Malibu is filing suit against the state of California, the city of Los Angeles, L.A. County and additional public entities. Saying the seaside enclave’s “entire character” was changed by the Palisades fire, the city is seeking damages for the loss of property, business and city revenue.
Malibu officials confirmed Wednesday that the city had filed a civil complaint in Los Angeles County Superior Court with a list of defendants that included the California Department of Parks and Recreation, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, the Mountains Recreation and Conservation Authority and the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.
Malibu officials said the decision was necessary to try to recoup losses that affect “the long-term fiscal implications for Malibu and its taxpayers,” according to a news release. The complaint does not list a specific dollar amount the city is seeking in damages.
“The lawsuit seeks accountability for the extraordinary losses suffered by our community while recognizing that Malibu must continue to work collaboratively with our regional partners going forward,” Mayor Bruce Silverstein said in a statement.
The city’s “entire character changed” on Jan. 7, 2025, when the defendants’ “unlawful conduct caused the Palisades Fire to ignite,” according to the complaint.
The ensuing blaze killed 12 people, half of whom were Malibu residents, according to the city. Roughly 700 Malibu homes and dozens of businesses also were destroyed, the complaint states.
Those businesses included restaurants that were local institutions, such as Moonshadows, the Reel Inn and Rosenthal Wine Bar & Patio.
Malibu “is still reeling from the destruction” of the fire, “a hollowed out community, burned and destroyed buildings and homes, a shrinking tax base, emotionally and physically scarred citizens, and untold environmental damage,” the complaint states.
Malibu claims that the fire was “not an accident” but a “foreseeable and proximate result of unlawful conduct” by the defendants.
Each of the entities was blamed for its role in the fire, including not properly addressing the burn scar from the Lachman fire, which rekindled to become the Palisades fire; leaving “reservoirs empty for over a year”; and failing to ensure “essential firefighting infrastructure,” according to the complaint.
“This decision was not made lightly,” Silverstein said. “The city has an obligation to act in the best interests of our residents and taxpayers.”
Oakland civil rights attorney James Cook has been on the ground in Minnesota for months figuring out answers to these question as he goes.
A fast-talking Minneapolis native who still lives in the Twin Cities part time, Cook is one of a handful of attorneys who have dropped everything to aid (for free) those caught up in the federal crackdown — protesters, immigrants and detained citizens — too many of whom have found themselves facing deportation, arrest or even been disappeared, at least for a time.
Civil rights attorney James Cook in the rear view mirror as he makes phone calls in his car in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“They are leaders that are on the ground really helping people through this process,” Minnesota school board member Chauntyll Allen told me.
She’s one of the protesters arrested inside a local church, charged with conspiracy to deprive others of their constitutional rights by Pam Bondi’s politicized Department of Justice, which also Friday arrested journalist Don Lemon for the same incident. Cook is one of the lawyers now representing Allen.
“It shows us that the judicial arm, or some of the judicial arm of our democracy, is willing to step up and ensure that our democracy stands strong,” Allen said of Cook and others like him.
While it’s the images of clashes in the streets that captivate media and audiences, it’s lawyers like Cook who are fighting an existential battle in the background to preserve the rule of law in a place where it is increasing opaque, to put it gently.
The legal work behind detentions has largely been an overlooked battlefield that will likely rage on years after ICE departs the streets, leaving in its wake hundreds if not thousands of long-and-winding court cases.
Beyond the personal fates they will determine, the outcome of the civil litigation Cook and others are spearheading will likely force whatever transparency and accountability can be pulled from these chaotic and troubling times.
It’s time-consuming and complicated work vital not just to people, but history.
Or, as Cook puts it, “I’ll be 10 years older when all this s— resolves.”
Federal agents stand guard against a growing wall of protesters on Jan. 24 in Minneapolis, just hours after Alex Pretti was shot by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Cook told me this while on his way to the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building where some detainees are being held, maybe. It’s hard to find out. A few years ago, when immigration enforcement in Minnesota ramped up under the first Trump term, activists tried to get the name of the building changed, arguing Whipple, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop in the state, had been an advocate of the marginalized and wouldn’t want his name associated with what the feds were up to.
Cook is well aware that the guns carried by the federal agents are not for show, even without the Boss’ new ballad. Just a few days ago, one of the first times he drove his beat-up truck up to the gate, the federal guards at Whipple pointed their guns at him.
“I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m going to take my keys out of the ignition, drop them on the ground. So please don’t shoot,’” he said.
They lowered the guns, but Cook was scared, a feeling that doesn’t come easy.
Long before his law degree, when he was a punk-rock loving teen in the 1980s, fresh out of Southwest High, the public school not too far from Whipple, a former coach convinced him to give up college dreams and instead pursue a shot at making the first Muay Thai kickboxing team at the Olympics.
The martial art ended up not making it as an official Olympic sport, but the experience launched Cook into a professional boxing and kickboxing career that took him to competitions around the world, and taught him fear is not a reason to back down.
But, “Father Time is undefeated,” Cook said. “I got older and I started losing fights, and I was like, all right, time to get back to life.”
That eventually led him to obtaining a law degree in San Francisco, where after an intern stint as a public defender, he decided he wanted to be a trial attorney, fighting in court.
Civil rights attorney James Cook has been doing pro bono immigration work since the crackdown began in Minneapolis.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
He started cold-calling John Burris, another Bay Area lawyer who is an icon of civil rights and police misconduct cases. Burris, who has been called the “Godfather of Police Litigation,” was involved in the “Oakland Riders” case in 2000, when officers were discovered to have planted evidence. He also represented Rodney King, the family of Oscar Grant, and the family of Joseph Mann among many others.
But Burris, a boxing fan, didn’t respond to Cook’s calls until the young lawyer offered him free tickets to one of his fights, which he was still doing on the side.
“And then immediately I got a call back,” Cook said.
Burris said Cook’s history as a fighter intrigued him, but “I did say to James, you can’t be a fighter and lawyer. You can’t get punched in your head all the time.”
Cook did not take this advice.
Still, Burris said, “It was his persistence that I admired, because the type of work we’re involved in, you need people who are dedicated, who have some real commitment to the work, and he showed that kind of consistency and dedication.”
Cook’s been working with Burris more than 20 years now, but until recently, the labyrinth of the immigration system wasn’t his area of expertise. It’s been a crash course for him, he said, on the often arcane laws that govern who gets to stay in America and who doesn’t.
It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like. Along with his work looking for locked-up immigrants, Cook spends a lot of time on the streets at protests, helping people understand their rights — and limitations — and seeing first hand what is happening.
“If you ever wondered what you would have done in Germany, now is the time,” he said. “Now is the time to do something. People are being interned.”
In the hours after Pretti was shot, Cook was at the location of the shooting, in the middle of the tear gas, offering legal help to anyone who needed it and bearing witness to conduct that will almost certainly face scrutiny one day, even if government leaders condone it now.
Law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters as they work to push the crowd back and expand their perimeter in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
“The way the officers chase people down, protesters who were really just protesting lawfully and were beaten and pepper sprayed and gassed — all those are civil rights violations,” Burris said. “And so the law is the guardrails. So there has to be lawyers who are prepared to protect those guardrails and to stand as centurions, as I refer to us.”
Cook has tried to calm protesters, he told me, and prevent clashes. But people are mad, and resolute. His greatest fear is summer — when warm weather could bring even larger crowds if enforcement is still ongoing. He’s worried that the actions of the federal agents will spill over into anger at local cops enforcing local laws, leading to even more chaos.
“I’ve always supported cops as long as they do their job correctly,” Cook said.
For now, he’s taking it one day at a time, one case at a time, one name at a time.
Protesters raise an inverted American flag as law enforcement officers launch tear gas canisters in Minneapolis after Alex Pretti was killed by federal agents.
(Caroline Yang/For The Times)
Tuesday, Cook passed through the armed checkpoint at Whipple carrying a list of about seven people, folks who have been picked up by federal agents for one reason or another, or reasons unknown, and now cannot be located. They are not in the public online system that is meant to track detainees, and family and friends have not heard from them.
If he’s lucky, Cook will get information on one or two, that they are indeed inside, or maybe at a detention center in Texas, where many have been sent. But there will be more whose location remains unknown. He’ll make calls, fill out forms and come back tomorrow. And the tomorrow after that.
“This is what we do,” he said. “I’m always in it for the long run. I mean, you know, shoot, yeah, that’s kind of the way it works.”
President Trump on Wednesday withdrew the United States from 66 international organizations and treaties, including the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
In a presidential memorandum, Trump said it is “contrary to the interests of the United States to remain a member of, participate in, or otherwise provide support to” the organizations, which also include groups geared toward education, economic development, cybersecurity and human rights issues, among others. He directed all executive departments and agencies to take steps to “effectuate the withdrawal” of the U.S. from the organizations as soon as possible.
While the president has already announced a withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement — an international treaty to limit global warming to under 2 degrees Celsius in order to prevent the worst effects of climate change — the latest move will further isolate the nation at a critical moment, experts said.
The U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change is a global treaty created in 1992 and signed by nearly 200 countries with the aim of addressing climate change through coordinated international action, including limiting planet-warming greenhouse gases. Trump already raised eyebrows last year by refusing to attend or send any high-level delegates to the annual U.N. Conferences of the Parties meeting in Brazil, where Gov. Gavin Newsom instead took on a starring role.
Withdrawing from the U.N. Framework Convention is a “shortsighted, embarrassing, and foolish decision,” Gina McCarthy, a former director of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.
“As the only country in the world not a part of the UNFCCC treaty, the Trump administration is throwing away decades of U.S. climate change leadership and global collaboration,” said McCarthy, who also served as the first White House national climate advisor and is now chair of the America is All In climate coalition.
David Widawsky, director of the World Resources Institute, called the move a “strategic blunder that gives away American advantage for nothing in return.”
“The 30-year-old agreement is the foundation of international climate cooperation. Walking away doesn’t just put America on the sidelines — it takes the U.S. out of the arena entirely,” Widawsky said.
Trump on Wednesday also withdrew the U.S. from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the leading global scientific body studying global warming. Its major assessments published every six or seven years help inform climate policy around the world.
Pulling the U.S. out of the IPCC won’t prevent individual U.S. scientists from contributing, but the nation as a whole will no longer be able to help guide the scientific assessments, said Delta Merner, associate accountability campaign director for the Climate and Energy Program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, who has attended previous IPCC meetings.
“Walking away doesn’t make the science disappear, it only leaves people across the United States, policymakers and businesses flying in the dark at the very moment when credible climate information is most urgently needed,” Merner said. “This is a clear attempt to weaken scientific guardrails that protect the public from disinformation, delay and reckless decision-making. Such a move will make it easier for fossil fuel interests to distort the facts while front-line communities pay the price.”
Trump, who received substantial donations from oil and gas companies during his 2024 presidential campaign, has heavily promoted the development of fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal. He has also taken several steps to limit scientific research and climate action in the U.S., including moving to dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the world’s leading climate and weather research institutions, in Boulder, Colo.
Last year, the Trump administration also fired hundreds of scientists working to prepare the congressionally mandated National Climate Assessment and removed the website that housed previous assessments.
Other climate, environment and energy groups Trump withdrew from on Wednesday include the International Renewable Energy Agency, the International Solar Alliance, the the 24/7 Carbon-Free Energy Compact and the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, among many others.
But the United States is the first nation to walk away from the U.N. Framework Convention, according to Manish Bapna, president and chief executive of the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council.
“President Trump pulls the United States out of the UNFCCC at the nation’s peril,” Bapna said. “It is not only self-defeating to let other countries write the global rules of the road for the inevitable transition to clean energy, but also to skip out on trillions of dollars in investment, jobs, lower energy costs and new markets for American clean technologies.”
A 16-year-old boy was killed and four others were injured during a Christmas Day shooting in Lancaster, authorities said Thursday night.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement that deputies responded to the 1000 block of E. Angela Court, a suburban street that ends in a cul-de-sac lined with single-family homes with red tile roofs and two-car garages. The incident was reported shortly after 1:00 p.m.
They discovered the 16-year-old at the scene of the shooting, where he was declared dead. A 17-year-old girl, 15-year-old boy and two men, 19 and 29, the statement said, were taken to a local hospital with “non-life-threatening gunshot wounds.”
