The Brief

Hugs, high-fives and handmade signs welcomed students and their families back to Pasadena's Don Benito Elementary School on Wednesday.

“You feel the love,” said parent Ravea Miller. “It's always been love. But you just feel it more [today] because everybody was affected.”

The majority of Pasadena schools that shut down during the peak of the Eaton Fire have now reopened. Pasadena Unified staggered reopenings over two weeks, and the final nine campuses welcomed students back Thursday.

Unanswered questions remain about rebuilding, how to make up for three weeks of lost in-person schooling and how the fallout from the fires could exacerbate existing financial challenges.

There’s also relief.

“We're just excited, ready to get back and get the kids back into school, and get them back into the groove again, and make things go back halfway normal,” said Gilbert Moore as he walked his kids into Washington Elementary STEM Magnet School on Monday morning.

Taking stock of feelings

Some students grappled with mixed emotions.

“I'm happy that I didn't get affected by the fires, but I'm sad because other people got affected by the fires,” said fifth-grader Jezzebelle Hernandez.

The district estimates that more than two-thirds of its 14,000 students and 1,387 employees live in evacuation zones.

“We don't know if they're going to come in smiling or they're going to come in crying,” said Cherise Holmes, a wellness coach at Washington.

Dulce Bernabe said her second-grade daughter was worried about her school and her friends during the closures.

“Creo que les sirve mucho estar aquí,” Bernabe said as she walked out of the school. She thinks its helpful for the students to be in class because it shows them that this is their reality. "Tenemos que seguir viviendo con lo que haya pasado.” We have to continue living with what's happened, she said.

A ‘warm and inviting’ return to school

According to district data, an average of 82% of students showed up on the first day of class at the first 11 schools to reopen, and at most schools, attendance has increased in subsequent days.

Don Benito first-grade teacher Amethyst Juknavorian invited her students to wear their pajamas and bring their favorite stuffed animal to the first day of class in more than two weeks.

“We never start like that; we always start with our instruction,” Juknavorian said. “But, for this week, I want it to be just more warm and inviting.”

Don Benito Elementary School first-grade teacher Amethyst Juknavorian, right, welcomes students with a pajama day on Wednesday.

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The students sat in a circle with their stuffed animals in their laps and one by one (and sometimes all at once) shared their feelings and experiences.

They ranged from fear to boredom. A boy in blue plaid pajama bottoms recounted how a tree fell in his apartment courtyard and he saw a dead squirrel — which prompted his peers to shout out dead animals that they’ve seen.

“That does happen,” Juknavorian said.

Abel Hernandez wore a navy blue onesie with a candy cane pattern and held a fuzzy plush longhorn cow. He said he felt sad and nervous.

“The wildfire almost hit my house,” Hernandez said.

LAist spoke with two education researchers who said it’s not the lost time in the classroom that has the greatest potential to negatively affect students, but the stress and trauma of being evacuated, losing a home, or witnessing others in the community go through those experiences.

 ”It's important for educators to provide opportunities for young people to read, talk about [and] make sense of their experiences during the fires,” said UCLA education professor John Rogers. “Because we want young people to come away from this really difficult time feeling a sense of their personal power, as well as how they're connected to others who care about them and about their future.”

USC education, psychology and neuroscience professor Mary Helen Immordino-Yang said young children process disturbing, distressing and frightening experiences throughout a lifetime.

“They are woven into the story of how the world can work and how the world does work and what it means to be safe, what it means to live in a home, what it means to have a school and friends and adults around you who care about you,” Immordino-Yang said.

Fifth-grader Jezzebelle Hernandez and first-grader Abel Hernanandez attend Don Benito Elementary, which reopened on Wednesday. "The mountain looked beautiful, but now it's not," Abel said, referring to the scorched slopes in the distance.

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Gilbert Moore walks his children, Patrick, left, and Daisy, right to Washington STEM Magnet Elementary. Moore, who is also a custodian in the district, said crews worked days, nights and weekends to clean up the schools.

