The Brief

The most destructive fires in L.A. County history erupted six months ago today, killing at least 30 people and destroying more than 16,000 structures, mostly homes, and reshaping the region in ways large and small.

Instead of January's landscape of chimneys and staircases rising from rubble, today empty dirt lots extend block after block in Altadena and the Pacific Palisades.

A handful of people who survived the Eaton and Palisades fires have broken ground on rebuilds. Many remain displaced. Still others decided to move on, restart their lives elsewhere. For most, the emotional pain remains all too present.

How much can change in six months. And how little.

Here's where things stand.

Recovery by the numbers 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has cleared debris from more than 9,000 lots in the Eaton and Palisades fire burn zones.

Ninety-seven percent of properties in the Eaton Fire zone have been cleared, and 87% in the Palisades Fire burn zone, according to the Army Corps progress tracker. Nearly 1,000 properties that opted out of the government debris removal program still need to be cleared.

The Eaton cleanup has moved faster in part because the area affected by the Palisades Fire had more properties that were challenging to get to, said Army Corps Col. Eric Swenson.

" In some cases we have individuals on rappel lines, hand-collecting debris down the side of a mountain," Swenson said.

Swenson added that the homes that burned in the Palisades Fire were also larger on average and required more time to clear.

Crews remove wildfire debris on hillside property, June 27 in Pacific Palisades. Using a rope descent systems to safely maneuver on the rugged slopes, personnel are removing debris by hand in areas too dangerous for heavy equipment.

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Charles Delano

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U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

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He estimates that all Army Corps-led debris removal will be done by mid-summer.

That progress means that the staging areas for debris are in the process of winding down: The Altadena Golf Course, which had drawn concern from neighboring residents about pollution from the site, stopped accepting new waste on July 1, Swenson said. He estimated the golf course would be turned back over in December.

A sign at an Altadena property showing that it was cleared by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

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Temescal Canyon Road, where debris was being processed for the Palisades Fire, stopped accepting new material in May and will be turned over to the community in mid-August.

More rebuild permits

With lots now cleared, more survivors are working to select architects and building contractors, while filling out the mounds of paperwork they need approved before they can start rebuilding their homes.

About a quarter of the nearly 400 rebuild permits applied for by property owners in the Pacific Palisades have been approved, according to L.A. city’s department of building and safety.

In Altadena, about 5% of more than 900 rebuild permits submitted have been approved, according to L.A. County.

One reason for the difference is that the city of L.A. has waived permitting fees and taken other actions to streamline the permitting process in the Palisades, including approving “like-for-like” rebuilds within 30 days. As an unincorporated community, Altadena residents have to work with the county’s planning, fire and public works departments that are already stretched thin.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has taken similar actions to expedite the permitting process but only recently approved a motion brought by Supervisor Kathryn Barger to defer and refund permit fees. The turnaround time for approval is on average about 50 business days, according to the county’s tracker, but the goal is to reduce that to 30 days.

“I want to see our planning department move with a sense of urgency, not be bureaucratic, something that I continue to struggle with," Barger told LAist.

Still, Kerjon Lee with the county's public works department said the turnaround time is significantly lower than average permit approval time of 158 days under normal circumstances.

Lee said a common issue they're seeing is that applications are often missing key signatures and details, especially for "like-for-like" rebuild projects that add an accessory dwelling unit.

Steve Gibson, who lost his home of 24 years in Altadena, is one of the hundreds of residents waiting for a decision from the county. He and his wife have already selected a prefab housing contractor and rebuild design for their new home.

Steve Gibson and his wife Charlotte stand on the cleared lot of their home of 24 years that burned down in the Eaton Fire. The Army Corps cleared their property in June.

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Sunny Mills

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Gibson said the wait time and permitting fees were hurdles that have slowed the rebuild process in his neighborhood.

“The permit fees to rebuild a house are a huge amount of money and a huge process,” Gibson said. “And we feel the same problem in other areas, that we're not getting responsiveness to our urgent needs in Altadena.”

Insurance woes continue

Like many, Gibson is trying to rebuild while still completing the inventory of every single thing that he and his wife lost in the fire — from family heirlooms and photos to art, clothes and furniture — in order to receive their insurance payment. When they fled the fire, they were only able to grab their passports, insurance papers and small dog, Cantinflas.

They received half of what their insurance plan says it can cover for the loss of personal property, and need to complete their inventory to argue for the rest.

