month

WASHINGTON — Lawmakers unhappy with Justice Department decisions to heavily redact or withhold documents from a legally mandated release of files related to Jeffrey Epstein threatened Saturday to launch impeachment proceedings against those responsible, including Pam Bondi, the U.S. attorney general.

Democrats and Republicans alike criticized the omissions, while Democrats also accused the Justice Department of intentionally scrubbing the release of at least one image of President Trump, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggesting it could portend “one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Trump administration officials have said the release fully complied with the law, and that its redactions were crafted only to protect victims of Epstein, a disgraced financier and convicted sex offender accused of abusing hundreds of women and girls before his death in 2019.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Fremont), an author of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, which required the release of the investigative trove, blasted Bondi in a social media video, accusing her of denying the existence of many of the records for months, only to push out “an incomplete release with too many redactions” in response to — and in violation of — the new law.

Khanna said he and the bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), were “exploring all options” for responding and forcing more disclosures, including by pursuing “the impeachment of people at Justice,” asking courts to hold officials blocking the release in contempt, and “referring for prosecution those who are obstructing justice.”

“We will work with the survivors to demand the full release of these files,” Khanna said.

He later added in a CNN interview that he and Massie were drafting articles of impeachment against Bondi, though they had not decided whether to bring them forward.

Massie, in his own social media post, said Khanna was correct in rejecting the Friday release as insufficient, saying it “grossly fails to comply with both the spirit and the letter of the law.”

The lawmakers’ view that the Justice Department’s document dump failed to comply with the law echoed similar complaints across the political spectrum Saturday, as the full scope of redactions and other withholdings came into focus.

The frustration had already sharply escalated late Friday, after Fox News Digital reported that the names and identifiers of not just victims but of “politically exposed individuals and government officials” had been redacted from the records — which would violate the law, and which Justice Department officials denied.

Among the critics was Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), who cited the Fox reporting in an exasperated post late Friday to X.

“The whole point was NOT to protect the ‘politically exposed individuals and government officials.’ That’s exactly what MAGA has always wanted, that’s what drain the swamp actually means. It means expose them all, the rich powerful elites who are corrupt and commit crimes, NOT redact their names and protect them,” Greene wrote.

Senior Justice Department officials later called in to Fox News to dispute the report. But the removal of a file published in the Friday evening release, capturing a desk in Epstein’s home with a drawer filled of photos of Trump, reinforced bipartisan concerns that references to the president had been illegally withheld.

In a release of documents from the Epstein family estate by the House Oversight Committee this fall, Trump’s name was featured over 1,000 times — more than any other public figure.

“If they’re taking this down, just imagine how much more they’re trying to hide,” Schumer wrote on X. “This could be one of the biggest coverups in American history.”

Several victims also said the release was insufficient. “It’s really kind of another slap in the face,” Alicia Arden, who went to the police to report that Epstein had abused her in 1997, told CNN. “I wanted all the files to come out, like they said that they were going to.”

Trump, who signed the act into law after having worked to block it from getting a vote, was conspicuously quiet on the matter. In a long speech in North Carolina on Friday night, he did not mention it.

However, White House officials and Justice Department leaders strongly pushed back against the notion that the release was somehow incomplete or out of compliance with the law, or that the names of politicians had been redacted.

“The only redactions being applied to the documents are those required by law — full stop,” said Deputy Atty. Gen. Todd Blanche. “Consistent with the statute and applicable laws, we are not redacting the names of individuals or politicians unless they are a victim.”

Other Republicans defended the administration. Rep. James Comer (R-Ky.), chair of the House Oversight Committee, said the administration “is delivering unprecedented transparency in the Epstein case and will continue releasing documents.”

Epstein died in a Manhattan jail awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. He’d been convicted in 2008 of procuring a child for prostitution in Florida, but served only 13 months in custody in what many condemned as a sweetheart plea deal for a well-connected and rich defendant.

Epstein’s crimes have attracted massive attention, including among many within Trump’s own political base, in part because of unanswered questions surrounding which of his many powerful friends may have also been implicated in crimes against children. Some of those questions have swirled around Trump, who was friends with Epstein for years before the two had what the president has described as a falling out.

Evidence has emerged in recent months that suggests Trump may have had knowledge of Epstein’s crimes during their friendship.

Epstein wrote in a 2019 email, released by the House Oversight Committee, that Trump “knew about the girls.” In a 2011 email to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was convicted of conspiring with Epstein to help him sexually abuse girls, Epstein wrote that “the dog that hasn’t barked is trump. [Victim] spent hours at my house with him … he has never once been mentioned.”

Trump has ardently denied any wrongdoing.

The records released Friday contained few if any major new revelations, but did include a complaint against Epstein filed with the FBI back in 1996 — which the FBI did little with, substantiating longstanding fears among Epstein’s victims that his crimes could have been stopped years earlier.

Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), one of the president’s most consistent critics, wrote on X that Bondi should appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee to explain under oath the extensive redactions and omissions, which he called a “willful violation of the law.”

“The Trump Justice Department has had months to keep their promise to release all of the Epstein Files,” Schiff wrote. “Epstein’s survivors and the American people need answers now.”

BUCHAREST, Romania — American rapper Wiz Khalifa was sentenced by a court in Romania on Thursday to nine months in jail for drug possession, more than a year after he took part in a music festival in the Eastern European country.

Khalifa was stopped by Romanian police in July 2024 after allegedly smoking cannabis on stage at the Beach, Please! Festival in Costinesti, a coastal resort in Constanta County. Prosecutors said the rapper, whose real name is Cameron Jibril Thomaz, was found in possession of more than 18 grams of cannabis, and that he consumed some on stage.

The Constanta Court of Appeal handed down the sentence after Khalifa was convicted of “possession of dangerous drugs, without right, for personal consumption,” according to Romania’s national news agency, Agerpres. The decision is final.

The decision came after a lower court in Constanta County in April issued Khalifa a criminal fine of 3,600 lei ($830) for “illegal possession of dangerous drugs,” but prosecutors appealed the court’s decision and sought a higher sentence.

Romania has some of the harsher drugs laws in Europe. Possession of cannabis for personal use is criminalized and can result in a prison sentence of between three months and two years, or a fine.

It isn’t clear whether Romanian authorities will seek to file an extradition request, since Khalifa is a U.S. citizen and doesn’t reside in Romania.

The 38-year-old Pittsburgh rapper rose to prominence with his breakout mixtape “Kush + Orange Juice.” On stage in Romania last summer, the popular rapper smoked a large, hand-rolled cigarette while singing his hit “Young, Wild & Free.”

With three key players out because of injury and USC in desperate need of depth, the Trojans are taking the rare step of adding reinforcements at the midseason mark.

Point guard Kam Woods, who last played at Robert Morris, was added to the Trojans’ roster and cleared to play on Thursday, despite the fact that USC is already a dozen games into the basketball season.

