The Brief

In the first months of 2023, California State University, Fullerton seemed poised to make progress on the repatriation of Native American cultural artifacts and human remains.

University administrators, staff, and others identified a location to conduct repatriation work on campus. It would be a place that Native Americans help create and be devoted to their work to bring ancestors back to their tribes for re-burial.

“The sixth floor of the library would balance having a secure location for ancestral remains and associated funerary collections, until repatriation,” said now-former Vice Provost Estela Zarate via email.

The library would allow access to the artifacts and ancestors, she said, and once built out, the space would be a place where Native Americans could collaborate on repatriation work as well as pray.

But in February 2023, momentum hit a wall. Carolyn Thomas, a longtime university administrator who put Zarate in charge of repatriation, was removed from her provost job. Three months later, Zarate, who holds a PhD in education, was informed that her position was being eliminated, she told LAist.

The two administrators’ ousting and the impact it had underlines a problem familiar to repatriation experts: the need for more consistent leadership at campuses to ensure cultural items and ancestors are returned faster to Native American tribes.

What progress had been made?

A state audit released in June 2023 revealed that the Cal State University system had not complied with state and federal repatriation laws, falling short on funding, staff, and policies to support repatriation.

Cal State Fullerton was one of those underwhelming campuses. But, as the auditors wrote, the school said it had started "organizing its collections to allow for long‑term storage and easier identification." And in September 2022, Fullerton hired Megan Lonski as the university’s first full-time repatriation coordinator. Zarate said her repatriation work with Lonski was driven in large part by social justice.

“My scholarship has examined how historically marginalized communities are served/underserved by education institutions and in that context, I understood the significance of this work,” Zarate said.

Lonski and Zarate created a repatriation advisory committee that included representatives from area tribes. Zarate said she and Lonski, along with the committee, drafted the university’s first repatriation policy. The 2023 audit revealed that only half of the CSU campuses had such a committee and even fewer had tribal members in that committee and just a handful had adopted a campus repatriation policy.

Native Americans who had watched Cal State Fullerton’s repatriation efforts advance and regress said something was different in early 2023.

“I was pleasantly surprised because it appeared that they were now understanding the importance of complying with the law,” said Joyce Perry, a member of Cal State Fullerton’s repatriation advisory committee and cultural resource director of the Juaneño Band of Mission Indians, Acjachemen Nation-Belardes.

CSU Fullerton's then-provost Carolyn Thomas speaks during the 2022 convocation.

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Courtesy CSU Fullerton

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CSU Fullerton Provost Amir Dabirian delivers his welcome remarks for the 2023 Convocation.

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Matt Gush

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Courtesy CSU Fullerton

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To Perry, the library space was a forward-thinking and dignified approach.

“[Zarate] guaranteed us that this attempt is not going to lose its momentum and that we will get this done, that the University is committed to this process,” Perry said.

What were the plans for a repatriation space?

According to a copy of the blueprint obtained by LAist, the space would have been about 4,700 square feet. Much of the space would house about 4,200 boxes containing Native American items in the university’s possession, plus work tables. The other third of the space, according to the blueprint, would have been mostly taken up by three rooms: a green room, a meeting room/office, and another room in which boxes with the ancestors would be kept.

The plan for a roughly 4,700 square foot built out in CSU Fullerton's library. The plan did not come to fruition.

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Blueprint obtained from Cal State Fullerton

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“Those elements were to house the ancestors and make it a space where we could come and speak to anthropologists about them and or pray,” Perry said, “It just was going to be something that was designed specifically for our needs.”

In March 2023, President Framroze Virjee appointed Amir Dabirian as provost, replacing Thomas. Virjee stepped down as university president four months later. Virjee did not respond to an email requesting comment about the removal of Thomas and Zarate and whether he considered how their departure would affect repatriation efforts.

In the months after Dabirian took over, it was clear the library buildout would not happen.

“The new provost came in and scratched it and said that's over,” said Carl Wendt, a longtime professor of archaeology at Cal State Fullerton and member of the repatriation committee.

