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| San Diego's supportive housing faces major federal cuts | | Wall-to-wall photos of every member of her family, even the ones who refuse to talk to her, was what Cheryl Mesa pictured when she walked into a stable home of her very own after turning 60. [Article] | | by , iNewSource. 2025-11-26 | | | | Misinformation spreads as Trump moves to cut aid for some California students | LAist | | Hours after the Trump administration sued California last week, threatening to end key benefits for students without legal status, Michelle was scrolling social media when she saw a video that made her panic. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | Violence over water is on the rise, reached a record last year | | In Algeria, water shortages left faucets dry, prompting protesters to riot and set tires ablaze.
In Gaza, as people waited for water at a community tap, an Israeli drone fired on them, killing eight.
In Ukraine, Russian rockets slammed into the country’s largest dam, unleashing a plume of fire over the hydroelectric plant and causing widespread blackouts.
These are some of the 420 water-related conflicts researchers documented for 2024 in the latest update of the Pacific Institute’s Water Conflict Chronology, a global database of water-related violence.
The year featured a record number of violent incidents over water around the world, far surpassing the 355 in 2023, continuing a steeply rising trend. The violence more than quadrupled in the last five years.
The new data from the Oakland-based water think tank show also that drinking water wells, pipes and dams are increasingly coming under attack.
“In almost every region of the world, there is more and more violence being reported over water,” said Peter Gleick, the Pacific Institute’s co-founder and senior fellow, and it “underscores the urgent need for international attention.”
The researchers collect information from news reports and other sources and accounts. They classify it into three categories: instances in which water was a trigger of violence, water systems were targeted and water was a “casualty” of violence, for example when shell fragments hit a water tank.
Not every case involves injuries or deaths but many do.
The region with the most violent incidents was the Middle East, with 138 reported. That included 66 in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, both in Gaza and the West Bank.
In the West Bank there were numerous reports of Israeli settlers destroying water pipelines and tanks and attacking Palestinian farmers.
In Gaza the Israeli military destroyed more than 30 wells in the southern towns of Rafah and Khan Yunis.
Gleick noted that when the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli and Hamas leaders last year, accusing them of crimes against humanity, the charges mentioned Israeli military attacks on Gaza water systems.
“It is an acknowledgment that these attacks are violations of international law,” he said. “There ought to be more enforcement of international laws protecting water systems from attacks.”
Water systems also were targeted frequently in the Russia-Ukraine war, in which the researchers tallied 51 violent incidents. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | LA nonprofit got over $100 million from taxpayers despite failing audit requirements | LAist | | One of L.A.’s biggest homeless service providers has been awarded over $100 million in taxpayer funds while failing to comply with federal audit mandates, according to an LAist review of federal government records. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | As federal support withers, California invests in cheap heat pumps - Los Angeles Times | | As the Trump administration eliminates incentives for energy-efficient appliances, California is joining New York and Boston to spur a market for affordable electric heat pumps and induction stoves to reduce the climate pollution that comes from housing.
The California Public Utilities Commission has allocated $115 million over six years to generate business for makers of small heat pumps and battery-equipped induction stoves that can be plugged into standard outlets without requiring expensive electrical upgrades.
The project is part of a program approved in 2019 to lower barriers to the adoption of new energy-efficient technologies, which are often more expensive than their less-efficient counterparts. The program is particularly focused on improving accessibility for lower-income residents.
The new project follows a New York City program that staged a competition for window heat pumps and induction stoves, and then awarded contracts to the winners to install the devices in 10,000 public housing units.
“With New York, we are together the third-largest economy in the world, and that’s a very powerful demand signal in and of itself,” said Lynette Curthoys, vice president of Resource Innovations, the firm that runs the California initiative for the utilities commission.
Curthoys said she expects the state program, called CalMTA, will work with managers of multifamily apartment buildings to create bundles of purchase agreements that would help assure manufacturers of a market for new products. CalMTA is also considering providing financial incentives to retailers to stock 120-volt induction stoves and small heat pumps that are installed in windows.
Heat pumps and induction stoves can replace fossil fuel appliances, but standard versions are expensive and often out of reach for renters and low-income residents. The appliances will become more unaffordable in January, when federal incentives for them expire under the Trump tax bill. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | LA Metro hails success of programs offering free rides, discounted passes – Daily News | | More than 1 million people have signed up for programs that provide free rides and discounted passes to students, low-income and fire-impacted Angelenos since 2021, Metro announced today. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Daily News. 2025-11-26 | | | | White Memorial says it stands with the community amid ICE scrutiny — doctors and others have doubts | LAist | | Adventist Health White Memorial says it is taking steps to reaffirm its commitment to patient privacy in the face of ICE raids — including posting signs clarifying how law enforcement officers and immigration agents interact with patients.
