When the speaker of the Texas House recently outlined his priorities for the next legislative session, he mentioned tax relief, the development of data centers and a notion that sent many eyebrows skyward.
Dustin Burrows, a Republican from Lubbock, directed the chamber’s governmental oversight committee to study the legal and economic implications of Texas absorbing one or more counties in eastern New Mexico.
The “conversation,” Burrows told the Dallas Morning News, “is ultimately about culture, opportunity and the right to choose a path that reflects the shared values of the Permian and Delaware basins,” a vast desert expanse awash in oil and natural gas.
Apparently, Texas lawmakers have time and money to burn.
The notion of the swaggering state swallowing a chunk of its resistant neighbor is completely far-fetched. Just four states have been carved from the territory of others: Kentucky, Maine, Vermont and West Virginia. And it’s been quite a spell since the last time that happened. West Virginia split off from Confederate Virginia in 1863.
Realistically, there is no end of hurdles — legal, political, practical — that would have to be surmounted for a partial Texas-New Mexico merger to occur. Both states would need to agree — New Mexico is a hard no — and Congress would also have to approve.
But the impulse to bust up, break away and move on is as old as America itself and, at the same time, as fresh as the latest provocation to pass the lips of the nation’s frothing commander-in-chief.
The notion being if you don’t like it, then leave.
Or, at least, make noise about doing so.
Eastern New Mexico — dry, desolate — looks and feels very much like an appendage of West Texas. Its residents have long been estranged from the rest of their state and, especially, the Democratic leadership in Santa Fe, the state capital. That is not to say, however, the slightest inch of New Mexico territory will be going anywhere anytime soon.
Earlier this year, two Republican state lawmakers introduced a measure to give voters a say on whether they wanted their counties to break away — or, as one of the legislators put it, “Get the hell out of New Mexico.” The constitutional amendment died without a hearing.
When Burrows renewed talk of a takeover, Javier Martinez, speaker of the New Mexico House, responded without equivocation. “Over my dead body,” he said.
But the notion has garnered Burrows plenty of attention in the Lone Star State, a place with no lack of self-regard. And it certainly hasn’t hurt his standing with Texas’ arch-conservative Republican base, which has sometimes viewed Burrows with suspicion.
“People in Texas have a lot of fun with the idea that Texas … is entitled to secede and that maybe it can restore lost lands in New Mexico, Kansas, Colorado and beyond,” said Cal Jillson, a longtime student of Texas politics at Southern Methodist University. “It [appeals to] the conservative base, but also to everyone who loves to chuckle.”
Serious or not, secession — or independence, as some prefer to call it — has long been the dream of dissenters, of the discontented and those who feel put upon or politically unrepresented. America, after all, was birthed by divorcing itself from Britain and King George III.
For the longest time, residents in the ruddy north of blue California have agitated for a breakaway state called Jefferson. In recent years unhappy conservatives in eastern Oregon have spoken of splitting from their Democratic state and becoming a part of Republican Idaho. (Lawmakers in Boise passed a measure in 2023 inviting Oregon to the negotiating table; Oregon has so far declined to show.)
Since 2020, voters in 33 rural Illinois counties have voted to separate from their state and its Democratic leadership, a move welcomed in a measure passed by the Republican-run Indiana Legislature and signed by the state’s GOP governor, Mike Braun. (Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed the 2025 legislation as “a stunt.”)
Which, indeed, it appeared to be.
But Richard Kreitner said there is a certain logic behind secession movements, as governments from Washington to the statehouse are seen as increasingly unresponsive and dysfunctional.
“As people become more disenfranchised … more disillusioned from the political process, you’re going to start looking outside of the political process, the political structure, the constitutional structure, for a possible solution,” said Kreitner, who hosts a history podcast, “Think Back,” and has also written a book on secession. “If you’re going to do that in a country founded with a secessionist manifesto, the Declaration of Independence, at some point people are going to start thinking about that.”
Legitimate grievance grounded in serious concern is certainly worthy of attention. But exploiting that discontent to draw notice or score cheap political points — as Burrows seems to be doing in Texas — is something altogether different.
The chance of New Mexico ceding a part of itself to Texas is precisely zero, meaning the legislative study is less about “culture” and “opportunity” than the speaker and fellow Republicans evidently looking to troll their blue-state neighbor.
There are better, more productive ways for lawmakers to spend their time.
One of L.A.’s most unique art galleries is closing up shop.
Gallery 1988, which opened in 2004 and proclaimed itself “the first pop culture-focused art gallery in the world,” will cease operations at the end of April. In a post on Instagram, gallery owner Katie Sutton said that while the gallery had been forced to close its physical space on Melrose a few years back, she had “really tried to keep things going [online], especially for our amazing artists.” Unfortunately, she wrote, “the [art] market is the worst I’ve seen it in over two decades,” and the decision to close became inevitable.
A launching pad for artists whose work paid tribute to television, film, video games and more, Gallery 1988 was renowned for shows like the annual “Crazy 4 Cult,” which showcased pieces celebrating underground classics from across the entertainment space. It also specialized in single-focus shows like “Weird Al,” which celebrated the career of the oddball recording artist “Weird Al” Yankovic, and “You’re the Very Best, Like No One Ever Was,” which paid tribute to the world of Pokémon.
Exhibitions at Gallery 1988, which is closing after 20 years, often featured lines around the block, with fans who camped out for a chance to score a prized piece.
(Courtesy of Gallery 1988)
Perhaps most famously, the gallery collaborated with studios to create art-focused campaigns around properties such as “The Avengers” and “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” while also launching solo shows from artists like Scott C, Luke Chueh and Tom Whalen.
Gallery 1988 was renowned for selling work that ranged in price from $10 into the thousands, enabling customers from around the world to buy pieces that spoke to them, whether a postcard-sized digital print or a large oil-on-canvas painting.
A number of other galleries have closed in recent months across Los Angeles, including Blum, Nino Mier Gallery, Clearing, Tanya Bonakdar Gallery and L.A. Louver. Sutton says that she’s heard through the gallery grapevine that “even galleries that haven’t closed are struggling,” adding that “it’s a hard time for everybody.”
Though there’s never one reason a business closes, some industry observers and art fans have cited the rise in AI-generated content potentially devaluing original art overall. It’s especially true in the pop culture space, with consumer activity down not just at places like Gallery 1988 but also at events such as WonderCon in Anaheim, where artists could often expect to make a good chunk of change.
Jensen Karp, who co-founded Gallery 1988 with Sutton but stepped back after a health scare nearly two years ago, says that while he certainly sees a “malaise in culture because of AI” that’s indicative of the population “losing the understanding of what true art is,” he wouldn’t attribute the collapse of Gallery 1988 solely to that one thing.
Kristin Tercek “Rejoice” 2015 for the “Force Awakens” show with Disney, LucasFilm and Unicef at Gallery 1988.
“Our customer base was the people who looked up release dates and who went to the Arclight, and that sense of community is just not there anymore post-pandemic,” Karp says. With the entertainment industry struggling in L.A. as well, that means less disposable income floating around for things like art — especially from the kinds of people who might be inclined to buy a portrait of, say, Steve Martin in the movie “The Jerk.”
Greg Simkins, a California based artist who often sold through Gallery 1988 under the name “CRAOLA,” says he’s felt the impact of the entertainment industry’s contraction firsthand. “People like directors, producers and actors were some of our biggest clients,” Simkins says. “All of the sudden they’re leaving, going to places like Atlanta and Canada. AI is screwing up the movie industry too, and those are the kinds of people who had expendable money to buy original art so it trickles down.”
It doesn’t help that there’s more pop culture-centered art floating around now, and not just on sites like Instagram and Etsy. Though Gallery 1988 was a frontrunner in celebrating popular culture through art when it opened, even hosting a “Rick and Morty”-themed show before the Adult Swim series had a lick of merchandise, it also became a proof of concept for companies including Disney and Netflix, which have started selling their own artist-created material inspired by their properties.
And with Hollywood releasing fewer movies into theaters, the base of what Gallery 1988 artists could pay tribute to also began to contract. Frequent gallery contributor Whalen says that when Gallery 1988 opened, it was filling a niche and “creating fresh content for movies that spoke to” people in their 20s and 30s. Over time, though, art that celebrated properties like “Ghostbusters,” “Back to the Future” and “The Goonies” started to overwhelm the market, causing “a lot of the 1970s and ‘80s movies to become stale,” Whalen says.
Scott C’s “Breaking Bad Upon the Mount,” 2012, for the “Breaking Bad Art Project: With Sony and Vince Gilligan” at Gallery 1988.
While Sutton and Karp both say they’re beyond grateful that they got to open Gallery 1988 in the first place, let alone keep it open for more than 20 years, they’re worried about what closing the gallery will mean to some of their contributing artists.
“There are so many incredible artists out there and there are so many more places for them to show their work now and that’s amazing,” Sutton says. “But with that bombardment of media from everywhere, it’s hard to really see stuff because it’s coming at you from all directions. So many artists are out there trying to make a living and support their families and that’s just becoming harder and harder.”
“So many of the artists we showed never expected to have an art gallery email them,” Karp says. “I’m so proud of all the artists we worked with and what we were able to do, but I also know that [Gallery 1988 shutting down] closes up an avenue for all of them too and that sucks.”
When Tina LaMonica and Warren Wellen purchased their South Pasadena Craftsman home in 2001, the one-car garage dated back to 1917, a time when people parked their narrow Ford Model T cars inside garages like this one.
“We bought it for $650,000,” LaMonica says of the house. “Of course, we could never afford to buy it now.”
The couple moved in when their daughters, Sophie and Ruby Wellen, were little, and their tree-lined street was full of families with young kids who rode their scooters throughout the neighborhood.
“We all grew up together and had block parties,” says Sophie, 30. Now, she adds, “There are no new families moving in. No one left. Why would they?”
Tina LaMonica and Warren Wellen sit on the patio with their daughter, Sophie Wellen, and their dog, Hazelnut, next to the 230-square-foot ADU where Sophie lived for two years. Her younger sister is now living in the ADU.
Music was always a part of their home, Sophie says, thanks to her father, Warren, 65, who is both an attorney and a musician in the alternative rock band Brahms’ Third Racket.
“He plays everything,” Sophie says. “Throughout my entire childhood, he was always making music.”
LaMonica adds, “It can be disruptive.”
So in 2021, the couple pulled together money from different sources, including a line of credit, and turned the garage into a tiny 230-square-foot accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, for Warren to use as a music studio.
“It was intended to be a creative space, not a home,” says LaMonica, 64, who is a commercial real estate broker. “The total cost was around $125,000, including permits, construction and all systems — a significant investment, but one that ended up serving our family in unexpected ways.”
The garage before, left, during, right, and after, below, construction. (Tina LaMonica)
A few months after using his new music studio, Sophie, who had been in law school at the University of Michigan, moved back to Los Angeles after being away for 10 years.
“She wasn’t working right away, and like many new grads, she had student debt and credit card debt from getting through school,” says LaMonica. “Market rent in the Los Angeles area wasn’t realistic, even with a job offer lined up. So, the studio became her first home. It gave her stability and independence during a major transition.”
Sophie, who describes her relationship with her parents as close, says the ADU was always meant to be temporary and she’s grateful for it.
“At 28, I didn’t know where I wanted to live in L.A.,” she says. “I had only grown up in Pasadena, which is a small community. I felt lucky to be able to live in this little house in the back and explore the city to find the right place for me, instead of rushing to grab the first place I could, like so many of my associates had to do. It was right after the bar exam, and I was really stressed.”
The ADU features a Murphy bed and and a nice-sized kitchenette.
The kitchenette has a compact air fryer-toaster oven from Our Place, and a slim, Classic retro-style refrigerator.
After clerking for a judge in Washington, D.C., Sophie’s boyfriend William Lang moved to Los Angeles and joined her and her dog in the ADU, bringing his two cats with him.
“It was a full house,” Sophie says, laughing. “And yes, they were indoor cats! But we made it work. Finding a rental was hard. I couldn’t really afford a nice apartment in L.A. I had to save up and wait until my boyfriend got here so we had two incomes.”
It’s no surprise they felt at home. Although it’s small, the unit is sunny and bright, with a pitched roof and a big picture window overlooking the lush backyard and swimming pool. (The blinds can be closed for privacy.)
There’s a Murphy bed that turns into a love seat when pulled down, which saves space, and classic black-and-white checkerboard porcelain tile from Mission Tile in South Pasadena that gives the living spaces a surprising sense of fun. The unit also has a bathroom with a shower, a closet and a storage nook above the bathroom.
The ADU has room for a desk, flat-screen TV and comfy chair.
There’s also room for a desk, a flat-screen TV on the wall and a comfortable chair. Not having a dining room isn’t a problem because there’s a welcoming patio just outside the French doors, with two chairs, a couch and a coffee table.
“The backyard was our saving grace,” says Sophie. “Most of the time, William sat at the little table. It was cozy and nice. I got to be near my parents, and they got to know my partner better.”
The ADU has a roomy kitchenette with white cabinets and countertops, a compact air fryer-toaster oven from Our Place, and a slim retro-style refrigerator from Unique. “You can bake, broil and fry with the small Wonder Oven,” LaMonica says. “Ruby uses it all the time.” There’s also a mini-split system for heating and cooling, and if needed, a stackable washer and dryer can be added later.
