The Brief

A new California law clarifies that landlords — not tenants — are responsible for cleaning rental homes covered in debris from disasters, such as the Palisades and Eaton fires that devastated parts of L.A. County earlier this year.

On Friday, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 610, which stipulates that when natural disasters cause damage to rental housing, “it shall be the duty of a landlord” to remove “hazards arising from the disaster, including, but not limited to, the presence of mold, smoke, smoke residue, smoke odor, ash, asbestos or water damage.”

The law addresses the confusion many renters grappling with the aftermath of the January fires have faced. Many apartments were left standing but choked with toxic ash. Some landlords refused to clean the debris, leaving tenants unable to return home.

In the months since the fires, some local officials gave unclear or non-committal answers about tenants’ rights and landlords’ clean-up responsibilities.

LAist reporting informed push for legislative change

State Sen. Sasha Renée Pérez, a Democrat representing a district that includes Pasadena and Altadena, said the legislation she introduced was driven by tenant complaints her office received, as well as LAist’s reporting on the lack of clarity over clean-up procedures in rental housing.

“The reporting that you all had done over at LAist was also really helpful,” Pérez said. “We're hearing directly from constituents and have heard all of these concerns. And here's reporting from journalists in the Los Angeles area to further support these claims that I’m making that this is a major issue.”

An analysis of the bill presented to the Senate Judiciary Committee cited stories by LAist and reporting from the Los Angeles Times to show that existing law had left tenants confused about how to get their homes cleaned.

The backstory

Last month, L.A. County settled a lawsuit brought by tenants in Altadena who alleged that county public health officials had failed to protect tenants dealing with post-fire damage to rental homes. The county agreed to enforce cleaning requirements for landlords.

The city of Pasadena is facing a similar lawsuit.

Shortly after the Eaton Fire, Pasadena health officials told residents that ash spewed into homes was hazardous and should be professionally remediated. But city code inspectors told renters that the presence of ash did not violate local habitability codes because those codes did not explicitly contain the word “ash.”

City housing officials told tenants worried about the lack of clean-up that they could sue their landlord.

SB 610 will change how city officials communicate to tenants and landlords around these issues in the future, said Lisa Derderian, Pasadena’s spokesperson.

“This law makes important changes in the obligations of a landlord to the tenant that will play out in messaging,” Derderian said in an email to LAist. “The city takes habitability concerns for any cause seriously and inspects accordingly.”

Similar challenges played out in the city of L.A. During a February web meeting, L.A. housing official Robert Galardi told renters they were responsible for cleaning inside their own units, a claim that was contradicted by a housing department spokesperson later that month when LAist asked about the city’s guidance.

In response to LAist’s questions, Housing Department spokesperson Sharon Sandow said “landlords must remediate hazardous ash debris in rental units.”

Clearing up confusion created by gaps in the law

The law also requires landlords to let tenants move back in at their pre-disaster rental rate and mandates that landlords return rental payments for months when tenants were unable to live in the unit.

Landlord groups said most property owners already have taken responsibility for cleaning their rental housing units.

Debra Carlton with the California Apartment Association said the new law clarifies but does not broaden the scope of what landlords must do in the wake of a natural disaster. The law makes it clear that landlords will not have to rebuild destroyed properties.

Carlton said the law “reaffirms common-sense standards for addressing debris and smoke damage before a unit is reoccupied.”

Tenant advocates said the law’s passage is a victory for tenants who’ve long argued that the responsibility for cleaning rental properties lies with the landlords who own those properties.

Katie Clark — an organizer with the Altadena Tenants Union, a group created in the wake of the Eaton Fire — said SB 610 finally clears up the confusion around this issue.

“This closes that gap,” Clark said. “There is no nuance. There is no room for misunderstanding. [Ash] is absolutely now included in habitability questions.”

Some renters already have moved on 

The change may be coming too late for some renters. More than 10 months after the fires, one couple told LAist they have given up on returning to their previous home.

Marah Eakin, Andrew Morgan and their kids finally settled into a new home in July after being forced to live out of suitcases after the Eaton Fire spewed ash into their Pasadena rental home in January.

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David Wagner

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LAist

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Marah Eakin and Andrew Morgan were renting a home in Pasadena that had smoke damage from the Eaton Fire. They said their landlord never agreed to clean the home, despite testing they said they paid for that revealed high levels of lead.

“We didn't see an end in sight,” Eakin said. “For a while, we were moving every five days, every week, and that was terrible.”

The couple said they and their 7-year-old twins moved nine times before settling down in July with a long-term lease on a home in Altadena. Morgan said the instability was especially tough on their kids.

“When they say that they miss the old house, some other old stuff, it's just heart-wrenching,” he said.

