The Brief

The Supreme Court hears Monday arguments in a case that could end the independence of independent agencies, overturn a 90-year-old precedent, and reshape the balance of power between Congress and the president.

At issue is whether President Donald Trump can fire Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, whom Trump appointed in 2018, during his first term, to fill a Democratic seat on the Federal Trade Commission. President Biden appointed Slaughter to a second term, which was supposed to end in 2029.

Instead, in March, Slaughter received an email from the White House Office of Presidential Personnel informing her that she was being removed from office, effective immediately. She was told her "continued service on the FTC is inconsistent with [the Trump] Administration's priorities."

Congress created the FTC in 1914 as a bipartisan, independent agency tasked with protecting the American economy from unfair methods of competition. By law, the five-member commission can have no more than three members of the same political party, and commissioners can only be fired for "inefficiency, neglect of duty or malfeasance in office."

Slaughter had been given no such reason for her removal, and so she sued. A lower court declared that Slaughter had been unlawfully removed from the FTC and ordered her back to work. The Trump administration appealed that ruling, and in September, the Supreme Court issued an emergency order removing her from her seat until the merits of her case could be heard. Justices voted 6 to 3 along ideological lines to allow her firing to stand -- for now.

Reconsidering a 90-year-old precedent

President Franklin D. Roosevelt during a radio broadcast circa 1933–40.

(

Harris & Ewing

/

Library of Congress

)

Proving that history does repeat itself, in 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt attempted to fire an FTC commissioner over ideological disagreements. In that case, called Humphrey's Executor, the court unanimously held that while the president has the power to remove purely executive officers for any reason, that unlimited power does not extend to agencies like the FTC, whose duties "are neither political nor executive, but predominantly quasi-judicial and quasi-legislative."

Following that 1935 decision, Congress went on to create many more multimember, independent agencies whose members likewise can only be removed for cause. Since January, Trump has also removed Democratic members from some of those agencies, including the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Consumer Product Safety Commission.

In Slaughter's case and others, the Trump administration argues that the Supreme Court's decision in Humphrey's Executor was flawed, due to a misunderstanding of the FTC's functions at the time. The administration maintains that the FTC did in fact exercise executive power then and says those powers have only grown in the decades since.

During Trump's first term, the Supreme Court chipped away at Humphrey's Executor when it permitted Trump to fire the head of another independent agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. In that case, the Supreme Court held that the firing was permissible because the CFPB is run by a single director rather than a multimember board. Chief Justice John Roberts described Humphrey's Executor as applying to multimember agencies "that do not wield substantial executive power."

On Friday, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a ruling in line with that guidance. In a 2-to-1 decision, the court said Trump's firings of Merit Systems Protection Board member Cathy Harris and National Labor Relations Board member Gwynne Wilcox were lawful, citing those agencies' "significant executive powers."

President Trump attends a press event at the White House on Dec. 2.

(

Andrew Caballero-Reynolds

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

A clash of views on independent agencies

Slaughter believes that it is vital for the Supreme Court to preserve the independence of bipartisan multimember agencies and allow her to be reinstated.

"Independence allows the decision-making that is done by these boards and commissions to be on the merits, about the facts, and about protecting the interests of the American people," she said. "That is what Americans deserve from their government."

James M. Burnham, an attorney who has served in both Trump administrations, offered an opposing view.

"I don't think there is such a thing as an independent agency because everything has to be in one of the three branches of government," he argued. "I don't think they've ever been independent because I think the removal protections have been unconstitutional from the beginning."

The court will continue its deliberation on Humphrey's Executor on Jan. 21 when it considers another case involving Trump's attempted firing of Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Marlon Wayans and Skye P. Marshall presented the nominees for the 83rd Golden Globes this morning. You can watch the announcement above and read the full list below. The Golden Globes awards ceremony will be held on Jan. 11, hosted by Nikki Glaser.

