The Brief

The simmering battle over the public library in Huntington Beach erupted again this spring when provocative signs cropped up around town overnight.

“Protect our kids from porn,” the placards warned in bold red letters. Funded by a city councilmember’s political action committee, they urged people to vote against a pair of ballot measures in an upcoming special election, including one that would abolish a controversial new community review board for library books.

As parents dropping off their children spotted the blunt message near elementary schools that April morning, outrage began to spread online over the delicate explanations it required for kids who were far too young to understand. One man declared on social media that he cut the word “porn” out of 12 signs and delivered the pieces to city hall.

“Frankly, it reads more like a tactic to provoke than a message grounded in conservative values, and that’s something I believe we should rise above,” the man said in a video posted to a popular Facebook forum.

Now, with only a week remaining before the election, proponents of the ballot measures to roll back library restrictions are hoping enough of those frustrated, weary parents in this Orange County beach community show up to carry them to victory.

The election — the culmination of nearly two years of tense clashes over sexual content in children’s books, parental rights and censorship — carries the weight of more than just the future of the local library.

An ascendant political movement, led by the self-proclaimed “MAGA-nificent 7” members of the city council, has in recent years turned Huntington Beach into the bulwark of conservative resistance to California’s progressive governance and a hotbed of nationally resonant culture wars, including on vaccines, Pride flags and voter ID.

As complaints about obscene material being available to young readers dragged even the once-beloved library into the fray, the increasingly marginalized liberal residents of Huntington Beach have mobilized — and floundered. Not unlike the national Democratic Party, which has grappled with how to counteract the full-throttle early months of President Donald Trump’s second term, their struggle to curb the breakneck transformation of their city’s identity have left many wondering how far the council can push its revolution.

“It’s just a war being waged on the community by people in an attempt to gain power,” said Natalie Moser, a former member of a liberal council minority who was ousted in November. She has criticized the Huntington Beach conservatives for reframing all of city politics as a partisan fight. “People are easier to manipulate when they’re divided, when they don’t see each other as people but just another side.”

Opponents of Measures A and B display book titles they want removed from the children’s section of the library during an event at Lake Park in Huntington Beach on May 31, 2025.

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Mette Lampcov

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CalMatters

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The most optimistic believe the “protect our kids from porn” signs could be a turning point, waking up apolitical voters and swaying moderates in this Republican-leaning community to reject the restrictions on library material. If the ballot measures pass next week, they hope it will send a signal that residents want the city council to refocus on the fundamentals of municipal governance — public safety, road maintenance and economic development.

“It’s just so disheartening to see our city council turn this city against itself,” said Erin Spivey, one of several Huntington Beach librarians who quit in the past two years because of city interventions that they considered repressive. “People are getting really sick and tired of the city council overstepping what they are supposed to be doing. They’re supposed to be making our community better.”

'Let the community decide' on kids books

Amid a surging national book banning movement, the debate arrived in Huntington Beach two summers ago, when then-new Councilmember Gracey Van Der Mark — a locally notorious activist who made it her cause célèbre to get what she deems sexual content out of the children’s section — first proposed reviewing and restricting access to certain library material.

Van Der Mark is alarmed by a contemporary wave of picture books and sex education manuals that she feels goes far beyond what is appropriate for young readers and could damage kids who accidentally encounter the material before they are ready.

“The last thing you want is a child to pick up a book and have a big picture of penises or instructions for how to masturbate,” she said in an interview.

The city council eventually adopted an ordinance establishing a 21-member community board to review library books for “textual or graphic references to sex, sexual organs, sex acts, relationships of sexual nature, or sexual relations in any form.” The board would have the authority to move the material to the adult section or prevent the library from purchasing it in the first place, though it has yet to be seated, in part because of a subsequent state law prohibiting these types of committees.

Van Der Mark compares the concept to the movie ratings system, arguing that it would empower parents by giving them more say in what their children read. She complained that librarians who reject the community input because they believe they know better are elitist.

“Librarians are human. They are human. They are not perfect, just like you and I are not perfect. Mistakes are going to be made,” she said. “Let the community decide. Let the community give their input on whether they think those books meet their community standards.”

