A New York City Council worker was detained by ICE agents on Long Island on Monday, according to City Council Speaker Julie Menin.
The unnamed staffer, a data analyst for the Council, was taken into custody during what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing in Bethpage. According to Menin, the employee had been legally permitted to stay in the U.S. until this October.
“We learned about this very disturbing situation late this afternoon when this employee called the City Council HR appointment for help and told them he had been detained,” Menin said during an emergency press conference she called on Jan. 12.
Making things worse, the City Council was initially unable to reach ICE to learn more about the detained employee.
“We immediately reached out to the ICE facility office at the Bethpage facility, but shockingly, the phone number doesn’t even work. It says that the number is disconnected. There is no public information about how to reach someone who is being detained at the Bethpage facility,” Menin said. “There’s actually no way to reach out to this individual, and I just want to be clear, as Speaker of the City Council, I cannot even call this ICE detention center to collect information.”
The unnamed staffer, a data analyst for the Council, was taken into custody during what was supposed to be a routine immigration hearing in Bethpage. According to Menin, the employee had been legally permitted to stay in the U.S. until this October.Screenshot via YouTube/@NYCcouncil
Menin stated that she has since learned that the detained individual, who hails from Venezuela, has since been transferred to a detention center on Varick Street in Lower Manhattan. She also stressed that he was not only on a work visa, but also that he had never been arrested or convicted of a crime later in the year.
The speaker called the staffer’s detention by ICE an unprecedented “breach of liberty” and a further sign that no one is safe from harm from the federal agency.
“This is, I want to say, the first time this has ever happened to a City Council Employee, and it must be the only time that this ever happens. But unfortunately, this breach of liberty is hardly an exception,” Menin said. Given recent events across the nation, we’ve seen aggressive escalations by ICE that threaten the freedom and safety of every American. These escalations raise serious concerns about overreach.”
US Rep. Dan Goldman faces off with an ICE agent.Photo by Dean Moses
“We are looking at all legal options right now,” the speaker added.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani said in a statement that he was “outraged” to learn of the City Council staffer’s detainment, and publicly demanded their release.
“This is an assault on our democracy, on our city, and our values,” Mamdani said. “I am calling for his immediate release and will continue to monitor the situation.”
U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman, who has spent months himself railing against ICE operations in the Big Apple and immigration court at 26 Federal Plaza, also spoke out against the stunning detainment.
“I want to be very clear: there is no indication that there is anything about this individual other than his immigration status that caused him to be arrested,” Goldman said. “Venezuela, as we know, is in massive turmoil. The President was just abducted and kidnapped by our United States government. There is a temporary, chaotic government. There is nothing safe and secure about that country.”
The analyst has worked for the City Council for about one year and, according to those with knowledge of the incident, made their only call to the City Council HR department for help. As of Monday evening, his colleagues had been unable to contact his family.
Queens City Council Member Tiffany Cabán called the City Council employee’s detainment a “kidnapping.”
“A public servant was detained by ICE. Masked police kidnapping a City Council employee who works day in and day out for New Yorkers does not make us safe,” she said. “Trump’s deportation agenda was never about safety. It’s about scapegoating immigrants for problems caused by billionaires. Free our neighbors. Abolish ICE.”
More than 60 largely peaceful protests took place this weekend against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement actions, including several in Southern California.
But while many protests were without incident, they were not short on anger and moments of tension. Organizers called the gatherings the “ICE Out for Good” weekend of action in response to the fatal shooting of Renée Nicole Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis.
In Huntington Beach, Ron Duplantis, 72, carried a diagram to represent the three shots fired at Good, including one through her windshield and two others that appeared to go through her side window.
“Those last two shots,” he said, “make it clear to me that this is murder.”
Participants in the “ICE Out” protest hold signs Sunday in Huntington Beach.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
Huntington Beach has seen past clashes between Trump supporters and anti-racism activists, but as of mid-afternoon, Sunday’s protest was tense at times, but free of violence. About 300 people — and two dozen counterprotesters — stood outside City Hall, with protesters carrying anti-ICE signs, ringing cowbells and chanting “ICE out of O.C.”
As cars sped past them on Main Street, many motorists honked in a show of solidarity, while some rolled down their windows to shout their support for ICE, MAGA and President Trump.
“The reason why I’m here is democracy,” said Mary Artesani, a 69-year-old Costa Mesa resident carrying a sign that read “RESIST.” “They have to remember he won’t be in office forever.”
Participants in the “ICE Out” protest in Huntington Beach hold signs as a car with a MAGA hat in the windshield passes.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
The Trump administration has largely stood behind the ICE agent, identified as Jonathan Ross, with Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem saying he acted in self-defense. Democratic officials and many members of the public have said the videos of the shooting circulating on social media appear to contradict at least some of the administration’s assertions.
“I’m outraged a woman was murdered by our government and our government lied to our faces about it,” said protester Tony Zarkades, 60, who has lived in the Huntington Beach area for nearly 30 years. A former officer in the Marines, Zarkades said he is thinking of moving to Orange to escape the presence of so many Trump supporters in Huntington Beach.
Large protests against ICE occurred in the Bay Area as well as Sacramento and other California cities over the weekend. In Oakland, hundreds demonstrated peacefully on Sunday, although the night before, protesters assembled at the Ronald V. Dellums Federal Building and left graffiti, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
In Los Angeles on Saturday night, protesters marched through the downtown area to City Hall and past the Edward Roybal Federal Building, with the L.A. Police Department issuing a dispersal order at about 6:30 p.m., according to City News Service.
While many of the protests focused on what happened to Good in Minnesota, they also recognized Keith Porter Jr., a man killed by an off-dutyICE agent in Northridge on New Year’s Eve.