The announcement comes after reports that hospital administrators allowed federal immigration agents to interfere in medical decisions and block doctors from properly treating detainees who need emergency care. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | County may hire federal trapper – Red Bluff Daily News | | On Tuesday at the board of supervisors meeting, Tehama County Agricultural Commissioner Thomas Moss presented the board with his intent to hire an individual with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Wildlife Services department. The individual would be a trapper, and Moss explained they would provide boots on the ground monitoring of local wild predators, including [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | Vernon Sues Metro to Overturn Proposed Expansion of Malabar Yard | Vernon, CA | | On Friday, November 21, 2025, the City of Vernon filed a lawsuit against the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) to overturn the proposed expansion of Malabar Yard included in the Link Union Station (Link US) Project. The City fully supports the Link US Project and its regional benefits – but not at the expense of community safety or environmental justice. The City’s opposition is solely limited to the project’s inclusion of the Malabar Yard. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | From Silicon Valley to Hollywood, why California's job market is taking a hit | | California is among the world's largest economies, but the engines that drive it haven't been firing on all cylinders. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | Opinion | Harrowing times at the hands of ICE unify L.A. audience | | A congressional hearing Monday in Los Angeles on the Trump Administration’s immigration raids offered a searing look at a program that has been equal parts stupid and cruel.
One witness after another faced the House Oversight and Reform Committee and described their experience at the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which descended on Los Angeles in June, stirring discontent with a theatrical assault on the city’s immigrant communities. [Article] | | by , CalMatters. 2025-11-26 | | | | Contributor: Yes, immigrants have the right to a lawyer, but finding one is getting harder - Los Angeles Times | | Earlier this month, a federal judge in Los Angeles ordered U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to stop denying immigrants detained in a downtown facility the right and opportunity to consult with their attorneys. The important ruling, issued by U.S. District Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong, makes clear that “all individuals — regardless of immigration status — share in the rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment.”
Los Angeles isn’t the only place where the Constitution is being ignored. In New York City, a federal judge found that ICE was detaining immigrants in crowded and unsanitary lock-ups while interfering with their ability to meet with counsel. In Chicago, a federal judge ordered ICE to cease its unlawful behavior after hearing extensive testimony about the deplorable conditions inside a suburban detention facility, where immigrants are also routinely denied visits and phone calls with representation.
The Trump administration’s efforts to block immigrants’ access to counsel continues to push even further, including transferring noncitizens to far-flung detention centers where few lawyers practice. In one case, a Tufts doctoral student was sent from Boston to New Hampshire, then Vermont, and later Georgia and Louisiana. Immigrants have even been shipped to extraterritorial detention sites, such as the U.S. base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, held hundreds of miles from the nearest attorney.
Although immigrants in detention are afforded the right to consult with a lawyer, they are not guaranteed one be appointed to them at the government’s expense if they cannot afford it, as that right applies in criminal cases but doesn’t protect people facing civil deportation proceedings. Instead, immigrants in detention must either pay for their lawyer or rely on pro bono legal aid to defend them.
As we presented in a study published by the Iowa Law Review earlier this month, access to counsel for immigrants facing possible deportation has expanded in recent years. A rising number of law school graduates have entered the field, and new sources of government and private funding have emerged.
Just over half of immigrants facing removal from the U.S. have found counsel over the past decade, up from 37% between 2007 to 2012. And roughly two-thirds of those immigrants who found counsel succeeded in avoiding a judge’s deportation order, including by having the case terminated or by being granted relief such as asylum by an immigration judge. It’s perhaps not surprising that ICE doesn’t want lawyers involved, even if it means trampling constitutional rights of citizens and noncitizens alike. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | Survey period closes Sunday for wildfire protection plan | News | avpress.com | | The project survey period for the Los Angeles County Department of Regional Planning proposed countywide Community Wildfire Protection Plan closes Sunday.
There are two voluntary Community Wildfire Protection Plan surveys to complete: an Action Plan survey and a Household Survey. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | Inside a secretive $27M property deal to add unhoused beds that’s now under federal investigation | LAist | | Even in L.A.’s famously overheated real estate market, the profit — and quick turnaround — on a senior housing complex in the Cheviot Hills neighborhood seemed extraordinary. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | L.A.'s Fashion District desperately needs Black Friday miracle | | Lizzie Osorio remembers customers flooding Lion Boots in early May, browsing embroidered shoes and tasseled suede dresses.