Woods could make an immediate impact for coach Eric Musselman, having averaged 14.9 points, 5.2 assists and 4.7 rebounds per game last year at Robert Morris, where he played alongside current Trojan, Amarion Dickerson. Woods is expected to step into the rotation right away with USC, after the Trojans lost starting point guard Rodney Rice for the season.

What’s not clear is why Woods was still in the transfer portal two months into the college basketball calendar. USC had shown some interest in Woods during the offseason, according to a person familiar with the program who is not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, but Woods never signed with a team, despite being a second-team All-Horizon League selection.

Since he was still in the transfer portal and because he has already graduated, Woods is the rare case, outside of an international player or junior college player, that qualifies to be a midseason addition.

Woods has played five years of college basketball, bouncing around between five schools in that span. He started at Troy in 2020-21, before taking the junior college route at Northwest Florida State Community College during the 2021-22 season. He then transferred to North Carolina State, where he played sparingly over 13 games.

Woods landed with Robert Morris last season and emerged as the Colonials’ leading scorer as they won the Horizon League and earned a bid to the NCAA tournament.

So, with this being his sixth year, how is Woods eligible to join another team? Eligibility-wise, he actually falls under the same category as the Trojans’ leading scorer, Chad Baker-Mazara, who is playing his sixth season of college basketball in 2025-26.

Due to the recent ruling in the Diego Pavia case, the season that Woods spent playing junior college does not count against his five years of eligibility. Plus, since Woods was a freshman during the 2020-21 season, he has an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.

Had Woods played for another team during the first two months of the season, he would not be eligible to join the Trojans in December.

For USC, that fit could be especially fortunate. Without Rice, USC has used a combination of Jerry Easter, Jordan Marsh and Ryan Cornish at point guard. Woods will be the most experienced of the group.

Five-star freshman Alijah Arenas is expected to enter that picture in the coming weeks, too. Arenas was set to rejoin practice this week and will presumably be cleared to play some time in January.

More than two months after an explosion erupted at the Chevron oil refinery in El Segundo, neither the company nor the regulators responsible for monitoring the facility have released details on the cause and the extent of the environmental fallout.

Here’s what we do know so far: Around 9:30 p.m.on Oct. 2, a large fire broke out in the southeast corner of the refinery, where Chevron turned crude oil into jet fuel. The resulting violent blast allegedly wounded several workers on the refinery grounds and rattled homes up to one mile away.

The refinery carried out emergency flaring in an effort to burn off potentially hazardous gases, as public officials told residents in neighborhoods nearby to stay indoors. That warning held until firefighters managed to extinguish the fire the following day.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District — the agency responsible for regulating the refinery’s emissions — said Chevron would submit reports detailing the potential cause of the fire and any unexpected equipment failures within 30 days. But the preliminary reports were handed in nearly a month late — and without any significant updates from what was said in the days immediately following the fire.

In those reports, Chevron said the fire was “unexpected and unforeseeable.” The cause is still under an investigation that probably won’t conclude until next month, an air district spokesperson told me recently.

Company officials said the fire significantly damaged power supply, utilities and gas collection systems in that section of the refinery. Repairs are underway but could take months. Meanwhile, the majority of the 1,000-acre refinery is operational, distilling crude oil into gasoline and diesel.

At an air district meeting on Dec. 2, Chevron asked for leniency from conducting equipment testing at the damaged wing of the refinery that is now offline, and the air district obliged.

One member of the agency’s hearing board, Cynthia Verdugo-Peralta, said she understood that the investigation was “quite involved” but stressed the need for “some type of response” from Chevron on the cause.

“I’m hoping that this will never happen again,” she said. “Hopefully this repair will indeed be a full repair and there won’t be another incident like this.”

Environmental regulators like the South Coast Air Quality Management District often rely on the very industries that they oversee to arrange for monitoring and investigations into disasters. For obvious reasons, that’s not ideal. Experts say this system of self-reporting is somewhat inevitable, given that many government agencies lack the staffing, budget and access to provide adequate oversight.

But it often leaves the public waiting for answers — and skeptical of the findings, when they finally arrive.

For example, there are still serious questions surrounding the air monitoring systems at Chevron’s El Segundo refinery that were supposed to act as a safety net for the public nearby during emergencies like the October fire.

Under state law, refineries are required to install, operate and maintain real-time fence line air monitors. Indeed, over four hours after the Oct. 2 fire at El Segundo, Chevron’s fence line air monitors detected elevated levels of volatile organic compounds, a category of quickly vaporizing chemicals that can be harmful if inhaled.

However, at the time of the incident, the refinery’s monitors oddly did not detect any elevated levels of some of the most common types chemicals that experts say would have been likely to be released during such a fire, such as cancer-causing benzene, a typical byproduct of burning fossil fuels.

Experts are now asking whether those monitors were fully functioning at the time.

Earlier this month, the Bay Area Air Quality Management District fined Chevron’s refinery in Richmond $900,000 after the agency found 20 of the oil company’s fence line monitors were not properly calibrated to detect the full range of emissions, potentially allowing excessive air pollution to go undetected and unreported.

As for the El Segundo facility, neither the South Coast air district nor the refinery could confirm whether the air monitors were working properly on Oct. 2. A spokesperson said the air district is scheduled to audit Chevron’s fence line air monitoring network sometime next year.

But it may already be too late to warn nearby communities. Since October’s explosion, there have been more than a dozen reported incidents of unplanned flaring at Chevron’s refinery in El Segundo, according to air district data.

Each one raises the question: What happened?

More news on air pollution

The holiday season is associated with fragrant candles, incense and gathering around the fireplace. But health experts say these traditions should be done in moderation to avoid respiratory risks, according to Associated Press reporter Cheyanne Mumphrey.

That’s especially true in Southern California, where the air district continues to issue no-burn advisories, prohibiting burning wood to limit unhealthy levels of soot, per Pasadena Now.

Almost a year after the Eaton and Palisades fires, the health effects from breathing wildfire smoke are still coming into focus. L.A. Times science and medicine reporter Corrine Purtill writes that emergency room visits rose 46% for heart attacks at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in the 90 days after the fires. The findings suggest the death toll could be much higher than the 31 fatalities that have been linked with the fires.

California Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta sued the Trump administration — for the 50th time — after the suspension of $3 billion in federal funding that Congress approved for building more electric vehicle chargers, according to Times climate reporter Hayley Smith. California alone stands to lose out on $179.8 million in grants that could help reduce smog and greenhouse gases.

A few last things in climate news

The Trump administration announced it will dismantle the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s premier Earth science research institutions, per reporting from the New York Times. Scientists fear this could undermine weather forecasting in an age when global warming is contributing to more intense storms and other natural disasters.

A new analysis from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution found the rate of sea-level rise has more than doubled along U.S. coastlines over the last 125 years, according to Washington Post environmental reporter Brady Dennis. The research rebuts a controversial federal assessment published this summer that concluded there was no acceleration in rising ocean waters.

