While the BHV department store celebrated the opening of Shein, there were protests outside
The French government says it is initiating proceedings to suspend the online platform of Asian online giant Shein, after prosecutors said they were investigating the company over childlike sex dolls found on its website.
The economy ministry said under the prime minister’s order proceedings would last for “as long as necessary for the platform to prove to authorities that all of its content is finally in compliance with our laws and regulations”.
The government’s move was announced little more than an hour after Shein opened its first physical store in the world, on the sixth floor of Paris department store BHV.
Shoppers queued to get into the store, while protesters screamed “Shame!” at them.
Shein has promised to co-operate fully with Paris prosecutors who are also investigating three other platforms – Temu, AliExpress and Wish. Allegations surrounding the sale of childlike sex dolls on Shein first came to light from France’s anti-fraud office at the weekend.
In a statement, Shein said it had already temporarily suspended listings from independent third-party vendors in its marketplace, while it tightened up rules on how they operate.
“This suspension enables us to strengthen accountability and ensure every product meets our standards and legal obligations,” said Quentin Ruffat, the company’s head of public affairs in France.
BHV’s decision to house the fast-fashion giant has angered rival clothing brands and a number have said they will leave the prestigious department store in protest.
Protests against the opening continued inside the store, and one person let off a foul-smelling spray.
NurPhoto via Getty Images
Protesters held up placards outside the BHV store and shouted “Shame!” at shoppers
Shein has become best known for its discounted and trendy clothes, but has drawn criticism over its environmental impact and working conditions.
Fashion designer Agnès B said earlier she would close her concession in BHV when her contract ended in January.
“I’m completely against this fast-fashion… there are jobs under threat, it’s very bad,” she told French radio.
Shein spokesman Quentin Ruffat earlier promised to provide information on sellers, buyers and products involved in selling the childlike sex dolls on its site.
AliExpress told the BBC it took the matter very seriously.
Temu said it was not involved in the case and did not allow the sale of such items on its platform, although it told the BBC it was working with French authorities “to reinforce our minor protection mechanism”. Wish has also been contacted for comment.
Frédéric Merlin, whose SGM company runs BHV, has admitted that he considered ending the department store’s partnership with the retailer.
However, he said Shein’s response had “convinced me to continue” and he expressed confidence in the products it was going to sell in his store. “The clothes we’re going to sell do not exploit workers or children,” he told French radio.
Shein, which was founded in China, is also set to open outlets in seven other cities, inside Galeries Lafayette department stores run by SGM. But Galeries Lafayette has refused to have anything to do with Shein and will withdraw its name from the stores in Angers, Dijon, Grenoble, Le Mans, Limoges, Orléans and Reims.
The Paris prosecutor’s office said Shein and the other three e-commerce platforms were being investigated over violent, pornographic or “undignified messages” that could be accessed by minors.
Shein and AliExpress are also under investigation over the dissemination of content related to children that are of a pornographic nature, the prosecutor’s office said.
The cases have been referred to the Paris Office des Mineurs, the prosecution service added. The office is an arm of the French police force that oversees the protection of minors.
AliExpress said the listings in question violated its policies and were removed once it became aware of them.
“Sellers found to violate or trying to circumvent these requirements will be penalised in accordance with our rules,” AliExpress said in a statement.
On Monday, Shein said it had banned the sale of all sex dolls on its platform worldwide. The Singapore-based retailer also said that it would permanently block all seller accounts related to the illegal sale of the childlike dolls and set stricter controls on its platform.
The French consumer watchdog, the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control, said the sex dolls’ description and categorisation left “little doubt as to the child pornography nature” of the products.
David Ball of Soft Cell, whose delectably sleazy synth-pop arrangement drove that English duo’s 1981 hit “Tainted Love” to the top of the U.K. singles chart, died Wednesday. He was 66.
The producer’s death was announced in a post on Soft Cell’s website, which didn’t state a cause but said that Ball died at his home in London. On Facebook, the duo’s singer, Marc Almond, wrote that Ball’s health “had been in slow decline over recent years” due to an unspecified illness.
“It is hard to write this, let alone process it, as Dave was in such a great place emotionally,” Almond said on Soft Cell’s site. “He was focused and so happy with the new album that we literally completed only a few days ago. It’s so sad as 2026 was all set to be such an uplifting year for him, and I take some solace from the fact that he heard the finished record and felt that it was a great piece of work.”
Ball and Almond performed as Soft Cell at last month’s Rewind Festival in England; the LP they’d just wrapped is set to be titled “Danceteria” after the New York City nightclub that became an incubator of new wave and synth-pop in the early ’80s.
Soft Cell was an “experimental electro band [writing] weird little pop tunes about consumerism,” as Almond told the Guardian in 2017, when the duo decided to record a cover of “Tainted Love,” which the soul singer Gloria Jones had introduced to little success in 1964.
Ball devised his take on the song using his “dodgy old Korg synths” as well as a state-of-the-art Synclavier that cost more than £100,000, according to the Guardian. Soft Cell’s cover felt “twisted and strange,” Ball said, which suited the “weird couple: Marc, this gay bloke in makeup, and me, a big guy who looked like a minder.”
With Almond’s panting vocal over Ball’s sexy yet sinister production, “Tainted Love” hit No. 1 in the U.K. the same year as the Human League’s “Don’t You Want Me” and “Prince Charming” by Adam & the Ants. In the U.S., “Tainted Love” peaked at No. 8 on Billboard’s Hot 100 in 1982.
Today the song has been streamed more than 1 billion times on Spotify, kept alive in part by Rihanna’s prominent sample of “Tainted Love” in her 2006 hit “SOS.”
Ball was born May 3, 1959, in Chester, England, and grew up in an adoptive family in Blackpool. He and Almond formed Soft Cell in 1979 after meeting as students at Leeds Polytechnic, where Almond was known for a performance art piece in which “he’d be naked in front of a full-length mirror, smearing himself with cat food and shagging himself,” Ball told the Guardian.
The duo released its debut album, “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret,” in 1981, then followed it with two more LPs before splitting in 1984. “Few groups took as much pleasure in perversity,” said Rolling Stone, which called “Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret” a “conceptual salute to the sex industry.” In 2022, Pitchfork said the duo’s debut offered “a snapshot of pre-AIDS queer life at its heady peak.”
After Soft Cell’s breakup, Ball collaborated with Genesis P-Orridge of Throbbing Gristle and formed a dance group called the Grid with the producer Richard Norris; he also worked in the studio with the likes of Kylie Minogue, the Pet Shop Boys and David Bowie.
Soft Cell reunited in 2001 and again in 2018; the statement on the band’s website said “Danceteria” would come out in early 2026. According to the statement, Ball’s survivors include four children.
Do you wish that discovering shows playing at live theaters around Los Angeles was as easy as finding movies in local cinemas? Now it is. A new nonprofit called Theatre Commons L.A. — founded by some of the city’s most prominent theater leaders — launched earlier this week with easy-to-navigate local theater listings for more than 100 houses big and small.
The listings can be filtered by date, neighborhood and genre, and users can simply click on links to buy tickets. I’ve tried it and am happy to report that it takes all the guesswork and Googling out of finding a show that fits your schedule and suits your interests. It also introduced me to a whole host of new shows that I didn’t even realize were playing.
“Theatre Commons LA is about making it easier to make theatre in Los Angeles — and easier for people to find and enjoy it,” wrote Pasadena Playhouse producing artistic director Danny Feldman in an email. “By connecting artists, companies, and audiences, we’re working to build a more connected ecosystem for LA’s bold, local, living theatre.”
That connection is key. Because Los Angeles is a tough city to get a handle on. I’m old enough to remember getting hopelessly lost when I first moved here — crying in my old Toyota Corolla on freeway offramp, clutching a Thomas Guide that I could not make heads or tails of. Ironically, given the subject of this newsletter, I was trying to get to a theater downtown.
Visitors to L.A., and even plenty of seasoned Angelenos, often find the city sprawling and fragmented. The vast landscape is carved up by thriving neighborhoods, each with singular identities molded by unique cultural, business and arts offerings. TCLA aims to bring these diverse theaters together under a common umbrella to pool resources, and promotional and engagement opportunities, as well as to expand a sense of community in a difficult moment for the art form.