Best motion picture – drama

Frankenstein (Netflix)
Hamnet (Focus Features)
It Was Just an Accident (Neon)
The Secret Agent (Neon)
Sentimental Value (Neon)
Sinners (Warner Bros. Pictures)
 

Best motion picture – musical or comedy

Blue Moon (Sony Pictures Classics)
Bugonia (Focus Features)
Marty Supreme (A24)
No Other Choice (Neon)
Nouvelle Vague (Netflix)
One Battle After Another (Warner Bros. Pictures)
 

Best motion picture – animated

Arco (Neon)
Demon Slayer: Kimetsu No Yaiba Infinity Castle (Aniplex, Crunchyroll, Sony Pictures Entertainment)
Elio (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix)
Little Amélie or the Character of Rain (GKIDS)
Zootopia 2 (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
 

Cinematic and box office achievement

Avatar: Fire and Ash (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
F1 (Apple Original Films)
KPop Demon Hunters (Netflix)
Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning (Paramount Pictures)
Sinners (Warner Bros. Pictures)
Weapons (Warner Bros. Pictures, New Line Cinema)
Wicked: For Good (Universal Pictures)
Zootopia 2 (Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures)
 

Best motion picture – non-English language

It Was Just an Accident (Neon) - France
No Other Choice (Neon) - South Korea
The Secret Agent (Neon) - Brazil
Sentimental Value (Neon) - Norway
Sirāt (Neon) - Spain
The Voice of Hind Rajab (Willa) - Tunisia
 

Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture – drama 

Jessie Buckley (Hamnet)
Jennifer Lawrence (Die My Love)
Renate Reinsve (Sentimental Value)
Julia Roberts (After the Hunt)
Tessa Thompson (Hedda)
Eva Victor (Sorry, Baby)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture – drama

Joel Edgerton (Train Dreams)
Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein)
Dwayne Johnson (The Smashing Machine)
Michael B. Jordan (Sinners)
Wagner Moura (The Secret Agent)
Jeremy Allen White (Springsteen: Deliver Me from Nowhere)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a motion picture – musical or comedy 

Rose Byrne (If I Had Legs I'd Kick You)
Cynthia Erivo (Wicked: For Good)
Kate Hudson (Song Sung Blue)
Chase Infiniti (One Battle After Another)
Amanda Seyfried (The Testament of Ann Lee)
Emma Stone (Bugonia)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a motion picture – musical or comedy 

Timothée Chalamet (Marty Supreme)
George Clooney (Jay Kelly)
Leonardo DiCaprio (One Battle After Another)
Ethan Hawke (Blue Moon)
Lee Byung-hun (No Other Choice)
Jesse Plemons (Bugonia)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a supporting role in any motion picture

Emily Blunt (The Smashing Machine)
Elle Fanning (Sentimental Value)
Ariana Grande (Wicked: For Good)
Inga Ibsdotter Lilleaas (Sentimental Value)
Amy Madigan (Weapons)
Teyana Taylor (One Battle After Another)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role in any motion picture 

Benicio del Toro (One Battle After Another)
Jacob Elordi (Frankenstein)
Paul Mescal (Hamnet)
Sean Penn (One Battle After Another)
Adam Sandler (Jay Kelly)
Stellan Skarsgård (Sentimental Value)
 

Best director – motion picture

Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
Guillermo del Toro (Frankenstein)
Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident)
Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)
Chloé Zhao (Hamnet)
 

Best screenplay – motion picture

Paul Thomas Anderson (One Battle After Another)
Ronald Bronstein, Josh Safdie (Marty Supreme)
Ryan Coogler (Sinners)
Jafar Panahi (It Was Just an Accident)
Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier (Sentimental Value)
Chloé Zhao, Maggie O'Farrell (Hamnet)
 

Best original score – motion picture 

Alexandre Desplat (Frankenstein)
Ludwig Göransson (Sinners)
Jonny Greenwood (One Battle After Another)
Kangding Ray (Sirāt)
Max Richter (Hamnet)
Hans Zimmer (F1)
 

