The Brief

The results of the city of Los Angeles’ 12-month guaranteed income pilot program are here, more than a year after 3,202 low-income people received their last payment with no strings attached.

Researchers touted an increasing sense of financial well-being, parents spending more time with their children, and lower levels of psychological and sexual abuse as city officials promised a push to expand the program.

Each participant was given $1,000 each month, for a total of $12,000 over the course of a year, to use however they wanted as part of the “Basic Income Guaranteed: Los Angeles Economic Assistance Pilot program,” otherwise known as BIG:LEAP.

And Councilmember Curren Price, who led the effort in L.A., said the data speaks for itself — researchers found positive trends in food security, sense of community, and reducing intimate partner violence and fear of community violence.

“But we witnessed transformation in the participants that went beyond data,” Price said at a news conference outside City Hall on Tuesday. “It also empowered participants to start businesses, to move into their own homes, and to reclaim their hope from despair.”

About the people in the program

The goal of the program was to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty, according to the research report, and more than 50,000 people applied in just 10 days.

The selected participants were in deep poverty and “teetering on the edge” of losing housing, struggling to pay their bills, and battling to meet their most basic needs, the researchers noted.

The average age of people in the program was 37 years old, almost every household had children, and 80% were women.

Nearly half identified as either Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish, a little more than a quarter identified as Black, 15% white, and about 3% identified as Asian.

The average annual household income was a little more than $14,200, and 71% of people in the program received SNAP/CalFresh benefits.

A map of the city of L.A. with the number of program participants in each council district.

(

BIG:LEAP Research Report

)

The highest number of participants were in Price’s 9th district, which includes Exposition Park and South Central, followed by Marqueece Harris-Dawson’s 8th district and Imelda Padilla’s 6th district.

What the research shows

Researchers from USC, UCLA, and the Center for Guaranteed Income Research found that people in the program immediately prioritized savings after describing a sense of stress that “this was their one and only shot at stability in an extremely unaffordable city.”

Bo-Kyung Elizabeth Kim, an associate professor at UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health and one of the authors of the report, said they saw a positive impact on the financial well-being of people in the program, including their ability to pay off a $400 emergency expense.

“Families with children have a really difficult time covering these emergency expenses, and we saw that people who received guaranteed income in the city of Los Angeles were significantly more likely to be able to cover this cost,” she said.

About 10% of people said they would be able to cover an emergency expense before the payments, which grew to about 15% by the time the program ended.

Poverty and food insecurity go hand in hand in Los Angeles County, according to the report, with 44% of low-income people struggling to put dinner on the table last year. But Kim noted they saw significant strides among those receiving guaranteed income.

With L.A. being one of the most expensive housing markets in the country, housing security was another major consideration. Nearly half of the people in the program spent more than 70% of their monthly income on housing expenses.

But they were able to hold onto housing and put the payments toward rent, which the researchers said worked to prevent homelessness for some people who had been falling through the cracks.

The monthly payments also became a tool for escaping and healing from unsafe relationships or intimate partner violence, which includes stalking, psychological aggression, sexual and physical violence. More than half of the people in the program reported psychological abuse from intimate partners in the past year, with 30% reporting physical abuse.

Some used the money to escape unsafe living situations and avoid returning to an abusive environment. The researchers noted that “healing took place physically and emotionally,” including through prioritizing therapy and reconstructive surgery.

Plus, Kim noted that people were becoming better parents throughout the program.

“They were able to spend more time with their kids,” she said. “They were able to provide more quality attention to the kids, and especially in the quantitative findings, we saw a significant increase in participants more willing to put kids in child enrichment activities, extracurricular activities, sports, and whatnot.”

What people in the program say

Ashley Davis, a 37-year-old single mom to an 8-year-old son, told LAist the BIG:LEAP program helped her financially, mentally, and physically. 

She said she used to be stuck in a routine of constantly worrying about bills and covering car repairs, but the monthly payments gave her some much-needed breathing room.

“Essentially, a lot of the stress that I had been dealing with, it was being alleviated by that extra income,” she said.

Davis had developed gastroesophageal reflux disease, otherwise known as GERD, and her doctor was considering putting her on heart medication, so one of the first things she bought was a juicer and healthier food options.

