The Brief

An effort to bring free clothes, toiletries and a sense of normalcy to girls displaced by January’s Eaton fire now has a permanent home in Old Town Pasadena.

Altadena Girls started as a donation-supported pop-up in Boyle Heights. Volunteers and partners then spent the past nine months transforming an 11,000-square-foot space in a historic bank building into the ultimate hangout, which opens Thursday.

Now-15-year-old co-founder Avery Colvert said the goal is to create a “third space” for girls affected by the Eaton Fire.

“It's not school. It's not home. It's somewhere where girls can go to … be calm within themselves,” Colvert said. “We are gonna have so many different opportunities here.”

Colvert, right, and her mom Lauren Sandidge, left, experienced a different flavor of natural disaster when they lost their Nashville home in a 2021 flood. “ It surprised me how much community is needed in order to get through hard times,” Sandidge said.

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There are studios for music and podcasting sponsored by Fender and another for dance and movement classes.

Altadena Girls hopes to collaborate with brands and other organizations to host pop-up events. One aspect that won’t change is the free boutique stocked with new clothes, shoes, toiletries and feminine hygiene products.

“ It's about feeling normal, whatever that means for you,” said Lauren Sandidge, Colvert’s mom and co-founder. “Whether it's like your favorite shampoo, face wash, whatever it is … it's about dignity.”

Altadena Girls’ origin story

On Jan. 10, Colvert posted a callout to Instagram asking for clothes, beauty and personal care products, “items that will help my friends feel confidence and like themselves again.”

She was then an eighth-grader at Eliot Arts Magnet, one of five Pasadena Unified campuses destroyed in the fire. Her family evacuated but eventually was able to return to their Pasadena home.

The post went viral. Celebrities and legacy media alike shared Altadena Girls’ story and donations flooded in.

Colvert and scores of volunteers coordinated a pop-up boutique where fire-impacted girls could replenish their closets with the help of a personal stylist and pick up other essentials — all free of cost.

Teen girls and their families shop donations to Altadena Girls in January.

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Altadena Girls estimates it’s reached more than 4,000 people through the boutique and other events.

Teenager Laurel Kleeger-Read, her mom and their cat evacuated their Pasadena home during the Eaton Fire and returned a few months later to a changed community. Her former middle school, the park where she played volleyball and a few of her friends' homes were reduced to ash.

“I just felt such an immense despair in me that I don't think I'll ever be able to feel [it] again,” Kleeger-Read said. “Well, hopefully I'll never feel again.”

Kleeger-Read attended the Altadena Girls prom in May. A stylist helped her choose a teal dress to wear.

“It just made you feel so special and so beautiful,” Kleeger-Read said. “I remember trying on the dresses and I was like, ‘Wow, this is freaking amazing.’”

How Altadena Girls found a physical home

Colvert said the idea for the space came from conversations she had with girls who visited the original shopping events and told her they wanted to come back the next day.

 ”I think when people were struggling so much in that time, they just wanted to have fun and wanted to feel like this kind of joy again,” Colvert said. “ I wanted that feeling to last forever.”

Altadena Girls got the keys to the Old Town Pasadena space Jan. 24 and will open to girls Oct. 23.

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Altadena Girls is on the ground floor of a Neoclassical building built in 1914 for Citizens Bank.

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They chose Old Town Pasadena because it’s near public transportation and accessible to families who have relocated elsewhere in the San Gabriel Valley and beyond.

Also, it’s cool.

“Old Town is, like, for teenagers, is more popular than the mall,” Colvert said.

Partners have donated everything from light fixtures to furniture. The realtor who helped Altadena Girls find this space worked pro bono.

The organization invited girls to help shape their space by sharing their ideas.

“To really put your input on the matter and then it be listened to seriously — I feel like that was really important for the girls who had just not been heard,” Kleeger-Read said.

Altadena Girls co-founder Avery Colvert stands in the work-in-progress version of the Pasadena space. The neon sign is a reference to Riot Grrrl Kathleen Hanna's callout during Bikini Kill shows.

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Sandidge flips through renderings of the first floor. “We really feel strongly ... helping the girls specifically is helping the entire family,” Sandidge said. For example, a family may have time to work on their insurance claims or rest knowing their child is safe at Altadena Girls.

