The Brief

Hazel Victoria, a seventh-grader at St. Emydius Catholic School in Lynwood, is building an “adorable but functional” robot that can pick up trash. Specifically, trash left behind by hikers in the forest.

She named it Milo-Bot, after her uncle who died last year. “He loved the forest and he would always get so mad when he saw trash on the floor so I decided to make a robot dedicated to him,” she said.

Victoria’s journey into tech has not always been smooth. Growing up, she didn’t have the internet at home because it was too expensive, so she learned to play computer games with her friends and cousins at their homes.

Cyber-Nauts team members George Secaida and Isaac Turcios.

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Last fall, the 12-year-old started going to Bell Tech Center, a community resource for low-income residents who don’t have broadband or computers at home. There she met other teens, like 18-year-old Isaac Turcios and his twin sister Elizabeth, who had been going to the center since fifth grade.

Elizabeth Turcios, Cyber-Nauts team co-captain, also does media and fundraising for the team.

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Isaac was interested in robotics when he was younger, but it wasn’t offered at his neighborhood school, Bell High, or other nearby schools. When he got into the prestigious California Academy of Math and Science (CAMS) in Carson, a 15-mile commute away, he was finally able to take advanced coding courses.

But he wanted to extend his experience to local teens — so last summer he began to recruit for a robotics team, with guidance from the Bell Tech Center. Students from Warren High School, Odyssey Stem Academy and other local schools showed interest, and the CYBER-NAUTS were formed.

"We got to meet a lot of new people, work with other teams and build a robot from scratch when none of us had done it before," he said.

CYBER-NAUTS team robot placing plastic "pixel" on backdrop for points.

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Their goal was to compete in the annual First Tech Challenge in Fountain Valley in February, for middle and high school students across the region. About 40 teams of up to 15 people design, build and program an autonomous robot. The machine has to be small enough to fit into a 18x18x18 box. During the competition, it scores points by picking up small disk-like objects called pixels and placing them on to a wall. There’s a fierce rivalry, as the teams form alliances and face off against each other.

The CYBER-NAUTS have been meeting at least twice a week to work on their robot, who they've named Jeffrey, since last August. But building a robot can also be expensive. It's cost about $3,000 to construct it from start to finish, plus registration fees for the competition. The team fundraised through car washes and getting sponsorship from local businesses. They also made use of equipment at the center.

CYBER-NAUTS lead coach Marian Gomez helps make adjustments to the robot after the first challenge.

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“Sometimes we can't afford to buy certain parts, or sometimes they're out of stock, so having 3D printers and stuff [at the center] really helps,” Turcios said.

The team’s coach and mentor, Marian Gomez, recently graduated from Cal State L.A. with a computer science degree. She was a fellow for the Southeast Community Development Corporation, which runs the Bell Tech Center.

“Some of our students are taking classes for computer science or engineering and what they have at home isn’t sufficient enough to support the software that is required for that class,” she said. “So they come over to the center and use our equipment to do their homework.”

While she’s never competed in the First Tech Challenge, Gomez has been a judge for the competition. She was able to guide students on what to expect throughout the entire process.

“It’s been an amazing journey with them,” she said. “This is new to all of us. For code, we’re going one step at a time.”

First Tech Challenge competitors setting up their stations.

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Last Saturday, 42 teams gathered at Fountain Valley High School to finally compete against each other, many coming from far more well-resourced high schools.

By 8 a.m., the room was buzzing as dozens of teens tested out their machines and made any last-minute adjustments. Most teams wore outfits that matched their robots. The CYBER-NAUTS wore navy blue hoodies with a team logo designed by co-captain Elizabeth Turcios.

Hazel Victoria, Cyber-Nauts team member.

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The disparity between different teams was evident to those who looked closely. Team member Maya Valenzuela noticed another group of students who had been able to buy higher quality parts for their robot.

"The other team had better motors. That’s why they move so smoothly. But ours don’t have that," she said.

As the competition started, they stood around a large mat on the ground, directing Jeffrey with a remote control. The robot glided around, reaching out its arm to grab the pixels and take them to the wall.

It did well — but despite their valiant efforts, ultimately, not well enough to get through to the final round.

The team was stoked, however, to receive a Judge’s Choice Award, which recognizes unique teams for their outstanding efforts. (A team of CAMS students called NerdHerd Insomniacs won first place).