In Huntington Beach, the coastal community has long had a reputation as a Southern California stronghold for Republicans, though its politics have recently been shifting. Orange County has a painful legacy of political extremism, including neo-Nazism. In 2021, a “White Lives Matter” rally in the area ended in 12 arrests.
On Sunday, a small group of about 30 counterprotesters waved Trump and MAGA flags on a corner opposite from the anti-ICE rally.
Counterprotester Victoria Cooper, 72, holds signs and shouts at participants of the “ICE Out” protest in Huntington Beach.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“We’re here to support our country and president and support ICE,” said Kelly Johnson, who gave his age as “old enough to be your sugar daddy.”
Wearing an “ICE Immigration: Making America Safe Again” T-shirt, Kelly said the protesters were “paid agitators” who had been lied to by the media.
“Look at the other angles of the [shooting] videos,” he said. “She ran over the officer.”
Standing with him was Jesse Huizar, 66, who said he identifies as a “Latino for Trump” and was here to “support the blue.”
The Chino resident said he came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 5, but that he has no fear of ICE because he “came here legally.”
Huizar said Good’s death was sad, but that she “if she had complied, if she got out of her car and followed orders, she’d be alive right now.”
But their voices were largely overpowered by those of the anti-ICE protesters. One of the event’s organizers, 52-year-old Huntington Beach resident Denise G., who declined to give her last name, said they’ve been gathering in front of City Hall every Sunday since March, but that this was by far one of the largest turnouts they have seen.
She felt “devastated, angry, and more determined than ever” when she saw the video of Good’s shooting, she said.
Counterprotester Kelly Johnson stands across from the “ICE Out” demonstration.
(Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)
“It could be any one of us,” she said. “The people not out here today need to understand this could be their family member, their spouse, their children. The time is now. All hands on deck.”
Nearby, 27-year-old Yvonne Gonzales had gathered with about 10 of her friends. They said they were motivated to come because they were outraged by the shooting.
“I wish I was surprised by it,” Gonzales said, “but we’ve seen so much violence from ICE.”
She suspected that race was a factor in the outpouring of support, noting that Good was a white woman while many others who have been injured or killed by immigration enforcement actions have been people of color, but that it was still “great to see this turnout and visibility.”
A few feet away, 41-year-old Christie Martinez stood with her children, Elliott, 9, and Kane, 6. She teared up thinking about the shooting and the recent ICE actions in California, including the killing of Porter.
“It’s sad and sickening,” said Martinez, who lives in Westminster. “It makes me really sad how people are targeted because of their skin color.”
Bradford Davy, the longtime close-knit advisor to Mayor Justin Bibb, who kept tight lips and a low profile at City Hall, stepped down from his position this week, a city release said.
An economist who played Bibb’s No. 2 with joviality, Davy helped City Hall structure and promote the city’s ten-figure bet on rehabbing vacant industrial land, helped launch its Housing First program, and helped oversee plans around the pricey landbridge meant to link Downtown with its lakefront.
Davy will operate as a senior advisor to friend Bibb through March, trading off with former advisor Jessica Trivisonno, who will take the title of deputy chief of staff.
“Bradford Davy has been an instrumental leader during a pivotal period for our city,” Bibb said in a statement. “His steady hand, strategic counsel, and deep commitment to Cleveland helped move our administration forward and I am grateful for his service.”
Davy stepped down as Bibb’s chief of staff this week. Credit: City Hall
Completing the City Hall shuffle is Ryan Puente, former deputy chief of staff and Bibb’s campaign manager throughout the 2021 election, who will take Davy’s place.
In an op-ed for Crain’s Cleveland on Wednesday, Davy wrote that he left amid the start of Bibb’s second term both surged with spirit for the city’s future and somewhat jaded by a lack of trust in government.
Despite all the hard work that might go unnoticed: revamping Cleveland’s 311 system, eyeing thousands of poisoned industrial parcels for new business, raising (and keeping) $130 million to build up the long-lingering North Coast.
“Doing all of this well is an enormous task, made harder by a simple reality,” Davy said, “increasingly, bureaucrats are expected to deliver with little support and even less public respect.”
With a caveat: “I am not suggesting that anyone let the government off the hook,” he added.
A New Year’s Day break in led to damage in City Hall rotunda, broken windows and the destruction of a menorah display, Mayor Karen Bass says
A Los Angeles man was arrested for smashing into City Hall, where he allegedly went on a destructive rampage, breaking windows and destroying a historic menorah in the building on loan for the holidays, Mayor Karen Bass said.
Bass emphasized that she does not believe the menorah vandalization constituted a hate crime, but that she was “deeply disturbed” that the Katowicz menorah on display in the third-floor rotunda was damaged. Bass said that windows, a glass display case, and computer equipment were also damaged in the break-in.
“While there is no indication that the vandalism to the menorah was a hate crime, I was deeply disturbed that this historic menorah was damaged,” Bass said. “I personally called the Cunin family, who each year generously loan the menorah to City Hall and the people of Los Angeles, to inform them of the incident.
Police have arrested a suspect, Jose Gonzalez Chavez, who is now awaiting charges pending a mental health evaluation. It is unclear how Chavez was able to not only access a sensitive building, but to create havoc for such a long period of time, which led the Mayor to say that she has ordered a full evaluation of security at City Hall.”
The revelers who packed Tuesday’s election night party in L.A.’s Highland Park neighborhood were roughly 2,500 miles from the concert hall where New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani celebrated his historic win.
Yet despite that sprawling distance, the crowd, heavily populated with members of the L.A. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, had no trouble finishing the applause lines delivered by Mamdani, himself a DSA member, during his victory speech.
