The Brief

For four years, Stanford student Liam Anderson has gone to what he calls his “full-time job.” He puts on his uniform, laces up his shoes and just runs. As captain of the Stanford track and field team, the public policy major has put in 20 to 40 hours of running, conditioning and physical therapy each week — a pace he’ll continue when he returns to campus this fall to pursue his master’s degree.

It’s a lot of time away from academics, with little financial reward, which is partly why Anderson has been supporting and advising California lawmakers on new legislation that could dramatically alter college athletes’ compensation.

“This is the only labor market where the primary labor input — the players — receive essentially zero compensation from their employers,” Anderson said. “It is very difficult on a philosophical level to argue that these players do not deserve some form of compensation. To say a scholarship is enough is laughable.”

Assembly Bill 252, or the College Athlete Protection Act, would require California colleges to put some of their sports revenue into a fund that would pay student-athletes when they complete their degrees. Athletes could earn as much as $25,000 for each year they participate in their sport.

But the bill has been controversial. Last week, its author, Assemblymember Chris Holden, put it on hold until next year after opponents — including the University of California, California State University and Team USA — argued it would further prioritize men’s basketball and football, causing campuses with tight athletic budgets to divert resources away from less lucrative sports. The NCAA has also opposed it.

Supporters say the first-in-the-nation bill, which the state Senate could take up again as early as January, bolsters athletes’ rights by giving them a cut of the revenue they generate. It’s the latest flashpoint in the debate over student-athlete compensation, in which California has played a leading role.

As written, the bill would also require colleges to comply with a variety of health and safety standards, including paying all out-of-pocket health care costs for athletes injured on the field, and providing players with financial and life skills training. Sports agents seeking to represent student-athletes would need to be certified by the state. A 21-member panel appointed by the Legislature and governor, with seats set aside for former college athletes, would oversee compliance.

The degree completion fund, however, has drawn the most attention since it would be a further blow to the amateurism model in college sports. California already catalyzed change within the NCAA when it allowed student-athletes to make money off their name, image and likeness. NCAA policy now permits athletes to sign endorsement deals, but that money comes from private sponsors rather than the universities themselves. Athletes receiving it would be eligible for the degree completion funds, too.

Combined, California’s 26 Division I schools earned $1.2 billion in revenue in fiscal year 2022, according to the U.S. Department of Education. That includes media contracts, ticket sales, investment interest income, student activity fees and alumni contributions.

“Revenue is being generated. There are TV rights that are being negotiated for someone to make a lot of money, and it is not the student-athlete,” said Holden, a Pasadena Democrat who played college basketball for San Diego State from 1978 to 1982.

“This is an opportunity to really recognize the kind of sacrifices that many of these athletes put on the line on behalf of universities and the NCAA, institutions that make billions of dollars,” Holden added.

Money for the degree completion fund would come from a university’s existing athletic revenue. Beginning in 2024, if an athletic department makes more annual revenue than it did in the 2021-22 academic year, the difference would be deposited in the fund. Athletes’ payments would depend in part on how much revenue their sport generates and how much their team already gives out in athletic grants.

Football and men’s basketball make up a majority of revenue brought in by athletic departments, and some of those funds currently go to subsidize other sports. That caused some supporters of those lower-revenue sports — such as swimming and volleyball — to worry that the bill would sap much-needed funding from their programs.

“If schools do not have the budget to fund sports, they will cut sports,” says an open letter from Women’s Sports Foundation CEO Danette Leighton to Holden. “If this were the case, we know from history that women’s sports and men’s Olympic sports would be among the first to be cut.”

Of the 21 NCAA Division I sports, 19 will be contested at either the 2024 Summer Olympics or 2026 Winter Olympics.

After initial concerns that the bill would violate Title IX by threatening the funding of women’s sports teams, lawmakers added an amendment to split the allocation of degree completion funds 50/50 between female and male college athletes.

Some opponents, however, still weren’t convinced.

“It’s great that (payments) would go towards some women, but if it becomes infeasible for schools to then support the programs at all, then we’re not really ahead of where we started,” said Maya Dirado, a Stanford graduate and Olympic gold medalist in swimming.

