Pedro Pascal took his “Star Wars” character to the streets on Saturday, going undercover as the Mandalorian to surprise Disneyland guests aboard the Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run attraction.
A video posted on Disney’s social media showed the actor in full costume, then lifting his helmet to reveal himself.
“Now you all have to die because you’ve seen my face,” he joked to the stunned parkgoers.
After the surprise, Pascal posed for pictures with the dozen or so fans.
Pascal was later joined by co-star Sigourney Weaver, director Jon Favreau and LucasFilm President Dave Filoni at Galaxy’s Edge, the 14-acre “Star Wars”-themed section of the park modeled after an outpost on the fictional planet of Batuu.
The appearance was part of the press tour for “The Mandalorian and Grogu,” a spinoff of the Disney+ series “The Mandalorian.” The film, which releases on May 22, is the first “Star Wars” movie to hit theaters since 2019.
President Trump succeeded in his effort to defeat Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana’s Republican primary, a signal of the enduring strength of the president’s hold on his party despite an unpopular war and soaring gas prices.
Cassidy was one of seven Republican senators in 2021 who voted to convict Trump on the impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection on Jan. 6 that year. He placed last in a three-way race Saturday against U.S. Rep. Julia Letlow, who was endorsed by Trump, and state Treasurer John Fleming.
“His disloyalty to the man who got him elected is now a part of legend, and it’s nice to see that his political career is OVER!” Trump said of Cassidy on social media late Saturday.
With 92.3% of ballots tallied, Letlow had 44.8% of the vote and Fleming had 28.3%. Cassidy trailed with 24.7%.
Letlow and Fleming will advance to a runoff next month. Whoever wins that contest is virtually assured victory in November in deep-red Louisiana. In his last reelection in 2020, just months before his vote to convict Trump, Cassidy won 59% of the vote.
In a primary season where Trump is crusading to vanquish members of his party with whom he’s been at odds, the Louisiana race comes just days before the president tries to oust another Republican foe, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. But Trump has opted so far to stay out of a hard-fought Texas GOP runoff later this month between incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, a traditional conservative, and state Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton, who is more politically aligned with the president’s MAGA movement.
Massie, who faces a primary that has become the most expensive of its kind, said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” that’s he’s confident he will prevail Tuesday despite a string of social media insults from the president and fundraising by Trump allies such as billionaires Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer.
“I think it’s going to help my fundraising,” Massie said. “People don’t like this.”
With state polls showing Massie with a slight lead, the congressman said, “that’s why the president is losing sleep and tweeting about me.”
Trump’s success in defeating Cassidy left the Louisiana senator defiant: “Let me just set the record straight. Our country is not about one individual, it is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution.”
“If someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves, they’re not about serving us,” he added.
Trump has attacked Cassidy for his 2021 vote and his opposition to some aspects of his agenda, particularly vaccine and other health policies pushed by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. During Kennedy’s Senate confirmation hearings last year, Cassidy, who is a doctor, expressed deep skepticism about the nominee’s anti-vaccine views, but ultimately voted to confirm him.
Trump recently blamed Cassidy for thwarting the nomination of wellness influencer Casey Means as surgeon general. Means is a longtime ally of Kennedy’s, and Cassidy had also questioned her stance on vaccinations.
On Saturday morning, Trump continued his attacks, calling Cassidy a “a disloyal disaster” on social media. He later congratulated Letlow on her first-place finish.
In his concession speech, Cassidy said: “I find that people of character and integrity don’t spend their time attacking people on the internet.”
Despite the president’s opposition to his candidacy, Cassidy had run ads featuring images of Trump, praising top White House issues that the senator had supported including the president’s massive tax package enacted last year, while casting Letlow as insufficiently conservative.
The outcome also notches a high-profile win for Kennedy’s political operation, which supported Letlow and opposed Cassidy in the race. The two men have repeatedly clashed over nominations and the department’s changes to vaccine policy. With certainty of his departure when his term ends in January, Cassidy could make the health secretary’s job even more difficult as he finishes out his term with an eye to his legacy and priorities.
