The Brief

With subsidies for the Affordable Care Act set to expire for millions of Americans at the end of the month, the Senate plans to vote on two health care related bills Thursday, but both are expected to fail.

In a trade-off to reopen the government following the longest shutdown in U.S. history, Senate Republicans promised Democrats a vote on a bill of their choosing to extend the subsidies. Democrats are seeking a three-year extension of the subsidies, warning that without one health care premiums are predicted to skyrocket at the start of the 2026.

While both parties agree on the need to address healthcare costs, the Democratic proposal doesn't have enough GOP support to pass. Republicans have argued that extending the subsidies would allow what they describe as Obamacare "waste, fraud and abuse" to continue, while lining the pockets of insurance companies.

"There is nothing in their [Democrats] bill that stops billions of dollars in fraudulent spending," Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., said on the Senate floor Wednesday.

Republicans are countering with a plan by Cassidy and Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, that would provide up to $1,500 a year in payments for health savings accounts for Americans earning less than 700 percent of the federal poverty level.

However the bill does not extend the ACA tax credits and the money could not be used to pay for health care premiums. Deductibles for those plans average around $7,000, according to data from the health policy organization KFF.

"It delivers the benefit directly to the patient, not to the insurance company, and it does it in a way that actually saves money to the taxpayer," said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D.

Democrats rejected the GOP proposal on Wednesday and called it dead on arrival. They criticized the plan for limiting coverage to plans on the ACA marketplace that provide less coverage. Funds could also not be put towards abortion services or gender reassignment.

"The Crapo-Cassidy bill would not extend the ACA tax credits for a single day. That's what's driving the price up, and they're doing nothing about it," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said during a press conference Tuesday.

Democrats also pushed back on the GOP timeline, as Republicans have spent weeks debating an alternative health care bill and only unveiled their proposal on Tuesday.

Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., criticized the GOP for waiting to unveil a health care plan. Speaking from the Senate floor on Wednesday, Reed said time was of the essence as 24 million Americans face losing their subsidies at year's end. He argued that instead of waiting until the eleventh hour to unveil a health care plan, the GOP can approve an extension now and deal with changes to the substitutes later.

"There is no time to implement it," Reed said of the Republican plan. "The solution is simple: extend the Affordable Healthcare tax credits."

While Schumer said all Senate Democrats are unified behind their vote to prolong the ACA subsidies, Thune was unsure if every Republican would back the measure from Cassidy and Crapo.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Rosalía's LUX is NPR Music's No. 1 album of 2025

At the moment this fall when NPR Music's staff began discussing our picks for the best albums of 2025, the mere existence of the record we'd eventually name our No. 1 — in a landslide, it must be said — was not known to anyone on our team. But as soon as we heard Rosalía's magnificent, head-spinning LUX in early November, one spot on our list was instantly confirmed.

For most of the year, consensus felt hard to come by. We all found plenty of music to love, but we weren't always drawn toward the same signals. LUX was different. Of the dozen critics and hosts who submitted lists (you can, and should, check out each of their lists, starting with their highest recommendations here), more than half included it in their top 10. Four of us said it was the best thing we heard all year. Below, each of them makes the argument for why it deserves that crown.

LUX is high art

It's hard to describe Rosalía's artiest and most audacious left turn without rattling off statistics and credentials. "She sings in more than a dozen languages!" "She's working with the London Symphony Orchestra, and also Björk, and did you know that Caroline Shaw helped with arrangements?!" A work rich in footnotes, LUX spills over with lore about female saints, enhanced by efforts to translate, unpack and otherwise reckon with it.

LUX is a work of high art, sure. But it's also frequently, boldly, at times breathtakingly beautiful — a work of craft and care, empathy and deep emotion. "Reliquia" mutates from an orchestral piece into an electro-pop reverie, with a tear-jerking piano interlude along the way, and its vocal remains pristine enough to induce gasps. That's just one song among 18. — Stephen Thompson

LUX transcends genre

Taking the full measure of what Rosalía pulls off on LUX is like trying to solve a single-line logic puzzle: Connect opera to maximalist pop to flamenco to electronica to Baroque orchestral music to rap (and much more) without lifting your pen or crossing any lines. It feels impossible. But Rosalía shows how with a profoundly stirring, unified feast for the ears. It's less reggaeton or bachata and more like reggaeton and bachata and Sigur Rós performing Les Misérables, with Feist and Maria Callas trading lead vocals.

