The Brief

Folks, we’ve reached peak art-weird. There’s a group show opening Sunday in an abandoned Sizzler. I am not making this up. Get your fill at the art fairs around town — Frieze, The Other Art Fair, Butter and Felix, for starters — or explore some of the neighborhoods with galleries, like Melrose Hill, West Hollywood and the Arts District. You’re sure to see a lot. It’s almost like we live in a city where you could just wander around and randomly come across things.

If music is more your thing, Licorice Pizza has your go-tos. On Friday, German singer-songwriter and producer Monolink’s "The Beauty Of It All Tour" stops at The Wiltern, Brandi Carlile is with The Head And The Heart at the Forum and the Fiery Furnaces are at the Masonic Lodge. At the Peacock Theater, there’s an epic “Legends Of Hip Hop” bill with Big Daddy Kane, Kurtis Blow, Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel & Scorpio from The Furious Five, Doug E. Fresh, KRS‐One and more. Saturday, experimental hip-hop group Clipping is at the Fonda, and the artist formerly known as June Marieezy — (((O))) — is at a cool new Chinatown venue called Pacific Electric. Or you can spend the whole weekend at Ace Mission Studios in Boyle Heights, immersed in Factory 93’s two-day underground techno festival, Skyline L.A.

Elsewhere on LAist, you can visit the community hub East L.A. Film Shop, dance like it’s the '70s at the immersive theater experience Brassroots District: L.A. ’74 and head to the new Studio Ghibli exhibit at the Academy Museum with superfan Makenna Sievertson.

Events

Amadeus

Through Sunday, March 15
Pasadena Playhouse
39 S. El Molino, Pasadena
COST: FROM $48; MORE INFO

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Jeff Lorch

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Pasadena Playhouse

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Our friends at the L.A. Times called the new production of Amadeus at Pasadena Playhouse a “marvel to behold,” and I don’t think you can get a bigger rave than that. Tony winner Jefferson Mays plays Salieri in director Darko Tresnjak’s (A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder) take on Peter Shaffer’s 1979 play about the rivalry between Salieri and Mozart in 18th-century Vienna.

Spooky Stories After Dark

Saturday, February 28, 7 p.m.
The Wolves
519 S. Spring St., Downtown L.A. 
COST: FREE, TWO DRINK MINIMUM; MORE INFO

One of my favorite L.A. Instagram follows is Spooky Foodie, aka Ansley Layne, who goes to restaurants in L.A. and tells all about the ghosts haunting your favorite haunts. She’s bringing her ghost stories and encouraging you to tell your own at Spooky Stories After Dark, a Moth-inspired storytelling competition night at The Wolves downtown. After each story, the speaker will be interviewed by Spooky Foodie and co-host Your Cousin Trev. You can also expect some surprise celebrity guests.

Sleep, a film by Andy Warhol featuring John Giorno

Friday, February 27, 5 p.m. to 10:30 p.m.
Marciano Art Foundation
4357 Wilshire Blvd., Mid-Wilshire
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

Film stills of John Giorno in Andy Warhol's Sleep. New York, NY, United States, 1963. Photo credit: Andy Warhol. 8 x 10 inches, b/w, photographic print.

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Studio Rondinone/Courtesy of the John Giorno Collection, John Giorno Archives. Studio Rondinone, New York, NY.

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Andy Warhol

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It’s not every day you can screen Sleep, the 1964 groundbreaking avant-garde film by Andy Warhol, so take advantage and grab a ticket for this evening at the Marciano Art Foundation. Coinciding with their John Giorno: No Nostalgia show, the film is five hours and 21 minutes of artist and poet (and Warhol’s then-lover) John Giorno sleeping, so needless to say, you probably don’t need to be there the whole time. The galleries will be open throughout the entire screening, so it’s also a fun chance to see some late-night art!

Black History Greens Festival

Saturday, February 28, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. 
Virginia Ave. Park 
2200 Virginia Ave., Santa Monica
COST: FREE; MORE INFO

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Courtesy City of Santa Monica

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Check out three greens-cooking demonstrations with local chefs at the Black History Greens Festival in Santa Monica. The day also features family activities, including book readings and giveaways, plus performances. KJLH radio’s Arron “BOBO” Arnell returns for a second year as the master of ceremonies, and DJ Dense will be spinning throughout the event.

48th L.A. Chinatown Firecracker-Lunar New Year Celebration

Saturday, February 28 to Sunday, March 1
943 Broadway (starting line), Chinatown 
COST: FREE; MORE INFO 

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Courtesy Firecracker 10K

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Usher in the Year of the Fire Horse with the annual run/walk in Chinatown, plus a celebration with lion dances, music, a dog contest and more. Saturday features the long 20-mile run and century bike ride, while Sunday is a festival atmosphere with the 5K and 10K races, fun runs, kids' activities and more.

