year

Disneyland Park has now hit 900 million visitors in the more than 70 years that it has been open. Since its opening in 1955, the iconic theme park has transformed California’s entertainment landscape.

The latest attendance figure was described in a new documentary called “Disneyland Handcrafted,” chronicling the creation of the theme park. The film, which includes footage from the Walt Disney Archives, will stream on Disney+.

In 2024 — the most recent year data was available — Disneyland’s attendance ticked up 0.5% to 17.3 million, according to a report from the Themed Entertainment Assn. Like many other theme parks, Disney does not release internal attendance figures.

Walt Disney Co.’s theme parks, cruise ships and vacation resorts have been a key economic driver for the Burbank media and entertainment company.

Last year, almost 57% of the company’s operating income was generated by the tourism and leisure segment, known as Disney’s “experiences” business. That sector reported revenue of $36.2 billion for fiscal year 2025, a 6% bump compared to the previous year. Operating income increased 8% to nearly $10 billion.

Disney has said it will invest $60 billion into its experiences segment, underscoring the importance of that business to the company. At Disneyland Resort in Anaheim, that could mean at least $1.9 billion of development on projects including an expansion of the Avengers Campus and a “Coco”-themed boat ride at Disney California Adventure, as well as an “Avatar”-inspired area.

Over its 70 years, Disneyland has undergone many changes and expansions. Though some of its original attractions still exist, including Peter Pan’s Flight, Dumbo the Flying Elephant and the Mark Twain Riverboat, the park has evolved to align more with its Hollywood cinematic properties and expanded in 2019 to include a “Star Wars”-themed land.

GENEVA — President Trump will return to the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting of business, political and cultural elites in Davos, Switzerland, next week, leading a record-large U.S. delegation, organizers said Tuesday.

The Geneva-based think tank says Trump, whose assertive foreign policy on issues as diverse as Venezuela and Greenland in recent months has stirred concerns among U.S. friends and foes alike, will be accompanied by five Cabinet secretaries and other top officials for the event running from Monday through Jan. 23.

A total of 850 CEOs and chairs of the world’s top companies will be among the 3,000 participants from 130 countries expected in the Alpine resort this year, the forum says.

Forum President Borge Brende says six of the Group of Seven leaders — including Trump — will attend, as well as presidents Volodymyr Zelenskky of Ukraine, Ahmad al-Sharaa of Syria and others. A total of 64 heads of state or government are expected so far — also a record — though that number could increase before the start of the event, he said.

China’s delegation will be headed by Vice Premier He Lifeng, Beijing’s top trade official, Brende said.

Among the scores of other high-profile attendees expected are European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, World Trade Organization Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala as well as tech industry titans Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.

Brende said the U.S. delegation will include Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff.

The forum, which held its first annual meeting in 1971, has long been a hub of dialogue, debate and deal-making. Trump has already attended twice while president, and was beamed in by video last year just days after being inaugurated for his second term.

Critics call it a venue for the world’s elites to hobnob and do business that sometimes comes at the expense of workers, the impoverished or people on the margins of society. The forum counters that its stated goal is “improving the state of the world” and insists many advocacy groups, academics and cultural leaders have an important role too.

This year’s edition will be the first annual meeting not headed by forum founder Klaus Schwab, who resigned last year. He’s been succeeded by interim co-chairs Larry Fink, chairman and CEO of New York-based investment management company BlackRock, and Andre Hoffmann, the vice chairman of Swiss pharmaceuticals company Roche Holdings.

WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee will spend millions of dollars to cement control of voter registration efforts that have traditionally been entrusted to nonprofit advocacy groups and individual political campaigns, a shift that party leaders hope will increase their chances in this year’s midterm elections.

The initiative, being announced on Tuesday, will begin in Arizona and Nevada with at least $2 million for training organizers. It’s the first step in what could become the DNC’s largest-ever push to sign up new voters, with a particular focus on young people, voters of color and people without college educations. All of those demographics drifted away from Democrats in the last presidential race, which returned Republican Donald Trump to the White House.

“It’s a crisis. And for our party to actually win elections, we have to actually create more Democrats,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in an interview with the Associated Press.

Martin added that “we need all hands on deck, not just the outside groups,” as the party tries to win back control of Congress and break Republicans’ unified control in Washington.

Democrats have spent decades relying on advocacy organizations and civic groups to register voters, but those efforts are generally required by law to be nonpartisan. Party leaders want a more explicitly partisan approach like the one used by Republicans, who have relied less on outside groups to register and mobilize their voter base.

Martin said allied nonprofits are “really important partners” that have “done amazing work to actually get people engaging in their democracy.”

“But in this moment right now, given the significant disadvantage that we have and the advantage the Republicans have, we actually have to do more,” he said.

The DNC initiative aims to reach non-college-educated young voters by recruiting organizers from a wide array of backgrounds, like gig economy workers and young parents, who have often been overlooked in the party’s grassroots efforts. Democrats hope that organizers’ own perspectives and experiences will help party strategists learn how to connect with Americans in blue-collar roles who are disaffected with politics, whom the party fears it has lost touch with in recent elections.

“I think it’s incredible that Democrats are actually investing in reaching Democratic voters who have been left behind,” said Santiago Mayer, founder of Voters for Tomorrow, a progressive political youth group that is collaborating with the DNC. “We got killed on persuasion in 2024, and I think this is a really important step, fixing it and ensuring that we do not have a repeat of that in 2026.”

The program will kick off with dozens of videos from lawmakers, activists and party leaders across the country. Democrats hope to boost enthusiasm for the program through interstate party competitions throughout the year.

If successful, the investments will provide a foundation that Democrats can rely upon beyond the fall midterm elections.

“This is a critical piece of the infrastructure that we’re building to actually not only win the moment in ’26 but to win the future,” Martin said. “For us to put ourselves in a position to win in ’28 and ’30 and ’32, we actually have to keep doing this work and do it consistently.”

Brown writes for the Associated Press.

THINKING of heading on a UK staycation this year?

Here’s some inspiration: we’ve rounded up our most popular holiday parks booked via Sun £9.50 Holidays in 2025.

There’s truly something for everyone in these parks, from families with water babies and adrenaline junkies, to resorts with beachy cocktail lounges and poolside saunas.

Seal Bay Resort

Seal Bay was the top pick for Sun £9.50 holidaymakers last year – and it’s clear to see why.

The Cove resort is in Selsey, Chichester – where there’s plenty of attractions to visit such as the Harbour Park amusements and the Tangmere Military Aviation Museum.

However there’s no need to leave the resort itself, with so many activities to choose from.

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With digital darts, climbing walls, axe throwing, archery and surfing on the cards, you won’t be stuck finding something to do here.

Hendra

Hendra is a five-star, family-run holiday park in Newquay, Cornwall.

This resort has loads of unique events and activities you won’t find at many other places.

Choose from bush craft survival skills, sea scooters, making your own cuddly bear and plenty more activities that make lasting family memories.

Accommodation comes as classic caravans, houses and retreat lodges – all with a contemporary style and a super homely, cosy feel.

There’s plenty more unique things to do on your doorstep, too, from visiting the local Lobster Hatchery to the popular Camel Creek Adventure Park.

Unity Beach

In pretty Brean Sands, Somerset, Unity Beach is a top choice for UK holiday parks.

It’s great for families who like to make a splash, with its indoor pool, outdoor heated pool, waterslides and toddler splash park.

There’s also an 18-hole golf course and all-weather sports pitch for the sporty ones in the family, plus there’s discounts to be had at Brean Theme Park for the adrenaline junkies.

The food here is particularly good. It can be hard to choose what to have for dinner when picking between pizza, fish and chips, Chinese and Indian cuisine.

Parkdean Resorts Trecco Bay

Trecco Bay Holiday Park remains a popular choice, and it’s even one of the largest holiday parks in Europe.

Known for its buzzing atmosphere, it’s hard to run out of things to do at Trecco Bay.

Take little ones along to the outdoor wet play zone, bowling, amusements and more.

The site’s cocktail bar Aloha, on the other hand, is a popular spot for the grown-ups.

If you do want to leave the giant park and explore the local area, there’s a range of award-winning beaches to explore nearby – Trecco Bay Beach itself has just been awarded a Blue Flag for the 14th year in a row.

St Ives Bay Beach Resort

St Ives Bay Beach Resort in Cornwall has some seriously breathtaking views, and accommodation just steps from the beach.

Choose to stay in a Stargazer caravan for the ultimate nighttime view, or a brand new luxury pod for a mini slice of coastal paradise.

Spend your days lazing by the indoor pool or putting your spare change to good use in the site’s arcade.

It goes without saying that the beach here has to explored – and there’s even a surf school if you want to get out onto the water in style.

Parkdean Resorts Camber Sands

Camber Sands in Sussex is a popular beach destination for a reason – and it’s no surprise that Camber Sands Holiday Park is a popular place to stay, too.

Take your pick from four heated pools and waterslides, racing the family in fun karts, or reaching new heights at the Clip & Climb.

Accommodation sees brand new, pet-friendly caravans and lodges just a stone’s throw away from the beach.

Outside, there’s seven miles of golden sands to stroll, and the pretty medieval town of Rye is only a 10-minute drive away.

Parkdean Resorts Southview

Southview Holiday Park near Skegness has plenty to see and do within the resort itself, as well as out and about.

Kids can try their hand at pirate mini golf, an outdoor adventure playground, a gaming arena and more.

And for the parents, burn some energy in a gym session or unwind in the indoor pool complete with a sauna and steam room.

Nearby you’ve got the beaches of Skegness and the rollercoasters of Fantasy Island to visit, as well as fun indoor activities like Laser Quest if a rainy day strikes.

Parkdean Resorts Cayton Bay

Cayton Bay Holiday Park in North Yorkshire is an activity-packed holiday park in a coastal setting.

If you and the family are into all things adventure activities, you won’t get bored here.

Spend your days climbing high ropes, running around in bumper zorbs and even trying out hoverboards.

Accommodation comes in the form of caravans and luxury lodges – and if you’re feeling ultra-fancy, you can opt for a cosy lodge with a hot tub.

Nearby you’ve got Scarborough harbour and Filey Beach to explore.

Parkdean Resorts Kessingland Beach

Kessingland Beach Holiday Park sits on a pretty Suffolk coast with plenty of beach and forest to explore.

Whether you’re heading out for a family bike ride or taking a bucket and spade to the golden sands on your doorstep, this holiday park is in a pretty unbeatable location.

And if you want to spend the day out and about, the nearby Somerleyton Hall and Gardens has loads to explore, including a hedge maze.

Southwold pier is also nearby, lined with amusements and ice cream shops.

Hartman was previously (legally) growing cannabis on the ranch. However, when the market became oversaturated, it was no longer profitable to be a small-scale cannabis grower in the Santa Ynez Valley, he said.

