Politics Desk

SACRAMENTO — Gov. Gavin Newsom on Monday again urged California cities and counties to ban homeless encampments, increasing his pressure campaign on local governments to follow the state’s lead and remove tents from sidewalks and other public property.

“There’s nothing compassionate about letting people die on the streets,” Newsom said in a statement. “Local leaders asked for resources — we delivered the largest state investment in history. They asked for legal clarity — the courts delivered. Now, we’re giving them a model they can put to work immediately, with urgency and with humanity, to resolve encampments and connect people to shelter, housing, and care. The time for inaction is over. There are no more excuses.”

The Democratic governor released a model ordinance for local governments to adopt that his office described as a starting point before jurisdictions craft their own policies. Newsom’s plan asks locals to prohibit persistent camping in one location and encampments that block sidewalks. It also requires local officials to attempt to offer shelter before removing a temporary dwelling.

Newsom coupled the announcement with the release Monday of $3.3 billion in funding from Proposition 1, approved by voters in 2024, for communities to expand behavioral health housing and treatment options for their mentally ill and homeless populations. The funding is not contingent on cities banning encampments.

The funding adds to $27 billion the state has already given to local governments to address homelessness, a challenging political issue in California.

Advocates for the homeless repeatedly argue that the state does not have enough supportive housing and shelter beds to funnel those removed from tents and sidewalks into better conditions. The governor often voices his frustration over the lack of progress at the local level, casting homelessness as a humanitarian crisis and a health and safety issue.

Last year Newsom issued an executive order requiring state agencies to remove homeless encampments on state property and similarly urged local governments to do the same.

The Trump administration announced Monday that it has launched an investigation into California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, a state program that provides monthly cash benefits to aged, blind, and disabled non-citizens who are ineligible for Social Security benefits due to their immigration status.

The investigation began in Los Angeles, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles field office issuing a Title 8 subpoena to California’s Cash Assistance Program for Immigrants, the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release.

According to the department, the subpoena requests all records from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Social Services, the agency that administers the state program, to determine if ineligible immigrants received supplemental security income from the Social Security Administration over the last four years.

“Radical left politicians in California prioritize illegal aliens over our own citizens, including by giving illegal aliens access to cash benefits,” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a statement.

“The Trump Administration is working together to identify abuse and exploitation of public benefits and make sure those in this country illegally are not receiving federal benefits or other financial incentives to stay illegally,” Noem added. “If you are an illegal immigrant, you should leave now. The gravy train is over. While this subpoena focuses only on Los Angeles County — it is just the beginning.”

According to Homeland Security, its Los Angeles investigations field office is subpoenaing records including applicants’ name and date of birth, copies of applications, immigration status, proof of ineligibility for benefits from the Social Security Administration and affidavits that supported the application.

The investigation comes after President Trump signed a presidential memorandum on April 15 to stop immigrants lacking documentation from obtaining Social Security Act benefits in what he called a bid to stop incentivizing illegal immigration and protect taxpayer dollars.

The memorandum directed the secretary of Homeland Security to ensure unauthorized immigrants do not receive funds from Social Security programs and prioritized civil or criminal enforcement against states or localities for potential violations of Title IV of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act.

It also expanded the Social Security Administration’s fraud prosecutor program to at least 50 U.S. attorney ofices and established a Medicare and Medicaid fraud-prosecution program in 15 U.S. attorney offices.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

California voters have sharply differing views over two of the state’s most prominent Democrats, according to a new poll.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris, who is expected to decide by the end of the summer whether she runs for California governor in 2026, has near universal name recognition among California voters, and 50% view her favorably, according to a survey by UC Berkeley’s Institute of Governmental Studies that was co-sponsored by The Times.

In contrast, California voters, notably residents of the city of Los Angeles, are more likely to view Mayor Karen Bass unfavorably. In the aftermath of the devastating fires in Altadena and Pacific Palisades earlier this year and criticism of the city’s response, Bass’ approval ratings are dire among Angelenos, who are overwhelmingly Democratic. Voters’ unhappiness with the mayor could create difficulties for her reelection campaign next year if the mood persists.

“When you’re underwater and almost universally known — 82% of voters can offer an opinion of Bass in Los Angeles city — one of the hardest things to overcome is an accumulated negative image,” said Mark DiCamillo, director of the IGS poll. “Once you develop an unfavorable image, it’s hard to overcome. It almost requires another major event she can take credit for or look good in handling.”

The Democrats are longtime allies — Harris swore Bass in when she was elected mayor of Los Angeles in 2022 after defeating real estate developer Rick Caruso by nearly 10 points.

Both women were among the elected officials vetted to be Joe Biden’s running mate in the 2020 election. Harris ultimately prevailed, was elected vice president and then became the Democratic presidential nominee in 2024 after Biden decided not to run for reelection.

But California voters have strikingly different thoughts about the veteran elected officials.

Perceptions of Bass, a longtime member of Congress and the state Legislature, have faltered in the aftermath of the fires — a notable reversal among Californians who were optimistic about her prospects shortly before she won the mayoral election in 2022.

In October of that year, 50% of likely voters in Los Angeles had a positive opinion of Bass, while 35% had a negative view, according to a UC Berkeley/Times poll conducted at the time.

