Wildfire and insurance — issues amped by climate change — along with the price of gas, took center stage at the California governor’s debate on Tuesday night.
Here are some of the candidates’ defining statements, starting left of the stage:
Tony Thurmond
The Democratic State Superintendent of Public Instruction addressed the state’s wildfire insurance crisis, where private insurers have been dropping policies as climate changes fuels more frequent catastrophic fire. The state has allowed insurers to raise rates in return for writing more policies, but so far its backup FAIR Plan, meant to provide coverage when other companies will not, continues to grow.
Thurmond said he would withhold tax credits, subsidies and benefits from non-cooperative insurers, although moderators and other candidates raised questions about the legality of this strategy.
“The governor can certainly work with the Insurance Commissioner to say there should be no rate increase unless the insurance industry is actually writing policies. They have failed California in our greatest need. They’ve taken the money for premiums and then when people needed to have support to rebuild their homes, they said, ‘whoops, we’re not going to help you.’ Then they got a rate increase. I’m sorry, where I come from, when you do a bad job, you don’t get a raise.”
Chad Bianco
The Republican Riverside County Sheriff said insurers aren’t leaving California because of climate change, but because the state has failed to pass and enforce vegetation management and defensible space policies that would reduce wildfire risk.
“It wasn’t global warming, stop believing that. It was a failed environmental policy that doesn’t allow fire departments to prevent defensible space around our homes or clear out the brush for 30 years that are building in our mountains and in our hills that took out a city. [Insurers] specifically said we were going to lose a city, and our governor said ‘we don’t care.’ And so the insurance companies left.”
Inadequate brush clearance has contributed to other fires in the state, although it’s not a factor experts cite in the Los Angeles fires specifically.
Tom Steyer
The Democratic billionaire hedge fund founder who is positioning himself as the climate candidate in the race, touted his drive to make oil companies pay for damages from climate change, including rising insurance rates and homes lost to wildfires.
“In environmentalism, I have three real rules. Number one is polluter pays. It’s absolutely critical that if people are going to pollute and damage the environment and cause harm to their neighbors, they pay. Two, we have to include environmental justice in every single environmental rule. And third is we need to start to deploy all of the clean energy stuff that’s cheaper now and get us back to the front of the world in leading it.
“There is one person that the corporations are going after, including Big Oil, who is spending millions of dollars to stop me. The electric monopolies, PG&E, millions of dollars to stop me, because I’m the person on this stage who’s the change agent.”
Steve Hilton
The former Republican Fox News commentator said insurers should be allowed to raise rates consistent with actual wildfire risk. He also advocated for “modern forest management,” removing fuel from forests, as a way to protect against wildfires, reduce carbon emissions from fire, and revive the state’s timber industry.
“We can create jobs and opportunity in rural California and reduce carbon emissions in the process, because we won’t have the mega wildfires.”
Asked if he supports the transition to electrification, he promoted natural gas: “Yes, but let’s be sensible about electric. Right now, we have a fleet of gas fired power stations generating electricity that are running at 10 to 15% of their capacity, even though we have abundant natural gas in California that we could be using to generate affordable, reliable electricity that would lower the cost of electric bills for consumers and businesses.”
The former Health and Human Services Secretary said he would call a state of emergency as governor to require wildfire insurers to freeze rates and come to the table.
“This affordability crisis is hitting every family, and we have to act as if this were a break glass moment … Rate payers have to understand what their risk is, so they understand why they are going to pay for what they’re going to pay for their home insurance. But an insurance company has to be open and transparent about how its pricing its policies so people can afford it.”
Moderator Julie Watts noted that California home insurance rates are below the national average and questioned the legality of a freeze.
Katie Porter
The former Democratic Orange County Congresswoman was asked whether California should keep its refineries. Two of them closed in the past year, reducing the state’s refining capacity by 20 percent and causing California to lean more heavily on imports.
She said the state should keep the remaining refineries open, but also rapidly scale up green energy to meet the state’s growing electricity demand: “Right now we need to keep all of our energy sources online. That’s just the reality that we’re in. … Right now those refineries, they’re up, they’re running, they’re creating good jobs. Let’s keep them there. But I want to be really clear … The people who work at those refineries, and the people who live in Kern County also face some of the worst pollution and lower life expectancies. Green energy gets us out of that.”
She also backed an idea to have state dollars cover insurance for insurers, known as reinsurance.
Matt Mahan
Democratic San Jose Mayor called to suspend the state’s 61 cent-per-gallon gas tax, used to fund road repairs, bridges, and public transport. The state is looking at a $216.4 billion revenue shortfall over the next decade due to increasing fuel economy and electric vehicles. The other Democratic candidates support keeping the tax; Mahan has instead proposed a flat fee on all vehicles.
He said: “I’m the only candidate on this stage who has pledged to suspend and then reform the gas tax. It is the most regressive tax in California. Working people, rural people, are spending three times as much maintaining our roads as wealthier EV owners.”
On the wildfire insurance crisis he said: “The government in Sacramento created so many restrictions, including taking over a year to approve any rate changes, prohibiting insurance companies from using climate data to project future costs, that they stopped writing new policies. The answer is bring them back, force them to compete, allow them to appropriately price risk, and then hold government accountable for maintaining our wildland, reducing all that vegetation and wildfire risk so that we don’t have these catastrophic fires.”
Antonio Villaraigosa
The former Democratic L.A. mayor expressed his concerns with the readiness of the state’s infrastructure to support a transition to electric vehicles.
“We need an all of the above strategy that understands we’ve got to transition from oil and gas to renewables. But here’s an example: the 2035 mandate [to ban gas-powered car sales]. We built 167,000 charging stations in the last 10 years. We need 2 million more to get to that mandate, and if we build them, we don’t have a grid. So we ought to build the grid instead of arguing about whether or not we need an all-of-the-above policy.”
John Seymour was the rare politician who didn’t mind harming his career if it meant doing right by his constituents.
As the newly elected mayor of Anaheim in 1978, he angered the city’s Police Department by suggesting the creation of a citizens oversight commission after residents complained that officers regularly harassed and beat them.
The lifelong Republican upset his party’s conservative base in the 1980s as a state senator, when he announced his support for abortion rights and opposition to offshore drilling.
“I’m not going to always be right,” Seymour told reporters in 1990. “Therefore, to expect one to never change a position on an issue … is too much to ask.”
“John was a guy who had great courage, he had great goodwill and a damn good mind,” Wilson, who was mayor of San Diego when he first met Seymour in the 1970s, said Monday. “He not only enjoyed a little combat, he was willing to give the time necessary for it.”
Seymour died on April 18 at his home in Carlsbad. He was 88, and the cause was Alzheimer’s disease, according to his son John.
As his party swung to the right, the moderate Seymour had no problem with becoming a political afterthought.
Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, center, poses with senators on Capitol Hill in 1991. With Thomas, from left to right, are Sens. John Seymour (R-Calif.), Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Bob Dole (R-Kan.), Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), Connie Mack (R-Fla.) and Dan Coats (R-Ind.), right front.
(John Duricka / Associated Press)
“If somewhere in a footnote, history should record my public service, I would hope that they record me as one who cared more for people than for policy, one who was a no-nonsense guy who worked hard for those in need of help, but who wasn’t hesitant to knock heads of bureaucrats in order to get things done,” he told supporters at the kickoff to his Senate campaign in 1992.
Born in Chicago, Seymour settled in Southern California in the 1960s after a stint in the Marine Corps. The UCLA graduate started a real estate business in Orange County as the region transformed from farmland to suburbia. After four years on the Anaheim City Council, he became mayor in 1978.
He quickly established the pragmatic persona that would enable his rise in California politics.
Months after Seymour’s mayoral win, Anaheim police officers stormed a Latino neighborhood and beat up dozens of people in what became known as the Little People’s Park riots. At community meetings, Seymour admitted his shock at learning about the poor relations between the police and many residents.
The mayor described his approach as: “Don’t sweep it under the rug; don’t look the other way. Admit that we have a problem.”
At the same time, Seymour was negotiating with the Los Angeles Rams to move from the Coliseum to Orange County. While other O.C. officials proposed a new stadium, he convinced the Anaheim City Council to convert Angel Stadium into a multipurpose venue that he argued would create “the greatest opportunity for Anaheim since Disneyland and the California Angels.”
The Rams moved to the city in 1980. Two years later, Seymour was off to Sacramento as a state senator.
He became head of the Republican Senate caucus in his first year and bucked the stereotype of an Orange County GOP firebrand by largely eschewing culture war issues in favor of matters like higher pay for teachers and government support for poor parents that sometimes aligned him with Democrats. That made him few friends in his own party, with many finding his personal ambition grating — he once wrote a letter to then-Gov. George Deukmejian asking that he be appointed state treasurer — and a distraction from getting more of their own elected to Sacramento.
Seymour made no apologies for selling himself as a public servant while simultaneously seeking more power.
“I like to do things,” Seymour told The Times in 1987. “I’ve been a doer all my life. I don’t like to sit around sucking my thumb. I like to resolve problems.”
That year, conservative opponents deposed him as caucus chair. They snickered two years later when he announced that while he personally opposed abortion, he now supported a woman’s right to choose.
Sen. John Seymour in 1991.
(Don Boomer / For The Times)
The impetus was a U.S. Supreme Court decision that gave states more leeway to regulate abortion. Since California had legalized the procedure decades earlier, Seymour reasoned that he should respect women’s choices. He spoke with people who were for and against abortion, and with his own family, before going public with his change of heart.
Naysayers accused the state senator of trying to pick up female voters as he was campaigning for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor against fellow Orange County legislator Marian Bergeson, who opposed abortion. The charge was bogus, according to longtime Seymour campaign advisor Eileen Padberg.
“He didn’t get talked into it — he was an effing Marine,” she said. “He had to be convinced in anything before making a decision. In my career representing hundreds of candidates, John was one of very few who consistently would say about their stances, ‘This is going to kill me, but I gotta do it.’”
Seymour lost the primary to Bergeson. Six months later, he was once again one of the most powerful Republicans in the state when he took the Senate seat Wilson had just vacated to become governor.
Seymour’s son John recalled his father getting the call from Wilson while the family was vacationing in Shasta.
“Dad knew that it was a heavy, weighted responsibility, and that it would affect the family,” John said. “But we kids said, ‘You should do this, if it makes you happy.’”
Seymour became the second Anaheim Republican to serve in the position, after Thomas Kuchel in the 1950s and 1960s.
Wilson told The Times that he originally wanted to keep his friend in Sacramento to help push through his agenda. But the governor figured he needed a trusted voice in Washington even more.
“You’re looking for people who are not only friends but are capable and experienced and understand what’s necessary,” Wilson said. “And I don’t think I was doing him a great favor, because it was a tough time for the state.”
California was weathering its worst recession in decades and a punishing drought. The state’s vaunted defense industry was shedding tens of thousands of jobs with the closure of military bases after the end of the Cold War.
The daunting task didn’t faze Seymour.
“I mean, you gotta be good to succeed in the private sector,” he told The Times in 1992. “But if you’re gonna succeed in getting things done in the public sector, you gotta be better than that! That’s the challenge!”
Seymour spent most of his short time in the Senate in triage mode. He lobbied especially hard for California’s real estate industry, calling himself the “realtors’ senator.” But the diminutive man’s plainspoken demeanor failed to gain traction with California voters — a 1991 Times profile deemed him “the unknown senator.” And his one moment in the national spotlight became fodder for opponents.
This time, Seymour was accused of seeking photo opportunities a month before his primary election and being tone-deaf to the riot’s root causes by airing television ads stating, “We can’t be tough enough on lawbreakers.” White House aides ridiculed him in the press as the “Velcro senator.” His Republican opponent, Orange County Rep. William Dannemeyer, labeled him “Senator Flip Flop.”
Seymour easily beat Dannemeyer, then faced Democrat Dianne Feinstein, the former San Francisco mayor whose narrow loss to Wilson in the governor’s race had earned her widespread name recognition. He received only 38% of the vote as Feinstein rode a Democratic wave that swept Bill Clinton into the White House and a record number of women into the U.S. Senate, including Barbara Boxer in California.
