A family on Long Island, New York, is crediting their 12-year-old with saving the day.They say he did all the right things when someone broke into their house. 12-year-old Tristen Taylor of Medford was home alone in his bedroom midday Tuesday when he heard the kitchen window break and footsteps inside the house.A stranger was walking from room to room.”I said, I have to get out the house,” Tristen said. It may sound like the Christmas classic “Home Alone,” but unlike the holiday movie, there were no traps or pranks — just quick thinking, a fast police response and a child who did all the right things.After getting away through a ground-floor window, he called 911. As the man rummaged through the house, Tristen hid behind the garage.”I was on the phone with them, waiting for them to get here,” he said.Suffolk County police arrived in less than three minutes, catching the thief red-handed.”He is our little hero,” said Timothea Taylor, Tristen’s grandmother.”We were very proud that he was able to keep his composure and call the police as quickly as he did. Basically, without even thinking about it, he automatically called 911.”Tristen’s family credits movies he’s seen, plus his good instincts.To his neighbors, he’s also a hero for stopping a brazen burglar.Mike Campanella, a neighbor, said, “I would hope my son would have done the same thing, when someone is breaking into the house — caution is to get out and then call the police.””You just have to be brave and call them,” Tristen said. The suspect now faces burglary charges.He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Wednesday.
LONG ISLAND, N.Y. —
A family on Long Island, New York, is crediting their 12-year-old with saving the day.
They say he did all the right things when someone broke into their house.
12-year-old Tristen Taylor of Medford was home alone in his bedroom midday Tuesday when he heard the kitchen window break and footsteps inside the house.
A stranger was walking from room to room.
“I said, I have to get out the house,” Tristen said.
It may sound like the Christmas classic “Home Alone,” but unlike the holiday movie, there were no traps or pranks — just quick thinking, a fast police response and a child who did all the right things.
After getting away through a ground-floor window, he called 911. As the man rummaged through the house, Tristen hid behind the garage.
“I was on the phone with them, waiting for them to get here,” he said.
Suffolk County police arrived in less than three minutes, catching the thief red-handed.
“He is our little hero,” said Timothea Taylor, Tristen’s grandmother.
“We were very proud that he was able to keep his composure and call the police as quickly as he did. Basically, without even thinking about it, he automatically called 911.”
Tristen’s family credits movies he’s seen, plus his good instincts.
To his neighbors, he’s also a hero for stopping a brazen burglar.
Mike Campanella, a neighbor, said, “I would hope my son would have done the same thing, when someone is breaking into the house — caution is to get out and then call the police.”
“You just have to be brave and call them,” Tristen said.
The suspect now faces burglary charges.
He pleaded not guilty at his arraignment on Wednesday.
Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2025Bakri was best known for “Jenin, Jenin,” a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.Bakri also acted in the 2025 film “All That’s Left of You,” a drama about a Palestinian family over more than 76 years, alongside his sons, Adam and Saleh Bakri, who are also actors. The film has been shortlisted by the Academy Awards for the best international feature film.Over the years, he made several films that spanned the spectrum of Palestinian experiences. He also acted in Hebrew, including at Israel’s national theater in Tel Aviv, and appeared in a number of famous Israeli films in the 1980s and 1990s. He studied at Tel Aviv University.Bakri, who was born in northern Israel and held Israeli citizenship, dabbled in both film and theater. His best-known one-man show from 1986, “The Pessoptimist,” based on the writings of Palestinian author Emile Habiby, focused on the intricacies and emotions of someone who has both Israeli and Palestinian identities.During the 1980s, Bakri played characters in mainstream Israeli films that humanized the Palestinian identity, including “Beyond the Walls,” a seminal film about incarcerated Israelis and Palestinians, said Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma.“He broke stereotypes about how Israelis looked at Palestinians, and allowing someone Palestinian to be regarded as a hero in Israeli society,” she said.“He was a very brave person, and he was brave by standing to his ideals, choosing not to be conformist in any way, and paying the price in both societies,” said Morag.Bakri faced some pushback within Palestinian society for his cooperation with Israelis. After “Jenin, Jenin,” he was plagued by almost two decades of court cases in Israel, where the film was seen as unbalanced and inciting.In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a ban on the documentary, saying it defamed Israeli soldiers, and ordered Bakri to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to an Israeli military officer for defamation.“Jenin, Jenin” was a turning point in Bakri’s career. In Israel, he became a polarizing figure, and he never worked with mainstream Israeli cinema again, Morag said. “He was loyal to himself despite all the pressures from inside and outside,” she added. “He was a firm voice that did not change during the years.”Local media quoted Bakri’s family as saying he died Wednesday after suffering from heart and lung problems. His cousin, Rafic, told the Arabic news site Al-Jarmaq that Bakri was a tenacious advocate of the Palestinians who used his works to express support for his people.“I am certain that Abu Saleh will remain in the memory of Palestinian people everywhere and all people of the free world,” he said, using Mohammad Bakri’s nickname.___AP correspondent Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
TEL AVIV, Israel —
Mohammad Bakri, a Palestinian director and actor who sought to share the complexities of Palestinian identity and culture through a variety of works in both Arabic and Hebrew, has died, his family announced. He was 72.
Related video above: Remembering those we lost in 2025
Bakri was best known for “Jenin, Jenin,” a 2003 documentary he directed about an Israeli military operation in the northern West Bank city the previous year during the second Palestinian intifada, or uprising. The film, focusing on the heavy destruction and heartbreak of its Palestinian residents, was banned by Israel.
Bakri also acted in the 2025 film “All That’s Left of You,” a drama about a Palestinian family over more than 76 years, alongside his sons, Adam and Saleh Bakri, who are also actors. The film has been shortlisted by the Academy Awards for the best international feature film.
Over the years, he made several films that spanned the spectrum of Palestinian experiences. He also acted in Hebrew, including at Israel’s national theater in Tel Aviv, and appeared in a number of famous Israeli films in the 1980s and 1990s. He studied at Tel Aviv University.
Bakri, who was born in northern Israel and held Israeli citizenship, dabbled in both film and theater. His best-known one-man show from 1986, “The Pessoptimist,” based on the writings of Palestinian author Emile Habiby, focused on the intricacies and emotions of someone who has both Israeli and Palestinian identities.
During the 1980s, Bakri played characters in mainstream Israeli films that humanized the Palestinian identity, including “Beyond the Walls,” a seminal film about incarcerated Israelis and Palestinians, said Raya Morag, a professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem who specializes in cinema and trauma.
“He broke stereotypes about how Israelis looked at Palestinians, and allowing someone Palestinian to be regarded as a hero in Israeli society,” she said.
“He was a very brave person, and he was brave by standing to his ideals, choosing not to be conformist in any way, and paying the price in both societies,” said Morag.
Bakri faced some pushback within Palestinian society for his cooperation with Israelis. After “Jenin, Jenin,” he was plagued by almost two decades of court cases in Israel, where the film was seen as unbalanced and inciting.
In 2022, Israel’s Supreme Court upheld a ban on the documentary, saying it defamed Israeli soldiers, and ordered Bakri to pay tens of thousands of dollars in damages to an Israeli military officer for defamation.
“Jenin, Jenin” was a turning point in Bakri’s career. In Israel, he became a polarizing figure, and he never worked with mainstream Israeli cinema again, Morag said. “He was loyal to himself despite all the pressures from inside and outside,” she added. “He was a firm voice that did not change during the years.”
Local media quoted Bakri’s family as saying he died Wednesday after suffering from heart and lung problems. His cousin, Rafic, told the Arabic news site Al-Jarmaq that Bakri was a tenacious advocate of the Palestinians who used his works to express support for his people.
“I am certain that Abu Saleh will remain in the memory of Palestinian people everywhere and all people of the free world,” he said, using Mohammad Bakri’s nickname.
___
AP correspondent Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.
Whether it’s an ornament at the bottom of the box, or a nutcracker collecting dust in the attic, hand-me-down decorations can find a new home thanks to one local high school student and his mom.
Grant Benedum and his mom, Christine, created a mission called, ‘Giving Garland,’ earlier this year.
They have partnered with Norwood-Fontbonne Academy and Our Mother of Consolation Catholic Church in Chestnut Hill to collect decorations from students, parishioners, and their families.
The result has been a roaring success so far. And they were already able to make a donation to ‘Women Against Abuse’ for a shelter in Philadelphia.
The family, who is from Glenside, will continue to accept donations through the end of January 2026.
To learn more about ‘Giving Garland,’ watch the video above and visit their website.
OXNARD — A father who has become the sole caretaker for his two young children after his wife was deported. A school district seeing absenteeism similar to what it experienced during the pandemic. Businesses struggling because customers are scared to go outside.
These are just a sampling of how this part of Ventura County is reckoning with the aftermath of federal immigration raids on Glass House cannabis farms six months ago, when hundreds of workers were detained and families split apart. In some instances, there is still uncertainty about what happened to minors left behind after one or both parents were deported. Now, while Latino households gather for the holidays, businesses and restaurants are largely quiet as anxiety about more Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids lingers.
“There’s a lot of fear that the community is living,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center. This time of year, clients usually ask her about her holiday plans, but now no one asks. Families are divided by the U.S. border or have loved ones in immigration detainment. “They were ready for Christmas, to make tamales, to make pozole, to make something and celebrate with the family. And now, nothing.”
At the time, the immigration raids on Glass House Farms in Camarillo and Carpinteria were some of the largest of their kind nationwide, resulting in chaotic scenes, confusion and violence. At least 361 undocumented immigrants were detained, many of them third-party contractors for Glass House. One of those contractors, Jaime Alanis Garcia, died after he fell from a greenhouse rooftop in the July 10 raid.
Jacqueline Rodriguez, in mirror, works on a customer’s hair as Silvia Lopez, left, owner of Divine Hair Design, waits for customers in downtown Oxnard on Dec. 19, 2025.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
The raids catalyzed mass protests along the Central Coast and sent a chill through Oxnard, a tight-knit community where many families work in the surrounding fields and live in multigenerational homes far more modest than many on the Ventura coast. It also reignited fears about how farmworker communities — often among the most low-paid and vulnerable parts of the labor pool — would be targeted during the Trump administration’s intense deportation campaign.
In California, undocumented workers represent nearly 60% of the agricultural workforce, and many of them live in mixed-immigration-status households or households where none are citizens, said Ana Padilla, executive director of the UC Merced Community and Labor Center. After the Glass House raid, Padilla and UC Merced associate professor Edward Flores identified economic trends similar to the Great Recession, when private-sector jobs fell. Although undocumented workers contribute to state and federal taxes, they don’t qualify for unemployment benefits that could lessen the blow of job loss after a family member gets detained.
“These are households that have been more affected by the economic consequences than any other group,” Padilla said. She added that California should consider distributing “replacement funds” for workers and families that have lost income because of immigration enforcement activity.
An Oxnard store owner who sells quinceañera and baptism dresses — and who asked that her name not be used — says she has lost 60% of her business since the immigrant raids this year at Glass House farms.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Local businesses are feeling the effects as well. Silvia Lopez, who has run Divine Hair Design in downtown Oxnard for 16 years, said she’s lost as much as 75% of business after the July raid. The salon usually saw 40 clients a day, she said, but on the day after the raid, it had only two clients — and four stylists who were stunned. Already, she said, other salon owners have had to close, and she cut back her own hours to help her remaining stylists make enough each month.
“Everything changed for everyone,” she said.
In another part of town, a store owner who sells quinceañera and baptism dresses said her sales have dropped by 60% every month since August, and clients have postponed shopping. A car shop owner, who declined to be identified because he fears government retribution, said he supported President Trump because of his campaign pledge to help small-business owners like himself. But federal loans have been difficult to access, he said, and he feels betrayed by the president’s deportation campaign that has targeted communities such as Oxnard.
