Shakira’s long tax-fraud nightmare has ended with the government of Spain on the hook to refund nearly $70 million to the Colombian-born singer after prosecutors failed to prove she spent enough time in that country to owe it a chunk of her earnings.
Since 2018, the singer has been accused of defrauding the Spanish government in three cases, for the tax years 2011, 2012-2014 and 2018. Over the years, deals were offered, rejected and accepted; charges were dropped, other charges were filed; and an eight-year prison sentence was threatened.
Shakira maintained her innocence, saying in 2022 that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate,” referring to her relationship with Barcelona-born footballer Gerard Piqué, the father of their sons Milan and Sasha. Piqué and the singer, who met in 2010 when she did “Waka Waka,” the official song of that year’s FIFA World Cup, separated in 2022.
A representative for the singer, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment on the court decision.
However, despite there being no fraud, Shakira told People on Monday in a statement that “for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty. Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.”
She added, “Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”
Everything revolved around how many days Shakira spent in Spain in the years in question. With her legal residence in the Bahamas before she declared Spain her fiscal home in 2014, she had to spend more than half the year outside of her beau’s home country to avoid paying taxes there.
“They knew I wasn’t in Spain the required time, that Spain wasn’t my place of work or my source of income, but they still came after me, with their eyes on the prize,” Shakira told Elle in 2022, adding that she was confident that justice would prevail in her favor at trial. “I have enough proof.”
The amount the Spanish government owes her includes fines and interest in addition to the money she handed over, despite having no legal obligation to pay it.
WASHINGTON — Shouting over the banging and clanging sounds from heavy construction equipment, President Trump on Tuesday gave a group of reporters a closer look at the construction for the White House ballroom he’s building on the site of the former East Wing to mount a defense for the project that has hit a speed bump in Congress.
The administration has asked for $1 billion from taxpayers for security additions on the White House campus, including for the ballroom. But the Senate parliamentarian ruled the proposal could not be included in a bill to fund immigrant enforcement agencies for three years, and several Republican lawmakers have balked at the price tag in an election year where voters are grappling with gasoline, grocery and other prices spurred to new heights by the Iran war and the disruption in oil supplies.
So Trump, ever the pitchman, surprised White House reporters by bringing them to a platform overlooking the construction site on a hot and breezy morning as workers in hard hats and fluorescent yellow vests milled about below.
Easels were set up to display renderings of the ballroom building and at least one of them blew off in the wind. “Give that to me, I’ll hold it,” Trump told an assistant.
“There will never be another building like this built, that I can tell you,” Trump told reporters.
He highlighted the security aspects of the building, notably its “dead flat” roof made of “very strong steel” and said it is “drone-proof” because “if a drone hits it, it bounces off, it won’t have any impact — but it’s also meant as a drone port, so it protects all of Washington, the roof of the building.”
He said the military will “stay on it” to keep watch over the city.
There’s no air conditioning or other equipment on the roof for safety reasons, Trump said, explaining that all duct work and equipment like it was hidden within the walls of the complex, which will serve as a “shield” for a military hospital, research facilities, offices for the first lady and her staff, and a full-service kitchen — in addition to a ballroom big enough for 1,000 people.
He said the ballroom building goes down six stories underground and is really “complex” because “everything is intertwined.”
“The roof goes with the ground floor, the ground floor goes with the roof. The roof also goes down into the basement,” the president said. “This is one well-knit building. One thing doesn’t work without the other.”
Trump says the ballroom is a ‘gift’ to the country
He reiterated that the $400-million ballroom cost will be covered by donors, including him, and that the work is being done “in strict coordination” with the military and U.S. Secret Service.
“This is not going to be paid for by the taxpayer,” Trump said. “This is a gift to the United States of America.”
But it’s somewhat of an unwanted present as polling shows most Americans oppose the ballroom, which is embroiled in litigation in federal court. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that a majority, 56%, of U.S. adults oppose Trump’s decision to tear down the East Wing to make way for the ballroom, while only 28% are in support.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to halt construction until Congress approves plans for the building.
Trump insisted he will have “very little” time to use the ballroom. He recently announced that it will be ready in September 2028, less than six months before his term ends.
“This is really for other presidents,” he said.
Trump sidestepped a question about whether he’ll kick in any more of his own money if Congress rejects the $1-billion funding request.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump’s tour was not in response to the difficulties brewing in Congress. “President Trump is the most transparent president of all time and was excited to showcase to the press and American people the amazing gift he is giving to the White House and generations of future presidents to come,” Ingle said.
