troubles

It’s been a rough few years for Santa Monica.

Businesses have abandoned its once-thriving downtown. Its retail and office vacancy rates are among the highest in Los Angeles County. The crowds that previously packed the area surrounding the city’s famous pier have dwindled.

Homelessness has risen. City officials acknowledge crime incidents had become more visible and volatile.

The breadth and depth of the issues became apparent just last month when the city was forced to declare itself in fiscal distress after paying $229 million in settlements related to alleged sexual abuse by Eric Uller, a former city dispatcher.

Now, Santa Monica is trying to plot a new path forward. A significant first step could come Tuesday.

That’s when the City Council is set to consider a plan to reverse its fortunes.

The plan includes significantly increasing police patrols and enforcing misdemeanor ordinances, investing in infrastructure and new community events, and taking a more business-friendly brush to permits and fees. Officials also plan to be more aggressive in making sure property owners maintain unused properties.

The blueprint tackles many “quality of life” issues that critics say have contributed to lower foot traffic in the city’s tourist districts since the COVID-19 pandemic.

It’s far from clear the tactics will work. But given the city’s current trajectory, officials say bold action is necessary.

“We’re trying to usher in a rebirth — a renaissance of the city — by investing in ourselves,” Councilmember Dan Hall said.

Hall, 38, is part of a relatively youthful City Council majority that swept into office in recent years as voters opted for new leadership and a fresh approach. Five of the seven council members are millennials, and six members first joined the council in either 2022 or 2024.

Also new on the scene is City Manager Oliver Chi, who five months ago was hired away from the same position in Irvine.

“The city is in a period of distress, for sure,” said Chi, 45. “We’re not in a moment where the city is broke. The city still has resources. … But right now, if we do nothing, the city’s general fund operating budget is projected to run a structural deficit of nearly $30 million a year, and that’s because we’ve seen big drops” in revenues, such as from hotel taxes, sales tax and parking.

“But part of that is the private sector hasn’t been investing in the city. And we haven’t had people traveling to the city,” Chi said.

Santa Monica is far from the only city — in California or nationwide — to face the pain of a downtown in decline. Brick-and-mortar retailers have long bled business to online offerings, and the pandemic upended the cadence of daily life that was the lifeblood of commercial districts, with many people continuing to work from home at least part of the week.

But the hope is through concerted, planned investment that Santa Monica can shine once again and modernize to be competitive in the postpandemic era.

The City Council had already decided to set aside $60 million from its cash reserves to spend over the next four or five years to cover any operating deficits. But with Tuesday’s vote, Santa Monica would instead use those dollars as an investment in hopes of getting the city back on track.

“Those things really are issues related to public safety, disorder in town, the disrepair that we’ve seen in our infrastructure,” Chi said. “All of those things are preventing, I think, confidence in the local economy.”

In downtown, the city’s plan would include doubling the number of police officers assigned to a specialized unit to at least eight to 10 a day, deploying an additional five patrol officers daily, creating a new police substation, adding two workers daily to address homelessness issues, and hiring eight public safety employees to provide a more constant presence across the city’s main commercial district, parks and parking garages.

Staff in the city attorney’s office would also be augmented to boost the ability to prosecute misdemeanor cases.

Also on the agenda: moving the city’s homeless shelter out of downtown; making a one-time $3.5-million investment to address fraying sidewalks and streets and freshen up trees and trash cans; funding monthly events at the Third Street Promenade to attract crowds; creating a large-scale “Santa Monica Music Festival” next year; upgrading restrooms near the pier and Muscle Beach; and increasing operating days for libraries.

Another proposal would require the owners of vacant properties to register with the city, in hopes of addressing lots that remain in disrepair.

The city is also looking to be more business friendly. It’s seeking to upgrade the current permit process, utilizing artificial intelligence to get nearly instantaneous permit reviews for single-family homes and accessory dwelling units, as well as reduce permit fees for restaurants with outdoor dining.

The plan also outlines strategies to boost revenue. Santa Monica is poised to end its contract with a private ambulance operator, McCormick Ambulance, in February and move those operations in house.

“It’s going to cost roughly $2.8 million a year to stand that operation up. But the reality is, once we start running it, it’ll generate about $7 million a year in new ongoing revenues,” Chi said.

