The Brief

As a historic 10-day heat wave threatened brownouts across California last summer, a small San Diego County school district did its part to help: It captured excess power from its electric school buses and sent it back to the state’s overwhelmed grid.

The seven school buses provided enough power for 452 homes each day of the heat wave, and the buses were recharged only during off hours when the grid was not strained.

California energy officials have high hopes that this new power source, called bidirectional charging, will boost California’s power supply as it ramps up its ambitious agenda of electrifying its cars, trucks and buses while switching to 100% clean energy.

Gov. Gavin Newsom called two-way charging technology a “game changer,” saying “this is the future” during a speech last September, about a week after the heat wave ended.

This year, a bill already approved by the state Senate in a 29-9 vote would require all new electric cars sold in California to be equipped with bidirectional technology by 2030. In the Assembly, two committees approved the bill earlier this month and it is now under consideration by a third.

This two-way charging has big potential — but also faces big obstacles. By 2035, California expects to have 12.5 million electric cars on the road, but it’s an open question how much California can rely on them to feed the grid. Automakers say the technology would add thousands of dollars to the cost of an electric car, and California’s utilities are still sorting out how to pay ratepayers for selling them the kilowatt hours.

The ability to use electric cars, trucks and buses to feed energy back into the grid would be especially helpful during peak times for energy use, such as heatwaves. But relying on vehicles as a year-round power source may not be practical — at least not yet.

“It’s a great idea conceptually…but we haven’t had the time to flesh out the details of what needs to happen for California to be able to power itself on electric vehicles,” said Orville Thomas, state policy director for CALSTART, a sustainable energy nonprofit.

“It should be on the menu of options that California has. Is it going to be the number one option? Definitely not.”

So far, its use has been limited in California. Pacific Gas and Electric has a pilot program — the first in the nation — that lets up to 1,000 residential customers with bidirectional chargers sell power back to the utility. Some school districts also are experimenting with it.

Only about half a dozen electric car models currently are equipped with bidirectional capabilities, including the Hyundai Ioniq 5, Nissan Leaf and Ford F-150 Lightning. Tesla announced recently that all its models will have it by 2025.

Electric vehicles convert one type of energy, alternating current electricity, into another, direct current, which is stored in a battery. Bidirectional charging means that an electric vehicle can convert the energy it has stored in its battery and send it to other sources, such as home appliances or back to the grid.

Willett M. Kempton, a University of Delaware professor who has studied bidirectional charging for more than two decades, said the vast majority of the time a vehicle is parked and not using electricity.

“Five percent of the time you’re using the car and you want to have enough energy — electricity or gasoline — to get to where you’re going and back. But most of the time, it’s just sitting there and some other use could be made of it,” he said.

Kempton said these vehicles, properly managed, could be sources of reserve energy, supplanting backup sources that burn fossil fuels.

Gregory Poilasne, co-founder and CEO of Nuvve Holding Corp., which sells electric fleet charging services, said a big challenge is that cars are unreliable energy assets. “At any time, somebody might come in and unplug the car,” he said. But he added, as the technology becomes more reliable and affordable, bidirectional cars and fleets should increase.

The cost: $3,700 per car

In Denmark, bidirectional charging earns electric vehicle fleet owners who sell power to the grid $3,000 per vehicle a year, Poilasne said, adding that this reduces the average total cost of electric car ownership by about 40%.

But citing the high cost, automakers oppose the Senate bill that would mandate the chargers for all new cars sold in California by 2030. It would increase the average cost of an electric car by $3,700, according to an opposition letter written by Curt Augustine of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, which represents General Motors, Ford and other major auto companies.

About $3,000 of that cost would be adding battery capacity to meet warranty requirements, while other costs are for hardware and software.

“This technology is a competitive matter between vehicle manufacturers and should remain that way,” Augustine wrote. “Not all customers will see an advantage of bidirectional charging, and therefore, should not have to pay more for a technology that they will not use.”

Thomas of CALSTART agreed, saying it should be optional.

