people

With its gridlocked terminals, infuriating delays and long lines for everything from security checks to coffee, LAX might be where patience goes to die. It’s a place most dream of escaping; instead L.A.-born novelist Alexander Maksik takes readers inside the airport to witness both the unease and shared humanity of people passing through.

Longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award in fiction, Maksik’s new novel, “Passengers,” unfolds within the airport’s sprawling concourses. The story centers on Ivan and Nina, a distant father and daughter meeting up for a flight to Paris. For 75-year-old Ivan, it’s a chance to show his daughter where he once lived. For 29-year-old Nina, it’s a free trip and an opportunity to finally understand a parent she barely knows. When their flight is delayed, and then delayed again, frustration shifts from the departure boards to the fault lines between them.

Maksik, speaking via video conference from his Parisian apartment, always planned that the book would be about a father-daughter pair. “When my daughter was born, like many new parents, I found I could only think in clichés, and I didn’t try to resist them,” he says. “But as time went by, I started to toy with the idea of writing a novel about a father and daughter in which the battle against cliché would become central, would take on huge, even life-saving, importance.”

The author also plays with the idea of nostalgia. “Nostalgia brings you close to the edge of real feeling without forcing you to confront the weight, power and terror of real feeling. It’s too easy to keep yourself wrapped up in the false ease of the past.” One of the things that airports remind us of, he says, is change. Restaurants and boutiques close and open regularly. In one era, people sought out bookstores; in another, they’re looking for headphones and portable chargers.

“For a long time, airports felt to me like places of civility,” says Maksik. “I remember having real conversations with strangers at a bar or in various waiting areas. There was promise and possibility and warmth in such interactions. Now an airport is just one more place to look at your phone.”

As Ivan and Nina walk, talk, do tequila shots and observe their fellow travelers, those travelers are also observing them. One of the most powerful conceits in the book occurs when the two leave an airport venue and readers get the perspective of a person who served or overheard them. For example, one character, “an elegant woman, long gray hair in a braid” thinks about her dead husband when she notices Ivan and Nina: “It was impossible for the woman to see two people together, really any two people, and not feel his absence.” There’s another man who thinks he can tell that father and daughter “were the kind always looking for a way around the rules, who think waiting is for suckers like him.” Each underscores the fact that strangers affect and can even change one another (like our own offspring do).

Something else Ivan and Nina share is physical labor. Ivan spent decades as a building contractor, while Nina is a masseuse who goes to clients’ homes, not liking “the idea of going to the same place again and again. She wanted to travel, to peer inside different lives.” Maksik himself held service positions for many years, experience that gave him a different outlook than some of his colleagues at the renowned Iowa Writers Workshop, which he entered at the relatively senior age of 38.

“At Iowa, I was drawn to those who were writing about worlds that were far away from literature and academia,” he says. “Maybe that’s because I’ve worked so many different jobs. I washed dishes. I was a bartender. I cooked. I delivered pizza. Those experiences were vivid and interesting and at least as formative to me as a writer as anything I learned in the classroom. To write well about work is something I admire a great deal.”

Of course, Maksik is writing fiction, and can write about any sort of life, including that of a teacher, as he did in his critically acclaimed 2011 novel “You Deserve Nothing,” about an affair between an American teacher and his French high school student. As he knows, there’s a shadow over that book because one of his students alleged that the story was about Maksik’s affair with her when she was 17 years old.

“I will aways have to acknowledge my own history, and how I came to write that novel,” he says. “And there will always exist people to whom this acknowledgment means nothing. Perhaps this is as it should be. I’m certainly not proud of that period of my life, and, frankly, I’m no longer particularly proud of the novel either. Nevertheless, it will always be part and parcel of my history, and I have no intention of pretending otherwise.”

As Ivan and Nina wrestle with their own emotional truths, which range from her mother Nora’s departure from their lives to Ivan’s clumsy recitations of Nina’s childhood antics, something alarming is afoot. Nina can’t make or receive calls on her phone. The pair notices that others can’t make calls, either; a restaurant loses its checkout interface; and everyone is snaking cords around to keep devices charged for the moment when service returns.

Something is definitely wrong, and no one seems to know what it is. Soon Nina sees that her father is tired and weak, despite a meal and plenty of water; she becomes convinced that he needs fresh air. When they try to exit the airport, they find barriers set up and armed soldiers who say no one is allowed to leave.

The sense of unease Maksik creates mirrors the sense of disconnection between all of the people stranded, from a brusque young woman in bunny slippers and giant headphones to an older couple huddled beneath racks of merchandise: “We’re trying to sleep … Can’t you see that?” one of them says. This LAX, unlike the island of civility and good manners Maksik remembers from childhood, fosters alienation and dread.

The author laughs ruefully when accused of his own version of nostalgia, admitting that the version of the airport he’s created feels closer to our present-day reality. As it happens, Maksik himself will be taking a flight soon, from France to Florida, taking part in his fellow author Lauren Groff’s First Editions Book Club. How does he feel about that?

“Our daughter was born in late 2019, and then there was the pandemic. Each day since then seems more dangerous than the previous one. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to find myself trapped in an airport, whether as a result of climate change, AI, or one of the many petulant maniacs who run the world.”

Patrick is a freelance critic and author of the memoir “Life B.”

Spearheading the campaign in opposition of Proposition 38 is Robert Kaplan, senior scholar at the Clinical Excellence Research Center at Stanford School of Medicine, and David Panush, who served as a senior health policy and budget advisor to five state Senate presidents.

Kaplan stated, “As written, Proposition 38 is deceptive,” because the proposed criteria for awarding the grant funding would appear to create an extremely minuscule pool of qualified recipients.

To qualify, a recipient institution must be established since Jan. 1, 2025, and have at least 200,000 square feet of research space it controls. From that start date, the recipients also must have an affiliation agreement with a UC campus and be affiliated with a UC Health system that records more than 35,000 inpatient admissions and 3.5 million outpatient visits annually. The qualification requirements also include having identified at least $250 million in philanthropic support and securing two $50-million commitments for designated research programs.

Kaplan argues medical research grants should be awarded through a competitive process that gives all applicants equal opportunity. Instead, his campaign states, only the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy, co-founded by billionaire Gary K. Michelson, would qualify under the proposed criteria. In a Cal Matters report, a UCLA spokesperson confirmed that among all nonprofit entities affiliated with the school, “only the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy could satisfy the stipulations of Prop. 38.”

Robin Swanson, spokesperson for the Yes on 38 campaign, said that “lots of institutions would qualify for funds under this measure.”

“But it is very likely that [the California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy], which is a research institute affiliated with UCLA, will qualify for half of the funds under the current criteria,” she added during a virtual news conference in mid-September.

Swanson said it was likely that other research institutions from Stanford, Scripps Research, USC and Cedars Sinai would qualify for the other 50% of funds, “and that really is what we wanted to ensure that we had research institutes that were ready to hit the ground running.”

Ultimately, she said, the decision lies with the California Department of Public Health.

Michelson’s institute first became a nonprofit in 2022, and the co-founder has donated at least $120 million to the research organization. The billionaire is the board chair of the institute, which is housed at a research center owned by UCLA, according to the opposition campaign.

The Vote No on Prop. 38 campaign also argues against the financial model of the measure, saying a bond would saddle taxpayers with decades of debt and that any potential future revenue from the research is uncertain.

WASHINGTON — People heading into the Affordable Care Act open enrollment period with plans to sign up for insurance should expect a variety of changes in 2027, including higher premiums and fewer coverage options.

The sign-up window for the marketplace, also known as Obamacare, started Sunday in most states and runs through Jan. 15.

Big changes to the exchange include expiring financial assistance, rising rates, potential delays in working with a broker, new restrictions on immigrants, and stricter enrollment checks.

Financial help, including premium tax credits and cost-sharing reductions, is now restricted for many groups of people who were previously eligible.

Across the board, healthcare experts predict less coverage and higher prices, with the average price of health insurance purchased through the marketplaces expected to rise by 13% in 2027, according to analysis of new CMS data by the healthcare research nonprofit KFF.

Increases are driven by multiple factors

Cynthia Cox, a vice president and director of the ACA program at KFF, said the increase is primarily driven by rising healthcare costs, hospital market concentration, and potential factors such as the No Surprises Act, which took effect in 2022 and bans surprise billing, or the rising availability of GLP-1 drugs.

The people who will be most affected by the new increases are those who do not qualify for a subsidy.

“They may or may not be able to afford to continue to keep their coverage into next year,” Cox said, adding that “a lot of them have already moved into bronze plans, which are the cheapest plans.”

A CMS fact sheet about open enrollment that was distributed Friday says, “Americans using HealthCare.gov will have robust access to low-cost plans.”

The price of ACA insurance has skyrocketed for many people during President Trump’s second term after Republicans opposed extending COVID-era subsidies that had helped offset the costs of health insurance for most enrollees during the Biden administration.

That resulted in 1.2 million fewer people signing up for coverage in the exchanges.

Falling number of enrollees

As of February, roughly 19.2 million people in the United States were actively enrolled in ACA marketplace health plans, according to the Department of Health and Human Services website. The number of enrollees grew during the COVID-19 pandemic when enhanced subsidies became available through the American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act, both signed into law by President Biden.

New regulations starting in 2027 will also limit tax credits for certain lawfully present immigrants, which could result in an additional 1 million uninsured individuals over time.

Meanwhile, the Trump administration has been removing ACA enrollees from the program as part of the ongoing campaign against what it characterizes as waste, fraud and abuse.

In September, Vice President JD Vance and other officials in the Republican administration announced plans to remove 760,000 ACA enrollees from public healthcare exchanges, alleging the individuals were fraudulently enrolled in the program or simply did not exist.

Vance said the discovery and canceled subsidy payments for hundreds of thousands of people from the exchanges, part of an administration-wide crackdown on alleged fraud, would result in $2.2 billion in cost savings.

It’s unclear how many more people will drop off of ACA coverage in 2027, Cox said. But with higher premiums, immigration eligibility changes and the anti-fraud efforts, “I think there’s going to be fewer people enrolled in this market, but it’s going to be harder to understand why.”

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — When the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act this year, U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures knew he was going to be targeted.

Alabama’s Republican-controlled Legislature soon after redrew the 2nd Congressional District, one of only two in the state represented by a Democrat, to make it easier for the GOP to win.

Figures, one of several Black members of Congress who saw their districts redrawn, has complicated that plan. He is fighting to hold on to his seat by not only rallying Black voters in cities such as Montgomery and Tuskegee, both steeped in the nation’s struggle for civil rights, but also talking to voters deep in conservative territory, tugging at their concerns over rising prices of food, fuel and fertilizer.

“We know that the deck has been stacked. We know that the rules have been changed in the middle of the game, but we know what we’ve got to do,” Figures told a cheering crowd recently in Montgomery. “All we’ve got to do is show up. All we’ve got to do is show out. All we’ve got to do is fight.”

National groups have taken notice.

Spending on television advertising in the district has gone from almost nothing to nearly $10 million in the last seven weeks, according to AdImpact, with Democratic groups outspending Republicans.

Figures’ race against Rhett Marques, a state lawmaker endorsed by President Trump, is drawing attention as another sign of potential trouble for Republicans as they try to hold their majorities in Congress. The contest also has become a rallying point for Black voters angry over how Southern states swiftly gerrymandered congressional districts after the Supreme Court decision.

U.S. Sen. Cory Booker said the Alabama election is an opportunity to send a message on voting rights.

“The people of Alabama have a chance again to say this is a moral moment — ‘Not on my watch,’” Booker (D-N.J.) said during a campaign stop with Figures. “I will not stay seated while you try to take away our power.”

Racial gerrymandering

Figures was elected in 2024 after a federal court ordered new districts, ruling that the Legislature had unlawfully diluted the voting power of Black residents. Alabama is 27% Black and has seven U.S. House seats. With Figures’ victory, the state added a second Black member of Congress for the first time in its history, aligning its representation with its demographics.

