LonDen Scott is just one of the few Black women in the horse-riding industry who are trying to stake their claims in a male-dominated world. For her and other Black cowgirls, it feels like Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album came just in time.
Why it matters: The world of cowboys and the old west is often seen as predominantly white and male, but many historians note that back in the 1800s, 1 in 4 cowboys were Black. Black people were major part of the creation of the cattle industry of the West and Southwest.
Why now: Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album has sparked conversations surrounding Black women's role in country music and in the cowboy lifestyle. Some feel like that history has been whitewashed in the mainstream. But, historians show that Black Angelenos' role in horsemanship dates back to the early Frontier days.
The backstory: LonDen Scott and a multiethnic crew of horse riders tend to their equines at a ranch they rent in the Lake View Terrace area. They are part of the newly established Cali Cowboy Company, which started out last October as a group of friends who all had a passion for horses and community.
Scott is the president and one of six founders. And they all keep busy. They have about a dozen horses they take care of, including Scott’s own gelding, 18-year-old Count on Me"
When LonDen Scott goes out in public in Los Angeles with her $380 Resistol cowboy hat and spurred boots, some people think it’s a costume. But she’s been riding and training horses way longer than Beyonce’s Cowboy Carter album drop.
For her, it’s a lifestyle.
“I get it all the time even before her album dropped, but now it's like, people feel like they have a little more license, especially white people,” says Scott, who is the daughter of former Los Angeles Lakers and NBA coach Byron Scott. “They’d say, ‘Are you wearing that because Beyoncé is trying to be country’? I'm like, ‘No, sir. My knife is dirty in my pocket.’”
From Simone Biles to Beyoncé, there’s been a lot of conversation around the country and cowboy lifestyle, and the role of Black women in that space.
Scott, a cowgirl from Ladera Heights, is one of the few Black women in L.A. who is trying to stake her claim in a male-dominated world. For her and other Black cowgirls, it feels like Beyoncé’s album came just in time.
“Enough of our story gets whitewashed and erased,” Scott says. “So, if we need a little bit of something controversial, then let’s go. We're here. We've been here and it's about time we have people talking about it.”
LonDen Scott cleans her horse's hoof in preparation to ride.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
LonDen Scott wears a limited edition belt buckle from the National Finals Rodeo.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Creating an inclusive space
Less than an hour north of the urban hustle and bustle of downtown L.A., is a quiet, rural agricultural region of Lake View Terrace, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley where visitors smell livestock instead of gas exhaustion.
Here, Scott and a multiethnic crew of horse riders tend to their equines at a ranch they rent in the area. They are part of the newly established Cali Cowboy Company, which started out last October as a group of friends who all had a passion for horses and community.
Scott is the president and one of six founders. And they all keep busy. They have about a dozen horses they take care of, including Scott’s own gelding, 18-year-old Count on Me.
Members of the Cali Cowboy Company ride their horses around an outdoor arena in Lake View Terrace.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
“I do have nicknames for him,” Scott says. “We call him ‘Count’ or ‘Baboy’ or ‘Stink’ or 'Mister Steal Your Mare’." Even the cowboys and cowgirls have nicknames. Scott’s nickname is “Legit 1."
One a recent Monday on the 2-acre ranch, a group that also includes Scott’s two daughters prepare the horses — including “Count on Me” — for their afternoon ride.
During a break, the rookie cowgirl on the scene, Ashley “Baby Fox” Johns, reminisced on her days growing up in Oakland and only associating horseback riding with being rich, white and structured, like many English-style riders.
Longtime friend and Cali Cowboy Company co-founder Rafael “Wicked Smaht” Casal introduced Johns to riding last year. She fell in love with the sport after meeting Scott and attending the Bill Pickett Invitational Rodeo, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
LonDen Scott started riding horses when she was 5 years old.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
“You see Black cowgirls and you're like, ‘Yeah, we run this,’” Johns says. “It really does fit with the nature of Black women and who we are. We are incredibly resilient and strong. We will make it work. We will find a way. We’re going to do it.”
After ensuring the horses got a stretch and roll, the crew saddled them up. On a usual day, they take them up a mountain trail or ride them through the Hansen Dam trails. Every full moon, they go out on a “Moonlight Trail” in the San Gabriel mountains. They end up on a spot that Scott says the crew calls “horse heaven."