Now, half of the city’s voters surveyed perceive her negatively, while 32% have a favorable impression, according to the new poll. In Los Angeles, with the exception of Black voters and senior citizens, Bass is viewed more unfavorably than positively among voters of every other age group, and men and women. Statewide, 42% of voters do not have a favorable view of Bass, who is facing a recall effort that is unlikely to make the ballot. Only 1 in 5 (19%) give her high marks.

Harris, despite losing the presidential election to Donald Trump in 2024, is faring better than Bass among California voters as she weighs a gubernatorial bid next year to replace Gov. Gavin Newsom, who cannot run for the seat again because of term limits.

Roughly 96% of California voters know enough about Harris to have an opinion about her, according to the poll. That’s a stratospheric level of name identification in an enormous state where lesser-known candidates must spend tens of millions of dollars in hopes of raising their profile.

Voters’ views of Harris, a former U.S. senator, state attorney general and San Francisco district attorney, are split, with 50% having a positive image of the Bay Area native, compared with 46% holding a negative impression, according to the poll. She drew stronger support from voters who tend to cast ballots more frequently in statewide elections — women, younger and older voters, and residents of the Bay Area and Los Angeles County.

Voters’ views of Harris varied dramatically over the past 15 years. She barely won the state attorney general’s race in 2010 and was unknown by a large segment of voters, DiCamillo said. By the time Harris ran for the U.S. Senate in 2016, she was viewed favorably by the state’s voters, though many did not know enough about her to offer an opinion.

“As she settled into her job as U.S. senator, people started to pay more attention to her. Obviously, she was getting a lot of attention when she was grilling Supreme Court nominees,” DiCamillo said, with voters becoming far more familiar with Harris and having positive views of her.

Those impressions sank during her unsuccessful run for president in 2020, improved in the early days of the Biden administration, and then dipped again when she was vice president and assigned intractable issues such as the flow of immigrants fleeing Central America, he said. Her image has improved slightly since then, but is strong among Democrats, frequent voters, women and residents of the Bay Area and Los Angeles County, subgroups that would be critical sources of support if she decides to run for governor.

Harris has kept a relatively low profile since her November loss in the presidential race, but delivered her most full-throated remarks about Trump in late April. Blasting his policies as a betrayal of the nation’s founding principles, the former vice president warned of a looming constitutional crisis.

But fellow Democrats have criticized Harris for not planning on making a decision about whether to run for governor until the end of the summer. Her delayed plans have put the race in limbo and made some deep-pocketed political donors hesitant to write checks.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a Harris supporter in prior elections, is among the Democrats running for governor who have publicly expressed frustration about her delay in announcing her intentions.

Harris’ team has a “level of arrogance” about their lackadaisical approach to leading a state with the fourth-largest economy in the world, he said in an interview in Sacramento on Tuesday, six days before the poll was published.

“California is not a steppingstone,” Villaraigosa said, shortly after speaking at a Jewish Public Affairs Committee of California conference. “Stop playing footsie. Either run for governor or not.”

The Berkeley IGS poll surveyed 6,201 California registered voters online in English and Spanish from April 21 to 28, including 611 voters living in the city of Los Angeles. The results are estimated to have a margin of error of 2 percentage points in either direction in the overall sample, and larger numbers for subgroups. Details of the poll results on Harris and Bass will be made public on Tuesday.

What else you should be reading

The must-read: Despite political promises, Californians are stressed about their finances
The TK: The Partisan Mind Virus
The L.A. Times Special: Trump is wrong. My dad was a trucker, and he didn’t need much English to do his job

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The decades-long controversy over the Los Angeles Zoo’s elephants is intensifying, even after officials announced that Billy and Tina will be moved to a zoo in Oklahoma where they will have more room to roam.

On Friday, an L.A. resident sued to halt the transfer of Billy and Tina to the Tulsa Zoo, arguing that they should instead be sent to an animal sanctuary.

The lawsuit, which seeks an injunction from the L.A. County Superior Court, includes a declaration from the singer Cher, who has been advocating on behalf of Billy and Tina for years.

“Billy and Tina have served their time in confinement,” Cher said in the declaration. “They deserve the chance to live out their lives in peace and dignity.”

Animal rights advocates have criticized the L.A. Zoo for decades for holding elephants in a relatively small enclosure, which they say causes serious health issues. Other celebrities who have rallied to the elephants’ cause include Lily Tomlin and the late Bob Barker.

Jewel, 61, and Shaunzi, 53, were euthanized in the last few years because of health issues that the zoo said were age-related, leaving only Billy and Tina, who live in separate enclosures in an elephant habitat of about 6.5 acres.

Zoo officials have long defended the care they provide to the elephants and did not cite any health issues in late April when they announced the transfer to the Tulsa Zoo, which recently expanded its elephant complex to include a 36,650-square-foot barn and a 10-acre wooded preserve. Billy and Tina will join five other Asian elephants there.

On Thursday before the City Council’s budget committee, L.A. Zoo Director and Chief Executive Denise Verret said she believed that Tulsa would provide “an environment where they can thrive,” citing the social benefits of living with other elephants.

The lawsuit, filed by John Kelly, an animal lover and longtime L.A. resident, names Verret as a defendant and outlines the health issues that can afflict elephants in captivity, including “zoochosis,” a mental illness caused by confinement.

Billy and Tina’s living conditions are “abysmal,” with little shade and hard-packed sand that has allegedly caused severe damage to their feet, according to the lawsuit.

