A polarizing figure on the Los Angeles Police Commission will retain his seat despite having never received an approval vote from the City Council.
Erroll Southers, who previously served as president of the civilian panel that watches over the LAPD, has taken criticism for what critics say is his unwillingness to provide oversight of police Chief Jim McDonnell, while also facing renewed scrutiny in recent months for his past counterterrorism studies in Israel.
For the record:
9:33 a.m. Oct. 1, 2025An earlier version of this story reported that Erroll Southers’ nomination was not on the City Council’s agenda last week. Southers was on the agenda but the council continued the matter and took no vote.
New members of any city commission must typically be approved by a City Council vote within 45 days of their nomination. Mayor Karen Bass put forward Southers in mid-August, but his first scheduled vote was delayed because he was traveling, and the council continued the matter without explanation at a meeting Friday in Van Nuys. Now that his 45-day window has elapsed, multiple officials told The Times that city rules allow Southers to continue in the position by default for a full five-year term because he was already serving on an interim basis.
Around City Hall, news of the council’s inaction set off speculation about whether it was the result of a scheduling mix-up — or because Southers’ backers didn’t believe he could get enough votes.
Failing to vote on a member of one of city’s most important and high-profile commissions is almost unheard of, said Zev Yaroslavsky, a former councilman and L.A. County supervisor now at UCLA.
“They have responsibility to confirm or not confirm,” he said of the council. “I never understood why you would campaign for office, as hard as you campaign to get there, and not vote on something that’s as important to the public.”
Appointed by the mayor, police commissioners act much like a corporate board of directors, setting the LAPD policies, approving its budget and providing oversight, including reviews of officer shootings and other serious uses of force.
Southers, 68, has been a member of the panel since 2023, when Bass picked him to serve out the term of a departing commissioner.
A former FBI agent and Santa Monica cop turned top security official at USC, Southers helped lead the nationwide search for the next LAPD chief. The position eventually went to McDonnell — who like Southers served as director of the school’s Safe Communities Institute.
His backers say that Southers has been committed to his role, participating in numerous listening sessions with Angelenos to learn what qualities they wanted in a police chief. He has also become a regular presence at LAPD recruitment events and graduations.
Zach Seidl, a mayoral spokesperson, praised Southers for his stewardship of the commission, saying the career lawman “brings deep knowledge of the police department’s operations, a commitment to the continued development of policies that further transparency and accountability, and trusted relationships with community members and law enforcement.”
But more than any other commissioner, Southers has accumulated a loud chorus of detractors who oppose keeping him in the key oversight role.
Although it has long been part of his resume, Southers’ work in the mid-2000s in Israel has especially become a lighting rod due to the ongoing crisis in Gaza.
Last month, a United Nations commission accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza in retaliation for the Hamas militant attacks that left 1,200 dead and 251 others kidnapped on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israel’s military campaign has so far killed more than 66,000 people, the vast majority of them civilians, according to Gaza health officials and international aid groups.
Although Southers has said little publicly about the conflict, he has previously described traveling to Israel and studying with the Israel Defense Forces to learn about anti-terrorism strategies for his academic work.
His opponents have argued his writings suggest that authorities should use an individual’s public support for controversial causes as a potential warning sign of extremism. Such arguments, they say, can be used to justify the criminalization of minority groups or silence dissent.
Southers weathered calls for his resignation from the commission last year after he was among the USC officials responsible for clearing encampments occupied by pro-Palestinian protesters on the school’s campus.
Others have focused on his oversight of McDonnell. Far too often, critics say, he has let the chief off the hook after recent controversies. Most recently Southers and his fellow commissioners have faced calls to put more checks on aggressive behavior by LAPD officers toward journalists and nonviolent protesters.
Shootings by police have also been a point of contention with Southers. LAPD officers opened fire 31 times in the first nine months of this year, already surpassing the total number of shootings in 2024.
The commission ordered the department to present a report on the shootings, but that was not nearly enough to satisfy Greg “Baba” Akili, a longtime civil rights advocate with Black Lives Matter-Los Angeles who has frequently spoken out against Southers’ nomination.
As commission president, he said, Southers seemed more willing to shut down public speakers at the board’s meetings than to question the department’s narrative of recent events.
“It’s like having a member of the police force on the commission,” Akili said of Southers. “We don’t want to see just Black faces in high places: We want people who actually … uplift the public.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nation’s Health secretary and a longtime vaccine skeptic, struck a defiant tone Thursday as he faced bipartisan criticism over changes he has made to reorganize federal health agencies and vaccine policies, telling senators that he is determined to “eliminate politics from science.”
In the testy appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy repeatedly defended his record in heated exchanges with senators from both parties and questioned data that show the effectiveness of vaccines. In turn, senators accused him of taking actions that contradict his promise seven months earlier that he would do “nothing that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines.”
“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearing you promised to uphold the highest standard for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned,” Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, a top-ranking Senate Republican and a physician, said during the hearing.
Kennedy forcefully denied that he has limited access to vaccines and defended his record in restoring trust in federal healthcare agencies under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
“They deserve the truth and that’s what we’re going to give them for the first time in the history of the agency,” Kennedy told senators.
From the outset, it was expected that Democrats would slam Kennedy’s record. Some of them called on him to resign and accused him of politicizing federal health policy decisions. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said he believed Kennedy’s “primary interest is to take vaccines away from Americans.”
“During his confirmation process, he claimed to be pro-safety and pro-science, but his actions reveal a steadfast commitment to elevating junk science and fringe conspiracies,” Wyden said.
Criticism during the three-hour hearing also came from Republicans, in a rare rebuke of a Trump administration official from a Republican-led committee.
Three Republicans, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who was key in advancing Kennedy’s nomination, joined Democrats in criticizing Kennedy’s actions. Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina at one point told Kennedy that remarks he gave to the panel during the confirmation process “seem to contradict” what he is doing now as Health secretary.
The decorum usually associated with congressional hearings at times fell by the wayside. Kennedy and senators repeatedly shouted over one another, accused each other of lying and engaged in name-calling. In one instance, Kennedy told Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.) that she was engaging in “crazy talk” when asked about vaccine access. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) called Kennedy a “charlatan.”
Thursday’s session marked a peak of bipartisan frustration over a string of controversial decisions by Kennedy that have thrown his department into disarray. Kennedy dismissed an entire advisory panel responsible for vaccine recommendations and replaced its members with known vaccine skeptics. He withdrew $500 million in funding earmarked for developing vaccines against respiratory viruses. And, just last week, he ousted the newly appointed director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention following disagreements over vaccine policy.
In an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Susan Monarez, the former CDC director, wrote that she was forced out after she declined to recommend people “who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric” to an influential vaccine advisory panel.
At the hearing, Kennedy said Monarez was lying and that the shakeup at the CDC was “absolutely necessary.” He added that he fired her because he asked her if she was trustworthy, and she told him, “no.”
“We depoliticized it and put great scientists on it from a very diverse group, very, very pro-vaccine,” he said.
In questioning, however, members of his own party pressed him on his support for vaccines. At one point, Cassidy, a physician, read an email from a physician friend who said patients 65 and older need a prescription to get a COVID-19 shot.
“I would say effectively we are denying people vaccines,” Cassidy said.
“You’re wrong,” Kennedy responded.
Under new federal guidelines approved last week, adults younger than 65 who are otherwise healthy would need to consult with a healthcare provider before getting the shot. The move has made it more difficult for people to access the COVID-19 vaccine.
During the hearing, Kennedy said he could not say whether the COVID-19 vaccines had prevented any deaths, citing “data chaos” within the federal agency.
“I have no idea how many lives it saved, but it saved quite a few,” he said.
In that same exchange, Cassidy asked Kennedy if he believed President Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for his administration’s work on Operation Warp Speed, the initiative that sped the development of the COVID-19 vaccine and treatments.
“Absolutely,” Kennedy said.
Cassidy said he was surprised at his answer because he believes Kennedy is trying to restrict access to the COVID-19 vaccine. He also expressed dismay at Kennedy’s decision to cancel $500 million in contracts to develop vaccines using mRNA technology, which Cassidy said was key to the operation.
Kennedy’s position on vaccines has reverberated beyond Capitol Hill.
Ahead of the hearing, more than 1,000 employees at the health agency and national health organizations called on Kennedy to resign. Seemingly in support of Kennedy’s direction, Florida announced plans to become the first state to end all vaccines mandated, including for schoolchildren. And three Democratic-led states — California, Washington and Oregon — have created an alliance to counter turmoil within the federal public health agency.
The states said the focus of their health alliance will be on ensuring that the public has access to credible information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.
