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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is restricting the number of refugees it admits into the country to 7,500 and they will mostly be white South Africans, a dramatic drop after the U.S. previously allowed in hundreds of thousands of people fleeing war and persecution from around the world.

The administration published the news Thursday in a notice on the Federal Registry.

No reason was given for the numbers, which are a dramatic decrease from last year’s ceiling set under the Biden administration of 125,000. The Associated Press previously reported that the administration was considering admitting as few as 7,500 refugees and mostly white South Africans.

The memo said only that the admission of the 7,500 refugees during 2026 fiscal year was “justified by humanitarian concerns or is otherwise in the national interest.”

Santana writes for the Associated Press.

The village of Inverie in Scotland is thought to be the UK’s most remote village and it’s home to the most remote pub too a place that visitors never seem to tire of visiting

During the Covid lockdown, residents of Inverie faced greater challenges than most communities across Britain.

The small village of roughly 120 people depends entirely on its ferry service for everything from food and post to medicine and freight. When Western Isles Cruises cannot run the ferry to Inverie – which happens frequently due to poor weather conditions – nothing can enter or leave the settlement.

That’s because Inverie in Scotland has no road access whatsoever, only a gruelling two- to three-day trek over the mountains. The ferry service is therefore the villagers’ sole lifeline to essential supplies.

During the coronavirus pandemic, the usual 28 weekly sailings were slashed to just three – operating only on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

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“The pier has drop-off bins and a container plus many local residents would be keenly waiting the arrival of their supplies. In normal times they would create a human chain to help unload the boat up the steps and onto the pier but during Covid they couldn’t,” a blog on the ferry service’s website reads, reports the Express.

“So the skipper and crew unloaded the boat whilst the locals looked on at a distance. We didn’t need Joe Wicks as the workout was intense, especially at low tide! The crew were never so slim.”

The main village on the Knoydart Peninsula, Inverie sits on the northern shore of Loch Nevis. Whilst numerous villages in that region are isolated, Inverie is world-record-breakingly so.

It holds its own Guinness World Record for the Most Remote Village in the UK to prove it. It earned this distinction because there are no roads leading to it – you can only reach it by boat from Mallaig, or by tackling an arduous 16-mile trek through extremely isolated countryside.

Whilst getting there presents a challenge, the journey proves worthwhile for two compelling reasons: the stunning scenery and the local boozer.

The John Muir Trust, who own the land, are currently rewilding sections of Knoydart to restore its natural state.

“Centuries of burning and over-grazing by sheep and deer have damaged the habitat here. Over the last 30 years, we’ve planted native tree species and controlled deer numbers to improve biodiversity. Now we’re seeing the natural regeneration of birch, oak, hazel, rowan, Scots pine and other tree species,” the Trust’s website reads.

“As the trees have regenerated on Knoydart, native wildlife has returned. This includes pine marten, roe deer, bats and many types of woodland birds. There are also otters, foxes, water voles, buzzards and different types of eagle. Knoydart is also notable for a wide range of species in its wet heaths, grasslands and snow beds. We expect to see more biodiversity as the woodland continues to expand.”

Inverie village comprises little more than the renowned Old Forge – which bills itself as “the Remotest Pub in Mainland Britain”. “We are proud to be one of a few community-owned pubs in Scotland. Whisky, real ale, traditional music and amazing service are our passions,” the Forge claims online.

There are very few with a bad word to say about the pub, which stands as a welcoming beacon of warmth, open almost every day of the year, regardless of the weather.

“Heaven on earth. Had an amazing meal for my hubby’s 67th birthday recently. Such a friendly atmosphere and the food was excellent too – fish and chips for me, macaroni cheese for hubby. Freshly cooked and delicious! This visit was sublime in every way, the scenery wasn’t bad either,” one satisfied customer wrote on Tripadvisor.

Another added: “No visit to Inverie is complete without a visit to The Old Forge. What the community have done to the place since the buyout is outstanding, it is a credit to all who have worked so hard to revive this fantastic place to its former glory. Always a pleasure to visit and partake in wonderful food and drink, all served by a very enthusiastic group of folk. Hope to be back one day. Keep up the good work.”

The Knoydart Snug is operated by the pub and has a handful of beds available to those who get stranded in Inverie. With a lively pub and stunning scenery on your doorstep, you may find yourself hoping that the weather turns.

The simplest route to Inverie involves a scenic train ride to Mallaig, followed by a short ferry trip. The direct Glasgow to Mallaig train journey on the West Highland Line, run by ScotRail, is a treat in itself with stunning Scottish views.

The journey spans roughly 160 km and takes about 5 hours and 15 minutes, with multiple services operating each day.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is initiating a leadership shakeup at a dozen or so offices of Immigration and Customs Enforcement to bring more aggressive enforcement operations across the U.S.

Some of the outgoing field office directors at ICE are anticipated to be replaced with leaders from Customs and Border Protection, according to news reports. Among the leaders targeted for replacement are Los Angeles Field Office Director Ernesto Santacruz and San Diego Field Office Director Patrick Divver, the Washington Examiner reported Monday.

The stepped up role of Border Patrol leaders in interior enforcement — which has historically been ICE territory — marks an evolution of tactics that originated in California.

In early January, Gregory Bovino, who heads the Border Patrol’s El Centro region, led a three-day raid in rural Kern County, nabbing day laborers more than 300 miles from his typical territory. Former Biden administration officials said Bovino had gone “rogue” and that no agency leaders knew about the operation beforehand.

Bovino leveraged the spectacle to become the on-the-ground point person for the Trump Administration’s signature issue.

The three-decade veteran of Border Patrol, who has used slick social media videos to promote the agency’s heavy-handed tactics, brought militarized operations once primarily used at the border into America’s largest cities.

In Los Angeles this summer, contingents of heavily armed, masked agents began chasing down and arresting day laborers, street vendors and car wash workers. Tensions grew as the administration ordered in the National Guard.

The efforts seem to have become more aggressive after a Supreme Court order allowed authorities to stop people based on factors such as race or ethnicity, employment and speaking Spanish.

Bovino moved operations to Chicago and escalated his approach. Immigration agents launched an overnight raid in a crowded apartment, shot gas into crowds of protesters and fatally shot one man.

Now Bovino is expected to hand-pick some of the replacements at ICE field offices, according to Fox News.

Tom Wong, who directs the U.S. Immigration Policy Center at UC San Diego, said the leadership changes are unsurprising, given Bovino’s strategies in Los Angeles and Chicago.

“The Trump administration is blurring the distinction between Border Patrol and ICE,” he said. “The border is no longer just the external boundaries of the United States, but the border is everywhere.”

Former Homeland Security officials said the large-scale replacement of executives from one agency with those from another agency is unprecedented.

The two agencies have similar authorities but very different approaches, said Daniel Altman, former head of internal oversight investigations at U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

ICE officers operate largely inside the country, lean heavily on investigations and typically know when they set out for the day who they are targeting.

Border Patrol, on the other hand, patrols the borderlands for anyone they encounter and suspect of entering illegally. Amid the rugged terrain and isolation, Border Patrol built a do-it-yourself ethos within the century-old organization, Altman said.

“Culturally, the Border Patrol prides itself on solving problems, and that means that whatever the current administration needs or wants with respect to immigration enforcement, they’re usually very willing and able to do that,” said Altman.

White House leadership has not been happy with arrest numbers. Stephen Miller, President Trump’s deputy chief of staff who is heading his immigration initiatives, set a goal of 3,000 immigration arrests per day, which the agency has not been able to meet.

DHS says it expects to deport 600,000 people by January, a figure that includes people who were turned back at the border or at airports.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary for the Homeland Security department, didn’t confirm or deny the changes but described immigration officials as united.

“Talk about sensationalism,” she said. “Only the media would describe standard agency personnel changes as a ‘massive shakeup.’ If and when we have specific personnel moves to announce, we’ll do that.”

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson said, “The President’s entire team is working in lockstep to implement the President’s policy agenda, and the tremendous results from securing the border to deporting criminal illegal aliens speak for themselves.”

On Fox News on Tuesday, Trump’s border czar Tom Homan said the administration is dedicated to achieving record deportations of primarily immigrants with criminal records.

“As far as personnel changes, that’s under the purview of the Secretary of Homeland Security,” he said. “I’m at the White House working with people like Stephen Miller, one of the most brilliant people I’ve ever met, to come up with strategic policies and plans — how to get success, how to maintain success, and how to get the numbers ever higher.”

Deborah Fleischaker, a former ICE and DHS official under the Biden administration, said the personnel moves appear to be an “attempt to migrate a Border Patrol ethos over to ICE.”

“ICE’s job has historically focused on targeting and enforcing against public safety threats,” she said. “Border Patrol has a much more highly militarized job of securing the border, protecting against transnational crime and drug trafficking and smuggling. That sort of approach doesn’t belong in our cities and is quite dangerous.”

Fleischaker said it would be difficult to increase deportations, even with Border Patrol leaders at the helm, because of the complexities around securing travel documents and negotiating with countries that are reticent to accept deportees.

In the meantime, she said, shunting well-liked leaders will sink morale.

“For the folks who are still there, everybody knows you comply or you risk losing your job,” she said. “Dissent, failure to meet targets or even ask questions aren’t really tolerated.”

On Tuesday, DHS posted a video montage of Bovino on its Instagram page set to Coldplay’s song “Viva la vida.” The caption read, “WE WILL NOT BE STOPPED.”

Times staff writer Brittny Mejia contributed to this report.

Disneyland Resort has laid off about 100 people in Anaheim, as Walt Disney Co. becomes the latest media and entertainment company to cut jobs.

The layoffs occurred Tuesday and came from multiple teams, Disney confirmed.

“With our business in a period of steady, sustained operation, we are recalibrating our organization to ensure we continue to deliver exceptional experiences for our guests, while positioning Disneyland Resort for the future,” a Disneyland spokesperson said in a statement. “As part of this, we’ve made the difficult decision to eliminate a limited number of salaried positions.”

A person close to the company who was not authorized to comment attributed the cuts to an increase in hiring after the parks reopened once the COVID-19 pandemic waned.

Disney’s theme parks are a major economic engine for the Burbank media and entertainment giant.

Last year, the company’s experiences division — which includes its theme parks, cruise line and Aulani resort and spa in Hawaii — brought in nearly 60% of Disney’s operating income.

Earlier this month, the company announced price hikes on most of its single-day, one-park tickets.

The Disneyland Resort layoffs come as entertainment and tech companies have recently shed thousands of jobs.

On Wednesday, Paramount laid off 1,000 employees in a first round of cuts after the company’s takeover by tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media. Amazon, Meta, Charter Corp. and NBC News also have announced cuts.

“Who are you really? What is real happiness? What do you actually need for happiness?” Rhea Seehorn murmurs.

It’s an otherwise ordinary Wednesday afternoon, steps away from bookshelves stuffed with works like “East of Eden” by John Steinbeck and the “A Court of Thorns and Roses” series by Sarah J. Maas, when she casually lists these big life questions aloud while leaning over a vegan brownie and cup of tea at a small table inside Village Well Books & Coffee in Culver City. I’m still questioning whether I read the street parking signs correctly. But these are queries Seehorn has given hard thought to in recent months.

That’s what happens when you’re headlining a Vince Gilligan show. Existential reckonings are part of the gig.

Seehorn is at least familiar with the deep internal struggles that swirl within Gilligan’s protagonists. For six seasons on “Better Call Saul,” AMC’s hit prequel spinoff to “Breaking Bad” that told the backstory of Walter White’s smarmy lawyer Saul Goodman a.k.a. Jimmy McGill (Bob Odenkirk), Seehorn played Kim Wexler. The fan-favorite type A lawyer with a perfectly-positioned ponytail was McGill/Goodman’s principled but increasingly conflicted girlfriend who got caught up in his elaborate schemes and paid a price for his crimes.

In his first follow-up to the “Breaking Bad” universe, Gilligan opted to forgo revolving another series around a tormented man in favor of one that let the shades of Seehorn’s talent fill the screen.