“That’s part of what we’re thinking through: How do we invest now in order to grow our revenue base moving ahead?” he said.

Parking rates are also going up, which city officials estimate should generate $8 million to $9 million in additional annual revenue — though officials say they still charge a lower rate than those of nearby cities.

The city also plans more traffic safety enforcement and will cut the current 90 minutes of free parking in downtown parking structures to 30 minutes.

There’s also been talk of a new city parcel tax, though no decision has yet been made to pursue that. A parcel tax would need voter approval.

Another priority is building back the city’s cash reserves, which have dwindled over the years, largely on account of legal payments. Eight years ago, Santa Monica had $436 million in cash reserves; today, there’s only $158 million in nonrestricted reserves.

The planned $60 million in spending would further reduce the city’s unobligated cash down to $98 million.

Santa Monica’s annual general fund operating budget is nearly $800 million a year.

The city is also looking to redevelop some of its underutilized properties, including a 2.57-acre parcel bounded by Arizona Avenue and 4th and 5th streets, which includes branches of Bank of America and Chase bank, the leases of which are expected to expire in a few years. Also being eyed are a 1.09-acre kiss-and-ride lot southeast of the Santa Monica light rail station; the city’s seismically vulnerable Parking Structure 1 on 4th Street, which sits on 0.75 of an acre; and the old Fire Station No. 1, which sits on 0.34 of an acre and is being used for storage.

No firm plans are in place just yet. The parcels could be sold, leased long term or redeveloped as part of a joint venture. One likely possibility is that the developments would include new housing.

“When you look at any revitalization effort of any vibrant downtown core that’s eroded, there’s always been an element of repopulating the area with people,” Chi said. A smart redevelopment plan for those properties will not only “hopefully help bring back vibrancy to the downtown, but also help replenish the city’s cash reserves.”

The seeds of downtown Santa Monica’s decline actually started before the pandemic. But COVID hit the city hard, and commercial vacancies rose significantly, Councilmember Caroline Torosis, 39, said.

Santa Monica also sustained damage in 2020 from rioters who swarmed the downtown area in what appeared to be an organized attack amid a protest meant to decry the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Tourists never came back in the numbers they had before the pandemic.

Torosis said the new council majority was elected on a promise to boost economic activity in the city.

“We need to absolutely ensure that people feel safe, welcome, invited and included in our city,” said Torosis, who serves as mayor pro tem.

Hall called the plan a bold bet.

“What we’re trying to do here is move us away from a scarcity mind-set, where we’re nickel-and-diming businesses trying to stay open, restaurants trying to open a parklet, residents trying to build an ADU,” Hall said.

The council’s relative youth, he said, is a plus for a city trying to write a bright new chapter.

“I think that that’s something that millennials are finding themselves needing to do as we take ownership of society, and we see a world where past generations have been afraid to make mistakes or afraid to make decisions,” he said.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris (pictured in Washington, D.C., in October 2024) called Friday’s agreements between the U.K. and Irish governments a “night and day” improvement over the 2023 Legacy Act, which granted amnesty to British military veterans for killings during The Troubles. File Photo by Ron Sachs/UPI | License Photo

Sept. 19 (UPI) — The U.K. government will replace its controversial Northern Ireland Legacy and Reconciliation Act of 2023 with new laws to address killings that occurred during The Troubles era.

Representatives of the U.K. and Irish governments on Friday reached agreements on several proposals that are intended to address losses suffered by Irish families, the BBC reported.

Among points of contention is the 2023 Legacy Act that was approved by the U.K. government and provides amnesty for British military veterans for killings that occurred during The Troubles era.

A new commission and a dedicated unit within the Irish police force will investigate killings that occurred during The Troubles era in Northern Ireland to resolve decades-old cases.

Irish Foreign Minister Simon Harris called Friday’s agreements a “night and day improvement” over the Legacy Act, The Guardian reported.

Harris is among Irish officials who are to make public the agreements and other proposals to address The Troubles and related killings.

The agreements reached on Friday will not end an active interstate case filed by the Irish government in the wake of the Legacy Act’s approval in 2023.

Some British military leaders criticized the agreements for making elderly veterans vulnerable to potential prosecution.

Meanwhile, Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said the agreements must be “victim-centered” and comply with human rights law to be accepted, according to the BBC.