“There might be a situation where there are people that want to do it and will pay a little extra for a car that is bidirectional, but there will also be people that just want to use a vehicle for driving,” he said. “Do we raise the price of electric vehicles for everybody?”

But Sen. Nancy Skinner, a Democrat from Oakland who authored SB 233, said she wants to ensure that automakers don’t reserve the technology for only their higher-end models. She said since the relatively affordable Nissan Leaf has it, it can be widely available.

Skinner said all consumers would benefit from the technology by selling energy to the grid or using the energy in emergencies. But she said another important reason is that it could end reliance on diesel generators during power emergencies like during wildfires.

“If you have an EV you don’t need that diesel generator,” Skinner said. “Why would we want to encourage diesel generators? They’re extremely polluting.”

Jeffrey Lu, an air pollution specialist with the California Energy Commission’s vehicle-grid integration unit, said the state is working with owners to identify the best times to charge — called smart charging — to protect the grid. Bidirectional charging takes the concept a step further, he said.

The Energy Commission is not yet ready to say how reliant California will be on bidirectional charging to provide sufficient power and meet the state’s 2045 mandate for carbon-free electricity.

“We’re fairly early in this process. California is very committed to load flexibility broadly, but where that load flexibility specifically comes from, how many megawatts or gigawatts are coming from any particular kind of resource? We’re working on that,” he said.

California’s utilities are running pilot projects and studying how bidirectional charging might work and how electric car owners could be compensated for selling energy to the grid.

The California Public Utilities Commission has studied the issue for more than a decade, said spokesperson Terrie D. Prosper, including funding pilot projects and establishing two working groups.

Last year many utilities signed a “Vehicle to Everything” memorandum of understanding with car manufacturers, state agencies, the federal government and others seeking to accelerate all aspects of bidirectional charging.

Southern California Edison, which serves about 5 million businesses and residences, wants to go beyond using bidirectional charging as just an emergency backup.

Chanel Parson, Edison’s director of electrification, said the utility is working on a rate program that would allow customers to sell their power back to the grid every day of the year.

“By selling it back to the grid when our rates are more expensive, then that actually helps reduce customers’ energy bills. And it could be so economically attractive that they’re actually making money,” she said.

Pacific Gas and Electric, which serves 5.5 million electric customers in Northern California, said it is aggressively looking to build what it calls a robust vehicle-to-grid-integration. It has partnerships with BMW of North America, Ford Motor Company and General Motors exploring bidirectional charging.

The utility last year launched the nation’s first bidirectional charging pilot available to residential customers, offering up to 1,000 customers $2,500 for enrolling and up to an additional $2,175, depending on their participation.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also is conducting a pilot project using a small fleet of its Nissan Leafs. The utility hopes the technology will eventually provide power during peak load times.

“Five years is definitely within reach,” said José María Paz, the utility’s project manager for vehicle-to-grid integration. “Technology is advancing quite fast.”

School buses are a test case

The electric school buses at the Cajon Valley Union School District in San Diego County are among a number of school district pilot projects in California. Experts see school buses as a good option for two-way charging because they have set routes and are often parked during peak load times between 4 p.m. and 9 p.m.

A bidirectional V2G charger at the Cajon Valley Union School District.

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California Energy Commission

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Nationally, Nuvve has about 350 school buses connected to its platform.

At the Cajon Valley district, seven electric buses sent 767 kilowatt hours of power back to the grid during the heat wave between Aug. 17 and Sept. 9, according to Nuvve.

Working with Nuvve, the buses power up when energy is less expensive, said Tysen Brodwolf, the district’s transportation director. Brodwolf said there are still several quirks, including the chargers not communicating properly with the grid or someone improperly plugging in a bus.

“But we’re getting there every day,” Brodwolf said. “We’re working through all those bumps and obviously, when you take on a pilot project, you have to take that into consideration that things aren’t necessarily going to go smoothly.”

A criminal investigation is underway Tuesday at the burned Lineage Logistics warehouse in Boyle Heights.

Agents with California’s Department of Toxic Substances Control Criminal Investigations Bureau, a law-enforcement unit that investigates potential violations of the state’s hazardous-waste laws, are serving a search warrant at the site. Surveillance video showed law enforcement arriving around 7:30 a.m., and some remained on scene as of midday Tuesday.

