The Brief

More than nine months after fires destroyed more than 12,000 homes in Los Angeles County, some surviving homes still haven’t been cleaned.

The toxic debris spewed into these homes remains, in many cases because landlords refused to pay for remediation services.

This month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a new bill into law, stipulating in no uncertain terms that landlords must clean rental homes covered in debris from natural disasters, including fires.

But that doesn’t mean much has changed yet for tenants still displaced from their old homes. Some have given up on ever returning.

If you’re still fighting to clear a rental home of harmful post-fire debris, here are some tips on how to seek help.

Where to start 

Start by contacting the local authorities responsible for enforcing tenants’ right to a habitable home.

If you live within the city of Los Angeles, near the Palisades Fire burn zone, you should contact the L.A. Housing Department. A department spokesperson said your first step should be to file a code violation complaint at this link.

If you live near the Eaton Fire burn zone, your point of contact will vary based on where you live.

In Altadena, the L.A. County Department of Public Health has committed to respond to tenant complaints about post-fire ash, soot and smoke damage. You can file a complaint by emailing DPH-RHHP@ph.lacounty.gov or by calling (888) 700-9995 (select option 3).

In Pasadena, tenants can reach out to the city’s Code Compliance Division. Prior to the passage of SB 610, Pasadena officials maintained that local codes did not apply to post-fire debris in rental housing. But after Newsom signed the bill, a city spokesperson told LAist that local officials will change their messaging on landlord responsibilities.

How to escalate 

If local officials remain unresponsive, don’t give up. Local advocacy groups have been helping renters navigate this vexing issue for months now.

Perhaps the most active of these groups is the Altadena Tenants Union, which formed in the wake of the Eaton Fire to push for tenant rights in the fire recovery process.

The Altadena Tenants Union’s website features a detailed guide to post-fire rental housing issues. The guide includes links to a form letter you can use to demand action from your landlord, as well as tips on how to seek pro bono legal assistance.

The Pasadena Tenants Union has posted a similar guide for renters living within city borders.

If all else fails, call your representatives

If you’re still getting stuck, try reaching out to your state representatives.

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, who introduced SB 610, is a Democrat representing a district that includes Altadena and Pasadena. She encouraged her constituents to contact her office for support.

Pérez’s office can be contacted at (626) 304-1086 or through this contact form on the district’s website.

On Tuesday opening statements will begin for the federal antitrust trial against Live Nation, one of the largest entertainment companies in the world. In a New York City courtroom, prosecutors are expected to argue that Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have engaged in anticompetitive practices that profoundly harm musicians, venues and ticket buyers.

The trial is the result of a lawsuit originally filed by the Justice Department in 2024, though calls for reforms to the ticketing industry have been building for much longer. Back in 2022, chaotic sales for Taylor Swift's blockbuster Eras Tour — which included high pricing, long queues and a crashing platform — resulted in outcry from the singer and legal action from coalitions of Swifties. That event led to scrutiny from government officials, laying the groundwork for this week's events. In recent years, artists including The Cure and Olivia Dean have also criticized Live Nation and Ticketmaster for its pricing models and fought for fans to receive partial refunds.

Despite Live Nation's repeated attempts to get the government's lawsuit dismissed, U.S. District Judge Arun Subramanian ultimately ruled to move forward with a trial. In response to questions from NPR, Live Nation stated that a majority of ticket prices in the U.S. are under $100 and referred to a breakdown of the Justice Department's claims written by Dan Wall, executive vice president of corporate and regulatory affairs at Live Nation.

Who's involved?

The federal government and 39 states, plus the District of Columbia, are suing Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster.

Since its foundation under a different name in 1996, Live Nation has promoted live events and managed venues. Over the years, it acquired additional companies in the live entertainment space and became the top concert promoter in the U.S. Ticketmaster, which was founded by two Arizona State University staffers in 1976, started out selling hardware for ticketing systems and expanded into the leading ticket selling company in the country. (In 1994, Pearl Jam famously boycotted Ticketmaster, alleging the company's control over ticketing was driving up service charges, which prompted a Justice Department investigation that was later dropped).

In 2009, Ticketmaster and Live Nation announced plans to merge, sparking backlash from artists like Bruce Springsteen and lawmakers including Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer. The following year, the Justice Department approved the consolidation of the two companies under a number of conditions meant to ensure it would not monopolize the live music industry. Now, the Justice Department claims Live Nation has not held up its end of the bargain.