But LUX isn't just sonic gymnastics. Deeply considered and exhaustively researched, it's a monument to both the incomprehensible mess and breathtaking wonder of being human, shifting seamlessly between fragile beauty and childlike magic to raw, lustful desire. It's as graphic and startling as it is rapturous and divine. And yeah, it's performed in 13 different languages, as Rosalía delivers a vast exegesis on everything from religion and sex to mortality and violence.

Arriving near the end of a brutally divisive year of attacks on identity and "otherness," LUX feels — and sounds — like the best possible reply, a necessary and potent reminder of the humanity that binds us and the miracle of being here at all. — Robin Hilton

LUX belongs in a lineage with one of the most beloved jazz albums of all time

After listening to LUX for the first time, I spent days trying to understand why it felt both new and familiar. Then it hit me: The more I listened and read Rosalía's deeply personal lyrics, the more it reminded me of jazz saxophonist John Coltrane's seminal spiritual statement, A Love Supreme.

Hear me out.

Rosalía prepared herself for this moment by dividing her album into four parts, exploring feminine mysticism, transformation, transcendence and intimacy, subjects that curiously echo A Love Supreme's album track listings of "Acknowledgement," "Resolution," "Pursuance" and "Psalm."

By the time Coltrane recorded A Love Supreme in 1964, he had already experienced what he called a spiritual awakening that helped him kick addictions to alcohol and heroin, while exploring the sonic and musical limits of his saxophone. A Love Supreme is his moment of coming face to face with God. On LUX, after almost an hour's worth of intense and very musical meditations on things like feminine mysticism, light versus dark as well as spirituality and sacredness, Rosalía also comes face to face with God. But she asks God to meet her halfway: "God descends and I ascend / We meet in the middle."

Both of these albums are artfully crafted statements by artists with uncommon powers of musical communication who share with us spiritual journeys so personal that at times they feel like invasions of privacy. LUX meets the musical legacy of A Love Supreme in the middle and picks up where that classic left off. — Felix Contreras

LUX is still, at its heart, a spectacular flamenco record

Flamenco feels like the sonic representation of the moment when Eve took a bite of the apple. Cast in an ancient fire so alive it's impossible to put out or pin down, its deceptiveness is its defiance. As experimental, big and seemingly novel as Rosalía's LUX is, it sounds like one thing: her spirit. Which — as she's chameleoned across the world — stays firmly rooted in flamenco's eternal flame.

She approached this record as she does all others: global eyes, an open heart and a Spanish soul. Flamenco is pastoral music, once used for basic communication and connection. Those original sounds — sweet lyrical lullabies and softly stroked strings — gave into temptation and fell in love with pain, fear, sadness, giving way to guttural cries and desperate strums.

On LUX, there's something beyond technical ingenuity or global experience to the way the music — and its maker — morphs from track to track. What ties an entire world of sounds and languages together is an artist who enters a sonic moment and complicates it, tears it down, ruining beautiful things with a deep human-ness. Flamenco is etched in concrete yet almost always vibrating, changing; striking palms cutting up some of the most shape-shifting, dynamic vocals on Earth. Ten notes within one, a hundred emotions in two breaths. Despite apparent sonic distance, LUX may be Rosalía's most flamenco album yet. — Anamaria Sayre

Read about more of NPR Music's favorite albums of 2025 and our list of the 125 best songs of 2025.

Graphic illustration by David Mascha for NPR.
Copyright 2025 NPR

A Van Nuys high school senior in federal immigration detention since August has been released to his family.

Men claiming to be immigration agents arrested Benjamin Marcelo Guerrero-Cruz while he walked the family dog in Van Nuys on Aug. 8. The 18-year-old was held in San Bernardino County’s Adelanto Detention Facility and at one point transferred to a facility in Arizona without his family’s knowledge.

U.S. Rep. Luz Rivas announced the update about Guerrero-Cruz on the House floor Thursday morning.

