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After 12 years on the Los Angeles City Council, Curren Price will be term-limited out of the legislative body this coming year.

The candidate he hopes will replace him comes from his staff, his deputy chief of staff, Jose Ugarte, who has been referred to in the past as Price’s “right-hand man.”

But with many months to go before ballots are cast, Ugarte is already in hot water with the city’s Ethics Commission.

According to documents released by the commission, Ugarte has agreed to pay a $17,500 fine for repeatedly failing to disclose outside income he made from his lobbying and consulting firm while also working as a council staffer.

A commission investigation found that Ugarte failed to report outside income from his consulting firm, Ugarte & Associates, for the years 2021, 2022 and 2023, according to the documents.

The Ugarte proposed settlement is set to go before the Ethics Commission on Wednesday.

“This was an unintentional clerical reporting error on my part. As soon as I was made aware, I took full responsibility and corrected them,” Ugarte said in a statement emailed to The Times. “I take disclosure seriously. Moving forward, I have implemented steps to ensure nothing is missed.”

Ugarte said his work with Ugarte & Associates never overlapped with his time in Price’s office. He started working for Price in 2013, but left the office in 2019. He returned in 2021. Ugarte & Associates was formed in 2018 and still conducts business. He co-owns the company with his sister.

The settlement comes as Ugarte’s boss faces his own ethics quandary.

Price was indicted two years ago on 10 counts of grand theft by embezzlement after his wife’s consulting firm received payments of more than $150,000 between 2019 and 2021 from developers before Price voted to approve projects.

Prosecutors also said Price failed to list his wife’s income on his ethics disclosure forms.

Prosecutors have since filed additional charges against Price saying his wife, Del Richardson, was paid hundreds of thousands by the city housing authority while Price voted in favor of millions in grants to the agency. He also wrote a motion to give $30 million to the L.A. County Metropolitan Transportation Authority from 2020 to 2021, a time frame in which Richardson was paid more than $200,000 by the agency.

Price said he supports Ugarte despite the ethics violation.

“This matter dates back to 2021, when he was not employed by the city, and is clerical in nature,” Price said in a statement texted to The Times. “I wholeheartedly support Jose Ugarte, alongside an unprecedented coalition of elected officials, labor groups, and community leaders who stand behind his character, leadership and proven record of results.”

Ugarte is one of the leading candidates running to represent Council District 9, which covers South Los Angeles. He raised $211,206 in the first reporting cycle of the election, far outpacing his rivals.

One of Ugarte’s opponents, Estuardo Mazariegos, called the Ethics Commission findings “very disturbing.”

The Ethics Commission also alleged that Ugarte’s documents about outside income, known as Form 700s, failed to report clients who gave $10,000 or more to Ugarte & Associates.

Those clients were mostly independent expenditures for local candidates.

His firm was paid $128,050 to help with the reelection campaign of Congressman Jimmy Gomez (D-California). It was also paid $222,000 by Elect California to help with the reelection campaign of Mitch O’Farrell among other clients.

“This proposed settlement raises more questions than it answers: Are these the only payments Ugarte hid? Why was he concealing them from the public? And above all, how did these massive payments in outside interests affect Jose Ugarte’s work as a city employee?” Mazariegos said in a statement to The Times.

The Blue Jays’ bullpen, frankly, has not been very good in this postseason. Entering Monday’s Game 7, the group had a 6.02 ERA and only one successful save.

In that Game 7, however, the Blue Jays showed the ability that still resides in that group.

Louis Varland, a right-hander acquired at the trade deadline, recorded four outs while giving up just one run, and has a 3.27 ERA in the playoffs. Seranthony Domínguez, another right-handed deadline acquisition, pitched a scoreless inning to lower his October ERA to 4.05.

Toronto used a couple starters from there, getting scoreless innings from Gausman and fellow veteran Chris Bassitt.

But at the end, the final three outs belonged to veteran right-hander Jeff Hoffman, a 2024 All-Star who had a disappointing debut season after signing in Toronto this offseason, but now has both of their postseason saves.

The Blue Jays’ one big bullpen weakness is its lack of dominant left-handed depth. Mason Fluharty has been their best southpaw, but has a 6.23 ERA in the playoffs. Brendon Little, Eric Lauer and ex-Dodger Justin Bruihl are also on their roster, but haven’t been any more effective.

Angels star Mike Trout is planning to testify Tuesday in a lawsuit over whether the MLB team should be held responsible for the drug overdose death of pitcher Tyler Skaggs.

Trout, a three-time American League most valuable player who hit his 400th career home run this year, is expected to take the stand in a Southern California courtroom and speak about his friendship with Skaggs, who died on a team trip to Texas in 2019 after taking a fentanyl-laced pill he got from Angels communication director Eric Kay. Trout could also be asked about what he knew of Kay’s drug use at the time.

The testimony will come in the trial for a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Skaggs’ wife, Carli, and his parents seeking to hold the Angels’ responsible for his death. The family contends the Angels made a series of reckless decisions that gave Kay access to MLB players when he was addicted to drugs and dealing them; the team has countered that Skaggs was also drinking heavily and his actions occurred on his own time and in the privacy of his hotel room when he died.

During opening statements, a lawyer for the Skaggs family said Trout was aware of Kay’s drug problem and had offered to pay for him to attend rehab. Other players, including former Angels pitcher Wade Miley, who currently plays for the Cincinnati Reds, could also testify during what is expected to be a weeks-long trial in Santa Ana.

The civil case comes more than six years after 27-year-old Skaggs was found dead in the suburban Dallas hotel room where he was staying as the Angels were supposed to open a four-game series against the Texas Rangers. A coroner’s report says Skaggs choked to death on his vomit and that a toxic mix of alcohol, fentanyl and oxycodone was found in his system.

Kay was convicted in 2022 of providing Skaggs with an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl and sentenced to 22 years in federal prison. His federal criminal trial in Texas included testimony from five MLB players who said they received oxycodone from Kay at various times from 2017 to 2019, the years he was accused of obtaining pills and giving them to Angels players.

Angels outfielder Mike Trout catches a fly ball in front of graphic honoring the life of Tyler Skaggs at Angel Stadium in 2019.

(John McCoy / Getty Images)

The family is seeking $118 million for Skaggs’ lost earnings, compensation for pain and suffering and punitive damages against the team.

Skaggs had been a regular in the Angels’ starting rotation since late 2016 and struggled with injuries repeatedly during that time. He previously played for the Arizona Diamondbacks.

After Skaggs’ death, the MLB reached a deal with the players association to start testing for opioids and to refer those who test positive to the treatment board.

Taxin writes for the Associated Press.

From the outside, the Dodgers know the easy narrative to their season.

About how, after beginning the campaign with the highest expectations imaginable, they spent much of the year failing to live up to the hype.

How, during what was already a dismal second-half slump, they seemed to reach rock bottom when they squandered a no-hitter and three-run lead in a stunning ninth-inning loss in Baltimore last month.

How, in the six weeks since, they’ve looked like a rejuvenated and refocused club, following that nightmarish defeat with a 15-5 finish to the regular season and torrid march through October — going 9-1 en route to a National League pennant and return trip to the World Series, which will begin with Game 1 on Friday night.

In hindsight, however, the Dodgers also insist the story isn’t that simple.

The peaks and valleys of this season, they felt, were never as extreme as they appeared.

“Obviously, the season went the way it went,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said of a 93-win campaign that, despite including another NL West title, qualified as a disappointment compared to their preseason prognostications. “It’s a long season. It’s a lot of games. We dealt with a lot.”

But, Muncy added as beer and sparkling wine were sprayed all around him in the Dodgers’ clubhouse Friday night, in celebration of the team’s fifth Fall Classic trip in the last nine seasons: “We always knew what we had in the clubhouse. We always knew what we had on the field. Now, you’re starting to see it.”

This, indeed, was always the plan. One that, even in their worst moments, they believed would happen all along.

Last fall, the Dodgers’ run to a World Series championship truly did feel surprising. Their starting rotation was ravaged. Freddie Freeman entered the playoffs with ankle and rib injuries. And there were genuine October doubts to overcome, after upset first-round eliminations the two previous years.

That team also had identifiable turning points, from a belief-instilling clubhouse meeting called by manager Dave Roberts in mid-September, to an NL Division Series comeback against the San Diego Padres that catapulted them through the remainder of the playoffs.

When they finally reached the mountaintop, led by a hobbled Freeman and heroic performances from an overachieving bullpen, it was an accomplishment of determination and perseverance; a triumph that, even internally, not everyone always saw coming.

This year, by contrast, the Dodgers viewed their path differently.

On paper, the defining point of the season appeared to be that Sept. 6 loss to the Orioles — a day that began with another clubhouse meeting from Roberts, who gathered his team amid a stunning 22-31 slump that stretched to early July; then ended in disastrous fashion, when Yoshinobu Yamamoto lost a no-hit bid with two outs in the ninth, before a withering bullpen imploded to lose the game in a walk-off meltdown.

“Losing that game, to a team that’s not even in playoff contention, you started thinking, ‘What’s wrong with us?’” infielder Miguel Rojas recalled.

But looking back last week, several other teammates said, the Dodgers never fully felt the panic that was swirling around them.

Instead, they trusted the talent of their record-setting $415-million roster to eventually rise to surface. They banked on getting healthy, then eventually turning the ship.

“We’ve been there before,” Freeman said. “We knew we were OK.”

“At some point, we were gonna start clicking,” Muncy added. “[We just needed] guys coming back and getting healthy.”

Early in the season, after all, the Dodgers had been healthy and clicking. Their 8-0 start was better than any defending champion in MLB history. Their 29-15 record through mid-May had them on a 107-win pace.

“You look at the start of the season, when we had everybody, we were playing really good,” Muncy said. “If our team was our team the whole year, maybe we would’ve lived up to those expectations.”

The Dodgers, of course, did not have their full team for much of the next three months, when they played exactly .500 baseball (49-49) from May 16 through that Sept. 6 loss in Baltimore.

On the mound, the rotation was battered by injuries to Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and Tony Gonsolin. That put added strain (and innings) on a bullpen still feeling the aftereffects of the previous October.

The lineup also dealt with its own injury problems. Freeman started the year still nursing his ankle, which required surgery over the offseason. Mookie Betts was behind the eight ball from the start following a spring-training stomach virus. In the summer, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández and Kiké Hernández each missed time, then returned playing less than 100%. Muncy was in and out of action during the second half, too, suffering a knee injury in July and oblique strain in August.

In retrospect, Muncy noted, it was a dynamic that the Dodgers (who have MLB’s oldest average lineup age at 30.7 years old, and were coming off a physically taxing postseason run the previous year) always figured to grapple with.

“The reality of it is — and we all know this, everyone up top knows it — our team wasn’t going to make it through the full season without breaking at some point,” he said. “So it was just, how do you weather those [low] moments?”

Problem was, they didn’t always do that well, either.

For much of July and August, the Dodgers had one of the lowest-scoring offenses in baseball, suffering from an occasional lack of focus and intensity some people in the organization later attributed to a World Series hangover.

Their faulty bullpen only made matters worse, contributing to a 5-20 record in games decided by two runs or less from early July to early September.

When Roberts called for his pregame clubhouse meeting that day in Baltimore, it was only the latest in a string of speeches he’d delivered to different groups of players on the team in prior weeks. By that point, efforts to snap out of the second-half malaise had been ongoing for a while.

“We’re doing everything in our power, having closed meetings, doing everything that we can, to try to right the ship,” Shohei Ohtani said through an interpreter on the night the Dodgers fell to second place in the division after being swept by the Angels in August. “We just have to do a better job.”

“There’s no sugarcoating this,” Freeman echoed a few weeks later, when another confounding sweep to the Pittsburgh Pirates in early September was followed by another walk-off loss to the Orioles in team’s series-opener in Baltimore. “We need to figure this out, and figure this out quick.”

That, however, is where the 2025 Dodgers differed from the previous year’s team.

Even at their lowest, they didn’t feel hopeless.

Once they got healthy again, they believed better play would follow.

“Everyone was like, ‘We’re going to hit. We’re going to pitch well out of the bullpen. It’s just going to happen,’” Freeman said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll get there.”

The main driver of the turnaround since was the pitching. Snell and Glasnow had already returned from their injuries by September, but didn’t find a rhythm until the final weeks of the year. Yamamoto also got hot, giving up just one run in his three starts after the near no-hitter. Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw, who had been out at the start of the year recovering from surgeries, flourished to give the rotation added depth.

Ohtani (while posting MVP numbers offensively) also built his way up to a full starter’s workload, after previously being limited to short outings coming off his second career Tommy John surgery.

Sasaki, meanwhile, made a late-season return in the bullpen, giving that group an anchor it had previously been missing.

“We started winning because our starting pitching was just so good,” Freeman said, after the group produced a 2.07 ERA in September and 1.40 mark in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

“As an offense, when you see your starting pitcher just throwing zeros over and over and over again, it’s like, ‘C’mon, just get one, get two, get three.’”

That kind of consistent production indeed began to reemerge too.

There was better health and improved individual performances, especially from Ohtani, Betts and Freeman (who combined for 22 home runs and 54 RBIs during the Dodgers’ resurgence in September). There was renewed emphasis from the coaching staff on quality at-bats and team offense (helping the Dodgers average 5.6 runs per game over their final 20 contests).

There was also increased accountability the players placed on one another, challenging themselves to elevate their game the closer they got to postseason baseball.

“We always knew we were going to be a really, really good team in October,” Muncy said. “Once you get to October, it’s, ‘Alright, it’s game time.’ That’s how we’re taking it.”