But the opposition to library book restrictions has been fierce and sustained, frequently spilling into long, rancorous public comment sessions at city council meetings. Free speech advocacy groups have joined, including the ACLU, which filed a lawsuit earlier this year.

Critics say they fear the book review committee would allow the city council to assert more control over the library and eventually ban material that doesn’t align with its conservative views.

They are especially concerned that many of the books Van Der Mark and her allies have singled out are LGBTQ-themed. Some see warning signs in the recent cancellation of a library book club for gay novel “The Guncle” and a Facebook post by another city councilmember tying the “dramatic alarming rise” in LGBTQ identification among young people to the “explosion of LGBTQ+ literature.”

“What they’re trying to do is exert their moral standards on others — and that’s unacceptable in society,” said Gina Clayton-Tarvin, a member of a local school district board that endorsed the ballot measures. “This is almost like attacking what is American.”

Lindsay Klick, a Huntington Beach parent and a longtime librarian in Orange County, said library collections should be expansive, so that everyone can find books that interest them and decide for themselves what they want to read.

“The library is not a winner-take-all thing like an election,” she said.

She criticized the city council for manufacturing outrage over sexual content in the library by selectively highlighting small excerpts from books out of their context, as if cropping the crotch from a picture of the statue of David.

Carol Daus looks at books in the children’s section of the Huntington Beach Central Library that could be restricted for including sexual content on May 31, 2025.

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Mette Lampcov

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CalMatters

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Carol Daus looks at books in the children’s section of the Huntington Beach Central Library that could be restricted for including sexual content on May 31, 2025.

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Mette Lampcov

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CalMatters

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It’s an effective strategy for politicians looking to raise their profiles as they seek higher office; Van Der Mark, who launched a bid for state Assembly last month, is the latest.

But it’s not a true reflection of how library patrons feel, Klick said, like at the small Orange County branch where she works near the Air Force base in Los Alamitos, which has the same books that the Huntington Beach city council has objected to.

“No one complains. It’s not a problem,” she said. “Why? Because we don’t have Gracey Van Der Mark.”

Ground zero in the national book battle

A special election in Huntington Beach carries high stakes for the national battle over children’s library books.

Library supporters collected thousands of signatures last fall for the pair of ballot measures; the second would limit the city’s ability to outsource library services, after the city council briefly explored privatizing the library last year. The council called a special election for June 10, rather than adopting the proposals outright or placing them on the ballot in 2026.

The outcome has become deeply important for the conservatives backing the city council as well. The two sides collectively spent more than $230,000 on the campaign by late May.

National activist Karen England, whose organization pushes to remove “pornographic books” from schools, has been speaking at city council meetings and church services in recent weeks to help raise awareness for the ‘no’ campaign. She said this is the first ballot measure that she is aware of challenging a book removal policy at a public library and she worries that, if successful, it could become a model for librarians across the country to cut parents out of deciding what their children read.

“That’s what I’m fighting against. They don’t know best,” she said. “I do feel like this is ground zero.”

The campaign has gotten extremely heated, with each side accusing the other of using emotion and misinformation to whip residents into a confused frenzy about what they’re actually voting on. Proponents of the ballot measures mock the conservative city council for injecting more government into peoples’ lives. Opponents complain that they are hamstrung in making their case to voters, because the offending library material is so obscene that they cannot even show it on social media or the news.

But the tension reached a zenith with the “protect our kids from porn” signs, which furious library supporters say unfairly portrayed it as a place run by groomers and pedophiles.

“If they feel like there is porn in the library, they should come and arrest me. Because I personally handed ‘It’s Perfectly Normal’ to patrons,” the former librarian Spivey said, referring to one of the books that Huntington Beach has moved out of the children’s section. “I wish they would, because it would show the community that what they’re doing is a lie.”

Van Der Mark, the architect of the library book review committee, said critics are simply trying to distract from the pornographic nature of the challenged books.

“You’re offended by the word (porn) but not the actual material,” she said.

