State wants feedback from gas facility's neighbors
Erin Stone
is a reporter who covers climate and environmental issues in Southern California.
Published January 28, 2026 5:00 AM
The Aliso Canyon gas storage facility was the site of the largest known methane leak in U.S. history in 2015.
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Ashley Balderrama
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LAist
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Topline:
The state wants to hear from people who live near the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility in the hills above Porter Ranch about how to spend $14 million awarded through a legal settlement.
The background: The Southern California Gas-owned storage reservoir in the San Fernando Valley was the source of the largest known methane leak in U.S. history in 2015. Thousands of residents in Porter Ranch, Chatsworth and Granada Hills were forced to evacuate. Ten years on, many residents are still concerned about the health effects and ongoing pollution from the site. As part of a settlement with SoCalGas, California received $71 million as part of a legal settlement with SoCal Gas reached in 2018. The gas utility and its parent company, Sempra Energy, paid more than $2 billion in settlements and fines for the leak.
What’s next: The Governor’s Office of Land Use and Climate Innovation is looking to invest $14 million from the Aliso Canyon gas leak legal settlement. They’ll host listening sessions throughout the year to hear from residents on how they’d like to see those funds used.
How to get involved: The sessions are open to residents who were affected by the Aliso Canyon disaster or who live or work in the communities of Porter Ranch, Granada Hills, Northridge, Chatsworth, North Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda, Winnetka, West Hills, Van Nuys and Lake Balboa. Here’s the info for upcoming listening sessions:
What to expect: Another mild day with partly cloudy skies.
What about the temperatures: In Orange County, coastal areas will see highs around 62 degrees. Meanwhile, in L.A. County, the beaches will be a bit warmer with highs around 70 degrees, and in the mid-70s for the valleys.
Read on ... for more details.
QUICK FACTS
Today’s weather: Partly cloudy
Beaches: Around 70s
Mountains: Mid-60s to low 70s at lower elevations
Inland: 69 to 75 degrees
Warnings and advisories: None
We're in for another mild day with partly to mostly cloudy skies. The National Weather Service forecasts that come Thursday, temperatures will rise more and the Santa Ana winds will return.
Coastal communities in the L.A. area will see highs mostly around 70 degrees today. Meanwhile, the Orange County coast will stay cooler with high temperatures around 62 degrees.
More inland, the valleys and the Inland Empire will see highs from 69 to 75 degrees, up to 76 degrees in Coachella Valley. In the Antelope Valley, highs will be mostly in the low 60s.
Destiny Torres
is LAist's general assignment and digital equity reporter.
Published January 28, 2026 5:00 AM
L.A. City Council members could ask voters to raise hotel taxes, rideshare taxes, vacant property taxes and more.
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Tom Szczerbowski
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Getty Images North America
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Topline:
L.A. voters could be asked this year — in elections in June and November — to raise taxes in a number of ways to help fund city services.
What measures are up for discussion? There are seven! On Tuesday, the L.A. City Council directed the city attorney to draft two options for a hotel tax. The first is a 4% increase that falls to 2% after the Olympics; the second is a 2% increase that drops to 1% after the Games. The council will choose one of those options to put before voters. Another ballot measure ordinance will be drafted to start taxing unlicensed cannabis shops.
Wait, aren’t unlicensed cannabis shops illegal? Yes, but they do exist across L.A. Licensed cannabis shops are responsible for a 9.75% sales tax, 10% business tax and 19% state cannabis excise tax. Councilmember Monica Rodriguez voted against taxing the illegal businesses. “You're setting up, unintentionally, a false expectation that you're going to be able to hold these guys accountable,” Rodriguez said, adding that the city attorney should instead be shutting those shops down.
What about the other measures? A 5% increase in the parking tax was sent back to the budget and finance committee for further discussion.
The council also directed the city attorney to look into additional tax measures for the November ballot.
A 6% tax on tickets for events with more than 5,000 attendees.
A tax on shared rides like Uber and Lyft.
A vacant properties tax to encourage renting or selling.
A retail deliveries tax: a $1 flat fee on delivered goods.
Is raising taxes the only solution for the city’s budget? Rodriguez — who voted against the tax ballot measures — said the city needs to think about tightening its belt. “If we're not having a full conversation around where we're going to cut back, but we're going to talk to taxpayers about increasing more, it's a really big problem,” Rodriguez said.
What’s next? The city attorney’s office has until Feb. 11 to draft any measures that will appear on the June primary ballot.
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An anti-ICE protester challenges deputies in Paramount.
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Carlin Stiehl
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Getty Images
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Topline:
A bill that would make it easier for Californians to sue immigration agents and other federal officials for civil rights violations sailed through the state Senate on Tuesday.
Why it matters: Senate Bill 747, dubbed the No Kings Act, would create a first-in-the-nation legal pathway for residents to seek financial damages in state court for excessive force, false arrest and other violations of constitutional rights committed by federal officers.
Why now: The bill was written by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. If state or local law enforcement officers had shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two people recently killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, they could be held financially liable, he said.
How we got here: The measure passed the state Senate on a 30-10 party-line vote, with Republicans arguing the bill could expose local police to more lawsuits.
Read on ... for more on the bill and the larger national context.
A bill that would make it easier for Californians to sue immigration agents and other federal officials for civil rights violations sailed through the state Senate on Tuesday.
Senate Bill 747, dubbed the No Kings Act, would create a first-in-the-nation legal pathway for residents to seek financial damages in state court for excessive force, false arrest and other violations of constitutional rights committed by federal officers.