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Altadena Girls prioritizes Eaton Fire-affected girls, 13-18, whether they’ve lost a home or school or had to relocate.

The first cohort will receive a free membership that gives them access to the entire building Thursday and Friday after school and all day Saturday. Sandidge said the hope is to extend the hours based on fundraising and feedback from the girls.

There are a lot of ideas for events: from shows by local musicians to a holiday market and a Rose Parade watch party.

“There's programming here, but it's optional,” Sandidge said. ”You can come and relax and just chill first. And then we wanna know from the girls, like, ‘Hey, what is it that you need right now?’”

Kleeger-Read, who now attends high school in downtown L.A., said she looks forward to catching up with her Pasadena friends in the space.

“There has to be moments where you can celebrate and be like, ‘Hey, this thing was terrible. But look at where we are now,’” Kleeger-Read said. “Look at how, how strongly we were able to bounce back and how much we're able to celebrate, even though we were faced with such a difficult situation.”

‘How do we keep the doors open long term?’

Altadena Girls’ lease lasts through January 2027.

“ Now we're tasked with the sustainability of a nonprofit,” Sandidge said. “Figuring out: How do we now keep the doors open long term so we can serve the girls?”

An organization called Creative Visions sponsors Altadena Girls while it goes through the process to become a nonprofit. A new executive director is joining the organization, and Sandidge plans to step back and return to working in recruiting and HR but will still be involved.

“ I think it's a little addictive to help people,” Sandidge said. “It's the best feeling.”

Colvert is now a freshman at a San Gabriel Valley arts high school but has been back to visit her alma mater Eliot Arts Magnet, which burned down in the January fire.

“ It's kind of surreal to see the place you used to hang out every day be destroyed,” Colvert said.

Colvert said what’s surprised her the most is the outpouring of support from people of all ages.

“ I only thought, like, teenage girls wanted this,” Colvert said. “Even people who are adults are like, 'This is something that's so cool.  I would've loved to have this when I was a teenager.'”

Just last week California’s secretary of state officially certified that nearly two-thirds of Californians voted to pass Proposition 50, Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan to temporarily gerrymander the state’s congressional maps in favor of Democrats.

Nevertheless, Republicans and the Trump administration are hopeful a federal district court panel meeting in Los Angeles this week will intervene to bar the state from using the new maps next year.

California Republicans, who sued Newsom and Secretary of State Shirley Weber the day after the election, are staking their challenge on the argument that California’s primary mapmaker illegally used race as a factor in drawing district lines, giving Latino and Hispanic voters outsize influence at the expense of other racial and ethnic groups, including white voters.

This, the Republicans argue, means the maps amount to an illegal racial gerrymander and a violation of the 14th and 15th amendments. Although Section 2 of the federal Voting Rights Act allows for race-conscious redistricting, they add, case law and judicial precedent have set a strict standard that requires a minority group to prove they have been systematically outvoted by a majority that consistently votes together to deny the minority their chosen candidate.

But the Prop. 50 opponents’ odds look slim, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority recently blessed Texas’ new maps, overturning a lower court’s finding that Republicans there had engaged in unconstitutional racial gerrymandering.

“It is indisputable that the impetus for the adoption of the Texas map (like the map subsequently adopted in California) was partisan advantage pure and simple,” wrote conservative Justice Samuel Alito in a concurring opinion supported by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas.

And then there’s the looming possibility that the Supreme Court, in a separate case, could outlaw entirely the use of race in the redistricting process, which could render California’s new maps — as well as the previous ones drawn by the independent citizens commission — unconstitutional. That would also give Republicans a major advantage in Southern states, where several districts drawn to increase Black Americans’ voting power currently are represented by Democrats.

Despite the long odds, the ailing California GOP has run out of other options for resistance. The passage of Prop. 50 is likely to mark the beginning of the end for several of California’s Republican House members, who have been forced to decide whether to run in their current, now less favorable Republican districts, switch to new seats or drop out entirely.

