The Brief

California’s insurance department is throwing what could be a lifeline to homeowners in fire-prone areas after announcing new regulations aimed at expanding coverage options.

The rule change was announced late last week and comes as the state faces a home insurance crisis.

It allows insurers to use a model that looks at future and potential catastrophes to set rates, rather than depending on historic wildfire data. In exchange, it requires insurers to increase coverage in these areas and account for efforts to fire-proof homes and communities when setting rates.

"Outdated rules have contributed to rate spikes and balloon premiums following major wildfire disasters without fully accounting for the growing risk caused by climate change or risk mitigation measures taken by communities or regionally," Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara's office said in a statement.

The rule is part of a growing response to insurance companies leaving California and insurers dropping homeowners across the state due to wildfire risk. Some of the state’s largest insurance companies already left or stopped taking new policies in recent years — although State Farm last week said it will soon resume offering coverage .

New regulation requirements

California didn't previously require insurance companies to provide coverage anywhere in the state, according to the state's department of insurance. But that’s no longer the case. Under the new regulation, major insurance companies must write comprehensive policies in "wildfire distressed areas" for at least 85% of their statewide market share. For example, the department of insurance explained that if a company covers 20 homes out of 100 throughout the state, it must write policies for "17 out of 100 homes in a distressed area.”

Insurance companies have two other options for meeting minimum coverage requirements.

Michael Soller with the insurance department said the goal is to get more people back into comprehensive coverage and off of California's last-resort FAIR insurance plans , which are available to homeowners who can't access traditional insurance.

" Success is more insurance companies writing more policies for the people who need them the most," he said.

Concerns about transparency

Some watchdog groups are criticizing the insurance commissioner's new move, saying it doesn't require companies to reveal how they set rates.

 "What the commissioner's [proposing] is guaranteed to raise insurance rates based on these secret algorithms, but it is not guaranteed to get more Californians covered again," said Carmen Balber, the executive director of Consumer Watchdog.

Pedro Nava with the state's non-partisan Little Hoover Commission agreed.

" In order to ensure that there's fairness for everybody involved, that there has to be a way to examine what's essentially a black box that the insurance companies use," he said.

But Soller said the new regulation requires review and approval of insurance companies' catastrophe models.

" The companies that have these models are going to have to come in and subject themselves to really a rigorous inspection," he said.

Building a public catastrophe model

One issue, though, is that the state currently doesn't have its own models to compare company proposals to, according to Eric Riggs, the dean of Cal Poly Humboldt's College of Natural Resources and Sciences.

" The [California Department of Insurance] has no means to go back and check some of those assumptions, nor does the public," he said.

Riggs is leading a group of researchers tasked by the state insurance department with exploring what it would take to develop a public catastrophe model for wildfire risk in California. Their recommendations are due in April.

" We can help insurers and homeowners both agree on what it costs to insure a home, a property, a community, and understand the total risk and therefore cost picture for living here," Riggs said. "I think doing all that will be very useful, because it's been a bit of a guessing game."

Villa Aurora is a sprawling home that sits atop a hillside in the Pacific Palisades. Built in 1927 as a demonstration of innovation, the Spanish-inspired house sweeps across a 19,000-square-foot lot overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The red clay tiles and wood ceilings recall the architecture of Andalusia and cement the home as a premiere example of Spanish Colonial Revival architecture.

But its construction wasn't just for show. It was also meant to attract people to the area, draw them outside the city center to the more rustic terrain and coastal bluffs just west of Beverly Hills — to a neighborhood whose roads were not yet paved.

Villa Aurora in the Pacific Palisades, a convening place for German and Austrian exiles

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But in 1929, it all came crashing down as the economy did the same. The owners were forced to sell and Villa Aurora sat empty for years. That is, until a German couple arrived, exiles who fled Nazi German and remade Villa Aurora into a sanctuary for other émigrés.

"The house hosted intellectual gatherings, salons and artistic exchanges, a tradition that continues today," Claudia Gordon, the Villa's director told LAist 89.3's AirTalk host Larry Mantle on a recent show. She joined the program alongside author Thomas Blubacher, whose new book Weimar Under the Palms tells the story of German exiles who settled in the Pacific Palisades.

Why the Pacific Palisades?

