The Brief

Ari Yovel, a 30-year-old rabbinical student in Oakland, said the world felt bigger the day they received a passport with an “X,” because it offered legal proof of their transmasculine nonbinary identity.

This week, that world shrunk.

Among President Donald Trump’s raft of actions on his first day back in office was an executive order mandating that all federal documents recognize only two genders: male and female. In its wake, many nonbinary and transgender Californians are grappling with uncertainty about their ability to travel freely.

For Yovel, the change poses immediate practical challenges.

“Now, we’re back to hoping TSA officials will be understanding if our documents don’t align with their expectations,” Yovel said. “Understanding your risk profile becomes a constant calculation. Traveling across state lines for a friend’s wedding, let alone leaving the country, requires careful consideration of safety.”

The executive order requires federal agencies to eliminate references to gender identity on official forms and policies, mandating that federal documents reflect what it terms the “immutable biological reality of sex.” That poses more than an inconvenience for gender-nonconforming people, advocates say — it creates risks for those whose legal documents no longer align with their identities.

“This is a big deal,” said Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights. “To say that transgender people have to carry a passport that misidentifies them not only invades their privacy; it forces them to disclose that they are transgender to anyone that they are interacting with. That is a pretty draconian policy that could lead to harassment, and in some countries, death.”

Lambda Legal, a civil rights organization, plans to file litigation arguing that targeting transgender, intersex and nonbinary people violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The group also says that the language of the executive order constitutes a due process violation, citing its lack of specifics and vague directives.

“There will be litigation to test whether and where the federal government can impose discrimination contrary to California law,” said Jennifer C. Pizer, Lambda’s chief legal officer. “As well as contrary to the Constitution and existing federal statutes and the Supreme Court’s decision agreeing with us that discriminatory treatment based on transgender status or sexual orientation constitutes sex discrimination in violation of the federal employment nondiscrimination law.”

California led the way in providing gender-inclusive identification. Since 2019, the state has allowed residents to choose “X” as a gender marker on driver’s licenses and IDs. Jarys Maragopoulis, a San Francisco high school teacher who identifies as intersex and non-binary, changed their gender marker on their California driver’s license.

“I risked the scrutiny of a future intolerant government,” Maragopoulis said. “Now that hypothetical government is quite real, and I am afraid there may be legal consequences for trans and intersex people who have left a paper trail such as a changed ID. But I have to face those consequences without giving up on my integrity.”

Although state-issued IDs remain unaffected by Trump’s executive order, advocates worry about its broader implications.

“The intended impact on transgender people is to strip them of all legal protections in every arena, from government-issued identification documents to workplace protections, to education, housing, and health care,” Minter said. “The passport policy is instantaneous. The federal prison policy is instantaneous. These are areas where the president has the authority to merely change the policy.”

The State Department’s passport application system removed the “X” marker on Wednesday, but the agency has not issued formal guidance regarding how the nonbinary marker on existing passports or in-progress applications will be handled. The change leaves transgender people in a precarious position, as passports expire every five years, forcing many to make difficult decisions about future travel and safety.

“President Trump does not have the power to erase LGBTQ+ people or deny them the right to exist freely and safely,” said Tony Hoang, executive director of Equality California. “We stand unwavering, ready to fight alongside our partners against any unjust and harmful action this administration may take toward our community.”

The executive order also aims to reestablish multiple policies regarding trans Americans that were in place during Trump’s first term, including housing trans people in federal prisons based on their sex assigned at birth.

Minter said he is already hearing reports from transgender people inside prisons that doctors are denying them medically necessary care for gender dysphoria. Transgender women, in particular, are preparing for transfers to men’s prisons, where they face increased risks of violence and harassment.

“You cannot legislate trans people out of existence,” Yovel said. “You can only legislate them out of law. For many of us, this is quite literally our bodies on the line.”

West Hollywood will allow law enforcement to deploy drones as first responders under a new pilot program. As part of an update to the City Council on Monday night, officials say the program will launch by the end of July.

Under the program, the drones will be sent out ahead of law enforcement officers and will be used to gather information, including whether a suspect is on the move, changes clothes, and other details that could aid in an investigation.