What is Live Nation being accused of?

The government alleges that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are unfairly wielding their power over concert promotion, artist management, venue operations and ticketing services to shut out competitors. According to the amended lawsuit, Live Nation manages more than 400 artists and owns or controls more than 265 venues in North America, while Ticketmaster controls around 80% of ticketing in the primary marketplace, plus a growing share of the resale market.

"The government and a bunch of state governments looked at what was happening and said, 'We think this company has too much control over too many different areas of the industry and it's using its different parts of the music business as weapons,'" says John Newman, a law professor at the University of Memphis who focuses on antitrust law. "When it's facing venues, it's using its control over promotion and ticketing as a weapon. Then, when it's turning around and dealing with artists, it's using its control over event venues as a weapon. There's just too much control over too many different areas."

The government alleges that artists are pressured to use Live Nation and Ticketmaster's promotion services in order to perform at its venues, especially major amphitheaters; on the other hand, venues are allegedly cornered into signing long term, exclusive contracts with Live Nation and Ticketmaster in order to gain a number of benefits, including being able to host lucrative shows. Ultimately, the government claims that both artists and venues lose the ability to make independent choices or work with competing promotion and ticketing companies without facing major financial risks or retaliation from Live Nation.

"These business practices can, and often do, work against the interests of those with relatively little power and influence, especially working musicians and fans," reads the lawsuit.

In a statement provided to NPR, Live Nation denied the government's claims.

"There is more competition than ever in the live events market — which is why Ticketmaster's market share has declined since 2010," reads the statement. "The outcome of this trial will do nothing to lower ticket prices for fans or address the industry issues they care about most."

It's hard to predict how federal prosecutors and Live Nation's defense attorneys will make their case in the courtroom or how it will be received by a jury of New Yorkers, but Newman says one thing's for sure: the government will likely have to acknowledge its own role in allowing the merger to occur in the first place.

"The government is put in the awkward position of saying, 'We made a mistake. We should have acted more forcefully back then, but we didn't,'" says Newman.

Now, it's up to a jury and judge to decide how to alter Live Nation's business model moving forward, if at all. If found guilty of violating antitrust laws, Ticketmaster and Live Nation could be broken up. "If that happens, it would radically reshape the live music industry in the U.S.," Newman says.

What could this mean for fans?

In February, Judge Subramanian dismissed several monopoly claims, including the government's argument that Live Nation's control over the industry is unfairly driving up ticket prices and causing significant harm to consumers. Judge Subramanian ruled that the government had not provided enough evidence to prove that current prices are above competitive rates. But even without a designated focus on how fans are impacted by the company's business practices, if Live Nation and Ticketmaster are forced to separate, ticket buyers will likely feel the difference.

"If you separate the two, it's going to increase competition," says Dustin Brighton, a spokesperson for the Coalition for Ticket Fairness, which advocates for increased transparency and consumer protections in the live events space. "Consumers will always benefit from a marketplace where there's a lot of competition and where they have more opportunity to get what they want."

Brian Berry is executive director of Ticket Policy Forum, an association of ticket sellers and resellers in the U.S. advocating for more competition across the industry. He says a wider array of choices not only has the potential to lower prices and fees, but also to improve the ways fans currently obtain tickets.

"If you've ever used the Ticketmaster app, you realize it was probably launched when the VCR and fax machine were coming on to the market," he says. "[There's] not a whole lot of innovation there. It's a terrible experience. It's broken. There are better platforms."

Are there other pending legal cases against Live Nation?

The antitrust trial is part of a larger web of legal actions taken against Live Nation in recent years.

In 2024, sales for the Oasis reunion tour in the U.K. — and particularly Ticketmaster's use of "dynamic pricing" — sparked an investigation by a U.K. government watchdog agency into whether the company breached consumer protection law. Ultimately, the agency found that Ticketmaster "may have misled Oasis fans." As a result, the company agreed to be more transparent about pricing tiers moving forward.

In September, the Federal Trade Commission filed a lawsuit against Ticketmaster and its parent company, Live Nation, alleging that the company willingly misleads consumers about ticket prices and cooperates with scalpers to markup resale prices — all at the expense of artists and music fans. 