Hartman loves growing crops, and his mother mentioned protea, an ancient type of flowering plant found in South Africa and Australia. Protea are drought-tolerant and do well in California’s Mediterranean climate, he said. In the summer, the staff only has to provide a gallon of water to the plants.

Hartman said his family took a “massive gamble” and picked out 16 of the best cultivars that they thought would grow well, planting them in 2020. They’ve found the South African varieties, like the Safari Sunset and Goldstrike, do the best.

“These protea plants go back in the fossil record like 300 million years,” Hartman said. “They’re some of the oldest flowers on the planet.”

Hartman said he plans to open a nursery, hopefully later this year, so people can buy potted protea and plant them around their homes, given how drought-tolerant they are.

The tour through the ranch’s 8 acres of proteas includes a U-pick option where guests can take cut flowers home.

Train travel spurs stories and memories in a way that air travel just doesn’t. Maybe this is a simple result of traveling more slowly and closer to the ground. Or maybe it’s something else.

After publishing a story about my time on the 43-hour Southwest Chief from Los Angeles to Chicago, many wrote in to tell me their own favorite moments on trains. I’ve loved reading these tales. For a possible future story, I wanted to expand the invitation to keep on sharing your memories. In the form below, tell us where your favorite train trip took you, and what made it special.

To get you started, here are two of my favorite train moments:

One: Thirty years ago on VIA Rail’s cross-country Canadian train from Vancouver to Toronto, a snafu down the line forced us off of the train’s usual route through the Rockies. The detour took us on a historic route near Banff and Lake Louise that all the experts aboard (and there were many) said was even more scenic than the usual way. Jagged peaks! Green valleys! Ecstatic rail fans!

Two: Last year on the Southwest Chief, I woke up at dawn as we were rumbling through the Arizona desert. The sunrise turned the scene golden.

Now it’s your turn.

Rams linebacker Samson Ebukam scores on an interception return against the Kansas City Chiefs in the Rams’ 54-51 win at the Coliseum on Nov. 19, 2018.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

On Nov. 19, 2018, the Rams and Kansas City Chiefs were scheduled to play their Week 11 game in Mexico, but the game was moved to the Coliseum because of poor field conditions caused by a Shakira concert.

The Southland was mourning the victims of a mass shooting in Thousand Oaks and reeling from fires that ravaged much of the region.

With thousands of first responders in the crowd, the Rams and Chiefs put on a show, combining for 1,001 yards of offense. A long touchdown pass from Goff to tight end Gerald Everett with less than two minutes left gave the Rams a 54-51 victory.

Hi, and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. Finally, we are concluding the greatest Dodgers at each position series with managers.

Before we get a to the manager’s countdown, let’s catch up a bit. Not much has happened since the Dodgers signed reliever Edwin Díaz, which was covered in the last newsletter.

The Dodgers avoided arbitration with all four players who were eligible:

Left-handed reliever Anthony Banda was given a raise to $1.625 million compared to the $1 million he got last season; outfielder Alex Call will get $1.6 million, a nice jump from the $769,000 he made last season; Brusdar Graterol will get $2.8 million next season, the same he made last season, which he missed because of injury; and reliever Brock Stewart will get $1.3 million compared to the $870,000 he got in 2025.

In other news, outfielder Justin Dean, who was claimed by the Giants when the Dodgers removed him from the 40-man roster, has subsequently been put on waivers by the Giants, so it’s possible he could return to L.A.

And for those of you still emailing, worried about the Dodgers re-signing Kiké Hernández, remember he had surgery on his elbow and won’t be able to play until the All-Star break. The best guess here is the Dodgers will not re-sign him until they can put him on the 60-day IL (which begins in spring training). That way he won’t count against the 40-man roster. In fact, they might wait until he’s ready to start baseball activities again. In short, it seems if he does come back next year it will be as a Dodger, unless some other team decides to throw a lot of money at him, which seems unlikely.

In the next newsletter later this week, we will look at the remaining free agents out there, including Cody Bellinger, who is apparently at an impasse in re-signing with the Yankees, mainly over the length of the contract.

Top 5 managers

Here are my picks for the top five managers in Dodgers history, followed by how all of you voted. Numbers listed are with the Dodgers only. Click on the manager’s name to be taken to the baseball-reference.com page with all their stats.

1. Walter Alston (1954-76, 2,040-1,613, .558 winning percentage, seven NL pennants, four World Series titles)

Alston began managing the Dodgers in 1954 when they still were in Brooklyn and remained manager until 1976, winning seven NL pennants (1955, 1956, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1966, 1974) and four World Series, (1955, 1959, 1963, 1965), three of them in Los Angeles.

Alston was named NL manager of the year six times. He had his number (24) retired by the team in 1977 and was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983. When he got his 2,000th win in the 1976 season, he became only the fifth manager to reach that milestone. There are only 12 now. He is one of five managers to win at least four World Series. The others: Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, Connie Mack and Joe Torre.

Alston died at age 72 on Oct. 1, 1984.

A great Alston story, recounted in many books on the Dodgers, comes from the time when teams still traveled by bus. One time, the bus the Dodgers were using was old and had no air conditioning. Several players spent the trip yelling and getting on Lee Scott, the club’s traveling secretary, for getting them such a rickety bus.

Alston, sitting in the front, stood up and said: “I don’t want to hear another word about this bus. And if anyone has something more to say about it, he can step off right now and we’ll settle it right here.” No one said a word after that.

Legendary Times columnist Jim Murray wrote the following when Alston retired:

“I don’t know whether you’re Republican or Democrat or Catholic or Protestant, and I’ve known you for 18 years,” Murray wrote of Alston. “You were as Middle-Western as a pitchfork. Black players who have a sure instinct for the closet bigot recognized immediately you didn’t know what prejudice was. There was no ‘side’ to Walter Alston. What you saw was what you got.”

You can read more about the life of Alston in this article.

2. Dave Roberts (2016-current, 944-575, .621, five NL pennants, three World Series titles)

The question isn’t whether Roberts deserves to be ranked ahead of Tommy Lasorda, the question is if he should be ranked ahead of Alston. Right now, Alston has him beat on longevity, but Roberts is gaining fast.

Roberts has the best winning percentage of any manager in history, minimum 1,000 games. He is 368 games above .500, which is 10th all time. The nine guys ahead of him are all in the Hall of Fame and all managed at least 600 more games than Roberts. He is one of only 11 managers with at least three World Series titles. All are in the Hall of Fame except Bruce Bochy, who will be. He is one of only 12 managers with at least five pennants. All are in the Hall except for Bochy and Vic Harris, a Negro Leagues manager.

Does he have his weaknesses? Sure. Every manager does, though. Is he helped by the fact the Dodgers pay a lot for players? Sure. But there have been managers throughout history who have led powerful teams nowhere.

The fact is, managing now is different than managing when Alston or even Lasorda was in charge. Analytics play a much bigger role now. Most front offices don’t favor such things as sacrifices or steals. The biggest responsibility now is probably keeping all 26 players satisfied with their role on the team. And, Roberts has gotten much better at managing a pitching staff the last couple of seasons.

I’m sure there will be those who will say “Roberts is a bum!” whenever the Dodgers lose a few games in a row next season. Those people are wrong and shouldn’t be listened to. There’s a reason many players are clamoring to play in L.A. One of those reasons is Roberts.

3. Tommy Lasorda (1976-96, 1,599-1,439, .526, four NL pennants, two World Series titles)

Can you imagine if social media existed in 1985? What would the reaction had been online after Lasorda let Tom Niedenfuer pitch to Jack Clark? And what would Lasorda’s reaction to that have been? The mind shudders at the thought.

Lasorda began his pro career in 1945 as a left-handed pitcher in the minors for the Philadelphia Phillies. After spending two years in the Army, he pitched one more season in the minors for the Phillies before the Dodgers drafted him in 1949. That began a long association with the Dodgers, with only a brief interruption to pitch for the Kansas City A’s in 1956 and as a minor leaguer with the New York Yankees in 1956 and 1957 before being reacquired by the Dodgers in 1957.

Lasorda pitched in four regular-season games for the 1955 World Series champion Dodgers and has a ring to show for it. He started against the St. Louis Cardinals on May 5 and had an interesting first inning. He walked Wally Moon, who took second on a wild pitch. Then he walked Bill Virdon. Another wild pitch put Virdon and Moon on second and third with Stan Musial at the plate. Musial struck out swinging. With Rip Repulski at the plate, Lasorda unleashed another wild pitch, and while Moon was sliding into home to score, he accidentally spiked Lasorda in the knee, opening up a gash deep enough to see bone. Lasorda, having waited years for this moment, covered up the injury, struck out Repulski and got Red Schoendienst to pop to first. When he limped to the dugout, manager Walter Alston saw his knee and took him out of the game. It was Lasorda’s only start for the Dodgers.

The Dodgers sent Lasorda back to the minors June 8 to make room for a bonus baby they had signed: Sandy Koufax.

But Lasorda is not on this list because of his pitching; he’s here because of his managing and the fact there may not have been a more colorful character in Dodgers history.

After retiring as a player in 1960, Lasorda became a scout for the Dodgers from 1961 to 1965. In 1966, he became a minor league manager and led the Ogden Dodgers to three league championships. He became manager of triple-A Spokane in 1969 and remained the manager when the team moved to Albuquerque in 1972. In 1973, he became the third-base coach for the Dodgers, who still were being managed by Alston.

Most figured Lasorda was the heir apparent to Alston, and Lasorda must have believed that too, because he turned down opportunities to interview for managing positions with the Montreal Expos and the Yankees.

Alston announced his retirement with four games remaining in the 1976 season and let Lasorda manage those final games. The Dodgers considered naming either Lasorda or first-base coach Jim Gilliam as the new manager but settled on Lasorda, who kept Gilliam as the first-base coach.

The rest, as they say, is history. It’s hard to write a good summary for someone who has led such a public life as Lasorda. We all know he managed the team to the NL pennant in his first two seasons, losing to the Yankees in the World Series both times. He managed the Dodgers to World Series titles in 1981 and 1988.

Some people think Lasorda was all flash and no substance, considering him to be an overrated manager. But Lasorda did a very smart thing in 1981. The season had been split into two halves by a strike, and Major League Baseball decided that the teams in first place when the strike began automatically would qualify for the postseason, playing the second-half winner of their division. Lasorda, realizing he had a playoff spot sewn up, started giving his bench guys, such as Jay Johnstone, Steve Yeager and Steve Sax, more playing time, getting them ready for the postseason. And who helped the Dodgers finally defeat the Yankees in the 1981 World Series? Guys such as Yeager and Johnstone, who had key hits in the six-game victory.

Lasorda’s final game as Dodgers manager was June 23, 1996, a 4-3 victory over the Houston Astros. He went to the hospital the next morning because of stomach pains. It turned out he had a heart attack. After taking time to recover, Lasorda announced his retirement on July 29. He finished with 1,599 victories, good for 23rd on the all-time list.

