The Brief

Since September, more than 1,000 artists and labels including Lorde, Björk and Massive Attack have joined an international initiative to remove their music from Israel. The boycott, called No Music for Genocide, is straightforward: Artists are asking their labels and distributors to geo-block their music so it cannot be streamed in Israel. According to the movement's website, this act is "just one step toward honoring Palestinian demands to isolate and delegitimize Israel." Despite a fragile ceasefire currently in place, No Music for Genocide organizers say they're continuing the boycott amidst additional airstrikes in Gaza.

"Boycott is one of the most effective and enduring efforts that one can take to fight a militarized, overtly violent, three-headed monster of a system," blues poet Aja Monet, one of the participants, tells NPR. "We're in a place where capitalism rules everything. The most effective thing we can do is to be strategic about where we put our resources."

The musicians' coalition coincides with a similar pledge from some Hollywood stars to boycott Israel's state-funded film industry. In September, an independent United Nations commission of inquiry concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and that countries helping to arm the Israeli government, like the United States, are complicit in the violence. Israel strongly denies that it is committing genocide — and some Israelis say the artists' efforts are misguided, because the boycott affects even those who oppose the war. In a statement to NPR, the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. condemned the musician-led protest.

"The attempt to boycott Israeli culture under the banner of 'No Music for Genocide' is discriminatory, immoral and misguided," reads the statement. "Such boycotts do nothing to advance peace or improve the lives of either Israelis or Palestinians. On the contrary, they deepen division and harm the very people they claim to support."

Although the State Department also rejected the U.N. report, some American musicians are demanding action and accountability over the U.S. government's role in the attacks.

"As a U.S citizen, I have a connection to this genocide that is happening using my tax dollars. As a musician, I am sensitive — I think that is necessary for making art," composer and singer-songwriter Julia Holter, another participant in the campaign, said in a statement shared with NPR. "Every day for over a year and a half now, we have seen horror stories abound in Gaza, and every malnourished baby I see with horrific injuries, every mother or father I see hovered over their child targeted by a sniper makes me think of my child, makes me think of anyone I have ever loved. I feel a responsibility to do something, however small it may be."

Historic precedents 

The No Music for Genocide movement, which is a decentralized volunteer network of musicians and labels, cites the success of cultural boycotts against South Africa during apartheid as a major inspiration. While artists like Hugh Masekela and Miriam Makeba made music a core tenet of anti-apartheid activism, international artists also played an important role. In 1985, E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt led dozens of musicians, including Bruce Springsteen, Miles Davis and Rubén Blades, in the Artists United Against Apartheid effort to record "Sun City." The hit single referred to a luxury whites-only resort where artists including Queen and Linda Ronstadt had performed; the song's lyrics criticized their actions and pledged to avoid playing there until the end of apartheid.

In 2023, artists ranging from Pedro Pascal to Quinta Brunson called for a ceasefire amidst the conflict in Gaza, but No Music for Genocide is a musician-led boycott. In a statement shared with NPR, vocalist, guitarist and boycott participant Marisa Dabice of the band Mannequin Pussy said mainstream artists could make a real difference.

"Without the participation of major label artists, this boycott cannot grow in the way it needs to make the largest possible impact," she wrote. "We live in a day and age where unified direct action can make an impact —- we just have to be focused and unrelenting."

The No Music for Genocide website notes that all three major U.S. labels — Sony Music, Warner Music Group and Universal Music Group — ceased operations in Russia shortly after the invasion of Ukraine and pledged to support humanitarian relief efforts. The group argues the same should be done on behalf of Palestinians.

Yasir Razak of the shoegaze band Nabeel, one of the artists geo-blocking his music from Israel, says he sees a link between the war in Gaza and the way Western powers have historically intervened in the Middle East. Razak was born in Baghdad around the time of the first Gulf War and grew up in the U.S. during the Iraq War. Although the Iraq War and the current conflict are markedly different, he says, they're not entirely separate.

"What makes me most sad is the idea that folks in other countries can't be seen," he says, adding that this is often the case with people from the Middle East. "We've gone to great lengths to dehumanize them to the point where we can carry out these kinds of attacks against the majority popular opinion."

