The Brief

For months, the Trump administration has used civil rights investigations into universities as a means to freeze or cancel federal research funding, citing schools’ alleged failure to protect Jewish students from harassment.

This summer, the U.S. Department of Justice turned its attention to the University of California, a 10-campus system with nearly 300,000 students.

And, so far, much of that effort has focused on UCLA.

'One of the gravest threats' in UC history   

In late July, the DOJ declared that UCLA had violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause and the 1964 Civil Rights Act “by acting with deliberate indifference in creating a hostile educational environment for Jewish and Israeli students ... from October 7, 2023, to the present.” In a press statement, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the department would “force UCLA to pay a heavy price.”

Soon after, the administration froze hundreds of science research grants at UCLA, including funding through the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

In a press statement, UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk underscored that “federal research grants are not handouts.”

“Our researchers compete fiercely for these grants, proposing work that the government itself deems vital to the country’s health, safety and economic future,” he said.

Frenk also let on that the Trump administration’s actions didn’t come as a surprise: “For the past several months, our leadership team has been preparing for this situation and have developed comprehensive contingency plans,” he added. “With the support of the UC Board of Regents and the UC Office of the President, we are actively evaluating our best course of action.”

What followed was an offer from the federal government for UCLA to pay a $1 billion penalty and overhaul a broad range of campus policies and practices — in return, the government said it wouldn't sue the university.

As the L.A. Times first reported, the Trump administration’s settlement terms are far reaching, covering hiring, admissions, gender identity and protest rights. The government also wants to install an outside monitor to report on UCLA’s compliance, and there is no guarantee the Trump administration won’t launch future funding cuts or lawsuits.

Timeline of UCLA's response to federal actions

Here’s how school leaders and the university community have responded to the administration:

• Aug. 4: Attorneys on behalf of UC researchers submitted a court filing signaling that the NSF had defied a preliminary injunction and frozen hundreds of grants to UCLA. According to the filing, Frenk received “a long list of grants that were being indefinitely suspended.” The researchers themselves received “no explanation.”
  
• Aug. 12: A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore the suspended NSF grants.
  
• Sept. 10 and 11: UCLA hosted science fairs, inviting the public to learn about the research projects that remain frozen. The second day of the event was organized by UAW 4811, the union that represents student workers, postdocs and academic researchers across the UC system.
  
• Sept. 15: In a message to students, faculty, staff and alumni, UC President James B. Milliken called the Trump administration’s actions against UCLA “one of the gravest threats to the University of California in our 157-year history.” According to Milliken, the system receives more than $17 billion each year in federal support, including $9.9 billion in Medicare and Medicaid funding; $5.7 billion for research and program support; and $1.7 billion in student financial aid. “A substantial loss of this federal funding would be devastating for our mission and for the people who depend on us most,” he added. “It will mean fewer classes and student services, reduced access to healthcare, tens of thousands of lost jobs across the state and an exodus of world-class faculty and researchers to other states or countries.”
  
• Sept.16: A coalition of UC faculty, staff and unions filed their own lawsuit against the Trump administration. In it, the plaintiffs allege the grant cuts and settlement demands are unconstitutional. The administration's “economic coercion,” they add, is part of broader efforts to “exert ideological control over the nation’s core institutions.”
  
• Sept. 16 and 17: The UC Board of Regents, an independent body that oversees the system and plays a key role in federal negotiations, held its first public meetings since the research cuts. During public comment, Jason Rabinowitz, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 2010, one of the plaintiffs in the aforementioned lawsuit against the Trump administration, was the first to speak. “There should be no agreement to pay extortion money,” he told the regents. He also cautioned against the erosion of free speech. Ahead of the meetings, over 200 Jewish faculty members from campuses across the state signed a letter to the board: “Like Jewish people across the country and around the world, we hold various views about Israel and Palestine, U.S. policy in the Middle East and student activism on campus. But we are united in denouncing the federal government’s attempt to hobble the University of California — a bastion of free inquiry, social mobility and essential research — under the cynical and pretextual guise of ‘combating antisemitism.’”
  