She started to take walks, because “walks are free,” and signed her son up for an indoor playground that allows them to chase each other around in a safe and secluded space.

Then she realized she wasn’t able to celebrate her son’s recent birthday, so she ended up getting passes to Legoland, and the payments helped Davis take Sundays off her cosmetology job.

“Instead of me working pretty much every day of the week, I now had an off day to go spend time with him,” she said.

Davis also started feeling better about her future, and she ended up enrolling in nursing school. The program paid for the books while she “knocked out all the classes with straight A's.”

Overall, she said the money helped cover a lot of basic bills their household needed to stay afloat. Davis is now looking forward to finishing school and acing her exams, but she’s still taking it one day at a time.

“The situation was just wonderful,” she said. “I didn't even realize like you're basically being helped out of struggle mode or focusing on when is your paycheck going to come.”

What’s next

Price said they can’t stop here with “full momentum,” and that’s why he’s introduced a motion to launch another $4 to $5 million guaranteed basic income program, along with Councilmembers Harris-Dawson and Hugo Soto-Martínez.

If approved, he said this program would specifically target people experiencing intimate partner violence, domestic violence, and transitional age youth, which are young people aging out of foster care of juvenile justice systems.

Price added that he’ll allocate $1 million of his district’s discretionary funds to go towards people experiencing homelessness.

“We will move forward, we will guarantee income,” he said. “That's been proven to break cycles of poverty and housing insecurity, and these are issues that have plagued our region for decades, and now we have research to show that it can be alleviated.”

Want more Olympics updates? Get NPR's behind-the-scenes newsletter for what it's like to be at these Games.

There's no shortage of Winter Olympics storylines to watch — and we're not just talking about sports.

Hundreds of athletes will vie for medals in 16 different sports over the course of a jam-packed 2 1/2 weeks in the Milan Cortina Games. They will compete at venues spanning a nearly 9,000-square-mile swath of northern Italy, in front of in-person spectators (a welcome return after the COVID-19 restrictions in Beijing in 2022) and on an even bigger world stage.

Rising stars — and one new sport — are making their Olympic debuts, while familiar fan favorites are returning, some in pursuit of a comeback after many years away. Lifelong dreams are on the line, but there are also geopolitical tensions, environmental questions and so much more.

Here are some of the threads we're following:

1. Iconic American women are chasing comebacks

Lindsey Vonn grimaces after crashing in a women's downhill race in Switzerland on Friday.

(

Fabrice Coffrini

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Legendary American athletes — many of them women — across multiple sports are returning to the Olympic stage after years away. They could include Lindsey Vonn, who retired as the winningest female skier in history in 2019 but returned to competition after a partial knee replacement in 2024. She qualified for the Games at age 41 amid a triumphant World Cup season, though her participation was cast into doubt when she crashed during a competition a week before the opening ceremony. She still plans to compete — in at least her first race — despite a ruptured ACL, calling it her "most dramatic" comeback in a career full of them. Figure skater Alysa Liu reversed her teenage retirement and now brings a 2025 world title and renewed love of the sport to her second Olympics. Another former teenage phenom, halfpipe snowboarder Maddy Schaffrick, clinched a spot in her first Olympics at age 31, over a decade after retiring from burnout in 2015. And Alpine skier Breezy Johnson is aiming for redemption on the same Cortina slopes that destroyed her knee and her last Olympic dreams just weeks before she was set to compete in Beijing in 2022.

— Rachel Treisman

2. International tensions may be uniquely high for U.S. athletes

There's always a political dimension to the Olympic Games, but this year, U.S. athletes could face a uniquely tense atmosphere. The Trump administration has sparred with European athletes over a wide range of issues, including repeated threats against Denmark's sovereign territory in Greenland. (The U.S. and Denmark men's hockey teams are scheduled to face off on the ice on Feb. 14.) Some Italian politicians have also voiced concern about the role of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who plan to help with security at the Winter Games. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told local media that after the violence in Minneapolis, ICE agents are "not welcome" in his city. Vice President Vance, a frequent critic of European leaders, is expected to attend the opening ceremony at the Games on Feb. 6.