Lasorda died at 93 on Jan. 7, 2021. One of his final public appearances was during the 2020 World Series, when he watched the Dodgers win the title for the first time since his 1988 team.

He was quite the talker in his prime, so what better way to end this than with some Lasorda quotes:

“There are three types of baseball players: those who make it happen, those who watch it happen and those who wonder, ‘What happened?’”

“When you’re not playing up to your capability, you gotta try everything, to motivate, to get them going. All of them have to be on the same end of the rope to pull together. It’s playing for the name on the front of the shirt, not the back. Individualism gets you trophies and plaques. Play for the front, that wins championships. I try to remind them of that.”

“I walk into the clubhouse today and it’s like walking into the Mayo Clinic. We have four doctors, three therapists and five trainers. Back when I broke in, we had one trainer who carried a bottle of rubbing alcohol, and by the seventh inning he’d already drunk it.”

“When you say you’re a Padre, people ask when did you become a parent. When you say you’re a Cardinal, they tell you to work hard because the next step is Pope. But when you say you’re a Dodger, everybody knows you’re in the major leagues.”

“I don’t like the pitch count! How are you gonna develop your arm? If you’re a track man, you don’t say, ‘Hey, you can’t run too much.’ Or if you’re a boxer, you don’t say, ‘Hey, you can only box three rounds.’ It’s not right!”

“Listen, if you start worrying about what the people in the stands think of your decisions, before too long you’re up in the stands with them.”

4. Leo Durocher (1939-1946, 1948, 738-565, .566, one NL pennant)

Durocher was a fiery presence, always willing to pick a fight to spur his team to action. In 1947, some Dodgers players circulated a petition asking management not to put Jackie Robinson on the team. The team was training in Cuba when Durocher found out about the petition around midnight. He immediately called a team meeting and told the players what they could do with their petition. “I don’t care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a … zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make all of us rich. And if any of you can’t use the money, I will see that you are traded.”

5. Wilbert Robinson (1914-31, 1,375-1,341, .506, two NL pennants)

Robinson managed the Dodgers to two NL pennants and the team was so identified with him at the time that they were called the Brooklyn Robins for a while in his honor. In 1915, famous aviator Ruth Law was near the team’s spring training camp in Daytona Beach, Fla., and getting a lot of publicity for dropping golf balls from her plane on a nearby golf course. The Dodgers saw a chance to get in on this publicity and asked her if she would drop a baseball from her plane to a player down below, who would catch the ball. She said sure, but no player would volunteer to do it. Robinson, wanting to show his players they need to be tougher, said he’d do it. When the time came, Law realized she forgot to bring the baseball with her, but she did have a grapefruit (don’t ask me why). So, she dropped that instead. Robinson got the grapefruit, which exploded the moment it hit his mitt. Robinson was convinced the pulp covering him was his innards and that he was seriously injured. He called for help. Players rushed to his side, and once everyone figured out what had happened, he never lived it down. Robinson died in 1934 after falling in a bathroom and striking his head on the bathtub. He was 70.

The readers’ top five

There were 2,098 ballots sent in. First place received 12 points, second place nine, third place eight, fourth place seven and fifth place six points. For those of you who were wondering, I make my choices before I tally your results. Here are your choices:

1. Walter Alston, 1,420 first-place votes, 23,498 points
2. Tommy Lasorda, 501 first-place votes, 20,770 points
3. Dave Roberts, 163 first-place votes, 17,204 points
4. Leo Durocher, 7 first-place votes, 13,007 points
5. Joe Torre, 9,842 points

The next five: Wilbert Robinson, Burt Shotton, Chuck Dressen, Don Mattingly, Jim Tracy.

Scheduling note

We will be back at a more regular schedule now since, hold on to your hats, the first spring training game is just 40 days away.

And finally

Some special messages to Clayton Kershaw from members of the 2025 Dodgers. Watch and listen here.

Until next time…

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

FROM her stunning wedding dress to her magnificent coronation gown, Queen Elizabeth II wore incredible, priceless outfits throughout her lifetime.

Now, Buckingham Palace is set to open its doors for a new exhibition showing them off – along with hundreds of other items once worn by the late Queen.

The new exhibit is called Queen Elizabeth II: Her Life in Style and will open in April 2026.

The King’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace will display hundreds of items from evening dresses to simple accessories.

Caroline de Guitaut, Exhibition Curator and Surveyor of The King’s Works of Art said: “In the year that she would have turned 100 years old, this exhibition will be a celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s uniquely British style and her enduring fashion legacy.”

There will be dresses worn in every decade of her life before she died in 2022 – some of the notable pieces include a bridesmaid dress Queen Elizabeth II wore at age eight.

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Another is her ivory wedding dress which was designed by Norman Hartnell and worn in 1947.

Also starring in the exhibition will be her coronation dress worn in 1953 and the outfit she wore at Princess Margaret’s wedding.

It’s not all formal wear though, in the exhibit will also be her off-duty outfits.

There’s accessories galore too, from jewellery to hats and shoes.

Visitors will be able to see never-before-seen design sketches, fabric samples and handwritten letters.

The exhibition will run from April 10 until October 18, 2026.

Tickets to the exhibition cost £22 for adults, those aged 18-24 can get a ticket for £14.

Children between 5-17 can enter for £11, children under 5 go free. And those on Universal Credit can get £1 tickets.

Often The King’s Gallery has longer exhibition seasons compared to other parts of the palace.

This is because The King’s Gallery not actually part of Buckingham Palace’s main building, instead, it’s is located within the grounds.

It has a separate public entrance and its own ticketed access

Previous exhibitions at the gallery included The Edwardians: Age of Elegance, focusing on Edward VII and George V’s era; Royal Portraits: A Century of Photography, featuring royal photographers.

And Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing, showcasing his master drawings.

As for the rest of the palace, its state rooms will reopen for summer visitors from July 9 to September 27, 2026.

There will be daily access for self-guided tours of the lavish rooms and gardens when King Charles is not in residence.

You can go for an exclusive tour of Buckingham Palace’s East Wing…

Buckingham Palace is continuing to run its East Wing Exclusive Guided Tour.

The wing had undergone a five-year major renovation with every floorboard ripped up, everything rewired and 3,500 works of art removed into storage and conservation before being put back in place.

The tour runs for 90–minutes and allows visitors access to the “principal rooms to discover the spaces beyond the famous façade of Buckingham Palace”.

During this time, guests get to see a glimpse of the Yellow Drawing Room, the 240ft long Principal Corridor with Japanese, Chinese, English and French artwork – and the Centre Room where royals pause before emerging to greet The Mall.

At the moment, you can book a tour of the East Wing from January through March – tickets cost £100 per adult.

For more experiences, here are 30 of the best ones around the world that everyone should do this year.

Plus, here are Britain’s best hidden gems have been named from free museums to brewery tours.

This article contains spoilers for the first three episodes of “The Night Manager” Season 2.

It wasn’t inevitable that “The Night Manager,” an adaptation of John le Carré’s 1993 spy novel, would have a sequel. Le Carré didn’t write one and the six-episode series, which aired in 2016, had a definitive ending.

But after the show’s debut, fans clambered for more. They loved Tom Hiddleston’s brooding, charismatic Jonathan Pine, a hotel manager wrangled into the spy game by British intelligence officer Angela Burr (Olivia Colman). And at the heart of the series was the parasitic dynamic between Pine and his delightfully malicious foe, an arms dealer named Richard Onslow Roper (Hugh Laurie).

The show was so good that even the story’s author wanted it to continue. After the premiere of Season 1 at the Berlin International Film Festival, Le Carré sat across from Hiddleston, a twinkle in his eye, and said, “Perhaps there should be some more.”

“That was the first I’d heard of it or thought about it,” Hiddleston says, speaking over Zoom alongside the show’s director, Georgi Banks-Davies, from New York a few days before the U.S. premiere of “The Night Manager” Season 2 on Prime Video, which arrived Sunday with three episodes, 10 years after the first season. “But it was so extraordinary and inspiring to come from the man himself. That’s when I knew there might be an opportunity.”

Time passed because no one wanted a sequel of less quality. Le Carré died in 2020, leaving his creative works in the care of his sons, who helm the production company the Ink Factory. That same year, screenwriter David Farr, who had penned the first series, had a vision.

“We didn’t want to rush into doing something that was all style and no substance that didn’t honor the truth of it,” Farr says, speaking separately over Zoom from London. “There was this big gap of time. But I had this very clear idea. I saw a black car crossing the Colombian hills in the past towards a boy. I knew who was in the car and I knew who the boy was.”

That image transformed into a scene in the second episode of Season 2 where a young Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva) is waiting for his father, who turns out to be none other than Roper. From there, Farr fleshed out the rest of the season, as well as the already-announced third season. He was interested in the relationship between fathers and sons, an obsession of Le Carré’s, and in how Jonathan and Roper would be entangled all these years later.

Teddy Dos Santos (Diego Calva) is revealed to be Roper’s son.

(Des Willie / Prime Video)

“Teddy crystallized very quickly in my head,” Farr says. “All of the plot came later — arms smuggling and covert plans for coups in South America. But the emotional architecture, as I tend to call it, came to me quite quickly. That narrative of fathers and sons, betrayal and love is what marks Le Carré from more conventional espionage.”

“There was enormous depth in his idea,” Hiddleston adds. “It was a happy accident of 10 years having passed. They were 10 immeasurably complex years in the world, which can only have been more complex for Jonathan Pine with all his experience, all his curiosity, all his pain, all his trauma and all his courage.”

Farr sent scripts to Hiddleston in 2023 and planning for Season 2 began in earnest. The team brought Banks-Davies on in early 2024, impressed with her vision for the episodes. Hiddleston was especially attracted to her desire to highlight the vulnerability of the characters, all of whom present an exterior that is vastly different than their interior life.

“Every character’s heart is on fire in some way, and they all have different masks to conceal that,” Hiddleston says. “But Georgi kept wanting to get underneath it, to excavate it. Explore the fire, explore the trauma. She came in and said, ‘This show is about identity.’ ”

“I’m fascinated with how the line of identity and where you sit in the world is very fragile,” Banks-Davies says. “I’m fascinated by the strain on that line. In the heart of the show, that was so clearly there. I’m also always searching for what brings us together in a time, particularly in the last 10 years, that’s ever more divisive. These characters are all at war with each other. They’re all lying to each other. They’re deceiving each other for what they want. But what brings them together … instead of pushes them apart?”

The new season opens four years after the events of Season 1 as Jonathan and Angela meet in Syria. There, she identifies the dead body of Roper — a reveal that suggests his character won’t really be part of Season 2. After his death, Pine settles into a requisite life in London as Alex Goodwin, a member of an unexciting intelligence unit called the Night Owls.

Angela (Olivia Colman) and Jonathan (Tom Hiddleston) meet in Syria, four years after the events of Season 1.

