Los Angeles

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31498992

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/31615310

CBP also said in a statement that its air and marine operations were “not engaged in the surveillance of first amendment activities”, but that they are “providing officer safety surveillance when requested by officers”.

The Department of Homeland Security on Monday posted a video on X that the agency said was DHS drone footage and bore a CBP air and marine operations watermark. It included zoomed in clips of protestors on the streets.

CBP’s confirmation of its drone usage comes after the LA Times also reported that an LAPD helicopter flying over protesters announced to them, “I have all of you on camera. I’m going to come to your house.” The Guardian US contacted the LAPD and has not heard back.

This is not the first time the DHS has flown drones over protests. In 2020, the DHS dispatched drones over at least 15 cities across the US where people gathered to protest about the murder of George Floyd and logged more than 270 hours of surveillance footage. The LAPD has also ramped up surveillance in response to first amendment activity. During the city’s George Floyd protests, LAPD sent requests to Amazon for Ring doorbell footage that specifically sought videos of the protests.

This shit sucks. Be safe if you're protesting tomorrow. WEAR A MASK. They are using facial recognition. DO NOT GO ALONE. Take a friend/s.

smh

Key takeaways

In cooperation with the Los Angeles County Fire Department, a multidisciplinary team at UCLA will isolate the contaminants on firefighter jackets and assess their effects on human cells.

Firefighters at one station will wear the jackets in rotation for two months, then send them back to researchers, unwashed and coated with debris from their firefights.

Once the chemists isolate the gases and PM from the jackets, Gomperts will test their effects on human cells.

The code should be added automatically before checkout, but if it isn’t, use BIKEMONTH25

After making a big deal out of how my husband needed to listen to the alert and drop and cover, we get a tiny rattle about 15 seconds later… 🤦‍♂️

Klein had already been talking with EdTrust, a nonprofit dedicated to removing racial and economic barriers to education, about developing a more detailed national map to illustrate all the ways extreme weather disrupts learning. Then the L.A. wildfires broke out in early January...

More than 750,000 kids went to more than 1,000 schools that were closed for as few as two days or more than 10 days in January, they found.

“Three out of four kids impacted by the Los Angeles wildfires are socioeconomically disadvantaged,” Klein said. “Two out of five kids impacted by the wildfires are multilingual learners and one out of 10 is a student with disabilities.”

The report is not peer-reviewed and makes no claim to being comprehensive, Klein said. But it’s important to compile statistics like this, he said, because some students have specific needs that are seriously affected by the interruption to classroom learning. They need to return to learning and a stable school setting most urgently, he said.

Schools provide nutrition and a stable environment for students from households where they may not have enough to eat, live in overcrowded or unsafe housing conditions, or lack adequate adult supervision.

Studies show that school closures and chronic absenteeism caused by extreme weather events have an outsize detrimental effect on kids’ academic success. Missing one week of school from extreme weather-related school closures is the equivalent to missing two to three weeks from some other kind of absence or school closure, Klein said.

A 2023 peer-reviewed study in the journal Economics of Education Review found that nearly all students had lower test scores after Hurricane Florence triggered closures in North Carolina elementary and middle schools in 2018.

A recent survey from Stanford University’s Center on Early Childhood found that one in two California parents with young children worry about how wildfires, drought, flooding, and extreme heat affect their kids.

Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom has once again revealed his true allegiance—not to working people, nor to environmental protection, but to corporate interests.

His latest executive order, which suspends California’s landmark environmental regulations to fast-track utility infrastructure rebuilding in wildfire-affected areas, is a direct attack on democracy, environmental safeguards and working class communities. It is a measure that aligns perfectly with the interests of private energy corporations like Southern California Edison (SCE) while dangerously mirroring the authoritarian methods of the fascistic Trump administration.

In a unanimous vote last Tuesday, the Los Angeles City Council has taken a decisive step toward dismantling the LA Homeless Services Authority (LAHSA) and shifting control of hundreds of millions of dollars in funding to private homeless service providers.

The council’s decision follows two scathing audits that exposed failures in LAHSA’s financial oversight, but the true significance of this move extends far beyond the agency’s mismanagement. At its core, this is not about fixing homelessness; it is about turning the crisis into a lucrative business opportunity for the private sector.

Councilmember Monica Rodriguez, who spearheaded the effort, branded LAHSA a “monstrosity,” citing delayed provider payments and failures to track spending. Yet, rather than addressing the deeper systemic failures of the city’s (and, in fact, the state’s) approach to homelessness, the council is using LAHSA’s dysfunction as a pretext to accelerate the privatization of services. This is not a genuine effort to improve conditions for the nearly 50,000 unhoused individuals in Los Angeles, it is a deliberate strategy to carve up public funding and distribute it among politically connected private contractors.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/27481391

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/34548573

The California governor has been sending prepaid cell phones to executives throughout his state.

