shape

In the months after the Palisades fire, the Los Angeles Fire Department Foundation raked in millions of dollars in charitable donations to pay for training and equipment for firefighters, as LAFD leaders publicly complained about not having enough money to keep the city safe.

But some of the funds were quietly spent on something that had little to do with firefighting: a celebrity public relations firm to help LAFD leaders shape their messaging after a disaster in which their missteps figured prominently, The Times has learned.

Neither the LAFD nor the foundation would say how much the charity paid the Lede Company, whose clients include Reese Witherspoon and Charlize Theron, and what exactly the firm did for the department. A Lede representative declined to comment, saying the company does not discuss client matters.

“The LAFD Foundation provided communications support by hiring the Lede Company as part of its mission to provide resources to the LAFD,” Liz Lin, president of the foundation, said in an email. “The Foundation was not involved in the services provided by the Lede Company. Specific details regarding the Department’s use of the Lede Company should be addressed by the LAFD.”

The revelation comes as the LAFD is under heightened scrutiny for altering its after-action report to downplay the city’s failures in preparing for and responding to the fire, which killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of homes. The LAFD declined to answer questions about the work of the PR firm, including whether any changes to the report were made at its direction, vaguely citing federal court proceedings.

Federal prosecutors have charged a former Palisades resident with starting a Jan. 1 fire that reignited into the Palisades fire six days later.

“Any further responses will be evaluated following the conclusion of the federal case and in accordance with legal guidance at that time. Thank you for your understanding that no additional responses will be provided until all related court proceedings have been fully resolved,” the LAFD said in an unsigned email.

The after-action report was meant to spell out mistakes, which included not fully pre-deploying engines to the Palisades amid forecasts of dangerously high winds, and to suggest measures to avoid repeating them. But before the report was even completed, LAFD officials worried about how it would be received, privately forming a “crisis management workgroup” to “create our own narrative” about the fire and its aftermath.

Fire Chief Jaime Moore said he met with Lede in mid-November, on his first or second day at the helm, and thanked them for their work, but that he does not know what precisely they did for the department, which was led by interim Fire Chief Ronnie Villanueva when the report came out on Oct. 8.

“I’m assuming they had something to do with the after-action report, because they’re a PR firm,” Moore said in an interview last week. “I would think a PR firm was going to give advice to the fire chief, because at the time, they didn’t have a director of public information. So my assumption would be they were using a PR firm as the PR director.”

The author of the report, LAFD Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse the public version because of changes that altered his findings and made the report “highly unprofessional and inconsistent with our established standards.”

While Moore admitted that the report was watered down and said he would not allow similar edits to future after-action reports, he said he did not see a benefit in determining who made the changes to the Palisades report.

“I gotta wonder, what is it gonna matter to me? Because I can see what the original report says. I can see what we put out to the public. I can see where the original report and the public report aim to fix the same thing,” he said. “They aim to correct where we could have been better. And it identifies … the steps that are going to be necessary to make those corrective actions.”

Mayor Karen Bass’ office did not respond to questions about whether she met with Lede, what direction its publicists gave city officials and what role the company had in preparing or editing the after-action report.

On its website, Lede boasts of representing “some of the biggest names and brands in entertainment, fashion, beauty & wellness, … advocacy, media, nonprofit and related industries.” In addition to Witherspoon and Theron, its client page includes photos of actors Kerry Washington and Rami Malek and singers Rihanna and Pharrell Williams. The firm represents brands such as Isabel Marant, Clinique and Hennessy Cognac and includes a strategic corporate communications division.

In the wake of the fire, Rick Caruso, the businessman and one-time L.A. mayoral candidate, committed $5 million to the Fire Department Foundation, in annual increments of $1 million.

One of Caruso’s executives sits on the board of the foundation, which bills itself as “the official nonprofit arm of the LAFD” and lists net assets of $12.3 million on its tax return for fiscal 2023-24, the most recent available. According to its website, it “provides vital equipment and funds programs that help the LAFD save lives and build resilient communities.“

Caruso told The Times on Tuesday that the foundation should disclose the amount and specific purpose of its spending on Lede, and that he will ask for an audit to ensure that none of his initial $1-million donation went to the company.

“The donation that our family made to the foundation is specifically intended for and limited to the protection and service of the city of Los Angeles,” said Caruso, who built popular malls like the Grove and the Americana at Brand. “I don’t want the money we donated going to a PR firm.”