Elizabeth said the team was shocked when they won the award.

“We were jumping around being very crazy,” she said. “We had tried so hard just building the robot despite limited resources. We’re proud regardless of the fact that we didn’t win because it’s something we didn’t expect to achieve in the first place.”

Isaac and Elizabeth are graduating high school this year, so they may return next season as mentors.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Hazel plans to continue competing with the CYBER-NAUTS through high school.

"I'm gonna be here for five years!" she laughed. "But it will be fun, it’ll be worth it."

She says she plans to work for NASA one day.

A Trump administration official on Friday signaled a potential rollback of the racial and ethnic categories approved for the 2030 census and other future federal government forms.

Supporters of those categories fear that any last-minute modifications to the U.S. government's standards for data about race and ethnicity could hurt the accuracy of census data and other future statistics used for redrawing voting districts, enforcing civil rights protections and guiding policymaking.

Those standards were last revised in 2024 during the Biden administration, after Census Bureau research and public discussion.

A White House agency at the time approved, among other changes, new checkboxes for "Middle Eastern or North African" and "Hispanic or Latino" under a reformatted question that asks survey participants: "What is your race and/or ethnicity?" The revisions also require the federal government to stop automatically categorizing people who identify with Middle Eastern or North African groups as white.

But at a Friday meeting of the Council of Professional Associations on Federal Statistics in Washington, D.C., the chief statistician within the White House's Office of Management and Budget revealed that the Trump administration has started a new review of those standards and how the 2024 revisions were approved.

"We're still at the very beginning of a review. And this, again, is not prejudging any particular outcome. I think we just wanted to be able to take a look at the process and decide where we wanted to end up on a number of these questions," said Mark Calabria. "I've certainly heard a wide range of views within the administration. So it's just premature to say where we'll end up."

OMB's press office did not immediately respond to NPR's request for comment.

Calabria's comments mark the first public confirmation that Trump officials are considering the possibility of not using the latest racial and ethnic category changes and other revisions. They come amid the administration's attack on diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a push to stop producing data that could protect the rights of transgender people and threats to the reliability of federal statistics.

In September, OMB said those Biden-era revisions "continue to be in effect" when it announced a six-month extension to the 2029 deadline for federal agencies to follow the new standards when collecting data on race and ethnicity.

Calabria said the delay gave agencies more time to implement the changes "while we review."

The first Trump administration stalled the process for revising the racial and ethnic data standards in time for the 2020 census.

The "Project 2025" policy agenda released by The Heritage Foundation, the conservative, D.C.-based think tank, called for a Republican administration to "thoroughly review any changes" to census race and ethnicity questions because of "concerns among conservatives that the data under Biden Administration proposals could be skewed to bolster progressive political agendas."

Advocates of the changes, however, see the new categories and other revisions as long-needed updates to better reflect people's identities.

"At stake is a more accurate and deeper understanding of the communities that comprise our country," says Meeta Anand, senior director of census and data equity at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. "I am not concerned if it's reviewed in an honest attempt to understand what the process was. I am concerned if it's for a predetermined outcome that would be to ignore the entire process that was done in a very transparent manner."

Edited by Benjamin Swasey
Copyright 2025 NPR

A large black bear that was relocated earlier this year after being found under a house in Altadena is up to his old tricks again.

The bear, nicknamed Barry by the neighbors, was found last week under a different Altadena home, and wildlife officials are using a caramel- and cherry-scented lure to entice the roughly 550-pound male bear out of his hiding spot.

So far, they’ve been unsuccessful.

Cort Klopping, information specialist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told LAist the bear seems to be spooked by increased activity around the home, including media crews outside and helicopters overhead.

“It seems as though in this case, this bear has found this poor guy's crawlspace as a comfortable, safe-seeming, warm enclosure for denning purposes,” he said.

He said the space is “somewhere for this bear to kind of hang its hat when it's relaxing.”

How the bear returned

Wildlife officials can tell it’s the same bear who was lured out from under an Altadena house after the Eaton Fire because of the tag number on his ear.

The bear was trapped and relocated about 10 miles away to the Angeles National Forest in January, but Klopping said he’s been back in the Altadena area for around five months.

The male bear after it was removed from under an Altadena home earlier this year.

