IF you want some ultimate seclusion right on the ocean, there is a holiday cottage you can rent in the UK.
Hallane Mill is in the village of Charlestown in Cornwall, near St Austell Bay.
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An English cottage on a secluded beach is said to “not even look real”Credit: Refer to SourceHallane Mill is on a small rocky beach in CornwallCredit: Refer to SourceThe bedroom has amazing sea views as wellCredit: Refer to Source
And with Cornwall often being overcrowded and busy during the summer, the quaint house is ideal for escaping the bustle.
Sleeping four across two bedrooms, the cottage is down a short driveway so don’t expect to see anyone else around.
But the main attraction is the beach right on the doorstep, with the small rocky patch all to yourself.
Guests have exclusive access to it for everything from wild swimming to paddle boarding
It has an indoor dining area as well as a outdoor alfresco table area with hammock and barbecue overlooking the ocean as well.
Even if the weather turns, most of the rooms have views of the sea including one of the bedrooms and a cosy window seat in the back.
The cottage even has a log burner for when you visit in the colder months.
Previous visitors have raved about their stay with many saying they had already booked to stay again.
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One said: “This place is where you have to pitch your self to see if it is real.
“Along with the amazing service amazing location amazing cottage and to top it all of the wildlife owls woodpecker seals hawk bats see you next year.”
Another said: “We have holidayed in Cornwall for many years but have never quite found the accommodation and location that has everything we could ever have dreamed of until now.
“Hallane Mill was everything we could ever want and more. The property was exquisite in every way our little slice of heaven.
Stays start from £987 for a week stay, working out to around £35 each a night.
If you want to explore the nearby area, there is also the nearby Eden Project.
You can also explore the nearby village CharlestownCredit: Alamy
The nearest pub is The Ship Inn, just over a mile away which has a beer garden overlooking the harbour.
Otherwise you can explore the village of Charlestown, which is known for being the filming location of Poldark.
And it is even being currently used to film the newest series of Death in Paradise.
The historic harbour village is even home to the world’s biggest private collection of shipwreck artefacts.
Lío Mehiel has been working for a moment like “After the Hunt” for a long time.
Directed by Luca Guadagnino, this thorny morality play of a film set at Yale University pits well-liked professor Alma (played by Julia Roberts) against both her protegé, Maggie (Ayo Edebiri), as well as her longtime friend and colleague Hank (Andrew Garfield) during a scandal that risks her entire academic career.
Amid that starry A-list cast, the actor plays Maggie’s partner, Alex. The film, which had its world premiere in August at the Venice Film Festival, is Mehiel’s most high-profile project yet.
“There is so much time as an artist where you are doing the work and nobody cares and you have to find within yourself the motivation and the commitment and the drive to keep going,” Mehiel tells The Times. “Because you know that when you are going to be able to reach people, it will be worth it.”
Such a step has been years in the making. Mehiel, who lived in Puerto Rico until they were 5 years old, began their creative endeavors almost as soon as they arrived in New York City, first as a salsa dancer and later as an actor. By the time they were in fifth grade they were attending Broadway auditions, eventually booking a role in the 2003 revival of “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” starring Ashley Judd and Jason Patric.
(L to R) Lio Mehiel as Alex and Ayo Edebiri as Maggie in AFTER THE HUNT, from Amazon MGM Studios.
But as they began finding their own sense of self and body, they also found the kind of opportunities that led them to “After the Hunt.” That began in earnest back in 2023, when they starred in Vuk Lungulov-Klotz’s film “Mutt” as Feña, a role they booked after cold-emailing the director and telling them they’d do anything to win that part. The film chronicled a particularly hectic day in the life of a young trans man in New York City, as he struggles to rekindle old relationships he’d severed since he’d transitioned. Mehiel’s soulful performance won them a Special Jury Award for Acting at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, putting them on the map as a trans Latine performer to watch.
“Moving forward from ‘Mutt,’ I was really interested in building on that momentum to what’s next,” they say. Not just in terms of their career but in the broader cultural conversation around contemporary queer and trans representation. The following year, they returned to Sundance with Alessandra Lacorazza’s “In the Summers,” which walked away from the festival with the U.S. Dramatic Grand Jury prize — the first for a film directed by a Latina director. Like “Mutt,” that sun-dappled film found Mehiel breathing life into a trans character navigating a thorny relationship with their father (played by renowned Puerto Rican rapper Residente).
Mehiel has long been building a body of work that centers on the very work of having a body. Just this past summer, they visited the Salton Sea for a performance installation titled “angels of a drowning myth.” In photos from that day, Mehiel is seen naked and half-submerged into that so-called sea, posing alongside a bust of their own chest made six months after they’d received top surgery. A portrait of a body twice represented, Mehiel’s piece stressed the solidity and malleability of their own body, and the beauty they find within and around it. Their work moves past familiar ideas of the body in transition, gleefully embracing the messiness of the queer experience and refusing the easy siren call of visibility.
“‘After the Hunt,’ is such a beautiful example of that because Alex is a queer and trans character, but we just see them getting home from a run, taking their shirt off, being with their partner, dealing with stuff that has nothing to do with their queerness,” Mehiel says.
That moment Alex first appears on screen is quintessential Mehiel. Not just because of the honeyed intimacy their sweaty, bare chest exudes. But because their appearance immediately reframes everything audiences have heard about this seemingly militant, radical social justice warrior. Alex at first appears as a figure of “woke” culture there to defy the older generation Roberts’ Alma comes to stand for. But there’s more to them than that.
“Alex doesn’t represent all queer people who have a political orientation in the world, all queer people who might attend a protest,” they explain. “I think what Luca did and what Nora did in the script was to give us all an opportunity to move away from identity politics. Instead, they gave each of the characters enough meat on their bones that they get to be complex, messy characters.”
“After the Hunt” may focus on complicated ethical questions surrounding sexual assault allegations at a university, but within that plot, Mehiel sees also a chance for viewers to catch a glimpse of characters like Maggie and Alex who may not otherwise be centered in such stories.
“I’m just excited that there is more exposure that people are having to queer and trans people and to queer relationships, and how that can fit in the context of a ‘normative’ world,” they add. “This is a movie with Julia Roberts, one of our biggest stars and crown jewels of Hollywood and of American cinema. There’s going to be a lot of folks that are going to see it because Julia is in it. And then they’re also going to get to experience a queer and trans person on screen who is likable in some moments and unlikable in others, just as much as every other character.”
That’s been Mehiel’s purpose for years now: to expand what queer and trans characters can look like on stage, on screen and, in turn, in real life. At a time when these communities are vilified by those who wish to harm them, Mehiel insists on the importance of such normalized visibility.
Lio Mehiel seen at the Los Angeles Premiere of Amazon MGM Studios’ “After The Hunt” at Academy Museum of Motion Pictures on October 04, 2025 in Los Angeles, California.
(Photo by Stewart Cook / Amazon MGM Studios via Getty Images)
“Honestly, exposure to these experiences creates connection more than anything and allows people to feel comfortable,” they add. “Because the political climate right now — for the Latine community and for the trans community — is really hard and heartbreaking and challenging. And I think so much of it has to do with people feeling like they don’t know who these people are.”
A central kernel of the premise of “After the Hunt” is that you never know what someone is going through. And, more to the point, that making assumptions about other people’s experience can be extremely dangerous.
“This movie really serves as a mirror to the people that are watching it,” Mehiel insists. The film confronts audiences with their own biases and refuses any tidy conclusions.
But for Mehiel, the film will forever be remembered as a highlight of a career that is only bound to get bigger and more exciting. Just this year, they spent the summer at the Williamstown Theatre Festival starring in Jeremy O. Harris’ new play as well as serving as head of production for “Mother, Daughter, Holy Spirit,” a grassroots fundraiser for the Trans Justice Funding Project, all while continuing to pursue their various interests as artist, writer, and filmmaker. In that context, “After the Hunt” stands now less as a calling card than as a reminder of how far they’ve come and yet how much further they want to go. That film, now playing in theaters and coming soon to Prime Video, will widen the scope and reach of their artistry.
“Watching it, I was like, ‘I fit right into the fabric of the movie,’” they say. “On a personal journey level, I feel confident that I have the skill, the talent and the experience at this point to work with the masters that I dream of working with (if the sexy French filmmaker, Julia Ducournau, ever reads this interview, she should know that I want to work with her).”
Or, in much simpler terms that echo an ethos they’ve brought to bear on and off screen: “I just feel ready and able to actualize the things that I have been dreaming about for a long time.”
CHICAGO — Hoan Huynh was going door to door informing businesses of ramped-up immigration enforcement on Chicago’s North Side when the Democratic state lawmaker got an activist notification of federal agents nearby.
He followed agents’ vehicles and then honked to warn others when he was pulled over. Masked federal officers pointed a gun at him and a staffer, attempted to break his car window and took photos of their faces before issuing a warning, he recounted.
“We were nonviolent,” Huynh said of Tuesday’s incident, part of which was captured on video. “We identified ourselves as an elected official and my hands were visible.”
As the Trump administration intensifies an immigration crackdown across the nation’s third-largest city and its suburbs, elected officials in the Democratic stronghold have been increasingly caught in tense encounters with federal agents. Members of the Chicago City Council and their staffers as well as state legislators and congressional candidates report being threatened, handcuffed and detained in recent days.
The tense political atmosphere comes as President Trump has vowed to expand military deployments and jail Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson — both Democrats — over immigration policies the Republican claims protect criminals.
Illinois Democrats deem the actions to be scare tactics and a calculated acceleration. The clashes, amid constant arrests of immigrants and protesters, have emerged as a top campaign issue in the state’s March primary, where an unusually high number of congressional seats are open.
“This is an escalation with the interests of creating fear and intimidation in my community and in all of Chicago,” said Alderman Mike Rodriguez, whose ward includes heavily immigrant and Latino neighborhoods.
