LOS ANGELES: This isn’t the image Los Angeles wanted projected around the globe.
Clouds of tear gas wafting over a throng of protesters on a blocked freeway. Federal immigration agents in tactical garb raiding businesses in search of immigrants without legal status. A messy war of words between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom. Photos captured several Waymo robotaxis set on fire and graffiti scrawled on a federal detention center building, while videos recorded the sounds of rubber bullets and flash-bang grenades hitting crowds.
In a city still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon — Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image by sprucing up streets, planting trees and painting murals so LA shows its best face to nations near and far.
“It’s about pride,” she’s said. “This is the city of dreams.”
Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days. Protests have mostly taken place in a small swath of downtown in the sprawling city of 4 million people. As Trump has activated nearly 5,000 troops to respond in the city, Bass has staunchly pushed back against his assertions that her city is overrun and in crisis.
Bass, in response to Trump, said she was troubled by depictions that the city has been “invaded and occupied by illegal aliens and criminals, and that now violent, insurrectionist mobs are swarming our federal agents. I don’t know if anybody has seen that happen, but I’ve not seen that happen.”
The series of protests began Friday outside a federal detention center, where demonstrators demanded the release of more than 40 people arrested by federal immigration authorities.
Immigration advocates say the people who were detained do not have criminal histories and are being denied their due process rights.
An international city
Much like New York, Los Angeles is an international city that many immigrants call home. The city’s official seal carries images referencing the region’s time under Spanish and Mexican rule. Over 150 languages are spoken by students in the Los Angeles Unified School District. About half of the city’s residents are Latino and about one-third were born outside the US
Bass faulted the Trump administration for creating “a chaotic escalation” by mobilizing troops to quell protests.
“This is the last thing that our city needs,” Bass said.
Los Angeles resident Adam Lerman, who has attended the protests, warned that protests would continue if the Trump administration pushes more raids in the city.
“We are talking about a new riot every day,” Lerman said. ”Everybody knows they are playing with fire.”
It’s not the publicity LA needs as it looks to welcome the world for international sporting events on a grand scale.
“At this stage in the process, most host cities and countries would be putting the final touches on their mega-event red carpet, demonstrating to the world that they are ready to embrace visitors with open arms,” said Jules Boykoff, a Pacific University professor who has written widely on the political and economic impacts of the Olympic Games. The scenes of conflict are “not exactly the best way to entice the world to plan their next tourist trip to the US to watch a sports mega-event.”
A mayor under pressure
The federal raids and protests have created another dicey political moment for Bass, who has been struggling with a budget crisis while trying to recover from political fallout from the wildfires that ignited when she was out of the country.
She’s been careful not to discourage protests but at the same time has pleaded for residents to remain peaceful. The mayor will likely face backlash for involving the Los Angeles Police.
And she needs to fight the perception that the city is unsafe and disorderly, an image fostered by Trump, who in social media posts has depicted Bass as incompetent and said the city has been “invaded” by people who entered the US illegally. Los Angeles is sprawling — roughly 470 square miles (750 square kilometers) — and the protests were mostly concentrated downtown.
“The most important thing right now is that our city be peaceful,” Bass said. “I don’t want people to fall into the chaos that I believe is being created by the (Trump) administration.”
On Monday, workers were clearing debris and broken glass from sidewalks and power-washing graffiti from buildings — among the structures vandalized was the one-time home of the Los Angeles Times across the street from City Hall. Downtown has yet to bounce back since long-running pandemic lockdowns, which reordered work life and left many office towers with high vacancy rates.
Trump and California officials continued to spar online and off, faulting each other for the fallout. At the White House, Trump criticized California leaders by saying “they were afraid of doing anything” and signaled he would support Newsom’s arrest over his handling of the immigration protests.
If Los Angeles’ image was once defined by its balmy Mediterranean climate and the glamor of Hollywood, it’s now known “primarily for disaster,” said Claremont McKenna College political scientist Jack Pitney.
“A lot of perception depends on images,” Pitney added. Right now, the dominant image “is a burning Waymo.”
Los Angeles’ image is scuffed since ICE raids and protests, with World Cup and Olympics on horizon
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Los Angeles’ image is scuffed since ICE raids and protests, with World Cup and Olympics on horizon

- Los Angeles is still reeling from January’s deadly wildfires — and with the World Cup soccer championships and the 2028 Olympics on the horizon
- Mayor Karen Bass has been urging residents to come together to revitalize LA’s image. Instead, a less flattering side of Los Angeles has been broadcast to the world in recent days
Pakistan police arrest 149, including 48 Chinese, in scam center raid

