people to the country, many of whom had worked as interpreters and translators.

The program has faced intense scrutiny from Trump and others over allegations of gaps in the vetting process, even as advocates say there was extensive vetting and the program offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.

The director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Joseph Edlow said in a statement that the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow didn’t name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

Binkley and Finley write for the Associated Press. AP journalists Sarah Brumfield, Siddiqullah Alizai, Elena Becatoros and Randy Herschaft contributed to this report.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Trump says he wants to “permanently pause migration” from poorer nations and is promising to seek to expel millions of immigrants from the United States by revoking their legal status.

Trump is blaming immigrants for problems from crime to housing shortages as part of what he calls “social dysfunction” in America and demanding “REVERSE MIGRATION.”

His most severe social media post against immigration since returning to the Oval Office in January came after the shooting Wednesday of two National Guard members who were patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital under his orders. One died and the other is in critical condition.

A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with the CIA during the Afghanistan war is facing charges. The suspect came to the U.S. as part of a program after U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan to resettle those who had helped American troops.

Trump’s threat to stop immigration would be a serious blow to a nation that has long defined itself as welcoming immigrants.

Since Wednesday’s shooting near the White House, administration officials have pledged to reexamine millions of legal immigrants, building on a 10-month campaign to reduce the immigrant population. In a lengthy social media post late Thursday, the Republican president asserted that millions of people born outside the U.S. and now living in the country bore a large share of the blame for America’s societal ills.

“Only REVERSE MIGRATION can fully cure this situation,” Trump posted on his Truth Social platform. “Other than that, HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL, except those that hate, steal, murder, and destroy everything that America stands for — You won’t be here for long!”

Trump was elected on a promise to crack down on illegal migration, and raids and deportations undertaken by his administration have disrupted communities across the country. Construction sites and schools have been frequent targets. The prospect of more deportations could be economically dangerous as America’s foreign-born workers account for nearly 31 million jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The president said on Truth Social that “most” foreign-born U.S. residents “are on welfare, from failed nations, or from prisons, mental institutions, gangs, or drug cartels” as he blamed them for crime across the country that is predominantly committed by U.S. citizens.

There are roughly 50 million foreign-born residents in the U.S., and multiple studies have found that immigrants are generally less likely to commit crimes than are people who were born in the country.

The perception that immigration breeds crime “continues to falter under the weight of the evidence,” according to a review of academic literature last year in the Annual Review of Criminology.

“With few exceptions, studies conducted at both the aggregate and individual levels demonstrate that high concentrations of immigrants are not associated with increased levels of crime and delinquency across neighborhoods and cities in the United States,” it said.

A study by economists initially released in 2023 found immigrants are 60% less likely to be incarcerated than people born in the U.S. Immigrants have been imprisoned at lower rates for 150 years, the study found, adding to past research undermining Trump’s claims.

Trump seemed to have little interest in a policy debate in his post, which the White House, on its own rapid response social media account, called “one of the most important messages ever released by President Trump.”

He pledged to “terminate” millions of admissions to the country made during the term of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden. He also wants to end federal benefits and subsidies for those who are not U.S. citizens, denaturalize people “who undermine domestic tranquility” and deport foreign nationals deemed “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”

Trump claimed immigrants from Somalia were “completely taking over the once great State of Minnesota” as he used a dated slur for intellectually disabled people to demean that state’s governor, Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year.

On Wednesday night, Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who had entered under the Biden administration. On Thursday, the director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, Joseph Edlow, said the agency would take additional steps to screen people from 19 “high-risk” countries “to the maximum degree possible.”

Edlow did not name the countries. But in June, the administration banned travel to the U.S. by citizens of 12 countries and restricted access from seven others, citing national security concerns.

The shooting of the two National Guard members appeared to trigger Trump’s anger over immigrants, yet he did not specifically refer to the event in his social media post.

The suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, is accused of driving across the country to the District of Columbia and shooting two West Virginia National Guard members, Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. Beckstrom died Thursday; Wolfe is in critical condition.

Lakanwal, currently in custody, was also shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening.

Trump was asked by a reporter Thursday if he blamed the shootings on all Afghans who came to the U.S.

“No, but we’ve had a lot of problems with Afghans,” the president said.

Boak writes for the Associated Press.

At least 10 injured as traffic and trains disrupted amid severe weather and rising floodwaters across multiple regions.

Landslides and floods triggered by heavy rains have caused more than 40 deaths in Sri Lanka, where the authorities have stopped passenger trains and closed roads in some parts of the country, officials say.

The government’s Disaster Management Centre on Thursday said 25 of the reported deaths occurred in the mountainous tea-growing regions of Badulla and Nuwara Eliya in central Sri Lanka about 300km (186 miles) east of the capital, Colombo.

Another 21 people were missing due to landslides in the same areas while 10 people were injured, the centre said.

Sri Lanka began experiencing severe weather last week, made worse by downpours over the weekend that wreaked havoc by flooding homes, fields and roads.

Reservoirs and rivers have overflowed, blocking roads. Some key roads connecting the provinces have been closed, officials said.

Authorities stopped trains in some areas in the mountainous region after rocks, mud and trees fell onto railway tracks. Local television showed workers removing the debris. In some areas, floods have inundated the tracks.

Local television showed an air force helicopter rescuing three people stranded on the roof of a house marooned by floods while navy and police used boats to transport residents.

Footage also showed a car being swept away by floodwaters near the eastern town of Ampara, about 410km (256 miles) east of Colombo, killing three passengers.

This week’s weather-related toll is the highest since June last year when 26 people were killed due to heavy rains. In December, 17 people were killed by flooding and landslides.

The worst flooding this century was in June 2003 when 254 people were killed.

Sri Lanka depends on seasonal monsoon rains for irrigation and hydroelectricity, but experts have warned that the country faces more frequent floods due to the climate crisis.

WILLOWS — As hospital staff carted away medical equipment from abandoned patient rooms, Theresa McNabb, 74, roused herself and painstakingly applied make-up for the first time in weeks, finishing with a mauve lipstick that made her eyes pop.

“I feel a little anxiety,” McNabb said. She was still taking multiple intravenous antibiotics for the massive infection that had almost killed her, was unsteady on her feet and was unsure how she was going to manage shopping and cooking food for herself once she returned to her apartment after six weeks in the hospital.

But she couldn’t stay at Glenn Medical Center. It was closing.

The hospital — which for more than seven decades has treated residents of its small farm town about 75 miles north of Sacramento, along with countless victims of car crashes on nearby Interstate 5 and a surprising number of crop-duster pilots wounded in accidents — shut its doors on October 21.

McNabb was the last patient.

Registered nurse Ronald Loewen, 74, checks on one of the last few patients. Loewen, a resident of Glenn County and a former Mennonite school teacher, said the hospital closing is “a piece of our history gone.”