But the Supreme Court decision last term paved the way for drawing new lines. The map Alabama is using on election day reduces the Black voting-age population in Figures’ district from 48% to 40%, making the district more likely to go Republican. Trump carried the area within the new district by 14 percentage points two years ago.

Despite the district’s conservative lean, Democrats are hoping a redistricting backlash and frustration over the economy will galvanize voters on Tuesday and send Figures back to Congress.

Some Black voters say they see echoes of the state’s Jim Crow past in the redrawing of the district.

“I’m 75, and history is repeating itself,” said Francis Fanning, a retired substitute teacher in Montgomery.

Sheyann Webb-Christburg was 8 in 1965 when she and other voting rights marchers were attacked by law enforcement in Selma.

“Much blood, sweat and tears was shed in an effort for African Americans to gain their right to vote,” said Webb-Christburg, who lives in Montgomery, and remembers a feeling of excitement when Figures was elected two years ago.

“It’s very sad that we are in this place,” she said. “But we still got to continue just as we did back in the ’60s. Lift our voices, because we always keep hope alive.”

Republican says he’s aligned with ‘Alabama values’

For the GOP, the new lines are about reclaiming a district that was reliably Republican before it was altered by the federal court.

“We have an opportunity to not only flip a seat from Democrat back to Republican here in Alabama, but to also hold the majority in the House with a win,” Marques said.

He emphasizes his legislative record, which includes support for school choice, law enforcement and restrictions on transgender athletes’ participation in girls’ sports and gender-affirming care for minors. Marques said he is more aligned with “the Alabama values in this district.”

He acknowledged voter concerns about affordability, but put the blame on President Biden’s administration.

Marques has deep ties to the heavily Republican areas of the district, where he served on the Enterprise City Council and ran an automotive store for decades.

“I know his values and I trust him,” said Coffee County Sheriff Scott Byrd, who appeared with Marques at an event with local law enforcement officials.

Republicans are optimistic about reclaiming the seat, but have expressed concerns about the potential for lackluster turnout as Figures mounts an aggressive campaign. Marques said he expects to prevail “if the Republicans and the people who believe in freedom” go vote.

U.S. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said the district is one of three dozen swing seats that will determine control of Congress.

“This seat absolutely will have a larger say on the direction of the country. Do we want conservative policies that are rooted in common sense, or do you want far-left socialists?” Scalise (R-La.) said at a campaign event for Marques in the city of Dothan.

From Black churches to Boll Weevil festival

Figures has been campaigning in both heavily Republican and Democratic areas as he seeks to maximize Democratic turnout while trying to persuade more conservative and independent voters.

He said affordability is the overriding issue facing all voters, from grocery and gas prices to farmers’ high fertilizer costs.

“The cost of living in this country is getting out of control. And we don’t come from a district or a state where people have the means to just continue to pump out money for $4 a gallon for gas or $8 for ground beef,” Figures said.

Figures often notes that the median individual income in Alabama is $34,000 and people struggle with access to hospitals and healthcare. He framed the race as a choice between “someone with a record of serving the people” or someone there to serve a president.

On an October weekend, his heavy schedule of stops included greeting people at the annual Boll Weevil Fall Festival in Enterprise, a predominantly white city of about 31,000. The festival is named for the cotton-destroying insect that forced the community’s pivot to more prosperous peanut farming a century ago.

The next day, he made a string of appearances through largely Black churches in nearby Dothan, urging people to vote.

Figures often notes that the district was never drawn as majority Black, but initially was split evenly between Black and white voters.

Speaking at Greater Beulah Baptist Church, a predominantly Black church in strongly Republican Houston County, Figures said the district was reconfigured in a way that makes it more difficult for “somebody who looks like me” to be able to win. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible, he said.

“Even though they are changing district lines, we still have the right to show up and make our voices heard,” he said.

Chandler writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines contributed to this report.

Peer inside the open hatch of the space shuttle Endeavour, and you’ll see a few things: a ladder from the mid-deck to the flight deck (horizontal, since the orbiter is in vertical launch position); pads used to crawl into the hatch and prevent damage to its seal; and small patches of blue Velcro to secure pens, clipboards or procedural notes, so they don’t float away.

Astronaut John Daniel “Danny” Olivas remembers his crews storing tortillas near the blue Velcro. There’s a cold plate there to keep the avionics system cool, and they’d stash the tortillas nearby so they’d stay fresher for longer (“We didn’t have a refrigerator on the space shuttle”). Tortillas, as it turns out, have a long and storied history in space, first brought there in 1985 by payload specialist Rodolfo Neri Vela, the first Mexican astronaut. (Neri Vela requested that they be included in his food supply, and they solved the serious problem of floating crumbs.)

A close-up view of the crew hatch, mid-deck and flight deck of the space shuttle Endeavour. The hatch provided astronauts with access to the crew compartment before launch and after landing, while serving as a sealed barrier during spaceflight. The cockpit contains the flight instruments, displays and controls used to operate the spacecraft during missions in Earth‘s orbit.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

There’s something fitting about the tortilla anecdote in multicultural L.A., home to the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center — the $450-million, 200,000-square-foot expansion to the California Science Center — which now houses Endeavour. On Nov. 13, when the center opens to the public, it will become the only place in the world to see a complete space shuttle system with an orbiter that has actually seen flight (25 missions). That space shuttle system, or “shuttle stack,” includes the orbiter (the part of the shuttle that holds the crew and cargo); a solid rocket booster on either side; and an orange external fuel tank. The entire crew from the Endeavour’s last mission in 2011 plans to attend the center’s opening.

Space shuttles (there have only been five in the U.S., plus one prototype) stand apart for myriad reasons, chief among them are the sheer number of their astronauts, 355, as well as their diversity.

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Astronaut Danny Olivas explains the space shuttle program’s significance and what it means for Endeavour to return to launch position in Southern California.

“Because the space shuttle program came forth, we started seeing people: the first female astronaut, the first African American astronaut, first African American female astronaut, the first Hispanic astronaut,” Olivas said on a recent tour of the new gallery. “So the space shuttle program, to me, is near and dear because it ushered in a level of diversity that represented what America was all about. And what makes her [Endeavour] special, being here in Southern California, is that this is the place she was born. All the space shuttles were born here. This is the heart of the aerospace industry.”

Olivas didn’t fly on the Endeavour, but he did fly two missions, one on the shuttle Atlantis and one on Discovery, for a total of almost 28 days. He ventured into outer space itself (“extravehicular activity”) on both missions, for a total of more than 34 hours. Plus, he and Endeavour go way back.

The Samuel Oschin Shuttle Gallery built a nearly 200-foot-tall space to display Endeavour’s orbiter in a vertical launch configuration, flanked by its external fuel tank and two solid rocket boosters.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

NASA selected Olivas as an astronaut candidate in 1998, and invited him and the other candidates to Edwards Air Force Base, in the Mojave Desert’s Antelope Valley about 100 miles northeast of Los Angeles. The Endeavour was being refurbished there, and he had the opportunity to go inside the crew module — the flight deck, the mid-deck and the airlock — all now visible in the new gallery.

The Endeavour was Olivas’ first encounter with any space shuttle, and he studied the spacecraft closely in the wake of the 2003 space shuttle Columbia accident. In many ways, he’s been inside the Endeavour much more personally than if he had flown on it. All of this is to say that he’s the perfect guide for today’s mission — getting to know this particular spacecraft.

“As an astronaut, you don’t get to share with the public all that space is,” Olivas said. “During the space shuttle program, the closest you could get to the space shuttle was three miles away,” as a civilian. “But this is an opportunity for space enthusiasts to get an up-close-and-personal look at the things that we had the privilege and honor to fly. … It’s nice to share this with the American people, because, ultimately, this is their ship.”

Jeff Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center, left, and astronaut Danny Olivas on the 115-foot Shuttle Descent Slide, designed to simulate the descent of a shuttle returning to Earth. “It was no more than a flying brick,” Olivas said. “You had no engines, you had no motors to come home. Unlike the jet engines that you have when you land at LAX, you got nothing.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

It’s been a long journey through time and space for the Endeavour to reach Exposition Park. The Times’ visit to the new gallery in early October happened to mark 15 years to the day since NASA transferred the title and ownership of the shuttle (yes, like a car) to the California Science Center, to the tune of a $1,980,674,785 valuation. (This was largely a donation, although the Science Center did pay for its transportation.)

“The most rewarding thing is watching the people that come through, of all ages, from little kids to senior citizens,” said Jeffrey N. Rudolph, president and CEO of the California Science Center. “Everybody is absolutely thrilled, and I think the sense of awe and wonder that we wanted to create really works.”

A worker inspects the base of one of the solid rocket boosters beneath the space shuttle. During launch, two explosives embedded in the “hold-down nuts” here would detonate, splitting them in half and releasing the shuttle stack from the bolts that held it to the launchpad.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

You may remember the orbiter itself or the 154-foot orange fuel tank parading slowly through L.A.’s streets to reach their new home, in 2012 and 2016, respectively. Their voyages were iconic: The former piggybacked atop a Boeing 747, past the Hollywood Sign and Griffith Observatory, before landing at LAX. The latter traversed the Panama Canal on a tugboat named the Shannon Dann, which rescued four fishermen off the coast of Baja California, tangerine behemoth and all.

That external tank, also known as an ET, was like a gas tank for the Endeavour. This one, ET-94, is the last flight-qualified external tank in existence. When full, it contains 1,629,577 pounds of propellants, as well as liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen, both of which are extremely cold materials.

In the heat and humidity of Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, that meant the shuttle stack would start to drip like a water bottle on a muggy day. “I equate it to the way a thoroughbred would be when you loaded them into a starting gate,” Olivas said. “The cryogenic material would cause the metal to creak and moan due to thermal contraction and thermal expansion. You hear all the hissing of the vent lines, and you hear all the support equipment essentially running to get ready for the launch, and it really came to life. That’s the one thing that you’re missing here.”

Astronaut Danny Olivas shows off the wide-open payload bay of the space shuttle Endeavour. The shuttle’s large cargo bay carried satellites, scientific instruments and other payloads into orbit and helped support missions to construct the International Space Station.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

That visceral hissing is basically the only thing not present at the Oschin Center. This shuttle stack sits in flight configuration, almost exactly as it would look on the cusp of liftoff, besides the yellow torque tubes lining the orbiter’s white shell like external ribs. Inside the Science Center, Endeavour’s payload bay doors are cracked wide open, like a car’s lifted hood — but they were built for space, not Earth’s gravity. Here, without the support of those yellow bars, the doors could warp or crumple.

You could get lost in the grandeur of the rocket boosters, full of solid rocket propellant like a firework, or the steampunk bell curve of the main engines, which shoot the spacecraft to more than 17,000 miles per hour in orbit. But each and every piece is incredibly important, as are the teams of people who made them. “There’s no insignificant or small part about space exploration,” Olivas said. “Every single thing has a role to play.”

The space shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry because of a piece of foam that the astronaut estimates might have weighed about as much as a Styrofoam container. In 1986, the Challenger exploded during launch because of a tiny rubber O-ring. Olivas himself hung off the end of Atlantis’ robotic arm (the Endeavour has one too) to close a 4-inch hole in the heat-shielding thermal blanket with a medical stapler (the flight surgeon’s idea).

Astronaut Danny Olivas watches a historical montage about the space shuttle program. Unlike previous spacecraft, “the space shuttle was essentially built to be a work platform,” he said, “so not only did it get astronauts into space, but once it got into space, it was reconfigured from a rocket ship or spaceship into an on-orbit work platform.”

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Nothing like that had ever happened before; there was no planned repair — so they innovated. Building a space shuttle (or fixing one) is a testament to what humanity can do when we put our minds to it, Olivas said. We can achieve that which has never even been imagined.

