Los Angeles Dodgers donate $1m to families affected by Ice raids
The Los Angeles Dodgers have donated $1m to assist families affected by two weeks of immigration raids in southern California.
The World Series champions also said they intend to form partnerships with the California Community Foundation, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor and other organization to continue providing aid to immigrant families.
'What's happening in Los Angeles has reverberated among thousands upon thousands of people, and we have heard the calls for us to take a leading role on behalf of those affected,' Dodgers president Stan Kasten said. 'We believe that by committing resources and taking action, we will continue to support and uplift the communities of Greater Los Angeles.'
The Dodgers announced the steps in a five-paragraph news release that was delicately worded to avoid potentially inflammatory political terms, and which stopped short of an explicit condemnation of the federal policy.
The team said only that the financial aid would be provided 'for families of immigrants impacted by recent events in the region'.
'I think it's great,' Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said before his team faced the Washington Nationals. 'I'm sure the money is going to be allocated in the right way. I'm happy to hear that the Dodgers have done that, and it's certainly the right thing to do.'
The Dodgers were briefly at the center of southern California's opposition to federal immigration policy when the team asked federal agents to leave the stadium grounds Thursday after they amassed at a parking lot near one of the gates.
Dozens of federal agents with their faces covered arrived at a lot near the stadium's Gate E entrance in SUVs and cargo vans. A group of protesters carrying signs against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrived shortly afterward, and the agents eventually left.
Roberts claimed his players haven't extensively discussed the situation in the clubhouse, but some Dodgers have been paying attention.
Kiké Hernández, a Puerto Rico native, sharply criticized the raids on social media last weekend. 'I may not be born and raised, but this city adopted me as one of their own,' Hernández wrote. 'I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.'
Baseball Hall of Famer Jaime Jarrín, the Dodgers' lead Spanish-language broadcaster from 1959 until his retirement in 2022, also spoke up against the federal actions. 'As an immigrant who came to this country 70 years ago, I know firsthand the hope, courage and determination it takes to build a new life in a new land,' Jarrín posted Tuesday on social media. 'I have always believed that immigration is not just part of the American story; it is the American story.'
'Los Angeles is my home,' Jarrín added. 'This city is my family. And it breaks my heart to see the growing division in our community and across the country. We all deserve to be treated with dignity, respect and humanity.'
Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass praised the Dodgers in the team's news release.
'I want to thank the Dodgers for leading with this action to support the immigrant community of Los Angeles,' Bass said. 'These last weeks have sent shockwaves of fear rippling through every neighborhood and have had a direct impact on our economy. My message to all Angelenos is clear: We will stick together during this time and we will not turn our backs on one another – that's what makes this the greatest city in the world.'
Fans and lawmakers have called upon the Dodgers for several days to make an unequivocal statement of opposition to the raids, given their vast Latino fan base and heavy influence in the region. Other teams in the region have expressed their solidarity with the immigrant community, including LAFC and Angel City FC.
Congressman Jimmy Gomez, who represents the Los Angeles area, went on social media to ask the Dodgers to speak up.
'In a city where 36% of the residents are immigrants and nearly 40% of the team's fan base is Latino, saying nothing is not just disappointing – it's a betrayal and an insult,' Gomez wrote. 'Silence is not an option. It's a choice.'
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Furious summer vacationers want to shake off $100k 'Taylor Swift tax' headed their way
Rhode Island has approved a controversial bill, dubbed the ' Taylor Swift Tax', on million-dollar second homes people use for summer breaks. The tax will target the second homes of all the residents in the state who don't use their home full time. The Rhode Island House of Representatives has already greenlit a proposed $13.9 billion state budget that includes the sweeping new real estate tax. This means the pop star will face her own six-figure tax on her $17 million Watch Hill estate if the bill goes into law. The measure passed by a 66 to 9 vote on June 18 and now moves to the state Senate. Swift has famously owned the mansion in the upmarket beach town since 2013 and spends July 4th there every year. Under the guise of helping Rhode Island's affordability crisis, those who have 'non-primary residences valued over $1 million' will be taxed under the proposal. Overall, homeowners would face an annual surcharge of $2.50 per $500 of assessed value above the first $1 million — meaning a $3 million second home would see a $10,000 yearly fee. Swift and her beachfront estate neighbors would likely get taxed $100,000 and up based on the size of their mansions. The budget also proposes a 63 percent hike in the real estate conveyance tax, which sellers pay upon transferring property. The state says revenue from both tax hikes would go toward affordable housing projects, including the construction of low-income units and expansion of housing tax credits. But Watch Hill realtor Larry Burns warns there will be economic backlash. Burns specializes in coastal and luxury properties, and says the impact of the tax will trickle down to longtime residents who are not wealthy, and to local economies. He said the state has not been specific about how exactly the money is going to be spent — and the tax will unfairly penalize those who own inherited or family properties. Watch Hill famously passes homes on for generations. 