The Brief

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors has unanimously approved another large settlement for hundreds of people who alleged they were abused as children while in the county’s care.

This $828 million settlement covers 414 cases for alleged sexual abuse in its probation department and the Department of Children and Family Services. This is the second payout for roughly 14,000 claims brought under Assembly Bill 218, a measure that extended the statute of limitations back decades.

The settlements have attracted controversy because of claims of attorney misconduct.

The sign off means the county will shell out close to $5 billion between this and the historic settlement approved earlier this year.

Where will the funds come from?

The hefty payout comes as the county is dealing with the financial fallout of the January fires and facing unprecedented federal cuts.

County officials have formed a finance plan to fund the latest settlement over the next few years. They’re moving $400 million from the Provisional Financing Uses fund to write the first check, due by Dec. 1. That’s a chunk of its $1.9 billion budget that’s intended to supplement future projects, according to county documents.

The rest of the settlement will be factored into the Judgement and Damages fund during the next few years.

This may not be the end of the payments, however. About 2,500 cases still need to be decided, with more expected on the horizon.

“ These settlements are unlike anything I’ve ever seen in my 30 plus year history with the county,” Supervisor Kathryn Barger said at the meeting. “ These settlements will impact the county for decades to come, especially in our mission to serve as a safety net for our residents.”

The problem is more than money 

One of the key issues is the way AB 218 was written, which meant the door was thrown open for sex abuse claims going back decades.

Childhood sex abuse is usually an area where officials want to quickly support victims. However, the payouts have been under heavy scrutiny after an L.A. Times investigation alleged plaintiffs were paid to join lawsuits — including with fabricated claims.

County counsel Dawyn Harrison says fraud was anticipated because of the volume of cases, but it was the “unmanageable law” that allowed it to happen at a wide scale.

“This reality is compounded by the fact that this is not like a traditional mass tort case,” she said. “AB 218 allowed for decades-old claims, which means most evidence is not available, nor are the witnesses.”

Two levels of fraud review typically happen in a county settlement that includes reviewing a plaintiff’s claim details and interviews. All AB 218 claims will now go through at least the first level, Harrison said.

A new third level will be for all claims tied to the specific law firm suspected of fraud or for plaintiffs who indicated they were brought in by a recruiter or vendor. That will look into how people were signed up to sue.

Attorneys also have agreed to let the county interview the plaintiffs, which wasn’t allowed previously by court order.

“ The focus now needs to be on fixing the statutory scheme that created these vulnerabilities,” Harrison said. “Not upending the settlement for doing the right thing under impossible circumstances.”

Keeping children safe today

The Board grilled officials for more than an hour before approving the settlement, focusing on other concerns such as ways to prevent future sex abuse.

When the allegations first came out, they spurred a county action plan. One of the changes from that includes a new process for people to step forward via a dedicated hotline. That’s expected to launch by the end of the year. However, the Board questioned whether that and other changes discussed are proactive enough to keep children safe today.

“ When I looked at all the corrective actions, none of it, not one of it was to prevent. It was all after the fact,” Supervisor Janice Hahn said. “ We’re trying to hire as fast as we can, but clearly, that’s also the place we need to lean in vetting people who are coming in to be the caretakers in our juvenile facilities.”

Many of the allegations stem from the county’s juvenile system. Chief probation officer Guillermo Viera Rosa appeared to disagree with her overall assessment, saying robust changes have been made.

People have been taking to the streets nationwide this weekend to protest the Trump administration's immigration enforcement tactics following the death of Renee Good in Minneapolis, a 37-year-old woman who was shot and killed by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer this week.

At least 1,000 events across the U.S. were planned for Saturday and Sunday, according to Indivisible, a progressive grassroots coalition of activists helping coordinate the movement it calls "ICE Out For Good Weekend of Action."

Leah Greenberg, a co-executive director of Indivisible, said people are coming together to "grieve, honor those we've lost, and demand accountability from a system that has operated with impunity for far too long."

"Renee Nicole Good was a wife, a mother of three, and a member of her community. She, and the dozens of other sons, daughters, friends, siblings, parents, and community members who have been killed by ICE, should be alive today," Greenberg said in a statement on Friday. "ICE's violence is not a statistic, it has names, families, and futures attached to it, and we refuse to look away or stay silent."

Large crowds of demonstrators carried signs and shouted "ICE out now!" as protests continued across Minneapolis on Saturday. One of those protestors, Cameron Kritikos, told NPR that he is worried that the presence of more ICE agents in the city could lead to more violence or another death.