“New York!” Mamdani bellowed on the oversized television screens hung throughout the Greyhound Bar & Grill. “We’re going to make buses fast and — “
“Free!” the crowd inside the bar yelled back in response.
In Los Angeles, activists with the Democratic Socialists of America have already fired up their campaigns for the June election, sending out canvassing teams and scheduling postcard-writing events for their chosen candidates. But they’re also taking fresh inspiration from Mamdani’s win, pointing to his inclusive, unapologetic campaign and his relentless focus on pocketbook issues, particularly among working-class voters.
The message that propelled Mamdani to victory resonates just as much in L.A., said City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who won her seat in 2022 with logistical support from the DSA.
“What New York City is saying is that the rent is too damn high, that affordability is a huge issue not just on housing, but when it comes to grocery shopping, when it comes to daycare,” she said. “These are the things that we’re also experiencing here in Los Angeles.”
City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, appearing at a rally in Lincoln Heights last year, said New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s message will resonate in L.A.
(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)
DSA-LA, which is a membership organization and not a political party, has elected four of its endorsed candidates to the council since 2020, ousting incumbents in each of the last three election cycles. They’ve done so in large part by knocking on doors and working to increase turnout among renters and lower-income households.
The chapter hopes to win two additional seats in June. Organizers have begun contemplating a full-on socialist City Council — possibly by the end of 2028 — with DSA members holding eight of the council’s 15 seats.
“We would like a socialist City Council majority,” said Benina Stern, co-chair of DSA’s Los Angeles chapter. “Because clearly that is the logical progression, to keep growing the bloc.”
Despite those lofty ambitions, it could take at least five years before the L.A. chapter matches this week’s breakthrough in New York City.
Mayor Karen Bass, a high-profile leader within the Democratic Party with few ties to the DSA, is now running for a second term. Her only major opponent is former schools superintendent Austin Beutner, who occupies the center of the political spectrum in L.A. Real estate developer Rick Caruso, a longtime Republican who is now a Democrat, has not disclosed his intentions but has long been at odds with DSA‘s progressive policies.
In L.A., DSA organizers have put their emphasis on identifying and campaigning for candidates in down-ballot races, not citywide contests. Part of that is due to the fact that L.A. has a weak-mayor system, particularly when compared with New York City, where the mayor has responsibility not just for city services but also public schools and even judicial appointments.
L.A. council members propose and approve legislation, rework the budgets submitted by the mayor and represent districts with more than a quarter of a million people. As a result, DSA organizers have chosen the council as their path to power at City Hall, Stern said.
“The conditions in Los Angeles and New York I think are very different,” she said.
Since 2020, DSA-LA has been highly selective about its endorsement choices. The all-volunteer organization sends applicants a lengthy questionnaire with dozens of litmus test questions: Do they support diverting funds away from law enforcement? Do they oppose L.A.’s decision to host the Olympics? Do they support a repeal of L.A.’s ban on homeless encampments near schools?
Once a candidate secures an endorsement, DSA-LA turns to its formidable pool of volunteers, sending them out to help candidates knock on doors, staff phone banks and stage fundraising events.
During Tuesday’s party, DSA-LA organizers recruited new members to assist with the reelection campaigns of Hernandez and Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martínez, a former labor organizer. They distributed postcard-sized fliers with the message, “Hate Capitalism? So do we.”
Standing nearby was Estuardo Mazariegos, a tenant rights advocate now running to replace Councilmember Curren Price in a South L.A. district. Mazariegos, 40, said he first became interested in the DSA in the seventh grade, when his middle school civics teacher displayed a DSA flag in her classroom.
The crowd at the Greyhound in Highland Park reacts to results on Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Mazariegos hailed the results from New York and California, saying voters are “taking back America for the working people of America.” He sounded somewhat less excited about Bass, a former community organizer who has pursued some middle-of-the-road positions, such as hiring more police officers.
Asked if he supports Bass’ bid for a second term, Mazariegos responded: “If she’s up against a billionaire, yes.”
“If she’s up against another comrade, maybe not,” he added, laughing.
When Bass ran in November 2022, DSA-LA grudgingly recommended a vote for her in its popular voter guide, describing her as a “status quo politician.”
Councilmember Nithya Raman, who represents a Hollywood Hills district, is far more enthusiastic. Raman has worked closely with Bass on efforts to move homeless Angelenos indoors, while also seeking fixes to the larger systems that serve L.A.’s unhoused population.
“Karen Bass is the most progressive mayor we’ve ever had in L.A,” said Raman, who co-hosted the election night party with the other three DSA-aligned council members, DSA-LA and others.
Raman was the first of the DSA-backed candidates to win a council seat in L.A., running in 2020 as a reformer who would bring stronger renter protections and a network of community access centers to assist homeless residents.
Two years later, voters elected labor organizer Soto-Martínez and Hernandez. Tenant rights attorney Ysabel Jurado became the fourth last year, ousting Councilmember Kevin de León.
Stern, the DSA-LA co-chair, said she believes the four council members have brought a “sea change” to City Hall, working with their progressive colleagues to expand the city’s teams of unarmed responders, who are viewed as an alternative to gun-carrying police officers.
The DSA voting bloc also shaped this year’s city budget, voting to reduce the number of new recruits at the Los Angeles Police Department and preserve other city jobs, Stern said.
To be clear, the four-member bloc has pursued those efforts by working with other progressives on the council who are not affiliated with the DSA but more moderate on other issues. Beyond that, the group has plenty of detractors.
Stuart Waldman, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn., said DSA-backed council members are making the city worse, by pushing for a $30 per hour hotel minimum wage and a $32.35 minimum wage for construction workers.