That inventory, he said, is a constant pain point for him and many fellow survivors.

“ We all feel like it's the hardest thing in our lives,” Gibson said. “It's an emotional rollercoaster. It's hard to remember, it's painful to remember and it feels like a tragedy. I said to one of my neighbors — we need emotional counseling after having to go through putting together an inventory.”

Gibson’s insurance provider, Allstate, did provide a full payout to cover rebuilding their home. But Gibson said that the amount is still more than $100,000 short of what they need. A $50,000 Small Business Administration loan will help, Gibson said, but many of his neighbors are facing the same gap between rebuild costs and insurance payouts — a common barrier to rebuilding.

“We decided to go for it kind of on a leap of faith that we will be able to cover the differences,” Gibson said.

Palisades Fire survivor Darragh Danton calls the divide between insurance payouts and rebuild costs “the gap.”

She said she and her neighbors are talking about solutions such as group rates on materials, and working together as a community to rebuild to keep costs down. They’ve already paid a land surveyor as a neighborhood for a reduced rate, she said.

Palisades resident Jill Lawrence’s home survived, but she said fighting her insurance company to clean it up has been a disaster in and of itself.

She said her house is still full of lead and other toxic soot — she and her husband did their own testing initially and months later their insurance company came out to test, too, finding even worse levels of lead.

Still, the house hasn’t been cleaned up. Lawrence said she's spending 15 or 20 hours a week negotiating her insurance. Meanwhile, she and her husband are living in a rental in Playa del Rey.

“ It's just weird to me six months later that my house is still standing in soot and ash, and it's really because of the insurance companies," she said. “It's crazy to me."

The fact so many people are dealing with the same insurance issues has sparked new waves of policy efforts by state leaders, but it may come too late for the latest round of fire survivors.

For example, one bill currently moving through the California legislature would eliminate the inventory requirement in the case of a total loss and require a full insurance payout. The state insurance commissioner has also launched efforts to reform the insurance industry and an investigation into State Farm smoke damage claims.

Renters are struggling

Renters have also faced daunting challenges since January — often with even less support than homeowners.

Maribel Marin, the executive director of the emergency helpline 211 LA, said the nonprofit is working with more than 3,000 households affected by the fires, and that the majority of them are renters.

" They're experiencing rental rates that are two or three times that for the same level of housing that they had before," Marin said. "It's really, really tough to find housing, especially affordable housing."

The site of a former mobile home park in Pacific Palisades in mid June. Many Palisades and Eaton Fire survivors are facing the loss of affordable housing and unable to make ends meet in a brutal housing market.

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Finding housing continues to be the biggest need for displaced renters, Marin said.

Hundreds are still in temporary and insecure housing, with more than 100 families living in their vehicles, according to data from 211 L.A.

Marin said close to 250 households are living in temporary AirBnBs — a service paid for by the vacation rental company.

Looking ahead

Lawsuits from fire survivors are moving forward as the causes of the fires continue to be investigated.

Evidence shows the Eaton Fire was likely caused by Southern California Edison equipment. Trials related to that fire should only take a few weeks, but because there are so many, it will likely be years before many plaintiffs see their cases closed, said Amanda Riddle, managing partner of Corey, Luzaich, de Ghetaldi & Riddle LLP, and the court-appointed co-liaison counsel for all individual plaintiffs in the Eaton Fire case.

An aerial view of Altadena showing several cleared properties amongst many more awaiting to be cleared of debris and rubble from the Eaton Fire.

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Brian Feinzimer

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An aerial view of the Pacific Palisades Bowl Mobile Home Park in Los Angeles on Jan. 18, 2025. The park was completely burned down by the Palisades fire.

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Ted Soqui

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SIPA USA via Reuters

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“Not all 10,000 households are going to have a trial at the same time,” Riddle said.

Residents have until Jan. 7, 2028, to join a lawsuit for damages caused by the fires.

Another big milestone that everyone from government agencies to lawyers are waiting for: an independent review of the evacuation policies and emergency alert notification systems used by the county during the Eaton and Palisades fires.

The “after action report” is being compiled by the McChrystal Group. The first progress report is expected to be released this summer, but the full review will likely take longer.

Emotional toll remains fresh

With so much left unresolved, the emotional toll remains as fresh as ever for many survivors six months after the fires.

