The Brief

Unemployment was up significantly in L.A. County after January’s fires, according to a new report from University of California researchers.

About 11,000 workers filed for unemployment benefits after January’s fires — a 12% to 17% jump in claims from before the fires. Researchers analyzed unemployment insurance data to better understand the economic landscape after this year’s disaster.

While most affected workers lived in or close to the burn zones, there was a significant spike in claims from commuters from Central L.A. and South L.A. as well, said UCLA economics professor Till von Wachter, one of the report’s authors.

“It’s a shock to the entire area,” von Wachter said. “Economically the shock spreads because of the individuals that were commuting to work in these areas.”

Claims from restaurants, brick-and-mortar stores and social service fields were most common, and most of those affected workers were Black and Latino, according to the report.

There was also a spike in claims from self-employed workers, who became eligible for unemployment insurance when the fires were declared a federal disaster by former President Joe Biden.

More than 5,200 workers who were otherwise ineligible for unemployment benefits claimed Disaster Unemployment Assistance benefits after the fires.

He said many self-employed, independent contractors and gig workers don’t know they may be eligible for unemployment insurance when a federal disaster is declared.

Just 30% to 40% of fire-affected workers filed claims at all, according to the August report. The window to apply has closed.

“Raising awareness about unemployment insurance and disaster unemployment assistance in particular is a very important thing,” von Wachter said, “especially since we know that these fires are likely going to be recurring throughout California.”

California will ban the sale of single-use, battery-powered vapes to fight plastic pollution under a law signed Monday by Gov. Gavin Newsom.

Vapes, sometimes called electronic cigarettes, are battery-operated devices that contain aerosolized nicotine or cannabis, often with flavorings and other chemicals. Refillable and disposable options are sold.

The ban targets single-use e-cigarettes, making it illegal to manufacture or import new or refurbished battery-embedded vapor devices starting Jan. 1, 2027. It also bans retail sales starting Jan. 1, 2028.

The measure allows local governments or the state to fine people $500 for their first violation of the ban, $1,000 for their second infringement and $2,000 for subsequent offenses.

It specifically tackles disposable e-cigarettes that contain tobacco. It won’t include vaping devices containing cannabis.

Experts say part of the appeal of disposable vapes is that they are often more easily accessible and cheaper than refillable devices. The devices are so prevalent they often end up in landfills where their batteries can create a fire hazard or on the ground where they can leak toxic chemicals, including lead and lithium.

Assemblymember Jacqui Irwin, who authored the bill, said it will help prevent battery acid from single-use vapes from leaching into lands and waterways.

Nearly 500,000 disposable vapes are discarded each day in the United States, according to the California Public Interest Research Group, or CalPIRG, a consumer advocacy group that supported the bill.

The California Grocers Association argued against a similar 2022 proposal, saying that it could lead to increased tobacco smuggling.

A federal judge on Monday blocked the authority of President Donald Trump’s administration to withhold some federal counterterrorism funding from states that don’t meet its election administration demands.

Courts have largely rejected the administration’s previous efforts, which reflect untrue claims about widespread voting fraud and come ahead of November’s midterm elections where Democrats seek to take control of one or both chambers of Congress and check Trump’s power.

U.S. District Judge Amir Ali in Washington, D.C., wrote in a 24-page opinion that federal agencies didn’t have the authority from Congress to add such conditions to the grants, and that the conditions didn’t meet legal thresholds requiring them to relate to the underlying grant purpose.

Neither the Department of Homeland Security nor its subagency handling the grants, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, immediately responded to a request for comment. The grant conditions were the latest in a line of actions by Trump’s administration to shape how elections are run, a task that has long been the job of states.

The plaintiffs that sued were Columbus, Ohio; Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee; and El Paso and Harris counties in Texas.

Over the summer, a FEMA antiterrorism grant announcement included a list of election-related requirements, saying that 20% of grants for states and urban areas would be withheld until they comply.

The program includes more than $1 billion for states and local and tribal governments for a variety of programs aimed at preventing terror at crowded places, online, with border security — and around elections. FEMA expects to award 56 grants.

The list of items for states includes verifying the citizenship of all registered voters and election workers.

Places that use electronic voting systems that use barcodes or QR codes to count votes would have to submit plans to switch to hand-marked paper ballots. Every jurisdiction would have to show it audits results.

In the lawsuit, the cities and counties said FEMA had no authority to impose those conditions, “not under its governing statute and not under the Constitution.”

Congress authorized FEMA to help jurisdictions protect critical infrastructure from terrorism and cyberattacks, not to decide who can vote, how ballots must be counted or how states maintain voter rolls, the cities and counties wrote.

“Never before has FEMA purported to regulate how states and counties run elections,” they said in the lawsuit.