Cheaper than New York, an unbeatable climate, the allure of Hollywood — there were many reasons to settle here.

" Between the time of the monarchy and the Nazi dictatorship, so many people gathered here," Blubacher said of the Pacific Palisades. "It became the center of German-speaking exiles."

That time was the early 1900s during the Weimar Republic, a historical period in Germany when free speech and intellectualism were still celebrated bastions of public life.

Many of the early émigrés from Germany to the Palisades were people of the film industry, like Ernst Lubitsch and Fritz Lang, who became prominent Hollywood directors.

 "In the 30s and 40s, the film people wanted to start a new life," Blubacher told AirTalk. "They wanted to be American and a part of the American culture."

Influencing an industry

During the height of Nazism, another wave of German and Austrian exiles would make their way to the Palisades. Vicki Baum, Thomas Mann, Lion Feuchtwanger are just some of those people, not only exiles but intellectuals in their own right who made their mark on Hollywood.

But as Blubacher recounts, the transition from Europe to Southern California wasn't easy. What they had left behind as intellectuals was a culture of coffeeshops and salons, where likeminded creatives would meet up to generate ideas and possibly collaborate on them. That was not the case in their new home.

"When they came here, it was very strange for them that that doesn't exist here," Blubacher added. "They needed a car, they needed a private invitation to meet other people. This was a total different culture."

Finding a home in Villa Aurora

In this vacuum of communal spaces to gather, German emigres created them by opening up their homes.

" Villa Aurora and the Thomas Mann house were centers where people could meet and congregate," Gordon said. Salka Viertel, a German immigrant as well as an actress and screenwriter, "was one of the salonnieres that brought people together," Gordon added.

Viertel held weekly salons on Sundays through the late 1940s, and welcomed the likes of Charlie Chaplin and Greta Garbo into her home.

Like any other immigrant community, the Germans had a steely resolve to build community. In 1987, Villa Aurora opened a residency program for German artists and intellectuals, supported by the German government.

 "It's an opportunity to honor the German exiles, which hadn't been possible before," said Gordon, "and to kind of keep the spirit of the salons of the get togethers of this transatlantic cultural exchange alive."

Today, the homes to the right and left of Villa Aurora are gone, burned to the ground by the January fires.

"It's a miracle that Villa Aurora is still standing," Gordon said.

The hillside is charred and the villa suffered some smoke damage. But somehow, the sprawling home in the hills and hub for cultural fellowship still stands.

Listen to the full conversation with Blubacher and Gordon below:

The former Huntington Beach city attorney is disputing allegations that he was fired for cause by the Trump administration after less than a year.

Why it matters

Michael Gates, a popular but controversial figure in Huntington Beach politics, told LAist on Friday he had made it known that he planned to resign prior to a supervisor telling him he no longer had a job.

Gates says he is going back to a job with the beach city.

How we got here

The Orange County Register published a story Friday, including a federal employment document, showing Gates was officially fired for cause. The document is undated and does not specify a reason.

The Department of Justice has not responded to LAist's records request for the documents.

The Register reported that a Department of Justice source said that Gates repeatedly referred to women colleagues by derogatory and demeaning names and had complained about the department employing a pregnant woman.

Gates said the allegations are a "100% fabrication" and that he is considering legal action for defamation.

Gates told LAist that the firing was an effort to reverse the narrative about a “dysfunctional” department.

“It was a very unprofessional environment,” Gates told LAist, adding that morale was low in the Civil Rights Division where he worked. “In terms of leadership, it was very dysfunctional,” he said.

This is a developing story. We'll have more reporting throughout the day.

Starbucks baristas at some unionized stores across the country are on strike, including locations in Southern California.

Workers at coffee houses in Long Beach, Santa Clarita and Seal Beach walked off the job Thursday on "Red Cup Day" — an annual event where the coffee chain gives out free reusable cups. They joined baristas at the Downtown Disney Starbucks, who started their strike on Saturday and closed down the store.

The strike is part of a nationwide dispute between the union representing workers at more than 550 of the coffee chain's locations and Starbucks, who have been bargaining a contract for more than a year. Last week, unionized baristas voted to authorize a strike, accusing Starbucks of refusing to budge on their demands for higher pay and better hours.