Almost as if in a parallel universe, Kennedy told senators on Thursday that his goal was to achieve the same thing, after facing hours of criticism on his vaccine policies.
“I am not going to sign on to something if I can’t make it with scientific certainty,” he said. “It doesn’t mean I am antivax, it just means I am pro-science.”
The Southern California grocery brand that has become synonymous with luxury and wellness is taking its first steps into New York City.
Erewhon said it plans to open a tonic bar within an exclusive West Village members’ club later this fall.
The tonic bar will serve members at Kith Ivy, a lifestyle and fitness club from Ronnie Fieg, chief executive of the popular streetwear brand Kith.
Kith Ivy will open to an “extremely limited” number of members this fall, the Kith website said.
The miniature Erewhon will be tucked away near cold plunge pools and a sauna at 120 Leroy Street in New York City, according to blueprints Fieg posted on Instagram.
The members’ club, which will also feature rooftop padel courts and dining from Cafe Mogador, reportedly comes with a hefty initiation fee of $36,000 and an annual fee of $7,000.
The price and exclusivity of Kith Ivy aligns with Erewhon’s own high-end reputation. In Los Angeles, the grocer is known for expensive specialty goods and celebrity-inspired drinks, like the $20 Hailey Bieber strawberry smoothie.
“Erewhon is going after those really premium customers,” said Jeff Wells, lead editor of the trade publication Grocery Dive. “If you’re succeeding in Southern California, New York would be the next logical place to go.”
Erewhon’s new tonic bar will offer a limited selection of drinks and smoothies, a company spokesperson said Wednesday. Only Kith Ivy members will be able to order in-person, but other New Yorkers within a select radius of the club can order drinks for delivery through Postmates and Uber Eats.
Erewhon has a loyal following in the Los Angeles area, where the company operates 11 locations and plans to open three more in West Hollywood, Glendale and Thousand Oaks. The company got its start in the 1960s as a health foods store in Boston before relocating to the West Coast.
The grocer’s foray into New York comes as other supermarket chains have cut back on costs. Kroger, the parent company of Ralphs and Food 4 Less, is in the midst of closing locations and recently laid off nearly 1,000 corporate employees.
Unlike Ralphs, Erewhon has established itself as a luxury destination that caters largely to wealthy customers.
“Erewhon is all about being at the cutting edge of food and beverage, for a premium price,” Wells said. “Your average middle-class shopper can’t afford to shop there.”
Thousands of workers and union organizers from across California will gather for picnics and marches this weekend to honor the contributions of the nation’s working people.
But the Labor Day celebrations will be tempered by a sobering reality: Unions face mounting pressure to protect their members from the Trump administration’s immigration raids, cuts in Medicaid services and a weakened National Labor Relations Board.
“We know how important we are to preserving and protecting democracy,” said Lorena Gonzalez, head of the California Labor Federation. “We have a special role in that. We are not going to get silenced, and we’re not going to be paralyzed.”
From farm fields to car washes, labor groups have scrambled to support families of the hundreds detained and deported in numerous chaotic and violent raids that have resulted in the deaths of two people —a day laborer and a farmworker — killed while fleeing federal agents.
The raids reverberated across the state’s local labor community in June when David Huerta of SEIU California was injured and detained by law enforcement while documenting the first major immigration enforcement raids in Los Angeles.
“Farmworkers are afraid….They don’t know what’s going to happen from one day to the next with these raids, but they understand the only way we’re going to have power is if we come together,” said Teresa Romero, president of United Farm Workers.
Romero and other union leaders said their focus remains on organizing more workplaces, while also working to educate people on their rights and staging legal and nonviolent protests against government policies.
“We are all under attack by the federal government right now,” said Jeremy Goldberg, executive director of the Central Coast Labor Council. “The need is tremendous.”
In early August, the Trump administration moved forward with a plan to end collective bargaining with federal unions across a swath of government agencies. The government said the changes were necessary to protect national security, but unions viewed it as retaliation for their participation in lawsuits opposing the president’s policies.
The Trump administration has also proposed sweeping cuts to the staff of the National Labor Relations Board — which is tasked with safeguarding the right of private employees to unionize or organize in other ways to improve their working conditions — and canceled leases for regional offices in many states.
Union officials contend the changes could hobble the board and prevent it from investigating unfair labor practice charges filed by workers and carrying out its other responsibilities, such as overseeing elections.
“Important rules and regulations that were put in place during the Biden administration that were helpful to workers — those are systematically being rolled back,” said Enrique Lopezlira, director of the Low-Wage Work Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center.
Unions are bracing for further challenges that could arise when Trump finally makes appointments to the federal labor board, which is currently nonoperational, because it doesn’t have enough board members to rule on cases.
But even as many labor leaders have openly opposed the Trump administration, others have taken a more muted approach. Major national unions, such as United Auto Workers and the Teamsters, have supported aspects of the Trump agenda on tariffs abroad and a push for manufacturing jobs at home.
The changes portend tough times ahead for California unions.
John Logan, a professor of U.S. labor history at San Francisco State, said that Trump’s hostility toward California and withholding of federal funds from universities, healthcare facilities and other institutions will squeeze the state budget, with major effects on public sector workers in the form of layoffs and other cost-cutting. And the administration’s relentless immigrant raids are consuming the time, attention and resources of unions, he said.
Although California has a larger share of its workforce represented by unions compared with many other states, that density is overly reliant on public sector workers, and membership of those unions is likely to shrink in the coming years, Logan said.
Unions are “ill-equipped to deal with this moment of crisis,” Logan said. “The labor movement is fighting for its survival over the next four years.”
Challenges are especially acute in the healthcare industry.
Unions representing in-home care providers, nurses and other healthcare workers said their members are already feeling the squeeze wrought by the lead up to and approval of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which includes tax spending cuts that will affect millions of Medicaid recipients while growing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by thousands of workers.
SEIU Local 2015 President Arnulfo De La Cruz said many in-home care providers who have cared for people for decades are now faced with the prospect that the people they care for are going to lose their healthcare, and that they themselves may lose their healthcare and their jobs.
“To have our healthcare under attack, to have our families under attack — that’s a huge reversal in how we are recognizing essential workers,” De La Cruz said.
Major medical facilities, including Sharp HealthCare, UC San Diego Health and UCSF Health, have in recent months announced plans to cut public health services and conduct hundreds of layoffs, citing significant financial headwinds and the uncertainty of federal funding.
“It’s a nasty bill. There’s nothing beautiful about that bill,” said Cynthia Williams, an Orange County resident and member of AFSCME Local 3930. Williams is a full-time caregiver for both her daughter, who is blind and has cerebral palsy, and her sister, who is a veteran living with severe post-traumatic stress disorder.
Williams said the In-Home Supportive Services program — funded primarily by Medicaid — has preemptively cut funding for transportation to her sister’s weekly appointments. The hours Williams is paid for to care for her daughter have been reduced.
“The last few months have been very stressful and very unpredictable,” Williams said.
The U.S. Air Force will provide military funeral honors for Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and pro-Donald Trump rioter who was shot and killed on January 6, 2021 after breaching a sensitive area of the U.S. Capitol, where members of Congress were evacuating.A letter shared on social media, from Aug. 15, showed Under Secretary of the Air Force Matthew Lohmeier writing to the family of Babbitt, telling them that while their initial request for military honors was denied, “I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect.”“fter reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect,” Lohmeier said. “Additionally, I would like to invite you and your family to meet me at the Pentagon to personally offer my condolences.”A Department of the Air Force spokesperson confirmed the veracity of the letter.“After reviewing the circumstances of Babbitt’s death, the Air Force has offered Military Funeral Honors to Babbitt’s family,” the spokesperson said on Thursday. While the specific details of what will be provided to Babbit’s family are unclear, military honors typically include a uniformed detail at the funeral, the playing of Taps, and the folding and presentation of a U.S. flag.The honors had been previously denied under the Biden administration.Babbitt was shot by a Capitol Police officer while she was attempting to climb through a broken window inside the Capitol leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. The officer involved was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing related to the shooting.In May, the Trump administration agreed to pay nearly $5 million to Babbitt’s family in a wrongful death settlement.Babbitt spent four years on active duty from 2004 to 2008 and then served in the Air Force Reserves from 2008 to 2010, and the Air National Guard from 2010 to 2016. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, Iraq in 2006, and the United Arab Emirates in 2012 and 2014. She was a member of the 113th Security Forces Squadron, 113th Wing, DC Air National Guard. The 113th Wing is charged with defending the National Capitol Region and is nicknamed the “Capital Guardians.”
