The Brief

There’s nothing grand about Santa Ana Immigration Court. Tucked in the corner of an office park between two county health agencies, you’d hardly know it was there. Which is why a group of volunteer court observers shows up on a daily basis — to keep tabs on immigration policies that seem to change by the week, and to channel resources to people facing deportation.

“People feel comforted by just seeing us there, especially that we are people of faith,” said Jennifer Coria, who coordinates the immigration court observer program for the group Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, or CLUE. Observers come from churches and other religious entities across Orange County and L.A. They're encouraged to wear something that signals their faith, or, if they’re clergy, to show up in religious attire.

“We want the judges to know that we are coming from a faith community and they see that there's moral presence in these spaces,” Coria said.

Why now?

The immigration court observer program is among dozens of grassroots efforts that have popped up around Southern California and across the country in response to the Trump administration’s mass deportation campaign. Other groups are patrolling neighborhoods to alert residents of ICE raids, delivering food boxes to immigrant families scared to leave their homes, and posting up at Home Depots to accompany day laborers who have been a frequent target of the raids.

LAist recently spent a morning inside Santa Ana Immigration Court with a group of observers to get a peek into the legal side of the federal deportation campaign. After President Donald Trump’s first full year in office, his administration continues its rapid pace of removals, in fulfillment of his campaign promises.

In an email to LAist, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security said more than 700,000 immigrants had been arrested under Trump and DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, 70% of them with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges in the U.S. That statistic doesn't account for those wanted in their home countries for suspected crimes, the spokesperson added.

LAist has requested clarification on the government’s figures, which contrasts with other sources. For example, the Deportation Data Project estimates that the Trump administration deported fewer than 300,000 from the interior of the country during its first year, not counting immigrants caught or turned away at the border. The project is run largely by a group of law professors and lawyers who publish reports based on government datasets.

Why it matters

In immigration court, the administration’s deportation campaign has meant faster proceedings, and fewer immigrants allowed to remain in the United States, according to data maintained by Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a project of Syracuse University. The data also shows that less than 2% of new deportation cases filed in 2026 allege that the person was involved in criminal activity beyond entering the country illegally.

The court observers in Santa Ana aren’t there to protest inside courtrooms or try to block deportation orders. But they say they’ll keep showing up to offer pro bono legal resources and, at the least, moral support for vulnerable members of their community.

“They're my neighbors. It's like, why wouldn't I defend them?” said Diedre Gaffney, one of the court observers.

Immigration court is an administrative court within the Department of Justice.

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Jill Replogle

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A day in immigration court

For court observers, the morning starts in the lobby, scanning a wall of electronic displays with the day’s docket. They usually look for courtrooms holding what’s known as master calendar hearings — rapid-fire, preliminary hearings that can have life-changing outcomes for people fighting deportation or seeking asylum.

The observers are familiar with the judges by now, and know which ones might not welcome their presence. Members of the public are generally allowed to attend immigration court hearings. But judges can close hearings or limit attendance at their discretion.

After a brief discussion, the observers decided to head to Judge Wilbur Lee’s courtroom. The room is small and sparse. A flag stands in one corner. A big screen for virtual appearances takes up the other.

The judge sits behind a computer monitor at the front of the room, flanked by a copy machine and a Spanish language interpreter.

Lee had more than 20 cases on his docket for the morning. Some people were seeking asylum; others hoped to adjust their status, which provides a pathway to legal residency, for example, for immigrants who have married a U.S. citizen. Most of the hearings lasted only a few minutes, either postponed to another date, or scheduled for a subsequent hearing. Sometimes language, and the lack of an interpreter, delayed the hearing — there was a Nicaraguan man who spoke only Miskito, an indigenous language, and another from Kazakhstan who spoke Kazakh.

Respondents — that’s the official term for people facing immigration proceedings — had traveled, or video-conferenced in, from Irvine, Costa Mesa, Fullerton, Riverside, San Fernando, Eastvale and Rialto.

