The Brief

Blackened jumbles of ash and metal. Burnt outlines of former homes.

For thousands of homeowners, that’s all that the Eaton Fire left behind when it tore through Altadena in early January.

For many, their chimneys were the only thing left standing.

Some of them were adorned with historic tiles, created over 100 years ago by artists like Ernest Batchelder or Claycraft’s Fred and George Robertson.

Ernest Batchelder's tiles are celebrated as one of L.A.'s major contributions to the arts and crafts movement.

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In early February I met Eric Garland, co-founder of Save The Tiles. He and a small group of volunteers had just begun their race against time to save as many tiles as they could from about 200 chimneys before the bulldozers came in.

• Read the first story here: The race to save historic Altadena fireplace tiles – because they're all that’s left

During that first week, Garland told me their big bottleneck was skilled labor. They only had one small team of workers, led by a single mason.

Volunteers with Save the Tiles remove Ernest Batchelder tiles from a fireplace in Altadena on Feb. 8, 2025.

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Now six teams of masons work seven days a week. Garland estimates they’ve recovered north of 10,000 tiles, “and we just finished our 77th rescue."

At this point, a new bottleneck has emerged: they’re running out of homeowner contacts.

And the clock keeps ticking, with Phase II of clean up well underway

“It’s been hard fought getting in touch with homeowners, and becoming incrementally harder to do,” Garland said.

During that first week it was easy. The first circle of people they got in touch with already knew their tiles were historic and that they wanted to preserve them, he said.

“The next concentric circle of contacts were people who saw the media attention, saw the social media posts, and reached out after that," he added. "On some streets a single person got in touch with us and then brought in every home around them.”

Now, Garland said, they’re stuck on the last concentric circle: “Older people, or people who left town completely.”

“These are the people we can’t reach on instagram. We don’t know their phone numbers,” he said. “How do you reach the unreachables?”

To reach them, the team has resorted to sending out postcards and hoping they somehow find their way to homeowners.

Garland said one letter did, to a woman named Felicia Ford.

“Although I prefer to refer to her as ‘Mrs. Ford’ because that’s how she signed her response,” he said.

Her mailbox was destroyed by the fire, but she collected her mail at the post office.

Ford, a single mother in her late 50s, had only purchased her home last year — becoming the third owner since Rodney King’s family lived there.

She told the Save The Tiles team that one of her koi fish is alive in her pond after the fire.

As it happens, her home was the one featured in the photo on the group’s GoFundMe, Garland said.

“Every single one of these chimneys carries a huge sprawling story of someone’s life,” he added.

The photograph from Save The Tiles’ GoFundMe page features Mrs. Ford’s fireplace amid a field of charred wood and brick.

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The chase continues

The postcard campaign requires homeowners to proactively seek out their mail — a gamble Garland isn’t betting on.

In addition, he said, “we’re bringing flyers to community meetings. We’re leaving comments in the Q&A section on virtual town halls.”

But, Garland said, “I suspect the only thing that can really scale us to 200 is governmental cooperation.”

The Army Corps of Engineers is only bulldozing homes after homeowners sign off, he added.

“That means they have their contact info," he said. “We need to ask them: ‘Hey! You and your contractors are going to knock these chimneys down any day now. Can you please let those homeowners know we exist, and give us an opportunity to get in there?”

What’s next?

When Phase II is complete, and the group has saved every tile they could, they’ll begin the arduous process of cataloging and storing them.

All tiles will eventually be returned to their original owners, but Garland said in some cases it could be years before homeowners are ready for them.

“In the meantime,” he said, “one thing we’d love to do is a museum exhibition.”

“This is a unique moment in our history where this incredible private art will be in one place — and it represents a pretty complete history of that art form,” he added. After the Eaton Fire, “it’s charged with this deeply local story that resonates with everyone.”

With little effort, they’ve managed to lock in their dream list of collaborators.

“Every institution, museum, or historical society we were planning to cold call and beg for help, has parachuted in with support,” he said.

When Garland gathered this group of volunteers together, he never thought the project was going to get the kind of attention that it has.

“It grew from me and Stanley to 50 volunteers in 16 hours,” he said.