Nurses and other hospital workers gathered at her room to ceremonially push her wheelchair outside and into the doors of a medical transport van. Then they stood on the lawn, looking bereft.

They had all just lost their jobs. Their town had just lost one of its largest employers. And the residents — many of whom are poor— had lost their access to emergency medical care. What would happen to all of them now? Would local residents’ health grow worse? Would some of them die preventable deaths?

These are questions that elected officials and policymakers may soon be confronting in rural communities across California and the nation. Cuts to Medicaid funding and the Affordable Care Act are likely rolling down from Washington D.C. and hitting small hospitals already teetering at the brink of financial collapse. Even before these cuts hit, a 2022 study found that half of the hospitals in California were operating in the red. Already this fall: Palo Verde Hospital in Blythe filed for bankruptcy and Southern Inyo Hospital in Lone Pine sought emergency funds.

But things could get far worse: A June analysis released by four Democrats in the U.S. Senate found that many more hospitals in California could be at risk of closure in the face of federal healthcare cuts.

“It’s like the beginning of a tidal wave,” said Peggy Wheeler, vice president of policy of the California Hospital Association. “I’m concerned we will lose a number of rural hospitals, and then the whole system may be at risk.”

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1. Medical assistant Kylee Lutz, 26, right, hugs activities coordinator Rita Robledo on closing day. Lutz, who will continue to work in the clinic that remains open, said through tears, “It’s not going to be the same without you ladies.” 2. Rose Mary Wampler, 88, sees physician assistant Chris Pilaczynski at the clinic. Wampler, who lives alone across the street from Glenn Medical Center, said, “Old people can’t drive far away. I’m all by myself, I would just dial 9-1-1.”

Glenn Medical’s financing did not collapse because of the new federal cuts. Rather, the hospital was done in by a federal decision this year to strip the hospital’s “Critical Access” designation, which enabled it to receive increased federal reimbursement. The hospital, though it is the only one in Glenn County, is just 32 miles from the nearest neighboring hospital under a route mapped by federal officials — less than the 35 miles required under the law. Though that distance hasn’t changed, the federal government has now decided to enforce its rules.

Local elected officials and hospital administrators fought for months to convince the federal government to grant them an exception. Now, with the doors closed, policy experts and residents of Willows said they are terrified by the potential consequences.

“People are going to die,” predicted Glenn County Supervisor Monica Rossman. She said she feared that older people in her community without access to transportation will put off seeking care until it is too late, while people of all ages facing emergency situations won’t be able to get help in time.

Kellie Amaru, a licensed vocational nurse who has worked at Glenn Medical Center for four years, reacts after watching a co-worker leave after working their final shift at the hospital.

But even for people who don’t face a life or death consequence, the hospital’s closure is still a body blow, said Willows Vice Mayor Rick Thomas. He and others predicted many people will put off routine medical care, worsening their health. And then there’s the economic health of the town.

Willows, which sits just east of I-5 in the center of the Sacramento Valley, has a proud history stretching back nearly 150 years in a farm region that now grows rice, almonds and walnuts. About 6,000 people live in the town, which has an economic development webpage featuring images of a tractor, a duck and a pair of hunters standing in the tall grass.

“We’ve lost 150 jobs already from the hospital [closing],” Thomas said. “I’m very worried about what it means. A hospital is good for new business. And it’s been hard enough to attract new business to the town.”

Dismantling ‘a legacy of rural healthcare’

From the day it started taking patients on Nov. 21,1950, Glenn General Hospital (as it was then called) was celebrated not just for its role in bringing medical care to the little farm town, but also for its role in helping Willows grow and prosper.

“It was quite state-of-the-art back in 1950,” said Lauren Still, the hospital’s chief administrative officer.

When the hospital’s first baby was born a few days later — little Glenda May Nieheus clocked in at a robust 8 pounds, 11 ounces — the arrival was celebrated on the front page of the Willows Daily Journal.

But as a small hospital in a small town, the institution struggled almost immediately. Within a few years, according to a 1957 story in the local newspaper, the hospital was already grappling with the problem of nurses leaving in droves for higher-paying positions elsewhere. A story the following year revealed that hospital administrators were forcing a maintenance worker to step in as an ambulance driver on weekends — without the requisite chauffeur’s license — to save money.

In a sign of how small the town is, that driver was Still’s boyfriend’s grandfather.

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1. A customer walks into Willows Hardware store. 2. Cheerleaders perform during Willows High School’s Homecoming JV football game against Durham at Willows High School. 3. The press box at Willows High School’s football field is decorated with previous Northern Section CIF Championship wins.

Still, the institution endured, its grassy campus and low-slung wings perched proudly on the east end of town. Generations of the town’s babies were born there. As they grew up, they went into the emergency room for X-rays, stitches and treatment for fevers and infections. Their parents and grandparents convalesced there and sometimes died there, cared for by nurses who were part of the community.

“They saved my brother’s life. They saved my dad’s life,” said Keith Long, 34, who works at Red 88, an Asian fusion restaurant in downtown Willows that is a popular lunch spot for hospital staff.

Glenn Medical’s finances, however, often faltered. Experts in healthcare economics say rural hospitals like Glenn Medical generally have fewer patients than suburban and urban communities, and those patients tend to be older and sicker, meaning they are more expensive to treat. What’s more, a higher share of those patients are low-income and enrolled in Medi-Cal and Medicare, which generally has lower reimbursement rates than private insurance. Smaller hospitals also cannot take advantage of economies of scale the way bigger institutions can, nor can they bring the same muscle to negotiations for higher rates with private insurance companies.

Across California, in the first decades of the 20th century, rural hospitals were running out of money and closing their doors.

T-Ann Pearce, who has worked at Glenn Medical Center for six years, sits in the medical surgical unit during one of her last shifts with only a few remaining patients left to care.

In 2000, Glenn Medical went bankrupt, but was saved when it was awarded the “Critical Access” designation by the federal government that allowed it to receive higher reimbursement rates, Still said.

But by late 2017, the hospital was in trouble again.

A private for-profit company, American Advanced Management, swooped to the rescue of Glenn Medical and a nearby hospital in Colusa County, buying them and keeping them open. The Modesto-based company specializes in buying distressed rural hospitals and now operates 14 hospitals in California, Utah and Texas.

The hospital set about building back its staff and improving its reputation for patient care in the community, which had been tarnished in part by the 2013 death of a young mother and her unborn baby.

“We’ve been on an upswing,” Still said, noting that indicators of quality of care and patient satisfaction have risen dramatically in recent years.

