The Brief

This is the third piece in CalMatters' series about how California lets dangerous drivers stay on the road. Read the series here. Sign up for CalMatters’ License to Kill newsletter to be notified when the next story comes out, and to get more behind-the-scenes information from CalMatters reporting.

The state of California gave Sylvester Conway every opportunity to kill.

He already had two DUI convictions by 2019, when the California Highway Patrol arrested him for driving drunk in Fresno County. The jail released him three days later. Conway didn’t show up to court and a judge issued a warrant for his arrest.

The cycle continued. In April 2021, prosecutors say he drove the wrong way on the highway with a blood alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit. Conway signed a citation for driving under the influence, promising that he’d show up to court. He didn’t.

The same thing happened in August that year — another DUI arrest, this time by Fresno police, and another warrant for skipping court.

All three Fresno DUI cases were still open, and all three warrants were out for Conway’s arrest, when police say he sped — drunk again — on his way to a casino in February 2022. This time, he lost control, flipped his Acura and killed his passenger, Khayriyyah Jones. He’s now facing murder charges in Madera County.

California’s DUI enforcement system is broken. The toll can be counted in bodies.

Alcohol-related roadway deaths in California have shot up by more than 50% in the past decade — an increase more than twice as steep as the rest of the country, federal estimates show. More than 1,300 people die each year statewide in drunken collisions. Thousands more are injured. Again and again, repeat DUI offenders cause the crashes.

To understand why so many people are dying under the wheels of drunk and drugged drivers, CalMatters reviewed thousands of vehicular manslaughter and homicide cases prosecutors filed across the state since 2019. We also examined other states’ laws on intoxicated driving and sifted through decades of state and federal traffic safety data.

We found that California has some of the weakest DUI laws in the country, allowing repeat drunk and drugged drivers to stay on the road with little punishment. Here, drivers generally can’t be charged with a felony until their fourth DUI within 10 years, unless they injure someone. In some states, a second DUI can be a felony.

California too often fails to differentiate between drunk drivers who made a dangerous mistake but learn from it and those who refuse to stop endangering lives. It’s the missed opportunities to prevent tragedies that haunt the loved ones of the dead.

Sarah Villar, a pediatric physical therapist, was out walking the dog with her fiance in San Benito County when a drunk driver swerved off the road and killed her in 2021. The driver had been convicted of driving drunk in 2018, 2019 and again in 2020 — all misdemeanors — and served just a couple weeks behind bars before the fatal crash.

Villar’s parents buried her in her wedding dress.

“To the broken justice system that allowed this to happen — shame on you,” her father, Dave Villar, said in her eulogy. “If I walked out my front door today onto my porch and fired a shot into my neighborhood every day until I killed someone, when would I be a menace to society? When do I become a danger to my community? I say it’s after the first shot. Our system says it’s after the last.”

California also gives repeat drunk drivers their licenses back faster than other states. Here, you typically lose your license for three years after your third DUI, compared to eight years in New Jersey, 15 years in Nebraska and a permanent revocation in Connecticut. We found drivers with as many as six DUIs who were able to get a license in California.

Many drivers stay on the road for years even when the state does take their license — racking up tickets and even additional DUIs — with few consequences until they eventually kill.

When the worst does happen, there’s often little punishment. Drunk vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent felony.” But in a twist of state law, a DUI that causes “great bodily injury” is — meaning that a drunk driver who breaks someone’s leg can face more time behind bars than if they’d killed them, prosecutors said.

Despite the mounting death toll, state leaders have shown little willingness to address the issue. A bill proposed in the state Legislature this year would have expanded the use of in-car breathalyzers, which research shows can significantly reduce drunk driving. Most other states already require the device for first-time DUI offenders. But lawmakers killed the provision after the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles said it didn’t have the time or resources to carry it out.

Drunk and drugged driving is now so common in car-centric California that drivers routinely rack up four, five, six DUIs. One woman in Fresno just got her 16th.

The case files we reviewed are full of horrific reminders of this ubiquity. Like the story of Masako Saenz.

In 2000, Saenz was driving with her 5-year-old son, Manuel, to pick up an uncle in Stockton for the family’s Easter celebration when a drunk driver slammed his pickup truck into her tiny Toyota Tercel, killing the boy.

The driver had been convicted of his fourth DUI two months before. He likely would have been behind bars that day, but San Joaquin Superior Court Judge John Cruikshank was letting him finish a rehab program before reporting to jail.

The case made national news when Saenz broke down during the arraignment. “Murderer! Murderer! You killed my son!” she screamed and had to be removed from the courtroom.

She told a Sacramento Bee reporter that people would marvel at how well she seemed to be doing. “But they have no idea,” she said. “They have no idea. Sometimes even now I wonder if I can go on.”

First: Masako Saenz sits on her son Manuel's bed on Aug. 15, 2000. Manuel was 5 years old when he was killed by a drunk driver earlier that year. Last: A framed photo and the remains of Manuel, on the mantel above a fireplace on Aug. 15, 2000.

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Michael A. Jones

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Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Press

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A framed photo and the remains of Masako Saenz son, Manuel, on the mantel above a fire place on Aug. 15, 2000. Photo by Michael A. Jones, Sacramento Bee via ZUMA Press

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ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock P/Alamy Stock Photo

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https://www.alamy.com

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In the years after, her life unraveled, police and court records show. Saenz became homeless, sleeping along Sacramento roadways.

She appears to have started posting to an online memorial website for her son — simple messages of love and grief sent into the void. “He will always be with me,” reads the last post from January 2022.

Three months later, a man with a blood alcohol level twice the legal limit — whose license was suspended after a string of speeding tickets — gunned his car, lost control and careened into an encampment just miles from the state Capitol. A witness found her body wrapped in a tent.

Mother and son were killed two decades apart by drunk drivers who never should have been on the road.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

‘It’s accepted in society until the worst happens’

Once upon a time, California showed that you can reduce drunk driving deaths simply by trying.

Two decades before Saenz’s son was killed, another Sacramento mother’s unfathomable loss galvanized the state and country. In 1980, Candace Lightner’s 13-year-old daughter was walking to a church carnival when a drunk driver — out of jail days after what was reportedly his fourth DUI arrest — slammed into her so hard she flew out of her shoes, landing 125 feet away.

In response, Lightner helped found Mothers Against Drunk Driving, ushering in the modern anti-DUI movement. California was at the forefront, forming a special task force in 1980. State leaders enacted a slate of new laws, setting a legal limit for blood alcohol content and increasing DUI penalties. In 1982, Gov. Jerry Brown touted the reforms as the “toughest package of legislation in the Nation against driving while under the influence of alcohol or drugs.”

In the decades that followed, California cut alcohol-related roadway fatalities by more than half.

Now, the state’s headed backward. And as deaths have increased, law enforcement has done less: DUI arrests statewide dropped from nearly 200,000 in 2010 to 100,000 in 2020.

The death of Masako Saenz launched no new movements. Her killing was briefly mentioned in a local news roundup of homeless deaths from 2022. But that was about it. There wasn’t a picture of her on the site, just a stock photo of a burning candle — a placeholder for a life lost.

The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office filed a lesser manslaughter charge against the driver, Puentis Currie Jr., instead of the more serious charge police recommended. Currie got three months behind bars, then a few months with a monitoring bracelet so he could keep going to college.

