Memorial crosses installed in Washington DC have revived erroneous claims of a ‘white genocide’ against farmers in South Africa, a narrative echoed by US President Donald Trump. South Africa’s government rejects the allegation as baseless, saying crime and violence affect people across all racial groups.
Published On 27 Sep 202627 Sep 2026
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SACRAMENTO — With just over six weeks until the Nov. 3 election, the two candidates for California governor hit the campaign trail Thursday to promote plans to address the state’s high cost of living and continue rebuilding after the deadly wildfires that burned thousands of Los Angeles homes last year.
Democrat Xavier Becerra and Republican Steve Hilton are vying to replace termed-out Gov. Gavin Newsom, who is considering a run for president in 2028.
While Becerra holds a comfortable lead in the solidly-Democratic state, according to recent opinion polls, Hilton has aggressively attacked the veteran Democratic official as an “empty suit” who would bend to special interests in Sacramento.
“Xavier Becerra will be a rubber stamp for Democrat laws that raise your costs. That is the simple choice in this election,” Hilton said during a morning press conference in front of the state Capitol.
With a stack of file boxes representing the more than 1,100 bills passed by the legislature this year towering over him, Hilton, a former Fox News host and one-time advisor to a UK prime minister, pledged to veto any bill that would lead to higher costs if he is elected governor.
“We have to go in a new direction. Lower your costs, cut the BS, the bureaucracy, and these bills that raise costs for every Californian,” he said.
Hilton called out bills now on Newsom’s desk that would expand the state’s antitrust law and tighten rules for packaging made of recycled materials, measures opposed by business groups. Another signed by Newsom earlier this year allows Los Angeles and Contra Costa counties to surpass a 2% limit on local sales taxes.
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton speaks during a town hall with union film industry workers at Blue Cloud Movie Ranch on Wednesday in Santa Clarita.
(Justin Sullivan / Getty Images)
He has promised to slash state regulations and the government workforce to deliver $3 gas, tax-free earnings up to $150,000 and vehicle registration fees capped at $73.
Becerra, a former secretary of U.S. Health and Human Services, met with survivors of the devastating 2025 Altadena wildfires, first responders and community leaders before outlining his plans to prevent such destruction and to deal with fires when they do inevitably break out.
Becerra said his first priority is to secure the $30 billion in disaster aid that the federal government has failed to deliver.
“Job one, if I’m fortunate to become the governor, will be to fight, fight, and fight, get that money that people for nearly two years here in Altadena and the Palisades and elsewhere have been waiting for,” he said, speaking to reporters on what used to be the deck of a home belonging to a member of the Altadena Town Council.
Becerra recalled that during his 24 years in Congress there was widespread, bipartisan support for sending federal assistance to disaster areas, including areas devastated by hurricanes on the Eastern Seaboard or floods in the South. California deserves the same response, he said.
He said he would seek to leverage tax dollars to help communities better prepare for wildfires, creating buffers and hardening structures because of wildfires that will inevitably occur in certain communities.
“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Becerra said.
Becerra said he would seek to work with local governments to create a functional emergency alert system throughout the state. In the aftermath of 2025 wildfires, there was heavy criticism about delayed emergency notifications and evacuation orders.
He also said that wildfires now occur year-round, not just during what was once called fire season, and it was critical to make sure that firefighters were prepared to respond year round by not expecting them to work more than 60 or 70 hours per week when a fire breaks out.
“We want people to stay in these positions because when the fires hit, we can’t be asking where is the fire force,” he said.
When asked about the cost of gas, Becerra blamed the Trump administration for a “reckless, illegal war in Iran” and “crazy, illegal” tariffs that have contributed to higher prices.
Hilton, who is endorsed by President Trump, blamed the state’s high cost of living squarely on state policies, not on fuel prices driven up by the war.
“We don’t need to make changes at the federal level to lower peoples’ costs in California,” Hilton said. “I’m focused on what I can do as governor to lower costs in California, and that is to roll back the Democrat policies that have given us the highest costs. It’s not federal policies that have given us the highest gas prices in the country, it’s Democrat policies in California.”