Caruso, who has been fiercely critical of Bass and the city during the fire and its aftermath, added that he will withhold future payments to the foundation if an audit is not performed.

“Transparency is critical,” he said. “It’s part of the fiduciary responsibility of the foundation to the taxpayers and the city of Los Angeles to be completely transparent.”

Austin Beutner, a former Los Angeles Unified school superintendent who is running for mayor, said the failure by Bass, the LAFD and the foundation to explain the Lede Company’s role is “an unconscionable lack of transparency.”

“People died. Tens of thousands of people lost their homes, along with tens of thousands of people who lost their jobs. We owe them the truth,” said Beutner, whose home was severely damaged in the fire and who has called for an independent investigation into the city’s preparations for and response to the fire.

Laurie Styron, executive director and chief executive of CharityWatch, a Chicago-based watchdog of nonprofit organizations, said the foundation “should be excited about” disclosing specifically how it is spending donor money, including on the PR company.

“The fact that they’re being cagey about it is eyebrow-raising,” she said.

In a brief interview this month, Bass told The Times that she did not work with the Fire Department on changes to the after-action report, nor did the agency consult her about any changes.

“That’s a technical report. I’m not a firefighter,” she said.

A spokesperson previously said that Bass’ office did not demand changes to the drafts and only asked the LAFD to confirm the accuracy of items such as how the weather and the department’s budget factored into the disaster.

“The report was written and edited by the Fire Department,” the spokesperson, Clara Karger, said in an email in December. “We did not red-line, review every page or review every draft of the report.”

LAFD Assistant Chief Kairi Brown wrote in a July email to eight others, including Villanueva, that the goal of the internal crisis management team “is to collaboratively manage communications for any critical public relations issue that may arise. The immediate and most pressing crisis is the Palisades After Action Report.”

“With significant interest from media, politicians, and the community, it is crucial that we present a unified response to anticipated questions and concerns,” Brown wrote. “By doing so, we can ensure our messaging is clear and consistent, allowing us to create our own narrative rather than reactive responses.”

Cook emailed his final draft to Villanueva a few weeks later. Over the next two months, the report went through a series of edits — behind closed doors and without Cook’s involvement.

Cook’s version highlighted the failure to require firefighters to stay for an additional shift and to fully pre-deploy in the Palisades as a major mistake, noting that it was an attempt to be “fiscally responsible” that went against the department’s policy and procedures.

The department’s final report stated that the pre-deployment measures for the Palisades and other fire-prone locations went “above and beyond” the LAFD’s standard practice. The Times analyzed seven drafts of the report obtained through a records request and disclosed the significant deletions and revisions.

The report only briefly mentioned the Jan. 1 Lachman fire, which the LAFD failed to fully extinguish. The Times found that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to roll up their hoses and leave the burn area despite complaints by crews that the ground was still smoldering.

After the Times report, Bass directed Moore to commission an independent investigation into the LAFD’s handling of the earlier fire.

Moore said he has opened an internal investigation into the Lachman fire through the LAFD’s Professional Standards Division, which probes complaints against department members. He said he requested the Fire Safety Research Institute, which is reviewing last January’s wildfires at the request of Gov. Gavin Newsom, to include the Lachman fire as part of its analysis, and the institute agreed.

Pringle is a former Times staff writer.

ORLANDO, Fla. — The next U.S. census is four years away, but two lawsuits playing out this year could affect how it will be done and who will be counted.

Allies of President Trump are behind the federal lawsuits challenging various aspects of the once-a-decade count by the U.S. Census Bureau, which is used to determine congressional representation and how much federal aid flows to the states.

The challenges align with parts of Trump’s agenda even as the Republican administration must defend the agency in court.

A Democratic law firm is representing efforts to intervene in both cases because of concerns over whether the U.S. Justice Department will defend the bureau vigorously. There have been no indications so far that government attorneys are doing otherwise, and department lawyers have asked that one of the cases be dismissed.

As the challenges work their way through the courts, the Census Bureau is pushing ahead with its planning for the 2030 count and intends to conduct practice runs in six locations this year.

The legal challenges

America First Legal, co-founded by Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, is leading one of the lawsuits, filed in Florida. It contests methods the bureau has used to protect participants’ privacy and to ensure that people in group-living facilities such as dorms and nursing homes will be counted.

The lawsuit’s intent is to prevent those methods from being used in the 2030 census and to have 2020 figures revised.