“It doesn’t matter how big the zoo enclosure is, if it’s expanded or not, whether you call it a preserve or you call it an exhibit. It’s incredibly inhumane for them,” Melissa Lerner, an attorney representing Kelly, said in an interview after a news conference at the zoo’s entrance Sunday.

As far back as 2008, advocates have expressed anguish about Billy’s repetitive head-bobbing, which is a sign of brain damage, according to In Defense of Animals, which this year ranked the L.A. Zoo as No. 1 on its “10 Worst Zoos for Elephants” list for the second year in a row.

Billy is 40 years old, and Tina is 59. Billy came the L.A. Zoo when he was 4, in 1989, and Tina arrived at 44 in 2010, according to the zoo’s website. Asian elephants have a lifespan of roughly 60 years in the wild.

A spokesperson for L.A. Mayor Karen Bass did not immediately provide a comment Sunday. A zoo representative , referred questions to the city attorney’s office; a spokesperson for that office said he could not comment on pending legislation.

L.A. City Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, a longtime advocate for the elephants, filed a motion last month seeking to pause their relocation until the City Council could review the possibility of sending them to a sanctuary.

At a budget committee hearing Monday, Blumenfield urged Verret to provide a report that includes the costs and benefits of the transfer to the Tulsa Zoo. He asked Verret to promise that the elephants will not be moved until the City Council could review the report and vote on it.

“What I can promise you is that I am always going to make decisions that are for the best interest of the animals at the zoo, including the elephants,” responded Verret, who was appointed by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti in 2019.

Blumenfield again questioned Verret at the budget hearing Thursday, noting that the organization Last Chance for Animals has offered to pay to move Billy and Tina to a sanctuary.

Verret said no date has been set for the transfer and noted that the L.A. and Tulsa zoos have not signed a contract.

Kelly’s lawsuit also contends that the public and elected officials have been shut out of the decision-making. At both budget hearings, City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez said that Verret has the power to move the elephants to Tulsa without the council’s approval.

On Sunday outside the L.A. Zoo, about 35 protesters, many of them from the group Los Angeles for Animals, held “Free Billy” signs and chanted “Mother’s Day is no excuse for animal abuse.” They urged visitors not to enter the zoo.

“Sweeping problems under the rug doesn’t get rid of problems,” said L.A. resident Elvia Sedano, who has been protesting at the zoo on behalf of the elephants nearly every Sunday for two years. “So we’ll be back. We’ll keep coming back until they do the right thing.”

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — As a trade war sparked by President Trump’s tariffs stokes worry and uncertainty in the global economy, Puerto Rico sees an opportunity.

Government officials in the U.S. territory are jumping on planes to try to persuade international companies to relocate their manufacturing plants to the island, where they would be exempt from tariffs.

Any relocation would be a boost to Puerto Rico’s shaky economy as the government emerges from a historic bankruptcy and continues to struggle with chronic power outages. The island also is bracing for potentially big cuts in federal funding under the Trump administration, with federal funds accounting for more than half of Puerto Rico’s budget.

“The tariff issue is a controversial one, but for Puerto Rico, it’s a great opportunity,” said Gov. Jenniffer González.

Manufacturing remains the island’s biggest industry, representing nearly half of its gross domestic product. But the government wants to recapture Puerto Rico’s heyday, when dozens of big-name companies, especially in the pharmaceutical sector, were based here and kept the economy humming.

So far, officials have identified between 75 and 100 companies that might consider relocating operations to Puerto Rico given the ongoing trade war, said Ella Woger-Nieves, chief executive of Invest Puerto Rico, a public-private partnership that promotes the island as a business and investment destination.

The companies identified work in sectors including aerospace, pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

Officials also have welcomed site selectors to Puerto Rico and organized tours to show them the island’s infrastructure and emphasize that tariffs wouldn’t apply here.

“This is the moment to plant those seeds,” Woger-Nieves said.

She said officials with Invest Puerto Rico and various government agencies are expected to make nearly 20 more trips this year in a bid to attract more manufacturing. The government praised an executive order that Trump signed May 5 that aims to reduce the time it takes to approve construction of pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities in the U.S.

From needlework to chemicals

In the mid-1900s, needlework was one of Puerto Rico’s largest industries, employing about 7,000 workers who labored on handkerchiefs, underwear, bedspreads and other items, according to a 1934 fair competition code signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Manufacturing later shifted to chemicals, clothes and electronics. By the late 1970s, a growing number of pharmaceutical companies began moving their operations to Puerto Rico, lured by a federal tax incentive created in 1976 to help boost the island’s economic growth. However, in 1996, the U.S. government began phasing out the incentive, which had exempted the subsidiaries of U.S. companies operating in Puerto Rico from federal taxes on local profits.

From 1995 to 2005, overall manufacturing employment fell by nearly 30%, but employment in the sectors of pharmaceuticals, medicines and chemicals increased by at least 10%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Puerto Rico continues to lead U.S. exports of pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturing, representing nearly 20% of total U.S. exports in 2020, according to the bureau.

In 2024, the island exported nearly $25 billion worth of goods, including $11 billion in vaccines and certain cultures; $7 billion worth of packaged medicaments; $1 billion in hormones; $984 million in orthopedic items; and $625 million worth of medical instruments, according to the Observatory of Economic Complexity.

Sergio Marxuach, policy director and general counsel for the Center for a New Economy, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank, said the push to attract more companies makes sense, especially recruiting those in the pharmaceutical and medical device sectors.