In September, a New York Times and Siena University poll found that a majority of American voters oppose continued U.S. economic and military support for Israel in the war, a reversal from public opinion shortly after the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on Oct. 7 in 2023, which killed 1,200 people according to the Israeli government. In July, a Gallup poll found that 60% of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza which have killed more than 67,000 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

Razak says he has mostly received positive feedback from his fans for participating in the boycott. One downside, he notes, is that some digital service providers include Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories in the geo-block as part of Israel. After hearing directly from an affected listener, Razak found a workaround to provide free downloads of his music on the music distribution platform Bandcamp. But he says beyond the logistics of where the music is or isn't accessible, there is an underlying anxiety that comes with publicly voicing his stance against the Israeli state. (Several artists NPR reached out to declined to comment on the boycott).

"Ultimately, this is a humanitarian issue. We've all been seeing videos coming out of Gaza. We've heard members of the Israeli government speaking about what their intentions are. I think any right-minded person would look at that and say this is something to take a stand against," Razak says. "But the attempt to conflate that in any way with hatred or antisemitism has been so dangerous and paralyzing, and fear-inducing for those of us who really feel like there's a moral obligation for us to stand against."

Backlash against musicians

In April, Cornell University dropped R&B singer Kehlani as the headliner of a campus concert. In a statement, University President Michael I. Kotlikoff wrote that Kehlani "espoused antisemitic, anti-Israel sentiments in performances, videos, and on social media." Kehlani has been an outspoken advocate for Palestinians; the video for their 2024 song "Next 2 U" features a quote from Palestinian-American poet Hala Alyan, along with the phrase "Long Live the Intifada." (The Arabic word generally translates to "uprising" and has a long history within the context of the war in Gaza.)

During their performance at NPR's Tiny Desk last year, Kehlani wore a keffiyeh — the traditional Arab headdress that's become a symbol for Palestinians — and stopped to address the audience. "I want to take a second to say: Free Palestine. Free Congo. Free Sudan. Free Yemen. Free Hawaii. Free Guam," Kehlani said. "It's deeper than this. I need everybody that's here right now, everybody that's watching, to step up, to use their voices."

After Cornell's decision, New York nonprofit City Parks Foundation, which organizes the SummerStage concert series, also cancelled Kehlani's scheduled Pride performance following pressure from the mayor's office and citing "security concerns." Brooklyn-based rapper MIKE, who is participating in No Music for Genocide, curates an annual hip-hop festival in partnership with SummerStage. He tells NPR he cancelled this year's edition in solidarity with Kehlani.

"You have to sacrifice for a bigger purpose," he says. "One of the things that I see people trying to do with hip-hop is further detach it from its political foundation, its anti-establishment foundation."

MIKE says music played a key role in shaping his political awareness, and he hopes his involvement in the geo-block movement stirs something in listeners. He's already received messages from fans in Israel over the removal of his music; he says he hopes the boycott inspires deeper reflection on the oppression of Palestinians and all peoples.

Impact on Israeli music fans

But on the ground in Israel, the boycott has led to some confusion. Linda Dayan, a reporter for Haaretz based in Tel Aviv, says that while most participating artists' music has been pulled from SoundCloud, several discographies are still available on other streaming platforms like Spotify. Dayan says blocking the music is "just a punishment" for the many Israelis who have long-opposed the war in Gaza.

"I think if [artists] really do want to make an impact, they should be putting their money behind their morals when it comes to either donating to initiatives that ensure that Gazans can get the aid that they so badly need, and organizations — especially within Israel — who are doing this work on the ground, who are organizing these protests," Dayan says.

She points to groups like Standing Together, a grassroots organization of Palestinian and Jewish citizens of Israel working to promote peace and unity. Dayan says she worries that instead of bringing people together, the boycott could further alienate Israelis.

"There is a really big narrative among the Netanyahu government and among factions of the right: 'They don't hate you because of what we do, they hate you because of who you are,'" Dayan says. "These boycotts that target wide swathes of people without considering the work that they're personally doing with Palestinians, the work that they are doing against the government or toward a just peace is giving credence to that idea."

For several participating artists, No Music for Genocide is not an end-all solution, but they say it's an important form of nonviolent action. Aja Monet says the boycott is only one part of a much larger collective resistance.

"Just as much as we're talking about what's happening in Palestine, we're talking about the rising state of fascism in this country," she says. "We're talking about poverty. We're talking about the books that are being banned. We're talking about the immigrant community that's being attacked and kidnapped from their homes in their street corners. All of this is from the same arm of violence and threat and terror. All of those things concern us and we want an end to it."
Copyright 2025 NPR

The Trump administration is renewing its push to change the way it funds homeless shelters and housing in California and other states, and several agencies say it could disrupt their services.

