The Brief

The small, two-engine Beechcraft King Air is getting jostled by light winds over the L.A. basin. Having taken off from Los Alamitos Army Airfield Base, it’s flying toward one of the 1,750 square miles across Southern California it regularly covers.

A photo of a mediterranean fruit fly against maps of Southern California that line the walls of Mediterranean Fruit Fly Preventive Release Program offices (Medfly PRP) on the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base in Los Alamitos.

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Brian Feinzimer

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The pilot is guiding the plane while hundreds of thousands of his passengers are crammed inside metal chambers right behind his seat. They're kept in comas by refrigeration, meant to keep them from hurting themselves while in the tight space.

A Medfly PRP representative shows the area of Leimert Park on a map where there is an infestation of non-native fruit flies.

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Brian Feinzimer

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They’ll wake up only after the pilot opens the trap door, and they start to warm as they fall through the sky, cascading over the city of Los Angeles some 2,000 feet below.

Every week, 3 to 9 million sterile male Mediterranean fruit flies are dropped over Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties as part of the California Medfly Preventative Release Program — a critical tool in stopping the spread of invasive fruit flies, which can threaten the state's agricultural industry.

The inside of a Medfly PRP airplane that releases Mediterranean fruit flies over Southern California.

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Brian Feinzimer

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Once they land on yards and in fruit trees, they're hardwired to seek out female flies to copulate with. The idea being that if the state drops enough sterile flies, they’ll preoccupy fertile females that get brought in on produce, and stop them from reproducing. The flies can lay their eggs beneath the skins of various crops like pomegranates and figs. When the larvae hatch, they eat the produce, drop to the ground and pupate in the soil, before turning into adult flies. Leaving behind damaged goods.

Just last month, five invasive Mediterranean fruit flies were discovered in the Leimert Park area. Since then, the program has increased its drops over the area to 6 million flies per week, and it will continue with the schedule until at least next June to make sure the problem is solved.

A fruit fly’s trans continental journey 

While the program’s home is at the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training base near Long Beach, a sterile fly’s journey begins in either Hawaii or Guatemala.

“We want to keep our breeding colonies offshore in an area where the fly is already established in the event any flies escape the facility, they don’t start an infestation,” said Ian Walters, director of the medfly preventative release program at Los Alamitos.

A Mediterranean fruit fly at the Medfly PRP facility.

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Brian Feinzimer

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Adult female flies have their eggs collected from large mating cages, and placed on an edible bedding material, so the larvae have something to munch. Once they’re ready to pupate, they’ll pop themselves out of the trays and into water baths, where they’re once again gathered. This time though, they’re tossed into a giant mixer and covered in pink dye that’ll help scientists identify them with a UV light if they’re caught in traps throughout L.A.

Along the way they’re irradiated with Cesium-137 to make sure that they’re sterile, and then shipped via commercial airlines to California, where about 225 million pupae arrive per week.

Turned on by ginger and dropped from a plane

Once at Los Alamitos, they go into a hot and humid bungalow, where they become adult flies, munching on a mixture of seaweed extract, sugar and water.

Strangely enough, when you walk into check them out in their giant metal towers, the entire room smells like fresh baked gingerbread.

Mediterranean fruit fly incubation crates at the Medfly PRP facility.

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Brian Feinzimer

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“Ginger root oil has a natural organic compound in it, which increases the mating competitiveness of the sterile males. They also tested orange oil, which has that same compound. But we found that ginger root oil was the most effective,” Walters said.

From there, they get put into refrigerated trucks and are chilled to 38 degrees so that they fall into comas. They're then placed into special hoppers ready to be dropped from an airplane.

An open Mediterranean fruit fly incubation crate at the Medfly PRP facility.

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Brian Feinzimer

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If they wake up when they’re crammed into the tight space, they could injure themselves, so they sleep until they warm up as they fall through the sky.

The length of an individual fly’s life can vary, but typically lasts around 30 days.

How effective is the program?

There doesn’t seem to be much debate that the program has helped mitigate the number of medfly outbreaks since it began.

“They haven’t had as many outbreaks as prior to that. So in that sense it’s effective in suppressing them,” said James Carey, an entomologist at UC Davis, who’s an expert in invasion biology.

However, there is disagreement about where the invasive flies the state keeps finding in traps are coming from.

Carey argues that it’s likely the medfly has made itself at home here, in part, because they keep showing up in the same relative areas.

But when I asked Jason Leather, the entomologist who oversees the fruit fly program, how likely it is that they’re established, he said, “I think it’s actually zero.”

“Airline passengers are the biggest pathway for fruit flies into California," he added. "During the pandemic, air travel stopped and our traps were really empty."

