The Brief

Exide — a now-shuttered battery recycling plant in the city of Vernon — spewed lead into thousands of homes in Southeast Los Angeles County for decades. Despite growing up in the area, Marvella Muro did not learn about the plant till she was an adult.

She recalled an environmental justice symposium at East L.A. College, where a group of students shared that they had elevated levels of lead in their blood. Muro said she worried about her health, her loved ones, and the potential of having lead-ridden soil surrounding her home.

The session stayed with her. Years later, Muro became a curator at Self Help Graphics & Art, a community arts center in Boyle Heights. When the Getty announced that the next theme of its giant, cross-site arts event — PST ART — would be “Art & Science Collide,” Muro knew exactly what she wanted to do.

She and her team reached out to local artists. With the help of community members, they put together “Sinks: Places We Call Home.” The exhibition opens Saturday at Cal State L.A. and depicts how toxic pollutants have impacted local residents’ health and quality of life.

“This exhibition is very L.A. focused,” Muro said, “but [the issue is] something that really impacts communities nationwide.”

Art rooted in history

The exhibition takes its name from “Geographies of Race and Ethnicity II,” an essay by social scientist Laura Pulido. In the essay, Pulido says:

Muro said she thought this was fitting, because polluters often treat low-income communities of color as dumping grounds.

The exhibition opens with a collection of pieces that highlight the natural beauty and potential harms of living in L.A. County — everywhere from Frogtown to Signal Hill.

Marvella Muro, the curator of the exhibition, contributed a letter she received from the Department of Toxic Substances Control regarding contaminated soil in her home.

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Eric Jaipal

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Self Help Graphics & Art

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In one section of the exhibit, a giant timeline of Willowbrook, an unincorporated community in South L.A., traces the history of contamination in what is now Magic Johnson Park. Visitors learn about the construction of a 120-acre “Tank Farm,” where companies like ExxonMobil stored petroleum products.

The company later sold the land to a developer. And on it, the developer built a housing complex that was “touted as an oasis for working-class Black families,” Muro told LAist. Those families were later displaced, after enduring cancer, leukemia, miscarriages, and other health issues.

Beatriz Jaramillo, an artist who earned her MFA at Cal State L.A., captured this history on nine translucent white curtains that hang from the ceiling of the exhibit hall.

Ahead of the exhibition, Jaramillo spent years researching the Willowbrook neighborhood. She also spoke with local residents, including members of its community garden. With their help, Jaramillo created another art piece: a large mirror surrounded by dozens of small planters. Jaramillo made each planter by hand, and community members selected the plants that were placed inside them.

Jaramillo's "In-Nature" includes 36 terracotta planters made by hand.

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Julia Barajas

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LAist

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This part of the exhibition, Jaramillo said, “invites people to reflect on our own contribution to the environment, on how we can collectively work together to improve our community.”

When the exhibition closes, she added, the Willowbrook community members will take the planters home.

Art connected to action

Maru Garcia had made art pieces about Exide’s impact on Southeast L.A., but the work left her feeling frustrated. “It's very important, of course, to bring attention to a problem,” she told LAist, “but I thought that was not enough . . . I was just describing something, but not really able to help in any sense.”

Garcia, who has degrees in chemistry and biotechnology, saw “Sinks” as an “opportunity to finally be in the community, and do something more hands-on.”

She also participated, with Muro, in Prospering Backyards, a group of scientists, artists, activists, and community members developing an alternative method for reducing lead in contaminated soil. (Currently, California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control remediates the soil in Southeast L.A. by removing it and replacing it with new soil. The contaminated soil gets transported elsewhere.)

Through Prospering Backyards, Garcia learned about the potential benefits of minerals known as zeolites, which suck up the lead. Garcia also learned about the ways in which soil contamination has impacted Southeast L.A. residents’ day-to-day life.

“A lot of people stopped gardening,” she said. “They also felt really bad about letting their children play in their yards.”

The sculptures in Maru Garcia's "Boiling Rock 3" are supported by steel poles that will slowly reveal the words "Madre" (Mother), "Alive," and "Home" as they dissolve.

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Eric Jaipal

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Self Help Graphics & Art

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For the exhibition, Garcia made multiple pieces inspired by her work with the community, including three 6-foot tall pillars composed of soil, zeolites, mulch, and clay. These represent the palm-sized columns of earth that they extracted from community members’ homes during the course of their research.

“Through this project, we are really trying to heal this relationship that we have with our soil,” Garcia said. “Instead of seeing it as a source of contaminants, as something that is attacking or affecting us, I want us to remember that soil is like a mother, it's a source of life.”