“It is ever present, so it does feel like it just happened yesterday,” said Robin Hughes, who lost her home in Altadena. “The passage of time is so muddled, and there's just so much to do with my own personal rebuild, supporting the rebuild of Altadena. It does feel like it's been this long, extended day.”

A message of hope is hung from the gates of a home in an Altadena neighborhood on Jan. 30, 2025.

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Julie Leopo

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For Gibson, the experience of losing his home lurks behind every conversation.

“ I have a hard time talking to people about it,” Gibson said. “What should I say? Should I express how angry I am about things or should I just say everything's fine? I'm realizing now that's a real struggle.”

For most, their biggest allies have been fellow survivors.

“Many of us who went through the fire believe that people can't understand it if you haven't,” Gibson said. “It's really hard to understand the feelings that come with that, how it changes your life.”

Join us on July 9 at a special live event with LAist climate and environment reporter Erin Stone. She'll talk with survivors of previous fires as well as other experts to learn what to expect as the recovery process continues.

Although California lawmakers recently passed a suite of laws intended to bring transparency to the development of new data centers, local communities across the state are signaling that disclosure isn't enough.

California currently ranks third among U.S. states in overall data center density, according to independent trackers like the US Data Center Map, with the state home to 366 of such facilities that are either fully operational, under construction, or moving through the planning process. Local elected officials are proposing data center moratoriums to slow that momentum — if not stop it in its tracks.

In the first half of October alone, Oakland’s city council unanimously approved a 45-day moratorium on new approvals, making it the first city in Alameda County and the fourth in the Bay Area to adopt such a measure. San Francisco approved a similar moratorium this month, while the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors postponed a vote to permanently ban large-scale data centers, often called hyperscale facilities, on unincorporated land after receiving an overwhelming volume of public feedback. In Santa Clara, city officials considered a moratorium vote, and are moving forward with new rules to govern data center development, including more stringent water and air pollution regulations. Alhambra residents will vote on a moratorium measure in the November election.

Across California, at least 26 resolutions, moratoriums, or bans on data center development have been passed or proposed since June, according to the D.C.-based non-governmental organization Food & Water Watch, which tracks similar proposals nationwide.

The escalating pushback underscores a widening gap between state-level regulation and municipal action. While Gov. Gavin Newsom last month signed into law seven new measures that focus primarily on disclosure requirements, environmental impact studies, and grid protection, grassroots groups and city councils are moving fast to halt construction entirely.

"I have a hard time remembering something that caught fire the way the opposition to data centers has," said Nicole Ghio, California Director at Food & Water Watch. "Local municipalities have been able to respond quicker to the grassroots wave of opposition of people saying, 'Hold on, let's press pause. Let's actually figure out what we're doing before we commit to this huge change.'"

Opponents say these energy-hungry facilities strain power grids, potentially deplete water supplies and pollute the air, and contribute to broader economic anxieties around AI-driven job elimination. The anti-data-center movement cuts across party lines; conservative group Humans First, for example, finished its nationwide Data Center Revolt tour this month with three stops in California, joining a chorus of figures on the left who call for local control as well as additional environmental and consumer protections.

"This is very much a unifying issue," Ghio noted, adding that residents are alarmed by potential rate hikes and environmental degradation. "This is not a future that I think a lot of people want. I mean, it's a great future if you're a tech billionaire. It's not a great future if you're a regular American."

Industry proponents, however, argue that halting infrastructure development risks eroding critical national interests. Doug Kelly, CEO of the policy advocacy coalition American Edge Project, framed the current buildout as an essential infrastructure race.

"Artificial intelligence and the data centers that power it, this is the next foundational block of infrastructure that America is building out," Kelly said, comparing it to historical investments in railroads and highways.

Kelly acknowledged that past developments lacked sufficient community input, leading to local friction. To address these fears without stopping construction, his organization promotes an "AI Community Compact" — an agreement offering local guarantees to protect ratepayers from cost spikes, safeguard resources, and promise early transparency.

"So, communities can decide whether they want data centers there or not, but they shouldn't just blanket ban them because then you lose all your negotiating power,” Kelly said. “You're literally saying ‘we want this billion-dollar investment to go somewhere else, anywhere but here.’"

Yet for local advocates, piecemeal guarantees and disclosure laws fall short of addressing the underlying risk. Advocates point to a one-year pause on hyperscale data centers that New York’s governor ordered in July as a roadmap, hoping state legislators will eventually follow local leaders' lead.