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The Los Angeles County Office of Education and other organizations have deployed dozens of additional mental health staff to Pasadena schools since they reopened.

Juknavorian said she’s already requested support for one child who experienced some anxiety on the first day back, but was “pleasantly surprised” that her students were largely excited to return.

“Children are very resilient,” Juknavorian said. “They just have a gift of just living life and being so full of hope.”

She said in her more than 20 years of teaching, she’s watched students rebound from the loss of parents, divorce and the COVID-19 pandemic.

“They can see all, all the destruction and the homes gone, but they're going to smile again,” Juknavorian said. “They're going to move forward because that's what we do.”

Post-wildfire clean-up

Pasadena Unified has said in statements that more than 1,500 workers joined existing maintenance staff to clean schools, remove more than 159 tons of debris and the top layer of sand from playgrounds.

Wildfires can release chemicals from plastics, lead, asbestos and other toxic substances. The smoke and ash makes the air dangerous to breathe, particularly for children and pregnant people.

Several of the parents who accompanied their students on the first day back followed them into the classroom.

“Other than the worried faces on some of the parents, everything’s looked good,” Henry Ortega said after dropping his daughter off at Washington Elementary STEM Magnet on Monday.

“I drive by a lot and I've seen them working day and night,” Ortega said. “So I know they did a good job.”

After cleaning, the district tested the surfaces inside schools for soot, char and ash and published the results online.

“Every result that's come back has been positive and that our schools are safe places to be,” said Pasadena Schools Supt. Elizabeth Blanco.

California does not mandate specific cleaning or testing before schools located near wildfires can reopen, nor does it require ongoing monitoring.

Though recent rain has tamped down the ash, as it dries and debris clean-up continues, toxic materials can become airborne again.

Blanco said the district will monitor air quality and keep children indoors and restrict outdoor activity as needed.

District staff said they are communicating with the Army Corp of Engineers about debris removal and are looking into installing additional air sensors.

“We’re hearing you, we want you to feel safe returning to schools,” Blanco said after listening to parents and families give hours of public comment at a board meeting Thursday and question the district's reopening plan. "We're responsible for all of your safety ... without the regulations to help us.”

Students return, but questions remain

Each of Pasadena Unified's 14,000 students now have the option to attend school in person, but there are still a lot of unknowns.

To start: The fire destroyed or otherwise forced the relocation of six campuses, including Eliot Arts Magnet Academy, Altadena Arts Magnet Elementary, three independent charter schools and Franklin Elementary, which closed in 2020. The district has also moved several early education programs.

“We had to fit many pieces into this puzzle,” said Chief Business Officer Saman Bravo-Karimi. “We had to figure out what was best overall under very difficult circumstances.”

Bravo-Karimi noted the offers include less space than schools had before and that the district is building additional portable classrooms.

Pasadena voters approved a $900 million facilities bond and $5 million parcel tax in November to fund repairs at existing campuses, mental health support and educator wages. The district’s board of education has resolved to rebuild Eliot, though no details about cost or timeline exist yet.

Charter school leaders have not yet accepted the district’s offer to lease space at three other campuses, according to a presentation at Thursday’s board meeting.

“We created a plan to make sure they had a place within the PUSD where they could return to school at the same time we were returning to school,” Blanco said.

Odyssey South parent Veronica Jauriqui said she doesn't feel comfortable sending her son to the proposed relocation site because of its proximity to the wildfire burn zone. Several other parents have raised similar concerns.

 "We've lost our neighborhood,” Jauriqui said. “We don't want him to lose his friends and his school.”

The region’s schools are no stranger to historic upheaval. White families fled Pasadena schools following a 1970 desegregation order.

There are also the financial questions. Like other Los Angeles-area districts, Pasadena Unified enrollment has declined in recent years— 19% in the last decade.

So far, the district has counted 862 families who lost homes in the fire, and it’s unclear how many may be permanently displaced.