Best original song – motion picture

"Dream as One" – Avatar: Fire and Ash
"Golden" – KPop Demon Hunters
"I Lied to You" – Sinners
"No Place Like Home" – Wicked: For Good
"The Girl in the Bubble" – Wicked: For Good
"Train Dreams" – Train Dreams
 

Best television series – drama 

The Diplomat (Netflix)
The Pitt (HBO Max)
Pluribus (Apple TV)
Severance (Apple TV)
Slow Horses (Apple TV)
The White Lotus (HBO Max)
 

Best television series – musical or comedy

Abbott Elementary (ABC)
The Bear (FX on Hulu)
Hacks (HBO Max)
Nobody Wants This (Netflix)
Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
The Studio (Apple TV)
 

Best television limited series, anthology series or motion picture made for television

Adolescence (Netflix)
All Her Fault (Peacock)
The Beast in Me (Netflix)
Black Mirror (Netflix)
Dying for Sex (FX on Hulu)
The Girlfriend (Prime Video)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a television series – drama 

Kathy Bates (Matlock)
Britt Lower (Severance)
Helen Mirren (Mobland)
Bella Ramsey (The Last of Us)
Keri Russell (The Diplomat)
Rhea Seehorn (Pluribus)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a television series – drama 

Sterling K. Brown (Paradise)
Diego Luna (Andor)
Gary Oldman (Slow Horses)
Mark Ruffalo (Task)
Adam Scott (Severance)
Noah Wyle (The Pitt)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a television series – musical or comedy 

Kristen Bell (Nobody Wants This)
Ayo Edebiri (The Bear)
Selena Gomez (Only Murders in the Building)
Natasha Lyonne (Poker Face)
Jenna Ortega (Wednesday)
Jean Smart (Hacks)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a television series – musical or comedy 

Adam Brody (Nobody Wants This)
Steve Martin (Only Murders in the Building)
Glen Powell (Chad Powers)
Seth Rogen (The Studio)
Martin Short (Only Murders in the Building)
Jeremy Allen White (The Bear)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a limited series, anthology series, or a motion picture made for television 

Claire Danes (The Beast in Me)
Rashida Jones (Black Mirror)
Amanda Seyfried (Long Bright River)
Sarah Snook (All Her Fault)
Michelle Williams (Dying for Sex)
Robin Wright (The Girlfriend)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a limited series, anthology series, or a motion picture made for television 

Jacob Elordi (The Narrow Road to the Deep North)
Paul Giamatti (Black Mirror)
Stephen Graham (Adolescence)
Charlie Hunnam (Monster: The Ed Gein Story)
Jude Law (Black Rabbit)
Matthew Rhys (The Beast in Me)
 

Best performance by a female actor in a supporting role on television 

Carrie Coon (The White Lotus)
Erin Doherty (Adolescence)
Hannah Einbinder (Hacks)
Catherine O'Hara (The Studio)
Parker Posey (The White Lotus)
Aimee Lou Wood (The White Lotus)
 

Best performance by a male actor in a supporting role on television 

Owen Cooper (Adolescence)
Billy Crudup (The Morning Show)
Walton Goggins (The White Lotus)
Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus)
Tramell Tillman (Severance)
Ashley Walters (Adolescence)

Best performance in stand-up comedy on television

Bill Maher (Bill Maher: Is Anyone Else Seeing This?)
Brett Goldstein (Brett Goldstein: The Second Best Night of Your Life)
Kevin Hart (Kevin Hart: Acting My Age)
Kumail Nanjiani (Kumail Nanjiani: Night Thoughts)
Ricky Gervais (Ricky Gervais: Mortality)
Sarah Silverman (Sarah Silverman: Postmortem)
 

Best Podcast

Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard (Wondery)
Call Her Daddy (SiriusXM)
Good Hang with Amy Poehler (Spotify)
The Mel Robbins Podcast (SiriusXM)
Smartless (SiriusXM)
Up First (NPR)
Copyright 2025 NPR

Fire survivors are calling for longer timelines on mortgage forbearance and better policy to stop credit hits as the expiration of mortgage protections looms nearly a year after the most destructive fires in L.A. County history.