“No one is ever going to build a hotel in this city again, and DSA were a part of that,” he said. “Pretty soon no one will build housing, and the DSA is a part of that too.”
The union that represents LAPD officers vowed to fight the DSA’s effort to expand its reach, saying it would work to ensure that “Angelenos are not bamboozled by the socialist bait and switch.”
“Socialists want to bait Angelenos into talking about affordability, oppression and fairness, get their candidates elected, and then switch to enact their platform that states ‘Defund the police by rejecting any expansion to police budgets … while cutting [police] budgets annually towards zero,’” the union’s board of directors said in a statement.
In New York City, Mamdani has proposed a series of measures to make the city more affordable, including free bus fares, city-run grocery stores and a four-year freeze on rent increases inside rent stabilized apartment units.
Some of those ideas have already been tried in L.A.
In 2020, weeks into the COVID-19 shutdown, Mayor Eric Garcetti placed a moratorium on rent hikes for more than 600,000 rent-stabilized apartments. The council kept that measure in place for four years.
Around the same time, L.A. County’s transit agency suspended mandatory collection of bus fares. The agency started charging bus passengers again in 2022.
City Councilmembers Nithya Raman and Eunisses Hernandez celebrate at the election night party they co-hosted with Democratic Socialists of America’s L.A. chapter and two other council members.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
In recent months, the DSA-LA has pushed for new limits on rent increases inside L.A.’s rent-stabilized apartments. Raman, who chairs the council’s housing committee, is backing a yearly cap of 3% in those buildings, most of which were built before October 1978.
Hernandez, whose district stretches from working-class Westlake to rapidly gentrifying Highland Park, is a believer in shifting the Overton Window at City Hall — moving the political debate left and “putting people over profits.”
Like others at the election party, Hernandez is hoping the council will eventually have eight DSA-aligned members in the coming years, saying such a shift would be a “game changer.” With a clear majority, she said, the council would not face a huge battle to approve new tenant protections, expand the network of unarmed response teams and place “accountability measures” on corporations that are “making money off our city.”
“There’s so many things … that we could do easier for the people of the city of Los Angeles if we had a majority,” she said.
Protesters gathered Thursday outside a U.S. Coast Guard base in the San Francisco Bay Area, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrived to support federal efforts to track down immigrants in the country illegally.Several hundred people, many singing hymns and carrying signs saying “No ICE or troops in the Bay,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gathered near the base shortly after dawn. Police used at least one flash-bang grenade to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance as CBP vehicles drove through. Organizers urged protesters to remain peaceful, as a line of Coast Guard officers in helmets watched from an intersection at the Oakland entrance to the bridge that leads to Coast Guard Island. Video posted by NBC Bay Area showed a vehicle driving over a protester’s foot at one point while the roadway was blocked.A clergyman said an agent shot him in the face with a projectile at close range. He went to the ER. In another violent moment, a private security guard was assaulted. His company told KCRA 3 that the man was jumped and beaten up after arriving there. It was not clear what provoked the attack. At night, what sounded like gunfire rang out as video from KTVU showed Coast Guard members firing at a U-Haul truck as it was rapidly reversing onto federal property. It’s unclear if anyone was struck.A group of California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear arrived at the scene around 2:15 p.m. and cleared part of the intersection.The protests remained mostly peaceful, though KCRA 3’s Maricela De La Cruz saw a man and a woman being detained.Cars were seen leaving the bridge from Coast Guard Island after 3 p.m. By 4 p.m., CHP agents had left the area and protesters returned to the intersection. The developments unfolded the same day President Donald Trump said he would back off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after speaking to the mayor.Trump posted on social media that Mayor Daniel Lurie told him Wednesday night that the city was making progress in reducing crime. Trump said he agreed to let San Francisco keep trying on its own.Lurie said Thursday morning he received a phone call from Trump Wednesday night in which the president told him he was “calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco.” Lurie said in a statement that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “reaffirmed that direction” in a conversation Thursday morning.It was not clear if the president was canceling a National Guard deployment or calling off immigration enforcement by CBP agents. Lurie’s office did not respond to requests for clarification.The San Francisco Chronicle, citing an anonymous source with knowledge of the operation, reported Wednesday that more than 100 CBP and other federal agents would arrive this week. San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie and California Gov. Gavin Newsom immediately condemned the move. The two Democrats said the action was meant to provoke violent protests.Trump has repeatedly said he plans to deploy National Guard troops to San Francisco to quell crime, but his administration hasn’t offered a timeline for doing so. His assertions of out-of-control crime in the city of roughly 830,000 have baffled local and state leaders, who point to statistics showing that many crimes are at record lows.Trump has deployed the Guard to Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, to help fight what he says is rampant crime. Los Angeles was the first city where Trump deployed the Guard, arguing it was necessary to protect federal buildings and agents as protesters fought back against mass immigration arrests.He has also said they are needed in Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Lawsuits from Democratic officials in both cities have so far blocked troops from going out on city streets.Coast Guard Island is an artificial island formed in 1913, and the Coast Guard first established a base there in 1926. The island is owned by the federal government and is not open to the general public, so escorts or specific government ID cards are required for visitors. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also houses ICE and CBP.(See footage of the demonstrations from around noon in the video below.)See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel
ALAMEDA, Calif. —
Protesters gathered Thursday outside a U.S. Coast Guard base in the San Francisco Bay Area, where U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents arrived to support federal efforts to track down immigrants in the country illegally.
Several hundred people, many singing hymns and carrying signs saying “No ICE or troops in the Bay,” referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, gathered near the base shortly after dawn.
