The Brief

Just hours after the birth of their second child, Charles Johnson lost his wife Kira at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in west Los Angeles.

Kira Johnson was a healthy 39-year old Black woman. Her C-section took just 17 minutes. But more than 10 hours later, she died after waiting for treatment that came too late for internal bleeding, according to Charles Johnson and a civil rights lawsuit filed in the aftermath.

After his wife's death, Charles Johnson had a painful revelation when he began to learn about the Black maternal mortality crisis and that Black patients are three times more likely to die due to pregnancy-related issues than white patients.

" I couldn't understand why we begged and pleaded for hours for them to do something and nobody did anything," Johnson said.

"When I really got to see the data [I was] like, oh my God, this is what happened," he added. "The greatest risk factor was not Kira's race — it was racism."

That was 2016. But it was just last month that Cedars-Sinai resolved a federal investigation into its treatment of Black patients and other patients of color by coming to an agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights.

But some advocates for Black maternal health — including Charles Johnson — say that agreement doesn't go far enough. Later this week, they plan on demonstrating outside of the hospital to say so.

Federal investigation found 'concerns' with Cedars-Sinai care

In November, the HHS Office for Civil Rights sent a letter to the medical center. It raised "concerns that a lower standard of care is provided to Black patients compared to their white counterparts," particularly during and before obstetric hemorrhage, “which results in the risk of higher rates of adverse maternal health outcomes for Black patients.”

That letter, provided to LAist by Charles Johnson, did not include any final determinations. But it did lay out "evidence that may be indicative of noncompliance" with federal anti-discrimination laws.

In January, the federal civil rights agency and Cedars-Sinai came to an agreement that resolves the investigation, while not constituting "an admission of liability" from Cedars-Sinai.

Among other items, it requires the medical center to work with and report to the Office for Civil Rights on its obligations.

What was in the Cedars-Sinai agreement?

The voluntary agreement laid out multiple obligations for Cedars, including:

• Staff training on hemorrhaging management policy.
• Submission of a protocol for assessing and managing acute pain of birthing patients.
• Update of early maternal warning systems for pregnant women developing critical illness.
• Training on federal nondiscrimination requirements.
• Development of a tool for reporting bias in treatment, with findings made public annually.
• Development of a program to support patients' access to doulas.

A spokesperson for Cedars-Sinai said the medical center had offered to meet with Johnson's organization, 4Kira4Moms.

"The recent agreement with the Office of Civil Rights demonstrates our continued commitment to ensuring safe and equitable outcomes through education, accountability and rigorous quality initiatives aimed at addressing disparities in maternal health," the spokesperson said in an email. "We have embraced the opportunity to partner with the Office to strengthen our longstanding dedication to equity for all those who entrust us with their care."

What are other demands?

But 4Kira4Moms says Cedars needs more external monitoring.

 "One of the challenges that we see with medical systems around the country is that they are attempting to police themselves, and it's a fool's errand," Johnson said.

That's why Johnson's group wants the medical center to agree to a series of additional demands, including issuing a statement acknowledging "systemic failures in maternal healthcare," establishing an independent oversight board to investigate racial inequities, and making its Office of Patient Advocacy independent.

" We need an independent review of, particularly, deaths, to make sure that problems are being identified and solutions are being recommended to the hospital that can't be watered down by internal considerations," said Carmen Balber with the advocacy group Consumer Watchdog, which has joined the effort to pressure Cedars-Sinai.

Charles Johnson also said he wants more transparency around how Cedars-Sinai will implement its obligations.

"There's a commitment to a doula program, but that has no parameters of who has access to these doulas," he said. "Who are they for? Who is helping orchestrate them? What credentials do they have?"

The medical center's spokesperson pointed to a number of efforts to address alleged bias in healthcare at Cedars over the past decade, including creating an anonymous online tool to report suspected bias during labor and delivery and implementing mandatory unconscious bias training.

Fate of the HHS Office for Civil Rights uncertain

The Department of Health and Human Services that signed an agreement with Cedars-Sinai last month already looks very different under the new administration of President Donald Trump.

Last week, Robert F. Kennedy was confirmed as Health Secretary and there's a new acting director of the HHS Office for Civil Rights, Anthony Archeval. Trump's administration has ordered the shut down of programs advancing equity, leading some advocates to wonder if the new office will prioritize enforcing the agreement with Cedars-Sinai.