West Hollywood, which does not have its own police department and contracts with the L.A County Sheriff’s Department for police services, is the first and only city so far to contract with the county to use drones as first responders.

The Los Angeles Police Department launched their own program in the city of L.A. in 2025.

The backstory and timeline  

• In February 2023, the West Hollywood City Council directed staff to explore a partnership with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department for the development of an “advanced public safety technology” pilot program.

• In August 2023, the council and the city’s Public Safety Commission held a joint meeting where they reviewed different public safety technology options, including the potential use of drones as first responders.

• In July 2024, the council greenlit drone use for policing as a part of a $750,000, one-year pilot program, among other safety items aimed at faster response times and real-time crime detection.

• In June 2025, the council received an update from city staff regarding the need to pause the pilot program due to conflicts with L.A. County’s drone policy. The primary point of contention was that the city’s approved plan required West Hollywood personnel to record all missions, which contradicted the sheriff department’s existing policy. Council directed city staff to comply with the department's current policy while awaiting policy revisions.

• In April 2026, the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department updated its drone policy to make exceptions for West Hollywood, including new recording procedures.

Now, West Hollywood is set to move ahead with its pilot program, which will launch at the end of July.

How the program will work

Under the latest approved policy, the drones will only respond to calls of service, where police presence is requested from a caller.

The drone will not record when flying to and from said location, but instead record from when it arrives to when it leaves, similar to body-worn cameras, according to Captain Fanny Lapkin of the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station.

The program will also have a public-facing dashboard where the public can see information including the number of calls for service and types of calls the drones responded to.

What the community says

Stephen Post, a resident and member of West Hollywood’s Public Safety Commission, spoke during public comment on Monday.

Post said he was concerned about the program’s use of data.

“In multiple cities, we have seen improper access and use of this data,” Post said. “In this moment of heightened ICE and DHS enforcement, we should not be a city leading the push for creating the digital infrastructure that an authoritarian leader could use to harm our communities.”

Steve Martin, member of the Eastside Neighborhood Watch, expressed support for the program during the meeting.

“As a person who does go out and exercises my first amendment rights freely, in some ways I would welcome having sheriff surveillance,” Martin said. “I think that we need to look at evaluating this as it goes and seeing how we can get the best possible benefit from it because I think we’re all just looking to make West Hollywood safer.”

How to keep tabs on the West Hollywood City Council

The West Hollywood City Council meets on scheduled Mondays. Meetings start at 6 p.m.
Here’s how you can follow along:

• Attend in person: The board meets at Council Chambers, 625 N. San Vicente Blvd., West Hollywood
• Watch the live broadcast
• Here’s how to submit a comment or contact the council

At a Tuesday L.A. City Council committee meeting on the coming Olympics, a city-appointed civil rights expert skewered LA28's plans for protecting human rights, and some questioned the city's preparedness for how the Games might displace hundreds or potentially thousands of unhoused people.

The private Olympics committee's human rights strategy was submitted to the L.A. City Council at the end of last year, but wasn't made public until months later. Its contents had largely been left alone until Tuesday, when local experts and LA28 representatives addressed the council about the plan.

Pointed criticism

Courtney Morgan-Greene, who sits on the city's Human Relations Commission, lambasted the human rights strategy, and questioned how homelessness would be handled.

"Angelenos know unhoused individuals will be moved," Morgan-Greene said. "Who is in charge of relocating these Angelenos and how will their well-being be safe-guarded and prioritized?"

LA28's strategy said it will coordinate with local officials and providers who will be supporting unhoused people impacted by the Olympics. It also pledges to notify authorities as early as possible if an unhoused person needs to be relocated due to the Games.

Julieta Valls Noyes, LA28's senior human rights advisor, told the council that she believed the mass displacement of unhoused people that has occurred at past Olympics would not be as much of an issue for Los Angeles, because organizers are relying on existing facilities rather than building new venues.

What we know about the plans

But previous guidance issued by L.A. County indicates that efforts to remove people who are homeless would focus on the security perimeters around Olympic venues. City Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky said Tuesday that clearing security perimeters could mean displacing hundreds or potentially thousands of people living on the streets.