Instead, the school set its sights on basement storage in one of the campus' academic buildings.

“We went from having this multimillion dollar buildout in this great location to, ‘You're gonna get this old store room, we're going to clear this stuff out,'" Wendt said.

Was that a broken promise?

“We're so accustomed to that… it almost goes without saying in almost any institution that we work with,” Perry said.

However, she said, Dabirian assured her the scuttling of the library plan would not affect the university’s repatriation momentum.

“As long as we were getting our needs met, and ultimately bringing our ancestors and their belongings home and back into Mother Earth, that really is our biggest concern,” she said.

How did the new provost change the plans?

CSUF said it was made aware of LAist’s email to Virjee and that he wouldn’t be able to answer questions, but current Provost Dabirian would. LAist described the blueprint to the provost, who didn’t deny its contents.

But Dabirian recalled the elimination of the library plan differently.

“When I came in, I gave [the repatriation committee] an alternative and I worked hard to secure spaces,” Dabirian said.

The library buildout, he said, would cost about $3 million and take one to two years to complete. He said he proposed the use of rooms in the basement of McCarthy Hall, one of the original campus buildings from the early 1960s, because they presented both a more long-term and immediate plan for the cultural artifacts and ancestors. He also said the basement had better climate control.

“We did not say, ‘We will not do Plan A.’ We said ‘We wanna try Plan B, which is better,’” he said.

Committee members, including tribal members, visited the basement and agreed it was better, Dabirian added.

“We got confirmation before we moved forward. So to me that's not a broken promise,” he said.

Dabirian said Zarate reported to him and he informed her that her services as an administrator would no longer be needed. He would not comment further on the removal of the vice provost.

Repatriation is a process that involves extensive negotiations with tribes and meticulous accounting of what universities have, Dabirian said. He also said his campus is making great strides in the return to tribes of what is theirs, although he could not give a timeline of when that process may be completed.

What comes next?

News of Zarate and Thomas’ removal and its effect on repatriation reached California’s most powerful Native American legislator.

“Consistent leadership is one factor in ensuring that reparation is performed thoughtfully and thoroughly,” Assemblymember James Ramos told LAist via email.

Ramos said he continues to have questions about “what steps CSU and UC are taking to institutionalize and prioritize the return of Native American human remains and artifacts so the process may continue without interruptions despite changes in leadership.”

Ramos’ office said a public hearing is planned for next month so that leaders of the CSU and UC systems can tell policymakers what progress they’re making.

Wendt, the professor, said his concerns that relations with tribes would be affected by the change in plans have not come to pass. Responding to Dabirian’s account of the library and basement plans, Perry said she would have liked the library buildout, but is happy with the current allocation of rooms in McCarthy Hall’s basement.

“Out of all the institutions we’re working with, Cal State Fullerton is the most aggressive and progressive in working with our tribe with the intention of returning our ancestors to us,” she said.

“Their actions have spoken louder than their words,” she said.

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene became a household name in the run up to the 2020 election for divisive rhetoric, political stunts and enthusiastic support of President Donald Trump. But after growing disagreements with Trump during his second term, Greene announced she will leave Congress in January before her term is up.

Greene said it would not be fair to her northwest Georgia district, one of the most conservative in the country, to have them "endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the President we all fought for" while noting that "Republicans will likely lose the midterms."

Greene's split with Trump widened in recent weeks as she pushed for the release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

For months, Greene had been publicly pressing Trump and top Republicans in Congress to release all files from two federal investigations into Epstein. She was part of a small cadre of Republicans who helped force a vote on the House floor to release the files — a process that drove Trump to reverse his position on the documents and led to near-unanimous support for the measure this week.

But before Trump reversed course, he lashed out last week, calling her "Marjorie Traitor Greene," and told reporters, "Something happened to her over the last period of a month or two where she changed politically."

In her post Friday night, Greene defended her decision to fight for the release of those documents.

"Standing up for American women who were raped at 14, trafficked and used by rich powerful men, should not result in me being called a traitor and threatened by the President of the United States, whom I fought for," Greene wrote.

