year

NEW YORK — Reviving a campaign pledge, President Trump wants a one-year, 10% cap on credit card interest rates, a move that could save Americans tens of billions of dollars but drew immediate opposition from an industry that has been in his corner.

Trump was not clear in his social media post Friday night whether a cap might take effect through executive action or legislation, though one Republican senator said he had spoken with the president and would work on a bill with his “full support.” Trump said he hoped it would be in place by Jan. 20, marking one year since his return to the White House.

Strong opposition is certain from Wall Street and the credit card companies, which donated heavily to his 2024 campaign and to support his second-term agenda.

“We will no longer let the American Public be ripped off by Credit Card Companies that are charging Interest Rates of 20 to 30%,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Researchers who studied Trump’s campaign pledge after it was first announced found that Americans would save roughly $100 billion in interest a year if credit card rates were capped at 10%. The same researchers found that while the credit card industry would take a major hit, it would still be profitable, although credit card rewards and other perks might be scaled back.

Americans are paying, on average, between 19.65% and 21.5% in interest on credit cards, according to the Federal Reserve and other industry tracking sources. That has come down in the last year as the central bank lowered benchmark rates, but is near the highs since federal regulators started tracking credit card rates in the mid-1990s.

Trump’s administration, however, has proved particularly friendly until now to the credit card industry.

Capital One got little resistance from the White House when it finalized its purchase and merger with Discover Financial in early 2025, a deal that created the nation’s largest credit card company. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which is largely tasked with going after credit card companies for alleged wrongdoing, has been largely nonfunctional since Trump took office. His administration killed a Biden-era regulation that would have capped credit card late fees.

In a joint statement, the banking industry opposed Trump’s proposal.

“If enacted, this cap would only drive consumers toward less regulated, more costly alternatives,” the American Bankers Assn. and allied groups said.

The White House did not respond to questions about how the president seeks to cap the rate or whether he has spoken with credit card companies about the idea.

Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who said he talked with Trump on Friday night, said the effort is meant to “lower costs for American families and to [rein] in greedy credit card companies who have been ripping off hardworking Americans for too long.”

Legislation in both the House and the Senate would do what Trump is seeking.

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) released a plan last February that would immediately cap interest rates at 10% for five years, hoping to use Trump’s campaign promise to build momentum for their measure.

Hours before Trump’s post, Sanders noted that the president, rather than working to cap interest rates, had taken steps to deregulate big banks that allowed them to charge much higher credit card fees.

Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) have proposed similar legislation. Ocasio-Cortez is a frequent political target of Trump, while Luna is a close ally of the president.

Sweet and Kim write for the Associated Press and reported from New York and West Palm Beach, Fla., respectively.

In his postgame interviews analyzing the play of his basketball team, UCLA coach Mick Cronin is spot on. The problem is that as the coach, his prime duty is to fix these identified shortcomings, not to blame his players for the mounting problems.

If NIL funds are lacking, discuss this with the wealthy donors. If the offense is to generate more points, he needs to devise a new scheme. Quality coaches are able to change their approaches on the fly. If Cronin is unable to get the Bruins back on the winning track, his status in Westwood needs to be reassessed. But I guess Martin Jarmond performed an assessment when he secretly extended Cronin’s contract.

Neal Rakov
Santa Fe, N.M.

The great John Wooden passed almost 16 years ago but he still watches UCLA from heaven. After Tuesday’s bad loss to Wisconsin he turned to his first Bruins athletic director, Wilbur Johns, and asked “Did we really give Mick Cronin a five-year extension?”

Fred Wallin
Westlake Village

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s Noah Goldberg giving you the latest on city and county government.

For a long time, Spencer Pratt refused to be put into a political box.

The reality-television-personality-turned-national-figure-turned-mayoral-candidate told the New York Times in October that he hated politics and didn’t identify with either major party. He “demurred” when asked by the Hollywood Reporter about his personal politics.

But the supporters who are beginning to line up behind Pratt have made one thing clear: MAGA has entered the Los Angeles mayoral race, just one day after “The Hills” alumnus announced he’s running.

Despite his nonpartisan statements, Pratt has become a darling of the right wing, meeting with influential Republicans across the country who have latched onto his sharp criticism of Mayor Karen Bass and Gov. Gavin Newsom over their handling of the Palisades fire.

On Thursday, Pratt, who lost his home in the fire, finally commented on his political affiliation, saying he has been a registered Republican since 2020.

“I wasn’t going to change it now just to check a different box,” he wrote on X. “This is a non-partisan race — there will be no D or R next to my name. As Mayor, I will not serve either party. I will work with anyone who wants to help the city. No labels necessary.”

The confirmation of Pratt’s political affiliation came as endorsements flowed in from across the country — and not from Democrats, for the most part.

Republican U.S. Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who has launched a congressional investigation into the response to the Palisades fire, posted on X that he was “glad” Pratt decided to run for mayor. Scott has toured the Palisades with Pratt, and the two met in Washington, D.C., after Scott announced the investigation.

Pratt was also endorsed by Richard Grenell, who is President Trump’s Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.

“I endorse Spencer Pratt for Mayor of Los Angeles and will help raise money for him. Transparency is what we need. Spencer has the passion and the drive to make positive change for Los Angeles,” Grenell wrote on X.

Closer to home, Pratt picked up an endorsement from Riverside Sheriff Chad Bianco, a Trump supporter and a Republican candidate for governor.

“LA needs him, California needs him. He’s got integrity and the backbone we need,” Bianco posted on X.

Roxanne Hoge, chairman of the Republican Party of Los Angeles County, said the group welcomes into the mayoral race “every common sense voice who stands for good governance and stands for representing the people over public sector unions and developers and NGOs.”

Hoge said she has a “great affinity” for Pratt, whom she called a personal friend.

“I support his willingness to speak up and be a voice for the voiceless,” she said.

Hoge said the county organization has not endorsed in the race.

Former City Councilmember Mike Bonin, who represented Pacific Palisades until 2024, said Pratt and Trump have many similarities.

“If you look at the model of who he is as candidate, it’s similar to Trump: the reality television background; his most visible communication presence is on Twitter, just as Trump’s was. And he’s sort of developing a candidacy around frustration and blowing the system up, just like Trump did,” Bonin said.

Bonin said Pratt’s entry into the race could be “perilous” for Bass.

The mayor has also tried to tie Pratt to Trump, seeking to position herself as the anti-MAGA candidate in a deep blue city.

“Donald Trump and Spencer Pratt are cut from the same cloth — two Republican, reality star villains running with MAGA backing, spewing disinformation and misinformation to create profit and division. Good luck with that in Los Angeles,” said Doug Herman, a spokesperson for Bass’ campaign.

Candidates will be judged by the people they associate with, Bonin added.

“Show me who you walk with and I’ll tell you who you are,” said Bonin, who is executive director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs at Cal State Los Angeles.

Rick Caruso, a former Republican who registered as a Democrat when he ran against Bass in 2022, has tried to distance himself from Trump. Caruso said during his mayoral campaign that he never supported Trump for president or donated to his campaigns.

Caruso, a billionaire developer who is considering a run for either mayor or governor, said he hadn’t spoken with Pratt in months but that he was glad the social media influencer was joining the race.

“I think it’s great [that Pratt is running],” Caruso said. “I think the more people that actively get in government service the better.”

Pratt did not respond to multiple texts requesting comment. A member of his team said he is “currently embargoed from doing interviews because of other projects that were previously in play before he announced.”

A campaign staffer did not specify what the other projects were and said Pratt would be able to speak in early February.

State of play

— A YEAR OF FIRES: A year after two of the most destructive wildfires in California history erupted just hours apart, survivors marked the day in Altadena and Pacific Palisades with a mixture of anger and somber remembrance.

— ENTER PRATT: Spencer Pratt announced his candidacy for mayor of Los Angeles on the anniversary of the Palisades fire. Pratt and his wife, Heidi Montag, lost their home in the fire. Since then, the reality TV personality has become a vocal critic of Bass and Newsom.

— WATERED DOWN: LAFD Chief Jaime Moore admitted Tuesday that his department’s after-action report on the Palisades fire was watered down to shield top brass from scrutiny.

— REPORT AND REFINE: The head of the Los Angeles Fire Commission said Tuesday that a “working draft” of the after-action report was sent to the mayor’s office for “refinements” before it was published last October. She added that in her long career in civic roles, she had learned that words like “refinements” could mean troubling changes to a government report, made for the purpose of hiding facts.

— FINAL ADDRESS: In his final State of the State address, Newsom shifted from the problem-solving posture that defined his early years in office to a more declarative accounting of California’s achievements, casting the state as a counterweight to dysfunction in Washington.

— KILLINGS PLUMMET: There were 230 homicides in Los Angeles in 2025, according to the LAPD. That was a 19% drop from 2024 and the fewest the city has seen since 1966, when the population was 30% smaller.

— MAYORAL MOVES: Bass spokesperson Clara Karger is leaving the mayor’s office and heading to public affairs firm Fiona Hutton & Associates. Karger was with Bass’ team for nearly three years. Her departure comes months after Bass’ deputy mayor for communications Zach Seidl left. Seidl was replaced by Amanda Crumley.

— LA|DC|NYC: Anna Bahr, who worked as a deputy press secretary for former Mayor Eric Garcetti and then ran communications for Sen. Bernie Sanders, is headed to the Big Apple to run communications for newly elected Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program brought Angelenos inside in Skid Row and South Los Angeles this week. The program also partnered with Project Street Vet to provide veterinary care — including vaccines, medications and check ups — to nearly 30 pets belonging to Inside Safe participants, the mayor’s office said.
• On the docket next week: The City Council’s Committee on Public Works will get updates on the city’s graffiti abatement program as well as the city’s efforts to address illegal dumping and to repair pot holes.

Stay in touch

That’s it for this week! Send your questions, comments and gossip to LAontheRecord@latimes.com. Did a friend forward you this email? Sign up here to get it in your inbox every Saturday morning.

The city of Los Angeles violated the state’s open meeting law when council members took up a plan to clear 9,800 homeless encampments behind closed doors, a judge ruled this week.

In a 10-page decision, L.A. County Superior Court Judge Curtis Kin said the City Council ran afoul of the Ralph M. Brown Act by approving the encampment strategy during a Jan. 31, 2024, closed session.

The encampment plan was part of a larger effort by the city to comply with a legal settlement with the L.A. Alliance for Human Rights, which had sued over the city’s handling of the homelessness crisis.

Kin, in his ruling, said the city is allowed under the Brown Act to confer with its attorneys in closed-door meetings to discuss legal strategy.

“However, what the City cannot do under the Brown Act is formulate and approve policy decisions in a closed session outside the public eye merely because such decisions are in furtherance of a settlement agreement,” Kin wrote.

Karen Richardson, a spokesperson for City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto, said her office had no comment on the decision, which was issued earlier this week.

The ruling delivered a victory to the Los Angeles Community Action Network, which advocates for homeless residents and had sued the city over the closed-door deliberations.

Lawyers for LA CAN have warned that the city’s goal of removing 9,800 encampments over four years has created a quota system that could make sanitation workers more likely to violate the property rights of unhoused residents. Under the agreement, the city must reach its encampment removal target this summer.

“The City Council approved an extremely controversial plan to clear almost 10,000 encampments entirely in secret,” said Shayla Myers, the group’s attorney. “They never disclosed the plan before they voted on it, or even after, and the only one they disclosed the plan to was the business community.”

Lawyers for the city have offered contradictory explanations for what transpired during the Jan. 31, 2024, meeting. Now, LA CAN is seeking a court order requiring that the city produce all records — including audio of the closed-door deliberations — to show what transpired.

The city’s strategy for clearing 9,800 encampments has become a major sticking point in its long-running legal battle with the LA Alliance. U.S. District Court Judge David O. Carter ruled that a tent discarded by sanitation workers can only count toward the city’s numerical goal if its owner has been offered housing or shelter first.

Feldstein Soto’s legal team, in a memo to the council, said later that the judge had “reinterpreted” some of the city’s settlement obligations.

In this week’s ruling, Kin found that the city violated the Brown Act a second time in May 2024, when the council went behind closed doors to take up another agreement — this one between the city and L.A. County on the delivery of homeless services.

The LA Alliance first sued the city and county in 2020, alleging that too little was being done to address the homelessness crisis, particularly in Skid Row. The city settled the case two years later, agreeing to create 12,915 new shelter beds or other housing opportunities by June 2027.