" Telling us that they're there isn't the same thing as helping us figure out how to get them housed," she said. "If we want this done right, we're gonna have to figure out how we pay for it."

Yaroslavsky suggested that the city and LA28 would need to seek state or federal support to relocate unhoused people ahead of the Games and provide them with a place to stay.

Questions about who will take the lead

Gita O’Neill, interim CEO of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, told the council that Olympics organizers should establish an interagency task force to manage how homelessness would be handled ahead of and during the Games. Her agency has come under intense financial pressure and scrutiny, including the county's withdrawal of hundreds of millions of funding and punitive federal action. She indicated that security plans could lead to displacement in areas with prominent unhoused populations.

"Current security maps for the Games show overlaps with large swaths of high-need areas, such as Skid Row, MacArthur Park and South L.A," she said.

O'Neill also warned that if local authorities did not take control of addressing homelessness around Olympic venues, the federal government could intervene.

"If the city does not address the encampment issues, there is no doubt in our mind that the federal government will come in and address it for the city on its own procedures and protocols," she said. "L.A. should retain control over the process as much as possible."

2028 Games loom over other discussions

The specter of the federal government's role in the 2028 Games loomed over other council discussions, including the role of the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing security for the Games.

Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez asked for an update about the potential presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the Olympics, provoking a frustrated response from LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover, who is known for keeping his cool.

" I don't know what to tell you. You were yelling at me at the time, very disrespectful," Hoover said, referencing the last time Soto-Martinez asked him about ICE. " I fully expect that the federal government is going to be supportive of these games and will deliver the games and respect human rights in the process."

As the two continued to spar, Hoover said he'd seen the Olympics be pulled off successfully the other times the U.S. hosted, including 1996 in Atlanta and 2002 in Salt Lake City.

" Well, the difference is that this year it's Trump's Olympics, not a sane person in the White House," Soto-Martinez said. "Trump's Olympics are coming into the city of Los Angeles."

The meeting highlighted one shift in LA28's human rights plans. Hoover pledged to create a grant program to fund certain human rights-related initiatives, a move that some advocates have been pushing for. He did not say how much money LA28 would provide.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson said the committee would continue to discuss human rights plans down the road. He wanted to wrap the meeting ahead of the much-anticipated Mexico-Ecuador World Cup match.

Growing up in Los Angeles, I spent plenty of time sitting in traffic and driving across town. I remember taking the 60 to the 10 from Walnut to Mid-Wilshire for elementary school and, later, when I lived in Burbank, spending weekends as a teenager hanging out by the clock at "The Gal" in Glendale, what my friends and I affectionately called the Glendale Galleria.

Today, Glendale is my home, where I’ve been for nearly a decade. And while much has changed, the sense of community is what keeps me rooted here.

I remember a time when Glendale was mostly tree-lined streets filled with Craftsman homes, mid-century apartment buildings and strip malls with mom-and-pop shops. There was Virgil's Hardware, where we'd get supplies and have our keys copied (it's now an Erewhon), and quaint Honolulu Avenue in Montrose, which still feels like a village in the way Larchmont does, with its boutiques and charming restaurants.

Since then Glendale has developed, and we now have The Americana at Brand, trendy restaurants and national retailers and even an AMC theater with an IMAX screen. But beyond the flashy lights are the places that keep me coming back: neighborhood institutions, family-run businesses and restaurants that tell the story of Glendale's many diverse communities.

Here's how I'd spend a day eating across Glendale for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Breakfast: Papillon Bakery

Papillon's bread boat, covered with two over-easy eggs and cheese.

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Courtesy Papillon Bakery

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One of the things I love most about Glendale is its vibrant Armenian community, which has shaped the city in countless ways. For breakfast, I'm heading straight to Papillon Bakery. The beloved Armenian bakery has since expanded to five locations, but I keep coming back to the one on Central Avenue.

Some of the best Armenian pastries I've ever had come from Papillon, which specializes in perashkis, borek, bread boats, churros, empanadas, Georgian khachapuri, Armenian pizza and ponchiks. In fact, I love their ponchiks so much that I named one of my cats Ponchik.

Tumang's love for ponchiks is so strong she even named her cat after the Armenian pastry.

