The Brief

Television news footage from Thursday night confirmed what many people in the region saw first hand in their own neighborhoods: Lots of fireworks lighting up the night sky — despite them being illegal in many parts of Los Angeles County.

Why so little enforcement?

Officials say bans are hard to enforce due to a combination of limited resources and the availability of fireworks for sale in more permissive areas.

So called "safe and sane" fireworks are widely available in L.A. County where 30 of the 88 cities allow their sale. that means in many areas you might see a fireworks stand doing a brisk business right across the street from a city that bans them.

The Los Angeles Police Department says it doesn’t have extra patrols out on Independence Day. Instead, they work with the Los Angeles Fire Department and their illegal fireworks campaign to disseminate information on the dangers of using fireworks in the lead up to Fourth of July celebrations.

LAPD Det. Meghan Aguilar also said despite the prevalence of illegal fireworks, the police department only responds to emergency calls on the 4th of July.

Nicholas Prange, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department, said they respond to emergency requests on July 4 and will sometimes work in collaboration with law enforcement if there are fireworks arrests or seizures.

Patchwork laws make it tough

Lisa Derderian, Pasadena’s public information officer, said it’s sometimes hard to enforce the ban because it’s difficult to track where the fireworks are being launched from.

And with neighboring cities like San Gabriel, where fireworks sales are legal promoted late into the night, people don’t have to go very far to get their fireworks fix.

She added that officials often see illegal fireworks used outside the annual Rose Bowl Independence Day fireworks show. And given the brushfire dangers to the surrounding foothills, the Pasadena police and fire departments do what they can to patrol the area during the 4th of July holiday.

Still, the availability of fireworks in surrounding areas is outside their control.

“If that's the case, then just use them in your city. Don't bring them out to cities where they are illegal,” Derderian said.

In case you were wondering, yes, all those amateur fireworks shows thrown across Southern California took a toll on our air quality. July 5th was once again the worst air quality day since the last July 5th.

Where "safe and sane" fireworks are legal

Definition: “Safe and sane” fireworks are fireworks that cannot explode, be airborne and are less the 10 inches long. They also cannot contain chemicals like arsenic sulfide, chlorates and magnesium.

They are allowed in these L.A. County cities.

• Alhambra
• Artesia
• Azusa
• Baldwin Park
• Bell
• Bellflower
• Bell Gardens
• Carson
• Commerce
• Compton
• Cudahy
• Downey
• El Monte
• Hawaiian Gardens
• Hawthorne
• Huntington Park
• Industry
• Inglewood
• Irwindale
• La Mirada
• La Puente
• Lakewood
• Lawndale
• Lynwood
• Maywood
• Monterey Park
• Norwalk
• Palmdale
• Paramount
• Pico Rivera.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

HP Communications, Inc., whose subcontractor struck a 16-inch underground petroleum pipeline in East L.A. last month, said the pipeline operator failed to properly mark the line’s location before the excavation work began.

The May 22 rupture sent an estimated 2,400 gallons of crude oil onto nearby streets and into storm drains, and drew a large-scale response and cleanup. 

In a June 1 statement, the HP Communications said its internal review found that “no markings identifying the pipeline were observed within the delineated work area” where construction was allowed. 

The pipeline is operated by Pacific Pipeline System, which since 2006 has been owned by Plains All American Pipeline.

A Pacific Pipeline System spokesperson released a statement to Boyle Heights Beat noting that the company does not comment on ongoing investigations.

“The cause of the incident remains under investigation by appropriate regulators and governmental authorities,” the statement read. “Pacific Pipeline System continues to focus on response and remediation efforts while cooperating fully with investigators as they work to complete their review.”

HP Communications, in its statement, alleged the pipeline operator incorrectly indicated through the DigAlert system, a notification center that discloses underground facility locations for planned excavation, that the pipeline had been “marked completely and accurately.”

“The purpose of California’s USA/DigAlert system is to help prevent precisely these types of incidents by ensuring that underground facility operators identify and mark the locations of their facilities before excavation or construction activities begin,” the statement read. 

“Construction activities associated with the project by our subcontractor were planned and conducted based on the utility locating information provided through the USA/DigAlert process,” the statement continued.

Under California’s DigAlert system, companies are required to notify the center before digging into a specified area. 