“If I were advising the government, begin there, because you already have a footprint,” he said.

Marxuach noted that outside of those areas, Puerto Rico could have an advantage when it comes to national defense and security contracts, including the manufacturing of drones or underwater surveillance systems.

“They need a place to manufacture in scale,” he said, adding that doing so in a U.S. jurisdiction is key.

Puerto Rico’s government also is meeting with university officials to potentially change curriculums if needed to ensure students are graduating with the skills required by companies.

The Achilles’ heel

Puerto Rico touts its U.S. jurisdiction, tax incentives and skilled workforce as reasons international companies should relocate to the island.

But it cannot escape its well-known energy problems.

Chronic power outages continue to plague Puerto Rico, with two island-wide blackouts occurring, on Dec. 31 and April 16.

Crews are still repairing the power grid after it was razed by Hurricane Maria in September 2017, a powerful Category 4 storm. But the grid was already fragile from lack of maintenance and investment for decades.

“Puerto Rico needs more reliable energy for the economic growth to improve,” said Robert F. Mujica, executive director of a federal control board that oversees the island’s finances.

Woger-Nieves, of Invest Puerto Rico, said that when officials meet with company leaders, they explain the state of the island’s energy infrastructure and offer alternatives including cogeneration and renewables.

“Power doesn’t have to necessarily be an impediment,” she said.

Marxuach, with the Center for a New Economy, said Puerto Rico’s energy system is costly and inefficient, and he noted that alternatives can be expensive.

“Puerto Rico has to address some issues that actually create additional costs for investors to come here,” he said.

One of those costs is that any goods sent to the U.S. from Puerto Rico must by law be sent aboard a U.S.-flagged vessel with a U.S. crew.

Other challenges remain.

Currently, the short-term reaction of many CEOs and companies “is basically to wait and see” how the tariff war plays out, Marxuach said.

Trump has said that he wants to keep some tariffs in place, but he also has mentioned efforts to reach deals with trading partners. His team said Trump is using “strategic uncertainty” to his advantage.

Another problem is that relocating operations takes years, not months, and foreign competitors also are vying for the attention of international companies.

“We’re competing with Vietnam, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, that have very advanced manufacturing facilities already,” Marxuach said. “It’s not a slam dunk.”

Coto writes for the Associated Press.

After conducting an investigation into Los Angeles County’s faulty emergency alerts during the deadly January wildfires, U.S. Congressman Robert Garcia issued a report Monday calling for more federal oversight of the nation’s patchwork, privatized emergency alert system.

The investigation was launched by Garcia and more than a dozen members of L.A.’s congressional delegation in February after L.A. County sent a series of faulty evacuation alerts on Jan. 9, urging people across a metropolitan region of 10 million to prepare to evacuate. The faulty alerts came two days after intense firestorms erupted in Pacific Palisades and Altadena.

The alerts, which were intended for a small group of residents near Calabasas, stoked panic and confusion as they were blasted out repeatedly to communities as far as 40 miles away from the evacuation area.

The new report, “Sounding the Alarm: Lessons From the Kenneth Fire False Alerts,” alleged that a technical flaw by Genasys, the software company contracted with the county to issue wireless emergency alerts, caused the faulty alert to ping across the sprawling metro region.

It also found that, contrary to accounts of L.A. County officials at the time, multiple echo alerts then went out as cellphone providers experienced overload due to the high volume and long duration of the alerts. Confusion was compounded, the report said, by L.A. County’s vague wording of the original alert.

“It’s clear that there’s still so much reform needed, so that we have operating systems that people can rely on and trust in the future,” Garcia told The Times.

The Times was reaching out to Genasys and county officials for response to the report.

A Long Beach Democrat who sits on the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Garcia said the stakes were incredibly high.

“We’re talking about loss of life and property, and people’s confidence in our emergency notification systems,” he said. “People need to be able to trust that if there’s a natural disaster, that they’re going to get an alert and it’s going to have correct information, and we have to provide that level of security and comfort across the country.”

To improve emergency warning alert systems, the report urges Congress and the federal government to “act now to close gaps in alerting system performance, certification, and public communication.”

“The lessons from the Kenneth Fire should not only inform reforms,” the report states, “but serve as a catalyst to modernize the nation’s alerting infrastructure before the next disaster strikes.”

The report makes several recommendations. It calls for more federal funding for planning, equipment, training and system maintenance on the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert & Warning System, the national system that provides emergency public alerts through mobile phones using Wireless Emergency Alerts and to radio and television via the Emergency Alert System.

It also urges FEMA to fully complete minimum requirements and improve training to IPAWS that Congress mandated in 2019 after the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency sent out a false warning of an incoming missile attack to millions of residents and vacationers. Five years after Congress required “the standardization, functionality, and interoperability of incident management and warning tools,” the report said, FEMA has yet to finish implementing certification programs for users and third-party software providers. The agency plans to pilot a third-party technology certification program this year.

The report also presses the Federal Communications Commission to establish performance standards and develop measurable goals and monitoring for WEA performance, and ensure mobile providers include location-aware maps by the December 2026 deadline.

But the push for greater oversight is certain to be a challenge at a time when President Trump and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem are pushing for FEMA to be dismantled.