The U.S. and Europe continue to abandon their electric vehicle aspirations, ceding the clean car market to China, Bloomberg auto reporter Linda Lew writes. The European Commission recently scrapped an effective ban on combustion engine vehicles by 2035, and Ford Motor Co. walked away from plans to significantly overhaul its EV production — including the imminent demise of its all-electric Ford 150 Lightning truck.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

WASHINGTON — FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino said Wednesday that he will resign from the bureau next month, ending a brief and tumultuous tenure in which he clashed with the Justice Department over the handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files and was forced to reconcile the realities of his law enforcement job with provocative claims he made in his prior role as a popular podcast host.

The departure, which had been expected, would be among the highest-profile resignations of the Trump administration. It comes as FBI leadership has been buffeted by criticism over Director Kash Patel’s use of a government plane for personal purposes and social media posts about active investigations.

Bongino announced his planned departure in a post on X in which he said he was grateful for the “opportunity to serve with purpose.” He did not say precisely when in January he would leave or detail his future plans.

President Trump said earlier Wednesday, in response to a question about Bongino’s fate: “Dan did a great job. I think he wants to go back to his show.”

Bongino was always an unconventional pick for the No. 2 job at the FBI, a position that historically has entailed oversight of the bureau’s day-to-day operations and typically has been held by a career agent. Though he had previously worked as a New York City police officer and Secret Service agent, neither he nor Patel had any experience at the FBI before being picked for their jobs.

Nonetheless, Bongino was installed in the role in March by Trump after years as a conservative podcast host, where he used his platform to repeatedly rail against FBI leadership and to encourage conspiracy theories related to the Epstein sex-trafficking case and pipe bombs discovered in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021.

Once in the position, Bongino struggled to placate elements of Trump’s base who expected him to quickly deliver the reform he had claimed was needed at the FBI and to uncover the truths he had said had been hidden by the federal government.

On the Epstein case, for instance, he had previously challenged the official ruling that the wealthy financier had taken his own life in a New York jail soon after his 2019 arrest. But once in the FBI, he said in a Fox News interview: “I’ve seen the whole file. He killed himself.”

Bongino had separately speculated as recently as last year that the pipe bombs placed on the eve of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot were an “inside job” and part of a “massive cover-up.” But after the FBI earlier this month arrested a 30-year-old Virginia man with no evident connection to the federal government, Bongino was pressed about his prior comments.

“I was paid in the past for my opinions,” Bongino said in a Fox News interview. “One day I will be back in that space, but that’s not what I’m paid for now. I’m paid to be your deputy director, and we base investigations on facts.”

Tucker writes for the Associated Press.

It was supposed to be a speech with a clear message of hope for survivors of the Palisades fire.

In her State of the City address in April, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass called for a law exempting fire victims from construction permit fees — potentially saving them tens of thousands of dollars as they rebuild their homes.

Eight months later, the City Council is still debating how much permit relief the city can afford. Palisades residents have been left hanging, with some blaming Bass for failing to finalize a deal.

“This should have been pushed, and it wasn’t pushed,” said electrician Tom Doran, who has submitted plans to rebuild his three-bedroom home. “There was no motor on that boat. It was allowed to drift downstream.”

Since the Jan. 7 fire destroyed thousands of homes, Bass has been announcing recovery strategies with great fanfare, only for them to get bogged down in the details or abandoned altogether.

After two of the most destructive fires in the state’s history, The Times takes a critical look at the past year and the steps taken — or not taken — to prevent this from happening again in all future fires.

At one point, she called for the removal of traffic checkpoints around Pacific Palisades, only to reverse course after an outcry over public safety. She pushed tax relief for wildfire victims in Sacramento, only to abruptly pull the plug on her bill. Her relationship with Steve Soboroff, her first and only chief recovery officer, quickly unraveled over pay and other issues. He left after a 90-day stint.

Critics in and outside the Palisades say the mayor’s missteps have undermined public confidence in the rebuilding process. They have also made her more politically vulnerable as she ramps up her campaign for a second term.

1

2

3

1. Tom Doran poses for a portrait in the remains of his home in the Pacific Palisades. Doran, who has submitted plans to rebuild the home he lived in for decades, has said that Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass should have done more to secure passage of a law giving residents relief from city rebuilding permits after the wildfires. (Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times) 2. Statues are seen in an aerial of the remnants of Doran’s home. (Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times) 3. An aerial of the remains of Doran’s home. (Kayla Bartkowski / Los Angeles Times)

Bass, seated in her spacious City Hall office earlier this month, said the recovery is happening at “lightning speed” compared to other devastating wildfires, in part because of her emergency orders dramatically cutting the time it takes to obtain building permits.

By mid-December, more than 2,600 permit applications had been filed for more than 1,200 addresses — about a fifth of the properties damaged or destroyed in the fire. Permits had been issued at about 600 addresses, with construction underway at nearly 400, according to city figures.

Still, Bass acknowledged that fire victims are feeling angry and frustrated as they enter the holiday season.

“I think people have a right to all of those emotions, and I wouldn’t argue with any of them,” she said.

Rebuilding a community after a natural disaster is a monumental task, one with no clear playbook. Many of the obstacles — insurance claims, mortgage relief — reach beyond the purview of a mayor.

Still, Bass has plenty of power. City agencies crucial to the rebuilding effort report to her. She works closely with the council, whose members have sharply questioned some of her recovery initiatives.

Palisades residents had reason to be skeptical of the rebuilding process, given the problems that played out on Jan. 7: the failure to pre-deploy firefighters, the chaotic evacuation and the fact that Bass was out of the country on a diplomatic mission to Ghana.

In the weeks that followed, Bass was unsteady in her public appearances and at odds with her fire chief, whom she ultimately dismissed. She struggled to give residents a sense that the recovery was in capable hands.

Perhaps the most disastrous narrative revolved around Soboroff, a longtime civic leader known for his blunt, outspoken style.

Mayor Karen Bass, right, and her disaster recovery chief, Steve Soboroff, during a news conference at Palisades Recreation Center on Jan. 27.

(Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times)

To many, the assignment made sense on paper. Soboroff had a background in home building, roots in the Palisades and extensive knowledge of City Hall.

Soboroff initially expected to receive a salary of $500,000 for three months of work as chief recovery officer, with the funds coming from philanthropy. After that figure triggered an outcry, Bass changed course, persuading him to work for free. Soon afterward, Soboroff told an audience that he had been “lied to” about whether he would be compensated. (He later apologized.)

Soboroff also voiced frustration with the job itself, saying he had been excluded from key decisions. At one point, Bass appeared to narrow his duties, telling reporters he would focus primarily on rebuilding the community’s historic business district and nearby public areas.

Bass told The Times that she does not view her selection of Soboroff as a mistake. But she acknowledged there were “challenges along the way” — and decisions where Soboroff was not included.

“In those first few months when everything was happening, I’m sure there were decisions he wanted to be in that he wasn’t in,” she said.

In April, amid Soboroff’s departure, Bass said she was searching for a new chief recovery officer. She repeated that assertion in July. Yet she never publicly announced a replacement for Soboroff, baffling some in the Palisades and providing fresh ammunition to her critics.