There are still ongoing class-action and fan-led lawsuits against Live Nation and Ticketmaster, too, but the federal antitrust trial is the biggest legal action against the company so far, and has the most potential to change the status quo in the live entertainment industry.
Copyright 2026 NPR

Los Angeles County is expanding parking restrictions for RVs and other large vehicles in more than a dozen unincorporated communities, including East L.A., Rancho Dominguez and Hawthorne.

The county Board of Supervisors approved an ordinance Tuesday that bans parking "nonconforming vehicles” on any highway, street, alley or public place without a permit in specific unincorporated areas.

Supervisor Holly Mitchell, who represents Florence-Firestone and Lennox in the second district, has said residents repeatedly raised concerns about safety challenges caused by oversized vehicles parked in public right of ways for years.

“Oversized vehicles, colleagues, whether box trucks, semi-trucks, recreational vehicles, create blind spots in our streets, which is a safety issue for pedestrians, cyclists and drivers in all of our unincorporated communities,” Mitchell said last week. “They also take up street parking in our communities, sometimes create noise while idling and unfortunately can attract illegal dumping.”

Mitchell said L.A. County’s unincorporated communities have seen an uptick in the number of oversized vehicles after neighboring cities passed and started enforcing their own parking restrictions.

But some residents, including members of the Venice Justice Committee, argued that officials were prioritizing enforcement over meaningful solutions for people living in vehicles.

“Vehicles are used as a safer form of street shelter by many low-wage workers, seniors or disabled renters who have simply been priced out,” wrote Peggy Lee Kennedy, the committee's co-founder.

About the ordinance

Tuesday was the second reading of the proposed ordinance, which is expected to go into effect next month. The first reading happened a week earlier, and the board voted unanimously to approve it both times. Supervisor Kathryn Barger was absent for last week’s meeting and vote.

The ordinance expands parking restrictions for “nonconforming vehicles,” which are defined as those measuring 8 feet wide, 7.5 feet tall or 20 feet long, including trailers and accessories.

The county already had restrictions in place for streets in unincorporated areas around Ladera Heights, View Park / Windsor Hills, Marina del Rey, Altadena, Long Beach, South Whittier / East Whittier / East La Mirada, West Whittier / Los Nietos and Whittier.

The ordinance adds the following unincorporated communities:

• Azusa / Charter Oak / Covina
• Del Aire / Lennox
• East Los Angeles
• East Rancho Dominguez
• El Camino Village
• Florence-Firestone / Walnut Park
• Hawthorne
• Rancho Dominguez
• West Athens / Westmont
• West Carson
• West Los Angeles
• West Puente Valley / Valinda / South San Jose Hills
• West Rancho Dominguez / Willowbrook

Nonconforming vehicles must have a valid permit to park in those areas at any time, except for Marina del Rey, which requires a permit to park during overnight hours.

How enforcement works

New parking restrictions signs will be installed as the first step for enforcement, according to Steve Burger, deputy director of the Department of Public Works. He said officials have already started to manufacture the signs, but the posting process is expected to take about six months.

“Although we want to get the signs in and work with parking enforcement to start focusing where the need is the most,” Burger said during last week’s board meeting.

Lt. Tina Arevalo, acting captain of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Parking Enforcement Detail, which oversees unincorporated communities, said officers will be trained on how to enforce the ordinance in additional areas.

Mitchell said the ordinance doesn’t change the county’s process for responding to people who live in vehicles and won’t magically remove inhabited RVs overnight.

“We have been clear from the beginning that we will maintain our outreach protocols, and that the Homeless Services and Housing Department is responsible for working through the standing list of encampment hotspots,” Mitchell said.

The process for removing uninhabited vehicles will stay the same under the ordinance. Arevalo said authorities will mark those vehicles, before coming back in three days to have it towed.

Comments from the communities

Many members of the public who commented about the ordinance said they supported the move, including several business owners in unincorporated communities.

Angela Sierra wrote that the ordinance is "absolutely necessary” for businesses around Rancho Dominguez to be able to continue growing and hiring staff.

“We have a lack of parking due to all the non-conforming vehicles, and our employees and clients frequently express concerns over safety as they are forced to park illegally on the train tracks due to the nonconforming vehicles which are on our streets and stay for days and weeks on end,” Sierra wrote in a comment.