The department said in an email late Thursday that “[a]t this time we don’t expect any other updates.”
The department is asking anyone with information about the shooting to call the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department’s Homicide Bureau at (323) 890-5500. To report a tip anonymously, call “Crime Stoppers” at (800) 222-TIPS (8477), download the “P3 Tips” Mobile APP on Google play or the Apple App Store, or visit lacrimestoppers.org.
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.
“Democrats have been relentless in their targeting of TINA PETERS, a Patriot who simply wanted to make sure our elections were fair and honest,” Trump said in a typically gaseous, dissembling post on social media.
“Tina is sitting in a Colorado prison for the ‘crime’ of demanding Honest Elections,” the president went on. “Today I am granting Tina a full pardon for her attempts to expose voter fraud in the rigged 2020 Presidential Election.”
That’s because Trump has precisely zero say over Peters’ fate, given the former Mesa County elections chief was convicted on state charges. The president’s pardon power — which Trump has twisted to a snapping point — extends only to federal cases. If we’re going to play make-believe, then perhaps Foo-Foo the Snoo can personally escort Peters from prison and crown her Queen of the Rockies.
That’s not to suggest, however, that Trump’s empty gesture was harmless. (Apologies to Foo-Foo and Dr. Seuss.)
Some extremists, ever ready to do Trump’s malevolent bidding, have taken up Peters’ cause, using the same belligerent language that foreshadowed the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. In fact, threats have come from some of the very same thugs whom Trump pardoned in one of the first shameless acts of his presidency.
“WE THE PEOPLE ARE COMING TO BREAK TINA PETERS OUT OF PRISON IN 45 DAYS,” Jake Lang, a rioter who was charged with attacking police with an aluminum baseball bat, said on social media. “If Tina M. Peters is not released from La Vista Prison in Colorado to Federal Authorities by January 31st, 2026; US MARSHALS & JANUARY 6ERS PATRIOTS WILL BE STORMING IN TO FREE TINA!!”’
(Capitalization and random punctuation are apparently the way to show fervency as well as prove one’s MAGA bona fides.)
Enrique Tarrio, the former head of the Proud Boys extremist group whom Trump also pardoned, shared a screenshot of the president’s social media post. “A battle,” Tarrio said, “is coming.”
Trump’s pretend pardon is not the first intervention on Peters’ behalf.
In March, the Justice Department asked a federal judge to free her from prison, saying there were “reasonable concerns” about the length of Peters’ sentence. The judge declined.
In November, the administration wrote the Colorado Department of Corrections and asked that Peters be transferred to federal custody, which would presumably allow for her release. No go.
Earlier this month, apparently looking to up the pressure, the Justice Department announced an investigation of the state’s prison system. (Perhaps Peters was denied the special “magnetic mattress” she requested at her sentencing, to help deal with sleep issues.)
Like any child, when Trump doesn’t get his way he calls people names. On Monday, he set his sights on Colorado’s Democratic governor, Jared Polis — “a weak and pathetic man” — for refusing to spring Peters from state prison.
“The criminals from Venezuela took over sections of Colorado,” Trump said, “and he was afraid to do anything, but he puts Tina in jail for nine years because she caught people cheating.”
While Trump portrays Peters as a martyr, she is nothing of the sort.
As Polis noted in response to Trump’s “pardon,” she was prosecuted by a Republican district attorney and convicted by a jury of her peers — a jury, it should be noted, that was drawn from the citizenry of Mesa County. The place is no liberal playpen. Voters in the rugged enclave on Colorado’s Western Slope backed Trump all three times he ran for president, by margins approaching 2-to-1.
If Peters’ sentence seems harsh — which it does — hear what the judge had to say.
Peters was motivated not by principle or a search for the truth but rather, he suggested, vanity and personal aggrandizement. She betrayed the public trust and eroded faith in an honestly run election to ingratiate herself with Trump and others grifting off his Big Lie.
“You are as privileged as they come and you used that privilege to obtain power, a following and fame,” Judge Matthew Barrett told Peters in a lacerating lecture. “You’re a charlatan who used and is still using your prior position in office to peddle a snake oil that’s been proven to be junk time and time again.”
Peters remains unrepentant.
In petitioning Trump for a pardon, her attorney submitted nine pages of cockamamie claims, asserting that Peters was the victim of a conspiracy involving, among others, voting-machine vendors, Colorado’s secretary of state and the Venezuelan government.
To her credit, Peters has rejected calls for violence to set her free.
“Tina categorically DENOUNCES and REJECTS any statements or OPERATIONS, public or private, involving a ‘prison break’ or use of force against La Vista or any other CDOC facility in any way,” a post on social media stated, again with the random capitalization.
Perhaps the parole board will take note of those sentiments when the 70-year-old Peters becomes eligible for conditional release in January 2029, a date that just happens to coincide with the end of Trump’s term.
Which seems fitting.
Keep Peters locked up until then, serving as an example and deterrent to others who might consider emulating her by vandalizing the truth and attacking our democracy.
The prosecutor who recently took over the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others said in a court filing Wednesday that he has decided not to pursue the case further.Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case last month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case.After Skandalakis’ filing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued a one-paragraph order dismissing the case in its entirety.It was unlikely that legal action against Trump could have moved forward while he is president. But 14 other defendants still faced charges, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.After the Georgia Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal of her disqualification, it fell to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a new prosecutor. Skandalakis said last month that he reached out to several prosecutors, but they all declined to take on the case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set a Nov. 14 deadline for the appointment of a new prosecutor, so Skandalakis chose to appoint himself rather than allowing the case to be dismissed.
ATLANTA —
The prosecutor who recently took over the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others said in a court filing Wednesday that he has decided not to pursue the case further.
Pete Skandalakis, the executive director of the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council of Georgia, took over the case last month from Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who was removed over an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship with the special prosecutor she chose to lead the case.
After Skandalakis’ filing, Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee issued a one-paragraph order dismissing the case in its entirety.
It was unlikely that legal action against Trump could have moved forward while he is president. But 14 other defendants still faced charges, including former New York mayor and Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani and former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows.
After the Georgia Supreme Court in September declined to hear Willis’ appeal of her disqualification, it fell to the Prosecuting Attorneys’ Council to find a new prosecutor. Skandalakis said last month that he reached out to several prosecutors, but they all declined to take on the case. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee set a Nov. 14 deadline for the appointment of a new prosecutor, so Skandalakis chose to appoint himself rather than allowing the case to be dismissed.
Scammers particularly use the holiday season to steal your money and information.Hoping consumers will let down their guard, or just trying to spoof legitimate businesses, scammers will do everything they can to take advantage of your vulnerability or generosity.Chase and the Baltimore Police Department recently hosted a scam education event to show consumers how to protect themselves. Some of their tips are listed below.Holiday shopping: What to knowShop with trusted retailers: Stick to reputable websites when shopping online. If you’re unfamiliar with a store, search for its name along with terms like “scam,” “complaints” or “reviews” to uncover any red flags.Verify website URLs: Scammers can create fake websites that look like legitimate retailers. Ensure the URL starts with “https://” as the “s” stands for secure. Avoid clicking links from unsolicited emails or texts.Beware of unrealistic deals: Scammers lure buyers by offering massive discounts on popular or sold-out items. If a deal seems too good to be true, it’s likely a scam.How you pay matters: Credit cards and debit cards offer different protections than cash or payment transfer apps, like Zelle and Venmo. Remember, only use apps like Zelle to pay others you know and trust.Shopping on public Wi-Fi: Avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi when making an online purchase. Scammers can intercept your personal information on unsecured networks.Use digital tools: Trusted financial institutions offer credit and identity monitoring, including alerts to inform you when your data is exposed in a data breach or on the dark web.Online deals that are too good to be trueWhen shopping online or on social media, buy only from trusted websites and vendors. If purchasing on a marketplace, stay on the platform to complete transactions and communicate with sellers, as protections often only apply when you use the platform.Use payment methods that offer buyer protection. Never send money to strangers, particularly via payment-transfer apps like Zelle or Venmo, for purchases, especially when you can’t confirm the goods exist. Missed packages or problems with deliveryExpecting a package? Be cautious of phishing messages through email or text message that impersonate delivery services, like the U.S. Postal Service, UPS or FedEx, with links to view “missed deliveries.” These links may lead to fake sign-in pages to capture your actual password or to malware-infected sites.Do not respond to messages requesting personal or financial information, including money or cryptocurrency. Be wary of unexpected packages and avoid scanning QR codes, as they may be attempts to steal your information.Scams: Fake refunds, quishing, phishing/smishing, whalingRefund scams: Another scam doesn’t demand payment. Instead, it dangles a refund, sometimes via text messages posing as official messages from “Department of Taxation,” urging recipients to “click here to claim your refund.” The texts look legitimate at a glance, but they are designed to lure you into tapping a fraudulent link and handing over personal information. Cybersecurity experts are warning about scammers using QR codes to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. The practice called “quishing” uses a QR code that sends you to a dummy website to get your information — and money.When it comes to phishing, the term is more widely known, but people are still falling for it. Phishing emails or texts (known as “smishing”) attempt to trick a recipient into clicking a suspicious link, filling out information or downloading a malware file.Whaling attacks generally target leaders or other executives with access to large amounts of information at an organization or business. Whaling attacks can target people in payroll offices, human resources and financial offices as well as leadership. Video below: An expert’s tips to avoid falling for QR code scamsGift card scamsBe cautious about buying gift cards from third-party sites. Scammers will pre-save card details or sell expired cards.Don’t respond to an unsolicited email or text message offering you a gift card because it’s often a way to track your online activity.Don’t fall for scammers asking you to pay for services or goods using gift cards.Video below: Guide to selling gift cards securely onlinePhony charitiesThe holidays are also a season of giving, but before you donate money, double-check the contact and payment information for a charity.Beware of text, email or phone call solicitations. Like any other unsolicited message, don’t click on links or open attachments because they may contain malware or try to steal your information.Travel scamsScammers try to mimic or impersonate popular travel websites by recreating familiar branding, logos or company verbiage.As part of your travel research, do scam checks by looking up unfamiliar retail, travel and services websites by searching online for their names along with terms like “scam,” “complaints” or “reviews.”Chase advises using a credit card to book travel so that if an issue arises, you can dispute it.What to do if you fall victim to a scamVideo below: Steps to take immediately after falling for a scamStop communication: Discontinue all contact with the scammer immediately to prevent further damage.Document everything: Take note of all relevant information, including the scammer’s contact details and any information that may be useful when reporting the incident.Contact your bank: Report the incident and verify recent transactions to ensure there is no fraudulent activity on your account.Report the incident: File a police report or an inquiry to the Federal Trade Commission for official documentation.Monitor for identity theft: Sign up for credit and identity monitoring to receive alerts when your personal information has been leaked in a data breach or shows up on the dark web.Change your passwords: Update your online accounts by creating strong passwords, particularly if the scam involved accessing your personal information.Share your experience: Let friends and family know what happened to raise awareness about the signs of scams and help others avoid falling victim. Remember that financial scams can, and do, happen to anyone, so don’t feel embarrassed.Remain on high alert for follow-up scams: Scammers might attempt to target you again, especially if they know you’ve fallen victim before. Be cautious of unsolicited communications.
Scammers particularly use the holiday season to steal your money and information.
Hoping consumers will let down their guard, or just trying to spoof legitimate businesses, scammers will do everything they can to take advantage of your vulnerability or generosity.
Chase and the Baltimore Police Department recently hosted a scam education event to show consumers how to protect themselves. Some of their tips are listed below.
Holiday shopping: What to know
Shop with trusted retailers: Stick to reputable websites when shopping online. If you’re unfamiliar with a store, search for its name along with terms like “scam,” “complaints” or “reviews” to uncover any red flags.
Verify website URLs: Scammers can create fake websites that look like legitimate retailers. Ensure the URL starts with “https://” as the “s” stands for secure. Avoid clicking links from unsolicited emails or texts.
Beware of unrealistic deals: Scammers lure buyers by offering massive discounts on popular or sold-out items. If a deal seems too good to be true, it’s likely a scam.
How you pay matters: Credit cards and debit cards offer different protections than cash or payment transfer apps, like Zelle and Venmo. Remember, only use apps like Zelle to pay others you know and trust.