Gilligan says that in “Better Call Saul,” which he co-created with Peter Gould, he saw in Seehorn what he had observed in Aaron Paul years before on “Breaking Bad” — an actor whose performance propelled a side character, wayward junkie Jesse Pinkman, into a figure that commanded viewers’ attention and became integral to the story.

“Aaron made that character indispensable,” Gilligan says over video call. “It was like déjà vu with Rhea Seehorn. I hate saying I wasn’t aware of her prior to us auditioning and casting her. But she was just fantastic from Day 1. What Peter and I saw in her was a potential to take a show that, at the beginning, was about one character and make it a two-hander. And I just knew very, very quickly in the early life of ‘Better Call Saul’ that I wanted to work with her again after it was over.”

So he set out to create a story where she was No. 1 on the call sheet.

How did Seehorn process that news?

“I just cried,” she says.

It’s not, as some may have hoped, a Kim Wexler spinoff — though, she’s still open to that: “I’ll do it. I’ll do it. Anything. A series. A film. A Staples commercial,” she says.

Rhea Seehorn as Carol in Apple TV’s “Pluribus.”

(Apple TV)

“Pluribus” has been a tightly-guarded project for Apple TV with a strict embargo on details that makes it difficult to provide a lot of context to its premise. Here’s what can be said: Seehorn plays Carol, a fantasy romance author who, despite a successful career and seemingly loving relationship with her partner, is described as “the most miserable person on Earth.” After a signal from space changes the world in a significant way, she must save humankind from happiness. The nine-episode drama premieres with two episodes on Nov. 7; new episodes will be released weekly after that.

For a while, Seehorn only had the first script to make her assessments about the world Gilligan was building. She eventually got her hands on two more before 2023’s dual Hollywood strikes kicked in. When she finished reading through them, one thought came to mind: “‘Wow, this is a lot of me,’” she says, launching into laughter. “He had warned me — ‘You’re going to be in almost every scene’ — but then you read it and you’re like, ‘Oh … oh.’”

Careful to be as vague as possible, she continues: “I can’t spoil it. There’s a lot of time I spend completely on my own. I’m not giving away anything am I? Make sure I’m not!” Aside from the way she has to be coy about the series, she’s appealingly unguarded in her enthusiasm for the journey it sent her on as an actor.

“‘Better Call Saul’ was its own animal, but it had the mothership,” she says. “With this, in our conversations, it felt like Vince wanted to push things to the limit — it’s genre-defying, tone-defying. It’s hilarious and then gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It’s scary in a variety of ways. It really makes you think: What would you do in this situation?”

Seeking to playfully lean into the show’s interest in exploring happiness and the human condition, in scheduling our meet-up I asked that Seehorn pick a location that makes her happy, which led us to this bookstore near her home. “I buy books constantly,” she says. Her most recent purchase was Rachel Kushner’s spy thriller “Creation Lake.” But lately, she’s been prioritizing William T. Harper’s book, “Eleven Days in Hell: The 1974 Carrasco Prison Siege at Huntsville, Texas,” which chronicles the true story of the standoff between inmates and law enforcement. At the time of this sit-down, Seehorn is days away from beginning production in Texas on a film adaptation of the book that will also star Taylor Kitsch and Diego Luna.

She lights up as the conversation veers into the stuff she watched to unwind while shooting “Pluribus”: “I’m obsessed with ‘Chicken Shop Date,’” she says. “Do you watch? Can we please use this article to get me on that show? This is my campaign.”

Rhea Seehorn, who stars in the new Apple TV series “Pluribus,” says the show is genre-defying: “It’s hilarious and then gut-wrenchingly upsetting. It’s scary in a variety of ways. It really makes you think: What would you do in this situation?”

(Anthony Avellano / For The Times)

She wrapped production on “Pluribus” last December. Since then, she‘s shot an indie film, “Sender,” with “Severance’s” Britt Lower, had a brief family vacation and helped the eldest of her two stepsons get settled in for his first year of college. They’re the kind of life moments, she says, that feed into those big questions discussed earlier and what the show confronts.

“It’s about this reckoning — a big exploration of who you are. It got me thinking about how we handle really difficult emotions,” Seehorn says. “There was a constant through line for me about this feeling of anxiety that we all know. When we have those nightmares where you’re running around telling everyone that the barn is on fire and they all keep saying, ‘It’s fine.’ And you’re screaming that it’s not.

“You find yourself thinking, how do I measure success?” she continues. “About everything — relationships, career, talent, ambition. There’s reasons we make armor, sometimes long-term, sometimes short-term. There are choices that are survival skills, that are good for you at one time, that later are no longer the crutches and tools they used to be. The performance Carol is giving at the beginning — where she hates the life she’s living and questions the people who like her work because it’s not impressive enough — Vince and I had some deep-dive talks about that as people in the arts.”

Of course, the philosophy of self and purpose and happiness was not something Seehorn considered much while growing up. Deborah Rhea Seehorn — she went by Debbie until her early teens — was born in Norfolk, Va., but spent her childhood in places like Arizona and Japan because of her father’s job as an agent for the Naval Investigative Service, later known as NCIS when it added “Criminal” to its name. “My dad was not Mark Harmon,” she jokes. After her parents divorced when she was 12, the family stayed in the Virginia Beach area.

On paper, Seehorn wasn’t primed for a life of acting. But she felt a creative pull: Her mother did musical theater in high school; her father and paternal grandmother painted. And Seehorn and her sister began sketching from a young age. Seehorn initially had ambitions of pursuing a career in design or art — she majored in painting while a student at George Mason University. She thought maybe she’d land a job doing exhibition design or art restoration at the Smithsonian or one of the other museums around town. But when she was required to take an elective course her freshman year, she saw an opportunity to try something that otherwise felt out of reach to her.

“At the time, at least to me, American television and film had people who looked like models,” she says. “I didn’t. I thought I would get made fun of mercilessly if I said I wanted to be an actor. It felt the same as saying I wanted to be a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the first class I took, that acting was it for me.”

It was taught by Lynnie Raybuck, a teacher and actor who remains a mentor to Seehorn. This is where — in life and in this conversation — it becomes clear Seehorn revels in the technique of acting. She grows animated referencing Practical Aesthetics, the acting technique developed by David Mamet and William H. Macy for the Atlantic Theater Company, and detailing her fondness for in-depth script analysis.

“To me, it blew my mind the first time I realized that it isn’t magic fairy dust on some people — that they’re just talented and you’re not,” she says. “That there is a way to work toward that. As soon as somebody said there was a way to study that and there was a way to get closer and closer to inviting that audience in to go with you on a journey and make it believable, I just was like, ‘Well, this is what I’m doing for a living.’”

Rhea Seehorn starred as Kim Wexler opposite Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman/Jimmy McGill in “Better Call Saul.” (Greg Lewis/AMC/Sony Pictures Television)

She knew it wouldn’t pay the bills right away. She ushered, worked the box office, read stage directions for new plays — she had days jobs, too, like working at TGI Fridays — “By the way, they just offered me suspenders since I never got them.” (She was underage and unable to serve alcohol at the time, so she was a hostess who did expo for the waiters.)

She eventually landed in New York, working at Playwright Horizons, an off-Broadway theater. After a few years, the pull of L.A. led her west. She was cast in the ABC sitcom “I’m With Her,” starring Teri Polo and loosely based on writer Chris Henchy’s marriage to Brooke Shields. It didn’t last long, but other roles would come along with varying degrees of steadiness. She had a recurring role as an assistant DA in the legal dramedy “Franklin & Bash” and played the best friend of Whitney Cummings’ fictionalized version of herself in NBC’s “Whitney,” which ran for two seasons from 2011 to 2013.

Then, as “Better Call Saul” was coming together, the casting directors working on the project were familiar with Seehorn, who had auditioned for them many times over the years, and what she could deliver.

“The first time I met her was for the producer sessions and there were three actresses who were reading for Kim with me,” Odenkirk says by phone. “The other two actresses were absolutely fantastic. But Rhea and I had chemistry, and we all knew it. We all felt it. It was undeniable and it was easy.”

She was cast as Kim, before a last name was even assigned to the character, and with no inkling for how essential she would become to the story. And it quickly becomes clear how she dissects her characters. (Both Odenkirk and Gilligan, without prompting, say that her scripts were often heavily marked up with scribbled notes, highlights and tabs.)

“I only have one line of dialogue in that first episode, other than the intercom,” Seehorn says, still able to recite it by memory. “They told me later it wasn’t on purpose that I have almost no contractions in the first couple of episodes and other people do. And I was like, should I ask them if it’s OK to elide ‘want to’ to ‘wanna’ or ‘do not’ to ‘don’t.’ But then I was like, ‘No! What if I just try to figure out who talks like this?’ It started to be this thing of ‘Who is this controlled person? And why would she be this controlled?’ She became so important to me because I had largely built her out of subtext and this private part of her that mostly the audience was my biggest confidant.”

Rhea Seehorn on starting her acting career: “I thought I would get made fun of mercilessly if I said I wanted to be an actor. It felt the same as saying I wanted to be a supermodel. But I knew immediately, with the first class I took, that acting was it for me.” (Anthony Avellano/For The Times)

Odenkirk admiringly references Seehorn’s level of attention and their shared approach in defending the emotional intelligence of their characters. He notes the predicament the “Better Call Saul” writers sometimes faced in placing Jimmy/Saul and Kim, who knew each other so well, in dramatic situations that ordinarily would require more obliviousness or willing unawareness.

“When Kim and Jimmy were together, there were times — not many, but a few — where one of them was lying to the other one,” he says. “And it was always a challenge. We’d be like, ‘Saul knows he’s being lied to’ or ‘Kim knows Saul is lying.’ And we’d have to find a way around it. Or we’d have to let go — she’s [Rhea] good at that too … I just love her seriousness of purpose. And her love for losing herself in the dream.”

It’s why he’s not surprised Gilligan wanted her to lead his next series.

“She is formidable in nature,” Odenkirk says. “Her strength on screen is great, her dynamic range is incredible. She has the strength of character of a leading man — I’m just going to say it. She has the backbone and the steely determination of a leading man.”

In fact, when the idea for “Pluribus” began tugging at Gilligan years ago, in the midst of “Better Call Saul,” he initially envisioned it having a male protagonist.

“But I would take these long walks during our lunch breaks in the writers room and, I can’t remember when exactly, but it dawned on me on one of those walks that I really like this young lady, Rhea Seehorn,” he says. “She’s a really good actor. And I started thinking, ‘Why does the main character of my next show have to be a guy? ‘ I was about to say I kind of tailored the role to Rhea, but the truth is, I don’t know if that’s true. Rhea has so many strengths as an actor, I know she can do anything I threw at her — just like I knew many years before that Bryan Cranston could do anything. She makes it look easy.”

When Seehorn and I speak again a few weeks after our initial meeting, she is video-calling from a nondescript room during a break from production on “Eleven Days.” She has already fiddled through a number of jigsaw puzzles and “Paint by Numbers” — her activities of choice when she needs to turn down her actor brain — in the time since we last spoke; she reaches for the painting of plants she recently completed as proof. We eventually return to the idea of happiness. What makes her happy right now?

“It is my family and my friends, but it’s also my work,” she says. “Carol, on paper, has many of the things that I want, that many of us want. Success at work, especially in a career in the arts. But she won’t believe the hype. Her mocking of her work and her fans is just a mocking of herself. It’s self-loathing — like she’s trying to beat people to the punch.

“For me, I realized I fully own and will not be embarrassed about the fact that a third leg on that stool for my happiness is my work,” she continues. “It is intrinsically a part of who I am and I am a better mom to my stepsons and a better partner to my fiance because I get to do what I love.”

And she’s finding new ways to do more of it. She has become an executive producer on Katja Meier’s Swiss TV show “$hare” and made her episodic directorial debut with “Better Call Saul” — “I would like to try to direct again. There’s a couple of projects and people I’m talking to about directing on their show. People are like, ‘Why didn’t you direct the first season [of ‘Pluribus’]?’ I’m like,’I was trying to remember to brush my teeth with all I had going on.’”

She references the children’s book “Archibald’s Next Big Thing,” written by actor Tony Hale, whom she shared screen time with on “Veep.” It’s about embracing the journey you’re on.