But others pushed back against the new parking restrictions, including Kennedy and members of the Venice Justice Committee.

“I don't understand why this is even going through without providing some type of parking resources for the people living in their RVs prior to creating restrictions against them,” she said during Tuesday’s public comment. “That's wrong.”

Chris Tilly, a UCLA professor of urban planning, wrote that the ordinance would destroy residences of many people who have no other housing alternatives. Tilly noted that large RVs had parked near his Venice home “on many occasions.”

“But we got to know the RV owner, as well as being familiar with the survey results from the recent UCLA report on vehicle residents, so we understand that these are people doing their best to survive under difficult circumstances,” Tilly wrote in a public comment. “Please do not make their lives worse.”

The ordinance goes into effect in 30 days, officials said.

In the early morning hours before the Los Angeles Marathon this Sunday, hundreds of cyclists will take over the streets for a cherished yearly tradition.

For more than a decade, cyclists have come together for the L.A. Marathon Crash Ride, which piggybacks on the 26-mile route and street closures that are in effect for the marathon.

Cyclists typically begin their journey around 4 a.m. Sunday (March 8) at the former site of Tang’s Donuts in Silver Lake. The hundreds of bikers then pedal to Century City, with some diehards opting to head all the way to Santa Monica. While no one group organizes the ride, numerous local bike clubs meet at the event every year.

Raff Hernandez, who runs the LA Cycling Community and Calendar, said it’s one of the few times a year when this wave of red lights and cyclists of all kinds are able to reclaim the public space.

“It helps us not feel so alone. Especially in this ever-growing hostility — especially in this country and around the world — I think that having these groups is really important,” Hernandez said.

The LA Marathon Crash Ride in 2019

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Raff Hernandez

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He said he's seen the event grow over the years, particularly around the time of the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were looking to connect with others outside of a computer screen.

Similar to the rise in running clubs and other communities centered around exercise and the outdoors, Hernandez said there’s no shortage of cycling clubs that funnel into the crash ride every year.

“It’s kind of funny, because you’ll arrive there with your friends and may not actually see them until the very end. Because it becomes that big of a sweeping parade,” he said.

First-timer tips:

• Bring a helmet
• Front and rear lights encouraged
• Try to bring a buddy or two
• Bring a spare tube and hand pump

As cars pull in and out of the parking lot at L.A. State Historic Park in Chinatown, two nondescript-looking black cameras powered by solar panels quietly keep an eye on every vehicle entering or leaving the property.

The cameras are license plate readers made by Flock Safety, a controversial private surveillance company that works with thousands of police departments and cities in the United States.

Flock’s products — which range from automatic license plate readers (ALRPs) to more traditional cameras that can track people in real time — are marketed as AI solutions to help communities reduce crime.

Research, however, shows that Flock Safety’s technology isn’t as effective at reducing crime as the technology company claims. And critics argue that Flock’s license plate readers constitute unwarranted mass surveillance.

“The problem with mass surveillance is that it always expands beyond the uses for which it is initially justified—and sure enough, Flock’s system is undergoing insidious expansion across multiple dimensions,” wrote Jay Stanley, Senior Policy Analyst for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The cameras in L.A. State Historic Park were installed in late 2024, a spokesperson for California State Parks confirmed.

In recent months, amidst ongoing federal immigration raids, police across the country have faced increased pushback from members of the public who fear that federal authorities will get their hands on Flock data collected by local law enforcement agencies.

Last year, 404 Media reported that, although ICE does not have a contract with Flock Safety, researchers found that federal immigration authorities can access Flock’s license plate data by making requests to local law enforcement.

When reached for comment, a park official initially declined to answer basic questions about the Flock cameras.

“This is a public records request that needs to be requested through our legal office in Sacramento,” Public Safety Superintendent Captain Jeff Langley claimed when asked for the date the cameras were installed and for what purpose.

Langley also declined to confirm which law enforcement agencies have access to the license plate readers.

After multiple follow-up emails, Marty Greenstein, Director of Communications for California State Parks, told L.A. TACO in a written statement that the cameras were installed in late 2024, “to deter theft and vandalism, provide useful information for investigating incidents at the park, and provide important notices such as Amber Alert identification.”

