A natural gas line leak triggered a dramatic explosion that destroyed a Bay Area home on Thursday, injuring six people and damaging several other properties.
At least one person was inside the home before it was leveled in the blast. The individual managed to escape without injury, but six others were hurt, including three who suffered serious injuries, Alameda County Fire Department spokesperson Cheryl Hurd said.
“It was a chaotic scene,” Hurd said. “There was fire and debris and smoke everywhere, power lines down, people self-evacuated from the home. … Someone was on the sidewalk with severe burns.”
The leak started after a third-party construction crew working Thursday morning in the 800 block of East Lewelling Boulevard in Hayward struck a Pacific Gas and Electric underground natural gas line, according to a statement from the utility.
Fire crews were first dispatched to the scene at 7:46 a.m. after PG&E reported a suspected natural gas leak, Hurd said. PG&E officials were already on scene when fire engines arrived, and reportedly told firefighters their assistance was not needed, Hurd said.
Utility workers attempted to isolate the damaged line, but gas was leaking from multiple locations. Workers shut off the flow of gas at about 9:25 a.m., PG&E said in a statement.
Fire crews were called back to the same address less than two hours later, where at least 75 firefighters encountered heavy flames and a thick column of smoke. Surrounding homes sustained damage from the blast and falling debris. Three buildings were damaged on two separate properties, according to fire officials.
Six people were taken to Eden Medical Center, including three with severe injuries requiring immediate transport. Officials declined to comment on the nature of their injuries.
Video captured from a Ring doorbell affixed to a neighboring house showed an excavator digging near the home moments before the explosion. The blast rattled nearby homes, shattered windows and sent construction crews running.
Initially, authorities suspected that two people were missing after the blast. That was determined not to be the case, Hurd said.
“They brought in two cadaver dogs looking to see if anyone was still trapped under the rubble, and the dogs cleared everything,” Hurd said.
Officials with the Sheriff’s Office, PG&E and the National Transportation Safety Board are continuing to investigate the circumstances that led to the explosion.
Alex immigrated to the U.S. as a toddler and has long felt haunted by his undocumented status.
In 2017, when he turned 15, he was finally old enough to apply for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, only for it to slip from his grasp right before he started the paperwork, when it was rescinded by the Trump administration.
Then, in 2020, Alex was set to graduate at the top of his class and had racked up a slew of college acceptances, including a full ride to Harvard University. He ultimately declined because of his status, worried about travel restrictions. Instead, he enrolled in a nearby University of California campus.
“It was almost like the system was taunting me,” said Alex, who is now a Cal State University graduate student and chose to use his middle name for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities. “No matter how you excel, the system always comes back to haunt you, to remind you that you did all of that, and yet you really don’t have a choice.”
A promise of work authorization and deportation protection pulled a generation of undocumented youth out of the shadows when DACA first went into effect in 2012. Yet, hundreds of thousands of today’s students like Alex are largely left out because of the ongoing legal battle that has largely frozen applications since 2017.
These students’ lives are further upended by the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement strategy this year. DACA recipients and international students have been targeted, which has cast a cloud over higher education attainment for undocumented youth with even less protections.
Gaby Pacheco, who was undocumented while in high school and helped spearhead organizing efforts that led to DACA in the 2000s, said the current undocumented youth are “experiencing the same kind of heartbreaks” and limitations that her generation did.
“It is keeping people chained and, in a sense, locking up their potential and their dreams,” said Pacheco, who serves as president and chief executive of TheDream.US, a scholarship program. Among the most prominent barriers are being barred from federal aid, certain scholarships and work opportunities, she said.
Many of these concerns aren’t new, but “they feel so much bigger and closer than they ever have before” because of the hostile immigration strategy and rhetoric, said Corinne Kentor, a senior manager of research and policy at the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
Undocumented youth have long been at the center of the country’s immigration debate. What has resulted is a web of shaky piecemeal legislation determining their status, which is being challenged nationwide.
DACA survived President Trump’s 2017 legal challenge when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that his administration didn’t take the proper steps to end the program.
This year, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling that would uphold DACA nationwide but remove work authorization for recipients residing in Texas. Protections would stay the same in all other states, and applications could potentially reopen. The ruling is pending a decision by a judge in the lower courts on how its implementation will work.
Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), along with Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), reintroduced the Dream Act in early December, the most recent attempt of many over the last two decades to provide young immigrants a path to citizenship.
The current Trump administration is attempting to further close the door by suing California in November, alleging that the state’s decades-long offering of in-state tuition to undocumented students is unlawful. The action follows similar legal steps taken by the federal government to end tuition equity laws in states across the country.
“I feel like my family and I have been tossed into a video game,” Alex said. “Like the console gets turned on every morning, you know, and it’s a challenge and it’s a game and I’ve got to survive.”
Who are today’s undocumented students?
There hasn’t yet been a noticeable decline in the 80,000 undocumented students enrolled in the state.
Undocumented students can apply for state financial aid through the California Dream Act, but applications have dropped by 15% this academic year, with just over 32,000 applications submitted. Applications have steadily declined since 2018.
Advocates warn that this drop is a result of DACA’s legal challenges and young people being increasingly nervous about sharing their personal information with government-run programs.
More than half a million undocumented people are enrolled in higher education, but less than 30% of them qualify for DACA, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Most current high school students were born after 2007 and are automatically aged out of the program.
The average age of the more than 500,000 active DACA recipients is 31, with nearly 90% being older than 26. The population has also shrunk, down from its peak of more than 700,000 recipients, with some adjusting their status through marriage or children, said Javier Carbajal-Ramos, a coordinator for the Dream Resource Center at Los Angeles Valley College.
“We call them the original undocumented students,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They’re people that really had an opportunity and they most likely took it. But then, the system changed.”
Alex, who was brought to the country by his mother from El Salvador in the early 2000s, couldn’t qualify for DACA because he was five years shy of the minimum age to apply.
“I grew up feeling silenced, and then there was this period of time where I felt like I could speak and I could take back my voice. … Now, I feel like I’ve been shut up,” Alex said. “My story is being determined by everybody else except myself. My past, my present and my future are all being negotiated by people who legitimately don’t see humanity in me.”
Higher education is a gamble
Attending college is a risk for undocumented students. Many opt to go straight into the workforce instead, a choice that Alex said “is pretty clear for most” of his peers.
Those who do take that gamble are often committed to the importance of education, said Iliana Perez, a former DACA recipient and the executive director of Immigrants Rising. Many immigrant families, like Alex’s, are initially drawn to the U.S. with aspirations for education access and social mobility.
“My mom’s biggest mistake has always been thinking that there were going to be people on this side of the border who believed in her child just as much as she does,” Alex said. “They’ve done all that they can to continue to believe for me and for themselves that something has to work.”
School has always felt like a “veil of protection” for Alex. A fear of entering the workforce was one factor that motivated him to continue in academia.
Often, an education can also afford students more leverage in legal battles and allow them to pursue work opportunities abroad or paths such as self-employment and entrepreneurship, Perez said.
Many schools now offer support services and fellowships that can provide financial compensation in the form of stipends, largely due to the organizing efforts of previous generations of undocumented students, Carbajal-Ramos said.
One undocumented college senior worked at a summer program for her Cal State University campus after her first year because it was paid through a stipend. A yearlong academic position was also available but paid an hourly wage, meaning she was not eligible.
The department leaders, however, were committed to offering her the position and paid her through a scholarship instead, she said, which allowed her to generate income while in school.
“It wasn’t something that I asked for. They did it themselves. For that, I’m really, really grateful,” said the senior, who requested The Times not use her name because she doesn’t have legal status. “It was surprising seeing a group of people that really wanted to help me out.”
Colleges and universities across the country also have established dream resource centers, which provide services, grants and support to immigrant students. There are 161 centers at campuses across the state, including nearly all community colleges and every Cal State and UC campus; 14 private universities also have dream centers in California.
Carbajal-Ramos, who is the regional representative for centers across the Los Angeles area, said it’s important to meet students where they are and not shy away from the precarious realities they live in. He serves at least 1,000 undocumented students in his role as a coordinator at Los Angeles Valley College.
“When somebody really tells you that you can’t, you either give up or you fight, right? And we came here because of the fight,” Carbajal-Ramos said. “They have the ganas. They have the drive. It’s my responsibility to keep it that way.”
Alex, who is now only months away from finishing his master’s degree, is hoping to enroll in a PhD program next fall. The applications often require he plan out what the next five years of his academic journey could look like, a task that has proved exceptionally difficult.
“I really can’t think about my life for the next five years,” he said. “I can’t even think about my life tonight. The drive home scares me. Coming to campus scares me. Walking from my car terrifies me. I live my life between breaths.”
Business owners on Daytona’s beachside say safety concerns have become a daily challenge, and they are calling for help. Managers and employees along the busy corridor report frequent disruptions tied to people experiencing homelessness, including panhandling and confrontations with customers.Patricia Williams-Fay, manager of the Starlite Diner, said the issue is affecting business.”They come in at times, and they’ll harass our customers,” she said. “Panhandle in the building, panhandle out front. And as much as we would like to be able to give them whatever they want, we can’t afford to do that.”As concerns grow, the Beachside Redevelopment Board is weighing whether to add dedicated patrols throughout the district. In fact, the city’s Beachside Redevelopment Board, which acts like an advisory board, said there needs to be a change.Board members previously requested a quote from First Coast Security, the same company that patrols Beach Street. But because the Beachside area is significantly larger, foot patrols like those used on Beach Street are not practical. Instead, two alternative options were presented.Golf cart patrol costing $135,000 per year, operating Monday through Saturday, and vehicle patrol costing $148,000 annually, with the same schedule.The city is also exploring the option of hiring a detail police officer, though the cost has not yet been determined. Thomas Caffrey, a board member, said a foot patrol may not be necessary on Main Street, but the Beachside and A1A boardwalk corridor, especially the boardwalk, would benefit from one. Other board members said they support the golf cart option.Caffrey said the board will decide Wednesday night whether to recommend private security or a dedicated police officer, noting that private security would guarantee consistent coverage.”The hired security is nice because they are guaranteed to be there. If we get a police officer, there is a chance it could be called outside of the district.”The proposed patrol zone would begin on Seabreeze Boulevard and run south to International Speedway Boulevard.Business owners say increased security presence could make a major difference. Still, Williams-Fay said efforts should also focus on getting people experiencing homelessness the help they need.”I think that it would be a good idea that this force, whatever they put over here, can take them to the hospital to wherever they need to go to get help, you know,” she said.”The board’s recommendation will move next to city staff, and they’ll decide whether to present it to the Daytona Beach City Commission for further consideration.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. —
Business owners on Daytona’s beachside say safety concerns have become a daily challenge, and they are calling for help.
Managers and employees along the busy corridor report frequent disruptions tied to people experiencing homelessness, including panhandling and confrontations with customers.
Patricia Williams-Fay, manager of the Starlite Diner, said the issue is affecting business.
“They come in at times, and they’ll harass our customers,” she said. “Panhandle in the building, panhandle out front. And as much as we would like to be able to give them whatever they want, we can’t afford to do that.”
As concerns grow, the Beachside Redevelopment Board is weighing whether to add dedicated patrols throughout the district.
In fact, the city’s Beachside Redevelopment Board, which acts like an advisory board, said there needs to be a change.
Board members previously requested a quote from First Coast Security, the same company that patrols Beach Street. But because the Beachside area is significantly larger, foot patrols like those used on Beach Street are not practical. Instead, two alternative options were presented.
Golf cart patrol costing $135,000 per year, operating Monday through Saturday, and vehicle patrol costing $148,000 annually, with the same schedule.
The city is also exploring the option of hiring a detail police officer, though the cost has not yet been determined.
Thomas Caffrey, a board member, said a foot patrol may not be necessary on Main Street, but the Beachside and A1A boardwalk corridor, especially the boardwalk, would benefit from one. Other board members said they support the golf cart option.
Caffrey said the board will decide Wednesday night whether to recommend private security or a dedicated police officer, noting that private security would guarantee consistent coverage.
“The hired security is nice because they are guaranteed to be there. If we get a police officer, there is a chance it could be called outside of the district.”
The proposed patrol zone would begin on Seabreeze Boulevard and run south to International Speedway Boulevard.
Business owners say increased security presence could make a major difference. Still, Williams-Fay said efforts should also focus on getting people experiencing homelessness the help they need.
“I think that it would be a good idea that this force, whatever they put over here, can take them to the hospital to wherever they need to go to get help, you know,” she said.”
The board’s recommendation will move next to city staff, and they’ll decide whether to present it to the Daytona Beach City Commission for further consideration.
WASHINGTON — Sophia Nyazi’s husband, Milad, shook her awake at 8 a.m. “ICE is here,” he told her.
Three uniformed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were downstairs at the family’s home on Long Island, N.Y., on Tuesday, according to a video reviewed by The Times that she captured from atop the staircase.
Nyazi said the agents asked whether her husband was applying for a green card. They told her they would have to detain him because of the shooting of two National Guard members a week earlier in Washington, D.C.
“He has nothing to do with that shooting,” Nyazi, 27, recalled answering. “We don’t even know that person.”
Her protests didn’t matter. The Trump administration has put into motion a broad and unprecedented set of policy changes aimed at substantially limiting legal immigration avenues, including for immigrants long considered the most vulnerable.
Unfortunately, I think the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a way to shut down even legal immigration
— Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, of the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.
Milad Nyazi, 28, was detained because, like the man charged in the shooting which left one National Guard member dead, he is from Afghanistan.
The administration has paused decisions on all applications filed with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, or USCIS, by people seeking asylum. The visa and immigration applications of Afghans, whom the U.S. had welcomed in 2021 as it pulled all troops from the country, have been halted.
Officials also froze the processing of immigration cases of people from 19 countries the administration considers “high-risk” and will conduct case-by-case reviews of green cards and other immigration benefits given to people from those countries since former President Biden took office in 2021.
Immigration lawyers say they learned that dozens of naturalization ceremonies and interviews for green cards are being canceled for immigrants from Haiti, Iran, Guinea and other countries on the list.
