The Brief

Doctors at Adventist Health White Memorial hospital in Boyle Heights told LAist that hospital administrators are allowing federal immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and block doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care.

Administrators at White Memorial have told doctors not to call a detained patient’s family members, even to find out what type of medication they’re on or what conditions they have, doctors told LAist. Hospital leaders also have told doctors to allow immigration agents to remain by a detained patient’s side, even during consultations, inhibiting frank discussions between doctors and their patients and potentially violating patient privacy laws. Doctors say this is not typical protocol for any patients, including those brought in by local police or sheriff’s deputies.

These doctors are equally concerned about their inability to ensure follow-up care for patients released to the ICE processing facility known as B-18 in downtown L.A., where critics say some detainees have been held for days on end with no proper beds or medical care.

Why this matters

White Memorial is part of a network of private, nonprofit hospitals affiliated with the Seventh-day Adventist Church, with $7 billion in annual revenue. The hospital has been operating for more than 110 years. Its calling is to “help improve the lives of our friends and neighbors in East Los Angeles and Boyle Heights,” according to its website.

Five physicians at White Memorial shared the details with LAist about ICE’s presence at the hospital and hospital administrators’ response on the condition that they not be named for fear of retaliation from their employer or from immigration authorities. LAist reviewed internal emails supporting their claims.

“We have an ethical and moral duty to provide excellent medical care and to serve the patient’s interest,” one doctor at White Memorial told LAist. But the doctor said the frequent presence of masked, armed immigration agents in the hospital makes it “very difficult to do that.”

The physicians told LAist they believe the directives from their bosses conflict with the responsibilities all doctors have to their patients and with guidance from the California attorney general.

White Memorial did not respond to a request for an interview from LAist or to our emailed list of questions.

In a statement, a White Memorial spokesperson said the hospital’s staff “are passionately committed to providing the highest standard of medical care to all who come through our doors, regardless of their circumstances” and that the hospital has “protocols in place that are designed to help support the lawful respect of patient rights.”

“We are doing everything in our power to provide safe and compassionate care to our community during this time of unrest,” the statement reads. It also urged people not to "delay the medical care you need.”

Tricia McLaughlin, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE, did not respond to specific questions from LAist or agree to an interview.

In a statement, she wrote that “ICE is not denying any illegal alien access to proper medical care or medications.” McLaughlin said it was “longstanding practice to provide comprehensive medical care from the moment an alien enters ICE custody.”

She added that she hoped LAist “would consider NOT writing this garbage” in the wake of the recent shooting outside an ICE detention center in Texas, where one detainee was killed and two injured.

“These types of smears are contributing to our officers facing a 1000% increase in assaults against them,” she wrote.

An analysis of federal court filings for assault on a federal officer by Colorado Public Radio shows a sharp increase in charges in recent months. The data is far short of the scale suggested by officials.

The bigger picture

A version of the conflicts described at White Memorial is happening across the state and the country as hospitals are forced to contend with fallout from the Trump administration’s mass deportation program. Caught in the middle are doctors and other medical professionals who have a legal duty to provide medical care to patients and ethical concerns about policies they feel affect the traditional standards of care.

The five doctors who spoke with LAist say the conflicts are especially acute at White Memorial, a hospital whose patient and surrounding population is mostly Latino and where several doctors told LAist they’re seeing two to three detained patients per shift.

The situation also raises questions about medical privacy at a time when the federal government is seeking access to sensitive personal information, including medical information from both immigrants and U.S.-born citizens.

Lorenzo Antonio González is a physician who volunteers with Unión del Barrio, which patrols Boyle Heights and other neighborhoods to warn people about ICE raids. He does not work at White Memorial but is aware of the doctors’ concerns. He said he fears ICE’s frequent presence at the hospital will further the chilling effect already causing many Boyle Heights neighbors — where more than 80% of households speak Spanish and a quarter of residents are noncitizens — to forgo medical care and avoid leaving their homes. González called White Memorial’s alleged behavior “an  erosion of trust within this pillar of a community.”