California Department of Finance spokesperson H.D. Palmer worked for Seymour at the time and saw his “regular guy” boss give “one of the kindest and most gracious concession speeches I’ve ever heard.”
“Then he went down to O.C. to be with his supporters,” Palmer said. “He was true to his roots.”
Wilson soon appointed Seymour to head the California Housing Finance Agency, which helps first-time home buyers access low-rate loans. He stayed in that role for two years before becoming chief executive of the Southern California Housing Development Corp. The Inland Empire nonprofit, which managed and built affordable housing complexes, is now known as National Community Renaissance, or National CORE.
John, who is the nonprofit’s vice president of acquisitions, said his father had no regrets about leaving politics behind because “housing was his passion. He saw it as a platform for people to grow. He would say, ‘Once you’re housed, you have a big, beautiful horizon to do anything.’”
Seymour did lean on his past to urge skeptical cities and counties to allow affordable housing projects, challenging them to be like him: do the right thing regardless of political cost.
“If in fact you’re going to try to change an environment in which a mayor or city council will do what they know in their hearts is right, you need to offset the political blow,” he said at a housing conference in Cathedral City in 2002. “I challenge you to form a coalition.”
Seymour is survived by his wife of 54 years, Judy; children John, Shad, Jeffrey, Barrett, Lisa Houser and Sarena Talbert; nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren.
BOISE, Idaho — Former Idaho Gov. and U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has died at age 74, his family said in a written statement Saturday.
Kempthorne died Friday evening in Boise, the statement said. No cause was given. He had been diagnosed with colon cancer last year.
“Beyond his public service, he was a devoted husband, father, and grandfather whose greatest joy came from time spent with family and the people he met along the way,” his family said. “He had a rare gift for truly seeing others — remembering names, stories, and the small details that made each person feel known and valued.”
Kempthorne, a moderate Republican, was elected mayor of Boise in 1985 at age 34, and he was credited with revitalizing the downtown by securing an agreement to build a convention center and promoting other development. He served seven years before winning the U.S. Senate seat vacated by Sen. Steve Symms in 1992.
During his time in Washington, he authored legislation — signed by Democratic President Clinton — to end unfunded federal mandates on state and local governments.
Rather than run for reelection in 1998, he entered an open election for governor, trouncing his Democratic opponent by garnering more than two-thirds of the vote.
President George W. Bush appointed him Interior secretary in 2006, a position he held until the end of Bush’s presidency — and during which he lived on a houseboat docked in the Potomac River.
“Dirk was one of the finest public servants I ever knew because he was one of the finest men,” former President George W. Bush said in a written statement Saturday. “He was considerate, smart, and capable. Dirk loved our lands and waters, and as Secretary of the Interior, he was an effective steward of our natural resources.”
He protected polar bears
Environmentalists often found Kempthorne too accommodating to industry, citing his efforts to push oil and gas development in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska. More than 100 conservation groups opposed his nomination as Interior secretary, saying that as a senator he had voted to eliminate federal money for recovery of the endangered wolf, to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, and to sell off federal public lands.
Yet in 2008, he bucked other advisers in the White House by insisting that the polar bear should be listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act because of the loss of sea ice in the Arctic. He was prepared to resign over it when Bush decided to back him.
“As Governor, Dirk left an enduring mark on our state,” Idaho Gov. Brad Little said in a written statement. With the partnership of his wife, Patricia, Kempthorne “championed children and families, strengthened public education, and led transformational investments in our transportation system that will benefit Idahoans for generations.”
After leaving the federal government, he became the chief executive of a trade association of life insurance companies.
He helped Afghan refugees
In a 2023 question-and-answer session with the George W. Bush Presidential Center, Kempthorne recalled helping evacuate nearly 400 U.S. citizens and Afghan allies from Afghanistan two years earlier, as many were being sought by the Taliban following the U.S. military’s chaotic withdrawal. Kempthorne and others worked frantically for months to raise money and garner the support of diplomatic channels to charter buses and an Airbus A340 to help resettle the evacuees in the U.S. and Canada.
At one point, with the flight fully booked, the organizers received a list of more people who needed to leave urgently.
“That night, at a total loss for answers, alone, I knelt in prayer,” Kempthorne recalled. “I said, ‘Dear God, we cannot leave these people behind, please give a path forward.’”
He said he then had a vision of Mother Mary holding the infant Jesus. It gave him an idea: The babies on the flight didn’t need their own seats, as their parents could hold them. The organizers confirmed that with the airline and were able to add an additional 50 people to the flight, Kempthorne said.
Kempthorne was born in San Diego and grew up in Spokane, Wash. His father was a regional representative for Maytag, the appliance company. His mother, a homemaker, once worked as a secretary for the Legislature in Nebraska, her home state.
Kempthorne attended San Bernardino Valley College in California before transferring to the University of Idaho, where he served as student body president and met Patricia, his future wife. After graduation he worked as executive assistant to the director of the Idaho Department of Lands before joining the Idaho Home Builders Assn. as the executive vice president.
Kempthorne is survived by his wife, as well as their children Heather and Jeff and their families.
Johnson writes for the Associated Press. Johnson reported from Seattle.
MINNEAPOLIS — Federal agents executed multiple searches in Minnesota on Tuesday, seizing records and other evidence in an ongoing fraud investigation by the Trump administration of publicly funded social programs for children, authorities said.
Few details were released, though armed agents were seen at child-care centers in the Minneapolis area. KSTP-TV said one crew even had a battering ram.
Democratic Gov. Tim Walz, who has been on the defensive amid Trump administration claims that he hasn’t done enough to root out fraud, welcomed the raids. The state child welfare agency said it shared key information with law enforcement to “hold bad actors accountable.”
“We catch criminals when state and federal agencies share information. Joint investigations work, and securing justice depends on it,” Walz said.
The searches were being conducted at daycares, businesses and some residences, according to a person familiar with the matter who spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the investigation.
Tensions between Minnesota officials and the federal government were high during an extraordinary immigration crackdown that led to the deaths of two people before Operation Metro Surge was eased in February.
Before that crackdown, the government had brought fraud charges against dozens of people, many of them Somali Americans, who were accused of fleecing a federal program that was meant to provide food to children. The investigation began during the Biden administration. More than 60 people have been convicted.
Various state and federal agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, participated in searches Tuesday. Officers from Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were removing boxes at some sites.
“The American people deserve to know how their taxpayer money was abused. … No stone will be left unturned,” DHS said.
Jason Steck, an attorney who represents childcare centers, said the names of targeted businesses that were shared with him show they’re operated by Somali immigrants. They were not his clients.
“A few childcare centers, a few autism centers, a few healthcare agencies of some type,” Steck said, adding that it appeared to be a “particular sweep for fraud.”
The executive director of Child Care Aware of Minnesota, a nonprofit that serves childhood educators, said the publicity will be unflattering.
“The majority are in business to do good business. You’re going to come across individuals who try to capitalize on systems that are broken and need to be fixed,” Candace Yates said.
Right-wing influencer Nick Shirley posted a video in December that caught the attention of the Trump administration. He alleged that members of Minnesota’s Somali community were running fake child care centers so they could collect federal subsidies, fueling suspicions on top of the food aid scandal. The claims were disproven by inspectors.
President Trump, meanwhile, has used dehumanizing rhetoric, calling Somali immigrants “garbage” and “low IQ.”
In February, Vice President JD Vance said the government would temporarily halt $243 million in Medicaid funding to Minnesota over fraud concerns. Minnesota sued in response, warning it may have to cut healthcare for low-income families, but a judge on April 6 declined to grant a restraining order.
Walz told Congress in March that he wanted to work with the federal government in fraud investigations, but that the immigration surge had made it more difficult.
“The people of Minnesota have been singled out and targeted for political retribution at an unparalleled scale,” he said at the time.
Vancleave and Richer write for the Associated Press. Durkin Richer contributed from Washington. AP reporters Steve Karnowski in Minneapolis and Corey Williams and Ed White in Detroit contributed to this story.
The restored sign showed up more than 130 miles away from its original home as part of the roast beef chain’s pop-up at the festival at the Empire Polo Club, where it became one of the event’s go-to photo spots.
“As you can see, everyone’s loving it. Everyone’s getting a photo op standing in front of it,” Arby’s franchisee Roger Amaya said.
Over the three days, people moseyed by the pop-up near Diplo’s Honky Tonk, sometimes lining up to wait their turn to take a photo in front of the sign. Some climbed on the surrounding hay bales for a better pose, asking others in line to snap their photo in front of the cowboy hat emblazoned with the words “Arby’s roast beef sandwich is delicious.”
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A number of people we talked to taking photos weren’t from L.A. and didn’t know the lore of the Hollywood Arby’s sign — they just liked the visual.
The family that owned the location said at the time that rising food costs, the post-pandemic changes in the neighborhood and a law that raised minimum wage contributed to the closure.
Amaya said that Amir Siddiqi, head of a group of Arby’s franchises, was able to get the sign from the Hollywood location and have it restored.
“We were able to bring it back to life here and bring it to all the fans of Arby’s out there,” Amaya said.
Now that Stagecoach is over, where will the sign go next?
“That’s the big question, so you gotta stay tuned,” Amaya said.
Rights groups have described the move as a “blatant abuse of power”.
Published On 27 Apr 202627 Apr 2026
Bahrain has stripped dozens of people of their citizenship for allegedly supporting Iranian attacks on the country.
Bahrain’s Ministry of Interior announced on Monday that it had revoked the citizenship of 69 people, some of whom were related, after accusing them of sympathising with Iran and “colluding with foreign entities”. The move comes after Tehran carried out strikes on facilities in Bahrain as part of the war launched against Iran by Israel and the United States.
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The directive, issued by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, stated that all 69 people were “of non-Bahraini origin”. Under Bahraini law, a person can be stripped of citizenship if they are deemed to have caused harm to the country or shown disloyalty.
The London-based Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy described the move as “dangerous” and a clear violation of international law.
The organisation said the individuals had not been publicly identified, and it remained unclear whether they had been arrested, whether they were inside or outside Bahrain, and whether they held another nationality.
Iranian strikes
Tehran began striking its Gulf neighbours on February 28, shortly after Israel and the United States began the war by launching attacks on Iran.
Tehran accused the targeted countries of allowing the US to conduct its strikes from their territory. Iran’s retaliatory attacks reportedly caused significant damage to US military sites across the region, including a Navy base in Bahrain, which was hit by missiles and drones.
Iran ceased its attacks on Gulf neighbours on April 9, following the introduction of a ceasefire brokered by Pakistan. Negotiations to permanently end the war are ongoing three weeks later.
Bahrain’s Shia population has long accused authorities of marginalising them. During the Arab Spring in 2011, mass protests against the country’s leadership broke out. The Bahraini government has long blamed Iran for fomenting unrest against it.
Rhetoric dehumanizing immigrant and Latino communities may appear more open and in-your-face in the current political climate. But that has not been a barrier for Latinos seeking elective office or high-level roles in government.
Voters are choosing an increasing number of nonwhite Hispanic leaders to local elective office — and many of the leaders are the first Latinos to hold their seats. Some political science experts attribute the rise of Latino leadership to years of grassroots organizing, coupled with ongoing demonization of their communities by Trump administration officials and conservative activists.
“That’s the difference now, is that there’s this extra incentive of an unrelenting attack on Latinos across the country,” said Anna Sampaio, an ethnic studies professor at Santa Clara University who specializes in race and gender politics.
There are currently an estimated 7,700 Latino elected officials nationwide, according to data from the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. That’s up from 6,883 officials in 2020.
Estimated to number as many as 55 million people — 16% of the U.S. population — Latinos are the largest ethnic minority in the country, with politics, interests and priorities as diverse as the national origins represented within their population. But Latinos also are underrepresented as a demographic across elective offices.
Since the beginning of President Trump’s second term, Latino communities have been a target of his hard-line immigration tactics. The feeling of attack doesn’t stop there. From memes shared from the official White House page perpetuating Hispanic stereotypes, a federally led English-only initiative and an anti-diversity, equity and inclusion push have painted a target on Latinos across the country.