“This case is about stopping illegal methods that undermine equal representation and ensuring the next census complies with the Constitution,” Gene Hamilton, president of America First Legal, said in a statement.

The other lawsuit was filed in federal court in Louisiana by four Republican state attorneys general and the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes illegal immigration and supports reduced legal immigration. The lawsuit seeks to exclude people who are in the United States illegally from being counted in the numbers for redrawing congressional districts.

In both cases, outside groups represented by the Democratic-aligned Elias Law Group have sought to intervene over concerns that the Justice Department would reach friendly settlements with the challengers.

In the Florida case, a judge allowed a retirees’ association and two university students to join the defense as intervenors. Justice Department lawyers have asked that the case be dismissed.

In the Louisiana lawsuit, government lawyers said three League of Women Voters chapters and Santa Clara County in California had not shown any proof that department attorneys would do anything other than robustly defend the Census Bureau. A judge has yet to rule on their request to join the case.

A spokesman for the Elias Law Group, Blake McCarren, referred in an email to its motion to dismiss the Florida case, warning of “a needlessly chaotic and disruptive effect upon the electoral process” if the conservative legal group were to prevail and all 50 states had to redraw their political districts.

Aligning with Trump’s agenda

The goals of the lawsuits, particularly the Louisiana case, align with core parts of Trump’s agenda, although the 2030 census will be conducted under a different president because his second term will end in January 2029.

During his first term, for the 2020 census, Trump tried to prevent those who are in the U.S. illegally from being used in the apportionment numbers, which determine how many congressional representatives and Electoral College votes each state receives. He also sought to have citizenship data collected through administrative records.

A Republican redistricting expert had written that using only the citizen voting-age population, rather than the total population, for the purpose of redrawing congressional and state legislative districts could be advantageous to Republicans and non-Hispanic whites.

Both Trump orders were rescinded when Democratic President Biden arrived at the White House in January 2021, before the 2020 census figures were released by the Census Bureau. The first Trump administration also attempted to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census questionnaire, a move that was blocked by the U.S. Supreme Court.

In August, Trump instructed the U.S. Commerce Department to change the way the Census Bureau collects data, seeking to exclude immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally. Neither officials at the White House nor the Commerce Department, which oversees the Census Bureau, explained what actions were being taken in response to the president’s social media post.

Congressional Republicans have introduced legislation to exclude noncitizens from the apportionment process. That could shrink the head count in both red and blue states because the states with the most people in the U.S. illegally include California, Texas, Florida and New York, according to the Pew Research Center.

The Constitution’s 14th Amendment says “the whole number of persons in each state” should be counted for the numbers used for apportionment. The numbers also guide the distribution of $2.8 trillion in federal dollars to the states for roads, healthcare and other programs.

Defending the Census Bureau

The Louisiana lawsuit was filed at the end of the Biden administration and put on hold in March at the request of the Commerce Department. Justice Department lawyers representing the Cabinet agency said they needed time to consider the position of the new leadership in the second Trump administration. The state attorneys general in December asked for that hold to be lifted.

So far, in the court record, there is nothing to suggest that those government attorneys have done anything to undermine the Census Bureau’s defense in both cases, despite the intervenors’ concerns.

In the Louisiana case, Justice Department lawyers argued against lifting the hold, saying the Census Bureau was in the middle of planning for the 2030 census: “At this stage of such preparations, lifting the stay is not appropriate.”

Schneider writes for the Associated Press.

In some ways, it was just another campaign coffee: Los Angeles mayoral candidate Austin Beutner in a roomful of voters talking about his career and life accomplishments.

But this was no ordinary meet-and-greet. Beutner was standing inside a partially rebuilt house — with no doors, no windows and no drywall — in an area leveled by the Palisades fire. In the living room, about a dozen people spoke about what they had been through, from the frantic evacuation to the sight of smoldering ruins to the battle to get rebuilding permits.

Allison Holdorff Polhill, who owns the home, introduced Beutner — a former L.A. school superintendent — as the civic leader she would turn to first in a crisis.

“We were in the worst disaster that L.A. has ever experienced,” she told the group. “And we needed a leader that has experience with disasters and emergencies.”

