Image of Adrian celebrating a birthday (left) provided by his sister, Alyssa Garcia. Screen grab of incident (right) that took place in the parking lot near the 8600 block of Washington Boulevard.
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Alyssa Garcia
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Topline:
Myra Martinez, the mother of a U.S. citizen taken into custody during a chaotic immigration enforcement interaction in a retail parking lot on Tuesday, is pleading for answers as her son remains unaccounted for nearly 24 hours later.
Martinez detained: According to video seen on social media, Adrian Andrew Martinez, 20, was tackled and forcibly detained by several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in a parking lot near the 8600 block of Washington Boulevard. According to eyewitnesses, Martinez may have attempted to intervene when agents began questioning his co-worker in the parking lot.
ICE response: ICE has said they were not operating in Pico Rivera on June 17, according to a statement given to CALÓ News. According to Martinez, officials with ICE told her that they had no record of Adrian in their system.
The mother of a U.S. citizen taken into custody during a chaotic immigration enforcement interaction in a retail parking lot on Tuesday is pleading for answers as her son remains unaccounted for nearly 24 hours later.
Adrian Andrew Martinez, 20, was tackled and forcibly detained by several U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in a parking lot near the 8600 block of Washington Boulevard. According to his mother, Myra Martinez, Adrian Martinez had clocked in for his shift at Walmart around 5 a.m. and went on a break at approximately 8 a.m. when ICE agents were reportedly seen in the vicinity.
According to eyewitnesses, Martinez may have attempted to intervene when agents began questioning his co-worker in the parking lot. There are several widely circulated videos being shared online of the interactions between Adrian Martinez and armed masked men, who were later identified as ICE agents.
The footage, which quickly went viral on social media platforms, shows agents in tactical gear restraining Martinez as they wrestle him to the ground. A voice off camera can be heard saying, “these are legal citizens!”
Martinez, who was born in Los Angeles and holds U.S. citizenship, has not been seen or heard from since the incident.
“I just want to know where my son is,” said Myra Martinez, Adrian’s mother, in an exclusive interview with CALÓ News. A mother of five, Ms. Martinez said she learned of her son’s detention at the same moment much of the public did — when video of the incident began circulating online.
“I was at work when one of my daughters sent me a message with the video, saying that they had taken Adrian,” she recalled. Witnessing the force used against her son, she said, was deeply painful. “It really hurt,” she added, noting that she left work immediately to locate him.
Community members expressed alarm over the incident, noting that the detainment of U.S. citizens by ICE has become an increasingly frequent and troubling pattern. Advocates argue that such cases raise serious constitutional questions. According to Mr. Martinez’s mother, the only elected official who has reached out to the family so far is State Senator Bob Archuleta (D-30), who offered assistance in locating her son.
Since Adrian was abducted, Myra Martinez said she has not received any information about his whereabouts. “Right now, I have no idea where my son is,” she said.
According to Ms. Martinez, officials with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement told her that they had no record of Adrian in their system. “I already went looking for him,” she said. “I went to the place where they’re detaining everyone — ICE told me they don’t have him, that they don’t have no one by that name.” She also went to a federal detention facility, but was again told that no one by his name was being held there.
On Tuesday evening, residents gathered in Pico Rivera to demand that the city sever any ties with ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. The demonstration began at Pico Rivera City Hall and concluded with a march to the Walgreens near Washington Boulevard and Rosemead Boulevard, where Mr. Martinez was reportedly detained.
“If anyone has any information, or anyone can help me to find my son… I just want to know if he’s okay,” said Mrs. Martinez.
ICE states they were not operating in Pico Rivera on June 17, and would refer CALÓ News to CBP.
Jacob Margolis
covers science, with a focus on environmental stories and disasters.
Published February 12, 2026 2:19 PM
A litter of mountain lion kittens in the Santa Monica Mountains.