"If more ICE officers are deployed to the streets, especially a place here where there's very clear public opposition to the terrorizing of our neighborhoods, I'm nervous that there's going to be more violence," the 31-year grocery store worker said. "I'm nervous that there are going to be more clashes with law enforcement officials, and at the end of the day I think that's not what anyone wants."

Demonstrators in Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10, 2026.

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The night before, hundreds of city and state police officers responded to a "noise protest" in downtown Minneapolis. An estimated 1,000 people gathered Friday night, according to Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara, and 29 people were arrested.

People demonstrated outside of hotels where ICE agents were believed to be staying. They chanted, played drums and banged pots. O'Hara said that a group of people split from the main protest and began damaging hotel windows. One police officer was injured from a chunk of ice that was hurled at officers, he added.

Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey condemned the acts of violence but praised what he said was the "vast majority" of protesters who remained peaceful, during a morning news conference.

"To anyone who causes property damage or puts others in danger: you will be arrested. We are standing up to Donald Trump's chaos not with our own brand of chaos, but with care and unity," Frey wrote on social media.

Commenting on the protests, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told NPR in a statement, "the First Amendment protects speech and peaceful assembly — not rioting, assault and destruction," adding, "DHS is taking measures to uphold the rule of law and protect public safety and our officers."

Good was fatally shot the day after DHS launched a large-scale immigration enforcement operation in Minnesota set to deploy 2,000 immigration officers to the state.

In Philadelphia, police estimated about 500 demonstrators "were cooperative and peaceful" at a march that began Saturday morning at City Hall, Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Tanya Little told NPR in a statement. And no arrests were made.

In Portland, Ore., demonstrators rallied and lined the streets outside of a hospital on Saturday afternoon, where immigration enforcement agents bring detainees who are injured during an arrest, reported Oregon Public Broadcasting.

A man and woman were shot and injured by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Thursday in the city. DHS said the shooting happened during a targeted vehicle stop and identified the driver as Luis David Nino-Moncada, and the passenger as Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, both from Venezuela. As was the case in their assertion about Good's fatal shooting, Homeland Security officials claimed the federal agent acted in self-defense after Nino-Moncada and Zambrano-Contreras "weaponized their vehicle."
Copyright 2026 NPR

Bob Weir, the guitarist and songwriter who was a founding member of the popular and massively influential American rock band the Grateful Dead, has died. According to a statement from his family posted on his website and social media pages, Weir died from underlying lung issues after recently beating cancer. He was 78.

A member of the Dead for its first three decades, and a keeper of the flame of the band's legacy for three more, Weir helped to write a new chapter of American popular music that influenced countless other musicians and brought together an enormous and loyal audience. The Grateful Dead's touring, bootlegging and merchandising set an example that helped initiate the jam-band scene. Its concerts created a community that brought together generations of followers.

Known to fans as "Bobby," he was born in San Francisco as Robert Hall Parber, but was given up for adoption and raised by Frederick and Eleanor Weir. In 1964, when he was still a teenager, Weir joined guitarist Jerry Garcia in a folk music band, Mother Mcree's Uptown Jug Band. In May of 1965 Weir and Garcia were joined by bassist Phil Lesh, keyboard player Ron "Pigpen" McKernan and drummer Bill Kreutzmann to form an electric, blues-based rock and roll band that was briefly named The Warlocks. After discovering that there was another band using that name, Jerry Garcia found a phrase that caught his eye in a dictionary and in December of that year they became the Grateful Dead, launching a 30-year run over which time they grew into a cultural institution.

Weir was a singular rhythm guitarist who rarely played solos, choosing instead to create his own particular style of chording and strumming that gracefully supported Garcia's distinctive guitar explorations especially during the extended jams which were the heart of the band's popularity.

Lyrics were largely a product of a communal effort between Weir and Garcia, as well as lyricists John Perry Barlow, Robert Hunter, that often blurred the lines between who wrote what. The opening lines to "Cassidy," which first appeared on Weir's 1972 solo album Ace and was played by the Dead on live recordings including the 1981 double album Reckoning, reflect the combination of metaphor, rhyme and storytelling set to memorable melodies that the band's audiences could memorize, analyze and sing along to:

I have seen where the wolf has slept by the silver stream
I can tell by the mark he left you were in his dream
Ah, child of countless trees
Ah, child of boundless seas
What you are, what you're meant to be
Speaks his name, though you were born to me
Born to me, Cassidy

Weir's emotive singing, on "Cassidy" and other songs like "Sugar Magnolia," "One More Saturday Night" and the band's unofficial theme, "Truckin', " often included whoops and yells, in contrast to Garcia's calm and steady approach. His occasional tendency to forget lyrics was usually greeted by thunderous applause from fans.