(Des Willie / Prime Video)

“He’s half asleep and he lacks clarity and definition,” Hiddleston says. “His meaning and purpose have been blunted and dulled. He is only alive at his greatest peril, and the closer his feet are to the fire, the more he feels like himself. He’s addicted to risk, but also courageous in chasing down the truth.”

That first episode is a clever fake-out. Soon, Jonathan is on the trail of a conspiracy in Colombia, where the British government appears to be involved in an arms deal with Teddy. It quickly becomes the globe-trotting, thrill-seeking show that captivated fans in Season 1. There are new characters, including Sally (Hayley Squires), Jonathan’s Night Owls’ partner, and Roxana Bolaños (Camila Morrone), a young shipping magnate in league with Teddy, and vibrant locations. Jonathan infiltrates Teddy’s organization, posing as a cavalier, rich businessman named Matthew Ellis. He believes Teddy is the real threat. But in the final moments of Episode 3 there’s another gut-punching fake-out: Roper lives.

“The idea was: We must do the classic thing that stories do, which is to lose the father in order that he must appear again,” Farr says. He confirms there was never an intention to make “The Night Manager” Season 2 without Laurie. “What makes it work is this feeling that you are off on something completely new,” Farr says. “But that’s not what I want this show to be.”

Hiddleston compares it to the tale of St. George and the dragon. “They define each other,” he says. “At the end of the first series, Jonathan Pine delivers the dragon of Richard Roper to his captors. But after that, he is lost. The dragon slayer is lost without the presence of the dragon to define him. And, similarly, Roper is obsessed with Pine.”

Jonathan realizes the truth as he sneaks up to a hilltop restaurant to listen in on a meeting. Banks-Davies opted to shoot the entire series on location, and she kept a taut, quick pace during filming because she wanted the cast to feel the tension all the way through. She and Hiddleston had a shared motto on set: “There’s no time for unreal.” Thanks to her careful scene-setting, Roper’s arrival and Jonathan’s reaction were shot in only 10 minutes.

“I felt everything we talked about for months and everything we’d shot up until that point and everything we’d been through was in that moment,” Banks-Davies says. “There are so many emotions going on, so much being expressed, and it’s just delivered like that. But it was hard to get us there.”

Farr adds, “It is the most important moment in the show in terms of everything that then follows on from that.” He wrote into the script that Roper’s voice would be heard before Laurie was seen on camera. “It’s more frightening when something is not instantly fully understood and seen,” he says. “You hear it and you think, ‘Oh, God, I know that [voice].’ ”

Hiddleston wanted to play a range of emotions in seconds. He describes it as a “moment of total vitality.” Right before the cameras rolled, Banks-Davies told Hiddleston, “The dragon is alive.”

“After all the work, that’s all I needed to hear,” he says. “This moment will be memorable to him and he’ll be able to recall it in his mind for the rest of his life. He is wide awake, and reality is re-forming around him. His sense of the last 10 years, his sense of what he can trust and who he can trust, the way he’s tried to evolve his own identity — the sky is falling. There is a mixture of shock, grief, disenchantment, disillusionment, surprise and perhaps even relief.”

As soon as Jonathan arrives in Colombia and meets Teddy, a calculating live-wire dealing with his own sense of isolation, he becomes more himself. Hiddleston expresses him as a character desperate to feel the edge. Despite his layered duplicity, Jonathan understands and defines himself by courting risk.

Teddy (Diego Calva), Jonathan (Tom Hiddleston) and Roxana (Camila Marrone) get close. “This is a character who pushes his body to the limit and sacrifices enormous parts of himself at great personal cost to his body and soul,” Hiddleston says of Jonathan. (Des Willie/Prime Video)

“This is a character who pushes his body to the limit and sacrifices enormous parts of himself at great personal cost to his body and soul,” Hiddleston says. “He goes through a lot of pain, but also there’s great courage and resilience and enormous vulnerability. That’s what I relish the most, these are heightened scenarios that don’t arise as readily and in my ordinary life.”

“I could feel that shooting moments like this,” Banks-Davies adds. “Like, ‘It’s right there. Are we going to get it?’ Our whole show exists in that space between safety and death.”

Roper’s presence sends a ripple effect across the remaining three episodes. As much as Jonathan and Teddy are in opposition, they are parallel spirits, both with complicated relationships to Roper. Hiddleston describes them as “a mirror to each other,” although they can’t quite figure out what to be to each other. And neither knows who the other person really is.

“It is interesting, isn’t it, that my first image of him was 7 years old and that stays in him all the way through,” Farr says. “This sense of this boy who is seeking something — an affirmation, a place in the world. And he’s done terrible things, as he says to Pine in Episode 3. All of that was present in that first image I had.”

Hiddleston adds, “There is a competition, too, because Roper is the father figure, and they both need him in very different ways. Teddy is a new kind of adversary because he’s a contemporary. He’s got this resourcefulness and this ruthlessness, but also this very open vulnerability, which he uses as a weapon. They recognize each other and see each other.”

The characters’ dynamic is at the root of what drew Banks-Davies to the series. “It’s not about where they were born, it’s not about their economic status or their religion or their cultural identity,” she says. “It’s about two men who are lost and alone and solitary, and see a kinship in that. They are pulled together on this journey.”

Season 2, which will release episodes weekly after the first drop, will lead directly into Season 3, although no one involved will spill on when it can be expected. Hopefully they will arrive in less than a decade.

“It won’t be as long, I promise,” Farr says. “I can’t tell you exactly when, because I don’t know. But definitely nowhere as long.”

“That was the thrill for us, of knowing that when we began to tell this story, we knew we had 12 episodes to tell it inside, rather than just six,” Hiddleston says. “So we can be slightly braver and more rebellious and more complex in the architecture of that narrative. And not everything has to be tied up neatly in a bow. There’s still miles to go before we sleep, to borrow from Robert Frost, and that’s exciting. It’s exciting for how this season ends, and it’s exciting for where we go next.”

HOUMA, La. — For nearly 50 years, James Blanchard has made his living in the Gulf of Mexico, pulling shrimp from the sea.

It’s all he ever wanted to do, since he was around 12 years old and accompanied his father, a mailman and part-time shrimper, as he spent weekends trawling the marshy waters off Louisiana. Blanchard loved the adventure and splendid isolation.

He made a good living, even as the industry collapsed around him. He and his wife, Cheri, bought a comfortable home in a tidy subdivision here in the heart of Bayou Country. They helped put three kids through college.

But eventually Blanchard began to contemplate his forced retirement, selling his 63-foot boat and hanging up his wall of big green fishing nets once he turns 65 in February.

“The amount of shrimp was not a problem,” said Blanchard, a fourth-generation shrimper who routinely hauls in north of 30,000 flash-frozen pounds on a two-week trip. “It’s making a profit, because the prices were so low.”

Then came President Trump, his tariffs and famously itchy trigger finger.

Blanchard is a lifelong Republican, but wasn’t initially a big Trump fan.

In April, Trump slapped a 10% fee on shrimp imports, which grew to 50% for India, America’s largest overseas source of shrimp. Further levies were imposed on Ecuador, Vietnam and Indonesia, which are other major U.S. suppliers.

Views of the 47th president, from the ground up

Tariffs may slow economic growth, discombobulate markets and boost inflation. Trump’s single-handed approach to tax-and-trade policy has landed him before the Supreme Court, which is expected to rule by summer on a major test case of presidential power.

Blanchard snacks on a bag of dried shrimp.

But for Blanchard, those tariffs have been a lifeline. He’s seen a significant uptick in prices, from as low as 87 cents a pound for wild-caught shrimp to $1.50 or more. That’s nowhere near the $4.50 a pound, adjusted for inflation, that U.S shrimpers earned back in the roaring 1980s, when shrimp was less common in home kitchens and something of a luxury item.

It’s enough, however, for Blanchard to shelve his retirement plans and for that — and Trump — he’s appreciative.

“Writing all the bills in the world is great,” he said of efforts by congressional lawmakers to prop up the country’s dwindling shrimp fishermen. “But it don’t get nothing done.”

Trump, Blanchard said, has delivered.

::

Shrimp is America’s most popular seafood, but that hasn’t buoyed the U.S. shrimp industry.

Wild-caught domestic shrimp make up less than 10% of the market. It’s not a matter of quality, or overfishing. A flood of imports — farmed on a mass scale, lightly regulated by developing countries and thus cheaper to produce — has decimated the market for American shrimpers.

In the Gulf and South Atlantic, warm water shrimp landings — the term the industry uses — had an average annual value of more than $460 million between 1975 and 2022, according to the Southern Shrimp Alliance, a trade group. (Those numbers are not adjusted for inflation.)

A boat moves up a canal in Chauvin, La.

Over the last two years, the value of the commercial shrimp fishery has fallen to $269 million in 2023 and $256 million in 2024.

As the country’s leading shrimp producer, Louisiana has been particularly hard hit. “It’s getting to the point that we are on our knees,” Acy Cooper, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Assn., recently told New Orleans television station WVUE.

In the 1980s, there were more than 6,000 licensed shrimpers working in Louisiana. Today, there are fewer than 1,500.

Blanchard can see the ripple effects in Houma — in the shuttered businesses, the depleted job market and the high incidence of drug overdoses.

Latrevien Moultrie, 14, fishes in Houma, La.

“It’s affected everybody,” he said. “It’s not only the boats, the infrastructure, the packing plants. It’s the hardware stores. The fuel docks. The grocery stores.”

Two of the Blanchardses’ three children have moved away, seeking opportunity elsewhere. One daughter is a university law professor. Their son works in logistics for a trucking company in Georgia. Their other daughter, who lives near the couple, applies her advanced degree in school psychology as a stay-at-home mother of five.

(Cheri Blanchard, 64 and retired from the state labor department, keeps the books for her husband.)

It turns out the federal government is at least partly responsible for the shrinking of the domestic shrimp industry. In recent years, U.S. taxpayers have subsidized overseas shrimp farming to the tune of at least $195 million in development aid.

Seated at their dining room table, near a Christmas tree and other remnants of the holidays, Blanchard read from a set of scribbled notes — a Bible close at hand — as he and his wife decried the lax safety standards, labor abuses and environmental degradation associated with overseas shrimp farming.

James Blanchard and his wife, Cheri, like Trump’s policies. His personality is another thing.

The fact their taxes help support those practices is particularly galling.

“A slap in the face,” Blanchard called it.

::

Donald Trump grew slowly on the Blanchards.

The two are lifelong Republicans, but they voted for Trump in 2016 only because they considered him less bad than Hillary Clinton.

Once he took office, they were pleasantly surprised.

They had more money in their pockets. Inflation wasn’t an issue. Washington seemed less heavy-handed and intrusive. By the time Trump ran for reelection, the couple were fully on board and they happily voted for him again in 2024.

Republican National Committee reading material sits on the counter of James Blanchard’s kitchen.

Still, there are things that irk Blanchard. He doesn’t much care for Trump’s brash persona and can’t stand all the childish name-calling. For a long time, he couldn’t bear listening to Trump’s speeches.