After the Eaton and Palisades fires, hundreds of mortgage companies promised to let borrowers delay their monthly payments for 90 days. In September those protections were extended and enhanced when Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Assembly Bill 238 into law. That allowed survivors to request forbearance for up to 12 months, without requiring full repayment at the end of the forbearance period.

Ever since, fire survivors have said some mortgage lenders are not adhering to those rules.

“We have heard feedback that there is widespread activity that goes to show that a lot of banks and a lot of mortgage services are not actually complying with 238,” said Assemblymember John Harabedian, who wrote the law.

The California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation told LAist it has received more than 200 complaints from L.A. fire survivors “related to issues such as credit reporting, forbearance terms and insurance payouts.”

Harabedian said his office has been receiving calls as well.

“ A lot of people who rightfully deserve forbearance are not being given it, or to the extent that they're being offered forbearance, they're being tasked with things that are illegal under the law, like negative credit reporting, lump sum payments, et cetera,” Harabedian said.

He said holding companies accountable remains a challenge, since that requires survivors to report the issues they’re experiencing.

“It should not be incumbent on the borrower to have to educate a financial institution that's licensed and operating in the state of California that this is the law,” Harabedian said.

Loopholes

Aimee Williams, a housing rights attorney for the legal aid nonprofit Bet Tzedek that is working with fire survivors, said she has seen many clients benefit from the passage of AB 238. But big loopholes remain. She said the law doesn’t mandate the protections and there is still little transparency from many mortgage lenders about how their mortgages work and what people’s rights are.

“It's a step in the right direction, but outside of an overhaul of the law and providing something standard that all mortgage services need to follow, it's going to continue to be a bit of a mystery for people,” Williams said. “And unfortunately, we're going to continue to see people being surprised by demands for payment or threats of foreclosure.”

That’s what happened to Tamara Carroll, whose Altadena home survived the Eaton Fire. With smoke and other damage, though, it took more than eight months for her to safely return.

Tamara Carroll assesses damage to her patio from the Eaton Fire earlier this year.

(

Noé Montes

/

LAist

)

She entered forbearance for the first three months after the fire while she lived in a Burbank hotel and took some time off work to cope with the stress. She said she extended that forbearance another three months when she was still displaced and sorting out her finances. Then she got a call — she was in active foreclosure.

“I literally screamed,” Carroll said.

The state policy urging lenders to extend those protections up to a year had not yet gone into effect, but Carroll said she got no warning or explanation that she could go into foreclosure if she continued with her forbearance, which is required by state and federal law.

A spokesperson for Carroll's lender, the Rocket Mortgage-affiliated Mr. Cooper,  said they didn't have any record of her asking for an extension. She says she did request one over the phone. The spokesperson said the company has fully complied with AB 283.

Without the extension, Carroll was told she’d have to pay about $18,000 — to make up for the last six months of forbearance plus additional fees — to get back in good standing, she said. Carroll used insurance money that she was going to use to replace her roof, which was damaged in the fire, to pay off the bank.

“I just feel like they took advantage of me,” Carroll said. “I was so emotionally battered from the fires … so I just didn’t have the energy to fight an institution that really didn’t care.”

A call for better policy 

As temporary housing insurance dries up, the challenges are only mounting for fire survivors. Many are paying rent on top of mortgages for homes that no longer exist or are still uninhabitable.

One Palisades couple is leading the charge for stronger mortgage protections — Rachel Jonas and Rob Fagnani lost their home in the Marquez Knolls neighborhood, where they had planned to raise their two young children. Now they’ve relocated to Fagnani’s parents’ house in Tennessee as they work to rebuild, which they expect to take at least another year.

“We want to be back in L.A., and we want to be in L.A. for the future,” Fagnani said.

Rob Fagnani, left, and Rachel Jonas, in front of where their Palisades home stood, are calling for policy changes.

(

Courtesy of Rob Fagnani and Rachel Jonas

)

While they don’t have to pay rent, they still have a substantial mortgage and are underinsured, so they decided to enter forbearance as they figure out how to finance their rebuild. Fagnani’s finance background gave him the tools to dig deeply into mortgage and insurance policy.

