It was over four centuries ago to the day Saturday that Filipinos set foot on the North American continent for the first time. Now, Filipino Americans are working to sustain a cultural footprint.
During celebration of October's Filipino American History Month, many Filipinos are seeking their cities' acknowledgment of “Filipino Towns” — a cultural district designation similar to Chinatowns, Japantowns and Koreatowns that highlights the contributions of expat and immigrant populations to a major city's overall identity.
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People attend a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People pose around a sign at a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand during the national anthem at an event for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bernie Benito speaks during a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
That recognition can be through landmarks, event support or even permanent signage. Three years ago, Los Angeles' Historic Filipinotown — first designated as a neighborhood in 2002 — constructed a gateway arch, and Little Manila in New York City's Queens borough debuted an official street sign. Now, Las Vegas has joined the club.
An official “Filipino Town Cultural District” street sign was unveiled last week to great fanfare — six months after Clark County commissioners unanimously passed a resolution affirming the distinction.
“That was a great day,” Rozita Lee, the original Filipino Town Las Vegas board president, recalled about the county's approval. “A great day because we realized that the government actually recognized us Filipinos as a valid, solid entity here in Nevada. We were all so happy.”
Lee, 90, has lived in Las Vegas for nearly 50 years. She has seen a 1.2-mile (1.6-kilometer) corridor east of the Strip blossom with Filipino small businesses, a radio station and chains like Seafood City supermarket and Jollibee. Last year, the Filipino Town board's first step was to gather data to bolster their proposal. Filipinos are the largest Asian group in metro Las Vegas with over 200,000.
They also spread the word among business owners.
“We visited the people that were in the area because we had to knock on doors and let them know of the possibility of this area being named Filipino Town, and would they support,” Lee said. “Everybody said yes.”
Now resigned from the board, Lee is currently planning a Filipino American Museum.
Current board president Bernie Benito is looking forward to making Filipino Town a site that tourists will consider.
“What we’re going to try to do is just to promote it culturally. We’re going to entice developers, investors to come into the area in order to set up their businesses,” Benito said.
Filipino scouts on a Spanish galleon — a heavy, square-rigged sailing ship — landed on Oct. 18, 1587, in Morro Bay, California, likely making them the first known Asian people to reach the U.S. It would be nearly 200 years until Filipinos settled here starting in Louisiana and the West Coast.
Pre-World War II, there were some Filipino enclaves made up mostly of single men. They were not as prevalent as Chinatowns and Japantowns. A lot of them either were demolished or floundered as some men moved away, said Joseph Bernardo, an adjunct professor in Asian Pacific American Studies at Loyola Marymount University.
U.S. colonial rule over the Philippines from 1898 to 1946 led to Filipinos studying English and assimilating to Western culture.
“They have a command of English that doesn’t necessarily tie them to an ethnic economy to survive in the United States,” Bernardo said. “They can get jobs as nurses and accountants and lawyers and doctors, et cetera, with greater ease than other Asian immigrants.”
The U.S. Census estimates 4.5 million Filipino people live in the U.S. and less than half are immigrants. Registered nurse is the most common occupation, according to AAPI Data, a research and policy organization.
“More Filipino Americans care about cultural pride and want a community space to reflect that,” said Bernardo.
Today, there are several Filipino Towns, some more active than others. Stockton, California's once vibrant Little Manila was torn down by a crosstown freeway in the 1970s. But there are historic walking tours hosted by advocacy group Little Manila Rising. In San Francisco, an artist-driven Filipino Cultural Heritage District known as SOMA Pilipinas includes a community center and public art works. Toronto, Canada, also has an active Little Manila.
Over two dozen residents excitedly posed for pictures in May in front of a brand new Seattle Streetcar outfitted in a “Filipinotown”-branded wrap. For them, it was a concrete symbol of their Filipinotown, which the Seattle City Council formally recognized in 2017. Devin Cabanilla, executive director of Filipinotown Seattle, applied to get the special streetcar.
“I think having that streetcar has really jump-started us because I mean to some extent the general public doesn’t care. So what if you have some law that says you’re Filipinotown? What are the visible markers of it?” Cabanilla said. “People do want something tangible.”
Cabanilla's great aunt and uncle, Dorothy and Fred Cordova, are credited with creating Filipino American History Month in 1992 through their organization, the Filipino American National Historical Society.