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National Park Service
)
Topline:
Southern and Central Coast California mountain lions are now listed as threatened under the state Endangered Species Act, after a decision by the Fish and Game Commission on Thursday.
The problem: Genetically distinct populations of mountain lions across the state — from the Central Coast south of San Francisco Bay all of the way to the Mojave Desert — are struggling. Development has shrunk their natural habitats and severed connections between open spaces. Their populations have dwindled as they’ve become increasingly isolated, leading to inbreeding. Depredation, rodenticides and car strikes are also ongoing threats to their survival.
What this means: The California Fish and Game Commission“wanted to choose coexistence over extinction,” said Tiffany Yap, urban wildlands science director at the Center for Biological Diversity. She helped write the petition to have the mountain lions listed. The protections could help ramp up efforts to protect the lions via additional funding for wildlife crossings and curbing the use of rodenticides.
Threatened vs. endangered: When an animal is listed as threatened, the assumption is that without additional protections, it could become endangered. If it’s listed as endangered, the animal is at risk of going extinct.
Kavish Harjai
has been following the plan to increase streetlight assessments.
Published February 12, 2026 2:17 PM
Crews began installing more than 90 solar streetlights in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park on February 9, 2026.
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Kavish Harjai/LAist
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L.A. City Council voted on Wednesday to progress a strategy to increase the city’s streetlight repair and maintenance budget, which has essentially been frozen since the late 1990s.
Background: Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. That yearly fee, which is around $53 for most single-family homes, has been stuck for three decades because of state law.
The vote: The L.A. City Council agreed to extend a contract with a consultant who will prepare what’s called an engineer’s report, which will quantify the proposed assessment increases for each parcel and show how the extra revenue will help the Bureau of Street Lighting meet the cost of maintaining service and implementing improvements.
Read on … to see what the extra cash could help with and what the timeline is looking like.
When Conrado Guerrero, a Lincoln Heights resident, walks his dogs or brings his nieces and nephews to the park at night, he has to bring a flashlight.
“There’s a light pole right in front of my house, and it was out for over a year. We had to put an extra light just to make sure that our street was not dark,” Guerrero told LAist on Monday, when crews began the process of installing 91 solar streetlights in Lincoln Heights and Cypress Park using discretionary dollars from the office of L.A. City Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez.
The strategy involves another council approval and convincing property owners to pay more in a yearly assessment on their property tax bill. If it works, Miguel Sangalang, head of the Bureau of Street Lighting, said the city could double its streetlighting field staff, expedite repairs to aging infrastructure and purchase more solar streetlights to help eliminate the growing scourge of copper wire theft.
The background and Wednesday’s vote
Most of the city’s Bureau of Street Lighting budget comes from an assessment that people who own property illuminated by lights pay on their county property tax bill. That yearly fee, which is around $53 for most single-family homes, has been stuck for three decades because of state law.
A third-party study from 2024 found that the assessments the bureau currently collects equate to 45% of what it needs to “properly maintain and operate the system,” according to a summary of the report from the City Administrative Officer.
The city can’t approve a higher fee without gaining approval from property owners. That’s where Wednesday’s vote comes in.
The L.A. City Council agreed to extend a contract with a consultant who will prepare what’s called an engineer’s report, which will quantify the proposed assessment increases for each parcel and show how the extra revenue will help the Bureau of Street Lighting meet the cost of maintaining service and implementing improvements.
Councilmembers Heather Hutt, Monica Rodriguez and Katy Yaroslavsky were absent for the vote. The rest of the council voted in favor of the item.
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Sangalang told local leaders Wednesday that he hopes to return to L.A. City Council in March with the engineer’s report, as well as a more detailed public outreach plan. At that point, L.A. City Council would have to approve the engineer’s report and vote in favor of sending out ballots to the more than half a million property owners that would be impacted.
If all goes according to plan, property owners could receive ballots in April. The city’s timeline has been pushed back in the past, though.