After talking with dozens of colleagues and friends in the mortgage and finance world, he and Jonas decided to organize their neighbors around mortgage policy reform for disaster survivors.

“Most people are underinsured. Everyone's trying to free up cash. Most people already have too much debt anyway, and they don't want to add on additional debt,” Fagnani said.

So they built a website and a platform to help neighbors easily send letters to their representatives to call for more comprehensive federal mortgage protections for disaster survivors across the country.

Their asks include:

• Extending the forbearance period for two to three years.
• Add deferred payments to the end of the loan term at current interest rates, with protections to avoid damage to credit scores and foreclosure pressure. 

“Many people are maybe a couple hundred thousand dollars short, and those couple hundred thousand dollars are the difference between them being able to square the economics,” Fagnani said. “So this is a way to do that without forcing families to take on more debt.”

Their efforts are gaining traction — Los Angeles City Councilmember Traci Park highlighted their advocacy in her newsletter last month. Mayor Karen Bass recently called on banks to voluntarily extend their forbearance relief for an additional three years. And some lenders are voluntarily doing the same — Bank of America announced it will offer up to three years of forbearance to fire survivors, though most people will have to modify their loans, which can hurt their credit.

Williams, the lawyer, said a standard at a federal level is “a great idea,” though she doubts the current Congress will be open to it. Mortgage-relief legislation proposed by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Rep. Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park) earlier this year did not pass.

“Forbearance is not supposed to be … you'll be able to pay everything in full after the period ends,” Williams said. “It really gives you breathing room to figure out what to do next to make your long-term financial plans while trying to stay on top of your short-term financial security.”

On a recent rainy afternoon, a handful of students gathered in a small UCLA classroom to pore over autopsy reports and death records.

They took turns presenting different cases, sharing what they’d gleaned from documents about people who died at the hands of police. After an overview, they honed in on the reports’ details.

As part of the university’s BioCritical Studies Lab, the significance of the students’ work extends far beyond the classroom.

Terence Keel, a professor in the Department of African American Studies and the Institute for Society and Genetics, founded the lab in 2020, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. After watching police take Floyd’s life, Keel wondered how many others died under similar circumstances.

Together, Keel and his students have produced multiple reports about in-custody deaths. Through this work, the professor has learned that every day in the U.S., about five people die in jail or during arrests.

The reports, coupled with conversations with community activists and people who’ve lost loved ones across the country, underpin Keel’s new book, The Coroner's Silence: Death Records and the Hidden Victims of Police Violence.

How a lab discussion uncovers details

This recent class session started by examining a San Diego case involving a man who died in 2020 after being tased by police three times.

One student said it was “pretty shocking” that no officers faced liability. Another brought up the difference between what was stated in the autopsy report and the San Diego district attorney's account.

In the latter, the student noted, “It says that [an] officer put his left knee on [the man’s] upper back and neck. ... That provides a lot more context as to why [the man] became unresponsive.”

Not only was that detail left out of the autopsy report, another student added, “But on page seven, it says, ‘It does not appear that the officers at any time significantly placed their weight or pressure on the decedent’s head, neck or torso’ — which directly goes against what you just read.”

“Did anyone notice, on Page 5 of the [autopsy], the contributing factor to death was ‘atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease,’” Keel asked the class. “What did you all make of that?”

The lab secures autopsy reports and death records through public records requests. Students are assigned at least one case per week. They’re tasked with coding these cases, following a strict protocol. As they answer questions provided by their instructors, the students input the data in a survey for the lab’s Coroner Report Project.

In his new book, Keel describes the obstacles he faced in securing these records.

The professor says “a part of [him] had to perish” to write the text — the part of him that “wanted to believe America was growing into our best values and evolving beyond the primitivism of our past.”

“I am grateful for this loss,” he writes.

Before conducting his research, “I could not imagine how often these deaths occurred, how they were hidden from the public or the sheer magnitude of lethal police violence,” Keel adds.