Cassidy’s departure will also leave a leadership vacuum for the GOP atop the Senate Health Committee next year. The panel oversees health agencies and confirmations for key leadership positions at the agencies, and Cassidy brought his medical expertise to the role. He has built a reputation as a healthcare policy wonk willing to work across the aisle.
Only two other Republican senators who broke with Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial, Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, remain in the Senate. Collins, who represents a state Trump lost in 2024, has largely avoided the president’s wrath while she fights for her political life in one of the most competitive races of the midterms. Murkowski won reelection in 2022.
“You can disagree with President Trump, but if you try to destroy him you’re going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump,” South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“There’s no room in this party to destroy his agenda or to destroy him or his family as a Republican,” Graham said. “It’s just a reality.”
Cohrs Zhang writes for Bloomberg. Bloomberg writers Tony Czuczka and Se Young Lee contributed to this report.
The model debuted her baby bump Thursday at the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, where she walked the red carpet for the premiere of “Parallel Tales” along with her husband.
The couple posed for photos at the event, drawing attention to their gestating bundle of joy by framing and caressing Palvin’s belly. According to TMZ, the baby is due around August or September.
Palvin and Sprouse also took to Instagram to share their happy news. Included in the slideshow they posted Thursday is what appears to be a sonogram image of a fetus in a womb, throwing a “rock on” hand signal.
“High School Musical” star Vanessa Hudgens, who appeared alongside Sprouse in “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody” in 2006, was among the couple’s well-wishers on social media.
“Rock on little family,” Hudgens wrote in her comment, which also included a heart emoji.
The former Disney Channel star and Victoria’s Secret model first met at a party in 2017. In a 2018 video for Vogue Australia, Palvin shared that Sprouse was her first boyfriend in six years and described him as a “perfect guy” who is “very kind and gentle.” The couple tied the knot in 2023.
In April, Sprouse tackled a trespasser at his Hollywood Hills home after Palvin spotted “the creepy” intruder. Palvin called the police, and Sprouse held the suspect down until they arrived.
Sarina Hosseiny said she had never heard of Qassem Suleimani, an Iranian general assassinated by the U.S. in 2020.
That is, not until this year, when threatening comments cropped up on social media claiming that she and her mother were relatives of Suleimani and were terrorists who should be deported.
The 25-year-old, who studies fashion at Los Angeles Trade Technical College, now sits in an immigration detention facility in Texas, alongside her 47-year-old mother. And other L.A. Iranian Americans helped put her there.
Sarina Hosseiny, 25, shown in an undated photo, is a student at Los Angeles Trade Technical College now held at an immigration detention facility in Texas, alongside her 47-year-old mother.
(Courtesy of Hosseiny family)
“They were sending me death threats. Literally saying like, they were gonna find me and kill me and my mom and all this stuff,” Hosseiny said in a phone interview from the facility last week. “All I’ve ever posted is that I was against war and just innocent people dying.”
In recent weeks, as the war in Iran continues, the U.S. State Department has detained five L.A. area-based Iranian nationals, including Hosseiny and her mother — all of whom are green card holders — and moved to strip them of their residency.
The arrests have exposed a rift in the Iranian American community, which has grown increasingly polarized in recent years, leading to online smear campaigns and at times violence.
In L.A., home to the largest concentration of people of Iranian descent outside Iran, a vocal segment has joined forces with Trump-aligned far-right conservatives, including Laura Loomer, to wage campaigns against other Iranians they believe should not be allowed to live here.
Many in the local community fled Iran after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and cheered the recent U.S. military attacks on their native country. Some have turned on Iranian Americans who have expressed antiwar opinions, interpreting that stance as support for the current government.
A poster in support of Iran’s former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, hangs in a window of the Gallery Eshgh, which sells artwork and clothing reflecting Iranian culture on Westwood Boulevard in Los Angeles in April 2026.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The tensions are interpersonal, with arguments at family gatherings and friendships strained or shattered. But much of the conflict also takes place online, as when a San Diego-based “mommy influencer” — who normally posts images of herself and her three young children in a luscious backyard shucking nuts, arranging tulips and peeling pomegranates — urged her Instagram followers to contact Loomer so that “the deportation of [the Islamic Republic’s] lackeys can be arranged.”
