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Murder Investigation – Los Angeles Riverbed and the 91 Freeway

Reporters Desk
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Murder Investigation – Los Angeles Riverbed and the 91 Freeway

 

Homicide detectives are investigating the murder of a male adult that occurred on July 16 near the Los Angeles Riverbed and the 91 freeway.

On July 16, about 11:18 a.m., officers responded to the Los Angeles Riverbed near the 91 freeway to assist the Long Beach Fire Department regarding a dead body. Upon arrival, officers located a male adult victim with a gunshot wound to the upper body. Long Beach Fire Department personnel determined the victim deceased.

Homicide detectives responded to the scene. The motive for the shooting and the circumstances of the incident are currently under investigation.

The victim is a male adult who appeared to be experiencing homelessness. His identity is being withheld pending notification of the next of kin by the Los Angeles County Department of the Medical Examiner.

Anyone with information regarding this incident is urged to contact Homicide Detectives Oscar Valenzuela and Michael Hubbard at 562-570-7244, or anonymously at 800-222-8477,www.LACrimeStoppers.org.

Supervisors Move to Tackle Drug Use and Smuggling in County Juvenile Facilities

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Supervisors Move to Tackle Drug Use and Smuggling in County Juvenile Facilities

 

LOS ANGELES — In a 4-0 vote with one abstention, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors in July approved a motion authored by Supervisor Janice Hahn and co-authored by Supervisor Lindsey P. Horvath that directs the county’s probation department to implement a strategy to curb an ongoing issue with the smuggling and use of illicit drugs within the county’s juvenile detention centers, including through enhanced security screening and expanded substance use treatment. The emergency motion comes after a string of drug-related incidents, most recently an incident at Los Padrinos Juvenile Hall in Downey in early July in which several youth and staff were hospitalized after suspected exposure to toxic drugs.

“Youth in Los Padrinos aren’t even allowed to hug their moms out of fear of drugs or contraband being passed, yet drugs keep getting in. We are failing our youth, we are failing our employees, and every day, we risk losing another life to substance use,” said Supervisor Hahn, whose district includes Los Padrinos. “I cannot sit by and do nothing to prevent drugs from coming into these juvenile facilities – if it will save lives, then I believe it is worth every effort.”

The Probation Department must now enhance its screening practices, including installing airport-style body scanners and strengthening the use of canines to detect drugs. Additionally, the motion calls for its work with the Department of Public Health’s substance abuse prevention and control (DPH-SAPC) to expand treatment for youth with active substance use disorders.

The suspected overdose and exposure at Los Padrinos was the latest in a string of incidents. In June, the Probation Department announced arrests in two separate incidents of suspected smuggling, first on June 10 of a Deputy Probation Officer accused of smuggling alprazolam into Barry J. Nidorf Juvenile Hall, and then on June 30 of an employee of a contracted provider for allegedly attempting to smuggle more than 170 white pills into Los Padrinos. The motion also directs the Probation Department to cancel the contract with that contracted provider, Student Nest.

Why Did This Farmworker Die In An Immigration Raid?

Terelle Jerricks
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Why Did This Farmworker Die In An Immigration Raid?

 

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/ice-raid-jaime-alanis-garcia/

https://davidbaconrealitycheck.blogspot.com/2025/07/why-did-this-farmworker-die-in.html

Community and immigrant rights organizations rally in Oakland’s Latino Fruitvale district protesting immigration raids. One sign says “For my father, who was deported. Watch me from Heaven, Papa. This is Our War!”

Jaime Alanis Garcia died of a broken neck in the Ventura County Medical Center on Saturday. He fell 30 feet from the roof of a Glass House Farms greenhouse, where he’d climbed in a desperate effort to get away from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and National Guard soldiers during an immigration raid on Thursday.

In announcing his death, Alanis’ family called him, “not just a farm worker [but] a human being who deserved dignity. His death is not an isolated tragedy.” The raid, they said, inspired “chaos and fear” among hundreds of farmworkers in the company’s two cannabis farms in Camarillo and Carpenteria, an hour north of Los Angeles.

ICE announced that 319 people had been detained in the raid, and Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin denied responsibility for Alanis’ death. “This man was not in and has not been in CBP or ICE custody [and] was not being pursued,” she claimed.

Of course, Alanis was being pursued. All the workers were, by dozens of agents in battle gear as they fanned out inside the greenhouse. That pursuit was the reason he climbed to the roof.