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Police used at least one flash-bang grenade to clear a handful of demonstrators from the entrance as CBP vehicles drove through. Organizers urged protesters to remain peaceful, as a line of Coast Guard officers in helmets watched from an intersection at the Oakland entrance to the bridge that leads to Coast Guard Island.
Video posted by NBC Bay Area showed a vehicle driving over a protester’s foot at one point while the roadway was blocked.
A clergyman said an agent shot him in the face with a projectile at close range. He went to the ER.
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You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
In another violent moment, a private security guard was assaulted. His company told KCRA 3 that the man was jumped and beaten up after arriving there. It was not clear what provoked the attack.
At night, what sounded like gunfire rang out as video from KTVU showed Coast Guard members firing at a U-Haul truck as it was rapidly reversing onto federal property. It’s unclear if anyone was struck.
A group of California Highway Patrol officers in riot gear arrived at the scene around 2:15 p.m. and cleared part of the intersection.
The protests remained mostly peaceful, though KCRA 3’s Maricela De La Cruz saw a man and a woman being detained.
Cars were seen leaving the bridge from Coast Guard Island after 3 p.m.
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You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site.
By 4 p.m., CHP agents had left the area and protesters returned to the intersection.
The developments unfolded the same day President Donald Trump said he would back off a planned surge of federal agents into San Francisco after speaking to the mayor.
Trump posted on social media that Mayor Daniel Lurie told him Wednesday night that the city was making progress in reducing crime. Trump said he agreed to let San Francisco keep trying on its own.
Lurie said Thursday morning he received a phone call from Trump Wednesday night in which the president told him he was “calling off any plans for a federal deployment in San Francisco.” Lurie said in a statement that Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem “reaffirmed that direction” in a conversation Thursday morning.
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Yesterday, I spoke to San Franciscans about a potential federal deployment in our city. I said then what I have said since taking office, that keeping San Franciscans safe is my top priority.
Late last night, I received a phone call from the President of the United States. I…
It was not clear if the president was canceling a National Guard deployment or calling off immigration enforcement by CBP agents. Lurie’s office did not respond to requests for clarification.
Trump has repeatedly said he plans to deploy National Guard troops to San Francisco to quell crime, but his administration hasn’t offered a timeline for doing so. His assertions of out-of-control crime in the city of roughly 830,000 have baffled local and state leaders, who point to statistics showing that many crimes are at record lows.
Trump has deployed the Guard to Washington, D.C., and Memphis, Tennessee, to help fight what he says is rampant crime. Los Angeles was the first city where Trump deployed the Guard, arguing it was necessary to protect federal buildings and agents as protesters fought back against mass immigration arrests.
He has also said they are needed in Chicago and Portland, Oregon. Lawsuits from Democratic officials in both cities have so far blocked troops from going out on city streets.
Coast Guard Island is an artificial island formed in 1913, and the Coast Guard first established a base there in 1926. The island is owned by the federal government and is not open to the general public, so escorts or specific government ID cards are required for visitors. The Coast Guard is part of the Department of Homeland Security, which also houses ICE and CBP.
(See footage of the demonstrations from around noon in the video below.)
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After a in-person meeting and two Cokes at Jimmy and Dee Haslam’s home in Bratenahl on Friday, Mayor Bibb believed he came to a fair deal with the Browns owners he has been fighting against in court and public opinion since they announced their intentions to move to Berea.
Haslams Sports Group will pay to demolish the current Huntington Bank Field on the lakefront after the lease with Cleveland is up in 2029. They will also, Bibb announced in a press conference on Monday, pay the city $90 million combined through a lump sum and installments over the next 20 years.
All pending lawsuits between the Browns and the City of Cleveland, after years of complaints and filings, are now dropped as well.
“I think the fight we put up was the right fight,” Bibb said from a podium in the Mayor’s Office’s Red Room. “This deal shows that the fight worked. And we have a win-win for the city and a win-win for the region.”
Jimmy Haslam, coming off yet another embarrassing Browns loss, said the $100 million heading the city’s way is very much in line with Bibb’s vision for Cleveland.
“After such a bumpy time period, we’ll just describe it as this: How excited we are to make this investment in the City of Cleveland with Mayor Bibb. I think these dollars will be put to good use, [and] will make Cleveland an even better place to live, work and raise a family,” he said.
Cleveland will receive the first $25 million of the money this year. Starting on Jan. 1, 2029 the Haslams will pay Cleveland $5 million a year until 2033. That amounts to $80 million in cash.
The remaining $20 million will come in the form of a specific community benefits project paid in $2 million installments until 2045. Neither Bibb nor Haslam elaborated on details on that point.
Mayor Karen Bass said City Hall was evacuated while the LAPD says it is dealing with a barricaded motorist who intentionally slammed into the building Friday afternoon.
The LAPD has responded to City Hall where a barricade motorist apparently deliberately drove onto the steps of City Hall Credit: Los Angeles file photo
City Hall was evacuated Friday afternoon after an unknown motorist barreled a vehicle into the steps of the building just after 4 p.m., Mayor Karen Bass said. The driver remains barricaded inside the car, the LAPD said, and the area has been lockdown leading to a chaotic commute.
I’ve been briefed on the ongoing incident outside of City Hall, which is currently being evacuated out of an abundance of caution.
I want to thank all first responders who are at the scene — my office will continue to monitor the situation.
Officers are trying to contact the driver who remains inside what appears to be a black Ford sedan. The California Highway Patrol has sent units to close the off-ramps leading to downtown LA., officials said.