Disclosure: Julia Barajas is a part-time graduate student at UCLA Law.

Take accountability and move forward.

Those were the two points Los Angeles Fire Chief Jaime Moore hit repeatedly when speaking with LAist’s Larry Mantle this week.

On taking accountability, Moore said hazardous conditions and decisions made before the Palisades Fire erupted a year ago meant “our firefighters never had a chance” to arrest the fire that killed 12 people and destroyed thousands of structures.

On moving forward, he emphasized that reform is already in the works.

“Things have changed since the Palisades Fire, and we're going to continue making big changes in the Los Angeles Fire Department,” said Moore, who was selected for the LAFD top job by Mayor Karen Bass in November.

Here are three takeaways from the interview, which aired on AirTalk on Tuesday.

1. Staffing decisions hampered fire response

The LAFD uses a so-called pre-deployment matrix to set firefighter staffing levels ahead of high-risk weather.

According to the department’s after-action report, however, staffing levels on the day the Palisades Fire began fell short of the LAFD standard for extreme weather conditions. The National Weather Service had warned of low humidity, high winds and dry vegetation, what it calls a “particularly dangerous situation.” It’s the highest level of alert the agency can give.

Despite the high risk, the LAFD report said the decision not to deploy more firefighters in advance was in part made to save money.

Moore said Monday that the department has updated its policies to increase staffing for especially hazardous conditions, but he said he doesn’t believe additional resources would have stopped a fire of the magnitude that leveled the Palisades.

To suppress that kind of fire, he said, the department would need to pre-deploy resources across the city’s vast geography — to places like Baldwin Hills, Franklin Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, the Palisades, Porter Ranch and Sunland-Tujunga.

Moore said the department has already made new policies to call for more resources when the Weather Service issues a “particularly dangerous situation” alert.

2. LAFD is mostly an urban firefighting department

Moore referenced a key finding of the after-action report regarding a lack of training in wildland firefighting, which contributed to confusion and struggles to effectively utilize resources during the fire.

Wildland fires pose a number of challenges that are different from what firefighters face in urban environments. Those include the need to coordinate a large number of resources over vast areas, all while dealing with fast-moving flames that can rapidly tear through dry plants and structures.

The department found in its report that fewer firefighters were trained in fighting these wildland fires in recent years and that “leaders struggled to comprehend their roles.”

Some leaders in the department had “limited or no experience in managing an incident of such complexity,” the report said. And some reverted to doing the work of lower positions, leaving high-level decision-making positions unfilled.

“What we're doing now is really furthering that training and reinforcing that education with our firefighters so that they could be better prepared,” Moore said on AirTalk.

3. Changes to the after-action report

Early versions of the after-action report differed from the version released to the public in October, a fact that was first reported by the Los Angeles Times. The Times also reported that Battalion Chief Kenneth Cook, who wrote the report, wouldn’t endorse the final version because of the changes.

Moore acknowledged to the L.A. Board of Fire Commissioners at a Jan. 6 meeting that the report had been watered down.

“It is now clear that multiple drafts were edited to soften language and reduce explicit criticism of department leadership in that final report,” Moore told the commissioners. “This editing occurred prior to my appointment as fire chief, and I can assure you that nothing of this sort will ever again happen while I am fire chief."

Some changes were small but telling. A section titled “Failures” later became “Primary Challenges.”

Moore told LAist that changes between versions “ made it easier for the public to understand,” but an LAist review found the edits weren’t all surface-level.

In the first version of the report, the department said the decision not to fully pre-deploy all available resources for the particularly dangerous wind event “did not align” with their guidelines for such extreme weather cases. The final version said that the initial response “lacked the appropriate resources,” removing the reference to department standards.

The department also removed some findings that had to do with communications.

