The Brief

On a beautiful July day earlier this year, out of the blue, catastrophe visited residents of Rolling Hills Estates on the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

It’d been about four months since the last heavy rains, but the precipitation from one of the wettest years on record appears to have been working its way deep into the earth.

It appears that raindrops percolated through the silt and sand and past deposits of volcanic ash in the Altamira Shale, before settling on layers of montmorillonite rich clays, lifted from the ocean during the Pliocene some three million years ago.

An aerial view of upscale homes destroyed by a landslide on Palos Verdes Peninsula in July, 2023.

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It's possible that the particles of clay then took on the water, compromising the ability of the earth beneath the homes to stick together, leading them to separate like an unevenly stacked layer cake. The constituent parts of the neighborhood – the homes, streets and sewer – began to move, pulled by gravity down an embankment into the canyon below.

A preliminary report compiled for the city of Rolling Hills Estates by the geotechnical firm GeoKinetics said that a "high level of precipitation" was likely the main factor behind the slope failure. Though, it should be noted, other inquiries are ongoing.

If you know a bit about the area, landslides should come as little surprise, especially considering there are roughly 150 others that've have been documented there.

A view of upscale homes destroyed by a landslide on Palos Verdes Peninsula in July 2023.

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“Is the geology conducive to land sliding along the Palos Verdes Peninsula? The answer is yes,” said Jeremy Lancaster, state geologist and director of the California Geological Survey.

Given that another year of heavy rain might be on the way, influenced by a strong El Niño, what are the odds we’ll see even more homes sliding into canyons below?

Can we predict landslides?

There are two key types of landslides that you should be aware of: shallow and deep seated landslides.

The one's I'm usually on LAist screaming about are the shallow ones, particularly in hilly areas that've just burned. They're a bit more predictable because we know that after a fire, hillsides are covered in a waxy, water repelling layer and have had most of their vegetation removed. So, when rain falls from the sky, there's not much to slow it down, keep it from knocking dirt loose, picking up speed and turning into a huge destructive wall of water, like what we saw in Montecito in 2018.

When reporting on landslide risk during major storms, I'm usually on the lookout for recently burned areas anticipated to receive an inch of rain per hour, because heavy rainfall makes the shallow slides more likely.

Debris from a mudslide covers a home on January 10, 2018 in Montecito, California.

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Deep–seated landslides, like what we often see in the Palos Verdes Peninsula are a whole other beast,

We know that they typically need three things to occur: steep slopes, weak rocks and some sort of triggering mechanism, such as earthquakes or water (the peninsula has all three), to get them going.

But unless there's apparent movement on the surface, they're terribly difficult to anticipate because it's unclear what's going on deep in the ground. As soon as you're dealing with layer upon layer of material from different epochs all stacked upon each other, things get much more complex.

All it takes is one weak layer of water loving clay to give out between a whole bunch of big strong rock, for a whole hillside to come down.

Terrifyingly, a deep slide can occur months after a rainy season ends because it can take water a long time to slowly percolate through the earth to get to one of those weak layers.

"Because these landslides are at greater depths, it's really difficult geologically to have precise controls on when and how exactly that motion starts. But generally we expect that an above average rainfall seasons, particularly ones that are back to back, the probability or likelihood of motion is there," said Matthew Thomas, a research hydrologist with the USGS landslide hazards program.

It can take many cycles of wetting and drying for one of those weaker layers to become a problem.

Take for instance, bentonite clay found throughout the peninsula. According to Lancaster, while the clay is quite strong when it's dry, when it's wet it weakens and expands slightly, allowing for a slight amount of creep. Over time, cracks can grow and fill with water, further jeopardizing the hill structure. Add a whole bunch of weight and steep slopes and things can destabilize over time.

So if you can't predict a slide, what's there to look out for?

Listen for creaks and groans, look for evidence of movement, including broken water pipes and growing cracks.

It’s not always rain that’s responsible. Broken sewer or irrigation lines can also compromise layers and add weight to a hillside and cause it to give out.

Workers search for victims of a mudslide that left four people dead and 20 missing January 11, 2005 in La Conchita, California.

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What risk does El Niño bring?

El Niño is sometimes linked to wetter winters here in Southern California, which means more opportunity for water to percolate deep underground and destabilize hillsides.

There’s no guarantee that slides will follow a heavy rain year, but it does increase the risk that one will happen, especially in areas that’ve already seen slides, or have active slides ongoing.

According to the preliminary report prepared for the city, there were no earlier slides detected where the July 8 slide occurred in the Rolling Hills Estates area.

What can be done?

Preventing the percolation of water deep into the soil is key. Good surface drainage is an important. Concrete can be used to fill cracks that open up to prevent further infiltration. And in places like Abalone Cove, they've also installed dewatering wells, which actively pump water out.