“You’re constantly moving your goal post and all it is doing is just s— on yourself and where you are now,” she says. “Carol missed things until they were taken away. She could have stopped judging everything and judging herself.”

It was a reminder to embrace the freedom to think outside the box with her performance. The first episode is a high-wire balancing act; at one point, there’s a 12-minute stretch that has her character twisting through confusion, fear, grief, anger and frustration like pretzel dough being looped into a knot — on her own, yet not alone.

“Everything made me nervous about Carol,” she says. “As soon as Vince sent me the script, I was like, ‘This is bananas.’ You’re on your way to work and you just think, ‘What if I just took this off-ramp and I fled the scene and it would be all over?’ But then you’re like, ‘You know what, I’m gonna show up and do my best. Believe me, I did some takes that I’m sure were embarrassing, but I was just like, ‘When else are you going to try? The time is now.”

In other words, she says, “Don’t be a Carol.”

Paramount on Wednesday was expected to cut 1,000 employees, the first wave of a deep staff reduction planned since David Ellison took the helm of the entertainment company in August.

People familiar with the matter but not authorized to comment said the layoffs will be felt throughout the company, including at CBS, CBS News, Comedy Central and other cable channels as well as the historic Melrose Avenue film studio.

Another 1,000 jobs are expected to be cut at a later date, bringing the total reduction to about 10% of Paramount’s workforce, sources said.

The move was expected. Paramount’s new owners — Ellison’s Skydance Media and RedBird Capital Partners — had told investors they planned to eliminate more than $2 billion in expenses, and Wednesday’s workforce reduction was a preliminary step toward that goal.

Paramount has been shedding staff for years.

More than 800 people — or about 3.5% of the company’s workforce — were laid off in June, prior to the Ellison family takeover. At the time, Paramount’s management attributed the cuts to the decline of cable television subscriptions and an increased emphasis on bulking up its streaming TV business. In 2024, the company eliminated 2,000 positions, or 15% of its staff.

Longtime CBS News journalist John Dickerson announced earlier this week that he would exit in December. The co-anchor of the “CBS Evening News,” Dickerson has been a familiar network face for more than 15 years, completing tours at “CBS This Morning” and the Sunday public affairs show “Face the Nation.” He was named the network’s evening news co-anchor in January alongside Maurice DuBois to succeed Norah O’Donnell. The revamp, designed in part to save money, led to a ratings decline.

The Paramount layoffs are the latest sign of contraction across the entertainment and tech sectors.

Amazon said this week it was eliminating roughly 14,000 corporate jobs amid its embrace of artificial intelligence to perform more functions. Last week, Facebook parent company Meta disclosed that it was cutting 600 jobs in its AI division.

Last week, cable and broadband provider Charter Corp., which operates the Spectrum service, eliminated 1,200 management jobs around the country.

Los Angeles’ production economy in particular has been roiled by a falloff in local filming and cost-cutting at major media companies.

As of August, about 112,000 people were employed in the Los Angeles region’s motion picture and sound recording industries — the main category for film and television production. The data does not include everyone who works in the entertainment industry, such as those who work as independent contractors.

That was roughly flat compared with the previous year, and down 27% compared with 2022 levels, when about 154,000 people were employed locally in the industry, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The industry has struggled to rebound since the 2023 strikes by writers and actors, which led to a sharp pullback in studio spending following the era of so-called “peak TV,” when
studios dramatically increased the pipeline of shows to build streaming platforms.

“You saw a considerable drop-off from the strikes and the aftermath,” said Kevin Klowden, an executive director at Milken Institute Finance. “The question is, at what point do these workers exit the industry entirely?”

Local film industry officials are expecting a production boost and an increase in work after California bolstered its film and television tax credits.

But Southern California’s bedrock industry is confronting other challenges, including shifting consumer habits and competition from social media platforms like YouTube and TikTok.

“There is a larger concern in terms of the financial health of all the major operations in Hollywood,” Klowden said. “There’s a real concern about that level of competition, and what it means.”

PORTLAND, Maine — Maine’s elections in recent years have been relatively free of problems, and verified cases of voter fraud are exceedingly rare.

That’s not stopping Republicans from pushing for major changes in the way the state conducts its voting.

Maine is one of two states with election-related initiatives on the Nov. 4 ballot but is putting the most far-reaching measure before voters. In Texas, Republicans are asking voters to make clear in the state constitution that people who are not U.S. citizens are ineligible to vote.

Maine’s Question 1 centers on requiring voter ID, but is more sweeping in nature. The initiative, which has the backing of an influential conservative group in the state, also would limit the use of drop boxes to just one per municipality and create restrictions for absentee voting even as the practice has been growing in popularity.

Voters in both states will decide on the measures at a time when President Trump continues to lie about widespread fraud leading to his loss in the 2020 presidential election and make unsubstantiated claims about future election-rigging, a strategy that has become routine during election years. Republicans in Congress and state legislatures have been pushing for proof of citizenship requirements to register and vote, but with only limited success.

Maine’s initiative would impose voter ID, restrict absentee voting

The Maine proposal seeks to require voters to produce a voter ID before casting a ballot, a provision that has been adopted in several other states, mostly those controlled by Republicans. In April, Wisconsin voters enshrined that state’s existing voter ID law into the state’s constitution.

Question 1 also would eliminate two days of absentee voting, prohibit requests for absentee ballots by phone or family members, end absentee voter status for seniors and people with disabilities, and limit the number of drop boxes, among other changes.

Absentee voting is popular in Maine, where Democrats control the Legislature and governor’s office and voters have elected a Republican and an independent as U.S. senators. Nearly half of voters there used absentee voting in the 2024 presidential election.

Gov. Janet Mills is one of many Democrats in the state speaking out against the proposed changes.

“Whether you vote in person or by absentee ballot, you can trust that your vote will be counted fairly,” Mills said. “But that fundamental right to vote is under attack from Question 1.”

Proponents of the voter ID push said it’s about shoring up election security.

“There’s been a lot of noise about what it would supposedly do, but here’s the simple truth: Question 1 is about securing Maine’s elections,” said Republican Rep. Laurel Libby, a proponent of the measure.

A key supporter of the ballot initiative is Dinner Table PAC, a conservative group in the state. Dinner Table launched Voter ID for ME, which has raised more than $600,000 to promote the initiative. The bulk of that money has come from the Republican State Leadership Committee, which advocates for Republican candidates and initiatives at the state level through the country. Save Maine Absentee Voting, a state group that opposes the initiative, has raised more than $1.6 million, with the National Education Assn. as its top donor.

The campaigning for and against the initiative is playing out as the state and FBI are investigating how dozens of unmarked ballots meant to be used in this year’s election arrived inside a woman’s Amazon order. The secretary of state’s office says the blank ballots, still bundled and wrapped in plastic, will not be used in the election.

Texas voters consider a citizenship requirement

In Texas, voters are deciding whether to add wording to the state constitution that Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and other backers said would guarantee that noncitizens will not be able to vote in elections there. State and federal laws already make it illegal for noncitizens to vote.

Thirteen states have made similar changes to their constitutions since North Dakota first did in 2018. Proposed constitutional amendments are on the November 2026 ballot in Kansas and South Dakota.

The measures have so far proven popular, winning approval with an average of 72% of the vote.

“I think it needs to sweep the nation,” said Republican state Rep. A.J. Louderback, who represents a district southwest of Houston. “I think we need to clean this mess up.”

Voters already have to attest they are U.S. citizens when they register, and voting by noncitizens, which is rare, is punishable as a felony and can lead to deportation.

Louderback and other supporters of such amendments point to policies in at least 20 communities across the country that allow noncitizens to vote in local elections, though none are in Texas. They include Oakland and San Francisco, where noncitizens can cast ballots in school board races if they have children in the public schools, the District of Columbia, and several towns in Maryland and Vermont.

Other states, including Kansas, have wording in their constitutions putting a citizenship requirement in affirmative terms: Any U.S. citizen over 18 is eligible to vote. In some states, amendments have rewritten the language to make it more of a prohibition: Only U.S. citizens are eligible to vote.

The article on voting in the Texas Constitution currently begins with a list of three “classes of persons not allowed to vote”: people under 18, convicted felons and those “who have been determined mentally incompetent by a court.” The Nov. 4 amendment would add a fourth, “persons who are not citizens of the United States.”

Critics say the proposed changes are unnecessary

Critics say the Maine voter ID requirement and Texas noncitizen prohibition are solutions in search of a problem and promote a longstanding conservative GOP narrative that noncitizen voting is a significant problem, when in fact it’s exceedingly rare.

In Texas, the secretary of state’s office recently announced it had found the names of 2,700 “potential noncitizens” on its registration rolls out of the state’s nearly 18.5 million registered voters.

Veronikah Warms, staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said pushing the narrative encourages discrimination and stokes fear of state retaliation among naturalized citizens and people of color. Her group works to protect the rights of those groups and immigrants and opposes the proposed amendment.

“It just doesn’t serve any purpose besides furthering the lie that noncitizens are trying to subvert our democratic process,” she said. “This is just furthering a harmful narrative that will make it scarier for people to actually exercise their constitutional right.”

In Maine, approval of Question 1 would most likely make voting more difficult overall, said Mark Brewer, chair of the University of Maine political science department. He added that claims of widespread voter fraud are unsupported by evidence.

“The data show that the more hoops and restrictions you put on voting, the harder it is to vote and the fewer people will vote,” he said.

Whittle and Hanna write for the Associated Press. Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan.

Michaela Thompson, an unemployed mother in the San Fernando Valley, relies on federal assistance to afford the specialized baby formula her 15-month-old daughter needs because of a feeding disorder. At $47 for a five-day supply, it’s out of her reach otherwise.

But with the federal shutdown blocking upcoming disbursements of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — previously known as food stamps — Thompson said she doesn’t know how she’s going to fill her daughter’s bottles.

“It feels like the world is kind of crumbling right now,” she said. “I’m terrified for my family and my daughter.”

Millions of low-income families who rely on SNAP benefits to put food on the table in California and across the country — about 1 in 8 Americans — are confronting similar fears this week, as federal and state officials warn that November funds will not be issued without a resolution to the ongoing federal shutdown and Congress shows no sign of a breakthrough.

Gov. Gavin Newsom and state Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta announced Tuesday that California is joining other Democrat-led states in suing the Trump administration to force SNAP payments through the use of contingency funds, but the litigation — even if successful — won’t prevent all the disruptions.

Army Spc. Jazmine Contreras, center, and Pfc. Vivian Almaraz, right, of the 40th Division Sustainment Brigade, Army National Guard, Los Alamitos, help workers and volunteers pack boxes of produce at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank on Friday.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

It is already too late for some of the 5.5 million California residents — including 2 million children — who rely on such benefits to receive them in time to buy groceries after Friday, when many will have already used up their October benefits, state officials said. Advocates warned of a tidal wave of need as home pantries and CalFresh cards run empty — which they said is no longer a risk but a certainty.

“We are past the point at which it is possible to prevent harm,” said Andrew Cheyne, managing director of public policy at the organization End Child Poverty California.

About 41.7 million Americans were served through SNAP per month in fiscal 2024, at an annual cost of nearly $100 billion, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

State officials, local governments and nonprofit organizations are scrambling to get the word out to families and to redirect millions of dollars in emergency funding to stock more food at local food banks or load gift cards for the neediest families, but many say the capacity to respond is insufficient — and are bracing for a deluge of need.

“People really don’t understand the scale and scope of what is happening and the ripple effect it will have on the economy and with people just meeting their basic needs,” said Angela F. Williams, president and chief executive of United Way.

Already, United Way is seeing an uptick in calls to its 211 centers nationwide from people looking for help with groceries, utility bills and rent, Williams said. “There’s a critical crisis that has been brewing for a while, and it’s reaching a fevered pitch.”

Cheyne said many families are well aware of the looming disruption to aid and scrambling to prepare, including by going to state food banks for groceries. Newsom has activated the National Guard to help handle that influx in California.

However, Cheyne said many others will likely find out about the disruption while standing in grocery store checkouts.