Anger at the Iranian government has been channeled toward family members of current or former officials, with online petitions describing them as living luxuriously in the States even as ordinary Iranians face repression from a brutal government back home.
Agoura Hills residents Seyed Eissa Hashemi and Maryam Tahmasebi, both psychology professors, were detained by immigration authorities in early April — as was their son, Seyed Mobin Hashemi. The elder Hashemi, the State Department said, is the son of Masoumeh Ebtekar, who gained fame as a spokeswoman for militants who stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979 and became a reformist politician pushing for environmental protections and women’s rights.
The petition that led to the family’s detention amassed more than 140,000 signatures, with many identifying themselves as members of the Iranian diaspora in the U.S., Australia or elsewhere. The creator of the petition on Change.org, a user who also published petitions targeting five other families, did not respond to a request for comment.
The Times was not able to reach Hashemi or the family’s attorney. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media when announcing their detentions that the Obama administration had granted visas to the family members, who have been lawful permanent residents since June 2016.
The Department of Homeland Security declined to respond to questions about Hosseiny and her mother’s case. White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson also declined to comment. The State Department and Loomer did not respond to requests for comment.
Jamal Abdi, president of the National Iranian American Council, said that some of the sentiment comes from real grievances about corruption in Iran, such as the banker who embezzled millions before fleeing to Canada. But he said that rumors have been weaponized to muffle voices opposing U.S. and Israeli military aggression in Iran and exploited by the Trump administration to exercise a show of strength at home during a flailing war.
The flags of pre-revolution Iran are prominently displayed in the Jordan Market, a purveyor of Persian groceries on L.A.’s Westwood Boulevard, in April 2026.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“This witch hunt has become really pervasive, and it’s not new,” Abdi said. “What seems to be new is there’s an administration who is willing and eager to entertain this McCarthyism and actually punish people based on what the mob is calling for.”
In the section of Westwood known as “Tehrangeles,” support for Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince and son of the late shah, is apparent. A campaign to install him as Iran’s leader intensified in January, as protests ripped through the country. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was killed in a U.S.-Israeli attack in February.
“Make Iran Great Again” signs and posters of a stern-faced Pahlavi are plastered on nearly every window. Iran’s flag before the 1979 revolution — green, white and red with a lion and a rising sun — flutters from many overhangs.
In early March, as the U.S. widened its assault on Iran, crowds from the diaspora rallied in the neighborhood, dancing and celebrating even as the death toll in Iran grew and reports said a missile strike had killed more than 100 schoolchildren.
In Westwood these days, many are more tepid in their support for the war than at the outset and are hesitant to speak openly, whether because of potential backlash here in the U.S. or repercussions for relatives in Iran.
Iranians who don’t back a return to a monarchy under Pahlavi or American and Israeli intervention have gotten “a hell of a lot of backlash,” said Narges Bajoghli, an associate professor of Middle East studies at John Hopkins University. Bajoghli cited a groupthink dynamic stoked by popular Persian-language media such as Iran International, as well as U.S.-funded counter-propaganda programs during Trump’s first term.
After Aida Ashouri, a human rights lawyer who is running for L.A. city attorney, posted a video explaining why she opposes the U.S. war in Iran, the comments came rolling in.
“Please deport this woman,” one user wrote, tagging Rubio and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “She is constantly spreading suspicious anti war propaganda.”
Aida Ashouri, who is running for L.A. city attorney, poses for a picture at Astralab on April 24, 2026.
(Etienne Laurent / For The Times)
Ashouri, a U.S. citizen, spent her childhood frequenting businesses in Westwood, but she no longer feels comfortable there, fearing some sort of altercation. Some businesses removed her campaign posters from their windows after the war began, she said.
“It’s 100% impacting my campaign. It’s hard to connect with the Iranian community now, even though I’m Iranian,” she said.
The State Department has said it revoked the green cards of Iranians it targeted in recent weeks, including Hosseiny and her mother. Immigration experts said it’s not so simple, as a legal process has to play out, during which the green cards remain valid.
Even so, Muzaffar Chishti of the Migration Policy Institute said that the executive branch has vast discretion in immigration law, particularly when invoking national security justifications, and defense attorneys may face an uphill battle.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said he is “personally troubled by the idea that we need to deport someone because of who their grandparent is.”