Liam Anderson, a Stanford track and field athlete and co-president of the university’s Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, supports a proposal to pay college players a share of the revenue they generate.

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Elise Byun, a UC Berkeley gymnast and member of the NCAA Division I Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, said she believes that NCAA athletes should be financially compensated by their college beyond athletic grants. However, she said the bill as written could jeopardize funding for non-revenue and Olympic sports, as well as programs like mental health counseling that would benefit all athletes.

“If the revenue that’s being taken is just giving back to football and basketball, we can’t advance the student-athlete experience,” Byun said. “There’s no money left over to help bring up everyone.”

Also, the bill would not benefit athletes like Byun, who is not on scholarship, because degree payments would only go to those who receive an athletic grant. Division II, Division III and community college athletes would also be ineligible.

The University of California and California State University also raised concerns.

“The bill’s revenue-sharing framework also would create broader inequities among our student-athletes, as support for non-revenue sports would likely decrease and disproportionately impact women’s programs,” said Hazel Kelly, a CSU spokesperson. “This one-size-fits-all proposal is not appropriate for the broad diversity of size, scope and competitiveness that are the hallmarks of the CSU’s athletic programs.”

Holden said athletic departments shouldn’t be worried about losing money for different programs because the degree completion fund doesn’t tap the department’s total budget, just the “excess” revenue generated above 2021-22 levels. The bill also prohibits schools from cutting athletic programs that were in place in the 2021-22 academic year.

“So we have provisions in it to protect all programs within the athletic department — men’s and women’s sports, from NCAA Division I football all the way to the rugby players who happen to be on a team if you have a rugby program — so that those programs would be maintained,” he said.

The next frontier in the debate over athletes’ rights

Holden declined further comment on why he had chosen to delay the bill, or the specifics of its formula for funding degree payments. The bill had been scheduled to be heard by the Senate Education Committee on July 5, but was pulled from the agenda that day and has become a “two-year bill,” meaning it can be considered in the second year of California’s two-year legislative session. That’s a common move by lawmakers who want more time to negotiate details of legislation and sway opponents.

While the bill likely faces a long road, its passage could further cement California’s status as a pioneer in college athlete compensation.

Mark Nagel, a professor of sport and entertainment management at the University of South Carolina, said that similar institutional blowback to college athletics reform has been seen before in the past and that prior concerns haven’t really materialized.

“There’s always the idea that college athletics say that any change is going to cause the sky to fall and the world to end,” Nagel said. “We’ve already seen that, whether it’s high-, mid- or low-level programs, Division I universities and colleges have figured out ways to find that money.”

But Andrew Zimbalist, an economics professor at Smith College, said that universities making direct payments to athletes beyond scholarships creates a variety of financial issues because there are Division I schools whose athletic departments run on deficits.

“When they lose money, the school has to raise tuition, it has to raise athletic fees, it has to go to the state legislature for more subsidies, it has less money to provide for the education of the athletes. On all of those grounds, it’s a very problematic proposal,” Zimbalist said.

A previous legislative attempt to establish a mandatory degree completion fund for athletes failed in 2022. The current bill passed the California Assembly before heading to the Senate.

The National College Players Association, one of the forces behind California’s push to allow athletes to sign paid endorsement deals, is co-sponsoring the degree completion fund bill, and the California Labor Federation supports it.

“Athletes throughout the state of CA would gain unprecedented and much-needed protections, freedoms and rights. Every athlete will benefit if AB 252 is approved,” NCPA President Ramogi Huma said in an email.

CalMatters politics reporter Alexei Koseff contributed to this story. This story and other higher education coverage are supported by the College Futures Foundation.

With tensions already high in Minnesota after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer killed Renee Macklin Good, the Trump administration is ramping up the pressure on cities and states to cooperate with its immigration crackdown.

The administration had already surged federal agents — sometimes accompanied by military troops — to Los Angeles, Portland, Chicago, Charlotte, Memphis, Washington D.C. and New Orleans.

Now the White House is threatening to cut funding for sanctuary cities. Here's a brief explanation of how local governments interact with federal immigration enforcement, and what the White House can and can't require from them.