The two candidates for Los Angeles mayor, incumbent Karen Bass and challenger Nithya Raman, traded sharp jabs Wednesday night over homelessness, housing and police hiring in the first debate of the general election season.

The debate, hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, came as both campaigns began ramping up door-to-door canvassing in a race that’s expected to be close.

Bass, who was elected mayor in 2022, finished five points ahead of Raman in June but is considered vulnerable with unfavorable ratings at 57% in a poll taken before the primary.

Homelessness

During the debate, Raman, who represents Council District 4, said Bass had not made enough progress on the No. 1 issue facing Los Angeles: homelessness.

“You’ve been the mayor for four years and the results have not changed — the results are visible on our streets,” Raman said.

The latest homeless count showed unsheltered homelessness rose 8% from January 2025 to January 2026. The increase followed a two-year drop of 17.5%.

Bass countered that her Inside Safe program has brought thousands of people off of the streets and pointed out Raman was head of the City Council’s Housing and Homelessness Committee until recently and therefore shared responsibility for the city’s progress on the issue.

“She has been the point person for homelessness — a very powerful position that she declared as powerful when she lost it,” Bass said.

Raman touted a 49% drop in unsheltered homelessness in her council district, which stretches from Silver Lake to Sherman Oaks.

Bass claimed Inside Safe was largely responsible for the drop.

If elected, Raman promised to conduct an audit of homelessness spending in her first six months of office and said she would fully staff a new Bureau of Homelessness Oversight to hold the city accountable for its spending on the issue.

Auditors have also flagged major problems with the handling of tax dollars by the regional L.A. Homeless Services Authority. The failures stem from poor bookkeeping and accounting of taxpayer money at the agency, which spent over $800 million in public funds last fiscal year.

Raman also promised to lobby L.A. County more forcefully than Bass for mental health, drug abuse and other social services for the unhoused.

Housing

The two also sparred over housing policy, with Raman saying the city needed more density in housing to address a severe shortage.

“This is a massive problem for the future of Los Angeles,” Raman said. “Let’s have a Planning Department that does the work to build these units, zone for these units.”

Raman said the city is “not zoned for more housing,” adding that’s why the state has stepped in with mandates for more dense housing in cities and counties across California.

Raman supported the law.

Bass opposed it.

“I do not support Sacramento telling us what to do,” Bass said. “The best way to build is to reach agreement with communities.”

Bass has billed herself as someone who would do more to preserve residential neighborhoods in the city and protect them from density. She added that 42,000 units of affordable housing were in the pipeline.

Policing

The two tangled over the hiring of police officers, too.

Bass pointed to a 2020 social media post by Raman that declared “defund the police.”

“She’s irresponsible in what she talks about,” Bass said.

Raman returned the verbal jab, arguing that Bass was irresponsible for backing a big raise for police officers in 2023.

“This is about fiscal management of public tax dollars,” Raman said. "This contract gave raises to the [Police Department] that our city couldn't afford and we suffered as a result.

”We cut street lighting, we cut pothole repair — we have more potholes on our streets than we did before," she continued. “We do less graffiti removal than we did before.”

Bass has said the raises were necessary to recruit new officers and keep current officers from leaving the department.

Raman also criticized Police Chief Jim McDonnell’s response to federal immigration raids, noting he refused to enforce a state law that largely prohibited federal agents from wearing masks. The council member said she didn’t believe the chief’s response to ICE raids “met the moment,” stopping short of saying whether she would seek to remove him.

Supporting business

Bass and Raman also fought over whether the city had sufficiently supported the entertainment industry.

“We need a tax credit and advocacy in Sacramento for the kind of tax credit that Georgia has, that’s the same as New Jersey has that’s taking jobs away from here,” Raman said.

Bass said she appointed a film czar to fight for such policies and criticized Raman for doing nothing on the issue.

“You have been on the City Council for six years,” Bass said. “You’ve been at City Hall twice as long as I have. I realize you want to pitch yourself as somebody from the outside. But where were you? You’ve introduced no motion for the entertainment industry.”

Bass said Raman would not be a good mayor because she lacks support from any of her colleagues on the City Council.

“She has no support from the council members because nobody can work with her,” Bass said.

Raman said she works well with colleagues and that Bass had locked up their endorsements before she made her last-minute entry into the race.

Five news reporters and two members of the military who were invited to an event at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California were briefly detained at gunpoint by security officers who thought they were gate crashers, according to local news reports.

The incident happened Monday ahead of an invitation-only groundbreaking for a new training facility for missile operators at the federal airfield near Santa Barbara, Calif. Reporters from Noozhawk and KEYT were among those detained, and both outlets published articles detailing the detainment.