“We anticipate a huge surge in people extremely upset to find out that they’ve literally shopped, and the groceries are in their cart, and their kids are probably with them, and then they get to the checkout, and then it’s, ‘transaction denied: insufficient funds.’”

Children and older people — who make up more than 63% of SNAP recipients in California — going hungry across America is a dire enough political spectacle that politicians of both parties have worked aggressively to prevent it in the past, including during previous government shutdowns. But this time around, they seem resigned to that outcome.

Members of the military and their families receive food donated by Feeding San Diego food bank on Friday.

(Sandy Huffaker / AFP / Getty Images)

Republicans and Democrats have been unable to reach a deal on the budget impasse as Democrats fight Republicans over their decision to slash healthcare subsidies relied on by millions of Americans. With no end in sight to the nearly month-long shutdown, federal workers who are either furloughed or working without pay — including many in California — are facing financial strain and increasingly showing up at food pantries, officials said.

A deluge of SNAP recipients will only add to the lines, and some food bank leaders are becoming increasingly worried about security at those facilities if they are overwhelmed by need.

Pointing fingers

In a statement posted to its website Monday, the Department of Agriculture wrote that Senate Democrats had repeatedly voted not to restore the SNAP funds by passing a short-term Republican spending measure.

“Bottom line, the well has run dry,” it said. “We are approaching an inflection point for Senate Democrats.”

The Trump administration had said Friday that it cannot legally dip into contingency funds to continue funding SNAP into November, even as it uses nontraditional means to pay for the salaries of active-duty military and federal law enforcement.

House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) walks through Statuary Hall at the Capitol on Tuesday.

(Samuel Corum / Bloomberg / Getty Images)

The administration has used tariff revenue to temporarily fund the Women, Infants and Children Nutrition Program, which serves about 6.7 million women and children nationally, though it is unclear how long it will continue do so. The California Department of Public Health said the state WIC program, which supports about half of all babies born in California, should “remain fully operational through Nov. 30, assuming no unexpected changes.”

On Capitol Hill, negotiations to end the shutdown have mostly ground to a halt. Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) once again refused to call House members back into session this week, sparking criticism from Democrats and some Republicans who want to negotiate a deal to reopen the government. In the Senate, negotiations remain at a stalemate.

Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have relentlessly blamed President Trump and his administration for causing the disruption to food aid, just as they have blamed the president for the shutdown overall.

“Donald Trump has the power to ensure 40 million people don’t go hungry during the shutdown. But he wishes to inflict the maximum pain on those who can least afford it. He won’t fund food. But he’s happy to build a golden ballroom,” Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) wrote Monday on X.

Schiff was referring to a $250-million ballroom Trump has planned for the White House, which he recently set into motion by demolishing the historic East Wing.

A member of the U.S. Navy waits in line to receive food from volunteers with Feeding San Diego food bank.

(Sandy Huffanker / AFP / Getty Images)

State and local responses

States have responded to the looming cut in different ways. Some have promised to backfill SNAP funding from their own coffers, though federal officials have warned they will not be reimbursed.

Newsom has stood up the National Guard and directed tens of millions of dollars to state food banks, but has made no promises to directly supplement missing SNAP benefits with state dollars — despite advocacy groups calling on him to do so.

On Friday, dozens of organizations wrote a letter to Newsom and other state officials estimating the total amount of lapsed funding for November to be about $1.1 billion, and calling on them to use state funds to cover the total amount to prevent “a crisis of unthinkable magnitude.”

Carlos Marquez III, executive director of the County Welfare Directors Assn. of California, said counties and other local agencies are responding in a number of ways, including making contributions to local food banks and looking for ways to redirect local funds — and find matching philanthropic dollars — to directly backfill missing SNAP benefits.

Los Angeles County, which has about 1.5 million SNAP recipients, has already approved a $10-million expenditure to support local food banks, its Department of Children and Family Services has identified an additional $2 million to redirect, and its partners providing managed care plans to SNAP recipients have committed another $5 million, he said.

He said his group has advocated for Newsom to declare a statewide emergency, which would help equalize the response statewide and allow for mutual aid agreements between wealthier and poorer areas.

He said his group also is advocating for the state to begin using school lunch programs to direct additional food to families with younger children at home, and to work with local senior care facilities to make sure elderly SNAP recipients are also being helped.

What comes next?

Williams, of United Way, said the organization’s local chapters are “looking for partners on the ground” to provide additional support moving forward, as needs will persist.

“It seems like every day the needs just become more and more pressing, and I’m concerned, honestly, not only about the economic toll that is being taken on individuals, I’m concerned about the mental health and emotional toll this is taking on people,” Williams said. “My hope is that people from all sectors will step up and say, ‘How can we be good neighbors?’”

On Friday, National Guard troops began a 30-day deployment at the Los Angeles Regional Food Bank, where they are sorting produce and packing food boxes. Due to “heightened concern” in the community about the military’s role in Trump’s immigration crackdown, the troops will be working in warehouses and not interacting directly with the public, said Chief Executive Michael Flood.

Flood said there has already been a surge in demand from laid-off federal workers in Los Angeles, but he’s expecting demand to increase markedly beginning Saturday, and building up distribution capacity similar to what was in place during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic — which seemed odd, considering “this is a man-made disaster.”

“It doesn’t have to happen,” Flood said. “Folks in D.C. can prevent this from happening.”

It’s been a rough few years for Santa Monica.

Businesses have abandoned its once-thriving downtown. Its retail and office vacancy rates are among the highest in Los Angeles County. The crowds that previously packed the area surrounding the city’s famous pier have dwindled.

Homelessness has risen. City officials acknowledge crime incidents had become more visible and volatile.

The breadth and depth of the issues became apparent just last month when the city was forced to declare itself in fiscal distress after paying $229 million in settlements related to alleged sexual abuse by Eric Uller, a former city dispatcher.

Now, Santa Monica is trying to plot a new path forward. A significant first step could come Tuesday.

That’s when the City Council is set to consider a plan to reverse its fortunes.

A shuttered business on Broadway in Santa Monica.

(David Butow/For The Times)

The plan includes significantly increasing police patrols and enforcing misdemeanor ordinances, investing in infrastructure and new community events, and taking a more business-friendly brush to permits and fees. Officials also plan to be more aggressive in making sure property owners maintain unused properties.

The blueprint tackles many “quality of life” issues that critics say have contributed to lower foot traffic in the city’s tourist districts since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s far from clear the tactics will work. But given the city’s current trajectory, officials say bold action is necessary.

“We’re trying to usher in a rebirth — a renaissance of the city — by investing in ourselves,” Councilmember Dan Hall said.

Hall, 38, is part of a relatively youthful City Council majority that swept into office in recent years as voters opted for new leadership and a fresh approach. Five of the seven council members are millennials, and six members first joined the council in either 2022 or 2024.

Also new on the scene is City Manager Oliver Chi, who five months ago was hired away from the same position in Irvine.

“The city is in a period of distress, for sure,” said Chi, 45. “We’re not in a moment where the city is broke. The city still has resources. … But right now, if we do nothing, the city’s general fund operating budget is projected to run a structural deficit of nearly $30 million a year, and that’s because we’ve seen big drops” in revenues, such as from hotel taxes, sales tax and parking.

“But part of that is the private sector hasn’t been investing in the city. And we haven’t had people traveling to the city,” Chi said.

Santa Monica is far from the only city — in California or nationwide — to face the pain of a downtown in decline. Brick-and-mortar retailers have long bled business to online offerings, and the pandemic upended the cadence of daily life that was the lifeblood of commercial districts, with many people continuing to work from home at least part of the week.

Birds fly over and people walk on the Santa Monica Pier.

(Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times)

But the hope is through concerted, planned investment that Santa Monica can shine once again and modernize to be competitive in the postpandemic era.

The City Council had already decided to set aside $60 million from its cash reserves to spend over the next four or five years to cover any operating deficits. But with Tuesday’s vote, Santa Monica would instead use those dollars as an investment in hopes of getting the city back on track.

“Those things really are issues related to public safety, disorder in town, the disrepair that we’ve seen in our infrastructure,” Chi said. “All of those things are preventing, I think, confidence in the local economy.”

In downtown, the city’s plan would include doubling the number of police officers assigned to a specialized unit to at least eight to 10 a day, deploying an additional five patrol officers daily, creating a new police substation, adding two workers daily to address homelessness issues, and hiring eight public safety employees to provide a more constant presence across the city’s main commercial district, parks and parking garages.

Staff in the city attorney’s office would also be augmented to boost the ability to prosecute misdemeanor cases.

An unhoused man naps on a bench in Palisades Park.

(David Butow / For The Times)

Also on the agenda: moving the city’s homeless shelter out of downtown; making a one-time $3.5-million investment to address fraying sidewalks and streets and freshen up trees and trash cans; funding monthly events at the Third Street Promenade to attract crowds; creating a large-scale “Santa Monica Music Festival” next year; upgrading restrooms near the pier and Muscle Beach; and increasing operating days for libraries.

Another proposal would require the owners of vacant properties to register with the city, in hopes of addressing lots that remain in disrepair.

The city is also looking to be more business friendly. It’s seeking to upgrade the current permit process, utilizing artificial intelligence to get nearly instantaneous permit reviews for single-family homes and accessory dwelling units, as well as reduce permit fees for restaurants with outdoor dining.

The plan also outlines strategies to boost revenue. Santa Monica is poised to end its contract with a private ambulance operator, McCormick Ambulance, in February and move those operations in house.

“It’s going to cost roughly $2.8 million a year to stand that operation up. But the reality is, once we start running it, it’ll generate about $7 million a year in new ongoing revenues,” Chi said.

“That’s part of what we’re thinking through: How do we invest now in order to grow our revenue base moving ahead?” he said.

Parking rates are also going up, which city officials estimate should generate $8 million to $9 million in additional annual revenue — though officials say they still charge a lower rate than those of nearby cities.

The city also plans more traffic safety enforcement and will cut the current 90 minutes of free parking in downtown parking structures to 30 minutes.

There’s also been talk of a new city parcel tax, though no decision has yet been made to pursue that. A parcel tax would need voter approval.

Another priority is building back the city’s cash reserves, which have dwindled over the years, largely on account of legal payments. Eight years ago, Santa Monica had $436 million in cash reserves; today, there’s only $158 million in nonrestricted reserves.

The planned $60 million in spending would further reduce the city’s unobligated cash down to $98 million.

Santa Monica’s annual general fund operating budget is nearly $800 million a year.

Beachgoers enjoying the scene near the Santa Monica Pier.

(David Butow/For The Times)

The city is also looking to redevelop some of its underutilized properties, including a 2.57-acre parcel bounded by Arizona Avenue and 4th and 5th streets, which includes branches of Bank of America and Chase bank, the leases of which are expected to expire in a few years. Also being eyed are a 1.09-acre kiss-and-ride lot southeast of the Santa Monica light rail station; the city’s seismically vulnerable Parking Structure 1 on 4th Street, which sits on 0.75 of an acre; and the old Fire Station No. 1, which sits on 0.34 of an acre and is being used for storage.

No firm plans are in place just yet. The parcels could be sold, leased long term or redeveloped as part of a joint venture. One likely possibility is that the developments would include new housing.

“When you look at any revitalization effort of any vibrant downtown core that’s eroded, there’s always been an element of repopulating the area with people,” Chi said. A smart redevelopment plan for those properties will not only “hopefully help bring back vibrancy to the downtown, but also help replenish the city’s cash reserves.”

The seeds of downtown Santa Monica’s decline actually started before the pandemic. But COVID hit the city hard, and commercial vacancies rose significantly, Councilmember Caroline Torosis, 39, said.

Santa Monica also sustained damage in 2020 from rioters who swarmed the downtown area in what appeared to be an organized attack amid a protest meant to decry the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Tourists never came back in the numbers they had before the pandemic.

Torosis said the new council majority was elected on a promise to boost economic activity in the city.

“We need to absolutely ensure that people feel safe, welcome, invited and included in our city,” said Torosis, who serves as mayor pro tem.

Hall called the plan a bold bet.

“What we’re trying to do here is move us away from a scarcity mind-set, where we’re nickel-and-diming businesses trying to stay open, restaurants trying to open a parklet, residents trying to build an ADU,” Hall said.