That mindset has continued to manifest in the playoffs, where many of the Dodgers’ biggest moments — from the wheel play they turned in Philadelphia, to the 11-inning marathon that sent them to the NLCS, to the string of low-scoring victories they pulled out against the Milwaukee Brewers — have been born of veteran poise and a battle-tested composure.

“It’s an advantage to having such a veteran group,” Kiké Hernández said. “We’ve played in a lot of big games together.”

And now, they’ll do so again in yet another World Series appearance, playing the kind of baseball just like they expected all along.

“Showing up to spring this year, it was, ‘Hey, we need to repeat,’” Muncy recalled. “It wasn’t like we wanted to repeat. It was like, ‘Hey, we need to’ … Because that’s just how good we are.”

I love pretty market towns, historic buildings, boutique shops and cosy pubs — so do lots of other people

I’m a market town girl at heart. I adore cute villages with historic buildings, meandering rivers, boutique shops, and cosy pubs. The Cotswolds are stunning – but almost year-round their honey-coloured villages, including Bourton-on-the-Water, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Lower Slaughter, are packed with coachloads of snap-happy tourists.

According to Gloucestershire Live it’s “free-for-all chaos” complete with noise, litter, and traffic jams. Even TikTokkers can’t resist. A councillor recently lamented that visitors were “exploiting the destination’s heritage for clicks”. Bourton-on-the-Water, aka the Venice of the Cotswolds, has apparently become the ultimate backdrop for selfies and reels.

“This kind of visitor has little interest in heritage, culture, or nature,” councillor Jon Wareing told the BBC. “They’re the ultimate hit-and-run tourist.”

So, while the Cotswolds may be Instagram-famous, I found a quieter, prettier escape. And it didn’t require elbowing my way past twirling huns living their best life in selfies. Instead, I went to The Wye Valley and the Forest of Dean, which offer a tranquil and picturesque alternative to the Cotswolds.

Bordering England and Wales this area of outstanding natural beauty features similar rolling countryside, attractive market towns, and hiking trails but with fewer crowds. It’s especially beautiful in the autumn for ‘leaf-peeping’ when the trees show off a dazzling array of colour.

The market towns and villages of the Wye Valley also offer a less crowded alternative to the busy Cotswolds blending historical buildings, local culture, and proper pubs. From superstar gigs to cosy pubs find out What’s On in Wales by signing up to our newsletter here.

Market towns

One of my favourites is Chepstow. Known as the “gateway to Wales” it gets its name from the Old English ‘chepe stowe’ or ‘market place’. The name still fits. Chepstow keeps its historic feel with cobbled streets and a strong line-up of independent shops, cafés, restaurants, and pubs.

One of the big draws here is the surprising range of walking trails with four long-distance walks converging on Chepstow. The Wye Valley Walk and Offa’s Dyke head north on either side of the River Wye offering hikers a circular loop between Chepstow and Monmouth.

Dreamy views of romantic ruins

Strolls around Tintern offer dreamy views of the romantic ruins of Tintern Abbey, especially from the Devil’s Pulpit viewpoint. Walks along the Angidy Valley reward history lovers with the valley’s industrial heritage.

A gentle riverside path from St Michael’s Church to Tintern Old Station and the old railway line to Brockweir offers an easy, family-friendly amble.

If you fancy a flutter Chepstow’s got you covered. The town’s racecourse is a huge deal in the horseracing world and home to the Coral Welsh Grand National. It’s been hosting race days since the late 1800s and still draws a lively crowd whether you’re a seasoned punter or just there for the buzz and fancy hats.

And if horses aren’t your thing you can swap the saddle for a nine-iron. Just outside town the St Pierre Marriott Hotel and Country Club boasts one of the most scenic golf courses in the country.

Independent shops

Over the border Ross-on-Wye is another charming town. Its 17th-century Market House now houses Made in Ross, an artisan cooperative that showcases local crafts. The town’s streets feature a mix of independent shops, antique stores, cosy coffee houses, and pubs such as The Man of Ross Inn.

At the confluence of the Rivers Wye and Monnow, Monmouth has a rich history with landmarks like the 18th-century Shire Hall, which is now a museum. The town’s vibrant streets are lined with boutiques, cafés, and historic pubs.

Over in England the market towns in the Cotswolds, such as Cirencester, Stow-on-the-Wold, and Chipping Campden, are equally charming but suffer from significant overcrowding during peak tourist seasons.

Cirencester, known as the “Capital of the Cotswolds,” features a lively market, Roman history, and a variety of shops and cafés. Stow-on-the-Wold, with its historic market square and antique shops, often experiences heavy tourist traffic making it less serene.

Chipping Campden, famous for its beautiful High Street lined with historic buildings, also faces similar issues with overcrowding and limited parking.

Historical sites

Symonds Yat can be less crowded and is known for its hand-pulled ferries and impressive views from Symonds Yat Rock. It is perfect for nature lovers and outdoor activities like hiking and canoeing. The Wye Valley is rich in historical sites that rival those in the Cotswolds. Goodrich Castle and Tintern Abbey are standout landmarks.

Exploring on foot can help you discover the industrial and historical heritage in the Wye Valley ranging from the Iron Age construction of hillforts to the Romans who came, saw, and conquered the Wye and the building of Offa’s Dyke – the longest archaeological ‘Keep Out’ sign in Britain.

For history lovers the tiny town of Tintern is also worth a visit. It is home to one of Wales’ greatest monastic ruins, Tintern Abbey, which is found on the banks of the River Wye and was only the second Cistercian foundation to be built in Britain.

It was founded in 1131 by Cistercian monks and has had a long history including the dissolution of the monasteries, which led to the abbey slowly turning into a majestic ruin. Today you can visit this important heritage site in Wales and marvel at the scale of the roofless abbey and the British Gothic architecture. Tickets can be bought on arrival at the visitor centre and there is also a selection of guidebooks that can help you learn more about this beautiful abbey.

Chepstow Castle is another must-visit. It is Wales’ oldest surviving post-Roman castle dating back to 1067. This beautifully-preserved Welsh castle proudly stands atop a limestone cliff above the River Wye. For more than six centuries Chepstow was home to some of the wealthiest and most powerful men of the medieval and Tudor ages.

Earl William Fitz Osbern, a close friend of William the Conqueror, started the building in 1067, making it one of the first Norman strongholds in Wales. In turn William Marshal (Earl of Pembroke), Roger Bigod (Earl of Norfolk), and Charles Somerset (Earl of Worcester) all made their mark before the castle declined after the Civil War.

The oldest building is the Norman great tower but construction continued well into the 17th century as stronger, musket-friendly parapets replaced medieval battlements.

Today visitors can learn more about this historic site that Cadw now manages by visiting this impressive castle on a day trip or booking one of their special events. The site has a range of facilities including a gift shop, bike access, and parking.

Meandering river

Along with pretty towns and history one of the area’s biggest draws is the flowing River Wye. This meandering river begins in Plynlimon in mid-Wales and flows south, becoming part of Wales and England’s border and eventually meeting the Severn.

The River Wye is a long and very accessible river with plenty of paddle spots and waterside pubs. Canoeing through the Wye Valley offers a unique way to explore its scenic villages and countryside – an experience you can’t replicate in the Cotswolds.

Several outdoor companies in the area offer guided canoe and paddleboard trips down the River Wye. Many trips include camping or visiting riverside villages.

You can also hire a canoe and captain your own vessel on a river pub crawl or camping expedition. Waterside pubs along the River Wye are welcome rest spots if you’re paddling up the river on an epic canoe or kayak trip. The Boat Inn and the Anchor Inn offer local ales and river views.

Eating, drinking and sleeping

One of the best spots for a pint by the water is the Saracens Head Inn. This historic riverside inn has stood for centuries in its spectacular position on the east bank of the River Wye where the river flows into a steep wooded gorge.

Here you’ll find rooms as well as award-winning food and local ales. Their flagstone-floored bar and rustic pine tables provide a traditional pub feel as you sip on a pint of local real ale.

If you prefer dry land there are many ambitious hiking routes for a scenic stomp and shorter walking trails can help you discover the beauty of the Wye Valley on foot.

If you want a longer walk in this area opt for the Wye Valley Walk – a long-distance national trail that follows the course of the River Wye.

You can choose various sections of the trail for day hikes and weekend hikes or opt for a full walking holiday and do the lot. One of the best day hikes on the Wye Valley Walk is the Chepstow to Tintern Abbey section.

It’s a scenic five-mile walk that takes you up ancient stone steps and through ethereal forest paths. There are plenty of photo and picnic spots along the way and you’ll also find some viewing points where you can gaze at the winding River Wye.

Autumn is the best time to attempt this trail: when the leaves change their colours it becomes one of the prettiest hiking trails in the UK. Pack a picnic to round out the countryside experience.

Food-wise you’ll be spoiled for choice in the Wye Valley with plenty of cafés and restaurants to rival the swanky Cotswolds. The area is a surprising gastro hotspot and there is a thriving dining and foodie scene to be discovered.

You can criss-cross seamlessly from Wales into England and easily explore the well-heeled area and its many restaurants, cafés, and producers.

Take a gastro journey through the valley and you’ll find locally-raised lamb, smoked eel, craft ales, and honey-infused mead. Local breweries include the small microbrewery Lydbrook Valley Brewing Company, which produces a 4.2% IPA, and the Wye Valley Brewery, which makes a decent range of craft ales.

The Wye Valley even has its own vineyard, White Castle, where visitors can buy high-quality Welsh wines and take a tour.

Over in Chepstow the Beaufort Hotel’s award-winning restaurant offers guests a fabulous à la carte menu featuring traditional British and international dishes using Wye Valley and Welsh produce where possible.

Tell me Wine is a wine merchant and French bistro lounge that offers delicious French dishes, wine tastings, and live music events. Family-owned Stone Rock Lodge serves Wales’ best pizza and you can get a banging Sunday lunch at St Pierre.

With one Michelin green star and four AA rosettes dining at the Whitebrook is a must for serious foodies. Fresh local ingredients and foraged findings from the valley are at the heart of the food at this highly-acclaimed restaurant with rooms.

Set in five acres of landscaped surroundings chef Chris Harrod draws culinary inspiration from his bountiful surroundings.

You can expect hand-foraged garlic, bittercress, wild onion, and hogweed from the valley, which connect diners to the immediate locale and enrich the carefully crafted menu.

Harrod has a knack for turning locally-foraged ingredients into extraordinary creations. His dedication to using the best of the region’s offerings earned The Whitebrook a Michelin star, a Michelin green star, and four AA Rosettes. It’s regularly included in the Top 50 list of restaurants in the UK and deservedly so.

The seasonal tasting menu is a culinary journey showcasing the best of the season with expertly chosen wine pairings of local Welsh and English wines including several from Monmouthshire-based White Castle Vineyard. Each small but perfectly-executed course explores the region’s rich flavours presented with precision and artistry.

Typical plates include Orkney scallops, Huntsham Farm Ryeland hogget with young leek, turnip, and ramsons, and day boat hake with hen of the wood, parsley root, pickled pine, mushrooms, sauce, and wild chervil.

If you’re looking to stay longer in the area the Wye Valley has an impressive range of swish properties, guest houses, and hotels to suit your travel style and budget.

Airbnb and Booking.com offer unique stays in the Wye Valley with everything from bougie guest houses and cosy holiday cabins to luxury glamping and yurts.

One of my favourite places to stay is the charming Tudor Farmhouse. This boutique hotel is a former working farm that has been stylishly converted into a country getaway with rooms, cottages, and suites. Prices depend on the type of room booked.

Imagine losing your home and belongings to a wildfire, then losing your best friend when he was killed by a suspected driver under the influence, all happening within months of each other.

Max Meier, a star defensive tackle for Loyola High who has committed to Stanford, dealt with that kind of awful adversity this year, losing his family home in the Palisades fire, then losing classmate Braun Levi in May when he was hit by a car while walking on a Manhattan Beach street.

To hear Meier’s response and wisdom while dealing with two tragedies offers hope for the future.

“I think in this life, everyone has demons in the closet,” Meier said. “Everyone has bad things that happen But we realize in these moments, as horrible as they are, losing your things in a fire, they’re replaceable, but losing someone who was like an older brother, can’t replace that. He’s somebody I’ll be be chasing to live like he did. As a teenager it was tough, but you learn about life and how every day you have to give it your all. I’ve actually started to live my life more fully and started to live every day the best I can.”

As a football player, at 6 feet 5 and 250 pounds, Meier is enjoying his best season as a senior with 9 1/2 sacks, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. Loyola lost close to a dozen players who abandoned the program one by one in the offseason. They gave up, thinking the Cubs were not going to be good or leaving because they disliked something. Those who stayed had to place their trust in themselves.

“There’s no better motivator knowing every single person left and you’re the ones left,” he said. “This summer, we’re like, ‘There’s 10 games left and you’re either going to give up or let’s show everyone what we got and why they wrote us off.’ We have some problems. Every team does. We’re really motivated to show what we can do.”

Playing at SoFi Stadium on Oct 19 and coming away with a 13-10 upset victory over Gardena Serra was a moment Meier and his teammates will cherish. The Cubs lost to Bishop Amat 30-14 on Friday night and are 4-4 and 1-2 in the Mission League.

“Warming up under all those seats is just ridiculous,” he said. “I thought it was the most awesome thing. That turf was super fast. You could hear things super loud and it gave you an idea what a college stadium might feel like, I thought it was the best experience all time. It was a thing on my bucket list. Getting a sack at SoFi never thought of something I want to do, but I did it. It was cool.”