A Public Policy Institute of California survey released earlier this week showed Becerra with a 22-point lead over Hilton, driven by Democrats’ large voter registration advantage.
According to a May report from the Secretary of State’s office, just under 45% of voters were registered as Democrats, 25% Republicans and 22% with no party preference. The remaining 7% were registered with another political party.
Becerra and Hilton are scheduled to meet in a Sept. 30 debate hosted by CNN.
SUPERSTAR Ed Sheeran quietly donated £1.5million to aid in the Middle East ongoing conflict amid the fallout from Macklemore being removed from his Loop tour.
The four-time Grammy Award winner asked US stadium owner Robert Kraft to match his donation to bring aid to the region.
Rather than publicize the generous move himself, Ed’s donation has come to light after Macklemore publicly challenged Robert to match his own £750,000 ($1 million) donation to Palestinian organizations.
Taking to Instagram, Robert wrote: “Earlier today, before Macklemore challenged me to match his donation, Ed called me and asked me to commit $2 million to match his donation to aid in the region to fight this humanitarian crisis.
“Ed now plans to reach out to other venue owners and our goal is to continue to work together to build bridges.”
Ed’s huge donation comes after 15 years of supporting countless charities around the globe.
He teamed up with Médecins Sans Frontières across both his Mathematics and Divide tours to help raise money for some of the world’s most conflict-torn states.
The charity provides humanitarian medical care—focusing on projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases.
The fallout comes after Robert Kraft took the unprecedented move to ban Ed’s support act Macklemore from performing at his Gillette Stadium near Boston.
The rapper had used previous support slots to call for a “Free Palestine” on stage and flashed up images of Gaza.
As well as referring to the war as “genocide,” Macklemore also dedicated a song to pro-Palestinian protesters.
Macklemore took to social media to slam the move, prompting a global backlash.
In his statement on Tuesday, Ed, who has tried to keep out of politics all his career, said: “I am appalled by the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
“The suffering and pain caused on both sides is a human tragedy. There are too many wars across the world causing immeasurable pain, none of which should be tolerated.”
He added: “Macklemore coming off tour was the promoter’s decision, it was not mine. I would never let down the fans who had made plans, nor would I abandon the touring crew and the other support acts and musicians who rely on me for work and to make a living.”
CORON, Philippines: The bodies of passengers killed in a ferry fire off the Philippines arrived at a port near the resort town of Coron, Palawan on Saturday morning, as the country’s coast guard warned the death toll of 35 would grow.
AFP watched tents being set up to accept 30 bodies brought from the M/V June Aster, which ran aground near the tourist hotspot after a fire erupted Wednesday evening and tore through the vessel “in seconds”.
Coast guard spokeswoman Noemie Cayabyab told a Saturday press conference the remains would be turned over to police forensic investigators for “proper disposition and identification” before allowing local authorities to inform family members.
“Currently, we are focused on the retrieval, and after that we will proceed with the investigation,” she said, confirming the bodies had been found in the ship’s economy accommodation area.
Police investigators were seen arriving at the port shortly after the press conference ended.
Asked how many bodies remained aboard the ship, she said authorities would provide an update later in the day.
Cayabyab told AFP on Friday evening that the first transfer had been capped at 30 bodies due to the capacity of the patrol vessel transporting them and that additional cadavers remained on the ferry.
Five others had been confirmed dead in the immediate wake of the fire.
Photos released by the coast guard showed rows of body bags being placed into a small ship alongside men in hazmat suits.
Thirty passengers and 13 crew have so far been rescued, while 54 people remain unaccounted for.
On Friday, Cayabyab had told a radio station the fire had begun in the cargo hold, then tore through the ship within seconds.
“From the time that they heard the loud explosion, the appearance of smoke, and then fire. It spread very quickly,” she said of survivors’ accounts.
“Everything happened in seconds,” she said, adding that those who made it off the ship had not even had time to put on life jackets.