“It is no secret that the last few years have been particularly hard for theater in LA from the pandemic to the recent wildfires and curfews,” Center Theatre Group’s artistic director Snehal Desai wrote in an email. “What has become clear during this period is that the Los Angeles theater community is rich in artists, talent and leadership but our resources are scattered and there is not a consolidated place for information and outreach,” he continued. “Theatre Commons LA is a way to bridge those gaps — to share knowledge, opportunities, and support so that everyone, from small ensembles to major institutions, can thrive together. It creates the space our community has been asking for — where artists, institutions, and audiences can come together to imagine what Los Angeles theatre can be next.”
A volunteer steering committee, including Desai and Feldman, launched TCLA and its listings website with the financial support of the Nonprofit Sustainability Initiative. Last month, the Perenchio Foundation made a substantial investment meant to sustain the organization’s future growth, including the hiring of an executive director. (Please see the photo caption above for a list of the other steering committee members.)
Earlier this week also marked The Times’ launch of “The 52 best places to see plays and musicals in Southern California,” curated and written by Times theater critic Charles McNulty, assistant entertainment editor Kevin Crust (who also edits this newsletter) and me. The list contains short summations of each theater’s defining traits and connects to a map that plots each theater in its own pocket of the city. It was a real labor of love and I urge you to use it in conjunction with the new TCLA website to plan your next night out.
I’m arts and culture writer Jessica Gelt, mulling over more than a dozen entertainment options for the weekend. All of them good. Here’s this week’s arts and culture news.
On our radar
Complexions Contemporary Ballet comes to the Music Center on Friday and Saturday.
(Rachel Neville)
Complexions Contemporary Ballet The New York-based company celebrates its 30th anniversary with “Retro Suite,” a collection of works from 1994 to the present, created by co-founding artistic director and principal choreographer Dwight Rhoden. Complexions is known for its high-energy mashup of traditional ballet with hip-hop and street dance, as well as for the multicultural makeup of its troupe and its novel approach to incorporating visual art and theater into its choreography. — Jessica Gelt 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday; 2 p.m. Sunday. Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, 135 N. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. musiccenter.org
Children make art at the 2024 Grand Ave Arts: All Access event.
(John McCoy)
Grand Ave Arts: All Access A day of free art, music and culture along downtown Los Angeles’ cultural corridor. Participating institutions include the Broad, Center Theatre Group, Classical California KUSC, Colburn School, Dataland, Gloria Molina Grand Park, L.A. Opera, the L.A. Phil, Los Angeles Central Library, Los Angeles Master Chorale, Metro Art, MOCA, the Music Center and Redcat. 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. Grand Ave. from Temple to 6th Street, downtown L.A. grandavearts.org
Cyndi Lauper wrote the music and lyrics for the new musical “Working Girl,” based on the 1988 movie.
(Larsen & Talbert / For The Times)
Working Girl This musical adaption of the 1988 film — directed by Mike Nichols, written by Kevin Wade and starring Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver and Melanie Griffith — has assembled an all-star team of its own. The music and lyrics are by Cyndi Lauper, Theresa Rebeck has written the book and Christopher Ashley directs. The Wall Street Cinderella story centers on a Staten Island secretary who, tired of being misused, underestimated and passed over, cunningly takes her corporate future into her own hands in a revenge tale that has everyone rooting for the underdog. Yet another La Jolla Playhouse world premiere that has “Broadway hit” written all over it. — Charles McNulty Tuesday through Nov. 30. La Jolla Playhouse, Mandell Weiss Theatre, 2910 La Jolla Village Drive. lajollaplayhouse.org
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The week ahead: A curated calendar
FRIDAY Tiago Rodrigues In “By Heart,” the Portuguese playwright and actor invites 10 audience members onto the stage to learn a poem as he shares stories of his grandmother and explains the connections created by the words. 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday. UCLA Nimoy Theater, 1262 Westwood Blvd. cap.ucla.edu
SATURDAY John Giorno “No Nostalgia,” an exhibition devoted to the late poet, artist and activist (1936-2019) who turned words into performance, sound installation and painting. The show includes a select group of Giorno’s work ranging from early prints to his black-and-white text and rainbow paintings, a selection of materials from Giorno’s archive showing how he pieced together his poems and his 1969 work Dial-A-Poem. 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday, through April 25, 2026. Marciano Art Foundation, 4357 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. marcianoartfoundation.org
The Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra performs Saturday at Zipper Hall in downtown L.A. and Sunday at the Wallis in Beverly Hills.
(Brian Feinzimer for LACO)
Romantic Resonance When a talented 19th century French pianist named Louise Farrenc became tired of giving concerts accompanying her flutist husband, she founded Éditions Farrenc in Paris, which became one of the country’s leading music publishing houses. She also gained a smallish reputation as a composer of mainly salon pieces for piano. But she had far greater ambitions nearly impossible for a woman at that time to realize. Farrenc composed three large-scale symphonies that are only now, more than a century after her death in 1875, being noticed. Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s music director, Jaime Martín, is one of her champions, and he is pairing Farrenc’s impressive Schumann-esque “Second Symphony,” written in 1845, with Brahms’ “First Piano Concerto,” featuring the dauntingly virtuoso pianist Marc-André Hamelin. — Mark Swed 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Zipper Hall, 200 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A.; 4 p.m. Sunday. The Wallis, 9390 N. Santa Monica Blvd., Beverly Hills. laco.org
Night of Ritual and Revelry LACMA hosts this after-hours party with a focus on plants. The evening includes open galleries, plant-themed activities, a costume contest, food and drink, plus an outdoor screening of the 1986 cult classic “Little Shop of Horrors” hosted by Meatball. Guests must be 18 or older to attend. 7 p.m. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Smid Welcome Plaza, 5905 Wilshire Blvd. lacma.org
Ragamala Dance Company performs Saturday at Broad Stage.
(Three Phase Multimedia)
Ragamala Dance Company Ragamala Dance Company — founded and run by the mother-daughter trio Ranee, Aparna and Ashwini Ramaswamy — brings Aparna’s most recent work, “Ananta, the Eternal,” to BroadStage with live music accompaniment. The company specializes in the South Indian dance form Bharatanatyam, and the troupe is known for its soulful embodiment of classical dance techniques and its bold and beautiful traditional costumes. — Jessica Gelt 7:30 p.m. BroadStage, Santa Monica College Performing Arts Center, 1310 11th St., Santa Monica. broadstage.org
Songs of Emerging Endangerment This sound installation by artist TJ Shinn, commissioned by the local multidisciplinary arts organization Clockshop, is set to sound hourly from dawn to dusk. The project features a 30-foot-tall sculptural air raid siren that mimics bird calls to map systems of global migration. Opening Saturday, 2-4 p.m., and through Feb. 22, 2026. Los Angeles State Historic Park. 1245 N. Spring St. clockshop.org
SUNDAY Colburn Orchestra Grammy Award-winner Carlos Miguel Prieto conducts the flagship ensemble from the Colburn School of Music in a program featuring Ravel, Dvořák and Schoenberg. 3 p.m. The Saroya, 18111 Nordhoff St., Northridge. thesoraya.org
The Heart Sellers Lloyd Suh, author of “The Far Country,” a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for drama, examines the deracinating effects of immigration in his work. In “The Heart Sellers,” two immigrants, one Filipino, the other Korean, strike up a friendship after a chance meeting at that quintessential American crossroads: the supermarket. Set in 1973, after the 1965 Hart-Celler Act abolished the national quota system that restricted immigration from non-European countries, they bond over what they left behind, the strange universe they’ve entered and the challenge of cooking a frozen turkey. Jennifer Chang directs this comedy about the power of friendship to redefine the idea of home. — Charles McNulty Through Nov. 16. South Coast Repertory, Julianne Argyros Stage, 655 Town Center Drive, Costa Mesa. scr.org
MONDAY Bright Harvest: Powering Earth From Space This documentary follows Caltech professors Harry Atwater, Ali Hajimiri and Sergio Pellegrino on their quest to provide an endless supply of clean sustainable energy for the 2023 launch of the Space Solar Power Demonstrator. Followed by a Q&A with the three professors and filmmaker Steven Reich. Admission is free; reservations recommended. 7:30 p.m. Beckman Auditorium, Caltech, 332 S. Michigan Ave., Pasadena. caltech.edu
TUESDAY Carrie A screening of Brian De Palma’s 1976 adaptation of the Stephen King horror novel, starring Sissy Spacek, Piper Laurie, John Travolta, Amy Irving and William Katt, hosted by drag entertainer Jackie Beat. 7:30 p.m. Tuesday. Vidiots, Eagle Theatre, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org
WEDNESDAY Pacific Jazz Orchestra’s Big Band With Jane Monheit Step into the elegant past for a program of timeless swing music, big band standards and seductive ballads. 7 and 9:30 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday. Blue Note L.A., 6372 W. Sunset Blvd. bluenotejazz.com
THURSDAY
Lon Chaney in 1925’s “The Phantom of the Opera.”
