The Los Angeles Fire Department is requesting a budget of more than $1 billion for the coming year, arguing that the additional funding is necessary to be prepared for wildfires like the one that devastated Pacific Palisades in January.
The request, which represents a more than 15% increase over this year’s budget, includes money for 179 new firefighting recruits and a second crew dedicated to fighting wildfires, as well as helitanker services to battle fires from the air.
In the immediate aftermath of the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes, top LAFD officials blamed a lack of resources and extraordinarily high winds for their failures in combating the flames.
United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112, the union that represents the city’s firefighters, has long argued that the department is severely underfunded and is pushing for a half-cent sales tax that, if approved by voters, would generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually.
Fire Chief Jaime Moore, who was appointed to his post earlier this month, wrote in a memo to the Board of Fire Commissioners last Friday that “the proposed budget will reinforce and accelerate operational enhancements implemented following the devastating Palisades wind-driven vegetation fire in January 2025.”
Moore’s request is the first step in a lengthy process to hammer out a city budget that requires approval by the City Council and the mayor. This year, the city had to close a nearly $1-billion shortfall caused largely by rising personnel costs, soaring legal payouts and a slowdown in the local economy.
City department heads often request amounts far higher than they eventually receive. With the city still in a budget crunch, the outlook for the LAFD’s request is unclear.
“The budget process is in its early stages. Reforms must continue to be implemented at the department and Mayor Bass looks forward to working with Chief Moore to strengthen the city’s emergency preparedness,” said Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Mayor Karen Bass.
Genethia Hudley Hayes, who heads the civilian Board of Fire Commissioners, said Tuesday that she had not yet seen the request but that she generally supports a 15% increase in the LAFD budget.
“We need it,” she said. “The smart thing would be to let the public know what you are going to do with that money.”
In the days leading up to Jan. 7, LAFD officials decided not to order firefighters to remain on duty for a second shift — which would have required paying them overtime — and staffed just a few of the more than 40 engines available to aid in battling wildfires, despite warnings of life-threatening winds, a Times investigation found.
Then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley said that commanders had to be strategic with limited resources while continuing to handle regular 911 calls.
An LAFD after-action report released last month cited “financial constraints” as a factor in pre-deployment decisions.
Moore’s budget memo tied many of his requests to the Palisades fire.
The second wildland hand crew, which would include 32 positions for $2 million, would supplement a hand crew formed this year, after the Palisades fire. The crew’s 26 recruits, who are trained in wildfire fighting and management, establish fire lines to stop flames from spreading. Throughout the year, they do brush clearance around the city.
The helitanker lease, costing slightly less than $1 million, would support aerial attacks of flames that are difficult for crews on the ground to reach.
Moore’s budget request includes the reinstatement of the LAFD’s emergency incident technicians, who help coordinate responses to fires — positions that were cut in the last budget cycle. The after-action report described the LAFD’s disorganized response to the Palisades fire, citing major issues with staffing and communications.
In the fire’s aftermath, the LAFD’s budget was a subject of public debate, with some saying that Bass had reduced it. The 2024-25 budget actually increased slightly after firefighters received raises and the city invested in new firetrucks and other purchases. The budget increased again in 2025-2026.
Bass said she has committed additional resources to the Fire Department in each year she has been mayor.
The half-cent sales tax proposed by the firefighters union would go before city voters as a ballot measure next November.
By 2050, the sales tax would raise at least $9.8 billion, funding at least 30 new fire stations and new fire trucks, as well as adding 1,400 Fire Department employees, according Doug Coates, the acting president of UFLAC, and Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades.
It’s awards season crunch time, in the sense that I’m crunching in as much work as I can before a Thanksgiving respite — including a guide to some of the highlights from this week’s issue of The Envelope, covered by my profile of Renate Reinsve.
Whether it’s while you smell turkey legs being turned into gravy (i.e., if you’re me as I write this) or as you’re lounging around over the holiday weekend, I hope you’ll dive into the great stories below. And be sure to take a breather from the mayhem in the process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint!
Digital Cover: Ethan Hawke
(Victoria Will / For The Times)
In the years since the Golden Age of TV, it’s not been uncommon for actors to vie for major awards on both the big and small screens at once. But few in recent memory have done so in such distinct projects as Ethan Hawke in “Blue Moon” and “The Lowdown”: One is a chamber drama about the last days of legendary songwriter Lorenz Hart, the other a noirish tale of a hangdog journalist.
It’s a reflection of the actor’s voracious appetite for the unexpected (see also: “Black Phone 2”), which he reveals that some in Hollywood once found “irritating.”
“Generally, people are more comfortable when they know exactly what you are and what your thing is, and if you keep changing your thing it’s confusing,” he tells writer Emily Zemler. “But it’s always been interesting to me to do different things. It makes acting really exciting to me to keep shaking it up. Each thing has its own geometry and math, and that keeps you really engaged.”
Eva Victor on ‘Sorry, Baby’
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
One of my favorite films of the year, “Sorry, Baby” works on many levels — as a campus satire, a portrait of a friendship, a slice of small-town life. And as writer-director-star Eva Victor writes in a new essay on the film, it took all of those other levels to make the film’s deepest, darkest level possible.
“There was a time in my life when I was looking for a film about going through a trauma that held my hand while I was watching it,” Victor notes, contrasting “Sorry, Baby” with films that depict similar subjects with violent imagery. “I needed the film to care for me, the person who’d been through the difficult thing. I didn’t need a film that existed to teach people how bad it is to go through a bad thing, I needed a film that existed to make me feel less alone.”
How ‘F1’ became a part of F1
As an avowed fan of Formula One, from docuseries “Drive to Survive” to scripted miniseries “Senna,” what fascinated me most watching Apple TV’s summer blockbuster “F1” was the delicate logistical dance it must’ve required to shoot a major theatrical film at actual races on the actual F1 circuit. Maybe that’s my stressed-out editor brain at work, but I asked Nate Rogers to dig into the question.
He reports back that even with legendary racer Lewis Hamilton and Apple on board, the film had to prove “that they could set up at an event like the fabled British Grand Prix at Silverstone and not cause a pileup.”
“We had to rehearse the blocking and staging for about two weeks with a stopwatch … to prove to them that we could actually shoot a scene and get off the track before the race started,” director Joseph Kosinski tells Rogers.
The Hull Maritime Museum will reopen in spring 2026 with new exhibits which explore its 800 year history.
When it reopens, you can expect to see a ship model of maritime art and a 40-foot whale skeleton.
The city also has its own showbiz trail for tourists, a famous and very big minster as well as an interactive dinosaur museum.
Morecambe
The seaside town of Morecambe will be celebrating in 2026 as it will mark the 100th birthday of Eric Morecambe.
Most read in Best of British
The comedian grew up in the town and he took his stage name from it and celebrations with a comedy extravaganza in his honour will start in May next year.
The Hull Maritime Museum will reopen with new exhibits next yearCredit: Hull MaritimeOne of the new exhibits will be a 40-foot long whale skeletonCredit: Hull Maritime
One of the major focuses of the festival will be ‘Stories Beyond Borders’ – a competition to choose the best ‘visually captivating and thought-provoking short films from around the world’.
The festival will run from January 23 to February 1, 2026.
Blackpool
Of course Blackpool is renowned for its Pleasure Beach theme park and this year marks its 130th birthday.
Next year, the attraction is set to open its new Aviktas “gyro swing” ride: a giant spinning pendulum.
It will be first of its kind in the UK and will stand at 138 feet.
The ride will feature a giant spinning pendulum that will swing 120 degrees and seat 40 riders at a time.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach will open a new attraction next yearCredit: AlamyThe huge swing ride will be 138 feet high and the tallest of its kind
Riders’ legs will dangle giving them the feeling of flying.
There are other swinging pendulum rides in the UK already, but Blackpool‘s will tower higher.
The town’s Royal Carlton Hotel will also be restored to its former glory in a multi-million pound refurbishment.
It sits on the beachfront and has been closed since last year for the upgrades which will be to all 40 rooms, as well as the bar and restaurant.
Folkestone
In the Kent coastal town of Folkestone, the heritage Leas Lift cliff railway will reopen in spring of 2026.
The Grade II listed funicular railway first opened in 1885 and is one of the only three remaining water-balanced cliff lifts in the UK.
It has been closed since 2017, but will reopen next year so locals and tourists will be able to ride between the seafront and promenade.
There will also be a new café and community space in the Lower Station, and experience fresh exhibitions telling the story of this unique piece of seaside heritage.
The funicular railway in Folkestone will reopen in 2026 after being closed since 2017Credit: Alamy
Southport
Southport is having a year of entertainment as the historic seaside town is hosting a year-long programme of circus, theatre, art and music performances.
In February the town will hold Lightport – an immersive light and sound installation which will cast rainbows across the town.
At the beginning of April will be Cristal Palace where the world-renowned French street theatre company Transe Express will bring its spectacular show Cristal Palace to Lord Street .
There’s a 15-metre-wide flying chandelier – and the street will transform into an open air ballroom with live music, aerial performances and dance.
Southport will hold a series of festivals throughout the yearCredit: Alamy
The Big Top Festival will see the circus take over Southport and you can watch this happen in May 2026.
There will be juggling performances, performances on open-air stages, live music and workshops.
In October will be Books Alive! a literature festival with a twist as storytelling comes to life with live performances and author-led workshops.
It’s during half-term so children can go along and enjoy their favourite novels in real-time.
All events are completely free for locals and tourists to visit.
The 20th instalment of the Isles of Scilly’s Walk Scilly festival will kick off in April.
The 200th year of Cowes Week sailing regatta on the Isle of Wight in August and it’s also the 90th birthday of Butlin’s.
London’s Southbank Centre marks its 75th anniversary, with its A Poet in Every Port project which will see the National Poetry Library hit the road, bringing year-round performances and workshops to seaside towns including South Shields, Southend, Great Yarmouth and Penzance.
The final sections of the King Charles III England Coast Path are due to open in spring, when it will become the world’s longest continual seaside hiking route: a whopping 2,700 miles (4,498km) running the length of England’s coast.
This Thanksgiving holiday travel period is expected to be the busiest in 15 years, federal officials said, as Americans brush off the recent government shutdown that snarled air travel across the country.
All told, more than 360,000 flights will take to the skies this week through Dec. 1, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
Traffic was expected to have peaked Tuesday, with more than 52,000 flights set to ferry flyers to their feasts.
The number of flights was expected to drop to only 25,611 on Thanksgiving Day before ticking back up for post-holiday travel. In a chart posted on X, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimated that 16.9 million people would fly throughout this holiday week.
Los Angeles International Airport officials estimated that 2.5 million travelers would come through the airport from Nov. 20 through Monday. Sunday is expected to be the single busiest travel day, with more than 230,000 people making their way through the terminals.
“Thanksgiving is one of LAX’s most important travel periods with so many of our guests connecting with loved ones or setting out on holiday trips,” said Courtney Moore, deputy executive director of strategy, innovation and experience at Los Angeles World Airports. “We’ve spent the year preparing to welcome our guests with smoother experiences throughout the airport.”
The uptick in travel comes just weeks after the federal government shutdown, which forced the FAA to cut air traffic across the country to relieve air traffic controllers.
While travelers might still feel on edge over possible delays, FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford said in a news conference on Monday that they should “travel with confidence.”
“Thanks to the dedication of our air traffic controllers and every FAA employee, we are ready for the holiday rush and take pride in helping travelers reach their friends and families during this important time of year,” Bedford said in a statement. “I am deeply grateful to our entire FAA team. Even through a period of record-high traffic, their unwavering commitment keeps the system running safely.”