‘Lost hope’
Myra Cabilan told AFP she had flown to Coron to find her missing brother, 40-year-old Rammel Gonzaga, who had taken the ferry from Manila on a business trip with his brother-in-law.
“His wife had just given birth a month ago. He was so happy he was given a daughter,” Cabilan said, fighting back tears.
“At dawn, I still believed he survived. But he’s still missing. I have lost hope.”
Hundreds of people desperate for news about the incident have taken to leaving comments on the Facebook page of a local mayor, searching for relatives, friends and even a dog.
The ferry’s manifest listed 134 crew and passengers, but two had not boarded, according to the coast guard. The ferry was also carrying goods, an electric vehicle, a pickup truck, and motorcycles.
The archipelago nation of 116 million has a long history of disasters involving the inter-island ferries that ply its seas.
Many rely on cheap and poorly regulated boats and ships for transport between the country’s more than 7,000 islands, despite regular accidents.
In January, a triple-decker ferry carrying more than 340 people sank off the southern Philippines, killing at least 52 people.
The M/V Trisha Kerstin 3 sank along nearly the same route where 31 people died in 2023 after a fire broke out aboard the Lady Mary Joy 3 ferry.
On Thursday, the company that owns the M/V June Aster, Atienza Interisland Ferries Inc, said it was fully cooperating with the investigation.
US President Donald Trump remembered the victims of the September 11 attacks at a ceremony to mark the 25th anniversary at the Pentagon.
Published On 11 Sep 202611 Sep 2026
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When her home burned down in the Eaton fire, artist Susannah Mills felt lost and adrift — but never alone. Her home was part of an Altadena artists collective called JJU, or John Joyce University, named after a beloved carpenter who lived there for 26 years. And although the residents were forced to scatter in the wake of the January 2025 devastation, they remained in contact, looking for ways to support one another through what is still an ongoing process of recovery.
A few months after her loss, Mills was accepted into an artist residency at BKN, a retreat in the northern Stockholm Archipelago, where she expanded her watercolor practice from relatively small works to large scale, and explored installation. Like JJU, BKN prides itself on building community, and while there Mills began talking with BKN curator Anna Viola Hallberg about bringing other L.A. fire survivors to Sweden to experience the same sense of connection and relief Mills was feeling.
Hallberg had already been thinking along those lines and suggested they create another residency to do just that. In the fall of 2025, Mills and Hallberg, with the help of another L.A. artist, Rick Gradone, started an organization named Los Angeles Wildfire Survivors, or L.A.W.S., and raised the funds to send 13 Eaton and Malibu-based artists to BKN for two months.
The result was life-altering for the artists, most of whom were still working to rebuild from the devastating loss — and some of whom had been so occupied with the logistics of recovery that they had not been able to make time to work.
“It creates a network, and people who work together in the residency continue to help each other,” said Hallberg in a recent interview. “So there’s a really true new arts community that lingers beyond the residency.”
It soon became clear to the team behind L.A.W.S. that more needed to be done, and they solicited another round of applications for a residency, set to begin later this month at Pilchuck Glass School in Washington state. Eight Eaton fire survivors have been selected in a competitive process, and plans are in the works to bring another cohort of artists to Sweden next Spring.
“We want to expand this outside of Los Angeles ultimately, because there are fires everywhere and there is climate disaster everywhere,” Mills said, explaining that the group’s mission is growing as changing weather patterns result in escalating cataclysm and displacement of artists globally.
“The media focuses on the disaster really fast, and they don’t understand just how long the recovery takes,” Gradone said in a recent interview. “So this puts some kind of resource in place where people can continue to to get help, especially artists who lose everything that they’ve made, lose their studio spaces and homes. That can’t be recovered in six months.”
L.A.W.S. operates as a not-for-profit and has applied for official nonprofit status, a process that can take some time in California. It is also actively looking for fiscal sponsorship. Up until now the group has relied on its personal connections to raise money to support its artist residencies. Mills’ partner, Brian Huskey, is a comedian and actor who has rallied celebrity friends to auction off small pieces of art on cards in support of L.A.W.S. But there is a need for more help as the group grows.
