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Why it matters: Malibu schools advocates, including parents and politicians, have pushed to break up the school district for more than a decade and argued that local control would better serve students. Santa Monica community members previously have raised concerns the split would leave the community’s schools with fewer resources and a higher-need population of students.

What the agreements say: The three agreements outline how the two new districts would share property tax revenue, divide existing resources and create a group of stakeholders to oversee the transition. The Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board unanimously approved the agreements Dec. 2.

What's next: District and Malibu leaders have said splitting the district will require action from an outside body, for example through special state legislation or action from the state Board of Education. “It’s not going to happen next year or the year after this,” Malibu City Councilmember Bruce Silverstein said. “It’s going to be a while, but the sooner it can get done, the better, and we can start tonight.”

The U.S. Department of Education announced Tuesday that it had reached a proposed settlement agreement to end a popular, yet controversial Biden-era student loan repayment plan.

The Saving on a Valuable Education plan, better known as SAVE, was the most flexible and generous of all income-driven repayment plans, promising expedited loan forgiveness and monthly payments as low as $0 for low-income borrowers. Republican state attorneys general, led by Missouri, sued the Biden administration, arguing in court that SAVE was too generous.

The legal challenges put all SAVE borrowers in limbo for months, during which they were not required to make payments on their loans — even after many had already spent years in a pandemic payment pause. Interest resumed accruing on SAVE loans in August.

"The law is clear: if you take out a loan, you must pay it back," Under Secretary of Education Nicholas Kent said in a statement announcing the proposed agreement. "Thanks to the State of Missouri and other states fighting against this egregious federal overreach, American taxpayers can now rest assured they will no longer be forced to serve as collateral for illegal and irresponsible student loan policies."

Tuesday's agreement, pending court approval, would end the long legal battle over SAVE by ending SAVE itself. The Education Department would commit not to enroll more borrowers in SAVE, to deny all pending SAVE applications and to move the roughly 7 million borrowers still enrolled in SAVE into other repayment plans — though some of those plans are also in flux.

The department also said student loan borrowers would have "a limited time to select a new, legal repayment plan." Borrowers will have to choose between two types of plans: 1.) fixed payment plans or 2.) plans with payments based on a borrower's income.

The two new plans created by Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will roll out in July 2026, and will include a revised standard plan and a new income-driven plan called the Repayment Assistance Plan. Though SAVE borrowers will be expected to change plans before then.

The SAVE plan's days were already numbered. Under the OBBBA, borrowers would have had to change plans by July 1, 2028. Tuesday's news would move that deadline up, though the administration has not provided a timeframe for the changes.

If the proposal is approved by the court, transitioning millions of borrowers to other plans will be a Herculean feat for loan servicing companies that handle day-to-day loan operations.

"It's gonna be bumpy," says Scott Buchanan, head of the Student Loan Servicing Alliance. "Remember, SAVE borrowers have not been in repayment for years. They're gonna have a ton of questions and will need a ton of hand-holding to get back into repayment."

The settlement arrives as millions of borrowers are struggling to keep up with their payments.

"We are sitting on the precipice of millions of borrowers defaulting on their loans," says Persis Yu, of Protect Borrowers. "And instead of choosing to defend a plan that would have been affordable for these borrowers, this Department of Education has capitulated to the AGs and is going to make life much more expensive."

The American Enterprise Institute, AEI, recently published an analysis of the latest federal student loan data: In addition to the 5.5 million borrowers who are currently in default, another 3.7 million are more than 270 days late on their payments and on the edge of default. Another 2.7 million borrowers are in the earlier stages of delinquency. In all, some 12 million borrowers are worryingly behind.
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Five California correctional officers who were accused of sexually assaulting incarcerated people over the last dozen years remain employed by the state, according to a new audit from the state prisons’ inspector general.

The audit, released last week, is a twice-a-year summary of how the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation addresses complaints about its staff members. Overall, the inspector general found fault with the internal affairs department’s investigations into prison guard misconduct.

The audit labeled 86% of the prison system’s internal affairs disciplinary and criminal caseload as “inadequate” or “needs improvement” — only 14% of the cases handled by the internal affairs department were rated “adequate.” Inadequate means there were significant problems with the investigation that affected its final outcome. The less-serious label, “needs improvement,” meant that the process had problems, but none so serious that they compromised the investigation.

It comes as the department faces what the report called “a wave” of lawsuits from incarcerated and formerly incarcerated women who allege they were sexually abused by prison staff. The audit said at least 279 women have sued the department, and they have accused at least 83 prison employees of sexual misconduct.

The inspector general report does not include the names of the officers or even identify the prisons where they work, which is in keeping with its past disciplinary audits. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation did not immediately return calls and emails seeking comment for this story.