As cities continue to draft temporary freezes and outright bans, the tension between local community control and global technological dominance remains unresolved. State transparency laws may have opened the books on data center growth, but local opponents are making it clear that seeing the plans isn't the same as approving them.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

Tom Skerritt, the Emmy-winning actor who embodied a solid, wry authority figure, whether as a flight instructor in “Top Gun,” a tough-but-fair sheriff on TV’s “Picket Fences” or the doomed captain of “Alien,” has died. He was 93.

Skerritt died Wednesday of natural causes, his family said in a statement. “While the world knew Tom through his remarkable acting career, we knew him for his humor, curiosity, wisdom, generosity and the love he brought into our lives. He cared deeply about imagination, creativity, storytelling, service, veterans, the natural world and helping others find and share their own voices,” the statement said.

Skerritt was twice nominated for an Emmy — both for “Picket Fences,” winning outstanding lead actor in a drama series in 1993. Other career highlights include playing the patient husband of Shirley MacLaine in “Turning Point,” Sally Field’s husband in “Steel Magnolias” and a scheming opportunist who stands in the way of Jodie Foster’s attempt to communicate with extraterrestrial life in “Contact.”

“A writer once described me as a character actor locked in a leading man’s body, and I’ve always loved that. It’s a nice compliment. I’ve been able to walk the line between television and features,” he told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer in 1997.

Onstage, he was the narrator in “Our Town” at Seattle’s Intiman Theatre in 2004 and made his Broadway debut in 2013 in an adaptation of John Grisham’s “A Time to Kill,” in which The Associated Press wrote he “nicely pulls off a charming disgraced and drunken lawyer.”

Skerritt’s early life

Skerritt grew up in a middle-class Detroit family, his father a small businessman and his mother a housewife. He had two brothers; a sister died as a child.

He spent four years in the Air Force, attended Wayne State University and then switched to the University of California, Los Angeles, to study filmmaking, inspired by a viewing of “Citizen Kane.”

His performance in a Los Angeles theater production of “The Rainmaker” led to his first film role — a supporting role as a sergeant in the 1962 scrappy, $250,000 independent Korean War film “War Hunt.” The movie marked the debuts of Skerritt, Robert Redford, Sydney Pollack and Francis Ford Coppola.

Redford and Skerritt were vying for the same lead role, with the former winning out. Years later, Redford, now directing, paid Skerritt back with compound interest in “A River Runs Through It,” handing him the plum role of the stern Rev. John Maclean, a minister whose governing passions are his faith and fly-fishing. The New York Times was impressed by his “halting, thoughtful manner.”

Redford, who died last year, became a lifelong friend. “There was such a deep connection we made with each other that it matured into a level-headed friendship,” Redford told the Seattle Times in 2007. “His values were close to mine, and he kept his integrity.”

‘Alien’ and ‘Top Gun’

After “War Hunt,” however, Skerritt still struggled for screen time, landing a small role in “M.A.S.H.” and “Thieves Like Us” for Robert Altman, and doing a bit part as a motorcycle cop in “Harold and Maude” for Hal Ashby.

Things changed with “The Turning Point,” which earned him a National Board of Review win. Then came “Alien,” with Skerritt playing the beleaguered and doomed captain of the ship Nostromo, crouched in a dark, claustrophobic duct, hunting the alien with a sputtering flamethrower. He told the Seattle Times that what appealed to him in the script was that the lead actor disappeared and “the woman becomes the hero. I really like that idea.”

Things shifted again after that, including a memorable role as Tom Cruise’s instructor in the landmark “Top Gun”: “Gentlemen, you are the top 1% of all Naval aviators. The elite. The best of the best. We’ll make you better,” he told the students. “This school is about combat. There are no points for second place.”

Skerritt achieved perhaps his best notices as the kindly sheriff in “Picket Fences,” a comedy created by David E. Kelley that won 14 Emmy Awards — one for Skerritt — and a Golden Globe over its four-year run from 1992 to 1996.

Skerritt co-starred opposite Kathy Baker, playing his doctor wife in the community of Rome, Wisconsin, a place with bizarre happenings, like having a robber leaving a trail of frogs or the pope becoming the primary witness to a murder.

