Topline:
More than a month and half after L.A.’s devastating fires, the recovery is just beginning. And even for the residents of burn zones whose homes survived, the road ahead is complicated.
Health concerns: Some residents are staying in their homes in the burn zones, waiting for insurance to cover cleanup and worrying about their health as debris removal continues around them.
Read on ... to learn more about how two Altadena residents are coping and for recovery resources.
On a sunny day in late January, Tamara Carroll returned to her home on Navarro Avenue in west Altadena for the first time. It survived the Eaton Fire, and she was coming back with an insurance inspector to assess the damage.
“ I don't know how I feel,” Carroll said. “I'm grateful I have a house to come back to, but it's a long journey ahead.”
Her group of girlfriends were there to support her — close friends she’s known for some 35 years.
"We come together in happiness and sadness ... all the events of life,” said friend Barri Brown. “This is one of those times where we come together and put our arms around each other.”
More than a month and half after L.A.’s devastating fires, the recovery is just beginning.
Even for residents whose homes survived, the road ahead is complicated.
Some are staying in their homes, worried about the health effects as they wait for their insurance to cover smoke and ash cleanup, and watch as debris removal continues around them. Others are staying elsewhere, and still not sure they’ll ever return for good.
For those whose homes still stand in the burn zones, homeowners insurance and personal property insurance should cover most damage, including smoke damage, said David Russell, professor of insurance and finance at Cal State Northridge. But there can be limitations.
“ In some cases, smoke damage is a tricky one because reasonable people can disagree about whether or not there's a smell of smoke or if it's damaged,” Russell said. “The policy is really about physical damage. And it's less about if you don't feel safe.”
Russell said personal property insurance may cover only the depreciated value of objects like couches and mattresses. Russell added that residents should not be afraid to ask their adjusters about additional coverage and to document everything if you disagree with the assessment.
Here are some more resources to help you navigate insurance and recovery after the fires:
Carroll didn’t evacuate the night the Eaton Fire broke out, putting out spot fires in her yard and her neighbors’ yard as she watched homes burning a couple blocks down the street.
Once the flames died down, she stayed in her house for nearly another week without power, water or gas.
“It was just cold. I had no heat, and I was sleeping in my clothes,” Carroll recalled. “I was hyper vigilant: I had my backpack. I slept in my shoes. And it just became too much on my psyche.”
She left for a hotel in Burbank, which her insurance is covering. But she’s been replaying the night of Jan. 7 in her head, and rewatching the videos she took on her phone.
“I keep replaying those moments where I see the flames and the fire.... That's the trauma,” Carroll said.
The insurance adjuster tallied the physical damage. He marked charred shingles on her roof with white chalk. Her outdoor furniture is burned. The wall between her and her neighbor's house blew over in the wind.
Inside, the house smells like smoke. The adjuster swiped the walls with tissues — a thin coat of ash covered them. The adjuster recommended a smoke and ash cleaning.
Her homeowners insurance covers only the structure itself — the adjuster told Carroll she’ll need to have another adjuster with her personal property insurance to assess her furniture, rugs and the like.
By mid-February, Carroll just got the check for exterior repairs, but still awaits the insurance payment for smoke and ash remediation inside. She’s negotiating with her adjuster for additional coverage.
Even once the repairs are done, though, she doesn’t know if she’ll permanently return to the home her parents bought in 1963.
“We're grieving,” Carroll said. “Altadena will never ever be like it was. Ever.”
A couple of blocks over, on Glenrose Avenue, Ana Martinez and her family are still working to clean up their home, which also survived the fire. Their neighbor’s house didn’t.
“We’re surviving,” Martinez said. “Trying to get back to normal. Our new normal now.”
Martinez pointed out damage to the three homes on the property: Roof shingles and wood siding are charred. The carport is gone. The window blinds are melted, the glass broken from the heat of the flames. Her trash bins are a single melted piece of green, blue and black plastic.