Then came the letter from the federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. On April 23, the federal agency wrote Glenn Medical’s management company with bad news: A recent review had found that Glenn Medical was “in noncompliance” with “distance requirements.” In plain English, federal officials had looked at a map and determined that Glenn Medical was not 35 miles from the nearest hospital by so-called main roads as required by law — it was just 32. Nor was it 15 miles by secondary roads. The hospital was going to lose its Critical Access designation. The hit to the hospital’s budget would be about 40% of its $28 million in net revenue. It could not survive that cut.

At first, hospital officials said they weren’t too worried.

“We thought, there’s no way they’re going to close down hospitals” over a few miles of road, Still, the hospital’s chief executive, said.

Especially, Still said, because it appeared there were numerous California hospitals in the same pickle. A 2013 federal Inspector General Report found that a majority of the 1,300 Critical Access hospitals in the country do not meet the distance requirement. That includes dozens in California.

Still and other hospital officials flew to Washington D.C. to make their case, sure that when they explained that one of the so-called main roads that connects Glenn Medical to its nearest hospital wasn’t actually one at all, and often flooded in the winter, the problem would be solved. The route everyone actually used, she said, was 35.7 miles.

“No roads have changed. No facilities have moved,” administrators wrote to federal officials. “And yet this CMS decision now threatens to dismantle a legacy of rural health care stability.”

Without it, the administrator wrote, “lives will be lost for certain.”

But, Still said, their protestations fell on deaf ears.

In August came the final blow: Glenn Medical would lose its Critical Access funding by April 2026.

The news set off a panic not just in Glenn County but at hospitals around the state.

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1. A bicyclist passes by Glenn Medical Center. First opened to patients on November 21, 1950, the center was called Glenn General Hospital then. 2. A member of the staff signs a farewell board on closing day at Glenn Medical Center on October 21, 2025.

At least three other hospitals got letters from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid saying their Critical Access status was under review, Wheeler said: Bear Valley Community Hospital in Big Bear Lake, George L. Mee Memorial in Monterey County and Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital in Solvang. The hospitals in Monterey and Big Bear Lake provided data demonstrating they met the requirements for the status.

Cottage Hospital, however, did not, despite showing that access in and out of the area where the hospital is located was sometimes blocked by wildfires or rockslides.

Cottage Hospital officials did not respond to questions about what that might mean for their facility.

Asked about these situations, officials at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid said the law does not give the agency flexibility to consider factors such as weather, for example, in designating a critical assess hospital. They added the hospital must demonstrate there is no driving route that would make it ineligible based on driving distances included in the statute.

Jeff Griffiths, a county supervisor in Inyo County who is also the president of the California Assn. of Counties, said he has been following the grim hospital financing news around the state with mounting worry.

The hospital in his county, Southern Inyo, came close to running out of money earlier this year, he said, and with more federal cuts looming, “I don’t know how you can expect these hospitals to survive.”

“It’s terrifying for our area,” Griffiths said, noting that Inyo County, which sits on the eastern side of the Sierra, has no easy access to any medical care on the other side of the giant mountain peaks.

‘This is the final call’

In Willows, once word got out that the hospital would lose its funding, nurses began looking for new jobs.

By late summer, so many people had left that administrators realized they had no choice but to shutter the emergency room, which closed Sept. 30.

Helena Griffith, 62, one of the last patients, waves goodbye as patient transport Jolene Guerra pushes her wheelchair down the hallway on October 20, 2025.

Through it all, McNabb, the 74-year-old patient receiving intravenous antibiotics, remained in her bed, getting to know the nurses who buzzed around her.

She became aware that when they weren’t caring for her, many of them were trying to figure out what they would do with their lives once they lost their jobs.

On the hospital’s last day, nurse Amanda Shelton gifted McNabb a new sweater to wear home.

When McNabb gushed over the sweetness of the gesture, Shelton teared up. “It’s not every day that it will be the last patient I’ll ever have,” she told her.

As McNabb continued to gather her things, Shelton retreated to the hospital’s recreation room, where patients used to gather for games or conversation.

With all the patients save McNabb gone, Shelton and some other hospital staff took up a game of dominoes, the trash talk of the game peppered with bittersweet remembrances of their time working in the creaky old building.

Registered nurse Ronald Loewen, 74, looks out the window on closing day at Glenn Medical Center on October 21, 2025. Loewen, who grew up and attended school in Willows, had four children delivered at Glenn Medical, two of them survived, and took care of former classmates at this hospital, says the hospital closing is, “a piece of our history gone.”

Shelton said she is not sure what is next for her. She loved Glenn Medical, she said, because of its community feel. Many people came for long stays or were frequent patients, and the staff was able to get to know them — and to feel like they were healing them.

“You got to know people. You got to know their family, or if they didn’t have any family,” you knew that too, she said. She added that in many hospitals, being a nurse can feel like being an extension of a computer. But at Glenn Medical, she said, “you actually got to look in someone’s eyes.”

The building itself was in dire shape, she noted. Nothing was up to modern code. It didn’t have central air conditioning, and it was heated by an old-fashioned boiler. “I mean, I have never even heard of a boiler room” before coming to work there, she said.

And yet within the walls, she said, “It’s community.”

Bradley Ford, the emergency room manager, said he felt the same way and was determined to pay tribute to all the people who had made it so.

At 7 p.m. on the emergency room’s last night of service, Ford picked up his microphone and beamed his voice out to the hospital and to all the ambulances, fire trucks and others tuned to the signal.

He had practiced his speech enough times that he thought he could get through it without crying — although during his rehearsals he had never yet managed it.

“This is the final call,” Ford said. “‘After 76 years of dedicated service, the doors are closing. Service is ending. On behalf of all the physicians, nurses and staff who have walked these halls, it is with heavy hearts that we mark the end of this chapter.”

Nurses and other staff members recorded a video of Ford making his announcement, and passed it among themselves, tearing up every time they listened to it.

In an interview after the hospital had closed, Ford said he was one of the lucky ones: He had found a new job.

It was close enough to his home in Willows that he could commute — although Ford said he wasn’t sure how long he would remain in his beloved little town without access to emergency medical care there.

Rose Mary Wampler, 88, waits to have blood drawn at the lab beside a cordoning off, signaling the closure of the hospital side of Glenn Medical Center, on October 22, 2025. Wampler lives alone across the street from the hospital.

Rose Mary Wampler, 88, has lived in Willows since 1954 and now resides in a little house across the street from the hospital. Her three children were born at Glenn Medical, and Wampler herself was a patient there for two months last year, when she was stricken with pneumonia and internal bleeding. She said she was fearful of the idea of driving more than 30 miles for healthcare elsewhere.

She looked out her window on a recent afternoon at the now-shuttered hospital.

“It looks like somebody just shut off the whole city, there’s nowhere to go get help,” she said.

Glenn Medical Center patient Richard Putnam, 86, closes the window in his hospital room. A month shy of it’s 75th year, the hospital closed on Oct 21, 2025.

