The Brief

UCLA’s winter quarter started Monday — and the first full week for Julio Frenk as the school's new chancellor.

Frenk brings experience as a university and health administrator as well as multinational experience after serving in the cabinet of Mexican President Vicente Fox in 2000. That background will be put to work against a growing to-do list.

On the one hand, UCLA is an economic engine in Southern California, one of the flagship campuses of the UC system. It conferred 15,000 degrees in 2024.

On the other, it’s faced several high-profile problems over the past year, including a scathing audit of how it handled protests last spring related to the war in Gaza.

Internal problems

Some students say the university’s decision to call on police to clear an encampment last spring of people protesting the war in Gaza still looms over the campus.

“That caused a really huge rift in trust,” said fourth-year undergraduate Javier Nuñez-Verdugo, who says they’ve seen more police and security guards on campus since then.

“Especially a lot of non-white students, especially Black students, especially Indigenous students, do not feel safe with heightened police presence here on campus,” Nuñez-Verdugo said.

One of Frenk’s first tasks: input on who will fill the job of UCLA police chief.

Nuñez-Verdugo, who is external vice president for UCLA’s Undergraduate Students Association, would like Frenk to hold regular, in-person town halls with students in order to hear first hand concerns about campus life.

External problems

Others say the new Trump administration may harm students at UCLA and other campuses.

“Chancellor Frenk's main priority should be protecting our undocumented students and our trans students from the coming attacks from the incoming Republican administration,” said UCLA political science professor Michael Chwe via email.

A UCLA spokesperson said Frenk was not available for comment on Monday. But in a video released online on Tuesday, Frenk said “We must renew our commitment to fostering a welcoming and inclusive academic environment that safeguards free expression."

Frenk said he’s been visiting the UCLA campus monthly since his appointment in order to meet with various members of UCLA communities.

The University of California Office of the President gives campus chancellors wide powers over the direction of each university. Frenk said he needs to meet with more UCLA constituencies to shape a plan.

“The insights I gather from each of you will be central to shaping a collective vision for UCLA’s future. I will share this vision at my inauguration in the spring,” Frenk said in the video.

Lost funding, new funding

This fiscal year’s state budget led to a $134 million net cut in funding for the University of California campuses. The system's chancellors are deciding how to carry out those and likely future cuts.

UCLA is also trying to be designated as a Hispanic-serving institution. The university’s Hispanic student population was just under 20% in the fall of 2023. It rose about 1% in each of the previous years.

The designation would allow UCLA to access new federal funds, but would also require administrators to offer Hispanic students more support, including financial aid.

A new labor contract

Labor negotiations are set for later this year for the union that represents nearly 50,000 UC academic workers. Frenk will have input.

“We're looking forward to working with Chancellor Frenk and to resetting the relationship between the administration and our members who do the bulk of teaching and research at UCLA,” said UCLA doctoral student Rafael Jaime, who’s also president of UAW Local 4811, the UC-wide union that represents nearly 50,000 academic workers at the 10 campuses.

His union went on strike in 2022 during the academic term and upended education for thousands of students.

High hopes in the Big Ten

Sports have recently become an even bigger part of UCLA’s budget and identity with UCLA's entry into the Big Ten sports conference. Now, can the university compete on that level and can it bring in the money that leaders expect?

UCLA football ended 14th out of 18 teams in its first season in the Big Ten. Frenk knows about college sports: In his last job as president of University of Miami, he managed high expectations of the legendary Hurricanes’ football program.

In some states that kind of record by a university football program could lead to pressure on a university’s president from as high up as the governor’s office.

“I don't see Gavin Newsom applying pressure on the chancellor at UCLA to get their athletic program to be more successful,” said Dennis Farrell, commissioner of the Big West Conference for 28 years until 2019.

But that doesn’t mean Frenk won’t step in to hold athletic administrators accountable, Farrell said, if UCLA football continues to have losing seasons like this inaugural one.

“The pressure upon a chancellor at a University of California system school probably comes from alumni and boosters. Certainly the media plays a factor in that as well,” Farrell said.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

President Trump has repeatedly said that in enforcing immigration policy, he would deport criminals, rapists and the worst of the worst. But new data reveals that in the first nine months of the president's second term, Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrested more than 74,000 people with no criminal record. That's more than a third of the total ICE arrests in that period. Those numbers were provided by ICE to the Deportation Data Project, a joint initiative of UCLA and UC Berkeley Law and analyzed by NPR. For more, I spoke to Ariel Ruiz Soto, a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. And I started by asking him what this says about the Trump administration's approach to immigration enforcement.

ARIEL RUIZ SOTO: Well, at first, it contradicts the earlier messaging from the Trump administration that it's focused on the worst to the worst and targeting criminal convictions. However, recently, the administration has also said that anybody here in the United States without legal status will be subject to deportation in the future.