The council’s relative youth, he said, is a plus for a city trying to write a bright new chapter.

“I think that that’s something that millennials are finding themselves needing to do as we take ownership of society, and we see a world where past generations have been afraid to make mistakes or afraid to make decisions,” he said.

SACRAMENTO — Top California health officials warned that federal cuts will deliver a devastating blow to public health, even as the state grapples with ways to mitigate the damage.

“These changes will impact our emergency departments, rural hospitals, private and public hospitals, community health centers, ambulance providers and the broader health care system that serves every community,” said Michelle Baass, director of the California Department of Health Care Services.

Baass was among several experts who spoke Monday at a briefing about the effects of HR 1, a massive tax and spending bill passed by the Republican-led Congress and signed by President Trump that shifts federal funding away from safety-net programs for the vulnerable and toward tax cuts and immigration enforcement. She said the legislation makes sweeping changes to Medi-Cal, as Medicaid is known in California.

It “will cause widespread harm by making massive reductions in federal funding and potentially cripple the health care safety net,” Baass said. “These changes put tens of billions of dollars of federal funding at risk for California and could result in a loss of coverage for millions of Californians.”

Roughly 15 million Californians — a third of the state — are on Medi-Cal, with some of the highest percentages being in rural counties. More than half of the children in California receive healthcare coverage through Medi-Cal, healthcare coverage provided to eligible, low-income residents, according to the state Department of Health Care Services.

California officials expect the state to lose billions of dollars in federal funding for Medi-Cal and other essential healthcare programs. Given that California is facing an ongoing budget deficit, it is highly unlikely that the state will be able to raise enough money to make up for the loss in funding to continue the current level of services to residents, according to a report by the state Legislative Analyst’s Office.

Baass explained the federal legislation creates new eligibility requirements for Medicaid. Starting in 2027, many individuals ages 19 to 64 will need to work for at least 80 hours a month, or perform 80 hours of community service or be enrolled in an educational program, to qualify. The law allows various exemptions, including pregnancy, disabilities, or caring for children under the age of 19.

She estimated 3 million Medi-Cal recipients could lose coverage as a result.

“This would significantly drive up the uninsured rate that raises cost for hospitals treating uninsured patients,” Baass said.

Baass said HR 1, which Republicans labeled the “Big, Beautiful Bill,” also bans abortion providers from receiving federal Medicaid funding — even for healthcare services they offer that are not related to the procedure — and reduces federal dollars for emergency medical care for undocumented immigrants. It additionally limits state funding mechanisms, such as taxes paid by managed care providers, and establishes federal penalties for improper payments.

CalFresh, the state name for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is expecting cuts of at least $1.7 billion annually, said Jennifer Troia, director of the California Department of Social Services. About 395,000 people could lose their benefits for government food assistance.

SNAP benefits are also being hit by the current government shutdown, with payments halting in November.

At the heart of the shutdown is a political standoff in Washington over the expiring tax credits for people who get health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. Democrats said they will not vote to reopen the government until Republicans agree to renew the expanded subsidies. Republican leaders refused to negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government.

Covered California, the state’s Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplace, estimated over the summer that as many as 660,000 of the roughly 2 million people in the program will either be stripped of coverage or drop out because of increased cost and the onerous new mandates to stay enrolled.

Impacts from the new federal cuts and policies are already being felt across the state and nation.

A Planned Parenthood program in Orange and San Bernardino counties announced its imminent closure earlier this month due to being federally defunded. Los Angeles County’s health system has implemented a hiring freeze and is bracing to lose $750 million per year for the county Department of Health Services, which oversees four public hospitals and roughly two dozen clinics. Meanwhile, food banks nationwide are seeking donations and preparing for longer lines.

Kim Johnson, secretary of the state Health and Human Services Agency, discussed how California is fighting back.

Gov. Gavin Newsom recently announced he is deploying the National Guard and fast-tracking $80 million to support food banks, she said. This came alongside the governor’s decision to allocate $140 million in state funding to Planned Parenthood.

Johnson said Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta has filed more than two dozen lawsuits related to HR 1.

“Here in California,” she said, “we will continue to mitigate the harm of these federal changes wherever we can.”

It was one of the most dramatic protests in Los Angeles by activists who opposed Israel’s war in Gaza: a shutdown of the southbound lanes of the 110 Freeway as it passes through downtown.

In a chaotic scene captured by news helicopters, protesters sat down on the freeway in December 2013, halting traffic just south of the four-level interchange. On live television, enraged motorists responded by getting into physical altercations with demonstrators.

Los Angeles City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto’s office later charged many of the protesters with unlawful assembly, failure to disperse, failure to comply with a lawful order and obstruction of a street, sidewalk or other public corridor — all misdemeanors.

On Monday, after a lengthy legal battle, a judge agreed to put 29 protesters into a 12-month diversion program, which requires that each performs 20 hours of community service.

If they complete that service and obey the law, the charges will be dismissed in October 2026, said Colleen Flynn, the protesters’ attorney.

In court Monday, Flynn praised her clients for taking a stand, motivated by a moral duty to “bring attention to the loss of life and humanitarian crisis going on in Gaza.”

“These are people who were, out of conscience, making a decision to engage in an act of civil disobedience,” she told the judge.

Two others charged in connection with the protest were granted judicial diversion earlier this year and have already completed their community service. The charges against them have been dismissed, Flynn said.

Flynn initially asked for the 29 protesters to each receive eight hours of community service. City prosecutors successfully pushed for 20 hours, saying the political reason for the protest had no bearing on the case. Deputy City Atty. Brad Rothenberg told the judge that the freeway closure lasted about four hours.

“That affected thousands of people who come to the second largest city in the United States to work,” he said.

The hearing brought a quiet end to a furious legal battle.

Flynn spent several months pushing for the case to be dismissed, arguing that Feldstein Soto’s decision to charge the protesters was rooted in “impermissible bias” — religious or ethnic prejudice against Palestinians and their supporters.

At multiple hearings, Flynn said her clients experienced disparate treatment compared to other protesters who also disrupted traffic but were highlighting different political issues, such as higher wages for hotel workers. Flynn also pointed to social media posts by Feldstein Soto on Oct. 7, 2023, the day Hamas-led militants invaded Israel, murdering more than 1,200 people and kidnapping about 250 others.

“Every nation and every moral person must support Israel in defending her people,” Feldstein Soto wrote on her @ElectHydee page.

Last month, a judge denied Flynn’s request to dismiss the case. At that hearing, prosecutors said the protesters were charged because they shut down a freeway, creating a particular threat to public safety.

Prosecutors argued that a motorcycle traveling between traffic lanes at a high rate of speed easily could have plowed into freeway protesters who were sitting cross-legged on the pavement.

Prosecutors also defended Feldstein Soto’s social media posts, saying they were written on the day of the invasion, before Israel had launched its counterattack. At that point, Feldstein Soto was expressing outrage over a horrific day of violence, the prosecutors said.

Since then, Israel’s campaign in Gaza has killed more than 68,000 Palestinians, a majority of whom were women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Gaza.

Exactly a year after the Eaton fire broke out, musicians are banding together once more for an upcoming benefit show, called A Concert for Altadena.

As a way to both raise funds and bring the community together, the night is set to include performances from musicians like Jackson Browne, Dawes & Friends, Aloe Blacc, Jenny Lewis, Everclear, Stephen Stills, Mandy Moore, Judith Hill, Brad Paisley, Ozomatli, Brandon Flowers of the Killers and more.

Many of the featured acts have ties to Los Angeles and Altadena specifically, like Dawes, an indie band from Altadena who notably sang a lively rendition of “I Love L.A.” at this year’s Grammys ceremony. Moore, who is also performing, similarly lost their homes in the fire.

“I’ve seen firsthand how music can mobilize people for good. This concert brings together artists, fans, and neighbors for something bigger than all of us — recovery, hope, and rebuilding lives,” said Grammy winner Eric Krasno. The guitarist, who also lived in Altadena, helped organize the event and is set to perform.

Even behind the scenes, people like Kevin Lyman, who founded the Vans Warped Tour and is a longtime Altadena resident, is working as the event’s lead producer.

“Music has always been a force for community. With this event, we’re not just putting on a show — we’re helping Altadena rebuild homes, restore businesses, and heal hearts. This night is about unity and purpose,” said Lyman.

All of the proceeds from the show will go to the Pasadena Community Foundation’s Eaton Fire Relief & Recovery Fund, which helps provide resources to families impacted, and the Altadena Builds Back Foundation, which focuses on the long-term recovery of housing in the neighborhood.

The Eaton fire is the second most destructive wildfire in California’s history, destroying more than 9,000 structures in an area of nearly 22 square miles. It is also one of the state’s deadliest fires, with 19 people killed. Since the January fire, rebuilding efforts have proved to be slow-moving in the face of bureaucracy and high overhead costs.

The benefit show will take place Jan. 7 at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium. Tickets go sale Nov. 7.

KATE Cassidy has revealed a new unseen video of Liam Payne after the singer’s sister took swipe at star.

Kate, 26, took to social media to share a sweet clip of her and Liam on holiday together before his tragic death last year. 

The TikTok post showed Kate and Liam in a villa soaking up the sun and enjoying their private pool. 

The camera panned to the topless One Direction star who is shown filming the video whilst he takes various snaps of Kate in a blue bikini. 

The clip then cuts to another montage of Liam taking pics of the blonde beauty in a red two piece, Liam’s voice can be heard telling Kate how to pose. 

She posted the video along with the song Apocalypse by Cigarettes After Sex.

LIAM’S PAIN

Emotional new Liam Payne songs revealed with insight into star’s final year

pal’s pain

One Direction stylist Lou Teasdale reveals major regret over ‘lost’ Liam Payne

Captioning the clip, she wrote: “Memories.”

This month marks the one year anniversary of Liam’s death who sadly passed away aged 31 after falling from a hotel balcony in Argentina.

Influencer Kate had been dating the singer for two years when he died.

Liam’s devastated sister Ruth recently took a swipe at Kate after she slammed people “using his death for fame”.

In a moving tribute to her “little brother” on social media, Ruth didn’t hold back.

“Everyone only seems interested in the public side of this.

“Some sadly seem more interested in the fame they can gain off this, but on the human side people need to remember when they speak, there is a son without his Dad, parents without their child and I am lost without my brother,” she said.

Beforehand a video was shared by Kate of Liam lifting her up in a final dance before his death.

A heartbroken Kate posted the clip on her own social media showing the of the 1D singer attempting to hoist her up.

But her “last dance” with Liam was not the only post she has shared recently to mark one year since his passing.

She also shared some AI-generated snaps which some deemed as “distasteful”.

She then revealed how she would be spending the anniversary of his death on a quiet brand trip in Miami, because being busy helps her.

Kate told how she was originally reluctant to accept the invitation trip, given the timing.

Although after giving it some thought and consideration, she ultimately changed her mind.

FOOTBALLER GONE

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CHA-CHA-CHAOS

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She said: “I know Liam would want me to go. I’m not going to be doing anything on the 16th, I’ll be here in my apartment.

“I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to commit to any plans on the 16th.”

When Gigi Perez took to the stage at the Austin City Limits Festival earlier this month, it felt like the universe was holding up a mirror, reflecting back all the growth she’d done in the four years since her last performance there.

Back in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted record deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles — the wistful acoustic guitar track “Sometimes (Backwood)” and the devastatingly raw “Celene.” The 2021 edition of ACL was the first festival she ever performed, and though her early afternoon slot at one of the smaller stages attracted a few dozen audience members, Perez had spent so many years dreaming of the opportunity that it didn’t matter. She was happy just to be there.

This month, Perez returned to Austin no longer an emerging artist, but as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick folk ballad from 2024, “Sailor Song,” had topped the U.K. singles chart and earned more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the back of its success, she spent the first half of this year opening for Hozier in support of her 2025 debut LP, “At the Beach, in Every Life.”

So when she took the stage at ACL in October, this time it was for a coveted golden hour set, with a sea of people stretched out before her — and a chorus of voices singing along to her every word.

