A convicted murderer and alleged gang member was being paid by Los Angeles taxpayers to patrol neighborhoods as a “peace ambassador” until federal authorities arrested him Friday morning. Now, city leaders are facing questions about how he got the job in the first place. Michael Angel Alvarez, 41, aka “Diablo,” was arrested on Friday during a traffic stop for possession of body armor by a violent felon, a crime punishable by up to five years in prison.  Alvarez was being paid by Los Angeles city tax dollars to patrol as a “peace ambassador,” according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California. A program launched by LA Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, peace ambassadors were meant to be a way “to support Angelenos in moments of crisis” by providing people who are not law enforcement to aid in non-emergency situations, according to Hernandez’s website.  “Each team consists of two unarmed workers who have lived experience in the justice or gang systems and are trained in violence prevention and trauma-informed care,” the website states. According to U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli, Alvarez earned approximately $58,000 through the program last year. Essayli alleged that Alvarez maintained ties to the 18th Street gang while employed by the city. “There is no indication Alvarez has ever stopped associating with the 18th Street gang. In fact, in jailhouse telephone call recordings of Alvarez since his release from state prison, he discussed assaulting individuals for breaking gang rules,” Essayli said in a post on X. In 2002, Alvarez was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison. He was released after serving 24 years. In April 2025, he received a felony conviction for being a prisoner in possession of a weapon. According to a campaign website, Hernandez states she is focused on “investing in community care, workforce development, social services, and harm-reduction programs that help make our neighborhoods safer and healthier places for all Angelenos.” The peace ambassador program is contracted out by two organizations, Homies Unidos, led by Executive Director Alex Sanchez, and Healing Urban Barrios, led by Executive Director Christina Navarro. Healing Urban Barrios paid Alvarez $58,156 in 2025. Neither organization responded to the Daily Signal’s request for information on Alvarez’s arrest. In response to the arrest, Essayli shared his disappointment in the misuse of taxpayer dollars. “The hardworking taxpayers of Los Angeles deserve better than to see their money shelled out to a convicted gang murderer,” he said. Los Angeles mayoral candidate Spencer Pratt also criticized city leadership following the arrest, writing on X that “[Mayor] Karen Bass has turned Los Angeles into a criminal cartel.” Essayli noted this “is not the first instance of an active criminal being funded by Los Angeles taxpayers.” In a post on X, he shared another case in which a felon used his anti-gang charity, Delivering Options, as a front for “fraudulent activities.” This is not the fist instance of an active criminal being funded by Los Angeles tax payers.Eugene Henley, Jr., aka “Big U,” was charged by our Office in March 2025 for dozens of felonies, including fraud, robbery, extortion, tax evasion, embezzlement of donations to his charity…— F.A. United States Attorney Bill Essayli (@USAttyEssayli) May 29, 2026 Bass has not made a public statement on the issue. As of the time of publication, Hernandez has not responded to the Daily Signal’s request for comment or made a public statement about the arrest.