(Universal Pictures)
The Phantom of the Opera L.A. Opera’s tradition of presenting classic silent horror films for Halloween continues this year with the 1925 version of “Phantom” starring Lon Chaney. Frank Strobel conducts the L.A. Opera Orchestra performing Roy Budd’s original score live. 8 p.m. Thursday and Oct. 31. The United Theater on Broadway, 929 S. Broadway, downtown L.A. https://www.laopera.org/performances/2026/phantom-of-the-opera
Mark Ryden The new solo exhibition “Eye Am” envisions a lurid, mischievous world via twelve paintings and a selection of drawings. Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Thursday; book signing, 1-3 p.m. Oct. 31; exhibition continues through Dec. 20. Perrotin, 5036. W. Pico Blvd. perrotin.com
Nicole Scherzinger Just months removed from her Tony Award-winning triumph as Norma Desmond in “Sunset Boulevard” on Broadway, the former Pussycat Dolls singer makes her Walt Disney Concert Hall debut. 8 p.m. Thursday. Walt Disney Concert Hall, 111 S. Grand Ave., downtown L.A. laphil.com
Culture news and the SoCal scene
The Laura Gardin Fraser “Lee-Jackson Monument” at the “Monuments” exhibit at MOCA.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
Los Angeles is home to the “most significant American art museum show right now,” writes Times art critic Christopher Knight in his review of “Monuments,” which opened Thursday at the Brick and the Museum of Contemporary Art’s Geffen Contemporary. Featuring nearly a dozen, mostly Confederate, statues that have been toppled or removed from public spaces over the past decade, the show “pairs cautionary art history with thoughtful and poetic retorts from 20 artists, including a nonprofit art studio,” writes Knight.
I wrote a preview of the show, which includes a few backstories about the people featured in the decommissioned statutes. Men like “newspaper owner Josephus Daniels, who helped foment the 1898 Wilmington massacre in which a mob of more than 2,000 white supremacists killed as many as 300 people in the course of overthrowing the city’s duly elected biracial government.”
Times theater critic Charles McNulty wrote a column examining the ways that various playwrights are engaging with the idea of AI in their work. For examples, he digs into two plays, Lauren Gunderson’s “anthropology,” which is staging its North American premiere in a Rogue Machine Theatre production; and Jordan Harrison’s “Marjorie Prime,” which is having its Broadway premiere this fall. “Gunderson and Harrison are looking ahead to see how AI might be super-charging our disembodiment. To anyone paying attention, business as usual is no longer an option. The very basis of our self-understanding is on the line,” McNulty writes.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” at Pasadena Playhouse, created and performed by Julia Masli and directed by Kim Noble.
(Jeff Lorch)
McNulty also attended opening night of performance artist and comedian Julia Masli’s one-woman show, “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” at Pasadena Playhouse. He describes the 75-minute improvisational work as “less a traditional comedy show than an experiment in collective consciousness. It doesn’t take much to transform a room of jaded strangers into a representative slice of compassionate humanity.” That’s because Masli devotes her time in the spotlight to solving audience members’ problems, finding their shared empathy in the process.
Times classical music critic Mark Swed has been chronicling the departure of the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s beloved musical and artistic director, Gustavo Dudamel. In a recent column, Swed writes about the hoopla on display during the “first three love-fest weeks of Dudamel’s final season.” There was lots of “Gracias Gustavo” merch, and a daylong “Gracias Gustavo” block party at Beckmen YOLA Center in Inglewood, which included a performance by rapper D Smoke. And let’s not forget Tuesday night’s “Gustavo’s Fiesta” at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Dudamel also gave “four soul-searching performances of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2,” Swed writes. “His Mahler is neither overly exuberant nor constrained by grief and Berliner decorum. This performance heralds a new Dudamel, conductor of prophetic grandeur.”
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A rendering of a still image from Refik Anadol’s giant LED wall, “Living Paintings Immersive Editions,” at Jeffrey Deitch.
(From Refik Anadol Studio)
Last September, I wrote a feature on immersive media artist Refik Anadol and his plans to open the world’s first museum of AI arts, called Dataland, in downtown’s Grand L.A. complex across the street from Walt Disney Concert Hall. Anadol hoped to open the museum — which features five distinct galleries in a 20,000-square-foot space — this year. But this week, the artist announced that the project is now set to debut next spring. Anadol also released a first look at one of the galleries called Infinity Room. You can watch the teaser, here.
Everybody is talking about the brazen jewel heist at the Louvre. You can almost hear the key-clacking of dozens of hopeful screenwriters already drafting their spec scripts. The story is too outrageous to feel true — masked men cutting through a window in broad daylight and entering a gallery full of people before escaping without a trace on a pair of motorcycles. The value of the precious jewels they got away with is estimated to be about $102 million. If you have been living under a rock for the past week, you can read all about it, here.
— Jessica Gelt
And last but not least
Did you know that L.A. is experiencing a golden age of pizza? Neither did I. Fortunately, Times food critic Bill Addison has compiled a list featuring 21 of the city’s best slices.
Bereaved families are calling for a public inquiry into what they say are “repeated failures” by the UK government to protect vulnerable people from a website promoting suicide.
A report by the Molly Rose Foundation says departments were warned 65 times about the online forum, which BBC News is not naming, and others like it but did not act.
The suicide prevention charity says at least 133 people have died in the UK as a result of a toxic chemical promoted by the site and similar forums.
The government has not said whether it will consider an inquiry but said sites must prevent users from accessing illegal suicide and self-harm content or face “robust enforcement, including substantial fines”.
Families and survivors have written to Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer asking him for an inquiry to look into why warnings from coroners and campaigners have been ignored.
David Parfett, whose son Tom took his own life in 2021, told the BBC successive governments had offered sympathy but no accountability.
“The people who host the suicide platforms to spread their cult-like messages that suicide is normal – and earn money from selling death – continue to be several steps ahead of government ministers and law enforcement bodies,” he said.
“I can think of no better memorial for my son than knowing people like him are protected from harm while they recover their mental health.”
David and six other families are being represented by the law firm Leigh Day who have also written a letter to the prime minister highlighting their concerns about the main suicide forum.
The letter says victims were groomed online, and tended to be in their early 20s, with the youngest known victim being 13.
It argues a public inquiry is needed because coroners’ courts cannot institute the changes needed to protect vulnerable people.
According to the report, coroners raised concerns and sent repeated warnings to the Home Office, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, and Department of Health and Social Care on dozens of occasions since 2019, when the forum that has been criticised by the families first emerged.
The report highlighted four main findings:
The Home Office’s refusal to tighten regulation of the substance, which remains easily obtainable online, while UK Border Force “struggles to respond to imports” from overseas sellers
The media regulator Ofcom’s decision to rely on “voluntary measures” from the main forum’s operators rather than taking steps to restrict UK access
Repeated failures by government departments to act on coroners’ warnings
Operational shortcomings, including inconsistent police welfare checks and delays in making antidotes available to emergency services
A government spokesperson said that the substance in question “is closely monitored and is reportable under the Poisons Act” meaning retailers should tell the authorities if they suspect it is being bought to cause harm.
But campaigners say the government’s response has been fragmented and slow, with officials “passing the parcel” rather than taking co-ordinated action.
Adele Zeynep Walton, whose sister Aimee died in 2022, said families like hers had been “ignored and dismissed”.
“She was creative, a very talented artist, gifted musician,” she told BBC News.
“Aimee was hardworking and achieved great GCSE results, however she was shy and quiet and struggled to make friends.
“Every time I learn of a new life lost to the website that killed my sister three years ago, I’m infuriated that another family has had to go through this preventable tragedy.”
The demand for an inquiry follows concerns raised by the BBC in 2023, when an investigation revealed sites offering instructions and encouragement for suicide and evading regulations.
