The Brief

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

As her family prepared to evacuate their West Altadena home, Claire McLaughlin picked up her favorite snow globe, a music box featuring a mother hummingbird and two babies. She considered packing it, then put it back.

“I left it because I thought, ‘My house isn’t going to burn. I’ll come home later,’” Claire told The LA Local.

Claire never saw her favorite snow globe again.

West Altadena did not receive its evacuation order until after 3 a.m., hours after other parts of Altadena and Pasadena were told to leave. Despite that, Claire urged her family to evacuate after a friend in Pasadena called to warn her to do the same.

“I felt like I was being dramatic,” Claire said, “because we got no notification.”

Eventually, Claire, her mother, father and two older siblings saw flames surrounding their neighborhood from their driveway. Without any official word, they knew it was time to go. Their house burned down a few hours later.

Of the 19 people who died in the Eaton Fire, 18 were in West Altadena, and two of them were Claire’s neighbors: Anthony Mitchell and his son, who needed help evacuating. “I wish people knew that,” Claire said. “No one came to help the west side of Altadena.”

The students who lost their homes

Claire McLaughlin and her siblings outside their old house. Claire is the youngest, on the bottom left.

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More than 1,000 students in the Pasadena Unified School District lost their homes, and more than 10,000 were ordered to evacuate during the Eaton Fire. Claire was one of those students. At Pasadena High School, however, she said she didn’t know any friends who lost homes. 

“Even though it happened to thousands of people, I felt alone because I was the only kid I knew,” she said.

The fire coincided with major milestones for Claire: prom, graduation and the start of college. “Before the fire, it felt like I was still a kid, growing up,” Claire said. “But then it just sped it up, and it was like, ‘Oh, I’m an adult. I need to do this.’”

At graduation, Claire was so happy that, for a moment, she forgot about the fire. “I realized I wasn’t thinking about it,” Claire said. “It felt strange. I felt like I should be thinking about it.” Looking back, she wishes her school had focused more on the fire during the ceremony.

Now, Claire is in her first year at Pasadena City College.  She is living with her family at her mother’s former boss’s home in Pasadena while their house is rebuilt. Claire found a job at a bowling alley after the restaurant where she worked, Fox’s, burned down. She is excited for the end of the year, when she hopes her family can move back.

Rebuilding what was lost

One of the signs in an empty lot in West Altadena near Claire McLaughlin’s home.

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It has been more than a year since the Eaton Fire, but the emotions still linger for Claire. The news coverage has, in Claire’s words, “slowed down.”

“No one really talks about it anymore. Everyone’s moved on. But it just felt like I was stuck. I just keep thinking about it. I should be moving on, but I still feel sad.”

Claire still thinks about her neighbors, her street, her home and her musical snow globe, which she has tried and failed to find on eBay.

She misses her kitchen, her room and the sycamore tree in her front yard, which survived the fire but was later cut down for construction. Claire loved that tree. It’s where she would sit while her boyfriend washed her parents’ car. Her mother and brother would lie under the tree, usually after mountain biking in the San Gabriel Mountains behind their home, with their bikes strewn across the lawn. Claire would join them in the shade.

The tree is gone, but Claire’s house is starting to look as it once did. The last time Claire visited the site, the layout felt familiar. She could see the outline of her room in the same place and size as before.

Feeling lucky

The McLaughlins after buying their home in West Altadena several years before the fire.

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Nearly all her neighbors are hoping to return. But Claire is worried about investment firms buying lots from families who have lived there for generations and cannot afford to come back. She has attended protests with her mother to raise awareness about West Altadena.

“When I think of the situation with West Altadena, I feel really disappointed and angry,” Claire said. “But when I think of my house, I feel hopeful. Because now I’m going home soon.”

Above all else, Claire is grateful to be able to return. As she said, “You don’t find this sense of community everywhere.”

Right before the fire, on New Year’s Day, while the Rose Bowl was on, Claire’s neighbor was outside with his kid.

“I was messing with him,” Claire said. “The little kid was trying to chase me down the street, and I was running with him, and I thought to myself, ‘I’m so lucky to grow up here.’”

For Claire, nothing can change that feeling.

“I love that place with all my heart,” she said. “I still do.”

Homelessness has decreased in Orange County, according to data released this week from the county’s point in time count conducted in January.

The numbers are down 13.5% compared to 2024, when the last point in time count took place, according to Doug Becht, director of Orange County’s Office of Care Coordination. The office leads the county's efforts to address homelessness. In total, 6,321 people were counted as living outdoors, in vehicles or in shelters across the county.

