The Brief

The United Nations annual climate negotiations begain today in Dubai, with hundreds of world leaders expected to attend over the next two weeks.

The goal of the meeting is to make progress on reducing emissions of planet-warming gasses, and come to an agreement about how to pay for the enormous costs of a hotter planet.

Right off the bat, delegates took a big step forward on that second goal. They agreed to officially establish a fund for loss and damage from extreme weather events that will be housed at the World Bank and will support developing countries hit hardest by climate change.

The United States joined a handful of other countries announcing they would contribute to the new loss and damage fund. The U.S. pledged $17.5 million, Japan pledged $10 million, the United Kingdom pledged $75 million, and Germany and the United Arab Emirates each pledged $100 million. Other European countries are collectively expected to put in $125 million, for a total of more than $400 million.

While it's a start, the contributions so far are also an order of magnitude less than the amount of money – $300 billion per year by 2030 – that is needed for developing countries to adapt to climate change, according to the U.N. Environment Program.

One of the most controversial aspects of this year's talks is the person leading them. The petroleum-dependent host country, the United Arab Emirates, named the head of its main state oil company, Sultan al-Jaber, as the climate meeting's president. That has led to concerns among many climate experts and activists, who point out that humanity must stop burning fossil fuels to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, al-Jaber acknowledged that there may not be consensus among world leaders over whether, and how, to phase out oil, gas and coal, but he pledged to lead transparent talks. "We feel, as you feel, the urgency of this work," he said. "And we see, as you see, that the world has reached a crossroads."

This year's negotiations come at the close of the hottest year ever recorded on Earth. Extreme weather events, including floods, droughts, wildfires and heat waves, are increasingly deadly and disruptive.

"So many terrifying records were broken [in 2023]," said Simon Stiell, the head of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, at the negotiations' opening ceremony. "We are paying with people's lives and livelihoods."

Scientists warn that greenhouse gas pollution must plummet immediately in order to avoid catastrophic climate change effects, such as mass extinctions and runaway sea level rise by the end of this century.

Not all world leaders are attending this year's negotiations. President Biden will not travel to Dubai, although Vice President Kamala Harris did announce last-minute plans to attend, along with special climate envoy John Kerry.

Chinese president Xi Jinping will also skip this year's talks, although he is sending a delegation of high-level officials in his place. Earlier this month, Biden and Xi agreed to resume work on tackling climate change, after suspending official collaboration on the topic last year due to broader tensions between the two nations.

Even without their leaders present, the U.S. and China are expected to play major roles over the next two weeks. China is responsible for more emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses than any other country, and the vast majority of new coal-fired power plant construction is occurring there. Coal is the most intensely polluting of the major fuels, and must be basically eliminated in order to rein in warming, scientists say.

Another major topic on the table is whether the countries most responsible for causing climate change will follow through on promises to help the most vulnerable countries foot the bill for adapting to a hotter world. The United States is front-and-center in that debate: the U.S. has released the most cumulative planet-warming pollution into the atmosphere overall, going back to the mid-1800s.

Demonstrators, including healthcare workers, marched to Adventist Health White Memorial in Boyle Heights on Sunday, calling on hospital administrators to uphold the privacy rights of immigrant detainees and protect staff who advocate for patients.

It was the last of three stops in a rally organized by the People’s Care Collective, a network of healthcare workers and organizers that, according to a press release, is calling attention to “the health harms caused by immigration raids, ICE detention, the Los Angeles County jail system, and complicit local hospitals.”

The collective wants the L.A. County Board of Supervisors and all Los Angeles area hospitals to adopt a “Model Policy for Immigration Enforcement in the Healthcare Settings,” developed by medical providers and immigrant rights legal advocates.

The rally follows reporting by LAist that administrators at White Memorial allowed agents to influence medical care and restricted doctors from contacting detained patients’ families.

Adventist Health later released a six-point statement outlining policies to protect patients and support staff.

Still, doctors and advocates say that is not enough.

Sunday's demonstration

Protesters began in front of the Japanese American National Museum, stopping at the Metropolitan Detention Center and Men’s Central Jail as they made their way to the hospital.