“You take this beautiful bird, and you dock to the space station, a colony that’s been formed in space, and was built since the first element was launched in 1998,” Olivas said. “Human beings have lived in space since the year 2000. It’s an oasis that we, as human beings, built.”

Eight and a half minutes after liftoff, when the spacecraft reaches orbital speed, the main engines cut off (this is called MECO). Just like that, everything’s floating. This particular astronaut turned to look at the bright blue planet below and thought: “When we work together, we can accomplish phenomenal things.” But we choose to focus on the things that make us different, he said. And in doing so, we find conflict.

“But yet, the 99.9999% of you, me, all of us here, we’re all the same,” Olivas said. “We all want the same thing: a happy, healthy life. From space, you look down at the Earth — the only border that you see is between the ocean and the land.”

WASHINGTON — Barbara Weigand could not have prepared more for retirement. She stayed healthy and saved diligently for years.

This year, though, a shoulder surgery and a bladder cancer diagnosis have really tested her finances. She recently withdrew $4,000 from her retirement account to cover medical expenses associated with her cancer treatment.

“On my monthly income, I would not be able to afford my new medical expenses,” says Weigand, 83, who lives in North Canton, Ohio. She is currently on a Medicare Advantage plan and was searching for new coverage as Medicare’s open enrollment period began in October.

For older adults in the United States, the rising cost of healthcare is hitting where it hurts most — their pocketbooks. With Medicare costs, prescription drug prices and long-term care expenses weighing on household budgets, their concerns could carry significant political weight heading into Tuesday’s elections.

Weigand is part of a reliable voting bloc; 83% of voters over age 50 say they’re extremely motivated to vote in the midterms, according to an AARP poll conducted in early October. Their concerns over managing healthcare costs put the issue of affordability squarely in the spotlight.

Here are some of their biggest healthcare concerns — and how Weigand sees them.

Changes to Medicare plans

Open enrollment for Medicare plans began in mid-October, and enrollees are facing a slew of changes that will go into effect in 2027.

During the enrollment period, people are considering higher Part D out-of-pocket caps, the end of temporary federal Part D premium subsidies, and new drug price negotiations. Additionally, in some states, insurers put caps on the number of people who can enroll in Advantage plans, pulling out of markets or eliminating plans that people have come to rely on.

Juliette Cubanski, director of KFF’s program on Medicare policy, told the Associated Press that the open enrollment period offers enrollees “an opportunity to evaluate the coverage they have and see if there might be better options for them in terms of accessing the care that they need, at possibly a lower cost.”

Although Weigand is grateful to have the mental acuity to do the research and the spiritual community that she relies on, she worries about other older people who are struggling to plan for the year ahead. “There are so many changes, and a lot of people my age who don’t know where to start,” she says. “What do they do?”

The affordability of prescription drugs

The Trump administration says it has made a priority of lowering drug prices in its effort to show that it is addressing soaring costs. President Trump has struck multiple most-favored-nation drug deals with pharmaceutical companies and has launched the discount drug website TrumpRx, among other steps.

In September, his administration said all 50 states would join in on a program set to provide most-favored-nation pricing to some drugs within the Medicaid program, bringing the net price of selected drugs down to prices paid in certain other countries.

Still, the cost of prescription drugs prevents some people from filling prescriptions. A KFF survey from March found that about 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they have not taken their medication as prescribed in the last year due to costs.

Weigand is considering rationing her drugs to save money. “I’ve been thinking — if I could just do this every other day rather than every day to make the medicine last longer,” she says. “Isn’t that sad?“

The KFF report says about 1 in 5 people surveyed had cut pills in half or skipped doses of medicine in the prior year because of the cost.

The costs of long-term support

The costs of receiving long-term care — whether from spouses, home-care aides or friends — have risen steeply for retirees.

An AARP report released Wednesday that examines out-of-pocket caregiving expenses finds that family caregivers are spending nearly 60% more supporting a family member or friend than five years ago. They spend an average of $11,508 a year supporting a family member or friend, compared with $7,242 in 2021, according to the report.

Nancy LeaMond, AARP’s executive vice president and chief advocacy officer, said “we’re already hearing from our members about healthcare affordability — its prescription drug costs, caregiver costs, copays, premiums,” she said. “Not only are we trying to help family caregivers with their finances, but also to get them the kind of information they need to help their loved ones.”

These worries are top of mind for older people. About one-third of Americans over 50 provide regular care to an adult relative or friend with a health issue or disability, according to a national poll on healthy aging conducted in September 2025 by the University of Michigan.

The solvency of Social Security

The Social Security Administration announced last month that the annual cost-of-living adjustment for older adults and people with disabilities will rise by 3.6% beginning in 2027. That translates to $75 extra per month for the nearly 72 million people who receive monthly Social Security benefits and about 7.3 million beneficiaries who get Supplemental Security Income.

The agency faces an approaching bankruptcy date if a funding shortfall is not addressed by Congress.

The Social Security and Medicare trustees’ report from June states that Social Security’s combined trust funds, which cover old age and disability recipients, will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2034. After that, incoming revenue would cover about 83% of scheduled benefits.

With 2034 not far away, the upcoming Congress will be faced with determining how to shore up the program.

Matt Hogan, a partner at the polling firm Impact Research, has this advice to candidates in the closing days of the midterm campaign: “Regardless of party, to make inroads with these voters, Social Security and Medicare should definitely be part of their messaging.”

Hussein writes for the Associated Press.

MARANA, Ariz. — Michael Falk was heading into the Pima County branch library to drop off his ballot when he stopped to discuss Tuesday’s midterm election.

Pima County, in south-central Arizona, is home to one of the most competitive congressional races in the country. Falk, a 66-year-old retiree and political independent, was casting his vote for the Democrat, JoAnna Mendoza, even though he hardly knows a thing about her.

But Falk knows — and loathes — a good deal about President Trump.

“From the very beginning, when he stepped on the political stage, he made it quite clear to the people who were silenced for a long time, the bigots of the United States, he gave them a voice, and he told those people, ‘It’s OK for you to think the way that you do.’

“And then that just took off like wildfire,” Falk said, sweeping his arm like a moving wall of flame, “and that’s why we have all these laws that are against brown people and illegal people.”

Gregory Corron confessed he’s not too familiar with Mendoza’s opponent, the Republican incumbent Juan Ciscomani.

But Corron, a 67-year-old computer programmer, voted for Trump three times and believes the president is moving the country in the right direction.

Gregory Corron likes the way things have gone under Trump and wants him to continue unimpeded by a Democrat-run Congress.

(Cassidy Araiza / For The Times)

“I think, for instance, exposing fraud is a big thing. Technology is taking off. I’m totally excited about that,” said Corron, who was killing time at a strip mall in Oro Valley while the tires on his Lexus were being replaced. “I think the economy is strong. The stock market is doing well. Employment is doing well.”

For that reason, Corron cast his ballot for Ciscomani, fearful of what might happen if Democrats take control of Congress. “The reforms that Trump started,” Corron said, “need to continue.”

Mendoza and Ciscomani have assaulted the voters of southern Arizona for months, overwhelming their senses and curdling the airwaves with a ceaseless barrage of acrid advertising. Together, the two rivals and their allies have spent tens of millions of dollars on the contest, which both parties have made a top priority.

And yet, to a large degree, Mendoza and Ciscomani are mere stand-ins, their candidacies serving as little more than proxies for the president and his opposition.

Laura Lentner, another Oro Valley resident, allowed as how Ciscomani has done some good things. He is not, the Democrat said, a bad man.

“But his continued support of Trump negates it all for me,” said the 73-year-old retired dental hygienist. It’s about time, Lentner suggested, Republican lawmakers stand up and “stop being afraid of [Trump] and his constituents.”

Arizona’s 6th Congressional District is anchored in eastern Tucson and its suburbs, sprawling north toward Phoenix, east to New Mexico and south all the way to the U.S.-Mexico border. The arid landscape is creased with rugged mountain ranges, cleaved by scenic canyons and filled with vast stretches of open space interrupted by midsize cities and small towns that spring like oases from the desert floor.

In recent years, the terrain has been some of the hardest-fought political turf in the nation.

Joe Biden carried the district in 2020 by less than a percentage point. Four years later, Trump flipped it by the same tiny margin.

Ciscomani, bidding for a third term, has won two nail-biters. He’s facing a fresh opponent in Mendoza, a Marine veteran and former congressional staffer.

The district has a significant Latino population — Ciscomani and Mendoza are Mexican American — and a sizable number of seniors, veterans and military personnel. Mendoza has leaned into her Navy and Marine Corps service. “Battle Tested. Ready To Lead,” her billboards declare, including one near the Ft. Huachuca Army base. (His signs tout “Veterans For Ciscomani.”)

Mendoza has attacked the incumbent as a “spineless” tool of Trump, putting the president front and center in her avalanche of advertising. Ciscomani’s incessant ads tout his bipartisanship — he hails from the establishment wing of the Republican Party — and portray Mendoza as a tool of the unhinged left.

In that way their campaigns distill the push-pull of this midterm election, which, like every one before, amounts to a referendum on the occupant of the Oval Office.

For Trump supporters, that means explaining away vexations like inflation and the war with Iran, twin anchors dragging down the president and fellow Republicans.

Higher costs, Trump voters said, are a hangover from Biden’s time in office, a needed sacrifice or an inconvenience that will pass. Echoing the president, they said the record-breaking cost of gas was a trade-off — and a good one — to keep Iran from building a nuclear weapon.

“I wish gas prices were lower,” said Susan Summers, a Republican who stopped to chat while grocery shopping in Vail. The old railroad town has become a destination for retirees like Summers, 74, a former administrator at Cal State San Bernardino, and for commuters who don’t mind the roughly 25-mile drive to Tucson.

But, Summers went on, she’s willing to accept higher gas prices “because I think it was important to stop a fanatical regime from acquiring nuclear weapons that would actually threaten us in the longer range. Once there is some kind of resolution … prices will come down somewhat and it will make life easier for a lot of people.”

Merilyn Prentice, 78, is another refugee from the state next door. She moved to Benson (population 5,500) from Southern California after a career in nursing. She praised Trump for demonstrating a resolve that other presidents lacked.

“They’re terrorist supporters, and we have terrorist cells in this country,” Prentice said of Iran. “No one wants to talk about that. None of the other presidents wanted to touch it.”

An early voting center and ballot drop-off location at the public library in Marana, Ariz.

(Cassidy Araiza / For The Times)

If backers of the president often seemed defensive — justifying, rationalizing, urging patience — Trump critics were seething.

In Sierra Vista, Ann Nichols, 72 and a Democratic-leaning independent, could scarcely get the words out fast enough as she cataloged her outrage.

“Let’s not forget how the tariffs have wrecked the economy,” she said, “how the war that [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu tricked Trump into declaring on Iran has wrecked the economy, driven up gas prices, and the rampant corruption in the government, and how the Environmental Protection Agency might as well be known as the Environmental Pollution Agency, and the attempt to wreck the Education Department, and we’ve got a twit who knows nothing about medicine in charge of medicine.”

Nichols paused to adjust her N95 mask. She spent decades as a medical librarian at the Ft. Huachuca Army base.

Her vote for Mendoza, Nichols said, was a vote to leash Trump and start undoing some of the damage he’s inflicted over the last two years.

For all that passion, however, it would be wrong to assume a blue wave — should one come Tuesday — means there’s great regard or overflowing affection for Democrats.

Clayton Surratt, 63, a retired actor and screenwriter, was passing out boxes of groceries — veggies, protein, a loaf of bread — at the food bank in Vail when he paused to share his unhappiness with both Trump and the Democratic Party.