One of the court observers spotted something new in the courtroom that day: a bright blue flyer on the desk where respondents sit to answer questions from the judge. It read, in all caps, “MESSAGE TO ILLEGAL ALIENS: A WARNING TO SELF-DEPORT.”

The flyer, which was also posted in the courtroom lobby, laid out benefits (“leave on your own terms,”) and consequences (“immediate deportation,” “no opportunity to get your affairs in order”) of taking or not taking the government’s advice. A QR code on the flyer led to a website for the government’s self-deportation incentive program, which includes a bonus for immigrants who choose to self-deport. The amount was upped in January from $1,000 to $2,600. Some news outlets have reported problems with the program, including people not receiving the promised bonus once back in their home country.

The observers’ evolving mission

The fliers are the latest example of how quickly policies and procedures are changing, often without warning, adding to the dizzying nature of the proceedings.

Last summer, when the Trump administration began its crackdown in earnest, ICE officers would often sit inside, or just outside courtrooms, and take people into custody as soon as their case was dismissed. At the time, the court observers concentrated on getting personal information from the detainees so they could contact their families and help them locate their loved ones in ICE facilities.

These days, observers say they haven’t seen ICE agents in courtrooms since the fall. So the observers’ mission has shifted to trying to get legal representation for people facing deportation proceedings without a lawyer.

About half the people facing deportation proceedings in California do not have a lawyer, according to data compiled by TRAC at Syracuse University. Without a lawyer, respondents are more than three times more likely to face a deportation order than those who have one, according to the data. By law, there is no requirement to provide legal representation.

Now, when the volunteer court observers notice that a respondent is facing the judge alone, they follow them out of the courtroom and text or hand them a list of pro bono attorneys — often with an explanation aided by Google translate, or a few memorized lines in Spanish.

“I tell them to call everyone on the list,” said Erin Moncure, a court observer from Lake Forest, noting that immigration lawyers are overwhelmed with the onslaught of cases over the past year.

Moncure, who doesn’t speak Spanish, said she’s nevertheless talked to hundreds of strangers at immigration court to try and connect them with pro bono attorneys. Often she asks for their cell phone number so she can text them a list.

“There really is no reason for them to trust me,” she said. “That’s how desperate people are.”

Rapidly changing policies

The new flyer in immigration courtrooms urging people to self-deport is just one of many changes court observers have noted since they’ve been attending immigration hearings in Santa Ana over the past six months.

Now, rather than detaining people at courthouses, the Trump administration is focusing on other ways to speed up deportation. One of them is by increasingly sending asylum seekers already in the U.S. to third-party countries to seek asylum there instead. The first Trump administration signed deals in 2019 with Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras to re-route people seeking asylum in the U.S. to those countries.

The Biden administration ended these agreements, and Trump reinstated them again last year. He’s also made new agreements with other countries to take asylum seekers and deportees, including with Ecuador, Paraguay, Belize and Uganda. In DHS’s statement to LAist, a spokesperson wrote that the third country agreements “ensure due process under the U.S. Constitution” and “ are essential to the safety of our homeland and the American people.”

Government attorneys and immigration judges are facing increasing pressure to use this option to cut off asylum cases early in the process, said Blaine Bookey,  legal director at the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies at UC Law San Francisco. Many of the cases on Lee’s morning docket involved a request from the DHS lawyer to remove the person to a country other than the one they had left to come to the U.S.

What this actually means

In one case, a woman and her teenage daughter were seeking asylum after they said their lives were threatened in Guatemala stemming from their relatives’ involvement in local politics.

They hadn’t yet had a chance to plead their asylum case to remain in the U.S. when the judge began to ask them hard questions: if they feared returning to Guatemala, what about being sent instead to Honduras? The women seemed caught off guard.

Ultimately, the judge determined that the two didn’t have a legally valid fear of being sent to Honduras, and ordered them deported there to seek asylum.

The DHS spokesperson told LAist that ending cases before they have a hearing, called pretermission, “is nothing new or unusual” and that the mechanism prevents prolonged custody for immigrants who have been detained while they await the outcome of their legal case.