“Word has really caught on with people who want to have this experience, which I’m really happy about,” said Mills.
I’m arts editor Jessica Gelt, wishing I could turn back time, Cher-like, to an era before the world fast-tracked climate change with its laissez faire approach to global warming. This is your arts and culture news for the week.
Our critics and reporters guide you through events and happenings in the SoCal arts scene. In your inbox every Friday.
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Bruce Willis, left, talks with director M. Night Shyamalan on the set of the 2000 film “Unbreakable.”
(Frank Masi / Touchstone Pictures)
Unbreakable
M. Night Shyamalan’s 2000 superhero thriller with a twist stars Bruce Willis, Charlayne Woodard, Robin Wright, Samuel L. Jackson and Spencer Treat Clark.
7 p.m. Vidiots, The Eagle, 4884 Eagle Rock Blvd. vidiotsfoundation.org
SATURDAY
“the wheat leaping constantly from the shute,” Marley Freeman (2026). Oil, acrylic on linen, 58 by 54 inches.
(Marley Freeman / Parker Gallery)
Marley Freeman
The artist’s new exhibition of paintings, “worthless serpentine,” takes its title from the writings of Joan Didion.
Opening, 6-8 p.m. Saturday; 11 a.m.-6 p.m., Tuesday–Saturday, through Oct. 31. Parker Gallery, 6700 Melrose Ave. parkergallery.com
Doyle Lane: Master Of Clay
The first major museum retrospective of the Los Angeles ceramic artist features more than 100 works from the 1950s through the 1980s, from functional pottery to monumental murals, as well as archival documents.
Through Feb 22. The Huntington, 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino. huntington.org
Marie Atoinette
A 20th anniversary screening of the semibiographical period film with a postpunk- and new wave-fueled soundtrack with writer-director Sofia Coppola and star Kirsten Dunst in person. Coppola and photographer Andrew Durham will sign copies of their new book, “Making Marie Antoinette,” at the Academy Museum Store in a separately ticketed event prior the screening.
6:30 p.m. Academy Museum, 6067 Wilshire Blvd. academymuseum.org
Andrea Bocelli performs live in Vienna on Aug. 22.
(Thomas Kronsteiner / Getty Images)
Andrea Bocelli
The Italian tenor arrives at the Hollywood Bowl for two nights on his Romanza 30th Anniversary World Tour. 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday. Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave. hollywoodbowl.com
Elliott Hundley
“Book of Sand” is an exhibition of new paintings, sculptures and tapestries focusing on the artist’s “own exuberant internal universe” created through compiling paint, paper cutouts, string, encaustic and other found materials.
Artist led walk–through, 11 a.m.; opening reception, 6-8 p.m.; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Oct. 24. Regen Projects, 6750 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles. regenprojects.com
The Peterson Show
The world premiere of Janine Nabers’ play about a group of former child stars from a beloved TV show about a Black family come together after a scandal entangles their famous TV father. Directed by Michelle Bossy.
Previews, 8 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, opens, 8 p.m. Saturday (sold out), runs through Oct. 26. Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave. echotheatercompany.com
The Case-Book of C. Auguste Dupin
The world premiere of a new play adapted and directed by John Strysik, based on the stories of Edgar Allan Poe.
7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays, through Oct. 18. Mary Levin Cutler Theatre, 241 S. Moreno Drive, Beverly Hills. theatre40.org
The Ford/Hill Project
A Waterwell Production created by Lee Sunday Evans and Elizabeth Marvel, this documentary theater piece is based on the verbatim Senate testimony of Anita Hill and Christine Blasey Ford during Supreme Court confirmation hearings, 30 years apart. The cast includes Rosemarie DeWitt, Betty Gabriel, Dulé Hill and Jerry O’Connell.
8 p.m. Thursday-Saturday. REDCAT, 631 W. 2nd St., downtown L.A. redcat.org
A view of the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles from a garden.
