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.

Topline:

Key topics: The candidates each had about 45 minutes to individually answer questions from Erin Stone, an LAist senior reporter focused on climate and environment.

Here are some of the topics they covered:

• Extreme heat
• Emergency preparedness and recovery
• Protecting communities from pollution
• Water
• Public transit

About the organizers: The event is organized by a coalition of local environmental and environmental justice groups including: Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters, SCOPE-LA, Sierra Club, Clean and Healthy California, Neighborhood Council Sustainability Alliance and Communities for a Better Environment

LAist will have more coverage and analysis of the conversations Friday morning.

The Trump administration is taking steps to advance a mysterious and unprecedented project to compile state-by-state lists of people it has decided are eligible citizens over the age of 18 who can vote in the upcoming midterm election. But it will no longer meet its own deadline to publish that information on a portal on Friday, which is 60 days before Election Day.

Department of Justice attorneys told opposing counsel in two separate lawsuits that instead of meeting the Sept. 4 deadline, they would give 48-hours notice to plaintiffs' counsel before the state citizenship portal was launched, according to recent court filings.

The U.S. has never attempted to create a comprehensive list of American citizens before this administration. Maintaining voter lists is the responsibility of states, not the federal government, as the Constitution dictates that states control elections. But President Trump has repeatedly taken steps to try to exert executive control over elections.

The basis for the federal government creating state citizenship lists is an executive order Trump signed on March 31. A lower court had blocked implementation of key parts of that executive order in 23 states and Washington, D.C., but the Supreme Court stayed that injunction late last month, opening the door for the plan to be implemented after all.

The March 31 executive order directs U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Social Security Administration to create "State Citizenship Lists" of individuals the agencies believe are citizens in each state, and send those lists to state officials "no fewer than 60 days before each regularly scheduled Federal election."

The next section of the executive order says the U.S. attorney general will prioritize investigating and prosecuting state and local officials who issue federal ballots to anyone not eligible to vote.

"States here have a strong incentive to actually use these lists to try to avoid federal investigation," said Jules Torti, counsel at the nonprofit Protect Democracy, in an interview with NPR. "But we know that these lists are going to be based on really inaccurate data. So the risk of disenfranchisement here is really, really palpable."

The privacy group Electronic Privacy Information Center, along with individual voters, filed a motion Thursday asking a federal judge in Maryland to block the administration from creating the citizenship lists and publishing them on a portal. Specifically, they seek to block a June 8 implementation memo authored by USCIS director Joseph Edlow that outlines the plan.

The motion, which was brought by Protect Democracy, along with another nonprofit legal group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, argues the administration's plans to share Americans' personal data between agencies and then disseminate the data to states violates multiple federal laws, including the Privacy Act, the Social Security Act and the Administrative Procedures Act. Under the Privacy Act, federal agencies must give the public 30 days notice and the opportunity to comment before they collect and disseminate Americans' personal data for a new purpose.

The EPIC lawsuit also argues the government does not have access to accurate, up-to-date information on American citizens, especially those who move frequently, have changed their names, or are foreign-born. For example, Social Security's citizenship data often isn't updated when people naturalize, and the SAVE data system, operated by USCIS, frequently doesn't include records for people who became citizens as minors when their parents naturalized.

Torti said it is "deeply concerning" that the administration is still planning to go ahead with the creation of citizenship lists but is no longer going to meet the deadline, since that means the lists will be completed even closer to Election Day.

"It means additional chaos, additional confusion for the state election officials and just for voters," Torti said. "And I think that's the point. The point here is to create chaos in advance of the election."

Neither the Department of Justice, nor the Department of Homeland Security, which is tasked with compiling the citizenship lists, responded to NPR's request for comment.

The June 8 implementation memo stated that the portal for state election officials would be available around June 30 and a second portal where citizens could check their information would be available at a later date – but that deadline passed without further updates.

The federal government has secured a domain for the state citizenship lists portal. While the portal is not currently online, it was briefly live in recent days with a landing page that said "Coming Soon," according to court filings.

Lawyers representing Democratic party groups that had challenged the March 31 executive order in a separate lawsuit filed in April, accused the administration in a recent filing of failing to notify the court or the parties about its plans to move forward with the state citizenship portal. They asked the judge to require the federal government to give immediate updates about their plans to implement the executive order.

This latest legal battle over the administration's plans to compile state citizenship lists comes as the Department of Homeland Security is ramping up its efforts to analyze state voter rolls with the goal of identifying potential noncitizens who are registered to vote. Previous audits have found instances of noncitizens casting ballots to be incredibly rare. 

Additionally, last week, ICE published a request for information on a federal procurement site seeking vendors who can compile public voter rolls and voter history files from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and U.S. territories, "to support Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) fraud detection and data segmentation activities."

NPR's Hansi Lo Wang contributed reporting to this story. 
Copyright 2026 NPR

A group of California lawmakers called on federal officials to halt and reject a proposed land exchange in Yosemite National Park that would allow a private developer to take control of a strip of land in the park for an access road to the park’s main attractions.

The letter to Department of the Interior Secretary Doug Burgum on Wednesday was signed by a bipartisan group of 61 state legislators led by Assemblymember Greg Wallis, a Republican who represents Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

“Republicans and Democrats from both houses of the Legislature are standing together because some things are bigger than politics,” Wallis said in a statement. “Yosemite is not a subdivision. It is not a bargaining chip. And it is not for sale. Secretary Burgum and the administration should put an end to this proposal.”

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (center) visited the Tunnel Tops in San Francisco in 2025 after he and then-Attorney General Pam Bondi toured Alcatraz ahead of their announcement to reopen the former federal prison.