Another worker was recorded in a video during the raid after climbing a tall scaffolding. “Do what you want. Say what you say. I’m not coming down,” she cried out. “They say they will come and get us. They are saying whatever they want to get us down. We ask them who they are but they won’t answer.” The video was uploaded onto a website, @mrcheckpoint, used to track raids. The woman’s fate is still not known.

Chaos and fear are deliberately used as weapons to terrorize workers and their families. At Glass House Farms, agents arrived in unmarked tan troop transports whose license plates had been removed. They were dressed in military camouflage uniforms reminiscent of the Afghan and Iraq wars, with balaclavas covering their faces.

Arrests were indiscriminate. After a security guard-a US citizen and US Army veteran-was detained, his family couldn’t even find out where he was being held. Jonathan A. Caravello, Ph.D., also a US citizen and professor at the California State University Channel Islands campus in Camarillo, was also arrested by ICE. A judge finally ordered him released from the Los Angeles Metropolitan Detention Center on July 14.

After the raid President Trump claimed the agents were under attack, and gave ICE “Total Authorization … using whatever means is necessary.” A few days earlier, after sending mounted agents and National Guard soldiers into Los Angeles’ Macarthur Park, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said no one could stop these military-style deployments. “You have no say in this at all,” he told Mayor Karen Bass. Miller has given DHS a quota of 3,000 arrests per day

Immigration authorities knew that a death like Alanis’ would happen sooner or later. There is a long history of people dying while fleeing from ICE. Santos Garcia and Marcelina Garcia were two indigenous Mixtec farmworkers killed when their car overturned, trying to escape from ICE agents in Delano in 2018. Agents had been staking out roads to stop laborers going to work-a terror tactic during Trump’s first administration, but not one he invented. Five migrants were killed in the 1992 crash of a van fleeing the Border Patrol in Temecula, and two years later another seven died in another truck pursued by agents in the same area.

Inspiring terror, as a tactic, is openly acknowledged. Gregory Bovino, a Border Patrol official in charge of the Southern California region, said “Illegal aliens had the opportunity to self deport. Now we’ll help things along a bit.” Bovino earlier led a January raid the day after Trump’s election victory was certified, targeting farmworkers in roadblocks and Home Depot parking lots in the San Joaquin Valley. “Self-deportation” is the euphemism used by immigration authorities when people are made so fearful that they leave their homes to return to their countries of origin, or simply to another safer place.

But the military deployment of ICE agents is also a response to rising protest that is defying this campaign of intimidation. Within minutes of the arrival of agents at the greenhouses, calls on cellphones brought family members and community activists to the sites. They were met with tear gas, “flash bang” grenades and smoke bombs.

Immigrant communities have been preparing for raids since Trump’s election. For months in the state’s farmworker towns young people (mostly documented and US citizens born here) have organized marches to defend their parents, in an inspiring demonstration of courage and determination. The conduct of the raids, by armed soldiers in combat fatigues, is an effort by ICE and Homeland Security to intimidate them into halting any action that might interfere.

In many communities activist groups like Union del Barrio and the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles have formed teams to monitor the movements of ICE and Border Patrol agents. They carry bullhorns, and warn community residents not to open their doors when a raid seems likely. White House border czar Tom Homan was explicit about consequences. “The rhetoric keeps rising and rising and rising – someone’s gonna get hurt,” Homan told NBC News a month prior to the Glass House raid. “If this violence isn’t tamped down, someone’s gonna die, and that’s just that’s just a cold fact of life.”

The Trump administration was careful to target a marijuana-growing operation because it provides headlines appealing to its MAGA base, while not threatening its big ag supporters. Fox News accused California Governor Newsom of receiving big campaign donations from Glass House co-founder Graham Farrar. Like most big marijuana operations, Glass House Farms donates to state politicians from both parties because it depends on their votes for the license to operate. Marijuana is still illegal under Federal legislation, and Federal law enforcement has long made California cannabis a target.

ICE even claimed that its raid had “rescued” a handful of minors. A statement by the United Farm Workers responded, “detaining and deporting children is not a solution for child labor.”

The Trump administration, however, has been careful not to conduct raids targeting big corporate farms. California’s central coast, where Glass House Farms is located, is the nation’s biggest strawberry-growing area. While fear in the coast’s farmworker towns is endemic, the strawberry crop is getting harvested. In Washington State’s Wenatchee River Valley-the largest apple growing area in the U.S.-Jon Folden of Blue Bird farm cooperative says, “We’ve not heard of any real raids.” The Border Patrol’s Bovino says, “For us, targeting agricultural workers at their job, absolutely not.”

