The Brief

Asian American leaders met in Los Angeles to demand Netflix and Bud Light cut business ties with Shane Gillis unless the comic apologizes for past racist remarks.

Gillis' comments on his podcast, surfaced in 2019, led to public outcry and to him being dropped from the cast of Saturday Night Live.

But in the years since, Gillis' star has only risen, with Netflix announcing an "expanding partnership" with him that includes stand-up specials and a comedy series and Bud Light's decision to sponsor his comedy tour.

This past February, Gillis was invited back to the Saturday Night Live studio as a host.

Shane Gillis attending a New York comedy festival in 2023.

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"If you duck a few years, slowly build your career back up and continue on as if nothing had happened, you can come back even stronger than ever," said Guy Aoki, founding president of Media Action Network for Asian Americans.

Neither Gillis nor the companies have provided comment.

Gillis had issued an issued a statement after his comments drew uproar, saying "I’m happy to apologize to anyone who’s actually offended by anything I’ve said."

Aoki, who in the past has taken Sarah Silverman and Jay Leno to task for racist jokes about Asians, said he was waiting for an "honest and sincere" apology from Gillis.

Aoki was joined Thursday by local leaders from longtime advocacy organizations, including the Japanese American Citizens League and the Chinese American Citizens Alliance.

Democratic Congressmember Judy Chu, who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, issued a statement that was read at the press conference.

"I hope that after these years of hate and discrimination against our communities, Mr. Gillis has taken the time to reflect upon his past words and actions and will finally apologize to the Asian American community," Chu said.

On a 2018 episode of his podcast, Gillis used anti-Asian slurs and expletives to make fun of Chinese people living in Chinatown.

In the same episode, Gillis made homophobic comments about director Judd Apatow and fellow comic Chris Gethard, who are known for a more sensitive brand of comedy.

Aoki pointed out that Gillis has only apologized to Gethard.

"He will apologize for a gay slur against a straight man, but not against those slurs against Asian Americans," Aoki said, noting Gillis used the same anti-Asian slur on a different podcast to describe former presidential candidate Andrew Yang. "We don't appreciate the double standard."

The Asian American leaders held their event about Gillis at the Chinese American Citizens Alliance lodge in Chinatown.

Henry Lo, the vice president of the L.A. chapter of the alliance, said it was not lost on the group that this month marks the 41st anniversary of Vincent Chin's killing. Chin was beaten to death in Detroit by two autoworkers, with one of the attackers saying it was “because of you” that people were out of work.

"Words and actions have consequences," said Lo, who's also a Monterey Park council member. "When we do not call out slurs and language that perpetuate Asian Americans as perpetual foreigners, then it runs the danger of inflaming fear, hatred, and in some cases, violence directed at Asian Americans."

Cindy Wu of the Anti-Asian Hate Coalition of Southern California, was among the speakers who worried that Asian American children would feel the brunt of racist language from peers who take the lead of adults.

"When [children] hear racial slurs, or do derogatory remarks in the name of comedy, it can only normalize hatred and prejudice," said Wu, who said she's received a couple reports this year of Asian American children in L.A. County being called anti-Asian slurs and beaten.

Gillis' new Netflix comedy series Tires has been one of the streamer's top 10 shows since it debuted in late May, and was renewed for a second season even before its premiere. A new stand-up special will come out in 2025.

SHEFFIELD, U.K., and JERUSALEM — Mediators have given Hamas a formal proposal to lay down its weapons, a senior U.S. official told NPR. The proposal calls for Hamas and all other militant groups in Gaza to hand over all weapons, making an emerging governing authority responsible for all arms.

The demilitarization proposal was handed over to Hamas last week in Cairo, an additional official in the region said.

A third person briefed on the proposal called it a comprehensive framework to ensure the "complete handover" and "full decommissioning" of arms belonging to Hamas and all other armed groups in Gaza, and that if Hamas accepts the proposal, it would ensure large-scale reconstruction of Gaza.

The person said Hamas has been asked to respond to the proposal in about a weeks time, after the Muslim Eid holiday. Senior Hamas officials did not immediately comment, and one Hamas official denied having received a proposal.

Hamas and Israel signed on to President Trump's ceasefire deal last October, in an effort to end two years of war that have devastated Gaza and triggered conflicts across the Middle East.

Trump's Board of Peace was established to oversee efforts to demilitarize Hamas, establish a multinational stabilization force for Gaza and ensure an Israeli military withdrawal from the territory. Hamas officials said they were willing to discuss their weapons but had been waiting for a formal proposal from mediators.

The work of the Board of Peace has been largely put on hold, however, since the U.S. and Israel launched the war against Iran on Feb. 28, triggering a new regional conflict that has engulfed more than a dozen countries.

The members of the new Palestinian transitional committee tasked to run postwar Gaza have still not entered the territory, and no new Palestinian police force or multinational force has been formed.

Despite the fragile truce agreement, Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities. Israel says the attacks targeted Hamas militants. Several Israeli soldiers have also been killed in attacks by militants.

