The Brief

The intricately made starfighter brought millions of people along for the ride as a group of plucky Rebel pilots assaulted the Death Star. Now the Star Wars scale model is being sold at auction, with bids starting at $400,000.

The "Red Leader" (Red One) X-wing Starfighter from 1977's Star Wars: A New Hope is "the pinnacle of Star Wars artifacts to ever reach the market," says Heritage Auctions, which is handling the sale as part of a trove of science fiction props, miniatures and memorabilia.

The X-wing tops the auction list, but it's far, far from alone: It was found in the expansive collection of Greg Jein, an expert craftsman who was as skilled at bringing futuristic stories to life as he was devoted to preserving the models and props used to bring strange new worlds to TV and film.

The sale includes a tricorder built for "Star Trek" by Hawaiian-born designer and artist Wah Chang, who worked on many of the original TV series' most famous components, from communicators to tribbles.

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Jein, who died last year at 76, worked for decades on the Star Trek franchise. He also garnered Oscar nominations for his painstaking work on Steven Spielberg's Close Encounters of the Third Kind and 1941. Along the way, he kept collecting memorabilia.

More than 550 items from Jein's collection are now heading to auction, from Nichelle Nichols' iconic knee-high boots and red tunic as Lt. Uhura to Leonard Nimoy's pointy ears as Spock. A hairpiece for William Shatner's Captain Kirk and Lt. Sulu's golden tunic are also up for sale.

Bidders can soon vie for a tunic worn by George Takei as Lt. Sulu on the original "Star Trek" series. He's seen here at left with Walter Koenig As Lt. Chekov.

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Starting in the late 1970s, Jein built versions of USS Enterprise and other iconic ships for the Star Trek franchise — work that came after years of analyzing props and gear used in the original TV episodes.

"We watched these things a million times, and we would study each frame," his friend and colleague Lou Zutavern said, in a news release about the auction. "We'd find a weird thing, and we'd work it out. It went from something we loved to watch to something we loved working on."

The sale also includes Charlton Heston's flight suit in Planet of the Apes, and a trove of props and costumes from early science fiction TV series, and films such as Forbidden Planet.

In addition to what he made himself, Jein traded, bought or outright salvaged some of the items, such as the all-terrain chariot from the 1960s TV show Lost in Space. Another rare item is a complete Imperial Stormtrooper costume from Star Wars.

Also included are a space suit from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and enough tricorders, phasers and communicators to equip a Starfleet away team. There's even a miniature "Galieo" type shuttlecraft.

This miniature of the world-exploring chariot from the 1960s TV show "Lost in Space" is up for auction. The show based its full-size version of the vehicle on a 1965 Snow Cat.

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Amid these treasures, the rare X-wing model is distinct. Because of ILM's pioneering work in combining different shots, it stood in for several fighters, including Red Five, piloted by Mark Hamill's Luke Skywalker, according to the auction house.

It's one of only four "hero" filming miniatures — such models get the hero label if their level of detail is ready for a closeup shot — that were made. At 1:24 scale, a helmeted figure sits in the X-wing's cockpit, ahead of an R2 droid. Its engines and weapons have electric lights; its wings spread for battle via a servo mechanism. The special effects team at Industrial Light & Magic even used heat sinks and cooling ducts to keep the model from overheating.

Aside from the model's significance in film history, its high level of detail, such as the fuselage's weathering and blast marks, reflects the combination of imagination and meticulous construction that artisans like Jein used to bring audiences to new heights of suspended disbelief.

Greg Jein's name appears on this ruined spacecraft from the First Bug War in the 1997 film "Starship Troopers." The model miniature is nearly three feet long, made to look as if an intense battle has left its hull shredded.

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In some cases, Jein was alone in recognizing the objects' inherent value, after filming was complete.

"None of the materials in The Greg Jein Auction have ever been available to the public," the auction house says. "Most weren't even made to survive the passage of time, and some would not have lasted were it not for Jein, who friends and colleagues say rescued much of this material from history's dustbin and studio's dumpsters."

Check out the catalogue

Democrats have done well in recent elections when they win young voters by a margin of at least 20 points. On Tuesday, they carried Gen Z — those under 30 — by nearly 50 points, according to exit polling.

It's a stunning shift from 2024, when the party lost critical ground with young people. Long seen as a part of the Democratic base, voters under 30 shifted right towards Donald Trump, motivated by his pledge to better their economic prospects.

But this week, the youngest generation of voters issued a strong rebuke of Republicans, taking another chance on Democrats and their change-focused message at a moment when many of them feel as though the American Dream is out of reach.

