The Brief

The number of protests on Southern California campuses calling for an end to Israel's war effort in Gaza has grown to include UC Irvine, UC Riverside, Occidental College, CSU Los Angeles, CSU Northridge and Chapman University and Pomona College.

Encampments at the University of Southern California and University of California, Los Angeles led the way and have since been cleared.

Protesters are calling on their schools to cut ties with Israeli companies, weapons manufacturers, and universities. They also want their colleges to release statements calling for a ceasefire in Gaza.

The campus encampments are part of a growing trend across the nation, as students organize against Israel’s war in Gaza.

Where the UCs stand overall

The University of California system, which oversees 10 campuses and more than 280,000 students, has not moved its position in the face of student protests. In an April statement, University of California said it has "consistently opposed calls for boycott against and divestment from Israel."

"While the University affirms the right of our community members to express diverse viewpoints, a boycott of this sort impinges on the academic freedom of our students and faculty and the unfettered exchange of ideas on our campuses," the statement added.

University of California also noted that tuition and fees are the primary funding sources for core operations and are not used for investment purposes.

"Through careful management of the University’s retirement and endowment funds, UC Investments provides a stable and growing revenue stream that benefits current and retired employees and supports the University’s education, research, and public service mission," the statement added.

Here’s where the encampments stand currently:

University of Southern California

The Academic Senate voted to censure President Carol Folt and Provost Andrew Guzman on May 8 over their handling of the Israel-Gaza War protests on campus that has resulted in violence and dozens of arrests.

Days earlier, students calling for the divestment from companies with ties to Israel, as well as the severing of ties with Israeli universities, complied with campus security and police orders to clear out their encampment, making it the second time the encampment has been broken up by law enforcement.

USC's student-led newspaper, The Daily Trojan, reported that at least 12 students who participated in the encampment have received interim or full suspensions and that some of the protesters are also barred from student housing.

In a statement USC said, "We are unable to discuss disciplinary matters because of student privacy laws and the confidential nature of personnel matters."

“When free speech protests devolve into illegal occupations, violating the rights of others, we must draw a line,” USC President Carol Folt said about the need to call law enforcement to break up the encampment. “The occupiers repeatedly chose to ignore university policies designed to benefit everyone, and to break the law.”

After USC's main stage commencement ceremony was canceled due to security concerns, a "Trojan Family Graduate Celebration," took place Thursday at the L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

University of California, Los Angeles

Classes have been moved to remote instruction for the remainder of the week. Royce Hall and Powell Library will also remain closed until Friday after police made another round of arrests Monday.

Early Monday a group of students staged a sit in at Moore Hall and
video livestreams from the UCLA Divest social media page showed the UCLA Police Department and the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department at a parking lot on campus arresting people and searching through property.

UCLA student newspaper The Daily Bruin reported on X that UCPD Patrol Division Lieutenant Richard Davis said 43 people, including students, were arrested in Parking Structure 2 under charges of conspiracy to commit burglary.

UCLA announced on May 6 that newly appointed Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Safety Officer Rick Braziel is leading an investigation into the violence that erupted earlier this month after a group of counter demonstrators supporting Israel, according to witnesses, attacked the UCLA Gaza solidarity camp overnight.

A Los Angeles Police Department detective will be aiding in efforts and the FBI could also be assisting, Chancellor Gene Block said in a note to the Bruin community.

“UCPD is currently reviewing all available footage ... and speaking to witnesses who were present,” Block wrote. “We urge anyone who saw the violence firsthand or who has information about the attack to report it as soon as possible.”Braziel is also conducting a review of the police departments response to the attack as well as a “broader assessment of all acts of violence over the last 12 days, including those against counter-protestors,” he said.

Over 200 people were arrested earlier this month when law enforcement stepped in to break down the UCLA Gaza solidarity encampment.
 

Students and demonstrators gather in a circle at an Pro-Palestinian occupation encampment protest on campus at UCLA on April 25, 2024.

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Brian Feinzimer

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LAist

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University of California, Irvine

On Wednesday, May 15, the student encampment at UC Irvine expanded as protestors observed the Nakba, an annual commemoration of when Palestinians were displaced in the creation of the state of Israel. Student protestors entered a lecture hall and began barricading the building.