The district reports 90 students have unenrolled since the start of the fires. Fewer students means less funding, because California funds public schools based on an average of how many students show up each day.

Learning recovery will be another long-term issue. Results from national standardized tests show students in California — and throughout the nation — have not made up reading and math skills lost during the pandemic.

District Chief Academic Officer Helen Chan Hill said students had access to online learning materials during the closures and the district's focus on social and emotional learning as school reopened was informed by other schools that have experienced disasters.

“You have to ensure that basic needs are being met so that academics can really flourish when the time is right,” Hill said.

Blanco said the district was already working to address learning loss through summer programs.

“ We were working on that prior to COVID and making sure that students were learning grade-level content as well as making up skills that they need,” Blanco said.

The district has not announced any academic recovery programs specific to the wildfires.

UCLA’s Rogers suggested that instead of adding additional days to the calendar, schools consider how to create opportunities for students to collaborate on creative work over spring break and during the summer.

“ I think it's by taking action and showing that you can do things together with others that young people will feel a greater sense of belonging and will feel more whole in the process,” Rogers said.

The Las Vegas Sphere has become the highest grossing arena in the world since opening three years ago. It's featured residencies by legendary bands like U2 and Phish.

And now the Sphere is expanding — and reshaping what a live entertainment venue can be.

“All of that which is around you is being controlled and created by the artists and the people that are involved in the production,” said Joel Veenstra, chair of the Department of Drama and head of stage management at UC Irvine, who joined AirTalk, LAist’s daily news program.

The screen and the tech behind it

Phish perform during night three of their nine-night run at Sphere in April

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The creative outlet the Sphere provides artists is thanks to cutting-edge technology. The curved dome houses a 366-foot-tall and 516-foot-wide screen that resembles that of a planetarium, making it the largest high-resolution LED screen on earth.

Glen Nowak, professor of architecture at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, says Las Vegas is the pioneer of integrated resorts — mega buildings that blend concepts of casinos, restaurants, stores, and other amenities.

He says the Sphere is doing the same thing in the performing arts venue space.

“Typically, a stage is framed, and your attention is focused straight ahead, but the Sphere really inverts that,” he said.

Training the next generation

UC Irvine offers a themed entertainment and immersive entertainment class every three years as part of a graduate program. Some alumni of the program actually worked on the Sphere’s development.

“We look at the world and space with our design faculty and look at how we can prepare people for this field,” Veenstra said.

Experiences at the Sphere

LAist listeners shared what they experienced at the venue.

Phish perform during night three of their nine-night run at Sphere in April.

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The Sphere during UFC 306: Riyadh Season Noche

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The Grateful Dead logo, Steal Your Face Skull, is displayed on the Sphere, promoting the residency.

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Taking the Sphere beyond Vegas

Sphere Entertainment Co., owned by business and sports mogul James Dolan, who most notably owns the New York Knicks and Madison Square Garden, plans to bring the Sphere concept to Washington, D.C. and Abu Dhabi, the company announced on its website.

“There's a lot of opportunity because people want an experience that's lived and feel something different than just staying at home on their screen,” Veenstra said. “It's kind of like what the theater has historically been, but now enhanced.”

To see a list of what events are coming up, here's the Sphere schedule.

Eleven weeks into the Iran war and a global energy shock, California drivers are paying the highest gas prices in the nation, an average of $6.15 a gallon this week.

The pain at the pump is colliding with California’s ambitious push away from fossil fuels, as refinery closures, supply disruptions and a deepening debate over reliance on imported oil and gas raise new questions about whether the state can keep gasoline affordable during the transition.

Here are five things to know about how Sacramento is responding to the crisis and what it could mean for prices in the months ahead.

California can see six weeks out — after that, prices could rise.

California can confidently forecast gasoline and crude oil shipments coming in through about mid-June, and supply looks stable through that window, Siva Gunda, vice chair of the California Energy Commission, told an Assembly oversight hearing last week.

After that, oil and gas will cost significantly more to secure, he said.

