The Brief

From their phones and their television screens and sometimes out their windows, Californians saw their state change quickly in the pandemic. Homelessness grew then and continued to grow. Fatal fentanyl overdoses soared. Brash daytime smash-and-grab robberies floated from TikTok to nightly newscasts.

A constellation of law enforcement, prosecutors and big-box retailers insisted the cause was simple: Punishment wasn’t harsh enough.

They put forward a measure that elevated some low-level crimes to felonies and created avenues to coerce reluctant people into substance abuse treatment. That measure, Proposition 36, passed overwhelmingly Tuesday night. It led 70% to 30% early Wednesday.

It undoes some of the changes voters made with a 2014 ballot measure that turned certain nonviolent felonies into misdemeanors, effectively shortening prison sentences. Amid the pandemic’s visible changes to California, in its growing homeless encampments, its ransacked Nordstroms and its looted rail yards, critics of that previous initiative finally found the right climate to turn back the law.

The strategy at the center of Prop. 36 is still a matter of debate. Its opponents say harsher sentences will never be an effective deterrent to crime. Much of the science, some of it funded by the U.S. Department of Justice, backs them up.

But the victory of Prop. 36, despite opposition from the governor and most of the state’s Democratic leadership, was not about what people know, it’s about what they saw.

An IT technician was afraid to walk five blocks to work in downtown Los Angeles, so he bought a parking pass and drove. A big-box retailer moved all of its goods to its second floor because people kept stealing from the ground floor. The fentanyl crisis had police on body camera videos panicking and fainting when exposed to the substance.

The Prop. 36 campaign ran on images like those, and it promised to make them go away.

That Prop. 36 would pass has been fairly clear since late summer, when Gov. Gavin Newsom’s last-ditch attempts to preempt the measure with other retail crime bills failed to siphon funding from Prop. 36 or to keep it off the ballot. So how did Californians, who supported more lenient sentences under 2014’s Proposition 47, come to support a tougher crime measure a decade later?

“What we might be seeing is evidence of a course correction of a long path of criminal justice reform efforts,” said Magnus Lofstrom, criminal justice policy director at the Public Policy Institute of California. Prop. 36 “targets crime and social problems that people can see: retail theft, more merchandise locked up, more viral videos (of thefts) and then the media talking about all of it.”

It’s those visible problems, Lofstrom said, that can quickly change voters’ minds. That also includes growing sidewalk encampments of the unhoused, paired with public drug consumption.

During the pandemic, the rate of shoplifting and commercial burglaries skyrocketed, especially in Los Angeles, Alameda, San Mateo and Sacramento counties. Statewide, the institute found that reported shoplifting of merchandise worth up to $950 soared 28% over the past five years. That’s the highest observed level since 2000.

Combining shoplifting with commercial burglaries, the institute’s researchers found that total reported thefts were 18% higher than in 2019.

“California voters have spoken with a clear voice on the triple epidemics of retail theft, homelessness and fatal drug overdoses plaguing our state,” said San Jose Mayor Matt Mahan. “In supporting Proposition 36, they said yes to treatment. They said yes to accountability. And they said yes to putting common sense before partisanship, so we can stop the suffering in our communities.”

Californians still want rehabilitation for prisoners

The measure’s opponents say that Prop. 36 was a clever way to reintroduce the war on drugs in a way that will be palatable to voters in 2024. They argue that no studies on criminal justice or homelessness support the idea that harsher punishment — or the threat of harsher punishment — prevents crime or gets people off the street.

Prop. 36 will expend hundreds of millions of dollars in court and prison costs, they say, without measurably reducing crime or poverty.

“We are aware that there’s been a shift in terms of the vibe around criminal legal reform,” said Loyola Law School professor Priscilla Ocen, a former special assistant attorney general at the California Department of Justice.

“I don’t agree with the premise that California is swinging more rightward when it comes to the bad old days of mass incarceration,” she said. “I think on certain issues, yes, the electorate is frustrated with feelings of insecurity — despite the fact that those feelings are often not grounded in data in terms of your likelihood of being victimized, either by a property crime or a crime against a person.”