Shopping on public Wi-Fi: Avoid connecting to public Wi-Fi when making an online purchase. Scammers can intercept your personal information on unsecured networks.
Use digital tools: Trusted financial institutions offer credit and identity monitoring, including alerts to inform you when your data is exposed in a data breach or on the dark web.
Online deals that are too good to be true
When shopping online or on social media, buy only from trusted websites and vendors. If purchasing on a marketplace, stay on the platform to complete transactions and communicate with sellers, as protections often only apply when you use the platform.
Use payment methods that offer buyer protection. Never send money to strangers, particularly via payment-transfer apps like Zelle or Venmo, for purchases, especially when you can’t confirm the goods exist.
Missed packages or problems with delivery
Expecting a package? Be cautious of phishing messages through email or text message that impersonate delivery services, like the U.S. Postal Service, UPS or FedEx, with links to view “missed deliveries.”
These links may lead to fake sign-in pages to capture your actual password or to malware-infected sites.
Do not respond to messages requesting personal or financial information, including money or cryptocurrency. Be wary of unexpected packages and avoid scanning QR codes, as they may be attempts to steal your information.
Refund scams: Another scam doesn’t demand payment. Instead, it dangles a refund, sometimes via text messages posing as official messages from “Department of Taxation,” urging recipients to “click here to claim your refund.” The texts look legitimate at a glance, but they are designed to lure you into tapping a fraudulent link and handing over personal information.
Cybersecurity experts are warning about scammers using QR codes to take advantage of unsuspecting victims. The practice called “quishing” uses a QR code that sends you to a dummy website to get your information — and money.
When it comes to phishing, the term is more widely known, but people are still falling for it. Phishing emails or texts (known as “smishing”) attempt to trick a recipient into clicking a suspicious link, filling out information or downloading a malware file.
Whaling attacks generally target leaders or other executives with access to large amounts of information at an organization or business. Whaling attacks can target people in payroll offices, human resources and financial offices as well as leadership.
Video below: An expert’s tips to avoid falling for QR code scams
Gift card scams
Be cautious about buying gift cards from third-party sites. Scammers will pre-save card details or sell expired cards.
Don’t respond to an unsolicited email or text message offering you a gift card because it’s often a way to track your online activity.
Don’t fall for scammers asking you to pay for services or goods using gift cards.
Video below: Guide to selling gift cards securely online
Phony charities
The holidays are also a season of giving, but before you donate money, double-check the contact and payment information for a charity.
Beware of text, email or phone call solicitations. Like any other unsolicited message, don’t click on links or open attachments because they may contain malware or try to steal your information.
Travel scams
Scammers try to mimic or impersonate popular travel websites by recreating familiar branding, logos or company verbiage.
As part of your travel research, do scam checks by looking up unfamiliar retail, travel and services websites by searching online for their names along with terms like “scam,” “complaints” or “reviews.”
Chase advises using a credit card to book travel so that if an issue arises, you can dispute it.
What to do if you fall victim to a scam
Video below: Steps to take immediately after falling for a scam
Stop communication: Discontinue all contact with the scammer immediately to prevent further damage.
Document everything: Take note of all relevant information, including the scammer’s contact details and any information that may be useful when reporting the incident.
Contact your bank: Report the incident and verify recent transactions to ensure there is no fraudulent activity on your account.
Report the incident: File a police report or an inquiry to the Federal Trade Commission for official documentation.
Monitor for identity theft: Sign up for credit and identity monitoring to receive alerts when your personal information has been leaked in a data breach or shows up on the dark web.
Change your passwords: Update your online accounts by creating strong passwords, particularly if the scam involved accessing your personal information.
Share your experience: Let friends and family know what happened to raise awareness about the signs of scams and help others avoid falling victim. Remember that financial scams can, and do, happen to anyone, so don’t feel embarrassed.
Remain on high alert for follow-up scams: Scammers might attempt to target you again, especially if they know you’ve fallen victim before. Be cautious of unsolicited communications.
By the time Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier.Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein’s relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.Video above: Lawmakers react to newly released Epstein emails, Trump connectionThey start with messages he sent and received around the time he finished serving his Florida sentence in 2009 and continue until the months before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.During that time, Epstein’s network was eclectic, spanning the globe and political affiliations: from the liberal academic Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon, the longtime ally of President Donald Trump.Some reached out to support Epstein amid lawsuits and prosecutions, others sought introductions or advice on everything from dating to oil prices. One consulted him on how to respond to accusations of sexual harassment.Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019, and killed himself in jail a month later. Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a cover-up. The emails do not implicate his contacts in those alleged crimes. They instead paint a picture of Epstein’s influence and connections over the years he was a registered sex offender.Epstein emailed current and former political figures on all sides, sending news clips and discussing strategy or gossip often in short, choppy emails laden with spelling and grammatical errors.In several emails in 2018, Epstein advised Bannon on his political tour of Europe that year after Bannon forwarded Epstein a news clip that the German media underestimated Bannon and that he was “As Dangerous as Ever.”Video below: Epstein emails fallout”luv it,” Epstein responded. Epstein wrote that he’d just spoken to “one of the country leaders that we discussed” and that “we should lay out a strategy plan. . how much fun.” Several months later, Epstein sent some advice: “If you are going to play here , you’ll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn’t work.””its doable but time consuming,” Epstein continued in a follow-up email, “there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one on ones.” Just a few months earlier, Epstein was insulting Trump — whose movement Bannon was a representative of — in emails to Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel under President Barack Obama. Ruemmler sent a message to Epstein calling Trump “so gross.” A portion of that message was redacted, but Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”In other emails with Ruemmler, Epstein detailed a whirlwind of well known people he appears to have been meeting, hosting or speaking with that week, including an ambassador, tech giant, foreign business people, academics and a film director.”you are a welcome guest at any,” he wrote.Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler now works, declined to comment.The financier emailed often with people in the upper echelons of wealth around the world, brokering introductions and chatting about politics and foreign affairs.That included Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who Epstein sent an email to in 2014 saying “that was fun, see you in 3 weeks.”Four years later, Epstein asked if Thiel was enjoying Los Angeles, and, after Thiel said he couldn’t complain, replied “Dec visit me Caribbean.” It’s unclear if Thiel ever responded. In emails with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman, Epstein complimented Bannon, saying in 2018 that “We have become friends you will like him.””Trump doesn’t like him,” responded Sulayem.A year earlier, Sulayem asked Epstein about an event where it appeared Trump would be in attendance, asking, “Do you think it will be possible to shake hand with trump.””Call to discuss,” Epstein wrote back. In January 2010, biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic was attending the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Epstein emailed to ask, “any fun?” Nikolic replied that he had met “your friend” Bill Clinton, as well as then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy and “your other friend,” Prince Andrew, “as he has some questions re microsoft.”But then Nikolic said he was getting sick of meetings. Later, he wrote Epstein that “it would be blast that you are here.” He mentioned flirting with a 22-year-old woman.”It turns out she is with her husand. Did not have chance to check him out. But as we concluded, anything good is rented ;)” Nikolic wrote.The theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laurence Krauss was among them. In 2017, Krauss reached out to Epstein via email for advice on responding to a reporter writing a story about allegations of sexual harassment against him.”Is this a reasonable response? Should i even respond? Could use advice,” Krauss asked Epstein.In an explicit exchange, Epstein asked Krauss if he’d had sex with the person in question and then suggested he should not reply to the journalist. “No. We didn’t have sex. Decided it wasn’t a good idea,” replied Krauss, who has previously denied all allegations of sexual harassment and assault.In an August 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Chomsky, the famed linguist and social scientist, to only fly to Greece if he feels well, joking he previously had to send a plane for another “lefty friend” to see a doctor in New York.In the same exchange, which dipped into academic arguments about warning signs on currency collapses, behavioral science models, and Big Data, Epstein offered his residences for Chomsky’s use.”you are of course welcome to use apt in new york with your new leisure time, or visit new Mexico again,” Epstein wrote. The emails also show that Epstein kept up a friendly relationship with Larry Summers, who was the treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, and bantered about the 2016 presidential race and Trump.Other emails showed a closer relationship. In 2019, Summers was discussing interactions he had with a woman, writing to Epstein that “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are.” Epstein replied, “you reacted well.. annoyed shows caring. , no whining showed strentgh.” Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life.” “As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” the statement said.Chomsky, Thiel, Bannon, Krauss and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to requests for comment, which were sent through email addresses available on their own or their organization’s websites.Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
By the time Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he had established an enormous network of wealthy and influential friends. Emails made public this week show the crime did little to diminish the desire of that network to stay connected to the billionaire financier.
Thousands of documents released by the House Oversight Committee on Wednesday offer a new glimpse into what Epstein’s relationships with business executives, reporters, academics and political players looked like over a decade.
Video above: Lawmakers react to newly released Epstein emails, Trump connection
They start with messages he sent and received around the time he finished serving his Florida sentence in 2009 and continue until the months before his arrest on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019.
During that time, Epstein’s network was eclectic, spanning the globe and political affiliations: from the liberal academic Noam Chomsky to Steve Bannon, the longtime ally of President Donald Trump.
Some reached out to support Epstein amid lawsuits and prosecutions, others sought introductions or advice on everything from dating to oil prices. One consulted him on how to respond to accusations of sexual harassment.
Epstein was charged with sex trafficking in 2019, and killed himself in jail a month later. Epstein’s crimes, high-profile connections and jailhouse suicide have made the case a magnet for conspiracy theorists and online sleuths seeking proof of a cover-up.
The emails do not implicate his contacts in those alleged crimes. They instead paint a picture of Epstein’s influence and connections over the years he was a registered sex offender.
Epstein emailed current and former political figures on all sides, sending news clips and discussing strategy or gossip often in short, choppy emails laden with spelling and grammatical errors.
In several emails in 2018, Epstein advised Bannon on his political tour of Europe that year after Bannon forwarded Epstein a news clip that the German media underestimated Bannon and that he was “As Dangerous as Ever.”
Video below: Epstein emails fallout
“luv it,” Epstein responded.
Epstein wrote that he’d just spoken to “one of the country leaders that we discussed” and that “we should lay out a strategy plan. . how much fun.”
Several months later, Epstein sent some advice: “If you are going to play here , you’ll have to spend time, europe by remote doesn’t work.”
“its doable but time consuming,” Epstein continued in a follow-up email, “there are many leaders of countries we can organize for you to have one on ones.”
Just a few months earlier, Epstein was insulting Trump — whose movement Bannon was a representative of — in emails to Kathryn Ruemmler, the former White House counsel under President Barack Obama.
Ruemmler sent a message to Epstein calling Trump “so gross.” A portion of that message was redacted, but Epstein replied, “worse in real life and upclose.”
In other emails with Ruemmler, Epstein detailed a whirlwind of well known people he appears to have been meeting, hosting or speaking with that week, including an ambassador, tech giant, foreign business people, academics and a film director.
“you are a welcome guest at any,” he wrote.
Jennifer Zuccarelli, a spokesperson for Goldman Sachs, where Ruemmler now works, declined to comment.
The financier emailed often with people in the upper echelons of wealth around the world, brokering introductions and chatting about politics and foreign affairs.
That included Silicon Valley investor Peter Thiel, who Epstein sent an email to in 2014 saying “that was fun, see you in 3 weeks.”
Four years later, Epstein asked if Thiel was enjoying Los Angeles, and, after Thiel said he couldn’t complain, replied “Dec visit me Caribbean.” It’s unclear if Thiel ever responded.
In emails with Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, an Emirati businessman, Epstein complimented Bannon, saying in 2018 that “We have become friends you will like him.”
“Trump doesn’t like him,” responded Sulayem.
A year earlier, Sulayem asked Epstein about an event where it appeared Trump would be in attendance, asking, “Do you think it will be possible to shake hand with trump.”
“Call to discuss,” Epstein wrote back.
In January 2010, biotech venture capitalist Boris Nikolic was attending the annual World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Epstein emailed to ask, “any fun?”
Nikolic replied that he had met “your friend” Bill Clinton, as well as then-French President Nicholas Sarkozy and “your other friend,” Prince Andrew, “as he has some questions re microsoft.”
But then Nikolic said he was getting sick of meetings. Later, he wrote Epstein that “it would be blast that you are here.” He mentioned flirting with a 22-year-old woman.