During an enforcement operation Wednesday in the city’s Mexican enclave of Little Village and adjacent suburb of Cicero, at least eight people, including four U.S. citizens, were detained, he said.
Two of those citizens work in his office, including Chief of Staff Elianne Bahena, and were held for hours, he said. Bahena also serves on an elected police accountability council. Rodriguez said they did nothing wrong but didn’t offer details.
“Trump sent his goons to my neighborhood to intimidate, and in the process of helping people out, my staff got detained,” he said Thursday amid continued federal presence in Little Village. Among other things, agents deployed chemical agents and detained a 16-year-old, activists and elected officials said.
Though the operation’s focus has been concentrated in Latino neighborhoods and suburbs, federal agents have been spotted all over the city of 2.7 million and its many suburbs. Word of pedestrian and traffic stops outside schools, stores, courts and an O’Hare International Airport parking lot used by rideshare drivers have triggered waves of frustration amid the city’s active immigrant rights network and residents who follow vehicles, blow warning whistles and take videos.
The Department of Homeland Security has defended its operations, including the detention of U.S. citizens, saying they are temporarily held for safety. The agency, which didn’t answer questions about Rodriguez’s staff, accused Huynh of “stalking” agents.
Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said agents had to assess whether he was a threat.
“This behavior is unbecoming of a public servant and is just another example of sanctuary politicians putting our officers at risk,” she said in a statement.
Also this week, City Council member Jessie Fuentes filed a federal tort claim seeking $100,000 in damages after agents grabbed and handcuffed her this month at a hospital. She said she was checking on a person who was injured while being pursued by immigration agents and asked for a signed judicial warrant on the person’s behalf. She was handcuffed and let go outside the hospital. She wasn’t charged.
“It is indeed a frightening time when unidentified federal agents shove, grab, handcuff and detain an elected official in the exercise of her duties,” said Jan Susler, Fuentes’ attorney.
Huynh, who was elected to the Illinois House in 2022, is running for Congress to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schawkosky, among four open House seats in safely Democratic territory. Other candidates in the crowded primary have also publicized their opposition outside a federal immigration processing center, including Kat Abughazaleh, who was thrown on the ground by federal agents as she protested.
For Huynh, who came to the U.S. in the 1990s from Vietnam and was granted political asylum, the feeling is familiar.
“My family came as refugees from the Vietnam War, where people were being picked up by the secret police all the time. We believed in the American ideal of due process,” he said. “It is very concerning that in this country right now and very disturbing right now that we are living under this authoritarian regime.”
Comedian Becky Robinson’s life has turned into the most insanely fun reality show. One minute she’s screaming into a closet mirror, feeling defeated back in her parents’ house, and a few viral moments later, she’s on The Members Only tour, zipping around country clubs in Oakleys with her tricked-out Streetrod Golf Cart, “sauvi B,” and a sun visor clamped on her blond bob like it’s couture. Her bestie Trish is one call away, her kids Macabee and Dashiell are wrecking the house, her husband Scott isn’t listening (shocker), but her fans-turned-friends, the “Gieurlz,” are. Welcome to the world of the Entitled Housewife. No fancy membership required here because none of it is real, but it’s all so real.
Every story, and character, has a beginning and before she was taking rides on custom carts, she was riding an emotional roller coaster during the pandemic. “So during the pandemic I was with my sister, and she was working at an ER,” says Robinson. “She was in the trenches trying to help people and coming home and you know, might die, and I was terrified because she was coming home from work every day and — who knows? I grew up around Portland, so I had packed up my wigs to go there in case I was going to have a proper ‘Menty-B’ [mental breakdown]. Then even she was like, why don’t you go to mom and dad’s and try to find some form of happiness. So many people were depressed during that time, but I didn’t realize how much I needed to perform.”
While she was stuck at a low point, her parents were somehow in peak vacation mode. “My dad was like, ‘Golf is all we have! You know, we’re golfing all day,’” Becky says, impersonating her father. “He was wearing a golf glove on both hands, kind of like COVID protection, and he’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m doing my part, you know, I’m not wearing a mask, but I got a golf glove on both hands!’”
Becky Robinson takes the stage as the Entitled Housewife
(Megan Rego)
Her mom shared the same sentiment — not for double-fisting gloves — but she too needed to live. “My mom has kind of been through it health-wise, and so she was like, ‘I don’t want to be locked down. I want to go to happy hour with the gieurlz.’ I just sat there and watched them like, you guys are out of your f— minds. Then one day they left the house, and I just felt inspired. So I put a wig on.”
Robinson went into her parents’ closet and dressed herself in a polo, a skort and a visor. “I put on the Oakleys and the Air Pods and the second I looked in the mirror, I just started improvising. She was like, SCOTT! DASHIELL! MACABEE! [My character] had this element of, she could get frustrated very fast.”
That day, in her parents’ closet, Robinson turned lemons into hard lemonade, and with a visor high on her head like a regal crown, a new version of herself emerged — an entitled one. “I improvised for, like, five hours in character. It might have been a manic episode, I don’t know, but I just remember when the whole thing was assembled that day and I started filming, it was making me laugh and I was like, maybe it’ll make someone else laugh too.”
Initially, she hadn’t planned on posting videos of her in character on TikTok but considering how much she was making herself laugh, it was only a matter of time.
“When I made the first , I was like, ‘I can’t post this. It’s dark times and I’m going to look like such a fool for trying to be funny.’ But then I took an edible and showed my sister to see if it made her laugh because I figured she’s experiencing it every day, in the middle of it, and she told me to post it.”
The debut video of Entitled Housewife got millions of views on social media. As it would turn out, other people needed to laugh at the exact same time. “All these celebrities started messaging me and then Chris Pratt DM’d me and is like, ‘If you make a movie with these characters, I have to be Scott!’”
Robinson’s parents weren’t quite as enthusiastic when she showed them her content for the first time. “I think my dad walked out and my mom was like, ‘You know, Beck, this hits a little close to home.’ She was actually pissed at first because I used the real name of my dad’s country club, and it was so vulgar, so she was worried about him getting kicked out.”
Fast forward to now, and many of these types of golf clubs have booked her for shows and actually pay for her to be vulgar. “So they love it now!,” Robinson said. “People come up to my dad in the store like, ‘Are you Entitled’s dad?!’ He definitely loves the perks because he’s a huge golfer.”
“Some people really think I’m this 50-year-old golf lady with kids, and I think a lot of people think that I started when my character started,” Robinson said.
(Megan Rego)
With her family on board and fans worldwide cheering her on, she’s taking off the wig and going back to her stand-up, but with a touch of Entitlement. Shot at the Wilbur Theatre in Boston, her debut comedy special, “Becky Robinson: Entitled,” comes out Friday exclusively on her website and shines a massive spotlight on the fact that Robinson has never needed to lean on props to be funny.
“We’re definitely excited to be releasing on our own platform with entire creative control. The team I work with is so bad ass and they’re really the reason it was all brought to life. I wanted something to give to the fans, and I wanted them to be able to watch it without ads. I want them to see how much they lift me up, so I’m excited to get to release this exactly the way we want it. You know, it’s a little longer than an hour, which streamers don’t like, but the Gieurlz will.”
Robinson has been doing stand-up for 13 years, and that experience shows the second she hits any stage (or bar top). In “Entitled,” you see her stand-up carries the same raw, fearless charge that made her Entitled Housewife sketches a phenomenon. Similar, yet clearly distinct, the two share a flair for the dramatic and an energy that feels almost superhuman. “People are always asking, is it drugs? IS IT?,” Robinson laughs. “In the last couple of years, I got this trainer who is like, ‘You gotta treat this like you’re a professional athlete, OK, because that’s what you’re doing up there!’ For a while, I never listened because we were having fun and it’s just stand-up! And for the first couple of years of touring I would have some drinks and stuff, but now, we’re playing at a level where there are acrobatics involved and cues and high kicks and all these things where injury is very possible. Still, though, when I go out there, I just can’t give them anything less than 200%. Then when I get home, I sleep for 24 hours and then, I’m a person again.”
Should there still be any confusion about Robinson versus Entitled Housewife, in addition to her special, she also released a 30-minute documentary that goes behind the scenes of “Becky Robinson: Entitled.” Also available on her website, Robinson couldn’t be more grateful for her Gieurlz who make this world of hers possible, even if some of them think she’s a bit “seasoned.”
“It took me a while to realize that people see videos and just buy tickets, and that they didn’t even know I was this person who’s done stand-up for 13 years,” says Robinson. “Some people really think I’m this 50-year-old golf lady with kids, and I think a lot of people think that I started when my character started. I feel my funniest when I’m doing characters, and I love that people come out dressed like Entitled, but now more and more people are saying they came for the character, and now they like my stand-up too. You love to hear that so that’s been really great!”
“I wanted something to give to the fans,” Robinson said about her new special. “I want them to see how much they lift me up, so I’m excited to get to release this exactly the way we want it.”
(Tara Johnson)
In no way does that signal the end of the fun with Entitled. This fall, Robinson is taking her skort-wearing alter ego global with her very own golf tournament. From Nov. 6 to Nov. 9, “She Gone Golfing: The Entitled Housewife Tulum Classic” hits the PGA Riviera Maya, Mexico’s No.1-ranked course, with PXG backing the madness. It’s a full-blown Gieurlz escape with golf by day, and karaoke-fueled chaos by night in Mexico’s Riviera Maya.
“This trip is probably gonna take years off my life, but we’re gonna turn it up in Mexico, baby! Let’s get international! We’re gonna get that tequila flowing!” Though the idea of being a golfer may have started out as a joke for Robinson, she’s now become fully addicted to the sport.
“It’s such a fun game and it can relax you when you’re just out there waxing those balls! I really want to introduce more people to it so this will be a fun way to do that. The only reason I’m able to do all of these things is because of the fans coming to see the show, buying the merch, and showing up in the visors. They really are the best!”
Consumer confidence is dropping. The national debt is $38 trillion and climbing like the yodeling mountain climber in that “The Price is Right” game. Donald Trump’s approval ratings are falling and the U.S. is getting more and more restless as 2025 comes to a close.