Beyoncé had four concerts scheduled in Los Angeles at SoFi Stadium for her Cowboy Carter tour. So the store tucked in Santee Alley, where 24-year-old Osorio works selling cowboy boots and other Western-style clothing, was the perfect stop for fans.
Osorio expected, or perhaps hoped, the store would see similar traffic at the start of the Thanksgiving holiday week.
After the tumult of President Trump’s immigration crackdown, that remains to be seen. Over the summer, several raids in the neighborhood sparked protests. But the mass arrests and fears of deportation turned the Fashion District into a ghost town for several weeks after, with storefronts shuttered and frightened workers staying home.
The story was the same in other business districts that cater to immigrants. Although conditions have improved in recent months, merchants are still feeling the pain and in desperate need of a holiday retail miracle.
Shoppers stroll through the Santee Alley in downtown’s Fashion District where business owners are working to recover from losses caused by recent immigration enforcement.
Local officials and activists are encouraging people to shop on Black Friday and beyond, including by holding a festival over the weekend. But it remains unclear how many will feel safe enough to come out.
Some merchants are “living sale to sale, customer to customer,” said Anthony Rodriguez, president of the Fashion District’s business improvement district, a private group of property owners in the area.
“These aren’t big-box stores,” Rodriguez said. “These are family-owned and, in some cases, generational businesses that more than ever need L.A.’s support. If people can come down and just spend $10 to $15 ... that’s how we can make a difference.”
On Monday, Osorio said she made just one sale: a pair of utility boots.
She opened the store at 9:30 a.m. and sold the boots at around 2 p.m. They had been marked down $30 from their typical price of $160 because customers have been so reluctant to spend money, she said.
“We are waiting for the good times,” Osorio said. “Honestly, I felt like it was going to be better this week, but it’s been really, really slow. We just pray and keep the faith. Let’s see what happens.”
Small businesses in the area — which includes the historically vibrant, bustling open-air shopping corridor Santee Alley, known for bargain prices — are looking for ways to recoup some of their losses through holiday sales. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | Californians sharply divided along partisan lines about immigration raids, poll finds | | California voters are sharply divided along partisan lines over the Trump administration’s immigration raids this year in Los Angeles and across the nation, according to a new poll.
Just over half of the state’s registered voters oppose federal efforts to reduce undocumented immigration, and 61% are against deporting everyone in the nation who doesn’t have legal status, according to a recent poll by UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab released to The Times on Wednesday.
But there is an acute difference in opinions based on political leanings.
Nearly 80% of Democrats oppose reducing the number of people entering the United States illegally, and 90% are against deporting everyone in the country who is undocumented, according to the poll. Among Republicans, 5% are against reducing the entries and 10% don’t believe all undocumented immigrants should be forced to leave.
“The big thing that we find, not surprisingly, is that Democrats and Republicans look really different,” said political scientist Amy Lerman, director of UC Berkeley’s Possibility Lab, who studies race, public opinion and political behavior. “On these perspectives, they fall pretty clearly along party lines. While there’s some variation within the parties by things like age and race, really, the big divide is between Democrats and Republicans.”
While there were some differences based on gender, age, income, geography and race, the results largely mirrored the partisan divide in the state, Lerman said.
One remarkable finding was that nearly a quarter of survey respondents personally knew or were acquainted with someone in their family or friend groups directly affected by the deportation efforts, Lerman said.
“That’s a really substantial proportion,” she said. “Similarly, the extent to which we see people reporting that people in their communities are concerned enough about deportation efforts that they’re not sending their kids to school, not shopping in local stores, not going to work,” not seeking medical care or attending church services.
The poll surveyed a sample of the state’s registered voters and did not include the sentiments of the most affected communities — unregistered voters or those who are ineligible to cast ballots because they are not citizens.
A little more than 23 million of California’s 39.5 million residents were registered to vote as of late October, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“So if we think about the California population generally, this is a really significant underestimate of the effects, even though we’re seeing really substantial effects on communities,” she said. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | LA’s old residential hotels keep people off the streets — but they’re in financial peril | LAist | | Often described as housing of last resort for some of the city’s poorest renters, single-room occupancy buildings in Los Angeles are operating at a financial loss — and losing more money every year. [Article] | | by , . 2025-11-26 | | | | Why a Trump plan to exclude nursing from 'professional' degree list sparks outrage - Los Angeles Times | | A coalition of nursing and other healthcare organizations are outraged over a Trump administration proposal that could limit access to federal loans for some students pursuing graduate degrees, because the government would no longer label their studies as “professional” programs.