Anti-ICE protestors march out of Mariachi Plaza during the 'Reclaim Our Streets" event in the Boyle Heights neighborhood on July 1, 2025.

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How we got here

As immigration raids ramped up in Los Angeles this year, some detainees have needed urgent medical care, either because they were injured while being detained, had a pre-existing illness, or because they became ill while being held at the downtown immigration facility.

Some of these incidents became headlines. In July, a Salvadoran woman was brought to Glendale Memorial Hospital with injuries suffered during a raid. In that case, camera crews descended on the hospital as activists protested the presence of ICE agents in the public lobby.

Meanwhile, White Memorial stayed out of the news. In June, a hospital leader sent an email to colleagues, flagging several incidents involving immigration detainees, including one in which agents remained in the room with a detained patient during the patient’s entire stay at the hospital. The email also noted that agents told doctors they could not call the patient’s family members when the patient couldn’t remember her medications, according to the email and doctors who spoke with LAist.

Doctors at White Memorial and other hospitals told LAist it’s not typical for law enforcement officers to remain in the room during patient care, even with criminal detainees, unless there’s a serious security risk. People in ICE custody are civil, not criminal detainees. Doctors also told LAist it’s common practice to call family members, with a patient’s permission, to inquire about their medical history and current medications.

So the doctors at White Memorial pressed hospital administrators for a clear policy and legal guidance on how to balance ICE agent demands with the hospital’s responsibilities for patient care.

The answer that came back from hospital administrators: defer to the agents.

Hospital leaders told doctors — both verbally, doctors say, and in writing in several emails reviewed by LAist — that immigration agents are allowed to be present at all times, even during discussions about a patient’s sensitive medical information. Doctors also were told they could not call a detained patient’s family member without an agent’s permission. In one email to subordinates, a hospital leader told White Memorial staff that doing so could be a “security risk.”

“That’s like encouraging medical negligence,” one White Memorial doctor told LAist in response to this guidance.

At least one doctor told LAist they are defying hospital leaders’ guidance, deferring instead to their medical duty to the patient and to follow medical privacy laws.

“There’s no way you can get me to not call a patient’s family if they’re hurt and need support,” the doctor said.

Why detainee care is under scrutiny

The concerns about White Memorial come at a time when the care of people in ICE custody is under scrutiny. In August, a man was severely injured while being detained at a car wash in Carson. Agents brought him to Harbor-UCLA medical center for treatment and remained by his bed, to which the man was cuffed, for over a month, according to a recent court ruling. He was never charged with violating any immigration laws, and in October, a federal judge ordered the agents monitoring him to leave the man’s hospital room and remove restrictions on the man’s “ability to make telephone calls to family and friends and to confer confidentially with counsel outside the presence of ICE agents.”

X'tiosu is located on the corner of Wabash and Forest avenues in Boyle Heights

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Concerns about the medical care of detainees also extends to formal ICE detention centers. In September, Ismael Ayala-Uribe, a Westminster man who was being held at the Adelanto ICE Processing Center, became the 17th person to die in ICE custody this year. Last year, 12 people died in ICE custody, according to agency statistics.

Ayala-Uribe, 39, was a former DACA recipient who supporters say had lived in the country since he was 4 years old. He was picked up in an ICE raid in Fountain Valley in August and sent to Adelanto. From there, a medical provider at the detention facility sent Ayala-Uribe to a nearby hospital, where he was evaluated for an abscess, scheduled for surgery and sent back to the facility. He died in custody the following day.

Earlier this year, as immigration raids ramped up, the advocacy group Disability Rights California interviewed 18 people detained at the Adelanto ICE facility. In a subsequent report, the group concluded that "due to the surging numbers of people at Adelanto, conditions appear to have quickly deteriorated.” The report claimed detainees faced "inadequate access to medical treatment, such as life-saving medication and wound care and exposure to widespread respiratory illnesses."

