By MARK KENNEDY, Associated Press

Late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel is mourning the death of one of his oldest friends — his show’s bandleader, Cleto Escobedo III.

Kimmel announced Escobedo’s death Tuesday on Instagram, saying “that we are heartbroken is an understatement.” Escobedo was 59.

Escobedo and Kimmel met as children in Las Vegas, where they grew up across the street from each other.

“We just met one day on the street, and there were a few kids on the street, and him and I just became really close friends, and we kind of had the same sense of humor. We just became pals, and we’ve been pals ever since,” Escobedo said in a 2022 interview for Texas Tech University’s Southwest Collection oral history archive, disclosing that he and Kimmel were huge fans of David Letterman as kids.

FILE – Cleto Escobedo III, left, and Guillermo Rodriguez from Jimmy Kimmel Live arrive at the Imagen Awards on Aug. 12, 2011, in Beverly Hills, Calif. (AP Photo/Vince Bucci, File)

Escobedo would grow up to become a professional musician, specializing in the saxophone, and touring with Earth, Wind and Fire’s Phillip Bailey and Paula Abdul. He recorded with Marc Anthony, Tom Scott and Take Six. When Kimmel got his own ABC late-night talk show in 2003, he lobbied for Escobedo to lead the house band on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”

“Of course I wanted great musicians, but I wanted somebody I had chemistry with,” Kimmel told WABC in 2015. “And there’s nobody in my life I have better chemistry with than him.”

In 2016, on Escobedo’s 50th birthday, Kimmel dedicated a segment to his friend, recalling pranks with a BB gun or mooning people from the back of his mom’s car.

“Cleto had a bicycle with a sidecar attached to it. We called it the side hack. I would get in the sidecar and then Cleto would drive me directly into garbage cans and bushes,” Kimmel recalled.

News of Escobedo’s death comes after Thursday’s episode of “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” was abruptly canceled. David Duchovny, Joe Keery and Madison Beer were set as the show’s guests. The date and cause of Escobedo’s death weren’t immediately known.

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Escobedo’s father is also a member of the Kimmel house band and plays tenor and alto saxophones. In January 2022, the father-son duo celebrated nearly two decades of performing on-screen together.

“Jimmy asked me, ‘Who are we going to get in the band?’ I said, ‘Well, my normal guys,’ and he knew my guys because he had been coming to see us and stuff before he was famous, just to come support me and whatever. I’d invite him to gigs, and if he didn’t have anything to do he’d come check it out, so he knew my guys,” Escobedo recounted in the 2022 interview. “Then he just said, ‘Hey, man, what about your dad? Wouldn’t that be kind of cool?’ I was like, ‘That would be way cool.’”

In the 2022 interview, Escobedo said the bandleader job had one major benefit: family time.

“Touring and all that stuff is fun, but it’s more of a young man’s game. Touring, also, too, is not really conducive for family life. I’ve learned over the years, being on the road and watching how hard it is, leaving your kids for so long. Sometimes they’re babies; you come back and then they’re talking, it’s like, ‘What?’” he said.

Escobedo is also survived by his wife Lori and their two children.

“The fact that we got to work together every day is a dream neither of us could ever have imagined would come true. Cherish your friends and please keep Cleto’s wife, children and parents in your prayers,” Kimmel wrote.

Few Vikings have been more consistent than receiver Jalen Nailor of late. He caught a back shoulder to seal the win over the Detroit Lions, then followed it up with the best showing of his career in Sunday’s loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

“Sometimes they’re going to take away our best guy and the other guys have to step up,” said Nailor, who finished with five catches for 124 yards and a touchdown. “It was me today and I made the most of those opportunities.”

Nailor breakout didn’t surprise head coach Kevin O’Connell when he was asked about it after the game, nor did it surprise offensive coordinator Wes Phillips 48 hours later.

“I saw this type of performance coming from him,” Phillips said. “It was a matter of him getting those opportunities and being in the right place regardless of the play or the progressions. He’s just a guy that consistently wins on tape. We’ve got a lot of guys that can do that, and the ball found him.”