“The government doesn’t usually outsource its investigatory processes to external people,” he said, referring to Loomer and others. “There’s still a lot of questions about how these people are being found and targeted.”
After Hosseiny and her mother, Hamideh Soleimani Afshar, were arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on April 3, the State Department asserted that they were the Iranian general’s grand-niece and niece. Afshar had denounced America as the “Great Satan” and shown “unflinching support for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps” while “enjoying a lavish lifestyle in Los Angeles,” the State Department said.
Social media posts, showing Soleimani Afshar posing for glamour shots and photos of Hosseiny in a similar vein, were published by numerous news outlets.
Loomer took credit on April 4 for the two women’s arrests, writing on X that over several months she had “quietly been documenting” their social media activity and shared the information with the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department.
Within hours, however, Hosseiny and her mother’s connection to the slain general was disputed, with his daughter writing on social media that they had “no relation whatsoever” to her family. A review of family documents, as first reported by Dropsite News, shows that Afshar’s father had no brothers and that the general is from a different province than Afshar’s family.
Hosseiny said her mother has been sharply critical of the U.S. and Israel’s military assault in Iran. But Hosseiny “always thought that in America, people have freedom.”
She said that her mother’s health has deteriorated as she battles severe autoimmune-related anemia and that her mother’s home and car were broken into, amid the stream of online hate.
After four weeks in detention, Hosseiny said, she is “still in disbelief.” Her friends have been raising funds for her legal defense.
Times staff writer Cierra Morgan contributed to this report.
Guardians fan Evelyn Moore got a pretty cool souvenir from Monday’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays — a two-run home run ball hit by Cleveland second baseman Daniel Schneemann.
The 11-year-old softball player from New Philadelphia, Ohio, almost got the ball right after Schneemann hit it in the bottom of the fifth inning.
But, as seen in video footage that quickly went viral on social media, a man appeared to snatch it away as Evelyn was trying to pick it up near the rail in the left-center field stands at Progressive Field.
He eventually gave it to her, however, and now the girl’s mother wants folks on social media to leave him alone.
“This man’s life shouldn’t be ruined over this,” Nikki Moore-DeVore said. “Jokes and memes are one thing, but it’s getting excessive. It’s too much.”
Moore-DeVore said her family — which also includes her husband, Jon DeVore, and her son, Theo Moore, 9 — attend several Guardians games a year. They sit in the outfield stands, where Evelyn — an avid baseball fan and baseball card collector — likes to take her glove down to the rail and try to persuade Cleveland outfielders to toss her a ball.
Video of Schneemann’s home run shows the ball flying over the left-center field wall, where a bearded man wearing a throwback Cleveland Indians hat and T-shirt tried to catch it in the air. Instead, it bounced off his hands toward the rail to his left.
Cleveland Guardians’ Daniel Schneemann, right, is greeted at the plate by teammate David Fry after hitting a two-run home run in the fifth inning of a game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Monday in Cleveland.
(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)
Evelyn ran down from her seat two rows up, dropped to the ground and attempted to secure the ball in front of her. The man ran over and also dropped to the ground next to her, starting a brief struggle for control of the ball.
The man eventually emerged triumphantly.
“I did not really see how the ball came over to us. I just saw it bounce in our direction and my daughter go down to get it,” Moore-DeVore said. “And I saw the scuffle kind of from behind, but I couldn’t see much of the hands or anything like that. I just saw the shoulders shifting around.
“And then she got up empty-handed, and people started booing. The guys sitting in front of me were like, ‘That was her ball!’ My husband was booing. He was not happy, but we didn’t want to ruin the game.”
Evelyn also was upset by the turn of events, her mother said, “but she didn’t cry.”
“She actually took it like a champ,” Moore-DeVore said. “Every inning, she still went up to the rail to try to get one of the players to throw a ball to her. She didn’t give up.”
Meanwhile, Theo approached the man to request he return the ball to his sister. Moore-DeVore said her son told her the man politely refused.
“I was just proud of him for going over there and taking it upon himself to try to help his sister,” Moore-DeVore said.