The Glass House raid didn’t even make it into the news section of the website of the Western Growers Association, which includes the country’s largest growers of fruits and vegetables. Their silence, in fact, is deafening. There is no WGA statement opposing raids, and its website reassures growers, “While enforcement activities have not targeted agriculture, here are some prudent proactive steps to respond appropriately to potential [ICE] visits.” Among them, it advertises, “Western Growers H-2A Services available to support growers during this complex labor environment … helping members secure a capable, reliable and legal workforce.”

Last year growers recruited 384,000 H-2A workers (a sixth of the country’s farm labor workforce), mostly from Mexico, under temporary work contracts. These laborers can only work for the grower who recruits them, and can be fired and deported for protesting, organizing or simply working too slowly.

In the fields surrounding Glass House Farms, central coast strawberries are picked because growers increasingly rely on this program. According to the Employer Data Hub of the US Citizenship and Immigration Services, agribusiness has brought 8,140 workers to Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties, about a quarter of all the farm workforce.

Trump has promised to make this program even more grower-friendly, and big ag has supported him overwhelmingly. The current secretary of agriculture, Brooke Rollins, told Congress that she’d modernize the H-2A program “to do everything we can to make sure that none of these farms or dairy producers are put out of business [by immigration enforcement].”

At the end of June Trump scrapped the Farmworker Protection Rule, regulations put in place by Julie Su, Biden’s Secretary of Labor, that provided minimal protections for H-2A workers. By getting rid of it, growers can now bar outsiders (community groups or unions) from labor camps, give workers contracts in languages they can’t read, retaliate against workers who complain of bad conditions, and even stop using seat belts in the vehicles transporting laborers to the fields. In 2019 Trump froze the minimum wage for H-2A workers, and growers are calling on Congress to support a bill that would do that permanently.

Pushback against ICE, however, continues to win in court. The day after agents arrived at Glass House farms, U.S. District Judge Maame E. Frimpong in Los Angeles made permanent two temporary restraining orders which would limit the ways ICE can conduct immigration raids. One prohibits agents from stopping and detaining people based on skin color, language or other general factors used to profile immigrants. The second mandates legal representation for detainees held in the notorious B-18 jail in downtown L.A.

DHS’s Tricia McLaughlin attacked Judge Frimpong for “undermining the will of the American people,” and claimed “”enforcement operations are highly targeted.” That was certainly how Jaime Alanis must have felt before he fell.

So who gained and who paid in the Glass House raid? The Trump administration hyped up the MAGA base once again with images of extreme force deployed against immigrant farmworkers. Big Ag growers, meanwhile, seem immune, continuing to pay wages at the bottom, with government-sponsored access to a labor program that has been described as “close to slavery.” Terrorized farmworker families risk deportation if they try to organize and raise those wages, while living in fear that parents will be picked up when their kids are in school.

Newsom to Trump: End the Occupation of L.A. — Governor Stands with Communities, Shares Resources to Resist Militarization

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Newsom to Trump: End the Occupation of L.A. — Governor Stands with Communities, Shares Resources to Resist Militarization

 

LOS ANGELES — Providing support to local communities impacted by federal immigration enforcement actions, Gov. Gavin Newsom July 16 met with business owners and faith leaders in the Los Angeles area.

Economic impact

Because of Trump’s actions, the state’s economy is likely to contract later this year due to fallout from global tariffs and immigration raids in Los Angeles and other cities that have rattled key sectors, including construction, hospitality, and agriculture, according to a UCLA Anderson forecast.

Mass deportations in California could slash $275 billion from the state’s economy and eliminate $23 billion in annual tax revenue. The loss of immigrant labor would delay projects (including rebuilding Los Angeles after the wildfires), reduce food supply, and drive up costs.

Undocumented immigrants contributed $8.5 billion in state and local taxes in 2022 — a number that would rise to $10.3 billion if these taxpayers could apply to work lawfully.

New resource for community

Trump’s militarization of Los Angeles has also led to increasingly concerning tactics by federal immigration enforcement, including violating the law and people’s constitutional rights. Families are being terrorized by the broad enforcement efforts targeting Latino neighborhoods, harming U.S. citizens, and racially profiling families and workers. That’s why it’s important to remember the following if you are affected by a federal immigration action:

You can observe and record public immigration arrests, but stay calm and at a safe distance to avoid risk to yourself and others.

Do not interfere or argue with federal agents. Physical obstruction or verbal escalation can put your safety at risk and may lead to criminal charges.