Filipinotown is part of Seattle's Chinatown-International District. Besides restaurants and shops, Cabanilla hopes visitors stop to appreciate landmarks like the Dr. Jose Rizal Bridge, named after the writer who advocated for Filipino independence. Or Uncle Bob’s Place, an affordable apartment building named for local Filipino American civil rights activist Bob Santos.
Future goals for Filipinotown include an official sign, events like poetry sessions and a summer block party.
“Our primary vision is to bring back the solidarity that we had when the International District was in its heyday and it was a multicultural place,” Cabanilla said. “I need white people to understand it is not just Chinese, Japanese, East Asian stuff. It has always included Filipinos supporting and living in the district.”
People attend a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People pose around a sign at a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
People stand during the national anthem at an event for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Bernie Benito speaks during a celebration for the designation of Filipino Town as a Clark County Cultural District, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powellsaid Sunday the Department of Justice has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in President Donald Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he's repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project Trump has criticized as excessive.
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London’s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor Sadiq Khan said the figures disprove claims spread by President Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain’s capital.
Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.
That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.
“There are some politicians and commentators who’ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,” Khan told The Associated Press. “And nothing could be further from the truth.”
▶ Read more about crime in London
The Democratic Party regained the partisanship edge when independents were asked whether they lean more toward the Democratic or Republican Party in a new Gallup poll.
Nearly half, 47%, of U.S. adults now identify as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while 42% are Republicans or lean Republican.
This is an indication of how Americans are feeling about their political affiliations, and it may not be reflected in voters’ actual registration.
Independents appear to be driven by their unhappiness with the party in power. That’s a dynamic that could be good for Democrats for now, but it doesn’t promise lasting loyalty. Attitudes toward the party haven’t gotten warmer, suggesting the Democrats’ gains are probably more related to independents’ sour views of President Trump.
That comes a day after President Trump threatened the Caribbean island in the wake of the U.S. attack on Venezuela.
Díaz-Canel posted a flurry of brief statements on X after Trump suggested Cuba “make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not say what kind of deal.
Díaz-Canel wrote that for “relations between the U.S. and Cuba to progress, they must be based on international law rather than hostility, threats, and economic coercion.”
The island’s communist government has said U.S. sanctions cost the country more than $7.5 billion between March 2024 and February 2025.
Díaz-Canel added: “We have always been willing to hold a serious and responsible dialogue with the various US governments, including the current one, on the basis of sovereign equality, mutual respect, principles of International Law, and mutual benefit without interference in internal affairs and with full respect for our independence.”
Cuba’s president stressed on X that “there are no talks with the U.S. government, except for technical contacts in the area of migration.”
About 8 in 10 U.S. adults said the Federal Reserve Board should be independent of political control, according to Marquette/SSRS polling from September, while roughly 2 in 10 said the president should have more influence over setting interest rates and monetary policy. There was bipartisan consensus that the Fed should remain independent. About 9 in 10 Democrats and about two-thirds of Republicans said the Fed should not be subjected to political control.
That poll found about 3 in 10 Americans said they had “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in The Federal Reserve Board. Nearly half — 45% — had some confidence, and roughly one-quarter had “very little” confidence or “none at all.”
Stocks are falling on Wall Street after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Department of Justice had served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony about the Fed’s building renovations.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in early trading Monday. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 384 points, or 0.8%, and the Nasdaq composite fell 0.2%.
Powell characterized the threat of criminal charges as pretexts to undermine the Fed’s independence in setting interest rates, its main tool for fighting inflation. The threat is the latest escalation in President Trump’s feud with the Fed.
▶ Read more about the financial markets
She says she had “a very good conversation” with Trump on Monday morning about topics including “security with respect to our sovereignties.”
Last week, Sheinbaum had said she was seeking a conversation with Trump or U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the U.S. president made comments in an interview that he was ready to confront drug cartels on the ground and repeated the accusation that cartels were running Mexico.
Trump’s offers of using U.S. forces against Mexican cartels took on a new weight after the Trump administration deposed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Sheinbaum was expected to share more about their conversation later Monday.
A leader of the Canadian government is visiting China this week for the first time in nearly a decade, a bid to rebuild his country’s fractured relations with the world’s second-largest economy — and reduce Canada’s dependence on the United States, its neighbor and until recently one of its most supportive and unswerving allies.