After Garcia's death in 1995, at age 53, the surviving members of the band carried on in various forms and arrangements, the longest running of which was Weir's Dead & Company, which also featured Grateful Dead drummers Kreutzmann and Mickey Hart. Weir and the band concluded their "final tour" in July of 2023, but then returned to the stage for two extended residencies at the Sphere in Las Vegas, in 2024 and 2025.

A self-described "compulsive music maker," in 2018 Weir formed yet another band to mine the depths of the Grateful Dead catalog. It was a stripped-down guitar, acoustic bass and drums outfit that he called Bobby Weir & Wolf Bros. Its members included renowned bassist and producer Don Was.In October of 2022, Weir & Wolf Bros worked with a classical music arranger to present yet another iteration of the Dead's catalog, notable for never being played the same way twice, with a group that largely only plays what's written on the paper in front of them, the 80-piece National Symphony Orchestra.

In a 2022 interview with NPR, Weir explained the reason for that collaboration, and in doing so, seemed to offer a possible explanation for why the band's music stayed so popular for so long: "These songs are … living critters and they're visitors from another world — another dimension or whatever you want to call it — that come through the artists to visit this world, have a look around, tell their stories. I don't know exactly how that works, but I do know that it's real."

After Jerry Garcia's death in 1995, Weir kept the legacy of the Grateful Dead alive, touring with bands that came to include generations of musicians influenced by the group. Here, Weir performs with The Dead at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 2009.

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Weir's work to shepherd and sustain the Dead's legacy was rewarded by ever younger generations of Deadheads, the band's loyal following, who attended tour after tour, often following the band from city to city as their parents and grandparents did during in the 1960's, '70s, '80s and '90s.

In an interview with Rolling Stone in March 2025, Weir shared his thoughts on his legacy, as well as on death and dying, that had a hint of the Eastern philosophies that were popular when the Grateful Dead emerged from the peace and love hippie movement of San Francisco. "I'll say this: I look forward to dying. I tend to think of death as a reward for a life well-lived," he said.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Planet Books, a long-running outpost known for its boundless collection of used books, toys, posters and other antiquities, must move — once again — by March or risk closure.

After 27 years in business, owner James Rappaport said the news came last fall from the proprietors of the neighboring Antique Mall II, which, since 2020, has sublet to him a 4,000-square-foot warehouse now cramped with rare tomes and second-hand memorabilia.

Andrew Jurkiewicz, who owns Antique Mall II alongside his partner, Linda, confirmed the move in a phone call Monday. They’re selling their own store, a decision that ran simultaneously to their landlord’s decision to sell the property altogether.

One person familiar with the sale said the listing — which opened in October — has drawn several interested buyers and is expected to enter escrow in the next week. A public record search found the properties, at 1851 to 1855 Freeman Ave., are owned by DPV Properties LLC, which recently moved its address from Seal Beach to out of state.

When reached by phone, one of the owners declined to comment on their reason for the sale.

After their leases end in March, the businesses are expected to vacate. The antique shop, Jurkiewicz said, will relocate to a space at 3588 Palo Verde Ave. — formerly a Joann Fabric and Crafts — under new ownership.

“We’re both tired,” he said of running the 37-year business that he moved into a former plywood business on Freeman Avenue in 2010.

The future of Planet Books, meanwhile, is far more uncertain. Rappaport has been quiet about his plight until now, insisting he didn’t want to “sound any alarms” that might disrupt the flow of business or scare his regulars.

“I don’t want to panic anybody, especially myself. Not really sure what to do, actually,” Rappaport said.

This marks the second time the bookstore has needed to vacate its location since it opened in 1998.

Its first incarnation on East Anaheim Street was a combination of a couple of hundred book crates left behind by San Pedro bookseller Vinegar Hill Books and collectible toys acquired by the store’s former owner, Michael Munns.

Monthly rent at that time was about $2,000 for 1,500-square feet. Today, Rappaport said, the building costs $5,200 a month to rent, with half of it currently vacant.

His search for a new space has spanned the city, even traveling into neighboring Seal Beach, each time running into the same story.