After that deal was struck, the city began negotiating an accompanying agreement with the LA Alliance to reduce the number of street encampments. Those talks dragged on for more than a year.

The LA Alliance ran out of patience, telling Judge Carter in February 2024 that the city was 447 days late in finalizing its plan and should be sanctioned. The group submitted to the court a copy of the encampment removal plan, saying it had been approved by the City Council on Jan. 31, 2024.

Video from that day’s meeting shows that council members went behind closed doors to discuss the LA Alliance case. When they returned, Deputy City Atty. Jonathan Groat said there was nothing to report from the closed session.

LA CAN demanded that the city produce any vote tally on the encampment plan. The city declined to do so, saying there was no vote.

“To this day, [we] still don’t know who voted for it, or even if a vote was taken at all,” Myers said.

Lawyers for the city have argued that they were not required to issue any report from that closed session meeting. They also have said that the Brown Act allowed the two agreements — the one on encampment removals and the other with the county — to be discussed behind closed doors.

Carter ruled last year that the city had failed to comply with the terms of its settlement agreement with the L.A. Alliance. On Tuesday, he ordered the city to pay $1.6 million to cover the group’s legal fees.

The judge also instructed the city to pay about $201,000 for fees incurred by LA CAN and the LA Catholic Worker, which have intervened in the LA Alliance case.

On Thursday, lawyers for the city notified the court that they intend to appeal the order to pay the various groups.

One of the most important political stories in American history — one that is particularly germane to our current, tumultuous time — unfolded in Los Angeles some 65 years ago.

Sen. John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, had just received his party’s nomination for president and in turn he shunned the desires of his most liberal supporters by choosing a conservative out of Texas as his running mate. He did so in large part to address concerns that his faith would somehow usurp his oath to uphold the Constitution. The last time the Democrats nominated a Catholic — New York Gov. Al Smith in 1928 — he lost in a landslide, so folks were more than a little jittery about Kennedy’s chances.

“I am fully aware of the fact that the Democratic Party, by nominating someone of my faith, has taken on what many regard as a new and hazardous risk,” Kennedy told the crowd at the Memorial Coliseum. “But I look at it this way: The Democratic Party has once again placed its confidence in the American people, and in their ability to render a free, fair judgment.”

The most important part of the story is what happened before Kennedy gave that acceptance speech.

While his faith made party leaders nervous, they were downright afraid of the impact a civil rights protest during the Democratic National Convention could have on November’s election. This was 1960. The year began with Black college students challenging segregation with lunch counter sit-ins across the Deep South, and by spring the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee had formed. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was not the organizer of the protest at the convention, but he planned to be there, guaranteeing media attention. To try to prevent this whole scene, the most powerful Black man in Congress was sent to stop him.

The Rev. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. was also a warrior for civil rights, but the House representative preferred the legislative approach, where backroom deals were quietly made and his power most concentrated. He and King wanted the same things for Black people. But Powell — who was first elected to Congress in 1944, the same year King enrolled at Morehouse College at the age of 15 — was threatened by the younger man’s growing influence. He was also concerned that his inability to stop the protest at the convention would harm his chance to become chairman of a House committee.

And so Powell — the son of a preacher, and himself a Baptist preacher in Harlem — told King that if he didn’t cancel, Powell would tell journalists a lie that King was having a homosexual affair with his mentor, Bayard Rustin. King stuck to his plan and led a protest — even though such a rumor would not only have harmed King, but also would have undermined the credibility of the entire civil rights movement. Remember, this was 1960. Before the March on Washington, before passage of the Voting Rights Act, before the dismantling of the very Jim Crow laws Powell had vowed to dismantle when first running for office.

That threat, my friends, is the most important part of the story.

It’s not that Powell didn’t want the best for the country. It’s just that he wanted to be seen as the one doing it and was willing to derail the good stemming from the civil rights movement to secure his own place in power. There have always been people willing to make such trade-offs. Sometimes they dress up their intentions with scriptures to make it more palatable; other times they play on our darkest fears. They do not care how many people get hurt in the process, even if it’s the same people they profess to care for.

That was true in Los Angeles in 1960.

That was true in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 6, 2021.

That is true in the streets of America today.

Whether we are talking about an older pastor who is threatened by the growing influence of a younger voice or a president clinging to office after losing an election: To remain king, some men are willing to burn the entire kingdom down.

YouTube: @LZGrandersonShow

TODAY is Sunshine Saturday – traditionally the busiest day for Brits to book their 2026 holidays. 

But where to go? Travel association Abta’s research shows nearly half of us want to visit a country we haven’t been to before. 

And today, with the help of their expert members, they’ve come up with a top 10 list of places to visit in 2026 .  

Abta’s Graeme Buck says: “With a focus on countries or areas that may not immediately spring to mind, offering alternatives to more well-known destinations, there should be something for everyone.” 

Lisa Minot looks at Abta’s lust list for 2026. 

BORNEO: This island in South East Asia is home to unspoilt rainforests, enormous cave systems, imposing Mount Kinabalu and endless wild animal encounters.

SUN HOLIDAYS

What are Hols from £9.50? Your guide to booking 2026 breaks with The Sun

Raily good deal

How to get discounted railcards & train tickets with Sun Club and Trip.com

Take a boat safari along the Kinabatangan River to spot crocodiles, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants.

Head to the Danum Valley in Sabah to search for orangutans and clouded leopards.  

Book with: Intrepid Travel, G Adventures and Travelbag. 

COLOMBIA: With the latest series of Celebrity Race Across The World culminating in Colombia’s Peninsula de la Guajira, we’ve all been entranced by the beauty of this South American gem.

With idyllic beaches, historic cities, rainforests and, of course, great coffee, a tour is a great way to get a snapshot of its highlights, from the colourful colonial city of Cartagena to the Caribbean beaches of Tayrona National Park.  

Book with: Exodus, G Adventures and Intrepid Travel.

EGYPT: The much-anticipated opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in Giza, on the outskirts of Cairo, makes Egypt a must-visit for 2026.

The museum houses more than 100,000 artefacts from Ancient Egypt, including the incredible treasures of Tutankhamun.

A river cruise along the Nile is a great way to take in all of the key sights, including the temples of Luxor and Aswan.

Sun-seekers will also appreciate the great value offered at Red Sea resorts, including Hurghada and Marsa Alam. 

Book with: TUI River Cruises and Riviera Travel. 

FRENCH POLYNESIA: With its palm-fringed beaches and dark blue lagoons, this vision of paradise is definitely worth travelling to the other side of the world for.

More than 100 islands make up this Pacific archipelago, so this is real bucket list territory.

Tick off as many sights as you can, from the busy markets of capital Papeete, on the island of Tahiti, to the honeymoon beaches of Bora Bora.  

Book with: Scott Dunn, Kuoni and Trailfinders. 

GERMANY’S BALTIC COAST: Miles of sandy beaches backed by chalk cliffs and beech forests make the German Riviera a favourite for locals – but few outsiders know it exists.

Easy to get to from Hambug or Berlin by train, head to Rugen, Germany’s largest island for fashionable Binz beach.

Hike or bike through the coastal countryside or discover Heiligendamm, known as the White Town by the Sea – the country’s oldest seaside resort with pretty neoclassical architecture and upmarket spas.

The area is also ideal for those looking for cooler summer temperatures. 

Book with: Leger Travel, Riviera Travel. 

GRENADA: A true taste of the Caribbean’s natural charms, Grenada is known as the Spice Island where its fertile soils produce nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, turmeric and vanilla as well as cacao for chocolate.

Summer is ‘Spicemas’ with parties and parades in the pretty capital, St George’s.

And get more nature in the Grand Etang National Park with its lake, lush vegetation and Mona monkeys.  

Book with: TUI and Virgin Holidays. 

ISLANDS OF THE GULF OF NAPLES: Just a short ferry ride from Naples, Capri is known as a celebrity magnet and prices can be dizzying in the chic shops and fancy restaurants.

But the neighbouring island of Ischia offers a very different experience — a green, wooded mountainous island with great hiking options as well as the chance to relax on pretty beaches or soak away your worries in the Poseidon Gardens thermal pools.

And little Procida, with its pastel-coloured fishermen’s houses and laid-back vibe, has provided the perfect backdrop for films including The Talented Mr Ripley. 

Book with: Citalia and TUI. 

LA RIOJA: Look north to Spain’s La Rioja wine region for a different taste of our favourite holiday destination.

The Basque country has been proving popular for Brits and with Rioja sitting the other side of the River Ebro, there’s even more to explore from the capital Logrono, with some of the best tapas in Spain to one of the many wineries like the Marques de Riscal and the cosy bodegas in the town of Haro.

Expect spectacular scenery in the Sierra de Cebollera with its mountains, forests and wildlife including boar and birds of prey.  

Book with: Brittany Ferries for self-drive breaks and Travelsphere for tours. 

LUXEMBOURG: The delightful European duchy of Luxembourg packs a great deal within its compact borders: historic towns, fairytale castles and beautiful countryside.

Visits have increased six per cent year on year.

Start your trip in Luxembourg City, on the banks of a dramatic river gorge, then hop on the free public transport to visit the old town of Vianden with its castles.

Nature lovers will adore exploring the Mullerthal woods with its stunning beech groves, streams, canyons and cave systems. 

Book with: Just Go! for coach holidays and First Choice for packages. 

SERBIA: From its hip and buzzy capital Belgrade to its spectacular national parks, Serbia is ripe for discovery by those seeking a lesser-known European destination.

Get a taste for the capital’s ancient past at the Kalemegdan Fortress and sip cocktails in the hip Dorcol quarter.

Further afield, cycle along the inspiring Iron Gates gorge, carved out over millenia by the mighty River Danube or go deep into nature in the Tara National Park with dense forests, deep canyons and two lakes popular with water sports. 

Book with: Regent Holidays, Intrepid Travel. 

The WNBA and its players union will not agree to another extension of the collective bargaining agreement after the deadline passes Friday night, WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said.

That does not mean players will strike or the league will lock them out. Stewart told reporters Thursday at a practice for the Unrivaled three-on-three league that players would continue to negotiate in good faith.

With the deadline just before midnight Friday, the league wouldn’t confirm that the sides won’t reach an extension. A spokesman did say the league would “continue to negotiate in good faith with the goal of reaching a deal as quickly as possible.”

“Our focus remains on reaching an agreement that significantly increases player compensation while ensuring the long-term growth of the business,” a spokesperson said.

The league and the players had two previous extensions and met several times this week. Any stalled negotiations could delay the start of the season. The last CBA was announced in the middle of January 2020, a month after it had been agreed to.

It easily could take two months from when a new CBA is reached to get to the start of free agency, which was supposed to begin this month.

While a strike or lockout isn’t imminent, both sides could change their viewpoints.

Stewart said calling a strike is “not something that we’re going to do right this second, but we have that in our back pocket.” The league hasn’t been considering a lockout, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

As of Thursday, the sides remained far apart on many key issues, including salary and revenue sharing, and it seems unlikely a deal could be reached before Friday’s deadline.

Revenue sharing a sticking point in talks

The league’s most recent offer last month would guarantee a maximum base salary of $1 million that could reach $1.3 million through revenue sharing. That’s up from the current $249,000 and could grow to nearly $2 million over the life of the agreement, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told AP. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.

Under the proposal, players would receive in excess of 70% of net revenue — though that would be their take of the profits after expenses are paid. Those expenses would include upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels, medical services, security and arenas.

The average salary this year would be more than $530,000, up from its current $120,000, and grow to more than $770,000 over the life of the agreement. The minimum salary would grow from its current $67,000 to approximately $250,000 in the first year, the person told the AP.

The proposal also would pay young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, who are all still on their rookie contracts, nearly double the league minimum.

The union’s counter proposal to the league would give players around 30% of the gross revenue. The players’ percentage would be from money generated before expenses for the first year and teams would have a $10.5-million salary cap to sign players. Under the union’s proposal, the revenue sharing percent would go up slightly each year.

Union wants expansion fees included; league saying no

The union feels that the $750 million in expansion fees that the league just received with the addition of franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia by 2030 should be considered revenue and included in projections. The league says that the money actually goes to all the current teams to make up for the future money they’ll be losing by dividing the total revenue by more franchises.