"We are applying the law as written,” the spokesperson wrote. “If a judge finds an illegal alien has no right to be in this country, we are going to remove them. Period. All aliens in ICE custody receive due process and have any claims heard before a judge.”

Outside the courtroom, the two women from Guatemala fought to contain tears as they digested the news.

“What kind of life can we expect in Honduras? It’s pretty much the same as Guatemala,” the mom said in Spanish.

Bookey, from the Center for Gender and Refugee Studies, said the women's concern was a legitimate one, especially with regards to third-country asylum deals with Central American countries.

“Given the sort of porous borders in that area … you're basically returning someone to their home country directly because their persecutor can easily track them down or find them there,” she said.

Now, the only recourse for the two women from Guatemala is to appeal their case, normally a costly and lengthy process. But even that right might be curbed in the future: the Department of Justice plans to implement a rule next month that will shorten the amount of time respondents have to file an appeal, and raise the bar for granting them.

A judge’s perspective

In the highly politicized climate over immigration, judges are in a tough spot. Immigration courts are under the executive, not the judicial branch of government. Immigration judges have the legal authority to make independent decisions, but some say that independence is being challenged by the current administration.

Judge Jeremiah Johnson was one of around 100 immigration judges abruptly fired last year. He told LAist judges are under intense pressure from the Trump administration to fall in line with its policies.

“Judges are terrified of losing their job,” said Johnson, who still serves as the executive vice president of the National Association of Immigration Judges, a voluntary labor organization.

The loss of judges, and the administration’s shifting priorities, has meant a constant shuffling of case dockets among remaining judges, causing delays and backlogs, and also, increasing pressure to end cases quickly, Johnson said. Currently, there are more than 3 million immigration cases pending across the country, according to TRAC, around six times more than courts were facing a decade ago.

Johnson said the pressure to close cases, including by sending asylum seekers to other countries, threatens people’s right to due process.

“Due process to me is a full and fair hearing,” he said. “These are life or death claims, and so you really need to make sure you get this right.”

Recently, the administration began recruiting for “deportation judges,” including a signing bonus, to replace the immigration judges who were fired or resigned. Johnson called the change in job title “insulting” and a mischaracterization of the role.

“It's not an enforcement position, it's to adjudicate the laws fairly,” Johnson said. “I took the job to uphold the law. That oath was very solemn to me and all the judges on that bench,” he said.

What the observers are trying to accomplish

Court observers have seen some positive changes at Santa Ana Immigration Court since they started observing last summer. On the day LAist visited Lee’s courtroom, many of the respondents had lawyers — a big change, observers said, from just a few months ago.

CLUE also started a fund to pay bonds for non-criminal immigration detainees, and they’ve been able to release more than a 100 people from detention while they wait for their day in court.

Jennifer Caria, Diedre Gaffney, and Nate Hadinata, immigration court observers with Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, CLUE.

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Nate Hadinata, from Saddleback Church, sees his role as a “ministry of presence,” and not just for immigrants at risk of deportation.

“ I'm actually here for everybody in the courtroom,” Hadinata said, “because I start to see that the judges are frustrated with the remote lawyers on WebEx, where the internet connection for some reason is shoddy, … the DHS attorneys, I could see they’ve got cough drops on the table, so they're working through illness,” he said.

Earlier this month, a DHS lawyer in Minnesota, exhausted by the avalanche of work, made headlines after telling a judge, “This job sucks.”

Hadinata said attending court proceedings has also allowed him to share his first-hand observations about the current immigration crackdown with his fellow parishioners.  

“When you think that people are criminals in here and you actually get firsthand accounts, you actually start to realize, ‘Oh, I just see families,'" he said. “And aren't we all about strong family?”

Biweekly vigil for the 'disappeared'

Besides the court watching and the bond fund, CLUE holds a bi-weekly prayer vigil in front of Santa Ana Immigration Court. Last Thursday, Nathan Hill, pastor at Church of the Foothills in North Tustin, stood in front of the courthouse next to a sign that read, “We are people of faith praying for the disappeared.”