In the last few days, the Trump administration fired FEMA’s acting head, Cameron Hamilton, after he told U.S. lawmakers he does not support eliminating the agency. Noem told U.S. Congress members at a hearing last week that Trump believes the agency has “failed the American people, and that FEMA, as it exists today, should be eliminated in empowering states to respond to disasters with federal government support.”

Garcia described the Trump administration’s dismantling of FEMA as “very concerning.”

“We need to have stable FEMA leadership,” Garcia told The Times. “The recent reshuffling and changes that are happening, I hope, do not get in the way of actually making these systems stronger. We need stability at FEMA. We need FEMA to continue to exist. … The sooner that we get the investments in, the sooner that we complete these studies, I think the more safe people are going to feel.”

Garcia said his office was working on drafting legislation that could address some of these issues.

“We really need to push FEMA and we need to push the administration — and Congress absolutely has a role in making sure these systems are stronger,” Garcia said. “Ensuring that we fully fund these systems is critical. … There’s dozens of these systems, and yet there’s no real kind of centralized rules that are modern.”

According to FEMA, more than 40 different commercial providers work in the emergency alert market. But further steps need to be taken, an agency official said, to train local emergency managers and regulate the private software companies and wireless providers that play a pivotal role in safeguarding millions of Americans during severe wildfires, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods and active shooter incidents.

“Ongoing efforts are needed to increase training with alerting authorities, enhance standardization with service providers, and further collaboration with wireless providers to improve the delivery of Wireless Emergency Alerts to the public,” Thomas Breslin, acting associate administrator of FEMA’s Office of National Continuity Programs, said in a letter to Garcia.

Genasys, a San Diego-based company, said in a recent SEC filing that its “ALERT coverage has expanded into cities and counties in 39 states.” “The vast majority of California” is covered by its EVAC system, it said, which continues “to grow into the eastern United States, with covered areas expanding into Texas, South Carolina, and Tennessee.”

Genasys also noted that its ALERT system is an “interactive, cloud-based” software service, raising the possibility of communication disruption. “The information technology systems we and our vendors use are vulnerable to outages, breakdowns or other damage or interruption from service interruptions, system malfunction, natural disasters, terrorism, war, and telecommunication and electrical failures,” it said in its SEC filing.

As part of its investigation into how evacuation warnings were accidentally sent to nearly 10 million L.A. County residents during the L.A. fires, Garcia received responses from Genasys, L.A. County, FEMA and the FCC.

The report said a L.A. County emergency management worker saved an alert correctly with a narrowly defined polygon in the area near the Kenneth fire. But the software did not upload the correct evacuation area polygon to IPAWS, possibly due to a network disruption, the report said. The Genasys system also did not warn the L.A. County emergency management staffer that drafted the alert a targeted polygon was missing in the IPAWS channel before it sent the message, the report found.

Genasys has since added safeguards to its software, but the report noted that Genasys did not provide details about the incident. . It suggested the independent after-action review into the Eaton and Palisades fire response “further investigate Genasys’ claims of what caused the error, and how a network disruption would have occurred or could have blocked the proper upload of a polygon into the IPAWS distribution channel.”

The report commended L.A. County for responding quickly in canceling the alert within 2 minutes and 47 seconds and issuing a corrected message about 20 minutes later, stating the alert was sent “in ERROR.”

But it also criticized the county’s wording of the original alert as vague. Some confusion could have been avoided, it said, if the emergency management staffer who wrote the alert had described the area with more geographic specificity and included timestamps.

The report also found that a series of false echo alerts that went out over the next few days were not caused by cellphone towers coming back online after being knocked down because of the fires, as L.A. County emergency management officials reported. Instead, they were caused by cellphone networks’ technical issues.

One cellphone company attributed the duplicate alerts to a result of “overload, due to high volume and long duration of alerts sent during fires.” While the report said the company installed a temporary patch and was developing a permanent repair, it is unclear if other networks have enabled safeguards to make sure they do not face similar problems.

The report did not delve into the critical delays in electronic emergency alerts sent to areas of Altadena. When flames erupted from Eaton Canyon on Jan. 7, neighborhoods on the east side of Altadena got evacuation orders at 7:26 p.m., but residents to the west did not receive orders until 3:25 a.m. — hours after fires began to destroy their neighborhoods. Seventeen of the 18 people confirmed dead in the Eaton fire were on the west side.

Garcia told The Times that the problems in Altadena appeared to be due to human error, rather than technical errors with emergency alert software. Garcia said he and other L.A. Congress members were anxious to read the McChrystal Group’s after-action review of the response to the Eaton and Palisades fires.

Local, state and federal officials all shared some blame for the problems with alerts in the L.A. fire, Garcia said. Going forward, Congress should press the federal government, he said, to develop a reliable regulatory system for alerts.

“When you have so many operators and you don’t have these IPAWS requirements in place, that is concerning,” Garcia said. “We should have a standard that’s federal, that’s clear.”

Garcia told The Times that emergency alerts were not just a Southern California issue.

“These systems are used around the country,” he said. “This can impact any community, and so it’s in everyone’s best interests to move forward and to work with FEMA, to work with the FCC, to make sure that we make these adjustments and changes. I think it’s very critical.”

Times staff writer Paige St. John contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration and congressional Democrats expressed optimism Sunday that more than $450 billion in loans and aid to Americans most affected by the coronavirus outbreak will be enacted this week, providing a measure of financial help as the U.S. death toll passes 40,000.

