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.

You may not be familiar with the Ontario Tower Buzzers. But if all goes to plan, you soon will.

The Dodgers’ new minor league team begins its inaugural season Thursday playing in a new stadium, ONT Field. (ONT is the code for Ontario International Airport).

The Single-A team will throw its first pitch as the Dodgers begin what could be a historic season in Major League Baseball (can you say three-peat?!). History will already be made when the first fans go through the turnstile at the Ontario stadium on Opening Day.

“This has been a dream for a lot of people, for a better part of two decades, to bring a minor league baseball team here,” said Tower Buzzers General Manager Allan Benavides.

That name

It’s hard enough to explain what a dodger is, but what’s a tower buzzer?

“Obviously a straight nod to the movie Top Gun,” Benavides said. In that 1986 film, Tom Cruise plays a reckless fighter pilot, nicknamed Maverick, who flies closer than allowed to the runway control tower.

The aviation theme is built into the stadium’s design along with signage of Ontario Airport, the team’s title sponsor. The mascot, appropriately, is Maverick, an aviation glasses-wearing giant bee (as in “buzzers”), and uniforms hue to the Dodgers’ style, with “Buzzers” proclaimed on jerseys.

"Maverick" is the Ontario Tower Buzzers' mascot.

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Courtesy Ontario Tower Buzzers

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ONT Field is in the new stadium for the Ontario Tower Buzzers. The stadium has an aviation theme. Its lead sponsor is Ontario Airport.

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Courtesy Ontario Tower Buzzers

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Who’s on first?

Most of Tower Buzzers’ players are between 19 and 22 years old, out of high school and college, along with players from other countries. Keep an eye on the team’s web site as it announces the list of players who made it on the team roster.

Tickets, $$$???

Remember when Dodgers tickets felt affordable? Currently the cheapest tickets are selling for about $178 on MLB.com. Tickets for the Tower Buzzers’ Opening Day start at just over $37.

The Ontario Tower Buzzers are a Single-A team, the lowest rung in a minor league system with Triple-A teams at the top.

The Oklahoma City Comets is the Dodgers’ triple-A minor league team, where the Dodgers’ players closest to entering the major leagues play.

Future stars

And that means it's possible to see a future hall of famer at a single-A game.

“My little brother and I went to a Quakes game when Mike Trout was playing with the [Rancho Cucamonga] Quakes and we were there when he hit a grand slam to win a playoff game for them,” said Jonathan Campos, president of the Ontario Mountain View Little League.

The Tower Buzzers’ inaugural season is a big deal for youth baseball in the region, Campos said, and his Little League in particular. His league’s four fields are across the street from the Tower Buzzers’ new stadium and that’s generated a lot of interest among his players to have a night for his league at a Tower Buzzers’ game this season.

It’s been more than a year now since the Eaton Fire devastated Altadena, destroying more than 9,000 structures and killing 19 people.

A group of about a dozen fire survivors said they were excited to get back to something they’d been doing together for years: a weekly informal pickup soccer game at Loma Alta Park.

But what they found was a ballfield battle they weren’t expecting.

Getting through hard times 

On a recent sweltering Sunday at Loma Alta, the park was abuzz with life: kids playing on a large jungle gym and parents sitting and talking on the grass.

That afternoon, the park was just a bubble of normalcy. All around were the stark reminders of the fire that tore through Altadena — rows and rows of flattened and dusty lots, melted gates and charred trees.

About half of the dozen or so Altadenans who say they’ve been meeting here for the past eight years appeared from different corners of a large grass field at the park, empty save for a few signs that read: "This field is designated for baseball and softball only."

But this group of friends, including several dads, said since 2018, they’ve bonded playing soccer here.

The Loma Alta soccer crew From L-R: Bryce Nicholson; Graham Fortier; Mike Lazzareschi; Alan Matthew Ruiz; Patrick Connor; Nicole Casburn; Gareth Casburn; and Joel Zobrist

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Robert Garrova / LAist

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“Finding these guys and this game is really what brought me into the Altadena community in a lot of ways,” said Graham Fortier.

“This is kind of my backyard. I came here with my son... They grew up here,” Patrick Connor recalled.

“It got me through a couple of hard times already, before the fire,” Mike Lazzareschi said.

All three and their families lost homes in the Eaton Fire.

Bryce Nicholson’s family’s home was spared. One of his children was just 2 months old when the family had to evacuate.

“There’s something kind of symbolic and hopeful about coming to your only park left and talking about where people are at with their rebuilds or what’s going on at the local school district,” he said. “Or just to make fart jokes.”