“It turns out she is with her husand. Did not have chance to check him out. But as we concluded, anything good is rented ;)” Nikolic wrote.
The theoretical physicist and cosmologist Laurence Krauss was among them. In 2017, Krauss reached out to Epstein via email for advice on responding to a reporter writing a story about allegations of sexual harassment against him.
“Is this a reasonable response? Should i even respond? Could use advice,” Krauss asked Epstein.
In an explicit exchange, Epstein asked Krauss if he’d had sex with the person in question and then suggested he should not reply to the journalist.
“No. We didn’t have sex. Decided it wasn’t a good idea,” replied Krauss, who has previously denied all allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
In an August 2015 email exchange, Epstein told Chomsky, the famed linguist and social scientist, to only fly to Greece if he feels well, joking he previously had to send a plane for another “lefty friend” to see a doctor in New York.
In the same exchange, which dipped into academic arguments about warning signs on currency collapses, behavioral science models, and Big Data, Epstein offered his residences for Chomsky’s use.
“you are of course welcome to use apt in new york with your new leisure time, or visit new Mexico again,” Epstein wrote.
The emails also show that Epstein kept up a friendly relationship with Larry Summers, who was the treasury secretary under President Bill Clinton and former Harvard University president, and bantered about the 2016 presidential race and Trump.
Other emails showed a closer relationship. In 2019, Summers was discussing interactions he had with a woman, writing to Epstein that “I said what are you up to. She said ‘I’m busy’. I said awfully coy u are.”
Summers issued a statement saying he has “great regrets in my life.”
“As I have said before, my association with Jeffrey Epstein was a major error of judgement,” the statement said.
Chomsky, Thiel, Bannon, Krauss and Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem did not immediately respond to requests for comment, which were sent through email addresses available on their own or their organization’s websites.
Associated Press reporters John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, and Claudia Lauer in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
The Trump administration spent Friday fighting to avoid restoring $4 billion in food assistance in jeopardy due to the government shutdown, suggesting it might need to “raid school-lunch money” in order to comply with court orders.
The claim was part of a break-neck appeal in the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday, where the government hoped to duck a court order that would force it to pay out for food stamps — formally called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — through November.
“There is no lawful basis for an order that directs USDA to somehow find $4 billion in the metaphorical couch cushions,” Assistant Atty. Gen. Brett A. Shumate wrote in the appeal.
The administration’s only option would be to “to starve Peter to feed Paul” by cutting school lunch programs, Shumate wrote.
On Friday afternoon, the appellate court declined to immediately block the lower court’s order, and said it would quickly rule on the merits of the funding decree.
SNAP benefits are a key fight in the ongoing government shutdown. California is one of several states suing the administration to restore the safety net program while negotiations continue to end the stalemate.
Millions of Americans have struggled to afford groceries since benefits lapsed Nov. 1, inspiring many Republican lawmakers to join Democrats in demanding an emergency stopgap.
The Trump administration was previously ordered to release contingency funding for the program that it said would cover benefits for about half of November.
But the process has been “confusing and chaotic” and “rife with errors,” according to a brief filed by 25 states and the District of Columbia.
Some states, including California, have started disbursing SNAP benefits for the month. Others say the partial funding is a functional lockout.
“Many states’ existing systems require complete reprogramming to accomplish this task, and given the sudden — and suddenly changing — nature of USDA’s guidance, that task is impossible to complete quickly,” the brief said.
“Recalculations required by [the government’s] plan will delay November benefits for [state] residents for weeks or months.”
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. of Rhode Island ordered the full food stamp payout by the end of the week. He accused the administration of withholding the benefit for political gain.
“Faced with a choice between advancing relief and entrenching delay, [the administration] chose the latter — an outcome that predictably magnifies harm and undermines the very purpose of the program it administers,” he wrote.
“This Court is not naïve to the administration’s true motivations,” McConnell wrote. “Far from being concerned with Child Nutrition funding, these statements make clear that the administration is withholding full SNAP benefits for political purposes.”
The appeal could extend that deadline by as little as a few hours, or nullify it entirely.
But the latter may be unlikely, especially following the appellate court’s decision late Friday. The 1st Circuit is currently the country’s most liberal, with five active judges, all of whom were named to the bench by Democratic presidents.
While the court deliberates, both sides are left sparring over how many children will go hungry if the other prevails.
More than 16 million children rely on SNAP benefits. Close to 30 million are fed through the National School Lunch Program, which the government now says it must gut to meet the court’s order.
But the same pool of cash has already been tapped to extend Women, Infants and Children, which is a federal program that pays for baby formula and other basics for some poor families.
“This clearly undermines the Defendants’ point, as WIC is an entirely separate program from the Child Nutrition Programs,” McConnell wrote.
In its Friday order, the 1st Circuit panel said it would issue a full ruling “as quickly as possible.”
Prop. 50 supporters tried to make the ballot measure a referendum on President Trump — and it clearly worked.
California has been a blue state for decades, but Trump’s second term has been particularly trying for critics.
Huntington Beach resident Miko Vaughn, 48, supported Proposition 50 and saw the battle as a proxy war between President Trump and Newsom. It’s just “against Trump,” she said. “I feel like there’s not much we can do individually, so it does feel good to do something.”
Indeed, a CNN exit poll of California voters found that about half said their vote on Prop. 50 was a way of opposing Trump.
“Trump is such a polarizing figure,” said Rick Hasen, a professor of law and political science at UCLA. “He commands great loyalty from one group of people and great animosity from others.”
2. End of an era
Proposition 50, a ballot measure about redrawing the state’s congressional districts, was crafted by Democrats in response to Trump urging Texas and other GOP-majority states to modify their congressional maps to favor Republicans, a move that was designed to maintain Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives.
California has been somewhat of an outlier. Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger created—and voters approved in 2010—an independent redistricting commission aimed at keeping politics out of the process of drawing congressional districts.
The panel of 14 citizens works to create districts for state lawmakers and for members of Congress that are contiguous and roughly equal in population. The districts must also follow the federal Voting Rights Act and group together “communities of interest,” a wide-reaching term of art for people who share languages, cultures, backgrounds, interests, ways of life or other traits.
Matt Lesenyie, an assistant professor of political science at Cal State Long Beach, said the vote over Proposition 50 marks the end of an era for this process—and perhaps for the hope for fair politics.
Many political scientists have long opposed political gerrymandering, applauding states like California for moving to an independent model where politicians aren’t determining boundaries. But not enough states joined California in that effort, Lesenyie said.
“California probably should have done this—against my better judgment—a long time ago in acknowledging that our politics have become so extremely polarized and that we can’t in California hold that dam break back by ourselves,” he said.
3. Big win for Newsom
Newsom has emerged as a foil to Trump this year, challenging him on a variety of issues from environment to immigration and mocking him on X.
Prop. 50 was a risk for Newsom, but it immediately became a rallying cry for Democrats looking for a way to fight back. Now, he can take his victory lap.
“After poking the bear, this bear roared,” Newsom said Tuesday night.
Newsom said he was proud of California for standing up to Trump and called on other states with Democrat-controlled legislatures to pass their own redistricting plans.
“I hope it’s dawning on people, the sobriety of this moment,” he said.
Newsom recently announced he is considering a run for president in 2028.
4. More polarization
The biggest loser from Tuesday night? California Republicans.
California has 43 Democrats and nine Republicans in the House. Proposition 50 would shift five more House districts into competitive or easily winnable territory for Democrats.
The new map would eliminate the Inland Empire district of Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona), the longest-serving member of California’s Republican delegation, and create a new seat in Los Angeles County that would skew heavily toward Democrats.
The map would also dilute the number of GOP voters in the districts represented by Reps. Doug LaMalfa in Northern California, Kevin Kiley in Greater Sacramento, David Valadao in the San Joaquin Valley and Darrell Issa near San Diego.
The maps would apply to the 2026, 2028 and 2030 elections. After the 2030 U.S. Census, California would return to having its lines drawn by the independent redistricting panel.
Prop. 50 opponents cried foul, saying they were disenfranchised. Trump has mused about cutting some funding to California. And a lot of GOP voters are angry.
California Republicans on Wednesday filed a lawsuit arguing the redistricting maps are unconstitutional because they use voters race as a factor in drawing districts.
Race engine builder and Republican Robert Jung, 69, said “the changes are politically motivated.”
“It doesn’t seem right to do this just to gain five seats. I know they did it in Texas, but we don’t have to do it just because they did it,” the Torrance resident said.
Disabled Army veteran Micah Corpe, 50, added Prop. 50 is the result of Newsom believing he can “do whatever he wants because he doesn’t like Trump.”
Times staff writers Seema Mehta and Laura J. Nelson contributed to this report.
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Hannah Fry, Alex Wigglesworth, Connor Sheets, Jessica Garrison
Gov. Jeff Landry is being applauded by some for taking a stand against bloated contracts in college sports and derided by others for political grandstanding that could make it harder for Louisiana State University to land a new football coach.This much is clear: The governor has been a vocal force in a sports shakeup that has consumed LSU recently.Video above: LSU interim coach Frank Wilson focused on ‘this moment’ in the wake of Brian Kelly’s firingThe university lost its football coach and athletic director last week amid criticism from Landry, a smooth-talking Cajun populist and staunch ally of President Donald Trump.The episode is just the latest example of Landry being hands on with LSU since taking office last year. He once revived the team’s tradition of bringing a live tiger onto the football field, publicly called for the school to discipline professors who criticized Trump in class and complained about LSU women’s basketball players not being on court to stand for the national anthem, though the team did not change its pre-game routine.Here’s what to know:What did Landry say?LSU football coach Brian Kelly was fired in the fourth season of a 10-year, $100 million deal, the day after a 49-25 loss to Texas A&M on Oct. 25.The day of Kelly’s firing, Landry said he hosted a meeting in the governor’s mansion on the evening of Oct. 26 “to discuss the legalities of the contract.” Landry has said he is concerned his state will be on the hook to pay for Kelly’s buyout, which is about $54 million.John Carmouche, chair of the LSU’s Board of Supervisors’ Athletic Committee, told the AP that the meeting at the governor’s mansion occurred after Kelly had already been fired by athletic director Scott Woodward.While the governor’s concerns are valid, negotiations with Kelly are ongoing and private donors and nonprofits have typically picked up the bill for sports-related buyouts at the university, Carmouche added.Days after Kelly’s firing, Landry told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that LSU’s athletic director would not be selecting the next football coach.“Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it,” said Landry. He also criticized Woodward’s prior tenure at Texas A&M, where he served as the school’s athletic director.The next day, LSU cut ties with Woodward.In a Thursday statement, Woodward said that “others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not.”Board chairman Scott Ballard framed Woodward’s departure as the result of “a mutual agreement after conversations” between Woodward and the LSU board. Nine of 18 Board of Supervisors members have been appointed by Landry since taking office in January 2024 and the governor will be able to appoint four more in 2026.Carmouche, who, like Ballard, was appointed to the LSU board by Landry, denied that the governor’s remarks had any influence on Woodward’s departure.“We’re all independent people,” Carmouche said.What’s next for LSU footballIn a Friday press conference, LSU interim athletic director Verge Ausberry, flanked by Ballard and Carmouche, sought to reassure the public that the school’s athletic department “is not broken.”A search committee comprised of Ausberry, Carmouche, Ballard and several others is on the hunt for a new coach. The university board is scheduled to vote on a new president Tuesday, having been without one since June.Landry has denied that he will be picking the next coach, but said he wants the new contract to be structured differently than Kelly’s.“We’re going to put metrics on it, because I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country and then leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill,” Landry told reporters.What others are saying“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” political pundit James Carville, a Democrat, told the AP. Carville has said he plans to burn his LSU diploma and football gear and is mulling a defamation lawsuit against Landry on Woodward’s behalf.Carville hosted a welcome party for Woodward, a former political consultant and lobbyist, when he was hired by LSU in 2019. Under Woodward, LSU won six national championships in various sports, including football.Former Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Richard Lipsey, who founded the influential Tiger Athletic Foundation and recommended Woodward’s hiring, said that Landry’s comments about Woodward revealed that he “wanted more control over LSU” and “wants to run the athletics department.”Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment.Ed Orgeron, the former LSU football coach who led the team to a national title in 2019, said that it’s not unusual for a Louisiana governor to take an active interest in the university’s football program. Landry’s predecessor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, hosted dinners for the university’s freshmen recruiting class and showed up at practice to throw passes with LSU receivers.Current Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Misti Cordell, a Landry appointee, said that the governor’s comments sparked constructive public discussion about the need for greater guardrails to protect public universities amid ballooning costs in college sports: “He said what a lot of people were thinking.”Rep. Dixon Wallace McMakin, an LSU graduate who serves as the football team’s announcer, said that Louisiana governors have regularly sought to influence the Tigers dating back a century to the days of firebrand populist Huey Long and are sensitive to poor performance on the gridiron.“It affects everybody and a governor feels it from all of his voters around the state,” said McMakin, a Republican. “Our standard is excellence, and anything less than excellence we will not stand for in the state of Louisiana.”Wilbert Pryor, who has served on the Louisiana Board of Regents for nearly a decade, said Landry’s perceived influence over the LSU athletics program would complicate the hiring process for a new coach reluctant to have the governor looking over his shoulder.“I don’t remember any governor in my lifetime making decisions on college football,” Pryor said. “You’d think he would have other things to garner his attention.”
