The Brief

A district court judge on Tuesday ordered the federal government to restore its contract with an organization providing legal services to families who were separated during President Donald Trump’s first term. The Department of Justice had abruptly canceled the contract in April, a move the American Civil Liberties Union argued violated a 2023 settlement agreement.

“We’re relieved about the court's order that came down last night,” said Sara Van Hofwegen, managing director for legal access programs at Acacia Center for Justice, which administered the program for the Department of Justice. ”We're still awaiting communication from the government about resumption of those services. And we look forward to working with the Department of Justice.”

The settlement agreement, reached between the ACLU and the Biden administration after nearly six years of litigation, aimed to remedy some of the damage done to migrant families by Trump’s “Zero Tolerance” border enforcement policy starting in 2017. The policy unfolded chaotically, with families forcibly separated at the border and then effectively lost in a haphazard maze of detention and relocation.

Roughly 5,000 family members were separated during Trump’s first term, and according to the ACLU, as many as 1,000 children remain separated from deported parents today.

The ACLU filed a class-action lawsuit against the federal government over “Zero Tolerance” in February of 2018, arguing that separating families was unnecessary under the law and that the policy deprived migrant families of their right to due process.

Before approving the settlement, federal Judge Dana Sabraw, of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California in San Diego, said family separation “represents one of the most shameful chapters in the history of our country.”

While recognizing the value of the relief granted by the court for separated families, Hofwegen said it’s “just one step in what they need.”

Along with providing housing assistance and mental health treatment, the settlement agreement requires that separated family members and certain relatives have access to legal help in navigating the process of applying for temporary residency status in the U.S., work permits and asylum.

The DOJ provided funding to Acacia Center for Justice, a national nonprofit, and nine subcontractor organizations around the country, including two in California, to provide those services, which include legal advice, help with immigration applications and referrals for pro bono representation. Less than three months after Trump took office, the Justice Department canceled the contract with Acacia.

Citing a breach of the settlement agreement, the ACLU asked Judge Sabraw to intervene. In ensuing hearings, the ACLU argued that the government could not ensure services would continue, putting separated family members at risk of losing their permission to work and, ultimately, to stay in the country.

The Justice Department said it planned to provide some of the services through the immigration court system itself, and the rest would be covered by pro bono attorneys. But the ACLU argued the government’s plan was unrealistic.

“We’re talking about thousands of cases,” Lee Gelernt, lead attorney for the ACLU, told the judge April 30. “It takes a lot of work to get a firm to take one [pro bono] case.”

In court filings last week, the Justice Department admitted it had not connected anyone covered by the settlement agreement with a pro bono attorney since it took over responsibility for providing services on May 1st.

In his order, Judge Sabraw wrote that the government had failed to demonstrate that it could provide the same services Acacia had and that no viable alternative had been offered. He pointed out that the Justice Department’s plan to rely on pro bono attorneys had, in part, been hampered by the Trump administration’s cancellation of other federal contracts, including one that funded an information hotline for detained immigrants. “Since Acacia’s contract expired, the pro bono landscape has only deteriorated because of funding cuts and staffing shortages,” Sabraw wrote.

The Executive Office for Immigration Review, the sub-agency the Justice Department had charged with administering legal services to separated families, said it does not comment on litigation-related matters. The department also declined to comment on the decision.

Judge Sabraw set a hearing for June 27 to assess the government’s progress in restoring services.

Van Hofwegen said it will take months for Acacia’s subcontractors to rehire staff who were laid off during the work stoppage and to reestablish communication with members of the class-action lawsuit who were told services were no longer available.

The settlement agreement gives separated families until December 2025 to file for asylum. Van Hofwegen said that very few of them have completed those applications due to the limited funding the government provided for legal help, even before Acacia’s contract was ended.

Van Hofwegen said the current climate of aggressive immigration enforcement puts separated families at heightened risk. Three class members have recently been detained by immigration officials, according to the ACLU, which said it was investigating those situations.

“We remain really worried about class members until folks have full legal services,” Van Hofwegen said.

The California Newsroom is a collaboration of public media outlets throughout the state, with NPR as its national partner. 

