The Brief

Nearly a year after a mob attacked UCLA students and faculty who formed an encampment protesting Israel’s war in Gaza, participants in that encampment are suing senior officials from the University of California and UCLA, alleging that the system violated their civil rights and rights to free expression by summoning law enforcement to clear their protest.

The suit also alleges that UC officials discriminated against pro-Palestinian supporters and failed to protect members of the encampment from the attackers. The students and faculty, plus members of the public, are also suing individuals the legal team alleges attacked the pro-Palestinian encampment last April 30.

In all, 35 individuals filed suit over three events: the attack on the UCLA encampment, law enforcement’s clearing of the encampment the next day when more than 200 people were arrested, and a separate protest on June 10 in which additional students and faculty were arrested. Lawyers for the group want a trial by jury. The legal process may drag out for months, if not longer.

“I don't believe that many people fully understand the extent of the violence that was inflicted upon (the plaintiffs), both by the counter-protesters and by the police,” said Thomas Harvey, one of the lawyers representing the students and faculty filing the suit, at a press conference today. “People were beaten with 2-by-4s. People were shot in the chest. People had their fingers blown off. They sought serious medical treatment that they continue to seek today.”

Stett Holbrook, a spokesperson for the UC Office of the President, said the system knows about the lawsuit and is “currently gathering additional information.” He added that the “University of California unequivocally rejects all forms of hate, harassment and discrimination. Violence of any kind has no place at UC.”

“We have instituted system-wide reforms to promote safety and combat harassment and discrimination on our campuses,” he said. “Our focus remains to maintain a UC that is safe and welcoming to all.”

Several students and professors who are plaintiffs in the suit, including those who are Jewish, spoke at the press conference about the beatings they incurred during the April 30 melee.

“I was punched, kicked in the face, causing my lip to burst open and bleed,” said Afnan Khawaja, a recent computer science graduate from UCLA. “Later, while I was trying to reinforce our barricade, I was hit hard on the head with a wooden rod, leaving me concussed and dazed and leaving a scar on the back of my ear.”

The plaintiffs collectively seek millions of dollars in compensation from the UC and the other defendants for sustaining physical and emotional harm, Harvey said, though precise figures will emerge if a trial ensues. The suit also wants the UC to change its policies for when they summon police to break up protests.

The suit comes at a difficult time for the UC as President Donald Trump’s administration has filed inquiries into alleged antisemitism at the system’s campuses and activities that the administration says violate students’ civil rights. The UC is also staging a legal defense to fight the administration’s efforts to cut key research funding to the system and other higher education institutions nationwide. Meanwhile, UC is anticipating an 8% cut in state funding. The threat of financial turmoil prompted UC President Michael Drake to enforce a systemwide hiring freeze this week.

The 86-page suit also alleges that police were wrong to arrest protesters, arguing that police had no right to issue a dispersal order to the protesters because the order was based on campus violations, not criminal acts. Any arrests that followed were illegal, the suit argues. Next, it faults unnamed law enforcement officers for firing non-lethal projectiles at protesters. The legal team created a website compiling some of the evidence for the lawsuit. It linked to a CalMatters article that stated law enforcement appeared to have not followed its own procedures by firing at protesters’ heads.

The suit was filed Wednesday afternoon in a Los Angeles County court but so far has no case number or judge assigned. The suits' claims are similar to the accusations graduate student workers made last year in justifying their labor strike at multiple UC campuses.

Members of the legal team say they pored over hundreds of hours of video to identify some of the individuals the suit alleges attacked the encampment last year. Other individuals named were identified by media reports on CNN and elsewhere. The attack was filmed by numerous onlookers as well as local and national news media.

Some of the suit’s allegations appear to run counter to reporting by CalMatters that showed the encampment violated UCLA rules. The suit said that shutting down the encampment was “without legal justification, especially because the Plaintiffs themselves did not violate any criminal law or university policy at any point during their participation and association with the encampment.”

However, UCLA at the time had rules that generally banned camping and lodging on campus. The rules also prohibited blocking entrances and the free flow of traffic to buildings. Encampment participants slept in tents and set up barricades to limit the public’s access to doorways and the quad where the encampment was erected. Building facades were also marked with graffiti at the time of the encampment, another UCLA violation.

Campus activism continues

Pro-Palestinian activism at UCLA continues as students protest Israel’s military campaigns in Gaza and the West Bank. On Wednesday about 50 to 100 students unfurled large banners from a second-floor courtyard and blocked access to a stairwell at an engineering building. They were denouncing the war in Gaza and again called on UC leaders to divest the system’s $180 billion investments from weapons manufacturers and companies and assets tied to Israel.

UC police briefly swept the building but by then no protesting students were atop the courtyard or near the stairwell. No arrests were made.