One of them, Rep. Darrell Issa, who represents parts of San Diego County, even considered relocating to Texas and running for a Dallas-area seat that would be more friendly to Republicans, but the president reportedly refused to endorse him for the already contested Texas seat, so he decided to stay.

The legal challenge claims the Prop. 50 maps cause “stigmatic and representational injury” by placing certain candidates, such as Republican Assemblymember David Tangipa of Fresno, who is Polynesian, into districts drawn with a specific racial or ethnic minority group in mind.

Case is in Los Angeles court this week

The challengers, who include Tangipa, the California Republican Party, several Republican voters and the Trump White House, are asking a three-judge panel for the Central District of California to grant a preliminary injunction on the maps before Dec. 19, the date when candidates can start collecting signatures to get their names on the 2026 primary ballot. A preliminary injunction would temporarily prevent the maps from being used in an election.

On Monday in court, the Republican challengers presented their case, arguing that since supporters of Prop. 50 publicly touted that the maps increased representation for Latino voters, state lawmakers and consultant Paul Mitchell, who was hired to draw the maps, took race into account. Therefore, they must justify how their new districts meet the standard for permissible racial gerrymanders, attorneys argued.

“It is legal to race-based redistrict under the Voter Rights Act. Section 2 protects it. But it also gives you guidelines,” Tangipa told CalMatters in an interview after testifying in court on Monday in Los Angeles. “In Sacramento, they did not follow those guidelines.”

Tangipa asserted that even though Democratic lawmakers intended primarily to increase their party’s ranks based on political ideology, “They used race to justify that end goal.”

The plaintiffs sought to have Mitchell testify, but the court denied a request to force him to take the stand to explain whether he intentionally tried to increase the voting power of specific racial and ethnic groups. Since Mitchell lives more than 100 miles away from the court, he was out of the reach of a subpoena. Still, the judges questioned his blanket use of “legislative privilege” to resist producing documents the plaintiffs requested.

At one point, as a redistricting expert testified, the plaintiffs focused on a line from Democratic former Senate President Pro Tem Mike McGuire’s public statement after the Legislature passed the package of bills paving the way for the Nov. 4 special election.

“The new map makes no changes to historic Black districts in Oakland and the Los Angeles area, and retains and expands Voting Rights Act districts that empower Latino voters to elect their candidates of choice,” McGuire’s statement said.

McGuire announced last month that he will challenge Republican Rep. Doug LaMalfa in one of the newly configured Prop. 50 seats.

But proponents of the new maps argue they intended purely to create a partisan advantage for Democrats, and any increase in voting power for certain ethnic or racial groups was incidental.

Ultimately, 'it was endorsed by the voters'

Also complicating the GOP’s challenge is that California voters overwhelmingly approved the maps.

“Even if we assume that the Legislature improperly considered race, ultimately it went into effect because it was endorsed by the voters,” Emily Rong Zhang, an assistant professor of law at the University of California at Berkeley School of Law, previously told CalMatters. “They would have to show that the voters had the intent to create districts that disproportionately favor the voting power of a racial group over another.”

One unknown is how the Supreme Court will rule on a case that questions whether it’s constitutional to even consider race as a factor when redistricting.

The justices are weighing in another ongoing case, Louisiana v. Callais, whether to strike down a part of the federal Voting Rights Act that requires the creation of districts in which racial and ethnic minorities have a chance to elect their preferred candidate. If the ruling is retroactive, a decision to strike it down could invalidate both California’s old and new maps.

Regardless of how the Supreme Court rules, other states have jumped into the redistricting effort or are contemplating entering the fray. In addition to Texas and California, four other states have already implemented new congressional maps, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Virginia, Maryland and Florida have also taken some steps toward redistricting.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

FIFA said on Tuesday it plans to sell $60 tickets for each of the 104 games of the 2026 World Cup — an announcement that comes after an outcry over prices for the tournament that will be held next summer across the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

"Fans of the national teams that have qualified for the FIFA World Cup 2026 will benefit from a dedicated ticket pricing tier, which has been designed to make following their teams on football's greatest stage more affordable," FIFA said in a statement.

But these tickets — called "supporter entry tier tickets" by FIFA — will be available only to supporters of qualified teams and are limited in quantity.