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The bear spooked a SoCal Gas crew who stopped by for repairs after the Eaton Fire in January.

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The Department of Fish and Wildlife fitted the bear with a temporary GPS collar so officials could keep track of it. The collar came off a couple months later while the animal still was living in the forest.

The bear is believed to have been spotted around the home last Tuesday, Klopping said, and the owner reached out to wildlife officials a few days later for help.

“I’ve seen pictures of this bear, and I’m shocked to be under that house,” homeowner Ken Johnson told LAist media partner CBS LA.

Officials said they were hopeful the bear would move along on its own. They encouraged the homeowner to set up a camera on the crawlspace and line the area with ammonia soaked-rags or a motion-activated wildlife sprinkler system to deter the bear from returning, Klopping said.

“These are all actions that would not harm the bear, not harm people, but they would make it less comfortable for the bear to be there,” he said.

But the bear stayed put.

“Right now, it seems like it's stressed,” Klopping said. “It seems like it's scared, and therefore, it's not really wanting to leave the security of where it is at the moment.”

The hope ahead

A pair of wildlife officials stopped by the home Thursday to set up the sweet-smelling lure and camera so the department can keep an eye on the bear’s activity remotely.

Barry didn’t take the bait immediately, Klopping said, but officials are hopeful the animal will feel more comfortable leaving the crawlspace once activity around the home dies down a bit.

Klopping also is warning people in the area to secure access points on their property so the bear just doesn’t move in there next.

“If I were in that neighborhood, I would be doing everything in my power to make sure that my crawlspaces would not be accessible,” he said, including covering it with something stronger than the wire mesh the bear got through before.

Bears also are extremely food motivated, and Klopping said they can smell your leftover chicken in trash cans on the curb from 5 miles away.

He encouraged residents to be mindful of trash that could be an easy meal for wildlife, as well as pet food and hummingbird feeders, which Klopping said biologists have seen bears drink “like a soda.”

You can find tips on how to handle a bear in your backyard here and resources from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife here.

There’s a new way you can track pollution in your neighborhood.

The SoCal Clean Manufacturing Coalition, a climate advocacy group, has released a map with the locations of more than 1,800 fossil fuel-burning industrial boilers across Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties. Many are at universities and hospitals, as well as some apartment complexes like the Park La Brea apartments in the Miracle Mile.

The map is part of an effort to push the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates our air quality, to pass rules to require these large boilers to be phased out.

Why do these boilers matter?

Industrial boilers aren’t exactly the poster child of pollution, but they do play a role in Southern California. Boilers come in different sizes, and although there are electric types, many still burn fossil fuels to generate hot water, steam and, as a byproduct, nitrogen oxide.

South Coast AQMD says that makes it a source of pollutants. Nitrogen oxide contributors are not only a problem for smog and respiratory issues but also for the agency’s effort to meet federal air quality standards.

That’s why last year the agency approved new requirements for certain buildings to use zero-emission water heaters and boilers when they need replacement.

Teresa Cheng,  California director for Industrious Labs, a coalition member focused on creating cleaner industries, says these rules were for smaller “baby boilers” and that the coalition wants to see that applied to larger ones, which are covered under the agency’s 1146 and 1146.1 rule.

The push has caused concern in the gas industry. The California Fuels and Convenience Alliance, which represents small fuel retailers and industry suppliers, says boilers are essential in a wide range of manufacturing facilities that need high heat, like food processing, fuel production and more.

“CFCA is deeply concerned that requiring industrial facilities to abandon gas-fired boilers at the end of their useful life before the market is technologically or economically ready will still have severe consequences for manufacturers, workers and consumers,” the alliance said in a statement.

The organization says many facilities already have invested in “ultra-low” nitrogen oxide technology and that requiring a switch to zero-emissions equipment could destabilize the industry because of costs.

See the map

The map includes the number of boilers in each place, including how many aging units, and their permitted heating capacity. (That metric essentially correlates with how much pollution it can release.)

Cheng says the map is being shared to make the “invisible visible” so residents can know what’s around them. Most boilers are in communities that already deal with environmental pollution problems.

Boilers are even close to K-12 schools, like Glendale’s Herbert Hoover High School, which has its own.

“ These boilers have a very long lifeline,” she said. “If the air district doesn't pass zero-emissions rules for these boilers, we actually risk locking in decades more of pollution.”