Trevor Barrocas, a property manager with Cornerstone R/E Management, told LAist that Eakin and Morgan’s landlord submitted a claim to California’s Fair Plan insurance program requesting remediation, but the claim was initially denied.

“The property has still not been fully remediated,” Barrocas said in an email to LAist. He said efforts to clean the property are ongoing.

“The property owner has waited through months-long delays by CA Fair Plan for answers, approvals and direction,” Barrocas said. “The unprecedented circumstances and result of the January fires have… been felt by landlords, homeowners and tenants alike.”

Los Angeles County is reporting the highest number of rabid bats on record, a to-date total of 69, officials said.

This year’s rabid bat count has already matched 2025’s total, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health, which released the count Monday, marking World Rabies Day.

Health officials emphasized that rabid bats have been found all over the county "from suburban areas such as the San Fernando Valley to urban areas like downtown Los Angeles, in office buildings, parks, schools, businesses, and residential backyards."

That said, a large share of rabid bats — 68% of the 69 found so far — were in the Santa Clarita Valley, and they were mainly canyon bats, which are common in California.

When to be on high alert

Officials warned that a third of human encounters with rabid bats happened indoors, where the risk of exposure to the virus is higher.

Bat bites are small and can be hard to detect. Rabies can also be spread through scratches or other transfers of saliva.

“If you find a bat indoors or think you may have had contact with one, contact your medical provider or Public Health right away,” Dr. Muntu Davis, a Los Angeles County Health officer, said in a statement. “And remember, never touch a bat or any wild animals. Immediately report any bat found indoors, or outdoors if it appears sick, active during the day, unable to fly, or dead, to your local animal control.”

Who to call

Veterinary Public Health

Phone: 213-288-7060
Email: vet@ph.lacounty.gov
Website: publichealth.lacounty.gov/vet

*Call 211 to find your local animal control

What to know about rabies

Rabies in humans is treatable with a series of vaccines. Rabies is always fatal in animals, the county said in a release, so vaccinate your pets.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a law Sunday that tightens building rules for sites that store explosive chemicals, responding to an Orange County chemical incident that forced thousands of residents to evacuate Memorial Day weekend.

The law also adds the chemical methyl methacrylate to a state program that aims to prevent chemical disasters.

In May, CalMatters reported that California’s toughest accidental-release prevention rules do not cover the chemical in the tank at GKN Aerospace, a company that makes cockpits and windshields in Garden Grove. Weeks later Democratic state Sen. Tom Umberg of Santa Ana amended an existing bill with language that addressed that gap. Assembly committee and floor analyses noted CalMatters’ reporting. 

Had the chemical exploded, it “would have been perhaps the greatest catastrophe, certainly in the last several decades in California,” Umberg said at a June Assembly hearing.

Umberg’s original proposal would have set stronger standards for more types of explosive chemicals, but legislators narrowed it significantly in last-minute negotiations.

The final law bars building new facilities near homes and schools and requires backup cooling systems. It also strips an exemption from environmental review that facilities storing methyl methacrylate previously qualified for.

Garden Grove advocates call the bill a good step, but say it offers the community little immediate recourse, especially with GKN Aerospace planning to reopen by the end of September.

The law’s siting requirements apply to new facilities, not to existing ones like GKN’s Garden Grove plant.

Mai Do, research and policy manager for the Orange County advocacy group Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, said she hopes the state will do more to address the threat of toxic chemicals at existing facilities.

“This is a much larger fight than just what's happened in Garden Grove,” Do said. “What we see in terms of the Lineage fire and other industrial crises is that this is a problem that is affecting a lot of different communities”

In an interview with CalMatters, Umberg said the bill reflected a balancing act. “This is a net benefit for the state, a net benefit for the community,” he said.

Stronger rules for new facilities, not existing ones

Over Memorial Day weekend, residents learned of a problem with a tank storing methyl methacrylate at the GKN Aerospace facility. A crack in the tank released pressure and, along with efforts by emergency responders, averted disaster, but questions remained about what went wrong.

CalMatters reported in May that methyl methacrylate and other chemicals that could explode under certain conditions falls outside the California Accidental Release Program, which requires facilities to maintain detailed plans for preventing or responding to chemical leaks or explosions.

Rachel Tochterman, a spokesperson for Sen. Umberg, said the senator took note and initially proposed incorporating a broader category of reactive chemicals into the program.

But industry groups opposed the plan, arguing it was too broad without clearer evidence.

Dawn Koepke, a lobbyist for the California Manufacturers and Technology Association and the California Council for Environmental and Economic Balance, said she does not believe a regulatory gap exists that would justify incorporating more chemicals into the state’s accidental release regimen.

Facilities storing toxic chemicals are already heavily regulated under other federal and state laws, she said, including a requirement for plans to protect people from chemical releases.