California can outbid the rest of the world for gasoline and crude oil, pulling shipments away from Asia and other markets. But that bidding war comes at a cost, and consumers will pay it at the pump, Gunda told the committee.

To hedge against that uncertainty, Gunda said California is negotiating long-term supply deals with Asian refiners that could lock in another three to six months of certainty.

“Liquidity, in the short-term, is okay,” Gunda said. “As we move forward, it's really about making sure more ships are coming, more marine vessels are coming.”

As refineries close, imports are filling the gap.

The Iran war has exposed California’s growing reliance on imports of both crude oil and gasoline. The state needs to import more supply as in-state refineries shut down.

Neale Mahoney, a Stanford economist, told the committee that imports can be a benefit. They add competition and lower prices, since newer overseas refineries often produce gasoline more cheaply than California's.

Other experts agree. UC Berkeley energy economist Severin Borenstein, also at the hearing, said California's resilience now depends on building out port, pipeline and storage capacity to handle imports, not on bringing new refineries online.

As the war has dragged on, California refiners have shifted crude sourcing away from the Persian Gulf toward Latin America, Alaska and Canada, Gunda said at the hearing last week. The state met about 20% of its refined-product demand through imports in the year before the war began.

“Fundamentally, we have to recognize we are going to have fewer refineries, and the solution is imports,” Borenstein said.

The oil industry says imports are the problem, not the answer.

But the oil industry is pushing back, saying that relying on increased imports is the wrong strategy. California's fuel system has been "weakened by design" by state policies pushing refiners out of the state, said Jodie Muller, president and CEO of the Western States Petroleum Association — a characterization energy economists dispute.

Because California requires that cars burn a specialized fuel blend, shipments can be tougher to source and take longer to arrive, exposing consumers to delays and volatility every time something goes wrong globally.

“Continuing to move to more and more imports will put this state at more and more risk,” Muller said last week. “If you think we are in a precarious position right now, we will continue to see more and more volatility.”

And the oil industry argues that the playing field is tilted. California refiners face some of the strictest rules in the world, the industry argues, while imported gasoline is produced under far weaker standards before it’s shipped halfway around the world. California requires importers to certify their fuels meet its standards, but the industry argues that foreign producers operate under less stringent environmental rules.

$6.50 or $7-plus? Experts can't agree.

In the end, what you feel most acutely is the price you pay at the pump. And even the experts aren't sure where things will land.

Asked what consumers should expect if the conflict drags on, Gunda said California prices will likely settle "under seven, more like $6.50." He explained that demand starts dropping once gas crosses about $5.50 a gallon, and California is already seeing drivers shift from higher-priced stations to cheaper ones.

Borenstein is less optimistic. If the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway that carried more than 20 million barrels of oil a day before the start of the war, stays closed another 60 days, the price of crude could climb by another $40 to $80 a barrel, he said. Each $40 increase translates into about $1 per gallon at the pump. He called that scenario plausible, and warned there's almost nothing California policy can do about it.

“Unfortunately, I think that would be a crisis,” Borenstein said. “I know we all hope that doesn't happen and that the flow of oil resumes, but the reality is we are on borrowed time as we run down inventories.”

Will high gas prices boost EV sales?

California has spent years trying to push drivers out of gas cars. Now sky-high gas prices may be sparking interest in some consumers.

EV sales in California slumped last year after the Trump administration revoked a key federal tax incentive, undercutting California’s plan to steadily replace gas-powered cars with electric ones to meet its climate goals.

Gov. Gavin Newsom is now pushing to revive some of those sales through a new state incentive under negotiation in the budget. It’s too early to know whether pain at the pump is translating into a broad rebound in EV demand. But some consumers are already making the switch.

When gas prices recently climbed past $6 a gallon in Redding, Victor Ireland said his daughter decided there was “no way” she wanted a gas-powered car after watching the family spend more than $140 on a single Sacramento round trip in their minivan.