“It was magical,” Perez told De Los. “There were people there who were actually at my first set in 2021, standing in the front. It meant a lot to me. I think that there’s a shock that I still experience with people coming to my set at a festival.”

At 25 years old, Perez has lived more life than most. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Beach, Fla., the singer grew up in a devoutly Christian Cuban household, the middle child of three sisters.

As a teenager, the religious values she’d been steeped in were beginning to clash with her own realizations about her sexuality — and music provided a lifeline. The queer artists she listened to, like Hayley Kiyoko and Troye Sivan, tapped into feelings she hadn’t been able to articulate, and inspired her to write music that would allow her to express them in her own words.

At 18, just as she was preparing to head to the Berklee College of Music in Boston, her grandmother and uncle passed away, just weeks apart from each other. These dual losses set off a wave of grief and sparked difficult questions about her faith. She was struggling to regain her footing over the next year when, just months into the pandemic, her family experienced the sudden loss of her older sister Celene.

Perez felt unmoored. Her whole life, Celene had been a north star, a guiding light who inspired her to take up music, and who wanted to be a singer herself. Perez did what she knew how: wove her pain and anger and devastation into music, writing the soul-stirring tribute, “Celene.”

“The other day, I thought of something funny, but no one would’ve laughed but you,” she sings. “And mom and dad are always crying. And I wish I knew what to do.”

(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)

Her first original songs gained traction on TikTok, getting the attention of Interscope Records. From there, her career began to take off. She opened for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus, releasing her first EP, “How to Catch a Falling Knife,” in April 2023. Then, just months into a string of performances scheduled in London that summer, the label released her from her contract.

“I remember just being dumbfounded,” she said. “It was this immediate, very deep sense of fear and failure.”

But the funny thing about grief — that all-consuming force that had dragged her out to sea multiple times over the last several years — was that as suffocating as it could be, it was also surprising and unpredictable. So despite the depth of complicated emotions washing over her, Perez was acutely aware that this news was nothing compared to the loss of her sister. “So many things that happen in my life don’t affect me in that same profound way,” she said. “That was one of the things that made me. I don’t know, it’s hard to find the words even now.”

Growing up, Celene had her sights set on Broadway. She introduced Gigi to several musicals, from a bootleg version of “Legally Blonde,” to her first live theater experience in “Wicked,” to the cast album of Lin–Manuel Miranda’s “In the Heights.” They played one song from the soundtrack, “Breathe,” on repeat. It’s sung by the character Nina, the daughter of immigrants in Washington Heights, who returns home in shame after having to drop out of Stanford University.

“That’s how I was feeling at the time,” Perez professed.

In London, she listened to the song on repeat. Then, she started writing. From the beginning, her style has always been instinctual; a freeform jam session where she sits at the piano or with her guitar and just lets her ideas flow out. The title came to her first — “At the Beach, in Every Life” — and the song poured out of her, nearly word for word.

“I remember the first time I played those chords on the piano, I had no idea what was going to happen,” she said. “I just knew something was opening up inside me, but I had no idea how deep the well was going to be, or that I was going to be an artist who gets to travel the world. I just had these desires, these visions, but to really live it is something else.”

After finishing out her commitments in the U.K., she moved back home to Florida. From her childhood bedroom, she began to rebuild. She taught herself music production and kept writing more songs. Without intending to, the puzzle pieces of the last few years of her life began to fall into place, and the grief that had consumed so much of her story finally had an outlet.

“At the Beach, In Every Life” details a breaking down of Perez’s walls. Her sadness and regret washes over tracks like “Sugar Water” and “Crown,” building into fiery passion on “Chemistry” and “Sailor Song,” before cresting into the haunting resolution of the title track that closes it out. It’s a portrait of loss and yearning, made up of vivid recollections from her childhood, her family, and her previous relationships. In short, it’s the album she wishes she could’ve listened to five years ago when her pain seemed insurmountable.

“I had just been operating blind for so long,” she said. “Being able to share my experience of loss in this specific way, it’s something that my 20-year-old self would be in disbelief of. At the time, it was like being without air, the isolation was so suffocating.”

Not long ago, Perez’s sadness could sometimes make her self-conscious. She wanted to share what she was going through, but she also didn’t want to be defined by it. “I didn’t want to be that girl who was always talking about her sister, but there was this very genuine desire to cry out for help, or acknowledge her,” she said. “Everyone is different, but for me, I needed to acknowledge her in order to be well.”

Fans of Gigi Perez at the barricade during her performance at this year’s Austin City Limits Festival in Austin, Texas.

(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)

Now, not even five years later, it feels like she’s finally turned the page and started a new chapter. “I’ve been able to build a life around my grief, and honor the loss of my sister in a way that’s helped me,” she said. “I don’t know exactly what healing should look like, but her death affected me and continues to affect me in these very profound ways. This is the best case scenario for me, because I get to share it with others — that’s one of the things that makes it so difficult to navigate: the feeling that no one understands you.”

“Knowing that we’re not alone has really saved my life,” she said. “I used to be the person thinking, ‘What’s the point of being alive?’ But knowing there are other people with the same question, I know now that we can hold each other’s hands through that. That’s given me a purpose and that helps me continue to move through it.”

In the process of writing the album, Perez found ways to bring both of her sisters along for the ride. There are voice memos from Celene, along with a snippet of her singing on “Survivor’s Guilt.” But there’s also “Sugar Water,” a track she co-wrote with her younger sister, Bella, who joins her onstage to perform the song on tour. “Anyone who has two sisters knows the chaos and intensity that can bring,” she said. “But we loved each other, and we still do. My relationship to what it means to be a woman was shaped by having sisters, and Celene and Bella are the closest reflection that I have of myself.”

Amid this wild, almost unbelievable year, Perez has been grounded by her family’s presence. Her mom is part of her management team, and her dad has joined them on the road.

“There’s something to be said about being in it so much that it’s almost hard to physically feel it on the level you want to,” Perez said. But over the last few weeks, as she’s gotten the opportunity to revisit the places where she first found her footing as a performer, she’s had the opportunity to reflect on just how much she’s grown since then.

For now, she plans on heading back home to Florida once her tour is over to spend time reflecting on everything. “I think that’s when I’ll start to see the confetti fall,” she said. “Life is uncertain, and we never know what it’s going to throw our way, but this was a year that I prayed for. And I think it was a year that a lot of people who love me prayed for too. So for that, I’m very grateful.”

WASHINGTON — The first caller on a telephone town hall with Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, leader of the House’s conservative Freedom Caucus, came ready with a question about the Affordable Care Act. Her cousin’s disabled son is at risk of losing the insurance he gained under that law, the caller said.

“Now she’s looking at two or three times the premium that she’s been paying for the insurance,” said the woman, identified as Lisa from Harford County, Md. “I’d love for you to elucidate what the Republicans’ plan is for health insurance?”

Harris, a seven-term Republican, didn’t have a clear answer. “We think the solution is to try to do something to make sure all the premiums go down,” he said, predicting Congress would “probably negotiate some off-ramp” later.

His uncertainty reflected a familiar Republican dilemma: Fifteen years after the Affordable Care Act was enacted, the party remains united in criticizing the law but divided on how to move forward. That tension has come into sharp focus during the government shutdown as Democrats seize on rising premiums to pressure Republicans into extending expiring subsidies for the law, often referred to as Obamacare.

President Trump and GOP leaders say they’ll consider extending the enhanced tax credits that otherwise expire at year’s end — but only after Democrats vote to reopen the government. In the meantime, people enrolled in the plans are already being notified of hefty premium increases for 2026.

As town halls fill with frustrated voters and no clear Republican plan emerges, the issue appears to be gaining political strength heading into next year’s midterm elections.

“Premiums are going up whether it gets extended or not,” said GOP Sen. Rick Scott. “Premiums are going up because healthcare costs are going up. Because Obamacare is a disaster.”

‘Concepts of a plan’

At the center of the shutdown — now in its fourth week with no end in sight — is a Democratic demand that Affordable Care Act subsidies passed in 2021 be extended.

Trump has long promised an alternative. “The cost of Obamacare is out of control, plus, it’s not good Healthcare,” he wrote on Truth Social in November 2023. “I’m seriously looking at alternatives.”

Pressed on healthcare during a September 2024 presidential debate, Trump said he had “concepts of a plan.”

But nearly 10 months into his presidency, that plan has yet to come. Dr. Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told NBC on Wednesday, “I fully believe the president has a plan,” but didn’t go into details.

Republicans say they want a broader overhaul of the healthcare system, though such a plan would be difficult to advance before next year. Party leaders have not outlined how they’ll handle the expiring tax credits, insisting they won’t negotiate on the issue until Democrats agree to end the shutdown.

A September analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that permanently extending the tax credits would increase the deficit by $350 billion from 2026 to 2035. The number of people with health insurance would rise by 3.8 million in 2035 if the credits are kept, CBO projected.

House Speaker Mike Johnson told a news conference Monday that the tax credits are “subsidizing bad policy.” Republicans “have a long list of ideas” to address healthcare costs, he said, and are “grabbing the best ideas that we’ve had for years to put it on paper and make it work.”

“We believe in the private sector and the free market and individual providers,” he added.

A growing political issue

With notices of premium spikes landing in mailboxes now and the open enrollment period for Affordable Care Act health plans beginning Nov. 1, the political pressure has been evident in Republican town halls.

In Idaho, Rep. Russ Fulcher told concerned callers that “government-provided healthcare is the wrong path” and that “private healthcare is the right path.” In Texas, freshman Rep. Brandon Gill responded to a caller facing a sharp premium increase by saying Republicans are focused on cutting waste, fraud and abuse.

Harris echoed a message shared by many in his party during his Maryland town hall, saying costs are “just going back to what it was like before COVID.”

But the number of people who rely on Affordable Care Act health insurance has increased markedly since before the pandemic. More than 24 million people were enrolled in the marketplace plans in 2025, up from about 11 million in 2020, according to an analysis from the health care research nonprofit KFF.

Sara from Middleville, Mich., told Rep. John Moolenaar during his town hall that if health insurance premiums go up by as much as 75%, most people will probably go without healthcare. “So how do you address that?” she asked.

Moolenaar, who represents a district he handily won last year, responded: “We have time to negotiate, figure out a plan going forward and I think that’s something that could occur.”

Some Republicans have shown urgent concern. In a letter sent to Johnson, a group of 13 battleground House Republicans wrote that the party must “immediately turn our focus to the growing crisis of health care affordability” once the shutdown ends.

“While we did not create this crisis, we now have both the responsibility and the opportunity to address it,” the lawmakers wrote.

Some Republicans dismiss projections that ACA premiums will more than double without the subsidies, calling them exaggerated and arguing the law has fueled fraud and abuse that must be curbed.

Many Democrats credited their ability to flip the House in 2018 during Trump’s first term to the GOP’s attempt at repealing Obamacare, and they’re forecasting a similar outcome this time.

About 4 in 10 U.S. adults say they trust the Democrats to do a better job handling healthcare, compared with about one-quarter who trust the Republicans more, a recent AP-NORC poll found. About one-quarter trust neither party, and about 1 in 10 trust both equally, according to the poll.

A looming internal GOP fight

Even as GOP leaders pledge to discuss ending the subsidies when the government opens, it’s clear that many Republican lawmakers are adamantly opposed to an extension.

“At least among Republicans, there’s a growing sense that just maintaining the status quo is very destructive,” said Brian Blase, the president of Paragon Health Institute and a former health policy advisor to Trump during his first term.

Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute, said he’s working with multiple congressional offices on alternatives that would let the subsidies end. For example, he wants to expand the Affordable Care Act exemption given to U.S. territories to all 50 states and reintroduce a first-term Trump policy that gave Americans access to short-term health insurance plans outside the Affordable Care Act marketplace.

Cannon declined to name the lawmakers he’s working with, but said he hopes they act on his ideas “sooner than later.”

David McIntosh, president of the influential conservative group Club For Growth, told reporters Thursday that the group has “urged the Republicans not to extend those COVID-era subsidies.”

“We have a big spending problem,” McIntosh said.