— Brian Mann

3. NHL players return to the Olympics

Brothers Brady and Matthew Tkachuk are among the NHL players set to make their Olympic debut for Team USA.

(

Bruce Bennett

/

Getty Images

)

Olympic hockey hasn't included players from the world's top professional league for more than a decade. Finally, that era is over, and we get to see some incredible teams play in a best-on-best format (although the tournament won't include a Russian team, due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022). Some of the league's biggest stars, like Edmonton's Connor McDavid, Toronto's Auston Matthews and Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon, are well into their careers without having had the chance to play for Olympic gold, and that changes next month. The star power on Team Canada alone runs from MacKinnon and McDavid to the legend Sidney Crosby and the San Jose Sharks' 19-year-old phenom Macklin Celebrini. The Americans are no slouches either, with Matthews, the Tkachuk brothers and a trio of talented goaltenders led by Connor Hellebuyck, last year's NHL MVP — and they'll have their eyes set on the first Team USA gold since the "Miracle on Ice" in 1980.

— Becky Sullivan

4. Ski mountaineering makes its Olympic debut

A 2025 Ski Mountaineering World Cup women's mixed relay event in Bormio, Italy, where the sport will make its Olympic debut.

(

Antonio Calanni

/

AP

)

These Games feature several new medal events and one entirely new sport: ski mountaineering. In "skimo," as it's called, athletes race both up and downhill, alternately wearing and carrying their skis in backpacks. Alpine countries like Italy, France and Switzerland tend to dominate in skimo (after all, that's where the sport has its roots), but there will be a pair of rising American stars to root for: Anna Gibson and Cameron Smith, who earned the U.S. its inaugural Olympic skimo spot with a historic World Cup mixed-relay win in December in Utah.

— Rachel Treisman

5. A new generation of U.S. curlers takes the rink

For the first time in 20 years, the U.S. will not be represented by curling legend John Shuster at the Olympics. Shuster competed in every winter Olympics from 2006 to 2022, and led the U.S. men's team to a surprise gold medal at the 2018 Pyeongchang Games. At the 2025 U.S. Olympic Trials, Shuster's team was defeated by a crew of Gen-Z curlers led by 24-year-old Danny Casper, whose team is currently ranked sixth in the world. On the women's side, Team Peterson — led by sisters Tabitha and Tara Peterson — heads to the Olympics a second time. And Olympics newbies Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse, world champions in 2023, will represent the U.S. in mixed doubles.

— Pien Huang

6. Mikaela Shiffrin wants to put her 2022 Olympic disappointment behind her

Mikaela Shiffrin smiles after placing first in the Audi FIS Alpine Ski World Cup Women's Slalom in late January, just days before the start of the Olympics.

(

Millo Moravski/Agence Zoom

/

Getty Images

)

Mikaela Shiffrin is the most decorated skier ever, full stop. Nobody, man or woman, has won more races than Shiffrin, who has 108 World Cup wins, 12 season titles (in three different disciplines) and five overall titles to her name. But Olympic success has proved more elusive for Shiffrin. She has won just three medals in her three Olympic appearances — including a stunning shutout in 2022 when she missed the podium in all five of her events. Then, in 2024, Shiffrin sustained a freak injury that could have derailed her career. In a race that fall, she crashed and sustained a mysterious but severe puncture wound that sidelined her for months. Now, though, Shiffrin has returned to top form in her signature event, the slalom. She has competed in eight World Cup slalom races so far this winter and won all but one (in which she finished second). You'll have to be patient, though: The women's slalom is one of the very last alpine skiing events of the entire Olympics.

— Becky Sullivan

7. The logistical feat of a widespread winter Games 

Organizers are calling these the most geographically widespread winter Games in history, spanning an area of roughly 8,495 square miles. They are co-hosted by metropolitan Milan and the Alpine resort town of Cortina d'Ampezzo, dispersed across four main competition clusters and six Olympic villages. Even the opening ceremony is spread out, hosted primarily at Milan's historic San Siro Stadium with simultaneous athlete processions at venues in Predazzo, Livigno and Cortina. And, in a historic first, two Olympic cauldrons will ignite the action: one in Milan and one in Cortina. The Feb. 22 closing ceremony will take place between the host cities, at a Roman amphitheater in Verona.

