The Brief

"1-2-3-4! Relax your hips!”

At the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio in Alhambra, a dozen dancers follow in lockstep with instructor Chris Cho as he introduces flowing bachata moves.

"1-2-3-4! Relax your knees!"

Lai Lai is one of the most popular stops on an L.A.-area dance circuit for a community of older Asian ballroom enthusiasts. Flitting across the ballroom's wooden dance floor, bathed in dramatic lighting, they mingle with other retirees with the time to waltz and salsa, many of them originally from Taiwan, China, Thailand and Vietnam.

Instructor Chris Cho teaches bachata moves at the Lai Lai Ballroom & Studio.

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But after the tragedy of last year, the studio almost went dark.

On Jan. 21, a gunman attacked Star Ballroom Dance Studio, a sister dance hall in Monterey Park frequented by the same crowd.

Huu Can Tran, 72, fired on a crowd of dozens celebrating the Lunar New Year. He then drove a few miles to Lai Lai, where there were several people left in the ballroom. Brandon Tsay, whose family owns Lai Lai, was in the ticket office when he saw the shooter enter the lobby with a gun.

Since last year's shooting in Monterey Park, Brandon Tsay has strived to make Lai Lai, his family's dance hall, a place of healing.

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“Within the first three seconds, I processed that I must do something to save everybody's lives,” Tsay said.

Tsay wrestled the gun away from the shooter, who took off. Tran was found dead the next day of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He’d been part of the local ballroom dance scene, but police still have not specified a motive.

Lai Lai draws a crowd of regulars from across L.A., particularly the San Gabriel Valley.

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Eleven people were killed, nine injured, all in their 50s, 60s and 70s. Tsay was anointed a hero for averting further tragedy by the likes of President Joe Biden. But privately he struggled with what to do about Lai Lai, which the family almost shuttered during the pandemic.

The local dance community was so traumatized that Tsay didn’t think they’d come back, and the dance hall would have to close. Some instructors have left, taking students with them. But Tsay says most people have returned.

“I was so glad that they came back with a big smile on their faces just getting connected to one another, again, at a physical location and recounting the situation, it was quite therapeutic for everybody,” Tsay said.

Lai Lai's ballroom draws dancers from across L.A. County.

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Meanwhile, the Star Dance Ballroom Studio — where the shooting took place — closed permanently.

WeChat and meals

As the community held vigils and politicians called for stricter gun control in the wake of the shooting, survivors found solace in one another.

Lloyd Gock says a group of about 40 of them messaged over WeChat and shared meals and tears.

That night of the shooting, Gock sought cover as his friends fell around him.

“I was about 10 feet away from the shooter,” Gock said. “I just hid under the table, so the bullet just went by me.”

Lloyd Gock, a survivor of the shooting at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio shooting in Monterey Park, stands outside a sister dancehall, Lai Lai in Alhambra.

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The last year has transformed his life. Gock, who owns an apparel company, found himself in the role of activist. He testified for tighter gun control and advocated for a fund for survivors who were not injured, which the city created. (A separate fund that raised about $1.4 million on GoFundMe has gone to victim’s families and survivors who were injured.) 

“Our life is never the same,” Gock said. “Never the same since that day.”

A place of healing

Tsay says he wants Lai Lai dance studio to continue to be a place of healing.

As the shooting’s anniversary approached, Lai Lai hosted a community event, where they offered free dance lessons.

Tsay also invited mental health clinicians to that event, among them Sheila Wu, who directs the Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Centers which has locations across L.A. County.

Sheila Wu, director of Asian Pacific Counseling and Treatment Centers, has been working on community events with Brandon Tsay, who's family owns Lai Lai Ballroom and Studio.

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"For people to come back to the location of what happened, I think it will trigger certain emotions in some,” Wu said.

But Wu says the event also provided a chance to offer counseling to an older, immigrant crowd that’s resistant to seeking help. She says that for many immigrants, there’s this mentality of “we have to be strong, we have to be resilient, and we cannot be weak because we have to succeed.”

Some survivors like Gock have been receptive to counseling. But he says what has helped him cope with his trauma the most has been returning to the dance floor.

“Pretty much you don't have to think about anything, you just concentrate on the next turn with your partner,” Gock said. “All your worries go away for that few minutes that you're dancing.”

Hattie Peng dances with her friend and fellow survivor Lloyd Gock in Lai Lai's ballroom.

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At the community event at Lai Lai, Gock approaches his friend and fellow survivor Hattie Peng, who’s wearing a flowy mini skirt and sparkly headband. She started dancing again a few months after the shooting. She’s now back to coaxing friends to dance the waltz, her favorite.

“Lai le, Lai le!” she says in Mandarin — meaning “come come.” Same words as the name of the studio. And Gock does — Peng takes his hand and they dip and weave across the floor.

Andy Pages drove in two runs with a bases-loaded single in the seventh inning to give Los Angeles the lead, and the Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 4-1 on Wednesday night to clinch their NL Division Series.

The Dodgers won back-to-back games in Atlanta to take the best-of-five matchup 3-1 and advance to the National League Championship Series as they seek to become the first NL team to win three straight World Series.

Pages lined a 3-2 pitch from Robert Suarez up the middle to drive in Teoscar Hernández, who singled off starter Tyler Mahle, and pinch-runner Tommy Edman for a 3-1 lead. Didier Fuentes walked pinch-hitter Josue De Paula and Kyle Tucker to load the bases. Edman ran for De Paula.

Max Muncy’s solo shot off Raisel Iglesias in the ninth padded the lead and gave the slugger 19 postseason homers with the Dodgers, extending his franchise record.

Dodgers right-hander Tyler Glasnow, making his first start since Sept. 24, allowed only one hit but walked five batters in 4 2/3 innings. After he issued two walks in the fifth, left-hander Alex Vesia ended the inning on Matt Olson’s groundout to second base.