(Christina House/Los Angeles Times)

Times photographer Christina House contributed to this report.

As the Liberty Van rolled into the Home Depot, its driver slowed, lowered the window and waved at day laborers standing around the parking lot.

It had rained all morning and the overcast clouds trapped a chill in the air. Still, on a recent Friday, day laborers milled around even as it began to drizzle again. A pastor, a Navy veteran, an immigration lawyer and cameraman got out of the Liberty Van — camioneta de la libertad in Spanish — and greeted the day laborers while offering them water and snacks.

Since June in Los Angeles, federal immigration agents have destabilized daily life by raiding neighborhoods, worksites and Home Depots — popular gathering spots for day laborers who often lack U.S. citizenship. In turn, several “rapid-response” organizations have surged into action to aid those targeted in the raids, and document their treatment.

One of these organizations is the Save America Movement, which runs the Liberty Vans and includes a bipartisan leadership that is far more politically connected than that of many grassroots organizations. The group was founded by Steve Schmidt, a former top aide to Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona, and Mary Corcoran, a longtime public relations specialist, with a steering committee that includes law professors, pastors and strategists.

On this particular Friday, Fabian Núñez — a member of that steering committee who previously served as speaker of the California Assembly — was one of those who hopped out of the Liberty Van. He chatted with a day laborer who stopped by to grab a snack, and explained they were there to film any interactions with federal agents, as part of their national rapid-response effort.

The day laborer said Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have previously detained other workers at the Panorama City Home Depot and have returned frequently. “Many times,” he said. “Five or six.”

Despite the repeated raids, the laborer said workers like himself have little choice but to keep showing up.

“They have to keep coming,” he said. “One has to pay the bills.”

The Save America Movement launched the vans first in L.A. and then in Chicago and Charlotte, N.C., where federal immigration agents were raiding heavily Latino areas. The motivation behind the project was to provide support and help people understand the impact of the daily immigration raids, Corcoran said in an interview. Outside California, she said, many people don’t get it.

“If they did, I believe there would be much more urgency around what’s happening,” she said.

The vans were inspired by the Liberty ships and Victory ships during World War ll that provided supplies and other relief to the U.S. and its allies.

The teams that run the vans document and record video, with the footage published online so the public can watch the enforcement actions and hear testimonies from affected local residents, she said.

For months, the Trump administration has argued that it is merely enforcing the law — and fulfilling a campaign promise — by detaining and deporting immigrants who lack documentation. But some enforcement actions by ICE and Border Patrol agents have resulted in U.S. citizens being detained. Others have been criticized for being unnecessarily violent and traumatizing.

Fabian Núñez, a Save America Movement steering committee member who previously served as speaker of the California Assembly, talks with a laborer who stopped by the Liberty Van for some snacks in the parking lot of a Panorama City Home Depot on Nov. 21, 2025.

(Myung J. Chun/Los Angeles Times)

In Los Angeles, the Save America Movement first launched its vans in MacArthur Park in September, just two months after immigration agents on horses and armored vehicles descended on the area carrying rifles and tactical gear.

City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez — whose district spans from Highland Park, Chinatown and south to Pico-Union — welcomed the group’s effort, which she described as a tool in a movement of resistance.

Alejandro Maciel, the L.A. bureau chief for the organization and a former Los Angeles Times journalist, takes the van out roughly five times a week, starting around 6 a.m. and wrapping up late into the afternoon. Maciel and volunteers drive to Home Depots across Southern California, going north to Ventura County, east to the Inland Empire and south to Orange County.

On Friday, the van ride included the Rev. Madison Jones McAleese, Navy veteran Brian Kelly and immigration lawyer Juan Jose Gutierrez, who can offer legal support to families or offer “know your right” basics to laborers. And to capture it all was cameraman René Miranda, who started covering raids when a large protest broke out in Paramount, where he lives.

For McAleese, she said she felt it was her duty to be part of the effort to stand against the raids because of what she views as unlawful actions being taken by ICE enforcement. McAleese carries holy water and offers to pray with any one who seeks prayer.

“I don’t feel like I have a choice,” she said. “God is reflected in the face of every immigrant, documented and undocumented.”

As they headed to the next location, Maciel pulled up on his phone StopIce.Net, a website on which people submit reports of ICE activity. Just the day before, there was a raid in Long Beach, later confirmed by local media reports, and nine people were detained by masked agents, an L.A. County official said.

The San Fernando Valley was quiet that Friday, but Maciel said it has been important to establish and maintain relationships with both workers and organizers who have created rapid response networks. When he drives the van to a site, he said, he greets such organizers and makes sure the laborers understand they are there to help.

Ernesto Ayala, the site coordinator at the Van Nuys Day Labor Center in the Home Depot parking lot, said ICE agents have been to the site several times, as recently as a few weeks ago. At the Van Nuys Home Depot, volunteers monitor each entry point of the parking lot and alert the center of any suspicious vehicles that could contain federal agents.

“It’s very traumatic,” Ayala said of the continuing raids. Ayala himself was detained and sprayed with an irritant by agents after they held him down and accused him of interfering. He was arrested but never charged with any crime, he said.

Organizations such as the Save America Movement help with videos and other documentation that could be used in potential litigation against ICE in the future, Ayala said. He said his arrest was recorded from a distance by a witness.

In October, the organization said video by a Save America Movement photojournalist in Chicago recorded federal agents deploying tear gas against protesters and pointing weapons at journalists, which at the time violated a federal court order. The organization made that footage available online with time stamps and annotations.

Along with documenting interactions, Núñez said, the group hopes to remind ICE agents of the human impact and make them question their actions, and to move viewers. Such footage, he said, could help Americans see “that these Gestapo-like tactics are happening and they’re being utilized with our tax dollars.”

“We think we can convince them to move, to think more compassionately about people and think: Is this the America I signed up for?”

A Southeast Asian nation has leapt from 33rd place in 2018 to become the world’s most populous city, surpassing Tokyo and Dhaka with a staggering population of almost 42 million in 2025

Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, has soared 32 places to become the world’s most populous city, with more than 40 million residents. The Southeast Asian metropolis has jumped from 33rd place in 2018 to the top spot in a new United Nations report ranking the world’s most populous cities.

Overtaking Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh (in second place with nearly 37 million people) and Tokyo, Japan (third with 33 million), Jakarta boasts an impressive population of almost 42 million in 2025. Intriguingly, all but one of the top ten cities are in Asia, with Cairo, the capital of Egypt, being the exception at seventh place.

The report also emphasises that more than half of the world’s 33 megacities (defined as having 10 million or more inhabitants) are located in Asia. The other cities making up the top ten include New Delhi, the capital of India (with 30.2 million), Shanghai, China (29.6m), Guangzhou, China (27.6m), Manila, Philippines (24.7m), Kolkata, India (22.5m), and Seoul, South Korea (22.5m), according to NBC News.