A fight over federal money 

President Trump threatened this week to cut "significant" federal funding to sanctuary cities. He hasn't said exactly what money his administration wants to cut, though he gave a deadline of Feb. 1.

Nor has Trump said exactly which cities or states will be targeted, though the Department of Justice did publish a list of more than 30 cities, states and counties in August. (That list includes the state of Minnesota, though not Minneapolis or St. Paul or their respective counties).

In remarks on Tuesday at the Detroit Economic Club, Trump seemed to be focused on places that limit their cooperation with ICE.

"They do everything possible to protect criminals at the expense of American citizens. And it breeds fraud and crime and all of the other problems that come," Trump said. "So we're not making any payment to anybody that supports sanctuary cities."

This is not the first time President Trump has made a threat like this. During his first term, the president tried to withhold some federal funding from sanctuary cities. More recently, Trump signed an executive order nearly a year ago directing the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security to make a list of sanctuary cities and withhold money from them.

But courts have sided against the administration in nearly every case, saying that the federal government cannot use funding to coerce state and local governments into changing their policies on immigration.

"Here we are again," U.S. District Judge William Orrick in San Francisco wrote in April. Orrick granted (and later extended) a preliminary injunction blocking the Trump administration from withholding federal funds from 16 jurisdictions, including San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Minneapolis, St. Paul and New Haven.

"The threat to withhold funding causes them irreparable injury in the form of budgetary uncertainty, deprivation of constitutional rights, and undermining trust between the Cities and Counties and the communities they serve," Orrick said.

No precise legal definition of 'sanctuary'

There's no exact legal definition of "sanctuary city." But broadly speaking, the term refers to any city, state or county that limits its cooperation with federal immigration authorities.

The legal questions here are nuanced. Local law enforcement cannot block federal agents from doing their work but courts have said that state and city officers can withhold some cooperation.

The legal arguments are rooted in the U.S. Constitution and the division of powers between the federal government, which is in charge of immigration enforcement, and state and local governments, which run their own police and sheriffs' departments.

Courts have backed states that don't want to share data on residents in their records, including information about driver's licenses. And in many places, state and local law enforcement will not honor what's known as a "detainer request" from ICE, which essentially asks police to hold someone in detention until immigration authorities can take custody.

Local officials push back 

Virtually all the cities and states the administration has focused on so far are led by Democrats, who don't seem to be backing down after Trump's threat to cut federal money.

"This is just a threat to intimidate states like New York into bowing into submission. And that is something we'll never do," New York Governor Kathy Hochul said earlier this week. "You touch any more money from the state of New York, we'll see you in court."

State and city leaders argue there is a fundamental public safety rationale for their sanctuary policies. They say that working with ICE would undermine trust and cooperation between local law enforcement and immigrant communities as they seek to prevent crime.

There's clearly a political aspect to this as well. In many sanctuary cities, voters are asking Democratic leaders not to give in to the White House and its immigration agenda, so local leaders may have a strong incentive to dig in their heels.

Why local cooperation matters 

In the past, ICE has found that it's faster and safer to arrest people who are already being held in local jails. And that's one reason ICE was able to make so many arrests during the administration of President Obama, for example, before sanctuary policies were as widespread as they are now.

The White House says a lack of local cooperation is hindering its efforts to build "the largest deportation operation in the history of our country," a pledge Trump made frequently during his reelection campaign.

"Minnesota's 'leaders' have chosen defiance over partnership," the White House said in a statement on Friday.

But Democrats say the administration is deliberately creating confrontations in cities and states that are led by political opponents, provoking chaotic scenes on purpose for reasons that go beyond simply enforcing immigration law.

Copyright 2026 NPR

On a recent Saturday, a group of teenage musicians took to a stage inside an unlikely place: an unassuming unit in a business park at the bottom of Lincoln Avenue in Pasadena.

This space has a stage sitting on its concrete floor with the words "Backyard Party" playfully scrawled across the bottom.

The members of a band called The Wendolls sound checked with Matt Chait at the mixing board.

Backyard Party, one of the area’s newest all-ages venues, is the brainchild of Chait and fellow organizer Sandra Denver.