“It's really, really pretty. It oversees everything. And you feel like you're right underneath the stars,” Scott says. To bond, the group travels to bars — sometimes on horseback — to drink and listen to country music. One favorite is Desert 5 Spot in Hollywood.
Eric Cepeda, Bechir Sylvain, Rafael Casal, Samantha Wehlauch, and LonDen Scott are all members of Cali Cowboy Company, a riding club based out of Lake View Terrace.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
“The trails are beautiful,” Scott says. “With L.A., you get kind of the best of everything. You just kind of got to know where to look.”
Outside of tending to horses and trail riding, the group has been training horses and teaching people how to ride. They’ve helped clients with Parkinson’s disease engage in equine therapy and they soon plan to host community events. The group is had their first equestrian event Saturday, April 20th in partnership with the well-known Compton Cowboys.
Kyla Aklilu with her mother's horse, Count On Me.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
LonDen Scott's spurs.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Showing the next generation how to get back on the saddle
Scott says she’s been riding horses ever since she was 5 years old. And throughout her time, she’s had to face people telling her that she’s not a “real cowgirl” because she doesn’t push cattle, or because she’s Black.
“Being a Black cowgirl, just being a woman, there’s a lot of mansplaining,” Scott says. “When you add in women and then women of color, who can hang with the boys and sometimes even do better, there's a lot of bruised egos that come with it. So I think even more so than Black cowboys, Black cowgirls have their own set of struggles and obstacles and things that we have to prove.”
She’s instilling the tradition — and her strength — in the next generation: her 10-and 11-year-old daughters Kyla and Laila Aklilu, who help tend to the horses when they’re not in school. They both say that their mother has inspired them.
LonDen Scott instructs her daughter, Laila Aklilu, as she circles a riding ring in Lake View Terrace.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
“She’s had so many different forces and so many different injuries, that to see her still doing this is really inspiring to me,” Laila Aklilu says. “Being a cowgirl means you, no matter how many times you get hurt, you have to get back up and go on the saddle.”
Scott often gives the girls reminders so that they ride with a good, upright posture. “Don’t T-Rex … keep down and keep your hands low,” she calmly says to one of her daughters.
One of the riders on the trail is Samantha “Sissy” Wehlauch. She’s from Illinois with a mixed heritage of German and Korean. She owns a horse with braids down its mane named Scarlett and says she feels like she’s found her “tribe” with the group.
When asked about all the attention Beyoncé’s album has shined on Black cowboy culture, she says it’s about time.
“There's so much influence that Black culture has given to us in terms of different music styles, instruments like the banjo were brought over by the slaves, and that became their instrument,” Wehlauch says. “It’s great to see the homage paid back, because the original cowboys were Black and native and Mexican.”
LonDen Scott taught her two daughters, Laila and Kyla Aklilu, how to ride horses.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
History of Black cowboys and cowgirls
The world of cowboys and the Old West is often seen as predominantly white and male, but many historians note that back in the 1800s, 1 in 4 cowboys were Black.
In William Loren Katz’s book The Black West, he writes that Africans, Native Mexicans and Europeans were all a part of creating the cattle industry of the West and Southwest. Katz writes that an average trail crew of 11 might include two or three Black men. Some crews were all Black.
In The Black West, Katz writes that cattle crews started after the Civil War in Texas where millions of cattle roamed free and needed to be fenced in. Black men were able to get jobs managing the cattle and, as historians have noted, the term “cowboy” was first used as a derogatory word to describe them.
Eventually, the word was embraced as a universal term.
As cowboys, Black men protected and tended to cattle. Although Black people, Mexicans and Europeans often worked together, it was rare that Black cowboys could become foreman, trail boss or the ranch owner, Katz writes. The cowboys were often given the hardest jobs, and many fought to resist the positions they were in.
Scott of the Cali Cowboys says that racism persisted over the generations. "Western culture — it has not always been inclusive," she says. "You know, [white people] tried to erase us from it in the first place when we are a part of the originators of this. They weren't calling each other 'cowboy.'"