Since Meier lost his home, he was eligible to switch schools this year and play immediately. His two sisters graduated from Palisades. He has friends at Palisades. But he was never leaving Loyola.

Everyone, from parents to classmates to alumni, banded together to help those affected by the fire. They provided food, clothing and emotional support.

“After the fires, I realized how special it is,” he said. “All that’s left in my closet is from Loyola. They’re the most amazing people to me.”

So understand what you’re getting each time you face Loyola this season — a team dedicated to each other and having each other’s backs. And in Meier, the Cubs have someone who’s going to represent Loyola values for years to come.

“Breathing on this earth is a humble thing,” Meier said.

CHICAGO — Ryan Donato scored from the edge of the crease at 2:58 of overtime and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Ducks 2-1 on Sunday night in Ducks coach Joel Quenneville’s first game at United Center since being banned in a sexual-assault scandal.

The ban stemmed from the scandal involving his 2010 Stanley Cup champion Blackhawks squad that surfaced in October 2021. Quenneville was forced to resign as Florida’s coach, then banned from the NHL for nearly three years before taking over the Ducks in May. He won three titles in 10 years with the Blackhawks.

Donato had his third goal in three games. Connor Bedard set up it from behind the net to cap a 3-on-1 rush. Frank Nazar also scored to help Chicago improve to 3-0-1 in its last four.

Spencer Knight made 38 saves and was beaten only on Mason McTavish’s power-play goal from a sharp angle with 35.8 seconds left in the third period.

McTavish scored on a rising shot from low in the right circle for his first goal of the season on Anaheim’s 36th shot and fifth manpower advantage. Wyatt Kaiser had been sent off for delay of game with 1:47 left after lifting the puck over the glass.

Knight outdueled Lukas Dostal, who stopped 28 shots in the Ducks’ second straight loss.

A first taste of L.A.’s new Maydan Market. Plus, eating in this town for $50 or less, a cookbook of gravestone recipes, allegations of racial discrimination at a popular L.A. cafe … and how Diane Keaton liked to drink her favorite wine. I’m Laurie Ochoa, general manager of L.A. Times Food, with this week’s Tasting Notes.

Market of dreams

Chefs Rosio Sanchez, left, and Laura Flores Correa of Copenhagen’s Sanchez and Hija de Sanchez, sample mole-sauced turkey legs from Lugya’h at Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Many of us have favorite places to take out-of-town guests — restaurants, hiking trails and idiosyncratic spots like the recently reopened Museum of Jurassic Technology that show our friends and family why we love L.A.

For years, I’ve brought friends to Mercado la Paloma, the food hall and cultural center that is home to Gilberto Cetina‘s Holbox, the seafood counter that was our L.A. Times Restaurant of the Year in 2023 and last year was awarded a Michelin star. These days, there’s always a line for Cetina’s exquisite seafood plates, including his octopus taco with squid-ink-stained sofrito. While one person in your group waits to order at Holbox, you can find many other things to bring to your table at the mercado — unbeatable cochinita pibil and more Yucatecan dishes (try the papadzules or a refreshing agua de chaya) from Chichén Itzá, founded by Cetina’s father Gilberto Sr.; Oaxacan nieves or ice cream flavored with mamey, tuna (cactus fruit) or especially leche quemada (burnt milk) from OaxaCalifornia; and Fátima Juárez‘s gorgeous quesadilla de flor, with orange squash blossom petals spilling out of the blue corn tortilla like sunshine at her masa-focused restaurant Komal (one of Bill Addison’s picks on his 101 Best California Restaurants list).

This week, however, I tried a new place when Rosio Sanchez, the Copenhagen-based chef I wrote about in this newsletter a few months ago, said she was coming to L.A. for the Chef Assembly conference and two collaborations, one that took place Wednesday with Jordan Kahn at Meteora and another that is happening all day Sunday at Enrique Olvera and chef Chuy Cervantes’ downtown taco spot Ditroit with Yia Vang of Minneapolis’ Hmong restaurant Vinai. Sanchez wanted to meet someplace for lunch, but had just tried Komal at the Mercado la Paloma and had even been to Thai Taco Tuesday at Anajak Thai, one of my other dependable suggestions for wowing visitors. I had to change my usual game plan.

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Chef-founder Rose Previte details the bevy of vendors and dishes at West Adams’ cross-cultural new food hall.

Fortunately, our intrepid woman about town Stephanie Breijo had been telling me all about Maydan Market in anticipation of its recent opening in L.A.’s West Adams neighborhood, across the street from a branch of chef Kat Turner‘s Highly Likely. In addition, Breijo made a hunger-inducing video showing off the live-fire-based restaurants at the heart of the market founded by Rose Previte, whose Maydan in Washington, D.C., is devoted to the cuisines of the Middle East and was among the Top 40 restaurants chosen in 2024 by the Washington Post’s recently unmasked critic Tom Sietsema.

Here in Los Angeles, Previte wanted to open a food hall centered on hearth cooking from different cultures. That not only means new branches of her Maydan restaurant and Compass Rose cafe, but Afro-Mexican Guerrerense cooking at Maléna from Tamales Elena founder Maria Elena Lorenzo; Yhing Yhang BBQ from Holy Basil chef Wedchayan “Deau” Arpapornnopparat, serving charcoal-grilled Thai chicken, seafood and duck, and a space for emerging chefs that is currently featuring Melnificent Wingz from Melissa “Chef Mel” Cottingham.

Most of the places so far don’t open until 5 p.m. — I spotted Arpapornnopparat prepping some fantastic-looking chile sauces for his dinnertime barbecue that I am eager to try. But lunch operations are slowly getting underway and on Thursday afternoon we were lucky to find Alfonso Martinez of Poncho’s Tlayudas fame at Lugya’h, his new post in the market. In addition to tlyaudas — which Addison, in his 2022 review of Poncho’s called one of his “this is the Los Angeles I love” dishes — Martinez is serving dishes from Oaxaca’s Sierra Norte at Lugya’h.

Mole-covered turkey leg with a black bean tamal from Alfonso Martinez’s Lugya’h at Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

With Sanchez and her chef Laura Flores Correa, best known as Laurita, I was able to try a turkey leg sauced in a dark, rich “mole de bejed” with a black bean tamal on the side. The meat was incredibly moist, perfect with the tamal. We also got bowls of foamy Mexican cacao-flavored atole, which came with brioche-like Oaxacan pan de yema.

A slice of tlayuda with chorizo, grilled tasajo and the blood sausage moronga from Lugya’h at L.A.’s Maydan Market.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

And even though the current plan is to serve tlyaudas only during dinner, we were able to try one with three meats: chorizo, beautifully charred on the edges from the fire; a slice of grilled tasajo, and a link of moronga, one of the best blood sausages I’ve ever eaten, from a recipe, as Addison writes, handed down as a wedding gift from the father of Martinez’s wife Odilia Romero. She was helping out at the market this week, though is anxious to get back to her work advocating for Indigenous migrants in L.A. That might not be easy once word spreads about the deliciousness of Lugya’h’s food.

Alfonso Martinez, right, and Odilia Romero, who have expanded their Poncho’s Tlayudas operation to Maydan Market under the name Lugya’h.

(Laurie Ochoa / Los Angeles Times)

Indeed, each of the places Previte has curated is certain to draw a crowd. I’m looking forward to bringing more friends and trying them all.

If you think $50 a person sounds like a lot for dinner …

(Juliana Yamada / Los Angeles Times)

“It’s crazy that $50 per person is now considered a cheap sit-down meal.”

“The fact that LAT is suggesting $50 a person is somehow a ‘win’ is pretty crazy.”

Those are two reader comments on our 50 under $50 guide to restaurants where it’s possible to eat for $50 or less a person — including tax and tip. Which actually means finding items on the menu that cost $38 a person to account for an approximate 10% sales tax and 20% tip. We thought it was important for you to not get hit with charges that traditionally are not reflected on most restaurant menus.

To those readers who say $50 a person is too much to spend for a nice sit-down dinner, we agree. But all over the city — and in so many parts of the country — it’s increasingly difficult to get dinner at a non-fast-food or fast-casual restaurant for less than $50. Indeed, some of our finest restaurants charge $500 and even more than $1000 a person once you figure in wine or sake pairings.

This kind of pricing, which accounts for luxury ingredients and livable salaries for members of the kitchen and dining room staff that provide world-class service, puts many of our most acclaimed restaurants out of reach for the majority of Angelenos. That’s why we thought it was important in these tough economic times to come up with a guide to more affordable restaurant choices. We weren’t only going for “cheap eats.” Our entire Food team searched the city for a range of places that, as senior Food editor Danielle Dorsey wrote, “must be open until 9 p.m.” (so a true dinner spot), “doesn’t have to offer table service, but must [have] seating available to enjoy your food on-site” and where “you must be able to order at least two menu items, whether that’s a starter and a main, an entree and a dessert, or a large plate and a cocktail.”

The restaurants we chose ranged from the casual but highly acclaimed Sonoratown, which has what our critic Bill Addison says is “the Los Angeles food item I have consumed more than any other” (the $12.50 Burrito 2.0) to strategic ordering suggestions at star chef spots such as Dave Beran‘s Pasjoli and Bestia from husband-and-wife chefs Ori Menashe and Genevieve Gergis. In between are affordable date-night places, including Cody Ma and Misha Sesar‘s Persian spot Azizam, the buzzy Cal-Italian Beethoven Market
and Propaganda Wine Bar in the Arts District. We’re always looking for more suggestions. If you have a favorite affordable place, tell us about it in the story’s comment section.

Also …

• Stephanie Breijo spoke with archivist and social media personality Rosie Grant about her new cookbook “To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes,” which as the title implies, is a collection of recipes that decedents or their loved ones treasured so much they had them etched on their tombstones.
• Breijo also broke down the allegations of racial discrimination at the L.A. restaurant Great White and Gran Blanco “after intensifying social media videos claim that Great White segregates customers based on ethnicity and race, which its owners and some employees deny.”

And finally … ‘slug it down’

Diane Keaton in 2023.

(Raymond Hall/GC Images via Getty Images)

In memory of the great Diane Keaton, let’s raise a toast to her unforgettable movie roles and personal style with what she called “the only wine that I love.”

“It’s called Lillet,” she said in an Instagram video she made back in 2022 with a similar unconventional approach to ice that Stanley Tucci demonstrated his viral negroni video from 2020. After adding many ice cubes to a large yet elegant tumbler, she fills the glass with Lillet and adds a wedge of lemon, instructing her followers to “slug it down” without the addition of the usual tonic or sparkling water. Apparently, Keaton was not a spritz kind of gal. “And if you don’t like it,” she said to her viewers, “that’s fine with me. I’ll just drink all this myself.” Sounds like she knew how to live.

WASHINGTON — President Trump said Friday that he had commuted the sentence of former U.S. Rep. George Santos, who is serving more than seven years in federal prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft charges.

Joseph Murray, one of Santos’ lawyers, told the Associated Press late Friday that the former lawmaker was released from the Federal Correctional Institution in Fairton, N.J., around 11 p.m. and was greeted outside the facility by his family.

The New York Republican was sentenced in April after admitting last year to deceiving donors and stealing the identities of 11 people — including his own family members — to make donations to his campaign.

He reported to FCI Fairton on July 25 and was housed in a minimum-security prison camp with fewer than 50 other inmates.

“George Santos was somewhat of a ‘rogue,’ but there are many rogues throughout our Country that aren’t forced to serve seven years in prison,” Trump posted on his social media platform. He said he had “just signed a Commutation, releasing George Santos from prison, IMMEDIATELY.”

“Good luck George, have a great life!” Trump said.

Santos’ account on X, which has been active throughout his roughly 84 days in prison, reposted a screenshot of Trump’s Truth Social post Friday.

During his time behind bars, Santos has been writing regular dispatches in a local newspaper on Long Island, N.Y., in which he mainly complained about the prison conditions.

In his latest letter, he pleaded to Trump directly, citing his fealty to the president’s agenda and to the Republican Party.

“Sir, I appeal to your sense of justice and humanity — the same qualities that have inspired millions of Americans to believe in you,” he wrote in the South Shore Press on Monday. “I humbly ask that you consider the unusual pain and hardship of this environment and allow me the opportunity to return to my family, my friends, and my community.”

Santos’ commutation is Trump’s latest high-profile act of clemency for former Republican politicians since retaking the White House in January.

Like Santos, Trump has been convicted of fraud. He was found guilty last year on 34 felony counts in a case related to paying hush money to a porn actor. He is the only president in U.S. history convicted of a felony.

In granting clemency to Santos, Trump was rewarding a figure who has drawn scorn from within his own party.

After becoming the first openly gay Republican elected to Congress in 2022, Santos served less than a year after it was revealed that he had fabricated much of his life story.

On the campaign trail, Santos had claimed he was a successful business consultant with Wall Street cred and a sizable real estate portfolio. But when his resume came under scrutiny, Santos eventually admitted he had never graduated from Baruch College — or been a standout player on the Manhattan college’s volleyball team, as he had claimed. He had never worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs.

He wasn’t even Jewish. Santos insisted he meant he was “Jew-ish” because his mother’s family had a Jewish background, even though he was raised Catholic.

In truth, the then-34-year-old was struggling financially and faced eviction.

Santos was charged in 2023 with stealing from donors and his campaign, fraudulently collecting unemployment benefits and lying to Congress about his wealth.