During the last count in 2024, there was a spike of around 28% in the number of unhoused people, with around 7,300 people experiencing homelessness at the time.

The latest data was shared on Monday during a press briefing.

What the results show

 Becht said there was a 37% decrease in veterans experiencing homelessness as well as a 20% decrease in young people aged between 18 and 24 experiencing homelessness.

The latest point in time results also show that family homelessness has decreased.

In contrast, older adults in the county are experiencing higher rates of housing challenges. The number of seniors experiencing homelessness increased 1.5% compared to the last count, Becht said.

Southern cities in the county saw the largest decrease in homelessness while the central region 15.5% reduction. Laguna Hills, Laguna Niguel, Lake Forest and Mission Viejo all saw drops in people experiencing homelessness. In north Orange County, homelessness decreased by about 7.5%.

Becht said the survey also revealed that the number of people experiencing chronic homelessness — defined as an extended period or several episodes of homelessness — is rising within the county’s shelter system but decreasing on the streets.

He attributed that “to the ongoing housing shortage” that is causing people to stay in shelters longer. Around 3,200 of the county’s total unhoused population live in shelters, according to the data.

And when people stay in shelters longer, there’s not enough beds available for those who are on the streets, he said.

Over 50% of the people surveyed said they were experiencing homelessness because of financial reasons like losing a job and the lack of affordable housing options.

Why the count matters

The point in time count — a census mandated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to take place during the last 10 days of January — secures federal funding toward addressing homelessness. State and county officials use those funds to assess what programs and services are needed on the ground.

Point in time counts are widely viewed as undercounts by experts and don’t capture the full scope of homelessness — volunteers helping with the count can easily miss people, for example.

Becht said the count helps county staff engage with people experiencing homelessness. Once they have a person on the radar, it allows outreach teams to go back out and try to get them off the streets and into temporary housing.

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Sign up for their newsletters.

Californians would have to take a four-hour course with live-fire training to buy a gun if a bill advancing through the Legislature gets signed into law.

Senate Bill 948, by Berkeley Democratic Sen. Jesse Arreguín, also would require gun owners moving to California to obtain a firearm safety certificate and register their firearms within 180 days of their arrival. Beginning in 2028, obtaining that certificate would require completing the training.

It’s the latest effort by California Democrats to add more restrictions on firearm ownership in a state that already has some of the toughest gun laws in the country. However, it’s hardly certain the bill will become law. A similar measure died in the Legislature last year.

This year’s proposal advanced from the Senate Appropriations Committee Thursday on a party-line vote with Republicans opposed. Committee members offered no comment on the measure and did not take any public testimony, which is typical for that committee.

But in March, when an earlier version of the bill would have required eight hours of training, Arreguín told the Senate Public Safety Committee the proposed training requirements would reduce gun violence and prevent accidental shootings.

“Firearm safety is essential in preventing firearm-related incidents, especially those involving children,” he said. “By strengthening training requirements and closing gaps in current law, SB 948 will ensure responsible gun ownership to keep Californians and communities safe.”

Rebecca Marcus, a lobbyist for the Brady Campaign, told the committee there were more than 69,000 shootings resulting in death or requiring urgent medical care in California from 2016 to 2021. Around one in three of those shootings were accidental, she said. Many involved children.

Gun rights advocates said the bill would be challenged in court if it becomes law.

Adam Wilson of Gun Owners of California called the proposed requirements “an insurmountable barrier to exercising a constitutional right.”

Clay Kimberling, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action, said that’s especially true for the estimated 115,000 gun owners who move to California each year.

“Whether they move into the state on a new job, a new military assignment, or family obligations such as helping a sick or elderly family member, lawful firearm owners would now have to search out an instructor, pay for the class … and take eight hours out of their day … for simply wanting to continue to practice their constitutional right to keep and bear arms in a new state,” Kimberling said.

That original version of the bill also would have required new California arrivals to register firearms and take the course within 60 days.

Will the bill make it to Newsom?

Under current law, Californians are required to pass a written test and pay $25 to obtain a five-year firearm safety certificate to purchase a gun, but no formal training course is required.

Licensed hunters are required to take a mandatory hunting-safety course and aren’t required to get a certificate when buying rifles or shotguns. Also exempt are those who’ve obtained a concealed weapons permit, which is issued after 16 hours of mandatory training that includes live-fire at a gun range.

Those exemptions would still apply.

For everyone else, the proposed four hours of training would include coursework on state and federal gun laws, secure firearm storage, safe handling, the dangers of guns, use-of-force laws, how to sell firearms legally and conflict resolution. The live-fire portion of the course would need to last at least an hour.