Andy Burrows, chief executive of the Molly Rose Foundation, said the state’s failure to act had “cost countless lives”.
He also accused Ofcom of being “inexplicably slow” to restrict UK access to the main website the Foundation has raised concerns about.
UK users are currently unable to access the forum, which is based in the US. A message on the forum’s homepage says it was not blocked to people in the UK as a result of government action but instead because of a “proactive” decision to “protect the platform and its users”.
“We operate under the protection of the First Amendment. However, UK authorities have signalled intentions to enforce their domestic laws on foreign platforms, potentially leading to criminal liability or service disruption,” the message reads.
In a statement, Ofcom said: “In response to our enforcement action, the online suicide forum put in place a geo-block to restrict access by people with UK IP addresses.
“Services that choose to block access by people in the UK must not encourage or promote ways to avoid these restrictions.”
It added the forum remained on its watchlist and a previously-launched investigation into it remained open while it checked the block was being maintained.
If you, or someone you know, has been affected by mental health issues BBC Action Line has put together a list of organisations which can help.
Sea otters love to play, play, play, play, play and they also have to eat, eat, eat, eat, eat — at least that’s what people say — so the Monterey Bay Aquarium is tapping Taylor Swift fans for help.
The Central Coast aquarium launched a fundraising campaign Thursday involving a re-release of one of its classic T-shirt designs to support its sea otter program and other marine conservation efforts after noticing a curious flood of $13 donations it could attribute only to Taylor Swift fans.
The Grammy-winning singer-songwriter is seen sporting a vintage 1993 Monterey Bay Aquarium shirt with sea otter art in “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” her movie celebrating the release of her latest album, “The Life of a Showgirl.” Swift’s fiancé, Travis Kelce, a tight end with the Kansas City Chiefs, is a known sea otter fan, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium had previously invited the couple for a special visit.
“Swifties, you truly walk the talk,” the aquarium said in a post on its website announcing the new campaign. “We tracked down the original artwork — first printed in the 1990s — and are bringing it back to say thank you, sustainably.”
The limited-time fundraiser, which offers the new eco-conscious reprints of the shirt in adult and kids sizes to those who donate $65.13, hit its initial goal in a mere seven hours, according to an update posted Thursday by the aquarium. When this story was published Friday, the total was approaching $2.2 million and the shirts were available on back order only.
“Intentional or not, by putting our sea otter conservation work in the spotlight, this has brought a new era of support and awareness to the Aquarium’s long history of ocean conservation,” the Monterey Bay Aquarium said on its website, which also features some fun Swift and sea otter crossover facts.
In addition to debuting the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift’s “Release Party” movie included behind-the-scenes footage and commentary from the artist about her songs. The 89-minute movie made $34 million at the box office over its one weekend in theaters.
SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday vetoed legislation that would have phased out a range of popular consumer products, including nonstick pots and pans, that contain synthetic chemicals with potential links to cancer.
“I appreciate the efforts to protect the health and safety of consumers, and while this bill is well-intentioned, I am deeply concerned about the impact this bill would have on the availability of affordable options in cooking products,” Newsom wrote in his veto statement. “I believe we must carefully consider the consequences that may result from a dramatic shift of products on our shelves.”
The legislation would have prohibited the selling or distributing of cookware with intentionally added perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, known as PFAS, by 2030. It phased out PFAS in products for infants and children, ski wax, dental floss, food packaging and cleaning products starting in 2028. Previously used items would have been exempt.
Sen. Ben Allen (D-Santa Monica), who introduced the legislation, Senate Bill 682, said he will continue to work on the issue moving forward.
“We are obviously disappointed,” he said. “We know there are safer alternatives — [but] I understand there were strong voices on both sides on this topic.”
Allen previously explained he introduced the bill to help protect the state’s water supply from contamination.
A study released in 2023 by the U.S. Geological Survey found tap water in urban areas of Southern and Central California is more likely to contain PFAS than the drinking water in most of the nation’s other regions.
“The water agencies, sanitation agencies and local governments are faced with increasingly impossible-to-meet standards just to keep the water supply for our constituents clean,” Allen said during a Senate committee meeting in April. “They’re facing the costs while the producers who keep pushing these products out on the market are not being held accountable.”
PFAS are commonly dubbed “forever chemicals” because of their well-established longevity. They are linked to adverse health effects, including liver enzyme changes and kidney and testicular cancer, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The chemicals have been used for decades to prevent food from sticking to pans or packaging, or to make materials more resistant to stains. California has taken steps in recent years to ban their use in certain items, like cosmetics and menstrual products.
Dozens of organizations weighed-in on Allen’s bill, with the Sierra Club, California Health Coalition Advocacy and the League of California Cities supporting the legislation.
The Chemical Industry Council of California and the Cookware Sustainability Alliance were among those opposed.
Steve Burns, president of the sustainability alliance, was especially concerned by the provision barring the distribution of the banned products.
“California is the entry point for nonstick cookware and other products that come into the Port of Long Beach, the Port of Los Angeles or the Port of Oakland, and then get distributed throughout the country,” he told The Times. “They go to warehouses, distribution centers and get loaded up on rail or usually trucks — so there’s a lot of jobs in the California economy that depend on products that have Teflon.”
Burns said science hasn’t shown that all PFAS are harmful and argued California should have studied the issue further. He pointed to Illinois, which recently passed similar legislation but ultimately nixed the line banning nonstick cookware. An amendment instead directs the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to assess scientific data on fluoropolymers, the type of PFAS used in nonstick pots and pans.
Several states have recently moved toward restricting items with PFAS. Last January, Minnesota became the first state to ban PFAS in cookware. The Cookware Sustainability Alliance filed a lawsuit arguing the law discriminated against out-of-state commerce. A judge dismissed the suit in August.
The sustainability alliance has shared letters of opposition on its website from several prominent chefs and culinary personalities, including cook and television host Rachael Ray and Mark Dommen, the chef at Hestan, a new restaurant in Napa slated to open later this year.
Dommen explained the legislation would have placed an unfair burden on restaurants and food service providers.
“Non-stick cookware is essential to our daily operations and eliminating these products without a viable alternative would drive up costs, disrupt our supply chain, and put California restaurants at a competitive disadvantage,” Dommen wrote.
Ray, who has a cookware line, argued easy-clean cookware helps families eat healthier by making it easier to prepare meals without extra oils or fats.
Her letter drew a gentle rebuke from actor and environmental activist Mark Ruffalo, who implored Ray on social media to reconsider her stance and said her advocacy on behalf of the cookware industry was putting the bill in jeopardy.
“Some of us have so much PFAS in our blood that we face a far greater risk of developing cancer,” he wrote in a recent letter shared on X. “Let’s work together to get PFAS out of the everyday products we bring into our home.”
Scientific studies about the health effects of PFAS will continue, according to the CDC.
“Ongoing research has identified associations between PFAS exposure and several health impacts,” the agency’s website states. “There are many factors that can influence the risk of these effects, such as exposure, individual factors and other health determinants. Research is ongoing to understand the mechanisms of PFAS toxicity.”
Times staff writer Melody Gutierrez contributed to this report.
US President Donald Trump announced earlier this week that his administration would launch a new website, called TrumpRx, which will allow American consumers to buy prescription drugs from pharmaceutical companies at discounted prices.
Pfizer, the first United States pharmaceutical group to sign up to the website, said it would offer discounts of up to 85 percent on the cost of its medicines for those not using health insurance policies to pay and for those on the government’s low-cost insurance programme, Medicaid. Pfizer will also sell medicines to the Medicaid programme itself at lower prices.
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The announcement prompted shares in the pharmaceuticals sector to lift sharply this week, signalling a favourable response from markets and the pharmaceuticals industry.
Here’s what we know about the new service, why it is being launched and how it will work.
What is TrumpRx and when is it being launched?
The new website will be launched in early 2026. It is a platform from which consumers will be able to buy prescription medicines directly from pharmaceutical companies without going through insurance.
On the site, consumers will be able to search for the prescription drug required and then be directed to the drug’s manufacturing company.
They will have access to discounted prices much closer to those typically paid by national health services in foreign countries at what are known as “most favoured nation” prices.
Beneficiaries of Medicaid – the federal government insurance programme for adults and children from lower-income backgrounds – will also be able to use the site.