“I’ve seen firsthand for several months many individuals who are coming in critical condition due to delays in care. Not because the care wasn’t available, but because they were afraid,” said a member of the People’s Care Collective, who spoke to the crowd in front of the detention center and declined to be identified for safety reasons. He works as an emergency doctor and professor in L.A.

“I’ve seen people with cancer that went untreated and spread because they were afraid to come in,” he said.

“People tell us, ‘We need to stay in our own lane. We need to focus on our health work. We need to stay in the clinics, in the hospital.’ But we know this is our lane. Health justice is our collective responsibility,” he continued.

Healthcare workers march to White Memorial in Boyle Heights. One protester’s white coat reads, “Another world is possible.”

(

Alma Lucia

/

Boyle Heights Beat

)

At least 75 people participated in the demonstration.

They held signs and banners that read, “Health justice has no walls” and “Our hospitals are not your holding cells.” Demonstrators chanted “Out of the clinics and into the streets!” as they neared White Memorial. Several drivers honked in support, some with their fists up in the air as they drove by. Members of social justice group Centro CSO, Union del Barrio, and other community groups were there in support.

Healthcare workers were dressed in white coats. One read, “Seize the hospital to serve the people” on the back. Others came in brown, green and blue scrubs. Medical students and trainees were among the crowd.

Dr. Abhinaya Narayanan, a family physician in Los Angeles, read a statement written by White Memorial healthcare workers.

Recently, according to the statement, “the hospital had to admit that doctors have the right to ask ICE to leave the room to speak privately to patients, but that is not enough.”

“We demand that White Memorial put into place additional protections for patient privacy, allow doctors and patients to have free and not controlled contact with patients’ families, and for medical providers and social workers [to] be able to assist patients and families with connection to support and legal representation,” hospital staff said in the statement read by Narayanan.

“The government is forcibly disappearing individuals and it’s our responsibility as healthcare workers to reappear them as part of our healing,” Narayanan continued.

Gabriel Quiroz with Centro CSO spoke at the rally in front of White Memorial, where he said he and his younger sister were born.

“I can only imagine how terrified raza is to enter this hospital,” Quiroz said. “I think of the elders of our neighborhood here in Boyle Heights who are missing medical appointments due to the fear of migra being in the hospital and the hospital administration doing nothing to keep them safe.”

As part of efforts to call attention to the issue, Quiroz said a petition launched by Centro CSO has garnered hundreds of signatures. It calls for White Memorial to uphold HIPAA, the federal law that safeguards patient privacy, and to bar U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from making medical decisions for patients.

“We will not let fear stop us from organizing and fighting back,” Quiroz said.

Despite spending hundreds of millions of dollars to fill vacant medical and mental health positions at prisons and state hospitals, California has little to show for it, according to a new report from the state auditor.

Job vacancy rates have increased since 2019 at the three facilities examined in the audit, as has the state’s reliance on pricey temporary workers. Atascadero State Hospital, Porterville Developmental Center and Salinas Valley State Prison had health-related vacancy rates topping 30% during fiscal year 2023-24. At Salinas Valley State Prison more than 50% of health positions were unfilled.

Workers contend that the high vacancy rate leads to more on-the-job assaults, mandatory overtime and staff turnover.

“A high vacancy rate is a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Dr. Stuart Bussey, president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists, which represents about 1,300 state psychiatrists.

The vacancy rates persisted despite targeted bonuses and wage increases that prison health workers received in contracts and under court order during the Newsom administration. Those included $42,000 bonuses for prison psychiatrists in a 2023 contract and more recently $20,000 bonuses the state had to dole out to mental health workers through a long-running prisoner rights lawsuit.

At face value, some state health workers are comparatively well-compensated. All of the 55 prison employees who earned more than $500,000 in income last year were doctors, dentists, psychiatrists or medical executives, according to state controller data.

A board-certified psychiatrist at Atascadero State Hospital — some of the highest paid state employees — can earn more than $397,000 in base pay. They also retire with pensions through the California Public Employees’ Retirement System. In comparison, the mean wage for a psychiatrist in California is $328,560, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

But in certain places, local hospitals are offering even more. In Monterey County, $90,000 hiring bonuses are common at private hospitals struggling to fill their own vacancies, staff told state auditors.