Second Amendment groups say paying a Department of Justice-certified firearms instructor would add at least $400 to the cost of buying a firearm. Applicants also would have to pay for ammunition, gun rentals and range fees. Fees and firearms taxes already can add more than $100 to the cost of a firearm in California.

The training requirements would take effect July 1, 2028.

Until then, beginning on Jan. 1, gun owners moving to the state would be required to pass the current written test and register their firearms with the Department of Justice within 180 days.

Violating the proposed law would be a misdemeanor.

The bill now moves to the full Senate. It will then have to advance through the Assembly by this summer if Gov. Gavin Newsom is to sign it. He hasn’t taken a position on the legislation.

Last year, a bill with eight-hour training requirements died in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

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

A new four-day music festival takes over Figueroa Boulevard in Highland Park this weekend.

The Arroyo Secodelic Festival will feature 65 bands, with acts hailing from Los Angeles, Mexico and as far as France and Holland.

The festival was co-founded by Guy Keltner and Tom Segal. Keltner said he’s organized shows for nearly 14 years now, most notably with Freakout, an annual underground music festival he started in Seattle that draws thousands.

Keltner told LAist he wants Arroyo Secodelic to be a place for music discovery, pairing rockers Flamin’ Groovies — who are celebrating six decades as a band — with local bands like El Sereno’s Windows and Levitation Room.

“I’m just trying to kind of present to L.A. like ‘Hey there’s a ton of great music happening that you don’t know about,’” Keltner said.

Headliners include OC legends Adolescents, iconic punk band FEAR and L.A. psych-rockers The Warlocks.

The neighborhood collaboration will span seven stages, with shows at traditional venues like the Lodge Room, as well as De La Playa Records and North Figueroa Bookshop.

“I think it’s going to be nice to do something unconventional. This whole thing is run by independent businesses. So even beyond just the bands, there’s a DIY spirit to the venues,” Keltner said.

The weekend-long festival will also include acoustic sets, artist signings, and book readings by performers like Kid Congo Powers of The Cramps and The Gun Club fame.

Keltner said he hopes Arroyo Secodelic will serve as a bit of an antidote to what he sees as some “cosplay” rock and roll taking up space in L.A. right now: bands he feels are not investing as much in the artistry.

“Underneath all of it, there are great bands,” Keltner said. “There’s so much talent in the city, it’s just not in the places you’re usually looking.”

Arroyo Secodelic runs from May 22 to 24. More info at the Arroyo Secodelic website.

Last month, Immigration and Customs Enforcement acknowledged for the first time the agency's growing arsenal of surveillance technology includes spyware. Such tools can remotely hack into phones and have been abused repeatedly by governments around the world that have used them not only to counter national security threats, but also to spy on political rivals, diplomats, human rights activists and journalists.

ICE's admission of its spyware use, which the agency says has been approved to help its Homeland Security Investigations team disrupt foreign terrorist groups and fentanyl traffickers, comes as critics of the commercial spyware industry are growing concerned that the Trump administration is slowly reversing a previous hard line stance the U.S. government took against the industry in recent years.

"We're starting to see erosion," said Steve Feldstein, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "There's a concern that in the coming year, months, we could see further changes that would really put a damper on what I think has been a really important effort to try to hold this industry to account."

Feldstein said the U.S. "reached a high-water mark when it came to really pushing back against the industry" during the Biden administration. Former President Joe Biden's actions included blacklisting and sanctioning some spyware companies and personnel, an executive order limiting the government's use of commercial spyware and leading an international agreement with other democratic countries to counter the misuse of such tools.

Those actions came in response to revelations that foreign governments were misusing the technology to commit human rights violations as well as targeting devices belonging to American politicians and officials.

Yet so far the Trump administration has lifted sanctions that Biden's Treasury Department had instituted against three people affiliated with the spyware tool, Predator, and temporarily revived an ICE contract with the Israeli-founded spyware company Paragon Solutions that had been paused by the Biden administration.

Privacy and civil rights advocates are worried the Trump administration could be persuaded to also lift restrictions placed on NSO Group, the maker of the powerful spyware Pegasus that researchers say can turn a phone into a recording device in addition to accessing its contents. The tool has been linked to misuse in various countries and has been found on the devices of activists and journalists, including on the phones of people close to Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi, who was murdered in a Saudi embassy in Turkey in 2018.

NSO Group has hired a close ally of President Donald Trump as its chairman and is lobbying the administration. Despite being on a Department of Commerce so-called "blacklist," the company said last fall that American investors had acquired the Israeli-founded company, though the current status is unclear.