Greene's defiant push against Trump

On a brisk morning this week, Greene stood outside the Capitol with some of the women who say they were abused by Epstein.

"I've never owed him anything," Greene of the president on Tuesday. "But I fought for him and for America First. And he called me a traitor for standing with these women."

The cracks between Trump and Greene grew over the last year, as Greene increasingly pointed out where she saw the president falling short: she called the war in Gaza a genocide, criticized Trump's decision to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities, and pressed for expiring health subsidies to be extended, citing the threat of skyrocketing premiums for people in her district, including her own children.

And she was doing it not just on social media or right-wing outlets, but on programs like ABC's The View.

"What Happened to Marjorie?"

"I was thinking, if this was the first time I'd ever seen this person, it sounds like a normal congressperson from Schoolhouse Rock," said University of North Georgia professor Nathan Price after Greene's appearance on the daytime television staple.

For some, this new persona may be hard to square with the Greene many Americans first got to know: the congresswoman who embraced QAnon conspiracy theories, liked a post that called for violence against former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. and heckled school shooting survivor David Hogg in 2020, before he became a prominent political activist.

Even Trump has publicly mused in recent weeks: "What happened to Marjorie?"

Georgia Republican strategist Brian Robinson says it's a fair question.

"I am open to the idea that she's had a 'road to Damascus' moment, a conversion, that she sees the errors of the toxicity and wants something that's better," Robinson said in an interview with NPR earlier in the week.

On her own social media and with journalists, Greene has been open about addressing claims from Trump and others that she has changed or abandoned the president. NPR reached out to Greene for further comment.

"Nothing has changed about me," Greene told the hosts of The View. "I'm staying absolutely 100% true to the people who voted for me, and true to my district."

Robinson said the changes could be part of a natural evolution for Greene, a former CrossFit gym owner from the Atlanta suburbs.

"We love to elect outsiders to Congress," Robinson said. "They go to Congress with very little idea of how it works. And if at some point you're like, 'I want to do substantive things that make America better, then I've got to do this a little bit different."

Or, Robinson said, she may be trying to broaden her appeal with an important constituency as she weighs a bid for higher office. Trump said last week he showed Greene polling earlier this year suggesting she would flounder in a race for Georgia governor or Senate.

"Is she intentionally signaling to women, 'The good old boys club ignores us, and I understand your struggles?" Robinson said.

Both Robinson and Price said Greene's evolution was more about style than substance. She has disavowed some of her more controversial views, but not others, like the unproven assertion that widespread fraud upended the 2020 election result.

The anti-interventionist, anti-elite principles that first propelled her to Congress also remain core to her identity. "What she's responding to is believing that the President has shifted on these issues," said Price.

Some potential political opponents see an opportunity in Greene's break with Trump. Robinson, who worked for Greene's opponent in her first primary race, says in the past he has warned potential challengers not to underestimate her.

"You are wasting your time," Robinson said. "She will beat you. And I would have said that into infinity until this week."

How Greene's district reacted to the shift

But in the 14th Congressional District, it was not clear this week that anything had changed. As chair of the Paulding County Republican Party, Ricky Hess spends a lot of time talking with voters.

"The issues that they want to talk about involve high property taxes, high health care costs, whether or not their kids will be able to buy a house when they graduate," Hess said this week ahead of Greene's resignation.

Hess told NPR he believes Greene's "America First" worldview resonates in this heavily working class and rural stretch of Northwest Georgia.

"She's pretty tapped into what her constituents are wanting, and I have to believe that most of her actions are in service to that," Hess said.

Hess said voters saw Trump and Greene as fighters on the same team. Though Martha Zoller, who hosts a political talk radio show that airs across North Georgia, said in an interview Wednesday she didn't believe everyone's minds were made up.

"People are kind of reeling, if you want to know the truth," Zoller said. "We haven't had a lot of listeners discussing it because they're waiting to see what happens."

Georgia political observers noted that Greene has been anything but a predictable politician — including her surprise resignation.

