The Brief

When a Los Angeles police officer fatally shot a 40-year-old man in his parents’ Koreatown home last month, it was clear to many, including officers at the scene, that he was experiencing a mental health crisis.

Earlier that day, Yong Yang’s mother had called the L.A. County Department of Mental Health to get help for her son, who had gone to the parents’ home because he was feeling paranoid and unsafe, according to family members. Yang’s family said he had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder more than a decade ago.

The situation intensified after a worker with the Department of Mental Health — who had been dispatched to the scene — called 911, claiming Yang had attacked him.

When police arrived, they tried to get Yang to leave the apartment, but he refused, according to police. A short time later, one of the officers shot Yang, who was in his parents’ living room holding a kitchen knife.

Yang died at the scene.

So far, there have been 14 shootings by LAPD this year, three of which involved people the department said appeared to be dealing with mental illness or were having a mental health crisis at the time of the incident.

An important distinction in the Yang case is that his family called county authorities, not city police, on the day of the incident, seeking a type of alternative crisis response that does not necessarily involve police officers.

But police were called anyway.

Yong Yang pictured with his parents Myung Sook and Min Yang.

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Courtesy of the Yang family.

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“Everything went wrong. Mental health people, police, they were not in the mood to help,” Yang’s father Min Yang said in an interview with LAist. “And I was too naive and stupid that I trusted those people and put my son’s life in such a grave danger.”

The Department of Mental Health said it could not comment on the specifics of the May 2 incident because it is still under investigation. But county authorities did provide an emailed statement in which they explained that crisis teams are trained to de-escalate situations without police, but sometimes they need assistance.

“In instances where de-escalation through clinical means is not possible, and the person in crisis remains an imminent threat to themselves or others, despite DMH’s efforts, law enforcement will be contacted to maintain safety and attempt to keep the peace,” the department said.

Between January and May of this year, the county dispatched teams to nearly 8,870 calls throughout the region, about 550 of which — about 6% — resulted in a mental health worker calling law enforcement.

A recent LAist investigation found that between 2017 and 2023, 31% of shootings by L.A. city police involved a person perceived by officers to be living with mental illness or experiencing a mental health crisis, according to annual use-of-force reports.

The shooting in Koreatown

Yang’s family members said they knew he was having a bipolar episode when they called for help on May 2. The night before the incident, they said, Yang was not sleeping, he spoke erratically in conversations and was possibly hearing voices.

At some point that night, the parents left and went to Min Yang’s office and later slept in their car to give their son some space to calm down, the father said.

The next day, Yong Yang’s mother, Myung Sook Yang, called the Department of Mental Health. She said she and Yang’s father were worried because Yang's condition did not seem to have improved and he seemed to not recognize her when she came to the apartment door.

Myung Sook Yang regrets calling the Department of Mental Health and believes her son was treated like a suspect rather than a patient who needed care. "There are so many mentally ill people who need help," she said. "So now, where they can get help?"

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Samanta Helou Hernandez

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A baby photo of twin brothers Yin and Yong Yang shortly after they arrived to the United States from South Korea.

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A clinician and a medical case worker with a Psychiatric Mobile Response Team went to the family’s home, according to the county.

According to audio released by LAPD, the clinician called 911, claiming that Yang was “very violent” and tried to attack him and Yang’s father.

Yang’s father told LAist he disputes that claim.

It’s not clear from the audio what behaviors the clinician reported to police, and no video was released that shows what happened at the Yangs’ home before police arrived.

Body-worn camera footage shows two police officers arriving on scene and speaking with Yang’s father. He tells the officers that his son needs to go to a hospital.

Myung Sook Yang and Min Yang walk into their apartment where their son Yong was killed by an LAPD officer during a mental health crisis.

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One officer asks Yong Yang to open the door to the apartment. He can be heard in the video saying, “I do not invite you.” He does not open the door.

About 20 minutes later, a supervising officer arrives and explains to Yang’s father that Yang “might get hurt” if police have to go into the apartment and forcibly detain him.

The supervisor talks to Yang through the front door. A voice responds: ”I’ve already been killed multiple times.”

Moments later, the officer says, “All right, we’re gonna have a use of force.”

Later, an officer uses a key to unlock the door. The officer pushes it open, but someone appears to be pushing the door from the other side.

Two officers eventually push the door open. They find Yang in the living room, holding a knife.

“You’re gonna get shot!” one of the officers yells, according to the video. Officers tell Yang to drop the knife.

He initially steps away from the officers but then takes a few steps toward them.

Yong Yang with his father, Min.

