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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Jamie McCarthy

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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.

This story was originally published by The LA Local on Feb. 20, 2026.

In an old asphalt parking lot off of Crenshaw Boulevard, L.A. County homelessness officials have been testing out their first RV-based transitional housing program.

For some of the residents of the 11 RVs parked in the South L.A. lot today, it’s the closest thing to stable housing they’ve had in years.

The 24-hour, 14-spot RV safe parking lot is a unique, albeit tiny, component of the county’s massive homeless service ecosystem, tailored specifically to RV dwellers who aren’t ready to relinquish their vehicles.

“We got everything. We got water. We got restrooms. People are so nice,” said Mikolaj Marciniak, who has been living with his partner in an aging RV for over a year. “Sometimes all you need is a little bit of help.”

The RV safe parking lot program has guided a dozen RV dwellers to permanent housing in its nearly first year of operation, a result that’s convinced L.A. County officials to keep the program rolling at least another year.

More than 72,000 people are homeless on a given night in L.A. County and RVs are the most common type of shelter for people living outdoors, according to the county’s 2025 count, with nearly 6,300 counted across the county last year.

Mikolaj Marciniak stands in his RV, parked in LA County’s RV safe parking lot. The transitional housing program has helped connect a dozen people to permanent housing.

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Isaiah Murtaugh

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Residents of the RV safe parking lot get access to a mobile bathroom unit, a stocked outdoor kitchenette and a few pieces of exercise equipment. Marciniak told The LA Local before he moved to the lot, RV life was difficult, with neighbors wanting him and his partner to move along. Twice, he said, their tires were slashed.

But in the fenced lot, he said, life is calmer.

“You are protected,” said Marciniak, who moved to the U.S. from his native Ukraine in 2020. “You feel [that] you belong.”

The couple has been living in the RV lot less than a year and is already looking for a permanent apartment through a housing voucher program.

Since the program began, nine of the RV safe lot’s residents have moved into permanent housing, with three more on their way, according to Mel Tillekeratne, executive director of Shower of Hope. The nonprofit provides case management for residents and helps connect them with medical and housing services.

“It’s not just about removing a RV off the street,” Tillekeratne said. “It’s making sure the person in there, whether it’s a senior, a young couple, that they go somewhere safe, and they’re happy and they don’t have to worry about homelessness again.”

RVs line up in an RV safe parking lot in South LA.

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Isaiah Murtaugh

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The lot, outside a vacant former county probation office, is not a permanent installation. The county is finalizing plans to extend the program by another year with funding from the county’s Measure A homeless service and affordable housing sales tax, according to Isela Gracian, senior deputy on homelessness and housing for L.A. County Supervisor Holly Mitchell

“There is more need. The challenge is that people believe it’s too high of a cost for the number of people it serves,” Gracian said. “Sometimes we need to have a program that’s a bit more expensive if it meets the needs of the people it serves.”

Mitchell, said Gracian, does not want to be part of the “whack-a-mole” game of shuffling RVs from block to block as residents and businesses call with concerns.

“The true solution is having homes” Gracian said. “The additional outcome is improvement to the physical environment for communities.”

The budget for this year’s Measure A revenue was sorted out early this month. County supervisors will hold a hearing on the rest of the budget for the county’s new homeless services and housing department on Feb. 27.

This year is the first for the L.A. County Homeless Services and Housing department, created after the county voted to pull back hundreds of millions in funding for the regional L.A. Homeless Service Authority.

Gracian said the county is still sorting out how the new department will work. It will take over the bulk of the former LAHSA funding this summer.

What does it mean to rebuild after disaster?

That depends on who you ask.

For some people, it’s rebuilding homes that were destroyed in the Eaton or Palisades fires. For others, it’s living in those destroyed communities, either having never left or just recently returned.

Some people might have moved away altogether to rebuild their lives, and others are still moving from place to place, waiting to return home.

Rebuilding your home, community and life can mean so many things. LAist wants to showcase the different ways L.A. residents are experiencing it through a community-centered photo project.

So, what does rebuilding look like for you?

Share your photos and experiences in the survey below and we may include your pictures and stories in an upcoming feature. We won’t publish anything you share without your permission.