— Rachel Treisman

8. Could the U.S. win its first-ever biathlon medal?

Deedra Irwin, pictured warming up before an event in 2023, could be Team USA's best hope for its first ever medal in biathlon, which combines cross-country skiing with precision rifle shooting.

(

Anders Wiklund/TT News Agency

/

AFP via Getty Images

)

Biathlon is the only winter Olympic sport in which the U.S. has never won a medal. Brutal! The sport is way bigger in Europe, and athletes from countries like Norway and France have traditionally dominated. Then, at the 2022 Games in Beijing, Deedra Irwin came closer than any American before her when she finished in seventh place in the women's individual event. Now, she's back for a second try. Like many American biathletes, Irwin took a winding path to the sport. She didn't even grow up around guns — her first memory of firing a gun was at a ladies' night at her college's shooting range — and she didn't attempt the sport until she was in her mid-20s, after pursuing a career as a Nordic skier (and living out of her car). Meanwhile, the 23-year-old Campbell Wright just scored his first ever podium finish in a World Cup race. ("Not gonna lie, I've been wanting a podium pretty bad. Maybe too much … but today it worked out!" he wrote on his Instagram after.) It's the second Olympic appearance for Wright, who's ranked No. 10 in the world, but his first for the U.S. after the dual national switched his national allegiance from New Zealand.

— Becky Sullivan

9. In-person spectators are back  

The COVID-19 pandemic restricted in-person spectators and required masks (with some exceptions) at the last Winter Olympics, in Beijing in 2022. Many athletes have shared that they're looking forward to competing in front of crowds, feeding off the energy of a packed arena and getting to take in the moment with their loved ones by their side. Figure skater Alysa Liu, who competed in Beijing, told reporters: "I had a lot of fun at that one. Everyone's saying, 'Listen, that one's nothing compared to what a real Olympics is like.'"

— Rachel Treisman

10. Environmentalists say the Games are damaging a delicate ecosystem

Clouds hang over the 'Seceda' Dolomites mountain in the northern Italian province of South Tyrol, which is hosting Olympic biathlon events.

(

Matthias Schrader

/

AP

)

The Italian Dolomites are a protected UNESCO World Heritage Site, and organizers promised to use the Games to "showcase the importance of protecting sensitive mountain ecosystems." But environmentalists say water resources are being strained, and construction projects have further contributed to the "urbanization" of a mountain system already stressed by overtourism. As the region faces warmer and shorter winters due to climate change, most sporting events will take place on artificial snow and ice. The organising committee estimates it will require 250 million gallons of water — the equivalent of nearly 380 Olympic swimming pools — taken from local rivers, streams and lakes, which environmental groups say could strain the local ecosystem. Eight key environmental organizations in a joint statement denounced the Games' sustainability claims as "greenwashing" and pointed out that the organizing committee has failed to conduct in-depth environmental surveys of the impact of these changes on the Dolomite region.

— Ruth Sherlock

11. After doping scandals in Beijing and Paris, will Milan have clean competition?

The Milan Olympics open at a time of deep division among international agencies that police athletes to prevent the use of performance-enhancing drugs. The World Anti Doping Agency (WADA) has long served as the global leader protecting clean sport. But critics say WADA failed to properly investigate doping scandals ahead of the Beijing Winter Olympics, involving a Russian figure skater, and at the Paris Summer Games, involving a group of Chinese swimmers. "It necessarily and unfortunately clouds the confidence heading into these [Milan] Games," said Travis Tygart, head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, in an interview with NPR. In a statement this month, WADA President Witold Bańka called for unity. "We hope that, like us, you are feeling revitalized and eager to work together to advance clean sport in 2026," he said. But trust remains at a minimum, with the U.S. government withholding its WADA dues in an effort to press for reform.

— Brian Mann

12. U.S. figure skaters are poised to make the podium — and history 

The recently nicknamed "Blade Angels" — Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito — will represent Team USA in women's figure skating.