“I think most people are going to say, OK, I had a great deal during COVID,” he said. “But now it’s back to business as usual, and I should be paying for healthcare.”

Cappelletti and Swenson write for the Associated Press. Swenson reported from New York.

All over Los Angeles, Zachary Asdourian hunted for the music of an Iran that could have been.

The co-founder of the L.A. record label Discotchari scoured for dust-caked Persian pop records at Jordan Market in Woodland Hills; scanned the fliers for shows at Cabaret Tehran in Encino, and combed shops in Glendale looking for Farsi-language tapes cut in L.A. studios in the ‘70s and ‘80s.

Most of the songs he and his label partner, Anaïs Gyulbudaghyan, sought were long-forgotten dance tracks, culturally-specific twists to the era’s disco boom. They’re poignant reminders of a time in L.A.’s Westwood “Tehrangeles” neighborhood when, in the years just after the 1979 Iranian revolution, immigrants here made music while their homeland roiled with ascendant theocracy.

Discotchari’s new crate-digger compilation “Tehrangles Vice” collects some of the best of them. Its 12 tracks were made in L.A. and circulated within the Iranian diaspora, then smuggled back into Iran on dubbed tapes and satellite broadcasts. They’re largely lost to time here, but fondly recalled there as bombastic dispatches from a cosmopolitan yet heartbroken immigrant community in L.A.

The music has lessons for artists watching the revanchist conservatism creeping over the United States today.

“These songs were supposed to represent the next step in Iranian music,” Asdourian said. “These artists were geniuses at shaking up what was happening in the ‘80s and ‘90s to produce an Iranian version of it. This music was meant to be heard at a party while dancing and drinking in Tehrangeles, but it also provided solace during the Islamic revolution, the Iraq war and the Iran-Contra affair. For citizens of Iran, this was giving hope as bombs were literally falling.”

The music scene this compilation documents came after a period of more stable relationships between the U.S. and Iran. Thousands of Iranian students immigrated to L.A. in the ‘60s and ‘70s and stayed, some opening restaurants and nightclubs in Westwood, Glendale and the San Fernando Valley where they could hear Iranian music.

“A lot of these clubs in L.A. pre-dated the revolution. Artists like Googoosh were already coming in from Iran to perform. Many musicians who were in U.S. when the revolution happened thought they were having a little sojourn and intended to go back someday,” said Farzaneh Hemmasi, a professor of ethnomusicology at the University of Toronto who wrote the book “Tehrangeles Dreaming: Intimacy and Imagination in Southern California’s Iranian Pop Music” and contributed the liner notes for “Tehrangeles Vice.”

An insert from a cassette tape that Farokh “Elton” Ahi previously worked on.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

“But after the 1979 revolution, musicians in Los Angeles were told by family in Iran not to go back, that they were rounding up artists, that people associated with westernization and immorality will be targeted,” Hemmasi said. “So they stayed and worked.”

One of them was Farokh “Elton” Ahi, who came to L.A. at 17 to study architecture at USC, but left that career to produce for Casablanca Records, the premier disco label of the era. He DJ’ed at Studio 54 in NYC and elite nightclubs in L.A., and produced for the likes of Donna Summer and Elton John at his Hollywood studio, Rusk (Ahi got his nickname from an interviewer who called him “Elton Joon,” a Farsi-language term of endearment).

Even in the decadent disco era, he felt an obligation to champion Iranian music in L.A.

“We wanted kids to enjoy the link between our culture and western culture,” Ahi said. “But we were also trying to bring what was happening in Iran to people’s attention with our music, which was one reason I could never go back there. Kids who had come from Iran loved Prince and Michael Jackson and were becoming super American, so we had to do something to keep them engaged in our music as well.”

During the 1979 hostage crisis, Anglo nightclubs and radio in L.A. were not keen on Persian pop music, to say the least. Ahi led a double life as an Americanized disco producer, while also writing for his immigrant community.

“Those days, because of the hostage crisis, it wasn’t fun and games having Iranian music in the club. People were against Iranians and it wasn’t a happy time,” Ahi said. “But we were making quality music with limited resources. There were not many musicians here who could play Iranian instruments, so I had to learn a bunch of them. I felt a duty to keep our music alive.”

Two ‘80s-era tracks he produced, Susan Roshan’s “Nazanin” and Leila Forouhar’s “Hamsafar,” appear on “Tehrangeles Vice,” which brims with the only-in-L.A. cultural collusion of mournful Persian melodies and lyrics about exile, paired with new wave grit and ‘80s synth-disco pulses. Aldoush’s “Vay Az in Del” has sample-blasted horns right out of the ‘80s TV show that gives the compilation its name. There’s even a strong Latin percussive element on tracks like Shahram Shabpareh and Shohreh Solati’s “Ghesmat,” which showed how Iranian artists dipped into the global crossroads of Los Angeles.

Even if this music didn’t make an impact on the charts here, it found its way back to post-revolution Iran clandestinely, on tapes and music video satellite broadcasts. Club-friendly pop music made in L.A. took on new potency abroad.

“The official culture in Iran in the ‘80s was very sorrowful because of the war, and Shiite Islam was very oriented towards mourning. Ramadan was a sad time with no music,” Hemmasi said. “But in L.A., you’ve got Iranians dancing and singing, which was not happening within the country where people needed to sing and dance even more. This music had a contraband quality that was underground in Iran itself.”

“A lot of Iranian artists wouldn’t like this comparison, but this music was really punk at its core,” Asdourian agreed. “You’d have people standing on street corners in trench coats selling cassettes. People had illegal satellite hookups to hear news and ideology from the diaspora that contradicted what they were being fed. This music was a means to restore values they felt were lost in the revolution.”

Top to bottom, Farokh “Elton” Ahi with record label Discotchari founders Zachary Asdourian and Anais Gyulbudaghyan in Los Angeles.

(Emil Ravelo / For The Times)

As contemporary Angelenos rallying for this era of Iranian music, Asdourian and Gyulbudaghyan of Discotchari will stop at nothing to ship murkily-sourced tapes from Iran, western Asia and the Caucasus for their label. “In January, we went to Armenia and met a guy who knew a guy at a restaurant in Yerevan who had someone drive tapes in from Tabriz in Iran,” Asdourian said. “They sent us GPS coordinates to pick them up, and we ended up in this abandoned former Soviet manufacturing district getting chased by a guard dog. But he had 30 cassettes, all still sealed in their boxes.”

Yet some of the acts on “Tehrangeles Vice” are still active, living and working in California. After a long hiatus, Roshan recently released new music inspired by Iran’s Woman, Life, Freedom Movement, and Ahi is a sound engineer and mixer for film (he worked on “Last of the Mohicans,” which won an Oscar for sound mixing). He recently contributed to a remix of Ed Sheeran’s “Azizam,” which sprinkles Farsi phrasing into upbeat pop and became a global hit. “Ed reached out and asked me to write some melodies that matched Googoosh’s singing to make it more international, we put our minds together and I’m so proud of it,” Ahi said.

As the United States now reckons with its own powerful right-wing religious movement in government, one eager to clamp down on cultural dissent, “Tehrangeles Vice” has lessons for musicians in the wake of a backlash. The compilation is both a specific document of a proud music culture clamping down at home and flowering abroad. But it’s also a reminder that, whether made in exile or played under attack, art is a well of possibility for imagining another life.

“Even if the geographical location isn’t same, for Iranians, L.A. represents this exiled piece of history, an Iran that could have been,” Hemmasi said. “It’s a message in a bottle from another time.”

U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned Sunday that he’s about to make good on a threat to revoke millions in federal funds for California because he says the state is illegally issuing commercial driver’s licenses to noncitizens.

In an appearance on Fox News Channel’s “Sunday Morning Futures” Duffy said California Gov. Gavin Newsom has refused to comply with U.S. Department of Transportation rules that require the state to stop issuing such licenses and review those already issued.

“So, one, I’m about to pull $160 million from California,” Duffy said. “And, as we pull more money, we also have the option of pulling California’s ability to issue commercial driver’s licenses.”

Newsom’s press office did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on the matter Sunday, but California has defended its practices previously. When Duffy threatened to revoke funds last month, a spokesperson for the governor dismissed the attack and noted that commercial license holders from California have a significantly lower rate of crashes than the national average and the Texas average, which is the only state with more licensed commercial drivers.

Last month, the Transportation Department tightened commercial driver’s license requirements for noncitizens after three fatal crashes that officials said were caused by immigrant truck drivers. Only three specific classes of visa holders will be eligible for CDLs under the new rules and states must verify an applicant’s immigration status in a federal database. The licenses will be valid for up to one year unless the applicant’s visa expires sooner.

Duffy said last month that California should never have issued 25% of 145 licenses investigators reviewed. He cited four California licenses that remained valid after the driver’s work permit expired — sometimes years after. The state had 30 days to come up with a plan to comply or lose funding.

A nationwide commercial driver’s license audit began after officials say a driver in the country illegally made a U-turn and caused a crash in Florida that killed three people. The audit found licenses that were issued improperly in California, Colorado, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Texas and Washington.

Duffy said Sunday that California has unlawfully issued tens of thousands of these licenses to noncitizens.

“So you have 60,000 people on the roads who shouldn’t have licenses,” Duffy said. “They’re driving fuel tankers, they’re driving school buses, and we have seen some of the crashes on American roadways that come from these people who shouldn’t have these licenses.”

Duffy said earlier this month that he would withhold $40 million from California because it is the only state that is failing to enforce English language requirements for truckers. California defended its practices in a formal response to the Transportation Department, but federal officials were not satisfied.

The investigation launched after the Florida crash found what Duffy called significant failures in the way California is enforcing rules that took effect in June after one of President Trump’s executive orders. California had issued the driver a commercial license, but these English rules predate the crash.

L.A. County is bringing on a retired judge to tackle a $4-billion question: How can officials ensure that real victims are compensated from the biggest sex abuse payout in U.S. history — and not people who made up their claims?

The county has tapped Daniel Buckley, a former presiding judge of the county’s Superior Court, to vet cases brought by Downtown LA Law Group after The Times found nine people represented by the firm who said they were paid to sue the county by recruiters. Four of the plaintiffs said they were told to fabricate the claims.

Downtown LA Law Group, or DTLA, has denied paying any of its roughly 2,700 clients, but agreed to cover the cost of Buckley to examine their cases in the $4-billion sex abuse settlement.

In a letter sent to clients Monday, Andrew Morrow, the lead attorney in the firm’s sex abuse cases, noted there are “additional safeguards” and “vetting protocols” underway following recent reports of paid clients, but did not specifically mention the new judge.

“While we categorically deny this ever occurred, we take these matters seriously and welcome the implementation of additional review procedures to ensure false claims do not move forward in the process,” wrote Morrow, the chairman of the firm’s mass torts department.

On Oct. 17, Dawyn Harrison, the top attorney for the county, requested an investigation from the State Bar based on The Times’ reporting, saying she believed some of the settlement would flow to “the pockets of the plaintiffs’ bar” rather than victims.

“The actions described in the article, if true, are despicable and run afoul of ethical duties of attorneys and criminal law in California,” Harrison wrote in a letter to Erika Doherty, the bar’s interim executive director. “I request the State Bar investigate all of the potential fraudulent and illegal activities described in this letter.”

DTLA declined to comment last week. The firm has previously said it works “hard to present only meritorious claims and have systems in place to help weed out false or exaggerated allegations.”

The bulk of the claims will be reviewed by retired Superior Court Judge Louis Meisinger, who will decide awards between $100,000 and $3 million.

The amount will depend on the severity of the abuse, the impact on the victim’s life and the amount of evidence provided, according to the allocation protocol. The money will be paid out over five years unless the victim opts to get a one-time check for $150,000.

If the judges find cases they believe are fraudulent, the county can either resolve them through a $50,000 payment or get them removed from the settlement. The county saves money in that case, but runs the risk of the plaintiff continuing to litigate and landing a larger payout from a jury trial.

It’s unusual — but not unheard of — for a neutral arbiter to be appointed to investigate cases from a specific firm in a massive settlement.