Real estate developer Rick Caruso, who ran against Bass in 2022 and founded the nonprofit SteadfastLA to speed the rebuilding process, said the recovery czar position is still desperately needed, given the size of the task ahead.

“You’ve got infrastructure that has to be rebuilt, undergrounding of power lines, upgrading of water mains. At the same time, you want to get people back in their homes,” said Caruso, who is weighing another run for mayor.

A Samara XL modular house is lowered into place at a project site in Culver City on March 21. Developer and former mayoral candidate Rick Caruso’s Steadfast L.A. nonprofit wants to raise $30 million in the hopes of providing between 80 and 100 Samara XL homes for fire victims.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Behind the scenes, Bass opted not to select a single person to replace Soboroff, going instead with a trio of consultants. By then, she had confronted a spate of other crises — federal immigration raids, a $1-billion budget shortfall, a split with county officials over the region’s approach to homelessness.

Soboroff declined to comment on Bass’ handling of the recovery. Early on, he pushed the mayor’s team to hire the global engineering giant AECOM to oversee the recovery. Bass went initially with Hagerty, an Illinois-based consulting firm that specializes in emergency management.

At the time, the mayor pointed out that Hagerty was already working with county officials on the Eaton fire recovery in Altadena and Palisades fire recovery in other unincorporated areas.

The city gave Hagerty a one-year contract worth up to $10 million to provide “full project management” of the recovery, Bass said at the time.

Hagerty quickly ran into trouble. At community events, the firm’s consultants struggled to explain their role in the rebuilding.

Two months after Soboroff stepped down, Bass announced she was hiring AECOM after all to develop a plan for rebuilding city infrastructure. Hagerty ended up focusing heavily on the logistics around debris removal, helping the city coordinate with the federal Army Corps of Engineers, which spearheaded the cleanup.

Hagerty quietly finished its work earlier this month, billing the city $3.5 million — far less than the maximum spelled out in the firm’s contract.

The confusion over Hagerty’s role created a major opening for Bass’ best-known challenger in the June 2 primary election: former L.A. schools Supt. Austin Beutner, a onetime high-level deputy mayor.

Beutner, whose home was severely damaged in the Palisades fire, called the selection of Hagerty a “fiasco,” saying it’s still not clear what the firm delivered.

“The hiring of Hagerty proved to be a waste of time and money while creating a false sense of hope in a community that’s dealing with a terrible tragedy,” he said.

Executives with Hagerty did not respond to multiple inquiries from The Times.

An aerial image of some homes being reconstructed and lots that remain empty in Pacific Palisades.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

AECOM joined the city in June, working to prepare reports on the rebuilding effort that dealt with infrastructure repairs, fire protection and traffic management. Those reports are now expected by the one-year anniversary of the fire.

Matt Talley, who spent part of the year as AECOM’s point person in the Palisades, praised Bass for her focus on the recovery, saying he watched as she took lengthy meetings with Palisades community members, then made sure her staff worked to address their concerns.

“I think the mayor gets a bad rap,” said Talley, who left AECOM in mid-November. “She takes a lot of incoming, but in her heart, she really does want to drive the recovery and do the right thing, and that’s evidenced by the meetings she’s having with the community.”

Bass, in an interview, said she eventually decided to have three AECOM staffers form a “recovery team,” instead of a single replacement for Soboroff.

“It didn’t make sense to go in the other direction,” she said. “We evaluated that for quite a while, met with a number of people, consulted many experts.”

By the time Bass announced AECOM’s hiring, she had also begun pursuing another initiative: relief from Measure ULA, the city’s so-called mansion tax, which applies to most property sales above $5.3 million.

Proponents argued that Palisades residents should not have to pay the tax if they sell their burned-out properties. For those who can’t afford to rebuild — either because they are on fixed incomes or have little insurance — selling may be the only option, they argued.

In June, Caruso sent Bass a proposal showing how Measure ULA could be legally suspended. By then, Bass had tapped former state Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg to work on a bill overhauling Measure ULA, not only to aid fire victims but to spur housing construction citywide.

Three months later, near the end of the legislative session in Sacramento, Bass persuaded some L.A.-based lawmakers to carry the bill, infuriating affordable housing advocates who accused her of attempting an end run around voters.

But right before a key hearing, Bass announced she was withdrawing the bill, which had been submitted so late that it missed the deadline for lawmakers to make changes.

Bass said city leaders are now working to identify other pathways for suspending ULA in the Palisades.

Meanwhile, her push for permit relief is also a work in progress.

Alice Gould, who lost her home in the Palisades fire, is rebuilding her home on Akron Street in Pacific Palisades. Gould, who has lived on the property for 28 years, is upset that Mayor Karen Bass has not yet secured passage of a law to exempt fire victims from city permit fees for rebuilding.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

In April, a few days after her State of the City speech, Bass issued an emergency order suspending the collection of permit fees while the council drafted the law she requested. If the law isn’t enacted, fire victims will have to pay the fees that are currently suspended.

Councilmember Bob Blumenfield, who sits on the council’s powerful budget committee, said Bass’ team did not contact him before she issued her order.

“When I read that, my first thought was: ‘That’s great. How are we gonna pay for that?’” he said.

Bass issued a second emergency order in May, expanding the fee waivers to include every structure that burned. By October, some council members were voicing alarms over the cost, warning it could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, depending on the details.

Palisades residents called that estimate grossly inflated. On Dec. 2, dozens of them showed up at City Hall to urge the council to pass legislation covering every residential building that burned — not just single-family homes and duplexes, a concept favored by some on the council.

Council members, still struggling to identify the cost, sent the proposal back to the budget committee for more deliberations, which will spill into next year because of the holiday break.

Bass defended her handling of the issue, saying she used her “political heft” to move it forward. At the same time, she declined to say how far-reaching the relief should be.

Asked whether the Palisades should be spared from permit fees for grading, pools or retaining walls, she responded: “I can’t say that,” calling such details “minutiae.”

“What I wanted to see happen was, all fees that were possible to be waived should be waived,” she said.

Hank Wright, against a backdrop of his neighbor’s home being built, walks on the property where he lost his four-bedroom home in the Palisades fire.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Hank Wright, whose four-bedroom home on Lachman Lane burned to the ground, remains frustrated with the city, saying he doesn’t understand why Bass was unable to lock down the votes.

“She has not been the point person that I wanted her to be,” he said. “I don’t think she has been able to corral that bureaucracy.”

As the Palisades fire raged, then-Los Angeles Fire Department Chief Kristin Crowley went on a television blitz, calling out city leadership for systematically underfunding her agency.

The LAFD, she said, didn’t have enough firefighters, based at enough fire stations, to quench the wind-driven flames that were tearing through the hills.

“We need more. This is no longer sustainable,” she said in one interview Jan. 10.

Nearly a year after the fire destroyed much of the Palisades, LAFD officials continue to highlight financial concerns, with Crowley’s successor requesting a 15% budget increase and the firefighters union proposing a sales tax that could bring in an extra $300 million per year.