(Ariana Drehsler / For The Times)
Hey, have you heard? The Lucas Museum of Narrative Arts will open Sept. 22 and began member previews late last week. Just kidding. Of course you have heard, because hot takes currently abound on the new $1-billion museum. Love it or hate it, it’s here to stay, and Team Arts spent the week rolling out a spate of stories explaining how we got here, as well as what you can find in the shiny new 300,000-square-foot Ma Yansong-designed building.
Times film critic Amy Nicholson wrote about what “Star Wars” fans can expect from the new museum and contributed to a piece about 11 must-see things while you’re there. We also commissioned a handy artist-drawn map of the place that should help you navigate the 100,000 square feet of gallery space with its more than 30 discrete galleries arranged by theme. Finally, Times contributor Jane Horowitz wrote two stories: one about whether or not the museum’s disregard for established art hierarchies will upend the art world; and another on how the museum’s epic search for a forever home ended in L.A.’s Exposition Park.
I also wrote about a lawsuit that a contractor filed against the museum claiming unpaid work that shines fresh light on the Museum’s Exposition Park land deal.
Randolph Thompson, Desiree Mee Jung, Adam J. Smith, Nicole Javier and Julanne Chidi Hill in “Pericles” at Boston Court Pasadena.
(Brian Hashimoto)
Times theater critic Charles McNulty spent an evening at Boston Court Pasadena watching Ellen McLaughlin’s modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s “Pericles,” which takes place at a disaster relief center, where anxious evacuees improvise a play to escape their fear of the storm they are fleeing. “It’s hard to allow yourself to fully believe in the incredible turn of events when the prevailing attitude is so emphatically tongue-in-cheek,” McNulty wrote of the West Coast premiere.
McNulty also had lunch in Manhattan with playwright Samuel D. Hunter, who has two plays running in L.A.: “Grangeville,” which McNulty calls “Los Angeles’ most acclaimed theatrical offering of the summer” and has been extended at Ruskin Group Theatre through Sept. 21; and “A Case for the Existence of God,” in a recently opened Rogue Machine production at the Matrix Theater’s Henry Murray Stage. “Drama in Hunter’s hands is built around an encounter. He doesn’t force his characters to jump through hoops,” writes McNulty in a profile. “He listens to them, as they navigate their complicated feelings, closely tracking the way their intersecting paths lead them toward incremental revelation.”
Paintings from the private collection of the late music executive Clive Davis, estimated to fetch more than $35 million, are heading for auction at Christie’s in November.
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Lucien Smith attends the Hugo Boss Prize 2014 ceremony at Guggenheim Museum in New York City.
(Dimitrios Kambouris)
Lucien Smith, a Los Angeles–born multidisciplinary artist who garnered loads of attention in 2010s art scene, has died at 37.
IAMA Theatre Company is set to launch its ninth annual New Works Festival, which will take place Sept. 14-28 at Atwater Village Theatre, and will feature staged readings of six new plays. Tickets are $18 for each reading and can be found at iamatheatre.com. This year’s festival includes “The Half-Sibling Play” by Agyeiwaa Asante; “All Remaining Assets” by Serena Berman; “The Starters” by Laura Winters; “Betta Mus Come” by Alicia Carroll; “Werewolves” by Liba Vaynberg; and “The Great Florida Python Challenge” by John Lavelle.
Additional tumult is coming for the Smithsonian Institution as secretary Lonnie Bunch announced he will step down from his leadership position. The news comes in the midst of President Trump’s pressure campaign on the organization and his administration’s attempts to alter what Smithsonian museums include in their exhibitions.
— Jessica Gelt
Oh, no! In-N-Out is making tweaks to staples like buns and ketchup!
WASHINGTON — Nearly a quarter century after a day “etched forever into the memories of Americans,” President Trump honored the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on Tuesday by vowing to “never forget.”
The event at the Ellipse was spearheaded by the Tunnel to Towers Foundation and showcased a massive, 21-foot, nearly 17,000-pound steel beam recovered from the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, which had traveled for months across the country as part of the Steel Across America tour.