'Rhode Island economy for the most part is driven by tourism, especially in all in New England especially coastal state like Rhode Island,' he told the Daily Mail. 'And it's really going to discourage people from buying second homes here because of the added expense.' Burns warns that neighboring states like Massachusetts, Maine, or Connecticut could become more attractive to buyers and Rhode Island will take a massive hit. 'You squeeze them here they're going to go somewhere else,' he warned. He continued: 'There's people like Taylor Swift — people will look at her and think, "Well, she has so much money she'll never even notice an increase like this." 'But it's not like the residents here have inexhaustible resources. '$100,000 here might be college education for the year for a kid, or two kids.' Burns added the tax could force many to part with cherished family homes. 'There's a lot of older folks or multigenerational properties where the siblings have inherited the property, and if you keep adding expenses people end up selling because they can't keep up with the cost,' he said. Part-time residents are also crucial to the local economy, Burns said. 'They spend an enormous amount of money in those six to eight weeks that they're here,' Burns said. 'And they don't impose a lot of demand on municipal resources like schools, police, or the hospital.' Local businesses are bracing for the fallout. 'I hear from people in the construction business, landscaping, any kind of service work, restaurants — everybody's going to be really negatively affected if this goes into effect,' Burns said. 'You're creating a welfare state at that point for service workers.' Burns stressed that tourism and the summer season is what gives the state its money. 'They're worried about funding low income housing, but the problem is you've got to give people jobs before you worry about the housing,' he said. 'If your economy runs on tourism and you do this to it, you're really negatively impacting those people's ability to earn a living.' Whether the tax becomes law remains uncertain, but it now awaits Senate approval and the Governor Dan McKee's signature. Burns says it could go either way. 'I don't know if they're posturing for political reasons, but this is really killing the goose that lays the golden egg,' he said. If the tax does pass, the tax would take effect in July 2026.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Map reveals your nearest nuclear fallout shelter if major US cities are bombed
The fear of a nuclear apocalypse has reached a level not seen in decades as leaders in the US, Israel, Iran, and Russia continue to warn about the start of 'all-out war.' The world has been waiting to see if President Donald Trump will deploy US forces to strike Iran, which has refused to give up its development of a nuclear weapon, a move that could ignite World War III. For everyday Americans, the only question that may matter in the minutes and seconds before a nuclear weapon strikes the US is where are the nearest fallout shelters. A nuclear fallout shelter is designed to shield people from radioactive particles, known as fallout, that spread after a nuclear explosion. Although they're not built to withstand the initial blast, extreme heat, and shockwaves of a nuclear explosion, they can act as a safe room for anyone who lives to see the aftermath. Using tools like Google Maps and historical records from the Cold War, when most of these shelters were built, doomsday preppers have been able to find where thousands of them may still be standing. Even after several decades, records show that states like New York, Maryland, Michigan, Texas, and Wisconsin all still have hundreds and possibly thousands of underground facilities labeled as emergency fallout shelters. A new map has now revealed where Americans can find safety during a nuclear attack, unearthing the locations still listed as fallout shelters throughout the country. The new fallout shelter map reveals that the vast majority of these radiation bunkers are scattered throughout America's largest cities. This includes dozens (and possibly hundreds) of basement shelters in cities like Boston, Baltimore, Dallas, Detroit, Memphis, Milwaukee, New York, Oklahoma City, Sacramento, and Washington DC. Sean Gold, an Air Force veteran and founder of the survival guide website TruePrepper, is one of the experts trying to find all of the fallout shelters that are still viable for Americans to use in the event of a nuclear attack. He noted that the canned food and medical supplies that were originally put in these bunkers decades ago are likely not there anymore, making it harder for people in 2025 to survive without bringing their own food and water. As for what makes a good fallout shelter, Gold said that shielding is the most important factor. Thick walls and a roof made of concrete or steel are necessary to block out the radiation produced by a nuclear explosion. 'The thicker the shielding, the better the protection. Alternatively, several yards of dirt will work, so many shelters are below ground,' Gold explained in an April report. Fallout shelters also need good ventilation with proper filters to trap radioactive particles in the air. Those inside will need enough food and clean water to last for weeks or months, an area for waste disposal so you don't contaminate clean supplies, and a comfortable place to sit or sleep. Additionally, Gold noted that the location of a fallout shelter should be in an area that isn't likely to take a direct hit from a nuclear bomb, and it should also be within a short distance of the people planning to use it. The US began building fallout shelters at a rapid pace during the 1950s and 1960s, with efforts intensifying around 1961 through the National Fallout Shelter Survey, a project to identify public buildings, including schools, libraries, and basements, as potential shelters. Bradley Garrett, a cultural geographer and author of the book Bunker: What It Takes to Survive the Apocalypse, has studied the history of how these bunkers have been designed through the years and how well they'd protect you in an emergency. 