Trump also touched on some of the other beautification projects he’s undertaking across the city, such as restarting dormant park fountains. He claimed to be spending much less to clean up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool than did his immediate predecessors — both Democrats.
“I’m doing a job on the Reflecting Lake for a fraction of what they paid,” Trump said. He’s having the surface coated in a shade of blue and wants to reopen it by July 4. A separate nonprofit group, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, has sued to halt this project.
I’m going to start this story on a quiet tree-lined street in Mar Vista, where a couple I met with on Thursday — the day after the L.A. mayoral debate — have a problem.
It’s not an unusual matter, as things go in Los Angeles. On both sides of the street, the sidewalk rises and falls, uprooted and cracked by shallow roots because over many decades, the trees were not properly maintained.
John Coanda, 61, who grew up in Los Angeles, was never bothered by torn-up sidewalks as a kid.
“In fact,” he said when he first emailed me about his predicament, “my friends and I sometimes used the ramping pavement as jumps for our bicycles.”
But his wife, Barbara, was diagnosed in 2024 with ALS, and she uses a wheelchair. When John pushes her, they can’t use the sidewalk if they want to go to the store or meet with friends, or just enjoy a nice pass through the neighborhood without getting into a vehicle.
So John pushes Barbara’s wheelchair in the street, which creates an obvious safety problem. And despite John’s best efforts to get City Hall to fix the sidewalks, he’s not expecting help anytime soon.
I’ll circle back to this story in a bit, but first, about that debate.
I recruited a half-dozen L.A. residents to watch and send me their thoughts about how the candidates tackled the important issues. And then I felt guilty for having done so, because the candidates didn’t do much tackling at all.
Candidate Spencer Pratt is shown on a television while journalists work during the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral debate at Skirball Cultural Center.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
They hit their talking points, for sure, and Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and TV personality Spencer Pratt each had their moments. But by the end of the debate, and two straight nights of gubernatorial debates as well, I came away thinking there were no clear winners, but there was a definite loser.
Voters.
This is the fault of the format more than of the candidates themselves. The deck is stacked against meaningful, substantive discussions, especially when moderators ask — as they did several times — for one-word answers.
“Moderator questions are so meaningless … and they make it easy for candidates to take potshots at each other,” said longtime political sage Darry Sragow. “The format is guaranteed to elicit nothing that matters.”
It’d be better to have single-issue debates, and to have candidates pressed for details by journalists who cover those issues and can push back against unrealistic promises and expose a lack of depth.
My debate watchers did some of that themselves. CSUN librarian Yi Ding had praise and criticism for each candidate, but was looking for concrete plans and didn’t get many.
Ding was also disappointed that two other mayoral candidates — Ray Huang and Adam Miller — were not invited to the debate, and I agree with her. Both have been polling low, but with so many undecided voters, and such high unfavorability ratings for Bass, they should have been in the mix.
Mike Washington, a retired pharmacist and West Adams resident, said Bass has done better than previous mayors on homelessness and he didn’t think Raman or Pratt came off as worthy of bumping her out of City Hall.
“The public would have benefited from more questions related to the challenges young people are facing,” said Juan Solorio Jr., president of the San Fernando Valley Young Democrats club. His colleague David Ramirez agreed, saying he was hoping for “more discussion about the cost of living for young adults,” but he and Solorio are both backing Bass.
West L.A. software developer Mike Eveloff asked the million-dollar question in one of his many observations during the debate:
“Why is LA spending record amounts on homelessness, fire, police, and infrastructure while results deteriorate? Streets and sidewalks crumble. Even the city emblem right in front of City Hall is deteriorated. With the World Cup and Olympics approaching, voters need to know: Do these leaders have the financial discipline and operational competence to manage a fourteen billion dollar city?”
Venice resident Dennis Hathaway, author of “An Octogenarian’s Journal,” said he thinks “these kinds of debates are pretty non-edifying.” And, as someone I wrote about two years ago regarding busted sidewalks in his neighborhood, he shared this lament about Thursday’s debate:
“No mention of broken sidewalks, potholed streets, other deteriorated infrastructure. To me, that’s a much more important subject than non-citizens voting in city elections.”
(Bass did say during the debate that there was a new infrastucture plan in place, and that’s a step in the right direction. But there was no discussion, and when you read the details, 2028 Olympics projects will be prioritized, and it’ll take years to figure out how to fund thousands of additional much-needed fixes.)
The Coandas live not far from Hathaway, and their lives have been upended first by Barbara’s diagnosis and then by John getting laid off in February from his job as a data analyst. Barbara still teaches French via Zoom, and John is tending to her needs. They started a Gofundme campaign to help pay their bills.