The Yes on 36 campaign focused on “a sense of insecurity and uncertainty” highlighting the most visible elements of pandemic-era crime, Ocen said. Despite overall violent and property crime rates far closer to their historic lows than their peaks, certain visible crimes such as burglaries and car break-ins have risen year-over-year since the pandemic until at least 2023, the last year for which statistics are available.

“There’s a frustration that in addition to seeing unhoused people routinely on the streets, there’s just feelings of unease, even if it’s not born out in the data,” Ocen said.

Late September polling showed that just as many likely voters favored expanding treatment and rehabilitation as those who advocated for harsher sentences.

The measure’s backers insist the changes will not require the kind of mass incarceration that led to California’s massive prison overcrowding problem of the 1990s and 2000s.

What Californians see in downtowns

Claudia Oliveira, chief executive of the Downtown Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, said businesses in the city’s commercial center have had to make adjustments since the pandemic to combat retail theft — a Burlington Coat Factory, she said, moved all of its merchandise to the store’s second floor for a while because of repeated thefts on the ground floor.

“It’s not something that we should be angry about, but more sad that we are in a place where people are not healthy and people are still living in scarcity where they have to steal,” she said.

“Sometimes people say ‘It’s just property crime, so why do you care, they have insurance.’ Which is not always true. They have deductibles. I’ve seen small businesses closed after being looted. And it’s not always true that they have the resources to get back on their feet, especially downtown.”

Oliveira said she could not vote on Prop. 36 because she is undocumented. But she said she supported the measure because she expects it to connect people with substance abuse or mental health issues to social services, while preventing theft on the scale California has seen since the start of the pandemic.

Jeff Ashook, 48, said his life in downtown Los Angeles has changed for the worse.

“I started working here in downtown Los Angeles, before the pandemic, and I was living in Glendale at the time, and, yeah, I parked about, maybe, oh, about a half mile away from where I work,” he said. “And I felt safe walking to work. I did.

“Post pandemic — the homeless people came back, but the police officers never did.”

Ashook said he now lives downtown but drives the five blocks to work, out of fear for his safety.

“And I’ve had coworkers who were actually, like, physically assaulted. A few coworkers that ended up having to go to the hospital during that short distance that I was walking,” he said. “So yeah, like I said, it’s made me a bit more jaded.”

Ultimately, Ashook said he could not support Prop. 36 because of the projected costs.

“I don’t like that the fiscal impact (is) ranging from several tens of millions of dollars to a low hundreds of millions,” he said. “That’s a lot of money. And it doesn’t say where that money’s coming from.”

Voters changing priorities on California crime

Ultimately, Lofstrom said, it’s not really a contradiction to have voted for Prop. 47 in 2014 and also for Prop. 36 this year.

In 2014, the state urgently needed to reduce its prison population, for practical reasons and because of a judicial order to keep the population no higher than 137.5% of the prison system’s capacity.

Today, the urgency is pushing in the other direction, he said. But the underlying causes for the increases in shoplifting and overall property crime are still unclear, he said.

“We don’t know what’s contributing to the increases in retail theft. We don’t know how much of this is driven by economic and social challenges that leads to shoplifting,” he said.

Even with Prop. 36 on the books, Lofstrom said much about the measure’s implementation is still to be determined.

“Will cops arrest for it?” he asked. “Will prosecutors pursue these charges? It’s uncertain how all this will play out.”

Joe Garcia is a California Local News fellow

The federal government has drastically scaled back the number of recommended childhood immunizations, sidelining six routine vaccines that have safeguarded millions from serious diseases, long-term disability and death.

Just three of the six immunizations the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says it will no longer routinely recommend — against hepatitis A, hepatitis B and rotavirus — have prevented nearly 2 million hospitalizations and more than 90,000 deaths in the past 30 years, according to the CDC's own publications.

Vaccines against the three diseases, as well as those against respiratory syncytial virus, meningococcal disease, flu, and COVID, are now recommended only for children at high risk of serious illness or after "shared clinical decision-making," or consultation between doctors and parents.