Before he knew it, their number of volunteers had grown to several hundred.

So, when will Save The Tiles be done?

“When the last home is rebuilt — and we hope to help reinstall the tiles there — by then, maybe, the project is done," he said. “But who knows? Maybe we’ll have more things we can do for our community.”

Teamsters Local 2010, which represents trade workers across the Cal State University system, last week approved a strike if negotiations with management continue to stall.

The union says the system has reneged on paying previously agreed upon contractual raises and salary step increases. CSU officials say contingencies in place for those raises to go into effect require new state funding that has not happened.

What is Teamsters Local 2010?

The union represents 27,000 public education employees throughout the state, including the University of California system, Los Angeles Unified and the Cal State University system.

The 1,100 union members who work for the CSU include electricians, elevator mechanics, plumbers, carpenters, locksmiths and other trades workers.

What is each side's position?

In a press statement, the union said that instead of the previously agreed upon terms, the CSU is offering workers “a one-time bonus worth far less than what workers are owed.” Teamsters Local 2010 said it “won back salary steps in 2024 after nearly three decades of stagnation.”

In an email, CSU spokesperson Amy Bentley-Smith described the strike authorization vote as “disappointing” and counterproductive. The current labor agreement between the system and the union, she added, contains “clear contingency provisions language that tied certain salary increases to the receipt of new, unallocated, ongoing state funding. Those contingencies were not met, leading to the current reopener negotiations on salary terms.”

When would a strike start?

Strike authorization votes are “procedural,” Bentley-Smith said, so this “does not mean a strike is imminent.” The CSU, she added, “is hopeful continued negotiations will result in the parties reaching an agreement.”

The union says there is no timeline for when the strike might happen. Some 94% of workers voted to authorize their bargaining team to call a strike, according to a statement released Friday. The move, the union said, gives the CSU a clear sign that "we are strike ready."

Last year, Teamsters Local 2010 was on the verge of striking alongside the system's faculty, but the union reached a last-minute deal with the CSU.

Learn more about CSU's financial picture

• Cal State Dominguez Hills students, faculty rally to save 6 'essential' programs from chopping block
• Cal State wants to offer bigger raises to campus presidents while cutting elsewhere
• Why did the CSU spend millions on ChatGPT amid a budget crisis? We asked school leaders

An immigration judge issues a stern warning: "If you don't show up, there is a good chance the court will order you removed."

She speaks to an immigrant from El Salvador in a quiet immigration courtroom in Hyattsville, Md., in November. Clad in an all-black dress jacket and shirt, the immigrant — who was identified only by the number of his case — swears that his last immigration notice was lost in the mail.

The judge tells him to check his mail regularly, ahead of his next appearance in January.

As the room empties out, the judge says out loud that there are a number of no-shows that day. The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, attorney in court files motions to remove five people "in absentia." The judge grants it. Those people can now be deported.

A similar scene has played out, and increasingly so, in nearly every immigration court nationwide over the past year, according to immigration attorneys and NPR's early analysis of court data. The results mirror those of Joseph Gunther, an independent researcher, who has also been tracking the data closely. More immigrants are not showing up for their mandatory immigration court hearings, allowing the government to order their immediate deportation.

"What happened is that the word spread that if you go to court, you could get picked up from ICE," said Ruby Powers, an immigration lawyer based in Texas with cases all over the country.

In 2025, ICE turned to arrests directly from federal or immigration courtrooms in order to meet arrest quotas set by the Trump administration.

"Those instances weren't consistent around the country, but at least the word had spread, the fear had spread. And so individuals were really hesitant to go into court," Powers said.

The number of in absentia removals was generally already on an upward trend each year since 2022, said Andrew Arthur, resident law and policy fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit that advocates for lower levels of migration. Still, the number of such removal orders in fiscal year 2025 nearly tripled that of the previous year — topping over 50,000.

NPR calculated just how many people were ordered removed "in absentia."

Each of the top 10 cities with the largest number of completed immigration cases in those courts is on track to end the year with a higher rate of in absentia removals than they started. That is according to data from the Executive Office for Immigration Review — part of the Department of Justice — from January through November.