At the behest of the city of Rolling Hills Estates, the homeowners association began winterization work in November, according to a letter provided by Assistant City Manager Alexa Davis. It includes various measures meant to clear water away from vulnerable parts of the hillside, including temporary drainage, grading and sandbags.

If you’re nervous about your property, you need to be on the lookout for growing cracks and listening for sounds of the earth moving. If your doors have suddenly fallen out of plumb and your windows aren’t opening, you may be facing a catastrophic issue.

If it’s not an emergency, but you're curious about what's going on beneath your home, hire an engineer to look at the geotechnical report relevant to your property.

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Families of transgender youth in California learned this week that their private medical records will not be sent to the Trump administration, for now. That's after a federal judge temporarily blocked hospitals in California from producing any documents responding to criminal subpoenas from the Department of Justice.

For nearly a year, the DOJ has served hospitals with subpoenas, seeking detailed patient files of transgender youth, personnel files for clinicians, and other documents related to transgender healthcare. Attorneys for the government haven't articulated exactly what's being investigated, but they have pointed to the stated goal of President Donald Trump to end gender-affirming care for youth.

Criminal subpoenas to hospitals

At first, the DOJ issued administrative subpoenas, and many of those were quashed in court. Now they've moved to criminal subpoenas using a grand jury in a federal court in Texas.

One was posted publicly by NYU Langone Medical Center last month. It is not known how many hospitals across the country have received the criminal subpoenas, but the notice from NYU says that it was "one of several institutions" to receive them. The Trump administration refers to transgender healthcare as "sex-rejecting procedures" in the subpoena.

The administrative and criminal subpoenas are practically identical, says Shannon Minter, legal director of the National Center for LGBTQ Rights, which has brought many of the lawsuits fighting these subpoenas. "Nothing has changed — they haven't uncovered some new reason or basis to be seeking these records," he says.

"It is pure harassment. It's just an effort to frighten people, to intimidate doctors out of providing the care and to frighten parents and make them afraid that the federal government is going to seek them out, identify them and harm their families in some way," he adds.

Stanford case brought by families

The win in California this week is significant, Minter says. A group of six families who received care at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford sued to block the hospital from sending any of their medical files to the Justice Department.

Right before a deadline for the hospital to send those files, a federal judge in the Northern District of California granted a request for a temporary restraining order that applies to the whole state.

A Justice Department spokesperson in a statement said "it will use every legal and law enforcement tool available to ‌protect innocent ⁠children from being mutilated under the guise of 'care.'"

'Long journey to survive'

Arne Johnson is the parent of a trans teen in the Bay Area and a volunteer with the group Rainbow Families Action. He says even if the win is temporary, it's still a relief for parents like him. "This is like being in a stormy ocean right now — like you're floating on a raft and each individual wave is terrifying, but we also know we have a really long journey to survive," says Johnson, who is not a plaintiff in the case.

He says he's grateful to the families who brought the case and the attorneys representing them. "It's impressive and very noble in a time when people are compromising and turning their backs on our families," he says, fighting tears. "It just really means a lot to folks to see how hard people are working to fight for our kids."

So far, the many legal challenges to the Trump administration's attempt to get the medical files of transgender youth have been quite effective, Minter says. "We don't have any reason to believe that any hospitals have turned over records yet, but there would be no way to know that for certain," he adds.

At the same time, many hospitals and clinics that had been providing gender affirming care for young people all over the country have ended their programs, citing legal and financial pressure from the Trump administration. And this week, a federal judge in Maryland rejected a bid to certify a class of families of transgender youth nationwide to fight the administrative subpoenas.

Craig Konnoth is a professor specializing in health law and LGBTQ rights at the University of Virginia School of Law. He notes that the federal government's moves to get private medical records are unprecedented and could have effects far beyond transgender youth.

"It's not just search and seizure of medical records," he says. "It's the ability of the government to come after you, hoping that they'll be able to catch you out in something, that they will attach a label to afterwards, because they don't like the group that you belong to or the group that you're trying to assist."

That's why, he says, if the government succeeds in these efforts, the implications are vast.
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Congress is about to let a key spy tool, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, lapse.

Each year, the provision is used by American intelligence agencies to collect the electronic communications of hundreds of thousands of foreigners located outside of the United States.

The government says that more than 60% of the president's daily intelligence briefing relies on information collected under the authority.

What happens when it expires?

Intelligence collection will continue

Intelligence collection under FISA's Section 702 is authorized annually by a federal court — and the law allows for that collection to continue for the duration of the court's authorization, even if the law lapses before the court's next approval. That means companies — electronic communications service providers, in this context — will still be legally required to turn over material to intelligence agencies.