One sentence from the initial version of the report said: “Most companies lacked a basic briefing, leader’s intent, communications plan, or updated fire information for more than 36 hours.” That language was removed from the final report.

LAist has asked the Fire Department for clarification about why these assertions were removed but did not receive a response before time of publication.

Olympic organizers announced Tuesday that registration to buy tickets will run through March 18, with sales beginning in April. LA28 CEO Reynold Hoover said that locals will get the first bite at the apple.

The registration period opens 7 a.m. Wednesday.

" Our host city communities here in Los Angeles and Oklahoma City will have the opportunity to be a part of a local presale," Hoover said outside the Coliseum while surrounded by Olympic athletes from Games past. "With our thanks and as part of our commitment to making sure that those who live and work around the games, where the games will take place, can be in the stands and cheer in 2028."

Olympic organizers also provided more details on ticket prices for the first time. One million tickets will sell for $28 a pop and around a third of tickets will be under $100, according to LA28 Chair Casey Wasserman.

That means the majority of tickets to the Olympic Games will run into triple digits. If the World Cup is any indication, some tickets could get astronomically pricey.

Interested fans can go to LA28.org to register. Those who are selected will get an email with a time slot to purchase tickets.

The L.A. County Board of Supervisors took a step toward banning ICE from unlawfully operating on county-owned property and to post signage designating those spaces as “ICE Free Zones.”

The board unanimously approved the motion at Tuesday’s meeting, directing staff to draft the policy.

The draft could include requirements for county employees to report to their supervisor if they see unauthorized immigration activity on county property.

The city of Los Angeles passed a similar order last July, which strengthened protocols that prohibit ICE from operating on city-owned property. The agenda staff report points to an “ICE Free Zone” ordinance passed by the city of Chicago in October.

Supervisors Lindsey Horvath and Hilda Solis co-authored the motion.

Horvath said the county will not allow its property to be used as “a staging ground for violence caused by the Trump administration."

Solis added that their action as a board could have a ripple effect on other city councils and local governments.

“Even though it's taken us this long to get here …I think it's really important for our communities to understand what we're saying is you don't have the right to come in and harass people without a federal warrant,” Solis said. “And if you use our property to stage, then you need to show us documentation as to why.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli said in an X post that the county cannot exclude federal agents from public spaces.

"Anyone who attempts to impede our agents will be arrested and charged, including county employees," Essayli said in the post. "We have already charged more than 100 individuals for similar conduct."

Since June, ICE raids have ramped up across the nation, heavily targeting certain immigrant communities like those in Los Angeles.

The motion directs the draft to include language that prohibits all types of ICE operations on county land, including staging and mobilizing without a warrant.

The motion cites an incident on Oct. 8, when county officials say federal agents raided the Deane Dana Friendship Park and Nature Center in San Pedro, arresting three people and threatening to arrest staff.

The motion also requires that the county post 'Ice Free Zone' signage on all of its properties.

Sergio Perez, executive director of the Center of Human Rights and Constitutional Law, told LAist the policy is enforceable under Fourth Amendment case law.

“You have to make sure that when you post that signage … that means that you routinely, or semi-routinely, assess who's coming in to the property, so that you can control access,” Perez said. “But if ICE shows up with a warrant, with a subpoena, then all bets are off, and they can enter into the property and do what they need to do.”

Perez said the county has moved “incredibly” slow on this issue.

“It's embarrassing that the county is moving six months later, given how we've been facing violent, aggressive, invasive and illegal raids now for so long here in Southern California,” Perez said, adding that local governments have not been fast or creative enough in protecting immigrant and refugee communities.

The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights, one of the region’s largest immigrant advocacy groups, supports the motion.

"We do not want our county resources being used for federal immigration enforcement activities, which disrupt, uproot, and terrorize our communities,” Jeannette Zanipatin, policy director for CHIRLA, said in a statement. “It is important for all public spaces to be really safe for all residents.”

County staff have 30 days to draft a plan to implement the new policy.