The CDC maintained its recommendations for 11 childhood vaccines: measles, mumps, and rubella; whooping cough, tetanus, and diphtheria; the bacterial disease known as Hib; pneumonia; polio; chickenpox; and human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Federal and private insurance will still cover vaccines for the diseases the CDC no longer recommends universally, according to a Department of Health and Human Services fact sheet; parents who want to vaccinate their children against those diseases will not have to pay out-of-pocket.

Experts on childhood disease were baffled by the change in guidance. HHS said the changes followed "a scientific review of the underlying science" and were in line with vaccination programs in other developed nations.

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an anti-vaccine activist, pointed to Denmark as a model. But the schedules of most European countries are closer to the U.S. standard upended by the new guidance.

For example, Denmark, which does not vaccinate against rotavirus, registers around 1,200 infant and toddler rotavirus hospitalizations a year. That rate, in a country of 6 million, is about the same as it was in the United States before vaccination.

"They're OK with having 1,200 or 1,300 hospitalized kids, which is the tip of the iceberg in terms of childhood suffering," said Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a co-inventor of a licensed rotavirus vaccine. "We weren't. They should be trying to emulate us, not the other way around."

Public health officials say the new guidance puts the onus on parents to research and understand each childhood vaccine and why it is important.

Here's a rundown of the diseases the sidelined vaccines prevent:

RSV. Respiratory syncytial virus is the most common cause of hospitalization for infants in the U.S.

The respiratory virus usually spreads in fall and winter and produces cold-like symptoms, though it can be deadly for young children, causing tens of thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths a year. According to the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, roughly 80% of children younger than 2 who are hospitalized with RSV have no identifiable risk factors. Long-awaited vaccines against the disease were introduced in 2023.

Hepatitis A. Hepatitis A vaccination, which was phased in beginning in the late 1990s and recommended for all toddlers starting in 2006, has led to a more than 90% drop in the disease since 1996. The foodborne virus, which causes a wretched illness, continues to plague adults, particularly people who are homeless or who abuse drugs or alcohol, with a total of 1,648 cases and 85 deaths reported in 2023.

Hepatitis B. The disease causes liver cancer, cirrhosis, and other serious illnesses and is particularly dangerous when contracted by babies and young children. The hepatitis B virus is transmitted through blood and other bodily fluids, even in microscopic amounts, and can survive on surfaces for a week. From 1990 to 2019, vaccination resulted in a 99% decline in reported cases of acute hepatitis B among children and teens. Liver cancer among American children has also plummeted as a result of universal childhood vaccination. But the hepatitis B virus is still around, with 2,000-3,000 acute cases reported annually among unvaccinated adults. More than 17,000 chronic hepatitis B diagnoses were reported in 2023. The CDC estimates about half of people infected don't know they have it.

Rotavirus. Before routine administration of the current rotavirus vaccines began in 2006, about 70,000 young children were hospitalized and 50 died every year from the virus. It was known as "winter vomiting syndrome," said Sean O'Leary, a pediatrician at the University of Colorado. "It was a miserable disease that we hardly see anymore."

The virus is still common on surfaces that babies touch, however, and "if you lower immunization rates it will once again hospitalize children," Offit said.

Meningococcal vaccines. These have been required mainly for teenagers and college students, who are notably vulnerable to critical illness caused by the bacteria. About 600 to 1,000 cases of meningococcal disease are reported in the U.S. each year, but it kills more than 10% of those it sickens, and 1 in 5 survivors have permanent disabilities.

Flu and covid. The two respiratory viruses have each killed hundreds of children in recent years — though both tend to be much more severe in older adults. Flu is currently on the upswing in the United States, and last flu season the virus killed 289 children.

What is shared clinical decision-making?

Under the changes, decisions about vaccinating children against influenza, covid, rotavirus, meningococcal disease, and hepatitis A and B will now rely on what officials call "shared clinical decision-making," meaning families will have to consult with a health care provider to determine whether a vaccine is appropriate.

"It means a provider should have a conversation with the patient to lay out the risks and the benefits and make a decision for that individual person," said Lori Handy, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

In the past, the CDC used that term only in reference to narrow circumstances, like whether a person in a monogamous relationship needed the HPV vaccine, which prevents a sexually transmitted infection and certain cancers.

The CDC's new approach doesn't line up with the science because of the proven protective benefit the vaccines have for the vast majority of the population, Handy said.