So where exactly is Jakarta?

Jakarta is the capital of Indonesia, a sprawling Southeast Asian nation nestled between the Indian and Pacific Oceans, made up of thousands of unique islands – reportedly more than 17,000 in total.

Indeed, Indonesia boasts so many islands that authorities have never managed to count them all or assign names to each one, according to the BBC. The capital, Jakarta, sits on Java, the world’s most populous island with an extraordinary 150 million inhabitants.

The Ring of Fire

Located between Sumatra to the east and the tourist hotspot of Bali to the west, Java is dotted with 129 active volcanoes across the Indonesian archipelago, according to Sky News.

Indonesia sits within the Pacific Ring of Fire, a series of volcanoes and areas of seismic activity that line the Pacific Ocean. Java’s Mount Semeru actually erupted just this month.

Life in the capital

A bustling metropolis in Java’s west, Jakarta is “sometimes overlooked” by visitors exploring the island’s stunning historical sites, according to Lonely Planet, but they’re “missing out”.

The travel guide praised the capital’s food scene and coffee, its museums, art galleries and historic quarter, describing it as offering “exciting” nightlife and some of the “best shopping” across Southeast Asia.

Highlights include Old Jakarta, featuring the cobblestone square of Taman Fatahillah, Merdeka Square, the Museum Nasional, Glodok (the city’s Chinatown), and more than 150 shopping malls.

What’s the weather like?

It also noted that the city suffers from congested roads and smog and is both hot and humid throughout the year. Average temperatures reportedly range from 23°C to 33°C.

What type of food can I expect?

The menu boasts traditional Indonesian dishes, such as the fried rice dish nasi goreng, alongside more localised meals — perhaps babi guling (a roast pig dish from Bali) or seafood inspired by the island of Sulawesi.

Migrationology notes two common types of street food: Warung (small restaurants) and Pedagang kaki lima (street vendors).

Other culinary delights spotlighted by the website include Nasi uduk (rice cooked in coconut milk), a soup called Soto Betawi, Woku, Sop kaki kambing (a soup made with goat), and the grilled fish dish Ikan bakar.

California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines over the Trump administration’s immigration raids this year in Los Angeles and across the nation, according to a new poll.

Just over half of the state’s registered voters oppose federal efforts to reduce undocumented immigration, and 61% are against deporting everyone in the nation who doesn’t have legal status, according to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab released to The Times on Wednesday.

But there is an acute difference in opinions based on political leanings.

Nearly 80% of Democrats oppose reducing the number of people entering the United States illegally, and 90% are against deporting everyone in the country who is undocumented, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 5% are against reducing the entries and 10% don’t believe all undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave.

“The big thing that we find, not surprisingly, is that Democrats and Republicans look really different,” said political scientist Amy Lerman, director of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, who studies race, public opinion and political behavior. “On these perspectives, they fall pretty clearly along party lines. While there’s some variation within the parties by things like age and race, really, the big divide is between Democrats and Republicans.”

While there were some differences based on gender, age, income, geography and race, the results largely mirrored the partisan divide in the state, Lerman said.

One remarkable finding was that nearly a quarter of survey respondents personally knew or were acquainted with someone in their family or friend groups directly affected by the deportation efforts, Lerman said.

“That’s a really substantial proportion,” she said. “Similarly, the extent to which we see people reporting that people in their communities are concerned enough about deportation efforts that they’re not sending their kids to school, not shopping in local stores, not going to work,” not seeking medical care or attending church services.

The poll surveyed a sample of the state’s registered voters and did not include the sentiments of the most affected communities — unregistered voters or those who are ineligible to cast ballots because they are not citizens.

A little more than 23 million of California’s 39.5 million residents were registered to vote as of late October, according to the secretary of state’s office.

“So if we think about the California population generally, this is a really significant underestimate of the effects, even though we’re seeing really substantial effects on communities,” she said.

Earlier this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a series of raids in Los Angeles and surrounding communities that spiked in June, creating both fear and outrage in Latino communities. Despite opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other elected Democrats, the Trump administration also deployed the National Guard to the streets of the nation’s second-largest city to, federal officials said, protect federal immigration officials.

The months since have been chaotic, with masked, armed agents randomly pulling people — most of whom are Latino — off the streets and out of their workplaces and sending many to detention facilities, where some have died. Some deportees were flown to an El Salvador prison. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by state officials and civil rights groups.

In one notable local case, a federal district judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area. The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal and lifted that order, while the case moves forward.

More than 7,100 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area by federal authorities since June 6, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

On Monday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Bass and other elected officials hosted a congressional hearing on the impact of immigration raids that have taken place across the country. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House’s oversight committee, also announced the creation of a tracker to document misconduct and abuse during ICE raids.

While Republican voters largely aligned with Trump’s actions on deportations, 16% said that they believed that the deportations will worsen the state’s economy.

Lerman said the university planned to study whether these numbers changed as the impacts on the economy are felt more greatly.

“If it continues to affect people, particularly, as we see really high rates of effects on the workforce, so construction, agriculture, all of the places where we’re as an economy really reliant [on immigrant labor], I can imagine some of these starting to shift even among Republicans,” she said.

Among Latinos, whose support of Trump grew in the 2024 election, there are multiple indications of growing dissatisfaction with the president, according to separate national polls.

Nearly eight in 10 Latinos said Trump’s policies have harmed their community, compared to 69% in 2019 during his first term, according to a national poll of adults in the United States released by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center on Monday. About 71% said the administration’s deportation efforts had gone too far, an increase from 56% in March. And it was the first time in the two decades that Pew has conducted its survey of Latino voters that the number of Latinos who said their standing in the United States had worsened increased, with more than two-thirds expressing the sentiment.

Another poll released earlier this month by Somos Votantes, a liberal group that urges Latino voters to support Democratic candidates, found that one-third of Latino voters who previously supported Trump rue their decision, according to a national poll.

Small business owner Brian Gavidia is among the Latino voters who supported Trump in November because of financial struggles.

“I was tired of struggling, I was tired of seeing my friends closing businesses,” the 30-year-old said. “When [President] Biden ran again I’m like, ‘I’m not going to vote for the same four years we just had’ … I was sad and I was heartbroken that our economy was failing and that’s the reason why I went that way.”

The East L.A. native, the son of immigrants from Colombia and El Salvador, said he wasn’t concerned about Trump’s immigration policies because the president promised to deport the “worst of the worst.”

He grew disgusted watching the raids that unfolded in Los Angeles earlier this year.

“They’re taking fruit vendors, day laborers, that’s the worst of the worst to you?” he remembered thinking.