A patio area provides another living space steps outside the ADU.
Soon after Sophie moved out, having lived in the back house for two years, her 27-year-old sister Ruby moved in. “She works in Torrance and can’t afford to rent an apartment close to her job,” her mother says. “The ADU gives her a chance to live affordably, stay safe and be near family, while building financial footing on her own terms.”
LaMonica is happy with the ADU, though she wishes they could have added a second floor, which the city of South Pasadena didn’t allow at the time.
She imagines a future in which one of her daughters lives in the main house, and she and her husband live in the ADU. “I think an ADU is a great long-term solution,” she says. “It keeps people from moving out of California. With an ADU, at least you can keep your family on site.”
In some ways, the small ADU is more than just a solution for young people who can’t afford to live in Los Angeles. A 2025 study found that Los Angeles ranked second among the 50 largest U.S. metros for its share of working adults (ages 25 to 40) living with parents.
Backyard homes can also help people connect with their community.
“The nice thing about the ADU is that it can give you a sense of community that’s hard to find right now because people are so isolated,” says Sophie, who now rents a two-bedroom duplex in Hancock Park with Lang for $4,500 a month. “We’re both lawyers at private law firms and doing well, but I still don’t feel like I could have a child right now and give them the life I want. It’s hard to make big life decisions in L.A., especially if you have student debt. It was really nice to have dinner with my parents every once in a while. They didn’t want William and I to leave.”
The bathroom inside the ADU.
As Southern California gets more crowded and housing costs rise, young people have to look for options different from those their parents had when they were growing up.
LaMonica says she and her husband never thought they would house both daughters in a converted garage. “But in a place like Los Angeles,” she says, “the tiny ADU turned into a flexible and essential lifeline for our family, not just once but twice.”
And maybe one day, Warren will finally get his music studio.
Offset was shot near the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, Fla., on Monday evening and is currently listed as stable, a spokesperson for the rapper told The Times.
“We can confirm Offset was shot and is currently at the hospital receiving medical care,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “He is stable and being closely monitored.”
The Seminole Police Department said in a statement that officers responded to an incident in the valet area of the hotel and casino shortly after 7 p.m. One person was transported to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood with non-life-threatening injuries.
Police detained two people in connection with the incident, and an investigation remains ongoing. The scene has been secured and operations at the Hard Rock are continuing as normal, police said.
The circumstances around the shooting remain unclear.
The 34-year-old rapper, whose real name is Kiari Cephus, gained prominence as a member of the Atlanta rap trio Migos, which was founded in 2008 and rose to hip-hop fame in 2013 with the breakout hit “Versace.” The group, whose members included rappers Quavo, Takeoff and Offset, achieved major mainstream stardom in 2016 through “Bad and Boujee,” which shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The three members grew up together in the Atlanta area. Takeoff was Quavo’s nephew, while Offset is a close family friend.
In 2022, the group split up due to differences between Offset and Quavo. In November of that year, Takeoff, whose real name is Kirsnick Khari Ball, was fatally shot outside of a bowling alley in Houston. He was 28 years old.
Patrick Xavier Clark was indicted by a grand jury in the murder of Takeoff in May 2023. He has pleaded not guilty and the case is awaiting trial.
Since the breakup of Migos, Offset has focused on his solo career, releasing his album “Set It Off” in 2023, which features artists including Travis Scott, Don Toliver, Future and Cardi B. He released his latest album, “Kiari,” in August.
Times staff writer Emily St. Martin contributed to this report.
Before the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival became a world-famous event, it started as a much more modest music festival in Southern California’s desert in 1999.
As the festival kicks off its 25th year, we combed through The Times’ extensive archives to take a trip down Coachella’s memory lane. Scroll through and you’ll see those epic moments from Daft Punk, Beyoncé, Prince and Madonna, but also the iconic large art installations at the festival and just how much the event has grown and changed over the years.
Dennis Carrillo wears a sombrero as a shield against the blistering sun as he and friend Dario Soto, both of Los Angeles, walk toward the stage at the inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in Indio in October 1999, where the temperature hit triple digits.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Beck was one of the headliners of the original Coachella in October 1999.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Thousands of music fans wait at the main stage area at the inaugural Coachella in 1999.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Rage Against the Machine was one of the headliners of the inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 1999.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
2001
Due to the financial losses, Coachella skipped a year and returned in April 2001 as a one-day event with a headlining set by Jane’s Addiction and a bill featuring artists such as Weezer and Paul Oakenfold. It drew more than 32,000 people to the desert.
When Coachella returned as a one-day event in 2001, Jane’s Addiction headlined the show.
(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)
Even in its early years, Coachella made art part of the vibe. In 2001, people on stilts roamed the field in front of the main stage.
(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)
Thousands of fans hang out on the main field at Coachella in 2001.
(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)
Paul Oakenfold’s first time playing Coachella was in 2001.
(Lori Shepler / Los Angeles Times)
2002
Coachella went back to being a two-day event in 2002, headlined by Bjork and Oasis. One of the emerging acts on the bill that year was a rock combo out of New York called The Strokes.
Oasis, with guitarist Noel Gallagher, headlined the second day of Coachella 2002.
(Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times)
When The Strokes first played Coachella in 2002, the New York band was just emerging in the rock scene. Singer Julian Casablancas and the group will perform again in 2026.
(Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times)
The first time Bjork headlined Coachella was the 2002 edition of the festival.
(Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times)
Fans watch arm in arm as Oasis closes out Coachella 2002.
(Kevin P. Casey / Los Angeles Times)
2003
The Beastie Boys and Red Hot Chili Peppers headlined Coachella 2003, but the lineup also included The White Stripes, Iggy and The Stooges, Underworld and the Blue Man Group.
Coachella attracted about 35,000 fans per day in 2003.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The White Stripes were one of the standout acts at Coachella 2003.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The Sahara Tent has always been the heartbeat of Coachella’s dance scene, but in 2003 it was much smaller than the airplane hangar-sized stage it is today.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
The Blue Man Group performed at the 2003 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
2004
In 2004, the Flaming Lips created an iconic Coachella moment when singer Wayne Coyne traveled over the crowd in a giant inflatable ball. Headlined by Radiohead and The Cure, the festival also included a reunion of the Pixies. It also marked Coachella’s first sellout, with 60,000 attendees per day.
The Flaming Lips’ Wayne Coyne travels over the Coachella 2004 crowd in an inflated plastic bubble.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Syd Klinge’s “Cauac” Tesla coil was one of Coachella’s firstart pieces. It made its debut in 2004.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Coachella 2004 featured a highly-regarded reunion of the Pixies.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Fans brave sweltering heat as they wait for the Pixies to perform at Coachella 2004.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
2005
Coldplay and Nine Inch Nails headlined Coachella in 2005. Weezer, The Chemical Brothers and Wilco were some of the other notable acts on the bill. Among the memorable moments was the reunion of Bauhaus and singer Peter Murphy performing “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” while hanging upside down like a bat.
Wilco performs before a crowd of tens of thousands at dusk at the 2005 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails headlined Coachella in 2005. Reznor will return to the festival in 2026 with German music producer Boys Noize to perform as Nine Inch Noize.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Music fans break a sweat dancing in the Sahara Tent during the 2005 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Allen Writhen, of Santa Maria, takes a spin on a bicycle at the Cyclecide arena at Coachella 2005. Cyclecide, a San Francisco–based bicycle rodeo group, brought bike-centric art installations to Coachella for multiple years.
Prince headlined Saturday night of Coachella 2008, performing a memorable cover of Radiohead’s “Creep.”
(Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)
Kestrin Pantera dances while Marc Goldstein DJs aboard a special Amtrak charter, the Coachella Express, which traveled from Los Angeles to Indio in 2008. The free train service provided transportation to Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival attendees.
(Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)
Roger Waters performed Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side of the Moon” during the final day of Coachella 2008. His set also included a giant inflatable pig that was let loose into the Indio night.
(Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)
A dance circle develops inside the Do Lab at the 2008 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
2009
Coachella 2009 marked the final year the general public could buy single-day tickets to the festival. Paul McCartney headlined opening night and played 50-plus minutes after curfew. When The Cure tried the same thing to close down Sunday, the sound was cut earlier. Sandwiched in between was a headlining set from The Killers. Other notable performers included M.I.A., who stepped in after Amy Winehouse dropped off the lineup, Morrissey, who complained about the smell of burning flesh, and Leonard Cohen.
Paul McCartney headlined the main stage at Coachella 2009 in a career-spanning set that went nearly an hour past the 1 a.m. curfew.
(Spencer Weiner / Los Angeles Times)
Festivalgoers find shade in the Do Lab at Coachella 2009.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
M.I.A. stepped in to perform at Coachella 2009 after Amy Winehouse dropped off the lineup.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
“Bamboo Starscraper” was a 90-foot-tall bamboo tower by Gerard Minakawa that was part of the art at the festival in 2009.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
2010
This year was the first time the festival only offered three-day passes and Coachella drew a record 75,000 people per day, up nearly 15,000 from the previous year. It was also the year Coachella had its first rap headliner with Jay-Z, who brought out wife Beyoncé to perform “Young Forever.” The other headliners in 2010 were Muse and Gorillaz. The eruption of an Icelandic volcano kept some artists from getting to the festival, including The Cribs and Frightened Rabbit. Then there was Sly Stone’s oft-delayed set that ended with him ranting about his former manager and led to a slander lawsuit. The full festival was also livestreamed for the first time.
In 2010, Jay-Z became the first rapper to headline Coachella. He brought out wife Beyoncé as a surprise guest.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Members of the Old Crow Medicine Show jam in the VIP area of the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club in Indio in 2010.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
DJ Lance Rock and the creatures of “Yo Gabba Gabba!” performed at Coachella in 2010.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
The crowd reacts during Benny Benassi’s DJ set in the Sahara Tent at Coachella 2010.
Snoop Dogg performs with a hologram of Tupac Shakur near the end of the Snoop Dogg and Dr. Dre’s headlining set at Coachella 2012.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Laura Newton, left, Lucy Holme and Louise Watkins from Britain attended their first Coachella in 2012 and protected themselves from the rain that swept in on opening day with garbage bags.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
David Guetta brought lots of lasers to his performance in the Sahara Tent at Coachella 2012.
(Jay L. Clendenin/Los Angeles Times)
An aerial view of the 2012 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
“Helix Poeticus,” created by Poetic Kinetics makes its way, slowly, across the polo field at Coachella 2013.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers headlined Sunday night at the 2013 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
The Yuma Tent made its debut at Coachella 2013 with air conditioning, a hardwood floor and comfy chairs.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Tesla coils by artist Syd Klinge go off along with the “Coachella Power Station,” left, by artists Vanessa Bonet, Derek Doublin and Chris Waggoner at Coachella 2013.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
2014
A reunited Outkast, Muse and Arcade Fire headlined Coachella 2014, but one of the most memorable performances was Pharrell Williams’ star-studded set on the Outdoor Theatre. We also saw the debut of Poetic Kinetics’ “Escape Velocity,” a.k.a. the Coachella astronaut, and the mirrored “Reflection Fields” by Phillip K. Smith among the festival’s major art installations.
A nearly 40-foot tall astronaut, “Escape Velocity” by L.A. art collective Poetic Kinetics, is reflected in “Reflection Fields” by Phillip K. Smith at the 2014 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Andre 3000 of Outkast performs inside a screen box opening day of the 2014 festival. Andre 3000 and Big Boi reunited for the festival.
(Bethany Mollenkof / Los Angeles Times)
Fans pack the Sahara Tent for the performance of Showtek at Coachella 2014.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Pharell Williams performs at the second weekend of the 2014 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival.
Angus Young duck walked in his traditional schoolboy uniform during AC/DC’s Coachella 2015 headlining performance.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Music fans flock to “Desiderium Eruca,” Poetic Kinetics’ large butterfly sculpture that replaced the “Papilio Merraculous” caterpillar sculpture at Coachella 2015.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Florence + The Machine was one of the memorable performances at Coachella 2015. Singer Florence Welch broke her foot when she leaped from the stage during Weekend 1.
(Marcus Yam / Los Angeles Times)
Aerial performers spin above the crowd at the Do Lab at Coachella 2015.
After breaking his foot the week before Coachella 2016 during Guns N’ Roses’ Troubadour warm-up show, Axl Rose performed on stage at Coachella atop the motorized throne Dave Grohl previously used on tour after breaking his leg.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Alejandro Murcia and Wanda Quintero take a photo in front of R&R Studios’ “Besame Mucho” installation at Coachella 2016. The typographic sign was covered in silk flowers and is among the more memorable art pieces from the year. Today, the installation lives on at Miami International Airport.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Ice Cube’s performance at Coachella in 2016 led to an on-stage reunion with the surviving members of N.W.A, featuring MC Ren and DJ Yella Weekend 1 with Dr. Dre joining them on Weekend 2.
(Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)
Brian Sneed and Claudia Jerez jump as a friend takes their photo in front of the “Katrina Chairs” art installation at Coachella 2016.