This is a developing story. Check back for continuing details at lamag.com
Fans of H-E-B’s fresh-made tortillas rejoice: During Thursday’s City Plan Commission meeting, the Texas grocery store chain received the first of two needed green lights to build its first store within Dallas city limits. A dozen residents spoke in opposition to the store’s North Dallas expansion plan, arguing that a grocer on the 10-acre plot of land on the corner of Hillcrest Road and LBJ Freeway would increase traffic congestion in the area, promote noise, and disrupt the general peace of nearby residential neighborhoods…
People mourning the killing of Charlie Kirk carried candles and American flags in a solemn memorial last week at the Huntington Beach Pier, long a destination for conservative gatherings ranging from protests over pandemic-era lockdowns to rallies in support of President Trump.
But on this night, things took a dark turn when dozens of men joined the crowd, chanting, “White men fight back.”
Then on Saturday, a white nationalist organization, identified by experts as Patriot Front, showed up at another beachside memorial for Kirk. The men, wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and white gaiters concealing their faces, marched down Main Street toward the beach holding a picture of Kirk. “Say his name!” they yelled. “Take back our world! Take back our land!”
By Sunday, key political leaders in the conservative Orange County city known as a hotbed for the MAGA movement were fighting to contain the situation, issuing a statement denouncing violence. Kirk’s assassination, City Hall said, “serves as a stark reminder of the devastating outcomes that can result from vitriol and violent rhetoric.”
“I despise them,” Councilman Butch Twining said of the white nationalists who disrupted the vigil. “There is no place for them here, and they disgust me.”
Huntington Beach is one of many communities grappling with the aftermath of the shooting of Kirk, a beloved activist in the conservative movement and close ally of President Trump.
In the 1980s and 1990s, skinheads converged on Main Street throwing Nazi salutes and intimidating people of color. In 1995, a pair of white supremacists fatally shot a Black man after confronting him outside a McDonald’s restaurant on Beach Boulevard.
Huntington Beach leaders have fought to rid the city of that image and tried to make clear that hate is not welcome in Surf City. But events of the last week have made these efforts more difficult.
“Typically, when there’s an opportunity like this, white supremacists and far-right folks more generally are very good about inserting themselves and seeing it as an opportunity to pull things in their direction and shift the narrative,” said Pete Simi, a professor of sociology at Chapman University in Orange County who studies extremist groups.
This is happening as Huntington Beach has emerged as a West Coast beacon for Trump and MAGA. The city has made headlines in recent years for removing the Pride flag from city properties, rewriting a decades-old human dignity resolution — deleting any mention of intolerance of hate crimes — and wading into fights with state officials over issues like transgender student privacy.
Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said the U.S. is witnessing not just polarization between left and right, but a splintering within both the left and right. And that polarization, he said, is being exploited by extremist groups seeking to advance a certain message.
“The notion that these camps are unified teams just simply isn’t true,” Levin said. “I think what’s happening is we’re seeing the exploitation of civic discourse by people who are trying to outdo each other as being more authentic and how they do that is by being more eliminationist and more aggressive. Aggression and being an edgelord is considered currency.”
Barbara Richardson, who has lived in the city since the early 1970s, criticized city leaders for extending the mourning period for Kirk, flying flags half-staff through sundown on Sept. 21 — the day of his memorial service — saying that it will only contribute to rising tensions in the city.
Over the weekend, Richardson watched the videos of the white supremacists chanting downtown in horror. The moment was an unwelcome reminder of what residents grappled with decades ago.
“It’s disheartening,” Richardson said. “I think what happened at the Charlie Kirk rallies was a real black eye for Huntington Beach and it hurts tourism. It made me not want to go downtown. I remember the city in the 1980s and it was scary. I didn’t want to be around skinheads then and I still don’t.”
Last week’s memorials were for Kirk as well as Iryna Zarustka, the woman killed while riding a train in Charlotte, N.C., in a brutal attack captured on video.
Twining attended the event on Wednesday and was disturbed at what he heard from the white supremacists. He said he left quickly after they arrived and started chanting.
“They ruined a perfectly nice vigil where we recognized two people — Iryna [Zarustka] and Charlie—and prayed for them and sang Amazing Grace and had our own conversations about how much they meant to us,” he said.
He and others have stressed the vast majority of those who attended the vigils were there simply to mourn.
Twining said he and his wife have been accosted in a restaurant and at the grocery store over his presence at the vigil and the incorrect assumption that he’s supportive of white nationalists. There have been calls for him to resign and he’s even received death threats that have warranted police protection, he said.
“I reject the presence of hate groups loudly and unequivocally,” Twining said. “Their attempts to corrupt our democratic spaces will not succeed. As a leader in this community, I will not allow my voice to be twisted for extremism. I remain committed to preserving inclusive, respectful, and peaceful spaces where dialogue and remembrance can flourish untainted by hate.”
Videos of Saturday’s gathering show some attendees waving flags associated with Patriot Front, a white nationalist organization founded in 2017 by Thomas Rousseau after the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Va.
“They were intentionally generated to try and distance themselves from that violence and present themselves as pro-American,” Simi said. However, Simi noted, the group has also been accused of racial violence. In 2022, the Patriot Front was sued for a racist attack on a black musician in Boston and ordered to pay $2.75 million in damages.
On Saturday in Huntington Beach, resident Jerry Geyer was riding his bicycle in downtown watching as the group marched toward the pier chanting and decided to push back. He positioned his bicycle on the sidewalk in front of them in an effort to block their path. He rode next to them, shouting expletives.
“I cannot allow that to run through the streets of Huntington Beach,” he said in an interview with KCAL News. “That’s not what we are. That’s not who Huntington Beach is.”
Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert doesn’t like the words “budget cuts.” She said as much on Wednesday, when the council discussed the proposed tax rate for the upcoming fiscal year, which could be half a penny cheaper per $100 valuation than it was this year…
The city of Joplin will host an open house public meeting from 4:30-6:30 p.m. Monday, Sept. 8, on the fifth floor of City Hall, 602 S. Main St., on the demolition of the Pennsylvania Avenue viaduct.