The Rays broadcast of the game showed the incident involving Evelyn and the man, with the announcers taking the girl’s side. On social media, fans shared the video and shamed the man for his behavior, with some looking to make his identity public.
Later in the game, Rays sideline reporter Ryan Bass visited the family at their seats and presented both kids with baseballs.
That’s when Evelyn became emotional.
“She cried happy tears,” her mother said. “I think she just felt seen. The incident made her feel small, and Ryan made her feel seen.”
“We had to make it right,” Bass wrote, adding in a separate post: “We got the chance to make a sweet little girl’s night. There’s nothing better. Kindness is free. Always remember that.”
Before the bottom of the eighth inning, Evelyn went down to her usual post at the rail to try to persuade an outfielder to toss her a ball. She returned with the home run ball from three innings earlier.
“She came back with the biggest smile on her face: ‘Mom, he gave it back to me!’” Moore-DeVore said. “The guys in front of me were like, ‘yeah, he’s, like, getting a lot of social media flack.’ … I’m sure he realized eventually that it was probably the wrong action to take, just not good etiquette.”
In return, Moore-DeVore said, Theo offered the man — whose name has not been revealed despite the internet’s attempts — one of the balls that Bass had given him and his sister.
“He respectfully declined,” she said, “so my son gave it to another kid.”
Moore-DeVore said both of her kids are “on cloud nine” over how everything turned out — and she wants everyone else to get over it as well.
“I don’t want this one moment to ruin this guy,” she said. “And my kids, they wouldn’t want that. They’re sweet kids. I feel like, if kids their age can forgive and offer him a peace offering, grown adults and other fans can, too.”
Megan Thee Stallion’s Broadway run playing Zidler in “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” is ending weeks earlier than planned, and days after she announced a messy split from NBA star Klay Thompson.
The “Wanna Be” hitmaker is pulling out of her first Broadway run weeks sooner than anticipated. Megan announced the news on Instagram alongside a bandaged heart emoji and said she would step away from the production Friday rather than the originally slated May 17.
“Hotties, my last performance as Zidler in @moulinrougebway will be May 1,” she wrote. “It’s been such an honor to be part of thee Moulin Rouge family and I’ve met so many amazing people in this theater!
“Y’all work so hard and I have so much respect for the dedication, the stamina, the work ethic, the time and the effort y’all put into the work! I’m so grateful for the cast and crew that made this experience so meaningful. And to all the Hotties that showed up or planned to attend, thank you for supporting me during this incredible journey! I LOVE YALL . . . See you soon.”
The Grammy Award-winning rapper made history as the show’s first woman to portray the charismatic cabaret manager Zidler — the character’s full name is Harold Zidler. Broadway veteran Eric Anderson will step back into the role on May 19, but the actor who will cover the interim, from May 2 through 17, hasn’t been announced.
The wildly popular “Moulin Rouge! The Musical” was recently extended on Broadway, with its final performance set for Aug. 30 after a seven-year run.
Although Megan didn’t offer a reason for her departure, the move comes amid a recent health scare and some personal upheaval for the “Hot Girl Summer” chart topper.
On Saturday, the “Savage” rapper aired some dirty laundry on social media, writing in a since-expired Instagram story that her recent beau, Dallas Mavericks shooting guard Klay Thompson, didn’t know if he could be monogamous and had treated her horribly during their time together. “I need a REAL break after this one,” she wrote.
She followed the social media admission with a formal statement issued to People confirming that she and Thompson had split just months after they took their relationship public.
“I’ve made the decision to end my relationship with Klay,” Megan said in a statement. “Trust, fidelity and respect are non-negotiable for me in a relationship, and when those values are compromised, there’s no real path forward. I’m taking this time to prioritize myself and move ahead with peace and clarity.”
Two of our esteemed gubernatorial candidates, the cowboy and the dilettante, apparently could not find ties for the first debate Wednesday night, showing up with dress shirts casually unbuttoned.
Mr. Middleground sported a scruffy sorta-beard, apparently unable to pay for a razor in the midst of California’s affordability crisis. It’s a trademark look that always makes me think if this doesn’t work out, he’ll opt to live on a boat in some not-too-expensive slip by the Bay.