What’s a wannabe strongman to do to prop up his regime?
Attack Latin America, of course!
U.S. war planes have bombed small ships in international waters off the coast of Venezuela and Colombia since September with extrajudicial zeal. The Trump administration has claimed those vessels were packed with drugs manned by “narco-terrorists” and have released videos for each of the 10 boats-and-counting it has incinerated to make the actions seem as normal as a mission in “Call of Duty.”
“Narco-terrorists intending to bring poison to our shores, will find no safe harbor anywhere in our hemisphere,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth posted on social media and who just ordered an aircraft carrier currently stationed in the Mediterranean to set up shop in the Caribbean. It’ll meet up with 10,000 troops stationed there as part of one of the area’s biggest U.S. deployments in decades, all in the name of stopping a drug epidemic that has ravaged red America for the past quarter century.
This week, Trump authorized covert CIA actions in Venezuela and revealed he wants to launch strikes against land targets where his people say Latin American cartels operate. Who cares whether the host countries will give permission? Who cares about American laws that state only Congress — not the president — can declare war against our enemies?
It’s Latin America, after all.
The military buildup, bombing and threat of more in the name of liberty is one of the oldest moves in the American foreign policy playbook. For more than two centuries, the United States has treated Latin America as its personal piñata, bashing it silly for goods and not caring about the ugly aftermath.
“It is known to all that we derive [our blessings] from the excellence of our institutions,” James Monroe concluded in the 1823 speech that set forth what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which essentially told the rest of the world to leave the Western Hemisphere to us. “Ought we not, then, to adopt every measure which may be necessary to perpetuate them?”
Our 19th century wars of expansion, official and not, won us territories where Latin Americans lived — Panamanians, Puerto Ricans, but especially Mexicans — that we ended up treating as little better than serfs. We have occupied nations for years and imposed sanctions on others. We have propped up puppets and despots and taken down democratically elected governments with the regularity of the seasons.
The culmination of all these actions were the mass migrations from Latin America that forever altered the demographics of the United States. And when those people — like my parents — came here, they were immediately subjected to a racism hard-wired into the American psyche, which then justified a Latin American foreign policy bent on domination, not friendship.
Nothing rallies this country historically like sticking it to Latinos, whether in their ancestral countries or here. We’re this country’s perpetual scapegoats and eternal invaders, with harming gringos — whether by stealing their jobs, moving into their neighborhoods, marrying their daughters or smuggling drugs — supposedly the only thing on our mind.
That’s why when Trump ran on an isolationist platform last year, he never meant the region — of course not. The border between the U.S. and Latin America has never been the fence that divides the U.S. from Mexico or our shores. It’s wherever the hell we say it is.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro Urrego addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 23 at U.N. headquarters.
(Pamela Smith / Associated Press)
That’s why the Trump administration is banking on the idea that it can get away with its boat bombings and is salivating to escalate. To them, the 43 people American missile strikes have slaughtered on the open sea so far aren’t humans — and anyone who might have an iota of sympathy or doubt deserves aggression as well.
That’s why when Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of murder because one of the strikes killed a Colombian fisherman with no ties to cartels, Trump went on social media to lambaste Petro’s “fresh mouth,” accuse him of being a “drug leader” and warn the head of a longtime American ally he “better close up these killing fields [cartel bases] immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
The only person who can turn down the proverbial temperature on this issue is Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who should know all the bad that American imperialism has wrought on Latin America. The U.S. treated his parents’ homeland of Cuba like a playground for decades, propping up one dictator after another until Cubans revolted and Fidel Castro took power. A decades-long embargo that Trump tightened upon assuming office the second time has done nothing to free the Cuban people and instead made things worse.
Instead, Rubio is the instigator. He’s pushing for regime change in Venezuela, chumming it up with self-proclaimed “world’s coolest dictator” Nayib Bukele of El Salvador and cheering on Trump’s missile attacks.
“Bottom line, these are drug boats,” Rubio told reporters recently with Trump by his side. “If people want to stop seeing drug boats blow up, stop sending drugs to the United States.”
You might ask: Who cares? Cartels are bad, drugs are bad, aren’t they? Of course. But every American should oppose every time a suspected drug boat launching from Latin America is destroyed with no questions asked and no proof offered. Because every time Trump violates yet another law or norm in the name of defending the U.S. and no one stops him, democracy erodes just a little bit more.
This is a president, after all, who seems to dream of treating his enemies, including American cities, like drug boats.
Few will care, alas. It’s Latin America, after all.
NEW YORK — Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for New York City mayor, pledged Friday to further embrace his Muslim identity in response to growing attacks by former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and his surrogates that he characterized as “racist and baseless.”
Encircled by faith leaders outside a Bronx mosque, Mamdani spoke in emotional terms about the “indignities” long faced by the city’s Muslim population, choking back tears as he described his aunt’s decision not to ride the subway after the Sept. 11 attacks because she didn’t feel safe being seen in a religious head covering.
He recounted how, when he first entered politics, an uncle gently suggested he keep his faith to himself.
“These are lessons that so many Muslim New Yorkers have been taught,” Mamdani said. “And over these last few days, these lessons have become the closing messages of Andrew Cuomo, Curtis Sliwa and Eric Adams.”
At a news conference later Friday, Cuomo accused Mamdani of “playing the victim” for political purposes and denied that Islamophobia existed on a wide scale in New York.
Throughout the race, Mamdani, a democratic socialist, has been criticized by Cuomo and others over his criticism of Israel’s government, which he had accused of committing genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
But the tone of those attacks have amped up in recent days, drawing allegations from some Democrats that Cuomo’s campaign is leaning into Islamophobia in the final stretch of the campaign.
Appearing on a conservative radio station Thursday, Cuomo appeared to laugh along at host Sid Rosenberg’s suggestion that Mamdani would “be cheering” another 9/11 attack. “That’s another problem,” Cuomo replied.
A Cuomo social media account posted, then removed, a video depicting Mamdani eating rice with his hands and describing his supporters as criminals. A campaign spokesperson said the video was posted in error.
At an event endorsing the former governor, Mayor Eric Adams invoked the possibility of terrorist attacks in New York City, seeming to suggest — without explanation — they would be more likely under a Mamdani administration.
“New York can’t be Europe. I don’t know what is wrong with people,” Adams said, standing alongside Cuomo. “You see what’s playing out in other countries because of Islamic extremism.”
At a debate earlier this week, Sliwa, the Republican nominee, falsely smeared Mamdani as a supporter of “global jihad.”
Asked about Rosenberg’s comments, Cuomo said he “didn’t take the remarks seriously at the time.”
“Of course I think it’s an offensive comment. But it did not come out of my mouth,” he added.
Messages left with Adams’ and Sliwa’s campaign were not immediately returned.
In his speech Friday, Mamdani said he was aiming his remarks not at political opponents but at his fellow Muslim New Yorkers.
“The dream of every Muslim is simply to be treated the same as any other New Yorker,” he said. “And yet for too long we have been told to ask for less than that, and to be satisfied with whatever little we receive.”
“No more,” he said.
To that end, Mamdani said he would further embrace his Muslim identity, a decision he said he consciously avoided at the start of his campaign.
“I thought that if I behaved well enough, or bit my tongue enough in the face of racist, baseless attacks, all while returning back to my central message, it would allow me to be more than just my faith,” Mamdani said. “I was wrong. No amount of redirection is ever enough.”
He continued: “I will not change who I am, how I eat, for the faith that I’m proud to call my own. But there is one thing that I will change. I will no longer look for myself in the shadows. I will find myself in the light.”
Mamdani, who won the primary in stunning fashion, has faced skepticism from some in the Democratic establishment, particularly over his criticism of Israel. On Friday, Mamdani earned the endorsement of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.).
Cuomo told reporters that Mamdani’s criticism of Israel had made Jewish people afraid to leave their homes.
He also rejected Mamdani’s claim that Muslim New Yorkers have been made to feel uncomfortable in their own city.
“Don’t tell me New Yorkers are Islamophobic. They’re not,” Cuomo said.
“What he is doing is the oldest, dirtiest political trick in the book: divide people,” Cuomo said.
MEXICO CITY — The United States slapped sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Friday and said it was sending a massive aircraft carrier to the waters off South America, a new escalation of what the White House has described as a war against drug traffickers in the region. Also Friday, the U.S. military conducted its 10th strike on a suspected drug-running boat, killing six people in the Caribbean Sea.
The Treasury Department said it was sanctioning Petro, his wife, his son and a political associate for failing to stop the flow of cocaine to the United States, noting that cocaine production in Colombia has risen in recent years. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent accused Petro of “poisoning Americans.”
Petro denied those claims in a statement on X, saying he has fought to combat drug trafficking for decades. He said it was “quite a paradox” to be sanctioned by a country with high rates of cocaine consumption.
The sanctions put Petro in the same category as the leaders of Russia and North Korea and limit his ability to travel to the United States. They mark a new low for relations between Colombia and the United States, which until recently were strong allies, sharing military intelligence, a robust trade relationship and a multibillion-dollar fight against drug trafficking.
Elizabeth Dickinson, a senior analyst for the Andes region at the International Crisis Group, a think tank, said that while Petro and the U.S. government have had disagreements over how to tackle trafficking — with the Americans more interested in eradicating coca fields and Colombians focused on cocaine seizures — the two countries have been working for decades toward the same goal.
“To suggest that Colombia is not trying is false and disingenuous,” Dickinson said. “If the U.S. has a partner in counternarcotics in Latin America, it’s Colombia. Colombian forces have been working hand in hand with the Americans for literally four decades. They are the best, most capable and frankly most willing partner the U.S. has in the region.
“If the U.S. were to cut this relationship, it would really be the U.S. shooting themselves in the foot.”