Prosecutors asked Sacramento County Superior Court Judge John P. Winn to sentence Currie to at least community service instead of letting him “sit at home and play video games,” according to a court transcript. But Winn declined, saying he was leaving the department and didn’t want to saddle his replacement with decisions regarding the details of such an order.

Just this past May, police caught Currie driving on a suspended license again after pulling him over for a busted headlight, court records show. That could have meant more jail time. Instead, he got a ticket.

Currie said he needs to drive to and from work and was driving home from a shift when he got the recent citation. Now 25, he hopes talking about his case might keep other kids from driving while intoxicated.

He said that the night he killed Masako Saenz, he had gone out to celebrate his cousin’s birthday. He did tequila shots and took ecstasy and remembers getting in the car but nothing else until after the crash.

One of his attorneys told him about Saenz’s son. The weight of what he’d done hit him.

He said he goes back to the scene of the crash every April.

“I put flowers there just to show, like —” he said, breaking down in tears, “show that I care, or show her that I’m truly sorry.”

He said it’s too easy to ignore the risk of driving under the influence. Lawyers, doctors, everyone gets DUIs.

“I think it’s accepted in society until the worst happens,” he said.

‘It is literally just a matter of time before they kill’

David Alvarado already had three prior DUIs when a CHP officer saw him almost hit another car in January 2019. He admitted he’d been drinking Coors Light at a friend’s house.

But prosecutors couldn’t charge Alvarado with a felony, which typically brings with it more serious penalties and oversight. His previous DUIs — from 1997, and two from 2006 — essentially didn’t count. In California, a DUI drops off your record after 10 years. He was just another misdemeanor drunk driver in a state with more than 100,000 of them that year.

The Madera County District Attorney’s Office hadn’t even filed criminal charges yet when, 10 months later, law enforcement stopped him again for driving drunk.

Over the next two years, they’d pull him over twice more, citing him once for driving without a valid license and another time for drunk driving, court records show.

That’s three DUI arrests and a ticket in less than three years.

His punishment: probation. The judge ordered him to wear an alcohol monitoring bracelet for 129 days.

Less than a year after his conviction, he was driving a F-250 pickup truck when he slammed into a car stopped at a red light, killing Mary and Paul Hardin, a Texas couple visiting on a church mission trip. Prosecutors say Alvarado was drunk. He is now facing murder charges in Fresno County.

Benjamin Hardin is the second oldest of the victims’ 11 children. He said his parents touched so many lives with their kindness and love. When the family cleaned out the couple’s California apartment after the crash, he said they found a fresh baked loaf of bread with someone’s name on it that their mother must have intended to deliver.

“I know that my parents would want me and my siblings to forgive him,” Hardin said. “My parents would not want me to carry hate in my heart for him.”

Still, he said he was stunned to learn that someone could get that many DUIs.

“It really does feel like it is literally just a matter of time before they kill someone — or in my family’s case, two someones,” he said.

The Victims of Drunk Drivers Memorial at Pacific View Mortuary and Memorial Park in Corona del Mar, on Sept. 24, 2025.

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State data shows repeat drunk driving is not an aberration. A recent DMV analysis tracked drivers who got a DUI in 2005. More than a quarter got another DUI over the next 15 years. Of the drivers for whom the 2005 arrest was at least their third DUI, nearly 40% went on to get yet another.

San Benito District Attorney Joel Buckingham said he views a third DUI as a crucial moment to intervene, aiming for drivers to serve at least 60 days in jail to “really kind of wake them up.”

But he also tries to take matters into his own hands at home. When he teaches his kids to drive, he tells them to “assume everyone is trying to kill you,” he said.

It’s the lack of consequences or meaningful intervention over years that make so many of the cases read like tragedy foretold.

William Curtis was convicted of driving while intoxicated in May 2012.

Over the next several years, he would be involved in two collisions, receive four traffic tickets and get another DUI, all while his license was supposed to be suspended, Sacramento County court records show.

For the second DUI, he was sentenced to 30 days in jail. Police filed the citations in traffic court rather than sending them to the DA’s office for criminal prosecution. As a result, he got off with little more than a fine for refusing to stay off the road.

And he continued to drive until one night in November 2020, when he sped down Highway 99 drunk and crashed into the back of a stalled car. That vehicle burst into flames. Emergency personnel later found the charred remains of Dominique Howard trapped inside the burned vehicle.

Law enforcement later let him call his mother. Court records reveal what they heard Curtis say:

“I killed someone. I’m going away. I’m sorry, mom. Tell my kids I love them.”

‘You just saved a family of four’

Ryan Nazaroff became a police officer because of the worst day — or maybe one of the two worst days — of his life. He was just 16 in February 2008, with a bunch of friends going from party to party on the roads that run between the farms outside Fresno. There was another car of kids in front of him, Nazaroff said.

He remembers seeing the vehicle in front swerve. It hit the shoulder, overcorrected to the left and started to roll. His 14-year-old brother and another passenger were ejected.

Nazaroff found his brother laying on the dirt shoulder, dead.

In the horror of the moment, he remembers the polite professionalism of the CHP officers who investigated the crash. Nazaroff decided then that he wanted to do that for other people in their worst moments and try to help prevent the types of tragedies his family endured. He eventually joined the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

The first chance Nazaroff got as a young deputy, he took an assignment working traffic patrol on the graveyard shift, cruising alone along the dark roads of Norwalk and La Mirada, 20 miles southeast of downtown LA, looking for drunk drivers and responding to crashes. Mothers Against Drunk Driving gave him awards for his DUI arrests.

“You try and remind yourself, every DUI arrest you make, you just saved a family of four,” he said.

Ryan Nazaroff in Rowland Heights, on Sept. 26, 2025.

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Jules Hotz

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Nazaroff was up for a promotion in April 2022 when he pulled into the station garage and his phone buzzed. He picked up. A Fresno County sheriff’s deputy was at his mom’s house.

It had happened again.

A drunk driver blew a stop sign and smashed into the dump truck his father was driving. Jeffrey Nazaroff was barely a block from where he was supposed to park his truck, finish his shift and go home. Instead, Ryan’s dad became one of the more than 1,400 people killed in an alcohol-related crash in California that year, federal estimates show.

Ryan Nazaroff called off of work and went home. He sat up all night with his wife before driving to be with his family the next day.

The woman who killed his dad was not a first-time drunk driver. Zdeineb Juarez Calderon was arrested two months before the fatal crash for allegedly driving drunk and crashing into a sign post. He thought that should be enough to charge her with murder.

To sustain a murder charge, prosecutors need to be able to prove that the person knew the danger and took the risk anyway. That typically means showing the defendant received a formal warning about the dangers of intoxicated driving, called a Watson advisement. Judges will typically read a boilerplate warning into the court record when someone is convicted of a DUI or have them sign a form.

But Juarez Calderon wasn’t convicted of anything yet for the earlier crash, so there was no Watson warning in the court records. Prosecutors told him the best they could charge Juarez Calderon with was vehicular manslaughter, Nazaroff said.

He was further frustrated to learn that because vehicular manslaughter isn’t considered a “violent” felony, the repeat drunk driver who killed his dad will likely serve only a small fraction of her 10-year sentence in prison.

That’s because the state requires people convicted of a violent felony to serve more of their time in prison. In general, someone convicted of a violent felony will serve two-thirds of their sentence behind bars while for a lesser felony it’s as little as a third, said Steve Ueltzen, a Fresno County senior deputy district attorney.