As Californians count their primary votes Tuesday night, three results could advance conservatism in the once-Golden State. If Spencer Pratt secures first or second place in Los Angeles’ mayoral race, the former villain of MTV’s “The Hills” will emerge as a hero to Angelenos desperate to liberate City Hall from the feeble, fumbling, feckless Karen Bass. My birthplace has devolved from a thriving, gleaming metropolis in the 1960s through ’90s into today’s trashed, vagrant-filled dystopia. The deadly January 2025 Pacific Palisades and Altadena infernos were the nadir of Democrat dysfunction. Governor Gavin Newsom was in over his gloriously gelled head. Despite forecasts that a perfect firestorm was en route, L.A.’s neo-Marxist mayor was gettin’ down in Ghana when flames exploded.  “Potentially damaging Santa Ana winds prompt red flag warning for extreme fire conditions,” CBS News headlined its story at 6:38 a.m. PT on January 6, some 28 hours before the conflagration erupted. CBS’ Chelsea Hylton echoed the National Weather Service’s grim prediction: “The strong winds will cause wildfires to grow rapidly.” Like a phoenix, Pratt arose from the ensuing ashes of the Palisades fire, which cremated his home. Early empathy for a man and his family, relegated to a trailer on their burned lot, has grown into an unstoppable sensation. Pratt is jarringly blunt about L.A.’s economic stagnation and graft, as well as about Bass’ clueless detachment from her city’s multiplying woes. He is astonished that Bass “just spent $400 million to house 1,400 people.” That comes to $285,714 each. Pratt is bracingly clear about L.A.’s vagrancy problem. “Well, they’re not homeless. They’re drug addicts. Most of these people are addicted to fentanyl and meth,” Pratt told KABC’s Josh Haskell. “No matter what anybody tells you, we have housing and shelter for everyone that’s living on the street. They are choosing to be on the streets because they want to do drugs. They don’t want rules. They don’t want to listen.” Pratt offers a refreshingly practical solution: “Mandatory help” would stop tolerating sidewalks as outdoor toilets and building housing for the “homeless.” Instead, Pratt would return non-Angeleno derelicts from whence they came. Locals would be detained on federal land long enough for drug rehabilitation to be effective. As mayor, Spencer Pratt could become Rudolph W. Giuliani with palm trees. If the hard-Left City Council does not lash him down like Gulliver, Pratt’s envisioned turnaround could make him a stella nova on the Right and inspire other Republicans to rebuild America’s embattled cities atop the rubble that Democrats have made their legacy. Statewide, Republicans should rally around native-born Englishman and naturalized American Steve Hilton. The entrepreneur, author, and broadcaster’s polished British accent hints at his Oxford education and experience as a Thatcherite political advisor and former aide to Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron. Hilton embodies the dynamism contributed by legal immigrants versus the devastation inflicted by illegal aliens. The Left’s “Republicans hate immigrants” lies will bounce off Hilton like stray tennis balls at Wimbledon. Hilton plans to slash California’s sky-high taxes. He would make the first $100,000 of income tax-free. Above that: a 7.5% flat tax. He would deregulate construction and energy production to deliver affordable homes and $3-per-gallon gasoline. Hilton is running to make California “truly golden again.”  Steve Hilton “is a truly fine man, one who has watched as this once great State has gone to Hell,” President Donald J. Trump declared on April 5, via Truth Social. “Steve can turn it around, before it is too late, and, as President, I will help him to do so!” Trump concluded: “Steve Hilton has my COMPLETE & TOTAL ENDORSEMENT.” Meanwhile, Hilton’s GOP rival, Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, deserves an 11th-hour implosion as voters learn of his conduct unbecoming a Republican.  On June 1, 2020, while America burned during the deadly George Floyd riots, Bianco genuflected before Black Lives Matter protesters. “And there you go,” a local TV anchor described Bianco’s BLM encounter. “You see him take that knee.” On illegal aliens, Bianco channels Nancy Pelosi. “Let me make this perfectly clear,” Bianco said last year. “The Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and your deputies have not, are not, and will not engage in any type of immigration enforcement.” Bianco announced, “We absolutely must have a path to citizenship for people that are here.” Bianco declared: “Whether they came across illegally into the country, legally or not, is irrelevant.” Worst of all, among California’s 58 county sheriffs’ offices, Bianco’s is dead last for using arrests to solve violent crimes and property offenses, from 2019 through 2024. Finally, conservatives should hope that Tom Steyer comes in second and faces Hilton in November. Steyer’s $2.4 billion bank account is daunting. So are the $213 million that he already has poured into this race, CalMatters calculated on Thursday. Self-finance is Steyer’s middle name.  However, the more of his own money Steyer spends, the more he will resemble a loaded guy trying to buy the governor’s mansion—which he sort of is.  