It’s all led to more Latinos seeking office to defend their communities and give voice to those who may be afraid to speak out in the current political climate. As a result, legislators have proposed measures that include providing community members with protections against the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, halting the approval of ICE detention centers in their cities, and calling for a stop to ICE funding, among other actions.
Pennsylvania Latino mayor makes history
Lancaster, Pennsylvania, with a roughly 40% Hispanic population, recently elected Jaime Arroyo their first Latino mayor. Arroyo took office in January, after being elected with 85% of the vote.
“I think being the first Latino to be in this role and the first person of color to be mayor of Lancaster City has been exciting,” Arroyo told The Associated Press, adding that he finds it “extremely exciting to lead and represent our community in this role.”
With rhetoric and national policies — such as heightened immigration enforcement — hurting the Latino communities, Arroyo said, diverse representation in government is more important than ever. He also believes that the rise of elected Latino officials over the last couple of years is the result of generations of Latinos being politically active fighting for civil rights.
“We’re starting to see a lot of the fruits of that labor come to fruition,” Arroyo said. “There’s never a perfect time to serve your community, there’s the right time. And I think right now is the right time for a lot of Latinos to step up into these roles, especially with everything that is going on.”
Latino representation expanding in city councils
Many more Latinos made history when they took office in earlier this year.
In Iowa, Rob Barron was sworn in Jan. 12 as the first Latino representative on the Des Moines City Council. Antonio Pacheco was sworn on Jan. 7 to be the first Latino member of the city council in Conyers, Georgia. In Ohio, Eileen Torres became the first Mexican American women to win a city council seat in Lorain. Sabrina Gonzalez also took office there as the first Puerto Rican women to serve.
And in Michigan, Clara Martinez and Deyanira Nevarez Martinez were sworn in Jan. 1 to the Lansing City Council, making the city the first in the U.S. to have a council with majority Latino representation.
Martinez said her election, and that of Nevarez Martinez, makes a bit statement about “what people are truly open to despite the national rhetoric.”
“I think because of the rhetoric that we are having to face and some of the backlash on the national stage, I think that’s just fueled the fire for so many people,” she said.
The Salt Lake City Council also has a Latino majority, with four of seven seats, after Erika Carlsen, the granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, was sworn in on Jan. 5. Carlsen said her success is possible because of current and previous generations that put in the work to create spaces where Latinas were encouraged to take leadership positions.
“I feel like I’m building on early generations of leadership,” Carlsen said. “That’s both an honor and responsibility to improve Salt Lake City for the people who live here.”
Carlsen said even if representation at the federal level is not high or visible she said having representation at the local level can have a huge impact.
“I think that it’s critically important that we continue to build on this momentum,” Carlsen said. “The majority of change that can happen starts locally, it doesn’t start in Washington but in City Hall, school boards and neighborhoods conversations. That’s the kind of momentum I’d love to see all across the United States.”
Carolina Welles, executive director of The First Ask, an organization that supports first-time female candidates at the state level, said the reason why Latino representation is more visible at the local level is because those leaders are able to built trust with their community much easier given their proximity.
“They actually know what people care about,” Welles said. “They have a stake because they are facing similar things.”
Local level Latino leadership builds on state and federal representation
It’s not just at the local level. Latinos are making inroads at the federal level too.
The 119th Congress has 56 Hispanic or Latino members. That shakes out to 10.35% of total membership, according to the Congressional Research Service.
For comparison, there were only 14 Hispanic or Latino members and all were male in the 99th Congress, 40 years ago.
At the start of 2025, there were seven Hispanic U.S. senators. That number decreased to six when then Sen. Marco Rubio resigned to become the Secretary of State, the first Latino to hold the position.
Last year also marked a record for Latinas at the state level. Latinas held 214, or 2.9%, of seats in state legislatures, according to the Center for American Women and Politics. That was up from 192 seats in 2024.
Currently, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is the only active Latina governor in the U.S. Only two Latinas have been elected governor in U.S. history, and both were in New Mexico.
In March, Gina Hinojosa won the Democratic nomination for governor, making her the second Latina to win a major party gubernatorial nomination in Texas.
Latinos saw the biggest rise in elected officials during the Trump administration in response to attacks on their fundamental rights, said Sampaio, the Santa Clara University professor. She said that trend is likely to continue as the administration continues its attacks on immigrant communities.
“We’re likely to see more Latinos run for office at the local level, at the state level and even at the national level in response to the attack on simply their existence,” Sampaio said. “It is unwittingly both terrorizing the Latino community as well as mobilizing communities.”
Hold everything. Hollywood’s Lexington Park will not be getting a new playground after all, and that’s both good news and bad news.
To explain, let me take you back to April 15, when I tagged along with Sabine Phillips on her weekly three-hour inspection of the neighborhood’s chronic trash problem. Phillips, a housekeeper by trade, was hired by one of her clients a few years ago to help clean up their streets.
So each Wednesday, Phillips went out on her yellow Huffy cruiser and routinely logged 50 or more illegally dumped items and reported them to the city’s 311 system for pickup. And each Saturday, she filled up to four or five big bags with smaller bits and scraps of debris.
Near the end of my three hours with Phillips, who got help that day from volunteer Keith Johnson, we visited the Lexington pocket park. There were no kids there, and there never are, Phillips said. That’s because of the glass and needles in the sand, drug activity, sporadic violence, gang tags on the slide and homeless camps.
A guy from the Recreation and Parks Department showed up and said the park was in line for a possible upgrade that could cost as much as $300,000. In my April 18 column, I questioned the wisdom of investing in a playground that would remain unsafe unless there was a plan to address all the aforementioned issues.
Nick Barnes-Batista, communications director for L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, wrote to tell me his office was unaware of any playground projects planned for that park.
A spokesperson for Recreation and Parks told me that despite what was said by the employee I met in the park, there is no “immediate playground replacement project on the books.” But the department is “working closely” with the councilman’s office “to identify funding sources and to work with the community on broader park improvements and/or uses.”
OK, so it’s good news that taxpayer funds won’t be plowed into a park that could well be lost to the neighborhood almost immediately, due to all the aforementioned problems.
But it’s bad news and sad commentary that a park in the densely populated heart of the city will remain unusable for the foreseeable future.
The more important consideration, though, is the question of what’s being done to prevent the illegal dumping of furniture, mattresses and other items that sit curbside and often end up as the building blocks of new homeless encampments.
There’s a concentration of social service agencies in the neighborhood, said Stefanie Keenan, a longtime neighborhood volunteer and activist. She’s the one who hired her housekeeper to help look after the neighborhood, and she insists there is not enough enforcement of existing laws to address problems that are both a nuisance and a public safety threat, given the crime and all-too-frequent fires.
A woman pushes her walker past debris in Council District 13 in Los Angeles on Friday.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Soto-Martínez agreed to talk to me about all of this on Friday morning, when he dropped by the Bresee Foundation, a nonprofit with a range of enrichment activities for youngsters and families in the largely low-income immigrant community, as well as homelessness prevention programs. Staff and volunteers, recruited with support from the council office, were about to head into nearby streets with shovels, brooms and trash bags.
Soto-Martínez acknowledged his district’s many challenges, told the gathering that the strength of a community is its people, and thanked them for their service.
The councilman, a former labor leader who joined the growing progressive wing of the L.A. City Council in 2022 with support from the local chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, has three challengers in the June 2 primary (Colter Carlisle, Dylan Kendall and Rich Sarian). He told me the city has to do a better job of educating people about illegal dumping and how to report it. A related challenge, he said, “is how quickly can we get to it. And that is a budget issue because we’ve cut so many positions on trash pickup.”
Soto-Martínez said his office used discretionary funds to hire two crews from the L.A. Conservation Corps for trash pickup. On homelessness, he said, he has a team strategizing to address the needs, and a medical team that works the streets, and a tiny home village is in the works.
But the housing shortage is a major challenge, he said, and when it comes to entrenched homelessness, “we’re now starting to deal with much more difficult cases.” Namely severe mental illness and serious addiction, both of which generally come under county jurisdiction.
“We created another team that goes out every single day. We door-knock, email and phone-bank people who are at risk of eviction,” Soto-Martínez said, adding that homelessness has declined by 25% during his three years in office.
So what is his message to constituents who say they don’t see enough progress?
“We ask them to give us patience and grace,” he said. “There’s a lot of examples like this, where we’re not just dealing with one thing. We’re dealing with four or five things.”
All of that is true, but the patience he asks for is wearing thin among some constituents.
“We need to find common ground and work together,” Soto-Martínez said. “You know, they see trash as an issue, and they’re doing it their way and we’re doing it our way. But how can we team up and do it together? You know, we’re happy to build those networks out, and under many of the issues they describe, I’m not disagreeing. … We all have the same goal.”
L.A. City Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez gives a pep talk to volunteers before they leave to clean their neighborhood streets of garbage and debris.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
When Soto-Martínez departed for another appointment, the volunteers took to the streets, filling trash bags. They worked their way up Vermont, and a Bresee employee told me he works the same streets every day, trying to clear a path for “safe passage” as students walk to and from school.
As I said in the earlier column, it’s an inspiration to see people step up for their communities, whether out of pride or frustration. And it’s also reasonable to expect more from City Hall.
I drove over to Western and Sierra Vista, met up with Keenan, and told her about my conversation with Soto-Martínez. She said lax city policies and frequent non-response to citizen pleas for help have created the unsolved problems residents deal with daily. She said city officials have to do a better job of helping homeless people off the streets and preventing further deterioration of neighborhoods.
She was encouraged by a message she got from a representative of Mayor Karen Bass’ office who wants to tour the neighborhood with her.
We walked west on Sierra Vista and came upon a dumped sofa, some cabinets, mattresses, and a man who has been living in a curbside encampment for months. He sat near his belongings, which spilled into the street.
Why hasn’t this been addressed? Keenan wondered aloud. She has decided to stop paying her housekeeper to help address the neighborhood’s needs, and she predicted things will only get worse because of it.
I drove over to the Lexington pocket park, which Soto-Martínez called a priority, among many other priorities. Friday was a holiday — Armenian Genocide Remembrance Day. With schools closed, the park would have been a great little neighborhood asset.
But the entrance was closed, with a lock on the gate, and two tarped dwellings were set up against the iron fencing of the empty park.
It’s 7:50 p.m. on a Tuesday as I enter the dimly lighted metaphysical supply store the Crooked Path. Even inside, it almost looks closed; I barely see the crystal-necklace-studded walls, the bowls of runes and bins of long, black candles around me. Half-filled glass jars (perhaps potions?) sit beyond the store’s elongated bar — the apothecary — where a silent man in black points me past Egyptian deity figurines and a large python named Drakina to … my yoga class.
The backroom that Goth Yoga LA calls home is all black paint, purple lights and sage-y smells; music growls ominously from the speaker system above. Devotees gather for the intimate, pay-what-you-can classes, held at 6:30 and 8 p.m. on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It feels like an open mic night in the Upside Down — and yes, everyone is wearing all black. Everyone but Goth Yoga LA’s leader, Brynna Beatnix. Tonight, Beatnix is giving more Y2K occult-glam. She chats with one heavily-tattooed man stretching in the corner, and welcomes in an older woman in heavy eyeliner who tentatively peeks inside. Is she in the right place? Of course she is.
Students take part in a Goth Yoga LA class, complete with burning incense.
Goth Yoga LA’s masterminds are Beatnix and her partner, James David (who DJs each class). The couple has been active in L.A.’s goth/alternative music and event scene for years, co-creating the popular outdoor roller disco event Skate Oddity during the pandemic. This “goth club on wheels,” brought an inspiring blend of physicality, niche goth music and connection to alt-Angelenos at their most isolated.
As Skate Oddity (and athletically-forward goth events like it) became more popular, so did some pretty gnarly injuries. As a response, Beatnix began hosting communal stretching sessions before the event, complete with vibey dark ‘80s, goth and post-punk soundtrack. “It started as a gathering,” Beatnix said. “And with James and my background in nightlife and music, it gained momentum and grew.”
Soon, Beatnix got her yoga certification and a couple of her goth friends, Sal Santoro and Popi Mavros, offered the backroom of their Burbank-based occult store, the Crooked Path. And from the shadowy, crystal-studded darkness Goth Yoga LA was born.