“There’s a lot of fear that the community is living,” said Alicia Flores, executive director of La Hermandad Hank Lacayo Youth and Family Center in downtown Oxnard, on Dec. 19, 2025.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
“Glass House had a big impact,” he said. “It made people realize, ‘Oh s—, they’re hitting us hard.’ ”
The raid’s domino effect has raised concerns about the welfare of children in affected households. Immigration enforcement actions can have detrimental effects on young children, according to the American Immigration Council, and they can be at risk of experiencing severe psychological distress.
Olivia Lopez, a community organizer at Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, highlighted the predicament of one father. He became the sole caretaker of his infant and 4-year-old son after his wife was deported, and can’t afford child care. He is considering sending the children across the border to his wife in Mexico, who misses her kids.
In a separate situation, Lopez said, an 18-year-old has been suddenly thrust into caring for two siblings after her mother, a single parent, was deported.
Additionally, she said she has heard stories of children left behind, including a 16-year-old who does not want to leave the U.S. and reunite with her mother who was deported after the Glass House raid. She said she suspects that at least 50 families — and as many as 100 children — lost both or their only parent in the raid.
“I have questions after hearing all the stories: Where are the children, in cases where two parents, those responsible for the children, were deported? Where are those children?” she said. “How did we get to this point?”
Robin Godfrey, public information officer for the Ventura County Human Services Agency, which is responsible for overseeing child welfare in the county, said she could not answer specific questions about whether the agency has become aware of minors left behind after parents were detained.
“Federal and state laws prevent us from confirming or denying if children from Glass House Farms families came into the child welfare system,” she said in a statement.
The raid has been jarring in the Oxnard School District, which was closed for summer vacation but reopened on July 10 to contact families and ensure their well-being, Supt. Ana DeGenna said. Her staff called all 13,000 families in the district to ask whether they needed resources and whether they wanted access to virtual classes for the upcoming school year.
Even before the July 10 raid, DeGenna and her staff were preparing. In January, after Trump was inaugurated, the district sped up installing doorbells at every school site in case immigration agents attempted to enter. They referred families to organizations that would help them draft affidavits so their U.S.-born children could have legal guardians, in case the parents were deported. They asked parents to submit not just one or two, but as many as 10 emergency contacts in case they don’t show up to pick up their children.
Rodrigo is considering moving back to Mexico after living in the U.S. for 42 years.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
With a district that is 92% Latino, she said, nearly everyone is fearful, whether they are directly or indirectly affected, regardless if they have citizenship. Some families have self-deported, leaving the country, while children have changed households to continue their schooling. Nearly every morning, as raids continue in the region, she fields calls about sightings of ICE vehicles near schools. When that happens, she said, she knows attendance will be depressed to near COVID-19 levels for those surrounding schools, with parents afraid to send their children back to the classroom.
But unlike the pandemic, there is no relief in knowing they’ve experienced the worst, such as the Glass House raid, which saw hundreds of families affected in just a day, she said. The need for mental health counselors and support has only grown.
“We have to be there to protect them and take care of them, but we have to acknowledge it’s a reality they’re living through,” she said. “We can’t stop the learning, we can’t stop the education, because we also know that is the most important thing that’s going to help them in the future to potentially avoid being victimized in any way.”
Jasmine Cruz, 21, launched a GoFundMe page after her father was taken during the Glass House raid. He remains in detention in Arizona, and the family hired an immigration attorney in hopes of getting him released.
Each month, she said, it gets harder to pay off their rent and utility bills. She managed to raise about $2,700 through GoFundMe, which didn’t fully cover a month of rent. Her mother is considering moving the family back to Mexico if her father is deported, Cruz said.
“I tried telling my mom we should stay here,” she said. “But she said it’s too much for us without our dad.”
Many of the families torn apart by the Glass House raid did not have plans in place, said Lopez, the community organizer, and some families were resistant because they believed they wouldn’t be affected. But after the raid, she received calls from several families who wanted to know whether they could get family affidavit forms notarized. One notary, she said, spent 10 hours working with families for free, including some former Glass House workers who evaded the raid.
“The way I always explain it is, look, everything that is being done by this government agency, you can’t control,” she said. “But what you can control is having peace of mind knowing you did something to protect your children and you didn’t leave them unprotected.”
For many undocumented immigrants, the choices are few.
Rodrigo, who is undocumented and worries about ICE reprisals, has made his living with his guitar, which he has been playing since he was 17.
While taking a break outside a downtown Oxnard restaurant, he looked tired, wiping his forehead after serenading a pair, a couple and a group at a Mexican restaurant. He has been in the U.S. for 42 years, but since the summer raid, business has been slow. Now, people no longer want to hire for house parties.
The 77-year-old said he wants to retire but has to continue working. But he fears getting picked up at random, based on how abusive agents have been. He’s thinking about the new year, and returning to Mexico on his own accord.
“Before they take away my guitar,” he said, “I better go.”
Rachel Dack, a licensed clinical professional relationship counselor based in Bethesda, Maryland said it starts with communication with your partner about what the ideal holiday season looks like.
Many new couples face a challenge in the holiday season — figuring out how to split time between their own family and their partner’s.
Rachel Dack, a licensed clinical professional relationship counselor based in Bethesda, Maryland, said it starts with communication with your partner about what the ideal holiday season looks like.
“Think about your relationship or your marriage as a clean slate, and then try to integrate whatever you want to bring in, and then also develop new holiday traditions as a couple,” Dack said.
That could look like merging past traditions and coming up with new ones.
“Digging deep and reflecting around what are your own values and what’s the meaning that you want to give to the holidays as a couple,” she said.
Even if there’s pressure from your families, she said to try to stay on the same page.
“Without sounding totally cold, and only coming from a place of being completely realistic, you are not responsible for everyone else’s feelings or holiday joy,” Dack said. “It’s going to be impossible to please everybody.”
Depending on the couple’s circumstances, hitting two homes in one day could do the trick, or rotating celebrations of Thanksgiving and winter holidays between sides of the family.
“If somebody is trying to keep score down to the second, that’s not going to work for anybody,” Dack said.
But sometimes, it could mean celebrating just the two of you.
“There’s a difference between spending time with your family or your partner’s family because it’s important to you and to each other, and not just doing that because it’s what’s been done before or it’s important to your extended family,” she said.
Outside of geographical constraints, Dack said to think about family dynamics, such as divorces, deaths or other factors that could play into holiday plans. When opening a conversation with your partner about holiday plans, she said to avoid talking negatively about their family.
“If you feel like the conversation is getting tense or your partner’s not listening or being defensive, then I think it’s important to acknowledge that for both of you, there’s compromise that goes into this, and it’s not going to look the same,” she said.
Whatever game plan is strategized, Dack said you should handle telling your own parents.
“It’s easy for families to paint the partner as the bad guy,” Dack said.
And when you break the news, she said to have a delicate and loving conversation with your family.
“Also validate that it’s hard for your parents not to see you on a certain holiday that you’ve always been together,” she said.
She recommended sharing your holiday plans well in advance.
“Don’t keep everybody hanging and feeling anxious to the last minute,” Dack said. “Make the plans in advance. If you’re going to travel, where are you going to stay? How long are you staying?”
It’s also normal to have growing pains when spending the holiday away from home.
“As excited as you are to spend a holiday with a partner, and a partner’s family, you might feel kind of sad about missing it with your own family,” she said. “Just know that that’s OK. But if you can focus on each other and making these new memories and shared experiences with your partner, I think it will also feel better.”
Get breaking news and daily headlines delivered to your email inbox by signing up here.
The family of Rob and Michele Reiner are working on a memorial for the couple, who were slain last weekend at their Brentwood home.
In a statement Monday, children Jake and Romy Reiner thanked the public for the outpouring of support and said details about a memorial will be coming.
Rob and Michele Reiner were found dead in their Brentwood home Dec. 14. Nick Reiner, 32, was charged Tuesday with their murders.
Reiner also faces a special allegation that he used a deadly weapon, a knife, in the crime, L.A. County Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said during a news conference announcing the murder charges last week.
On the afternoon the Reiners were found, a massage therapist showed up at the home for a weekly session with the couple. When there was no answer at the gate, the therapist called Romy Reiner, who arrived at the home and discovered her father’s body, according to a source close to the Reiner family who spoke on condition of anonymity.
In a statement last week, the children said: “We now ask for respect and privacy, for speculation to be tempered with compassion and humanity, and for our parents to be remembered for the incredible lives they lived and the love they gave.”
PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania (WPVI) — To ensure kids with illness can celebrate the holidays, a toy store setup has appeared at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children.
It’s known as “Candy Cane Corner.”
Comprised of donated toys and gifts, parents will be able to select items at no cost.
“They can pick anywhere from 5 to 10 items and they can be for the patient that they have here. Oftentimes, our families have other children at home…because they’ve been here at the hospital, they haven’t had time to go shopping for them,” said Hillary Israel of St. Children’s Hospital for Children.
“This gives them a little bit of normalcy back…it may look a little bit different, but we can at least help them try and still enjoy the holiday season,” she continued.
When Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy this weekend with another Latino finalist looking on from the crowd, the Cuban-American quarterback did more than just become the first Indiana Hoosier to win college football’s top prize, and only the third Latino to do so. He also subtly offered a radical statement: Latinos don’t just belong in this country, they’re essential.
At a time when questions swirl around this country‘s largest minority group that cast us in a demeaning, tokenized light — how could so many of us vote for Trump in 2024? Why don’t we assimilate faster? Why does Supreme Court justice Brett Kavanaugh think it’s OK for immigration agents to racially profile us? — the fact that two of the best college football players in the country this year were Latino quarterbacks didn’t draw the headlines they would’ve a generation ago. That’s because we now live in an era where Latinos are part of the fabric of sports in the United States like never before.
That’s the untold thesis of four great books I read this year. Each is anchored in Latino pride but treat their subjects not just as sport curios and pioneers but great athletes who were and are fundamental not just to their professions and community but society at large.
Shea Serrano writing about anything is like a really great big burrito — you know it’s going to be great and it exceeds your expectations when you finally bite into it, you swear you’re not going to gorge the thing all at once but don’t regret anything when you inevitably do. He could write about concrete and this would be true, but his latest New York Times bestseller (four in total, which probably makes him the only Mexican American author with that distinction) thankfully is instead about his favorite sport.
“Expensive Basketball” finds Serrano at his best, a mix of humblebrag, rambles and hilarity (of Rasheed Wallace, the lifelong San Antonio Spurs fan wrote the all-star forward “would collect technical fouls with the same enthusiasm and determination little kids collect Pokémon cards with.”) The proud Tejano’s mix of styles — straight essays, listicles, repeated phrases or words trotted out like incantations, copious footnotes — ensures he always keeps the reader guessing.
But his genius is in noting things no one else possibly can. Who else would’ve crowned journeyman power forward Gordon Hayward the fall guy in Kobe Bryant’s final game, the one where he scored 60 points and led the Lakers to a thrilling fourth-quarter comeback? Tied a Carlos Williams poem that a friend mistakenly texted to him to WNBA Hall of Famer Sue Bird? Reminded us that the hapless Charlotte Hornets — who haven’t made it into the playoffs in nearly a decade — were once considered so cool that two of their stars were featured in the original “Space Jam?” “Essential Basketball” is so good that you’ll swear you’ll only read a couple of Serrano’s essays and not regret the afternoon that will pass as quickly as a Nikola Jokic assist.
“Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay”
(Gustavo Arellano/Los Angeles Times)
I recommended “Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay” in my regular columna three years ago, so why am I plugging its second edition? For one, the audacity of its existence — how on earth can anyone justify turning a 450-page book on an unheralded section of Southern California into an 800-page one? But in an age when telling your story because no one else will or will do a terrible job at it is more important than ever, the contributors to this tome prove how true that is.
“Mexican American Baseball in the South Bay” is part of a long-running series about the history of Mexican American baseball in Southern California Latino communities. What’s so brilliant about this one is that it boldly asserts the history and stories of a community that too often get overlooked in Southern California Latino literature in favor of the Eastsides and Santa Anas of the region.