Minnesota Vikings wide receiver Jalen Nailor (1) pulls down a quarterback J.J. McCarthy (9) pass in front of Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey (44) for a 62 yard catch in the first quarter of a NFL game at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis on Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

There were a number of plays from Nailor that stood out. He caught a deep pass from quarterback J.J. McCarthy on the opening possession, then raced up the field for a 62-yard gain. He later hauled in an intermediate crosser over the the middle for an 18-yard gain.

“I’ve said it since Week 1 that Speedy was going to show up for us,” McCarthy said. “There are going to be a lot more games like that for Speedy.”

That’s a nickname Nailor has carried since he was a little kid. He garnered the nickname in childhood because, well, he was always much faster than his peers. It’s stuck with him into adulthood because, well, that’s still very much the case.

The ability to separate from defenders played a role in Nailor being selected by the Vikings in the sixth round of the 2022 NFL Draft. He’s steadily carved out a niche for himself since then, despite being taken in a later round.

Though he has never been a focal point for the Vikings with all the the other weapons they have on offense, Nailor has earned the respect of his teammates by doing the dirty work behind the scenes. He took pride in that part, knowing if he continued to do developed, his moment was eventually going to come.

That’s exactly what happened for Nailor. After making a splash in the early stages of the game, Nailor flashed again down the stretch, keeping a drive alive with an acrobatic catch, then toe tapping in the back of the end zone for a score a few plays later.

“A heck of a catch,” O’Connell said. “I thought Speedy was huge for us really taking advantage of those opportunities.”

The only problem with Nailor balling out for the Vikings is that they most likely won’t be able to keep him. He is set to be a free agent in the offseason, and should be in line for a significant pay raise.

It’s not out of the realm of possibility for Nailor to garner a deal that pays him somewhere near $15 million per year when comparing his skill set to the rest of the market.

Baltimore Ravens receiver Rashod Bateman’s contract has an average annual value of $12.25 million, Atlanta Falcons receiver Darnell Mooney’s contract has an average annual value of $13 million and Buffalo Bills receiver Khalil Shakir’s contract has an average annual value of $13.25 million.

There’s a chance Nailor’s contract could clear those numbers if he continues to produce at a high level.

“We’re always confident in the guys in our room to make those plays when they get those opportunities,” star receiver Justin Jefferson said. “I’m very proud of him for coming up clutch and doing what we expect him to do.”

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After two months of raids that netted thousands of arrests but also sparked outrage and resistance, a surge of federal immigration agents that came to the city as part of the Trump administration’s Operation Midway Blitz may soon leave Chicago as the controversial mission winds down, multiple law enforcement sources told the Tribune.

Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, the top official on the ground leading the Trump administration’s efforts, was expected to depart Chicago for another assignment within days, and most of the agents under this command would soon be redeployed elsewhere, three sources told the Tribune Monday morning.

An on-call task force composed of FBI and assistant U.S. attorneys is also expected to close up shop in the coming days, two of the sources said.

But the winding down of Operation Midway Blitz, which began in early September, does not mean that enhanced immigration enforcement will end anytime soon. The sources said the feds planned to leave in place a still-to-be-determined force of some Border Patrol agents as well as extra Enforcement and Removal Operations, or ERO, officers with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In a statement Monday, a spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security, which is overseeing the operation, did not confirm or deny the agency’s plans, saying: “every day DHS enforces the laws of this country, including in Chicago. We do not comment or telegraph future operations.”

Bovino did not respond to repeated attempts to contact him Monday and Tuesday. In a statement on X, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin posted, “We aren’t leaving Chicago,” but did not directly address the issue of Bovino’s departure.

CBS and CNN have both reported that Bovino will head to North Carolina next.

“If the reports are true, it could not have come soon enough,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters at an unrelated Veterans Day event at Soldier Field on Tuesday. He said Border Patrol agents are leaving behind “trails of tears and chaos” in their wake.

The mission officially began Sept. 8 in honor of Katie Abraham, who was killed in a drunk driving hit-and-run car wreck caused by an undocumented immigrant downstate. It started with an influx of ICE agents who were purportedly tasked with making targeted arrests of what the agency called the “worst of the worst,” or immigrants in the country without legal permission who had committed violent felony offenses.