Samantha Wehlauch's horse, Scarlett, with a braided mane.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Horse decor at the ranch where LonDen Scott and members of the Cali Cowboy Company keep their horses.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
There were also fierce frontier women like “Stagecoach Mary” Fields who tended to horses and carried a rifle in the late 1800s. She became the first Black woman — and second woman — to drive a U.S. mail route.
There were others who were pioneers in settling the West — Black women in California who secured and protected their land and property like Laura Pearson, Mary Pleasant and Biddy Mason.
As more Black Americans moved west during The Great Migration, they found pockets of communities in places like Compton’s Richland Farms.
Fast forward to the early ‘80’s, real-estate agent Mayisha Akbar started the Compton Jr. Posse in Richland Farms, an urban agricultural hub for Black Angelenos since the 1950s and '60s, to keep young Black boys and men out of street gang life. Akbar’s organization is recognized as the predecessor to the Compton Cowboys riding club.
Kyla Aklilu learned how to ride horses at a young age and is part of the riding club her mother helped found.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Making it accessible for all
As the urban sprawl spreads and technology continues to develop, gone are the days where cowboys are seen as pioneering, rural and rough like in the early American West era. Now the leisure and competitive sport of equestrianism — which includes Western, English and Charro horse-riding styles — are known to be expensive, and for the privileged.
Scott, the daughter of a former NBA player, said she thinks it’s a misconception that horsemanship is solely for the privileged.
“I think that’s a misconception that’s kind of already been floating around, that you have to look a certain way, have a certain status, a certain amount in the bank to really get out and do this and that’s not the case,” Scott says. “I think the only access it gave me above anybody else was just being able to travel and do different things in different places. I would say in terms of just finding where the horses were everywhere I went, that was on me.”
LonDen Scott, her daughter Kyla Aklilu, and Cali Cowboy Company member Samantha Wehlauch ride their horses in Lake View Terrace.
(
Samanta Helou Hernandez
/
LAist
)
Long Beach cowgirl Chanel Rhodes also emphasized that horseback riding is not just for the rich. But she says she has to pass up on some things — like getting her nails done and even a few doctor’s appointments — to upkeep her horse.
“We are just trying to hold on to our lifestyle that we love,” Rhodes says. ““I understand that golf is cheaper. Playing basketball is cheaper. But I have made certain sacrifices to be able to live this life.”
Rhodes manages horses at Disneyland and is the founder of a horse wig company called Mane Tresses, but her long-term goal is to start the first Black-owned ranch in Orange County and make it affordable for people who may not otherwise have access to a stable.
Rhodes says she’s faced multiple instances of misogyny in the industry. She’s been in spaces where people would stare at her, question her knowledge of horses or avoid clapping for her during English riding competitions, her preferred style of riding.
“I just felt that sinking feeling of ‘This is why I don't belong here. What am I doing here?’ But you have to choose to conquer that,” Rhodes says.
For Scott, she feels responsibility as president of Cali Cowboy Company and its crew of 20-30 people, but she enjoys what she does.
“Horses are my passion,” Scott says. “So just being able to be a part of something allows me to lend that to a group of like-minded individuals who all have the same desire and goals in mind. It's really special. So I feel very honored.”
Payton Seda
is an associate producer for AirTalk and FilmWeek, hosted by Larry Mantle.
Published April 1, 2026 11:30 AM
We curated some great spots to thrift throughout the region.
(
Becca McHaffie
/
(Unsplash)
)
Topline:
Southern California is home to a vast array of vintage boutiques, thrift stores, and resale shops. Here are the hottest recommendations from our most avid thrifters.
Palm Springs is a apparently a thrifting hot spot. This thrift chain has locations throughout the Coachella Valley.
Read more... for lots of other secondhand spots.
Los Angeles may not be the fashion capital of the world, but it could contend for best thrift, at least in our humble opinion!
The key is knowing where to look.
Here are some of the best thrift and resale stores in different parts of Southern California according to our listeners and (very stylish) LAist colleagues.
The pinnacle of Pasadena and open every third Sunday of the month, the flea market houses 400 vendors with goods ranging from antique furniture to unique second-hand clothing.