Still, some lawmakers worry that the companies compelled to turnover communications may attempt to challenge the law in court, possibly leading to an indeterminately long window during which they stop providing intel.

Advocates on all sides of the surveillance fight believe those challenges are ultimately likely to fail — but those closely linked to the intelligence community emphasize that even a small pause comes with risks ahead of major events like America's 250th celebration and the World Cup.

Glenn Gerstell, who served as general counsel at the National Security Agency during the second Obama and first Trump administration, says he doesn't believe Section 702's lapse to be a sky-is-falling moment — but that Congress could have chosen to avoid any issues by passing an extension.

"I don't want to overhype this and say that the statute's lapse is a horrific risk. It clearly is not," Gerstell said. "But by the same token, I just want to emphasize that it is irresponsible to accept any risk in this area under circumstances where we can control the risk. We can make it zero."

Elizabeth Goitein, a privacy rights advocate and senior director of the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, says the FISA law is clear that companies must continue to comply with the government's collection requests even after lapse — and that existing case law means any challenges will be sorted quickly. Companies risk a fine of $250,000 per day by not complying.

"The FISA court, under the law, has 30 days to resolve this type of challenge," Goitein said, and because the court has previously reviewed the statute, "I do not think it would take very long for the FISA court to compel compliance."

Goitein said she feels the security risks of a lapse are limited — and wants to see the law updated with key privacy and civil liberties reforms.

Why is Congress letting the law expire?

Section 702 has never been short on controversy. Each time the provision has come up for renewal over its nearly two decade history, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has pushed for reforms to the program to better protect Americans' privacy rights.

In collecting the communications of foreign nationals targeted by the intelligence community, Americans' information — including calls, texts and emails — can also be swept up in the dragnet.

And federal law enforcement regularly queries the FISA database for Americans' information and reviews their content. Those reviews are subject to certain procedural and executive branch oversight measures but do not require intelligence agencies and agents to demonstrate probable cause of wrongdoing to a court.

Reform-minded members of Congress — pointing to a history of abuses — want to see additional changes to the program, including a warrant requirement before law enforcement can review Americans' information.

The fight over those reforms led to a series of short-term extensions to the law this year as lawmakers struggled to reach agreement.

In the weeks leading up to the June 12 expiration, it appeared there was movement toward a three-year extension with moderate reforms, though stopping short of a warrant requirement. While any deal was far from certain, there were signs of progress.

Then, things fell apart when, last week, President Donald Trump nominated Bill Pulte. As director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, Pulte is known for leveraging his post and large social media audience to attack the president's perceived foes, to serve as acting director of national intelligence.

The fallout

Democrats — even those most closely aligned with the intelligence community — immediately decried the appointment and said that they would not reauthorize Section 702 while Pulte was Trump's pick over concerns that Pulte would weaponize FISA information as well as the rest of the U.S. intelligence apparatus.

In an interview with NPR's Morning Edition, Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the chamber's intel committee, said "he's extraordinarily unqualified, but the timing could also not be more of a mistake." Hakeem Jeffries, the top House Democrat, described Pulte as a "political hack" and "malignant clown."

Even Republican leaders expressed worries. "We don't need a weaponized DNI," Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters last week. "We need professionals there." Sen. Tom Cotton, the top intel Republican, refused to weigh in on Pulte's qualifications.

At the end of this week, both the House and Senate made a series of failed bids to extend Section 702, then — on Thursday — left town. The Senate is back next week, while the House is not scheduled to return until the week of June 22.

On Thursday afternoon, President Trump announced a permanent nominee to serve as director of national intelligence, federal prosecutor Jay Clayton. When asked by reporters in the Oval Office if Pulte would still take the job on an acting basis, Trump said he would "for a short while." He didn't say how long.
Copyright 2026 NPR

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Under growing pressure from a restive public during the summer of 2020, the Legislature passed a bill that put police shootings of unarmed people under the jurisdiction of the California Department of Justice.

The belief, at the time, was that pulling investigations from local prosecutors — the same prosecutors who relied on police officers to testify in criminal cases — would reduce conflicts of interest and restore faith in a judicial system that was the subject of nationwide protests after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

In its five years since then, the police shooting program has closed 41 cases. It has never recommended charges against an officer who shot and killed an unarmed person. CalMatters originally looked at this program after its first year, and returned to investigate the program in its fifth.

Here’s what we found:

Investigations take longer

Attorney General Rob Bonta originally pledged to close shooting investigations within one year. That still hasn’t happened.

The average investigation takes nearly two years and five months. Eight investigations, including a cluster of cases in rural Northern California, stretched past three years.