“It was written by the best writer on television,” he told the A.V. Club in 2019. “That was the magic and brilliance of it. Because I wasn’t trying to do a series, but then they said Kathy Baker was going to do it, and I thought, ‘She’s fabulous — what do they want me for?’”

Also on the small screen, Skerritt played William Walker on ABC’s “Brothers and Sisters,” Jimmy Ford on TNT’s “Leverage” and he had the recurring character Evan Drake on “Cheers.” He starred in the Hallmark movie “What the Deaf Man Heard,” co-starring Matthew Modine, Judith Ivey and James Earl Jones. He also modeled for Guess jeans.

Directing and writing — his initial dream — had been overtaken by a career in front of the camera, though he managed to direct and star in the 1997 television movie “Divided by Hate.”

“Things happen,” he told The Ottawa Citizen in 1992. “You get hired for a film and the roles kept coming for me. I kept telling myself that if I stuck with acting it would be a really good training for what the problems are in directing. Then the family came along and I had to support them. The years flew by and there was a time when I said I would give up acting and really try to get into directing. But it hasn’t worked out that way and I have no regrets.”

He is survived by his third wife, Julie Tokashiki, and five children.

Before he heads out the door, Gov. Gavin Newsom must decide whether California will join 31 states in a new multibillion-dollar school choice program, funded by private donations, that President Donald Trump included last year in his One Big Beautiful Bill.

Like most Democratic governors, Newsom hasn’t signaled whether he’ll opt in to the law that advocates promise will greatly increase full or partial scholarships to private and religious schools, while potentially paying for auxiliary services in public schools, like tutoring.

The law’s intentionally broad, unrestricted language has made it contentious, with contrasting scenarios for how the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program, also called the Education Freedom Tax Credit, will play out.

Under the program, an individual taxpayer can donate up to $1,700 annually to a qualifying grant-making organization, up to $3,400 for couples, and then receive a federal tax credit that lowers their taxes by the full amount. The nonprofit “scholarship-granting organizations” then combine individuals’ donations and distribute the money to school districts or to eligible families for private schools.

Advocates say federal tax credits will boost tuition assistance for families in voucher states, while introducing school choice in states like California, which bans using state funding for private and religious schools.

Although it was not their main intent, Republicans included public schools in the law. One nonpartisan analyst, Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University, predicts that public schools will eventually become the biggest beneficiary, once they figure out how to tap into it.

“Given that anyone and everyone can donate without it costing them, it’s like a cost-free donation. We think the average taxpayer is going to lean toward donating to a [grant maker] that serves public schools.”

But opponents argue the program is a tactic to undermine public schools, which are already facing declining enrollments in blue states that have historically opposed voucher-like programs. One critic characterized the program as “a Trojan horse designed to bring the chaos of privatization into Democratic strongholds.”

Others say the program will primarily subsidize existing private school parents, not help low-income families trapped in their neighborhood schools. And the law’s free-market focus, its lack of oversight and failure to require civil rights protections will reinforce inequities and lead to abuse.

“The FSTC will become the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse we’ve seen in education — and most of it will be legal,” wrote Jon Valant, the director of Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings.

Congress’ hands-off policy

Valant and other critics blame Congress for tying governors’ hands. Under the law, governors cannot add accountability provisions or favor some scholarship-granting organizations, called SGOs, over others, such as those that give to public schools. Once they opt in and submit a list of all SGOs, their job is done.

SGOs must check students’ income eligibility and audit the money, but they’re not required to monitor programs or keep school achievement records.

Thomas Toch, founding director of FutureEd, an independent education policy institute at Georgetown University, said Congress should have learned from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The law provided billions of dollars for parents in low-performing schools to obtain tutoring from contractors who were often unvetted, inexperienced and unmonitored. The Education Department’s inspector general found widespread fraud, falsified records, conflicts of interest and deceptive marketing.

“Sounds familiar,” Toch said.

Governors can’t tell the SGOs which students to serve, but SGOs can determine where to funnel dollars — to a public or private school, an elementary or high school, only to parochial school students or for specific programs. They’ll determine the scholarship amounts and the public school programs they’ll support.

There will be a wide universe of students to serve.

Students in families earning up to 300% of an area’s median income will be eligible — more than $400,000 in some wealthy Californian cities. Some donors may give to SGOs committed to services and scholarships for low-income children, but others may not.

The American Federation for Children, a proponent of the tax credit, projects that 51.7 million children — 90% of the total public and private school students — will be eligible for the benefits.