Travelers are encouraged to pack light to get through security and arrive early to the airport to avoid travel stress.
While California will largely be warm and sunny through the holiday, weather delays could still impact airports in certain parts of the country, including the New York area, JFK/LGA/EWR; Philadelphia, PHL; Houston, IAH/HOU; Memphis, Tenn., MEM; and Dallas, DFW/DAL.
The official head coach for Crenshaw High’s football team remains Robert Garrett even though he’s been barred from attending games on Los Angeles Unified School District property since Aug. 21, when he was placed on administrative leave.
His long-time assistant and Crenshaw grad, Terrence Whitehead, took over as interim coach the week before the opening game. He and assistants trained by Garrett since they were adolescents have the Cougars at 10-1 and playing for the City Section Open Division title against top-seeded Carson at 6 p.m. Saturday at L.A. Southwest College.
“I think he’s doing an outstanding job from where he’s been put,” Garrett said.
Garrett said it’s no surprise what Crenshaw has accomplished with 14 of 18 players returning from a team last season that lost by a single point in the opening round of the Division I playoffs to No. 1-seeded Eagle Rock. Add standout linebacker De’Andre Kirkpatrick to that group along with others and you have Crenshaw seeking its seventh City title.
“My thoughts are you win ballgames from January through July when you meet daily and go over fundamentals, skills and get bigger, stronger and faster. You win it in the weight room,” Garrett said.
Garrett said he has spoken to Whitehead weekly and seen games that were streamed. But he has no intention of attending Saturday’s game.
Crenshaw coach Robert Garrett has been on administrative leave since August.
(Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)
“I’ll be sitting in front of a TV watching USC versus UCLA,” he said.
Garrett praised Kirkpatrick, a transfer from eight-man power Animo Robinson who he met last spring and summer.
“He’s by far a Division I player,” he said of the 6-foot-3, 225-pound junior. “You can’t coach size. He has good attitude. Doesn’t cuss, doesn’t fuss and doesn’t hang out. It doesn’t come from me or anyone coaching him. All we can do is motivate him and encourage him to do better.”
To say Garrett is fed up with LAUSD is an understatement. There has been no celebration of the greatest achievement by a football coach in City Section history. Crenshaw’s 10 wins give him 300 career victories since 1988, which puts him in Hall of Fame territory.
“I’m going to coach somewhere, somehow,” he said. “I was born to coach. I’m a helluva coach. Nobody gave me that and nobody can take it away.”
Garrett said he has never been told what is being investigated the last four months.
“I’m going to coach again. I’m going to get out of the house real soon because I’m an American citizen,” he said.
He continues to receive full pay while staying home and waiting to be cleared. Once LAUSD starts an investigation, it can last more than a year. Former Huntington Park basketball coach Joe Reed returned this year after 14 months on administrative leave after a parental complaint.
“I haven’t been told anything,” Garrett said. “All I’ve been told is we’re investigating. It doesn’t matter what happens because whatever they tell me what they are investigating, they will find no wrongdoing whatsoever.”
Garrett is writing a book. He said he was the first from his Jefferson High graduating class of 1977 to earn a college degree. His mother was one of 18 siblings and each one had six or more kids. He graduated from Nebraska’s Concordia University in 1981 with a focus on teaching and has a Lutheran teaching certificate. He could be a pastor if he wanted to.
“I’m not a coach, I’m an educator,” he said. “I’m the first in my family to get a college degree. You don’t know what I’ve been through and what I’ve seen.”
He offered words of wisdom for Thanksgiving: “Always do thy duty, which is best, leave unto the Lord the rest.”
You’ve heard the line, “Win one for the Gipper.” Now it’s, “Win one for The G Man.”
California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines over the Trump administration’s immigration raids this year in Los Angeles and across the nation, according to a new poll.
Just over half of the state’s registered voters oppose federal efforts to reduce undocumented immigration, and 61% are against deporting everyone in the nation who doesn’t have legal status, according to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab released to The Times on Wednesday.
But there is an acute difference in opinions based on political leanings.
Nearly 80% of Democrats oppose reducing the number of people entering the United States illegally, and 90% are against deporting everyone in the country who is undocumented, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 5% are against reducing the entries and 10% don’t believe all undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave.
“The big thing that we find, not surprisingly, is that Democrats and Republicans look really different,” said political scientist Amy Lerman, director of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, who studies race, public opinion and political behavior. “On these perspectives, they fall pretty clearly along party lines. While there’s some variation within the parties by things like age and race, really, the big divide is between Democrats and Republicans.”
While there were some differences based on gender, age, income, geography and race, the results largely mirrored the partisan divide in the state, Lerman said.
One remarkable finding was that nearly a quarter of survey respondents personally knew or were acquainted with someone in their family or friend groups directly affected by the deportation efforts, Lerman said.
“That’s a really substantial proportion,” she said. “Similarly, the extent to which we see people reporting that people in their communities are concerned enough about deportation efforts that they’re not sending their kids to school, not shopping in local stores, not going to work,” not seeking medical care or attending church services.
The poll surveyed a sample of the state’s registered voters and did not include the sentiments of the most affected communities — unregistered voters or those who are ineligible to cast ballots because they are not citizens.
A little more than 23 million of California’s 39.5 million residents were registered to vote as of late October, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“So if we think about the California population generally, this is a really significant underestimate of the effects, even though we’re seeing really substantial effects on communities,” she said.
Earlier this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a series of raids in Los Angeles and surrounding communities that spiked in June, creating both fear and outrage in Latino communities. Despite opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other elected Democrats, the Trump administration also deployed the National Guard to the streets of the nation’s second-largest city to, federal officials said, protect federal immigration officials.
The months since have been chaotic, with masked, armed agents randomly pulling people — most of whom are Latino — off the streets and out of their workplaces and sending many to detention facilities, where some have died. Some deportees were flown to an El Salvador prison. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by state officials and civil rights groups.
In one notable local case, a federal district judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area. The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal and lifted that order, while the case moves forward.
More than 7,100 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area by federal authorities since June 6, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
On Monday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Bass and other elected officials hosted a congressional hearing on the impact of immigration raids that have taken place across the country. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House’s oversight committee, also announced the creation of a tracker to document misconduct and abuse during ICE raids.
While Republican voters largely aligned with Trump’s actions on deportations, 16% said that they believed that the deportations will worsen the state’s economy.
Lerman said the university planned to study whether these numbers changed as the impacts on the economy are felt more greatly.
“If it continues to affect people, particularly, as we see really high rates of effects on the workforce, so construction, agriculture, all of the places where we’re as an economy really reliant [on immigrant labor], I can imagine some of these starting to shift even among Republicans,” she said.
Among Latinos, whose support of Trump grew in the 2024 election, there are multiple indications of growing dissatisfaction with the president, according to separate national polls.
Nearly eight in 10 Latinos said Trump’s policies have harmed their community, compared to 69% in 2019 during his first term, according to a national poll of adults in the United States released by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center on Monday. About 71% said the administration’s deportation efforts had gone too far, an increase from 56% in March. And it was the first time in the two decades that Pew has conducted its survey of Latino voters that the number of Latinos who said their standing in the United States had worsened increased, with more than two-thirds expressing the sentiment.
Another poll released earlier this month by Somos Votantes, a liberal group that urges Latino voters to support Democratic candidates, found that one-third of Latino voters who previously supported Trump rue their decision, according to a national poll.
Small business owner Brian Gavidia is among the Latino voters who supported Trump in November because of financial struggles.
“I was tired of struggling, I was tired of seeing my friends closing businesses,” the 30-year-old said. “When [President] Biden ran again I’m like, ‘I’m not going to vote for the same four years we just had’ … I was sad and I was heartbroken that our economy was failing and that’s the reason why I went that way.”
The East L.A. native, the son of immigrants from Colombia and El Salvador, said he wasn’t concerned about Trump’s immigration policies because the president promised to deport the “worst of the worst.”
He grew disgusted watching the raids that unfolded in Los Angeles earlier this year.
“They’re taking fruit vendors, day laborers, that’s the worst of the worst to you?” he remembered thinking.
Over a lunch of asada tortas and horchata in East L.A., Gavidia recounted being detained by Border Patrol agents in June while working at a Montebello tow yard. Agents shoved him against a metal gate, demanding to know what hospital he was born at after he said he was an American citizen, according to video of the incident.
After reviewing his ID, the agents eventually let Gavidia go. The Department of Homeland Security later claimed that Gavidia was detained for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants. He is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups alleging racial profiling during immigration raids.
“At that moment, I was the criminal, at that moment I was the worst of the worst, which is crazy because I went to go see who they were getting — the worst of the worst like they said they were going to get,” Gavidia said. “But turns out when I got there, I was the worst of the worst.”
At the Beijing premiere of “Zootopia 2” last week, Walt Disney Animation Studios Chief Creative Officer Jared Bush encountered a wall filled with letters from people throughout China, all writing about what the original 2016 animated movie meant to them.
They highlighted the optimism of rabbit cop Judy Hopps and how they wanted to emulate her sunny outlook. They cited the unlikely friendship between Judy and her partner in crime, a fox named Nick Wilde, as hope that they could find common ground with different family members. It was a display Bush didn’t see at any other premiere.
“It’s more than just a story,” said Bush, who wrote and directed “Zootopia 2,” directing alongside Byron Howard. “A lot of the time, these characters have helped people through difficult moments of their life. They have a lot of love for these characters.”
To this day, the original “Zootopia” ranks as China’s highest-grossing Hollywood animated film, with a total box office haul there of $236 million. Marketing ahead of the new film has included promotions with 10 brands, as well as displays throughout the country, including in Shenzhen, Chengdu and Beijing.
But over the years, the China market for U.S.-made films has changed dramatically, leading to questions about whether “Zootopia,” which heads to theaters Wednesday, and its loyal following can break through the more difficult landscape that American movies face there today.
Once seen as a major — and lucrative — destination for big Hollywood blockbusters, the country now has a more robust local film industry that’s pumping out strong competitors. The fraying geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China also hasn’t helped, nor has the increasing trend of younger audiences watching short-form content on their phones.
“It’s important to the industry that both ‘Zootopia’ and ‘Avatar’ work,” said Andrew Cripps, head of theatrical distribution for Walt Disney Studios, referring to the upcoming James Cameron-directed “Avatar: Fire and Ash.” “The overall industry needs some success at year-end, and I think this would be a tremendous sign of confidence in the marketplace.”
China was once seen as a gold mine for certain films — namely, big studio movies — that could get approval from its government for release.
A decade ago, Hollywood movies would regularly haul in more than $100 million at the Chinese box office, with massive blockbusters like 2015’s “Furious 7” and 2014’s “Transformers: Age of Extinction” drawing north of $300 million each. Some films with softer domestic debuts could count on China to supersize their box-office returns, like 2016’s “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter,” which grossed nearly $160 million in China alone, but just $26.8 million in the U.S. and Canada.
In 2016, the domestic Chinese film business saw a significant slowdown in box-office growth. As a result, revenue from imported films — largely those from the U.S., such as Universal Pictures’ “Warcraft” and Disney-owned Marvel Studios’ “Captain America: Civil War” — increased by 10.9%, said Ying Zhu, author of “Hollywood in China: Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Movie Market.”
Those foreign films accounted for 41.7% of the total market share at the time, up from 38.4% in 2015, she wrote in an email. To help boost year-end revenue, Chinese regulators even relaxed the so-called blackout on imported films during December, which was traditionally saved for local movies.
“Zootopia” opened in China to just $22 million at the box office, but momentum grew in subsequent weeks. Though a movie from the U.S. typically got a four-week run in China, Chinese regulators made an exception and added two extra weeks, said Bush, who co-directed and co-wrote the 2016 film.