“The fires crushed garages where kids would have been playing. It burnt backyards where they would have been playing. It burnt down the schools where they would have been playing. So this is the communal backyard party. That’s specifically what we built and why we built it,” Chait said just outside the makeshift venue. The only thing that sets it apart from the nondescript units around it is a handwritten sign that says ‘No Ins and Outs.’

Chait, who was evacuated from his residence during the Eaton Fire, teamed up with Denver to manage the volunteer-run Backyard Party a few months ago. Her daughter sung lead vocals in a band called Sly, one of four bands on the lineup.

“We wanted to provide a space for all of the teen bands all around to come and play and help them create a kind of scene,” Denver said.

It’s the type of spot Denver said she wishes she had growing up in Phoenix, Arizona.

The tip box at Backyard Party

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And she’s just one of several supportive parents here who are helping load in amps and guitars and bass drums.

Sixteen-year-old Jett Bizon is the drummer for Saints of Sinners, one of the bands on the bill. He said there’s another reason there are so many parents in the crowd.

“Well, nobody drives. Everybody needs a ride,” Bizon said with a chuckle.

With his long dark hair, Bizon explained that he’s already played some legendary local venues like The Whiskey a Go Go. But he said it feels like Backyard Party is becoming a much needed space for younger musicians in the area.

“We need to let out some type of energy and everybody’s putting it into music,” Bizon said. “I think it’s a great thing. Finally a scene again, it’s fun.”

As Bizon and his bandmates played their set of hard rock songs, the only people on their phones in the crowd were parents filming.

Some of the young folks taking the stage were affected by the Eaton Fire in one way or another. Some of them were evacuated. Others lost homes or saw their friends displaced.

Payton Owen was part of the crew running the door, taking tickets and dolling out snacks. She too is a musician and writes reviews of some of the concerts here.

“I think it’s amazing. I think it’s really like a point of community,” she said from behind a glass case filled with bags of popcorn and candy. “It’s a really nice opportunity for kids to really have somewhere where they can go.”

Teenager Elise Lamond agreed. She’d been following Chait around all night, learning how to set levels for the musicians, run the house lights and more.

“Most people at this age don’t have those kinds of opportunities,” she said, adding that, as a musician herself, she appreciated having free access to the venue’s music equipment, too.

Chait, who had a hand in running the now closed AAA Electra 99 venue in Anaheim and has been a musician since he was 12, said Pasadena and Altadena have a noteworthy music pedigree.

“I mean, Van Halen started in quite literal ‘backyard parties’ over on Allen. I think it lives here,” he said.

And Chait said he’s blown away by the new talent that’s come to this stage. For his part, he thinks it’s the start of a new scene that will balloon beyond Altadena and Pasadena.

Matt Chait going over the sound setup with Elise Lamond at Backyard Party.

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“The fact that these kids who are now, let's say, 15-20 all lived through COVID and were very separated from each other. And now, in this particular neighborhood, are also separated again because of the fires. And they have supportive parents and now they have the physical place to be... All of the pieces of the puzzle are here,” Chait said.

For now, Chait said this is a labor of love. The space here is provided by Altadena Musicians, a non-profit that’s working to get instruments back in the hands of people who lost their gear in the fires. And as for ticket sales?

“It is the best part of running the venue: the end of the night, when we hand cash to these kids for playing,” Chait said.

Tonight’s bounty from a full-house? $320.

“There’s a couple of these kids, if they play one or two more times, we’re going to have to give them 1099s,” he said.

How to catch a BYP show

Backyard Party
1260 Lincoln Ave. #1300
Pasadena

For a calendar of upcoming shows, check out BYP’s website and Instagram.

On Friday, Southern California Edison filed lawsuits against Los Angeles County and several other agencies over their alleged roles in the Eaton Fire.

Two lawsuits were filed.

In one suit, the utility company alleges Southern California Gas delayed shutting off gas in the burn area for several days after the fire, making the blaze worse.

“SoCalGas’ design and actions caused gas leaks, gas fires, reignition of fires, gas explosions and secondary ignitions during the critical early stages of the Eaton Fire,” according to the suit.