The steel beam will make its way through New York in a procession on Friday by retracing the steps of fallen New York City firefighter Stephen Siller. Trump’s presence at the event on Tuesday just outside the White House began a week of commemorations that will culminate in several events on Friday, including one at the Pentagon that Trump will attend.
“This battered piece of steel here today on the Ellipse is a reminder that America is blessed with a strength no fire can consume, no evil can conquer and no terror can destroy,” Trump said.
Trump noted that the Sept. 11 attacks were one of few moments in history that “divide time into really what came before” and after.
His remarks briefly dipped into the political, as Trump warned of people turning a “communistic way” — a reference to his frequent attacks on Democrats as more democratic socialists gain influence in the party.
During his remarks, Trump paid particular tribute to two men who died in the attacks: Jeffrey Palazzo, a New York City firefighter, and Welles Crowther, a young equities trader who became known as the “man in the red bandanna” after rescuing several people in the attacks.
Trump said the U.S. Coast Guard will commission a new fast-response cutter this weekend in New York in honor of Palazzo, a Coast Guard reservist who was working out of Staten Island’s Rescue Squad 5 when he responded to the attacks 25 years ago.
And the president recognized Crowther, also a volunteer firefighter, by awarding him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Crowther’s mother, Alison, and sister, Paige, accepted the award, which is considered the nation’s highest civilian honor.
In attendance were a smattering of top Cabinet officials and members of Congress, including Republican Reps. Mike Lawler of New York and Dan Meuser, whose Pennsylvania district is near Shanksville, where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001.
Trump praised at length Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who was chairman and CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a financial firm that had been housed at the World Trade Center. Lutnick lost his younger brother, Gary, as well as more than 650 employees in the attacks.
“He’s done an amazing job,” Trump said of Lutnick. “He’s rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald, and he’s given much of the profits to some of the families or the families of people who perished.”
About 150 first responders from New York, as well as some from Washington and Pennsylvania, were in attendance, Trump said.
“This steel beam represents the best of our country,” said Frank Siller, the foundation’s chairman and CEO who is the brother of Stephen Siller. “It’s important to recognize that the heroism that was exhibited that fateful day was nothing short of incredible.”
Kim writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Will Weissert contributed to this report.
Published On 3 Sep 20263 Sep 2026
Families in Nepal held symbolic funerals for relatives who remain missing, hoping to free their souls after they were presumed dead.
In Hindu tradition, cremation is a vital final rite, and for some families, performing the ceremony without the bodies of their loved ones has brought a measure of spiritual release.
Authorities in Nepal have meanwhile been burying recovered bodies in temporary graves until they can be identified. DNA samples are being preserved, distinguishing facial features photographed and other identifying details recorded to help match the remains with missing people and eventually return them to their families.
The August 26 flash flood has been one of the deadliest disasters to hit the Himalayan nation in recent years.
More than 1,200 people were killed and about 4,750 remain missing in Nepal and China’s Tibet region, after a huge wave of mud and debris destroyed towns, roads, bridges and several hydropower dams.
SACRAMENTO — California lawmakers passed laws that would ensure insurance companies provide better coverage for smoke-damaged homes and financing for upgrades protecting residences from future fire damage.
The measures were among a slew of bills approved during the 2026 legislative session to deal with the continuing aftermath of the devastating 2025 Los Angeles area fires.
The Eaton and Palisades fires, which destroyed more than 16,000 structures and killed 31, were two of the deadliest and most destructive fires in state history. Like with catastrophic fires before them, tragedy spurred action.
Much of the focus on wildfire issues by Gov. Gavin Newsom and California lawmakers in the waning days of the legislative session focused on a proposal to shift liability away from utilities whose equipment ignites wildfires.
The complex, high-stakes policy debate attempted to address the needs and financial risks faced by the utilities, their customers and insurance companies following the catastrophic wildfires that have plagued California in recent years, but a proposed compromise recently pieced together by lawmakers and the governor fell through Tuesday.