Supporters of Measures A and B protest in Lake Park.

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Mette Lampcov

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CalMatters

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Signs that state support and opposition for ballot initiatives related to library book restrictions in Huntington Beach on May 31, 2025.

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Mette Lampcov

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CalMatters

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Yet despite the heightened significance that both sides place on the special election, neither seems ready to stand down if they lose. The ACLU lawsuit is still in court, and many Huntington Beach conservatives say they could never accept the challenged books being available in the children’s section of the library.

Casey McKeon, another city councilmember heavily involved in the library debate, said he is frustrated by how vehemently some people have pushed back against the book review board, even though the council “did this the right way” — through its policymaking process, because local parents were upset about the material.

“So we’re not supposed to fix an issue if it’s quote-unquote social or cultural?” he said.

The conservative city council members are leading Huntington Beach exactly the way that voters elected them to, McKeon said, and while the pace of the changes may upset some people, the council cannot wait to fix what it sees is wrong with the city.

“You only get four years,” he said. “You don’t know if you’re going to get re-elected. You don’t have forever.”

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

With only 100 days to go before the FIFA World Cup, what should have been a period of celebration is turning instead into one of turmoil.

The U.S. and Israel attacks on Iran have raised major questions about whether the Persian country will withdraw from the 48-squad tournament — a step no other country has taken after qualifying since 1950 when Scotland, as well as others such as India and Turkey, decided not to participate in part tied to travel costs to the games in Brazil.

But Iran's participation is not the only uncertainty. Violence in Mexico following the killing of a cartel boss sparked questions about the country's ability to attract fans, while concerns about funding for U.S. host cities have also flared up in recent weeks.

And then there is the outrage over the ticket prices, and controversy surrounding President Donald Trump and his administration's policies, including military actions and immigration enforcement.

Angst in the runup to World Cup tournaments is nothing new. Concerns about violence preceded the 2010 and 2014 World Cup tournaments in South Africa and Brazil, while the selection of Russia and Qatar as hosts for the last previous two tournaments also sparked controversies of their own.

But no World Cup men's tournament has been this big before, with 48 teams set to play 104 matches across the U.S., Canada and Mexico. And no recent World Cup has been staged amidst so much global geopolitical uncertainty.

Here are the top areas of concern ahead of the 2026 World Cup.

Will Iran withdraw?

It was the top question surrounding the FIFA World Cup as the U.S. and Israel went to war with Iran this weekend. So far there's no indication that Iran plans to withdraw, whether to boycott it or for other reasons.

Iran is one of the stronger squads in Asia and is set to play its seventh World Cup this year.

Iran Football Federation President Mehdi Taj acknowledged the uncertainty on Iranian TV, according to Reuters and other media.

"What we can say now is that due to this attack and its viciousness, it is far from our expectations that we can look at the World Cup with hope," Taj said according to the wire agency.

Iran is set to play two games against New Zealand and Belgium in Los Angeles, home to a large Iranian diaspora community. The country will also play Egypt in Seattle.

FIFA has not directly weighed in. Its general secretary, Mattias Grafstrom, said on Sunday the organization would continue to "monitor the developments around all issues around the world."

"We had the final draw in Washington, where all teams participated. Our focus is to have a safe Word Cup with everyone participating," Grafstrom said.

Whether Iran participates at the World Cup may be in doubt, but at least one thing is certain: its fans will find it difficult to travel to the U.S. given that Iran is one of a handful of countries that faces a travel ban, though it doesn't affect the team and its coaches.

Iran's players pose for a team picture ahead of a FIFA World Cup 2026 qualifying game against North Korea at the Azadi Sports Complex in Tehran on June 10, 2025.

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Atta Kenare

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AFP via Getty Images

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Will Mexico be safe for visitors?

The flare-up of violence by armed groups across the country after Mexico killed cartel boss Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes last month has sparked concerns about safety and security at one of the co-hosts of the tournament.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has asserted there will be no risks when the country stages the World Cup, while FIFA President Gianni Infantino has expressed his "total confidence" in Mexico.