Hill, wearing a cream-colored stole with brightly embroidered crosses, led a group of nearly 30 people in prayer and song. Some of the attendees wore pink bandanas, an homage, they said, to the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, women who demonstrated during Argentina’s so-called “Dirty War” to pressure the military dictatorship for information about their disappeared children.

Hill began the vigil:

María Elena Perales,  with the Sisters of St. Joseph of Orange, said she helped start the prayer vigils in June as a way to show public support for local families targeted in the immigration raids.

“Many of them do not go grocery shopping, many of them do not send their kids to school. Kids are being traumatized as we speak,” she said of the raids’ effect on immigrant families. “A lot of people do not understand, maybe, what our families are suffering. This is an opportunity to engage people and say, ‘come and join us in prayer, and hear about the stories.’”

As the prayer vigil wound down, people began to trickle through the doors of immigration court. The afternoon session would soon begin, and with it, dozens more lives in the balance.

The Los Angeles County fires last year drove up insurance costs for many Californians. Now, a proposed settlement means some State Farm policyholders whose premiums rose won’t see additional increases, and others should even get refunds.

State Farm, the largest insurer in the state with about 20% market share, received approval for unprecedented emergency insurance rate increases in California last May. The company told the state that the billions of dollars it expected to pay out after the deadly fires placed it in financial peril.

The proposed deal among the state Insurance Department, consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and State Farm, disclosed late last week, comes after months of public hearings convened by the insurance department and settlement talks.

Consumer Watchdog, which questioned the rate increases State Farm asked for, says the settlement saves the company’s California policyholders a total of $530 million. From the proposed settlement:

• Homeowners’ rate hikes will stay at the previously approved interim rate of 17% instead of the 30% the company sought.
• Condo owners who saw interim rate hikes of 15% will see their rates drop to an increase of 5.8%, and get refunds with interest dating back to June 1, 2025.
• Rental unit owners with interim rate hikes of 38% will see those increases drop to 32.8%, and receive refunds with interest. 
• Renter policyholders will see an increase of 15.65% vs. the interim rate hike of 15%.

In addition, State Farm has agreed not to cancel any new policies this year, and it won’t be canceling some policies it had planned not to renew in wildfire-affected areas. The insurance department characterized those provisions as important to the continued stability of the state’s insurance market, which has been beset with availability and affordability issues.

“When consumer advocates are able to challenge the data and present their own analysis, excessive requests are reduced and consumers are protected,” said Harvey Rosenfield in a statement. Rosenfield founded Consumer Watchdog and wrote Proposition 103, the voter-approved law that governs insurance in California.

State Farm has paid out more than $5 billion in claims from the L.A.-area fires so far, said spokesperson Tom Hartmann.

After consumer complaints and lawsuits, the insurance department is investigating the company’s handling of claims from the fires and expects results from that examination later this spring.

The agreement, which must be approved by an administrative law judge, also requires State Farm to undergo additional review of its rates in 2027. The company will be required to make a one time 2.5% premium discount available to renewing policyholders if its ratio of premiums to available cash reaches a certain level; Consumer Watchdog litigation director Will Pletcher said the deal will give the group more timely access to the company’s annual financial statements to help keep it accountable.

The insurance department expects the judge to decide on the settlement by April 7. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara will then review the judge’s decision and have the final say.

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

Iran's state media issued what it said was a statement by Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, vowing to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and keep up attacks on U.S. bases in the region, as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran entered its 13th day.

It was purported to be the new leader's first statement since he succeeded his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war.

The statement said Iran will avenge the blood of its "martyrs," including the victims of a March 1 attack on a girls school in the city of Minab, which Iranian officials say killed at least 165 people, many of them children. NPR has confirmed the U.S. military is investigating how it could have targeted the school.

The Iranian statement said the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for a fifth of the world's oil supply, should remain closed. It said Iran continues to believe in friendship with its neighbors but will continue targeting U.S. bases in the region.