An agent with the department confirmed that the Office of Criminal Investigations is the lead agency but declined to comment further. Several investigators with badges from the LA County District Attorney’s office were also present. The office later confirmed it assisted DTSC in serving the search warrant and is supporting the department’s ongoing investigation.

In a statement, Lineage — which operates cold-storage facilities around the world — said that it works collaboratively with various regulatory agencies.

“To be clear, we do not store hazardous chemicals or products in this facility. We store food. Further, the facility’s ammonia refrigeration system was safely pumped out shortly after the fire began and before the fire reached the refrigeration system. The ammonia was subsequently removed from the site. The Los Angeles Fire Department reported no ammonia was detected during its response, and subsequent environmental monitoring has consistently shown results within normal levels for the neighborhood and no ammonia concentrations above health-based action levels. We have shared relevant testing and monitoring information on our website and with regulatory agencies and will continue to do so,” the statement said.

In the weeks after the fire, community testing as well as data from Lineage and the South Coast Air Quality Management District showed elevated levels of ammonia near the warehouse. Community members found the results alarming, though Lineage and regulators stressed the levels didn’t meet the threshold to take action to protect public health.

Last week, Eastside Padres held a press conference outside the warehouse,calling on the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office to open a criminal investigation of the warehouse fire after the Los Angeles Fire Department reported that the cause of the fire could not be determined.

A person who works at the facility said the operation started earlier Tuesday morning. Employees initially believed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were involved, but soon found they were not.

Anna Rivas works at Ciclon Pallets across the street from the Lineage parking lot where agents served the search warrant. A man driving a truck and a large trailer had to expertly back into her garage to pick up a load of pallets, dodging the law enforcement vehicles parked nearby.

The business’s surveillance cameras captured a police vehicle with lights and siren pulling up to the facility at about 7:30 a.m., with about 20 unmarked vehicles approaching soon after and entering the parking lot or stopping to block the entrance.

Rivas said the pallet company had to shut down for about a month and a half around the time of the fire, citing respiratory problems for workers and a loss of business.

“We thought we finally had our space back to do our work,” Rivas said. “But no, here we go again.”

She said the police did not question her or her colleagues, and she added she hopes the neighborhood gets the justice it deserves after months of disruption related to the fire.

In a statement, Councilmember Ysabel Jurado said she welcomed the investigation “as a positive step toward the transparency and answers Boyle Heights residents deserve.”

“This community has lived with the consequences of the Lineage warehouse fire for months. Residents deserve to know what happened, what risks remain, and who must be held accountable.”

“Investigators must be able to follow the evidence wherever it leads, and their findings should help give residents the information they need about their health, safety, and the future of this site. I will continue pushing for those answers, a safe and complete cleanup, and accountability for any violations uncovered. Boyle Heights should not be left to shoulder the consequences of this disaster.”

The office of Mayor Karen Bass also acknowledged the investigation, stating:

“The residents of Boyle Heights and East L.A. deserve environmental justice and corporate accountability. Mayor Bass has been working with many agencies to protect this community. In her emergency executive order, Mayor Bass called for the California Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC) to investigate and pursue enforcement action at the Lineage warehouse.”

The fire at the cold storage warehouse broke out on June 17 and burned for eight days. The fire and cleanup of millions of pounds of rotting food caused a flood of issues for residents living in Boyle Heights, East LA and surrounding communities, including an infestation of flies and pests, nausea and headaches, higher utility bills and other health concerns.

The Los Angeles Fire Department could not determine the cause of the fire but said solar panels could not be ruled out as an ignition and fuel source.

Boyle Heights Beat reporter Laura Anaya-Morga contributed to this report.

Eva Marie Saint, the pale, willowy actor who won an Academy Award for her first movie, “On the Waterfront,” and starred opposite Cary Grant in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller “North by Northwest,” has died. She was 102.

Saint, whose acting work lasted well into her 90s, died at her home in Los Angeles on Tuesday, confirmed family representative Jeff Sanderson.