Other major sports leagues like the NBA, NHL and NFL don’t include expansion fees in their revenue-sharing structures. Major League Baseball’s salary structure is not tied to its revenue, so expansion fees don’t matter.

League wants players to pay for own housing

With the potential new minimum salary at approximately $250,000, the WNBA has said that like most every other pro league, players should pay for their own housing.
The union’s stance is that teams should continue to pay for players’ housing.

Why stalled negotiations could delay the season

An extended delay in getting a deal done could cause a number of problems, specifically getting the season started on time or even played for several reasons. There are several factors that indicate that time is near:

• Free agency: With nearly all the veterans free agents this offseason, this will be the biggest year in the league’s history as far as potential movement. Free agency was supposed to start this month. However, once a new CBA is reached, it could take both parties two months to get free agency started.
• Revenue-generating events could be delayed: The release of the schedule has been delayed. In the past the league tried to get it out before the holidays so teams could sell tickets. With so many players potentially changing teams as free agents, new merchandise wouldn’t be able to be sold.
• Expansion draft: With Portland and Toronto entering the league this year, an expansion draft has to be held. Last year when Golden State came into the WNBA, a draft was held in December. Teams need to figure out who they will be protecting from being selected in the draft, and that is made more complicated because of all the free agents.

Myha’la is a married woman — and has been for a year.

The actor, known for HBO’s finance drama “Industry” and dark comedy “Bodies Bodies Bodies,” revealed that she and Armando Rivera tied the knot last year. She celebrated their anniversary via Instagram on Monday, sharing photos of herself with Rivera and pictures of friends and family during their intimate ceremony.

“One year of marriage,” she wrote in the caption of the post. The 29-year-old actor also included a disclaimer to reassure followers they weren’t the only ones who missed out on the wedding news.

“Sos if this is how you’re finding out, promise we didn’t tell most everyone,” she wrote. The San Jose native, birth name Myha’la Herrold, also expressed gratitude to her family and friends for “helping make this day so very magical.”

The spouses married five years after striking up a conversation during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to W Magazine. Myha’la gained popularity for her portrayal of dogged aspiring finance analyst Harper Stern in “Industry,” which debuted in November 2020. Rivera was among the fans who messaged Myha’la and her co-stars amid the show’s success. Rivera, a soccer player and an actor, then decided to interview his would-be-wife for a college journalism assignment.

“I thought, it’ll be five, 10 minutes, whatever. And immediately was like, ‘Whoa, you’re so hot and nice!’ ” Myha’la told W Magazine in 2023. “We talked much longer than we expected.”

They finally took their relationship offline, meeting in person in the Bay Area at the beginning of 2021. Since then, the pair have flaunted their romance on social media and various high-profile events, most recently the red carpet premiere of “Industry” Season 4 in New York City on Thursday.

“Industry” returns to HBO on Sunday. The drama hails from creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay and also stars Ken Leung, Marisa Abela, Harry Lawtey, Kit Harington and Sagar Radia.

You’re HBO, and your newest release is an explosive documentary about one of the most controversial sectors of the United States government: the Border Patrol. What do you do to get it as much attention as possible?

We’re seeing their strategy play out right now.

“Critical Incident: Death at the Border” recounts the death of Anastasio Hernández Rojas, a 42-year-old undocumented immigrant who died in 2010 days after immigration agents handcuffed, beat and Tasered him near the San Ysidro Port of Entry after trying to deport him to Mexico. Border Patrol at the time said they used force after Hernández Rojas, who had lived in this country since he was 15, resisted them.

The case drew international attention and Hernández Rojas’ family received a $1-million settlement from the federal government, which declined to file criminal charges against those involved in his death even though the San Diego County coroner’s office ruled it a homicide. Enter John Carlos Frey, a reporter who has pursued the story for nearly 15 years and who is one of the protagonists in “Critical Incident.”

He knocks on the doors of agents who were there when Hernández Rojas died, discovers footage that contradicts the Border Patrol’s official account and uncovers a secretive Border Patrol unit tasked with the “mitigation” of use-of-force incidents that was disbanded in 2022. The documentary includes an interview with a whistleblower who claimed bosses told him to doctor evidence to exculpate the agency in the death of Hernández Rojas. It also alleges the cover-up went all the way up to Customs and Border Protection commissioner Rodney Scott, who was Border Patrol deputy chief for the San Diego region when Hernández Rojas died.

Scott appears near the end of “Critical Incident” to dismiss those “allegations” and declines to comment about any culpability those involved may have had, citing ongoing litigation. “This case from over a decade ago was thoroughly investigated and resolved by the Department of Justice and local law enforcement,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson told the Times in a statement when I asked for comment about the documentary’s findings. “Efforts to malign CBP and ICE officers as lawbreakers are slanderous, irresponsible, and only reveal the media’s eagerness to mislead the American people.”

“Critical Incident” is taut, disturbing, timely and a brisk hour and a half. It deserves as many viewers as possible and a publicity campaign as ubiquitous as what HBO is currently pushing for its hit hockey romance, “Heated Rivalry.”

Instead, the network released “Critical Incident” on Dec. 29, when most Americans were lost in a haze of Christmas leftovers, “Avengers: Endgame” reruns and college football bowl games. It’s not listed alongside other recently released documentaries on HBO’s website, and I wasn’t able to find it on the network’s streaming app’s “Just Added” tab.

Director Rick Rowley was diplomatic about his documentary’s “difficult” release date, saying he has “limited insight” into HBO’s decision. He’s nevertheless confident “this film is going to have a long life because these [Border Patrol] issues are only more pressing as the days pass.”

Frey wasn’t as polite: “If I was an executive and released it on that date, I would be fired.”

Rodney Scott, then-nominee for commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, arrives for a Senate confirmation hearing in April 2025.

(Stefani Reynolds / Bloomberg via Getty Images)

An HBO spokesperson pushed back on Frey’s criticism, stating, “The documentary was actually released during one of the highest usage times on the platform and we are proud to say the film is doing very well, even showing up in the top 10 rail.”

In development for four years, Frey said “Critical Incident” was supposed to air just before the 2024 election. He showed me a text message from a senior producer attesting to that. But HBO held on to it even as a Senate committee grilled Scott about Hernández Rojas’ death during his confirmation hearing last April, which isn’t included in the documentary. The documentary didn’t air even as the Border Patrol’s invasion of cities far from the U.S.-Mexico border throughout last year made the story “Critical Incident” told more relevant than ever.

HBO “buried it on purpose,” Frey, 56, told me over breakfast in Boyle Heights. He blames the current political environment — specifically, Netflix’s proposed $82.7-billion bid to acquire HBO’s parent company, Warner Bros., which federal regulators would have to approve. The last thing executives wants to do right now, Frey argued, is anger President Trump by promoting a documentary that attacks his deportation deluge.

“They buried it on the worst day of the year when no one is watching, and of course, they’re going to deny it,” Frey said.

“That is, of course, not true,” the HBO spokesperson said .

Covering la migra is personal for Frey, who grew up in Tijuana and Imperial Beach with views of the U.S.-Mexico border fence. When he was 12, a Border Patrol agent approached his mother — then a green card holder — while her son was playing outside.

“He wouldn’t believe anything she would say and wouldn’t let her go to our house to get her documents,” Frey said. He’s of average height, deep-voiced and barrel-chested and tends to respond to questions with questions. “Why would he? The agent deported her.”

As an adult, Frey began to cover the Border Patrol in a post-9/11 era. Much like today, it was rapidly expanding, and aggressive tactics like breaking car windows when the occupants weren’t resisting and agent-involved shootings were endemic. The Hernández Rojas case entered his scope after someone reached out claiming they had footage of his death.

“The original narrative was Anastasio became belligerent, they subdued him and he died,” Frey said. “The case was closed, the Border Patrol had written it off.”

The source was initially too scared to share their recording, but Frey eventually convinced them after forwarding his stories about repeated Border Patrol abuses of power. What he saw — about a dozen Border Patrol agents circling a prone, moaning Hernández Rojas, Tasering and punching him while onlookers scream at them to stop — left the reporter “disgusted.”

The footage eventually aired on a 2012 PBS program, which made the story go national. Frey’s continued work on the case eventually caught the attention of Rowley, whose documentaries on neo-Nazi groups, the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi and the War on Terror have earned him Emmy wins and an Oscar nomination.

The documentarian wanted to examine the Border Patrol’s impunity, and, he said, “Anastasio’s story is one of the only stories that takes you all the way to the top. And you have to work with John if you’re going to do the Anastasio case. He’s fearless.”

Rowley is proud of his final product but admitted that he’s “used to having more press around a film release, especially about a film about … the most important domestic issue in the country, especially in the last year.”

That’s what angers Frey the most about the release of “Critical Incident.”

“The stories I used to hear — ‘Border Patrol broke my windows, left me bloodied, grabbed me without asking any questions’ — it’s now in neighborhoods,” he said. He twisted a napkin, tossed it into the pile of twisted napkins next to his coffee cup.

“It’s a deliberate choice when you’re going to release a documentary and how. If I were HBO and I had evidence of a murder by the feds, I would’ve led with that inmy promotion. I would think that’s a selling point, especially with the [immigration] raids. Instead, they have me hugging someone in the trailer.”

Frey shook his head. “We made a good film, but half the battle is getting people to see it.”

In explaining the U.S. incursion into Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump accused Maduro and his wife of conducting a “campaign of deadly narco-terrorism against the United States and its citizens,” and Maduro of being “the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the United States.”

“Hundreds of thousands — over the years — of Americans died because of him,” Trump said hours after U.S. special forces dragged Maduro from his bedroom during a raid that killed more than 50 Venezuelan and Cuban military and security forces.

Experts in regional narcotics trafficking said Trump was clearly trying to justify the U.S. deposing a sitting head of state by arguing that Maduro was not just a corrupt foreign leader harming his own country but also a major player in the sweeping epidemic of overdoses that has devastated American communities.

They also said they are highly suspicious of those claims, which were offered up with little evidence and run counter to years of independent research into regional drug trafficking patterns. Countries such as Mexico and Colombia play much larger roles, and fentanyl — not the cocaine Maduro is charged with trafficking — causes the vast majority of American deaths, the research shows.

Maduro’s indictment spells out some overt criminal acts allegedly committed by him, including selling diplomatic passwords to known drug traffickers so they could avoid military and law enforcement scrutiny in Venezuela.

Attorney General Pam Bondi arrives at the U.S. Capitol on Monday to brief top lawmakers after President Trump directed U.S. forces to capture Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

(Jacquelyn Martin / Associated Press)

It alleges other crimes in broad strokes, such as Maduro and his wife allegedly ordering “kidnappings, beatings, and murders” against people who “undermined their drug trafficking operation.”

However, Trump’s claims about the scope and impact of Maduro’s alleged actions go far beyond what the indictment details, experts said.

“It’s very hard to respond to the level of bulls— that is being promoted by this administration, because there’s no evidence given whatsoever, and it goes against what we think we know as specialists,” said Paul Gootenberg, a professor emeritus of history and sociology at Stony Brook University who has long studied the cocaine trade. “All of it goes against what we think we know.”

“President Trump’s claim that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died due to drug trafficking linked to Maduro is inaccurate,” said Philip Berry, a former United Kingdom counter-narcotics official and a visiting senior lecturer at the Centre for Defence Studies at King’s College London.

“[F]entanyl, not cocaine, has been responsible for most drug-related deaths in the U.S. over the past decade,” he said.

Jorja Leap, a social welfare professor and executive director of the UCLA Social Justice Research Partnership who has spent years interviewing gang members and drug dealers in the L.A. region, said Trump’s hyper-focus on Maduro, Venezuela and the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as driving forces within the U.S. drug trade not only belies reality but also belittles the work of researchers who know better.

“Aside from making it a political issue, this is disrespecting the work of researchers, social activists, community organizers and law enforcement who have worked on this problem on the ground and understand every aspect of it,” Leap said. “This is political theater.”

Venezuela’s role

The U.S. State Department’s 2024 International Narcotics Strategy Report called Venezuela “a major transit country for cocaine shipments via aerial, terrestrial, and maritime routes,” with most of the drugs originating in Colombia and passing through other Central American countries or Caribbean islands on their way to the U.S.

Federal officers stand guard outside the Metropolitan Detention Center.