Many viewed the sanctions as punishment for Petro’s criticism of Trump. In recent days, Petro has accused the U.S. of murder, saying American strikes on alleged drug boats lack legal justification and have killed civilians. He has also accused the U.S. of building up its military in South America in an attempt to topple Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The quickened pace of U.S. airstrikes in the region and the unusually large buildup of military force in the Caribbean Sea have fueled those speculations.
On Friday, a Pentagon official said the U.S. ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States.”
The USS Ford is currently deployed to the Mediterranean Sea along with three destroyers. It would probably take several days for the ships to make the journey to South America.
The White House has increasingly drawn a direct comparison between the war on terrorism that the U.S. declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Trump administration’s crackdown on drug traffickers.
Trump this month declared drug cartels to be unlawful combatants and said the U.S. was in an “armed conflict” with them, relying on the same legal authority used by the Bush administration after 9/11.
When reporters asked Trump on Thursday whether he would request that Congress issue a declaration of war against the cartels, he said that wasn’t the plan.
“I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country, OK? We’re going to kill them, you know? They’re going to be like, dead,” Trump said during a roundtable at the White House with Homeland Security officials.
Referencing these developments ahead of the screening in Park City, Utah, writer-director Bill Condon told the audience: “That’s a sentiment I think you’ll see the movie has a different point of view on.”
Released in theaters Oct. 10, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” is set in the final year of Argentina’s Dirty War, the violent military dictatorship that spanned from 1976-1983. The story begins in the confines of a Buenos Aires prison, where newfound cellmates Valentin Arregui Paz (Diego Luna) and Luis Molina (Tonatiuh) find they have little in common. Arregui is a principled revolutionary dedicated to his cause, while Molina is a gay, flamboyant window dresser who’s been arrested for public indecency.
Undeterred by their differences, Molina punctuates the bleak existence of their imprisonment — one marked by torture and deprivation — by recounting the plot of “The Kiss of the Spider Woman,” a fictional Golden Age musical starring his favorite actress, Ingrid Luna (Jennifer Lopez), casting himself and Arregui as her co-stars. Transported from their dreary cell to the bright, indulgent universe of the musical, their main conflicts become a quest for love and honor, rather than a fight for their basic human rights.
When Argentinian author Manuel Puig began writing the celebrated novel, “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” in 1974, it was just a year into his self-imposed exile to Mexico as his native Argentina lurched toward authoritarianism. By the time the book was released in 1976, a military junta had seized control of the government. The next seven years were marked by the forced disappearance of an estimated 20,000-30,000 people, many of whom were kidnapped and taken to clandestine detention camps to be tortured and killed. Among those targeted were artists, journalists, student activists, members of the LGBTQ+ community and anyone deemed “subversive” by the regime.
Initially banned in Argentina, Puig’s novel has been adapted and reimagined multiple times, including as an Oscar-winning film in 1985 and a Tony Award-winning musical in 1993. With each iteration, the central elements have remained unchanged. And yet, as the 2025 adaptation arrived in theaters this month, this queer, Latino-led story of two prisoners fighting the claustrophobia of life under fascism feels at once like a minor miracle, and a startling wake-up call.
Tonatiuh, left, and Diego Luna in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
(Sundance Institute)
In the months since the film’s Sundance premiere, the parallels between the fraught political climate of 1970s Argentina and that of our present have only become more pronounced.
Amidst these headlines are people just like Molina and Arregui — activists, artists and human beings — finding their own ways to survive and resist an increasingly paranoid and repressive government. And while Arregui’s instinct is to remain unwavering in his cause, Molina’s is to retreat into the glamorous, over-the-top world of the “Spider Woman.”
In dazzling musical numbers expertly performed by Lopez, who delivers each song and dance with all the magnetism of a true Old Hollywood icon, both the prisoners and the audience can’t help but be drawn further and further into her Technicolor web.
Jennifer Lopez and Tonatiuh in the movie “Kiss of the Spider Woman.”
(Roadside Attractions)
It might be easy to write these moments off as nothing more than a superficial distraction, as Arregui does early on, and characterize musicals as shallow and cliche. At first, Molina is happy to admit that’s why he loves them, but the truth is more complicated.
During Argentina’s dictatorship, discrimination and attacks by paramilitary groups against LGBTQ+ people became more and more frequent. Molina accepts the role society has cast him in, allowing himself to be the “monster,” the “deviant” or the “sissy” that people want him to be, while retreating mentally into the world of classic films and pop culture. For him, their beauty is a salve — an opportunity to abandon reality and cast himself in a role that doesn’t actually exist for him.
Though he never explicitly claims an identity, it’s made clear that he doesn’t just love “La Luna” — he wants to be her. And in their first feature lead role, the queer, L.A.-born actor Tonatiuh embodies all of Molina’s contradictions — his bluster, his pain, his radiance — to heart-wrenching effect.
As Molina and Arregui grow closer, the boundaries between reality and fantasy begin to melt, and their formerly rigid perceptions collapse along with them. Arregui takes on some of Molina’s idealism, and the musical he once saw as a tired cliche becomes something invaluable: a sliver of joy that can’t be taken from him. A cynic convinced of the world’s brokenness, he realizes that revolutions need hope too.
In the film’s final act, while the world around Molina hasn’t changed, he has. Still trapped within the confines of a society that is doing its best to crush him, he adopts Arregui’s integrity and realizes that he has a choice: “I learned about dignity in that most undignified place,” he says in the film. “I had always believed nothing could ever change for me, and I felt sorry for myself. But I can’t live like that now.”
Like the film within the film, “Kiss of the Spider Woman” isn’t an escape. It’s a lifeline — and a reminder that, even in the darkest of times, art has the power to transport us, sustain us and embolden us to be brave.
WASHINGTON — The government shutdown has reopened debate on what has been a central issue for both major political parties in the last 15 years: the future of health coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Tax credits for people who get health insurance through the marketplaces created by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, expire at the end of the year.
Democrats say they won’t vote to reopen the government until Republicans negotiate an extension of the expanded subsidies. Republicans say they won’t negotiate until Democrats vote to reopen the government. Lawmakers in both parties have been working on potential solutions behind the scenes, hoping that leaders will eventually start to talk, but it’s unclear if the two sides could find compromise.
As Congress circles the issue, a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 6 in 10 Americans are “extremely” or “very” concerned about their health costs going up in the next year. Those worries extend across age groups and include people with and without health insurance, the poll found.
A look at the subsidies that are expiring, the politics of the ACA and what Congress might do:
Enhanced premium help during the pandemic
Passed in 2010, the ACA was meant to decrease the number of uninsured people in the country and make coverage more affordable for those who don’t have private insurance. The law created state by state exchanges, some of which are run by the individual states, to try to increase the pool of the insured and bring down rates.
In 2021, when Democrats controlled Congress and the White House during the COVID-19 pandemic, they expanded premium help that was already in the law. The changes included eliminating premiums for some lower-income enrollees, ensuring that higher earners paid no more than 8.5% of their income and expanding eligibility for middle-class earners.
The expanded subsidies pushed enrollment to new levels and drove the rate of uninsured people to a historic low. This year, a record 24 million people have signed up for insurance coverage through the ACA, in large part because billions of dollars in subsidies have made the plans more affordable for many people.
If the tax credits expire, annual out-of-pocket premiums are estimated to increase by 114% — an average of $1,016 — next year, according to an analysis from KFF.
Democrats push to extend subsidies
Democrats extended those tax credits in 2022 for another three years but were not able to make them permanent. The credits are set to expire Jan. 1, with Republicans now in full control.
Lacking in power and sensing a political opportunity, Democrats used some of their only leverage and forced a government shutdown over the issue when federal funding ran out on Oct. 1. They say they won’t vote for a House-passed bill to reopen the government until Republicans give them some certainty that the subsidies will be extended.
Democrats introduced legislation in September to permanently extend the premium tax credits, but they have suggested that they are open to a shorter period.
“We need a serious negotiation,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer has repeatedly said.
Republicans try to scale the ACA back, again
The Democratic demands on health care have reignited longstanding Republican complaints about the ACA, which they have campaigned against for years and tried and failed to repeal in 2017. Many in the party say that if Congress is going to act, they want to scrap the expanded subsidies and overhaul the entire law.
The problem is not the expiring subsidies but “the cost of health care,” Republican Sen. Rick Scott of Florida said Tuesday.
In a virtual briefing Tuesday, the libertarian Cato Institute and the conservative Paragon Health Institute branded the subsidies as President Joe Biden’s “COVID credits” and claimed they’ve enabled fraudsters to sign people up for fully subsidized plans without their knowledge.
Others have pitched more modest proposals that could potentially win over some Democrats. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., has said he is open to extending the subsidies with changes, including lower income limits and a stop to auto-enrollment that may sign up people who don’t need the coverage.
The ACA is “in desperate need of reform,” Thune has said.
House Republicans are considering their own ideas for reforming the ACA, including proposals for phasing out the subsidies for new enrollees. And they have begun to discuss whether to combine health care reforms with a new government funding bill and send it to the Senate for consideration once they return to Washington.
“We will probably negotiate some off-ramp” to ease the transition back to pre-COVID-19 levels, said Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, the head of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, during a virtual town hall Tuesday.
Is compromise possible?
A number of Republicans want to extend the subsidies. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said most people who are using the exchanges created by the ACA “don’t really have another option, and it’s already really, really expensive. So I think there are things we can do to reform the program.”
Hawley said he had been having conversations with other senators about what those changes could be, including proposals for income limits, which he said he sees as a “very reasonable.”
Bipartisan groups of lawmakers have been discussing the income limits and other ideas, including making the lowest-income people pay very low premiums instead of nothing. Some Republicans have advocated for that change to ensure that all enrollees are aware they have coverage and need it. Other proposals would extend the subsidies for a year or two or slowly phase them out.
It’s unclear if any of those ideas could gain traction on both sides — or any interest from the White House, where President Donald Trump has remained mostly disengaged. Despite the public stalemate, though, lawmakers are feeling increased urgency to find a solution as the Nov. 1 open enrollment date approaches.
Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire has been talking to lawmakers since the shutdown began, trying to find areas of compromise. On Tuesday, she suggested that Congress could also look at extending the enrollment dates for the ACA since Congress is stalled on the subsidies.
“These costs are going to affect all of us, and it’s going to affect our health care system,” she said.
Jalonick writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Lisa Mascaro and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Ali Swenson in New York contributed to this report.
To say that President Trump is unfazed by Saturday’s nationwide “No Kings” rally, which vies for bragging rights as perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history, is the sort of understatement too typical when describing his monarchical outrages.
Leave aside Trump’s grotesque mockery of the protests — his post that night of an AI-generated video depicting himself as a becrowned pilot in a fighter jet, dropping poop bombs on citizens protesting peacefully below. Consider instead two other post-rally actions: On Sunday and Wednesday, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced first that on Trump’s orders the military had struck a seventh boat off Venezuela and then an eighth vessel in the Pacific, bringing the number of people killed over two months to 34. The administration has provided no evidence to Congress or the American public for Trump’s claims that the unidentified dead were “narco-terrorists,” nor any credible legal rationale for the strikes. Then, on Monday, Trump began demolishing the White House’s East Wing to create the gilded ballroom of his dreams, which, at 90,000 square feet, would be nearly twice the size of the White House residence itself.
As sickening as the sight was — heavy equipment ripping away at the historic property as high-powered hoses doused the dusty debris — Trump’s $250-million vanity project is small stuff compared to a policy of killing noncombatant civilian citizens of nations with which we are not at war (Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador). Yet together the actions reflect the spectrum of consequences of Trump’s utter sense of impunity as president, from the relatively symbolic to the murderous.
“In America the law is king,” Thomas Paine wrote in 1776. Not in Trump’s America.
Among the commentariat, the president’s desecration of the East Wing is getting at least as much criticism as his extralegal killings at sea. Many critics see in the bulldozing of the People’s House a metaphor for Trump’s destructive governance generally — his other teardowns of federal agencies, life-saving foreign aid, healthcare benefits and more. The metaphor is indeed apt.
But what’s more striking is the sheer sense of impunity that Trump telegraphs, constantly, with the “je suis l’état” flare of a Louis XIV — complete (soon) with Trump’s Versailles. (Separately, Trump’s mimicry of French emperors now includes plans for a sort of Arc de Triomphe near Arlington Cemetery. A reporter asked who it would be for. “Me,” Trump said. Arc de Trump.)
No law, domestic or international, constrains him, as far as the convicted felon is concerned. Neither does Congress, where Republicans bend the knee. Nor the Supreme Court, with its 6-3 right-wing majority, including three justices Trump chose in his first term.
The court’s ruling last year in Trump vs. United States gives Trump virtual immunity from criminal prosecution, but U.S. servicemembers don’t have that protection when it comes to the deadly Caribbean Sea attacks or any other orders from the commander in chief that might one day be judged to have been illegal.
The operation’s commander, Navy Adm. Alvin Holsey, reportedly expressed concerns about the strikes within the administration. Last week he announced his retirement after less than a year as head of the U.S. Southern Command. It could be a coincidence. But I’m hardly alone in counting Holsey as the latest casualty in Trump and Hegseth’s purge of perceived nonloyalists at the Pentagon.
“When the president decides someone has to die, the military becomes his personal hit squad,” military analyst and former Republican Tom Nichols said Monday on MSNBC. Just like with kings and other autocrats: Off with their heads.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, a rare maverick Republican, noted on Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that in years past, the Coast Guard would board foreign boats suspected of ferrying drugs and, if contraband were found, take it and suspected traffickers into custody, often gleaning information about higher-ups to make a real dent in the drug trade. But, Paul added, about one in four boats typically had no drugs. No matter nowadays — everyone’s a target for deadly force. “So,” Paul said, “all of these people have been blown up without us knowing their name, without any evidence of a crime.” (Paul was the only Republican senator not invited to lunch with Trump on Monday in the paved-over Rose Garden.)
On Monday, Ecuador said no evidence connects a citizen who survived a recent U.S. strike to any crime. Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the United States of murdering a fisherman in a September strike, provoking Trump to call Petro a “drug leader” and unilaterally yank U.S. foreign aid. A Venezuelan told the Washington Post that the 11 people killed in the first known U.S. strike were fishermen; national security officials told Congress the individuals were headed back to shore when hit. Meanwhile, the three countries and U.S. news reports contradict Trump’s claims that he’s destroying and seizing fentanyl — a drug that typically comes from Mexico and then is smuggled by land, usually by U.S. citizens.
Again, no matter to America’s king, who said last week that he’s eyeing land incursions in Venezuela now “because we’ve got the sea very well under control.” Trump’s courtiers say he doesn’t need Congress’ authorization for any use of force. The Constitution suggests otherwise.
Alas, neither it nor the law limits Trump’s White House makeover. He doesn’t have to submit to Congress because he’s tapping rich individuals and corporations for the cost. Past presidents, mindful that the house is a public treasure, not their palace, voluntarily sought input from various federal and nonprofit groups. After reports about the demolition, which put the lie to Trump’s promise in July that the ballroom “won’t interfere with the current building,” the American Institute of Architects urged its members to ask Congress to “investigate destruction of the White House.”
Disparate as they are, Trump’s ballroom project and his Caribbean killings were joined last week. At a White House dinner for ballroom donors, Trump joked about the sea strikes: “Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.” The pay-to-play titans laughed. Shame on them.
Trump acts with impunity because he can; he’s a lame duck. But other Republicans must face the voters. Keep the “No Kings” protests coming — right through the elections this November and next.
New data has shed light on the alarming rise of “anti-LGBTQIA+ targeted hate and rhetoric.”
On 20 October, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) released a new report offering a five-year overview of the online and offline anti-LGBTQIA+ landscape.
“This Dispatch provides an overview of anti-LGBTQ+ mobilisation and how it is exacerbated by tech platforms,” researchers Guy Fiennes and Paula-Charlotte Matlach wrote.
“It incorporates activity which meets ISD’s definition of targeted anti-LGBTQ+ hate (‘activity which seeks to dehumanise, demonise, harass, threaten or incite violence against an individual or community based on their LGBTQ+ identity’), as well as activity which discriminates against LGBTQ+ people (and those perceived to be LGBTQ+), and which erases LGBTQ+ voices or rolls back LGBTQIA+ rights.”
Divided into two parts, the first half of the study presents statistics from various organisations highlighting the offline hate LGBTQIA+ people have faced across the US, UK and wider Europe.
In the US, more than 20 per cent of hate crimes recorded were motivated by anti-LGBTQIA+ bias for the third consecutive year, according to FBI crime data released in August 2025.
NGO GLAAD reported 918 anti-LGBTQIA+ incidents across the US in 2024, including seven fatalities and 140 bomb threats. Among those incidents, 48 per cent of victims were trans, non-binary or gender-nonconforming individuals.
The ISD report also included data from the UCLA School of Law’s Williams Institute, which found that LGBTQIA+ people are five times more likely to be victims of violent crime in the US compared to non-LGBTQIA+ people, and nine times more likely to experience violent hate crimes.
While the latest UK crime statistics reported an 11 per cent decrease in annual anti-trans hate crimes and a two per cent decrease in hate crimes related to sexual orientation, there was a sharp increase in both categories between 2021 and 2022.
“ISD calculated that in the five years between 2020 and 2025, anti-trans hate crimes in the UK rose by 50 per cent, and sexual orientation crimes rose by 18.1 per cent overall. The vast majority of anti-LGBTQIA+ hate crimes are likely unreported,” the report revealed.
Across wider Europe, a 2023 EU Agency for Fundamental Rights survey found that violence and harassment against LGBTQIA+ people had increased from 11 per cent to 14 per cent, while anti-LGBTQIA+ bullying in schools jumped from 46 per cent to 67 per cent.
When examining government and legislative actions, all three countries showed an increase in anti-LGBTQIA+ sentiment led by government officials and lawmakers. The Trump administration, the UK’s Reform Party and Hungary were listed among the biggest offenders.
In the second half of the report, the ISD explored the online harm endured by the LGBTQIA+ community over the past five years.
Following a recent analysis of US-based violent extremist accounts and groups targeting the community, researchers found that “online hate spiked in response to real-world events and political developments.”
The data also revealed that the trans community is increasingly targeted by violent extremist accounts across various platforms, imageboards and forums.
“Anti-trans hate speech rose from 35 per cent of all anti-LGBTQIA+ speech in October to November to 46 per cent in December to January. There is a notable overlap between groups that direct violence and hate speech against LGBTQIA+ people and groups identified as threats to US national security and the government,” researchers explained.
Elsewhere, the study highlighted GLAAD’s 2025 Social Media Safety Index report, which found a lack of moderation of anti-LGBTQIA+ hate on social media platforms, alongside over-moderation of LGBTQIA+-inclusive accounts and content.
The report also examined the negative impact of AI content moderation systems, revealing that they have been “found to censor queer users who use ‘slurs’ to self-label (e.g. queer, gay, or femboy).”
“AI-driven censorship of LGBTQIA+ content that it labels as ‘sexualised’ or ‘offensive’ reflects offline biases that unfairly label queerness as inherently sexual and inappropriate,” researchers added.
Like with cigarettes, la migra should come with a warning label: Proximity to ICE could be hazardous for your health.
From Los Angeles to Chicago, Portlandand New York, the evidence is ample enough that wherever Trump sends in the immigration agency, people get hurt. And not just protesters and immigrants.
That includes 13 police officers tear-gassed in Chicago earlier this month. And, now, a U.S. marshal.
Federal agents boxed in the Toyota Camry of local TikToker Carlitos Ricardo Parias — better known to his hundreds of thousands of followers as Richard LA. As Parias allegedly tried to rev his way out of the trap, an ICE agent opened fire. One bullet hit the 44-year-old Mexican immigrant — and another ricocheted into the hand of a deputy U.S. marshal.