In a couple of cases, immigration officers told immigrants that they had been prepared to grant a green card, but were unable to do so because of the new guidance, said Gregory Chen, government relations director at American Immigration Lawyers Assn.
Although it is unclear exactly how many people could be affected by the new rules, 1.5 million immigrants have asylum cases pending with USCIS.
“These are sweeping changes that exact collective punishment on a wide swath of people who are trying to do things the right way,” said Amanda Baran, former chief of policy and strategy at USCIS under the Biden administration. “I worry about all the people who have dutifully filed applications and whose lives are now on hold.”
Administration officials called the Nov. 26 shooting a “terrorist attack” and defended the changes as necessary to protect the country. Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, faces charges stemming from the shooting that killed Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and critically wounded Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24.
“The protection of this country and of the American people remains paramount, and the American people will not bear the cost of the prior administration’s reckless resettlement policies,” Joseph Edlow, director of USCIS, said in a message posted Nov. 27 on X. “American safety is non-negotiable.”
Lakanwal pleaded not guilty last week and his motive remains under investigation. In Afghanistan, he served in a counterterrorism unit operated by the CIA.
Lakanwal entered the U.S. in 2021 through a Biden administration program that resettled nearly 200,000 Afghans in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal, officials said. He applied for asylum in December 2024 and it was approved under the Trump administration in April, according to a statement by the nonprofit #AfghanEvac.
Afghans who worked with U.S. troops were believed to face danger if left behind under the Taliban-run government. Along with undergoing routine security screening, they submitted to additional “rigorous” vetting, which included biometric and biographic checks by counterterrorism and intelligence professionals, the Department of Homeland Security said at the time.
Two federal reports from 2024 and this year pointed to some failings of the screening, including data inaccuracies and the presence of 55 evacuees who were later identified on terrorism watch lists, though the latter report noted that the FBI had then followed all required processes to mitigate any potential threat.
It’s unclear exactly how the administration will carry out reviews of thousands of people who already live legally in the U.S. The federal government can’t easily strip people of permanent legal status. The threat of reopening cases, however, has sparked alarm in immigrant communities across the country.
About 58,600 Afghan immigrants call California home as of 2023, far more than any other state,according to the Migration Policy Institute. Interviews with a dozen local community advocates, immigration attorneys and family members of those detained paint an aggressive effort by the federal government to round up recent Afghan immigrants in the wake of the D.C. shooting.
“Unfortunately, I think the administration took this one very tragic incident and politicized it as a way to shut down even legal immigration. And it’s definitely gone much broader than the Afghan community,” said Sharvari Dalal-Dheini, the director of government relations at the American Immigration Lawyers Assn.
Trump administration officials cited the shooting in a spate of policy changes last week.
On Friday, USCIS announced it had established a new center to strengthen screening with supplemental reviews of immigration applications, in part using artificial intelligence. The USCIS Vetting Center, based in Atlanta, will “centralize enhanced vetting of aliens and allow the agency to respond more nimbly to changes in a shifting threat landscape,” the agency said.
On Thursday, USCIS said work permits granted to immigrants would expire after 18 months, not five years. The change includes work permits for those admitted as refugees, with pending green card applications and with pending asylum applications.
In a memorandum Tuesday outlining the pause on asylum applications and the immigration cases of people from the 19 countries also subject to a travel ban, USCIS acknowledged that the changes could result in processing delays but had determined it was “necessary and appropriate” when weighed “against the agency’s obligation to protect and preserve national security.”
Immigrants already had been on high alert as the Trump administration canceled temporary humanitarian programs, cut back refugee admissions — except for a limited number of white South African Afrikaners — and increased attempts to send those with deportation orders to countries where they have no personal connection.
Before the Washington shooting, a Nov. 21 memo showed that the administration planned to review the cases of more than 200,000 refugees admitted under the Biden administration. Although asylum seekers apply after arriving in the U.S., refugees apply for admission from outside the country.
Nyazi questioned why Afghans are being singled out, noting that a white person allegedly assassinated Charlie Kirk, but “I don’t see any ICE agents going into white people’s houses.”
Asked why Milad Nyazi was detained, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant public affairs secretary for Homeland Security, called him a criminal, citing two arrests on suspicion of domestic violence.
“Under Secretary [Kristi] Noem, DHS has been going full throttle on identifying and arresting known or suspected terrorists and criminal illegal aliens that came in through Biden’s fraudulent parole programs and working to get the criminals and public safety threats OUT of our country,” McLaughlin said in a statement.
Nyazi said the charges, which did not stem from incidents of physical violence, were dropped and his record was later expunged.
She and her husband got engaged in 2019 in Afghanistan and applied for a fiance visa, because Nyazi is a U.S. citizen. Their application was approved in 2021. Soon after, with the Taliban takeover in full force, the U.S. government allowed Milad Nyazi to fly to the U.S. He has a pending green card application, Nyazi said.
On Tuesday, the couple’s 3-year-old daughter screamed and cried as her father was handcuffed and taken away. He has a court hearing this week.
Zahra Billoo, executive director of the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and others say Afghans in various stages of their legal immigration process — not only those with deportation orders — have been targeted. She said at least 17 Afghans in the Bay Area have been detained since Monday.
Lawyers said many of the Afghans detained last week had arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border, where they had sought asylum.
Paris Etemadi Scott, legal director of the Pars Equality Center in San José, said three of her clients, an Afghan mother and her two sons who are both in their early 20s, were detained Dec. 1 during a routine check-in with ICE. All have pending asylum applications, she said.
Rebecca Olszewski, managing attorney at the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, said her Afghan client, who also has a pending asylum case, reported for his monthly virtual check-in Friday and was told to show up in person the next day, where he was detained.
Since the shooting, administration officials and the president have used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants. In announcing the 19-country travel ban Dec. 1, Noem posted on X that she was recommending a “a full travel ban on every damn country that’s been flooding our nation with killers, leeches, and entitlement junkies.”
In a Cabinet meeting the next day, Trump referred to Somali immigrants as “garbage” who “contribute nothing.” (A few days later, Noem said the administration would expand the travel ban to more than 30 countries.)
On Thanksgiving Day, Trump had said on his social media platform that he intends to “permanently pause migration from all Third World Countries” and deport those who are “non-compatible with Western Civilization.”
In recent days, a ghostly quiet has overtaken Shafiullah Hotak’s regular haunts in North Sacramento, where the Afghan population in the city is especially dense. Hotak, 38, is an Afghan immigrant who served as a program manager at refugee resettlement organization Lao Family Community Development until layoffs due to federal cuts forced him out of work in May.
On Thursday, immigration agents banged on doors at an apartment complex on Marconi Avenue, where hundreds of Afghans have resettled. Just one employee sat in an Afghan-owned tax and bookkeeping business that was typically buzzing with clients. A nearby park, where teenagers kick around soccer balls and giggling packs of children roam after school, was empty. And the lines at a halal market known for its sesame-topped Afghan bread had disappeared.
“The situation we have in our community reminds me of when we used to go to work in Afghanistan,” Hotak said. “We had to take different routes every day because people who were against the U.S. mission in Afghanistan were targeting people. There were bombings and shootings.”
Hotak said “Kill the eyes,” is what the enemies of the U.S. in Afghanistan used to advise as to how to deal with local Afghans aiding the military, in order to blind their operations.
“But nowadays those ‘eyes’ are here in the U.S. and the U.S. government is looking to pick them up and put them in jail,” Hotak said.
Timesstaff writers Castillo reported from Washington and Hussain and Uranga from Los Angeles.
The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 70,000 since the Israel-Hamas war began, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday, while a hospital said that Israeli fire killed two Palestinian children in the territory’s south.The toll has continued to rise after the latest ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10. Israel still carries out strikes in response to what it has called violations of the truce, and bodies from earlier in the war are being recovered from the rubble.The Health Ministry says the Palestinian toll is now 70,100. The ministry operates under the Hamas-run government. It is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.The war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and militants taking more than 250 hostages. Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.Staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies of the children in southern Gaza, said the brothers, ages 8 and 11, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila.Israel’s military said it killed two people who crossed into an Israeli-controlled area, “conducted suspicious activities” and approached troops. The statement didn’t mention children. The military said it also killed another person in a separate but similar incident in the south.At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.Israel says its strikes are aimed at militants violating the truce. Both Israel and Hamas have accused the other of violating the deal. Hamas again urged mediators on Saturday to pressure Israel to stop what it called ceasefire violations in Gaza.A U.S. blueprint outlining the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by more than two years of war, is still in the early stages. The plan to secure and govern the territory authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.Israeli forces have pushed forward on a number of other fronts in the region in recent weeks.Syrian officials said that Israeli forces raided a Syrian village on Friday and opened fire when they were confronted by residents, killing at least 13 people. Israel said it conducted the operation to apprehend suspects of a militant group planning attacks in Israel, and that the militants opened fire at troops, wounding six.Israel also has escalated strikes in Lebanon, saying it’s targeting Hezbollah sites and asserting that the militant group is attempting to rearm.Hezbollah called on Pope Leo XIV to “reject injustice and aggression,” in reference to the near-daily Israeli strikes, despite a ceasefire that ended the 14-month war between the two sides a year ago. The pope is visiting the region on his first foreign trip.In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers were accused by Palestinians of executing two men on Thursday after footage aired by two Arab television stations showed troops shooting the men after they appeared to surrender. The Israeli military said that it was investigating.Israeli settler violence has continued to rise in the West Bank. On Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that 10 Palestinians were injured by beatings and live ammunition during settler attacks in Khallet al-Louza village close to Bethlehem.
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip —
The Palestinian death toll has surpassed 70,000 since the Israel-Hamas war began, Gaza’s Health Ministry said Saturday, while a hospital said that Israeli fire killed two Palestinian children in the territory’s south.
The toll has continued to rise after the latest ceasefire took effect on Oct. 10. Israel still carries out strikes in response to what it has called violations of the truce, and bodies from earlier in the war are being recovered from the rubble.
The Health Ministry says the Palestinian toll is now 70,100. The ministry operates under the Hamas-run government. It is staffed by medical professionals and maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by the international community.
The war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which killed around 1,200 people and militants taking more than 250 hostages. Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals.
Staff at Nasser Hospital, which received the bodies of the children in southern Gaza, said the brothers, ages 8 and 11, died when an Israeli drone struck close to a school sheltering displaced people in the town of Beni Suhaila.
Israel’s military said it killed two people who crossed into an Israeli-controlled area, “conducted suspicious activities” and approached troops. The statement didn’t mention children. The military said it also killed another person in a separate but similar incident in the south.
At least 352 Palestinians have been killed across the territory since the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas took effect on Oct. 10, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants.
Israel says its strikes are aimed at militants violating the truce. Both Israel and Hamas have accused the other of violating the deal. Hamas again urged mediators on Saturday to pressure Israel to stop what it called ceasefire violations in Gaza.
A U.S. blueprint outlining the future of Gaza, which has been devastated by more than two years of war, is still in the early stages. The plan to secure and govern the territory authorizes an international stabilization force to provide security, approves a transitional authority to be overseen by U.S. President Donald Trump and envisions a possible future path to an independent Palestinian state.
Israeli forces have pushed forward on a number of other fronts in the region in recent weeks.
Syrian officials said that Israeli forces raided a Syrian village on Friday and opened fire when they were confronted by residents, killing at least 13 people. Israel said it conducted the operation to apprehend suspects of a militant group planning attacks in Israel, and that the militants opened fire at troops, wounding six.
Israel also has escalated strikes in Lebanon, saying it’s targeting Hezbollah sites and asserting that the militant group is attempting to rearm.
Hezbollah called on Pope Leo XIV to “reject injustice and aggression,” in reference to the near-daily Israeli strikes, despite a ceasefire that ended the 14-month war between the two sides a year ago. The pope is visiting the region on his first foreign trip.
In the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers were accused by Palestinians of executing two men on Thursday after footage aired by two Arab television stations showed troops shooting the men after they appeared to surrender. The Israeli military said that it was investigating.
Israeli settler violence has continued to rise in the West Bank. On Saturday, the Palestinian Red Crescent said that 10 Palestinians were injured by beatings and live ammunition during settler attacks in Khallet al-Louza village close to Bethlehem.
The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island rose to 164 on Friday, with 79 people missing, authorities said.Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment.The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 116, while 25 people died in Aceh. Rescuers also retrieved 23 bodies in West Sumatra, National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s Chief Suharyanto said.A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported.THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment Friday after flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island left 82 people dead and dozens missing.A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, said Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.Monsoon rains caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 3,200 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. About 3,000 displaced families fled to government shelters.Elsewhere in the island’s provinces of Aceh and West Sumatra, thousands of houses were flooded, many up to their roofs, the agency said.The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 55 as rescue teams struggled to reach affected areas in 12 cities and districts of North Sumatra province, said the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesperson, Abdul Muhari. He revised the number of people still missing in the province to 41 from the initial report of 88 following a coordination meeting with local authorities Friday.Mudslides that covered much of the area, power blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering the search efforts, said Ferry Wulantukan, spokesperson for North Sumatra regional police.In West Sumatra province, flash floods that struck 15 cities and districts left at least 21 people dead, Muhari said, citing data reported by West Sumatra’s vice governor. The number of people still missing was unclear.West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency reported that the flooding submerged more than 17,000 homes, forcing about 23,000 residents to flee to temporary shelters. Rice fields, livestock and public facilities were also destroyed, and bridges and roads cut off by floods and landslides isolated residents.In Aceh province, authorities struggled to bring excavators and other heavy equipment over washed-out roads after torrential rains sent mud and rocks crashing onto the hilly hamlets. At least six people have died and 11 were missing in three villages in Central Aceh district.The extreme weather was driven by Tropical Cyclone Senyar, which formed in the Strait of Malacca, said Achadi Subarkah Raharjo at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.He warned that unstable atmospheric conditions mean extreme weather could persist as long as the cyclone system remains active.“We have extended its extreme weather warning due to strong water vapor supply and shifting atmospheric dynamics,” Raharjo said.Senyar intensified rainfall, strong winds, and high waves in Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau and nearby areas before dissipating. Its prolonged downpours left steep, saturated terrains highly vulnerable to disasters, he said.Seasonal rains frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.____Karmini reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.