Also, Steyer is exactly what Democrats hate. He is a white, male, heterosexual multibillionaire. Even worse to typical Dems, Steyer cashed in on coal mines and private prisons. That makes him the C. Montgomery Burns of the Left. It’s hard to see Democrats going all in for someone who so strongly triggers their pain centers. For the Right, Steyer could serve as a human shield against the Left’s thunderous volleys of rage. So, whenever Democrats complain about the white patriarchy, Republicans can respond, “Oh, like Tom Steyer?” When liberals moan about heteronormativity, conservatives can retort, “Oh, like Tom Steyer?” And when the Left screams about greedy multibillionaires who must pay their “fair share,” the Right can shout, “Oh, like Tom Steyer?” Republicans should appreciate that Steyer, unlike former Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, will do little to energize Hispanic voters. Many will see Steyer as just un gringo rico. Can California regain paradise lost? Tune in Tuesday night. ​ We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of the Daily Signal.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the removal of President Donald Trump’s name from the Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts. “The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear ‌that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy,” U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper of the District of Columbia wrote. Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, sued the Trump administration over the renaming of the center in December 2025. Cooper, who has ruled against the administration before, gave 14 days for the removal of the president’s name from all official center materials. The center’s board agreed to the name change in a December 2025 vote. Cooper stated that the Kennedy Center was formally named in a statute passed by Congress in 1964. The center opened in 1971. In 1994, Congress passed the John F. Kennedy Center Act Amendments, effectively outsourcing “overall facilities management in the hands of the Kennedy Center Board.” Cooper cited the act, which states that no “change in the management and operation of the grounds may be made without the express approval of Congress and of the Secretary of the Interior.” The plaintiffs in the case claimed that the board breached their fiduciary duties to Congress to establish the name change, and Cooper agreed. “As stated at the outset, Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it,” Cooper said.  Cooper’s order also stops the Trump administration’s planned two-year closure of the building. The judge said his order does not prevent the Kennedy Center from moving forward with planned capital repair work that the record in the lawsuit “demonstrates is sorely needed.” The board could still close the center, Cooper wrote, “should it come to this decision anew after independently balancing its multiple obligations to the Center in a prudent fashion.” Reuters contributed to this report.

Mehek Cooke, senior national security and legal analyst for the Daily Signal, said that recent anti-ICE protests in New Jersey are part of a broader pattern of organized agitation aimed at undermining law enforcement and President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda. Appearing Thursday on NewsNation’s “Katie Pavlich Tonight,” Cooke responded to video of protesters outside an immigrant detention facility who blocked a trucker’s exit route. She said the confrontation revealed the growing divide between political activists and hard working Americans. “I think it’s frightening and it’s a pattern,” Cooke said, pointing first to the Black Lives Matter riots where cities completely shut down because of rioters before mentioning sanctuary city policies. She said current anti-ICE protests are “a direct violation of our law.” Cooke argued there is a clear distinction between peaceful protest and conduct that obstructs law enforcement and prevents ordinary Americans from doing their jobs. “There’s one thing about peaceful protest, but these individuals are obstructing justice,” Cooke said of the viral video of the truck driver admonishing protesters. “Look at that man. He’s a working man. Aren’t Democrats supposed to stand for working people?” Cooke argued the truck driver in the video became a symbol of broader public frustration. “That’s a snapshot for American frustration because he was not staged,” she said. “Those protesters were, but he actually showed every single American: I just want to do my job, and you’re obstructing.” Cooke said she believes the protests reflect a systematic effort by paid agitators to weaken Trump’s border and immigration enforcement agenda. “They have no plan, so they protest and they lash out,” Cooke said. She also criticized Democrats for what she described as selective outrage over illegal immigration and crime, stating they should have the same level of anger for women who have been “slaughtered and murdered at the hands of these illegals.” Cooke further stated that illegal border crossings should not be minimized as merely civil violations, calling that argument a lie. She said entering the country illegally is a criminal violation and that the first act of lawbreaking is crossing the border unlawfully. “President Trump gave every person an opportunity and a road map,” Cooke said, referring to self-deportation. She said those who want to remain in the United States must follow the law. Cooke said Democrats have shifted their attacks from police officers to ICE agents, warning that the pattern puts law enforcement and public safety at risk.