Opera Noir at L.A. Opera’s Akhnaten 

Saturday, February 28, 7:30 p.m.
Dorothy Chandler Pavilion
135 N. Grand Ave., Downtown L.A. 
COST: Opening night from $134, other performances from $44; MORE INFO

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Craig T. Mathew

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L.A. Opera

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L.A. Opera welcomes back Philip Glass’ opera about ancient Egypt, Akhnaten, featuring John Holiday as the title king and mezzo-soprano Sun-Ly Pierce as his queen, Nefertiti. The opera is on at the Dorothy Chandler through March 22, but opening night is also Opera Noir, an event with the San Fernando Valley Chapter of Jack and Jill of America, which brings Black artistry and community together with opera. No matter which night you go, get there early for a pre-performance talk with Dr. Tiffany Kuo in Stern Grand Hall one hour before every performance.

Art Fairs

You have your pick of art fairs and related art events all weekend long. From the big Frieze Art Fair, which has been the jewel of L.A. Art Week since its launch here in 2019; to Felix, which makes a very cool use of space at the Hollywood Roosevelt; to The Other Art Fair in a new Culver City location (with art you might actually be able to afford for your wall); to the Black-artist focus of Butter in Inglewood, there’s really no shortage of places to see the newest artists’ work as well as old favorites.

Frieze L.A.

Through Sunday, March 1
Barker Hangar
3021 Airport Ave., Santa Monica
COST: FROM $79; MORE INFO 

Butter

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Courtesy Butter

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Through Sunday, March 1
Hollywood Park
1011 Stadium Drive, Inglewood 
COST: $60; MORE INFO

Felix Art Fair

Through Sunday, March 1
Hollywood Roosevelt 
7000 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood
COST: $75; MORE INFO

The Other Art Fair

Through Sunday, March 1
3Labs
8461 Warner Drive, Culver City
FROM $30; MORE INFO

Post-Fair

Through Saturday, February 28 
128 Fifth St., Santa Monica
COST: $12; MORE INFO

The story first appeared on The LA Local.

Los Angeles residents were walking dark streets and passing broken lamps even as the LAPD quietly disbanded a specialized unit in July that tracked thieves stealing copper wire from streetlights. 

Known as the Heavy Metal Task Force, the unit launched in early 2024 to combat persistent copper wire theft from lamps lighting the Sixth Street Bridge connecting Boyle Heights to Downtown L.A.

Lt. Andrew Mathes confirmed to The LA Local this week that the unit was eliminated in July 2025 as the department and city tightened budgets. The L.A. Bureau of Street Lighting, the department responsible for maintaining the lights, also had its budget cut by about 5% in the current fiscal year as its backlog of reports continues to grow. 

The team led investigations that exposed organized wire theft, resulting in more than 300 arrests. And it conducted inspections of local scrapyards to make it harder for people to cash in on high copper resale prices.

“When you get an eye for it, copper is everywhere,” Mathes said. 

Public concerns about lights persist

Calls for repair of streetlights surged from about 35,000 in 2022, the year the Sixth Street Bridge was opened to the public, to 46,000 in 2024. There was only a slight dip in such calls in 2025.

The calls made to the city’s 311 line for non-emergency services include lamps that were hit by cars or could be malfunctioning due to age. But the jump in calls starting in 2022 also include a surge in thefts.

Reports of copper wire theft doubled from about 7,200 in fiscal year 2022-23 to nearly 16,000 in 2024-25, according to data from the L.A. City Controller. But starting last year, the monthly calls began trending down, from 1,500 in October 2024 to about 200 in May 2025. 

After previously leading a similar team on catalytic converter thefts, Mathes was tapped for leading the unit on heavy metal thefts in early 2024. The team was based in the LAPD’s Central Division near where such thefts had been focused.

“LA is the copper theft capital,” Mathes said. “It’s the worst of the worst here.”

At their most active, Mathes said, the unit was conducting two or three operations a week.

They inspected scrapyards for stolen metal and warned the owners of the penalties they could face for purchasing it. They found people impersonating construction workers removing reams of wire for resale. He’d find makeshift processing operations in decrepit RVs, with huge spools of wire spun by hand and toxic fire pits where people would melt away plastic shielding because the unwrapped copper fetches a higher price.

Mathes said they tracked a 70% reduction in such thefts in the Newton Division, south and east of downtown.

So what happens if there is no specialized unit? 

Mathes said it was fitting that the first and last arrests made by the heavy metal unit occurred near the iconic bridge on Sixth Street. 