Future options for the area between Fifth and Seventh streets also will be discussed.
Residents are encouraged to attend any time during these hours to view the plans and ask questions about the upcoming construction project. City engineers and representatives of Olsson, the project’s consultant, will be available to talk about the plan.
This demolition will occur before the Missouri Department of Transportation starts the reconstruction of Route 66/Seventh Street from Schifferdecker Avenue to Range Line Road. MoDOT is in the design phase of its project, with anticipated construction to begin in middle or late 2026. The rebuilding of Seventh Street has been estimated at more than $60 million.
It is a concrete beam bridge built in 1929, according to the federal government’s National Bridge Inventory Data. It spanned Willow Branch and part of a warehouse at the time it was constructed. The warehouse building has been demolished since the bridge was closed.
The viaduct was closed in 2019. At that time, city officials said a state inspection rated the overall condition of the bridge as poor. Its substructure condition had eroded from fair in 2013 to serious in 2017, according to inspection reports.
This demolition was included in the capital improvement sales tax, supported by voters in 2024.
In November, the City Council approved a work authorization contract with Olsson for up to $568,250 to obtain engineering services for the removal of the viaduct, as well as replacement and repair of Willow Branch stormwater drainage.
Those unable to attend the meeting who would like to discuss the project can contact Rob Beachner at 417-624-0820, ext. 1543, or rbeachne@joplinmo.org.
If we ever give Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson flowers for one thing, it’s his administration’s fealty to parks and green spaces. Johnson began hammering on his dedication to parks (one of the four “Ps” crucial to his governance of Dallas) years before the $1.1 billion bond package in 2024…
Let’s be honest: Dallas Mayor Eric Johnson’s recent trip to Tanzania seems to be on the up-and-up. As far as we can tell, the steps needed to make a lavish getaway into an official work trip were apparently taken…
Overstreet (center) is a native of Atlanta and an alumnus of Atlanta Public Schools. Photo by Isaiah Singleton/The Atlanta Voice
In a press conference on the steps of City Hall, Atlanta City Councilmember Marci Collier Overstreet announced she is running for City Council president. Overstrteet, an Atlanta native, represents District 11.
“I am so excited to be your next president in Atlanta because I am exactly what the city needs right now,” she said. “We’re doing the work and I’ll be the only one on the ballot that is ready. Ready is important in the city of Atlanta. Our mayor said he needs a partner ready to go on day one and that’s me.”
A supporter of Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens on the steps of Atlanta city Hall on Tuesday, August 19, 2025. Photo by Isaiah Singleton/The Atlanta Voice
The qualifying period for mayoral candidates in Atlanta is Aug. 19-22. However, individuals raising funds to run for office are required to declare their candidacy earlier. As of now, seven candidates had officially declared their intention to run, including Andre Dickens (incumbent), Helmut Domagalski, Kalema Jackson, Marcus Lamar, Eddie Meredith, Walter Reeves, and Larmetria Trammell.
Atlanta Mayor Andre Dickens has also formally qualified to seek a second term as Mayor of the City of Atlanta. Dickens said he filed his official paperwork at the City of Atlanta Municipal Clerk’s Office.
The next Atlanta mayoral election is scheduled for Nov. 4. If necessary, a run-off election will be held on Dec. 2.
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Born and raised in Stockbridge, GA, Isaiah always knew he wanted to become a voice for the voiceless. He graduated from Savannah State University in 2019, and since then, he’s worked for The Marietta Daily…
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A coalition of Far North Dallas neighbors has dropped a lawsuit against the city of Dallas and local developer Henry S. Miller Companies. They say that a new development law passed in the state Legislature in June became a “nuclear bomb” to their legal resistance to the planned redevelopment of the Pepper Square shopping center…
NEW YORK (WABC) — First Deputy Mayor Sheena Wright has resigned Tuesday, and is expected to be replaced by Deputy Mayor for Housing, Economic Development and Work Force Maria Torres-Springer, who has decades of government experience.
The announcement is expected to be made by Mayor Eric Adams at his weekly briefing later Tuesday morning.
Wright could serve for the rest of the month.
“We are grateful for First Deputy Mayor Wright’s years of service to the city and all she has done to deliver for children, families, and working-class New Yorkers. She is an exceptional leader who assembled a strong team and constantly demonstrated a bold vision for this city,” Adams said in a statement.
Wright has served in the administration since January 2022 and moved into her current role in January of 2023. She worked alongside the mayor very closely on a number of initiatives.
FILE – Mayor Eric Adams, right, is flanked by deputy mayor Sheena Wright, left, during a press conference at City Hall in New York, Dec. 12, 2023.
AP Photo/Peter K. Afriyie, File
Last month, federal investigators seized her phones and searched her home — along with several other officials who have since resigned.
The announcement that Wright is stepping down comes after her brother-in-law, Deputy Mayor of Public Safety Philip Banks, announced his resignation Monday.
Joining the deputy mayor leaving Monday were Winne Greco, Rana Abbasova and Mohammed Bahi.
Greco and Bahi resigned, and Abbasova was terminated. All three served as community liaisons for the administration.
Other notable names to step down from their roles previously include former police commissioner Edward Caban, outgoing school chancellor David Banks, health commissioner Ashwin Vasan, advisor to the mayor Tim Pearson, and legal advisor Lisa Zornberg.
“This comes directly from Governor Hochul. She said to clean house. She wants to see changes and that’s what she’s seeing right now,” he said.