Only 10% of the total number of tickets provided to each qualified team would be available at $60 per game, including the final. Given that each team gets 8% of the available tickets per game, the effective number of tickets available at that price would be only 0.8% of the stadium capacity for that game, or 1.6% for both teams combined.

But the actual number of $60 tickets could vary. Each country would determine which of its fans qualify for the cheaper tickets. In the statement, FIFA requested that countries "ensure that these tickets are specifically allocated to loyal fans who are closely connected to their national teams."

Some fans had called prices 'a betrayal'

FIFA's announcement comes after many fans reacted with outrage at the prices for the World Cup next year, which range from $140 for a handful of initial-round games to as much as $2,735 for the U.S. opening match against Paraguay that will be held in Los Angeles next year.

Prices for knockout rounds surge even more, with FIFA charging charging $4,185 for the cheapest ticket for the final that will be held in July next year in New Jersey — and $8,680 for the most expensive seats.

That's much higher than previous World Cups. For example, the most expensive ticket for the 2022 final at the last tournament held in Qatar was about $1,600.

Unlike previous World Cups, FIFA has yet to publish a list of prices, instead adjusting them across different sales windows without an announcement. Fans found out about the price changes after FIFA opened its latest lottery window last week, which allows fans to apply for tickets until Jan. 13.

And many fans were upset. The Football Supporters Europe, a group that represent fans across the region, called ticket prices "a betrayal to the most dedicated fans." On Tuesday, the group said on X it welcomes FIFA's latest announcement, but added it was not enough.

"Based on the allocations publicly available, this would mean that at best a few hundred fans per match and team would be lucky enough to take advantage of the 60 USD prices, while the vast majority would still have to pay extortionate prices, way higher than at any tournament before," Football Supporters Europe said.

Demand appears high, however

FIFA has defended its pricing policy, saying it's adapting to prices in the North American market. It has also consistently responded by saying it's a non-profit organization that steers the majority of its revenues from the World Cup "to fuel the growth of men's, women's and youth football throughout the 211 FIFA Member Associations."

Despite the outrage over its prices, FIFA is seeing strong demand for next year's World Cup. On Tuesday, FIFA added it had already received 20 million ticket requests during this current sales window, with weeks still to go before the lottery window closes.

But for supporters, following a team throughout the tournament could be prohibitively expensive in 2026 — and not only because of high ticket prices.

The cost of travel across the three countries has also surged, including hotel prices, making it likely that next year's tournament will be among the most expensive World Cups ever staged for fans.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Huntington Beach appears to be running out of options in its effort to stave off state housing mandates after a recent California Supreme Court decision.

California requires cities to plan and zone for housing to meet the needs of the population at all income levels. In the most recent planning cycle, Huntington Beach was told it had to plan for 13,368 new homes.

The city balked, and the state sued Huntington Beach in 2023 for failing to comply.

The city’s argument, in a nutshell

The city has argued it doesn’t have to comply because it’s a charter city, which gives it more autonomy in some areas of governance than non-charter cities.

Huntington Beach also has said that planning for such a large number of units would force it to violate state environmental laws. A state appeals court in a September ruling didn’t buy either argument.

What’s next?

A San Diego court now must determine penalties against Huntington Beach, even as the city has vowed to keep fighting the housing mandate. An appeals court has ordered the lower court to give the city 120 days to approve a housing plan.

Other remedies the court will consider include:

• Suspending the city’s ability to approve building permits — essentially bringing all development in the city to a halt; or, on the opposite end of the spectrum,

• Forcing Huntington Beach to approve any and all applications to build homes — in other words, completely removing the city’s discretion to plan for development. 

The next hearing in the case is scheduled for Jan. 16.

More animals are being run over on Los Angeles streets than ever before, and the lingering effects of the pandemic may be partly to blame.  

Through November of this year, the city’s MyLA311 service has fielded 31,093 requests for “dead animal removal,” an increase of more than a thousand from the same time last year. It marks a 37% increase from five years prior, and is the fifth straight year of increases.  