With Barbara in a wheelchair, John contacted the city’s Safe Sidewalks L.A. program last fall, and I think it’s fair to say that name is somewhere between a misnomer and a bad joke.
The “program” responded by email on Halloween, appropriately enough, informing him that under the City Council-approved “Sidewalk Repair Program Prioritization and Scoring System,” his request for help merits only 15 points out of a possible 45.
“Currently,” he was informed, “the estimated wait time for completion of an Access Request with a score of 15 is in excess of 10 years.”
Happy Halloween.
Over the years, responsibility for sidewalk repairs has shifted between the city and homeowners. There’s a rebate program available to people who repair their own sidewalks, but it’s capped at an amount that doesn’t always cover the costs. And ruptured pavement is keeping lots of lawyers busy with trip-and-fall lawsuits that cost the city millions each year.
Barbara Durieux Coanda, who has ALS, and her husband, John Coanda, make their way down the ramp in front of their home in Mar Vista.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Coanda told me he doesn’t have the funds at the moment to pay for repairs, and even if he did, there are several more sidewalk disaster zones on both sides of his street, so he’d still have to push his wife’s wheelchair in the street even if he fixed the cracks in front of his own house.
Barbara graciously said she thinks the city has other, higher priorities, but in November her husband contacted the office of Councilmember Traci Park, saying he was told that he would have to wait 10 years for repairs.
“Sadly,” he wrote, “I don’t think my wife will live that long.”
A Park staffer wrote back, saying, “The turnaround time does sound realistic given the budgetary crisis the city finds itself in.” But, the staffer added, maybe the council member’s office could “help move the needle on this request.”
Coanda said he’s been too busy with his wife’s issues to follow up. But Pete Brown, Park’s communications director, told me Friday afternoon that the office is exploring ways to pay for fixes that don’t take 10 years, including the use of discretionary funds.
I don’t know how that might play out, but I do know that L.A. doesn’t need another debate like the last one.
We need a mayor and council members who refuse to accept that it takes 10 years to create safe passage for a wheelchair.
In the national capital of broken sidewalks, we need concrete plans.
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York unsealed a suicide note Wednesday purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in July, 2019, before a failed suicide attempt soon after he had been taken into federal custody on sex trafficking charges.
The disgraced financier would ultimately die weeks later in the same New York facility in what was ruled a suicide.
While the note’s authenticity has not been established, it contains an apparent reference to a line from a 1931 Little Rascals film that Epstein had used in at least two email messages, according to the trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice this year in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In the short handwritten note released Wednesday, Epstein allegedly wrote, “They investigated me for month — Found nuthing!!!”
The note concludes, “Whatcha want me to do — Burst out cryin!! No Fun – Not Worth It!!”
It was a phrase Epstein had used before.
In a September, 2016, email to his brother, Mark, he wrote, “whtchoo want me toodo — bust out crying” in response to news that their cousin had become a grandfather.
And in another message the following year to his childhood friend Terry Kafka, Epstein wrote, “Whatcha want me todo/bust out cryin,” in response to a message from Kafka about being nostalgic
Epstein’s brother and Kafka did not immediately responded to requests for comment.
The line is an apparent reference to a 1931 Little Rascals short film “Little Daddy,” in which the character Stymie says, “Well, what do you want me to do, bust out crying?” when another character says that it will be their last breakfast together.
The note emerged from the court records of Epstein’s onetime cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving four consecutive life sentences for a 2016 quadruple murder.
The note itself was not included in the millions of pages released by the Justice Department.
In 2020, “60 Minutes” disclosed a note Epstein reportedly wrote days before his August, 2019, death that included complaints about his conditions and similarly concluded with the phrase “No fun!!!”
Journalist Katie Phang sued acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche for allegedly failing to comply with the requirements of the Epstein files law passed last year, which required that the documents be released in their entirety within 30 days, with reasoning provided for any documents not released.
The department released the files after the deadline passed and has faced criticism for removing or not releasing some documents and simultaneously failing to redact the names of numerous Epstein victims while redacting the names of some of Epstein’s friends and associates.
The Antrim senior hurling squad have requested a meeting with the county board at Tuesday evening’s training session to address “significant concern” after they claimed they received conflicting reports about manager Davy Fitzgerald’s future.
In a letter to the county board, which has been seen by BBC Sport NI, the players say they were under the impression that a decision was made to remove Fitzgerald from his role following last weekend’s Joe McDonagh Cup defeat by Laois, only for the decision to be reversed.