Each of these courts experienced an uptick in this kind of removal order starting in the summer months. That timeline is consistent with when immigration attorneys say ICE officers began arresting people inside the courts.

NPR has spoken with the family members of immigrants who came to court in New York, for example, in place of their parents or partners — out of concern their loved ones might be detained. New York's courts have become notorious this year for scenes of violent arrests and confrontations with federal officers.

Powers said that there are other reasons people may fear coming to court, including that they may not win their case or get deported to a third country. There are logistical barriers, too.

"A lot of times people don't even know that they have a hearing, or hearing dates can change without receiving the notice in the mail," Powers said. Sometimes immigrants can move and addresses are not immediately updated with the court, or go to places like apartment buildings that have less consistent mail delivery, she said. Notices can also be sent to completely incorrect addresses, which lawyers said has been an issue in years past.

Immigration attorneys across the country have noticed an uptick in this kind of removal order. Organizations like the Center for Immigration Studies have also spotted it.

In many cases, the Department of Homeland Security has to receive a removal order issued by an immigration judge before it can physically deport any person from the U.S., Arthur said.

"The more orders of removal in absentia or at the end of proceedings that are issued, the more people that ICE can then target for removal from the United States," he said.

Arthur said that immigrants who fail to appear opt to not take the government up on the offer for due process.

"The more people who are under final orders for removal … the more people who are going to end up in ICE custody because the law requires that ICE take into custody everybody who's under a final order of removal, notwithstanding the administration's stated focus on the worst," Arthur said.

"This appears to be well in excess of those historical trends," Arthur said.

Immigrants may have the opportunity to reopen their cases. However, most people in immigration court do not have legal representation, which they must pay for themselves.

Nonprofits like the organization Mobile Pathways have tracked a low rate of arrests in courts. But immigrant advocates said that doesn't mean the fear and negative perceptions go away.

"It probably falls into the narrative that the administration wants to be portrayed, that these individuals are not participating in the process that they're supposed to," Powers said, about the rise in no-show removal orders.

Some families she represents have fled violence, are working through trauma, or are navigating language and other barriers in addition to the immigration law system.

"[They] are just making the best decisions they can with the information they have provided to them," Powers said, adding that most immigrants are still showing up for their court appointments. "It's just because a lot of things are being stacked up against them. And that's why we're seeing these numbers."
Copyright 2025 NPR

State capitalism. MAGA Marxism. Crony capitalism.

Those are just some of the terms business and political commentators have used this year to describe how President Donald Trump's policies are reshaping U.S. free-market capitalism. There are some differences in definition — but all of these terms underline how dramatically Trump has blurred the boundaries between business and government, to an extent that could have long-term consequences for the U.S. economy and the country's global standing.

"When the American government appears to favor a company over rival companies, that distorts the marketplace," says Ann Lipton, a veteran business law expert and professor at University of Colorado's law school.

"It means that other firms have less incentive to compete on innovation, which is sort of the opposite of how a free market is supposed to operate," she adds. "It's just bad for the economy."

There's ample evidence this year of Trump actively favoring some U.S. companies and investors, while threatening others. In August, he publicly called for the resignation of Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan — until Tan came to the White House to meet with him, and agreed to give the U.S. government a 10% stake in the tech company.

Several other tech CEOs also spent the year appearing to personally court Trump. Take Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who runs the world's most valuable company and is among the donors funding Trump's controversial plans to build a White House ballroom. This month, Trump said the U.S. would grant Nvidia permission to sell one of its more advanced semiconductor chips in China — as long as the U.S. government gets a 25% cut of sales.

Lipton calls this capitalism by "schmoozing," and warns that it could seriously damage the competitiveness of U.S. businesses, thus hurting the overall economy in the long term.

"We're not going to get the best innovations. We're not going to get the best products," she says. "If [businesses] are competing on their ability to schmooze, then that's bad for everybody."

Intel did not respond to an NPR request for comment. In an emailed statement, a spokesperson for Nvidia said, "In our discussions, President Trump focuses on his desire for America to win as a nation and his efforts to protect national security, American prosperity and technology leadership."