Within months, he was expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives — with 105 Republicans joining with Democrats to make Santos just the sixth member in the chamber’s history to be ousted by colleagues.

Santos pleaded guilty as he was set to stand trial.

Still, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) urged the White House to commute Santos’ sentence, saying in a letter sent just days into his prison term that the punishment was “a grave injustice” and a product of judicial overreach.

Greene was among those who cheered the announcement Friday. But Rep. Nick LaLota, a Republican who represents part of Long Island and has been highly critical of Santos, said in a post on social media that Santos “didn’t merely lie” and his crimes “warrant more than a three-month sentence.”

“He should devote the rest of his life to demonstrating remorse and making restitution to those he wronged,” LaLota said.

Santos’ clemency appears to clear not just his prison term, but also any “further fines, restitution, probation, supervised release, or other conditions,” according to a copy of Trump’s order posted on X by Ed Martin, the Justice Department’s pardon attorney.

As part of his guilty plea, Santos had agreed to pay restitution of $373,750 and forfeiture of $205,003.

In explaining his reason for granting Santos clemency, Trump claimed the lies Santos told about himself were no worse than misleading statements U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal — a Democrat and frequent critic of the administration —had made about his military record.

Blumenthal apologized 15 years ago for implying that he served in Vietnam, when he was stateside in the Marine Reserve during the war. The senator was never accused of violating any law.

“This is far worse than what George Santos did, and at least Santos had the Courage, Conviction, and Intelligence to ALWAYS VOTE REPUBLICAN!” Trump wrote.

Marcelo writes for the Associated Press. AP writers Michael R. Sisak in New York and Susan Haigh in Connecticut contributed to this report.

LAS VEGAS — Aaron Mahan is a lifelong Republican who twice voted for Donald Trump.

He had high hopes putting a businessman in the White House and, although he found the president’s monster ego grating, Mahan voted for his reelection. Mostly, he said, out of party loyalty.

By 2024, however, he’d had enough.

“I just saw more of the bad qualities, more of the ego,” said Mahan, who’s worked for decades as a food server on and off the Las Vegas Strip. “And I felt like he was at least partially running to stay out of jail.”

Mahan couldn’t bring himself to support Kamala Harris. He’s never backed a Democrat for president. So when illness overtook him on election day, it was a good excuse to stay in bed and not vote.

He’s no Trump hater, Mahan said. “I don’t think he’s evil.” Rather, the 52-year-old calls himself “a Trump realist,” seeing the good and the bad.

Here’s Mahan’s reality: A big drop in pay. Depletion of his emergency savings. Stress every time he pulls into a gas station or visits the supermarket.

Mahan used to blithely toss things in his grocery cart. “Now,” he said, “you have to look at prices, because everything is more expensive.”

In short, he’s living through the worst combination of inflation and economic malaise he’s experienced since he began waiting tables after finishing high school.

Views of the 47th president, from the ground up

Las Vegas lives on tourism, the industry irrigated by rivers of disposable income. The decline of both has resulted in a painful downturn that hurts all the more after the pent-up demand and go-go years following the crippling COVID-19 shutdown.

Over the last 12 months, the number of visitors has dropped significantly and those who do come to Las Vegas are spending less. Passenger arrivals at Harry Reid International Airport, a short hop from the Strip, have declined and room nights, a measure of hotel occupancy, have also fallen.

Mahan, who works at the Virgin resort casino just off the Strip, blames the slowdown in large part on Trump’s failure to tame inflation, his tariffs and pugnacious immigration and foreign policies that have antagonized people — and prospective visitors — around the world.

“His general attitude is, ‘I’m going to do what I’m going to do, and you’re going to like it or leave it.’ And they’re leaving it,” Mahan said. “The Canadians aren’t coming. The Mexicans aren’t coming. The Europeans aren’t coming in the way they did. But also the people from Southern California aren’t coming the way they did either.”

Mahan has a way of describing the buckling blow to Las Vegas’ economy. He calls it “the Trump slump.”

::

Mahan was an Air Force brat who lived throughout the United States and, for a time, in England before his father retired from the military and started looking for a place to settle.

Mahan’s mother grew up in Sacramento and liked the mountains that ring Las Vegas. They reminded her of the Sierra Nevada. Mahan’s father had worked intermittently as a bartender. It was a skill of great utility in Nevada’s expansive hospitality industry.

So the desert metropolis it was.

Mahan was 15 when his family landed. After high school, he attended college for a time and started working in the coffee shop at the Barbary Coast hotel and casino. He then moved on to the upscale Gourmet Room. The money was good; Mahan had found his career.

From there he moved to Circus Circus and then, in 2005, the Hard Rock hotel and casino, where he’s been ever since. (In 2018, Virgin Hotels purchased the Hard Rock.)

Mahan, who’s single with no kids, learned to roll with the vicissitudes of the hospitality business. “As a food server, there’s always going to be slowdowns and takeoffs,” he said over lunch at a dim sum restaurant in a Las Vegas strip mall.

Mahan socked money away during the summer months and hunkered down in the slow times, before things started picking up around the New Year. He weathered the Great Recession, from 2007 to 2009, when Nevada led the nation in foreclosures, bankruptcies soared and tumbleweeds blew through Las Vegas’ many overbuilt, financially underwater subdivisions.

This economy feels worse.

Over the last 12 months, Las Vegas has drawn fewer visitors and those who have come are spending less.

(David Becker / For The Times)

With tourism off, the hotel where Mahan works changed from a full-service coffee shop to a limited-hour buffet. So he’s no longer waiting tables. Instead, he mans a to-go window, making drinks and handing food to guests, which brings him a lot less in tips. He estimates his income has fallen $2,000 a month.

But it’s not just that his paychecks have grown considerably skinnier. They don’t go nearly as far.

Gasoline. Eggs. Meat. “Everything,” Mahan said, “is costing more.”

An admitted soda addict, he used to guzzle Dr Pepper. “You’d get three bottles for four bucks,” Mahan said. “Now they’re $3 each.”

He’s cut back as a result.

Worse, his air conditioner broke last month and the $14,000 that Mahan spent replacing it — along with a costly filter he needs for allergies — pretty much wiped out his emergency fund.

It feels as though Mahan is just barely getting by and he’s not at all optimistic things will improve anytime soon.

“I’m looking forward,” he said, to the day Trump leaves office.

::

Mahan considers himself fairly apolitical. He’d rather knock a tennis ball around than debate the latest goings-on in Washington.

He likes some of the things Trump has accomplished, such as securing the border with Mexico — though Mahan is not a fan of the zealous immigration raids scooping up landscapers and tamale vendors.

He’s glad about the no-tax-on-tips provision in the massive legislative package passed last spring, though, “I’m still being taxed at the same rate and there’s no extra money coming in right now.” He’s waiting to see what happens when he files his tax return next year.

He’s not counting on much. “I’m never convinced of anything,” Mahan said. “Until I see it.”

Something else is poking around the back of his mind.

Mahan is a shop steward with the Culinary Union, the powerhouse labor organization that’s helped make Las Vegas one of the few places in the country where a waiter, such as Mahan, can earn enough to buy a home in an upscale suburb like nearby Henderson. (He points out that he made the purchase in 2012 and probably couldn’t afford it in today’s economy.)

Mahan worries that once Trump is done targeting immigrants, federal workers and Democratic-run cities, he’ll come after organized labor, undermining one of the foundational building blocks that helped him climb into the middle class.

“He is a businessman and most businesspeople don’t like dealing with unions,” Mahan said.

There are a few bright spots in Las Vegas’ economic picture. Convention bookings are up slightly for the year, and look to be strengthening. Gaming revenues have increased year-over-year. The workforce is still growing.

“This community’s streets are not littered with people that have been laid off,” said Jeremy Aguero, a principal analyst with Applied Analysis, a firm that provides economic and fiscal policy counsel in Las Vegas.

“The layoff trends, unemployment insurance, they’ve edged up,” Aguero said. “But they’re certainly not wildly elevated in comparison to other periods of instability.”

That, however, offers small solace for Mahan as he makes drinks, hands over takeout food and carefully watches his wallet.

If he knew then what he knows now, what would the Aaron of 2016 — the one so full of hope for a Trump presidency — say to the Aaron of today?

Mahan paused, his chopsticks hovering over a custard dumpling.

“Prepare,” he said, “for a bumpy ride.”

Maria worked cleaning schools in Florida for $13 an hour. Every two weeks, she’d get a $900 paycheck from her employer, a contractor. Not much — but enough to cover rent in the house that she and her 11-year-old son share with five families, plus electricity, a cellphone and groceries.

In August, it all ended.

When she showed up at the job one morning, her boss told her that she couldn’t work there anymore. The Trump administration had terminated the Biden administration’s humanitarian parole program, which provided legal work permits for Cubans, Haitians, Venezuelans and Nicaraguans like Maria.

“I feel desperate,’’ said Maria, 48, who requested anonymity to talk about her ordeal because she fears being detained and deported. “I don’t have any money to buy anything. I have $5 in my account. I’m left with nothing.’’

President Trump’s sweeping crackdown on immigration is throwing foreigners like Maria out of work and shaking the American economy and job market. And it’s happening at a time when hiring is already deteriorating amid uncertainty over Trump’s tariffs and other trade policies.

Immigrants do jobs — cleaning houses, picking tomatoes, painting fences — that most native-born Americans won’t, and for less money. But they also bring the technical skills and entrepreneurial energy that have helped make the United States the world’s economic superpower.

Trump is attacking immigration at both ends of the spectrum, deporting low-wage laborers and discouraging skilled foreigners from bringing their talents to the United States.

And he is targeting an influx of foreign workers that eased labor shortages and upward pressure on wages and prices at a time when most economists thought that taming inflation would require sky-high interest rates and a recession — a fate the United States escaped in 2023 and 2024.

“Immigrants are good for the economy,’’ said Lee Branstetter, an economist at Carnegie-Mellon University. “Because we had a lot of immigration over the past five years, an inflationary surge was not as bad as many people expected.”

More workers filling more jobs and spending more money has also helped drive economic growth and create still more job openings. Economists worry that Trump’s deportations and limits on even legal immigration will do the reverse.

In a July report, researchers Wendy Edelberg and Tara Watson of the centrist Brookings Institution and Stan Veuger of the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute calculated that the loss of foreign workers will mean that monthly U.S. job growth “could be near zero or negative in the next few years.’’

Hiring has already slowed significantly, averaging a meager 29,000 a month from June through August. (The September jobs report has been delayed by the ongoing shutdown of the federal government.) During the post-pandemic hiring boom of 2021-23, by contrast, employers added a stunning 400,000 jobs a month.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, citing fallout from Trump’s immigration and trade policies, downgraded its forecast for U.S. economic growth this year to 1.4% from the 1.9% it had previously expected and from 2.5% in 2024.

‘We need these people’

Goodwin Living, an Alexandria, Va., nonprofit that provides senior housing, healthcare and hospice services, had to lay off four employees from Haiti after the Trump administration terminated their work permits. The Haitians had been allowed to work under a humanitarian parole program and had earned promotions at Goodwin.

“That was a very, very difficult day for us,” Chief Executive Rob Liebreich said. “It was really unfortunate to have to say goodbye to them, and we’re still struggling to fill those roles.’’

Liebreich is worried that 60 additional immigrant workers could lose their temporary legal right to live and work in the United States. “We need all those hands,’’ he said. “We need all these people.”

Goodwin Living has 1,500 employees, 60% of them from foreign countries. It has struggled to find enough nurses, therapists and maintenance staff. Trump’s immigration crackdown, Liebreich said, is “making it harder.’’

The ICE crackdown

Trump’s immigration ambitions, intended to turn back what he calls an “invasion’’ at America’s southern border and secure jobs for U.S.-born workers, were once viewed with skepticism because of the money and economic disruption required to reach his goal of deporting 1 million people a year. But legislation that Trump signed into law July 4 — and which Republicans named the One Big Beautiful Bill Act — suddenly made his plans plausible.

The law pours $150 billion into immigration enforcement, setting aside $46.5 billion to hire 10,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and $45 billion to increase the capacity of immigrant detention centers.

And his empowered ICE agents have shown a willingness to move fast and break things — even when their aggression conflicts with other administration goals.

Last month, immigration authorities raided a Hyundai battery plant in Georgia, detained 300 South Korean workers and showed video of some of them shackled in chains. They’d been working to get the plant up and running, bringing expertise in battery technology and Hyundai procedures that local American workers didn’t have.

The incident enraged the South Koreans and ran counter to Trump’s push to lure foreign manufacturers to invest in America. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung warned that the country’s other companies might be reluctant about betting on America if their workers couldn’t get visas promptly and risked getting detained.

Sending Medicaid recipients to the fields

America’s farmers are among the president’s most dependable supporters.

But John Boyd Jr., who farms 1,300 acres of soybeans, wheat and corn in southern Virginia, said that the immigration raids — and the threat of them — are hurting farmers already contending with low crop prices, high costs and fallout from Trump’s trade war with China, which has stopped buying U.S. soybeans and sorghum.

“You’ve got ICE out here, herding these people up,’’ said Boyd, founder of the National Black Farmers Assn. “[Trump] says they’re murderers and thieves and drug dealers, all this stuff. But these are people who are in this country doing hard work that many Americans don’t want to do.’’

Boyd scoffed at Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins’ suggestion in July that U.S.-born Medicaid recipients could head to the fields to meet work requirements imposed as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “People in the city aren’t coming back to the farm to do this kind of work,’’ he said. “It takes a certain type of person to bend over in 100-degree heat.’’