HP Communications said a subcontractor damaged the underground pipeline during construction for a “fiber-optic installation project” but did not identify the subcontractor. 

The work at the site was immediately halted after that, the company said.

“Protecting the safety of workers, first responders, nearby residents, and the surrounding community was the immediate focus of HP’s response efforts,” the statement read, adding that HP Communications is cooperating with agencies involved in the response, cleanup, and investigation efforts. 

The cause of the rupture remains under investigation, and no one has been held responsible. 

It remains unclear whether the excavation work was connected to the Broadband for All initiative, a $6 billion state and federal investment to close the digital divide. 

The plan involves building a network of high-capacity fiber lines that carry large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances, according to LAist. About 10,000 miles of fiber optic cable is being installed throughout California, including more than 500 miles in Los Angeles County. The state owns and manages the system.

HP Communications is one of the companies awarded a contract for the Broadband for All initiative. However, neither the company nor Pacific Pipeline System has publicly identified the project involved in the East L.A. excavation.

Last January, when federal immigration agents started an immigration crackdown in Portland, Maine, pediatric occupational therapist Xenia Pantos was driving using their spouse's car to work when they saw masked federal agents and vehicles with tinted windows parked in the road. Worried about immigrant community members, Pantos stopped for a few minutes to observe.

Pantos told NPR they stayed at least 10 feet away from the agents and did not interact with them, but noticed an agent taking photos of another observer's license plate.

Hours later, Pantos' spouse, Carly Williams, a nonprofit consultant, said she received a call from a blocked number. A deep male voice on the other end of the line asked for her by name and identified himself as calling from the Department of Homeland Security.

Williams said the caller asked if anyone else drives her vehicle. When Williams mentioned her spouse sometimes did, the caller asked Williams if she knew her spouse had stopped at an incident that morning.

"What he basically said was, 'You should let her know to not do that anymore because people who are doing that type of thing are getting added to a domestic terrorist watch list,'" Williams recalled in an interview with NPR. (While the caller referred to Pantos as "she" and "her," Pantos uses they/them pronouns).

"That was a pretty terrifying phone call to receive, as you can imagine," Williams said.

DHS declined to comment on the couple's account when asked by NPR.

For months, Department of Homeland Security officials have repeatedly denied having a database tracking U.S. citizen protesters or a database of "domestic terrorists", even as anecdotes like what happened to Pantos and Williams suggest federal agents are collecting observers' information in some capacity.

In a previously unpublicized letter sent to members of Congress in April, recently departed acting ICE director Todd Lyons acknowledged the agency gives itself wide latitude to collect information on individuals suspected of potential violations of law, including interference with ICE operations or officer safety matters, and maintains records on people who were never arrested.

In the letter, Lyons denied that ICE maintains a database of protesters or that DHS maintains a "separate, standalone database" of individuals who were encountered but not arrested or detained. But he said at protests that involved alleged criminal conduct, ICE has collected "information to identify individuals reasonably believed to be involved in, or directly supporting, potential violations of federal law and to address officer safety and facility security concerns." The letter said ICE collects "essential biographic and biometric information and situational details."

Lyons wrote: "If individuals who interact with ICE officers are not arrested or detained, any information collected during those encounters is maintained consistent with applicable law and DHS and ICE policies and is treated as an official government record."

NPR is the first news organization to review the letter, which is dated April 21.

It was sent in response to Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.) and 11 other Democratic members of Congress who wrote to DHS in February asking questions about what data the department collects on protesters.

Civil liberties experts told NPR Lyons' letter appears to be the clearest official acknowledgement yet by federal immigration officials that they may be routinely collecting and preserving information on protesters and observers who are not arrested.

"This letter is evidence of the fact that ICE is knowingly collecting and maintaining official government records on any protestor or lawful observer that its agents claim is potentially interfering with them or threatening agent safety," said JoAnna Suriani, a lawyer at the nonprofit legal and advocacy organization, Protect Democracy.

Suriani is representing Pantos, Williams and other observers in Maine in a federal lawsuit that alleges their First Amendment rights were violated by federal agents who tried to intimidate them by recording their faces and license plates and threatening to add them to a domestic terrorism database.