The search wasn’t easy. EV inventories have dropped across the country since expiring federal tax credits briefly boosted demand. The family searched dealerships across the West, from Washington to Kansas, after his daughter settled on a specific model: the Fiat 500e Giorgio Armani Collector's Edition. They found a dealer in Utah that could ship the vehicle to California.

Ireland said the soaring cost of gasoline only reinforced his family’s decision. “You just charge it and go,” he said.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman took the stand on Tuesday to defend himself against accusations from co-founder-turned-adversary Elon Musk that he "stole a charity" by converting the maker of ChatGPT into a for-profit juggernaut.

The trial, now in its third week, pits two of the tech world's biggest personalities against one another in a high-stakes clash that could usher in major changes for one of the world's leading artificial intelligence companies and potentially alter the AI landscape.

Musk's lawyers made the case that OpenAI, Altman and OpenAI president Greg Brockman, with the help of investments from Microsoft, jettisoned OpenAI's founding mission of being a non-profit focused on creating advanced AI for the benefit of humanity. Instead, the Musk team argues that they enriched themselves by creating a for-profit subsidiary that now effectively controls the nonprofit.

OpenAI's legal team has argued that Musk is motivated by sour grapes and is out to damage a competitor. And on the stand Tuesday, Altman pushed back against the notion that Musk actually cares about OpenAI.

"Mr. Musk did try to kill it," he said, adding that Musk launched a competitor called xAI, tried to poach its talent, and alleged that he engaged in "business interference."

The dispute goes back nearly a decade to when the founders of OpenAI — including Musk — decided they needed to create a for-profit entity in order to attract top talent and raise big money to develop competitive AI technology.

Musk, who donated $38 million to OpenAI early on, wanted control of the for-profit; the other founders were against it.

On the stand, Altman testified that the co-founders felt no single person should control AGI, or artificial general intelligence, and that Musk was not a good fit for the company.

Musk left the board in 2018, and Altman called that a morale boost for employees who did not like his "hardcore" approach.

The trial has opened a rare window into the machinations of some of Silicon Valley's most ambitious tech entrepreneurs as they debated the future of AI and wrangled over investment plans and control of OpenAI. It would go on to become a global leader in AI thanks to the launch of ChatGPT in 2022.

OpenAI's lawyers have drawn on once-private text messages and emails to try to paint Musk as power-hungry and initially supportive of plans for the for-profit to attract huge investments. The OpenAI team also tried to undermine Musk's credibility by highlighting messages that appeared to show that he tried to poach talent from OpenAI before he left the company's board, and was kept appraised of its decisions after leaving by then-board member Shivon Zilis, who is the mother of four of Musk's children.

Musk's lawyers, meanwhile, have tried to make the case that Altman and Brockman were intent on reaping personal profits from OpenAI despite its original nonprofit mission. OpenAI's nonprofit still exists, and owns the for-profit entity, now valued in the hundreds of billions of dollars. But Musk argues that it has been sidelined.

While cross examining Altman, Musk's attorney Steven Molo tried to undercut his credibility, asking if he was trustworthy. "I believe so," said Altman. When Molo asked Altman if he always told the truth, Altman replied: "I'm sure there are some times in my life when I did not." Asked if he had been called a liar by business associates, Altman said: "I have heard people say that."

If the United States District Court for the Northern District of California finds Altman, Brockman and Microsoft liable for Musk's two civil claims — "breach of charitable trust" and "unjust enrichment" — Musk has asked for them to "disgorge" up to $150 billion to the nonprofit entity.

He is also seeking the unwinding of the for-profit and wants Altman and Brockman removed from their leadership roles. That could radically reshape OpenAI and potentially undercut its AI development efforts.

Closing arguments are on Thursday, and a decision from an advisory jury and the judge overseeing the case, Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, are possible next week.

Rachael Myrow, Senior Editor of KQED's Silicon Valley News Desk, contributed to this story from Oakland, Calif.

Microsoft is a financial supporter of NPR.
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