“‘Zootopia’ was somewhat of a real surprise to us here in China,” he said on a video call from Beijing while on the film’s publicity tour. “We didn’t know that it was going to turn into this phenomenon here.”
Known in China as “Crazy Animal City,” the film’s dynamic between lead characters Nick and Judy and their imperfect but caring relationship appealed to Chinese audiences, as did Judy’s backstory of moving from a small town in the countryside to a major metropolis, Bush said. Animated films have also long been popular in the market.
After the film’s success, Disney built the “Zootopia”-themed land in Shanghai Disneyland, which opened in 2023 and is the only such land in any Disney park. The studio recently held the movie’s Shanghai premiere at the themed land, as crowds of fans (both there and in Beijing) dressed up as characters from the film, including lesser-known ones like Fru Fru the shrew and Officer Clauhauser, a pop culture-obsessed cheetah.
But since 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic, China has pulled back from its embrace of Hollywood films, particularly as its political relationship with the U.S. has chilled.
Earlier this year, China planned to reduce the number of Hollywood films it allows into the country, amid tariff tensions with the U.S. At the same time, China’s homegrown film industry has matured, leading to more locally-produced movies at the box office. A notable success was the animated hit “Ne Zha 2,” which raked in almost $2.2 billion worldwide, $1.8 billion of which was in China.
And similar to the U.S., the Chinese film market has also been dented by the growth of short-form content and increasing popularity of watching entertainment on phones and tablets, keeping theatergoers at home.
That’s all meant a less reliable haul for U.S. films. So far this year, the top-grossing American film in China was Universal’s “Jurassic World: Rebirth,” which brought in $79 million — a far cry from the massive returns some U.S. movies once commanded. The last Disney film that was released in China and made more than $100 million was 2024’s “Alien: Romulus.”
But there are still niches that appeal to Chinese audiences, including family movies, big blockbusters laden with special effects and animated franchises. Cripps said he was “cautiously optimistic” about the film’s reception in China, because of the franchise recognition and the themed land in Shanghai.
“Given what’s happened over the last two to three years, it’s hard to get overly excited until you see some actual data,” he said. “But certainly, it feels good going into it.”
McALLEN, Texas — Yaakub Vijandre was preparing to go to work as a mechanic when six vehicles appeared outside his Dallas-area home. Federal agents jumped out, one pointed a weapon at him, and they took him into custody.
Vijandre is a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the Obama-era program that has shielded hundreds of thousands of people from deportation since 2012 if they were brought to the United States as children and generally stayed out of trouble. The Trump administration said it targeted Vijandre over social media posts. The freelance videographer and pro-Palestinian activist described his early October arrest to his attorneys, who relayed the information to reporters.
His arrest and several others this year signal a change in how the U.S. is handling DACA recipients as President Trump’s administration reshapes immigration policy more broadly. The change comes as immigrants have face increased vetting, including of their social media, when they apply for visas, green cards, citizenship, or to request the release of their children from federal custody. The administration also has sought to deport foreign students for participating in pro-Palestinian activism.
DACA was created to shield recipients, commonly referred to as “Dreamers,” from immigration arrests and deportation. It also allows them to legally work in the U.S. Recipients reapply every two years. Previously if their status was in jeopardy, they would receive a warning and would still have a chance to fight it before immigration officers detained them and began efforts to deport them.
In response to questions about any changes, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin issued a statement saying that people “who claim to be recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) are not automatically protected from deportations. DACA does not confer any form of legal status in this country.” DACA recipients can lose status “for a number of reasons, including if they’ve committed a crime,” she said.
McLaughlin also claimed in a statement that Vijandre made social media posts “glorifying terrorism,” including one she said celebrated Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq who was killed in a U.S. strike in 2006.
An attorney for Vijandre, Chris Godshall-Bennett, said Vijandre’s social media activity is “clearly” protected speech. He also said the government has not provided details about the specific posts in court documents.
Vijandre is among about 20 DACA recipients who have been arrested or detained by immigration authorities since Trump took office in January, according to Home is Here, a campaign created by pro-DACA advocacy groups. The administration is seeking to end his DACA status, which could result in his being deported to the Philippines, a home he has not visited since his family came to the U.S. in 2001, when he was 14.
DACA has faced legal challenges
DACA survived the first Trump administration’s attempt to rescind the program when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the administration did not take the proper steps to end it.
There have been other attempts to end the program or place restrictions on recipients.
This year, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would deny work permits for DACA recipients who live in Texas. The Trump administration recently presented its plans to a federal judge who is determining how it will work.
The administration also has issued new restrictions on commercial driver’s licenses that would prevent DACA recipients and some other immigrants from getting them. Last year, 19 Republican states stripped DACA recipients’ access to health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. And the number of states where immigrant students can qualify for in-state tuition has dwindled since the Justice Department began suing states this year.
“This administration might not be trying to end DACA altogether the way that they did the first time around, but they are chipping away at it,” said Juliana Macedo do Nascimento, spokesperson for United We Dream, which is part of Home is Here, the coalition keeping track of public cases of DACA recipients who have been detained.
Detained DACA recipients question their arrests
Catalina “Xóchitl” Santiago Santiago, a 28-year-old activist from El Paso, was arrested in August despite showing immigration officers a valid work permit obtained through DACA.
Days later, federal officers arrested Paulo Cesar Gamez Lira as the 28-year-old father was arriving at his El Paso home with his children following a doctor’s appointment. Agents dislocated his shoulder, according to his attorneys.
Both Santiago and Gamez Lira were held for over a month while their attorneys petitioned for their release.
Marisa Ong, an attorney for Santiago and Gamez Lira, said the government failed to notify either of her clients of any intention to terminate their DACA status.
“DACA recipients have a constitutionally protected interest in their continued liberty,” Ong said, adding that “the government cannot take away that liberty without providing some valid reason.”
DACA recipients can lose their status if they are convicted of a felony, significant misdemeanors like those involving harming others, driving under the influence or drug distribution, or three or more misdemeanors. They can also lose their status if they pose a threat to national security or public safety.
DHS claimed in a statement that Santiago was previously charged with trespassing, possession of narcotics and drug paraphernalia and that Gamez Lira was previously arrested for marijuana possession.
Ong said that when attorneys sought their release “the government presented no evidence of any past misconduct by either individual.”
Vijandre, the Dallas-area man who was arrested in October, remains in a Georgia detention facility. His attorneys say he received notice two weeks before his arrest that the government planned to terminate his DACA status but that he wasn’t given a chance to fight it.
“I think that the administration has drawn a very clear line and at least for right now, between citizen and noncitizens, and their goal is to remove as many noncitizens from the country as possible and to make it as difficult as possible for noncitizens to enter the country,” Godshall-Bennett, Vijandre’s attorney, said.
Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson’s documentary about Sean Combs finally has a release date.
Netflix announced Tuesday that it would release “Sean Combs: The Reckoning,” a four-part docuseries about the disgraced mogul directed by Alexandria Stapleton, on Dec. 2. Jackson, who serves as an executive producer, first revealed he was working on a documentary about Combs and his alleged abuses nearly two years ago.
The synopsis describes the series as a “staggering examination of the media mogul, music legend, and convicted offender” and touts that it will feature “explosive, never-before-seen materials, including exclusive interviews with those formerly in [Combs’] orbit,” such as “his former associates, childhood friends, artists, and employees.”
“Born with an insatiable drive for stardom and a knack for spotting talent, Combs made a quick ascent through the ranks of the music industry with Bad Boy Entertainment and was crucial in bringing hip-hop to the pop masses and launching the careers of dozens of generation-defining artists like The Notorious B.I.G., Mary J. Blige, Jodeci, and Danity Kane,” reads the synopsis. “But along the way … something darker began to color his ambitions.”
In July, Combs was found guilty on two counts of transportation to engage in prostitution after a seven-week federal criminal trial in New York. He was cleared of the more serious charges related to racketeering and sex trafficking. The former rapper is serving a four-year sentence.
Jackson, who had long feuded with Combs, often took to social media to troll the Bad Boy Entertainment founder as the various allegations against him mounted and even through the criminal trial’s aftermath.
But the “In Da Club” rapper, whose work in TV also includes serving as executive producer on Starz’s crime thriller “Power,” told Netflix’s Tudum that he’s “been committed to real storytelling for years through G-Unit Film and Television.”
“I’m grateful to everyone who came forward and trusted us with their stories, and proud to have Alexandria Stapleton as the director on the project to bring this important story to the screen,” he said.
Subscribers of sports streaming service Fubo TV have lost access to channels owned by NBCUniversal in the latest TV distribution dust-up.
Fubo blasted NBCUniversal for its stance during collapsed contract negotiations, resulting in a blackout of NBCUniversal channels just days before Thanksgiving when scores of viewers hunker down for turkey and football. NBC is set to broadcast the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, the National Dog Show and Thursday night’s NFL game featuring the Cincinnati Bengals battling the Baltimore Ravens. The events also will stream on Peacock.
The blackout, which also includes Bravo, CNBC and Spanish-language Telemundo, affects Fubo’s nearly 1.6 million customers.
The dispute comes a month after NBCUniversal’s rival, Walt Disney Co., acquired the controlling stake of Fubo and folded the smaller sports-centric offering into Disney’s Hulu + Live TV. (Hulu + subscribers still have NBCUniversal channels available because they are covered by a separate distribution contract.)
Fubo customers could also miss NBC’s broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
(Eduardo Munoz Avarez / Associated Press)
In its Tuesday statement, Fubo alleged that NBCUniversal had refused to give Fubo leeway to offer just a few of its channels — rather than its entire portfolio. Fubo is looking to control costs and designed its product to be a slimmed-down version of a bulky bundle — but one with a heavy complement of sports networks.
Fubo also took issue with NBCUniversal negotiating on behalf of the cable channels that NBCUniversal plans to cast off in January as part of a corporate split.
Legacy cable channels including MS Now (formerly MSNBC), Syfy, CNBC, USA Network and Golf Channel will be form the new publicly traded company, Versant.
“Fubo offered to distribute Versant channels for one year,” Fubo said in its statement, adding that it views most of those networks as “not being worth the cost.”
“NBCU wants Fubo to sign a multi-year deal – well past the time the Versant channels will be owned by a separate company,” Fubo said. “NBCU wants Fubo subscribers to subsidize these channels.”
NBCUniversal, owned by cable and broadband giant Comcast, countered that it had offered Fubo similar terms to those contained in deals struck with other pay-TV distributors — but Fubo balked.
“Unfortunately, this is par for the course for Fubo,” NBCUniversal said. “They’ve dropped numerous networks in recent years at the expense of their customers, who continue to lose content.”
The two companies also tussled over YouTube TV’s desire to offer the ESPN streaming app to its customers at no extra cost.
They reached a compromise, and YouTube came away with authorization to provide some ESPN streaming content.
In September, YouTube TV avoided a similar blackout of NBC channels by making a deal just hours before the deadline.
Disney acquired 70% of Fubo TV in October 2025.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
Fubo pointed to NBCUniversal’s recent deals with YouTube TV and Amazon Prime Video, which allows those companies to offer NBC’s streaming app Peacock as part of their channel stores. Fubo alleged that NBC refused to give Fubo the same rights.
“Fubo is committed to bringing its subscribers a premium, competitively-priced live TV streaming experience with the content they love,” Fubo said. “That includes multiple content options, including a sports-focused service, that can be accessed directly from the Fubo app. We hope NBCU reconsiders their stance, or we’ll be forced to move forward without them.”
Fans of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs might want to hold their ears when the wrongful death trial brought by his widow and parents against the Angels resumes Monday.
