The Brief

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors Tuesday approved a $700,000 settlement with LAist correspondent Josie Huang, who was arrested and injured by sheriff’s deputies while covering a 2020 protest in Lynwood. The settlement includes a requirement that the L.A. County Sheriff's Department re-train deputies on the rights of journalists.

In a legal claim against the county, Huang alleged deputies detained her without legal justification and used unjustified force because she was gathering news in a public place, according to the settlement.

Huang’s arrest drew widespread criticism from elected leaders and journalism organizations at the time. Deputies had claimed she interfered with their arrest of a protester. The district attorney’s office refused to file charges and a judge later found her factually innocent.

“This settlement upholds the rights of journalists and helps ensure that what happened to me won’t happen to other reporters,” Huang said in a statement. “My arrest was traumatic, but I hope that some good can still come of this experience.”

The settlement includes two mandated reforms at the sheriff’s department:

• A requirement that the LASD provide deputies with watch briefings on press rights before patrol assignments, like protests, in which they are likely to come into contact with members of the news media
• A requirement that the LASD issue written guidance to all employees on the law and policies governing their interactions with members of the news media.

Those laws include SB98, which protects journalists’ rights to cover demonstrations. Its passage was spurred in part by Huang’s arrest.

Supervisor Hilda Solis, who in 2021 introduced a motion in support of the state bill, said in a statement on Tuesday that she "was grateful that the bill was eventually signed into law in 2021 by Governor Gavin Newsom and that members of the press have more safeguards to continue to cover critical stories for our communities.”

Settlement 'sends a strong message'

“This settlement sends a strong message and, importantly, holds officials accountable for what happened to our client,” said Katie Townsend, deputy executive director and legal director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which represented Huang, along with the law firm Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher.

Townsend said it would help prevent unlawful arrests of journalists in the future.

Susan Seager, a UC Irvine law professor who specializes in press freedom, called the settlement “a huge win,” but was skeptical the reforms would change the behavior of deputies.

“I’m just cynical about the deputies out in the field treating reporters any differently than they have in the past,” said Seager, who has represented journalists in court. “I see settlement of lawsuits handled by the county counsel’s office and I don’t know how much the sheriff’s department really takes it to heart.”

Of the training, she said, “I’d like to see how good it is.”

The LASD issued a statement that did not directly address the settlement.

"There was a thorough internal investigation into this incident and the appropriate administrative action was taken," the department said. "We understand the role of the media during newsworthy events and make every effort to accommodate them with a designated press area and appropriate access."

County Supervisor Kathryn Barger issued a statement after she voted to approve the settlement.

“Reporters have rights that undeniably must be protected, and our County has processes in place to ensure members of the press are protected and supported," she said. "I am hopeful that this settlement brings some sense of closure to Ms. Huang and the press community at large.”

Will the settlement change police behavior?

UCLA law professor Joanna Schwartz has written about how large monetary payouts in police misconduct cases don’t always lead to changes in police behavior. In her writing, she notes the amounts are often small compared to a county’s overall budget.

But she said the Huang settlement may be different.

“It's a somewhat unique case,” she said. “When it comes to using force against reporters, it seems like a pretty bright line for the department to draw that this is not the right conduct to engage in.”

At the same time, law enforcement abuse of journalists in L.A. is not uncommon, said Adam Rose, who is press rights chair at the Los Angeles Press Club.

“While most police-press interactions are pretty routine, our region's two biggest agencies (LASD and LAPD) have disturbing legacies of abusing press rights,” he said. “This is just one moment from decades of well-documented misconduct.”

Rose said he knew of at least nine lawsuits filed by L.A. journalists against LASD or LAPD for police brutality since 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police and street protests exploded.

Huang’s settlement is one of the largest in the nation to an individual reporter whose rights were violated while covering the 2020 protests.

In settling the case, the county admitted no wrongdoing.

“I would like to see some acknowledgement of wrongdoing — not just money,” said Christina Bellantoni, director of USC Annenberg’s Media Center. “It's so important that young journalists learning how to do this aren’t worried they are going to be violently hurt when doing their job.”

Huang echoed the sentiment in her statement, albeit for all journalists.

“Journalists in Los Angeles County should be able to record police activity in public without fear of unlawful arrest,” she said. “As the public’s eyes and ears, we must be able to cover protests and document how law enforcement responds to those protests.”

In a statement, LAist Executive Editor Megan Garvey praised Huang's focus on press freedoms.