How young voters powered Democrats to victory 

Americans ages 18-29 have a history of turning out at lower rates than older voters, and this year was no exception. Gen Z made up 11% of the total vote on Tuesday.

However, where young Americans may have made the greatest difference, is on the margins in House and Senate races where Democrats flipped seats.

The Texas Senate race is a key example. Democrat James Talarico won the state by 12 percentage points, however, when looking at just Gen Z, he won it by 60 points.

Explaining the massive shift from 2024

When assessing gains more broadly, Democrats argue the party's strong slate of candidates helped drum up increased enthusiasm.

But another motivating factor remains strong opposition to Trump. Throughout his second term, Gen Z increasingly soured on the president, with some arguing he failed to make good on a number of core campaign promises — from pledging to lower prices and repeatedly vowing "no new wars," to calling for a crackdown on federal corruption and the release of the Epstein files.

Much of that disappointment was reflected in exit polling. Economic issues were the top concern for a plurality of 18-29 year olds, at 43%, and these voters expressed broad frustrations with Trump's handling of the issue. More than eight in 10 said that Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, with similar shares opposing his tariff strategy and the decision to go to war with Iran.

The young voters Trump lost

Early analysis from CIRCLE indicates that 15% of young people who backed Trump in 2024 voted for a Democratic House candidate in this year's midterms.

Democrats made gains with some young voters that backed Trump two years ago, including white men and Latino men, two blocs that narrowly voted Republican in 2024 and then voted blue on Tuesday by double digits. Democratic candidates also narrowed the margins with young rural voters and people without college degrees.  

Some of those gains may have been helped by young Trump voters who chose to sit this election out, but it's unclear how many of them there were.

How the election results broke down by age

The midterm results underscore how neither of the two major parties owns Gen Z, according to John Della Volpe, a left-leaning pollster who's extensively studied the politics of young Americans.

"The cohort of younger people in this cycle had a different set of experiences than the cohort of people two years ago, or four years before that," he said. "Every candidate, every party has to earn their votes."

Della Volpe, who runs the Harvard Youth Poll, notes that in the latest survey, released in October, there was a sizable enthusiasm gap between young Democrat and young Republican respondents. While half of Democrats said they definitely planned to vote, just a third of Republicans and less than a quarter of Independents said the same.

"I also think we shouldn't over read what's happened," he added. "Clearly a significant historic rebuke on the party in office — that's obvious — however, I think we need to more fully, kind of understand, the contour of the electorate, who showed up and who didn't show up."

By 2028, Gen Z and millennial voters will make up more than half of the electorate, a demographic shift with huge implications for Democrats and the GOP.

"Young adults can make a difference," said Elizabeth Matto, who serves as the director of the Center for Youth Political Participation at Rutgers University.

"They do care about politics. They can sway the outcome of elections. And they're a voting bloc worth paying attention to."

Copyright 2026 NPR

The morning after Tuesday's midterms was gloomy and rainy in Minneapolis, but people still gathered at the place where Border Patrol agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, a VA nurse and U.S. citizen, last January. All week, community members have come here to place their "I Voted" stickers at the memorial.

Nicki Adams, who dated Pretti and was his close friend for nearly 17 years, watched quietly as a woman added her sticker to a street lamp completely covered in the red decals.

"I wanted to see all the stickers. I just wanted to be here," she says. "It just means a lot to me. I think it would mean a lot to Alex, too."

A few blocks away, people left their stickers where an ICE officer killed Renee Good, a mom of three and a U.S. citizen, just a few weeks before Pretti's death. In Houston, they left them where an ICE officer killed Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, a father of three and a Mexican immigrant, in July.

Adams says these stickers, and the election results this week, send a clear message to Congress: "You work for us, and please carry on these values that we care about … We want to be seen and heard and taken care of and have our neighbors taken care of."

The deaths of Pretti and Good during the ICE surge in Minneapolis marked a pivotal moment for the country, sparking intense public backlash to President Trump's aggressive deportation efforts. But federal law enforcement officials have given little indication they're progressing in investigating their deaths, or the deaths of at least seven other people killed by federal immigration agents since Trump took office again last year. DHS did not respond to an NPR request for the status of those investigations.

Now, after Democrats' sweeping wins this week, their deaths at the hands of immigration agents will likely be the targets of renewed investigations. With a majority in Congress, Democrats can issue subpoenas to the major players in Trump's mass deportation plan, compelling them to testify under oath before the legislature.

That could include White House Border Czar Tom Homan, former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, former Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino, and White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, among others.

Congress can also demand internal documents like use-of-force reports.

"They can dissect these individual shootings, and really unravel the story of what happened," says Naureen Shah, who leads the ACLU's immigration policy work.