The billionaire wore Nikes instead of dress shoes, a sartorial nod perhaps to his bid to be the outsider-fighter. Or maybe his feet just hurt.
The last two contenders were remarkably unremarkable.
Why start with fashion? Honestly, it might be the most interesting, and telling, bit of insight that came from this first (of three) chances for our next governor to let us know who they are and what they’re made of. If the debate showed us anything, it’s that none of these candidates are hiding follow-me charisma or an excitement-inducing political vision for our collective future.
Yes, there were a few decent jabs here and there about Tom Steyer’s money, Katie Porter’s temper, Matt Mahan’s tech ties and Chad Bianco’s far-right world view. But even those were predictable.
Still, in between the yawns, there were a couple of answers worth noting, ones that might actually give us insight into how the Democratic candidates differ (Despite all the hype, it seems increasingly unlikely that two Republicans will come out of the primary, and even more unlikely that in a Democratic vs. Republican race, the Democrat would lose in blue California.)
I’ll start with a surprising place where I agreed with Steve Hilton, the Republican endorsed by President Trump.
The candidates were asked if they would support a ban on social media for kids under age 16. This is a quickly accelerating idea not beloved by tech companies. Australia and Indonesia already have bans in place. Other countries, including France and Portugal, have them in the works. Florida banned children under 14 from opening social media accounts on their own last year.
And a Los Angeles jury last month dealt a blow to Meta and YouTube when it found the platforms had damaged the mental health of a young woman with their addictive features.
Hilton took the ban question a step further, saying it “misses the point.” He has long argued that it isn’t just social media that is the problem, but having kids staring at a digital device for hours a day instead of interacting in the real world. It was one of the most genuine answers of the night.
“We’ve got to get to the heart of the problem, and that’s the devices and the screens,” he said. “I think that every parent in their heart knows that it’s wrong.”
While Steyer and Xavier Becerra, the former California attorney general, both said they would support such a ban, the remaining three candidates hedged or said they would not. Porter said no to a ban under age 16, but said she “might consider a different ban,” without being specific.
Mahan, who is backed by significant tech money, and Bianco both said they believed requiring parental consent was the way to go (though Mahan said he would ban devices in schools).
As Becerra pointed out, “kids have died as a result of their use of social media,” so it’s a place where policy matters. And if a candidate doesn’t see government’s role in controlling the dangers of social media, what will happen with artificial intelligence?
The candidates also had differences in how they would handle homelessness and the related crisis of housing affordability, though the devil was often buried in the details.
At least for Democrats. For Bianco, the difference was stark.
“We are not dealing with homeless. So stop calling it homeless,” he snapped at the moderators. “It has nothing to do with homes. This is drug- and alcohol-induced psychosis, mental illness.”
Of course, this is wrong. Last year, the UC San Francisco Benioff Homelessness and Housing Initiative released the results of the state’s most comprehensive survey of homeless people. It found that for most people living on our streets, “the cost of housing had simply become unsustainable.” It also found an increasing percentage of those folks were older — almost half were over the age of 50 — and had become homeless after a hardship such as an illness or a job loss.
“It’s also families who are fleeing intimate partner and domestic violence,” Porter said. “It’s people who are double and tripled up. It’s people who are living in their cars on our college campuses. Homelessness comes in a lot of different forms.”
Most of the Democratic candidates seemed to understand this and embraced the increasingly popular idea of putting more money into helping people stay housed after a hardship, instead of trying to get them housed after they lose their place.
“How can I help you keep your home?” Becerra said. “Because it costs me so much more money to pick you off the streets, provide you with the assistance in the shelter, than it does to keep you in the home.”
But the issue of homelessness is also where daylight emerged between the candidates. Steyer said he and his wife had helped finance low-barrier homes, not just shelter spaces, where people do not need to be addiction-free and where they can bring pets — two issues that are common hindrances for moving folks off sidewalks voluntarily.
Mahan, the mayor of San José, who often touts his city’s success at moving people indoors, agreed that emergency and interim housing was critical, but also voiced support for forcing folks to accept help. Last year, San José passed an ordinance he backed that some say criminalizes homelessness — a person can be cited twice for refusing shelter, and a third refusal within 18 months can lead to an arrest.