Despite the pay, vacancy rates were highest among psychiatrists at Atascadero State Hospital and second highest at Porterville Developmental Center and Salinas Valley State Prison, auditors found.

All three of the audited facilities house individuals who are either incarcerated or institutionalized because they were deemed by the courts to be dangerous or unfit to stand trial. Federal and state law as well as court rulings require the state to provide adequate medical and mental health care. As a result, most of the facilities are required to have vacancy rates less than 10%.

Over the past 30 years, California has consistently failed to meet that standard.

None of the state departments overseeing the facilities have taken necessary steps to ensure adequate staffing, auditors wrote.

The audit found:

• The facilities had a “significant number of vacant positions” that were not filled by temporary workers or staff overtime.
• Neither the Department of State Hospitals nor the Department of Developmental Services, which houses some people with developmental disabilities in Porterville, had procedures to adequately evaluate or budget for staffing needs annually.
• The state hospitals and developmental services departments as well as the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation have no process to determine whether facilities are meeting staffing minimums during each shift.

In a letter to lawmakers, California State Auditor Grant Parks wrote that the state should conduct a statewide recruitment campaign to hire health care workers “because of the decades-long difficulties the facilities have had in filling vacant health care positions and a current and projected health care professional shortage.”

In response to the audit, the developmental services and state hospitals departments partially agreed with the findings in detailed comments.

The Department of State Hospitals, however, wrote that the vacancy rates covered during the audit period were significantly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and that salary savings were overstated. “Our hospitals regularly meet or exceed mandated staffing minimums and have self-reported rare occurrences where they have not due to extraordinary circumstances,” department spokesperson Ralph Montano said, in an email to CalMatters. The department has agreed to implement many of the recommendations made in the report, Montano added.

In a statement, the corrections department said it was “committed to providing adequate health care for the incarcerated population, while ensuring fiscal responsibility.”

Workers claim state wastes money to fill vacancies

Coby Pizzotti, a lobbyist for the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians, which represents about 6,000 mental health clinicians, said the audit confirmed what many of the state worker unions had suspected: The state has continually refused to meaningfully improve wages, benefits and working conditions for employees, while spending money on temporary workers. This, the unions contend, makes the vacancy problem worse.

“Effectively, it’s a shadow state employee workforce. They’re just not called civil servants,” Pizzotti said.

The departments saved $592 million in payroll over six years by carrying the vacancies, the auditors wrote. But, auditors criticized the state departments for their inability to specifically track how they later spent that money. The departments counter that, generally, the money can be used to offset other costs or it can be given back to the state.

But they have also poured money into temporary positions to meet court-mandated minimums. During the six-year audit period, the state spent $239 million on contract workers to fill staff vacancies. The departments were authorized to spend more than $1 billion on temporary workers during that time period, though they used only a fraction of the money, according to the audit.

Contract workers, while making up less than 10% of the health care workforce, are paid so much that they cost more per hour than state workers even after accounting for benefits, auditors also found.

State workers’ unions say that’s more evidence toward their argument that these arrangements don’t save the state money.

“Contracting out is not a great way to do business. It’s expensive,” said Doug Chiappetta, executive director of the psychiatrists union.

Instead, state health worker unions want the state to increase salaries and benefits, to make permanent positions more attractive to candidates rather than spending it on highly paid contract workers.

The psychiatric technicians union, psychiatrists union and the state nurses union said that contract workers get paid two to three times more per hour than state employees, according to job advertisements from contracting agencies they have collected. Those companies are also able to offer generous benefits and scheduling flexibility that state jobs don’t have.

“It’s been a slap to our faces to see how the state doesn’t care for our nurses,” said Vanessa Seastrong, chair of Bargaining Unit 17 for SEIU Local 1000, which represents about 5,100 registered nurses. “You’re standing next to a nurse that is doing less work than you and getting paid more than you. How does that bring up morale?”