The first time Lady Gaga headlined Coachella was in 2017 and it was because she stepped in after Beyoncé had to postpone due to her pregnancy.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Crowds of people take photos of Gustavo Prado’s art piece “Lamp Beside the Golden Door”at Coachella 2017. The sculpture featured more than 2,100 mirrors.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
Kendrick Lamar released “Damn.” the Friday of Coachella 2017 Weekend 1, two days before his headlining performance that included ninjas.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Olalekan Jeyifous’ 50-foot-tall “Crown Ether” treehouse art installation provided a backdrop for photos at Coachella 2017.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
2018
Coachella was already regarded globally as a music festival. Then Beyoncé turned Coachella into the pop culture moment of the year. Coachella became Beychella and her Homecoming performance was nothing short of epic, even becoming its own Netflix special. Beyond Beyoncé, Eminem and The Weeknd headlined, but one of the other standouts was Cardi B’s TLC-inspired performance on the main stage. On the grounds, 2018 was the year “Spectra,” the cylindrical rainbow tower, became part of the festival’s landscape.
Beyoncé’s stunning headlining performance at Coachella 2018 celebrated America’s historically Black colleges and universities. Her set also featured cameos from husband Jay-Z, sister Solange and a Destiny’s Child reunion.
(Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times)
The rainbow-colored cylindrical tower “Spectra” made its debut at Coachella in 2018.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Cardi B performed a set inspired by TLC at Coachella in 2018.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
Festival goers walk in front of Edoardo Tresoldi’s “Etherea” wire mesh cathedral structures and Randy Polumbo’s “Lodestar,” which was made with the fuselage of a military jet, at Coachella 2018.
(Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times)
2019
Ariana Grande, Childish Gambino and Tame Impala headlined Coachella in 2019, but the big memories from that year were the rise of artists like Bad Bunny and Billie Eilish as they were becoming bona fide superstars. Arguably the most memorable performance of the year wasn’t even during normal festival hours — it was when Kanye West held a Sunday Service in the campgrounds on Easter Sunday during Weekend 2. Meanwhile, to mark Coachella’s 20th year, Poetic Kinetics brought back the famous roving Coachella astronaut in a new form as “Overview Effect.”
Bad Bunny’s set at Coachella 2019 included a guest spot from J Balvin.
(Mariah Tauger / Los Angeles Times)
Kanye West’s Easter Sunday Service happened outside of the main festival grounds during Weekend 2 of the Coachella 2019.
(Kent Nishimura / Los Angeles Times)
“Overview Effect,” a roaming astronaut sculpture made by Poetic Kinetics, roams around the 2019 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Club grounds in Indio.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Fans go wild as confetti drops during Tame Impala’s headlining performance at Coachella 2019.
Billie Eilish’s 2022 Coachella headlining turn included a guest spot from Damon Albarn to join her for “Getting Older” and “Feel Good Inc.”
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Wearing the signature blue wigs of Karol G, music fans cheered the star as she arrived on the main stage at Coachella 2022.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Swedish House Mafia x The Weeknd became a last-minute headliner replacement for Kanye West at Coachella 2022.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
One of the largest art installations at Coachella 2022 was Cristopher Cichocki’s “Circular Dimensions x Microscape,” which was made with more than 25,000 feet of PVC tubes and was five stories tall. At night, images were projected on the piece.
Bad Bunny performs at Coachella Weekend 1 in 2023.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
People walk by Güvenç Özel’s sculpture “Holoflux” at Coachella 2023.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Doechii performs at Coachella 2023.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
A reunited Blink-182 joined the Coachella 2023 lineup days before the festival. The band played in the Sahara Tent during Weekend 1 before moving to the main stage Weekend 2 to help fill the gap left by headliner Frank Ocean dropping off the bill.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
2024
Lana del Rey, Tyler, the Creator and Doja Cat headlined the festival in 2024, but one of the big draws was the reunion of No Doubt, who brought out Olivia Rodrigo. Sabrina Carpenter, who is headlining the 2026 festival, also performed on the main stage during the day. The big changes in 2024 were that the main festival grounds expanded with a larger Sahara Tent on the southern end of the site and the addition of the Quasar Stage.
Tyler, the Creator’s headlining set at Coachella 2024 featured the rapper dressed as a park ranger and an elaborate national park-like stage set.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Gwen Stefani of No Doubt performs at Coachella 2024. The band reunited for the festival and brought out Olivia Rodrigo as a guest.
(Christina House / Los Angeles Times)
Doja Cat was the Sunday night headliner at Coachella 2024 and her performance included dancers dressed like yetis.
(Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
Chappell Roan was one of the breakout stars at Coachella 2024.
Mayor Karen Bass has had a lengthy political career, spending six years in the state Legislature, 12 years in Congress and the last three in the top elected office at Los Angeles City Hall.
Now, facing the toughest reelection battle of her career, Bass is marketing herself in a way that might surprise some Angelenos: She’s running as a champion of change.
And she’s not alone.
City Councilmember Nithya Raman, who has represented a Hollywood Hills district since 2020, says her last-minute decision to enter the race was fueled by “a sense of urgency that things needed to change.”
Three other major candidates, all political newcomers, argue that an outsider is needed to shake up the status quo.
“We can no longer keep our city together with duct tape and slurry,” said Rae Huang, a leftist community organizer, at a recent candidate forum on housing and transportation.
The race to embrace the mantle of change in the June 2 primary election comes at a moment of political peril for Bass, a veteran Democrat who has racked up high disapproval numbers in several voter surveys.
In recent months, Bass has revamped her messaging, saying she’s been tackling problems that have “been around for multiple decades,” such as homelessness, sluggish police hiring and trash-strewn streets.
Last week, speaking to the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club, Bass said she wants another four years to finish that work. She also implied that, in her zeal to fix the city’s problems, she quietly pushed out a dozen high-level bureaucrats, including those who dealt with trash pickup and police recruitment.
“Let me just tell you that in three years and three months, it is difficult to change what has been a practice for over four decades,” Bass told the group. “I am very clear that there needs to be massive change, and I’ve done a lot of change.”
Raman has portrayed herself as someone who shook up the system while in office, securing a 4% cap on rent increases for more than 600,000 apartments and opposing initiatives she viewed as “disastrous” for the city’s budget. She said the city is falling short on an array of issues, including traffic deaths and housing affordability.
“So much of what’s happening in L.A., our inability to address our biggest crises — our housing crisis, our homelessness crisis, but also essential services like lights and potholes — so much of this has resulted from a lack of clear urgency in decision-making at City Hall,” said Raman, the first L.A. council member to win office with the backing of the Democratic Socialists of America.
Those types of arguments have elicited salty responses from Huang, tech entrepreneur Adam Miller and conservative reality TV personality Spencer Pratt.
Miller, who described himself as a lifelong Democrat, pointed out that Raman runs the powerful five-member council committee on housing and homelessness. He argued that both she and Bass have failed on those issues, as well as on public safety and much needed infrastructure repairs.
“These are the people who have been running the government,” said Miller, who made a fortune developing education software. “So I don’t understand how they could describe themselves as change-makers. They’re the ones who have been the problem.”
Pratt offered a similar take on social media, calling Raman and Bass “two peas in a pod,” while portraying himself as a change agent.
“I’m a wrecking ball to the status quo,” he said in one post.
Neither Pratt nor his representative responded to an interview request.
In one recent high-profile poll, about 56% of respondents said they had an unfavorable view of Bass. In another, about 40% of those surveyed said they had not yet made up their minds about who should lead the city.
“It’s clear that there are concerns among voters about the direction of the city — and the state, quite frankly,” said Pomona College politics professor Sara Sadhwani, referring to the race for governor. “In both instances, there are lackluster candidates, and so we see voters being very much undecided in both of these incredibly consequential races.”
The election season got underway a little more than a year after the Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead.
Bass, who was out of the country when the fire broke out, was unsteady in her early public appearances and, since then, has faced sharp criticism over the pace of the rebuilding. She has defended her record on the recovery, saying she cut red tape and suspended city permit fees, while also pressing the Trump administration to crack down on insurance companies that fail to compensate wildfire survivors.
The back-and-forth over change and the status quo broke to the surface during last month’s housing forum in downtown L.A.
At one point, Raman voiced alarm over the city’s elevated “people mover” being built at Los Angeles International Airport, saying it is so far behind schedule that it won’t be ready before the World Cup, which starts in June.
Raman said that as mayor, she would ensure that such projects are finished on time — and replace airport leadership if it fails to happen.
“Nithya, you’ve been on City Council for six years, though,” Huang shot back. “Why have you not moved this forward?”
(At five years and four months, Raman’s tenure is slightly less than that.)
Raman countered that, as a council member, she only has control over certain issues.
“So much of what’s going wrong in Los Angeles requires the mayor to get involved,” she said.
Bass did not attend the forum, traveling instead to New Orleans for a reelection fundraiser. Pratt also skipped. In their absence, the three remaining candidates pounded on a wide array of municipal ills, including broken sidewalks, high rents and sluggish housing production.
Raman, at that event and elsewhere, has sought to differentiate herself from Bass, and City Hall more broadly, by highlighting her dissenting votes.
In 2023, Raman opposed a package of police pay increases negotiated by Bass, saying they were too expensive and would deprive other city departments of funding. Last year, she voted against a $2.6-billion upgrade of the Convention Center, citing similar long-term cost concerns.
Bass, for her part, said she’s been shifting the direction of the city in critical ways. Previous city leaders were too hesitant to build temporary housing for homeless people, she said, leaving them to languish on sidewalks while waiting for government-funded apartments to be built.
The mayor said she also pushed for changes in LAPD hiring, not just by making officers’ salaries more competitive, but by hacking away at a slow and bureaucratic recruitment process. Speaking to the Palisades Democrats, Bass said she got that done, in part, by changing the leadership and staff at the city’s personnel department.
Bass told the group she’s preparing to launch an initiative to clean up the city’s streets — and that she made a personnel move in that regard as well.
“In terms of cleanliness, I’ve had to change the leadership of the Department of Sanitation, because I couldn’t get the job done,” she said.
Sadhwani, the Pomona College professor, said she doubts that voters will view Bass as a reform candidate. Raman, she argued, is also part of the establishment.
“They cannot run from the fact that they have been in power,” she said.
Israeli air raids on Lebanon have killed more than 1,450 people, including 126 children, and displaced some 1.2 million residents since March 2, according to Lebanese authorities. The bombardment has wounded more than 4,400 individuals.
In southern Lebanon’s Kfar Hatta, an Israeli attack killed seven people, including a four-year-old girl and a Lebanese soldier, the Ministry of Public Health reported on Sunday. The Israeli military had ordered the forced evacuation of the town the previous evening, an area where many displaced Lebanese had sought refuge.
As invasion expands deeper into southern Lebanon, leaving devastated villages behind, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun has intensified calls for negotiation. “Why don’t we negotiate … until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he pleaded in a televised address on Sunday, hoping to prevent destruction comparable to Israel’s Gaza operation.
In Toul village in the Nabatieh district, a couple were killed while their children, aged 15 and nine, were injured. Multiple bombardments have wiped out entire families in single attacks. Officials report that approximately 25 percent of all victims are women, children and medical workers.
On March 12, the Israeli military expanded its forced evacuation orders for southern Lebanon residents – from the Litani River to north of the Zahrani River, about 40km (25 miles) north of the Israeli border.
The massive displacement has overwhelmed the country’s shelter capacity. Many families are unable to find accommodation, spending nights in streets, vehicles, or public spaces as collective shelters reach maximum capacity. For many, this represents repeated trauma.
Between October 2023 and November 2024, amid cross-border fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, hundreds of thousands of residents of southern Lebanon’s border villages suffered the worst of the violence.
At its height, 899,725 people were forcibly displaced by Israeli forces back then. Most had returned by last October, only to be forced to flee again.
Israeli attacks during those 14 months inflicted extensive damage to homes and infrastructure. The World Bank estimated damage to residential buildings alone at approximately $2.8bn. About 99,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, preventing many families from returning even after the ceasefire.
Billionaire hedge fund founder turned environmental warrior Tom Steyer, a leading Democratic candidate for California governor, is facing mounting questions about how he earned his wealth — notably investments in private prisons that are now being used to house undocumented immigrants facing deportation.
Some of the most vicious political attacks come from his Democratic rivals and Sacramento special interest groups as the June 2 primary election fast approaches, but Steyer has been dogged for years about his past, controversial business ventures and how they help fund his unbridled campaign spending.
Steyer, 68, faced that ire during a town hall event in San Diego last week.
“Tom, you’re not going to come to San Diego and ignore this detention center,” Holly Taylor, a 37-year-old Democrat screamed at Steyer, holding signs with QR codes to help detainees at an Otay Mesa private prison that Steyer’s hedge fund backed. “It’s a concentration camp. They’re drinking water out of a toilet.”
Taylor, a crime scene cleaner from Pacific Beach, is among scores of people who gather weekly at the facility to raise money for detained immigrants to provide them some comfort amid the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
In 1986, Steyer, co-founded Farallon Capital, which had shares valued at $89.1 million in the Corrections Corp. of America in 2005, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. That company, now known as CoreCivic, operates private prisons around the nation that are housing people picked up by federal immigration agents, including the one in Otay Mesa.
It is not the first time Steyer has faced criticism about the connection with private detention facilities. At the California Democratic Party convention in February, protesters dressed in orange prison jumpsuits sought to draw attention to the controversy.