The Angels are about to present their defense and, according to people with knowledge of the Angels’ strategy, their attorneys plan to portray Skaggs as a selfish, secretive opioid addict who for years manipulated teammates and team communications director Eric Kay into obtaining illicit pills for him to chop up and snort.
Skaggs, a first-round draft pick of the Angels in 2009 out of Santa Monica High, was one year away from free agency when he died of an overdose July 1, 2019. He died after snorting a counterfeit opioid pill laced with fentanyl in his hotel room during an Angels trip to play the Texas Rangers in Arlington.
The left-handed starter was 27 and in the midst of his best season of seven in the big leagues when he died. His performance has been pointed to by Skaggs family lawyers as evidence he wasn’t a drug addict, but instead an athlete who took pain pills to stay on the field.
So far, testimony in a small, spare courtroom on the ninth floor of the Orange County Superior Court has favored the plaintiffs — Skaggs’ widow, Carli, and parents, Debbie Hetman and Darrell Skaggs.
Their lawyers called 21 witnesses over 24 days in court, attempting to establish that the pitcher’s fatal overdose was the result of the Angels’ negligent supervision of Kay, an admitted longtime opioid addict who is serving 22 years in prison for providing Skaggs with the pill.
The plaintiffs are asking for about $120 million in future earnings as well as additional millions for pain and suffering and punitive damages. Neither side is optimistic that a settlement can be reached ahead of a verdict.
Transcripts of trial testimony and interviews with people on both sides not authorized to speak publicly about the case provided a glimpse of the Angels’ defense strategy and what the plaintiffs have accomplished so far.
The Angels pared down their witness list at the request of Judge H. Shaina Colover, who has insisted the case go to the jury by Dec. 15. The Angels complained that two weeks might not be long enough to present their case, giving the plaintiffs an unfair advantage, even suggesting the issue could lead to a mistrial.
Skaggs’ lawyers, however, pointed out that the defense has taken longer to cross-examine witnesses than it took them to conduct the direct examinations. And Colover said a reason for the difference in the number of witnesses is that 12 people called by Skaggs’ lawyers were on the witness lists of both sides.
Like an MLB manager constructing a lineup, Skaggs lawyers led by Rusty Hardin were purposeful in the order they presented witnesses. They began their case by calling a string of Angels executives to poke holes in the team’s contention that they knew nothing about Kay’s addiction. Key witnesses refuting those denials included Kay’s wife, Camela, and Hetman.
Skaggs’ lawyers also presented text messages that indicated Kay’s supervisor, Tim Mead, and Angels traveling secretary Tom Taylor not only were aware of Kay’s addiction, but did not act decisively to isolate him, get him into inpatient rehab or terminate his employment.
The plaintiffs called witnesses to establish that not only were the Angels negligent on how they dealt with Kay’s addiction, they put his interest ahead of other employees and the organization by allowing him to continue working despite his bizarre behavior on the job.
The last witness before the court went into recess until Dec. 1 was human resources expert Ramona Powell, who testified that the Angels did not follow their own policies in evaluating and responding to Kay’s behavior. She said that had the team done so, Kay could have been terminated well before 2019.
Expect Angels lead attorney Todd Theodora to counter that Skaggs violated his contract and was guilty of fraud by concealing his drug problem for years. Furthermore, Skaggs allegedly continued to pressure Kay to procure opioids for him even after Kay completed drug rehab shortly before the fateful trip to Texas.
During opening arguments, Theodora stated that the Angels “know right from wrong,” but he is expected to assert that the case is more about what the team didn’t know. Kay and Skaggs have been described as masters at concealing their drug use. The Angels contend that had the team known of their addiction, officials could have provided them with treatment and perhaps Skaggs would be alive.
Testimony has already established that the Angels immediately informed MLB that Kay told co-worker Adam Chodzko that he was in Skaggs’ hotel room the night the pitcher died. Expect the Angels attorneys to take it a step further and assert that Kay might not have been prosecuted if the Angels hadn’t acted so swiftly.
Witnesses expected to be called by the defense include Angels president John Carpino and former MLB general manager Dan Duquette. The jury will view video of depositions given by former Angels players C.J. Cron, Matt Harvey, Cam Bedrosian and Blake Parker if they cannot testify in person.
The testimony of players can cut both ways, as evidenced by statements made by two players who testified for the plaintiffs — current Angels outfielder and three-time most valuable player Mike Trout and former relief pitcher Mike Morin.
Trout testified that Skaggs was “like a brother” to him, that he cried when told he’d died and that he had no clue about drug use. But Trout also hedged when asked whether he had offered to pay for Kay’s rehab, saying he just told him he’d help any way he could.
Morin, who pitched for the Angels from 2014 to 2017, said Kay sold him opioids “five to eight times” after an arm injury made him desperate to overcome pain and return to the mound. Yet under cross examination, Morin conceded that Skaggs was responsible for his own actions.
Carpino is responsible for the Angels’ day-to-day operations and his office is adjacent to those of Mead, Taylor and formerly Kay. Duquette, former general manager of the Montreal Expos, Boston Red Sox and Baltimore Orioles, is expected to testify that Skaggs’ future career earnings would have been no more than $30 million because of his drug use and history of injuries.
Skaggs’ lawyers called earnings expert Jeff Fannell, a former labor lawyer for the MLB Players Assn., who testified that Skaggs would have earned between $109 million and $120 million and could still be pitching.
Steve Cherundolo’s first season at LAFC ended in a penalty-kick shootout that decided one of the most compelling playoff games in MLS history. His final season ended in the same way last Saturday.
In between, Cherundolo proved to be one of the best coaches in league history, winning an MLS Cup, a U.S. Open Cup and more than 100 games in all competition in his short four-year stay. He took LAFC to a CONCACAF Champions League final and to the first round of the FIFA Club World Cup, compiling a resume no coach in MLS history can match.
And while his departure will clearly hurt, the club he leaves is in good shape with the core of its roster signed for next season. Of the 16 players Cherundolo used Saturday, just five — goalkeeper Hugo Lloris, defenders Nkosi Tafari and Ryan Raposo and midfielders Andrew Moran and Frankie Amaya — are out of contract.
General manager John Thorrington is expected to announce the club’s roster decisions later this week.
“Moving forward, we’ll see what it looks like for next season. I wish this club the very, very best,” said Cherundolo, who used 75 players, second-most in the league, during his four years in charge. “I can say with certainty it’s in a great spot for a very successful year again. And that would make me very proud.”
The coach, a Hall of Fame player who made three U.S. World Cup teams, announced last April he would be returning to his wife’s native Germany, where he spent the entirety of his 15-year club career, when LAFC’s season ended. That meant he entered the playoffs knowing his next loss would be his last one.
But he made clear last week he was just saying goodbye, not farewell.
“In four years I can be back here,” he said. “I am definitely not canceling that out.”
In the meantime, Thorrington is looking for a new coach for just the second time in franchise history. The first time he stayed in-house, replacing Bob Bradley with Cherundolo, manager of the club’s USL Championship affiliate.
That’s likely to happen again this time since two members of Cherundolo’s staff — Marc Dos Santos, a former Whitecaps manager, and former Galaxy and Chivas USA forward Ante Razov, an assistant with three MLS teams — are said to be among the favorites to take over and build on what LAFC has already accomplished.
“I think Steve himself would say that if he left and the culture crumbled, then he didn’t do a good enough job at building the culture,” defender Ryan Hollingshead said. “We know things are going to continue to chug along the right way and that’s partly because he’s helped make it that way. He put just the right spin on it and it’s created what has led to a bunch of success over the last four years.”
Results aside, if Cherundolo, 46, had been allowed to choose the explanation point to affix to the end of his MLS coaching career, it’s unlikely he could have selected a better one than Saturday’s game, one dramatic and entertaining enough to become an instant classic.
Playing before an MLS stadium-record crowd of 53,937, the Whitecaps took a 2-0 first-half lead and still led by a goal going into stoppage time. At that point first-year Vancouver coach Jesper Sorensen was so confident of victory, he subbed out captain Thomas Muller.
However, things quickly took a turn when defender Tristan Blackmon drew his second yellow card, leaving Vancouver with just 10 players. Son Heung-min needed little time to make the Whitecaps pay, bending in a spectacular free kick in the dying minutes for his second goal of the half — and his 12th in 13 games for LAFC — to send the game to extra time.
That’s when the game went from classic to epic, with Vancouver losing another player midway through that extra time after center back Belal Halbouni limped off with a leg injury. That allowed LAFC, which outshot the Whitecaps 26-9, to pepper the Vancouver goal, bouncing two shots off the posts and another off the crossbar.
Yet none found the back of the net, leaving the game to be decided on penalties, the cruelest, meanest, most unfair — and most exciting — way to determine a winner.
When Son, who finished the game massaging a muscle cramp, limped to the spot to send his team’s first penalty try off the right post, LAFC was in trouble. When Mark Delgado sent the third try over the net and into the crowd, LAFC was done.
“Sometimes football is crazy like this. That’s why we love football,” Son said before closing with “see you next season.”
That was something Cherundolo couldn’t say. But he left with his head held high just the same.
“If you look at the sum of four years with LAFC,” he said “we have a ton to be proud of.”
⚽ You have read the latest installment of On Soccer with Kevin Baxter. The weekly column takes you behind the scenes and shines a spotlight on unique stories. Listen to Baxter on this week’s episode of the “Corner of the Galaxy” podcast.
Former prisoners of the Saydnaya Military Prison and those close to them dance during a demonstration to celebrate their freedom and demand their right to hold their jailers accountable, at Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syria, in January. File Photo by Hasan Belal/EPA
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 25 (UPI) — Almost a year after the overthrow of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime, the fate of the tens of thousands of people who were arbitrarily arrested or forcibly disappeared since the civil war began in 2011 remains unknown.
For their families, it is a deep, unhealed wound — a continuing tragedy that leaves them with little hope of learning what truly happened, let alone whether they will ever find their loved ones, dead or alive.
This is the case for Lina Salameh and her only son, Hicham, who would have turned 32 this year. He vanished without a trace after being arrested at a checkpoint in a Damascus southern suburb in 2015.
When the peaceful anti-regime protests broke out and soon escalated into a bloody civil war, the Salameh family decided to seek refuge in neighboring Lebanon. Two years later, Hicham was forced to return to Syria to renew his travel documents.
He was stopped at the Syrian border crossing, prevented from returning to Lebanon and instructed to go back to Damascus to have his case reviewed at a Military Intelligence branch.
His mother refused to let him go to the branch, fearing he would be arrested, and she rented a new house — away from their original home in the southern suburb of Maadamiyeh — to keep him out of sight of the security services.
But he was soon arrested at a checkpoint, and “since that day, we have never heard anything about him or his fate,” she told UPI in a telephone interview from Damascus.
Hicham’s ordeal and his family’s agony was only just beginning. The only piece of information came two years later, when a prisoner released from Saydnaya Military Prison called them to confirm that Hicham had been held with him in the notorious jail.
Despite rushing to the prison and paying pro-regime lawyer, who had promised to find out whether their son was actually in Saydnaya, and paying him between $600 and $1,000, Hicham’s family was never able to see or even locate him.
Others, claiming to have good connections with security officials, demanded $25,000 to secure his release. But the family did not have that much money.
“Anyway, these were all lies,” Lina Salameh said. Like many other families, she was a victim of manipulation and financial extortion.
The U.K.-based Syrian Network for Human Rights documented more than 181,000 people who were arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned or who forcibly disappeared between March 2011 and August 2025
Its founder, Fadel Abdul Ghany, said that Syria continues to face an overwhelming crisis of missing and detained persons and “the fact that these individuals are still listed as missing does not imply they are alive.”