Brynna Beatnix’s classes are defined by deep stretches and dark sounds.
DJ James David provides the music for Goth Yoga LA classes.
Beatnix and David created and practice Goth Yoga LA much like yoga itself — slowly, with intentionality. It took them years to fuse music and movement to “get the space right,” and they hope that the result helps participants’ mental health. “The music and the alternative world can already be a coping mechanism. Well, yoga is also a great coping mechanism. So let’s combine the two.”
What resulted is an intimate, therapeutic yoga class shrouded in darkness (literally), where goths, alts, punks — anyone feeling outside of the norm — can work through “heavy feelings” via moody vinyasas. “It just feels really nice to be in a room of people who are kinda literally leaning into the discomfort of being in the chaos of the world right now,” says Heather Hanford, a regular at Goth Yoga LA.
For many, it’s not just about mental health but simply a more welcoming alternative to the Lululemon-coded homogeny of L.A.’s wellness culture. “Some people feel scared of going to traditional yoga studios. One, the prices are really high. Or they don’t really feel accepted there,” Beatnix says. “I’ve even had guys be like, I’m scared to go, because people are going to look at my tattoos and think that I’m a satanist and stare at me.”
The intimate Goth Yoga LA classes are distinctive because they are mostly shrouded in darkness.
And, of course, it’s not just for goths. Class participant Hanford, who identifies as a neurodivergent non-goth, experiences Goth Yoga LA as much more regulating than a mainstream yoga class. “The lighting and mood music makes it easier to focus on the internal experience than other classes I’ve taken,” she said. “Either intentionally or not, really helps minimize sensory overload.”
As we cat-cow to the Cure, the irony that goth yoga is more approachable, more calming and far less expensive than most traditional classes isn’t lost on me. With its donation-based entry, alternative clientele and bespoke DJ experience, Goth Yoga LA is like the anti-yoga of L.A’.s yoga scene. “I didn’t particularly want to rebel against the yoga studios, I just … am,” Beatnix tells me later. “We just saw something that didn’t exist, and wanted to create it.”
I know the class is coming to an end as ambient noiserock leads us into corpse pose. I inhale, letting new smells — something minty and palo santo-y, maybe? — waft over me. Now back into our original sitting positions, I’m not expecting a namaste. No, I have been warned this class concludes … differently than most.
Class participants Ellie Albertson and Jenn Rivera recline in corpse pose.
In Sanskrit, namaste translates to mean “I bow to you,” or, ”the light in me honors the light in you.” It is meant to be an invitation: a means of being deeply and profoundly seen.
“But that’s just ignoring the dark,” Beatnix says. In her opinion, to truly be seen we must acknowledge our alternative natures, our shadow sides, the otherness of our beings. “My ending is — and it ranges class to class — but generally I say, ‘the darkness in me honors and acknowledges the darkness in each and every one of you.’ We have both light and dark. We are both.”
Gavin Rossdale brought his band Bush to Stagecoach on Saturday — one of several groups at the festival this weekend with indelible rock hits from the 1990s. The 60-year-old, who recently premiered a television cooking show, also put in an appearance alongside Billy Bob Thornton, Wynonna Judd and Gavin Adcock at the fever dream that is Guy Fieri’s Smokehouse. I caught up with him between the two engagements.
This has gotta be your first Stagecoach. It is. I was waiting till I got an invite. I didn’t want to just get a ticket — I wanted to be invited.
You just did a cooking demonstration with Guy Fieri. How’d that go? Fantastic — really good fun. We had four people doing different dishes. He’s a great, great man — I love him.
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You’ve become a TV chef yourself. What’s the TV-chef-meets-TV-chef vibe? I felt a kinship. I only had to tell him — we were talking about making the food — I said to him we could cook some secreto pork. That’s the secret, perfect part of the pork that people don’t know enough about. He was so impressed after that he left me alone to just do what I want.
Guy Fieri didn’t know about it, and neither did I. Oh no, he did.
Clarification: I didn’t know about it.You were there with Gavin Adcock, which means that there were two Gavins. It was a first for me.
I know that Paramount is here at Stagecoach. Are you interested in pitching an odd-couple comedy with you and Gavin Adcock? He’s a country guy, you’re a rock guy — I think we can make this happen. He made a big steak sandwich, and I made a sort of a deep-fried chicken with rice and Japanese things. So I feel that we’re opposing sides and we could combine and make a really great balanced meal.
We’ll pitch this later tonight. How did Bush end up on a country music festival? That is such a good question — you should’ve led with that. And I don’t have any answer for it. It’s like one of those things where I’m just excited to be here and I don’t want to screw it up.
What would screwing it up look like? Choosing the wrong song.
The deepest cut. A D-side. Nobody wants it. But it’s so hard to know what everyone knows. I was trying to do the set list, but I was like, Who is everyone here? Is it real cowboys? Is it Palm Springs cowboys? Is it California cowboys? What is it?
Gavin Rossdale and drummer Nik Hughes perform with Bush on Saturday.
(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
Bush is not the only rock band at Stagecoach. The Wallflowers are here, Third Eye Blind is here. You have any beef with these other rock bands? Not on the culinary stage, because it was all chicken. But no, no — I don’t have beef with anyone. Life is too long for beefs.
If you were to play a country song, what would it be? Zach Bryan’s catalog is sensational. They’re beautiful songs, and I feel that if I spent a good amount of time, I could do a faithful version à la Bush.
So Stagecoach 2029: Gavin Rossdale sings the Zach Bryan catalog. Well, not the whole thing.
WASHINGTON — President Trump was preparing to take the stage at the White House Correspondents’ Assn. dinner Saturday night, eager — by his own account — to “let it rip” before a room of Washington’s elite and reporters he has spent years calling the enemy of the people.
Then shots were heard. Secret Service agents rushed him off the stage. And within hours, the president was at the White House calling for unity, offering overtures to a press corps that he had long clashed with.
“I just want to say you did a fantastic job, what a beautiful evening and we are going to reschedule,” Trump told Weijia Jiang, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Assn., at a news briefing after the shooting at the dinner.
His magnanimity did not last long. On Sunday night, sitting down for an interview with Norah O’Donnell of CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Trump reacted with fury to her reading of the suspected shooter’s manifesto, calling her a “disgrace.”
The manifesto characterized his targets as rapists and pedophiles.
“You’re horrible people. Horrible people,” Trump said. “He did write that. I’m not a rapist. I didn’t rape anybody.
“I’m not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person? I got associated with all — stuff that has nothing to do with me,” he added. “You should be ashamed of yourself reading that because I’m not any of those things.”
It marked a return to the familiar dynamic between the president and the press after a night of shared crisis and purpose — raising doubts about how long the goodwill would last.
Just hours before, at the briefing, Trump expressed dismay at the violent outburst at the Washington Hilton, where the black-tie event has been held for more than 50 years.
“I will tell you, I fought like hell to stay, but it was protocol,” the president said. On Sunday he repeated his desire to reschedule the event, telling Fox News that he is committed to attending it in the near future, even proposing to do it within 30 days.
Trump appeared to be enjoying himself moments before Cole Tomas Allen, a 31-year-old tutor from Torrance, allegedly ran past a security checkpoint at the hotel and fired off two shots. Oz Pearlman, a mentalist and the entertainer for the night, seemed to be doing a trick for the president and the first lady when the shots were fired, videos show.
Trump was preparing to deliver remarks at the end of the night. His team was excited about it, and the president had been making tweaks to his speech on Air Force One up until Saturday morning.
“It will be funny. It will be entertaining,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a red carpet event ahead of the dinner.
The speech was going to mark Trump’s first at the White House correspondents’ dinner. He told Fox News on Sunday that he was “really going to let it rip,” and that he had considered the moment an “important event” until it came to a halt.
Trump said he would like to reschedule the event within the next month, adding that he will make an “entirely different speech” — one that he said will be focused on “love.”
It is unclear how long Trump’s media-friendly tone will last, but some Republicans continued to blame reporters for the violent act. Kari Lake, the senior advisor to the U.S. Agency for Global Media, said some reporters attending the event “have spent a decade spreading absolute lies” about Trump.
Trump, for his part, used the security breach at the event to make the case for his White House ballroom project, claiming that the Washington Hilton is “not a particularly secure building” and is a prime example of why legal challenges holding up its construction need to be dismissed.
“We need the ballroom,” Trump told reporters. “Today, we need levels of security that probably nobody’s ever seen before.”
However, the annual dinner’s venue is picked not by the White House, but by the White House Correspondents’ Assn., an independent organization of journalists who cover the president.
Trump has vowed to return to the event in the near future, and has called for it to take place within the next month to show that “bad people” cannot “change the course of the country.” But the ballroom project could not be ready that quickly.
It remains under construction and “ahead of schedule,” Trump has said. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court allowed construction on the project to continue through early June, as legal challenges remain ongoing.
The construction of the $400-million ballroom on the White House grounds has come under searing scrutiny. The National Trust for Historic Preservation, which sued last year to stop the project, has argued that Trump lacked authority to make architectural changes to the White House grounds.
Carol Quillen, president and chief executive of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, has argued the White House is “the most evocative building in our country” and any changes should go through a review process, including a public comment period. Trump on Sunday described the lawsuit as one brought by a “woman walking a dog.”
The attempted attack, which marks the third time in less than two years that Trump has faced the threat of a gunman, has reignited questions about the tense political environment besetting the United States.
Trump, for his part, called his job a “dangerous profession” and said he believed he has become the target of attacks because of his presidency’s own consequence.
“The people that do the most, the people that make the biggest impact, they are the people that they go after,” Trump told reporters at the White House after being rushed out of the hotel.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, he added: “If you’re a consequential president, you’re in much more danger than if you’re not a consequential president.”
As an example, Trump pointed to his war in Iran, a conflict that recent polling shows has contributed to his approval rating falling to around 40%. The president said the war “should’ve been done by previous presidents … but nobody did anything about it.”
At Saturday night’s dinner, people infiltrated the hotel to protest the Iran war and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
Two demonstrators, wearing suits, crashed a red carpet photo shoot in the hotel lobby and called for Hegseth to be arrested for war crimes, underscoring how the foreign conflict is fueling the political rhetoric at home.
In the hours after the shooting, Trump remained defiant. In an interview, he said he was determined to show a unified front and not let “one nut” derail his agenda or events.
“I hate it when a sick, bad person,” he told Fox News on Sunday. “I hate someone like that changing the course of our country.”
WASHINGTON — When families flocked to Yosemite National Park during their recent spring breaks, some met two-hour waits at the entrance gates. At a lakeside spot in the North Cascades in Washington state, there hasn’t been enough staff to open the visitors center. And in Death Valley, water was shut off at two campgrounds.
National parks staff and advocates fear that such issues could only worsen this summer, as the park system faces the busy season with a dramatically reduced staff. At Yosemite, concerns are compounded by the National Park Service’s recent elimination of the park’s timed-entry reservation system, which led to the long spring-break lines.
“We’re definitely really nervous and anxious about the upcoming season, especially with the staff shortage we already have,” said a National Federation of Federal Employees union member at Yosemite who requested anonymity to speak candidly.
The National Park Service has lost nearly a quarter of its staff to buyouts, early retirements and other departures since the Trump administration took office last year, according to an estimate by the National Parks Conservation Assn. This month, the administration proposed cutting nearly 3,000 more positions in its 2027 budget. It also offered a recent new round of buyouts.
The push to cut the park system even further — ahead not only of peak season but of America’s 250th birthday, which the Trump administration has promoted in relation to national parks — has underscored ongoing questions about how smoothly parks can operate as warm weather and summer vacations draw tourists.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum defended the budget proposal on Capitol Hill last week, telling senators that the visitor experience to parks can be improved even while spending and staff reductions are made.
He said the agency plans to hire 5,500 seasonal workers and asked Congress to approve funding for those employees to work for nine-month stints rather than six months.
“All of that’s going to help us get this thing in shape, even with an overall reduction,” Burgum said Wednesday.
He was met with skepticism by Democrats, who confronted him over the spending proposal.