“You didn’t ever really listen to many of Obama’s speeches,” Cheri interjected, and James allowed as how that was true.

“I liked his personality,” Blanchard said of the former Democratic president. “I liked his character. But I didn’t like his policies.”

It’s the opposite with Trump.

Unlike most politicians, Blanchard said, when Trump says he’ll do something he generally follows through.

Such as tightening border security.

“I have no issue at all with immigrants,” he said, as his wife nodded alongside. “I have an issue with illegal immigrants.” (She echoed Trump in blaming Renee Good for her death last week at the hands of an ICE agent.)

“I have sympathy for them as families,” Blanchard went on, but crossing the border doesn’t make someone a U.S. citizen. “If I go down the highway 70 miles an hour in that 30-mile-an-hour zone, guess what? I’m getting a ticket. … Or if I get in that car and I’m drinking, guess what? They’re bringing me to jail. So what’s the difference?”

Between the two there isn’t much — apart from Trump’s “trolling,” as Cheri called it — they find fault with.

Blanchard hailed the lightning-strike capture and arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro as another example of Trump doing and meaning exactly what he says.

“When Biden was in office, they had a $25-million bounty on [Maduro’s] head,” Blanchard said. “But apparently it was done knowing that it was never going to be enforced.”

More empty talk, he suggested.

Just like all those years of unfulfilled promises from politicians vowing to rein in foreign competition and revive America’s suffering shrimping industry.

James Blanchard aboard his boat, which he docks in Bayou Little Caillou.

Trump and his tariffs have given Blanchard back his livelihood and for that alone he’s grateful.

There’s maintenance and repair work to be done on his boat — named Waymaker, to honor the Lord — before Blanchard musters his two-man crew and sets out from Bayou Little Caillou.

He can hardly wait.

WASHINGTON — After President Trump ordered strikes that led to the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, celebrations erupted in Venezuelan communities across the U.S.

But for many of the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants facing possible deportation, their relief and joy were cut by the fear about what comes next from an administration that has zeroed in on Venezuelans as a target.

“Many of us asked ourselves, ‘What’s going to happen with us now?’” said A.G., a 39-year-old in Tennessee who asked to be identified by her initials because she lacks legal status. Even so, Maduro’s ouster gave her a lot of hope for her mother country.

Venezuelans began fleeing in droves in 2014 as economic collapse led to widespread food and medicine shortages, as well as political repression. Nearly 8 million Venezuelans are now living outside the country — including 1.2 million in the U.S.

Venezuelans migrants walk toward Bucaramanga, Colombia, in 2019.

(Marcus Yam/Los Angeles Times)

A.G. and her now-18-year-old son arrived at the southern border in 2019. Since then, she said, they have built a good life — they own a transport company with delivery trucks, pay taxes and follow the law.

Maduro’s fall left her with mixed feelings.

“He’s obviously a dictator, many people have died because of him and he refused to give up power, but the reason that they entered Venezuela, for me what President Trump did was illegal,” she said. “Innocent people died because of the bombs. I’m asking God that it all be for good reason.”

Dozens of Venezuelans and others were killed in the U.S. invasion — more than 100, a government official said — including civilians.

The Trump administration is framing its Venezuela operation as an opportunity for Venezuelans like A.G. “Now, they can return to the country they love and rebuild its future,” said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman Matthew Tragesser.

Katie Blankenship, a Miami-based attorney with Sanctuary of the South who has represented many Venezuelans facing deportation, sees a less promising future.

“We’re going to see increased targeting of Venezuelans to force them to leave the U.S. into a political and socioeconomic environment that’s likely only more destabilized and subject to more abuse,” she said.

The Venezuelan community in the U.S. swelled, in part, because the Biden administration expanded pathways for them to enter the country.

Volunteer help a Venezuelan immigrant at the storage units from a volunteer-run program that distributes donations to recently arrived Venezuelan immigrants in need, in Miami, Fla., in 2023.

(Eva Marie Uzcategui / Los Angeles Times)

One of those programs allowed more than 117,000 Venezuelans to purchase flights directly to the U.S. and stay for two years if they had a U.S.-based financial sponsor and passed a background check. Other Venezuelans entered legally at land ports of entry after scheduling interviews with border officers.

By the end of the Biden administration, more than 600,000 Venezuelans had protection from deportation under Temporary Protected Status, a program used by both Republican and Democratic administrations for immigrants who cannot return home because of armed conflict, natural disaster or other “extraordinary and temporary conditions.”

On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly referred to Venezuelan immigrants as criminals, singling them out more than any other nationality — in 64% of speeches, an Axios analysis showed. He has said repeatedly, without evidence that Venezuela emptied its prisons and mental institutions to flood the U.S. with immigrants.

One of Trump’s first acts as president was to designate the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. Within two months, he invoked an 18th century wartime law, the Alien Enemies Act, to deport 252 Venezuelan men accused of being Tren de Aragua members to El Salvador, where they were imprisoned and tortured despite many having no criminal histories in the U.S. or Latin America.

Later, the Trump administration stripped away protections for Venezuelans with financial sponsors and TPS, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem calling the latter “contrary to the national interest.”

In a September Federal Register Notice, Noem said that TPS for Venezuelans undercut the administration’s foreign policy objectives because one result of allowing Venezuelans in the U.S. was “relieving pressure on Maduro’s regime to enact domestic reforms and facilitate safe return conditions.” In other words, if Venezuelans returned home, that would pressure the government to enact reforms.

Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, along with U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi, left, and Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry, right, participates in a news conference near Camp 57 at Angola prison, the Louisiana State Penitentiary and America’s largest maximum-security prison farm, to announce the opening of a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility that will house immigrants convicted of crimes in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, on Sept. 3, 2025.

(Matthew Hilton / AFP via Getty Images)

The administration has offered contrasting assessments of conditions in Venezuela. Noem wrote that although certain adverse conditions continue, “there are notable improvements in several areas such as the economy, public health, and crime.”

Throughout the year, though, the State Department continued to reissue an “extreme danger” travel advisory for Venezuela, urging Americans to leave the country immediately.

Conditions for Venezuelans in the U.S. grew more complicated after a man from Afghanistan was accused of shooting two National Guard members in November; in response, the administration froze the immigration cases of people from 39 countries, including Venezuela, that the administration considers “high-risk.” That means anyone who applied for asylum, a visa, a green card or any other benefit remains in limbo indefinitely.

After a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Trump administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act in September, the Justice Department appealed. In a support brief filed in December, the Justice Department cited escalating tensions with Venezuela.

David Smilde, a Tulane University sociologist and expert on Venezuelan politics, said that invading Venezuela could justify renewed use of the Alien Enemies Act.

The law says the president can invoke the Alien Enemies Act not only in times of “declared war,” but also when a foreign government threatens or carries out an “invasion” or “predatory incursion” against the U.S.

“Now it will be difficult, I think, for the court to say, ‘No, you can’t use this,’” Smilde said.

With U.S. officials promising improved conditions in Venezuela and encouraging citizens to return, Smilde said, they could invoke the Alien Enemies Act to quickly deport undocumented immigrants who don’t leave willingly.

“There’s several layers to this,” he said, “and none of it looks very good for Venezuelan immigrants.”

This couple from Venezuela shared their story of why they left their three children back in their home country and spoke of the the experiences of their travel to the United States at the Parkside Community Church in Sacramento on June 16, 2023.

(Jose Luis Villegas / For The Times)

Jose, a 28-year-old Venezuelan living east of Los Angeles, fled Venezuela in 2015 after being imprisoned and beaten for criticizing the government. He lived in Colombia and Peru before illegally crossing the U.S. border in 2022, and now has a pending asylum application. Jose asked to be identified by his middle name out of fear of retaliation by the U.S. government.

The news this week that an ICE agent had shot and killed a woman in Minnesota heightened his anxiety.

“You come here because supposedly this is a country with freedom of expression, and there is more safety, but with this government, now you’re afraid you’ll get killed,” he said. “And that was a U.S. citizen. Imagine what they could do to me?”

People visit a memorial for Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

(Scott Olson / Getty Images)

Jose qualifies for a work permit based on his pending asylum, but his application for one is frozen because of the executive order following the National Guard shooting.

The news of Maduro’s arrest was bittersweet, Jose said, because his mother and grandmother didn’t live to witness that day. He said his mother died last year of kidney failure due to lack of medical care, leaving him as the primary breadwinner for his two young sisters who remain in Venezuela with their father, who is disabled.

Still, he said he’s happy with what Trump has done in Venezuela.

“People are saying he’s stealing our petroleum,” he said, “but for 25 years, Cuba, China and Iran have been stealing the petroleum and it didn’t improve our lives.”

Many Venezuelans were encouraged by news that Venezuela would release a “significant number” of political prisoners as a peace gesture.

For Jose, that’s not enough. Venezuela’s government ordered police to search for anyone involved in promoting or supporting the attack by U.S. forces, leading to detentions of journalists and civilians.

“Venezuela remains the same,” he said. “The same disgrace, the same poverty and the same government repression.”

A.G. said she was heartened to hear Noem say Sunday on Fox News that every Venezeulan who had TPS “has the opportunity to apply for refugee status and that evaluation will go forward.” But the administration quickly backtracked and said that was not the case.

Instead, Noem and other administration officials have doubled down on the notion that Venezuelans without permanent lawful status should leave. Noem told Fox News that there are no plans to pause deportation flights despite the political uncertainty in Venezuela.

Tragesser, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services spokesman, said the agency’s posture hasn’t changed.

“USCIS encourages all Venezuelans unlawfully in the U.S. to use the CBP Home app for help with a safe and orderly return to their country,” he said.

Fetty Wap is free from federal prison as of Thursday, 11 months ahead of his scheduled release.

The “Trap Queen” rapper, born William Junior Maxwell II, pleaded guilty in August 2022 to conspiracy to distribute and possess controlled substances. He will be supervised for five years, in line with his six-year 2023 sentence.

“Home,” the 34-year-old posted in an Instagram story on Thursday showing the text in stark white on a plain black background.

“Right now, my focus is on giving back through my community initiatives and foundation, supporting at-risk young children by expanding access to education, early tech skills, and vision care for young kids and students so they can show up as their best selves,” he said Thursday in a statement to Billboard. He also thanked family, friends and fans for their support.

He will be in home confinement in Philadelphia until Nov. 8, TMZ reported, then will have to spend the next five years abstaining from alcohol and drugs unless he gets a prescription from a doctor. He might get sent to an outpatient drug program during that time if the court thinks it’s needed, the site said. In addition to getting tested for drug use while under supervision, he won’t be able to open any bank accounts without federal agents’ OK and will have to keep the U.S. Probation Department apprised of his earnings and tax records.