The Trump administration admits that the immigration crackdown is causing labor shortages on the farm that could translate into higher prices at the supermarket.

“The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce results in significant disruptions to production costs and [threatens] the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers,’’ the Labor Department said in an Oct. 2 filing to the Federal Register.

‘You’re not welcome here’

Jed Kolko of the Peterson Institute for International Economics said that job growth is slowing in businesses that rely on immigrants. Construction companies, for instance, have shed 10,000 jobs since May.

“Those are the short-term effects,’’ said Kolko, a Commerce Department official in the Biden administration. “The longer-term effects are more serious because immigrants traditionally have contributed more than their share of patents, innovation, productivity.’’

Especially worrisome to many economists was Trump’s sudden announcement last month that he was raising the fee on H-1B visas, meant to lure hard-to-find skilled foreign workers to the United States, from as little as $215 to $100,000.

“A $100,000 visa fee is not just a bureaucratic cost — it’s a signal,” said Dany Bahar, senior fellow at the Center for Global Development. “It tells global talent: You are not welcome here.”

Some are already packing up.

In Washington, D.C., one H-1B visa holder, a Harvard graduate from India who works for a nonprofit helping Africa’s poor, said Trump’s signal to employers is clear: Think twice about hiring H-1B visa holders.

The man, who requested anonymity, is already preparing paperwork to move to the United Kingdom.

“The damage is already done, unfortunately,’’ he said.

Associated Press writers Wiseman and Salomon reported from Washington and Miami, respectively. AP writers Fu Ting and Christopher Rugaber in Washington contributed to this report.

Would the Dodgers have paid $4 million for Shohei Ohtani’s production on Friday night?

“Maybe I would have,” team owner Mark Walter said with a laugh.

Four million dollars is how much Ohtani has received from the Dodgers.

Not for the game. Not for the week. Not for the year.

For this year and last year.

Ohtani could be the greatest player in baseball history. Is he also the greatest free-agent acquisition of all-time?

“You bet,” Walter said.

Even before Ohtani blasted three homers and struck out 10 batters over six scoreless innings in a historic performance to secure his team’s place in the World Series, the Dodgers were a target of complaints over the perception they were buying championships. Their payroll this season is more than $416 million, according to Spotrac.

During the on-field celebration that followed the 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series, manager Dave Roberts told the Dodger Stadium crowd, “I’ll tell you, before this season started, they said the Dodgers are ruining baseball. Let’s get four more wins and really ruin baseball!”

What detractors ignore is how the Dodgers aren’t the only team that spent big dollars this year to chase a title. As Ohtani’s contract demonstrates, it’s how they spend that separates them from the sport’s other wealthy franchises.

The New York Mets spent more than $340 million, the New York Yankees $319 million and the Philadelphia Phillies $308 million. None of them are still playing.

The Dodgers are still playing, and one of the reasons is because of how opportunistic they are.

When the Boston Red Sox were looking for a place to dump Mookie Betts before he became a free agent, the Dodgers traded for him and signed him to an extension. When the Atlanta Braves refused to extend a six-year offer to Freddie Freeman, the Dodgers stepped in and did.

Something else that helps: Players want to play for them.

Consider the case of the San Francisco Giants, who can’t talk star players into taking their money.

The Giants pursued Bryce Harper, who turned them down. They pursued Aaron Judge, who turned them down. They pursued Ohtani, who turned them down. They pursued Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who turned them down.

Notice a pattern?

Unable to recruit an impact hitter in free agency, the Giants turned their attention to the trade market and acquired a distressed asset in malcontent Rafael Devers. They still missed the postseason.

The Dodgers don’t have any such problems attracting talent. Classified as an international amateur because he was under the age of 25, Roki Sasaki was eligible to sign only a minor-league contract this winter. While the signing bonuses that could be offered varied from team to team, the differences were relatively small. Sasaki was urged by his agent to minimize financial considerations when picking a team.

Sasaki chose the Dodgers.

Players such as Blake Snell, Will Smith and Max Muncy signed what could be below-market deals to come to or stay with the Dodgers.

There is also the Ohtani factor.

Ohtani didn’t want the team that signed him to be financially hamstrung, which is why he insisted that it defer the majority of his 10-year, $700-million contract. The Dodgers are paying Ohtani just $2 million annually, with the remainder owed after he retires.

Without Ohtani agreeing to delayed payments, who knows if the Dodgers would have signed the other pitchers who comprise their dominant rotation, Yamamoto, Snell and Tyler Glasnow.

None of this is to say the Dodgers haven’t made any mistakes, the $102 million they committed to Trevor Bauer a decision they would certainly like to take back.

But the point is they spend.

“We put money into the team, as you know,” Walter said. “We’re trying to win.”

Nothing is stopping any other team from making the financial commitments necessary to compete with the Dodgers. Franchises don’t have to make annual profits to be lucrative, as their values have skyrocketed. Teams that were purchased for hundreds of millions of dollars are now worth billions.

Example: Arte Moreno bought the Angels in 2003 for $183.5 million. Forbes values them today at $2.75 billion. If or when Moreno sells the team, he will receive a huge return on his investment.

The calls for a salary cap are nothing more than justifications by cheap owners for their refusal to invest in the civic institutions under their control.

The Dodgers aren’t ruining baseball. They might not do everything right, but as far as their spending is concerned, they’re doing right by their fans.

Good morning, and welcome to L.A. on the Record — our City Hall newsletter. It’s David Zahniser, with an assist from Rebecca Ellis, Noah Goldberg and the esteemed Julia Wick, giving you the latest on city and county government.

For nearly three years, Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia has been trying to use his office to dig deep on the city’s homelessness programs — how they’re run and, more importantly, how effective they are.

The road so far has been a bit bumpy.

Early in his tenure, Mejia sent staffers to the Westside to monitor Mayor Karen Bass’ Inside Safe program, which moves unhoused people into hotels and motels. He quickly pulled back after facing resistance within City Hall.

A year later, Mejia offered to have his office conduct a court-ordered audit of the city’s homelessness programs. The work went to a private firm instead, at a cost to taxpayers of nearly $3 million.

Mejia also promised to produce a “focused audit” on Inside Safe, the mayor’s signature homelessness initiative, which has not materialized.

At one point, he even posted an Instagram video of himself and his staff doing choreographed moves to Kendrick Lamar’s “Not Like Us,” to explain why he hadn’t audited the program. The video displayed the words: “We tried. We tried. We tried.”

But this week, the city’s top accountant got his big break, securing a plum role in the high-stakes legal battle over homelessness between the city and the nonprofit L.A. Alliance for Human Rights. That fight hinges on whether the city is living up to its commitment, enshrined in a legal settlement, to clear encampments and build more homeless beds.

On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge David O. Carter assigned attorney Daniel Garrie, an expert in cybersecurity and computer forensics, as a new third-party monitor to determine whether the city is truly on track to open 12,915 new homeless beds and remove nearly 10,000 encampments, as required by the settlement.

Carter tapped Mejia to serve as a liaison between Garrie and the city, calling him the “most knowledgeable person” on homelessness funding. In a six-page order, the judge said the city controller would support Garrie by “facilitating data access.” He also said Mejia would be less expensive than former City Controller Ron Galperin, who was also under consideration and expected to charge $800 an hour.

The judge’s order was well-timed, coming at a moment of heightened scrutiny over homelessness initiatives in L.A. and across the region.

On Thursday, federal prosecutors accused two real estate executives of misappropriating millions of dollars in state funds allocated in the region’s fight against homelessness. According to prosecutors, one of them engaged in bank fraud, identity theft and money laundering — purchasing a property on L.A.’s Westside and quickly flipping it for more than double the price to Weingart Center Assn., a nonprofit housing developer that received city funds to build interim homeless housing.

Mayoral candidate Austin Beutner, the former schools superintendent who spent some time at City Hall, also turned up the heat, calling this week for Bass to let Mejia audit the city’s homeless programs. He made that pitch after Rand researchers concluded that the region’s yearly homeless count is not accurately tracking homeless people who don’t live in tents or cars.

“The Mayor is blocking the elected Controller from auditing the City’s efforts,” Beutner said on X. “We need an immediate audit to tell us how much is being spent, on what, and whether it’s having any impact.”

Bass spokesperson Clara Karger, in an email to The Times, said the mayor and the city controller “work well together” on various issues, including a recent audit of the city’s housing department.

Asked whether Bass refused to participate in Mejia’s planned Inside Safe audit last year, Karger replied: “A city elected official should not conduct a performance audit of another elected official.”

“Inside Safe has robust oversight systems in place,” she said. “There are hundreds of pages of publicly available reports on Inside Safe and an assessment of Inside Safe was completed under the Alliance settlement.”

City Atty. Hydee Feldstein Soto declined to weigh in on Carter’s order. But she has previously pointed to a 16-year-old legal ruling barring the city controller from conducting performance audits of other elected officials.

“The legal advice from the City Attorney’s Office is known to our clients and has not changed over the years,” said Feldstein Soto spokesperson Karen Richardson.

The judge’s order may only be the beginning.

Mejia has been urging the city’s Charter Reform Commission to propose language that clearly gives him the power to audit programs overseen by his fellow elected officials. Such a move would erase any doubts about whether he has the legal standing to scrutinize Inside Safe.

The debate over the powers of the city controller goes back decades. In 2008, then-City Controller Laura Chick clashed with City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo over her attempt to audit his office’s workers compensation unit. The following year, right before Chick left office, a judge sided with Delgadillo and found that the controller lacked the authority for the audit.

In the short term, Carter’s order could give Mejia new leeway to identify lax oversight of L.A.’s homelessness programs, offering the public fresh insight into how closely they are tracked, and possibly identifying waste or fraud.

Mejia declined interview requests from The Times. Last month in federal court, he dazzled Carter with his office’s online dashboards, which show expenditures not just for Inside Safe but many other homelessness programs.

Carter praised the work of Mejia and his team, according to a transcript of the proceedings. Mejia, in turn, said his office enjoys the work but sometimes struggles to carry it out with its existing staff.

“Some of these contracts are 400 pages,” he said. “And so right now, we have a two-person team who is doing all of that and putting all this together.”

Attorney Elizabeth Mitchell, who represents the L.A. Alliance, welcomed the selection of Mejia, saying he’s clearly been pushing to get more involved in the case.

“My only concern is, I don’t know if he will engender a lot of cooperation from the city, because they don’t seem inclined to cooperate with him,” Mitchell said.

That wasn’t the message from Councilmember Tim McOsker, who voiced alarm in recent months over the costly bills submitted by the outside law firm handling the L.A. Alliance case for the city. McOsker, who spent several years in the city attorney’s office, expressed confidence in Mejia’s abilities and said the decision to pick him would be cost effective.

“It is imperative that we give value to the taxpayers of the city of Los Angeles,” he said.

State of play

— BEUTNERPALOOZA: After weeks of speculation, Beutner jumped into the June 2026 race for mayor. His team got off to a choppy start last weekend, uploading “Austin for LA Mayor” images to his social media accounts before he had even made a formal announcement, then abruptly taking them down. Hours later, Beutner formally went public, blasting Bass over the city’s handling of the Palisades fire, which destroyed his mother-in-law’s home and severely damaged his Pacific Palisades home.

By Monday, Beutner had released a video announcing his campaign, which assailed Trump over his immigration crackdown. Two days later, he appeared with supporters in San Pedro, repeating his warning that the city is “adrift.”

— DEFINE ADRIFT: The following morning, Bass joined former Councilmember Mike Bonin, director of the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, to discuss politics, leadership and her tenure. She took issue with Beutner’s characterization of L.A. as “adrift,” saying the city has been through “multiple shocks this year,” including a catastrophic firestorm and “being invaded” by federal authorities in June.

The talk took place on the 72nd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower, offering a staggeringly beautiful post-rain city view, which offers a good excuse to revisit former California poet laureate Dana Gioia’s classic poem, “Los Angeles After the Rain.”

— FIERCE AMBITION: Is L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath running for mayor of Los Angeles? The former West Hollywood mayor hasn’t ruled it out — and moved to the city a few months ago.

— WE’RE NOT IN TEXAS ANYMORE: Two more plaintiffs in L.A. County’s $4-billion sex abuse settlement have come forward to say they were told to invent their claims in exchange for cash. The allegations follow a Times investigation published earlier this month that found seven plaintiffs who claimed they received cash from recruiters to sue the county over sex abuse. Downtown LA Law Group, which filed cases for the plaintiffs, has denied involvement with the alleged recruiters.

— BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE: Meanwhile, the county is preparing to pay out an additional $828 million to another group of plaintiffs who say they were sexually abused in county facilities.

— GETTING OUT THE VOTE: Real estate developer Rick Caruso, the is-he-or-isn’t-he potential mayoral/gubernatorial candidate, is sending mailers to more than 45,000 voters who lived in fire-damaged sections of Pacific Palisades, Malibu and Altadena and now have temporary addresses. He advised them on how to update their voter registration by listing a temporary mailing address while also remaining in their original voting district, according to a Caruso spokesperson. Caruso is paying for the effort, which is nonpartisan and doesn’t mention any specific election. His team declined to provide the cost.

—SPEAKING OF CARUSO: Politico took a look at the mall magnate’s recent travels around the state, which have fueled speculation that he’s leaning toward a gubernatorial bid. The outlet reported that Caruso, who self-financed his 2022 mayoral campaign, recently met with Democratic megadonors Haim Saban and Ari Emanuel.