BATON ROUGE, La. —
Gov. Jeff Landry is being applauded by some for taking a stand against bloated contracts in college sports and derided by others for political grandstanding that could make it harder for Louisiana State University to land a new football coach.
This much is clear: The governor has been a vocal force in a sports shakeup that has consumed LSU recently.
Video above: LSU interim coach Frank Wilson focused on ‘this moment’ in the wake of Brian Kelly’s firing
The university lost its football coach and athletic director last week amid criticism from Landry, a smooth-talking Cajun populist and staunch ally of President Donald Trump.
The episode is just the latest example of Landry being hands on with LSU since taking office last year. He once revived the team’s tradition of bringing a live tiger onto the football field, publicly called for the school to discipline professors who criticized Trump in class and complained about LSU women’s basketball players not being on court to stand for the national anthem, though the team did not change its pre-game routine.
Here’s what to know:
What did Landry say?
LSU football coach Brian Kelly was fired in the fourth season of a 10-year, $100 million deal, the day after a 49-25 loss to Texas A&M on Oct. 25.
The day of Kelly’s firing, Landry said he hosted a meeting in the governor’s mansion on the evening of Oct. 26 “to discuss the legalities of the contract.” Landry has said he is concerned his state will be on the hook to pay for Kelly’s buyout, which is about $54 million.
John Carmouche, chair of the LSU’s Board of Supervisors’ Athletic Committee, told the AP that the meeting at the governor’s mansion occurred after Kelly had already been fired by athletic director Scott Woodward.
While the governor’s concerns are valid, negotiations with Kelly are ongoing and private donors and nonprofits have typically picked up the bill for sports-related buyouts at the university, Carmouche added.
Days after Kelly’s firing, Landry told reporters at a Wednesday press conference that LSU’s athletic director would not be selecting the next football coach.
Gerald Herbert
LSU running back Harlem Berry (22) celebrates his touchdown against Texas A&M in the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Oct. 25, 2025 in Baton Rouge, La.
“Hell, I’ll let Donald Trump select it before I let him do it,” said Landry. He also criticized Woodward’s prior tenure at Texas A&M, where he served as the school’s athletic director.
The next day, LSU cut ties with Woodward.
In a Thursday statement, Woodward said that “others can recap or opine on my tenure and on my decisions over the last six years as Director of Athletics, but I will not.”
Board chairman Scott Ballard framed Woodward’s departure as the result of “a mutual agreement after conversations” between Woodward and the LSU board. Nine of 18 Board of Supervisors members have been appointed by Landry since taking office in January 2024 and the governor will be able to appoint four more in 2026.
Carmouche, who, like Ballard, was appointed to the LSU board by Landry, denied that the governor’s remarks had any influence on Woodward’s departure.
“We’re all independent people,” Carmouche said.
What’s next for LSU football
In a Friday press conference, LSU interim athletic director Verge Ausberry, flanked by Ballard and Carmouche, sought to reassure the public that the school’s athletic department “is not broken.”
A search committee comprised of Ausberry, Carmouche, Ballard and several others is on the hunt for a new coach. The university board is scheduled to vote on a new president Tuesday, having been without one since June.
Landry has denied that he will be picking the next coach, but said he wants the new contract to be structured differently than Kelly’s.
“We’re going to put metrics on it, because I’m tired of rewarding failure in this country and then leaving the taxpayers to foot the bill,” Landry told reporters.
What others are saying
“The Louisiana governor and the LSU board has damaged the reputation of our university,” political pundit James Carville, a Democrat, told the AP. Carville has said he plans to burn his LSU diploma and football gear and is mulling a defamation lawsuit against Landry on Woodward’s behalf.
Carville hosted a welcome party for Woodward, a former political consultant and lobbyist, when he was hired by LSU in 2019. Under Woodward, LSU won six national championships in various sports, including football.
Former Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Richard Lipsey, who founded the influential Tiger Athletic Foundation and recommended Woodward’s hiring, said that Landry’s comments about Woodward revealed that he “wanted more control over LSU” and “wants to run the athletics department.”
Landry’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Ed Orgeron, the former LSU football coach who led the team to a national title in 2019, said that it’s not unusual for a Louisiana governor to take an active interest in the university’s football program. Landry’s predecessor John Bel Edwards, a Democrat, hosted dinners for the university’s freshmen recruiting class and showed up at practice to throw passes with LSU receivers.
Current Louisiana Board of Regents Chair Misti Cordell, a Landry appointee, said that the governor’s comments sparked constructive public discussion about the need for greater guardrails to protect public universities amid ballooning costs in college sports: “He said what a lot of people were thinking.”
Rep. Dixon Wallace McMakin, an LSU graduate who serves as the football team’s announcer, said that Louisiana governors have regularly sought to influence the Tigers dating back a century to the days of firebrand populist Huey Long and are sensitive to poor performance on the gridiron.
“It affects everybody and a governor feels it from all of his voters around the state,” said McMakin, a Republican. “Our standard is excellence, and anything less than excellence we will not stand for in the state of Louisiana.”
Wilbert Pryor, who has served on the Louisiana Board of Regents for nearly a decade, said Landry’s perceived influence over the LSU athletics program would complicate the hiring process for a new coach reluctant to have the governor looking over his shoulder.
“I don’t remember any governor in my lifetime making decisions on college football,” Pryor said. “You’d think he would have other things to garner his attention.”
My first reaction, when I heard about the proposed $2.3-million fence around MacArthur Park, was skepticism.
Yeah, the park and the immediate neighborhood have long dealt with a nasty web of urban nightmares, including homelessness, crime and a rather astonishing open-air drug scene, all of which I spent a few months looking into not long ago.
But what would a fence accomplish?
Well, after looking into it, maybe it’s not the worst idea.
Skepticism, I should note, is generally a fallback position for me. It’s something of an occupational duty, and how can you not be cynical about promises and plans in Los Angeles, where each time you open the newspaper, you have to scratch your head?
I’m still having trouble understanding how county supervisors approved another $828 million in child sexual abuse payments, on top of an earlier settlement this year of $4 billion, even after Times reporter Rebecca Ellis found nine cases in which people said they were told to fabricate abuse allegations.
The same supes, while wrestling with a budget crisis, agreed to pay $2 million to appease the county’s chief executive officer because she felt wronged by a ballot measure proposing that the job be an elected rather than appointed post. Scratching your head doesn’t help in this case; you’re tempted instead to bang it into a wall.
Drone view of MacArthur Park looking toward downtown Los Angeles.
(Ted Soqui/For The Times)
Or maybe a $2.3-million fence.
The city of L.A. is primarily responsible for taking on the problems of MacArthur Park, although the county has a role too in the areas of housing, public health and addiction services. I made two visits to the area in the last week, and while there are signs of progress and slightly less of a sense of chaos — the children’s playground hit last year by an arsonist has been fully rebuilt — there’s a long way to go.
In a story about the fence by my colleague Nathan Solis, one service provider said it would further criminalize homelessness and another said the money “could be better used by funding … services to the people in the park, rather than just moving them out.”
The vast majority of people who spoke at the Oct. 16 meeting of the Recreation and Parks Commission, which voted unanimously to move forward with the fence, were adamantly opposed despite claims that enclosing the space would be a step toward upgrading and making the park more welcoming.
“Nothing is more unwelcoming than a fence around a public space,” one critic said.
“A fence can not solve homelessness,” another said.
The LAPD underwater dive unit investigates activity in MacArthur Park Lake.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
Others argued that locking up the park, which is surrounded by a predominantly immigrant community, recalls the ridiculous stunt that played out in June, when President Trump’s uniformed posse showed up in armored vehicles and on horseback in what looked like an all-out invasion of Westlake.
But another speaker, Raul Claros — who is running against Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez in the 1st District — said he’d spoken to residents and merchants who support the fence, as long as it’s part of a greater effort to address the community’s needs.
Claros said he has three questions: “What’s the plan? What’s the timeline? Who’s in charge?”
Hernandez, by the way, is not opposed to the fence. A staffer told me there’s a fence around nearby Lafayette Park. Other fenced parks in Los Angeles include Robert Burns Park, adjacent to Hancock Park, and the L.A. State Historic Park on the edge of Chinatown, which is locked at sunset.
As for the long-range plan, the Hernandez staffer said the councilwoman has secured and is investing millions of dollars in what she calls a care-first approach that aims to address drug addiction and homelessness in and around the park.
Eduardo Aguirre, who lives a couple of blocks from the park and serves on the West Pico Neighborhood Council, told me he’s OK with the fence but worried about the possible consequences. If the people who use the park at night or sleep there are forced out, he said, where will they go?
“To the streets? To the alleys? You know what’s going to happen. It’s a game,” Aguirre said.
Last fall I walked with Aguirre and his wife as they led their daughter to her elementary school. They often have to step around homeless people and past areas where dealing and drug use, along with violence, are anything but infrequent.
Families and others should be able to feel safe in the park and the neighborhood, said Norm Langer, owner of the iconic Langer’s deli on the edge of the park.
A visitor takes in the view at MacArthur Park.
(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)
“I completely understand why you’re skeptical,” Langer told me, but he said he’s seen improvements in the last year, particularly after fences were installed along Alvarado Street and vendors were shut down. Police say some of the vendors were involved in the drug trade and the resale of stolen merchandise.
“The point isn’t to limit access,” Langer said. “The fence is intended to improve safety and quality of life for the people who live, work, and spend time here. It gives park staff a fighting chance to maintain and restore the place, especially at night, when they can finally clean and repair without the constant chaos that made upkeep nearly impossible before.”
LAPD Capt. Ben Fernandes of the Rampart division told me police are “trying to make it not OK” to buy and use drugs along the Alvarado corridor. Drug users often gather in the northeast corner of the park, Fernandes said, and he thinks putting up a fence and keeping the park off limits at night will help “deflect” some of “the open-air usage.”
The park has a nice soccer field and a lovely bandstand, among other popular attractions, but many parents told me they’re reluctant to visit with their children because of safety concerns. If a fence helps bring back families, many of whom live in apartments and have no yards, that’s a good thing.
But as the city goes to work on design issues, questions about enforcement, opening and closing times and other details, it needs to keep in mind that all of that is the easy part.
It took an unforgivably long time for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass and other elected officials to acknowledge a social, economic and humanitarian crisis in a place that’s home to thousands of low-income working people.