(Leonardo Munoz / AFP via Getty Images)

However, the same report said recent estimates put the volume of cocaine trafficked through Venezuela at about 200 to 250 metric tons per year, or “roughly 10 to 13 percent of estimated global production.” According to the United Nations 2025 World Drug Report, most cocaine from Colombia is instead trafficked “along the Pacific Coast northward,” including through Ecuador.

The same report and others make clear Venezuela does not play a substantial role in fentanyl production or trafficking.

The State Department’s 2024 report said Mexico was “the sole significant source of illicit fentanyl … significantly affecting” the U.S., and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration’s 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment said Mexican organizations “dominate fentanyl transportation into and through the United States.”

The Trump administration suggested Venezuela has played a larger role in cocaine production and transport in recent years under Maduro, who they allege has partnered with major trafficking organizations in Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico.

Maduro pleaded not guilty at an arraignment in Manhattan federal court this week, saying he was “kidnapped” by the U.S.

While many experts and other political observers acknowledge Maduro’s corruption and believe he has profited from drug trafficking, they question the Trump administration’s characterization of his actions as a “narco-terrorist” assault on the U.S.

Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), the Trump ally turned foe who this week stepped down from her House seat, condemned the raid as more about controlling Venezuela’s oil than dismantling the drug trade, in part by noting that far greater volumes of much deadlier drugs arrive to the U.S. from Mexico.

“If it was about drugs killing Americans, they would be bombing Mexican cartels,” Greene posted.

The Trump administration pushed back against such arguments, even as Trump has threatened other nations in the region.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administrator Terry Cole said on Fox News that “at a low estimate,” 100 tons of cocaine have been produced and shipped to the U.S. by groups working with Maduro.

Expert input

Gootenberg said there’s no doubt that some Colombian cocaine crosses the border into Venezuela, but that much of it goes onward to Europe and growing markets in Brazil and Asia, and there’s no evidence large amounts reach the U.S.

“The whole thing is a fiction, and I do believe they know that,” he said of the Trump administration.

Berry said Venezuela is “a transit country for cocaine” but “a relatively minor player in the international drug trade” overall, with only a “small portion” of the cocaine that passes through it reaching the U.S.

Both also questioned the Trump administration labeling Maduro’s government a “narco-terrorism” regime. Gootenberg said the term arose decades ago to describe governments whose national revenues were substantially connected to drug proceeds, such as Bolivia in the 1980s, but it was always a “propagandistic idea” and had gone “defunct” as modern governments, including Venezuela’s, diversified their economies.

The Trump administration’s move to revive the term comes as no surprise given “the way they pick up atavistic labels that they think will be useful, like ‘Make America Great Again,’” Gootenberg said. But “there’s no there there.”

Berry said use of the term “narco-terrorism” has oversimplified the “diverse and context-specific connections” between the drug industry and global terrorism, and as a result “led to the conflation of counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism efforts, frequently resulting in hyper-militarised and ineffective policy responses.”

Gootenberg said Maduro was a corrupt authoritarian who stole an election and certainly had knowledge of drug trafficking through his country, but the notion he’d somehow become a “mastermind” with leverage over transnational drug organizations is far-fetched.

Several experts said they doubted his capture would have a sizable effect on the U.S. drug trade.

“Negligible. Marginal. Whatever word you want to use to indicate the most minor of impacts,” said Leap, of UCLA.

The Sinaloa Cartel — one of Maduro’s alleged partners, according to his indictment — is a major player in Southern California’s drug trade, with the Mexican Mafia serving as middleman between the cartel and local drug gangs, Leap said. But “if anyone tries to connect this to what is happening now in Venezuela, they do not understand the nature of drug distribution, street gangs, the Mexican Mafia, everything that goes on in Southern California. There is no connection.”

Berry said in the wake of Maduro’s capture, “numerous state and nonstate actors involved in the illegal narcotics trade remain unaffected.”

When Husan Longstreet arrived at USC a year ago, the expectation was the five-star freshman would be the Trojans’ future at quarterback.

But after just one season at USC, Longstreet is leaving.

The true freshman passer and former top prospect officially entered the NCAA transfer portal Thursday, throwing the Trojans’ future plans at football’s most important position into question. USC has just two quarterbacks currently on the roster, one being a true freshman in Jonas Williams.

There’s no doubt, however, who will remain USC’s quarterback next season. Returning starter Jayden Maiava, who led the Big Ten in passing yards last season (3,711) announced his intent last month to play another season at USC, as opposed to declaring for the NFL draft.

That left Longstreet with a choice: Spend another season on the sideline or search for opportunity elsewhere.

USC coach Lincoln Riley made a plea for his young quarterback’s patience last month.

“For any player, especially a quarterback, I don’t know if this would be the right time to leave this place,” Riley said. “This thing is getting pretty good. And I think a lot of people recognize that, both in what we have now and what we’re bringing in, where this thing is going.”

But Longstreet’s father, Kevin, told On3 last month that his son was looking for a chance to contribute immediately.

“He loves USC, the team and players, but no guarantees in life and Husan is a competitor,” Kevin Longstreet told On3’s Greg Biggins. “Everyone is saying ‘sit for another year, only need one good year.’ But there’s no guarantee Lincoln is back next year, what if we struggle and a new staff comes in? Then he has to learn whole new system. He wants to play now and give himself his best shot.”

It wasn’t until late in the recruiting process in November 2024 that USC even emerged as a serious option for the Corona Centennial High product. He spent the previous seven months committed to Texas A&M, while USC already had a 2026 quarterback committed in Julian Lewis.

But after a delicate dance of courting both quarterbacks, USC pivoted to Longstreet and managed to flip him from the Aggies. It was one of Riley’s most significant USC recruiting victories.

“The more we got to know him, got to evaluate him, the more we got to see his mental makeup, how team-oriented he was, how serious he was about the game, we just felt like in the end, there wasn’t a better fit for us,” Riley said on signing day in December 2024. “That’s eventually why we made the decisions we made. I feel like we landed on the perfect guy for us.”

Longstreet appeared in four games as a true freshman, retaining his redshirt year. He’ll have four seasons of eligibility remaining wherever he ends up. He completed 13 of 15 passes for 103 yards and a touchdown, while rushing for another 76 yards and two scores.

“As a hometown kid, representing USC was an incredible opportunity I’ll always cherish,” Longstreet said in a statement on social media. “I’m excited for what’s ahead and ready to embrace the next opportunity with faith, purpose and gratitude.”

With Longstreet gone, expect USC to pursue a veteran passer in the transfer portal to fill the No. 3 spot on its depth chart, similar to how Sam Huard did last season.

Exactly one year ago, I drove up Pacific Coast Highway just before dawn.

Toppled utility poles and downed wires littered the street. In a tunnel of thick black smoke, flurries of glowing red embers raced across the road, out to sea. Hours passed, but the sun never rose. Everything was gone.

In the face of all this horror, everyday people responded not with fear or hate, but with courage and love. It’s human nature — a reflex to disaster more certain than the sunrise.

Amid a chaotic evacuation in the Palisades, I watched residents use their minivans to pick up their neighbors who had been traveling on foot and shuttle them to safety. A volunteer community brigade marched door to door ensuring others got the evacuation orders.

In Altadena, employees with the small local water utilities raced across town protecting and fixing the water systems firefighters relied on. Afterward, hundreds volunteered with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network to clear debris from the streets, parks and churches of Pasadena.

In the year that’s followed, the same locals have stepped up to hold their governments accountable and fill in where leadership was vacant — even when some people, including some of their peers — considered that work controversial. They’ve all nonetheless helped their neighbors in tangible, meaningful, ways.

Here are their reflections (edited for length and clarity) on the year and the futures they imagine.

Keegan Gibbs leads the Community Brigade program with the Los Angeles County Fire Department. During the Palisades fire, the group’s roughly 50 volunteers went door to door ensuring residents had evacuated, fought spot fires and transported animals to safety. The group also routinely helps homeowners understand how to harden their homes against wildfire. This fall, the brigade doubled its size, with new recruits going through basic firefighter training.

Gibbs: Across Malibu and the Santa Monica Mountains, the Community Brigade envisions a critical mass of residents who have taken responsibility for their home “ignition zone,” creating neighborhoods where wildfire can move through the landscape without becoming a community-level disaster.

In this future, the Brigade is a trusted local institution and a proven model — demonstrating that shared responsibility and disciplined preparation can fundamentally change wildfire outcomes and be adapted across the West.

Kari Nadeau, a professor at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, helps lead the LA Fire HEALTH Study, a first-of-its-kind research effort by universities and hospitals to understand the fires’ contamination and the subsequent health impacts over a 10-year period. The researchers have found that firefighters who fought the L.A. blazes had elevated levels of mercury and lead in their blood compared with other wildland firefighters and that the fires corresponded with increased emergency room visits for heart attacks and respiratory illnesses.

Nadeau: I think,10 years from now, we’re going to look back and say, we really tested for as many exposures as we could in the air, water and soil, and then we looked at whether or not they affected short-term and long-term health outcomes. That will not only help L.A. and policymakers, but it’ll also be scalable to the rest of the world — because the human body is the human body.

Jane Lawton Potelle founded Eaton Fire Residents United, a grassroots organization of residents with still-standing homes contaminated by the Eaton fire. The group — led mostly by women — assembled the first comprehensive evidence of widespread contamination within homes. Now, they’re pushing public health agencies to adopt best practices to remediate homes and keep residents safe, and they’re calling on insurance regulators to ensure survivors have the financial means to follow them.

Potelle: If the government doesn’t intervene, then five to 10 years from now our communities will still be living with contamination in homes and soil, driving preventable health harms while shifting massive long-term costs onto families.

EFRU hopes to see the “clearance before occupancy” approach communitywide so that all surviving homes, schools, businesses and public spaces affected by fallout from the L.A. fires have been restored to verifiably safe and healthy living conditions.

Spencer Pratt, second from right, who lost his home in the Palisades fire, at an anniversary event where he announced he was running for mayor.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

Spencer Pratt is a reality TV star-turned-fire accountability advocate, turned mayoral candidate who has successfully lobbied Congress to open an investigation into the handling of the Palisades fire response and recovery. He has helped lead and publicize lawsuits against the city and state and provided some of the first evidence that the Los Angeles Fire Department knowingly left the Lachman fire smoldering, limited its firefighting operations to avoid sensitive plants and subsequently covered it up.

Pratt: The most important lesson I learned this past year is that you cannot rely on our state and local government. … I remain hopeful that we can rebuild our family town. If the state and local government won’t give us the opportunity to start, I will continue asking the federal government to step in and help. There has to be a way to cut through the red tape and get people back to their hometown.

Pablo Alvarado is the co-executive director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, which not only cleared Pasadena’s streets but also trained hundreds of workers on how to safely operate in the burn areas, distributed more than a thousand personal protective equipment kits, and provided assistance to more than 13,000 families affected by the fires and ICE raids.

Alvarado: We don’t know what this political year will bring, or what the next five or 10 years will look like. But we do know this truth: Rebuilding will happen, and it is impossible to do it without migrant labor. Our work makes reconstruction possible. Yet while our labor is welcomed, our rights are not respected.

From Katrina to these fires, we have learned the same lesson again and again: No one is coming to save workers — not FEMA, not local governments, not corporations. That is why our message has always been clear: Solo el pueblo salva al pueblo. Only the people save the people.

Hundreds of Palisades fire survivors gather in Palisades Village to commemorate the one year anniversary of the Palisades fire on Wednesday. Residents and others were demanding that the government help accountable for its missteps, demand relief for those trying to rebuild and demand for more comprehensive emergency planning.

(Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times)

More recent wildfire news

On Wednesday’s one-year anniversary of the fires, survivors of the Eaton and Palisades fires returned to their communities to mourn the loss of their neighborhoods and neighbors, and to demand accountability and action from their governments. You can read our coverage here.

A year into recovery, Times reporter and Altadena native Colleen Shalby reflects on her community’s devastating loss, the pride she feels for her hometown and her persistent hope for the next generation of Altadenans.

At a fire anniversary protest in the Palisades, Spencer Pratt announced his candidacy for Los Angeles mayor. “Business as usual is a death sentence for Los Angeles, and I’m done waiting for someone to take real action,” he said.

The city of Los Angeles routinely ignored state fire safety regulations dictating the width and slope of roads for evacuation and firefighter access as it permitted development in areas with very high fire hazard, a new lawsuit alleges.