California has two prisons that primarily house women. At the larger prison, the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, former guard Gregory Rodriguez was found guilty of 64 counts of sexual abuse in January, The Fresno Bee reported, and later sentenced to 224 years in prison.

Thirteen incarcerated or formerly incarcerated women testified against him. A 2023 investigation by The Guardian found that women had made reports about Rodriguez as early as 2014. He worked at the prison until 2022.

As Rodriguez’s case unfolded, the inspector general’s office learned of other sex assault lawsuits. The inspector general’s office in the new report said it looked at 68 cases and it faulted prison lawyers for being too slow in referring names to internal investigators who could have developed disciplinary cases against officers.

On average, the audit said it took nine months for the corrections department’s legal staff to send cases to internal investigators. “Delayed investigation of sexual assault significantly impairs the integrity and effectiveness of the investigative process,” the audit said.

The audit then described three cases involving six officers, five of whom continue to work for state prisons.

In a separate case not connected to the “wave” of lawsuits, internal investigators took so long to review allegations of sexual assault that a lieutenant accused by a dozen women was able to retire before facing discipline, the audit said.

The inspector general’s office wrote that the officer allegedly traded chewing gum, a radio and marijuana for sexual favors between 2021 and 2023, and then lied to the prison system’s internal affairs unit when asked about it.

The internal affairs unit “unnecessarily delayed the completion of the investigation, which prevented the department from imposing discipline for some allegations,” the audit found.

Other violations ranged from minor administrative chicanery, like two guards who allegedly faked the numbers in a prisoner count so they could use the time to eat Thanksgiving dinner instead, to allegations that a prison guard loudly, publicly and untruthfully indicated to other inmates that a prisoner was acting as an informant.

The audit reflects a chaotic process for even routine investigations. In a January 2024 case, one of eight prison guards who had broken up a fight struck an incarcerated person with a baton, even though the incarcerated person had already “disengaged.”

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation was aware of the case in January 2024, according to the lawsuit, but didn’t refer it to internal affairs until June 2024, according to the audit. An investigator didn’t start conducting interviews until August 2024. Then the case was reassigned to a second investigator, who didn’t start interviews until November 2024, and tried to close the case without interviewing the incarcerated person, the guard who allegedly struck him or any witnesses.

Then, the second investigator went on extended leave, handing the case off to a third investigator who had weeks to wrap up an investigation that is supposed to take months to complete. Ultimately, the prison system was handed a case four days before the deadline for disciplinary action with “a wholly deficient investigative report.”

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

'Tis the season to be jolly. That is, unless you're a worker who was banking on getting a seasonal job and haven't been able to find one this season.

Every year, American retailers hire extra help as the holiday shopping season approaches. In recent years, these jobs have numbered roughly around half a million per season. These seasonal jobs run the gamut. Think temporary cashiers, gift wrappers, sales associates, greeters, merchandisers, warehouse unloaders, delivery drivers.

But the quintessential — and most iconic — seasonal worker has got to be… Santa Claus. In addition to sliding down chimneys to deliver presents on Christmas, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas takes gigs at places like malls, department stores, corporate events, and private parties in the weeks leading up to Dec. 25.

However, this year, Santa may be making fewer trips from the North Pole than in years past. As we report in this week's Planet Money newsletter, demand for professional Santas seems to have cooled. It's one small part of a broader decline in the demand for seasonal workers this holiday season. It got us wondering how the market for Santas fluctuates with the business cycle, which sectors of the Santa market are recession-proof, and whether a decline in Santa demand this season could be a sign that the U.S. economy is going down the chimney.

The Grinch that stole Santa visits

Mitch Allen is the founder and "Head Elf" at Hire Santa, an agency that provides Santas for holiday events around the nation and world (we talked to Allen in a past Planet Money newsletter). Allen estimates there are probably around nine or ten thousand professional or "near professional" Santa Clauses in the United States.

Sure, Allen says, his company may occasionally get requests for Santa at "Christmas in July"-style events, when Santa shows up in a Hawaiian shirt and flip flops. But, no surprise, prime time for his business is right now. He says demand for Santa typically begins in early November, picks up steam on weekends in December and explodes the week before Christmas, especially on Christmas Eve. "It really falls off after Christmas Eve, like midnight Christmas Eve," Allen says.

Allen says he's seeing less demand for Santa visits this season. His leading indicator for Santa demand is what he calls "leads," or inquiries to his business to book Santa at events. On that metric, he says, "we're down almost 27% year to date, compared with last year. And last year was down compared with the year before."

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Hire Santa

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My family has experienced this decline in Santa appearances first hand. Last year, when our son was about 15 months old, we took him for his first time to sit on Santa's lap. A hotel in Lake Tahoe had a public event that served as a toy drive for Toys for Tots. There was festive music, ice skating, skiing, hot chocolate, sleigh rides, and, of course, Santa. To be honest, our son was too young to understand why we were putting him on an old, bearded man's lap, but the whole experience was fun for us parents and we got cute pictures. We wanted to go back this year, but the hotel decided not to host its community event this year. No Santa. Bah, humbug!