Over a lunch of asada tortas and horchata in East L.A., Gavidia recounted being detained by Border Patrol agents in June while working at a Montebello tow yard. Agents shoved him against a metal gate, demanding to know what hospital he was born at after he said he was an American citizen, according to video of the incident.

After reviewing his ID, the agents eventually let Gavidia go. The Department of Homeland Security later claimed that Gavidia was detained for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants. He is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups alleging racial profiling during immigration raids.

“At that moment, I was the criminal, at that moment I was the worst of the worst, which is crazy because I went to go see who they were getting — the worst of the worst like they said they were going to get,” Gavidia said. “But turns out when I got there, I was the worst of the worst.”

As media executives wrestle with the use of artificial intelligence, radio giant iHeartMedia wants to stand out.

“We don’t use AI-generated personalities. We don’t play AI music that features synthetic vocalists pretending to be human,” Tom Poleman, the company’s programming chief, wrote in an email to employees.

“The podcasts we publish are also Guaranteed Human,” he wrote.

Radio station DJs now are expected to say “Guaranteed Human,” as part of their hourly on-air disclosures, which include announcing the station’s call letters, as required by the Federal Communications Commission. The new branding campaign has its roots in iHeartMedia’s research that listeners turn on the radio for more than just music and information.

“Consumers aren’t just looking for content, they’re looking for connection,” the company’s president of insights, Lainie Fertick, wrote in an October blog post. “In a world of tech overload, consumers are searching for something real.”

The move comes as Hollywood creators, agents and executives come to grips with rapid advances in artificial intelligence, which has assisted workers with routine tasks but also caused a stir with the release of realistic AI actors, such as Tilly Norwood, which has more than 66,000 followers on Instagram. Entertainment behemoths, including Walt Disney Co. and Comcast’s NBCUniversal, also have sued AI companies for copyright infringement.

To be sure, iHeartMedia uses “AI-powered productivity and distribution tools that help scale our business operations,” Poleman wrote in his note. Such AI tools are used for “scheduling, audience insights, data analysis, workflow automation, show prep, editing and organization,” he said.

iHeartMedia is the nation’s largest radio operator with more than 850 stations, including KFI-AM 640, KLAC-AM 570, KOST-FM 103.5 and KIIS-FM 102.7 in Los Angeles.

The company also has a growing podcast business, producing such shows as “Stuff You Should Know,” “Questlove Supreme” and “Drama Queens.” It also co-produces podcasts with the NFL, NBA and Shonda Rhimes’ Shondaland Audio, which includes “The Laverne Cox Show.”

Previously known as Clear Channel Communications, the company has experienced the dark side of automation and programming centralization.

In 2002, its radio stations in Minot, N.D., aired canned music as a toxic cloud blanketed the community after a train transporting anhydrous ammonia for fertilizer derailed and exploded. One person died, and dozens of others were injured. Congress then drilled into alleged harms of media consolidation and the failure of broadcasters to alert the community during the disaster in Minot, where Clear Channel owned six of the eight commercial radio stations.

Clear Channel later said local police failed that night to activate the emergency alert system, which would have allowed the broadcast of special bulletins.

The company has since championed its responses to other disasters. An iHeart spokesperson pointed to its award-winning coverage of Hurricane Helene in Asheville, N.C., in 2024 as well as its efforts during the devastating Eaton and Pacific Palisades fires in January, “delivering crucial lifesaving information and working with local organizations to collect and distribute essential disaster relief supplies,” the spokesperson said, noting that Clear Channel was run by a different management team.

“At iHeart, we make service to our communities our number one priority,” the spokesperson said.

iHeartMedia, like other entertainment and news outlets, is dealing with advertising declines, and it has been looking for ways to keep listeners engaged amid media fragmentation. The company this fall cut several staff members at historic KFI, including Morris “Mo” O’Kelly, who had hosted the station’s evening talk show for nearly three years.

Radio host Chuck Dizzle also announced on Instagram that he’d been laid off from iHeart’s Los Angeles hip-hop station KRRL-FM, which brands itself as “Real 92.3.”

The company said its research shows that consumers crave interactions with real people, and they have deep concerns about the growing use of AI and its potential societal changes.

Poleman pointed to a recent survey that showed two-thirds of respondents were worried about losing their job to AI.

iHeartMedia employees should embrace “Guaranteed Human” as more than a marketing tagline, Poleman wrote.

“When listeners interact with us, they know they’re connecting with real voices, real stories, and real emotion,” Poleman wrote. “Sometimes you have to pick a side — we’re on the side of humans.”

Fans of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs might want to hold their ears when the wrongful death trial brought by his widow and parents against the Angels resumes Monday.

The Angels are about to present their defense and, according to people with knowledge of the Angels’ strategy, their attorneys plan to portray Skaggs as a selfish, secretive opioid addict who for years manipulated teammates and team communications director Eric Kay into obtaining illicit pills for him to chop up and snort.

Skaggs, a first-round draft pick of the Angels in 2009 out of Santa Monica High, was one year away from free agency when he died of an overdose July 1, 2019. He died after snorting a counterfeit opioid pill laced with fentanyl in his hotel room during an Angels trip to play the Texas Rangers in Arlington.

The left-handed starter was 27 and in the midst of his best season of seven in the big leagues when he died. His performance has been pointed to by Skaggs family lawyers as evidence he wasn’t a drug addict, but instead an athlete who took pain pills to stay on the field.

So far, testimony in a small, spare courtroom on the ninth floor of the Orange County Superior Court has favored the plaintiffs — Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and parents, Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs.

Their lawyers called 21 witnesses over 24 days in court, attempting to establish that the pitcher’s fatal overdose was the result of the Angels’ negligent supervision of Kay, an admitted longtime opioid addict who is serving 22 years in prison for providing Skaggs with the pill.

The plaintiffs are asking for about $120 million in future earnings as well as additional millions for pain and suffering and punitive damages. Neither side is optimistic that a settlement can be reached ahead of a verdict.

Transcripts of trial testimony and interviews with people on both sides not authorized to speak publicly about the case provided a glimpse of the Angels’ defense strategy and what the plaintiffs have accomplished so far.

The Angels pared down their witness list at the request of Judge H. Shaina Colover, who has insisted the case go to the jury by Dec. 15. The Angels complained that two weeks might not be long enough to present their case, giving the plaintiffs an unfair advantage, even suggesting the issue could lead to a mistrial.

Skaggs’ lawyers, however, pointed out that the defense has taken longer to cross-examine witnesses than it took them to conduct the direct examinations. And Colover said a reason for the difference in the number of witnesses is that 12 people called by Skaggs’ lawyers were on the witness lists of both sides.

