SAG-AFTRA Joins Chorus Calling For L.A. City Council Resignations In Wake Of Leaked Tape

Taking a stand. Reese Witherspoon, Kim Kardashian and more celebrities spoke out against anti-Semitism amid the growing backlash to Kanye West‘s comments.

Los Angeles City Councilman Kevin de León said that he won’t resign from the Los Angeles City Council amid the furor over a leaked audio of a conversation with two colleagues and a top labor official.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer As his term in office winds down, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has kept a low profile. But he spoke at a recent downtown luncheon and offered some advice to the next mayor — whether it’s Karen Bass or Rick Caruso. “The top three issues for my successor — it’s housing, it’s housing and it’s housing,” Garcetti said. “There is no issue more important than housing.” Bass is leading Caruso by a significant margin in the polls, and so she in particular has been getting a lot of advice lately. Among her most influential supporters is Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood mogul who has spent $1.85 million to boost her campaign — making him her largest single financier.

Acting Los Angeles City Council President Mitch O’ Farrell announced this morning that he is “removing councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León from their committee chairmanships as well as from committee assignments.”

New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote Sunday that he was worried "white supremacy" would be replaced by "lite supremacy" after leaked audio revealed Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez making racist remarks.  "It is a theory that worries me and that I have written about: that with the browning of America, white supremacy could simply be replaced by — or buffeted by — a form of "lite" supremacy, in which fairer-skin people perpetuate a modified anti-Blackness rather than eliminating it," Blow wrote in his column for the New York Times.  Martinez resigned on Oct. 10 after leaked audio revealed she made racist remarks about Councilmember Mike Bonin's Black son.  "I take responsibility for what I said and there are no excuses for those comments.

Joe Biden continued his visit to Los Angeles on Thursday, as he headlines a fundraiser in Brentwood at the home of producer Marcy Carsey.

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Rick Caruso is confident that he’s going to be the next mayor of Los Angeles.  “I’m getting the job,” he says with a grin before sitting down to detail his vision for the future of the entertainment industry in Los Angeles in an interview with Variety‘s “Strictly Business.”  The real estate developer who is behind such retail destinations as the Grove and Glendale’s the Americana is vying against Congresswoman Karen Bass for the job of leading the nation’s second largest city at a time when L.A. is beset with crises — most acutely, the growing ranks of the unhoused.

Friday's scheduled Los Angeles City Council meeting has been canceled as pressure continues to mount for two council members to resign after they were heard on a leaked audio recording making racist statements. Acting Council President Mitch O’Farrell announced the move Thursday, a day after former council member Nury Martinez resigned.

Nury Martinez has stepped down from her seat on the Los Angeles City Council amid the furor over the comments she made on a leaked audio of a conversation with two other colleagues and a top labor official.

Activists shut down today’s Los Angeles City Council meeting after vowing to do so until three members caught participating in a racially-charged conversation resign their seats. The council was forced to cancel its regular session due to the vocal protesters in the chamber.

A driver climbed over his partner as she lay in the passenger seat with life-threatening injuries to escape from the scene of a crash. Craig Hirtle then returned later to try drag her injured body through a window before fleeing again, a court heard.

President Joe Biden has called on three Los Angeles City Council members to resign over the remarks that were made in a leaked audio recording.

Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Bonin choked back tears on Tuesday as he described hearing of the leaked audio conversation in which one of his colleagues made racist remarks about his Black son and another compared his child to a fashion accessory.

reported the move late Monday, citing that it happened during a meeting with the union’s executive board. The news comes after leaked audio of a closed-door conversation was released Sunday in which Herrera and Councilmembers Gil Cedillo and Kevin de León were heard in conversation with the then-City Council President Nury Martinez as she made racists, disparaging remarks about her colleagues and, in one case, a Black child.

Gene Maddaus Senior Media Writer SAG-AFTRA on Monday called for the resignations of three Los Angeles council members and the president of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, after the council president was caught on tape making racist and homophobic remarks. The actors’ union joined a chorus of outrage that followed the leak on Sunday of an hourlong conversation, in which Council President Nury Martinez disparaged indigenous Mexicans and made racist remarks about the three-year-old Black son of a fellow council member. “Racism and homophobia have no place in the labor movement, government or society,” the actors’ union said in a statement. “All leaders must be held to a higher standard that centers on anti-racism and immediately calls out discrimination and hateful comments in the moment.”

Hollywood’s Teamsters Local 399 is calling for the immediate resignation Ron Herrera, president of the Los Angeles Federation of Labor, for his role in a leaked audio tape that’s roiling the Los Angeles City Council. Local 399 said in a statement that if he doesn’t resign, it will pull out of the Federation.

The disgraced former Los Angeles city council president said that cutting police funding is a "step" toward ending racism. In the wake of the murder of George Floyd, former Los Angeles City Council President Nury Martinez backed a proposal to slash police funding for the City of Angels.

The Los Angeles City Council president who stepped down from her leadership position Monday after leaked audio showed her making openly racist remarks has a history of labeling the U.S. "racist."  "On this #Juneteenth, the world has been awoken to the fact that Black Americans still face racism, discrimination & social injustices.