Mexico is set to host 13 games for the World Cup, including four in Guadalajara, in the state of Jalisco where Oseguera Cervante's group is primarily based and where much of the violence took place.

Concerns about violence are not new. Questions about safety also were raised ahead of the South Africa 2010 World Cup as well as Brazil in 2014 — and both countries ended up successfully hosting their respective tournaments.

Will American host cities get funding?

Concerns about finances are a perennial concern ahead of major sports events — and the U.S. is proving no different.

The 11 American host cities still have not received $625 million in federal funding for security costs that are critical to staging the tournament, including in Foxborough, Mass. The funding was supposed to be provided by the Department of Homeland Security through the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

A FEMA spokesperson directed NPR to a recent posting on X from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem noting that "FEMA was in the final stages of reviewing applications to ensure proper oversight" but that the partial shutdown affecting the agency — for which she blamed Democrats — had put "significant portions of the FEMA staff on administrative leave."

For some host cities, the matter is becoming urgent. The White House FIFA World Cup Task Force has not yet responded to NPR's queries.

"Without receiving this money, it could be catastrophic for our planning and coordination," Ray Martinez, the chief operating officer for the Miami Host Committee, told a congressional hearing according to Politico.

Will fans be priced out of the tournament?

Perhaps no issue more directly affects fans than the staggering high costs they are facing to attend the World Cup.

FIFA has set the highest ticket prices ever for a World Cup, making tickets to the tournament unaffordable for many fans. Its use of dynamic pricing has also sparked controversy; the most expensive tickets to the final in New Jersey initially sold at over $6,300 only to jump to nearly $8,700 in later sales.

The MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., is set to host eight games in the 2026 World Cup, including the final set for July 19, 2026.

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Al Bello

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Getty Images North America

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Not only are ticket prices high — the cost of travel and lodging has surged. Yet despite all the challenges, FIFA claimed it had received over 500 million ticket requests in its last sales window.

That said, FIFA has provided little additional information to back up its claims, making it difficult to determine whether the demand is concentrated just in high profile games such as Colombia against Portugal in Miami or mainly focused in high-profile teams such as Argentina.

Will President Trump and his policies deter fans?

Perhaps the biggest unknown is the effect that Trump and his administration's policies will have on attending the World Cup.

The administration's travel restrictions not only affects Iranian fans, they also hit fans of three other countries that have already qualified for the tournament: Senegal, Ivory Coast and Haiti.

President Trump and his policies remain controversial both at home and abroad. Earlier this year, when Trump threatened to invade Greenland, some European officials raised the prospect of a boycott though the moves never prospered. Even former FIFA President Sepp Blatter encouraged fans to "stay away" from the U.S.

And the latest U.S. and Israel attacks against Iran — which follow the U.S. capture of Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro — have brought renewed attention to FIFA's controversial awarding of its peace prize at the tournament's draw ceremony in Washington, D.C., in December.

The U.S. has already seen a sharp decrease in visitors for a number of reasons, including increased scrutiny at the border (such as a requirement to potentially share social media posts), as well as unease about violence because of high-profile killings involving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Oxford Economics projects a rise in visitors tied to the World Cup, so the number of visitors could at least partially recover this year, though other research points to a reduced number of visitors from Europe to the U.S. this year.

It's yet another sign of uncertainty in what is set to be the biggest-ever tournament with only 100 days to go.
Copyright 2026 NPR

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Below 40-degree temperatures didn’t stop a running crew of women from gathering before sunrise in Lincoln Heights on one of L.A.’s coldest mornings this year. 

Bundled up in beanies and gloves, they warmed up by stretching their arms and legs before setting off into residential streets. They logged three miles in just over 30 minutes.

But this isn’t your regular run club.

As they run through El Sereno, Cypress Park, Highland Park and Lincoln Heights, they scan intersections for suspicious or unmarked vehicles. They slow down near bus stops with early risers on their way to work. They greet street vendors selling tamales.

They’re the N.E.L.A Patrol Runners, and they’re looking for immigration agents.