“Twice the money and one third the size,” he said.

It’s also difficult to find something to fit their needs. The current store has a bookstock of easily more than 100,000 titles.

There’s also the trove of toys, postcards, movie posters and other antiquities that line the walls, counters and shelves throughout. In the back area — the workers call it the “nether world” — towering stacks of books form trench lines leading to an aging work computer, limited-edition prints and a bathroom which hasn’t worked properly since they moved there.

Any storefront they find will likely require a “major purge” of inventory, Rappaport said. Planet Books has two music sections and three sections for both science fiction and mystery. He plans to downsize through donations to nearby schools, shelters and prisons.

If the store cannot find a new home, Rappaport said he’ll have to move his inventory into storage, likely at a facility in Stanton.

There’s also the definite possibility the store closes, he said, though workers are more optimistic.

For many, Planet Books has become the bookstore’s bookstore — the book hog’s mud puddle — where the clerks know the difference between Tom Wolfe and Thomas Wolfe and where patrons might lose themselves for the day among cheap out-of-print treasures on Zen and macrobiotics, Armenian dictionaries, Cantonese cookbooks and volumes on Lydia Maria Child, a 19th century abolitionist.

Wherever the store lands, Rappaport said it will be his last move.

“I’m 68, getting old, you know, I don’t need this,” he said. “I can’t retire because I don’t make anything in Social Security. I just want to have a little bit of fun.”

There are very few options to grab a cup of coffee and sit for a bit in downtown L.A.’s Skid Row. That’s in stark contrast to some of the bougie areas of downtown, where you can throw a rock and hit a four-dollar-a-cup coffee place.

But there’s one cafe that’s steadily served the Skid Row community for over a decade.

Walking into Made by Downtown Women’s Center Cafe and Boutique feels like walking into any non-chain coffee shop you might have come across downtown. There are smiling baristas, tables to work at and a glass case filled with pastries from Homeboy Industries.

But this coffee shop is different: it’s staffed and run by women who are transitioning from homelessness

Women like LaShornda. She’s worked here for about four years after the Downtown Women’s Center provided her with supportive housing. Now she lives independently with her kids. We’re not using LaShornda’s full name because she has concerns about her safety.

“We always get second chances. And it was a struggle,” she said, recalling her journey from being unhoused, to getting full-time work and housing and, recently, a promotion.

Now LaShornda works to train other women at the cafe, providing many with their first job after fighting to survive on the streets for years.

“I love it here... I love to see some of the women that come in here every day and I know [their] drinks,” LaShornda said.

The Downtown Women’s Center serves about 5,000 people annually with things like permanent supportive housing and job training at their cafe. The center started the cafe about 15 years ago.

“It’s not your normal image of providing services for people experiencing homelessness,” Amy Turk, Downtown Women’s Center’s CEO, said during a visit to the cafe. “Twenty-three thousand women are experiencing homelessness on any given night in Los Angeles. And primarily the reasons stem from gender-based violence, domestic violence and incomes that have never been on par with men."

Aprons hang on the wall at the Made by DWC candle-making studio.

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About five years ago — after moving from Texas and getting stranded without work during the height of the pandemic — Alexandria Piñeda found herself unhoused on Skid Row. That was before she got linked up with DWC.

“The Skid Row community was so good to me,” Piñeda said. “You know, they really looked out for me. And it’s nice for them to have something nice. For them to be able to escape the madness on the street.”

The cafe typically trains dozens of workers a year. And while you’re grabbing a cup of coffee, you might notice some handmade candles on the shelves, with scents like Halfmoon BAE and Joshua TEA. Under the brand Made by DWC, Piñeda and her team of trainees make those just a few blocks away, along with bath salts and other scented goods.

Alexandria Piñeda in her office at the Made by DWC studio in Downtown L.A.

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“A lot of them are stuck in survival mode because they’re straight off the street when they come to us,” she said. “But they’re with me for four months. So I kind of have the opportunity to train them out of that... It completely changes their life and I get to witness that. All the time.”

She said that’s the best part of the job.

How to visit:

MADE by DWC Cafe
438 S. San Pedro St., Los Angeles
Hours: Mon - Fri, 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.

The monthly Sip & Shop takes place on the last Friday of each month. This month’s event will be held on Jan. 30 at the resale boutique:

Made by DWC Resale Boutique
325 S. Los Angeles St, Los Angeles
Hours: Mon - Fri, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.