As series editor Richard A. Santillan noted, the reaction to the original South Bay book was so overwhelmingly positive that he and others in the Latino History Baseball Project decided to expand it. Well-written essays introduce each chapter; long captions for family and team photos function as yearbook entries. Especially valuable are newspaper clippings from La Opinión that showed the vibrancy of Southern Californians that never made it into the pages of the English-language press.
Maybe only people with ties to the South Bay will read this book cover to cover, and that’s understandable. But it’s also a challenge to all other Latino communities: if folks from Wilmington to Hermosa Beach to Compton can cover their sports history so thoroughly, why can’t the rest of us?
(University of Colorado Press)
One of the most surprising books I read this year was Jorge Iber’s “The Sanchez Family: Mexican American High School and Collegiate Wrestlers from Cheyenne, Wyoming,” a short read that addresses two topics rarely written about: Mexican American freestyle wrestlers and Mexican Americans in the Equality State. Despite its novelty, it’s the most imperfect of my four recommendations. Since it’s ostensibly an academic book, Iber loads the pages with citations and references to other academics to the point where it sometimes reads like a bibliography and one wonders why the author doesn’t focus more on his own work. And in one chapter, Iber refers to his own work in the first person — profe, you’re cool but you’re not Rickey Henderson.
“The Sanchez Family” overcomes these limitations by the force of its subject, whose protagonists descend from Guanajuato-born ancestors that arrived to Wyoming a century ago and established a multi-generational wrestling dynasty worthy of the far-more famous Guerrero clan. Iber documents how the success of multiple Sanchez men on the wrestling mat led to success in civic life and urges other scholars to examine how prep sports have long served as a springboard for Latinos to enter mainstream society — because nothing creates acceptance like winning.
“In our family, we have educators, engineers and other professions,” Iber quotes Gil Sanchez Sr. a member of the first generation of grapplers. “All because a 15-year-old boy [him]…decided to become a wrestler.”
Heard that boxing is a dying sport? The editors of “Rings of Dissent: Boxing and Performances of Rebellion” won’t have it. Rudy Mondragón, Gaye Theresa Johnson and David J. Leonard not only refuse to entertain that idea, they call such critiques “rooted in racist and classist mythology.”
(University of Illinois Press)
They then go on to offer an electric, eclectic collection of essays on the sweet science that showcases the sport as a metaphor for the struggles and triumphs of those that have practiced it for over 150 years in the United States. Unsurprisingly, California Latinos earn a starring role. Cal State Channel Islands professor José M. Alamillo digs up the case of two Mexican boxers denied entry in the United States during the 1930s, because of the racism of the times, digging up a letter to the Department of Labor that reads like a Stephen Miller rant: “California right now has a surplus of cheap boxers from Mexico, and something should be done to prevent the entry of others.”
Roberto José Andrade Franco retells the saga of Oscar De La Hoya versus Julio Cesar Chávez, landing less on the side of the former than pointing out the assimilationist façade of the Golden Boy. Mondragón talks about the political activism of Central Valley light welterweight José Carlos Ramírez both inside and outside the ring. Despite the verve and love each “Rings of Dissent” contributors have in their essays, they don’t romanticize it. No one is more clear-eyed about its beauty and sadness than Mondragón’s fellow Loyola Marymount Latino studies profe, Priscilla Leiva. She examines the role of boxing gyms in Los Angeles, focusing on three — Broadway Boxing Gym and City of Angels Boxing in South L.A, and the since-shuttered Barrio Boxing in El Sereno.
“Efforts to envision a different future for oneself, for one’s community, and for the city are not guaranteed unequivocal success,” she writes. “Rather, like the sport of boxing, dissent requires struggle.”
If those aren’t the wisest words for Latinos to embrace for the coming year, I’m not sure what is.
JULIS, Israel — Nestled in a quiet corner of a quaint village in Israel’s north, the building appears, at the outset, to house an elegant meeting salon with giant chandeliers, ornate but uncomfortable chairs and trays of sweets.
But past an improvised divider made of plywood and a stern attendant who places stickers over smartphone cameras, sits a team of volunteers working amid large screens and laptops: The nerve center of an all-hands-on-deck humanitarian operation to aid the Druze religious minority in Syria.
Druze in Israel have long sent donations to their coreligionists in the southwestern Syrian province of Sweida, but since July — when around 1,000 Druze civilians were slaughtered in a sectarian killing rampage — a complex aid operation has emerged to serve tens of thousands of people more than 40 miles of hostile territory away.
“What were we supposed to do? Watch them get slaughtered and be silent?” said Muwaffaq Tarif, the spiritual chieftain of the 150,000-strong Druze community in Israel.
Marshaling family ties in Syria and links to Israel’s military and government, the operation headquartered in the salon now provides funds, humanitarian and medical aid, along with logistical and intelligence support — this despite a months-long blockade on Sweida by Syrian forces.
The assistance has become part of a vital lifeline for the province, and has empowered Druze militias and spiritual leaders calling for secession from Syria and an alliance with Israel.
Demonstrators dance with the Druze flag as they gather in front of the Berlin Cathedral to voice solidarity for Druze communities in Syria on Aug. 30 in Berlin.
(Omer Messinger / Getty Images)
The needs are vast. As Tarif sat with volunteers at the salon, his phones racked up calls and messages — the grand majority from Druze in Syria.
“I’m getting 500, 800, sometimes even a thousand people, every day. All need my help. It makes you cry,” Tarif said.
The Druze — a sect that combines elements of Islam and other religious traditions — constitute 1 million people worldwide; some 500,000 live in Syria, or roughly 3% of the population. Hard-line Muslims consider them infidels.
During Syria’s 14-year civil war, the dictatorial President Bashar Assad let them establish their own militias in Sweida and run affairs in the Druze-majority province, so long as they didn’t fight government troops or allow opposition rebels to enter. But they had little love for Assad or the Islamist-dominated opposition.
After Assad’s much-reviled regime fell last December, the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, tried to mollify concerns about the new government’s jihadist roots; Al-Sharaa was once an Al Qaeda-affiliated rebel leader but renounced the group years ago.
A poster of Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s interim president, graces a windshield in Damascus as Syrians mark the first anniversary of the fall of the Assad regime.
(John Wreford / LightRocket via Getty Images)
Al-Sharaa promised to protect Syria’s minorities and excise extremists among his allies. That won him support from the U.S., Europe and his Arab neighbors, but Israel took an adversarial stance, occupying swaths of Syria’s south and launching thousands of airstrikes to destroy the fallen government’s arsenal.
Meanwhile, Al-Sharaa urged Druze leadership to dissolve their militias and surrender arms. Some wanted to cooperate, but Syria’s top Druze cleric, Hikmat al-Hijri, refused, saying his groups would disarm only when Al-Sharaa formed an inclusive government.
Syria is home to a diverse collection of religions, and as the new government sought to establish itself, sectarian unrest broke out. In March, government-linked gunmen massacred some 1,500 people, mostly Alawites. In May, clashes erupted in Druze-majority areas near Damascus.
Then came the massacres in Sweida.
They started in early July as tit-for-tat kidnappings between Druze militias and Bedouin tribes but soon devolved into street fighting. The government negotiated a ceasefire and sent security personnel, but rather than restoring order, they joined the Bedouins in a blood-soaked rampage.
They systematically burned and looted some 32 villages, executed civilians, then mutilated their bodies and abused men by cutting off their mustaches, which among Druze are considered a sign of spiritual maturity. And they filmed themselves doing so, proudly posting trophy videos to social media.
Families are evacuated by the United Nations in southern Syria in July after violent clashes between Bedouin fighters and members of the Druze community.
(Bakr Alkasem / AFP via Getty Images)
By the rampage’s end, nearly 200,000 people were forced to flee their homes. More than 100 women and girls were abducted. Dozens remain missing.
Al-Hijri urged President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to save Sweida, adding that “we can no longer coexist with a regime that knows only iron and fire.”
Once word reached Tarif of what happened, he raced to action.
“We called everyone, the [Israeli] army, the government, the prime minister, the defense minister, the chief of staff, to stop the massacres. The Syrian government was entering with tanks, drones, artillery. It was an army versus against civilians with a pistol or rifle,” Tarif said.
Israel, which has made overtures to Syria’s Druze, mobilized. Netanyahu ordered airstrikes on Syrian personnel blitzing through Sweida’s provincial capital, along with the Damascus headquarters of the Syrian army and the presidential palace.
Al-Sharaa accused Israel of fomenting internal divisions and said Al-Hijri’s call for international intervention was unacceptable. He formed a committee to investigate atrocities against the Druze and others, and vowed in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September “to bring every hand stained with the blood of innocents to justice.”
Al-Hijri and many Druze previously conciliatory toward Al-Sharaa were unconvinced and demanded to secede.
At the same time, a tense standoff ensued: Syrian government forces surrounded the province, ostensibly to keep Bedouins and Druze separated, though critics accused them of replicating Assad’s surrender-or-starve tactics to force Sweida into submission.
Many among Israel’s Druze wanted to help.
“The world was ignoring what happened, so we have to do this. Our women sold their gold, people sold property, others took loans to raise money,” Tarif said, adding that some $2.5 million was collected.
With no land link between Sweida and areas Israel occupied in southern Syria, the only way to deliver aid was via the Israeli air force. But the amounts proved inadequate. That was the spark for the operations room.
Standing amid an array of workstations, a volunteer explained how his team identified sympathetic individuals to buy medicine and food from Damascus, and middlemen who bribed supplies past government checkpoints into Sweida. They also smuggled in equipment and paid workmen to rehabilitate water and electricity infrastructure. Some convoys entered with the Syrian Red Crescent with Damascus’ knowledge, Tarif said.
“If we use $10,000 here, it’s nothing. But in Syria, they go a long way, and buy plenty of supplies,” the volunteer said.
The center funded converting a judiciary building in Sweida into a displacement center housing 130 families, complete with a workshop where women could sew clothing, including uniforms for Druze militias.
Other volunteers brought their specialties to bear: With Sweida’s medical facilities ravaged, the center managed four hospitals in the province.
Programmers built an app-based humanitarian ecosystem, enabling Sweida residents to register for medical care, while doctors used WhatsApp messages to consult specialists in Israel and elsewhere.
Other programs coordinated aid requests and deliveries, or helped residents document atrocities.
“We took advantage of our skills to defend ourselves,” said one 28-year-old activist with the operations room technical team, taking out his phone to demo some apps. One for medical procedures included drop-down menus and a simple interface he said has been used by thousands.
Some assistance veered into intelligence. Because Sweida was still under threat, the team, some of whose members retired from military service, tracked events on the ground. They deployed bots to monitor posts on social media that could indicate an attack, hacked phones of commanders in the area, and relayed the information to the Israeli military and Druze militias.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military supplied the militias with limited amounts of weapons and ammunition, activists in Sweida say, and maintain drone surveillance over the area.
Members of the Druze community in the Israel-annexed Golan Heights gather for a rally in July to show solidarity with Druze in Syria.
(Jalaa Marey / AFP via Getty Images)
All that has made the Sweida militias more effective. But it has also strengthened Al-Hijri’s plan to secede and ally the province — which is some 60 miles southeast of Damascus — to Israel. In recent speeches, he refers to Sweida as Bashan, its Hebrew biblical name, and forces under his control have raised the Israeli flag along the Druze banner. Last week, Al-Hijri-affiliated forces revealed new uniforms and logos that critics point out incorporate the Star of David in their design.
For his part, Tarif, who says he is in daily contact with Al-Hijri as well as intermediaries to Al-Sharaa, insists “the ball is in Jolani’s court,” employing Al-Sharaa’s nom de guerre.
“Do this tomorrow. Open an international humanitarian corridor to Sweida. Bring people back to their homes. Return the kidnapped. Simple,” Tarif said.