In response to LAist’s emailed questions about medical care for ICE detainees, McLaughlin, the ICE spokesperson, said detainees received “medical, dental and mental health intake screening within 12 hours of arriving at each detention facility, a full health assessment within 14 days of entering ICE custody or arrival at a facility and access to medical appointments and 24-hour emergency care. This is the best healthcare … many aliens have received in their entire lives," she wrote.

McLaughlin did not respond to LAist’s follow-up email asking her to specifically respond to questions about hospital care for detainees outside of detention centers or to questions about the availability of health care at the B-18 processing center, which unlike the Adelanto facility, is not an official detention center.

In a recent, ongoing lawsuit over the L.A. immigration raids, the ACLU and other groups called out alleged unsanitary conditions and a lack of medical care at B-18.

“Individuals with conditions that require consistent medications and treatment are not given any medical attention, even when that information is brought to the attention of the officers on duty,” reads the initial complaint, filed in July.

One doctor at White Memorial told LAist she had called ICE supervisors at the holding center on several occasions to inquire about follow-up care for patients and was told there were no doctors at the facility and there was no way to obtain medication.

What this all means for detainees — and doctors

Other groups have tried to bring attention to the problems associated with immigration agents in hospital settings. The Committee of Interns and Residents, which is is part of the Service Employees International Union, publicly denounced the presence of ICE agents at University of California hospitals in July, saying it creates “an unsafe environment that … directly contradicts our mission to provide safe, effective and quality healthcare to every member of our community.”

Mahima Iyengar, a doctor at L.A. General hospital and secretary-treasurer of the committee, told LAist that having a law enforcement officer present during doctor-patient conversations can compromise care.

“There's that level of trust that people have with their doctor that they don't necessarily have when somebody else is listening,” Iyengar told LAist. “Your doctor is then not getting as much information as they need, and that information … very well could be what helps them come up with a diagnosis or what helps them decide what treatment [the patient] is going to be on.”

Iyengar said doctors also are unlikely to feel comfortable asking a patient important non-medical questions when an ICE agent is present.

“A lot of what determines our patients' health are all of these social determinants, like where they're living, how they're getting to the hospital, if they have money, if they have kids that need childcare right now while they're hospitalized,” she said. “All of those questions are important questions to ask that I would not personally feel comfortable asking if an officer was standing right there.”

McLaughlin, the ICE spokesperson, did not respond to LAist’s specific questions about whether the agency recognizes detained patients’ privacy rights at hospitals.

What do legal experts say?

Last December, California Attorney General Rob Bonta issued “guidance and model policies” for health care facilities in responding to the anticipated increase in immigration enforcement. The guidance is not mandatory for private hospitals, like White Memorial, but all health care facilities were “encouraged to adopt” model policies. Doctors who spoke with LAist said they had read the guidance and felt beholden to it.

The document states that:

• State and federal medical privacy laws apply to all patients “regardless of immigration status.” 
• Health care facility staff “should identify circumstances in which granting immigration enforcement officers access to patients may interfere with physicians’ duty to provide competent medical care, to safeguard patient confidences and privacy, and to otherwise prioritize their obligations to their patients”; and
• Facilities “should educate patients about their privacy rights and reassure them that their healthcare information is protected by federal and state laws.”

A spokesperson for Bonta told LAist the attorney general could not comment on whether the office had received complaints about ICE privacy breaches in health care settings because they are confidential.

“We continue to monitor compliance with all state and federal laws,” the spokesperson said in an email.

LAist also asked two health care legal experts about White Memorial’s direction to staff to allow ICE agents to be present during patient exams and bar calls to detained patients’ family members. Both said the guidance could violate medical privacy laws and ethical standards.

“From a patient safety perspective, it certainly raises red flags,” said Paul Schmeltzer, an L.A.-based health care and data privacy lawyer, referring especially to the prohibition on calling a detained patient’s family member. Schmeltzer also said letting an ICE agent remain next to a patient throughout their hospital stay without the patient’s consent is likely illegal. Patient privacy is protected under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, and California’s Confidentiality of Medical Information Act. Both generally prohibit doctors and hospitals from disclosing a patient’s medical information without their permission or a search warrant or other court order.