“It's my new art piece now,” Martinez said.
Martinez said insurance will replace only damaged shingles, not the whole roof, though she thinks that is needed. They’ll also replace the windows. Martinez and her husband, sons, nephews and other family members have done their best to clean up inside and outside their homes.
But they’re still waiting on professional smoke and ash remediation. And as debris cleanup continues around her, she worries the house will only take in more toxic ash and dirt.
In the days after the fire, researchers measured high levels of lead, heavy metals, asbestos, microplastics and other toxic pollutants in the air. Those particles can settle into soil and dust, potentially becoming re-suspended as cleanup and rebuilding efforts continue. That toxic pollution can lead to health issues, from respiratory problems to increased risks of heart disease and cancer.
All of that is making Martinez worried about her family’s health.
The Martinezes have lived in their home this whole time. She said she and her husband developed bad coughs and recently went to the doctor for lung X-rays.
“We have kids here,” Martinez said. “We want to make sure they're safe; we don't want to just do a job halfway.”
Their young granddaughter and grandson, who has heart and lung issues, recently returned to the house because insurance stopped advancing money for their stays in hotels and short-term rentals after the first couple of weeks, instead asking them to submit claims for reimbursement.
California law requires insurance to pay four months of advance payments for living expenses for people who lost their homes in a fire, but there aren’t the same benefits for those whose homes survived. Coverage for temporary housing in this case varies by policy.
In the Martinezes case, they now have to foot the bill upfront and submit claims for reimbursement.
“They said ... 'It's best if you don't stay; we recognize it's bad for your health, so go away ... and then send us the receipts,'” Martinez said. “But what if they come out and say, ‘Oh, that's not covered.’ Then what? We don't have the money to go anywhere. ... We're out of the little bit of money we have in our savings.”
Topline:
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s new corporate tax credit cap, signed into law this summer, threatened to diminish Hollywood’s tax breaks. State leaders want to fix that by exempting independent film productions from that cap.
Why now: California lawmakers are poised to adopt a proposal Monday to exempt independent Hollywood productions from a new cap on how many tax credits they can claim each year, following months of pressure from the multibillion-dollar entertainment industry and fears about more productions fleeing the state.
Why it matters: The proposal, Assembly Bill 186, effectively maintains independent productions’ ability to access California’s film tax credits. Such productions often have smaller budgets than major studios and claim less tax credit.
Read on... for more on the proposal.
This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.
California lawmakers are poised to adopt a proposal Monday to exempt independent Hollywood productions from a new cap on how many tax credits they can claim each year, following months of pressure from the multibillion-dollar entertainment industry and fears about more productions fleeing the state.
The proposal, Assembly Bill 186, effectively maintains independent productions’ ability to access California’s film tax credits. Such productions often have smaller budgets than major studios and claim less tax credit.
Created in 2009 to help California's film industry compete with the tax incentives and lower costs in other states and countries, the film tax credit lets production companies offset a portion of their annual tax liability. Last year, as Hollywood reeled from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, union strikes and wildfires, Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully pushed state leaders to double the size of the program and allocate up to $750 million a year in film tax credits in an attempt to keep more film and TV jobs in California.
AB 186 also revises that program to benefit other motion picture companies by allowing them more time to use their film tax credits and giving them a bigger refund — and more quickly — if they choose to cash out on their unused credits.
Under the new program, companies can apply leftover credits to future tax years, or get a cash refund — often in the millions of dollars — for the unused portion.
Industry leaders celebrated last year’s expansion but it soon clashed with another Newsom priority: Capping corporate tax credits. In July, the governor signed into law a permanent cap, limiting the amount big companies can claim at up to $5 million or 70% of a company’s tax liability, whichever is higher, amid a gloomy budget outlook and pressure to make billionaires and corporations pay more.
Hollywood advocates were infuriated, arguing the cap threatened to hamstring the film tax credit program. Bryan Lourd, CEO of the Creative Artists Agency, urged lawmakers earlier this month to exempt the industry from the cap.