Trump has come to a truce with other politicians he's feuded with, including Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp. And his future relationship with Greene could still evolve.

But Zoller said the conflict between Trump and Greene has been about more than just two big personalities falling out on the national stage.

"I think that the big discussion we're going to be having as Republicans over the next few years is what is the Republican movement once it's not Trump?"

Zoller said earlier this week it seemed clear that Greene wants to be part of that discussion. But with her resignation, the answer to that question is may be less clear now than before.

NPR's Stephen Fowler contributed to this report.
Copyright 2025 NPR

Promoting illegal car sideshows and street races in Long Beach, whether through social media, print, or group chats, could soon cost you up to $1,000 and six months in jail.

The Long Beach City Council on Tuesday voted to create a new ordinance that makes it illegal to encourage or advertise street takeovers, saying these exhibitions are an outstanding danger to the public and a nuisance to neighborhoods.

The item will come back to the dais as a draft prepared by the city’s attorney’s office, which would then be voted into law.

It will allow police to levy penalties on those they can prove promoted or encouraged people to attend the illegal exhibition, which often includes cars doing donuts and burnouts in public intersections ringed by crowds. Police will track promoters through testimony and social media. Promotion bans like this one already exist in other municipalities like San Jose and Alameda County.

It builds on a 2022 city law targeting those who attend these events, making it a misdemeanor for those within 200 feet of a street takeover. Tuesday’s vote also included an amendment that exempts accredited news reporters from the existing spectator ban.

The city’s northernmost 9th City Council District, where the proposal originated, continues to claim the majority of reported street races across Long Beach, with more instances reported there than other parts of the city combined.

Ninth District Councilmember Joni Ricks-Oddie said the law was a direct response to what her constituents experience regularly.

“Illegal street racing and sideshows remain some of the most dangerous public safety challenges in our city,” she said.

Between 2022 and 2023, the police received 349 calls about street racing or other exhibitions of speed — 210 of which were in Ricks-Oddie’s district that encompasses most of the city above South Street. When asked, police did not provide more up-to-date statistics.

Councilmember Tunua Thrash-Ntuk, whose district borders Rick-Oddie’s, said in the Longwood neighborhood, sideshows are a common occurrence on Susana Road, a street that borders unincorporated land and is next to an elementary school.

“Reckless driving is harmful for everyone,” she said. “It is unacceptable in areas that are highly utilized by children, and we must return our streets and neighborhoods to a state of normalcy.”

In the city’s plan to eliminate all vehicular deaths by 2026, commonly known as Vision Zero, a survey section found nearly a quarter of respondents listed traffic enforcement as the top priority. Ahead of the 2026 budget, respondents ranked public safety among the top three priorities for the city.

The city also plans to install three automated speeding ticket cameras in the 9th District, along Artesia Boulevard from Harbor Avenue to Butler Avenue; Atlantic Avenue from the L.A. River to Artesia Boulevard; and Long Beach Boulevard from Artesia Boulevard to 70th Street.

Long Beach is on track to have more than 50 traffic deaths this year.

Millions of Americans have shed pounds with help from drugs like Wegovy and Zepbound.

But people who take these drugs often experience unpleasant side effects.

"They lose weight, which is a positive thing," says Warren Yacawych of the University of Michigan, "but they experience such severe nausea and vomiting that patients stop treatment."

So at this year's Society for Neuroscience meeting in San Diego, Yacawych and other researchers held a session to describe their efforts to understand and solve the side-effect problem.

The weight-loss products are called GLP-1 agonists. They work by mimicking a hormone that reduces appetite and slows digestion.

Yacawych and his colleagues wanted to know if they could tweak these drugs to suppress appetite without making people queasy.

The team focused on two areas in the brain stem where GLP-1 drugs have a big effect.

"The first is affectionately known as the brain stem's vomit center," Yacawych says. "It's naturally designed to detect any accidentally ingested toxin and coordinate the feeling of nausea and the vomit response."

The second area monitors food intake and tells people when they're full.

The team found a way to direct GLP-1 to the area involved in feeling full, while keeping the drug out of the vomit center.