“I think our current government thrives and lives on cruelty,” he said as a steady stream of cars pulled up for delivery. “It upsets me to see our world, our leaders, acting in ways that we would punish an 8-year-old at school if they behave that way.”

At the same time, Surratt said, he’s not sure what Democrats stand for, beyond opposition to Trump.

Adam Thompson, a Democratic-leaning independent, was blunter still. “I don’t like either party,” he said. The 39-year-old lives in Tanque Verde and travels throughout south-central Arizona, delivering soda and snack foods to major retailers. He’s particularly upset these days with Trump.

Why, Thompson asked, are so much time and resources being devoted to matters overseas?

“We need to take care of the people here,” Thompson said. “The war in Iran, the war in the Middle East is not helping me put food on my table. I work my ass off. But at the end of the day, I have to pay that price because … we’re so busy fighting wars for other people.”

The big question is how many discouraged Trump voters sit the election out. Their level of apathy and absenteeism will spell the difference between a good and a great night for Democrats.

Alex Lagerberg, a 35-year-old tattoo artist and libertarian, is a three-time Trump voter. He was initially attracted by his seeming authenticity and background as a New York real estate developer. “He was a good option because he was not a politician,” Lagerberg said outside a mercado in Casa Grande. But, he continued, it turns out that Trump’s supposed entrepreneurial prowess wasn’t all Lagerberg thought it was, or that Trump purported it to be.

“Treating the country like a business was a good thing for a little bit, but it really hasn’t helped,” Lagerberg said. “We haven’t seen much change.”

He’s not particularly motivated to vote, Lagerberg said, or decide between Ciscomani and Mendoza, especially with the two heaving so much mud at each other.

Alex Lagerberg is disappointed in Trump and not very motivated to vote on Tuesday.

(Cassidy Araiza / For The Times)

Rick, who declined to give his last name because he doesn’t want to be hassled for his opinion, has made up his mind. He’s done voting — forever.

The 67-year-old retired government worker, a right-leaning libertarian, soured on politics and politicians long ago. “Democrat, Republican,” he said, “it’s all the same thing.”

He voted for Trump in 2024, giving the political system one last shot. And now? Trump promised “no new wars. What do we have?” Rick asked. “New wars. Taxes are still too high. And Medicare? Medicare sucks.” So no, he said, he’s not bothering with the election.

As he left Vail’s thrift shop, steamed about Trump, Mendoza, Ciscomani and the whole lot, Rick clutched his purchase, a compilation of Ray Price’s greatest hits. One song by the country singer seemed to sum up Rick’s attitude: “You Done Me Wrong.”

He’s not alone.

Credit to Lincoln Riley. USC’s embattled football coach stood and stared directly at what could have been the death knell for his Trojans tenure and said: Not today.

Actually, he said more than that after his unranked Trojans upset No. 2 Ohio State, 30-18 on Saturday.

He had a whole statement prepared to read at the end of his postgame news conference.

“I got one other thing I want to say here,” said Riley, whose victory kept alive the Trojans’ hopes of making the College Football Playoff for the first time on his watch. “I want to make sure to articulate my thoughts.

“This program’s not built on internal joy — excuse me, is built on internal joy — not external applause. This win’s for all the staff members, the players, the leaders, admin, all the people within the walls.

“I said before this game, that I’m the right person for this job, and as long as all those people know that, that’s all I care about.

“I appreciate being a part of this university and all it does. I appreciate our kids and our staff, and I’m going to continue to fight on because that’s what being a Trojan’s all about. Fight On.”

Then he stood and punctuated his address: “Adios.”

The way USC dismantled a Buckeyes team that was considered one of the leading national championship contenders this zany college football season, Riley deserved to crow.

The way his team refused to let go of the rope — even with their head coach on the ropes, Riley deserved a victory lap.

It’s just that before sharing his statement, he didn’t seem all that interested in taking it.

He began his news conference looking, appropriately, to lend perspective to the victory — his first in his USC tenure against a top-10 team — in which the Trojans exploded on a Buckeyes team that hadn’t given up more than 24 points in a game since losing to Oregon 32-31 on Oct. 12, 2024.

“Every win’s important,” said Riley, whose overall record at USC in his fifth season is now 42-20. “When you get a chance, like tonight, to play a really good football team — one of the best programs in America over a long, long period of time — those are great opportunities.”

He gave deserved kudos to his team for staying together and responding after last week’s disappointing 24-7 loss at Wisconsin. And reiterated his usual message, win or lose: “I know what’s building within those walls. Like, I know it. All my years of experience and all that I’ve kind of seen and got to experience in this game tells me that. I believe that with every fiber in my being.”

USC coach Lincoln Riley watches his players warm up before facing Ohio State at the Coliseum on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Saturday’s victory won’t necessarily be good news for dissatisfied fans rooting for Riley’s ouster. But it was big for anyone partial to a good comeback story — and for those tenuous CFP prospects.

“I keep saying, look at all the craziness across the country,” Riley said. “The teams that just hang in there, keep going, get better, stay together, are going to be the ones that are there in the end.”

The Trojans could be one of those teams. They should be, in fact.

They have the talent, as we saw Saturday when previously injured freshmen Trent Mosley and Mark Bowman gashed a Buckeyes defense that hadn’t allowed a play longer than 36 yards all season with plays of 69 and 70 yards.

And they have the fortitude, as we witnessed when USC’s defense forced Ohio State to settle for a field goal after they had first and goal at the one-yard line late in the second quarter: “Grit play, a toughness deal. A mindset thing,” defensive tackle Alex VanSumeren said.

What made the Trojans’ previous losses so galling was the gauntlet ahead of them, starting with Ohio State.

Before, we wondered: If they couldn’t beat Oregon and its backup quarterback at home, how the heck were they going to beat Ohio State (and its understudy QB, Mission Viejo’s Luke Fahey)?

Earlier, we asked: If Wisconsin was going to force them into the worst offensive showing in the Riley era, what was defending national champion Indiana going to do to them?

And, of course: If they were just sneaking by struggling teams like Rutgers, Penn State and Washington, what chance was there that they could surprise still-undefeated UCLA?

But now, after Saturday’s sensational showing, we’ll spend next week’s bye and then the week ahead of their game in Bloomington against the Hoosiers — who escaped Saturday with a 23-16 overtime win over Minnesota — doing the math and wondering why can’t USC knock off another top-five team?

USC linebackers Ta’mere Robinson, left, and Jadyn Walker leap in celebration following a 30-18 win over Ohio State on Saturday.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

And if the Trojans can beat Indiana, why can’t they beat the 8-0 Bruins, who have been taking care of business against opponents who have no business beating them, like Nevada on Saturday, 27-0?

Because the Trojans haven’t folded. In fact, things went so well on this rainy Halloween evening — which ended with pirates and princesses and people in all varieties of costume celebrating on the field with the players — you might have started to wonder whether they had been bluffing.

Just like we assume Riley is bluffing whenever he talks about being able to block out “the noise.”

He might not want to worry himself with the “external applause,” but if he wants to fight on at USC, he’s going to need to continue earning it.

Refugee and migrant boats are rarely found in Dutch waters, and authorities are still trying to establish where this one came from.

Authorities in the Netherlands have rescued 38 people found adrift in a rubber boat off the Dutch coast, in one of the first such interceptions for the country.

Two of the people on board the dinghy when it was rescued are thought to be smugglers, while the rest are migrants, military police spokesperson Doron Wallin told The Associated Press news agency on Saturday.

“We don’t know where they came from – France, the Netherlands or Belgium – and we don’t know where the boat was heading,” Wallin said.

The boat was discovered drifting with no motor off the coast of the Netherlands’ Zeeland province, far southwest of Amsterdam. No one was wearing a life vest.

All 38 on the boat were men, 36 of whom were from Afghanistan, and two – the suspected smugglers – were from Sudan, according to the AFP news agency. The two Sudanese men have been arrested on suspicion of people smuggling.

It is not known where the boat was headed, but refugee and migrant crossings in small boats from France to the United Kingdom have become commonplace in recent years. It is unusual for boats to be discovered in Dutch waters, however.

“These are things you usually see in France and Belgium. We rarely see it here in the Netherlands before today,” Wallin said.

Dutch authorities will open an investigation into the case on Sunday.

Selma Blair is apologizing following an alleged violent medical episode that unfolded on a Delta airlines flight earlier this month.

The “Cruel Intentions” star posted a video on Instagram on Friday acknowledging that she has “been quiet for a couple of weeks since October 11th.”

“You deserve to hear from me directly, and I’m sorry that it’s taken this long,” Blair said. “There is a legal matter going on, and my lawyers have asked me to not say anything about that day, and I’m listening to them, and I take this very seriously.”

Blair was arrested and taken to a hospital for evaluation late on Oct. 11 after allegedly becoming violent with a Delta flight staff, according to the New York Port Authority. The Port Authority Police Department responded to a call from Blair’s flight, traveling from Los Angeles International Airport to John F. Kennedy International Airport. Two flight attendants needed medical assistance after an alleged altercation that unfolded mid-flight and one was transported to a hospital for further evaluation.

According to dispatch audio, obtained by TMZ, a flight attendant suffered a bloody nose, and Blair is alleged to have “bashed her head” against an overhead compartment. Representatives for Blair told The Times that “Selma experienced a medical emergency that led to the alleged conduct.”

The star has been candid about her battle with multiple sclerosis (MS), a chronic neurological disorder and autoimmune disease, since 2018.

In Blair’s social media mea culpa, she said her intention wasn’t to harm anyone. “What I can tell you, though, is very simple and the truest thing I know about myself, and that not one day ever have I intended to hurt or frighten anyone a day in my life, and so to the people that I disappointed, that I hurt, that I frightened, alarmed, I am so sorry,” she continued.

“And to the people that have written, or called, or sent wishes of love or caring, it has meant everything to me and my son, who is my world. . . So right now, I’m going to be taking care of my health and my son, and thinking of you all with gratitude and love.”

The FBI is investigating the incident, and the agency issued the “Legally Blonde” star a notice charging her with assault, per a federal law enforcement official who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. Additionally, the Queens district attorney swiftly filed charges against Blair, which included two counts of second-degree assault. According to an affidavit obtained by The Times, Blair wiggled a leg free and repeatedly kicked a police officer who was attempting to secure her to a stretcher.

Hours later, Blair allegedly kicked a Jamaica Hospital Medical Center nurse in the chest, according to the affidavit.

Representatives for Blair emailed a statement to The Times, writing that “the public account of what happened to Selma aboard a flight to New York has been built almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline.”

Blair’s rep decried reports that have circulated regarding the details of the mid-flight episode, writing to “correct the record.”

“There was no attempt to open the door of the aircraft,” the statement continued. “The suggestion by anyone, that Selma does not have multiple sclerosis is outrageous. Her diagnosis has been public since 2018. What Selma has been able to do physically in the years since is nothing short of a miracle. She still has bad days, and she lives with pain daily. Selma also has pseudobulbar affect, a neurological condition secondary to her MS, which bears directly on how a medical episode presents to people who do not know her. For the same reason, she travels with a service dog who doesn’t leave her side, and the authorities took her dog from her.”

Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.

Along the shores of the Neiden Fjord, in Norway’s northernmost county Finnmark, Nils Boine* gazes out across the water. On the horizon, the Neiden River splits around the craggy island of Skogerøya, but lurking beneath its surface is a fisherman’s bounty: hundreds of king crabs.

His grandmother was Sea Sámi, from an Indigenous coastal people whose homeland, Sápmi, stretches across northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and Russia’s heavily militarised Kola Peninsula. In Finnmark’s fjords, Sea Sámi families have fished for generations. But these waters are dissected by more than currents and shoals. Since Norway and Russia fixed their border in 1826, Sámi communities in the region have been divided by a national boundary.

Two hundred years later, this Arctic community is a combination of Sámi, Norwegians, Finns, Ukrainians, Russians, and international seasonal workers. Most of the Sámi population lives in Norway, with roughly 2 percent residing in Russia.