"The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must undoubtedly continue to be used.," the statement said, according to an English version published by Tasnim News Agency, run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It's unclear if the statement was from Mojtaba Khamenei himself. Another person was heard reading out the remarks on Iranian state media, with a photo of Khamenei posted on the TV screen, as it was broadcast around the world.

There's been speculation about the leader's current condition and whereabouts. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that Khamenei was lightly injured early in the war.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

Here are other major updates about the conflict.

To jump to specific areas of coverage, use the links below:

Attacks on vessels | Oil stockpiles | Strikes across the Gulf | Israel-Hezbollah escalation | Iranian school attack

Two oil tankers hit in Iraqi waters

Two oil tankers were hit in Iraqi territorial waters near the southern port area of Basra, Iraqi officials said Thursday. It is the first oil-related strike reported in Iraq's waters during more than a week of war, in another sign of the conflict's escalation.

Iran, a critical ally of Iraq, took responsibility for attacking one of the tankers, which it said was owned by the U.S.

A port official said the attack targeted vessels near Basra's port approaches, and Iraq's security spokesman described it as sabotage.

Iraqi officials said one person was killed, and 38 crew members were rescued, with search operations continuing.

Iran has stepped up attacks on energy infrastructure and commercial shipping in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes, warning that the world should brace for oil prices to double.

— Jane Arraf

U.S. and allies to release record oil stockpiles  

The U.S. confirmed it will release 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a coordinated International Energy Agency (IEA) release of 400 million barrels from emergency stockpiles.

The U.S. contribution amounts to roughly 40% of the total, to be released gradually over about four months.

The IEA's executive director, Fatih Birol, said the goal is to keep the supply of oil flowing as the conflict disrupts shipping routes and energy infrastructure. But analysts warn stockpile releases can only partially offset prolonged disruption in the Gulf, where roughly a fifth of global oil consumption normally transits the Strait of Hormuz.

On Wednesday, President Trump said the price spike is temporary and said the reserve release would push prices down.

According to the popular app Gas Buddy, the current average cost of regular unleaded is now up to $3.61 a gallon.

- Camila Domonoske

Iran continues attacks on Gulf States

Countries in the Gulf reported new incoming threats and interceptions Thursday, as Iran continued firing drones and missiles across the region – including at U.S. military bases.

The UAE's defense ministry said air defenses were responding to Iranian missile and drone attacks, and that sounds heard in parts of the country were from intercepts.

Kuwait's defense ministry said its air defenses intercepted ballistic missiles and drones that penetrated the northern and southern parts of the country's airspace.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted and destroyed drones headed toward the Shaybah oil field.

The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Wednesday condemning Iran for recent attacks across the Persian Gulf region, calling them a "breach of international law" and "a serious threat to international peace and security."

- Rebecca Rosman

Israel launches large strikes on Hezbollah sites in Beirut after rocket fire into Israel

People inspect homes damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel central Israel, on Thursday.

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The militant group Hezbollah launched its biggest rocket attack against Israel since the start of the war with Iran. The Israeli military said the Iranian-backed group fired heavy volleys toward northern Israel overnight into Thursday, triggering interceptions and sending residents repeatedly into shelters.

The Israeli military responded by launching more attacks against what it said were Hezbollah launch sites and command infrastructure.

Huge booms were heard across the capital and large black smoke billowed from the Dahieh neighborhood in south Beirut, while an attack in central Beirut – where thousands of people are displaced – killed 8 people and injured 31, according to Lebanese officials.

Wide evacuation orders for south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs have displaced at least 800,000 people so far, according to the Lebanese government.

Lebanon, which does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, has unusually called for direct talks with Israel to end the escalating fighting with Hezbollah. Israel has not officially responded.

Israeli strikes on Iran have continued, with Iran firing missiles at Israel intermittently, including overnight.

Israeli military officials say about half of the missiles Iran has launched at Israel have carried cluster warheads, which spread out into smaller bombs over a wider area – increasing the risk to civilians.