Schmeltzer said he saw “no permissible situation” under these laws for “disclosing” a detained patient’s hospital treatment to an ICE agent.

“The fact that an ICE agent is present in the room while this patient is receiving treatment, that's a disclosure,” he said.

Deven McGraw, chief regulatory and privacy officer for the company Citizen Health,  a patient data platform, agreed.

“ You're basically saying, ‘Yeah, patient, you don't have a choice but to disclose your medical information to this law enforcement official,'” she said.

McGraw was in charge of enforcing HIPAA at the federal Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights from 2015 to 2017. She said there are personal and public health reasons for shielding a patient’s medical information from law enforcement. For example, a patient might hide that they have a communicable disease out of fear they’ll be targeted or isolated.

“ We're supposed to treat people,” McGraw said. “The failure to treat them has potential consequences for their own health, plus the health of others.”

Schmeltzer and McGraw both said the administration at White Memorial might be making a calculated decision when weighing the hospital’s potential liability for violating the privacy rights of immigration detainees versus angering the Trump administration. Only the federal government and state attorneys general can prosecute a hospital for violating HIPAA, Schmeltzer and McGraw noted. 

Some of the behavior described by doctors could be prohibited under a new state law, enacted in September as an “urgency” measure. The law requires health care facilities to ban immigration agents from entering non-public areas without a valid warrant and to advise staff on how to respond to agents’ requests for entry.

Even before the law, groups like the Committee of Interns and Residents had begun to train colleagues on the privacy rights of detained patients and how to handle ICE agents. Iyengar said doctors at L.A. General, for example, distribute “Know Your Rights” cards to immigrant patients and hospital employees are instructed to immediately call hospital directors if immigration agents appear.

“ Even just if there is an ICE officer in the hospital, that will put people off from visiting a loved one, or if word gets out, the community finds out, and they don't want come to that hospital,” she said. “So, it's just an unsafe environment to have an ICE officer in a hospital, especially [a hospital] that's serving mostly immigrants.”

LAist’s Ted Rohrlich also contributed to this story.

With less than a month before the 2026 FIFA Men’s World Cup kicks off, soccer fans are scrambling to grab the last remaining tickets.

At the time of publication, there are still some tickets available for the six World Cup games hosted at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara.

But while the Bay Area hasn’t yet experienced the kind of ticket frenzy seen in other World Cup host cities, prices are still out of reach for many fans — raising concerns about how fans looking for a bargain could fall prey to scams falsely promising far cheaper tickets.

And most recently, the World Cup’s own governing body, FIFA, has drawn scrutiny from California state officials over changes to its ticketing system — following reports from ticketholders who say they have been assigned seats in a different category than advertised when they bought their tickets through FIFA’s own online portal.

“We have laws in California against misleading or deceptive business practices,” said state Attorney General Rob Bonta, who sent a letter to FIFA last week requesting a list of ticket buyers who were assigned seats in a lower category than what they purchased. “We want to learn more from FIFA in order to assess whether what was done was lawful or not.”

Bonta also expressed concern that sky-high prices could deter people from buying a ticket through FIFA’s official website or other verified vendors. Passionate soccer fans, he said, “may go into a site that isn’t as reliable and maybe they get taken advantage of.”

An Adidas FIFA World Cup soccer ball is seen on a FIFA x NFL chair in the Media Center on Feb. 4, 2026 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

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So how can you spot a scam when buying a World Cup ticket, or just make sure you get what you pay for?

Keep reading to learn what officials recommend about buying World Cup tickets online and what to do if you already bought a ticket on the official FIFA site but feel that the seat you were assigned does not match what you originally paid for.

And rest assured: there are still plenty of ways to watch the World Cup in the Bay Area for free — or for a fraction of the cost of a Levi’s Stadium ticket, real or fake.

Remember, if something’s too good to be true …

First off: If you’re feeling confused over what a World Cup ticket actually costs, that’s understandable, Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney James Gibbons-Shapiro said.

For this World Cup, FIFA adopted a pricing system known as “dynamic pricing,” where the cost of a seat changes based on current demand for that specific game.