Neither suffered life-threatening injuries, but it’s easy to imagine that things could have easily turned out worse. Such is the chaos that Trump has caused by unleashing shock troops into U.S. cities.
Rather than take responsibility and apologize for an incident that could’ve easily been lethal, Team Trump went into their default spin mode of blaming everyone but themselves.
Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement that the shooting was “the consequences of conduct and rhetoric by sanctuary politicians and activists who urge illegal aliens to resist arrest.”
Acting U.S. Atty. Bill Essayli chimed in on social media soon after: “I urge California public officials to moderate their rhetoric toward federal law enforcement. Encouraging resistance to federal agents can lead to deadly consequences.” Hours later, he called Times reporter James Queally “an absolute joke, not a journalist” because my colleague noted it’s standard practice by most American law enforcement agencies to not shoot at moving vehicles. One reason is that it increases the chance of so-called friendly fire.
Federal authorities accuse Parias of ramming his car into agents’ vehicles after they boxed him in. He is being charged with assault on a federal officer.
Time, and hopefully, evidence, will show what happened — and very important, what led to what happened.
The Trump administration keeps claiming that the public anger against its immigration actions is making the job more dangerous for la migra and their sister agencies. McLaughlin and her boss, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, keep saying there’s been a 1,000% increase in assaults on immigration agents this year like an incantation. Instead of offering concrete figures, they use the supposed stat as a shield against allegations ICE tactics are going too far and as a weapon to excuse the very brutality ICE claims it doesn’t practice.
Well, even if what they say is true, there’s only one side that’s making the job more dangerous for la migra and others during raids:
La migra.
It turns out that if you send in phalanxes of largely masked federal agents to bully and intimidate people in American cities, Americans tend not to take kindly to it.
Who knew?
Gregory Bovino, center, of U.S. Border Patrol, marches with federal agents to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles on Aug. 14.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
We’re about to enter the sixth month of Trump’s plan to rid the country of undocumented immigrants. Sycophants are bragging that he’s doing the job, but they’re not caring to look at the mess left in its wake that’s becoming more and more perilous for everyone involved. They insist that those who are executing and planning raids are professionals, but professionals don’t make constant pendejos out of themselves.
Professionals don’t bring squadrons to chase after tamale ladies or day laborers, or stage flashy raids of apartments and parks that accomplish little else than footage for propaganda videos. They don’t go into neighborhoods with intimidation on their mind and ready to rough up anyone who gets in their way.
A ProPublica investigation showed that ICE has detained at least 170 U.S. citizens this year, many whom offered proof that they were in this country legally as la migra cuffed them and hauled them off to detention centers.
Professionals don’t lie like there’s a bonus attached to it — but that’s what Trump’s deportation Leviathan keeps doing. In September, McLaughlin put out a news release arguing that the shooting death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González in Chicago by an ICE agent was justified because he was dragged a “significant distance” and suffered serious injuries. Yet body cam footage of local police who showed up to the scene captured the two ICE agents involved in the incident describing their injuries as “nothing major.”
Closer to home, a federal jury in Los Angeles last month acquitted an activist of striking a Border Patrol agent after federal public defender Cuauhtémoc Ortega screened footage that contradicted the government’s case and poked holes in the testimony of Border Patrol staff and supervisors. Last week, ICE agents detained Oxnard activist Leonardo Martinez after a collision between their Jeep and his truck. McLaughlin initially blamed the incident on an “agitator group … engaged in recording and verbal harassment,” but footage first published by L.A. Taco showed that la migra trailed Martinez and then crashed into him twice — not the other way around.
Professionals don’t host social media accounts that regularly spew memes that paint the picture of an American homeland where white makes right and everyone else must be eliminated, like the Department of Homeland Security does. A recent post featured medieval knights wearing chain mail and helmets and wielding longswords as they encircle the slogan “The Enemies are at the Gates” above ICE’s job listing website.
The Trump administration has normalized racism and has turned cruelty into a virtue — then its mouthpieces gasp in mock horror when people resist its officially sanctioned jackbootery.
This evil buffoonery comes straight from a president who reacted to the millions of Americans who protested this weekend at No Kings rallies by posting on social media an AI-generated video of him wearing a crown and dropping feces on his critics from a jet fighter. And yet McLaughlin, Noem and other Trump bobbleheads have the gall to question why politicians decry la migra while regular people follow and film them during raids when not shouting obscenities and taunts at them?
Meanwhile, ICE is currently on a hiring spree thanks to Trump’s Bloated Beastly Bill and and has cut its training program from six months to 48 days, according to The Atlantic. It’s a desperate and potentially reckless recruitment drive.
And if you think rapidly piling more people into a clown car is going to produce less clown-like behavior by ICE on the streets of American cities, boy do I have news for you.
If you watched 54 Ultra’s music video for “Upside Down” and came away thinking it was a relic from 1980s music programs like “Solid Gold” or “Night Tracks” — you’d be forgiven for making the assumption.
Aside from the 25-year-old’s vintage wardrobe, hairstyle, and ‘stache that harks to that decade, the song itself — a silky, boppy ballad that channels the energy of groups like the Chi-Lites or solo acts like Johnnie Taylor — sounds and feels ripped from the era in a manner that’s hard to faithfully re-create these days.
That old-school vibe isn’t exactly how 54 Ultra started off when he began putting out solo music three years ago, but it’s what he’s settled into nowadays. The artist, whose real name is JohnAnthony Rodríguez (and yes, his name is supposed to be written together), hails from New Jersey and is of Puerto Rican and Dominican descent.
The name he settled on, 54 Ultra, came by way of uniting Frank Ocean’s 2011 album “Nostalgia, Ultra” and the historic nightclub Studio 54. It was sometime between 2019 and 2020 that he interned at a few different recording studios, songwriting in his spare time with the intention of writing and producing music for others.
“I remember I was trying to find a way to make a living out of music and introduce myself to other artists,” he says over the phone, recalling all the demos he had recorded and presented to artists he’d cross paths with.
“People would be like ‘Who’s singing this? Who demo’ed this?’ And I’d say ‘It was me.’ And then they’d say, ‘You keep it.’ After that [happened] a couple of times I realized that I might as well put it out by myself.”
His first solo singles, like the high-energy “What Do I Know (Call Me Baby)” and “Sierra,” were firmly rooted in the indie rock family tree. It wasn’t until more recently, first with “Where Are You” and later “Heaven Knows,” that Rodríguez began to explore a more retro and soulful approach.
The latter track made an appearance in a 2024 “rhythm and soul” playlist curated by Mistah Cee, an Australian DJ and music selector, who included the song between Bobby Caldwell’s “My Flame” and Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Devotion.” The segues between tracks are seamless, in no small part due to Rodríguez’s immaculate production and fealty to the tempo of the times. His was the only contemporary track on the playlist, but it fooled many who eventually caught on to the rest of his work.
“On YouTube, I remember that was a nice boost, because people would comment, ‘Who came from Mistah Cee?’ Or, ‘Who thought this was an oldie?’ or whatnot,” he says.
To date, it’s not only Mistah Cee’s most viewed playlist by a wide margin (5.6 million and counting) but also 54 Ultra’s most-streamed song on Spotify with 27 million. “That was a very organic wave of things happening, and I’m very grateful for that also because I didn’t expect [it] at all,” says Rodríguez.
Latin soul, of the kind that recalls the doo-wop and boogaloo era of the 1950s and ‘60s, has seen a resurgence in the past few years. Artists like Chicano Batman, Thee Sinseers, Los Yesterdays and the Altons, as well as solo acts like Jason Joshua and Adrian Quesada, have made inroads with listeners and on the radio. Rodríguez is enthusiastic about this opportunity to show different facets of Latin culture and music through this genre.
“I just feel like I’m grateful to be a part of that family, or that idea that people relate all the music together and being a part of that scene is pretty nice,” he says.
Despite his Gen Z status, he notably lacks the “smartphone face” that’s rampant among pop artists and celebrities — and is partial to dressing in an anachronistic way, which he pulls off with gusto. It might be easy to assume his regular getup is a result of wanting to match the music, but Rodriguez insists he was already dressing that way much before he ever considered dabbling in soul. There is a kind of freedom he associates with the wardrobe of that time.
“[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,” he says. “Whether I did music or not, I enjoyed how it fits because that [period] just has the best clothes. I think that was peak menswear. No one cared about any type of gender assignment with clothing; everybody wore what they wanted, and all the measurements were the same … it seemed like everybody had fun back then. They weren’t worried so much about what people thought.”
“[The clothes] were never a costume or a gimmick,” says 54 Ultra of his vintage style.
(Max Tardio)
He shouts out Blood Orange, a.k.a. artist-composer Dev Hynes, as a major inspiration for him. “That’s my favorite guy,” he says. But at the same time, he offers an eclectic list of artists whose music lights fires for his own output; Brazilian musicians like Jorge Ben Jor, Lô Borges and Evinha have made his rotation, along with some moody ‘80s bands like the Smiths, the Cure and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“And Prefab Sprout,” he adds excitedly. “That’s my jam. That stuff’s crazy.”
His reputation has grown this past year, putting him in rooms he never expected to be invited to. Earlier this year he found himself producing the song “All I Can Say” for Kali Uchis, off her 2025 album, “Sincerely,” and recently opened for her during a concert stop in San José.
Earlier this month, he kicked off a world tour promoting his latest EP, “First Works,” that will take him from D.C. and Brooklyn to London and Paris. The schedule includes multiple stops in California, including two in Los Angeles: Oct. 26 at the Roxy Theatre and Oct. 28 at the Echoplex.
For Rodríguez, a tour like this is the culmination of everything he’s worked toward in his admittedly still nascent but steadily growing career. He confirms that he’s been chipping away at a debut LP, which will brandish a more “fast and punchy” rock sound that recall his days playing basement shows.