“Without this fix, we risk destabilizing a program that is critical to keeping film and television production in California and the thousands of jobs it supports,” he said in a letter.
While the final deal does not exempt the entire industry, it reflects a starting point, said Assemblymember Rick Zbur, a Democrat who represents Hollywood and co-authored last year’s film tax credit expansion.
The legislation will “provide greater stability and certainty for productions and workers, mitigate the impacts of the business tax credit limitation, and help us continue competing for jobs and investment,” he said in a statement.
Under AB 186, some studios would be able to claim the tax credits above the cap up to 15 years in the future, instead of the nine years allowed under current law. Those who claimed tax credits from the expanded program last year would also be able to claim up to 95% of the unused tax credits as refunds, up from the current 90%, and the state must pay off the refund within two years, instead of five.
If approved, the measure would cost the state up to $170 million in annual tax revenue, according to a legislative analysis of the proposal.
A slew of lobbyists representing motion picture studios, such as SkyDance and Walt Disney, as well as labor unions, such as the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), supported the deal during a budget hearing Sunday.
Shane Gusman, lobbyist for SAG-AFTRA and the Teamsters Union in California, told CalMatters the deal represents a compromise.
“It’s fair to say that the unions and others were arguing for a full exemption,” he said Sunday. “But it’s one of those things we … got enough so that the program will continue to work.”
This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.
Topline:
The Los Angeles Police Department wants 300 new vehicles for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it's asking the city to pay for them.
The details: LAPD officials say the request for around $30 million to procure the vehicles would help temporarily expand the Police Department's fleet during the summer of 2028, so the police force could patrol Olympic venues while maintaining its presence around the city.
Why it matters: The request highlights an increasingly thorny question around the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Who will pay for astronomical security costs?
What's next: The committee kicked the decision down the road, asking the city administrative officer for more information on the financial impact of procuring the vehicles, the different options to pay for them and where else LAPD might find the resources, including from other law enforcement agencies in the state.
Read on... for more on the growing concerns around who will pay for astronomical security costs for the Olympics.
The Los Angeles Police Department wants 300 new vehicles for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, and it's asking the city to pay for them.
LAPD officials say the request for around $30 million to procure the vehicles would help temporarily expand the Police Department's fleet during the summer of 2028, so the police force could patrol Olympic venues while maintaining its presence around the city.
City officials are skeptical. The L.A. City Council discussed the request at a Budget and Finance Committee meeting earlier this month, where councilmembers questioned why the city should cover the cost.
"I'm incredibly uncomfortable with spending $30 million on cars, and the excuse being used that we need them for the Games, when the Games are going to be a month long," Councilmember Katy Yaroslavsky, the chair of the Budget and Finance Committee, told LAPD officials.
The committee kicked the decision down the road, asking the city administrative ffficer for more information on the financial impact of procuring the vehicles, the different options to pay for them and where else LAPD might find the resources, including from other law enforcement agencies in the state.
But the request highlights an increasingly thorny question around the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games: Who will pay for astronomical security costs?
The price tag for LAPD activity during the Olympics is of huge importance to the city of L.A., which is the financial backstop for the Games. The Olympics are intended to be privately funded and cost-free for the taxpayer.
Private Olympics organizing committee LA28 has not included expenses for police in its more than $7 billion budget, and is banking on the federal government covering security costs.
The Trump administration has allocated $1 billion for security at the Games, but those costs will be distributed among the many cities with Olympic and Paralympic venues, and it's not clear how much Los Angeles will get.
LAPD's vehicle request is one example of the limits of that support, according to Police Chief Jim McDonnell, who wrote in a July letter to the Budget and Finance Committee that he does not expect federal funds to cover the 300 additional vehicles he's requesting.
That's because LAPD is anticipating federal dollars to go toward paying to deploy thousands of officers across the city during the Games.