Bigger problems for recruitment

Even relying on temporary contract workers, the state has in many cases still failed to maintain staffing minimums for health care positions.

Vacancy rates increased significantly between 2019 and 2024. Salinas Valley State Prison saw vacancies jump 62% during the audit period, and more than half of mental health and medical positions were unfilled during fiscal year 2023-24.

Atascadero State Hospital’s vacancy rate rose 39% over the audit period for a total vacancy rate of about 30%. During the last three years of the audit period, Atascadero also lost 90% of its staff to attrition.

Porterville Developmental Center’s vacancy rate increased by just 6% over the audit period, but more than a third of its positions remained unfilled in the final year of the audit.

In interviews with auditors, administrators at the facilities said that the COVID-19 pandemic caused higher staff turnover as well as an increased reliance on contract workers to fill gaps.

All three facilities, which are located along the Central Coast or in the Central Valley, face additional barriers to recruitment.

These areas suffer from health care professional shortages. The area along the coast where Atascadero State Hospital and Salinas Valley State Prison are located faces a medium shortage of behavioral health workers, while Porterville Developmental Center is in an area with a severe shortage, according to the Department of Health Care Access and Information.

“Places like the Central Valley have substantially fewer mental health professionals per population than compared to the rest of the state,” said Janet Coffman, a professor at UCSF’s Institute for Health Policy Studies who studies workforce issues. “Particularly for Porterville, that’s a big part of the issue.”

At the same time, demand for mental health services has increased in the general population, Coffman said.

Combined, that makes it more difficult for the state to compete with the private sector, which is also struggling to hire health care workers.

Other barriers are difficult to address with money alone. The patient population can make the work dangerous. Staff are frequently verbally or physically assaulted. Unsafe conditions make it harder to recruit new workers and sometimes cause long-time workers to retire early.

“There were 2,700 assaults on staff last year. It’s not a matter of if, it’s when,” Pizzoti said.

The audit recommended that the state conduct a market analysis of all health care positions to determine whether payment was competitive, streamline the hiring process, and conduct a statewide recruitment campaign.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

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

Tributes poured in late Sunday following news of the death of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer and producer Michele Singer Reiner. Officials said they were investigating a homicide at the couple's residence, but provided few details.

"It is with profound sorrow that we announce the tragic passing of Michele and Rob Reiner," a Reiner family spokesperson said in a statement shared with Variety and the Los Angeles Times. "We are heartbroken by this sudden loss, and we ask for privacy during this unbelievably difficult time."

The Los Angeles Fire Department said it responded to a medical aid request at around 3:40 p.m. local time Sunday and discovered the bodies of a 78-year-old man and 68-year-old woman inside the couple's home. Reiner turned 78 in March.

The estate of Norman Lear — the legendary producer who created All in the Family and cast Reiner in the series — released a statement remembering their close relationship.

"Norman often referred to Rob as a son," the statement said. "The world is unmistakably darker tonight."

On X, former President Barack Obama remembered Reiner for giving audiences "some of our most cherished stories" told on screen.

He added that "beneath all of the stories he produced was a deep belief in the goodness of people – and a lifelong commitment to putting that belief into action."

The author Stephen King, who collaborated with Reiner on the film adaptations for Stand by Me and Misery wrote he was "horrified and saddened" by the news, calling Reiner a "wonderful friend, political ally and brilliant filmmaker."

Beyond entertainment, Reiner was also active in politics, frequently supporting liberal causes and speaking out on social issues.

News media gather near Rob Reiner's residence Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

(

Ethan Swope

/

AP

)

Investigation underway in Brentwood

The Los Angeles Police Department says its investigation remains active. The area surrounding the Reiners' home was cordoned off overnight as homicide detectives worked at the scene.

Officials have declined to say whether there are any suspects. "At this time, the Los Angeles Police Department is not seeking anyone as a suspect or as a person of interest," Hamilton said. "We will not be doing this until we conduct our investigation and we move forward."

Authorities did not elaborate on the circumstances surrounding the deaths.