Agents don’t need a judge-signed warrant to arrest someone in public — but do need one to enter non-public areas of private property.

Prepare yourself and your family in case you are arrested. Memorize the phone numbers of your family members and your lawyer. Make emergency plans if you have children or take medication.

For more information on helpful community resources, the Governor’s Office has released new factsheets here in English and here in Spanish.

End the militarization of LA now

For over a month, about 4,000 National Guard members have been stationed for the President in Los Angeles, pulled away from their families, communities, and civilian jobs. While half are just now beginning to demobilize, many remain without a clear mission, direction, or a timeline for returning to their communities. California urges Trump and the Department of Defense to end this deployment and send all remaining guardsmembers home immediately.

The federal government can enforce immigration laws and keep Californians safe without violating our rights, terrorizing entire communities, breaking the law, disrupting the economy, and raising costs for families.

Groups Sue EPA Over Toxic Refinery Chemical that Threatens Fenceline Communities

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Groups Sue EPA Over Toxic Refinery Chemical that Threatens Fenceline Communities

Community and environmental groups July 9 filed suit to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to address the threat of an unnecessary and dangerous chemical used in dozens of American refineries despite its potential to form toxic acid clouds.

The groups are filing the suit after the EPA rejected the groups’ petition to address the needless risks from use of hydrogen fluoride (HF)—an extremely corrosive chemical that, if released to the air, can form a lethal, ground-hugging plume that can travel for miles, causing severe injury or death to anyone in its path. More than 40 oil refineries across the country — owned by companies including ExxonMobil, Marathon, Valero, and Delta Airlines, among others — use HF.

Several refineries across the country have started to replace HF with safer commercial-scale alternatives. HF can dissolve skin, muscle, and bone, disrupt essential bodily functions, and kill or permanently disable people who inhale or touch it. The chemical is still being used in refineries around the country, including at the Torrance and Wilmington refineries in the Los Angeles area and the Trainer refinery south of Philadelphia, putting millions at risk of exposure. HF endangers not only people near the refineries but also those along train and truck routes used to transport the corrosive chemical.

The groups’ petition to the EPA highlighted the horrific risks associated with a potential release of HF. It also discussed numerous near-miss incidents, some of which narrowly avoided exposing tens of thousands of people to the chemical. The federal government and oil industry have known for decades that a dense, ground-hugging cloud tends to spread from an HF release into the air. This propensity to form clouds makes HF harder to contain, and more dangerous, than alternative chemicals used in other refineries around the United States. Exposure to as little as 1% of one’s skin (about the size of one’s hand) to liquid HF can cause fatal injury because of how easily the chemical penetrates the skin and disrupts vital functions. Inhaling HF vapor or aerosols (small airborne droplets)—the most likely way people would be exposed if there were a major release — can also be deadly.

The case was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California by Clean Air Council or CAC, Communities for a Better Environment or CBE, and NRDC or Natural Resources Defense Council. The groups have developed materials to inform the public if they live near a refinery using HF and have included other information about each facility, such as its parent company, safety measures in place (or missing), and the number of people it puts at risk. If the case prevails, the court will order the EPA to develop a regulation to eliminate unreasonable risks from HF use at refineries.

 

Following are quotes from groups lodging the complaint:

“Needlessly risking release of this extremely hazardous chemical in our densely packed region where so many people could be injured or killed is reckless. All the other refineries in Pennsylvania manage to use safer alternatives,” said Alex Bomstein, Clean Air Council executive director. “The Philly refinery explosion in 2019 was a breath away from being a mass casualty incident due to HF. The EPA needs to confront this risk, and we’re going to court to make sure it does.”

“HF is so dangerous, industrial safety experts have asked why it is still in use. L.A. County found the local refineries using it put millions at risk, so we are going to court to end this unnecessary and unnerving risk to the public,” said Alicia Rivera, Wilmington community organizer with Communities for a Better Environment. “Why should this hazard continue in a densely packed earthquake zone, even though all the other refineries in the state use far safer alternatives? This recklessness has got to stop.”

“Poison acid clouds engulfing refinery communities and transit corridors sounds like a horror movie, but it’s a real possibility as long as EPA refuses to engage,” said Matthew Tejada, senior vice president of environmental health at NRDC. “This is an unnecessary threat to the communities around dozens of refineries. Since the agency won’t fix the situation, we are going to court to address it before people are hurt or killed. At a time when oil companies are making tens of billions of dollars every year in profit, the least they can do is adopt safer alternatives that better protect the communities near their facilities.”