According to one estimate sent to the City Council by LAPD in May, the department's personnel costs for the Olympics and Paralympics could be more than $730 million, with close to half of that money going to outside law enforcement brought in to fill staffing holes.
As the council delays a decision on new patrol vehicles, the city is moving ahead with a separate request. It already approved $13 million to procure 107 non-patrol vehicles for the Games in its 2026-2027 budget. Those include trucks, prisoner transport vans and unmarked investigative vehicles.
According to the department, vehicles acquired for the Olympics won't permanently expand the LAPD fleet. Instead, new vehicles will replace old ones once the Games are over.
Topline:
A new NASA space telescope launched Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will help scientists probe the nature of dark matter, dark energy, and other mysteries of the universe.
Details: The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is about the size of a tour bus, lifted off at 4:26 a.m. PT on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The 18,000-pound spacecraft is now on a million-mile journey that will take it to its new home in space.
What's next: Roman is on a kind of ghost hunt, searching for more evidence of dark matter — mysterious, invisible stuff whose gravitational influence appears to hold galaxies together and define the overarching structure of the cosmos.
A new NASA space telescope launched Sunday from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida that will help scientists probe the nature of dark matter, dark energy and other mysteries of the universe.
The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, which is about the size of a tour bus, lifted off at 4:26 a.m. PT on SpaceX's Falcon Heavy rocket. The 18,000-pound spacecraft is now on a million-mile journey that will take it to its new home in space.
"What a glorious dawn launch," NASA's Jackie Townsend, Roman telescope project manager, said at a press briefing soon after liftoff. "The ride was magnificent. It put us right where we wanted to be."
More good news came shortly after launch as the telescope began deploying its solar panels and other instruments. "Ground controllers at NASA Goddard have been receiving telemetry data from Roman, and apparently all systems are nominal," said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.
Roman has an unusual origin story: Initially designed as a spy telescope for the National Reconnaissance Office, the spacecraft was donated to NASA instead. The new telescope is named for Nancy Grace Roman, NASA's first chief astronomer who was known as the 'Mother of Hubble' for her championing of the iconic Hubble Space Telescope. Her namesake telescope will have the sharpness of Hubble but a field of view that is at least 100 times larger, allowing it to image huge swaths of the sky at once.
Before it can do that, the Roman Space Telescope will have to get to its new home in the sky about a million miles away. Roman will live at the second Sun-Earth Lagrange point known as L2. There, the competing gravitational pulls of the Earth and the Sun help the telescope keep a steady orbit while using minimal fuel. The James Webb Space Telescope orbits at this point, which gives the spacecraft an unobstructed view of the sky.
"It takes us a good three-plus months to get out there, and we're spending that time checking everything out and doing a whole bunch of calibrations and making sure everything is working the way we know it can," said NASA's Jeremy Perkins, an integration and test scientist on the mission. "It's basically like our time to kick the tires and just make sure that the focus is right, the pointing is right."
Roman is on a kind of ghost hunt, searching for more evidence of dark matter — mysterious, invisible stuff whose gravitational influence appears to hold galaxies together and define the overarching structure of the cosmos. Roman will study how gravity subtly affects the path of light along great distances throughout a massive survey of the sky. By doing this, the telescope will help map both normal and dark matter, giving scientists a better understanding of just what this elusive substance might be.
Astronomers will also use Roman's observations to uncover dark energy, the strange force that is believed to drive the expansion of the universe. Scientists' understanding of dark energy comes from observations of a kind of exploding star known as a Type Ia supernova. These supernovas appear to shine at known and predictable brightness throughout the cosmos, giving them the nickname "standard candles." By cataloguing even more of these supernovas, scientists hope to develop a better understanding of how dark energy works, which could fundamentally change the way astronomers view the universe.
Roman will also search for planets outside our solar system. Since astronomers confirmed their existence in the 1990s, more than 6,000 exoplanets have been identified. With Roman, NASA expects to identify more than 100,000 of them by identifying dips in starlight caused by a planet passing in front of its own star. The telescope also hopes to find some 1,000 through microlensing — a technique that searches for tiny changes in background starlight caused by the gravity of a far-off planet.