“That is just a recipe for disaster,” Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) told Burgum.
Congress will have the final say on the proposed cuts, but in the meantime, the reductions that have already occurred presented challenges last season and appear likely to do so again, said Cheryl Schreier, a retired superintendent of Mount Rushmore National Memorial and chair of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
Whether the parks will get enough qualified candidates to hire the number of seasonal workers needed is also “a really big concern,” she said. “It’s really important to have all of those individuals to be able to operate a park in a good fashion.”
Campers prepare food in Yosemite Valley last December. 9, 2025 in Yosemite, CA.
(Eric Thayer/Los Angeles Times)
The lower staffing has prompted worry about parks’ capacity for emergency response, protection of the natural landscape and custodial maintenance. Fewer rangers could mean, for instance, fewer people to reach dehydrated, stranded or lost hikers, said Chance Wilcox, California desert director for the National Parks Conservation Assn.
A park service spokesperson said Friday that staffing decisions are made based on local conditions at each park and that the agency is “focused on ensuring parks remain open, accessible, and safe for visitors.”
About 323 million people visit America’s national parks annually, according to the Interior Department. While the parks can expect heavy traffic, a drop in international tourism and the rise in gas prices has injected additional uncertainty into the tourism industry this year.
The number of Canadians visiting the United States has dropped since Trump took office, according to the Canadian government — with the number of Canadians making car trips to the United States this March declining by 35% compared with March 2024.
The Interior Department also instituted a new $100-per-person fee for non-Americans entering 11 of the most popular parks, a move to raise money for the parks but an extra squeeze for Canadians coming across the border and other international visitors.
At the Senate and House hearings on the Interior budget, Burgum presented a vision of the national parks system as one where most employees should be working at a park and interacting with visitors, and said he was more focused on filling those roles than jobs in regional offices.
“Our goal is to have more people actually working in the parks,” he told senators.
An Interior Department spokesperson said the agency was “advancing high-priority improvements” across the system.
“Secretary Burgum has been clear that resources should be prioritized toward visitor-facing services, public safety, maintenance, and projects that improve the experience for the American people,” an Interior Department spokesperson said in a statement Friday.
Critics say that strategy displays a misunderstanding of how the 109-year-old agency functions. Employees who work on contracts, human resources, IT, communications and other organizational and administrative jobs are essential to keeping the parks running, Wilcox said.
“If everything were visitor- or front-facing, the entire agency would collapse from behind,” said Wilcox, of the National Parks Conservation Assn.
The decision to discontinue the reservation system at Yosemite — as well as at Arches and Glacier national parks — is another part of Interior’s mission to bring more people into the parks. The concept was “designed to expand public access” this summer, the park service said in announcing the policy in February. It kept the timed-entry reservation system in Rocky Mountain National Park for the peak season.
Visitors take pictures while walking through Muir Woods National Monument on July 24, 2025 in Muir Woods National Monument, California.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
In addition to causing long lines, cramming too many people into the parks at once could lead to environmental damage, particularly if people park cars in natural areas, said Don Neubacher, a retired Yosemite superintendent and member of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks.
“It’s going to be mass chaos,” he said.
On a Saturday at the end of March, Jon Christenson of Coarsegold, Calif., drove to the park with his 38-year-old son. They were surprised to encounter a two-hour wait to get into the park, plus at least a half-hour hunt for parking after they made it through the gates, he said.
“It was almost like Disneyland. It was really uncomfortable from the standpoint of just so many people,” said Christenson, 82. “It’s kind of troubling to see that they’ve opened up the floodgates and now it’s kind of ruining the experience for everybody.”
Rangers there are doing multiple jobs, and last summer they helped clean bathrooms in the absence of custodial staff, the Yosemite union member said. Now they, too, are concerned about the potential for gridlock.
The worker asked summer visitors to bring patience: “The folks at the National Park Service … they will be grateful for any compassion and empathy.”
[Update: At of 8:42 p.m., the festival advised via its mobile app that Stagecoach will resume momentarily. “We are working to open doors and prep the site for your safety,” the alert said. Just before 9p.m. the gates were reopened.
Stagecoach updated its schedule for Saturday night after a temporary evacuation due to high winds. Journey, which had been scheduled to play the Mustang Stage, will no longer perform; Riley Green, set to play the Mane Stage will also not perform. Lainey Wilson, who was set to headline the Mane stage, will play an hour later than originally scheduled at 10:30 p.m.]
Due to high winds at Stagecoach, the festival promoter Goldenvoice postponed the festival Saturday night until further notice and crowds are currently being evacuated.
An “Emergency Evacuation” message showed up on screens on the festival’s Mane Stage saying “the festival is been postponed until further notice. Please move quickly and calmly to the nearest exit.”
The city of Indio where the fest is located is under a strong wind advisory until 11 a.m. Sunday morning. The advisory issued by the National Weather Service was in effect at 2 p.m. but the gusts didn’t pick up until Teddy swims’ Mane Stage set just after 5 p.m.
Thousands of people poured out of the festival. Despite there being messaging on the screen to evacuate, some emergency exits were still closed by security staff between the main stage and the main entrance. In addition to messaging on screens, the Stagecoach app sent an alert for people to evacuate.
Fans at the festival reported that the winds earlier were much stronger than the evening gusts that resulted in the spontaneous postponement.
“The show was pretty windy when we got there but we went into a saloon to see one of our friends do karaoke,” said Krystine Malins, 58. “When we came out palm trees were like bending in half.”
Malins, who has attended the festival since the first installment in 2007, said an evacuation was “the best call.”
“I just feel bad for these girls walking around half-naked in this wind,” she said.
Two Stagecoach festival attendees, Ellie, 27, and Angelique, 22, sat at tables farther back from the stage watching people filing out of the festival.
“We were trying to see Pitbull at the end of the night, so that’s kind of like our whole night, I don’t know, ruined I guess,” Angelique said. “We were kind of hoping for a refund.” Asked about whether the wind felt seriousness enough to stop the show, the pair were cautiously optimistic. “Honestly I would say yeah [it’s bad], but I feel like there could still be potential for it to go down, but it felt worse earlier,” Angelique said.
Despite the evacuation, the general atmosphere among many festival goers was calm as crowds were walking back to their cars.
“I didn’t even know what was going on until I saw the screen [at the Mane Stage] and then I started hearing “Hey they’re evacuating, get out,” one festival goer told the Times. “But then we had to sit it out because there was a clog at the exit. It’s not that bad.”
When Cubs center fielder Pete Crow-Armstrong’s scathing remarks about Dodgers fans took off this spring, he wasn’t worried about how fans might interpret them. His back-and-forth with the Dodgers fans dates back several years.
“I wanted to make sure that the people on the other side of the field who I really respect knew where I was coming from, and that it had nothing to do with the people on the field,” Crow-Armstrong told The Times before the Dodgers’ 6-4 loss to the Cubs on Friday, full of gratitude for Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, shortstop Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman in particular. “I wanted to make sure that nobody took it in that way, that I was going at the Dodgers.
“Was I poking fun at Dodgers fans? Absolutely.”
It all started in late February, with a Chicago Magazine article on Armstrong, which quoted him: ‘‘I love Chicago more and more. It’s just an incredible city. The people are great. … They aren’t just baseball fans who go to the game like Dodgers fans to take pictures and whatever. They are paying attention. They care.’’
After the story came out, Crow-Armstrong went on “Foul Territory” and doubled down.
When the Cubs came to town Friday, Dodgers fans made it clear they hadn’t forgotten. Thunderous boos greeted Crow-Armstrong as he walked up to the plate for the first time. But Crow-Armstrong was expecting that, and he didn’t walk back anything he said.
“What I wish people could see through is, I’m not getting at die-hard Dodger fans,” he said. “They obviously exist, they’re out there. I grew up seeing those people, too, but it’s a see-me city, man. It’s a Lakers city where people show up to sit courtside and look good. And I view it the same way here.
“Thank you, Shohei [Ohtani] and Freddie and Mookie because it wasn’t always like this.”
On that last point, his tone was sincere.
Friday’s announced attendance at Dodger Stadium was 53,733, the seventh sellout of the season.
Dodger Stadium played an important role in Crow-Armstrong’s baseball upbringing. The son of two actors, Ashley Crow and Matthew John Armstrong, Crow-Armstrong grew up in Los Angeles and went to Harvard-Westlake.
He went to plenty of Dodgers games, but when Crow-Armstrong was younger, he latched on to players rather than teams. From the Dodgers, he was drawn to Matt Kemp, Andre Ethier, and of course, Clayton Kershaw.
“I remember specific stuff too, like Adrian Gonzalez’ first homer as a Dodger,” Crow-Armstrong said. “We were all watching that together. The Dodgers were a huge part of my life growing up.”
Pete Crow-Armstrong celebrates in the dugout after scoring off a triple hit by Dansby Swanson during the seventh inning Friday.
(Ryan Sun / Associated Press)
Crow-Armstrong, baseball-hungry from a young age, also would go to Angel Stadium when the Yankees were in town to watch Derek Jeter, one of his favorites, go up against Mike Trout’s Angels. Eventually, his father, an Illinois native, recruited his son into Cubs fandom.
Crow-Armstrong’s L.A. ties made that first trip with the Cubs to Dodgers Stadium feel “special.” Regardless of the size of the stadium, or the major-league stage, part of that first experience in September 2024 made him feel like he was back in high school.
“I’m playing in front of my friends again, and I’m getting a show off for my friends and all that fun stuff,” he said. “There’s nothing better to me than seeing a random face that I didn’t know was coming to the game, and they’re sitting three rows behind our dugout. … That’s by far what I look forward to most about this trip.”
Show off he did.
Crow-Armstrong’s standout defensive showing peaked in a game-sealing catch over the wall in right-center field, robbing Max Muncy of a home run.
The rookie center fielder didn’t bother to hide his delight, jumping and shouting in celebration. He developed a contentious relationship with Dodgers fans in that series.
“They were really quick to talk … to me when I was in center field,” Crow-Armstrong said. “And I appreciate that kind of stuff. Like they’re obviously engaged and in the way that they want to be. … And just very easy to kind of give it right back. Like, ‘Yeah, please, be my guest.’ But I kind of love that.”
The Cubs’ next visit to Dodger Stadium was just as eventful. News broke that the Cubs and Crow-Armstrong’s agents at CAA had engaged in extension talks. Then he broke out of a slump to hit two home runs and a triple in a win that clinched a series victory.
“I love playing here,” Crow-Armstrong said afterward. “It’s a fun crowd, and I like the noise. I think the Cubbies like playing here, too.”
He grinned, in case the jab was too subtle.
Crow-Armstrong had a similar look on his face when that history came up again Friday.
“If we’re going to be immature and childish about it,” he said, “I’d say they started it, they just gave me an opportunity to kind of run with it.”
Crow-Armstrong walked into Dodger Stadium expecting it to be a topic he’d have to address all weekend, fully prepared to keep running with it.
“Each fan base has their own personality,” he said. “And I was really just comparing my own two experiences: playing for the Cubs, and people showing up and enjoying it, and there’s just an air about the place; and then here, it is what it is like. Maybe if I played here, it’d be different. But I don’t.”
His experience with Cubs fans also factored into his desire to stay with the organization long term. This spring, he signed a six-year, $115-million contract. And on Friday, he commended Cubs fans for their patience.
“It wasn’t the hottest start to my career, but I got loved the same way that I do today,” Crow-Armstrong said. “And even right now, when it’s been tough on me results-wise, all I hear running out to the field is, ‘Hey, we love you. We got you. The city loves you. You’re the best.”
The sentiment from Dodgers fans Friday was a little different. Not only did they boo Crow-Armstrong every at-bat, but even the Dodgers’ social media team piled on.
After Crow-Armstrong struck out in his first at-bat — one of Dodgers starter Emmet Sheehan’s career-high-tying 10 strikeouts — the Dodgers’ social media account posted a video of his last whiff, with the caption: “A strikeout worthy of taking pictures and whatever.”
Crow-Armstrong and the Cubs, however, got the last laugh, as the Dodgers’ bullpen buckled. With the game tied in the ninth Friday, Crow-Armstrong lined a single into shallow left field against Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott. Then Scott grooved a fastball down the middle to Dansby Swanson, who hit it over the left-field wall.