PADANG, Indonesia —
The death toll from flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island rose to 164 on Friday, with 79 people missing, authorities said.
Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment.
The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 116, while 25 people died in Aceh. Rescuers also retrieved 23 bodies in West Sumatra, National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s Chief Suharyanto said.
A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency reported.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.
Rescuers were hampered by damaged bridges and roads and a lack of heavy equipment Friday after flash floods and landslides on Indonesia’s Sumatra island left 82 people dead and dozens missing.
A tropical cyclone is expected to continue hitting the Southeast Asian nation for days, said Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.
Monsoon rains caused rivers to burst their banks in North Sumatra province Tuesday. The deluge tore through mountainside villages, swept away people and submerged more than 3,200 houses and buildings, the National Disaster Management Agency said. About 3,000 displaced families fled to government shelters.
Elsewhere in the island’s provinces of Aceh and West Sumatra, thousands of houses were flooded, many up to their roofs, the agency said.
The death toll in North Sumatra province rose to 55 as rescue teams struggled to reach affected areas in 12 cities and districts of North Sumatra province, said the National Disaster Mitigation Agency’s spokesperson, Abdul Muhari. He revised the number of people still missing in the province to 41 from the initial report of 88 following a coordination meeting with local authorities Friday.
Mudslides that covered much of the area, power blackouts and a lack of telecommunications were hampering the search efforts, said Ferry Wulantukan, spokesperson for North Sumatra regional police.
In West Sumatra province, flash floods that struck 15 cities and districts left at least 21 people dead, Muhari said, citing data reported by West Sumatra’s vice governor. The number of people still missing was unclear.
West Sumatra’s disaster mitigation agency reported that the flooding submerged more than 17,000 homes, forcing about 23,000 residents to flee to temporary shelters. Rice fields, livestock and public facilities were also destroyed, and bridges and roads cut off by floods and landslides isolated residents.
In Aceh province, authorities struggled to bring excavators and other heavy equipment over washed-out roads after torrential rains sent mud and rocks crashing onto the hilly hamlets. At least six people have died and 11 were missing in three villages in Central Aceh district.
The extreme weather was driven by Tropical Cyclone Senyar, which formed in the Strait of Malacca, said Achadi Subarkah Raharjo at Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysical Agency.
He warned that unstable atmospheric conditions mean extreme weather could persist as long as the cyclone system remains active.
“We have extended its extreme weather warning due to strong water vapor supply and shifting atmospheric dynamics,” Raharjo said.
Senyar intensified rainfall, strong winds, and high waves in Aceh, North Sumatra, West Sumatra, Riau and nearby areas before dissipating. Its prolonged downpours left steep, saturated terrains highly vulnerable to disasters, he said.
Seasonal rains frequently cause flooding and landslides in Indonesia, an archipelago of 17,000 islands where millions of people live in mountainous areas or near fertile flood plains.
ABHA, Saudi Arabia — From the air, Abha’s mountains emerge as a shock of emerald green rising from a sea of sand. Terra firma brings other surprises: a bracing wind that has me grabbing for a jacket — a piece of clothing all but ignored in other parts of Saudi Arabia.
Indeed, so much of Abha, the capital of the southwestern province of Asir, seems a world away — and two dozen degrees cooler — from the scorching desert that dominates Western notions of the kingdom.
I’m here as a tourist — and Saudi Arabia hopes for many more. The government is spending nearly $1 trillion to make attractive what, just over a decade ago, was one of the most tourist-averse countries on earth.
If you’ve read anything about tourism in Saudi Arabia, you’ve probably seen mention of Vision 2030, the all-out diversification plan to reduce the kingdom’s reliance on oil; Neom, the sci-fi-esque desert metropolis with plans for an artificial moon and flying cars; or the Red Sea Project, which intends to turn a 92-island archipelago off the country’s pristine Red Sea coast into a network of 50 luxury hotels and about 1,000 residential units.
Those two flagship projects were heavily featured during President Trump’s visit to Riyadh in May, which saw Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman — Vision 2030’s architect — guide him to a hall with elaborate mock-ups of the finished product.
A man sits in an old fort on Mt. Qais, one of the verdant areas in southwestern Saudi Arabia.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Abha and Asir weren’t in the prince’s presentation, but they are nevertheless part of the tourism transformation, though for now they offer more grounded and arguably more authentic pleasures — the primary reasons why I chose to come here. (The other, less whimsical reason is that I wasn’t sure I could convince my editors to OK a $2,500-a-night private “dune villa” at the St. Regis Red Sea for “journalistic purposes.”)
Perched at almost 7,500 feet above sea level, Abha is occasionally nicknamed by Saudis as the “Lady of the Fog” or “the Bride of the Mountain.”
Both titles seemed apt on the day I arrived, and, as fog wafted over a nearby summit, I visited Art Street, a park with theaters, music festivals, restaurants and cafes. Lilac jacaranda trees were in full bloom. Later, I took a 20-minute drive to Al Sahab Park, a short distance outside Abha, crowded with people admiring the evening mist shrouding Jabal Soudah, the country’s highest peak at 9,892 feet.
“People come here to touch the clouds,” said Hussein al-Lamy, a 42-year-old pharmaceutical company employee who lives two hours away. He smiled, taking in the Harley bikers parked near the cliffs and the men and women strolling nearby sporting Asir’s traditional garlands made of orange marigold, dill and artemisia, a gray-green plant similar to sage.
“I left my kids and wife at home for a few days’ visit here,” he said. “It’s a good place to clear the mind.”
Men gather for a wedding in Abha, the capital of Saudi Arabia’s Asir province.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Next morning, I took a walk through Souq Al Thulatha, a central shopping thoroughfare that despite its name (which in Arabic means Tuesday Market) is open every day of the week.
One stall sold slices of mangoes brought in from Jazan, the fertile southern province famous for its tropical fruits, wheat and coffee; others sold raisins, spices, nuts and gourmet honey from Yemen. Traffic was still light, but vendors told me that at the height of the summer season — when many Saudis flee the fry-an-egg-on-your-hood heat of Riyadh and Jeddah to Abha — you would barely have room to stand.
In its drive to become a must-see destination, the kingdom is ecumenical about its audience, hoping to attract not only Saudis who in the past would travel elsewhere — and who spent $27 billion on international travel in 2024, according to government figures — but also international visitors.
There are signs it’s working: An International Monetary Fund report noted that annual tourists exceeded the Vision 2030 target of 100 million seven years ahead of schedule.
Work is already underway on Abha’s touristic makeover. All over the city, you see signs advertising projects sponsored by the Public Investment Fund, the oil-backed sovereign wealth fund overseeing the gargantuan investments in the kingdom’s no-holds-barred metamorphosis. Construction will soon begin on upgrading the airport.
Locals pose at a mural in one of the many parks in Abha, which has been working to attract more international tourists.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Beyond the city limits, the fund is planning six tourist districts in the region’s choicest spots; they’ll leverage the area’s majestic vistas to focus on wellness spas, yoga pavilions, meditation retreats, golf courses and glamping pods, according to promotional materials.
“We’re in a transitional phase for the moment, so there’s construction and it can be a bit inconvenient, but things are already getting better,” said Mohammad Hassan, 36, owner of a cafe in Abha called Bard wa Sahab (Cold and Clouds), near an Instagram-ready mountaintop vantage point.
Hassan acknowledged that the spate of development was likely to increase competition and had already spurred a rise in rents. But he appeared happy about what the changes will mean for his business.
“Before, Abha mostly got Saudi visitors or people from the [Persian] Gulf,” he said. “We’re already seeing more foreigners, but the government’s plans will make Abha known internationally.”
Other locals grumble that the construction has made Asir’s most beautiful areas off-limits, and that the focus on luxury will change the freewheeling character of the region.
“We would go to the mountains and camp for days. Authorities have stopped all that, and of course we won’t be able to do it when the resorts open,” said Nasser, a municipal worker who gave only his first name for privacy reasons.
“Maybe all that the government is doing will make it better, but it’s impossible for the old way of life we had here to return,” he said.
Another potential break with the past is possibility of allowing alcohol in the country. But crossing that Rubicon is no easy decision for authorities all too aware of the kingdom’s status as the birthplace of Islam, which bans alcohol and takes a dim view of those who drink and sell it.
Rijal Almaa, an ancient village about 15 miles from Abha, is a popular destination for tourists in Saudi Arabia’s Asir province.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
Nevertheless, many believe it’s coming. Staff working on the construction designs for the Red Sea Project say hotel rooms in various resorts will be equipped with elaborate minibars. And the Four Seasons in Riyadh has opened a tonic bar — but with no booze — that asks you to “delight in a symphony of handcrafted cocktails meticulously prepared to elevate your senses.”
Despite the hundreds of billions Saudi Arabia has spent, there are skeptics. They point to depressed oil prices that mean the government can’t balance its budget or keep up with Vision 2030’s ballooning costs. A few projects have already stalled; architects working on the resorts say that layoffs have spiked and that the scope of their work has been reduced. Other flagship projects, including the Line, have seen their once-fantastical goals grounded by the realities of physics and finance.
Whatever the fate of Vision 2030’s grander plans, Abha’s charms await.
The Rijal Almaa heritage village, located in Asir province, is more than 900 years old.
(Tasneem Alsultan)
One afternoon, I decided to brave Jabal Soudah, figuring a short hike was in order. I started down a barely there path with a vague plan to soon turn back. Indeed, I was so ill-equipped (with inappropriate walking shoes, a tiny bottle of water and a massive cold) that I should have done so. But I kept going, curious to see what the next bend would bring.
Four hours later, sunburned and more winded than I like to admit, I reached a hamlet where I later hitched a ride back to the city.
But before I found the ride, I ignored the exhaustion and lingered for a moment in this corner of a country more known for desert than the dense forest I had crossed. Before me, the mountain range extended somewhere beyond the haze. The fog coalesced around the summits, with sunset’s final rays transforming them into a gracefully undulating landscape of golden gauze.
Africa Specialty Risks (ASR), a re/insurance group that focuses on developing markets, announced the launch of Lloyd’s Syndicate 2454 in South Africa.
Based in Sandton, ASR’s syndicate underwriters will underwrite insurance and reinsurance risks in South Africa and neighboring countries, providing AA-rated capacity to the local market across bespoke specialty lines.
ASR has made significant underwriting hires in the country, with additional executives and underwriters joining the company throughout 2026.
Xolisa Bangeni joins ASR as captives manager, with a background in finance and risk management. Bangeni will be responsible for the development and structuring of captive programs on behalf of large corporates. Prior positions have included risk finance consulting at Marsh, and portfolio and investment oversight at Hollard.
Xolile Kahla also recently joined ASR as a construction underwriter. Kahla has significant engineering and construction experience across the Southern Africa, having spent time at Munich Re and Zurich Insurance.
These two recent appointments join Corinne Beadsmoore, head of Business Development, in ASR Southern Africa, which will provide Lloyd’s capacity directly to local intermediaries and work with South African insurers.
“South Africa has always been and remains a key market for us, and this launch allows us to write risks directly in the market, ensuring we’re close to our customers while offering AA rated global capacity,” commented Mikir Shah, chief executive officer, ASR.
“Given South Africa’s recent sovereign S&P upgrade, along with a successful hosting of the G20, this is an excellent time for the continent, and I look forward to ASR supporting economic development in South Africa,” Shah said.
“This initiative underlines the strong and growing partnership between the UK and South Africa in financial services,” said Antony Phillipson, British high commissioner to South Africa. “By bringing Lloyd’s capacity closer to local markets, ASR is helping businesses manage risk and unlock opportunities, reinforcing South Africa’s position as a hub for innovation and resilience”
“This is a significant and unique distribution hub for ASR. We’ve been working with brokers and cedents in South Africa since the launch of ASR, providing bespoke solutions to the market,” according to Amit Khilosia, chief distribution officer, ASR.
“Our Lloyd’s syndicate 2454 will be the first of its kind to establish underwriting capability on the ground outside the UK allowing us to increase the depth of our offering, including providing partners with (co)insurance solutions direct to the Lloyd’s Open Market Correspondents [OMC] network and insurers in the country,” Khilosia added. “I look forward to expanding our offering in South Africa and neighboring countries.”
