compensation

Southern California Edison increased the number of Eaton fire victims that are eligible to file claims for damages in its final compensation proposal, though some Altadena residents say the utility’s program still falls short.

After talking to residents about the plan it released in July, Edison said it decided to expand the area of homes that are eligible for compensation for smoke damage.

“Expanding the eligibility area is one of the most significant updates made as a result of feedback,” said Pedro Pizarro, the chief executive of Edison International, the utility’s parent company. “The number of qualified properties nearly doubled for those with damage from smoke, soot or ash.”

The utility also increased the amount of compensation it is offering for some victims. For example, each child in a family that lost its home will be eligible to receive $75,000 for pain and suffering, up from $50,000 in the initial plan.

To receive payments under the utility’s Wildfire Recovery Compensation Program, families must agree to drop any lawsuits they filed against the utility for the Jan. 7 fire.

The program also is open to businesses that lost revenues and renters who lost property. And it covers those who suffered physical injuries or had family members who died.

Edison is launching the victim compensation program even though government fire investigators have not released their report on the cause of the fire. The inferno swept through Altadena, destroying 9,400 homes and other structures and killing 19 people.

Videos captured the fire igniting under a century-old transmission line in Eaton Canyon that Edison had not used since 1971, and Pizarro has said a leading theory is that the line somehow re-energized and ignited the blaze. Edison said in a federal securities filing this week that “absent additional evidence, SCE believes that it is likely that its equipment could be found to have been associated with the ignition.”

In documents detailing its final compensation plan, the utility included the example of a family of four with a 1,500-square-foot home that was destroyed. The family would receive $900,000 to rebuild, $360,000 for personal property, $140,000 for loss of use and $380,000 for pain and suffering. It also would receive a $200,000 “direct claim premium” for agreeing to settle outside of court.

That total of $1,980,000 is then reduced by the family’s $1 million of insurance coverage, according to the company’s example.

On Thursday, state Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez (D-Pasadena) sent a letter to Edison saying she was concerned about how the utility was requiring victims to waive their future legal rights in order to get compensation. And she called on Edison to provide immediate housing assistance to fire victims.

“Having acknowledged its potential role in starting the Eaton Fire, Edison must do everything within its power to prioritize the needs of survivors and make this commitment a core part of its corporate duty,” she wrote to Pizarro. “This means ensuring fire victims can recover and rebuild their lives with the support they are owed.”

Edison expects to be reimbursed for most or all of the payments it makes to victims by a $21-billion state wildfire fund that Gov. Gavin Newsom and lawmakers created in 2019 to shield utilities from bankruptcy. Administrators of the wildfire fund told members of the state Catastrophe Response Council this week that they expect Eaton fire claims “to be in the tens of billions of dollars.”

In September, Newsom signed a bill that will bolster the money available by another $18 billion for future wildfires. Under that bill, Edison is allowed to raise electric rates for any Eaton fire costs that exceed the original $21-billion fund.

Some Eaton fire survivors told the council, which oversees the wildfire fund, that Edison’s program fails to fully cover damages suffered by victims. Joy Chen, executive director of the Eaton Fire Survivors Network, recently sent the council a report detailing where her group found shortfalls. For example, Chen said, Edison is deducting a homeowner’s full insurance coverage from the compensation amounts even if the insurer has reimbursed the family for only part of that amount.

“Nine months after Edison’s negligence shattered our lives, the toll is clear,” the group’s report states. “Many have drained retirement savings, maxed out credit cards, or watched marriages and health deteriorate under the strain. “

“You destroyed our homes, lives and community,” the report says of Edison. “Fix what you broke. “

Chen’s group joined with Perez in calling for Edison to provide emergency housing assistance for victims.

Edison said its program is designed “to help the community recover and rebuild faster.” The utility said a report by RAND, the non-profit research group it hired to assess the compensation plan, determined the payment amounts “used modern statistical methods and in our judgment were thoughtfully done and well executed.”

Edison said victims can start filing for claims now and that it expects to get back to them with an offer within 90 days.

GERRY Adams will be blocked from claiming taxpayer-funded compensation under changes to the law today.

The former Sinn Féin leader was on track to receive a government payout for his detention in the 1970s.

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But a new Troubles Bill will now ban him and around 400 other largely republican former-detainees from receiving public cash.

It comes after an unexpected Supreme Court ruling in 2020 on historical detentions in Northern Ireland risked forcing ministers to splurge vast sums of money on individuals who claimed they were wrongfully detained during the Troubles.

The landmark case, brought by Adams, found his initial detention under an Interim Custody Order (ICO) was unlawful because a junior minister signed the order, not the Secretary of State.