However, the squad said they were subsequently informed “that no such action had taken place” and when the matter was brought to Antrim GAA chairman Seamus McMullan, he “indicated that he had no knowledge of it”.
In the letter, the playing group say McMullan’s response is “particularly concerning” given that Fitzgerald confirmed that “the sequence of events did in fact occur”.
“The contradiction between what occurred and what has been communicated has created uncertainty and a lack of trust among players,” read the letter.
The players added that if the board do not attend the meeting and engage with the squad, they will “not proceed with the scheduled training session and further action could be taken”.
BBC Sport NI has contacted Antrim GAA for comment.
While the run of poor results has led to disquiet among the playing panel and some Antrim GAA administrators, it is understood Fitzgerald has indicated a desire to remain in charge.
Hybe Chairman Bang Si-hyuk speaks to reporters as he arrives at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Sept. 15, 2025, for questioning over unfair stock trading allegations. File Photo by Yonhap
Prosecutors said Friday they have rejected a police request for an arrest warrant for Bang Si-hyuk, chairman and founder of K-pop powerhouse Hybe, who is accused of unfair stock trading, citing insufficient evidence.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office sent back to the police the arrest warrant request filed against Bang earlier this week on charges of fraudulent unfair trading under the Capital Markets Act.
The chief was suspected of deceiving investors in 2019 into selling their shares in Hybe before the company held an initial public offering (IPO), through which he allegedly pocketed about 260 billion won (US$175.28 million) in illegal profits.
“At this stage, there is insufficient evidence to justify the necessity of detention, and we have therefore requested a supplementary investigation,” the prosecution said.
The act prohibits obtaining financial gains through false statements or by using deceptive schemes in connection with financial investment products, such as unlisted shares. Violations involving profits exceeding 5 billion won are punishable by life imprisonment or a minimum of five years behind bars.
Bang has denied the allegation, saying the IPO had followed the law and regulations.
Police first received a tip-off on the allegations in late 2024 and raided the Korea Exchange and Hybe’s headquarters the following year as part of the probe. Bang was banned in August from leaving the country, leading to various restrictions on his activities.
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul recently sent a letter to the police agency asking that it allow him to travel to the United States to take part in K-pop supergroup BTS‘ world tour.
Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.
NEW ORLEANS — The French government is pressing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to release the 86-year-old French widow of a military veteran from immigration custody after she was detained this month.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Marie-Therese Ross in Alabama on April 1 after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to Homeland Security. Ross is now held at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
She is among the thousands of people targeted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda that has led to the detentions of the spouses of U.S. troops and military veterans who previously received greater leniency under scrapped policies.
Rodolphe Sambou, the consul general of France in New Orleans, told the AP that the French government has “fully mobilized” to push for her release. He said he has visited her in detention twice so far.
“Given her age, we really want her to get out of this situation as soon as possible,” Sambou said. “We want to get her out of jail.”
Sambou said that he has been communicating frequently with Ross’ family and French officials in Washington, Atlanta and Paris to try and coordinate Ross’ release and ensure she has access to sufficient food and healthcare. He said the French government has also contacted Homeland Security.
He declined to comment on her legal status or other details of her case.
Ross married Alabama resident William Ross last April, Calhoun County marriage records show. Ross died in January, according to an obituary from his family, which says he was a former captain in the U.S. Army.
A lawyer who is representing Ross in a separate legal matter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ross’ family did not respond to requests for comment.
Brook writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Samuel Petrequin in France contributed to this report.
Shakira’s eight-year tax fraud nightmare ends with acquittal in Spain
Shakira’s long tax-fraud nightmare has ended with the government of Spain on the hook to refund nearly $70 million to the Colombian-born singer after prosecutors failed to prove she spent enough time in that country to owe it a chunk of her earnings.
Since 2018, the singer has been accused of defrauding the Spanish government in three cases, for the tax years 2011, 2012-2014 and 2018. Over the years, deals were offered, rejected and accepted; charges were dropped, other charges were filed; and an eight-year prison sentence was threatened.
Shakira maintained her innocence, saying in 2022 that “Spanish tax authorities saw that I was dating a Spanish citizen and started to salivate,” referring to her relationship with Barcelona-born footballer Gerard Piqué, the father of their sons Milan and Sasha. Piqué and the singer, who met in 2010 when she did “Waka Waka,” the official song of that year’s FIFA World Cup, separated in 2022.
A representative for the singer, whose full name is Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll, did not respond immediately to The Times’ request for comment on the court decision.