The 2026 FIFA World Cup winner’s trophy is seen on stage at the Global Citizen NOW event in New York City on May 14, 2026.

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Scammers often promise you “a better deal” if you make the payment using instant payment sites like Zelle, Venmo and Cash App. But fraudsters aren’t trying to save you money with this suggestion: They’re trying to make it easier for themselves to keep your money.

Talking to strangers on a resale or payments site that’s not verified puts you at greater risk of getting ripped off, Gibbons-Shapiro said. “The criminal is simply looking for someone desperate enough to go to the World Cup that they’re willing to send a lot of money right away to a total stranger,” he said.

In other words, he said: “It’s not that the country that you are supporting is going to lose — it’s going to be you that loses.”

How do I know if the World Cup tickets I’m being offered are real?

Scammers have become incredibly good at printing fake tickets that look highly realistic, Gibbons-Shapiro said. So much so, he said, that when sports fans ask him for advice on how to spot a fake ticket, he tells them that he doesn’t have any tips that reliably work — that’s how identical the scam tickets can physically appear.

The real pro tip here, Gibbons-Shapiro said, is “don’t go to the stadium to try to buy a ticket there.”

“Because the great likelihood is that you’re buying a fake ticket,” he said. “You’re not gonna be able to get in, and you’re going to lose all your money.”

Scalpers are actually not permitted on stadium grounds — and reselling tickets near the stadium is a misdemeanor crime in California.

That’s why it’s important to buy your ticket on a third-party ticket resale site that will deliver the ticket directly to you.

Footballs and jerseys are displayed during the opening day of the official 2026 FIFA World Cup merchandising store in Miami Beach, Florida, on May 18, 2026

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Platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook Marketplace usually will not verify if what’s being offered is what’s actually sold.

And even if you’re using reliable third-party sites like SeatGeek or TicketMaster, check the reseller’s refund policy to see whether they offer a guarantee regarding the authenticity and timely arrival of the tickets.

I just got scammed buying a fake World Cup ticket. What can I do?

First of all, make sure to document all your communication with the person who promised to sell you a ticket — and take screenshots of those messages in case they attempt to delete anything from their end of the conversation.

If you were scammed online or over the phone:

You can then report the situation to your local police department, as the city where you live is defined as where the crime took place.

If you bought the fake ticket in person from a scalper: 

Contact the police department of the city where the transaction took place. “If that happened right outside the stadium, that would be Santa Clara Police Department,” Gibbons-Shapiro said.

You can also file a complaint with the California Attorney General’s office or the Better Business Bureau.

Gibbons-Shapiro said his office is ready to prosecute anyone who tricks others into buying fake World Cup tickets, adding that he would consider that to be a felony.

“We have robust teams for consumer protection and theft enforcement,” he said. “We’re going to prosecute the scammers.”

I bought a ticket on the FIFA website, and I think I got seated in a different place than what I paid for.

If you bought your ticket from the online FIFA purchasing portal during the initial sales phase last October, Attorney General Bonta recommends that you keep a record of everything from that purchase. This could include, he said, “images of the map they were shown and the original receipt for the ticket that they purchased and what it says, and the existing ticket that they have.”

You can also contact Bonta’s office to share your experience.

Bonta told KQED his office is still investigating what happened during this initial ticketing phase and hopes that FIFA provides the information he has requested by the May 29 deadline. “And if they don’t, we can ratchet up the level of severity here,” he said.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta speaks at a news conference in front of the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Thursday, Nov. 7, 2024. (

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“It’s not something that we want to do, but we always have an ability to send civil investigative demands or subpoenas,” Bonta said.

FIFA did not respond to a request for comment from KQED. However, the organization has told other media outlets that the initial maps consumers saw last year were meant to “provide guidance rather than the exact seat layout,” and seating arrangements could be subject to change — as happened when the organization introduced new seating categories in later phases of ticket sales.

But that could potentially be in violation of California law, Bonta said.