"Anyone who has seen the videos of our clients' interactions with ICE agents can see they aren't impeding anything and pose no threat to anyone, so why was their information collected?" Suriani said.

Protesters photographed, filmed and threatened with charges

Since the Trump administration's immigration crackdown began last year, peaceful protesters and observers recording federal immigration operations on their cell phones have been threatened with criminal charges for impeding or interfering with law enforcement operations. However, many cases where charges were brought against activists have been dismissed or resulted in acquittals. DHS officials have also previously asserted that recording federal agents and posting the videos amounts to "doxxing" and is a threat to their safety.

Observers in several states, including Minnesota and Tennessee, complained that agents photographed their faces and license plates and later determined their identities and where they lived. Federal agents have access to a suite of surveillance tools, including facial recognition technology, and can access vehicle registration records using a car's license plate.

An activist stands outside across from what appears to be an U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement SUV in Portland, Maine on January 23, 2026.

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Joseph Prezioso

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AFP via Getty Images

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A number of observers have also said their Global Entry status was revoked after interacting with federal immigration officials. The program is run by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, another DHS agency, and allows expedited processing for pre-approved, low-risk travelers.

In January, a DHS official sent a memo to some federal immigration agents temporarily assigned to Minneapolis instructing them to collect personal information about protesters and agitators, including license plates, identifications and images, according to CNN reporting.

Frost told NPR he has been concerned about law enforcement tracking protesters since he was part of the Black Lives Matter movement and learned police were collecting information on him and other protesters.

He said while it may be typical for law enforcement to conduct investigations and determine if someone broke the law and then move on, it is concerning if information on people who are exercising their rights is kept by a large federal department.

"That's the concern, is that we have an agency that's been tasked with immigration enforcement having a database … relating to Americans exercising the First Amendment, which is wrong," Frost told NPR.

ICE letter provides nuance after blanket denial

At a February congressional hearing, Lyons denied his agency was surveilling U.S. citizens and said: "There is no database for protesters."

DHS has repeatedly provided a statement to the media that says, "There is NO database of 'domestic terrorists' run by DHS. We do of course monitor and investigate and refer all threats, assaults and obstruction of our officers to the appropriate law enforcement. Obstructing and assaulting law enforcement is a felony and a federal crime. Our law enforcement methods follow the U.S. constitution."

A mobile billboard that reads "ICE agents aren't above Maine Law. Illegal conduct can be prosecuted" is seen on Jan. 30, 2026, in Portland, Maine.

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Scott Eisen

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Getty Images North America

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A department spokesperson provided that statement in response to NPR's inquiry asking if the Lyons' letter still reflected current policy, and again in response to a request for comment about Pantos and Williams' account.

At a congressional hearing last week, Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne Mullin said his department had used facial recognition technology on people gathered outside of Delaney Hall, an immigration detention center in New Jersey that has been the site of recent protests that have led to intense clashes between some individuals and federal agents. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the demonstrations, including some who are accused of assaulting federal officers.

"I have zero tolerance," Mullin said in the hearing. "If you verbally assault our officers, you go after our vehicles, you assault our property, you assault one of our officers, we will find you, we will arrest you."

Lyons' April letter began by saying, "U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) does not maintain any kind of database of U.S. citizens protesting ICE activities." It also asserted that "DHS policies and practices are designed to respect lawful protests and constitutionally protected activities."

The letter continued, "Where individuals decide to go beyond protected speech and commit crimes against federal personnel and property or threaten, or forcibly impede, assault, or interfere with lawful operations, ICE remains steadfast in exercising its authority to investigate and prosecute violators."

While the letter suggested personal information is only collected if there is potential unlawful activity, Scarlet Kim, a senior staff attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, said the Trump administration has set a precedent of characterizing lawful First Amendment activities as possible crimes.

"We know that very high level officials within DHS and Lyons himself have explicitly equated First Amendment-protected activities like video recording, gathering information about federal agents, and sharing that information publicly as essentially potential criminal acts that threaten officer safety," said Kim, who is representing observers in Memphis and Minneapolis in federal lawsuits against agencies involved in immigration enforcement.

"So their own definition of what potentially violates the law and could trigger surveillance against an individual includes activities that are squarely protected by the First Amendment," Kim said.