The 32nd annual Run to Feed the Hungry is now underway, bringing a record number of participants to the Thanksgiving tradition to benefit the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.Organizers say it’s the largest Thanksgiving Day fun run in the country. It’s also the biggest fundraiser of the year for Sacramento Food Bank.The Nov. 27 event for 2025 offers a 5-kilometer or 10-kilometer run or walk. People will also join virtually and get a bib and shirt.The Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services helps hundreds of thousands of people get food assistance in Sacramento County each month through a network of 111 partner agencies. Last year, the organization distributed the equivalent of 33.2 million meals to an average of 309,285 people each month. This year, food banks have experienced increased demand. Days ahead of the fun run, the 2025 Run to Feed the Hungry had already set a new registration record, topping last year’s record of 31,660 participants on Monday. At the first event in 1994, there were 796 runners and walkers.Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, organizers said registration for the run had sold out, with 34,050 runners. It’s the first time the event has sold out in its 32-year history.| MORE | A look at the weather for Run to Feed the HungryHere is what else you should know about this year’s event, which KCRA 3 and My58 help to sponsor. Live updates from Run to Feed the Hungry 9:15 a.m.: The runner who won the 10K just crossed the finish line for the 5K seconds before the 15-minute mark.9 a.m.: The 5K is now underway.8:48 a.m.: The first female runner finished seconds before the 34-minute mark.8:44 a.m.: The first three participants for the 10K race finished in under 30 minutes.8:15 a.m.: The 10K race began with the elite runners taking the lead.8 a.m.: This year’s run will provide 4 million meals to those in need.7:30 a.m.: Traffic expert and DJ Brian Hickey gives a preview of what music to expect during the run.7 a.m.: Some runners are already showing up to prepare for the fun run.6 a.m.: KCRA 3’s Deirdre Fitzpatrick and Teo Torres get an early look at the start of the course before the sunrise. Where are the road closures for Run to Feed the Hungry?Watch the video below for a quick snapshot of closures.Where does Run to Feed the Hungry take place?The event starts on J Street, west of the entrance of Sacramento State, and runs a loop through the East Sacramento neighborhood. The course ends at the Scottish Rite Temple at 56th and H streets. View the course map here.People usually park at Sac State and in the surrounding neighborhood. Event organizers say there is free bike parking near the start line. View the parking map here.Note: The J Street entrance to Sac State will be closed until after the race finishes. Are there race awards?Yes.People can choose to have chip timing and join a timed runner’s corral to compete for an award.The top three finishers in each age group will get a medal, and the top three overall men and women in the 5K and 10K will receive plaques and prize money.The top three masters (age 40 or older) among men and women will also receive plaques and prize money.Learn more here.How to check Run to Feed the Hungry race resultsYou can find out what time runners completed the run here. What else should I know?No bikes, skateboards, or scooters are allowed. People using strollers are not allowed in the timed races but are encouraged to sign up for the untimed events.Refunds and transfers are not available.Click here for more FAQs from organizers.Celebrating thankfulnessShare photos of what you’re thankful for this holiday season.See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter
SACRAMENTO, Calif. —
The 32nd annual Run to Feed the Hungry is now underway, bringing a record number of participants to the Thanksgiving tradition to benefit the Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.
Organizers say it’s the largest Thanksgiving Day fun run in the country. It’s also the biggest fundraiser of the year for Sacramento Food Bank.
The Nov. 27 event for 2025 offers a 5-kilometer or 10-kilometer run or walk. People will also join virtually and get a bib and shirt.
The Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services helps hundreds of thousands of people get food assistance in Sacramento County each month through a network of 111 partner agencies. Last year, the organization distributed the equivalent of 33.2 million meals to an average of 309,285 people each month.
Days ahead of the fun run, the 2025 Run to Feed the Hungry had already set a new registration record, topping last year’s record of 31,660 participants on Monday. At the first event in 1994, there were 796 runners and walkers.
Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, organizers said registration for the run had sold out, with 34,050 runners. It’s the first time the event has sold out in its 32-year history.
Here is what else you should know about this year’s event, which KCRA 3 and My58 help to sponsor.
Live updates from Run to Feed the Hungry
9:15 a.m.: The runner who won the 10K just crossed the finish line for the 5K seconds before the 15-minute mark.
9 a.m.: The 5K is now underway.
8:48 a.m.: The first female runner finished seconds before the 34-minute mark.
8:44 a.m.: The first three participants for the 10K race finished in under 30 minutes.
8:15 a.m.: The 10K race began with the elite runners taking the lead.
8 a.m.: This year’s run will provide 4 million meals to those in need.
7:30 a.m.: Traffic expert and DJ Brian Hickey gives a preview of what music to expect during the run.
7 a.m.: Some runners are already showing up to prepare for the fun run.
6 a.m.: KCRA 3’s Deirdre Fitzpatrick and Teo Torres get an early look at the start of the course before the sunrise.
Where are the road closures for Run to Feed the Hungry?
Watch the video below for a quick snapshot of closures.
Where does Run to Feed the Hungry take place?
The event starts on J Street, west of the entrance of Sacramento State, and runs a loop through the East Sacramento neighborhood. The course ends at the Scottish Rite Temple at 56th and H streets. View the course map here.
People usually park at Sac State and in the surrounding neighborhood. Event organizers say there is free bike parking near the start line. View the parking map here.
Note: The J Street entrance to Sac State will be closed until after the race finishes.
Are there race awards?
Yes.
People can choose to have chip timing and join a timed runner’s corral to compete for an award.
The top three finishers in each age group will get a medal, and the top three overall men and women in the 5K and 10K will receive plaques and prize money.
The top three masters (age 40 or older) among men and women will also receive plaques and prize money.
No bikes, skateboards, or scooters are allowed. People using strollers are not allowed in the timed races but are encouraged to sign up for the untimed events.
An Afghan national has been accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence at a time when the presence of troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has become a political flashpoint.Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said at a Thursday news briefing that the guard members shot were Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. The guard members were hospitalized in critical condition after Wednesday afternoon’s shooting.Pirro said that the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, drove across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. The suspect currently faces charges of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. Pirro said that “it’s too soon to say” what the suspect’s motives were.The charges could be upgraded, Pirro said, adding, “We are praying that they survive and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree. But make no mistake, if they do not, that will certainly be the charge.”The rare shooting of National Guard members on American soil, on the day before Thanksgiving, comes amid court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.The Trump administration quickly ordered 500 more National Guard members to Washington.Video below: Trump condemned National Guard shooting as ‘heinous assault’The suspect who was in custody also was shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.Attack being investigated as terrorist actFBI Director Kash Patel said the shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Agents have served a series of search warrants, with Patel calling it a “coast-to-coast investigation.”Pirro said: “We have been in constant contact with their families and have provided them with every resource needed during this difficult time.”Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser interpreted the shooting as a direct assault on America itself, rather than specifically on Trump’s policies.“Somebody drove across the country and came to Washington, D.C., to attack America,” Bower said. “That person will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”Suspect worked with CIA during Afghanistan WarThe 29-year-old suspect, an Afghan national, entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.The initiative brought roughly 76,000 people to the U.S., many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. It has since faced intense scrutiny from Trump and his allies, congressional Republicans and some government watchdogs over allegations of gaps in the vetting process and the speed of admissions, even as advocates say it offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.Lakamal has been living in Bellingham, Washington, about 79 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.Prior to his 2021 arrival in the United States, the suspect worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” John Ratcliffe, the spy agency’s director, said in a statement. He did not specify what work Lakamal did, but said the relationship “ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation” of U.S. servicemembers from Afghanistan.Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is in the Taliban heartland of the country. It saw fierce fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 following the al-Qaida attacks on Sept. 11. The CIA relied on Afghan staff for translation, administrative and front-line fighting with their own paramilitary officers in the war.Wednesday night, in a video message released on social media, President Donald Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who entered under the Biden administration.“If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” he said, adding that the shooting was “a crime against our entire nation.”Jeffery Carroll, an executive assistant D.C. police chief, said on Wednesday that investigators had no information on a motive. He said the assailant “came around the corner” and immediately started firing at the troops, citing video reviewed by investigators.Troops held down the shooterThe shooting happened roughly two blocks northwest of the White House near a metro station. Hearing gunfire, other troops in the area ran over and held down the gunman after he was shot, Carroll said. “It appears to be a lone gunman that raised a firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard,” Carroll said, adding that it was not clear whether one of the guard members or a law enforcement officer shot the suspect.“At this point, we have no other suspects,” Carroll said at a news conference.At least one of the guard members exchanged gunfire with the shooter, said another law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.Social media video shared in the immediate aftermath showed first responders performing CPR on one of the troops and treating the other on a sidewalk covered in broken glass.
WASHINGTON —
An Afghan national has been accused of shooting two West Virginia National Guard members just blocks from the White House in a brazen act of violence at a time when the presence of troops in the nation’s capital and other cities around the country has become a political flashpoint.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, said at a Thursday news briefing that the guard members shot were Specialist Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24. The guard members were hospitalized in critical condition after Wednesday afternoon’s shooting.
Pirro said that the suspect, Rahmanullah Lakanwal, drove across the country to launch an “ambush-style” attack with a .357 Smith & Wesson revolver. The suspect currently faces charges of assault with intent to kill while armed and possession of a firearm during a crime of violence. Pirro said that “it’s too soon to say” what the suspect’s motives were.
The charges could be upgraded, Pirro said, adding, “We are praying that they survive and that the highest charge will not have to be murder in the first degree. But make no mistake, if they do not, that will certainly be the charge.”
The rare shooting of National Guard members on American soil, on the day before Thanksgiving, comes amid court fights and a broader public policy debate about the Trump administration’s use of the military to combat what officials cast as an out-of-control crime problem.
The Trump administration quickly ordered 500 more National Guard members to Washington.
Video below: Trump condemned National Guard shooting as ‘heinous assault’
The suspect who was in custody also was shot and had wounds that were not believed to be life-threatening, according to a law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.
Attack being investigated as terrorist act
FBI Director Kash Patel said the shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism. Agents have served a series of search warrants, with Patel calling it a “coast-to-coast investigation.”
Pirro said: “We have been in constant contact with their families and have provided them with every resource needed during this difficult time.”
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser interpreted the shooting as a direct assault on America itself, rather than specifically on Trump’s policies.
“Somebody drove across the country and came to Washington, D.C., to attack America,” Bower said. “That person will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.”
Suspect worked with CIA during Afghanistan War
The 29-year-old suspect, an Afghan national, entered the U.S. in 2021 through Operation Allies Welcome, a Biden administration program that evacuated and resettled tens of thousands of Afghans after the U.S. withdrawal from the country, officials said.
The initiative brought roughly 76,000 people to the U.S., many of whom had worked alongside U.S. troops and diplomats as interpreters and translators. It has since faced intense scrutiny from Trump and his allies, congressional Republicans and some government watchdogs over allegations of gaps in the vetting process and the speed of admissions, even as advocates say it offered a lifeline to people at risk of Taliban reprisals.
Lakamal has been living in Bellingham, Washington, about 79 miles north of Seattle, with his wife and five children, said his former landlord, Kristina Widman.
Prior to his 2021 arrival in the United States, the suspect worked with the U.S. government, including the CIA, “as a member of a partner force in Kandahar,” John Ratcliffe, the spy agency’s director, said in a statement. He did not specify what work Lakamal did, but said the relationship “ended shortly following the chaotic evacuation” of U.S. servicemembers from Afghanistan.
Kandahar in southern Afghanistan is in the Taliban heartland of the country. It saw fierce fighting between the Taliban and NATO forces after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 following the al-Qaida attacks on Sept. 11. The CIA relied on Afghan staff for translation, administrative and front-line fighting with their own paramilitary officers in the war.
Wednesday night, in a video message released on social media, President Donald Trump called for the reinvestigation of all Afghan refugees who entered under the Biden administration.
“If they can’t love our country, we don’t want them,” he said, adding that the shooting was “a crime against our entire nation.”
Jeffery Carroll, an executive assistant D.C. police chief, said on Wednesday that investigators had no information on a motive. He said the assailant “came around the corner” and immediately started firing at the troops, citing video reviewed by investigators.
Troops held down the shooter
The shooting happened roughly two blocks northwest of the White House near a metro station. Hearing gunfire, other troops in the area ran over and held down the gunman after he was shot, Carroll said.
“It appears to be a lone gunman that raised a firearm and ambushed these members of the National Guard,” Carroll said, adding that it was not clear whether one of the guard members or a law enforcement officer shot the suspect.
“At this point, we have no other suspects,” Carroll said at a news conference.
At least one of the guard members exchanged gunfire with the shooter, said another law enforcement official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Social media video shared in the immediate aftermath showed first responders performing CPR on one of the troops and treating the other on a sidewalk covered in broken glass.
A month or so ago, with construction crews still plugging along, Ted Koerner lost sight of the finish line. He wasn’t sure when he’d be able to move back home to Altadena with Daisy May, his 13½-year-old golden retriever.
Koerner’s home was destroyed in the Eaton fire in January, but he has pushed and persisted, trying to speed the rebuilding for Daisy’s sake as much as his own. Whatever time she had left, Koerner told me back in October, he wanted her to spend it where she’s comfortable and happy.
“She’s almost 14,” he said, and that’s well beyond the average lifespan for her breed.
On Tuesday, they made it back home, and it was hard to tell who was happier.
“She’s been out here doing zoomies,” Koerner said on the front lawn, his favorite place to spend time with Daisy at their hilltop home. He has his morning cup of coffee out there while Daisy sniffs around, works her guard duty shifts, and takes in the million-dollar view, which stretches all the way to Santa Catalina Island.
Koerner said friends and neighbors would be coming by over the holiday weekend to help celebrate the homecoming.
“A neighbor down the street, who didn’t burn, is cooking three turkeys,” Koerner said.
When the county inspector showed up Tuesday afternoon and told Koerner he was clear to move in, Koerner activated the video tab on his phone and asked the inspector to repeat what he’d just said.
“You have permission to move in tonight,” the inspector said.
Ted Koerner, 67, drinks a cup of coffee with a mug that makes an appropriate statement after moving back into his newly rebuilt home in Altadena.
“We already made final inspection,” Jun Li Lujan told me. “I don’t want to miss any holidays.”
She said her new stove was on the way, and she planned to go with a classic Thanksgiving meal of turkey, mashed potatoes and stuffing.
“And pumpkin pie,” she said.
Speedy returns are not the norm for victims of the Eaton and Palisades fires. The vast majority have either not yet begun the permitting process or are still in the early stages, and many are still undecided about rebuilding, due in part to financial considerations.
In the Palisades, the first certificate of occupancy was issued recently for a “showcase” home that was built to market the work of the development company. Meanwhile, Palisades resident Craig Forrest, who lost everything in January, thinks his new house could be finished within a week or so, although he might not move in until the new year because the contract on his Santa Monica rental runs through December.
So what’s the secret for him and others who have managed to rebuild in the same calendar year as the fires? In Forrest’s case, he said, the recipe included “fortitude, guts, will, strength, pushing through, making fast decisions, and having the financial wherewithal.”
Having three teenagers was also a factor, Forrest told me. He said that rather than sink in despair, he chose to remain optimistic and keep moving to “show them what you do when something this traumatic and dramatic happens to you.”
In the case of Jun Li Lujan, she had an insider’s edge. She builds houses for a living.