“Anytime anybody asked me what I wanted to do, I would say: ‘I want to perform anywhere I can and for anybody, wherever that may be.’ I’ve always wanted things to resonate, and I’ve always wanted it to make sense.”
Eating dirt is usually not a good thing, but in the new Amazon Prime series “Cometierra,” it’s a superpower.
The supernatural crime thriller, which premieres on Halloween, is based on the 2019 Dolores Reyes novel of the same name. The book follows the story of a young woman who has the ability to communicate through visions with the dead and missing people of Argentina by eating the physical land they trod.
“Cometierra” stars Lilith Curiel with supporting roles from Oscar nominee Yalitza Aparicio and Gerardo Taracena. It follows the same outline of the book but is set in contemporary Mexico to address the themes of state violence, femicide and the missing persons epidemic.
The source material and its new twist were what drew Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade to perform the series’s title song, “La Cometierra.”
“We have this reality in Mexico, there’s violence against many women and there’s the disappeared. It’s a very sad situation that we have, but it’s a fact,” the singer said. “It’s inspiring the way the series develops and how this girl, alongside her neighbors, creates a [positive] tribal strength out of her situation.”
Lafourcade especially liked that the series provides an organic avenue for debate and serves as a call to action to recognize that these are all problems in Mexico, while also showing that there is a deep well of beauty within the country.
“We all have a talent that we can always put forward as a service for our family, our country, just for other people,” she said.
The 41-year-old artist’s recently released single channels the energy of the series and its themes by conjuring a spoken word cadence that culminates in a nursery rhyme chant about the powers of the Cometierra.
“I wanted to make a sound that would be very strong and that would present a reality and that the lyrics wouldn’t be smooth,” Lafourcade said. “But at the same time, it would have hope and light and this feeling of joy for the next generations. So I wanted to have this mix of girls singing in a very naive tone, but also mix in a straight voice telling hard truths.”
The song, while geared toward a Mexican experience, now has a striking relevance in the United States as Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids — largely targeting Latinos — continue to take place across the country and as hundreds of detained people have been unaccounted for.
“I hope that music has this capacity to make us wake up and be conscious of situations,” Lafourcade said. “I have realized there are many themes that you can take through music, but sometimes music can become something that you hear truths that probably are not so pretty.”
Regarding some of the ugly truths of the U.S. at the moment, the “Nunca Es Suficiente” artist said that it’s not right that people should feel shame of where they come from and that communities need to show up for themselves at this point in time.
“Nobody should take our pride for our roots, our culture, our people,” she said. “The young lady [in the show] reaches a point where she’s confused about if she should use her power and give it to her people or not. She feels very afraid and insecure and she’s going through all that. But I love how she becomes a hero of her own power and I think that’s the fate of many of us, the way we can make a twist in the story we’re living every day.”
NEW YORK — A day after a mass of federal agents questioned street vendors and sparked protests on Manhattan’s Canal Street, sellers were scarce on the busy strip. Some who did venture out Wednesday, though, were disheartened or riled up by a sweep in which they said people, including U.S. citizens, were pressed to show their papers.
Federal authorities said 14 people, including immigrants and demonstrators, were arrested in Tuesday’s sweep. The Department of Homeland Security said it was a targeted operation focused on the alleged sale of counterfeit goods, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement acting Director Todd Lyons said it was “definitely intelligence-driven.”
“It’s not random. We’re just not pulling people off the street,” he told Fox News on Wednesday.
But some vendors saw it as an indiscriminate and heavy-handed crackdown by masked agents who queried a wide swath of sellers.
Awa Ngam was selling sweaters Wednesday from a table at a Canal Street intersection where at least one of her fellow vendors was taken away the previous afternoon.
She said she also was asked for ID, showed it, and then for her passport, which she doesn’t carry around. Agents quizzed her about how she had come to the U.S., but they eventually backed off after her husband explained that she’s an American citizen, she said.
“They asked every African that was here for their status,” Ngam said.
She returned to the spot Wednesday unafraid but upset.
“I’m saddened because they should not walk around and ask people for their passport in America,” said Ngam, who said she came to the U.S. from Mauritania in 2009. She added that if not for her legal immigration status, she would be fearful: “What if they took me? What would happen to my kids?”
Some other sellers decried the sweep as harassment. Others were keeping a low profile and shied from speaking with journalists.
Signs freshly posted on streetlights mentioned Tuesday’s sweep and urged people at risk of detention to call an immigration law group’s helpline.
Separately, state Atty. Gen. Letitia James, a Democrat, asked New Yorkers to send in photos or videos of Tuesday’s immigration sweep so that her office could assess whether laws were broken.
Law enforcement raids aimed at combating counterfeiting are relatively frequent on Canal Street, which is known for its stalls and shops where some vendors hawk knockoff designer goods and bootlegged wares. Federal authorities often team up with the New York Police Department and luxury brands on crackdowns aimed at shutting down illicit trade.
But the sight of dozens of masked ICE and other federal agents making arrests drew instant protests.
Bystanders and activists converged at the scene and shouted at the agents, at one point blocking their vehicle. ICE, Border Patrol and other federal agents tried to clear the streets, sometimes shoving protesters to the ground and threatening them with stun guns or pepper spray before detaining them.
Nine people were arrested in the initial immigration sweep, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said. Four more people were arrested on charges of assaulting federal law enforcement officers, she said, adding that a fifth was arrested and accused of obstructing law enforcement by blocking a driveway.
McLaughlin said some of the people arrested had previously been accused of crimes, including robbery, domestic violence, assaulting law enforcement, counterfeiting and drug offenses.
The sweep came after at least two conservative influencers shared video on X of men selling bags on Canal Street’s sidewalks.
While clashes between immigration authorities and protesters have played out in Los Angeles and other cities, such scenes have been rarer on New York City streets, which Mayor Eric Adams has attributed in part to his working relationship with President Trump’s administration.
Adams, a Democrat, said city police had no involvement in Tuesday’s immigration sweep.
“Our administration has been clear that undocumented New Yorkers trying to pursue their American dreams should not be the target of law enforcement, and resources should instead be focused on violent criminals,” he said.
Peltz and Offenhartz write for the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON — Construction started this week on the $250 million ballroom that President Trump is adding to the White House as construction crews began tearing down the facade of the East Wing, where the new space is being built.
The Republican president and top White House officials had initially said nothing would be demolished during construction.
The 90,000-square-foot ballroom will dwarf the main White House itself, at nearly double the size, and Trump says it will accommodate 999 people.
Trump said on social media that the ballroom won’t cost taxpayers a dime because it is being privately funded by “many generous Patriots, Great American Companies, and, yours truly.”
Here are some things to know about the newest White House construction project:
Why is Trump building a ballroom?
Trump says the White House needs a large entertaining space and has complained that the East Room, the current largest space in the White House, is too small, holding about 200 people. He has frowned on the past practice of presidents hosting state dinners and other large events in tents on the South Lawn.
Who is paying the $250 million construction tab?
Trump says the project will be paid for with private donations and that no public money will be spent on the ballroom. The White House promised to release information on which individuals and corporations have pledged or donated money and invited some of the donors to an East Room dinner last week, but has not released a comprehensive list and breakdown of funds.
Some $22 million for the project came from YouTube, a Google subsidiary, as part of a recent settlement for a 2021 lawsuit Trump brought against the company.
The White House also has not said how much of his own money Trump is contributing.
Why tear down part of the East Wing to build the ballroom?
The East Wing is traditionally the social side of the White House and sits across East Executive Avenue from the Treasury Department. It’s where tourists and other guests enter for events.
The president and his chief spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, said over the summer that the White House itself would remain intact as the ballroom was going up.
“It’ll be near it but not touching it,” Trump said. “Nothing will be torn down,” Leavitt added.
That turned out not to be the case.
The White House said some demolition was needed because the East Wing, the traditional home for the first lady and her staff, is being modernized as part of the ballroom project.
Can Trump build a ballroom?
He’s moving ahead with construction despite the lack of sign-off from the National Capital Planning Commission, the executive branch agency that has jurisdiction over construction and major renovations to government buildings in the region.
Trump named a top White House aide, Will Scharf, to head the commission. Scharf has made a distinction between demolition work and rebuilding, saying the commission was only required to vet the latter.
What happens to the East Room?
By Trump’s telling, it will become a space where guests will mingle, sip cocktails and eat hors d’oeuvres until they are called into the ballroom for dinner. Trump said a set of windows in the room will be removed to create a passageway to and from the ballroom.
What will the new ballroom look like?
Renderings released by the White House suggest a strong resemblance to the gilded ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, Trump’s private club and home in Palm Beach, Florida.
The project also has grown in size since it was announced, going from accommodating 650 seated guests to holding 999 people, big enough to fit an inauguration if needed, he said at a recent White House dinner for donors. Windows will be bulletproof, he said.
When will the ballroom be completed?
The White House has said the ballroom will be ready for use before Trump’s second term ends in January 2029, an ambitious timeline.
Has Trump made other changes to the White House?
Yes. He has heavily redecorated the Oval Office by adding numerous portraits, busts and gold-toned adornments. He converted the Rose Garden into a stone-covered patio, installed towering flagpoles on the north and south lawns, and decorated an exterior wall with portraits of every president except his immediate predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
Trump also said he renovated the bathroom in the famous Lincoln Bedroom in the private living quarters and laid down marble floors in a passageway leading to the South Lawn.
How has construction changed the White House over the years?
Presidents have added to the White House since construction began in 1792 for a host of reasons, and Trump aides say his decision to build a ballroom follows that long tradition.
Many of the prior projects were criticized as being too costly or too lavish, but eventually came to be accepted, according to the White House Historical Association.
Thomas Jefferson added the east and west colonnades.
Andrew Jackson built the North Portico on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the White House, aligning with the South Portico that James Monroe added after the original mansion was rebuilt after the British burned it during the War of 1812.
Theodore Roosevelt added the West Wing to provide dedicated space for the president and key staff, while Franklin D. Roosevelt added the East Wing, which over time became the home base for the first lady’s staff and social functions.