A few last things in climate news

Federal tax credits for residential solar, batteries and heat pumps expired at the end of 2025, reports Bloomberg’s Todd Woody. Tariffs probably will also push up prices for solar panels and batteries, which are primarily imported from China and Vietnam and other countries.

One company with deep ties to California stands to benefit from President Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela: Chevron. It is the only foreign oil company to maintain continued operations in Venezuela through decades of tumultuous politics, The Times’ Jack Dolan reports.

As Congress works to avert an end-of-January government shutdown, its latest spending package would largely keep the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget intact, reports Liza Gross for Inside Climate News. The Trump administration had initially proposed a 55% cut to the agency’s budget; the latest proposal cuts it by only 5%.

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 wildfire news, follow @nohaggerty on X and @nohaggerty.bsky.social on Bluesky.

Rep. Julia Brownley, a Democrat who has represented swaths of Ventura and Los Angeles counties for more than a decade, announced Thursday that she would not seek reelection.

“Serving our community and our country has been the honor of my lifetime. Every step of this journey has been shaped by the people I represent, by their resilience, their determination, and their belief that government can and should work for the common good,” Brownley said, touting her efforts to expand access to healthcare, support veterans, fight climate change and other policy priorities, as well as constituent services. “We … never lost sight of the simple truth that public service is about showing up for people when they need help the most.”

Brownley, 73, did not say why she was choosing not to seek reelection, but she joins more than 40 other members of the U.S. House of Representatives who have announced they are not to running for their seats again in November. Other Californians not seeking reelection are Reps. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Eric Swalwell (D-Dublin), who is running for governor.

Brownley served on the Malibu-Santa Monica Unified School District board of education and in the state Assembly before successfully running for Congress in 2012. At the time, the district was nearly evenly divided between Democratic and Republican voters. But in years since, the district has grown more liberal.

In 2024, when the 26th Congressional District included Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Camarillo, Fillmore, Moorpark, Port Hueneme, Santa Paula, Simi Valley, Thousand Oaks, Oxnard, Westlake Village and a portion of San Buenaventura, the congresswoman won reelection with 56.6% of the vote over GOP businessman Michael Koslow, who received 43.4% of the ballots cast. At the time, the voter registration in the district was 42.5% Democratic, 29.6% Republican and 20.4% independent.

The district grew more Democratic after the passage of Proposition 50, the redrawing of congressional maps California voters approved in November to counter President Trump’s efforts to boost the number of Republicans elected to Congress from GOP-led states. Simi Valley was excised from the district, while Hidden Hills, parts of Palmdale, Lancaster and nearby high-desert areas were added to the district.

For Republican candidates had already announced plans to challenge Brownley this year, including Koslow. On Thursday, Assemblywoman Jacqui Irwin (D-Thousand Oaks) filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission to run for Brownley’s seat hours after the congresswoman announced she would not seek reelection.

In a State of the State speech that largely ignored any talk of the big, fat budget black hole that threatens to swallow the California dream, Gov. Gavin Newsom instead laid out a vision of the Golden State that centers on inclusivity and kindness to combat Trump’s reign of darkness and expulsion.

In a week dominated by news of immigration authorities killing a Minnesota mother; acknowledgment that “American First” really means running Venezuela for years to come; and the U.S. pulling even further out of global alliances, Newsom offered a soothing and unifying vision of what a Democratic America could look like.

Because, of course, far more than a tally of where we are as a state, the speech served as a likely road map of what a run for president would sound like if (or when) Newsom officially enters the race. In that vein, he drove home a commitment to both continuing to fight against the current administration, but also a promise to go beyond opposition with values and goals for a post-Trump world, if voters choose to manifest such a thing.

It was a clear volley against Republicans’ love of using California as the ultimate example of failed Democratic policies, and instead positioning it as a model.

“This state, this people, this experiment in democracy, belongs not to the past, but to the future,” Newsom told the packed Legislative chamber Thursday. “Expanding civil rights for all, opening doors for more people to pursue their dreams. A dream that’s not exclusive, not to any one race, not to any one religion, or class. Standing up for traditional virtues — compassion, courage, and commitment to something larger than our own self-interest — and asserting that no one, particularly the president of the United States, stands above the law.”

Perhaps the most interesting part of Thursday’s address was the beginning — when Newsom went entirely off script for the first few minutes, ribbing the Republican contingent for being forced to listen to nearly an hourlong speech, then seeming to sincerely thank even his detractors for their part in making California the state it is.

“I just want to express gratitude every single person in this chamber, every single person that shaped who we are today and what the state represents,” Newsom said, even calling out Assemblymember Carl DeMaio, one of his most vociferous foes, who released a questionable AI-generated “parody” video of Newsom in response to the speech.

It was in his off-the-cuff remarks where Newsom gave the clearest glimpse of what he might look like as a candidate — confident, at ease, speaking to both parties in a respectful way that the current president, who has labeled Democrats as enemies, refuses to do. Of course, he’d likely do all that during a campaign while continuing his lowbrow online jabbing, since the online world remains a parallel reality where anything goes.

But in person, at least, he was clearly going for classy over coarse. And gone is the jargon-heavy Newsom of past campaigns, or the guarded Newsom who tried to keep his personal life personal. His years of podcasts seem to have paid off, giving him a warmer, conversational persona that was noticeably absent in earlier years, and which is well-suited to a moment of national turmoil.

Don’t get me wrong — Newsom may or may not be the best pick for Democrats and voters in general. That’s up to you. I just showed up to this dog-and-pony show to get a close-up look at the horse’s teeth before he hits the track. And I’ve got to say, whether Newsom ends up successful or not in an Oval Office run, he’s a ready contender.

Beyond lofty sentiments, there was a sprinkling of actual facts and policies. Around AI, he hinted at greater regulation, especially around protecting children.

“Are we doing enough?” he asked, to a few shouts of “No,” from the crowd. This should be no surprise since his wife, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, has made oversight of artificial intelligence a priority in her own work.

Other concrete policy callouts included California’s commitment to increasing the number of people covered by health insurance, even as the federal government seeks to shove folks off Medicaid. In that same wellness bucket, he touted a commitment to getting processed foods out of school cafeterias and launching more medications under the state’s own generic drug label, including an $11 insulin pen launched last week.

On affordability, he found common ground with a proposal Trump put out this week as well — banning big investors from buying up single family homes. Although in California this is less of a problem than in some major housing markets, every house owned by a big investor is one not owned by a first-time buyer. Newsom called on the Legislature to work on a way to curtail those big buyers.

He also hit on our high minimum wage, especially for certain industries such as fast food ($20 an hour) and healthcare ($25 an hour), compared with states where the federal minimum wage still holds sway at just more than $7 an hour.

And on one of his most vulnerable points, homelessness, where Republicans and Trump in particular have attacked California, he announced that unsheltered homelessness decreased by 9% across the state in 2025 — though the data backing that was not immediately available. He also said that thousands of new mental health beds, through billions in funding from Proposition 1 in 2024, are beginning to come online and have the potential to fundamentally change access to mental health care in the state in coming years. This July, a second phase of Proposition 1 will bring in $1 billion annually to fund county mental health care.

Newsom will release his budget proposal on Friday, with much less fanfare. That’s because the state is facing a huge deficit, which will require tough conversations and likely cuts. Those are conversations about the hard work of governing, ones that Newsom likely doesn’t want to publicize. But Thursday was about positioning, not governing.

“In California, we are not silent,” Newsom said. “We are not hunkering down. We are not retreating. We are a beacon.”

It may not be a groundbreaking stand to have a candidate that understands politics isn’t always a battle of good and evil, but instead a negotiation of viewpoints. It’s surely a message other Democrats will embrace, one as basic as it is inspiring in these days of rage and pain.

But Newsom is staking that territory early, and did it with an assurance that he explained in a recent Atlantic profile.

He’d rather be strong and wrong than weak and right — but strong and righteous is as American as it gets.

That escalated quickly. We’re barely into 2026, and events are already unfolding that could meaningfully reshape the political landscape.

The death of Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother and U.S. citizen who was shot and killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent in Minneapolis on Wednesday, has the potential to shake the political landscape in ways reminiscent of George Floyd’s killing in 2020.

The Trump administration initially claimed Good “weaponized her vehicle” in an act of “domestic terrorism,” an account that appears to be contradicted by video evidence. Whether the incident escalates into a broader political reckoning — or fades from public attention — may determine its lasting effect on President Trump’s popularity and his immigration policies.

Meanwhile, Trump’s decision to invade Venezuela and capture then-President Nicolás Maduro remains controversial, even among some of his fans.

The attack drew immediate criticism from Marjorie Taylor Greene, Tucker Carlson and Laura Loomer, with Carlson and Loomer going so far as to float the claim that Maduro’s ouster was really about imposing gay marriage on Venezuela (this is impressive, because it manages to combine foreign policy, culture war panic and complete nonsense into a single sentence).

But this schism isn’t limited to ex-House members, podcasters and conspiracy theorists. Inside the administration, the balance of power appears to be tilting away from the noninterventionists and toward the hawks — at least, for now.

The current beneficiary of this shift is Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As recently as last month, JD Vance, who has generally staked out an anti-interventionist posture, seemed like Trump’s obvious heir. Now, Rubio’s stock is up (if “Lil Marco” falls short, he can always settle for Viceroy of Venezuela).

That’s not to say Rubio is anywhere near being Trump’s clear successor. Venezuela could disappear from the headlines as quickly as it arrived, buried beneath the next crisis, scandal or social media outburst. Or it could go sideways and dominate headlines for years or decades.

Military adventurism has an uncanny habit of doing exactly that.

If Venezuela turns into a slow-motion disaster, Democrats will reap the benefits as will the GOP’s “America First” contingent.

But January hasn’t just presented a possible touchstone for Republicans; Democrats have been hit with their own challenge, too: the Minnesota fraud scandal, which has already pushed Democratic Gov. Tim Walz out of a reelection bid. It is the kind of story that reinforces voters’ worst suspicions about their party.

During the past five years, parts of Minnesota’s Somali diaspora became entangled in alleged fraudulent activity, reportedly submitting millions of dollars in claims for social services that were not actually rendered.

The details are complicated; the implications are not. Public programs retain support only when voters believe they are competently managed, and this story suggests the opposite.

The fact that the scandal involves the Somali community makes it even more combustible. Fair or not, it provides ready-made ammunition for those eager to stoke racial resentment, discredit refugee policies and turn bureaucratic failure into an indictment on Democrats.

The fallout extends well beyond Minnesota. Kamala Harris has been signaling interest in another presidential run, and Walz was her vice-presidential pick in what was already a truncated and awkward campaign. That decision alone won’t sink a future bid for her, but it certainly doesn’t strengthen her already dubious case that she has exceptional political judgment.

More troubling for Democrats is the fear that Minnesota is the tip of the iceberg. Walz’s exodus was sparked by a right-wing YouTuber who started doing some sleuthing — and brought attention to years-old investigations by the Walz and Biden administrations. Other influencers are already promising similar exposés elsewhere.

Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson, for example, has announced plans to descend on California, declaring it “the fraud capital of the world.” Newsom returned fire with a vicious Trump-like retort, demonstrating once again why he became the Democratic frontrunner in 2025.

Newsom’s Twitter rejoinder aside, it’s not crazy to think that the Democrats’ recent momentum could be squandered if it turns out more of these scandals exist and have been ignored, downplayed or (worse) covered up.

It’s risky to describe anything in modern politics as a turning point, because each week reliably produces something that eclipses the last outrage. Still, the opening days of this new year already feel consequential. Seeds have been planted. Whether they mature is the question.

Buckle up. It’s only January.

Matt K. Lewis is the author of “Filthy Rich Politicians” and “Too Dumb to Fail.”

A year ago, we were all glued to our phones, namely the Watch Duty app, as we watched fires rip through beloved neighborhoods and landscapes. We braced ourselves for the death toll, the number of homes lost and what was harmed in our beloved mountains.

The Eaton and Palisades fires were the beginning of a crushing year for L.A.

I don’t believe in closure or want to push the idea of resilience, concepts too often forced in these kind of post-disaster narratives. But I do believe in pausing to discern what we have learned over the past year.

I recently spoke with trail crew volunteers, including two who lost their houses in the fires, to get their takes.

They each shared what’s helped them move through this past year, including what we can learn from the regrowth and recovery of our local forests. I left these conversations feeling inspired by both the natural and human spirit. I hope you will be too.