Vaxart was gearing up for a 10,400-participant COVID-19 pill trial

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation as Secretary of Health and Human Services is already leading to layoffs in the Bay Area’s biotech industry.

Vaxart, a small South San Francisco company that focuses on oral vaccine research, announced Thursday that it had to lay off 10% of its workers after the U.S. government issued a stop work order on its major COVID-19 vaccine trial. Vaxart had 105 workers at the end of 2024, per a filing, so the cuts are likely to hit around 10 staff members; local biotechs have been shedding staff left and right this year.

The stop work order is a major blow for a company that had already seen its stock price dwindle. Vaxart got a positive reception to the vaccine study’s initial data from a safety board, and was planning to begin a larger trial after the FDA provided input. Instead, the study and company have been thrown into limbo — Vaxart will learn within 90 days whether the trial and its massive contract are canceled for good.

Thousands of California educators and support staff are expected to lose their jobs before the start of the 2025-2026 academic year, with more than 2,300 school employees having received pink slips last week. State law requires districts to send pink slips for the coming academic year by March 15, with final layoff notices given by May 15.

https://web.archive.org/web/20250318132357/https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2025-03-18/doge-two-dozen-environmental-offices-closure-california

President Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency plans to terminate lease contracts at nearly two dozen California offices relating to science, agriculture and the environment, according to its federal database.

The planned closures include facilities occupied by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Environmental Protection Agency, National Park Service, Forest Service and Geological Survey. The terminations follow massive layoffs at NOAA and significant cuts to scientific research funding across federal agencies in recent weeks.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/34084346

California's top insurance regulator says he will approve an emergency request from State Farm to raise home insurance rates for roughly a million customers if the company can justify the hike at a public hearing

In response to increasingly dangerous wildfires in the Western United States, Washington State's Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has pioneered an "all hands, all lands" wildfire prevention strategy. Launched in 2017, the 20-year forest health strategic plan focuses on restoring forests, fostering community fire resilience, and bolstering firefighting resources. By using forest science and fire risk modeling, the DNR assesses and treats high-risk areas through thinning and prescribed burns, and creates fire breaks. This program is funded by a 2021 state bill that earmarked $125 million per biennium for wildfire mitigation.

The strategy involves extensive collaboration with private landowners, tribes, and the federal government. Since 2017, almost 900,000 acres of forest have been treated, yielding positive results, such as during the 2021 Schneider Springs fire where treated areas survived. The DNR also emphasizes community resilience by creating fire breaks and supporting home hardening efforts. The state has increased its full-time firefighters and air firefighting resources and uses technologies like drones and predictive fire risk modeling. Revenue from forest treatments supports the restoration work, benefiting local economies. While acknowledging the ongoing threat of wildfires, Commissioner Upthegrove stresses the need for continued commitment to saving lives and homes through proactive strategies.

Key Messages:

• Measles cases are increasing in the U.S., with ongoing outbreaks in Texas, New Mexico and New Jersey, along with continued increased international activity.
• The first US measles death in a decade was reported in an unvaccinated school-age child in Texas.
• Healthcare providers in LA County are reminded to 1) assure that their patients are up to date with measles-containing vaccines (MMR or MMRV) or have presumptive evidence of immunity, 2) immunize all travelers aged 6 months or older for whom there is no documentation of immunity, and 3) immediately report suspect measles to Public Health. All healthcare personnel should have documentation of immunity to measles.
• All LAC providers should be alert for measles, especially in recent travelers, and contact LAC DPH immediately for evaluation and testing guidance.

Because there isn't a California community I hope it's not inapprop to post just general Cali stuff in this community. If so I can take it down.

Anywho, the org We Are California are organizing a few things:

1. A teach-in: "We're inviting you to an urgent We Are California movement meeting Tuesday, March 11th at 6:30 PM to share important updates about the Trump Administration's plan to use the federal budget to attack our communities, and share upcoming actions you can take to block these efforts." https://www.mobilize.us/millionvotersproject/event/759347

2. A letter writing campaign: "If you agree that we need to protect our healthcare from Musk and Trump who want to raid our tax dollars to pay for hand outs and tax breaks for themselves and their billionaire friends - use this form to email your representatives in Congress." https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-your-representative-hands-off-our-medicare

3. A story dump: "If you agree that we need to protect our healthcare from Musk and Trump who want to raid our tax dollars to pay for hand outs and tax breaks for their companies and their billionaire friends - use this form to share your story about how this would impact you." https://actionnetwork.org/forms/share-your-story-to-make-sure-billionaires-keep-their-hands-off-our-healthcare

Various sources from Los Angeles County Bar Association have confirmed and Los Angeles Times leaked a memo stating that on February 23, 2025, ICE will start their "knock and talk'" practices in the greater Los Angeles area.

Interactive map some Cornell devs have made for mutual aid related to the Jan '25 fires.