However, despite there being no fraud, Shakira told People on Monday in a statement that “for nearly a decade, I was treated as guilty. Every step of the process was leaked, distorted, and amplified, using my name and public image to send a threatening message to the rest of the taxpayers.”
She added, “Today, that narrative crumbles, and it does so with the full force of a court ruling.”
Everything revolved around how many days Shakira spent in Spain in the years in question. With her legal residence in the Bahamas before she declared Spain her fiscal home in 2014, she had to spend more than half the year outside of her beau’s home country to avoid paying taxes there.
“They knew I wasn’t in Spain the required time, that Spain wasn’t my place of work or my source of income, but they still came after me, with their eyes on the prize,” Shakira told Elle in 2022, adding that she was confident that justice would prevail in her favor at trial. “I have enough proof.”
The amount the Spanish government owes her includes fines and interest in addition to the money she handed over, despite having no legal obligation to pay it.
In other Shakira news, she and Burna Boy just released the 2026 FIFA World Cup song, titled “Dai Dai.”
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Trump shows reporters ballroom site amid $1-billion security request
WASHINGTON — Shouting over the banging and clanging sounds from heavy construction equipment, President Trump on Tuesday gave a group of reporters a closer look at the construction for the White House ballroom he’s building on the site of the former East Wing to mount a defense for the project that has hit a speed bump in Congress.
The administration has asked for $1 billion from taxpayers for security additions on the White House campus, including for the ballroom. But the Senate parliamentarian ruled the proposal could not be included in a bill to fund immigrant enforcement agencies for three years, and several Republican lawmakers have balked at the price tag in an election year where voters are grappling with gasoline, grocery and other prices spurred to new heights by the Iran war and the disruption in oil supplies.
So Trump, ever the pitchman, surprised White House reporters by bringing them to a platform overlooking the construction site on a hot and breezy morning as workers in hard hats and fluorescent yellow vests milled about below.
Easels were set up to display renderings of the ballroom building and at least one of them blew off in the wind. “Give that to me, I’ll hold it,” Trump told an assistant.
“There will never be another building like this built, that I can tell you,” Trump told reporters.
He highlighted the security aspects of the building, notably its “dead flat” roof made of “very strong steel” and said it is “drone-proof” because “if a drone hits it, it bounces off, it won’t have any impact — but it’s also meant as a drone port, so it protects all of Washington, the roof of the building.”
He said the military will “stay on it” to keep watch over the city.
There’s no air conditioning or other equipment on the roof for safety reasons, Trump said, explaining that all duct work and equipment like it was hidden within the walls of the complex, which will serve as a “shield” for a military hospital, research facilities, offices for the first lady and her staff, and a full-service kitchen — in addition to a ballroom big enough for 1,000 people.
He said the ballroom building goes down six stories underground and is really “complex” because “everything is intertwined.”
“The roof goes with the ground floor, the ground floor goes with the roof. The roof also goes down into the basement,” the president said. “This is one well-knit building. One thing doesn’t work without the other.”
Trump says the ballroom is a ‘gift’ to the country
He reiterated that the $400-million ballroom cost will be covered by donors, including him, and that the work is being done “in strict coordination” with the military and U.S. Secret Service.
“This is not going to be paid for by the taxpayer,” Trump said. “This is a gift to the United States of America.”
But it’s somewhat of an unwanted present as polling shows most Americans oppose the ballroom, which is embroiled in litigation in federal court. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll conducted in April found that a majority, 56%, of U.S. adults oppose Trump’s decision to tear down the East Wing to make way for the ballroom, while only 28% are in support.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation sued to halt construction until Congress approves plans for the building.
Trump insisted he will have “very little” time to use the ballroom. He recently announced that it will be ready in September 2028, less than six months before his term ends.
“This is really for other presidents,” he said.
Trump sidestepped a question about whether he’ll kick in any more of his own money if Congress rejects the $1-billion funding request.
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said Trump’s tour was not in response to the difficulties brewing in Congress. “President Trump is the most transparent president of all time and was excited to showcase to the press and American people the amazing gift he is giving to the White House and generations of future presidents to come,” Ingle said.
Trump also touched on some of the other beautification projects he’s undertaking across the city, such as restarting dormant park fountains. He claimed to be spending much less to clean up the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool than did his immediate predecessors — both Democrats.
“I’m doing a job on the Reflecting Lake for a fraction of what they paid,” Trump said. He’s having the surface coated in a shade of blue and wants to reopen it by July 4. A separate nonprofit group, the Cultural Landscape Foundation, has sued to halt this project.