China-style 'state capitalism'

Business leaders have always spent some amount of time trying to cozy up to the White House, no matter its occupant. But Lipton and business insiders across the political spectrum say that Trump's direct influence over private companies this year — and the degree to which some of those companies and their leaders have sought to appeal to him personally — is pushing the U.S. economy away from free-market or "rules-based" capitalism.

This system, traditionally embraced by both businesses and Republicans, has helped make the United States into the dominant global economy.

But now, these business insiders say, Trump's policies are creating a government-controlled style of "state capitalism," in which the government — rather than competition between private businesses — shapes the economy. Some go so far as to call it "crony capitalism," meaning that the U.S. government picks winners and losers based on the president's personal relationships.

"We are seeing a shift away from the type of rules-based capitalism that has made America's economy so robust for so long. And there's a lot of risk in that," says Daniella Ballou-Aares, who co-founded the consulting firm Dalberg and served in President Obama's State Department. She now runs the Leadership Now Project, a coalition of business leaders that has endorsed candidates from both political parties.

In October, her group and The Harris Poll surveyed business leaders across the political spectrum — and found that 84% are worried "about the current political and legal climate's impact on their companies."

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang listens as President Trump speaks at the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in November in Washington, D.C. Nvidia has spent the year seeking the U.S. government's approval to sell more of its semiconductor chips in China.

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A White House official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, says "this narrative about how [President Trump] reshaped capitalism is significantly overstated" and calls Trump's policies by and large "the traditional free-market policy-making that you would expect coming out of a Republican Administration."

The official dismissed claims that the White House is engaging in "crony capitalism," and says "there are companies that are benefiting [from Trump's policies] whether or not they have a good relationship with the administration."

The official also notes that so far, the U.S. government has largely sought to take ownership stakes or revenue-sharing deals from companies that play a role in economic and national security: For example, Intel and Nvidia both sell the semiconductors at the center of the artificial-intelligence arms race with China. The U.S. government has also taken stakes or other interests in U.S. Steel and MP Materials, a rare-earth minerals mining company, among others.

"What we're trying to do is very much embracing the free market and the growth that it unleashes, but making targeted interventions where there's too much on the line," the official says.

Tech winners vs. everyone else in corporate America

Businesses largely welcomed President Trump's victory in last year's election, in part due to frustration with what they perceived as a harsh and "anti-business" regulatory climate under President Biden.

And some seem pretty happy with his first year in office — especially the tech billionaires whose "Magnificent Seven" companies are powering the A.I. boom.

"The Magnificent Seven and Trump 2.0 are really on the same page to a large extent," says Daniel Kinderman, a political science professor at the University of Delaware who studies what he calls "authoritarian capitalism" and business responses to right-wing movements.

Some of President Trump's policies, including his sweeping tariffs and his changes to immigration policies for highly-skilled foreign workers, have complicated the business of Big Tech. But most tech CEOs have tried to avoid criticizing those policies publicly, and instead focused on donating to Trump's personal projects. Apple's Tim Cook, for example, this summer presented Trump with a gold-plated and glass plaque as his company promised to invest $600 billion in the United States.

Such gifts appear to have helped: Apple's iPhones have escaped the worst of Trump's tariffs.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

Kinderman points out that for wealthy and powerful CEOs, Trump's degree of personal involvement in their businesses at least makes it efficient to deal directly with him — if they can keep him happy — instead of wading through the slow and complicated red tape of federal regulatory processes.

"These companies are a huge portion of the American economy," he says. "And I think Trump is also giving them, to a large extent, what they want."

In August, Apple CEO Tim Cook presented President Trump with a gold-plated and glass plaque, as his company pledged to invest a total of $600 billion in the United States.

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Still, he and others warn that, taken to the extreme, codependent relationships between political leaders and CEOs don't always end well for the latter.

In more authoritarian countries, where leaders exert much more control over private businesses, the stakes can be especially fraught. Russia, Hungary, and China all exercise some form of state-controlled capitalism, where an autocratic leader cultivates relationships with oligarchic business CEOs — and can quickly force them out of favor.

As one extreme example, Ballou-Aares invokes Jack Ma, the Alibaba founder who built one of China's biggest tech companies before criticizing the country's financial regulations … and then largely disappearing from public view for several years.