“The law in California is that businesses and organizations cannot justify misleading practices by pointing to the fine print or other terms that an everyday reasonable consumer would not have seen or understood,” he said. “If you’re told something, then you’re entitled to rely on the representation and to trust what you were told.”

The attorney general’s office could seek some civil penalty if its investigation concludes that the rights of California consumers were indeed violated, Bonta said. “Then we could help those individuals get the ticket that they actually purchased, not the one that they received after they were misled.”

But the investigation is still ongoing, he said.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

At the five-point intersection connecting Boyle Heights and East LA, one Memorial Day tradition has brought the communities together for 80 years.

The Memorial Day tribute at the Mexican American All Wars Memorial returns Monday, giving veterans and their families a space to honor service members of Mexican descent who died in war.

The event kicks off with a 24-hour vigil starting at 10 a.m. Sunday, when veterans will stand guard through the night ahead of Monday’s annual event.

“Memorial Day in Boyle Heights and East LA is way different than any other memorial or ceremony because there were a lot of men and women who went to World War II and Vietnam from this area,” said Joe Diaz, a co-organizer for the event.

Elected officials, including LA County Supervisor Hilda Solis, Senator Maria Elena Durazo and Council District 14 Councilmember Ysabel Jurado, are set to give remarks. LA Mayor Karen Bass is also expected to attend. 

LAPD officer and military veteran Kioni Smith is set to be the keynote speaker. A flyover from the Los Angeles Police Department Air Support Division and a colorguard performance are also scheduled. 

Cinco Puntos was the starting location of the first Chicano Moratorium, a march in protest of the Vietnam War on December 20, 1969, according to the Los Angeles Conservancy. The war memorial pays tribute to the strong presence of the veteran community on the Eastside, the L.A. Conservancy adds. 

Event Details:

The 80th Memorial Day ceremony at the Mexican-American All Wars Memorial in Boyle Heights.

Location: 3300 E. Cesar E. Chavez Avenue

Time: 10 to 11 a.m.

The band Lucius donned Lennon sunglasses and flowy black frocks, slipping unnoticed through the crowd as they made their way to the stage to perform at the opening of the new Broad exhibit Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind. The sound of dressed-up visitors hammering at the Painting to Hammer a Nail installation could be heard as you walked in, and a woman in a “John Lennon Broke up Fluxus” t-shirt reminded us that it’s past time to define Ono as a singular force. I love L.A.

There will be more music events at the Broad celebrating the exhibit (on through October) throughout the summer; for now, Licorice Pizza has your music picks for this week. Tuesday, rising UK pop star Rose Gray is at Pacific Electric, Skylar Grey is at the Grammy Museum, Ty Segall plays Venice West, and Australian folk-rockers the Paper Kites are at the Wiltern.

Wednesday, Argentina’s Los Fabulosos Cadillacs plays the Peacock Theater, Spanish singer-songwriter Leire plays the Belasco, and Ivy — the reunited indie-pop band Ivy founded by the late, great Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne) — plays the Teragram. Irish indie-folk artist Dove Ellis also plays the first of his two nights at Hollywood Forever Cemetery. Gen Xers will delight in Thursday’s lineup, as Digital Underground brings the Humpty Dance to the Regent and Fun Lovin’ Criminals plays the Troubadour. Plus, It’s A School Night! is on at its new location, the Airliner.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can find out how to hop on the beach bus this summer, eat the best British food in L.A. according to our resident Brit, Suzanne Levy, and yes, make your Voter Game Plan for the June 2 election.

Events

Yoko Ono: Music of the Mind

Through Oct. 11
The Broad
221 S. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A.
COST: $21, FREE THURSDAYS 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.; MORE INFO

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At 93, Yoko Ono finally gets her first L.A. solo show, one that explores the artist’s once-in-a-generation take on protest, peace, humanity and feminism. It’s all done with heart and humor, making the show extremely accessible for visitors of all ages. There are numerous interactive elements (like drawing in blue on the walls for Just Blue Like the Ocean, tracing a shadow for Shadow Piece, playing chess on an all-white board for Play It By Trust, or stepping into a black bag for Bag Piece) and video installations. Plus, there are moments from her entire life and practice, from her early years in Japan, through the Beatles era, and her impactful work in the decades since. Her instructions for art are instructions for life; my instruction to you is: Go see this show.