Fetty Wap was arrested in October 2021 before he could take the stage at the New York edition of the Rolling Loud festival and charged along with five other men. In the indictment, the six defendants were accused of distributing cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack cocaine. In addition to the conspiracy charge, the five other defendants were also initially charged with using firearms in connection to the alleged drug trafficking.

The performer was released on $500,000 bail while he awaited trial, then — after being put back in custody two months later for a threatening FaceTime call that authorities said violated the terms of his release — pleaded guilty in August 2022.

In May 2023, the “My Way” emcee was sentenced to six years for his role in the drug scheme, with five years of post-release supervision to follow.

“Me being selfish in my pride put me in this position today,” he told the judge who sentenced him. His lawyers had suggested he decided to sell drugs because of financial woes brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“This is a sad day,” defense attorney Elizabeth Macedonio said at the time. “This is a kid from Paterson, New Jersey, who made it out.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York saw it differently, saying in a news release that Fetty Wap was “a kilogram-level redistributor” for his trafficking organization.

The organization distributed more than 100 kilograms (approximately 220 pounds) of cocaine, heroin, fentanyl and crack cocaine from June 2019 through June 2020, the release said. Searches executed during investigation of the crime yielded approximately $1.5 million in cash, 16 kilograms of cocaine, 2 kilograms of heroin, numerous fentanyl pills, two 9mm handguns, a rifle, a .45 caliber pistol, a .40 caliber pistol and ammunition, the release said.

“The defendants obtained the narcotics on the west coast and used the United States Postal Service and drivers with hidden vehicle compartments to transport the controlled substances across the country to Suffolk County, where they were stored,” the office said. “The drugs were then distributed to dealers, who sold them on Long Island and in New Jersey.”

Fetty Wap did his time at a low-security federal prison in Sandstone, Minn., north of Minneapolis.

Former Times staff writer Nardine Saad and the Associated Press contributed to this report.

DISCOVER the best destinations for every month of the year whether you’re looking for a fly and flop, in search of wildlife or beautiful views.

It’s all thanks to Travelbag which has created a planner on where’s best to go on holiday for 2026 from Australia the Netherlands and Portugal‘s Azores.

January

While northern Europe is shivering during the first month of the year, there are plenty of places around the world that aren’t.

In fact, Australia is basking in sunshine, if you want to head to the other side of the world then read more from Assistant Travel Editor Sophie Swietochowski who took a road trip around Sydney.

Or find out more about Melbourne which has family attractions, historic architecture as well as a buzzing theatre and music scene.

Another January spot for anyone seeking out heat is Southeast Asia.

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Thailand at the beginning of the year has temperatures as high as 32C so you’d really be banishing those winter blues.

Travel Reporter Alice Penwill recently went on a trip to Koh Samui where she discovered what island life is all about – cheap cocktails, affordable luxury and incredible beaches.

Other popular destinations in Southeast Asia include Vietnam, Singapore and the Philippines.

If you’re not actually after heat, it’s also a prime time to head to Norway to see the northern lights as there are plenty of sightings at this time of year.

February

It’s still bleak in the UK during February, whereas India is dry and sunny throughout.

The country comes to life with vibrant cultural events and festivals – like Goa Carnival.

Or head the other way to the Caribbean for daily sunshine and lots of activities during Carnival Season.

There are major celebrations in St Kitts which Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey visited last year.

She sought an adventure break with ziplining, horse riding and hiking up the live volcano Mount Liamuiga.

March

For nature lovers, head to South Africa for bird-watching season as its wet season draws to a close.

You could also head to the Galapagos in Ecuador for adventure – it’s also a great place for nature spotting.

Here you’ll find giant tortoises, marine iguanas and Darwin’s finches which inspired Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.

And over in New Zealand, temperatures will cool down as autumn approaches.

But you can still enjoy its incredible beaches and go swimming or surfing in the water.

April

For those who are desperate to explore Japan, April is a great month to go as it’s cherry blossom season.

Throughout the country, blossom trees with bloom showing off bright pink flowers.

Japan literally turns into a flowery haven as it has over a million cherry blossom trees – it’s even celebrated with festivals.

One travel writer who visited the country saw the blossoms in full bloom in Kyoto at the World Heritage site Ninna-ji, which is a temple founded in 888 AD.

There are flowers all around as in Netherlands too, April is one of the best months to see the millions of colourful tulips.

One key viewing spot here is the Keukenhof Gardens which shows off a variety of 800 different tulips.

The nearest airport is Amsterdam which is just just over one hour from the UK.

May

May marks the end of the rainy season in Peru, so it’s the ideal time to visit Machu Picchu and hike through the Amazon rainforest.

One travel writer who visited Lima discovered a Paddington Bear statue and ventured to the historic Machu Picchu.

Or if you’re seeking of a relaxed break, you could enjoy time in the Caribbean before the summer rush.

Another spot that becomes busy in later months is Mexico – so a May break will be much quieter.

June

For anyone heading to the states, June is the month to see America’s National Parks.

From Yellowstone, to Rocky Mountain, Yosemite, Zion National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park and Glacier National Park in Montana.

They’re bursting with wildlife not to mention the warm and sunny weather makes it a great time to walk the trails.

And if you fancy heading further out, there are plenty of coastlines to explore too.

One travel writer took a road trip through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks finding crystal clear lakes and surrounding prairie lands.

July

If Iceland has been on your bucket list, but going during the winter and enduring freezing temperatures puts you off, then go during the summer.

During July, the sun never sets which the Sun’s Brittany Vonow discovered when she took part in a midnight race.

She also went whale watching spotting humpbacks and minkes, along with pretty puffins.

Another country that lends itself to whale watching in July is Canada, and while you’re there, make sure to get a glimpse of Niagara Falls too.

Another option is Tanzania which has plenty of opportunity for wildlife spotting and hiking.

It’s also one of Africa’s cheapest island destinations and has new TUI hotels.

August

If looking for wildlife is what you want from a holiday, then head to the likes of Kenya during August.

There’s also the Azores, which are remote Portuguese islands, where you’ll find the weather is much milder.

Across the Azores are 26 active volcanoes spread across the islands and there are black sand shores too.

Temperatures in Sri Lanka during this month sit around 28C but can be cooler at night.

The destination is one of the trending ones for 2026 which is a cheaper alternative to Thailand.

Deputy Travel Editor Kara Godfrey said: “One of the main draws of Sri Lanka are the 6,000 elephants on the island, many of which are free-roaming.

“I was left in awe during a private safari tour when we stumbled across a huge herd of them, relaxing in the fields.

“Don’t worry about forgoing your morning cuppa – popular on the island is tea with huge plantations scattered throughout.”

September

This month is Indonesia‘s dry season, and there’s plenty to do there too from surfing to hiking, and seeing its culture.

Indonesia is now home to the world’s biggest city, Jakarta, which is found on the island of Java.

Nearby is an island that Brits will be more familiar with, Bali, which is known for its relaxed vibe, beautiful beaches and temples.

October

Take in Cape Town’s spring blooms and a safari like Head of Sun Travel (Digital) Caroline McGuire did.

Caroline said: “My favourite wildlife spots had to be a herd of elephants and pride of lions, and both came within a few metres of our safari truck. 

We had so many encounters, from giraffes and hippos to Cape buffalo, zebras, springboks and hyenas, that we felt truly spoilt.”

Or, head to Dubai for luxury accommodation, a lively city break, a desert adventure, or a relaxing beachside stay.

November

In November, head onto the Nile for a cruise with mild daytime temperatures.

Hop off to explore Egypt with fewer crowds than during the summer – and you can sight-see without extreme heat or cold during.

December

Winter sun destinations are back in full swing and at the top of the list is Thailand, along with Goa and Bali.

There’s also the Maldives which has clear wares, winter highs of 30C – so a stark difference to the gloomy UK.

However if you want to indulge in the chilly weather, head to festive markets in Europe.

Or really get into the Christmas spirit with a trip to Lapland or the European Alps.

For more places to visit in 2026, these are the top 10 holiday destinations set to be big from European beach cities to African capitals.

And here are the ten cheap holiday spots about to go BIG in 2026 that you’ve probably never heard of – with a week away from £189.

CHICAGO — Caleb Williams came through in his playoff debut, throwing a go-ahead, 25-yard touchdown pass to DJ Moore with 1:43 remaining, and the Chicago Bears rallied from an 18-point deficit to beat the rival Green Bay Packers 31-27 in a wild-card playoff game on Saturday night.

The NFC North champion Bears extended their resurgent first season under coach Ben Johnson with their seventh fourth-quarter comeback victory. They split two down-to-the-wire games with Green Bay in the regular season, and this one turned out to be a thriller when it looked like it would be a breeze for the Packers.

Chicago trailed 21-3 at halftime and 21-6 through three quarters, only to outscore Green Bay 25-6 in the fourth on the way to its first playoff win in 15 years.

Williams found a wide-open Moore along the left sideline to give Chicago a 31-27 lead with 1:43 remaining.

Jordan Love then led Green Bay into Chicago territory. But on third down at the 28, Jaquan Brisker broke up a pass in the end zone as time expired, setting off a wild celebration — and a curt handshake between Johnson and Packers coach Matt LaFleur.

The Bears will host a divisional-round game next weekend.

Jan. 10 (UPI) — If President Donald Trump has his way, credit card companies will limit their respective interest rates to no more than 10% for a year to make them more affordable.

Trump took to social media to call on all credit card companies to voluntarily lower their interest rates for one year, starting this month, to promote affordability.

“Please be informed that we will no longer let the American public be ‘ripped off’ by credit card companies that are charging interest rates of 20 to 30%, and even more, which festered unimpeded during the Sleepy Joe Biden Administration,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Friday.

“AFFORDABILITY! Effective January 20, 2026, I, as president of the United States, am calling for a one-year cap on credit card Interest Rates of 10%,” he said, adding that Jan. 20 is the one-year anniversary of his second term in office.

The Federal Reserve reported a record-high average annual percentage rate of nearly 23% and rising in 2023, the now-defunct Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said.

That’s up from an average APR of 16.4% in 2021 and 20.4% in 2022, according to the Federal Reserve.

While the average APR rate rose significantly under the Biden administration, Trump last year eliminated the Biden administration policy that limited credit card fees to no more than $8.

The average fee previously was $32 for late credit card payments and other fee-triggering activities.

Take your pick (and pack your bags!) for our must-visit destinations of the year.

SOUTH KOREA

THE LOWDOWN: With the launch of direct flights, a new hiking trail and an ever-growing obsession with the country’s incredible cultural hits – including viral Netflix musical KPop Demon Hunters – this destination is looking pretty Golden right now.

DON’T MISS: Much of the new Dongseo Trail, a 527-mile route modelled on Spain’s Camino de Santiago, will open this year, running from Anmyeondo Island to the fishing village of Uljin. “Meanwhile, Korean fried chicken is really something, and the capital, Seoul, is the home of that,” says Tom.

Stock up on K-beauty in the district of Myeongdong, and get a taste of music-meets-waterfight at Seoul’s Waterbomb Festival in July or your fix of K-pop proper at the Gangnam Festival in autumn.