A career that spanned decades

Rob Reiner was born in the Bronx in 1947 to a show business family. He said his number one inspiration was his father, Carl Reiner, a comedy genius, from the early days of television. In the 1950s, the elder Reiner worked with Sid Caeser, Mel Brooks and Neil Simon. In the 1960s, he created The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Rob Reiner often spoke about how much he loved what his father did; he even told Fresh Air in September the story about how he wanted to change his name to Carl.

After studying at UCLA, he began with an improv company.

A police officer blocks off a street near Rob Reiner's residence Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in the Brentwood section of Los Angeles.

(

Ethan Swope

/

AP

)

Comedy really was "All in the Family" 

In the 1970s, Reiner co-starred in the TV sitcom All in the Family, which featured a generation gap that marked the era.

Reiner played Michael Stivic, the progressive son-in-law nicknamed "Meathead" by the bigoted but loveable Archie Bunker. They often butted heads about everything from politics to how to put on your shoes.

Reiner talked about how influential and controversial All in the Family was while speaking to Fresh Air's Terry Gross in September.

"I was 23" he recalled, "and it was groundbreaking at the time. Nobody had done a show like this. CBS when they put it on they had a big disclaimer at the beginning, saying – 'the views that are represented in the show don't represent the views of' — basically, it was a disclaimer saying, I don't know how this show got on here, but… watch it at your own risk."

All In The Family, as Reiner pointed out, was the number one TV show in America for five years straight.

Reiner went on to become a well-loved movie director.

His films were memorable and quotable.

"You can't handle the truth," Jack Nicholson says to Tom Cruise in the Aaron Sorkin-written thriller A Few Good Men, which was nominated for an Oscar in 1993.

"Inconceivable" is one of the many quotable lines from the 1987 fantasy adventure comedy The Princess Bride.

Reiner even cast his own mother, Estelle Reiner, to deliver the punchline of a scene in the 1989 rom-com When Harry Met Sally. After Meg Ryan's character fakes an orgasm at Katz' Deli in New York, Mrs. Reiner tells the waiter, "I"ll have what she's having."

Reiner gave credit to Billy Crystal for that line. But his films also created sensations.

The first feature film he directed, This is Spinal Tap, introduced mainstream audiences to the "mockumentary." In that 1984 parody of a rock documentary, Reiner also plays the filmmaker who asks a member of the fictional band Spinal Tap about the volume switch on an amplifier.

"The numbers all go to 11, right across the board," says the lead guitarist of the fictional heavy metal band Spinal Tap, played by Christopher Guest.

"And does it mean it's louder?" asks Reiner's character. "Well, it's one louder," explains the rocker.

Earlier this year, Reiner brought Spinal Tap back together for a sequel, Spinal Tap: The End Continues.

One of the aging rockers, Derek Smalls, was played by Harry Shearer.

In an interview with NPR Sunday, Shearer remembered Reiner as "a great collaborator. He was a great appreciator. He was encouraging and it was fun to be around him."

"It's devastating, knowing the two of them and knowing how the story ended. It's just horrible, unspeakable. It's a Greek tragedy come to our lives in the most traumatic and awful way. Rob still had more work to be done, and it's a loss."
Copyright 2025 NPR

State regulators are poised to vote on how much profit utility companies can make, a decision with big implications for Californians’ bills and the aging power grid.

The California Public Utilities Commission, which regulates privately owned utilities in the state, will vote on a proposed decision to lower the payout to shareholders from the state’s investor-owned utilities — Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Co. and Pacific Gas & Electric.

Unlike public utilities, such as the L.A. Department of Water and Power, investor-owned utilities are private companies that operate as government-regulated monopolies.

California’s electricity rates are the second-highest in the nation, behind only Hawai’i. As the state works to transition to a cleaner energy economy that runs largely on electricity, those high bills threaten to derail progress.

Experts say lowering utility profits is just one piece, albeit a big one, in the puzzle to address energy affordability.

The background

Every three years,  the CPUC, which is made up of five commissioners appointed by the governor, oversees applications from the state’s private utilities during which they ask for a certain “rate of return” — essentially their amount of expected profits above the cost of operations — to attract the capital they say they need to make necessary investments in California’s aging power grid. That includes building new power plants, transmission lines and other infrastructure.