— THREE’S COMPANY: East Hollywood resident Dylan Kendall filed paperwork this week to challenge incumbent Hugo Soto–Martínez in next year’s race to represent Hollywood, Silver Lake, Echo Park and other neighborhoods. Kendall, a business owner who previously worked at the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, cited quality-of-life issues as the impetus for her candidacy. Political consultant Michael Trujillo and fundraiser Kat Connolly have joined her campaign. (One of Soto-Martínez’s upstairs neighbors, Colter Carlisle, is also running.)

— MORE FALLOUT FROM G: L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport received a $2-million payout this summer after telling the county supervisors she had experienced professional fallout from Measure G, a voter-approved ballot measure that will soon make her job obsolete.

— 1,000 DAYS LEFT: Bass reminded Angelenos on Friday that the start of the 2028 Olympic Games is just 1,000 days away. Appearing in Venice, she signed an executive directive streamlining preparations for the international event.

— BYE, JULIA: We are super bummed to report that this was erstwhile City Hall reporter Julia Wick‘s last week at The Times. She will miss all of you. But she says please keep in touch!

QUICK HITS

• Where is Inside Safe? The mayor’s signature program to combat homelessness went to Hollywood this week, focusing on the area around Santa Monica Boulevard and Heliotrope Drive in Soto-Martínez’s district.
• On the docket next week: The council’s public works committee takes up the issue of long-delayed sidewalk repairs, including the city’s obligations to make them wheelchair accessible.

Stay in touch

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

Hi and welcome to another edition of Dodgers Dugout. My name is Houston Mitchell. I don’t know why everyone is carrying on about Shohei Ohtani, after all, he did give up two hits and walked three batters.

—I was under the impression that David Corenswet was going to be the new Superman. Apparently, I was wrong.

—So, I’m sitting there watching as Ohtani hits three home runs, strikes out 10 and pitches six shutout innings and wondering what to write about it. There are no words.

—Every Dodgers fan, heck, every baseball fan should pause for a moment and make sure they realize just what an amazing athlete we are watching.

—And to do it all with such apparent grace and humility. All you can say is “Wow!”

—Not everyone in my family is as hardcore a baseball fan as I am, but they all realize what an amazing thing this is.

—Colleague Bill Plaschke tried to explain it here.

—OK, maybe the NLCS will be a cakewalk after all.

—Judging just by body language, it looked like the Brewers gave up sometime in the middle of Game 3.

—Brewers manager Pat Murphy spent most of the series telling the media how much the Dodgers spend and how great they are and that’s how the Brewers played, like they were just lucky to be on the same field.

—Dave Roberts is managing the bullpen beautifully, just like he did last season. Blake Treinen doesn’t have it in Game 4, then he gets Trienen out of there as soon as he can.

—Anthony Banda should be high on the trust tree right now. He looks very good out there.

—The Dodgers only had to use 18 players from their 26-man roster to beat the Brewers. Not appearing at all in the NLCS: Position players Hyeseong Kim, Miguel Rojas and Ben Rortvedt and pitchers Ben Casparius, Jack Dreyer, Clayton Kershaw, Emmet Sheehan and Justin Wrobleski. Justin Dean appeared in every game but never batted.

—Just to show it’s a team game, if you take away Ohtani’s three homers, the Dodgers still win Game 4.

—They gave the NLCS MVP award to Ohtani, but consider this: Seven different Dodgers drove in at least one run, six Dodgers scored at least one run, eight Dodgers drew at least one walk.

—The Dodgers had 14 extra-base hits in the series. The Brewers had 14 hits, period.

—Dodgers starting pitchers threw 28.2 innings, gave up only nine hits and seven walks while striking out 35 and had an ERA of 0.63.

—The bullpen threw 7.1 innings, gave up five hits and four walks while striking out six and had a 2.46 ERA.

—This is only the second time the Dodgers swept a best-of-seven series. The other time was in the 1963 World Series, whose starting pitchers were also dominant (they threw 35.1 of a possible 36 innings).

—Speaking of which, up next is the World Series. But we aren’t going to worry about that today, or this weekend. It starts next Friday against either Toronto or Seattle. And I’m telling you now, the Dodgers are going to win that series too.

—But in the meantime, enjoy the weekend. Series like this make it easy to remember that this is supposed to be fun.

Poll time

Which team would you like the Dodgers to play in the World Series, Seattle or Toronto?

Click here to vote in our survey.

In case you missed it

Plaschke: ‘Ohhhhhtani!’ Immortal Shohei Ohtani blasts Dodgers to the World Series

Another champagne celebration for the Dodgers, who still want one more

Shohei Ohtani’s unprecedented performance lifts Dodgers back into the World Series

Hernández: Did the Dodgers figure out their bullpen issues? Roki Sasaki is only part of the story

Shaikin: Shohei Ohtani could pull off a playoff feat even Babe Ruth never achieved

Plaschke: Are these Dodgers the best postseason team in baseball history? They will be

And finally

Highlights from Game 4 of the NLCS. Watch and listen here.

Until next time…

Have a comment or something you’d like to see in a future Dodgers newsletter? Email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

SAN FRANCISCO — About 24 hours after President Trump declared San Francisco such a crime-ridden “mess” that he was recommending federal forces be sent to restore order, Manit Limlamai, 43, and Kai Saetern, 32, rolled their eyes at the suggestion.

The pair — both in the software industry — were with friends Thursday in Dolores Park, a vibrant green space with sweeping views of downtown, playing volleyball under a blue sky and shining autumn sun. All around them, people sat on benches with books, flew kites, played with dogs or otherwise lounged away the afternoon on blankets in the grass.

Both Limlamai and Saetern said San Francisco of course has issues, and some rougher neighborhoods — but that’s any city.

“I’ve lived here for 10 years and I haven’t felt unsafe, and I’ve lived all over the city,” Saetern said. “Every city has its problems, and I don’t think San Francisco is any different,” but “it’s not a hellscape,” said Limlamai, who has been in the city since 2021.

Both said Trump’s suggestion that he might send in troops was more alarming than reassuring — especially, Limlamai said, on top of his recent remark that American cities should serve as “training grounds” for U.S. military forces.

“I don’t think that’s appropriate at all,” he said. “The military is not trained to do what needs to be done in these cities.”

Across San Francisco, residents, visitors and prominent local leaders expressed similar ideas — if not much sharper condemnation of any troop deployment. None shied away from the fact that San Francisco has problems, especially with homelessness. Several also mentioned a creeping urban decay, and that the city needs a bit of a polish.

But federal troops? That was a hard no.

A range of people on Market Street in downtown San Francisco on Thursday.

“It’s just more of [Trump’s] insanity,” said Peter Hill, 81, as he played chess in a slightly edgier park near City Hall. Hill said using troops domestically was a fascist power play, and “a bad thing for the entire country.”

“It’s fascism,” agreed local activist Wendy Aragon, who was hailing a cab nearby. Her Latino family has been in the country for generations, she said, but she now fears speaking Spanish on the street given that immigration agents have admitted targeting people who look or sound Latino, and troops in the city would only exacerbate those fears. “My community is under attack right now.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) said troop deployments to the city were “completely unnecessary” and “typical Trump: petty, vindictive retaliation.”

“He wants to attack anyone who he perceives as an enemy, and that includes cities, and so he started with L.A. and Southern California because of its large immigrant community, and then he proceeded to cities with large Black populations like Chicago, and now he’s moving on to cities that are just perceived as very lefty like Portland and now San Francisco,” Wiener said.

Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, defended such deployments and noted crime reductions in cities, including Washington, D.C., and Memphis, where local officials — including D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat — have embraced them.

“America’s once great cities have descended into chaos and crime as a result of Democrat policies that put criminals first and law-abiding citizens last. Making America Safe Again — especially crime-ridden cities — was a key campaign promise from the President that the American people elected him to fulfill,” Jackson said. “San Francisco Democrats should look at the tremendous results in DC and Memphis and listen to fellow Democrat Mayor Bowser and welcome the President in to clean up their city.”

A police officer shuts the door to his car after a person was allegedly caught carrying a knife near a sign promoting an AI-powered museum exhibit in downtown San Francisco.

A presidential ‘passion’

San Francisco — a bastion of liberal politics that overwhelmingly voted against Trump in the last election — has been derided by the conservative right for generations as a great American jewel lost to destructive progressive policies.

With its tech-heavy economy and downtown core hit hard by the pandemic and the nation’s shift toward remote work, the city has had a particularly rough go in recent years, which only exacerbated its image as a city in decline. That it produced some of Trump’s most prominent political opponents — including Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Vice President Kamala Harris — has only made it more of a punching bag.

In August, Trump suggested San Francisco needed federal intervention. “You look at what the Democrats have done to San Francisco — they’ve destroyed it,” he said in the Oval Office. “We’ll clean that one up, too.”

Then, earlier this month, to the chagrin of liberal leaders across the city, Marc Benioff, the billionaire Salesforce founder and Time magazine owner who has long been a booster of San Francisco, said in an interview with the New York Times that he supported Trump and welcomed Guard troops in the city.

“We don’t have enough cops, so if they can be cops, I’m all for it,” Benioff said, just as his company was preparing to open its annual Dreamforce convention in the city, complete with hundreds of private security officers.

The U.S. Constitution generally precludes military forces from serving in police roles in the U.S.

On Friday, Benioff reversed himself and apologized for his earlier stance. “Having listened closely to my fellow San Franciscans and our local officials, and after the largest and safest Dreamforce in our history, I do not believe the National Guard is needed to address safety in San Francisco,” he wrote on X.

He also apologized for “the concern” his earlier support for troops in the city had caused, and praised San Francisco’s new mayor, Daniel Lurie, for bringing crime down.

Billionaire Elon Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, also called for federal intervention in the city, writing on his X platform that downtown San Francisco is “a drug zombie apocalypse” and that federal intervention was “the only solution at this point.”

Trump made his latest remarks bashing San Francisco on Wednesday, again from the Oval Office.

Trump said it was “one of our great cities 10 years ago, 15 years ago,” but “now it’s a mess” — and that he was recommending federal forces move into the city to make it safer. “I’m gonna be strongly recommending — at the request of government officials, which is always nice — that you start looking at San Francisco,” he said to leading members of his law enforcement team.

Trump did not specify exactly what sort of deployment he meant, or which kinds of federal forces might be involved. He also didn’t say which local officials had allegedly requested help — a claim Wiener called a lie.

“Every American deserves to live in a community where they’re not afraid of being mugged, murdered, robbed, raped, assaulted or shot, and that’s exactly what our administration is working to deliver,” Trump said, before adding that sending federal forces into American cities had become “a passion” of his.

Kai Saetern, 32, was playing volleyball in Dolores Park on Thursday. Saetern said he has never felt unsafe living in neighborhoods all over the city for the last 10 years.

Crime is down citywide

The responses from San Francisco, both to Benioff and Trump, came swiftly, ranging from calm discouragement to full-blown outrage.

Lurie did not respond directly, but his office pointed reporters to his recent statements that crime is down 30% citywide, homicides are at a 70-year low, car break-ins are at a 22-year low and tent encampments are at their lowest number on record.

“We have a lot of work to do,” Lurie said. “But I trust our local law enforcement.”

San Francisco Dist. Atty. Brooke Jenkins was much more fiery, writing online that Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem had turned “so-called public safety and immigration enforcement into a form of government sponsored violence against U.S. citizens, families, and ethnic groups,” and that she stood ready to prosecute federal officers if they harm city residents.

Attendees exit the Dreamforce convention downtown on Thursday in San Francisco.

“If you come to San Francisco and illegally harass our residents … I will not hesitate to do my job and hold you accountable just like I do other violators of the law every single day,” she said.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) — whose seat Wiener is reportedly going to seek — said the city “does not want or need Donald Trump’s chaos” and will continue to increase public safety locally and “without the interference of a President seeking headlines.”

Newsom said the use of federal troops in American cities is a “clear violation” of federal law, and that the state was prepared to challenge any such deployment to San Francisco in court, just as it challenged such deployments in Los Angeles earlier this year.

The federal appellate court that oversees California and much of the American West has so far allowed troops to remain in L.A., but is set to continue hearing arguments in the L.A. case soon.

Trump had used anti-immigration enforcement protests in L.A. as a justification to send troops there. In San Francisco, Newsom said, he lacks any justification or “pretext” whatsoever.

“There’s no existing protest at a federal building. There’s no operation that’s being impeded. I guess it’s just a ‘training ground’ for the President of United States,” Newsom said. “It is grossly illegal, it’s immoral, it’s rather delusional.”

Nancy DeStefanis, 76, a longtime labor and environmental activist who was at San Francisco City Hall on Thursday to complain about Golden Gate Park being shut to regular visitors for paid events, was similarly derisive of troops entering the city.

“As far as I’m concerned, and I think most San Franciscans are concerned, we don’t want troops here. We don’t need them,” she said.

Passengers walk past a cracked window from the Civic Center BART station in downtown San Francisco.

‘An image I don’t want to see’

Not far away, throngs of people wearing Dreamforce lanyards streamed in and out of the Moscone Center, heading back and forth to nearby Market Street and pouring into restaurants, coffee shops and take-out joints. The city’s problems — including homelessness and associated grittiness — were apparent at the corners of the crowds, even as chipper convention ambassadors and security officers moved would-be stragglers along.

Not everyone was keen to be identified discussing Trump or safety in the city, with some citing business reasons and others a fear of Trump retaliating against them. But lots of people had opinions.

Sanjiv, a self-described “techie” in his mid-50s, said he preferred to use only his first name because, although he is a U.S. citizen now, he emigrated from India and didn’t want to stick his neck out by publicly criticizing Trump.