"Why do we care so much about exoplanets? Because one of our main goals at NASA is answering the question: Are we alone in the universe?" Nicky Fox, NASA's associate administrator of the science mission directive, said at the Sunday morning briefing.
The spacecraft is poised to bring scientists a step closer to answering that question: It will demonstrate technology that can take a picture of a planet by selectively blocking out the light from its home star.
"We are going to make this giant leap forward with the coronagraph technology that is going to allow us to look at these distant worlds and start to really resolve the atmosphere around them to let us know if they could be habitable," she said.
The telescope will beam back 1.4 terabytes of raw science data each day, using a refrigerator-sized high-gain antenna. The data will be available immediately to scientists and the public.
"Roman's database at the end of its prime mission after five years is going to be bigger than your standard music streaming platform," Perkins said.
Because of the massive amounts of data, NASA is making it available to anyone through a cloud-based system called Roman Nexus. For Perkins, that's what makes this mission unique — anyone can look at the raw data and find new discoveries.
"It's all the things that we are not expecting to see," he said. "It's all these one-in-a-million things that we're going to be able to see with Roman that really excites me."
Copyright 2026 NPR
Topline:
Gov. Gavin Newsom backed off his plans to ease costs for utilities following wildfires they cause, striking a narrower deal with Democratic lawmakers on Saturday.
Details: Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders agreed on a narrower package of wildfire policies, including prohibiting private equity groups from investing in wildfire claims and denying utility CEO bonuses in the years their companies cause fatal fires.
Why it matters: Homeowners, insurers and fire survivors have said his original plan would have shifted those costs onto them.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Saturday backed off his proposal to reduce costs for electrical utilities after their equipment sparks wildfires, agreeing instead to a narrower deal after homeowners, insurers and fire survivors argued his original plan would have shifted those costs onto them.
Instead, Newsom and Senate and Assembly leaders agreed on a narrower package of wildfire policies, including prohibiting private equity groups from investing in wildfire claims and denying utility CEO bonuses in the years their companies cause fatal fires.
The deal is a victory for lawmakers who refused to reduce damages to victims and shift costs away from utilities. Opponents included insurance companies, consumer advocates and survivors of the January 2025 Eaton Fire caused by Southern California Edison equipment that killed 19 people in Altadena.
Under the agreement announced Saturday, the state would create a “fast-pay” program for survivors’ property loss, pain and suffering in the wake of a utility-caused fire. It would include deadlines for determining which claims are valid within 60 days of receipt, and settlement offers within 30 days after that, but survivors could still pursue the long process of suing utilities if they choose.
The state also commits to improving its local wildfire mitigation efforts and sharing more data on insurance coverage in areas with fire risk.
The final agreement, which lawmakers will vote on in Senate Bill 492, caps a contentious series of closed-door negotiations between Newsom’s office and legislative leaders on how much utility companies should pay after fires.
Newsom wanted utilities to have to pay less to insurance companies, some wildfire survivors, local governments and corporations claiming damages after a fire. His administration is concerned the mounting costs threaten investor confidence in the state’s three major for-profit utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. He said that could lead to higher borrowing costs for the companies and higher electricity bills for Californians.
Newsom also argued his plan would prioritize paying survivors who lose their homes. In past fires, investors have funded lawsuits or claims have been sold to hedge funds, increasing the number of third parties seeking to profit from wildfire payouts, Newsom’s office has said.
SB 492 does not include most of the proposals Newsom wanted and does not substantially change how much utilities must pay after fires they cause. California’s $18 billion wildfire fund that utilities draw from to pay fire damages — and which would fund claims in the fast-pay program — is funded 50-50 by utility customers and shareholders. Proponents of Newsom’s proposals remain concerned that another catastrophic fire could drain that money, leaving utilities facing a mountain of costs and another round of potential bankruptcies.