Meanwhile, David Birdsell, Kean University Provost, said many people are under the assumption that the corruption within the administration is being carried out by people with key roles.
“It looks like, right now, that administration is losing its most senior officials. At least many people believe because there is some corruption at the heart of the administration,” Birdsell said.
It all comes as the Mayor continues to reassure residents across New York City that he can govern while defending himself against the federal government.
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Chief Ahmed Abonamah at City Hall in 2023. The Akron native resigned late last week.
After a breezy two-and-a-half years with the Bibb administration, Ahmed Abonamah, its director of finance since 2022, announced his resignation over the weekend.
Besides a recap of Abonamah’s accomplishments during his tenure, and plans to install assistant finance director Jim Hartley come July 19, a press release from City Hall did not elaborate on Abonamah’s reasons for the abrupt (at least from the outside) exit.
“I am proud of what we have accomplished and confident that the city is poised for continued success,” Abonamah wrote in the release, recapping his two years.
He went on: “Since Mayor Bibb’s inauguration, the city’s financial condition has steadily improved as evidenced by consecutive structurally balanced budgets, the City’s first merit-based credit rating upgrades in decades, and record cash reserve levels.”
On Monday, Abonamah told Axios Cleveland that his adios to City Hall was a mere “anodyne job change,” and therefore nothing controversial. The time was right for a “compelling opportunity,” he said, though he didn’t elaborate further.
A confident advocate who aimed to modernize Cleveland’s budget book, Abonamah was a part of several major city plot points since Bibb hired him.
He helped oversee the spending of Cleveland’s $512 million of American Rescue Plan Act dollars, aided Cleveland police in navigating a transition to 12-hour shifts and delved, most recently, into lakefront plans and the future (or not) of Cleveland Browns Stadium.
In late 2023, Abonamah flanked Development Director Jeff Epstein to convince City Council that a Shore-to-Core-to-Shore tax increment financing (TIF) district would help speed up Downtown Cleveland’s evolution.
The city’s assistant director of finance for 17 years, Hartley was a real estate tax professional before that, along with managing a $12 billion budget as Ohio’s Chief Investment Officer. Abonamah called him “an ideal leader to continue the city’s recent financial successes.”
Hartley will officially take over the position July 19.
Phillip McHugh, Bibb’s safety advisor until Thursday morning.
Following weeks of debate over the hire of Phillip McHugh, the mayor’s safety advisor announced he was stepping down on Thursday morning.
McHugh, Mayor Bibb’s former roommate at American University and subject of a 2015 civil rights lawsuit in which he was not found liable, went through a trial by fire after Bibb hired him in late April. In a one-page resignation letter, McHugh detailed his decision to forego his position as a result of a political hit job.
“While it has been an honor to serve the City of Cleveland for this brief time,” McHugh wrote, “the politically motivated character assassination campaign initiated against me by certain disingenuous members of the City Council and media has made it nearly impossible to focus on the work and to serve the City effectively.”
Though McHugh’s hire seemed premeditated by City Hall—McHugh had apparently helped edit his own job description, according to reporting by Fox 8—mounting criticism built after details of a 2015 lawsuit surfaced, one during McHugh’s time as a detective for District of Columbia Police.
That lawsuit centered on an unwarranted break-in and falsified evidence. Vashti Sherrod, a Black woman in her 70s, had apparently pulled a gun out during a road rage incident in D.C. Local prosecutors, according to McHugh, pressured the detective to storm the Sherrod’s home in Maryland. Excessive force was used. A gun was never found.
Vashti and her husband Eugene Sherrod were eventually awarded a six-figure settlement. (The other driver, a white woman, had produced a false police report.)
Shortly after McHugh’s hire in April, local officials and advocates stood up to protest what they saw as a naive election by Bibb, especially given that the city’s police force remains under a Consent Decree with the Department of Justice.
In a recent council meeting, as Cleveland.com reported, Ward 5 Councilman Richard Starr dubbed McHugh a “liar” and ascribed his actions with the Sherrods as echoing episodes of police brutality locally in Glenville and Cudell.
“Phillip McHugh needs to go, and he needs to go immediately,” Starr said.
Bibb himself, in a followup letter to McHugh’s resignation, tried to express a rock-and-a-hard-place feeling towards the hire for which he was responsible.
“I understand that the hiring of Phil has evoked pain within our community,” Bibb wrote. “I have heard your concerns and acknowledge that situations like these are hard—as a leader, as a resident, and as a Black man.”
“I believe in the power of effective leadership and diverse perspectives to address the most pressing, complex issues facing our community,” he added. “First and foremost of these is public safety. I know that if we cannot get this right, nothing else matters.”
It’s unclear how McHugh’s replacement will be handled, or if any interim position will be installed in the meantime.
McHugh remained adamant in his letter that he was fit for the job and had always engaged in a lawful manner.
“I refuse to allow certain disingenuous media outlets and members of City Council to use me as a political punching bag to hurt you and to distract us from doing the vital work needed in their communities. I wish I could have had a fair opportunity to work with you and your administration to serve the citizens of Cleveland,” he wrote.
In a statement, Councilman Richard Starr said: “”Transparency is at the heart of Phillip McHugh’s resignation… It’s unacceptable that the senior advisor’s civil rights violations were only discovered after his hiring in our city… Despite some seeing this situation as a political game, it’s essential to understand that all actions taken are in the best interest of our residents. It’s important to reiterate that the objections to Phillip McHugh’s hiring were not about the Cleveland City Council or an attempt at political gamesmanship. Instead, they were about doing what’s best for Cleveland’s residents. As leaders, we must do everything we can to improve and preserve the trust in public safety. Hiring Mr. McHugh eroded some of the trust and gains we’ve made.”
