Headlines From The Times

Pudgy Penguins, Bored Apes and CryptoKitties — a Noah’s Ark of nonfungible tokens — are the latest trend for people trying to get rich and engage with art in a new way. NFTs might be a fad, but there’s a multibillion-dollar market for them.Today, L.A. Times business reporter Sam Dean gives us a crash course in what exactly NFTs are and how to think about whether they’re worth your money. And NFT collectors Cooper Turley and Tim Kang tell us why they think the digital tokens could change our lives even if we don’t buy them.Also: An update about last week’s episode “Our nation’s Haitian double standard.”More reading:$69 million for digital art? The NFT craze explainedWho can sell a Wonder Woman NFT? The guy who drew her or DC Comics?How NFTs could affect sports

Today, a crossover episode with our L.A. Times cousin podcast “Asian Enough.” Hosts Tracy Brown and Jen Yamato interview novelist Min Jin Lee about leaving her legal career to write books, expressing Asian pride at a time of hate crimes, dealing with people whose stances you dislike, and working to change the world five minutes at a time.The author also blows the hosts’ minds with her perspective on dealing with the pain of casual racism. “Min Jin, you’re giving me, like, a lifetime of therapy here.”More reading:Welcome to ‘Asian Enough,’ Season 2Violence has Asian Americans questioning how far they have really come in their American journeyHigh School Insider column: Exploring my Korean identity — A follow-up to Min Jin Lee’s ‘Pachinko’Op-ed: Coronavirus reminds Asian Americans that our belonging is conditional

Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark was the granddaughter of a freed man who fought in the Revolutionary War. She grew up educated and refined in Concord, Mass. Her mother was friends with families of some of America’s greatest thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. So how did she end up in an unmarked grave near Los Angeles for 129 years?Today, L.A. Times features writer Jeanette Marantos brings you the extraordinary story of how amateur historians nationwide got together to find Clark’s final resting place — and finally got her a tombstone.More reading:She was the Rosa Parks of her day. So why was she in an unmarked grave for 129 years?How we got the story of Ellen Garrison Jackson Clark and her courageous, unsung lifeLA Times Today: The ‘Rosa Parks of Concord MA,’ discovered in an unmarked grave in Altadena

Note: This episode mentions thoughts of suicide. Over the last month, the population of Del Rio, Texas, has jumped by half. The reason: refugees, many of them Haitian, have arrived and set up a tent city under a freeway overpass. They’re hoping for a chance to live in the United States, but the Biden administration isn’t so welcoming.This isn’t anything new for Haitians. For decades, the U.S. has treated them far differently than other migrants from the Western Hemisphere.Today, we go to the Del Rio camp and hear from Haitians who are staying there. And we dive into this refugee double standard that has immigration activists comparing President Biden to Donald Trump. Our guest is L.A. Times Houston bureau chief Molly Hennessy-Fiske. More reading:U.S. begins removing Haitian migrants, but they continue to flock to Texas borderConfined to U.S. border camp, Haitian migrants wade to Mexico for suppliesHaitian migrants pour out of U.S. into Mexico to avoid being sent back to Haiti

Latinos have long hidden in plain sight in U.S. society. Some do it to lessen the racism they might face from non-Latinos. But there’s another type of whitewashing that’s even more disturbing. It’s when Latinos downplay their distinct identities among themselves or suppress the visibility of fellow Latinos.Today we talk about the phenomenon of Latino erasure, who does it, why it happens and how it persists. We’ll focus on Culture Clash, the pioneering Chicano comedy troupe. This summer, two of its members “came out” as Salvadoran, not Mexican. Our guests:  L.A. Times arts columnist Carolina A. Miranda and Culture Clash members Ric Salinas and Herbert Siguenza. More reading:Watch “The Salvi Chronicles”For me, being Latino means living between two worldsOp-Ed: Why did so few Latinos identify themselves as white in the 2020 census?

Right now, migrant camps are popping up on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. They’re filled with people who escaped dire circumstances in their home countries and seek a chance at officially living in the United States. But the Biden administration is telling these people, much like in the Trump years: Better luck next time.Today, we launch the first in a two-part series on these camps. We start in Reynosa, Mexico, where about 2,000 Central Americans wait for their U.S. amnesty cases to be heard. Later this week, we’ll head to Del Rio, Texas, where more than 16,000 Haitians have gathered — and are currently getting deported. L.A. Times Houston bureau chief Molly Hennessy-Fiske explains the situation. More reading:Biden vowed to close a border migrant camp, then a worse one emerged under his watchSupreme Court rules Biden may not end Trump’s ‘Remain in Mexico’ policyWhat’s next for the ‘Remain in Mexico’ immigration policy?

This month, Mexico’s Supreme Court decriminalized abortion in the country. Argentina legalized abortion last December, becoming one of just three countries in Latin America to fully allow it.Today, we talk about the slow liberalization of abortion rights in Latin America at a time that state governments in the United States have chipped away at access. It’s a dramatic flip of circumstances. L.A. Times Mexico City bureau chief Patrick McConnell and L.A. Times Latin America correspondent Kate Linthicum discuss what we can learn from the situation. More reading:Across Latin America, abortion restrictions are being loosenedMexico Supreme Court rules abortion is not a crimeArgentina legalizes abortion, a move likely to reverberate across Latin America

No state has lost as much as California in the war on terror after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks; 776 men and women who called the Golden State home have died — that’s 11% of the nation’s total casualties from the war. Nearly 20% of those Californians who perished were old enough to die for their country but too young to buy a drink. They left behind 453 children. For the families — and the state — the loss from the war on terror is incalculable. We spoke to three families about loss, grief and the years that have passed since their loved ones were killed in April 2004.More reading:What did California lose in the war on terror? More than any other state in the U.S. With prayers and promises, a California city remembers a fallen Marine The young Marines wanted to help. They were the last Americans to die in the Afghanistan war

We're delving into the term “Latinx.” Whom does it refer to? Who uses it? And why do people on both the left and the right, Latino and not, get so worked up about it?Fidel Martinez, who writes the Latinx Files newsletter for the L.A. Times, breaks it down. We’ll also hear from folks who identify as Latinx, and from L.A. Times columnist Jean Guerrero. She used “Latinx” in a tweet recently and has been weathering a backlash ever since.More reading:Sign up for our Latinx Files newsletterWhy we chose the name Latinx Files for our new newsletterLatinx Files: The story behind the name, and why Latinx voters are exhausted

The polls have closed, and even though the votes are still being counted, but the California gubernatorial recall election results seem decisive: Voters said no to recalling Gov. Gavin Newsom.If the results hold — and it sure looks like they will — Gov. Gavin Newsom will remain in office. Voters rejected the idea that his progressive policies on COVID-19, on climate change, on everything, were ruining the California dream and that someone else on the ballot could do a better job. So ... what’s next for the Golden State? L.A. Times politics reporter Seema Mehta and Sacramento bureau chief John Meyers fill us in. More reading:Newsom soundly defeats California recall attempt5 takeaways from Newsom’s big win in California’s recall electionColumn: The recall was a colossal waste. But don’t expect California’s GOP to learn from it