"The cost of living is only going up. We're trying to go to school, we're trying to pay bills and it's just not enough," said Mai Tran, a striking barista at the Downtown Disney location from the picket line on Tuesday. "We just want to serve coffee…and we can't."

Starbucks said in a statement that it's the unionized workers who are refusing to bargain.

"Our commitment to bargaining hasn’t changed," Starbucks executive Sara Kelly said in a statement last week . "Workers United walked away from the table but if they are ready to come back, we’re ready to talk."

Disagreement over wages

One of the big disputes is pay. Starbucks Workers United is demanding a wage bump for baristas that the company says is unreasonable.

Neither side has made their exact proposals public, but Starbucks claims the union's demands are exorbitant and that its current pay and benefits together come out to an average of $30 an hour for baristas, which it called the "best in retail."

The union says its members need higher take home pay to make ends meet, and that limited hours can mean baristas don't actually have access to Starbucks benefits. Workers also point to a recent tracker published by the labor group the AFL-CIO that found that Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol made 6,666 times the median pay of a Starbucks barista in 2024. Niccol was offered tens of millions to leave his post as Chipotle's top executive for Starbucks last year.

" I am on strike because I have just about had it with Brian Nichols, our CEO. His greed is out of control," said Christi Gomeljak, who added that she has worked at Starbucks for more than five years and makes just above $20 an hour. "It would be so easy for them to give us a contract and to treat us fairly."

The strike is open-ended, so it's unclear when it might end. The union has said more stores could join the strike in the days and weeks to come.

Los Angeles County jails pared back access to life-saving opioid addiction treatment this fall during one of the system’s deadliest years on record, according to records obtained by CalMatters and interviews with staff.

The policy change came one week after Attorney General Rob Bonta filed a lawsuit against the county over “inhumane” conditions across its jail system, citing a “shocking rate of deaths,” including overdoses.

In interviews with CalMatters, two Correctional Health Services physicians expressed alarm over the reductions, saying that even the slightest delay in treatment is “wildly dangerous” and can lead to more fatal overdoses.

“Patients are begging me for help,” said a physician who spoke with CalMatters on the condition of anonymity because of fear of professional retaliation. “I’m on edge, waiting to see if someone is going to die.”

The reduction in treatment also comes as the jails hold about 700 more people every day as a result of a tough-on-crime ballot measure voters approved last year. Proposition 36 increased sentences for certain drug and theft crimes, leading to a surge in jail populations and straining county resources, according to a Sept. 10 Correctional Health Services memo to the Board of Supervisors.

Los Angeles County allocates roughly $25 million annually for the treatment program. County supervisors this year gave the program an additional $8 million from opioid lawsuit settlements. That sum ultimately did not increase funding for treatment because the department used the money for a different need, according to a statement from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

“The overall (medication-assisted treatment) program funding remained the same” despite the extra money the department received, the statement reads.

In a Sept. 16 memo obtained by CalMatters, Chief Medical Officer Sean Henderson said Correctional Health Services “will be taking a pause on primary care in ordering buprenorphine.” The medication reduces cravings and prevents overdoses.

The new mandate restricts how quickly and broadly Correctional Health Services physicians can prescribe the medication. Priority will be given to people when they first enter the jail system — the largest in California — which houses roughly 13,000 people across nine main facilities. Everyone else who wants medication will be placed on a waitlist.

“It's misleading because we just put people on this list and then they stay on the list,” said a physician.

That means that if someone does not accept treatment upon arrival, they won’t be able to access it during the remainder of their incarceration, even if they change their mind, said both physicians who spoke with CalMatters.

Legal experts and physicians say there could be a myriad of reasons why people deny treatment when they’re first arrested and incarcerated. For example, a person could be unfit to make medical decisions if they are in active withdrawal.

Waitlist grew for opioid treatment

Between 2,350 and 2,650 incarcerated people in Los Angeles County receive medication-assisted treatment on any given day, said the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in an email to CalMatters.

As of Sept. 15 — just one day before the policy change went into effect — 363 people were on a waiting list for treatment, the department said.

But that number skyrocketed to 835 people as of Oct. 31. The total includes 471 newcomers who have never been on the program; the remainder are people who asked to re-enroll after dropping out. As of October, the average wait time is 25 days, the department said. The department declined to answer how long the person waiting the longest has been in line for treatment.