If you’re looking for more affordable clothing and household items, Delaine Ureño, LAist senior institutional giving officer, frequents Hotbox Vintage in South Pasadena.
This thrift shop in San Pedro is owned and operated by the Peninsula Chapter of National Charity League and comes recommended by Mel in the South Bay, who says proceeds support local charities and scholarship funds.
This thrift store rec near Elysian Park comes from Lulu in Glendale, who says shoppers can grab a cute pair of pants along with unique furniture to put them in.
Anything on Long Beach’s aptly named Retro Row is worth hitting, according to AirTalk producer Manny Valladares. His favorite spot is Far Outfit. They have unique finds mostly from the early 2000s with a self-described “weird” factor.
With several locations throughout Orange County, including Costa Mesa and Aliso Viejo, LAist reporter Yusra Farzan recommends Laura’s House, noting they have a great curated collection and proceeds help domestic violence victims.
Old Towne Orange is home to many great thrift stores and antique malls. If you’re looking for some good streetwear and sports jerseys, Timeless Vintage is a good choice. They have a great selection of 90s Looney Tunes and Disney graphic tees as well.
Another O.C. favorite is a fairly new addition to downtown Fullerton. Retropolis has a wide selection of apparel, but I like to go there for their chunky 80s sweaters and colorful jackets.
“[Eco Thrift] has really good discount days on top of already affordable clothing,” said Dañiel Martinez, LAist’s Weekend Edition producer. “Tons of good vintage and designer finds hidden in the racks.”
“I went to Palm Springs where they have some of the best thrifting,” said AirTalk listener Monica in Artesia. She bought a pair of Ferragamo shoes for just $8.
Kevin Tidmarsh, LAist’s All Things Considered producer, specifically recommends Revivals, a thrift chain with locations throughout the Coachella Valley.
The storefront at Echo Park Eats, which rents ghost kitchens to 40 restaurants.
(
Jarrett Carpenter
/
Crosstown
)
Topline:
Some of Los Angeles’s most iconic eateries — Papa Cristo’s in Pico-Union, Guerrilla Tacos in Downtown and French eatery TAIX in Echo Park — have closed their doors, prompting hand-wringing about the decline of the city’s rich and diverse food scene. But those closures obscured a more notable achievement; 758 new restaurants opened last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2024, when 729 restaurants opened.
Self service and delivery apps: The explosion of digital-order services has rewritten the business model for restaurants, which are now operating with less space, reduced staff and tighter margins. Many of the new eateries do much of their business from behind a screen — either through self-service tablets or off delivery apps such as DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats.
Ghost kitchens: Ghost kitchens, or private kitchens used exclusively for delivery and takeout, have become a business model of their own. At Beverly Bites, 56 restaurants operate out of one facility serving the densely populated Beverly Hills and Beverlywood neighborhoods, though not all of them are open simultaneously. At Echo Park Eats, 40 restaurants are now within a five minute walk of Dodger Stadium.
Some of Los Angeles’s most iconic eateries — Papa Cristo’s in Pico-Union, Guerrilla Tacos in Downtown and French eatery TAIX in Echo Park — have closed their doors, prompting hand-wringing about the decline of the city’s rich and diverse food scene.
But those closures obscured a more notable achievement; 758 new restaurants opened last year, surpassing the previous record set in 2024, when 729 restaurants opened.
The split-screen view of dining in Los Angeles is part of a broader transformation that is reshaping the industry nationwide.
The explosion of digital-order services has rewritten the business model for restaurants, which are now operating with less space, reduced staff and tighter margins. Many of the new eateries do much of their business from behind a screen—either through self-service tablets or off delivery apps such as DoorDash, GrubHub and Uber Eats.
So-called “limited-service” restaurants now account for nearly a third of all newly opened establishments. The number of traditional, or full-service, restaurants has also been growing, hitting 539 openings in 2025, and a record-high 587 the year before. If you count the number of coffee, smoothie and snack joints, the numbers rise even further.
Pizza to go
Many of Los Angeles’s restaurateurs are adapting to this burgeoning business model. Last year, Liz Gutierrez turned her pop-up restaurant, Fiorelli Pizza, into a small brick-and-mortar location in Beverly Grove with just a couple of stools at a counter for seating. As she saw restaurants closing their doors, the advantages of the new business model quickly dawned on her.