The group formed in February, amid heightened anxiety in Northeast L.A., where federal agents have taken day laborers at the Cypress Park Home Depot and detained a food vendor in Highland Park as recently as last month. In neighborhoods with high immigrant populations, founder Claudia Yanez said she saw a need for neighbors to look out for each other in real time. 

The idea came to 30-year-old Yanez while on a recent run in her El Sereno neighborhood, when she found herself “unconsciously patrolling.”

“If you live in areas targeted [by ICE], you’re already looking out,” Yanez said.

While groups across Los Angeles, including Unión del Barrio, the Harbor Area Peace Patrols in Terminal Island, and the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network, conduct rapid response efforts, Yanez said their patrol runs are rooted specifically in Northeast L.A.. 

Their mission, she said, is “to defend from ICE terrorism.”

The N.E.L.A Patrol Runners stretch on Friday, Feb. 27, 2026, before beginning their run toward the Home Depot in Cypress Park.

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Boyle Heights Beat

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They start at 6 a.m. and typically run two to three miles at an 11- to 12-minute mile pace, allowing them to stop, investigate and document any vehicles that could be linked to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. If they spot anything suspicious, they would quickly call Unión del Barrio.

The goal is not to physically interfere, but to document and alert neighbors of ICE activity nearby. 

“As a runner, you kind of already have eyes out,” said Yanez, who recently attended a patrol training with the Community Self-Defense Coalition.

“You’re not in a car, so you’re able to see things a little more clearly, closely and slower.”

As Yanez recruits for more runners, a pinned post on the group’s Instagram reads: “Do you like running and hate ICE? Join N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners.”

So far, the group is made up of a small but consistent set of runners — all women.

“I need men to show up,” Yanez said. 

With a handful of runners, “we’re also vulnerable,” she said. “When it’s a big group of people, especially if we’re actively patrolling, we need numbers so it could feel safer.”

To Yanez, this work is a shared responsibility. “I feel like we all have a part to play right now,” she said.

The NELA Patrol Runners jog on Daly Street in Lincoln Heights.

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Ultimately, Yanez hopes their efforts do more than monitor immigration agents. She hopes to also build community and reassurance. “The more we do it, the more we get to know our neighbors,” she said. She wants vendors and others to find comfort knowing: “They’re looking out for us.”

The N.E.L.A Patrol Runners drew inspiration from the Huntington Park Run Club, a group that began tracking and verifying ICE activity after agents in early June raided the Home Depot on Slauson Avenue and State Street. 

“We’ve always responded to the needs of the community,” said Iris Delgado, 34, founder of the Huntington Park Run Club. “That’s what people have known about us.”

Since its founding in 2024, the run club has advocated for pedestrian safety after a relative of a run club member was hit by a vehicle; they’ve also discussed the role of men in keeping each other safe after one of their runners was sexually harassed at a local park. 

“When the raids happened in June, it was like, ‘OK, this is another safety component,” Delgado said.

The run club morphed into providing community self-defense tactics. 

Members of the run club trained with the Boyle Heights Immigrant Rights Network to learn how to monitor ICE activity as people began sending footage of reported immigration raids to their Instagram account. They raised and distributed money for local day laborers and street vendors, and helped establish a community defense center at the nearby Home Depot.

Their efforts inspired the creation of the Southeast Los Angeles Rapid Response Network.

For Delgado, running in your neighborhood is a source of pride and joy. “No matter what’s happening, we’re still outside,” she said.

“The role of a person who runs, who’s able-bodied, is to be aware of why other people in your community don’t feel safe running … and try to make it a little bit safer for them,” Delgado said. 

“When the N.E.L.A. Patrol runners first started, I was like, ‘Hell, yeah,’” Delgado said. “When people take it as their responsibility to look out for each other, that’s what makes the community safer.”

A N.E.L.A. Patrol Runners sign can be seen on the window of a coffee shop in Highland Park.

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Boyle Heights Beat

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In Cypress Park, the N.E.L.A. Patrol runners last Friday jogged toward the Home Depot on Figueroa, where last fall a toddler was among six people taken in an immigration raid.