WASHINGTON —
The U.S. Air Force will provide military funeral honors for Ashli Babbitt, an Air Force veteran and pro-Donald Trump rioter who was shot and killed on January 6, 2021 after breaching a sensitive area of the U.S. Capitol, where members of Congress were evacuating.
A letter shared on social media, from Aug. 15, showed Under Secretary of the Air Force Matthew Lohmeier writing to the family of Babbitt, telling them that while their initial request for military honors was denied, “I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect.”
“[A]fter reviewing the circumstances of Ashli’s death, and considering the information that has come forward since then, I am persuaded that the previous determination was incorrect,” Lohmeier said. “Additionally, I would like to invite you and your family to meet me at the Pentagon to personally offer my condolences.”
A Department of the Air Force spokesperson confirmed the veracity of the letter.
“After reviewing the circumstances of [Senior Airman] Babbitt’s death, the Air Force has offered Military Funeral Honors to [Senior Airman] Babbitt’s family,” the spokesperson said on Thursday. While the specific details of what will be provided to Babbit’s family are unclear, military honors typically include a uniformed detail at the funeral, the playing of Taps, and the folding and presentation of a U.S. flag.
The honors had been previously denied under the Biden administration.
Babbitt was shot by a Capitol Police officer while she was attempting to climb through a broken window inside the Capitol leading to the Speaker’s Lobby. The officer involved was cleared of any criminal wrongdoing related to the shooting.
In May, the Trump administration agreed to pay nearly $5 million to Babbitt’s family in a wrongful death settlement.
Babbitt spent four years on active duty from 2004 to 2008 and then served in the Air Force Reserves from 2008 to 2010, and the Air National Guard from 2010 to 2016. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2005, Iraq in 2006, and the United Arab Emirates in 2012 and 2014. She was a member of the 113th Security Forces Squadron, 113th Wing, DC Air National Guard. The 113th Wing is charged with defending the National Capitol Region and is nicknamed the “Capital Guardians.”
Growing up, I realized that children are a product of their environment, so let me tell you a little bit about mine: I grew up in Secaucus, N.J., a town called “the Jewel of the Meadowlands.” My suburban hometown exists within a large ecosystem of wetlands, the Meadowlands, through which the Hackensack River flows. But with post-agricultural pig farm effluent and debris from New York’s train station decay being dumped into the area, the Meadowlands became a jewel in need of polishing.
Secaucus is working to recover the natural marshes by designating them as protected so fewer apartment complexes can be built and begin to sink a few years down the road, which has happened in the past. The town became environmentally conscious, and existing within that environment, I did the same.
In high school, I worked with the Secaucus Environmental Department for over three years as part of the Next Generation Community Leaders, or NGCL, program created by the Lindsey Meyer Teen Institute. Little did I know just how much this experience would influence my life. Throughout that time, I learned about climate change, the planet’s environmental challenges, and the actions we need to take to reduce our footprint. I helped implement a plastic bag and Styrofoam ban, designed a food waste composting system at my high school and local gardens and created eco-friendly living PSAs. I canvassed to promote eco-friendly living and educated residents on how to compost at home.
I also certified local businesses as “green,” depending on whether they followed practices set by the Sustainable Jersey network. These practices included recycling, reducing food waste, not using Styrofoam, etc. My contributions to the environmental department helped Secaucus to earn recognition from Sustainable Jersey as a Silver Certified Community.
That experience showed me how local actions can create change. By educating residents in Secaucus, we altered their behaviors, if even slightly, to be more environmentally conscious. Residents began to grow produce in the community gardens, compost at home and reduce their plastic bag usage. I witnessed how humans responsible for harming the planet have the potential to make changes to fix it and make it better for future generations. From that day forward, I carried that responsibility with me.
I will be honest: I don’t know the current status of those projects I worked on in Secaucus. I hope that residents are still composting at home and that those businesses continue their green practices.
I began my journey into learning about sustainability at USC with a major in industrial and systems engineering and a minor in law and public policy. Although these are not fields directly tied to the climate ecosphere, my advocacy in Secaucus made me realize that a systematic mindset and policy knowledge would be strong tools with which I can effect change within both the government and private sector in advocating for larger-scale sustainability solutions. With the opportunities provided by USC, I knew I could get involved in environmentalism and sustainability without having to be an environmental science major.
“We have canvassed [local] youth … and discovered that their top environmental priorities are cleaner air, green spaces and green buildings,” says Alyssa Jaipersaud, a member of the L.A. County Youth Climate Commission.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
If you asked freshman Alyssa what her ultimate career goal was, she would have said, “Facilitate systemic change within the bureaucracy through ecological and climate-preservation policies to make society more sustainably conscious.” I wrote this on an index card and kept it in my backpack throughout college to constantly remind me of the goal because being an environmentalist can be discouraging, given the current climate.
Since then, I think I would have made freshman Alyssa proud. I was accepted into the USC Student Sustainability Committee and became a mentor to new members. The SSC acts as a representative for the student body within the Presidential Working Group for Sustainability. We work on projects such as getting reusable takeout containers in dining halls, ensuring ongoing campus construction is adhering to green practices, and creating a central physical space where sustainability-minded students can gather.
As a member of the SSC, I ensured that sustainability would become a standard educational practice at USC and change student behaviors toward respecting their environment. I continued my education at USC by pursuing a master’s in sustainable engineering, and I have earned the distinction of a National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenges Scholar by focusing on sustainability.
Alyssa Jaipersaud poses for a portrait at Exposition Park Rose Garden.
(Michael Blackshire / Los Angeles Times)
My environmental pursuits have culminated in my becoming a Los Angeles County Youth Climate commissioner in the world’s first such organization. We have canvassed the youth in L.A. County and discovered that their top environmental priorities are cleaner air, green spaces and green buildings.
Now, as a member of the legislative committee, I track all federal and state measures that relate to these priorities and bring them to the attention of the county Board of Supervisors so that they can weigh in on whether the legislation should be amended, supported or rejected. We are working actively to support legislation currently going through the U.S. Senate that would call for establishing opportunities for youths to be involved in policy development so they can ensure a healthy environment for their future and those to come.
Since children are a product of their environment, we should help future generations have a good environment to live in. With the environment constantly changing due to global warming, future generations will have a chance only if we work to make the world sustainable starting today. Instead of forcing future generations to learn how to survive to fix the environmental mistakes we are making today, they should have the opportunity to live without the repercussions of the past.
I witnessed the negative effects of a mistreated environment in my hometown, and I want to make sure future generations aren’t suffering from the consequences of what we are doing. With a sustainability mindset, local changes can influence the politicians and create the systemic change needed to get the biggest offenders under control. One of the significant steps is behavioral changes, which can begin locally and be brought by people not even studying in the environmental field, just like me.
Alyssa Jaipersaud earned a bachelor of science in industrial and systems engineering with a minor in law and public policy at USC and is also completing a master’s of science in sustainable engineering. She is setting her sights on a full-time role in the sustainability industry either as a consultant or practicing engineer.
On a stage festooned with American flags and Fraternal Order of Police banners in North Carolina on Friday, former President Trump accepted the backing of the country’s largest police union.
National Fraternal Order of Police President Patrick Yoes said the “enthusiastic endorsement” reflected the “overwhelming collective will” of the group’s more than 375,000 members nationally.
“We stand with you, and we have your back,” Yoes said, promising the group’s members would “make the case” for Trump to Americans across the nation over the next two months.
“This is a big endorsement for me,” Trump said. “Boy, that’s a lot of protection.”
Prior to Trump’s event, the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris held a call with her own law enforcement supporters. First to speak was former U.S. Capitol Police Officer Harry Dunn, who was at the Capitol when a mob of Trump supporters attacked the building on Jan. 6, 2021.
Dunn said Trump’s promised support for law enforcement was nothing but a play for votes — and a lie.
“He’s going to tell my fellow officers that he’s their ally, he’s their friend, and he’s [the] candidate of law and order,” Dunn said. “After what I experienced on Jan. 6, I can assure you that he is not.”
Dunn said he knows many officers who are “appalled by the FOP even entertaining endorsing” Trump, given his felony convictions, his actions on Jan. 6 and his recent promise to pardon the insurrectionists who attacked police officers that day.
“He abandoned us,” Dunn said. “Law and order and the democracy I vowed to protect — he abandoned that.”
With two months until the election, both the Trump and Harris campaigns are trotting out their law enforcement backers as a means of attracting voters in a race in which crime — along with the economy and immigration — has become a major issue.
Despite downward trends in many crime categories nationally, voters are nonetheless weary of retail crime, drug offenses and violence, and looking for solutions. A recent UC Berkeley Institute of Governmental Studies poll, co-sponsored by The Times, found that a majority of voters in liberal California support stiffer penalties for crimes involving theft and fentanyl.