“By taking this bold step, we’re ending the era of global price gouging at the expense of American families,” Trump told a news conference on Tuesday.
Director of Medicare and Deputy Administrator of CMS Chris Klomp speaks after US President Donald Trump announced a deal with Pfizer to sell drugs at lower prices, in the Oval office of the White House in Washington, DC, on September 30, 2025 [Ken Cedeno/Reuters]
What are ‘most favoured nation’ prices?
“Most favoured nation” (MFN) prices are those that national health services in other countries, including Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Denmark, pay US pharmaceutical companies for prescription drugs.
As these countries buy medicines in bulk, they have much greater purchasing power to demand lower prices than ordinary consumers. This means pharmaceutical companies tend to sell their drugs at a much lower price to other countries than they do domestically.
The US cannot leverage this sort of purchasing power because it does not have a national health service, so the government cannot influence the price of drugs in the same way.
The Trump administration argues that this means US pharmaceutical companies are effectively subsidising foreign health services while artificially inflating prices for American consumers. In May this year, therefore, he signed an executive order aimed at reducing prescription drug prices in the US, stating: “The United States will no longer subsidise the health care of foreign countries.”
When a country grants MFN status, it commits to providing the recipient country with the same trade advantages it gives to any other country with MFN status, but not necessarily the same low prices – prices still vary from country to country. However, it is understood that companies will be expected to offer drugs at their lowest selling price in any other country.
What else has Trump done about the cost of medicines in the US?
The launch of the new website is just one part of Trump’s strategy to reduce prescription medicine prices in the US.
In July this year, he sent a letter to the CEOs of 17 pharmaceutical companies ordering them to reduce their prices.
In the letter, he laid out demands and promises:
He called on manufacturers to provide MFN prices to every single Medicaid patient.
He required manufacturers to stipulate that they will not offer other developed nations better prices for new drugs than prices offered in the United States.
He promised to provide manufacturers with an avenue to cut out middlemen and sell medicines directly to patients, provided they do so at a price no higher than the best price available in developed nations.
He promised to use trade policy to support manufacturers in raising prices internationally, provided that increased revenues abroad are reinvested directly into lowering prices for American patients and taxpayers.
The new TrumpRx website addresses the first of these promises.
To address the second promise, Trump has also announced new 100 percent tariffs on imported, branded pharmaceutical products. Companies which set up production facilities and operations in the US will be exempt from these.
He cited the cost of prescription drugs as one of the reasons for levying these tariffs.
How much more do medicines cost in the US than other countries?
According to a 2022 study commissioned by the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, published on the US government website, standard insulin prices in the US are as much as 10 times higher than prices in 33 OECD countries.
“Average gross prices in the US were more than 10 times prices in France and the United Kingdom; nearly nine times prices in Italy; more than eight times prices in Japan; about seven times prices in Germany; and more than six times prices in Canada,” the study found.
Many people who take insulin already pay a “net price”, which is lower than the standard price via rebates that the manufacturer agrees with insurance companies. But the net price is still, on average, 2.33 times the price paid in other countries, the report found.
Who will benefit most from this platform?
Anyone who wants to buy prescription drugs direct from pharmaceutical companies, instead of via insurance coverage, at a discounted price can use the platform.
A 2024 report from the US Census Bureau showed that about 8 percent of the US population (26 million people) did not have health insurance in 2023 – so these people may be able to benefit.
The Medicaid programme is also likely to benefit from lower prices as its deal with Pfizer includes more favourable terms. However, details of how this part of the deal will work have not been fully explained.
Currently, most Americans use insurance policies to provide medical care, so initially, most will not use the website, experts said.
Stacie B Dusetzina, professor of health policy at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, told Al Jazeera: “There are a small number of people who may be better off purchasing their medicine this way, but the majority of Americans won’t benefit from this type of model.”
However, she added: “There are other components to the deal that could save the public Medicaid programme money, but without knowing more about how that deal is structured, we can’t say for sure that it would produce savings.”
Which drug companies will sell via the new website?
On Tuesday, Trump said pharma group Pfizer was the first to sign up for the new website.
In return for direct access to consumers, the US pharmaceuticals major has agreed to lower the cost of its prescription drugs for those buying direct via the site (and not using insurance to pay), as well as those on the Medicaid programme. Customers will pay prices closer to “most favoured nation” prices, Trump said.
In a news release, Pfizer said it had “voluntarily agreed to implement measures designed to ensure Americans receive comparable drug prices to those available in other developed countries” and said it will also price “newly launched medicines at parity with other key developed markets”.
“The large majority of the Company’s primary care treatments and some select specialty brands will be offered at savings that will range as high as 85 percent and on average, 50 percent,” the company said in a statement.
The White House and Pfizer gave some examples of primary-care Pfizer medicines which will be available on the TrumpRx website. This is not an exhaustive list:
Eucrisa, a topical ointment for atopic dermatitis, which will be made available at an 80 percent discount for patients purchasing directly.
Xeljanz, a widely used oral medication for types of arthritis which will be available at a 40 percent discount.
Zavzpret, a drug used to treat migraines, which will be sold at a 50 percent discount.
Duavee, used to treat menopause symptoms, which will be offered at around an 85 percent discount.
Toviaz, a drug for for overactive bladder.
Abrilada and Xeljanz, both autoimmune drugs which will be available at significant discounts.
Some of these drugs will remain very expensive even with the discounts. According to Pfizer’s website, Xeljanz, for example, costs around $6,000 per month at the standard price. A 40 percent discount brings this down to $3,600 per month.
Currently, Americans with health insurance can obtain the drug for up to $20 a month – in many cases, their insurance policy terms mean they pay nothing at all.
What else have Pfizer and Trump agreed to under this deal?
Pfizer has agreed to reduce drug prices in the US generally, putting prices in line with those paid in other developed countries, the company said.
The group has also committed to spending $70bn on domestic manufacturing facilities, which will be dedicated to “US research, development and capital projects in the next few years”.
In return, the company will be given a three-year grace period from Trump’s tariffs on branded pharmaceuticals made abroad.
“I think today we are turning the tide, and we are reversing an unfair situation,” Pfizer’s CEO Albert Bourla said at a news conference on Tuesday alongside Trump, referring to the difference in prices that people in the US pay for medicines compared with consumers overseas.
Will other drug companies follow suit?
Trump said on Tuesday that other pharmaceutical companies are expected to sign up for the new website, but there have been no new official announcements so far.
“It is clear that the deal that Pfizer struck is a friendly one to the industry,” said Dusetzina. “The companies that received letters requesting that they act are all likely to make agreements that I would expect to be similarly structured.
“If nothing else, these companies will want commitments that they can avoid any potential tariffs. That is worth a lot to them and to their shareholders. It will still be unclear, I think, whether the changes that they make have any tangible benefits for the average American.”
Overseas pharmaceutical companies may be able to sign up as well.
Swiss companies, including Novartis and Roche, said that they were eager to work with the Trump administration to make their drugs more affordable to US patients.
Stephan Mumenthaler, director general of scienceindustries – which represents about 250 Swiss chemical and pharmaceutical companies – told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that he expected “mini deals” to come from Swiss and global pharmaceutical companies in the coming days.
“They are thinking in similar schemes … How can you omit the margins that middlemen are taking away so that you basically have a similar price than before, but the end consumer still gets a lower price,” he said.
Meanwhile, on Monday, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) announced the launch of its own website AmericasMedicines.com, which will enable consumers to directly buy drugs from manufacturers as well.
In a media release, Stephen J Ubl, president and CEO of PhRMA said: “We need policymakers to protect innovation, fix the broken insurance system that burdens patients with high out-of-pocket costs, and ensure foreign governments pay their fair share.”
How have markets reacted?
Pfizer’s share price rose 7 percent in the US on Tuesday and jumped 8 percent on the UK’s stock exchange on Wednesday.
The announcement of the new website also lifted the shares of European pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Roche and AstraZeneca by about 5 percent.
Head to the secretary of state’s website to find out if you’re registered. You’ll need to enter a California driver’s license or ID number or the last four digits of your Social Security number.
You can also call the state’s voter hotline at (800) 345-VOTE(8683) to get a paper application mailed you to you, or you can pick one up at a county election office, most California libraries and United States Post Office locations; Department of Motor Vehicle office and various federal, state, and local government offices.