BEST TIME TO GO: April, for the cherry blossom.

FYI: Virgin Atlantic flights from London to Seoul start on March 29, from £799 return.

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LUDLOW, ENGLAND

THE LOWDOWN: This pretty Shropshire market town is fast sealing its spot as one of the UK’s best foodie destinations, and Tudor stunner Castle Lodge – former home of Catherine of Aragon – is re-opening as a seven all-suite boutique hotel with an eatery under talented local chef Harry Bullock.

DON’T MISS: Other foodie delights include Pale Kitchen And Arts, serving up pastries and local art, the cheese rarebit on Guinness bread at No3 Church Street (from the owners of much-loved Harp Lane Deli) and excellent waffles at Number 9 Ludlow. Richard Ashcroft, The Streets and The Human League are gigging at Ludlow Castle this summer, too.

“Ludlow is one of England’s great historic towns with a lovely walkable centre filled with independents,” says Tom. “But the beautiful Marches countryside surrounding the town means it’s wise to pack your walking boots as well.”

BEST TIME TO GO: September, for the UK’s longest-running food festival.

PELOPONNESE, GREECE

THE LOWDOWN: In Christopher Nolan’s epic adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, hitting screens in July, the jaw-dropping scenery of the Peloponnese will be the star of many scenes.

Better still, “You get more bang for your buck here than on many of the Greek isles,” says Tom Hall, vice president at Lonely Planet.

DON’T MISS: Hike to oceanside Nestor’s Cave to see where Matt Damon’s Odysseus outwits the Cyclops, swim in Poseidon’s realm at omega-shaped Voidokilia Beach, explore the atmospheric Methoni Castle and snap flamingos at protected wetland Gialova Lagoon.

There are also herons, ospreys and the African chameleon here – which isn’t found anywhere else in Europe. The area’s home to the kalamata olive, too, so bring on those delicious Greek salads!

BEST TIME TO GO: May for lovely 23°C days.

FYI: Flights to Athens cost from £42 return.

VANCOUVER, CANADA

THE LOWDOWN: This stunning city, surrounded by mountains, is a host of the FIFA World Cup this summer. “Nature is so accessible here – you can spot whales and seals by just going for a walk around Stanley Park,” says Tom.

DON’T MISS: Head to the fan zone at Hastings Park for bands, food stalls and a buzzing atmosphere. Dig into the local sushi fave, a BC roll with sweet spot prawns, washed down with a 33 Acres of Sunshine craft beer, then hop on the Skyride to Grouse Mountain for amazing city views.

Further afield, British Columbia is also home to seven national parks with hiking trails, waterfalls and glaciers to explore, plus the chance to spot bears at Yoho National Park. It’s a hot spot for geothermal activity, so don’t skip the natural spas at Lussier Hot Springs, too.

BEST TIME TO GO: Catch the footie buzz between June and July. Otherwise, September for autumn colours and smaller crowds.

FYI: Flights to Vancouver cost from £323 return.

RABAT, MOROCCO

THE LOWDOWN: A UNESCO World Book Capital for 2026, the Moroccan capital provides a fab setting for adventures. Wander the blue and white alleys near the Kasbah Des Oudayas or explore the Ville Nouvelle, where you’ll find chic boutiques and eateries. Trad riads make great-value stays, too.

DON’T MISS: Take in the Chellah – an impressive 14th-century Islamic necropolis, Zaha Hadid’s futuristic Grand Theatre of Rabat and the observation deck at Mohammed VI Tower. “Rabat is very different to what you might imagine,” says Tom.

“It has a modern feel, yet still has old kasbahs, souks and the beautiful Andalusian gardens. It’s also on Morocco’s high-speed rail network, so if you want to see more of the country, it’s super-easy,” he adds.

BEST TIME TO GO: Spring, for fewer crowds.

FYI: Flights cost from £40 return.

OULU, FINLAND

THE LOWDOWN: Sitting on the Baltic Sea, 60 miles south of the Arctic Circle, you’ll find 2026’s European Capital of Culture, with jaw-dropping scenery and lush cuisine. “Pick between experiencing the Midnight Sun or Northern Lights, but either way, it’s a great place to dip your toe into Finnish culture,” says Tom.

DON’T MISS: Feast on reindeer, salmon and foraged berries at pop-ups during August’s Summer Night’s Dinner and September’s Arctic Tasting Week, or just grabbing a coffee and rye bread at Oulu’s lively waterfront market.

Meanwhile, The Climate Clock art trail launches in June with seven hotly anticipated works, and electronic music festival Frozen People is held on a frozen lake in February.

You can even go full Finn at Lainesauna. For €15, you sauna on a raft down the Oulujoki River then dive straight into the water in summer (or an ice hole in winter!).

BEST TIME TO GO: March – to catch the Northern Lights around the equinox and skip the most freezing temperatures.

FYI: Flights to Helsinki cost from £48 return. The new high-speed Pendolino Plus train from Helsinki to Oulu costs from £48 return.

TANZANIA

THE LOWDOWN: An interactive, immersive conservation centre opens in Tanzania’s capital, Arusha, in memory of primatologist Jane Goodall. And handily, the capital is brilliantly located between Mount Kilimanjaro and Serengeti National Park for ticking off that bucket-list safari, too.

DON’T MISS: Visit Dr Jane’s Dream: The Goodall Centre For Hope, which was developed with help from former Walt Disney Imagineers and African artisans. “National parks, game reserves and conservation areas make up about 38% of the country,” says Jon Nigel, co-founder at Weather2travel.com.

“But as well as spotting the Big Five in Serengeti, head north to Gombe National Park, where Jane conducted her pioneering chimpanzee studies in the ’60s.”

BEST TIME TO GO: June to October for prime waterhole action.

FYI: Flights to Arusha via Amsterdam cost from £412. Safari lodges cost from £62 a night.

LONDON

THE LOWDOWN: It’s the most-searched-for destination in the world, and 2026 is serving up stonking new cultural openings for our very own capital.*

DON’T MISS: V&A East is opening in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in April with The Music Is Black: A British Story including exhibits from Stormzy and Little Simz.

“It’s a brilliant time to explore new places, as well as the classics,” says Tom. “The Museum of London is reopening in Smithfield Market, not far away will be the Quentin Blake Centre For Illustration in Clerkenwell from May.

There’s also a huge Tracey Emin retrospective from February at Tate Modern and the Bayeux Tapestry comes to the British Museum from September.” Oh, and an exhibition dedicated to legendary author Agatha Christie hits the British Library in October, too.

BEST TIME TO GO: London’s a winner all year.

BASQUE COUNTRY, SPAIN

THE LOWDOWN: This small region famed for its pintxos (bar snacks), is packed with history, culture and 22 Michelin-starred restaurants. Plus, it’s home to a gorge coastline.

DON’T MISS: This will be a top spot to see the total eclipse on August 12. “Get as far to the west as you can,” says Jon. “From San Sebastián, Aiako Harria Natural Park will be a great place to view the night sky.

As will Gorbeia Natural Park, which lies between Bilbao and Vitoria-Gasteiz.” Be sure to visit Bilbao’s world-renowned Guggenheim Museum, too.

BEST TIME TO GO: August for the solar eclipse and the legendary fireworks contest at Semana Grande festival in San Sebastián.

FYI: Return flights to Bilbao cost from £44.

DOMINICA

THE LOWDOWN: Also known as the Caribbean’s Nature Island, Dominica has just 63,000 inhabitants, but offers year-round whale watching, plus incredible hiking through its dense forests.

The world’s first sperm whale reserve is now located here, too.

DON’T MISS: You’ll love whale watching. “There are 200 sperm whales in the 300 square miles of ocean designated for the reserve and you can even swim with them as part of small, regulated groups,” says Jon.

Emerald Pool, a rainforest pool fed by a 40-foot waterfall, or Titou Gorge, seen in Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, are also must-sees.

Or take the newly-opened cable car to the volcanic Boiling Lake. What was once a three-hour hike each way now takes 20 minutes!

BEST TIME TO GO: go December to April for the best whale spotting.

FYI: Flights to Dominica via Barbados cost from £712. A new international airport is due to open in 2027, too.

NEW YORK — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place by Jan. 20, marking one year since his return to the White House.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street and the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and to support his second-term agenda.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the last year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s.

Trump’s administration, however, has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office. His administration killed a Biden-era regulation that would have capped credit card late fees.

In a joint statement, the banking industry opposed Trump’s proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Assn. and allied groups said.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to [rein] in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) released a plan last February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders noted that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Sweet and Kim write for the Associated Press and reported from New York and West Palm Beach, Fla., respectively.

In his postgame interviews analyzing the play of his basketball team, UCLA coach Mick Cronin is spot on. The problem is that as the coach, his prime duty is to fix these identified shortcomings, not to blame his players for the mounting problems.

If NIL funds are lacking, discuss this with the wealthy donors. If the offense is to generate more points, he needs to devise a new scheme. Quality coaches are able to change their approaches on the fly. If Cronin is unable to get the Bruins back on the winning track, his status in Westwood needs to be reassessed. But I guess Martin Jarmond performed an assessment when he secretly extended Cronin’s contract.

Neal Rakov
Santa Fe, N.M.

The great John Wooden passed almost 16 years ago but he still watches UCLA from heaven. After Tuesday’s bad loss to Wisconsin he turned to his first Bruins athletic director, Wilbur Johns, and asked “Did we really give Mick Cronin a five-year extension?”

Fred Wallin
Westlake Village

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

For a long time, Spencer Pratt refused to be put into a political box.

The reality-television-personality-turned-national-figure-turned-mayoral-candidate told the New York Times in October that he hated politics and didn’t identify with either major party. He “demurred” when asked by the Hollywood Reporter about his personal politics.

But the supporters who are beginning to line up behind Pratt have made one thing clear: MAGA has entered the Los Angeles mayoral race, just one day after “The Hills” alumnus announced he’s running.

Despite his nonpartisan statements, Pratt has become a darling of the right wing, meeting with influential Republicans across the country who have latched onto his sharp criticism of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom over their handling of the Palisades fire.

On Thursday, Pratt, who lost his home in the fire, finally commented on his political affiliation, saying he has been a registered Republican since 2020.

“I wasn’t going to change it now just to check a different box,” he wrote on X. “This is a non-partisan race — there will be no D or R next to my name. As Mayor, I will not serve either party. I will work with anyone who wants to help the city. No labels necessary.”

The confirmation of Pratt’s political affiliation came as endorsements flowed in from across the country — and not from Democrats, for the most part.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who has launched a congressional investigation into the response to the Palisades fire, posted on X that he was “glad” Pratt decided to run for mayor. Scott has toured the Palisades with Pratt, and the two met in Washington, D.C., after Scott announced the investigation.

Pratt was also endorsed by Richard Grenell, who is President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.