The bulk of the money is aimed at helping small-business owners, many of them pushed to collapse by the weeks-long shutdown of bars, restaurants, shops and other businesses in much of the country.

The package would also earmark $25 billion for coronavirus testing, which has become a major point of contention between President Trump and the nation’s governors, and $75 billion for beleaguered hospitals, Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said Sunday.

After negotiations over the weekend with Mnuchin, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) both agreed that a deal was close. The Senate could vote as soon as Monday, and House members were told the chamber could meet Wednesday for a recorded vote.

The two sides were still struggling to reconcile differences over whether to add aid to states and municipalities, which Democrats said would provide a lifeline for first responders and workers such as bus drivers who are in close contact with the public.

The deal would swiftly replenish a loan program run by the Small Business Administration that is already essentially tapped out three weeks after it passed as part of a broader $2-trillion rescue package.

Mnuchin said the Paycheck Protection Program would receive about $300 billion. The deal also would add $60 billion to a separate emergency loan program for small businesses that also is out of money, Schumer said. Some of the loans would be specifically targeted to rural and minority-owned businesses.

“I think we’re making a lot of progress,” Mnuchin, who has handled the White House negotiations with congressional leaders, told CNN’s “State of the Union.” Mnuchin said he had “multiple conversations all weekend” with House and Senate leaders of both parties.

“I think we’re very close to a deal today,” he said, “and I’m hopeful that we can get that done.”

Schumer said on the same program that the two sides had “a few more issues to deal with,” but he pronounced himself “very, very hopeful” about an imminent agreement.

Pelosi, appearing on ABC’s “This Week,” agreed that they were “very close” to finalizing a deal.

The Senate plans to hold a brief session Monday afternoon, during which the Republican and Democratic leaders could pass the deal if no single senator objects. The House is slated to hold a similar brief session Tuesday.

Pelosi, who has accused Trump of failing as a leader during the pandemic, said on “Fox News Sunday” that he “deserves an F” for his response to the crisis but that bipartisan efforts to help Americans must move quickly ahead.

Since taking effect last month, the Payroll Protection Program has approved almost 1.7 million taxpayer-backed loans to small businesses, mostly to help keep paying employees. The flood of applications has nearly exhausted the $349 billion available, with thousands of small businesses still in urgent need of help.

Hospitals across the country have been hit hard not only by the wave of patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, but also by emergency steps such as putting off elective surgeries, which for most are a consistent source of cash flow. The $75 billion earmarked for them is meant to ease that shortfall.

Along with the hospital funding, Democrats have pushed hard for the $25 billion for coronavirus testing, which public health authorities say is crucial to determine how severe the outbreak remains, and who should be isolated, before stay-at-home restrictions are lifted.

On Thursday, three days after Trump had asserted “total” authority to reopen states, he did an abrupt about-face and announced that the governors — not the federal government — should assume responsibility for testing and deciding when it was safe for people to return to work and schools.

Schumer said on CNN that there “ought to be one person” ensuring a “national focus and effort on testing,” instead of a 50-state patchwork approach.

Democrats have sought an additional $150 billion for cities and states suffering a huge loss of tax revenues even as they spend heavily to cope with the crisis, but Republicans have opposed using federal funds to fill local and state budget shortfalls.

“The president is willing to consider that in the next bill but wants to get this over the finish line with a focus on small businesses, hospitals and testing,” Mnuchin said.

Pelosi and other Democrats have portrayed the requested state and local aid as meant to support those on the pandemic’s front lines.

“Our lives and well-being are threatened if health care, police, EMS, teachers and other essential workers are let go,” the House speaker wrote in a letter to colleagues Saturday. “These vital workers need our help now.”

Even those who support more state and local funding acknowledged that might be a losing battle for now.

The Republican head of the National Governors Assn., Maryland’s Larry Hogan, said on CNN that state and municipal aid is “desperately needed” but that perhaps it would have to wait.

“Look, we do not want to hold up funding to these small businesses,” he said.

The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Suzanne Clark, called the latest proposal “a good start” but said lawmakers must move quickly.

“We know that the small businesses out there are really hurting,” she said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” ”And every hour and day that goes by without this assistance is really hurting them.”

Mnuchin was asked on CNN if the delivery of $1,200 checks to individual Americans, part of the previous aid package, was delayed because Trump wanted to put his name on them. In the end, his name appears in the memo line but not as a signature on the checks.

Critics said either move suggested that the funds were somehow Trump’s personal largesse rather than the disbursement of taxpayer-supplied federal funds.

Mnuchin said that it would have been permissible to use the president’s signature rather than that of a Treasury official, but that the idea was dropped because it would have caused a delay. In any event, he said, the notion didn’t originate with Trump.

“That was my idea,” Mnuchin said. “He is the president, and I think it’s a terrific symbol to the American public.”

Times staff writer Jennifer Haberkorn contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON — Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., whose new year will include presiding at a Senate impeachment trial of President Trump as well as leading the Supreme Court, called Tuesday for more focus on civic education at a time “when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale.”

In his year-end report on the judiciary, Roberts steered clear of politics, Trump and the looming impeachment trial, speaking instead about the importance of independent courts and citizens who understand democracy.

“Each generation has an obligation to pass on to the next, not only a fully functioning government responsive to the needs of the people, but the tools to understand and improve it,” he said. “I ask my judicial colleagues to continue their efforts to promote public confidence in the judiciary, both through their rulings and through civic outreach. We should celebrate our strong and independent judiciary, a key source of national unity and stability. But we should also remember that justice is not inevitable. We should reflect on our duty to judge without fear or favor, deciding each matter with humility, integrity and dispatch.”