A Jan. 9 aerial view of neighborhoods destroyed by the Palisades fire.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

But the LAFD’s hyper-focus on money obscures its leaders’ failures in managing the resources they had, beginning with a decision to leave the scene of a New Year’s Day fire despite signs it hadn’t been fully extinguished.

Days later, that fire reignited into the Palisades fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. Despite forecasts of catastrophically high winds, LAFD officials didn’t pre-deploy engines in the area or increase manpower by ordering a previous shift of firefighters to stay on duty.

As the flames spread, the firefighting response was disorganized and chaotic, with the LAFD’s own after-action report describing major failures by high-ranking commanders in communication, staffing and basic wildland firefighting knowledge.

City leaders have highlighted changes they have made since the fire, including appointing 30-year LAFD veteran Jaime Moore as chief and drafting new protocols for staffing on high hazard weather days.

But the question remains: Is Los Angeles prepared for the next major wildfire? Some city officials and fire experts don’t think so, pointing to an LAFD that hasn’t evolved with the times and an incomplete review of how the Palisades fire started.

Moore, who was appointed chief last month, declined to comment.

Mayor Karen Bass said in an interview earlier this month that the city is “on the path to be completely ready” for a major wildfire, with the LAFD now taking a more proactive approach to weather warnings.

“The Fire Department has been way more aggressive, has done pre-deployment, has been very visible, alerts going out early, trying to be very, very aggressive,” she said.

But Genethia Hudley Hayes, president of the Board of Fire Commissioners, said that the LAFD is still unprepared and that there hasn’t been enough time to make the necessary changes. She cited the LAFD’s technology, which she said is about two decades behind.

“I am not confident there would be a different result” if a similar disaster strikes, she said.

City Councilmember Traci Park, whose district includes Pacific Palisades and who has advocated for more Fire Department funding, agreed with Hudley Hayes.

Some essential changes have been made, such as requiring firefighters to stay for an additional shift during red flag warnings, Park said. But she said that too many fire engines are out of service, there are not enough mechanics, and most important, questions about the origin of the Palisades fire remain unanswered.

In October, after federal prosecutors charged a former Palisades resident with deliberately setting the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, The Times reported that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area on Jan. 2, even though they had complained that the ground was still smoldering and rocks remained hot to the touch. The Times reviewed text messages among firefighters and a third party, sent in the weeks and months after the fire, describing the crew’s concerns.

The LAFD’s after-action report, released in October, only briefly mentioned the Lachman fire. Critics have flagged this as a crucial lapse in the report, which prevents the department from figuring out what went wrong and avoiding the same mistakes.

After the Times report, Bass ordered an investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the Lachman fire.

Mayor Karen Bass, right, and then-Fire Chief Kristin Crowley speak during a news conference in January. Bass ousted Crowley less than two months after the Palisades fire.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Bass had ousted Crowley less than two months after the Palisades fire, citing the LAFD’s failure to properly deploy resources ahead of the winds and potentially have a chance to extinguish the fire before it exploded out of control, an issue that was exposed by a series of reports in The Times.

Bass also countered Crowley’s financial complaints, saying that the budget did not affect the department’s ability to fight the fire. The LAFD’s 2024-25 budget had actually increased 7% from the previous year, due in part to generous firefighter raises.

More money won’t solve bad decision-making by top officials, said Marc Eckstein, an emergency physician who served as LAFD’s medical director and commander of its emergency medical services bureau until he retired in 2021.

He said that without transparency and accountability, “the fallback is always going to be what it has been: We need more of everything — more people, more money, more fire trucks, more fire stations.”

A modern fire agency needs the flexibility to surge its staff during a disaster, he said, while also addressing day-to-day needs. Most 911 calls are for medical problems, he said, yet the LAFD functions more or less the same as it did decades ago, when structure fires were more common.

He said a panel of outside experts should have been given access to the LAFD’s records to offer an unbiased look at how the department performed leading up to and during the Palisades fire.

“And it’s a playbook. OK, how do we prevent this from happening again?” he said. “And the fact that didn’t happen is a disgrace.”

How much the department transforms after the Palisades disaster will depend, in large part, on its new chief. Moore, who joined the LAFD in 1995 and most recently was deputy chief of the Operations Valley Bureau, was chosen by Bass to lead the department over a fire chief from a major city outside California.

At stations around L.A., firefighters told Bass that they wanted an insider for the job, which she said factored into her decision.

“Given that the Fire Department was under such scrutiny, such a difficult time, morale is in the toilet, infighting that’s going on, the last thing in the world they needed, in my opinion, was somebody from the outside,” Bass told The Times.

Moore had signaled before his appointment was confirmed last month that he was troubled by the LAFD’s missteps with the Lachman fire and was going to bring in an outside organization to investigate.

But the following week, he appeared to change course, alleging that the media was trying to “smear” firefighters while saying he still planned to investigate the Lachman fire.

Moore will be in charge of implementing the 42 recommendations in the after-action report, which range from establishing better communication channels to how to defend homes where hidden embers could ignite.

The report drew the conclusion that top LAFD commanders had startlingly little knowledge about combating wildfires, including “basic suppression techniques.” It suggested that all LAFD members undergo training on key skills such as structure defense and how to draw water from swimming pools when hydrants don’t work.

In an interview with ABC7, Moore said that the LAFD has adopted about three-quarters of the recommendations and is considering creating a division specializing in wildland fires.

Members of Crew 4, the department’s new full-time wildland hand crew, practice cutting fire lines near Green Verdugo Fire Road in Sunland.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

Since the Palisades fire, the LAFD has hired a 26-member wildland hand crew that uses chainsaws and other tools to chop paths through brush to stop a fire from spreading. When they aren’t battling fires, they do brush clearance throughout the city.

Earlier this month, as hand crew members practiced cutting fire lines through the brush in Sunland, the crew’s leader, Supt. Travis Humpherys, declined to say whether they would have changed the outcome of the Palisades fire.

Travis Humpherys is the Crew 4 superintendent.

(Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

But they have already “made a dramatic impact” with brush clearance and fighting wildfires, including a 20-acre fire in Burbank in June, Humpherys said.

Moore’s requested budget of more than $1 billion for the coming year — a 15% increase over this year’s budget — includes money for a second wildland hand crew, as well as nearly 200 additional firefighter recruits and helitanker services to attack fires from the air. That amount could be pared down during the months-long city budgeting process, as the City Council and the mayor find ways to balance the overall budget amid financial headwinds.

Meanwhile, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 is charting an ambitious course to reduce the department’s dependency on the city budget, pushing for a ballot measure that, if approved by voters in November 2026, would raise nearly $10 billion by 2050 through a half-cent sales tax. But after the LAFD’s failures in the Palisades fire, some voters may be reluctant to entrust its leaders with more money.

“It’s hard to believe that we are fully prepared for the next major emergency,” Doug Coates, the union’s acting president, said in a statement. “We desperately need more firefighters and paramedics, more trucks, engines, and ambulances and more wildfire resources and neighborhood fire stations.”