'They would not be able to take a direct hit,' Garrett told Newsweek in 2022. 'But you could shelter in them for the 14 days that would be necessary after a nuclear attack until the radiation levels fall to a point where it's relatively safe to emerge from the bunker,' he continued. To this day, residents in large metropolitan areas like New York will still see the fallout shelter symbol (three yellow triangles) on building plaques throughout the city. This lets the public know there's a nuclear fallout shelter down in the basement and may even provide directions on how to get there and how many people can fit inside. Thousands of these bunkers were built all around the US during the Cold War. In New York alone, there were reportedly more than 18,000 during the height of nuclear tensions with Russia. However, they were largely forgotten as the threat of nuclear war faded in the 1980s. Many Cold War-era shelters have been repurposed for storage, parking, or other uses, especially in major cities. Since the 9/11 terror attacks and Russia's invasion into Ukraine, however, doomsday preppers have been feverishly trying to track down all of these hidden shelters as the threat of global destruction has returned. Unfortunately, actually accessing a fallout shelter in your community may be harder than it sounds. There is currently no public list of active shelters available for everyday Americans, since most are now defunct or privately owned by homeowners who built one for themselves in their basements and backyards. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) now advises the public to shelter in place instead of looking for an old fallout shelter. Federal officials have recommended basements or inner rooms with thick walls to block radiation. In FEMA's 2023 Nuclear Detonation Planning Guide, they explained that the change in their reasoning focused on practicality, claiming that modern nuclear threats are unpredictable. FEMA also claimed that maintaining a nationwide shelter network was logistically and financially impossible for the US government. The agency recommended staying indoors for at least 24 to 48 hours, even though it could take much longer for the fallout to completely clear the area.
The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
Are the Maga isolationists losing influence over Trump's Iran deliberations?
The Trump administration is managing internal dissent over deliberations on whether to launch a strike against Iran, breaking what many supporters saw as a campaign pledge not to involve the US in new conflicts in the Middle East. Trump for the second time this week disregarded testimony by his director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, that Iran had not been seeking to build a nuclear weapon as of March this year. 'She's wrong,' Trump said, then added: 'My intelligence community is wrong.' In a striking about-face, Gabbard late on Friday said her March testimony had been taken 'out of context' by the media and claimed there was no difference between her opinion and Trump's. 'The dishonest media is intentionally taking my testimony out of context and spreading fake news as a way to manufacture division,' she said in a post on X. 'America has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalise the assembly. President Trump has been clear that can't happen, and I agree.' Gabbard was nominated to her position in large part because of her skepticism of the US intelligence community and its role in the US involvement in a series of 'forever wars' in the Middle East, especially the Iraq war. Her transition from Democrat to Trump supporter is indicative of the broad coalition that Trump has united under his America First movement – and the potential for a schism as the US grows closer to launching an attack on Iran. Steve Bannon, an influential advisor who has been critical of the potential for a US-Iran war, was seen having lunch at the White House with Trump this week, following a series of podcast episodes in which he and other popular MAGA pundits criticised what they saw as preparations for a preemptive US strike against Iran. Bannon came to lunch armed with talking points that the Iran strike would be a bad idea and the massive 30,000lb bunker-buster bombs that could target the Iranian uranium enrichment facility at Fordow may not destroy the target. The Guardian previously reported that Trump was not fully convinced the bombs would destroy the target, and has held off authorising strikes as he also awaits the possibility that the threat of US involvement would lead Iran to talks. Others close to the administration have pushed back forcefully in support of a strike on Iran. Republican congressmen including Mitch McConnell and Tom Cotton have lashed out against the isolationist wing of Trump's support; the radio host Mark Levin has personally spoken with Trump in support of stronger backing for Israel; and other top members of the administration – including secretary of state Marco Rubio – are avowed Iran hawks. Others, such as vice-president JD Vance, are public anti-interventionists but have limited their criticism of potential strikes to allow Trump the space to make a decision. But Bannon is believed to have an outsized influence on Trump's decision-making on the war. According to US media, he has warned Trump he shouldn't trust Israeli intelligence that the Iranian government was seeking a nuclear weapon imminently. Others in the MAGA wing of Trump's support have sought to rebuild ties after sharply criticising Trump's positioning on the Israeli strikes against Iran. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host, had called Trump earlier this week in order to apologise after blasting those advising Trump to launch strikes against Iran as 'warmongers.' 'Tucker is a nice guy,' Trump said from the Oval Office on Wednesday. 'He called and apologised the other day because he thought he said things that were a little bit too strong, and I appreciated that.'