President Donald Trump’s administration has touted the mission as a resounding success, highlighting convicted murderers, sex abusers and other violent criminals it says were able to avoid deportation due to Illinois’ sanctuary policies. At the two-month mark of the operation last week, DHS said agents had surpassed 3,000 total immigration arrests since the surge began.

“President Trump and DHS Secretary (Kristi) Noem have a clear message: No city is a safe haven for criminal illegal aliens,” the agency said in a statement on Nov. 5. “If you come to our country illegally and break our laws, we will hunt you down, arrest you, deport you, and you will never return.”

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The reality on the ground, however, has never matched the administration’s narrative. Within days of the operation’s start, it was clear agents were making many “collateral arrests,” or arrests of people on the streets and in homes across the city and suburbs who had no warrants and were not the target of any law enforcement operation. Many had no criminal histories whatsoever, let alone convictions for violent crime.

Hundreds of those arrests are now being challenged in federal court, where a judge this week could order the release of many of the people on ankle monitors while it’s decided if their cases violated a 2018 consent decree limiting “warrantless” immigration arrests.

“The people of Chicago have deserved better than having CBP and Greg Bovino in this city,” said Gov. JB Pritzker after a Veterans Day event in Little Village on Tuesday. “But I would not say that we’re now going to be free of these terrorized neighborhoods, because ICE and CBP probably will still be here, though they will have fewer people, and we’ll have to continue to protect our neighbors and our friends and our families.”

In mid-September, the operation took an even more drastic turn with the arrival of Bovino, whose high-and-tight haircut and penchant for militaristic jargon quickly made him the face of the mission.

“Well, Chicago, we’ve arrived!” Bovino announced on social media on Sept. 16, in a highly produced video of Customs and Border Protection vehicles driving into the city and picturesque downtown shots. A week later, Bovino caused a stir by striking poses on a Border Patrol boat on the Chicago River, cruising past Trump Tower on a warm weekday afternoon surrounded by heavily armed agents in fatigues as a videographer filmed him and tourists gawked.

Once in Chicago, Bovino’s rotating crew of some 200 Border Patrol agents — who are trained to interdict migrants and drug smugglers along the nation’s borders, not conduct urban law enforcement — began infiltrating city neighborhoods in armed convoys and questioning and arresting people on the street, at bus stops, and near schools and Spanish-speaking businesses.

On Sept. 30, Bovino led a high-profile military-style raid on a large, dilapidated apartment building in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood, including agents rappelling from Blackhawk helicopters, flash-bang grenades, doors busted off their hinges, and residents — including U.S. citizens — zip-tied and questioned.

Other controversies soon followed, as Bovino’s masked-up and heavily armed border agents filled multiple residential blocks with tear gas and other chemical munitions amid neighbors pushing back on their actions, shot U.S. citizens whom they claim “rammed” their vehicles, killed an undocumented man whom they alleged was trying to evade arrest, and left swaths of the city and suburbs blanketed in fear.

Bovino and his bosses at DHS repeatedly claimed that it was the agents who were being subjected to violence from “rioters” and gang members, some of whom allegedly threw rocks and bottles, tossed fireworks and boxed in agents trying to make lawful arrests.

But two Chicago federal judges found that those claims were either exaggerated or not credible. Last week, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis granted a preliminary injunction restricting the use of force, including tear gas and other chemical munitions, on protesters and the media, and requiring agents to wear body cameras and identification on their uniforms.

The Trump administration is appealing Ellis’ order, as well as a separate restraining order from U.S. District Judge April Perry that bars the president from deploying National Guard troops, which Trump said was necessary to quell the violence and allow immigration enforcement to continue.

Meanwhile, as Operation Midway Blitz winds down, the controversies continue unabated.

Over the weekend, Bovino and scores of federal agents engaged in a series of arrests and detainments in the Little Village neighborhood, and DHS officials said someone fired at agents. Many community members later in the day confronted the agents, touching off a chaotic series of confrontations. Bovino and federal officials were seen circling the neighborhood and deploying chemical crowd-control measures at several locations.