- Daniel Estrin, Hadeel Al-Shalchi and Rebecca Rosman

Pentagon: Preliminary assessment suggests U.S. likely responsible for strike on Iranian school

The Pentagon has opened a formal investigation into the missile strike on an Iranian girls school that killed at least 165 civilians, many of them children, after a preliminary assessment suggested the U.S. was at fault, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The investigation is expected to take months and will include interviews with all those involved, from planners and commanders to those who carried out the strike.

If a U.S. role in the attack is confirmed, it would rank among the military's most deadly incidents involving civilians in decades. Congress created a special Pentagon office to prevent the accidental targeting of civilians but it was dramatically scaled back by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth soon after he took office last year.

"This investigation is ongoing. As we have said, unlike the terrorist Iranian regime, the United States does not target civilians," said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

NPR previously reported — based on commercial satellite imagery and independent expert analysis — that the strike was more extensive than initially reported and appeared consistent with a precision strike on a nearby military complex, raising questions about whether outdated targeting information contributed to the tragedy.

- Tom Bowman, Kat Lonsdorf, Geoff Brumfiel

Rebecca Rosman contributed to this report from Paris, Jane Arraf from Erbil, Iraq, Hadeel Al-Shalchi from Beirut, Daniel Estrin from Tel Aviv and Camila Domonoske, Tom Bowman, Kat Lonsdorf and Geoff Brumfiel from Washington.
Copyright 2026 NPR

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

If you’re a soccer fan — or just a fan of South Korean phenom Son Heung-min — you may have heard that the Los Angeles Football Club planned to put up a larger-than-life mural of the footballer in Koreatown last month. But the mural has yet to appear. 

LAFC planned to reveal the mural during the launch of their 2026/2027 jersey at The LINE Hotel. Now the reveal has been pushed back to sometime in June. 

The delay stems from issues with the city’s mural approval process, at least according to city officials. 

Gabriel Cifarelli, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, said they received a mural registration application for the site. But the department said it could not issue a notice to proceed because the application was “ineligible and incomplete” under the city’s mural ordinance and administrative rules.

“DCA staff offered the applicant advice and further guidance, and remains available for questions,” Cifarelli said. 

If a mural includes a team logo it is considered an advertisement and not original artwork, according to the city department. In that case, the permit must be issued through the city’s Building and Safety Department.

A new application has not been submitted through the mural program, Cifarelli said, and it was not immediately clear whether LAFC applied for a permit through the Building and Safety Department. 

LAFC spokesperson Danny Sanchez didn’t confirm if a new permit has been submitted.

“The mural unveil was rescheduled to June to better align with World Cup festivities,” Sanchez said. 

Dave Young Kim was commissioned to paint the mural and previously painted a Son mural on the side of the Crosby building in Koreatown in October, but that was only up for a few weeks.

He still plans to paint the mural on The LINE Hotel in June.

“I’m assuming at this point, LAFC is likely trying to line it up for a more opportune time,” said Kim. “The mural was originally supposed to line up with the launch of the new jersey so something similar.”

Leo Hernandez, 35, said he hopes the mural goes up before the World Cup.

“I didn’t know it was pushed back all the way to June,” he said. “I’ll be in Mexico for the World Cup.”

Hernandez, who goes by “El Soccer Guy” on Instagram and has nearly 50,000 followers, has been attending LAFC games since 2018. He said Son’s arrival to L.A. has brought a new wave of fans to the club.

“I’ve never seen so many Koreans,” he said. “He’s bringing a whole new community to LAFC. I don’t know if they love soccer or they love Son or both, but it’s amazing to see.”

“Son is starting to be my favorite on the team,” he added. “He’s so good. He wants the team to shine. And I love his positivity and energy.” 

The Marvel Cinematic Universe is all about people with superpowers living in a world very much like our own.

And there’s a lot of real Los Angeles mixed into the recent MCU series “Wonder Man,” now on Disney+, which makes for a version of the MCU that feels a little more grounded in reality, especially for Angelenos.