In their report justifying the changes, HHS officials Tracy Beth Høeg and Martin Kulldorff said the U.S. vaccination system requires more safety research and more parental choice. Eroding trust in public health caused in part by an overly large vaccine schedule had led more parents to shun vaccination against major threats like measles, they said.

The vaccines on the schedule that the CDC has altered were backed up by extensive safety research when they were evaluated and approved by the FDA.

"They're held to a safety standard higher than any other medical intervention that we have," Handy said. "The value of routine recommendations is that it really helps the public understand that this has been vetted upside down and backwards in every which way."

Eric Ball, a pediatrician in Orange County, Calif., said the change in guidance will cause more confusion among parents who think it means a vaccine's safety is in question.

"It is critical for public health that recommendations for vaccines are very clear and concise," Ball said. "Anything to muddy the water is just going to lead to more children getting sick."

Ball said that instead of focusing on a child's individual health needs, he often has to spend limited clinic time reassuring parents that vaccines are safe. A "shared clinical decision-making" status for a vaccine has no relationship to safety concerns, but parents may think it does.

HHS' changes do not affect state vaccination laws and therefore should allow prudent medical practitioners to carry on as before, said Richard Hughes IV, an attorney and a George Washington University lecturer who is leading litigation against Kennedy over vaccine changes.

"You could expect that any pediatrician is going to follow sound evidence and recommend that their patients be vaccinated," he said. The law protects providers who follow professional care guidelines, he said, and "RSV, meningococcal, and hepatitis remain serious health threats for children in this country."

This story comes from NPR's health reporting partnership with KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. KFF Health News is one of the core operating programs at KFF, the independent source for health policy research, polling, and journalism.

The National Park Service has updated its policy to discourage visitors from defacing a picture of President Donald Trump on this year's pass.

The use of an image of Trump on the 2026 pass — rather than the usual picture of nature — has sparked a backlash, sticker protests, and a lawsuit from a conservation group.

The $80 annual America the Beautiful pass gives visitors access to more than 2,000 federal recreation sites. Since 2004, the pass has typically showcased sweeping landscapes or iconic wildlife, selected through a public photo contest. Past winners have featured places like Arches National Park in Utah and images of bison roaming the plains.

Instead, of a picture of nature, this year's design shows side-by-side portraits of Presidents George Washington and Trump. The new design has drawn criticism from parkgoers and ignited a wave of "do-it-yourself" resistance.

Photos circulating online show that many national park cardholders have covered the image of Trump's face with stickers of wildlife, landscapes, and yellow smiley faces, while some have completely blocked out the whole card. The backlash has also inspired a growing sticker campaign.

Jenny McCarty, a longtime park volunteer and graphic designer, began selling custom stickers meant to fit directly over Trump's face — with 100% of proceeds going to conservation nonprofits.

"We made our first donation of $16,000 in December," McCarty said. "The power of community is incredible."

McCarty says the sticker movement is less about politics and more about preserving the neutrality of public lands. "The Interior's new guidance only shows they continue to disregard how strongly people feel about keeping politics out of national parks," she said.

The National Park Service card policy was updated this week to say that passes may no longer be valid if they've been "defaced or altered." The change, which was revealed in an internal email to National Park Service staff obtained by SFGATE, comes just as the sticker movement has gained traction across social media.

In a statement to NPR, the Interior Department said there was no new policy. Interagency passes have always been void if altered, as stated on the card itself. The agency said the recent update was meant to clarify that rule and help staff deal with confusion from visitors.

The Park Service has long said passes can be voided if the signature strip is altered, but the updated guidance now explicitly includes stickers or markings on the front of the card.

It will be left to the discretion of park service officials to determine whether a pass has been "defaced" or not. The update means park officials now have the leeway to reject a pass if a sticker leaves behind residue, even if the image underneath is intact.

In December, conservation group the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in Washington, D.C., opposing the new pass design.

The group argues that the image violates a federal requirement that the annual America the Beautiful pass display a winning photograph from a national parks photo contest. The 2026 winning image was a picture of Glacier National Park.