The catastrophic Palisades fire, which destroyed thousands of homes and left 12 people dead, has redefined the L.A. mayor’s race, expanding the field of candidates and creating a political minefield for Karen Bass as she seeks a second four-year term.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass speaks at a City Hall ceremony where flags are lowered to half-staff to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Palisades and Eaton fires.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

When the fire broke out on Jan. 7, 2025, Bass drew criticism for being in Ghana on a diplomatic mission. Once she returned, she was at odds with her fire chief and unsteady in her public appearances.

More recently, she has faced scrutiny over her handling of the recovery, as well as fire officials’ watering down of an after-action report that was supposed to identify mistakes in the firefighting effort.

The Times found that LAFD officials failed to fully pre-deploy engines to the Palisades amid forecasts of dangerously high winds and that a battalion chief ordered firefighters to leave the scene of a Jan. 1 blaze, even though it wasn’t fully extinguished. That fire rekindled a week later to become the Palisades fire.

Fernando Guerra, a political science professor at Loyola Marymount University, said he expects the disaster will be the No. 1 issue in the June 2 mayoral primary, resonating with voters well beyond Pacific Palisades.

To wage a competitive campaign, each of Bass’ challengers will need to make the fire and its aftermath “a reflection of what’s wrong with city government,” he said.

“It really does reflect on the readiness of the city, the responsiveness of the city, how is government working at the most basic level,” said Guerra, who also runs the Center for the Study of Los Angeles.

So far, Bass’ major challengers are embracing that strategy.

Beutner, who ran the L.A. Unified School District early in the pandemic, has accused Bass of failing to take responsibility for the city’s failures before and after the fire. On Monday, appearing with fire victims in Pacific Palisades, he called on the mayor to form a citizens commission to examine what went wrong.

Rae Huang, a community organizer who is challenging the mayor from the left, has expressed disappointment in what she called Bass’ “finger-pointing” — a reference to the mayor’s criticism, and ouster, of Fire Chief Kristin Crowley last year.

Then there’s reality TV star Spencer Pratt, an outspoken Bass critic, who launched a campaign rooted in his fury over the city’s handling of the fire — and the loss of his family’s home in the flames.

“I’ve waited a whole year for someone to step up and challenge Karen Bass, but I saw no fighters,” Pratt said in a social media post Wednesday. “Guess I’m gonna have to do this myself.”

Reality TV star Spencer Pratt, second from right, announced on Wedneday that he is running for mayor. He is suing the city over its handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his home in Pacific Palisades.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

Still unclear is whether two formidable public figures will jump in — L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath and real estate developer Rick Caruso, who lost to Bass in 2022. On Wednesday, Caruso said he will decide in the next couple of weeks whether he will run for mayor or governor.

Asked whether he might stay out of both races, Caruso responded: “I think that option is pretty much off the table now.”

As the city marked the one-year anniversary of the fires this week, Bass mostly kept a low profile, addressing the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club over the weekend and joining a private vigil at the Self-Realization Fellowship Lake Shrine.

While Pratt and hundreds of demonstrators were staging a “They Let Us Burn” rally in the Palisades, Bass stood solemnly outside City Hall as police officers lowered flags to half-staff. Bass spoke about grief and loss, but also the fact that more than 400 homes are being rebuilt.

“You see signs of hope everywhere,” she told the crowd.

Bass’ political team has taken a tougher approach, accusing her most outspoken critics — including Pratt, who is releasing a book later this month — of exploiting the disaster for political or even financial gain.

“For the first time ever we saw a major wildfire politicized by MAGA leaders and monetized by social influencers making tens of thousands of dollars per month and hawking books on the backs of a devastated community,” Bass campaign strategist Doug Herman said in a statement.

For much of the past year, Bass has faced criticism over the Fire Department’s deployment decisions and its failure to put out the Jan. 1 fire. She also has taken hits over the recovery, with residents saying she has not delivered on promises to waive permit fees for rebuilding homes lost in the fire.

Now, the focus has turned to a new and unsettling question: Did the city undermine its own effort to assess the Fire Department’s mistakes?

The Times reported last month that LAFD officials made changes to the after-action report that were so significant that its author, Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, declined to endorse it.

“The fact that [Cook] is not willing to sponsor, or support, or endorse the report says a hell of a lot about the fact that there is no trust and clear leadership,” Huang said.

Bass told The Times on Wednesday that she did not work with the Fire Department on changes to the report, nor did the agency consult her about any changes.

L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath speaks at a rally in support of the county’s emergency rent relief program to help households who have lost income because of federal immigration enforcement.