HONOLULU — Lawyers for a Hawaii real estate investor and broker who sued Shohei Ohtani and his agent denied any improper use of the Dodgers star’s likeness for a development project and alleged the agent was trying to deflect blame for cost overruns at the player’s home.
Ohtani and Nez Balelo of CAA Baseball were sued Aug. 8 in Hawaii Circuit Court for the First Circuit by developer Kevin J. Hayes Sr., real estate broker Tomoko Matsumoto, West Point Investment Corp. and Hapuna Estates Property Owners. They accused Ohtani and Balelo of “abuse of power” that allegedly resulted in tortious interference and unjust enrichment impacting a $240 million luxury housing development on the Big Island’s coveted Hapuna Coast.
Hayes and Matsumoto had been dropped from the development deal by Kingsbarn Realty Capital, the joint venture’s majority owner.
The amended complaint filed Tuesday added Creative Artists Agency and CAA Sports as defendants.
“Balelo and CAA sought to deflect blame by scapegoating Hayes for the cost overruns on Otani’s home — overruns caused entirely by defendants’ own decisions,” the complaint said.
“The allegations as we clarified them make very clear that there was never a breach of the endorsement agreement, the video that was posted on the website promoting specifically this project was sent to Balelo and CAA and another adviser to Ohtani, Mark Daulton, and they were aware of it and never objected to it,” said Josh Schiller, a lawyer for Hayes and the suing entities.
In a motion to dismiss filed Sept. 14, attorneys for Ohtani and Balelo said “plaintiffs exploited Ohtani’s name and photograph to drum up traffic to a website that marketed plaintiffs’ own side project development.”
“This is a desperate attempt to avoid dismissal of a frivolous complaint and, as we previously said, to distract from plaintiffs’ myriad of failures and their blatant misappropriation of Shohei Ohtani’s rights,” Laura Smolowe, a lawyer for Ohtani and Balelo, said in a statement. “Nez Balelo has always prioritized Mr. Ohtani’s best interests, including protecting his name, image, and likeness from unauthorized use.”
Lawyers for Hayes and the plaintiffs claimed they kept Balelo and CAA informed.
“Before the website went live, Hayes submitted a link to the entire site — including its promotional aspects — by email to Balelo and Terry Prince, the director of legal and business Affairs at CAA Sports LLC,” the amended complaint said. “It remained online with no material changes for 14 months before Balelo suddenly objected and threatened litigation — weaponizing the issue in order to create pretext for yet another set of demands and concessions.”
“The sudden demand that Kingsbarn terminate plaintiffs was instead a retaliatory measure against Hayes for resisting the constant and improper demands of Balelo and (Ohtani),” the complaint added. “Defendants further calculated that, with plaintiffs removed, they could more easily extract financial concessions from the project and enrich themselves at plaintiffs’ expense.”
The singer D4vd called off a series of upcoming tour dates, including a concert this weekend at Los Angeles’ Greek Theatre, as police investigate his connection to the death of a teenage Inland Empire girl whose decomposed body was discovered this month in a car registered to the musician.
A representative for the Greek said the show, which was scheduled for Saturday night, had been canceled. Other tour dates in San Francisco and in Europe had either been removed from or were listed as canceled on Ticketmaster’s website by Friday afternoon.
An event at L.A.’s Grammy Museum scheduled for Wednesday — in which D4vd planned to perform and to take part in a conversation about his work — has also been called off. A representative for D4vd didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last week, D4vd, 20, announced that he would release a deluxe edition of his 2025 album, “Withered,” on Friday, but the project hadn’t appeared on streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music by Friday morning.
Police are investigating the singer’s ties to Celeste Rivas, who was reported missing in April 2024 and whose whereabouts were a mystery until this week, when authorities identified her remains after they found a body in the trunk of a Tesla in a Hollywood tow lot on Sept. 8.
Stanford University’s student newspaper is suing the Trump administration, claiming the threat to deport foreign students for speaking out against Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza is chilling free speech.
That threat is hampering the paper’s ability to cover campus demonstrations and to get protesters to speak on the record, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court in Northern California.
Some Stanford Daily writers, who are foreigners in the country on student visas, have even turned down assignments to write about unrest in the Middle East because they’re afraid they’ll be deported. Writers have also asked the paper to remove previously published stories from its website, citing the same concerns, the lawsuit says.
“In the United States of America, no one should fear a midnight knock on the door for voicing the wrong opinion,” the newspaper’s lawyers wrote in their complaint.
The suit accuses Trump administration officials, specifically Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Homeland Security Secretary Kristin Noem, of placing their statutory authority to deport a foreign visa holder whose beliefs they deem un-American ahead of the constitutional right — guaranteed by the 1st Amendment— to free speech.
“When a federal statute collides with First Amendment rights,” the newspaper’s lawyers wrote, “the Constitution prevails.”
Tricia McLaughlin, spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, scoffed at the lawsuit, calling it “baseless.”
“There is no room in the United States for the rest of the world’s terrorist sympathizers, and we are under no obligation to admit them or let them stay here,” she said in a statement.
The lawsuit — which was filed by the 133-year-old student newspaper, not by the university itself — is the most recent salvo in an increasingly bitter fight between Trump and many of the nation’s elite universities. The president has made clear he sees top schools as hotbeds of liberal ideology and breeding grounds for anti-American sentiment.
His weapon of choice is to threaten to withhold billions of dollars in federal research grants from institutions that refuse to adopt policies on issues such as diversity, transgender rights and Israel that fall in line with his Make America Great Again ideology.
Critics call Trump’s campaign an attack on academic freedom, but fearing massive budget cuts, several Ivy League schools — including the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia and Brown — have recently cut deals with the Trump administration in an attempt to limit the damage.
Stanford announced this week that it will be forced to lay off hundreds of employees as a result of cuts to research funding and changes to federal tax laws.
The Stanford Daily’s lawsuit focuses on two unnamed students, John and Jane Doe, who the paper’s lawyers say began self-censoring out of a well-founded fear of having their visas revoked and being deported.
Rubio has claimed that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows the secretary of State to revoke a noncitizen’s legal status if it is decided the person’s actions or statements “compromise a compelling United States foreign policy interest.”
Rubio used that interpretation to justify the March arrest of Mahmoud Khalil, a legal U.S. resident and pro-Palestinian activist at Columbia University who was held in a Louisiana jail before a federal judge ordered his release.
The complaint cites the cases of two other foreign students — one at Columbia and one at Tufts — who were arrested for participating in pro-Palestinian campus demonstrations.
At Stanford, the plaintiff referred to as Jane Doe was a member of the group Students for Justice in Palestine. She has published online commentary accusing Israel of committing genocide and perpetuating apartheid, according to the lawsuit. She has also used the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which has become a flash point in the Israel-Gaza debate.
Referencing the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea — which includes Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip — the slogan is viewed as a call for freedom and self-determination by Palestinians. To many Israelis, it sounds like a call for their total destruction.
As a result, Doe’s profile appeared on the Canary Mission, a pro-Israel website that creators say is devoted to outing “hatred of the USA, Israel and Jews.” Department of Homeland Security officials have acknowledged they consult the website’s profiles — most of which are of students and faculty at elite universities — for information on people worthy of investigation.
As a result, since March, Jane Doe has deleted her social media accounts and has “refrained from publishing and voicing her true opinions regarding Palestine and Israel,” the lawsuit claims.
John Doe has participated in pro-Palestine demonstrations, has accused Israel of genocide and chanted, “From the river to the sea.” But after the Trump administration started targeting campus demonstrators for deportation, he “refrained from publishing a study containing criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza,” according to the lawsuit.
Unlike Jane Doe, John has since resumed public criticism of Israel despite the threat of deportation, according to the lawsuit.
He inveighs against illegal immigration in terms more appropriate for a vermin infestation. He wants all people without papers deported immediately, damn the cost. He thinks Los Angeles is a cesspool and that flying the Mexican flag in the United States is an act of insurrection. He uses the internet mostly to share crude videos and photos depicting Latinos as subhuman.
But every time I hear the chief architect of Donald Trump’s scorched earth immigration policies rail in uglier and uglier terms, I recall another xenophobe I hadn’t thought of in awhile.