“This was something that could be operated with minimum labor, it could be way more manageable in terms of fixed costs and expenses, and we could still deliver restaurant-quality [food],” Gutierrez said.
The bevy of new food establishments opening their doors is a lone bright spot in an otherwise bleak economic picture: The total number of new businesses opening in the city is nearly half what it was a decade ago. That is driven in part by some of the same forces, such as Amazon.com, Inc. and other online retailers that put pressure on businesses operating out of traditional storefronts.
But the flourishing restaurant industry has been able to buck that trend so far. While Amazon can deliver clothes and even groceries, it still can’t deliver a fresh pizza or poké bowl.
The QR code will take your order
Linchi Kwok, a hospitality management researcher at Collins College of Hospitality Management at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, said a lack of interest in working in the hospitality industry, paired with rising labor costs, has pushed restaurant owners to find cost-effective workarounds to run their operations with fewer people.
“Limited-service restaurants don’t have to hire many people to do the work. It saves labor costs, saves space, and saves the service turn-around time. They don’t have to worry about it,” Kwok said.
Restaurants must share a portion of their already slim profit margins—usually between 2-4% in L.A.—with an app service and the driver. To offset that, restaurants have cut down on staff, letting go of waiters, hostesses and dishwashers, many of whom are no longer needed when orders are increasingly being delivered in disposable containers.
Despite the record number of openings, running a restaurant in the city has not gotten any easier. Jot Condie, president and chief executive of the California Restaurant Association, noted that in 2024 taxable restaurant revenue hit $11 billion, which, when adjusted for inflation, is on par with 2012 levels.
“The piece of the pie that each restaurant gets is slimmer.”
Condie also said that the hollowing out of entertainment work, increased presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and stricter regulations “are conspiring against the L.A. restaurant scene.”
Condie said that regulations from city hall, such as stricter labor oversight and a proposal for a $30 minimum wage for some workers, are making it even tougher.
“The business environment is bad generally in L.A., but the city council and the mayor seem to be throwing salt in the wound.”
As the number of new restaurant openings has spiked, so have the number of closings reported to the city. However, business closure figures are not as reliable as business opening data, as some establishments close without reporting it to the city. Since 2021, 593 full- and limited-service restaurants have reported closing, compared with 3,148 openings.
Jimmy Chu spent several years working in fine dining, which inspired him to start his own restaurant. He knew it would be expensive. Rather than opening another fine-dining establishment, he opted for a limited-service restaurant where customers could order at the counter, no waiters involved.
Chu quit his job by the end of 2024, and in May 2025, he opened Bomb Hot Dog in Downtown Los Angeles. He estimates that his eatery gets roughly a third of its customers through mobile delivery orders.
Ghost kitchens
Ghost kitchens, or private kitchens used exclusively for delivery and takeout, have become a business model of their own. At Beverly Bites, 56 restaurants operate out of one facility serving the densely populated Beverly Hills and Beverlywood neighborhoods, though not all of them are open simultaneously. At Echo Park Eats, 40 restaurants are now within a five minute walk of Dodger Stadium. The Los Angeles Dodgers schedule was hung on the wall inside the facility, so owners can anticipate heavy foot traffic and delivery orders during home games.
Last December, Ali Elreda rented out a space for his Mediterranean-Mexican fusion restaurant, Fatima’s Grill, at Echo Park Eats.
Elreda operates four brick-and-mortar Fatima’s Grill locations, and this is his first time renting a ghost kitchen. He said the decision to start a delivery and takeout location was both a matter of savings and efficiency.
“A lot of people are going the ghost-kitchen route because it’s quicker, it’s faster,” Elreda said. “You avoid a lot of overhead and foot traffic and having to find staff these days with the expensive economy out there is kind of tough.”
With ghost kitchen facilities, business owners also no longer have to compete with each other to find prime real estate in Los Angeles.
“You don’t have to do that research where you’ve got to find the right location. It’s just right there waiting for you,” Elreda said.
How we did it: We examined more than 15 years of business license data reported to the Los Angeles Office of Finance. Have questions about our data or want to ask us something? Write to use at askus@xtown.la Hyperlocal News
Keep up with LAist.