Based on an analysis of donors to a similar tax credit program in Ohio, Brookings predicts that more tax-credit program money will end up in wealthy communities. “We expect the FSTC to become a regressive funding source, even where those funds go to public school students.”

Lance Christensen, who has drafted school choice proposals as vice president of tax policy and government relations for the conservative California Policy Center, says the Brookings analysis is “shortsighted.” If 100,000 people — not even 1% of California’s 17 million income tax filers — donated $1,700, it would generate $170 million, he said. That amount would rise to $1.7 billion if one million taxpayers — only 6% of the state total — gave the maximum.

“You’re talking about real money that could impact the way that parents legitimately think about their kids’ education,” Christensen said. “We have a lot of kids right now that are stuck in a system that doesn’t work for them and hasn’t worked for them for a long time, and the parents are just really frustrated.”

The Treasury Department and the IRS estimate that, by 2030, more than 11 million taxpayers will contribute $26 billion for scholarships and other grants.

Two visions for California donations

So far, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis are the only Democratic governors among the 31 participating states to opt in. (Virginia joined before Democratic Gov. Abigail Spanberger took office.) This year’s opt-in deadline is Jan. 1.

Two Californians who hope for different reasons that Newsom will sign on are Rachel Elginsmith and Evan Marwell.

Elginsmith is chief executive of the BASIC Fund in Oakland, the state’s largest nonsectarian SGO. Since its founding in 1998, it has distributed $200 million in partial scholarships for 30,000 students, from preschool to eighth grade attending 266 Catholic and nonreligious schools in the Bay Area.

The BASIC Fund would be well positioned to capitalize on the tax-credit by expanding its base of donors. “It would be more money, more kids, bigger scholarships — more of what we’re doing. It would be exciting,” she said.

Marwell, a San Francisco nonprofit entrepreneur, founded EducationSuperHighway, which helped districts plan and fund high-speed internet during the pandemic, and then co-founded Ignite Reading, an online tutoring for the early grades. His new mission: rechartering the EducationSuperHighway into a national SGO that will compete for taxpayers who want to choose first grade tutoring in reading for their tax credit donation.

Marwell said he has reached out to 45 governors, and expects that Democratic states will opt in. They will see the success of Colorado and New York, he said, and “they will start to hear from voters, ‘Why the heck are you not allowing our kids to get these scholarships that we’re contributing to?’ ” 

Newsom’s dilemma

Newsom will get grief whether he opts in or out. The National Education Association and teachers unions in California will thrash him if he signs on. “Taxpayer dollars should go to public schools open to all students, not private schools that can pick and choose their students,” the NEA said in a press release.

If he doesn’t opt in, he’ll be criticized for denying low-income families money to close the achievement gap, while forcing California taxpayers to give to out-of-state SGOs. As New York Gov. Hochul said in her Oct. 9 announcement, “I’m not going to leave money on the table when it could help our kids.”

There is a third option — do nothing, citing fatal flaws in the tax credit program’s design. That’s the advice of Rachel Cantor, director of education policy at the Progressive Policy Institute.

“If I was advising a Democratic governor, I would say, ‘No, don’t opt in. Expand public school choice in your state so that people do have choices. But this is a risky way to do it if your goal is to improve educational quality and open opportunity for people who don’t have it.’ ”

What we know about Trump’s Federal Scholarship Tax Credit program

Gov. Gavin Newsom must decide whether California will join 31 other states in participating in President Donald Trump’s school choice program. Here is how the program works: 

• Governors must opt in by Jan. 1 annually to participate in the program.
• Federal income tax filers, whether living in a participating state or not, can receive a tax credit of up to $1,700 ($3,400 for couples) by donating to a state-approved Scholarship Granting Organization (SGO).
• Governors cannot determine which organizations can serve as SGOs, beyond requiring 501(c) (3) nonprofit status and compliance with state nonprofit laws.
• SGOs certify scholarship recipients; the family income of recipients must be below 300% of the median income in the counties they live in (more than $400,000 in wealthy counties).
• SGOs determine the size of scholarships and grants and where the money they collect can be spent; they must spend 90% of the money they collect on scholarships and grants.
• The FSTC law does not require academic reporting and accountability requirements of private schools receiving program funds.
• Private school scholarships can cover tuition, fees, uniforms, books, technology, transportation and certain room-and-board costs.
• Grants for public school recipients can cover tutoring, extended-day and summer programs, college credit or Advanced Placement courses and potentially services and other expenses not covered by students with disabilities’ individualized education programs.