Crow-Armstrong had a trip around the bases to relish the relative quiet he and his teammates had induced.
Luxury hotel designer Tatiana Sheveleva, who has worked with brands such as The Ritz-Carlton and St. Regis, has been involved in some remarkable projects and knows a thing or two about hospitality
Tatiana Sheveleva has been a luxury interior designer for 15 years, covering hotels, resorts and yachts(Image: Handout)
A luxury hotel designer has revealed the key feature in every room that guests might miss, but it can make a huge difference.
Tatiana Sheveleva, originally from Kazakhstan but living in Toronto, Canada, has been a luxury hospitality designer, including for hotels, resorts and yachts, for 15 years and runs her company, Chapi Design. During her creative career, she’s worked on incredible projects with major brands, including St. Regis Hotels, The Ritz-Carlton, and The Luxury Collection.
These projects have taken Tatiana all over the world, designing interiors for hotels and resorts in Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Antigua, Orlando, Nashville, and Toronto. She’s even designed a luxury yacht for the Ritz-Carlton Yacht Collection, Luminara, which boasts 226 suites with private terraces, five restaurants, seven bars, and a wine vault.
One of Tatiana’s most recent projects was for St. Regis in Cap Cana, Dominican Republic, which was completed last year. “I like to do big properties, and everything we design [at Chapi Design] is custom-made,” Tatiana told the Mirror, “I have been very fortunate to work on different properties around the world.
“But it’s still so surreal for me that I’m working on the most amazing properties in the world, even though I have been doing this for 15 years.”
With a wealth of expertise on luxury interior designs, Tatiana revealed that there’s one key element in every hotel room that guests regularly miss.
The designer said: “The most money is spent on the headboard. Typically, it’s the most expensive piece as it’s often a feature. How you design the headboard depends on the bed’s location, and it can be a strong element of the project’s narrative.”
Tatiana revealed another important feature of any hotel room. “I would say the bathroom, believe it or not. It always gives the guests a good impression, and it’s the first place they go when they check into the room.
“The bathroom area is important. If you design a very unique layout for the washroom, people will start to talk about it. In the washroom, you can create something very sculptural and unique.
“If you are successful enough to create this interesting washroom, first of all, people will be spending more time there, they will have a bath and feel more relaxed. And actually, we spend a lot of our time in there.”
She added: “The light in the bathroom should be accommodating for different scenarios, bright enough to put on make-up but cosy and romantic at the same time. For me, every single washroom I design is very unique.”
Another feature of a hotel room that Tatania argues warrants attention is the bed.
“The mattress has to be comfortable, and the bedding. Also, there might be special glasses by the bedside table; it’s these details,” she said.
The designer likes to add a special feature inside the closet, such as interesting wallpaper, a splash of color, or a pretty stone.
“That’s a unique element you don’t notice right away, but you notice it after,” she added.
For Tatiana, the joy of the job comes from travelling and working with different people. She said: “The whole process is quite fun, and during this process, you get to meet a lot of interesting people who are passionate about projects. I also like to investigate new locations and new countries, because when I was in Kazakhstan, I didn’t really travel much. So, my first project for St. Regis was in Mexico, and it was my dream to go there.
“Mexico has a very unique culture, it’s very colourful, there’s amazing food, and they use alot of bright colours – there’s a lot of celebrations. It was very different, and I was very excited about that. The Dominican Republic is the same. It’s very comfortable, the people and land, it’s very nice.”
And her travels aren’t stopping anytime soon. Tatiana is currently working on mega interior design projects for St. Regis in Costa Rica, The Luxury Collection Hotel in Mexico, and Luxury Hotels in Peru and Antigua, and some projects can take as long as six years to complete.
You can read more about Tatiana’s projects on the Chapi Design website. You can also follow their Instagram page.
Do you have a travel story to share? Email webtravel@reachplc.com
The Trump administration’s historic move to reclassify state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug was cheered by some advocates but for others, it fell far short for the thousands still incarcerated on federal cannabis-related convictions.
The executive order, which acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche signed Thursday, does not address current penalties for possessing and selling marijuana or those jailed with yearslong sentences.
“While this is a victory, the fight is far from over,” said Jason Ortiz, director of strategic initiatives for the Last Prisoner Project, a nonprofit focused on cannabis criminal justice reform.
Proponents of legalizing marijuana as well as overhauling prison sentencing say this order, which does not completely decriminalize the drug, benefits only cannabis researchers, growers and others in Big Weed. Meanwhile, thousands — many of whom are people of color — are stuck serving harsh sentences for marijuana-related offenses. Or they have served their time but having a conviction on their record has made life difficult.
Now, advocates are calling on Congress and state lawmakers to take concrete steps to ensure those with marijuana-related convictions receive fair treatment or be forgiven altogether.
Prisoners and their families look for hope
Blanche’s order reclassifies state-licensed medical marijuana as a less-dangerous drug. The major policy shift, which both Presidents Obama and Joe Biden had considered, means cannabis won’t be grouped with drugs like heroin.
But it does not legalize marijuana for medical or recreational use. It shifts licensed medical marijuana from Schedule I — reserved for drugs without medical use and with high potential for abuse — to the less strictly regulated Schedule III. This will likely give licensed medical marijuana operators and cannabis researchers a major tax break and less stringent barriers to doing normal business.
Virtually no one imprisoned at the federal level is there solely for marijuana possession. But many are there for large-scale possession, trafficking offenses or both.
Hector Ruben McGurk, 66, has been serving life without the possibility of parole since 2007 for transporting thousands of pounds of marijuana and money laundering. He is currently imprisoned in Beaumont, Texas, over 800 miles from his son’s El Paso home. His incarceration has been hard on his son, said McGurk’s daughter-in-law, Ferna Anguiano. And the distance makes visits logistically difficult.
So it’s tempting to see this order as a glimmer of hope, given that the family believes McGurk’s punishment far outweighs his crimes. But Anguiano has no idea how to navigate lobbying for his release.
“His release date is death,” Anguiano said. “I mean, we see all this stuff on the news — bigger cases, fatal cases — and people are going in and out of prison and coming out to their families.”
They try to keep in touch through phone calls and a prison texting service. They’re concerned about McGurk’s health and his diabetes management. It would be a dream come true for him to come home.
“He deserves a second chance,” Anguiano said. “Yes, it was a poor decision he did in his lifetime. He was younger. But he is not a bad person. I think it’s fair to say he has served enough time for it.”
It’s not clear whether punishments would be different had marijuana always been scheduled differently, drug policy experts say.
“In addition to schedule-specific penalties, there are marijuana-specific penalties that have nothing to do with the schedule,” said Cat Packer, director of drug markets and legal regulation at the nonprofit Drug Policy Alliance. “Even if marijuana were to be moved to Schedule V, those criminal penalties would still exist and there are mandatory minimums for simple possession.”
Racial disparities exist in convictions and Big Weed
Destigmatizing marijuana has long been an issue for both political parties. Obama commuted the sentences of about 1,900 federal prisoners, almost all of whom were incarcerated for nonviolent drug crimes. Biden pardoned 6,500 people convicted of use and simple possession of marijuana on federal lands and in the District of Columbia. President Trump’s administration has taken far fewer drug clemency actions and does not have an overarching policy directing such actions.
“What many people on the right and the left would like is to move marijuana from this ‘just as bad as heroin’ category and to just sort of de-schedule it entirely,” said Marta Nelson, director of sentencing reform at the Vera Institute of Justice. “Regulate it like you do alcohol or tobacco.”
Studies show Black Americans are roughly 3.7 to 4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than white Americans, despite usage rates being roughly the same across racial groups. Federal-level marijuana cases are pretty small today, but those serving sentences for federal drug offenses are overwhelmingly Hispanic and Black, according to Justice Department and Bureau of Justice Statistics data.
The racial disparity with drug convictions is reminiscent of 2010 legislation Obama signed reducing the gap between mandatory sentences for crack cocaine versus powder cocaine. In 2018, Trump made it apply retroactively.
Because business owners with state medical marijuana licenses are predominantly white, the tax relief created by the rescheduling will also likely give a leg up to mostly white businesses, Packer said. A lot of equity programs won’t apply.
“This is going to, in my mind, widen the gap, the financial disparities, the business disparities that currently exist between Black and brown, Latino and white owners in the cannabis industry because licenses were not distributed equitably,” Packer said.
Possible next steps for marijuana convictions
In theory, Trump could issue a blanket pardon like he did for Jan. 6 rioters. But Nelson thinks that is highly doubtful.
“Having marijuana convictions on the record for things like mass immigration enforcement is helpful to the administration,” Nelson said.
An impactful next step would be for Congress to outline very comprehensive legislation addressing existing marijuana-related convictions, expungements and industry regulations, she added.
The Last Prisoner Project and other organizations are planning to renew a dialogue with federal lawmakers, including the Congressional Cannabis Caucus, which includes Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Republican Rep. David Joyce of Ohio. They will also continue to lobby for Trump to conduct a large-scale act of commutation and clemency.
Advocates are also hoping Trump’s order will prompt every state to rethink their marijuana classification and penalties.
“It is imperative that every state review their situation, as a lot of their controlled substances at the state level are tied to the federal government,” Ortiz said. “We’re gonna see other states that are going to need a little help from the public to remind them what the right thing to do is.”
SACRAMENTO — A ballot measure that would require Californians to show identification every time they vote in person, or use a special pin number when submitting mail-in ballots, has qualified for the November ballot, elections officials announced Friday.
The measure also would require election officials to verify registered voters are U.S. citizens, aligning with a Republican-led push for new restrictions on voters in the wake of President Trump’s baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and that undocumented immigrants are swaying elections by voting illegally.
Republican Assemblymember Carl DeMaio from San Diego has been pushing the measure for several years, while Trump and Republicans also are seeking a similar initiative at the federal level.
If passed, the California ballot measure would require a voter to present government-issued identification, such as a state driver’s license, every time they vote. Voters mailing ballots would be required to write a four-digit number, essentially a pin number, on their ballots matching the one generated when they registered to vote.
The pin would come from ID such as a driver’s license, or could be generated from the county. The vast majority of Californians mail in their ballots in elections.
Under the measure, election officials also must ensure that registered voters are U.S. citizens by using information from government records, which could include information in the federal Social Security Administration database, and maintain accurate voter registration lists.
DeMaio said the measure is different than a federal proposal, known as the SAVE Act, which stalled out in the U.S. Senate this week.
DeMaio said the state ballot measure “does not do away with mail in ballots, because voters of all political backgrounds like the convenience of mail in ballots. So we want to keep that convenience.”
The ballot measure needs a simple majority to pass.
Under current law, Californians are not required to show or provide identification when casting a ballot in person or by mail. They are required to provide identification when registering to vote, and must swear under penalty of perjury, a felony, that they are eligible to vote and a U.S. citizen.
Jenny Farrell, executive director of the League of Women Voters of California, told the Times that her group is committed to fighting the measure, arguing it would make it harder for people in the state to vote.
She said that people may forget to use a pin on their mail-in ballot, leading to their vote being disqualified. Similar changes in Texas, she said, led to a rise in rejected ballots due to technical errors.
“It doesn’t really weed out illegal voting,” which doesn’t actually exist, she said, “but it does cause more ballots to be incorrectly flagged and ultimately rejected.”
ACLU of Northern and Southern California, Common Cause, Disability Rights California also oppose the measure.
DeMaio filed for the ballot initiative in 2021 and 2023, but did not move forward with the signature collection process in order to fine-tune the ballot language.
He said his ballot measure wasn’t focused primarily about making sure that undocumented people don’t vote.
“That’s one element of concern that we’ve heard from some groups, but it really is making sure that, number one, we properly maintain our voter rolls,” he said.
PITTSBURGH — Daniel Jeremiah traces his rise as an NFL draft analyst to two seemingly unrelated events: a prominent football reporter showing up in his living room to visit a televangelist, and randomly bumping into a college roommate of his brother in a press box.