 

“The Buddy Holly Story” is all about the music, which this production gets right

Greggory Moore
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“The Buddy Holly Story” is all about the music, which this production gets right

The Buddy Holly story probably doesn’t get told on either screen or stage were it not for the tragedy that brings it to a halt. There wasn’t much drama in the life of Charles Hardin Holley. He was just a sweet little guy from Lubbock, Texas, whose instincts were perfect for the narrow confines of 1950s rock ‘n’ roll, scoring seven Top 40 singles in two years before the snowy December night when an airplane crash killed him — along with Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (a.k.a. “the Big Bopper”) — at the tender age of 22.

Ah, but the music. Limited in range as it may be (let’s just say that learning how to play “Peggy Sue” means you know like 30% of his entire oeuvre), the tuneful primitivism is infectious even now, let alone how it felt to people in a world where The Beatles had yet to exist. And a select few of his songs truly transcend their place in history.

Despite its corny humor and anemic drama, the jukebox musical that is The Buddy Holly Story works because it’s primarily about that music, finding a small but smart variety of ways to showcase not only the greatest of Holly’s hits, but breathing new life into a few of his best minor compositions. And Musical Theatre West’s production works because they’ve hired the right people for the job.

That starts, of course, with our buddy Buddy. Will Riddle not only looks the part, but has the voice, guitar chops, and stage presence as a musician to be completely believable and a pleasure to see and hear. And although his and the entire cast’s acting is adequate, because playwright Alan Janes’s hasn’t created a work of dramatic substance, acting is not what this show is about. It’s the music, dummy.

One of the delights of The Buddy Holly Story is that all the music (well, almost all) is performed live on stage by the cast. As perfect as Riddle is, bad support from any of the musicians that join him — first Omar D. Brancato (bass) and Laura Leo Kelly (drums) as his fellow Crickets, then several others as Holly’s short career progresses — would degrade the overall effect. But that never happens.

Some of the highlights are unexpected. Rendered here solo by Holly/Riddle on acoustic guitar, “Words of Love” has a luminous yearning that the original recording lacks. For the classic “Maybe Baby”, music director Ryan O’Connell gives Riddle’s Stratocaster a subtly modern treatment coming out of the amp, foreshadowing the sounds that subsequent generations of musicians were going to create by building on Holly’s rudiments. Most notably, with his arrangement of “True Love Ways”, a late Holly recording that strays further from his bread-and-butter 1-4-3 than anything else he tried, O’Connell unearths such beautifully dark atmospherics that even an out-of-tune guitar on opening night could not ruin. (Having never heard this song, at home after the show I listened to Holly’s original recording: nice, but nowhere near as good as this.)

Then there are the ones we know by heart, which you damn well better do right. “Peggy Sue”, “That’ll Be the Day”, “Peggy Sue Got Married” — all fab. But the highlight of highlights is “Everyday”. Janes’s conceit of creating the song in a single take at the end of one marathon recording session (a subtle metafictional touch, considering that all performances in a musical on a given night are single takes) is a great one, because the audience knows exactly how this quietly remarkable piece of music (the celeste!) is supposed to sound, and so we hold our breath as the band starts in. And like magic, right in front of our eyes, voilà.

The invisible challenge in staging a show where all the music is produced onstage is how to handle the spread of the physical locations of the sound sources. On this front, Musical Theatre West nets mixed results. It’s not that the sound is ever bad, but by funneling everything through the house PA, we are somewhat disabused of the illusion of seeing early rock ‘n’ roll, where a guitar at stage left came at you from the amp on that side, the bass at stage right from there, the piano from the piano, the drums from the drums (here the only instrument that we get to enjoy coming from its locus). During one number, for example, two pianos are offset a stage left and stage right — but rather than get the sonic benefit of the spatial arrangement, both come at us from the center, partly defeating the purpose of having two pianos at all. I have to imagine that the Carpenter Center PA has stereo capabilities — it’s as upscale a performance venue as we’ve got in this town — but if so, MTW has not availed themselves of this possibility.

Although mostly spot-on, O’Connell and director Keith Andrews have made a few minor miscalculations. Although Laura Leo Kelly’s drumming brings the primitivistic excitement while keeping a lid on the volume, the snare is too quiet on several songs, particularly “Not Fade Away”. And while the band’s frenetic antics on Act 1 closer “Oh, Boy!” are a treat, some of Omar D. Brancato’s acrobatics render him unable to execute his bass part in a given moment, which hurts the song’s momentum several times.