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Courtesy Papillon Bakery

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If you've never had one, a ponchik is like the Armenian cousin of a beignet: fried, dusted with powdered sugar and filled with everything from custard and Nutella to fruit jam and dulce de leche. They're made fresh to order and arrive piping hot, crisp on the outside and pillowy inside.

My order is usually a ponchik and a bread boat, one of Papillon's specialties. Think of it as an open-faced calzone covered with two over-easy eggs and cheese, and you can top it off with basturma, a cured beef similar to pastrami.

Parking is limited, especially later in the day when a neighboring restaurant opens for lunch and valet service begins, so I often take my breakfast to go.

Lunch: Fish King

Fish King, a staple of Glendale since 1948.

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Patricia Tumang

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LAist

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Fish King on Glendale Avenue is almost always busy, with people lined up to order lunch or pick up seafood for dinner. That's how you know you're getting the good stuff.

Opened in 1948 as an independent fish shop, Fish King has been a Glendale institution for generations. The late Hank Kagawa began working there in 1952 before purchasing the business a few years later. His grandfather had immigrated to the United States from Japan in the early 1900s, building a grocery and produce business before losing everything when Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II. Under Kagawa's leadership, Fish King grew from a small storefront into the multi-storefront seafood market it is today.

You can have your seafood cooked to order however you like: grilled, fried, charbroiled or steamed. Get it with fries, white rice or coleslaw; as tacos, a bowl or a teriyaki plate. They're also known for their cioppino and poke bowls. For me, I'm ordering poke (I often dream about their spicy scallops and soy tuna poke).

Just head up to the counter and place your order, then grab a seat and wait for your buzzer to go off. Service is quick, but they never skimp on quality or freshness. The market also sells gourmet and specialty dry goods, sauces, house-made marinades, sushi and more. It's the kind of place that feels like a hidden gem, even though locals have been shopping and eating here for decades.

Dinner: Max’s Restaurant

Max's Restaurant's lumpiang shanghai, fried pork and vegetable egg rolls.

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Courtesy Max's Restaurant

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Just across from the Glendale Galleria on Broadway is a building that longtime Glendale residents may remember as The Phone Company, a restaurant known for its prime rib dinners and French onion soup, or as Cattleman's Ranch Steakhouse from the TV show Fresh Off the Boat. The exterior looks much the same today, but it's now home to Max's Restaurant, the Filipino chain known as "The House That Fried Chicken Built."

For me, Max's is more than just dinner. It’s one of the most beloved restaurant chains in the Philippines, and I grew up eating there during family visits where meals almost always included a platter of its famous fried chicken. Founded in 1945 in Quezon City, it has since expanded around the world. Seeing the Max's in Glendale always feels a little like finding a piece of home.

My order always starts with the fried chicken paired with banana ketchup. Beyond that, it's hard to go wrong. I usually add Filipino favorites like lumpiang shanghai (fried pork and vegetable egg rolls), crispy pata (deep-fried pork knuckles) and kare-kare (oxtail in peanut sauce). Always with rice.

Every bite takes me back.

Max's Restaurant, a legendary Filipino chain, is best known for their fried chicken.

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Courtesy Max's Restaurant

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It’s a core memory: the delight I’d get when the plate of fried chicken was placed on the table and I'd immediately reach for a chicken thigh, taking a bite of the crisp but tender meat, dipping it into banana ketchup and following it with a spoonful of rice. Decades later, that's still exactly how I eat it.

What makes this fried chicken different is that it's slow-cooked, rubbed with patis (fish sauce) and fried without batter, leaving the skin crisp and the meat juicy. It's simple, comforting and, as their slogan goes, "sarap to the bones" (delicious to the bones).

Hundreds of millions in L.A. County homelessness tax dollars are now under new management.

On Wednesday, the county’s new homeless services department took over oversight of the money.

The change marks a major shift. For decades, county homeless services spending was overseen by the L.A. Homeless Services Authority, a joint city-county agency known as LAHSA.

The move was set in motion in April of last year, when every county supervisor but one voted to strip county funding from the L.A. Homeless Services Authority and have the county directly oversee it. The new county department, known as Homeless Services and Housing, or HSH, is led by Sarah Mahin. She previously oversaw the county’s well-received Housing for Health homelessness program.