For nearly 30 years, Glenn Spencer fought illegal immigration in Los Angeles and beyond with a singular obsession. The former Sherman Oaks resident kicked off his campaign, he told The Times in a 2001 profile, after seeing Latinos looting during the 1992 L.A. riots and thinking, “Oh, my God, there are so many of them and they are so out of control.”
Spencer was a key volunteer who pushed for the passage of Prop. 187, the 1994 California ballot initiative that sought to make life miserable for undocumented immigrants and was so punitive that a federal judge later ruled it unconstitutional. A multiplatform influencer before that became commonplace, Spencer hosted a local radio show, produced videos that he mailed to all members of Congress warning about an “invasion” and turned his vitriolic newsletter into a website, American Patrol, that helped connect nativist groups across the country.
American Patrol’s home page was a collection of links to newspaper articles about suspected undocumented immigrants alleged to have committed crimes. While Spencer regularly trashed Muslims and other immigrants, he directed most of his bile at Mexicans.
A “Family Values” button on the website, in the colors of the Mexican flag, highlighted sex crimes allegedly committed by undocumented immigrants. Editorial cartoons featured a Mexican flag piercing a hole in California with the caption “Sink-hole de Mayo.”
Long before conservative activists recorded themselves infiltrating the conferences of political enemies, Spencer was doing it. He provoked physical fights at protests and published reams of digital nonsense against Latino politicians, once superimposing a giant sombrero on an image of Antonio Villaraigosa with the epithet, “Viva Mexico!”
On the morning Villaraigosa, the future L.A. mayor, was to be sworn in as speaker of the assembly in 1998, every seat in the legislative chamber was topped by a flier labeling him a communist and leader of the supposed Mexican takeover of California.
“I don’t remember if his name was on it, but it was all his terminology,” said Villaraigosa, who recalled how Spencer helped make his college membership in the Chicano student group MEChA an issue in his 2001 mayoral loss to Jim Hahn. “But he never had the balls to talk to me in person.”
Spencer became the Johnny Appleseed of the modern-day Know Nothing movement, lecturing to groups of middle-aged gringos about his work — first across the San Fernando Valley, then in small towns where Latinos were migrating in large numbers for the first time.
“California [it] has often been said is America’s future. Let me tell you about your future,” he told the Council of Conservative Citizens in Virginia in 1999.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller speaks with the media outside the White House in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2025.
(Saul Loeb/ AFP via Getty Images)
Spencer is the person most responsible for mainstreaming the lie of Reconquista, the wacko idea that Mexicans came to the U.S. not for economic reasons but because of a plot concocted by the Mexican government to take back the lands lost in the 1848 Mexican-American War. He wrote screeds like “Is Jew-Controlled Hollywood Brainwashing Americans?” and threatened libel lawsuits against anyone — myself included — who dared point out that he was a racist.
He was a favorite punching bag of the mainstream media, a slovenly suburban Ahab doomed to fail. The Times wrote in 2001 that Spencer “foresaw millions of converts” to his anti-immigrant campaign, “only to see his temple founder.”
Moving to southern Arizona in 2002, the better to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border, Spencer spent the rest of his life trying to sell state and federal authorities on border-monitoring technology he developed that involved planes, drones and motion-detection sensors. His move inspired other conservatives to monitor the U.S.-Mexico border on their own.
By the Obama era, he was isolated even from other anti-immigrant activists for extremist views like banning foreign-language media and insisting that every person who came to this country illegally was a drug smuggler. Even the rise of Trump didn’t bring Spencer and his work back into the limelight.
He was so forgotten that I didn’t even realize he was dead until Googling his name recently, after enduring another Miller rant. Spencer’s hometown Sierra Vista’s Herald Review was the only publication I found that made any note of his death from cancer in 2022 at age 85, describing his life’s work as bringing “the crisis of illegal immigration to the forefront of the American public’s consciousness.”
That’s a whitewash worthy of Tom Sawyer’s picket fence.
We live in Glenn Spencer’s world, a place where the nastier the rhetoric against illegal immigration and the crueler the government’s efforts against all migrants, the better. Every time a xenophobe makes Latinos out to be an invading force, every time someone posts a racist message on social media or Miller throws another tantrum on Fox News, Glenn Spencer gets his evil wings.
Spencer “stood out among a vile swamp of racists and crackpots like a tornado supercell on radar,” said Brian Levin, chair of the California Civil Rights Department’s Commission on the State of Hate and founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at Cal State San Bernardino, who monitored American Patrol for years. “What’s frightening now is that hate like his used to be well-segregated from the mainstream. Now, the guardrails are off, and what Spencer advocated for is federal policy.”
I first found out about Spencer in 1999 as a student activist at Chapman University. Spencer applauded the Anaheim Union High School District’s decision to sue Mexico for the cost of educating undocumented immigrants’ children, describing those of us who opposed it as communists — when he was being nice. His American Patrol described MEChA, which I, like Villaraigosa, belonged to, as a “scourge” and a “sickness.”
His website was disgusting, but it became a must-read of mine. I knew even then that ignoring hate allows it to fester, and I wanted to figure out why people like Spencer despised people like me, my family and my friends. So I regularly covered him and his allies in my early years as a reporter with an obsession that was a reverse mirror of his. Colleagues and even activists said my work was a waste of time — that people like Spencer were wheezing artifacts who would eventually disappear as the U.S. embraced Latinos and immigrants.
And here we are.
Spencer usually sent me legal threats whenever I wrote about his ugly ways — threats that went nowhere. That’s why I was surprised at how relatively polite he was the last time we communicated, in 2019.
I reached out via email asking for an interview for a Times podcast I hosted about the 25th anniversary of Prop. 187. By then, Spencer was openly criticizing Trump’s planned border wall, which he found a waste of money and not nearly as efficient as his own system. Spencer initially said he would consider my request, while sending me an article he wrote that blamed Prop. 187’s demise on then-California Gov. Gray Davis and Mexico’s president at the time, Ernesto Zedillo.
When I followed up a few months later, Spencer bragged about the legacy of his website, which he hadn’t regularly updated since 2013 due to declining health. The American Patrol archives “would convince the casual observer that The Times did what it could do [to] defeat my efforts and advance the cause of illegal immigration,” Spencer wrote. “Do I think The Times has changed its spots? No. Will I agree to an interview? No.”
Levin hadn’t heard about Spencer’s death until we talked.
“I thought he went into irrelevance,” he admitted with a chuckle that he quickly cut off, realizing he had forgotten about Spencer’s legacy in the era of Trump.
“We ignored that cough, that speck in the X-ray,” Levin concluded, now somber. “And now, we have cancer.”
July signals summer fun, Independence Day and … Emmy nominations.
Nominations for TV’s biggest awards show will be announced Tuesday. This year’s field of small-screen offerings includes returning favorites like HBO’s “The White Lotus” and breakout hits such as Apple TV+’s “The Studio.”
Here is everything you need to know about this year’s Emmy nominations.
When will Emmy nominations be announced?
The 77th Emmy Awards nominations will be revealed Tuesday beginning at 8:30 a.m. PT/11:30 a.m. ET. The nominees will be announced by Television Academy Chair Cris Abrego alongside “What We Do in the Shadows” star Harvey Guillén and “Running Point’s” Brenda Song.
“Hacks” and “The Studio” are expected to lead the comedy pack. Other contenders include “The Bear,” “Only Murders in the Building,” “Abbott Elementary,” “Shrinking,” “What We Do in the Shadows” and “Nobody Wants This.”
Drama series nominees could include “Severance,” “The Pitt,” “The White Lotus” and “The Last of Us.” “Slow Horses,” “Andor,” “The Diplomat” and “Squid Game” are also in the running.
The limited series front-runners, meanwhile, include “Adolescence,” “The Penguin,” “Dying for Sex,” “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story” and “Disclaimer.”
After nominations are announced, final-round voting will commence Aug. 18 and conclude Aug. 27.
When are the 2025 Emmy Awards?
The 77th Emmy Awards will take place Sept. 14 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET at downtown’s Peacock Theater in L.A. Live. The ceremony, hosted for the first time by Nate Bargatze, will air live on CBS and stream on Paramount+ the next day.
Jesse Collins Entertainment is producing the Emmy Awards for the third consecutive year.
The Creative Arts Emmys will be held Sept. 6 and 7.
Jacqui Heinrich, senior White House correspondent for Fox News, just vetted the story of her own engagement to U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick on Tuesday. The verdict? It ain’t fake news.