Both Trump and Harris have said they take such issues seriously and would bring solutions as president, while their opponent would only exacerbate the problems.
Trump has cast Harris, a former prosecutor and California attorney general, as soft on crime and anti-police, including by pointing to persistent crime issues in cities like San Francisco, where she once served as district attorney. Trump has advocated for more aggressive policing, and for less federal oversight and more military equipment for local police departments.
U.S. Capitol Police Sgt. Harry Dunn listens during a session of the House Jan. 6 committee in 2022.
(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)
Harris has cast Trump, a felon, as a fraud who solicits law enforcement support when it is convenient for votes, but is otherwise hostile toward law enforcement — especially when they’ve been investigating him. She has advocated for responsive but constitutional policing and for stronger federal oversight and less military equipment for local police departments, and has touted the Biden administration’s record funding for law enforcement through COVID-19 relief funds.
Trump’s event Friday was not his first with law enforcement, but it was a major one, as the police union has members all across the country — including some 17,000 members in California. The group does not represent the biggest law enforcement agencies in Los Angeles. A spokesman for the Los Angeles Police Protective League, the union that represents rank-and-file LAPD officers, said it is not weighing in on the national race and is instead focused on ousting progressive L.A. County Dist. Atty. George Gascón.
After being introduced by Yoes, Trump spoke for nearly an hour. He said law enforcement officers face “more danger and threat than ever before,” and that “we have to give back the power and respect that they deserve.”
He said crime was the No. 1 issue that people ask him about, and that he would bring back “stop-and-frisk” and “broken windows policing” to bring it to an end.
He also repeated many of his stump speech lies and grievances — some aimed at Harris, many to applause from the gathered law enforcement officers. He claimed violent and other crime is “through the roof,” when data show the opposite is true in many parts of the country.
He falsely alleged Harris made it so that “you can steal as much as you want up to $950” in San Francisco and “nothing happens to you, no matter what the hell you do.” He mocked the 2022 attack on Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, at their home in San Francisco, to laughter in the crowd.
The event followed a Trump campaign call where campaign officials and law enforcement officials in swing states praised Trump’s record, blamed Harris for crime problems in California and accused her of being “pro-crime” and “coddling criminals.”
The Harris campaign this week has also touted law enforcement support, including by releasing an endorsement letter from more than 100 former and current law enforcement officers and leaders.
The letter cited a spike in homicides during Trump’s presidency and a sharp decline during the Biden administration. It described Harris as someone who has “spent her career enforcing our laws,” and Trump as someone “who has been convicted of breaking them.”
On the call with Dunn, Sheriff Clarence Birkhead of Durham County, N.C., said there that Trump tries “to portray himself as a friend of law enforcement, but we know it’s not true.”
He said Trump would use federal law enforcement to go after his political enemies instead of investing resources in local law enforcement, and use plans set out in the conservative Project 2025 to withhold even more — “making it nearly impossible for us to keep our communities safe from violence.”
He said Harris, by contrast, “has spent her entire career fighting for people and standing with local law enforcement like me,” which is why officers like those who signed the letter are “lining up” to support her.
Sheriff Javier Salazar, of Bexar County, Texas, said he was confused by the Fraternal Order of Police endorsement of Trump, whom he called “a person that wouldn’t qualify to be a law enforcement officer,” given his felonies.
Salazar said Trump “uses cops as nothing more than a photo opp, or a television prop,” and that he “purports to support law enforcement until we get in his way — until we stand in the way of him doing exactly what he wants to do. He proved it on Jan. 6.”
Dunn said Trump’s only allegiance is to himself.
“The truth is that he doesn’t care that he put my life and the lives of my fellow Capitol Police officers in danger on Jan. 6,” Dunn said.
During four hours of combative testimony in front of the Civilian Oversight Commission on Friday morning, former Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva attempted to minimize the problem of deputy gangs, refusing to acknowledge their existence and alleging the problem of tattooed subgroups is “actually disappearing” from the department.
“You’re still trying to pretend that deputy gangs exist and that they operate in the countryside pillaging and plundering,” he told special counsel Bert Deixler. Minutes before, Villanueva testified that if the department got rid of all deputies with controversial tattoos the county would have to fire so many people that it would create a “gargantuan public safety crisis.”
The former sheriff, currently running for county supervisor, told the commission he never did a systematic investigation into deputy gangs. He said he did not ask employees about the nature of their tattoos, and did not question his top leadership about their involvement in the groups, even though his former chief of staff publicly admitted to once being a member of the Grim Reapers, linked to the now-closed Lennox station.
For years, Villanueva defied subpoenas to testify under oath. It was only after a county judge scheduled a hearing to decide whether to order him to comply that he reversed course. Though there were no major surprises in Friday’s testimony, commission chair Sean Kennedy said the hearing served an important purpose: showing that even the county’s former top cop can face tough questions.
“It is essential that an elected sheriff be held accountable when he flouts oversight subpoenas,” Kennedy told The Times on Saturday. Demonstrating that, he said, also “puts the pressure” on the current sheriff to continue moving forward with his plans to rid the department of deputy gangs.
Sheriff Robert Luna, who took office in 2022, vowed last year to “eradicate all deputy gangs” from the department. But the problem has vexed oversight officials and county leaders for years, and there’s no clear path to eliminating them.
For five decades, the Sheriff’s Department has been plagued by rogue groups of deputies accused of running roughshod over certain stations and promoting a culture of violence. The groups are commonly known by names such as the Executioners, the Banditos, the Regulators and the Little Devils, and members typically have matching, sequentially numbered tattoos featuring macabre imagery.
Last year, Inspector General Max Huntsman ordered nearly three dozen deputies to submit to questioning about deputy gangs and show investigators their tattoos in the hope of compiling a list of potential gang members. But the unions filed suit and a judge temporarily blocked the county watchdog’s inquiries.
At the same time, the sheriff has been working to put in place a stronger policy banning participation in deputy gangs, though the latest proposal is still being hammered out with the unions. Though Villanueva implemented an anti-gang policy in 2020, critics said it didn’t go far enough.
The oversight commission, meanwhile, has been trying to investigate deputy gangs for years, despite ongoing problems with reluctant witnesses. The former undersheriff, Tim Murakami, has yet to comply with the commission’s subpoena efforts — but Deixler still raised questions about his affiliations during Friday’s hearing.
Minutes after the testimony began, Deixler played a 2022 clip of Villanueva likening deputy gangs to unicorns.
“Everybody knows what a unicorn looks like, but I challenge you, name one,” he said during a televised pre-election debate. “Name a single deputy gang member.”
Then Deixler put a photo of a unicorn on the screen and asked: “That’s a unicorn, isn’t it, sir?”
Seconds later, he displayed a picture of the former undersheriff and, referencing the name of an alleged deputy gang linked to the East Los Angeles station, said: “And that’s a Caveman, isn’t it, sir?”
Villanueva bristled, stiffly telling Deixler, “That’s a former undersheriff.”
At one point, Deixler asked Villanueva whether he’d been a Caveman himself, which the former sheriff denied.
Despite the academic setting at Loyola Law School, the special hearing on deputy gangs — the commission’s ninth in the past two years — was marked by spectacle and bluster. Audience members interrupted often with cheers, jeers and obscenities, while the former sheriff repeatedly insulted the commission, the inspector general, the media and the special counsel’s lines of inquiry, which he called “dumb” and “appalling.”
Deixler forcefully questioned Villanueva — at times shouting questions — about some of the most publicized deputy groups, as well as a newly revealed one first made public last week in The Times. That group, the Industry Indians, came to light when the department began investigating an off-duty fight in the parking lot of a Montclair bowling alley and discovered that some of the deputies involved allegedly had Industry Indians tattoos.
Once Villanueva admitted knowing about the incident, Deixler questioned whether he’d been aware of it in late 2022 when he compared deputy gangs to unicorns. The former sheriff said he only learned of the investigation as he was leaving office, and that it was an example of “misconduct” at a social event, not evidence of gang behavior.
Villanueva said he did not ask people what “ink they have on their bodies,” and that during his time in office he “never examined anyone’s tattoo.” Even after then-Chief April Tardy — who is now the undersheriff — testified to the commission that the Banditos met the legal definition of a law enforcement gang, Villanueva said he did not launch an investigation.
“We elected not to touch this matter only because it became a hot political potato that you guys were eager to jump on,” he said, adding that he thought Tardy’s testimony was false.
Instead, he said, he spent his time in office focused on rooting out misconduct, which he argued was more important than investigating tattoos or subgroups.