Abdul Ghany said his network’s analysis and statements by the new authorities suggest that surviving detainees held by the former regime have largely been released, and that no official acknowledgment has been made of remaining secret detention sites.
“In practice, this means that the vast majority of those still missing are presumed to have been killed in detention or extrajudicially executed,” he told UPI.
Abdul Ghany said Syria’s new authorities established the National Commission for Missing Persons and the Transitional Justice Commission with “broad formal mandates, but their operational performance is hampered by serious structural deficits.”
He cited key obstacles, including the failure to clearly define investigative powers and the lack of sustainable funding, which undermine their capacity to “deliver meaningful truth, accountability, or reparations.”
The commission’s independence and impartiality emerge as another issue, deepening concerns about “victor’s justice” with the focus so far heavily concentrated on the crimes committed by the former regime “with far less visible progress in addressing violations committed by armed opposition groups, extremist organizations and other non-state actors,” he added.
“Political sensitivities, fear of destabilizing the transition and the weakness of records related to non-state actors have slowed efforts to address their crimes,” he said. “As a result, databases on non-state perpetrators remain incomplete or contested, and many victims of these actors continue to be excluded from emerging accountability frameworks.”
Bissan Fakih, a Middle East campaigner with Amnesty International based in Beirut, called for “a justice process that is inclusive of everyone.”
While the Assad regime was responsible for a vast majority disappearing, it is important to recognize that armed groups in northwest Syria, including Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, and the Islamic State, also were responsible, Fakih said.
“Their families are not in less agony. They also deserve answers,” she told UPI.
Despite the chaos in the first days after Assad’s fall, with families storming prisons to search for their loved ones, Faqih said there was “much evidence” about the missing people in documents found in jails, hospitals and government institutions.
“To date, we haven’t seen actual practical steps to start the search for the disappeared,” she said, noting that DNA testing has not yet begun, despite the excavation of dozens of mass graves across Syria.
She emphasized the need to ensure that existing evidence is protected and analyzed correctly, adding that there are “dozens, even hundreds, of witnesses to these crimes,” including former prison guards who also hold important information.
This evidence would be crucial for Lina Salameh and for the thousands of families who have been unable to find any trace of their loved ones — not even their names or identification cards — in any of the prisons, hospitals or government records.
For many years, she tried to stop thinking about her son and whether he had been tortured or killed with acid. However, she clings to the small hope that “he will come one day, knock on my door and I will be able to see him.”
Khaled Arnous, several of whose relatives and hundreds of others disappeared in war-torn Maadamiyeh on the outskirts of Damascus, said they were now all convinced that 99% of the missing had been killed and “became martyrs,” although no burial place for them is known.
Arnous, whose son was killed in 2013 during clashes and is body recovered, said he used to comfort his wife by saying, “At least we know where he is buried and can go pray at his tomb.”
He added: “We mostly felt that Assad’s fall, the end of his suppression, and the victory of the revolution somehow eased our pain,.”
He recalled that most of the arrests and killings under the former regime were arbitrary, targeting people from specific regions, even though they had nothing to do with the revolution and did not carry arms.
The arrest of several former Saydnaya prison officials and guards accused of severe human rights abuses, torture and extrajudicial executions has raised families’ hopes for justice.
“They should be tried for sure…. They should pay the price for what they did to our children, and feel the same pain.” Lina Salameh said. “Only God knows how much they tortured them and how they killed them.”
To Fakih, justice is not just possible. She said it is the duty of the Syrian government to achieve it for all the victims of the Syrian conflict.
At 8 o’clock on a stormy weeknight in the chilly Chinatown offices of L.A. Taco, Memo Torres finally was worn out.
Since President Trump unleashed his deportation deluge on Los Angeles in June, the 45-year-old has chronicled nearly every immigration enforcement action in the region in three-minute “Daily Memo” videos for the online publication. He and his colleagues track down film footage and photos, reach out to officials to verify what they’ve found and hammer out a script for Torres to narrate.
The audio that played from Torres’ double-screen computer and smart phone as he reviewed the evidence on the day I visited contained snippets of the Southland’s sad soundtrack under what he continually calls the “siege” of ICE. Men pleading to la migra to stop hurting them. Activists cursing out agents. Whistles, screams, honks and sirens. Sobbing family members.
“If I wanted to cry, I don’t think that I could,” Torres said when I asked how he coped with seeing such videos ad nauseum.
“It’s not healthy, I know. It’s not mature. But what I go through is nothing like what the people I’m seeing are going through … Today was hard, though,” he continued, pounding his hand with his fist. “They went … extra hard today. They’re starting to get worse. Numbers that used to be a week’s worth of abductions are now a day.”
He sighed. His deep-set eyes were bleary. Reading glasses did nothing to help with 12 hours of staring at screens. Torres wiped his hands over his face as if washing off the horrors of the day and pressed the record button.
“Today, Border Patrol targeted Long Beach, swarming the streets again and taking gardeners, old men and a 12-pack of beer that they had,” he began. He talked over footage of masked men piling on top of a gardener at a Polly’s Pie in Long Beach as a police officer looked on with hands in pockets and a deer-in-headlights look.
In another clip, federal agents detained an elderly man sitting on the sidewalk near a liquor store, “making sure to put a handcuff on his hand as they helped him up.”
“Remember to stay safe and stay vigilant, folks,” Torres concluded.
He turned off the camera, blasted hardcore punk and began to splice his reel together.
“Daily Memo” has become the diary Los Angeles never asked for but which is now indispensable, documenting in real time one of the most terrifying chapters in the region’s history. Filling the camera frame with his broad shoulders, full beard and a baritone that alternates between wry, angry, calm and reassuring, Torres has been described by fans as the Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite of L.A.’s deportation days — legendary broadcasters he acknowledges never having heard of until recently.
L.A. Taco staffer Memo Torres, right, presents Victor Villa as L.A. Taco’s Taco Madness 2024 winner in an impromptu ceremony outside the Highland Park restaurant in 2024.
(Stephanie Breijo / Los Angeles Times)
“When you’re in the midst of everything, you forget someone has to keep an archive so we can go back to reference, and you think, ‘Damn is someone is doing that?’ Yeah, Memo is doing that,” Sherman Austin said. The Long Beach-based activist runs the Stop ICE Raids Alert Network, which sends out text alerts with the locations of raids to more than half a million people nationwide. “Memo puts a human face to what’s happening, and that resonates with people in a different way.”
“He’s a neighborhood hero,” said Rebecca Brown, supervising attorney for the Immigrants’ Rights Project of Public Counsel. The public interest law firm has filed or joined multiple lawsuits against the federal government this year over its deportation agenda. “A lot of these stories of people who are getting picked up can fall through the cracks. But their voices are getting captured by his recording.”
While “Daily Memo” is chronicling a city under attack, it’s also bringing comfort to an unexpected person: Torres.
The son of a Mexican immigrant from Zacatecas who came to this country without papers, Torres never had a full-time journalism job until this year, living a “Forrest Gump kind of life.” He estimates he has worked in at least 25 different trades, from butcher to taquero to sound engineer, social media manager and nonprofit worker, none really fitting his life’s goal to do something “meaningful.”
Nothing lasted longer than landscaping. A third-generation jardinero — his grandfather also worked in the U.S. — he at one point employed 28 workers and had contracts across the city, with Hollywood studios among his biggest clients.
Torres, who has two college-age children, sold the business in March to focus on journalism for good.
“My life has prepared me for this s—. There’s nothing that scares me anymore,” Torres said as he began to layer video clips over his “Daily Memo” narration. “So I bury my head into work. My escapism is the cruel reality of the city right now.”
Torres grew up in Culver City and Inglewood. At Loyola High he absorbed the Jesuit maxim of being a man for others. But after graduating from UC Berkeley with a sociology degree, Torres found himself back in the family business, unable to find a job that satisfied him.
“Relatives would make fun of me by saying, ‘There he goes with a degree and a lawnmower in the back of a truck,” he said. “I hated it, but I was good at it.”
His landscaping routes across Southern California inadvertently prepared him for journalism. He started an Instagram account, El Tragón de Los Angeles (The Glutton from Los Angeles), to share his eating adventures. That caught the attention of L.A. Taco in 2018, which was revamping at a time when the city’s indie publications were shuttering or faltering.
“Their mission of street-level reporting called to me,” Torres said. He volunteered to connect L.A. Taco to local restaurants so the publication’s members could score free food and discounts. He soon became director of partnerships, then took over L.A. Taco’s social media accounts, then started to write articles and shoot videos — mostly for free.
“I call him the Mexican Swiss Army knife — and not those small ones but the big ones with all the weird things,” L.A. Taco publisher Alex Blazedale said as he and Torres smoked outside during a short break. “Memo could literally do anything we asked him to, and he wanted to do it and followed through.”
L.A. Taco staffer Memo Torres edits video clips from daily ICE raids which he puts together with narration on an Instagram reel inside L.A. Taco’s studio in Chinatown.
(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)
Torres’ taco knowledge earned him appearances on the Netflix show “The Taco Chronicles” and a regular slot on KCRW’s “Good Food with Evan Kleiman.” Blazedale suggested this year that he do a daily news recap under the “Daily Memo” banner. But Torres found the title “cheesy and didn’t know what it was for.”
Then came the raids.
“I grew up on the History Channel,” Torres said. “They would always have these documentaries where they said they were finding new footage that had been thought lost. That’s what’s happening right now. So much stuff is being put up that quickly goes down. We need to document it for history.”
L.A. Taco editor Javier Cabral credits “Daily Memo” with bringing in so many new members that the publication is now financially sustainable.
“He’s not your average aspirational journalist who is either a hobbyist who wants to write more or someone who just got out of [journalism] school,” Cabral said. “He’s just a real paisa” — a working-class guy.
While Cabral finds Torres’ lack of reporting experience “refreshing,” he sometimes has to remind Torres not to editorialize too much.
“It’s that ‘Show, don’t tell’ thing in journalism, you know? But then I had to just check in with myself — am I being jealous by power-tripping at him?” Cabral said. “It was a hard conversation to have, but Memo took it [on] the chin and raised it up.”
Blazedale and Cabral believe so much in Torres that they recently hired a part-time assistant for “Daily Memo” and plan to turn an office at their headquarters into a proper studio. They got Torres a video editor, but the person quit after five minutes of viewing deportation footage — so Torres continues to put together the final product.
“We just can’t have Memo burn out,” Cabral said. “He’s too important to have that happen.”
Torres is unfazed, for now.
“It’s just like when I mowed lawns — let’s seize the day and make it your routine,” he said.
Besides, swimming in the chaos of the times is how Torres has dealt with a tough personal year. He sold his landscaping company, not just because of his increased L.A. Taco duties — he’s officially the publication’s director of engagement — but because the Hollywood writer’s strike and Trump’s deportations decimated his business. Two of his former gardeners have since been deported.
Torres started smoking again “to deal with all this.” He recently broke off an engagement after a 10-year-relationship with a woman whose family members were avid Trump supporters. On Election Night, Torres said, one of them told him to go back to Mexico. The couple’s Glendale home recently sold for far less than they paid. Soon, Torres plans to declare bankruptcy.
L.A. Taco’s offices are filled with boxes of his mementos as he settles into a new apartment. One is a laminated La Opinión story about him trying to recruit more Latino students to Berkeley after affirmative action ended.
“I always envisioned I would be useful for something,” he said before mentioning a letter from his mother he unearthed during his move. She died of cancer in 2006.
“She said, ‘I’m so proud of you. You’re trying to fight for what’s right. Don’t forget it.’ She saw it in me way back then.”