First, understand that Jeremiah is not just one in a sea of people evaluating pro prospects. He’s highly respected in the industry and, in addition to his radio work as a color analyst for Chargers games, has been the NFL Network’s go-to expert when it comes to breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of players and how they fit with a given franchise.
The former college quarterback is glib, quick on his feet and meticulously organized. Reporters turn to him — his pre-draft conference calls with NFL writers from coast to coast have sometimes lasted more than two hours — and super-secretive team scouts trust “DJ” as a peer, an extra set of eyes.
“I like to joke that I can kind of be a cross-checker for these teams,” said Jeremiah, 48, who lives in El Cajon, where he once set San Diego records for passing yards and touchdowns at Christian High. “So they’ll call and say, ‘Hey, where do you have this guy? What do you think of this player?’”
Jeremiah was once part of that world. He was a college scout with the Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns and Philadelphia Eagles. But his path from quarterback at Northeastern Louisiana and Appalachian State to where he is now was anything but a straight line. It was a more unpredictable and roundabout route than any offensive coordinator would dare draw.
Roll back the clock 40 years, when his father, David Jeremiah, was the senior pastor at a Baptist church in El Cajon. Every Sunday, he would go from pew to pew greeting parishioners. Young Daniel was at his side and doing the same, perfecting a firm handshake, practicing looking people in the eye.
The elder Jeremiah would go on to launch an international radio and television ministry. His son, who remains devout, would eventually carve out a career preaching the gospel of the NFL to an audience of millions. Daniel’s description of player traits are digestible and entertaining, whether it’s his own phraseology or the language he learned after more than two decades in the business.
Daniel Jeremiah speaks with a reporter ahead of the NFL draft in Pittsburgh on Wednesday.
(Ed Rieker / Associated Press)
An unflinching running back might “choose violence,” a team that builds the line before adding skill-position talent is “putting the hardware store before the toy store,” and an edge rusher who passes the “wet paint” test can get around the corner with such lean that “If he played on a field of wet paint, he did not have a drop of paint on him at the end of the game.”
Said Charlie Yook, executive producer of content for NFL Network: “Daniel is hilarious, a funny guy. It’s a different type of humor. He doesn’t swear. He kind of has that schoolish, boyish, sarcastic type of humor, but it’s still something that everyone can relate to.”
Now, for that renown football reporter who showed up in his living room. It was the late Chris Mortensen, who covered the NFL for ESPN and regularly listened on Sunday mornings to the preachings of Dr. David Jeremiah. In 1998, when San Diego played host to the Super Bowl between Denver and Green Bay, Mortensen used the opportunity to meet his favorite radio minister. The elder Jeremiah invited him over to the house for lunch. Daniel was a college freshman home on winter break. He and Mortensen instantly bonded, and the reporter asked if he’d like to attend Super Bowl media day. Later, he invited the young man to join him at the draft in New York, giving him an assignment to work the phones.
Mortensen would give his landline number at the draft to all the team general managers, reporters and other contacts around the league. Jeremiah manned the phone “like a secretary,” took notes and relayed them during commercial breaks. Already showing a knack for organization, Jeremiah kept index cards sorted by division and by tracked receiver and cornerback needs, keeping tabs on which of those players went there.
“That draft was bigger than this draft for me personally,” Jeremiah said, sitting in the stands at an NFL event in Pittsburgh before a cluster of reporters would surround him for final observations on how the first round would unfold.
So a straight line from there to a Mortensen-like role with NFL Network? Hardly. Jeremiah’s next job was with ESPN’s “Sunday Night Football” and a gig that was football-adjacent. He traveled with that crew as a production assistant, but his role was lining up the scenic footage in every city. Say it was a Rams game in St. Louis, he was the one setting up a shoot at a root beer factory so the network had something local to show coming in and out of commercials.
He did that for two years, but eventually his knowledge of the game as a onetime quarterback made him too valuable to waste. The crew put a headset on him and he would be another set of eyes for camera operators and people in the production truck. What cornerback got beat on that play? He knew. Who’s warming up on the sideline? He was watching. How many times has the defense blitzed? He was keeping track. It was a dream job.
“I was a pig in slop,” Jeremiah said.
But it was but one slop stop in his budding career. While walking through a press box at a game, he bumped into his brother’s old college roommate, T.J. McCreight, who was scouting for the Ravens.
“He goes, ‘Hey, do you think you’d ever have any interest in scouting,’” Jeremiah recalled. “I said, ‘I’ve never … I mean, I love the draft and all that stuff. But I’ve never even thought about scouting, but yeah, absolutely I’d have interest in that.’”
Daniel Jeremiah speaks during a news conference at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis on Feb. 25.
(Gregory Payan / Associated Press)
Soon enough, he was meeting with Ravens executives who gave him a volunteer assignment at the combine, very high-level stuff.
“I filled the candy jar every day,” he said. “I helped get the players into the interview rooms and all that.”
But he was on his way to eventually spending four years with Baltimore, then following player-personnel director Phil Savage to his GM job with Cleveland, scouting the entire country out of Southern California. When the Browns went 4-12 in 2008, Savage and his hires, Jeremiah among them, were shown the door.
Jeremiah spent two more years with Philadelphia as a West Coast scout before taking an analyst job with NFL Network. He could do the same type of player evaluation without the zig-zagging travel, much better for a father of four.
“I left scouting,” he said. “Scouting didn’t leave me.”
The draft is his Super Bowl, and he’s aware that it’s usually the biggest day in the lives of NFL hopefuls. He keeps that in mind, especially when he’s delivering an honest critique of a player.
“I’m very cognizant of that,” he said. “I don’t know that there’s a right way to do this job or a wrong way. I just know the way that I’ve approached it, and I feel like you could really eviscerate someone on what’s literally the best day of his life. Yeah, I will never do that.”
It’s a delicate balance, though, because he wants to remain true to his scouting beliefs.
“I might not necessarily have a player going to a team,” he said. “But I can try to explain to you why I think that team did what they did. That keeps me from saying a bunch of negative things about a player. I’m not trying to kill the kid, right?”
Said Yook: “There are 200-something guys getting drafted over these three days. You don’t suck if you get drafted in the NFL. Doesn’t matter if you’re pick No. 1 or the last pick. He understands that there’s a very small percentage of people who actually get to touch grass in the National Football League.”
What’s more, people can follow all sorts of twisting paths to success. Jeremiah needs no reminder. Preaching to the choir.
Judge had previously blocked move to end temporary legal status for those who entered US via Biden-era application.
Published On 24 Apr 202624 Apr 2026
The administration of President Donald Trump plans to again end the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of people who applied for asylum in the United States via the CBP One app.
The plan was detailed in a court filing in Boston, Massachusetts, and comes after a judge ruled that Trump’s earlier effort to terminate the legal status of those individuals was unlawful.
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Under US President Joe Biden, individuals who registered for an appointment with US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) were preliminarily vetted and granted temporary legal status in the US as their asylum cases were adjudicated.
About 900,000 people were granted so-called humanitarian parole under the programme.
But in April of last year, just months after Trump took office for a second term, many of those individuals received emails saying their status had been terminated.
The message told its recipients it was “time for you to leave the United States”.
Federal Judge Allison Burroughs subsequently ruled that the Department of Homeland Security did not follow the proper procedures in terminating the legal status immigration status of CBP One users.
The US Department of Justice, in the new filings, told Burroughs that the Trump administration was complying with her order.
However, the department said the administration would begin issuing new parole termination notices, pursuant to a Tuesday memo from CBP’s head, Rodney Scott.
The memo is not public, but according to the Justice Department, Scott provided an explanation for why, in his opinion, “parole is no longer appropriate for those aliens”.
Lawyers for Democracy Forward and Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, which represent the individuals whose status faces termination, urged Burroughs in a subsequent filing to prevent what they called a “deliberate attempt to evade compliance with the court’s order”.
The next hearing was set for May 6.
During his second term, Trump has pursued a hardline immigration policy that has included staunching nearly all asylum claims at the southern border.
Shortly after taking office, Trump’s officials also dissolved the CBP One app and relaunched it as CBP Home, a tool for self-deportation.
His administration has claimed there was an “invasion” at the border that constituted a “national emergency”, thereby allowing Trump to bypass legal requirements to allow individuals seeking asylum into the country.
Asylum, however, is a right enshrined both in domestic and international law, to protect people fleeing persecution on the basis of race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group.
Separately, on Friday, a federal appeals court ruled against the Trump administration’s ban on asylum at the southern US border, potentially clearing the way for applications to once again be processed.
The administration is expected to appeal the decision.
Travel expert Simon Calder has explored the latest challenges facing UK airlines and passengers amid jet fuel shortages caused by the Iran war
Robert Rowlands Deputy editor, money and lifestyle, content hub
15:53, 24 Apr 2026Updated 15:53, 24 Apr 2026
A Ryanair plane on final approach to Edinburgh airport, on January 28, 2026 – the airport was one of those discussed by Simon Calder in his podcast(Image: Getty)
Travel expert Simon Calder has released an update on his podcast about what to do should your flight be suddenly cancelled amid worldwide jet fuel shortages. The highly regarded travel journalist – well known for his frequent TV appearances and contributions to the Independent – has spoken with a prominent industry figure after seeing ‘so many people getting in touch feeling anxious about their holidays.’
He noted that many people were even contemplating whether to stay in England for their holidays. His remarks come as the Iran war continues to rumble on. The conflict, which began on February 28, has restricted the flow of oil and gas across the globe, placing pressure on markets and driving up the cost of jet fuel for airlines, reports the Liverpool Echo.
This week, jet fuel shortages have emerged as a significant concern, as statements from senior industry figures have sparked worry amongst ordinary travellers about the potential impact on their holidays this year. Dan Jorgensen, the EU energy commissioner, this week said: “Unfortunately, it’s very likely that many people’s holidays will be affected, either by flight cancellations or very, very expensive tickets. Even if we do everything we can do, if the jet fuel is not there, then it’s not there.”
Speaking on his podcast on Thursday, April 23, Simon began by saying: “You might be more inclined to stay in England because of all the headlines we’ve been seeing over the past couple of days. For example, Lufthansa of Germany said they were cancelling 20,000 flights.
“I’ve had so many people getting in touch feeling anxious about their holidays when I would hope they would be looking forward to them with great anticipation.” To tackle this, he spoke with Ted Wake, managing director of Kirker Holidays.
Simon put the question to him: “So just suppose I have booked a Kirker holiday. I’m maybe going to some of the great cities in Germany. Amazing cultural treasures to be found. And I’m flying maybe from Birmingham, from Edinburgh, from Glasgow, and suddenly Lufthansa cancels my flight. What do you do then as a tour operator?”
Ted responded: “We would find the nearest flight which would provide a sensible, practical alternative. We would liaise with the client about whether or not it was convenient for them and, if they’re in agreement, Kirker would pick up the tab for any logistical costs that have been incurred.
“There are occasions where tour operators like us might extend the client’s stay by an additional night and we might pick up the tab for that. But if you have booked through an ATOL-protected tour operator and the tour operator is mindful to nurture long-term relationships, it is in our interest to iron out the creases in that way.
“And you have mentioned some regional services there and it may be the case that Lufthansa cancel 1 or 2 of those but there will often be alternative flights, perhaps with a different carrier, and Kirker would pick up the tab for that as well as manage the logistical research in terms of what alternative flight could be suitable to ensure that people have a fabulous holiday.”
Ted’s remarks come just days after EU official Mr Jorgensen cautioned: “[Currently] it is primarily a crisis of prices and not yet a crisis of supply, but unfortunately we cannot be sure to prevent a crisis of supply, especially on jet fuel in the future, if the crisis continues.”
The International Energy Agency has similarly advised that severe supply disruptions could materialise within the next five or six weeks. It was against this backdrop that Simon addressed passenger concerns here in the UK.
Jet fuel flight cancellations and the EES
Ted highlighted that airlines are currently grappling with two distinct challenges – the jet fuel shortage and the new EES system. This system – the Entry/Exit System (EES) – is a new digital border arrangement that introduces additional checks for British travellers heading to numerous European destinations.