It tried last year to move federal homelessness funds away from permanent housing and into temporary housing that requires sobriety. That move, which goes against the existing “housing first” policy favoring a no-strings-attached approach to housing, was blocked by a federal judge.

Now, the Trump administration is trying again. Once again, it’s facing pushback.

This week, a group that includes the National Alliance to End Homelessness and Santa Clara County filed a challenge in Rhode Island’s federal court to the Trump administration’s latest funding guidelines.

The Trump administration’s callous decision to take a second bite at dismantling one of our nation’s most important homelessness prevention programs after a federal court already blocked the administration’s first attempt shows a complete disregard for the people who depend on this funding to keep a roof over their heads,” Santa Clara County Counsel Tony LoPresti said in a news release.

More than $4 billion in federal funding is at stake. The National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates the proposed changes could cost California nearly $238 million for permanent housing, and threaten to put nearly 15,000 Californians back on the street.

“The ‘housing first’ experiment failed Americans by warehousing the vulnerable without results. This ideology promised to end homelessness. Instead, billions of taxpayer dollars were spent while homelessness increased to record levels,” HUD Secretary Scott Turner said in a news release earlier this month.

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

More than a month after the abrupt cancellation of this year’s Long Beach Pride Festival, the nonprofit behind the enduring celebration remains in a financial bind. It has so far been unable to repay its vendors, ticketholders and sponsors as it awaits a decision on whether its insurer will cover its losses.

That decision, according to Long Beach Pride President Tonya Martin, will factor heavily into whether they take more drastic action to cover the debt, such as selling or leasing out their headquarters.

“We do want to keep the building,” Martin said. “But if we have to sell it, we have to sell it, because right now all we can think about is how we’re going to pay back all the vendors and the rest of the ticketholders.”

According to the organization’s treasurer, Wayne Manous, Long Beach Pride filed a claim with its carrier, the Nonprofits Insurance Alliance of California, a few days after the festival was canceled on May 15. They expect a determination in the next week, Martin said.

“Once we receive the determination and award, we can begin refunding payments to our festival vendors which encompasses Information Booths, Seller Booths, Food Booths, Food Trucks, and others awaiting a refund,” Manous wrote in a June 10 email to vendors seeking refunds.

In an emailed statement Tuesday, the organization declined to offer the total amount it owes or elaborate more on its insurance claim, saying it will wait until “those processes are fully resolved.”

The festival was canceled last month after the city of Long Beach issued a cease-and-desist letter less than an hour before its opening event, saying Pride lacked the necessary permits to start.

Many vendors and ticketholders — some who flew in or drove from other parts of the country — say they were in transit or had already arrived at the festival grounds when they were given notice of the cancellation, either from the city or from friends on social media.

Erica Loring, who owns Shecanter, an online retailer of feminist and queer products, said she was driving up from San Diego the morning of the event when a friend texted her the news.

“I was very confused,” Loring said. “I had to try and figure out what the heck that meant, what it means for vendors, if we’ve gotten any emails to notify us. ‘Do we still go up there?’”

Kaitlyn Nguyen with Heritage 1857, a Vietnamese-style coffee brand, said she received notice not from Pride but from the city’s Health Department, telling her she no longer had permission to sell her goods there.

By that point, she said, her festival crew had already driven into town from Texas and set up a tent and driven an hour outside of town. When she tried to call Long Beach Pride’s general line to get more information, it was disconnected.

Nguyen said she spent around $2,500 on gas, fees, product, permitting and everything else she needed to participate. Now she’s uncertain how much, if any, she will recover. “With the communication that it is at right now, it’s just hard to tell, but I do hope that we get that amount back,” she said.

In the days following the festival’s cancellation, the city and Pride traded blame, offering dueling timelines over what caused it. Long Beach Pride argued it submitted documents and worked with the city in good faith through the final hours and was taken off guard by the city’s order to clear out.

Martin said she was stunned when officers delivered the cease-and-desist to the festival grounds. “You have two days to get everything off the site, or you’ll be arrested,” she recalled being told. “I was in shock, just floored. I was just weak at the knees.”