Amir Mertaban, executive director of the Islamic Society of Orange County, said the protest had been peaceful until officers started removing part of the encampment, and in the process threw one student to the ground. The university said in a statement that it asked the Irvine Police Department and Orange County Sheriff to intervene in the expansion. The school has cancelled classes for the remainder of the day. LAist has reached out to law enforcement and the mayor's office for comment.

Administrators met with student organizers earlier this month for what the university described as a “productive” conversation.

However, in a statement released last week, UCI Chancellor Howard Gillman said that talks have stalled. "There was a commitment to continue discussions today, and we conveyed the importance of ongoing, regular, and productive conversations. Unfortunately, the students were not willing to meet with us today," the statement read. It also noted that the university was willing "to meet every day at any time of their choosing."

The UCI Divest coalition, the group organizing the encampment, is also calling on the university to invest in a Palestine Studies program, create financial subsidies for Palestinian students to support their mental health and designate safe spaces on campus.

University of California, Riverside

An encampment has been set up on the Bell Tower lawn, where protesters say they won’t leave until the university meets their divestment demands.

UC Riverside announced May 3 that a deal had been struck with organizers of the Gaza solidarity encampment by agreeing to consider divesting from companies with ties to Israel. In the agreement, UC Riverside announced it will disclose its investments with a goal of giving “full disclosure of the list of companies in the portfolio and the size of investments.”

A task force made up of students and faculty will also be formed to explore removing endowments from the UC Investments Office “in a manner that will be financially and ethically sound for the university.”

Additionally, the agreement noted that UCR’s School of Business trip to Israel has been suspended and that the school will overhaul the approval process for its study abroad programs to make sure it's in line with their anti-discriminatory practices. The university has also agreed to explore suspending the sale of Sabra Hummus on campus which is partly owned by the Israeli company Strauss Group.

Occidental College

University administration and the students who set up the encampment calling on the liberal arts school to drop investments in companies with ties to Israel’s war effort have reached an agreement.

In a statement, President Harry Elam said students agreed not to “cause or promote substantial disruption” at the commencement ceremony taking place later this month on May 19.

If the students uphold their end of the agreement, he said, he will hold a meeting with the Board of Trustees, faculty and senior university leaders for the students to present their demands with the Investment Committee said to vote on some of the proposals including divestment at a later date.

Those who took part in the encampment will also not be penalized.

Last week a faculty group, Faculty for Justice in Palestine at Occidental College, released a statement in support of the students saying “they are contributing to the longstanding legacy of Occidental College’s commitment to social justice through scholar activism.”

California State University, Los Angeles

A group of university administrators, including President Berenecea J. Eanes, wrote in a statement that "several buildings and state property were defaced with graffiti, including some graffiti carrying messages of hate and bigotry, including anti-Semitic rhetoric" since the campus' encampment began.

The university is increasing security and investigating those responsible for tagging the buildings.

Students in the encampment say that the administrators' message endangers the protesters by portraying protesting for Palestinian rights is antisemitic.

California State University, Northridge

An encampment was launched on the CSUN campus in early May. The first day events included a performance by Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine. But in a social post, organizers with the Students for Justice in Palestine group said even though they planned an overnight encampment, they “decided to postpone and pivot it to more urgent actions.” The students said they were mobilizing in support of the pro-Palestinian supporters at UCLA, where university police deemed the in-camp protest unlawful.

Chapman University

Chapman University students are the latest to put up a Gaza solidarity encampment, this one outside Wilkinson Hall. They are calling for divestment from Israeli companies and weapons manufacturers in addition to calling on the university administration “to leverage their institutional power to call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and additionally increase protection for their Palestinian, Arab, Muslim and allied students.”

In a statement to LAist, the university said they support a student’s right to peacefully demonstrate.

”Chapman University has a student conduct policy that we expect all within our community to uphold. The students taking part in the protest have developed a registration procedure to ensure that anyone staying overnight in the encampment is a Chapman student,” the statement added.

Pomona College

Students at Pomona College have set up multiple encampments over the past several weeks. Over 60% of Pomona College’s faculty have voted to call for a divestment from weapons manufacturing companies as well as companies with ties to Israel.