Again, Carey disagrees.

“The only way you can monitor the wild population is by trapping. Well, guess what? The sterile flies also go to these traps,” Carey said. “It’s not entirely clear if it’s suppressing the populations or suppressing the detection. I would say it’s a little bit of both. But that’s a huge challenge for monitoring.”

A Medfly PRP airplane that releases Mediterranean fruit flies over Southern California prepares to take off from the Los Alamitos Joint Forces Training Base.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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What is certain is that the program will continue for the foreseeable future. And that threats from other exotic pests like the oriental fruit fly need to be dealt with.

If you'd like to help monitor for medflys, you can contact the CDFA and ask if they can put traps in your yard.

The unions representing Los Angeles Unified teachers and support staff have given the district a "red line" of April 14 to reach a deal for new contracts, or else face an open-ended strike.

The walkout was announced at a rally Wednesday in downtown Los Angeles.

Earlier this year, members of United Teachers Los Angeles and SEIU Local 99 voted overwhelmingly to give their leaders the power to call a strike as negotiations over pay and benefits stalled.

Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, which represents principals, is also negotiating with the district.

What happens now?

A strike would almost certainly shutter schools for about 400,000 students, as was the case during a three-day work stoppage in 2023. The unions are seeking increases in pay for their members. The district has said it cannot afford what the unions have proposed.

The unions are still working their way through the bargaining process, but have said the district's offers do not meet their demands. UTLA appealed to LAUSD’s board ahead of a committee meeting Tuesday.

“We can settle this contract before we have to go on strike if you all are active in that process,” Julie Van Winkle, UTLA's vice president said. “But if that doesn’t happen then we’re still ready to go because we need to be able to afford to live in our cities and we need our schools to have basic resources.”

Los Angeles Unified has maintained that it values employees, but needs to make tough financial decisions to reduce an ongoing budget deficit. This month, layoff notices were sent to more than 650 LAUSD employees, including hundreds of support staff.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

For 15 years, The Garage Board Shop in East L.A. has been a safe, welcoming place for students to go to do their homework, get tutoring, hang out with their friends and learn how to skate through its Skate 4 Education after-school program. 

But the program was put on pause Saturday after mounting issues, including a lapse from the initiative that has provided paid mentors and dwindling sales at the shop caused by immigration raids. Skate 4 Education founder Maria Patricia Ramblaz said she’s now looking for new funding sources to bring the after-school program back, but its future remains in limbo.

“Our best option to ensure the program continues for future generations is a momentary pause to not only find funding but also regroup as a team to see how we will work moving forward,” wrote Ramblaz, who runs The Garage Board Shop as well as The Urban Warehouse nonprofit organization, in a letter sent to partners, sponsors and community members Friday.

The abrupt closure of the program has left parents saddened and worried their children’s grades and personal development will also be affected.

Ramblaz, known by students as Ms. Patty, told Boyle Heights Beat that when she announced the news last week, the kids sprang into action to brainstorm ways to save the program. 

They planned to spread the word about the program by making TikTok videos and handing out flyers to their friends and teachers at school. One girl handed Ramblaz two folded dollar bills she had in her pocket that day, a gesture that Ramblaz said filled her heart with joy and sadness. 

“These kids should be the next governor, the next mayor, but because we’re cutting the education, I don’t think it’s gonna give us a chance to open more bridges for the kids,” Ramblaz said. 

A place for students to thrive 

When Rose Duran, 10, went home after learning the program would shut down, she surprised her parents with her idea to bring it back. 

“I don’t want a quinceañera anymore,” she told her mother, Itzel Tlapalco, asking to donate the money that her family has been saving for her huge, coming-of-age celebration for years. “I want to help Miss Patty.” 

Rose has been attending the Skate 4 Education after-school program since she was 7 years old, following in the footsteps of her older brother, who got involved after walking into the store to buy a skateboard with his parents over three years ago, Tlapalco said. 

Maria Patricia Ramblaz talks to Itzel Tlapalco and Guillermo Duran about the Skate 4 Education program being put on pause inside The Garage Board Shop on Thursday, March 12.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Tlapalco and Guillermo Duran said their son was struggling in math at the time, and soon after starting, they saw significant improvement in his grades thanks to the tutoring and attentiveness of the mentors at the program. 

“It helped him a lot; he developed significantly at school, and he came here to learn even more,” Duran said in Spanish. They saw the same improvement when their daughter began participating, too. 

Tlapalco said she has tried to understand her daughter’s homework, but she can’t help as well as the mentors at The Garage Board Shop do. She’s now worried her grades will take a hit. 