E. Randol Schoenberg, whose family lost four homes in the fire, including his in Malibu — along with documents that belonged to his grandfather, the composer Arnold Schoenberg — said he would be happy to pay more taxes for more services.

But Schoenberg, an attorney who is representing Palisades fire victims in a lawsuit against the city and the state, said he expects the LAFD to honestly examine its mistakes.

“If they don’t really grapple with the issues of how this happened, then no matter how much money we throw at it, it’s going to happen again,” he said.

Times staff writer David Zahniser contributed to this report.

Another physician who played a role in providing ketamine to Matthew Perry weeks before the actor’s overdose death was sentenced to eight months of house arrest by a federal judge Friday.

Mark Chavez, a former doctor, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute ketamine last October. In his plea agreement, Chavez acknowledged that he and Salvador Plasencia — an ex-doctor sentenced to nearly three years in prison earlier this month — colluded to deceive medical ketamine suppliers and illegally distribute the drug to Perry for profit.

Chavez, 54, was also sentenced to three years of supervised release following his house arrest and must perform 300 hours of community service.

Chavez was one of five individuals charged last year for their alleged roles in Perry’s October 2023 death. The others include Perry’s acquaintance Erik Fleming, personal assistant Kenneth Iwamasa, and Jasveen Sangha, a North Hollywood woman allegedly known as the “Ketamine Queen.” All have pleaded guilty to federal charges and await sentencing in the coming months.

During the sentencing, U.S. District Judge Sherilyn Peace Garnett brought up concerns about sentencing disparities between Chavez and Plasencia. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ian Yanniello argued that the government’s recommended sentence of six months of house arrest was due to Chavez’s cooperation with investigators.

“As doctors, their conduct was egregious,” Yanniello said. “The difference was what they did when they got caught.”

Before charges were brought against the five alleged distributors, Chavez surrendered his medical license and sought a plea deal with the government.

According to an indictment, Plasencia contacted Chavez to purchase ketamine after learning Perry was interested in depression-related treatments in September 2023. Chavez then supplied Plasencia with ketamine vials and orally transmitted “lozenges” that were fraudulently obtained under another patient’s prescription, his plea agreement said.

“If today goes well we may have repeat business,” Plasencia texted Chavez less than a month before Perry’s death.

“Let’s do everything we can to make it happen,” Chavez responded, court records show.

Chavez had faced a potential maximum of 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors argued that Chavez improperly obtained authorization from the Drug Enforcement Administration to prescribe and administer medical ketamine.

Chavez purchased 22 vials of liquid ketamine, ketamine lozenges and other medical supplies from wholesale distributors to provide to Plasencia, who would personally deliver them to Perry, the judge said before her ruling.

During his Dec. 3 sentencing hearing, a federal judge castigated Plasencia for his medical malpractice and for teaching Perry’s personal assistant to administer the drug at the actor’s Pacific Palisades home. Chavez never met with Perry in person, but allowed Plasencia to continue the treatments despite knowing that Plasencia had “little” experience with ketamine treatments, according to his plea agreement.

According to the plea agreement, Chavez called Plasencia on the day of Perry’s death to inquire whether he believed they distributed drugs that may have killed him. Prosecutors said that ketamine was not supplied by the physicians.

Chavez offered a brief apology immediately before his sentencing.

“As a doctor, I’ve had a wonderful opportunity to help people’s lives, but I’ve also had to deal with the tragedies,” Chavez said. “My heart goes out to the Perry family.”

Chavez’s attorney said that he would reside in Mexico with his father after serving his sentence.

NEW YORK — For one Wisconsin couple, the loss of government-sponsored health subsidies next year means choosing a lower-quality insurance plan with a higher deductible. For a Michigan family, it means going without insurance altogether.

For a single mom in Nevada, the spiking costs mean fewer Christmas gifts this year. She is stretching her budget already while she waits to see if the Republican-led Congress will act.

Less than three weeks remain until the expiration of COVID-era enhanced tax credits that have helped millions of Americans pay their monthly fees for Affordable Care Act coverage for the last four years.

The Senate on Thursday rejected two proposals to address the problem, and an emerging healthcare package from House Republicans does not include an extension, all but guaranteeing that many Americans will see much higher insurance costs in 2026.

Here are a few of their stories.

Spending more for less

Chad Bruns comes from a family of savers. That came in handy when the 58-year-old military veteran had to leave his firefighting career early because of arm and back injuries incurred on the job.

He and his wife, Kelley, 60, both retirees, cut their own firewood to reduce their electricity costs in their home in Sawyer County, Wis. They rarely eat out and say they buy groceries only when they are on sale.

But to the extent that they have always been frugal, they will be forced to be even more so now, Bruns said. That is because their coverage under the health law enacted under former President Obama is, because of congressional inaction, getting more expensive — and for worse coverage.

This year, the Brunses were paying $2 per month for a top-tier gold-level plan with less than a $4,000 deductible. Their income was low enough to help them qualify for a lot of financial assistance.

But in 2026, that same plan is rising to an unattainable $1,600 per month, forcing them to downgrade to a bronze plan with a $15,000 deductible.

Kelley Bruns said she is concerned that if something happens to their health in the next year, they could go bankrupt. While their monthly fees are low at about $25, their new out-of-pocket maximum at $21,000 amounts to nearly half their joint income.

“We have to pray that we don’t have to have surgery or don’t have to have some medical procedure done that we’re not aware of,” she said. “It would be very devastating.”

Forgoing insurance

Dave Roof’s family of four has been on ACA insurance since the program started in 2014. Back then, the accessibility of insurance on the marketplace helped him feel comfortable taking the leap to start a small music production and performance company in his hometown of Grand Blanc, Mich. His wife, Kristin, is also self-employed as a top seller on Etsy.

Their coverage has worked for them so far, even when emergencies come up, such as an ATV accident their 21-year-old daughter had last year.

But now, with the expiration of Obamacare subsidies that kept their premiums down, the 53-year-old Roof said their $500-per-month insurance plan is jumping to at least $700 a month, along with spiking deductibles and out-of-pocket costs.

With their joint income of about $75,000 a year, that increase is not manageable, he said. So, they are planning to go without health insurance next year, paying cash for prescriptions, checkups and anything else that arises.

Roof said his family is already living cheaply and has not taken a vacation together since 2021. As it is, they do not save money or add it to their retirement accounts. So even though forgoing insurance is stressful, it is what they must do.

“The fear and anxiety that it’s going to put on my wife and I is really hard to measure,” Roof said. “But we can’t pay for what we can’t pay for.”

Single mom’s straining budget

If you ask Katelin Provost, the American middle class has gone from experiencing a squeeze to a “full suffocation.”

The 37-year-old social worker in Henderson, Nev., counts herself in that category. As a single mom, she already keeps a tight budget to cover housing, groceries and daycare for her 4-year-old daughter.

Next year, that is going to be even tougher.