(

Jamie Squire

/

Getty Images North America

)

This is arguably the strongest figure skating team the U.S. has sent to an Olympics in years. The stacked roster of Alysa Liu, Amber Glenn and Isabeau Levito could win the U.S. its first women's singles gold since 2002. On the men's side, Ilia "Quad God" Malinin is favored for gold — and poised to become the first person to land a quadruple axel (a jump that only he can do) at an Olympics. In ice dance, seven-time reigning national champions Madison Chock and Evan Bates are looking for redemption after finishing just off the podium in Beijing in 2022. The U.S. is also seeking to defend its 2022 gold medal in the team event, with Japan now its main rival in light of Russia's effective exclusion from the Olympics.

— Rachel Treisman

13. Can the U.S. work its way up the medal count? 

The U.S. won 25 medals in 2022, placing fifth in the overall medal count behind Norway, the Russian Olympic Committee, Germany and Canada. Norway has long dominated the Winter Olympics medal count, going into this year with a total of 405 and a record 148 gold. The U.S. is hoping some of that special sauce might rub off on its ski jumping team, which has won only one medal ever, at the inaugural 1924 Olympics. After 2022, the ski jumping federations of the U.S. and Norway officially partnered to share coaches, training facilities and sports scientists. That has given the U.S. a boost and at least one Olympic medal contender: 20-year-old Lake Placid, N.Y., native Tate Frantz, who moved to Norway to train and work with Norwegian coaches and jumpers. "I'd say it was extremely important," Frantz told NPR. "It pushes you astronomically." The U.S. is also hoping the return of NHL men's hockey players to Team USA will give the men a shot at a gold medal for the first time since 1980.

— Rachel Treisman

14. Team USA bobsled moms could medal 

Bobsledder Kaillie Humphries holds her son, Aulden Armbruster, during the 2025 IBSF World Championships. She went through IVF treatments while competing.

(

Al Bello

/

Getty Images

)

Several elite athletes are back at the top of their sport after giving birth. Kaillie Humphries is back on competing in her fifth Olympic Games (her second for Team USA; she represented Canada for her first three competitions — or four, if you count the year she served as an alternate). She has a 1-year-old son, born after several IVF attempts. "I got back in the bobsled 4 1/2 months postpartum, so it wasn't the ideal timeline," Humphries says, "I'm not a spring chicken anymore." Still, Humphries is a top contender in monobob, for which she won a gold medal at the 2022 Beijing Olympics, and won again at the IBSF World Cup in January. She's joined by Elana Meyers-Taylor, the most decorated Black athlete in Winter Olympics history, and a fellow mom who's also back for her fifth Olympics. Meyers-Taylor returned to competitive bobsledding after the birth of each of her children, now 3 and 6. "It's been quite a bit on my body," she says, citing years of breastfeeding, lack of sleep, back pain, and getting older, "I might not win every race and every day might look crazy and chaotic…But I wouldn't trade it for the world, clearly," she says.

— Pien Huang

15. U.S. men look to end a 46-year medal drought in cross-country skiing

Gus Schumacher, pictured at the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships Trondheim in 2025, could earn U.S. men their first cross-country ski medal in almost half a century.

(

Lars Baron

/

Getty Images

)

Alaskan Gus Schumacher is the strongest medal contender for U.S. men, who have won only a single Olympic cross-country medal, Bill Koch's silver in the 30K in 1976 in Innsbruck. American women Jessie Diggins and Kikkan Randall took the first-ever U.S. gold in cross country in the team sprint in Pyeongchang 2018. Diggins won a silver and bronze in Beijing in 2022. On the World Cup tour, Schumacher has shown he can beat the world's best in middle-distance events in the skate skiing discipline. He's having his best World Cup season ever, with two sprint podiums on successive days in the last races before the Olympics. Vermonter Ben Ogden is another to watch. He has turned heads with bold tactics in the more traditional classic technique and has had good results in skate skiing races, too. A hard truth, though, is the dominance of the Norwegian team and a strong field of Europeans. But don't count the U.S. out for a medal in the four-man relay, it's a notoriously unpredictable event and Schumacher, Ogden and John Hagenbuch were on the team that won the event in the 2019 Junior World Championship.