“It’s no secret there are subgroups within the Sheriff’s Department,” he said. “They exist everywhere, and they will always exist.”
Calling them gangs, he said, is “missing the key element — that is misconduct.”
For some of the community members who turned out to watch the hearing, the takeaways seemed predictable.
“He’s still denying deputy gangs exist, and he’s still denying that gang tattoos are a problem in the department,” said Stephanie Luna, whose nephew was killed by deputies in 2018. “He said the same things he’s been saying for years, but all in one shot.”
But Friday’s hearing may not be the only opportunity to question Villanueva. When the testimony ended, Deixler still had questions left to ask — and the commission signaled interest in calling the former sheriff back in March.
Although they don’t agree on much these days, members of Congress are on the same page about one thing: It’s an especially miserable time to have their job, especially if you represent California.
With California’s Dec. 8 filing deadline to decide on running for reelection just days away, seven Golden State members of Congress have opted to leave — with four retiring outright rather than run for another office.
That list grew on Wednesday with the former speaker’s announcement that he would quit the House by the end of December.
The past year has been marked by an almost unprecedented level of chaos, dysfunction, and near misses on self-inflicted national economic catastrophes in the GOP-controlled House, all bookended by two separate speakership crises. McCarthy, who has been at the center of the House’s 2023 maelstrom, lost his grip on the gavel in October.
The disarray has led to a surge in retirements from both parties. Thirty-one House members are leaving, including 16 who aren’t running for other office. In November alone, 12 members announced their retirements — the most in any month for more than a decade, according to Ballotpedia.
For Californians, the day-to-day burdens of the job are heavier than they are for many of their colleagues. Californians always face some of the longest commutes of any member of Congress. Forty of the state’s 52 House members are Democrats, and being in the minority is a drag — especially during the current era of hyperpartisanship. On top of that, in the span of two years California’s delegation has gone from having two of its own at the helm of both parties in the House to having none, with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-San Francisco) exit from leadership followed quickly by McCarthy’s ignominious demotion and decision to quit.
The real surprise isn’t how many California members are retiring — it’s how many are willing to stay after the past year of chaos.
“The travel sucks. It’s a long flight both ways. I get tired at random times of the day because of the time change,” Rep. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) told The Times. On one recent flight, he was delayed six hours because the plane’s toilet wasn’t working — but he flies so much, he couldn’t remember when and where it happened.
Add to that a “Republican majority that’s doing a bunch of stupid stuff,” and the day-to-day in Congress “honestly feels more stupid” now than at any other point in Lieu’s decade in the House, he said.
And he’s a member of House Democratic leadership, serving as vice chairman.
It’s hard to overstate how maddening and demoralizing the last year in Congress has been for members of both parties.
McCarthy needed four days and 15 ballots to win the speakership in January. After months of struggling to get his conference to pass just about anything, he enraged his right-wing critics with a deal to temporarily avoid a government shutdown; they booted him weeks later. Since then, he has publicly lambasted the eight Republicans who voted to remove him; one of them accused him of elbowing him in the kidney, a claim McCarthy denied.
McCarthy announced his retirement in a Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he defended his decision to cross his right-wing critics on government funding deals — while hinting at Congress’ current dysfunction.
“We kept our government operating and our troops paid while wars broke out around the world,” he wrote. “No matter the odds, or personal cost, we did the right thing. That may seem out of fashion in Washington these days, but delivering results for the American people is still celebrated across the country.”
McCarthy’s allies are furious about how he was treated.
“Kevin did nothing wrong. He led us to victory. He led us to the majority. He led us well in the majority as our speaker. He’s done really great work. And he deserved to be our speaker,” Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Bonsall) told The Times last week, after indicating he expected McCarthy would retire. “A small gang, a gang of eight, took him out. And I hope that all eight of them recognize they made a mistake.”
Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.), one of McCarthy’s closest confidants and the man McCarthy made acting speaker when he was ousted from office, announced he would retire on Tuesday.
Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), another close ally, said he could “certainly understand why” McCarthy wouldn’t want to stick around.
“He was shamefully mistreated. His removal was ridiculous,” he told The Times last week. “And I think those that voted that way and were responsible for it, particularly on our side, ought to think long and hard of the damage they inflicted to the institution and to our conference.”
Cole said he plans to run again himself. But when asked if he could think of another time in his two decades in Congress that has been less fun to serve, he didn’t pause.
“No!” he exclaimed with a wry laugh.
Three other House Republicans tried and failed to win the speakership after McCarthy’s ouster before an exhausted GOP conference was able to compromise on making little-known Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) speaker. He then cut a deal to punt a decision on a government shutdown past the new year — the exact same move that had sealed McCarthy’s fate.
But Johnson’s deal only runs through late January, when Congress will once again grapple with what was once an easy vote to keep the lights on and avoid a government shutdown. The past week, the House wasn’t voting on that issue — or high-stakes funding to help Ukraine ward off Russia’s invasion or supply more military aid to Israel. House Republicans instead moved toward an official impeachment vote of President Biden, before finally voting to kick out Rep. George Santos (R-N.Y.) from the House after keeping him for the past year in spite of his many alleged felonies because they needed his vote in a closely divided chamber.
Rep. Julia Brownley (D-Westlake Village) said her belief that the U.S. is at “a critical point in the history of our country in terms of fighting for our democracy” motivates her to stay in Congress. But her train of thought was interrupted as Santos stormed off the House floor during his expulsion vote, followed by a pack of reporters who nearly trampled us in the narrow hallway—just the latest moment of dysfunctional chaos.
Once they cleared out, Brownley conceded that “it’s not a pleasant experience” to be a member of Congress right now.
“The last three months clearly weren’t a lot of fun here, with the chaos that we saw. And that might not change in the immediate future,” Rep. Ami Bera (D-Elk Grove) told The Times.
Later, as The Times interviewed Rep. Scott Peters (D-San Diego) on the topic, Bera interjected.
“I think you should do the story about why are members staying in Congress, as opposed to the opposite,” he said.
“I can’t walk away from the big money and the constant praise,” Peters, one of Congress’ wealthier members, remarked sardonically. He, like many members, went on to say he was sticking around not because the job was pleasant but because it was important. “People have died for democracy. I can put up with some long plane rides and average parties to try to help the country,” he said.
Rep. Grace F. Napolitano (D-Norwalk), who is retiring at age 84 after serving in the House for a quarter-century, told The Times that the current period was the least pleasant she’d experienced in Congress. She said when she first arrived she was able to work across the aisle on issues important for California with members like former Rep. David Dreier (R-Claremont) — but that has disappeared over the years.
“This trouble between both parties has got to stop. It’s not good for our country,” she said. She’ll miss “the infighting, the inability to work with people on issues that are really critical” the least.
Three of the seven Californians leaving the House are gunning for promotions rather than escape from Congress: Reps. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank), Katie Porter (D-Irvine) and Barbara Lee (D-Oakland) are all running for the Senate. But that doesn’t mean they’re loving their daily work right now.
“Things have become so much more personal and bitter, and we’ve seen the elevation of these kind of vile performance artists,” Schiff, whom Republicans removed from his committees in a retaliatory vote earlier this year, told The Times. “I think it contributes to some of the departures. One thing that attracts me about the Senate is the opportunity to get more things done.”
Add two transcontinental flights a week to a job where it’s tough to get much done, and you have a recipe for unhappiness.
“I don’t think I’ll miss the weekly commute. I won’t miss sitting in the middle seat economy in the back of the plane, and all the have-dos that come with this job,” said Rep. Anna G. Eshoo (D-Menlo Park), who is retiring at age 80.
Rep. Tony Cárdenas is also retiring. His decision was the only one that surprised his colleagues — he’s only 60.
He’s burnt out on the lifestyle. Cárdenas’ normal week begins with a 5 a.m Monday wakeup so he can say goodbye to his wife and make it to LAX by 6 a.m. — the commute is 35 minutes before 6, and close to an hour after. He arrives in D.C. late Monday afternoon, works all day for four days, then tries to get home for a bit of the weekend. “Going back and forth puts a strain on relationships with our loved ones,” he said.
The travel takes a physical toll too. Cárdenas told The Times that he’d never had any back problems in his life. But after a few years in Congress and more than 30 transcontinental flights a year, he developed severe pain. When his wife touched his back to check, it made him scream. He’d developed sciatica from all the time crammed into airplane seats (acupuncture and working on his posture have helped).
Eshoo told The Times that she hadn’t decided to leave Congress because of how miserable it’s become — ”I don’t run away from anything” — but that she felt it was time to go.
Eshoo has been friends with Pelosi, the former speaker, for a half-century, dating back to the 1970s, and said it was a “tough conversation” to tell her she was retiring, especially since Pelosi lobbied her to stay for another term.