“When shelter was available, we required that people come indoors,” Mahan said, adding, “We have to be able to mandate treatment.”
It’s a controversial position, but also one that is increasingly popular. Gov. Gavin Newsom has backed mandated treatment, in a lighter form, with his CARE Court (which is technically voluntarily). And the movement to require people to accept a shelter space or face arrest is growing on the right and even the Democratic-middle.
But there is a fine and dangerous line with mandated treatment and shelter requirements that is often pushed further and further to the side in favor of the clean, safe streets argument. Whenever we start locking folks up — whether it’s in mental wards or immigration detention centers or jails — we should be careful that expediency isn’t trumping ethics.
Of course, the debate would not be complete without the Democratic candidates’ position on our president, speaking of ethics.
Steyer was gleeful that Trump has come after him on social media, a point of pride that he is a relevant figure in the fight against MAGA. He also said he would abolish Immigration and Customs Enforcement if he could, which he can’t.
Becerra highlighted his many lawsuits as California’s attorney general during Trump’s first term, and pledged to keep fighting. Porter leaned into her time in Congress and her efforts to help Democrats in other races win.
Mahan took a different route, pledging to fight when necessary, but adding, “We need a partnership, and we need to find common ground with this administration on certain issues.”
Newsom learned the hard way that common ground is what Trump says it is, and shifts without warning or reason.
So what’s the takeaway from all this?
Boring dad; feisty mom; rich do-gooder; striving newcomer; MAGA one; MAGA two.
None of them hit it out of the park, but no one struck out. Maybe next time.
Eddie Murphy is celebrating not just his lifetime achievement award, but also the arrival of his third granddaughter, perhaps the funniest baby alive.
Murphy’s son Eric and Martin Lawrence’s daughter Jasmin have welcomed their first child together, baby Ari Skye.
On Saturday, Murphy was honored with the 51st AFI Life Achievement Award at a gala in Hollywood and told reporters that he had recently celebrated back-to-back milestones.
“I just had my first grandson two months ago, and I had my third granddaughter two weeks ago. And I turned 65 a month ago,” he told “Entertainment Tonight” ahead of the gala. “It’s raining blessings on me.”
The ceremony celebrated his storied career across comedy and film, and featured tributes from fellow funnyman Dave Chappelle and “Shrek” co-star Mike Myers. The special will premiere May 31 on Netflix.
The “Dr. Dolittle” star also gushed about his new grandbaby to E! News, and told the outlet that being honored for his work was “a wonderful thing” but that his legacy wasn’t his work.
“My legacy to me is my children,” he said.
Asked whether he or Lawrence offered their kids any parenting advice as they prepared to welcome Ari Skye, Murphy said he’s more of a lead-by-example kind of dad.
“You don’t give advice like that,” he told the outlet. “Your kids don’t go by your advice. Your kids go by the example you set. They watch you. Stuff you be saying, they don’t even pay that no mind. They watch and see what you do.”
In March, Jasmin and Eric posted photos from their lavish baby shower on social media. The shindig included a three-tiered pink cake, pink cocktails garnished with meringue that looked like clouds and balloons galore. “The most beautiful and special celebration for our baby girl,” the couple captioned the post. “Thank you to our parents and everyone that made this day so magical! Ari Skye Murphy, you are SO loved already!!”
Excitement around Ari Skye’s arrival had been brewing in the media long before the couple even announced they were expecting. Murphy joked about a potential grandbaby when Jasmin and Eric were dating back in 2024, during an interview with Gayle King.
“They’re both beautiful,” he said. “They look amazing together. And it’s funny — everybody’s like, ‘That baby gonna be funny!’ Like our gene pool is just going to make this funny baby.”
Murphy agreed, saying: “If they ever get married and have a child, I’m expecting the child to be funny.”
Victoria Beckham is speaking out about her rift with son Brooklyn Peltz Beckham.
In an interview with WSJ Magazine, the former Spice Girl shared insight into her relationship with her son, although she did not refer to him by name.