FADEL: Well, let's get to what is a crime and what's not. We hear from the administration not just the claims that they're arresting rapists and gang members, but also, they say that anyone in the country without proper paperwork is a criminal. Is that true that being undocumented means you've committed a crime?

RUIZ SOTO: Under immigration law, entering the country without proper authorization is a lower offense compared to those that we colloquially think are criminal convictions in a more criminal system, meaning, for example, murder, rape, drug abuse or something else like that that could get it to be higher.

FADEL: What do we know about the other two-thirds of these arrests? Do they all have criminal histories?

RUIZ SOTO: No. Among the other two-thirds, about half of those are actually people with a criminal pending charge but not yet proven guilty. Of those that do have a criminal conviction, we know from previous reports from ICE and experience that we've done research on that the majority of those criminal convictions tend to be traffic violations or lower-level offenses.

FADEL: Was that surprising to you?

RUIZ SOTO: I didn't think it was surprising because it's been happening over months. I think the visibility has been surprising. And perhaps the other aspect of this that has been also not transparent is this is just for ICE arrests. We don't know yet how many arrests are being made by Border Patrol across the different cities they're now targeting to consider the full impact of this new enforcement.

FADEL: What has this meant for immigrant communities, mixed-status communities and families when it comes to their presence in the United States and their relationship with law enforcement and the government?

RUIZ SOTO: Well, the direct impact is on those people that are here without status. Many of them are not going outside their homes. But I think the bigger impact here is that mixed-status families are also affected. The fact, for example, that families may forgo seeking benefits that are eligible for their U.S. citizen children because they're afraid of potentially being detained or arrested, that actually has implications for U.S. citizens and many of these citizens. In fact, 5.3 million U.S. citizen children have one parent who is undocumented in the United States, and that could actually make a significant difference in their separation.

FADEL: What would you say to people listening who say, well, I mean, people should not have entered without status, and this is the consequence?

RUIZ SOTO: Well, it's clear that migrants who are here without status are subject to deportation and arrest, but people have access to due process. They need to have an opportunity to present their claims to why they should stay in the United States. And if in the end of that litigation, it is determined that the person has to leave the United States, and that should be the case.

FADEL: Ariel Ruiz Soto is a senior policy analyst with the Migration Policy Institute. Thank you so much for your time.

RUIZ SOTO: Thank you.

FADEL: We reached out to ICE for comment and have not heard back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

On Monday, Los Angeles travels back in time. Well, sort of.

The Varnish, the famed speakeasy hidden behind a secret door at the back of Cole’s French Dip, will be reconstituted for one night only as part of a special pop-up at Firstborn in Chinatown.

(Meanwhile, Cole's itself will be open through the holiday season, with its last night of regular service planned for Dec. 31.)

The iconic bar, which shuttered in 2024 after a 15-year run, holds a special place in the hearts of many Angelenos, who believe it's where L.A.’s modern cocktail revival truly began. The event reunites three bartenders who all came up through The Varnish’s famously exacting school of cocktail-making. Kenzo Han (recently named Esquire’s Bartender of the Year) cut his teeth there before moving into roles that established him as one of L.A.’s most respected classic-cocktail technicians. Wolf Alexander and Miles Caballes emerged from the same pipeline.

One night only

Kenzo Han, bar director at Firstborn and former Varnish bartender, is hosting two fellow Varnish alumni for the Monday pop-up.

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Ron De Angelis

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Han is now Firstborn’s bar director, where he leads a tight, classics-leaning bar program. The restaurant sits inside Mandarin Plaza, where chef Anthony Wang turns out playful comfort dishes with Chinese and American influences. It’s a lively, unfussy neighborhood hangout just off Broadway, surrounded by neon, noodle shops and family-style restaurants.

The Varnish connection

All three bartenders trace their lineage back to Sasha Petraske, who, in 2009, co-founded The Varnish with Eric Alperin and Cedd Moses, the owner of Cole’s French Dip.

Petraske traded '90s flash for pre-Prohibition craft: fresh citrus over sour mix, precise technique over bottle tricks, elevating cocktails from party fuel to art form.

Miles Caballes brings his Varnish training back to the bar for one night.

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Courtesy Firstborn

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Wolf Alexander, another Varnish alum, demonstrates the precise technique that defined the speakeasy's approach.

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Courtesy Firstborn

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The Varnish became the city’s clearest expression of Petraske’s cocktail philosophy, where his playbook of precision, restraint and quiet hospitality took root on the West Coast. (Petraske passed in 2015.)

Han, Alexander and Caballes all trained in that environment, absorbing the Petraske rules of clean builds, tight technique and no-nonsense cocktails.

What to expect

For one night only, from 6-10 p.m., the trio will channel that tradition through a Varnish-style menu: curated classics only, no custom builds, with all cocktails priced at $20. Two featured drinks nod directly to the bar's lineage. The Spring Blossom — created at The Varnish — combines mezcal, French aperitifs, including Suze and Lillet Blanc, mole bitters and a grapefruit twist. Death & Taxes features scotch, gin, sweet vermouth, Benedictine (a herbal liqueur), Angostura and orange bitters, finished with a lemon twist.