“Before he was a progressive, he made millions off of companies that operate ICE detention centers, that operate private prisons that incarcerated young children,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said during a recent interview with a political influencer known as Mrs. Frazzled.
“His entire campaign is built on the backs of kids in cages,” Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Dublin) wrote Tuesday in a post on X.
People protest outside of a lunch held by California gubernatorial candidate Tom Steyer at the 2026 California Democratic Party State Convention in San Francisco on Feb. 21.
(Jeff Chiu / Associated Press)
Several years earlier, Yale University’s graduate teachers union called upon the school — Steyer’s alma mater — to divest from Farallon because of concerns about how the private prison company treated detainees, notably minorities.
Steyer has repeatedly expressed remorse about his former firm’s ties with the detention company. In 2012, he sold his stake in Farallon, which was named in reference to islands off the coast of San Francisco and was once one of the largest hedge funds in the world.
“I deeply regret that Farallon made that investment, and I personally ordered the investment in CCA to be sold because it did not accord with my values then or now,” Steyer told The Times in 2019 after he launched a short-lived presidential campaign.
Asked to comment about the latest iteration of the controversy, Steyer’s campaign pointed to comments he made in March at a town hall in San Francisco about how among the hundreds of thousands of companies his hedge fund invested in, the private prison company changed the course of his life.
“It was a mistake, and I sold it over 20 years ago, thinking, not that it won’t be profitable, it’s just a mistake. I don’t want to be in that business. But let me say this, it wasn’t just a mistake,” Steyer said. “It was also a big wake-up call that I was in the wrong place, that I was in a business that was taking me to places I absolutely didn’t want to go. And there’s a reason I walked away from that business and walked away from a ton of money, because I felt like that is not the life I want.”
He added that he and his wife, Kat Taylor, have spent the past two decades pushing for rehabilitative justice — treatment instead of mass incarceration except for violent felons.
“Am I a perfect person? No, have I made mistakes? Yes,” Steyer said. “But for those of you who like to read the Bible, there is a moment on the road to Damascus when someone makes a change, and I have made a big change, and I did it a long time ago, and I’ve been pushing very, very hard the other way.”
Farallon also invested in fossil fuel projects, including an Australian coal mine that denuded thousands of acres of koala habitat and generated an enormous amount of carbon emissions.
Steyer, who has a net worth of $2.4 billion according to Forbes, has painted himself as a reformed billionaire who walked away from Farallon because of angst about how he earned his fortune. He has spent hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Democratic causes, notably efforts to fight climate change.
“The truth is that is not where I think there is value, and that is not what I’m seeking in my life,” he said at a Sacramento town hall in March when retired state employee Gina Coates asked how, as a woman of color, she could believe his promises given his privilege as a wealthy white man.
“In terms of trusting me, let me say this, I left my business 14 years ago, and anybody who cared about money would not have done it,” Steyer said.
Steyer later said at the town hall that he left Farallon because he realized that he didn’t want to remain on that path.
“I want to have a meaningful life,” he said. “I want to stand with the people of this state and have actual prosperity. Twelve trillionaires and 40 million people who can’t make rent is not success.”
But Steyer and his wife continue to receive significant income from the hedge fund, including millions of dollars in investments, holdings and various complicated transactions in 2024, according to a statement of economic interest and tax returns he was required to file with the California Secretary of State’s office because of his gubernatorial run.
A Steyer campaign spokesman said Steyer created guardrails to ensure that he does not profit off companies he morally disagrees with.
“Tom has put in place an investment policy to ensure that he does not directly invest in fossil fuels, payday lending, or private prisons,” spokesman Anthony York said. “To the extent he inadvertently incurs exposure to those industries through third-party managers or liquid legacy investments, Tom will donate all profits to charity.”
After leaving Farallon, Steyer became one of the nation’s top Democratic donors. And he has used his wealth to fund his political ambitions. Steyer contributed nearly $342 million of his own money to his short-lived 2020 presidential campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In the 2026 governor’s race, Steyer has donated nearly $112 million to his campaign as of Thursday, according to the California secretary of state’s office. He has been an ubiquitous presence on the airwaves, including local news programs and campaign ads that aired during the “Puppy Bowl” on the Animal Planet channel on Super Bowl Sunday. In the past month, Steyer has aired more than 5,000 ads, according to iSpot, which tracks television commercials.
California, home to 23.1 million registered voters, is home to some of the nation’s most expensive media markets. And candidates, particularly those who are not well known, need to spend heavily on television advertising if they hope to have a successful campaign.
But money is no guarantee of success. Billionaire Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief and formerly a longtime Republican donor, spent $144 million of her money on her 2010 gubernatorial bid. That set a record for a candidate’s contribution in a state race at the time, but Whitman lost to Jerry Brown by nearly 13 percentage points.
In 1998, Democratic multimillionaire Al Checchi who had been the co-chair of Northwest Airlines spent $40 million of his wealth on an unsuccessful run for governor, also a record at the time.
Steyer is one of the top three Democrats in the sprawling field to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom. And his liberal positions are drawing the ire of powerful forces in Sacramento. On Tuesday , the state’s Realtors donated $5 million to an independent expenditure committee opposing Steyer’s bid.
Taylor, who confronted Steyer at the San Diego town hall, said she had not planned to be so vocal. But as the event unfolded, she decided she had to speak, not only to Steyer but to the attendees. She and her compatriots gather every Sunday outside the Otay Mesa facility to raise money to help detainees buy food in the prison commissary and call their families.
“My main issue is that he has gotten financial gain off of these people suffering,” she said.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fires projectiles at northern Israel while Israeli troops push deeper into southern Lebanon.
Published On 5 Apr 20265 Apr 2026
Israeli strikes across southern Lebanon and the capital, Beirut, have killed at least 14 people, a day after Israel threatened to hit Lebanon’s main border crossing with Syria, forcing its closure.
Israeli strikes on Beirut’s southern suburbs on Sunday killed at least four people while 10 people – including a family of six – were killed in Israeli attacks on southern Lebanon.
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A further 39 people were wounded in an Israeli strike on Beirut’s Jnah neighbourhood, according to Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health. The strike hit about 100 metres (330ft) from Rafik Hariri University Hospital, the country’s largest public medical facility, a medical source told the AFP news agency.
Israel has launched air strikes across Lebanon since March 2 after the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into Israel in response to the United States-Israeli war on Iran. Israeli forces have also launched a ground invasion of southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah on Sunday claimed to have fired a cruise missile at an Israeli warship 126km (78 miles) off the Lebanese coast. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military. Al Jazeera was not able to verify the claim.
Although most Israeli strikes against Hezbollah have been conducted by jets and drones, some have come by sea.
In a statement, the Israeli military warned it had “begun striking Hezbollah infrastructure sites” in Beirut’s southern suburbs without providing evidence for its claims.
On Saturday, Israel said it would carry out strikes on the Masnaa border crossing between Lebanon and Syria. Masnaa serves as a vital trade route for both countries and a key gateway to the rest of the region for Lebanese people.
The border post was quickly evacuated on the Lebanese side, and the site was virtually deserted early on Sunday with only a few guards still on duty, according to AFP.
In Syria, Mazen Aloush with the General Authority for Borders and Customs insisted that the crossing, known as Jdeidet Yabous on the Syrian side, was “exclusively for civilian use and is not used for any military purposes”.
Aloush said traffic through the crossing would be temporarily suspended due to the Israeli threat.
Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2 have killed more than 1,400 people, including 126 children, and displaced over 1.2 million, according to Lebanese authorities.
In the southern Lebanese town of Kfar Hatta, an Israeli strike killed seven people including a four-year-old girl and a Lebanese soldier, the Health Ministry said on Sunday.
The previous evening, the Israeli army issued a forced evacuation order for the town, where many displaced people from other parts of southern Lebanon have fled.
In another air strike on southern Lebanon, at least three people were killed and others injured early on Sunday, Lebanon’s National News Agency (NNA) reported.
As Israeli troops push deeper across their border into southern Lebanon and destroy villages, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun reiterated his call for talks with Israel, saying he wanted to spare southern Lebanon from destruction on the scale seen in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
“Why don’t we negotiate … until we can at least save the homes that have not yet been destroyed?” he proposed in a televised address on Sunday.
SACRAMENTO — Every morning, Jack Kavanagh brews himself a cup of coffee or tea, pads down a short hallway, past the dining room, and turns left into his small home office, where he brings California to the world.
It’s been his routine for decades, through all manner of upheaval and events — social, political, natural and man-made.
Kavanagh, a somewhat-retired former TV newsman, has documented the policy and personalities behind those developments one curated paragraph at a time, complete with links, so others can follow his trail, feel the pulse of the state and take away what they will.
California: Unbiased and unvarnished.
What began as a summary for colleagues at a television station in Sacramento has developed a worldwide following, an achievement noteworthy not just for its duration — Kavanagh’s catalog may be the state’s longest-running news aggregator — but for all the things his website is not.
There are no flashy graphics on Rough & Tumble. No eyeball-grabbing videos, no partisan commentary or agenda, and none of the edge or snark that greases the gears of the perpetual-political-outrage machine.
There are just headlines and short summaries, presented as simply and unadorned as the plain-spoken Kavanagh himself. “The bottom line,” he said, “is trust” — vouching that an article is credible and worthy of a reader’s time.
“It all comes down to that. And now, with the age of AI fakes and all the other social media and stuff like that, it’s even more important. It’s even more unique.”
Kavanagh, 78, is a New Englander by birth and Californian by choice.
He grew up in Providence, R.I., and by his own account was aimless until his 21st year. One night, in June 1968, Kavanagh watched the small black-and-white television in his bedroom as live coverage of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination unfolded. Captivated, he knew from that moment on what he wished to do with his life.
A low-level job at a local radio station led to an on-air position at its TV affiliate, where Kavanagh’s big break came in 1978 when a massive blizzard hammered the Northeast. His marathon coverage garnered national notice and, two years later, an offer to move to a larger market in Milwaukee. He was prepared to go, when another offer came from a TV station out West.
“Do you know many nanoseconds it takes,” Kavanagh asked rhetorically, “to make a decision between Milwaukee, Wisc., and Sacramento, Calif.?”
Two Emmys for television reporting adorn Jack Kavanagh’s home office in Sacramento.
(Sara Nevis/For The Times)
Kavanagh had never set foot in the state and part of his steep California learning curve was devouring as many newspapers — back when they abounded — as he could. He noticed a large stack that sat untouched each day in the newsroom; most of his colleagues, he said, were simply too busy to dive in. So he began typing up a summary of the top headlines and stuffing copies in people’s mailboxes.
When the internet was still in its infancy — Kavanagh guesses the year was 1994, or so — he began putting his compendium online, so those working at the station’s Stockton bureau could partake as well.
There wasn’t much interest. But people in the capital began noticing. Kavanagh’s daily wrap-up developed an audience among political insiders — lawmakers, lobbyists, legislative staffers — and then a following that grew to include other reporters and, eventually, readers throughout California and beyond.
Rough & Tumble — the name captures the sweat and grit of politics — has continued without interruption for 30-plus years. In that time, Kavanagh has missed only a few days here and there.
That includes in 2004, when he underwent quadruple bypass surgery. Another time, when Kavanagh was suffering ulcerative colitis, he brought his laptop and worked from a hospital bed. (The laptop also accompanies Kavanagh and his very indulgent wife of 42 years on their vacations.)
Kavanagh typically starts each morning scanning dozens of news sites. He posts the big headlines of the day. He also looks for trends and stories that connect the dots, which are collected beneath subheads — AI, water, housing, education and the like.
“I want it to be a tip sheet for anybody who is in a Fortune 500 company, or who is a kid on a scholarship in a high school somewhere,” Kavanagh said over lunch at a favorite Mexican restaurant. “I want them both to be able to zoom through this and figure out what’s going on and move onto something else.”
Mindful of his global audience, he updates his site with fresh headlines starting in the late afternoon. (Analytics allow Kavanagh to watch as the world wakes up and readers from as far away as Russia and China, represented by a blue dot, begin showing up on his computer monitor.) In all, he said, he devotes four to five hours a day to his one-man enterprise.
Rough & Tumble gets about 1.1 million page views a year, Kavanagh said, and while it’s not a huge moneymaker, the business allows him to write off his many subscriptions. A small amount of advertising also helps pay for the occasional trip.
Years after leaving the television business and a brief career as a media coach, Kavanagh runs the site as a kind of public service and a way to stay engaged and keep mentally fit. He’s still captivated by his adopted home state. “Every day,” he said, “I learn something new about California that I didn’t know yesterday.”
Kavanagh has no succession plan. He said Rough & Tumble will end the day he does — or sooner, if artificial intelligence renders Kavanagh and his role as host, news-gatherer and California guide obsolete.
Kim Paul, executive director of the Piikani Lodge Health Institute, a nonprofit on the Blackfeet Reservation that promotes health and well-being, saw the email notification flash across her computer screen as she was working late one day recently.
It was the U.S. Department of Agriculture saying a nearly $9-million grant contract with Piikani Lodge had been terminated.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture has determined that awards under this program involved discriminatory preferences based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and wasteful spending that did little to further lawful agricultural land purchases,” the USDA wrote.
Paul was stunned. Piikani Lodge had planned to use the grant to improve operations for Native and non-Native farmers and ranchers in the Montana region. The nonprofit had already separately acquired 600 acres on the Blackfeet Reservation and planned to use the USDA funds to build a training hub for food producers and support about 300 farmers and ranchers in Glacier and Pondera counties.