Democrats have already held shadow hearings on the ICE shootings, during which they've called in family members and witnesses to testify.

But Shah says now Congress can ask key questions of top decision makers: What orders were given to immigration officers in the field? What was training like for these officers?

Who made the decision to paint Good and Pretti as threats, including calling Pretti a "would-be assassin" and a domestic terrorist, when video showed otherwise?

"It's like we can turn the faucet on and actually find out so much more," Shah says. "There's an aspect of this that is really about a kind of reckoning with how it's possible that things that seemed unthinkable could happen on American streets. How do you have that reckoning if you don't actually have the ability to force people to explain themselves?"

Democratic leaders have already said that's the plan.

Maryland Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, who is expected to lead the House Judiciary Committee, told NPR in a statement that Congress will use "every tool" at its disposal to investigate ICE and that it is time for the agency to "start answering to the American people."

California Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia, expected to lead the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, vowed to take on DHS and ICE abuses in a two-word statement: "Lawyer Up."

Mississippi Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson, expected to lead the House Committee on Homeland Security, sent a letter on Wednesday to Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin, demanding the agency "comply with all document preservation requirements."

Illinois Democratic Rep. Delia Ramirez wrote on social media that Noem, Miller, Homan, Bovino and Mullin should "clear" their schedules.

In response to that, DHS general counsel James Percival said Democrats are "more interested in political shenanigans than in governing" but said the agency is prepared to "deal with this nonsense."

There are key limitations to what Democrats in Congress can do with their majority when it comes to ICE accountability, says Rachel Moran, a professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law.

Major changes, like clawing back funding for the agency, would require a veto-proof majority, something the Democrats don't have.

"You still have a president who has shown a complete lack of interest in accountability for federal agents and in fact, a great deal of knee jerk defensiveness about their conduct," Moran says.

In a statement, a White House spokesperson told NPR "if Democrats choose to pursue sham investigations and radical left policies, they are choosing to work against the American people."

Democrats, the statement added, "should be reminded that we still control the federal government and all of its powers."

But that's not true. Congress has its own powers, one of them being the ability to compel testimony. Moran says a deeper probe into the shootings could still serve important purposes, like making evidence available for states to use in their own criminal investigations.

Minnesota officials, for instance, have been fighting with the federal government to get evidence related to the Pretti and Good killings.

Brent Ganger, Renee Good's brother, says learning more information about his sister's death will be hard to hear, "but I think it's also super important for us to understand what happened that day. I don't want history to keep repeating itself."

It was painful, he says, to watch immigration agents kill more people after his sister. He thought her death would be a turning point. In a way, it might have been the start of one. After the surge in Minneapolis, most Americans said ICE had gone too far.

Ganger, who considers himself a moderate, was happy to see the Blue Wave this week. On election night, he was scrolling Instagram when he saw a photo of his sister's memorial site, with all the "I Voted" stickers.

"I was very grateful to see the repudiation of this administration from the country. It felt very supportive of my entire family," he says.

The next morning, in his home in Colorado, he got up and made biscuits and gravy, his sister's favorite breakfast.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Abraham Zavala was born at Adventist White Memorial. So were his kids. So late Friday, when he heard federal immigration agents were at the Boyle Heights hospital, and that local youth were out blowing whistles to warn neighbors, he went. 

“To me that’s sacred ground,” said Zavala, an organizer with Unión del Barrio.

“I’m a dad,” he said. “I wanted to be there to support the youth.”

He was among the Boyle Heights residents who converged on the hospital and stayed in a standoff with federal immigration agents into the early hours of Saturday. Agents detained at least two people, according to rapid response groups.

Neighbors alerted each other with noisemakers and fireworks. A woman pounded her pots and pans. Teenagers ran across Mariachi Plaza, shouting that ICE was in the area and urging residents to lock their doors. 

“Even though we’re afraid, you know we’re still showing up,” said Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident who rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE in the area. “We’re not going to allow them to just come into our communities and terrorize us because they’re the real terrorists causing harm.”

Myra Vasquez, a Boyle Heights resident and co-owner of Espacio 1839 rushed to White Memorial after hearing reports of ICE.

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The confrontation peaked around 11:30 p.m. Video shared with Boyle Heights Beat shows agents pushing back protesters who had moved toward them, and the two sides begin shoving. Agents appear to pepper-spray people on the sidewalk. One agent then tackles a man and pins him to the ground, while a second person is pulled from the crowd. Both were detained.

The standoff continued past midnight. Zavala said agents got out of their vehicles and formed a line in front of the parking lot where paramedics enter, blocking an emergency exit. “They literally became White Memorial’s private security detail,” he said. Zavala said he and another person were sprayed with Mace.