Lesson 1: Humans are adaptable like the trees and plants

After the devastating 2018 Woolsey fire, which burned much of the Santa Monica Mountains, photographer Jane Simpson made regular pilgrimages to Malibu Creek State Park to document the renewal process. She saw the hillsides start to green, and lupine and other flowers (and mustard) start to bloom.

It helped give her a baseline for what to expect when she started returning to the mountains scorched by the Palisades fire.

Simpson is a member of the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter’s Santa Monica Mountains Task Force trail crew, known often by their nickname, the Trailies.

In November, Simpson worked alongside other Trailies on the Bienveneda and Leacock trails in Topanga State Park. The area was badly burned, but still Simpson noticed green sprouts peeking out of the ashy soil and from the branches of trees that the average passerby might assume were dead.

“I just want to think that the trees, the flowers, the [landscape] are not just responding blindly and dumbly — we know they’ve learned to adapt, and humans are learning to adapt as well,” said Simpson, who joined the Trailies in 2017.

Simpson has been forced to adapt. Her home in the Palisades Highlands was among thousands that burned in the Palisades fire, and she alongside her neighbors are grappling with whether to rebuild. Simpson grew up in Mandeville Canyon, and as a kid, she’d head out the door with a sack lunch and friends for a day of unsupervised adventures. It’s hard to imagine not living there.

Trail crew worker Jane Simpson observes a Humboldt’s lily in Santa Ynez Canyon last summer.

(Gaby Valensi)

Before the fire, Simpson could walk out her front door and quickly take one of about five nearby trailheads. She and a neighbor would often “just head out the door and go anywhere,” she said, like the many times they headed along Palisades Drive to Temescal Ridge Trail to Radio Peak, a local name for Temescal Peak.

Those trips helped them learn the local plants and how they changed with the seasons, like how the ceanothus would blossom with blue blooms in early spring. And in Santa Ynez Canyon, Simpson loved spotting the Humboldt’s lilies, knowing the perennials would come back every year.

Even after the devastation of the Palisades fire, she’s seen those lilies return to the same spot they’ve always been.

“A fire-scarred landscape may look dead, but spotting a familiar flower is like seeing old friends,” she said. “It’s reassurance — that some kind of normal is possible. Of course, when it is your own property, there is no normal there, but there is reassurance that for the earth, the wildlife, plants, things will go on, even if I don’t return.”

Lesson 2: We have our own ecological role to play

Trailie crew member Ron Dean is drawn to trail work for creativity. Every 10 minutes, there’s seemingly a new problem the trail crew faces, like, “Where should we put the trail? Should we put the rocks over here? Does this need a drain? How can we move this thing out of the way? It’s wonderful,” he said.

When I asked Dean, who joined the crew 12 years ago, to describe his relationship with the Santa Monica Mountains, he was quick to answer.

“When I’m out in the mountains, I feel like I’m hanging out with my best friend,” Dean said.

A Trailies volunteer works on the Leacock Trail in 2019.

(Jane Simpson)

Dean moved from Wisconsin to L.A. in 1970 for a job and stayed for the climate and landscape. Every Sunday for the past several years, Dean and his son Josh would hike in the Santa Monica Mountains, leaving Dean’s home in the Palisades and often hitting a loop trail to Goat Peak, also referred to by some locals as High Point. After the hike, they’d have brunch and watch football.

That home, which was built in 1951, burned in the Palisades fire. Similar to how he approaches trail work, Dean is looking at how to create a better home for today’s climate, adding solar panels, backup batteries, water recycling and a heat pump system.

Dean is comfortable tackling problems that seemingly have no end. He’s known among his fellow Trailies as the “mustard man” because whenever he sees invasive black mustard — the yellow flowers that cover L.A.’s hillsides in the spring before drying into quick-burning brown twigs — he yanks it out. “Will I win? Of course not,” Dean said.

A member of the Trailies works on Leacock Trail in 2019.

(Jane Simpson)

This is the kind of acceptance Dean has learned from our local mountains — that we can all do our part for as long as we’re here.

Lesson 3: Restoration is a form of reciprocity

In 2012, Rubio Canyon Trail Crew member Sean Green made it his personal mission to restore the Lone Tree Trail in Rubio Canyon. The path, built more than 100 years ago, was constructed so that workers from a municipal water company could reach the utility’s water intakes far into the canyon, Green said.

The trail had been abandoned for decades, but was rediscovered after the 1993 Kinneloa fire ripped through the area. “I decided I loved that trail and I restored it,” Green said.

The Rubio Canyon Trail Crew removes a landslide from the Gooseberry Motorway in 1997.

(Sean Green)

The trail crew’s work is part of a long history of give and take between humans and the canyon.

The lush landscape of chaparral, coast sage scrubs and creek beds was once a stop on the Mount Lowe Railway. The “railway climbed the steep Lake Avenue and crossed the poppy fields into the Rubio Canyon,” according to a local history website. “This part of the trip was called the Mountain Division. At this juncture stood the Rubio Pavilion, a small 12-room hotel. From there the passengers transferred to a cable car funicular which climbed the Great Incline to the top of the Echo Mountain promontory.”

The Rubio Cañon Land and Water Assn. has pulled water from the canyon since the 1880s, delivering it to nearby residents in Altadena. But in the late ’90s, in a still-debated controversy, the water company completed a construction project that sent thousands of yards of debris into the canyon, burying at least three waterfalls.

“Whether by nature’s hand or man’s, with time or with money, Rubio Canyon’s waterfalls will return,” Pasadena Star-News journalist Becky Oskin wrote at the time.

It appears that time has finally come.

Green said heavy rains pushed debris away from the once-covered Maidenhair Falls, a 30-foot cascade named after the Maidenhair ferns that once surrounded it.

The Rubio Canyon Trail Crew, which has worked in the area for more than 25 years, is busy bringing the rest of the canyon’s trails back too.

Claus Boettger, Phil Fujii and Jason Trevor backfill a new retaining wall along the Gooseberry Motorway in 2005. The original road was built in 1923 by Southern California Edison to install electric towers along the foothill ridges. It is now a single-track trail.

(Sean Green)

The Eaton fire ripped through the Rubio Canyon Preserve, seriously damaging the canyon’s chaparral, coast sage scrub and riparian habitats.

Green said his crew has almost finished restoring the Loma Alta Trail and has put in several hours on the Gooseberry Motorway, which takes hikers up and over a ridgeline, eventually into Angeles National Forest. The motorway was originally built by Southern California Edison to install electrical towers, Green said.

The crew has started seeing wildflowers, trees and wildlife all return to the canyon.

“The land is recovering,” Green said. “The Eaton fire caused a lot of damage, burning many houses down and burning the vegetation, but nature is very resilient and it will come back. … The canyon itself is going to take awhile to look like a vegetated canyon bottom because of all the debris that came down, but the rest of Rubio Canyon is going to regrow. It’s going to look pretty, and we’re going to get the trails in shape.”

Lesson 4: Hard work pays off

Lowelifes founder Rob Pettersen repairs a trail in Angeles National Forest.

(Erik Hillard, Lowelifes RCC)

The hiking trails of Angeles National Forest, as a whole, are in far better shape than they were 10 years ago. In spite of repeated wildfires — the Bobcat fire in 2020, the Bridge fire in 2024, the Eaton fire last year — and heavy rains, the trails remain.

I was so focused on the damage of the past year from the Eaton fire and heavy rainfall, I hadn’t zoomed out to consider the bigger picture until I spoke to Rob Pettersen, a founding board member of the Lowelifes Respectable Citizens’ Club.

The Lowelifes are among a dedicated coalition of trail crews that dedicate hundreds of hours every year to reestablishing damaged trails by lugging out fallen and dead trees, moving soil and rock, and more.

“We are moving forward, but Mother Nature has other ideas sometimes,” Pettersen said. “There’s no silver bullet for fixing these trails. They just need constant attention. It’s just the nature of our geology.”

Pettersen has volunteered on trail work crews off and on for the past 20 years, most consistently after Lowelifes was founded in 2019. Pettersen enjoys living in Los Feliz, but like most of us, is drawn to the solace and peace that the mountains provide.

After the 2020 Bobcat fire, which burned through Big Santa Anita Canyon and several other beloved places, the Lowelifes focused several months on restoring the Idlehour Trail, a six-mile jaunt through lush woodland.

“This time last year, Idlehour was in some of the best shape it’s ever been — and then it got melted” in the Eaton fire, Pettersen said. “It’s a very popular [and] special place for Lowelifes folks individually, and the fact we had just completed a lot of work there is kind of brutal.”

This ebb and flow of fire and flood, exacerbated by human-caused climate change, he said, is why the Lowelifes focus on restoring trails to a quality that can withstand harsh conditions.

“Even though we’ve had multiple years now where we’ve done a bunch of trail restoration work and then got hit by several inches of rain in 12 hours,” Pettersen said, “the vast majority of the trail mileage holds up because we do good work so the trail isn’t gone. But the trouble spots — the heavy drainages, the cliffy areas — those are always impacted by debris flow. So it’s a bummer, but it also feels good to be making a difference and doing good work for the community.”

Rob Pettersen cuts through a downed log during a Lowelifes work day on trails in Angeles National Forest.

(Matt Baffert, Lowelifes RCC)

Several Lowelife crew members lost their homes or livelihood in the Eaton fire, including Lowelifes president Matt Baffert. Additionally, the fire also burned up the crew’s tools, which were stored at Baffert’s home.

A year later, though, Baffert and others are rebuilding and moving back, Pettersen said.

That’s in large part because the community rallied behind the Lowelifes. The group received several grants and donations, and the Lowelifes as a nonprofit came out of the fire more financially secure than before. Pettersen said so many volunteers showed up to help that the Lowelifes had to turn people away because they couldn’t safely fit everyone who showed up on the trails to work.

“It’s amazing seeing how many people care about our Lowelifes individually and about our trails and our Angeles National Forest,” Pettersen said. “People care about trails, people care about public lands; that’s been positive and we want to keep building on that.”

This month, the Lowelifes plan — rain and snow permitting — to head back to the Idlehour trail.

The work continues.

3 things to do

Hikers with Hearts for Sight and the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter trek along a path together.

(Joan Schipper, Hearts For Sight)

1. Volunteer as a hiker guide in L.A.
Hearts For Sight and the Sierra Club Angeles Chapter will host their monthly White Cane Hike at 8:30 a.m. Jan. 18 in Griffith Park. Volunteers are needed to guide blind and visually-impaired hikers on a gentle hike from Franklin’s Cafe & Market to a heliport in the park. The hike is free, and lunch is provided. To register, call Hearts for Sight at (818) 457-1482.

2. Make new friends hiking in Elysian Park
LA for the Culture Hiking Club will host a beginner-friendly, free community hike at noon Saturday in Elysian Park. The group will meet at the Grace E. Simons Lodge parking lot before heading onto the Elysian Park West Loop, which offers stunning views of the city. Register at eventbrite.com.

3. Commune with nature and a notebook near Calabasas
California State Parks and Santa Monica Mountains Nature Journal Club will host a nature journaling meetup from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Sunday at Malibu Creek State Park. Participants who are new to nature journaling are invited to take a free introductory course while experienced nature journalers can head into the park. The group will reconvene at noon to share their experiences. Guests are invited to bring a potluck dish to share. Register at eventbrite.com.

The must-read

(Mary Forgione / Los Angeles Times)

One of the first places I go to research a trail is The Times archives because we’ve been writing about the trails and campgrounds of Angeles National Forest for more than 100 years. In all that time, we haven’t slowed down enough to write a comprehensive guide of the forest — until now. I spent the past few months researching and writing what is a part love letter/part guide to help you explore every corner of the 700,000-acre national forest playground that sits right in our backyard. I hope you save this guide and use it for many of your future adventures! I know I will.

Happy adventuring,

P.S.

After the recent rain and snowfall, there are new and serious hazards on our local trails that you must consider before heading out. We have already lost at least three hikers locally this winter. As I’ve written previously, you often need crampons and an ice axe, equipment you need to be experienced using, before heading into a snow hike with elevation gain. I have seen several images on social media of hikers celebrating at the snow-covered Mt. Baldy summit, the highest point in the San Gabriel Mountains, but anyone headed up Baldy needs to understand how dangerous the hike is in winter conditions. As Kyle Fordham, a 36-year-old experienced hiker, told my colleagues, the Devil’s Backbone trail is typically considered the easier option, but it becomes “a death slide” in the winter. “It basically becomes a giant ice cliff,” Fordham said. “If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can very easily die on it.” If you do run into a fellow hiker in need, please help however you can. It can sometimes be the kindness of a stranger that saves a life. Stay safe out there, friends!