Without such a U.S. Department of Education designation, students pursuing graduate degrees in nursing and at least seven other fields, including social work and education, would face tighter federal student loan limits.
The revamp is part of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress, and is prompting anger and confusion, particularly among nurses who are lashing out online. Some social media posts have amplified inaccurate information about the changes — leading the Education Department to issue a “Myth vs. Fact” explainer on the proposed modifications.
But it has done little to quell the furor. Nurses and others affected not only oppose potential limits on educational borrowing to advance their careers, but perceive the move as a semantic insult that disrespects the intense training that is required to achieve their professional credentials.
One Instagram user — a self-described registered nurse with more than 250,000 followers on the platform — said that she had planned to attend graduate school to become a nurse practitioner, but the proposed loan caps may put that out of reach. “They don’t want us to continue our education,” she said. “They want women to be barefoot and pregnant.”
Susan Pratt, a nurse who is also president of a union representing nurses in Toledo, Ohio, called the move “a smack in the face.”
“During the pandemic, the nurses showed up, and this is the thanks we get,” she said.
The Education Department did not respond to a request for comment about the proposed rule changes. But its explainer said that “progressive voices” had “been fear mongering” about the changes and spreading “misinformation.”
The Trump administration has said limits on graduate school loans are needed to reduce tuition costs and believes that capping student loans will push universities charging higher-than-average tuition to look at lowering rates. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | L.A. hosts first congressional hearing on effect of immigration raids - Los Angeles Times | | There was the U.S. citizen who said she no longer feels safe after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer slammed her to the ground in downtown Los Angeles and later accused her of assault — a case prosecutors dismissed soon after.
The Long Beach mayor, who said immigration agents have seized more than 50 residents off the city’s streets — including 11 in a single afternoon Thursday, among them a gardener tackled inside Polly’s Pies restaurant.
A Boyle Heights pastor who spoke of a mother who lost her young daughter after a failed organ transplant and was paralyzed over whether to cremate her or bury her, as she wanted, because she feared being deported and unable to visit her child’s grave.
During a four-hour long congressional oversight hearing Monday in L.A., dozens of elected officials, experts and community members laid bare the impact of the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration crackdown. It was an exclusively Democrat event and no one spoke up in support of the raids. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | | | California could get its first gasoline pipeline. Would that lower gas prices? | | California has long been a “fuel island” — a state whose gasoline and diesel markets are isolated from the rest of the country — but that could soon end under a proposed plan to build the first-ever pipeline to bring refined products directly to the West Coast.
Known as the Western Gateway Pipeline, the project from oil major Phillips 66 and global pipeline giant Kinder Morgan would deliver gasoline, diesel and jet fuel to Arizona and California from as far east as Missouri by 2029. The companies are currently scoping out demand and seeking commitments from customers in what is known as an “open season.”
Kinder Morgan is already a major pipeline operator in California. Officials from both companies say the pipeline would create a vital connection between the Midwest and California, where a combination of unique fuel requirements and geography have created a market that is almost entirely dependent on fuel brought in by ship plus in-state supplies. That can leave residents vulnerable to price spikes from even small disruptions.
California already pays more for gasoline than any other state, with prices currently hovering around $4.63 a gallon compared with the U.S. average of $3.10, according to AAA.
The pipeline proposal comes as California navigates the critical trade-off between reducing one of the biggest drivers of climate change — gasoline and diesel — and maintaining consumer affordability. The state is trying to electrify transportation while bracing for the closure of two major refineries in Wilmington and Benicia that together account for nearly 20% of California’s refining capacity. Their looming shutdown is creating jitters about higher prices at the pump.
Experts say the pipeline proposal signals that energy companies expect California to remain dependent on gasoline for years, even as the state pursues clean transportation and other ambitious climate goals.
“It’s a huge capital investment, and it’s an investment that is a bet that the prices in the West will stay high enough that they can recover the cost,” said Severin Borenstein, faculty director of the Energy Institute at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.
Globally, customers are snapping up electric vehicles, but in the U.S. the picture is more complicated. There have never been more EV options on the table and the charging network is growing. At the same time, the Trump administration recently eliminated federal rebates on new and used EVs and has also moved to block California’s landmark ban on the sale of all new gas-powered cars by 2035. [Article] | | by , Los Angeles Times. 2025-11-26 | | |
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