Like an MLB manager constructing a lineup, Skaggs lawyers led by Rusty Hardin were purposeful in the order they presented witnesses. They began their case by calling a string of Angels executives to poke holes in the team’s contention that they knew nothing about Kay’s addiction. Key witnesses refuting those denials included Kay’s wife, Camela, and Hetman.

Skaggs’ lawyers also presented text messages that indicated Kay’s supervisor, Tim Mead, and Angels traveling secretary Tom Taylor not only were aware of Kay’s addiction, but did not act decisively to isolate him, get him into inpatient rehab or terminate his employment.

The plaintiffs called witnesses to establish that not only were the Angels negligent on how they dealt with Kay’s addiction, they put his interest ahead of other employees and the organization by allowing him to continue working despite his bizarre behavior on the job.

The last witness before the court went into recess until Dec. 1 was human resources expert Ramona Powell, who testified that the Angels did not follow their own policies in evaluating and responding to Kay’s behavior. She said that had the team done so, Kay could have been terminated well before 2019.

Expect Angels lead attorney Todd Theodora to counter that Skaggs violated his contract and was guilty of fraud by concealing his drug problem for years. Furthermore, Skaggs allegedly continued to pressure Kay to procure opioids for him even after Kay completed drug rehab shortly before the fateful trip to Texas.

During opening arguments, Theodora stated that the Angels “know right from wrong,” but he is expected to assert that the case is more about what the team didn’t know. Kay and Skaggs have been described as masters at concealing their drug use. The Angels contend that had the team known of their addiction, officials could have provided them with treatment and perhaps Skaggs would be alive.

Testimony has already established that the Angels immediately informed MLB that Kay told co-worker Adam Chodzko that he was in Skaggs’ hotel room the night the pitcher died. Expect the Angels attorneys to take it a step further and assert that Kay might not have been prosecuted if the Angels hadn’t acted so swiftly.

Witnesses expected to be called by the defense include Angels president John Carpino and former MLB general manager Dan Duquette. The jury will view video of depositions given by former Angels players C.J. Cron, Matt Harvey, Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker if they cannot testify in person.

The testimony of players can cut both ways, as evidenced by statements made by two players who testified for the plaintiffs — current Angels outfielder and three-time most valuable player Mike Trout and former relief pitcher Mike Morin.

Trout testified that Skaggs was “like a brother” to him, that he cried when told he’d died and that he had no clue about drug use. But Trout also hedged when asked whether he had offered to pay for Kay’s rehab, saying he just told him he’d help any way he could.

Morin, who pitched for the Angels from 2014 to 2017, said Kay sold him opioids “five to eight times” after an arm injury made him desperate to overcome pain and return to the mound. Yet under cross examination, Morin conceded that Skaggs was responsible for his own actions.

Carpino is responsible for the Angels’ day-to-day operations and his office is adjacent to those of Mead, Taylor and formerly Kay. Duquette, former general manager of the Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, is expected to testify that Skaggs’ future career earnings would have been no more than $30 million because of his drug use and history of injuries.

Skaggs’ lawyers called earnings expert Jeff Fannell, a former labor lawyer for the MLB Players Assn., who testified that Skaggs would have earned between $109 million and $120 million and could still be pitching.

At 8 o’clock on a stormy weeknight in the chilly Chinatown offices of L.A. Taco, Memo Torres finally was worn out.

Since President Trump unleashed his deportation deluge on Los Angeles in June, the 45-year-old has chronicled nearly every immigration enforcement action in the region in three-minute “Daily Memo” videos for the online publication. He and his colleagues track down film footage and photos, reach out to officials to verify what they’ve found and hammer out a script for Torres to narrate.

The audio that played from Torres’ double-screen computer and smart phone as he reviewed the evidence on the day I visited contained snippets of the Southland’s sad soundtrack under what he continually calls the “siege” of ICE. Men pleading to la migra to stop hurting them. Activists cursing out agents. Whistles, screams, honks and sirens. Sobbing family members.

“If I wanted to cry, I don’t think that I could,” Torres said when I asked how he coped with seeing such videos ad nauseum.

“It’s not healthy, I know. It’s not mature. But what I go through is nothing like what the people I’m seeing are going through … Today was hard, though,” he continued, pounding his hand with his fist. “They went … extra hard today. They’re starting to get worse. Numbers that used to be a week’s worth of abductions are now a day.”

He sighed. His deep-set eyes were bleary. Reading glasses did nothing to help with 12 hours of staring at screens. Torres wiped his hands over his face as if washing off the horrors of the day and pressed the record button.

“Today, Border Patrol targeted Long Beach, swarming the streets again and taking gardeners, old men and a 12-pack of beer that they had,” he began. He talked over footage of masked men piling on top of a gardener at a Polly’s Pie in Long Beach as a police officer looked on with hands in pockets and a deer-in-headlights look.

In another clip, federal agents detained an elderly man sitting on the sidewalk near a liquor store, “making sure to put a handcuff on his hand as they helped him up.”

“Remember to stay safe and stay vigilant, folks,” Torres concluded.

He turned off the camera, blasted hardcore punk and began to splice his reel together.

“Daily Memo” has become the diary Los Angeles never asked for but which is now indispensable, documenting in real time one of the most terrifying chapters in the region’s history. Filling the camera frame with his broad shoulders, full beard and a baritone that alternates between wry, angry, calm and reassuring, Torres has been described by fans as the Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite of L.A.’s deportation days — legendary broadcasters he acknowledges never having heard of until recently.

L.A. Taco staffer Memo Torres, right, presents Victor Villa as L.A. Taco’s Taco Madness 2024 winner in an impromptu ceremony outside the Highland Park restaurant in 2024.

(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)

“When you’re in the midst of everything, you forget someone has to keep an archive so we can go back to reference, and you think, ‘Damn is someone is doing that?’ Yeah, Memo is doing that,” Sherman Austin said. The Long Beach-based activist runs the Stop ICE Raids Alert Network, which sends out text alerts with the locations of raids to more than half a million people nationwide. “Memo puts a human face to what’s happening, and that resonates with people in a different way.”

“He’s a neighborhood hero,” said Rebecca Brown, supervising attorney for the Immigrants’ Rights Project of Public Counsel. The public interest law firm has filed or joined multiple lawsuits against the federal government this year over its deportation agenda. “A lot of these stories of people who are getting picked up can fall through the cracks. But their voices are getting captured by his recording.”

While “Daily Memo” is chronicling a city under attack, it’s also bringing comfort to an unexpected person: Torres.

The son of a Mexican immigrant from Zacatecas who came to this country without papers, Torres never had a full-time journalism job until this year, living a “Forrest Gump kind of life.” He estimates he has worked in at least 25 different trades, from butcher to taquero to sound engineer, social media manager and nonprofit worker, none really fitting his life’s goal to do something “meaningful.”