Local politicians later called the sweeps “a reign of terror” and declared that the agents who carried it out were “a new American gestapo.”

“At the end of the day, I think there’s a lot of trauma that’s been inflicted on the community,” Democratic state Sen. Celina Villanueva, who represents Little Village, said Tuesday at the same event where Pritzker spoke. “We have to talk about the real trauma that has been inflicted on behalf of the federal government, on communities, on residents and American citizens.”

A day earlier, Pritzker on social media blasted the Border Patrol after dozens of agents posed for a picture in front of the Cloud Gate sculpture in Millennium Park on Monday. Block Club Chicago reported that an agent shouted, “Everyone say, ‘Little Village!’” as an embedded photographer took the picture of the agents, many of whom were masked, and as snow covered the top of the Bean.

Pritzker posted that “making fun of our neighborhoods and communities is disgusting.”

“Greg Bovino and his masked agents are not here to make Chicago safer,” he wrote. “… they are posing for photo ops and producing reality TV moments.”

In response, Bovino — whom a federal judge declared had lied repeatedly in a deposition late last month — said Pritzker was “lying” and added, “feel free to join us in Little Village tomorrow.”

Chicago Tribune’s Caroline Kubzansky, Alice Yin, Olivia Olander and Jeremy Gorner contributed.

jmeisner@chicagotribune.com

By REBECCA SANTANA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — British political commentator Sami Hamdi is going to voluntarily leave the U.S. after spending more than two weeks in immigration detention over what his supporters say was his criticism of Israel. The Trump administration has accused him of cheering on Hamas.

Hamdi, who is Muslim, was on a speaking tour in the U.S. when he was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on Oct. 26. He had just addressed the annual gala for the Sacramento, California, chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, the day before his arrest.

In a statement late Monday, the organization said Hamdi had “chosen to accept an offer to leave the United States voluntarily.”

“It is this simple: Sami never should have spent a single night in an ICE cell. His only real ‘offense’ was speaking clearly about Israel’s genocidal war crimes against Palestinians,” said the CEO of CAIR’s California chapter, Hussam Ayloush, in a statement.

Hamdi’s detention was part of broader efforts by the Trump administration to identify and potentially expel thousands of foreigners in the United States who it says have either fomented or participated in unrest or publicly supported protests against Israel’s military operations in Gaza.

Those enforcement actions have been criticized by civil rights groups as violations of constitutional protections for freedom of speech, which apply to anyone in the United States and not just to American citizens.

Zahra Billoo, Executive Director of CAIR’s San Francisco office, said Tuesday that the logistics of Hamdi’s departure were still being worked out but that it might happen later this week. Billoo said there were “no conditions to the voluntary departure” and that he’s not barred from seeking another U.S. visa in the future.

CAIR said Hamdi’s charging document in immigration court did not accuse him of criminal conduct or security concerns but only listed a visa overstay, which they blamed on the government revoking his visa.

Tricia McLaughlin, a Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman, said in a statement Tuesday that Hamdi had requested voluntary departure and “ICE is happily arranging his removal from this country.”

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The State Department said due to “visa record confidentiality,” it could not comment on specific cases.

CAIR has said that Hamdi, 35, was detained in response to his vocal criticism of the Israeli government during a U.S. speaking tour.

The Department of Homeland Security said at the time of Hamdi’s arrest that the State Department had revoked his visa and that ICE had put him in immigration proceedings. Homeland Security later accused him of supporting Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel.

In a statement at the time, McLaughlin cited remarks he made in a video posted online shortly after the Hamas attacks in which he asked: “How many of you felt it in your hearts when you got the news that it happened? How many of you felt the euphoria? Allah Akbar.”

Hamdi said later his intent was not to praise the attacks but to suggest that the violence was “a natural consequence of the oppression that is being put on the Palestinians.”

The State Department has not said specifically what Hamdi said or did that initiated the revocation but in a post on X the department said: “The United States has no obligation to host foreigners” who the administration deems to “support terrorism and actively undermine the safety of Americans. We continue to revoke the visas of persons engaged in such activity.”