The officers who served on the unit developed valuable experience, Mathes said. And soon before it disbanded, he said they redoubled efforts to prepare the members to continue the work in their new assignments. Central, Hollenbeck and Newton police divisions have a specialist for these kinds of investigations.

When asked about wire thefts growing in other parts of the city in 2025, he presumed it was because of the intensive work the unit was doing near downtown.

“They had to find new places to target,” Mathes said.

The Los Angeles County fires last year drove up insurance costs for many Californians. Now, a proposed settlement means some State Farm policyholders whose premiums rose won’t see additional increases, and others should even get refunds.

State Farm, the largest insurer in the state with about 20% market share, received approval for unprecedented emergency insurance rate increases in California last May. The company told the state that the billions of dollars it expected to pay out after the deadly fires placed it in financial peril.

The proposed deal among the state Insurance Department, consumer advocacy group Consumer Watchdog and State Farm, disclosed late last week, comes after months of public hearings convened by the insurance department and settlement talks.

Consumer Watchdog, which questioned the rate increases State Farm asked for, says the settlement saves the company’s California policyholders a total of $530 million. From the proposed settlement:

• Homeowners’ rate hikes will stay at the previously approved interim rate of 17% instead of the 30% the company sought.
• Condo owners who saw interim rate hikes of 15% will see their rates drop to an increase of 5.8%, and get refunds with interest dating back to June 1, 2025.
• Rental unit owners with interim rate hikes of 38% will see those increases drop to 32.8%, and receive refunds with interest. 
• Renter policyholders will see an increase of 15.65% vs. the interim rate hike of 15%.

In addition, State Farm has agreed not to cancel any new policies this year, and it won’t be canceling some policies it had planned not to renew in wildfire-affected areas. The insurance department characterized those provisions as important to the continued stability of the state’s insurance market, which has been beset with availability and affordability issues.

“When consumer advocates are able to challenge the data and present their own analysis, excessive requests are reduced and consumers are protected,” said Harvey Rosenfield in a statement. Rosenfield founded Consumer Watchdog and wrote Proposition 103, the voter-approved law that governs insurance in California.

State Farm has paid out more than $5 billion in claims from the L.A.-area fires so far, said spokesperson Tom Hartmann.

After consumer complaints and lawsuits, the insurance department is investigating the company’s handling of claims from the fires and expects results from that examination later this spring.

The agreement, which must be approved by an administrative law judge, also requires State Farm to undergo additional review of its rates in 2027. The company will be required to make a one time 2.5% premium discount available to renewing policyholders if its ratio of premiums to available cash reaches a certain level; Consumer Watchdog litigation director Will Pletcher said the deal will give the group more timely access to the company’s annual financial statements to help keep it accountable.

The insurance department expects the judge to decide on the settlement by April 7. Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara will then review the judge’s decision and have the final say.

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

Iran's state media issued what it said was a statement by Iranian Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, vowing to keep the Strait of Hormuz closed and keep up attacks on U.S. bases in the region, as the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran entered its 13th day.

It was purported to be the new leader's first statement since he succeeded his father Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on the first day of the war.

The statement said Iran will avenge the blood of its "martyrs," including the victims of a March 1 attack on a girls school in the city of Minab, which Iranian officials say killed at least 165 people, many of them children. NPR has confirmed the U.S. military is investigating how it could have targeted the school.

The Iranian statement said the Strait of Hormuz, a key shipping route for a fifth of the world's oil supply, should remain closed. It said Iran continues to believe in friendship with its neighbors but will continue targeting U.S. bases in the region.

"The lever of blocking the Strait of Hormuz must undoubtedly continue to be used.," the statement said, according to an English version published by Tasnim News Agency, run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

It's unclear if the statement was from Mojtaba Khamenei himself. Another person was heard reading out the remarks on Iranian state media, with a photo of Khamenei posted on the TV screen, as it was broadcast around the world.

There's been speculation about the leader's current condition and whereabouts. An Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly, told NPR that Khamenei was lightly injured early in the war.

This is a developing story that will be updated.

Here are other major updates about the conflict.

To jump to specific areas of coverage, use the links below:

Attacks on vessels | Oil stockpiles | Strikes across the Gulf | Israel-Hezbollah escalation | Iranian school attack

Two oil tankers hit in Iraqi waters

Two oil tankers were hit in Iraqi territorial waters near the southern port area of Basra, Iraqi officials said Thursday. It is the first oil-related strike reported in Iraq's waters during more than a week of war, in another sign of the conflict's escalation.

Iran, a critical ally of Iraq, took responsibility for attacking one of the tankers, which it said was owned by the U.S.

A port official said the attack targeted vessels near Basra's port approaches, and Iraq's security spokesman described it as sabotage.