Winter may seem like a season of stillness, but science tells us a different story.

Even in the quiet winter months, the natural world buzzes with activity. Insect migration patterns shift, animal survival tactics kick in, and tiny engineering feats unfold as snowflakes form in the sky.

These five Deep Look videos bring that hidden winter world to life.

The sex lives of Christmas trees

When forests grow quiet in winter, pine cones emerge as the reproductive engines of conifers, with male and female cones playing distinct roles.

The male cones release clouds of pollen in spring, but the female cones do the real winter magic: they hold the seeds.

Their armor-like scales act like tiny gates, opening just wide enough to catch pollen spread by the wind, then sealing shut for months as the seeds develop inside.

When conditions are just right, often during crisp, dry weather, the cones flex open again and let the seeds whirl out into the cold air, find a home in the ground and grow into the next generation of trees. Conifers survived ice ages, fires, and everything in between with this ancient system, as old as 300 million years.

Why reindeer and their cousins are total boneheads

Every year, male reindeer grow an entirely new set of antlers, essentially full bones that sprout from their heads in a process fueled by testosterone.

In summer, these antlers are wrapped in velvet, a dense skin rich in blood vessels that nourish the fast-growing bone. Come fall, the velvet sheds, revealing the smooth, polished antlers, the reindeer use to spar with rivals and impress potential mates.

But after this courtship season ends and hormone levels drop, the antlers simply fall off. Squirrels, mice and other winter scavengers gnaw on the cast-off antlers for calcium.

Within weeks, the reindeer begin growing the next set. They may not fly, but they’re winter’s most impressive bone-builders.

Identical snowflakes? Scientist ruins winter for everyone

Each snowflake starts as a tiny water-vapor speck freezing into an icy hexagon.

As it tumbles through clouds, temperature and humidity shape its branches, making each one’s journey and pattern unique.

But in a lab, physicist Ken Libbrecht can actually make identical snowflakes by precisely controlling the conditions.

Nature may be unpredictable, but science proves it can be repeatable, at least under the right conditions.

You’d never guess what an acorn woodpecker eats

In the oak woodlands of the West, acorn woodpeckers spend the colder months guarding something very valuable: thousands of acorns meticulously stored in their communal granaries.

These birds drill hole after hole into trees, sometimes over generations, to create a kind of pantry wall where they can tap acorns in like a wooden peg.

Acorn woodpeckers live in family groups and spend winter tending their stash and defending it from thieves. Come spring, they’ll shift to insects and oak flowers, but in winter, acorns fuel their lively, noisy, and highly social world.

Loveliness of ladybugs

Did you know that a cluster of these insects is known as a “loveliness of ladybugs”?

Just when the cold sets in and their favorite foods, like aphids, disappear, ladybugs join one of the most surprising winter gatherings in nature.

These usually solitary insects take to the air, riding wind currents toward mountain slopes where their ancestors have clustered for years. They’re guided by pheromone trails that act like tiny chemical breadcrumbs.

When they arrive, they pile together in rust-colored heaps, sometimes thousands strong. This communal hibernation is their best chance of surviving winter, and since most only live a year, it’s also their one shot at reproducing in spring.

Stealing a smooch under the mistletoe is a time-honored holiday tradition — but the word itself has an origin that invokes the exact opposite of romance.

As part of NPR's "Word of the Week" series, we're exploring the history of the plant's name, diving into the tradition of kissing beneath it, and taking a scientific detour along the way.

The etymology of mistletoe — a plant with small, oval evergreen leaves and waxy white berries — likely comes from the Anglo-Saxon words for manure — "mist" or "mistel" — and "tan" (sometimes rendered as "toe"), meaning "twig" or "stick."

"It literally means bird poop on a twig," according to Susie Dent, a British lexicographer and author of Guilt by Definition.

The name stems from the way its seeds are carried by birds and dropped after passing through their digestive tract. This method of seed dispersal is called endozoochory, says Tristram Seidler, a biology professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and the curator of the UMass Amherst Herbarium.

In short, animals eat fruits, including berries, move on and "deposit" the seeds in a different location, he says. For mistletoe seeds, that location happens to be the tops of trees. From an evolutionary standpoint, Seidler says, species survival can depend on getting seeds away from the parent plant.