The monthly fee on her plan is going up from $85 to nearly $750. She decided she is going to pay that higher cost for January and reevaluate afterward, depending on whether lawmakers extend the subsidies, which as of now appears unlikely. She hopes they will.

If Congress does not act, she will drop herself off the health insurance and keep it only for her daughter because she cannot afford the higher fee for the two of them over the long term.

The strain of one month alone is enough to have an impact.

“I’m going to have to reprioritize the next couple of months to rebalance that budget,” Provost said. “Christmas will be much smaller.”

Swenson writes for the Associated Press.

MIAMI — President Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy split more than 5,000 children from their families at the Mexico border during his first term, when images of babies and toddlers taken from the arms of mothers sparked global condemnation.

Seven years later, families are being separated but in a much different way. With illegal border crossings at their lowest levels in seven decades, a push for mass deportations is dividing families of mixed legal status inside the U.S.

Federal officials and their local law enforcement partners are detaining tens of thousands of asylum-seekers and migrants. Detainees are moved repeatedly, then deported, or held in poor conditions for weeks or months before asking to go home.

The federal government was holding an average of more than 66,000 people in November, the highest on record.

During the first Trump administration, families were forcibly separated at the border and authorities struggled to find children in a vast shelter system because government computer systems weren’t linked. Now parents inside the United States are being arrested by immigration authorities and separated from their families during prolonged detention. Or, they choose to have their children remain in the U.S. after an adult is deported, many after years or decades here.

The Trump administration and its anti-immigration backers see “unprecedented success” and Trump’s top border adviser Tom Homan told reporters in April that “we’re going to keep doing it, full speed ahead.”

Three families separated by migration enforcement in recent months told The Associated Press that their dreams of better, freer lives had clashed with Washington’s new immigration policy and their existence is anguished without knowing if they will see their loved ones again.

For them, migration marked the possible start of permanent separation between parents and children, the source of deep pain and uncertainty.

A family divided between Florida and Venezuela

Antonio Laverde left Venezuela for the U.S. in 2022 and crossed the border illegally, then requested asylum.

He got a work permit and a driver’s license and worked as an Uber driver in Miami, sharing homes with other immigrants so he could send money to relatives in Venezuela and Florida.

Laverde’s wife Jakelin Pasedo and their sons followed him from Venezuela to Miami in December 2024. Pasedo focused on caring for her sons while her husband earned enough to support the family. Pasedo and the kids got refugee status but Laverde, 39, never obtained it and as he left for work one early June morning, he was arrested by federal agents.

Pasedo says it was a case of mistaken identity by agents hunting for a suspect in their shared housing. In the end, she and her children, then 3 and 5, remember the agents cuffing Laverde at gunpoint.

“They got sick with fever, crying for their father, asking for him,” Pasedo said.

Laverde was held at Broward Transitional Center, a detention facility in Pompano Beach, Fla. In September, after three months detention, he asked to return to Venezuela.

Pasedo, 39, however, has no plans to go back. She fears she could be arrested or kidnapped for criticizing the socialist government and belonging to the political opposition.

She works cleaning offices and, despite all the obstacles, hopes to reunify with her husband someday in the U.S.

They followed the law

Yaoska’s husband was a political activist in Nicaragua, a country tight in the grasp of autocratic married co-presidents Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo.

She remembers her husband getting death threats and being beaten by police when he refused to participate in a pro-government march.

Yaoska only used her first name and requested anonymity for her husband to protect him from the Nicaraguan government.

The couple fled Nicaragua for the U.S. with their 10-year-old son in 2022, crossing the border and getting immigration parole. Settling down in Miami, they applied for asylum and had a second son, who has U.S. citizenship. Yaoska is now five months pregnant with their third child.

In late August, Yaoska, 32, went to an appointment at the South Florida office of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Her family accompanied her. Her husband, 35, was detained and failed his credible fear interview, according to a court document.

Yaoska was released under 24-hour supervision by a GPS watch that she cannot remove. Her husband was deported to Nicaragua after three months at the Krome Detention Center, the United States’ oldest immigration detention facility and one with a long history of abuse.

Yaoska now shares family news with her husband by phone. The children are struggling without their father, she said.

“It’s so hard to see my children like this. They arrested him right in front of them,” Yaoska said, her voice trembling.

They don’t want to eat and are often sick. The youngest wakes up at night asking for him.

“I’m afraid in Nicaragua,” she said. “But I’m scared here too.”

Yaoska said her work authorization is valid until 2028 but the future is frightening and uncertain.

“I’ve applied to several job agencies, but nobody calls me back,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me.”

He was detained by local police, then deported

Edgar left Guatemala more than two decades ago. Working construction, he started a family in South Florida with Amavilia, a fellow undocumented Guatemalan migrant.

The arrival of their son brought them joy.

“He was so happy with the baby — he loved him,” said Amavilia, 31. “He told me he was going to see him grow up and walk.”

But within a few days, Edgar was detained on a 2016 warrant for driving without a license in Homestead, the small agricultural city where he lived in South Florida.

She and her husband declined to provide their last names because they are worried about repercussion from U.S. immigration officials.

Amavilia expected his release within 48 hours. Instead, Edgar, who declined to be interviewed, was turned over to immigration officials and moved to Krome.

“I fell into despair. I didn’t know what to do,” Amavilia said. “I can’t go.”

Edgar, 45, was deported to Guatemala on June 8.

After Edgar’s detention, Amavilia couldn’t pay the $950 rent for the two-bedroom apartment she shares with another immigrant. For the first three months, she received donations from immigration advocates.

Today, breastfeeding and caring for two children, she wakes up at 3 a.m. to cook lunches she sells for $10 each.

She walks with her son in a stroller to take her daughter to school, then spends afternoons selling homemade ice cream and chocolate-covered bananas door to door with her two children.

Amavilia crossed the border in September 2023 and did not seek asylum or any type of legal status. She said her daughter grows anxious around police. She urges her to stay calm, smile and walk with confidence.

“I’m afraid to go out, but I always go out entrusting myself to God,” she said. “Every time I return home, I feel happy and grateful.”

Salomon writes for the Associated Press.

On a glorious September morning, a scientist emerged cheerfully from the depths of a corrugated metal tunnel under a remote stretch of Highway 395 north of the town of Bridgeport.

It wasn’t a planned encounter. I happened upon Ben Carter, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, as I toured the area with a couple of Caltrans employees.

Carter was switching out the SD cards from cameras installed to document animals that might be using two wildlife crossings recently constructed under the highway near Sonora Junction.

“We’ve got some deer sign coming through here, which is great,” he said, referring to cloven hoof prints pressed into the soft earth. He’d looked through a few photos at the other culvert and saw deer there, too, and perhaps a coyote.

The effort comes at a critical moment. Mule deer in the region have declined in recent years, sparking concern among hunters. Getting hit by cars or trucks is the second biggest cause of deer death, not counting unknown causes.

Some hunters would like the state to control the population of mountain lions in the area to help the deer, which the cougars eat. But state wildlife officials aren’t allowed to do that.