One of the most significant White House renovations happened under Harry Truman, when the mansion was found to be so structurally unsound that he ordered a complete gutting of the interior that lasted from 1948 to 1952. The project, including Truman’s addition of a balcony to the second floor of the South Portico, was highly controversial.
Other changes include the creation of the Rose Garden during John F. Kennedy’s administration and Richard Nixon’s decision to convert an indoor swimming pool that was built for FDR’s physical therapy into a workspace for the growing White House press corps.
TWO-THIRDS of young people jetted off without travel insurance – because more than half didn’t think anything would go wrong.
A poll of 2,000 adults found another 58 per cent of these Gen Z and Millennial travellers have skipped getting covered because it costs too much.
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Compare the Market highlight the importance of booking insurance at the same time as your tripCredit: Will Ireland / PinPepThe average holiday insurance claim is around £4,500Credit: Will Ireland / PinPep
But that risk doesn’t always pay off, as 29 per cent of all holidaymakers have had to make a claim after things went awry either before or during their trip.
The average claim came to around £4,500, with top reasons including cancelled holidays due to unforeseen circumstances like illness.
Nearly half (48 per cent) have had to use their policy because of long travel delays, while 45 per cent needed help following a medical emergency overseas.
Emily Barnett, travel insurance expert at Compare the Market, which commissioned the research, said: “Taking out travel insurance should be as instinctive as booking your flights, giving you protection against unforeseen circumstances, for example should you need to cancel before you depart.
“With the busy winter travel season upon us, whether it’s skiing in the Alps or a visit to the Christmas markets, it’s never been more important to make sure you have suitable cover in place before you set off.”
It also emerged 41 per cent have claimed for delayed or damaged baggage, while 40 per cent needed their policy after being targeted by thieves abroad.
Others have had to rely on insurance after their hotel or travel company cancelled on them, while 38 per cent made a claim to access medication during their trip.
However, 16 per cent didn’t realise their policy needs to match the specific requirements of their holiday – as some trips, such as winter sports, need specialist cover.
And this rises to nearly a third (31 per cent) among those aged 18 to 24.
When it comes to travel worries, the biggest fear among those polled is facing a medical emergency away from home (37 per cent), followed by losing luggage (21 per cent) and missing their flight (19 per cent).
The findings have inspired a striking photo series from Compare the Market, titled ‘What Happened on Holiday’, designed to highlight the importance of booking insurance at the same time as your trip.
Emily Barnett added: “We’re urging Brits to protect their trips early to give themselves peace of mind, so they can focus on making memories instead of mishaps.”
TOP 10 MOST COMMON TRAVEL CLAIMS ACCORDING TO COMPARE THE MARKET:
Trip cancellation (due to illness, injury, bereavement etc.)
Travel delays (beyond a set time)
Emergency medical treatment
Emergency expenses
Travel interruptions
Delayed or damaged baggage
Missed flights or connections
Theft of items
Hotel / travel company cancellation
Prescriptions and medication
Nearly half of Brits have risked holiday protection by not taking out travel insuranceCredit: Will Ireland / PinPepAlmost 48 per cent have had to use their policy because of long travel delaysCredit: Will Ireland / PinPep
Among the small army of prospects who’ve eyed the California governorship, none seemed more qualified than Toni Atkins.
After serving on the San Diego City Council, she moved on to Sacramento, where Atkins led both the Assembly and state Senate, one of just three people in history — and the first in 147 years — to head both houses of California’s Legislature.
She married that expertise with the kind of hardscrabble, up-by-her-bootstraps backstory that a calculating political consultant might have spun from whole cloth, had it not been so.
Atkins grew up in rural Appalachia in a rented home with an outdoor privy. Her first pair of glasses was a gift from the local Lions Club. She didn’t visit a dentist until she was 24. Her family was too poor.
Yet for all of that, Atkins’ gubernatorial campaign didn’t last even to 2026, when voters will elect a successor to the termed-out Gavin Newsom. She quit the race in September, more than eight months before the primary.
She has no regrets.
“It was a hard decision,” the Democrat said. “But I’m a pragmatic person.”
She couldn’t and wouldn’t keep asking “supporters and people to contribute more and more if the outcome was not going to be what we hoped,” Atkins said. “I needed sort of a moonshot to do it, and I didn’t see that.”
She spoke recently via Zoom from the den of her home in San Diego, where Atkins had just returned after spending several weeks back in Virginia, tending to a dying friend and mentor, one of her former college professors.
“I was a first-generation college kid … a hillbilly,” Atkins said. She felt as though she had no place in the world “and this professor, Steve Fisher, basically helped turn me around and not be a victim. Learn to organize. Learn to work with people on common goals. … He was one of the first people that really helped me to understand how to be part of something bigger than myself.”
Over the 22 months of her campaign — between the launch in January 2024 and its abandonment on Sept. 29 — Atkins traveled California from tip to toe, holding countless meetings and talking to innumerable voters. “It’s one thing to be the speaker or the [Senate leader],” she said. “People treat you differently when you’re a candidate. You’re appealing to them to support you, and it’s a different conversation.”
She heard plenty from business owners and, especially, put-upon residents of red California, who griped about Sacramento and its seeming disconnection from their lives and livelihoods. “I heard in Tehama County … folks saying, ‘Look, we care about the environment, but we can’t have electric school buses here. We don’t have any infrastructure.’ ”
Voters seemed to be of two — somewhat contradictory — minds about what they want in their next governor.
First off, “Someone that’s going to be focused on California, California problems and California issues,” Atkins said. “They want a governor that’s not going to be performative, but really focused on the issues that California needs help on.”
The challenge, Atkins suggested, is “convincing people … you’re absolutely going to fight for California values and, at the same, that you’re going to be focused on fixing the roads.”
Maybe California needs to elect a contortionist.
Given her considerable know-how and compelling background, why did Atkins’ campaign fizzle?
“I hoped my experience and my collaborative nature and my ability to work across party lines when I needed to … would gain traction,” Atkins said. “But I just didn’t have the name recognition.”
Or, more pertinently, the huge pile of cash needed to build that name recognition and get elected to statewide office in California.
While Atkins wasn’t a bad fundraiser, she simply couldn’t raise the many tens of millions of dollars needed to run a viable gubernatorial race.
That could be seen as a referendum of sorts. If enough people wanted Atkins to be governor, she theoretically would have collected more cash. But who doubts that money has an unholy influence on our elections?
“I’ve lost parents, but it’s been decades,” she said. “And to lose Steve” — her beloved ex-college professor — “I think I’m going to take the rest of the year to reflect. I’m definitely going to stay engaged … but I’m going to focus on family” at least until January.
Atkins remains optimistic about her adopted home state, notwithstanding her unsuccessful run for governor and the earful of criticisms she heard along the way,
“California is the place where people dream,” she said. “We still have the ability to do big things … We’re the fourth-largest economy. We’re a nation-state. We need to remember that.”
No sooner had the Toronto Blue Jays clinched a World Series spot against the Dodgers than the torrent of memes, posts and tweets flowed, all with some version of this one-liner: Finally, Shohei Ohtani is on the plane to Toronto.
On a December day two years ago, as Ohtani navigated free agency: three reports surfaced: there was a private plane flying from Orange County to Toronto (true); Ohtani had decided to sign with the Blue Jays (false); and Ohtani was on a flight to Toronto (false).
When the jet landed, surrounded by reporters and photographers and even a news helicopter, an entire country fell into despair. The gentleman on the plane was not Ohtani.
He was Robert Herjavec, a star on “Shark Tank” and a prominent Canadian businessman with homes in Toronto and Southern California.
“It is my only claim to fame in the sports world: to be mistaken for someone else,” Herjavec said Tuesday.
Herjavec said he hopes to attend at least one World Series game in Los Angeles and another in Toronto. He is not the Dodgers’ $700-million man, but he said he would enjoy meeting Ohtani.
“I’m very disappointed,” Herjavec said with a laugh, “he hasn’t reached out to me for financial advice.”
He is no different than the rest of us, Ohtani’s teammates included. Watching Ohtani play calls to mind the words Jack Buck used to call Kirk Gibson’s home run: I don’t believe what I just saw.
“To me, as a layman and a couch athlete, the ability to throw a ball at 100 mph and then go out and hit three home runs?” Herjavec said. “It’s mind boggling.”
To be a successful businessman takes talent too, no?
“That’s the beauty of business,” he said. “I always say to people, business is the only sport where you can play at an elite level with no God-given talent.”
On that fateful Friday, Herjavec and his 5-year-old twins were en route to Toronto, and normally he would have known what was happening on the ground before he landed. However, he had turned off all the phones and tablets on board so he could play board games with his children in an effort to calm them.
“I gave them too much sugar,” he said. “They were wired.”
Upon landing, Canadian customs agents boarded the plane, in a hopeful search for Ohtani. Herjavec and his kids got off the plane, descending into a storm of national news because the Blue Jays are Canada’s team.
I asked Herjavec if he ever had disappointed so many people at any point in his life. He burst out laughing.
“That is such a great question,” he said. “That is my crowning achievement: I let down an entire nation at one time.”
The Blue Jays have a rich history. In 1992-93, they won back-to-back World Series championships, the feat the Dodgers are trying to duplicate.
The Jays have not appeared in the World Series since 1993, but that is not even close to the longest or most painful championship drought in Toronto.
The Maple Leafs, playing Canada’s national sport, have not won the Stanley Cup since 1967. That would be like the Dodgers or Yankees not winning the World Series since 1967.
“Speaking of letting people down,” Herjavec said.
The difference between Americans and Canadians, he said, is that Americans expect to win and Canadians believe it would be nice to win.
He counts himself in the latter camp. He can call both the Dodgers and Blue Jays a home team, but he is rooting for Toronto in this World Series.
“I have to,” he said, “because I’ve already disappointed the entire country once.
“I’m hoping, with my moral support, this will redeem me to Canadians.”