Gary Baseman's Off the Menu: Dining and Drawing in LA

Thursdays through Sundays, 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. until June 14
Johnnie’s Coffee Shop 
6101 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Baseman's Genghis Cohen menu drawing.

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You don’t have to remind us that L.A. is one of the top food cities in the world — and always has been. Artist Gary Baseman takes it to the next level with an exhibit at Johnie’s Coffee Shop, featuring menus from historic L.A. restaurants that he’s drawn on over the years. Robert Garrova paid a visit to the show for LAist when it opened; check the site for hours before you head out, as they vary.

Jelly Dreamscapes

Ongoing 
Aquarium of the Pacific 
100 Aquarium Way, Long Beach 
COST: $44.95; MORE INFO

You can see the blue lion's mane jelly at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

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Aquarium of the Pacific

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Jellyfish are mesmerizing, with their look-but-don’t-touch gentleness and mysteriousness in the open sea. The Aquarium of the Pacific just opened Jelly Dreamscapes, a new immersive exhibition featuring one of the most diverse collections of sea jellies in the country.

Miles Davis birthday celebration 

Tuesday, May 26, 8 p.m.
2220 Arts + Archives
2220 Beverly Blvd., Westlake
COST: FROM $28.66; MORE INFO

Miles Davis would be 100 this year.

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You won’t feel kind of blue at the Miles Davis birthday bash at 2220 Arts + Archives. The jazz master would be 100 this week, and a full lineup of “eclectic, electric” local artists are ready to celebrate. Focused on Davis’s "Big Fun" period, the event features DJs, video projections and more — in addition to all the jazz, of course.

Prof G Markets with Scott Galloway and Ed Elson

Thursday, May 28, 7:30 p.m. 
The Wiltern
3790 Wilshire Blvd., Koreatown
COST: FROM $40; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Vox Media

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Scott Galloway and Ed Elson’s popular Prof G Markets podcast comes to the Wiltern for a live taping this week. Expect special guests and some real talk about where the markets are, how the news influences them and what it means for you and your money.

Flower Drum Song 

Through Sunday, May 31
East West Players
120 Judge John Aiso Street, Little Tokyo
COST: FROM $25; MORE INFO

Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Flower Drum Song gets a fresh look from East West Players at this world premiere show, featuring a cast entirely of Asian descent and a rewrite from Tony winner David Henry Hwang. Hwang first adapted Flower Drum Song at the Taper back in 2001 and is revisiting it in this new version, which aims to reclaim stereotypes set forth in the original and enliven the story about Chinese immigrants in 1950s San Francisco for a modern audience.

Bernstein’s Wall 

Through Thursday, May 28 
Laemmle Theaters
COST: $14.50; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy 4th Row Films

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A new documentary directed by Douglas Tirola (Drunk Stoned Brilliant Dead: The Story of the National Lampoon) explores the life and work of conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Using his 1989 Christmas Day concert in Berlin as a framework, the film explores his life through interviews, news footage, home movies, audio clips and personal letters. It’s on at the Laemmle Royal, Glendale and Town Center 5.

California’s first-in-the-nation fast food council — created to give workers a voice on wages, safety and working conditions — has not met in over a year and has no chairperson.

Now the workers the council was built to protect, organized by the Service Employees International Union, are taking their concerns directly to the state, demanding that Gov. Gavin Newsom appoint a chairperson so the council can do its work, as required by law.

Luna Mondragon, who works at a Carl’s Jr. in Milpitas, told CalMatters through a translator that she started out as a cook but has done many other duties in her five years there. After she joined the fast food workers union, she said she began speaking up, especially when she started to experience aches and pains from her job. Since then, she said she has been retaliated against, including with fewer shifts.