Sangalang said the assessment increase, if approved, would also come with a “three-year auditing mechanism” that would ensure the city is “using every dollar as wisely as possible.”
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Frank Stoltze
is a veteran reporter who covers local politics and examines how democracy is and, at times, is not working.
Published February 12, 2026 1:25 PM
The burned remnants of an apartment building in Altadena.
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Keith Birmingham
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MediaNews Group/Pasadena Star-News via Getty Images via Grist
)
Topline:
The state of California is launching an investigation stemming from the Eaton Fire to determine whether race, age or disability discrimination were factors during the emergency response in the historically Black community of west Altadena.
Why now: The investigation follows reporting by the Los Angeles Times that found west Altadena received late evacuation alerts when compared to east Altadena. Eighteen of the 19 people who died in the fire lived in west Altadena, and nearly half of all black households in Altadena were lost, according to a fire survivors group. The fire burned more than 14,000 acres and destroyed more than 6,000 structures.
Bonta's statement: The attorney general said in the statement that residents in the community reported consistently — and the county-commissioned McChrystal Group After-Action Report confirmed — that west Altadena did not receive any emergency evacuation orders until at least nine hours after the Eaton Fire ignited.
Read on ... for more information on the investigation.
The state of California is launching an investigation stemming from the Eaton Fire to determine whether race, age or disability discrimination were factors during the emergency response in the historically Black community of west Altadena.
“We'll be looking at whether the systems and structures at play contributed to a delay in the County’s evacuation notice and possible disparities in emergency response… , ” state Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement Thursday.
The investigation follows reporting by the Los Angeles Times that found west Altadena received late evacuation alerts when compared to east Altadena. Eighteen of the 19 people who died in the fire lived in west Altadena, and nearly half of all black households in Altadena were lost, according to a fire survivors group.
The fire burned more than 14,000 acres and destroyed more than 6,000 structures.
The investigation is “a trailblazing move for civil rights and environmental justice,” the group Altadena for Accountability said in a statement.
Bonta said in the statement that residents in the community reported consistently — and the county-commissioned McChrystal Group After-Action Report confirmed — that west Altadena did not receive any emergency evacuation orders until at least nine hours after the Eaton Fire ignited.
Fire survivors welcomed the investigation.
“Losing my home and seeing my parents lose theirs was devastating,” said fire survivor Gina Clayton-Johnson. “I’m heartened today knowing that we have a real pathway to answers and accountability for what went wrong. This is a big day for all fire survivors today and victims of climate change disasters in the future.”
The civil rights investigation is expected to assess Los Angeles County’s emergency response through a disparate impact analysis — meaning it does not have to find discriminatory intent in order to prove violations of civil rights protections occurred.
“There is a long history of marginalized communities receiving less support during times of crisis," said fire survivor Shimica Gaskins. “This may be the most consequential act taken by any official in California for accountability since the fires ravaged Los Angeles.”
County Supervisor Kathryn Barger, who represents Altadena, welcomed the inquiry as well.
“The concerns raised by residents of West Altadena deserve to be taken seriously and examined thoroughly,” Barger said in a statement. “If there were gaps, we must acknowledge them. If there were disparities, we must confront them. And if systems need to change, we must change them.”
Sandy Steers fostered Big Bear's bald eagle fandom
Makenna Sievertson
leads LAist’s unofficial Big Bear bald eagle beat and has been covering Jackie and Shadow for several seasons.
Published February 12, 2026 1:23 PM
Sandy Steers, the executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley, poses with a bald eagle wingspan display in June 2024.
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Makenna Sievertson
/
LAist
)
Topline:
Sandy Steers, an environmental advocate and head of the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley who helped build a legion of fans around the area’s bald eagles, has died.
Why it matters: More than a decade ago, Steers’ fascination with the first recently recorded bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley led to years of planning and fundraising to install a camera in the eagles’ nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
Why now: The nonprofit announced on social media “with heavy hearts and great sadness” that Steers, the organization’s executive director, passed away Wednesday evening.