This pivotal decision opened the floodgates for thousands of compensation claims for imprisonment and quashed convictions.
Later, Mr. Adams won a court battle in 2023 that ruled he was wrongly denied compensation after his convictions for trying to escape jail in the 1970s were quashed.

Today, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn will introduce new legislation to Parliament to clarify that the relevant law always permitted junior ministers to sign the ICOs and, therefore, ensure no compensation will be paid.

A government source told The Sun: “The last government completely failed to successfully address this issue.

“Today we are making it clear in the law that detentions were legitimate and lawful.

“A result of this will be that those previously eligible will not get a single penny of taxpayers’ hard-earned cash.”

Scary. Terrifying. Deeply misguided.

Those were among the visceral reactions this week from Emily Blunt, Whoopi Goldberg, Natasha Lyonne and many other actors and filmmakers over the sudden fame of Tilly Norwood.

Norwood isn’t real — the brunette who appears in a comedy sketch on her Instagram page is in fact a computer-generated composite.

“I may be AI, but I’m feeling very real emotions right now,” states a message on Norwood’s Instagram page. “I am so excited for what’s coming next!”

The sentiment was not widely shared, at least in Hollywood, where anxieties about the use and abuse of artificial intelligence replacing actors runs deep.

Norwood’s creator ignited a furor after she announced that the digital actress would soon be signed by a talent agency.

This week, SAG-AFTRA weighed in with a withering response. Two years ago, the union’s members engaged in a 118-day strike to fight for more AI protections in their contracts with major studios.

“To be clear, ‘Tilly Norwood’ is not an actor, it’s a character generated by a computer program that was trained on the work of countless professional performers — without permission or compensation,” the guild said. “It doesn’t solve any ‘problem’ — it creates the problem of using stolen performances to put actors out of work, jeopardizing performer livelihoods and devaluing human artistry.”

Norwood was created by AI through Xicoia, a London-based AI talent studio launched by Dutch actor Eline Van der Velden. Xicoia is working with estates and Hollywood stars who want to appear as their younger selves on screen, according to Deadline, which first reported talent agency interest in Norwood.

Van der Velden, who is also the founder of AI production company Particle6, was not available for comment on Wednesday. But in a statement posted on Instagram following the backlash, Van der Velden stressed that Norwood is “a creative work — a piece of art.”

“I see AI not as a replacement for people, but as a new tool — a new paintbrush,” Van der Velden said. “Just as animation, puppetry, or CGI opened fresh possibilities without taking away from live acting, AI offers another way to imagine and build stories.”

SAG-AFTRA President Sean Astin disputed the claim.

He said in an interview with The Times that the material used to create Norwood was “improperly obtained” from SAG-AFTRA members’ work without permission, compensation or acknowledgment.

“It manipulates something that already exists, so the conceit that it isn’t harming actors — because it is its own new thing — ignores the fundamental truth that it is taking something that doesn’t belong to them,” Astin said.

“We want to allow our members to benefit from new technologies. … They need to give permission for it, and they need to be bargained with.”

Norwood has 44,000 followers on Instagram and is portrayed as an aspiring young actor based in London who enjoys shopping and iced coffee.

The social media page depicts Norwood in various scenes. In one, she’s armed and ready to battle a monster; in another, she’s running away from a collapsing building in a futuristic city.

At an industry panel in Zurich on Saturday, Van der Velden touted her creation.

“With Tilly, you know, when we first launched her, people were like, ‘That’s not going to happen,’” Van der Velden said. “And now, we’re going to announce which agency is going to be representing her in the next few months. It’s all changing and everyone is starting to see the light, fortunately.”

Talent agencies have represented digital characters used in ad campaigns. And seeing such avatars in the mainstream has become increasingly common — in 2024, Japanese digital character Hatsune Miku performed at Coachella and an AI model was featured in the August issue of Vogue magazine for L.A. brand Guess.

And some studios, including Lionsgate, have partnerships with AI startups to explore using the technology in areas such as storyboarding. Others, such as Netflix and Amazon MGM Studios, have series that use AI in visual effects.

Tech companies have argued that they should be able to train their AI models on content available online and bring up relevant information under the “fair use” doctrine, which allows for the limited reproduction of content without permission from the copyright holder.

But the proliferation of AI has also fueled concerns that AI companies are using copyrighted material to train their models without compensation or permission. Earlier this year, Disney, Universal and Warner Bros. Discovery sued AI companies over copyright infringement.

Some actors called for a boycott of any agents who decide to represent Norwood. “Read the room, how gross,” “In the Heights” actor Melissa Barrera wrote on Instagram.

“Our members reserve the right to not be in business with representatives who are operating in an unfair conflict of interest, who are operating in bad faith,” Astin said.

No compensation