In a major blow against President Donald Trump, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday that he does not have the authority to impose the wide-ranging tariffs that have caused economic uncertainty in the state, nation and beyond.

Trump cited the International Emergency Economic Powers Act of 1977 as he set tariffs on goods from most countries around the world soon after he took office early last year. In a 6-3 decision, the court said only Congress has the broad power to impose taxes on Americans under the act.

“The President enjoys no inherent authority to impose tariffs during peacetime,” Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito Jr. and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

The White House did not immediately respond to CalMatters’ questions, including whether it plans to cite other laws. The Trump administration has the power to impose tariffs using other laws, but the president has used tariffs as an economic cudgel largely under the act that the Supreme Court has now said does not give him the broad authority to do so.

American businesses and consumers have paid the bulk of the cost of the president’s tariffs, recent studies by researchers for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and others have shown. In California, the tariffs have affected ports, farms, businesses, workers and consumers in different ways, and have been a factor in persistent inflation.

The state’s trade activity with China dropped so steeply that it is no longer the state’s top trade partner, according to a recent Public Policy Institute of California analysis.

Daniel Payares-Montoya, the researcher for the PPIC who based his analysis on International Trade Administration data, said trade with China has been declining since Trump’s first term, “but to see the dramatic fall, I wasn’t expecting it.”

In 2024, imports from and exports to China comprised 20% of all California trade activity. In 2025, at least through October, that number fell to 13.4%. Mexico became the state’s top trade partner, followed by China and Taiwan.

Payares-Montoya stressed that his analysis wasn’t causal: “I can’t tell what would have happened in the absence of (Trump’s tariff unveiling known as) ‘Liberation Day,’ or if Kamala Harris had won (the presidency).”

The state’s beverage industry was weighed down by tariffs, the analysis showed. California’s beverage exports of brewery, winery and distillery products fell more than 32% compared to the same period in 2024, from over $1.3 billion to $880 million through October, Payares-Montoya found. A big factor was that beverage exports to Canada fell to 16% in 2025 because of a boycott of American products and travel, which also was related to the president’s threats to annex Canada. The big drop came after beverage exports to Canada averaged almost a third of the state’s yearly total from 2010 to 2024. Most recently, Trump threatened 100% tariffs on Canada for striking a trade deal with China.

Overall, the state saw a slight decline, 0.1%, to $459 billion, in the dollar value of imports and exports in the first 10 months of last year, the PPIC analysis found.

Two of the nation’s busiest ports, in Long Beach and Los Angeles, ended up handling their highest and third-highest volumes of cargo, respectively, last year despite the uncertainty around tariffs. But exports decreased as retaliatory tariffs hit American farmers, too.

A hydrogen-powered, rubber-tired gantry crane loads a shipping container onto a semi-truck at Yusen Terminals at the Port of Los Angeles in San Pedro on Feb. 11, 2025.

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Joel Angel Juarez

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CalMatters

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Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, said in a media briefing this week that soybean exports to China from his port fell 80% last year.

“Virtually every agricultural commodity that we export was affected,” said Noel Hacegaba, chief executive of the Port of Long Beach, in an interview with CalMatters this week.

The Supreme Court decision will spark what could be a chaotic process to return the tax revenue the government has collected, which totaled more than $264 billion in 2025. U.S. corporations including Costco, Alcoa and Revlon have sued the federal government over the tariffs, hoping to be first in line for refunds.

In his dissent, Kavanaugh wrote that the Supreme Court’s decision is likely to lead to “serious practical consequences in the near term,” and that “refunds of billions of dollars would have significant consequences for the U. S. Treasury.”

Trump has fretted on social media about possible refunds, saying that “it would be a complete mess, and almost impossible for our Country to pay. Anybody who says it can be quickly and easily done would be making a false, inaccurate, or totally misunderstood answer to this very large and complex question.”

But U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has said that the federal government could issue refunds if needed, though he questioned how businesses would handle possibly getting their money back: "Costco, who's suing the U.S. government, are they going to give the money back to their clients?"

Costco, which filed its lawsuit in November, did not respond to questions by CalMatters, including about how soon it would seek refunds from the federal government. The Treasury Department did not respond to an email about how refunds would work.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.