At the same time, local opposition to Al-Hijri is intensifying after his forces tortured and killed two Druze clerics he accused of “treason” for contacting state authorities.
“He’s gathering thugs around him, silencing any voice seeking a solution with the state,” said one activist in Sweida who refused to be named for fear of reprisals. Many in Sweida feel trapped between Al-Hijri and a government in Damascus they’ve learned to fear.
“As a Druze, if I want to stand against Al-Hijri and his gangs, who can I go to?” the activist asked. “The state that committed massacres against my people? How can we trust them?”
TONIGHT, A STORY ABOUT RUNNING OUTRUNNING RATHER LIMITS WHILE DEFYING THE ODDS FOR ONE ALABAMA TEENAGER. THIS ALL BEGAN THOUSANDS OF MILES FROM HERE. ONLY ON 13 TONIGHT, BRITTANY DECKER INTRODUCES YOU TO AN OAK MOUNTAIN STUDENT ON THE FAST TRACK. AFTER A JOURNEY THAT SPANS THE GLOBE. I’M GOING TO FOLLOW YOU. DON’T GO TOO FAST. OKAY? BEFORE CHASE EVEN RAN A RACE, BEFORE HE SPOKE A WORD OF ENGLISH. BEFORE HE HAD A FAMILY CHEERING IN THE STANDS. HE HAD THIS. A BRACELET, LEATHER WITH A SINGLE THREAD GIVEN TO A LITTLE BOY IN A CHINESE ORPHANAGE BY THE MAN WHO FIRST TAUGHT HIM HOW TO WALK. NO ONE KNOWS HIS TITLE. THERAPIST. CARE WORKER. ALL THEY KNOW IS HE SAW POTENTIAL IN A CHILD. THE SYSTEM HAD ALREADY GIVEN UP ON. THEY KIND OF DEEM A PERSON WITH ANY TYPE OF DISABILITY AS JUST NOT AT THE HIGH ENOUGH LEVEL FOR SOCIETY. NOW IT’S IN HIS HAND, A REMINDER OF THE MILES BEHIND HIM AND EVERYTHING HE’S STILL CHASING. AFTER ALL, THAT NAME WASN’T AN ACCIDENT. I WANTED TO INCORPORATE HIS CHINESE NAME, WHICH IS TAOTAO, AND SO WE KEPT TAO’S MIDDLE NAME. BUT I TOLD HIM I WAS LIKE, I THINK WE NEED TO KEEP CHASE BECAUSE I THINK GOD WANTS US TO CHASE AFTER HIM. WE KNEW, LIKE, YOU KNOW, GOD HAD CALLED US TO ADOPT A BOY OLDER THAN THEY EXPECTED. 11 AT THE TIME, NOT THE 5 TO 7 YEARS OLD THEY PLANNED FOR A BOY WHOSE FIRST ADOPTION HAD FALLEN THROUGH. A BOY WHO IN CHINA WAS MONTHS AWAY FROM AGING OUT FOREVER. BUT THIS FAMILY REFUSED TO GIVE UP. WE REALLY HAD TO ADVOCATE AND SAY WE WANT HIM APPROVED. IN LATE 2019. HOME. IN JANUARY 2020, JUST DAYS BEFORE FLIGHTS SHUT DOWN, WE WERE ACTUALLY THE LAST FAMILY WITH LIFELINE TO COME BACK FROM CHINA. HE JUMPED ON IN OUR FAMILY AND HADN’T SKIPPED A BEAT. YOU KNOW, WE JUST IMMERSED HIM JUST INTO OUR FAMILY IMMEDIATELY AND HE ADAPTED WELL. HE WAS READY TO GO TO SCHOOL, READY TO MEET NEW PEOPLE. CHASE IN THE ORPHANAGE. CHASE SAYS EDUCATION WASN’T AN OPTION. WITHOUT EDUCATION. YOU CANNOT YOU CANNOT REALLY DO MUCH. BUT IN THE CLASSROOM AT OAK MOUNTAIN HIGH SCHOOL, HE THRIVES. I MET CHASE ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO. OKAY, HERE YOU GO, CHASE. ONE DAY I WAS IN MY ROOM. YOU READY? YES. THERE YOU GO. AND I WAS GOING TO ERASE SOME MATH PROBLEMS OFF THE BOARD. AND CHASE WALKED IN AND HE STARTED ASKING ABOUT THEM. AND A LOT OF THE PROBLEMS I HAD UP THERE WERE AP PRE-CALCULUS AND AP CALCULUS. I CAN DO ARE 12 ANIMALS. PRETTY GOOD? THAT’S GREAT. GOOD JOB. HE’S HARD WORKING AND HE’S VERY DETERMINED AT SCHOOL ON THE TRACK. IN LIFE, NOTHING KEEPS CHASE DOWN, POP BACK UP, BLOODY AND ALL RAN AND FINISHED THAT RACE. AND THEN THEY GAVE HIM THE CHASE LEVEL AWARD. HE DOES HAVE SOME LIMITATIONS, BUT TO BE HONEST WITH YOU, YOU DON’T SEE HIM ON THE TRACK AT ALL. AND IT’S NICE BECAUSE I THINK HE’S A LOT OF TEAMS RECOGNIZE WHO HE IS. AND SO WHEN HE GOES TO MEETS, IT’S A LOT OF CHASE, CHASE, CHASE. HE JUST THE DESIRE THAT HE HAS TO MAKE IT ONCE WITH NO FAMILY, HE NOW WAVES TO HIS OWN IN THE BLEACHERS, A BRACELET IN HIS HAND, A FINISH LINE AHEAD AND A LIFE HE STILL QUITE LITERALLY CHASING. HIS JOURNEY WAS RECOGNIZED STATEWIDE RECENTLY, WHEN THE GOVERNOR HONORED CHASE AT THE ALABAMA GOVERNOR’S COMMITT
A young man’s journey from Chinese orphanage to high school track star
Before Chase Lovell ever ran a race, spoke a word of English or had a cheering family in the stands, he had a bracelet.Leather, worn, with a single thread. It was given to him in a Chinese orphanage by the man who first taught him how to walk. No one knew the man’s official title, therapist or caretaker, but he saw potential in a child the system had already given up on.“They kind of deem a person with any kind of disability as just not at the high enough level for society,” said Adam Lovell, Chase’s adoptive father.The bracelet stayed with Chase, a reminder of the miles behind him and everything he’s still chasing. His name, “Chase,” wasn’t chosen by accident.“We kept his Chinese name, Tao Tao, as his middle name, but ‘Chase’? I told him I think God wants us to chase after him,” said Miranda Lovell, his mother.Chase’s adoption was not simple. His family initially planned to adopt a 5 to 7-year-old, but Chase was 11. A previous adoption had fallen through, and he was months away from aging out of the system. But the Lovells refused to give up. “We really had to advocate and say we want him. I wrote more words to China than I ever have, telling them I’m a speech pathologist, we have resources, therapies — we can give him everything he needs,” Miranda Lovell said.Approved in late 2019, Chase arrived home in January 2020, just days before flights shut down worldwide.“He jumped on in our family and hadn’t skipped a beat,” Miranda said.In China, Chase had little access to education.“Without education, you cannot really do much,” he said.But at Oak Mountain High School, he thrives in math, in the classroom, and on the track.One teacher recalls, “I met Chase about two years ago. One day, I was erasing math problems off the board, and Chase walked over asking about them — a lot of the problems were AP pre-calculus and AP calculus.” Chase said, “I can do 12th-grade math pretty good.”On the track, nothing keeps him down. When he fell during a race, the crowd held its breath — but he popped back up and finished strong. His determination earned him the Chase Lovell Award. “He does have some limitations, but you don’t see them on the track. A lot of teams recognize who he is and so when he goes to meets, it’s a lot of, ‘Chase! Chase! Chase!’” said his coach.Once told that “family isn’t for you,” Chase now waves to one in the bleachers. With a bracelet in hand, a finish line ahead, and a life he’s still quite literally chasing, his story is far from over.
Before Chase Lovell ever ran a race, spoke a word of English or had a cheering family in the stands, he had a bracelet.
Leather, worn, with a single thread. It was given to him in a Chinese orphanage by the man who first taught him how to walk. No one knew the man’s official title, therapist or caretaker, but he saw potential in a child the system had already given up on.
“They kind of deem a person with any kind of disability as just not at the high enough level for society,” said Adam Lovell, Chase’s adoptive father.
The bracelet stayed with Chase, a reminder of the miles behind him and everything he’s still chasing. His name, “Chase,” wasn’t chosen by accident.
“We kept his Chinese name, Tao Tao, as his middle name, but ‘Chase’? I told him I think God wants us to chase after him,” said Miranda Lovell, his mother.
Chase’s adoption was not simple. His family initially planned to adopt a 5 to 7-year-old, but Chase was 11. A previous adoption had fallen through, and he was months away from aging out of the system. But the Lovells refused to give up.
“We really had to advocate and say we want him. I wrote more words to China than I ever have, telling them I’m a speech pathologist, we have resources, therapies — we can give him everything he needs,” Miranda Lovell said.
Approved in late 2019, Chase arrived home in January 2020, just days before flights shut down worldwide.
“He jumped on in our family and hadn’t skipped a beat,” Miranda said.
In China, Chase had little access to education.
“Without education, you cannot really do much,” he said.
But at Oak Mountain High School, he thrives in math, in the classroom, and on the track.
One teacher recalls, “I met Chase about two years ago. One day, I was erasing math problems off the board, and Chase walked over asking about them — a lot of the problems were AP pre-calculus and AP calculus.”
Chase said, “I can do 12th-grade math pretty good.”
On the track, nothing keeps him down. When he fell during a race, the crowd held its breath — but he popped back up and finished strong. His determination earned him the Chase Lovell Award.
“He does have some limitations, but you don’t see them on the track. A lot of teams recognize who he is and so when he goes to meets, it’s a lot of, ‘Chase! Chase! Chase!’” said his coach.
Once told that “family isn’t for you,” Chase now waves to one in the bleachers. With a bracelet in hand, a finish line ahead, and a life he’s still quite literally chasing, his story is far from over.
The Iowa National Guard says two of the three soldiers wounded in action in Syria last Saturday are back in the United States. Video above: U.S. strikes ISIS targets in SyriaAccording to the Iowa National Guard, the two soldiers made it back to the U.S. on Saturday. They are in stable condition with their families by their sides at a dedicated military facility as they continue recovering.”Caring for our impacted families and the safe return of our service members is our highest priority,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, the adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard. “We are incredibly proud of their courage and sacrifice, and our focus is now on providing them and their families with the comprehensive support they need during this time. We ask that all Iowans keep them in their thoughts and prayers as they recover.”The third soldier injured was treated locally and returned to duty. None of the wounded soldiers have been publicly identified.All three soldiers were injured in the Dec. 13 attack in Syria that killed Iowa soldiers Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and a U.S. civilian who was a contracted linguist working with the soldiers.More coverage of deadly attack in SyriaCENTCOM releases video of U.S. military strikes against ISIS targets in Syria.Trump comments on US retaliatory strikes on ISIS in Syria
According to the Iowa National Guard, the two soldiers made it back to the U.S. on Saturday. They are in stable condition with their families by their sides at a dedicated military facility as they continue recovering.
“Caring for our impacted families and the safe return of our service members is our highest priority,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Osborn, the adjutant general of the Iowa National Guard. “We are incredibly proud of their courage and sacrifice, and our focus is now on providing them and their families with the comprehensive support they need during this time. We ask that all Iowans keep them in their thoughts and prayers as they recover.”
The third soldier injured was treated locally and returned to duty. None of the wounded soldiers have been publicly identified.
All three soldiers were injured in the Dec. 13 attack in Syria that killed Iowa soldiers Sgt. William Nathaniel Howard, 29, of Marshalltown, and Sgt. Edgar Brian Torres-Tovar, 25, of Des Moines, and a U.S. civilian who was a contracted linguist working with the soldiers.