He called homelessness a “rampant problem” in San Francisco, but less so than in the past — and hardly something that would justify sending in military troops.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “It’s not like the city’s under siege.”

Claire Roeland, 30, from Austin, Texas, said she has visited San Francisco a handful of times in recent years and had “mixed” experiences. She has family who live in surrounding neighborhoods and find it completely safe, she said, but when she’s in town it’s “predominantly in the business district” — where it’s hard not to be disheartened by the obvious suffering of people with addiction and mental illness and the grime that has accumulated in the emptied-out core.

“There’s a lot of unfortunate urban decay happening, and that makes you feel more unsafe than you actually are,” she said, but there isn’t “any realistic need to send in federal troops.”

She said she doesn’t know what troops would do other than confront homeless people, and “that’s an image I don’t want to see.”

Times staff writer Dakota Smith contributed to this report.

Inside a historic aircraft hangar in Playa Vista, crowds of people gathered on Thursday to browse the latest fashions from handbags to clothing and shoes as they prepared for the holiday shopping season.

These weren’t shoppers or retailer buyers browsing for the latest products. Instead, they were YouTube video creators who were being courted by brands from Lowe’s to Shark Beauty to encourage online audiences to buy their products.

Aaron Ramirez, a 22-year-old influencer who focuses on men’s fashion and lifestyle, stood in front of racks of carefully curated shelves of backpacks as he decided which items he would endorse for his 234,000 YouTube subscribers.

“I can make a video about anything that improves my quality of life and add a link to it,” said Ramirez. “I only recommend products that I really use and really like.”

The San Diego resident was among about 300 creators participating in YouTube’s annual benefit for creators dubbed “Holiday House” that helps internet personalities get ready to sell goods during the busy holiday shopping season.

The event — held at the cavernous converted Google offices that once housed Howard Hughes’ famous Spruce Goose plane — underscores YouTube’s desire to be a bigger player in online shopping by leveraging its relationship with creators to promote products in much the same way that rival TikTok does.

In August, YouTube introduced new tools to help its creators better promote products they plug in their videos. One feature uses AI to identify the optimal place on the screen to put a shopping link when an influencer mentions a product. If a customer clicks on that link and makes a purchase, the creator gets a commission.

Brands that were once skeptical about influencers have embraced them over time as sales-tracking tools have improved and the fan base of video creators has mushroomed.

“It’s like the people that you saw on television and before that the people that you listened to on radio who became the trusted personalities in your life,” Earnest Pettie, a trends insight lead at YouTube, said in an interview. “Oprah’s Favorite Things was a phenomenon because of how trusted Oprah was, so it really is that same phenomenon, just diffused across the creator ecosystem.”

Despite economic uncertainty and tariffs imposed by the Trump administration, shoppers in the U.S. are expected to spend $253.4 billion online this holiday season, up 5.3% from a year ago, according to data firm Adobe Analytics.

Social media platforms have helped drive some of that growth. The market share of online revenue in purchases guided by social media affiliates and partners, including influencers, is expected to grow 14%, according to Adobe Analytics.

Cost-conscious consumers are doing more research on how they spend their money, including watching influencer recommendations. In fact, nearly 60% of 14- to 24-year-olds who go online say their personal style have been influenced by content they’ve seen on the internet, according to YouTube.

“It’s more about discovery, understanding where the best deals are, where the best options are,” said Vivek Pandya, director at Adobe Digital Insights. “Many of these users are getting that guidance from their influencers.”

YouTube is one of the top streaming platforms, harnessing 13.1% of viewing time in August on U.S. TV sets, more than rivals Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, according to Nielsen. And shopping-related videos are especially popular among its viewers, with more than 35 billion hours watched each year, according to YouTube.

With YouTube’s shopping feature, viewers can see products, add them to a cart and make purchases directly from the video they’re watching.

Promoting and enabling one-click e-commerce from video has been huge in China, triggering a wave across Asia and the world of livestreaming and recorded shopping videos. Live commerce, also known as live shopping or livestreaming e-commerce, is a potent mix of streaming, chatting and shopping.

The temptation to shop is turbocharged with algorithms like that of TikTok Shop, enticing people to try more channels and products.

1

2

1. YouTube content creators Diana Extein, left, and Candice Waltrip, right, film clothing try-ons during YouTube’s Holiday House shopping event at Google Spruce Goose on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 in Playa Vista, CA. 2. YouTube content creator Peja Anne, 15, makes a video with beauty products as her mom Kristin Roeder films during YouTube’s Holiday House shopping event at Google Spruce Goose on Thursday, Oct. 16, 2025 in Playa Vista, CA.

A YouTube content creator who declined to give her name browses YouTube’s Holiday House shopping event at Google Spruce Goose on Thursday in Playa Vista, Calif.

YouTube content creator Cheraye Lewis’ channel focuses on lifestyle and fragrance, and a brand deal with Fenty Beauty helped launch her content to larger audiences.

More than 500,000 video creators as of July have signed up to be a part of YouTube Shopping, the company said.

Creators who promote products can make money through ads and brand deals, as well as commissions.

YouTube already shares advertising and subscription revenue with its creators and currently does not take a cut from its shopping tools, said Travis Katz, YouTube Shopping vice president.

“For us, it’s really about connecting the dots,” Katz said. “At YouTube we are first and foremost very focused on, how do we make sure that our creators are successful? This gives a new way for creators to monetize.”

Companies like Austin-based BK Beauty, which was founded by YouTube creator Lisa J, said YouTubers have helped drive sales for their products.

“They’ve built these long-term audiences,” said Sophia Monetti, BK Beauty’s senior manager of social commerce and influencer marketing. “A lot of these creators have established channels. They’ve been around for a decade and have just a really engaged community.”

To be sure, YouTube faces a formidable rival in TikTok, which is a leader in the live shopping space (its parent company, Byte Dance, is being sold to an American investor group so that the hugely popular app can keep operating in the U.S.).

Two years ago, the social video company launched TikTok Shop, working with creators and brands on live shopping shows that encourage viewers to buy products. TikTok had 8 million hours of live shopping sessions in 2024.

YouTube says its size and technology create advantages, along with the loyalty its creators build with fans when it comes to product recommendations.

Bridget Dolan, a director of YouTube Shopping Partnerships, said “shopping has been in YouTube’s DNA from Day One” and that the company has been integrating shopping features into its viewing experience.

YouTube content creators peruse products and film content during YouTube’s Holiday House shopping event at Google Spruce Goose on Thursday in Playa Vista, Calif.

Santa Clarita-based YouTube creator Cheraye Lewis said that YouTube Shopping helped her gain traction and earn a trusting audience through quality recommendations. Lewis, who has 109,000 subscribers on YouTube, makes videos about items such as fragrances and skincare products.

Lewis has been a video creator for eight years and has worked with such companies as Rihanna’s beauty brand Fenty.

“I try to inspire women and men to feel bold and confident through the fragrances that they’re wearing,” Lewis said at the event Thursday. “I give my audience real talk, real authenticity.”

State Sen. Scott Wiener is a strategic and effective legislator who rarely lets emotion make his decisions — much like Nancy Pelosi, whose congressional seat he would like to take.

It has been a wide-open secret for years that Wiener wanted to make a run for federal office when or if Pelosi retired, but he’s also been deferential to the elder stateswoman of California politics and has made it equally clear that he would wait his turn in the brutal and parochial machine of San Francisco politics.

Until now.

The San Francisco Standard broke the news Thursday that Wiener is running on the 2026 ballot, though he has yet to formally announce.

It is news that shocked even those deep in the dog-eat-dog world of S.F. politics and ignited the inevitable news cycle about whether Pelosi (who was instrumental in removing President Biden from the 2024 race for age-related issues) is being Bidened herself. It also ensures a contentious race that will be nationally watched by both MAGA and the progressive left, both of which take issue with Wiener.

Oh, the drama.

Take it for what you will, but a few months after having hip replacement surgery, Pelosi is (literally) back in her stiletto heels and raising beaucoup dollars for Proposition 50, the ballot initiative meant to gerrymander California voting maps to counteract a GOP cheat-fest in Texas.

Yes, she’s 85, but she’s no Joe. She is also, however, no spring chicken. So the national debate on whether Democrats need not just fresh but younger candidates has officially landed in the City by the Bay, though Wiener remains both practical and polite enough to not frame it that way.

He’ll leave that to the journalists, who have hounded Pelosi for months to announce whether she will seek another term, a question she has declined to directly answer. Instead, her team has focused on the looming election for Proposition 50 and said any announcement on her future has to wait after the ballots are counted.

To be fair to Pelosi, she’s gone all-in to both fundraise and campaign for the redistricting effort, and its passage is essential to Democrats having even a shot at winning back any power in the midterms.

If Prop. 50 fails, there is no non-miracle path, except perhaps an unexpected blue wave, through which Democrats can retake a chamber. So Nov. 4 isn’t an arbitrary date. It will determine if there is any possibility of checking Trump’s power grab, and preserving democracy. Personally, I don’t fault Pelosi for being engaged in that fight.

To also be fair to Wiener, his decision to announce now was probably driven more by money and political momentum than by Pelosi’s age.

That’s because Pelosi already has a challenger — the ultra-wealthy progressive Saikat Chakrabarti, a startup millionaire who served as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign manager during her first upset win for Congress in 2018. Chakrabarti has long been an antagonist to Pelosi, and recently announced his candidacy, positioning himself as a disrupter.

In 2019, before the House impeached Trump over his questionable actions involving Ukraine, Chakrabarti tweeted, “Pelosi claims we can’t focus on impeachment because it’s a distraction from kitchen table issues. But I’d challenge you to find voters that can name a single thing House Democrats have done for their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?”

Chakrabarti, who was born the year before Pelosi was first elected to Congress in 1987, has self-funded his campaign with $700,000 and has the financial ability to spend much more. Wiener, in his on-the-down-low shadow campaign, has raised a bit over $1 million, not nearly enough. The primary will be in June and it will be expensive.

Though we have yet to reach Halloween, a stroll down the aisles of any big box store can tell you that Christmas is neigh, a season when fundraising becomes harder — putting pressure on Wiener to raise money as quickly as possible before the winter freeze.

Add to that pressure the fact that Chakrabarti has political skills and growing popularity. He was the tech architect behind a successful push to activate volunteers for both AOC and Bernie Sanders.

An internal poll released a few months ago (and any internal poll must be viewed skeptically) showed Chakrabarti drawing 34% of voters to Pelosi’s 47%. His numbers increased as voters learned more about him — a few have even compared him to New York’s socialist wonder-kid Zohran Mamdani, currently running for mayor against Andrew Cuomo.

The problem with that is that Wiener is not Cuomo. He’s a progressive himself, and one with an established track record of getting stuff done, often progressive stuff.

I’ve watched him for years push ambitious agendas through the statehouse, including bills where I would have bet against him.

Most recently, he wrote the state’s ban on cops, including ICE, wearing masks. Although the feds have said they will ignore the new law, recently signed by Newsom, and it will almost certainly end up in court, it is a worthy message to send about secret police in America.

Wiener also this term passed a controversial housing bill that will increase density around transit hubs, and spearheaded a bill to regulate artificial intelligence.

In past terms, he has successfully forced insurance companies to cover mental health the same way they cover physical health; pushed large companies to disclose their climate impact; and been one of the major proponents of “YIMBY” policies that make it easier to build housing.

He has also passed numerous laws protecting immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights, which has made him a favorite target of the far right. He has received death threats on a regular basis for years, including one from an anti-vaxxer who was convicted on seven counts in 2022 after threatening Wiener and being found in possession of weapons. Wiener doesn’t have Pelosi’s charisma, but he has receipts for getting the job done and handling the vicious vitriol of modern politics.

Unlike Chakrabarti, Wiener has also been a part of San Francisco’s insular community for decades, and has his own base of support — though he is considered a moderate to Chakrabarti’s progressiveness. This is where San Francisco gets wonderfully weird. In nearly any other place, Wiener would be solidly left. But some of his constituents view him as too developer-friendly for his housing policies and have criticized his past policies around expanding conservatorships for mentally ill people.

But still, a recent poll done by EMC research but not released publicly found that 61% of likely primary voters have a favorable opinion of Wiener. That vastly outpaces the 21% that said the same about Chakrabarti or even the 21% who liked Pelosi’s daughter, Christine Pelosi, who has also been mentioned as a possible successor.

Which is all to say that Wiener is in a now-or-never moment. He has popularity but needs momentum and cash. The Democratic Party is in a mess, and the old rules are out the window, even in San Francisco.

So waiting for Pelosi had become a little bit like waiting for Godot, a self-imposed limbo that was more likely to lead to frustration than victory.

Standing behind a lectern emblazoned with the words “Cutting Utility Bills,” Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law last month a package of energy bills that he said “reduces the burden on ratepayers.”

Tucked into one of those bills: a paragraph that could allow Southern California Edison to shift billions of dollars of Eaton fire damage costs to its customers.

Among other things, the bill allows Edison to start charging customers for any Eaton fire costs exceeding the state’s $21-billion wildfire fund.

“I was shocked to see that,” said April Maurath Sommer, executive director of the Wild Tree Foundation, which tracks state government actions on utility-sparked fires. “It’s effectively a bailout.”

Other amendments in the 231-page bill known as SB 254 helped not just Edison, but all three of the state’s biggest for-profit utilities, further limiting the costs that they and their shareholders would face if the companies’ equipment ignited a catastrophic wildfire.