The group said they were excited to get back to their weekly tradition last summer, months after the fire was extinguished. But in December, they said an L.A. County sheriff’s deputy told them they couldn’t play soccer on the field anymore.

They were shocked.

‘I think it’s ridiculous’ 

Fortier said they feel like the goal posts have been moving on them as far as justification from L.A. County staffers goes. They said officials cited reasons including grass mutilation, needing a permit and that the use is ultimately up to the park director’s discretion.

“To tell us that we can’t play a game that we’ve been playing in eight years at our park — our only park that didn’t burn down — I think it’s ridiculous. And I’m gonna keep playing until they kick me off,” Fortier told LAist.

In a statement, L.A. County Parks said designated baseball fields are for the “exclusive use of baseball, softball, and youth sports. They are not soccer fields.”

In “the near future” the county said it will be able to offer a multi-use field at the nearby Charles White Park, where a variety of sports, including soccer, will be allowed.

“Our goal is not exclusion — it is stewardship and safety. We remain committed to working with all park users to ensure safe, fair, and sustainable access for everyone in our communities,” the statement added.

Joshua McGuffie, a longtime member of the soccer crew who grew up in Altadena and saw his parents’ home destroyed in the fire, said the county’s previous requests to obtain a permit and to stop playing with cleats were inappropriate.

“It feels like the county parks coming in and saying, like, ‘Look, A, You need to pay and, B, you need to play unsafely.’ It’s just mystifying to me,” McGuffie said.

He and other players feel the insurance and other costs associated with getting a permit are prohibitive and their informal group of far fewer than 25 players shouldn’t be required to do so.

The group said they have a meeting with Supervisor Kathryn Barger’s office next week to discuss their situation.

In the meantime, they’ve circulated an online petition that has over 1,100 signatures.

Healing through sports

Patrick Connor said it’s painful to be turned away. And he said he feels like it’s intervening in his healing, his recovery from the fire.

“People ask me: ‘How are you doing?’ I’m not doing that great,” Connor said. “I had, like, serious insomnia after the fire... And the thing that was really good for me was exercise and being with fire victims.”

Several in the soccer group were cited by an L.A. County sheriff's deputy on Sunday, March 15.

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Photo courtesy Graham Fortier

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Later that afternoon at Loma Alta, Bryce Nicholson said he and several others in the group were cited by the sheriff’s department for playing soccer on the field.

Nicholson said he’s digging his heels in because he wants a better explanation from the county.

“Because this is a good space for people that don’t often have many spaces, and a community that has been through so much,” Nicholson said. “Why can’t they just meet up at a park and play a game like they have for a long time?”

When someone goes through a mental health crisis, their loved ones are thrown into a maze of urgent, high-stakes decisions.

Where to get care? How to deal with insurance? When to call 911?

For those in L.A.’s large Chinese immigrant community with limited English, helping a loved one can be especially challenging and isolating.

Starting Monday, a new Mandarin-language family support group in the San Gabriel Valley aims to provide a much-needed resource, coordinated by the National Alliance on Mental Illness in L.A. County.

Monthly meetings will be at the Holiday Inn in El Monte, held at night to accommodate people’s work schedules, and open to anyone from the region.

“For recent immigrants, but also even long-term residents who just aren't comfortable communicating in English the way they are in their native language, it just made such sense for us to do it,” said Richard Tom, president of the San Gabriel Valley chapter of NAMI.

Years in the making, the support group happens to be rolling out at a time of heightened anxiety for immigrant communities amid the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. Tom said providing support in Mandarin could help lower barriers for those who might hesitate to seek help.

“Obviously, right now, with immigration an issue, there is also a sensitivity to access in-language for folks who might otherwise be frightened of going to places where they're going to perhaps be misunderstood,” he said.

Removing stigma

Tom said the support group not only removes the language hurdles but also recognizes the cultural stigma many participants may be navigating.

“There’s sort of what you expect in a lot of cultures, which is sort of an embarrassment and shame associated with having someone who has a mental health issue,” Tom said.

Organizers say that despite L.A.’s large Chinese-speaking population, no consistent, in-language family support group has existed locally in recent years.

Seven locals were trained by a Bay Area facilitator Elaine Peng to lead a Chinese-language support group in the San Gabriel Valley.

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NAMI San Gabriel Valley

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One of the biggest obstacles has been finding Chinese-speaking family members and friends able to go through the two-day-long facilitator training and commit to leading the support group indefinitely — all the while caring for someone struggling with mental illness.