The claim goes on to say this contributed to the spread of the fire and made firefighting and evacuation efforts more difficult.

In the second suit, the utility company alleges the Eaton Fire was made worse by the local government response, “including due to the failures of LASD, LACoFD, OEM and GENASYS in issuing timely evacuation alerts and notifications,” the claim reads.

The same filing says L.A. County was to blame for vegetation and overgrown brush in the Eaton Canyon area that fueled the blaze.

It also named the city of Pasadena and its utility system, Pasadena Water and Power, the city of Sierra Madre, Kinneloa Irrigation District, Rubio Cañon Land & Water Association, Las Flores Water Company and Lincoln Avenue Water Company as parties responsible for water systems running dry in Altadena as the fire broke out.

Edison says hydrants running dry compounded the extent of the disaster.

Those claims will be heard in the L.A. County Superior Court, which is also handling L.A. County’s lawsuit against SoCal Edison.

Edison itself is the subject of hundreds of lawsuits from survivors of the Eaton Fire, which could cost the company billions of dollars in settlements.

Edison has said its equipment likely sparked the Eaton Fire and filed these suits, in part, because it believes these various entities should share some of the blame for the disaster, which resulted in the destruction of thousands of buildings and the deaths of 19 people.

A compensation program Edison established for fire survivors who forgo suing the company has made settlement offers to more than 80 of those who applied.

A new organization is taking over production of the MLK Day Parade, almost 40 years after the first parade was held in South L.A. to commemorate the civil rights leader.

Bakewell Media, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper (a partner of The LA Local), was granted the permit in September to organize the parade for the first time by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Formerly called the Kingdom Day Parade, the parade has been rebranded as the Los Angeles Official Martin Luther King Day Parade. The parade was previously produced and organized by Adrian Dove and the L.A. chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality California (CORE-CA).

With less than a week before the parade kicks off, LA Local reporter LaMonica Peters sat down with Danny Bakewell Jr., president and executive editor of the LA Sentinel, to discuss the details and what attendees should expect.

This Jan. 12 interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why did you decide to produce the MLK Day Parade this year?

Bakewell: It all started because Adrian Dove, who was the previous promoter, had announced that he was retiring. When he announced he was retiring, LAPD, city council offices and other people said, “Hey, we still want to do the MLK Day parade. Would you guys be interested? You have the infrastructure to put it together.” And we said yes.

What’s different about this year’s production?

We’re going to start the parade with a singer performing “Lift Every Voice.” We’re going to play the message from Bernice King at the start of the show. Obviously, we have Cedric the Entertainer as our grand marshal to add the entertainment value, but the community has always been and will continue to be a major part of this parade.

Is ABC 7 covering the parade this year? 

It’s still going to be televised by ABC. We’re working diligently on how the show is going to be, but ABC has been a great partner.

What was the preparation for this parade?

Thanks to our corporate sponsors, we have a number of bands. The truth is, particularly in LAUSD at this time, and other school districts, they don’t have the funding to just get a bus and get here. I can’t say enough about Airbnb to Bank of America, all of our corporate sponsors, who are supporting all of the youth organizations.

Were there any unexpected challenges while preparing for this parade? 

This [The LA Sentinel office on Crenshaw Blvd.] is usually our command center during The Taste of Soul. It dawned on me last week that we’re going to be a mile away [from the parade route]. So, we made the decision to bring in a trailer to be our office at the corner of King and Crenshaw boulevards.

Any special guests this year besides the grand marshal?

I’m working on a surprise guest to be the singer for the national anthem. No matter what, we will give tribute to the Black national anthem “Lift Every Voice” as loud as we can next Monday.

What’s the long-term vision for this parade, if Bakewell Media continues to produce it?

We see the MLK Day Parade, and we want the world to see and expect to see this parade, the same way they see the Macy’s Parade, the Hollywood Parade or the Rose Parade. BET has come in this year as a partner. So there’s an opportunity to possibly do a national broadcast on BET. Not that we would lose our local television, but we see this as a major parade in this community and in the national African American community, celebrating the great work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So, we are very excited.