The backstory: “Something about Jackie and Shadow, or the view, or the whole thing — it just kind of took on a life of its own,” Steers told LAist in 2024.
Read on ... for more about Steers' life and legacy.
Sandy Steers, an environmental advocate and head of the nonprofit Friends of Big Bear Valley who helped build a legion of fans for the area’s bald eagles, has died.
The nonprofit announced on social media “with heavy hearts and great sadness” that Steers, the organization’s executive director, died Wednesday evening. The organization did not share Steers’ age, saying she referred to herself as “ageless.”
More than a decade ago, Steers’ fascination with the first recently recorded bald eagle chick hatched in Big Bear Valley led to years of planning and fundraising to install a camera in the eagles’ nest overlooking Big Bear Lake.
“Something about Jackie and Shadow, or the view, or the whole thing — it just kind of took on a life of its own,” Steers told LAist in 2024.
Friends of Big Bear Valley told LAist Thursday that Steers had an enormous heart, loved nature and wanted to help connect people with it.
“She was fiercely protective of all wildlife in Big Bear Valley and everywhere,” Jenny Voisard, the organization’s media manager, said in an email. “She was an amazing leader. She was a calming, healing and creative soul.”
Tributes for Steers from the Big Bear bald eagle community started pouring in immediately.
“This feels almost like California lost its very own Jane Goodall,” one commenter wrote on Instagram.
“She wrote beautifully and made us feel like we were on a branch next to the nest keeping watch,” another wrote on Facebook.
Sandy Steers spoke at a bald eagle fan party in Big Bear Village in June 2024.
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Makenna Sievertson
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LAist
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Steers’ stories
Steers once told LAist that after bald eagles started staying in the valley year-round, she used to stand for hours in a parking lot with a spotting scope studying the nest each day.
Steers also watched as the chick’s parents, a pair of bald eagles known as Ricky and Lucy, lost sets of eggs and eaglets in subsequent years.
“What happened? Why didn’t they hatch?” Steers said previously. “I wanted to know, you know, could I have saved them?”
The famous bald eagle parents, Jackie and Shadow, caring for their eggs in March 2024.
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Friends of Big Bear Valley
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YouTube
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U.S. Forest Service biologists shared Steers’ desire to see up close what was happening in the nest. They started researching how to install cameras in Big Bear, similar to those on Catalina Island nests, Steers said in 2024.
After two years of planning and fundraising, Friends of Big Bear Valley got Forest Service permits and installed the eagle nest camera in October 2015. The nonprofit later launched its YouTube channel.
Steers said few people watched the livestream during the first year, but there was something about the set-up that started to draw others in.
The nonprofit also began telling stories on social media about what was going on in the nest and in Jackie and Shadow’s lives. The stories quickly took off and brought more eyes to the livestream, she said.
“I did it trying to keep people informed and educated about the eagles,” Steers has said. “Because that's what our mission is, educating people about the environment and protecting it that way, by people knowing what's going on.”
Sandy Steers, right, on May 31, 2022 in Fawnskin.
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Myung J. Chun
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Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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The community she created
With Steers leading the charge, Friends of Big Bear Valley’s community of bald eagle fans has grown from a few dedicated viewers to more than 1 million followers on Facebook alone.
Thousands of people now regularly tune in to watch Jackie and Shadow, especially when egg-laying season, which typically starts in January, brings new life to their nest.
Steers hosted educational talks about the Big Bear bald eagles, taught classes about the nonprofit’s environmental work and dedicated much of her time to sharing what she loved about nature.
By 2024, Steers had become almost as notable a name in the Big Bear eagle community as Jackie and Shadow.
“There is a big hole right now,” Voisard said. “She was dearly loved by her team at FOBBV and by so many that continue to share with us what she meant to them. That has been wonderful to see.”