Previous legislation championed by Newsom, a 2019 bill known as AB 1054, already had sharply limited the utilities’ liabilities for wildfires they cause.

Staff in the governor’s office declined a request for an interview. In a statement, Daniel Villasenor, a spokesman for Newsom, called SB 254 “smart public policy, not a giveaway.”

Newsom’s staff noted that the state Public Utilities Commission would later review Eaton fire costs, determining if they were “just and reasonable.” If some costs billed to customers were rejected in that review, Edison shareholders would have to reimburse them for those amounts, the governor’s office said.

According to the legislation, that review of costs isn’t required until all Eaton claims are settled, leaving the possibility that customers would have to cover even costs found to be unreasonable for years.

“That will be expensive news to a lot of people,” said Michael Boccadoro, executive director of the Agricultural Energy Consumers Assn. “It is unfortunately what happens when major policies are done in the final hours of the Legislature with little transparency.”

Damages for the Eaton fire have been estimated to be as high as $45 billion — which could greatly exceed the $21-billion fund.

Homes in Altadena lay in ruins after the Eaton fire.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Sheri Scott, an actuary at Milliman, told state officials in July that insured losses alone range from $13.7 billion to $22.8 billion. That estimate doesn’t include payments to families who were uninsured or underinsured, or compensation for pain and suffering.

The bill allows Edison to issue bonds secured by new payments from its electric customers for Eaton fire costs that can’t be covered by the $21-billion fund.

Kathleen Dunleavy, an Edison spokeswoman, said the company supported the bill’s language because the bonds secured by customer payments provide a lower cost of borrowing than if the company used traditional financing. “Every dollar counts for our customers,” Dunleavy said.

“There are a lot of variables here,” Dunleavy added. “The investigation is ongoing and there is not an estimate of the total cost of the Eaton fire.”

Newsom’s office noted that under the amendments the utilities won’t get to earn a profit on $6 billion of wildfire prevention expenditures. Customers will still have to pay for the costs, but they won’t be charged extra for shareholders’ profit.

Since early this year, Edison, Pacific Gas & Electric and San Diego Gas & Electric had been lobbying Newsom and state legislative leaders, urging them to bolster the $21-billion fund because of concerns it could be exhausted by the Eaton fire’s extraordinary cost.

Videos captured the Jan. 7 inferno igniting under a century-old transmission line that Edison had not used for 50 years. The wildfire swept through Altadena, destroying 9,400 homes and other structures and killing at least 19 people.

Edison now faces hundreds of lawsuits filed by victims. The suits accuse Edison of negligence, claiming it failed to safely maintain its equipment and left in place the unused transmission line, which lawyers say Edison knew posed a fire risk.

“We’ll respond to the allegations in the litigation,” Dunleavy said, adding that the company inspects and maintains idle lines in the same way as its energized lines.

Even though the government’s investigation into the cause has not been released, Edison announced in July that it was starting a program to directly pay victims for damages.

The company has also begun settling with insurance companies that paid out claims for properties they insured in Altadena that were destroyed or damaged.

Limiting Edison’s liability for Eaton fire

The utility is expecting to be reimbursed for most or all of the settlements and the costs of the fire by the $21-billion wildfire fund that Newsom and lawmakers created through the 2019 legislation, according to a July update Edison gave to its investors.

The first $1 billion of damages is covered by an insurance policy paid by its customers.

After state officials warned that the Eaton fire could deplete the state fund, Newsom said in July he was working on a plan to create an additional fund of $18 billion.

Two days before the Legislature was scheduled to recess for the year, three lawmakers added complex language to SB 254 to create what Newsom called the new $18-billion wildfire “continuation account.” Before the bill was amended, consumer groups had been supporting it because it aimed to save electric customers money.

The late amendments required the Legislature to extend its session by a day to meet a state constitutional rule that says proposed legislation must be public for 72 hours before a final vote.

“It’s impossible to believe that legislators could have understood all of this in 72 hours,” Maurath Sommer said. She noted that Newsom’s 2019 law, AB 1054, was introduced and quickly passed in a similar manner. “And it is clear now how poorly that effort fared in achieving the claimed objective of protecting public safety.”

Boccadoro said he believed the amendments were added to a bill favored by consumer groups to give it “some political cover.”

Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris (D-Irvine), one of bill’s authors, said she believed utilities needed protection from wildfire liabilities because of a legal doctrine in California known as inverse condemnation, which makes them responsible for damages even if they weren’t negligent in starting it.

“This is the best possible deal for ratepayers as we navigate the truly devastating impacts of the climate crisis,” Petrie-Norris said of the legislation. The other two authors — state Sens. Josh Becker (D-Menlo Park) and Aisha Wahab (D-Hayward) — did not respond to requests for interviews.

After the bill passed, both Edison and PG&E praised its provisions in presentations for investors.

Edison called the bill “a key action” that demonstrated lawmakers’ support of its “financial stability.”

The amendments added to the protections that utilities gained in 2019 through Newsom’s AB 1054. At that time, PG&E was in bankruptcy proceedings. It had filed for protection after its transmission line was found to have ignited the 2018 Camp fire, which killed 85 people and destroyed most of the town of Paradise.

PG&E explained in a September presentation that before Newsom and lawmakers changed the law in 2019, utilities that wanted to pass fire damage costs to customers “bore the burden of proving” that their conduct related to the blaze was reasonable and prudent.

Newsom’s 2019 law changed that standard, PG&E said, so that the utility’s conduct was automatically deemed reasonable if state regulators had granted the company what the law called a safety certificate.

Since 2019, the state has regularly issued the companies these certificates — even when regulators find maintenance and safety problems.

Edison received a safety certificate less than a month before the Eaton fire, even though it had thousands of open work orders, including some on the transmission lines in the canyon where the fire started.

To get a certificate, the utilities must submit a plan to state regulators for preventing their equipment from sparking fires. They also must tie executive pay to the company’s safety performance, with bonuses expected to take a hit when more fires are sparked or people are killed.

Even though Edison failed at key safety measures last year, The Times found that cash bonuses for four of its top five executives rose. The company said that was because of their performance on responsibilities beyond safety.

With a safety certificate in hand, Edison told investors in July that the maximum it would pay for the Eaton fire under the law’s limit was $3.9 billion, a fraction of the expected costs. The utility said the wildfire fund would reimburse it for all the costs, unless an outside party can raise “serious doubt” that it had not acted reasonably before the fire.

The SB 254 amendments also clarified key language in the 2019 law — clarifications that Edison told investors in September were “constructive for potential Eaton fire losses.”

That language allows utilities that cause repeated major wildfires within a period of three years to reduce what they must pay back to the fund for a second fire if they are found to have acted imprudently.

“This certainly does not seem to encourage utilities to stop causing fires,” Maurath Sommer said of the provision.

Edison’s Dunleavy dismissed concern about the provision. “Safety remains our top priority,” she said.

Campaign contributions to Newsom

The three utilities have long been generous political donors to both Democrats and Republicans in California, including to Newsom and current legislative leaders in Sacramento.

Edison, for example, gave $100,000 to Newsom’s campaign last year to pass the mental health initiative known as Proposition 1.

This summer Edison gave $190,000 to the state Democratic Party, which is helping Newsom campaign for Proposition 50, which would redraw congressional districts.

Newsom’s staff didn’t respond to questions about the contributions.

Dunleavy said that the company’s political donations are not charged to customers. She said Edison gives contributions to politicians who share its commitment to “safely serve our customers.”

Newsom said in 2019 that the bill capping utilities’ fire liabilities would “move our state toward a safer, affordable and reliable energy future.”

He and lawmakers said the law would make the public safer by requiring the utilities to do more to prevent fires, including aggressive tree trimming and the installation of more insulated wires.

Even though the utilities have raised electric rates to charge customers for billions of dollars of fire prevention work, their electrical equipment continues to spark blazes.

According to Cal Fire statistics, if the Eaton fire is confirmed to have been ignited by Edison’s transmission line, at least seven of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires would have been caused by the three utilities’ power lines. Two of those utility-sparked fires happened after the 2019 law passed.

Edison’s lines ignited 178 fires last year — 45% more compared with 2019. The company attributed last year’s increase to weather conditions that created more dry vegetation.

The governor’s staff said they disagreed with claims that the legislation reduced utilities’ accountability. They pointed to a measure in the 2019 law that requires a utility to reimburse the wildfire fund for all damages from a fire if its actions are found to constitute “conscious or willful disregard of the rights and safety of others.”

Advocates for utility customers have repeatedly said they believe that standard is too high to keep California utilities from causing more fires.

“Instances of utility mismanagement could easily fall short of the ‘conscious or willful disregard’ standard yet nonetheless cause a series of catastrophic wildfire events,” wrote the commission’s Public Advocates Office in a filing soon after the 2019 law passed.

A proposal to explore removing Los Angeles police officers from traffic enforcement is stuck in gridlock. Again.

The initiative to take the job of pulling over bad drivers away from cops is months behind schedule, frustrating reform advocates and some city leaders who argue that Los Angeles is missing an on-ramp toward the future of road safety.

Local officials first raised the prospect during the national reckoning on racial injustice that followed the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, but the plan has progressed in sluggish fits and starts since then. Backers thought that they had scored an important victory with the release in May 2023 of a long-promised study mapping out how most enforcement could be done by unarmed civilian workers.

Last summer, the City Council requested follow-up reports from various city departments to figure out how to do that and gave a three-month deadline. But more than year later, most of the promised feasibility studies have yet to materialize.

“I’m very upset about the delay,” said Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of the proposal’s early champions. “Generally speaking, when you try to do a big reform like this, at least some portion of the people who want to do the work are very motivated to change the status quo — and I don’t think we have that here.”

He said there was blame to go around for the continued delays, but that he’s encouraged by his conversations with officials from the involved departments that studies will be completed — a precursor to legislation that would allow for re-imagining traffic safety.

At the same time, he said that he still saw a role for armed police in certain traffic situations.

“I don’t even think we need to be pulling people over at all for vehicle violations, especially for those that don’t pose any public safety risks,” he said, before adding: “If somebody’s going 90 miles an hour down Crenshaw Boulevard, that person does need to be stopped immediately and they do need to be stopped by somebody with a gun.”

In a unanimous vote in June 2024, the council directed city transportation staff and other departments to come back within 90 days with feasibility reports about the cost and logistics of numerous proposals, including creating unarmed civilian teams to respond to certain traffic issues and investigate accidents. Also under exploration were ideas to limit fines in poorer communities and end stops for minor infractions, such as expired tags or air fresheners hanging from the rearview mirror.

Of the dozen or so requests made by the council, only two reports by the city’s transportation department have been completed so far, officials said.

Both of the studies — one assessing parking and traffic fines, and the other looking at how so-called “self-enforcing infrastructure” such as adding more speed bumps, roundabouts and other street modifications could help reduce speeding and unsafe driving — are “pending” before an ad hoc council committee focused on unarmed alternatives to police, according to an LADOT spokesman. The committee will need to approve the reports before they can be acted on by the full council, he said in a brief statement.

Chief Legislative Analyst Sharon Tso, the council’s top policy advisor, said she understands frustration over the delays. She said the protracted timeline was also at least partly caused by difficulties in obtaining reliable data from some of the participating departments, but declined to point any fingers. Two additional reports are in the final stages of being finalized and should be released by the end of the year, she said.

Although top LAPD officials have in the past signaled a willingness to relinquish certain traffic duties, others inside the department have dismissed similar proposals as fanciful and argued the city needs to crack down harder on reckless driving at a time when traffic fatalities have outpaced homicides citywide.

Privately, some police supervisors and officers complain about what they see as left-leaning politicians and activists taking away an effective tool for helping to get guns and drugs off the streets. They argue that traffic stops — if conducted properly and constitutionally — are also a deterrent for erratic driving.

A recently passed state law allowed the use of use of automated speeding cameras on a pilot basis in L.A. and a handful of other California cities.

Some advocates, however, are leery of relying on technology and punitive fines that can continue historical harms, particularly for communities of color.

“It’s been just a big bureaucratic slog,” said Chauncee Smith, of Catalyst California, which is part of a broader coalition of reform advocacy groups pushing for an end to all equipment and moving violation stops.

While L.A. has spent more than a year finishing a “study of a study,” he said, places such as Virginia, Connecticut and Philadelphia have taken meaningful action to transform traffic enforcement by passing bans on certain types of low-level police stops.

He cited mounting research in other cities that showed road improvements along high-injury street corridors were more effective at changing driver behaviors, ultimately reducing the number of traffic-related deaths and serious injuries more than the threat of being ticketed. But he also acknowledged the difficulty of making such changes in L.A.’s notoriously fragmented approach to planning and delivering infrastructure projects.

Smith and other advocates have also argued for an outright ban on so-called pretextual stops, in which police use a minor violation as justification to stop someone in order to investigate whether a more serious crime has occurred.

The LAPD has reined in the practice in recent years under intense public pressure but never abandoned it. Further changes could require legislation and are likely to face stiff opposition from police unions such as the Los Angeles Police Protective League, which has been highly vocal in its criticism of the pretext policy change.

Leslie Johnson, chief culture officer for Community Coalition, a South L.A.-based nonprofit , said that despite the delays the organization plans to press ahead with efforts to reimagine public safety and to keep pressure on public officials to ensure the study results don’t get buried like past efforts. She said that there is renewed urgency to push through the changes after a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision that critics says has opened the door to widespread racial profiling.

“Even though we’re a sanctuary city, we’re concerned that these prextexual stops could be leveraged” by federal immigration authorities, she said.