However, lawmakers did pass several bills this year to help fire victims navigate burdensome insurance requirements in the aftermath of a disaster and increase prevention efforts. All head to Newsom for his consideration.
Two complementary bills approved Monday ensure homes that survive a wildfire but are contaminated by the onslaught of smoke are properly remediated before residents move back in.
The bills were prompted by the 2025 Eaton fire, which left thousands of homes contaminated with lead, some at levels hundreds of times what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe. Homeowners routinely reported that their insurance companies refused or delayed claims, advocated for cleaning methods that experts deemed insufficient and pushed residents to move back before testing showed their homes were safe.
The first bill, AB 1642, would direct the Department of Toxic Substances Control to create scientific standards for what constitutes a safe home and provide guidance on how to properly remediate homes. The second, AB 1795, would require insurers to abide by those standards in the claims process and do so in a timely manner.
The companion laws only take effect if Newsom signs both.
The two bills originally conflicted with one another. The scientific standards bill was supported by many Eaton fire survivors from the get-go. However, the insurance bill — born out of a Department of Insurance task force — was widely criticized by survivors for leaving insurance companies wiggle room to deny claims and placing a burden on homeowners to prove their home was in fact contaminated by a fire.
In an eleventh-hour sprint of “sleepless nights,” “five-hour Zooms” and intervention from the governor’s office, advocates won additional protections for fire survivors in the insurance bill and brought the two into harmony, said Dawn Fanning, managing director at the smoke-damaged home advocacy group Eaton Fire Residents United.
“It took a lot of work to get here, and we’re really happy where we landed,” Fanning said.
After the Eaton fire, “it was the Wild West, trying to scramble to find answers,” she said. “If these laws were in place, so many thousands of people would be back home by now.”
Separate legislation by Sen. Benjamin Allen (D-Santa Monica), who is in a hotly contested race for California Insurance Commissioner, seeks to give homeowners more notice and options before being dropped by their insurer, a problem homeowners increasingly face as wildfires have become more frequent and destructive.
Many nonrenewal notices sent by insurance companies include vague reasoning, Allen said during a May hearing on the bill, SB 1301. His legislation would require specific information so property owners can have a chance to mitigate problems and keep their insurance.
Another bill from Allen, who represents the Palisades area that burned in 2025, would create a new loan program to help property owners mitigate fire risks through home hardening, or installing fire-resistant materials on the outside of a structure.
“It can sometimes cost tens of thousands of dollars for homeowners and there’s simply not a lot of financing for this kind of work. There’s not a market for that,” Allen said during an April hearing.
The program is expected to help fund 1,000 projects in its first year and up to 2,400 within five years, according to a bill analysis.
A budget bill approved Tuesday morning also includes $25 million for home hardening grants, rebates or loans to be distributed through a separate program to be created by the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services. It would cap assistance at $25,000 per homeowner or property.
But other proposals to provide financial incentives for home hardening did not pass, including bills by Assemblymember Steve Bennett (D-Ventura) to exclude home hardening upgrades from property tax reassessment and to require insurance companies to provide two quotes to inquiring homeowners: one for the property as is, and another for if it met full home-hardening certification by the state.
Another bill on Newsom’s desk seeks to get restitution for victims of utility-caused wildfires who in some cases have waited more than a decade, said Assemblymember Joe Patterson (R-Rocklin).
In 2019, the state established a wildfire fund paid by utility companies that reimburses claims stemming from wildfires caused by the companies’ equipment. But the fund was not retroactive, and some people who suffered losses before its creation are still waiting to be paid.
Patterson’s bill requires the California Public Utilities Commission to determine how much is still owed to those victims, including for losses from the deadly Camp fire that was sparked by a PG&E power line and destroyed the town of Paradise in 2018.
“For years, wildfire survivors have been forced to wait for answers while restitution shortfalls remain unresolved,” Patterson said in a statement after the bill passed. “AB 2700 is about doing what is right for wildfire survivors who have waited far too long to be made whole.”