The Sámi have established a cross-border lifestyle, supported by flexible policies, including a Norwegian-Russian agreement allowing visa-free travel for those living within 30km (18.5 miles) of the border.

Security, however, has begun to tighten since the onset of Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine. The West sees Finnmark as part of NATO’s exposed northern flank, as it is directly opposite Russia’s heavily armed Kola Peninsula. The Norwegian border town of Kirkenes has been caught in a spy war with Russia, with multiple Russian operatives having been caught posing as tourists and fishermen while trying to engage in espionage.

Now, border bureaucracy is a daily reality, and reindeer herding, language revitalisation and hunting traditions are increasingly being navigated through permits and regulations, making the wider Arctic infrastructure feel fractured.

“I have friends in Russia,” Boine says. “We used to go shopping in Russia, and go there for weekends.”

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, those crossings have stopped — partly as a display of solidarity with Ukraine, and partly due to safety concerns.

“A local person was just arrested in Russia, so people are afraid to cross the border,” Boine explains. “The rumours say that he had some illegal things in his car, but he was arrested, and the [Ministry of] Foreign Affairs in Norway tried to do something, but it’s very difficult, of course, because we don’t have any diplomats in Russia.”

He is referring to the reported June arrest of a Kirkenes businessman. Lawyer John Christian Elden told the daily newspaper Verdens Gang (VG) that the man was in custody for two months under alleged “possession of weapons or ammunition”. Some Kirkenes residents were left shaken by the news, as recreational hunting is common in the region. They fear accidentally crossing the Russian border with forgotten hunting ammunition that might be left in their cars.

The number of Russian tourists visiting Norway has also declined, from 250,000 in 2019 to 52,000 last year.

“Before, we had Russian guests, but not now,” Boine says. Fortunately for his family, who run a tourism company, 80 percent of customers come from Asia or Finland. Their business has emerged relatively unscathed, but other companies have not been as lucky.

“Shops in the area have lost a lot of income without Russian [tourists],” says Boine. “Several shops have had to close.”

In a landscape traditionally connected for centuries, the fragmentation of communities is deeply concerning for both the regional economy and Sámi culture. Cross-border connections are deeply rooted in the regional psyche.

For Boine, the war in Ukraine has put his friendships with people in Russia on hold.

“They are afraid to do something wrong or write something wrong,” he says quietly. “You never know what might happen if they have too close contact,” he says.

“I want to be careful.”

The race for L.A. city attorney delivered a shock this spring when incumbent Hydee Feldstein Soto was ousted, an upset the likes of which hadn’t happened in nearly a century. The pair of candidates who remain have since laid out their widely differing visions of the job.

Here’s what you need to know.

The candidates

• John McKinney is an L.A. County deputy district attorney with nearly 30 years of legal experience. He vows to clean up what he calls a blighted downtown and work closely with his boss and backer, Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman, to reduce crime in the city.
• Marissa Roy is a deputy attorney general in the California Department of Justice. She plans to use the office to fight for tenant and wage workers. Her vision of the city attorney is to be the “people’s lawyer” for L.A.

In their own words

Here are the Q&As with each of the candidates.

State of the race

Roy is leading in the race to become the next Los Angeles city attorney. She was ahead by 10 percentage points in the most recent poll conducted by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies and co-sponsored by The Times.

Still, some local voters don’t know the candidates by name.

Issues

Criminal justice

• McKinney is focusing his campaign on tamping down quality-of-life crimes in the city such as organized retail theft, drug dealing and street racing. McKinney would prioritize public safety and vows to go after demonstrators who block freeways or engage in conduct similar to the 2024 pro-Palestine encampments on UCLA’s campus.
• Roy wants to funnel nonviolent offenders to diversion programs such as mental health treatment or vocational training.

Hefty legal payouts

• McKinney said he’d lean on his long experience as a trial attorney to quickly decide which incoming lawsuits against the city should be fought and which should be settled in order to reduce the city’s legal costs.
• Roy wants to bring civil litigation back in-house to rein in the millions spent on outside counsel. She also argues for beefing up the claims process so legitimate suits are settled effectively and frivolous ones are fought.

How each candidate would handle Trump

• McKinney would work to balance respecting federal authority as required by law against protecting the constitutional rights of city residents and defending local resources if threatened by federal overreach.
• Roy has made fighting the Trump administration a centerpiece in her campaign.

Homelessness

• McKinney wants to use the court system as a “last resort” to leverage people into accepting services or shelter.
• Roy says renter protections will be vital to stemming the city’s homeless crisis.

Late one afternoon, at the intersection of South La Brea Avenue and Obama Boulevard, Shirley Dace cold-called fellow Angelenos and encouraged them to give L.A. Mayor Karen Bass a second term.

“I love Karen Bass because of all the experience she has,” Dace, a retired flight attendant, told me between phone calls. “Karen Bass was raised here. She knows the city. … I’ve seen her around at different events.”

Meanwhile, roughly 10 miles to the northeast, Christian Perez and Marium Mohiuddin organized a night of door-knocking for Bass challenger Nithya Raman in Boyle Heights.

“I think she’s incredibly intelligent and I want to give her an opportunity,” said Perez.

Given the ICE raids and general denunciations of immigrants, Mohiuddin, a Muslim and Canadian immigrant, said he’s been impressed by Raman’s outreach to minority communities. And Raman is an immigrant, too.

“I want a mayor that’s going to protect me,” said Mohiuddin, who speaks out against Islamophobia and antisemitism, “and I really feel like Nithya would go to bat for us.”

You may have noticed a pattern here. Lots of positivity.

I figured that with just hours to go before election day, you’ve heard plenty from me and others about City Hall dysfunction, about each mayoral candidate’s flaws, and about undecided and uninspired voters here in the land of budget-busting rent, broken sidewalks and blue tarps.

It appeared for a while as if Raman wouldn’t even make it out of the primary, and then it looked as though she had a comfortable lead over Bass in the runoff. But if the latest poll can be trusted, it’s hard to pick a winner. So today I’m going to shed every cynical bone in my body — only temporarily, I promise — and hand the megaphone over to people who unabashedly like either Bass or Raman.

And to be honest, in connecting with these folks on the phone, by text and in person, I was inspired by their interest in civic affairs (if only there were more like them), and their belief that their vote matters.

So here goes, and I’ll start with the incumbent.

::

Shirley Dace, as she worked the phones at Bass headquarters, referred to a five-page list of personal achievements and positive developments during the mayor’s first term. Violent crime is down, solar street lights have been installed by the thousands, Metro rides are free for students, thousands of affordable housing units are on the way and thousands of homeless people have been brought indoors.

“We have a homeless problem, and I realize that,” Dace said, but she believes there’s been progress. “It takes a while to solve these problems.”

One day I happened upon a social media post by Christian Green, who said he was driving by Bass headquarters and popped in to volunteer. I reached him by phone, and the West L.A. College professor told me he volunteered for Bass four years ago, too. Green said he was once in the foster care system, and said Bass has supported foster youth initiatives dating back to her time in Congress.

Bass is the first Black woman, and first female, to be elected mayor of Los Angeles. Given the history of the city’s power structure, economy and racial makeup, Green said, “that is not something we should take lightly.”

One of Green’s students in African American studies, 23-year-old Kioi Shropshire-Maina, also works as a Bass volunteer.

“I’ve heard about her since I was a kid,” said Shropshire-Maina, a communications major.

One of the things he likes about Bass is that her career has followed a long and varied public service trajectory. She first worked in healthcare as a physician assistant at County-USC, then became a social justice activist and co-founder of the Community Coalition, followed by a leadership role in the California Assembly and 12 years in Congress.

“She’s always been kind of like the standard of public service,” said Shropshire-Maina.

He pushed back when I mentioned that Raman seems to be the candidate with more backing among younger and more progressive voters.

“I definitely think Miss Bass has a lot of youth support. I’ve seen it myself. We organize events all the time, and people turn out,” said Shropshire-Maina.

“She’s the most progressive mayor Los Angeles has ever had,” he added, saying he thinks that has played out in her approach to homelessness. She inherited a huge challenge, Shropshire-Maina said, but moved away from policies that criminalized homelessness. “It started with her executive directive … which made government be more proactive and work across departments, and not just rely on police.”

Volunteers work a phone bank for Mayor Karen Bass’ reelection campaign on Oct. 25.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

At Bass headquarters, Shropshire-Maina worked at one phone bank table while Philip Rosen of Hollywood and Christina Schiepe of Westchester worked another table. Rosen said Bass is a pragmatic Democrat who has been dealt a lot, with homelessness and the Palisades fire, “but she’s taken accountability,” and he believes Raman will be accountable primarily to the Democratic Socialists of America.

Schiepe, who had been to Bass headquarters twice previously, is 16.

“I can’t vote, but you know, at least I can do something that could help the cause,” Schiepe said, telling me her parents also support Bass, and one issue in particular stands out for her.

“We really are not happy with the ICE raids going on at the moment,” she said, and Bass “has done a lot to kind of combat that … and try to get them out of Los Angeles.”

Schiepe said she wants to study political science in college, so who knows. Maybe she and Shropshire-Maina will run for office one day, and I can volunteer for them.

Now on to Raman.

Jane Demian, an Eagle Rock retiree and longtime activist and volunteer, said she would have voted for Bass if the opponent were Pratt, but Raman will get her vote.

Demian thought there were some bumps in the rollout of the mayor’s homelessness plan, but she thinks Raman did a good job as head of the council’s homelessness committee. She noted that Raman was one of the founders of the SELAH neighborhood homeless coalition, which steers people in the direction of housing and case management.

“I’m not put off as others are by her DSA connection. DSA is made up of people who want to provide economic support to working people,” Damian said. The “main focus is affordable housing, healthcare, and good wages for working people.”

Just as the Bass volunteers had their scripts to work with, Raman supporters touted the candidate’s work on renter protections, cleared encampments and a reduction in homelessness in her council district. I met with Mid-City residents Perez and Mohiuddin at La Monarca in Boyle Heights, where they were distributing literature to volunteer door-knockers.

Perez, who works in post-production, and Mohiuddin, who works in communications, both like the specificity they hear in Raman’s comments about homelessness, City Hall accountability and greater urgency in problem-solving.

Los Angeles Councilwoman Nithya Raman, who is challenging Mayor Karen Bass, speaks at an Oct. 19 news conference in North Hollywood.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

“When I see Nithya Raman speak, I see someone who’s sincere, who’s kind of a wonk,” and isn’t afraid to dive into policy minutiae, said Perez, or to forge a path independent of the political establishment or dependent on endorsements from fellow council members.

Perez and Mohiuddin voted for Bass four years ago, but don’t think she’s earned a second term.

“It’s very hard to find an Angeleno who’s happy with government,” Perez said.

The change Mohiuddin wants to see, she told me, is simple. She wants for a candidate “to say something’s going to happen, and then stick to it.”

As Perez sees it, Bass has attempted to position herself as the candidate of the people.

“But in canvassing and speaking to people throughout the city … there’s a lot of people who are disappointed with the status quo and perhaps not enough has happened in the last four years to justify them giving [her] another shot,” he said. “So I do think there is an aspect of [voters being hungry for] fresh blood and energy in order to confront the emergencies the city is facing.”

Whatever the outcome on election day, Mohiuddin said, there will be a victory of sorts.

“We’re still going to have a woman leading the city.”

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Voters will elect two new Los Angeles City Council members on Tuesday, one representing the San Fernando Valley, the other South Los Angeles.

In the 3rd District, businessman Tim Gaspar and longtime local government employee Barri Worth Girvan are vying to replace Bob Blumenfield, who is termed out. The district includes Canoga Park, Reseda, Tarzana, Winnetka, and Woodland Hills.