When the researchers did this, the mice no longer felt sick. But they also didn't get thin — probably because there are specific cells in the vomit center that do not induce vomiting but are critical to weight loss.

"So it's very challenging," Yacawych says, "to be able to separate these side effects, like nausea, from GLP-1's intended effects, like weight loss."

A possible workaround came from a team led by Ernie Blevins of the University of Washington. They gave obese rats a low dose of a GLP-1 drug along with the hormone oxytocin, which is itself an appetite suppressant. That allowed the rats to lose weight without feeling sick.

Not just nausea

Another side effect of GLP-1 drugs is a decrease in thirst, which could be dangerous for people who are already losing lots of fluids from side effects like vomiting and diarrhea.

"If you're in that state of dehydration and you're not feeling thirsty to replace those fluids, that would be a problem," says Derek Daniels of the University at Buffalo.

To understand how GLP-1 drugs reduce thirst, Daniels and a team began studying the brains of rats. And they got lucky.

"We had a happy accident in the lab," Daniels says. "And the happy accident involved a rat called the Brattleboro rat."

Brattleboro rats are laboratory rodents with a genetic mutation that makes them thirsty nearly all the time. But the scientists discovered that these rats are also very sensitive to GLP-1 drugs, which drastically reduced their water consumption.

The team studied the rats' brains to see where GLP-1 was influencing thirst. That led them to several areas of the brain that appear to affect thirst but not appetite.

The discovery could help scientists preserve thirst by designing drugs that "target good places but not bad places," Daniels says.

Appetite and addiction

A team from the University of Virginia found that GLP-1 drugs are already targeting a brain area that plays a role in addiction as well as eating. It's a region involved in emotion and the reward system.

When the researchers delivered GLP-1 to this brain area in mice, it reduced their desire for "rewarding food, like a burger," says Ali D. Güler of the University of Virginia.

But the animals continued to eat healthy, nonrewarding foods, he says — a bit like people choosing a salad bar over dessert.

Identifying this brain area should help scientists find GLP-1 drugs that target the reward system while avoiding areas involved in appetite, Güler says. And that could lead to new treatments for alcoholism and other substance use disorders.

The finding also could explain the observation that people who take GLP-1 agonists tend to reduce their consumption of alcohol.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday temporarily blocked a lower court ruling that found Texas' 2026 congressional redistricting plan pushed by President Donald Trump likely discriminates on the basis of race.

The order signed by Justice Samuel Alito will remain in place at least for the next few days while the court considers whether to allow the new map favorable to Republicans to be used in the midterm elections.

The court's conservative majority has blocked similar lower court rulings because they have come too close to elections.

The order came about an hour after the state called on the high court to intervene to avoid confusion as congressional primary elections approach in March. The justices have blocked past lower-court rulings in congressional redistricting cases, most recently in Alabama and Louisiana, that came several months before elections.

The order was signed by Alito because he is the justice who handles emergency appeals from Texas.

Texas redrew its congressional map in the summer as part of Trump's efforts to preserve a slim Republican majority in the House in next year's elections, touching off a nationwide redistricting battle. The new redistricting map was engineered to give Republicans five additional House seats, but a panel of federal judges in El Paso ruled 2-1 Tuesday that the civil rights groups that challenged the map on behalf of Black and Hispanic voters were likely to win their case.

If that ruling eventually holds, Texas could be forced to hold elections next year using the map drawn by the GOP-controlled Legislature in 2021 based on the 2020 census.

Texas was the first state to meet Trump's demands in what has become an expanding national battle over redistricting. Republicans drew the state's new map to give the GOP five additional seats, and Missouri and North Carolina followed with new maps adding an additional Republican seat each. To counter those moves, California voters approved a ballot initiative to give Democrats an additional five seats there.

The redrawn maps are facing court challenges in California, Missouri and North Carolina.

The Supreme Court is separately considering a case from Louisiana that could further limit race-based districts under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act. It's not entirely clear how the current round of redistricting would be affected by the outcome in the Louisiana case.