"Any seeds that land near their parent plant may germinate," he explains. "But they're almost certainly going to be wiped out by disease because those areas tend to be crowded and small plants are very susceptible to their own pathogens."

Humans, then, make use of the mistletoe spread by those birds — planting it in cultural practices that stretch back into antiquity.

Mistletoe history

The oldest customs surrounding mistletoe are likely tied to celebrations of the winter solstice, according to Bettina Arnold, a professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. These go back to the Neolithic era in prehistoric Europe.

"All agricultural societies would have made note of [the winter solstice] because it literally is the time when… you can start seeing the days getting longer again," she says. "So it's a return to life after sort of a seasonal death, in a way." The mistletoe, being evergreen, "is actually almost a metaphor for that."

Arnold says that Pliny the Elder, a first-century Roman author, provided a detailed account of mistletoe and its use by druids, a nature- and ritual-focused priesthood that lived in Iron Age Gaul (modern-day France) and the British Isles. Pliny said that when they found mistletoe growing on a particular kind of oak tree, a priest in white vestments would climb up to cut down the mistletoe with a golden sickle.

"They believe that mistletoe given in drink will impart fertility to any animal that is barren, and that it is an antidote for all poisons," Pliny wrote. (In fact, modern medical literature says the exact opposite).

Given mistletoe's association with fertility and rebirth, it's not surprising that it made its way into Christian tradition, Arnold says, noting that although we often forget it today, "the Roman Catholic Church is really kind of an extension of the Roman Empire." The Romans themselves also had their own solstice tradition that seeped into Christian practice: Saturnalia, in honor of the god of agriculture, Saturn, included decorating homes with evergreen boughs, wreaths and garlands to symbolize renewal.

Norse mythology adds another mistletoe tale — of Baldur, the god of light. In a story reminiscent of the Greek hero Achilles, Baldur's mother, Frigg, makes her son invincible to all things except mistletoe. Loki, the trickster, exploits this unusual weakness by using an arrow made of mistletoe to kill Baldur. In some later versions of the story, Frigg's tears over her son's death become mistletoe berries, symbolizing her love.

Plant a kiss

So, what about all the kissing?

A reference appears in a song from the 1784 musical comedy Two for One, which celebrates "what good luck has sent ye / And kiss beneath the mistletoe."

It's the oldest written reference to the custom, according to Arnold. It appears to have gained popularity in the following centuries, with holiday themes of regeneration, renewal and redemption helping to reinforce it.

According to author Dent, the story of mistletoe reflects this transformation, evolving from a "slightly scatological beginning … [to] blossom into something rather beautiful."

Copyright 2025 NPR

I hope your holidays are very merry so far. Here at LAist, we headed out to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena recently to get a fresh look at the art collection, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary. If you have time in this light traffic (and rainy!) week, it’s worth the ride to check out this gem. Or if old Hollywood glam is more your thing, Fiona Ng scoped out the ASU FIDM museum downtown, which has more than 300 artifacts in its care that you can visit — including many pieces worn by Marlene Dietrich.

Licorice Pizza’s music picks for the weekend include the Dirty Dozen Brass Band at the Mint on Friday, plus RL Grime at Academy L.A. and Quiet Riot at the Whisky a Go Go, both also on Friday. Sunday has hair metal vets the BulletBoys at the Whisky, and actress and performance artist Ann Magnuson will do an encore performance of her “The Luv Show - 30th Anniversary” Celebration at Zebulon.

Elsewhere on LAist.com, learn about the final shows at the Hotel Cafe before it moves and get a glimpse of LACMA’s first Van Gogh acquisition.

Events

Mythical Creatures: The Stories We Carry

Preview through Sunday, January 4
Pacific Asia Museum 
46 N. Los Robles Ave., Pasadena
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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David Kim

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Pacific Asia Museum

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A museum-wide installation takes over USC’s Pacific Asia Museum starting in February, but you can get a sneak preview at the innovative project, conceived by Los Angeles-based Korean American artist and muralist Dave Young Kim, over the holidays. Mythical Creatures is an immersive exhibit that spans 12 rooms and tells visitors a story in verse across the museum’s walls. It features 100 objects from USC PAM’s diverse collection of Asian art, as well as new work from Dinh Q. Lê, Lily Honglei, Wendy Park, Momoko Schafer, Kyungmi Shin, Sanjay Vora, Lauren YS and more.

Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special

Saturday, December 27, 5 p.m.
Alex Theatre 
216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale
COST: FROM $19; MORE INFO

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Courtesy The Alex Theatre

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Artist Shepard Fairey is DJing, the Bob Baker Marionette Theater is performing and DJ Lance Rock is hosting this charity screening of the iconic 1988 Pee-wee’s Playhouse Christmas Special. The evening will benefit AnimAID, which helps animation professionals whose lives have been affected by the wildfires. The movie is followed by a holiday concert at 8 p.m. with Tom Kenny & the Hi-Seas.

The Wonderful Winter of Oz 

Through Sunday, December 28 
Scherr Forum at Bank of American Performing Arts Center
2100 E. Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks
COST: FROM $42; MORE INFO

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Lythgoe Family Panto

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Ticketmaster

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A very British tradition at Christmastime is going to a panto — a pantomime — with your family and friends. For the uninitiated, a panto is a sort of mistold fairy tale rewritten with audience participation, bawdy (but typically kid-friendly) humor and colorful costumes and sets. The Lythgoe Family Panto brings a taste of that to L.A. every year, this year with The Wonderful Winter of Oz, starring none other than J. Peterman himself, John O’Hurley.

When Harry Met Sally… 

Saturday and Sunday, December 27 and 28, 11 a.m. 
Art Theatre 
2025 E. 4th St., Long Beach 
COST: $13; MORE INFO

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Columbia Pictures

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Honor Rob Reiner’s legacy by heading to Long Beach for a screening of the best holiday movie and best rom-com of all time (don’t @ me), When Harry Met Sally…

2025 Sundance Film Festival Short Film Tour

Sunday, December 28, 7 p.m.
Los Feliz Theatre
1822 N. Vermont Ave., Los Feliz
COST: $17; MORE INFO

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Courtesy American Cinematheque

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Take the opportunity to see some great indie shorts as American Cinematheque and Vimeo present a showcase of seven standouts from this year’s Sundance Film Festival. The event is followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers.

S.H.I.N.E. Mawusa

Saturday, December 27, 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 
World Stage
4321 Degnan Blvd., Leimert Park
COST: $5 SUGGESTED DONATION; MORE INFO

Every Saturday, S.H.I.N.E. Mawusi — Sisters Healing, Inspiring, Nurturing, and Empowering, in the Hands of God — brings West African drum culture to the L.A. community. World Stage hosts this suggested donation-only performance, which teaches African culture through music and dance.

Laboratory for the Future

Through January 4, Thursdays to Sundays, 12 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Propeller Gallery 
Airport Arts Center
3026 Airport Ave., Santa Monica 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Debra Scacco

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Debra Scacco’s work is only on display for another couple of weeks; make sure you get over to Santa Monica Airport to see the project from the beach city’s first Public Works Department Artist in Residence program before it’s gone in early January. Scacco explores the relationship between “water, waste, and urban ecology” and uses clay from Santa Monica’s water well excavation alongside portraits of city essential workers in the installation.

Holiday tours & Vault Experience

Saturday and Sunday, December 27 and 28
Petersen Automotive Museum 
6060 Wilshire Blvd., Miracle Mile
COST: $150; MORE INFO

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Courtesy Petersen Automotive Museum

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If you left the car fanatic in your life off your list, this is the perfect opportunity to make up for the oversight. Included in your Peterson Automotive Museum admission is a special tour of the Vault — home to many rare and vintage cars — a trip to the museum’s mechanic’s shop, where restoration work on the vehicles is ongoing, and a gift certificate to the museum’s restaurant, Meyers Manx.

Papusas and Punchlines

Friday, December 26, 7:30 p.m.
Jaragua Restaurant
4493 Beverly Blvd., Mid-City 
COST: FROM $19.50; MORE INFO 

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Papusas and Punchlines

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Eventbrite

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Eat delicious papusas and laugh till it hurts at Jaragua for their ongoing Papusas and Punchlines series, this week with a holiday theme. Comics from HBO, Jimmy Kimmel Live and more will perform.