While Lyons writes, "DHS is not creating or maintaining a separate, standalone database for individuals encountered that haven't been arrested or detained," Kim said the letter "strongly suggests" that even if DHS does not have a standalone database of U.S. citizens engaged in First Amendment-protected activities, federal agents are likely collecting and maintaining that information in existing data systems.

"He did not deny that, essentially, that information would not be placed in other existing databases," Kim said.

The letter from Frost and his fellow Democrats was addressed to the Secretary of Homeland Security and asked about policies at DHS, but the response came just from ICE, which is just one agency within the department, raising questions about what may be happening in other parts of the department.

The Democrats' letter questioned whether DHS maintains or accesses information from lists or programs called "Bluekey, Grapevine, Hummingbird, Reaper, Sandcastle, Sienna, Slipstream, and Sparta" among others. A January article by independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported DHS and FBI have secret watchlists with those code names to track anti-ICE and pro-Palestinian protesters, as well as "Antifa."

The letter from Lyons said in response: "ICE does not maintain, add, or access information from the programs mentioned in your letter."

Frost told NPR he plans to continue pressing the department as he has many more questions about how the information ICE is collecting is used and how it is shared with other parts of DHS.

Last month, the organization FIRE, which advocates for freedom of expression, announced that it is suing DHS and ICE for access to records on whether it is maintaining a database of protesters.

Maine couple left with unanswered questions

Pantos told NPR they had no idea their information might be collected by federal agents when they made the decision to pull over and peacefully observe that morning in January, and that what they had done was protected by the First Amendment.

But after the unexpected phone call threatening that Pantos could be added to a domestic terrorist database, Pantos said they felt too scared to observe ICE activity again. They worried about their family's safety.

"We are a queer couple, which brings additional risks," Pantos said. "There has been an ICE surge in Portland and I've felt really overwhelmed and powerless."

In March, two months after the incident, the couple drove to Quebec City in Pantos' car to celebrate their anniversary. When they tried to re-enter the U.S., a Customs and Border Protection officer pulled them aside for additional questioning and took their phones and keys for about an hour, they said.

To their surprise, one of the officer's first questions was to ask Williams if she had her car registration with her, despite the fact that they were traveling in Pantos' car. After Williams said she didn't have it with her, the officer asked her to describe her car and to recite her license plate number if she remembered it, according to the couple's account.

"He was clearly looking at a computer screen," Williams said, adding that the officer "seemed to be verifying what I was saying."

The couple told NPR that was the moment they realized their data must have been retained in some kind of federal system after Pantos stopped to observe federal agents in January.

"I have to think, because he asked about Carly's vehicle when we were in my vehicle, that there is some sort of an alert when you run our passports that brings attention to us in a way that it didn't used to before all of this happened," Pantos told NPR.

"I feel really concerned about what has happened with my data and the data of so many other people," Pantos said.
Copyright 2026 NPR

It's a sunny, warm Wednesday on deck so make sure you stay hydrated and apply that SPF.

Daytime highs at the beaches are going to stay in the low to mid 70s, and reach 85 to 95 degrees in the valleys. Similar conditions are expected for the Inland Empire.

For communities in the Santa Monica Mountains, temperatures will stay in the mid 80s.

And in Coachella Valley, temperatures will once again be in the triple digits, with highs of up to 108 degrees.

Recommendations on how to spend $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme will be left to his successor — and long-ago boss-turned-foe — Supervisor Janet Nguyen, under a plan advanced Tuesday by Orange County supervisors. The money is expected to be devoted to benefitting his former constituents, with exact spending plans to be proposed later.

The supervisors moved forward with a proposal by Nguyen to transfer the recovered dollars into her district’s discretionary funds, which she makes recommendations on how to spend. In doing so, they opted not to pursue a notion floated by Supervisor Don Wagner to spend the funds outside the district — an idea that faced intense pushback from dozens of public commenters at Tuesday’s meeting.

“ These funds were recovered in connection with the Andrew Do corruption matter,” Nguyen said. The money, she added, “should be returned back to the benefit of the 1st District community that were deprived of the intended services and public benefits.”

Nguyen said a variety of community needs could be addressed with the dollars, including helping people affected by multi-day mass evacuations over a recent explosion risk at a Garden Grove industrial facility.