Saint had one of the most spectacular debuts in Hollywood history, as the love interest of Marlon Brando’s tormented Terry Malloy in “On the Waterfront,” and her first trip to the Academy Awards was memorable too. Pregnant with her first child, Saint accepted her Oscar from Frank Sinatra and smilingly murmured a unique winner’s speech: “I think I may have the baby right here.” (Her son, Darrell, was born two days later.)

The award for the 1954 classic made her an instant star, but she soon astonished Hollywood with a firm independence that would mark her career. She refused offers of studio contracts and declined chances to follow up on her great success, explaining that she was taking time off to become acquainted with her new son. (A daughter, Laurette, was born in 1958.)

A curated career

In her first decade in Hollywood, Saint appeared in a mere seven films. She declined such top-level productions as “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” with Gregory Peck, “Summer and Smoke” with Laurence Harvey and “The Rainmaker” with Burt Lancaster. She credited her husband, TV and stage director Jeffrey Hayden, with persuading her to star in Hitchcock’s “North by Northwest,” the classic 1959 thriller in which Saint plays a spy who seduces Grant, but ends up falling for him.

“I vividly remember him saying, ‘Honey, I think you should find a quiet spot. I’ll take care of the children and I want you to really think about this and reread this script,’” she told Vanity Fair in 2014. “He was so right. And that’s what husbands are for.”

Instead of being put off by her selectivity, studios continued offering her starring roles in such films as “Exodus” (with Newman), “Raintree County” (Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift) and “All Fall Down,” with Warren Beatty.

She turned more to television in the 1970s and enjoyed renewed popularity in the 1980s as the mother of Cybill Shepherd in the hit sitcom “Moonlighting” and as Tom Hanks’ mother in the film comedy “Nothing in Common.” She won an Emmy for the 1990 miniseries “People Like Us,” and had roles in such 21st century movies as “Because of Winn-Dixie,” “Superman Returns” and “Winter’s Tale,” adapted from Mark Helprin’s novel of the same name. In 2021, she played Marisa Tomei’s aunt in the brief audio play “The Bus Ride,” part of “The Pack Podcast.”

Saint was married to Hayden for 55 years, until his death in 2016.

That was her real name

When Saint emerged in the public consciousness, many believed her theatrical-sounding name must have been invented. She was born with it on July 4, 1924, in Newark, New Jersey. The family moved to Delmar, a small town near Albany, New York, where her father was a Goodrich Rubber Co. manager. Eva’s goal was to become a third-grade teacher like her mother, but at Bowling Green State University in Ohio she tried out for a play and won the leading role.

After graduation she lived with her parents in Flushing, Long Island, and began hunting for acting jobs in Manhattan. After a fruitless year, she landed a two-line role as a telephone operator on a radio drama and soon was working steadily on soap operas and nighttime dramas, appearing for two years as Claudia on “One Man’s Family.” Network television was booming in the early 1950s, and her looks and dramatic sense made her a favorite with casting people and producers.

She credited Lee Strasberg with helping her overcome shyness

A critical turn in Saint’s career came when she auditioned before Elia Kazan and was accepted into the Actors Studio, which shaped a generation of method-actor stars. She credited acting coach Lee Strasberg with helping her overcome her shyness.

“Lee Strasberg, when he got to know me a little bit, gave me a scene to do where I had to cry in front of my peers,” she told The Santa Barbara Independent in 2009. “I worried about it, I worked on it, I tried to use what I was learning at the studio. I finally did the scene, and I cried, and my peers were crying with me. It was just an incredible moment for me.”

Saint was rejected for the single female role in the play “Mister Roberts,” but was hired to understudy the actor chosen, Jocelyn Brando, Marlon’s sister. In six frustrating months Saint never got to substitute for Brando. She finally made it to Broadway in “A Trip to Bountiful,” which she had played on television.

Kazan invited her to try out for the female lead in “On the Waterfront” by improvising a scene with Brando. She was told to try to stop a young man from entering her apartment. She told the Los Angeles Times in 2001: “All I know is that Marlon got in the door and turned on the music. We started dancing. He flicked my skirt. Kazan saw the sparks fly, and that’s how I got the part.”