“I think that we’ve always — we love our children so much,” Beckham said. “We’ve always tried to be the best parents that we can be. And you know, we’ve been in the public eye for more than 30 years right now, and all we’ve ever tried to do is protect our children and love our children. And you know, that’s all I really want to say about it.”
The response comes after Peltz Beckham took to his Instagram Story in January to accuse his parents of “endlessly trying to run” his relationship with his wife, Nicola Peltz Beckham. The 27-year-old claimed his parents “repeatedly pressured and attempted to bribe” him into signing away the rights to his name, that his mother “hijacked” the first dance during his wedding and that his family “values public promotion and endorsements above all else.”
“My wife has been consistently disrespected by my family, no matter how hard we’ve tried to come together as one,” Peltz Beckham wrote. “Family ‘love’ is decided by how much you post on social media, or how quickly you drop everything to show up and pose for a family photo opp, even if it’s at the expense of our professional obligations.”
Peltz Beckham ended the post writing, “I do not want to reconcile with my family. I’m not being controlled, I’m standing up for myself for the first time in my life.”
After the Instagram bombshell, fans believe David Beckham broke his silence while speaking about the power of social media during an interview in January on CNBC’s “Squawk Box.”
“They make mistakes, but children are allowed to make mistakes. That is how they learn. That is what I try to teach my kids,” David Beckham said. “You sometimes have to let them make those mistakes as well.”
During Peltz Beckham’s birthday in March, his parents wished him happy birthday and shared that they love him on their Instagram Stories.
Actor Ruby Rose’s public allegations of sexual assault against pop star Katy Perry have made their way to Australian officials, days after the former raised her claims on social media.
A spokesperson for the Victoria Police in Australia confirmed in a statement to The Times on Wednesday that its Melbourne Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team launched an investigation into a “historical sexual assault that occurred in Melbourne in 2010” but did not confirm the identities of the involved parties. The spokesperson said police were informed that the alleged assault occurred “at a licensed premises” in Melbourne’s central business district, a metropolitan hub that hosts a number of nightclubs among other cultural establishments.
“As the investigation remains ongoing, it would be inappropriate to comment further at this stage,” the spokesperson said.
Representatives for Rose and for Perry did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment.
Rose, the 40-year-old Australian actor known for “Orange Is the New Black” and the CW series “Batwoman,” accused Perry, 41, of sexual assault in a series of Threads posts over the weekend. In the comments section of a Complex Music post about Perry’s reaction to Justin Bieber’s Coachella set, Rose wrote “Katy Perry sexual assaulted me at spice market nightclub in Melbourne.” In other replies, Rose said the incident occurred when she was in “my early 20s” and alleged the “Teenage Dream” and “I Kissed a Girl” singer “bent down, pulled her underwear to the side and rubbed her disgusting” genitals on the actor’s face “until my eyes snapped open and I projectile vomitted on her.”
Perry — via a representative — denied the allegations in a Monday statement shared with The Times. “The allegations being circulated on social media by Ruby Rose about Katy Perry are not only categorically false, they are dangerous reckless lies,” Perry’s rep said.
“Ms. Rose has a well-documented history of making serious public allegations on social media against various individuals, claims that have repeatedly been denied by those named,” the statement said.
Rose, amid her departure from “Batwoman” in 2021, was accused by Warner Bros. Television of spreading “revisionist history.” When she publicly raised allegations of toxic working conditions against the series’ production team, the studio responded by noting it had parted ways with the actor after “multiple complaints” involving her workplace behavior.
Perry previously faced allegations of sexual assault in 2019 when an actor who starred in her “Teenage Dream” music video accused her of verbally bullying him during the video’s production and exposing his genitals to others without his consent during a party held separately from the shoot. Shortly after those allegations surfaced, a TV host in Georgia also reportedly accused the singer of harassing her that same year at an industry party.
During the weekend, Rose posted on Threads that she went to the police station to file a report about the alleged assault, despite expressing in an earlier post she had no interest bringing her allegations to officials. In another post shared Tuesday, Rose said she had “finalized all of my reports.”
“This means I am no longer able to comment, repost, or talk publicly about any of those cases, or the individuals involved,” she wrote, adding that she “can start the healing process now.”