In Council District 9, residents are preparing for a historic shift: No matter who wins, the district will elect a Latino council member for the first time since 1963.

The South L.A. district has long been represented by a Black council member, but over the last few decades it has undergone a demographic shift and today is about 80% Latino. Councilmember Curren Price also has termed out. Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the L.A. chapter of Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and Jose Ugarte, who previously served as a deputy chief of staff to Price, are vying for the seat.

District 3

Gaspar led the June primary with 46.1% of the vote compared to Worth Girvan, who secured 42.5%. Both candidates have spent the last few weeks of the campaign knocking on doors and making their case to voters, saying major issues like public safety and cleanliness are common concerns.

Gaspar, who founded an insurance agency in the Valley that he sold in 2021, would bring a pro-business perspective to City Hall, and among his top priorities would be eliminating “red tape” to stimulate small businesses in the region.

“We need somebody who’s going to come to the table with different ideas,” Gaspar said. “If we keep doing the same thing as before, we’re going to keep getting the same results.”

Worth Girvan, who worked as L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath’s district director for three years before running, would use her experience in the public sector to advocate for the West Valley.

“I am fortunate to have experience at every level of government,” she said. “That’s going to allow me to leverage relationships and know how to work together across jurisdictions to get things done.”

The race has been filled with accusations. Two weeks ago, Worth Girvan’s campaign published an ad featuring Christina Rackohn, a former employee whose family company merged with Gaspar’s insurance company, who alleged he created a hostile work environment.

Worth Girvan also filed an ethics complaint against Gaspar with the City Ethics Commission in October, alleging he failed to report more than $150,000 in personal and business expenditures related to his campaign and violated the city’s matching fund rules.

Gaspar called the allegations about creating a hostile working environment and violating campaign finance violations “lies.” He said he is focused on campaigning in the final week before the election.

Gaspar said Worth Girvan is a career politician who will only maintain the status quo.

“If she ends up getting elected, she’s going to have the same ideas and the same ways of addressing these issues as what got us into this mess in the first place,” he said.

On homelessness, Gaspar has criticized the city’s Inside Safe program and said a housing-first approach doesn’t work. He praised the anticamping zone law but believes the city should be tougher against encampments.

Worth Girvan supports Inside Safe but wants more permanent housing built instead of relying on interim housing. She would expand the city’s CIRCLE program, which provides 24/7 unarmed mobile response for nonviolent calls involving homeless individuals, to the West Valley.

In fundraising, Gaspar reported bringing in nearly $600,000 during the runoff campaign including matching funds, compared with about $287,000 for Worth Girvan.

District 9

Both Mazariegos and Ugarte share many similarities, including having arrived to the U.S. from Latin America as children and growing up undocumented. Both spent years working as community organizers, but now they diverge on issues such as policing and homeless policies.

Mazariegos and Ugarte were nearly evenly matched in fundraising, with both raising about $350,000 for the runoff in contributions and matching funds. Ugarte placed first in the June primary in a crowded field against five others, winning 39% of the vote. Mazariegos, who has been endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America‘s L.A. chapter, came in second with about 26%.

Ugarte’s campaign has received more than $1 million in support from independent expenditures, committees that can receive unlimited donations but cannot coordinate with a candidate’s campaign. Airbnb, Uber and the California Apartment Assn. are among the groups supporting Ugarte.

Mazariegos has criticized the companies supporting Ugarte’s candidacy, accusing them of attempting to displace low-income residents by pouring money into the election.

“They’re trying to displace our community. That’s what this fight is all about,” Mazariegos said. “I know this is a righteous campaign and a righteous cause with the people, alongside the people. Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo.” Only the people can save the people.

Ugarte said he has never met with Airbnb officials but would take a call from any group to figure out what is going to best benefit South L.A., including prioritizing protecting renters.

“I’d open my eyes and see what’s going to benefit South L.A.,” he said. “I want to focus on making South Central clean, safe and affordable.”

While both would defend immigrants, they diverge on issues such as the police budget. Ugarte supports Mayor Karen Bass’ goal of restoring the L.A. Police Department to 9,500 officers, while Mazariegos supports increasing oversight of the department’s budget and reducing its budget to fund other departments, including Recreation and Parks and the Bureau of Street Services.

Ugarte supports enforcing Municipal Ordinance 41.18, which prohibits camps near schools, daycare centers and other “sensitive” areas as a tool to clear homeless encampments. Mazariegos has said all the ordinance does is shuffle people around, and instead the focus should be on addressing addiction and mental health issues.

Mazariegos has been endorsed by Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, City Controller Kenneth Mejia, U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), United Teachers Los Angeles, L.A. Forward and several labor unions.

Ugarte has been endorsed by the L.A. County Democratic Party, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Action Fund, Rep. Sydney Kamlager Dove, the late Dolores Huerta and Councilmember Tim McOsker.

The proposition creates a down payment loan program, totaling up to $25 billion, for middle-income families looking to buy a new home in California. The program would be run by the California Housing Finance Agency, which already oversees several homeownership assistance programs.

The state would sell bonds to fund the program. It would pay back investors using interest and loan payments from the program — not taxpayer money. The California Housing Finance Agency would administer the program, including setting interest rates for the loans.

To qualify, prospective borrowers would need to buy a newly constructed home or a home that never has sold before, such as a commercial building that was converted into condos. Borrowers wouldn’t need to be first-time homebuyers, but they would need to earn no more than 200% of the median local income; for a family of four in Los Angeles County, that amounts to no more than $216,200 a year.

There also would be limits on the sales prices of homes bought with help from this program. While the exact price would depend on the county, generally the homes would need to sell for between $1 million and $1.5 million. Homebuyers would need to put at least 3% down, and the state finance agency could provide a loan up to 17% of the sales price.

The loans would function like fixed-rate second mortgages.

According to the California Budget and Policy Center, the earnings that would qualify a family for down payment assistance could vary greatly depending on where they planned to buy a home. Per the center’s calculations, a family of four buying a home in Madera County would have to earn no more than $166,800 a year, while a family in Santa Clara County could earn up to $375,800 a year and still qualify.

Other specifics would be worked out if voters pass the measure. That includes the interest rates charged on this second mortgage, which, according to the Budget and Policy Center, likely would be higher than the current rates for conventional mortgages, which have hovered around 7% for a 30-year mortgage.

Because revenue bonds, which would be used to fund this program, are riskier than other bonds, investors might demand a higher return, translating to a higher interest rate.

CHANDLER, Ariz. — At balloon-adorned tables in red, white and blue, a handful of voters inside a church gymnasium listened as Medina Moore explained what to do if federal agents show up at the polls.

Call a hotline, she told volunteers, where attorneys will be ready to respond. Take videos, report what you see and remove yourself from any situation that becomes intense, she advised.

It was one of Moore’s final poll monitor trainings in the Phoenix area before election day, preparing a few new “peacekeepers” to join the ranks of about 200 she has recruited from local faith groups in the Phoenix area to greet voters, answer questions and keep an eye out for issues at voting sites on Tuesday.

“It feels very urgent this year,” said Moore, the voting rights organizer for the Arizona Faith Network, a coalition of religious groups. “We’re in an era of information overload. Being able to educate voters on what’s true and what’s not is very important.”

As lawyers nationwide prepare defenses against possible election interference by the Trump administration and election officials train for worst-case scenarios, ordinary citizens across the country are also readying to help. Through nonpartisan groups, parents are training to be poll monitors, law students are staffing legal hotlines, veterans are holding voting events and business owners are signing pledges to back local election officials.

The grassroots efforts, underpinned by various voting and democracy nonprofits, amount to a striking push by American voters to help uphold the nation’s election system in the face of possible threats from its own government. More than 21,000 people nationwide have been trained as nonpartisan poll monitors through the Election Protection coalition, the program that Moore used, along with thousands of others through other nonprofit and partisan efforts.

The effort is aimed at helping ensure voter turnout at a time when Trump’s rhetoric has eroded public trust in the system and many GOP-led states have enacted new ballot rules for voters to navigate. Worry among voters about whether their ballots will be counted has accelerated, according to organizers; in a recent AP-NORC poll, just under half of American voters expressed confidence that midterm votes will be counted accurately.

“People who vote occasionally or it’s their first time voting or they haven’t voted in a while, they all have questions on ‘If I vote, will my vote count?’” said Rebekah Caruthers, president of the Fair Elections Center, a nonpartisan voting rights group that is working with college students to monitor voting on campuses. The best way to combat those fears, she said, is for as many people as possible to “show up and exercise their right.”

Since returning to office, Trump has undertaken a sweeping effort to exert control over and cast doubt on U.S. elections, and the administration has intensified its efforts as the midterms draw closer.

In recent days, the Justice Department has sued California, arrested residents and threatened to prosecute election officials over an unsubstantiated government claim of 20,000 “likely noncitizen” voters; moved to block certification of Alaska’s election results if the Republican candidate for Senate there loses narrowly; and began notifying counties of its plan to send federal monitors to polling places in every state.

“Be careful of the voter fraud,” Trump said at a Texas rally Tuesday. “We’re going to watch that voter fraud.”

Glendale Mayor Jerry P. Weiers, Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate, Rep. Andy Biggs, Cindy Biggs and Sam Darmo, co-chair of the Assyrian-American Republican coalition and president of Assyrians for Justice, stand for the national anthem at an event in Glendale, Ariz., on Oct. 24, 2026.

(Rebecca Noble / Getty Images)

This week, Trump offered $1 million to anyone who reports voter fraud that leads to a conviction, the latest in a string of incentives he has floated related to the midterms and another suggestion of rampant election fraud.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche last week said the Justice Department did not intend to interfere with elections. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) committed to a peaceful transfer of power if Democrats win a majority, saying, “We’re going to follow the Constitution,” but predicted there would be no transfer because Republicans would win the majority. Trump told reporters Tuesday that he would respect the election results “if they’re honest elections.”

Preparations by lawyers, nonprofits and Democratic lawmakers to anticipate how the Trump administration could try to interfere with the midterms have been underway for months. Courts have already blocked many of the administration’s steps, including attempts to access state voter rolls, restrict voting by mail and demand states change some election rules.

The grassroots effort has grown out of existing programs — the Election Protection coalition has been operating since 2000 — but interest from volunteers is particularly high this year, organizers from several groups said.

“Voters are responding to the moment that we’re in right now,” said Saige Draeger, a senior policy associate at Verified Voting, a nonprofit that advises states on the use of voting technology and is part of the Election Protection coalition. “I think they feel like it’s incumbent upon everybody to make sure this election goes smoothly.”

In Arizona, an epicenter of Republican efforts to deny the 2020 election results, partisan tensions have long been high, and residents cite concerns about potential political violence surrounding the election.

Now, election denialism is on the ballot: The Republican nominees for governor, secretary of state and attorney general each played a role in Trump’s denial of the 2020 results. Alex Kolodin, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, filed lawsuits challenging the 2020 election results.

The outcome of the race could be consequential for the 2028 election, because secretaries of state play a key role in certifying their states’ results, and presidential elections can come down to a single swing state. Along with the Arizona race, those in Nevada, Michigan and Georgia are being closely watched by pro-democracy groups.

Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs signs a commemorative bill before a game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Texas Rangers at Chase Field on Sept. 3, 2025, in Phoenix.

(Norm Hall / Getty Images)

On street corners, the campaign signs for Kolodin and Secretary of State Adrian Fontes, the Democratic incumbent, duel: “Protect every vote,” say Kolodin’s. “Protect your vote,” Fontes’ read.

Organizers focused on election protection efforts stress that the goal is to ensure every voter casts their vote and the person who gets the most votes is declared the winner — all regardless of political party.

“With the level of polarization that we have nationally right now, people might mistake and think that calling for a free, fair, democratic election is somehow partisan,” said Hardy Merriman, an organizer with the Hold the Line project, which has recruited about 650 volunteers to ask their local leaders to sign on to a pledge affirming they back free and fair elections. “It’s really important for actors to get off the sidelines … and say, no, actually it’s not.”