Ted Koerner, 67, prepares to feed his dog Daisy May. Koerner plans on having friends over for Thanksgiving. “The accomplishment alone is just getting home,” Koerner said.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
“Being a contractor, a designer and a project manager for many years, she knew what to do and how to do it quickly. … She’s a force of nature,” said her husband, Bobby Lujan, a musician and brother of the late Chicano artist Gilbert “Magu” Lujan.
L.A. County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who attended an open house at the Lujan residence on Tuesday, told me that bureaucratic hurdles and other challenges have hampered rebuilding efforts. But she met neighbors of the Lujans who were encouraged by their rapid return.
“It gives people hope,” Barger said. “Next week, two homes are going to get certificates of occupancy. One leads to two, leads to five, leads to 10. I feel like we’re on that road.”
Koerner had Daisy as a motivator, along with a figure-things-out mentality from running an investigations and fraud-prevention company that deals with government agencies and multiple businesses. And he knew he didn’t want to live in limbo any longer than he had to, especially after staying in an Old Pasadena hotel for several weeks with other evacuees.
“Every single person in the building was a victim,” Koerner said. “Every time the elevator opened … there were people standing there, leaning against the wall, sobbing. And I mean openly sobbing.”
Landlords in the area were gouging renters, Koerner said, and he briefly considered living in his car before one of his employees offered a La Crescenta space that had just become available.
Koerner was told by an Army Corps of Engineers official to pour his new foundation as soon as the contamination was cleared, even if he hadn’t gotten an insurance check yet. You don’t want to be “number 2,200 in line,” Koerner was told.
Ted Koerner, 67, sits in the front yard of his newly built home with his dog Daisy May in Altadena.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)
That was good advice, and it fit Koerner’s personality. He’s not one to waste time overthinking things, which is best illustrated by his philosophy that a house is a house, not a museum to one’s creativity.
“OK, are you going to spend nine days deciding what color toilet?” Koerner said. “Or are you just going to pick one and live with it. It’s a toilet. It’s not a trophy.”
Koerner robbed his retirement fund to front the start of construction and said that once insurance payments are added up, he’ll be a few hundred thousand dollars in the hole. But he’ll be home.
Whenever there was a pause in the county’s permit machinery, Koerner said he let everyone up to and including the governor’s office know about it. He said U.S. Rep. Judy Chu and Barger — one of whose staffers called Koerner “tenacious” — helped keep things moving.
Koerner also credits building manager Jossef Abraham of Innova Creative Solution for understanding that this was not simply about building a house. It was about getting a 67-year-old man struggling mightily with displacement, and a dog on her home stretch, back where they needed to be.
“We were here on Sunday for six hours, just us, and I brought a bed for her and I fed her here,” Koerner said. “And when I laid down on the floor next to her … she leaned over and started catching the tears, one at a time, as they were rolling down my cheek.”
Koerner stood in his new kitchen, going through everything and everyone he’s grateful for this holiday season. The longtime friends who offered support, the new friends he made in La Crescenta near his temporary home, his builder and his therapist, who taught him “how to let things flow through and get behind you.”
“I’m first and foremost grateful that Daisy has been strong enough to hang in there,” Koerner said. “She has just stayed with me, and that is an answer to a daily prayer.”
Koerner and Daisy May frolicked for a while in his new office, which had a golden glow in the morning light.
Daisy seemed to have turned back the clock and had that expression dogs get, mouth open and eyes aglow, when it looks like they’re smiling.
Koerner looked like he was celebrating a double holiday — Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one.
WEBSITE. BACK TO YOU. ALL RIGHT. SPENCER. THANK YOU. IN LAKE COUNTY, PEOPLE IN PARTS OF TAVARES ARE HAVING TO MAKE SOME ALTERNATE PLANS FOR TOMORROW’S THANKSGIVING FEAST. HOMES ON MULTIPLE STREETS ARE UNDER A BOIL WATER NOTICE AFTER A WATER MAIN BREAK ON TUESDAY. WESH 2’S HAYLEY CROMBLEHOLME IS LIVE IN TAVARES TONIGHT. AND HAYLEY, YOU SPOKE WITH ONE RESIDENT WHO ACTUALLY CHANGED UP HIS DINNER PLANS BECAUSE OF ALL THIS. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT. HE’S MOSTLY BEEN RELYING ON BOTTLED WATER AND EATING OUT RATHER THAN GOING THROUGH THE HASSLE OF HAVING TO BOIL IT. HE HAD BEEN PLANNING ON MAKING A FEW THINGS AT HOME, AND EVEN THOUGH THEY MIGHT GET THE RESULTS OF SOME OF THAT WATER TESTING ON THE HOLIDAY, HE STILL FELT LIKE HE NEEDED AN ALTERNATE PLANS. THE TIMING COULDN’T HAVE BEEN WORSE. DOUG EVANS SAID HE GOT THIS NOTICE ON HIS DOOR TUESDAY FROM THE CITY OF TAVARES, LETTING HIM KNOW THERE WAS A PRECAUTIONARY BOIL WATER NOTICE IN HIS AREA FOR ANY WATER USED FOR THINGS LIKE DRINKING, COOKING, WASHING DISHES AND MAKING ICE. THE SIMPLE STUFF WE STILL USE BOTTLED WATER. IT’S NOT THAT BAD, BUT DOING DISHES, LAUNDRY NOT HAPPENING. IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. IT’S JUST TOO MUCH OF A HASSLE. EVANS NOW HAS LARGE WATER BOTTLES PLACED THROUGHOUT THE HOME AND HAND SANITIZER SITTING NEXT TO THE SINK. THE CITY SAID THE ADVISORY CAME TUESDAY AFTER A BROKEN SIX-INCH MAIN LED TO A WATER SHUT OFF. NOW WATER SAMPLES HAVE TO BE TESTED BEFORE RESIDENTS ON PARTS OF WEST BURLEIGH BOULEVARD, NORTH AVE AND CLIFFORD STREET CAN BE GIVEN THE ALL CLEAR. ALL AS PEOPLE ARE PREPARING FOR THANKSGIVING, WE HAVE OUR GRANDKIDS. WE WERE GOING TO HAVE THEM HERE AND DO A FEW THINGS, ENJOY US JUST HAVING THE HOLIDAYS AND HAVING THEM HERE FROM OUT OF STATE. BUT NOW NOT SO MUCH. EVANS SAID THEIR INITIAL THANKSGIVING PLANS HAVE HAD TO CHANGE. ABSOLUTELY NO COOKING? NO, NOT AT ALL. WE HAD PLANNED TO COOK A FEW THINGS, BUT NO, THAT’S THAT’S NO LONGER GOING TO HAPPEN. THE CITY SAID TYPICALLY, THE RESULTS OF WATER TESTING CAN BE BACK WITHIN 48 HOURS, WHICH WOULD BE THANKSGIVING DAY. BUT THEY CAN’T SAY IF THE RESULTS WILL BE BACK OR WHAT THOSE RESULTS WILL BE. BUT IF THE WATER GETS THE ALL CLEAR, THE CITY SAID STAFF WILL BE KNOCKING ON DOORS AND LEAVING NOTICES, LETTING PEOPLE KNOW. EVEN ON THE HOLIDAY. IT’S ALL GOOD. BUT IN CASE THE RESULTS DON’T GO THE WAY THEY’D LIKE, EVANS HOPES FOLKS HAVE A BACKUP PLAN. I HOPE SO, I HOPE SO, BECAUSE IT’S NOT GUARANTEED. BUT AGAIN, THOSE RESULTS COULD COME BACK ON THANKSGIVING DAY. THE CITY WILL BE GETTING THE WORD OUT, AND YOU CAN USE THE WATER IN YOUR HOME IF YOU LIVE ON THOSE PARTS OF THOSE STREETS AFFECTED, YOU SHOULD JUST BOIL IT FIRST. COVERING LAKE COUNTY. LIVE I
Boil water notice issued for parts of Tavares ahead of Thanksgiving
The City of Tavares announced a boil water notice for parts of several streets Tuesday. The city said it came after a broken six-inch main led to a water shutoff. Now residents at 105 W. Burleigh Blvd. through 201 W. Burleigh Blvd., 802 N. Joanna Ave. through 1102 N. Joanna Ave., and 120 W. Clifford St. are being told to boil any water needed for things like drinking, cooking, brushing teeth and washing dishes. “The timing couldn’t have been worse,” said Doug Evans, who lives in one of the impacted areas. Evans said he got a notice on his door Tuesday from the city of Tavares, letting him know there was a precautionary boil water notice in his area. “The simple stuff, we still use bottled water, it’s not that bad, but doing dishes, laundry, not happening. It’s not gonna happen. It’s just too much of a hassle,” Evans said. The city said water samples have to be tested before residents can be given the all-clear. All as people are preparing for Thanksgiving. “We have our grandkids, and we were going to have them here, do a few things, enjoy just having the holidays and having them here from out of state. Now not so much,” Evans said. Their initial Thanksgiving plans have had to change. “Oh, absolutely no cooking. No. Not at all,” he said. “We had planned to cook a few things, but that’s no longer going to happen.”The city said typically the results of the water testing can be back within 48 hours, which would be Thanksgiving Day. But they can’t say if the results will be back, or what those results will be. But if the water gets the all clear, the city said staff will be knocking on doors and leaving notices letting people know, even on the holiday.
TAVARES, Fla. —
The City of Tavares announced a boil water notice for parts of several streets Tuesday.
The city said it came after a broken six-inch main led to a water shutoff. Now residents at 105 W. Burleigh Blvd. through 201 W. Burleigh Blvd., 802 N. Joanna Ave. through 1102 N. Joanna Ave., and 120 W. Clifford St. are being told to boil any water needed for things like drinking, cooking, brushing teeth and washing dishes.
“The timing couldn’t have been worse,” said Doug Evans, who lives in one of the impacted areas.
Evans said he got a notice on his door Tuesday from the city of Tavares, letting him know there was a precautionary boil water notice in his area.
“The simple stuff, we still use bottled water, it’s not that bad, but doing dishes, laundry, not happening. It’s not gonna happen. It’s just too much of a hassle,” Evans said.
The city said water samples have to be tested before residents can be given the all-clear. All as people are preparing for Thanksgiving.
“We have our grandkids, and we were going to have them here, do a few things, enjoy just having the holidays and having them here from out of state. Now not so much,” Evans said. Their initial Thanksgiving plans have had to change.
“Oh, absolutely no cooking. No. Not at all,” he said. “We had planned to cook a few things, but that’s no longer going to happen.”
The city said typically the results of the water testing can be back within 48 hours, which would be Thanksgiving Day. But they can’t say if the results will be back, or what those results will be.
But if the water gets the all clear, the city said staff will be knocking on doors and leaving notices letting people know, even on the holiday.
Run to Feed the Hungry has become a Thanksgiving tradition in Sacramento since its inaugural event 31 years ago. Organizers say it’s the largest Thanksgiving Day fun run in the country. It’s also the biggest fundraiser for Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services. Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, organizers said registration for the run had sold out, with 34,050 runners. It’s the first time the event has sold out in its 32-year history. The Nov. 27 event for 2025 offers a 5-kilometer or 10-kilometer run or walk. People were also able to register virtually and get a bib and shirt.The Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services helps hundreds of thousands of people get food assistance in Sacramento County each month through a network of 111 partner agencies. Last year, the organization distributed the equivalent of 33.2 million meals to an average of 309,285 people each month. This year, food banks have experienced increased demand. The 2025 Run to Feed the Hungry has already set a new registration record, topping last year’s record of 31,660 participants on Monday. At the first event in 1994, there were 796 runners and walkers.Here is what else you should know about this year’s event, which KCRA 3 and My58 help to sponsor. What is a team at Run to Feed the Hungry? A team could represent a company, family, school or another group. If you join or form a team, you get access to an upgraded tech shirt, a team area with coffee, water and breakfast snacks on Thanksgiving morning and a professional photo. Learn more here. The deadline to form or join a team was Nov. 21. Where and when is packet pickup? Packet pickup takes place at Fremont Presbyterian Church, located at 5770 Carlson Drive. Additional parking is across the street at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center.Below are the times to pick up your packet. Saturday, Nov. 22: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.Sunday, Nov. 23: 1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.Monday, Nov. 24: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.Tuesday, Nov. 25: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.Wednesday, Nov. 26: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27: 7 a.m. – 9 a.m.When do the races start? The 10K starts at 8:15 a.m. for timed runners and 8:20-8:30 a.m. for untimed runners. The 5K starts at 9 a.m. for timed runners and 9:05-9:40 a.m. for untimed runners. Where does Run to Feed the Hungry take place?The event starts on J Street, west of the entrance of Sacramento State, and runs a loop through the East Sacramento neighborhood. The course ends at the Scottish Rite Temple at 56th and H streets. View the course map here.People usually park at Sac State and in the surrounding neighborhood. Event organizers say there is free bike parking near the start line. View the parking map here.Note: The J Street entrance to Sac State will be closed until after the race finishes. Can you look up your run time for the 5k or 10k? Yes, there is a Run to Feed the Hungry results page that tracks when participants cross the finish line and how long it took them. See past race results here. Are there race awards?Yes.People can choose to have chip timing and join a timed runner’s corral to compete for an award.The top three finishers in each age group will get a medal, and the top three overall men and women in the 5K and 10K will receive plaques and prize money.The top three masters (age 40 or older) among men and women will also receive plaques and prize money.Learn more here. Can I bring my pet?Organizers ask participants to leave their pets at home. How to volunteer? You can sign up here. What else should I know?No bikes, skateboards, or scooters are allowed. People using strollers are not allowed in the timed races but are encouraged to sign up for the untimed events.Refunds and transfers are not available.Click here for more FAQs from organizers. Celebrating thankfulnessShare photos of what you’re thankful for this holiday season. See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter
Run to Feed the Hungry has become a Thanksgiving tradition in Sacramento since its inaugural event 31 years ago.
Organizers say it’s the largest Thanksgiving Day fun run in the country. It’s also the biggest fundraiser for Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services.
Around 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, organizers said registration for the run had sold out, with 34,050 runners.