More coverage of deadly attack in Syria
CENTCOM releases video of U.S. military strikes against ISIS targets in Syria.
Trump comments on US retaliatory strikes on ISIS in Syria
DELAYED BRIEFLY WHILE CREWS CHECKED THE TRACKS. A STOCKTON RAPPER POSTED A STATEMENT FOR THE FIRST TIME TONIGHT AFTER THE DEADLY MASS SHOOTING THAT KILLED FOUR PEOPLE, INCLUDING THREE CHILDREN, AND INJURED 13 OTHERS. WITNESSES TELLING KCRA THREE THAT THE RAPPER JANELLE WAS AT THAT CHILD’S BIRTHDAY PARTY ON NOVEMBER 29TH, WHEN THAT SHOOTING BROKE OUT. IN A POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA TODAY, HE SAID IN PART, THERE ARE NO WORDS THAT CAN MAKE SENSE OF THIS AND I DO NOT WANT TO ADD NOISE WHERE THERE SHOULD BE CARE. AND HE ADDS, OUT OF RESPECT, I’M CHOOSING TO MOVE QUIETLY AND INTENTIONALLY. I WILL NOT BE SPEAKING ON DETAILS OR SPECULATION. MEANTIME, NEARLY THREE WEEKS AFTER
Stockton rapper MBNel responds to mass shooting at birthday party
It’s been nearly three weeks since a mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that killed three children and an adult. On Friday, a rapper took to social media for the first time to address the tragedy.Witnesses previously told KCRA 3 that rapper MBNel was in attendance at the Nov. 29 party where the shooting took place. In a social media post, MBNel said:”My deepest condolences to the families who had to bury their children, and to the innocent lives lost. What happened in Stockton has left families carrying an unimaginable loss. There are no words that can make sense of this, and I do not want to add noise where there should be care. This is about the families, and no one else. Out of respect, I am choosing to move quietly and intentionally. I will not be speaking on details or speculation. Rest in peace to the lives lost may their souls live on forever.” On Thursday, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation and extended his sympathies to the affected families during his monthly address on Facebook. Withrow noted that the investigation is going extremely well. However, authorities said there is no new information to share about the case.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
It’s been nearly three weeks since a mass shooting at a child’s birthday party in Stockton that killed three children and an adult. On Friday, a rapper took to social media for the first time to address the tragedy.
Witnesses previously told KCRA 3 that rapper MBNel was in attendance at the Nov. 29 party where the shooting took place.
In a social media post, MBNel said:
“My deepest condolences to the families who had to bury their children, and to the innocent lives lost. What happened in Stockton has left families carrying an unimaginable loss. There are no words that can make sense of this, and I do not want to add noise where there should be care. This is about the families, and no one else. Out of respect, I am choosing to move quietly and intentionally. I will not be speaking on details or speculation. Rest in peace to the lives lost may their souls live on forever.”
On Thursday, San Joaquin County Sheriff Patrick Withrow expressed confidence in the ongoing investigation and extended his sympathies to the affected families during his monthly address on Facebook.
Withrow noted that the investigation is going extremely well.
However, authorities said there is no new information to share about the case.
An immigration judge will decide in the coming days whether to temporarily release an immigrant rights activist after a Friday bail hearing that was delayed when authorities tried to block media access to the courtroom.
Attorneys representing Jeanette Vizguerra told the judge, Brea Burgie, that government lawyers had provided no evidence that Vizguerra posed a flight risk or a danger to the community.
Vizguerra, a nationally renowned activist, has been in the Aurora detention center since her March arrest, and her attorneys reiterated their allegations Friday that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally targeted Vizguerra because of her public profile and advocacy. They asked Burgie to release Vizguerra, who was born in Mexico and does not have proper legal status, on bail while the rest of her immigration case proceeds.
“Detention is not justified,” said Laura Lichter, one of Vizguerra’s lawyers.
Shana Martin, an attorney for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, argued that Vizguerra should continue to be detained indefinitely because, Martin said, she was both dangerous and a flight risk. Martin pointed to Vizguerra’s criminal conviction for using a fake Social Security card so she could work, as well as to traffic violations, as evidence that she “shows a lack of respect for authority.”
One of Vizguerra’s daughters recently joined the Air Force, and Vizguerra applied for a form of legal status based on her daughter’s military service. Martin said that application has been denied — something Lichter said was news to Vizguerra and her lawyers.
Lichter said after the hearing that she’d never seen that type of application denied in a case like Vizguerra’s. She told Burgie that the denial was “fantastic evidence” of the government’s bias against her client.
CIting the extreme complexity of the case, Burgie said she would issue a written decision on whether to grant bail to Vizguerra at a later date. The Denver judge appeared remotely in the Aurora detention center’s hearing room.
As Vizguerra waited in a hallway outside the courtroom, she blew a kiss to family members and waved to supporters.
The hearing came two days after a U.S. District Court judge ordered federal officials to provide Vizguerra with a bail hearing before Christmas.
Proceedings were delayed Friday morning after personnel at the detention center, which is privately run by the Geo Group, told reporters and supporters that they couldn’t enter the courtroom. It’s typically open to observers, family members of detainees and journalists who provide photo ID and go through a security checkpoint.
Earlier Friday morning, a Denver Post reporter was waiting for an escort to the courtroom when a Geo Group lieutenant approached and asked what courtroom he was visiting. When the reporter said he was there to watch the Vizguerra hearing, the lieutenant told him the courtroom was full and escorted him back to the lobby.
Juan Baltazar, the facility’s warden, later told reporters that they wouldn’t be allowed into the courtroom “partially” because of space constraints, as well as because of unspecified “safety and security” concerns.
Geo personnel also closed and locked a gate leading into the facility, with an armed guard later controlling access. The gate was not closed on several earlier visits by The Post earlier this fall. Guards on Friday were dressed entirely in black, a change from their standard blue shirts.
Baltazar said ICE officials had called and verbally ordered Geo personnel to allow in only lawyers, family and witnesses. He said the limitations were put into place “because of the attention (this case) is getting.”
When Lichter pressed him about what safety or security risk was posed by reporters, Baltazar said questions would have to be directed to ICE.
“Everybody has a boss,” he said.
After continued prodding by Lichter, facility personnel eventually relented and allowed in several reporters, along with a handful of Vizguerra’s supporters.
Messages sent to Steve Kotecki, Denver’s ICE spokesman, and to a regional ICE representative were not immediately returned.
A package thief who stole Christmas gifts in Fontana almost was responsible for the death of Sparky — a bouncy and adorable dog who was hit by a car and lost for two days after the thief failed to close the gate behind him.
Now, because of the severity of his injuries, Sparky must have a leg amputated.
Luckily, the 2½-year-old Australian blue heeler, or cattle dog, the same breed as Bluey in the eponymous hit TV show, has not lost his signature sparkle.
“He’s in such good spirits now that he’s home,” said his owner, David Lopez. “He’s limping around with the cast on his leg.”
Sparky and Lopez’s second dog, a golden retriever named Blazer, both went missing Dec. 3 shortly after the porch pirate was captured on a Ring camera leaving the yard with the gate wide open.
But although Blazer returned home that night, his best friend, Sparky, was nowhere to be found.
“My golden retriever was so depressed at that time,” Lopez said. “He was just like sitting outside, not barking at anybody or playing fetch.”
Lopez’s family searched for Sparky for nearly two days to no avail. That was until a sixth sense drew Lopez back to a neighbor’s home that he already checked. He knocked again and although the neighbor said she hadn’t seen Sparky, she agreed to let Lopez look in her yard.
As he walked around yelling Sparky’s name, Lopez heard a rustling behind him.
“I took a deep breath and, when I looked back again, I saw him pop out of the bushes,” he said. “It was just a jaw-dropping moment.”
Although Lopez was overjoyed to find Sparky alive, he was horrified at his pup’s condition. Sparky had a deep, severe cut from his hip down to his paw and barely could limp over to Lopez.
“As soon as I saw that, I put my hands on my head in shock,” he said. “I picked him up off the floor, cradled him in my arms, and we drove him to the animal hospital.”
Veterinarians believe Sparky was struck by a car and dragged down the asphalt street, tearing ligaments and leaving him with a bone-deep wound — and his family with significant medical bills.
Although he was given many stitches that night, veterinarians ultimately decided it would be necessary to amputate the leg. Lopez’s girlfriend, Krystal Altamirano, started a GoFundMe to help cover the costs of the surgery, which is scheduled for Friday.
“Losing our Christmas gifts was already painful … but nothing compares to seeing our dog suffering like this and not having the funds to save him,” she wrote in the fundraiser. “The timing, the holidays, everything hitting at once — it’s overwhelming.”
Lopez filed a police report for the package thief but hasn’t heard of developments in the investigation and is asking the public to report any sightings of the vehicle involved in the crime: a white Mercedes-Benz SUV with silver rims, which can be seen in the Ring camera footage.
He hopes the thief can be held accountable for the harm that came to Sparky.
“Packages are replaceable, but my dog is now going to be missing a part of him,” Lopez said. “I really didn’t want to see that happen, but it’s the only way to keep my dog alive now.”
Babblejit “Bubbly” Kaur and her husband, Amarjit Singh, celebrated their 41st wedding anniversary in Long Beach in late November. The pair cradled a mint-frosted cake in their hands and beamed as their daughter, Joti, snapped pictures.
The couple endured a lot in those years, more than 30 of which have been spent in the U.S., after they fled religious persecution in India.
They arrived in 1994 with three young children and little money, facing a daunting asylum process. But the couple found their niche, operating a beloved Indian restaurant for decades, and saw their children through college.
This year had already been tough for the family. Singh was diagnosed with cancer and Kaur was laid off from her cashier job at Rite Aid, where she’d worked for decades, after the company closed in October. But the biggest hurdle for the family would come only days after the couple’s anniversary, on Dec. 1, when Kaur was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement during a routine fingerprinting appointment and eventually taken to the Adelanto ICE Processing Center.
Joti Kaur, the couple’s youngest daughter, collapsed at work when she heard the news.
“I tell her, ‘Anytime you’re thinking of me, I was already thinking of you,” she said from the patio of her Long Beach apartment. “You’re literally the only thing I can think about, and getting you out of there.”
Amarjit Singh, left, and Babblejit Kaur celebrate their 41st wedding anniversary just days before she was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Dec. 1, 2025.
(Joti Kaur)
Kaur had an approved green card, but the government had not yet released it, said Harman Singh, her eldest son. The family’s lawyer filed a habeas corpus complaint early last week requesting the court review the legality of Kaur’s detention.
Kaur and her husband operated a restaurant, Natraj Cuisine of India, for decades and became familiar and beloved faces in the coastal city. When she wasn’t working at Rite Aid, she’d be greeting customers at Natraj, alongside her husband, who also took charge in the kitchen as needed. Community members came out in droves to support the family, setting up a GoFundMe that has garnered over $26,000 and a Change.org petition with over 1,600 signatures.
Within days of her arrest, a popular Long Beach food group on Facebook had posted the news and caught the attention of Congressman Robert Garcia, who represents the state’s 42nd Congressional District, including Long Beach.
Garcia has filed a petition to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the agency that processes immigration applications, requesting the expedited release of Kaur’s green card given the urgency of her husband’s care. His office has also sent requests to ICE and the Adelanto ICE Processing Center for her release.
The congressman said Kaur’s detainment is one of many cases across the country where “we’re encouraging people to do things the right way and to show up to appointments, and then we’re detaining them at appointments that we invited them to.”
“The Long Beach community is outraged about this,” he said. “It’s absolutely crazy and inhumane. It’s no way to treat people.”
Kaur’s arrest was carried out by FBI agents, Laura Eimiller, the agency’s media coordinator confirmed to The Times, as “part of our ongoing assistance to ICE relative to immigration enforcement.”