When KC Neufeld announced on her Denver neighborhood’s Facebook page that her family would be handing out ramen and packs of macaroni and cheese in addition to candy this Halloween, she wasn’t expecting much of a response.The mother of twin 4-year-olds was just hoping to make a small difference in her working-class neighborhood as food aid funding for tens of millions of vulnerable Americans is expected to end Friday due to the government shutdown.Video above: Before the Candy, Think Safety: Halloween Tips Every Parent Should KnowWithin two days, nearly 3,000 people had reacted to Neufeld’s post, some thanking her and others announcing they would follow suit.”This post blew up way more than I ever anticipated and I’m severely unprepared,” said Neufeld, 33, explaining that she is heading back to the store to get more food despite her family hitting their grocery budget for the week.”I wish I could just buy out this whole aisle of Costco,” she added. “I can’t. But I’ll do what I can.”Neufeld is one of many people across the U.S. preparing to give out shelf-stable foods to trick-or-treaters this year to help fill the void left by looming cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about one in eight Americans buy groceries. A flurry of widely shared posts have popped up over the last several days as many people look for ways to help offset the surge in need. Some posts suggest foods to give out while others show recently acquired stocks of cheese sticks, mini cereals, canned soup or even diapers ready for trick-or-treaters. Video below: Homemade Halloween treats to be given to childrenPosts are often followed by a string of comments from people announcing similar plans, along with plenty of reminders not to forget the candy.Emily Archambault, 29, and her sister-in-law Taylor Martin, 29, in La Porte, Indiana, will be putting out pasta and sauce, peanut butter and jelly, cereal and other foods, along with diapers and wipes on Halloween. They’re also collecting donations from members of their church.Their plan is to set everything out on a table away from where they’re giving out candy, so families can take what they need without worrying about judgement.”It kind of takes a little bit of pressure off of the parents,” said Martin. “You’re out and about trick or treating and it’s there and your kids probably won’t even notice you’re taking it.”Archambault said she relied on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, after her son’s medical complications forced her to stop working temporarily. Losing that assistance would have meant turning to food pantries. And while she said there are great ones in her area, she expects them to be overrun.”We have to band together,” she said. “I am grateful to have received benefits, and I am even more grateful to be able to give back now.”Erika Dutka, who depends on SNAP to feed herself and her three children in Archbald, Pennsylvania, went to a “trunk or treat” Sunday with people giving out candy from the trunks of cars. She said she was relieved to get packs of ramen, oatmeal, juice, pretzels and fruit snacks in addition to sweet treats.The 36-year-old — who works two jobs and goes to school full-time — said the food means she’ll have plenty of school snacks for her children the rest of the week and can save her last $100 of SNAP funds.”It buys me more time,” she said. “Maybe things will change. Maybe it’ll get turned back on.” Neufeld, the Denver mom stockpiling shelf-stable items for trick-or-treaters, said she relied on a food bank at her college to get through school. She said most people would never have known she was really struggling. And now, with SNAP drying up, she wants people to remember not to assume anything about others.”You truly don’t know what other people are going through,” she said. “So even if they don’t ‘look like they need help,’ it’s still important to just give when you can because it can make a huge difference.”
When KC Neufeld announced on her Denver neighborhood’s Facebook page that her family would be handing out ramen and packs of macaroni and cheese in addition to candy this Halloween, she wasn’t expecting much of a response.
The mother of twin 4-year-olds was just hoping to make a small difference in her working-class neighborhood as food aid funding for tens of millions of vulnerable Americans is expected to end Friday due to the government shutdown.
Video above: Before the Candy, Think Safety: Halloween Tips Every Parent Should Know
Within two days, nearly 3,000 people had reacted to Neufeld’s post, some thanking her and others announcing they would follow suit.
“This post blew up way more than I ever anticipated and I’m severely unprepared,” said Neufeld, 33, explaining that she is heading back to the store to get more food despite her family hitting their grocery budget for the week.
“I wish I could just buy out this whole aisle of Costco,” she added. “I can’t. But I’ll do what I can.”
Neufeld is one of many people across the U.S. preparing to give out shelf-stable foods to trick-or-treaters this year to help fill the void left by looming cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, which helps about one in eight Americans buy groceries.
A flurry of widely shared posts have popped up over the last several days as many people look for ways to help offset the surge in need. Some posts suggest foods to give out while others show recently acquired stocks of cheese sticks, mini cereals, canned soup or even diapers ready for trick-or-treaters.
Video below: Homemade Halloween treats to be given to children
Posts are often followed by a string of comments from people announcing similar plans, along with plenty of reminders not to forget the candy.
Emily Archambault, 29, and her sister-in-law Taylor Martin, 29, in La Porte, Indiana, will be putting out pasta and sauce, peanut butter and jelly, cereal and other foods, along with diapers and wipes on Halloween. They’re also collecting donations from members of their church.
Their plan is to set everything out on a table away from where they’re giving out candy, so families can take what they need without worrying about judgement.
“It kind of takes a little bit of pressure off of the parents,” said Martin. “You’re out and about trick or treating and it’s there and your kids probably won’t even notice you’re taking it.”
Archambault said she relied on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, known as WIC, after her son’s medical complications forced her to stop working temporarily. Losing that assistance would have meant turning to food pantries. And while she said there are great ones in her area, she expects them to be overrun.
“We have to band together,” she said. “I am grateful to have received benefits, and I am even more grateful to be able to give back now.”
Erika Dutka, who depends on SNAP to feed herself and her three children in Archbald, Pennsylvania, went to a “trunk or treat” Sunday with people giving out candy from the trunks of cars. She said she was relieved to get packs of ramen, oatmeal, juice, pretzels and fruit snacks in addition to sweet treats.
The 36-year-old — who works two jobs and goes to school full-time — said the food means she’ll have plenty of school snacks for her children the rest of the week and can save her last $100 of SNAP funds.
“It buys me more time,” she said. “Maybe things will change. Maybe it’ll get turned back on.”
Neufeld, the Denver mom stockpiling shelf-stable items for trick-or-treaters, said she relied on a food bank at her college to get through school. She said most people would never have known she was really struggling. And now, with SNAP drying up, she wants people to remember not to assume anything about others.
“You truly don’t know what other people are going through,” she said. “So even if they don’t ‘look like they need help,’ it’s still important to just give when you can because it can make a huge difference.”
CHICAGO — Since the Trump administration announced its intention to accelerate and forcefully detain and deport thousands of immigrants here, the Chicago area is a split screen between everyday life and a city under siege.
As many people shop, go to work, walk their dogs and stroll with their friends through parks, others are being chased down, tear-gassed, detained and assaulted by federal agents carrying out immigration sweeps.
The situation is similar to what occurred in Los Angeles in summer, as ICE swept through Southern California, grabbing people off the street and raiding car washes and Home Depots in predominantly Latino areas, while leaving large swaths of the region untouched.
Take Sunday, the day of the Chicago Marathon.
Some 50,000 runners hailing from more than 100 countries and 50 states, gathered downtown to dash, jog and slog over 26.3 miles of Lake Michigan shoreline and city streets.
The sun was bright, the temperatures hovered in the upper-60s, and leaves of maple, oak, aspen and ginkgo trees colored the city with splashes of yellow, orange and red.
Demonstrators march outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.
(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)
It was one of those rare, glorious Midwestern fall days when everyone comes outside to soak in the sunlight, knowing the gloom and cold of winter is about to take hold.
At 12:30, Ludwig Marchel and Karen Vanherck of Belgium strolled west along East Monroe Street, through Millennium Park. They smiled and proudly wore medals around their necks commemorating their marathon achievement. They said they were not concerned about coming to Chicago, despite news stories depicting violent protests and raids, and the Trump administration’s description of the city as “war torn,” a “hellhole,” a “killing field” and “the most dangerous city in the world.”
“Honestly. I was mostly worried that the government shutdown was somehow going to affect my flight,” said Marchel. He said he hadn’t seen anything during his few days in town that would suggest the city was unsafe.
Another man, who declined to give his name, said he had come from Mexico City to complete the race. He said he wasn’t concerned, either.
“I have my passport, I have a visa, and I have money,” he said. “Why should I be concerned?”
Dozens of residents in the quiet, leafy neighborhood of Albany Park had gathered in the street to shout “traitor” and “Nazi” as federal immigration agents grabbed a man and attempted to detain others.
According to witness accounts, agents in at least three vehicles got out and started shoving people to the ground before throwing tear gas canisters into the street. Videos of the event show masked agents tackling a person in a red shirt, throwing a person in a skeleton costume to the ground, and violently hurling a bicycle out of the street as several plumes of smoke billow into the air. A woman can be heard screaming while neighbors yell at the agents.
Last week, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order requiring agents to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons such as tear gas, chemical sprays, plastic bullets and flash grenades.
Deirdre Anglin, community member from Chicago, takes part in a demonstration near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.
(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)
Since Trump’s “Operation Midway Blitz” was initiated more than six weeks ago, roughly 1,000 people have been arrested or detained.
At the ICE detention facility, in Broadview — a suburb 12 miles west of downtown — there have been daily protests. While most have been peaceful, some have devolved into physical clashes between federal agents or police and protesters.
In September, federal agents shot pepper balls and tear gas at protesters peacefully gathering outside the facility. On Saturday, local law enforcement forced protesters away from the site with riot sticks and threats of tear gas. Several protesters were knocked to the ground and forcefully handcuffed. By the end of the evening, 15 people had been arrested.
Early Sunday afternoon, roughly two dozen protesters returned to the site. They played music, danced, socialized and heckled ICE vehicles as they entered and exited the fenced-off facility.
In a largely Latino Chicago neighborhood called Little Village, things appeared peaceful Sunday afternoon.
Known affectionately by its residents as the “Midwestern capital of Mexico,” the district of 85,000 is predominantly Latino. Michael Rodriguez, a Chicago city councilman and the neighborhood’s alderman, said 85% of the population is of Mexican descent.
On Sunday afternoon, traditional Mexican music was being broadcast to the street via loudspeakers from the OK Corral VIP, a western wear store.
Demonstrators protest near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility in Broadview, Ill., on Oct. 10.
(Kayana Szymczak/For The Times)
Along East 26th Street, where shops and buildings are painted with brightly colored murals depicting Mexican folklore, history and wildlife — such as a golden eagle and jaguar — a family sat at a table eating lunch, while two young women, in their early 20s, laughed and chattered as they strolled west toward Kedzie Avenue.
Rodriguez said that despite appearances, “people are afraid.”
He said he spoke with a teacher who complained that several of her elementary-school aged students have stopped coming to class. Their parents are too afraid to walk them or drive them to school, hearing stories of other parents who have been arrested or detained by ICE agents at other campuses in the city — in front of their terrified children.
Rodriguez’s wife, whom he described as a dark-skinned Latina with degrees from DePaul and Northwestern universities, won’t leave the house without her passport.
At a barber shop called Peluqueria 5 Star Fades Estrellas on 26th, a coiffeur named Juan Garcia sat in a chair near the store entrance. He had a towel draped over the back of his neck. He said his English was limited, but he knew enough to tell a visitor that business was bad.
“People aren’t coming in,” he said. “They are afraid.”
Victor Sanchez, the owner of a taco truck parked on Kedzie Road, about a half-mile south of town, said his clientele — mostly construction workers and landscapers — have largely disappeared.
“Business is down 60%,” he said to a customer. “I don’t know if they have been taken, or if they are too afraid to come out. All I know is they aren’t coming here anymore.”
Rodriguez said that ICE agents have arrested people who live in his neighborhood, but those arrests took place outside the borders of his district.
“I think they know this is a well-organized and aware neighborhood,” he said. “I think they’ve cased it and decided to grab people on the outskirts.”
On a recent Sunday morning in Provo, Utah, a small congregation of about two dozen people gathered in a church hall for ward services. At the front of the room stood the bishop, who blessed the bread and water in Spanish before passing the trays around for the congregation. The melodic sounds of the piano reverberated across the room as members sang “Welcome Home” — a new hymn for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Ward services like this have brought a consistent comfort and sense of community for Izzy, who came to Provo to study at Brigham Young University a few years ago. But lately, the increased possibility of ICE raids across the country has made him nervous.
“I just couldn’t focus. Just instant anxiety and fear. I worried about my family, and how I was gonna get through this year or the next four or three,” Izzy said. The prospect of an ICE recruitment fair nearby also disturbed him.
When he was just a toddler, Izzy and his parents came from Venezuela to the United States in search of a better life. Then one Christmas, Mormon missionaries brought gifts to their home in West Valley. He and his family were sealed in Utah. He was accepted into the DACA program, Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, years ago.
For many Latino members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there is an ambivalent sense of the Church’s stance on immigrants. There is discontent about how explicit the Church has been in condemning ongoing ICE raids, compared to Catholic leaders for example, while others have focused on providing individual help to those in need.
The church has previously issued statements regarding immigration in 2011 and 2018 about the separation of families at the U.S.-Mexico border. But its most recent statement published in January listed three points in order. While it reads similarly to past statements on loving thy neighbor and concern about keeping families together, the first point this time notably focused on “obeying the law.”