“My heart goes out to his family, especially his mother, who can hold her son again after months of fear and uncertainty at the hands of ICE,” Rivas said. “I’m glad that Benjamin is home, and I hope he and his family can begin the healing process.”

It was not immediately clear if there were further conditions of his release.

A senior Department of Homeland Security official previously told LAist in a statement that the Chilean teen overstayed a tourist visa and was required to leave the U.S. in 2023.

Between June and October, federal authorities have arrested more than 7,100 undocumented immigrants in the Los Angeles area, the Department of Homeland Security told the L.A. Times. LAist has requested updated numbers.

A recent survey of high school principals across the country found that since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term, there has been widespread concern among students from immigrant families, which has contributed to school absences, bullying and harassment.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

The busyness of the holiday season is upon us, but I like to take advantage of all the driving around to detour and see the light displays while cranking up the Christmas songs and singing along. It makes the traffic a little more festive and bearable, even if it also means getting jealous that Santa doesn’t have to contend with the light at Wilshire and Santa Monica.

For the music scene, it’s a big weekend. The annual KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas is on at the Forum on Saturday with Social Distortion, Wet Leg and many more; Friday, you’ll need to clone yourself to get to Bone Thugs-N-Harmony in Anaheim, Erasure’s Andy Bell at the Fonda, Mountain Goats at the Teragram Ballroom and The Strut’s Luke Spiller at the Sun Rose. Licorice Pizza’s Lyndsey Parker has more on the weekend lineup here.

Elsewhere on LAist.com, prep for World Cup watching with our pub guide, meet the man who rode Disneyland’s Radiator Springs rollercoaster 15,000 times and grab tickets to Saturday’s Go Fact Yourself with Paul Feig and Anjali Bhimani.

Events

Jacob Jonas Dance Company: EYE

December 12-13, 8 p.m.
Charlie Chaplin Stage at the Jim Henson Company Lot 
1416 N. La Brea Ave., Hollywood
COST: $57.75; MORE INFO

(

Courtesy Jacob Jonas Dance Company

)

Jacob Jonas Dance Company has worked with some of the biggest musical artists out there, from Sia to Rosalía to Elton John. The company brings its EYE performance to the Jim Henson lot, featuring Sara Mearns, Principal Dancer with the New York City Ballet.

Pixmas Creative Night Market

Friday, December 12, 8 p.m. to 1 a.m. 
Unfriendly Studios
10419 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood
COST: $6; MORE INFO

Find the perfect gift from local vendors, including jewelry, crafts, candles and more, all while enjoying a flowing bar, five live performances and a late-night vibe in NoHo. Proceeds will go to a local nonprofit.

Blue Roof Art Walkthrough and Potluck 

Sunday, December 14, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
7329 S. Broadway Ave., South L.A.
COST: FREE WITH RSVP; MORE INFO

Check out Blue Roof Art’s latest exhibition — Homecoming — while meeting friends and neighbors in South L.A. for a potluck at the unique art venue, which supports women artists by providing studio space and financial resources. Bring a dish or drink to share and wander through the show, which features work from Blue Roof alumni.

South Bay New Orleans Jazz Club

Sunday, December 14, 1 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. 
Alvas Showroom
1417 W. 8th Street, San Pedro
COST: $15; MORE INFO 

(

Courtesy Alvas Showroom

)

Couldn’t score a ticket to Jon Batiste at the Grammy Museum? Look no further than the South Bay New Orleans Jazz Club for your fix of bayou music this weekend. The Night Blooming Jazzmen will provide the tunes; just bring your dancing shoes for an afternoon of boogie.

Percy Jackson Quest

December 13-14, 10:30 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Getty Villa 
17985 Pacific Coast Hwy., Pacific Palisades
COST: FREE, FEE FOR PARKING; MORE INFO

(

David Boukach

/

Disney

)

Where better to explore the legends of Greek gods than at the Getty Villa? Bring the Percy Jackson obsessive in your house to the Getty Villa for a scavenger hunt through time in celebration of the new season of Percy Jackson and the Olympians on Disney+. Successful questors will learn a lot — and receive a prize!

Scrooge!