Tonya Martin, with an original Pride founder, Bob Crow, talks about Long Beach Pride in Long Beach, Monday, June 26, 2023.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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The city fired back in a 23-page memo, saying the nonprofit repeatedly failed to provide permitting materials and structural plans for stages, electrical systems and security. As the situation worsened, city officials offered to move guests into the Terrace Theater and open Bixby Park for a smaller event on Sunday, without alcohol sales or fenced festival grounds.

Pride declined both options, later saying the theater was too costly — more than $100,000, they said — while Bixby Park did not allow enough time to satisfy performers’ contractual requirements.

City spokesperson Laath Martin said Tuesday that Long Beach’s business licensing team has been offering refunds to vendors for city fees. But in the month since the event, vendors say they’ve heard little to no word from Pride itself on when or if they will be repaid for other expenses and fees.

Even before this year’s shock cancellation, the festival, established in 1983, had been struggling.

According to tax filings, Pride lost more than $1.8 million between 2022 and 2024 — $819,066 in 2022, $716,729 in 2023 and $306,000 in 2024. The organization has not turned a profit since 2019.

When Martin took over as president in 2023, she said she unknowingly inherited an organization already carrying $2.6 million in outstanding debt. A year after Martin took the helm, the nonprofit relinquished control of its long-running Pride parade. The city took over planning and funding for the signature event while Pride attempted to keep running the corresponding festival.

The crowds gather along Ocean Boulevard for the 41st Annual Long Beach Pride Parade in Long Beach, Sunday, May 19, 2024.

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Thomas R. Cordova

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Long Beach Post

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The festival’s budget this year was $500,000, and Pride had raised less than $100,000 of it by the time the event was canceled, with only 331 tickets sold as of late April, according to Q Voice News. Pride declined to confirm the number of tickets sold or provide any detailed financial information to the Long Beach Post.

Corporate sponsorships, once a reliable source of major revenue, had largely evaporated, Martin said, naming Walmart and Coca-Cola as examples of large companies that have quietly pulled back as the Trump administration has coerced firms to forgo LGBTQ+ and diversity initiatives.

“They don’t want to upset the president,” Martin said. “Nobody will come out and say it, which I wish they would.”

Normally, Martin said, Pride hires an outside operator to put on the festival, which can run upwards of $400,000. But under financial pressure, she and the board voted to avoid the expense and handle the festival setup themselves. As Martin has repeatedly emphasized since the cancellation, they are all part-time volunteers.

This year’s event was shaping up to be small, according to Loring; only 13 retail or merchandise vendors were listed to participate. “Smaller than a tiny farmer’s market,” Loring said. Another 10 or so food vendors were signed up, Nguyen said, about half of what she’d expect at a festival this size.

“I was like, OK, was the application process a deterrent, or have bridges already been burned, and these businesses have learned not to come to Long Beach due to prior experience?” Nguyen said.

In a letter over the weekend, Pride said it wants to bring the festival back in 2027 under new leadership, with lessons learned and, it hopes, a more stable financial footing.

The board also said that Martin would step down from the presidency in August, a transition the organization said had been planned before the cancellation. Martin confirmed her exit on Monday, saying she will step away from the role and intends to help whoever succeeds her get up to speed. She said she also plans to hold a debrief with Mayor Rex Richardson to discuss what went wrong.

The organization is also working with the city to hold a free Teen Pride event in September.

“I don’t think Pride will ever go away, no matter what they do, even if we change the whole scope of the event itself,” Martin said. “It will never go away. It’ll always be there.”

But Loring, who made her vendor debut in Long Beach, said she would not return if the event is run by the same people.

She was shocked when Pride asked in a June 10 email if vendors and ticketholders would consider donating back a portion of their refunds to the organization. “The audacity for that was on another level,” Loring said.

“It seems as though the entire Pride organization needs an overhaul,” she said. “It needs a fresh set of eyes, a fresh set of experience in order for the community to move forward faithfully.”

Two icons of Los Angeles are coming together in Alhambra for a food pop-up this weekend — each has carved a unique place in Asian America.

On one end you have Kogi, bringing its Korean-Mexican fusion kimchi taco and blackjack quesadilla — and its food truck — to the collab. On the other is Sam Woo, old-school purveyor of Cantonese taste lending its char siu and roast duck from its OG location on Valley between 5th and 6th.