When The Times reached out to ask about why the new statement was numbered and in this order, the Church declined to comment.
The Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah.
(Isaac Hale / For The Times)
Dr. David-James Gonzales, a ward leader and history professor at BYU who studies Latino civil rights and migration, notes that the political climate has shifted on immigration in 2025.
“This issue is one of the most polarizing issues nationally and it has split the Church,” he said, adding that it’s fair to question the way the statement is written. “If I’m analyzing it as a historian, it’s speaking to this moment that the Church needs to make clear to this administration that it’s not a sanctuary church.”
The Church does not release publicly any demographic data, but according to a 2009 Pew Research Center report, 86% of the Church’s membership is white. Latinos are some of the fastest growing members worldwide, thanks to missionary work in countries like Mexico, Brazil and Peru.
Yet despite the growth in Spanish-speaking wards and a more diverse Mormon community, many interviewed for this story still feel they face challenges of racism and belonging.
This January, Brigham Young University shut down its “Dreamers” resource hub for undocumented students, after facing backlash from state leaders who complained that their tithings — or 10% obligated donations to the Church — were being used for illegal immigrants. Nori Gomez, the founding member of the Dreamer resource center, said the program’s offices started receiving threatening phone calls. The university eventually removed the resource page.
“It was the highlight of my BYU experience,” she said. “But with how much universities are being attacked right now, I don’t agree with it, but I see why.”
Students like Izzy had found a sense of community among other DACA recipients through these online resources. Shutting the center down added another chilling effect for church members.
For former LDS leaders like Dr. Ignacio Garcia, a retired Latino studies professor and former bishop at a local Spanish-speaking ward, the Church’s silence has been disappointing.
“The Church’s struggle has a lot to do with some of its members, some of its very conservative white members,” Garcia said. “[These congregants] will love you as an individual member in your ward, but then go out and condemn all immigrants.”
In July, following hours of public comment from more than 100 community members opposing ICE’s presence in Utah, the Utah County Commission voted unanimously to enter a cooperative agreement with ICE to share data and work on a joint task force with local police. The county sheriff argued that a collaboration would allow more leeway for local officials to inject “Utah County values” into enforcement and public safety rather than allowing complete federal oversight.
Evelyn R. has worked as a trainer in Provo for young Mormons who are about to embark on their 18 to 24-month missions domestically and abroad. As a DACA recipient herself who previously served a Spanish-speaking mission in Georgia, she has overheard mixed feelings from attendees at the center about how undocumented people can even be baptized.
“[One girl said] you’re not really going to get anywhere with these people because they can’t get baptized. Because in order to be a member of the Church, you need to be abiding by the laws of the land, which is Article 12 of the faith,” Evelyn said.
Article 12 refers to a revelation written by Joseph Smith, stating, “we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” The article has guided members to be good citizens in their communities.
Evelyn said she had to ask her mission president if this was true. He reassured her that being undocumented did not gatekeep someone from belonging. It’s a stance that the First Presidency, the Church’s highest officials, also affirmed, saying that being undocumented should not itself prevent “an otherwise worthy Church member” from entering the temple or being ordained to priesthood, and calling upon congregation members to avoid being judgmental. As a convert to the Church and someone who comes from a diverse background, she said mixed responses like this were really hard to hear.
“God doesn’t care about our status or who we are, where we came from in order to be a member of the Church,” she said. Some days, she feels that she can identify as a member of the Church, but not necessarily as part of larger “Mormon culture” — one that might be predominantly white and more conservative on politics in Utah.
“We’re teaching principles and the doctrine of Christ,” she said. “I don’t think we’re necessarily learning how to apply those things.”
People pass portraits of previous members of the First Presidency before the 195th Semiannual General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Oct. 4.
(Isaac Hale / Associated Press)
Luna Alvarez-Sproul, 25, works as a school teacher in Draper, Utah, where she often translates documents into Spanish for parents. She spent 18 months serving a Spanish-speaking mission in Salmon, Idaho, where many ranch hands were seasonal employees from Latin America.
“As a missionary, we didn’t have to receive special permission from somebody in order to baptize an undocumented individual,” she recalled. “But there [are] so many members of our church that don’t believe that they should be here with their families, which I feel is contradictory in and of itself.”
When guidance can vary so much, some church leaders have taken a more locally-focused ward approach — such as delivering food aid to members, helping out with rent or even sharing personal contacts with immigration lawyers. But addressing topics like the ICE raids during a service is likely taboo.
“Leaders are trained and asked to be very careful about how they address it. And I think that puts them in a really hard situation, especially when they have members of their congregation that are affected by this,” Izzy said.
The frustration may also have to do with reconciling religious principles with the views that are held by many people in the Church.
Other members disagree about an institution-wide response. Julia, who asked to use a pseudonym due to her undocumented status, has seen firsthand the ways that individual actions have been kind to her.
“I don’t think the Mormon Church should be responsible for us. The gospel teaches us to be independent,” she said.
Utah also has infrastructure for many undocumented people to succeed in their daily life, she noted; it was the first state in 2005 to implement the “driver’s privilege card,” a driver’s license specifically for those who were undocumented, allowing them to commute to work and obtain insurance.
People wear “We Are Charlie” shirts at a vigil for political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 12 in Provo, Utah.
(Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images)
Just a few miles away in Orem, conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University during a debate less than a week before I conducted these interviews. Hundreds of students and local community members attended vigils, laying bouquets of fresh flowers and American flags alongside crosses and the Book of Mormon on university lawns. “If you want unity, say his name UV,” one poster said. Others were adorned with Bible verses as the air echoed with different Mormon hymns.
The LDS Church released a statement condemning the violence and lawless behavior.
Isa Benjamin Garcia spent some time reflecting on the week’s tragic events after the Sunday ward service. As a daughter of a Mexican immigrant, she became more worried when President Trump rescinded a Biden-era policy that excluded churches and schools from immigration raids.
“There’s a lot of rhetoric around violence, but it’s not acknowledged all the other violence that has been and is,” she said, referring to ICE raids, including an incident where a day laborer died after running away from ICE in California.
Other members echoed this sentiment. “Something I’ve been wrestling with over the last few months is why the Church doesn’t say, ‘This is wrong.’ Like this isn’t what Christ would have us do,” said Benjamin Garcia.
People visit a memorial honoring Charlie Kirk at Timpanogos Regional Hospital in Orem, Utah, on Sept. 11.
(Laura Seitz / Associated Press)
In August, BYU’s Office of Belonging launched an immigration-focused eight-week course to help people gain a “basic understanding of complex immigration policies.” The goal is to equip more nonprofit workers to become partially accredited to represent clients in front of United States Citizenship and Immigration Services.
Gonzales, the ward leader and professor at BYU, believes this step speaks volumes about the Church’s efforts, despite challenges earlier this year with the takedown of its Dreamer center.
“My heart was warmed seeing that,” he said. “BYU is a part of the Church and is a university that stands to help promote the Church’s ecclesiastical mission. I think that’s a form of messaging through one of its institutions.”
Ultimately, when facing these hurdles and different interpretations of what the Book of Mormon or the Church says, members focus on their relationship to the gospel.
“We also believe that we are the Church, and we believe that it is our responsibility to make it better. And that is what God is asking of us, and that’s what Christ is asking of us,” Benjamin Garcia said. She then paused.
“Despite feelings of frustration or questions, what keeps a lot of us here, despite any of that, is that we have a conviction.”
A 13-foot-tall Jack Skellington Halloween decoration was stolen from the front yard of a Corona home, and its owner — a huge fan of the “Nightmare Before Christmas” character — is hoping for its return.
Security camera footage from a neighbor shows, on Sunday at 5 a.m., a person dressed in a gray hoodie and pants walking briskly down an alley while carrying the elongated 48-pound Halloween decoration horizontally, its bony fingers stretching toward the sky.
The video footage, reviewed by The Times, shows the man head toward a black four-door vehicle and place the decoration on top of it.
Avelina Rodriguez has lived in her Corona home on Grand Avenue for the last five years.
For three of those years, she told The Times, she’s been putting up the Jack Skellington animatronic for Halloween and keeps it up during the Christmas season adorned with a Santa outfit that her mother-in-law custom-made for it.
“I’m a huge Jack Skellington fan, and I collect a lot of [filmmaker] Tim Burton merch,” Rodriguez said. “This was my biggest purchase by far.”
In her years living in the Corona area, she said she’d never heard of this kind of theft and was devastated someone took her decoration.
“It’s sad when people steal from others and they don’t know who they are stealing from, hard-working people with back stories,” said Michelle Saiza-Paz, Rodriquez’s friend who has been helping spread the word about the incident.
The Corona Police Department is aware of the incident, said Robert Montanez, public information officer for the department.
A report of the theft was taken by a community service officer; however, the investigation is currently closed, he said.
“The community service officer that handled [the case] did tell the victim that if anything else popped up or if they obtained another video, we’d be happy to look at it,” Monanez said.
Montanez said he couldn’t speak to whether this type of theft was a common occurrence within the city.
He encouraged residents to report thefts or other types of crimes to the Police Department to assist in identifying trends or possibly repeat offenders.
Rodriguez said she hoped Jack would be returned to her or found.
BEERI, Israel — Little has changed in the house of Miri Gad Messika’s parents from two years ago, when Hamas-led militants blitzed into this tiny community less than three miles from Gaza’s eastern edge, killing more than 100 people and kidnapping 32 others.
The scorch marks from the fighting that day still mar the walls, and the underbrush of bullet-shattered tiles crackles with Messika’s every step. To the side lay a stuffed panda doll, dusty and discarded on what remained of a kitchen counter.
“We always used to say this place is 99% heaven and 1% hell,” Messika said, her eyes sweeping across the room before looking out into the ravaged courtyard.
Miri Gad Messika, a Beeri resident who was in the kibbutz on the day of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, is shown at her parents’ destroyed home on the second anniversary of the attack.
(Yahel Gazit / For The Times)
The heaven part was the place she knew all her life as a third-generation resident of Beeri, with its printing press and basketball team. Hell? That was the periodic rocket attacks during the decades of flare-ups between the militant group Hamas and Israel that would send residents racing into their safe rooms.
“But we knew how to manage that,” she said. “We just went into the safe room and closed the door. That’s it.”
But 10 minutes into the onslaught that fateful Saturday morning on Oct. 7, 2023, Messika understood it was “a historic event.”
Visitors point to photos of their loved ones who were killed at the Nova music festival on Oct. 7, 2023.
(Yahel Gazit / For The Times)
“We weren’t prepared for such a thing,” she said.
On Tuesday, the second anniversary of the attack, Messika and others across Israel recalled the day that sparked the country’s longest war, shattered Israelis’ long-held sense of security and entrenched anew the hatreds and divisions long a part of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The scars endure like the lingering smell of soot in her parents’ home.
Four Beeri residents remain in Hamas’ hands, but none are alive, Messika said, adding to a tally of 102 people who were killed — almost 10% of the kibbutz’s population. And while a few hundred residents have returned to live here, most remain in alternative housing, awaiting a reconstruction project to repair the 134 houses destroyed in the attack, including Messika’s.
Messika is building a new house and is adamant that she, her husband and their three children will continue to live here among the community of those who survived. But there are days — like Tuesday — when she wakes up with a migraine that makes her “want to never wake up.”
“How do you digest the loss of 102 people?” she said.
The Hamas operation began around 6:29 a.m. and involved a rocket and drone barrage, paraglider commandos and teams of fighters fanning out on pickups and motorcycles from Gaza across southern Israel. By the time it ended, about 1,200 people were killed, two-thirds of them civilians, Israeli authorities say, and roughly 250 people were kidnapped.
There is hope here and across the region that there may soon be a denouement to the war. Last week, President Trump presented a 20-point peace plan that has since been accepted — for the most part — by Hamas and Israel. Final negotiations are underway this week in Egypt, with the expectation that all hostages — the 20 who are alive, and the 28 thought to have died — will be handed over in the coming days.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in a statement Tuesday, pledged U.S. support for Israel and said the peace proposal “offers a historic opportunity to close this dark chapter and to build a foundation for a lasting peace and security for all.”
But even if that were to happen, said Shosh Sasson, 72, there was a sense of something having been irretrievably shattered.