“I hope you lose a part of yourself,” too, he tells readers, “and gain in return the ability to see the humanity of the people we are socialized to forget.”

Keel’s students already are heeding the call.

What kinds of students participate

The professor's students span majors from the humanities to life sciences. Many of them are pre-med. Grace Sosa, a former student, is the lab’s assistant director and co-leads class discussion.

“We welcome the feelings that come up — the rage and the sadness and the anger — all that stuff,” Sosa said. “The data collection that we do is important, but it's also important to never lose sight of the fact that every single one of these deaths should not have happened. And that should make us feel something.”

This approach sits well with students like Stepheny Nguyenle, a recent graduate who continues to be part of the lab.

“More than anything,” she told LAist, “I joined because I wanted to learn and grow alongside a group of people who believe in a better world, where human dignity takes precedence.”

For others, the lab is an invitation to take what’s learned and probe the world around them.

Senior Zaia Hammond (center), a Human Biology & Society major and African American Studies minor, said Keel's lab has helped her become more empathetic toward others, especially incarcerated people.

(

Julia Barajas

/

LAist

)

“[T]his is the first time I've ever looked at an autopsy report,” said sophomore Ellie Portman, who's now prone to scrutinizing news media. “We [grow up thinking] that whatever is in an autopsy report is correct and whatever the police do is right. ... This lab has taught me the importance of asking questions and being curious,” she said.

Junior Manhoor Ahmad also said the lab “has really taught me to go deeper.”

“I pay attention to the layers behind every incident: the police tactics used; the medical vulnerabilities of the person involved; how force escalates; the stress on the body; and the role that institutions play in framing these [deaths] as unavoidable,” she said.

How the community has been involved

When Keel launched the lab, a local woman named Helen Jones helped guide discussions.

Jones, a Watts native, lost her son in 2009. His name was John Horton III, and he was 22 years old when he died inside Men’s Central Jail in downtown L.A. authorities said he died by suicide in solitary confinement. But in Jones’ view, his body told a different story.

When Horton’s body was being prepared at a mortuary, Jones noticed wounds, bruises and scrapes across his body.

In his book, Keel notes that Horton “had no record of mental illness and was not under suicide watch when he was taken to prison.” Plus, when his family received the lab results, “they revealed that [Horton] had sustained recent injuries to his abdomen, adrenal glands, skeletal muscles in his lower back and kidneys.”

In the autopsy report, the coroner ascribed Horton’s death to “hanging and other undetermined factors.” But if Horton was alone in his cell, his mother wondered, how did those internal injuries occur?

Keel met Horton’s mother in 2020. At the time, she was a community organizer with Dignity and Power Now, a grassroots organization based in L.A. that’s working toward prison abolition. The experience of losing her son pushed Jones to become well-versed in death records. When Keel’s lab took off, she’d bring records of people who’d lost their life in custody and share her insights with his students.

Jones “had a wealth of knowledge and expertise about the faults and virtues of our death investigation system that would have taken decades for most academics to acquire,” Keel says in his book.

Through Jones, Keel and his students learned about “how death investigators weaponized details about the criminal history of the deceased, or their troubles with substance abuse or, even worse, their health history, making the case that they were going to die regardless of the actions of police.” Jones drew the lab’s attention “to the places in the autopsy where illegible handwriting, unchecked boxes, missing files and vague language obscured or distorted what happened to the victim and why.”

Keel’s lab and book also have been shaped by other families who’ve grappled with in-custody deaths. Out of necessity and desperation, he said, these families likewise taught themselves how to read autopsy reports, using anatomy books, along with legal and medical dictionaries.

Keel hopes his book finds its way to people who think in-custody deaths are an issue from which they’re far removed.

“[T]here is a perception that [this] is a Black and brown problem,” Keel told LAist. “But when you look at the data, look at the raw numbers, white Americans are the largest group in the nation being killed by police. ... And when you look at all of the people who are dying in custody, every single demographic in [the U.S.] is represented.”

Disclosure: Julia Barajas is a part-time law student at UCLA.