Fraser Shilling of the Road Ecology Center at the University of California, Davis, studies the impact of transportation on animal populations. While one of the drivers of the increase is the continual loss of habitat from urban development, Shilling says the after effects of the COVID-19 pandemic are also playing a role. The protracted lockdown sparked a boom in pet adoptions, which he says has now transformed into an increase in animals being let go by their owners.  

“Basically, pandemic pets are being abandoned,” Shilling said. “Before they get picked up by animal control, they’re out on the street getting hit.” 

Cats made up nearly a third of animals picked up last year, according to the Los Angeles Department of Sanitation. Dogs accounted for 17%. Raccoons and opossums were the third- and fourth-most common. The vast majority of pickup requests are for animals that have been struck by vehicles. Others include requests to collect pets that have died at their owner’s home.

Want to know the number of requests in your neighborhood? Sign up for the Crosstown Neighborhood Newsletter and get stats about crime, traffic, housing and more for where you live.

Overstuffed animal shelters

Los Angeles has a massive feral cat population, estimated to be close to one million.

In 2020, the Los Angeles City Council approved the Citywide Cat Program aimed at trapping and spaying or neutering stray cats to prevent unwanted litters. But the program’s progress is facing constraints due to local funding challenges, as well as a nationwide veterinarian shortage. 

In August, the City Council unanimously approved a motion increasing the dollar amount pet owners are reimbursed by the city for spaying and neutering their pets, for an estimated cost of $9 million. A proposal from the city administrative officer recommended giving the higher reimbursement rates to shelter-based programs like the Citywide Cat Program, which would have cost an estimated $21 million over three years. That plan was not adopted.  

At the same time, the city’s shelters are overflowing with intakes. Through October of this year, Los Angeles Animal Service shelters took in 36,330 cats and dogs, per the department’s Woof Stat reports, a 6% increase from the same time last year and a 46% increase from the entire year of 2020. Its dog shelter program currently is operating at 123% capacity.  

San Pedro, Los Angeles’ southernmost neighborhood, had the highest number of dead animal removal requests in the city this year, with 922 as of Nov. 30, a 15% increase over the same period in 2024. 

As of Dec. 9, the animal shelter in San Pedro also had the highest dog occupancy rate of any of the six shelters in the city at 159% capacity. 

“Like many shelters across the country, LA Animal Services continues to experience overcrowding and operates at overcapacity, despite the department’s ongoing efforts to promote spaying and neutering, encourage pet adoptions and fostering, and working with rescues to help place animals,” Animal Services said in a statement. 

Where the city meets the wild 

The highest rates of wild animal collisions occur in dense urban areas surrounded by natural vegetation. Van Nuys and Northridge — ringed by the Santa Susana, Santa Monica and San Gabriel mountains — were the neighborhoods with the second- and third-most dead animal reports. While cats were still the most common animals being picked up in Northridge zip codes, according to data from the Department of Sanitation, the region had numbers of opossums, squirrels, coyotes and deer that were higher than the citywide average 

Requests for removals in 2024, the most recent year for which the animal breakdown is available, included 366 coyotes, 191 chickens, 27 turtles and four turkeys. 

The number of dead deer last year was 63, around half of what it was in 2020. While that sounds like an improvement, it actually indicates a dire trend.  

“The population of deer in California is going down by 10% a year, and the population killed by traffic is about 8% or 9% per year, suggesting that the decline in deer in California is directly tied to roadkill,” said Shilling of the Road Ecology Center.  

Habitat loss from urban development is typically accompanied by an increase in traffic, according to the Road Ecology Center’s annual roadkill report. The city has been fast-tracking new development under Mayor Karen Bass’s directive focused on affordable housing, and over 5,600 units have been approved in the San Fernando Valley since 2023, according to the city planning website.  

The best solution to curb wildlife roadkill, Shilling said, is for people to drive more slowly. The second best is fencing along major roads and highways that have become hotspots. He said wildlife crossings — like the slated Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing in Agoura Hills — are ineffective at stopping roadkill unless accompanied by deliberate fencing.  

How we did it: We examined more than eight years of reports from the city’s MyLA311 service data. In addition, we broke down the requests by neighborhood. We also analyzed data from the Department of Sanitation and the city’s Animal Services Department. Have questions about our data or want to ask a question? Write to us as askus@xtown.la.