"This is part of a larger pattern of Trump branding government materials with his name and image," Kierán Suckling, the executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, told NPR. "But this kind of cartoonish authoritarianism won't fly in the United States."

The lawsuit asks a federal court to pull the current pass design and replace it with the original contest winner — the Glacier National Park image. It also seeks to block the government from featuring a president's face on future passes.

Not everyone sees a problem with the new design. Vince Vanata, the GOP chairman of Park County, Wyoming, told the Cowboy State Daily that Trump detractors should "suck it up" and accept the park passes, saying they are a fitting tribute to America's 250th birthday this July 4.

"The 250th anniversary of our country only comes once. This pass is showing the first president of the United States and the current president of the United States," Vanata said.

But for many longtime visitors, the backlash goes beyond design.

Erin Quinn Gery, who buys an annual pass each year, compared the image to "a mug shot slapped onto natural beauty."

She also likened the decision to self-glorification.

"It's akin to throwing yourself a parade or putting yourself on currency," she said. "Let someone else tell you you're great — or worth celebrating and commemorating."

When asked if she plans to remove her protest sticker, Gery replied: "I'll take the sticker off my pass after Trump takes his name off the Kennedy Center."

The 83rd annual Golden Globe Awards take place Sunday evening beginning at 5 p.m. at the Beverly Hilton Hotel, and that means parking restrictions and street closures in the city.

Here are places to avoid, as well as some alternative routes:

North Santa Monica Boulevard:

• Westbound lane closures: Complete lane closures, from Wilshire Boulevard to Century Park East through 6 a.m. Monday.
  
• Eastbound lane closures: Complete lane closures, from Century Park East to Wilshire Boulevard from 2 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Monday. 

The city suggests using South Santa Monica Boulevard, which will remain open in both directions. There also are alternative east-west routes such as Olympic, Sunset and Pico boulevards.

Wilshire Boulevard:

• Eastbound/Westbound lane reduction: Lane reductions are in effect and will last through 9 p.m. Wednesday.
  
• Eastbound/Westbound full closure: All of Wilshire Boulevard between Comstock Avenue and North Santa Monica Boulevard will be closed from 10 p.m. Saturday through 6 a.m. Monday.
  
• Eastbound lanes of Wilshire Boulevard: An eastbound closure from Comstock to North Santa Monica Boulevard will occur between 10 p.m. Monday through 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Other streets:

Several other streets like Whittier Drive, Carmelita Avenue, Elevado Avenue and Lomitas Avenue, as well as Trenton Drive and adjacent alleys will have limited closures with local access available only to residents. Closures begin at 10 p.m. Saturday and last through 6 a.m. Monday.

Parking notices:

Residential streets surrounding the venue will be completely restricted, no exceptions made, from 6 a.m. Sunday until 6 a.m. Monday on the following streets:

• Whittier Drive — from Wilshire Boulevard to Elevado Avenue
• Carmelita Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive
• Elevado Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive
• Trenton Drive — from Whittier Drive to Wilshire Boulevard
• Walden Drive — from Santa Monica Boulevard to Elevado Avenue
• Lomitas Avenue — from Wilshire Boulevard to Walden Drive

Residents without permit parking can obtain parking exemptions by contacting the city of Beverly Hills’ parking exemption line at (310) 285-2548 or online at beverlyhills.org/parkingexemptions.

Demonstrations against this week’s deadly ICE shooting in Minneapolis are planned this weekend across Los Angeles. The protests are being organized by the “ICE Out For Good Coalition” — a network of several groups including the ACLU and 50501.

Here are a some of the planned actions across the city:

Saturday

• Pasadena: Noon to 2 p.m. at Garfield and Colorado Boulevard, across from the Paseo Mall
• Eagle Rock: 1 to 2 p.m. at Colorado and Eagle Rock boulevards
• City of Los Angeles: 2 to 4:30 p.m. in Pershing Square

Sunday

• West Hollywood: 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at 647 N. San Vicente Blvd., across from the Pacific Design Center.
• City of Los Angeles: Noon to 2 p.m. at The Home Depot on 2055 N. Figueroa St.
• Beverly Hills: 2 and 4 p.m. at 9439 Santa Monica Blvd., between Beverly and Canon drives