"We know that crony capitalism never really ends well for most companies," she says. "I mean, tell Jack Ma that autocracy is okay for business."

'Most CEOs are pretty frustrated'

Outside of Big Tech, many businesses feel a lot more conflicted about how President Trump is reshaping U.S. capitalism. Some have even filed lawsuits against the administration, over its tariffs and its immigration policies.

"Despite the handful of tech titans that do seem to admittedly genuflect at the White House and at Mar-a-Lago, most CEOs are pretty frustrated with what's happening," says Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a Yale management professor who regularly speaks with CEOs.

Pockets of frustration from corporate America have become more visible recently. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce sued the administration over its plans to start charging $100,000 for H-1B visas for highly-skilled foreign workers — although it did so while praising Trump's "ambitious agenda."

And JPMorgan Chase chief executive Jamie Dimon, who runs the country's largest bank and is one of the most prominent non-tech CEOs in the country, recently told CNN why his company had declined to donate to Trump's White House ballroom.

"Since we do a lot of contracts with governments here and around the world, we have to be very careful about how anything is perceived," Dimon said. "We're quite conscious of risks we bear by doing anything that looks like buying favors or anything like that."

That said, most businesses are reluctant to publicly criticize President Trump or his policies. Smaller companies lack the power to effectively stand up to the White House. And even those running the country's biggest companies are unwilling to draw the personal attacks that Trump can often wield, or the ensuing partisan boycotts and financial damage that can follow.

Earlier this month, demolition work continued where the East Wing once stood at the White House. President Trump ordered the East Wing and Jacqueline Kennedy Garden leveled to make way for a new 90,000-square-foot ballroom that he says will be paid for with private donations from companies including Apple, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft and Google.

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Many businesses have neither the appetite nor the capacity to take on the U.S. government. They just want to focus on making money, even if that means adapting to dramatic tariffs or other sharp shifts in government policy.

"It's tactical fire-fighting," says Drew DeLong, who advises businesses around the world as head of corporate statecraft for the consulting company Kearney, and who served in the State Department during Trump's first administration.

"Every moment and every hour you spend on tariff mitigation is one less hour that you spend on innovation," he says. "There is an urgency towards fire-fighting as best as they possibly can, but there's also a fatigue."

'Merger review has been weaponized'

The Trump Administration's approach to approving — or not — corporate mergers has drawn some of the highest scrutiny, because of the nexus of political and business issues at stake.

For example, the Federal Communications Commission this year approved several telecommunications mergers only after Verizon and T-Mobile agreed to terminate internal policies around "diversity, equity, and inclusion," or DEI. Then it threatened to take federal action against some ABC affiliates over Jimmy Kimmel's comments about Charlie Kirk's killing on his ABC late-night show; the owners of some of those stations were also seeking federal approvals for mergers. (ABC parent Walt Disney suspended Kimmel's show for almost a week, before reinstating him. ABC did not respond to requests for comment.)

"Merger review has been weaponized into a tool for control," says Elizabeth Wilkins, the former chief of staff to Lina Khan, who oversaw U.S. merger review as chair of President Biden's Federal Trade Commission.

"With those kinds of tools hanging over corporate leaders' heads, we have seen an atmosphere of uncertainty and fear — which breeds silence," adds Wilkins, who now runs the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive think tank.

The exception is, again, for leaders who cultivate close ties with the president. This year, the White House helped broker a deal for a coalition of U.S. investors to buy the U.S. operations of TikTok — and asked for an unusual multibillion-dollar payment to the federal government, which business experts have compared to a "shakedown" or "extortion." Some of those same investors, including Trump ally Larry Ellison and his son, David, are now seeking even more media deals.

Some business experts say now that corporate America has a better idea of President Trump's playbook in this administration, they expect to see companies and their executives feel more confident about how and when to push back against White House policies that they think will damage their businesses and the wider economy.

"I think it is clear that the administration's approach here is broadly unpopular, including with business," says Ballou-Aares.

But Kearney's DeLong, the veteran of Trump's first administration, warns businesses to brace for much more policy change, and uncertainty about what capitalism and the economy will look like in the future.

"This is just year one," he says. "Where do we go [during] the rest of this administration? Where do we go after?"
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