“If we don’t have our health we can’t accomplish anything,” she said, her voice choked with emotion. “It’s so important for them to appoint a chair. We need the council.”

The council was created as part of a 2023 compromise that also set a $20 minimum wage for fast food workers. It has the power to set standards on wages, health, safety and working conditions — and to raise the minimum wage annually for hundreds of thousands of fast food workers at chains with 60 or more locations nationwide.

The council — composed of four members representing the businesses, four members representing labor and a chairperson who’s an “unaffiliated” member of the public — must, under state law, hold at least two meetings a year, though the law does not specify who should enforce this provision.

The council only held those meetings in 2024; last year it held two subcommittee meetings, the latest in February 2025. Shortly after, the council’s chairperson, Nick Hardeman, resigned when Newsom appointed him to a different state position. When reached by CalMatters, Hardeman said he did not want to speak on the record about a council he has not chaired in a while.

In 2022, the Legislature raised fast food workers’ minimum wage to $22 an hour. The industry fought back, gathering signatures to repeal the law. Workers across the state went on strike. In late 2023, the SEIU and the industry reached a last-minute compromise: Workers dropped a ballot fight in exchange for a $20 minimum wage and the establishment of the council. The SEIU-affiliated California Fast Food Workers Union launched the following year — lacking the collective bargaining rights of a traditional union but acting as an advocacy and membership group for workers.

Tara Gallegos, a spokesperson for the governor, would not answer questions about the council, instead referring CalMatters to the state’s Labor & Workforce Development Agency. Crystal Young, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that there is no chairperson and the council’s meetings are on hold. The council’s four-person staff continues to respond to inquiries and prepare for future meetings, she said.

On April 16, marking about two years since the council’s first meeting, workers delivered a 96-page book to the governor’s office, describing more than 100 complaints filed with CalOSHA, the state labor department and different city agencies since the council’s formation, alleging wage theft and poor working conditions. The union estimates there are about 630,000 fast food workers in the state, about 75% of whom are people of color and 20% of whom are immigrants.

“Employers feel newly empowered to threaten us with calling ICE when we ask questions about paid sick leave or [workers’ compensation] or report health and safety hazards,” Angelica Hernandez, a McDonald’s worker who is a member of the fast food council, said in the book.

Rich Reinis, a member of the council who represents employers and is a former franchise owner, said he has no knowledge of when meetings will resume and is waiting. In his view, the council should have been discussing “fire and ICE.” The phrase refers to the effects of last year’s L.A. County fires on the fast food industry and its workers, some of whom lost their homes, and what businesses and workers need to know about immigration enforcement.

Reinis also wants the council to order a study of the wage increase’s effects on prices and employment. Competing studies by UC Berkeley and UC Santa Cruz have reached opposite conclusions, and the question of affordability remains unresolved, he said.

A Los Angeles Times columnist who analyzed the competing studies concluded the debate over the wage's effects is likely to continue. Hernandez, the councilmember, rejected the industry's claims the wage increase has hurt business. “The sky didn’t fall on the California fast food industry,” she said.

The council is also required to submit a performance review to the Legislature every three years — a deadline approaching without a single full meeting in the past year. Before he resigned, Hardeman, the former chairperson, said it was hard for the council to reach decisions.

“The staff will have to write a report without having any meetings,” Reinis said. “How the hell are we supposed to do that?”

Chris Holden, the former California assemblymember who authored the law that raised the workers’ wages and created the council, told CalMatters the council was “groundbreaking” and “needs to address the challenges that were the genesis of the council in the first place.” He said he hopes the governor is doing his due diligence to identify a new chairperson.

“I want to tell [the governor] to finish the job he started,” Julieta Garcia, a cook at a Pizza Hut in Los Angeles, told CalMatters through a translator. “Leave a good legacy for this generation and the future generation, so you can be recognized as a leader who gave fast food workers a chance.”

Young, the Labor & Workforce Development Agency spokesperson who was speaking on the governor’s behalf, confirmed that Newsom’s office received the workers’ book.

The governor's office has not said when — or whether — Newsom plans to appoint a chairperson to the council.

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