Also, enjoyable as Marlena Madison (vocals) and Tyrone Jones (trumpet) are when they perform The Isley Brothers’ “Shout”, Andrews’s choice to hide the t band behind a giant red curtain (which increasingly highlights how little is happening onstage as the seconds turn into minutes) ultimately handicaps Madison & Jones’s efforts, because a song with such a big sound just ain’t the same when we don’t get to see its main source. I’m sure this was done because the musicians behind the curtain are ones we see in other roles — perhaps even including Riddle, who for obvious reasons we can’t see as part of the backing band at the Apollo Theatre — but this is not a good solution.

But O’Connell and Andrews have created some wonderful work choreographing “the Jingle Singers” (not identified in the program, alas), as well as a lovely sequence that expertly shifts our attention back and forth across the stage as Holly’s star rises.

The star of the mise en scène is Paul Black, whose lighting design is quietly bold and sharply pristine, the kind of thing that many people won’t notice and yet will register in their overall experience. The goat is whoever forgot to kill a radio-station “ON AIR” sign during a joke that hinges upon the DJ talking off-air, then making a quick 180 when he rejoins his listeners.

If you’re wondering how Holly’s death is handled — and really, that’s about the only mystery when you take your seat before curtain-up — while you won’t get any spoilers here, suffice it to say that it’s the single best thing about Janes’s script, surprising, tasteful, and poignant.

But the show doesn’t end there, because the music lives on. That’s the Buddy Holly story in a nutshell, and it’s unlikely anyone buying a ticket to The Buddy Holly Story will come away disappointed.

The Buddy Holly Story at Musical Theatre West
Times: Fri 8pm, Sat 2pm & 8pm, Sun 1pm; plus Thurs July 17 8pm and Sun July 20 6pm
The show runs through July 27.
Cost: starting at $20
Details: (562) 856-1999, musical.org
Venue: Carpenter Performing Arts Center (6200 W. Atherton, Long Beach)

Enjoyable ensemble performance makes “Witch” wholly worthwhile

Greggory Moore
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Enjoyable ensemble performance makes “Witch” wholly worthwhile

Have you been feeling like all is lost? Think our capitalistic reality is so far gone that maybe the only way out is to burn it all to the ground and start again?

If so, the Garage Theatre has a play for you. Starting off as a tale of how life in a rural olde towne is disrupted when the devil comes ‘round looking to buy some souls, ultimately Jen Silverman’s Witch is a meditation on how reducing life to the transactional has sent our world to hell in a handbasket.

But as timely as the theme may be, the reason to come is the cast, who make absolutely every scene watchable even when the script comes up a bit short.

Like every Christopher Nolan screenplay this side of Dunkirk, Silverman’s Witch is best enjoyed without analyzing it too deeply. For some reason Scratch, our demon-about-town (Rory Cowan), doesn’t seem to know whether he’s the devil or simply a “junior colleague.” And despite the play’s title, Elizabeth’s (Colette Rutherford) being thought of as a witch by the gossipy townsfolk is barely a plot point. And ultimately the main action, which concerns whether wealthy Sir Arthur (a properly orotund Paul Knox) will choose his effeminate son Cuddy (Bobby Zelsdorf, who earned the biggest laughs) or the manlier foster Frank (Rob Young, getting some big laughs of his own) as heir, is largely irrelevant to Silverman’s fuzzy mediation on whether there’s any hope of extricating ourselves from the growth spiral of a capitalism that is choking the life from us.

But even if the script can’t quite win on points, Silverman does provide enough intelligence, pathos, and humor (chock full of intentional anachronisms so there’s no mistaking that this is a play about today despite being set in colonial times) to give the cast a fighting chance — and they win by a knockout. Co-directors Alexandria McGinness and Eric Hamme couldn’t have cast the show any better, with every actor holding his/her own when they’re doing little and finding the most of their big moments — including several that come from the Garage rather than Silverman. It’s not the writing that holds your interest from start to finish, but the presentation.

A few minor shortcomings keep that presentation from verging on a perfect score. Technically, opening night was rough, with maybe half the lighting cues fractionally off and a few sound cues coming as much as 10 seconds too late, forcing the actors to talk over music that simply would not yield. But while we can expect that aspect to improve as the run wears on, McGinness & Hamme come up with effective scene changes. Yeah, we can suspend our disbelief, but some do hurt the momentum — especially since otherwise the pacing is perfect.