The Nov. 27 event for 2025 offers a 5-kilometer or 10-kilometer run or walk. People were also able to register virtually and get a bib and shirt.
The Sacramento Food Bank and Family Services helps hundreds of thousands of people get food assistance in Sacramento County each month through a network of 111 partner agencies. Last year, the organization distributed the equivalent of 33.2 million meals to an average of 309,285 people each month.
The 2025 Run to Feed the Hungry has already set a new registration record, topping last year’s record of 31,660 participants on Monday. At the first event in 1994, there were 796 runners and walkers.
Here is what else you should know about this year’s event, which KCRA 3 and My58 help to sponsor.
What is a team at Run to Feed the Hungry?
A team could represent a company, family, school or another group. If you join or form a team, you get access to an upgraded tech shirt, a team area with coffee, water and breakfast snacks on Thanksgiving morning and a professional photo. Learn more here.
Run to Feed the Hungry
Here’s this year’s team shirt.
The deadline to form or join a team was Nov. 21.
Where and when is packet pickup?
Packet pickup takes place at Fremont Presbyterian Church, located at 5770 Carlson Drive. Additional parking is across the street at the Scottish Rite Masonic Center.
Below are the times to pick up your packet.
Saturday, Nov. 22: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Sunday, Nov. 23: 1:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
Monday, Nov. 24: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Tuesday, Nov. 25: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Wednesday, Nov. 26: 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.
Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 27: 7 a.m. – 9 a.m.
When do the races start?
The 10K starts at 8:15 a.m. for timed runners and 8:20-8:30 a.m. for untimed runners. The 5K starts at 9 a.m. for timed runners and 9:05-9:40 a.m. for untimed runners.
Where does Run to Feed the Hungry take place?
The event starts on J Street, west of the entrance of Sacramento State, and runs a loop through the East Sacramento neighborhood. The course ends at the Scottish Rite Temple at 56th and H streets. View the course map here.
People usually park at Sac State and in the surrounding neighborhood. Event organizers say there is free bike parking near the start line. View the parking map here.
Note: The J Street entrance to Sac State will be closed until after the race finishes.
Can you look up your run time for the 5k or 10k?
Yes, there is a Run to Feed the Hungry results page that tracks when participants cross the finish line and how long it took them.
People can choose to have chip timing and join a timed runner’s corral to compete for an award.
The top three finishers in each age group will get a medal, and the top three overall men and women in the 5K and 10K will receive plaques and prize money.
The top three masters (age 40 or older) among men and women will also receive plaques and prize money.
No bikes, skateboards, or scooters are allowed. People using strollers are not allowed in the timed races but are encouraged to sign up for the untimed events.
California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines over the Trump administration’s immigration raids this year in Los Angeles and across the nation, according to a new poll.
Just over half of the state’s registered voters oppose federal efforts to reduce undocumented immigration, and 61% are against deporting everyone in the nation who doesn’t have legal status, according to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab released to The Times on Wednesday.
But there is an acute difference in opinions based on political leanings.
Nearly 80% of Democrats oppose reducing the number of people entering the United States illegally, and 90% are against deporting everyone in the country who is undocumented, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 5% are against reducing the entries and 10% don’t believe all undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave.
“The big thing that we find, not surprisingly, is that Democrats and Republicans look really different,” said political scientist Amy Lerman, director of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, who studies race, public opinion and political behavior. “On these perspectives, they fall pretty clearly along party lines. While there’s some variation within the parties by things like age and race, really, the big divide is between Democrats and Republicans.”
While there were some differences based on gender, age, income, geography and race, the results largely mirrored the partisan divide in the state, Lerman said.
One remarkable finding was that nearly a quarter of survey respondents personally knew or were acquainted with someone in their family or friend groups directly affected by the deportation efforts, Lerman said.
“That’s a really substantial proportion,” she said. “Similarly, the extent to which we see people reporting that people in their communities are concerned enough about deportation efforts that they’re not sending their kids to school, not shopping in local stores, not going to work,” not seeking medical care or attending church services.
The poll surveyed a sample of the state’s registered voters and did not include the sentiments of the most affected communities — unregistered voters or those who are ineligible to cast ballots because they are not citizens.
A little more than 23 million of California’s 39.5 million residents were registered to vote as of late October, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“So if we think about the California population generally, this is a really significant underestimate of the effects, even though we’re seeing really substantial effects on communities,” she said.
Earlier this year, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched a series of raids in Los Angeles and surrounding communities that spiked in June, creating both fear and outrage in Latino communities. Despite opposition from Gov. Gavin Newsom, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other elected Democrats, the Trump administration also deployed the National Guard to the streets of the nation’s second-largest city to, federal officials said, protect federal immigration officials.
The months since have been chaotic, with masked, armed agents randomly pulling people — most of whom are Latino — off the streets and out of their workplaces and sending many to detention facilities, where some have died. Some deportees were flown to an El Salvador prison. Multiple lawsuits have been filed by state officials and civil rights groups.
In one notable local case, a federal district judge issued a ruling temporarily blocking federal agents from using racial profiling to carry out indiscriminate immigration arrests in the Los Angeles area. The Supreme Court granted an emergency appeal and lifted that order, while the case moves forward.
More than 7,100 undocumented immigrants have been arrested in the Los Angeles area by federal authorities since June 6, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
On Monday, Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach), Bass and other elected officials hosted a congressional hearing on the impact of immigration raids that have taken place across the country. Garcia, the top Democrat on the House’s oversight committee, also announced the creation of a tracker to document misconduct and abuse during ICE raids.
While Republican voters largely aligned with Trump’s actions on deportations, 16% said that they believed that the deportations will worsen the state’s economy.
Lerman said the university planned to study whether these numbers changed as the impacts on the economy are felt more greatly.
“If it continues to affect people, particularly, as we see really high rates of effects on the workforce, so construction, agriculture, all of the places where we’re as an economy really reliant [on immigrant labor], I can imagine some of these starting to shift even among Republicans,” she said.
Among Latinos, whose support of Trump grew in the 2024 election, there are multiple indications of growing dissatisfaction with the president, according to separate national polls.
Nearly eight in 10 Latinos said Trump’s policies have harmed their community, compared to 69% in 2019 during his first term, according to a national poll of adults in the United States released by the nonpartisan Pew Research Center on Monday. About 71% said the administration’s deportation efforts had gone too far, an increase from 56% in March. And it was the first time in the two decades that Pew has conducted its survey of Latino voters that the number of Latinos who said their standing in the United States had worsened increased, with more than two-thirds expressing the sentiment.
Another poll released earlier this month by Somos Votantes, a liberal group that urges Latino voters to support Democratic candidates, found that one-third of Latino voters who previously supported Trump rue their decision, according to a national poll.
Small business owner Brian Gavidia is among the Latino voters who supported Trump in November because of financial struggles.
“I was tired of struggling, I was tired of seeing my friends closing businesses,” the 30-year-old said. “When [President] Biden ran again I’m like, ‘I’m not going to vote for the same four years we just had’ … I was sad and I was heartbroken that our economy was failing and that’s the reason why I went that way.”
The East L.A. native, the son of immigrants from Colombia and El Salvador, said he wasn’t concerned about Trump’s immigration policies because the president promised to deport the “worst of the worst.”
He grew disgusted watching the raids that unfolded in Los Angeles earlier this year.
“They’re taking fruit vendors, day laborers, that’s the worst of the worst to you?” he remembered thinking.
Over a lunch of asada tortas and horchata in East L.A., Gavidia recounted being detained by Border Patrol agents in June while working at a Montebello tow yard. Agents shoved him against a metal gate, demanding to know what hospital he was born at after he said he was an American citizen, according to video of the incident.
After reviewing his ID, the agents eventually let Gavidia go. The Department of Homeland Security later claimed that Gavidia was detained for investigation for interference and released after being confirmed to be a U.S. citizen with no outstanding warrants. He is now a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by the ACLU and immigrant advocacy groups alleging racial profiling during immigration raids.
“At that moment, I was the criminal, at that moment I was the worst of the worst, which is crazy because I went to go see who they were getting — the worst of the worst like they said they were going to get,” Gavidia said. “But turns out when I got there, I was the worst of the worst.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel had identified the latest remains returned from Gaza as hostage Dror Or.That leaves the bodies of two hostages in Gaza as the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement nears a conclusion.Palestinian militants released Or’s remains Tuesday.Israel has agreed to release 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage returned.Dror Or was killed by Islamic Jihad militants who overran his home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military said. His wife, Yonat Or, was also killed in the attack.That day, Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza. Kibbutz Beeri was one of the hardest-hit farming communities in that attack that started the war in Gaza.Two of Or’s children, Alma and Noam, were abducted by the militants on Oct. 7 and released in a hostage deal in November 2023.Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of two — one Israeli and one Thai national— are still in Gaza.Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and 170,800 injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive. The toll has increased during the ceasefire, both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel had identified the latest remains returned from Gaza as hostage Dror Or.
That leaves the bodies of two hostages in Gaza as the first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement nears a conclusion.
Palestinian militants released Or’s remains Tuesday.
Israel has agreed to release 15 Palestinian bodies for each hostage returned.
Dror Or was killed by Islamic Jihad militants who overran his home in Kibbutz Beeri on Oct. 7, 2023, Israel’s military said. His wife, Yonat Or, was also killed in the attack.
That day, Palestinian militants killed some 1,200 people across southern Israel and abducted 251 to Gaza. Kibbutz Beeri was one of the hardest-hit farming communities in that attack that started the war in Gaza.
Two of Or’s children, Alma and Noam, were abducted by the militants on Oct. 7 and released in a hostage deal in November 2023.
Almost all of the hostages or their remains have been returned in ceasefires or other deals. The remains of two — one Israeli and one Thai national— are still in Gaza.
Gaza’s Health Ministry says more than 69,700 Palestinians have been killed and 170,800 injured in Israel’s retaliatory offensive. The toll has increased during the ceasefire, both from new Israeli strikes and from the recovery and identification of bodies of people killed earlier in the war.
The ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its figures, but has said women and children make up a majority of those killed. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, maintains detailed records viewed as generally reliable by independent experts.
California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Trump Administration Tuesday seeking to stop a federal policy change that advocates say could force 170,000 formerly homeless Americans back on the streets or into shelters.
The lawsuit focuses on a federal program known as Continuum of Care that sends money to local governments and nonprofits to fight homelessness.
This month, the Trump Administration announced it was drastically cutting the amount of money the program will pay for rental subsidies in permanent housing and shifting those dollars to temporary housing and services instead.
With subsidies for permanent housing reduced, advocates say 170,000 people could return to homelessness. Locally, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority has warned 5,000 L.A. County households, containing 6,800 people, could be at risk of losing their homes, which would erase the small decline in homelessness reported this year.
“This [federal] program has proven to be effective at getting Americans off the streets, yet the Trump Administration is now attempting to illegally slash its funding,” Bonta said in a statement.
HUD did not immediately respond to a request for comment. This month, the department said its policy change “restores accountability to homelessness programs and promotes self-sufficiency among vulnerable Americans” in part by redirecting most money to transitional housing and supportive services that it sees as more effective than permanent housing.
Bonta filed the lawsuit along with 19 state attorneys general and two governors.
The lawsuit alleges the HUD policy change violated the law in several ways, including that the department failed to properly notice the change and that the new restrictions on funding violate the separation of powers because they were not imposed by Congress.
In addition to capping the amount of funds that can be spent on permanent housing, HUD is requiring more total homeless dollars be subject to competitive bidding.
Bonta‘s office said the new rules also “eliminate funding to applicants that acknowledge the existence of transgender and gender-diverse people” and make it harder for cities and counties to get funding if they don’t “enforce certain policies this Administration favors, like bans on public camping.”
CARACAS, Venezuela — On the face of it, the United States appears closer than ever to mounting a military campaign to remove President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela.
President Trump says he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside the Caribbean nation, and has massed troops, fighter jets and warships just off its coastline.
U.S. service members in the region have been barred from taking Thanksgiving leave. Airlines have canceled flights to Venezuela after the Federal Aviation Administration warned of a “potentially hazardous situation” there. And on Monday the White House officially designated Maduro as a member of an international terrorist group.
In Caracas, the nation’s capital, there is a palpable sense of anxiety, especially as each new bellicose pronouncement emerges from Washington.
“People are very tense,” said Rosa María López, 47, a podiatrist and mother of two. “Although no one says anything because they are afraid.”
Traffic is sparse at the Simon Bolivar Maiquetia International Airport in Maiquetia, Venezuela, on Sunday after several international airlines canceled flights following a warning from the Federal Aviation Administration about a hazardous situation in Venezuelan airspace.
(Ariana Cubillos / Associated Press)
Trump has been presented with a set of military options by the Pentagon, a source familiar with the matter told The Times, and is said to be weighing his options. Still, his plans for Venezuela remain opaque.
Trump, even while warning of a possible military action, has also continually floated the possibility of negotiations, saying he “probably would talk” to Maduro at some point.
“I don’t rule out anything,” Trump said last week.
Now people in both the U.S. and Venezuela are wondering: is the U.S. military buildup in the Caribbean the prelude to an invasion, or a bluff intended to pressure Maduro to make a deal?
There are members of the White House — especially Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who are desperate to unseat Maduro, a leftist autocrat whom the U.S. does not recognize as Venezuela’s legitimately elected president.
But other members of Trump’s team seem more intent on securing access to Venezuela’s oil riches, and keeping them from China and Russia, than pushing for regime change. Parties of that camp might be willing to accept a deal with Venezuela that does not call for Maduro’s exit and a plan for a democratic transition.
Months of U.S. saber-rattling without any direct military action against the Maduro government may be weakening the Americans’ negotiating position, said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based research group. “There is a psychological component to this operation, and it’s starting to lose its credibility,” he said. “I do fear that the regime thinks that it has weathered the worst of U.S. pressure.”
Maduro, for his part, insists he is open to dialogue. “Whoever in the U.S. wants to talk with Venezuela can do so,” he said this week. “We cannot allow the bombing and massacre of a Christian people — the people of Venezuela.”