If you're enjoying this article, you'll love our daily newsletter, The LA Report. Each weekday, catch up on the 5 most pressing stories to start your morning in 3 minutes or less.
It's been more than one month since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran. The war has widened bitter ideological divides among Iranians in and outside the country over whether the conflict has been justified.
Lost opportunities: The commonality among most Iranians NPR spoke with is that they feel they have lost opportunities — to make a living, to voice their opinions, simply to live — under the current government, which they say must go. One man said, "Iran's security forces … took everything from us. They only give pain." However, another man said "There is no such thing as hardship in Iran. Everyone lives freely, woman or man."
Some remain hopeful: Nearly all the Iranians traveling in Turkey who spoke to NPR said they are hopeful about Iran. They have immediate plans to return to their country and stressed that they are not leaving it. Bout as one Iranian university students said, "The war should never have started. But now that it has, the U.S. and Israel should finish it," meaning toppling Iran's regime.
VAN, Turkey — It has been more than one month since the U.S. and Israel began bombing Iran. The U.S. says it has hit more than 10,000 targets. But U.S.- and Norway-based human rights groups estimate that at least hundreds of Iranian civilians have also been killed.
The war has also widened bitter ideological divides among Iranians in and outside the country over whether the conflict has been justified.
"There is difficulty [with the bombing], but we are not that weak," says one Iranian woman from Tehran, traveling to Turkey for a short break, given that her work has stopped due to the U.S. and Israeli bombing of the capital city. "In the past few years, the Islamic Republic [of Iran] has proved to us that we cannot trust them. But we were in war with Israel in the summer [during the 12-day war], and we saw how precise their targeting was, so we trust them."
"We are going to build a nuclear bomb now, because there's no fatwa against it anymore," interjects an Iranian man, overhearing her remarks, referring to a rumored religious ban on nuclear weapons issued by Iran's former supreme leader, whom Israel assassinated with U.S. help at the beginning of the war in late February.
Like all the Iranians in this story, the two people asked to remain anonymous. They have received texts from the Iranian government and have seen signs coming out of Iran warning them not to speak to foreign media on pain of arrest.
A microcosm of divergent opinions
Just across the border with Iran, in eastern Turkey, the Turkish city of Van is just as full as during prewar times, with thousands of Iranian workers, consulate employees, students and tourists, who are traveling despite the war in their home country. Van has also become a microcosm of the full range of divergent opinions that Iranians have about the war.
"There is no such thing as hardship in Iran," says one Iranian man, who crossed into Turkey for his job last week. "Everyone lives freely, woman or man."
Next to him, a second Iranian man looks at him, wide-eyed and shaking.
"In two days, the government killed 40,000 people," the man says, referring to a government crackdown in January on protesters. A U.S.-based human rights group has confirmed over 7,000 deaths, but many Iranians believe the death toll is far higher.
NPR has not been able to travel and report inside Iran, so it has been interviewing Iranians traveling through border areas, including in eastern Turkey.
The dozens of Iranians NPR has interviewed transiting through Van may not be representative of all Iranians in the country. Many Iranians in Van are those wealthy enough to travel. But there are also poorer Iranians working, often under the table, in Turkey. A few Iranians I met and interviewed say they are heading off to study abroad.
The commonality among most Iranians NPR spoke with is that they feel they have lost opportunities — to make a living, to voice their opinions, simply to live — under the current government, which they say must go.
"Our pain is something you have to feel for yourself [to understand]," says one Iranian man who has been working in Turkey for the last year. He spent the previous seven years in prison, he says, after being accused of being an anti-Islamic heretic. "Iran's security forces … took everything from us. They only give pain. They are pain incarnate," he says, so much so, he is willing to lose all he has, even his family in Iran, for his government to be wiped out.
"The war should never have started," says one Iranian university student. "But now that it has, the U.S. and Israel should finish it," she says, meaning toppling Iran's regime.
"Met with bullets"
Some Iranians who support the war against their own country say their perspectives are indelibly shaped by that government crackdown in early January. This year's killings of demonstrators finally made them realize, they say, that decades of popular resistance would never change their government.