Paul said she became short of breath when she saw the email. She dreaded sharing the news with her team.
“It was horror,” she said. “The horror of losing stability for our community.”
Funded through the Biden-era American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, the Increasing Land, Capital and Market Access Program was designed to support “underserved” farmers and ranchers. It awarded about $300 million to 50 grantees in 2023. Forty-nine of those grants were terminated last month.
At least two additional projects in Montana were affected by the cancellations: a Chippewa Cree Tribe project to purchase land and train young farmers and ranchers how to manage it; and one run by South Dakota-based Four Bands Community Fund that would have trained and financially supported at least 25 low-income agricultural producers in North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Montana.
Montana-based awardees called the terminations “devastating.” They also say the grant cancellations were based on a false presumption that tribal initiatives fall under the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion — DEI — rubric, and that USDA claims of wasteful spending are baseless.
Asked for comment, a USDA spokesperson said in a statement Thursday that the agency “has worked to clean up the mess left for us by the last Administration. To no surprise, a peek behind the curtain of this Biden-era program revealed the egregious misuse of taxpayer dollars.”
Piikani Lodge Health Institute leaders say they will have to restructure budgets and reconfigure staffing to keep some semblance of their project going. The Chippewa Cree Tribal project may be halted altogether. Four Bands Community Fund did not respond to an interview request by publication deadline. Awardees say the terminations hinder economic progress, not just in their communities but across the state.
Montana projects targeted
The Chippewa Cree Tribe in north central Montana was awarded a grant of nearly $6 million for a land acquisition project.
Chippewa Cree planning director Neal Rosette said the tribe planned to purchase agricultural land on and around the reservation and train prospective farmers and ranchers how to manage it.
Though reservation land can be used for farming and ranching, Rosette said, land prices can keep people from entering the industry. The Rocky Boy’s Reservation is home to almost 3,400 people, about 35% of whom live below the poverty line, according to U.S. census data. The median household income on the reservation is $49,550, almost $26,000 less than the state average.
“We are trying to give opportunities to our young folks to make a living,” Rosette said.
Rosette said people working on the project had been trying to close on a 320-acre reservation property for months. The land costs about $400,000, but, according to Rosette, the tribe has received only about $50,000 of the nearly $6-million grant since 2023. The tribe, he said, asked USDA repeatedly to release the funds, but received minimal communication from the agency.
“They drug their feet, drug their feet, and then finally they pulled the rug out from under us,” he said.
Rosette has written many grants for the tribe in the past. He said receiving the termination letter from USDA marked “the first time I’ve ever got to the point where I felt like crying.”
“It’s so, so, so cruel,” he said. “It’s the worst feeling in the world. It was devastating for everybody. We were so proud of this project. We were so happy that we were finally going to be able to recover some lands for the benefit of our young people. And now it’s gone.”
Micaela Young, development director at Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said the canceled grant will delay construction on the community training center on the Blackfeet Reservation.
The Piikani Lodge project included building an industrial community kitchen where agricultural producers could prepare and process products such as jam and jerky.
In its termination letter to Piikani Lodge, the USDA cited a “$20,000 allocation for a [barbecue] smoker” as an example of funding for items “outside the program’s mission of increasing land access.” The USDA has also mentioned a “$20,000 [barbecue] smoker” in statements to other media outlets as an example of “inappropriate spending.”
Paul said the characterization is hurtful.
“We did all this work, we spent so many years on this,” she said. “To say this was built on fraud? It’s a travesty. This was going to be five years of jobs for our people. Can you imagine the economic development that would come from that?”
‘’DEI’ is the new buzzword’
Paul and Rosette both took issue with the USDA’s assertion that programs benefiting tribes fall into the category of DEI. It’s well established in federal law that tribal citizenship is a political classification, not a racial one.
In a May 2025 memorandum, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins acknowledged the distinction, writing that “the Department’s unique government-to-government relationship” with tribes and their members “are legally distinct from policy-based Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs.”
“We are a sovereign nation,” Rosette said of the Chippewa Cree Tribe. “We have a political relationship with this government.”
Democratic state Sen. Jonathan Windy Boy, a citizen of the Chippewa Cree Tribe who is running for Congress in Montana’s eastern district, called the agriculture department’s DEI reasoning “ludicrous.”
“‘DEI’ is the new buzzword in D.C.,” he said. “Why isn’t our delegation protecting the sovereign status of the tribes? The bottom line is we don’t have representation in D.C.”
Asked for comment on the grant terminations, a spokesperson for the incumbent in the eastern district, Rep. Troy Downing, said his “office is aware of the rescinded grants and welcomes input from community members regarding their impact.” A spokesperson for Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) said the senator “is looking into the grant cancellations and will always work to support Montana’s tribal communities.”
Sen. Tim Sheehy and Rep. Ryan Zinke, both Republicans, did not respond to requests for comment.
Walter Schweitzer, president of the Montana Farmers Union, said that as land, livestock and equipment prices increase, and as more farms are purchased by corporate entities, it becomes increasingly hard for young people to enter the agriculture industry.
“The average age of a farmer or rancher is somewhere around 60,” he said. “We need to encourage and incentivize any way we can to get young people involved in agriculture. And having diversity in who gets into agriculture is a positive thing because they bring a diverse set of ideas.”
Young, of Piikani Lodge Health Institute, said agricultural producers living on tribal land also face unique challenges. A patchwork of historical and sometimes conflicting federal policies have congealed over the course of more than a century into an unwieldy system of property ownership on reservations. Banks have not learned to effectively navigate the legal, bureaucratic and financial peculiarities of that system, making it difficult for prospective producers to access the capital necessary to enter the agricultural industry. Tribes, Young said, are also often located far from markets where they could sell their products.
“These kinds of projects that bring capital into Native communities can really help revitalize their main streets, increase public safety, there’s the opioid crisis, the suicide crisis in tribal communities, and people are really looking for hope,” Young said. “People are looking for jobs. Families need that income. So this kind of work really does lift up our Native communities to strengthen the overall state.”
What’s next?
Piikani Lodge leaders said they plan to file an appeal through the National Appeals Division, which reports directly to the secretary of agriculture, before the 30-day deadline.
Andrew Berger, director of agriculture and climate adaptation at Piikani Lodge, said the organization is drafting a petition urging restoration of the funds.
“We’re still wrapping our heads around this,” he said. “[The grant] supported salaries and internships and all kinds of things. So we need to fill those gaps with other funding.”
Rosette isn’t sure whether the Chippewa Cree Tribe will file an appeal, which he noted requires time and resources. He said the tribe plans to ask the USDA to reconsider its decision.
“Whether they will listen?” he said. “Who knows?”
This story was originally published by Montana Free Press and distributed through a partnership with the Associated Press.
It was a risky move and Jonathan Torres knew it, but he did it anyway. He let an out-of-town guest stay with him in his room.
Torres, 40, had been living at the Highland Park Motel as part of Inside Safe, Mayor Karen Bass’ flagship program to combat homelessness. He and his neighbors, many of them from a downtown encampment, were told that visitors were not allowed.
Still, Torres kept having people over. After the third violation, he said, the facility kicked him out.
Jonathan Torres spent about two years in a city-leased motel in Highland Park. He told The Times he was kicked out of the facility in December.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“It’s nobody’s fault but my own, but I just feel it’s unfair,” said Torres, who now lives in a tent in Chinatown. “In the real world, you’re allowed to have people come over. You have visitors. That’s part of keeping your sanity, you know?”
Los Angeles has spent more than $300 million on Inside Safe since Bass launched the program in December 2022, clearing scores of homeless encampments and moving about 5,800 people into interim housing — mostly hotels and motels. The goal was to get each of those people into permanent housing, typically taxpayer-funded apartments.
But even as the mayor’s initiative brings more people indoors, a growing number are winding up back on the street.
About This Story
The Times’ reporting on Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program was undertaken as part of the USC Annenberg Center for Health Journalism’s 2025 Data Fellowship.
The longer the program exists, the greater the share of participants who have returned to “unsheltered” homelessness, according to monthly dashboards which were posted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA, and analyzed by The Times.
Jeremiah Flores, center, packs up his belongings during an Inside Safe operation in North Hollywood last month.
In 2023, at the program’s one-year mark, nearly 20% had returned to the street, according to numbers posted by LAHSA at the time.
Halfway into Bass’ four-year term, the figure had climbed above 30%.
In December, as the program finished its third year, about 40% of the people who had gone indoors — 2,300 of the 5,800 — were back on the street, according to LAHSA’s dashboard. That includes people who were kicked out of their housing or disappeared from the system altogether.
The growing exodus reflects the challenges Bass faces while trying to help some of the city’s neediest residents, many of whom struggle with mental health conditions, substance use issues or major physical ailments.
Workers with Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program clean up a homeless encampment along Hollywood Boulevard in 2024.
(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)
Bass, asked about the worrisome trend, said she believes that Inside Safe participants need more services to address those issues. She also said she suspects that the longer people stay, the more likely they are to violate the rules and face expulsion.
The goal of Inside Safe is to find permanent homes within 90 days, with a maximum stay of six months, according to the written agreement issued by the city to each participant.
At this point, the average stay is 362 days — just shy of a year, according to recent LAHSA figures.
Bass did not offer any definitive conclusions, saying the city now has outside researchers assessing the problem.
“It’s critically important that we look at the people who left, why they left [and] what do we need to do strengthen the interim housing that we have,” she said. “I have my opinions about it, but the opinions have to be based in science.”
Bass has staked much of her reelection campaign on her handling of the homelessness crisis, which she made a top priority as soon as she took office. She credits Inside Safe with producing a 17.5% drop in “unsheltered homelessness” — people living outdoors or in their vehicles — over a two-year span. That number fell from about 33,000 to nearly 27,000, according to the most recent homeless count.
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass prepares to leave a homeless encampment along the San Diego (405) Freeway in Van Nuys targeted by Inside Safe in July. “The homeless should never be living in these conditions,” she said.
By clearing encampments, Inside Safe also benefits the surrounding community, making sidewalks more accessible and reducing the number of encampment fires, Bass said.
UCLA Law School professor emeritus Gary Blasi, an expert on homelessness, said the program has become too expensive to justify the results — and is in need of “a thorough re-engineering.”
Blasi said there were never enough vouchers and low-cost apartments to provide permanent housing to Inside Safe participants in a timely way. As a result, the city has been paying for them to live in expensive motel rooms for long stretches, he said.
“Once they started having people in interim housing for nine months or a year, that should have rang some alarm bells, because that’s just not sustainable,” he said.
Last summer, the Inside Safe program cleared away a large homeless encampment next to the San Diego Freeway in Van Nuys. Some residents went to the Budget Inn in North Hills.
Inside Safe participants also face a wide array of rules. They are barred from leaving the premises for three consecutive days without prior approval. Alcohol and illegal drugs are prohibited in their rooms, which are inspected multiple times a day.
Participants also are frequently barred from bringing in outside food, to keep from attracting roaches, mice and other pests.
“The rules are dumb. They treat houseless people like children. They don’t give people agency,” said Paisley Mares, who lives in an RV in the San Fernando Valley and has several friends who took part in the program.
Executives with the nonprofit groups that run the Inside Safe facilities said the restrictions are needed to protect residents, keeping them on track to find permanent housing.
Violence, threats of violence and property damage are prohibited, and can result in immediate removal from the program. The ban on guests is designed to prevent people from being physically attacked, sexually assaulted or engaging in high-risk behavior, such as drug use, behind closed doors, those nonprofit leaders said.
“We are bringing people indoors, mostly from encampments, where drugs are often the trade of the street. There is also often physical violence. That’s the way people survive on the streets,” said John Maceri, chief executive officer of the nonprofit the People Concern, which runs two Inside Safe motels in Hollywood. “All of those behaviors don’t stop when people come into an Inside Safe setting.”
Executives at the People Concern estimate that 50% to 65% of the shelter clients they work with — not just for Inside Safe, but other homeless housing programs — have serious issues with drugs or alcohol. The number with serious mental health issues, particularly trauma, is also “very high,” they said.
Inside Safe providers acknowledged that motel rooms can be a huge adjustment, leaving people feeling lonely and isolated. They said they work closely with participants to improve their behavior — and turn to expulsion only as a last resort.
“My goal is never to exit anyone to the streets,” said Joseph Bradford III, chief executive officer of BARE Truth, which runs two Inside Safe motels on the Eastside. “I want to keep people inside until they find permanent housing.”
By now, Inside Safe operations are a well-oiled machine. Sanitation trucks roll up to encampments. Traffic officers cordon off the sidewalk with yellow tape. Encampment residents lug their bags onto a bus and head to their destinations.
Robert Martinez, 40, moved to a Budget Inn in North Hills last summer from an encampment near the 405 Freeway. He had been homeless for about five years and jobless even longer, he said.
Martinez, who used to work at a water filtration company, said the Inside Safe motel was better than the street. Still, he chafed at the rules. He wanted his children to visit, which was not permitted.
In November, after learning that a beloved uncle had died, Martinez left the motel for several days — and didn’t “want to be around anybody.”
When he returned, he said, program staffers informed him he’d been away more than 72 hours and would have to leave.