"In addition to holding Cedars-Sinai accountable with this protest, we are also calling on the Trump administration to continue to fund and support the [Office for Civil Rights]," Johnson said.

In Trump's transition to power, the government website reproductiverights.gov went dark. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention failed to publish its weekly report on morbidity and mortality for the first time in decades. (Weekly reports have been published again in February.)

" The Office [for] Civil Rights is there specifically to make sure that people are protected,  and have a place to go when they feel like laws related to discrimination are being violated," said Regina Davis Moss, president of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda. " We want to see that funded."

The Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory may run the second-longest study of  individually identifiable mammals in the world, but they’re not afraid of trying something new.

The lab is launching a bracket-style competition, Fat Marmot Week, for people all over the world to vote for their favorite chunky ground squirrel.

The UCLA researchers who work there have faced a loss of federal funding in recent years, so they’re now pursuing creative fundraising efforts, including a (G-rated) OnlyFans account for marmot content called OnlyMarms and a meme coin created by supporters of the project.

Where the idea came from

Dan Blumstein, a UCLA ecology and environmental biology professor who came up with OnlyMarms, said he’s wanted to do a Fat Marmot Week ever since the success of Fat Bear Week, in which the public votes on grizzly bears bulking up for the winter in Alaska. But it took two of his graduate researchers, Katie Adler and Emily Renkey, along with another volunteer who helps with logistics, to see it to fruition.

“ Science isn't just writing the papers, it's also the communication side of things,” said Adler, who’s also the lab’s field team leader.

Like bears, marmots prepare for the winter by fattening up, with some more than doubling in weight from about 5.5 pounds to as much as 13. But unlike bears, marmots are true hibernators. For months, their body temperature drops very low, and they breathe and have a heartbeat about once a minute. (Blumstein described a hibernating marmot as “sort of a fuzzy stone.”)

These two specimens are called Dawn and Dan's Hat.

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Courtesy Dan Blumstein/UCLA

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Adler said she likes highlighting what makes the portly rodents interesting, which is harder “ when you're covered in marmot poop and sweating your butt off.”

“I think it’s fun to think of this from an outside perspective – why do we like marmots and how can we share that with other people?” Rankey said.

About the marmots

The marmots are all given names to help tell them apart based on markings the researchers dye on their fur.

Their names range from Dawn, who is reportedly a “a very special boy who enjoys the taste of rocks,” to a “proud mama” named 1 and a “girl boss” with no mate named Open Kite.

“Our parties are quite boring to other people because all we do is talk about the marmots,” Blumstein said. “It's a soap opera.”

Funding troubles

Faced with federal funding cuts, Blumstein realized he had to get creative in order to keep research going, starting with the OnlyMarms account.

But he said he wasn’t expecting the “extraordinary” response – the meme coin has made more than $100,000 in transaction fees, though it’s still short of the $225,000 to $300,000 they need to fundraise to bring in another graduate student for further research.

Blumstein said while all funding is welcome, including the OnlyMarms subscriptions, it’s much easier for them to accept direct donations for tax purposes. The money will go to support researchers like Renkey and Adler’s contributions to the nearly 65 years of marmot research at the lab.

The tournament

Eight competitors will face off — five females and three males. There’ll also be a “true” winner who’s announced at the end based on the lab’s measurements on which marmot gained the most weight this spring and summer.

The first round of voting will be Monday, Aug. 24, followed by the semifinals on Wednesday, Aug. 26, and the final showdown on Friday, Aug. 28. Voting runs from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. PDT.

“Everyone should vote. It's very exciting,” Renkey said. “They're huge this summer.”

The younger bald eagle that Shadow has been seen hanging out with around Big Bear’s famous nest lately has a new name.

The bird, which is believed to be a female, is banded as KD1. Friends of Big Bear Valley, the nonprofit that runs the popular YouTube livestream, has dubbed her Kaydee.

The organization generally doesn’t name visiting eagles, but Kaydee is sticking around so far and could become a new online star after Shadow’s long-time mate Jackie died last week.

So, who is this new eagle in the nest?

One expert told LAist that Kaydee is more than 4 years old and was probably wandering much further than Big Bear before it was spotted on camera.