Superville writes for the Associated Press.
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Iran war live: Trump says Iran attack postponed at request of Gulf allies | US-Israel war on Iran News
Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Tehran says Iranian leaders are ‘projecting defiance’ and rejecting ‘public pressure’ from the US.
Published On 19 May 202619 May 2026
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For all the chatter by mayoral candidates, can anyone fix L.A.’s enduring problems?
I’m going to start this story on a quiet tree-lined street in Mar Vista, where a couple I met with on Thursday — the day after the L.A. mayoral debate — have a problem.
It’s not an unusual matter, as things go in Los Angeles. On both sides of the street, the sidewalk rises and falls, uprooted and cracked by shallow roots because over many decades, the trees were not properly maintained.
John Coanda, 61, who grew up in Los Angeles, was never bothered by torn-up sidewalks as a kid.
“In fact,” he said when he first emailed me about his predicament, “my friends and I sometimes used the ramping pavement as jumps for our bicycles.”
But his wife, Barbara, was diagnosed in 2024 with ALS, and she uses a wheelchair. When John pushes her, they can’t use the sidewalk if they want to go to the store or meet with friends, or just enjoy a nice pass through the neighborhood without getting into a vehicle.
So John pushes Barbara’s wheelchair in the street, which creates an obvious safety problem. And despite John’s best efforts to get City Hall to fix the sidewalks, he’s not expecting help anytime soon.
I’ll circle back to this story in a bit, but first, about that debate.
I recruited a half-dozen L.A. residents to watch and send me their thoughts about how the candidates tackled the important issues. And then I felt guilty for having done so, because the candidates didn’t do much tackling at all.
Candidate Spencer Pratt is shown on a television while journalists work during the 2026 Los Angeles mayoral debate at Skirball Cultural Center.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
They hit their talking points, for sure, and Mayor Karen Bass, Councilmember Nithya Raman and TV personality Spencer Pratt each had their moments. But by the end of the debate, and two straight nights of gubernatorial debates as well, I came away thinking there were no clear winners, but there was a definite loser.
Voters.
This is the fault of the format more than of the candidates themselves. The deck is stacked against meaningful, substantive discussions, especially when moderators ask — as they did several times — for one-word answers.
“Moderator questions are so meaningless … and they make it easy for candidates to take potshots at each other,” said longtime political sage Darry Sragow. “The format is guaranteed to elicit nothing that matters.”
It’d be better to have single-issue debates, and to have candidates pressed for details by journalists who cover those issues and can push back against unrealistic promises and expose a lack of depth.
My debate watchers did some of that themselves. CSUN librarian Yi Ding had praise and criticism for each candidate, but was looking for concrete plans and didn’t get many.
Ding was also disappointed that two other mayoral candidates — Ray Huang and Adam Miller — were not invited to the debate, and I agree with her. Both have been polling low, but with so many undecided voters, and such high unfavorability ratings for Bass, they should have been in the mix.
Mike Washington, a retired pharmacist and West Adams resident, said Bass has done better than previous mayors on homelessness and he didn’t think Raman or Pratt came off as worthy of bumping her out of City Hall.
“The public would have benefited from more questions related to the challenges young people are facing,” said Juan Solorio Jr., president of the San Fernando Valley Young Democrats club. His colleague David Ramirez agreed, saying he was hoping for “more discussion about the cost of living for young adults,” but he and Solorio are both backing Bass.
West L.A. software developer Mike Eveloff asked the million-dollar question in one of his many observations during the debate:
“Why is LA spending record amounts on homelessness, fire, police, and infrastructure while results deteriorate? Streets and sidewalks crumble. Even the city emblem right in front of City Hall is deteriorated. With the World Cup and Olympics approaching, voters need to know: Do these leaders have the financial discipline and operational competence to manage a fourteen billion dollar city?”
Venice resident Dennis Hathaway, author of “An Octogenarian’s Journal,” said he thinks “these kinds of debates are pretty non-edifying.” And, as someone I wrote about two years ago regarding busted sidewalks in his neighborhood, he shared this lament about Thursday’s debate:
“No mention of broken sidewalks, potholed streets, other deteriorated infrastructure. To me, that’s a much more important subject than non-citizens voting in city elections.”
(Bass did say during the debate that there was a new infrastucture plan in place, and that’s a step in the right direction. But there was no discussion, and when you read the details, 2028 Olympics projects will be prioritized, and it’ll take years to figure out how to fund thousands of additional much-needed fixes.)