For more insider tips on Southern California’s beaches, trails and parks, check out past editions of The Wild. And to view this newsletter in your browser, click here.

THREE brand new locations have been announced by an adult-only bowling franchise.

Known for its boutique bowling lanes, retro arcade games and lengthy cocktail menu, this venue turns into an adult playground after 7pm in most of its locations.

Lane7, which describes itself as an activity bar for adults, has revealed three new branches will open in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Leeds.

In Glasgow, Lane7 will take over a large event space underneath the central station which used to be the site of Platform, previously known as the Arches.

Since 2020, Edinburgh has enjoyed the bowling brand in its St James’ Quarter, making this recently announced site Lane7’s second location in the Scottish city.

But, the new Leeds site will mark the first Lane7 branch the northern city has seen.

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According to a Lane7 spokesperson, Leeds has been “a long-held target city” for for one of their branches.

Lane7 is sure that “guests will be thrilled with the new 23,000sq ft location in the heart of the City Centre”.

Currently there are 24 locations across the country offering adults a variety of drinks, food and games such as arcade machines, darts, mini golf, curling, and beer pong.

Reviews from customers in other locations rave about the “awesome” gaming facilities and “buzzing” atmosphere suggesting these new hubs are much anticipated.

Construction for the three new branches is expected to begin at the end of March.

Lane7’s managing director Gavin Hughes hinted at the bowling giant potentially more locations later in the year.

He said: “We’ll be starting development of three new sites by the close of the first quarter, taking in some new locations and expanding further in others.

“We know 2026 is going to be another transformational year for the group.”

Who knew that by “America First,” President Trump meant all of the Americas?

In puzzling over that question at least, I’ve got company in Marjorie Taylor Greene, the now-former congresswoman from Georgia and onetime Trump devotee who remains stalwart in his America First movement. Greene tweeted on Saturday, just ahead of Trump’s triumphal news conference about the United States’ decapitation of Venezuela’s government by the military’s middle-of-the-night nabbing of Nicolás Maduro and his wife: “This is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end. Boy were we wrong.”

Wrong indeed. Nearly a year into his second term, Trump has done nothing but exacerbate the domestic problems that Greene identified as America First priorities — bringing down the “increasing cost of living, housing, healthcare” within the 50 states — even as he’s pursued the “never ending military aggression” and foreign adventurism that America Firsters scorn, or at least used to. Another Trump con. Another lie.

Here’s a stunning stat, thanks to Military Times: In 2025, Trump ordered 626 missile strikes worldwide, 71 more than President Biden did in his entire four-year term. Targets, so far, have included Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Somalia, Nigeria, Iran and the waters off Venezuela and Colombia. Lately he’s threatened to hit Iran again if it kills demonstrators who have been marching in Tehran’s streets to protest the country’s woeful economic conditions. (“We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump posted Friday.)

The president doesn’t like “forever wars,” he’s said many times, but he sure loves quick booms and cinematic secret ops. Leave aside, for now, the attacks in the Middle East, Africa and the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. It’s Trump’s new claim to “run” Venezuela that has signaled the beginning of his mind-boggling bid for U.S. hegemony over the Western Hemisphere. Any such ambition raises the potential for quick actions to become quagmires.

As Stephen Miller, perhaps Trump’s closest and most like-minded (read: unhinged) advisor, described the administration’s worldview on Monday to CNN’s Jake Tapper: “We live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.”

You know, that old, amoral iron law: “Might makes right.” Music to Vladimir Putin’s and Xi Jinping’s ears as they seek hegemonic expansion of their own, confident that the United States has given up the moral high ground from which to object.

But it was Trump, the branding maven, who gave the White House worldview its name — his own, of course: the Donroe Doctrine. And it was Trump who spelled out what that might mean in practice for the Americas, in a chest-thumping, war-mongering performance on Sunday returning to Washington aboard Air Force One. The wannabe U.S. king turns out to be a wannabe emperor of an entire hemisphere.

“We’re in charge,” Trump said of Venezuela to reporters. “We’re gonna run it. Fix it. We’ll have elections at the right time.” He added, “If they don’t behave, we’ll do a second strike.” He went on, suggestively, ominously: “Colombia is very sick too,” and “Cuba is ready to fall.” Looking northward, he coveted more: “We need Greenland from a national security situation.”

Separately, Trump recently has said that Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro “does have to watch his ass,” and that, given Trump’s unhappiness with the ungenuflecting Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum, “Something’s going to have to be done with Mexico.” In their cases as well as Maduro’s, Trump’s ostensible complaints have been that each has been complacent or complicit with drug cartels.

And yet, just last month Trump pardoned the former president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, who was convicted in a U.S. court and given a 45-year sentence for his central role in “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.” Hernández helped traffickers ship 400 tons of cocaine into the United States — to “stuff the drugs up the gringos’ noses.” And Trump pardoned him after less than two years in prison.

So it’s implausible that a few weeks later, the U.S. president truly believes in taking a hard line against leaders he suspects of abetting the drug trade. Maybe Trump’s real motivation is something other than drug-running?

In his appearance after the Maduro arrest, Trump used the word “oil” 21 times. On Tuesday, he announced, in a social media post, of course, that he was taking control of the proceeds from up to 50 barrels of Venezuelan oil. (Not that he cares, but that would violate the Constitution, which gives Congress power to appropriate money that comes into the U.S. Treasury.)

Or perhaps, in line with the Monroe Doctrine, our current president has a retro urge to dominate half the world.

Lately his focus has been on Venezuela and South America, but North America is also in his sights. Trump has long said he might target Mexico to hit cartels and that the United States’ other North American neighbor, Canada, should become the 51st state. But it’s a third part of North America — Greenland — that he’s most intent on.

The icy island has fewer than 60,000 people but mineral wealth that’s increasingly accessible given the climate warming that Trump calls a hoax. For him to lay claim isn’t just a problem for the Americas. It’s an existential threat to NATO given that Greenland is an autonomous part of NATO ally Denmark — as Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned.

Not in 80 years did anyone imagine that NATO — bound by its tenet that an attack on one member is an attack on all — would be attacked from within, least of all from the United States. In a remarkable statement on Tuesday, U.S. allies rallied around Denmark: “It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland.”

Trump’s insistence that controlling Greenland is essential to U.S. national security is nuts. The United States has had military bases there since World War II, and all of NATO sees Greenland as critical to defend against Russian and Chinese encroachment in the Arctic. Still, Trump hasn’t ruled out the use of force to take the island.

He imagines himself to be the emperor of the Americas — all of it. Americas First.

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The main ingredient in lomo saltado, the juicy, stir-fried comfort dish of my childhood, only takes a minute to cook. It can go by in such a flash that you can miss it if you’re not paying attention, so I always made sure to watch for that moment when the flames go up.

I remember standing in rapt attention at the edge of the stovetop as my mom tossed fresh, thinly sliced beef into an oiled pan set on maximum heat. The steak hissed and leaped in a dramatic dance as flames licked the pan from underneath. My mom turned to me and said, “This is why it’s called lomo saltado: the lomo is the steak, and watch how it’s saltando — jumping.”

“The secret is in the smoke,” says Miriam Ramirez, owner of Lonzo’s Restaurant in Culver City. “When you cook lomo saltado, the room should be filled with the smell of smoke. I remember getting it for lunch in Peru and thinking, ‘Oh no, my hair smells like smoke!’ But that’s how I knew it would be good.”

Lomo saltado consists of tomato, onion and bell pepper, seared with steak, traditionally in a wok, and served with sides of rice and potato fries. Peruvians call soy sauce, which is used generously in the dish, “sillao” (pronounced see-yow).

Newcomers to Peruvian cuisine might be surprised to find that soy sauce has a major place in recipes. My Peruvian family always says that in any good meat dish, sillao is the secret ingredient.

“When the dish is already so simple, every ingredient matters,” Ramirez says.

“See-yow” is also the pronunciation for soy sauce in Cantonese. Understanding how a Cantonese word entered Peru’s lingo is a long historical lesson that can be best explained by another Chinese-Peruvian word: chifa. Chifa, which comes from the Mandarin word “chīfàn,” meaning to eat, describes the thriving Chinese-Peruvian fusion cuisine and indirectly, the immigrant history of Peru.

According to researcher Patricia Palma, Chinese immigrants arrived in Peru in the mid-19th century, as laborers after the abolishment of slavery created a demand for cheap labor. As this population grew over the years, Chinese-Peruvian descendants carved out a niche in chifa that reflected their heritage alongside centuries-old Peruvian staples.

“L.A. is so diverse and that’s why I think Peruvian food draws people in. It has a multicultural identity too,” says Benny Gomez, owner of Rosty Peruvian Food in Highland Park. “There’s Chinese and Japanese communities who identify with the Asian influence but also Mexican people who are seeing a different type of Latino food.”

Peru’s lomo saltado is not only a beautiful marriage of the two cultures, but a perfectly balanced ode to each culture’s culinary traditions: Peru is reflected in the potatoes, aji amarillo and bell pepper, and China in the stir-fry technique and of course, the sillao.

“Peruvian food has 14,000 years of history,” says Ignacio Barrios Jacobs, lead chef of Merka Saltao in Culver City. “I think [lomo saltado] holds the story of Chinese immigrants who were cooking their food for people who said, ‘this needs my potato and chile peppers.’”

In Culver City, East Hollywood, and the San Fernando Valley, Peruvian restaurants are combining traditional flavors with distinctly Angeleno flair, like saltado burritos or California oak wood-fired rotisserie chicken.

“When my dad opened his Peruvian restaurant 30 years ago, Peruvian was not popular at all in L.A.,” says Dennis Tamashiro, owner of Mario’s Peruvian and Seafood. “Now, people are paying attention, because it proves that it’s unique.”

Here are eight takes on lomo saltado to try in Los Angeles, from classic versions that remind me of home, to creative takes that make the dishes distinctly L.A.

L.A. has a long, storied history of hotels with deep musical connections. From the Hyatt House (now the Andaz) on Sunset Boulevard, known as the infamous “Riot House” as remembered in Cameron Crowe’s Oscar-winning “Almost Famous,” to Chateau Marmont and the iconic Sunset Marquis, both famed homes to touring rock stars for decades. But few, if any, have ever been as ambitious musically as West Hollywood’s Sun Rose Hotel.

Opening as the Pendry Hotel in 2021 on the location of the former House of Blues, the Sunset Boulevard property established its music credentials immediately by including Live at the Sun Rose, a state-of-the-art music venue inside the hotel. Four years later, last August, the Pendry was rebranded as the Sun Rose Hotel and the entire hotel became a sort of musical destination according to Grammy-winning musician/creative director Adam Blackstone.

Inside the lobby at the Sun Rose West Hollywood

(The Sun Rose West Hollywood)

“We have the atrium, the downstairs foyer, we have a bowling alley. There are so many things we can offer to the music space that other venues can’t. We’re going to use the entire rooftop, sometimes maybe play on top of the pool. Things like that are going to be an attraction to people that allow us to do some very incredible things,” Blackstone says. As Grammy season approaches, Blackstone says the hotel/venue will be offering full shows and events that you don’t have to leave the property for and will include more one-of-a-kind performances. “People can come play a 90-minute set that is not what they did the night before. Whoever is in that room gets a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Blackstone, who has played with everyone from Rihanna, Janet Jackson and Demi Lovato to Eminem, Dr. Dre and Al Green, prides himself on bringing the same diversity and surprise to the Sun Rose. “That’s how my legacy shows have been going — you never know who’s going to pop up, but you don’t want to miss it.”

To back up his claim, he cites bringing in surprise guests like John Legend, multiple times, Stevie Wonder, Justin Timberlake and more, as well as Dre for a live Q&A. That is only the beginning of his ambitious plans to make the Sun Rose a treasure trove of unexpected musical moments. “I am so excited about this partnership with Sun Rose. I think we have the power to be expansive in a way bigger role than anything in L.A. It’s not a jazz spot, a country spot or a gospel spot — we can do whatever there. We could have a DJ with a salsa band; I’ve had a Q&A with Dr. Dre and Marsha Ambrosius. That’s one of the highlights, and attractions the Sun Rose brings to L.A. for me, any time you walk in there, if you don’t know what you’re going for, you’re going to be in for an experience,” he says.