On the food side, chef Anthony Wang is reviving his cult-favorite Blood Orange Chicken Sando ($20), served with radicchio, alongside a limited run of his Shanghainese-style McRib ($24) — a playful, sweet-and-sour riff built around tender ribs and “all the stuff” that made the original such a guilty pleasure.

The blood orange chicken sandwich at Firstborn from chef Anthony Wang.

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Ron De Angelis

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Expect a casual, walk-in-only atmosphere where guests can grab a seat at the bar and let the cocktail nostalgia wash over them.

Whether you were a Varnish regular or only heard the stories, this pop-up is a rare chance to see that style alive again — familiar faces, bespoke cocktails and the kind of muscle-memory bartending that defined an era of L.A. drinking culture. For newer drinkers, it’s a glimpse of the cocktail philosophy that shaped the city as we know it.

It’ll likely get busy early, and the food specials may run out fast — but that’s part of the charm. The Varnish’s legacy has always been about small rooms, sharp precision and moments you catch only if you’re paying attention.

In the city of Los Angeles, neighbors or homeowner groups who choose to fight approvals of new housing are required to pay a fee when filing an appeal.

Right now, that fee is $178 — about 1% of the amount the city says it costs to process the appeal. But that fee soon will go up.

On Wednesday, the L.A. City Council voted to increase the fee to $229 but rejected a proposal by the city administrative officer that would have raised the cost for appellants to more than $22,800, or 100% of the cost.

Some advocates for making housing easier to build argued the city should have adopted the higher fee.

“Appeals of approved projects create delays that make it harder to build housing and disincentivize future housing from being proposed,” said Jacob Pierce, a policy associate with the group Abundant Housing L.A.

At a time when L.A.’s budget is strained, Pierce said, if someone thinks a project was wrongly approved, “They should put their money where their mouth is and pay the full fee."

The City Council unanimously approved another new fee structure put forward by the city’s Planning Department.

While fees will remain relatively low for housing project opponents, developers will have to pay $22,453 to appeal projects that previously had been denied.

A November report from the city administrative officer said setting fees higher to recover the full cost of processing would have aligned with the city’s financial policies. Generally, fees are set higher when applicants are asking for a service that benefits them alone.

“When a service or activity benefits the public at large, there is generally little to no recommended fee amount,” the report said.

Pierce said he hoped a City Council committee would reconsider the higher fee proposal next year. With the city falling far short of its goal to create nearly a half-million new homes by 2029, he said the city needs to discourage obstruction of new housing.

“Slowing down the construction of housing is expensive for all of us,” Pierce said.

Los Angeles could become the first city in the U.S. to ban ink cartridges that can be used only once.

The L.A. City Council unanimously voted Wednesday to approve the creation of an ordinance that prohibits their sale. The move comes after more than a year of debate over the terms.

Why the potential ban

This builds upon the city’s effort to reach zero waste, including phasing out single-use plastics. You’re likely familiar with some of those efforts — such as only getting plastic foodware by request and banning single-use carryout bags at stores. Multiple plastic bans have been suggested, like for single-use vapes and bag clips, but now it’s ink’s turn.

The cartridges are tough to dispose of because of the plastic, metal and chemicals inside, according to the city. They’re also classified as regulated waste in the state because they can leach toxic substances into the environment, such as volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.

That poses a problem. L.A.’s curbside recycling program can’t recycle the cartridges, and while its hazardous waste program can take them, a significant portion end up in landfills.

Major printer manufacturers and some ink retailers have take-back programs for used cartridges so they can get refilled. However, L.A. Sanitation says there are certain single-use cartridges that don’t have recovery programs. These are usually cartridges that work with a printer but aren’t name brand.

How outlawing them could work

LASAN has spent months figuring out what a ban would cover — and it hasn’t been without pushback. The city’s energy and environment committee pressed the department back in September on how effective a ban would be.

Ultimately, the committee moved it forward with a promise that LASAN would come back with more details, including environmental groups’ stance, concrete data to back up the need and a public education plan.

The department’s current recommendation is that the ordinance should prohibit retail and online establishments from selling any single-use ink cartridge, whether sold separately or with a printer, to people in the city. Retailers that don’t follow the rules would get fined.

So what does single-use mean here? The ban would affect a printer cartridge that:

• is not collected or recovered through a take-back program
• cannot be remanufactured, refilled or reused
• infringes upon intellectual property rights or violates any applicable local, state or federal law

Any cartridges that meet one of these points would fall under the ban, though you still could get them outside L.A.

The proposed ordinance will go to the committee first while LASAN works on a public education plan.

If it ends up getting approved by the full council, the ban likely would go into full effect 12 months later.