“I had 30 minutes to get my stuff,” said Martinez, who has been living on a sidewalk in Van Nuys.
Erica Y. Pena, left, and Jose Monteon at a homeless encampment in Van Nuys. Monteon told The Times he spent about two months in an Inside Safe motel last year.
(David Butow / For The Times)
Jose Monteon, 29, moved into the same motel as part of the same Inside Safe operation. He said he was kicked out two months later, after program managers accused him of fighting and making threats.
Monteon, who has spent some nights sleeping his car, denied getting physical. But he admitted expressing frustration over the theft of his bicycle and other possessions.
“Yes, I said some s—. But I never said it to a specific person,” he said. “I said ‘Whoever I find out is taking my s—, I’m going to stab their b— ass.’”
Monteon corrected himself. “My bad — poke. I didn’t say stab, I said poke.”
Ken Craft, whose nonprofit supervises the Budget Inn, declined to discuss specific cases. But he said his staff gives Inside Safe participants three chances — unless they have engaged in threats or violence — and tries to find another place for them to go.
“We’re trying to end homelessness, not have people recycle back to homelessness,” he said.
Even with its challenges, Inside Safe has been gradually moving a greater percentage of its residents into permanent housing, where they are no longer governed by such a wide array of rules.
In December, about one out of every four people who participated in Inside Safe since its inception was in permanent housing, according to that month’s LAHSA dashboard. Two years earlier, that figure was about 15%.
Once the program’s hotels, motels and other temporary lodging are factored in, about 55% were in some form of housing.
Bass said those facilities are a vast improvement over the street, providing bathrooms, heating, air conditioning, hot showers, three meals a day and doors that lock. The program is one of several reasons why Los Angeles County officials reported a double-digit reduction in the homeless mortality rate in 2024, she said.
“The value of the interim housing, number one, is to save lives,” Bass said.
Torres, the Inside Safe participant now in a tent in Chinatown, experienced the difference. He entered the program with a history of gastrointestinal issues and abdominal surgeries.
Jonathan Torres walks his dog in November. At the time, he was living in an Inside Safe motel in Highland Park.
(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
“The whole time I had my housing, not once did I get sick or have to be hospitalized,” said Torres, who grew up in Redlands and Baldwin Park.
Torres said he was in the program for nearly two years. The longer he stayed, the more frustrated he grew over the wait for permanent housing.
In November, Torres told The Times he had received a notice stating that he had violated the motel’s prohibition on guests and was in danger of being expelled.
By then, he was worried about his health and his dog Waku, a Belgian Malinois/Akita mix. (The program allows “emotional support” animals.)
First To Serve, the nonprofit that supervises the hotel, did not respond to inquiries from The Times.
Even after the written notice, Torres struggled to comply with the rules. He said he allowed a woman from out of state to stay in his room for more than a week during last year’s rains.
The day after Christmas, he was back on the street.
In February, his dog was struck and killed by a car. Days later, sanitation workers cleared the encampment where he’d been living. Soon afterward, he was in the hospital, receiving treatment for a blockage in his bowels.
He eventually returned to Chinatown, setting up another tent. He’s been using meth, saying it helps with his medical issues.
For now, Torres has found some of the companionship he craved. In recent days, he’s been sharing his tent with his new girlfriend.
Authorities in New Iberia, Louisiana, have said the incident does not appear to be an intentional car-ramming.
Published On 4 Apr 20264 Apr 2026
An estimated 15 people have been injured in Louisiana’s Iberia Parish, after a car struck participants at a Lao New Year parade in the United States.
According to a statement from the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office on Saturday, some attendees were seriously injured.
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“Based on the preliminary investigation, this does not appear to be an intentional act,” said Rebecca Melancon, a sheriff’s office spokesperson.
The Acadian Ambulance company confirmed on social media that it had taken 11 people to the hospital using ground transport, and another two victims were airlifted to seek urgent care. Ten ambulances and two medical helicopters were deployed to the scene.
The incident took place in New Iberia, a city of more than 28,000 in Iberia Parish, some 34km (21 miles) south of Lafayette, Louisiana. It is situated roughly 214km (130 miles) west of New Orleans.
The Louisiana Lao New Year Festival parade is an annual tradition on Easter weekend in the parish, and the celebration features live music, food vendors and a beauty pageant.
In the aftermath of the car crash, the festival issued a statement on social media, saying that all of its security resources had been surged to the scene.
“We are profoundly saddened by the news of the incident near the festival grounds,” festival organisers wrote. “We are awaiting additional details from authorities as they become available.”
They added that Saturday’s musical events were cancelled, though vendors were permitted to stay open until 9pm local time (2:00am GMT, Sunday).
“We are praying for the victims and for their families during this difficult time,” the organisers wrote. “As of now, and if security resources are restored for tomorrow (Sunday) we will reopen only the religious services of the festival, and vendors will stay open.”
The Lao New Year is a tradition typically associated with Buddhism, and it takes place each year in April, as the dry heat in Laos gives way to the wet monsoon season.
Louisiana is home to a small but vibrant Lao community. In New Iberia, one neighbourhood is called Lanexang Village — roughly translated to the “million elephants” village — and it is reportedly home to hundreds of Lao people.
Many arrived as a result of the Vietnam War, which bled into Laos, with communist and US-backed forces clashing over the course of nearly 16 years.
The Pathet Lao, a communist movement, ultimately took over the country in 1975, ending Laos’s monarchy. Hundreds of thousands of people fled in the aftermath, with many resettling in countries like Thailand and the US.
Russian air attacks on northeast Ukraine over the past 24 hours have killed at least four people and injured 11 others, according to Oleh Syniehubov, Kharkiv’s regional governor.
Syniehubov said on Saturday that the attacks targeted the city of Kharkiv and 11 other towns and villages.
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Also in northeastern Ukraine, at least 11 people, including a child, were injured after a Russian drone struck a building in the region of Sumy in an overnight attack.
“Attack drones struck a 16-storey building and a private residential area [in the region of Sumy]. Residents of the burning high-rise were promptly evacuated … The fire has been extinguished,” the State Emergency Service of Ukraine’s press office said in a statement.
“Law enforcement officers are documenting the aftermath of the shelling, recording the damage and gathering evidence of war crimes,” reported Russia’s Interfax news agency.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that the defence forces had “shot down or neutralised” 260 of 286 Russian drones fired towards the “north, south, east and centre of the country” in overnight attacks.
It added that 11 drones “were recorded striking 10 locations” with debris from the downed drones found at “six locations”.
Meanwhile in Russia, at least one person was killed and four others injured in drone and missile attacks in its southern Rostov region, according to its governor.
The overnight attack took place in the port city of Taganrog, Rostov Governor Yury Slyusar said on Telegram.
Slyusar said that the injured people – three of whom were Russians and one foreign national – were in “critical condition”.
A missile also struck a “commercial facility”, said Slyusar, causing a fire to break out on the premises. People were evacuated and the fire was brought under control, he said.
Separately, falling drone debris hit a foreign-flagged cargo vessel in the Sea of Azov, causing a fire, while air defences destroyed drones over Taganrog Bay and other districts, said Slyusar, who did not specify the origin of the attacks.
The Sea of Azov, an economic lifeline connecting Russia and Ukraine, acts as a key shipping route for industrial cargo.
Stalled diplomacy
Diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s full-scale war on Ukraine that started in February 2022 continue to stall.
The United States, Russia and Ukraine have held three rounds of high-level, trilateral talks in the United Arab Emirates’ Abu Dhabi and Switzerland’s Geneva this year in a bid to negotiate an end to the war.
A fourth round of talks due to take place last month was postponed due to the US-Israel war on Iran, with no progress on the vital question of territory in eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had proposed an Easter truce, which Russia’s foreign ministry had rejected, dismissing it as a “PR stunt”.
As its price for peace, Russia is insisting that Ukraine cede the fifth of the eastern area of Donbas that it has been unable to conquer during four years of war, with Zelenskyy refusing to countenance the prospect, which in any case goes against the country’s constitution.
Kyiv believes it can keep defending its remaining “fortress belt” of industrial towns and cities in the Donbas for years, citing the glacial pace of Russia’s front-line advances since 2023 as its soldiers run into a defensive wall of Ukrainian drones.
Melvin Edwards, a sculptor best known for abstract steel works that illustrated the history and resistance of African Americans, died March 30 at his Baltimore home. He was 88.
His death was confirmed by Alexander Gray Associates, the gallery that represents him.
Edwards rose to prominence in 1963 with the first works of what would become his most notable series, “Lynch Fragments.” A collection of small, wall-mounted sculptures, he combined fragments of found and recycled steel and welded them into forms of chains, sharp tools, barbed wire and other metal objects.
The series spans several decades, drawing inspiration from racial violence during the civil rights movement, the Vietnam War, his personal relationship to Africa, people in his own community and across the African diaspora.
Over the years, Edwards made more than 300 “Lynch Fragments.”
Recurring materials in his works held layered meanings. Barbed wire served as a symbol of violence and oppression, but also of agriculture, cultivation and survival.
“Melvin was somebody who looked at multiple dimensions of any situation or person,” said Alexander Gray, a gallery owner and close personal friend of Edwards. “He really looked at the world, not through any kind of binary lens, but through a personal lens that was respectful of other people’s perspective.”
Born May 4, 1937, in Houston, the eldest of four children, Edwards grew up surrounded by racial segregation. As a child, he took drawing classes and visited museums, and he also played football.
“The world that I came from was American racism, segregation. I may have been young, but I paid attention,” Edwards said in an introduction to “Lynch Fragments” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
Melvin Edwards, seen here in fellow sculptor Hal Gebhardt’s class at USC sometime between 1959 and 1960, died March 30 at his home in Baltimore.
His artistic career began while studying art on a football scholarship at USC, where he met and was mentored by Hungarian painter Francis de Erdely. Edwards’ L.A. roots were critical to his identity as an artist. Here, he began experimenting with welded steel, which became his primary medium.
After moving to New York City in 1967, he became, in 1970, the first African American sculptor to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art.
Throughout his career, Edwards remained committed to public art, creating sculptures for universities, public housing projects and museums around the world.
Those who knew him described him as overwhelmingly positive, which shaped both his work and his relationships.
“Melvin’s community of artists was remarkable because it spanned the globe. You could spin a globe, land anywhere, say the name of the country or the city, and he would know three people there, minimum,” said Gray. “He could recall a conversation he had with a person 35 years ago without any hesitation. He had an incredible constellation of people that he was surrounded by.”
WASHINGTON — A crew member was rescued after an American aircraft went down Friday in Iran, the Associated Press reported, citing U.S. and Israeli officials.
U.S. forces launched a rescue mission in southwestern Iran after at least one American crew member ejected from a fighter jet downed by Iranian defenses, according to a U.S. official and news outlets.
The downing of the jet, an F-15E, was confirmed to The Times by a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. That type of jet reportedly carries a standard crew of two, but it was not clear if more than one crew member ejected.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has maintained for weeks that the U.S. has “complete, uncontested control of Iranian airspace” after destroying the country’s air defenses.
“Iran has no air defenses, Iran has no air force,” he said at a March 13 Pentagon news conference. “Today, as we speak, we fly over the top of Iran and Tehran, fighters and bombers all day, picking targets as they choose, as our intelligence gets better and better and more refined.”
But the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps claimed that a new type of Iranian air defense system deployed for the first time in recent days had shot down a warplane on Friday.
The statements stirred a flurry of conflicting instructions from Iranian state-affiliated broadcasters. One local television channel initially encouraged viewers to search for the downed pilot and “shoot them as soon as you see them.”
It then changed the instructions, according to the Associated Press, after local police issued a statement asking the public to capture and turn in American pilots alive to security agencies to “receive a precious prize.”
On social media, Iranian accounts posted videos purporting to show helicopters searching for downed pilots in Iran’s western and southern provinces, according to a report from Fars News.
Fars also reported officials in Iran’s southwest were offering a “valuable reward” to anyone “who captures the American pilot alive.”
Images of a tail section posted on social media had markings indicating it was from the 48th Fighter Wing, which is based at RAF Lakenheath in the United Kingdom, according to Peter Layton, a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute in Australia, in an interview with NBC News.
U.S. and Israel escalate attacks on infrastructure
The development came as U.S. and Israeli forces escalated attacks on civilian sites and key infrastructure across Iran Friday, including strikes on residential buildings, health centers and Iran’s largest bridge, with President Trump warning that the U.S. “hasn’t even started destroying what’s left in Iran.”
On his social media, the president posted dramatic images of the smoldering B1 bridge, a towering cable-suspended viaduct that was severed in U.S.-Israel strikes late Thursday.
“The biggest bridge in Iran comes tumbling down, never to be used again — Much more to follow!” Trump wrote.
Connecting Tehran to the city of Karaj, the $400-million bridge was Iran’s largest, and was often regarded as one of the most prominent, expensive and complex engineering endeavors in the Middle East.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmail Baghaei labeled the attack a “war crime in the style of ISIS terrorism.” Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi called the act a sign of moral collapse by “an enemy in disarray,” stating that such actions will not compel Iranians to surrender.
“Every bridge and building will be built back stronger. What will never recover: damage to America’s standing.”
The attacks come after Trump announced what he described as a two- to three-day “off-ramp” from hostilities, while simultaneously warning he would bring Iran “back to the Stone Ages” if it didn’t cede to U.S. demands.