Torres uploaded his finished reel to L.A. Taco’s social media accounts. It was 10 p.m. — early for him. Outside the rain was pouring down harder than ever.
“I hope I can go back to writing about tacos,” Torres said with a laugh that betrayed he knew it wouldn’t happen for a while. “Just give me a break from reporting on the trauma and tragedy. But who knows if the future needs me? Maybe I’m just good for this moment, and I’m good with that.”
He stepped into the storm. Eight hours later, he would be back.
As natural disasters in Los Angeles go, a rain delay temporarily washing out a music festival is pretty low stakes. But fans had to scramble last week after a sudden thunderstorm made Tyler, the Creator’s flagship festival at Dodger Stadium soggy and unnavigable.
Now kicked forward a week, a few acts (Sombr, Tems, Clairo) dropped off the bill, a few (Kali Uchis) joined in their stead, and travelers with nonrefundable plane tickets had to find other ways to amuse themselves in L.A. for a week. But once the Dodger Stadium gates finally opened, everything was more or less smooth sailing. Here are the highlights of the weekend’s performances.
Timothée Chalamet’s ‘Marty Supreme’ blimp makes an appearance
Last week, actor Timothée Chalamet released a parody of a marketing meeting, for his upcoming film “Marty Supreme.” The 18-minute clip consisted of the Oscar nominee pitching the team outlandish advertising ideas like painting the Statue of Liberty orange. In the Zoom meeting, he says, “We should have the blimp go above Flog Gnaw and rain ping-pong balls, Marty Supreme-branded, rain ping-pong balls on everyone.”
Low and behold, right before Tyler, the Creator’s set, a bright orange blimp reading “Marty Supreme” began circling Dodger Stadium — just as Chalamet prophesied. People all around the festival could be seen stopping and pointing out the flying spectacle.
But thankfully, no raining ping-pong balls made an appearance. (Cerys Davies)
Geese fly high
If every generation deserves its own cool/sexy/mystifying rock band, then Gen Z’s (or maybe Gen Alpha’s) seems to be Geese. Led by the deep-voiced Cameron Winter, the group from New York appeared at Flog Gnaw less than 24 hours after a hometown gig at the Brooklyn Paramount on Friday night. “We finished a tour but we couldn’t stay away from the limelight, so we got on a plane just this morning,” Winter told the crowd. Geese plays skronky yet weirdly beautiful guitar music that inspires both swaying and moshing; it’s in a clear lineage of NYC acts that stretches back through the Strokes and Television to the Velvet Underground. But here at least you could detect a distinct L.A. presence in Emily Green’s John Frusciante-coded strums and in the doomed-heartthrob proclamations that made Winter sound a little like Jim Morrison. (Mikael Wood)
Happy 10th anniversary to Mac Miller’s “GO:OD AM”
In the sea of vendor pop-ups, Mac Miller’s yawning face, the cover of his 2015 release “GO:OD AM,” stood tall. In celebration of the album’s 10th anniversary, photographer Brick Stowell put on a small exhibition to honor the late Pittsburgh rapper. While standing in line, fans were chatting, sharing anecdotes of listening to Miller’s music or memories of when they saw him perform at Camp Flog Gnaw many years ago. Inside, the exhibition is simple, consisting of a few large-scale prints of photos Stowell selected. Some of the images focus on a smiling Miller or depict him playing the guitar or with friends. The record played softly in the space and a few people sat on the couches, with their eyes closed. In the midst of the music festival’s craziness, the tent was filled with a weighted, reverent energy. (C.D.)
Kali Uchis performs during Camp Flog Gnaw on Saturday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Kali Uchis mixed red-hot seduction with ICE-cold activism
As a last-minute addition to the festival’s lineup, Kali Uchis might’ve been expected to put in a no-frills performance. Instead, the eternally vibey psychedelic-soul star sang the lovey-dovey “All I Can Say” from inside a giant teacup — “If you came with someone you like, you could kiss them,” she suggested — and did “Heaven Is a Home” on the back of a motorcycle driven by a woman in a lace bodysuit and shades. (There was also a giant bed with satiny pink sheets.) Uchis is among pop’s foremost fantasists; her music invites the listener to get lost in an expertly appointed dreamland. But here she also had the real world on her mind: She played a video in which she said that everyone in her Colombian American household worked three jobs when she was growing up and that “immigrants built this country and make it what it is today.” As she left the stage, Uchis said, “ICE is terrorizing our community” and called out “their violations against human rights.” (M.W.)
Tyler, the Creator’s heartfelt thank you
“We couldn’t let that rain stop us — no, no, no,” Tyler, the Creator said not long into his hour-long set, and indeed Flog Gnaw’s mastermind seemed just a bit more amped than usual as he presided over the festival that almost wasn’t. Dressed in a red leather suit à la Eddie Murphy in “Delirious,” Tyler came out punching with “Big Poe” and “Sugar on My Tongue,” which also open “Don’t Tap the Glass,” the high-energy hip-house album he dropped this past summer with very little warning. But he also performed stuff from last year’s “Chromakopia,” which just snagged a nomination for album of the year at February’s Grammy Awards. (“Don’t Tap the Glass,” amusingly, is up against LPs by the Cure and Wet Leg in the alternative music album category.)
Tyler’s stage was designed to resemble a New York City subway station complete with a train car that he climbed atop and herky-jerked his way across. For “Don’t You Worry Baby” he was joined by a female dancer on roller skates; for “Noid,” a couple of guys with cameras helped him act out his unhappy thoughts on paparazzi. As the set went on, Tyler started shortening each song, limiting himself to only a verse or a chorus to pack in more hits: “Earfquake,” “Wusyaname,” “See You Again.” He thanked the crowd for hanging with the festival’s postponement — “I know it wasn’t ideal,” he said — and for “rocking with us for 11 years” of Flog Gnaw. The connection he’s forged is real. (M.W.)
Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso’s roller coaster of a set
Fresh off 5 wins at the Latin Grammys earlier this month, Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso left the CFA crowd delightfully perplexed. The audience started off on the smaller side, as Tyler, the Creator was wrapping up his set. But as the Argentine rappers, decked out in Versace, plowed through their catchiest hits like “Dumbai” and “Sheesh,” a dancing stampede made its way over.
Less than a year after their viral NPR Tiny Desk, the notoriously kooky duo flexed their ability to slip between genres. One moment, a pulsating EDM beat, beaming lasers and intense fog machines took over the stage — emulating a rave. The next moment, Ca7riel is angrily screaming “F— you!” at the top of his lungs over an aggressive punky guitar solo. Finally, they act like their microphones have become dumbbells, and start to sing about their “#Tetas,” on their satirical, body positivity anthem. Ca7riel and Paco Amoroso will never let you know their next move. (C.D.)
Fans raise their phones as Kali Uchis performs during Camp Flog Gnaw.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Clipse turn in a triumphant set
The Clipse have had a hell of a year. After releasing their first album together in 16 years, “Let God Sort Em Out,” the formidable Virginia rap duo of Pusha T and Malice embarked on a victory lap, which included a successful reunion tour and a flurry of hilariously entertaining interviews. In the midst of that, they also stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk — a performance that had more than 3.5 million views as of November— and racked up four Grammy nominations including best rap album and album of the year. So it was only right that they were invited to perform at Camp Flog Gnaw once again. (They also performed at the festival in 2023.)
Fittingly, the Clipse opened their set with the menacing “Chains and Whips,” which is jam packed with lethal, high-level bars about why contemporary rappers simply can’t sit with them. Not wasting any time during their set, the veteran emcees went bar for bar, diving into more tracks from their latest album including “Birds Don’t Sing” (a dedication to their late parents) and “P.O.V.,” which Tyler, the Creator joined them for just in time following his own high-energy set.
Satisfying their day one fans, the Clipse also performed a handful of their classic records like “Mr. Me Too” and “What Happened to That Boy.” As they rapped the lyrics to one of their most recognizable tracks, “Grindin,” a montage of Black people doing step routines, dancing and recreating the Neptunes beat on lunch tables played on the massive stage screens.
Much like “Let God Sort Em Out,” the Clipse’s performance further solidified why they’ve been in the game for more than 20 years and why they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. — (Kailyn Brown)
Childish Gambino’s set was a race against time. Prior to his set, the 42-year-old singer/rapper/actor (also known as Donald Glover) allowed fans to vote for his setlist. Playing anything from his biggest hits like “Redbone” and a very short snippet of “This is America” to his cover of Outkast’s “Prototype” and the 2011 release “Les,” Gambino made it clear he only had an hour and wanted to get to as many songs as possible. He often played the first verse of a track, allowing it to peak in the chorus and quickly brush past it — making the set feel like an invigorating sprint.
Halfway through the performance, Gambino, sparkling his glittery wifebeater, took a moment to get vulnerable with the crowd. This was his first performance since he had to abruptly cancel his world tour last year. He explained that he had a stroke unknowingly, on stage in Louisiana, and later found out that he had a hole in his heart and needed surgery. As he narrated his story, the sky lit up with a drone light show, depicting images of a heart and other dynamic patterns.
He said, during all of these health problems, the only things he could think of were “how many people I’m letting down” and “here I am still copying Jamie Foxx,” which got a laugh out of the crowd. Throughout the remainder of the show, he continued to exude a grateful energy, saying repeatedly, “I didn’t think I’d be able to [be here].” As he played the chosen songs, it was as if his only goal was to make the crowd as happy as possible.
The rapper left with a final message, “You have one life, so live your life as you want.” (C.D.)
Blood Orange puts CFG in a trance
Following Geezer’s (Kevin Abstract and Dominic Fike) endearing display of friendship, Blood Orange kept the cameraderie going on the fest’s main stage. Though the multi-piece band behind Dev Hynes’ musical moniker may sound melancholic, their energy was jolting. During tracks about grief and loneliness, like the cathartic “Charcoal Baby,” only Hynes could get the entire crowd to head bang.
After releasing his most recent album, “Essex Honey,” Blood Orange made his impromptu return to the fest — calling last year’s set “one of his favorite shows.” The British singer and his band trade instruments with a sense of ease — splitting their time among a cello, keyboards, synthesizers, a drum machine, electric and acoustic guitars. In this intricate display of instrumentalism, dark electronica and high-pitched vocals blend into feelgood jazz and ’80s synth pop without notice. With dense fog and transculent pink lights, the whole set started to fuse into a unifying dreamy moment. (C.D.)
Helicopters, a megaphone and pink hair curlers: ASAP Rocky keeps Flog Gnaw classic
Right before ASAP Rocky was meant to close out the festival, a helicopter started to circle the area, shining its light down on the crowd. A mock news livestream took over the stage’s screens in search of the Sunday headliner, accusing him of “never dropping the album.” On stage, the Harlem rapper descended on a floating helicopter of his own, megaphone in hand and pink curlers in his hair.
He made it clear he was there “to start a riot” (and he did consistently check in on the densely packed crowd too). The 37-year-old rapper was soon joined by a few dozen hooded figures, carrying upside-down American flags, who began to mosh while he continued to spit his ever-steady flow. Switching between his older stuff, like “L$D” and “Potato Salad” (which he was joined for by Tyler, the Creator) and more recent beloved singles like “Praise the Lord (Da Shine)” and “Sundress,” Rocky stuck to what he knows best — looking pretty and skillful rhymes. (C.D.)
A swing carousel at Camp Flog Gnaw.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
T-Pain knows your knees hurt
“I am old as f—,” T-Pain said as the R&B-rap crooner took a pause from his hit-studded set on Sunday night. “I was running out of time to do this. I saw the dimensions of the stage and my knees gave out.”
At 41, he is decently seasoned by Flog Gnaw standards (though still a surprisingly deft dancer). But his set was arguably one of the best-attended of the weekend, for good reasons.