Multiple members said they were surprised that the 83-year-old Pelosi would outlast McCarthy, 58, in Congress. With Pelosi and McCarthy both out of leadership, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Redlands), the third-ranking House Democrat, is now the most senior Californian in House leadership of either party.
Californians who’ve left Congress say they don’t miss it at all.
Multiple former members have opted to return home and run for local office. Former Democratic Reps. Janice Hahn and Hilda Solis are serving on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors.
“I am 100% happy that I came home,” Hahn told The Times. “What has transpired in Congress recently only reaffirms that decision. It seems chaotic. It seems ineffective. And I think it causes the American public to be very disappointed in their policymakers in Congress.”
Los Angeles County is the most populous in the U.S. It has more than 10 million people — a population that’s larger than those of 40 U.S. states — and serving as one of the five supervisors is in many ways a more powerful position than being one of 435 members in an ineffective House.
Hahn spent three terms in the minority before retiring in 2016, having found “the partisan, polarizing atmosphere of Congress to be really almost debilitating at some times.” She said she was proud of creating a bipartisan caucus to support port cities. But her legislative achievements — like most minority members’ — were scant. “I mean, I named a post office,” she said.
Former Rep. Paul Cook, a Republican, is now a San Bernardino County supervisor. Democratic Rep. Gloria Negrete McLeod left Congress to run unsuccessfully for the same role. Democrat Jackie Speier, who retired from Congress after the last term, is now running for the San Mateo board of supervisors — a job she held early in her career.
Speier said she retired because she’d promised her husband she’d come home, and initially “almost resented” the decision. But now?
“As time wore on, I realized, oh my gosh, we live and work in this bubble, and don’t realize how insane it is. When you’re when you step back from it, you know, it’s like you’re a hamster on a treadmill. And you just keep doing it with no real positive results,” she said. “The institution is so dysfunctional now that it really frightens me.”
A protest by about 1,000 people angry over U.S. support for Israel in its war with Hamas entered the convention center where the California Democratic Party was meeting Saturday evening, causing security guards to lock entrances to the SAFE Credit Union Convention Center in downtown Sacramento and prompting an early end to the day’s official events.
Delegates and other participants were temporarily blocked from exiting and entering the building after demonstrators barged through security around 6 p.m. and opened several doors, allowing more people to stream into the building where California Democrats gathered for a weekend of events gearing up for the 2024 election.
“Cease-fire now. Cease-fire now,” they chanted as they marched through the convention hall waving Palestinian flags and carrying “Free Palestine” signs.
California Democratic Party officials canceled evening meetings and parties “for the safety and security of our delegates and convention participants,” spokesperson Shery Yang said in a statement.
The demonstration was not as dramatic as Wednesday’s protest at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, in which police clashed with demonstrators calling for a cease-fire as members of Congress gathered inside. Both instances highlight how the war between Israel and Hamas is dividing the left as the U.S. heads into an election year.
Protesters in Sacramento called President Biden “Genocide Joe,” and said, “bombing hospitals and children is a crime.”
Israel’s military has been searching the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital for a Hamas command center that it alleges is located under the building, a claim Hamas and the hospital staff deny.
The Sacramento protest began earlier in the afternoon in a park blocks away. The crowd heard from speakers decrying the Israeli bombardment of Gaza after Hamas’ Oct. 7 incursion in which militants massacred about 1,200 people in Israel and abducted about 240. In response, the Israeli military has killed more 11,500 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities, with an additional 2,700 missing, believed buried under rubble.
Several Jewish delegates to the convention expressed frustration that protesters who had not registered to attend the convention could so easily enter the facility.
Naomi Goldman, a Democrats for Israel California board member wearing a “Nice Jewish Girl” T-shirt, said it was painful to hear protesters chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” While many Palestinians consider the refrain a cry for liberation, many Jews hear it as a message that Israel should be obliterated.
“I am eagerly anticipating meaningful comment from my party on hate speech and violence targeting the Jewish community,” Goldman said, “as well as a total denunciation of what delegates did to disrupt our assembly, and how it will ensure safe inclusive spaces for everyone who hold a diversity of opinions.”
Ameera Abouromeleh, an 18-year-old Palestinian American who joined the protest with six members of her family — including her 74-year-old grandfather who she said was born in Jerusalem — said she looks forward to voting next year for the first time as a way to show solidarity with family who remain in the West Bank.
“I’m feeling really lucky to be 18 because this is when I can really make a change about what happens to my people and my land,” said the community college student from the East Bay Area. “Even though you squish someone under the rubble, our voices will be heard further.”
She said that in the presidential election she plans to vote for Cornel West, a progressive academic who is running as an independent. But she was unsure about whom she prefers in California’s race for the U.S. Senate seat formerly held by the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein.
Democratic candidates in that race — including Reps. Katie Porter of Irvine, Adam B. Schiff of Burbank and Barbara Lee of Oakland — made the rounds at the convention Saturday seeking their party’s endorsement.
Los Angeles City Council President Paul Krekorian has struck a deal with the politically powerful hotel workers’ union to remove a measure from the March election ballot that would haverequired hotels to participatein a city program to put homeless residents in vacant hotel rooms.
Under the agreement, the City Council would approve a new package of regulations on the development of new hotels, forcing such projects to go through a more extensive approval process. Hotel developers also would be required to replace any housing that is demolished to make way for their projects, by building new residential units or buying and renovating existing ones.
In exchange, the union’s proposal for placing homeless residents in vacant hotel rooms would be explicitly listed as voluntary, a move that would cause it to resemble Inside Safe, the program created by Mayor Karen Bass to combat homelessness. Hotel owners are willing participants in that program.
Unite Here Local 11, which represents 32,000 hospitality workers in Southern California and Arizona, praised the agreement, saying it would ensure that the city places a priority on the creation of housing, not luxury hotels. Many of Unite Here’s members have been unable to find decently priced homes near their jobs, forcing them to endure punishing commutes.
“We have said all along that our contract campaign has been about two things: housing for our members where they work and a living wage,” Kurt Petersen, the union’s co-president, said in a statement. “With this ordinance, we have done more to protect housing than any single contract demand would have done.”
The proposal has already received signatures from five other council members — Hugo Soto-Martínez, John Lee, Katy Yaroslavsky, Nithya Raman and Traci Park — putting it two votes shy of passage. Park, who serves on the council’s trade and tourism committee, said she believes the original measure would have had “catastrophic consequences” for tourism locally had it won voter approval, by mandating that hotels take in homeless residents without accompanying social services.
“The thought of putting individuals, many of whom have very serious mental health and substance abuse issues, [in hotel rooms] without on-site services is a recipe for disaster,” she said.
Wednesday’s deal comes as Unite Here enters its fifth month of rolling strike actions as its members fight for higher wages and better working conditions. So far, four hotels across Southern California have reached salary agreements with the union.
Unite Here also has been fighting a number of hotel projects that would result in the elimination of low-cost apartments, particularly those covered by the city’s rent stabilization law, which places a cap on yearly rent increases. Under the Krekorian proposal, the city would need to determine whether there is “sufficient market demand” for a new hotel project, while also identifying whether it would have an impact on demand for housing, childcare and other services.
Unite Here has become a major force in L.A. politics, putting hundreds of thousands of dollars into a campaign to last year elect Soto-Martínez, a former Unite Here organizer himself. The union is also skilled at gathering signatures for ballot measures in and around L.A.
Last year, Unite Here qualified a measure for the March ballot requiring the city’s Housing Department to create a new voucher program to serve the city’s unhoused population. Under that proposal, hotel managers would have been tasked with informing the city each day about the number of vacant rooms they had. Hotels also would have been required to accept temporary housing vouchers issued by the city under such a program.
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The hotel industry responded by launching a publicity campaign against the measure, warning that it would put hotel workers in danger. The campaign repeatedly pointed to problems in the city’s Project Roomkey program, which placed homeless residents in hotels after the outbreak of COVID-19.
Project Roomkey, which is no longer in effect, generated a spate of internal City Hall reports about property damage, drug use and violence at hotels in downtown, Westlake and the San Fernando Valley.
Heather Rozman, president and chief executive of the Hotel Assn. of Los Angeles, said her organization is still studying the proposal but commended council members for being willing to “listen to all sides of the issue.”
Inside Safe, the program launched by Bass to combat homelessness, already uses dozens of hotels and motels as temporary housing. Bass, looking to scale back room rental costs, is also working to purchase hotel and motel properties for that program.