These profits are also important to ensure the utilities don’t go into bankruptcy and can maintain reliable service.

Over the last two decades, the amount of profits allowed has only gone up — it hovers at a little over 10% for the state’s big three investor-owned electric utilities, which is slightly higher than the industry average across the nation.

Mark Ellis — a former executive at Sempra Energy (the parent company of SoCal Gas and SDG&E) turned ratepayer advocate — estimates that profit, plus income taxes on profit, which are passed through to ratepayers, accounts for about one-quarter of Californians’ utility bills.

The CPUC is expected to vote on whether to approve a slight decrease to those returns at a meeting Thursday.

What the proposal says

The proposed decision would lower the return on equity for each utility by about 0.35% — even such a small change can mean millions of dollars in reductions for ratepayers.

If approved, SoCal Edison’s maximum return on equity would be 9.98%, down from 10.33%, and San Diego Gas & Electric would be 9.88%, down from 10.23%.

What critics say

Some stakeholders say the return percentage should be far lower. Ellis, who provided testimony in the proceeding on behalf of the Sierra Club and Protect Our Communities Foundation, argues the return should be as low as 6%. He estimates that could reduce Californians’ electric bills by as much as 10%.

“There's no other industry that really has that type of return that's virtually guaranteed,” Ellis said. “We haven't touched their profits for decades, and what has it gotten us? It's gotten us really expensive electricity and a very brittle system.”

He says current returns on equity incentivize the state’s monopoly utilities to overinvest, raising rates for customers and the expense of the energy transition.

“So I'm saying, the first step is, get the incentives right and see how they behave,” Ellis said.

The Little Hoover Commission, the state’s independent watchdog agency, cited Ellis’ work in a recent report on lowering electricity rates, as well as two UC Berkeley studies showing how “utility regulators often approve profit levels that exceed what is truly needed to attract investment.”

In the report, the commission recommends shifting the initial proposal of the rate of return on equity to the state Treasurer’s Office, instead of the utilities themselves. The report also calls for an audit of California Public Utilities Commission staffing to assess whether the agency has enough capacity to provide rigorous oversight of these proceedings.

“We want to make sure that the rate of return isn't so high that this is just a cash grab from everyday customers and rate payers to big corporate interests,” said Katherine Ramsey, a senior attorney with the Sierra Club. “You want to make sure the number is no more and no less than what is necessary for the utilities to remain financially healthy.”

What the utilities say

The utilities had asked to increase or maintain their current rates of return. They’ve called on the commissioners to reject the proposed reduction.

They argue that their return on equity has to be competitive with nationwide utilities or else investors will go elsewhere, which could slow long-term investments in public infrastructure to improve wildfire safety and boost clean energy and hurt the companies’ credit.

And, especially since the 2025 L.A. wildfires and other catastrophic fires in the last decade, they say California electric utilities are seen as riskier, increasing costs of equity.

“We are disappointed that the proposed decision does not fully reflect current market conditions or the unique risks California utilities face,” a spokesperson for SDG&E wrote to LAist.

David Eisenhauer, a spokesperson for Southern California Edison told LAist that “when investors view the rate established by the CPUC as not commensurate with the risk, that impacts investor willingness to invest in California, which then drives up the cost of capital and increases customer costs over time.”

In their latest comments to the commission, Edison said the company has already not been meeting the return approved by the CPUC “since at least 2017, with 2024 actual earnings at 6.38% as compared to 10.75% authorized, in part due to financing of wildfire claims and SCE’s contributions to the Wildfire Fund.”

“The commission’s objective is not to maximize customer savings by setting the authorized [return on equity] as low as possible,” they write, but rather to set a rate “commensurate with market returns on investments” so that company can attract investors to finance infrastructure and “fulfill its public utility service obligation.”

How to share your comments ahead of the vote

The CPUC is expected to vote Thursday. You can submit a comment by calling into the meeting, or submitting one online ahead of time. To submit online, you’ll have to enter the proceeding’s docket number, which is A2503010, then click the tab that says “Add public comment.”