In a statement to Noozhawk, a Space Launch Delta 30 Public Affairs spokesperson called the incident a breakdown in communication.

“Vandenberg Space Force Base is experiencing an increased number of unauthorized entry attempts,” the statement said. “Every potential unauthorized presence must be treated as a legitimate threat until proven otherwise. While we recognize this may have been unsettling, the security of the base and its personnel is our priority.”

The reporters and military members were part of a convoy being escorted onto the base by uniformed public affairs staff in a government minivan when they were suddenly ordered out of their vehicles with their hands up, according to news reports.

Officers pointed guns, sirens were sounded and barricades went up at the gate entrance, KEYT reported.

The two military members assigned to the base — one enlisted and one a junior officer — were handcuffed and placed in base vehicles, while the civilians were ordered to sit on a curb, Noozhawk reported.

The reporters for outlets also including KSBY-TV and the Santa Maria Times/Lompoc Record were held for more than 30 minutes, causing them to miss the event. All were let go without further incident.

“We respect the military’s need to provide security for the base,” Tom Bolton, Noozhawk’s editor in chief, said in a statement Wednesday. “But clearly what occurred was unfortunate and unnecessary, and potentially dangerous, as firearms were drawn.”

Bolton said he hopes to have a conversation with base leadership later this week to review what happened in the hopes of preventing a similar occurrence in the future.

As severe wildfires burn across the Western U.S., California has adopted the toughest rules in the country to help protect communities from burning. Homeowners in wildfire-prone areas will be required to limit plants within five feet of their house, a protective measure that wildfire experts say can help prevent homes from igniting.
Research shows that dry, dense vegetation around buildings can cause wildfires to spread. In extreme conditions, high winds carry a deluge of tiny, burning embers far beyond the fire itself. When those embers get caught in vegetation, they can ignite, spreading flames to nearby buildings and homes.
Wednesday's vote by the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection comes after years of debate and delays. The state originally considered rules that would have restricted all vegetation within five feet of a house, aside from well-maintained trees. That generated pushback from some communities, concerned about losing greenery in their gardens and the cost of yard maintenance.
California regulators ultimately struck a compromise about plants allowed within the five-foot zone, known as Zone Zero. Lawns, flowers and non-woody plants up to 18 inches tall will be allowed, unless they are located directly under the roofline of a house. Trees will be allowed, though branches must be trimmed five feet away from a structure. The rules will apply to new construction right away, but will be phased in for existing structures, affecting almost 2 million homes in high-risk areas.

State regulators say the rules reflect the new reality of more extreme wildfires, driven in part by rising temperatures from climate change. More than 57,000 homes and buildings have been destroyed in California in the last decade, according to state regulators.

"California's faced an existential crisis that has affected our health, that has affected our finances related to our ability to buy and sell homes, to insure homes and has put us in a very precarious place," testified Yana Valachovic of the University of California Cooperative Extension at Wednesday's hearing, who also advised the state on the new rules.

Growing tensions across Western states

California's debate reflects growing tensions across the Western U.S. about how communities should prepare for wildfires. Wildfire experts warn even fires that start in open, wildland areas can quickly become urban fires, destroying thousands of homes in neighborhoods that residents never thought were at risk, like in the 2025 Los Angeles fires. This summer, more than 800 homes were destroyed in Spokane, Wash., by three wildfires that burned through dense neighborhoods.
Across several states, homeowners in public meetings have said wildfire regulations threaten private property rights, reduce urban wildlife habitat and require costly maintenance.
"You are about to approve a set of regulations that will cost millions of California homeowners tens of billions of dollars," testified Dave Lefkowitz, president of the Mandeville Canyon Association, a community group in the Los Angeles hills. "The math is insuperable."

Vegetation management rules were recently defeated in both Oregon and Washington after strong public pushback, including misinformation that spread online. Some community groups wanted regulators to wait for more scientific research on wildfire spread.

Research shows plants can increase risk

In experiments, researchers have shown that even green plants can ignite in the dry, windy conditions of an extreme wildfire. Analyses of past California wildfires have also shown that homes with vegetation predominantly within 6 feet of the exterior walls were at higher risk of being lost. Managing vegetation also creates "defensible space" for firefighters, providing better access for defending a structure.