The proposed ordinance would also require that both hotels and hosts of short-term rentals on platforms such as Airbnb secure operating permits from the Los Angeles Police Department. Both Krekorian and the union said such a move would help neighborhoods fight back against short-term rental properties that have “nuisance” activities, such as drug sales or noisy parties.
“Irresponsible hotel and short-term rental operators cannot be allowed to endanger the public safety or impair the quality of life in our neighborhoods,” Krekorian said.
Los Angeles is home to the second-largest Jewish community in America, with more than 500,000 members. And for the last few weeks, it’s been reeling.
Since the ambush by Hamas militants left more than 1,400 Israelis dead and saw the kidnapping of at least 200 others, Israel has sealed off the Gaza Strip from vital resources and launched a barrage of airstrikes.
Jewish Angelenos are largely supportive of Israel, which declared war on Hamas, the local authority in Gaza, following the deadly Oct. 7 attack. Many also disagree with the military assault on Gaza, and are heartbroken over the mounting Palestinian death toll, which has exceeded 7,000, including nearly 3,000 children, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza. About 1.4 million Palestinians have been displaced, and Gaza’s healthcare system is teetering on the brink of collapse as water, fuel and vital medicines are running out, according to the World Health Organization.
The world is watching as Israel mounts an all-out invasion of Gaza.
The war is creating dual tragedies across the Israel-Gaza boundary. And in L.A.’s Jewish community — whose members hail from different backgrounds, ideologies, cultures and religious sects — people are coming together in unique ways.
Amid the anguish and anger, the confusion and conflicts, some have found a new kind of resolve and a newfound community.
Music as a healer
The crowd held its breath at Sinai Temple as Nilli Salem played an extended note on the shofar, an instrument typically made from a ram’s horn and used in important Jewish rituals.
“I really believe that artists are the healers of our time,” Chloe Pourmorady said outside the Westwood synagogue, where about 100 people gathered for a night of solidarity weeks after the initial attack on Israel.
Music is “something beyond words that connects people and brings comfort,” Pourmorady said.
Cantor Marcus Feldman, left, Chloe Pourmorady and Nilli Salem perform at a concert to support Israel at Westwood’s Sinai Temple.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
For many Jews in Los Angeles, there are few degrees of separation between the U.S. and Israel. The extent of death and warfare in the region, considered the Holy Land for Jews, Muslims and Christians alike, has been staggering — and has hit close to home.
Pourmorady had initially planned a musical gathering for friends, but felt compelled to invite the public so the community could dance, sing and cry together.
“Music is being used as a tool for comfort, healing and prayer during this time of great sadness and anguish,” said Cantor Marcus Feldman, who oversees the musical department at Sinai Temple and who sang at the event, which included performances in both Hebrew and English.
Mikey Pauker shared his frustration and anger during the Sinai Temple gathering.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Emotions overtook many that night. Mikey Pauker’s voice broke before he started singing. He told the congregation that in the last few weeks, he’d been called a white supremacist for supporting Israel.
Azar Elihu, a former temple member, said the pain is universal, and she grieves for both sides.
“Even I feel for the Palestinians. I cried so much for the little boy that was killed in Chicago,” she said, referring to 6-year-old Wadea Al-Fayoume, a Muslim boy who was stabbed dozens of times in a deadly attack carried out by his family’s landlord.
But after the musical performance, Elihu said, “This felt like something of a healing.”
How do you talk to your children?
Nicole Guzik, a senior rabbi at Sinai Temple, said that in the weeks following the declaration of war, many in their Jewish community had drawn closer together, checking on one other. They ask: “Are you sleeping? Are you eating? Did you cry today?”
But they are also filled with outrage — and fear — as both antisemitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric abound online and in person.
While some in Israel have called for a full attack on Gaza, including a ground invasion, Sinai Temple congregants say they worry about innocent lives lost.
‘I also don’t want them to be afraid to go to school. I don’t want my daughter to be afraid to wear the Jewish star.’
— Amanda Kogan, of Sinai Temple’s board of directors
“I think what gets lost is that there isn’t a single Jew or Israeli who wants to see a single hair hurt on the head of any innocent civilian,” said Jason Cosgrove, who grew up in the synagogue and said he now finds himself explaining the war in Israel to his 7-year-old daughter and wondering when he will have to discuss antisemitism with her.
“I’m sparing her all of the gory details,” said Cosgrove, who finds himself taking breaks from the news when he can, but who also feels compelled to stay up to date on what’s happening. “I think you obviously can’t bury your head at a time like this.”
Amanda Kogan, who’s on the board of directors at Sinai Temple, also finds herself in the difficult position of trying to explain the war to her children. Her teenage daughter recently attended an event that involved a bus trip in Los Angeles, and the group was accompanied by an armed guard.
“I also don’t want them to be afraid to go to school,” Kogan said. “I don’t want my daughter to be afraid to wear the Jewish star.”
“War is not fair to the innocent people. It’s terrible,” she added. “We’re trying to explain all of this as best we can in a very balanced manner. And no matter what, it’s all horrific.”
Sinai Temple boasts roughly 5,000 members and includes a private Jewish day school with about 600 students, a recreation center and a mental health center that offers counseling to the community.
Duvid Swirsky joins other musicians and cantors in a meditation circle before performing at the Sinai Temple benefit.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Members say their support for Israel is unwavering, and have gathered supplies, including headlamps, tents, blankets and phone chargers to be sent in care packages, which also include notes from children.
But grief hangs heavily over the community.
“As you walk through the halls here, it feels like a house of mourning,” said Senior Rabbi Erez Sherman.
Sherman and Guzik, husband and wife, became senior rabbis about two weeks after the attack on Israel as they worked to console their congregants.
Working for peace
Estee Chandler was a child living in Israel during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, fought between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Syria and Egypt. At the time, she worried every time her parents left their house at night. She would sometimes hear air raid sirens go off and hide with the rest of her family in the unfinished basement of their apartment building.
“Even back then, we had those places to go in. Now, Israelis have safe rooms in their homes,” the 50-year-old said. “[But] Palestinians who are being bombed — they have nothing. They don’t have those rooms to run into. They have no way to protect their children.”
When Chandler awoke to the news that Israel had declared war with Hamas, she started reaching out to friends and family living overseas. Then, she reached out to her colleagues at Jewish Voice for Peace, whose Los Angeles chapter she founded nearly 13 years ago.
“My heart sank thinking about what we were surely going to start seeing in the hours, days and weeks to come, and unfortunately, that has all borne out,” she said.
“I don’t understand how people’s hearts can bleed … for only one-half of the people who are bleeding,” says Estee Chandler, who lived through the 1973 Yom Kippur War and has loved ones in Israel — and friends whose loved ones in Gaza have been killed by Israeli airstrikes.
(Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)
Jewish Voice for Peace and another Jewish organization, IfNotNow, have staged protests outside the White House and the homes of other politicians, demanding a cease-fire. Hundreds have been arrested while protesting at the U.S. Capitol in Washington.
While working for former President Obama’s 2008 campaign, Chandler said she saw “the intersection between the Israeli lobby and the Democratic Party politics.” She was upset by “a lot of horribly racist things” that were happening and tried to educate herself as much as possible about Israel.
Chandler later discovered Jewish Voice for Peace, which was supporting a movement at UC Berkeley to divest from weapons manufacturers providing arms to Israel. The group contacted Chandler and asked whether she would be interested in starting an L.A. chapter.
The daughter of an Israeli father, Chandler has relatives and friends in Israel and some fighting in the Israel Defense Forces, Israel’s national military. She also has friends whose family members were killed in Gaza by the Israeli airstrikes.
“My concern for my family’s safety and my friends’ safety doesn’t stop at any border,” she said. “It’s not a choice that has to be made. I don’t understand how people’s hearts can bleed in the same situation for only one-half of the people who are bleeding.”
One of Chandler’s friends is L.A. resident Hedab Tarifi, a Palestinian advocate and member of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders. Tarifi has lost 69 family members in the bombings in Gaza.
‘I wake up in the middle of the night, and I can’t breathe. … I have to swallow my pain and my anger, and remind myself that they don’t have a voice while they’re being bombed and massacred.’
— Hedab Tarifi, a Palestinian advocate and member of the Los Angeles Council of Religious Leaders
“I have a roller coaster of emotions,” said Tarifi, who was born in Gaza and moved to L.A. in the mid-1990s.
“I wake up in the middle of the night, and I can’t breathe. I want to cry, but I can’t cry. I’m mad, and at the same time, because I have to be their voice, I have to swallow my pain and my anger, and remind myself that they don’t have a voice while they’re being bombed and massacred,” she said. “I need to pull myself together and be their voice.”