Last month, 20 students were arrested for occupying the president’s office as part of their protest demanding the university sever ties with Israeli companies.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A motorist was arrested on murder charges after authorities say she slammed her SUV into a city bus in Los Angeles, killing at least two people and injuring six others in a prelude to a second deadly tragedy: the fiery crash of a TV news helicopter that was covering the collision.

Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, of Simi Valley, was arrested Tuesday night and is being held at a Los Angeles jail with bail set at $4 million, police said Wednesday. The case is being forwarded to the district attorney’s office, which will decide whether to file the charges in court or pursue different ones. Information on a lawyer who could speak on her behalf was not immediately available.

The helicopter, which was used by NBC and Telemundo, crashed about two hours after police say Rios drove her 2004 Ford Expedition the wrong way down a busy avenue, ran a red light and struck a vehicle before hitting the bus. One passenger was fully ejected from the bus and another was partially ejected, police said.

Rios’ mother, Cindy Rios, said she was shocked and saddened by the string of events. She said she had not spoken to Bailee Lynn since her arrest and had not been contacted by law enforcement.

“It’s just horrible,” Cindy Rios told The Associated Press in a phone interview Wednesday. “The fact that my daughter was involved and was the cause of it is just extremely disturbing.”

“If anything, I’m sorry for the other families,” she added. “My daughter’s alive. People lost their lives.”

Chopper crash killed a reporter, a pilot and a man on the ground

NBC4 Los Angeles reported that two people aboard the helicopter — reporter Eliana Moreno and pilot George Marciniw — were killed when the chopper went down Tuesday in the Chatsworth neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley north of downtown.

A person on the ground, identified as 29-year-old Edy Gutierrez Mejia, died in a parking lot, the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner’s Office said. He was from Guatemala, the country’s consulate confirmed.

The crash happened as news crews were reporting on the collision involving the SUV that slammed into the bus.

There were no immediate details on what caused the helicopter crash, but an alarm could be heard sounding inside the helicopter’s cockpit as it lost altitude in the final seconds of video the crew broadcast before the crash.

Just after the beeping noise starts, a woman’s voice says “uh oh.” The helicopter moves quickly away from the bus crash site and starts losing altitude. The woman says “You can’t pull up?” before the video stops as the chopper nears the ground.

“That video is probably the most important evidence that we have discovered so far,” National Transportation Safety Board investigator Fabian Salazar said Wednesday at a news briefing.

Salazar said the sounds were consistent with the helicopter’s engine changing speed, as well as what he said were likely advisory tones for the pilot. The NTSB said it is also investigating the bus collision.

The helicopter, a Eurocopter AS350, went down near a large storage facility. At least four cars and two storage containers burned after the helicopter caught fire. NBC4 reporter Robert Kovacik was at the bus scene and saw black smoke and rushed to the helicopter crash site.

Anchor and reporters pay tearful tributes to deceased colleagues

Moreno was a familiar voice for NBC4 and Telemundo 52 during the station’s aerial coverage. She and Marciniw were both were employees of Angel City Air, which operated the chopper for the station.

Moreno, born in Orange County, joined Angel City Air in 2010, the same year she earned a broadcast journalism and political science degree from Chapman University. She reported for several news outlets and began flying with Marciniw in 2023, the NBC4 website said.

Marciniw grew up in Southern California and graduated from Burbank High School in 1974.

“I think a lot of us are still trying to process what happened, this terrible loss,” NBC4 reporter Lauren Coronado told viewers early Wednesday as she stood near the crash site. A hazmat crew was cleaning up jet fuel, she said.

In a tribute to Moreno and Marciniw, the newscast referred to them as “the team in the sky,” saying Moreno would often post videos from her job and was in awe of the view. Anchor Lynette Romero held a colleague’s hand and wiped away tears after hearing Moreno’s voice when one of her posts was played.

In an interview with the station, Esteban Jimenez, a pilot, said he had known Marciniw since the 1990s. He said Marciniw had been his instructor.

“I just talked to him on Sunday. We were talking about the aviation business and retiring,” he said.

Expert talks about what may have caused the crash

Aviation safety expert Jeff Guzzetti said the alarm sounding in the helicopter’s final video sounds like the low rotor RPM warning horn that signals the main rotor is no longer spinning enough to keep the helicopter in the air.