“It’s a tough conversation to have with victims,” he said.

Juarez Calderon was sentenced to prison in January 2024. Records show that with the time she already spent in jail pretrial, she’s eligible for release this December.

Ryan Nazaroff displays childhood photos on his phone. The photo on the left shows his father, Jeffrey Nazaroff, alongside Ryan and his younger brother, Thomas Nazaroff. The photo on the right shows his father with Thomas. Rowland Heights, Sept. 26, 2025.

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‘It’s an abuse of authority and power’

California judges and lawmakers have often refused to require one of the few technological solutions most other states use to at least try to cut down on repeat drunk drivers.

Ignition interlock devices, known as IIDs, are those in-car breathalyzers that a driver needs to blow into for the vehicle to start. The technology has been around since the 1960s. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says they can decrease repeat drunk driving offenses as much as 70% while in use. In California, the devices prevented more than 30,500 attempts to drive under the influence in 2023 alone, state legislative reports say.

But unlike most states, California doesn’t require first-time drunk drivers to use the devices. MADD gave us an “F” on a 2022 national report card of states’ ignition interlock laws.

More than a decade ago, state Sen. Jerry Hill tried to require the devices for all DUI offenders in honor of a friend killed by a drunk driver. The Bay Area Democrat, now retired, grew dismayed by what he deemed a “soft approach” to DUIs, where legislators and committee consultants worry more about inconveniencing drivers than preventing deaths.

Hill ultimately had to settle for a 2016 bill that required the in-car breathalyzers for repeat DUI offenders.

But records suggest even that law isn’t being followed. Judges in more than a dozen counties ordered the breathalyzers for less than 10% of drivers convicted of a second DUI, according to a 2023 DMV report. In Los Angeles, judges made such orders for just 0.5% of the county’s thousands of second-time DUI offenders, according to the report.

“They should be ashamed of themselves, because how many deaths have they caused?” Hill said. “It’s an abuse of authority and power.”

LA County Superior Court spokesman Rob Oftring did not directly respond to detailed questions about how often the court’s judges order the breathalyzers, instead saying they “regularly submit abstracts of conviction” to the DMV.

The DMV hasn’t issued new figures showing the use of the devices in more recent years. Asked for comment, the agency responded via email saying: “The DMV follows the laws established by the Legislature in the California Vehicle Code. The department operates within those laws.”

Even drivers who have killed someone in recent years can get on the road without the device. We identified about 130 drivers who were convicted for a fatal DUI since 2019 who have already gotten their licenses back from the state. Alcohol was a factor in the vast majority of the cases. And although some appear to have had a short requirement to use an in-car breathalyzer, fewer than 20 are currently limited to driving vehicles with an ignition interlock device installed, their DMV records show.

Elias Mack thinks that’s a mistake.

Mack said he wasn’t much of a drinker, certainly not an alcoholic, when he drove drunk in early 2023 and caused the crash that killed Aurora Morris, his high school sweetheart.

“I was just young,” said Mack, who’s now 25.

He was convicted of vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, and at his sentencing, the judge ordered Mack’s license be revoked for three years. But under state law, the DMV is allowed to ignore such orders if the length of revocation is longer than what the statutes require. The agency gave Mack his license back little more than a year after his conviction and with no requirement that he install a breathalyzer, he said.

“I was trying to get my life back on track. I just wanted to do better and make her proud,” he said, adding that he needed to drive for work.

But the grief was almost too much. “To just live with that every day eats you alive,” Mack said.

He would often drive to see her memorial. “The only thing that’s making me feel good is just going to talk to her,” Mack said. But he was also drinking as a way to cope.

On one of those trips, just a few months after he got his license back, police stopped him. He got another DUI.

Mack said he’s sober now and hopes his story can help other people. He wishes the court had ordered him to have a breathalyzer after his manslaughter conviction.

It makes sense the devices would be mandatory, especially after a case like his, and for as long as possible, he added.

“It’s going to save somebody’s life.”

‘You have an opportunity to stop this’

Melanie Sandoval was still a teenager in 1989 when she was convicted in Madera County for driving drunk.

She got her second DUI a couple years later, and the state took her license.

She got her third a few years after that. And then her fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th.

It still didn’t keep her from driving drunk.

Kevin Bohnstedt saw the headlights coming toward him. The next thing he remembers, he was trapped in his seat with the airbags deployed and a woman outside rapping on the window.

Police found a pint of vodka in Sandoval’s car, said Ueltzen, who was the prosecutor in the case. It was her 16th DUI.

Bohnstedt, who spent 21 years flying jets off aircraft carriers as a naval aviator, said for months afterward he’d close his eyes and see the headlights coming for him. It took a while before he felt comfortable driving at night.

Kevin Bohnstedt stands in front of his home in central Fresno on Oct. 7, 2025. Bohnstedt was involved in a head-on collision with a driver who was later charged with their 16th DUI.

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Larry Valenzuela

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CalMatters/CatchLight Local

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Sandoval pleaded no contest to felony DUI and went to rehab. At a sentencing hearing in October 2024, Ueltzen implored Superior Court Judge Charles Lee to also send Sandoval to prison.

In a sharp back and forth, the judge and the prosecutor argued the weaknesses in the system.

Lee noted that if he sentenced her to four years, she would be out in two at most.

“What changes? She has been to prison so many times on so many different DUIs,” Lee said. “We warehouse her for a number of months. She comes out. She is still an addict. How is public safety addressed by a prison commitment here when we know she has gone to prison over and over and over again on DUIs?”

Ueltzen said that at least she could be forced to stay sober for a while.

“The public safety is addressed by the fact that while this defendant is in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, she is not behind the wheel of a car,” he said.

Lee was unmoved. For driving head on into another vehicle in what was her 16th DUI, the judge granted Sandoval probation with no additional time behind bars.

Her own attorney, who asked the court to send her to rehab instead of prison, said in an interview that there was “no accountability” in state law for repeat DUI offenders.

“If you have 16 DUIs, you likely should be doing 20 years in prison,” Marc Kapetan said.

Sandoval went on to violate the terms of her supervised release by showing up drunk to a probation appointment.

Just this summer a different judge ordered her to serve out the remainder of her four-year sentence in prison. With credit for the time she was in rehab, plus the time she spent in jail pretrial, plus the credit the state gives you just for behaving yourself behind bars, she should be out next year.

Bohnstedt said he recognizes the government can only do so much to stop people from making bad decisions and drivers have a responsibility for their own actions. But he said he was floored the court tried to let her off with mere probation and is baffled California can’t either get people like Sandoval the help they need or keep them from endangering the public.

“The biggest concern I have is the next time that it happens, there could be kids in the car. And she could kill them,” he said. “Or she could run people down. Any number of different horrific things could happen. And it could lead to somebody dying.”

If that happens, he said the state — lawmakers, law enforcement, the courts — will have blood on its hands.

“You have an opportunity to stop this.”

We attempted to reach every driver named in this story or their attorneys — oftentimes both. If a person or their attorney isn’t quoted, we were unable to reach them or they declined to comment.

Court research by Robert Lewis, Lauren Hepler, Anat Rubin, Sergio Olmos, Cayla Mihalovich, Ese Olumhense, Ko Bragg, Andrew Donohue and Jenna Peterson. 

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

You may surmise that the majority of my knowledge about hockey comes from watching The Mighty Ducks, but apparently that’s all you need to know now that the real-life Anaheim Ducks are progressing through the Stanley Cup playoffs — catch a playoff watch party this week to get up to speed on all the action on the ice.

Licorice Pizza’s music picks include experimental ambient artist Ana Roxanne at Sid The Cat Auditorium and YouTube star-turned-rapper DDG at the Roxy, both on Monday. On Tuesday, Paramore’s Hayley Williams kicks off her solo run at the Wiltern, RAYE plays the first of two nights at the Greek Theatre and indie-pop heroes the New Pornographers play the Teragram. Wednesday, Mika relaxes and takes it easy at the Orpheum; Canadian singer-songwriter Katie Tupper is at the Echoplex; and electronica legends the Prodigy restart their fire with the first of two nights at the Novo.

Thursday, you can see Nottingham post-punks Sleaford Mods at the Fonda; Rozzi at LAX (the club, not the airport); UB40 at the Pacific Amphitheatre; or the triumphant Indigo Girls, who are soldiering on despite singer Emily Saliers’ health issues, at the Bellwether. Lorde will also play the first of her two-night stint at the Forum.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can read about LA’s history of counterculture nuns, get a taste of the birria soup dumpling (“the most LA thing we’ve ever eaten”) and get ready for primary day — June 2 — with our comprehensive Voter Game Plan.

Events

Rakim and Soul Rebels

Monday and Tuesday, May 11 and 12
Blue Note 
6372 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood
COST: FROM $71; MORE INFO

Rakim ahead of the 65th Grammy Awards.

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Tommaso Boddi

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Jazz Fest in New Orleans is over, but really, who can get enough? Rap and hip-hop pioneer Rakim headlines, supported by the legendary New Orleans brass band the Soul Rebels, for two more unforgettable nights at the Blue Note.

Millennials Are Killing Musicals

Through Sunday, May 17 
Colony Theatre
555 N. Third Street, Burbank
COST: FROM $60; MORE INFO

Last year, I was lucky enough to go to a small read — er, sing — through of a new musical, Millennials Are Killing Musicals. It was clever, witty, tight and very au courant. And so how pleased was I to learn that just over a year later, this little-show-that-could is getting a full staging at the Colony Theatre in Burbank. Nico Juber’s musical follows the daily life of a millennial mom who’s trying to keep up in this emoji-laden world. It’s good fun for anyone who can’t get off their phone, which, let’s admit, is all of us.

AAPI Night Market

Wednesday, May 13, 7 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Sender One LAX
11220 Hindry Ave., Inglewood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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FilipinUp

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Startr Co.

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Climbers and wannabe climbers, head to indoor rock climbing gym Sender One for a special AAPI month event with the Asian Climbing Collective and FilipinUp. Celebrate Asian culture and community through climbing, plus local vendors, music, mock competitions and a raffle.

Zahra Tangorra book release

Monday, May 11, 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
Garibaldina Society 
4533 N. Figueroa Street, Mt. Washington
COST: $10; MORE INFO

Chef and restaurant consultant Zahra Tangorra’s new culinary memoir, Extra Sauce: The Good, The Bad, and The Onions, received a recent rave from The New York Times. She’ll be on hand for a discussion and book signing with the Italian American cultural group, the Garibaldina Society, at their club, moderated by L.A. Times food writer Jenn Harris. Of course, there will be snacks, drinks and sauce.

New exhibits at CAAM

Ongoing 
California African American Museum 
600 State Drive, Exposition Park 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Jose Lima/Willie Birch

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The California African American Museum is always a great place to spend an afternoon, but with eight current exhibits now open, you can go again and again this summer and never fail to learn something new (plus, it’s free!). The latest show to open there is Willie Birch: Stories to Tell, which looks at the New Orleans-born artist’s chronicling of Black life in America from the late 1960s through the present, with a focus on “retentions” — African traditions that show up across American culture. The Birch exhibit joins ongoing shows, including Free and Queer: Black Californian Roots of Gay Liberation, and A New Song: Langston Hughes in the West.

Meet the Artist: An Evening with ZiBeZi

Thursday, May 14, 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Yi Cha
5715 N. Figueroa Street, Highland Park
Cost: FREE, MORE INFO

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Courtesy N|A Consulting

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Art and food collide at Highland Park modern Korean restaurant Yi Cha for an intimate open house celebrating ZiBeZi, the Korean American artist behind the restaurant's beloved mural (you might also recognize his work from 2020 Oscar winner Parasite). The free-to-enter event includes bites inspired by his work, cocktails and a chance to purchase a tote bag that the artist will sign and illustrate on the spot for a one-of-a-kind keepsake.

Hannah Dasher

Thursday, May 14, 9 p.m.
Desert 5 Spot 
6516 Selma Ave., Hollywood
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Shorefire

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I’ll admit I knew little about Hannah Dasher before I ended up in an endless scroll of her addictive TikTok feed that blends Southern cooking and country music. She brings her signature honky-tonk sound to a free live performance at Desert 5 Spot, timed with the release of her first cookbook titled — I am not making this up — Stand By Your Pan. Perfect, no notes. Practice your line dancing and find a Waffle House to head to afterward.

Californians can’t cast a ballot until they turn 18, but for the past decade 16- and 17-year-olds have been able to pre-register to vote and be automatically added to the rolls on their 18th birthday.

“Teens get to get a head start on the access to voting,” said Daphné Rottenberg, a 17-year-old Venice High School student who pre-registered last year. “I think that it's a very important thing for younger people to learn about their rights, their voting rights and ultimately their ability to decide what policies and politicians become their leaders.”

Nearly 1.5 million students have pre-registered since the program started in 2016 and more than 1.1 million became eligible voters, according to a spokesperson for the California Secretary of State.

However, LAist reviewed state data and found that participation in the program cratered during the COVID-19 pandemic and has yet to recover. A nonprofit that promotes youth voting found California’s pre-registration totals represent less than 12% of eligible 16- and 17-year-olds.

“California is not doing a good job implementing pre-registration,” said Laura Brill, who lives in Los Angeles and is the founder and CEO of The Civics Center. “It's a very nice law that lets you do it, but it has not been widely adopted by high schools.”

The unrealized promise of the program is to jumpstart the civic lives of young voters, who’ve been historically underrepresented at the polls.

“The process of signing up creates conversations, dialogue that can educate young people and hopefully encourage them [to vote],” said Mindy Romero, director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy at USC. “If they vote at 18, they're much more likely to continue to vote through the life course. But you've got to get them when they're young.”

Do young people vote?

Rottenberg, who describes herself as “pretty involved in the political scene,” didn’t know about pre-registration until she connected with The Civics Project through a teacher to hold a voter registration drive at her school.

Young people vote, but at lower rates than older voters. In the 2024 presidential election, 43% of Californians 18-24 cast a ballot compared to 62% of overall turnout. Romero said this deficit has been consistent over time.

“Every youth vote is valuable and important, but the numbers should be higher,” Romero said. “It's really on our society and we shouldn't be blaming young people for that.”

For example, Romero said campaigns typically don’t prioritize youth outreach and engagement, which feeds into the narrative that candidates don’t represent young people’s interests.

“I think young people really struggle with particularly coming of age in this polarized environment,” Romero said. “They feel really disconnected from the political process. They care about the world and issues, but they don't see necessarily how voting is an actionable step on what they care about.”

Another factor is the decline of civics education at many schools.

“We somewhere along the line disconnected the notion of high schools and K through 12 schools as like, bedrocks of teaching democracy and democratic practice,” said Joel Snyder, a social studies teacher at a charter school in the Florence-Firestone neighborhood. “I think a lot of that nationally is a real fear of folks looking or feeling like they're being partisan.”

Even Snyder, who's been a teacher for more than two decades, paused during our interview to consider whether to share that as part of his class, students register to vote.

When did pre-registration start?

California is one of 19 states that allow teenagers to pre-register to vote at 16 or younger. The majority of states allow people to register if they will be 18 at the time of the election.

California 16-year-olds became eligible for pre-registration in fall 2016.

Then-Santa Barbara Senator Hannah-Beth Jackson cited the state’s low voter registration rates to promote the legislation that lowered the pre-registration age.

“Studies have shown that the earlier people are introduced to voting, the more

likely they are to become life-long participants in democracy,” Jackson wrote.

Research shows that pre-registration is associated with higher youth voter turnout.

Here’s how pre-registration works in California:

Eligible 16- and 17-year-olds must be:

• A U.S. Citizen and California resident 
• Not currently serving a state and federal prison term for a felony conviction or found mentally incompetent to vote by a court

Then, eligible teens can register

• Online— this option requires a California-issued driver’s license or identification card number. 
• By mailing or turning in a paper registration form to your county elections office— this option does not require a California-issued driver’s license or identification card number  

In April 2018, then-Secretary of State Alex Padilla said the pre-registration of 100,000 teenagers was a “big milestone.”

The number of pre-registered teens peaked in January 2020 at 163,000 — then fell to a record low, about 113,000, in February 2021.

About 119,000 California 16- and 17-year-olds are pre-registered to vote as of April 3, per the most recent report from the California Secretary of State.

Romero hasn’t analyzed the program’s outcomes, but offered a “likely” set of factors contributing to the stagnating participation.

One is a lack of funding for outreach and education around pre-registration.

“You can't just offer it and then expect a high sign-up rate,” Romero said. “There needs to be conversations around why it's important, what the nuts and bolts of registration are, what the nuts and bolts are of voting so kids feel confident.”

Governor Gavin Newsom has twice vetoed legislation that would have required high schools to help register students to vote.

In the veto letter for AB 2724, a 2024 bill that would have required schools to provide students information about pre-registration before the end of their junior year, Newsom wrote he was concerned about creating another school mandate.

“Schools already have the ability to fulfill the requirements of this bill without creating a new mandate,” Newsom said.

The last two weeks of April and September each year are designated as “high school voter education weeks,” in California, but the responsibility is on individual districts, schools and teachers to follow through.

“Civics in schools is under-taught, right, and under-resourced, and teachers are burdened, they have lots of different competing requirements,” Romero said. “So you have to be really committed to wanna talk to young people about this.”

Brill, with The Civics Center, said there are other changes that could help make it easier for teens to pre-register, including removing the requirement to have a driver’s license to sign up online. About a third of teenagers nationwide have their driver’s license.

Her organization holds trainings and created a toolkit for students and educators to host voter registration drives at their schools. Brill said more than 100 are planned for this spring, including at Venice High School.

“It really bothers me when people think that they're not being heard and so they completely disengage,” said Sage Smith, who is organizing the drive with several other students, including Rottenberg. “Instead of tuning everything out, I, we are able to bring people in so that they actually get involved.”

Smith said more than 300 of her peers pre-registered to vote during last year’s drive, which targeted seniors.

“There's an idea that, you know, younger people are uninvolved, but when they're presented with the information, everyone cared, everyone was quick to sign up,” Smith said.

The 1994 World Cup kicked off with a sold-out match. On a scorching afternoon in Chicago, some 63,000 spectators — including then-President Bill Clinton and Oprah Winfrey — were packed like sardines at Soldier Field to watch Germany vs. Bolivia. Their cheers and boos, as loud as thunder.

Today, it's easy to imagine a World Cup game drawing such American fanfare. But back then, it was a much different story.

"It was a big question as to how the U.S. would embrace it. Would people come to the games?" Mike Sorber, who played for the U.S. Men's National Team in 1994, told NPR.

Ahead of the 1994 World Cup, most Americans were unaware that the U.S. would be hosting the tournament. A survey from the time ranked soccer 67th among the nation's favorite sports (behind tractor pulling).

Despite this, the 1994 World Cup — the first held in the U.S. — took a surprising turn. Game after game, stadiums were filled to capacity, packed not only with tourists and die-hard fans but also with soccer novices who came out of curiosity and because tickets were relatively affordable, according to soccer historians.

Mike Sorber plays during an exhibition game at the Rose Bowl in 1994.

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" I think all the naysayers were surprised," said Sorber, who is currently an assistant coach for Major League Soccer's New York Red Bulls. "The atmosphere was electric. It was like a big party."

Soccer's momentum in the U.S. has only been growing since then, fueled by the launch of Major League Soccer and the success of the U.S. Women's National Team. When the World Cup returns to the U.S. in June, it will be greeted by a larger and more passionate fanbase than ever before.

How exactly did a sport that struggled to gain traction for decades go on to break the World Cup's record for largest attendance and win over Americans' hearts? To answer that, NPR spoke to Sorber, along with soccer journalists and fans, about the breakthrough World Cup.

Why did it take so long for the U.S. to embrace soccer?

How far back the soccer tradition in the U.S. goes depends on whom you ask and where they're from.

Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis and pockets of New York, New Jersey and New England all have deep soccer roots — often brought by European immigrants in the 19th century, according to Brian D. Bunk, who teaches the history of sports at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

As a result, the sport was largely associated with working-class and immigrant communities, Bunk added. Some also dismissed soccer over the perception that it lacked the physicality of sports like American football.

Colombian soccer fans wave their country's flag during the "Chicago Welcomes the World Cup" parade on June 15, 1994.

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"The argument that was often made against soccer is that it was an inferior form of football," Bunk said.

There were brief bursts of excitement for the sport in the late 20th century — such as when legendary Brazilian player Pelé came to play in the U.S. in the late 1970s — but they never lasted long.

By the 1980s, the future of soccer in the U.S. looked bleak. The North American Soccer League, which began in 1968, folded after the 1984 season. American soccer officials hoped a World Cup tournament at home could resuscitate interest.

" Let's face it: You need to have the product in front of you to see what the heck this is all about," said Michael Lewis, who has covered soccer for five decades. He's the editor of Front Row Soccer, a website that follows the soccer scene in New York and New Jersey.

FIFA also saw an opportunity. Soccer's global governing body viewed the U.S. "as the last and largest uncracked market for its sport," Pete Davies, who has written extensively about sports, told NPR's Fresh Air in 1994.

"And it want[ed] to get into that market," he added.

What led to the tournament's success in 1994? 

What the U.S. lacked in soccer prowess, it made up for with its ability to put on a massive sporting event (thanks to the nation's football stadiums and experience hosting the Olympics) — and a fun one at that.

" We have the sporting infrastructure — the stadiums — we have the hotels, the restaurants, the transportation systems," said Bunk, of the University of Massachusetts. "And so all of that stuff meant that the World Cup could go very smoothly."

Americans also proved they were up for a good time — and World Cup fans knew how to bring the party. Drums, whistles, trumpets, singing, dancing and face paint were the hallmarks of a World Cup game.

A Mexican fan, his face painted with Mexico's national colors, cheers in the stands at the Citrus Bowl stadium in Orlando, Fla., on June 24, 1994, prior to the start of the World Cup match between Mexico and Ireland.

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A soccer fan supporting Argentina plays a drum at the World Cup match between Argentina and Nigeria at Foxboro Stadium in Massachusetts in June 1994.

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That's what Kevin Tallec Marston, a research fellow at the International Centre for Sports Studies in Switzerland, remembers most vividly from the Belgium vs. Saudi Arabia match in Washington, D.C., which he attended as a teenager.

"It was not the kind of fandom that Americans would associate with going to an NBA game, going to an NFL game," he said. "Seeing these people from all around the world with their own cultures, their own chants, their own songs, their own instruments."

Univision played a major role in attracting both Spanish- and non-Spanish-speaking viewers alike, especially through World Cup announcer Andrés Cantor and his iconic "Goooooooooool!"

"It created this sort of mythical element of what it was to watch the World Cup," said Tallec Marston, who, along with Front Row Soccer's Lewis, is a board member of the Society for American Soccer History.

But perhaps what electrified Americans most was the strong performance of the U.S. Men's National Team. It started with a hard-fought 1-1 tie with Switzerland, followed by a stunning 2-1 upset over powerhouse Colombia. (The victory was later marred by tragedy: Colombian defender Andrés Escobar, who had accidentally knocked the ball into his own team's net, was shot and killed shortly after returning home.)

That match was the first World Cup win for the U.S. men's team since 1950. The team's victory was witnessed by more than 93,000 fans at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena.

Sorber, a midfielder in the starting lineup, said he had played for large crowds before, but never for an audience so enthralled by the U.S. team. It was "euphoria," he said.

" All of a sudden, it really opened the eyes to the whole United States … that wow, this is what the future of soccer could be."

Steve Davis covered the 1994 games as a young sports reporter for The Dallas Morning News. "It sort of lit a fire under people," he said. "I would think some Americans became soccer fans that day."

The U.S. team went on to lose to Romania 1-0 and then to Brazil 1-0. Although the U.S. didn't win, Sorber said, the support and energy from American fans during those matches felt like a victory.

" You had a huge turnout," he said. "So again, that was a big moment in U.S. soccer history … to reestablish soccer, to build that foundation and get more awareness for the U.S. national team."

Post-1994

In total, over 3.5 million people attended the 1994 World Cup — the largest attendance in FIFA history to this day. Despite its success, soccer's American fanbase didn't grow overnight.

"Soccer's growth isn't linear," writer Davis said.

Two years later, the professional Major League Soccer (MLS) launched. Around that time, FIFA's World Cup video game franchise helped introduce soccer to an even broader audience. All the while, the U.S. Women's National Team emerged as a dominating force and accelerated the rise of women's soccer globally. Across the U.S., youth soccer exploded in popularity.

Brandi Chastain celebrates after kicking the winning penalty kick at the 1999 women's World Cup final against China on July 10, 1999.

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Roberto Schmidt

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The arrival of international superstars to MLS, like David Beckham in 2007 and Lionel Messi in 2023, added fire to the nation's passion for the sport. MLS, which began with 10 teams, has since expanded to 30 clubs.

Together, these moments helped transform the soccer landscape in the United States. The 2022 World Cup in Qatar drew an average of 4.7 million American viewers per game, according to Nielsen. Each year, millions of Americans watch England's Premier League matches on TV and streaming platforms.

When it comes to America's favorite sports, soccer now ranks third, surpassing baseball, according to Ampere Analysis, a data firm focused on entertainment industries.

Davis, who is now the director of legacy programs for the North Texas FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, said it's validating to see the sport he has loved and played since childhood resonate with more people at home.

"I did have some faith that it was going to grow," he said. "But I would be lying if I said I thought we'd be here in 2026, seeing how big it's become."

The challenges ahead 

Although this isn't the first time that the U.S. has hosted the World Cup, the upcoming tournament is expected to be vastly different.

"One of the key aspects of the '94 World Cup was taking football to the new horizon," said Tallec Marston, who co-wrote Inventing the Boston Game. "So it'll be interesting because we are no longer in a new frontier."

Hosted by the U.S., Canada and Mexico, this year's competition will introduce more teams and matches than ever before. It will also return to a far more diverse United States. In 1994, about 8% of the country's population was foreign-born. As of 2025, immigrants make up 15% of the nation.

Two men walk past a mural of a soccer player in Guadalajara, Mexico, on April 29. Mexico will co-host the biggest World Cup in history, along with the United States and Canada, from June 11 to July 19.

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"You're going to have a representation of countries and nations that we will have never seen before. And so that will be very exciting to see," Tallec Marston said.

The current U.S. Men's National Team has far more experience on the World Cup stage compared with the 1994 team. Since then, the team has qualified for every World Cup except one, in 2018. There's much excitement for this group of young players, many of whom are playing for top European clubs.

The controversies leading up to the games are also quite different. In 1994, the uncertainty was whether many Americans would attend the matches. This year, the question is whether they will be able to afford to — with dynamic pricing driving ticket costs sky-high.

The tournament will also take place during a politically volatile period in the United States. The ongoing war with Iran has led to questions about whether the Iranian team will participate.

The Trump administration's travel restrictions and harsh immigration crackdown have also sparked debate as to how many tourists will feel comfortable traveling to the United States. The administration is also requiring a bond of up to $15,000 for travelers from 50 countries that it deemed as having immigration risk factors, such as high overstay rates and screening and vetting deficiencies. Five nations that qualified for the World Cup — Algeria, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tunisia and Cape Verde — are on the list.

For all these reasons, Lewis, who wrote Around the World Cup in 40 Years, about his experience covering eight men's World Cups, expects that "there'll be magic, but there'll be headaches too."

" I think the games themselves should be exciting and fun," he said. However, putting the problems to rest, Lewis added, will be "easier said than done."
Copyright 2026 NPR

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On March 1, the day after U.S. forces bombed Iran and began a war that's now more than nine weeks long, President Donald Trump posted 30 times on Truth Social.

Just after midnight, he posted about the bombing campaign, including a threat to retaliate if Iran itself retaliated ("THEY BETTER NOT DO THAT").

But he soon had a lot more on his mind; mid-morning, he posted a video portraying Senator Mitch McConnell as the floppy, deceased Bernie from Weekend at Bernie's.

He posted a Tiktok video praising his State of the Union — a speech he had given five days prior — then reposted that video, along with a screenshot of a post on the social media site X. Just after noon, he posted an update on the war ("we have destroyed and sunk 9 Iranian Naval Ships, some of them relatively large and important"). Mid-afternoon, he posted a string of Trump-friendly news coverage, including a New York Post article from September 2024 about how Lady Gaga's father endorsed Trump in the presidential race. Shortly thereafter, in the span of five minutes, he posted 10 times, all of them lists of screenshots of praise from X users for his State of the Union address. He later posted a video update about the war in Iran, followed by a video marked as being from an Instagram user called @truthaboutfluoride, purporting to show San Francisco as a run-down city filled with poverty.

During his first presidential campaign, Trump's constant stream of seemingly unvetted tweets was a sideshow that quickly became inescapable — the boasts, insults, and lies at times hijacked news cycles. Once he was elected, they presented a new frontier in American politics: a real-time view into a president's mind.

Ten years, one Twitter ejection, one Twitter return, and a move to Truth Social later, Trump's posts still make news — like when he announces a war or tries to pick a fight with the pope — but for many have become the background noise of American politics.

The president of the United States is now communicating with the public sometimes dozens of times a day on a social media platform that he himself created, and most Americans (and perhaps even journalists) never see most of those posts. Of course, most of those posts are not individually newsworthy. But looking at them together provides a picture of exactly what, in the aggregate, the president of the United States is thinking about and saying to the world at all hours.

To try to grasp that, NPR analyzed the first four months of Trump's Truth Social posts this year. What emerged is a portrait of an extremely online president with scattered focus — who, even while he dealt with fallout from his policies such as war in Iran and immigration enforcement in Minneapolis, was also busy insulting his critics, posting pictures of his proposed ballroom, and continuing to insist on the lie that he won the 2020 election. The president also has unorthodox posting habits that illustrate that, even as arguably the most powerful person on earth, he remains focused on how he is seen.

What the president is posting about

To quantitatively analyze the president's posts, NPR compiled the president's first four months of posts, using a data scraper maintained by CNN. We then classified each post based on its topic (tariffs, the war in Iran, Greenland) and the type of post it was (sharing a news story, reposting someone else, making a threat).

Trump posted 2,249 times in the first four months of 2026, an average of just under 19 posts per day.

The most common topic Trump posted about – at about 14% of his posts – was 2026 elections. These posts — more than 300 of them — consist largely of either candidate endorsements or posts touting a Trump-backed candidate's win.

However, Trump at times did not give a simple endorsement, instead adding attacks on an endorsee's opponents. For example, in endorsing Republican candidates for the Indiana state Senate, the posts became paragraph-long screeds as Trump attacked sitting senators as "RINOs" (Republicans in name only) if they voted against a Trump-backed redistricting plan.

The next most common topics after elections were Iran (247 posts) and the economy (177). He also posted dozens of times about alleged fraud in Minnesota's safety net programs, the SAVE Act, and his belief that the justice system was weaponized against him.

To the degree that his posts measure what he's thinking about, the president's social media feed suggests he is as preoccupied — or even more so — with his personal projects and vendettas than he is with pressing policy matters.

President Trump posted about the 2020 election 71 times in the first four months of 2026, more than he posted even about tariffs (57 times — all of which we coded as a subset of posts about the economy). Those 2020 election posts all promoted the lie that via massive voter fraud or other malfeasance, Joe Biden stole that election.

Trump posted 68 times about his various Washington, D.C., building projects, including his White House ballroom and a proposed massive arch across the Potomac near Arlington National Cemetery. That's slightly more than he posted about Venezuela, more than he posted about the SAVE Act he's promoting, and more than he posted about protesters and federal agents in Minneapolis, including federal agents killing two U.S. citizens.

He posted more than six times as often (105) about his various legal grievances than he did about healthcare policy (17).

Also notable are the topics that get little attention. While tariffs and the war in Iran do affect, for example, the farm economy, Trump posted just four times specifically about American farming during the first four months of the year — less than half as many times as he posted (nine times) about his anger at comedian Bill Maher.

As for the top types of posts, the largest category – at just under one-quarter of his posts – are social media reshares. These take several formats — some are screenshots of posts from X, and others are videos reposted from other social media sites, such as TikTok.

This emphasizes the technological differences between now and Trump's first term.

Near the end of his first term, the videos Trump posted were largely from Fox News or other right-leaning news outlets, or they were videos produced by the White House.

Now, there's an endless array of TikTok and Instagram videos and memes the president can repost, many of them from amateurs or generated by AI. Some have been outright offensive, as when he posted a racist video that depicted former President Obama and Michelle Obama as apes. The White House initially defended the video, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters, "Please stop the fake outrage." Trump later said he hadn't seen the full video, telling reporters, "I looked at the beginning of it. It was fine." He did not apologize, and the post was later deleted.

Other posts have promoted conspiracy theories, as with a video that baselessly proposed that Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz was involved in the 2025 killing of Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman.

Occasionally, those videos have nothing to do with current events, or even Trump, but are the kind of inane posts littering many people's Facebook feeds. Around 11 p.m. one night in February, Trump posted a TikTok video of a person's pet corgi reacting to a can of Reddi-wip. A minute later, he reposted that video along with a screenshot of a supporter's X post ("Good Night Patriot Friends!"). A minute after that, he posted a 15-second video of Bruce Lee fighting, which he similarly reposted alongside another X screenshot seconds later.

Reposting material from X

This posting-then-reposting pattern is one of the more notable oddities of the president's Truth Social posts. It appears to be a makeshift way of reposting things from X. The president regularly grabs, for example, a video someone else has posted on X, posts it without attribution on Truth Social, then immediately quote-posts his own post along with a screenshot of the original X post.

Some of these reposts are about current events, but they cover many other topics as well – they include a variety of amateur-made videos praising Trump, attacking his enemies, and (incorrectly) concurring with his false claim that he in fact won the 2020 election. In recent months, Trump has reposted a video compilation of moments with his grandkids, a video about his loyalty to Michael Jackson over the years, a montage of Trump moments set to a choral arrangement of "Like a Prayer," and an apparently AI-generated video of Trump playing hockey against Canadian hockey players – and punching the bejeezus out of one of them.

The pattern of snagging content from X highlights two important facts about Truth Social.

One is that X appears to dwarf it in size. The Center for Campaign Innovation, a right-leaning political strategy organization, provided NPR with polling from around the 2024 election, finding that only 6% of people used Truth Social for news on even a weekly basis. That's compared to 30% who used X.

Trump may therefore go to X to get material because there are just more users there, and especially more big names like politicians, news organizations, and MAGA influencers.

Secondly, Truth Social's smaller size means it serves a different purpose for Trump than Twitter ever did, before Trump was kicked off of the platform after the January 6 riot. (His account was eventually reinstated.)

"I think really the best way to understand it is this is where you get your marching orders if you're MAGA," said Eric James Wilson, a Republican strategist and executive director of the Center for Campaign Innovation. "And too, it is direct communication from him, in the way that maybe a statement, an administration policy or a press release would have to go through multiple layers of, if not revisions, certainly approvals."

Leavitt told NPR in a statement that Truth Social is "the most powerful and popular social media platform in the world because it serves as President Trump's authentic voice."

One restriction has kept Trump from simply posting on X when he wants a bigger audience – according to details about a licensing agreement in a 2023 SEC filing, he is "generally obligated to make any social media post on TruthSocial and may not make the same post on another social media site for 6 hours." This gives the site "limited time to benefit from" his postings.

NPR emailed Truth Social's press team to check if this agreement is still in effect, but the email bounced back.

It's not entirely clear how many of the posts on the president's Truth Social account come directly from him. Leavitt also told NPR that some posts are made by staffers.

"President Trump posts at all hours because he is constantly working, but sometimes these posts are also published by staff who are simply catching up on the many articles and reading materials President Trump approves the day prior," she said in another statement.

It's not just news articles that the White House says Trump isn't personally posting; after backlash to the racist video depicting the Obamas the White House also said a staffer "erroneously" posted the video.