Chandler and other Jewish Voice for Peace supporters want a cease-fire. They have been protesting in Los Angeles and recently attended a county supervisors meeting where a resolution condemning Hamas and supporting Israel was unanimously adopted after tense public comments.
She has been disheartened by media portrayals of the war as simply a battle between Israel and Hamas, noting that the events of Oct. 7 “didn’t come in a vacuum.”
“You can’t say that anything that happened there is unprovoked. You have people who have been living under siege for 75 years, people who’ve been living in a state of constant ethnic cleansing.”
While her support of Palestinian rights may seem unconventional in light of her heritage, Chandler said she wouldn’t be deterred — even if friends and family have opposing views.
“My family loves me anyway,” she said.
‘Never again’
When Mor Haim finally turned on the TV on Oct. 7 — breaking her usual observance of Shabbat — she watched as Hamas trucks bulldozed through a neighborhood in Sderot, an Israeli city near Gaza where she lived until the age of 7. She immediately recognized the street where her cousin lived.
‘I’m scared to talk on the phone in public, [worried that] someone will recognize my accent and say, “Hey, she’s Jewish.” ’
— Mor Haim
“Life was sucked out of me at that second,” said Haim, 31. Luckily, none of her family was killed, but the grief has been no less soul-crushing. The brother of her cousin’s wife went on a run the morning of the ambush, and was killed. Many childhood friends were slain. A friend’s father died shielding his children.
“Even though I’m far away, I feel as if I’m physically there,” said Haim, a dual Israeli American citizen who lives in Woodland Hills.
Since that night, Haim said, she’s had panic attacks and has been unable to sleep well.
She said she tries to go about her daily life for the sake of her four young children. She’s found solace baking challah with friends and family or just sitting in silence with others who share her pain.
For Mor Haim, who lived near Gaza in Sderot, Israel, as a child, the Hamas attack hit too close to home.
But the images from that day are seared in her mind, and she is afraid.
“I’m scared for my safety. I’m scared for my children’s safety,” she said. “I’m scared to talk on the phone in public, [worried that] someone will recognize my accent and say, ‘Hey, she’s Jewish.’”
“We’ve kind of been in hiding,” she said.
Haim wants people to understand why the attack on Israel — carried out on the holiday of Simchat Torah, a day meant for rejoicing — cannot be ignored.
She said no one wants innocent people to die — “not our people and not their people in Gaza.”
But Jewish people can’t stand idly by, and Israelis must fight to defend their country, their people, she said.
“We said ‘never again’ when we went through the Holocaust. And this is the never again,” she said. “It feels like we’re screaming our life out and nobody’s hearing us.”
Today, Austin Pets Alive! has made the difficult decision to provide a 30-day notice to end our veterinary services contract with Laredo Animal Care Services (LACS).
When we began our partnership with LACS earlier this year, at the request of the Laredo city council and community, it was with the whole-hearted intention to help meet the city’s goals of providing medical care and practices that further saved lives. Every vaccine given and disease prevented, medical treatment administered, surgery conducted, and animal transported to another rescue partner was done to not only fulfill our contractual obligations but as a moral obligation to the pets being sheltered in the city. We heard from community member after community member how much it meant to them that their city shelter could become more aligned with the word “shelter” — providing true safety and care to pets that are lost, displaced or abandoned.
We’re very proud of the work we did alongside many of the dedicated LACS staff members. The last eight months have led to more than 1,000 spay/neuter surgeries (an approx 400% increase from the previous Veterinary vendor) and raised the feline live outcome rate to a historical high of over 70%. Dogs and cats that were once euthanized for having something as simple as a cold were treated and many have already been adopted.
Unfortunately, we were met with resistance from shelter leadership. Over the past few months as the changes required became more real, and hard, the goals of LACS shifted away from a lifesaving focus and back toward operating at a lower capacity for care and lifesaving. This approach means that thousands of animals who should live long healthy lives will continue to die in order to meet a regressive goal. We cannot in good conscience continue working under such a drastic diversion from the original goals the city council laid out for us to follow.
It hurts our hearts to leave so many pets and people behind but we believe that we have no other choice. Our true hope is that Laredoans saw that life saving was possible and that they will demand the changes necessary to be a humane city for beloved pets.
When the euro banknotes were 1st designed in 2002, they featured fictional bridges, so as not to cause a row amongst EU member countries. Ten years later an architect for the Dutch town of Spijkenisse claimed them all for the Netherlands by building them ALL on a single waterway
It was a regular day at the shelter until evening came and the staff went to lock the Maddie’s® Cat Adoption Center’s doors.
Right outside, there was a cat carrier sitting alone with nothing but a note. As the carrier was shaking violently, a staff member went closer to see what was scribbled across the napkin. It read, “Dog flea treatment. Poisonous. Seizures.” As she looked into the carrier she could see two tabby cats in crisis.
The cats, later named Jingle and Jangle for the holiday season, were rushed to the clinic. The staff said they had never seen anything like it. They were convulsing uncontrollably and nothing was seeming to stop the seizing. Clinic staff spent hours trying various methods until finally at 4 a.m., they were able to stabilize the cats by putting them in a medically induced coma.
Flea medicine if used incorrectly can be deadly. Jingle and Jangle’s nervous systems were shutting down because their bodies couldn’t handle the dose. The clinic knew if they could get them stabilized after around 72 hours, they would have a good chance at recovering when the medicine worked its way out of their system.
Miraculously, a day later you would never recognize that these were the same cats that were left to fend for themselves, seizing uncontrollably. Once the flea medicine got through their system they returned to their perfectly playful selves. The siblings were soon adopted out together and now are named Blue and Penelope.
Their mom, Pattie had nothing but ‘purrfect’ things to say about the siblings. “Penelope loves naps on beds and chairs. Her favorite spot is getting on top of the refrigerator. She is a purr machine when she gets love. Blue is such a house cat. He will lay around all day long anywhere; on the floor, by the window, on a box just anywhere. He loves cuddles and is a chatterbox. They sleep, play, eat together and groom each other all day long,” Pattie said.
Something miraculous happened today. Because of the support YOU have given to APA! over the last couple months, keeping TLAC as a lifesaving mecca in the heart of Austin is 50% accomplished. In fact, your voice was counted today and they received over 2,000 registrations in support. It would NOT have happened without you raising your voice and telling the council that saving our four-legged, and sometimes three-legged, family members’ lives matters to you, even while the rest of the world’s social problems seem to be more important right now.
Today, let’s celebrate that the clouds have parted a bit and we can actually now see a future at TLAC on the horizon. Let’s thank the council members who led, sponsored and voted in favor of this. And let’s keep one foot in front of the other as we continue to put down roots that will keep so many animals from losing their lives needlessly in Austin and the rest of Texas.
We will do an impromptu celebration at ABGB TONIGHT starting at 6pm with the plan to raise a glass at 6:30. Stop by if you can! If the parking lot is full, there is parking in the neighborhood behind ABGB.
We will keep you informed every step of the way from here on out. THANK YOU!
This is the week! Austin City Council will vote Thursday on the future of Austin Pets Alive! at Town Lake Animal Center.
The animals depend on the support of the greater Austin animal-loving community and we are asking if you will take one more quick action to confirm your support for our resolution, agenda item #38.
We want this resolution to pass, as it clearly removes the restriction that would prevent us from saving the lives of those on death row all over our state. This is important because we have long demonstrated that we can save lives in need while also maintaining that Austin’s No Kill status is first and foremost.
We are grateful the resolution also directs City animal services staff to negotiate with APA! regarding the percentage of animals we are responsible for pulling from the city shelter and clearly indicates those animals should be based on those at risk of euthanasia. This has always been the intent of our partnership with the City and we are eager to ensure our contract reflects that.
Check the first box for the regular Austin City Council meeting,
Select item #38 from the drop-down menu,
Click “no” that you do not wish to speak,
Click “For” for your position,
Fill out your identification information and in the box for the topic, please type, “Vote Yes on Item #38.”
That’s it! Your voice will then be counted in support of Thursday’s meeting!
Just as you help us every day by fostering, adopting, volunteering, and donating to find homes for animals, we really need you to act now so APA! can land safely and continue our important work with as few interruptions as possible.
We are incredibly grateful to Council Member Leslie Pool for her leadership on this resolution and to Mayor Adler, Council Member Kitchen, Council Member Fuentes, and Council Member Casar for co-sponsoring. Please join us in thanking them for their support for APA! and No Kill. We know the Council offices are keeping track of people who email/call in favor of agenda item #38, so it is very important that you fill out that form before noon on Wednesday!
Thank you for being here for the animals, all the animals, and ensuring that APA! continues to keep Austin No Kill.