— Eric Whitney 

16. Multiple snowboarders could land a historic three-peat  

U.S. snowboarder Chloe Kim became the first woman ever to win two Olympic gold medals in halfpipe in 2022. Since then, she's added jaw-dropping new tricks to her repertoire, including landing a cab 1260 (3 1/2 revolutions) in competition — another female first — and a 1440 in practice. She's aiming for gold again, even after a last-minute shoulder injury kept her from training in the weeks leading up to the Games. Two other women are also hoping to become the first snowboarders to three-peat in consecutive Winter Games: The Czech Republic's Ester Ledecka in parallel giant slalom and Austria's Anna Gasser in big air.

— Rachel Treisman

17. The U.S. sends its strongest long track speedskating team in decades 

U.S. speedskater Erin Jackson, pictured in January, is the defending Olympic gold medalist in the women's 500-meter event.

(

Matthias Schrader

/

AP

)

The prolific Jordan Stolz — a favorite in the 500, 1000, 1500 meters and the mass start event — is poised to make speedskating history unseen since U.S. speedskater Eric Heiden won five gold medals in the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics. After a strong finish at the World Cup, Erin Jackson now heads to Milano Cortina to get ready to defend her Olympic title at her third Games, skating fast and turning left in the Women's 500 and 1000. Four-time Olympian Brittany Bowe brings her decades of inline speedskating experience, explosive power and technique to the Women's Team Pursuit. The Women's and Men's Team Pursuit — which involves two teams of three people racing in tandem — is going to be hot at these games. Team USA has dominated this event over the past four years, mastering the precision, technique and grace that consistently yields top results. Skaters are a mirror image of one another during every lap of the race. It'll be much like watching synchronized swimming. Any slight misstep may be the difference between coming in first or 10th.

— Rolando Arrieta 

18. Some Russian athletes can compete, but not under their own flag 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Russia and its ally Belarus after the invasion of Ukraine in 2022. But it did allow a small number of heavily vetted athletes from those countries to compete as "Individual Neutral Athletes" (AIN) in Paris in 2024, without any national anthems, flags or colors (instead represented by a turquoise logo). Similar rules apply to these Games, with neutral athletes' participation at the discretion of each international sports federation. Russian athletes — even top NHL players like Alex Ovechkin and Nikita Kucherov — will be noticeably absent from the hockey rink, while a select handful will compete in sports including figure skating, cross-country skiing and short-track speedskating.

— Rachel Treisman 

19. Women cross-country skiers will race on equal footing with men for the first time

Women have long struggled to achieve parity at the Winter Olympics, and the 2026 Games mark another milestone. Female cross-country ski racers were first allowed to compete in a single short-track event at the 1952 Winter Games in Oslo. This year, women will compete in the same number of events — a total of six — as their male counterparts. They'll also ski the same distances, including the grueling 50k endurance race. "I'm really really excited to have equal distance for men and women at the Olympics," three-time U.S. Olympic medal-winner Jessie Diggins told NPR. Diggins plans to compete in all six events at Milan-Cortina. "I think it's really cool and an important way to show, especially young women in sport, hey, you got this," she said.

— Brian Mann
Copyright 2026 NPR

A California appeals court on Monday overturned a sex abuse conviction against a former University of California, Los Angeles, gynecologist and ordered the case to be retried.

A three-justice panel from California's 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled Dr. James Heaps was denied a fair trial because the judge did not share with his defense counsel a note by the court's foreman pointing out concerns that one juror lacked sufficient English to carry out their duties.

Heaps' attorney, Leonard Levine, said he and his team were not aware of the note or that there was any question about a juror's ability to serve until two years later when an attorney working on an appeal discovered it in a court file.

If the attorney had not seen it, "it still would have remained a secret, which is very unfortunate since it would have been a miscarriage of justice, but thankfully it's been corrected," Levine said.

Heaps was sentenced in 2023 to 11 years in prison after his conviction on charges he sexually abused female patients.

"Justice is slow but it's finally been done," he said, adding "I believe it's just a matter of time before he is totally exonerated."

Heaps was accused of sexually assaulting hundreds of patients during his 35-year career and UCLA made nearly $700 million in payouts over lawsuits connected to the allegations — a record amount at the time for a public university.