Recent reappraisals from a mega-viral Tiny Desk concert and a boisterous Coachella set proved what close listeners have known all along: Pain is an absolute savant of melody and ear-tickling chord changes, with a gorgeous R&B voice whose famous digital treatments were artistically prescient rather than any sort of fix.
Yet to Flog Gnaw’s young crowds, blissfully free from the AutoTune wars of the 2000s, Pain now represents an idyll and purity of party music in hip-hop, rising from the mire of the Great Recession and the aspirations of President Obama with witty, self-aware hit after hit that showed a musician in total command of his craft, writing songs that transcend today’s cynical bleakness.
This redemption arc is well earned — how can you not listen to “Bartender” and long for the easy, sweet camaraderie of sidling up to your favorite server (though today that cocktail will more likely be N/A)? Dispatches from a saner time of millennial life like “Up Down” and “Can’t Believe It” landed like an envelope of Instax photos from a half-remembered house party. For Gen Z, it was Unc Culture embodied in the best ways.
Other than a brief villain segment (where Pain sung his verses from collabs with Chris Brown, Kanye West and R. Kelly; more an indictment of the men of R&B, really), his set delivered hit after hit and re-framed them within R&B history. He did what the genre is best at — stirring up the old glow of past happiness, even if that was spilling tequila down your pinstriped business-casual wear at a Hollywood bottle club in 2008. (A.B.)
Tyler, the Creator performs during Camp Flog Gnaw.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Doechii, the classroom disciplinarian of your dreams
Doechii framed her raucous Sunday night set as a stern classroom lecture on the craft of rapping. But in that case, she’s the kind of teacher that you bump into at the grocery store with a cart full of booze and a you-didn’t-see-this wink.
The Grammy favorite and new TDE superstar is so mercilessly good at rapping, so fully possessed of her gifts onstage, that her set made me wonder how all the backing-track reliant MC’s still get away with it. From the vicious opening lines of “Stanka Pooh” — “Let’s start the story backwards / I’m dead, she’s dead, just another Black Lives Matter” — to the joint-snapping house-music workout of “Alter Ego” and the horror-comedy sex romp of “Spooky Coochie,” she never settled for less than the full scope of her talents, deeply honed.
A gleefully bawdy and physically gifted dancer, with of sneaky comic timing and a low-key powerhouse singing voice, by the time she got to the deep cut “Boom Bap” and fan favorite “Catfish,” Doechii made an impeccable claim to being one of the best rappers working today.
She didn’t play the Grammy contender “Anxiety” — one sees how that song wouldn’t make sense in this relentlessly hard hitting context. But whatever worries keep on trying her, after Sunday night, she can definitively leave them behind. (A.B.)
Zack Fox brings us to the (f)unction with globetrotting set
Just 15 minutes into Zack Fox’s hour and a half DJ set on Sunday afternoon, which was dubbed Zack’s Big Nasty & Booty Shake, many audience members were already sweating and shedding the layers they wore in preparation for the evening cold.
Garbed in leather uncle sandals with white socks, an Atlanta Falcons apron and a grill for a DJ stand (because he was cooking, duh), the rapper, comedian and actor brought the crowd to the (f)unction. Fox, who’s become known for his high-energy performances, delivered a globetrotting set filled with genres including Brazil’s Baile funk, Chicago house, Baltimore club, Nola bounce, soul, gospel Detroit techno and of course Atlanta rap, which is where he’s from. “Dance music is Black music,” Fox told the crowd in between his gyrating and turning up. “Y’all gonna learn something today.” (He also had the crowd repeat back “Free Palestine” and “F— ICE.”)
But what’s a cookout without good company? Fox also brought along a crew of talented dancers, which included a church hat wearing grandmother (who unexpectedly broke out into a backflip) and popular ballroom dancer Pack Rat. As Fox masterfully weaved between tracks like Khia’s “Steer,” KW Griff’s “Bring in the Katz” and Frankie Beverly and Maze’s “Before I Let Go,” the dancers vogued, shuffled, line danced and twerked. Even his “Abbott Elementary” castmate Janelle James (a.k.a Principal Coleman) grooved alongside Fox during his set.
He closed out with a Black church anthem, Kurt Carr’s “We Lift Our Hands in the Sanctuary.” Each time the track seemed like it was about to end, he comically brought it back a few more times with the lyrics “Yes! Yes, Lord, for the rest of our days.” (K.B.)
Ying and yang rappers, Larry June and 2Chainz, show us the finer things in life
On paper, Larry June — the laid-back Bay Area rapper known for his straightforward rhymes about organic living and financial literacy — and 2Chainz — Atlanta’s trap elder known for witty tracks like “Birthday Song” — may seem like an unlikely match. But as the pair performed their collaborative album “Life is Beautiful,” they were in perfect stride. The large crowd was a testament to how rare the moment was as it was one of the few times that the pair has performed the opulent lifestyle rap album since it dropped in February.
Much like the vibe of “Life is Beautiful,” which feels like a luxurious vacation backed with jazz-infused serene beats by the Alchemist, swaying ocean waves and yachts served as the backdrop while they delivered tracks like “Colossal,” “Generation,” “I Been” and “Bad Choices.” (Unfortunately, the Alchemist is on tour with DJ Premier, and was not in attendance.)
The backgrounds changed to imagery that matched the rappers’ hometowns as they dove into their personal discography. In a casual windbreaking sweatsuit, Larry June performed smooth tracks like “Smoothies in 1991” and “Watering My Plants,” while 2Chainz, who was rocking a leather two-piece set, got the crowd hyped with songs like “I’m Different” and “Watch Out.”
Suitably, the duo closed out with tranquil, flute-based “Life is Beautiful,” reminding the audience to embrace the beauty of the grind and the small wins in life, and simply enjoy their time on this Earth. (K.B.)
German actor Udo Kier, a film veteran whose diverse body of work spanned from Lars von Trier tragedies to “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “Blade,” has died. He was 81.
A ubiquitous avant-garde film star, Kier died Sunday morning, his partner, Delbert McBride, confirmed to Variety. McBride did not provide a cause of death.
By the time of his death, Kier had racked up more than 200 film and television credits, most notably his collaborations with Von Trier. They worked together intermittently over several decades, starting with 1987’s “Epidemic” and last collaborating on Von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac” in 2013. Kier, also in films “Dancer in the Dark” (starring Björk), “Melancholia” and “Breaking the Waves” among others, aided Von Trier in his explorations into the bleakest of human emotions.
In addition to Von Trier, Kier starred in films from a number of other famed European filmmakers including Werner Herzog, Dario Argento and childhood friend Rainer Werner Fassbinder over the course of his career.
Kier, known for his his imposing presence and piercing blue eyes, often played offbeat and menacing characters in art-house films, including a desperate, virgin-seeking Count Dracula in 1974’s “Blood for Dracula” (“Andy Warhol’s Dracula”) directed by Paul Morrissey. A year prior, the artists collaborated on 1973’s “Flesh for Frankenstein.” Kier was often cast as supernatural, appearing in “Blade” and “Shadow of the Vampire” alongside Willem Dafoe and John Malkovich, among other horror movies.
Nearly 30 years after his breakout role in the 1966 short film “Road to Saint Tropez,” the Cologne-born Kier notably starred in Gus Van Sant’s 1991 feature “My Own Private Idaho,” sharing the screen with a young Keanu Reeves and the late River Phoenix. The film has become a cult classic, earning praise for its depiction of sex and queerness. The feature was one of 25 films selected for inclusion in the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2024.
Though best known for his arthouse roles, Kier also appeared in numerous mainstream works including “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective,” “Downsizing” and “Armageddon.” His most recent film credits include “Swan Song,” “Bacurau” and “The Secret Agent,” Brazil’s international feature film entry for the 2026 Academy Awards.
Kier also starred in scores of TV projects including Von Trier’s television film “Medea,” horror miniseries “The Kingdom,” and shows “Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated,” “Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin” and “Hunters.”
Outside television and film, Kier appeared in music videos for Madonna (“Deeper and Deeper,” “Erotica”), the Goo Goo Dolls, Supertramp and Korn, among other artists. He also lent his voice to a handful of video games including “Call of Duty: WWII” and was set to collaborate with Hideo Kojima on his upcoming “OD.”
Kier was born Oct. 14, 1944, in a hospital that was being bombed by Allied forces during World War II, according to Variety. Kier’s father left before his birth and the actor was raised by his mother. In his teenage years, Kier sparked a friendship with Fassbinder.
In the mid-’60s, Kier moved to London to study English but was instead discovered and cast in “Road to Saint Tropez.” He later met Morrissey, who was closely associated with Warhol at the time, laying the foundation for his decades-long film career.
Kier lived in Palm Springs, where he was a regular at the annual Palm Springs International Film Festival.
NEW YORK — Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, pleaded not guilty Monday to charges he profited from rigged poker games involving several Mafia figures and at least one other ex-NBA player.
Billups, a five-time All Star and onetime Clippers player and assistant coach who won a championship with the Detroit Pistons, was arraigned in a federal court in Brooklyn on money laundering conspiracy and wire fraud conspiracy charges involving a scheme to rig mob-backed illegal poker games in Manhattan, Las Vegas, Miami and the Hamptons.
Both charges carry a maximum punishment of 20 years in prison. Others implicated face charges of running an illegal gambling business, robbery conspiracy and extortion conspiracy.
Prosecutors said Monday that plea negotiations have begun with some defendants, though they didn’t name them.
U.S. District Court Judge Ramon Reyes said he hoped to bring the sprawling case to trial by next September, urging lawyers in the courtroom to “do what you have to do.”
Billups, who wore a dark gray suit during Monday’s brief arraignment, spoke only to answer the judge’s yes or no questions. His lawyer, Marc Mukasey, entered his not guilty plea.
They declined to comment to reporters afterward, but one of Billups’ lawyers has called him a “man of integrity” and said he denies the charges.
“To believe that Chauncey Billups did what the federal government is accusing him of is to believe that he would risk his Hall of Fame legacy, his reputation and his freedom. He would not jeopardize those things for anything, let alone a card game,” Chris Heywood said after Billups appeared in federal court in Portland, Ore., when prosecutors first announced the indictment on Oct. 23.
Billups, 49, was released on a $5-million bond secured by his family’s Colorado home. He must refrain from gambling and can have no contact with other defendants or alleged victims. He has surrendered his passport and can only travel to seven states, including Oregon and New York, and Washington, D.C.
Inducted last year into the Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame, Billups was arguably the most prominent among more than 30 people charged in last month’s sprawling federal takedown of illegal gambling operations linked to professional sports.
In addition to his arraignment, Billups and his co-defendants, including ex-NBA player and assistant coach Damon Jones, appeared for a status conference on Monday and are due back in court on March 4.
Prosecutors say the poker-rigging scheme utilized sophisticated technology such as altered card-shuffling machines, hidden cameras in chip trays, special sunglasses and X-ray equipment built into the table to read cards.
Jones, Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and others are also charged with allegedly scheming to allow gamblers to exploit insider information about players to win NBA bets.
Prosecutors say the poker scheme Billups was involved in defrauded victims of an estimated $7 million starting in at least 2019.
They say he served as a celebrity “face card” that could draw wealthy, unsuspecting players to the games. Prosecutors said during one game, the scheme’s organizers exchanged messages saying one of the victims “acted like he wanted Chauncey to have his money” because he was “star struck.”
Prosecutors say Billups, who earned about $106 million from his playing days, received a portion of the ill-gotten gains. After one rigged game in October 2020, for example, they say he was directly wired $50,000.
The scheme organizers also had to share a portion of their proceeds with the Gambino, Genovese and Bonanno mob families for operating within the illegal poker games run by the New York criminal enterprises, prosecutors said.