The mission of the poll monitors is to answer voters’ procedural questions, ensure no one is incorrectly turned away from voting and provide a friendly nonpartisan face — “be a peaceful presence,” Moore said. They can help voters navigate state laws — in Arizona, for instance, a requirement to show an approved form of identification when voting.

The monitors are also trained to call the attorney-staffed hotline to report anything out of the ordinary: long lines that may deter people from voting, people being turned away from the polls, aggressive electioneering from partisans outside the polling place or law enforcement showing up at voting locations.

Monitors trained through the Election Protection coalition will be stationed in 40 states and the District of Columbia, while about 3,000 legal professionals will be staffing the hotline, said Camille Wimbish, national director of campaigns and field programs for the Election Protection coalition, which is a project of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

“It gives voters reassurance that there is someone who has their back at voting locations,” Wimbish said. “It also just shows our determination as a community to stand up and say that we care about our elections, we want election day to be a joyful, peaceful, celebratory experience for all of us.”

PJ Boone-Edgerton Longoni, 70, who attended Moore’s mid-October training in Chandler at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, said the idea of poll monitoring made her a little nervous, but she believes there is a “high-stakes need” for citizens to show up.

“I want to be a support,” she said. “All this misinformation gets people not to trust anything, and that lack of trust causes things to fall apart — because democracy is based on trust.”

Dwyane Wade is looking much more like himself these days.

That is, the statue of Wade outside of Kaseya Center in Miami now looks much more like the retired Heat legend than it did when it was unveiled two years ago. The sculpture’s new look, featuring a redesigned head by original sculptors Omri Amrany and Oscar Léon, was unveiled Friday.

The statue was meant to capture the iconic moment in 2009 when Wade jumped on a scorers’ table and declared, “This is my house!” Much of the public reaction, however, centered around how the piece looked less like the three-time NBA champion and more like Laurence Fishburne, Kelsey Grammer, Ken Norton Jr. and others.

“I heard the jokes. I saw the memes. I read the reactions. Everybody had an opinion about whether it actually looked like me,” Wade wrote in an essay published Friday on Substack. “At first, it was hard not to feel protective of it because I had spent so much time involved in the process. … But eventually, I had to take a step back and understand that the statue doesn’t belong only to me. It also belongs to Miami.”

He added: “I had to ask myself a pretty simple question: If people don’t feel that connection when they look at the face, why wouldn’t we try to make it better? So we listened and had honest conversations with everyone involved, and we all agreed to make adjustments to the head.”

When the statue was originally unveiled in October 2024, Wade had nothing but great things to say about it. He said it was his idea to immortalize that pose and that he had a lot of input on how the final product would look.

The original face on Dwyane Wade’s statue at Kaseya Center didn’t quite seem to capture the Miami Heat legend’s likeness.

(Lynne Sladky / Associated Press)

“I was just like, ‘Dude, that’s beautiful,’” Wade told reporters after the original unveiling. “Personally biased, I think it’s one of the best statues that’s been created because of what it represents for us and for me.”

Amrany also defended the statue at the time.

“We emphasized a two-second moment of his life when he jumped on the table and was in screaming mode,” Amrany told The Times in October 2024. “And that’s what it is, that’s what happens to the face when people are doing this activity, this facial activity.

“We are very dedicated to a very high detailed quality to deliver exactly what the exact photo is giving us. For somebody to say that this does not look like Dwyane Wade in action, they don’t know Dwayne Wade in action. Or they don’t remember that. And it’s OK for them to say whatever they want.”

Both artists explained the decision to revisit the project in a statement released to media outlets this week.

“After seeing the work at full scale and in its permanent environment, we identified opportunities to strengthen the portrait,” Amrany and Léon said. “We decided that the importance of Dwyane warranted making those refinements rather than accepting something we believed could be improved.”

According to Wade, “this isn’t about erasing the work that was already done or disrespecting the artists who put their time and talent into creating it. It’s about being willing to listen. It’s about recognizing when something carries meaning for more people than just yourself and being open enough to revisit it.”

He added: “I hope when people see it now, they see a better likeness of me. But more than that, I hope they see themselves. Because it may be my likeness, but it will always be our house.”

Based on the comments on an X post by the Heat showing off the changes, Heat fans seem to approve. As one person wrote, it’s the “first statue to have a redemption arc.”

British actor Patrick Stewart died Wednesday at 86. His spokesperson said Thursday that he died from Alzheimer’s disease and Lewy body dementia.

The two conditions often occur together, said UCLA neurology professor Dr. Keith Vossel, and when that happens, the individual’s decline may be faster.

Lewy body dementia is the second-most-common form of degenerative dementia, behind Alzheimer’s disease, Vossel said. It occurs when a protein called alpha-synuclein aggregates in clumps inside the brain. The condition is under-recognized and under-diagnosed in part because its symptoms can overlap with those of Alzheimer’s.

Other celebrities who suffered from the condition include Robin Williams, who took his own life at 63, and Casey Kasem.

The condition is named after Friedrich H. Lewy, the neurologist who discovered the brain abnormalities in the early 1900s, according to the Alzheimer’s Assn. website.

“Essentially the only way to really diagnose these conditions together is after an autopsy and to see the hallmark features of the diseases under the microscope,” Vossel said.

Lewy body dementia symptoms tend to start with rapid eye movement sleep behavior disorder, such as screaming or kicking during sleep. A sufferer may have rigidity or tremors in one of their arms or legs. And they may experience slowness of movement.

A patient may be diagnosed with Lewy body dementia after also experiencing cognitive symptoms within one year of motor symptoms. Cognitive symptoms could include illusions or hallucinations — some patients report sensing a shadowy figure nearby — and difficulties with problem solving and navigation. The condition is also marked by dramatic fluctuations in alertness that occur within hours of the same day.

Another early feature of Lewy body dementia is anxiety, Vossel said.

By contrast, Alzheimer’s disease typically is associated with memory and language loss, and is more associated with apathy and depression than with anxiety. The course of Alzheimer’s disease is slightly slower than that of Lewy body dementia, according to Vossel.

Lewy body dementia is more common in men than in women. Anyone over the age of 60 is at higher risk of having a degenerative condition. Lewy body dementia is most common in people in their 70s to 80s, he said.

There is currently no cure for Lewy body dementia, which is terminal and progressive. After a diagnosis, people can typically expect to live six to eight years before they need 24-hour care, Vossel said.

But medication can help manage symptoms. Clinical studies have found that cardiovascular fitness can slow the rate of decline, Vossel said.

Those who suspect they have Lewy body dementia symptoms should contact a neurologist or a clinician trained in either geriatric medicine or geriatric psychiatry for an evaluation, Vossel said.

An Indiana man was arrested this summer for allegedly stalking Indiana Fever guard Sophie Cunningham and sending her threatening and explicit messages on social media.

That’s some pretty dark stuff, but it’s the kind of thing Cunningham says she has had to deal with quite often over the last few years.

During a recent appearance on the podcast “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von,” the soon-to-be WNBA free agent made the startling revelation that she thinks that there are “20, I think, people kind of that the FBI are watching for me.”

“Me alone,” she said.

The FBI declined to comment for this article.

The topic came up as Cunningham, who just finished her sixth WNBA season, was discussing the league’s massive increase in popularity in recent years with the influx of such young stars as Fever teammate Caitlin Clark, the Atlanta Dream’s Angel Reese and the Dallas Wings’ Paige Bueckers.

Cunningham has seen her own popularity soar over the last two years as Clark’s on-court protector. She also has become a central figure in a national debate over trans athletes in women’s sports, after telling ESPN she wanted to “protect young girls in a locker room, or young girls in sport who shouldn’t have to go against biological men.”

“The more you’re visible on TV, you’re going to get more fans,” Cunningham told Von. “People are going to know who you are, and that’s a really great thing. But there’s also a lot of like kind of crazy people, too. Like, we do have a lot of stalkers. I know I do. And that’s a negative side of things that people don’t think about. And so you do want to feel secure.”

One of Cunningham’s alleged stalkers is Kevin Singh, 49, who is facing felony charges for stalking and intimidation, as well as a misdemeanor harassment charge. He was arrested June 24 and held in Marion County Jail in Indiana with bail set at $40,000. Last week, a judge denied Singh’s request for alteration or revocation of bail. A jury trial is scheduled for January.

According to the arrest affidavit, Singh sent Cunningham numerous messages on X and in September 2025 personally delivered a package marked with her name to the Fever’s arena (it contained a letter and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt sprayed with men’s cologne).

Cunningham told investigators she had been having nightmares and was staying at home more because of Singh’s behavior, the affidavit said.

At least now, she is able to joke (kind of) about it.

“His name’s Kevin. And the worst part about that is I have a miniature donkey named Kevin,” she told Von. “And now I’m like, well, s—, do I need to rename Kevin?”

Last year, a 55-year-old Texas man was sentenced to 2½ years in prison after pleading guilty to stalking and harassing Clark.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

TeamLab, the Japan-born, tech-heavy immersive art collective, is plotting its first permanent U.S. exhibition in Anaheim. The group, stylized as teamLab, is moving into a 110,000-square-foot space at OCVibe, the 100-acre mixed-use entertainment district currently in development near the Honda Center.

Details are scant, as the TeamLab spot is not estimated to open until 2030, but a press release specifies this will be a new exhibition and not a recreation of one of the collective’s popular international exhibits. TeamLab got its start in Tokyo in 2001, but over the years grew from exhibiting in galleries to building its own museum-like spaces, today having permanent locales in Japan, China and Saudi Arabia.

A TeamLab installation is something of an immersive playground, inviting guests to sometimes take off their shoes to interact with floor-to-ceiling walk-through attractions that split the difference between art and play. One of its showcase facilities, Tokyo’s TeamLab Planets, welcomed more than 2.5 million visitors in 2024, a Guinness world record for the most visited art museum by a single group.

An artist’s rendering of the Anaheim location, estimated to open in 2030.

(OCVibe)

“For teamLab, through art, we seek to explore what perception is and what existence is,” said Toshiyuki Inoko, a founder of TeamLab, in a release announcing the exhibit.

“The artworks change with the presence of people, making them an integral part of the art itself. People immerse themselves with their entire bodies, transcending the boundaries between themselves, the artworks, and the world around them, becoming part of a borderless continuity.”

TeamLab’s Anaheim location is just three miles from Disneyland, which draws more than 17 million people to the area. TeamLab is just one of many immersive art destinations coming to SoCal, as Meow Wolf will be opening a permanent exhibition in the coming months, and firms such as Hopscotch and the Museum of Ice Cream also have area exhibitions on the horizon.

“Anaheim has always been a place where people come to experience something they can’t find anywhere else, and teamLab will expand our appeal to new audiences from around the world. Experiences like this inspire longer stays, repeat visits,” stated Mike Waterman, president and chief executive of the tourism-focused Visit Anaheim.

The deal between TeamLab and OCVibe backers is worth more than $100 million, Bloomberg reported. OCVibe is the vision of Henry and Susan Samueli, owners of the Anaheim Ducks, and it will open in phases. A 5,000 capacity concert hall is set to open next year, followed by a food hall.

The TeamLab building will be visible from the freeway, and is being designed by Smith-Clementi, OCVibe’s master planners. Based on concept art shown, expect a shimmering, scale-like pattern designed to evoke movement.

“This building feels different depending on the direction or pace of your approach,” said Julie Smith-Clementi . “The time of day, or movement of clouds participates in rendering its iridescent cloak, enriching what you think you see. We want the design to leave room for imagination and discovery and, like in nature, to offer something new with each visit.”

OCVibe will also offer office space, residences and two hotels. It’s estimated to be completed by 2033.