(Al Seib / For The Times)

Horvath, who is running for a second four-year term as county supervisor, has also ripped the city over the report, saying wildfire victims feel “gaslit” — and deserve answers.

The supervisor, whose sprawling district includes the Palisades burn area, said she has been hearing from people asking her to run for mayor. She said she would prefer to continue in county office. But she voiced concern about the city’s future — not just its handling of the wildfire, but also the budget, the homelessness crisis and the delivery of basic services.

“I think people are hungry for a different kind of leadership,” she told The Times.

Pacific Palisades has not been a political stronghold for Bass. Although she won her 2022 race against Caruso by a 10-point margin, she trailed him by double digits in the Palisades.

Like many people across the region, the major mayoral candidates were directly impacted by the January fires or have family who lost homes — or both.

Beutner’s home was severely damaged in the Palisades fire, forcing him to live elsewhere for the past year. His mother-in-law’s home, also in the Palisades, was completely destroyed.

Bass has spoken repeatedly about her brother, whose Malibu home was destroyed in the Palisades fire. Huang’s 53-year-old cousin lost her Altadena home in the Eaton fire. Pratt, who is suing the city over the Palisades fire, said on social media that the flames consumed not just his home but also one owned by his parents.

Caruso, still a candidate-in-waiting, managed to save Palisades Village, the shopping center he opened in 2018, in part by securing his own private firefighting crew. But the inferno nevertheless destroyed the homes of his son and daughter, who are 26 and 29.

Real estate developer Rick Caruso on Wednesday unveils an installation in Pacific Palisades with three beams of light to mark the one-year anniversary of the fires.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

On the night the fire broke out, Caruso voiced his fury on live television about empty fire hydrants and the overall lack of water to douse the flames. Since then, he has offered a steady stream of criticism about the rebuilding process, including the mayor’s decision not to select a replacement for Steve Soboroff, who served 90 days as her recovery czar.

Caruso has spoken favorably in recent weeks about a few aspects of the recovery, including the reopening of classrooms and the quick removal of fire debris. He credited L.A. Unified and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, respectively, for those accomplishments — not the city.

“Frankly, the bright spots are under the leadership of other people,” he told The Times.

Beutner has been equally blunt. At last month’s campaign coffee, he said the city needs to convene a citizen panel similar to the Christopher Commission, which was formed weeks after the 1991 police beating of Rodney King. The panel assessed the LAPD’s handling of discipline, misconduct complaints, excessive force by officers and other issues.

“If you have a tragedy, you have public hearings, you have leaders who are empaneled with the money they need to ask tough questions of everybody — the mayor, her staff, the acting mayor, police, fire” and the Department of Water and Power, Beutner told the group. “What did you do, and what would you have done differently?”

Clara Karger, a spokesperson for Bass, said the city is already participating in a state investigation, which is being overseen by the Fire Safety Research Institute, into the Palisades and Eaton fires.

On top of that, she said, the fire department is commissioning an independent investigation into its response to the Jan. 1 fire that reignited into the Palisades fire. That blaze, known as the Lachman fire, was mentioned only briefly in the department’s after-action report.

“Mayor Bass wants all the information to ensure accountability and to continue implementing needed reforms, many of which are already underway from LAFD,” Karger said.

Dragons endured a nightmare 2025 that was winless until they beat Lyon in the Challenge Cup on 14 December, which was followed by a stunning URC victory against Connacht six days later.

Filo Tiatia’s men finished bottom of the URC last season, but resilient recent displays have given reason for optimism.

Dragons are currently 15th, but could go 10th with victory against Scarlets.

Not only do they want to avoid propping up the pile this season, they would love to avoid being Wales’ worst side for the first time since 2019-20.

Head coach Tiatia believes their battling display at Cardiff provided encouragement.

“There were some positives, and we stayed in the fight to try and win it at the end,” he said.

“We were maybe five or 10% off in terms of some physicality parts of game, but we have lots to take forward into Scarlets.”

Scarlets are currently bottom of the URC, although they do have a game in hand, and recent progress was brought to a dramatic halt against Ospreys.

“The games are coming thick and fast,” said head coach Dwayne Peel, whose side have Champions Cup fixtures against Pau and Northampton on the horizon.

“The Dragons is another important game and another tough game for us. We have to make sure we go to Rodney Parade with a spark and full of energy.”

Like Ospreys, a New Year’s Day win would dramatically change the picture in the URC and give some hope of repeating last season’s charge to the top eight.