The Troubles era refers to centuries-old conflicts in Northern Ireland that culminated in a 30-year conflict from the late 1960s until the signing of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, according to the Imperial War Museums.

The agreement ended fighting that pitted the British military and many Protestants in Northern Ireland against the Irish Republican Army, other paramilitary forces and many Irish Catholics, who wanted to establish an independent Irish state.

The Troubles included many bombings and street fighting that caused the deaths of thousands of Irish civilians until the 1998 cease-fire agreement.

The conflict had its roots in the early 17th century, when Protestants from Scotland and northern England first settled in what would become Northern Ireland.

For both the Dodgers and San Diego Padres, the assignment over the next few weeks figured to be simple:

Take care of business and beat the teams you’re supposed to.

After all, the Dodgers are beginning a stretch of 15 straight games against clubs below .500. The Padres, meanwhile, will play 13 of their next 16 games against opponents with losing records, the lone exception being the 68-67 Cincinnati Reds.

It appeared to be an opportunity for each contender to stack up wins, build late-season momentum and try to wrest away control of a division race that the Dodgers currently lead by two games.

The only problem: They both flunked their first test on Friday.

Beating the bad teams, it turns out, isn’t always as easy as it seems.

In Los Angeles, the Dodgers suffered a lackluster 3-0 loss to the underperforming Arizona Diamondbacks, managing just three hits and getting only one runner in scoring position en route to suffering their seventh shutout this season. The Padres, meanwhile, were knocked around by the tanking Minnesota Twins in a 7-4 defeat earlier in the evening.

It meant, for one night, the standings remained static.

Instead of catapulting themselves into exceedingly soft portions of their schedules, both teams stumbled to equally disappointing results.

At Chavez Ravine, the Dodgers’ loss snapped their four-game winning streak — halting their recent upswing both on the mound and at the plate.

Starting pitcher Blake Snell gave up three runs in 5⅓ innings and battled through a stark drop in fastball velocity. After entering the night averaging 95.4 mph with his heater, Snell was stuck closer to 93 mph in his first start since the birth of his second child last weekend.

“I had a busy week, man. A lot going on,” Snell said of his velocity drop. “I’m not worried about [it]. I know what’s going on. So it’ll come back. I’m zero worried about it. I mean, I was aware of it. But I’m not gonna push it. It is what it is. It’s what I had today. Just gotta be better.”

Though he struck out eight batters and allowed only four hits, one of them was costly: a two-run home run by Blaze Alexander in the fourth, on a fastball over the plate that clocked in at only 93.4 mph. Snell’s night ended after two more knocks brought in a third run in the sixth, with Corbin Carroll hitting a leadoff double and scoring on Gabriel Moreno’s RBI single.

The bigger problem for the Dodgers (77-58), however, was their offense.

Arizona starter Zac Gallen entered the night in the midst of a dismal contract season, beginning play with a 5.13 earned-run average despite improved form in August. Against the Dodgers, though, he was lights out, yielding only two hits in six scoreless innings with eight strikeouts and three walks.

“We just obviously couldn’t figure anything out,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We just really couldn’t put anything together all night long.”

Indeed, even more troublesome was the Dodgers’ inability to generate much against the Diamondbacks’ bullpen — a woebegone unit that has spoiled Arizona’s playoff aspirations by ranking 26th in the majors with a 4.73 ERA.

Andy Pages managed a two-out single in the seventh but was left stranded. After that, the Dodgers’ only other baserunner came on a walk from Teoscar Hernández in the game’s penultimate at-bat.

“This was the first one in a while … that we’ve seen sort of a lackluster performance,” Roberts said, his club unable to extend its momentum after a sweep of the Reds. “Obviously you’ve got to give credit to Gallen, too. But it was one of those nights that I just didn’t see the at-bats that we’ve been seeing the last week.”

Of course, things didn’t go much better for the Padres (75-60) on Friday, either.

Before their game in Minnesota, the team announced that shortstop Xander Bogaerts was going on the injured list with a foot fracture, which could keep him out for the rest of the regular season. Then, Nestor Cortes followed up his six shutout innings against the Dodgers last week with a three-inning, three-run clunker that was punctuated with an ejection.