One of the main tactics of the Trump administration’s crackdown on immigration in recent months has been detaining people at appointments during their asylum or visa proceedings and, in some cases, deporting them.
His mother’s absence has left an immeasurable gap in their family, Harman Singh said. They’ve had to pick up where she left off, handling bills and navigating their father’s cancer treatment. In a way, he said, it felt like mourning a loved one’s death, only “they’re physically still here in the world, you just can’t reach out to them.”
“This vacuum, this gap, it’s all over America,” Harman Singh said. “This is not just our story.”
Babblejit Kaur and two of her children eat dinner together.
(Courtesy of Joti Kaur)
Kaur and Singh had been joined at the hip since they wed in 1984, the same year violence against Sikhs, their religious community, erupted in India. India’s Punjab state was a Sikh kingdom before the British took over, and the community had long been fighting for a separate Sikh state in the region.
In 1984, tensions came to a head when a siege, ordered by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi on the holiest site in Sikhism, turned deadly. In retaliation, two Sikh bodyguards assassinated her. Hindu mobs then went on a rampage, killing thousands of Sikhs, in what the California Legislature has labeled a genocide.
Large swaths of the Sikh community began to flee India. His parents watched as people around them — friends, cousins, neighbors — were disappeared and later found dead, Harman Singh said.
They left for the U.S. a decade later. Now, their son said, they’re facing persecution similar to that from which their parents fled all those years ago.
“This was supposed to be the place where you have freedom to live without fear … but it’s sort of turning into that nightmare again,” Harman Singh said. “We’re just repeating what our parents ran away from.”
Today, the Sikh diaspora, who have mostly settled in the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom, are still targeted. Canadian-Indian relations were strained after the murder of Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil in 2023. The Canadian government alleges India’s government was behind the slaying, claims New Delhi has denied.
In August 2024, a truck transporting a Sikh political leader came under fire in Sacramento. In 2023, U.S. officials announced they had foiled an assassination attempt connected to the Indian government against a Sikh activist.
Natraj Cuisine of India on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore, Long Beach, was like a fourth child to Kaur and Singh.
Singh first worked as a waiter at the old Laguna Beach location before transferring to Long Beach. Eventually, they became the face of the restaurant, often working more than 12-hour days. The couple managed the restaurant’s daily operations until their departure in 2020.
The couple were the faces of Natraj Cuisine of India in Long Beach for decades.
(Courtesy of Joti Kaur)
“The best way to describe my mom, she will feed everybody in this room and the neighbors before she feeds herself,” Joti Kaur said. “That was their love language, feeding us, the community, and anyone they could.”
Kaur worked at Natraj whenever she wasn’t picking up a shift at Rite Aid and would head to the restaurant during her lunch breaks.
The couple left the restaurant just weeks before COVID-19 hit in 2020. They recently became involved in another restaurant, Royal Indian Curry House, which is still in development.
“They were looking forward to help doing that and getting back into serving meals, because that’s what they love to do,” Joti Kaur said.
Singh depends on his wife for nearly everything, their children said. She took the lead in getting the family settled in the U.S., learning English, getting a driver’s license and even figuring out how to hook up Harman Singh’s PlayStation.
When Singh was diagnosed with cancer, his wife once again took charge. The family looked to her whenever a crucial decision needed to be made.
The day of her appointment, she felt something was wrong.
“She called me that morning and she was anxious,” Joti Kaur said. “I wish I would’ve stayed on the phone with her a little bit longer. She already knew something wasn’t right.”
Harman Singh, who now lives in Sacramento, was also on edge, having seen the countless cases of immigrants detained at government-set appointments.
Fingerprinting appointments had become common practice for the family, who have been tangled in a web of asylum proceedings since they landed at a New York airport in 1994. The two oldest children, including Harman Singh, have since become naturalized citizens. Joti Kaur and her dad have green cards. The only one left waiting was Kaur.
The government already had Kaur’s fingerprints on file, which is why the family was puzzled when they received notice of this appointment.
“You have a hearing coming up and it’s like, if they don’t go, they’re in trouble. If they go, they’re in trouble,” Harman Singh said. “They set it up in such a way that they’re going to get the result they want.”
Now, for the first time in decades, Kaur and Singh have been forced to sleep in separate beds,their children said, and neither gets much sleep at all.
“That was hard enough, just knowing that he’s gonna be battling cancer, but Mom was by his side,” Harman Singh said. “Now there’s just a sense of loneliness that they both have. We are helpless, and we can’t do anything to fix that.”
The couple got married in India, and later immigrated with their three children to the United States in 1994.
(Courtesy of Joti Kaur)
The lights in the Adelanto ICE Processing Center never turn off, which is enough to keep most awake. It’s the noises, often cries from newly arrived detainees, however, that keep Kaur up, often well past 2 in the morning.
She’s lucky if she gets a couple of hours of sleep a night, her children said.
Joti Kaur with her mother.
(Courtesy of Joti Kaur)
The guilt creeps into both children at all hours of the day. Joti Kaur often feels it late at night, when she’s curled up under the covers of her bed and is suddenly reminded of how cold her mom must be. Her brother feels it every time he puts on a jacket or turns on the hot water in the shower.
Every family dinner Joti Kaur missed or phone calls she cut short when her mother was still home add to the guilt.
“I wish I could take it back and go to those dinners and have spent that time, because now, I don’t know when the next dinner is going to be with her,” she said.
A light amid the worry, however, is the community that her mother has built at the detention center. She’s met women of all ages and from all walks of life, one as old as 85.
When Harman Singh arrived at Adelanto to visit his mom for the first time in early December, he heard the women inside erupt in cheers. The noise felt jarring in such a cold facility.
But it’s what the women do for one another every time one of them gets bonded out, his mother told him.
“There’s just a sense of camaraderie. They’re like, ‘We’re in this together,’ which I’m very grateful for,” Harman Singh said. “She has girls to talk to. She goes, ‘If they weren’t there, I would just be in depression right now.’”
His mother has connected with two Indian women. The trio often pray together, and ration whatever milk they get that day to make tea. One is younger, and has started calling Kaur mama.
Ever wondered how long it would take to build an accessory dwelling unit, or ADU, in your backyard?
In the case of Alvaro “Al” and Nenette Alcazar, a retired couple, who downsized from a six-bedroom home in New Orleans to a one-bedroom ADU in Los Angeles, it took just 3½ months.
“We went on vacation to the Philippines in November, right as they were getting started on construction,” Al says of the ADU his son Jay Alcaraz and his partner Andy Campbell added behind their home in Harbor Gateway. “When we returned in March of this year, the house was ready for us.”
The Alcazars were surprised by the rapid completion of their new 570-square-foot modular home by Gardena-based Cover. By the time construction was finished, they hadn’t yet listed their New Orleans home, where they lived for 54 years while raising their two sons.
Andy Campbell, seated left, and his partner Jay Alcazar’s home is reflected in the windows of the ADU where Alcazar’s parents Al and Nenette Alcazar, standing, now reside.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell’s backyard in Harbor Gateway before they added an ADU.
(Jay Alcazar)
Alexis Rivas, co-founder and CEO of Cover, was also surprised by how quickly the ADU was permitted, taking just 45 days. “The total time from permit submittal to certificate of occupancy was 104 days,” he says, crediting the city’s Standard Plan and the ADU’s integrated panelized system for making it the fastest Clover has ever permitted.
For Al, a longtime religious studies professor at Loyola University New Orleans and community organizer, the construction process was more than just demolition and site prep. Seeing the Cover workers collaborate on their home reminded him of “bayanihan,” a Filipino core value emphasizing community unity and collective action.
“Both of my parents were public school teachers,” says Al, who was exiled from the Philippines in 1972. “When they moved to a village where there were no schools, the parents were so happy their children wouldn’t have to walk to another village to go to school that they built them a home.”
“It’s only one bedroom but we love it,” says Nenette Alcazar. “It’s the right size for two people.”
Like his childhood home in the village of Cag-abaca, Al says his and Nenette’s ADU “felt like a community built it somewhere and carried it into the garden for us to live in.” Only in this instance, the home was not a Nipa hut made of bamboo but a home made of steel panels manufactured in a factory in Gardena and installed on-site.
Jay Alcaraz, 40, and Campbell, 43, had been renting a house in Long Beach for three years when they started looking for a home to buy in 2022. Initially, they had hoped to stay in Long Beach, but when they realized they couldn’t afford it, they broadened their search to include Harbor Gateway. “It was equidistant to my job as a professor of critical studies at USC, and Jay’s job as a senior product manager at Stamps.com near LAX,” Campbell says.
When they eventually purchased a three-bedroom Midcentury home that needed some work, they were delighted to find themselves in a neighborhood filled with multigenerational households within walking distance of Asian supermarkets and restaurants.
The ADU does not overwhelm the backyard. “It looks like a house in a garden,” says Al Alcazar.
“We can walk to everything,” says Jay. “The post office. The deli. The grocery store. We love Asian food, and can eat at a different Asian restaurant every day.”
Adds Campbell: “We got the same thing we had in Long Beach here, plus space for an ADU.”
At a time when multigenerational living is growing among older men and women in the United States, according to the Pew Research Center, it’s not surprising that the couple began considering an ADU for Jay’s parents soon after purchasing their home, knowing that Al and Nenette, who no longer drives, would feel comfortable in the neighborhood.
They started by reviewing ADUs that the city has pre-approved for construction as part of the ADU Standard Plan Program on the city’s Building and Safety Department website. The initiative, organized by former L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti’s office in collaboration with Building and Safety in 2021, was designed to simplify the lengthy permitting process and help create more housing.
The 570-square-foot house has a single bedroom and bathroom.
Jay and Al Alcazar have coffee in the kitchen of the ADU.
They reached out to several potential architects and secured a line of credit for $300,000. They decided to go with Cover after touring its facility and one of its completed ADUs. “We liked that they were local and their facility was five minutes away from us,” Campbell says.
The couple originally envisioned removing their backyard pergola and lawn and adding an L-shaped ADU. But after consulting with Rivas, they decided on a rectangular unit with large-format glass sliders and warm wood cladding to preserve the yard.
The configuration was the right choice, as the green space between the two homes, which includes a deck and drought-tolerant landscaping, serves as a social hub for both couples, who enjoy grilling, sharing meals at the outdoor dining table and gardening. Just a few weeks ago, the family celebrated Al’s 77th birthday in the garden along with their extended family.
Nenette, a self-described “green thumb,” is delighted by the California garden’s bounty, including oranges, lemons, guava trees and camellias. “I can see the palm trees moving back and forth and the hummingbirds in the morning,” she says.
“They’re a lot of fun,” Jay Alcazar says of his parents. “They are great dinner companions.”
Although some young couples might hesitate to live close to their parents and in-laws, Jay and Campbell see their ADU as a convenient way to stay close and support Jay’s parents as they age in place.
Besides, Jay says, they’re a lot of fun. “They are great dinner companions,” he says.
Campbell, who enjoys having coffee on the outdoor patio with Al, agrees. “When I met them for the first time 12 years ago, they had a group over for dinner and hosted a karaoke party until 3 a.m.,” he said. “I was like, ‘Is this a regular thing?’”
A teak bed from the Philippines and family mementos help to make the new ADU feel like home.
Unlike the Alcazars’ spacious 1966 home in New Orleans, their new ADU’s interiors are modern and simple, with white oak floors and cabinets and Bosch appliances, including a stackable washer and dryer. Despite downsizing a lifetime of belongings, Al and Nenette were able to keep a few things that help make the ADU feel like home. In the living room, mother of pearl lamps and wood-carved side tables serve as a reminder of their old house. In their bedroom, a hand-carved teak bed from the Philippines, still showing signs of water damage from Hurricane Katrina, was built by artisans in Nenette’s family.
“Madonna and Jack Nicholson both ordered this bed,” Nenette says proudly.
The couple chose a thermally processed wood cladding for its warmth. “It will develop a silver hue over time,” says Alexis Rivas of Cover. “It’s zero maintenance.”