The protest occurred as UC’s governing body, the UC Board of Regents, was meeting in an adjacent building. On Tuesday, the system’s chief investment officer, Jagdeep Singh Bachher, said defense companies were good investments for the system’s portfolio, which exists largely to pay for the pensions of its retirees, support the endowment, and manage short-term cash for the campuses.

“We’re looking for opportunities ... I think they’re gonna come from AI, life sciences, the technology marketplaces, growth industries, they’re gonna come from defense, they’re gonna come from drones,” said Bachher. Last year he said the UC invests about $3.3 billion in defense firms. A total of $32 billion was invested in firms and assets with ties to Israel or weapons makers. No tuition money funds UC investments.

The lawsuit states that until protesters’ demands are met, “UCLA will continue to be a site of rallies and protests, and plaintiffs are likely to encounter the same repression” unless the UC changes its practices.

Some student protesters briefly halted the regents meeting today with chants. A line of police assembled, but students cleared the meeting space on their own. No arrests were made.

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

As Los Angeles homeowners grapple with the expense of rebuilding after last year’s devastating fires, an L.A. City Councilmember is putting forward an idea that could lower some costs.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Pacific Palisades, has introduced a motion to explore waiving part of the city’s portion of the local sales tax for fire victims who purchase rebuilding materials in the city.

The 1% of the local 9.75% sales tax that goes into the city’s general fund would be given back to consumers under the proposal. The waiver could apply to lumber, appliances and other rebuilding goods purchased within the city.

The motion, introduced Friday by Park and seconded by Councilmember John Lee, says: “The City should do everything within its power to alleviate the financial burden for these residents and businesses in order to facilitate their return and stabilize the Pacific Palisades community.”

Would it make much of a difference? 

Economists told LAist the proposal could help many homeowners mitigate the high cost of rebuilding, but likely wouldn’t tip the scales for under-insured, under-resourced property owners.

“It wouldn't hurt if it's very well designed and easy to use,” said Alexander Meeks, a director at the Santa Monica-based Milken Institute. “But I'm not sure if it's really going to tackle the scale of the financial challenge that survivors are facing.”

Meeks noted that the tax waiver wouldn’t lower up-front costs such as environmental testing, architectural design and permitting. And it may not help homeowners sourcing raw materials from outside the city.

Zhiyun Li, a UCLA Anderson School of Management economist, said the waiver could help some homeowners justify the additional cost of rebuilding more fire-safe structures.

“Homeowners must typically pay out of pocket to upgrade to IBHS+ standards, which are more stringent,” Li said. “The tax waiver could encourage upgrading to IBHS+ standards or investing more in mitigation, thereby reducing future risk and improving the likelihood of maintaining insurance coverage.”

What’s next for the proposal? 

The proposed tax relief would not be available to properties that have been sold since the fires started in January 2025.

The motion has been sent to the City Council’s budget and fire recovery committees. If approved by the full council, it would require the city administrative officer, the Office of Finance and the city attorney to report back to the council within 60 days on options for crafting a tax relief plan.

The motion calls for the report to consider factors such as how to minimize the burden of administering the tax relief, what documentation homeowners would have to submit and what it would cost the city to oversee the program.

Senate and House Republican leadership have resurrected a stalled plan to fund the Department of Homeland Security after a record 47-day funding lapse.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., said in a joint statement on Wednesday that the House will take up a measure passed by the Senate last week to fund most of DHS except Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol through the end of September.

Republicans would then attempt to fund ICE and Border Patrol for three years using a party-line budget reconciliation bill that would not require support from Democrats.

"In following this two-track approach, the Republican Congress will fully reopen the Department, make sure all federal workers are paid, and specifically fund immigration enforcement and border security for the next three years so that those law-enforcement activities can continue uninhibited," Thune and Johnson wrote.

The agreement comes nearly a week after House Republicans dismissed an identical plan, refusing to take up the Senate-passed measure and instead passing a 60-day short term funding bill for all of DHS that had little chance of overcoming Democratic opposition in the Senate.

Johnson called the agreement a "joke" and President Donald Trump declined to publicly endorse the deal. Trump had previously resisted any package that did not include his push to overhaul federal elections known as the Save America Act.

"I think any deal they make, I'm pretty much not happy with it," Trump told reporters last week.

Democrats welcomed the agreement as in line with their pledge not to give ICE any more money without reforms after immigration enforcement agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. But the deal does not include any of the policy demands Democrats are pressing for, such as a ban on masks for immigration enforcement officers and requiring warrants issued by a judge, not just the agency, to enter homes.

"For days, Republican divisions derailed a bipartisan agreement, making American families pay the price for their dysfunction," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote in a statement Wednesday. "Throughout this fight, Senate Democrats never wavered."

Trump seemed to bless the revived plan earlier Wednesday, writing on social media that he wants a party-line bill to fund immigration enforcement on his desk by June 1.