The bill was written by Sen. Scott Wiener, D-San Francisco. If state or local law enforcement officers had shot Renee Good and Alex Pretti, two people recently killed by federal agents in Minneapolis, they could be held financially liable, he said.
“But under current law, it’s almost impossible to file that same lawsuit against a federal agent who does the same thing,” Wiener said. “If the federal government won’t hold these agents accountable for violating the Constitution, we will.”
The measure passed the state Senate on a 30-10 party-line vote, with Republicans arguing the bill could expose local police to more lawsuits.
Tuesday’s vote is the latest move by Democrats in the state Legislature to create a bulwark against the Trump administration’s deportation crackdown.
Last year, lawmakers set aside $25 million for legal nonprofits to defend residents facing detention or deportation. They also approved a bill, written by Wiener, to prohibit local and federal law enforcement officers from wearing masks on duty — which is currently facing a legal challenge from the Trump administration.
SB 747’s supporters said it would give Californians a chance to hold federal officials accountable in a way that can be difficult under current law.
Border patrol agents march to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building on Aug. 14, 2025, in Los Angeles, California. California prosecutors are pushing back on claims from the federal government that ICE agents have immunity from prosecution, vowing to investigate federal agents who break the law.
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Carlin Stiehl
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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“Today we are deliberating an issue to try to solve and also remedy the fear that folks are living with,” said Senate President pro Tem Monique Limón, D-Santa Barbara. “In combination with the fact that we have not seen due process.”
Wiener argued that existing law makes it difficult for victims to receive damages in federal court. For example, the Federal Tort Claims Act protects the government from liability arising from decisions made by individual officers and requires plaintiffs to first file an administrative claim.
Supporters of SB 747 include the Prosecutors Alliance, a coalition of progressive district attorneys, and Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, which advocates for immigrants in California’s Inland Empire.
The bill is opposed by organizations representing California police officers, sheriffs and Highway Patrol officers.
They argued the change will undercut an existing state law, known as the Bane Act, which requires Californians who sue law enforcement officials to show that a civil rights violation was accomplished through “threats, intimidation, or coercion.”
“The question before you is not whether accountability should exist, but what creating a second, overlapping state system actually adds — other than more litigation and more risk for those on the front lines,” said Sen. Suzette Martinez Valladares, R-Santa Clarita.
During debate on the Senate floor, Wiener said local police officers and sheriffs can already be sued under federal law for violating constitutional rights.
“The liability that local and state police officers face will be the same after this is signed into law as before,” Wiener said. “It doesn’t change that.”
Senate Bill 747 now heads to the state Assembly.
In an analysis of SB 747, staffers on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote, “the bill is very likely to be challenged by the federal government if signed into law.”
Ex-FIFA president joins others calling for boycott
By The Associated Press | NPR
Published January 27, 2026 4:00 PM
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Michael Probst
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AP
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Topline:
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday backed a proposed fan boycott of World Cup matches in the United States because of the conduct of President Donald Trump and his administration at home and abroad.
The backstory: The international soccer community's concerns about the United States stem from Trump's expansionist posture on Greenland, and travel bans and aggressive tactics in dealing with migrants and immigration enforcement protesters in American cities, particularly Minneapolis. Blatter was the latest international soccer figure to call into question the suitability of the United States as a host country.
Travel ban impacts: Travel plans for fans from two of the top soccer countries in Africa were thrown into disarray in December, when the Trump administration announced an expanded ban that would effectively bar people from Senegal and Ivory Coast following their teams unless they already have visas. Trump cited "screening and vetting deficiencies" as the main reason for the suspensions. Fans from Iran and Haiti, two other countries that have qualified for the World Cup, will be barred from entering the United States as well; they were included in the first iteration of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.
Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter on Monday backed a proposed fan boycott of World Cup matches in the United States because of the conduct of President Donald Trump and his administration at home and abroad.
Blatter was the latest international soccer figure to call into question the suitability of the United States as a host country. He called for the boycott in a post on X that supported Mark Pieth's comments in an interview last week with the Swiss newspaper Der Bund.
Pieth, a Swiss attorney specializing in white-collar crime and an anti-corruption expert, chaired the Independent Governance Committee's oversight of FIFA reform a decade ago. Blatter was president of the world's governing body for soccer from 1998-2015; he resigned amid an investigation into corruption.
In his interview with Der Bund, Pieth said, "If we consider everything we've discussed, there's only one piece of advice for fans: Stay away from the USA! You'll see it better on TV anyway. And upon arrival, fans should expect that if they don't please the officials, they'll be put straight on the next flight home. If they're lucky."
In his X post, Blatter quoted Pieth and added, "I think Mark Pieth is right to question this World Cup."
The United States is co-hosting the World Cup with Canada and Mexico from June 11-July 19.
The international soccer community's concerns about the United States stem from Trump's expansionist posture on Greenland, and travel bans and aggressive tactics in dealing with migrants and immigration enforcement protesters in American cities, particularly Minneapolis.
Oke Göttlich, one of the vice presidents of the German soccer federation, told the Hamburger Morgenpost newspaper in an interview on Friday that the time had come to seriously consider boycotting the World Cup.
Travel plans for fans from two of the top soccer countries in Africa were thrown into disarray in December, when the Trump administration announced an expanded ban that would effectively bar people from Senegal and Ivory Coast following their teams unless they already have visas. Trump cited "screening and vetting deficiencies" as the main reason for the suspensions.
Fans from Iran and Haiti, two other countries that have qualified for the World Cup, will be barred from entering the United States as well; they were included in the first iteration of the travel ban announced by the Trump administration.
Copyright 2026 NPR