But one thing didn’t work out in their move West. When they realized their sofa would take up too much room in the 8-foot portable storage pod they rented in New Orleans, they decided to purchase an IKEA sleeper sofa in L.A. It’s now in the mix along with their personal artifacts and family photos that further add memories to the interiors, including a reproduction of the Last Supper, a common tradition in many Filipino homes symbolizing the importance of coming together to share meals. With limited storage, the families share the two-car garage, where Al stores his tools.
“It’s only one bedroom, but we love it,” says Nenette, 79, of the ADU, which cost $380,000. “It’s just the right size for two people.”
The ADU feels private, both couples say, thanks to the 9-foot-long custom curtains they ordered online from Two Pages Curtains. “When the curtains are open, we know they are awake, and when their curtains are down, we know to leave them alone,” Jay says, laughing at their ritual.
In terms of aging in place, the ADU can accommodate a wheelchair or walker if necessary, and Rivas says a custom wheelchair ramp can be added later if necessary.
Now, if only Jay could mount the flat-screen television on the wall, Al says, teasing his son. It’s hard to escape dad jokes when he’s living in your backyard — and that’s the point.
“It’s really nice having them here,” Andy says.
Jay Alcazar and Andy Campbell enjoy having Al and Nenette Alcazar close. “They feel like neighbors,” Jay says.
After losing his family and home in the Philippines when Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in the country, Al, who once studied to be a priest, says he’s deeply moved to be the recipient of the bayanihan spirit once again.
“I was tortured in the Philippines, and it didn’t break me,” he says. “So having a home built by a friendly community really points to a shorter but more spiritual meaning of bayanihan, which is, ‘when a group of friends,’ as my grandma Marta used to say, ‘turns your station of the cross into a garden with a rose.’ Now, we have Eden here in my son’s backyard.”
Sacramento Kings players and staff spent Tuesday afternoon getting into the holiday spirit by treating families to a welcome surprise.”Those kind of moments really reminds you of what’s important, you know,” said Maxime Raynaud, rookie center for the Kings. Raynaud was joined by Doug McDermott and Precious Achiuwa at the event. The team treated families to a $500 shopping spree at Raley’s on Freeport Boulevard in Sacramento, with families associated with Sierra Health Foundation programs and other shoppers receiving surprise gift cards.”It’s really a blessing,” Raynaud said, happy to spread holiday cheer. “I hope they all have the most amazing Christmas possible.”The players also assisted families while they shopped. Another Kings rookie, Nique Clifford, also dedicated his time to making holiday wishes come true. He joined several families supported by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento on Tuesday. Clifford treated families to gifts, dinner, Kings tickets and signed memorabilia. “It was a wonderful surprise,” said Kimberly Key, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento. “This time of year can be challenging and heavy for some of our families, so I think anytime we can help lighten that load and do something really special, it makes an incredible difference for all our families.”The Kings’ next game is coming up Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers.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
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
Sacramento Kings players and staff spent Tuesday afternoon getting into the holiday spirit by treating families to a welcome surprise.
“Those kind of moments really reminds you of what’s important, you know,” said Maxime Raynaud, rookie center for the Kings.
Raynaud was joined by Doug McDermott and Precious Achiuwa at the event. The team treated families to a $500 shopping spree at Raley’s on Freeport Boulevard in Sacramento, with families associated with Sierra Health Foundation programs and other shoppers receiving surprise gift cards.
“It’s really a blessing,” Raynaud said, happy to spread holiday cheer. “I hope they all have the most amazing Christmas possible.”
The players also assisted families while they shopped.
Another Kings rookie, Nique Clifford, also dedicated his time to making holiday wishes come true. He joined several families supported by the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento on Tuesday.
Clifford treated families to gifts, dinner, Kings tickets and signed memorabilia.
“It was a wonderful surprise,” said Kimberly Key, CEO of Boys and Girls Club of Greater Sacramento. “This time of year can be challenging and heavy for some of our families, so I think anytime we can help lighten that load and do something really special, it makes an incredible difference for all our families.”
The Kings’ next game is coming up Thursday against the Portland Trail Blazers.
MEXICO CITY — A shop owner facing threats shutters the clothing store that had been in his family for generations.
A leader of a citrus growers association is kidnapped and killed after refusing mob demands for a cut of profits.
Enraged peasant farmers fed up with paying graft turn on cartel thugs in a bloody showdown.
In Mexico, these real-life incidents all arise from a signature offense: extortion.
Gang shakedowns are rampant in Mexico, victimizing untold numbers — street vendors and taxi drivers, restaurateurs and farmers, factory owners and mine operators. All are coerced into paying tithes to criminal bands, sometimes the same cartels that run drugs.
“It’s a very sensitive crime because of its social impact,” Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week. “It doesn’t only affect one person. It affects everyone.”
An agent of the attorney general’s office in Mexican state of Michoacán inspects the area where vehicles were burned by members of criminal gang near the city of Quiroga in November.
(Enrique Castro/AFP via Getty Images)
Sheinbaum launched a high-profile crackdown against extortion, but her efforts face steep odds. Extortion, experts say, is a multibillion-dollar racket, perhaps even more lucrative than drug-trafficking. It sometimes is called “the invisible crime,” since most victims fail to report threats, fearing retaliation.
Those targeted often confront a ghastly choice: accept ultimatums to hand over cash, property or other assets — or face death, a threat routinely aimed at family members as well.
“Sure, I can say, ‘I won’t pay: They can go ahead and kill me,’ ” said Antonio, a floriculturist outside Mexico City who hands over almost $600 in derecho de piso [protection] at each flower harvest, the amount doubling in holiday seasons, including this month’s Virgin of Guadalupe feast. “But I cannot allow them to kill my kids. Or take my wife.”
Like other victims who spoke to The Times, Antonio, 56, a father of four, asked that only his first name be used for security reasons.
“We live in terror,” he said. “We have to work for these delinquents. And no one in the government helps us.”
Farmer Jesús Cuaxospa works on his farm where he grows cempasúchil flowers in San Luis Tlaxialtemalco on the outskirts of Mexico City in October.
(Claudia Rosel / Associated Press)
Mexico and two other Latin American countries, Colombia and Honduras, are among the world’s five most extortion-scarred nations, according to the Global Organized Crime Index, an annual ranking from a Geneva-based research group. Filling in the top five are Somalia and Libya.
Apart from the devastating impact on individuals and families, extortion exacts extreme societal costs: displacement, a profound sense of insecurity and the distortion of local economies.
In Mexico, strong-armed extortion gangs have been accused of price-fixing, taking over industries, unions and transport routes, and running construction sites —and even setting prices for foodstuffs, building materials and other items.
Sheinbaum regularly boasts of her administration’s success in curbing violent crime, especially homicides, down by more than one-third since she took office last year, according to official figures. But she concedes that extortion is on the rise, though there are no accurate metrics for an offense so hugely under-reported.
Calling the eradication of extortion “one of the great challenges” facing Mexico, Sheinbaum pledged to bolster enforcement, stiffen penalties and increase safeguards for anyone receiving threats.
She is championing a constitutional amendment to make extortion a federal crime and put the onus on law enforcement, not individuals, to hunt down violators. Prosecutors could pursue cases without victims having to file complaints.
Since the inauguration of Mexico’s “National Strategy against Extortion” in July, authorities say police have arrested more than 600 suspects and fielded more than 100,000 calls to an expanded toll-free extortion hotline. Officials also moved to block cellphone access in Mexican prisons, where gangs specialize in “virtual kidnapping” — calling people on the outside and demanding ransoms for loved ones allegedly abducted.
“Don’t answer a telephone number that you don’t recognize,” Sheinbaum warned people last week.
In one notorious case, authorities say a prison gang targeted 14 nurses who were dispatched to Mexico City during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inmates using cellphones warned the nurses to stay in their hotel rooms and say nothing — they supposedly were under surveillance. Accomplices contacted relatives demanding cash. But police got wind of the scheme. No money was paid and no one was injured.
Security forces stand guard following an operation at a butcher shop allegedly linked to the La Familia Michoacana cartel in Sultepec, Mexico, in July.
(Alfredo Estrella/AFP via Getty Images)
Sheinbaum’s anti-extortion campaign faces a major barrier: Barring a massive culture shift, many victims will remain hesitant to approach the law, lacking trust in the system.
“Making a complaint is not an option, because you never know if authorities are in collusion with the criminals,” said César, co-owner of a restaurant in downtown Mexico City.
About two years ago, he said, one of his partners began to receive threats on his cellphone. The callers had the name of his wife and children. The partner was nervous but did nothing at first.
“Then one day two South Americans arrived at the restaurant,” César recalled.
Their message: Pay $2,500 a week to be “allowed to work in peace.”
His partner soon abandoned the restaurant, and the city.
Management hasn’t heard from the goons since.
Even so, César, like the owners of many businesses, tries to keep a low profile; his name and those of associates aren’t on display at the restaurant. Staff is instructed not to blab to anyone.
“Still, we live with uncertainty and worry all the time that these guys will come back,” César said. “We know that at any moment we could be victims.”
Recent victims whose cases shocked Mexico include a successful young butcher entrepreneur in Tabasco state and a woman taxi driver in Veracruz state. Both were found dead after rejecting extortion threats, according to reports. The driver, Irma Hernández, 62, a retired teacher, was kidnapped and forced to make a jihadi-style video in which — surrounded by armed men — she implored her fellow cabbies: “Pay your cuota [fee] … or you’ll end up like me.”
Avocado growers have received so many extortion demands from criminal gangs that some hired private security forces, like this one on patrol in Tancitaro, Michoacán, in 2019.
(Gary Coronado/Los Angeles Times)
Sometimes, though, the fed-up marks fight back.
Two years ago the corn and bean growers of the impoverished hamlet of Texcapilla tired of paying annual protection fees of about $200 per planted acre and decided: No más. Armed with machetes and shotguns, the peasant farmers confronted enforcers of the dominant area cartel, La Familia Michoacana, on a soccer field outside a school. By the time the melee ended, authorities said, 14 were dead —10 gang members and 4 farmers.
Carlos Manzo, the former mayor of Uruapan in Michoacán state, also pushed back. He blamed Sheinbaum’s government for not doing enough in Michoacán, where gangsters have long fleeced the booming avocado sector and other industries.
“We are surrounded by criminal groups dedicated to extorting and killing,” Manzo told a crowd in May. “But we are going to confront them.”
Less than two weeks earlier, Bernado Bravo, a leader of regional lime growers in Michoacán, also was shot dead. Bravo repeatedly had denounced extortion demands.
With so much at risk, it’s not surprising that some potential victims bolt. . For more than 80 years, Vicente’s family ran a men’s clothing business in downtown Mexico City. He didn’t think much of it when, about four years ago, men began calling demanding money. Then one day three guys arrived at the shop.
“They said if I didn’t pay, I would lack security, and if I lacked security, something might happen to my workers — if not to me, to my family,” Vicente recalled.
Like many targets, Vicente hoped the threat would go away. But the menacing strangers kept barging in — and upping their demands, from $500 a month to $1,000 a month to $2,000 a month, all the way up to $10,000 a month.
His sons urged Vicente to walk away: The business, however beloved, wasn’t worth a bullet to the head. Reluctantly, Vicente finally agreed. The shutdown left 15 people out of work, many of them longtime employees. Some ended up hawking clothing from street stalls.
Vicente says he never reported the extortion attempt: Like César, he feared some crooked law enforcement insider would reveal his name and address to the mob. He has tried to put the experience behind him. But it hasn’t been easy. Three generations of family life revolved around that shop.
“Because I refused to pay extortion I was forced to shut down the business that my grandfather founded in 1936, and that my father and I continued,” said Vicente, 67. “It was painful. Very painful.”
McDonnell is a staff writer and Sánchez Vidal a special correspondent.