The push by Prime Minster Mark Carney, who arrives Wednesday, is part of a major rethink as ties sour with the United States — the world’s No. 1 economy and long the largest trading partner for Canada by far.
Carney aims to double Canada’s non-U.S. exports in the next decade in the face of President Trump’s tariffs and the American leader’s musing that Canada could become “the 51st state.”
▶ Read more about relations between Canada and China
The comment by a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson came in response to a question at a regular daily briefing. President Trump has said he would like to make a deal to acquire Greenland, a semiautonomous region of NATO ally Denmark, to prevent Russia or China from taking it over.
Tensions have grown between Washington, Denmark and Greenland this month as Trump and his administration push the issue and the White House considers a range of options, including military force, to acquire the vast Arctic island.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has warned that an American takeover of Greenland would mark the end of NATO.
▶ Read more about the U.S. and Greenland
Trump said Sunday that he is “inclined” to keep ExxonMobil out of Venezuela after its top executive was skeptical about oil investment efforts in the country after the toppling of former President Nicolás Maduro.
“I didn’t like Exxon’s response,” Trump said to reporters on Air Force One as he departed West Palm Beach, Florida. “They’re playing too cute.”
During a meeting Friday with oil executives, Trump tried to assuage the concerns of the companies and said they would be dealing directly with the U.S., rather than the Venezuelan government.
Some, however, weren’t convinced.
“If we look at the commercial constructs and frameworks in place today in Venezuela, today it’s uninvestable,” said Darren Woods, CEO of ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. oil company.
An ExxonMobil spokesperson did not immediately respond Sunday to a request for comment.
▶ Read more about Trump’s comments on ExxonMobil
Trump’s motorcade took a different route than usual to the airport as he was departing Florida on Sunday due to a “suspicious object,” according to the White House.
The object, which the White House did not describe, was discovered during security sweeps in advance of Trump’s arrival at Palm Beach International Airport.
“A further investigation was warranted and the presidential motorcade route was adjusted accordingly,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement Sunday.
The president, when asked about the package by reporters, said, “I know nothing about it.”
Anthony Guglielmi, the spokesman for U.S. Secret Service, said the secondary route was taken just as a precaution and that “that is standard protocol.”
▶ Read more about the “suspicious object”
Trump said Iran wants to negotiate with Washington after his threat to strike the Islamic Republic over its bloody crackdown on protesters, a move coming as activists said Monday the death toll in the nationwide demonstrations rose to at least 544.
Iran had no direct reaction to Trump’s comments, which came after the foreign minister of Oman — long an interlocutor between Washington and Tehran — traveled to Iran this weekend. It also remains unclear just what Iran could promise, particularly as Trump has set strict demands over its nuclear program and its ballistic missile arsenal, which Tehran insists is crucial for its national defense.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, speaking to foreign diplomats in Tehran, insisted “the situation has come under total control” in fiery remarks that blamed Israel and the U.S. for the violence, without offering evidence.
▶ Read more about the possible negotiations and follow live updates
Fed Chair Powell said Sunday the DOJ has served the central bank with subpoenas and threatened it with a criminal indictment over his testimony this summer about the Fed’s building renovations.
The move represents an unprecedented escalation in Trump’s battle with the Fed, an independent agency he has repeatedly attacked for not cutting its key interest rate as sharply as he prefers. The renewed fight will likely rattle financial markets Monday and could over time escalate borrowing costs for mortgages and other loans.
The subpoenas relate to Powell’s testimony before the Senate Banking Committee in June, the Fed chair said, regarding the Fed’s $2.5 billion renovation of two office buildings, a project that Trump has criticized as excessive.
Powell on Sunday cast off what has up to this point been a restrained approach to Trump’s criticisms and personal insults, which he has mostly ignored. Instead, Powell issued a video statement in which he bluntly characterized the threat of criminal charges as simple “pretexts” to undermine the Fed’s independence when it comes to setting interest rates.
▶ Read more about the subpoenas
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters while in flight on Air Force One to Joint Base Andrews, Md., Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
President Donald Trump waves after arriving on Air Force One from Florida, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026, at Joint Base Andrews, Md. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)