Koepke said she worried that "jumping to conclusions and over-regulating" could affect "a wider array of facilities."

Tim Shestek, a lobbyist representing the American Chemistry Council and other groups, said in an email that Umberg’s original proposal would have affected “far more facilities, substances and sectors than were in the original scope.”

After amendments on the next-to-last day of the legislative session, nine industry groups stopped lobbying against the bill.

Most provisions of the law only apply to methyl methacrylate — the chemical involved in the Garden Grove incident. The bill adds it to the state’s accidental release program, requires facilities to maintain prevention and emergency-response plans, and closes the environmental-review exemption for new sites where the chemical is present.

Scrapped from the bill: a requirement to map reactive-chemical sites in CalEnviroScreen, a state program that identifies polluted communities.

GKN Aerospace plans to reopen 

Steve Carlin, senior vice president for GKN Aerospace programs, said the company has been working with regulators and independent experts “to safely reset the remainder of the facility with the appropriate oversight” work that has included inspections, upgrades to safety equipment, and additional monitoring. The company plans to reopen in the next few days.

The company also announced an additional $100 million program to pay residents and businesses that lost money during evacuations.

Lisa Fu, director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative, a worker-safety group, wants California to regulate hazardous chemicals more broadly.

“It's just unfortunate that it's a piecemeal thing,” said Lisa Fu, director of the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative. “Is it worth it to go piece by piece in terms of trying to ban certain chemicals? It makes the work harder for us, and you can see who's benefiting and who's not.”

Newsom also signed a pair of bills in response to the Lineage fire, a June cold storage fire in Los Angeles. The fire briefly prompted a shelter-in-place order over fears that toxic anhydrous ammonia had been released into the air.

The new laws raise the fines agencies can levy on companies that endanger health and safety. They also bar building permits for cold storage facilities that lack contingency funds or insurance to help communities in emergencies.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.

California is now the second state to recognize the two main Muslim holidays as state holidays.

Eid ul Fitr is the festival marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan, and Eid ul Adha is the festival honoring Abraham or Ibrahim’s willingness to sacrifice his son as a mark of his devotion to God. They join a state holiday list that also includes Lunar New Year and Diwali.

Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the change into law Monday. Washington first recognized the holidays in 2025.

Oussama Mokeddem, legislative and government affairs director at the California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, told LAist the signing day is  “an exciting day for the California Muslim community and a big day for the American Muslim community at large.”

Muslims follow the lunar calendar, so the dates of the two festivals vary each year. Next year, Eid ul Fitr will likely fall on March 10 and Eid ul Adha on May 17.

Why it's important to Californians

The holiday recognition comes at a time when the community is facing “unwarranted and unjustified criticism,” Mokeddem said, which he cited as a reason for a May 2026 attack at the Islamic Center of San Diego. A recent Pew study also found that 42% of Americans believe Muslim Americans have a negative impact on the country.

Adam Khaja, an 11th grader at Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, said the holiday recognition signals that  "you don't have to give up an important part of your identity to fully participate in Californian society."

" For a long time, immigrant and minority communities have sometimes felt pressure to leave parts of their identity at home in order to fit into American educational or industrial institutions," he said.

What does the holiday recognition mean?

California is home to more than 1 million Muslims, and with this law, state employees can use existing paid time off to celebrate the two holidays.

And for students in K-12 public schools, Mokeddem said the law does not mandate statewide time off, but local school districts can declare a district-wide day off if enough community members bring it up as a need.

He added that students can also cite state law when they are absent from school to celebrate the holiday.

Khaja said he will be advocating for his school district to give a district-wide day off.

"Eid has always been a huge part of our lives, but I think that the school calendar and district policies haven't always reflected that," he said.

He hopes his students will not be put in a situation now "to choose between going to school or fully participating in one of the most important days of their faith."

Muslim Women Professionals, a nonprofit, has templates on how to advocate for time off to celebrate Eid ul Fitr and Eid ul Adha.

Usually when you go to a show at the Hollywood Bowl, you know what to expect: crisp air, views of the hills, plus maybe a picnic you brought.

Tuesday’s concert will have all of that. But visual artist Lauren Halsey is promising something much more out of the ordinary for her one-night takeover, called emajendat (pronounced “imagine that”).

Erykah Badu and the Alchemist are headlining, but Halsey’s visual art will take center stage — figuratively and literally — for a one-night “funk opera” that she hopes will be proof of concept for more events like it.

Who’s performing?

Beyond Badu and the Alchemist, who are touring for their new album "Before the World Blows," the night will also feature a performance from Flea of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and a DJ set from Anderson .Paak under his alias DJ Pee .Wee. Actor and comedian Yvonne Orji will host the evening.