Robert Danin, a former senior U.S. State Department and White House official specializing in the Middle East, said it was unlikely Hamas would be in any hurry to deliver its response to the demilitarization proposal or agree to it.

"Hamas sees time as being on its side right now," Danin said. "With each passing day, its influence and control on the ground in Gaza strengthens and expands, particularly as long as the Board of Peace's proposed alternative governance structures and forces for Gaza remain stuck outside of the strip. So the longer Hamas can prolong this status quo, the stronger it sees its hand growing for any day after."

Danin said the distraction caused by the war with Iran would also likely draw attention away from pressuring Hamas.

"This means that for the Board of Peace and those seeking to disarm Hamas, the key question is what tools does it have to see Hamas adopt this plan?" he said.

The Gaza war began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants launched a surprise attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, according to Israel. Israel's massive military response killed more than 70,000 people in Gaza and left the coastal enclave in ruins, according to Palestinian health officials.

Despite the fragile ceasefire agreement, over the last six months Israeli forces have killed hundreds of Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities, in what Israel says were attacks targeting Hamas militants. Several Israeli soldiers have also been killed in attacks by militants.
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The South Pasadena City Council moved Wednesday not to renew a contract with Flock Safety, a controversial surveillance company that operates AI-powered automated license plate readers in thousands of communities across the U.S.

The move ends the use of 14 cameras installed around town while city officials seek alternative camera vendors.

The city still has a second contract with Flock for 13 operating cameras, which capture the license plate numbers and locations of passing cars. That information is temporarily stored in a database that's shared with law enforcement agencies across the state.

The council's decision follows public outcry after reports that some local law enforcement agencies in Southern California illegally shared license plate reader data with federal immigration agents. Those included the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office, which South Pasadena shares its data with.

"We probably wouldn't be here tonight if it'd been a different federal administration. We could trust more, not so much chaos," City Councilmember Michael Cacciotti said at Wednesday's meeting. "Many of our residents are very concerned about the misuse and abuse of data."

The decision was not unanimous. City Councilmember Jon Primuth said he thought people speaking out against Flock did not represent the majority of residents in South Pasadena. He also expressed concern about moving to a different vendor for automated license plate readers, since so many surrounding cities use the Flock network. Pasadena and San Marino both have Flock cameras, as do many cities in the L.A. area.

"I don't think there's anything to be gained by canceling a contract right now," Primuth said.

Council members also discussed shortening the time period that the city holds onto its data from 30 to 15 days.

South Pasadena joins a handful of California cities that have reconsidered their contracts with Flock in recent months. The first was Santa Cruz, which killed its contract with Flock in January following reports that the city's data was accessed by agencies outside of California and shared with ICE.

The Oxnard Police Department also suspended its use of Flock license plate readers, after an audit revealed that data from the city's cameras was made available to federal law enforcement agencies between February and March of 2025 through a "nationwide query" setting, against the city's wishes and state law.

Flock responded to the incident, saying out-of-state law enforcement agencies' access to some of its camera networks was "inadvertent" and it had strengthened its protections. The company also says it does not work with ICE or any agency within the Department of Homeland Security.

The incidents have sparked a deeper debate around automated license plate readers, which have become ubiquitous in many communities without much notice. Local law enforcement agencies say the cameras have greatly enhanced their ability to solve crimes, while privacy advocates including the ACLU have called the technology a dangerous "dragnet."

While South Pasadena scales back Flock's presence, some of its neighbors are adding more. Pasadena has 61 Flock automated license plate readers and plans to install 11 additional cameras.

It’s hard for me to square the slow, meticulous care with which Southern California baker Paris Rezaie packages a box of cookies with the fact that several thousand of these boxes must be shipped in time to make it to their destination — all over the U.S. and Canada — in time for Nowruz.

Nowruz, the Persian New Year, literally “new day,” starts Friday, an ancient celebration that marks the beginning of spring, new life, and the triumph of light over darkness.

Maison de la Fork Nowruz cookies

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When I visited Rezaie’s professional kitchen in Lake Forest earlier this week, she methodically packed the small, elegant boxes of cookies, securing each order with a wax seal imprinted with the letter “M” for her bakery and catering company, Maison de la Fork.

For Rezaie, Nowruz is a time to share Persian culture, and deliver a taste of home to her fellow Iranians in the diaspora through delicate, beautifully decorated cookies flavored with saffron, cardamom and rose water.

 ”These are all very old recipes,” she said. “ When you eat them, it tastes very familiar. …  I just redesign or redefine them and I have my own twist to the way that I present them.”

Rezaie offers a dozen different cookies and takes special orders like this one, for cookies painted with objects typically laid out for Nowruz in a symbolic arrangement called haftseen.

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Cookies are a key ingredient in the Nowruz holiday, which stretches for two weeks beyond the actual day. In Iran, businesses shut down and families are usually on vacation. Gathering with friends and family to make and eat cookies is part of the tradition, Rezaie said.

Rezaie and her assistants prepare boxes of cookies for shipping out of Maison de la Fork's kitchen in Lake Forest.

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This year, though, the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran has severely curbed the celebratory nature of the holiday, especially in Iran, but also among Iranian-Americans like Razaie.