Bernardo Lopez has been bringing his two daughters, Eliana and Emily, to the after-school program for over a year and said the girls offered to donate their birthday money to save it. They have also been spreading the word to their friends at school, Lopez said. 

The program has been a great way for his daughters to socialize with other children and stay off of their phones and tablets, he added. “That’s really important because they don’t have that anymore,” he said. 
”I feel like kids don’t have that anymore.” 

A plan to keep it going

The program began 15 years ago, when Ramblaz set out to create the type of education program that she needed when she was a young student growing up in Boyle Heights. 

Maria Patricia Ramblaz stands in the classroom located at the back of The Garage Skate Shop on Thursday, March 12.

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Laura Anaya-Morga

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Boyle Heights Beat

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Over the years, with the help of grants from the county and organizations including L.A. Care, LA2050, Nike and Southern California Edison, Ramblaz was able to create a multifaceted program with paid mentors via America’s Job Center of California, offering students homework help and working with them on projects and activities. Through getting good grades and completing their assignments, students were rewarded with skate supplies at the shop, giving them a place where they could not only stay on track in school, but also spend time with friends and lean into their skating hobby. 

Ramblaz said that this school year, AJCC was only able to provide paid mentors through December, with a new cohort set to start in July. Normally, she’d cover the gap out-of-pocket, but over the last year, her business has faced rising costs and the lasting effects of immigration raids. 

Last June, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids hit her business hard. She went from making $400 a day on average to suddenly only making one or two sales per day in the weeks following the raids. Now, sales have steadily gone up, but it’s still not like before. Ramblaz said she’s had to take money out of her retirement fund to cover rent and bills at the shop.  

The raids also caused some families to stop bringing their kids to the after-school program out of fear. Attendance went from 12 to 15 students a day to 3 to 5. Parents pay a $50 donation per month to keep their children enrolled, so the drop in attendance has also caused the program to take a financial hit.

Her only option, she said, is to put the program on pause to continue seeking out other avenues for funding.

Ramblaz said she needs about $50,000 to guarantee that the program survives for the rest of the year. That money would cover mentors’ salaries and pay for school supplies, projects, activities and snacks for the students.

Ramblaz said she has submitted over 30 grant applications in the past few months. Some remain under review, and others have been denied. 

“It’s really depressing,” Ramblaz said. “This is my dream. This is my mission.”

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Labor rights icon César Chávez is accused of sexually assaulting fellow farmworker leader Dolores Huerta in the 1960s, according to a New York Times investigation released Wednesday. Chávez is also accused of sexually assaulting two underage girls in the 1970s, the report said.

Huerta, 95, said she was reluctant to share her story because of Chávez’s status and “for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for,” she said in a statement issued Wednesday.

Just one day prior, the United Farm Workers union says it would not participate in any César Chávez Day activities March 31 after it learned of “troubling” allegations against Chávez, who co-founded the labor organization in 1962.

Huerta helped organize a labor strike in 1965 with organizers, including Chávez. She told the New York Times that Chávez raped her in 1966.

On Wednesday, she confirmed the reporting and reflected on her years of silence in a detailed statement.

Read the full statement in her own words:

“I am nearly 96 years old and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for.

“I have encouraged people to always use their voice. Following the New York Times’ multi-year investigation into sexual misconduct by César Chávez, I can no longer stay silent and must share my own experiences.

“As a young mother in the 1960s, I experienced two separate sexual encounters with César. The first time, I was manipulated and pressured into having sex with him, and I didn’t feel I could say no because he was someone that I admired, my boss and the leader of the movement I had already devoted years of my life to. The second time, I was forced, against my will, and in an environment where I felt trapped.

“I had experienced abuse and sexual violence before, and I convinced myself these were incidents that I had to endure alone and in secret. Both sexual encounters with César led to pregnancies. I chose to keep my pregnancies secret, and after the children were born, I arranged for them to be raised by other families that could give them stable lives.

“Over the years, I have been fortunate to develop a deep relationship with these children, who are now close to my other children, their siblings. But even then, no one knew the full truth about how they were conceived until just a few weeks ago.

“I carried this secret for as long as I did because building the movement and securing farmworker rights was my life’s work. The formation of a union was the only vehicle to accomplish and secure those rights, and I wasn’t going to let César or anyone else get in the way. I channeled everything I had into advocating on behalf of millions of farmworkers and others who were suffering and deserved equal rights.

“I have never identified myself as a victim, but I now understand that I am a survivor — of violence, of sexual abuse, of domineering men who saw me, and other women, as property or things to control.