"From the time Josie was released from jail, her top concern was doing everything she could to make sure what happened to her didn't happen to another journalist doing their job," Garvey said. "And that started in the car ride home, when we were able to start looking through what she'd recorded on her phone during the arrest."

Details of the 2020 incident

Huang, an award-winning journalist, was leaving a news conference by then-Sheriff Alex Villanueva when she started using her phone to film a group of deputies arresting a protester. A deputy ordered her to back away.

“Without giving her time to comply, deputies aggressively tackled Huang to the ground, causing her injury,” according to a statement from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. Huang suffered multiple injuries, including scrapes and bruises to her knees, ankle and face, as well as emotional distress.

In a draft complaint, her lawyers wrote that “the force used was wildly out of proportion to that needed to effectuate the arrest of Ms. Huang, who, at 5’5 and 122 lbs., was far smaller than the multiple deputies who tackled her, posed no physical threat, and had not committed any crime.”

Huang’s phone fell to the ground. Two deputies stepped on it. The phone survived and was recovered by a fellow journalist. It documented much of what happened.

“Law enforcement tried to destroy evidence rather than preserve it,” said Michael Dore of Gibson, Dunn and Crutcher. “And then the former sheriff made false claims about Ms. Huang’s reporting work that the evidence refuted.”

Among other things, Villanueva said Huang never identified herself as a reporter. Huang’s video captures her shouting that she is a reporter. She was also wearing a lanyard with her press credential.

But the department continued to tweet false statements about Huang.

“LASD’s false Twitter posts were retweeted thousands of times, prompting a flood of racist and misogynistic slurs and threats directed at Ms. Huang and her family,” the draft complaint states.

A memo to the board of supervisors from the county’s litigation cost manager recommending approval of the settlement contained only the deputies’ account of what happened. The memo said the deputies involved were retrained, but makes no mention of discipline, which typically is confidential.

A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future federal government forms.

Supporters of those categories fear that any last-minute modifications to the U.S. government's standards for data about race and ethnicity could hurt the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used for redrawing voting districts, enforcing civil rights protections and guiding policymaking.

Those standards were last revised in 2024 during the Biden administration, after Census Bureau research and public discussion.

A White House agency at the time approved, among other changes, new checkboxes for "Middle Eastern or North African" and "Hispanic or Latino" under a reformatted question that asks survey participants: "What is your race and/or ethnicity?" The revisions also require the federal government to stop automatically categorizing people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.

But at a Friday meeting of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C., the chief statistician within the White House's Office of Management and Budget revealed that the Trump administration has started a new review of those standards and how the 2024 revisions were approved.

"We're still at the very beginning of a review. And this, again, is not prejudging any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to take a look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these questions," said Mark Calabria. "I've certainly heard a wide range of views within the administration. So it's just premature to say where we'll end up."

OMB's press office did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

Calabria's comments mark the first public confirmation that Trump officials are considering the possibility of not using the latest racial and ethnic category changes and other revisions. They come amid the administration's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a push to stop producing data that could protect the rights of transgender people and threats to the reliability of federal statistics.

In September, OMB said those Biden-era revisions "continue to be in effect" when it announced a six-month extension to the 2029 deadline for federal agencies to follow the new standards when collecting data on race and ethnicity.

Calabria said the delay gave agencies more time to implement the changes "while we review."

The first Trump administration stalled the process for revising the racial and ethnic data standards in time for the 2020 census.

The "Project 2025" policy agenda released by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative, D.C.-based think tank, called for a Republican administration to "thoroughly review any changes" to census race and ethnicity questions because of "concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas."

Advocates of the changes, however, see the new categories and other revisions as long-needed updates to better reflect people's identities.

"At stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that comprise our country," says Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "I am not concerned if it's reviewed in an honest attempt to understand what the process was. I am concerned if it's for a predetermined outcome that would be to ignore the entire process that was done in a very transparent manner."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

A large black bear that was relocated earlier this year after being found under a house in Altadena is up to his old tricks again.

The bear, nicknamed Barry by the neighbors, was found last week under a different Altadena home, and wildlife officials are using a caramel- and cherry-scented lure to entice the roughly 550-pound male bear out of his hiding spot.

So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.

Cort Klopping, information specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told LAist the bear seems to be spooked by increased activity around the home, including media crews outside and helicopters overhead.

“It seems as though in this case, this bear has found this poor guy's crawlspace as a comfortable, safe-seeming, warm enclosure for denning purposes,” he said.

He said the space is “somewhere for this bear to kind of hang its hat when it's relaxing.”

How the bear returned

Wildlife officials can tell it’s the same bear who was lured out from under an Altadena house after the Eaton Fire because of the tag number on his ear.