Retired U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Barbara Houser, who is overseeing the $2.4-billion trust for victims of the Boy Scouts of Americas sex abuse cases, said last month that she had asked for an “independent third party” to vet the claims brought by Slater Slater Schulman after finding a pattern of “irregularities” and “procedural and factual problems” among its plaintiffs.

Slater Slater Schulman, headquartered in New York City, represents roughly 14,000 victims in the Boy Scouts case. It also represents roughly 3,700 people in the L.A. County settlement — the most of any firm, by far.

On Oct. 14, Lawrence Friedman, a former Department of Justice attorney who headed up the federal watchdog office for the bankruptcy system, spearheaded a blistering motion asking Houser to reduce Slater’s attorneys fees, which he estimated were at least $20 million. Friedman is seeking to push them out of the case, alleging the firm had “run amok” and “dangled the prospect of lottery sized payouts” in front of clients without vetting them.

“The SLATER law firm has little if any quality controls in place to validate the information in the 14,600 claims other than validating that they were real people who had filed the claim,” the motion stated. “…What SLATER has effectively created is simply a ‘Claims Machine’ designed to spit out huge wads of cash for itself!”

Clifford Robert, an outside attorney who is representing Slater Slater Schulman in its issues with the Boy Scouts cases, said the firm’s priority “has been and always will be securing justice on behalf of sexual abuse victims.”

Friedman, who has been outspoken about misconduct by mass tort attorneys in bankruptcy cases, said he now represents dozens of former Slater plaintiffs. The ex-clients alleged the firm waited more than a year before informing them their cases were undergoing additional vetting and their payments would be delayed. The firm told them this September about the outside investigation, which began in June 2024, according to an email attached to the Oct. 14 motion.

“We now agree that there are procedural and factual problems in some of our claim submissions to the Trust,” the three partners of Slater Slater Schulman wrote in a joint email to clients on Sept. 9. “Because of the problematic claims, we have agreed that all of our claim submissions to the Trust be vetted by an independent third party.”

Both judges who will vet the L.A. County sex abuse payouts work for Signature Resolution, a firm that specializes in resolving legal disputes outside the courtroom with a heavyweight roster of former judges and lawyers. Litigation management company BrownGreer will be the settlement administration arm, responsible for making sure the checks go out, liens are settled and the judges have the records they need from the 11,000 plaintiffs.

An additional 414 sex abuse claims that led to a separate $828-million settlement announced Oct. 17 will be reviewed by a different judge with the money distributed over the course of three years. That settlement, which involves claims from three firms that opted to litigate separately from the rest, is expected to receive final approval from the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday.

The county will give the first tranche of money to the fund administered by BrownGreer in January, though it’s unclear when that money will trickle down to victims. The additional fraud review could slow the process as the judges will need to decide what all 11,000 of the claims are worth before any of the money goes out.

“They should have had their duck in the rows at the beginning,” said Tammy Rogers, 56, who sued over sex abuse at a county-run shelter for children in 2022.

Rogers said she has seen her bank account depleted recently following a shoulder surgery and her daughter’s funeral. She said she’s grown skeptical the settlement money will come her way anytime soon after reading the recent coverage of plaintiffs who say they were paid to sue.

“They should have known people were going to come out of the woodwork and do stuff like this,” she said. “They should have taken this time in the beginning, not in the end.”

Tammy Rogers, one of the plaintiffs who sued L.A. County over alleged abuse at MacLaren Hall, says she’s worried the extra vetting may delay payments to victims.

(Carlin Stiehl/Los Angeles Times)

The number of claims has fluctuated in recent months as some of the firms have dismissed cases from plaintiffs who died, lost interest in their lawsuit, or stopped responding. Since the Times initial investigation ran on Oct. 2, DTLA has asked for the dismissal of at least 14 plaintiffs, according to a Times analysis of court records.

On Oct. 17, the firm asked a judge to dismiss three people in a 63-plaintiff lawsuit filed April 29 who told The Times they’d been paid to sue the county for sex abuse.

Quantavia Smith, whose case DTLA asked to be dismissed without prejudice, previously told The Times a recruiter paid her to join the litigation, but said she had a legitimate sex abuse claim against the county. She said the recruiter drove her to the office of a downtown law firm and then gave her $200.

The firm also asked to dismiss the cases of Nevada Barker and Austin Beagle with prejudice, meaning the cases can’t be refilled. The Times reported this month that the Texan couple were told to make up allegations of abuse at a county-run juvenile hall and provided a script by someone inside the firm’s downtown office. Both said they left the firm with $100.

The Times could not reach the alleged recruiter for comment.

Austin Beagle and Nevada Barker say they were unwittingly ushered into a fraudulent lawsuit against L.A. County filed by Downtown LA Law Group.

(Joe Garcia/For The Times)

On the morning the story published Oct. 16, Beagle and Barker each received an automated email from Vinesign, a legal e-signature site, telling them Downtown LA Law was requesting their signature on a document.

“I wish to affirm my claim that I was sexually abused in a Los Angeles County juvenile facility, and I was never paid to bring this claim forward,” stated the DTLA declaration, which they were asked to sign under the penalty of perjury.

Both said they did not want to sign as it was not true — and the opposite of what had just been published that morning in The Times. Beagle said the firm called twice that morning to discuss.

“We told them just dismiss it,” said Beagle. “We ain’t talking about it.”

Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.

There are plenty of people speculating how one of the most popular baby names for those born this year and in 2026 in the United States and Japan will be Shohei after what Shohei Ohtani accomplished in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, hitting three home runs and striking out 10 in the Dodgers’ clinching win over the Milwaukee Brewers.

What’s also clear is how much inspiration Ohtani is providing for high school baseball players who want to hit and pitch like him.

“It’s pretty crazy to do, especially as the leadoff hitter, to strike out three, then hit a home run. He doesn’t have time to regroup,” Huntington Beach junior pitcher/outfielder Jared Grindlinger said. “It’s definitely inspiring to know it’s possible to do both at the next level. I hope other kids become two-way players.”

Grindlinger might be the best two-way player in the Southland next spring. He throws fastballs in the 90s and has lots of power as one of the best players from the class of 2027. He said he has studied Ohtani’s experiences.

“He goes through struggles,” he said. “It’s not like he goes 20 for 20. It’s good to know you’re going to fail and bounce back and it’s going to be all right.”

Joshua Pearlstein, an All-City outfielder and pitcher at Cleveland, said he was in awe watching Ohtani’s performance on television.

“It’s inspiring to me,” he said. “I was in shock. It was pretty cool to see him do everything at the same time. I think the biggest challenge is working on both at practice. It’s a challenge but I’m up for that challenge.”

Pearlstein said he studied when Ohtani was in high school in Japan, how “he was putting in the work every day. It inspires me to work at home to achieve the same goals he has reached.”

Another two-way player is Birmingham sophomore pitcher/shortstop Carlos Acuna, a diehard Dodgers fan.

Sophomore pitcher Carlos Acuna of Birmingham is also a hitter.

(Craig Weston)

“It’s awesome,” Acuna said. “That’s who I want to be like as a pitcher and hitter.”

Coaches have to be careful with two-way players because you don’t want to place too much of a burden on them at practices, something that might lessen or affect one of their skills.

Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman told The Times: “When you’re getting older and older, you kind of veer toward one avenue. I do think you’re starting to see more at the college level and potentially letting guys [do both] because of Shohei , which is really cool because he’s changing the game. I don’t know if you’re going to see another person. Most people don’t see what Shohei is doing in between and underneath. He’s two different people and has to do it day in and day out.”

Grindlinger agrees practices are where a balancing act takes place.

“I get to do my pitching stuff first, then my hitting stuff afterward,” Grindlinger said. “Or my dad will throw to me afterward. You have to plan around it. Sometimes I can’t do heavy lifting because I have a bullpen day. It’s definitely a challenge but a fun one.”

Barbara Boxer decided she was done. Entering her 70s, fresh off reelection to the U.S. Senate, she determined her fourth term would be her last.

“I just felt it was time,” Boxer said. “I wanted to do other things.”

Besides, she knew the Democratic bench was amply stocked with many bright prospects, including California’s then-attorney general, Kamala Harris, who succeeded Boxer in Washington en route to her selection as Joe Biden’s vice president.

When Boxer retired in 2017, after serving 24 years in the Senate, she walked away from one of the most powerful and privileged positions in American politics, a job many have clung to until their last, rattling breath.

(Boxer tried to gently nudge her fellow Democrat and former Senate colleague, Dianne Feinstein, whose mental and physical decline were widely chronicled during her final, difficult years in office. Ignoring calls to step aside, Feinstein died at age 90, hours after voting on a procedural matter on the Senate floor.)

Now an effort is underway among Democrats, from Hawaii to Massachusetts, to force other senior lawmakers to yield, as Boxer did, to a new and younger generation of leaders. The movement is driven by the usual roiling ambition, along with revulsion at Donald Trump and the existential angst that visits a political party every time it loses a dispiriting election like the one Democrats faced in 2024.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become the highest profile target.

Last week, she drew a second significant challenger to her reelection, state Sen. Scott Wiener, who jumped into the contest alongside tech millionaire Saikat Chakrabarti, who’s been campaigning against the incumbent for the better part of a year.

Pelosi — who is 85 and hasn’t faced a serious election fight in San Francisco since Ronald Reagan was in the White House — is expected to announce sometime after California’s Nov. 4 special election whether she’ll run again in 2026.

Boxer, who turns 85 next month, offered no counsel to Pelosi, though she pushed back against the notion that age necessarily equates with infirmity, or political obsolescence. She pointed to Ted Kennedy and John McCain, two of the senators she served with, who remained vital and influential in Congress well into their 70s.

On the other hand, Boxer said, “Some people don’t deserve to be there for five minutes, let alone five years … They’re 50. Does that make it good? No. There are people who are old and out of ideas at 60.”

There is, Boxer said, “no one-size-fits-all” measure of when a lawmaker has passed his or her expiration date. Better, she suggested, for voters to look at what’s motivating someone to stay in office. Are they driven by purpose — and still capable of doing the job — “or is it a personal ego thing or psychological thing?”

“My last six years were my most prolific,” said Boxer, who opposes both term limits and a mandatory retirement age for members of Congress. “And if they’d said 65 and out, I wouldn’t have been there.”

Art Agnos didn’t choose to leave office.

He was 53 — in the blush of youth, compared to some of today’s Democratic elders — when he lost his reelection bid after a single term as San Francisco mayor.

“I was in the middle of my prime, which is why I ran for reelection,” he said. “And, frankly,” he added with a laugh, “I still feel like I’m in my prime at 87.”

A friend and longtime Pelosi ally, Agnos bristled at the ageism he sees aimed at lawmakers of a certain vintage. Why, he asked, is that acceptable in politics when it’s deplored in just about every other field of endeavor?

“What profession do we say we want bright young people who have never done this before to take over because they’re bright, young and say the right things?” Agnos asked rhetorically. “Would you go and say, ‘Let me find a brain surgeon who’s never done this before, but he’s bright and young and has great promise.’ We don’t do that. Do we?

“Give me somebody who’s got experience, “ Agnos said, “who’s been through this and knows how to handle a crisis, or a particular issue.”

Pete Wilson also left office sooner than he would have like, but that’s because term limits pushed him out after eight years as California governor. (Before that, he served eight years in the Senate and 11 as San Diego mayor.)

“I thought that I had done a good job … and a number of people said, ‘Gee, it’s a pity that you can’t run for a third term,’ ” Wilson said as he headed to New Haven, Conn., for his college reunion, Yale class of ’55. “As a matter of fact, I agreed with them.”

Still, unlike Boxer, Wilson supports term limits, as a way to infuse fresh blood into the political system and prevent too many over-the-hill incumbents from heedlessly overstaying their time in office.

Not that he’s blind to the impetus to hang on. The power. The perks. And, perhaps above all, the desire to get things done.

At age 92, Wilson maintains an active law practice in Century City and didn’t hesitate — “Yes!” he exclaimed — when asked if he considered himself capable of serving today as governor, even as he wends his way through a tenth decade on Earth.

His wife, Gayle, could be heard chuckling in the background.

“She’s laughing,” Wilson said dryly, “because she knows she’s not in any danger of my doing so.”