The transition of funds follows a series of harsh audits and a judge’s rebuke of the job LAHSA officials had been doing for years at managing and tracking spending — including an inability to properly account for billions in taxpayer dollars. LAHSA was created by the city and county in 1993 and is overseen by a commission half appointed by the L.A. city mayor and half appointed by each of the five county supervisors.

In total, HSH now has a budget of $843 million in public funds this fiscal year.

Here are some takeaways from a public update shared at the L.A. County Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday, the eve of the switchover.

1) The new approach is faster and more accountable, says department’s leader

Tuesday’s update on the transition lasted about two hours. The back and forth was mostly positive, while getting heated on occasion.

“The old fragmented way of doing things wasn't working,” Mahin said on Tuesday. “HSH exists to make the county's response to homelessness clearer, faster, and more accountable to the people and the communities that we serve.”

She said the county’s response times to clear encampments with shelter and service offers to people have been shortened to an average of 45 days in the first quarter of this year.

That’s down a lot from what it used to be, said Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who was the lone vote last year against transferring management from LAHSA.

That’s “a  significant improvement compared to the six to nine month wait times my constituents experienced back when I first took office,” Mitchell said. “That is huge.”

Supervisor Janice Hahn said she’d like to see response times get even faster. Mahin said they’re working on it, including by clustering responses so that teams reach multiple smaller encampments in a similar area at the same time.

And in a contrast with LAHSA — which for years has been long overdue in paying service providers — Mahin said the new county department has been paying 97% of its bills on time. As of earlier this year, about 40% of unpaid LAHSA invoices were more than two months old.

 "While I understand that that makes us an ‘A’ student, we aim for a hundred percent,” Mahin said, adding that her team is working on process improvements to pay even more of the bills on time.

2) People are staying in permanent housing at high rates, per the county

Of people placed in permanent housing a year ago, 91% were still housed — and of those placed two years ago, 83% remain housed, according to data Mahin presented.

Public dashboards are expected to be posted in October with more detailed data on how various programs are performing under HSH, she said.

3) Many workers slated to be laid off by LAHSA are being hired by the county

Of the 210 county-funded staff at LAHSA, 184 have been hired at the county, 25 declined an offer or did not participate and one is considering a county job offer, according to a county presentation.

The rehires include experienced outreach workers who have established relationships working with unhoused people in the region, county officials said.

The outreach workers have been “working so hard, doing the kind of work that a lot of people won't do,” said Supervisor Janice Hahn. “I have seen them on the weekends, I've seen them [in] the evenings, I've seen them doing incredible work as we all lean in to trying to solve this…humanitarian crisis of homelessness.”

Of the 25 who weren’t on track to be hired and are being laid off at LAHSA, county supervisors pressed county staff to help them find other roles within the county.

4) Officials are concerned about federal funding halt

Mahin said she’s concerned that thousands of people could lose their housing if federal authorities follow through on their suspension of homelessness dollars to the region. More than 11,000 people are currently housed with those dollars, Mahin said.

"I am worried about how we're gonna be able to keep everyone in housing who's in housing today, as well as continue to make progress with bringing more people inside,” she added.

5) Supervisor says she wants the new county approach to succeed

Supervisor Lindsey Horvath praised Mahin for assembling a “very strong, very dedicated team” and a successful transition to the funding shift.

“And now, you're doing the work to change how the county operates an impactful, efficient, accountable homeless service response system,” she added, saying efforts are underway to move toward “an outcome-focused” system.

“All of us are behind you to make sure that we get this right and continue moving in the right direction.”

L.A. City Council members have been considering whether to pull out city homelessness funds from LAHSA and instead have the city itself, or the county, manage those dollars.

The city council’s homelessness committee recommended in April that an analysis be completed by Wednesday on which city programs make sense to shift away from LAHSA and instead be managed by the county, the city or another entity starting in the fiscal year that just began. But a follow-up vote last month by the council’s budget committee recommends a longer timeframe, calling for the analysis to be turned in by December of next year.

The timeline for any such report will be up to the full council, which has not yet voted on it.