Together, they represent two generations of immigrant entrepreneurship that reshaped how L.A. eats.

“The best way to do it would be to come together like Voltron, but be ourselves separately,” said Roy Choi, chef and founder of Kogi BBQ. “So don't do anything to your roast duck. Don't do anything to your char siu. Don't do anything to our blackjack quesadilla. Don't do anything to our taco.”

The mash-up features two items – roast duck kimchi taco, and char siu blackjack quesadilla. The best-of-both-worlds concept extends to where the food will be served.

“ My whole vision was for Kogi truck to be parked in front,” said Karen Cheung, daughter of Sam Woo’s original owner.

Kogi x Sam Woo

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Courtesy Kogi and Sam Woo

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From Chinatown to everywhere

Restaurants come and go, but Sam Woo has remained the byword for Cantonese barbeque in Los Angeles and beyond for more than four decades.

On Christmas Day 1979, new immigrant Peter Cheung opened a stand serving take-out roast duck, char siu and the likes in Chinatown, bringing the family craft from Hong Kong to L.A.

“At the time, it was just my dad, my brother, and me,” Cheung, 67, said in Cantonese. “We hired a cashier and a meat cutter, that was about it.”

Cheung also brought over the Chinese name from the family business back home. It means “three harmonies” – among earth, heaven, and man. The English name Sam Woo was chosen because it sounded like the Cantonese words.

Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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Fiona Ng

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In the late 1970s, his clientele was mainly Chinese and Vietnamese immigrants in the then-bustling enclave, with a small handful of customers coming in from Monterey Park.

Back then, he said, “All the restaurants were concentrated in Chinatown.”

As the Chinese-speaking diaspora expanded to the San Gabriel Valley, so too did Sam Woo. Cheung opened a Monterey Park location in 1981 (now closed) and the Alhambra outpost on Valley Boulevard in 1983.

Today, Cheung and his family own and operate four locations across the L.A. region — the oldest in Alhambra.

That little storefront served a loyal legion of eaters, including my family, who moved to Alhambra in the early 1990s — and a kid named Roy Choi.

Roy Choi, left, hands out food from his Kogi BBQ truck in Maywood in January 2024.

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Allen J. Schaben

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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

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When Roy met Sam

Choi was hanging out in Alhambra and nearby 626 cities during high school and into college, at all-night Asian cafes and their parking lots where a subculture centered around modified Japanese cars took root.

“It was the cafes and the barbecue spots back in Alhambra that were early on in having a kind of a meeting ground for young Asian youth,” Choi said. “It might have been the birth of the AZN movement, you know what I'm saying?”

One place he always ate at was Sam Woo.

Strip mall signs in San Gabriel point to a majority Asian population in this part of Los Angeles.

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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LAist

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“One of the top five things to eat for me is roast duck or roast pork over rice with the sauce that drips down into it,” he said. “That's where I started really eating barbecue  — and this is before I was a chef.”

Forty-three years since it opened, the hole-in-the-wall in Alhambra has not been changed — inside or out. Karen remembers hanging out at the shop with her sisters growing up, filling small containers of sauces while their parents ran the operation.

“ When you walk into Alhambra, you feel like you are going back in time,” Karen said. “That's what people remember Sam Woo as, like the Mahjong clock, or the vintage menu that you do not ever see anymore. That's people's memories.”

The mahjong clock at Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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Karen Cheung

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Courtesy Sam Woo

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The take-out menu at Sam Woo.

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Karen Cheung

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Courtesy Sam Woo

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How the collab fell into place

Choi wrote about eating at Sam Woo among other culinary adventures in L.A. earlier this year for the Financial Times.

Karen, one of Peter’s four children, read the story – and fired off a DM.

“I was like, ‘We're so honored. Out of all the restaurants you could talk about, you mentioned Sam Woo,” Karen said. “‘Let's do a collab.’”

Six months of planning later, with hundreds of pounds of char siu ready to be cooked, the crossover is happening.

Chef Roy Choi cooking inside Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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Courtesy Kogi BBQ

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Sam Woo in Alhambra.

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Fiona Ng

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LAist

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“The inspiration is how delicious their food is [and] the longevity of their restaurant,” Choi said, whose Kogi has redefined fusion cooking and the food truck experience for 19 years and counting.

“We wanna bring something really special to Alhambra," he said. "Just a moment that you could say, ‘I was there.’”