“Buenos dias, chicas,” a tamalera said, greeting them.

“Bien despiertas,” a passerby said. 

The runners reached the Home Depot parking lot, slowed down and walked closely toward parked trucks to ensure the vehicles were not the kind typically used by ICE. 

They determined the scene was clear and ran back to complete their patrol. Another quiet morning – for now.

ICE has released Cambodian Genocide survivor Sithy Yi from immigration detention following an order by a federal judge.

Yi, who fled the genocide and came to the U.S. with her family in 1981, was detained by ICE at a routine immigration check-in in Santa Ana on Jan. 8 and held at the Adelanto Detention Facility for almost two months.

In response to a lawsuit arguing that she was being held unconstitutionally, U.S. District Judge Cynthia Valenzuela issued an order Friday requiring ICE to “immediately release” Yi. The order also prevents the agency from deporting Yi without providing an opportunity to be heard by a neutral arbiter and bans ICE from transferring her outside the court’s jurisdiction.

The ruling says the government did not oppose Yi’s request for the court to order her released. Her attorney had alleged ICE failed to follow procedural requirements such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Reunited with her family

Yi was released Monday and has returned to her family, according to her attorney. Yi’s family includes her mother and two sisters she helped to survive starvation and mass killings at the hands of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia before they came to the U.S. as refugees.

Retaliation allegations against detention center staff

Yi’s attorney says that in addition to the court’s findings, she believes her client’s Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment was violated while detained at Adelanto.

“ She was retaliated against by security and medical personnel because she had been communicating with her family, and through her family with me. And we've been reporting about these conditions to Sen. [Adam] Schiff, as well as other members of Congress. And somehow word got back and she was retaliated against,” her attorney Kim Luu-Ng told LAist’s AirTalk on Tuesday.

“She was verbally abused, but she was also punished. She was not allowed to use the bathroom. She was not allowed to shower,” Luu-Ng continued.

“It is absolutely freezing in the detention center, but they don't care. She said to me that she has to wrap herself in blankets, but they're still freezing.”

Yi and other detainees were regularly getting sick from spoiled food served at the facility.

“These are civil detainees. These are not criminal detainees. And there are laws in this country that are supposed to protect against this type of punitive and cruel treatment of detainees,” Luu-Ng added.

She said that in many ways, she feels “criminal detainees have even more rights than civil detainees. And so this is a real crisis.”

ICE has not responded to a request for comment.

Why Yi was released

Luu-Ng has represented Yi since her immigration case began in 2013. Yi was first brought to immigration court after a drug conviction her family says stemmed from untreated mental health issues from being tortured as a child and prolonged exposure to abuse into adulthood.

Her immigration case ended in 2016, with a judge ruling to withhold an order of removal due to concerns she would be tortured if she were deported to Cambodia.

Yi also applied for a U visa — a type of visa providing temporary immigration status to crime victims who have cooperated with law enforcement — in 2022. That visa application is still pending.

Judge Valenzuela explained her reasoning for the order, writing in the document that ICE did not oppose a motion by Yi’s lawyer requesting she be released. Luu-Ng claimed in the motion that ICE detained her client without following required steps, such as showing she violated any conditions of her release or proving that she would likely be deported in the “reasonably foreseeable future.”

Valenzuela also pointed to another case against ICE where she granted an order for Ramy Hakim to be released based on similar circumstances Jan. 22. Hakim was detained at a regular immigration check-in Dec. 19 despite receiving protections in 2004 against being deported to Egypt where he would likely be tortured. He was held at the same Adelanto facility as Yi.

ICE has not responded to LAist’s request for comment on Friday’s court order. In an emailed statement on Jan. 29, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said Yi was ordered to be removed from the country in 2016 following a drug conviction and had “received full due process.”

Yi’s attorney says ICE kept her detained through the weekend despite the judge ordering her to be released immediately.

 ”ICE doesn't work on the weekends,” Luu-Ng said. “Any minute that my client was detained beyond the time that the order was issued was an unconstitutional detention.”

ICE spokespeople have not responded to a request for comment about this allegation.