“I endorse Spencer Pratt for Mayor of Los Angeles and will help raise money for him. Transparency is what we need. Spencer has the passion and the drive to make positive change for Los Angeles,” Grenell wrote on X.

Closer to home, Pratt picked up an endorsement from Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Trump supporter and a Republican candidate for governor.

“LA needs him, California needs him. He’s got integrity and the backbone we need,” Bianco posted on X.

Roxanne Hoge, chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, said the group welcomes into the mayoral race “every common sense voice who stands for good governance and stands for representing the people over public sector unions and developers and NGOs.”

Hoge said she has a “great affinity” for Pratt, whom she called a personal friend.

“I support his willingness to speak up and be a voice for the voiceless,” she said.

Hoge said the county organization has not endorsed in the race.

Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represented Pacific Palisades until 2024, said Pratt and Trump have many similarities.

“If you look at the model of who he is as candidate, it’s similar to Trump: the reality television background; his most visible communication presence is on Twitter, just as Trump’s was. And he’s sort of developing a candidacy around frustration and blowing the system up, just like Trump did,” Bonin said.

Bonin said Pratt’s entry into the race could be “perilous” for Bass.

The mayor has also tried to tie Pratt to Trump, seeking to position herself as the anti-MAGA candidate in a deep blue city.

“Donald Trump and Spencer Pratt are cut from the same cloth — two Republican, reality star villains running with MAGA backing, spewing disinformation and misinformation to create profit and division. Good luck with that in Los Angeles,” said Doug Herman, a spokesperson for Bass’ campaign.

Candidates will be judged by the people they associate with, Bonin added.

“Show me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,” said Bonin, who is executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

Rick Caruso, a former Republican who registered as a Democrat when he ran against Bass in 2022, has tried to distance himself from Trump. Caruso said during his mayoral campaign that he never supported Trump for president or donated to his campaigns.

Caruso, a billionaire developer who is considering a run for either mayor or governor, said he hadn’t spoken with Pratt in months but that he was glad the social media influencer was joining the race.

“I think it’s great [that Pratt is running],” Caruso said. “I think the more people that actively get in government service the better.”

Pratt did not respond to multiple texts requesting comment. A member of his team said he is “currently embargoed from doing interviews because of other projects that were previously in play before he announced.”

A campaign staffer did not specify what the other projects were and said Pratt would be able to speak in early February.

State of play

— A YEAR OF FIRES: A year after two of the most destructive wildfires in California history erupted just hours apart, survivors marked the day in Altadena and Pacific Palisades with a mixture of anger and somber remembrance.

— ENTER PRATT: Spencer Pratt announced his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on the anniversary of the Palisades fire. Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the fire. Since then, the reality TV personality has become a vocal critic of Bass and Newsom.

— WATERED DOWN: LAFD Chief Jaime Moore admitted Tuesday that his department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire was watered down to shield top brass from scrutiny.

— REPORT AND REFINE: The head of the Los Angeles Fire Commission said Tuesday that a “working draft” of the after-action report was sent to the mayor’s office for “refinements” before it was published last October. She added that in her long career in civic roles, she had learned that words like “refinements” could mean troubling changes to a government report, made for the purpose of hiding facts.

— FINAL ADDRESS: In his final State of the State address, Newsom shifted from the problem-solving posture that defined his early years in office to a more declarative accounting of California’s achievements, casting the state as a counterweight to dysfunction in Washington.

— KILLINGS PLUMMET: There were 230 homicides in Los Angeles in 2025, according to the LAPD. That was a 19% drop from 2024 and the fewest the city has seen since 1966, when the population was 30% smaller.

— MAYORAL MOVES: Bass spokesperson Clara Karger is leaving the mayor’s office and heading to public affairs firm Fiona Hutton & Associates. Karger was with Bass’ team for nearly three years. Her departure comes months after Bass’ deputy mayor for communications Zach Seidl left. Seidl was replaced by Amanda Crumley.

— LA|DC|NYC: Anna Bahr, who worked as a deputy press secretary for former Mayor Eric Garcetti and then ran communications for Sen. Bernie Sanders, is headed to the Big Apple to run communications for newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program brought Angelenos inside in Skid Row and South Los Angeles this week. The program also partnered with Project Street Vet to provide veterinary care — including vaccines, medications and check ups — to nearly 30 pets belonging to Inside Safe participants, the mayor’s office said.
• On the docket next week: The City Council’s Committee on Public Works will get updates on the city’s graffiti abatement program as well as the city’s efforts to address illegal dumping and to repair pot holes.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The city of Los Angeles violated the state’s open meeting law when council members took up a plan to clear 9,800 homeless encampments behind closed doors, a judge ruled this week.

In a 10-page decision, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin said the City Council ran afoul of the Ralph M. Brown Act by approving the encampment strategy during a Jan. 31, 2024, closed session.

The encampment plan was part of a larger effort by the city to comply with a legal settlement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which had sued over the city’s handling of the homelessness crisis.

Kin, in his ruling, said the city is allowed under the Brown Act to confer with its attorneys in closed-door meetings to discuss legal strategy.

“However, what the City cannot do under the Brown Act is formulate and approve policy decisions in a closed session outside the public eye merely because such decisions are in furtherance of a settlement agreement,” Kin wrote.

Karen Richardson, a spokesperson for City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, said her office had no comment on the decision, which was issued earlier this week.

The ruling delivered a victory to the Los Angeles Community Action Network, which advocates for homeless residents and had sued the city over the closed-door deliberations.

Lawyers for LA CAN have warned that the city’s goal of removing 9,800 encampments over four years has created a quota system that could make sanitation workers more likely to violate the property rights of unhoused residents. Under the agreement, the city must reach its encampment removal target this summer.

“The City Council approved an extremely controversial plan to clear almost 10,000 encampments entirely in secret,” said Shayla Myers, the group’s attorney. “They never disclosed the plan before they voted on it, or even after, and the only one they disclosed the plan to was the business community.”

Lawyers for the city have offered contradictory explanations for what transpired during the Jan. 31, 2024, meeting. Now, LA CAN is seeking a court order requiring that the city produce all records — including audio of the closed-door deliberations — to show what transpired.

The city’s strategy for clearing 9,800 encampments has become a major sticking point in its long-running legal battle with the LA Alliance. U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter ruled that a tent discarded by sanitation workers can only count toward the city’s numerical goal if its owner has been offered housing or shelter first.

Feldstein Soto’s legal team, in a memo to the council, said later that the judge had “reinterpreted” some of the city’s settlement obligations.

In this week’s ruling, Kin found that the city violated the Brown Act a second time in May 2024, when the council went behind closed doors to take up another agreement — this one between the city and L.A. County on the delivery of homeless services.

The LA Alliance first sued the city and county in 2020, alleging that too little was being done to address the homelessness crisis, particularly in Skid Row. The city settled the case two years later, agreeing to create 12,915 new shelter beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027.

After that deal was struck, the city began negotiating an accompanying agreement with the LA Alliance to reduce the number of street encampments. Those talks dragged on for more than a year.

The LA Alliance ran out of patience, telling Judge Carter in February 2024 that the city was 447 days late in finalizing its plan and should be sanctioned. The group submitted to the court a copy of the encampment removal plan, saying it had been approved by the City Council on Jan. 31, 2024.

Video from that day’s meeting shows that council members went behind closed doors to discuss the LA Alliance case. When they returned, Deputy City Atty. Jonathan Groat said there was nothing to report from the closed session.

LA CAN demanded that the city produce any vote tally on the encampment plan. The city declined to do so, saying there was no vote.

“To this day, [we] still don’t know who voted for it, or even if a vote was taken at all,” Myers said.

Lawyers for the city have argued that they were not required to issue any report from that closed session meeting. They also have said that the Brown Act allowed the two agreements — the one on encampment removals and the other with the county — to be discussed behind closed doors.

Carter ruled last year that the city had failed to comply with the terms of its settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance. On Tuesday, he ordered the city to pay $1.6 million to cover the group’s legal fees.

The judge also instructed the city to pay about $201,000 for fees incurred by LA CAN and the LA Catholic Worker, which have intervened in the LA Alliance case.

On Thursday, lawyers for the city notified the court that they intend to appeal the order to pay the various groups.

One of the most important political stories in American history — one that is particularly germane to our current, tumultuous time — unfolded in Los Angeles some 65 years ago.

Sen. John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, had just received his party’s nomination for president and in turn he shunned the desires of his most liberal supporters by choosing a conservative out of Texas as his running mate. He did so in large part to address concerns that his faith would somehow usurp his oath to uphold the Constitution. The last time the Democrats nominated a Catholic — New York Gov. Al Smith in 1928 — he lost in a landslide, so folks were more than a little jittery about Kennedy’s chances.

“I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk,” Kennedy told the crowd at the Memorial Coliseum. “But I look at it this way: The Democratic Party has once again placed its confidence in the American people, and in their ability to render a free, fair judgment.”

The most important part of the story is what happened before Kennedy gave that acceptance speech.

While his faith made party leaders nervous, they were downright afraid of the impact a civil rights protest during the Democratic National Convention could have on November’s election. This was 1960. The year began with Black college students challenging segregation with lunch counter sit-ins across the Deep South, and by spring the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had formed. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not the organizer of the protest at the convention, but he planned to be there, guaranteeing media attention. To try to prevent this whole scene, the most powerful Black man in Congress was sent to stop him.

The Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was also a warrior for civil rights, but the House representative preferred the legislative approach, where backroom deals were quietly made and his power most concentrated. He and King wanted the same things for Black people. But Powell — who was first elected to Congress in 1944, the same year King enrolled at Morehouse College at the age of 15 — was threatened by the younger man’s growing influence. He was also concerned that his inability to stop the protest at the convention would harm his chance to become chairman of a House committee.

And so Powell — the son of a preacher, and himself a Baptist preacher in Harlem — told King that if he didn’t cancel, Powell would tell journalists a lie that King was having a homosexual affair with his mentor, Bayard Rustin. King stuck to his plan and led a protest — even though such a rumor would not only have harmed King, but also would have undermined the credibility of the entire civil rights movement. Remember, this was 1960. Before the March on Washington, before passage of the Voting Rights Act, before the dismantling of the very Jim Crow laws Powell had vowed to dismantle when first running for office.

That threat, my friends, is the most important part of the story.

It’s not that Powell didn’t want the best for the country. It’s just that he wanted to be seen as the one doing it and was willing to derail the good stemming from the civil rights movement to secure his own place in power. There have always been people willing to make such trade-offs. Sometimes they dress up their intentions with scriptures to make it more palatable; other times they play on our darkest fears. They do not care how many people get hurt in the process, even if it’s the same people they profess to care for.

That was true in Los Angeles in 1960.

That was true in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

That is true in the streets of America today.

Whether we are talking about an older pastor who is threatened by the growing influence of a younger voice or a president clinging to office after losing an election: To remain king, some men are willing to burn the entire kingdom down.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow