The Brief

This story was originally published by Boyle Heights Beat on July 30, 2025.

For decades, the Sears tower loomed over Boyle Heights.

The 10-story, Art Deco complex, which once served as a mail-order warehouse, became a shopping hub for Eastsiders looking for clothing and household appliances. But in recent years, the landmark has stood at the center of debates over gentrification, homelessness and what the future of Boyle Heights would look like.

Now, the public once again has the chance to step inside.

Last week, the Mark Jude Gallery hosted a grand opening exhibition on the building’s fifth floor, welcoming visitors into the space that has largely been closed off to the general public.

For some, the gallery marks the beginning of a new chapter for the site located at Olympic Boulevard and Soto Street, surrounded by warehouses, gas stations and fast food restaurants.

The building has seen multiple development proposals since Izek Shomof bought the property in 2013. A plan to convert it to a high-end residential and commercial destination, drew ire from some community members who argued such a space would exacerbate wealth inequality in the neighborhood. Pivoting, Shomof instead unveiled plans for a Life Rebuilding Center, a hub offering housing, rehabilitation services and job training for unhoused residents.

The original plan included 10,000 beds for homeless people, which sparked community concern. Some likened the plans to a “concentration camp,” leading Shomof to scale back his ambitions and reduce the number of planned beds to just 2,500 in 2022.

But even the scaled-down version failed to gain political traction. In an email to Boyle Heights Beat, Jonathan Shomof of the Shomof Group said that the project represented a “comprehensive solution designed to address the homelessness crisis in our cities effectively,” but ultimately never materialized.

“Unfortunately, due to inaction by elected officials, this plan has been shelved for now,” Shomof said.

Despite describing homelessness as a humanitarian crisis, elected officials remained hesitant to offer backing. Former L.A. City Councilman Kevin de León told The Los Angeles Times in 2022 that he was “open to all solutions” to address homelessness.

That same year, L.A. County Supervisor Hilda Solis told the publication that the project, as it stood then, did not have support from her office.

Some community leaders like Monsignor John Moretta of Resurrection Church expressed cautious optimism about repurposing the building, but said it should be done with care and executed with more planning.

“It’s just a stupid idea to pack that many people with those many needs inside of that area,” Moretta said, referring to projects like the Life Rebuilding Center.

Shomof hopes the Mark Jude Gallery will bring more people and activity to the neighborhood and eventually inspires more retailers to the area. That’s something Vivian Escalante could get behind.

“I hope people don’t feel intimidated by this,” said Escalante, CEO of Boyle Heights Neighborhood Partners, a nonprofit focused on historic education and cultural preservation in the neighborhood. Escalante, who also serves on the Boyle Heights Neighborhood Council, said she met with Izek Shomof in the past and admired his interest in preservation and community engagement.

“I think overall, it’s a good change, because it is with the arts, and we should always support the arts,” she said.

But not everyone sees the gallery as a purely positive development.

In an Instagram post, Shmuel Gonzales described the opening as the latest in a pattern of art galleries “enabling gentrification for the ultra rich” in the working-class community.

In years past, activist groups like Defend Boyle Heights have resisted the introduction of galleries in the community.

“I can’t really tell you what fine art is, but I can tell you what #gentrification looks like,” Gonzales wrote. “Make no mistake about it, the community is going to resist the encroachment of the Arts District into our neighborhood.”

Gonzales added that what’s needed now is a conversation with building owner Izek Shomof to engage with the community “with honesty and in good faith about his true vision for this site.”

As for further plans, Jonathan Shomof said that for now, his group will maintain the building’s “historic uses, such as office space, distribution, and storage.”

The developer of ICEBlock, an iPhone app that anonymously tracks the presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, has sued the Trump administration for free speech violations after Apple removed the service from its app store under demands from the White House.

The suit, filed on Monday in federal court in Washington, asks a judge to declare that the administration violated the First Amendment when it threatened to criminally prosecute the app's developer and pressured Apple to make the app unavailable for download, which the tech company did in October.

Following Apple ejecting ICEBlock, Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement that "we reached out to Apple today demanding they remove the ICEBlock app from their App Store — and Apple did so."

Lawyer Noam Biale, who filed the suit against the administration, said Bondi's remarks show the government illegally pressuring a private company to suppress free speech.

"We view that as an admission that she engaged in coercion in her official role as a government official to get Apple to remove this app," Biale said in an interview with NPR.

The Justice Department did not return a request for comment, but Trump administration officials have said the app puts the lives of ICE agents in danger.

When reached for comment, Apple also did not respond. The lawsuit, which does not name Apple, says the tech giant bowed in the face of political pressure.

"For what appears to be the first time in Apple's nearly fifty-year history, Apple removed a U.S.-based app in response to the U.S. government's demands," according to the suit.

Developer calls immigration crackdown 'abhorrent'

Joshua Aaron, the Austin, Texas-based developer of ICEBlock, said he launched the app as a way to empower those opposed to Trump's immigration crackdown.

"It was just the best idea I had to do everything I could to fight back against what was going on," Aaron said in an interview, describing Trump's immigration enforcement blitz as "abhorrent."

The app allows people to report an ICE agent sighting within a 5 mile radius, similar to how map apps, like Waze and Google and Apple Maps and others, alert drivers to police setting up speed traps. The ICE sighting alerts do not include photographs or videos and expire in four hours.

Yet the Trump administration has portrayed the app as being used to incite violence against ICE agents, something Aaron denies. An analysis of federal court records does not back up the administration's claim that violence against ICE agents has spiked.

Aaron's lawsuit says Bondi is mischaracterizing the purpose of the app.

"Fundamentally, ICEBlock neither enables nor encourages confrontation — it simply delivers time-limited location information to help users stay aware of their surroundings in a responsible and nonviolent way," according to the lawsuit.

Attorney General Bondi, in a July interview with Fox News, suggested Aaron was under investigation and had committed a crime. "We are looking at it, we are looking at him, and he better watch out, because that's not protected speech," Bondi said.

To legal experts, ICEBlock is latest "jawboning" example

To First Amendment advocates, the White House's pressure campaign targeting ICEBlock is the latest example of what's known as "jawboning," when government officials wield state power to suppress speech. The Cato Institute calls the practice "censorship by proxy."

ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel after FCC Chair Brendan Carr threatened regulatory action and Bondi promising a crackdown on hate speech following the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk are two other prominent instances.

"The use of a high-level government threat to force a private platform to suppress speech fundamentally undermines the public's right to access information about government activities," said Spence Purnell, a resident senior fellow at R Street, a center-right think tank. "If high-level officials can successfully silence political opposition, it sets a dangerous precedent for the future of free expression in this country."

Genevieve Lakier, a First Amendment scholar at the University of Chicago Law School, said the White House's campaign against ICEBlock shows the administration using what has become a familiar playbook: "To use threats of adverse legal and financial consequences, sometimes vague sometimes not so vague, to pressure universities, media companies, law firms, you name it, into not speaking in the ways they like," she said.

One potential weak spot for the lawsuit, however, is a lack of direct evidence that Attorney General Bondi, or other administration officials, made threats against Apple to have the app removed, rather than merely convinced the tech company to do so.

"And government officials do not violate the First Amendment when they persuade private speech platforms to suppress speech because that speech poses a national security risk or is harmful in some other way," Lakier said. "They only violate the First Amendment when they coerce or attempt to coerce the private platform to suppress the speech."

Since Apple kicked ICEBlock out of its app store, it cannot be downloaded now, but those who had it on their phones before the ban can still use it. Being removed from the app store prevents Aaron from sending the app software updates, which could eventually make it glitchy.

Aaron said he hopes the suit will lead to ICEBlock being restored to the iPhone app stores and for a clear message to be sent to the Trump administration that prosecuting him for his role in developing the app would be illegal.

Aaron said he and his legal team "have been preparing for this fight," adding that "we will take it as far as it needs to go to ensure this never happens again."
Copyright 2025 NPR

Twelve FBI agents who were fired this year for taking a knee during racial justice protests in the heated summer of 2020 are suing the Bureau and its director, alleging unlawful retaliation.

The former special agents—who together have nearly 200 years of experience—once received awards for helping disrupt mass shootings, expose foreign spies and thwart cyber attacks.

But they say as elite federal law enforcement agents, they never received training on crowd control, nor did they have riot shields, gas masks, or helmets when they faced down volatile crowds in the streets of Washington, D.C., in June 2020.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington on Monday, described the small group of FBI agents as vastly outnumbered and literally backed against the wall of the National Archives building as unrest swept the country over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer. Court papers said they kneeled not to reflect a left-wing political point of view, but rather to de-escalate a situation that threatened to spin out of control.

"Mindful of the potentially catastrophic consequences, Plaintiffs knew that a split-second misjudgment by any of them could ignite an already-charged national climate and trigger further violence and unrest," said the lawsuit, filed by former Justice Department prosecutor Mary Dohrmann of the Washington Litigation Group.

Accused of 'lack of impartiality'

The Justice Department inspector general reviewed the incident in 2024 and found no misconduct. But the episode went viral on social media, attracting critics who cast the kneeling as a political act. Before he returned to the White House, President Trump also posted a negative story about the matter.

Soon after new FBI Director Kash Patel joined the Bureau this year, the lawsuit said he began targeting the agents involved in the episode for retaliation. Several of plaintiffs were yanked from supervisory roles at the FBI. Officials launched a new investigation. The matter was still pending when they were all fired in September, shortcutting typical procedures for FBI misconduct probes.

In their dismissal letters, Patel wrote: "You have demonstrated unprofessional conduct and a lack of impartiality in carrying out duties, leading to the political weaponization of government."

During his confirmation hearing, Patel told senators he would honor the internal review process. But the lawsuit accuses him of breaking that pledge for his own political purposes.

The abrupt departure of the fired agents disrupted important work, including evidence collection in Utah following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk and efforts to support the Trump administration's executive order on "Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful," court papers said.

The case alleges violations of the agents' First Amendment rights to free association and their Fifth Amendment right to due process. They're asking to be reinstated to their jobs and for back pay.

The FBI declined to comment on pending litigation.

Copyright 2025 NPR

A drawn out battle over a city law boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers in Los Angeles seemed like it was finally over this fall when a referendum to overturn it failed to gather enough signatures.

Now there's another twist in the road. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson previously voted to raise airport and hotel worker pay from $22.50 to $30 an hour by 2028, when L.A. will host the Olympics. But in a motion filed Friday, he's proposing that the increase take effect more slowly, instead reaching $30 an hour in 2030.

Harris-Dawson's proposal sparked outcry from hotel workers union Unite Here Local 11 and other labor advocates.

“These workers fought for more than two years to improve their working conditions, only to have the very people who should defend them try to take it all away," Yvonne Wheeler, president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said in a statement. "It’s heartless, it’s callous, and it deepens the crisis of working poverty that is gripping our city.”

Labor advocates say Harris-Dawson is succumbing to pressure from corporate interests.

Over the summer, a coalition of business leaders filed a ballot proposition to repeal the city business tax, which brings in hundreds of millions of dollars to the city. The L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce told LAist the proposition was partly in response to the City Council boosting the minimum wage for tourism workers.

Unite Here Local 11 filed its own raft of proposals, including raising the minimum wage citywide and requiring Angelenos to vote on building new hotels and event center developments. This war via ballot proposition led city leaders to encourage both sides to come to a compromise.

A spokesperson for Harris-Dawson said the city is currently in talks with business and labor interests, and declined to comment further on his recent motion. Mayor Karen Bass's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The motion now goes to council committees on tourism and jobs.