The night served as a missed opportunity for both NL West pace-setters; the Padres squandering a chance to cut the Dodgers’ two-game lead in half, only for the Dodgers to whiff on an opening to grow their lead at the top of the standings.

And in the coming days and weeks, both clubs will have to try to take care of business better. Because with no head-to-head matchups left between the Dodgers and Padres in the regular season, beating bad teams — and avoiding ugly losses like Friday’s — could dictate who ultimately wins the division.

“We’ve got to play well,” Roberts said. “Whether it’s the schedule or a tougher opponent, I don’t really think it matters. We got to go out and play good baseball and take good at-bats and just stack wins.”

Freeman, Call back in action

Despite the loss, the Dodgers did get good news on the injury front Friday, with both first baseman Freddie Freeman and outfielder Alex Call back in action after missing Wednesday’s game.

Freeman had been battling a neck stinger, but returned to the starting lineup and drew a walk in an otherwise 0-for-3 performance. Call avoided an IL stint after having a flare-up in his back on Tuesday, and came off the bench as a pinch-hitter for a groundout in the seventh.

With its sale to Skydance Media still beyond its reach, Paramount Global has nominated three new directors to bolster its small board, which has been racked with drama and churn since early last year.

The debt-laden New York-based company currently has only five board members, including controlling shareholder Shari Redstone, who serves as chairwoman. The Redstone family holds nearly 77% of Paramount’s voting shares, giving the heiress tremendous sway.

In a proxy filing Monday, Paramount asked shareholders to elect seven directors at its July 2 annual meeting. The slate includes Redstone and three recruits: attorney Mary Boies (a member of the firm led by her husband David Boies); Silicon Valley venture capital executive Charles E. Ryan ; and former Massachusetts trial court judge Roanne Sragow Licht.

In addition to Redstone, three longtime board members — Linda M. Griego, Susan Schuman and Barbara M. Byrne — will stand for reelection.

Board member Judith A. McHale has decided to step down.

The company has grappled with a series of setbacks since it announced its sale to tech scion David Ellison’s Skydance Media last July.

The company took a $6-billion write-down on its cable television networks business, in yet another sign that Hollywood is reckoning with the ongoing deterioration of the traditional television business.

Leading independent director Charles Phillips left the board in October. His exit came six months after three other directors — Rob Klieger, Nicole Seligman and Dawn Ostroff — abruptly departed as the panel was struggling over terms of Redstone’s planned Paramount sale.

In late October, President Trump filed a lawsuit in Texas over his dismay with edits of a “60 Minutes” interview of then-Vice President Kamala Harris in the closing weeks of the election. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee, opened an inquiry to determine whether the edits rose to the level of news distortion.

Trump doubled the amount of damages he was seeking to $20 billion.

Paramount has been defending against the lawsuit. In a court filing last week, Trump’s lawyers asserted the president suffered “mental anguish” due to the “60 Minutes” broadcast.

Redstone’s desire to settle Trump’s suit over the “60 Minutes” edits has carved deep divides within the company.

1st Amendment experts have called Trump’s lawsuit frivolous; CBS News executives and other journalists believe it is a shakedown to exploit the vulnerable company that is desperate to have the FCC approve the sale to Skydance.

The ruckus over the edits contributed to the departure of two top CBS News executives. Wendy McMahon, the president of CBS News and Stations, stepped down under pressure last month. In April, “60 Minutes” executive producer Bill Owens departed.

Redstone has expressed her dissatisfaction with CBS News’ coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.

Last month, three Democrat U.S. senators warned Redstone that the company could face allegations of bribery if they write a big check to mollify Trump in an effort to facilitate the FCC’s review of the Skydance takeover. The Wall Street Journal has reported that Paramount offered Trump $15 million to make the lawsuit go away, but he declined.

It’s been nearly 11 months since Paramount agreed to be sold to Skydance in an $8-billion deal that would inject $1.5 billion in capital into Paramount’s battered balance sheet.

Paramount has not revised its guidance on when it expects the deal to close — but the contractual deadline is early October.

As part of its proxy statement, the company again detailed the compensation packages — totaling $148 million to the top three executives and ousted Chief Executive Bob Bakish, who received compensation valued at $87 million. Co-CEO George Cheeks was paid $22.2 million. His counterparts Brian Robbins and Chris McCarthy were paid $19.6 million and $19.5 million, respectively, according to the filing.