This has been a "really troubling period" for U.S. actions on spyware, said Michael De Dora, the U.S. advocacy manager for Access Now, a digital civil rights organization.

"There's no way to look at the facts without seeing that this administration is not going to forcefully work to counter spyware — and actually might be quite comfortable using it and also lifting punishment that has been doled out to spyware violators," De Dora said.

The latest shifts in U.S. approaches to spyware also come as ICE is expanding its use of surveillance tools and targeting both immigrants and protesters, and Congress continues to debate whether additional guardrails are needed to protect the rights of American citizens whose communications are swept up in foreign surveillance operations that do not currently require a warrant.

Meanwhile, a growing number of countries are adopting spyware to hack into cell phones, even as regulatory frameworks have not been updated. Last month, the U.K. government's National Cyber Security Centre disclosed that it estimates some 100 countries worldwide have access to spyware and cyber intrusion tools that could be used against British devices and systems.

A mystery with ICE's Paragon Solutions contract

The history of ICE's only known contract with a commercial spyware maker is messy and convoluted.

In 2024, the agency signed a now-ended $2 million contract with Paragon Solutions for an unspecified product. Whether ICE ever used the tool or continues to use it is an open question.

That contract was swiftly put on hold by the Biden administration to investigate whether it complied with a 2023 executive order signed by the former president that prohibits federal agencies from purchasing commercial spyware that poses a significant security risk to the U.S. or risk of misuse by foreign governments.

Paragon Solutions created a spyware tool called Graphite that can be used by government agencies to remotely hack into a cell phone without the user knowing or even clicking a link. Last year, WhatsApp found more than 90 users in various countries were targeted with Paragon Solutions spyware, and independent researchers were able to confirm the devices of journalists and activists in Italy were targeted with Graphite.

Last August, the Trump administration reinstated the ICE contract with Paragon Solutions and lifted the stop work order. By then the company had been acquired by an American private equity firm and merged with another company, REDLattice.

A notice in federal procurement documents says the Paragon Solutions contract was modified on Jan. 20 of this year to close out the contract.

Before that notice appeared, Democratic lawmakers led by Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) wrote to the Department of Homeland Security last fall asking for all communications related to its use of spyware, including communications about Paragon Solutions' Graphite, who it was targeting with spyware, and the legal justification for its use.

When ICE's departing acting Director Todd Lyons responded on April 1, his letter made clear he had approved ICE's Homeland Security Investigations to use spyware, though he did not name the tool.

Yet the status of ICE's access to Paragon Solutions tools is unclear, raising questions about what tools the agency might be using.

The notice showing the contract has been closed out could mean the services from the original Paragon Solutions contract are no longer available to the agency, or they could have been rolled into a different contract, potentially with a third party that bundles various services together. Such a step would make it harder to track the agency's relationship with Paragon Solutions or its parent entities on procurement websites.

The notice of the contract closure "raises more questions than answers," said Julie Mao, an attorney with the nonprofit law firm and advocacy group, Just Futures Law. "Particularly since Director Lyons confirmed that ICE continues to use commercial spyware, we do not know whether ICE has ceased using Paragon spyware, continues operations under another contract, or uses some other spyware company that ICE has failed to disclose to the public."

Mao's organization is suing under the Freedom of Information Act for records related to the contract.

An unnamed spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security told NPR in a statement that the agency had not "entered another contract with Paragon Solutions, Inc." But since that company has been acquired, the significance of that statement is unclear. The agency did not respond to follow up questions seeking to clarify if that meant the agency had ceased having access to Paragon-developed tools.

NPR could not find evidence of a contract between REDLattice and ICE on federal procurement websites.

"Unfortunately, the confusion and lack of transparency is part of a long history of ICE and DHS secreting away its surveillance programs from the American public and Congressional oversight," Mao said.

In 2022 The New York Times reported the Drug Enforcement Administration was using Graphite, though the status of that contract is also unclear. DEA did not respond to an NPR inquiry about whether it had a current contract for the tool.

Meanwhile, staff for Sen. Ron. Wyden (D-Ore.) have been trying for weeks to schedule a briefing with Paragon Solutions' American owner, AE Industrial Partners, but the company stopped responding, according to Wyden's spokesperson Keith Chu.

Lyons' letter said he had approved Homeland Security Investigations' use of "cutting-edge technological tools that address the specific challenges posed by the Foreign Terrorist Organizations' thriving exploitation of encrypted communication platforms." The letter also stated that the agency "complies with all requirements" set forth in the 2023 executive order Biden signed on spyware use.