Aparna Nancherla’s comedy career spans almost two decades. She started in standup, has written for shows like Mythic Quest and Late Night with Seth Meyers, and acted in shows like Search Party, Corporate and BoJack Horseman.

After taking a break from standup to write a memoir turned into an extended hiatus.

”I was mining some real, raw personal depths and facing some parts of myself that I hadn't looked at really closely,” Nancherla told LAist. “And then I think trying to get up in front of a bunch of strangers at night was just too much for my nervous system.”

Nancherla is now back with her first hour-long special.

In Hopeful Potato — available now on Dropout, a streaming service dedicated to comedy — she shares her journey navigating her social anxiety in everyday life.

Nancherla joined LAist All Things Considered host Julia Paskin to talk about how she deals with anxiety and depression and her recommendations for places to decompress in L.A.

Good advice and bad mental health advice she’s received

Julia Paskin: Let's talk about good advice.

Aparna Nancherla:  Ironically, the internet's recommendation to touch grass. I think seeing actual people being a little out in the world [and] spending time in nature, those are all things that have helped me. But also realizing that your coping mechanisms are not always gonna work the way you want them to. Deep breathing or taking a self-care day, sometimes it won't make you feel better… I think that just accepting that's part of it too. Like some days you're just gonna feel bad and that doesn't mean you failed.

Julia Paskin:  Could I ask you [for] some of your top worst tips you've received for dealing with depression and anxiety?

Aparna Nancherla:  I've heard, "Just don't think about it." I'm like, "Oh yeah, I haven't tried that." [Also],  something along the lines of: "Suck it up. We're all having a hard time. Everyone's a little depressed." That kind of thing. And honestly, I do find going for a walk or exercising or drinking more water, those can be helpful things. But I think people often utilize them as the solution, like this will cure you. And I'm like, there is not really a cure. It's an ongoing, non-linear journey, and I don't think people understand that.

Places to avoid being a hermit

Julia Paskin:  You talk in the special about having had "big hermit energy" at one point [...] You mentioned touching grass. Any particular spots in L.A. to go touch grass?

Aparna Nancherla:  I mean, very on-brand for me, but I love a coffee shop, I love a library, something where you're around people, but maybe you don't have to directly engage with them, but there's some social contact…  I do think it's [...] important to kind of push myself to be out in the world. 'Cause I think sometimes it can be a slippery slope with being like, is this really a self-care day at this point? You haven't seen anyone for 10 days. Like maybe this is more a sign [that] you need to have lunch with a friend.

Just a couple months ago, [I] got a membership to the L.A. County Arboretum… [I’m an] admirer of waterfalls, and they have a big one planted right in the middle called the Meyberg Waterfall. And it is just one of my really happy places.

Julia Paskin:  Do you have a favorite library or bookshop or anything like that, that you'd recommend?

Aparna Nancherla: I'm in Pasadena, so I love the Pasadena Public Library system. …  There's actually a library I really love in Glassell Park. The Eagle Rock Library I love. And then there's just like great coffee shops around those places too, like Habitat and Penny Oven.

Navigating mental health in an unstable entertainment industry

The unpredictability of the entertainment industry — from the shuttering of studios during the pandemic, to fears of AI and the potential effect of corporate mergers on jobs — has increased anxiety for people working in Hollywood. Nancherla’s advice for dealing with this uncertainty? Support one another.

Aparna Nancherla:  I think what helps in these moments is as a creator [thinking] what can I make? What brings me joy? What connects me to other people? And for me it is kind of going back to smaller things where it's like [doing] a local show. I just did a fundraiser for a local L.A. Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, who's doing such great work with housing and people's wages. And I think it's so important to remember there are degrees of power and ways we can show up for each other that don't have to do with billionaires, and mergers and things that hopefully people can work towards changing, but might not change overnight.

Nancherla’s comedy special "Hopeful Potato’"is available to stream now on Dropout.

This interview has been edited for clarity.