The appointed Alameda County District Attorney, Ursula Jones Dickson, was the endorsed candidate of the Pamela Price recall committee, which promised to end the alleged coddling of criminals. Indeed, Jones Dickson promises justice by prosecuting more children as adults and sending them to adult prisons.
Now, though, she has finally found a judge to drop manslaughter charges against the killer of Steven Taylor, former San Leandro cop Jason Fletcher. This despite then-District Attorney Nancy O’Malley’s Probable Cause Declaration that when he was shot after being tased twice, “Mr. Taylor was struggling to remain standing as he pointed the bat at the ground …” and “posed no threat of imminent deadly force or serious bodily injury to defendant Fletcher or anyone else.” Jones Dickson considers dropping the charges justice.
I would like a district attorney who has only one standard of justice.
Anyone who truly cares about future generations and acknowledges the impacts of climate change and the health risks of coal-related particulate pollution can’t in their right mind want to locally handle, ship and ultimately facilitate the burning of several million tons of coal annually.
If Oakland Bulk & Oversized Terminal LLC and its partners intend to develop their export terminal for coal, then they should build the specialized, enclosed, dome-shaped terminal they had said they would build to address coal dust health concerns — dust that could harm port workers and nearby residents.
The best outcome would be building a bulk terminal to export hundreds of commodities, excluding coal. If there’s still an option to stop coal as an export commodity here by gathering additional environmental health information, then that pathway should be pursued.
Dan Kalb Oakland
Family history offers tips for good health
As your family gathers for the holidays, ask about your family’s health history. Knowing your family’s health history can be key to a longer, healthier life. And it can help your health care provider identify traits that may put you at risk for certain health conditions or diseases.
Talk to immediate family members. Include three generations. Grandparents, parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews may all have helpful information. Gather information about major medical conditions, age of onset, and for deceased relatives, causes of death. If you have a family history of a condition, it’s important to know this. While you can’t change your genetic makeup, there may be steps you can take now that could help you stay healthy.
Felicia Ziomek Livermore
Root fraud and waste out of ACA program
Our Congress wants health care for all Americans. We all want health care for all Americans. But let’s do it the right way. The current Obamacare program is not sustainable. Replete with the fraud, waste and corruption that has been uncovered — finally — it is obvious that it is costing far more than it should. Extending the existing subsidies without improving the program and its controls is simply throwing good money after bad.
Let’s get control of the current program, drive out the fraud, waste and corruption, so we can see what the existing program would cost if managed properly. Then we can determine how much we can afford to spend and design a well-controlled program that meets our needs. Extending the current payouts without controlling whether the money is spent appropriately, although easier, is simply irresponsible.
John Griggs Danville
China, Russia watching South America gambit
Why has Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered our largest, most lethal aircraft carrier with supporting destroyers and guided missile ships to sail near Venezuela? Donald Trump says it’s to stop drug traffickers, yet, at the same time, he released from prison the Honduran ex-president, who was convicted of massive cocaine trafficking into our country.
The aircraft carrier was moved from the eastern Mediterranean, near the Ukraine conflict. Trump seems to be abandoning our allies in Europe, giving Russia the opportunity to expand its war-stolen territory in Ukraine, while at the same time, he’s picking a fight in our hemisphere with fishermen in small boats.
Is the “emperor” crazy? Are his true loyalties toward aggressive dictators like Vladimir Putin? Americans need to know.
China is watching us closely and assessing whether we would defend Taiwan, Japan and Korea if they pulled a “Putin” in the western Pacific.
‘We all panicked and ran’: Brown University freshman speaks after deadly shooting
PROVIDENCE TODAY. THAT’S RIGHT. BEN, THAT VIGIL ACTUALLY JUST WRAPPED UP A FEW MOMENTS AGO HERE AT LIPPITT MEMORIAL PARK. AND YOU CAN SEE PEOPLE ARE STILL LINGERING AROUND HERE WANTING TO BE IN COMMUNITY AFTER THIS UNTHINKABLE TRAGEDY HAPPENED AT BROWN UNIVERSITY. IT WAS REALLY A BEAUTIFUL CEREMONY. THERE WAS SINGING, THERE WAS PRAYER, AND OF COURSE, COMMUNITY COMING TOGETHER AFTER THIS UNIMAGINABLE EVENT. I SPOKE TO SEVERAL PEOPLE HERE, BOTH COMMUNITY MEMBERS, FACULTY AT THE UNIVERSITY AND PEOPLE WHO LIVE IN THIS AREA, ALL SAYING THEY THEY COULD NOT BELIEVE SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENED HERE. THERE WAS ACTUALLY A HOLIDAY EVENT ALREADY SCHEDULED TO TAKE PLACE AT THIS PARK. OF COURSE, WITH EVERYTHING HAPPENING AT BROWN UNIVERSITY, THE EVENT RAPIDLY SWITCHED INTO A VIGIL AND A MOMENT FOR THE COMMUNITY TO COME TOGETHER. HERE’S WHAT SOME PEOPLE HAD TO SAY ABOUT HOW TIGHT KNIT THIS PLACE IS. THIS IS A SMALL SCHOOL. EVERYONE KNOWS EVERYONE. IT’S GREAT. STRENGTH IS ITS INTIMACY, AND WE’RE SEEING THAT TONIGHT. AND, YOU KNOW, IT’S TERRIBLE REASON FOR US TO GET TOGETHER. BUT IT IS VERY HEARTWARMING TO SEE HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE HERE AND HOW MUCH LOVE THERE IS. THE RED CROSS WAS ALSO HERE, AS WELL AS OTHER COMMUNITY PARTNERS, MAKING SURE EVERYONE HAD EVERYTHING THEY NEEDED TO BE ABLE TO COME TOGETHER SAFELY. THERE’S ALSO ENHANCED LAW ENFORCEMENT PRESENCE HERE. I CAN TELL YOU THERE HAVE BEEN MULTIPLE PATROLS HAPPENING AROUND THIS PARK, AS WELL AS LAW ENFORCEMENT OFFICERS WALKING THROUGHOUT THE CROWD, MAKING SURE EVERYONE FELT COMFORTABLE. BUT OF COURSE, AFTER SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENS, THE COMMUNITY WANTS TO COME TOGETHER. AND FROM WHAT EVERYONE IS SAYING, PROVIDENCE IS SUCH A TIGHT KNIT COMMUNITY. THEY REALLY WANT IT TO BE TOGETHER IN THIS MOMENT. AND THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT THEY DID. FOR NOW, WE’RE LIVE IN PROVIDENCE, RHODE ISLAND. DANAE BUCCI WCVB NEWSCENTER 5. AND OUR THANKS TO JENNY FOR THAT. AND IF YOU’RE NOT FAMILIAR WITH PROVIDENCE AND BROWN UNIVERSITY, SO HERE ON THAT SIDE OF THE STREET IS THE ENGINEERING BUILDING. BARRAS AND HOLLY ON THIS SIDE OF THE STREET ARE HOMES. THIS UNIVERSITY IS VERY MUCH INTERCONNECTED AND INTERTWINED WITH PROVIDENCE NEIGHBORHOODS HERE. AND SO THIS EVENT, THIS SHOOTING IS CERTAINLY IMPACTING MORE THAN JUST THE BROWN UNIVERSITY COMMUNITY. IT’S IMPACTING THE GREATER PROVIDENCE COMMUNITY AS WELL. OUR CAITLIN GALEHOUSE, WITH THIS PART OF THE STORY, AS A LOT OF BUSINESSES IN THIS CITY STILL REMAIN CLOSED, THE PROVIDENCE COMMUNITY HAS BEEN SHAKEN BY THIS TRAGEDY. WE’RE IN WAYLAND SQUARE. THIS IS ABOUT A MILE OFF CAMPUS, AND IT’S BEEN RELATIVELY QUIET THIS AFTERNOON. IN FACT, SOME STORES ARE ACTUALLY CLOSED BECAUSE OF THE SHOOTING. I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON AT ALL. FEAR, ANXIETY. TRAGEDY. STRIKING PROVIDENCE SATURDAY AFTER A MAN OPENED FIRE IN A CLASSROOM AT BROWN UNIVERSITY, KILLING TWO STUDENTS AND INJURING NINE OTHERS. THIS IS DEFINITELY BONDING EVERYONE CLOSER TOGETHER. KIND OF SOUNDS AS HORRIBLE AS IT IS. IT’S KIND OF LIKE TRAUMA BONDING IN A WAY. WE’RE ALL HERE AT THE SAME EXACT UNIVERSITY, YOU KNOW, GOING THROUGH THE SAME THINGS. IT’S BEEN ONE DAY SINCE THE TRAGIC INCIDENT BROKE OUT AT THE UNIVERSITY, AND MANY ARE STILL DIGESTING THE REALITY OF WHAT HAPPENED. I’M JUST SADDENED FOR THE BROWN COMMUNITY AND THE ENTIRE STATE. IT’S JUST TRAGIC, THE THE TRAGEDY BEING SO CLOSE TO CHRISTMAS AND, YOU KNOW, FINISHING OUT THE SCHOOL YEAR AND READY TO CELEBRATE YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENTS AND ALL, TO HAVE THAT TAKEN AWAY JUST BY SOME SENSELESS ACT. THE SHELTER IN PLACE ORDER WAS LIFTED EARLY SUNDAY MORNING, BUT THE STREETS ARE STILL QUIET, PROBABLY LESS PEOPLE OUT OF THE COFFEE SHOPS THERE WAS YESTERDAY. WE WERE GOING TO GO OUT TO DINNER. WE DID, AND OBVIOUSLY WE JUST STAYED INSIDE. IT’S A LOT. IT’S IT’S SAD. IT’S SCARY. WE HAD A LOT OF PEOPLE, COWORKERS, THINGS LIKE THAT, CHECKING IN ON US LAST NIGHT. AND I HAVE A LOT OF FRIENDS THAT ALSO KIND OF LIVE LIKE SURROUNDING EAST SIDE AREA. SO YEAH, EVERYONE JUST TRYING TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO HOW TO PROCESS AND HOW TO MOVE ON. BROWN UNIVERSITY HAS CANCELED CLASSES AND FINAL EXAMS FOR THE REMAINDER OF THE SEMESTER DUE TO THE CIRCUMSTANCES. REPORTING IN P
‘We all panicked and ran’: Brown University freshman speaks after deadly shooting
A shooting Saturday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, that killed two students and injured nine others has left many students, families and city officials struggling to process the tragedy. Members of the Brown community expressed shock and sadness as they mourned the loss of the two students. Video above: Brown University students, community shaken by campus mass shootingAuthorities said the person believed to be responsible fled the scene, prompting a shelter-in-place order that lasted into the early morning hours Sunday. Students were told to stay where they were, silence their cellphones and, at one point, hide. Drew Nelson, a freshman at Brown, described the terrifying moments after the shooting. “We were running out probably a minute or two after the shooting, and there were already, I would guess, between five and 10 cop cars outside. I didn’t see anything that would, I would call a suspect. I didn’t see the shooter. I just kept running until I was nowhere near the building,” he said. Students are now leaving campus and returning home, but for many, that process of healing is only beginning.
A shooting Saturday at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, that killed two students and injured nine others has left many students, families and city officials struggling to process the tragedy.
Members of the Brown community expressed shock and sadness as they mourned the loss of the two students.
Video above: Brown University students, community shaken by campus mass shooting
Authorities said the person believed to be responsible fled the scene, prompting a shelter-in-place order that lasted into the early morning hours Sunday.
Students were told to stay where they were, silence their cellphones and, at one point, hide.
Drew Nelson, a freshman at Brown, described the terrifying moments after the shooting.
“We were running out probably a minute or two after the shooting, and there were already, I would guess, between five and 10 cop cars outside. I didn’t see anything that would, I would call a suspect. I didn’t see the shooter. I just kept running until I was nowhere near the building,” he said.
Students are now leaving campus and returning home, but for many, that process of healing is only beginning.