Thomas, a former Associated Press Hollywood correspondent who died in 2014, was the primary writer of this obituary.

California’s school finance watchdog agency has found the Los Angeles Unified School District is at high risk of financial insolvency.

The Financial Crisis and Management Assistance Team presented its analysis at Tuesday’s school board meeting.

A July assessment from the Los Angeles County Office of Education found LAUSD was at risk of becoming insolvent, which triggered FCMAT’s evaluation.

“FCMAT’s role is not to determine which programs the district should preserve, which reductions it should make or what agreements it should reach with the labor [unions],” Jennifer Noga, an intervention specialist with the agency, told the board. “That is 100% a local decision. Our goal is to help identify the fiscal risk and help the district understand what needs to be addressed to restore fiscal stability.”

The analysis found that LAUSD's deficit spending, declining enrollment and increasing costs of employee salaries and special education put the district at risk of exhausting its reserves by the end of next school year.

United Teachers Los Angeles, the union that represents LAUSD educators, said in a memo to the board and in public comments that FCMAT’s analysis penalized the district for paying teachers more and overstated financial risk.

“There are different ways to tell a story with numbers and statistics and data, and we just think that FCMAT is presenting the most austere version of that and we have to fight back against that,” said Julie Van Winkle, the union's vice president. “There is declining enrollment in the district, and who is going to want to put their kids in schools if we keep cutting programs because of austerity?"

The district has a plan to cut spending, which includes eliminating thousands of jobs and funding for high-needs schools. The district must also bargain with employee unions before implementing furlough days planned for the 2027-28 school year.

More than 100 cannabis businesses in L.A. that were expected to lose their licenses at the end of the year may be able to stay open after a City Council vote Tuesday.

A city ordinance that took effect in August would only have allowed cannabis businesses to renew their licenses if they owed less than $1 million in unpaid city taxes and had been delinquent on their taxes for less than four years.

The limits were set to get more strict each year until 2030, when businesses would need to owe less than $100,000 in unpaid taxes.

The City Council voted to delay the restrictions for one year because a separate program intended to provide an exception to businesses who agreed to follow a tax payment plan could not begin on time.

There are more than 1,000 licensed cannabis businesses in the city of L.A., according to the Department of Cannabis Regulation, and 125 of those would not have been eligible to renew their licenses had Tuesday’s vote not passed.

In October 2025, City Treasurer Diana Mangioglu reported that 500 cannabis businesses owed a total of $500 million in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties. Of those businesses, 48 owed more than $2 million.

Owners of many cannabis retailers, manufacturers and distributors have asked local government leaders for help as they face higher taxes than most industries and strong competition from unlicensed businesses — which pay no taxes and typically sell at a lower price in the illicit market.

Evelyn Scott gave public comment during the City Council meeting and said these challenges led her business to close.

“Losing our license will make it even harder to reopen, generate revenue, create jobs and meet our obligations to the city,” Scott said.

What is the tax amnesty program?

When the city enacted licensing restrictions based on cannabis businesses’ unpaid taxes, local officials also intended to make a pathway for delinquent businesses to come back into compliance.

The cannabis tax amnesty program allowed for some businesses that would otherwise be prevented from renewing their licenses to agree to a payment plan that could last up to five years. If the businesses kept to the agreement, they could continue to renew their licenses, would have penalties and interest on unpaid taxes forgiven and wouldn’t face criminal charges for not paying those taxes on time.

Could the agreements help the city?

L.A.’s Office of Finance, which is in charge of the program, estimates it could bring in $10 million in city tax revenue in the first year.

But it wasn’t possible to start the program for 2027 licenses, according to Matthew Crawford, assistant director of the finance office.

He told LAist in an email that the office wouldn’t be able to begin the program in time without exposing the city to “unacceptable levels of risk to both [a tax administration] system replacement project and the integrity of the amnesty program.”

Crawford said the finance office still expects the city to receive the same amount of revenue once the program begins.