Jazz duo Black Nile will appear on stage with saxophonist Devin Daniels and Halsey’s former teacher, Charles Gaines. Black Nile’s members, Aaron and Lawrence Shaw, have known Halsey for years and said playing to their biggest crowd yet in their hometown of L.A. is a matter of affirmation.

“You just don't see a lot of Black people in that way, you know?” said Aaron Shaw. “Unfortunately, popular society, they benefit off of not putting us in a positive light. Jazz, this Black American art form, has become the underground thing, when it shouldn't be.”

The promo poster for Lauren Halsey's emajendat.

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Courtesy L.A. Philharmonic

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What to expect

The evening will also feature all kinds of art and family-friendly activities scattered across the Hollywood Bowl’s grounds, like a Technicolor pyramid, ping-pong, mini golf and a basketball game that Halsey said is inspired by one that she played at the Santa Monica Pier as a kid.

Halsey wanted to keep previews of emajendat “cryptic,” so if you’re curious, you’ll have to see it for yourself. But she was quick to mention her references, including George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. Though Clinton won’t perform, Halsey said “his musicality and the mythos around that” is a major inspiration for emajendat, and there’ll be plenty of Easter eggs for her fellow “hardcore Funkateers.”

“Before I even knew there was a fine art world, before I knew I would have a practice and be a sculptor and all these things, I was already deeply embedded in the world of P-Funk,” she said. “ Literally any and everything is an ode to just what that band has done for me.”

Halsey is promising her stage concepts will feel tactile and energetic, and says much of the work on and off stage is handmade.

“You're gonna see Lauren, who doesn't touch music at all, put her craft and her mark on the stage, and it's gonna be revolutionary,” Black Nile’s Lawrence Shaw said. “Nobody's ever seen anything like this before.”

Halsey recommended showing up early since a funk opera is still an opera — not to mention the effort that went into the visuals and ephemera for the show.

“I know it's Tuesday, I know it's gonna be traffic on Cahuenga, on Highland, on Hollywood, I know,” Halsey said. “So I would say plan accordingly.”

Doors open at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, and the show starts at 8 p.m. sharp.

“Everyone's gonna get a program when you walk in that describes the run of show and my Funkafesto,” Halsey said. “We're gonna get to it, so please don't miss it.”

How the night came together

Like a lot of big concepts, emajendat started with a cold pitch — though Halsey had been envisioning and working on it for years before putting it in front of the right people.

Halsey, who grew up taking school trips to the Bowl to watch the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s open rehearsals and estimates she’s been there 50 or 60 times, calls it “the people’s venue.” One of her favorite memories was as a guest in one of the venue's box seats at a 2002 Ms. Lauryn Hill show, as she and her neighbors got to know each other in the venue’s “beautiful scoop.”

The last few years have been very prolific for Halsey: She’s displayed sculptures at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s new David Geffen Galleries and the roof of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and opened a sculpture park on 76th and Western in L.A. called Sister Dreamer.

Halsey, who already had hundreds of renderings of what the night would look like, put the ideas in front of the Hollywood Bowl’s Johanna Rees, who runs its non-classical programming.

“ I said, ‘Hey Johanna, could you ever imagine an artistic takeover of the campus, from entrance to exit? And could you ever imagine me proposing a stage concept?’" Halsey said. “She's like, ‘Yeah, I can imagine that.’ That's not even a pun.”

Lauren Halsey poses at her sculpture park located on 76th Street and Western Avenue in Los Angeles, sister dreamer.

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Courtesy Lauren Halsey

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But to get a yes, Halsey needed headliners. She’d booked artists like Doechii, Ms. Lauryn Hill and Parliament-Funkadelic for past art events, so she drew on connections she said she’d built “strategically.”

Halsey, who estimated she’s been to the Bowl 50 or 60 times, said one of her favorite memories is when she got to sit in the box during a 2002 Ms. Lauryn Hill unplugged show and experience the social connections being made in the venue’s “beautiful scoop.”

“You get to know your neighbors. It's a whole thing,” Halsey said.  “It's always been on my list, and it'll always be on my list. It's just, like, it's the Bowl.”

Lauren Halsey's plans for the future

Beyond deepening Halsey’s artistic connections with musicians, taking her work to a broader audience is another goal of emajendat, since not everyone is tapped into the world of fine art where Halsey often works.

Halsey said she’s energized by people entering her world for the first time. To make ticket prices for the show as accessible as possible, she said she intentionally booked the show with the L.A. Phil as the promoter.

“It's cool that so many Angelenos are gonna come through and just get to experience it all on the same playing field,” Halsey said.

Halsey said that if you can’t make it to Tuesday’s show, emajendat is “a proof of concept for the type of — perhaps it's a park, perhaps it's a festival, perhaps it's both — that I want to bring to the city one day soon,” she said.