Timeline for the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit

July 4, 2025: President Trump signs the One Big Beautiful Bill that includes the  Education Freedom Tax Credit, also known as the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit.

Oct. 1, 2026: U.S. Treasury Departmentreleases draft regulations for the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit (FSTC) program; 60-day public comment period begins.

Dec. 15, 2026: The Treasury Department will host a public hearing at the IRS building in Washington, D.C.

Dec. 31, 2026: Deadline for states to submit their participation in the FSTC.

Jan. 1, 2027: Individual taxpayers can begin donating contributions to eligible SGOs.

Feb. 15, 2027: Deadline for states to submit their list of eligible scholarship-granting organizations to the IRS.

A federal judge on Thursday ordered President Donald Trump to sit for a deposition in his $10 billion defamation lawsuit against the BBC by Dec. 11.

The order from U.S. Magistrate Judge Enjoliqué Lett came as lawyers for the British broadcaster complained that Trump had delayed his appearance. Charles Tobin, attorney for the BBC, said that with two months left in the discovery period, “we still haven’t been able to depose the plaintiff.”

He noted there was an agreed-upon date of Oct. 16, but that Trump had canceled it for a “matter of national importance.” Tobin said the Republican president was in fact campaigning in Georgia that day. “He was participating in party politics and prioritized that over sitting for the deposition,” Tobin said.

Lett said Trump must sit for a deposition by Dec. 11, or face sanctions up to dismissal of his lawsuit -– unless the discovery period was extended past Dec. 18.

Discovery, where lawyers for both sides exchange documents and other evidence, is scheduled to end Dec. 18, and the BBC’s attorneys want to make sure they have Trump’s deposition before that deadline. Lett said only the presiding judge assigned to the case can alter the trial schedule, and the defense said it would be open to scheduling the deposition at a later time if the trial schedule was also moved back.

Trump, who has often avoided depositions, filed his lawsuit against the BBC last December. He accused the publicly funded broadcaster of defamation as well as deceptive and unfair trade practices related to a documentary, “Trump: A Second Chance.”

The BBC acknowledged that filmmakers spliced together quotes from different sections of the speech Trump delivered to his supporters on Jan. 6, 2021, before the storming of the U.S. Capitol, to make it seem he was directly urging violence. The broadcaster apologized over the editing, and the head of the BBC and its top news executive both resigned. But the BBC has denied Trump’s claims that it defamed him.

Trump’s lawyers say Jack Smith lacks ‘personal knowledge’ of issues in the case

To bolster its defense, the broadcaster subpoenaed former special counsel Jack Smith earlier this month. Trump’s lawyers argued, in a joint filing asking for a hearing on the matter, that there was no good reason for Smith, who is not a party to the case, to appear.

Tobin, the BBC lawyer, told the judge Thursday that Smith has not objected to being deposed for this case, meaning the only objection is coming from Trump. Tobin said the BBC is not trying to relitigate the events of Jan. 6, but that Smith is one of the leading experts in what happened that day, and his deposition could lead the BBC to evidence that could help their case.

“We can argue later on whether his testimony is admissible,” Tobin said, “but we are entitled to that deposition.”

Trump’s lawyer, Alejandro Brito, said Smith has no personal knowledge of Trump’s Jan. 6 speech or Trump’s state of mind when he gave it. All of Smith’s knowledge about the case is secondhand, Brito argued, and the special counsel’s report, along with Smith’s testimony before Congress, is all public and available to the BBC’s attorneys, he said.

There was no immediate ruling with the hearing expected to resume in the afternoon after a lunch break.

Judge says the BBC can see membership records for Mar-a-Lago

Turning to the damages issue, the judge agreed that the BBC should be allowed to see records for the total number of applications for membership at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida from Jan. 6, 2020, through Jan. 6, 2026, as well as the total cost of membership and initiation fees for new applicants.

Tobin said one aspect of any defamation case is showing actual damages, and the popularity of Mar-a-Lago is a significant indicator of Trump’s reputation. The BBC’s lawyer described the private club as “a place where he exhibits his reputation in front of people who are important to him.”

Brito argued that Trump does not actually run Mar-a-Lago, and that his reputation is not associated with the club.