In a statement to CalMatters, the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services said the policy change was intended “to help maximize the reach of (its) treatment program within the jails by leveraging the existing medical staff in the (Inmate Reception Center) where patient traffic is constant.”

The department maintained that medication-assisted treatment is “still available for all inmates, including those who may have declined treatment when they first arrived.”

“Length of incarceration varies for each inmate, from just a handful of days for some and many months for others; whether an individual will access (medication-assisted treatment) during their incarceration is based on their personal choice, unique case and the length of time they will remain incarcerated," wrote the department.

Melissa Camacho, a senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California, said the reduction in treatment is “mind boggling” in a year where there are record-breaking deaths.

“I’d like to know how many people who died from overdose deaths were on the waiting list,” she said. “Having a waitlist doesn’t matter if the waitlist is too long to get treatment.”

More money for L.A. jail health care

Medication-assisted treatment combines counseling with FDA-approved medications, including buprenorphine, methadone and naltrexone to treat certain substance use disorders. A 2021 report from the National Commission on Correctional Health Care found that drug and alcohol overdoses constitute the third leading cause of death in jails, following illness and suicide.

Los Angeles County was an early adopter of medication-assisted treatment in its jails. Since the program’s inception in 2021, roughly 25,000 incarcerated people have been treated with Suboxone, an oral form of buprenorphine administered daily by medical professionals. But reliance on Suboxone alone proved to be challenging because of staffing limitations, said the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services in an email to CalMatters.

That’s why, according to Correctional Health Services physicians, the current regimen only allows someone to access Suboxone for 30 days when they first arrive in custody. After that, they can receive a long-acting injectable form of buprenorphine that’s administered once a month.

Since July 2022, nearly 40,000 doses of injectable buprenorphine — which cost roughly $1,600 per shot — have been administered to incarcerated people, according to the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services.

In a Sept. 10 memo to the Board of Supervisors, Correctional Health Services’ Director Christina Ghaly said overdose deaths constitute at least 28% of deaths this year. That’s a steep increase since 2016, when they accounted for 9% of in-custody deaths.

“Of all the medical care that we offer in the jail, opioid use disorder treatment is by far and away the most life-saving measure we provide,” said a second physician who spoke with CalMatters on the condition of anonymity because of fear of professional retaliation. “It seems paramount to protect these services.”

'It seems like it's backtracking'

In a written statement, the Los Angeles County Chief Executive Office said the county increased funding for health care in jails by $33 million last year to $580 million. The office said the county has been making improvements to the jails that collectively expanded access to care.

“It is true that critical unmet needs remain, and the county is focused on working with (the county health department and jail health care) to meet their highest priority needs in an environment of extremely limited local funding and service reductions to public facing services across multiple departments,” the statement read.

The state’s lawsuit against the jail system claims Los Angeles County and Correctional Health Services failed “to address the unconscionable mass overdose incidents occurring inside (its) jails” and limited access to the medication-assisted treatment program.

According to the lawsuit, three dozen in-custody deaths — approximately one per week — had taken place in Los Angeles County jails this year by the time of the filing. At that rate, the lawsuit stated, this year will account for the highest number of in-custody deaths over the past 20 years.

“Although (medication-assisted treatment) is known to prevent opioid related overdose and deaths and reduce recidivism, (Correctional Health Services) has an exceedingly long waitlist and failed to offer continued maintenance of medication,” the attorney general’s office wrote in the complaint.

“Persons in custody who have overdosed report not having access to (medication-assisted treatment) or receiving their initial dose of the medication but then being placed on a waitlist for access to follow-up medication, with a delay possibly causing a relapse and avoidable withdrawal symptoms.”

Mark Benor worked as a Correctional Health Services physician from 2018 until 2023, as the department was ramping up its medication-assisted treatment program. During that time, he said he became known as “the Suboxone doctor” as he traveled all over the jails to interview people who wanted to participate in the program and submit orders for their treatment.

“They created something that is impressive in the biggest jail system in the world,” he said. “It seems like it’s backtracking.”

Cayla Mihalovich is a California Local News fellow.

This story was originally published by  CalMatters , a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that explains California policies and politics and makes its government more transparent and accountable