“This is kind of the banders dream, right? You put bands on a bird so that you can possibly get … a one-off observation of where it is at some point in its life, and we're getting way, way more than that,” said Jenna Carpenter, a field biologist and environmental specialist with the Orange County Water District.

“In this instance, we're getting 24/7 views and people are so tuned into it that they're keeping really good track of where KD1 is, and it's really awesome.”

Meet Kaydee

Kaydee was first recorded on the livestream cameras in the Big Bear habitat on Aug. 6 — a few days before Jackie died — according to Friends of Big Bear Valley.

The nonprofit said the eagle started to perch by Shadow in several trees, which it has continued to do in the weeks since. The group recently referred to Kaydee as Shadow’s “shadow.”

Kaydee is from the Prado Basin area, where its parents Ricky and Lucy nest nearby. Carpenter said Ricky and Lucy have raised around a dozen eaglets since 2021, when they first started setting up shop in the area.

The eagle wears two bracelet-like bands on its legs, including a lavender-colored one, which can be used to track Kaydee in different areas.

“If someone sees [the color band] with a scope or binoculars or a zoom camera, it can be reported and put into a research database, which adds to the opportunity to progress conservation for raptors and eagles,” Carpenter said.

You can learn more about reporting a bird with a federal band or color marker here.

Will Kaydee stick with Shadow?

Kaydee is what's known as a subadult eagle, a stage in which Carpenter said raptors are still trying to figure out what they want to do and where they want to be.

“Big Bear’s a nice habitat, obviously they've been visiting this nest, you know, there's some interest there whatever it may be,” she said. “So it's possible that they stick around and find a mate, whether that be Shadow or another adult eagle.”

But it’s also possible Kaydee moves onto another habitat after the off-season. Whatever happens, Carpenter said us humans get to go along for the ride through the livestream, which she described as a privilege.

“We get this chance to witness something that we would not normally get to witness, because we know exactly who this bird is and we happen to have cameras in the area,” she said. “It might be everything and it might be nothing, and either way, I think that's really exciting that we get to have a little peek into this world.”

The Esquivel family opened their first taqueria at Playas de Tijuana 15 years ago, with a focus on individually crafted tacos, each with its own pairing of salsa.

Since then, Taqueria Tijuanero — formerly Tijuanazo — has become an increasingly popular SoCal taco chain.

Owner Aria Esquivel sat down with AirTalk Friday host Austin Cross to talk about how it all started from a humble Tijuana brick-and-mortar and how they stay true to their distinct North Mexican menu.

The art of the taco

Esquivel’s father and mastermind behind Taqueria Tijuanero, Antonio Esquivel, began working in kitchens when he was 16 years old, working his way up from dishwasher to cook at French restaurants in Beverly Hills.

“What he really loved about the taco and the art of the taco in Tijuana is how these ingredients mesh so well together,” Esquivel said.

That’s when the family opened up their own restaurant in Playas de Tijuana in 2011.

Mexico's taco diversity

Because of Mexico’s diverse landscape of crops, history and even weather patterns, taco styles can actually vary quite a bit depending on where you are in the country.

“ The tacos in Mexico City are different," Esquivel said. "The tacos in Sonora are different. The Tijuana tacos are different."

Fresh al pastor

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(Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero

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Al pastor taco

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Courtesy Taqueria Tijuanero

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Bill Esparza, the James Beard Award-winning food writer who's spent the last two decades chronicling L.A.'s taco scene, helped curate Taqueando After Dark, a new food festival that will feature eight L.A. taco vendors, including Taqueria Tijuanero.

“When I see theirs, I see what I see in Mexico,” Esparza said of Taqueria Tijuanero’s tacos, adding, “It’s a taco that really has a lot of intentionality behind it.”

How to experience Taqueando After Dark festival

Taqueando After Dark takes over Level 8 for two nights, Aug. 27 and 28. (Courtesy of Level 8)

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Courtesy Taqueando After Dark

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New location coming:

• The family is in the process of opening its third SoCal location in Echo Park.

How to visit:

• Address: 355 S Atlantic Blvd., East Los Angeles
• Hours: Closed on Mondays | Tuesday-Sunday, open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
• Costs: Tacos are $3.95 each