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr is pushing back after a TV broadcaster owned by the Walt Disney Company accused the commission of violating the First Amendment. WABC-TV, a New York affiliate of the American Broadcasting Corporation, objected to the FCC ordering the station to apply for early license renewal amid an investigation into so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion practices at Disney. “The order has no legitimate purpose,” the station wrote. The TV station claimed that the order is “plainly incompatible with the First Amendment, categorizing it as an “effort to suppress speech under the guise of bureaucratic process.” Carr, however, emphasized President Donald Trump’s executive orders, which directed federal agencies to apply laws forbidding racial discrimination, regardless of claims that DEI practices are necessary to reverse historic discrimination. “If a broadcaster engaged in illegal DEI discrimination, the FCC will hold them accountable,” he told the Daily Signal in a statement Friday. “The FCC has been investigating Disney based on DEI concerns for over a year now,” Carr added. The FCC opened the investigation in March 2025.  “The agency determined that Disney’s responses to date have been deficient, disingenuous, and incomplete. The FCC will follow the facts and law wherever they lead,” Carr said. The DEI Disney Investigation Carr announced the investigation in a letter to Disney CEO Bob Iger last year. “As you may know, the Communications Act and Commission rules prohibit regulated entities like Disney’s ABC from discriminating on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, age, or gender,” the FCC chairman wrote. “Indeed, the FCC’s longstanding equal employment opportunity or [equal employment opportunity] rules set forth specific requirements to which Disney’s regulated operations must adhere.” Carr cited a list of “public reports” painting “a disturbing picture of Disney’s DEI practices,” including efforts to launch racially-segregated affinity groups and spaces, mandatory standards forcing racial and identity quotas into multiple levels of production, use of race-based hiring databases, and restricting fellowships to select demographic groups. While the company publicly distanced itself from DEI messaging, Carr warned, “it is not clear that the underlying policies have changed in a fundamental manner.” BREAKING: Internal docs reveal a MASSIVE gov't corruption scandal between Disney & Reedy Creek Improvement District (RCID). Disney effectively controlled local gov't through bribes, including Disney World passes not available to the public. 1/16 https://t.co/LhAaMT6oca— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) December 4, 2023 Why the FCC Regulates Disney The FCC regulates the invisible radio frequencies of the electromagnetic spectrum that carry wireless signals, such as Wi-Fi, cellular data, and television broadcasts. The spectrum is a finite resource, so the FCC regulates it to prevent interference, promote fair access, and maximize public benefit. The FCC issued a public notice Thursday, emphasizing that broadcasters such as ABC do not have a right to spectrum and that broadcasters using spectrum have an obligation to do so in the public interest. “No broadcaster has a ‘right’ to use the public spectrum,” the notice explains. “Indeed, the U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that certain FCC regulatory efforts in furtherance of its statutory mandate ‘enhance rather than abridge the freedoms of speech and press protected by the First Amendment.'” The notice cites Red Lion v. FCC (1969). The notice explains that federal law prohibits broadcasters from engaging in “news distortion,” requires them to “provide equal opportunity to political candidates,” and forbids them from airing “obscene, indecent, and profane content, or broadcast hoaxes.” “Programming decisions by broadcasters must be made in service of the public,” the notice adds. The FCC promotes its “traditional public interest goals of promoting competition, localism, and viewpoint diversity.” When the FCC finds that a broadcaster has failed to serve the public interest, it may take action, including requiring a licensee to file an early renewal application, terminating renewals, or granting renewal applications with conditions or on a short-term basis. The FCC launched a separate inquiry into whether “The View” qualifies for an exemption from equal-time rules, which require shows that invite candidates on during elections to also extend invitations to those candidates’ opponents. The agency is seeking public comments about whether “The View” should be considered a bona fide news program. When it comes to the spectrum license renewal, WABC-TV’s objection noted that the FCC “had not demanded early renewal in over five decades.” Disney’s DEI practices began comparatively recently, however, and the Trump administration’s efforts to enforce federal bans on racial discrimination in response to these policies only started in 2025. YOU CAN FIGHT BACKAre you sick of TV and streaming shows pushing transgender ideology on your kids? Well, I've got good news for you—the FCC wants to hear from you.1/5Want to avoid this? Take a look at thishttps://t.co/Fym3CA5d5C pic.twitter.com/sBoTtLKXXr— Tyler O'Neil (@Tyler2ONeil) May 12, 2026