Reports from Iranian state media and international monitoring groups indicate strikes have also hit homes, religious centers, universities and municipal infrastructure across multiple provinces, raising concerns among humanitarian organizations about the widening scope of targets.
World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday that the U.S. and Israel have carried out routine attacks on Iranian healthcare facilities since March 1.
“WHO has verified over 20 attacks on health care in Iran, resulting in at least nine deaths, including that of an infectious diseases health worker and a member of the Iranian Red Crescent Society,” Tedros wrote on X.
Iran’s health ministry estimated about 2,076 people have been killed and 26,500 wounded by U.S.-Israeli attacks since fighting broke out Feb. 28. An estimated 1,300 have been killed in Lebanon, according to its health ministry, while more than two dozen people have died in Gulf states and the occupied West Bank.
Thirteen U.S. service members have been killed, and 19 Israeli service members have been reported dead in a five-week-old war that has triggered growing unease stateside.
A recent Pew Research Center survey conducted in late March found that most Americans opposed direct U.S. military involvement in a war with Iran. A separate Gallup poll reported declining approval for the administration’s handling of foreign policy.
Lawmakers in both parties have raised concerns about Israel’s influence in the Trump administration’s decision to enter a lengthy conflict, stoking debates over military aid and executive war powers.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that she plans to oppose future military aid to Israel, including for its Iron Dome defense systems. She argued that the Israeli government recently funded a $45-billion defense budget and is “well able” to bankroll its war without U.S. help.
“I will not support Congress sending more taxpayer dollars and military aid to a government that consistently ignores international law and U.S. law,” she said on X.
Iran hit desalination plant and oil refinery
Iran returned fire, again aiming at infrastructure targets operated by its Gulf neighbors. A series of airstrikes set Kuwait’s Mina al-Ahmadi oil refinery on fire, the Associated Press reported, as Kuwaiti firefighters were working to knock down several blazes there.
Kuwait also reported that an Iranian attack significantly damaged a desalination plant, which supplies drinking water to the region.
Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Israel all scrambled to intercept incoming Iranian missiles Friday, according to reports, despite the Pentagon’s assurances that Iran’s military facilities and missile capacity have been largely wiped out.
Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates shut down a gas field after a missile interception reportedly rained debris on it and started a fire, the Associated Press reported.
The war has pushed Iran to tighten its grip over the Strait of Hormuz, sending oil prices soaring 50%, upending stock markets, and stirring supply chain disruptions that threaten to destabilize global food markets.
Americans felt the oil rally again this week, after Trump’s Wednesday address dashed investors’ hopes of a swift end to the conflict, sending U.S. crude prices up 11% Thursday and another half point on Friday.
The Afghan man had fled the Taliban for refuge in upstate New York when U.S. immigration authorities ordered him deported to Uganda. The Cuban woman was working at a Texas Chick-fil-A when she was arrested after a minor traffic accident and told she was being sent to Ecuador.
There’s the Mauritanian man living in Michigan told he’d have to go to Uganda, the Venezuelan mother in Ohio told she’d be sent to Ecuador and the Bolivians, Ecuadorians and so many others across the country ordered sent to Honduras.
They are among more than 13,000 immigrants who were living legally in the U.S., waiting for rulings on asylum claims, when they suddenly faced so-called third-country deportation orders, destined for countries where most had no ties, according to the nonprofit group Mobile Pathways, which pushes for transparency in immigration proceedings.
Yet few have been deported, even as the White House pushes for ever more immigrant expulsions. Thanks to unexplained changes in U.S. policy, many are now mired in immigration limbo, unable to argue their asylum claims in court and unsure if they’ll be shackled and put on a deportation flight to a country they’ve never seen.
Some are in detention, though it’s unclear how many. All have lost permission to work legally, a right most had while pursuing their asylum claims, compounding the worry and dread that has rippled through immigrant communities.
And that may be the point.
“This administration’s goal is to instill fear into people. That’s the primary thing,” said Cassandra Charles, a senior staff attorney with the National Immigration Law Center, which has been fighting the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda. The fear of being deported to an unknown country could, advocates believe, drive migrants to abandon their immigration cases and decide to return to their home countries.
Things may be changing.
In mid-March, top Immigration and Customs Enforcement legal officials told field attorneys with the Department of Homeland Security in an email to stop filing new motions for third-country deportations tied to asylum cases. The email, which has been seen by the Associated Press, did not give a reason. It has not been publicly released, and Homeland Security did not respond to requests to explain if the halt was permanent.
But the earlier deportation cases? Those are continuing.
An asylum seeker says she’s in panic over possibly being sent to a country she doesn’t know
In 2024, a Guatemalan woman who says she had been held captive and repeatedly sexually assaulted by members of a powerful gang arrived with her 4-year-old daughter at the U.S.-Mexico border and asked for asylum. She later discovered she was pregnant with another child, conceived during a rape.
In December, she sat in a San Francisco immigration courtroom and listened as an ICE attorney sought to have her deported.
The ICE attorney didn’t ask the judge that she be sent back to Guatemala. Instead, the attorney said, the woman from the Indigenous Guatemalan highlands would go to one of three countries: Ecuador, Honduras or across the globe to Uganda.
Until that moment, she’d never heard of Ecuador or Uganda.
“When I arrived in this country, I was filled with hope again and I thanked God for being alive,” the woman said after the hearing, her eyes filling with tears. “When I think about having to go to those other countries, I panic because I hear they are violent and dangerous.” She spoke on condition of anonymity, fearing reprisal from U.S. immigration authorities or the Guatemalan gang network.
There have been more than 13,000 removal orders for asylum seekers
ICE attorneys, the de facto prosecutors in immigration courts, were first instructed last summer to file motions known as “pretermissions” that end migrants’ asylum claims and allow them to be deported.
“They’re not saying the person doesn’t have a claim,” said Sarah Mehta, who tracks immigration issues at the American Civil Liberties Union. “They’re just saying, ‘We’re kicking this case completely out of court and we’re going to send that person to another country.’”
The pace of deportation orders picked up in October after a ruling from the Justice Department’s Board of Immigration Appeals, which sets legal precedent inside the byzantine immigration court system.
The ruling from the three judges — two appointed by former Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and the third a holdover from the first Trump administration — cleared the way for migrants seeking asylum to be removed to any third country where the U.S. State Department determines they won’t face persecution or torture.
After the ruling, the government aggressively expanded the practice of ending asylum claims.
More than 13,000 migrants have been ordered deported to so-called “safe third countries” after their asylum cases were canceled, according to data from San Francisco-based Mobile Pathways. More than half the orders were for Honduras, Ecuador or Uganda, with the rest scattered among nearly three dozen other countries.
Deported migrants are free, at least theoretically, to pursue asylum and stay in those third countries, even if some have barely functioning asylum systems.
Deportations have been far more complicated than the government expected
Immigration authorities have released little information about the third-country agreements, known as Asylum Cooperative Agreements, or the deportees, and it’s unclear exactly how many have been deported to third countries as part of asylum removals.
According to Third Country Deportation Watch, a tracker run by the groups Refugees International and Human Rights First, fewer than 100 of them are thought to have been deported.
In a statement, Homeland Security called the agreements “lawful bilateral arrangements that allow illegal aliens seeking asylum in the United States to pursue protection in a partner country that has agreed to fairly adjudicate their claims.”
“DHS is using every lawful tool available to address the backlog and abuse of the asylum system,” said the statement, which was attributed only to a spokesperson. There are roughly 2 million backlogged asylum cases in the immigration system.
But deportations clearly turned out to be far more complicated than the government expected, restricted by a variety of legal challenges, the scope of the international agreements and a limited number of airplanes.
Mobile Pathways data, for example, shows that thousands of people have been ordered deported to Honduras — despite a diplomatic agreement that allows the country to take a total of just 10 such deportees per month for 24 months. Dozens of people ordered to Honduras in recent months did not speak Spanish as their primary language, but were native speakers of English, Uzbek and French, among other languages.
And while hundreds of asylum-seeking migrants have been ordered sent to Uganda, a top Ugandan official said none have arrived. U.S. authorities may be “doing a cost analysis” and trying to avoid dispatching flights with only a few people on board, Okello Oryem, the Ugandan minister of state for foreign affairs, told the Associated Press.
“You can’t be doing one, two people” at a time,” Oryem said. “Planeloads — that is the most effective way.”
Many immigration lawyers suspect that the March email ordering a halt in new asylum pretermissions could indicate a shift toward other forms of third-country deportations.
“Right now they haven’t been able to remove that many people,” said the ACLU’s Mehta. “I do think that will change.”
“They’re in a hiring spree right now. They will have more planes. If they get more agreements, they’ll be able to send more people to more countries.”
Sullivan writes for the Associated Press. AP reporters Garance Burke in San Francisco, Joshua Goodman in Miami, Rodney Muhumuza in Kampala, Uganda, Marlon González in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Molly A. Wallace in Chicago contributed to this report.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Governors in Florida and Mississippi signed into law measures that require officials to verify the citizenship of voters, just as similar legislation being pushed by President Trump has stalled in Congress.
The law signed Wednesday by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was immediately challenged in court by civil rights organizations that said it will make it harder for Floridians to vote.
The citizenship provision of the law goes into effect Jan. 1. It requires voters to provide a birth certificate, passport or naturalization certificate as proof of citizenship if their eligibility to vote is challenged by government officials through cross-referencing voter registration applications with motor vehicle records.
“Many eligible voters do not have these documents and cannot obtain them for a variety of reasons — including because they were born without a birth certificate in the segregated South, because their documents were destroyed in a hurricane, or because they cannot afford the hundreds of dollars it costs to replace them,” the civil rights groups said in a lawsuit filed in federal court in South Florida.
The voting legislation being pushed aggressively by Trump in Congress would mandate that people provide documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, such as a U.S. passport, citizen naturalization certificate or a combination of a birth certificate and government-issued photo identification. It passed the House but was stalled in the Senate before lawmakers took a spring recess.
Under the Florida law, credit cards, student IDs and retirement community identifications can no longer be used as IDs when voting, and the citizenship status of a driver must be reflected on driver’s licenses starting in July 2027.
DeSantis said the law improves the security and transparency of Florida’s election system.
“In Florida, we will always stand up for election integrity,” the Republican governor said.
The new Mississippi law signed Wednesday requires local officials registering people to vote to run additional citizenship checks if applicants don’t have or can’t provide driver’s license numbers on their voter application. The law, which takes effect July 1, also requires the secretary of state to run annual checks of the voter rolls against an online database from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to flag any potential noncitizens who could be asked to provide proof of their eligibility.
“This is another win for election integrity in Mississippi [and America],” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves, a Republican, said in a social media post. “We will continue to do everything in our power to make it infinitely harder — with a goal to make it impossible — to cheat in our elections!”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has said that the law could disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of Mississippians who don’t have a passport, lack a birth certificate or whose last names don’t match their birth certificates because of name changes due to marriage.
Four Republican-led states — Florida, Mississippi, South Dakota and Utah — have enacted laws this year to strengthen proof-of-citizenship requirements for voters. In Michigan, supporters of voter citizenship documentation have submitted 750,000 petition signatures in a bid to get a constitutional amendment on the November ballot.
The Republican-led Kansas Legislature also has passed legislation, though it still must go before the Democratic governor. Gov. Laura Kelly has until next week to decide whether she’ll sign the bill and hasn’t said publicly what she will do, though she has regularly vetoed past GOP-election bills. Supporters would need a two-thirds majority to override a veto — and thanks to Republican dissenters, the bill appeared to be a few votes short of that in the House.
Any efforts in Kansas to prevent noncitizens from registering to vote are shadowed by one of the state’s biggest political fiascos in recent memory — a requirement imposed in 2013 that people registering to vote in the state for the first time provide documentation of their U.S. citizenship.
That law ended up blocking the voter registrations of more than 31,000 U.S. citizens who were otherwise eligible to vote, or 12% of everyone seeking to register in Kansas for the first time. Federal courts ultimately declared the law an unconstitutional burden on voting rights, and it hasn’t been enforced since 2018.
Schneider writes for the Associated Press. AP writers David A. Lieb in Jefferson City, Mo., and John Hanna in Topeka, Kan., contributed to this report.
After a major national debacle on live TV when she was only 20 years old, Ashlee Simpson Ross finally found a way to win back a small-screen audience’s love: She put a galaxy mask over her head and let the vocals rip.
Forget that 2004 incident where she got caught singing over a backing track in an appearance on “Saturday Night Live.” Sure, she did a weird little dance, then fled the set. Sure, her dad made excuses. But that’s in the past.
“I feel like I became Galaxy Girl and I had the best team ever,” Simpson told People. “So I mean, it felt great to do it. It felt great to perform, not being able to see where I’m going. You can hardly see where you’re going. I think just becoming that character of Galaxy Girl and people not knowing who I was, it was just a different way of performing that. I enjoyed that. It was definitely a moment of discovery.”
Back in fall 2004, Simpson, who’s now 41, was about to do her second song as the musical guest on “SNL.” Following in her famous sister’s footsteps as Jessica Simpson’s newlyweds reality show with then-husband Nick Lachey was hitting its stride, she had just released what would become the year’s top-selling album by a female singer.