Candles in a blackout of official economic statistics

We're living through a weird economic moment right now, with mixed signals about how good or bad the economy is doing. And we just had the longest government shutdown in American history, which not only hurt the economy, but basically created a blackout for official economic statistics. Since the end of the shutdown, the Trump administration has delayed and even canceled some economic reports, and we're now all sort of in the dark, trying to figure out what the heck the economy really looks like right now.

But there are some candles illuminating what's going on — and this seeming decline of demand for Santa could be one small one suggesting that the overall economy is sleighing downward. It's part of a broader decline in the demand for seasonal workers this year, something a number of sources have reported in recent weeks. For instance, back in late September, Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, a human-resources firm, released their annual seasonal hiring report. They projected that hiring this holiday retail season would "fall to its lowest point since the recession-hit season of 2009."

Part of the story could be that holiday shopping is increasingly moving online, and brick-and-mortar retailers are struggling and maybe hiring less help. That's an ongoing, long-term structural change to the economy that doesn't say much about whether we're heading into recession. However, there are a number of signs that softened demand for seasonal workers is related more to a broader slowdown in the economy.

Andrew Challenger, a senior vice president at Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, told us we haven't seen a miraculous turnaround in the market for seasonal workers since they issued their projection back in late September. Even more, he says, the broader labor market seems to have only gotten worse since they made their projection. In November, his company, which also tracks layoffs, reported an alarming spike in companies announcing layoffs. That includes prominent online retailers like Amazon and delivery companies like UPS. "So we have two signals, and both are not good for the labor market or seasonal hiring," Challenger says.

Likewise, Indeed Hiring Lab, which leverages the job site Indeed's large amount of data to provide insights about the labor market, recently reported they're also seeing bad news in the job market this season.

"What we're seeing right now in seasonal hiring is kind of a microcosm of what we're seeing in the broader labor market, which is that things are cooling down, things are slowing down," says Cory Stahle, a senior economist at Indeed Hiring Lab.

Is Santa recession-proof?

The National Bureau of Economic Research, the official body that calls recessions, defines a recession as "a significant decline in economic activity that is spread across the economy and lasts more than a few months" (listen to our Planet Money episode, "Recession Referees," for more about this). The lack of official economic statistics for the last few months makes it hard to say whether we're on our way to a recession — or whether we're already in one.

But, while reporting this story, we've found ourselves wondering: could declining demand for Santa visits during the holidays potentially be a recession indicator? Like, can it be a sign we're in a ho-ho-horrible economy? Do paid Santa appearances boom in good economic times and go bust during recessions? Or is demand for Santa fairly recession-proof?

Hire Santa didn't officially launch until 2012 — after the Great Recession — and Head Elf Allen couldn't tell us much about the hard data on how Santa demand fluctuates over the business cycle. Moreover, his business doesn't capture the full market for Santa, including DIY Santas where people buy or rent Santa costumes and do events themselves. But Allen did offer us a theory of how he thinks demand for professional Santas is affected by recessions.

For one, he says, there will always be parts of the economy where demand for Santa is fairly recession-proof. He says that many businesses use Santa appearances to "help drive traffic and associate their brand with Christmas." In this way, a store or mall paying for Santa to sit in a chair and converse with children could be seen as a kind of loss leader, a product or service that costs a company money as a way to attract more customers, nudge them to shop, and help their business make more money. Think like free or cheap alcohol at a casino. Allen says that, even in recessions, certain types of businesses and organizations will always want to hire Santa.

"But I don't think that translates to a company party or a home visit," Allen says. "That's not something that you have to have. You can go to the mall and see Santa. You can go to outdoor stores and see Santa. You can see Santa if you want to. You don't have to have 'em come to your home or office."

Indeed, that's a pattern that Allen believes he's seeing with a cursory look at his company's data. He believes the primary driver of the decline of demand for paid Santa visits is from private holiday parties and events.

"Consumers are not reaching out to have Santa or Mrs. Claus or other holiday entertainers come to their home or office for a Christmas party," Allen says. "And so I view that as like people scaling back their own Christmas plans. They may still be having parties but they're not having sort of blowout parties with Santa and other holiday characters there." Allen pointed to recent reports that companies are laying off workers and that consumer credit card debt is at an all time high. It makes sense why people might be scaling back.

So, yeah, maybe a big decline in Santa appearances could be a recession indicator.

The good news, Allen says, is that, while overall demand is down, he's still seeing plenty of requests for Santa.

In other words, don't worry, Santa is coming to town. There just might be fewer places or times to see him this year.
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