Mafia members, in turn, helped commit violent acts, including assault, extortion and robbery, to ensure repayment of debts and the continued success of the operation, they said.
Billups was selected as the third overall pick in the 1997 draft by the Boston Celtics after starring in college for the Colorado Buffaloes. He played 17 years in the NBA, with stints with the Toronto Raptors, Denver Nuggets, Minnesota Timberwolves, New York Knicks and Clippers.
But he is perhaps most beloved in the Motor City, where he earned the nickname “Mr. Big Shot” for his knack of making clutch shots.
Billups was named the NBA Finals MVP during the Pistons’ title run in 2004 and had his No. 1 jersey retired by the team.
After retiring in 2014, Billups embarked on a career as a TV analyst before pivoting to coaching.
He was hired as Portland’s coach in 2021 and signed a multiyear extension with the Trail Blazers earlier this year after the team missed out on the playoffs for the fourth straight season in 2024. Billups previously served as an assistant coach for the Clippers.
After his arrest, he was placed on unpaid leave and the Trail Blazers named assistant coach and former NBA player Tiago Splitter as interim coach.
Marcelo writes for the Associated Press. Associated Press reporter Michael R. Sisask contributed to this story.
Former Baltimore Ravens kicker Justin Tucker will attend a tryout forthe New Orleans Saints on Tuesday, the team has confirmed with The Times.
It is said to be the first tryout for the six-time Pro Bowl player since serving a 10-game suspension at the start of this season for violating the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
Tucker spent the first 13 years of his career with the Ravens but was released in May after reports of multiple massage therapists accusing him of inappropriate sexual behavior first surfaced in January. The 36-year-old player has denied any inappropriate behavior.
After conducting its own investigation, the NFL announced its suspension of Tucker in June, citing a violation of the league’s personal conduct policy. He was eligible for reinstatement Nov. 11 but had been permitted to try out and sign with a team before that.
A Super Bowl champion following the 2012 season, Tucker is one of the most accurate kickers in NFL history, having made 89% of his field goal attempts (fourth best all-time). In 2021, he connected on a 66-yard field goal that stood as an NFL record until Jacksonville’s Cam Little broke it with a 68-yarder earlier this season.
In 2022, Tucker agreed to a four-year contract extension, including $17.5 million guaranteed, through the 2027 season. Last year, however, Tucker had his worst NFL season, making a career-low 73.3% of his field goal attempts. The Ravens drafted kicker Tyler Loop out of Arizona in April.
The Saints are auditioning kickers after third-year player Blake Grupe missed two field goal attempts Sunday during a loss to the Atlanta Falcons, bringing his total of misses this season to eight. Cade York, who previously kicked for the Cleveland Browns, Cincinnati Bengals and Washington Commanders, also reportedly was slated for a tryout in New Orleans.
The technologist and professor Mindy Seu was having drinks when her friend casually referred to the phone as a sex toy. Think about it, her friend, Melanie Hoff, explained: We send nudes or watch porn, it’s vibrating and touch-sensitive — it’s practically an appendage.
“What exactly is sex, and what exactly is technology?” Seu wondered. “Neither can be cleanly defined.”
Around the same time, in 2023, Seu had just published “Cyberfeminism Index,” a viral Google Sheet-turned-Brat-green-doorstopper from Inventory Press. Critics and digital subcultures embraced the niche volume like a manifesto — and a marker of Seu’s arrival as a public intellectual whose archiving was itself a form of activism. The cool design didn’t hurt. “If you’re a woman who owns a pair of Tabis or Miistas, you are going to have this tome,” joked comedian Brian Park on his culture podcast “Middlebrow.”
Still, the knot between sexuality and technology tugged at her. “Recently, my practice has evolved toward technology-driven performance and publication,” she said. “It’s not exactly traditional performance art, but I believe that spaces like lectures and readings can be made performative.” Though she wasn’t yet finished exploring this theme, she wasn’t sure how to approach it next — until an experiment by Julio Correa, a former Yale graduate student, sparked an idea. Correa had devised an Instagram Stories-based lecture format, and she immediately saw its potential. She reached out to ask if she could “manipulate” his idea into a performance piece, and would he like to collaborate?
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Thus, “A Sexual History of the Internet” was born. The work is two things at once: a participatory lecture-performance conducted through the audience’s phones, and an accompanying, palm-sized, 700-plus-page “script” examining how our devices serve as bodily extensions.
The book isn’t exhaustive but instead a curated miscellany of non-sequiturs and the kind of dinner-party lore Seu delights in. Did you know that the anatomical structure of the clitoris wasn’t fully mapped until a decade after the invention of the World Wide Web? Or that the first JPEG — introduced in 1992 at USC — cribbed a Playboy centerfold nicknamed “Lenna,” which journalist and the author of the 2018 “Brotopia” Emily Chang called “tech’s original sin.”
The metaverse, web3 and AI — none of this is new, Seu said in her loft this past Saturday, hours before her West Coast debut at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA. “But understanding the arc is helpful, especially how it’s tied to militaristic origins rooted in power, and how those same people were also confronted with sexuality.”
She’s just returned from a whirlwind tour — Antwerp, New York, Oslo, Madrid — with Tokyo next month. She splits her time between L.A. and Berlin, where her boyfriend lives, but for now, she’s staying put in what she calls her “bachelor pad on the set of a ‘90s erotic thriller,” inherited from a friend, the artist Isabelle Albuquerque.
The floor-to-ceiling windows high in a historic Brutalist artists’ complex overlook MacArthur Park and the downtown skyline. She’s offset the building’s cement with a childhood baby grand piano and her grandmother’s lacquer vanity with pearl inlay. That Seu marries the feminine and the spartan in her space feels intentional — a reflection of the dualities that animate her life and work.
“A Sexual History of the Internet” by Mindy Seu
(Photography by Tim Schutsky | Art direction by Laura Coombs)
Though she moved from New York three years ago, she resists calling herself an Angeleno — partly, she admits, because she never learned to drive despite growing up in Orange County. Her parents ran a flower shop after immigrating from South Korea. The household was conservative, Presbyterian and promoted abstinence. Like with many millennials, her sexual awakening unfolded online.
“I asked Jeeves how to have an orgasm,” she writes. “I sexted with classmates on AOL Instant Messenger. Any curiosities were saved until I could sneak onto my family’s shared ice blue iMac G3 in the living room.”
At 34, the very-online academic holds a master’s from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and has taught at Rutgers and Yale before joining her alma mater, UCLA, as one of the youngest tenured professors (and perhaps the only one who has modeled for JW Anderson and Helmut Lang). Her first three years at UCLA have each had their crises — encampments, fires, ICE raids — yet her Gen Z students give her hope. “They’re so principled and motivated, even if it’s in a nihilistic way,” she said.
Online, fans declare their “brain crushes” on Seu, whose ultra-detailed spreadsheets have become unlikely catnip for TikTok. Vanity Fair dubbed her the rare cybernaut who “lands soft-focus photoshoots in niche lifestyle publications.” Her unusual power is the ability to move through different fields, Trojan-horsing her theories across academia, the art world, the lit scene, tech, fashion, et al. Seu’s notoriety continued to swell after appearing on the popular internet talk show “Subway Takes” with the standout zinger: “Gossip is socially useful, especially to women and the marginalized.”
“Mindy’s really good at bridging different audiences who might not read an academic text about the history of the internet but are interested in Mindy’s practice,” said Correa, Seu’s student-turned-collaborator. When the two workshopped their performance last year on their finsta (a.k.a. fake Instagram), they encountered one major hurdle: censorship. They had to get creative with their algospeak (like changing “sex” to “s*x”) to keep from getting banned.
Mindy Seu in her MacArthur Park loft.
(Carlin Stiehl / For The Times)
“A Sexual History of the Internet,” designed by Laura Coombs, carries that collaborative ethos into its financial structure. Seu’s first book went through traditional publishing, where authors often receive about 10% and contributors receive fixed fees. This time, she wanted a citation model that compensated the 46 thinkers who shaped her understanding of the subject.
She approached Yancey Strickler, director of Metalabel, “an indie record label for all forms of culture,” and co-founder of Kickstarter. Seu’s original proposal waived all profits to collaborators. “Everyone got paid but her,” Strickler said. If she wanted the model to be replicated, he told her, it needed a capitalist backbone.
They landed on Citational Splits, where everyone who was cited joined a 30% profits pool, in perpetuity, across future printings (27 opted in). The remaining 60% goes to Seu and five core collaborators. Strickler likened it to music royalties or company shares: “Your presence increases the project’s value, and some of that value should flow back to you.”
Neither can name a publishing precedent. “It shows a profound, practical morality that underlies her work,” he said.
At MOCA, about 300 Angelenos braved an atmospheric river to sit in the darkened former police car warehouse bathed in red light. No projector, no spotlight. A pair of Tabis winks at her all-black-clad friend; a couple holds hands as Seu moves through the room. (“I intentionally wear very noisy shoes,” she said earlier.)
With the calm cadence of a flight attendant, Sue instructs everyone to put their phones on Do Not Disturb, sound and brightness to max and open Instagram to find @asexualhistoryoftheinternet.
The audience reads in unison when their designated color appears. What follows is a chorus of anecdotes, artworks and historical fragments tracing the pervasive — and sometimes perverted — roots of our everyday technologies. Hearing men and women say “click and clitoris” together is its own spectacle.
“From personal websites to online communities, cryptocurrencies to AI, the internet has been built on the backs of unattributed sex workers,” one slide notes. Sex work has long been an early adopter of emerging technology — from VHS to the internet — and the present is no exception. Two years ago, OnlyFans creators made more money than the total NBA salary combined; today, the company now generates more revenue per employee than Apple or Nvidia.
Seu ends with the widely known dominatrix Mistress Harley’s concept of data domination, a subset of BDSM in which her “subs” (a.k.a. submissives) grant her remote access to their machines. Seu tells the crowd that she has essentially done the same, “viewing the voyeurs” and taking photos of us throughout the performance, which are already posted to Instagram.
We walk out into the dark rain, wondering what exactly we witnessed — and realizing, perhaps, we’ve been witnessing it all along.
The 2025 BBC Sports Personality of the Year show will be held at MediaCityUK in Salford on Thursday, 18 December.
Gabby Logan, Alex Scott and Clare Balding will present the show live on BBC One, the BBC iPlayer and the BBC Sport website and app from 19:00 GMT.
It will celebrate an incredible 12 months of sporting drama and triumph – from England’s victories at the Women’s Euros and Women’s Rugby World Cup, to Team Europe winning the Ryder Cup, Liverpool’s Premier League title, Arsenal’s Women’s Champions League success, and the British and Irish Lions’ series win in Australia.
That will again be decided by a public vote, as will – for the first time – the Team of the Year.
Alex Kay-Jelski, Director of BBC Sport, said: “This year has once again been packed full of amazing sporting moments and stories. I’m glad it’s not me having to pick who to vote for!
“We’ve seen drama, triumph and unforgettable moments on a global scale – and our homegrown stars, especially the women, have delivered like never before.
“I can’t wait to see who the public chooses to take home the win and celebrate another brilliant year.”
The seven award categories for 2025 are: BBC Sports Personality of the Year; World Sport Star of the Year; Helen Rollason award; Young Sports Personality of the Year; Coach of the Year; Team of the Year and the Lifetime Achievement award.
Contenders for the Sports Personality of the Year and Team of the Year awards will be announced in December.
Audiences will also be able to vote for World Sport Star of the Year before the live show.
Once the shortlists are announced, all voting for this year’s awards will be available online at bbc.co.uk/spoty.