He pleaded not guilty to 21 felony counts in the sexual assaults of seven women between 2009 and 2018. He was convicted in October 2022 of three counts of sexual battery by fraud and two counts of sexual penetration of two patients. The jury found him not guilty of seven of the 21 counts and was deadlocked on the remaining charges.

In the 31-page ruling, the appellate court panel pointed out that within about one hour of Juror No. 15 being seated as a substitute for a juror who had a medical issue, concerns were raised about whether the person was qualified to serve. The foreman's note indicated that Juror No. 15 did not speak English well enough to participate in the deliberations, the ruling stated.

Prosecutors have 30 days to appeal the ruling. The Los Angeles County District Attorney's office said in an email to The Associated Press that it plans to retry Heaps as soon as possible.

The panel stated that the problem was too grave to not order a retrial.

"We recognize the burden on the trial court and regrettably, on the witnesses, in requiring retrial of a case involving multiple victims and delving into the conduct of intimate medical examinations," the ruling stated. "The importance of the constitutional right to counsel at critical junctures in a criminal trial gives us no other choice."
Copyright 2026 NPR

A key document laying out how Olympics organizers will address human rights issues like civil rights, homelessness and human trafficking in the summer of 2028 has not been made public, despite a Dec. 31, 2025, deadline.

Talk of a boycott, fear about ICE agents, and concern about L.A.'s unhoused population have been swirling around preparations for the Olympic Games for months. But last week, some L.A. City Council members said at a committee meeting that they had not seen the report. Neither have local human rights advocates.

" It's just the lack of transparency," said Stephanie Richard, who leads an anti-trafficking initiative at Loyola Law School. "Why wouldn't the reports have been put out the day that they were provided?"

LA28, the private nonprofit putting on the Games, is responsible for creating a "Human Rights Strategy" in consultation with the city, according to a contract with Los Angeles. It was supposed to be completed by the end of 2025.

Spokespeople for LA28 say it has fulfilled its "obligation to the city" and that the organization is working with L.A. on next steps. When asked by LAist, city officials did not disclose who had seen the human rights document or what those next steps were.

Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson sets the agenda for the ad-hoc city council committee on the Olympic Games. But his office didn't respond to requests for comment on if he had seen the report. The mayor's office also did not return repeated requests for comment on who at the city has the Human Rights Strategy.

While advocates wait to see the report, some are concerned about what will be in it.

Richard with Loyola Law School said she participated in a call with LA28 to advise on the human rights strategy, but she was disheartened when there was no follow-up conversation.

" It feels like the human rights plans have always been very like big picture and nothing concrete," she said.

Richard also has her eye on the upcoming World Cup, which requires a human rights plan, too. She told LAist she wants to see LA28 and FIFA put money behind these efforts. She compiled her own report with a long list of suggestions ahead of the World Cup and Olympics, including the demand that both organizations negotiate with the federal government to ensure immigration enforcement doesn't conduct raids around sporting venues.

Catherine Sweetser, who directs a human rights litigation clinic at UCLA Law, has been researching the organizing committee's process in putting together its human rights strategy.

Sweetser said LA28 had not called public meetings about its approach to issues like homelessness, and had not to her knowledge engaged people who might be directly affected by the Olympic Games, like people living on the streets of Los Angeles.

"The only way that we're going to get real solutions is to listen to the people who are affected," she said. "And right now I don't see that happening with this human rights process."

LAist has also requested an interview LA28's senior human rights advisor, Julieta Valls Noyes.

A mid-week warming trend kicks off Tuesday, with temperatures expected to reach the low 90s in some valleys.

SoCal beaches will see temperatures from 73 to 79 degrees, with periods of low clouds in the morning. The inland coast and downtown L.A. will see highs of between 82 and 85 degrees.

The valley communities, including the Inland Empire, will see highs of up to 86 degrees, and up to 89 degrees in Coachella Valley. Meanwhile, the Antelope Valley could get up to 75 degrees.

The National Weather Service is also warning of windy conditions over the Santa Clarita Valley, where gusts could reach 35 mph in the afternoon.