“During the raid, a large call center was uncovered, which was involved in Ponzi schemes and investment fraud,” the agency said in a statement.
“Through this fraudulent network, the public was being deceived and vast sums of money were being illegally collected.”
The agency said they were acting on a tip-off about the network, operating in the city of Faisalabad, a manufacturing center in the east of the country.
It said the raid was at the residence of Tasheen Awan, the son of the former chairman of the Water and Power Development Authority, a government agency.
All those arrested were in custody, including 78 Pakistanis and 48 Chinese, as well as citizens from Nigeria, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Zimbabwe and Myanmar.
Some 18 of the 149 were women, it added.
China says ‘verifying’ case of citizens held for alleged spying in Ukraine

- Ukraine’s SBU security service said the son was a 24 year old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities”
BEIJING: Beijing said Thursday it was still “verifying” the case of a Chinese father and son detained by Ukraine for allegedly trying to smuggle navy missile technology out of the war-torn country.
“If Chinese citizens are involved, we will... safeguard Chinese citizens’ legitimate rights and interests in accordance with the law,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said.
Relations between Kyiv and Beijing, a key Russian ally, are strained.
Ukraine and the West accuse China of enabling the Russian invasion through trade and of supplying technology, including for deadly drone attacks.
Ukraine also says dozens of Chinese citizens have been recruited by Russia’s army and sent to fight.
Ukraine’s SBU security service said Wednesday the son was a 24-year-old former student of a technical university in Kyiv, and that the father, who lives in China, had traveled to Ukraine to coordinate his son’s “espionage activities.”
The two were “attempting to illegally export secret documentation on the Ukrainian RK-360MC Neptune missile system to China,” the agency said.
Moscow and Beijing struck a “no limits” partnership on the eve of Russia’s February 2022 invasion, and have since deepened political, military and economic cooperation.
Hundreds of migrants moved from Crete to Greek mainland as island struggles with Libya arrivals

- EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings
LAVRIO: More than 500 migrants arrived at the port of Lavrio near Athens Thursday after being intercepted south of the island of Crete, as Greece implements emergency measures to address a surge in Mediterranean crossings from Libya.
The migrants, consisting mostly of young men, were transferred overnight aboard a bulk carrier after their fishing trawler was intercepted by Greek authorities. Service vessels helped bring them ashore at the mainland port. They will be sent to detention facilities near the capital.
Their transfer to the mainland was ordered because makeshift reception centers on Crete have reached capacity, with roughly 500 news arrivals per day on the Mediterranean island since the weekend.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis announced Wednesday that Greece would suspend asylum processing for migrants arriving by sea from North Africa for three months. The measure targets arrivals on Crete and was taken during a diplomatic strain between the European Union and Libya over migration cooperation. EU officials earlier this week were turned away from eastern Libya following an apparent disagreement on the format of talks planned on curbing crossings.
Authorities on Crete are struggling to provide basic services, using temporary facilities to house migrants, primarily from Somalia, Sudan, Egypt and Morocco, according to island officials.
Ukraine to launch Starlink mobile Internet in 2026, becoming Europe’s first, Kyivstar says

ROME: Ukraine will become the first European nation to offer Starlink mobile services when leading operator Kyivstar launches messaging by year-end and mobile satellite broadband in mid-2026, Chief Executive Oleksandr Komarov said.
Field tests have begun under an end-2024 deal with Space X’s commercial broadband constellation to allow tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s company to launch direct-to-cell services in the war-torn country.
Direct-to-cell devices connect to satellites equipped with modems that function like a cellphone tower, beaming telephone signals from space directly to smartphones.
“The first phase is over-the-top (OTT) messaging ... so messaging via WhatsApp, Signal, and other systems ... it will be in place at the end of this year,” Komarov told Reuters in Rome.
“And probably at the beginning of 2026, let’s be on the safe side, Q2 2026, we will be able to propose mobile satellite broadband data ... and voice.”
SpaceX did not respond to an emailed request for comment.
US carrier T-Mobile will introduce a data service on its satellite-to-cell network, powered by Starlink, at the start of October, the company said in June.
Komarov was speaking ahead of a Ukraine recovery conference Italy is hosting three years after the Russian invasion, with President Volodymyr Zelensky also due to attend.
He said his main aim at the conference, the fourth since the war began in February 2022, was to support the Ukrainian government and establish new business ties, some with Italian firms willing to expand in the country.
Kyivstar, owned by telecoms group VEON, is also working toward a US listing on the NASDAQ stock exchange. Komarov said the project was “moving forward” and hoped to finalize it in the third quarter of this year.
“I think it will be an exemplary move,” he added. “The first in history, the direct placement of (a) Ukrainian entity on the American stock exchange ... during the war.”
Komarov said Ukrainian telecom infrastructure was holding up well under Russia’s escalating assaults in recent weeks.
Last year one of its attacks on power grids and transmission lines caused daily blackouts in major cities after it knocked out about half Ukraine’s available generation capacity.
“I think that we are much more resilient than we used to be in 2022. Right now we can run our fixed and mobile services up to 10 hours during the blackouts, even national blackouts.”
Benin bets on free vets, schools to turn people away from extremism

- Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants
COTONOU: In north Benin, the army is waging a campaign away from the front — a program of social projects, including free veterinary care, to tempt locals away from extremism.
Located just south of Niger and Burkina Faso — which together with neighboring Mali form the world’s terrorism epicenter — Benin’s north has come under increasing pressure from Islamist militants, many of them linked to Al-Qaeda.
Besides fighting off the militants, the 3,000 Beninese soldiers deployed to the region have worked to win the trust of northern communities both threatened by the militants’ advance and courted by well-funded Islamist groups.
In May, the army provided free treatment to more than 4,000 cattle belonging to herders in the Materi commune and delivered medical care to 1,700 patients in another village in the Atacora region bordering Burkina Faso.
“These projects show an obvious desire to restore trust between the defense forces and communities,” Lt. Doctor Mardochee Avlessi said in early June.
The army medic, who is in charge of a joint civilian-military committee in Materi, said the army wanted to work in the “spirit... of building security together.”
In this, the west African country hopes to learn from the errors of its neighbors in the Sahel — the army cannot root out extremism by itself.
Part of the problem is the lack of development in the region.
“The places which are the most insecure are the least developed in Benin,” Mathias Khalfaoui, a specialist in west African security, told AFP.
And as the United Nations points out, Benin’s north is the least developed part of the country.
Militants are winning over hard-up communities with cash, rather than ideological or religious arguments, a UN report dated May argued.
“In exchange for supplies and information, terrorist groups offer money to young locals,” the report found.
The most influential Islamist group in the north is the Al-Qaeda-affiliated Group for the Support of Islam and Muslims, known by its Arabic acronym JNIM.
By exploiting local frustrations, the JNIM has managed to rally Beninese to its cause after years of working to establish itself in the north.
“If we do not bring a response from the state and public services in these regions, where there is already a local sentiment of sometimes feeling perhaps a bit abandoned, it’s sure that the fight against militancy will become impossible,” said Khalfaoui, the security researcher.
Besides militants putting down local roots, the suspension of military cooperation between Benin and Niger and Burkina Faso has helped fighters launch ever-increasing assaults.
Benin experienced its first militant raids in 2021.
Within three years, the deaths had piled up, with militants killing 173 people in 2024, according to the UN report.
To develop social projects in the north, Benin has also received help from the international community.
In Atacora and the neighboring Donga commune, the French Acting for Life charity trains young Beninese in masonry and eco-friendly construction to help them find work.
“To best occupy the young, you have to train them and above all bring them into working life,” Abdoulaziz Adebi, the executive director of the association in charge of the project, told AFP.
“I have a future with this training,” said Boukary Moudachirou, a young person supported by the charity who hails from Djougou, north Benin’s most Muslim commune.
“Now we know there are good things we can do and move away from certain things,” he told AFP.
But observers fear the state’s social initiatives and the army’s program of well-digging and school-building will be too small to fulfill the growing needs of the north’s people.
The army’s ability to fight militants will remain limited without effective collaboration with Niger and Burkina Faso, with both of whom Benin is locked in a diplomatic spat.
“No state authority is present at the border of Burkina Faso, where the territory is controlled by armed groups, while Niger has closed its borders with Benin,” the UN has warned, worried that deals between the neighbors allowing the army to pursue militants are no longer in force.
Of further concern, given what is happening on its other frontier with Nigeria, where militants and criminal gangs have committed murderous attacks, “Benin has a larger area to defend,” added security researcher Khalfaoui.
Another UN report from February found that the JNIM was looking to advance toward Nigeria from north Benin and had linked up with Ansaru, a Nigerian militant group which splintered off from Boko Haram.
Other countries in the region threatened by militants, such as Senegal, Ivory Coast, Ghana and Mauritania, have likewise looked to development as a means to stave off unrest.