Old news

One of the most telling indicators of what's on Trump's mind can be found in the news articles he posts — more than 1 in 5 of the president's social media posts in the first four months of this year were news articles, op-eds, and videos. Those news pieces almost uniformly praise the president or promote administration-friendly storylines, including persecuting his perceived enemies.

On March 29, in a span of six minutes, his account posted 10 news pieces about criminal referrals against New York Attorney General Letitia James, who prosecuted Trump in a civil business fraud case.

A substantial number of the news stories Trump's account posts are not current. At least 1 in 4 of the news stories posted were more than 10 days old at the time he posted them (the dates of some TV news clips could not be easily verified).

In some cases, such as the article about Lady Gaga's father, the news pieces were months old. At other times, he posted several older articles in rapid succession about the same event. On March 16, Trump posted three January articles in a row about the crowd at the College Football National Championship game cheering for him.

Leavitt told NPR in a statement: "The President is extraordinarily well read, and he likes to share stories or content that he finds interesting on his account."

The problem with bluster

In the first four months of the year, President Trump made 98 posts we classified as "announcements" — which we defined as the president purporting to give the public new information.

These covered a range of topics — there was the video announcing the U.S. had bombed Iran. There was the announcement of a new DHS secretary nominee — Markwayne Mullin. There were announcements about disaster aid to states affected by a massive winter storm. There were notifications of upcoming interviews or press conferences. Not all of these announcement posts turned out to be accurate, however, as with an April 17 post declaring the Strait of Hormuz to be "COMPLETELY OPEN AND READY FOR BUSINESS AND FULL PASSAGE."

He also made 29 posts we classified as "threats." These range from the specific ("If Canada makes a deal with China, it will immediately be hit with a 100% Tariff") to the vague ("I wonder what would happen if we 'finished off' what's left of the Iranian Terror State"). The president hasn't followed through on all of these threats with concrete action.

Altogether, that's 127 of Trump's most newsmaking posts — around one per day. Those posts have introduced an unprecedented unpredictability into presidential policymaking. His tariff policy posts, for example, have created widespread uncertainty in the business world.

This can make life in a Trump White House particularly difficult, especially in the realm of foreign policy. John Bolton, who served as National Security Advisor in Trump's first term, tells a story about Trump's chaotic posts.

"My deputy was there when [Trump] was shown — this is in 2019 — overhead pictures of a failed Iranian missile launch," Bolton says. "And he said to the intelligence briefer, can I keep this picture? And she said, 'Well, yes, but it's very sensitive, Mr. President.' He said, 'Okay.' And about 20 minutes after they left, he tweeted the picture out with some of the markings still on the picture."

As NPR later reported, the photo was revealed to be classified. Experts told NPR that tweeting the picture potentially helped America's adversaries, including Iran and Russia, because it revealed U.S. satellite capabilities.

Since his time in the first Trump administration, Bolton has been willing to sharply criticize the president. In October, the Trump Department of Justice obtained indictments against Bolton on 18 charges alleging that he unlawfully retained and transmitted classified documents. Bolton pleaded not guilty.

Bolton sees Trump tweeting the picture as part of a larger pattern: to attempt maximum bluster and in the process reveal more than he intends to. Trump's recent posts about the war in Iran are another example.

"The very ferocity of his tweets or the outrage you can hear just tell the Iranians 'If we just stay, if we just be patient a little while longer, he's just going to flip right out entirely, and he wants out. So we're going to drag it out and get every concession we can from him,'" Bolton said. "I don't understand why he can't see that."

Pundits have theorized that with his threatening posts about Iran, President Trump is practicing the "madman theory" of foreign relations. H.R. Haldeman, who served as chief of staff to President Nixon wrote that Nixon's strategy was to make the U.S.S.R. and the government in North Vietnam think that the fervently anticommunist president was willing to go to even extreme lengths, such as dropping a nuclear bomb, to end the Vietnam War.

"Nixon had credibility. He was strongly anti-communist," Bolton said, adding that communist adversaries might have thought, "Good God, that guy is crazy enough that he would drop a nuclear weapon."

"Just being generically crazy does not give you an advantage," Bolton added.

A president's id on display

To some degree, the president's posting can be seen as an extension of his communications strategy of simply communicating a lot. Trump regularly does lengthy press gaggles in the Oval Office, and he also has the unprecedented habit of fielding calls directly from reporters who have his phone number.

However, with posts, unlike interviews, the president is not having a conversation. Rather than being prompted by a reporter, the president in his posts seemingly reveals what is on his mind at any given time. On April 2, the day he announced that Pam Bondi would be leaving her post as attorney general, President Trump was also thinking about Bruce Springsteen. He insulted the singer in two posts shared at 7:58 a.m. and 9:21 p.m. that day.

Indeed, the president's insults and tirades have become so commonplace that they at times don't get much notice. Some of these posts go on at length. On April 9, he wrote a more than 2,700-character post that insulted a series of right-wing commentators but also veered into the topics of Iran, election results, media outlets he dislikes, and his approval rating.

This kind of naked fury from the president of the United States toward his perceived opponents ("NUT JOBS," "TROUBLEMAKERS," "low IQs," "nasty") might once have made headlines.

In 2026, it's a Thursday.

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NPR also analyzed the length of Trump's posts this year through the end of April. He wrote 93 posts of 1,500 characters or more in that time period, accounting for around 4% of all his posts. About half of those are endorsements, in which the president praises his chosen candidates and at times rails against the opponent ("DEFEAT Third Rate Congressman Thomas Massie, a Weak and Pathetic RINO"). Many of these endorsements appear to be variations on boilerplate language as Trump endorses a string of candidates in a short timeframe.

The rest of these long posts are anything but boilerplate – they are often attacks ("Pope Leo is WEAK ON CRIME") and occasionally announcements ("I am nominating Kevin Warsh to be the CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD OF GOVERNORS OF THE FEDERAL RESERVE SYSTEM").

Trump had more of those ultra-long posts in April than in any other month. And if you take out endorsements, it's even more stark. In April, Trump posted 22 extra-long posts about things other than endorsements — slamming Supreme Court justices, repeatedly promoting his ballroom, and railing against particular media outlets. That's twice as many such posts, or more, as he had in any other month.

To the degree, then, that the length of his posts correlates to Trump's anger, or perhaps enthusiasm, April was a particularly enthusiastic month for the president.

The president's Truth Social account primarily gets wide attention when the president either makes an announcement or writes something particularly coarse or offensive.

That was the case on Easter morning this year, at around 8:00 a.m., when President Trump threatened Iran.

"Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the F*****' Strait, you crazy bastards, or you'll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah," he wrote.

A threat of massive violence — and potentially war crimes — along with an obscenity and a tongue-in-cheek praise to Allah, all on one of Christianity's holiest days, together were stunning choices for a president whose core supporters are white evangelical Christians.

In a recent NPR focus group of Georgia swing voters — people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump in 2024 — no one reacted positively to that post. Participants were identified by their first names as a condition of their participation. One voter named Joe said that posts like that one inspire fear.

"It's not presidential. They're supposed to be doing diplomatic negotiations. You know, he's the agent of chaos when it comes to this kind of thing. It just – it scares me," he said. "He's a loose cannon, in my opinion, when it comes to this kind of stuff."

Brent Jones contributed to this report.

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