The Pennsylvania Republican asked Heinrich for her hand in marriage in a lavender field in Provence, France, according to People. Promoting that story, the journalist wrote on X, “Fact check: true.” Then she tacked on a couple of appropriately lovey emojis.
“The cooking was the dealmaker. Congrats Jacqui!” Fox News contributor Joe Concha said in comments. Chief foreign correspondent Trey Yingst chimed in with, “Love this news,” while Jessica Tarlov, who speaks for Democrats on “The Five,” wrote, “Ahhhhhh congratulations!!!”
Fitzpatrick popped the question on June 29, People reported, before he had to hustle back to vote on the just-passed One Big Beautiful Bill Act. His inspiration came from something Heinrich told the Boston Globe last summer, ahead of the 2024 election: “I’ve always dreamed of eating my way through the French Riviera and Provence, with sun-drenched days at the lavender fields punctuated by crisp wines and salty butter.”
So Fitzpatrick, 51, booked a summer trip to France as a birthday gift for Heinrich, who turns 37 in November. But the journalist was concerned, she told the celebrity outlet, that her beau would have to cut the trip short to vote against Trump’s bill, which the president signed into law on July 4. Did Fitzpatrick want to postpone the trip, she wondered?
“He was like, ‘We are going. We’re going to the lavender fields. All I want is to see the lavender fields at sunrise,’” she told People. “All the time I’ve known this man, he has never been desperate to see a field of flowers at dawn. So I had a feeling that [a proposal] was the goal.”
What was supposed to be a 10-day trip was whittled down to only a couple of days.
After arriving in Nice, France, they drove two hours in darkness to catch the sunrise in the town of Valensole, known for its lavender and truffles. The town is built into a hill overlooking a small river valley, and a lavender festival is held there annually on the third Sunday in July. But the OBBBA waited for no sweet-smelling shrub, so attending the festival was definitely out.
Fitzpatrick had an agenda. He stopped at one particular lavender field and suggested Heinrich go for a stroll while he took some photos of her, she told People. As she took in the view, a photographer and a drone appeared, she said, and Fitzpatrick was asking her to marry him and presenting a ring he had procured from her family’s longtime jeweler.
The photos, as seen on the outlet’s website, are lovely. Heinrich, who has been dating Fitzpatrick since the 2021 Kennedy Center Honors, said yes.
“I love his brain,” Heinrich told People of her fiance, a five-term congressman who was previously an FBI special agent and federal prosecutor. Fitzpatrick was also embedded with U.S. Special Forces during Operation Iraqi Freedom, according to his biography.
“I love the way he approaches problem-solving and solving complex issues. He’s strong and a man of faith, who brings me closer to God.,” Heinrich said. “He’s sweet and gentle and kind — all of the easy qualities in a person that just make him a joy to be around and life brighter.”
There’s also a handy little bonus in this pairing, as revealed on the congressman’s website: Should Heinrich find herself in need of an attorney, a certified public accountant or an emergency medical technician, she’s definitely covered, because Fitzpatrick is licensed as all three.
US president unveils site for applicants to register interest for ‘Trump Card’ granting path to citizenship.
United States President Donald Trump has said his administration is accepting applications for his so-called “Trump Card”, which promises applicants permanent residency for $5m.
Trump made the announcement on Wednesday as he unveiled a new website for prospective applicants to register their interest.
Visitors to TrumpCard.gov are encouraged to submit their name, region and email address, and specify whether they are applying as an individual or a business, in order “to be notified the moment access opens”.
“Thousands have been calling and asking how they can sign up to ride a beautiful road in gaining access to the Greatest Country and Market anywhere in the World,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social.
“It’s called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THE WAITING LIST IS NOW OPEN.”
Trump first proposed the residency visa in February, saying his administration would offer wealthy applicants a “gold card” that grants residency and work rights as well as a path to citizenship.
“They’ll be wealthy, and they’ll be successful, and they’ll be spending a lot of money, and paying a lot of taxes and employing a lot of people,” Trump said at the time.
In April, Trump displayed a sample visa – a gold-coloured card bearing his visage – to reporters on board Air Force One.
Trump administration officials have suggested that the card will replace the EB-5 immigrant investor visa programme, which grants permanent residency to immigrants who invest at least $1.05m in the US, or $800,000 in designated economically distressed areas.
It is unclear what criteria applicants may have to meet apart from the $5m price tag, though the Trump administration has indicated there will be a vetting process.
Under current immigration rules, lawful permanent residents can apply for naturalisation after five years provided they have a basic grasp of English, and they can demonstrate they are of “good moral character” and have an “attachment to the principles and ideals of the US Constitution.”
Billy Joel has canceled all upcoming concerts, revealing he has been diagnosed with a brain disorder that causes physical and mental issues.
Joel, 76, has normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH, according to a statement posted Friday on the piano man’s social media. “This condition has been exacerbated by recent concert performances, leading to problems with hearing, vision and balance,” the statement said.
“Under his doctor’s instructions, Billy is undergoing specific physical therapy and has been advised to refrain from performing during this recovery period.”
Symptoms of NPH — in which cerebrospinal fluid accumulates in the ventricles of the brain but pressure doesn’t increase — include difficulty walking, according to the Alzheimer’s Assn. Sufferers walk with a wide stance and their bodies leaning forward, as if they were trying to maintain balance on a boat.
The association’s website says that another symptom is cognitive decline, including slowed thinking, loss of interest in daily activities, forgetfulness, short-term memory loss and difficulty completing ordinary tasks. Later in the disease, bladder control can become an issue.
NPH is one of the few causes of dementia or cognitive decline that can be controlled or reversed with treatment, the association’s website says. Surgical treatment usually involves placement of a shunt. The condition is often misdiagnosed as Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s disease.
Danny Bonaduce of “The Partridge Family,” radio and wrestling fame was diagnosed with NPH in 2023. The 65-year-old said in a 2024 interview that he initially thought he’d had a stroke, while doctors thought it was early-onset dementia or Alzheimer’s. It took “the better part of a year” for him to get a correct diagnosis, he said.
Bonaduce’s memory loss appears to have been serious: He showed the interviewer a photo of himself in a wheelchair checking out the house where he and his wife now live. He said he has no memory of visiting the place multiple times before moving there.
Billy Joel’s message Friday follows his mid-March announcement that he would postpone his upcoming tour to manage his health after surgery for an unspecified condition. At the time, the singer expected a full recovery after physical therapy.
Now, the statement said, Joel is “thankful for the excellent care he is receiving and is fully committed to prioritizing his health” and “looks forward to the day when he can once again take the stage.”
“I’m sincerely sorry to disappoint our audience, and thank you for understanding,” Joel said in Friday’s statement.
In late February, the “Just the Way You Are” singer fell after performing “It’s Still Rock and Roll to Me” in Connecticut. He quickly recovered; it’s unclear whether that incident was a symptom of the disease or simply coincidental.
Times staff writer Alexandra Del Rosario contributed to this report.
The Marks & Spencer website is down, leaving users unable to browse, as the retailer continues to deal with the aftermath of a cyber-attack last month.
Customers have been unable to make online orders for weeks but on Wednesday evening users were met with a screen reading: “Sorry you can’t browse the site currently. We’re making some updates and will be back soon.”
Following the cyber attack, M&S said some personal customer data was stolen in the recent cyber attack, which could include telephone numbers, home addresses and dates of birth.
The High Street giant assured customers that the data theft did not include useable payment or card details, or any account passwords, but added that online order histories could be included in the personal data stolen.
The attack took place over the Easter weekend, initially affecting click-and-collect and contactless payments. A few days later M&S put a banner on its website apologising that online ordering was not available.
M&S estimates that the cyber attack will hit this year’s profits by around £300m – more than analysts had expected and the equivalent to a third of its profit – a sum that would only partly be covered by any insurance pay-out.
“Over the last few weeks, we have been managing a highly sophisticated and targeted cyber-attack, which has led to a limited period of disruption,” said M&S chief executive Stuart Machin.
Police are focusing on a notorious group of English-speaking hackers, known as Scattered Spider, the BBC has learned.
The same group is believed to have been behind attacks on the Co-op and Harrods, but it was M&S that suffered the biggest impact.
DIMITAR DILKOFF/POOL/AFP
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