Through Sunday, December 21 
Chance Theater at the Bette Aitken Theater Arts Center
5522 E. La Palma Ave., Anaheim
COST: FROM $54; MORE INFO

(

Courtesy Chance Theater

)

Scrooge!, the Albert Finney movie version of the Dickens classic, gets the stage musical treatment at the Chance Theater in Anaheim ahead of Christmas. Fun for the whole family, the movie won its composer an Oscar back in 1992, and the charm hasn’t gone away. Ready your mince pies and travel back to Victorian London from right here in Anaheim.

Camino City Terrace

December 13-14, 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. 
City Terrace Drive, East Los Angeles
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

(

Courtesy L.A. County Supervisor Hilda L. Solis

)

Ramble through car-free streets in East L.A. all weekend long thanks to Metro. Nearly two miles of city streets in the City Terrace neighborhood will be pedestrianized (and the weather forecast looks great for it). Plus, there will be music, crafts, local vendors and dancing in the street — literally!

Dungeons & Dragons: The Twenty-Sided Tavern

Through Sunday, January 4
Montalban Theatre
1615 Vine Street, Hollywood
COST: FROM $37; MORE INFO

(

Daniel Boud

/

Courtesy Broadway in Hollywood

)

I really want to make some pithy jokes that all the D&D players will get and then send me emails thanking me for my deep nerddom, but alas, this is not my area of expertise. Know that I support you and want nothing more than for you to go and enjoy this live stage version of the popular role-playing game, on through early January at the Montalban.

Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair 

Friday, December 12, 11:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.
Vista Theatre
4473 Sunset Blvd., Los Feliz
COST: $18.50; MORE INFO

(

Miramax Films

)

All of Kill Bill (Volumes I and II) in 70mm. At Quentin Tarantino’s Vista Theatre. Need I say more? Oh, wait, I do. There’s a new, unreleased anime sequence and a classic movie intermission. Happy holidays, indeed.

Genghis Cohen Hanukkah Ice Cream

Starting Friday, December 12 
Genghis Cohen 
448 N. Fairfax Ave., Hollywood 
COST: FROM $8; MORE INFO

Genghis Cohen and Arcadia-based 626 Hospitality are launching a Hanukkah ice cream collab, aptly named Rum DMC (Delicious Morsels of Challah), a rum raisin challah bread pudding ice cream featuring challah from L.A.’s Challadad. Rum DMC is available by the scoop ($8) while dining at the restaurant, or by the pint ($15) with pick-up orders.

Chocolate & The Chip Gather & Bake event

Saturday, December 13, 3 p.m. to 5 p.m.
The Blending Lab
5151 West Adams Blvd., West Adams
COST: $12.75; MORE INFO

(

Courtesy Chocolate & the Chip

)

Gather 'round for make-and-bake cookies with Chocolate & The Chip at The Blending Lab in West Adams. Your ticket includes cookie mix and all the additional ingredients; just bring a medium to large mixing bowl and your favorite mixing tool, such as a fork or hand mixer.

While Netflix’s plan to buy Warner Bros.-Discovery has everyone from theater owners to filmmakers and Hollywood unions concerned about what it could mean for the future of the box office, the current state of moviegoing options in Los Angeles is strong — with independent theaters in L.A. having a bit of a moment.

The people who help bring audiences out to those theaters by curating a wide-ranging mix of films that go beyond the standard new big studio offerings are film programmers — the cinephiles whose job it is to introduce you to new (or new to you) films and offer you opportunities to see old favorites in a theater setting too.

LAist checked back in with programmers from Old Town Music Hall, Vidiots and the Academy Museum to get their picks for movies to see on the big screen this month and a few into the New Year.

Old Town Music Hall: Holiday classics and singalongs

Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo dates back to 1921.

(

Courtesy Old Town Music Hall

)

Classic films are what Old Town Music Hall in El Segundo is known for, and this winter, it has a full slate of holiday film screenings scheduled. James Moll, president of the nonprofit, volunteer-run theater, shared a preview.

“We always love introducing new audiences to some of the great holiday classics,” Moll says, including White Christmas (Saturday), starring Bing Crosby, Christmas in Connecticut (Dec. 20), starring Barbara Stanwyck, and a newer holiday favorite starring Peter Billingsly, 1983’s A Christmas Story (Sunday).