Nine of the state’s 20 most destructive wildfires were caused by electrical equipment or power lines.
“This system needs full structural reform — not a partial one,” Newsom said in a statement Saturday morning. “I urge the Legislature to build on this progress next year and finish the work we started to secure the Wildfire Fund’s long-term durability, stabilize electricity rates, and ensure fire victims are never again turned into unsecured creditors in a bankruptcy proceeding.”
Sen. Josh Becker, a Menlo Park Democrat who was closely involved in the negotiations, acknowledged that lawmakers would likely have to return to the issue of utility liabilities under a future governor.
“What I heard very clearly, certainly from senators, from the Assembly and even from all the stakeholders was that they’re willing to do that,” he said. “They’re willing to start getting around the table and looking at some of those structural issues. But that takes time. We ran out of time in this session.”
“We certainly stood with fire survivors,” said Sen. Ben Allen, a Democrat who represents Palisades Fire survivors. “Challenges with affordability of electricity (remain). That’s not going away.”
The utilities agreed and said there needs to be a long-term solution.
“While we appreciate the efforts made, we are disappointed that the state couldn’t develop comprehensive wildfire reform,” said Southern California Edison spokesperson David Eisenhauer.
San Diego Gas & Electric would not comment and referred questions to Wildfire Victims First, the utility-backed campaign whose priorities aligned with the governor’s wish list.
Campaign spokesperson Nathan Click said the state still needs to make urgent structural reforms “to ensure a fair recovery system.”
PG&E spokesperson Lynsey Paulo said the company is reviewing the bill and is “focused on helping wildfire survivors recover faster, making communities safer, and protecting customer utility bills.” Company stocks tumbled Friday after reports of a potential agreement that did not include any utility cost-shifts.
Senate President Pro Tem Monique Limón, the Santa Barbara Democrat whose caucus opposed Newsom’s cost-shifting proposals, said in a statement the agreement “supports survivors in their recovery, curbs Wall Street practices that increase costs on consumers, and mitigates the destruction of these wildfires in the first place.”
Assemblymember Cottie Petrie-Norris, an Irvine Democrat who led negotiations for the Assembly, in a statement called the deal “an important step forward.”
“We held the line to protect the people who needed it most,” she said.
The biggest sticking point was the governor’s insistence on eliminating subrogation, which allows insurance companies to sue utilities to recoup their costs for wildfire claims. Lawmakers were staunchly opposed to eliminating that avenue out of concern that it would disrupt the state’s fragile insurance market, raise premiums and cause insurers to flee the state, and they rejected it.
“This outcome keeps costs with the parties responsible for wildfires and helps protect the progress California is making in stabilizing its insurance market,” said Denni Ritter, a vice president at the American Property Casualty Insurance Association.
While the deal is a win for the insurance industry, a senator who represents Eaton Fire survivors said it’s important to also hold insurers accountable.
“We know that in many cases, insurance companies delayed and denied fire survivors’ claims and payments, delaying recovery,” said Democratic Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez. “We need all industries to come to the table in a real way.”
State lawmakers also resisted the governor’s effort to limit survivors’ non-economic damages, an important victory for the Eaton Fire survivors who relentlessly campaigned against the proposal.
Fire survivors and consumer advocates credited the Senate, especially Limón, for pushing back on Newsom.
“In the face of extraordinary pressure from some of the most powerful interests in our state, they centered survivors and California families,” said Joy Chen, executive director of Every Fire Survivor’s Network.
Advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which worked in concert with fire survivors, called the negotiations “an exercise in the democratic process.”
“(The Legislature) told (Newsom) they wouldn’t bend in closed-door negotiations,” said Jamie Court, president of the group.
Pérez commended survivors for pressuring lawmakers over the past couple of weeks.
“The fire survivors have shaped this entire conversation,” Pérez said. “They made a tremendous impact.”