"We are going to work as fast, and as focused, as possible to replenish funding for our Border and ICE Agents, and the Radical Left Democrats won't be able to stop us," Trump wrote.

Despite the shutdown, ICE has been minimally impacted because Republican lawmakers approved $75 billion for ICE through another party-line budget reconciliation bill last year.

Congress is on a two-week recess, but the Senate and House could move to fund all of DHS except ICE and CBP as early as Thursday using a procedure known as unanimous consent that allows the chambers to circumvent formal voting as long as no member objects.

Even during a recess when most members are not in Washington, this could be unpredictable, especially in the House, where many hard-line conservatives oppose a deal that does not fully fund DHS.

"Let's make this simple: caving to Democrats and not paying CBP and ICE is agreeing to defund Law Enforcement and leaving our borders wide open again," Rep. Scott Perry, R-Pa., a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, wrote on X. "If that's the vote, I'm a NO."

If a member does object, that could require waiting for another vote when all members are back from recess.

Claudia Grisales contributed reporting.
Copyright 2026 NPR

California clocked its second-worst snowpack on record Wednesday, a potentially troubling signal ahead for fire season.

It’s an alarming end to a winter that saw abnormally dry conditions briefly wiped from California’s drought map in January, for the first time in a quarter-century.

Though precipitation to date has been near average, much of it fell as rain rather than snow. Then March’s record-breaking heat melted most of the snow that remains. The state’s major reservoirs are nevertheless brimming above historic averages and are flirting with capacity, and a smattering of snow, rain and thunderstorms are dousing last month’s heat wave.

But experts now warn that California’s case of the missing snowpack could herald an early fire season in the mountains.

On Wednesday, state engineers conducting the symbolic April 1 snowpack measurement at Phillips Station south of Lake Tahoe found no measurable snow in patches of white dotting the grassy field.

“I want to welcome you call to probably one of the quickest snow surveys we’ve had — maybe one where people could actually use an umbrella,” joked Karla Nemeth, director of the California Department of Water Resources. “We’re getting a lot of questions about are we heading into a hydrologic drought? The answer is, I don’t know.”

State data reports that California’s snowpack is closing out the season at an alarming 18% of average statewide, and an even more abysmal 6% of average in the northern mountains that feed California’s major reservoirs.

Only the extreme drought year of 2015 beat this year’s snowpack for the worst on record, measuring in at just 5% of average on April 1st, when the snow historically is at its deepest.

“I think everyone's anticipating that it will be a long, busy fire season,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, director of the UC Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network.

“Without a snowpack, and with an early spring, it just means that there’s much more time for something like that to happen.”

‘It’s pretty bizarre up here’ 

In the city of South Lake Tahoe, which survived the massive Caldor Fire in the fall of 2021 without losing any structures, fire chief Jim Drennan said his department is already ramping up prevention efforts.

“It's pretty bizarre up here right now. It really seems like June conditions more than March,” Drennan said. “People are already turning the sprinklers on for their lawns.”

Without more precipitation, an early spring may complicate prescribed burning efforts. But Drennan said fire agencies in the Tahoe basin can start mechanically clearing fuels from forest areas earlier than usual.

“That means we can get more work done,” he said.

It also means homeowners need to start hardening their homes now, said Martin Goldberg, battalion chief and fuels management officer for the Lake Valley Fire Protection District, which protects unincorporated communities in the Lake Tahoe Basin’s south shore.

Goldberg urges residents to scour their yards for burnable materials, create defensible space and reach out to local fire departments with questions. The risks are widespread — from firewood, wooden fences, gas cans, plants, pine needles — even lawn furniture stacked against a house.

“In years past, I wouldn't even think of raking and clearing until May,” Goldberg said. “But my yard's completely cleared of snowpack, and it has been for a couple weeks now.”

‘A haystack fire’

Battalion chief David Acuña, a spokesperson for Cal Fire, said fire season is shaped by more than just one year’s snowpack.

Climate change has been remaking California’s fire seasons into fire years. And California’s recent average to abundant water years have fueled what Acuña called “bumper crops of vegetation and brush.”

“Most of California is like a haystack. And if you’ve ever seen a haystack fire, they burn very intensely because there's layers of fuel,” Acuña said.

Like Quinn-Davidson, Acuña wasn’t ready to make specific predictions about fires to come.

But John Abatzoglou, a professor of climatology at UC Merced, said the temperatures and snowpack conditions this year offer a glimpse of California in the latter decades of this century, as fossil fuel use continues to drive global temperatures higher.

How this year’s fires will play out will depend on when, where and how wind, heat, fuel and ignitions combine. But it foreshadows the consequences of a warmer California for water and fire under climate change.

“This,” Abatzoglou said, “is yet another stress test for the future in the state.”

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