Greenstein confirmed that park officials share data from the Flock cameras with “local and state law enforcement agencies in California.” They do not share data with “out-of-state law enforcement agencies or federal agencies,” according to Greenstein.

“State Parks has found these cameras to be a helpful tool at parks throughout the state,” Greenstein noted. “For example, the cameras have assisted in identifying stolen vehicles and locating missing, at-risk individuals.”

The south entrance to L.A. State Historic Park.

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California law prohibits local police from sharing data obtained through license plate readers with out-of-state and federal law enforcement agencies without a warrant.

However, previous reporting and audits have shown that California police regularly violate those laws.

Law enforcement agencies in Southern California — including the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) and sheriff’s departments in San Diego and Orange County — searched license plate readers for ICE and Customs and Border Protection (Border Patrol) over 100 times, CalMatters reported.

And a 2023 American Civil Liberties Unions (ACLU) study found that 71 California law enforcement agencies violated state law by sharing license plate reader data with out-of-state agencies.

While Flock license plate readers have become regular fixtures in Home Depot parking lots and on private property, it is not common to see Flock cameras in public settings like parks in Los Angeles.

A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Department of Recreation and Parks confirmed with L.A. TACO that there are no Flock cameras across the city’s more than 500 parks and facilities.

In recent years, communities in Los Angeles have increasingly resorted to crowdfunding to pay for and install Flock license plate readers.

Flock Safety credits a camera that was installed by the Baldwin Vista Hillside Neighborhood Association at the only entrance into the neighborhood with helping law enforcement arrest a suspect who was accused of breaking into L.A. Mayor Karen Bass’ Baldwin Hills home and stealing two firearms.

Last year, a public debate ensued after wealthy residents in Cheviot Hills raised over $200,000 to buy Flock cameras. The residents donated the cameras to the Los Angeles Police Foundation with one stipulation: the police could use them only in Cheviot Hills.

Efforts to install Flock cameras in neighboring cities have been met with intense pushback.

Last month, the city of Santa Cruz became the first California city to cancel its contract with Flock Safety.

Zanja Madre (Mother Ditch) was the original aqueduct that brought water to the Pueblo de Los Angeles from the Rio Porciuncula (L.A. River).

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L.A. State Historic Park is unique in that it is a state-run park within the city of Los Angeles that is not only one of the few green spaces in the area but is also a park that regularly hosts community events, concerts, and film shoots, as well as multi-day festivals that bring tens of thousands of people to the park.

Joel Garcia, the director and co-founder of Meztli Projects, an Indigenous-based arts and culture collaborative, was surprised to learn about the Flock cameras in L.A. State Historic Park.

In January, Meztli Projects hosted an event there that brought together various drum-based communities to share in song and dance. At the event, screen printing stations were set up to create posters and other “pro-immigration” materials and resource guides, Garcia explained.

‘It was a response directly to what’s happening with ICE and the Trump administration," Garcia told L.A. TACO during an interview.

Garcia said he noticed the solar panel that powers one of the Flock cameras upon entering the parking lot. But he thought it powered a light.

“I always thought that was solar paneling for lighting,” he said.

When he checked with his colleagues, nobody said they were aware that there were license plate readers in the parking lot.

“I didn’t notice them either,” Garcia said.

“Unfortunately we are getting normalized to a level of surveillance [similar to] post 9-11, but this weaponizing of ‘public safety tools’ especially at a state park is unacceptable,” Garcia said in a written statement to L.A. TACO. “For many the state park [and] Yaanga, has been a place of convening and arrival since before this country. The irony of these cameras disrupting that legacy is upsetting."

Across from the present-day park once stood River Station, Garcia noted, a major passenger railroad stop during the late 1800s and early 1900s that brought huge numbers of immigrants to Los Angeles.

“[The park] has been a place of arrival for many different societies,” Garcia noted.

Having worked with the park before, Garcia said he’s noticed that there is sometimes a “disconnect” between what local park staff believes in and the decisions that regional park staff make for the park.

“There’s a huge disconnect between what happens up top and what happens at the park,” Garcia said.

Ultimately, however, Garcia sees this conflict as an “opportunity to empower.”

“[At times] there’s folks on the inside who want to help, and sometimes we as organizers have to provide them the tools to help,” Garcia said. “That may include connecting park staff with tribal leadership, or delivering the messaging that community members want to convey.”