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The group argued that the proposed land exchange is counter to the mission of the National Park Service and the founding of Yosemite in 1864, which set aside the start of the park for public use and protection for the first time in the history of the federal government.

“What is being proposed now runs directly against that founding principle, more than a century and a half later,” the letter states.

It continues later: “Our national parks belong equally to every American. They are not the Department’s to trade away, and they are not for sale.”

The proposal was first reported by news outlet NOTUS, which published a story last week alleging that members of the Trump administration were meeting with representatives of Kingsbarn Realty Capital, a private equity group that owns an 83-acre parcel next to the park. In an email to KQED, Kingsbarn’s lawyer Lanny J. Davis confirmed the group is pursuing the land exchange to build a new access road from its property to the park.

Previous owners have pushed for the same deal since the early 2000s and failed in court.

State Assemblymember Marc Berman (D-Menlo Park), who signed on to the letter, called the proposal “indefensible,” and said he’s looking at state laws to ensure a similar proposal could never slip through.

“If the Trump administration can’t defend this publicly in broad daylight, then they shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Marin) told KQED’s Forum on Wednesday that he’s worried there isn’t enough opposition among his Republican colleagues in Congress to stop the Trump administration’s efforts.

“I have not seen a single Republican colleague willing to stand up to Donald Trump when he decides that he’s just going to do something,” Huffman said. “So that is my concern, that he just plows ahead with this — even if it has dubious legal authority, or even if it’s an open violation of the law. He’s doing stuff like that anyway. And in this Congress, there’s no one here to stop him.”

In a statement to KQED, state Sen. Marie Alvarado-Gil (R-Modesto), whose district includes parts of Yosemite, said she will “keep pressing the Department [of the Interior] for a clear answer that this exchange will not proceed.”

Since the news of the deal broke late last week, it has sparked condemnation from a number of Democratic state leaders, including Sens. Alex Padilla and Adam Schiff, as well as Attorney General Rob Bonta and Bonta’s predecessor, Xavier Becerra, who leads the race for California governor.

“The secretive backroom land-exchange scheme has gotten everyone’s attention,” said Neal Desai, senior Pacific regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association. “I can’t recall another issue — and I’ve been working in the conservation space for over a couple of decades — where the response has been this sharp and so one-sided that this is a terrible idea that should not happen.”

The backlash comes at a turbulent time for National Park Service employees, who have faced layoffs, staffing cuts and fear of retaliation for speaking up against Trump administration policies since the start of the second Trump administration.

Some former employees have also raised concerns about a potential reorganization of the National Park Service, according to a separate letter sent to Burgum’s office Wednesday. According to an email seen by KQED, park superintendents have been asked to attend in-person regional meetings in September — with no clear agenda beyond discussing “agency priorities, our FY 2026 outlook, and other matters important to the work ahead.”

The letter to Burgam, signed by 20 retired parks superintendents warns: “An ill-advised and hastily planned reorganization could dismantle that structure, putting our parks — and those who visit them — at great risk.”

Emily Thompson, executive director of the Coalition to Protect America’s National Parks, which organized the letter, said the email about regional meetings “raises some alarm bells.”

“The Park Service is already operating from a difficult place, from a place of crisis,” she said. “And any additional cuts, any movements or actions that would further jeopardize the capacity of the folks that are left, that’s concerning. It’s worrying, and it’ll have a devastating impact on the Park Service.”

Among the letter’s signatories is Don Neubacher, retired Yosemite superintendent, who has been a vocal advocate for parks amid the Trump administration’s changes.

Thompson said she’s worried parks leaders will be stretched even further than they already are, and local decision-making over parks could be in jeopardy.

“Morale is low,” Thompson said. “It’s a hard time to be a federal employee. Anything that … contributes to this culture of fear, it’s just not acceptable.”

This story first appeared on Long Beach Post.

Long Beach is offering up to $1,500 for local business owners and landlords to equip their storefronts with safety measures like cameras, floodlights, alarms and point-of-sale systems.

The grant program is accepting online applications now. You can apply here.

Businesses with storefronts of 1,500 square feet or less may receive grants of up to $750, while businesses between 1,500 and 5,000 square feet are eligible for up to $1,500.

Nonprofit organizations are eligible as well, and landlords can apply on behalf of commercial storefronts that are vacant or occupied. Franchises can also receive the grant.

To qualify, a business must:

• Have an active business license for a storefront within the city
• Be independently owned and operated (franchises are eligible)
• Be currently open and active for business
• Earn no more than $5 million in annual gross revenue
• Hold “active” status with the California Secretary of State for corporations, limited liability companies and limited partnerships

The funds will be provided as a reimbursement after eligible security improvements are installed. Grants will be given out until funds are exhausted.

It’s a great idea, according to Edwin Jara, who manages a pet store in Belmont Heights and was on the receiving end of a break-in earlier this year.

His store had security measures already in place — two cameras and an alarm system — but even that wasn’t enough to deter a masked burglar who grabbed $1,000 cash and a handful of dog treats.

Despite having footage of the burglar, Jara said police haven’t been able to catch the person and that a detective never responded after he filed a police report.

The grant program is being paid for with $350,000 from the city’s Redvelopment Agency along with $50,000 from Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn’s office.

“Our local small businesses are part of the fabric of our neighborhoods, and when business owners feel unsafe, the whole community feels it,” Hahn said in a statement.

In a statement, Mayor Rex Richardson said the program is a “direct investment in the hardworking business owners who make our commercial corridors vibrant and welcoming.”

Jara said he would consider applying for a grant if the city could send someone to help him and the store’s owner fill out the application.

He was offered a separate grant to replace a glass door the burglar smashed, but the store’s owner opted not to fill out the application.

“There was a lot of stuff that we needed to do, and I don’t have a lot of that information,” Jara said.