Lorne Michaels would confirm later that it had been a first for the sketch show.
“What can I say? Live TV,” host Jude Law told the audience during the show’s goodbye sequence that night. Simpson, standing at his side, jumped in with a rapid-fire explanation of what had just happened, throwing her band under the bus and not making much sense at all.
“I feel so bad. My band started playing the wrong song and I didn’t know what to do, so I thought I’d do a hoedown. I’m sorry!” she said.
This was a year after her sister had asked, with cameras rolling, whether a can of Chicken of the Sea contained tuna or chicken, and whether Buffalo wings were made out of buffalo. So what stuck in people’s minds were those lyrics playing out of the ether. Ashlee Simpson, it was clear, intended to lip sync, which sort of implied to casual observers that she couldn’t sing. She became, to many, a laughingstock.
Her dad said afterward that acid reflux had made her vocal cords swell, necessitating the last-minute switch from live to Memorex. He called it a learning experience and said she would prove herself in future shows.
“Unfortunately, that happened to us on Saturday, so just like every other artist in America she has backing tracks … so you don’t have to hear her croaking through a song on national television,” Joe Simpson told Ryan Seacrest in a radio interview.
“She never used them before,” he said of the vocal tracks, but “you have to do what you have to do.”
A few months later, she was booed on national TV when she did the halftime show at the 2005 Orange Bowl. Folks joked that it was worse than what happened on “SNL.”
So, yes, her career continued, but it hasn’t been 100% smooth. After a couple more albums, she took a role in a Broadway musical and eventually she returned to acting. She said over and over that she was going to get back into music, but life kept getting in the way.
Then in 2025, after celebrating the 20-year anniversary of her breakout album release with a short gig at a WeHo nightclub the year prior, she announced a residency at the Venetian in Las Vegas. The gig proved popular enough that it was extended into 2026.
And over the course of “The Masked Singer” season, Simpson finally proved to those casual observers that she has a voice and knows how to use it. She even bested her husband, who competed this season as Stingray and was cast out in Episode 10.
“Performing is my happy place, and to be doing that again just feels so nice,” she told People. “I’m inspired to keep playing shows and creating new music. And moments like ‘Masked Singer’ and Vegas, and I’m looking forward to Pride and Stagecoach — those moments just make me realize, ‘Oh, this is what I love to do.’
WASHINGTON — President Trump has privately discussed the possibility of firing Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi and replacing her with Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, three people familiar with the matter told the Associated Press on Thursday.
In those conversations, Trump has discussed his ongoing frustration with Bondi over her handing of the Jeffrey Epstein files and hurdles the Justice Department has encountered in investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies, the people said. The Republican president has mentioned other candidates but has raised Zeldin’s name as recently as this week, the people said.
The people were not authorized to publicly discuss the private conversations and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity.
No decision has been announced, and Trump has been known to change his mind on personnel decisions.
“Attorney General Pam Bondi is a wonderful person and she is doing a good job,” Trump said in a statement produced by the White House.
Zeldin, a former Republican congressman from New York, has been publicly and privately praised by Trump, who at an event in February described him as “our secret weapon.”
Bondi, a former state attorney general in Florida and a Trump loyalist who was part of his legal team during his first impeachment case, has been in her position for more than a year. She came into office pledging that she would not play politics with the Justice Department, but she quickly started investigations of Trump foes, sparking an outcry that the law enforcement agency was being wielded as a tool of revenge to advance the president’s political and personal agenda.
She has also endured months of scrutiny over the Justice Department’s handling of the Epstein files that made her the target of angry conservatives even with her close relationship with Trump.
Under Bondi’s leadership, the department opened investigations into a string of Trump foes, including Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, New York Atty. Gen. Letitia James, former FBI Director James Comey and former CIA Director John Brennan.
The high-profile prosecutions of Comey and James were quickly thrown out by a judge who ruled that the prosecutor who brought the cases was illegally appointed. Other politically charged investigations have either been rejected by grand juries or failed to result in criminal charges.
Richer, Tucker, Balsamo and Price write for the Associated Press.
If you grew up in the ‘70s or ‘80s, your vision of suburban America probably looks a lot like South Pasadena. There’s good reason. The picturesque town on the western edge of the San Gabriel Valley was often used as a backdrop in films like “Halloween,” “Pretty in Pink” and “Back to the Future” (the street where George McFly, Lorraine and Biff lived is actually Bushnell Avenue).
Today in South Pasadena, you’ll still find this idyllic Anytown USA landscape — but with a twist: Along with verdant parks, Craftsman bungalows and tree-lined streets, the city gleams with cool new developments like the recently opened Sid the Cat Auditorium, an all-ages live music venue in a converted 1930s elementary school; the always-packed Cannonball from chef Matt Molina; L.A.’s first nonalcoholic bottle shop Burden of Proof and a high-tech head spa imported from Japan. Add on a walkable downtown and a bustling Thursday night farmers market and it’s easy to see why so many Angelenos are drawn to this increasingly hip community.
Get to know Los Angeles through the places that bring it to life. From restaurants to shops to outdoor spaces, here’s what to discover now.
“So few pockets of L.A. County are actually great for families and that’s what makes South Pas so compelling,” said my friend Tom, who moved to the area after having a baby two years ago. “Plus, it has light-rail.”
Located six miles from downtown L.A., South Pasadena was marketed as a “garden community” when it was founded in the late 19th century. New residents were promised homes with flowering vines and sweet-smelling gardens, all just a short cable car ride away from a bustling metropolis.
“It was that early promise of suburbia,” said Becky Nicolaides, a historian and author of the book “The New Suburbia: How Diversity Remade Suburban Life in Los Angeles After 1945.” “When it was incorporated, there weren’t cars, so the town was built to be walkable.”
But that peaceful facade hid an ugly truth. Like many suburbs in the L.A. area, the town’s officials put race restrictive covenants into place soon after its founding, making it illegal for residents to sell property to people of color.
Those covenants became illegal in 1948, but the town continued to discourage people of color from living within its boundaries for several more decades. That began to change in the 1960s and South Pasadena has diversified, particularly over the past decade. In recent years, town leadership has taken steps to acknowledge its racist past.
Now, even as a new energy permeates, the city continues to lean into its early suburban history. The town is just 3.4 square miles, but it encompasses 100 acres of parks and playgrounds as well as 21,000 trees. There’s an old-fashioned pharmacy where parents have taken their kids for a phosphate soda (or just a regular old milkshake) for over 100 years and volunteers from the community still decorate a float for the Tournament of Roses each year, just as they have since 1911.
And though its historic Red Car trolleys have been discontinued for decades, today it’s still a comfort to take the Metro home from work at the end of a long day and enjoy the peace and quiet of this pastoral suburb, just like its founders did more than a century ago.
What’s included in this guide
Anyone who’s lived in a major metropolis can tell you that neighborhoods are a tricky thing. They’re eternally malleable and evoke sociological questions around how we place our homes, our neighbors and our communities within a wider tapestry. In the name of neighborly generosity, we may include gems that linger outside of technical parameters. Instead of leaning into stark definitions, we hope to celebrate all of the places that make us love where we live.
Our journalists independently visited every spot recommended in this guide. We do not accept free meals or experiences. What L.A. neighborhood should we check out next? Send ideas to guides@latimes.com.
WASHINGTON — President Trump signaled Wednesday that the United States is eyeing an offramp in its war with Iran, as he also raised the possibility of a major shift in U.S. alliances, including the potential withdrawal from NATO.
Trump indicated in a social media post that Iran’s president wanted a ceasefire, and that the United States would be open to doing so, if Iran agrees to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, a vital oil shipping route that has been affected during the monthlong conflict.
“Until then, we are blasting Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages!!!” Trump wrote.
The remarks appeared to outline a possible diplomatic opening with Tehran, but hours later Iranian officials said that Trump’s claims about being close to a deal were “false and baseless” and that the waterway remained “firmly and decisively under the control” of the Islamic Republic’s forces.
“The strait will not be opened to the enemies of this nation through the ridiculous spectacle by the president of the United States,” the paramilitary Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps wrote in a statement.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday also wrote a public letter denouncing what he described as a “flood of distortions and manufactured narratives” about the war from the U.S., arguing that Iran is not a threat and had only defended itself against American aggression.
He called on the American people to “look beyond the machinery of disinformation” to reach their own conclusions about the war and its purpose.
“Is ‘America First’ truly among the priorities of the U.S. government today?” he wrote, echoing recent complaints from Trump’s own base about the president’s commitments to his campaign promises.
The dueling messages underscored the uncertainty about how much longer the conflict in the Middle East will last and whether the United States will be able to achieve its main goal of preventing Iran from ever producing a nuclear weapon.
Trump, who on Tuesday said he expects the U.S. will leave Iran within three weeks, was poised to address the nation Wednesday night about the war. The White House said the president’s address would formally outline the objectives of Operation Epic Fury, whose mission has at times been convoluted even as Trump administration officials maintain their explanations for waging the war have been “clear and unchanging.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt announced Trump’s speech late Tuesday, after Trump downplayed remarks made by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about Iran’s lingering military capabilities.
In the lead-up to those remarks, Trump told Reuters that he was looking to pull American forces from the region “quickly” with the possibility of returning to Iran periodically for “spot hits” when necessary.
The president, who said he believed the U.S. military is close to ensuring Iran loses its ability to possess a nuclear weapon in the future, did not seem too worried about Iran having highly enriched uranium in its stockpiles.
“That’s so far underground, I don’t care about that,” he told Reuters, adding that the U.S. military will be “watching it by satellite.”
Trump, however, remained focused on having Iran reopen the Strait of Hormuz, an oil route through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows.
He said this week that he may pull American forces from the region and leave other countries to deal with the hurdles of reopening the waterway. But on Wednesday, he seemed to walk back that stance, and said a key part of the ongoing negotiations hinged on Iran ending the de facto blockade on the strait.
It remains unclear whether Israel, which began bombing Iran alongside the U.S. on Feb. 28, would agree to the same terms as Trump and stop hostilities against Iran.
Talks about the potential end of the conflict led stocks to rise Tuesday, but it remains unclear whether higher food prices could persist for months or longer. It is also uncertain when U.S. gas prices — which jumped past an average of $4 a gallon this week for the time since 2022 — would go lower.
NATO becomes a factor in the war
As Trump considers pulling out of Iran, he is also weighing a withdrawal from NATO, telling Reuters that fellow member states’ lack of support during the war has him “absolutely” considering withdrawing from the security alliance, which was ratified by the Senate in 1949.
In an interview with Fox News on Tuesday night, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. is planning to “reexamine” its relationship with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and whether it makes sense to be part of a “one-way-street” alliance.
“Why are we in NATO?” Rubio said. “Why do we send trillions of dollars and have all of these Americans stationed in the region, if in our time of need, we are not going to be allowed to use those bases?”
Rubio’s comment marks a notable evolution from his position in Congress. As senator in 2023, Rubio helped spearhead legislation that said the president “shall not suspend, terminate, denounce, or withdraw the United States” from NATO unless the Senate agrees by a two-thirds vote to do so.
On Wednesday, Rubio told CBS that he maintains Congress should play a role on whether the U.S. should withdraw from NATO. He added that he does not believe Trump “will remove us from NATO,” but he does believe the president will demand that NATO allies “do more.”
In a joint statement Wednesday, Sens. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) said that the United States will remain in the treaty and that the Senate “will continue to support the alliance for the peace and protection it provides America, Europe and the World.”
Although Trump has previously threatened to end U.S. membership in NATO, his most recent remarks have put added pressure on European allies to revisit the terms of their relationship.
In a post on X, Finnish President Alexander Stubb said he had a “constructive discussion” with Trump on Wednesday about NATO.
“Problems are there to be resolved, pragmatically,” Stubb wrote.
Their conversation came after Trump and Hegseth complained that European countries have been hesitant to help the U.S. in its war against Iran. Just this week, Italy and Spain refused to allow U.S. warplanes from landing at their military bases before flying to the Middle East.
Britain’s prime minister, Keir Starmer, defended NATO on Wednesday, saying it was the “single most effective military alliance the world has ever seen” and, more broadly, said he would not cave to pressure to join the Iran war.
“Whatever the pressure on me and others, whatever the noise, I’m going to act in the British national interest in all the decisions that I make,” Starmer told reporters. “That’s why I’ve been absolutely clear that this is not our war, and we’re not going to get dragged into it.”
As diplomatic efforts continue, the Trump administration has increased its military presence in the Middle East, with thousands of U.S. troops arriving in the region as ground operations in the war remain an option.
The U.S. military buildup in the Mideast came as fighting continued to escalate in the Persian Gulf region on Wednesday.
Iran hit an oil tanker off Qatar’s coast, prompting the evacuation of 21 crew members. In Bahrain, there were alerts for incoming missiles, while Kuwait’s state-run news agency KUNA reported that a drone hit a fuel tank at Kuwait International Airport. Meanwhile, Jordan’s military intercepted a ballistic missile and two drones fired by Iran, and an airstrike in Tehran appeared to have hit the former U.S. Embassy compound.
Additionally, Israeli strikes killed at least five people on a Beirut neighborhood. Israel invaded southern Lebanon in March after the Iran-linked militant group Hezbollah began launching missiles into northern Israel.
This article includes reporting from the Associated Press.