California has long been at the forefront of wildfire policy, pioneering regulations that other states have adopted. For almost 20 years, California's wildfire building codes have required homes to use fire-resistant materials for construction. A handful of other states recently adopted similar codes. Research shows that while there are no guarantees a house will survive a fire, protections are strongest when homeowners address both building materials and vegetation. Even in some of the most severe wildfires in recent years, some homes made it through.
California regulators say the widespread regulations are needed because voluntary measures don't provide enough protection. Communities are safest when all homeowners comply, since one home with dense, dry vegetation can spread fire to its neighbors. Insurance companies in California are also required to provide discounts to homeowners that make their homes more fire-resistant.

New rules depend on inspections

While California's new rules provide more flexibility for homeowners, some wildfire experts say they don't go far enough, given that any combustible material next to a house could pose a risk. The new vegetation rules will be enforced by local fire departments and state agencies that do home inspections every year. Those inspectors will bear the brunt of educating homeowners and ensuring compliance.
"I want the board to understand what this compromise asks of local inspection programs," Todd Lando of the Central Marin Fire Department testified at the hearing. "A clean Zone Zero is a five-minute inspection with one question: Is anything combustible within five feet? Easy for the homeowner to understand and take action on." Lando says the new rules will involve more conditional judgements by inspectors, opening up debate with homeowners that could affect compliance.

California regulators say inspectors will focus on educating homeowners at first, before compliance becomes mandatory. For existing homes, the new vegetation rules will go into effect in 2029 at the earliest.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Clemente Larraín, a doctoral student from Chile, chose his program at UCLA because it offered subsidized childcare on campus. His young daughter was enrolled for free, giving him the peace of mind to focus on his studies.

Now, the university has thrown a wrench in those plans.

In an email to families enrolled in UCLA’s Early Care and Education program, Darnell Hunt, executive vice chancellor and provost, announced two university-run childcare centers will close at the end of the 2026-27 academic year because the university has determined “the program is not sustainable.”

“ For international students, this is the worst news because we don't have networks here," Larraín said. "We don't have family. Some of us have some friends, but not too close to just trusting them to our kids.”

He earns around $3,000 a month working on campus, which he said barely covers his rent, forcing the family to dig into savings. Meanwhile, his wife is waiting for a work permit so she can start to bring in additional income.

Having to find full time care for their daughter is causing immense stress.

“ This obviously changed radically the experience of the graduate students with family at UCLA,” Larraín said.

Limited childcare options for parents

The announcement comes as a changing landscape is making it harder for parents to find childcare across California. A new report by the Center for the Study of Child Care Employment at UC Berkeley found that the rollout of a new grade for 4-year-olds in the state’s public schools is having unintended consequences for childcare businesses. Those businesses have typically cared for children 5 and under but are now losing more children to transitional kindergarten.

Between 2019 and 2025, about 1,100 preschools have closed across California.

Evyn Lê Espiritu Gandhi, an associate professor of Asian American studies at UCLA, has two children enrolled in a UCLA-run childcare center, which she said costs her around $6,000 a month — and that’s at a subsidized rate.

“Having a high-quality, safe, reliable childcare option for my children just allows me to do my job as a UCLA professor, which includes research and publishing, but also teaching and mentorship of undergraduate and graduate students,” Gandhi said. “I'm really not sure how I'll be able to do that job if I don't have adequate childcare next year.”

Gandhi said the only alternative she has for her daughter is Bright Horizons Westwood, which is part of a large chain of childcare facilities across the U.S.

“ But to be honest it doesn't have as good of a kind of teacher-child ratio as [UCLA's Early Care and Education] does, and it has a super long wait list,” she said.

LAist has reached out to the childcare facility to ask about its waitlist, teacher-child ratio and rates.

Earlier this year, Gandhi said, tuition at UCLA’s Early Care and Education program increased by 4%, Gandhi said. At the time, UCLA also announced it would eliminate “all food program services (which includes all meals, baby formula and food, milk and snacks), discontinuing support for diapers and formula, not backfilling vacant positions, and other cost reducing measures.”

After families protested, the university backed down.

‘Disconnected from its mission’

Yvonne Yang, an assistant clinical professor at UCLA in psychiatry, called it "callous and heartless," even "cruel" that the university decided to close down the childcare centers.

“It means to me that the university has completely become disconnected from its mission and basically lost its soul and is focusing only on profits,” said Yang, who is also a physician and researcher at the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center.

Yang said she’s now competing with all the families enrolled in the UCLA program for the limited childcare options available on the west side.

 ”When our kids were young and still breastfeeding, moms are welcome to just walk up to the daycare and to feed our kids during the workday, which is so much better than having to pump,” she said. “It's just a way of maintaining that connection with your kids so early in that transition.”

Having the childcare center on campus allowed her to integrate having a family life and being a professor, she said.