It launched this month. On your first visit following the change to a country within the so-called Schengen area (which encompasses many EU nations), you may be required to create a digital record upon arrival at an airport. You may be required to submit your fingerprints and have your photograph taken. The system has resulted in significant delays for some UK travellers since its introduction.
Ted discussed the jet fuel challenges confronting airlines and what this means for everyday passengers across the UK. He said: “I think Lufthansa has got a very comprehensive schedule. Twenty thousand flights isn’t a drop in the ocean but it’s a relatively small number if you look at the overall picture.
“I think other airlines within the UK market will be doing something similar. You might argue that it is a sensible logistical profit management exercise as well as a jet fuel situation, but I don’t see it having a major impact on consumers and if you book through a tour operator – of course, Simon, you tell your readers all the time and indeed your listeners for that matter – if you book through a tour operator, it’s a tour operator’s responsility to iron out all the creases so the consumer is not adversely impacted by the change.”
When you break a promise as clear as “No new wars,” you shouldn’t be surprised when even your most loyal supporters revolt. And that’s exactly what is happening to President Trump.
One such disillusioned supporter is Tucker Carlson — who on a recent podcast with his brother Buckley admitted, in essence, “My bad.”
“You wrote speeches for him. I campaigned for him. I mean, we’re implicated in this, for sure,” Tucker Carlson said during the conversation.
“In real ways, you and me, and millions of people like us, are the reason this is happening right now,” Calson confessed, referring to the Iran war. “We’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be, and I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people, and it was not intentional.”
Having worked for Carlson for six years at the Daily Caller, I’ve always found him intelligent and funny and generous, even as I have profoundly differed with him on a variety of issues throughout the Trump era.
It did my heart good to hear him accept some responsibility for what Trump has wrought.
A lot of people were complicit in boosting Trump, and some of them have even subsequently criticized him for various sins (failing to release the Epstein files, going to war with Iran, etc.). But this is the first time I can recall anyone of this stature explicitly apologizing for helping elect Trump. And that warrants a certain amount of respect.
Still, let’s be clear-eyed about what Carlson is — and isn’t — saying here. Specifically, it’s worth noting that the apology doesn’t extend to validating those of us who opposed Trump from the beginning.
In fact, it almost can’t.
Doing that would require the confessor to reinterpret not just Trump’s presidency, but also the entire ecosystem that made supporting Trump a viable option in the first place.
It would mean admitting that the framework he used to evaluate Trump was flawed, not just the outcome.
That would end up being perceived as an indictment on the broader Republican electorate — and on Carlson’s worldview and judgment — not just on Trump’s recent performance or (even more conveniently) the notion that Trump has changed or was co-opted by Israel (or whomever) since 2024.
It’s a much bigger ask than saying, “I regret this specific result.”
Specifically, Carlson is not conceding that the “Never Trump” crowd got it right — which is what those of us who have spent a decade opposing Trump (with little fanfare) have been dying to hear for a decade (even more so than “I’m sorry.”)
This is an important distinction, partly because it means that, although Carlson is now a convenient ally in the “resistance,” he is not opposing Trump for the same reasons that most Democrats or Never Trump conservatives oppose Trump.
If you put aside Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran, the Carlsons’ second-biggest criticism of Trump (based on their two-hour-long podcast) is his failure to more vigorously defend the Jan. 6 Capitol rioters.
That’s right. It’s not that he sicced immigration enforcers on immigrants and that they subsequently killed two American citizens. It’s not that DOGE fired lots of good people. It’s not that this president tried to use the Department of Justice to seek vengeance on his political rivals. It’s that Trump — the person who pardoned these people — wasn’t aggressive enough in defending the criminals who stormed the U.S. Capitol while trying to overturn the 2020 election results.
And while there’s no reason to doubt Carlson’s remarks are sincere (he has been a vocal opponent of war with Iran) and meaningful (he’s an influential figure), his comments may also signal something else: a recognition that opportunity awaits.
Consider this: Trump’s political standing is in deep trouble (Trump’s approval rating is down to 33%, according to a new AP-NORC poll).
What is more, Trump’s fading fortunes aren’t just isolated to Trump. As always, there is collateral damage: JD Vance.
Once seen as Trump’s obvious heir, Vance now finds himself in a difficult position, defending the war in Iran and attacking the pope, while simultaneously releasing a book about his Catholic conversion.
In that sense, Carlson’s apology could be less a grudging epiphany than a strategic recalibration. It acknowledges that Trump has gone off the rails but stops short of examining why it was destined to go wrong in the first place.
Carlson gets close to the answer when he tells his brother, “there were signs of low character. We knew that,” but then dismisses it by saying “there are tons of people of low character who outperform their character.”
Without deeper reflection, this apology risks becoming just another pivot — one that has as much to do with positioning as it does with repentance.
And that would be a shame.
It’s easy to regret an outcome. It’s much harder to interrogate the instincts that led you (and tens of millions of Americans) to enable it.
Apologies like Carlson’s won’t close the chapter on this long national nightmare.
Jonnie Park has always gone by many names. The most Google-able is his hip-hop moniker “Dumbfoundead,” which he’s gone by for decades as a seasoned battle rapper and an artist who’s put out a jaw-dropping 13 albums while becoming one of the kings of legendary Leimert Park hip-hop crew, record label and open mic Project Blowed. As a resident of L.A.’s Koreatown since childhood, he’s still known as “The Mayor of K-town.” To his friends, he’s just “Dumb.” Of all the aliases and titles he’s fought for, “author” might seem to be the most unlikely. But as a professional when it comes to producing scathing hot bars in battle raps, it felt only right to put his journey down the warpath of rhymes on paper in his debut memoir “Spit: A Life in Battles,” released April 14 on Third State Books.
The memoir (which includes a foreword by Park’s longtime friend, R&B star Anderson .Paak) recounts razor-sharp memories starting from childhood, including the harrowing story of his family’s immigration from Argentina to L.A. when he was 3. He talks frankly about the perils and prejudice of growing up Korean American in Southern California and thrusting himself into the hip-hop scene, where, after stumbling in as an outsider to Black culture, he ultimately found his voice on stage. It speaks to the foundation that later served him well as an actor, podcaster, comedian and recently TV writer for season 2 of the hit show “Beef.” But he says his reputation as a battle rapper is the one that will always matter most.
Recently Park spoke to the Times about the hardest parts of writing his new memoir, the importance of Project Blowed and taking his underground rap mentality with him from the gutter to the stars.
For your memoir you purposely take the parts of your life from childhood until about age of 30, the peak of your hip-hop career. What was it like to go back and take that journey again?
To me, it’s always kind of the core of who I am. Even as a multi-hyphenate, I always say I’m first and foremost a battle rapper. It was such a pivotal moment at a time in my life and I take that label with me wherever I go, so it doesn’t feel too distant. But to actually be in that arena feels very distant. I look back and I just think about the audacity of a young Asian kid in that world. I’m just like “Wow, I really had the balls to do this at one point.” And I still love the subculture of battle rap. It’s something I’m a part of and a story that I want to tell in all these other mediums — whether it’s screenwriting or developing a TV show, I still feel like there’s a lot to be done with that subculture.
Why was it important for you to help your readers learn about the technical aspect of battle rap and what it takes to be a battle rapper?
There’s a lot more layers to it than people know. Obviously we know Eminem’s “Eight Mile” was the height of the story of where battle rap got to, and it did a great job of that. Obviously it’s been many years since then. But I also wanted to let people know that the people involved in this subculture aren’t just in poverty trying to make it out and get on a record label. This is a real subculture that people obsess over and I just wanted to find an excuse to nerd about it and also teach people this kind of new era of battle rap. I also highlight some of my peers really deserved it, and including the open mic I went through called Project Blowed. That’s the one thing I love about this book is that I can immortalize some of my personal heroes and places that I hold dear to my heart.
But mechanics of how our brains work when freestyling is something I find interesting. People always ask me “How do you guys freestyle or battle?” And I was really nervous about explaining it. I just didn’t know how I would do that. I had the help of my co-author, Donnie Kwak, who I’ve known for many years. He’s never written a book either, but he’s just kind of like a big brother to me and we’ve had many conversations about this. So being able to break that down was really cool for me. And I still really love that chapter about freestyling and battling for dummies.
Dumbfoundead’s memoir “Spit” chronicles his rise through underground battle rap, offering deeper insight into the subculture.
(Lenne Chai)
What was it like for you as you were discovering your voice through open mics at Project Blowed?
Project Blowed freed such a big part of me. I think when I saw the other rappers there, and they were taking [rapping] to heights I never imagined, the styles of raps that I would see here, from there, were so unorthodox. At that point, I was listening to everything on the radio along with mix tapes and stuff. But this was not even that. This wasn’t even like the underground mix tapes. It was the most raw and purest form of rap. It was so weird and abstract, even for me, just the young Korean kid at the age of 14 that hadn’t gone south of Pico Boulevard, growing up on Third Street, and all of a sudden I’m on 43rd. It was like another world for me. Next thing I know, I’m immersed in this world where there’s black kids that are into anime, punk rock and rapping their a— off. And I’m like, “This is insane!” So it did a lot for my perception of everything, more than just hip-hop.
Why was it so important for you to kind of showcase your Korean from not only the standpoint of a rapper but also as a writer?
Definitely the Korean American part was very important to me, because we see Korean culture, Korea especially being this global powerhouse, and what we know of it is the “Squid Games,” and the K-Pop of it all. And so I did want to share this more in the perspective of a Korean American. Even more specifically, in Southern California, in Los Angeles, there is a different vibe of Asian American life than the rest of the country. I’m the epitome of that. A lot of our parents have these wholesale businesses downtown or dry cleaners or liquor stores. Growing up in K-town, a lot of Korean families have a dad who’s an alcoholic, and there’s a lot of domestic violence situations. I think through my story, a lot of people will see themselves in these situations.
Jonnie Park, a.k.a. Dumbfoundead, writes in his memoir about growing up in Koreatown.
(Third State Books)
I think it also just speaks to all the different layers of struggle, battles that you and your family have gone through. Were there any aspects of this book that were really challenging for you?
The hardest part was definitely writing about my father, and knowing that this book is going to be out in the public because it’s so revealing. There’s affairs, there’s businesses that he worked at that are named. These families do exist — I grew up with that family that my dad had an affair with. I don’t talk to them or anything, but it’s all in the book. And I did want to be honest, I just felt like this is a place to do it if I’m going to do it. I don’t know if my dad will read it, but if it ever got translated into Korean, he’s definitely reading it. I still don’t have a great relationship with my father and I just feel like there wasn’t, there’s not much of a closure to that still. And maybe the book will help open up some new conversations between him and I. So that part was a little difficult, and also talking about some of the domestic violence in my house. Growing up with my dad and my mom, it made me feel for my mom a lot.
The beginning and the end is the most difficult part, because the end really discusses kind of like that insecurity as an artist, and where I’m at in my life as an artist, seeing a lot of my friends becoming extremely successful. I really wanted to be honest about that. The book doesn’t necessarily end with me being triumphant and feeling at ease.I still feel that as an artist, and I think that’s why it’s just an ongoing battle.
Describe what that’s like having come out of that underground rap scene and showing your skills to the world in TV and film while holding on to that underground mentality.
Even being in a writer’s room for “Beef” Season 2 — that was my first writer’s room — felt like a cypher. Knowing when to jump into the conversation at the right time, and knowing when to fall back. That just tells you that the skills that I acquired from freestyling and battle rap, I was able to take into the real world and apply it in so many different places.
I think it’s so interesting that I got that “Beef” Season 2 gig because the showrunner and the creator of the show really loves my perspective on Asian American culture on my podcast [“Fun With Dumb”], just based off of that. I got to a place in my life where I just felt very comfortable being vulnerable and self-deprecating through all the things I’ve done in battle rap. I was able to apply it to podcasting, too. And to have that humor and wit and that vulnerability, that comedic sense that I’ve acquired from battling and freestyling, one thing just led to the other. I still have the same kind of slate of stories and ideas that I’ve been trying to get made for many years. That includes stories on battle rap, K-town and being Korean, American. Those are always kind of the things I take with me to whatever I’m trying to make right now, and maybe once I make those, I can move on, but I’m still working on that.