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, speaking Friday at the presidential palace in Caracas, has insisted he is open to dialogue with the United States.
(Cristian Hernandez / Associated Press)
For years, he has refused efforts to force him from office, even in the face of punishing U.S. sanctions, domestic protests against his rule and various offensives during the first Trump administration that Caracas deemed as coup attempts. Experts say there is no evidence that Trump’s buildup of troops — or his attacks on alleged drug traffickers off of Venezuela’s coast — has weakened Maduro’s support amid the military or other hard-core backers.
Venezuela, meanwhile, has sought to use the prospect of a U.S. invasion to bolster support at home.
On Monday, top officials here took aim at the State Department’s designation of an alleged Venezuelan drug cartel as a foreign terrorist group. Rubio claims the Cartel de los Soles is “headed by Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking individuals of the illegitimate Maduro regime who have corrupted Venezuela’s military, intelligence, legislature and judiciary.”
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth praised the declaration for introducing “a whole bunch of new options” to fight what he described as “narco-terrorists” and “illegitimate regimes.”
The Venezuelan government says the Cartel de los Soles does not exist. Foreign Minister Yván Gil described Monday’s designation as a “ridiculous fabrication.” The U.S., he said, is using a “vile lie to justify an illegitimate and illegal intervention against Venezuela under the classic U.S. format of regime change.”
The truth is somewhere in the middle.
The Cartel de los Soles, experts say, is less a traditional cartel — with a centralized command structure directing various cells — than a shorthand term used in the media and elsewhere to describe a loose group of corrupt Venezuelan military officials implicated in the drug trade.
The name, Cartel of the Suns, derives from the sun insignia found on the uniforms of Venezuelan soldiers, much like stars on U.S. military uniforms. It has been around since the early 1990s, when Venezuela was an important trans-shipment point for Colombian cocaine bound for the U.S. market. Today, only a small portion of cocaine trafficked to the U.S. moves through Venezuela.
Venezuelan journalist Ronna Rísquez Sánchez said it is unclear whether Maduro actually directs illicit activities conducted by his military or simply allows it to transpire among his government. Either way, she said, it is “happening under his nose.”
But she did not rule out that seizing on Maduro’s possible links to drug trafficking might be a convenient “pretext” for U.S. political machinations.
For the people of Venezuela, recent weeks have seen a heightened sense of uncertainty and anguish as people ponder ever-conflicting reports about a possible U.S. strike.
More than a decade of political, social and economic upheaval has left people exhausted and numbed, often unable to believe anything they hear about the future of Maduro’s government. There is a widespread sense of resignation and a feeling that things can only get worse.
“Every week we hear they are going to get rid of Maduro, but he’s still here,” said Inés Rojas, 25, a street vendor in Caracas. “We all want a change, but a change that improves things, not makes them worse. We young people don’t have a future. The doors of immigration are closed, we are locked in here, not knowing what is going to happen.”
Mostly, people seem to want an end to the overwhelming feeling of not knowing what comes next.
“I pray every day that this uncertainty ends,” said Cristina López Castillo, 37, an unemployed office worker who favors Maduro’s removal from office. “We don’t have a future — or a present. We live every day wondering what will happen tomorrow. I have more fear of hunger than of Trump.”
Still, Maduro retains many backers — and not only among the military and political elite who have seen their loyalty rewarded with additional wealth. Many people remain thankful for the social welfare legacy of Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, and are wary of U.S. motivations in Venezuela.
“We Venezuelans do not want to be anyone’s colony, nor do we want anyone to drop bombs on us to get rid of a president,” said José Gregorio Martínez Pina, 45, a construction worker in the capital.
“Is Maduro a narco? I haven’t seen any proof,” he said. “And if they have it, they should present it, instead of having a country living under terror for weeks.”
Times staff writers Linthicum and McDonnell reported in Mexico City. Mogollón, a special correspondent, reported in Caracas. Michael Wilner in the Times’ Washington bureau also contributed reporting.
Kate Linthicum, Patrick J. McDonnell, Mery Mogollón
JENIN, West Bank — After 15 months in an Israeli jail, Mustafa Sheta drove home with his brothers to Jenin. A lot changed while he was in prison, they said.
The fighters that once had daily run-and-gun battles with Israeli soldiers? Gone. The bustling population of the refugee camp that gave Jenin its reputation as the martyrs’ capital? Gone. The theater Sheta ran in the camp, which he nurtured into an internationally known lodestar of Palestinian cultural resistance? Gone.
It appeared that Jenin, known as the city that never surrendered, had surrendered.
“I was shocked. The concept of resilience in Jenin, it’s really important to people. Where are the fighters, the Palestinian Authority, grassroots organization, the local leaders?” Sheta said.
“It felt like we lost the war, like we are losing this battle.”
A view in May of Palestinian houses destroyed by the Israeli army in Nour Shams, one of three refugee camps in the northern West Bank targeted by Israel’s military.
(Wahaj Bani Moufleh / AFP / Getty)
Jenin has become the quintessential model of how Israel — in a long-running campaign dubbed Operation Iron Wall — has largely subdued the northern West Bank.
Over more than 300 days, Israel has deployed soldiers, tanks, helicopter gunships and even airstrikes in Jenin and other cities, leaving a trail of destruction that has triggered what aid groups call the most severe bout of Palestinian displacement in the West Bank — more than 40,000 people initially, now down to about 32,000 — since Israel occupied the region in 1967. In a report released Nov. 20, Human Rights Watch alleged Israeli forces’ actions amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Coming under particular Israeli ire are the refugee camps in the area, set up as tent encampments for Palestinians displaced by Israel’s creation in 1948 but which hardened over the decades into slum neighborhoods Israel considers nodes of militancy.
Three of them — Jenin, Tulkarm and Nour Shams camps — have been depopulated and all but occupied by the Israeli military for roughly nine months, with soldiers systemically demolishing homes.
Of those, the Jenin camp, which holds legendary status among Palestinians for a 10-day battle between militants and Israeli forces in 2002, has fared the worst, incurring destruction many people here compare to Gaza.
For Palestinians who saw the camp and surrounding city of Jenin as a symbol for resistance against occupation, it has come to exemplify a sense of despair, and weariness with a fight that has never seemed so fruitless in bringing about a Palestinian state.
Sheta, the theater general manager, had staged works with political themes until he was detained — without charge, he says — from December 2023 to March this year. The Freedom Theater became famous staging adaptations of works such as George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” and Palestinian author Ghassan Kanafani’s “Men in the Sun,” a tragic novel about three men fleeing refugee camps.
Though the theater has regrouped elsewhere, it’s not the same. “We consider the theater arrested by the Israel army, because we can’t be in the camp,” he said. “Our soul is there.”
Using satellite data from October, the United Nations estimates that more than half of the camp’s buildings — almost 700 structures — are destroyed or damaged, with entire residential blocks razed or blown up. Several streets have been ripped apart or blocked by the 29 berms erected by Israeli forces; many other streets were widened with bulldozers to create corridors aimed at facilitating future military operations.
A Palestinian woman walks past a wall pockmarked with bullet holes in the Jenin camp in February. The camp has been depopulated in the months since.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
The Israeli military says its operation in the camps is meant to dismantle militant infrastructure, including explosives factories, weapons caches and tunnels. It also aims to root out groups such as the Jenin Battalion, a loose alliance of fighters from different factions, including Fatah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
The Jenin Battalion primarily fought Israeli forces but also clashed with the Palestinian Authority, which oversees the West Bank and collaborates with Israel on security matters; many Palestinians view the authority as corrupt and impotent.
But whatever resistance existed in the camp was crushed shortly after the operation launched in January, residents and Palestinian officials say, leaving Israel’s continued occupation a mystery for the roughly 14,000 people who were expelled and who have no idea when, or if, they’ll be permitted to return.
“There’s no Jenin Battalion anymore. Not a single one is alive. They picked them off one by one,” said Shadi Dabaya, 54, who was sitting among a group of men by the main entrance of the Jenin camp. They fell silent as an Israeli armored vehicle rumbled past, its antenna swinging above the berm blocking the street.
Israeli soldiers walk behind a tank in the Jenin camp for Palestinian refugees in February. In the months since, the Israeli military has cut off entry to the camp.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
“We just hear them shooting all the time,” Dabaya said, nodding toward the Israelis. “They’ve turned the camp into a training ground.”
No residents have been allowed to visit, Dabaya added. In September, Israeli soldiers shot and killed two 14-year-old boys trying to enter the camp to retrieve some of their belongings. The Israeli military told the media that the boys had approached soldiers — “posed a threat to them” — and did not obey commands to stay away; it said the shooting was under review.
“With all the destruction, even if the Israelis withdrew from the camp tonight, we would need months to be able to live there — all the infrastructure is destroyed,” said Mohammed Al-Sabbagh, who heads the camp’s Popular Services Committee.
For now, he said, families are crowded into a block of 20 buildings with one-room student dormitories roughly six miles away from the camp. But months after they moved there, the Palestinian Authority — from which Israel has withheld tax revenue, along with taking other measures that strangled its finances — is unable to pay the $63,000 monthly rent.
“Those who accepted these awful conditions — crammed with their families in a tiny room meant for one student — even they will find themselves on the street,” Al-Sabbagh said.
The worst part, he added, was having no idea whether his home was still standing.
“If we knew what the Israelis are doing, we could at least figure out what to do ourselves.”
The operation in Jenin has spread its footprint well beyond the camp. Israeli soldiers who once traveled the surrounding city streets in armored vehicles for fear of attacks now conduct near-daily patrols unhindered, raiding shops and homes at will, residents charged.
Areas adjacent to the camp have been emptied, too. So far, said one Palestinian Authority official who refused to be named for safety reasons, 1,500 residents from those areas have been forced to leave.
“These people have nothing to do with the camp, but they’ve been forced out,” he said.
One of the affected neighborhoods is Jabriyat, a wealthy area overlooking the camp that has the feel of a ghost town, where villas bear the dusty patina of abandonment.
“All of us living around the camp are paying the price,” said Hiba Jarrar, one of the last remaining residents on her street in Jabriyat. From her balcony, she pointed to a building Israeli soldiers recently commandeered.
“There’s no resistance, zero. Not a single bullet is being fired by Palestinians. A soldier can raid any home on his own because he feels safe,” she said, adding that when she heard shooting in the past, she assumed Palestinians and Israelis were fighting; now she knows it comes from only the Israeli soldiers.
“You know what’s sad?” she said. “If anyone fought the Israelis now, people here would tell them to stop. They just want to live. They’re desperate.”
A Palestinian man carries a child down a road destroyed by Israeli forces during a large-scale military operation in east Jenin city, which lies near the Jenin refugee camp.
(John Wessels / AFP / Getty Images)
Palestinian officials say despite repeated requests, Israeli authorities have given no indication when they will leave the camp, and all attempts at facilitating visits there have been rejected.
“What’s happening in the camp is not a necessary security prerogative. There’s nothing requiring the Israelis to do what they’re doing,” said Palestinian Authority Security Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Anwar Rajab, adding that his forces could handle security and that Israel was undermining their authority with its actions.
Rajab echoed the thoughts of residents, analysts and aid workers who see in Israel’s assault a larger plan to recast the camps as ordinary city neighborhoods, not refugee havens. Such rebranding would essentially erase the notion of Palestinians as refugees.
“It’s targeting a community by changing the topography on the ground,” said Roland Friedrich, director of affairs in the West Bank for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees. He added that Israeli officials in local media have said that once Operation Iron Wall is complete, there will be “no more geographic expression of the refugee issue.”
Another measure in the same vein, according to a Palestinian Authority official who requested anonymity for safety reasons, is Israel’s refusal to allow UNRWA back in the camp.
Among those hoping to return someday is Sheta, who after his release from custody went to the berm at the camp’s entrance — the closest he could get to his theater, which was founded in 2006 by a former Palestinian fighter from Jenin named Zakaria Zubeidi, along with a leftist Israeli actor and a Swedish activist.
His imprisonment, he said, was a time of routine beatings and humiliations, with soldiers strip-searching detainees, recording them with their phones and mocking them. The Israelis viewed Palestinians as “not even human. Or animals. Less than nothing,” he said.
He has since “returned to use the same tools” he had used before his arrest to resist Israel’s occupation, but he acknowledged people in Jenin had changed. “Their priorities are different. Some have lost trust in the Palestinian cause,” he said.
Some in the community thought he was “crazy” for bothering with nonviolent methods. But “if you lose your cultural front, you lose your identity, your heritage, your roots with this land,” he said. Besides, he added with a tired smile, if his methods weren’t effective, why did the Israelis arrest him?
“That at least proves to me my work annoys them, no?”
Dozens of Topanga residents gathered in the town’s Community House to hear Assistant Fire Chief Drew Smith discuss how the Los Angeles County Fire Department plans to keep Topangans alive in a fierce firestorm.
In the red-brick atrium, adorned with exposed wood and a gothic chandelier, Smith explained that if a fire explodes next to the town and flames will reach homes within minutes, orchestrating a multi-hour evacuation through winding mountain roads for Topanga’s more than 8,000 residents will just not be a viable option. In such cases, Smith told attendees at the town’s Oct. 4 ReadyFest wildfire preparedness event, the department now plans to order residents to shelter in their homes.
“Your structure may catch on fire,” Smith said. “You’re going to have religious moments, I guarantee it. But that’s your safest option.”
Wildfire emergency response leaders and experts have described such an approach as concerning and point to Australia as an example: After the nation adopted a similar policy, a series of brush fires in 2009 now known as Black Saturday killed 173 people, many sheltering in their homes.
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Some in the bohemian community of nature lovers, creatives and free spirits — who often pride themselves on their rugged, risky lifestyle navigating floods, mudslides, wildfires and the road closures and power outages they entail — are left with the sinking realization that the wildfire risk in Topanga may be too big to bear.
Water tanks called “pumpkins” are available to helicopters to be used during a fire at 69 Bravo, an LAFD Command Center along Saddle Peak Road in Topanga.