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Courtesy of the Yang family.

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Within 10 seconds of opening the door, an officer opens fire, hitting Yang. Police said they found narcotics at the scene, but did not provide details.

The officer was identified as Andres Lopez. It wasn’t his first shooting while on-duty. According to the county District Attorney’s Office, Lopez shot and wounded 35-year-old Nakiea Brown in 2021 outside LAPD’s Olympic station. Brown was holding a BB pellet gun at the time of the incident.

The shooting was not fatal. According to the D.A.’s Office, Brown had one prior contact with the LAPD’s Mental Evaluation Unit in May 2020.

After reviewing the incident, the District Attorney's Office determined the shooting was justified.

‘It could have been avoided’ 

In the interview with LAist, Yang’s family questioned why the officers did not use a bean-bag rifle, Taser or other tool to help them detain Yang without fatally shooting him.

Based on the video footage, it does not appear that police used any less-lethal weapons to try to take Yang into custody. At least one officer appears to be holding a foam projectile gun.

The LAPD has said its Mental Evaluation Unit was notified before the shooting, but it’s unclear whether a SMART unit, one of the department’s specially trained mental health crisis teams, arrived on scene. When asked for that information, the department said LAist would have to file a public records request to obtain it.

LAist has submitted that request.

Retired police Lt. Jeffrey Wenninger reviewed the LAPD’s video of the Yang shooting at the LAist’s request. He spent 30 years with the LAPD and said he has investigated hundreds of use-of-force incidents.

Wenninger commended the officers for requesting backup soon after they arrived at the scene, but he said dispatchers and officers could have asked better questions about Yang’s mental health background and what might have worked to calm him down.

Wenninger also questioned why officers decided to forcibly enter the apartment, especially because Yang was alone inside the home.

“I would say in this case, a lack of planning certainly influenced the outcome here,” he said. “It was pretty predictable to a trained eye what was going to happen.

“I 100% believe it could have been avoided.”

Ed Obayashi, a Modoc County sheriff’s deputy and use-of-force expert who advises law enforcement agencies, also reviewed the video. He told LAist he believed lethal force was justified in this case because Yang was armed with a knife. He said the allegation that the clinician was attacked also changed the scenario.

“In this situation there was an actual threat in the use of physical force, assault by the individual against innocent civilians, and at that point, yes, we need to address the situation,” Obayashi said.

The Yang family questions the LAPD's tactics that led up to the killing of Yong Yang while he was experiencing a mental health crisis.

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‘I would just suffer’ 

 
In his parent’s dining room, steps away from the living room where Yang was shot, a photo of Yong Yang and his twin brother, Yin Yang, hangs on the wall. The photo shows the two young boys sitting together in the sunlight.

“In Korean culture, they’re really big on the older brother, younger brother thing,” Yin Yang said. “They always said I’m older, because I’m two minutes [older], but in recent years he was the more respectable one.”

Yong Yang studied music production at the Musician's Institute – College of Contemporary Music in Hollywood.

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Courtesy of the Yang family.

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One of Yong Yang’s goals in life, according to his brother, was to make it as a musician and producer. He was a good singer, who loved electronic dance music. As a kid growing up in the ‘90s, he loved R&B singers, like Boyz II Men.

He attended the Musician's Institute – College of Contemporary Music in Hollywood, where he studied music production, his brother said.

Yang first started showing symptoms of mental illness about 15 years ago. His father said Yang was diagnosed with bipolar disorder around 2012.

Over the years Yang managed his bipolar diagnosis with meditation, exercise and his Christian faith, according to his family.

Yin Yang said he thinks mental health professionals and the police could have done much more to try and calm his brother down before he was shot, and he is critical of the mental health care system, which he said doesn’t offer the support people need.

Twin brothers Yong and Yin Yang as teenagers.

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"As a twin brother, it's hard. Becasue I feel like he's my other half. And it's gone, it's just taken from me," said Yin Yang.

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The brother said he thinks law enforcement too often escapes any consequences for fatally shooting someone. “And it’s usually these mentally ill people because they don’t have the ability to stand up for themselves and there’s not a lot of, like, sympathy for them in the public,” he said.

Earlier this month, Yin Yang organized a rally to call attention to the case. He also started an Instagram account to get the word out about his brother. He said many members of the Korean community in L.A. have been supportive of the family and their calls for answers from the city and county.

“As his twin brother, it’s hard. Because I feel like he’s my other half. And it’s gone, it’s just taken from me,” he said.