The big, charismatic cats are a “specially protected species” in the Golden State. (Officials are permitted to kill mountain lions in limited circumstances, including to protect endangered bighorn sheep. They recently began doing that again after a long hiatus, which I wrote about in a story this week.)

So wildlife crossings could be a win-win solution. Both hunters and conservationists are especially keen to see one rise along a stretch of the 395 that runs past the Mammoth Yosemite Airport — the top roadkill hot spot in the Eastern Sierra.

There are plans to put one there, but getting it off the ground is estimated to cost more than $65 million, according to Caltrans, which is leading the project.

Brian Tillemans, a hunter and former watershed resource manager for the L.A. Department of Water and Power, who has called on the state to help deer, said the crossing can’t come too soon.

“If there’s ever a spot for a deer crossing, it’s up here,” he added, driving near the proposed site.

Ben Carter, of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, checks a trail camera at a wildlife undercrossing recently installed near the town of Bridgeport.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

At the other crossing, about 70 miles to the north, Carter expressed both hope and concern.

It’s among the top three roadkill hot spots in the region because deer migrate across the highway. But the project area didn’t perfectly align with their route, according to Carter. That’s because the undercrossings were put in opportunistically, as part of a shoulder-widening endeavor spearheaded by Caltrans.

Beth Pratt, of the National Wildlife Federation, who joined a tour of the crossing, was optimistic the animals would use it.

“I feel like word’s gonna get out,” she said. “I know they are really loyal to their migration sites. On the other hand, they can start being loyal to this.”

The trail cameras will determine if she’s right.

More recent animal news

It’s been a sad few weeks for real-life animal mascots in the northern part of the state.

Last week, Claude, a striking albino alligator living in San Francisco’s California Academy of the Sciences — where he served as unofficial mascot — passed away from liver cancer at the age of 30, my fellow Times reporter Hailey Branson-Potts reported. During his 17 years at the science museum, the ghostly white reptile became a cultural icon, appearing in children’s books, city advertisements and a 24/7 livestream. “Claude represented that core San Francisco value of seeing the beauty & value in everyone, including those who are a bit different from the norm. Rest in peace, buddy,” state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) tweeted.

A month earlier, a beloved bald eagle named Hope was fatally electrocuted on power lines near a Milpitas elementary school where she and her mate presided as mascots. The feathered local celebrity’s unceremonious end — covered by my colleague Susanne Rust — is not a one-off. Every year, as many as 11.6 million birds perish on wires that juice our TVs and blow dryers, according to a 2014 analysis. PG&E, which operates the power lines that killed Hope, said it took measures to make lines and poles around the eagle’s nesting area safe for raptors. (As for Hope’s widower, he may already have a new girlfriend.)

It’s not all doom and gloom for animals in the Golden State — and around the world.

The Los Angeles Zoo recently welcomed the birth of a baby gorilla, the fifth and latest addition in a baby boom of adorable great apes that includes three chimpanzees and an orangutan, writes Times staffer Andrea Flores.

Meanwhile, a global treaty has extended trade protections to more than 70 shark and ray species who have seen sharp declines, according to the New York Times’ Alexa Robles-Gil. She writes that the agreement includes a full international commercial trade ban for oceanic whitetip sharks, manta and devil rays, and whale sharks.

A few last things in climate news

Soon, the country’s largest all-electric hospital will open in Orange County, my editor Ingrid Lobet reports. It’s only the second facility of its kind in the U.S., and offers an alternative to the way that buildings contribute to climate change: burning natural gas.

Not far away, the city of Los Angeles is shifting away from the power source most harmful to the environment. Times staffer Hayley Smith writes that the L.A. Department of Water and Power has stopped receiving any coal-fired power. L.A. Mayor Karen Bass called it a “defining moment” for the city.

There are plans by the Trump administration to pump more water to farmlands in the Central Valley from the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, per my colleague Ian James. California officials said the move could threaten fish and reduce the amount of water available for millions of people in other parts of California.

A nonprofit is trying to create a 1.2 million-acre national monument centered on the Amargosa River, which runs through the bone-dry Mojave Desert, according to Kurtis Alexander of the San Francisco Chronicle. Early this year, former president Joe Biden designated two massive national monuments in the Golden State, including one covering a large swath of the desert.

This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.

For more wildlife and outdoors news, follow Lila Seidman at @lilaseidman.bsky.social on Bluesky and @lila_seidman on X.

After 18 months of shopping the script, the proposed Lionsgate Television series based on the gambling scandal involving Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is in development at Starz.

The project will spotlight the audacious theft by Ippei Mizuhara of $16 million from Ohtani to pay off staggering gambling debts. Mizuhara was fired by the Dodgers after the crimes came to light in March 2024. A year later, he was convicted of defrauding Ohtani in federal court and sentenced to 57 months in prison.

The series will be produced by Tony Award winner Scott Delman, known for “The Book of Mormon” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” and sports journalist Albert Chen. Alex Convery, who wrote “Air,” is on board as showrunner and screenwriter while Justin Lin (the  “Fast and Furious” franchise) will direct, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

“This is Major League Baseball’s biggest sports gambling scandal since Pete Rose — and at its center is its biggest star, one that MLB has hitched its wagon on,” Chen said in a statement to The Times. “We’ll get to the heart of the story — a story of trust, betrayal and the trappings of wealth and fame.”

Lionsgate was having trouble selling the project to companies with media rights agreements with Major League Baseball — Disney, Warner Bros., Discovery, Apple, Netflix and Comcast — because the companies didn’t want to jeopardize their relationships with the league, according to the Hollywood Reporter. Lionsgate is the former parent company of Starz, but the two formally separated in May.

The story unquestionably is compelling. Mizuhara befriended Ohtani in Japan when the player who would become the most accomplished hitting and pitching combination in baseball history was an 18-year-old rookie with the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters.

Ohtani came to the United States in 2018 at age 23, signing with the Angels. Mizuhara soon became his most trusted friend and interpreter, serving as an intermediary between Ohtani and nearly everyone who spoke English, including the media, his agent and Angels officials.

Mizuhara arranged wire transfers from Ohtani’s bank account without the player’s knowledge or permission and impersonated him during more than two dozen phone calls with bank employees, all to feed a gambling habit that accumulated $40 million in losses across thousands of bets.

Mizuhara allegedly collected $142 million in winnings but lost about $183 million.

Ohtani signed a 10-year, $700-million contract with the Dodgers in December 2023 and the scandal came to light three months later. Ohtani was absolved of wrongdoing and described as a victim by federal authorities.

“Ippei has been stealing money from my account and has told lies,” Ohtani said through his new interpreter, Will Ireton, shortly after Mizuhara was arrested. “I never agreed to pay off the debt or make payments to the bookmaker.

“I’m just beyond shocked. It’s really hard to verbalize how I am feeling at this point.”

Ohtani quickly put the episode behind him, leading the Dodgers to World Series championships in 2024 and 2025. He was named National League Most Valuable Player both years.