May 13 (UPI) — South Korean prosecutors raided the country’s two rating agencies Monday to investigate suspicions surrounding the bond issuance of Home Plus, the troubled discount chain.

Home Plus is accused of selling a large volume of short-term bonds just before its credit ratings dropped on Feb. 28. The prosecution is checking whether Home Plus had prior knowledge of the credit downgrade.

If so, Home Plus, which filed for corporate rehabilitation on March 4, could face legal consequences, along with its owner MBK Partners, one of Asia’s largest private equity funds.

Since the financial obligations of Home Plus were frozen as of March 4, issuing bonds while planning the court-led rehabilitation filing could constitute fraud against investors, according to observers.

Home Plus has denied the allegations as its CEO Joh Ju-yeon stated during a parliamentary hearing in March.

“We only held an emergency meeting with executives (about the rehabilitation filing) after the credit rating cut,” he said.

However, Financial Supervisory Service Gov. Lee Bok-hyun rejected this. The organization is the country’s financial regulator.

“We have secured concrete evidence that MBK Partners and Home Plus were aware of the downgrade in advance, and they had been planning to file for rehabilitation for quite some time,” he told a press conference late last month. “The case has been formally referred to prosecutors.”

Days after Lee’s statement, the Seoul Central District Prosecutors’ Office carried out a search and seizure at the head office of Home Plus in western Seoul.

Adding to MBK’s troubles, the National Tax Service (NTS) started a tax audit of the corporation in early March. MBK claims that it’s a routine audit conducted every five years. But a non-regular inspection unit is reportedly in charge of the case.

In late March, the Fair Trade Commission reportedly launched an investigation into MBK, Home Plus and Lotte Card over alleged unfair internal transactions.

Lotte Card is suspected of providing preferential corporate card terms and credit limits to Home Plus. MBK is also the largest shareholder of the credit card company.

Asia’s top-tier private equity fund

Founded in 2005 by Chairman Michael Byungju Kim, who worked at Goldman Sachs and the Carlyle Group, MBK Partners quickly became a powerhouse in Northeast Asia.

The company has dealt with many landmark transactions such as Universal Studios Japan in 2009, ING’s South Korean unit in 2013 and Godiva Chocolatier’s Asia-Pacific operations in 2019.

MBK has succeeded with control-oriented buyouts in stable and defensive sectors. It currently manages up to $30 billion in assets to rank among the top players in Asia.

As the firm grew, so did Chairman Kim’s personal fortune. In the 2025 Forbes billionaire list, he was top among South Koreans with $9.5 billion in wealth, surpassing Samsung tycoon Lee Jae-yong with $8.2 billion.

Riding the momentum, MBK made a big bet on Home Plus in 2015 by spending around $5.1 billion to purchase the supermarket chain from Tesco.

MBK financed the deal with $1.6 billion in equity and the remaining $3.5 billion in loans, which marked the largest leveraged buyout in Asia. At the time, Home Plus was South Korea’s No. 2 discount chain with around 140 hypermarkets and 700 smaller stores nationwide.

However, rising online competition and the Corona virus pandemic dealt a blow to the business. Home Plus posted four consecutive years of losses since 2021, with its debt ratio nearing 500% this January.

Critics argue that MBK Partners relied excessively on debt and focused on short-term returns over long-term value.

“MBK has been under fire for lacking management expertise,” Lee Phil-sang, an adviser at Aju Research Institute of Corporate Management, told UPI.

“Private equity funds in other countries also follow similar practices. We cannot legally ban them. However, they should be more cautious because their large-scale failures like this can hurt the broader economy,” said Lee, who previously worked as an economics professor at Seoul National University.

The Home Plus crisis is expected to negatively affect MBK’s multi-billion-dollar attempt to snap up Korea Zinc, the world’s largest zinc smelter. MBK is pursuing the takeover in partnership with Korea Zinc’s top shareholder Young Poong.

“While MBK has suffered from setbacks in other merger and acquisition deals, none were as large as Home Plus,” Seoul-based consultancy Leaders Index CEO Park Ju-gun said in a phone interview.

“This crisis is highly likely to damage MBK’s reputation and hinder its bid for Korea Zinc,” he projected.

Comments from MBK were not available.