Yang’s father said he was sorry that his request for help led to his son’s sudden death. “He didn’t know that’s going to happen. I didn’t know. He must have thought that he was well-protected in his parents’ home,” the father said.

Yang’s mother said she thought she was doing the right thing when she called for a mental health crisis team instead of calling 911. If she had another chance, she said, he would not have called anybody for help.

“I would just suffer,” she said. “There are so many mentally ill people who need help. So now, where they can get help?”

This summer's World Cup has been a bonanza for corporate sponsors.

Hydration breaks are "powered by Powerade." Each game crowns a Michelob Ultra "superior player of the match." Even the signs announcing player substitutions have a label slapped on: Rexona deodorant, which is owned by Unilever. They're the "official personal care sponsor" of this World Cup.

This relentless branding is nothing new for major sporting events, but it has provoked outrage in Los Angeles, where protests during the tournament took aim at FIFA's corporate partners, saying they betrayed the city's values.

At a demonstration in downtown L.A. last week, advocates rallied against a number of high-profile sponsors of the tournament, including Home Depot, the official "home improvement retailer" for the 2026 World Cup.

Its signature orange branding has been splashed across tournament activations this summer, but in the L.A. area its parking lots have been the sites of high profile immigration raids. Last summer in Monrovia, a man was killed fleeing ICE activity in a Home Depot parking lot after he ran onto a freeway and was hit by a car. In another incident, federal agents jumped out of a Penske moving van at the Westlake Home Depot and detained 16 people.

" Their parking lots have been turned into hunting grounds," said Miriam Arghandiwal, an organizer with the Boycott Home Depot Coalition.

" FIFA has been intentional in allowing the people's game to become the billionaire's game, and there's no better example of this than its choice in sponsors," she said at the protest.

The group also railed against FIFA partners Hyundai and Kia, citing a 2022 report that suppliers of Hyundai and Kia had used child labor in its Alabama factories. LAist has reached out to Home Depot and the Hyundai Motor Group, which also owns Kia, for comment.

Demonstrators said they wanted FIFA to make corporate accountability a metric of accepting a sponsor.

" We know mega-events like the World Cup can only happen with the support of host communities, local infrastructure and resources, with the workers throughout various supply chains that make these events possible," said Valerie Lizárraga with the nonprofit Jobs to Move America.

The group was also gathered to demand action from the Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission, which runs the L.A. World Cup Host Committee. Demonstrators said they were dissatisfied with the committee's guidance on human rights for the World Cup.

A spokesperson for that commission deferred to FIFA for comment on corporate sponsorships. FIFA did not respond to LAist's request.

Last week, a small group of climate activists also demonstrated outside SoFi Stadium against Saudi energy company Aramco, another major FIFA partner. They were calling on FIFA to drop the fossil fuel giant as a sponsor.

The World Cup is wrapped up in Los Angeles after Friday's quarterfinal match between Spain and Belgium. But advocates rallying in L.A. say they are looking toward the future.

" Things like the World Cup [and] the Olympics are events that are fueled by people," said Father Thomas Carey, a member of Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice. "The question is, do we hold them to account to take care of and protect the people who work for them and the people who attend their games?"

Next year, Los Angeles will host the 2027 Super Bowl. And the year after that will be the Olympics.

The Trump administration is abandoning its most aggressive attempt to end gender-affirming care for youth nationally, according to an official document obtained by NPR.

The document shows that the Department of Health and Human Services will not be finalizing a proposed rule that would have blocked all Medicaid and Medicare funding for hospitals that provide pediatric gender-affirming care.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told NPR in a statement: "CMS does not comment on future rulemaking or speculate on potential actions. The Trump Administration rejects ideologically driven surgical interventions on vulnerable children."

(Surgery is very rare among transgender people under age 18, and the rule applied to all gender-affirming care, which is mainly therapy and medications for children.)

A "victory" for trans rights, but not a "retreat" by HHS

The fact that the Trump administration is backing off from this action is "a victory for people who are defending the rights and interests of trans people," says Sam Bagenstos, a professor at Michigan Law who served as general counsel at HHS under the Biden administration. "But I don't think it indicates a more general retreat from the aggressive posture of the Trump administration."

Bagenstos notes that this type of leverage — a "conditions of participation" rule for the Medicare and Medicaid program — has historically been used by HHS to compel states and hospitals to meet basic health and safety standards. Things like "making sure that you have stockpiles of certain kinds of equipment, making sure that you have certain kinds of emergency protocols, making sure that you have certain staffing ratios," he explains.