As for what some of those experiences might be, Blackstone references his wide range of gigs, like a recent one working with Andrea Bocelli at the Vatican, as an example of how creative he can get. “All of these things that are in my mind I’m going to do for other people, I’m going to be able to do at my spot,” he says. “And it won’t be weird coming from me because that is who I am, that is who I embody in music, that is who I’ve been able to work with. I’m thankful the Sun Rose is welcoming that with the mindset I have to be as creative and expansive as possible.”

Bowie’s Piano Man, Mike Garson, at Live at The Sun Rose

(Michelle Shiers/The Sun Rose West Hollywood)

To their credit, the Sun Rose is embracing that kind of artistic expression. It starts with Sharyn Goldyn, who books the music at the venue. She set the tone early by making pianist Mike Garson, best known for his work with David Bowie, but well versed in jazz and classical, the first artist she spoke to. She says he is exactly the type of artist she wanted to build the venue on.

“I knew I wanted to have a backbone of the best musicians in the world, and of legacy artists. So, Mike was the first person I met with, and he was just so open to ideas and building something,” she says.

Garson, the venue’s artist in residence, loves the core of him, Blackstone and Goldyn, as well as not being on the road all year.

“Adam is a wonderful musical director, and we bring what we bring. I was flattered that I was the original person Sharyn came to. But I had done so much touring with Bowie alumni after he passed, I somewhat got burnt out on it. I’m 80, so it’s nice to be home in 20 minutes. I do 30 or 40 shows a year and I do 10 at the Sun Rose and there’s nothing being compromised about my music,” he says. “I do whatever I want at the Sun Rose because I open up most of the sets with a jazz piece because that is my roots, then we move into the vocals. The vocals become duets like I did with David and not just me accompanying some song. I look for, ‘What can I add to “Space Oddity’” today?’ I stretch the limits, which is what David would have wanted me to do. He never believed in the comfort zone.”

Bowie will be celebrated in a special three-night residency this Thursday, which is his birthday, Friday and Saturday, the 10-year anniversary of his passing. Just as Blackstone does, Garson will be bringing in a number of friends. “This club’s really special because we work it with great singers. I’ve had Judith Hill there, I’ve had Luke Spiller, Evan Rachel Wood and now of course for David’s birthday and the 10-year celebration, we have a lot of great people,” he says. “We’ll have Billy Corgan [on] Saturday night and Andra Day on Friday and Judith Hill and Luke Spiller’s coming again, and a lovely singer named Debby Holiday. I’ll have Chad Smith stop in on Saturday night to play some drums from the Red Hot Chili Peppers. And I’m going to do a lot of the Bowie hits and a few obscure ones.”

Garson will be traveling to Dublin in February and celebrating his near 50-year friendship and musical relationship with Bowie. But he is choosing to spend Bowie’s birthday at the Sun Rose. It is not only the proximity to his home that appeals to Garson. “I’ve been the resident artist there for three years and I’ve done 46 shows there. I like the intimacy, I like the piano in the center stage of the room and I love working with Sharyn. After playing the Hollywood Bowl and Madison Square Garden with Bowie and Duran Duran, whatever, Nine Inch Nails, Smashing Pumpkins, I like the small clubs now,” he says.

Similar to Vegas hotels that book the biggest music superstars, like Adele or Rod Stewart, for extended residencies, the Sun Rose will make the Bowie experience a weekend retreat in the whole hotel.

“We’re able to bring the Bowie experience to other things, such as Bowie cocktails named after different songs and maybe changing our menu and maybe changing the suite names of the hotels. This celebration, particularly, we’re doing a hotel package. Because Mike only plays these particular shows at the Sun Rose, a lot of people fly in for it,” Goldyn says.

Rooftop pool at the Sun Rose in West Hollywood

(The Sun Rose West Hollywood)

Fans can expect that more as the hotel takes on the identity of the club. “Now that the hotel has taken on the name of the music venue, they really want the music venue to be a focus and something that the hotel is really proud of and highlighting. We’re going to really try and push a full property experience so you can get tickets to the show, stay at the hotel and never really leave the property,” she says.

Blackstone believes the success of the music club, under his artistic guidance, is what ultimately inspired the hotel’s name change. “I think what prompted the name change of the hotel was just seeing how the music space has impacted the hotel space in a great way. So, if we can continue the music experience going throughout the whole hotel, what better way to do that than have me curate not just the music room, but curate the entire hotel space?” he says.

After so many years on the road with other artists, Blackstone is thrilled to have what he calls his “playground.” “It feels so incredible; I’m able to try out some new ideas. One of the first things I want to do is to use the rooftop or bowling alley to do an all-day showcase of new music, new styles and new genres in different areas of the hotel. We’re going to start that, I’m going to curate that, get some incredible artists that always end up being your new favorite artist once you hear them,” he says. “I think that’s the other component I failed to mention: My reach has been able to permeate the entire globe. Now I can bring that reach directly to the Sun Rose.”

Singer-songwriters Lisa Simmons-Santa Cruz and her husband Francisco Carroll Santa Cruz were going through a challenging time last March when they worked on Snoop Dogg’s 2025 gospel album, “Altar Call.”

“We were actually writing all those songs in a hotel, displaced,” Carroll Santa Cruz said.

The couple, who have worked in the entertainment industry for more than 29 years writing and producing music for artists like Kelly Rowland and television shows such as “Desperate Housewives,” had lost their Altadena home in the Eaton fire a few months earlier.

Still, the platinum singer-songwriters didn’t want to pass up the opportunity, which came up during the final week of their hotel stay when Simmons-Santa Cruz and Carroll Santa Cruz were introduced to Snoop Dogg through artists Charlie Bereal and Point 5ve. Although Snoop Dogg had also set up a donation center for fire victims, the couple chose not to share their own displacement with him or anyone else in the music industry.

“We needed something the fire couldn’t burn and that was our music,” Simmons-Santa Cruz said. “At that time, we needed something separate from the fire — something that the fire couldn’t touch, it was too traumatic to keep revisiting what we’d lost, so our work became our peace and our escape.”

Despite the loss of their home studio and the limitations of working from a hotel room, they successfully completed the project in a short amount of time. Simmons-Santa Cruz later described the experience as “divine intervention in the midst of tragedy,” saying the music gave them space to heal through faith while doing what they loved most.

“It was comforting, we didn’t have to focus on the fire or what was lost, the music gave us a moment to reflect on life, and it became a saving grace,” she said.

The couple had originally resided in the Altadena home with Simmons-Santa Cruz’s 77-year-old mother, who first bought the house in 1974. In the aftermath of the fires, the couple was forced to figure out where they were going to live as they also grappled with the immense paperwork, bills and insurance claims that came with the loss of their home.

MusiCares, a health and welfare charity for musicians founded by the Recording Academy in 1989, offered them assistance.

“They were like, the FEMA of the music industry,” Simmons-Santa Cruz said.

According to Theresa Wolters, executive director of MusiCares, the organization supports the music community through direct financial assistance for basic living, medical, mental health and substance use needs, as well as free preventive healthcare. One year after the Los Angeles wildfires, MusiCares has directed more than $15 million toward relief and recovery, reaching over 3,200 music professionals affected by the disaster.

When MusiCares stepped in to provide emergency funds for Simmons-Santa Cruz and her husband, it also offered to replace an important instrument for her. Her father, who died seven years ago, helped her pick her first guitar, but the guitar was left behind when the fire broke out.

“That guitar was very sentimental for me,” she said.

Nothing can ever replace the personal memory tied to the guitar, but Simmons-Santa Cruz says that MusiCares offered her hope through this deed, and the new guitar represents that.

“I just broke down, I just started crying, because I’m like, who replaces a guitar? … The last thing that was on my mind was replacing our equipment because we’re still in survival mode,” she said.

Drummer Darryl “JMD” Moore” getting fitted for custom ear molds for his live performances at MusiCares Altadena Health and Wellness Clinic at Grammy Museum L.A. Live

(Rebecca Sapp/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)

The couple is living in a rental and continuing to deal with the fallout of the fires, still unable to rebuild their house because of the financial costs. Since the fires, many other music professionals have faced similar hardships, like music producer and drummer Darryl “JMD” Moore, who still has to pay the mortgage on the home he lost while rebuilding another one “like for like” as mandated by the mortgage bank.

“I wanted to build a home for my children, and my grandchildren, my descendants, that would serve them financially and in every other way it could, because I know this property is valuable, my house doubled in value, it was worth twice what I paid for,” Moore said. “But our insurance is not paying us enough money to build the same house, it’s like hundreds of thousands of dollars short, so everybody like us, we’re in a scramble to get the money to fill in the gaps.”

After years of renting in Altadena, Moore finally bought his first home there in 2011, a purchase made possible thanks to his success in the music industry. Moore is known in both the jazz and hip-hop music scenes, having produced acts like the Pharcyde and Freestyle Fellowship while also drumming for jazz greats like Horace Tapscott. Moore originally grew up in South L.A., where he started playing drums at 13, focusing on R&B and funk before eventually being mentored by the renowned jazz saxophonist and singer Elvira “Vi” Redd.

When the Eaton fire began to crawl toward Moore’s house, he said he quickly packed his most important possessions. He took an archival hard drive which contained his music from 2004 to the present, but everything else burned: his recording studio, archival tapes and reels, and his favorite drum set, a vintage 1965 Rogers Holiday kit he bought in the ‘80s.

“I played on albums and records with that Rogers kit, when I moved to New York in ’89, I took that Rogers kit with me, and I pushed that kit down the street every night from the East Village to the West Village to work,” Moore said. “I can get one that looks just like it if I was willing to spend the $4,000, but was it in the back of the subway, did I play it on Bleecker Street?” the jazz drummer said.

Immediately after the fire took his home, Moore needed to work, but he no longer possessed the peripherals and equipment he required to record. MusiCares donated thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment he needed, including a drum set, and it also provided grants to help him pay both his mortgage and the rent where he’s currently staying. Moore has a long way to go before he completely recovers financially, but he says the organization made a significant impact in his life this past year, and he’s grateful.

“My studio’s back online, I’m able to practice, I’m able to work and do some gigs … it gave me my voice back, really, that was the beginning of everything,” the hip-hop producer said.

For Gwendolyn Sanford and Brandon Jay, a married couple raising a 16-year-old and a 9-year-old, the emotional weight has been just as significant as the financial burden that followed. The couple said they’ve been proactive in prioritizing the mental well-being and happiness of their children since losing their Altadena home.

“It was harder for them early on, when we were moving so frequently, we didn’t have any control over it, we were just trying to get somewhere stable to be, and I think they were processing the loss when they were sad that we didn’t have our home,” Sanford said.

Sanford and her husband are singer-songwriters and have scored music for television shows like “Weeds” and “Orange Is the New Black.” The couple is also in a children’s music band called Gwendolyn and the Good Time Gang, and they recently composed music for the off-Broadway show “Romy and Michele the Musical.”

Like many others, the couple lost their personal recording studio, making work difficult. The stress has been immense for the couple, but they said MusiCares was able to ease some of the financial burden when the organization offered them grants to cover their mortgage, which they are still on the hook for.

Darryl “JMD” Moore in front of his home that burned down in the wildfires, taken in 2023.

(Darryl “JMD” Moore)

“There’s all the red tape and hurdles and things we have to do just to rebuild our home, so that in itself is like a full-time job that we never wanted, on top of just our regular lives raising our kids and doing work,” Jay said. “So, to have the support of someone like that and have them say you don’t have to worry about this one aspect for a while, is invaluable.”

Recently, Sanford was asked to perform at a groundbreaking ceremony her former Altadena neighbor was having for a new house being built there. Sanford’s daughter had not wanted to go back to the neighborhood, but she decided to accompany her mother anyway. The return was cathartic.

“She was able to walk around our lot and have a private moment, and I asked her how she felt, and she said, ‘I feel safe here, this is my home,’” Sanford said.

At the event, Sanford sang a song she penned in 2011 called, “Acorn,” which was inspired by the grandeur of oak trees and what they symbolize in nature. The song has taken on a different meaning for her in the wake of the fires.

“The acorn is a metaphor, and I think that’s kind of where we all are right now, we have to start over, we have to start small, and eventually we’ll get back to where we were,” Sanford said.