"Any use of the technology will comply with constitutional requirements and be coordinated with the ICE Office of the Principal Legal Advisor," the letter said.

But the letter has raised questions such as how broadly federal HSI agents are using the tool, whether it is being used domestically or only to target people in other countries, and what kind of authorization agents need to seek before deploying the tool.

Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) told NPR she was concerned about the possibility that such a tool could be used inappropriately, citing the Trump administration's emphasis on combatting "antifa" that many fear could be used to justify a crackdown on political opponents.

Earlier this month the Trump administration released a counterterrorism strategy that targets "violent left-wing extremists," along with drug cartels and Islamist terror groups, while it does not mention violence from the far right, long considered to be a major domestic threat. Federal officials attempted to portray multiple U.S. citizens who were shot by federal immigration agents earlier this year as domestic terrorists.

"We already know that Trump has already attempted to change the definition of what a terrorist, or domestic terrorist is," Lee said. "So is this just anybody who opposes Trump's administration, its policies, can this be used against them?"

Maria Villegas Bravo from the nonprofit Electronic Privacy Information Center told NPR it was unclear to her based on Lyons' letter whether HSI agents using spyware are getting a warrant and proving probable cause first.

"They should be — they're legally required to because you have a Fourth Amendment protection in the content stored on your phone," Villegas Bravo said. "But we have no insight into what's going on."

In a statement, the unnamed DHD spokesperson said, "Like other law enforcement agencies, ICE employs various forms of technology while respecting civil liberties and privacy interests. DHS law enforcement methods abide by the U.S. Constitution including the Fourth Amendment."

Backsliding from a hardline stance on spyware

Last December, the Treasury Department took three senior figures affiliated with Intellexa, the maker of the spyware Predator, off of a U.S. sanctions list they had been added to in 2024. One of those individuals was later convicted in Greece in February in connection to Predator abuses in that country.

The reversal was a shock to privacy advocates who had welcomed the Biden administration's efforts to crack down on foreign spyware companies and their executives. Villegas Bravo told NPR the lifted sanctions represented "a real backslide."

Now she and others are focused on whether the Trump administration will be amenable to undoing other restrictions against NSO Group, which makes Pegasus.

"I'm very concerned that NSO group is trying to curry favor with the current administration and trying to get another contract," Villegas Bravo told NPR.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations piloted using Pegasus in late 2020 and the first half of 2021, reporting by The New York Times found.

The NSO group also currently appealing a court order that bars it from hacking WhatsApp messages that stems from a lawsuit Meta, WhatsApp's parent company, brought against it. In that court case and other public statements, the NSO Group has made clear that its goal is to gain business from the American government.

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But by the end of 2021, the U.S. government began to take punitive actions against the company. The Commerce Department put the company on its so-called "blacklist" also known as its Entity List, a trade restriction which makes it difficult for U.S. companies to do business with it.

The department said it was taking the step because NSO Group had supplied spyware to foreign governments that used the tool "to maliciously target government officials, journalists, businesspeople, activists, academics, and embassy workers."

The company, which like Intellexa and Paragon Solutions was founded in Israel, has spent close to $8 million lobbying the U.S. government since 2020, according to Open Secrets.

"They've tried pretty much everything," said Vas Panagiotopoulos, a freelance journalist and researcher at Deakin University in Australia who has written about the company's lobbying efforts. "Since 2018, they've hired like over 15 different sort of lobbying consultancies, law firms, PR agencies, external consultants, former diplomats — it's a long list."

The company's biggest priority is thought to be to get off of the Commerce Department's blacklist.

The company is also currently appealing a court order that bars it from hacking WhatsApp messages that stems from a lawsuit WhatsApp and its parent company, Meta, brought against NSO Group. In that court case and other public statements, NSO Group has made clear that its goal is to gain business from the American government.

"It is reasonably foreseeable that a law enforcement or intelligence agency of the United States will use Pegasus," the company wrote in a legal filing.

David Friedman, who once served as Trump's bankruptcy lawyer and later as his ambassador to Israel, became the chairman of NSO Group late last year. His appointment came shortly after the company announced that it had been acquired by U.S. investors, though the current status remains unclear.

During the Biden administration, the White House had warned against American companies acquiring NSO Group.

Rep. Lee wrote to the Department of Commerce earlier this month asking for a briefing on discussions about the purchase of NSO Group by an American company or the potential for U.S. government agencies to use the company's tools.

"The Trump Administration appears to be broadly receptive to using commercial spyware to infiltrate cell phones and allowing U.S. investment in sanctioned spyware companies like NSO Group," Lee wrote.
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