This is not a new theme for the chief justice. Just over a year ago, Roberts issued an extraordinary statement in response to Trump’s tweeted critique of a judge as being an “Obama judge.”

“We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges,” Roberts said. “What we have is an extraordinary group of dedicated judges doing their level best to do equal right to those appearing before them.”

His devotion to nonpartisan judging will be put to a test in the next year. The Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether Democratic-controlled House committees and a New York prosecutor can subpoena Trump’s financial records, including his tax returns.

And in the weeks ahead, Roberts will cross 1st Street on Capitol Hill and preside over a Senate impeachment trial of Trump.

The details and timing of the Senate trial await the return of lawmakers to Washington next week. The high court is due to hear arguments in the morning during the weeks of Jan. 13 and Jan. 21.

Roberts’ official title is chief justice of the United States, and as such he is the leader of the entire federal court system, not just the Supreme Court. In this year’s report, he described the importance of the “85 brilliant essays” that appeared in New York newspapers in 1787 and 1788 and became known as the Federalist Papers. They explained the “core principles of our constitutional democracy,” Roberts said.

Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote most of the essays, while John Jay, the nation’s first chief justice, contributed only five. “Perhaps if Jay had been more productive, America might have awarded him with a Broadway musical,” Roberts wrote, referring to hit musical “Hamilton.” But he was badly injured in what was dubbed “the Doctors’ Riot,” Roberts said.

It began with a rumor that medical students were robbing graves to practice surgery on cadavers, he said. An angry mob formed and stormed a New York hospital. Jay, who lived nearby, grabbed a sword and tried to defend the medical staff, but a rioter tossed a rock that struck him. He survived, but did not contribute further to the influential essays.

“It is sadly ironic that John Jay’s efforts to educate his fellow citizens about the framers’ plan of government fell victim to a rock thrown by a rioter motivated by a rumor.” The three authors “ultimately succeeded in convincing the public of the virtues of the principles embodied in the Constitution. Those principles leave no place for mob violence,” he wrote.

“But in the ensuing years, we have come to take democracy for granted, and civic education has fallen by the wayside. In our age, when social media can instantly spread rumor and false information on a grand scale, the public’s need to understand our government, and the protections it provides, is ever more vital.”

The court also announced that the chief justice’s mother, Rosemary A. Roberts, died Saturday surrounded by her family in Westminster, Md. She was 90.

Those Trumps never miss the chance to sell their merchandise.

Friday morning, on the heels of her well-received speech at the Republican National Convention, prospective first daughter Ivanka Trump showed just how much she takes after her father: Her official Twitter account tweeted, “Shop Ivanka’s look from her #RNC speech” to her 1.97 million followers, and a link to a Macy’s page that featured the polyester-and-spandex “sleeveless studded sheath dress” from her eponymous fashion line.

The tweet must have worked; the $158 dress, which was made abroad, sold out.

First lady Michelle Obama, another fashion plate, also has the power to move merchandise. Known for her eclectic tastes — from unsung American designers to J. Crew — she does not personally profit from the trends she sparks.

It’s different with the Trumps.

Over the course of his campaign, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has introduced us to Trump ties and Trump steaks, Trump wine and Trump vodka. Donald Trump promotes his real estate holdings by scheduling news conferences at his various properties: Trump Tower, Trump International Golf Links in Scotland (where he opined that Brexit would be good for business. Well, his business.)

Last March, at the Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter, Fla., he showed reporters a table piled high with what one journalist called “a veritable Trump-ucopia” of Trump merchandise. “I mean, what’s wrong with selling?” asked Trump.

Indeed.

The merchandising of the Trump name would probably not even be all that remarkable, given that the billionaire developer/reality TV star has been on a lifelong mission to plaster his name on as much stuff as possible.

But he has left himself open to charges of hypocrisy because a good deal of his clothing line is manufactured overseas.

On the campaign trail, he has promised repeatedly that he will restore American manufacturing to its glory days by curtailing outsourcing to foreign countries, especially China. He has frequently accused China of manipulating its currency to make its exports more attractive, which has, in Trump’s view, undermined American manufacturing.

Turns out much of Ivanka’s line is also made overseas, including the convention dress, described on the Macy’s website as “imported,” but it’s not clear where. Macy’s has not yet answered my query.

Last March, in a column on the PBS website, Harvard economic Robert Lawrence wrote that he had analyzed the Donald Trump and Ivanka Trump fashion lines, which were available on the official Trump website. Lawrence determined that “of the 838 Ivanka products advertised through the site, none appear to be made exclusively in the U.S.; 628 are said to be imported and 354 made specifically in China.”

(Links on Ivanka’s current style website redirect customers to Macy’s for purchases.)

Lawrence was moved to investigate after Florida Sen. Marco Rubio tweaked Trump during a debate for his foreign-made ties.

Turned out that Trump’s sports coats, cufflinks and eyeglass frames were also made in China. Some of his shirts were made in Bangladesh.

Lawrence, like most economists, was unbothered; international trade is good for the U.S., and Americans want to spend less on things.

“But how,” he asked, “do you reconcile a business model based on importing with professions of deep belief that manufacturing should be brought back to America?”