The missed opportunity left the Braves with 18 walks in the series, and none scored.

Glasnow and four relievers combined to give up just three hits. Tanner Scott pitched a perfect eighth before Edwin Díaz got three quick outs for the save.

Mahle, a native of Newport Beach, California, who grew up a Dodgers fan, allowed two runs — one earned — in 6 1/3 innings.

Michael Harris II hit Glasnow’s first pitch for a single before stealing second and eventually scoring from third on a wild pitch that bounced off catcher Will Smith’s chest protector.

The Dodgers pulled even in the second with the help of two Atlanta errors. Shohei Ohtani walked, stole second and advanced to third on catcher Sean Murphy’s errant throw into center field. Muncy’s pop fly into shallow left field was dropped by shortstop Mauricio Dubón for another error, allowing Ohtani to score.

Hernández crashed into the wall while attempting to catch Ozzie Albies’ double off Vesia leading off the sixth. Hernández pointed to his head and neck when talking to an athletic trainer but remained in the game.

Edgardo Henriquez stranded Albies at second. Henriquez allowed one hit in 1 2/3 scoreless innings for the win.

Injury report

Dodgers second baseman Miguel Rojas was held out after leaving Tuesday night’s 3-1 win during an at-bat in the eighth inning with lower back soreness. Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Rojas would not be available off the bench.

Ronald Acuña Jr. started in right field for Atlanta one day after being moved to designated hitter in a late lineup change due to right knee soreness.

Up next

The Dodgers will face Milwaukee or San Diego in Game 1 of the NLCS on Sunday.

The Democratic National Committee on Wednesday sued President Donald Trump’s administration for recent television advertisements that promoted his political message while costing taxpayers millions of dollars.

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, alleges that the ads are illegal government-sponsored propaganda and accuses Trump of personally directing them. It asks the court to declare the ads illegal and stop the use of federal funds to pay for them.

Trump has faced bipartisan backlash for the ads, which glorify him and echo his campaign pitch as voters cast early ballots with the midterm elections less than a month away.

The spots, which began airing in September, already have cost more than $12 million to run, according to the media tracking firm AdImpact, and a total of $20 million in Homeland Security Department funding has been tapped to pay for them.

Responding Monday to the criticism, Trump defended the ads as “positive promotion for our Great U.S.A.” but said he’d pay for them using his MAGA Inc. super PAC going forward.

But on Tuesday, the fifth ad in the campaign began airing with the notice “paid for by the U.S. Government,” promoting Trump’s military actions in Venezuela earlier this year. The same day, Trump made it clear he hasn’t committed to reimbursing any money that has already been spent, telling reporters “we’ll decide.”

DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement that Trump is misusing taxpayer dollars in “a last-ditch attempt to save Republicans in November.”

“Americans deserve better than to have their hard-earned tax dollars used for Trump’s illegal schemes,” he added.

Legal experts have suggested the ads run afoul of a federal statute against congressionally appropriated money being used for “publicity or propaganda,” and potentially other federal laws. The Homeland Security money tapped for the ads comes from a $175 million package Congress gave to the department as part of Trump’s immigration enforcement agenda.

The White House has defended the ads as public service announcements akin to what past administrations have done to promote various policies. Legal experts have said the recent ads differ from many past public service announcements because they aren’t aimed at helping members of the public benefit from specific government programs.

The defendants in the lawsuit — Trump, the White House, DHS and the Office of Management and Budget — didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Fall has only just begun, but it's already time to start thinking about the quintessential winter bug: the flu.

The annual flu season usually starts in October or November. But this year, it looks like the flu started to pick up in early September.

"There are enough signs pointing in the same direction to make me think, 'OK, yes. This is the start of flu season,'" says Caitlin Rivers, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

The percentage of people testing positive for the flu in the West has been rising steadily since around the beginning of September, she says. And the number of people showing up in emergency departments because of the flu has also been rising for weeks, she adds.

"It's very uncommon to see flu activity rising this early. It's activity that we might normally see more like November or December," she says.

The timing of the flu season isn't the only thing that's odd. It's also unusual that flu activity seems to have started in Western states, such as California, Washington, Hawaii and Alaska.

"It typically starts in the South and then expands from there," Rivers says. "So two uncommon developments there."

Rivers stresses that the amount of flu activity is still very low in most parts of the country. But that's starting to change as the flu picks up nationwide.

It's unclear why flu activity would have started so early, and in such an unusual part of the country. But one clue might be a new variant that evolved a mutation, which appears to make it better at evading existing immunity, especially among teenagers.

"That's our best argument for what's going on right now in terms of this early flu season," says Dr. Alex Greninger, a virologist who heads infectious disease diagnostics at the University of Washington. Doctors there are seeing as much flu right now as they usually would around Christmas, and the mutated variant appears to be common, he says.

So Greninger, Rivers and others are urging people to think about getting their flu shot earlier than usual.

"It's crucial that people get an influenza vaccine," says Scott Hensley, a virologist at the University of Pennsylvania. "And this might be a year that people might want to get a vaccine early."

But the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention hasn't been promoting flu shots as it usually does. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who oversees the CDC, is a long-time vaccine skeptic.

"It is disappointing that CDC is quiet given that flu kills of hundreds of kids a year and can result in tens of thousands of hospitalizations and tens of thousands of deaths," says Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who resigned last year as the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to protest what he called political interference at the agency.

The CDC declined to make an official available to NPR for this story. In a statement, a CDC spokesperson said, "CDC is developing a communications strategy to provide clear, accessible information about influenza vaccination and other critical steps people can take to protect themselves during respiratory virus season. This includes information about the benefits and risks of vaccination to support informed decision-making."
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