They see the shelter-in-place plan as a perilous wager, with no comprehensive plan to help residents harden their homes against fire and no clear, fire-tested guidance on what residents should do if they’re stuck in a burning home.
“Do we need to have some way of communicating with first responders while we are sheltering in place? Would the fire front be approaching us and we’re just on our own?” asked Connie Najah, a Topanga resident who attended ReadyFest and was unsettled by the proposal. “What are the plans for helping people through this season and the next season while we’re waiting to have widespread defensible space implementation?”
No fire chief wants to face the scenario of a vulnerable town with no time to evacuate. But it is a real possibility for Topanga. Smith, speaking to The Times, stressed that the new guidelines only apply to situations where the Fire Department has deemed evacuations infeasible.
“If we have time to evacuate, we will evacuate you,” Smith said.
Emergency operations experts say not enough has been done in their field to address the very grim possibility that evacuating may not always be possible — in part because it’s a hard reality to confront. It’s not a small problem, either: Cal Fire has identified more than 2,400 developments around the state with at least 30 residences that have significant fire risk and only a single evacuation route. Topanga is home to nine of them.
“We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area.”
— James Grasso, president of the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness
Recent fires, including the 2018 Camp fire in Paradise and Woolsey fire in Malibu, have made the issue too hard to ignore.
In Topanga, Najah has a ham radio license so she can stay informed when power and cell service inevitably go down. The elementary school relocates out of town during red-flag days. A task force including the Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, the Fire Department and other emergency operations agencies publishes a Disaster Survival Guide and distributes it to every household.
“The survival guide was born out of necessity,” said James Grasso, president of TCEP, who also serves as a call firefighter for the county Fire Department. “We’re pretty isolated. We’re densely populated. Fuel and homes are intermixed. It’s an extremely dangerous area, particularly during Santa Ana wind conditions.”
The guide had instructed residents to flock to predetermined “public safe refuges” in town, such as the baseball field at the Community House or the large parking lot at the state park, to wait out fires. If residents couldn’t make it to these, there were predetermined “public temporary refuge areas” within each neighborhood, such as street intersections and homes with large cleared backyards, that provide some increased chance of survival.
But when the Fire Department determined the spaces were not capable of protecting the town’s entire population from the extreme radiant heat, it pivoted to sheltering in place — the last and most dangerous option listed in the old guide.
Connie Najah, a 16-year resident of Topanga, points out photographs from the Topanga Disaster Survival Guide of places that were once considered “public safe refuges” to be used during a fire.
The survival guide’s old plan was consistent with what emergency response experts and officials have argued across the globe, but it failed to meet typical safety standards for such an approach.
The report argued that, due to tightly packed combustible structures amid an accumulation of flammable vegetation, “nearly all” communities are “unsuitable” for sheltering in place.
David Shew, a trained architect and firefighter who spent more than 30 years at Cal Fire, said that for a shelter-in-place policy to be viable, a community would need to undertake significant work to harden their homes and create defensible space — work that has not been done in most California communities.
It’s “not really safe for people to just think, ‘OK, I’ve done nothing but they told me to just jump in my house,’” he said.
And once a house ignites, suggestions that Smith offered up at ReadyFest like sheltering in a bathroom are of little use, said Mark Ghilarducci, a former director of the California Governor’s Office of Emergency Services.
“Under certain circumstances, your home could potentially provide a buffer,” he said. But if a house is burning and surrounded by fire in the wildlands, “you’re in a position where you are essentially trapped, and your bathroom’s not going to save you.”
Smith said, however, that the Fire Department had done its own analysis of the Topanga area and determined that the fire dynamics in the area are too extreme for Topanga’s proposed public shelter spaces to be effective.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area.”
— Drew Smith, assistant fire chief at the Los Angeles County Fire Department
During hot, aggressive fires like the Woolsey, Franklin and Palisades fires, Smith said, “for 30 to 100 people, you need a minimum of clear land that’s 14 acres, which is 14 football fields.” Many of the safety areas in the survival guide, such as an L.A. County Public Works water tank facility, are barely larger than 1 acre.
The department argues sheltering in place, although far from guaranteeing survival, eliminates the risk of residents getting trapped on roadways, unable to see, with almost no protection.
“There is no way that we can 100% eliminate the fire risk and death potential if you live in a fire-prone area,” Smith said.
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1.Topanga resident James Grasso, president of Topanga Coalition for Emergency Preparedness, walks toward a baseball field that was once declared a public safe refuge to escape to during a fire at the Topanga Community Center.2.Connie Najah stands on a portion of Peak Trail that was at one time considered a public temporary refuge area during fires in Topanga.
Regardless of what residents (or emergency response experts) think of the department’s approach, the safest thing residents can do, experts say, is to always, always, always follow the department’s orders, whether that’s to evacuate, find a safety zone or shelter in their homes. The department’s plan to keep residents alive depends on it.
Still, the history of shelter-in-place policies — and their more aggressive companion, “stay and defend,” which involves attempting to actively combat the blaze at home — looms heavy.
After more than 100 bush fires swept through southeast Australia in 1983, killing 75 people in what became known as Ash Wednesday, Australian fire officials adopted a “stay or go” policy: Either leave well before a fire reaches you, or prepare to stay and fend for yourself. If you’re living in a high fire hazard area, the philosophy goes, it is your responsibility to defend your property and keep yourself alive amid strained fire resources.
Around the same time, California considered the policy for itself after dangerous fires ripped through the Santa Monica Mountains, Ghilarducci said. State officials ultimately decided against it, choosing instead to prioritize early evacuations. Cal Fire’s “Ready, Set, Go!” public awareness campaign became the face of those efforts.
In 2009, an explosive suite of brush fires broke out, yet again, in southeast Australia and seemed to confirm California’s worst nightmare: 173 people lost their lives in the Black Saturday tragedy. Of those, 40% died during or after an attempt to defend their property, and nearly 30% died sheltering in their homes without attempting to defend them. About 20% died while attempting to evacuate.
Afterward, Australia significantly overhauled the policy, placing a much greater emphasis on evacuating early and developing fire shelter building standards.
Nearly a decade later, California confronted its own stress test. The Camp fire ripped through Paradise in the early morning on Nov. 8, 2018. The time between the first sighting of the fire and it reaching the edge of town: one hourand 39 minutes. The time it took to evacuate: seven hours.
Among the miraculous stories of survival in Paradise were the many individuals who found refuge areas in town: a predetermined safety zone in a large, open meadow; the parking lots of stores, churches and schools; a local fire station; roadways and intersections with a little buffer from the burning trees.
But the same day, the intensity of the Woolsey fire in the Santa Monica Mountains — similarly plagued with evacuation challenges — unsettled fire officials. It’s in these conditions that Smith doubted Topanga’s refuge sites could protect residents.
Stuck without many options, the Fire Department began slowly thinking about refining the policies that proved disastrous for Australia. The Palisades fire brought a renewed urgency.
Just a month before ReadyFest, L.A. County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone stirred anxiety among emergency response officials when he appeared to endorse a stay-and-defend policy,telling KCAL-TV, “We’ve always told people that when the evacuation order comes, you must leave. We’ve departed from that narrative. With the proper training, with the proper equipment and with the proper home hardening and defensible space, you can stay behind and prevent your house from burning down.”
The department later clarified the statement, saying the change only applies to individuals in the Santa Monica Mountains’ community brigade who have received significant training from the department and operate under the department’s command. (The brigade is not intended as a means for members to protect their own homes but instead serve the larger community.)
Now, residents worry the policy to shelter in place is coming without enough preparation.
A worker stops traffic that has been reduced to one lane on a portion of Topanga Canyon Boulevard for underground cable installation Nov. 19.
A Times analysis of L.A. County property records found that roughly 98% of residential properties in Topanga were built before the state adopted home-hardening building codes in 2008 to protect homes against wildfires.
However, a significant number of Topangans have opted to complete the requirements regardless. Various fire safety organizations in the Santa Monica Mountains have visited more than 470 of Topanga’s roughly 3,000 residential properties to help residents learn how to harden their homes. These efforts are, in part, why the National Fire Protection Assn. designated the mountain town as a Firewise Community in 2022.
There are some relatively simple steps homeowners can take, such as covering vents with mesh, that can slightly reduce the chance of a home burning. But undertaking a comprehensive renovation — to remove wood decks, install noncombustible siding and roofing, replace windows with multipaned tempered glass, hardscape the land near the house and trim down trees — is expensive.
A report from the community development research nonprofit Headwaters Economics found a complete home retrofit using affordable materials costs between $23,000 and $40,000. With high-end materials that provide the best protection, it can cost upward of $100,000.
“We’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
— Connie Najah, 16-year resident of Topanga
Many Topangans have taken up the challenge, anyway. Grasso, who lost his home in the 1993 Old Topanga fire, has slowly been hardening his property since the rebuild. He’s even built a concrete fire shelter against a hillside with two steel escape doors and porthole windows.
Researchers have found comprehensive home hardening and defensible space can reduce the risk of a home burning by about a third, but not bring it down to zero. (Albeit, none have tested Grasso’s elaborate setup.)
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1.Nancy Helms stands on top of “dwarf carpet of stars,” a succulent plant that surrounds a large area of her home as a fire prevention method on Rocky Ledge Road in Topanga.2.Ryan Ulyate uses metal sculptures of plants and cactus outside his home in Topanga. He has eliminated any brush or flammable plants near his home and surrounds it in gravel to prevent his home from catching fire.3.Ryan Ulyate shows a vent opening that he covered with metal filters to prevent embers from entering his home if a fire occurs in Topanga.
Wildfire safety experts hope the state someday adopts building standards for truly fire-proof structures that could withstand even the most extreme conditions and come equipped with life-support systems. But any such standards are years away, and the L.A. County Fire Department has to have a plan if a fire breaks out tomorrow.
For Grasso, fire risk is a risk like any other, like the choice to drive a car every day. In exchange for the beauty of living life in Topanga, some folks will learn to accept the risk and do what they can to mitigate it: Harden a home, fasten a seat belt. Others — especially those unable to take the drastic steps Grasso has been able to — will deem the beauty of life in Topanga not worth the risk of getting trapped by flames.
“The amount of money it takes to get to this point is too cost-prohibitive for us at this moment,” Najah said. “It’s really a tough place to be in. … It’s not going to be easy, and we’re not the only rural community. All over the state, people are having to deal with this.”
Times assistant data and graphics editor Sean Greene contributed to this report.
Two suicide bombers attacked the headquarters of a security force in northwestern Pakistan on Monday morning, killing at least three officers and wounding five others, police and rescue officials said.The attack took place in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, said city Police Chief Saeed Ahmad.Video above: Pakistani officials say the insurgent attack on a train has ended but some hostages are deadHe said one attacker detonated his explosives at the main gate of the provincial headquarters of the Federal Constabulary, while the second bomber was shot and killed by officers near the parking area.According to Ahmad, a large number of security personnel were on open ground inside the headquarters for morning parade drills when the attack took place. “The terrorists involved in today’s attack were on foot and failed to reach the parade area and a timely response by our forces prevented a much larger tragedy,” he told The Associated Press.No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.However, the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have been blamed for similar previous assaults in the country, which has witnessed a surge in militant attacks. The TPP is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban that leads Afghanistan.The latest attack came less than two weeks after a suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people.The attacks have strained ties between Islamabad and Afghanistan’s Taliban government, with Pakistan accusing the Pakistani Taliban of operating freely inside Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021.Pakistan’s government often accuses Afghanistan of turning a blind eye to cross-border attacks by militants.Kabul denies the allegation, but tensions between the two sides escalated after Afghanistan blamed Pakistan for Oct. 9 drone strikes in Kabul and vowed retaliation. The ensuing fighting killed dozens of people, including soldiers, civilians and militants, before Qatar brokered a ceasefire on Oct. 19, which remains in place.It was followed by two rounds of talks in Istanbul, during which the two sides failed to reach an agreement after Afghanistan refused to give guarantees in writing about preventing the TTP from using Afghan soil for attacks inside Pakistan.Pakistan in recent weeks has stepped up operations against the TTP, killing dozens of insurgents near regions bordering Afghanistan. Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
PESHAWAR, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa —
Two suicide bombers attacked the headquarters of a security force in northwestern Pakistan on Monday morning, killing at least three officers and wounding five others, police and rescue officials said.
The attack took place in Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province bordering Afghanistan, said city Police Chief Saeed Ahmad.
Video above: Pakistani officials say the insurgent attack on a train has ended but some hostages are dead
He said one attacker detonated his explosives at the main gate of the provincial headquarters of the Federal Constabulary, while the second bomber was shot and killed by officers near the parking area.
According to Ahmad, a large number of security personnel were on open ground inside the headquarters for morning parade drills when the attack took place. “The terrorists involved in today’s attack were on foot and failed to reach the parade area and a timely response by our forces prevented a much larger tragedy,” he told The Associated Press.
No group immediately claimed responsibility for the attack.
However, the Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, have been blamed for similar previous assaults in the country, which has witnessed a surge in militant attacks. The TPP is separate from but allied with the Afghan Taliban that leads Afghanistan.
The latest attack came less than two weeks after a suicide bomber struck outside a court in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad, detonating his explosives next to a police car and killing 12 people.
Muhammad Zubair
Security officials and rescue workers gather at the site of a suicide bombing at the main gate of headquarters of the Federal Constabulary (FC) in Peshawar, Pakistan, Monday, Nov. 24, 2025.
The attacks have strained ties between Islamabad and Afghanistan’s Taliban government, with Pakistan accusing the Pakistani Taliban of operating freely inside Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Pakistan’s government often accuses Afghanistan of turning a blind eye to cross-border attacks by militants.
It was followed by two rounds of talks in Istanbul, during which the two sides failed to reach an agreement after Afghanistan refused to give guarantees in writing about preventing the TTP from using Afghan soil for attacks inside Pakistan.
Pakistan in recent weeks has stepped up operations against the TTP, killing dozens of insurgents near regions bordering Afghanistan.
Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar in Peshawar, Pakistan, contributed to this story.