The Coandas live not far from Hathaway, and their lives have been upended first by Barbara’s diagnosis and then by John getting laid off in February from his job as a data analyst. Barbara still teaches French via Zoom, and John is tending to her needs. They started a Gofundme campaign to help pay their bills.
With Barbara in a wheelchair, John contacted the city’s Safe Sidewalks L.A. program last fall, and I think it’s fair to say that name is somewhere between a misnomer and a bad joke.
The “program” responded by email on Halloween, appropriately enough, informing him that under the City Council-approved “Sidewalk Repair Program Prioritization and Scoring System,” his request for help merits only 15 points out of a possible 45.
“Currently,” he was informed, “the estimated wait time for completion of an Access Request with a score of 15 is in excess of 10 years.”
Happy Halloween.
Over the years, responsibility for sidewalk repairs has shifted between the city and homeowners. There’s a rebate program available to people who repair their own sidewalks, but it’s capped at an amount that doesn’t always cover the costs. And ruptured pavement is keeping lots of lawyers busy with trip-and-fall lawsuits that cost the city millions each year.
Barbara Durieux Coanda, who has ALS, and her husband, John Coanda, make their way down the ramp in front of their home in Mar Vista.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
Coanda told me he doesn’t have the funds at the moment to pay for repairs, and even if he did, there are several more sidewalk disaster zones on both sides of his street, so he’d still have to push his wife’s wheelchair in the street even if he fixed the cracks in front of his own house.
Barbara graciously said she thinks the city has other, higher priorities, but in November her husband contacted the office of Councilmember Traci Park, saying he was told that he would have to wait 10 years for repairs.
“Sadly,” he wrote, “I don’t think my wife will live that long.”
A Park staffer wrote back, saying, “The turnaround time does sound realistic given the budgetary crisis the city finds itself in.” But, the staffer added, maybe the council member’s office could “help move the needle on this request.”
Coanda said he’s been too busy with his wife’s issues to follow up. But Pete Brown, Park’s communications director, told me Friday afternoon that the office is exploring ways to pay for fixes that don’t take 10 years, including the use of discretionary funds.
I don’t know how that might play out, but I do know that L.A. doesn’t need another debate like the last one.
We need a mayor and council members who refuse to accept that it takes 10 years to create safe passage for a wheelchair.
In the national capital of broken sidewalks, we need concrete plans.
steve.lopez@latimes.com
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Purported Jeffrey Epstein suicide note had echoes of messages he had sent earlier
WASHINGTON — A federal judge in New York unsealed a suicide note Wednesday purportedly written by Jeffrey Epstein in July, 2019, before a failed suicide attempt soon after he had been taken into federal custody on sex trafficking charges.
The disgraced financier would ultimately die weeks later in the same New York facility in what was ruled a suicide.
While the note’s authenticity has not been established, it contains an apparent reference to a line from a 1931 Little Rascals film that Epstein had used in at least two email messages, according to the trove of Epstein documents released by the U.S. Department of Justice this year in response to the bipartisan Epstein Files Transparency Act.
In the short handwritten note released Wednesday, Epstein allegedly wrote, “They investigated me for month — Found nuthing!!!”
The note concludes, “Whatcha want me to do — Burst out cryin!! No Fun – Not Worth It!!”
It was a phrase Epstein had used before.
In a September, 2016, email to his brother, Mark, he wrote, “whtchoo want me toodo — bust out crying” in response to news that their cousin had become a grandfather.
And in another message the following year to his childhood friend Terry Kafka, Epstein wrote, “Whatcha want me todo/bust out cryin,” in response to a message from Kafka about being nostalgic
Epstein’s brother and Kafka did not immediately responded to requests for comment.
The line is an apparent reference to a 1931 Little Rascals short film “Little Daddy,” in which the character Stymie says, “Well, what do you want me to do, bust out crying?” when another character says that it will be their last breakfast together.
The note emerged from the court records of Epstein’s onetime cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione, a former police officer who is serving four consecutive life sentences for a 2016 quadruple murder.
It was released in response to a request by the New York Times.
The note itself was not included in the millions of pages released by the Justice Department.
In 2020, “60 Minutes” disclosed a note Epstein reportedly wrote days before his August, 2019, death that included complaints about his conditions and similarly concluded with the phrase “No fun!!!”
Journalist Katie Phang sued acting Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche for allegedly failing to comply with the requirements of the Epstein files law passed last year, which required that the documents be released in their entirety within 30 days, with reasoning provided for any documents not released.