As a former fashion editor, I hope you will indulge me for a moment. Ivanka’s dress was pretty, but it did not look especially well made, or expensive. She is a former fashion model, and can carry off just about any look. But under the glare of the lights, one could see that the side seams pulled, and the dress was looser in the bodice than a tailored dress would be.

By contrast, Melania Trump’s body-skimming white dress, which also immediately sold out on the upscale fashion website Net-a-Porter, fit the way a $2,200 garment should.

Then again, Melania wasn’t selling anything but her husband.

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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration has fired the nation’s top copyright official, Shira Perlmutter, days after abruptly terminating the head of the Library of Congress, which oversees the U.S. Copyright Office.

The office said in a statement Sunday that Perlmutter received an email from the White House a day earlier with the notification that “your position as the Register of Copyrights and Director at the U.S. Copyright Office is terminated effective immediately.”

On Thursday, President Trump fired Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, the first woman and the first African American to hold that position, as part of the administration’s ongoing purge of government officials perceived to oppose the president and his agenda.

Hayden named Perlmutter to lead the Copyright Office in October 2020.

Perlmutter’s office recently released a report examining whether artificial intelligence companies can use copyrighted materials to “train” their AI systems and compete in the same market as the human-made works they were trained on.

The report, the third part of a lengthy AI study, follows a review that Perlmutter began in 2023 with opinions from thousands of people including AI developers, actors and country singers.

In January, the office clarified its approach as one based on the “centrality of human creativity” in creating a work that warrants copyright protections. The office receives about half a million copyright applications per year, covering millions of creative works.

“Where that creativity is expressed through the use of AI systems, it continues to enjoy protection,” Perlmutter said in January. “Extending protection to material whose expressive elements are determined by a machine … would undermine rather than further the constitutional goals of copyright.”

The White House didn’t return a message seeking comment Sunday.

Democrats were quick to denounce Perlmutter’s firing.

“Donald Trump’s termination of Register of Copyrights, Shira Perlmutter, is a brazen, unprecedented power grab with no legal basis,” said Rep. Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee.

Perlmutter, who holds a law degree, was previously a policy director at the Patent and Trademark Office and worked on copyright and other areas of intellectual property. She also previously worked at the Copyright Office in the late 1990s. She did not return messages left Sunday seeking comment.

O’Brien writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Sophia Tareen in Chicago contributed to this report.

BOSTON — A Tufts University student from Turkey who was seized on a street by federal immigration agents has returned to Boston after being released from a Louisiana immigration detention center where she was held for more than six weeks.

Upon arrival at Logan Airport, Rumeysa Ozturk told reporters Saturday she was excited to get back to her studies during what has been a “very difficult” period.

“In the last 45 days, I lost both my freedom and also my education during a crucial time for my doctoral studies,” she said. “But I am so grateful for all the support, kindness and care.”

A federal judge ordered Ozturk’s release Friday pending a final decision on her claim that she was illegally detained following an op-ed she co-wrote last year criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza.

Ozturk said she will continue her case in the courts, adding, “I have faith in the American system of justice.”

She was joined by her lawyers and two of Massachusetts’ Democratic members of Congress, Sen. Ed Markey and Rep. Ayanna Pressley.

“Today is a tremendous day as we welcome you back, Rumeysa,” Markey said. “You have made millions and millions of people across our country so proud of the way you have fought.”

Appearing by video for her bail hearing the previous day, Ozturk, 30, detailed her worsening asthma attacks in detention and her desire to finish her doctorate focusing on children and social media.

U.S. District Judge William Sessions in Vermont ruled that she was to be released on her own recognizance with no travel restrictions. She was not a danger to the community or a flight risk, he said, while noting that he might amend the release order to consider any conditions by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in consultation with her lawyers.

Sessions said the government offered no evidence for why Ozturk was arrested other than the op-ed.

The U.S. Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review did not respond to an email message seeking comment Friday.

Ozturk was one of four students who wrote the opinion piece last year in campus newspaper The Tufts Daily. It criticized the university’s response to student activists demanding that Tufts “acknowledge the Palestinian genocide,” disclose its investments and divest from companies with ties to Israel.

On March 25 immigration officials surrounded Ozturk in Massachusetts and took her into custody. She was then driven to New Hampshire and Vermont and flown to a detention center in Basile, La.

Her student visa had been revoked several days earlier, but she was not informed of that, her lawyers said.

Ozturk’s lawyers first filed a petition on her behalf in Massachusetts, but they did not know where she was and were unable to speak to her until more than 24 hours after she was detained. A Massachusetts judge later transferred the case to Vermont.

A State Department memo said Ozturk’s visa was revoked following an assessment that her actions “may undermine U.S. foreign policy by creating a hostile environment for Jewish students and indicating support for a designated terrorist organization.” Ozturk co-authored an op-ed that found common ground with a group that was temporarily banned from campus.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in March, without providing evidence, that investigations found that Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, which the U.S. has designated as a terrorist group.

Last week a federal appeals court upheld Sessions’ order to bring Ozturk back to New England for hearings to determine whether her constitutional rights, including free speech and due process, were violated, as her lawyers argue.

Immigration proceedings for Ozturk, initiated in Louisiana, are being conducted separately in that state and Ozturk can participate remotely, the court said.

Ngowi and Rush write for the Associated Press and reported from Boston and Portland, Ore., respectively. AP writers Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, N.H., and Michael Casey in Boston contributed to this report.