Nothing lasted longer than landscaping. A third-generation jardinero — his grandfather also worked in the U.S. — he at one point employed 28 workers and had contracts across the city, with Hollywood studios among his biggest clients.

Torres, who has two college-age children, sold the business in March to focus on journalism for good.

“My life has prepared me for this s—. There’s nothing that scares me anymore,” Torres said as he began to layer video clips over his “Daily Memo” narration. “So I bury my head into work. My escapism is the cruel reality of the city right now.”

Torres grew up in Culver City and Inglewood. At Loyola High he absorbed the Jesuit maxim of being a man for others. But after graduating from UC Berkeley with a sociology degree, Torres found himself back in the family business, unable to find a job that satisfied him.

“Relatives would make fun of me by saying, ‘There he goes with a degree and a lawnmower in the back of a truck,” he said. “I hated it, but I was good at it.”

His landscaping routes across Southern California inadvertently prepared him for journalism. He started an Instagram account, El Tragón de Los Angeles (The Glutton from Los Angeles), to share his eating adventures. That caught the attention of L.A. Taco in 2018, which was revamping at a time when the city’s indie publications were shuttering or faltering.

“Their mission of street-level reporting called to me,” Torres said. He volunteered to connect L.A. Taco to local restaurants so the publication’s members could score free food and discounts. He soon became director of partnerships, then took over L.A. Taco’s social media accounts, then started to write articles and shoot videos — mostly for free.

“I call him the Mexican Swiss Army knife — and not those small ones but the big ones with all the weird things,” L.A. Taco publisher Alex Blazedale said as he and Torres smoked outside during a short break. “Memo could literally do anything we asked him to, and he wanted to do it and followed through.”

L.A. Taco staffer Memo Torres edits video clips from daily ICE raids which he puts together with narration on an Instagram reel inside L.A. Taco’s studio in Chinatown.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Torres’ taco knowledge earned him appearances on the Netflix show “The Taco Chronicles” and a regular slot on KCRW’s “Good Food with Evan Kleiman.” Blazedale suggested this year that he do a daily news recap under the “Daily Memo” banner. But Torres found the title “cheesy and didn’t know what it was for.”

Then came the raids.

“I grew up on the History Channel,” Torres said. “They would always have these documentaries where they said they were finding new footage that had been thought lost. That’s what’s happening right now. So much stuff is being put up that quickly goes down. We need to document it for history.”

L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral credits “Daily Memo” with bringing in so many new members that the publication is now financially sustainable.

“He’s not your average aspirational journalist who is either a hobbyist who wants to write more or someone who just got out of [journalism] school,” Cabral said. “He’s just a real paisa” — a working-class guy.

While Cabral finds Torres’ lack of reporting experience “refreshing,” he sometimes has to remind Torres not to editorialize too much.

“It’s that ‘Show, don’t tell’ thing in journalism, you know? But then I had to just check in with myself — am I being jealous by power-tripping at him?” Cabral said. “It was a hard conversation to have, but Memo took it [on] the chin and raised it up.”

Blazedale and Cabral believe so much in Torres that they recently hired a part-time assistant for “Daily Memo” and plan to turn an office at their headquarters into a proper studio. They got Torres a video editor, but the person quit after five minutes of viewing deportation footage — so Torres continues to put together the final product.

“We just can’t have Memo burn out,” Cabral said. “He’s too important to have that happen.”

Torres is unfazed, for now.

“It’s just like when I mowed lawns — let’s seize the day and make it your routine,” he said.

Besides, swimming in the chaos of the times is how Torres has dealt with a tough personal year. He sold his landscaping company, not just because of his increased L.A. Taco duties — he’s officially the publication’s director of engagement — but because the Hollywood writer’s strike and Trump’s deportations decimated his business. Two of his former gardeners have since been deported.

Torres started smoking again “to deal with all this.” He recently broke off an engagement after a 10-year-relationship with a woman whose family members were avid Trump supporters. On Election Night, Torres said, one of them told him to go back to Mexico. The couple’s Glendale home recently sold for far less than they paid. Soon, Torres plans to declare bankruptcy.

L.A. Taco’s offices are filled with boxes of his mementos as he settles into a new apartment. One is a laminated La Opinión story about him trying to recruit more Latino students to Berkeley after affirmative action ended.

“I always envisioned I would be useful for something,” he said before mentioning a letter from his mother he unearthed during his move. She died of cancer in 2006.

“She said, ‘I’m so proud of you. You’re trying to fight for what’s right. Don’t forget it.’ She saw it in me way back then.”

Torres uploaded his finished reel to L.A. Taco’s social media accounts. It was 10 p.m. — early for him. Outside the rain was pouring down harder than ever.

“I hope I can go back to writing about tacos,” Torres said with a laugh that betrayed he knew it wouldn’t happen for a while. “Just give me a break from reporting on the trauma and tragedy. But who knows if the future needs me? Maybe I’m just good for this moment, and I’m good with that.”

He stepped into the storm. Eight hours later, he would be back.

Diversity has taken a back seat in Hollywood, and Eva Longoria is taking notice.

In a recent interview with British publication the Times, the 50-year-old actor-director-producer spoke out about the lack of Latino representation on screen.

“We’re severely underrepresented in TV and film and it’s getting worse,” said Longoria. “Five years ago we [made up], like, 7% of TV and film and now we’re 4%. It’s actually going in the wrong direction.”

According to UCLA’s 2025 Hollywood Diversity Report, 1% of Latino performers were leading roles in top theatrical films, while 4.3% of Latino directors and 2.1% of Latino writers were involved in last year’s top films.

The report, released in February, found that the proportion of people of color working in entertainment roles dropped in every area from 2023 to 2024 when compared with their white counterparts. Actors of color made up 25.2% of lead roles in the top theatrical films in 2024, which is down from 29.2% in 2023. Also, directors of color accounted for 20.2% of 2024 movies, compared with 22.9% of films from the prior year.

This downward trend has popped up as President Trump has consistently targeted and called to end all diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts. As a result, much of Hollywood has followed his lead. Paramount Global changed its staffing goals related to gender, race, ethnicity and sex; Warner Bros. Discovery restated its DEI activities as “inclusion”; and Walt Disney Co. got rid of its “diversity and inclusion” performance standard used to calculate executive compensation.

“There is definitely a lot of work to be done. I’m trying to do my part,” Longoria told the Times. “That’s one of the main reasons I got behind the camera, to create opportunities for women and for people from my community.”

The “Desperate Housewives” actor made her directorial debut in 2023 with “Flamin’ Hot,” a biographical comedy about Richard Montañez, who says he invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.

She’s also currently working on “The Fifth Wheel,” a Netflix comedy starring Kim Kardashian, which she will direct. As for acting, her latest gig is in “Christmas Karma,” a movie musical released earlier this month, where she plays the Ghost of Christmas Past.