At the same time, the concept of peer support — turning to others with lived experience rather than professionals — is still unfamiliar in many Chinese immigrant communities, said Nancy Eng, a NAMI SGV board member.

But, “one of the reasons that the support group is so great is it gives a visual and also the sense when you're together in the room, the headaches that you’re dealing with — the exhaustion, the frustration — you're not alone,” Eng said.

Trying your best

The Chinese-language program is launching with seven facilitators, all of whom have personal experience supporting a loved one with mental illness.

Support groups can normalize the idea of seeking professional help, coordinators say, acting as a bridge to therapists or psychiatrists for both the person experiencing crisis, as well as for their loved ones.

Fellow members can also share their experiences with painful decisions such as seeking involuntary treatment or watching a loved one enter the criminal justice system.

In a support group, Tom said, families hear something they rarely hear elsewhere: that they are doing the best they can.

“There’s an element of validation that is very powerful for people,” he said.

Mary YanYan Chan, who is coordinating the Chinese language program, said her own experience in a support group has helped her deal with a sister with untreated bipolar disorder.

“I'm just kind of following the steps, and in the interim, I'm going to help others behind me, to bring them forward, because this is really community work,” Chan said.

A grant from Cedars-Sinai is helping to support the initial rollout through the summer. But organizers say its future will depend on participation and securing a long-term space, hopefully with a community organization.

Details

When: Mondays on a monthly basis, from 6:30 to 8 p.m.
Where: Holiday Inn, 9920 Valley Blvd., 1st floor, El Monte
Info: mchan@namiglac.org

Organizers behind the No Kings protests are forecasting their biggest showing yet on Saturday against the policies of President Trump, energized by issues including the administration's immigration enforcement tactics and the war in Iran.

"March 28 will be the biggest protest in US history," the group, which comprises a progressive coalition of activists, wrote on its website. "Find your local No Kings event to make it clear that America rejects the regime's brutality at home and abroad."

Organizers have planned more than 3,000 events in cities across the United States, with several more planned abroad, including in Mexico and Canada.

This is the third series of nationwide protests organized by the group, which says Trump's actions in office are more akin to those of a monarch than a democratically-elected leader.

In response to a request for comment about the planned protests, White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson dismissed them as "Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions" and listed what she said were some of the campaign's g "major leftist" financial backers.

"The only people who care about these Trump Derangement Therapy Sessions are the reporters who are paid to cover them, said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.

The last round of protests, this past October, saw some 5 million attendees spread across about 2,600 demonstrations in the country, according to No Kings.

Bill McKibben is the Vermont-based founder of Third Act — a No Kings-affiliated group comprising people who are 60 years old and up.

He says intergenerational solidarity is a key part of the movement and that there are many older people willing to take to the streets alongside their younger compatriots.

"If you've been to any of the No Kings protests that have happened so far, you'll see a lot of people with hairlines like mine, which is to say, scant," he joked.

"People of all kinds are outraged by what's happening in the country right now, but older people have a particular role to play here."

He says that for older Americans, who have lived through several presidencies, describe the current one as the closest the country has come to authoritarian rule.

"This is a very weird moment in our political history," he said. "Look, there have been plenty of presidents in my lifetime I didn't much like or didn't agree with politically, but there's never been any that I thought were fascist, and I think that that's very clear what we're now starting to deal with in this country."

President Trump has said repeatedly that he's not a fascist or a king and has previously scorned the protests.

"I think it's a joke," he said last year of the October demonstrations. "I looked at the people. They're not representative of this country."

He simultaneously leaned into the royal comparisons, even while mocking critics, posting an AI-generated video of himself wearing a crown.

Visibility Brigade leader Dana Glazer, who is based in the New Jersey suburbs, similarly likened Trump's politics to fascism, which he said thrives when people are isolated from their communities.

Coming together in protest, he said, helps combat that social seclusion. Glazer and other members of his group plan to protest Saturday in Paramus, where the organization was founded.

"We are a force of treating people with individual human dignity and respect, and connection," he said. "And that's what brings us together. That's why this kind of event is powerful, is that people suddenly go, 'Oh wow, we have some power.' "

He said he hopes that people will see events like No Kings and be inspired to peacefully protest even when there aren't huge events planned.

"The reason why we're in this mess is because there has been a lack of civic engagement overall because people have been trained that just by nature of voting every two to four years that they're doing their civic duty," he said.

"We're obviously in a state of crisis right now, but we're in that state of crisis because of this."
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