The bear was trapped and relocated about 10 miles away to the Angeles National Forest in January, but Klopping said he’s been back in the Altadena area for around five months.

The male bear after it was removed from under an Altadena home earlier this year.

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The bear spooked a SoCal Gas crew who stopped by for repairs after the Eaton Fire in January.

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The Department of Fish and Wildlife fitted the bear with a temporary GPS collar so officials could keep track of it. The collar came off a couple months later while the animal still was living in the forest.

The bear is believed to have been spotted around the home last Tuesday, Klopping said, and the owner reached out to wildlife officials a few days later for help.

“I’ve seen pictures of this bear, and I’m shocked to be under that house,” homeowner Ken Johnson told LAist media partner CBS LA.

Officials said they were hopeful the bear would move along on its own. They encouraged the homeowner to set up a camera on the crawlspace and line the area with ammonia soaked-rags or a motion-activated wildlife sprinkler system to deter the bear from returning, Klopping said.

“These are all actions that would not harm the bear, not harm people, but they would make it less comfortable for the bear to be there,” he said.

But the bear stayed put.

“Right now, it seems like it's stressed,” Klopping said. “It seems like it's scared, and therefore, it's not really wanting to leave the security of where it is at the moment.”

The hope ahead

A pair of wildlife officials stopped by the home Thursday to set up the sweet-smelling lure and camera so the department can keep an eye on the bear’s activity remotely.

Barry didn’t take the bait immediately, Klopping said, but officials are hopeful the animal will feel more comfortable leaving the crawlspace once activity around the home dies down a bit.

Klopping also is warning people in the area to secure access points on their property so the bear just doesn’t move in there next.

“If I were in that neighborhood, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that my crawlspaces would not be accessible,” he said, including covering it with something stronger than the wire mesh the bear got through before.

Bears also are extremely food motivated, and Klopping said they can smell your leftover chicken in trash cans on the curb from 5 miles away.

He encouraged residents to be mindful of trash that could be an easy meal for wildlife, as well as pet food and hummingbird feeders, which Klopping said biologists have seen bears drink “like a soda.”

You can find tips on how to handle a bear in your backyard here and resources from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife here.

There’s a new way you can track pollution in your neighborhood.

The SoCal Clean Manufacturing Coalition, a climate advocacy group, has released a map with the locations of more than 1,800 fossil fuel-burning industrial boilers across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Many are at universities and hospitals, as well as some apartment complexes like the Park La Brea apartments in the Miracle Mile.

The map is part of an effort to push the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates our air quality, to pass rules to require these large boilers to be phased out.

Why do these boilers matter?

Industrial boilers aren’t exactly the poster child of pollution, but they do play a role in Southern California. Boilers come in different sizes, and although there are electric types, many still burn fossil fuels to generate hot water, steam and, as a byproduct, nitrogen oxide.

South Coast AQMD says that makes it a source of pollutants. Nitrogen oxide contributors are not only a problem for smog and respiratory issues but also for the agency’s effort to meet federal air quality standards.

That’s why last year the agency approved new requirements for certain buildings to use zero-emission water heaters and boilers when they need replacement.

Teresa Cheng,  California director for Industrious Labs, a coalition member focused on creating cleaner industries, says these rules were for smaller “baby boilers” and that the coalition wants to see that applied to larger ones, which are covered under the agency’s 1146 and 1146.1 rule.

The push has caused concern in the gas industry. The California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, which represents small fuel retailers and industry suppliers, says boilers are essential in a wide range of manufacturing facilities that need high heat, like food processing, fuel production and more.

“CFCA is deeply concerned that requiring industrial facilities to abandon gas-fired boilers at the end of their useful life before the market is technologically or economically ready will still have severe consequences for manufacturers, workers and consumers,” the alliance said in a statement.

The organization says many facilities already have invested in “ultra-low” nitrogen oxide technology and that requiring a switch to zero-emissions equipment could destabilize the industry because of costs.

See the map

The map includes the number of boilers in each place, including how many aging units, and their permitted heating capacity. (That metric essentially correlates with how much pollution it can release.)

Cheng says the map is being shared to make the “invisible visible” so residents can know what’s around them. Most boilers are in communities that already deal with environmental pollution problems.

Boilers are even close to K-12 schools, like Glendale’s Herbert Hoover High School, which has its own.

“ These boilers have a very long lifeline,” she said. “If the air district doesn't pass zero-emissions rules for these boilers, we actually risk locking in decades more of pollution.”