Moll also notes that every screening at Old Town Music Hall begins with a live musical performance on the theater’s Mighty Wurlitzer pipe organ (complete with a singalong) and a vintage cartoon. And in December, the songs are of course holiday themed.

Some films that play at Old Town Music Hall also are preceded by short introductions from film experts or special guests.

In January, author and cultural historian Harlan Lebo will introduce 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain (Jan. 3). A screening of 1964’s Kissin’ Cousins (Jan. 4) starring Elvis Presley will include an appearance from Cynthia Pepper, who plays the role of Midge in the film, and an introduction from film archivist Stan Taffel.

Vidiots: Movies to debate whether they’re holiday movies

Vidiots in Eagle Rock.

(

Julie Leopo

/

LAist

)

At Vidiots’ historic Eagle Theatre in Eagle Rock, director of programming Amanda Salazar has curated a slate of films that are sure to please a wide variety of film tastes.

There are of course some traditional holiday classics on Vidiots’ December calendar but also a wide selection of holiday-adjacent counter-programming — movies like the 1996 action thriller The Long Kiss Goodnight (Dec. 19), starring Geena Davis and Samuel L. Jackson, the '80s cult-horror classic Silent Night, Deadly Night (Dec. 20), 1990’s Edward Scissorhands (Dec. 21) and 1989’s post-Christmas-set Ghostbusters II (Dec. 26).

Looking to avoid the holidays altogether? Vidiots has you covered there, too, with screenings of films like the 1953 film noir classic The Big Heat (Dec. 20), directed by Fritz Lang, John Woo’s 1990 Hong Kong action film Bullet in the Head (Dec. 22) and a new 4K restoration of the director’s cut of the 1985 sci-fi comedy Brazil (Dec. 26) in honor of the recent passing of playwright and screenwriter Tom Stoppard.

The Academy Museum theaters: Anything but another Christmas movie

The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures is screening at least one Christmas movie (Home Alone, with actor Macaulay Culkin and director Chris Columbus in person — though it is sold out!), but the majority of its winter offerings have nothing to do with the holidays.

And if one of your New Year’s resolutions is to see more movies, the Academy Museum has plenty of January and February screenings set already, so you can plan ahead.

The museum’s director of film programs, K.J. Relth-Miller, spotlighted the following series:

• 3D-cember! (Dec. 26-31) 

“This Winter marks the return of 3D-cember!, the museum’s fourth annual presentation of classic and contemporary 3D films. We’re nodding toward the original 3D boom of the 1950s with the cult classic Gog (1954), presenting family-friendly films like Coraline (2009) every afternoon and showcasing the dazzling arthouse sensation Long Day’s Journey Into Night (2018), which ends with an hour-long, single-take dream sequence.”

• Where the Forest Meets the Sea: Folklore from Around the World (Jan. 10-Feb. 12)

“From cinema’s early history in films like Häxan (Sweden, 1922), filmmakers have used the visual medium to reinterpret local folktales, stories first told around campfires on a winter’s night. We can’t wait to share this series, which takes us to the former Soviet Union (Viy, 1967), Guatemala (La Llorona, 2019), Japan (Onibaba, 1965), India (Bramayugam, 2024) and beyond for a sprawling investigation of this age-old tradition as interpreted for the screen.”

• To Infinity: Space Travel in the Movies (Starts Jan. 30)

“Outer space inspires us all, including some of history’s best and most brilliant filmmakers. This series kicks off with a conversation with George Takei and a screening of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986) and continues with astrobiologist Loretta Hidalgo Whitesides for The Right Stuff (1983), Jodie Foster and astrophysicist Nivedita Mahesh for Contact (1997) and many more fan-favorite space films.”

Bonus: Studio Ghibli double features

"My Neighbor Totoro" plays at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills on Dec. 21, along with "Grave of the Fireflies."

(

Courtesy Walt Disney Pictures / Studio Ghibli

)

If you missed Studio Ghibli Fest 2025, celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Japanese animation studio with re-releases of several Ghibli films, the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills is screening 22 Studio Ghibli movies with two weeks of double features, starting Dec. 19 and running through Jan. 1.