The Department of Justice has argued that it is underfunded. The police shooting program got just $13 million annually, despite asking for $26 million. On its first investigation, program investigators were already complaining that they were undermanned.

Some exceed statutes of limitations

When anyone is accused of a crime, police officer or not, the state has a set limit of time to file charges. For 92% of crimes in California, that time limit is three years. For certain crimes, like murder, there is no statute of limitations.

When the Department of Justice investigations stretch past three years, that means that an officer can’t be charged with certain crimes potentially involved in the case — crimes that have previously been leveled at officers who shot and killed people. Some of the crimes that the Justice Department can’t charge after three years include involuntary manslaughter and aggravated assault.

Blowing past decertification deadline

One year after Califoirnia established its police shooting investigation program, the Legislature passed a law that would allow police departments to decertify officers for serious misconduct, stripping their license to work in law enforcement.

But decertification has a time limit, too: three years.

So when investigations stretch past three years, the Department of Justice can no longer recommend any officer lose their certification.

The certification program is run by a state agency, the California Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training, or POST. POST told us that it can start investigations on its own if an officer is accused of serious misconduct.

Was local accountability better?

Before the police shooting investigation program went into effect, many law enforcement leaders and district attorneys predictably opposed it.

But some liberal, reform-minded prosecutors also had their doubts about its potential. Specifically, they worried that taking the investigations out of the hands of locals would dilute the pressure that people could put on their district attorney.

Now, the cases go to Sacramento. A county district attorney never has to answer for the decision to charge or not charge a police officer.

“Local concern, local protests, local interest is felt by local prosecutors,” said Cristine Soto DeBerry, who created a unit investigating police officers at the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office, where she was chief of staff.

Local investigators back off

Local police and sheriff’s departments are still supposed to do their own investigations into police shootings. After all, someone was killed in their jurisdiction. Bonta’s office says nothing in the law prevents local authorities from conducting their own parallel investigations.

But we found that, as a practical matter, local authorities take a hands-off approach once Bonta’s office steps in.

“If the case meets the criteria under (the police shooting law) and DOJ confirms they are taking over the investigation, we do not do a parallel criminal investigation of our own or do a criminal investigation of our own after DOJ concludes their investigation,” said Capt. Brian Cole, who oversees the detective division at the Redding Police Department. “They have complete criminal jurisdiction of the matter.”

Although the Justice Department maintains that it’s only looking at the potential criminal culpability of an officer, in practice, that means that theirs is the only shooting investigation once they take over.

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

The FIFA World Cup has finally arrived once again on American soil.

On Friday night in Southern California, the world's largest sporting event returns to the U.S. for the first time in more than three decades when the U.S. men's national soccer team kicks off its first group-stage match against Paraguay.

This 2026 World Cup has been circled on the calendar of U.S. Soccer for nearly a decade — the long-awaited chance to finally rewrite a legacy of inferiority in international soccer.

The heavyweight talent and strong soccer tradition of European and South American teams have long proven elusive for the U.S. to match, despite decades of investment in the sport. The furthest the U.S. team has finished in a modern World Cup was a run to the quarterfinals in 2002; since then, the U.S. has managed just three total wins across all the World Cups.

Yet the chance to host the tournament at home has coincided with the development of perhaps the most talented generation of players that American soccer has ever produced.

For the first time in the national team's history, its major players all have key roles on teams in Europe's top-flight professional leagues. Midfielder Tyler Adams and defenders Chris Richards and Antonee Robinson are regular contributors to their English Premier League teams, while Weston McKennie is a favorite at Italian club Juventus, and Christian Pulisic, the one-time boy wonder of Team USA, is now, at 27, a bona fide star for AC Milan.

"This is for me the biggest opportunity to grow the game, to inspire people, to show that American players are at the level of the rest of the world," Adams said Thursday.

Paraguay is already struggling

The team's first challenge is Friday's game against Paraguay, currently No. 40 in FIFA's international rankings. The two teams faced off in an international friendly last November, which the U.S. won 2-1 after a scuffle between players broke out during stoppage time.

"We know that they're gonna be super, super aggressive, so we're going to have to match that. We saw that the last time we played them," said U.S. forward Tim Weah.

Paraguay may have to play without its biggest talent, the 22-year-old midfielder Julio Enciso, who was stretchered off the field in the first half of his team's final warm-up match last week.

After Friday's match, the U.S. will play Australia next week, then wrap up the group stage with a June 25 game against Turkey.

The expansion of the tournament to 48 teams means it will be easier than ever to emerge from the group stage. A win in Friday's game, plus either a second win against Australia or Turkey or a draw against both teams, would likely be enough for the U.S. to advance to the knockout round — though the U.S. could earn a more advantageous path if it finishes the group stage in first place.
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