The worst thing about this show, though, is the seating. A great charm of seeing plays at the Garage is the creativity they display time and again in reconfiguring — sometimes totally — their black-box space so as to maximize the viewing experience to serve the needs of whatever particular work they’re staging. But for once this talent has failed them, as a dearth of risers means that unless you’re well over six feet tall, choose the wrong seat and your view will be obscured by the heads in front of you.

So if you’re going to this one, show up early and plant yourself in the front row. Then you’ll be in the best position to appreciate a set of truly enjoyable performances.

Witch at the Garage Theatre
Times: Thursday–Saturday 8:00 p.m.
The show runs through August 9.
Cost: $23–$28 (Thursdays 2-for-1); closing night w/afterparty: $40
Details: thegaragetheatre.org
Venue: The Garage Theatre, 251 E. 7th St., Long Beach

 

KHERSON: Human Safari — Ukraine, Our Amnesia And a Dance Among the Ruins

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KHERSON: Human Safari — Ukraine, Our Amnesia And a Dance Among the Ruins

“While the world is asleep, we are dying here.”

by Anna Solcaniova King for the Palast Investigative Fund July 11

Kherson: Human Safari is both a frontline documentary and a work of resistance art — a powerful and poetic film created inside the war-torn city of Kherson, located by the Black Sea on the Dnieper River. The city that does not fear.

Written and directed by Zarina Zabrisky, an award-winning American author and journalist based in Ukraine, the film exposes one of the most horrifying aspects of Russia’s invasion: systematic drone attacks on civilians — what witnesses describe as a “human safari.” These targeted strikes — captured in intercepted footage — form the heart of a war crime still unfolding in plain sight and escalating.

But Kherson: Human Safari is not just evidence of atrocity. It is also a portrait of resilience, memory, and artistic defiance. The people who made it are the same people living through invasion, occupation, resistance, and war.

As Zabrisky explained to me via email, ”The structure may feel unexpected. The dancer’s role is a mystery at first — she is ethereal, the soul of Kherson, moving through destruction and survival. Later, she speaks. She is real. She is from Kherson and her journey comes alive through her movement.”

This self-reflexive storytelling is woven into every part of the film. The composer who scored the soundtrack was a partisan fighter during the Russian occupation. The director of photography lost his home and entire archive to Russian forces. The editor cut scenes to the sound of incoming Iranian Shahid drones.

“This is not just a film — it is testimony in motion,” says Zabrisky. “Kherson itself, as the film shows, remains artistically alive despite the horror. Theater premieres happen in bomb shelters. Embroidery classes take place in basements. Songs are sung over air raid sirens. The dance sequences were filmed under shelling. Some of the buildings seen in the film no longer exist — destroyed in airstrikes after filming. These moments now serve as a requiem. The dance becomes a funerary rite.”

The film includes intimate interviews with Kherson citizens — people proud of their culture, their local food, and their homeland. Many have chosen to stay despite having relatives who fled to other countries to save their lives. It’s a conscious choice to remain, to protect whatever little is left, and to bear witness to their city’s struggle and spirit.

“This is a film about Kherson, told by Khersonians. They don’t just live in the city — they become it.”

These are not just stories of war — they are voices of defiance, pain, and hope from those who refuse to be erased.

Describing the dehumanizing logic behind the drone strikes on civilians, a woman who lost her husband says, “They see old or young on the street, civilians — but they don’t consider us human.” Her daily routine continues amid the violence, but her words lay bare the emotional toll.

And yet, the spirit of Kherson endures.

“We will have Victory,” declares a man distributing humanitarian aid. He has not seen his own family in three years. His simple affirmation carries the weight of sacrifice, purpose, and unwavering belief in Ukraine’s future.

But the reality on the ground remains brutal — and the voices carry a clear cry for help.

Family members recounting the forcible abductions of children during the occupation of Kherson tell us, “They drove around here in armored personnel carriers and walked around here. They could take a child by force and take him away ‘for health improvement’ — and then you cannot get the child back.”

A local priest reflects on the scale of death and the absence of accountability saying, ”A lot of people died. I think thousands. And no one counted them.” He speaks calmly, but with deep sorrow about the unrecorded human cost of the war.

A local woman, voice trembling, delivers a searing indictment of global inaction. “Drones are hunting people these days. While the world is asleep, we are dying here.”

The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) has documented and analyzed these attacks, concluding that targeting by drone operators has violated fundamental principles of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), including distinction and precaution. Majority of incidents may amount to intentionally directing attacks against civilians — a war crime.