The department released the files after the deadline passed and has faced criticism for removing or not releasing some documents and simultaneously failing to redact the names of numerous Epstein victims while redacting the names of some of Epstein’s friends and associates.
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Antrim GAA: Senior hurlers request meeting with county board over Davy Fitzgerald position
The Antrim senior hurling squad have requested a meeting with the county board at Tuesday evening’s training session to address “significant concern” after they claimed they received conflicting reports about manager Davy Fitzgerald’s future.
In a letter to the county board, which has been seen by BBC Sport NI, the players say they were under the impression that a decision was made to remove Fitzgerald from his role following last weekend’s Joe McDonagh Cup defeat by Laois, only for the decision to be reversed.
However, the squad said they were subsequently informed “that no such action had taken place” and when the matter was brought to Antrim GAA chairman Seamus McMullan, he “indicated that he had no knowledge of it”.
In the letter, the playing group say McMullan’s response is “particularly concerning” given that Fitzgerald confirmed that “the sequence of events did in fact occur”.
“The contradiction between what occurred and what has been communicated has created uncertainty and a lack of trust among players,” read the letter.
The players added that if the board do not attend the meeting and engage with the squad, they will “not proceed with the scheduled training session and further action could be taken”.
BBC Sport NI has contacted Antrim GAA for comment.
While the run of poor results has led to disquiet among the playing panel and some Antrim GAA administrators, it is understood Fitzgerald has indicated a desire to remain in charge.
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Prosecution rejects arrest warrant request for Hybe chairman, calls for further review
Hybe Chairman Bang Si-hyuk speaks to reporters as he arrives at the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency on Sept. 15, 2025, for questioning over unfair stock trading allegations. File Photo by Yonhap
Prosecutors said Friday they have rejected a police request for an arrest warrant for Bang Si-hyuk, chairman and founder of K-pop powerhouse Hybe, who is accused of unfair stock trading, citing insufficient evidence.
The Seoul Southern District Prosecutors’ Office sent back to the police the arrest warrant request filed against Bang earlier this week on charges of fraudulent unfair trading under the Capital Markets Act.
The chief was suspected of deceiving investors in 2019 into selling their shares in Hybe before the company held an initial public offering (IPO), through which he allegedly pocketed about 260 billion won (US$175.28 million) in illegal profits.
“At this stage, there is insufficient evidence to justify the necessity of detention, and we have therefore requested a supplementary investigation,” the prosecution said.
The act prohibits obtaining financial gains through false statements or by using deceptive schemes in connection with financial investment products, such as unlisted shares. Violations involving profits exceeding 5 billion won are punishable by life imprisonment or a minimum of five years behind bars.
Bang has denied the allegation, saying the IPO had followed the law and regulations.
Police first received a tip-off on the allegations in late 2024 and raided the Korea Exchange and Hybe’s headquarters the following year as part of the probe. Bang was banned in August from leaving the country, leading to various restrictions on his activities.
The U.S. Embassy in Seoul recently sent a letter to the police agency asking that it allow him to travel to the United States to take part in K-pop supergroup BTS‘ world tour.
Copyright (c) Yonhap News Agency prohibits its content from being redistributed or reprinted without consent, and forbids the content from being learned and used by artificial intelligence systems.
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French government seeking release of French widow, 86, held by ICE
NEW ORLEANS — The French government is pressing the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to release the 86-year-old French widow of a military veteran from immigration custody after she was detained this month.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents detained Marie-Therese Ross in Alabama on April 1 after she overstayed her 90-day visa, according to Homeland Security. Ross is now held at a federal immigration detention facility in Louisiana.
She is among the thousands of people targeted by the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda that has led to the detentions of the spouses of U.S. troops and military veterans who previously received greater leniency under scrapped policies.
Rodolphe Sambou, the consul general of France in New Orleans, told the AP that the French government has “fully mobilized” to push for her release. He said he has visited her in detention twice so far.
“Given her age, we really want her to get out of this situation as soon as possible,” Sambou said. “We want to get her out of jail.”
Sambou said that he has been communicating frequently with Ross’ family and French officials in Washington, Atlanta and Paris to try and coordinate Ross’ release and ensure she has access to sufficient food and healthcare. He said the French government has also contacted Homeland Security.
He declined to comment on her legal status or other details of her case.
Ross married Alabama resident William Ross last April, Calhoun County marriage records show. Ross died in January, according to an obituary from his family, which says he was a former captain in the U.S. Army.
A lawyer who is representing Ross in a separate legal matter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Ross’ family did not respond to requests for comment.
Brook writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Samuel Petrequin in France contributed to this report.
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