"Three of my own friends were killed" in the crackdown, says one Iranian man. He crossed into Turkey last week to earn money, more than he could make in Iran. "My friends were all young. I knew them all my life. Yet the government killed them so easily."
"Every two years, there is a big protest," he says. Research from Stanford University published this year found thousands of instances of dissent over the last decade and a half, averaging to one protest every three days inside Iran.
But this time, his hometown, in Iran's western Kermanshah province, was brutally punished by government paramilitary groups for people in his town participating in January's protests.
"It is as if my town has been burned down. Nothing is left of it," he says. "I see no future for my children in Iran." His only hope now, he says, is a foreign intervention. "Our only hope is Trump. Our only hope is that Trump and Bibi [Israel's prime minister] make the right moves."
"We are scared of the bombing," an Iranian woman says. "But we are happy thinking that there might be a light at the end of this darkness. When our young people went out and protested this January, they were met with bullets. With slaughter. With executions."
Nearly all the Iranians traveling in Turkey who spoke to NPR said they are hopeful about Iran. They have immediate plans to return to their country and stressed that they are not leaving it. Migration data from the United Nations shows fewer Iranians are leaving Iran for Turkey than before the war.
"We are not fleeing," says one young Tehran resident. Even though she almost lost an eye in the anti-government demonstrations this winter, she says she is going back to Tehran in a few days. "We are determined to rebuild our country, and if the government changes, I will work, for free if needed."
Copyright 2026 NPR
As early as Wednesday at 6:24 p.m., an Orion capsule seated atop a 322-foot rocket will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If all goes according to plan, the capsule will carry four astronauts around the moon and back — sending humans the farthest they've ever been from our home planet.
About the mission: The mission will be the first launch in the Artemis moon program to include a crew. It follows the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, which sent an empty Orion capsule on a three-week ride around the moon before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. This time, the Artemis II astronauts will first orbit Earth to check out key systems on the spacecraft, and then trace a figure-eight path around our lunar neighbor and back. The entire journey is expected to take just under 10 days.
Why it matters: This mission is a crucial step toward NASA's goal of once again setting foot on lunar soil, and eventually establishing a permanent lunar presence — including a moon base — with the help of international partners.
Read on . . . for information on how to watch Artemis II's Wednesday morning launch.
Before taking his last steps on the moon, NASA astronaut Gene Cernan made sure to scratch his young daughter's initials into the lunar dust.
He had some parting thoughts for the rest of humanity, too.
"We leave as we came and, God willing, as we shall return, with peace and hope for all mankind," the Apollo 17 commander said before departing for Earth.
That was December 1972. Now, more than half a century later, NASA may be about to fulfill Cernan's wishes.
Watch the launch live stream, set to start at 12:50 p.m. ET, here.
As early as Wednesday at 6:24 p.m., an Orion capsule seated atop a 322-foot rocket will blast off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. If all goes according to plan, the capsule will carry four astronauts around the moon and back — sending humans the farthest they've ever been from our home planet.
The mission will be the first launch in the Artemis moon program to include a crew. It follows the uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022, which sent an empty Orion capsule on a three-week ride around the moon before splashing down in the Pacific Ocean.
This time, the Artemis II astronauts will first orbit Earth to check out key systems on the spacecraft, and then trace a figure-eight path around our lunar neighbor and back. The entire journey is expected to take just under 10 days.
This mission is a crucial step toward NASA's goal of once again setting foot on lunar soil, and eventually establishing a permanent lunar presence — including a moon base — with the help of international partners.
At a press briefing on Tuesday, Mark Burger, launch weather officer with the Space Force's 45th Weather Squadron, said there was an 80% chance of favorable conditions for launch day, though they were keeping a close eye on the weather.
Jeff Spaulding, senior NASA test director, is a veteran of many launches. He said that for his part, the reality that humans would soon be flying to the moon would probably set in during the final minute before ignition.
"That's when it really starts to hit home that, you know, we really got a shot at making it today," Spaulding said at the briefing. "And I know a lot of people are thinking the same thing, because you can hear a pin drop in that firing room as you count from 10 down to T-zero."
"After that, though," he said with a smile, "it may get a little bit noisier."