Iraqi officials said one person was killed, and 38 crew members were rescued, with search operations continuing.

Iran has stepped up attacks on energy infrastructure and commercial shipping in response to U.S. and Israeli strikes, warning that the world should brace for oil prices to double.

— Jane Arraf

U.S. and allies to release record oil stockpiles  

The U.S. confirmed it will release 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve as part of a coordinated International Energy Agency (IEA) release of 400 million barrels from emergency stockpiles.

The U.S. contribution amounts to roughly 40% of the total, to be released gradually over about four months.

The IEA's executive director, Fatih Birol, said the goal is to keep the supply of oil flowing as the conflict disrupts shipping routes and energy infrastructure. But analysts warn stockpile releases can only partially offset prolonged disruption in the Gulf, where roughly a fifth of global oil consumption normally transits the Strait of Hormuz.

On Wednesday, President Trump said the price spike is temporary and said the reserve release would push prices down.

According to the popular app Gas Buddy, the current average cost of regular unleaded is now up to $3.61 a gallon.

- Camila Domonoske

Iran continues attacks on Gulf States

Countries in the Gulf reported new incoming threats and interceptions Thursday, as Iran continued firing drones and missiles across the region – including at U.S. military bases.

The UAE's defense ministry said air defenses were responding to Iranian missile and drone attacks, and that sounds heard in parts of the country were from intercepts.

Kuwait's defense ministry said its air defenses intercepted ballistic missiles and drones that penetrated the northern and southern parts of the country's airspace.

Saudi Arabia said it intercepted and destroyed drones headed toward the Shaybah oil field.

The United Nations Security Council adopted a resolution on Wednesday condemning Iran for recent attacks across the Persian Gulf region, calling them a "breach of international law" and "a serious threat to international peace and security."

- Rebecca Rosman

Israel launches large strikes on Hezbollah sites in Beirut after rocket fire into Israel

People inspect homes damaged by a projectile launched from Lebanon, in Haniel central Israel, on Thursday.

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Baz Ratner

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AP

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The militant group Hezbollah launched its biggest rocket attack against Israel since the start of the war with Iran. The Israeli military said the Iranian-backed group fired heavy volleys toward northern Israel overnight into Thursday, triggering interceptions and sending residents repeatedly into shelters.

The Israeli military responded by launching more attacks against what it said were Hezbollah launch sites and command infrastructure.

Huge booms were heard across the capital and large black smoke billowed from the Dahieh neighborhood in south Beirut, while an attack in central Beirut – where thousands of people are displaced – killed 8 people and injured 31, according to Lebanese officials.

Wide evacuation orders for south Lebanon and Beirut's southern suburbs have displaced at least 800,000 people so far, according to the Lebanese government.

Lebanon, which does not have diplomatic ties with Israel, has unusually called for direct talks with Israel to end the escalating fighting with Hezbollah. Israel has not officially responded.

Israeli strikes on Iran have continued, with Iran firing missiles at Israel intermittently, including overnight.

Israeli military officials say about half of the missiles Iran has launched at Israel have carried cluster warheads, which spread out into smaller bombs over a wider area – increasing the risk to civilians.

- Daniel Estrin, Hadeel Al-Shalchi and Rebecca Rosman

Pentagon: Preliminary assessment suggests U.S. likely responsible for strike on Iranian school

The Pentagon has opened a formal investigation into the missile strike on an Iranian girls school that killed at least 165 civilians, many of them children, after a preliminary assessment suggested the U.S. was at fault, according to a U.S. official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The investigation is expected to take months and will include interviews with all those involved, from planners and commanders to those who carried out the strike.

If a U.S. role in the attack is confirmed, it would rank among the military's most deadly incidents involving civilians in decades. Congress created a special Pentagon office to prevent the accidental targeting of civilians but it was dramatically scaled back by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth soon after he took office last year.

"This investigation is ongoing. As we have said, unlike the terrorist Iranian regime, the United States does not target civilians," said White House spokesperson Anna Kelly.

The Pentagon did not respond to a request for comment.

NPR previously reported — based on commercial satellite imagery and independent expert analysis — that the strike was more extensive than initially reported and appeared consistent with a precision strike on a nearby military complex, raising questions about whether outdated targeting information contributed to the tragedy.

- Tom Bowman, Kat Lonsdorf, Geoff Brumfiel

Rebecca Rosman contributed to this report from Paris, Jane Arraf from Erbil, Iraq, Hadeel Al-Shalchi from Beirut, Daniel Estrin from Tel Aviv and Camila Domonoske, Tom Bowman, Kat Lonsdorf and Geoff Brumfiel from Washington.
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