As LAist reported when uncovering the corruption scheme, Do used the district discretionary process to allocate millions of dollars in the scheme without it ever appearing on public agendas. Under a state law passed in response to the Do scandal, spending of those funds in O.C. now must go to a public vote of the full board and be posted in an online spending log.

Supervisors have not yet decided how much of the recovered funds will go to communities such as Santa Ana that were in Do’s district during the first year-and-a-half of the four-year scheme, before the map changed due to redistricting. That question will be decided when the board votes on Nguyen’s spending recommendations.

Residents want the money to stay in the district

The supervisors’ move came after more than 50 residents of Do’s former district spoke to the board during public comments — all urging that the funds be spent in the district it was originally intended for. Wagner previously said he wanted a discussion on where to spend it because there are so many needs “across the county.”

“ This is shameful that you're even considering that this money not return to our district,” said Anne Calvo, a senior in Seal Beach’s Leisure World community.

“Please return the funds that are due to our district that were stolen from us,” said Calvo, who was appointed by Nguyen to the county’s Older Adults Advisory Commission.

“Please don't steal these funds twice,” said Huntington Beach resident Lori Sueki.

Vietnamese-language media covers a packed audience during public comments about the fate of $3.7 million recovered from the Andrew Do corruption scheme, during the OC Board of Supervisors’ public meeting on Tuesday, June 9, 2026.

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Jill Replogle/LAist

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Nguyen said it was the most number of speakers she could recall speaking on one topic at a supervisors’ meeting in the year and half since she re-joined the board.

In the days leading up to the discussion, Nguyen put out email blasts calling on constituents to send letters and speak up for devoting the funds to the district.

Several elected officials in local cities were among those calling on the board to spend the money in the district.

“ Other districts vying for the 1st District's funds, which are rightfully the 1st District's, is crazy,” said Butch Twining, an elected city councilman for Huntington Beach.

“Your respective districts have already received 100% of your funding,” Twining said.  ”The money is for our kids, our seniors, our veterans, to aid in providing help to our homeless and underserved communities, our public safety.”

The money diverted in the scheme was originally intended to feed vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities in his district, which included Little Saigon, Huntington Beach and — in the earlier part of the scheme — Santa Ana.

The diversion of the funds “hurt and created true victims of residents who were denied the services, the assistance, the opportunities, to recover quickly and to have their needs addressed,” said Supervisor Vicente Sarmiento, who was mayor of Santa Ana during the pandemic.

“The money should go back to those that were harmed. But let's figure out who was harmed and make sure that we look at that,” he said, noting the changes to the district lines.

Fallout

Do is now serving a five-year sentence in federal prison after he admitted to accepting bribes in exchange for awarding millions in tax dollars meant to feed needy seniors and people with disabilities in his district.

As part of the plea deal, Do acknowledged taking more than $800,000 in bribes through his two daughters, including a down payment on the house his youngest daughter Rhiannon Do later forfeited to resolve the criminal case. The unaccounted-for dollars were first uncovered by LAist.

Federal officials recovered money from seized bank accounts and two properties connected to the bribes — including the Tustin house his daughter bought.

Millions more haven’t been recovered, at least yet

The amount of taxpayer money recovered so far is less than half of the $7.9 million Andrew Do admitted was diverted from specific meal contracts.

In a lawsuit seeking to recover funds, the county alleges the total amount lost was even larger: $13.25 million. The county’s suit — scheduled for trial in November 2027 — covers all of the money Do gave to two nonprofits, Viet America Society and Hand to Hand Relief Organization.

That leaves more than $4 million — and possibly much more — not yet recovered.

A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office noted they have an ongoing criminal case against Do’s alleged co-conspirator Peter Pham.

“Assuming we obtain a conviction in that matter, we would expect to seek restitution,” the spokesperson, Ciaran McEvoy, said.

Pham left the country on a flight to Taiwan in late 2024 and remains a fugitive, according to McEvoy. The case against him also includes charges against another alleged co-conspirator, Thanh Huong Nguyen, who led the Hand to Hand nonprofit.

The scandal has also been costly to taxpayers in other ways. In addition to what the county has spent on legal fees to pursue the lawsuit, $1.7 million has been spent on outside contracts — including a forensic audit — Supervisor Katrina Foley said on Tuesday.