It's an action-comedy about two struggling actors also dealing with superhuman forces and secret government agencies. Think The Studio meets Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

Sir Ben Kingsley reprises his Iron Man 3 character Trevor Slattery, the messy British actor hired to play a bad guy called The Mandarin. And Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man.

Through their adventures trying to book the gig-of-a-lifetime while surviving the perils of the MCU, L.A. landmarks and cultural references abound, and ground the series in a relatability for many Angelenos, including lots of inside jokes for those working in the entertainment industry.

3 cultural references that make Wonder Man feel like real Los Angeles

Historic places, some we’ve had to part with

There’s a series of roughly 100-year-old small, independent movie houses used as locations in Wonder Man — the Eagle Theatre now home to Vidiots, Westwood's Village Theater now operated by American Cinematheque (with views of The Bruin Theater across the street), and the Highland Theatre which closed in 2024.

A scene from 'Wonder Man' on Disney +.

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Speaking of iconic L.A. spots breaking local hearts, the vintage bar within Echo Park’s Taix French Restaurant was used as an interior location for the series. Taix is closing at the end of the month to make way for new development.

“Taix, the Highland Park Theatre — these places that it was only three years ago were there,” Wonder Man showrunner Andrew Guest told LAist, “a lot of these establishments sadly, are not surviving. And this town is in a rough, rough place.”

(Though actor/director Kristen Stewart recently said in an interview with Architectural Digest that she bought The Highland Theatre and is restoring the building.)

L.A. traffic (especially around the Hollywood Bowl on a performance night)

Traffic is part of life in Los Angeles and with so many scenes shot in Hollywood, even the main characters of Wonder Man must experience that bumper-to-bumper frustration.

Though, because it is a TV show, they were able to indulge in the fantasy of beating that traffic in a way that in reality would be highly dangerous (and illegal).

“We got to shut down Sunset Boulevard for a little while to shoot a car going onto the sidewalk in front of the Palladium,” said Guest. And surprisingly, he explained, they didn’t have to shoot in the middle of the night to make the shot happen: “That was Friday night…. We didn't close all lanes of traffic. The street was open. We were shooting while Los Angeles was still going strong.”

The scene also references the frequent traffic back up during big shows at the Hollywood Bowl, even earning the show a social media repost of the scene from Chaka Khan.

Having family and friends 45 minutes away, who you rarely visit

Wonder Man includes an episode titled Pacoima where the main character visits his family and childhood home.

“My wife grew up in Chatsworth, and one of the things I found fascinating about her experience growing up there was that many of her friends and their families never went to Los Angeles,” said Guest.

“The idea that Simon grew up close to, but far enough away that Hollywood and Los Angeles did not feel like they were part of his life…so when he moved to the city, Pacoima is not a place he goes to a lot. And I feel like that's a part of L.A. that is true to this city. That doesn't get explored a lot and felt like it was another detail that we got to sort of throw into the show.”

There’s lots of other Southern California. references to enjoy from the Talmadge Apartments, an historic renaissance revival building on Wilshire Blvd., a mural of Danny Trejo, and even a cameo from Gisellle Fernandes, real-life L.A. broadcaster for Spectrum 1 News.

Should you get lost in the multi-verse, at least this L.A will be pretty familiar.

BONUS: Could there be a Season 2 of Wonder Man? And would it still be set in L.A.?

Guest couldn’t confirm anything about a possible Season 2, but told LAist, “It’s still on the table as an option, potentially."

As for whether a potential Season 2 would also film in Los Angeles and continue to highlight the city in new ways, Guest said it’s occurred to him that one of the best ways to write about Hollywood could be “ to send our show somewhere else because everybody in this town who's working has to move — whether it be Budapest or London or Ireland or Vancouver — very little is actually happening in this town. And that’s a story that I don’t think is being told right now about L.A.”

Season 1 of ‘Wonder Man’ is now streaming on Disney+.

Watch Julia Paskin's interview with actor/comedian X Mayo, who plays Simon Williams' agent in 'Wonder Man':