Even in the face of such horror, Kherson: Human Safari shows that resistance is not only visible or armed — it is also underground and deeply alive. It is filled with art, dance, poetry, and theater. Here, art is not just a tool for expression — it is a way to endure, to remember, and to begin healing.

The world must not look away. These war crimes demand justice. This film is not only a witness — it is a call to act. The UN Human Rights Office is calling for robust measures to protect civilians in frontline areas. Deliberate targeting of civilians by short-range drones must cease. Violations of International Humanitarian Law should be thoroughly investigated, and those responsible held to account.

To learn more, and to watch the full movie, visit: khersonhumansafari.com

 

Anna Solcaniova King is a human rights and environmental justice advocate, artist, and research associate with the Palast Investigative Fund. Solcaniova was born in former Czechoslovakia during the Soviet occupation.

Immigration Front: Mayor responds to Guard Retreat from LA While One Journalist Remains Jailed in U.S.

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Immigration Front: Mayor responds to Guard Retreat from LA While One Journalist Remains Jailed in U.S.

 

Mayor Bass Issues Statement on the Retreat of 2,000 National Guard Troops from Los Angeles

LOS ANGELES – Mayor Bass issued the following statement after the Trump administration released approximately 2,000 National Guard deployed to Los Angeles:

“This happened because the people of Los Angeles stood united and stood strong. We organized peaceful protests, we came together at rallies, we took the Trump administration to court — all of this led to today’s retreat.

“My message today to Angelenos is clear — I will never stop fighting for this city. We will not stop making our voices heard until this ends, not just here in LA, but throughout our country.”

 

The Only Journalist Behind Bars in the United States

Atlanta-based journalist Mario Guevara is arrested on June 14, 2025. (Screenshot: Fox 5 Atlanta/YouTube)

Committee to Protect Journalists or CPJ calls on United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE authorities to respect an immigration court ruling and release on bail journalist Mario Guevara, a native of El Salvador who has been legally in the U.S. for the past 20 years.

CPJ reported July 7, that ICE denied Atlanta-based journalist Mario Guevara’s bail and listed him as “not releasable,” though a judge ruled July 1 that Guevara could be released on a $7,500 bond, according to a copy of the denial reviewed by CPJ.

“We are dismayed that immigration officials have decided to ignore a federal immigration court order last week granting bail to journalist Mario Guevara,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Guevara is currently the only jailed journalist in the United States who was arrested in relation to his work. Immigration authorities must respect the law and release him on bail instead of bouncing him from one jurisdiction to another.”

The journalist was initially arrested while covering a June 14 “No Kings” protest in the Atlanta metro area and charged with three misdemeanors, which local officials declined to prosecute due to insufficient evidence. A local judge ordered Guevara to be released on bond, but he remained in custody after ICE opened a detainer against him.

County Moves to Streamline Film Permits and Explore $100M Innovation Fund for Entertainment Industry

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County Moves to Streamline Film Permits and Explore $100M Innovation Fund for Entertainment Industry

 

LOS ANGELES — In a move to revitalize Los Angeles County’s film and television industry, the Board of Supervisors July 15 approved a motion aimed at cutting red tape, modernizing permitting processes, and exploring new investments to secure the region’s creative future.

The motion directs the Department of Economic Opportunity’s LA County Film Office to work collaboratively with county departments—including the Department of Regional Planning, Fire Department, Public Works, Beaches and Harbors, Parks and Recreation, and the Sheriff’s Department. Together, these departments will examine permitting policies and procedures with the goal of making filming in Los Angeles County more efficient, more affordable, and more competitive when compared to other leading production hubs such as Georgia, New York, and Texas.

The motion also calls for an exploration of a public-private evergreen fund, a proposed $80 to $100 million investment strategy designed to support emerging technology start-ups in the film and television sector. County officials will work with the Center for Strategic Partnerships and the Department of Arts and Culture to assess the structure of the fund, identify potential funding sources, evaluate workforce impacts, and ensure long-term sustainability. The goal of this initiative is to fuel innovation, create high quality local jobs, and keep production spending rooted in Los Angeles County.

“This motion models how local government can do its part to support the film industry,” stated Paul Audley, President of FilmLA, the County’s official film office. “Today’s vote was a vote to support an industry that needs every bit of help it can get and reaffirms its vital role in the economy.”

With the entertainment industry still recovering from the pandemic and the dual Hollywood strikes of 2023, today’s action comes at a critical moment. The Board’s approval sets in motion a series of reports and feasibility studies over the next 120 days, all designed to accelerate solutions that streamline processes, reduce costs, and foster innovation while balancing the needs of local communities.

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