Adventist Health White Memorial Hospital in Boyle Heights.

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The Dept. of Homeland Security declined to comment about the incident in Boyle Heights and, in a statement, the agency said they would “not disclose or discuss law enforcement operations.”

The spokesperson instead said that obstructing law enforcement is a federal crime.

“ICE does not target hospitals, schools, or churches,” the statement said, despite the large turnout of protesters who encountered the masked agents at the hospital.

Father Brendan Busse, who pastors nearby Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, rushed to White Memorial after seeing reports from the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network of ICE at the hospital.

Busse, a Jesuit priest, said he witnessed people caring for each other and tending to those suffering from pepper spray. People there advocated for them to find treatment at White Memorial, Busse said. Community members, he said, “were obviously doing their best, not just to communicate their feelings, but to push, to instigate the dispersal of this ICE presence.”

As clergy, Busse said their presence can help combat a narrative of those advocating for immigrants as “somehow dangerous, or violent, or vulgar.” 

“Just to be there is a sign that that’s not the only version of what this looks like,” he said.

Initially, Busse showed up wearing a hoodie, but he decided to change into his green stole he had in his car as things appeared to get tense. “Just try to do what I could to bring a presence of maybe a little moral authority,” he said.

“It’s bad enough that people have to lift up their voices to say something so obvious, that their lives matter, that our communities are sacred, that families belong together,” Busse said. “It’s bad enough that they have to be out at 3 a.m. in the morning to tell anybody that.”

“It’s even worse if they would have to suffer the consequences of retribution and violence that comes from speaking out in that way,” Busse added.

The post Fireworks, whistles, pots and pans: How neighbors came together to push ICE out of Boyle Heights appeared first on LA Local.

Expect silent nights in Naples’ channels this holiday season.

The Naples Improvement Association announced Saturday that this year’s Naples Island Holiday Boat Parade, a Long Beach tradition since 1946, has been canceled because of expected high tides and heavy surf that organizers said would make the event too unsafe for visitors and participants.

It’s the first time in six years — since the onset of the COVID pandemic — that the parade has been canceled. What began as a small procession of decorated barges filled with singing church choirs has grown into an institution in Long Beach with more than 100 entries, from Duffys to dragon boats, and 60,000 spectators.

Ben Fisher, the association president, said the decision came after weeks of deliberations and a 600-respondent poll that found most wanted the parade — and all holiday events in Naples — to be canceled this year.

Forecasters expect a powerful El Niño season that will raise tides 6 to 18 inches above typical levels. This is paired with a series of slow, very wide swells of warm water known as Kelvin waves expected to frequent Long Beach’s southern-facing coast this winter.

During the week of Christmas, tides are expected to reach 7.5 to 8.5 feet, with the highest forecast to arrive in the mornings and peaking around Christmas Eve.

Part of the decision was also tied to ongoing frustrations with the city, which Fisher said has failed to address the island’s deteriorating infrastructure, from its aging seawall to underperforming drainage systems, that make it “too unsafe to draw tens of thousands of people to visit Naples this holiday season.”

“The city has told us to sandbag everything (public and private property); docks and gangways are being dismantled and sawed off however each individual owner sees fit; and the seawalls themselves are crumbling with exposed, rusted and sharp rebar in many places along the canals where many families normally would sit on any given holiday evening,” Mr. Fisher wrote.

For decades, the seawall has shielded multimillion-dollar homes and fortified the man-made canal that loops around the island. The city evaluated the structure in 2009 and found it in significant disrepair. A six-phase repair plan is underway, but only two phases are complete.

City officials have said they need $125 million to finish replacing the aging seawall, and they have halted reconstruction amid shrinking oil revenue and an uncertain future for federal disaster aid. Among the options under consideration is a 30-year bond spread across the whole neighborhood that would cost $5,100 per property annually. If limited to homes along the seawalls, it would cost $48,000 per property.

In a statement Saturday, council member Kristina Duggan, whose district includes Naples, said she respected the decision and added that the focus this winter should be on preparing the island for the upcoming weather. While the seawalls are stable under high tidal pressure, she said, maintenance work will “start next week to seal cold joints and help reduce water seepage.”

“We are encouraging everyone to prepare, and we look forward to seeing the Naples Boat Parade return next year,” Duggan wrote.

When high tides arrive, water already spills over the seawalls in some spots, reaching nearly two feet deep, flooding sidewalks and threatening homes. Residents and officials disagree over whether to prioritize coastal protection or recreational amenities.

The money normally spent on the parade will go instead toward pumps, hoses, plugs and generators, Fisher said, “resources our waterways and neighbors desperately need.”

Whether residents decorate their homes this year, he said, is up to them.