How would the late Anthony Bourdain have responded to our political climate in the United States with less than a week before the midterm elections of Donald Trump’s second term?

This speculative thought bubble emerged for me as I watched the last of two Los Angeles episodes Bourdain did through 12 seasons of his CNN food and travel series “Parts Unknown.” It aired just over a year before his death by suicide in France on June 8, 2018.

Set in our Pacific immigrant metropolis, the program predicts Season 2 of Trumpism, if you will. In another way, Bourdain’s ode to L.A. suggests a framework on how to think about the state of our nation as we head to the polls on Tuesday.

The universal glee of getting tacos

Customers line up at Ave 26 Tacos stand in a parking lot next to the Little Tokyo Galleria in 2024.

(Silvia Razgova)

Picture the moment when a taquero hands you a warm paper plate heaping with warm tortillas and meats on a street in Los Angeles. Do you also get that giddy, kid-like feeling for half a second? There’s nothing like it, right?

Halfway through the Season 9 opener of “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain experiences just that. In a moment you might miss without looking closely, that familiar look flashes on his face, an unbridled glee, as a taquero in downtown L.A. hands him tacos. In that moment he’s not some mythical man known to his best friends as “Tony.” He’s just a guy getting tacos. It’s super cute.

I came upon this episode recently, and it struck me as potently relevant for today, just before the midterm elections. Bourdain’s taco happiness reminded me that even when some sectors of U.S. society are calling for an effective de-browning of this country, everyone everywhere still really loves Mexican food.

Trump does. ICE agents likely do. Even the white ethnonationlists in the government and those cheering on the ICE surge happening right now across L.A. and California, all love to eat tacos, the unofficial culinary emblem of Los Angeles.

It’s worth pointing out that I’m not a Bourdain superfan. I’ve not seen every episode of TV he made. I didn’t read “Kitchen Confidential” until this year. But lately I’ve been studying him. In the past month I finally watched the biopic “Tony” about his coming of age, and I’ve started reading the entertaining memoir “Care and Feeding” by Laurie Woolever, Bourdain’s former long-term assistant and co-author.

I’m catching up on Bourdain because I’ve noticed that as we pass eight years since his death, the author’s cultural influence upon chefs, cooks and food lovers in general does not seem to be waning. It might even be growing.

“He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life,” said Evil Cooks chef and co-owner Alex Garcia, who has an image of Anthony Bourdain tattooed on his leg.

(Daniel Hernandez / Los Angeles Times)

A multitude of chefs or cooks in L.A. have a depiction of Bourdain hanging somewhere in their restaurants, kitchens or homes. Some even on their skin. At least six portraits of Bourdain are on display along the black-clad walls of restaurant Evil Cooks in El Sereno, for example. Chef Alex Garcia has a Bourdain tattoo on his lower leg.

“I love Anthony Bourdain for his rebellious way of being, but also for his love for Mexicanos because he worked for many years with people from Puebla,” Garcia told me after I had dinner there Tuesday night. “He taught me that being a rebel lets you enjoy life, because the end of the day, being yourself, being happy, is the purpose of this journey that we call life.”

This enduring passion for Bourdain also springs from what so much of his television and writing do: Demonstrate an unflagging empathy for almost anyone he met anywhere in the world. Well, almost anyone — he said pretty clearly he’d never share a meal with Donald Trump.

His 2017 episode “Los Angeles” (currently streaming on HBO Max) proves it more than most. It was filmed in 2016, just before the election that took Trump to the White House. It is worth a rewatch before you cast your ballot anywhere.

The program delves into cultural identity, racism, police abuse and corruption and gentrification. Its whole thesis points to the fallacy of being anti-immigrant or anti-Mexican in 21st century America. “Los Angeles, like much of California, used to be part of Mexico,” Bourdain says in the intro. “Now, Mexico, or a whole lot of Mexicans, are a vital part of … us.”

The episode follows Bourdain dining at Indigenous mole specialists Gish Bac with UCLA professor Raul Hinojosa-Ojeda; going for mulitas with photographer Estevan Oriol and tattoo artist Mister Cartoon at the former diner La Reyna (which later became Guerrilla Tacos) on 7th Street downtown; tasting the taquitos at Cielito Lindo on Olvera Street with comedian Al Madrigal and Times columnist Gustavo Arellano; visiting Danny Trejo at Trejo’s Tacos; going to Mariscos El Chente in Inglewood with the Stockton-raised Diaz brothers, and sharing in street tacos with runners from the Boyle Heights Run Club.

“This show will air long after the election,” Bourdain tells Hinojosa-Ojeda at Gish Bac. “There is actually a national conversation now, unthinkable in my lifetime, where the notion of rounding up however many millions of undocumented workers in this country all at once … and then kicking them out. I mean, it seems unthinkable. But, you know, they said that in Europe in the ‘30s.”

In his characteristic tone, grumpy yet hopeful, Bourdain showed he believed in a shared human dignity that superceded all ethnic, national, religious or ideological boundaries.

Listening to him, the prospect of total MAGA Republican rule in all branches of government becomes something like a nightmare that we’ve seen play out in real life. It is a long list of gross constitutional violations targeting immigrants and brown-skinned people, and their supporters like slain U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti of Minneapolis, on a daily basis in this country.

People gather at a memorial for Alex Pretti and Renée Good, both shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis.

(Stephen Maturen / Getty Images)

Loving immigrants

On Tuesday, voters nationwide are expected to be thinking first of their pocketbooks and of corruption in Washington when they vote. On another level, this election along with the 2016 and 2024 results are also about litigating by the ballot box what it means to “be” an American.

Sandra Zweig, one of the executive producers on the show, told me Bourdain set out to highlight Latino Los Angeles from the very beginning in 2016. In March of that year, she recalled in an interview, he sent producers the initial list of the cities he was thinking of for Season 9, to start the production conversation.

From that first brainstorming session, Zweig found these notes about a second episode in L.A.: “All-Mexico edition.”

“This time we pretend nobody lives in L.A. who isn’t Latino,” the notes continued. “We live, play in that world without leaving it, we will explore Mexican and Central American immigration, how vital this population is to the SoCal economy.”

Those notes show Bourdain wanted to avoid a recycling of the pastoral mainstream modern narrative on L.A., which isn’t inaccurate but can sometimes feel stale: hyping its multicultural, polycentric, polyethnic etcetera identity. No. This time would be all brown.

“He worked in kitchens and restaurants for so long, he knew as well as anyone that a huge portion of that work staff were immigrants from Mexico and Central America,” Zweig told me. “He also knew that being an immigrant wasn’t a bad thing, to use the word pejoratively was just anathema to him.”

Pop figures like Bourdain and Trejo, despite his recent stumble (he was cast in a film by alt-right extremist Ben Shapiro’s film company), have arguably done a lot more to shape Americans’ perceptions of immigrants and Mexicans than any political leader.

“He would always say, ‘Travel allows you to see people, where they live, and understand where they’re coming from, and reducing that fear for the other.’ For the audience, you’re opening up a world that they may not be able to travel to yourself,” Zweig said. “In 2016, there were things being said about immigrants and immigration that he felt strongly about, and this was one way to discuss that.”

Zweig added: “I can’t predict exactly what he’d say, but it’s clear to me that’d be appalled by the whole sort of immigration enforcement and ICE tactics that’s happening now. That’s not a leap to assume that.”

When I look at the audacity and cruelty of the MAGA right’s stance on immigration, the killings of citizens and immigrants at the hands of ICE agents, I always turn back and remind myself how out-of-step with the nation it is to be anti-immigrant.

Alfonso Lira, 61, a dishwasher and busser from Michoacan, Mexico, sweeps the entrance at Chapter One restaurant in downtown Santa Ana during a double shift in 2024.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

Gallup polling is a reliable benchmark on weighing Americans’ views on immigration. At its highest point just last year, the trend line showed 79% of Americans believe immigration is a good thing overall to the country by far. Currently that figure is 73%. Only 21% of Americans believe immigration is a bad thing, its second lowest point since 2002.

Polls and sentiments vary widely from there on how to reform and manage the immigration system — although certainly most people in the U.S. are against current ICE raids, roughly by 2-to-1 — but the basic truth is sitting there before us: The country loves and appreciates immigrants. For most of us, it’s always been about welcoming the stranger, honoring hard work, and contributing to the pursuit of social harmony.

Most of us believe anyone can join the party. There just has to be a better process for it. Political leaders therefore must offer a clear plan not for “mass deportations” but for normalizing people who are here and contributing to society, the economy and the tax base. And more than anything, offer as many people as possible a pathway to citizenship.

If anyone ever tells you they are opposed to any version of this notion, remind them that they are in the minority. Americans favor immigrants by 7-out-of-10, Gallup says. And remind them that as his last love letter to L.A. shows, Anthony Bourdain would have tried to snap them out of it if he’d ever gotten the chance.

Former ESPN reporter Britt McHenry says she threw a drink at a man after he said “something truly vile to me” during an incident at a Washington Wizards game last week that reportedly led to McHenry resigning from her job with the U.S. Department of State the following day.

Video footage, posted by TMZ, from the Wizards’ game against the Milwaukee Bucks on Oct. 21 at Capital One Arena shows McHenry talking to a male companion and an usher from her seat while fans seated around her can be heard making negative comments about her and chanting, “Kick her out!”

As McHenry and her friend eventually start to leave on their own, a clear liquid can be seen hitting or coming close to hitting her on the back of the head. She then throws a drink of her own. As she makes her way up the stairs, McHenry gives the middle finger and blows kisses to the crowd as some people heckle and throw towels at her.

On Tuesday, McHenry posted a video on Instagram giving her side of the story. She said that a man sitting in front of her was making “egregiously loud” and “vile” comments toward Bucks forward Kyle Kuzma about the appearance of his fiancée, model Winnie Harlow, who has the skin condition vitiligo.

“I then make a snarky comment — probably shouldn’t have, but everyone behind me laughed — and just said, ‘Oh, I’m sure your girlfriend’s really beautiful, right?’” McHenry said. “Guy in that row, whether he was with that man or not, turns around and says to me, ‘Why don’t you shut the f— up, you dumb b—,’ quoting him, to which I say to him, like, ‘I wasn’t even talking to you. Who are you?’ And that’s where it escalates.”

McHenry says she and her friend, whom she identifies as Andrew, left their seats and went to a foyer, where an usher offered to move them to seats in another part of the arena.

“But I say to Drew, you purchased $250 to $300 a piece tickets,” McHenry said. “Why should we have to move because these men around us can’t behave and are heckling and harassing me. No, we’re going back. In hindsight, I wish we would have left.”

After they returned, McHenry said, people started throwing drinks at them.

“And the main agitator says something truly vile to me about what should be done to me, allegedly about getting gang raped outside,” McHenry said, “and that is when I threw the rest of my beer in that direction, turned around, and said, ‘Drew, let’s get out of here.’”

One video shows McHenry later speaking with a security worker near one of the venue’s entrances. When he gestures toward the exit, she appears stunned and asks, “What did I do?”

McHenry does not mention this encounter in her video and says she decided to leave the arena. But, she said, the “main agitator” was thrown out. Monumental Sports & Entertainment, which owns and operates the Wizards and Capital One Arena, did not immediately respond to questions from The Times about the incident.

McHenry worked at ESPN from 2014 to 2017, then spent several years with Fox News. In September, she announced on social media that she was working as a press advisor for the State Department.

Page Six reported Friday that McHenry had been “forced to resign” the previous day. McHenry then told Front Office Sports that she signed a resignation letter. The State Department told both publications that it does not comment on internal personnel matters.

McHenry, who did not mention her employment status in her video, doesn’t seem to have any regrets about her behavior that night.

“I was sticking up for Winnie Harlow, a woman that I admire, and many women and young girls look up to,” McHenry said. “And I was sticking up for myself.”