“I am telling my story because the New York Times has indicated that I was not the only one — there were others. Women are coming forward, sharing that they were sexually abused and assaulted by César when they were girls and teenagers.

“The knowledge that he hurt young girls sickens me. My heart aches for everyone who suffered alone and in silence for years. There are no words strong enough to condemn those deplorable actions that he did. César’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement.

“The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual. César's actions do not diminish the permanent improvements achieved for farmworkers with the help of thousands of people. We must continue to engage and support our community, which needs advocacy and activism now more than ever.

“I will continue my commitments to workers, as well as my commitment to women’s rights, to make sure we have a voice and that our communities are treated with dignity and given the equity that they have so long been denied.

“I have kept this secret long enough. My silence ends here.”

While César Chávez became a labor icon because of his work to elevate farmworkers and improve labor conditions in California, he had a complicated legacy that included infidelity and backlash over his views on undocumented immigrants.

But now, that’s gotten worse.

A new investigation out Wednesday from the New York Times, with more than 60 interviews, has brought to light multiple allegations that Chávez used his powerful role to sexually abuse young women, including the co-founder of the United Farm Workers union, Dolores Huerta, and underage girls for years.

Before this bombshell dropped, many still regarded him as a hero who played a pivotal role in building Latino political power. In Los Angeles, we have streets named after him. Schools. Even a public holiday at the end of this month.

The revelation will have wide ramifications nationally, but in Southern California, his local legacy will need to be reckoned with over the coming weeks and months.

LA’s outsized role

 Fernando Guerra, professor of Chicana/Chicano studies at Loyola Marymount University, said the news came as a gut punch.

“It feels personal because of how much you incorporated what he stood for,” he told LAist. “ It speaks to the frailty of humans that even when they present themselves publicly in one way, how different they are privately.”

Chávez’s journey began with L.A. and political organizing at the Community Service Organization, or CSO. His job was to get low-income Latinos out to vote, which led to a national director role based in L.A. During this time, Chávez lived in Boyle Heights with his wife and kids.

He was also one of the catalysts for the Chicano movement in L.A., such as the East L.A. Walkouts and the Chicano moratorium marches.

“ It truly helped create a moment in Los Angeles where Latinos, Chicanos specifically and Mexican Americans, began to recognize that they could seek and mobilize for their rights.” Guerra said.

And when he left to organize farmworkers in the Central Valley, that led to the creation of the United Farm Workers union, which he co-founded with Huerta. The organization eventually bought him a house south of Koreatown to serve as a homebase for him to stay at and organize while in town.

His footprint here was undeniable, and many wanted this towering figure to be celebrated. So, we put his name on a lot of things, such as libraries, schools, university departments, parks and streets across L.A. County and beyond. And his likeness can be found here too — in murals, exhibits and statues.

Cesar Chavez Campesino Park in Santa Ana, CA.

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Destiny Torres

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A mural inside the Cesar Chavez building at Santa Ana College.

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Destiny Torres

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That will probably change soon, as local leaders already are calling for renaming. Some ideas being floated are to change the public holiday to Farmworker Day and the street to Dolores Huerta Avenue. Guerra said that’s the right move.

“ While César Chávez’s name and his legacy will be tainted forever, it does not negate the farmworker movement,” he said. “It does not negate the blood, sweat and tears of thousands of people … and the impact that it had on California.”

The community and family react

During AirTalk on LAist 89.3, listeners called and wrote in to share their perspective on the allegations, echoing what Guerra said.

 Jorge in Long Beach said that while the news is unfortunate, it’s an opportunity to honor the farmworker labor movement itself and to uplift other labor leaders, including the legacies of Dolores Huerta and Larry Itliong.

“I do not think the Filipino community receives enough credit for being at the forefront of the farmworker labor movement,” he wrote. “Chávez, or anyone else, must never, ever again be considered bigger than the movement or overshadow  others who served.”

Monica in Hawthorne said she’s a Mexican American who spent a lot of time learning about Chávez’s role in her community when she was in grade school. She was in tears hearing Huerta’s statement, which covered how Chávez raped her.

“I did projects on him every chance I could,” she wrote. “This is heartbreaking. My heart goes out to her, her family and all survivors.”

LAist reached out to the Chávez family for comment on the allegations. In a statement, they shared how they’re devastated and that the news is deeply painful for the family.

“We wish peace and healing to the survivors and commend their courage to come forward. As a family steeped in the values of equity and justice, we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse,” the statement read. “We carry our own memories of the person we knew. Someone whose life included work and contributions that matter deeply to many people.”

The family said it remains committed to farmworkers and the causes Chávez championed. They’re asking for understanding and privacy as they process this “difficult” information.