“It just has all the earmarks of a potential loss of engine power and a dangerous decrease in the main rotor speed,” said Guzzetti who used to investigate crashes for both the NTSB and FAA.

Guzzetti said the pilot appeared to be trying to perform an emergency maneuver to use the wind to force the rotor to spin again much like a breeze turns a windmill. Doing that can create a bit of lift that could help cushion the impact, but Guzzetti said there would have been little opportunity to do that because the helicopter had been hovering at a low altitude beforehand.

There are risks to news helicopters particularly in a major city like Los Angeles where multiple helicopters respond to an incident, but the pilots all coordinate closely over the radio to ensure they maintain a safe distance from each other. The industry also shares best practices to help keep these news flights safe.

“It’s a very unique form of flying. And the community is very good about lessons learned,” Guzzetti said. “And so because of that, you don’t hear about too many of those accidents. So they’re rare, but they do occur, just because the mission is a risky one.”

Other crashes involving news helicopters

The station said this is the second aviation tragedy in its history.

In 1977, a KNBC news helicopter crashed when it ran out of fuel while returning to the station after covering a wildfire in Santa Barbara, killing the pilot and camera operator. The pilot, former U.S. Air Force officer Francis Gary Powers, had been in the news years earlier when he was shot down and captured while flying a U-2 spy plane over the Soviet Union for the CIA, an ordeal portrayed in the movie “Bridge of Spies.”

There have been at least eight fatal crashes involving news helicopters in the U.S. since 2000, killing 16 people, according to a review of federal accident records and news accounts.

They include a 2023 crash in a New Jersey forest that killed the pilot and a photographer aboard a helicopter used by Philadelphia station WPVI and a 2022 crash beside a Charlotte, North Carolina, interstate that killed a pilot and meteorologist during a training flight for WBTV.

A 2007 midair collision in Phoenix of two TV news helicopters that were covering a police chase led the NTSB to recommend that news helicopters have at least two people in the cockpit so the pilot can focus on flying while the reporter focuses on the story.

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Golden reported from Seattle, and Collins from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press writers Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Olga Rodriguez in San Francisco; Kathy McCormack in Concord, New Hampshire; and Allen Breed in Raleigh, North Carolina, contributed.

Federal and county law enforcement announced charges Wednesday against three people in a widening investigation of homelessness services fraud in the L.A. area. Prosecutors previously charged three other people and said they plan to bring “many more” cases.

In Wednesday’s announcement at a news conference, authorities alleged a bribery scheme built on "ghost" clients illustrates a yearslong problem.

"Nobody was minding the shop," the region’s top federal prosecutor, Bill Essayli, told reporters in response to a question from LAist. "There's no vetting. There's no auditing. There's no accounting. It was just a rush to push as much money out the door."

What are the charges?

Authorities arrested Michael Young — founder of the Culver City nonprofit Home At Last — and accused him of using shell companies and fake bids to misappropriate $12 million in taxpayer funds. The allegations include siphoning $1 million into a high-end nightclub, a nearly $50,000 trip to Tahiti and a $140,000 restoration of a vintage Chevy Impala.

Michael Young, 46, of Baldwin Hills

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Courtesy Department of Justice

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A headshot of Alex Soofer shared by a federal prosecutor on X.

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First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli via X

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Scott Turner, the U.S. secretary for Housing and Urban Development, said Young's group received more than $118 million in public dollars for homeless housing since 2019 — over $75 million of it through the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA.

The new cases allege about $12 million in misappropriated funds — almost all of it by Young.

The bribery charges are against Lakiya Malone, an employee of the nonprofit Special Service for Groups, or SSG, who was responsible for referring homeless people to LAHSA-funded housing. Prosecutors say Malone took roughly $180,000 in bribes from Alexander Soofer, head of the now-defunct nonprofit Abundant Blessings, and in exchange steered him "ghost" participants — so he could bill for services never rendered.

Lakiya Malone, 48, of South Los Angeles

Donye Mitchell, 55, of Orange

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Courtesy Department of Justice

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“She was supposed to guard the money, and instead she took bribes,” Essayli, the first assistant U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, said.

In a statement, SSG said it has been working with federal prosecutors “to ensure that any responsible individuals are held accountable” and has strengthened its “protocols and compliance.”