The proposed rule was unprecedented, Bagenstos says, because it instead would have prohibited certain kinds of treatments for a certain population. He says it seemed unlawful in a variety of ways. For one, "it violates the Medicare Act, which says that Medicare and Medicaid can't be used to control the practice of medicine within the state — states get to regulate the practice of medicine," Bagenstos says.

Medical groups opposed the change

Normally, HHS would propose a rule, accept public comment for 60 days, and then finalize the rule so that it could take effect. In this case, after proposing the rule in December and receiving more than 30,000 comments, the administration is abandoning the rule. At least in the next year, it will not be finalized and will not take effect.

The American Medical Association and the Children's Hospital Association both submitted comments urging the agency to rescind or withdraw the proposed rule. Major U.S. medical groups say that puberty blockers and sex hormones are safe and can be effective for transgender young people.

Even so, gender-affirming care for youth is banned in 27 states after a flurry of laws passed over the last several years. In the remaining 23 states, many hospital clinics that offer gender-affirming care have continued to operate, while others have shuttered in the past year citing pressure from the Trump administration.

That pressure has come in the form of this proposed rule, another rule that would bar federal Medicaid reimbursement for transgender pediatric patients, and a declaration from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that aimed to redefine the standard of care. (Interestingly, the press release issued when those actions were unveiled in December is now missing from the HHS website, as is the Kennedy declaration document.)

The Medicaid rule is currently in the final stage of review and appears to be on track to take effect in the coming weeks. A coalition of Democratic-led states sued over the so-called Kennedy declaration and succeeded in blocking it in federal court in Oregon. The Trump administration has not appealed that decision so far.

Protesters who are against gender-affirming care for young people gathered outside Boston Children's Hospital in September 2022.

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Carlin Stiehl for The Boston Globe

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Getty Images

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At the same time, the Department of Justice has issued administrative and criminal subpoenas to hospitals seeking full personal medical files for transgender youth and employment files for their medical providers, although many of those attempts have been blocked in court so far. The Trump administration has also reached settlements with hospitals in Texas and Ohio that involved establishing "detransition" clinics.

And last month, when the Supreme Court allowed states to bar young transgender girls from sports, the White House issued a press release saying that the decision "Bolsters President Trump's Push to Eliminate Transgender Insanity." The release listed actions targeting transgender people across the federal government, from passport markers to military service to research funding.

Will hospitals that ended care for trans youth restart it?

While the Trump administration does not appear to be backing down from anti-transgender actions broadly, its decision not to finalize its most aggressive healthcare rule is significant, says Katie Keith, director of the Health Policy and the Law Initiative at Georgetown University who also worked in the Biden administration. Those other efforts are not nearly as durable as a finalized rule that takes effect, she notes.

The decision of the Trump administration not to finalize this rule "should give hospitals more confidence to either resume or continue offering the care," she says. Because the rule was never in effect, "I would argue that they should have been doing this all along anyway."

Kellan Baker agrees. He's a senior adviser for health policy at the Movement Advancement Project think tank, which focuses on LGBTQ issues. "This administration may have checked itself in one of the most extreme expressions of its agenda and I think people should take solace in that," he says. "But at the same time, this administration is continuing to show that its ultimate goal is eliminating healthcare for trans people and that it is apparently prepared to use almost any means necessary to do so."

The Medicare and Medicaid rule could theoretically be revived at some point, since it has not been formally withdrawn. An entry in the Trump administration's recent unified agenda sets a final action date for the proposed rule as December 2028, just before President Trump leaves office.

Copyright 2026 NPR

Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a new law that expands the state's mobile ID program to 60% of licensed drivers, his office announced Monday.

For the last few years, participating residents have been able to use the state-issued mobile app and store their IDs in certain phone wallets as part of a pilot program.

Where you can use it

The program works for driver's licenses and state IDs.

The mobile version is mainly valid at airport security, but use is expected to expand in the future.

TSA accepts the California DMV Wallet App, as well as Apple, Google or Samsung wallets. A small number of stores accept them for age-restricted purchases.

One big caveat: Mobile IDs are not accepted by law enforcement or most state government agencies.

That means you should still keep your physical ID or license with you, especially if you're driving. You can find a full list of accepted places on the DMV's website.

How you can apply

Access to the program was previously capped to 4.2 million drivers — now that's quadrupled to over 16 million.

You can join the pilot by downloading the CA DMV Wallet app from your phone's app store and logging into your MyDMV account.

You'll need to provide your driver's license or ID card information. The app will prompt you to scan your card, and you'll have to refresh the mobile ID every 30 days.

More than 3.5 million Californians have joined so far.