“I never thought an attack like this would happen here. We always felt safe. But now the ground under our feet feels wobbly. Yes, even now, because the problem is not finished,” said Sasson, who came with her husband to pay their respects at a shelter-turned-shrine on the highway outside Beeri.
Her husband, Yaakov, agreed. “For the future it will always be like this. Our neighbors don’t want to live with us in a friendly way,” he said.
Nearby in Reim, the site of the Nova music festival, where about 300 concertgoers were killed, visitors walked around a memorial site, featuring posters bearing images of the victims and a description of their last moments.
I never thought an attack like this would happen here. We always felt safe. But now the ground under our feet feels wobbly
— Shosh Sasson, Israeli citizen
A few yards away, a tour group from Eagles’ Wings, an organization that brings Christians to visit Israel and support it, were listening reverently to 26-year-old Chen Malca as she described her experience surviving the Nova attack. When she finished, a priest led a prayer, putting his hand on Malca’s head as the others raised their hands to the sky.
“We pray the destruction of Hamas and the destruction of evil, just a couple of yards away from us over in Gaza, Father,” he said.
As he spoke, an explosion boomed in the distance, then another. One of the Eagles’ Wings organizers reassured the group that it was “the Israeli action activity in Gaza. It’s nothing to be worried about.”
Standing apart from the mass of people was 55-year-old Kati Zohar, who kept vigil before a memorial for her daughter, Bar, 23, who was killed as she was trying to warn police that Hamas fighters were nearby, Zohar said.
She and her husband moved four months ago to the city of Sderot — a 20-minute drive away — so as to be near their daughter’s memorial.
“Every time I feel that I’m missing her, I come here and sit with her, drink a cup of coffee, smoke a cigarette, talk to her … because this is the last place she was alive and happy,” she said.
Though once a happy person, “I’m not happy any more, and I don’t think I will be again,” she said. “A part of me is missing.”
Her sadness, Zohar said, was matched by her disappointment that the Israeli army did not do more to stop the attacks and save her daughter, and by her anger that the war was still going on with the hostages still not returned even as the world is turning against Israel.
Israel’s campaign since the attack has so far killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, the majority of them civilians, left nearly 170,000 wounded and all but obliterated the enclave, even as almost all of Gaza’s residents are now displaced. The United Nations, rights groups, experts and many Western governments accuse Israel of committing genocide.
Israel denies the charge, even as it faces unprecedented levels of opprobrium.
“Everyone is saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, so what Gaza did in Israel on the 7th of October, it’s not genocide?” Zohar said.
She added that she did not believe peace with Gaza’s Palestinians was possible. “If they’re not sending missiles, it’s drones, or balloons, or another 7th of October,” she said.
“We’re not trying to disturb them, we’re not sending missiles or drones,” she added. “We say, ‘Let us live in peace, you live in peace.’ But they don’t want that.”
ACLED, a conflict monitor, released a report Tuesday detailing attacks in Gaza by the Israeli military since Oct. 7, 2023. The report tallied more than 11,110 air and drone strikes; more than 6,250 shelling, artillery or missile attacks and about 1,500 armed clashes.
Messika, the Beeri resident, felt similarly disillusioned about the prospect of peace. Before the war, kibbutzim residents tried to help Gazans, hiring them for jobs or and taking them for medical treatments. And she remembered her father telling her about going to Gaza to eat falafel — “It used to have the best falafel, he always said” — and buying produce in its vegetable markets. But notions of helping Gazans were born of naivete.
“We know that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza…. They hate us,” she said, adding that Trump’s plan, which involves disarming Gaza, was the right solution. Messika was still debating with other residents whether all the damaged houses should be torn down, or if some should be preserved as a memorial.
“Some say we can’t come back to live near a place like this. It would be like living near Auschwitz,” she said. But for her, it was a matter of turning Oct. 7 into a learning opportunity. Without that, she insisted, the suffering would all be for nothing. Though the kibbutz’s council said to go ahead with the demolitions, she appealed and was awaiting a new verdict.
“The next generation, they need to learn and see with their own eyes, to walk through it,” she said. “It’s not enough to make a website, or a memorial. This is evidence for the history, for what happened to our friends. And I don’t want it to be destroyed.”
About 10 miles away, in Sderot, people flocked to a mountain on the city’s edge, which over the years has become a popular vantage point for a glimpse of Gaza, complete with a telescope — cost: five shekels — for a closer look at the landscape. Suddenly, in the distance, a large cloud of smoke bloomed somewhere beyond the destroyed edge of Gaza’s Nuseirat camp.
Some lifted their smartphones to record video. Others gave an appreciative nod and lauded the Israeli military’s “work ethic” during the Jewish holiday of Sukkot. Behind them, children played in the afternoon sun.
BEIRUT — The ad was straightforward: Sign up for one year to fight on Russia’s side in “the special military operation zone” — i.e. the war in Ukraine — and get citizenship, free healthcare, money and land.
It was one of many promotions cropping up on the messaging platform Telegram beginning in 2024, shortly after Russian President Vladimir Putin decreed foreign nationals fighting in the army’s ranks would receive passports for themselves and their families. Since then, travel agencies and brokers have drawn people from all over the world to join what they call Russia’s “elite international battalion,” dangling a raft of benefits to attract would-be recruits.
For Raed Hammad, a 54-year-old Jordanian man who worked as a cab driver until a herniated disk made sitting in a car seat all day untenable, it seemed like the opportunity he never found in his home country. He contacted a Russian businesswoman, Polina Alexandrovna, whose number was on the Telegram ad, and sent his passport information. In August, he received a visa and flight ticket and flew to Moscow.
(Other media reports put Alexandrovna’s last name as Azarnykh. It’s unclear if her name is a pseudonym.)
“As a 54-year-old who was sick, he had a hard time finding employment here in Jordan. When he found this job, and they accepted him with a very attractive salary and benefits, he didn’t think twice,” said Lamees Hammad, his wife, in a tearful video address she posted on social media in September. Because of his age, Lamees Hammad added, her husband assumed he would work as a driver or a cook; she insisted he repeatedly confirmed with Alexandrovna that he wouldn’t serve on the front line.
“He wanted to provide for our kids, to give them what he couldn’t give them in the past,” Lamees Hammad said. Hammad is a father of four sons, the youngest of whom is 13.
But days after signing a 17-page army contract that Hammad couldn’t read — he was denied a Russian translator and wasn’t given access to WiFi to translate using his phone, according to his wife — he found himself bunkered in a drone-stalked forward position somewhere in Russian-occupied southeastern Ukraine.
“He’s facing all kinds of danger … If a rifle is raised in his face, he can’t even run. They’re being treated like livestock over there,” Lamees Hammad said in a recent interview with a Jordanian TV channel, adding that Hammad contacted Alexandrovna and begged to break his contract but was told he would have to pay 500,000 rubles — almost $6,000 — to do so.
Russian military personnel, draped in Russian flags, appear after a prisoner swap with Ukraine on June 24.
(Russian Defense Ministry/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Accurate figures are hard to come by, but it’s clear that Hammad isn’t alone in fighting under Russia’s banner for benefits, with estimates putting the number of foreign fighters in Russian army ranks in the tens of thousands. Many come from disadvantaged countries in the Middle East, Africa and South and East Asia.
Some 2,000 Iraqis are thought to have enlisted, but press reports indicate thousands joining from Egypt, Algeria, Yemen and Jordan. Fighters from Nepal, Afghanistan, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cuba and Syria, who in the past came in significant numbers, are no longer allowed to join, according to the Russian defense ministry.
Foreigners have also served on the opposing side, with Ukrainian officials stating in the past that roughly 20,000 fighters from 50 countries joined Ukraine’s International Legion, including around 3,000 Iraqis.
In the Russian military, many of the enlisted foreigners came to Russia first as students, but their visas lapsed and they do not want to return home. A significant number also travel to Moscow on tourist visas after they are approved by the military. Once in Russia, they visit offices of companies like Alexandrovna’s and sign a contract with the Russian ministry of defense; others are met by a broker and a Russian officer at the airport.
Offers vary, but recruits can receive a signing bonus of 1.5 million rubles (around $17,000), and depending on where they fight, get a monthly salary ranging between $2,500 to $3,500 — a life-changing amount in countries like Egypt, where the average salary barely exceeds $300.
Training lasts four to six weeks and includes language instruction so foreigners can follow basic commands in Russian. They receive citizenship soon after they join, and are given a two-week paid vacation six months into their one-year deployment. If they are killed or wounded, their families can claim the money and citizenship.
Among the recruitment ads, which appear in Arabic and other languages, Alexandrovna’s channel keeps up a steady rhythm of posts extolling the Russian army’s victories in Ukraine.
Alexandrovna herself appears in several photos taken with recruits when they first land in Russia; others depict foreign soldiers after they receive their citizenship, smiling to the camera and proudly showing off their passports. Her clients appear to be mostly from the Arab world and parts of Africa.
“Each of my soldiers is a source of pride,” she writes in one post, saying that they add to the “victory against the neo-Nazis from Ukraine.”
“Every soldier must proudly and steadfastly defend the new homeland of Russia, because Russia becomes a new homeland for each of them!” she writes.
Despite the risks, there’s no lack of interest: A look on Alexandrovna’s Telegram channel, titled “Friend of Russia” and featuring a picture of Putin, shows more than 22,000 subscribers. Another channel, run by an Iraqi man who calls himself Bahjat, has almost 30,000.
Members of a thousands-strong Telegram community group run by an Iraqi with the nickname Abbass the Supporter — who served in the Russian military for three years but now works as a broker and answers questions about deployments on his TikTok channel — participate in chats asking how quickly they can get their visa and travel.
When contacted by The Times, Alexandrovna denied giving false information to would-be recruits but did not answer detailed questions about Hammad. Nevertheless, it’s unclear how Hammad concluded he would serve in rear positions: Most ads on Alexandrovna’s channel explicitly say foreigners must fight in Ukraine, with no mention of being able to join as a driver or cook, and in any case, those decisions are made by the defense ministry.
The E-visa form inquires about military experience. Bahjat, who spoke on condition of only giving his first name, said those coming to the Russian army from abroad should expect to go into combat, and that breaking the contract risks imprisonment.
“What, you think a country is going to give you money and citizenship so you come and cook?” he said in a WhatsApp chat.
“I’ll give it to you straight. Everyone coming here is going to the frontline and to the war. Anyone saying otherwise is speaking nonsense.”
The Jordanian ministry did not answer questions about Hammad, but legal experts say governments have little recourse to repatriate their citizens if they signed a contract, unless they can prove they did so under duress.
Lamees Hammad has been pleading with Jordan’s King Abdullah and government officials to communicate with the Russian foreign ministry and to bring her husband home. But in the meantime, she said, she hoped the Jordanian government would at least block Telegram channels like Alexandrovna’s to prevent others from following in Hammad’s steps.
“People should know if they do this,” she said, “they’re going to their death.”
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass announced Sunday that Los Angeles police will increase patrols around houses of worship after a deadly shooting earlier in the day during services at a Michigan church.
Five people were killed, including the shooter, and authorities say it is possible there are more.
L.A. has thousands of houses of worship, including hundreds of storefront churches, according to the USC Center for Religion and Civic Culture.
“This type of violence is reprehensible and should have no place in our country,” Bass said in a statement posted on social media.
Sometime around 10:25 a.m. Sunday, 40-year-old Thomas Jacob Sanford drove a vehicle through the front doors of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Grand Blanc Township, exited the vehicle and started shooting, according to preliminary information released by local authorities.
Hundreds of congregants were inside, including many who shielded children, authorities said.
Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said at a news conference that Sanford was shot and killed by law enforcement officers at 10:33 a.m. in the church parking lot.
Renye said 10 gunshot victims were transported to hospitals, including two who died. Seven are in stable condition while one victim remains in critical condition.
Sanford is believed to have also intentionally set the church on fire, Renye said.
After authorities entered the burned church, they found two more bodies. Renye said there may be others; authorities are aware of others not yet accounted for.
After authorities killed Sanford, law enforcement officers searched multiple nearby churches regarding bomb threats, said Lt. Kim Vetter of the Michigan State Police. Vetter declined to say whether the churches searched were all LDS or other denominations and faiths.