“It was very hard baking and happily baking with all the war and the death that is going on,” she said.

After shipping 3,000-4,000 boxes of cookies last year, Rezaie even thought about sitting this year out.

“Should we even consider selling the cookies this year as a part of a celebratory program?” she wondered. “Because we do not want to celebrate this time. But then we all decided, ‘No, we want to keep Nowruz going.’ It's a duty that we just keep it going,” she said.

Beauty in a bite

Achieving a cookie that is, at once, delicious, not overly sweet, and gorgeous is a rare feat and one that Rezaie has mastered. Opening a box of her Nowruz cookies is like opening an elegant gift. A hint of cardamom hits the nose while the colors and patterns exude Spring.

Among Rezaie’s specialties are sugar cookies topped with pressed, edible pansies in purple and yellow hues. Pansies are a common feature of Norwuz, and for Rezaie they have a special significance, a tribute to her late father.

“Every time the spring comes around, Nowruz, he used to buy boxes of pansies and he used to plant them in our backyard,” she said.

Now Rezaie grows most of the pansies for her cookies in a garden behind the kitchen, and she supplements with local growers when needed.

Rezaie’s version of walnut cookies, which are typical during Nowruz, are molded to look like actual walnuts and filled with salted caramel and walnut chunks. Other specialties include toot, an Iranian treat similar to marzipan, which she rolls into multicolored balls and stacks into impossible-looking towers topped with a bow.

Most impressive to me are her rice cookies, noon berenji (sometimes written as naan berenji or nan-e berenji), which she tops with a thin layer of white icing as a canvas for tiny, hand-painted flowers.

“Normally it's only me that does all the painting,” Rezaie said. “So many people are telling me I should get a stamp, I'm like, ‘No, I want to just suffer through and do the hand painting."

It’s important to Rezaie that everything in her kitchen is done by hand — her way of keeping up the Nowruz tradition of homemade cookies.

Wartime Nowruz

Rezaie moved to the U.S. in 2005 and has visited Iran nearly every year since. But now, for the time being, she is forced to worry about friends and family from thousands of miles away, with little concrete information as Iranian officials maintain a near total internet blackout.  

”We don't know exactly what's going on, which is horrible,” Rezaie said.

She especially worries about a cousin who she said was arrested by the regime during the ongoing crackdown on dissent.

“We  are just hoping that he's safe and sound,” she said.

As a way of tempering the celebratory nature of her Nowruz sweets, this year Rezaie is also offering Persian halva, a dessert typically served at funerals.  

”We all feel the pain and sorrow,” she said, “we have lost so many good people, so many family members, all of us.”

More than 1,300 people have been killed in Iran since Israel and the U.S. launched their joint offensive last month, according to the Iranian Red Crescent Society, a humanitarian relief group. Like many in the diaspora, Rezaie hopes the bloodshed will lead to the downfall of the current regime.

“ I hope for a free Iran, I hope that people can live the way they deserve,” she said.

Until she can visit, Rezaie will be baking cookies and other sweets, sending a bit of spring hope to what she considers a vast extended family in the Persian diaspora.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Game day visitors to Inglewood could soon look to churches for help with parking.

The Inglewood Planning Commission voted earlier this month to recommend a change to the city code to allow properties with large lots near the city’s stadiums to sell parking spaces to visitors. The code amendment will go before the City Council for a vote, though no date has been announced.

Since 2021, the city has allowed some non-residential properties on major arterial roads to charge visitors for parking during major events at the city’s large venues.

The updated code would expand the permit zone to allow the same right to houses of worship and commercial businesses within 1,500 feet, or about a quarter mile, of any venue with more than 6,000 seats.

Bernard McCrumby Jr., the city’s development services director, said the tweak opens a financial opportunity to a new crop of businesses and churches, while ideally reducing the number of visiting cars that park in Inglewood’s neighborhoods during major events.

“These parking lots are sitting empty and underutilized,” McCrumby said during the March 4 meeting.

Planning Commissioner Cheryl Shaw-Williams said she hopes the newly opened lots charge a reasonable amount. She said game day visitors have told her in the past that they’ve chosen to “bite the bullet” and park in residential areas because it can be cheaper to pay a parking ticket than pay for stadium parking.

Inglewood issues an average of about 41 parking tickets during each major event, according to meeting documents.

The city has received inquiries from several houses of worship and businesses that want to sell parking spots and are located near, but not within, permitted zones.

Churches and businesses with lots in the newly expanded zone would still be required to apply for permits and meet some basic standards.

Lots must have more than 25 spaces to start, can only rent out excess spaces and can’t be rented out within an hour of a property’s regular business hours. Permit applicants will be required to commission a parking utilization study.

Planning Commissioner Aidé Trejo said during the March 4 meeting that she is concerned, in spite of the restrictions, that churches will ask Sunday service-goers to park on the streets in order to make a profit off of their lots.

“I’ve seen it happen,” she said.

McCrumby replied that some churches may alter their service times to get parishioners in and out before game day traffic and to take advantage of the new parking code.