Charges against Soofer were announced in January. Authorities announced Wednesday that he has agreed to plead guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Soofer admitted in his plea agreement to the alleged bribery scheme.

According to prosecutors, Soofer also admitted to "pocketing at least $2 million in taxpayer money for his own personal enrichment and for businesses unrelated to homeless housing," and that he has agreed to forfeit the money to the U.S. government. Prosecutors previously alleged he diverted a much larger amount: at least $10 million.

An LAist investigation found LAHSA kept awarding millions in contract renewals to Soofer’s group even after LAHSA’s own compliance team labeled it "high-risk" for, among other things, billing for services while reporting no enrolled participants.

The third defendant announced Wednesday is Donye Mitchell of the nonprofit Big Blue Umbrella. Mitchell is accused of lying about his experience to land a $1.2 million county-funded grant, receiving $315,000 and using those funds for personal expenses, including bail for a domestic violence arrest and video games. Officials said he's believed to be in Las Vegas and hadn’t been arrested as of Wednesday morning.

Mitchell is “a convicted fraudster, by the way,” Essayli said. He was convicted in 2011 of defrauding California unemployment benefits, according to the criminal complaint in the new case, and was ordered in 2012 to compensate the state $6 million.

The county funds he’s accused of stealing were awarded by a county vendor in 2024 — well after his fraud conviction.

LAist has left phone messages for Young's and Malone’s lawyers inviting their response to the charges and will update this article if they respond. It is unknown if Mitchell, who has not yet been arrested, has a lawyer.

Prosecutors' critique 

Essayli and L.A. County District Attorney Nathan Hochman criticized what they called a glaring lack of oversight of massive spending on homeless services. Hochman cited a court-ordered 2025 report that found L.A. city officials failed to properly track $2.3 billion in homeless funds, largely by outsourcing to LAHSA — which the review found failed to collect accurate data on its vendors and hold them accountable.

"We have not seen the results you would expect for billions of dollars being spent," Hochman said.

“This is the beginning of these prosecutions,” he added.  ”Many more” are expected in the coming months, he said.

Continuing trouble for LAHSA 

The new charges were announced the day after LAHSA's governing commission decided to give up its responsibility for federal dollars, including applying for roughly $240 million a year in federal homelessness funding and running the annual homeless count.

Also on Tuesday, Mayor Karen Bass skipped a congressional hearing on LAHSA's fraud problems, calling it a "politically motivated" attack.

LAHSA, now led by Interim CEO Gita O'Neill, said in a statement Wednesday that it has "zero tolerance for fraud, waste, or the exploitation of public resources" and commended prosecutors’ action.

The agency said it terminated its contracts with Young’s nonprofit in June after evidence of wrongdoing emerged, and is pursuing recovery of cash seized from Young. The statement added that LAHSA fully cooperated with the federal task force and that no LAHSA staff are implicated — only "external provider executives and outside contractors.”

Essayli was asked Wednesday whether LAHSA's past or current leadership has been culpable.

"That's actually a very difficult question to answer," he said.

"It is not against federal law to be incompetent, unfortunately. I wish it were,” Essayli said. “So just because the people at the helm did not do a good job, that does not give us the authority to arrest them."

“ I assure you, if anyone in power engaged in violation of federal law, we will not hesitate to charge them.”

Mellody Hobson, businesswoman and Lucas Museum co-founder, has stepped down from the LA28 Board of Directors, LA28 confirmed to LAist Wednesday.

In an email reviewed by LAist, Hobson said that the demands of steering the newly-opened Lucas Museum were too great to continue serving on the 35-person board, which is led by Casey Wasserman.

The move comes after pressure from local activists who sought to meet with Hobson to raise their concerns about the Olympics and Paralympics, including how the Games would affect South Los Angeles where the Lucas Museum is located.

Reverend Gary Bernard Williams, a pastor in South L.A., told LAist late last month, weeks before the news of her departure, that he believed “she could be a person that could be a counterbalance to the other members of the committee that really do not have the same kind of care and concern for what happens to our people.”

Williams, a member of a coalition of labor and community groups called the Fair Games Coalition, said he saw Hobson as the group’s best shot at influencing the LA28 Board, which includes a number of allies of President Donald Trump as well as some city appointees.

Hobson did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.